Bottlebrush Boys

James Robartson Year 12

Summer was their favourite season. It was desperate attempts to climb paperbark trees and endless roaming of the hills. It was all the free time and none of the consequences. Every week felt like a year: a year spent grazing knees, peeling scabs and itching carpet burns. A year of reckless fun. Their parents weren’t around enough to tell them no, stitch their clothes up, make sure they got their lunch, or cover them in sunscreen. They didn’t think the UV rays would touch their young skin anyway.

Oscar and Jonas were always in sync. Every morning they’d wake up at the same time and head out to the sprawling mess of their garage. Oscar would scrape his training wheels across concrete, a smudge of vegemite still on his cheek from a rushed breakfast. Jonas would check both their tyres for punctures, and then they’d be off. They’d head for the hills, riding past flowering gumtrees and singing blue robins, flowing streams and the occasional spiderweb. Most people would avoid this overgrown strip between the suburban roads and the coast, but they had too much free time and too little supervision.

There, they would spend hours making forts out of broken branches and rotting wood. They’d pull reluctant bottlebrushes from their homes and attach them to their ankles using reeds they found by the streams. They would then head to the dunes, rolling down them in desperation to reach the water. The blue expanse offered the only escape from the unforgiving heat. Jonas would stay in longer, mocking his brother, who stayed on the shore and shaded himself under a ragged towel. “Can’t handle the heat, can ya Oscy?”

Jonas didn’t understand. Oscar could handle the heat— he had been in it all day. He just didn’t want to.

After Jonas began high school, he’d go out with his friends and Oscar would be left home alone. He’d do his best to entertain himself, crafting pillow forts and making sandwiches. When Jonas got home, he’d head for the shower to wash his sandy feet and peel of the dead skin. He would go and microwave their dinner, then the two boys would be in bed before either car pulled into the driveway. And that’s how growing up was.

By the time Oscar turned 21, Jonas had moved out of home and lived with his partner, Harriet, and their son Keegan. They’d moved to an old flat a few hundred kilometres up the coast. It still had that salty breeze he and Oscar would soak up after a long day. But the days he spent at the new beach were never the same without his little brother.

Keegan was too cheeky for his own good, with a face as pale as the moon and gleaming opal eyes. Most days Jonas and Harriet would take him down to the beach and he’d launch himself straight into the water. He seemed endlessly buoyant, but it was never long before Harriet would pull him out of the freezing ocean. The three of them would lie on her towel, covering Keegan’s eyes with her sunglasses and letting their skin soak up the sun.

It was Christmas Eve when they got the news. It was a day like any other day, and a day different from all others. The family headed to the beach in the morning, and the doctor in the afternoon. It was a routine appointment, as far as they were concerned. While the parents waited for some results, Keegan thought about the things he wanted for Christmas. Fun, snow and presents. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear the doctor’s words to his father: “Stage 4.”

The pain Jonas felt was nothing compared to the torture of looking into his son’s eyes and telling him the truth. He needed to be there to raise his son, to protect him. That night he cried with Harriet as they drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

They moved back to their old town, and Oscar greeted them at the old family home. His eyes were filled with tears as he hugged his brother. The four of them headed to the beach, nostalgic as they walked through the hills. To Keegan’s frustration, he had to copy his father. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and winced as his face was coated in a thick layer of zinc. When he started towards the water, a firm hand pulled him back. He had to wait 15 minutes.

So, he walked to the top of the dune and looked out at the cascade of bottlebrushes and gumtrees. He heard his uncle and father murmuring and tumbled back down the sand to the adults, who were crowded around the esky. They greeted him with outstretched arms. They had made him lunch.