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The Day and Night Machine A week of webs, woofs, and wonders!
Ian B G Burns PREVIEW
A single strand of cobweb hung from the white ceiling, plumbing the depths of the room for insects. Slowly it waved around, as the air caught it, a blob of web at the end weighing it down, like a sinker. It waved and snaked, moving in the rhythm of the air currents, sometimes disappearing altogether in the whiteness of the ceiling, sometimes floating towards the windows, sometimes streaming to the door. I watched it for hours, lying back on my pillow, waiting for it to get a bite. But as it was like when we used to go fishing in the Maribyrnong River, nothing that I could see came near. On sunny days I could watch the clouds through the top windows, and planes spearing towards Tullamarine, silver and white birds full of passengers instead of worms. For ten minutes each day the sun cascaded over my bed, making a waterfall of light, warming the quilt and lifting dust motes to soar and sweep in the thermals. If only I’d had telescopic microscopic eyes to really see those tiny floating worlds! Who lived on them? What did they do? Could they see me, even though I couldn’t see them? Maybe I could shrink down and down, and even more down, until I was just the right size to jump on one before it took off from the bed. I’d hang on tightly whilst it rose swiftly in the warmest air and look over the edge at the red and yellow and blue squares below, my patchwork quilt becoming technicoloured fields on a rolling plain. Then, up where the air was a little cooler, and the side winds blew, I’d stand up and look at my new universe – the great walls, rising sheer to a white sky; two suns, which went on and off at a touch; the sea, carpeting as far as I could see below; and the strangely–shaped island continent, set high above the sea. The only trouble was that Mum’d probably come in just then and breathe me up her nose! And I didn’t want to be sneezed to death! When you’re up you don’t want to go to bed, and when you’re in bed you don’t want to get up and you wonder why you didn’t want to go to bed in the first place! That’s usually, but I’d been in bed for nearly a year, and I’d had enough of it. In fact I’d had enough of it ten months ago. Probably more that ten months, but I was unconscious for almost the first week, and when I finally woke up it was quite some time before I knew what was going on. But tomorrow I was getting up. And tomorrow was my birthday. I didn’t know which would be better. Getting up isn’t normally so very interesting, if you get up every day, but I hadn’t even got up to go to the bathroom since the accident! I could hardly remember what it was like to lie back in a lovely warm bath in the middle of winter, or to splash my face in a cool summer shower. Yes, it would be nice to be able to go to the bathroom again, and not only to have a shower or a bath! And I’d be able to walk through the rest of the house, and into the garden, and up the street, and to school when my
legs were properly strong again. After a while I would probably even be able to run again. I knew that I’d be very weak for a while, but I’d been doing the exercises for ages – lifting my legs up against the bedclothes, wriggling my toes, pulling my knees up towards my chin – and I thought that it mightn’t be too long before I was strong again. Anyway, I’d be able to take it pretty easy for a while, as nothing much happened around our place. Our house was old. In fact it was one of the oldest houses in Australia, or at least in Melbourne. Its walls were built of orange bricks – not as big as the ones they use nowadays – and they seemed to fit into the world much better. The same kinds of bricks made a path to the front gate, while out the back they were laid in patterns weaving from the back door, with bunches of pale pink flowers growing in the cracks, like buttons. Instead of a side fence we had a brick wall, higher than any of us could look over (especially Miss Sturzen, thank goodness), and this threw a fat shadow over the garden plants in the afternoon. Fixed into the wall, about half way along, was the Whistling Angel. She was made of stone and whenever you turned her tap on she’d spurt water into a stone bath underneath. I didn’t think she’d been turned on for about a year, and the water in the bath was probably quite green by now, if it hadn’t actually turned into jelly. When I was little I used to play in the stone bath and splash around under Angel’s shower, making the water gush over and run in torrents down the narrow channel Dad’d made to take away the overflow. I was much too big to do that now, but I’d still be able to sit on the edge and paddle my feet on a hot day, and drown the wrigglers as they came up for air. Over our front door, protected from the weather by the verandah, curved a stained glass rainbow, with a tiny pot of gold where it touched the ground. In wintertime, very late some afternoons, the sun would catch the top of the rainbow and then move along it as it set in the west, making the gold wink – as though it wanted to talk to me. The house wasn’t very big, but now that there were only the three of us it didn’t really seem very small. But how I wished we were four again. Looking out the windows I could see red-tinged clouds floating in the morning sky. “A red sky at night’s a shepherd’s delight”, and “a red sky in the morning’s a shepherd’s warning”, which meant that it was either going to be a nice day or that it was going to rain, or – because this was Melbourne – the sun might decide to shine for a while, then disappear behind a waterfall, then hail, then sunbake us again. This morning the cobweb above my bed was a slight pink, like a long bit of fairy floss, or stretchy bubblegum. I’d never noticed it change colour before – it must’ve known that
today was a double celebration day! Who cared what colour the sky was or what the weather did! I’d decided that my birthday would be completely different, different from all the others I’d had before, and different from other birthdays I’d been to. In the first place, there’d be only the three of us. That wasn’t hard to arrange because my birthday was on January 14th, in the middle of the Australian Christmas holidays, when everybody was away at the beach. And in the second place my birthday was going to be at breakfast, so that I wouldn’t waste the day waiting for it. Mum’d promised me breakfast in bed. I know that sounds a bit funny after three hundred breakfasts in bed in a row, with me sitting on a sore bottom, but I didn’t really think of it like that – this was my first birthday bed breakfast, and I was going to enjoy it! Lovely smells drifted down the passage, stirring the cobweb and my stomach at the same time. Noises in the kitchen and murmuring voices told me that they were both up, getting things ready, and enjoying themselves working together. They both liked early mornings and I’d often hear them in the back garden, digging or weeding or trying to save worms from the birds. It was good listening to them, as they chatted and laughed, whilst I snuggled down in bed. The kitchen noises stopped and the passage noises started, and the singing. I always got embarrassed whenever anybody sang the happy birthday song, whether it was to me or to someone else. The door was flung open on the last note and a tray appeared in the door-way, followed closely, thank goodness! by Mum. ‘Happy birthday, darling!’ she smiled through the steaming hot bacon and eggs. ‘Happy birthday, young ’un!’ Granddad always called me that, even though I was nearly as old as he was now. ‘Get that little lot into you!’ he laughed, as Mum put the tray on my lap. At least two oranges had given up their last sweet drop for me, and there were three whole rashers of bacon curled around a fried egg, rising like the sun from a piece of toast in the middle of the plate. More toast and hot chocolate took up the rest of the tray. And a large white envelope. That food was good! I ran my tongue around my teeth, winkling out the last bits of bacon that were trying to save themselves from being sent on their last journey, and feeling the fuzziness that I’d brush off in the bathroom in a little while. ‘Now I suppose you’ll want your presents!’ said Granddad. ‘Well, what’re you waiting for?!’
‘They’re here! Granddad and I hid them while you were asleep.’ ‘Come on! Out of bed!!’ They pulled back the bedclothes. I swung my legs around. My feet touched the floor. My feet were on the floor! The carpet tickled my soft soles, prickled them, the wool wallowing along my skin in waves of pleasure as I stood up. I hadn’t done enough exercises! This time Mum helped me to stand, until my heart got used to pumping the blood up and down instead of just along the bed. ‘They’re not far away, but they’re hidden in pretty tricky places,’ Granddad said. They used to say things like that when I was little, and sometimes it’d taken me ages to find them all, but that was a long time ago. Nowadays I just pretended that they were hard to find. The first one was behind the cushion on the chair. It was my favourite author’s latest book, about a bunch of kids in a country town, and I knew it’d be funny, which was why Granddad gave it to me. The other one was on the window ledge, tucked in at the back of the curtain. Even if Granddad’s hadn’t’ve been the first present I’d have known that this one was from Mum. She loved buying small things, and this was small, and long and thin. A red ribbon tied the brown paper up, and she’d threaded tiny white flowers through it, making a garland. It was a watch, just the one I’d always wanted, with the right face and band. I read the stuff on the back of the book, to get an idea of the story, and put the watch on my left wrist. ‘There’s one more.’ I didn’t understand. ‘Keep looking. You have to find the other one.’ Another one?! I looked around the room, not knowing what to do. They both looked at me, their eyes shining, but not smiling. All I could think of was to walk to the end of the bed, and kneel down right under the cobweb, which was quite still. I lifted up the quilt, which was trailing on the floor, and craned my head down. There, under the bed, was a box, rectangular, not big, not terribly well wrapped. Slowly I pulled it out. ‘He bought it for you, not long after your last birthday, just before...’ I wasn’t listening. I opened the envelope, looked at the hand–drawn picture – a cartoon of him, Mum, and me, and a donkey. Inside the card he’d written ‘Happy Birthday – Dad’.
No-one said anything. I looked and looked at the card. I didn’t even notice the tears falling down my cheeks, until I saw smudges on the donkey. I looked up, but Mum and Granddad had gone quietly back to the kitchen, taking my birthday breakfast tray and the used wrapping paper, leaving me sitting on the bed. I looked at the card again, and the present Dad had sent me after he had died. The present Dad had sent me after he had died! Why had he bought it so soon after my last birthday?
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