A way home, p.1
A Way Home, page 1
First published 2024 by MidnightSun Publishing Pty Ltd
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www.midnightsunpublishing.com
Copyright © Emily Brewin 2024
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Internal design by Zena Shapter
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For my grandmothers.
Chapter One
It’s a magical Melbourne morning. The rain’s keeping the usual peak-hour crowd at bay and the roads are wide and empty. It’s quiet too, as if someone’s turned the volume down. Only the pedestrian light on St Kilda Road sounds, ticking rhythmically. When it flashes green, I bolt to Flinders Street Station before crossing again to Maccas.
The sight of the big golden M sends my tastebuds into a frenzy. I pause at the entrance and let the warm, fuggy air from inside wash over me. Down the other end of the restaurant, two girls chat as they wipe the steel counter clean and toss fries in a metal basket. They’re probably my age, but their hair is neat and their uniforms are washed and ironed. The menu above bathes them both in yellow.
I slip inside and onto one of the hard, plastic bench seats near the entrance. A couple nearby wrap into each other, eyes bright under the fluorescent strip lights. The girl catches me staring. ‘WHAT?’ I look away.
On the table between us an abandoned cheeseburger peeks out of its wrapping on a brown tray – so close I can taste the meat and barbecue sauce exploding in my mouth. I reach over and grab it, despite the couple’s whisperings. A few months ago, I might have removed the chewed bit and left it on the table before devouring the rest. But not anymore.
Now, I push back my hoodie and take a bite, relishing the bitter slip of pickle. The hunger I’ve managed to stave off all week with Mars bars from 7-Eleven, and discarded fruit from the skips at the Vic Market, threatens to undo me and I stuff my face so full of burger I can hardly chew.
I swallow loudly as the girl giggles, high and mean nearby, like the kids at school. When she whispers in her boyfriend’s ear, he laughs too and jiggles a white runner on the tiles beneath the table.
I wipe sauce from my mouth and turn away. With food in my belly, the shame returns. I should be used to it by now, but the realisation I don’t belong still shocks me. Although, thanks to Mum, I never really have.
I hesitate before taking another bite of the burger. The heat in my cheeks isn’t enough to make me put it down. I eat quickly instead, then hurry outside, chased by the couple’s laughter.
The city’s busier now. Pedestrians in thick winter coats release ghost breath, rushing towards coffee shops and office buildings. I imagine their day ahead: over in a flash, after basking in central heating for eight hours. The opposite of mine, which stretches on as endlessly as the Calder Highway leading to Nan and Pop’s place in Mildura.
I was four the first time Mum stuffed me in the back of our beaten-up Datsun 2000 with plastic bags full of toys and clothes, intending to leave me there.
‘It’ll be a nice holiday,’ she insisted, in a voice I knew not to trust.
Most mornings, I try to sleep for as long as possible. Then I walk from my ledge to the City Baths for a shower, if the right lifeguard’s on duty, or scour the café tables on Degraves Street. If I’m lucky, one of the baristas might make me a coffee. Takeaway. Nice and hot with plenty of sugar.
At night, if it’s there, I visit the soup van near the station for dinner, or head to the ‘dining hall’ on Collins Street for Sunday roast. I try to steer clear of other rough sleepers, but some days, the pull of crisp potatoes smothered in gravy is stronger than the fear I’ll end up like them.
I’m different, I remind myself. At some point soon, I’ll be going home. Back to our house in Reservoir, or Rese as we call it, with its overgrown garden and sky-blue door that Mum and I painted on a whim last summer. I’m going home for sure… once Mum improves.
But today, there’s no roast dinner to look forward to and the rain washes away my other plans. All I want is somewhere warm and dry to retreat to. I blow hot air into my hands and turn left on Flinders Lane. Halfway down, tucked neatly into a large grey-stone building, is the City Library. Drizzle spatters my face and wets my hair as I hurry towards the sliding glass doors. It’s as far as I’ve ever ventured. Beyond the doors is another world. I see a long counter serviced by a spikey-haired librarian and shelves stuffed with books holding entire worlds.
At school, the library smelt comfortingly of photocopy paper and overripe bananas and had bean bags I could sink into when I was tired. Some nights at home, Mum played piano until the sun rose. Some nights, she made me play too.
‘The library’s for reading, not sleeping, Grace Hofmann,’ Mrs Green, the big-bottomed librarian would grumble before wandering off again. But I stayed put. There was comfort among the books and the places I could disappear into.
When I peer through the sliding glass doors again, the spikey-haired librarian has vanished.
‘Going in?’ someone murmurs close by.
‘Huh?’ I spin around.
‘ARE YOU GOING IN?’ A skinny kid with stringy black hair repeats slowly as if I’m daft.
I push my shoulders back and narrow my eyes. The rain’s falling hard now, snaking into my hoodie and down my neck. At first glance, he looks much younger than me. He’s almost a head shorter and wears a red tartan jacket that could have been nicked from one of Santa’s elves. But on closer inspection, there’s a wariness to his expression that makes me realise he’s older than I thought. My age, even.
‘None of your business,’ I snap before striding into the library.
I stop inside the entrance, unprepared for the size of the silence, the complete lack of the street noise I’m used to: of trams rattling down Swanston and pop music blaring from tourist shops, the tap of heels on concrete and snippets of passing conversation. The library’s so quiet even the air seems to stand still. Without noise, it’s too big.
‘Can I help you?’ The librarian reappears, pinning me to the spot. Her eyes are questioning behind thick-framed glasses and there’s a plastic security tag hanging around her neck. She smiles brightly.
‘Nah.’ I turn, ready to leave, except the skinny kid is blocking the doorway.
At the other end of the counter, a broad staircase leads to a second floor. I head for it instead, hands growing clammy on the rail. Below, the librarian calls but I ignore her and keep climbing – away from her and the kid and the cavernous room. I stop once I reach the top to glance around. Then I inhale, grip the rail again. Tight. In front of me, broad and solid, stands a black upright piano.
Chapter Two
Each morning I wake, the concrete ledge I sleep on under the bridge is colder than the morning before. Some mornings, I slide down the pigeon shit-covered slope to the footpath to watch the Yarra beside it lighten from darkest grey to silver. If I squint, the scene’s like something out of the movies our neighbour, Mrs Malloy, and I used to go to.
She’d say it was a treat, though we both knew it was to give me a break from Mum. I didn’t care how Mrs Malloy framed it. There was nothing nicer than sitting in those big cushy seats with a box of buttery popcorn warming my lap.
The Yarra runs all the way to the city and through it. Some days, if the cold wakes me early, I follow the footpath in the opposite direction to distract my growling stomach. I don’t need to go far to lose sight of the traffic and the skyscrapers. Soon, towering white gums and bushy undergrowth replace the street signs and cars, reminding me of the river banks near Nan and Pop’s place and those along the creek not far from home.
I always turn back when the path forks, in case I end up on the trail to Rese. It isn’t far as the crow flies. Eleven kilometres, the big sign on Spring Street says. A short tram or bike ride, but far enough to keep away from people I might know.
My ledge is tucked deep into the base of the bridge, making it almost invisible from the footpath. It’s a safe stretch from the CBD too, where it never gets dark or silent enough to sleep, and where there’s always a danger of being ambushed – especially if you’re a girl on your own.
My skin crawls at the stories I’ve heard in the line-up at the soup van or in passing. A quick exchange with Mel who sleeps out front of 7-Eleven with her boyfriend, Scott. Or a word of warning from Sue, who camps in Treasury Gardens, about a weirdo who’s been doing rounds of the parks.
‘That was the last straw,
The need to be on guard at all times drives me from the city. But not even my ledge completely eliminates the fear that lurks in my mind and disrupts my sleep.
It’s pitch-black when something wakes me suddenly and I sit up. The rough concrete beneath my cardboard mattress is frozen and the damp’s soaked into my sleeping bag again, creeping through the layers I’m wearing to snap-freeze my bones. I can’t feel my hands, so I rub them together until they tingle, then lean back against the rocky wall and wait for my heartbeat to slow.
‘It’s nothing,’ I mutter as I close my eyes and try to fall back to sleep. But a shuffle nearby forces them open again and I peer hard into the darkness before searching the ground for a rock or my water bottle. My chest grows tight. There’s nothing to grab onto except my soggy cardboard mattress and the odd pebble.
I spent the first few weeks on the ledge in a state of high alert. Kept a big rock by my backpack and slept with my runners on. But as the days passed, I relaxed a little, until one morning, in a fit of boredom, I threw the big rock into the Yarra. It made a giant splash, sending a satisfying ripple to the shore before sinking into the murky depths.
The memory makes me bite my lip before something hurtles through the air near my head – so close it whistles. My feet slip as I struggle to stand, grunting despite myself, to tear at the zip on my sleeping bag. It sticks, then releases when I yank it hard. Finally I’m up, head bent beneath the low beam, muscles tight, ears pricked for the beating of wings or the scurry of feet. But there’s only a strained silence that seems ready to snap at any moment
I should be used to the possums, rodents and insects by now. But the wildness of this place still surprises me. Instead of four walls and a roof, there’s nothing but a rocky slope and a busy road overhead to protect me. I kick my sleeping bag aside and slide down the slope as fast as I can.
On the footpath, I peer up at a large shadow not far from where I was sleeping. It’s much bigger than a rat, more the size of a dog. Breathe, I tell myself, the cold from the concrete path seeping into my socks. I picture the creature burrowing into my sleeping bag and feel sick.
Beside me, the river is black, while the ledge and the footpath are thick with shadow. I stamp my feet hard and bang my hands together. If I don’t move soon, I’ll freeze to death. An early morning jogger or cyclist will find me, lifeless and stiff as a board on the path, like crazy Gerry who used to camp in the Alexandra Gardens. Word is, a gardener found him curled up in the pavilion with his dog, Boris, by his side. Boris howled and tried to bite when the police removed Gerry’s body.
I cock my head for signs of the creature above. It’s quiet now. Only the river gurgles beside me. Maybe it’s disappeared, scurried or flown or run back to wherever it came from.
I blow hot air onto my fingers then walk slowly back to the wall. It’s so gloomy beneath the bridge my hands turn invisible when I place them on the rocks. I feel for familiar bumps and angles and get ready to climb.
Then a screech rains from above, so fierce I leap backwards. This time, I don’t wait. I bolt the dull line of the footpath towards the city, not caring I’ve left behind a full bag of misshapen apples or my backpack with Mum’s address book in it. There’s the newspaper clipping of Dad, who lives in London and teaches piano at the conservatorium where he met Mum, on the ledge too. I don’t give a crap my socks are soaked or that the creature might be burrowing its way into my bed. I run until my breath bursts like gunfire and my chest’s exploding.
When I finally stop, I’m beneath Princes Bridge. Light floods down from Swanston Street, creating a protective glow that I crouch in. As my panting slows I draw my legs to my chest and squeeze my eyes shut. In this ball-like state, I’m safe once more. But then the banging sadness I keep hidden inside surges up and out of my mouth in great desperate sobs. I want Mum. I want her so badly my body aches with it. But she can’t help me; she never could.
I don’t know what time it is when a woman pushing a baby in a large black stroller beside the river taps me warily on the shoulder to ask if I’m okay.
‘Yeah’, I croak, hardly recognising my own voice.
She takes a step back, pulls the stroller out of reach. ‘Good.’
The baby’s wearing so many warm clothes it’s lost its shape. Only a pair of pink woollen booties and a matching pom-pom beanie separates one end of it from the other.
‘Have you got somewhere dry to go?’
I glance at the woman’s face, the small smile that desperately wants me to answer, yes, so she can be on her way. I nod.
The baby begins to grumble. Its little mouth puckers and it kicks its bootied feet while the woman studies me. I feel like an animal caught in headlights. I want to turn away but all I can do is stare back. For the first time in a long time, someone sees me, or at least some version of me, different to the one that left home six months ago.
On the rare occasion I spot myself in a mirror, I hardly recognise the person gazing back. She’s taller, thinner and sharper all over. I’ve always been skinny, but now the blue jeans I brought from home are folded twice at the waist and my cheeks are hollow. The skin on my face is paler too, making my freckles pop, while the brown eyes I inherited from Mum are dull. There are rings beneath them and my dark, shoulder-length hair is tied in a permanent knot at the back of my head.
‘Here.’ The woman fishes around in the big pocket at the back of the pram and pulls out a purse as the baby’s grumble turns into a whimper. It opens its mouth and the beanie slides further down its face to cover its eyes. I want to reach out to push it up again, maybe whisper something comforting, but I know I can’t. I stare at my socks instead – at the sad wet stretch of them. Ridiculous. Embarrassment rockets the length of me until I can hardly stand still. I turn to go.
‘Take this.’ The woman touches my shoulder.
I stop as she circles to face me, holding a ten-dollar note out. ‘It’s all I have,’ she adds apologetically, her smile crooked. ‘Sorry.’
The baby wails as I hesitate before reaching for the money.
‘How old are you?’
The note crumples when I close my hand around it. ‘Sixteen.’
The woman shakes her head. ‘Get yourself something to eat.’
I want to say thank you. I want to tell her how much this means to me – the money, but more than that, the warmth in her voice. But she issues a quick nod, then turns back to the stroller and her baby before I can say a word.
‘Ta,’ I answer softly anyway before making a beeline for the stairs up to Swanston Street, because I can’t bear to see her walk away from me.
It’s drizzling again. Trams and honking cars clog the road as commuters with umbrellas weave through them towards Flinders Street Station opposite. The footpath is slippery and the scent of wet asphalt infuses the air. I hurry towards the station, unprotected without my backpack and shoes, before stopping to contemplate which way to go.
It doesn’t take long for a space to appear around me, commuters jostle into each other to avoid getting too close. It happens all the time, but today the woman’s kindness has left a soft spot and it hurts more than usual. Plus, there’s the risk of being seen by someone I know. Mrs Malloy, perhaps, on a mission to find her daughter, Mandy, or girls from school on a shopping trip to the city.
I push on, desperate to escape the station. On a different day, I might go to Maccas to buy myself a couple of cheese burgers, or to the supermarket on Elizabeth Street for a bag of cinnamon donuts. But not today. Today I run, wet socks and all, down Flinders Street before turning right on Degraves. I know where I’m headed. Maybe I should stop before I get there, but a force hurls me forward – towards the City Library and back to the piano.
Chapter Three
I spend the morning in the library, loitering in an aisle near the piano. The spikey-haired librarian wanders past with a trolley, stopping occasionally to wrangle books onto packed shelves.
When one drops to the floor, I pause, then pick it up and hand it back to her. Girl Defective, by Simmone Howell. I read it last year at school, holed up in an overheated classroom I escaped to sometimes to be alone. Mum was sick again and I was feeling weirder than usual. Plus, I could relate to the main character, Sky. Her Mum seemed nuts too.
