Stones - Polly Johnson

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the struggle and the flapping and the blood made talking seem pointless. Anyway, I didn’t belong there. I wasn’t like those other people crying into their handkerchiefs. I wasn’t crazy.

      ‘No one here is crazy,’ Dad’s always insisted.

      ‘Only you,’ I’d say, ‘paying all this money for nothing. You’re the biggest nut of all.’

      The psychologist is very glamorous, like she should be in a movie or something. Piled up silver hair, huge blue eyes and what they call ‘good bones’, which means she’ll always look wonderful, even when she’s ancient. I suspect she changes clothes between clients like some kind of chameleon woman. Buddhist for the middle-aged trendies, prim for the nervous and clip-on dreads for the alternative types. Whenever I go it’s all African jewellery and joss sticks; I watch the smoke curl like ghostly snakes up the white walls and listen to her questions, which I never answer. They’d only lead to other questions and so we sit there – her in one armchair and me in another with a view of the garden. Poor old Dad, he pays all this money and she just looks at me and waits, and I look at her and make her wait some more. Until today that is, when she picks up the Thought Diary and to distract her I blurt out: ‘I saw a tramp. He talked to me. He was a bit like Sam.’

      She doesn’t move, just lifts an eyebrow. ‘Oh yes?’ she says.

      ‘Yes. He came over and sat down. He could have been anyone – a vampire even, but I didn’t care.’

      ‘That’s an interesting choice. Why a vampire?’

      ‘I dunno; only that he could have been anyone.’

      We look at each other.

      ‘Tell me something about him,’ she says, and I think.

      ‘He had really nice eyes.’

      She smiles. ‘I’m surprised you noticed.’

      Outside, the trees dance in the wind.

      We’ve broken the silence now and she glances at my folder, at a piece of paper where I wrote stuff down before my first appointment.

      ‘And how is the other thing?’ she says. ‘The Pit.’

      I consider The Pit. This is the term I use to describe the way I used to feel all of the time, but less often now.

      It’s like one of those holes you dig on the beach. The ones you spend all day on when you are a kid. In the end it’s home time, and there you are standing at the bottom. It’s probably not very deep to anyone else, but to you it’s almost Australia. The sides are steep and narrow and cold, and right down at the bottom is a pool of smelly water. Here is where you’ve been sitting.

      The frightened feeling comes back again and I clench my fists together, then apart and then together again.

      ‘What?’ she says. ‘What is it?’

      But of course, if I knew that, I wouldn’t need to be sitting here, would I?

      We drive home through slow traffic. The Thought Diary is on the back seat. The Shrink Woman wants me to write in it at least once a week, but I doubt I will.

      The radio’s on and Dad hums tunelessly under his breath. He stops halfway home at a café and the warm air and clatter of knives and forks makes things all right again. There’s something so normal about cheese on toast. You can’t imagine traitors eating it for a last meal, or ordering Earl Grey tea with lemon-not-milk to go with it as we do now, trying not to swallow too loudly and watching the other people come and go as if we’ve only been shopping or something. I wonder what the Shrink Woman made of what I said; I wonder why I brought it up at all. I wonder what the tramp is doing now and how long it is since he had cheese on toast, so hot that it comes to his mouth still bubbling.

      Dad nods at me across the table. A little lump of cheese sits on his top lip.

      ‘You all right?’ he asks me, and the little lump drops onto the table cloth.

      I don’t say anything. Not because I can’t, but because I don’t want to. Dad waits a minute and then looks away, transferring his little smile from me to the waitress. Then we go home.

       6.

      Thought Diary: Graffiti in the town: ‘I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason.’ Glinda, Wicked (the musical).

      There’s something going on with Joe. He gives me a call on Sunday morning to say he needs to get out of the house, and then again an hour later to say he can’t. It’s obvious he has his hand over the phone, but I can still hear shouting and his voice is pulled tight as a fishing line.

      ‘I can’t come. Sorry … ’

      ‘Are you okay? What’s all the noise?’

      ‘…Yes. That’s right. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thank you.’

      I wait, but there’s nothing more, and then the line goes dead and I’m left in silence. I wonder if he’s changed his mind about meeting and didn’t want to say so, but then I remember the way his voice sounded, and the yelling in the background. People don’t yell for nothing.

      Mum’s in a strange mood too. I catch her standing outside Sam’s room with the laundry basket – as if she’s forgotten there is no more laundry. She turns as I pass and jumps like she’s seen a ghost, then goes inside and shuts the door. I stand outside and listen, holding my ear close – careful not to touch it – just like I used to when I needed to check if Sam was in or not. I can’t hear a thing though, except for my breath in its careful whisper against the wood.

      I leave her to her ghosts and go downstairs, but the house is silent. Through the kitchen window I see Dad in his garden shed. He’s in overalls and obviously busy. I watch as he drags out bits of rubbish and old cans of paint. His face is relaxed and his movements easy, but then it changes. He comes through the shed door slowly, something red cradled in his arms. It’s an old three-wheeled bicycle. Sam’s I think. He stands holding it for a long time, and I don’t move even though he can’t see me. I hold my breath until I can’t stand it any more and have to let it go in a huge burst. When I look up, the bike is lying on the rubbish pile and Dad isn’t moving. Then he goes into the shed and shuts the door.

      I take my coat off the hook and go out.

      The promenade is crowded as usual. Mostly families again with kids made fat by bobble hats and puffy jackets, and dads skimming pebbles across the water. A little boy falls down and his mouth opens in a wide circle of rage. A girl runs across the promenade, screaming like a seabird, flapping her arms while her mum chases after her in a low crouch. I hurry on, eager to escape.

      When I’ve gone almost as far as the nudist beach, I see the homeless man from yesterday. He’s standing on the hump of pebbles, staring at the sea, while a cloud of smoke bursts from his face to disappear into the air. He seems to be alone but I hesitate in case Alec the Shouter is around. It would be best to just leave, but I don’t. Instead I walk over until he can hear my feet on the stones.

      ‘Hi again,’ I say.

      He twists, loses his balance and lurches sideways. One hand goes down and hits the pebbles hard, but it saves him. He stands up tall, trying to pretend it didn’t happen because he’s drunk, but I know better. I’ve seen it all before.

      ‘Hello,’ he says, ‘what brings you back then?’

      I don’t know, so I can’t say. Instead I bend down and pick up a handful of pebbles. There’s a tin can down towards the water and I throw them at it.

      ‘I like the fact it’s stones here,’ he says, picking a couple up and rolling them in his palm. ‘If it was sand, it would get everywhere, and it’d be crawling with kids an’ that.’

      I glance around. Of course he’s right; I’ve just never questioned it before. Stones

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