The Children's Bach by Helen Garner Read Free Book Online

drive him crazy. Sometimes they’re so far away that we can’t even hear them. He’s like a dog.’
    The boy became calm. Athena dropped the cleaned potatoes into a colander.
    Vicki too could brace herself. She said, ‘Would he come for a walk with me?’ Dexter and Athena turned to look at her. They are astonished, thought Elizabeth.
    â€˜Are you sure?’ said Dexter. ‘Most people –’
    Vicki blossomed in their surprise, smug as a child whose mother has commended her for doing a small piece of housework without having to be asked.
    Dexter slid Billy off his lap and she gripped his hand. It was warm and padded with muscle. She spoke to him and he smiled past her.
    â€˜Why won’t he ever look at me?’
    â€˜Don’t bother to get romantic,’ said Athena. ‘There’s nobody in there.’
    She watched them go down the back steps hand in hand, and from the kitchen table Elizabeth watched Athena and waited for her to turn around and show the expression on her face, which, when she did, was not
    quite what Elizabeth had imagined.
    â€˜How do you bear it?’ she said.
    â€˜Bear it?’ Was this one of Elizabeth’s dramatic exclamations, or did she really want to know? ‘I’ve abandoned him, in my heart,’ said Athena. ‘It’s work. I’m just hanging on till we can get rid of him.’
    â€˜Get rid of him?’ said Elizabeth.
    Athena’s small, calm smile did not alter. ‘The thought of it,’ she said in her civilised voice, ‘the very thought of it is like a dark cloud rolling away.’
    â€˜There might be a place for him, in a year or so,’ said Dexter. He stood up and stretched his limbs. ‘You know, sometimes he screams all day.’
    â€˜Dex is still romantic about him,’ said Athena.
    The women looked at Dexter. He shrugged.
    â€˜ I used to be romantic about him,’ said Athena. ‘I used to think there was some kind of wild, good little creature trapped inside him, and I tried to communicate with that. But now I know there’s . . .’ (she knocked her forehead with her knuckles) ‘. . . nobody home.’
    â€˜And what about you, Morty,’ said Dexter. ‘What are you going to do about your sister?’
    Vicki and the boy crossed the street and stepped on to the buffalo grass. It was early evening. The trunks were grey, the leaves were green, a mild wind was moving along. Bigger boys were swooping about under the trees on elongated bicycles. Fuck off, cunt! Dickhead! Their words to each other were blows, their laughter rattled like guns. Vicki spoke to Billy as one speaks to an animal or a baby, murmuring encouragement without expecting an answer. She tried to walk him neatly along the bitumen path, but he was unruly, he grunted and tugged at her hand. He dragged her across the grass to the swings. She heaved him on to the metal seat, clamped his fists round the chains and began to push him from behind.
    She pushed so hard that his backward oscillation, had she wedged her fingertips between his hard bum and the seat, would have lifted her right off the ground. When she heard his voice she thought he was going to start screaming again, but it was a song. She pushed and pushed, until at the top of each forward flight he lay on his back in air. What was that song? Of course he sang no words, only a round-mouthed oohoohing, but the tune was perfect, its rhythm was timed to the rushes and pauses of the swing, and his voice was high, sweet and melodious. She let the metal seat raise her, she hooked her fingers over its edge, sent him flying away from her and threw up her arms to receive him again. He sang a verse, a chorus, another verse, and the words ran back to her in her mother’s voice and she joined in: ‘Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing/Onward! the sailors cry.’
    The foul boys on bikes fled away down the darkening