Refuge Page 3

  Faris took the basket and peered down into it. It was filled with packages wrapped in clean white cloth.

  ‘Enough for everyone,’ said Susannah proudly. ‘All the food we can eat.’ She hesitated. ‘You like cheese, don’t you?’

  Faris nodded. Susannah smiled. Her teeth were crooked, but it was the kindest smile Faris had ever seen. ‘We have to be careful what we bring to the beach. Jamila can’t eat pork, nor David neither, and he can’t eat meat and butter at the same time. And some people bring down the strangest things! Henri brought down frogs’ legs. Eating frogs’ legs! Can you believe it now?’

  Faris wrinkled his nose at the idea of frogs’ legs. ‘Maybe it was a joke. Does Henri come down to the beach often?’

  ‘He’s gone,’ said Jamila shortly.

  Where had Henri gone to? But Billy had said ‘no questions’. Faris glanced at Billy. He and the other two players had gathered around the young black couple’s fire.

  ‘Nikko!’ Susannah called to the littlest boy. ‘Come and eat!’ She held out her hand as he ran towards her and Jamila.

  Faris walked with them over to the fire. Sticks with flesh threaded onto them sat suspended over the flames. Faris could smell fish cooking.

  The young black man stood up, as though he was giving them permission to sit by his fire. Almost, thought Faris, as he looked at the pride in the strong straight back, as though he owned the beach.

  Suddenly, despite Billy’s claim and the young man’s nakedness, the black man looked to be the beach’s true king, not Billy.

  ‘This is Far Eyes,’ said Billy, behind him. ‘Far Eyes, this is Mudurra.’

  Mudurra nodded, without speaking. He sat down on the sand again. He held out his hands as Jamila kneeled and poured water over them. She handed Mudurra the cloth, then moved to pour water over Billy’s hands, then Susannah’s and the others.

  Faris held out his hands too. It was a familiar enough ritual, but felt strange here on an Australian beach. The water smelled of roses. He waited to see if there would be prayer before the meal too. Jadda had said that there were no prayers in public in Australia, that most Australians never prayed at all. I’m not scared of Billy, he told himself. I just don’t want to offend.

  Instead Mudurra picked up one of the half-blackened fish sticks and handed it to the near-naked young woman. She flashed him a smile of thanks, then looked at Faris. ‘I’m Juhi.’

  Faris tried not to look at Juhi’s bare skin. ‘Hello.’

  Juhi blew on the fish to cool it, then broke off a piece to eat. She ate neatly, using only her right hand. Susannah unwrapped the packages.

  There were sandwiches, thick hunks of soft white bread spread with butter and filled with yellow cheese, and chunks of a strange dark brown cake that tasted of fruit and spices.

  ‘Eat up,’ said Susannah. Faris hid a smile. She sounded as old as Jadda, more like a grandma than a little girl.

  It was so good that Faris had eaten three sandwiches, and two slices of the cake, before he realised that all the others were eating as silently and as intently as him, sandwich after sandwich, slice after slice of cake.

  ‘Here.’ Dark hands passed him a stick holding slightly blackened fish strips.

  He looked up to see Mudurra grinning at him. ‘Thank you.’ The fish flaked in Faris’s fingers, sweet and moist, tasting of the sea, the calm blue sea of the beach, not a black wave that …

  He shut his mind to the thought as Susannah passed him the stone flagon.

  He hesitated. He’d never shared a drinking glass, much less drunk from a shared container. You might catch someone’s germs or viruses. Susannah looked at him with concern. ‘It’s good,’ she reassured him. ‘You need to drink after a morning in the sun.’

  Mudurra laughed. He offered Faris something like a big wrinkled balloon instead.

  Faris tried to hide his disgust. The wrinkled balloon must be a water bladder made from animal guts. He had seen them on TV, tied with a kind of string at both ends. He shook his head, he hoped politely, and took a sip from the flagon instead.

  It was buttermilk, cold and both slightly sour and sweet. He drank till he had had enough, then passed it on.

  At last the food was gone. Susannah folded the white cloths, and put the flagon and Jamila’s silver jug and cloth in the basket. She carried it across the sand as the wind swept at her skirts and shawl and apron.

  Billy stood, carrying the ball. The others followed him, away from the fire. They began to play the game again, Mudurra and Juhi and even little Nikko too. When Faris looked up, Susannah was sitting halfway up the sand hill, her basket beside her.

  Was she watching the waves, Faris wondered, or wondering if a ship would sail by?

  No. Susannah was watching them. Like a grandmother, making sure we’re safe, thought Faris. But that was silly. Susannah was just a little girl. And there was nothing dangerous here. Was there?

  The game continued. Throw and catch, and throw and catch. Billy still grabbed most balls. Faris looked at Mudurra. The naked young man had a smile about his eyes.

  Mudurra could catch every ball, thought Faris. He is taller and stronger than Billy. But he lets Billy win. He allows Billy to be king.

  The sun shifted in the sky. The breeze blew cool. All at once Faris realised it must be late afternoon, that one by one the players were leaving, trudging up the sand hill by themselves. David, the boy in the strange short woollen suit, had already vanished, and tiny Nikko. Now Jamila began to walk up the beach. She sang as she walked. The wind grabbed her words and twisted them, impossible to understand. Then she was gone, over the sand hill. Only Billy and the black couple were on the beach now.

  ‘I’d better go home,’ said Faris. Billy nodded, as though Faris had asked permission, then threw the ball to Mudurra, who threw it to Juhi.

  Faris trudged up the sand hill in silence, aware that Susannah was still watching him from halfway up its slope. Her legs were drawn up under her thick skirts and apron, as though she had sat here on the sand hill many times before.

  He’d have to walk past her to get down to the road.

  It wasn’t right to talk to a girl alone unless she was a member of your family, even one as young as Susannah. He gave Susannah a brief nod and walked past her.

  ‘Wait!’ she called after him. ‘Can you sit a minute?’ Her eyes were green, like the grass the kangaroos munched.

  Her words were soft and sympathetic. Yet despite her quiet tone, Faris found himself obeying as though she had ordered him. He sat next to her, embarrassed, looking at the players down on the sand instead of at her.

  Susannah smiled again. Some people had empty smiles. Susannah’s was full of caring. ‘What’s your name?’

  He glanced at her, surprised. Susannah grinned, showing her crooked teeth. She almost looked like an ordinary ten-year-old when she grinned. ‘I know it isn’t Far Eyes,’ she added. The music in her voice was stronger than ever.

  ‘I thought Billy didn’t let us ask questions.’

  ‘Not on the beach. But this is the sand hill.’

  Faris glanced down at Billy. He had the feeling that the big boy was carefully not watching what happened up here.

  ‘What is your real name?’ insisted Susannah.

  ‘It’s Faris.’

  She pulled a small leather-covered notebook from the pocket of her apron and a stub of pencil. ‘How would you be spelling that then?’

  ‘F. A. R. I. S.’

  Susannah wrote carefully and slowly. She glanced up and smiled again. ‘My mam taught me my letters,’ she said proudly. ‘I can figure too, but not as well.’

  ‘Figure?’

  ‘You know. Add the numbers up. I can count up to a hundred too.’

  ‘That’s excellent,’ Faris said politely, thinking, Stupid, to be ten years old and know so little. He looked over Susannah’s shoulder at the page she was writing on. It was a long list of names. Names covered the page on the other side too.

  ‘I keep the nam
es of everyone who comes to the beach,’ she explained. ‘See, that’s you there.’ She pointed to the last name on the list. ‘And there’s my name, Susannah.’ She pointed to the round letters near the bottom of the first page.

  Faris looked at the list. Mudurra’s name was the first, then someone called Ah Goon, then Pedro, Jan and Henri. Billy’s name was near the top too. There were many other names, not just the names of those he’d met today: Mei Ling, Bridget, Jane, Vlad … But he had enough names to keep straight already.

  ‘Susannah’s a lovely name,’ he said instead.

  Susannah smiled. ‘It is the loveliest name I know.’

  ‘Why do you talk so funny?’ He hadn’t meant to say it, but Susannah laughed.

  ‘Oh, that’s the Irish accent. I come from Ireland, you see.’

  ‘Before you came to Australia?’

  She looked at him seriously, then nodded. ‘Before I came to Australia. The others on the beach complained about the accent at first. But you’ll get used to it. And where do you come from?’ she added, her voice just slightly too casual.

  ‘I’m from …’ He stopped. He couldn’t remember. No, he didn’t want to remember. Billy was right, not this small girl with impudent eyes and questions. This was a place to be happy, not to remember. Suddenly he too wanted a world with no questions.

  ‘What does it matter?’ he asked roughly.

  ‘No matter,’ Susannah said gently. ‘No matter at all.’

  Somehow he lost his anger. Susannah stood up. For a moment Faris thought she was going to hug him. He didn’t want to be hugged by a strange girl. But all she said was, ‘I’ll be seeing you tomorrow then, will I?’

  Did he really want to come to the beach again, with bare black skin and impudent girls, to be bullied by Billy? He nodded anyway. He stepped up to the top of the sand hill, then stared down at the landscape beyond.

  This wasn’t his street! It was a dirt track lined with stone houses with tiled roofs in big gardens — so big they were not like gardens at all — rows of vegetables, like tiny farms. And cows! A fat cow in every garden, and over there a sheep, so white it looked as though it had been washed!

  In its own strange way the world below was beautiful, despite the dusty road: the way a movie could be lovely, but you wouldn’t want to live inside it. Enormous blue butterflies fluttered over the vegetables. A cat yawned, comfortable, on a windowsill. The chimneys all puffed smoke.

  But the cows! The vegetables, right in the front garden! This was a land for peasants!

  It was impossible that this street could be anywhere near the street he’d walked along this morning. There weren’t even any streetlights or cars at all, not even what might be a garage. He glanced back at Susannah. ‘I … I think I’m lost.’

  She touched his hand quickly. ‘Don’t you be scared.’

  He snatched his hand away. ‘I’m not scared!’

  ‘Of course you’re not,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s my fault. I shouldn’t be standing here with you, especially not on your first day here. Go down to the beach again, then walk back up the sand hill. You’ll find your own road waiting for you when you get back up here.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ How could he have got lost just going up a sand hill? And how could this little girl be so sure he’d find the right street again? He looked at Susannah uncertainly.

  ‘It’s a rule, if you like. Always walk across the sand hill by yourself. I’ll go home now, to make sure it goes right for you. Don’t worry. This is a good place, a safe place. Nothing bad can come to you here. Nothing at all. Good night, Faris.’

  Susannah smiled again. She picked up her basket, then headed down the sand hill towards the house with the cat on the windowsill. As Faris watched, a lamp shone in one of the windows. A door opened. He heard children’s laughter.

  He shook his head. Australian cattle lived on great big ‘stations’ where they were rounded up with helicopters. He looked down again. Susannah had vanished into the house now. He could smell wood smoke and what he thought must be cow.

  Maybe Susannah lives in a theme park, he told himself. Australia had many theme parks: Water Worlds and Fun Worlds and Movie Worlds. Maybe this was part of a Movie World. Relief filled him. That had to be the answer. Susannah’s father must work there.

  A good place. A safe place. Susannah’s words hung in his head.

  The important thing now was to find his own street. Perhaps if he walked along the sand hill he’d see where it began. He hesitated, then decided to do what Susannah had suggested. She was young, but there had been a certainty about her. A kindness too, as though she almost knew what he was feeling.

  Happiness, Faris told himself. He felt happy. He’d had a day at the beach. A good day, in spite of Billy. A day of sunlight and laughter. Jadda would be waiting at home … He found himself walking back down the sand hill to the beach, just as Susannah had told him to — a little girl ordering an older boy! He turned and clambered up it again.

  The breeze from the sea was cool on his skin.

  And there was his street below him, the comfortable two-storey homes with their gardens and bright streetlights. The kangaroos had vanished, off to sleep wherever kangaroos slept.

  Faris tried to tell his heart to stop thudding. He’d come up the same track. This was impossible! It was all impossible, the sunlight and the laughter …

  No. He was tired, that was all. Confused because he was tired after a day in the sun. You must believe that everything is possible, said Jadda’s whisper in his mind.

  Faris ran down the sand hill. He put on his joggers, then ran along the street. The scents of roses and orange blossom were joined by the scents of baking bread now, and roasting meat, and the clean, exciting, almost electric smell that you sniffed, just for a moment, when you opened the box of a new laptop computer or mobile phone.

  Faris smiled. Of course Australia smelled like this. A new country would smell new too.

  Jadda opened the door. She wore her old dressing gown and carried the book she had been reading, a Jane Austen one. She folded him into her warmth and perfume. ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Good.’ Faris nodded at the book. ‘You should read an Australian book now.’

  ‘Ah, but this is about Jane Austen’s visit to Australia. It even has kangaroos! Come on. Dinner is ready.’

  All at once he didn’t want Australian food, the bright buffet with too many dishes.

  ‘Mutton soup with lentils,’ said Jadda softly, as if she understood just what he felt. ‘And coconut cake.’

  His favourite. I must take Jadda’s cake down to the beach, he thought. His new friends would like Jadda’s coconut cake.

  ‘Your father has to work late,’ said Jadda. ‘We won’t wait for him.’ She led Faris into the bright house, with its smells of cooking and orange blossom from the trees outside.

  Faris was tired when he lay down that night. And happy, he told himself. But for some reason he didn’t want to turn off the light. Dreams came in darkness. Dreams of a giant wave that towered above him, of trying to breathe and finding only water …

  It wasn’t real. This was real! The warm bed, the perfect bedroom, just as he had always imagined it.

  Exactly as he had imagined it. For one frozen moment he wondered if his bedroom might be a dream, if when he shut his eyes he would really be opening them.

  And then he remembered the beach. He had never imagined a beach like that, with its rocks like a gap-toothed smile. He could never imagine anyone like Billy either, with his mouse-white skin, or Mudurra naked with his spear, Jamila’s song or even Susannah with her kind eyes and shawl.

  If he could never imagine them, then they had to be real. If they were real, then he was safe. I can sleep, he told himself, and my dreams will be good dreams.

  He switched off the light and held his breath.

  The computer shone dimly in the moonlight from the window. He shut his eyes and let sleep take him. Soft sleep, gentle sleep, with no dreams of
waves and thrashing water.

  CHAPTER 5

  It was a holiday the next day too.

  ‘Go down to the beach,’ urged Jadda. ‘Go and laugh in the sun with your friends.’

  Faris nodded. He left her sitting on the cushions, with the koala in her lap and Jane Austen in her hands. But when he got to the street he stopped.

  Yesterday had been too strange. He had enjoyed the time on the beach, except for Billy’s bossiness. He had almost got used to Mudurra’s nakedness and Juhi’s too-much-bare skin.

  But when he had looked over the sand hill and seen cottages and cows, not his familiar street, he had been frightened. No, not frightened, he told himself. This was Australia! There was nothing to be frightened of here.

  He would go for a walk along the streets. He might find Susannah’s dirt road. Maybe he would find another beach. A proper Australian beach with holiday-makers in flowered shirts, and a big blue swimming pool so you didn’t have to go near the waves.

  He turned away from the route to the beach. Along one road, then round a corner, then along the next road. Each house looked like the ones in his street, all two storeys, with smart garages. Some had cars, and one had a boat parked outside on a trailer. Another had a tennis court, and there were different trees and flowers in their gardens.

  All were beautiful.

  Mobs of kangaroos rested in the shade of the trees, or reached up to pick figs or oranges from the trees. Faris turned another corner and stopped.

  His home gazed at him from across the street.

  It was impossible! He’d travelled away from his home. He was sure he had.

  But he’d been dreaming of beaches and swimming pools. He set out again. This time he made sure he turned away from his house at each corner. One street, another …

  He knew a second before he saw it. There was his own house. The koala dozed on the doorstep, its fat tummy full of toast and chicken.

  Faris stumbled past it, through the front door.

  Jadda looked up from her book. ‘Faris, what is it? Was the sun too hot?’

  ‘I didn’t go down to the beach. I’m fine,’ he added roughly. ‘I’m going to my room, to use the computer.’