Seymour had been awake since sunrise and was watching the stumbling hands of the clock so he could legitimately get out of bed. Seven-fifteen to the exact second was when Thelma began her day, and she’d made it clear that his being there mustn’t interfere with her routine. She’d given him the back room, which wasn’t really a proper one, just a small fibro-cement extension tacked on to the kitchen. Summer clung like thick cellulose wrapping to its iron roof, and even at this early hour he was sweating. Yesterday’s stored heat undulated from the concrete yard outside, and he lay in clammy pyjamas and outstared the clock. At ten minutes past seven he sprang thankfully out of bed and went into the kitchen to make Thelma a morning cup of tea. He wasn’t being ingratiating—it was just something his mother had told him to do before she left, and Seymour had a quiet and biddable nature.
‘Thelma’s not young and she’s got that full-time job,’ his mother had said. ‘It’s very kind of her to help us out like this, so you mustn’t give her any cause to regret it. You be a big help round the house while you’re there, Seymour. There’s no need to tell you to watch your manners, I can say that for you. Take her a cup of tea first thing in the mornings, she’s never had anyone to do that for her. I’m sure she’d appreciate it.’
He didn’t mind making anyone an early morning cup of tea, but it was a nerve-wracking business in this particular kitchen, where even inanimate objects like cannisters seemed capable of disapproval if you put them back in the wrong places. Here there was a place for everything and everything in its rightful place. The tea, for instance, was kept in a green plastic caddy with its own little measuring ladle, and you somehow didn’t dare use any other spoon. He took the cup of tea along the hall and knocked on Thelma’s bedroom door.
‘Come in, Seymour, and don’t bang so loud, you’ll have the plaster flaking off the walls.’
Her voice sounded tart and rebuffing, but he knew it wasn’t aimed at him in particular. She spoke like that to everyone and, after two days of staying there, he was slowly learning not to duck his head with alarm every time she addressed him. She didn’t thank him for making the tea, just watched sharply as he set it down on the bedside table next to her reading glasses. The room was spotlessly tidy and so was Thelma, as though she’d slept perfectly flat on her back all night. Her hair was a neat steel-grey helmet, and there wasn’t one crease in the bedspread. Even her wrinkles looked regimented.
Seymour didn’t quite know what to do while she was sipping the tea—whether to go, which seemed rude, or stay there, although Thelma wasn’t the type of person who went in for early morning banter. Or conversation of any kind at all, really. He hovered self-consciously at the end of the bed, running the sole of one foot on the calf of the other leg, aware of the trapped heat even in this room which the sun hadn’t yet reached. Thelma didn’t leave her windows open at night, despite the thickly meshed security screens.
‘You put a little too much milk in,’ she said, setting down the rose-patterned cup. ‘Milk’s very expensive now, Seymour. I don’t want you getting into the habit of drowning your breakfast cereal in it, either, like you did yesterday. Your father probably lets you get into spendthrift habits like that when you stay with him, but that’s beside the point. Oh, and your mattress, that’s another thing. It’s got to be turned every day without fail when you make your bed. I notice you didn’t do it yesterday. And that little mat by your bed—remember to shake it out every morning and hang it over the clothesline, but don’t go putting a peg in the middle where it’ll leave a mark.’
Seymour nodded resignedly at each instruction and finally she reached for her dressing-gown, folded as stiffly as an ironing board across the end of her bed, and he was free to escape. Only you couldn’t really call it escape—there wasn’t really any private space in that tiny house. He had a quick shower, because three minutes was the time limit Thelma had stipulated, then put on a clean shirt, jeans and the hated leather sandals she was making him wear because she said gym shoes were unhygienic in the middle of summer. He attended to his bed and went outside to hang up the mat.
Thelma’s back garden reflected the immaculate tidiness of the house. Even the grass blades on the patch of lawn seemed to grow slantwise in the same direction. A pebbled concrete path led to the gate in the alleyway fence, pointlessly, for the gate was never opened. It had strong bolts at the top and bottom, and also a padlock for extra security. Thelma wouldn’t dream of setting foot in the alleyway. Her house faced on to Victoria Road, which was respectable, but the houses on the far side of the alley belonged to Sparrow Street, which in her opinion definitely was not. There were no flower beds, just a line of papery hydrangeas, a pallid grey-blue like old school socks. The rubbish bin had Thelma’s house number stencilled on its side in big letters, like a threat of legal action if anyone dared steal it. Seymour felt depressed, looking around at the so-called garden.
Thelma summoned him for breakfast and watched keenly while he poured milk over his Cornflakes. ‘Tonight I might be a bit late,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a chiropody appointment straight after work, so round about five-thirty you could make yourself useful. Peel some potatoes and put them on to simmer. You can make sandwiches for your lunch, there’s cheese and tomatoes in the fridge.’
‘Thanks, that’ll do fine,’ Seymour said, though he detested cheese and tomato sandwiches.
‘I hope you won’t just laze around all day. You should really spend the time catching up on your school work for when term starts again. That last report of yours wasn’t anything to be proud about, was it? Your mum showed it to me. I know it’s not altogether your fault, your father butting in and causing as much upset as he can, but there’s never any excuse for laziness. You want to knuckle down and make something of yourself. Your poor mother, what she’s been through these last two years, you don’t want to add to her troubles by bringing home bad school reports like that one, do you? All the sacrifices she’s made…’
Seymour kept his eyes on his plate. He didn’t want to be reminded of all those sacrifices. It was as painful as listening to some creaky old tape played over and over, rewound when it reached the end and set in motion again.
‘She might call over to see you Friday night,’ Thelma said. ‘I don’t think it’s very wise, myself. You never know if he’s having her followed. I certainly wouldn’t put it past him. She should go to court and get the whole thing sorted out once and for all, proper rights of custody, that’s what she should apply for. If he finds out you’re staying here in Victoria Road, he can come in and take you away, and there’s not a thing I can do. I’m just a bystander, not even a relation.’
Seymour thought of his weak-willed father engaged in a confrontation with Thelma, and knew very well who’d come off second-best. But he’d had eleven years of experience in the futility of arguing with adults or expecting his opinions to be listened to. He put the spoon neatly in the bowl and carried it to the sink.
‘I’d be so embarrassed if he turned up making a scene. Victoria Road’s a quiet, decent street and I’ve got a good name here. Remember you’re not to go anywhere out the front, and if there’s a ring at the door while I’m out, you’re not even to answer it. I just wouldn’t know what to say to your mother if he turned up here and made off with you again, when she’s relying on me to look after you for the school holidays. Oh, it’s such a worry…Mind you, I don’t want you thinking I feel put upon, even though that doctor up at the clinic said I should avoid stress with my blood pressure being the way it is. I’m not one to turn my back on people in need and I know your mum’s got no one else to turn to. You certainly couldn’t very well stay in the flat with her out at work all day and him knowing the address. Well now, I’m off to work myself, and you should find plenty to do with catching up on your studies. If you want to sit in the lounge room, make sure you wash your hands before you go in there, young man, and don’t touch the photo albums or anything in the china cabinet.’
Seymour replaced the front door safety-chain as instructed, and watched through the stained-glass panel as Thelma walked briskly down the path. She clicked the iron gate shut behind her, glared at a stray dog that was lifting its leg against her privet hedge, and walked up to the corner of Victoria Road to catch the city tram. Seymour looked through all the stained-glass panels in turn, decided that even a rose-tinted Victoria Road was just as boring as amber or peacock blue, and wandered back to the kitchen. He washed all the breakfast things and put them away, peeled the potatoes to get that task over with and covered them with cold water in a saucepan. Then he went and sat on his bed, despairing, wondering how to fill the hours of the third long day. He’d already glanced through the stock of books in the living room, uninteresting books, most of them with old thick pages like blotting paper, unpleasant to the touch. There was a television set in there, but the controls were temperamental and he didn’t like to fiddle about with them and perhaps make the reception worse. Thelma was devoted to her ritual of evening viewing.
He had none of his own things with him, apart from a few changes of clothing. Some of his stuff was with his father in the caravan park and the rest was packed away in storage boxes while his mother was making arrangements to move from the flat. Starting from next month she had a new job as a live-in housekeeper, with accommodation provided for the two of them—herself and Seymour. It was a temporary job, and after that they’d have to wait and see what turned up. Everything was always temporary, always in a state of flux. He supposed dully that one day the tiresome see-saw of his life would stabilise, and he’d know for certain just where he was supposed to live, and with whom. Meanwhile he’d been parked with crabby old Thelma, and had to make the best of it. As she’d said, she wasn’t even a proper relation, just someone who’d once formed a casual and tenuous acquaintance with his mother through some church group. His mother, he realised with shame, was adept at imposing upon people and making them feel sorry for her. In reality, she didn’t need that sort of help from anyone. It was all a pose, the act she put on. Behind her disguise of pastel-framed glasses, floral dresses and thin martyred face, she was a born survivor, as tough as any street fighter.
The little back room became even more stifling as the sun sizzled across the concrete path. It was pointless trying to open the window for a breath of fresh air. There was no movement of air, nothing stirring at all out in the garden. He was supposed to draw the curtains when the sun reached the back of the house, but that made his pokey room feel even worse, like being locked up in a packing crate. Not ‘his’ room, exactly, Thelma had never called it that. She called it the ‘guest room’, though Seymour certainly didn’t feel like a guest. People were supposed to be deferential to guests and make them feel welcome. Thelma had bestowed no such courtesy on him. She’d made it clear that his presence was inconvenient, even though he hadn’t wanted to come and was bewildered by the whole arrangement. All he knew was that although he was supposed to spend three more weeks of the Christmas holidays with his dad, his mother had charged dramatically up to the caravan park and brought him home. Maybe she had a point—his father had made a boozy telephone call threatening to take Seymour away interstate for good. Seymour himself hadn’t been particularly worried. His dad had made the same threat once or twice in the past, but as he rarely had the funds to travel even to the next town to find work, an interstate trip held as much likelihood as a visit to the moon. His mother, however, thrived on drama, no matter how shallow.
He glanced at his new watch, which his dad, coming home tipsily one night to the caravan park, had given him in a fit of maudlin remorse. Seymour hadn’t wanted such a gift, but hadn’t known a compassionate way to refuse it, either. And it wasn’t really a gift, but more of a bribe for his permanent company.
It was only ten-thirty. Groaning with boredom and despair, he went up the hall and had another look through the coloured panels in the front door. All the houses in Victoria Road were exactly the same as Thelma’s—single-fronted red brick, each with a miserly sliver of front garden and one window set beside the door. Those windows looked like a gallery of eyes watching him, saying, ‘We see you, Seymour Kerley! Don’t you dare step outside while Thelma’s at work. She told you to stay inside, and we’re here to make certain you do!’ The whole street of one-eyed, spying houses was intimidating. Even their polished brass doorknobs looked like medals awarded for vigilance.
Seymour went back down the hall and out into the garden. His shirt clung damply to his armpits and his clay-coloured hair lay in plastered wisps across his forehead. He almost wished himself back in the caravan park, but that had been just as oppressive. His father, caught in a cycle of occasionally finding work, then being sacked for inefficiency, was not cheerful company. No place Seymour had ever lived in had been particularly pleasant as far as he could remember. He inspected the garden, hoping to relieve the tedium with some job that needed doing, but nothing was out of place, no hose to be coiled, not one weed growing amongst the sad hydrangeas.
He examined the gate, through which no one could possibly pass. It was as though Thelma believed that burglars prowled continually along the alleyway, just waiting for the chance to creep in and steal her tacky old TV set. The stiff, unused bolts couldn’t even be moved in their brackets. He put his eye to the gap above the padlock, but could see only a stretch of bluestone flags with a central guttering, and the shabby corrugated iron fences of the back yards opposite. He placed one foot on the crossbar and scrambled up—a small, skinny, uncoordinated boy made timid by a lifetime of constant nagging. Eleven years of lectures clattered away in his mind now, as though someone had pressed a control button: ‘Don’t climb on things, Seymour, you’ll rip your good shirt. Be careful, don’t go near strange dogs, you never know if they’ll bite. Did you remember to take your anti-histamine tablets? Don’t do this, don’t do that…’
The times in between, of staying with his dad, were in their own way just as restrictive. Uncertain, fluctuating moods had to be gauged and conversation trimmed accordingly, or you were likely to end up getting yelled at or sometimes hit. The blows, he knew, were never intended, but just rose from his father’s chaotic despair. It wasn’t just the job situation, either, Seymour reflected. Underneath all the blustering, his dad was scared stiff. He’d been labelled a no-hoper for so long, and that was his mother’s doing, with her sharp accusing tongue. You didn’t want someone bearing constant witness to your failure. Seymour could understand why a person would choose to drift and live apart. He could also understand why his dad so perversely clung to some remnant of family life—he was scared stiff of the uncertain future and loneliness. And that remnant happened to be Seymour himself. It was sad and depressing and he didn’t know how he could handle things. Living with either of them, it was best to keep very quiet and not obtrude at all and, under the circumstances, he hadn’t developed much expertise in climbing barriers or scaling any heights.
The forbidden alley looked sinister enough, thick with shadow, bordered by tall graffiti-scribbled fences. His knuckles ached from supporting himself at precarious chin height, so he drew his other foot up to the crossbar and stood at waist level, shutting his eyes quickly. His mother suffered from vertigo and kept her eyes shut even on escalators. She’d passed that phobia on to Seymour, or at least he’d always thought she had, but now to his surprise he discovered that this wasn’t the case. He didn’t feel giddiness when he opened his eyes and looked down from such a height, just relief as coolness from the flagstones wafted damply up into his face. The ground didn’t swirl about below him; he didn’t lose his balance and splatter his brains gorily all over the paving below.
He felt rather pleased with himself, and even defiant—a rare sensation for him. He glanced back over his shoulder at Thelma’s unbearably smug little house, then craned forward to see what was at either end of the alleyway. There were two major roads, busy with passing traffic. He manoeuvred one leg right over the top of the gate, sat on the frame for a moment to gather his courage, then dropped down on to the flagstones. It was like escaping from a cage.