MINNIE

‘S o where you going today, man?’ Johnny has to raise his voice above the sound of the rain. He flicks a cigarette at his mouth and misses. It bounces off his lip and lands in a wide rivulet of rainwater that’s running across the school’s fore-court. It spins and turns until it joins the torrent of water flowing down the road.

‘Keep practising, Johnny.’ I offer him one of mine.

The rain is relentless in its bombardment. It overwhelms roads and pavements and pours in waterfalls off shop awnings and buildings. It drums on the roof above us and thunder cracks overhead every few seconds. The day has fallen into a murky twilight. Becak riders have their plastic-bag-covered heads low as they pedal hard against the river that flows almost to their knees. The big four-by-fours send waves twice that height to the sides of the road as they drive on. The waves slosh up the rise on the forecourt and break over the top. Johnny and I step back towards the school entrance to avoid wet feet.

‘Going to Toba with the other teachers. Just waiting for them to finish their classes.’

‘Cool, man. Lake Toba is cool. Beautiful.’

‘So I hear.’

Johnny is moving from foot to foot. He opens his mouth and then closes it again.

‘You OK?’ I ask.

‘Uh. Um. Yeah.’ He nods his head and looks around. We’re alone outside the school. Inside, students stand behind steamed-up windows, waiting for the rain to stop before leaving.

‘Actually, can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

An old man over the street is wading knee-high through the water. Suddenly he drops and disappears up to his chest in the brief river. He swim-splashes two or three feet and then pushes himself up and out of the water as if climbing out of a well. He carries on as though nothing has happened.

‘Oh man. He fell in the shit. Under the pavement is shit. What do you call it, where shit and piss goes?’

‘Sewers?’

‘Yeah, man. Sewers. He fell in sewer. The pavement must be missing there. Ha ha. Shitty toes now.’ Johnny is nodding his head up and down in rapid movements. ‘Ha ha. Shitty.’

He’s probably right. Shitty toes. The sewers run under concrete slabs which make up the pavement. Every now and then one is missing, leaving a metre-wide hole. You learn to look for them when you’re walking and it’s dry. The holes are easy to see, but under nearly a foot of water, they’re invisible.

‘Lucky he did not go under. Drown in shit and piss. Ugh. That’d be shitty. Ha ha.’

‘Certainly would be shitty. What did you want to ask, Johnny?’

‘Uh. Yeah. So, er, you had girlfriend, yeah?’

I answer, the words nearly jam behind my teeth but I push them out, ‘Yeah, I did.’

‘So, you kiss her many times?’

‘Yes, and other girls.’ Even though we’ve had this conversation in class already, I still add the extra information to see his reaction again.

‘Other,’ he pauses, smokes, flicks something invisible off his arm, ‘girls.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you do, you know, other stuff too?’

‘What other stuff do you mean, Johnny?’ I know exactly want he means but watching him squirm the words out amuses me in a Friday afternoon kind of way.

‘You know. Stuff.’

‘No, I don’t know.’

‘Yeah you do, man. You know. Stuff.’

‘What, stuff like pom-pom?’

‘Ha, yeah. Pom-pom. You do a lot of pom-pom with other girls?’

I laugh.

‘Some girls, yes.’

‘So, er, you ever do it with boys too?’ Johnny looks away and nervously pulls at his quiff.

‘No. I haven’t.’ I sense something is about to come from Johnny I don’t really want to hear.

‘It’s just that…’ He looks over his shoulder at the misted faces behind the large school window. ‘It’s not fair, you know?’

I don’t want to ask, but I have to, out of politeness to him and because I like him.

‘What’s not fair?’

‘I’d, er—I’d, er—well, so many people pom-pom with you, it’s not fair because I’d like to too.’

There is only the sound of the rain stamping its feet on the roof above us and traffic swashing through the road-river. It is the only sound for long moment, during which an immense awkwardness builds between Johnny and me like a sped-up film of a skyscraper going up. It is over when a blinding flash and simultaneous whip-crack of thunder announce that the block of concrete and steel between us is finished.

‘Sorry, Johnny, but, but…’ What to say? ‘You wouldn’t want to see me naked. It’s not pretty.’ What sort of a get-out is that?

‘I would,’ he mutters. His usual confidence is washing away with the storm.

‘I’m sorry, Johnny, but I’ve got to go and get my bag from inside. The classes have nearly finished.’ I hurry away, leaving him staring at the rain, and go into the steaming entrance of the school, pushing past moist, condensation-covered students. Any words of comfort for Johnny held at bay by a sudden, previously unknown homophobia. I’m shocked both at Johnny’s advance and my inability to deal with it like the liberal-minded bloke I like to think I am.

I reach to get my bag out from under my desk and a spray of sweat drops from my forehead. The AC must be playing up. I should go back and talk to him. I will. Now. But when I step back outside, I see him duck under the canopy of a bicycle becak and all I can do is watch as it labours off upstream, water sloshing over the footplate, Johnny’s feet getting soaked.

‘Eh, Newbie.’ The slap on my back is too hard.

‘Kim.’

‘Whassup, man? You looking drugged already.’ He pushes me away from the school doors as students start to pile out.

‘You know Johnny?’

‘Mr Cool with the leather?’

‘Yes, well, he just made a move…’ I stop. No, don’t. No big mouth. Not me. Johnny doesn’t deserve gossip.

‘On you? He made a move on you. Cool Johnny? No fucking way.’

Too late. Cocked-up again.

‘No, not a move, he just asked about my sexual leanings.’

‘Cool Johnny is gay. Fuck. Wait ‘til the girls in school hear this one.’

‘Kim. No.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘No. He’s a good kid. Don’t.’

‘Really? Why not?’

‘Because it’ll make me look a shit and he doesn’t deserve it.’

Kim contemplates the thinning rain.

‘Guess he is a kinda good guy.’

‘You hate racism, Septic, remember. It’s the same thing.’

He nods, looks at me, punches my arm.

‘You’re no fucking fun, you fucking Limey. OK. Let’s get the others and get to fucking Toba, man. Need some ‘shroooooms.’ The school door swings behind him as he goes back in. The pre-ordered and modern eight-seater taxi pulls in through the subsiding flow of water on the road and stops just in front of me.

Toba: out of the city. Countryside. Green. Fresh air. Space.

Kim, Marty, Jussy and Julie come out of the school door in a silent line. Kim slides the minivan door and lets the others in first, then me, and as I climb in he says, ‘Gay. Ugh. Not normal, man.’

I stop, half-in and half-out. There’s a glint in his eye and he pats my bum.

‘Just kidding. His secret’s safe with me.’

The door slides shut. Julie is double-checking the price with the driver.

‘Bagus bagus,’ she says and pats the driver on the shoulder. ‘For once it’s as per the quote.’

‘Are we picking Naomi up?’

‘She said she’s not coming if you’re going to be there, Newbie.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t worry, man. We’d rather have you and your schizo ways than her and her dreads.’

Four hours later, after a stop at a roadside shack to buy a case of beer, talking the very easygoing driver into letting us smoke grass, sharing it with him, discussing the Ten Commandments and getting it down to five, then singing the wrong words to Dylan songs while the jungle and villages pass by unnoticed in the dark, we arrive at the already sleeping town of Parapat, on the edge of Lake Toba, somewhat dazed and very stoned.

‘This picture isn’t her.’ Jane is sitting in the armchair. She looks like a small child who has aged too quickly. The chair towers over her like the jaws of some monster that is about to close its mouth. Her fingers stroke the edges of the photo frame. She is a small woman, but now she is even smaller. The weight of loss has pushed her down and compressed her into herself. Her red-rimmed eyes search the photo as though trying to find her place on a map, but not understanding why she can’t even find a landmark.

‘I have more recent photos,’ I say, ‘I’ll send you some.’

‘That would be kind. This is too old. Why don’t I have any of her as she is now? Was, is, was, now?’

I have the answer, but I don’t give it. Children become adults; they aren’t under the care of their parents anymore. They aren’t sweet and cute, they are problems, and worry, and sometimes only distant acquaintances. There is no time to photograph them when there is so much adult discussion to be made, so much disagreement and tongue-biting. The parents don’t understand their children and children don’t understand their parents. Everyone is too embarrassed to ask for a photo. If a photo is taken it isn’t a smiling, relaxed face that is captured, it is one which is full of age and concern and vanity. It’s easier and safer to look at the old photos, from a time when each was needed by the other.

Laura: vain, independent, beautiful, with a phobia of cameras.

‘Is there anything else you’d like from me?’ I ask.

Jane’s eyes squint, then glance around the room as if it is alien to her.

‘I have her clothes, I have her…’ What do I have? Now it is me who is lost. My mind goes through my apartment, through the bedside cabinet, pulling open drawers, flinging open the wardrobe and finding a winter coat and an over-sized nightshirt. It searches under the bed, slippers with holes where her big toe used to poke out. Into the kitchen, mugs, glasses, my mind pulls the kitchen drawers onto the floor. From the bottom one spills out all the detritus accumulated from broken things, spare things, things that are too good to be thrown out but too useless to be used. I kick it all across the floor. There is something, it is shining. What is it? It is broken, but it is her…

‘Necklace. I have her necklace.’

‘Necklace? Which necklace?’ Jane looks at me now. Her fingers still stroke the frame.

‘It’s silver. The chain’s broken. It’s got Minnie Mouse on it.’

‘Minnie Mouse?’

‘She said she used to love Minnie Mouse.’

(I used to love Minnie Mouse. My mother used to buy me Minnie Mouse stuff…)

‘I used to buy her Minnie Mouse stuff all the time.’

(But then I threw most of it away, when I started secondary school)

‘She threw it all away.’

(It hurt her)

‘It hurt me.’

(I kept this though)

‘She kept a piece?’

‘Yes. I’ll send it to you.’

(I keep meaning to tell my mum I’ve still got a bit)

‘She kept it because of you.’

Her eyes search mine.

‘I’d like it. Please.’

‘OK.’ But I want it. I want it all. I want to hold it all and feel it in my hands and against my face. I want to sleep in her nightshirt and under her coat, I want her slippers to put my hands in, to smell, I want her necklace, to feel its weight in my palm. She is my Laura. They are my things.

‘My little Minnie Mouse,’ whispers her mother.

‘I’ll bring it tomorrow.’