Charlotte Wood - Brothers and Sisters

BROTHERS
& SISTERS

BROTHERS
& SISTERS
Edited by Charlotte Wood

Some of the stories in this collection use real events as their settings,
but they are stories, and the characters and all their actions are works of fiction.

First published in 2009

Introduction and selection copyright Charlotte Wood 2009
Copyright in individual contributions retained by authors

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

Email: info@allenandunwin.com

Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia www.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74175 822 1

Set in 12/16 pt Filosophia by Bookhouse, Sydney Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

* Virginia Peters

* Robert Drewe

* Cate Kennedy

* Michael Sala

* Charlotte Wood

* Roger McDonald

* Tegan Bennett Daylight

* Ashley Hay

* Nam Le

* Paddy OReilly

* Tony Birch

* Christos Tsiolkas

Your brother or sister, it might be said, is your other selfyour grander, sadder, braver, shrewder, uglier, slenderer self.

Your sibling is your most severe judge, and your fiercest defender. You must always rescue them. They always abandon you. They abandoned you only once, and you will never forget it. They are a pain in the arse. They save you. They will not be conquered. They never leave you alone. They always leave you to pick up the pieces. They wont grow up, wont let you grow up. They are a gang, and you its weary leader, its exhausted captive. They still get off scot-free. They protect you from evil, from yourself. They are the stone in your shoe, the thorn in your side, the one who remembers things you wont. They are the special one, your ugly mirror. They will not be fooled by your nonsense. They are the only one who makes you wake and worry in the stark, dark night. They make you laugh more and cry harder than anyone ever has, or will. They withhold things: little, silly things; bad secrets. They will never stop banging on about the past. They dont care about you. They see through your bullshit. They are an unfillable well of need. They give you everything, and you take it all. They are still angry; you wish they would let it go. They are always telling you to let it go. A certain piece of music makes you lock eyes. You hate what they do to your parents. Your parents love them, not you, and always have. You have not touched each other since you were children. You can destroy their precious, hard-won idea with one glance. When calamity befalls you, they are first through the door. In a crisis they disappear. You only notice them when theyre gone. They will never be gone. They steal your clothes, it doesnt matter; you own each other. Your friends think they are weird; they dont understand. Your friends think they are great; they dont understand. Your sibling is the only person who has ever hit you. You have never really hurt anyone but them. They are the loop, the circle of your life, and you can never break free. They have spent their life trying to break free from you, and it has broken your heart. They make you wish you were an only child. They are the reason you have an only child. They never speak to you directly, nor you to them: your lives are lived sidelong, desperate or tender or both, but you feel your shoulders touching at weddings or christenings or funerals; more and more, at funerals. One day it will be yours. They never mention your childhood. You recognise one another, this is your relief and your ruin. They are your duty. They stun you with the sudden presence and force of their goodness. They give you Christmas presents that show you are strangers. You are strangers. You love them; it cannot be explained why, or how. You can never forgive them, and you will die wanting their forgiveness.

The writers in this collection are as obstinately different from one another as your brothers and sisters are from you. They have written in surprising ways about the deep bondsbad, beautiful or brokenbetween brothers and sisters, and, in one piece, about our abiding suspicion of that happy, foreign creature, the only child. Twelve stories speaking of love and fear, separation and tenderness, confusion andsometimesreunion.

When Patrick Whites sister Suzanne died, he wrote that he and she had nothing in common beyond blood and a childhood. But for so many, of course, blood and childhood is what haunts us, and always will. This book is for you.

Charlotte Wood

ABOUT THE
OTHERS

Virginia Peters

I like the kitchen best because its the smallest and darkest room in the house. The little windows are overshadowed by a large pohutukawa tree, its knotted branches peering in through the window, tapping as the wind blows. Inside there is the soft orange glow of the oven light, the hum of the element as the meat cooks.

Im sitting on the bench, watching my mother. I can see her handslarge brown hands, the skin slightly loose like a glove, the nails strong and oval, the polish, fading, in a shade called ginger jam.

She cups a potato and, sliding the knife beneath her palm, she chops four ways then takes another. Once the basin is full of quarters, she starts on the carrots. I watch the rings wheel across the board. She talks to me while she worksor rather I talk to her, coaxing responses from her. She gets into a rhythm with the knife, the soft flow of her voice punctuated by the chop-chop-chop as her arm cranks. Every so often she stops what she is doing, and with a sigh lifts a crystal glass to her lips. I watch the lump in her throat draw back like a syringe and the dark liquid disappearing. I can smell sweet fumes atomising in the warm air as she exhales: dry sherry and Oil of Ulan.

Tell me more, I say.

Well, she begins, your fathers mother was a lady. Very elegant, despite the fact shed given birth to eleven children.

Im impatient. Just get to the swimming bit, I tell her.

Well, she says, luxuriating in the vowel as she thinks. Your grandma went to Point Chevalier one day. And once there, she took her clothes off, folded them neatly and placed them on a rock near the waters edge.

I lean forward on the bench. Was it winter? I ask, though I already know the answer.

Yes, it was winter. A cool day, quite blustery on the point. Thats why they knew she was not just cooling off, as you might in the middle of summer.

And?

Well, once in the water she swam as far as she could, all the way over the low mudflats until the water deepened; and she kept going, and going, and going until the sea dragged over her like a silver blanket. She puts her knife down and looks at me. And from that day onwards, Grandma was never seen again.

Why do you think she did it?

Probably because shed had enough, she says, placing the potatoes around the meat.