Begin End Begin: A #LoveOzYa Anthology Read online

  I need a manual. I need a mentor. I … have a mother. By the time she gets home after ‘long brunch’, it’s dark out. I’ve pulled the bed back over the sticky notes and any courage I may have had to broach the subject with her is gone.

  It’s not that she’s difficult to talk to. She’s never had a problem fielding questions about anything — drugs, sex, the psychic abilities that run in her family. We can talk about that joint she tried at uni, and that guy Alek from work who doesn’t come by anymore, but we hit a snag when it comes to the future. I guess any conversation about it shines a spotlight on the elephant in the room: she’s a fucking psychic. She has dirt on me before I’m dirty.

  I can ask her any question about my ability, and she’ll make some general comment about knowing a lot, and I’ll start unpacking it like, Hang on, what does she mean by that? Does she know I lied to her about LJ’s? Crap, she knows it wasn’t really a movie night. It was a house party. Somebody called the police. We bailed and spent the night in the park freezing our arses off, spewing vodka. Why won’t she just say it? Maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe I got away with it. Or is she just letting me think I did? Then she’ll smile and I’ll be like, Shit, can she read minds now?

  It’s not worth the anxiety.

  I have books open on the dining table while I smash out my modern history essay. She steps out of her shoes and instantly shortens. She approaches cautiously, like she’s afraid to disturb me.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Ferguson isn’t marking it.’

  She exhales. ‘Good. How was your day?’

  ‘Fine.’

  She reminds me it was my last day at Phats. I tell her I know.

  ‘No big emotions?’ she prompts.

  ‘Nope.’ I’m already up to unload the fridge. Reheating all the week’s takeaway leftovers is a crucial part of our Sunday-night ritual. ‘Big whoop, it’s the last time I’ll ever serve somebody fast food.’

  ‘That you know of,’ she says, and I start unpacking it like —

  ‘No, don’t do that,’ I tell her.

  She cackles. ‘Honestly, I see no more fast food in your future.’

  ‘Stop.’ I think about it. ‘And obviously. I’m too expensive.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  I get to work microwaving one ethnic dish at a time, and Mum parks herself on the couch. The other crucial element of our Sunday-night ritual is judging the contestants of whichever talent show is currently on the air. It’s an escape, an opportunity to crawl out of my own head.

  And it is until a teary piece to camera, in which Janelle from Narrabeen shares her struggle to be taken seriously as a spoken-word poet slash popstar. She’s all hope and optimism.

  ‘No-one can tell me there’s no future in this,’ Janelle says.

  The judges have just told her exactly that.

  ‘Anything is possible.’

  I want to ask someone if she’s right. I turn to Mum and hesitate.

  When I walk to school with Sophia, it’s a given we won’t take the direct route. Some mornings, we have to drop off her dad’s dry-cleaning, others, like this morning, we have to quest ten minutes out of the way so she can visit the cheaper convenience store, because a dollar difference overall really matters.

  ‘Yes.’ She’s indignant. ‘It really does.’

  When we get there, we immediately take different aisles. She lingers by the confectionary, and I head for the magazines. I ignore the bulky tomes to women’s fashion and male body dysmorphia, and start flicking through the thin gossip rags to the ads near the back.

  ‘You sure you don’t want anything?’ Sophia asks.

  I want a mentor. Somebody who knows what it’s like to be psychic, but who isn’t going to ground me for anything in my past or future. Mum used to scoff at the flashy psychic hotline ads in the magazines she nicked from work. She said they felt too razzle-dazzle to be legit, but I dunno, I’m willing to give them a shot.

  Except the ads with mysterious, glammed-up psychics are gone, replaced with dating-show recap columns written by psychics who just look like normal journalists. No fancy jewellery. No starry-night banners across the top. They don’t even list their toll numbers.

  Sophia heaps her selections on the counter. ‘You done?’

  ‘No.’ I put the magazine back on the rack and head over. ‘I can just search online like a normal person anyway.’

  Sophia taps her card and runs her arm through the plastic bag before the payment clears. The moment the register chimes, she drags the bag off the counter. I follow her out and we’re absorbed by the amorphous blob of corporate suits ambling towards the train-station underpass.

  ‘It can’t be that hard to find a psychic who isn’t your mum or a charlatan,’ she says as we descend the stairs. There’s a lady sitting on an upended milk crate at the other end of the tunnel. ‘What about her?’

  The woman is spruiking palm readings and evil-eye necklaces to morning commuters. She is very much a charlatan.

  ‘Yeah, no.’

  ‘Yeah, yes. Besides, what’s the worst that’ll happen? She’ll con you into buying a necklace.’

  ‘But, I …’ We’re too close to keep talking about her.

  According to the cardboard sign leaning against the wall, she’s the Astounding Anne-Marie. We stop near her and she motions to her spare milk crate. It really doesn’t look comfortable, but Sophia pushes on the small of my back until I step forward. I drop my bag by my feet and sit down. It feels like I’ve taken an oversized cheese grater to the arse.

  ‘Hello, my child.’

  Ugh. I was worried that was how she was going to play it.

  I look to Sophia, but she’s already out of the tunnel.

  ‘How may I help you?’ Anne-Marie asks. There’s a cardboard sign at her feet that lists her services and prices.

  I’m here now. I might as well …

  ‘I actually …’ My eyes drift back to the cardboard sign and the texta’d prices. I take out my wallet to mitigate the guilt. I fish out a gold coin. ‘I wanted some advice.’

  She licks her bottom lip. ‘There is not much Anne-Marie does not see and cannot help with.’

  Ugh. Third person.

  She accepts the coin. ‘What is it, child?’

  I readjust myself on the crate. It makes it worse. ‘I was wondering, is it possible to change the future? Or are you stuck with a bad one?’

  ‘Oh.’ She smiles warmly. ‘If you are afraid, Anne-Marie can make sure she only tells you the good things.’

  ‘I … meant, for me.’ I check over my shoulder for guys from school. The tunnel’s practically deserted. I lean in. ‘I’m a psychic.’ It never really stops sounding stupid when I say it out loud.

  She makes a face and I think the discomfort of the seat is getting to her, too.

  ‘There’s this girl. We’ve been … I don’t know if it’s flirting, but we’ve been close for ages, and yesterday I kissed her.’ Anne-Marie nods and her eyes dart to my palms as if they hold the answer. ‘I know our future, it doesn’t end well. But is it definite? Can I change it? Is that ethical? Are there cosmic repercussions? Would I be creating an alternate timeline, and in avoiding one future, does that mean the other futures I’m aware of but haven’t lived won’t happen?’

  Anne-Marie laughs. ‘Oh, darling, you read too many books. Give me your hand. Palm reading is ten dollars.’

  ‘Honestly, I —’

  She takes my forearm and pulls my palm closer to her. I gasp and it’s a roller-coaster dip out of myself and into … her. There’s a hospital bed, a young girl and a stern-faced doctor. The doctor’s talking. He calls the girl Bridget. I feel a faint sensation on my palm. I focus on it. The details blur, the doctor’s voice muffles, but the sensation becomes a touch. I collide with myself, and the Astounding Anne-Marie is tracing the lines of my palm with her thumb.

  ‘Bridget,’ I gasp.

  Anne-Marie is too involved explaining the different lines to me and what they mean.

  ‘
Bridget,’ I repeat. ‘Who is she?’

  Her thumb eases off my skin. She blinks at me.

  ‘Is she in hospital?’ I ask.

  ‘You see.’ Her eyes are wide. Her grip on me tightens. ‘What have you seen? Tell me.’

  I stammer. I didn’t see much and I’m still getting over being in somebody else’s future. I offer her something. ‘I saw a doctor.’

  It isn’t enough.

  ‘What did he look like?’

  The more I try to recall details, the hazier my recollection. The future isn’t mine and it’s like my body is rejecting it.

  Anne-Marie pulls on me harder. ‘Is my baby going to be all right?’ Her voice cracks.

  I snatch myself out of her hands. I don’t know how to answer her.

  ‘Tell me. Tell me, please.’ Her purple shawl rises and falls with every short, shallow breath. Whatever gift I have, she doesn’t. ‘Do you want money? I do not have much, I …’ She’s fishing in her bum bag, plucking out shrapnel.

  People invade the underpass with heavy steps and loud conversations. A train must’ve just arrived. Anne-Marie’s eyes are locked on me, and mine, on everyone passing. Randoms. School kids. Matt and Aidan from geography. They snigger on the way past. I’m gonna cop it in class.

  ‘Look, I … have to go to school.’

  I stand and scoop up my bag. Anne-Marie pleads for me to stay. I almost run.

  I don’t usually consider my abject failure as a human being during geography (that’s what maths is for), but this morning, it’s weighing on my mind. Mostly because Matt doesn’t let me forget it. At regular intervals, he leans his chair back into my desk, rubs his temple with the fingers of one hand, twinkles the fingers of the other and reels off a psychic prediction. They get less and less funny, and they weren’t exactly side-splitting to begin with. Each one reminds me of Anne-Marie, how desperately she needed comfort, and how I let her down.

  Matt leans back. He does the stupid thing with his fingers again. He’s going for psychic, but his delivery reads more like ghost. ‘In your future, I see … you being pathetic and visiting an old lady psychic in the underpass.’

  Okay, so he’s not wrong. I jump the fence at recess. I have fifteen minutes, thirty-five if I skip pastoral care. I take the back streets so there’s less chance of somebody spotting me going AWOL. I jog as fast as I can, for as long as I can, which is not very fast, or very long, but I get to the underpass quicker than I thought was possible. Not quickly enough, though. Anne-Marie and her milk crates are gone.

  Sophia saves my seat in modern history with an empty chocolate wrapper. I dust it onto the floor and she asks where I was at recess. Before I can answer, she supersedes it with a more urgent question. ‘How did this morning go?’

  ‘I got nothing. She’s a fake.’

  ‘Damn.’

  I only feel half-bad because it’s only a half-lie. I didn’t get a solution to my Nina problem, which is what Sophia means, but I did get something: I’m shocking at using my gift to help others. Worse still, I know something bad happens to Lara. If Sophia comes to me for help, and I fuck it up … I don’t know what I’ll do.

  ‘Chocolate?’ she offers.

  I have homework, but I fire up the TV instead. I’ve spent so much of the past twenty-four hours worrying about futures that I feel depleted. I need to veg out and channel-surf and watch dumb game shows and forget about everything.

  Mum gets in around six. She hangs her keys on the hook by the door, peels off her heels and death stares. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  I’ve sunken so deep into the couch that I’m practically horizontal. It’s hard to speak. ‘Nothing’s wrong. What would make you think that something’s wrong?’

  ‘Besides the body language?’ She walks through to the kitchen. ‘Russia.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Mum remains silent until the game-show host asks the next question. ‘Which country is home to one-quarter of the world’s fresh water?’

  I wait for it. The contestant answers, ‘Iceland,’ and the buzzer sounds. The game-show host is sorry, the correct answer is …

  Mum cackles. I sit up and look over the back of the couch. ‘Mum!’

  ‘What?’ She’s biting back a smirk. ‘It’s not as if I asked about Nina.’

  She consults the menus stuck to the fridge and I wonder what she knows and how long she’s known it. She eliminates one of the menus, glances at the two remaining, and then at me. ‘Don’t do that with your face. If you just told me about your life, I wouldn’t have to look ahead.’

  ‘You don’t have to look ahead, period. It’s like reading a diary I haven’t written yet.’

  ‘But she’s so lovely. We get on well. We will get on well, once you sort out your little dramas.’ She consults the menus again. ‘Chinese for dinner?’

  Mum already knows. I don’t know why she bothers asking. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Attitude!’ she warns. She opens the fridge and plucks out a container of chopped celery. ‘And don’t swear.’

  I stammer. ‘What? I didn’t …’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Oh, come on. This isn’t fair. Nobody else has fights with their parents in four dimensions.’

  She chews on a stick of celery. ‘We’re not fighting. You want to see fights with kids? Just you wait. Brandy is a piece of work.’

  ‘Ah!’ I cover my ears. ‘Fuck, Mum. Spoilers.’

  She threatens me with what’s left of the celery stick.

  ‘Sorry.’ I drop my hands.

  ‘Forgiven. Mongolian lamb, lemon chicken and mixed vegetables?’

  I nod.

  She dials the restaurant and even with the phone to her ear, she won’t drop the subject of my unborn daughter. ‘How can you not know about Brandy?’ she asks. ‘Haven’t you had a peek?’

  I can’t control it. I’m too scared to try, and I’m too chickenshit to admit it. I deflect. ‘Why would I name my daughter after alcohol?’

  ‘The singer,’ Mum corrects.

  I’m blanking.

  ‘You don’t know Brandy? R&B, voice like silk.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing.’

  ‘She was the soundtrack to my uni years.’

  ‘You do realise I was not alive for them, right?’

  Mum sighs and someone answers on the other end. ‘Jake, hello!’ She laughs. ‘Yes, it’s Sarah.’ She laughs again. We really order too much takeaway. ‘We’re after dinner … Well, what would you recommend?’

  I roll my eyes. I hate this shtick.

  Cue the shit-eating grin. ‘Mongolian lamb, lemon chicken and mixed vegetables?’ she repeats back at him. ‘Sounds perfect. I’ll send Adam up in twenty? Wonderful.’ She ends the call. ‘Have a shower before you go, will you? I can smell the hormones on you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I’m almost out of the room when she stops me. ‘You know, I saw your father when I was about your age. My friends and I were at the corner shop buying snacks for a sleepover. I grabbed the buttered popcorn and your dad just popped right into my head.’ She taps it, as if to clarify which head. ‘He swept me off my feet. I didn’t actually meet him until my last year of uni. By the end of our first date, I knew we weren’t going to last.’

  ‘Well, you weren’t wrong there.’

  ‘No, I was not.’

  It makes me think of the Nina and Sophia futures. I wonder if it’s possible. ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes, hon?’

  ‘Can we be wrong?’

  She takes the last of the celery and tosses the container in the sink. ‘I’ve never been.’

  ‘I just really don’t buy that I’m going to name a kid after some retro R&B singer.’

  ‘Well, I’d tell you, but what is it you say?’ She screws up her face. ‘Rah, spoilers!’

  ‘I sound nothing like that.’

  She shrugs and lets the tap run. She tips the accumulated plates and containers into the sink and adds a liberal amount of detergent. Watching her, the thoughts and fut
ures swim around in my head, they mingle and knot and I remember what she said about Dad.

  I mightn’t have a manual or a mentor, but I have a mother.

  ‘Hey, question.’

  She looks back at me. ‘Mm?’

  ‘If you knew it wasn’t going to work with Dad, why would you even go there?’ It’s the most direct question about living with our ability I think I’ve ever asked her.

  She tilts her head to one side. ‘Oh, bless.’

  The Chinese restaurant at the end of our street is steeped in our history. When the three of us moved west, it was the Oh Yum Bistro. We would order from images on an illuminated menu board, and sit at the round tables meant for larger families. I would play Wheel of Fortune with the lazy Susan, spin and eat and spin and eat until Mum would still the wooden disc with one hand and tell me to stop playing with my food. She and Dad would be having one of their conversations. She saw his mistakes before he’d even made them, and he said she didn’t have any faith in him. She didn’t, no. When Dad moved out, and more people moved west, Oh Yum became The Bistro. It was dark and dramatic, with home-brew beer options written on the wall in chalk. Mum was halfway through the list the night she gave me the, ‘Yer a wizard, Harry,’ talk in Year 7. She did it just like that, too, thought I’d appreciate the intertextuality. We quickly realised it wasn’t the kind of chat we could have in public, so we became takeaway customers exclusively.

  Whenever I come to collect, the smell and sound of sizzling meat makes me miss the old days when Mum knew everything and I didn’t know how. When we didn’t have to hide in case someone overheard.

  There are three customers in the waiting area, but my eyes are drawn to one. She has a navy-blue streak dyed into her hair. Mum’s insistence that I shower before grabbing dinner suddenly makes sense.

  Nina flicks through a magazine too quickly to absorb any details. My heart knots itself. I want to shout her name and exchange stupid jokes, but the air between us is thick with what happened, and what will happen. I don’t want to wade through it to get to the vacant seat beside her. I want to linger by the door, hope my order is called before hers, and hide my face if it isn’t. But can I avoid her that easily? Our futures are entwined.