John Marsden - Incurable

‘Just a man who lived with us.’

‘Where was he from?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Were he and your mum like, thinking of getting married?’

‘I don’t know. He was stupid.’

‘You didn’t like him?’

‘No.’

Gavin was starting to clam up. I didn’t want that so I got off the subject of Ken. But it seemed like I was too late. Gavin had again turned into the stubborn self-contained little ball of silent grimness that I knew so well. After about ten minutes of saying nothing he got up and padded off down the hall towards his bedroom. I assumed that was it for the evening and he had shut down. Gavin has left the building. But to my surprise he came back a few minutes later, carrying something.

It was quite dark by then. I turned a light on, so he could see my mouth.

I recognised the envelope when I saw it. My mum wrote to the Red Cross after the war when we had been trying to find Gavin’s mum and little sister. She wrote in Gavin’s name, seeing it was his family. The answer, when it came, was pretty blunt. A couple of sentences describing what the Red Cross had been doing and where they’d gone for information, and then came the punchline. It was like a punch all right. We’re extremely sorry to tell you that our enquiries suggest that your mother, Mrs Fisher, was murdered in the firstfew hours of the war and no trace has been found of your sister, Rosie. Given the child’s age and the chaotic and extremely dangerous situation at the time we are not optimistic about finding her…

Now Gavin seemed to think it was very important that I read the letter again. I couldn’t work out why but I got it out of the envelope and opened it. And realised almost straight away that it was a different letter. I glanced at the date. This one had come quite recently, about a month ago. Funny, Gavin had never mentioned it to me.

I read it and my skin got that crawling prickling feeling I’ve had only a few times, for example when I’m looking at a large black automatic weapon that’s pointing straight at me or staring down a cliff and seeing Gavin about to fall to his death. God, what was it about Gavin? Would I ever understand him? Did he have serious mental problems? We are delighted to inform you that despite our fears for the safety of your sister and our doubts about finding her, we have been successful in locating her. As you know, we rely upon people registeringfound children with us, but for various reasons many people do not do this. However, a letter received in this office recently started us on a new search for Rosie, and enquiries have established that she appears to be living at 87 Green Street, Marlon, with a family named Russell. It appears that Rosie knew this family before the war, and they have been caring for her since they found her in a prison camp in the first few days of the war. You would probably be aware that many unofficial living situations have developed as a result of the war, and many of these are not yet sanctioned or even recorded. We have referred Rosie’s case to the Department of Child Relocation, but they have a large workload, and it may be some time before they can address her situation. In the meantime, it was our impression that Rosie was as happy as could be expected, and that the Russells are taking good care of her. Rosie was delighted to learn that you had survived the war, and she is looking forward to a reunion with you. Privacy legislation prevents us givingyour contact details to the Russells but they have consented to your being informed of their address and telephone number.

I knew that if I let my face show my feelings, I would sit there gazing at Gavin like he was an alien or something out of a freak show so I tried not to frighten him off, but instead to look as though it was the most normal thing in the world for you to be uninterested when your missing sister is found after a year or so. He was watching my face pretty carefully though, and I’m not sure whether he was fooled.

So I said to him, ‘Do you want to go see her?’ When he hesitated I decided I needed to be more positive, and hopefully that might transmit a little energy to him, so I changed it to, This is fantastic. Let’s go see her this weekend.’

Well, he didn’t say no. That’s about all you can say for him. And that’s why we were in the city, staying at Lee’s and set for a reunion that I figured probably wasn’t going to be as emotional as the ones on TV or in magazines. I even thought of going to the place myself first, to suss out what was happening, to set it up, but then thought that would be too sneaky, and not fair on Gavin.

Life at Lee’s was pretty chaotic. What am I talking about, pretty? It was chaotic, and it wasn’t pretty. I don’t know how he put up with it, considering how precise and controlled he is about everything. I mean, the guy’s a piano player, not a guitarist. He’d rather do chemistry than drama, rather play chess than Bullshit or Spoons, rather swim laps than run around the edge of the pool chucking people in and doing bombs. And here he is living in the middle of Lord of the Flies.

He was embarrassed about it, and kept giving me guilty little looks, as if to say sorry, and a couple of times he did actually say, ‘Sorry about the mess,’ ‘Sorry about the noise,’ ‘Sorry about the way they’re carrying on.’ But he didn’t seem very good at looking after the kids. Besides Pang there was Phillip, who was nine, Paul, who was seven, and Intira, who was four. Between them they could put together quite a party. Lee’s method was to ignore them, then suddenly chuck a tantrum and rant and rave at them and hand out rules and punishments, which shut them up for a short time before the whole thing started again. I could see that he was going crazy with the strain of it, and I didn’t blame him.

They only had a tiny apartment, which was all he could afford, seeing how most of his money was coming from government allowances.

The little guys accepted Gavin really well, especially Intira, the four year old, who immediately adopted him. It was pretty funny watching the effect on Gavin. At first he was uncomfortable and off balance, but she quickly softened him up, and within an hour he was starting to enjoy it but at the same time trying to preserve his Mr Tough Guy exterior. So he’d be on the floor, with her climbing all over him and pulling his hair, and he’d roll her around and tickle her, and then glance at me to see if I thought this was uncool. I had to work hard to not look in his direction, in the hope that he’d relax and get an idea of life in a real family.

I wondered if he’d be the same with his own sister as he was with Intira. He could have been doing this with Rosie.

Pang and I got dinner; Lee seemed incredibly relieved and grateful to be let off for once, and I didn’t blame him. I could see that none of this came easy for him, but I admired him for sticking to it. I just hoped it didn’t drive him straight to the loony bin. They were nice kids, but they were going a little stir-crazy, in an apartment the size of a double garage and with Lee not being very good at laying down rules and regulations.

But during dinner Intira was poking Paul, Paul was flicking food onto Pang’s plate, Pang was telling them both to shut up, Paul knocked his glass of milk over, Intira decided she wanted to sit next to Gavin, Paul squeezed up next to Gavin just to make Intira feel bad, Intira screamed at Lee when he told her she couldn’t move, and then she threw a piece of bread at Pang because she laughed… It was pretty much like that all the time, and the worst thing was that it didn’t seem out of the ordinary for any of them. I had trouble believing the way Lee bumbled around the edges, so unlike the decisive, strong, calm and collected Lee that I’d known for a long time, and whom I’d gotten to know so well during the war.