“Does the accused speak English? Why isn’t she answering me?” calls the red man, man in red piping.
“Yes, Your Worship. She understands you.”
“Plead, Mom!” I hear a voice and it sounds like Sanusha. Sanusha under the water I’m drowning in.
“Not guilty,” I say. I think I sound firm, solid, but then the big man, Mr Law, says, “Can you repeat that please.”
“Louder,” says Sanusha.
“Silence, miss, this is a court. We can’t have interjections from the observers.”
So I clamp my mouth, like Joe used to when he didn’t want to lie but didn’t want to tell the truth either.
“Not you,” says Tom, and now I recognise his voice.
“Oh, there you are, Tom,” I say.
“Yes,” he says, flint-eyed. “The plea, please, Thea.”
“Not guilty,” I say again.
The lawyers and prosecutors and policemen and judge all jump. They heard me this time and I laugh.
Panty boys.
Before long, the cops are escorting me down the stairs and I see Clay.
Lovely Clay looking grey.
He shakes his head at me, but all the time his eyes don’t leave me, as though he can’t believe it’s me in front of him. I wave. Kiss-kiss.
Now I can finally go back to sleep.
Part One
Preconceptions
Sanusha (aged 5): Important family facts
I am 5 and I know 3 things about Mom:
1. Her eyes don’t match.
2. Being happy is hard for her.
3. She doesn’t like Asmita Ayaa. (Mom says she does but I’m not stupid.)
I know 3 things about Appa, my father:
1. He’s not always at the university when he says he is.
2. He shaves 2 times a day, so he must be super-hairy.
3. He has friends who are ladies who are our little secret.
I know 3 things about me:
1. I’m not beautiful like my mother.
2. I like numbers the best.
3. I hate secrets.
3 + 3 + 3 = 9 important family facts.
If you take 9 and make 3 groups, there are 3 in each group.
Also, a polygon with 9 sides and 9 angles is called a nonagon. See?
There are 9 planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, plus the sun, which is actually a burning ball of gas. Pluto is the furthest away from the sun. Mercury is the closest.
Cats have 9 lives. (But our cat, Marmite, has only got 7 left. Appa rode over him once, and once he landed in the swimming pool and got his head caught under the pool net.) Beethoven wrote 9 symphonies, but I don’t care. I hate classical music, but I love Abba, especially “Money, Money, Money” because it’s about counting.
Also, 9 sounds a bit like “new”. And Mom taught me 9 is neuf in French, nueve and nuevo in Spanish and neun in German.
I like the number 9.
It takes 9 months to grow a baby. So this means that when I count to 9, I can make a new start.
I would like a new start.
Mom cries a lot. We’re still in this godforsaken garden flat with not enough room to swing a cat (but Mom says don’t swing Marmite).
Oh, there’s another thing I also know about Mom.
3 + 1 = 4
She’s smoking in the garden under the blue gum that Appa wants to pull out because it’s Australian. Appa doesn’t like Australians. Also smoking. He says Mom smells like an ashtray. She carries Stimorols in her handbag to make her breath sweet but they’re burny and they make my tummy growl. Appa says she’d better give up the cigarettes, or else. I’m not sure what else, but I think Mom knows. She still smokes sometimes, but she tries not to. That’s another secret I have to keep.
Mom’s lungs are going black inside her body, but she told me it helps her relax. Relaxing is good, but smoking is not good.
I think I should rub her feet, but she doesn’t sit down long enough. Mom walks up and down the cottage like a trapped animal, peeking out the window. I don’t know what she is waiting for. Sometimes Annie comes down the path, and Mom’s eyes shine. When Annie leaves, Mom’s eyes are dull like my shoes after a long day in the dust.
I have another granny, but she and Mom aren’t friends any more so she doesn’t want to meet me. Mom says I’m not missing anything, but it feels like she is lying. There are 5 things I think I am missing:
1. The other granny’s beautiful house, which Mom talks about sometimes.
2. The other granny’s cooking. When Appa isn’t around, Mom sometimes makes food from recipes. I love oxtail, which is meat, but Appa doesn’t ever eat meat.
3. Mom’s old toys. She says when she was little she kept them carefully in a big wooden box at the bottom of her bed. Mom says this granny probably chucked them out, but I don’t think so. Why would someone throw away toys?
4. Other photos of Mom’s brother whose name was Robbie. He died when she was small. Mom only has one photo, which she took the night she left that granny. (Appa says Mom got kicked out.) So Robbie only looks like Robbie in that one photo. I don’t think anyone looks the same always, even if they’re dead.
5. The tree house Mom’s dad made for her and Robbie. Mom says that granny chopped it out of the tree, but I saw it. One day, Mom thought I was sleeping in the car, and she drove to this big-enormous-gigantic house and then she stopped and looked at the tree for a long time. She drove away quickly when the gates started to open. When she got home, she gave me to Asmita Ayaa, and got into the bath to cry.
When I cry, and I don’t cry nearly as much as I did a long time ago when I was 4, Mom holds me tight. She tells me she is filling me with love from her skin to mine. Sometimes she holds me too tight so I can’t breathe nicely, but I like the way her body feels, so I turn my face to gulp some air. Appa taught me that word “gulp”. He also taught me “polygon” and “nonagon”. Fishes gulp in the water. Snakes gulp down whole frogs. I saw that on TV. I like TV but my grandmother, Asmita Ayaa, says I must only watch for 1 hour total a day, and because it is her TV, I have to listen to her for my obedience star on my chart. I’ve been thinking about it. 1 hour is 60 minutes, and there are 60 seconds in 1 minute, so 60 x 60 = 360 seconds in 1 hour.
So it’s 360 seconds of TV a day. That sounds like more than 1 hour.
That’s why numbers are better than words, but there are a few words I really like:
1. Smile
2. Kangaroo
3. Aeroplane
They make me feel like hot chocolate in my tummy.
*
Mom has been acting a bit funny. She is sad all the time. She wakes up sad. Even sunshine doesn’t make her happy. I love sunshine – it’s better than rain. When I go to see Mom, I open the curtains to let in the sunrays to make her feel happy, but it doesn’t work. Sunshine always works for