Lemon People
Category C: Highly Commended (2023) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Brody Salmond
The car limped onto the driveway of chalky stone. Its muffler rattling and sputtering. A shrill whine upon braking. Rust crusted at the edge of its doors, spotted and blemished against the banana-yellow paint. Danny sat in the passenger seat with his head hung low. He looked at his legs as they swung. Daydreaming, one foot drummed against the car door.
‘Stop that,’ the back of Joanne’s hand knocked at Danny’s leg and the swinging stopped. ‘Out, now.’
‘No.’
‘I don’t have time to argue, out.’
‘Do I have to?’
‘You do if you want to stay at Ben’s tomorrow.’
‘That’s not fair!’
‘Tough.’
With a pout Danny surrendered. He slammed the door and his arms hung limp at his sides as he stamped with his tiny might across a lawn choked by fists of crabgrass. The squat unit had thin chipboard walls. Leprous and sun-bleached paint flaked from them, dusting the earth below in a pale spearmint. He hopped up the small concrete landing, fetched keys from his pocket, and opened the flywire door. Joanne followed.
‘We need to hurry, no dallying.’
‘Ok.’
The fancy clothes that his mum had given him the day prior hung from the closet doorhandle on plastic hangers. A pair of khaki slacks and a tartan button up shirt, small and smart, recently pressed. Danny navigated across the littered and paint-stained floor of his room on tiptoe, avoiding the loose Lego, the paper planes bent at the nose, the tiny green army men. He changed into the fancy clothes, tossing his school uniform on the floor. The shirt cuff stopped an inch short of his wrist. He tugged, but the cuff refused. He couldn’t button up his sleeves.
‘Mum!’
‘What?’
‘Help!’
Joanne’s shoes clacked as she made her way to Danny’s room. She looked at him, the shirt too small, the slacks too high above the ankle. She sighed and rustled through his closet, pulling out the collared shirts, inspecting the tags, placing them back. One shirt left. She looked at the tag overlong. Size 9. Silence ate. She sighed again.
‘We’ll have to make that one work.’ She rolled up his sleeves. ‘Still handsome, but it looks like we’ll have to go shopping.’
‘For a Nintendo?’
‘Hah!’ She snorted, ‘for clothes.’
‘It's always clothes.’ He looked down at his sandals, toes wriggling like grubs.
‘So those aren’t your toys on the floor?’
Danny scowled as he bunched his tiny fists.
‘Come on, we need to fix that mop of hair.’
Danny stood on a small four-point chair. The seat was the colour of oatmeal and made of polypropylene, the legs beneath were metal, painted black. Koondoola Primary was written on the back with red marker. Three of the chair legs stood on the bathroom tiles. The one that didn’t was supported by a stack of cardboard coasters. Atop the coasters were inks earthy illustrating a steam engine powering through the Pilbara, helmed by a conductor stern, pioneering. Cursive underneath the conductor rolled, ‘Adventure Australia. An outback wild.’
Danny stared at himself in the sliding panel mirrors. A small cabinet space dwelled behind. Medicines lived there. The cough bottle, the stinging bottle, the knits bottle. Joanne stood behind him and ran a brush through his thick, blonde hair. He pouted.
‘Is it done yet?’
‘Nearly Danny, just be patient.’ She glanced at her watch. A small face of fake pearl with a frayed pleather strap. Her brushing hurried. Haste loosened the tangles. The bramble of Danny’s hair crunched and snapped.
‘Ow-uh,’ Danny wriggled worm like, and the chair rocked.
She clutched Danny’s shoulders, steadying him, ‘Christ Danny! Stand still, if you brushed your hair in the morning like I asked, this wouldn’t happen.’
The brushing gentled with each loosened knot and then relented. Danny was released. He jumped from the chair. His centre parted hair drooped loosely around his chin, puffy at the ends. Joanne drew her face close to the mirror, turned, inspected, and sighed.
Danny watched as she slid the mirror panel open and grabbed the little glass bottle that went ‘psst-psst’ when she pressed the top of it. She sprayed the bottle at her neck. It left her smelling like custard. Krem Broo-lay she called it. Then more from behind the mirror, the pads and powders and bottles that looked like peach, petal, plum. She applied them in ritual seldom practiced.
Danny looked at the tiles, eggshell, square cut, cracks in the mortar. They dipped and sank near the bathtub. On tiptoe he paced the bathroom, determined not to step on a crack for the sake of his mother’s health. He headed toward the drooped tiles. He stuck the tip of his tongue out as his balance teetered. Lost in the balancing game he bumped into her.
‘Jesus, Danny can you give me some room? Why don’t you watch tv or something?’
‘This is taking forever.’
‘It’s a short forever.’ She twisted and turned in the mirror and her dress swayed limp at the bottom. The dress was blue and dark as troubled ocean, sewn-in patterns of little white flowers dotted it.
‘What type of flowers are those?’
Her gaze steady on her reflection, ‘Petunias.’
Danny fumbled the word ‘Pe-Choon-yas.’
She turned her head in the mirror one last time and forced a grin. She turned to Danny.
‘It’ll do, have you been to the toilet?’
Danny bunched his lips tight and looked up at the ceiling.
‘If you need to think about it you may as well go.’
Danny stomped to the toilet next door. The water splashed, bubbled, and flushed. He walked back to the bathroom and on tip toes tried to reach the tap. Joanne turned it for him. He washed his hands, dried them, and smiled big at his mum.
‘What happened to your shirt?’
His shirt, creased at the bottom, hung lank over his slacks. He held his arms out while she tucked his shirt back in. She inspected him one final time.
‘Handsome man.’
She always called him handsome in that shirt.
‘Time to hit the frog and toad, come on.’
A light tap on the behind set Danny into motion, and Joanne followed behind.
They made their way down the hall. Joanne turned on the lights in Danny’s room.
‘You’re cleaning this up before going to Ben’s, are we clear?’
‘Ok.’
Danny was shooed along, past the kitchen and into the lounge. Joanne disappeared into her room, a no-no space for Danny. So Danny hopped on the cream, faux-suede couch and swung his legs. Officially a big boy, his heels would hit the couch’s wooden frame on the backswing. Dumpf, Dumpf, Dumpf. He spied the room as his feet drummed along. The shaggy rug that looked like a dog in mud, the coffee table spotted with pale wormy ringlets, the phone that sat next to mum on the couch, the bunny ears on top of the television called an-ten-na, the VCR he wished was a Nintendo.
Muffled from the bedroom Joanne asked, ‘are you kicking the couch again?’
‘No.’ He stopped swinging his legs.
‘You better not be,’ the door from the no-no room opened, the light was left on. ‘Come on, let’s go.’ He watched her close the front door behind them, she pushed on it a little just to make sure it didn’t move.
Danny ran to the car. Joanne followed with keys in hand. A process, she jiggled the car key in the keyhole until the little lock jumped up and once inside she reached over to let Danny in. He got in the passenger seat; his forehead peeked above the dashboard. Joanne put the keys in the ignition. They jangled with a twist and the car coughed.
‘Come on,’ Joanne whispered and turned the key hard, and the car coughed again. She held the key twisted and the coughing continued. No rumble, no throaty hum, just sputters. She laid her forehead on the steering wheel.
‘Please.’ The car coughed, and coughed, and coughed, refusing to budge from the chalky driveway.
‘What’s wrong.’
‘The engine’s just a little cold.’ She tried the ignition again, and again, and again, now stomping the accelerator with every twist of the key. ‘Come on, come on.’ Her pleas to the accelerator grew desperate, as though force could mend the broken, as though the world pondered the plans of mortals in its turning. No coughs at all with the key turn, just the creak of the park brake as she booted the accelerator and the car rocked gentle as a crib. Then defeat. A silence feasting. Danny mute and shrunken in the seat next to her. She sniffled and blinked hard. Her eyes misted.
‘Not you too, not now.’ A crack in the voice. She sniffled again, followed with a suck. Danny did the same thing when he got sick. He sat quiet and put his hand on her forearm. He couldn’t reach her shoulder. She shrugged it off.
‘Get out of the car’
‘Is it broken?’
‘Out of the car, now.’
‘Are we still going to Uncle’s?’
‘Outside Danny! Now!’
She pointed at the house wild, a thin stream of snot running to her lip, her eyes narrowed and blaming. Smudges at the powder on her cheeks. Danny cried. Joanne left for the house. And as the night is dark and lonely for grown-ups so too it is for children. Danny followed.
They sat next to each other on the couch. He cocked his head, noticing how she held the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could thumb through her purse. Her face scrubbed clean, pale. She sighed as she looked at the notes, one yellow, one purple.
‘Our address is 36A Tempany Way.’
Danny swung his legs and Joanne tapped him on the leg. He could tell she was serious because her eyebrows were raised.
‘Yes, we’re ready now…first available…ok, thank you.’ She hung up the phone.
‘When are we going?’
‘Soon, we just have to wait a little.’
‘I’m bored.’
‘I’ll put on the tele.’ Joanne thumbed the remote and The Simpsons popped up on the screen. She left for her room and closed the door. Danny heard some odd sounds, shifting, shuffling, thudding, the sound of rummaging. She returned with two more yellow notes.
‘What’s that for?’
‘It’s for tonight.’
‘Does uncle Ray need money?’
‘He doesn’t. Watch the tele.’
‘I’ve seen this one.’
Danny fidgeted. Danny paced the hallway. Danny picked at the cracking paint in his room which his mum had told him not to. Danny threw the wonky paper planes and watched them crash. Danny mashed his tiny green army men underfoot. Danny started singing. Danny felt the minutes stretching. And Danny returned, plonking himself on the couch.
‘I’m bored.’
‘Not now Danny, watch tv.’
‘I’m bored of tv.’
‘Stay bored then.’
‘Maybe if you bought me a Nintendo.’
‘We can’t afford it!’
‘You always say that, but you have money for Uncle Ray.’
Joanne stormed off to her room, she returned with a ceramic pig. Large as a footy, a slot in the arch of its back, a rubber plug under its belly. It jingled and sloshed with the sound of coins.
‘Have it all.’ She released the plug and the contents of the pig spilled. Tiny strobes of glittering light dancing on the fall. Coins clattered. Some ran away under the couch, others the TV stand. A tapestry of small riches splayed across the shag carpet. Gold dotted amongst the heaped silver, hundreds of coins, maybe a thousand, resplendent and tempting. Danny stared at his mum, and in the long silence reached for a gold amongst the silvers.
‘You don’t care.’
A sharp beep outside their house bought no attention. The sobs of a woman escaped the chipboard walls and stilled the taxi’s horn, its engine humming as it drove off without fare. And the other yellow car, the one cragged with rust, sat silent. A lemon ripe as any other.