The Styx. Patricia Holland

don’t continue to show sufficient interest in him; and contempt when they do.

      The third crony, generally an afterthought and only included when they need him, is Warren, the fixer. Rabbit Warren is on the bottom of the pecking order and crony social hierarchy, and definitely not an investor in terms of cash. He used to manage his parents’ gift shop, but when that went broke, he has worked on and off at Styx River, calling himself head stockman, manager, overseer—whichever title takes his fancy at the time. The highlight of his life always involves something dodgy, more often than not borderline illegal, and in many cases straight out illegal. When it suits, especially when travelling overseas, thus limiting the chance of being sprung, he’ll claim to be a police officer—always a sergeant; significant that it’s never inspector. These days he’s a communications officer for the police. Still not a real policeman.

      The four cronies have always been a tight group. Even when one of them drinks too much and abuses one or the other of them, the rift is only ever temporary. They always have a plan to hatch, and I think they love the togetherness of hatching plans, probably more than the plan itself.

      You’d think this sort of stuff would wash over me. Especially when I was five, and even when I was ten. But not much happened to me, ever, and while my syndrome limited me physically, my mental faculties were intensified, so anything, everything was noticed. And noted for future rememories.

      Rememory 6

      Rett Syndrome does lots of bad things to me, inside me. Some days are bad, often the days are bad. Some days the pain in my head, in my bones, in my everywhere, comes on and I scream. And scream till blood comes into my throat.

      In the early days, my mother gave me medicine—red mercy medicine—but it took a while to work. I screamed in her face, my hands wrapped in her hair, wrapped in mine, twined, twisted in crazy-girl fists grabbing, dragging, ripping the pain away—hers and mine—my face in her face, noses smashed together, me screaming in her face, she screaming inside, weeping outside, her tears washing the red medicine stains from my chin down my neck, soaking our clothes. Until the pain stilled. Fist nests of black and gold hair stilled. Then I’d sleep. But she wouldn’t.

      After she left, the hair was only gold.

      Rememory 7

      They call us the halo children. For some cruel parody of life, we have a sort of ethereal beauty. You can see the veins under our skin even though it feels all smooth. We’re like that while we’re young—before puberty—even though most of us don’t live that long. But if we do, when our hormones go ultra-haywire, we mostly seem to grow fat and ugly. Because of neglect, I reckon. Disabled kids rarely get braces. No one worries too much about diet and exercise for us. We don’t get bought Proactiv face wash, or cute little eyeshadow packs for Christmas. We don’t get put on hormones for our skin. We don’t have boys chasing us. Well actually sometimes we do, but only the real warpos, not in the will-you-go-out-with me way.

      I didn’t get fat. After my mother left, I didn’t get enough food to get fat. If I had usable arms I could have raided the freezer for out-of-date frozen fish fingers or frozen peas. But I’d need usable legs too. If I had hands that could hold things, I could have fed myself. If I had a voice, I could have demanded food. But my hunger was no one’s main priority. Of course I got fed, but I couldn’t eat quickly. Everyone thinks eating slowly equates to not being hungry. So I suppose I stayed in the ethereal stage, a bit shrivelled ethereal.

      At home, I was trapped in a second-rate wheelchair—when I was lucky. Other times I was left in my cot soaking in excrement with stale urine blistering my skin. Shame I was blessed with exceptional olfactory senses. This is the life many of us lead, hidden from outside scrutiny. Even more so for me, hidden in out-in-the-sticks-Australia, a place of romantic wonder under the golden sun.

      Rememory 8

      The stormbirds endlessly plead for the day to begin. It’s still and quiet. This is the time of day when I am most aware of being alone. I’m most scared at this time of the day. The stormbirds scream my fear, my silence.

      No one else is awake and I’m hungry and wet and stinkin’. Believe me, no one’s in a hurry to wake up and face that. Everyone’s sick of having to change my stinkin’ nappies. Mum never worried, but. Every morning, she always jumped up and said, “Hey, Soph, let’s sort this stinkin’ nappy.” I love the word stinkin’.

      Everyone’s sick of having to spoon-feed and clean up after me too. You can see it in their eyes. Hovering on the edge of the horror of imagining what it’s like to be me. Even good people hover on that edge of horror—good, bad, everyone hovers—no one really goes there. They may glimpse, but never visit waking up inside a dead person’s body, trying to move limbs you’re not really connected to, beating on the smeared Perspex willing someone to let you out. No one does. No one finds you. No one is looking.

      Hours after I woke, before I saw anyone, I could hear voices. My father must have made the call. I didn’t hear the phone ring and believe me, I would have. Station phones have this ear-piercing phone projector bell ringing thing and it has no mercy.

      “G’day, maayt, how goes it?”

      On the other end of the phone, I could vaguely hear some bloke say my father’s name—or maybe I just inserted the usual sub-text. No introduction necessary.

      “Yes, it’s me, how did you know?” My father always says that.

      He’s always surprised when people recognise his phone-bellow. The bellow is honed from when the phone lines were very dodgy party-lines. He learnt to phone-talk over the crackle and lots of other background voices. My father likes to make sure he’s heard.

      “There’s about two hundred and fifty empty greys, and a hundred and fifty pregnant. … No, no brindles, just a hint of gold on some. … Yep, all white tails, no white faces. What are they paying? … Mmmm, they’ll need to do a bit better than that. No point in keeping them in the yard for that. … Let me know if they come to the party. If I don’t hear from you by smoko, I’ll open the gate.”

      Stomp, stomp, stomp to the kitchen to make coffee. If he hears Sharon, “the nanny”, banging around, he’ll yell to her, “How about a cuppa, darl.” It is never a question. And there is rarely an answer. Sharon bangs a few cupboards, then stomp, stomp, stomps out to the verandah with his coffee.

      “Have you got Soph up yet?” He has asked her that every single day of her existence at The Styx. “She’ll need changing, and breakfast.” He says it as if they go together like tea and scones, bread and butter, surf and sand.

      There’s a newsreel of the world I see and hear in my head. I watch and record everyone out there having a good time, having a bad time, wasting their options, talking about me, arguing over who has to “look after” me, planning things that scare me. I am alone, waiting for others to do what they want to me, to this discounted mind and rotting carcass of a body. I’ve not been allowed to completely rot away, but it is very clear to me that it is not necessary to have depression to crave death.

      Chapter 2

      Rememory 9

      It’s a wild place, my place.

      Every morning, and at various times during the day, I’m plonked on the verandah.

      “There you go, Soph,” a jaunty voice (on a good day) says.

      “I’ll be back in a sec, just have to …” That’s Sharon who gives me reasons—she feels she has to justify her actions because she’s on the payroll. Her voice has that, “I’m a diligent and very, very busy person,” ring to it.

      My father, however, rarely gives a reason. With him it’s almost always just, “There you go, Soph.”

      I love mind-chatting and passing the time of day with