Good for nothing – by Winnie Dunn
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Objects do not see or give aid to those who worship them. They are inanimate and neither move, hear, or see. Those who worship objects are better than they are, for they hear, see, and have strength of their own. — Qu’ran 7:191
Powerlines hum as heat and dusk swirl together. Gah-gah-gah go the galahs. Pick bits of twigs, grains of dirt and fragments of gum leaves out of the underside of my calves. Problems. Wipe sweat off my upper lip. Problems. Jumping at the clash of fly screen back door, I can’t help but think: No money, all problems. Shadow of an afro carrying a loaded basket floats under a rusty Hills Hoist. Sirens sound in the distance like cicadas. Flash of a red ‘overdue’ stamp searing in my mind’s eye.
‘Ha’u. Talanoa.’ I hear my nana commanding like a smashed stone tablet.
Shuffling slowly across soil, her full image forms before me. Strands black and buzzing like a TV antenna. Shoulders of tree roots shining with sweat. Back like an ibis flying horizontally. Knotted knuckles pegging furry blankets. She calls them ‘kafu’. Only years later will I realise she actually means ‘a covering’.
Only the mosquitoes are talking. We hang up damp blankets, each depicting key moments in Jesus’ life. Blond curls lowering into a lake to be baptised. Porcelain fingers performing miracles on the streets. Blue eyes wide as he flips tables in a synagogue while heavily jewelled men cower. Marble-sculpted abs crucified within a black sky.
‘Tevolo next da door,’ Nana finally whispers. In my mind, I translate her Tonglish into just plain English. There is a devil next door. My grandmother elaborates before I even have time to ask. ‘She stelah Sela mahi.’ She steals your aunt Sela’s undies.
My tongue fills with laughter and I inflate my cheeks just to hold all the air in. After a few seconds I exhale, ‘As if.’
Rumbling the back of her throat, Nana beats her palms against one of the blankets — the one where Jesus is flipping tables. Her afro looms larger after each sentence. ‘Crossing on Sīsū. I seeing! Sela boy-mahi sometimes hanging next da door. Next da tevolo slimmie-shirtie.’ This time, my giggles escape through my nostrils. Swear on Jesus. I saw! Sela’s boxer shorts hanging on the washing line next door; next to our neighbour’s shapewear.
Smoothing down a fluffy blanket depicting Jesus in a manger, I explain to my grandmother slowly: ‘Maybe Sharon borrows ‘em or something when Auntie Sela hangs over. Friends sometimes do that. Y’know Fia? From school? The one you said looks like Pumbaa when you got me at the bus stop that one time? Fia’s taken how many shirts from the lost and found bin. Cause like only her mum works hey and Fia’s got how many brothers.’
Orange sky turns purple. Nana hangs up some holey tea-towels she threw in with the kafu. Her wide and freckly nose scrunches in thought. It is only when the cracked plastic washing basket is empty that Nana replies. ‘Girl boy show mahi. Boy boy show mahi. Girl girl show mahi. I know this. All sin.’ Gah-gah-gah go the galahs and my gaping mouth.
My tongue is heavy as I splutter, ‘Girl with girl can only just be friends.’ No way my nana was talking about s-e-x! Especially between girls. Especially between our neighbour Sharon and my auntie Sela. Ew as. Anyway, what does Nana know about s-e-x? She’s been single since way before I was born. Walking away from me, Nana fully laughs to herself. But… I only ever read about it in an encyclopedia at school marked in all caps: Year 6 only. (Even though I’m only in class 3/4 D). What did I know about s-e-x?
Nana is a shadow of an afro again when she mutters, as if to someone else. ‘And we no pore. I know pore. We roof, run toileti, cool box, movie play. Never this in Tonga.’ I roll my eyes, trudging along in my grandmother’s footsteps. I’ve heard this all before. Just because we have plumbing and electricity doesn’t mean we’re rich. Besides, we might not even have those for much longer. Red ‘overdue’ stamp fills my thoughts.
Keeping quiet, I rush forward and open the backyard screen door for Nana. As she trundles past me, she brings her withered brown mouth to her gold wedding band, which has been stuck under her knotted ring-finger knuckle ever since I could remember. Balancing the empty washing basket between her elbow and waist, Nana pulls the gold up and over and back down her knuckles. ‘At least always. Hallelujah you palangi pa. Save us.’
***
‘Men have one brain but two heads,’ Auntie Sela explains to me. We are lying on kafus spread out along the corkboard-style floor of our housing commission on Struggle Street. A bulky Toshiba television with a built-in antenna plays a staticky version of Lilo & Stitch. I made Sela watch aliens invade Hawaii with me so many times the video tape was burning out. Pipes shudder while Nana takes a shower. The summer air floats with the lyrics about flying on a surfboard out in the ocean like it’s a rollercoaster ride.
Peeling my eyes away from a drowning Stitch, I turn towards my auntie. Long large limbs littered with freckles. Brown stretchmarks across her paunchy beige tummy. Inwards belly button like a hole in dirt. Fuzzy armpits. Thin black hair forever-slicked into a bun like a boy. Like Nani and Lilo, my mum and dad died in a car accident when I was too young to crawl. Driving home in the rain from a date night apparently while Sela and Nana babysat. They’ve been babysitting me ever since.
Gawking, I reply, ‘Wuddya mean two heads? Uhm, disgusting.’
Sela wriggles her bushy black brows, ‘Yup. One on their neck and one between they legs. And when the blood from their brain rushes down there? Forgettaboutit. Men only want you for one thing.’
Rolling my eyes, our little houso becomes a swirl of corkboard flooring, plastic leis hanging from picture frames and Stitch reading The Ugly Duckling. Looking to Sela again, I purse my lips. Something stops me from telling her about the boxers and shapewear and of girls liking girls. A cool breeze shifts through the lace curtains, gathering the scent of approaching rain. The smell always reminds me of glass shattering. Shivering, I curl up in one of the Jesus kafus and murmur: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven…
Rising to her feet with a big groan, Sela walks off into the kitchen. I can hear her clanking dishes, opening and closing the empty fridge like something will appear, and flicking through stacks of unpaid bills. I’m glued to colourful scenes about UFOs and mosquitoes. The pipes from Nana’s shower are still rattling up in the roof when Sela comes back into the living room, her shadow in the corner of my eye.
Static covering Cobra Bubbles’ fleshy temples and tiny sunglasses, I look up at my auntie. Her eyes are wide and her dark pupils are glowing like a pair of lightbulbs. ‘Figured out the only way you can help me pay bills.’
Scrunching my nose and flicking dryness off my tongue, I say, ‘But I’m only eight and two and a half months.’
It was Auntie Sela who once told me that the legal working age was fourteen and nine months while the under-the-table working age for us Fobs was twelve… maybe eleven if you were big-boned. Skeleton wise, even I know I’m a chicken.
‘Small fingers are good for… borrowing,’ Sela explains slowly. Knitting my brows together, I wait for my auntie to elaborate.
***
Dead parents are better than runaway parents. Once, when I was crying about a mum and dad I couldn’t even remember, Auntie Sela pulled me into her paunchy hug. She smelt of Weet Bix and milk with a teaspoon of brown sugar. Cooing, she stroked my hair. ‘At least your dad isn’t alive somewhere in England wanting nothing to do with you. Being lost is better than being unwanted.’
It is with this memory I say my next words, ‘Nanaaah, can you tell me about Pa?’ My drawl rises from the floor and hovers in the dark. Distant thunder rumbles outside. A storm has cut the power.
Lighting candles, Nana’s shadow is all afro as she floats around the living room like a cloud. ‘Ah ‘io. Good man you palangi pa. See me Tonga. Mission. Teach me God. Bring me betta fonua. Have da kids.’ Lighting the last candle, Nana steps over Auntie Sela’s pretend-sleeping mound. I wipe my hands nervously while listening, remembering the plan. ‘When he leave, make sure fale for famili. Pay for by parli-man even! When goodbye, give gold my hand, coz before no have. Too cold where he go. Betta stay. Close Tonga.’
We talk like this into the night as the storm draws closer. How Pa’s favourite lolly is Werther’s Originals. Heavy raindrops on the windows. How he worked as an undertaker at the cemetery my parents would eventually be buried in. Wind rattling the fly screen door. How, even though it is against God, it was good that they divorced because their fights were from Satan. Lightning and thunder bolting simultaneously. How Pa never called when his son died in a car accident and that’s okay because he left his children way before anyway. Downpour and hail. Somewhere in her stories, Nana starts snoring.
Wax melts and warm flame flickers. Storm settles. It is only near dawn that Auntie Sela whispers to me. ‘Alu?’
‘Yep.’ I sit up. Because we sleep on bundles of kafus on the floor, Sela and Nana’s forms are moulded into each other — the silhouette of a sleeping giant. The plan is this: Talk to Nana about Pa. Check. Wait until she’s snoring and dead asleep. Check. Pull the ring from her finger so we can sell it at the pawn shop and finally pay some bills that Centrelink won’t cover.
Auntie Sela keeps whispering. ‘Ring should be loose, cause she plays with it whenever she talks about that gronk.’
Within a low and melted glow, I am humming softly. Auntie Sela’s plan makes sense. Why keep gold from some guy who couldn’t even come to his own son’s funeral? Why did Sela have to max out her credit while there was a whole savings account on Nana’s withered hand? Better that we sell the damned thing for cash. Look after ourselves for once instead of always grovelling to the government.
Exhaling, I begin to crawl across the kafus, using my fingertips to feel my way forward like a cockroach. Pouncing over Auntie’s paunchy middle, I balance on my tip toes in the space between Nana’s left elbow and ribcage. Golden band glimmers in the candlelight. This close, in the gleam of a drowning flame, Nana’s sleeping face is a shoreline; her wrinkles smoothing to soft grain, her long lashes flickering like waves, her slack jaw a gurgling riptide.
Wrinkles on wrinkles stretch as my crescent-shaped fingernails lift Nana’s left wrist. Her skin is like an ink-bled pen on paper – deep and dark. Holding my breath, I wrap thumb and forefinger around the gold band. Then, my heart clenches when Nana’s breasts buckle as she coughs. Seconds stretch as Nana finishes spluttering, but all the while, her hand remains limp in my tiny grip.
‘Weh, careful,’ Sela hisses.
Maybe it’s the way Auntie sounds like a choked-up cat. Maybe it’s the way my fingernails scrape over Nana’s knotted knuckles. Maybe because Nana jerks her elbow in another coughing until she’s screaming, ‘Tevelo, no finger chop me. What doing you me?’ Then all three of us are screeching.
Auntie Sela jumps up shouting about how gold equals money equals goneaway bills.
I jolt away wailing, ‘Lost.’
Nana sits up clutching her breast and gasping, ‘Divorce big sin. Gold is way only Heaven only, no nothing else.’
Blue light of dawn filters in through the window, making it clear that Sela is standing up and over Nana. This is the most disrespectful stance for us Tongans to take against our elders: the young standing above the old.
Huffing, Auntie seethes, ‘There’s too much debt, Mum. Pay up. Give me the damned ring or damn me to Sharon.’
Curling in on herself, Nana hisses. I hear words like Jesus and fuck and hell. I watch all this from the corner of the corkboard floor where no kafu lies; where there exists only the smell of brimstone.
Second stretch until, silently, Nana tugs the ring off her finger. Her face scrunches as if she’s amputated her own limb. Then Nana plunges the jewellery into her daughter’s open palm, hitting like a mountain crumbling.
Seconds stretch still until: crack. Auntie Sela falls to her knees and begins to weep. Immediately, Nana pulls her daughter into a jiggly hug. Dizzy and dehydrated I sway on the spot, my ears filled with glass shattering. Somehow, I find my way into the hug too. ▼
Image: Nicola Barts - Pexels
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