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When he let me hold his tiny hand, I knew I had him. Only just five, vegemite on his chin and fear crouching in his eyes, he allowed a quarter of himself to slip from behind his mum’s chair, just enough for his chubby fist to stretch out to me.
He wanted a picture on his hand, you see. They all do. Especially when I tell them that their brothers don’t yet have one and that it will be a picture of the toughest cat in Australia: Sharbi Millionaire, and that he lives in my house. Now Sharbi’s real name is Button, but that’s not tough enough to get me his hand, and then I won’t be able to do my job: as a clinical psychologist assessing the impact of experiencing domestic violence his whole little life.
But back to Sharbi Millionaire. At only one month old, Sharbi won second prize at the Royal Easter Show for best kitten in show. This I tell my little client as I carefully ink Sharbi’s ears onto the back of his hand. I’ve never asked a mum’s permission – she’s always biting her lip, listening too, wondering how on earth I’m going to be able to interview her child/ children, who’ve always seen too much, and who trust no one new.
Maybe it’s because of the contest that Sharbi thinks he’s so special, I tell her son, drawing carefully. No one really knows, but Sharbi lives in a house with five other cats, and all of them know that he’s the boss of the whole show. Even of the adults! He acts like he’s the police, I say, curving fat cheeks, flicking out long licks of whiskers onto the back of his hand. Sharbi always eats first, and if someone even tries to take a bite before him he makes a warning sound, a little snort through his nose, and the food is spat out immediately. And he’s always barking out orders, I say, as I round out fat haunches, curl and twirl a cheeky tail. He tells the other cats – Stand There! Don’t Move! Wait For Me! Give Me That Right Now! And the others always do exactly what Sharbi Millionaire tells them.
But there’s one cat who lives in Sharbi’s house who’s bigger than any other cat in this country. His name is Bear, I whisper now, hunching over the drawing, getting ready to create the eyes (Sharbi’s eyes are always last). Bear is red, I tell the little one, fire-engine red, and sometimes, at night time, if you bump into him in a dark hallway, he looks almost as though he really is a big red fire truck.
And then I shape Sharbi’s clever, Siamese eyes. Swap texta pens. Ink them in, bright blue.
Bear is ten times bigger than Sharbi Millionaire, I say. And he almost breaks his human’s backs when they try to pick him up. So guess what Bear does when Sharbi Millionaire walks past? I ask, holding up his stubby arm, showing his mum his new tattoo.
Bear falls down! I exclaim. Drops, right there on the ground, and sometimes the walls shake. Mind you, if Bear fell on Sharbi, Sharbi would be all squished, but Sharbi always sails right on by, sometimes giving a little snort through his nose if Bear hasn’t dropped fast enough.
By now, if I’d wanted to, and I really, really want to, I could have hooked an arm around the waist of my little client and scooped him right up onto my lap. He’s fully disentangled now from mum; his legs pressed against mine, he twists his hand this way and that to try to get the best view of Sharbi Millionaire.
You’re just like Sharbi Millionaire, I tell him, almost nose to nose, his eyes each a universe. You might be small, but you’re brave and strong, and I’m pretty sure – yep – I’m positive that your eyes are just like Sharbi’s.
And now it’s time to ask. Something bad happened in your house, didn’t it? I say, with him now, in the room inside his eyes, banishing the menacing fear to the corners. Yes, he’ll nod, and tell me. About the times he used to scream for mum but no sound would come out because the man pushed the pillow over his head while he hit, or mum couldn’t hear because she was crying so loud, or his voice wouldn’t come out of the cupboard where he hid.
Later, his big brothers will tell me of trying to wake their mum while blood ran from her ears, and how if they cried too much He’d only hit harder. And I walk with them through the rooms in their eyes. They tell me about their nightmares and their rage, and how sometimes they wet the bed at night because they’re too scared to walk the hallway. They tell me that they hate their teachers – male ones especially, and that they don’t like to be told what to do. That they can’t concentrate in class, because they’re worried about mum at home, or that it will all happen again if she meets someone new.
Sometimes, especially when they’re older, they leave with a skull drawn onto their hand, or a mutant octopus; maybe a toxic spider or a venomous snake. But when my little one waves goodbye it’s with his un-inked hand. He’s holding Sharbi Millionaire close to his chest.
For more about Sharbi and friends see: https://randomhouseaustralia.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/it-began-inauspiciously/
I’m often asked in interviews what happens next to Jill Jackson, the kick-arse cop, lead character of my first four books. But right now, while I have some definite ideas, they’re not living and breathing in an all-but completed novel as they have been by this time, this year, for the past four years.
You see, in 2010 I stabbed my pen really deep – in fact right through the fabric of reality. And now I’m up to my neck in a young adult, dark fantasy novel. More specifically, a hard-edged urban fantasy. I’ve always loved magical realism – settings that are completely, almost boringly, familiar, but then with the twist of a key, a side-step down an alley, a sidelong glance, or a wrench in the foundation of the every day, we’re suddenly in another world. I love this genre at all levels: from the very subtle, um-did-that-really-happen-like-I-think-it-did (e.g., Chocolat), to the now-I-know-that’s-magic-but-didn’t-expect-it (e.g., Wizard of the Pigeons); to the blatant parallel worlds of HP, Twilight, The Night Watch, series. I love true, epic fantasy novels as well, including all of the usual suspects (e.g., LOTR, His Dark Materials), and others (e.g., The Dragonbone Chair), and I’m enamoured of the magical creatures that populate them. So, my next book combines all of the difficult and dangerous aspects of our current society (including the psychopaths and their victims in my other books), with the fabled creatures that (I’d prefer to believe) dwell beneath, between and amongst us. And I’m almost finished…
It was an evening only in March, indeed still swimming weather, when I slid my closed my back doors and found the frames cold to touch. Instantly, my summer happiness evaporated and I slid into a black fog of misery. I promise you, I almost cried. The cicadas still sang in the warm twilight, and my hair was still damp from the pool, but wicked winter had warned me she waited, patiently, licking at the edges of my sunshine.
It won’t be long, she whispered, somewhere out there, just beyond March. I’ll see you soon.
Why do I hate winter? Let me count the ways…
– Sandals and sarong versus wet-weather mac and gumboots
– Dusting sand from my toes versus scraping mud from my heels
– Lazing languidly too-hot-to-care during summer hols versus dashing through rain puddles, fingers freezing, on the way to a hideous work meeting
– Lolling naked under an indolent fan, honeysuckle scent wafting in on a hot breeze versus huddling before a heater, lips blue
– Sunshine versus sleet
– Cicadas at dusk versus iced lawn at morn
– Lychees, mangoes, strawberries, peaches, plums, nectarines, watermelon versus, um, oranges and apples *yawn*
– And let’s just have a think about the word COLD. When we meet someone, do we want them to be cold, frosty; the atmosphere chilly? Or would we rather them warm, of a sunny disposition?
– And what about love – should it be frigid, cool; or sultry, languid, HOT?
– And of course, there’s no Christmas in winter (in Australia, at least), and I’m afraid that the desperate half-arsed July bash doesn’t count.
But for anyone inclined to favour freezing and frigidity, I will allow three more Fs for winter: FASHION (lush in winter, I do admit: fetish leather boots and jackets); FOOD (seven-hour-lamb; pork hocks in soup); FIRE (I’m crazy for fire) *eyes glisten a little madly*.
And right now, sitting with the hems of my jeans sodden from a bitter winter downpour, I find I do have one other F for winter; however as this is a family site, I’d best leave that to your imagination.
She is the bane of my existence.
Five long years have seen us attempt to master this wretched dessert. By us, I mean my darling husband and I, and I offer limply an excuse for the five years; you see, we’ve tried only infrequently – in between dieting and bouts of derision for the latest research indicating that eggs are bad and that cream will surely kill you.
And in our favour, I must tell you that we have actually pulled it off. The perfect crème brûlée – just once, mind you, as a practice-run for a dinner party to impress The Jones’s. Of course, on the important night however, she split, transfiguring her sob-worthy-self into a curdled, scrambled-eggs-rice-pudding. Hiss! at the infernal thing! We served ice-cream.
We tried again last week.
Chocolate this time.
We had the candy thermometer, the best oven, the warm water bath, the patience, the most beautiful ingredients, the brûlée blow torch (oh, to actually get her to that stage!) And what did we arrive at?
The most delectable hot chocolate ever.
Now, I am certain, should I have ladled this concoction into fanciful mugs as drinking chocolate, and served it with biscotti at my candle-lit, winter dinner party, my legend would have lived on forever. Beautiful creatures would later tell their children of the night they drank the most bewitched of hot chocolate. Their babes would grow old, searching in vain for such a delight. However, the hideous thing was supposed to be chocolate crème brûlée! And, all but screeching, I stuck it in the fridge and served ice-cream.
Now, I know that everyone reading this shall be exclaiming: Mon dieu, Leah! Of course you cannot master crème brûlée! Merde, no one can. Don’t you know that all the very best the restaurants cheat and add cornflour, custard powder and/or gelatine?
Of course, any of you who are actually saying: Huh? It’s really not that hard, Leah, I have a recipe that works every time. Well to you, I say: Lalalalalala. Not listening. Big liar.
This is one of the most frustrating comments that I’ve ever read about one of the characters in my third novel, Black Ice. The character referred to was Seren Templeton. Seren, short for Serendipity – a lucky chance, a fortunate coincidence. My character, Seren, was born into the world most of us occupy – the one where kids are safe at night and mum and dad would do anything to protect them from pain.
But there’s another world. And when Seren’s dad died she was dumped straight into it. Her mother found a new partner, and this man was violent. Vicious. By age eight, Seren had seen more violence than most of us will see in our whole life. It changes her, shapes her, and when she grows up and someone tries to hurt her kid, you can be sure she gets her own back. Hard.
I’ve met Seren a thousand times. I’ve met her at age three, at thirteen, at thirty-five, at sixty. I’ve met Seren at eighteen months old. I’ve met her brothers and sisters who watched, and copped the floggings with her. I’ve met their mothers who fought to protect them, some who jumped in on the beatings, some who pretended it wasn’t happening, and some who missed it all, unconscious after being knocked out or smacked out with a needle in their arm or a vodka bottle in their hand.
And I’ve met the offenders. In gaol and out. Some of whom were once Seren’s little brother, terrified, watching it all happen to his mum and his siblings.
Sometimes I’m asked the same thing in interviews – there’s so much violence in your books. How can your character endure so much and still function? I wish people asked that question more often about the kids growing up in some of the housing commission units around the country. Our country is involved in several wars around the world, but there are war zones, everywhere in Australia right now. Thousands of people count themselves lucky if they can climb into bed today without being bashed, robbed or raped.
That’d count as a pretty good day in their world.
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