Forgetting Foster Read online

  Foster stormed the peg basket regularly. Again and again his army overpowered the bulwark of the enemy, dragging the General back down the hill to safety. The troops would celebrate by talking to the General about other great victories. They would talk about where they’d been and what they’d done before and the General would guffaw and snort and say ‘I don’t remember that!’ The General’s history only existed now in the memories of his troops. Foster wondered whether something forgotten stopped existing altogether. He decided it might be a good idea to write the General’s stories down so they would be real history, just like the stories in the books on Dad’s bookshelves.

  Foster would put his dad back under the peg basket and spend the entire next day at school thinking about future rescue approaches. His thinking about it set a drowsy hum louder than a chainsaw in his quietest insides. It was comforting because it drowned out other thoughts.

  There was still interest in Foster’s sick dad among his small clutch of friends, but the interest was different now. Foster couldn’t quite decipher the change but he knew instinctively that it had to do with Jimmy Maher broadcasting his interpretation of the General’s illness to some of the older boys. He heard it said that his dad had had a breakdown, which he thought was silly because Mum didn’t even let him drive anymore. Foster heard her telling the neighbour, Miss Watson, that she didn’t mind him getting lost but what if he forgot what a traffic signal meant and killed someone? Miss Watson had smiled and said, ‘Better keep your wits about you, then.’ Foster wasn’t sure what wits were but he made a decision to find his and make sure he held onto them too. Other boys at school called the General mental, and Foster would feel a sharp pain in his gut.

  ‘He’s not mental,’ Foster said, all the while worrying if it had been so easy for the General to have his wits break off and fall down then what was to protect him and his mum from the same fate? Since Mum had gotten her second job she had twice forgotten to make Foster’s school lunch. She had shoved canteen money at him at the last minute as if that had been her intention all along, but Foster saw a hole in her head that she had probably caught from his dad.

  Mum had taken a second job at night packing meat onto trays for shops soon after the General stopped going to work. When he started watching TV a lot and mooching about with Grandma’s tin. Mum had explained to Foster that his dad was beginning to forget things and would forget more things as time went along. They had to help Dad and be kind and happy and not bother him too much with things that didn’t matter. She had not been specific about what mattered and what didn’t. Foster had not been worried then. He could be kind and happy and not bothersome. He became very bothered though when it became increasingly apparent that his mum was not being kind and happy herself. She worked during the day and at night and when she was at home she seemed sad and jittery. She said ‘Please, Fossie, I’m tired’ a lot, and talked on the phone to new and strange people more than she talked to him.

  Foster decided to confront his mum. It wasn’t enough to be told to leave his dad alone and go and find something else to do when at any moment Foster might smell his own flesh burning and forget he was supposed to beat himself out. He started with, ‘Can we get Dad back?’

  They were in the car on the way home from school. His mum waited until they were at traffic lights before saying, ‘What do you mean, Foster?’

  ‘Get him back. Can we get him back from wherever he’s going?’

  ‘Your dad isn’t going anywhere.’

  Foster wondered if it was a lie meant to comfort him or whether his mum really didn’t see the same retreat in the General’s eyes that he did. Foster tried again. ‘Will he ever get back what’s going away?’

  ‘Things will come and go,’ Mum said after a short pause. ‘I don’t want you to worry about it.’

  ‘What things that have gone will come back? And when they come back will they stay and new things go, or can the things that have gone once, go again?’

  ‘Oh please, Fossie, I’m tired.’

  They drove on in silence, stopping at the shops. Foster stayed in the car while Mum went in for eggs. Foster was tired of eggs for dinner. They didn’t have a lot of his favourite foods anymore because Mum had to get a nap in before she went to her night job. They had a lot of eggs and beans on toast and things that could be heated up in the microwave. As they pulled away from the shops Foster said, ‘Some kids at school say Dad’s mental.’

  ‘Why on earth would they say that?’

  ‘Because his brain’s got a disease.’

  ‘Just ignore them.’

  They pulled into the driveway in silence, a little crease on Foster’s forehead. As he slipped out from the front passenger seat one foot caught on the shoulder strap of his backpack. Recognising the arcing of the ground towards him he threw his hands wide to catch the car door frame and save himself. The eggs slid from his lap and landed, carton top down, on the driveway. He was squatting beside the carton, turning it over and cautiously lifting the lid when his mum walked around to his side of the car. The translucent, mucous-y smear of broken eggs spattered the carton and the concrete, one perfect globe of yolk quivering among shards of shell. Foster said, ‘Look, Mum! They’re not all broken!’

  When he looked up his mum was leaning against the car door crying. Foster found her crinkled face in that moment sea-snake horrifying.

  taxis and templars

  Foster had an aunty who didn’t visit much until his dad started bringing strange things home from the supermarket. Somehow that piqued her interest. When she talked to his mum about it Foster felt funny. He couldn’t quite work out why. It wasn’t the words she used. She said nice things, helpful things. She suggested putting signs up in the different rooms of the house so Dad would recognise where he was and maybe remember why he went in there. She suggested labelling cupboards and drawers so Dad would know their contents. She’d bought a book, you see. Foster’s mum smiled as she listened and said she really didn’t think those things were necessary yet. She tried to explain that she was in touch with The Association and they, along with The Doctor, were monitoring things and offering help and support, but it was very good of Aunty to offer to help too. But Foster felt something wasn’t right. There was a tension in Mum’s voice and Aunty seemed to be enjoying herself too much.

  Foster was very glad The Association and The Doctor were involved. His dad had told him stories about The Association of Knights Templar. They were an ancient and secret organisation who went on long journeys to find lost things. When they found the lost thing they were looking for they would take it back to an enchanted underground keep where they would guard it forever. No one knew where the special place of guarded lost things was but there were stories about what was hidden and protected there. King Arthur’s Round Table was there, Pandora’s box was there, the crown jewels of King John ‘The Bad’ and the treasure of Montezuma just to name a few. Foster had listened with heart pounding. He pictured a dark cavern that eternally glistened with the refracted light of burning torches warming the patina of precious metals and jewels. Foster knew that if anyone could find his dad’s memory it would be The Association. They were looking for it now. He just knew it. Foster wasn’t sure how Doctor Who could help, but it couldn’t hurt to have him on board.

  The first time Dad went missing Aunty was around with her book almost immediately. Foster had noticed that Mum and Dad went out in the car together and that only Mum returned. He wasn’t worried at first. Dad had lots of appointments lately and perhaps this was a longer one and Mum had decided to come home and go back to collect Dad later. Foster still wasn’t concerned when he saw Mum running from the car to the front door. Or even when she dropped her handbag on the floor by the front door and started running from room to room calling Dad’s name. But when she grabbed Foster by the shoulders and knelt down so her good eye was level with his and said, ‘Have you seen your dad?’ in a squeaky way, Foster felt frightened. Miss Watson from next door carefully placed the boo
k she had been reading down on the couch beside her. She always brought a book along when she watched Foster and she never read the story out loud to him. She was not his favourite babysitter.

  That’s when Aunty pulled into the driveway. She got out of her car so fast she left the car door open and dropped her book. Soon there was a huddle of them, Mum, Aunty and Miss Watson, standing in the kitchen. Mum and Aunty started making phone calls.They talked loudly to different people over the top of one another so Foster found it difficult to understand what was going on at first. But the air tasted different, and as the panic among the grown-ups grew, Foster felt it settle on him like a tetchy heat. His dad was missing. His dad was lost. Mum had lost Dad. That’s when it burst out of him, the most sensible thing, the most obvious thing, ‘Call The Association!’

  All three women stopped and looked at Foster as if they had forgotten he was even in the room. Then Mum said, ‘Yes, Fossie – good idea,’ as she scrolled through the saved numbers in her phone.

  The next few hours were so fraught that Foster found himself laughing nervously at the stress around him. He didn’t know why. It was the only thing he could do to cope with the lack of control exhibited by the people who were supposed to be in control of everything all the time. It seemed that after Dad’s appointment Mum had stopped at the supermarket to buy eggs. She explained to Dad that she would be back in a few minutes and left him in the car. Mum was back in a few minutes but Dad was gone. At first she didn’t panic, thinking he had just followed her into the shop. A cursory, followed by thorough, search of the aisles revealed nothing. Mum had then enlisted the aid of a shop assistant who found it incomprehensible that Mum was so upset about a grown man going for a walk. The man checked out the back of the shop where only employees could go but Dad wasn’t there either. That’s when Mum started driving the streets in widening circles. She also called Aunty. It was Aunty who suggested Dad might have made his way home.

  Calling The Association didn’t seem to have the immediate calming effect Foster believed it would. Mum seemed annoyed with them on the phone. She said things like ‘Yes, yes, we’ve already done that!’ and ‘Can’t you do something?’ and then hung up looking teary and wild. That’s when she and Aunty decided to go back out in their cars and look around. They planned it first, who would go where. It was a reconnaissance akin to the greatest battles on Pillow Top Mountain and Foster was reassured.

  Foster waited, sitting on the back of the couch looking out the front window. Miss Watson read her book and occasionally exhaled loudly from her nostrils. Foster didn’t think anything of it when the taxi pulled up out the front of the house. He was curious, that’s all, because he’d never been in a taxi. He watched the taxi driver get out and go around to the passenger side. He then took the passenger gently by the elbowand eased him up and out of the front seat. It was Dad and he was cross. Foster could see that. He yanked his arm away from the taxi driver and staggered back. Then he sat down on the verge and started yelling stuff. Foster didn’t even notice Miss Watson come up behind him until he felt her loud nostrils on his ear. She walked to the front door as the taxi driver began walking up the front path.

  Foster ran by them both. Miss Watson’s ‘Get back inside!’ broadsided him but he kept going. Foster reached his dad and squatted down next to him. Dad was covered in grass and sand. It was sticking to his clothes, all through his hair, and there were dry leaves protruding from the collar of his shirt. He had a smudge of dirt on his face and the bottom of his trousers were wet too. Foster touched his dad on the top of his head and said, ‘Come on, Dad.’

  Foster heard the taxi driver saying, ‘I’ll need to be paid,’ as he led his dad back up the path to the front door. Miss Watson fumbled in her purse and Foster heard her say, ‘You had no right to take a fare without permission! Can’t you see he’s not right in the head?’ Once inside Foster led his dad to his favourite chair in front of the TV. That’s when his dad looked straight at him and said, ‘Hiya, Fossie!’

  Foster couldn’t think of anything to do to express his relief other than start picking the debris out of his dad’s hair. That’s when he noticed Miss Watson. She looked as if she’d been slapped upside the head with a wet fish. Foster knew that was what she looked like because Dad had said that exact same thing about people who had the same expression on their faces as Miss Watson did now. But then her face changed in a way Foster didn’t like.

  She started quietly, ‘Where do you think you’ve been? Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused? Everyone’s out looking for you. Even the police are out looking for you!’ Then her voice got louder. ‘A whole day wasted because you can’t do as you’re told and sit still in a car for five minutes! Well? What do you have to say for yourself? You wander in here as if nothing’s wrong? She ought to tie you to a chair. She ought to put you away!’

  Foster watched Miss Watson’s face, so screwed up and hot-looking, in disbelief. Then he looked at his dad’s face, watched it sink like a pothole under the weight of the scolding. Miss Watson tramped to the phone then and called Foster’s mum. Her voice was calm and sweet on the phone to Mum, all relief and comfort. She said ‘I’ve found him’ as if the weight of her concern alone had drawn him up the front path like a giant fishing lure. She said ‘Don’t worry’ and ‘He’s fine’ and ‘You’re welcome’ and after she’d hung up she returned to the lounge room, sat opposite Foster’s dad, and hissed, ‘Now I get to sit here until she gets home because you can’t be left alone with your own child. And I’m not going anywhere until I am fully reimbursed for that taxi. Foster, go wait in your room.’

  Foster didn’t move.

  ‘I said, go wait in your room!’

  Foster hooked his fingers around his dad’s hand and then gently, tentatively, shook his head very slowly. That one tiny headshake, that one small act of defiance, took so much of Foster’s courage that it exhausted him. He stayed by the General’s side until his mum arrived home.

  missing mussels

  Mum and Aunty were very grateful to Miss Watson. Mum was crying and she hugged her. Aunty flicked through her book and said it was obviously time for a name tag, which made Foster think of school excursions he had been on when the teacher would slap a sticker on his jumper with ‘Foster Sumner’ written on it under the name of his school. His dad would look like he had just gotten off a school bus if he had a big yellow sticker on his jumper. They couldn’t do that to him. Maybe they could make him look like one of the teachers or something.

  ‘Maybe we could make him look like a teacher or something,’ Foster said. No one seemed to be listening to him. Miss Watson was making huffing noises about forking out for the taxi fare.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Mum said, retrieving her purse. She didn’t have enough cash on her though. She handed over what she had and said, ‘I’ll have to owe you the rest, Miss Watson. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Well, I’ll need it back as soon as possible.’

  ‘Of course you will, and I’ll bring it to you as soon as I can. It’s just that I only have enough money to pay you for the babysitting right now. I’m terribly sorry.’

  ‘And I’m afraid that will be more too, of course. I did stay longer today due to your . . . situation.’

  Everyone looked a bit stiff-necked then. Foster felt like Miss Watson expected Mum to say more and Mum did not know what more to say. He noticed the good side of Mum’s mouth was beginning to drop, which happened sometimes when she was very upset or very tired. It made Foster feel sour in the tummy. Miss Watson broke the silence with, ‘I am on a pension, Mrs Sumner.’

  That’s when Aunty, leading Miss Watson to the front door, said, ‘Yes, well, thanks very much, Myra. I’d finish you off myself but I don’t have any cash on me either. We’ll make sure you get exactly what’s coming to you.’

  ‘Wait. The taxi,’ Mum said. ‘I need to get in touch and thank the taxi driver.’

  Miss Watson turned and said, ‘I already did that, Mrs Sumner.’
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br />   ‘But I need to know what happened. Where he was,’ Mum persisted.

  ‘I don’t remember the name of the taxi company, Mrs Sumner.’

  ‘You didn’t get a receipt?’ Aunty asked.

  ‘No,’ Miss Watson said.

  There was another one of those silences which made Foster look up from grooming his dad. Then he said, ‘It looked like a police car, Mum. It had stripes down the side and big numbers on the doors.’

  ‘I know who that is,’ Aunty said. She took Miss Watson’s elbow then, the same way the taxi driver had taken Dad’s, and opened the front door. Miss Watson pulled herself from Aunty’s fingers and looked directly at Foster.

  ‘You be a good boy,’ she said. Then she left.

  ‘What a bitch,’ Aunty said, pushing the door shut. Then, ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Want to help me, Fossie?’

  Foster watched Aunty moving about the kitchen in a snappy, efficient way, popping tea bags in mugs, filling the kettle, shaking the milk. Foster thought about all the other times the kettle had been put on to either celebrate something or get serious about something. It was the first thing grown-ups did. It was the herald of the post-battle analysis, be it good or bad. ‘I’ll put the kettle on’ meant something was going to be talked about. He heard the TV being switched on in the lounge room, then Mum walked in and sat down at the kitchen table.

  ‘I have to be at work soon,’ she said.

  ‘Took a Saturday shift?’

  ‘Yes. I thought . . . but now I’m not sure . . .’ Mum glanced back towards the lounge room.

  ‘Well, you’ve got time for a cup of tea. I’ll make it. You go call the taxi company.’ Aunty handed Mum a piece of paper. ‘Pretty sure this is the company. If not, just call them all. Whoever it was will sure as hell remember this fare!’