Making Laws for Clouds Read Free

Kotter – the romp by the swamp. He could have that one too if he wanted it. Bob Kotter – the dump by the dump, the bomb by the bombs, the hole in the hole.
    There’s sweat running down my legs and into my socks. You don’t stop sweating on days like this, and the weight of the bottles doesn’t help. But my mother’ll be glad of them. She’ll be ready for a rum now, sitting on the verandah doing what she calls ‘looking out to sea’, but that’s just another one of her jokes. She says we’re only about two storeys down from a sea view, but if we had a sea view – if we lived on a hill instead of in a dip – we couldn’t afford the place.
    So much for Bob Kotter. I used to think having ‘a Bob Kotter home’ amounted to something until Tanika set me straight. I shouldn’t be such a fool for advertising. ‘Life’s a breeeeze in your Bob Kotter home’ (alsopatented, with all four Es). Well, it’s not. Most days the breeze, like the sea view, is two storeys up, and we get hot still air and views of the swamp and the lagoon and the bare patch of land that they used for artillery practice during the war. It had signs up about unexploded bombs until a couple of years ago. It’s now the Recreation Council Camp. They cleared it, but my mother says to mark her words and her words are, ‘One day a kid’ll go off in there.’
    My words to Tanika, after trying to impress her with all my council talk, went something like, ‘I’ve kind of moved out of home, you know.’ Another thing I wish I hadn’t said. It’s the most impressive way – but not the most honest way – of saying Mum and Wayne sleep upstairs and I sleep in a hammock downstairs. I’ve got some old sheets hanging to mark off my bit down there, and I’ve got a bar fridge and a radio. It was my father’s workroom, not that it’s a room, and not that he did much work (according to my mother). But at least it means there’s a bar fridge, a sink, and a jar of something green and slimy that, for the nativity play, will do for myrrh.
    It’s a good place, a good space. I had a T-shirt once that said, ‘Everyone needs their own space’ and that’s where I got the idea for it. Plus, it gives Wayne his ownroom upstairs, so everyone’s happy. Everyone really has got their own space. And my space is semi-outdoors but livable. I’ve got a couple of posters up, and I can do what I like down there. I’ve got Diet Coke in the fridge, I’ve got some African violets growing in pots next to the sink and a selection of magazines. I’ve got my own space where I can hang out nude if I’ve got the inclination, and I’ve got a box of tissues to go with those night thoughts about Tanika Bell (or Pamela Anderson).
    My mother thinks I’m tidy, just because I own tissues. She says, ‘See, you were brought up right.’ My mother says that people who can’t look after their own noses can’t look after much. You’ve got to start somewhere, and your nose is as good a place to start as any.
    She also says you don’t bear grudges in this life. She would have helped out at rehearsals if Mrs Bell had asked her to – the way Mrs Marcuzzi used to, every summer – but she didn’t ask and that’s that and you don’t bear grudges. That’s my mother. That’s her take on the world.
    She sees me coming down the road, sees the rum and the Diet Coke and she shouts out, ‘Good on you, Kane,’ when I get to the gate. ‘Are the Cokes still cold?’
    â€˜Just bought ’em.’
    â€˜Good on you.’
    She can’t turn much because her back’s bad – shesays her pension report reckons she’s lost at least thirty degrees of turn – so it’s easy to sneak the spare rum by her, particularly since she knows I’m going straight into the