Green Monkey Dreams by Isobelle Carmody Page B

the ashes. They had been at it again so he had slipped out. Escaped. There were times when he felt the fighting and screaming was all there was, and even when he was alone the voices went on saying the same old things inside his head: her martyred voice and Dave’s low snarl.
    Matthew backpedalled to slow up, and looked down the main street into the early morning. The sun had yet to rise but on days like this there were no splendid dawns, just a grey luminescence that got steadily brighter. The scaffolding of the complex looked like steel bones. Hard to believe there had once been streets in there and sidewalks and shops and parking meters. Now it was one dark building and even the tough kids avoided it and the temptation of vandalising it. That would come later, maybe. Matthew wondered what it was all for. The old streets had been all right. It was still the same old town, still a drab place where nobody important ever came or visited. A backwater.
    He let the bike pick up speed again and a sweeper truck swished around the corner and gurgled off in the opposite direction. The street lights blinked off suddenly, like magic. Sometimes he and Sophie had pretended they were the only people left in the whole world. That was what the streets felt like now.
    He came at last to the sea with a feeling of relief. The quiet rush of the waves and the faint whistling sound the wind made in the swings rose up to meet him. He coasted the bike to a stop and let the stillness come into him. There was a cleanliness to the world at that hour: a cold promise to the coming day. The sea was like liquid shadow and produced an oddly fetching gurgle as it moved along the edge of the cement car park bordering the water. He chained his bike and walked further along where the cement gave way to a brief, grey stretch of sand.
    Mostly he left early for the paper run, letting his mother believe it took longer than it did so he could have some freedom. Then Mr Murphy had made him head runner so he had afternoon runs when one of the other paper boys was sick. That meant he could get down to the sea some afternoons. The time he chose to come depended on his mood. Today was a morning mood because he felt the need to be alone and think.
    At dusk the bay was a different place. There were people around and the city noise drowned out the waves. But at least the dusk stopped you seeing right across the stretch of water to where the industries belched out their filtered smog. And unless it rained and the fish took refuge in the deeps from the pounding on the surface, the old men would be there in the fading light, dressed in their shabby shapeless jumpers and baggy trousers, fishing off the end of the pier. At first he had shared the pier grudgingly with them, and mentally found himself echoing Dave’s notion that all wogs should ‘Go Home’. But he came to accept their presence, their queer-sounding English. And one day one of the men had spoken to him.
    â€˜Eh, boy! What you coming here every day only to stare? You no want to fish!’
    It was the fattest of the group who spoke, a man with bright eyes and nut-coloured skin. He had introduced himself as Tony.
    â€˜I like watching the boats,’ Matthew had told them, looking out at the horizon to where he had seen a hundred rust-blooded hulks drift across.
    â€˜Maybe you want to be a sailor then,’ Tony asked on another occasion.
    â€˜No. I just want to travel. You know. See the world. I want to go somewhere where things are different.’
    â€˜Everywhere things are the same.’ Tony smiled.
    Matthew shrugged.
    â€˜You will have to grow up an’ get rich then. Better if you be a sailor an’ see the world.’
    â€˜Here is good,’ said another of the men.
    â€˜I’m going to find my father,’ Matthew said quietly.
    â€˜Where is he?’ Tony started.
    Matthew pretended not to hear and the silence grew. The old men were no fools. They