Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

  In time it became clear that he had nutted out a new argument.

  “What about believing?” he’d one day demanded of Philippa. “People believe in all sorts of stuff about life and death and the meaning of everything. Does any of that matter?” It seemed that, if he couldn’t stop his daughter’s body from wasting away, he would fight at least for her mind.

  Philippa had thought long and hard on it, eventually answering, “It would be better if we knew, wouldn’t it – instead of everybody making up something and hoping they got it right. I suppose it could matter . . . if we knew.”

  And so he began taking the family on ‘belief prowls’, dragging them to every church and synagogue and temple and ashram and prayer meeting that he could find. He winkled out Christians and Muslims and Sikhs and Zoroastrians and provoked them mercilessly. And when Philippa had googled the National Association of Atheists, he’d taken them to a meeting there, as well. Sometimes they wheeled Philippa in her chair. Sometimes one or the other would carry her. Amalthea hunched her back as she told me this, as though she could feel the weight of her sister’s wizened frame on her back, feel the arms about her neck, feel the tickle of breath in her ear.

  “Look at them,” Philippa would giggle. “They’re hoping like hell we haven’t come looking for a miracle! Take me down the front, Am. I want to look into someone’s eyes!”

  At home, their father searched out internet sites, downloading information on the yugas of the Hindus, on the Fivefold Path of the Buddhists, on the Summerland of the Wiccans and on the Cloud of Unknowing. Once, at dinner, he’d begun a discourse on the axis mundi – the navel of the world, the point where Heaven and Earth are connected.

  “This is great!” he’d crowed. “Because the beauty of it is that it’s whatever and wherever each of us wants it to be! Wherever / whenever you feel that little prickle of awesomeness and you think, ‘Whoa! This is . . . I can’t imagine feeling any closer to the centre of the universe than I do right now!’ That’s your personal axis mundi!’

  ‘For me,” he’d beamed, “It’s right here, at this table, in this kitchen, when we’re all four of us here!” He’d leaned back and waved his arms. “A shaft of spiritual energy, firing right up out of the mashed potatoes! Bam!”

  Amalthea, Asael and I laughed at the image, as they must have done at that table, waving their hands through the imaginary beam, crying out in imagined wonder. And he’d insisted they each turn their mind to their own concept of the axis mundi.

  Philippa had eventually settled on the goat cart. “You know? Looking at Rosemary’s backside as we roll along! That’s a whole universe, right there!”

  Laughter had rolled around the table that night and, for awhile they’d almost forgotten that one of them was dying much more quickly than the others. Thea, taking Philippa’s lead, had talked about sharing secrets with Garlic. But her real axis mundi, the one she didn’t want to tell, was the sound of Philippa’s voice, chuckling and whispering shocking things into Amalthea’s ear as she clung to her back. Their parents sometimes argued for the wheelchair, but Thea lived for that closeness.

  Once, in the aisle of a vast cathedral, with their parents walking behind and the solemnity crowding in on them, Philippa’d whispered wickedly, “You know what I’m going to miss, Am? Sex! I would have liked to get old enough for that!”

  At the table that night, their mother had demurred for as long as she could but finally, under pressure from all sides, she’d said, “Okay. My axis mundi – not taking anything away from my wonderful daughters – my axis mundi would have to be . . . the men I’ve loved. For their dauntless cheer . . . and their wisdom . . . and . . . !”

  She’d fled the room in tears at that stage and Philippa’s father had gotten up to go to her. When he was gone, Philippa’d said to Amalthea, “See? She loved your father too!”

  * * *

  When Philippa became too fragile and easily tired, they gave up the ‘belief prowls’ but they’d done their job. Amalthea knew this when, near the end, lying back in the goat cart during a tramp about the farm, Philippa’d said, “Nobody knows what it’s about, do they, Am? I mean, everyone’s just guessing, right? But you know, what I think is neat is that everybody wants so badly to find some really excellent reason for things! So, I’d never tell him this, but maybe dad’s right. Maybe some things do matter. But maybe it’s the wanting that matters – even more than the finding out!”

  And later she’d reached out for Amalthea’s hand and whispered, “Keep an eye out after I’m gone, Am. ‘Cause if I can, I’m going to come back and tell you! What it all means!”

  * * *

  Not once – not even on that last comment – did Amalthea show the least hint of self-consciousness or embarrassment. It just was what it was; a scrabble to open doors before the last one closed. I was grateful for it. It helped explain her easy acceptance of Queenie’s peculiarities and of Asael’s hallucinations. And the return of poor, blind Garlic, I thought, from a new darkness to his old familiar one, must have made perfectly good sense to her.

  When the story came to a halt each of us, barring Rosemary who got up and began to pace the room, sat quietly, immersed in our own private thoughts. I thought about the axis mundi thing, and the ‘maybe it’s the wanting that matters’. What I wanted, still, was some kind of insight into the forces that had pulled my family apart. But where and when did I feel particularly ‘centred’ in the universe? I couldn’t think of anywhere that remotely qualified. Pale, freckled little arse of a life, I thought!

  “Did she ever come back?” Asael finally whispered and Amalthea tilted her head thoughtfully.

  “I’m not sure, Asa!” She cupped Garlic’s face in her hands and nuzzled his snout. “Not like this fellow, of course. But parts of her maybe.”

  I was working myself up to asking about her ‘real father’ and wondering (with a true sense of wonder, I might add) if there was a connection here to the photos of Kevin Truck. I spent some time organising it in my head, not wanting to be too pointed about our having seen the photos. When I had it ready, I drew breath and raised my eyes to hers. She was staring, her forehead creased with concern, across the room at Rosemary who, in turn, was standing with her nose almost to the wall, staring at, for all anybody could guess, a flyspeck.

  As we watched her, though, she drew a deep breath, twitched her shoulders, lowered her head and slammed herself head first into the northern wall of the house.

  If the crash hadn’t already brought us all to our feet, (including Garlic!) the howl from outside certainly would have. My first thought was that the Suttons had returned for another round and I started searching the room for something solid enough to dent thick heads. Nothing came immediately to hand so I fell in with the mad scramble out the door, prepared for hand-to-hand combat. What we found, of course, was Isak Nucifora. He was lying on his back on the grass, flailing at the tangle of a hospital gown which, very obviously, was all he had on.

  “Aaaarrrrh, ye mad bastards!” he was roaring as we crowded around him. “Fuckin’ shoot a man for bein’ in the yard? What’s wrong wi’ yez?”

  His legs were waving in the air, so that his own pale, skinny little arse was out there for all the world to see and his arms were thrashing about helplessly. He looked like a big white rhinoceros beetle, stuck on its back. The little progress he made toward turning over, Amalthea easily defeated, pouncing on him and pressing him into stillness.

  “Has someone shot you, Isak? Where? Where are you hurt? Who did it?”

  She flipped him unceremoniously onto his belly, looking for the hidden wound, and I grabbed Asael, wondering which side of me to put him on to protect him from gunfire. With no clues to work from, I opted for pushing him down and planting my knees on his back to hold him still. That we believed someone could actually be out there with a gun, I suppose, was a sign of how crazy the whole Harvest Festival weekend had been.

  After much argy-bargy, of course, we realised that Isak h
ad been the only one creeping around out there. He’d made it, unseen, to the wall of the house and no sooner pressed himself against it than Rosemary, sensing his listening presence, had slammed her head into it, only inches from his ear. So much for a mad sharpshooter!

  I let Asael up – reluctantly. For the few minutes I’d held him down, it seemed like the safest place we’d been in all day! Amalthea and I then untangled Isak from his gown, got him upright and lugged him inside. He leaned on us almost as heavily as he had two nights ago when we’d found him catatonic in the cane. Until he spied Queenie! Then he shook us off like a pair of unwanted mittens.

  “Queenie!” he cried, staggering directly across to her. I reached for him, to warn him off, but Asael stopped me.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured.

  I believed him straight away which was not something I was in the habit of doing. But he had seemed to know that Sergeant Morrow shouldn’t touch Queenie! And he seemed to know that he could touch her. And, obviously, he was right about Isak who, in a flash, was running his hands quite happily down Queenie’s sides, as though she was a prize horse.

  “I knew you wouldna left!” he was cooing. “Not yet! Not ‘til we set things right! You right? They been treatin’ you right?” When he was satisfied, he turned to us with a huge smile wrinkled onto his face. “Youse are a pack o’ bastards for movin’ her. But ye looked after her! So I guess that makes yez an all right pack o’ bastards!”

  That was when we started to hit him with questions. What was he doing out of the hospital? How did he get here? Did he know people were out looking for him? Why was he still wearing a hospital gown (and could he please do it up properly so we didn’t have to be seeing his ‘business’ end)?

  “Bloody escaped, didn’ I?” he crowed. “That mob o’ bloody vet’rinarians! They got ways o’ bloody killin’ a man that don’ even get talked about, didja know that? Cover it up like that!” He waved a crooked finger at us. “Got drugs te make ye talk, as well ‘n’ all! Squeeze it outta ye! Like wringin’ the juice outta a grape. Couldn’ risk that! No way! ‘F they knew what I know – what I come to remember since meetin’ Queenie – they’d o’ gi’ me the needle quick as throttle a parrot. Straight away! An’ you can bet yer friggin’ boot on that!”

  Disbelief, I’m sure, was written all over us.

  “What?” demanded Isak. “You don’ think a ol’ man like me knows anything?”

  He couldn’t have known, of course, that he was number two (after Johnathon Cranna) on my list of people who I thought did know stuff! I’d heard the threats made against him in the hospital and I’d heard him say he knew who killed Gramma G and I’d heard Doctor Dabney warn him: ‘Repeat it and I’ll have you committed!’ Doubt was the last thing on my mind. I fished the ring from my pocket and held it up.

  “You gave me this the other night, when we found you in the cane! It was the only thing you hadn’t thrown aside. Clothes, gun, water-bottle . . . you’d thrown everything but this! What were you ‘knowing’ when you did that?”

  He held out a gnarled hand and I put the ring in the centre of his palm. He studied it for a few moments, nodding, which I hoped meant memories were being stirred.

  “Things happen to ye,” he murmured. “Good things – bad things. An’ ye don’ deserve neither one of ‘em. Howja explain that?” Not a question for a quick answer, and not an answer to my quick question. Blinking solemnly, he offered the ring back to me. “Why don’t you hang onto it?” When I took it, he sighed. “Yer gonna look jus’ like yer gramma, ye are! Jus’ like Gracie.”

  “The things that you know,” I pressed as gently as I could, “the things you didn’t want to tell them at the hospital . . . about Gramma Grace? Do you really know what happened to her?”

  Isak was quiet for long moments. He peered so distractedly into the depths of Queenie, as though watching a scene being played out at some secret level, that I began to wonder if he’d heard my question. Or if maybe his mind was so pickled that he’d already forgotten it. I wasn’t going to let the opportunity go, though, and was about to ask him again when he raised his eyes to me.

  “Pretty much I do,” he said. “That’s why I did the killin’!”

  * * *

  I don’t know if the sound I heard was a collective gasp in the room or the sound of the air falling out of me or the sound of Garlic’s knees giving way as Amalthea let go of him.

  * * *

  Ruth and Amalthea stare incredulously at the old man. Everyone else – Asael, Rosemary, Garlic and Isak – turns their eyes on Queenie who has begun to emit a sound. It’s a high, crystalline tinkle that extends and rises, evolving into a shrill, feminine keening. Asael covers his ears, squeezing closed his eyes and bending his face to his knees.

  * * *

  “You killed . . . Gracie?” Amalthea asked, but he ignored her, carrying on from some middle point in the memory.

  “Jus’ like he always done to Bessie. On’y worse. Way worse. I come by . . . jus’ that bit too late.” A sigh rattled into his chest and a tear bobbled at the edge of his eye, immediately disappearing into a deep furrow of flesh. He growled, impatient with himself, and rubbed it out of existence.

  “I shoulda stayed with her. But she didn’ seem that bad at first, ye know? Jus’ all happened so fast! I come in that door right there. An’ she uz bowled over, right here! This uz her house, ye know? She looked up at me and I seen blood on her. But not so much, I thought. I thought she’d had a bad fall, maybe! An’ then she says his name an’ I hear ‘im slammin’ off out the back! An’ I knew what he’d said to ‘er at the pub – knew what he said he done! So I left her here. He run into the cane, hopin’ to shake me off. But I caught ‘im down the back, by the river.”

  Isak had dropped to the floor as he spoke, to sit, leaning against Queenie. He put his arms on his knees and Rosemary stepped close to him to lick at his fresh tears.

  He patted her haunch and said, “You know what I’m sayin’, doncha. I beat on that man ‘til he cried for mercy. An’ I beat on ‘im some more. Then I dragged the pointless bag o’ shit to the edge o’ the river an’ rolled ‘im in. She had a flow on that week, the river did. Croc’s woulda picked ‘im up, not far along.”

  Amalthea and I looked at one another, our eyes wide with disbelief. Garlic’s chin dropped to the floor, as though he was too exhausted to hear more. Rosemary had begun to rock herself gently back and forth, like an old woman in a rocking chair with a heartbroken child. And Asael, on the lounge, was doubled up with his hands over his ears.

  “Surprisin’, the things ye find in yerself, ain’ it?” Isak whispered. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his gown before continuing. “I got back to Gracie . . . an’ I seen what a mistake I’d made. She was way worse ‘n’ I’d thought. I got ‘er to the hospital quick smart, thinkin’ Dabney could fix her. But he let her die.”

  I got down on my knees beside Isak so I could look into his eyes.

  “Was it Les Crampton, Isak? Is that who you’re talking about? Bessie’s Les?”

  He nodded, finishing huskily, “Croc’ shit before the week was out. But Gracie – she was gone too!”

  “But why? Why would he attack her?”

  Isak’s back suddenly straightened. He looked around, surprised to discover himself on his bum, whispering to a scrawny, pony-tailed girl. He climbed to his feet and busied himself again with a sleeve, wiping tears and goat lick from his face. I’d risen with him, trying to support him, but my impatience and horror got the best of me. I began shaking him.

  “Tell me why, Isak! What did he want from her? Why was he after her? You must have found out from him, before you . . . !”

  “I toldja!” he said, pushing me off. “I didn’ hafta ask! I knew! Gracie was workin’ the pub them days, for Cranna, behind the bar. An’ one day, jus’ before, that cheeky little bastard – pissed as a newt, he was – he dropped a couple hints, didn’ he! Just for her to hear. Jus’ to taunt her. ‘Bout what he done
. His mates shut ‘im up quick smart . . . got ‘im outta there . . . made like it was the piss talkin’. She told me what he said and I said, ‘You gotta tell that to Masher Morrow’ an’ she was gunna. We was gonna go together. That’s why I was headin’ over here . . . to get her! But Les . . . he got sobered up, I reckon, an’ decided he’s gonna tell Gracie he was on’y jokin’ an’ she best not be takin’ it to heart.”

  Asael was in all sorts of distress by this time, curled up on the lounge, and I should have gone to him or tried to put Isak on hold until I could get Asa’ out of hearing. But this was obviously a core part of the story I’d been chasing. I sensed that the Terrible Deed was about to be revealed and there wasn’t any way I was going to let Isak off the hook. Not ‘til I’d wrung him dry. I left it to Thea to slip onto the couch next to Asa, to try to comfort him.

  * * *

  “I reckon he uz so used to smackin’ Bessie into line, he thought he could do the same with any woman. But your gramma,” Isak finished proudly, “she never backed down, ye know! Never a backward step! ‘Specially when it come to her family. That’s what done for her, I reckon.”

  “Isak!” My head was spinning with questions but the obvious one was, “What did Les do? The thing he dropped hints about . . . what was it?”

  “The rape, o’ course! Where this ‘un come from!” and he thrust his chin towards Asael.

  “Where Asael came from? You mean . . . Rita? Rita was raped?”’

  Isak shook his head.

  “Not Rita. Bridie! This ‘un’s hers.”

  * * *

  I almost wasn’t surprised! Almost! And I didn’t doubt the truth of it for a minute. Once I’d learned that Bridie had been the victim of something awful, my mind had turned already to matters sexual. She’s so beautiful. In the photos of her as a kid, she was always beautiful. And the timelines . . . ! And the closeness between her and Asael! It fitted together with an almost audible click.