Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

  “Nothing purely negative from him, you understand! No, no, that’s not Johnathon! All purely positive! About vision and drive and how much more Lyle could achieve - with the right ‘corporate sponsor’! That kinda thing, you know?”

  And so, to Mayor Hoggitt’s secret shame but undeniable political benefit, Cranna became the resident ghost in the local political arena – a quiet pedlar of influence, and the accumulator of a small fortune. He was insightful and charismatic and a visionary, and together he and the mayor were a formidable team.

  “Maybe not a strictly kosher arrangement. But they done alright by Sugar Town, by Gawd they did!”

  “Oh my dear!” whispered Marybeth when Frieda fell silent, and her fingers passed over, without quite touching, Frieda’s hand. Frieda turned her head sideways, the way birds sometimes do when they want to look at the sky.

  “That’s it?” said Amalthea. “A little graft and corruption? And Franz knew about it?”

  “Actually, everyone knew about it,” Vivian said softly. “It’s a small town! But no one was being hurt and the town was prospering without being taken over by outsiders. So what if a little incentive gets paid? That’s what we all reckoned.”

  Amalthea gazed at her blankly, as though she’d advocated planting the cane upside down. Then she waved it away; both hands, eyes scrunched.

  “So,”she said to Frieda, still trying to clarify, “you’re saying the mayor’s just fuming because his town’s out of whack! And Franz is confessing to crimes on the off-chance that his old man was involved in them! Does any of that even make sense?”

  Frieda shrugged a tight-lipped confirmation and, with her chin trembling, declared, “Much as I love both my men, neither one’s exactly a whip-crack. An’ the mayor drinks too much. And when he’s in his cups, what he knows, everyone knows. Which is how I know, like I toldja, he had nothing to do with that fire last night! Nor any of the other stuff neither!” She cast a vicious look at Vivian and Marybeth. “He deserves the benefit o’ anybody’s doubt!”

  The two women reached to console her and to assure her that no judgement would ever pass their lips, which was as likely as the prospect of water never passing over a fish’s gills. Amalthea, dead-ended yet again, gave up and went to fetch Franz, provoking a sleepy query from Asael, within.

  “Oh!” Marybeth moaned, her eyes pleading for admittance.

  * * *

  The object, pear-shaped, pewter coloured and tall as a full-length mirror, balances impossibly on a pinpoint. It should fall. She expects it to fall. She thinks that perhaps it is falling – has already fallen – but her mind has stopped, snagged like a rag on a jagged edge of time.

  Asael smiles beatifically up at her from where he sits, cross-legged on the floor. Asael, conceived in fury, birthed in secret, raised in ignorance. The goat lies down beside him and also gazes up at her; the goat that was dead and is alive; the goat that was blind and (she feels in her heart) can see.

  She tries to imagine the object’s journey but she cannot. She remembers how it glowed with fire in the night, streaking down like the arc of an arrow, thrusting itself into the consciousness of Sugar Town. But that’s all. For her there is no oily sheen of sky or impossible-to-conceive emptiness of galaxial space or mythology of stars. No. Before that fall, there is only the hand of God!

  The boy speaks to the goat, words she doesn’t hear, and laughs and the goat rolls on its side and they both casually, fearlessly, bump against the object. At that instant, a cloud clears from the sun, a door cracks open, the breeze moves an unsecured curtain and a shaft of light prisms into the room. On the surface of the object, Marybeth spies a fleeting image – the shadow of a great bird, soaring. And she’s comforted. She knows the object cannot fall. Nothing can fall, so long as God desires it to stand.

  * * *

  When Frieda, Vivian and Marybeth rolled a very unwell-looking Franz into their car, I felt genuinely sorry for him, knowing, as he still didn’t, that the protection of silence long given his father’s reputation was about to be rescinded. Frieda went in subdued silence, shrugging off my attempted thanks while Vivian’s air of smug superiority, I knew, was the precursor of whispered revelations in every shop on Main Street. And Marybeth left with a spooky aura of calm, completely opposite to the nervous fidgetiness she’d displayed on arrival. Watching her during the five minutes she’d spent staring at Queenie was like watching someone be anaesthetised.

  As she was leaving, she patted my hand and leaned close to whisper: “We’ll get him back from the jungle, Ruthie. Don’t you doubt it. The cleansing has begun.”

  I just smiled and nodded. At least her brand of craziness was harmless.

  * * *

  In what he thinks of as maudlin moments, Cranna has occasionally pondered the workings of Fate. Some are spared and some are flicked away; and the so-called ‘wicked’ are as likely to carry on as the so-called ‘holy’. The question is one of survival, and ‘Luck’ is the only answer that’s ever felt right. Luck and cunning. You pay with a counterfeit penny and you try your luck. If you lose, you’ve lost nothing.

  His own luck has always been spectacular; from the usability of Lyle Hoggitt to the gullibility of Jacob McFarlane; from the impetuous stupidity of Les Crampton to the close-mouthed petulance of Roger Dabney. By whatever means, for whatever reasons, they’ve given their luck over to him and allowed him to have what he wanted. Not even an airplane crash – not even a gun-happy lunatic like Isak Nucifora, has managed to change his luck!

  Half an hour ago he’s organised his face into a frown of deepest concern and sympathy – the best of his counterfeit pennies – and rolled into Bridie McFarlane’s room.

  How sad to see you here! How unfortunate your news! How perfectly understandable your reaction! All on your own with a wilful teenaged sister and . . . (a tone that oozes sensitivity and condolence: what shall we call him?) . . . a ‘brother’? . . . who suffers debilitating lapses! A mother dead and a father gone to the wilderness rather than stay for his family! A memory so pitted and damaged that well-meaning but mis-guided ‘friends’ like Bessie Crampton can re-arrange its furniture at will. All these many, many troubles!

  He counts them off, one by oppressive one, each one a brick that he drops with inward satisfaction and outward concern, at her feet. Sometimes it must seem bleak – not that it really is bleak, but sometimes it must seem so! Blah blah blah. No one escapes, do they! We all know that.

  He watches her for reactions; the topic that causes her shoulders suddenly to slump or the corners of her mouth to sag. They’re the clues he seeks. She’s like Rita was, he thinks, but without Rita’s intelligence. And she has Jacob’s urge to self-destruct. He is pleasantly surprised to find that Jacob is the key.

  “Yes indeed!” he pronounces. “Your father was – and I suppose still is – a fine preacher! A man of powerful sentiments! We were fortunate to know him, weren’t we?”

  Her smile is thin, bereaved, but her eyes remain clear and proud. McFarlane arrogance and self-righteousness! Something about this family has always rubbed Johnathon like a poorly fitted shoe. He feels subtlety slipping from his grasp.

  “Well yes! And we all admire your commitment, Bridie – collecting money to send him, year after year. How long has it been since you’ve seen him – eight, nine years? That is true commitment, alright! And why not, eh? I mean, if you reckon he’s done right by you . . . how can you do otherwise than right by him, eh?” He shrugs doubtfully and wags his head.

  “Right by me? Mr Cranna, it’s not a question of doing right by me! He has a mission, to spread the word of . . . !”

  “Yes, yes, I know! Spread the word of God!” An angry impulse grabs him and, before he can recognise it, it leads him off on a tangent. “You want to know what my father’s mission in life was? To do whatever it took! To look out for himself! You can screw your convictions to the wall and forget about ‘em. That’s what he told me. Just grab what you want and get the hell out of t
he road before something runs over you. Because something’s surely going to try!”

  “My! That sounds so . . . desperate! What happens if you can’t get out of the road – if you’re stuck?”

  He shakes his head, gives her a level look. “Then you grab someone else and get behind them. Whatever it takes!” He looks at the furrows in her brow. “That seems wrong to you, doesn’t it?” And in answer to her nod, he leans forward, slyly confidential: “Me too! But it’s something your father understood very well, if I’m not mistaken. And I did get to know him rather well, you know – before he left!”

  He swings the wheelchair about and, without stopping, says over his shoulder, “Not that you’d want to dwell on that, Bridie. I’d put such thoughts out of my mind if I was you!”

  * * *

  When the car was well and truly gone, Isak emerged from Amalthea’s bedroom. He shook his head at us and we all shrugged. Frieda’d been right; the outing of a little small-time corruption, which possibly only Lyle Hoggitt had thought was a secret, was of little use to us. She’d told us because, if she didn’t, and we took Franz’s confession to Sergeant Morrow, it might all have wound up having to be explained in a court. So now we knew that, but we were no closer to knowing who was behind the Night of Mayhem. Or, on the long-term front, what the true story was on the occurrences of Harvest Festival Weekend, 1997.

  Amalthea declared that she was going to make sandwiches for lunch and then, afterwards, build another funeral pyre, this time for Rosemary. Kevin and Isak went with her to the kitchen while Asael, I noted, had drifted back to sleep on the floor. It wasn’t like him to sleep so much or so easily and I wondered if this connection with Queenie could be taking something out of him. Or was he just tired, like me? I tried to focus on what to do about it but the merry-go-round of concerns continued in my mind; every time I glimpsed one, it immediately got bumped along by another.

  I went to my rucksack and dug out my list of Findings, Sources and Questions, focussing on it being the only way I could think of to make that merry-go-round stop. Sprawling in the shade of the veranda, I pencilled a large new heading:

  * * *

  NEW THINGS TO FIGURE OUT, and underlined it twice.

  1. Figure out what’s going on with Asael. Ask Doc’ Dabney?

  2. Figure out what Frieda was implying by her sly looks and nods at Kevin.

  i.e. “Even when you’re close to people, you don’t always know!” (Hard look at Kevin.) And, “The stain (of truth) will spread!” (Hard look at Kevin.) What was that about? Ask Kevin.

  3. Figure out whether Kevin knows who Amalthea actually is! (Not that it’s any of my business!) DO NOT ask Kevin! Keep eyes and ears peeled.

  4. Figure out Johnathon Cranna!

  i.e. Frieda implies that he’s led the mayor by the nose – which probably says more about the mayor than it does about Johnathon because he seems mostly pretty genuine and charming to me, if maybe a little desperate for company. Do I know anyone who might know him well enough to talk about him?

  * * *

  I was pondering that last question, tapping my teeth with the pencil, when a voice said, “Roger Dabney’s yer man.” It was Isak, reading over my shoulder. I was mildly startled at first. Then I remembered point number three and felt myself blush. Isak paid no heed.

  “Roger Dabney and Alf! Ask them about Cranna. They ‘uz all mates once.”

  I pencilled in the names and smiled thanks at him.

  “Ye could ring ol’ Rog’ on yer little phone, couldn’ ye! Ask him to come out here and check out the boy. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Just thinkin’ of yer number one there.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Yes. No. Do you think he’d come just to see Asa’? Or would he say, ‘Bring him to the hospital’?”

  “Hard to say with ol’ Rog’! He’d come if ye tol’ ‘im I was here, but!”

  The suggestion surprised and disappointed me.

  “You quitting then, Isak? Ready to turn yourself in?”

  “Didn’ say that, did I?”

  “No, but . . . !”

  “No. Jus’ an idea for gettin’ ol’ Rog’ off on his own. Ask him a couple o’ curly questions, that’s all! Samidges’re ready.”

  He turned to go back in.

  “Wait!” It’s hard to ask someone for discretion when you’re not very discrete yourself. I indicated the list. “I’d appreciate it if you . . . you know . . . don’t say anything about my point number three – the Kevin / Amalthea thing? I really . . . I don’t even know what I was thinking! Just being stupid!”

  “Senile ol’ man like me,” he said, “is flat out keepin’ two things in his head at one time. Right now, I got samidges an’ Roger Dabney in there. Come ‘n’ eat.”

  * * *

  I didn’t ring Doctor Dabney; not right then. Mostly because Asael, when I went through the living room, was sleeping so peacefully. I took his glasses off his face and pushed hair from his forehead, thinking my touch might wake him and he’d come for some lunch. He smiled, mumbled and rolled over, but didn’t wake.

  “Is his forehead cool?” Amalthea asked, coming from the kitchen.

  “Yeah. And his colour seems . . . natural.”

  “I thought so too. Are you worried about him?”

  I realised I wasn’t actually sure. It seemed to me that even the delusions he had – sounds and images coming from Queenie – the belief that he could draw power from her – they weren’t particularly alarming or dangerous. And once the authorities took her away, probably it would all pass. Still . . .

  “A bit, I guess. We’re still kind of getting used to this epilepsy thing; these little seizures! You’d think it’d be scarey for him! Seeing things – lights, figures. Going blind, sometimes, for whole minutes!”

  We watched him sleeping, curled up against Garlic, with dead Rosemary under a sheet only a couple of metres away.

  “Do you think it does scare him?” she asked.

  “No. I think he kind of likes it!”

  I mentioned Isak’s suggestion for getting ‘ol’ Rog’ to the house for a grilling, but she doubted Isak’d have enough leverage to pry information out of anyone. Not without using his gun which, after the bullet he’d so casually fired between Hoggs’ legs, seemed a trifle more dangerous than we were comfortable with.

  * * *

  So it was Isak and Kev’ and Amalthea and I for lunch. I took the opportunity to ask Kevin about his personal memories of reactions to the attack on Bridie. He remembered the talk of ‘teenage hormones’ and he remembered the Rev’ being like a column of non-specific fire for a few months until, sometime after Rita took us away, the fire suddenly went out. Around when Grandma G died.

  “Poor Rita,” I rambled, thinking how she’d begged him in her letter to write it all down – to not give up. “She must have been so frustrated! Didn’t she have anyone she could talk to in those times, Kev’? I mean, where was everybody?”

  “Everyone was here,” he said softly. “As close as she’d let us be. But . . . it was like her sense of trust had been cut out. The fact that no one was willing to come forward – about either attack – that no name at all came up until so long after the facts! It must have seemed like . . . treachery! And she built a wall.” His head had fallen as he spoke, but he lifted it then pressing for a more positive tone.

  “Bessie! If you really want to know what was going on in your father’s house, you should talk to Bessie!” He paused a moment then added, “Or Johnathon Cranna. He and the Reverend spent a lot of time together in those last months.”

  “Humph!” snorted Isak and when I cocked a questioning eye at him, he waved me away.

  “Ne’ mind! Truckie’s right about Bess, though. You talk to ‘er. Reckon she’ll be along soon, her ‘n’ the wog. I tol’ ‘em, I says, ‘Move yer vans over ta Gracie’s’, I says. ‘That, or move along altogether! Yer temptin’ the fates out here on yer own’!”

  For a few minutes we all went qui
et until Amalthea suddenly pushed her plate back and turned the full focus of her gaze on Kevin. Isak squinted expectantly over his sandwich and I felt my guts turn over: ‘Uh oh! Crisis time!’ Kevin’s surprised grin made me think that only he was unaware that the next few minutes might very well be the difference between him carrying on as he was and him gaining a daughter.

  “Treachery’s an interesting word, isn’t it!” she said, clearly not about to waste any in this discussion. “Tell me something, Kev’! When Frieda was . . . unburdening herself earlier . . . I couldn’t help but notice the little comments that she directed at you. Particularly when she was talking about Rita! ‘The stain of truth will spread’! ‘No high moral stances.’ What was that about?”

  He blanched and fumbled with his sandwich and tried to put her off with joking remarks about women’s imaginations. No one jumped in to save him.

  “C’mon, Kev’! She was putting herself on the line there! Took a lot of gumption on her part! What’s the story? I’m sure Ruthie’d like to know every little scrap there is to know about her parents. As any child would, for that matter!”

  He stammered and flushed and cleared his throat and flung himself off to the sink for water. It’s hard to watch someone be cornered but harder still to suspect a friend of being loose with the truth. Still, none of us offered him a way out. We waited. And finally he came back to us at the table.

  “Fine, right, okay! Not that it’s a relevant issue, Ru’! Honestly! Not to what happened then or what happened last night! If thought it was . . . if I’d ever thought it was, I’d have found a way to tell you! But the thing is . . . as you know, your mother was a beautiful woman, Ru’ – smart, funny, brave. When she laughed, it was like . . . spring. And when she cried . . . she made winter. I promise you, if anyone could’ve helped her back then, in any way, they would have! Because everybody loved her! I loved her. That’s what Frieda was getting at.”

  Sometimes I embarrass myself with how dense I am. “I know you loved her, Kev’. You love all of us. And we love you!”

  “No. You don’t understand. I really loved her.”

  The three of us sat briefly in stunned silence. Then Isak got up and went to the toilet and Amalthea went to the sink, where she splashed water on her face and remained, looking out the window. Kevin reached to touched me but, for reasons I can’t explain, I leaned back in my chair, staring at him. Maybe stunned by the obviousness of it. Maybe waiting for the rest.