The Wounded Sinner

by Gus Henderson

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It will be a cleansing experience.’ She drew Jaylene close so that their bodies pressed together, tight enough for her to feel the girl’s heart pounding. ‘Think of it as doing God’s work.’

  Jaylene pulled away. ‘But doesn’t God say we’re not s’posed to kill anyone?’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. “Vengeance is mine,” he said. We’ll just be helping him out a little, okay?’

  Afterwards Jaylene snuffed out the candle. It was easy.

  —

  There had never been a time when women had not caused Ben Poulson grief. Even his own mother, who perhaps foresaw for him the rocky road ahead, set about him daily with the firm, hard rod of hopeful correction until the hurt numbed into hatred and he stumbled away from his childhood, picking the wings off life as he went.

  Experience crafted him a thin skin of normalcy, of bright-eyed, smiling mystery, enough to intrigue any woman … enough, enough, they’d always pick away just enough. Then he gave the women what he thought they deserved and more. He loved to hear them scream for mercy: please, please no, oh, God, no. He had to make them pay. He had to make the bitches pay.

  Jaylene Andrews was no exception. Dark meat. He loved dark meat.

  26

  ‘Jeez, that’s gotta be the biggest fig tree in history.’

  ‘I said it was big, Vince.’

  ‘What used to be here?’

  ‘Wonnerup East Railway Station. Maybe it was just a siding. The rail was still going when I was a teenager.’ Matthew swung his head back towards the twin-cab. Archie was struggling with his sipper-mug, drinking beer a skerrick at a time. He was determined to get some satisfaction from the trip south and beer would be his vehicle. ‘Down there on Layman Road is Wonnerup House. Plenty of stories to tell, that place.’

  ‘Matty, what if she wants a divorce? I mean, it’s been hard enough the last couple of days. I … I don’t think I could live with that.’

  ‘What? You mean you’d toss-yer-lot over something like a divorce? Why would you do something like that?’

  ‘You’re not married, are you Matty?’

  ‘Never felt the need.’ Matthew turned towards the ute once again. He heard Archie’s wheezy little laugh generated in 50 mls gulps. ‘Look, I spent a good deal of my life wedged between a mother and father whose sole purpose was to see who could last the longest in the contest of marriage. It was a brutal war: neither surrendered. I wish they had.’

  ‘Don’t you love your girlfriend?’

  ‘My partner! Jeez, we’ve got five kids. You reckon we had to have been a little friendly.’ He reached out and pulled off a fruit. ‘These will be ready in another month. Yeah, they’ll be ready.’

  ‘It’s not all about sex. Love is …’ Vince’s definition was cut short. ‘Grandad used to bring me here when I was young. Each weekend we’d come and watch the fruit ripen. He’d say love is like … what the hell?’ They parted a tangle of fig leaves and branches. In the cathedral-like clearing at the centre of the tree lay a stained mattress, a scattering of used condoms and the spent seed of the unknown. ‘Bastards! Look at that. I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Teenagers, I s’pose.’

  ‘How dare they? Bastards!’ They let the branches swing back into place once more.

  ‘But what did he say love is like? You never finished.’

  ‘Oh, like fruit. He said it was like fruit. It matures into something glorious.’

  Matthew thought he felt wisdom brush past as a warm breeze of moleskins and Brut. They turned back to the ute. ‘Well, that’s one wonderful memory blown out of the water. Anyway, let’s go get this barbie organised, eh?’

  —

  Ruth Schettino lay slumped, head on arms on the kitchen table, snoring the slurpy bullroar snore of the sleeping drunk. Sophie sat watching her mother as she gradually collapsed into a mess of red hair, terry towelling and brandy fumes: it was not a pretty sight. After a while Sophie ran to the bathroom, vomiting: a combination of sleeplessness, anxiety, and too many brandies, she thought. In the back of her mind, maybe morning sickness, too. Dates and times, dates and times. Shit, what a mess.

  —

  There was a fleet of boats moored in Thompson Bay. Large and small, they had all made the trip across the green-water ditch from the mainland to drop anchor in Paradise. The taste of summer, the smell of zinc and the brine-flecked essence of captured spirits from the sea; the rich and poor alike, they sought out happiness.

  Eddie Romano watched the kids play in the shallows, splashing about among the skiffs and dinghies dragged up on the beach. A few were left in careless haste: it was a short walk to the pub. Before they felt the first slap of wave against their bows, Eddie would pull them up above the tide line. It’s what a man should do, for here upon the island, no one stood on formality. Halcyon days. Days like these, the kids, his life; the Almighty had rewarded him, blessed him with riches that many people would never see, never experience. Thank you, Lord, I will die a happy man.

  Time passed and he didn’t see it go. They made the passage on the ferry but Eddie didn’t feel the rocking of the swell or hear the motors growling down below. And they took him outside, hopeful the breeze would once more part the filmy curtains to his soul. Indeed, he closed his eyes and soon he sat again on the familiar porch in the shade of the Moreton Bay fig. It’s strange how the children changed that day. Eddie tried to pull their faces into focus, to make the pictures in his mind a little clearer, less frightening. But he saw the tide rushing in, engulfing everything, a swirling mass of dark-green, kelpie soup, and on the far horizons of reality he saw the boats, all bobbing free, and he heard the shrieks of the children. He knew what a man had to do.

  —

  The twin-cab pushed on towards Busselton, down Layman Road and past Wonnerup House. So much history; even at Vince’s speed it flashed by. Matthew was thinking out loud. ‘How much is too much?’

  ‘Whadya mean?’ Vince tugged at the edges of the abstract.

  ‘I mean, like my missus harping at me to solve all the world’s problems. I’d rather she’d just go with the flow.’ He gazed out the window at grazing cattle hemmed in by barbed wire and blue sky. ‘She doesn’t realise how hard it is sometimes being a bloke.’

  ‘Might be she’s only askin’ you to solve one problem?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’ Lockville appeared on the left, nestled in behind a stand of poplars and rich history, lovingly maintained, grand and old and always a lady. The ute swung west over the Lockville bridge: river on one side, ocean on the other. ‘There were times when life was just simpler. Seems so long ago now.’

  ‘Don’t I know it? Sophie would organise me like clock-work. Send me here, send me there. Pack me up and see me off for me stint out at Murrin. Made it simple for me.’ Vince slowed for the 60 zone. ‘Wonder what she’s doing now?’

  And, as if on cue, his phone rang. A soulful Percy Sledge ringtone sang out When a man loves a woman. It was Sophie.

  ‘You going to answer it?’ The phone jiggled around in its little holder on the dashboard. All eyes were on the phone.

  ‘I don’t know.’ A pause. ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Pull over at the floodgates.’ Vince did as he was told and the twin-cab came to a stop in the dirt overlooking the river.

  There was only the noise of the singing phone and a seatbelt being unclipped in the back. Matthew moved quickly, unexpectedly, powered by strong legs and Victoria Bitter. In an instant he had lunged forward from his seat, grabbed the phone and held it until Percy Sledge stopped singing.

  ‘Crikey! What did you do that for? It was Sophie ringing me!’

  ‘Sometimes you’ve just got to follow your instincts.’ Matthew considered the phone in his hand. ‘I did what I thought I had to do.’

  ‘Jeez, mate. I’ve been waitin’ for days for her call. Don’t you reckon I wanted to hear what she had to say?’

  ‘I don’t know, Vince. I just had a gut feeling. I think there’s a point in y
our life when you can just walk too bloody far.’

  Matthew was outside, lighting up a smoke. He had read somewhere that mobile phones did everything from causing brain cancer to blowing up in your pocket. Without another thought, he chucked the phone into the river. It plopped into mid-stream, bobbing around. If it had arms, one would be raised but there was to be no rescue, today.

  Vince joined Matthew on the bank and they watched as the phone slowly sank beneath the surface of the brown water.

  ‘I’ll buy you a new phone. Just not now.’ The two men looked at each other: Vince, open-mouthed, Matthew, unrepentant.

  ‘But Sophie …’

  ‘Not today, Vince,’ said Matthew, ‘I really think you can let her stew.’

  ‘Let her stew!’ Vince cried out. ‘You’re talking about my marriage, here. My family, my boy!’

  ‘Trust me, it’ll be okay.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ A few weak chirrups from within the ute. ‘Where’s my beer?’

  Vince, who for a short time had considered wading in to attempt a rescue, now accepted that the phone had gone forever, and turned back to the twin-cab. Matthew called after him, ‘I’m right. No need to play it all on her terms.’

  ‘You’ve got no idea about our relationship or what we meant to each other,’ and he stalked off under a grey cloud.

  —

  The ringing in Sophie’s ear finally stopped. Vince hadn’t answered and she guessed it was what she deserved and more. Self-pity, Shame and Conscience pulled up chairs and called out for a drink. The brandy bottle was empty. She rummaged around in the pantry seeking out more but Ruth had finished it off. There was a rap at the front door. Maybe it was Hope and Resolution. Maybe.

  ‘So-phie, So-phie. Yer there?’ Deanne stood behind the flyscreen, silhouetted against the brightness of the day, an ethereal image in a state-housing frame. Luke was asleep on her shoulder. He’d had enough.

  ‘Door’s unlocked. In the kitchen.’

  Sophie’s younger sister, Deanne: unpartnered, unemployed and hoping for a child from somewhere. Some said she batted for the other team but no one knew for sure. Within Sophie’s machinations, Deanne played an important part, albeit unwittingly. ‘Luke’s only just gone off. You want me to put him down?’

  ‘Yeah, on the couch.’ Deanne did as she was told. She put a rug over the sleeping child and joined Sophie and the snoring mess of Ruth Schettino at the Formica table.

  ‘Mum had a bottle hidden?’ It was obvious. ‘You all right, Soph?’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ That was obvious, too.

  ‘Worried about Mum? About Vince running off?’

  ‘Vince didn’t run off. I just made that up.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Oh, shit, Dee, it’s such a long story. I just can’t live with it anymore.’ Lukey stirred on the couch. ‘Can you go in, please? Every time I look at him I see his father.’

  Deanne pushed back her chair. ‘It’s not his fault what’s happened between you and Vince.’

  ‘I said “I see his father”, Deanne.’ There was no alcohol and even less understanding. Damn. ‘It’s Leo. Leo is his father.’

  ‘Oh … my … God! You screwed Leo!’

  ‘You want a coffee? I guess we need to talk.’

  —

  ‘I had in my mind a wood barbeque.’

  ‘They’re all gas, now.’

  ‘Just not the same, though, is it?’ Vince looked around the park. Children played at fun and adventure, and beyond the great expanse of the bay lay calm under the sun. ‘I needed to smell the wood, you know. I needed to smell the wood.’ He sat down on the bench, put his head in his hands and cried.

  27

  Most days Bill Kelso took his lunch at the servo and it amazed him that he always arrived in time to stock the fridges. Today, however, he decided to have a meal at the pub where he could impress the other patrons with his affected swagger in his R. M. Williams boots and grey Akubra. Actually, they were his father’s hat and boots but Bill thought he needed to look the part.

  He practised his walk on the way to the pub, a pained, saddle-weary, bow-legged gait, as if he’d grown a broomstick and just couldn’t quite shake it free. He pushed open the hotel’s front door and Squire greeted him with a cheerful, ‘It’s Buffalo Bill!’ Bill was impressed that Squire had got his name right for once. At other times Squire was just plain unkind.

  Bill fronted the bar and leant on his elbow. He read the menu with some difficulty.

  ‘What’ll it be, pardner?’

  ‘I’m still lookin’.’ There was something called ‘rogan josh’ on the menu but his father had told him it had been a race-horse. He was more than a little suspicious. ‘Just give me steak, eggs and chips.’

  ‘That’s what you always have!’ Squire poured him a Coke. (‘Always give him Coke, Squire,’ said his father. ‘Alcohol makes him a bit silly.’)

  ‘Yeah. I reckon it’s brain food.’

  Squire turned away and muttered under his breath that it had done him no good so far. He called out the order to Chooky, ‘Big steak and eggs for “the Kid”.’

  ‘You’re getting quite a reputation around town, you know, as a ladies’ man.’ Ben Poulson hitched his backside onto the vacant stool beside young Bill. ‘I saw you talking to that little black girl this morning.’

  ‘Jaylene?’ He sipped his Coke through a straw. ‘Me and her is friends.’

  ‘So, what did you talk about?’

  ‘Just some stuff. Then she went and that lady followed her.’

  ‘What lady?’

  ‘Can’t tell. She’s on a secret mission. But she wanted to know where she could get her air-conditioner fixed and I gave her your card.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Ben stood up and took a twenty from his wallet. He slapped it down beside Bill’s Coke. ‘Thanks, son, that’ll pay for your steak.’

  ‘Jaylene didn’t say where she was going. Guess that’s a secret, too.’

  Ben was already out the door.

  —

  ‘You thin’ you unnerstan’ our worl’ but you nebber been pard of it.’

  ‘Yes, I understand, Auntie.’

  ‘You don’ unnerstan’. You reckon we come here t’Kal an’ buy me new clodes from Vinnie’s gonna change our worl’s. Dat’s bullshit!’

  ‘That’s a bit rough, Auntie. I just …’

  ‘I tol’ that girl Jaylene dat you only livin’ in one world. Dat’s the whiteman world eben if you still black like me. Your farder died fightin’ for his peeble. You orda ’member dat.’

  ‘How did he die? I thought it was an accident.’

  ‘So dey say. I’ll tell you. Firs’ I gotta show you sommin’. Get der kids, ’ey.’

  A car horn sounded out from somewhere nearby on the broad tarred strip of Boulder Road, almost certainly followed by a flurry of finger signals and unintelligible snarling that accompanies modern civilisation.

  ‘Where we off to, Auntie?’

  ‘Boulder camp.’

  ‘I don’t know if I should take the kids there. Would they be safe?’

  ‘Are der kids safe anywhere?’

  ‘Mumma! Mumma! Little Albert stinks!’ Nadine was crying out from inside the play area. It was time to go, regardless.

  —

  Fat tyres slid to a halt on gravel. The cab door swung open and stayed that way. Boots crunched. Long strides. He was inside the house in seconds. Fight or flight: what’s it gonna be? Think. Hurry. Breathing hard, thinking fast … pack … thinking how difficult … a few clothes … it was … buy the rest … .just trying to be a normal man … in Perth … . to have a normal relationship … no … to live a normal life … make a stand … In the end, though, it was always a woman who would stuff it all up … and make the bitches pay … They never seemed to learn that their place in life was … Shit, where’s my gun?

  —

  ‘He’s going to make a run for it. He always does.’ Lisbeth put the binoculars down. ‘What a
prick! So much for secrecy.’

  ‘Aw, don’t blame Bill. He gets a bit silly at times.’

  ‘Not a good time to be politically correct, Jaylene. The kid’s a friggin’ dill.’

  ‘What are you going to do now? Maybe it’s best to let him go.’

  ‘You’re not chickening out on me, are you? Not after what he’s done to me,’ – a pause – ‘and you, of course. You just have to aim and pull the trigger.’

  ‘Can’t you do it? I’m startin’ to feel really bad about this.’

  ‘They won’t prosecute a little girl.’

  ‘It’s killing someone!’

  ‘It’s killing a vicious animal.’ Lisbeth grabbed Jaylene’s hair and pulled her face so close she could see the furrowed maze of scar lines under the make-up. ‘I’ve suffered enough; your suffering’s only just beginning.’

  Jaylene didn’t flinch and that scared Lisbeth. Maybe she thought she saw herself so many years ago. She drew back, released her grip. ‘Shit. So much for the sisterhood.’ She looked towards Ben’s little house. ‘Looks like I’ll have to do it myself, then. Get out!’ So Lisbeth drove off alone. Jaylene stood there for a moment, long enough to hear the cry of ‘Chicken! Bluck, bluck, bluck, bluck!’ rising in a cloud of dust and madness.

  She headed home, chased along by the expectation of pistol shots that never came.

  —

  The taxis sat in line at the bottom end of town, at the back of the big supermarket and bottle shop, a tag-team wrestling for every penny and parched tongue. Auntie Peggy, Jeanie and the kids walked down Hannan Street past all the different shops and fine old buildings: AD1900 chipped in stone, the start of history. Robyn pushed Little Albert in the stroller, Nadine and Georgina straggled somewhere behind.

  ‘You girls keep up, please!’ A qualified distrust of the frailties of humankind. Kalgoorlie is a big town. Jeanie didn’t know everyone.

  A replica of Paddy Hannan’s statue sat on a pedestal on the Town Hall corner. During the war, some wags removed him from his perch and sat him in a public toilet. The original is now locked away, too fearful to show his face, fearful that he may be stolen or damaged, that icon of so much change.