The Slipping Place

by Joanna Baker

  Chapter 16

  ______

  She was right to be angry with Paul. He was talking nonsense. Something you already know. This is worse. What right did he have to say that? She had found a dead body. It was murder. Roland was implicated. His behaviour was irrational, unbalanced.

  She tried to explain all this to Paul, tried insisting that he tell her something that made sense, but he refused. All he would say was that there was someone she needed to see.

  She ate half the panini, felt sick and closed her eyes, allowing the movement of the car to swing her head around. When they stopped they were in Lenah Valley, on the hillside above Augusta Road. They sat for a minute, looking over heavy houses and neat unimaginative gardens, across to Calvary.

  ‘I’m sorry about this.’ Paul’s lips were plump and beautiful. Lips that a girl, that Belle, would be pleased to have.

  ‘You’ve already said that.’

  He wouldn’t explain anything and she had given up asking. She felt passive, and half-expected to find Roland here, despite what Paul said. Couldn’t think what else this could be.

  They got out of the car. Above the footpath there was a high brick wall with succulents spilling over it, and above them a mass of tangled shrubs, and then, high above all that, a tiled roof.

  Paul led her up the driveway. The garden was crammed with plants – climbing roses, salvias, plectranthus, echiums. An amorphous mass – something that kept the eye moving, and moving away – a screen, a scrambler of light.

  The worst thing.

  It was starting to seem less like nonsense now. She could believe there was something bad here. No-one had a garden like this unless they had something to hide. Or something to heal.

  Paul took her through a hedge of hebe to the back of the house. Here the garden was more ordered – herbs and vegetables and paths. Over the back door there was a lightly built wooden shelter, closed in with flyscreens. Through a flimsy screen door Veronica could see a long table covered in small tiles, separated into colours, and an unfinished mosaic – something resembling Van Gogh’s sunflowers.

  Paul knocked on the screen door, making a rattling sound, and called, ‘Lissa.’

  The woman who appeared was wearing an Indian skirt, a floral shirt, a tapestry waistcoat, a scarf – some kind of Oxfam thing – and beads. And bangles in plastic and wood. Texture, Veronica thought. Shelter, the sartorial version of the garden. She opened the light door but stood for a moment, one hand on the handle, looking from Paul to Veronica. She was over forty. Her hair was light, either grey or very bleached, and it had been cut with a razor – the kind of style that would have looked feathery if it had been cleaner. She might be one of Roland’s friends, had all the attributes – the too-youthful dress sense; the pretty, wild hair; the eyes with that sensitive, slightly crazed look.

  Paul said, ‘Lissa has something to tell you.’

  It was unclear whether they were to be invited inside, or if the message was to be delivered here, in the outdoor shelter.

  Veronica recognised the silhouette. This was the woman who had followed her in the Cortina. Belle had said, Someone is coming. Could this be what she meant? Could she possibly have known?

  Lissa said, ‘I was going to come and see you at your home but I … your house, but I …’

  Surely, if she had something to say, she could have prepared better than this? Veronica tried to help her. ‘Are you a friend of Roland’s?’

  Without answering, Lissa turned away. Veronica followed her inside, then through a kitchen into a lounge room. In here, a reading lamp threw a pool of yellow light over an armchair and another door showed the deeper shadow of a passage. A TV was silently playing Coast to Coast – Tony Robinson’s kindly goblin face, a man crawling on a stretch of mud. Paul stayed in the kitchen.

  Lissa gestured Veronica towards a couch and then stood by the mantelpiece. She had one of those gaunt faces – fine boned with big violet eyes – that ages suddenly, from prettiness to exhaustion, a sort of haggard-elf look. She was too old to be a school friend of Roland’s. Someone from the Wilderness Society, maybe, or that project he had joined once, with unemployed youth.

  ‘Do you know where Roland is?’ Veronica was getting impatient, hotter. ‘I do need to see him.’

  ‘Please don’t drink anymore.’ Lissa said that calmly, without judgement or discomfort, as if this came up all the time. ‘You’re going to be needed.’

  Veronica heard herself repeat the word. ‘Needed.’ And now she did sound drunk. She gulped at the air.

  Lissa’s voice was gentle. ‘It isn’t fair. But it’s very important.’ ‘Just tell me he’s all right.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes.’

  But she didn’t sound sure. She made an inadequate, fluttering movement with her hands, which seemed to mean that this was complicated, then picked up a blue folder from the mantelpiece and knelt at the coffee table in front of Veronica. She produced a set of photos and fanned them out, but held them up in front of her, their faces hidden, like a poker hand. Then, to prepare herself, she pursed her lips. Veronica could hear air moving through them.

  After some seconds, Lissa met Veronica’s gaze. Her eyes had no flesh around them, so that Veronica was aware of them as balls in sockets. They had a worn down, haunted look, a kind of universal sadness. And then that changed. The sadness became personal, almost as if she was pitying Veronica.

  She put one of the photographs face up, between them on the table. It was the face of a child. Veronica had to fumble her glasses out of a pocket before she could see more.

  It was Treen’s little boy. Just the face in close-up: soft, smooth, unformed. One of his eyes was black – black, purple and red. And yellow. The skin around it was swollen, shiny and tight, the eye itself almost closed. The side of his face was discoloured too. And across his forehead there was a brown mark, long and crooked, like a wide scab.

  Something had happened to the air in the room. Veronica stared at the photograph, hated it, couldn’t look away, couldn’t speak.

  Lissa put down another photo. It was the boy again. This one was full length, and taken from behind – a little boy’s back with three long diagonal bruises.

  Veronica looked at the table, rubbed her hands across its tiled surface, took a breath. She became aware of a seeping nausea, a big bubble lurching somewhere down in the wine. Sweat broke out in her armpits, between her breasts.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She pushed herself back and moved a leg sideways as if to get up.

  But, ridiculously, farcically, Lissa said the same thing at the same time.

  ‘I’m sorry, Veronica, to do this to you. But this is Mayson. He is two years old.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve met Mayson, I …’ Help me. Please. Help us.

  Lissa already had two more photos on the table. One showed an arm, the other a fat hand, and there were more sickening injuries: a bent finger, a red mark edged with white flakes of skin.

  ‘Over his short life he has suffered burns and bruising. Last summer he was hospitalised with a displaced fracture of the right arm, three broken ribs, and a hairline crack in the skull.’ Lissa was speaking quietly and steadily, reciting a script. ‘Treen claimed he had fallen from a cupboard and no-one could prove otherwise. On his release from hospital, Mayson was returned to the care of his mother.’

  Veronica moved again, ready to stand up and go. What was she doing here, hearing this? She wasn’t in a position to help Mayson. His mother was dead, he was in danger of being harmed again, but it was not something she, Veronica, could fix. And she was being manipulated. This strange little person, for reasons of her own, had asked her here. Somehow Lissa had persuaded the gullible and fragile Paul to help her. Veronica had been targeted at a time when she was vulnerable. Now she was going to be asked for something.

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  She was angry – that she could allow this to happen, that she could keep saying that. She fought to gather herself, to regain the proper distance, con
trol the shock. Yes, this child had been abused. She had known that. It was ghastly, but it did happen. People like Lissa, the soft-hearted – they were admirable, but they didn’t help. They couldn’t. If you were to believe what you read about it, whole government departments were unable to help. Child protection was a complex, intractable mess. There were constant failures.

  And now Lissa was trying to drag Veronica into this mire, when Veronica had problems of her own. She had to get out of here. She would be kind but firm. She would not think about the photographs again. Looking directly at Lissa’s face she said, ‘I agree with you.’ She moved sideways. ‘It’s terrible that this sort of thing goes on. Appalling. But my son is in trouble. I’m sorry. I simply can’t do anything about this at the moment. Paul would have explained that.’

  Lissa looked at her curiously, allowing her to finish, then went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Mayson’s mother’s name is Treen McShane. She died on the mountain yesterday.’

  ‘Yes, I …’ Was it only yesterday? ‘I know.’

  ‘Up until this, Mayson was living with Treen and her partner Dane and her best friend, Belle Ahern. Dane was violent.’ Lissa had slipped from the script. ‘Dane was becoming increasingly violent. Treen asked your son Roland to help her.’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware of all of this.’ In fact these pictures explained a lot. Roland wouldn’t walk away from something like this. ‘Treen asked him for help and he came. That’s the kind of boy he is.’ And she, Veronica – Treen had asked her for help and she had walked away. What kind of person was she?

  Lissa said, ‘Roland was bashed by Dane and Belle hasn’t seen him since. And now Treen is gone. Dane is likely to be seriously affected by Treen’s death, once it sinks in. Belle is afraid for the child. She has reason to be. She thinks, she knows, he will hurt the boy again.’

  Veronica had known this too. The boy had been drugged, deeply asleep, squashed into a pusher that was too small. And Dane had been full of that intense energy. The danger had been palpable.

  ‘Belle thinks the boy should go somewhere safe.’ Lissa cleared her throat.

  When Veronica had been working at the GPs’ surgery there had been a regular visitor, a woman who had survived a car accident, in which a friend had been killed. The woman had been unhurt but had come in for tranquilisers. Lissa had the same look. These days they would call it PTSD. It was a mixture of deep shock and survivor’s guilt, a knowledge unwished for, a pain that couldn’t be reached. It made Veronica wonder, what exactly had Lissa seen?

  The photographs had a magnetic pull. Veronica, determined not to look again, took her glasses off. She turned her eyes away, stared at a crocheted rug, the television, a bowl of quinces.

  Lissa said, ‘Belle asked me to come to you.’

  ‘You followed my car.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to find the right time and place. I didn’t know how to go about it. But Belle needs help.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry but I’m not sure if that’s true. As a matter of fact, I saw her today and she didn’t seem to want my help. She didn’t want anything to do with me or Roland. She more or less threw me out.’

  ‘She’s afraid of Dane.’

  That was true. Veronica thought of Belle, tipping backwards, ecstatically happy, and afraid. Belle, showing off her hand cream, aware the whole time of Dane moving around behind the open door.

  ‘Does he hurt her?’

  ‘He hurts everyone.’

  ‘Did he kill Treen?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, the poor little boy.’ That had come from nowhere. Veronica’s eyes had fallen to the pictures and they were somehow worse now that they were out of focus. The bruises across the little boy’s back were straight, parallel and evenly spaced. ‘Oh, my dear.’

  ‘He needs to get away from him.’

  ‘Oh, he does. Yes, Lissa, he does.’

  There was a long silence.

  Veronica took a breath. ‘Well, thank you for telling me what you know. These things are terrible.’ She was sounding like a callous fool. ‘Roland is a kind boy. I can see why he was trying to help. And I will help him in any way I can. But first I need to find him and I – we – need to sort out this business with Treen.’ Another terrible phrase. ‘Roland is in danger of being caught up in Treen’s death. He’s upset and behaving oddly. He’s more vulnerable than people realise. You have to understand that finding him is my first priority. Once I’ve found him, and the police know how Treen got to the mountain, once they know Roland wasn’t involved, then we can concentrate on this little boy, work out something for him. But even then, we would only be able to … do … It’s going to be difficult.’

  She needed to say more. To explain about her generous, idealistic, mercurial son and the promises he made, explain that they couldn’t always be met. But it was hard to find words, sitting over these sickening photographs.

  ‘There are people whose job it is to handle things like this. Institutions.’ Not institutions. ‘Government bodies.’ This was dreadful. ‘I can help you find out who they are.’

  Lissa’s eyes filled instantly with tears. The tears didn’t spill but were absorbed again as quickly as they had arisen. It was a cleansing reflex. After it the huge eyes were again clear. Only the flesh underneath them showed traces of the rush of emotion, not in dried tears, but in a darkening under the skin.

  ‘I was a child protection worker. I am one. I’m on leave. It became too …’

  That was it then. Stress. It was a horrible job. And now she had become involved in this nightmare case, in some kind of unofficial capacity. She should be treated kindly but firmly.

  ‘Do you think you might just leave this for now? Let someone else deal with it?’

  Lissa’s forehead looked clammy and her fingertips were trembling. She picked up one of the photographs and held it out to Veronica. She was gripping it tightly, bending the paper. Two of her fingers were stretched across it, nails broken, the skin cracked and dirt stained. Gardener’s hands.

  ‘Look at him. What do you see?’

  The photograph was too close. The child’s face was blurred, a pale oval with phantom eyes and mouth. The clearest thing was the track across the forehead.

  Lissa put the photograph down, put her finger on another, the arm with the red mark. ‘That’s a burn.’

  ‘Listen –’

  ‘Dane did it.’

  Veronica tried to make her voice calm. ‘Look.’ She wasn’t handling this well, was issuing verbs.

  ‘With an iron.’

  ‘It’s terrible. I know this sort of thing goes on. But I’m not in a position to take on any … I have my own …’ She’d been going to say ‘problems’, but swallowed the word just in time.

  ‘I need you to go and see them.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I wouldn’t have any authority … any … leverage.’ That was an awful word. ‘This domestic violence … And I’m not good at this sort of thing. Not in the way you want. I’m definitely not an activist. I don’t act. I have a daughter who does things like that. And friends. But not me. I go on committees and write letters.’

  ‘He doesn’t need letters.’

  ‘But there’s nothing else –’

  ‘You have to see him.’

  ‘I haven’t got time to see him.’

  ‘He’s your grandson.’

  Chapter 17

  ______

  How quickly the world could change.

  All it took were three words. He’s your grandson.

  A moment ago Mayson had been a dreadful story, something that upset and angered her, but he had been an imagined person, someone who was not quite in the room, essentially a distraction from the problems that were rightly hers. His story had been something she had to deal with, fairly and efficiently, and then put aside.

  Well, now he was in the room, all right. He had come into her circle. And the story that had been dreadful was now something else – something that
, perhaps, it always should have been.

  Unbearable.

  This child – she touched the nearest photograph – this Mayson, this poor little boy – Roland’s boy, hers – had existed, had lived for nearly three years, had suffered and been afraid, and while that was happening, she, Veronica – loving, comfortable, vague, self-absorbed, spoiled, underused, bored – had been living in her big house, painting in her leafy garden, inside her stone walls, pondering the sky, knowing nothing about him. Doing nothing to help.

  Grandmother.

  She could picture him: a small figure, curled over, receiving blows to the back, kicks to his side and underneath, being thrown into a wall. She began by wondering how that must have been for such a tiny boy, and then, instantly, without wanting to, she knew. She found herself picturing it from within. The fear. Pain. His pain. Hers.

  For a fraction of a second, when she lifted her eyes from the carpet, she didn’t know where she was, couldn’t remember what she was doing here. It was as if the world had been spinning, and she had spun with it, and now that it had stopped she was facing in the opposite direction. Where she had been audience she was now actor, now the sufferer, brightly lit, a participant in a drama, a tragedy, exposed and vulnerable, peering out into a darkness filled with people who silently watched, and wondering why no-one helped.

  Paul drove her home. He sat at her kitchen table and told her about it, as quickly as possible.

  He told her that after the boys had left for the mainland they hardly saw Treen and her friends. But three and a half years ago, when Roland was in town for a twenty-first, they had met her again at some wild party. There were drugs. Paul didn’t elaborate on those.

  At the time Paul had only recently returned to Hobart. John was in Hong Kong. Roland and Paul went to the party to catch up with the old crowd. And somewhere in a back room Roland had allowed himself to be lured into unprotected sex.

  No. This was no time for clinging to comforting illusions. Roland was no angel and he was no fool. He had made choices. It was quite possible that all the luring had gone in the other direction. So let it stand. There had been drugs around and Roland had behaved stupidly. It wouldn’t have been the only time. Roland was no fool, but he had always been an idiot.