by Ben Hobson
He looked down at his belly. The empty can of beans. He added, ‘Look at you there, Kelly, trying to make me see the light. Like you’re just giving yourself over to something grander than you. You just want to feel good you’re doing something noble. It all gets back to you in the end. Would you still be doing this if you weren’t promised Heaven and all that? Nothing in this that’s good.’
He walked off back to the camp that had been etched out of the jungle. His back muddy and army-green like moving rock.
Kelly looked shocked. Sat staring at his feet. His hair matted with dirt. His hands clasped.
‘You alright there, mate?’ Vernon said.
‘You having fun?’
Vernon looked down. ‘Didn’t know he’d go off like that.’
‘Not funny, doing that to people.’
‘Oh come on, he’s alright.’
‘Yeah, I know he is,’ Kelly said. ‘I’m not.’
SEVEN
SIDNEY CAHILL
Hand over hand, scrambling up the rock face. He looked skyward, saw where he intended to go, a small dead tree overhanging the water. He was roughly six metres up. Hated looking down. Brendan, beneath, laughed with his mates, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, ‘Don’t look down, dickhead. You’ll freak out again. You’re ten now, Sid, come on. We all did it at that age.’
He’d never made it to the tree, his fear always stopping him metres short. He’d watched his brother for years leap from it into the water. His outstretched arms making a needle of him as he collided with the water. People said there was no bottom to Boolarra. It just kept sinking into the earth forever. On the other side you’d emerge in China. His brother, in his glory, seemed to be doing his damnedest to reach the bottom with every jump.
The sunlight made Sidney squint and the heat on his naked back burned into his skin. He stopped mid-grip. Had to control his breathing. The tree now only a short distance away.
Brendan shouted, ‘You’re nearly there!’
Another voice: ‘You’re going to fall!’ Then laughter. Brendan’s among them.
Sidney opened his eyes. Took another breath. The tree now a metre away. He was almost level with it. He had to manoeuvre himself around a rocky outcrop to reach it. He moved his weight to this new position and leaned over for the branch. Mid-action he felt how poorly his foot was placed. He reached out for the branch and his foot slipped and he hung on with all he could. His face slapped against the rock. He coughed into dirt, sending it into his mouth, his eyes.
‘Brendan!’ he shouted, panicked. He knew the tree he held onto was dead. Didn’t know how secure its roots were, how long they would hold.
‘I’m coming!’
His brother started scrambling up the rocks while his friends were all laughing, shouting up taunts. Sidney didn’t care. Just wanted to get down. Wanted not to slip and crack his skull and be dead.
He felt Brendan’s hand on his forearm. Heard his voice. ‘It’s okay, Sid, you’re alright.’
‘I don’t want to fall!’
‘You won’t fall. Just jump. You’re in a good spot.’
‘What do you mean, jump?’ There was hysteria in his voice and it was mocked from below.
‘Shut up!’ Brendan yelled down at them. ‘Shut up, Jordan!’ He clapped Sidney on the arm. ‘Just ignore them.’
‘I can’t do it.’
A sound of utter exasperation, like his brother couldn’t believe such a creature could exist. ‘I’ve been jumping here since I was eight.’
‘I’m not you, but. Can’t you just help me down?’
‘Alright. Alright,’ Brendan sighed. Sidney felt his brother’s strength as he pulled him easily from the tree. Shoving him, almost, to a safer spot where he could balance. Sidney huddled down, tried to avoid the eyes of his brother’s friends below.
‘You can do it, Sid,’ Brendan said. He was still standing out near the edge. Not an ounce of fear. ‘It’s easy. You want me to show you?’
‘I just want to get down,’ Sidney said.
‘Are you crying?’
‘Shut up!’
‘You just gotta jump, Sid. Nothing magic to it. You just gotta grow a set of balls.’
And without further comment his brother jumped backwards into the air. Sidney gasped as he hurtled towards the rocks below. It seemed as though he’d strike them and his blood would be strewn all over his friends, but instead he slid, like that graceful needle, into the deep water. He soon came up smiling and kicking on his back.
Sidney stayed where he was, enduring the jeering of his brother’s friends until they grew tired of the sport. Only then did he struggle his way down.
In her crib his daughter with one arm up. He remembered when she’d needed a dummy to fall asleep. Not any longer. Just her kangaroo now, a soft toy he’d bought her on a whim, tucked in next to her, held by her chubby left fist. Seemed there was a lot of strength in that grip. He marvelled at it, how she pulled his beard so hard it made him wince, and he had to pry those little fingers free. How she clung to him whenever she was afraid.
He touched her arms, the soft skin, the whispery hair. Leaning over, he kissed her gently on her brow and whispered that he loved her, that she was special, that he would always love her. Barely any force behind his words. Just a breath.
As he straightened he heard his wife’s voice in the doorway. ‘What do you say to her?’
‘Just telling her I love her.’
‘You don’t tell me that.’
He turned to her. She had just showered and her hair was all wet. It shone under the lightbulb. ‘Come here.’
‘No, I don’t want you telling me ’cause I asked.’
‘I do love you,’ he said. ‘You know that.’
‘I know,’ she said, and shuffled her foot on the carpet.
‘Come here.’
‘No.’
He walked to her, leaned over and whispered into her ear, ‘I want a sandwich.’
‘You arsehole,’ she said, laughing. She shoved him gently. ‘Come on, I’ll get you something before you go.’
His mother was seated at the kitchen table before a bowl of porridge spread too thick with honey. Always struck Sidney as weird how she ate porridge at night. She was tiny in contrast with the size of the room, the size of the table. A marvel such a woman had borne somebody as huge as Brendan. She smiled at Sidney as he walked in.
‘You heading out, sweetheart?’
‘He is,’ Sarah answered for him. ‘I’m just making him something.’
As Sarah opened the fridge Brendan crashed into Sidney from behind, shoving him forwards, making him collide with the fridge door. Sarah yelled out and shoved back.
Brendan was sticking out his chest, urging Sidney to tackle him. Sidney looked down the hall, raising his eyebrows. ‘She’s asleep man, come on.’
‘Bloody hell, mate. I was just having a laugh.’ Brendan fell into the seat beside their mother, who didn’t move, transfixed by her oats. He clapped his hand on her back, making her spoon topple. He didn’t seem to notice. ‘You going, then?’
‘Sarah’s just getting me something to eat.’
‘You better eat fast. You see the time?’
‘I know what the time is. It’s just after dinner. We have hours yet.’
‘You know they’re early sometimes.’
‘Then they can be early.’
Brendan moved in his seat, the vinyl squeaking. ‘You don’t keep Melbourne waiting, Sid. You know what Dad says.’
‘I know, I know. We’ll be up the creek.’
Sarah handed him the sandwich she’d made.
‘Thank you,’ he said, and kissed her on the cheek, cupping his hand around her waist.
‘You be careful,’ Brendan said. His brother’s face changed with how serious he took all this.
‘I will.’
‘You taking the gun?’
‘Why would I need the gun?’
‘Just the shottie, I mean.’
&nb
sp; ‘I know what you mean. I don’t need it.’
‘Don’t be a dickhead. Take the gun. Put it in the glovebox.’
‘It won’t fit in the glovebox.’
‘You don’t know what they’re gonna do. You don’t always know how it’ll play out.’
Sidney looked at his brother’s face and then to the door of his bedroom, his daughter asleep within. At moments of indecision he seemed to turn more and more to one question: what would Amy think of him? Generally the answer didn’t matter. The question left him damned either way. Go sell pot to Melbourne drug-heads. Take a gun or not. No right course to chart. Amy’d think the same no matter what he did.
‘I’ll take it next time,’ he finally said.
‘Sid …’
‘We’ve done this heaps of times. I’ll be fine.’
Brendan sat back. ‘What do you think, Mum? Should he take the shottie?’ And he clapped her, too hard again, on the back, so that she spilled her last spoonful. It went down her front.
‘Brendan!’
‘Sorry, Mum.’
‘Get me the cloth.’
He stood and went to the sink. Sidney kissed his wife on the cheek again, pulled her close and whispered, ‘I really do love you.’ She shoved him off. He left the house before his brother could say another word, before his mother could echo the same sentiments. He let the flyscreen shut softly. The pig on its hook charcoal in the dark.
EIGHT
VERNON MOORE
The church sat like some behemoth amid the smaller houses dotting the main road. It towered over everything, imposing its religion on all who drove by. Was this its intent when it had been built? Vernon wondered about that, about the men who had toiled in the sun and the cold to build this monster. Who had designed the stained glass pieces, chosen the metallic salts for colour, cut them, assembled them, lined them with lead, waterproofed it? Would’ve taken months without proper machines. Who had chosen which saints to represent? And what had those saints actually done to warrant such regard?
He sat in his idling car out front. Traffic, such as it was in Newbury on a weekday evening, ambled by behind him. He huffed, killed the engine and climbed out.
He walked to the church. As he stood before it and looked skyward he could barely see the top. He’d always resented the church and never understood why, but now he felt that maybe he’d always seen the building itself as a bully. He hated bullies in all their forms. Hated them as a kid, hated fighting them in a war, hated teaching them. They were the first to act stupid, the first to flee when things got hard.
And what had he been to his wife? He’d never hit her. He snorted. Like that was the mark of goodness––just not being an arsehole. The lack of something did not prove the opposite. He hadn’t been completely useless, but had he been good?
He shook himself free of the few leaves coating his jacket and walked inside. An older lady was standing in the lobby, fiddling with some pamphlets in a wooden rack. She turned and beheld him and did not look pleased.
‘Mr Moore.’
‘Mrs Bayleigh.’
‘You’ll be wanting Reverend Kelly?’ She didn’t return his smile. ‘He’s right through there. At the pulpit.’ She nodded towards the concertinaed glass doors.
‘Thought you’d be happier to see me back in church, Mrs Bayleigh,’ Vernon said as he peered through the frosted glass. There was a shadowy figure behind the pulpit who, by the grim look of him, might very well be a demon.
Mrs Bayleigh said, ‘Always rejoice when a man comes back to his faith.’
‘You don’t look like you’re rejoicing.’
This time she did smile. ‘Don’t have to like the man.’
She yanked back on the wooden handle and parted the doors. Bill Kelly, at the pulpit, smiled down at his friend but made no move to suggest he would leave his post. ‘Let me finish my thought here.’
‘You’re right, mate,’ Vernon said. He mosied down between the pews, studying the green carpet beneath his feet, the stained-glass windows, and he wandered over close to the one for the first time in his life. A quote was etched into the glass. In all their affliction, he was afflicted. Beneath that, the name of a bloke killed in action in France in 1918. 14th Battalion. Cyril Johnson. Sounded like a girl’s name. The glass itself bore Jesus in his gaunt whiteness in a garden surrounded by people, and some bloke’s ear was cut. There was a man near Jesus with a bloodied sword. Jesus’ hands out like he meant calm for the lot of them. Try as he might, Vernon couldn’t make the image and the words fit together. Or why they’d been selected to commemorate old Cyril.
‘You know, I never look at those,’ Kelly said. Vernon turned. He was still behind the pulpit, still leaning on his elbows.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘Just writing in my journal.’
‘Standing up?’
‘Hemingway used to write standing up.’
Vernon laughed. ‘Bullshit.’
‘Swearing in a church?’
‘I figure I swear outside church within God’s earshot. His hearing isn’t any different in here.’
‘Well, I can’t argue with that. Gotta look at a man’s motives, though.’
‘Why’d he write standing up?’ Vernon said. Sat down on a pew and felt his friend was preaching right at him. Imposing again, up higher than the rest.
‘He said he liked to get into the rhythm of it. I don’t know.’
‘Why do you do it?’
‘I don’t know. I like it.’
Vernon nodded as though he knew what Bill was talking about.
‘You think I’m full of it, don’t you?’
Vernon shrugged in response, one foot resting on the other. ‘Mate, I don’t pretend to know the first thing about all that. What’re you writing?’
‘Remember our chat the other night? I’m writing about Warren Bonner, actually.’
‘That arsehole?’
‘That’s what I’m writing.’
‘About him being an arsehole?’
‘You calling him one.’
Vernon scoffed. ‘You can’t write that.’
‘It’s my journal. I can write what I like. Nobody reads this but me. I just …’ Kelly searched for words with his hands. ‘I find it so hard putting up with it. Smiling at people like everything’s fine. People don’t know about him, but I do. Lots of people liked him, but he was as you say.’
‘An arsehole.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You don’t swear in church?’
‘No. I don’t,’ Kelly said. He leaned back on his heels, took the pulpit in both hands as though he were starting up. ‘You know, beneath it all he was horrible. Hit his wife. Nobody talks about it.’ He looked at Vernon. ‘I near tore his throat out when he told me. Reported him to the cops. They didn’t do much about it. Just let him keep getting away with it.’
Vernon could only nod. Knew his son had done far worse.
Kelly continued, ‘And you. You’re hard to get to know, you know? You don’t come to church.’
‘Get off it.’
‘But Warren did. So people think of him as good and you as the opposite. Doesn’t seem to matter, does it, the type of bloke you are? Hard to see the point of it, sometimes.’
‘The point of what?’
‘The point of trying to do good. The point of anything.’
Vernon pointed a finger at his right ear. ‘In one, out the other, mate. I can’t follow you with all that.’
‘Don’t give me that. You follow just fine.’ Kelly let his hands dangle over the front of the pulpit. ‘You remember Weymouth?’
Vernon said nothing.
‘The kid from New Guinea?’
Vernon nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘I’m sure he’s in Hell.’
Vernon scoffed.
‘I think about it,’ Kelly said. ‘I should’ve said something to him. I didn’t know what to say, but that doesn’t excuse it. I go over it and over it.’ He swayed back a bit, then, ‘They
got him right in the back of the neck, didn’t they?’ He smacked his hand against his neck, the sound loud and shocking in the hall. It bounced into the seats. ‘Never saw the world again. Died rejecting Christ. Swallowed up in that jungle mud.’
‘I remember.’ Vernon coughed. ‘I remember him everywhere. I remember his eyes. One of ’em looking right at me. The other blown out. His blood looked like mud, didn’t it? Like he bled dirt. But that one eye of his was centred right on me, right in here.’ Vernon tapped the bridge of his nose. ‘Whatever little faith I had up to that point was gone the instant that eye of his swivelled onto me. Nothing there. Not looking at anything. Just a sack of dead meat.’
Vernon looked at his friend, who was frowning at him from the pulpit. Kelly shut his journal and walked down the carpeted steps. He sat himself on the pew directly beside Vernon.
‘I know you don’t think so, I doubt it myself most of the time, but there is goodness in this world.’
Vernon almost laughed. ‘Yeah?’
‘I know your car crash––what happened––and your boy, makes it seem like there isn’t, but there is. I see it everywhere. You just have to know how to look for it.’
‘You know better than to preach to me. No,’ he said, and shook his head. ‘The older I get, the more certain I am. There’s no such thing as goodness. Weymouth had it right. There’s just indifference. Rubbish things happen to all types. Doesn’t matter if you’re good, or bad. Same evil happens. That’s all it is.’
‘You go and see your boy?’
Vernon nodded.
‘How was he?’
‘He was pretty bad.’
‘He tell you what happened?’
‘You knew how?’
Kelly nodded. ‘Didn’t think it was my place to pass it on.’
‘He told me a bit. So you can guess what I’m going to do.’
‘I have an idea.’
‘You going to stop me?’
Kelly regarded him and his stare was such it made Vernon turn aside. ‘I don’t think I could. But I would say this. Don’t be doing anything you’ll regret later on, you understand? Like what I think you’re going to do. Just go up and talk to them.’