by Kate Lyons
That’s why it was easy, in the end. In a world awash with loss, her private grief seemed confederate, inconsequential even. Easy to tell herself it wouldn’t matter, because no one would notice, and that, at the same time, it mattered urgently, to join the chorus, leave a trace. Something more than that old picture she’d come across on one psychotic-looking web page, linking back to the archive of Ray’s original missing person’s report.
Male, fourteen years old. Blond hair, olive skin, three-inch scar on left thigh. Six foot tall. Last seen wearing a blue shirt and grey trousers, accompanied by a blue heeler dog, in the vicinity of Twenty Bends Road, 19 February 1972.
The photo, reproduced so many times was fuzzy, sun wrecked. Useless. Creeping in from one corner and despite all her efforts to excise them, the fingers of someone else’s hand.
A few extra words in the funeral notice, one missing name. That was all it took. Adelia McCullough, wife of Jim, mother to Ursula and Matilda, grandmother to Ray. That, and a phone number and the offer of reward money for information on Ray McCullough, missing from home since 1972. Not much money but enough, all that had been left to her in Mam’s will. And even as Harry told her it was a mistake and she was asking for it, as he fielded all the mumbled phone calls and she read all the badly written letters that arrived, accompanied by photos, of tall men, thin men, fat, short and bald men, men with scars and hare lips and missing digits and missing teeth, she didn’t regret it.
She’d done something. Broken the silence of over thirty years.
She’d reached the front of the queue. The service station attendant tapped irritably on the counter. Didn’t look at her as he punched numbers into the till. Perhaps she really was invisible. Was still asleep and dreaming in that room above the pub.
She had a sudden urge to turn, drive off, retrace her steps. Insert this rented car over the grease stains left by Simon’s old Volvo in the garage at home. Climb inside the wardrobe where his clothes used to hang. Curl up in the familiar scent of him being gone.
Instead she bought maps along with the petrol, a whole stack of them, covering nearly every State. Unfolding their dry concertinas on the car bonnet, she found crease upon crease of familiar crisp green absence. All those places Ray might not be.
The old dog was still waiting patiently by the bowser. Following an urge to do something wild and unexpected and beyond the confines of any map, she opened the passenger door.
CHAPTER TEN
They got lost trying to find the ward. Every second corridor ended in a lace of scaffolding or a No Entry sign. Place seemed half-built. Ray begrudged every lost minute, every wrong turn. Hated these places, the cream green hush of them, that smell of organised death. When his time came, he wanted a wall of water. A bullet to the head.
In a corridor where the blue line they were following petered and then disappeared, Mick rattled to a stop. Flipping his skateboard into his arms, he tried to lounge casually in a doorway for a moment, then launched himself bodily toward the woman in the bed.
‘Jesus. Look what the cat dragged in.’
‘Micky? What on earth?’
In for tests was the least of it, Ray could see that now. So thin, her body barely broke the sheets.
‘Love? What’s wrong? Everything OK?’
In answer, Mick buried his face in his mother’s chest.
‘Michael. Get off her. You’ll pull out the drip.’
The blonde in the chair had to be Cheryl. Sam’s cousin. Same nose, same Rottweiler jaw. She was knitting, her lap full of hairy pink wool.
‘Love, it’s great to see you, but what are you doing here?’
‘And who’s this?’ Cheryl snapped her gum.
Mick’s mother turned to look at Ray and he saw how beautiful she might have been. Broad cheekbones, dark eyes, a mass of thick black hair. With the flesh of her cheeks fallen away, the skin mazed by weather, like a brown paper bag which had been folded and reused too many times, she looked like a rapidly ageing girl.
Mick mumbled something into his mother’s neck.
‘Is that right Mr … ? You work with Mick?’
Like he was the boy’s navvy or something. Ray took his hat off, craving a cigarette.
‘Ray McCullough. Yeah. That’s right. I gave him a lift.’
‘Really? All that way? Hope he didn’t put you out.’
‘That’s OK. I was heading here.’ First lie of the day. ‘No problem, Mrs Jones.’
‘It’s Lily.’
She smiled, and he was so startled by the high beam of it, so embarrassed by the way Mick was snuggling into his mother’s body, he had to look away.
‘But listen, love. Aren’t you supposed to be at work?’
Mick sniffed something about being worried, a phone call. Christmas, Ray heard. His mother was trying to prise the boy off her chest but he was stuck fast, fingers tangled in her hair. Ray stared at his shoes, then at a vase of sickbed roses, then at Cheryl. She shot him a look of blank hostility which he returned.
‘I’m fine, love. See? Really. Just a bit wobbly when I rang, from the drugs, that’s all. Feel much better today. Come on. Sit up.’ Mick did, reluctantly, and she stroked his forehead, smoothing away his sweaty red hair.
‘You feel a bit clammy. You sick?’
Mick nodded, staring mournfully at Ray. Ray cleared his throat. He was still unsure how he’d come to be here, reporting on the boy like he was his nanny, his teacher. Mentally he was still measuring the distance to the door.
‘Yeah. He was a bit crook. Earlier on.’
‘The hay fever again? Are you taking your pills?’
A doleful shake of the head from Mick.
‘I ran out. And Sam wouldn’t let me go to town. And I’m broke.’
‘Oh, stop the presses. Mum’s got cancer but you caught a cold. And you had enough to buy a new skateboard I see.’
Mick shot Cheryl a look of pure hatred across the top of his mother’s head. Cheryl stared back glassily, still knitting, needles strutting in and out of the bright pink wool. Ray was reminded of a crow pecking roo guts by the side of the road.
‘Cheryl. I bought him that. Early Chrissie present, wasn’t it? Glad it got there in time. The man in the shop said it was the best kind. For tricks and things.’
Mick, ungrateful little bugger, gave one of his all-purpose shrugs.
‘Maybe we could get some knee pads for your birthday.’
‘Might want to pay some bills first, Lily. There’s the specialist, and I told you the electric got cut off, out home.’
Mick buried his face again in his mother’s hair. So dark and thick and glossy, at first Ray had thought it was a wig. But Mick was pulling on it, kneading at it, like a baby does when suckling, and Ray was so repulsed, he had to turn his back, walk off toward the window. While Mick and Cheryl erupted into a slanging match, conducted in the low sharp tones people reserve for hospital rooms, he stood staring down at the car park. Somewhere out there, in a sea of sparkling windshields, was his ute. His dog. He would have parked in the shade, if there was any. Car park was new. No trees. Should have left the dog in the tray. He hadn’t thought he’d be in here this long. Never meant to come in at all. He’d intended to post the kid at reception like a redirected letter, and he would have if there hadn’t been that confusion about the name of the mother and the ward she was in and what she was in for, and if the boy hadn’t looked so shocked when he heard the word oncology. If he hadn’t gone so quiet.
Not quiet now though. Get fucked, you been drinking, I can smell it, sick my arse. Fuck off, you’re not my mum. Don’t tell me what to do. Lily pleaded with both of them, in a tired, useless little descant. Mick, don’t swear. Cheryl, give the boy a break.
So hot. Sweat springing in a butterfly shape on his back. He tried the window but of course it was sealed. The air stitched tight in here, with women, sickness, perfume, dying flowers. Female smells. Maybe he was coming down with Mick’s bug.
It had all seemed so simple this mor
ning. Waking from his scant hour of sleep, Charlie’s numbers, listened to slantwise, through the skin of eyelids, gauzy sunlight, fretful dreams, danced, reformed, fell quietly into place.
While Mick rode his skateboard up and down the motel driveway, leaving a trail of beheaded pansies in his wake, Ray drank three strong coffees in a row. The motel women waddled out from her den, curlers bristling, but Ray turned his back. He had only so much energy this morning and he wasn’t wasting it on either of them.
Looking at the coaster in bright morning sun, he saw it now. Two sets of four numbers, repeating. The first four digits, phone numbers in his home town. The rest, in varying patterns of four, not anything he recognised, but repeating, scrambled, lost in a static of booze, loneliness, the numbers of races on the pub TV.
He tried every combination he could think of but the numbers didn’t exist. Then he tried directories again, because he’d been out of it yesterday, not thinking straight, but there was still no listing in his home town for a J. and A. McCullough or an A. and J. McCullough or even a D. and J. McCullough, in case Mam had used Delly, the name everyone except the local priest knew her by.
Something wrong. He tried plain J. McCullough. Got a listing. Dad, if it was him. On his own. Ray felt sick. An address too, Frederick Street, out beyond the bridge, near the old tip. Heart pounding, he rang it. No answer, and so he tried again. It rang and rang, until it disconnected. Might not be him. Still, he fetched his pen, wrote the number down on his forearm. He would try again. Later on.
What now? The name of Charlie’s hostel floated up as coffee and adrenalin took hold. He tried it, no answer, then rang the presbytery at the church which ran the charity which ran the hostel. A cleaning lady told him the priest was hearing confession after early mass.
Plan C. He checked his watch. Should be safe enough. Sam would be hounding contractors or feeding stock, in what passed for the cool of the day.
This time the homestead phone answered first ring. No voice, just the crackle of a bad line, then buzzing.
‘Freda? It’s Ray. You there?’
But instead of Freda’s lady-in-a-hat telephone voice, an ominous growl. More buzzing, followed by a rattling cough.
‘Who’s that? Fucking thing.’
A loud thump and Ray jerked the phone away from his ear. Stupid, stupid. Sam, in a strop already, and only eight am. Ray thought about hanging up, but he’d promised himself that today wouldn’t be like yesterday. That he would face what must be faced.
‘Oi. Speak up. Phone’s on the blink.’
Another thump, and the line cleared. Sam’s voice suddenly so loud it was like his hairy bulk was squeezed beside Ray on the step of the empty pool.
‘Sam. It’s Ray.’
A long breath, rich with choler and phlegm.
‘Oh. Is it. ’Bout bloody time. I been trying to get hold of you for days. You were supposed to be back yesterday. You done? Heading in? Better be. Got five kinds of hell breaking out round here.’
Ray didn’t ask. There was always something. Sick stock, bad fences, shonky contractors, silly wives. Rising irritation, followed by slow simmering anger and a full-scale explosion. That was the normal weather of Sam’s day.
‘Yeah. Not really. Something came up. I’m in Bourke.’
It was on then, for young and old. Sam yelling so loudly and so continuously, Ray expected spit to fly out of the phone. Contractors useless, new shed roof still not finished and everything costing an arm and a leg. Shed pipes were rooted, hundreds of bucks on an emergency plumber, and that Pommy cook had walked off, citing no help, no water. Would you credit it? A week’s worth of meat left out of the fridge to go bad. Then to top it all off that waste of space apprentice had done a runner, along with half the petty cash. All Ray’s fault of course.
Ray put the phone down on the pool step while he found his smokes. Even at a distance he could hear Sam’s voice buzzing through the receiver like a furious fly. Good thing it wasn’t shearing time and it was only shooters and contractors going hungry. Good thing he hadn’t had time to mention he wasn’t coming back at all.
When he picked up again, Sam had worked himself to a crescendo over the mine boundary fence. No other bugger to finish it and what about his tools, and Ray could bloody well pay back his advance.
Ray waited for him to draw breath, descend into another lung-cracking cough. Then he reported clearly and calmly, down to the last roll of wire, the work he’d done.
‘Tools are out near the old chimney.’ He decided not to mention the missing gun. ‘And, point of fact, mate, I reckon you owe me. A day’s work, over and above. Listen, though, a few days off and we’ll call it quits.’ Another lie, that he was coming back at all. But right then, Sam didn’t deserve the truth.
‘Oh, you reckon so, do you? And what about that other section I told ya needs starting, out north? Who’ll be doing that? Muggins I s’pose. I told ya, I need it done this week, got stock going in there. And that other bloke who woulda done it, well he’s pissed off, hasn’t he? On another job. Because I told him you’d be doing it, for double pay, if I remember right, and now what? I’ll tell ya. I’m up shit creek.’
Closing his eyes against the glare from the empty pool, Ray pointed out that with travel time and at holiday rates, that other bloke would have charged triple what Ray had been paid and no way he would have done it before Christmas in any case. No one but Ray would be mad enough, at this time of year, in this kind of heat. He got a mutinous grunt in response.
‘And another thing. What do I do for a cook? These gold-plated fuckers out here come all the way from Bourke. That’s double time, mate, and they’re here another three days. They’re expecting a feed. Part of the deal.’
‘Yeah. Well. Mick’ll be back.’ Third lie. From the corner of his eye he saw the woman from the office had managed to collar Mick mid-rampage, despite her size. She was waggling her finger and pointing to the wreckage of her flower garden. Mick was looking down at her, oblivious. His earphones still in.
It took a while for what Ray had said to dawn on Sam.
‘And just how would you know? About Mick?’
‘Oh. Yeah. I bumped into him, on the road, after you gave him the shove. Good thing I did. He was pretty sick. He wasn’t lying about that.’
‘He’ll be a lot bloody sicker when I get hold of him. Little bastard tell ya he nearly blew up my shed?’
And he was off again. Ray peeled the label from one of his empty beer bottles, then stuck it back on. Imagining Sam, standing by the phone table in the homestead hallway, his bull neck mottled purple, his hands itching to punish something and, in the absence of Mick or Ray, finding one of his wife’s dried flower arrangements, some spiky, dead-looking thing Freda had crafted painstakingly on the advice of some five-year-old home and garden magazine. Hours of work, crushed to dust. Another mess for Freda to sweep up.
‘And I didn’t give him the sack! That little shit couldn’t lie straight in bed. I just told him to rack off for a bit.’
How to explain, to a man like Sam, who went at everything—food, sheep, wife, dogs—as if all the world was made of the same harsh, inhospitable substance as himself, that, for a dreamer like Mick, a few words might be all it took. That the final shove, slap or telling-off, no different to all those that had gone before, might be enough for you to find a pattern, take the world at its word. That in the face of things that wanted to beat you down, bend you over, pummel you into something as dead and blank as itself, running away might seem the best and bravest thing to do. And that once you’d started, there might seem to be no option but to keep going, keep running. That you could do it for years and years before you realised no one was behind you. No one waiting. That, without noticing, you’d somehow left the person you thought you were behind.
In the end, he just cut across Sam’s tirade by shouting louder.
‘Hey. Listen. Why I rang. Just to let you know I done the job and I’m heading off for a bit. I need some time off. It’s C
hristmas. I’ve got family stuff. If that’s no good for you, fine by me. I need a word with Freda. She around?’
‘Nuh.’ Sam’s tone murderous, sulky. Feeling guilty no doubt, about the boy. Never admit it of course.
‘Where is she?’ Except for church on Sunday and the pensioner lunch, Freda was always there. Part of the landscape, like the weathered floorboards and the leaking roof.
‘Mixin’ martinis. Where do ya think? She’s down the shed. Doing your bloody job.’
Ray’s turn to feel angry now. Sam could have hired someone else when the cook walked off. Freda could have insisted. Could have put her foot down, instead of letting Sam wipe his size twelves all over her. But Freda had suffering down to an art. Had done it for so long, she’d taken on its contours, like a tree warping round a rock.
‘You know if she saw Charlie yesterday? At the lunch in town?’
‘That wacky old priest of yours? I dunno.’
‘Or maybe he rang. Left a message. I gave him your number, for emergencies.’
‘Oh. You did. Great. Just what I need. A dropkick like that ringing me up.’
Ray’s temper was a bulge in his chest now, moving to his throat. He flicked his lighter on and off, bringing it close to his wrist.
‘Did he ring?’
‘How would I know? Not your bloody secretary. All I know is Freda got back late and my tea wasn’t ready and then she was on the blower to Barb for half the night, because Barb was looking for you. But that’s OK, we’ve got nothing better to do.’
‘What did Barb want?’
‘Fucked if I know, mate. You probably, back at work. Suppose you’re standing them up as well? Excellent. Sterling job all round.’
Ray singed a hair off his forearm, watched it flare and curl away.
‘Did Freda say anything about Charlie? About Barb seeing him at the pub?’
‘Nuh. Hardly a headline, is it? Drunk spotted in pub.’