The Vale Girl

by Nelika McDonald

  They turned left, Tommy ducking behind cars and bushes as he moved forward. Sarah’s eyes would probably not actually light up, Tommy conceded, scanning the road ahead for his next shelter. Probably, once he had removed the gag from her mouth she would be as mad as a cut snake, asking what took him so bloody long.

  Graham passed the Crowe house, and Tommy could smell something roasting that made his mouth flood with saliva. Distracted, he palmed his belly, hollow-feeling and wanting. A sudden blast of sound from a television almost made Tommy jump clean out of his skin, and he dropped into a crouch, scurrying sideways like a crab to hide behind a skip on the footpath. Graham didn’t turn around. Jesus. That was close. He could not lose focus. Not now. Tommy pressed his shaking hand to his chest, but didn’t have much time to collect himself before Graham rounded the corner ahead, taking the northbound road into town.

  Tommy slowed for a moment at the corner, confused. Why were they going to town? Was he buying milk, at eleven o’clock at night? Dulcie Adams would not be amused at having to turn on the till for Graham now. They turned onto the main street heading towards the train station. Leaving town? Don’t think so, Graham, thought Tommy.

  The longer he followed the older man, the more excited Tommy became – and the more terrified. Where was Graham leading him? Now that he might actually see Sarah, Tommy realised that the picture of her in his head, squatting on a floor bound and gagged, as horrible as it was, might actually be optimistic. What if she was hurt? What if Graham did something to her when Tommy was there? What would Tommy do? He could feel a dampness along the seam of his shorts and hoped he hadn’t pissed himself. His legs were freezing but his chest burnt under his jumper, and his face felt clammy. They passed the police station and Tommy wondered if Sergeant Henson was still up, or Crane in his room at the pub, but both buildings were dark. They might be getting a wake-up call soon, though, Tommy thought. He pictured that. ‘Upsy-daisy, Sarge, I’ve caught you a felon.’ Probably he would recruit Tommy on the spot. Roberts could do their filing for them.

  Graham passed the train station, and Tommy watched from behind a power pole. They were at the outer limits of the town centre now. Maybe an empty house, Tommy thought. Graham walked faster, and Tommy picked up the pace too. Adrenalin spurted through his veins and he imagined he was very nearly flying along the street; he couldn’t feel the bitumen under his feet now or the tension in his shoulders where he held all his muscles taut. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, he said to himself. Sarah, I’m coming.

  Graham turned a sharp right. They passed the graveyard, and came to a vacant lot on Normanby Street that backed onto Tucker’s Hill. Graham headed across the lot, towards the base of the peak.

  Tucker’s Hill was a measly mound of earth shaped like an upside-down pudding bowl, covered in patchy grass with clumps of fireweed choking the few trees that strove to grow on it. You could see the whole of Banville from the flat-topped peak and all the way to Welonga on a clear day. If you really wanted to. It wasn’t much of a hill really, but the townspeople referred to it as ‘the mountain’ with pride, as though it was an epic summit, and he who dared to scale it a hero. Nobody knew who Tucker was or why he had a hump of earth in the middle of nowhere named after him.

  Tommy waited at the edge of the lot, hovering in a stand of casuarinas. What was Graham doing at the mountain? Was Sarah up there? How? Where? Around the other side of the mountain there was a tourist path that led to the top, with bench seats dotted along it at intervals. Panels that had once informed readers about such titillating topics as Banville exports, average rainfall statistics and the names of the founding fathers were blanched into grey with ghostly relics of letters tracked across them. Every year the primary school kids made a sign out of white cardboard for the side of the hill that read BANVILLE in tall block letters like the Hollywood sign. It stayed up for the whole month of the Grevillea Festival, and every year the students from the high school added to the sign or just rearranged the letters so it spelled something else, like Blandville, Banvile, or Bill’sVan. Last year they had just removed it altogether and written HELL on the grass with white spray paint. As far as Tommy knew, nobody went up there but kids; it was a popular place to drink because they could see anyone who might be coming. Where Graham was headed now was around the other side, and there was no path, just a thick line of shrubbery at the base of the hill. With a few steps, he disappeared right into it. Shit. Tommy would have to follow him now or he would lose him. But was it completely insane to follow Graham Knight into the dark bushes? Shit, shit. What was in those bushes? What if Sarah was in those bushes? What if she was dead, Graham had killed her, and that’s where her body was? That is what people did in the news, just dumped bodies in the scrub and waited for them to decompose right back into the ground – but if he’d done that, why would Graham be going back? But there was no time for dithering. There was a possibility Sarah was in there, alive. That was all he needed to know.

  Tommy lowered himself onto his belly and pulled himself along the ground, following the perimeter to the sagging chain wire of the boundary fence where Graham had hoisted himself over. Tommy scaled it and squinted in the darkness. Empty beer bottles at his feet shone in the moonlight and he stepped forward with caution, until he could see the whole rump of the hill, and Graham scrabbling up it, looking up every few metres to survey the sky. He was climbing the hill? Tommy shook his head. If Graham wanted to see the view, there were several perfectly fine bench seats around the other side. Anyway, what did he want to see – the lit-up blue FOSTERS sign at the pub? For fuck’s sake. Tommy was being led on a wild-goose chase.

  Just then, he heard the rumble of a plane getting close, and he looked up into the sky. He could see the aircraft, glowing white and dotted with lights, carving through the sky above them. As it drew closer, his chest tightened. It seemed awfully low.

  ‘Wahoo!’ yelled Graham, and Tommy saw him jump to his feet and wave at the plane, then drop down to lie spread-eagled on the side of the hill. The plane came closer, the roar deafening now, and Tommy dropped to the ground too. It looked like the plane was going to land right on top of them, here in Banville! He put his hands over his ears and crouched in the shrubbery, watching as the plane slid through the sky above them, seeming to shake and rattle the ground beneath their feet. The bushes around Tommy quivered and the beer bottles at his feet rolled and clinked against one another.

  Graham whooped as the plane passed him, and from where he was hunched in the bushes, Tommy saw the wind pinning Graham flat to the hill. Then it was gone, as quickly as it came, and the roar faded into nothing. Tommy got to his feet. He felt exhilarated, but exhausted too, like the plane had taken something from him, leaving him breathless and hollow. Graham was on his feet now, and Tommy saw him lift his arm in a salute to the sky that had held the plane. A small flash blinked in front of him. A photo. He was taking a photo. Tommy looked up to the heavens again, black but for a few smoky clouds and a sprinkling of stars like a handful of tossed glitter. Empty now. That must be how Graham saw it: as a void. The absence of a plane. Like Tommy saw the spot at the creek where he had found Sarah’s gear. The absence of Sarah Vale.

  Graham replaced the camera in his bag, picked it up and walked back down the hill. Was that it? Was that why he had come here? What a fucking waste of time. Tommy ripped off his jumper and flung it to the ground, not caring about the dirt. He spat once, thickly, to clear his mouth of the bitter taste of bile risen in his fear, and gripped his head in his hands, clenching his teeth so hard his vision blurred. He clamped a hand over his mouth to stop himself screaming as Graham walked past the scribble of bushes he was hidden in. His foot touched down onto something foil that crackled, and Graham looked towards the bushes but didn’t stop. Tommy felt tears building up in his chest and he swallowed hard and pressed his lips shut. He couldn’t believe that was it. That was all. He was so sure they had been coming here for Sarah; he was so ready, so beyond ready to see her, just to touch her. Even if she sl
apped him he would have laughed at the pain if it meant her palm was on his face. He had never felt so defeated, so worn down and disappointed. So old.

  chapter thirty-six

  Tommy was leaning against the fence at the station and looking down the train tracks, waiting for the beam of the headlight that signalled the arrival of the first Saturday train from Sydney. On his way to the station that morning, he had checked that the sprinkling of rain overnight had not ruined the Missing posters he had taped to the telegraph poles. At each pole he passed, he found that the signs had been replaced with a different poster, red and white with bold black font. THE 23RD ANNUAL GREVILLEA FESTIVAL, THIS WEEKEND the posters read. Tomorrow. Stallholders and competition judging times were listed on the bottom, and a picture of last year’s Grevillea Princess, Evelyn Coombes, was printed in the middle, a crown on her head and a bouquet of grevilleas in her arms. Tommy looked closely at the poster. It had been stapled to the post, and he used a fingernail to ease up the staple and lift the corner of the poster. Sure enough, his poster of Sarah was underneath. They had put the Grevillea Festival ad right over the top of it. Tommy thought about ripping the Grevillea Festival posters down, but then he had a better idea. He used the wire in his pocket to pierce the paper in a circle around Evelyn Coombes’s face, and then lifted that section of poster off altogether. From the poster underneath, Sarah’s face was now visible in place of Evelyn’s. She appeared to be wearing the Grevillea Princess crown, and holding the bouquet aloft. Tommy smiled to himself, and gave the same treatment to the rest of the posters on the main street before taking up his position at the station.

  While he waited, he toyed with a sprig of Backhousia myrtifolia that was growing among the ghost gums by the southern train tracks. A thought kept flitting around in his head. He would mentally wave it away and then it would come back, zipping in close to buzz in his ear like a persistent mosquito: I want my dad.

  Tommy had got used to being on his own; sometimes he even liked it. After a few weeks of sleeping alone in the shack, he usually awoke feeling invincible, like he had crossed the last frontier of childhood and there was nothing left to be scared of. But since Sarah had disappeared, the possibilities of things to be to be scared of seemed to multiply thousand-fold, and they were nothing he could do anything about. Like losing another person he loved. There were only two of them left in the world, and at the moment he couldn’t be with either of them. His cursed superpower. Just a minute or two was all he wanted, he wouldn’t be greedy, that would be all it would take to set him right. Just one minute, or two if the universe was feeling generous, with his father or Sarah by his side. They didn’t even have to speak. He would just be near them, and match his breathing to theirs.

  There were native flowers that in Banville that were dioecious, which meant that in the same species, the same localised plant population, there were male and female plants. The individual plants were either male or female, producing either microgametophytes or megagametophytes, but never producing both. That was him and Sarah. Two plants of the same population. And then, of course, there was the cycle of pollination, enabling the reproduction of offspring. A plant grows from the seed of its parents. To Tommy, humans, animals and plants were not that different, really. It was all nature, and we were all at the mercy of it. So it was natural, he comforted himself, not pathetic, that at times when an organism perceived danger, a threat in his environment, he would seek out others of his species to mount a coordinated defence. Wanting his dad was simply a biological response. Fight or flight, but if you must fight, ensure you have allies.

  The train pulled into the station. None of the doors opened, except for the conductor’s and the driver’s, both of whom stepped onto the platform and lit cigarettes. Albert ambled out of the office towards the men with a steaming mug in each hand. At that moment, an ambulance tore down the road from Welonga, sirens perforating the stillness of the early morning air and red lights pulsating. Sarah, thought Tommy immediately, and he took off behind the ambulance. Someone has found her, and she was hurt. Badly, judging by the speed of the ambulance.

  His lungs burnt and he felt tears prickle behind his eyes but he ran on, trying to calm himself by focusing on the rhythm of his feet on the footpath, the syncopated beat of his heart in his chest. He lost sight of the ambulance but followed the sound of the siren and the streams of people trickling out of their houses as it passed down their streets, pulling robes on, rubbing their eyes. This was not a familiar sound in Banville. The locals were looking after that foreign vehicle in bewildered muteness, like stunned mullets, thought Tommy as he passed them all.

  The ambulance was heading in the direction of Sarah’s house. Tommy ran faster. His chest began to ache. Air filled his mouth and dried it out so his tongue and it seemed as though a burning spear had been struck through each heel, piercing his calves. His eyes were streaming. Sarah. Sarah, I’m coming, he thought. Wait for me. As he reached the school at the top of the hill, Tommy caught sight of the ambulance down the street, and slowed. The ambos weren’t going into Sarah’s house. They had stopped around the corner, and there was a knot of people gathered on the footpath outside the Montepulciano home.

  Sergeant Henson came careening around the corner, parking across the Floss driveway and running through the Montepulcianos’ yard and into the house.

  Someone else was running, too. From where he stood on the hill, Tommy could see the alleyway behind the street and, in it, Graham Knight slipping out of an open gate behind the Montepulciano house. He kept his head down, and ran as fast as Tommy had moments earlier, out of the alleyway, around the corner, through the yard and onto the verandah of the Vale house, where Susannah stood, smoking a cigarette. Graham said something to her, shook his head, and went inside. She turned her head and looked after him. Tommy felt like an icicle was forming in his stomach, and his legs shook beneath him. What had happened? Were Mr and Mrs Montepulciano okay? Who was the ambulance for? And what had Graham Knight been doing at the Montepulciano house?

  Back outside the Montepulcianos’, people were talking; neighbours went to other neighbours and held their hands out, empty. They looked at their children and smoothed their hands down their limbs, checking they were still whole. They looked up into the sky. They shook their heads. Then came the sound of someone screaming, a man. ‘Maria! Mariaaaa, per favore, Maria.’ The neighbours looked at each other and closed their eyes, relieved and guilty, saddened and tired. She was dead. Mrs Montepulciano was dead. It began to rain lightly, so Tommy felt like he was watching the scene through a sieve. For a moment, everyone looked up at the sky in wonder. It had been so long since water had come from it. Sergeant Henson came out to the lawn and took the arm of Elena Moretti, who ran the delicatessen in the main street. She was a friend of Mrs Montepulciano’s. They played bridge together; they were godmothers to each other’s firstborn sons. The sergeant said something to her and she began to weep, a high, wavery keening that made Tommy feel like his chest had been cut open. Graham. Mrs Moretti crossed herself and looked back at her daughter on the footpath. The daughter began to cry as well, and that set off her children, twin boys clutching her legs.

  Tommy, still panting, bit his tongue so hard that he tasted blood. He looked over at the Vale house. Susannah stood on her verandah smoking and watching as more and more people came out of their houses and drifted towards the Montepulciano lawn. Some women at the edge of the group clasped their hands together and bowed their heads; praying, it looked like. Or just holding on to each other. The rain kept falling.

  Sergeant Henson appeared again, carrying something wrapped in a plastic bag labelled EVIDENCE, which he put in his car. Tommy could see cornflower blue, and red. It was the garden gnome he had seen through the window, in Graham’s basement. His legs buckled and he sat down on the ground. What was Graham’s gnome doing in an evidence bag? Was that the murder weapon? Had Graham Knight bashed Mrs Montepulciano with her own garden gnome? Why would he do such a thing? The question h
ad not even fully formed before the answer arrived. Because she was a witness. Graham must have found out that she told Henson he was with her the morning Sarah disappeared. That when she saw Sarah leave, someone else saw her too. Graham. Graham saw her, and now she was gone. She wasn’t supposed to mention that. He was gambling on the fact that Mrs M wouldn’t think it worth mentioning. Another kid wagging school. But Mrs M did mention it. So he killed her. As a punishment, and a warning to others: speak a word against him and it will be your last. To think, after seeing Graham on the hill with the plane last night, Tommy had been ready to dismiss him altogether as just a harmless weirdo. The weird part was right. He was definitely weird. But harmless? No. It seemed not.

  After a few moments, Tommy stood up again and walked further down the hill, until he was across the road from the house. More people were crying now, and swaying where they stood, heedless of the rain they had waited so long for. Others walked into their houses and out of them again, not sure whether they wanted to be safe inside or out with everybody else. Roberts came out of the house, and said something to the people on the lawn, who retreated to the street, watching while he took a roll of police tape from the car. He unravelled it across the driveway, taping it along the fence and across the path to the door. The murmurings from the crowd became shriller, louder. Roberts caught Tommy’s eye and gave him a filthy look.

  Tommy turned his own face up to the sky, and let the rain fall onto his skin. He could smell it, the woody, fresh scent of water on earth. Foreign and familiar at once. He had forgotten that rain had a smell. Tommy put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the Backhousia myrtifolia he had found by the train tracks, crossed the street and laid it by the fence at the Montepulciano house. Nobody said anything to him, but someone patted his shoulder. Geraldine Knight. Tommy did not look at anyone, but backed away once he had deposited his flower, and set off down the street. At the corner, he hesitated. He should really talk to the sergeant. But he couldn’t now; the man clearly had other things to deal with. It would have to wait. And Tommy would have to go on alone. Because now was the perfect opportunity to get into the Knights’ basement unseen.