by Stephen Orr
She trailed off, but finished the scenario in her head. Quarter to three, the man replies. Bugger, we’ve missed two trains, Janice says. Well, the man continues, I can give you a lift. See, that’s my car. No, Janice replies. Mum says . . . So the man walks off, and Janice thinks, Maybe he is alright then. And the little kids say, Can’t we get a lift? And Janice imagines me, her mother, standing in the kitchen, pacing, fuming . . . and then the little ones run after the man. And Janice chases them. Come back . . .
Liz started crying again. ‘It’s my fault.’ Rosa moved closer and held her. ‘This happens every day.’
As it did for her. Every day. Seeing Alex’s small, round face as he lay on the ground – his cheeks still red, his hair stuck across his forehead. Every day, sometimes all day, as she summoned the same few images, again and again, and tried to make sense of things, to find reasons, to apportion blame.
‘My bloody sister,’ Liz managed. ‘Stupid bitch. Sorry, Henry. I wasn’t thinking straight this morning. I would’ve said no. I would’ve gone with them. I was going to. What’s the time?’
‘Quarter to four,’ I replied.
‘Christ.’
‘Shop,’ Dad called from the Rileys’ front door.
Mum stood up and met him in the hallway. I could hear her whispering to him, trying to say a lot very quickly, very quietly. Then Dad walked into the kitchen with another man.
‘G’day, Rosa, Liz . . .’ He touched Liz’s shoulder and almost massaged it once or twice. ‘Don’t worry, they won’t be far,’ he said. ‘We get this a couple of times a day.’
Liz looked at him and tried to smile. ‘Where do you think they are?’ she asked.
‘Kids think differently, Liz. Even a kid like Janice. She sees a friend from school, next thing they’re back at her place. Could be a thousand things. Now, I’ve asked for some patrols to start looking on the beach.’
‘Shit,’ Liz whispered, imagining police cars and flashing lights.
‘Ten a day,’ Dad repeated. ‘More this time of year. We get ’em all back, Liz. You get special treatment, eh?’ He smiled, sitting down and holding her hand. ‘Don’t start thinkin’ anything else, Liz. That’s not gonna get you anywhere, eh?’
‘No . . . I know.’
‘Good. I’ve also asked for some patrols to check the stations between here and Semaphore.’
‘Why?’
‘Might’ve got off at the wrong station. They might be waitin’ there, Liz.’
‘Didn’t think of that.’
‘Leave it to us.’
It was good to see Dad in action. He looked down at me and winked and I felt like I’d been deputised. I was on the team now. I wanted a suit like his, a tie, polished boots and a gun like the one under his jacket. I wanted to be cool and calm and rational like him. I wanted people looking at me, desperate for help. I wanted to be able to play it down, like it was nothing. But I’d know what was at stake: three lives. And yes, it might have been nothing, but then again . . . Christ, Janice, where have you gone? I thought, and then said, ‘They asked me if I wanted to go.’
‘What time was that?’ Dad asked.
‘Twenty to nine. Not sure.’
‘Con told me it was the five past nine,’ Rosa explained.
‘That sounds right,’ Liz agreed. ‘I had a bus at ten to nine.’
‘So they went to the station by themselves?’
Liz’s face hardened. ‘It was Sonja again.’
‘Again? What’s wrong with her?’
‘She’s a bloody idiot.’
The other man took a chair and sat down.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, this is Bert Melack,’ Dad said. ‘We’ve been trying to solve some mysteries, haven’t we, Bert?’
‘Trying,’ he replied, opening a notebook and licking the tip of a pencil.
‘Liz, maybe it’d be better if you went through everything with Bert,’ Dad continued. ‘From this morning. Descriptions of the kids, everything, so we can get it out.’
Liz looked at Dad. ‘But you know ’em, Bob.’
‘You know ’em better. Everything – Gavin’s chickenpox scar, Janice’s burn.’
‘Ah, Christ,’ Liz began. ‘Where are you kids?’ And then she started crying again, but this time no one could stop her. ‘Why do you want a description, Bob? They’ve just missed the train . . .’
‘I know, but we’ve gotta find them quick, Liz.’
And she knew what this meant: in case they’ve been taken.
‘Kids.’
As Rosa held her.
‘Missus Riley,’ Bert whispered. ‘I’ve got to . . .’
But then she just screamed, dropping to the ground, upturning her chair and knocking the table, spilling cold coffee over bills and magazines, grasping the tablecloth and nearly pulling it off. Rosa knelt beside her and tried to comfort her as Liz cursed her sister and the broken watch and the phone that wouldn’t ring.
Dad stood up and motioned for Mum to join him in the hallway. He took out his notebook, scribbled a number, ripped out the page and handed it to her. ‘Go home and ring the office. Tell ’em we need a doctor.’
‘She’ll come good,’ Mum said.
Dad shook his head. ‘Not if we can’t find ’em she won’t.’
I heard the door slam and Dad returned to the kitchen. He helped Bert and Rosa lift Liz back into her chair. Then they all sat down. He looked at his watch, forgetting the clock on the wall. It was nearly four-thirty.
‘Riley, good Irish name,’ Bert said, smiling at Liz.
She looked up at him, as though she couldn’t hear him, or understand him, as though she didn’t know who he was or what he was doing in her kitchen. ‘Irish,’ she managed.
‘The thing is,’ Bert said, ‘I know you’ve already gone over it, but I need it again.’
She stared at him.
‘See, that way you might remember something, something small. Like someone Janice said she was going to meet.’
‘She didn’t,’ Liz replied.
Dad took her hand. ‘What time did Sonja ring?’
‘Sonja . . . let me think . . .’
I walked from the kitchen. Gavin’s shorts, with his underpants still in them, sat in the hallway where he’d left them, where he’d dropped them around his ankles and climbed into his bathers. There were more clothes in the girl’s room: an old, stretched jumper full of holes, a pair of Liz’s shoes (Anna’s fancy dress), shorts and thongs and one of Janice’s T-shirts sucked and chewed around the neckline. I sat on Anna’s bed and brushed crumbs from the sheets.
Then I thought I heard Janice’s voice outside the window. I got some shells to give to Con, she said.
I turned my head. You’re back?
We missed two trains. Then they cancelled two more. I bet Mum’s pissed off.
She’s in with Dad, and Bert Melack.
Christ . . .
You look sunburnt, I said, looking out of the window.
The Zambuck ran out.
So why didn’t you stay under the jetty?
I could hear her laughing, and see her hair, dried in a frizz, and the old sunburn on her shoulders peeling like the paint on the Housemans’ fence.
‘What’s up?’ Mum asked, standing in the hallway.
I turned and looked at her. The old Mum. Sensible Mum. Taking charge and running things. ‘What’s the time?’ she asked.
‘Quarter to five,’ I replied, without looking at my watch, sensing the passing of seconds and minutes, pacing them out against real life: Janice walking barefoot on hot sand, making her way up to the train, broken down at Semaphore station, three children attempting to walk back to Port Adelaide with a bag full of wet clothes and bathers.
‘They’re okay?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ she replied. Then paused. ‘But we’ve gotta – ’
Liz screamed. We both ran back to the kitchen. Two young constables, with their starchy black uniforms done up at the collar, stood at the back door. ‘Shall we continue
?’ one of them asked.
‘What are you looking for?’ Liz shouted.
Dad held her hand. ‘Liz, they gotta do it, it’s procedure.’
‘I haven’t got ’em hidden, Bob.’
‘I know. Sometimes kids run away, other kids. They can be hiding anywhere.’
Liz stared at Dad with horror. ‘You got police on our street?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ He turned and looked at the constables. ‘Okay.’ They closed the screen door and walked over to the wood shed.
Liz held Dad’s arm tightly, grasping it higher and higher until her fingers rested on his shoulder. ‘What are you thinking, Bob?’ she asked.
‘We gotta contact Bill,’ he replied.
Liz shook her head. ‘No . . . can you imagine what he’d say?’
‘We’ve got to.’
‘It’s all my fault. He’d never talk to me again.’
Mum cleared her throat. ‘Liz, both of you let ’em out every day. We all do. I go out and find Bob and say, I thought he was with you, and he says, I thought he was with you. Turns out he’s down the cold store somewhere.’
‘Bill would never let them go to Semaphore.’
‘Liz, where’s he staying?’ Dad whispered.
‘Can’t we just find ’em first? Then I can say, Eh, you’ll have a laugh about this . . .’
‘Where was it, Clare?’
She slid back into her chair. ‘No,’ she said, with hardly any breath left at all, ‘he’s at the Snowtown pub. The number’s on the fridge.’
Bert stood up and found the scrap of paper under a fridge magnet. ‘She loves the waves,’ Liz said, looking at it.
‘They’ve got lifeguards,’ Mum replied, sensing her thoughts.
‘Not everywhere.’
‘There’d be thousands at the beach.’
Liz started biting her nails and turning her trembling head from side to side. Three little heads, she thought. No one would see them go under. Everyone would be too busy enjoying themselves: picking crabs out of tidal pools, floating in the sea like brown sticks, unpacking cheese sandwiches from greaseproof paper, singing Vera Lynn songs that had lost none of their meaning. Until, at the end of the day, when everyone had packed up and gone home, someone found a beach bag full of children’s clothes. ‘Hello, does anyone belong to these?’
‘They’re looking on the beach?’ Liz asked.
‘That’d be the first place,’ Dad replied. ‘If they’d lost their gear – ’
‘It might have been stolen,’ Liz suggested. ‘There’s a lot of that these days.’ As she watched a man, a reffo by the look of it, grab their bag and keep walking. Rifling through it as he went. Finding a few coins in Janice’s purse and throwing the rest in the dunes.
‘Do you mind?’ Bert asked, looking at Liz and picking up the phone.
‘Give it a few more hours,’ she replied.
‘It’s after five,’ Dad said.
‘Please.’
‘Liz, he might be able to help.’
Bert looked at them.
‘Go on,’ Dad said, and Bert dialled the number.
Then Dad stood up. He went over to the sink, picked up a dirty glass and filled it with water. ‘We’ll need a photo,’ he said.
Liz shook her head nervously. ‘A photo?’
‘Something recent,’ Dad suggested.
Liz stopped to think. ‘We’ve just had some developed.’
Dad drank the water in three gulps and then loosened his tie. ‘A shot of ’em together?’
‘Yes, in the linen press.’ She went to stand but Mum pushed her down. ‘You wait.’ She left the room and we listened to Bert. ‘William Riley. What time’s he due? . . . Listen, when he arrives, you get him to call me on this number . . . No, you don’t need to tell him anything . . . Just get him to call.’
Mum returned and handed a photo to Liz. ‘This one looks good,’ she said and asked at the same time.
It was taken in our shared backyard. The kids were standing ankle-deep in lawn that hadn’t been mowed for months. Janice, on the left, and Anna, on the right, were holding the flowers of two arum lilies they’d just picked from Liz’s only bush. Janice was wearing long pants and Bill’s gardening boots, grinning, her teeth cuttlefish white against a background of deep-green foliage – her hair was uncombed, sticking out everywhere, as it always was. Gavin was wearing a skivvy and his pyjama bottoms and socks, heavy with pilling. He was holding a pair of pliers.
‘Or is it a can opener?’ Liz asked, looking carefully.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Dad said.
‘No, it doesn’t, does it?’ she replied, looking at him.
His fringe was straight, but crooked, rising from his left eyebrow to his right temple.
Anna was the handsome one. Her eyes were brown and sweet and forgiving. When she smiled the corners of her lips barely turned up, and her cheeks swelled with baby fat under ruddy caramel skin.
‘Don’t tell him it’s the police,’ Bert whispered into the phone, looking at us. ‘If he can’t get that number, tell him to ring home.’
Liz clutched the photo by the edges. ‘Janice, look at the time,’ she whispered. Then she started to sob again – a dry, tearless crying.
‘Come on,’ Rosa said, taking the picture out of her hand and giving it to Dad, looking at him and asking, ‘Now, maybe, we could have a lie down?’
‘Good,’ Dad replied, busy with his own thoughts.
Mum and Rosa helped Liz to her bedroom. Then Mum returned to the kitchen and stood face-to-face with Dad. ‘What should we do now?’
‘The doctor shouldn’t be long. We better get down to Semaphore.’
‘I’ll come,’ Con said, stepping into the kitchen and peeling off his overalls.
‘And me,’ I suggested.
‘Con,’ Dad replied, ignoring our offers, ‘if Bill rings, tell him what’s happening. Tell him to get home now.’
‘I can help look.’
‘I can get plenty to look, but I need someone here.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Including you, okay?’
Bert hung up. He looked at Dad. ‘We off?’
I can see Dad and Bert now, driving down Port Road in the hot, early part of the evening. I can see them staring out through a scratched windscreen. I can see Dad loosening his gun-belt and muttering, ‘Christ, what are the chances of it happening next door?’
I can see Bert pulling off his tie and shoving it in his shirt pocket, and saying, ‘You oughta ask for someone else,’ and I can hear Dad replying, ‘No, I can remember the day each of those kids were brought home from hospital.’
On Semaphore Road the shopkeepers were locking up. They were putting keys in their pockets and peering into their shops to check the lights were off. They were waiting in the shade of pepper trees for buses – boarding and standing in aisles holding onto leather straps, getting off and walking up garden paths looking at drooping hydrangeas. They were entering hot bungalows and opening windows, exchanging stale heat for fresh, taking off their clothes and stepping under cold showers.
‘And what if it ends . . . badly?’ Bert suggested. ‘How would they feel towards you?’
‘I don’t know. But I can’t leave it for someone else, Bert. Christ, we live in each other’s pockets. Our kids go to school together. How would it be, “You comin’ over for a beer, Bill . . . by the way, they found your kids yet?” What would that make me, Bert?’
‘A shit neighbour.’
‘A shit person.’ He drove just under the limit. ‘You gotta do what you can, Bert, otherwise . . .’ And then touched his foot to the accelerator.
‘So, what do you reckon?’ Bert asked.
‘Janice, the nine-year-old, she’s a smart kid. Not just school-smart. She can work a person out. She wouldn’t get herself into a situation. And she’s got balls. She’ll take on the best of ’em, boys, anyone.’ He smiled. ‘I remember once she tipped out a carton of Bill’s beer. Took off the tops, poured ’em down the drain. Bill likes his grog
– ’ He swerved to avoid a dog. ‘Beautiful kids, Bert . . . funny and . . . sensible.’
Bert looked at him. ‘You sure about this?’
‘I’m fine.’ Dad was getting faster and faster, but there was no one to stop him. ‘I remember, she lined up all the bottles on the roof. No one could work out how she got them up there. You oughta’ve seen Bill.’ He smiled. ‘She always looked out for Henry . . . looks out . . .’
Dad thought, just for a moment, How I’d ever get by without them?
‘On sports day, she’d run her races, then run ’em again for Henry. He’s got a drawer full of ribbons. And she wouldn’t get a bike. Do you know that, Bert? Never even seen her ride one.’
‘Because of Henry?’
‘Because of Henry.’
Bert was still looking over at him. ‘So you want to find them?’
‘Of course, we gotta find ’em, Bert.’
‘But if Janice was, is, that shrewd . . .’
‘What?’
‘If she’s that good at lookin’ after herself.’
Dad studied his face. ‘They’ll turn up,’ he said. ‘Beautiful kids. How Bill ever produced such good-lookin’ kids . . . and well adjusted.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Bill has his . . . mood swings. Hits the grog and doesn’t stop. Next thing you know I’m in there pullin’ him off of Liz.’
‘And that’s it?’
Dad stopped to think. ‘Yeah, that’s it. Except, I think he got this girl pregnant.’
‘When?’
‘Recently. Said her boyfriend, or husband, threatened him.’
Bert took out his notebook and pencil, licked the tip and started to scribble.
‘What are you writin’?’ Dad asked.
‘Makin’ a note.’
‘If it comes to that, I’ll talk to him, eh?’
Bert finished his scribbling and pocketed the notebook. Dad stopped at a set of lights. ‘Maybe it was just a one-off. Happens I suppose, if you’re on the road.’
Bert was staring ahead. ‘Well, you know him best.’
‘I do.’
‘You know me, I think the worst of people. That way you’re never disappointed.’
‘If you think someone took his kids because – ’
‘I don’t think anything, Bob. Yet. We’re paid to look at the facts, remember? And the facts suggest possibilities.’