by Tim Pegler
She doesn’t show. Waiting anyway. Hoping. Waiting too long then rushing for The Silver City. Stopping. Looking back along the path. Nothing. Her absence draining the colour from the morning.
Arriving at the City panting. Hurting. Guilty about being late. Guilty about … hunching more than usual, hoping Mick won’t see my eye. Mick nodding towards me: ‘Yer flying solo today, mate. Erin rang and said she’s crook. Said she won’t be in for a couple of days, poor thing. Maybe you can check on her after work, eh? Just make sure yer don’t catch her germs, d’ya hear. We need to get this fence finished.’
Spending the morning helping Mick with the shining new sheets of corrugated iron for the fence. Thinking of Erin. Erin on the ground, head twisted sideways like a broken doll. Erin staring at me like a stranger. Erin running from me — as if it was me that hurt her.
‘Oi! Your head is in the clouds today. Off with the bloody pixies, you are! Pass me the drill … Blimey, what’s happened to your face?’
Mick shoving the nails in his fist into a pocket in his overalls. Reaching across and, touching, touching, sliding my hair from the side of my face. Whistling. ‘Strewth! I’ve seen some shiners in my time but that is a real corker. I hope the semi that hit you is just as banged up. C’mon, we’ll have a cuppa and put some ice on that. I don’t s’pose you’re going to tell me how it happened, are you?’
Mick reaching up. Putting an arm around my shoulders. Me inhaling, sharply. Too close! Gut reaction to wrench clear. Run! Mick’s embrace is unexpected. Frightening. Yet the longer he holds on, the better I feel. Like a wounded soldier, safe with a comrade. Pain in my throat as if something is stuck there. Wedged. Words unspoken.
In the cottage. Mick wrapping ice in a tea towel. Bringing it over for me to hold to my temple. Wincing as the cold seeps through, triggering a frenzied pounding in the swelling around my eye. Wanting to tell Mick why Erin’s not here, to tell him I failed her. Wanting my fury, my fear, my hatred of Collier to burst out of me like pus — free me of his poison. Wanting to sob like a baby, to let other people sort out this rotten, messed-up world. Instead, inhaling slowly, deeply. Swallowing. Feeling the bitterness and bile slide back down. Feeling the silence settle like fog.
Mick leaning over the table. Coming closer. Nudging my hand and the dripping ice towel higher up my forehead. ‘Best not leave it too long in the same spot, mate. Ya might get brain freeze.’ Aware he’s trying to make me feel better. Unable to raise my head to acknowledge his joke. Uncertain what might happen if I look him in the eye. Fearful of what he might learn.
Finishing my tea without raising my head. Hearing Mick sigh, heavy as the air brakes on a truck. ‘You better head home early, mate. Give that scone of yours a rest. We can finish the fence tomorrow. Oi — and if you ever want to show me who did that, maybe he and I could have a few words, eh.’
Grabbing my lunch bag from my locker. Walking away. Trudging towards home, through a foreign landscape. It’s the wrong time of day for this walk. The streets are different, unsafe. I’m skittish. Edgy. Unnerved. The sights I expect every evening are absent. Altered.
Striving not to look for them, not to notice the theft of the familiar. Not looking, not looking. Habit winning. The tortoiseshell cat that curls around my ankles in Fenton Street; the old digger who smokes a pipe on his veranda in Latham Street; the empty milk crates outside the corner store ready for tomorrow: the constants of my world are missing. Gone.
Sighting Collier. I’d assumed he’d be elsewhere this early in the day. No such luck. He’s in his driveway, a hose in one hand, a rag in the other, half-heartedly slapping it over his father’s car. Facing me.
Senses suddenly acute. Gravel crunching like Corn Flakes. A dog barking, blocks away. A breeze tickling my ears. The sun, shrinking behind skirts of cloud.
Slowing, knowing it’s too late. He’s seen me. He throws down the hose. Stomps down his driveway.
Leaning forward, concentrating on the marmalade colours of the gravel path. Increasing my pace, veering right. Let him have the path. I’ll use the nature strip. If necessary, the road. I need width. Space to accelerate. Run.
Close now. Hearing breathing, wondering if it’s me, realising I’m holding my breath. Collier looms. He snorts long and deep. Spits. The glob lands so near I almost step into it. As I wobble around it, an arm grabs me. Spins me around to face him.
‘What’s your hurry, Noddy? Not so brave without your girlfriend? Why don’t you stick around? We’ve got stuff to talk about, you and I.’
Shoved. Hard. Slamming into a fence. Trying to rebound away, to spring down the path like a startled hare but he has me pinned.
He leans in close. Terrifyingly close. Can’t think! Can’t think! Breath hot on my neck. Smell of mouldy onions. Growl of voice. Spittle flicking my eyelid, my cheeks. Words. Ugly words. Trying to untangle them.
‘That slut you hang around with. You tell … you let her know if she’s thinking of making trouble she shouldn’t bother … her word against mine … no one’ll believe a bitch from a family like hers.’
His fist pounding into my shoulder, a vicious full stop, ending his speech. Then he shoves me again.
Stumbling, falling towards the picket fence of the Colliers’ unlucky neighbours. Reaching out instinctively, hoping to brace myself and stay upright. My hand grasping a picket. Instead of supporting me, it comes away. I hit the ground like an egg.
‘Now look what you’ve done, spazzo! Mrs Harding is going to be shitty with you. I think you should get in there and apologise for destroying her fence. Now! Go on, Noddy. Get in there. Get in there and say “sorry”.’
Collier circles over me, a boxer ready to finish an opponent. As I scramble to my feet, he shoves me again. Bulldozes me towards his neighbours’ gate. He reaches for the latch, preparing to drive me inside. It’s a flaky, pale blue weatherboard place, veranda posts cobwebbed with cast iron lace. Collier shunts me forward again and I’m frantic. Desperate to flee. Intruding on a stranger’s property, having to somehow explain myself — Can’t! Can’t! — terrifies me. Even more than Collier.
He moves in again. I sense his fist, arriving like a bus. Realise I still have the picket in my hand. Raise it, eyes clenched shut. Hear a crack. A yelp. Open my eyes.
I’ve collected him on the wrist, knocking his punch off course. There’s a confused look on Collier’s face, then rage reddens his cheeks. He storms towards me. I’m swinging the picket now, smashing him on the elbow. He roars. Keeps coming. I’m swinging wildly, not caring what I hit, just wanting a zone of safety, so that he can’t come closer.
The picket slaps his shoulder and he hunches over. It bounces off his hip, scrapes across his neck. It smacks into his temple, thwack! His eyes go wide. He topples like a tree. Doesn’t move again.
Dropping the picket, scanning the street to see if anyone is around. Then running. Running to I don’t know where.
Running from the body sprawled like a possum collected by a car. Running past our place. Into the vacant block where the bluestone-lined creek dribbles under the road. Throwing myself into the pipe under the bridge. Waiting. Trembling.
Certain I’m not far enough away. Can’t be long until the cops find the body. A corpse on a footpath beside a main road is hardly going to stay hidden. Should have dragged it away, shoved it under the Colliers’ car, done anything but left him where he fell … only a couple of blocks from my home. The cops’ll know it’s me. They’ll be after me. Any second now. I should be long gone. But where?
Three blocks away there’s a disused bluestone warehouse, an old wool store. At the front entrance, the big double doors are chained up. In my mind I can picture the back door, hidden away below ground level; an entry few people know.
Inching back to the mouth of the pipe. Listening for sirens. Nothing. Clasping both hands around the mouth of the pipe, pulling myself out in one move. Crouching low to the ground. No one around. A crow curses. A magpie chortles a reply.
Taking a deep bre
ath. Sucking in air like there’s little left. Sprinting.
Behind the warehouse, the roadside drops away steeply. About two metres down, the basement is barricaded by a thicket of blackberries and morning glory. Behind them, barely visible, the doorway.
Above me, the sky bruised. I smell a storm coming. Below me, bull ants charge for their holes, laden with last-minute supplies. Preparing to batten down the hatches. Running for it, like me.
Hearing a car, maybe a block away. Cops already? Leaping down the embankment, tilting, flailing, plunging smack bang into the thicket. Thorns jagging my arms as I torpedo for the doorway. Giving the door a kick, blackberry canes snagging my jeans. Relief as the timber crumbles like cheese, leaving a yawning hole. Crouching low. Crawling through. Into darkness. Inside.
Outside, the storm breaks. Fat hailstones fall like bullets. Furious thunder. A spear of lightning — a snapshot of my surroundings. The bottom of a narrow stairwell. Another spear reveals a wooden crate, decades of bird droppings. Kicking the crate against the hole in the door, covering the gap.
Afraid. So afraid. Dizzy, weak-kneed afraid. Collapsing to the crate, head in my hands.
Trying to calm myself. Can’t think. Need to think. Know I can’t go home. I’m a fugitive, an outlaw, a killer. A cop killer: Collier had signed up to be a cop! Where do I go? Can’t head for Erin’s. Can’t bring her more trouble. Probably wouldn’t want to see me anyway. I’m the last person on earth …
Throwing my head back. Hearing a gurgle escaping my mouth. Raw grief, loud and chilling.
Shivering. Rocking. Pummelling at my chest, panicked by the vacuum swelling my ribs from within. Emptiness. Absence. I’ve already had a lifetime’s worth of loneliness. Now I may never see Erin again. Just thinking this makes me want to smash my head against the stone wall to banish the thoughts. Shut down the swirling kaleidoscope of fears, questions, feelings, barking, howling, baying.
Slumped by the door for hours. Not confident enough to explore the warehouse in case I get trapped. Caught too far from the door with no other way out. Eyes now accustomed to the dim light trickling from upstairs. The stairwell slowly claimed by shadows as the storm lashes the building. Maybe it won’t be so dark upstairs.
Arms outstretched like Frankenstein’s monster. Groping for the stair railing. Climbing. Cautious. Afraid. So very afraid.
The first floor has a raised platform facing the front doors. I guess trucks used to unload their bales directly onto the platform. There’s an office area with a row of filing cabinets, a wide iron scale like you see on railway platforms and a sort of rope pulley lift.
The top floor of the warehouse is slippery with lanolin-greased dust. From the windows, I can see back to Grandpa’s, across to the Colliers’. No sign of blue flashing lights! I wonder if the cops are searching, whether they’ve got Grandpa locked away, asking him questions. I think of young Ned Kelly, apprenticed to hairy Harry Power the bandit, the pair of them hidden high and hungry in their rocky lookout at Whitfield, watching the police parties search the King Valley below. Cocky, knowing it’s their country and the cops are clueless.
I see my country below. Wonder if it will protect me like the hills looked after Kelly. Then the hail cracks one of the windowpanes beside me. Blind panic. Hands leap about my body. Feel to see if I’ve been shot.
Images from my bushranger book: Joe Byrne’s corpse tied to the Benalla lockup door for souvenir photographs; Ben Hall’s bullet-riddled body paraded through the streets of Forbes; Mad Dan Morgan’s blank, dead eyes outstaring those arranging his carcass for their own amusement. No dignity in death for outlaws. I wonder what they’ll do if they find me. Or when.
I thought I’d feel different. Satisfied. I’ve wished Collier dead before. Just never believed I could do it. It’s done now. Over. I don’t feel tough or brave. Just the familiar swarming fears. And cyclonic loneliness.
I wonder how Kelly felt after Stringybark Creek. Three policemen dead. The bush no longer safe. Nowhere safe. No turning back. Irate that the cops couldn’t or wouldn’t surrender. Death by stubbornness, for God’s sake! By stupidity! Death swooping in the instant of a wombat-headed decision to disobey a desperate man.
Sensing the loneliness in Kelly then, the realisation that his pride, his raging at the treatment meted out to family and friends, his refusal to meekly give in to bullies, had caused blood to be spilled, men to be slaughtered. That his leadership, his ranting, his big-brotherly dares, had taken a sibling and two mates to the point of no return. Knowing the reaper would stalk them now, claiming them only a matter of time. But ever aware that a leader must keep leading. Keep defending kin and cause to the end.
Lightning shreds the night sky. In a flash of white I see the swollen creek licking at the dip in the road. I’m glad I abandoned the pipe as a hideout. Shivering, I curl up on a pile of bale bags. Fall into a thrashing, fitful sleep.
Wake before dawn. The rain has stopped but there’s a steady drip from the rafters falling beside me, splashing my face. I rise with a start, remembering why I’m here. My stomach complains. I haven’t eaten for almost twenty-four hours.
Scrambling for my lunch bag. Attacking yesterday’s soggy sandwiches and a bruised apple as if they’re my last meal. Upending the bag and shaking it out. Nothing else inside but the sash Miss Kendall gave me when I finished at Lawler Street and my dog-eared notes on bravery. Fat lot of good they were! I wrap the sash around my waist, a symbol of better times. I know I can’t stay here forever, not without food. Need to steal food. Nothing to lose. I’m outlawed for killing a cop. Stealing food hardly matters.
Think about where I could find something, anything to eat. There’ll be crates of milk and fresh bread outside the corner shop, waiting for Mrs Triantafolou to open up. I’ll need to be quick. Snatch and grab. Bring supplies back here. Whatever I can get.
As I scramble up the embankment, I see two baby birds dead on the roadside, only inches apart. Their mouths are open, their eyes wide in forever stares. Their legs and bodies are bent, as if they’ve been smashed about in the stormwater. Flightless babies swept from one explosion of pain to another. Until they stopped feeling.
Wondering if they died when the storm blew them out of their nest. Whether they drowned or were pounded to death. Either way, they didn’t stand a chance.
It’s a sign. Two baby birds: Erin and me. Shaken from safety not by a storm but by bullies, crooks and coppers who won’t leave us alone.
Knowing what I have to do.
CHAPTER 27
ERIN
Mum hasn’t said a word about the bruises on my face and legs. It’s been two days, I haven’t been to work and still she’s said nothing. I can’t believe she hasn’t noticed. I can only assume she doesn’t want to know. Or she’s ashamed. Either way, I’m furious. No, beyond furious. I hate her.
I hate her for not taking me and walking out on Dad, getting me away from all the crap that he’s dragged us into. I hate her for soldiering on, for grinding on day after day without ever saying ‘Enough, Paddy, this isn’t what I want for our daughter’. I hate her for escaping with me to a new town, only to let Dad plunge us into strife all over again. And I hate her for not caring enough to ask if I’m OK. Maybe she can’t cope with the thought that my life is heading down the dunny, just like hers did when she got pregnant to Dad.
I blame Mum. I blame Dad. I blame myself. There’s got to be something about me, something that invites all the wrong sort of attention. Maybe I’m like one of those stinking jungle flowers that give off a foul smell, so the bugs and the predators come scurrying. Maybe it’s because I was born a Murphy, destined for trouble and then more of it. Never getting a break. Maybe I should give up now.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t go back to work. I couldn’t face Ned. He tried to stop me walking past that house. He didn’t want to risk it. Did I pay attention? No. Good one, Erin! Too pig-headed for your own good. This mess is your own making, not Ned’s. Little Miss I-Won’t-Be-Bullied dug
her own grave. Reaped what she sowed. Got what was coming to her.
I hear a kerlink as the gate latch opens. I don’t care who it is. I don’t want to see them — or anyone. I don’t even roll off my bed to investigate.
There’s a heavy clump of footsteps up the path and a dull thump as a key somersaults in the lock. The footsteps trudge down the hall and into the kitchen. Then two voices, muffled. Sounds like Obie and Mum. We haven’t heard from Obie since he was arrested. Parasite! I can’t believe he’s back. And laughing, too, the bastard. I pull a pillow over my head, determined not to hear him.
Now the gate again. The prim clop of heels can only be Rhona. I vow not to eavesdrop, pledging eternal disinterest in anything she and Obie are up to. But they give me little choice. Within minutes, Rhona’s back down the hall, Obie tramping behind her. On the front veranda, with Mum out of earshot, they stop to discuss the real purpose of Rhona’s visit. I break my vow immediately, tiptoeing gingerly to the window to peek through the sliver of light beside the curtain.
‘I trust that you’re keeping a low profile, Terence. The only way this is going to work is if we’re patient.’ Rhona pauses, and then lowers her shrewish voice.
‘Did you get it unloaded OK? Nobody saw?’
Obie tips his head to one side, seagull-style, before answering. ‘Nah, no one saw. The steps were a pain in the arse but the stuff’s all down there. Ellen was asleep so no worries there. When do you reckon …’
Rhona cuts him off. ‘I’ll worry about that. You worry about staying out of trouble.’ Then she’s gone.
I can’t believe what I’ve just heard. I’d sussed that Obie and Rhona were in cahoots. But what ‘stuff’ are they talking about? And why would they need to worry about Mum watching? I’m still puzzling that over when I hear Obie leave the house. His idea of staying out of trouble is probably going to the pub or the TAB. Or both.
I know it sounds dumb but I’m pacing the room now, just like folks do on TV when they have to solve a problem. Why the hell would Obie need to worry about whether Mum was asleep? I’m about ready to give up pacing, as my ribs are aching again, when the gate kerlinks once more.