Rosie went to her room, taking the time to say a nice goodnight to her mum and her brother, which she did sometimes, but not that often. Then she closed the door behind her and vanished into thin air.
5
The next morning, around the time that I was arriving at school, Judy White was in the Goodwood Police Station, fretting to Mack, beside herself with panic, while Terry waited outside in the car.
The news was yet to spread to the rest of town.
I had woken in the dark, walked Backflip around the block as the sun yellowed the clouds, eaten my brown toast, and walked to school. In the misty morning, everything felt altogether normal.
Just before the bell rang, I waited by the lunch tables for George, who was coming through the front gates with two of her brothers. She had four in total: Toby was her twin and he went to our school, along with runty Daniel; Vinnie had graduated with the rest of Rosie’s year; and Lego Pat was seven and made endless abstract constructions with the three incomplete sets of Lego that George’s parents—Noelene and Fred Sharkey—could not afford to replace.
Four of the five Sharkey children, including George, were redheaded, even though both Noelene and Fred were not. George would offer a lesson in recessive genes to anyone who would listen. Spittle would relieve itself from her mouth when she got excited. Then she’d say something droll or self-deprecating; or she’d laugh inappropriately. When George’s grandmother, Belle, had died in 1985, a devastated Noelene had ushered George along in front of the open casket. George looked down at Belle, who she was very fond of, and laughed hysterically at her resting face. Poor George. She was dragged out of the church and reprimanded and could not stop laughing for days.
On top of everything else, George had photic sneeze reflex, which meant that she sneezed uncontrollably when exposed to bright light. It’s hereditary, and Noelene and runty Daniel had it also. In fact, George’s grandfather died sun sneezing at the wheel of his car. He was pulling out of his garage into a bright morning when his head jerked up at an angle, breath burst into his lungs, his eyes shut, and a sneeze came with such force that his foot involuntarily hit the accelerator, propelling his Datsun out over the driveway and into the path of a semi-trailer.
Old Belle, who was soon to be dead herself, saw the whole thing.
‘Living on the main road in Clarke has its disadvantages’ was what she told the attending officer, in an unfeeling tone.
That’s why Fred Sharkey moved his family the forty-minute drive to Goodwood when George was in utero. Goodwood was a safer place for sneezing. There were no semi-trailers passing through; no heavy machinery; just the mountain on one side and the river on the other.
Since the freight train line passed through Goodwood beyond the school, and George’s house was beyond the freight line, George was literally from the wrong side of the tracks. The houses on her street had old sinks and white goods decomposing in their yards. Cats mated violently in carports. DOCS arrived on two separate occasions at the fibro house where Emily Ross wheezed out an existence with her alcoholic father. ‘The only way is up’, George would say, with the same wry expression she had that day in the playground.
The bell rang. The mist had lifted. Toby punched my arm on his way past. Runty Daniel went off in the other direction towards the library. No one missed Terry White, who was due in class just as we were. No one knew about Rosie White, who had vanished into thin air. The sun edged out from behind a cloud and flooded the playground with morning light. As it hit our faces, George sneezed.
And just at that moment, Mrs Gwen Hughes, heavy with crystals, was walking a new student from the front office across the playground—pointing out the demountable classrooms, and the lunch tables, and the canteen, and the hall. The new girl opened her mouth and said something back to Mrs Gwen Hughes and that was when I first saw it: a thin gap between her front teeth. It was surely there, right in the middle; and she looked tiny in her oversized coat; and she really was the prettiest girl I had ever seen in real life.
•
Woody’s Takeaway was owned by a white-haired man called Roy Murray. I always thought he should’ve just called it Roy’s or Murray’s instead of Woody’s, because everyone always asked Rosie who Woody was. She’d look at them, and point to the sign: it said Woody’s in red cursive with a picture of a cartoon log. The log had a happy, big-eyed face and little wooden branches for arms and legs.
‘What town are we in?’ Rosie would ask, and that was her deadpan answer.
Roy Murray would open Woody’s of a morning and Rosie clocked on around noon and worked till close. Roy was generally well-liked. About as well-liked as his son, Derek Murray, was disliked. Derek Murray: always an unpleasant expression. ‘The lights are on but nobody’s home,’ as my Pop would say.
After school that day, white-haired Roy Murray was standing in the doorway, talking in a quiet voice with Mack. I walked past and wondered where Rosie was, but didn’t give it much thought. Mack was too deep in conversation to see me waving, and Roy Murray looked tired in the eyes, like he hadn’t slept so well the night before.
I crossed the street and headed home.
It was three days since I’d found the money. Backflip walked around in circles with her ears back, crying with excitement when I opened the back door. I put her on the lead and we set off towards the river.
I decided three days was a good amount of time to have waited. If there was someone in the bush across the river last Friday—watching me find the money, watching me put it back, watching me and Backflip run away like a pair of chickens—then they would’ve collected it after I left and that would have been that. They would’ve known by now that I hadn’t told Mack. And if they really wanted to make sure, they could’ve watched the clearing for another couple of days and seen that I hadn’t returned.
Three days. I had thought of little else since. In my mind, I’d already spent that money. I was on a shopping spree at the Clarke Plaza—at the bookstore, the record store, the disposal store, the Fosseys. I wasn’t sure how I would’ve explained it all to Mum though. Where did you get those new things, Jean? I didn’t know how well I could lie. And then there was Mack. I was most frightened of what Mack would say. Jeannie, that’s a lot of money. You should have told me.
Backflip and I cut across the oval and walked along the silty bank, and I looked ahead to the clearing in search of anything disagreeable. I found no such thing. The willow was drooping over into the river. The cows were in the adjacent paddock, eating rye grass and clover. Some of them had little birds on their backs with their beaks up in the winter air.
Backflip launched herself into the water where the river widened. I climbed the willow, pulled myself onto the big branch, and looked up to the tree-hole.
The plastic bag was still there.
I stood, balancing on the branch, as thoughts crowded my mind. Was it that I felt disappointed? I wasn’t sure. For the last three days I had been mostly hoping the money would still be there—so I could go to Clarke Plaza and experience the lifestyle. And yet, faced with the money again, I wasn’t sure what do to.
I reached up and pulled the bag out of the hole, so I could have the feeling of money in my hands while I considered my options.
The plastic bag came out easily. It felt different.
Almost immediately I saw why: the paper bag was no longer inside. There was no wad of bills. No five hundred dollars.
The money was gone.
Relief and disappointment and confusion, all in one moment.
I stood there, still clutching the plastic bag and feeling its contents with my fingers. It was all scrunched up and folded around. There was something new inside. I opened up the bag and and pulled it out. Then I sat down on the branch and studied it, holding it in my palm.
It was a small plastic horse. The kind they sold at toyshops. Brown and lifelike, with black-painted hooves and shiny flanks. It had a kind face, and little black eyes that were fixed in a pensive expression.
I looked up at the big cows in the paddock, and then back at the little horse in my hand.
What on earth?
Whoever in their right mind would think a plastic horse was a fair trade for five hundred dollars?
Silly old Backflip, barking at the cows. Then trotting down to the bank on the other side of the willow and rolling in the mud.
I held the horse for a time, no longer frightened of anyone in the trees, no longer regretful nor relieved.
Then, deflated, I put the little horse back in the torn bag, and put the bag back in the tree-hole, and Backflip and I walked slowly along the bank towards town.
•
When we got to Cedar Street, something was the matter. There was unease floating like a mist above the rooftops. The sky was clear and absurd. Rainbow lorikeets had gathered in a clump on the awning above the Grocer and they screeched and chattered, and everyone on the street was talking. The town was bursting with bad news. At the Goodwood Grocer, Nance was on the telephone, deep in covert conversation. Val Sparks from the Vinnies had bailed up Smithy outside the Wicko. Bart, in Bart’s Meats, was listening to Coral over the counter, who huddled as much as she could with a meat display in the way, as if telling Bart great secrets across the sausages. Tired-eyed, white-haired Roy Murray was also on the phone, by the bain-marie at Woody’s, his head hung low. Outside the newsagent a few doors up, Helen was glaring at the absurd sky. The mountain—silent and deep tree green—was all in shadow.
Mum was hanging up the telephone when I got home.
‘Did you hear Rosie White’s gone missing?’
‘No?’
I felt suddenly sick.
‘I was just up at Nance’s earlier. Apparently Judy went in to wake Rosie up this morning and she was gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘They don’t know,’ said Mum. ‘But Jude’s beside herself. As you would be. Trace just said it’s too early to file a missing person’s report. Mack has to wait till tomorrow.’
All I could say was, ‘Oh.’
Mum looked at me, concerned, like she’d said too much already. She paused and unworried her tone. ‘You know, she’s probably just run away. Maybe it’s just boy stuff. Nance says she goes out with Davo Carlstrom. Maybe they had a fight or something, who knows.’
I’d seen Rosie and Davo together a few times. Once they were making out in the car park behind Woody’s at twilight, against the bonnet of a car, and I watched for longer than I should have.
Mum forced a smile out and I forced one back. At dinner, we made small talk with the TV on. Mum answered Glenn Ridge’s questions quietly instead of yelling.
Later, in my room, I wrote the day’s happenings in my blue notebook:
ROSIE WHITE IS MISSING.
The money’s gone . . . but now there’s a plastic horse?!
The new girl is going to our school.
I lay back and thought about Rosie. And the money. And Davo Carlstrom, pressing Rosie against the bonnet of the dusty car, pushing his hands up her skirt and kissing her with all his mouth. She had grabbed his hand and put it higher, like no one was watching except the sky.
Maybe Rosie took the money? Maybe Rosie left the money. Maybe Davo and Rosie had a fight. Or maybe she just ran away to the city where everything is full of opportunity.
I wrote down more—all I could think of—and couldn’t shake my feelings. What if something terrible had happened to Rosie?
I put my notebook away. Backflip lay in a brown ball on her bed. I could hear Big Jim and Fitzy’s TV, muffled from next door. Then, just as I was about to turn my lamp off, Mum knocked and put her head in.
‘Goodnight, baby,’ she said. Then she strode across my room, trying to be casual, and locked my window.
In all our life in Goodwood, she had never done that before.
6
The rest of that week made me nervous.
There was no word from Rosie, no sightings of Rosie, and no clues as to where on earth Rosie might’ve been.
On the Tuesday, Mack filed a missing person’s report, and spoke to anyone he could find who’d seen Rosie on the day she vanished, or in the days preceding. At school, there was little else discussed, and George and I posited multiple theories on her disappearance. Even George, wiping tears away after a sneezing fit, clear snot running down her top lip and into her mouth, was unable to make jokes.
Kidnapping was the most frightening theory, or any kind of forced removal. The sexual violence that lurked beyond those thoughts was not raised in actual words by either of us, but I heard George’s brother Toby utter the worst combination—‘raped and murdered’—as he and Brett Hiller walked past us in the hall. They looked like most boys at school did during that time: concerned, but not wanting to appear that way, lest their sensitivity aroused accusations of being a ‘fucken faggot’, a taunt which the men and boys of Goodwood subjected each other to routinely.
The only boys George and I had any time for at school were Ethan West and Lucas Karras, both of whom had the admirable quality of being tender, an attribute that virtually every other boy in school lacked. Lucas looked at George tenderly when he said, ‘Are you guys feeling scared about what happened? Because me and Ethan can walk you home after school?’
How adorable.
‘Do you reckon his dad told him to say that?’ George said to me after, and we agreed that he probably had. Mr Costa Karras was known to be a gentleman and he had raised a decent son. Ethan West’s dad, on the other hand, was a known drunk, and it always surprised me that Ethan had turned out to be tender at all. Old Mal West would shake his cane at the pokies and was prone to getting mouthy. Rumour had it he got himself into fisticuffs on occasion, and I wasn’t sure that Ethan hadn’t taken a punch or two. Still, Ethan agreed he’d be very happy to walk us home, and a look of concern came over his face at the suggestion that we might be frightened. Then he looked at me for slightly longer than was necessary, and George elbowed me in case I missed it. All I thought was: Ethan was no Big Jim, but he really was very tall. And that, yes, maybe I was afraid. Not of walking home in broad daylight—we respectfully declined the offer of an escort—but the feeling I had in general at that time, along with the unease and the unknowing, was slowly but surely approaching fear.
I wanted to think Rosie had just fled the immutable boredom of takeaway food and the verdant confines of Goodwood. I wanted to think of her among skyscrapers, applying for exciting new jobs and window-shopping in the evenings as the city glistened. I wanted to think that, but the truth of it was that my thoughts were much darker. I worried. I had read a lot of books. I had watched a lot of TV. In my mind—in my deepest fears—Rosie White had met an awful fate; and I knew that George felt the same. Noelene had, after all, immediately locked all the windows in their house, too. It was as if, in the space of a day, all the dusty locks in Goodwood, stiff with neglect, had been bolted and fastened. Keys were fished out from the backs of drawers. Side gates were secured. Mothers of teenage girls held on for longer hugs after breakfast. Fathers peered out across their front lawns, suspicious. Just like that, in progressive and hopeful Goodwood, no one felt optimistic.
I found out from Mack, who told Mum, who was telling Nan when Coral from two doors up overheard and told most people in town, that Rosie’s window had been wide open. On a cold August night. Wide open! Like all windows in town before that night, it was never locked, so no one, Rosie or otherwise, had to unlock it. It was just as open as air when Judy came in on Monday morning to tell an empty bed that it was time to get up.
Later on the Monday, Judy White had returned home from the police station and, on Mack’s advice, looked closely over Rosie’s things, through eyes blurred with tears, desperate to fin
d evidence to indicate her daughter had simply chosen to depart for a new life elsewhere. She found no such proof. The family suitcases were where they always were: in the top section of the Whites’ built-in wardrobe. Rosie’s toothbrush stood upright next to the three other White toothbrushes, in a Mother’s Day novelty mug on the bathroom sink. And Judy could detect no obvious absence of clothing in Rosie’s abandoned bedroom. What was gone, along with Rosie, were her wallet and her army disposal backpack. The backpack had been covered with badges and patches and band names, which Rosie had written all over in texta.
For George and me, the lack of Rosie’s wallet and backpack was welcome news. It gave us cautious hope. It meant Rosie had most probably left of her own accord. If someone had opened her window and taken Rosie against her will in order to do terrible things to her, then she wouldn’t have had time to grab her bag. She would’ve been struggling, a hand over her mouth stifling her screams, perhaps the effects of a chloroform-soaked rag held over her mouth and nose rendering her unconscious, much like we’d seen in Noelene’s favourite Bette Midler movie, Ruthless People. People in that situation don’t reach for personal belongings like they’re about to run an errand.
But Mack and Sergeant Simmons saw things differently. Rosie may not have been taken from her bedroom. But if she’d taken her backpack, climbed out her window and gone to meet someone in the night? That didn’t mean that mystery person, or someone else she came across, didn’t do terrible things to her. Because if everything was safe and well, then where was Rosie White?
•
The signs went up around town on the Wednesday. Rosie’s brother Terry was seen photocopying them at the library in the morning, leaning over the machine with the lid not properly shut, so the white light escaped and rolled across his face over and over as the copies came out in an increasing pile. It lit up the tears that sat in his eyes, and illuminated the moment he blinked hard enough for them to spill onto the Xerox logo like lonely rain. Terry stared down and let them fall all over his pimples and didn’t wipe them off, not even with the back of his hand. When he arrived at the counter to pay (ten cents a copy), my mum’s friend Denise, the librarian, said it was on the house. As she relayed the story of their encounter, Terry stood there looking at her like he didn’t understand the notion of her charity, wordlessly holding out a blue, crumpled ten-dollar bill in front of his wet face.
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