The Never Boys

by Scott Monk

Three armed officers charged the driver’s side, Constable Tom in front. ‘Hands! Show us your hands!’ He yanked open the door, grabbed the boy and kneed him to the ground. When the dust settled and Tom rolled over his manacled fugitive, he backed off. It wasn’t Dean’s face under the baseball cap. But Hayden’s.

  ‘What? Can’t a guy drive across a paddock?’

  ‘The Falcon!’

  The two patrol cars screamed back towards the hayshed, where the General joined them. She was demanding answers but the cops gave none. They rushed inside and saw that the Falcon had gone.

  ‘He’ll be heading for the border.’

  They blazed east along the highway, alerting base about a possible high-speed pursuit. They asked for help from the next station; send one patrol, maybe two.

  Their sirens parted the traffic as the hills sloped into the yellow Murray Plains. The highway before them was dead straight. There! That orange blip.

  Again, the patrols gave chase and muscled the car off the road. Again, the constables pounced with weapons drawn and handcuffs ready. And again, they caught the wrong man. ‘Is this a black thing?’ Adam, the Aboriginal rouseabout, demanded.

  Constable Tom cursed as he looked back towards the Kaeslers’ then cursed again. The other police could only stand about helplessly and listen as they realised they had been bested too.

  Heading south and whooping, a dark-haired teenager watched in the rear-view mirror of an old Nissan Bluebird as the town of Truro sank away. He reached through the open window and patted Old Clive’s second car, smug at the success of his giant cup-and-ball trick. The Bluebird had been stored in the same hayshed next to the Chevy but ignored by the police in their haste. Now with them out of the way and a big head start in front of him, Dean John Mason was no more.

  The boy double-checked that he had a wallet full of cash and a tank full of petrol. His goal was simple: cross the Victorian border, trace the Great Ocean Road, ditch the car in Melbourne, lie low for a week then travel up the coast to Sydney by rail. Taking the long way gave him breathing space and time to create a new identity. No doubt about it. This one definitely would be foolproof.

  He pulled a photograph from his wallet and placed it on the dashboard. He grimaced as he found himself drawn to it every few moments. It was of him and Michelle at the orchard wedding; she was in salsa red. Abandoning her was his sole regret about leaving the Barossa. He desperately wanted to see her one last time, to explain what he’d done. To tell her that he loved her no matter what. So just as he had a back-up plan for ditching the cops, he had a plan for her as well.

  That evening, about an hour south at a large town called Murray Bridge, he parked the Bluebird next to the river trees, napped and ate a yiros while waiting for nightfall. Twenty minutes later, a car took his exit then rolled towards the riverbank. It was Hayden’s Falcon. The headlights flashed three times. Twice and he would have fled.

  A girl stepped from the passenger’s side, waving away Hayden’s concern. She started for the Bluebird and the boy breathed. At least Michelle would understand.

  But it wasn’t her. Again it was Zara. His betrayer.

  The first question bordered on a demand. ‘Where’s Michelle?’

  ‘Home,’ she answered.

  ‘I specifically asked for Michelle.’

  ‘Tough. She sent me instead.’

  He turned away. ‘Then this is a waste of time.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Then why’d you come?’

  ‘To get some answers.’

  ‘So you can tell your cop mate?’

  ‘Don’t be so stupid. I want to know why you lied to us.’

  ‘To stop the police finding me!’

  ‘No, why are they after you?’

  ‘Murder isn’t it?’

  She hesitated. Paled. Her defiance suddenly lost its nerve.

  ‘Isn’t that what you and Hayden believe? That I killed someone?’

  She relaxed. ‘Stop being such a drama queen.’

  ‘Then what if I told you I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong?’

  ‘I wouldn’t believe you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be running from the law.’

  ‘Some friend you are.’

  ‘You can talk. You didn’t even tell us your real name.’

  ‘A name’s just a name.’

  ‘Really? I always thought it was the first thing you trusted a person with.’

  The boy’s eyes narrowed. That stung. ‘Go home, Zara. We’re finished.’

  ‘So that’s it? You’re just going to walk away? First Michelle, then us?’

  ‘Leave Michelle out of this.’

  ‘No. She needs to know what’s happening more than anyone.’

  ‘Then I’ll call her myself. Later. When I’ve got the chance.’

  He turned towards his car.

  ‘Do you have any idea how much that girl is hurting right now? How confused she is?’

  ‘That’s not my fault. You shouldn’t have told the police.’

  ‘And you should have told us who you really are.’

  ‘Would it have mattered?’

  ‘It matters to Michelle! She cared for you. She trusted you. She thought she knew who you were. Imagine how she felt when she found out you’d been lying to her every single day.’

  ‘Now who’s being a drama queen?’

  ‘I’m right, aren’t I? You were her first love. That’s pretty special in a girl’s life. And you turned it into something rotten. She’ll never get that back, you pig.’

  ‘I never meant to hurt her, all right?’

  ‘You never meant to do a lot of things — but you did. Deal with it.’

  ‘Don’t stand there and judge me. You don’t know what’s happening here.’

  ‘Because you won’t tell anyone!’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t understand!’

  ‘Then try me!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Tell me!’

  Waterfowl fled from the banks as the angry words rumbled like the semi-trailers overhead. He and Zara stood among the mud and grass, their faces hot and adrenalin surging. Only the River Murray remained steady.

  ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘I lived, that’s what.’

  She shook her head and laughed derisively. ‘If this is another —’

  ‘I’m not from Brisbane, okay? I’m not a hitchhiker. I’ve never been to all the places I said I’ve been to. I’m not even nineteen. I still go to school and live in a place called Karrinyup in Perth.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I grew up in a middle-class family that was as boring as the rest of them. I had a dad, a mum and a twin brother called Lucas. He was the hero. Not only was he born first, he had the good looks, the girlfriends and, most importantly, the talent. He was a surfing champion — one of Western Australia’s best. Both of us grew up as grommets but Lucas — man, he was something. He could outride guys twice our age.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So people loved him. Everyone wanted to be his mate. He never banged on the charm — it was all natural. That made being his twin unbearable. I’d always be compared to him or mistaken for him. When a girl found out I was only his brother, she’d give me her phone number — for Lucas! I ended up hating him. All I could do was play guitar. No one ever thought that was cool.

  ‘It got worse when he started winning tournaments up and down the coast and sponsors wanted a piece of him. For the first time, Mum and Dad had to take his talent seriously. They semi-retired to chaperone him round places like Bells Beach and Narrabeen. Somewhere along the line, I was forgotten. Sure, they always asked if I wanted to go, but why would I? To be reminded that I was the freak? Lucas and I stopped being brothers.

  ‘About twelve month
s ago, Mum and Dad forced us all to go on a family holiday together. It didn’t work. Each day, Lucas hit the waves and I went off snorkelling by myself.

  ‘I was out in the water one afternoon when I spotted this smooth stingray that was white all over. I’d never seen one in the wild before so I dove to chase it, wondering what it felt like. But when I reached out to touch it, it thought I was a predator and had a go at me with its spined tail. It hit me right here — next to the lung — and not only knocked the breath out of me but poisoned me as well.

  ‘The next thing I remember is this great white whoosh in front of me. It was Lucas. He’d been paddling over to tell me we were going back to the hotel when he realised that I hadn’t resurfaced. He dragged me out of the water, gave me CPR then rode in the ambulance all the way to the hospital with Mum and Dad in tow. As he said later, I should have been dead.’

  He gritted against his rising feelings.

  ‘But that doesn’t explain why the police want you,’ she said.

  ‘No, but it helps explain why I’m here. After the accident, Lucas and I were best mates again. He got me back into surfing and I taught him how to play guitar. His friends even started calling him Stinger because he was always on the lookout for that one white stingray for a bit of payback.

  ‘We were jamming together when he got a second phone call from the organisers of this new big tournament at Margaret River. He’d turned it down at first because he was starting to fail school and didn’t want to repeat. But the organisers rang back to double his appearance fee — we’re talking thousands here. Of course, he’d go. Mum and Dad packed our bags and off we went. When we got to the airport, we found that the six-seater had been overbooked. One of us had to stay, so I volunteered and told them I’d go next time.’

  She blanched as she guessed what happened next. She’d glimpsed the news reports on TV before flicking channels to some inane comedy. ‘That plane crash — it — that was your family?’

  He nodded. ‘Five minutes north of Busselton. Out to sea. No survivors. Lucas’s body was the only one they never found.’

  The river’s hush spread as neither of them spoke. She, out of respect. He, trying not to lose it. Finally, he bent down and sliced his fingers through the water. It had its own rhythm; one totally different to the ocean.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I was in Dad’s workshop playing my guitar when the cops rang. I didn’t want to be disturbed so I just let it ring out. They kept calling back but I kept ignoring it. It wasn’t until they arrived at the front door with a welfare lady that I — that I, y’know.

  ‘In one afternoon I lost my entire family — Mum, Dad, Lucas. I didn’t have any other close relatives. Family services stepped in and told me I had to live in a foster home. That all our assets would be put into a trust fund for me. Assets? Assets? Is that all they cared about? A couple of days later, they told me a foster family had been lined up. Simple as that. Well, I didn’t want a ready-made family. I wanted my own back.

  ‘After a couple of months, I wanted out. I decided to take off for Sydney — anywhere but home. But first I needed a new identity. I searched the internet for any Australian guy my age with a homepage and got lucky when I found one moving to England. His name was —’

  ‘Dean Mason.’

  ‘I learnt everything about him. I memorised even the smallest of details: his school, his star sign, the names of his parents — You’d be amazed at the amount of personal stuff these people write on-line.

  ‘After I was set, I disappeared. I didn’t want to be recognised by a ticket agent or bus driver, so I caught a freight train. A guard at the yards must have seen me though, because the cops were waiting for me at the Nullarbor. They nearly got me too before calling off their search.’

  ‘And from there you hitchhiked to the Barossa?’

  He nodded. ‘Would’ve made it to Sydney too if that truckie had stayed awake.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us this from the start?’

  He stood. ‘I never planned to be here this long. I was only supposed to work for a day or two, remember?’

  ‘But you could have said —’

  ‘Said what? That I’m on the run from the law? The police want to send me back to a foster home? You didn’t know me then. You didn’t trust me and I didn’t trust you.’

  ‘You should have.’

  ‘C’mon, get real.’

  ‘We would have understood. Even Mum.’

  ‘How? “Excuse me, you know how I told you I was from Brisbane? That’s a lie. And oh by the way, my name? That’s a lie too.” The General would have loved that.’

  ‘She cares about you, y’know. A lot of people do.’

  ‘They cared about Dean Mason — not me.’

  She was astounded. ‘But — but that is you!’

  ‘No. Dean’s fun. He’s free of all this grief.’ He pointed to his face. His harrowed face. ‘This is me.’

  ‘You just can’t keep on reinventing yourself.’

  ‘Yes I can.’

  ‘So you can hide for the rest of your life?’

  ‘It’s better than living in foster care.’

  ‘You’ll be an adult soon. You can do whatever you like. But this — you could lose who you are.’

  ‘And the pain,’ he added.

  An ibis stalked along the river bank as they stood, realising they weren’t friends anymore. Time was up. He fished out his car keys.

  She grabbed his wrist. ‘No. Listen to me. This is wrong.’

  ‘And your point is?’

  ‘This is always going to happen. If the cops found you once, they’ll find you again.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to be more careful.’

  He got into the Bluebird and started the ignition.

  She reached through the window and yanked the keys out.

  ‘What’d you do that for?’

  ‘Come back to the Barossa with us. Let Mum sort this out. You’ve still got a chance to get your old life back.’

  ‘Why would I want it anymore?’

  ‘To stop you shutting out your family; to help you deal with your grief.’

  ‘Give them back.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I said give me my keys!’

  She stepped away from the car. He chased her, then wrestled them away. They squared off, angry that a few stubborn feelings had survived.

  ‘Go on. Take them. Run away,’ she said, pushing back her hair. ‘See how many more people you can hurt!’

  He marched back to the Bluebird.

  ‘You’re a fraud, you know that?’

  ‘You can talk!’ he sniped back.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Your globe; your dreams; your dresses; your posters; your friends; your make-up — they’re all fake. You accuse me of being a fraud. But you live in a pretend world every day.’

  The insult hit hard. She stood there in the Falcon’s headlights stunned and drained. When he sidled up beside her in the Bluebird, her voice had lost its anger. It was deflated and beyond caring. ‘Turn yourself in. If not for yourself, then for Michelle.’

  He looked at the photograph on his dashboard. His girlfriend smiled back at him. ‘Tell her I love her,’ he said and turned the picture face down. ‘If she believes only one thing about me, make sure it’s that.’

  Foot paused on the brake, he waited until the Falcon left first for the highway. He didn’t want his former friends learning which route he was taking. One last glance forced him to sit upright, though. A streetlight caught the passengers’ silhouettes as the car motored away. There were three — Hayden’s. Zara’s. And Michelle’s.

  Chapter 30

  All night his mind raced as fast as his car along the Princes Highway. The more he tried outgunning it, the faster it got. Finally, near the border town of Mount Gambier, he pulled over beside a plantation of pine trees. The Bluebird rocked with each splintery blast of the lumber trucks as he just sat. Alone. Reaching for the ignition three times but shy
ing away.

  Hoping it would help, he opened the boot. He went back to his seat with a pen and pad of paper, using his lap as a desk. He wanted to put his thoughts down. To explain to Michelle why he was in Mount Gambier at midnight, already four hundred kilometres further out of her life. But he only managed to scrawl seven words — Please don’t be angry with me but … — when he furiously scribbled over them. They sounded familiar. Just like the idea of hiding behind a letter.

  None of this should have ever happened. After his confession to Sister Ruth, he’d been so determined to avoid making Clive’s mistake. But self-preservation had spurred him on. So why did he feel so trapped when he was so free?

  The Bluebird’s engine started, its headlights glowed and the wheels slowly rolled away from the kerb. White roadside markers flashed by. There. He was travelling again. And already he felt better.

  One hand on the wheel, he started searching for radio stations to stop himself thinking. Nothing. Nothing but static. And the old man’s spectre sitting beside him, settling in for the ride.

  The Bluebird braked. It rested on the road as the boy hammered the horn, sides and roof, screaming and cursing until the tone of his own anger scared him. When a truck approached, albeit slowly in the opposite lane, the boy shook his head and chucked a u-turn. He knew what he had to do. It was going to be a long journey — one that should never have begun.

  A red dawn stretched towards the boy as he knocked on the flyscreen of a single-storey brown brick house in Truro. A Staffordshire terrier in the backyard woke first, followed by its owner. When the door opened, an unshaven and far from intimidating man in a white singlet and Marvin the Martian boxer shorts paused as he double-checked who had called upon him. The astonishment almost frightened the boy, who, for a moment, feared the man would reach for his gun. But Constable Tom scratched his stubble, threw the lock and said, ‘I hope you brought some coffee.’

  Epilogue

  Waves rolled and sizzled under the sixteen-year-old boy’s feet as he sat on a rocky jutting, cushioned by a folded towel and nursing a silent guitar. Longingly, he stared at the surfers duck-diving and jockeying in the sea with the empty hope that he’d match a face with his own. Behind him and planted in the sand like a giant sundial, stood a battered surfboard; a sticker peeling near its nose. Several times he’d tried flattening the moniker back on its surface, re-reading the same word that it trumpeted. Stinger. His brother Lucas’s nickname.