by Scot Gardner
*
I woke when Mrs Barton slid the curtains open.
‘Afternoon, Aaron. Hope this isn’t going to be a regular matinee show because I will tire of it very quickly.’
I rubbed my eyes. ‘Sorry. First and last time,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘You may want to get dressed. You have visitors of the official kind.’
Panicking, I dragged tracksuit pants over my boxer shorts and patted my hair flat.
Constable Nadine Price and the other woman who’d helped me home from the café – Kim – sat in the lounge. Their teacups and cake plates were half empty. They stood when I entered.
‘Hi Aaron,’ Constable Nadine Price said.
I mumbled hello.
‘No need to be scared, mate,’ Constable Kim said. ‘This is just an informal little chat.’
‘Sit down, Aaron, for goodness sake,’ Mrs Barton said. ‘They’ve been fed, they won’t eat you.’
I took a seat and Mrs Barton poured me a cup of tea and put a slice of sponge onto a plate. Cake for breakfast? The day was about to get stranger.
‘Now, could you tell us what happened at the caravan park the other day?’
‘I should go,’ Mrs Barton said.
‘Please stay,’ I said. ‘If it’s okay with . . .’
‘Of course,’ Constable Nadine Price said. ‘Be aware, Aaron, that we’ll take note of what you say and we might use it in court.’
I thought about that for a few long seconds. They knew about my sleepwalking – had seen it first-hand. I told them my version of events and they didn’t interrupt. Just the facts. They didn’t put me in cuffs when I was done but they kept asking questions.
‘So you have no memory of what happens when you sleepwalk?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘So you could have had a hand in the murder of Dale West and not remember it?’
Mrs Barton squirmed in her seat.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I could have.’
‘Tell us more about the man you saw in the annex of your van when you woke up.’
I described his silhouette and the small details the moonlight had revealed – the bald head and tattoos. The gun.
Constable Kim spread out a sheaf of mug shots on the coffee table. ‘Is he there anywhere?’
Third from the left. Spirals on the top of his head.
The two constables smiled.
‘I think we’re about done for today, Aaron. Thank you for your time.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘What happens now?’
‘Well,’ Constable Nadine Price said. ‘We may need you to stand up in court and identify the man you saw in your van so don’t go on any overseas trips without letting us know.’
‘I don’t have to go to jail?’
She smiled, kindly. ‘Probably not.’
Constable Kim stood and collected her hat. ‘Forensics say the blood on your tie was yours and yours only. There were two other people who saw Mr Gwynne at the van arguing with Mr West and when we paid Mr Gwynne a visit later that morning there was a shotgun in the boot of his car.’
‘Not exactly a criminal mastermind,’ Constable Nadine Price said.
‘And not the sort of fellow you want to owe money to,’ Constable Kim added. ‘Twenty-five thousand dollars, so they say.’
Westy had been in deep.
35
I SAT WITH THE BARTONS around the television on Saturday night, watching The Simpsons, feeling like a spare wheel, and trying not to laugh too loud. I made a cup of tea for Mrs Barton. I made a hot chocolate for Skye – with one white marshmallow.
‘Thank you, Robot,’ she whispered.
‘My absolute pleasure,’ I whispered back.
She looked at me strangely.
‘What?’ I asked. ‘Hot chocolate not perfect?’
‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have to think up a new nickname for you.’
‘Oh?’
‘You don’t sound like a robot any more,’ she said, with a grin.
*
John Barton was on his second beer – his limit, he said, because he’s always on call – and made a confession.
‘Remember that song, by Queen? “Another One Bites the Dust?”’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘Sometimes, when the phone rings and they tell me the sad news, I hear that song in my head. Bamp bamp bamp bamp, another one bites the dust.’
‘John Kevin Barton!’ his wife scolded. ‘You are a disgrace! Don’t tell the boy that!’
‘Bamp bamp bamp bamp . . . ouch!’
Mrs Barton slapped him. It would have seemed violent if you couldn’t see her smile.
I guess we deal with it the best way we can.
I lay awake for a full minute that night before I nodded off. I slept like a tree, without a dream. I woke with a dribble patch on my pillowcase and looked at it with a certain sense of pride. I’d barely moved.
Was it really that simple? Were my night-time horrors so easily tamed? I knew the dream was real; the five-year-old me had been living it forever. It had shaped and coloured my world and would continue to do so as long as I lived, but it was no longer driving the bus. And my sleepwalking? If it happened again, I’d see a doctor. It was possible, I thought, that I’d been running from the dream all along.
At eleven o’clock that morning, someone from the hospital called and said they had a pick-up.
My heart pounded in my throat as I eavesdropped.
‘Well, Aaron. Time to earn your keep,’ John said.
We were in the van with the garage door opening when John patted my hand.
‘Mam’s fine,’ he said. ‘But you can visit her while I do the paperwork if you like.’
The nurse on duty in Finch Ward let me through the locked door and walked me to Mam’s room.
Mam was tucked in her bed, apparently asleep. I planted a kiss on her slack cheek.
Her eyes snapped open and she beamed a smile that made me laugh out loud.
She opened her arms to me. ‘Here he is!’
I took her hug for all it was worth.
36
AT FOUR FORTY-FIVE on Monday afternoon, I walked from the licence testing office with a piece of yellow paper held triumphantly above my head. John stood beside the silver Mercedes and clapped. He shook my hand and patted my back. There were learner plates already in place – front and rear. He opened the driver’s door and ushered me inside.
‘I’m not sure I’m ready for—’
‘No time like the present,’ he said. ‘Take it easy. You’ll be fine.’
I sat and checked the mirrors. I saw Skye in the back seat, stern-faced.
‘Should I be wearing a helmet?’ she asked.
I snorted.
‘Dad, are there airbags in the back here?’ she yelled. ‘I want an airbag!’
‘Hush, child,’ John said, as he sat. ‘Put your head between your knees. Hold tight. You’ll be okay.’
He looked across at me and smiled. ‘Home, James.’ I nodded, and started the car.
We’d all be okay.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THANKS TO SARAH BRENAN – part lion-tamer, part neurosurgeon – for exemplary guidance. Thanks to my godparents, Kevin and Annette Murphy, for a lifetime of kindness and generosity of spirit and for allowing me behind the scenes in the funeral industry. Thanks to Jo and Ena, Peepa, Barb, Ray and Reg – personal tutors in my quest for understanding about love and death.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SCOT GARDNER is a critically acclaimed YA author, whose books have been shortlisted for several awards in his native Australia, including the CBC Awards and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards for Young Adults. The Dead I Know was published by Allen & Unwin in Australia in 2011; it is the first of his books to be published in Canada. Scot lives with his family in rural Victoria, Australia.