House That Was Eureka (9781922148254)

by Wheatley, Nadia; Jordan, Toni (INT)

  In a room in Liberty Street the man stared down at them. Sitting inside four walls like his mate there in his cage. This was the first time he’d had the shoes on since the day he left hospital. Since the day he’d left the hospital, he hadn’t left his camp.

  ‘I’ve been a bit crook,’ he’d said to Mrs Maria, when he arrived.

  ‘Crook?’ She mouthed the strange word on her Greek tongue.

  ‘Sick,’ said the man. ‘Real no good.’

  ‘Ah,’ she’d said and crossed herself, then smiled. ‘Is no good to be no good, eh?’ They both grinned at her joke. After which, she’d done his shopping for him, buying him the sausages and spuds and eggs that he cooked up neat like a bushman in the cooking corner of his room.

  So since that day he hadn’t been out. Except (he remembered now) for that day early on when he’d brought his mate here in his cage.

  ‘Scab, scab,’ his mate said now.

  ‘Not me, mate,’ said the man.

  ‘Traitor, traitor,’ his mate accused him now.

  ‘Not me, mate,’ said the man.

  ‘Though maybe you’re right, at that,’ the man said at last.

  Staring down at the floor at night, a man who was stuck in the past.

  4

  Staring out at the ceiling at night, the despot lay in her room. With the blind half up, the blackness hit her, so she tried to pull the blind down but, like that first night, yanked too hard, and it flew right up to the top.

  ‘Noh!’ she called.

  But no one came.

  So she reached over to her magic pad and started to write to no one.

  Writing her interminable letters to no one, no one could read them, so as soon as they were written, she made them disappear.

  In her own room, Evie was nervous. She wished she’d never said Yes, she wished she’d never met Sharnda. Why did I have to go big-noting myself and say everyone could come round here? They’d make a real mess, turn the house upside-down, and even if she and Noel managed to get it all cleaned up before Ted and Mum got home, Sammy or Jodie would go and tell them. You could trust Ree to keep her mouth shut, Ree liked secrets for their own sake, but Sammy and Jodie couldn’t help themselves, they were like the dobber’s encyclopedia.

  It wasn’t that, though.

  It wasn’t really the fear of Ted that made her nervous. Ted can say what he likes. I hate him anyway. Though these last few days, since Tuesday, he’d been being nice to her.

  Evie’s hand felt its way to her pocket and found the serviette ring. It had been a comfort to her, this week. Something to hold to, a smooth bright silver shape to hold to in the dark. She’d been meaning to give it back every time she saw Noel, but had always forgotten, somehow. Her finger traced the scroll of the N.

  In her room, Evie sat shivering. She’d just put on another jumper, but she still felt cold. It wasn’t Ted, and Mum, and the mess that she feared, but some greater mess, she didn’t know, she had a feeling. There are some things you shouldn’t play with.

  That feeling all this week, of being somewhere else, alone, waking in the night with a faint smell still in her mind of crusting salt, of salty breeze, of something damp that smelled like bag or rope. One morning, just before dawn, it was the hardness of the bed that woke her, a feeling of grit on her skin. Getting up, turning the light on, she saw that all the blankets had come off, no wonder she was cold; but it was more than that, for all over the bottom sheet was a fine layer of sand, not clean sand but dull gritty stuff, more a fine soil than sand. Sammy must’ve been in the sandpit up the play centre and brought it home in her pockets, and then mucked about on Evie’s bed.

  Evie felt the curl of the N. Tell him, the feeling told her.

  But how tell, whom to tell? All week, the weight of that demand had been pressing on her. But how can I tell him when I don’t know where he is? He’d disappeared, the mystery gunman, that was why he was a mystery, and if the police couldn’t find him, way back then when the trail was fresh, how was she to do it after fifty years? He’s probably dead by now anyway, Evie told herself to avoid even starting to search for him. For searching would start by asking his mother, and even the thought of exposing herself again to the despot’s hatred filled Evie with dread. All this week, it’d grown worse and worse, the feeling of the despot thinking of her. The bell that rang to summon her, that she ignored.

  But tell him, the feeling told her. And so sometimes Evie did imagine the finding, and telling him, and his joy, and then…and then…

  5

  The phone rang. Sharnda answered. It was Di. She was at the meeting of the CYSS funding committee that was going to decide whether or not to close down the Newtown centre.

  ‘Hi, it’s me. Look, you’re going to kill me, but I can’t make it. The meeting’s still going, looks like going on all night. No, it seems dreadful. They’re set on closing us down. I’ve got to stay, to keep arguing our case. Yeah, good luck to you too.’

  6

  Lying under the bed, Noel had the gun. They’d be here soon. Playing games. There were some things you shouldn’t play with.

  He thought of ringing Sharnda again, really saying this time that it was off. Tossed the thought around, and dropped it. He couldn’t, they’d think him weak.

  Yesterday he’d gone round there, to CYSS with Evie, and met some of them. Sharnda was okay, and a girl called Di, but Roger was a werewolf. This warm voice, like a werewolf, that made Evie go quiet and listen. There were blokes in the kitchen, eating spinach pie; Noel knew some of them.

  ‘Well look who it isn’t,’ laughed Matt Dunkley. He was bigger than ever these days; played C grade for Newtown; was reckoned to be real good with girls.

  ‘Hey, Sookabubba!’ Tasso yelled, just as he used to when Noel was a kid and the despot sent him to Tasso’s father’s deli. ‘Have some spinach pie. Make you big and strong, like Mister Popeye!’ He laughed, as if that was funny.

  ‘Help you see the girls in the dark,’ leered Billy Greenhouse, Matt’s other off-sider.

  ‘That’s no use to Noel,’ Matt said heavily. Then he put on a high voice. ‘Is it, Noley-Poley?’

  Bang. I could shoot them.

  ‘I dunno,’ said Billy. ‘He came in with a girl.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Not bad. Pretty good. She’d do me.’

  ‘Probly his auntie.’ Matt laughed, and bits of wafery pastry flew out of his wide open mouth. ‘Little poof.’

  ‘Little worm,’ said Tasso.

  ‘You better watch yourselves. One day the worm’ll turn.’

  What an idle threat. Noel walked out.

  ‘You can be one of the eighteen pickets, Noel,’ Sharnda offered.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Noel. Evie was off in a corner, with Roger. She was going to hold the sound-thing for him.

  ‘I thought you’d want to,’ said Sharnda. ‘Well, what are you going to be?’

  ‘Something,’ Noel said. ‘Nothing.’ Then the words blurted out of their own accord. ‘The Mystery Gunman.’

  ‘But he wasn’t there,’ Sharnda objected.

  ‘Well then, I won’t be there, will I?’

  Evie looked up sharply from the camera. ‘Don’t be stupid, Noel.’ Noel’s just trying to get attention, she thought. Of course he’ll be there, he’s got to be. The thought of doing it without Noel made her feel desperate somehow.

  ‘Me stupid!’ Noel said, looking at Roger, his stupid suntan.

  Then Noel left, left Evie to it.

  No Mystery Gunman. They’ll see.

  Lying under the bed, the Mystery Gunman had the gun now. He’d grown fond of it this last week. At first, it’d made him sick, reminding him of those green eyes gazing desperate into his as quick, he ran. With time, though, it’d grown a comfort. He’d lie there, thinking of the safety catch, imagining pulling it back, pulling the trigger, a bullet whistling out, knowing this all for make-believe, for it wouldn’t be loaded, but still all the same never doing it. Sometimes even truly put
ting the barrel against his head, lining up, A to B, against his head. People think I’m a creep. If I did this, they’d believe me. Playing games, knowing himself as gutless (freezing that night when I had the opportunity) he still got a comfort from the warm feel of brown wood, the long barrel of cold silver. It was something real, to ward off the night.

  Not ward off this night, though, for nothing could do that. Except something simple like a phone call, that he couldn’t do. Evie would think him weak.

  7

  Maria liked secrets for their own sake. Was preparing one now, with Jodie.

  ‘We’ll do it tonight,’ she whispered.

  ‘What?’ Sammy demanded.

  ‘It’s a secret.’

  Morning secrets and afternoon secrets and dark night secrets.

  Maria knew that anything you did was vastly improved by being a secret. On dark nights sometimes she’d creep down to the kitchen and drink a glass of milk by moonlight. It made the milk taste better. One night when she’d done that – it was the night Roseanne had come around, only it was later, hours after Roseanne had gone home – Maria had seen a burglar. She’d been standing there in the half-darkness. The only light was that thrown by the open fridge door, for there was no moon that night, and she’d seen the burglar half-running, half-crawling down the stairs – really fast, but quiet as a bicycle. Then he wasn’t there. Maria hadn’t been scared, for how could you be scared of someone who looked so scared? And how could you be scared of someone who looked like a sort of young-faced Mr Man?

  Mr Man was part of the afternoon secret. Sammy called him that, the old man who lived at Mrs Maria’s and sometimes sang songs from the olden days while Mrs Maria fed them cake. When Maria had asked him his name, he’d just smiled at her.

  ‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies.’

  But Maria had found his pension card and knew his real name. She wrote it on the fridge when he disappeared.

  Tonight’s secret, though, wasn’t part of that secret. It was a witch secret. Ever since Mrs Maria had turned out to be nice, Maria had been looking for a witch to replace her.

  ‘I’ll tell on you,’ said Sammy.

  ‘Who’ll you tell? Mum’s not here.’

  ‘I’ll tell Mr Man. And Noel. And Evie.’

  ‘We’d better let her come,’ Jodie said.

  Maria saw her point.

  ‘What’re we gonna do, but, when we get there?’ Jodie whispered.

  ‘You’ll see.’ Ree was mysterious. Secretly, she hadn’t the faintest idea. But she’d think of something.

  8

  In her room, the despot was hungry. Hadn’t eaten breakfast this morning, she never seemed to feel like eating in the mornings these days, but had looked forward to her lunch, which never came. Noel had asked Evie to get it, he wanted to go up the music shop, and Evie had said yes, though she hadn’t done despot-duty since the dawn of the gun. Evie had said yes, and then the thought of that rotten face, she couldn’t face it, so had left a note on Noel’s door which the wind had blown away.

  The despot was hungry, waiting for her supper that never came because Noel had quite forgotten. I must tell my son, she thought, calling; ‘Noh!’

  But Noel lay elsewhere, hearing nothing but the memory of Matt’s laughter. It’d been going on for years, for years too long.

  9

  The phone rang. Sharnda answered. It was Roger. Time was flying fast. All around was the fidgetiness of a crowd. Matt and Tasso and Billy and a couple of their mates were drinking beer. They were dressed in blue, policemen; in their belts, old cowboy guns from their childhood; in their words, old bullying cries from their childhood.

  ‘We’ll get Noel, eh Matt, Matt?’ Tasso urged. ‘Knock him down, like we used to.’ He was excited, the beer going to his head.

  ‘You can,’ Matt said. ‘I might get that girl of his. Knock her down.’ They all laughed with him.

  ‘Who is he, this Noel?’ asked a bloke who was new to the gang. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘He’s just mad,’ Matt explained.

  Sharnda, overhearing, was jolted into a vague memory of some experiment she’d read about when she’d done Psychology. They’d got ordinary people, these Psych experimenters, and told some of them they were prisoners, and told some that they were gaolers, and within a short time the gaolers were bashing the prisoners, and the prisoners obeying.

  What have I started? Sharnda worried.

  10

  Bang, thought Noel.

  Bang, Evie hammered.

  Out on the trampoline Maria and Jodie and Sammy chanted and jumped, killing time till Evie and Noel’s friends came and they could go and do their secret.

  Over the rope

  And under again

  She lives in that house

  And she gives me a pain...

  In her room the despot heard them. Cruel it was then.

  Bang, Evie hammered. A sign up over the door. There was anger in her, though not for Ted this time, not even for the despot really, perhaps for herself. This feeling that she’d had something, and let it go, only herself to blame. She wondered where Noel was. He couldn’t really have meant it, that he wouldn’t come. Evie wished she could leave all this, run off through the lanes with Noel to the peace of the secret landscape. Evie slammed nails in, unused to a hammer. Ted always did any hammering around the place, one thing you could say for Ted was that he was good about fixing things. Of course, he should be, he worked for a builder. Evie slammed nails in: if this night had to happen, they might as well try to make it look proper.

  Traitor, traitor, we all hate her,

  Put her in a pot with choko and pertater...

  Evie found herself chanting the words of some stupid song that Maria had come home with recently.

  In his room down the street the man surveyed his feet. Had no idea why he’d gone and put his shoes on tonight, the first time in a couple of months, slippers had done him till now. It was hardly as if he was going somewhere: where was there for him to go?

  Stuck inside four walls like his mate there. Thinking of that, pity took him and he pulled back the curtains, opened his window, opened the cage, and let his mate out free into winter night.

  11

  It was on.

  The Newtown CYSS truck came, Sharnda driving, and the pickets jumped out with lights on stands and two rolls of barbed wire and lots of bags stuffed with paper to look like sandbags, and lumps of coolite hacked into the size of bricks and rocks.

  ‘The Eureka Stockade,’ Sharnda read Evie’s sign. She’d forgotten that. ‘Good one, Evie.’

  Evie suddenly remembered that old man down the street that first morning. ‘The house that was Eureka,’ she murmured.

  A couple of pickets started unrolling the barbed wire all over the front fence and yard. The rest raced inside and piled sandbags up at the doors and windows. The bags looked funny, in mum’s loungeroom, with the white-tiled coffee table that Ted had made, with the modern vinyl armchairs. Evie had moved the vases and things, but on the mantelpiece still were the wedding photo of Mum and Ted, the baby photos of the girls, and the family photo they’d had taken last Christmas.

  ‘They shouldn’t be there.’ Evie went to move them.

  ‘Leave it. We’ll have the light out, just set up one of these lights down here, no one will see them.’

  ‘But it wasn’t us that was the tenants.’ But Evie left them.

  ‘Um, Evie...’ Deep down Sharnda was nervous herself. ‘Here, we’ve got two portapaks, but you’ll have to do inside the house, and I’ll do outside, get Noel or someone to hold the mike for you. Roger can’t get here, his wife’s suddenly been taken to hospital, the baby’s coming two weeks early.’

  ‘Wife?’ said Evie ‘Baby?’

  Sharnda looked at Evie. I’d forgotten she’s in love with him. Oh well, better she knows. ‘Didn’t you know?’

  Evie said nothing. Evie felt nothing. She paused, and examined her feelings, but no, there was no p
ain, at least no new pain, no pain beyond the loneliness that had been growing all this week. That thin white face, the feeling made her feel. That face certainly wasn’t Roger’s.

  ‘I can’t,’ Evie said. Roger had shown her, sure, and she’d used the camera a few times, but she was positive she’d get all the buttons wrong. ‘I’ll mess it all up.’

  ‘You’ll be right.’

  Round about them ran people dressed in old black and brown trousers, in long white underpants, up and down the stairs, sticks in their hands. Evie looked for Noel to get him to hold the sound-thing but couldn’t find him. He might be in next door, she thought, but it was too late to go and see, you couldn’t get out the front without dislodging the pile of bags. She watched Sharnda race out the back door with the other camera to get to the street via the lane, heard the pickets upstairs in Mum’s room, and ran up to join them. They were laughing and arguing as a couple of guys tied onto the balcony rail a sheet with huge painted words saying:

  UNEMPLOYED – UNITE AND FIGHT

  Evie wished Noel was here. She’d grown used to him. Evie decided not to bother with the mike-thing, to just pick up the sound on the camera mike. She slung the portapak onto her shoulder (God it’s heavy) and clicked the camera on, just as everything started.

  12

  Evie and most of the pickets were in the front upstairs room when someone yelled: ‘Here they are.’ They ran out and saw a bus roar up and then the street was full of police firing up at them.

  Under the bed, Noel froze, hearing the bangs outside that sounded like real bullets here, not firecrackers.

  In her room, the despot stopped writing. No, it couldn’t be, not again, that was last week, that was years ago. Not again, please, pray. Pray to no one.

  Her hand flew fast across the page again, writing madly to erase the years, to change history. No. If I write it differently, it happened differently. ‘Noh!’