Those years after Granny Ruth died had been hard ones, Kerry knew, the family scratching about to survive. There were good weeks. A month here and there, when Pretty Mary had been terrified by the threat of FACS into returning to AA, or had been hauled off by Dad Charlie to Westville to dry out, but then there were the other months, when chaos was one cask of Fruity Lexia away. Times of raised voices, of glass smashing at midnight. And the next day plodding to school exhausted, coming home to find Ken or Donna poking about in empty cupboards to conjure dinners that didn’t exist. Followed by the cascading apologies. The tears. Pretty Mary’s weeping promises to make it up to them. Only Dad Charlie had kept Childstealers away; only he had known how to make a little kid feel loved among the chaos of Pretty Mary on a bender, the times she’d drag any old drunk home from the pub to keep her company. Drinking buddies. Sweet Jesus Christ. The sight of a whitefella with a handlebar moustache still turned Kerry’s stomach. Suffer the little children, and spare them the drinking buddies, Kerry thought, seeing in her mother’s adoring eyes for Donna the same expression she remembered from a hundred grog parties. I larve you, my cuz, I really really larve you …
And then Pop got elected to ATSIC and everything changed. This house replaced the milking bails they had been renting off old Mr Nunne forever. This house with its electricity, and its lino floor, a fridge full of food. Dad driving the cab five days a week, instead of seven nights. On reflection, it occurred to Kerry that Donna might never have known Pretty Mary sober for more than a few weeks straight. And yet here the old girl was, alive and well at sixty-five. Got sober the winter Donna disappeared, and hadn’t touched a drop in nineteen years.
The family clustered around Donna, eager to be in the photos. Zippo was showered with half a dozen different phones and instructions on the best angle to shoot from and don’t give me twelve chins and make sure nobody blinks, and …
‘Jump in, Kenny,’ Pretty Mary encouraged. But Ken was sulking in the far corner of the kitchen, hunkered down and swollen with jealousy, Kerry saw. Someone arriving out of the blue and stealing his limelight. And never much love lost there to begin with. Ken drew his arms in and folded them hard against Pretty Mary’s suggestion. His mouth jutted with displeasure.
‘Not interested,’ he said harshly. ‘Not till she apologises for what she’s done.’
‘Eh?’ Chris raised his eyebrows.
‘Whaddya mean, apologises?’ Kerry asked. Hadn’t he heard both Donna and Pretty Mary wailing in each other’s arms, telling each other they were sorry, so sorry?
‘Oh, don’t be like that,’ Pretty Mary said in loud exasperation. ‘Let bygones be bygones, son.’ The family agreed with her, telling Ken not to be so slack, to get in the photo with everybody else. Why did everything with Ken have to be such a big deal all the time? Talk about a Drama King, geez.
Donna felt her chest tighten. Of course it would be Ken. It always was Ken, remember, the lounge-room wallpaper told her; the very same blue flowers twining on pale green stems as the night she left. Twining for twenty years while she fucked off and fell through the floor of the world. While Pretty Mary shuffled her cards, her hair turning grey, and Ken sat, year after bitter year, calculating the insults life had dealt him.
‘You mob make me fucken weak,’ Ken said, looking from face to staring face for evidence of support and finding it missing. ‘Truesgod! Didn’t you hear what the bitch said? She’s working for Buckley.’
A moment of awkward silence.
‘So maybe she can help us,’ Black Superman suggested. ‘Tell us how he operates.’
‘We already know how he fucking operates,’ Ken exploded. ‘He buys people off. Gammon cunts like her.’ His pointing forefinger accused Donna across the entire width of the kitchen, across the decades. ‘Well, I’m not having it. You stand with Buckley, you can fuck off outta here, onetime!’
Black Superman caught Josh’s eye and gestured with his lips at the kids compressed into the distant corner of the lounge. As soon as Ken had begun to shout, Brandon had grabbed Lub Lub and dragged her away. He was holding her tiny face hard against his chest so that she wouldn’t have to witness whatever came next in the world of adults.
Josh quickly ushered both the kids outside.
‘Some things never change, do they, brother?’ Donna said, putting on a show of calm as she dug in her handbag for her lighter. Making out she wasn’t frightened. ‘And I don’t mean the kitchen cupboards. You always were an angry, negative prick. But I’m not frightened of you anymore, pal.’
Kerry couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
‘Oh, do ya think I don’t know your game, you fucking crazy slut? Ya probably only here to try and con us about the island. Yer lucky I don’t walk down there right now and drop a fucking match in yer petrol tank.’ Ken’s chest heaved; fresh sweat had broken out on his forehead. He looked easily capable of arson, Kerry thought.
Donna laughed. Crossed her legs as she lit her cigarette and smiled mirthlessly around the room. Alright then, brother, if ya wanna have a go, let’s hear it. Donna’s heart was achingly sore, but now another, deeper part of her was bent purely on revenge, and was beginning to thrum with wild satisfaction. That epic day had arrived again, dead on time. Unfinished business that had never gone away, had only been buried. Perhaps that was what she had been looking for without even knowing, agreeing to take the job in Patterson: 1999 roaring in at her in all its ferocious glory. But this time she wasn’t sixteen. She was a grown woman with four properties, money in the bank and a fucking score to settle. She tapped ash into the ashtray, half humming, half whispering the lyrics from ‘You Got Nothing I Want’, which had popped into her head. Ken definitely didn’t have anything she needed.
When she spoke, her measured voice sounded like someone calm, someone who wasn’t about-near ready to pick up a pair of Pretty Mary’s scissors and finish exactly what she started twenty years ago.
‘A fucking crazy slut … funny, that’s exactly what you called me the day I left, remember? And a shamejob, too. An embarrassment to the entire bloody family. Donna the Donut with her very popular hole. Ya sound a bit like a broken record, Kenny.’ Donna swung around to face Aunty Val, and her blonde mane swung against her neck with expensive precision.
‘Twelve.’
‘What?’
‘Val, isn’t it? Well, Val, I lied. I do remember my first time. Remember it pretty damn well, in fact. It was right down there in the end room.’ She gestured at the hallway with her cigarette, the smoke rising in a tendril above her pointing fingers. ‘Twelve years old, getting screwed by my grandfather cos I stayed home from school with mumps. He must have decided it was high time I graduated from head jobs – twelve. Or maybe he was just being considerate, what with my sore gob and all.’
Stark silence. Then Pretty Mary let out an agonised sound like a balloon deflating, and there was uproar.
‘Shut yer hole!’ roared Ken, striding over to thump the table and make the whole room rattle with his fury. ‘Can’t ya stop lying through yer hole for once in yer miserable cunting life? Coming in here and stirring up trouble again with yer bullshit and yer filthy lies. Don’t listen to her, Mum!’
Pretty Mary had her eyes closed, hand to her head. No, no, no.
‘As if she would,’ cried Tall Mary, enraged. ‘Your Pop was a good man!’
‘Oh, there’s plenty of lies in this family, alright,’ Donna said, refusing to show the terror that was streaming through her, colouring the very air around her. ‘But it ain’t me telling them, brother. Ain’t me.’
Gazing at Donna standing there with her angry red mouth, her stranger’s nose, Kerry felt nauseated. Weirdly frightened, and definitely far too drunk to think about her grandfather’s prick sawing in and out of her sister’s mouth. Oh, the chicks in BWCC were full of stories, nearly every last one of them, black, white and brindle. They laughed about it sometimes, the fucking p
andemic of it. Boyfriends and husbands. Fathers and stepfathers. Uncles. Cousins. The great pulsing cock of the world that beat time in all their lives. But it wasn’t black men who had raped her, no, no, no. And as for Pop – Pop never touched her. He had been absent most of her childhood anyway, had been at work, or off at meetings in Canberra, or down at the TAB. He hadn’t done a thing; that was a clear, indisputable fact. And Donna – Donna had been dead for these twenty years. What would it mean, to believe a dead woman’s story, to give credence to these dark mysterious creatures winging out of her mouth?
‘Pop never did nothing to me,’ Kerry said slowly. ‘He never even tried.’ Ken grunted in vindication. But Donna wasn’t stopping.
‘Well, that’s something. He threatened to, if I told. Said he’d kill Mum and Dad and me and then he’d keep going with you anyway. Twelve years old, made you what, eleven? Ten? Great fucking childhood I had.’
Kerry blinked and the rest of the family came back into blurry focus. Everyone stood stiffly at the edges of the room, flung back against the walls by the force of Donna and her terrible claims. Steve didn’t know where to look. Donny’s face had gone sheet-white with strain. If what Donna said was true, then her childhood must have gone in protecting mine, Kerry suddenly realised. But how could it be true? Pop was an Elder. Violent when push came to shove, maybe, but not a fucking pedo. He was always helping people. How could he have— Kerry stared at the kitchen lino, which swam beneath her, a wobbly grey sea. Possibly she was drunker than she realised. Possibly very, very drunk indeed. Possibly this would make more sense in the sober light of day. Or not. Kerry closed her eyes and immediately wished she hadn’t, as the darkness began to spiral around her.
‘How dare you?’ hissed Tall Mary. ‘How dare you talk like that about an Elder of this community!’
‘She’s possessed,’ Pretty Mary declared suddenly. ‘Lucifer’s using her as his vessel to spread evil.’ Pretty Mary began praying aloud for the Devil to leave her house.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mum.’ Then Donna homed in on Black Superman. She wasn’t crying, exactly, but mascara was slipping from her eyes in thin black streaks, the liquid collecting at her jawline in murky grey drops. ‘What about you – which way you gonna jump? Was Pop the Elder of the century for you, too? Or is that where you learned to crack fats?’
‘Get her out,’ Pretty Mary screamed, hands clamped over her face. ‘I don’t want the Devil’s filthy talk in this house! Get her out – now!’ Ken rose, but Tall Mary got there first, her open right hand lifted high in silhouette against the bare light globe. She brought it down and slapped Donna hard across the face, bending her in two, the air whooshing out in a sharp cry of shock and pain. Then Tall Mary seized her niece by the forearm, to drag her outside and give her the flogging she so richly deserved.
Pretty Mary plunged forward. Instinct told her to protect her daughter, but a lifelong loyalty to Tall Mary got in the way, complicating and confusing things, and so she faltered. In the end Pretty Mary stood kneading her hands in panic, praying for divine intervention to end the nightmare her birthday had become.
Donna wrenched her arm back from Tall Mary. My arm, not yours. She stood panting hard with the mark of her Aunty’s fingers clear for everyone to see, outlined on her pale cheek. Her left eye had already reddened and swelled. Kerry had a clear view of Donna and her mother facing each other, their hearts on fire, both their faces freshly bruised. Oh, this family. This fucking family.
‘Kerry,’ said Steve. I’m here, he meant. We can go, any time ya want. But Kerry didn’t hear him. Couldn’t register anything more than what was in front of her face: Donna. Tall Mary. Pretty Mary. Ken, who had skidded to a halt and was waiting to see what happened between the women before lashing out again.
Donna’s eyes flashed around the room in marvellous contempt.
‘The more things change, eh? Don’t touch me again, Aunt, I’m going. And I’ll fucking drop ya if ya try, old lady or no. But ask yerself this, Mum. Why would a sixteen-year-old girl stab a man, if he’d done nothing wrong? Talk about the Devil in me? I’d be more worried about the Devil you welcomed into your home for the past thirty years.’
Pretty Mary stared at Donna, her face contorting in anguish. Sensing a moment of possibility, Black Superman inserted himself between Tall Mary and Donna, and managed to shepherd his sister outside and down the stairs.
‘I’ll come check on you later at the motel, sissy,’ he said quietly as he walked her over to the Mazda.
Donna really did begin to cry then, great juddering sobs that rocked her as she poked at her face with her shirt sleeves. From the veranda, Ken flung Donna’s handbag onto the lawn, where it lay pathetically among the party detritus, its contents spilt across the grass. Donna stopped to collect it, frantically piling her belongings back in.
‘This – this is why I never came back,’ she spat towards the house, flinging a half-empty beer can at the house in fury. The can hit the stairs halfway up, then bounced back down to the bottom step, where it spun in a circle, coming to rest in a small puddle of its own spilt liquor. Other houses have welcome mats, thought Black Superman with a great weariness.
‘I know, sis,’ Black Superman told her. ‘I know. It’s okay. We’ll talk later.’
‘You believe me, don’t you?’ she said, her face messy with tears and snot.
‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘I do. But you better make tracks—’
‘Fuck that lying slut off outta here,’ Ken said, looming up behind them, ‘before I do. The little troublemaking cunt of a thing.’
Vomiting in the toilet, Kerry was dimly aware of the Mazda pulling away up the drive, her sister roaring away and leaving her outrageous story behind to bounce off every wall in the house, ricocheting from Salter to Salter, stirring up trouble between them forever and a day. Maybe that was what Donna had intended all along, to distract them from their campaign to save the island. As Kerry tried to think through the implications, she was dimly aware of something else rattling in her brain that just wouldn’t settle into hard fact. Something to do with Steve. There was a piece of the story that could jolt things into place if only she could manage to pinpoint it. But most of a bottle of Stolly said not now, sunshine, leave it. It’s time to collapse into the land of nod.
She staggered out of the bathroom, too grogsick to even sit pillion on the Harley. Instead, Steve poured her into the XD and drove her home to the gym, where his futon spun in nauseating circles and nightmare images plagued Kerry in her sleep. Pop hung the corpses of Cracker Nunne’s working dogs from the leopard tree with the lash of Nunne’s own stockwhip. White men roamed the streets of Trinder Park with sawn-offs. There were sirens and gunshots and nothing she could do to save either her or Allie, waking in a sweat as the dugais cornered them deep in Karawatha Forest. Just before dawn, the skeleton of the snake-headed crow looked at her through the mesh of a prison window, its frame of white bones glistening in the early light. The waark spoke sternly to her in angry rapid Bundjalung, which Kerry couldn’t follow. I’m sorry, she told it again and again, I’m so, so sorry. But she apologised knowing all the while that the bird couldn’t understand her English, and that it – whatever it was – was never her fault in the first place.
~
Well before dawn, Jim Buckley drove very slowly past the Durrongo pub. He angled right at the crossroads, then turned off his engine near the top of Pretty Mary’s driveway. He leaned out the car window and let go a couple of low howls at the setting moon.
Jim could no longer bear to look at his defaced dog, but, gazing straight ahead through the windscreen at the Salter house, he reached out a hand and caressed her velvet ears. The dog gave his arm a grateful lick. Beneath the house, Elvis woke. Woofing, he trotted up the gravel drive with a sharp sense of grievance, to sort out whoever it was that thought they could park on his road and start howling any time they felt like it. The bloody nerve. As he got
closer to the LandCruiser, Elvis recognised the tantalising scent of the pig dog bitch. The wonderful memory of fucking her three days ago blossomed across his doggy mind. He forgot all about intruders, and wagged his stumpy tail in wild, enthusiastic circles as Buckley set the tattooed bitch down on the ground beside him.
‘Have a crack at that, son,’ murmured Buckley. ‘It’s your lucky day.’
Chapter Seventeen
At 6 am the household twitched in fitful sleep. Pretty Mary and Ken had spent half the night staring at the ceiling, after arguing for long hours about Donna, and Pop, and the years of Donna’s absence, which stretched behind them now like a kind of golden age. The argument wore itself into a groove, round and round. Ken stuck to his guns. Donna was womba. Donna was an evil bitch, born that way. Quite likely Donna had come at Buckley’s bidding, allowing herself to be used to destroy their campaign. But Pretty Mary resisted this interpretation. She knew that it was the Devil’s work they had witnessed. ‘Not her fault, bub,’ she said repeatedly, ‘it’s not her fault,’ until the others began to wonder just exactly who she was exonerating. The family tore frantically at the incident, snatching fragments of meaning where they could through the small hours. By three, exhaustion was universal. By four o’clock, after a couple of Valium and a river of tears, even Pretty Mary had finally managed to reach unconsciousness.
It was Donny who got up to a silent house. He had left the arguing early to go online, before sleeping and dreaming of war. His night was filled with massive multiplayer carnage, machine guns and bombs and loud pistol shots, dreams of himself in a band of brothers overcoming the enemy to advance to the next level. These sounds and images, all very normal, didn’t trouble Donny in the least. But a wisp of anxiety hovered around him as he took his first piss of the day. The wisp built into a thunderhead as he remembered what he’d heard and seen at the party, the look in his father’s bloodshot eyes when Donna faced him down. And those clouds were still building when some unnamed instinct sent him, bleary-eyed and stumbling, to the top of the gravel drive.
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