Hostage

by Karen Tayleur

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So it might be a crap Christmas but I think it will be okay. It was just ... I was having a bad day, you know. And that chemist woman...’

  ‘Yeah.’ But Tully wasn’t thinking of the chemist woman. She could see the day stretching out before them. A tedious day of police interviews and Laney losing it. There probably wouldn’t even be time for Christmas shopping.

  ‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ said Tully.

  Griffin grunted.

  ‘If you could have just one Christmas Eve wish, what would it be?’ she asked him.

  ‘Tully—’

  ‘No, really. Come on. What would you wish for.’

  Griffin shook his head. ‘I dunno. I guess I would wish I’d never gone to Smith Street this morning. That I’d never talked to Dad on the phone last night. He wanted to see me Christmas Day. I didn’t see the point. He was acting like he should have some kind of say in what I do. Like he had some kind of rights. And this morning I was still pissed off about it. I wish—’

  ‘Only one wish,’ said Tully.

  ‘I wish I was still in bed,’ said Griffin.

  Tully nodded.

  ‘So, what would you ... Tully, this road’s going the wrong way.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back to the city,’ said Tully.

  ‘What? Jesus. You’ve spent ages going on about how you wanted out and now you don’t want to go back?’

  ‘Yet,’ she said. Tully’s day had suddenly opened up. The possibilities seemed endless. ‘My Christmas Eve wish is to have an adventure. You need to turn left up here.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Griffin, changing to the right lane and heading for a set of lights and a u-turn sign.

  ‘Uh uh,’ she said. Tully looked out the window to the landscape. It was familiar but new houses clustered together like a crop of mushrooms, making her second-guess where she really was. ‘If you don’t take me where I want to go, well, you can forget it. Forget about that little fantasy you have of me talking to the cops for you.’

  The car was approaching the lights and Griffin had slowed down.

  ‘You help me then I help you. I think you owe me, don’t you?’ said Tully.

  ‘Is that right?’ said Griffin.

  Tully didn’t answer as she watched him cut across lanes to turn left at the intersection.

  That’s right, she thought.

  Mangella Psychic Reading 26/9

  Sixth sense is well-developed, but I do not trust it.

  Ruling planet, the Sun.

  Love compat. with Leo, Sag, Aries

  Spec. Nos, 8 & 9

  A stranger will help me take a personal journey that I must make alone (??)

  Will marry and have 3 kids. 96V

  25

  Christmas Eve

  The clock on the dash didn’t work but the sun shone at a higher angle through the window, leaving Tully to guess that it had been around an hour-and-a-half since they’d left Deer Park. She had made Griffin take a detour so she could look at the house of the Angel sisters where she had lived with her mother. After a few false starts, she finally found the street and they pulled up out the front, the engine idling. The front garden was as neat as ever but the house sported striped sunshades that Tully couldn’t remember and there was no sign of life either inside the house or out in the garden. After five minutes, Tully told Griffin to drive on.

  Now, the hills on either side of the road folded into each other, like bolts of brown velvet left to fall on a haberdasher’s floor. Griffin only grunted answers to Tully’s chatter. Once or twice he turned the radio up but she ignored his pointed actions and only talked louder.

  ‘I knew we were on the right track when we passed through Ballarat,’ said Tully.

  ‘Straight ahead?’ said Griffin.

  ‘Straight ahead,’ said Tully as they passed through a small town. ‘So like I said, I thought I’d hate it, but it’s cool living near the city. It’s good to be in the middle of things, you know?’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘There’s always something happening. I saw this man the other day doing wheelies in the middle of the road—in his wheelchair. Wheelies! He saw me watching and asked if I wanted a go. But I didn’t. He was pretty good. I don’t think he had any legs. It makes you wonder what happened to him. Bamps says everyone has a story.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘And there’s this woman? She lives two doors down from Bamps and she’s some kind of mystic or something. Do you believe people can read minds? Or see the dead? I’d like to think so. I like the idea of magic. She will tell you your future for thirty bucks. My aunt goes to her once a month. Must be a boring visit. Nothing much happens in Aunt Laney’s life.’

  ‘Do you always talk this much?’ Griffin asked, slowing as they approached a railway crossing. He looked left to right then kept going, the tracks making a thud thud under the tyres.

  ‘No,’ said Tully. She looked down at her fingers and tore another strip off her thumb nail.

  After a while, Griffin said, ‘I need some petrol.’ He slowed down as the speed limit dropped on the outskirts of another small town.

  ‘Um, sure,’ said Tully.

  The petrol station wasn’t like the glassed-in designs from the city. A half-faded sign announced it was Joe’s Roadhouse. There were three pumps out the front, and Griffin parked next to the unleaded.

  Tully tried the door handle. ‘Have you got a child safety lock on this or something?’

  ‘That door’s stuffed,’ he explained. ‘You need to thump it down there,’ he pointed below the handle, ‘then it should open.’

  Tully shook her head. ‘You mean I could have got out of this door any time?’

  Griffin shrugged.

  Tully thumped a few times and the door finally opened. She walked towards the roadhouse, aware that Griffin could leave at any moment. But then, he needed her. She was sure of it. For some reason the thought of their skin touching skipped through her mind. She stood taller, without looking back, and opened the screen door. A tinkling bell announced a new customer to the man behind the counter and he gave her a nod.

  ‘G’day,’ he said.

  Tully studied him. He reminded her a bit of Bamps, the way his compacted body met in the middle, his shirt buttons straining around his belly. His hands, resting lightly on the counter, were large and blunt at the ends, as if worn down over time. She thought he looked like a farmer. She wondered if he was Joe of the Joe’s Roadhouse sign. Her hands skimmed lightly over the magazines. Home Beautiful and Woman’s Day nestled up against Hustler and another magazine wrapped in brown paper. A freestanding carousel held Christmas cards that jumped from bawdy jokes to fuzzy images of fluffy animals. She wondered if she should get one for Bamps.

  She took some time to consider the Tim the Toyman swivel stand. She still didn’t have a present for Aunt Laney. She narrowed her choice down to the super cap guns, the bubble blower and the animal plaster kit with paint before giving up totally on the idea. Tully felt sweat run in a trickle down the small of her back.

  ‘Hot enough for ya?’ the man asked.

  She agreed it was and asked where the toilets were.

  The man handed her a key and directed her back out the door and around to the left. After using the toilet, Tully washed her hands, then splashed water on her face and neck. She peered into the stainless steel mirror, which only gave her a fuzzy image in return.

  Inside the diner, Tully cruised past the sweets section then handed back the key. A sign on the wall announced Mrs Mac’s pies were the best. Inside the counter-top warmer, a pie that looked like it had been there since last century sat alone on the top shelf. It added to the warmth of the room. A public phone stood sentry against the wall like something from a museum. Tully thought she should give Bamps a call, just to tell him she was okay, but the thought of Aunt Laney answering the phone and losing it, or the police tapping the phone line to find out where she was, made her hesitate. Finally she fished in her pocket
and pulled out a two dollar coin. She lifted the receiver and slipped the coin into the slot. The sound of Bamps’s voice made her heart constrict until she realised it was just the answering machine.

  ‘Hey, Bamps. It’s me, Tully. Everything’s cool. Sorry I didn’t come straight home from the chemist. There was a bit of a mix up there. I’m okay. I’ll be back later.’

  Tully hung up, aware that the attendant had been eavesdropping.

  ‘Nearly got rid of that phone a few times now,’ said the man. ‘Seems every man and his dog has a mobile.’

  Tully nodded and looked around. A newspaper article of a local hero was stuck to the wall with yellowing sticky tape and Tully looked closer so she could read it.

  ‘My son, Des,’ croaked the man. ‘Big fella. If he fell over he’d be halfway home.’

  Tully’s mouth turned up at the corners in her version of a smile.

  ‘Had a shot at the major footy league. Came back here, the silly bugger. Took over the farm.’

  Tully nodded.

  The fan overhead skipped a beat every rotation as it caught on a Christmas decoration.

  ‘He was on the rookie list for a while. With the Bombers. Had three senior games, but he did his knee. Waste of bloody talent.’

  The doorbell rang again and Tully turned to see Griffin headed for the counter.

  She left and gave the attendant a small wave as he called out a Merry Christmas to her. Back in the car, she strapped on her seatbelt and opened the packet of Menthos she’d slipped into her pocket from the sweets section. When Griffin got back into the car, he handed Tully two packets of chips and threw two bottles of water on the floor.

  ‘Lunch,’ he announced.

  Then he moved his window down to let in some fresh air.

  Tully laughed suddenly. ‘Cool. And I know the perfect picnic spot.’

  Hey Tully

  Greetings from Bondi!

  This is the best beach I have ever been to. That’s me surfing in the green shorts on the left. (ha ha) Remember swim lessons at Monbulk Pool? The swim teacher always said you could be in the Olympics one day, even though you never made it out of the second class. I would have given you a gold medal for splashing!

  Have a great Christmas.

  xxxx Roo

  (If you want to write, please send via Laney)

  26

  Christmas Eve

  Five minutes from the roadhouse, the road turned from a straight line to a series of dips and twists.

  ‘Faster!’ urged Tully, but Griffin slowed the car to move in a sinuous smooth line as he followed the marked strips down the middle of the road.

  After a few wrong suggestions from Tully, they finally rounded a bend in the road. Chalky grey cliffs, fringed with scrubby trees, rose before them like a curtain.

  ‘It’s here,’ she said. ‘Turn right.’

  Griffin pulled into a cleared section off the shoulder of the road and Tully thumped the door and left the car before the engine had stopped.

  ‘This is definitely it,’ she called out over her shoulder. ‘I can’t believe it’s still here.’

  Griffin followed slowly with their makeshift lunch. A stick reared up as he stood on one end of it, and for a moment he thought it was a snake.

  ‘Jesus,’ he grumbled.

  Just when it looked like the path became a dead-end, he heard a splash and followed the noise through a faint track in the scrub.

  ‘Tully?’

  The scrub opened up to a cleared space and a narrow ledge overhanging a waterhole. Tall bulrushes lined the bank and narcissist saplings dipped towards the water. In the middle of the pool a set of concentric circles moved out in ever-widening ripples.

  ‘Tully?’ Griffin counted to thirty then thirty again. It had been at least a minute and a half since he’d first heard the splash. How long could a person hold their breath? ‘Tully!’ It was too long.

  He threw the chips and drink to the ground, stepped out of this shoes and dived into the waterhole.

  Griffin opened his eyes to a swirling mass of murky water as he grabbed wildly about him. Slimy reeds slid through his grasp and the darkness below him was impenetrable. He rose to the surface to grab a lungful of air, only to dive again and again. On his third ascent he broke the surface to see Tully looking down at him from the overhanging ledge. She was totally dry.

  ‘How is it?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought ... Jesus...’ A tremor shook him. ‘Didn’t you hear me? I thought—’

  ‘You thought I was in there? I threw a rock. Do you have all your clothes on? Where are the chips?’

  Griffin hit the water, sending a spray in Tully’s direction.

  ‘You’d better hurry or you’ll miss out,’ she said, smiling.

  Griffin swum lazily to the overhang. ‘Can you help me out?’ he asked.

  Tully reached for his outstretched hand, realising too late his intent. ‘No!’ she cried, as he pulled her in with him. She dropped under the surface then immediately shot up like a cork out of a champagne bottle.

  ‘Oh! Oh!’ she cried. ‘That’s freezing. You pig!’

  Tully listened to Griffin laughing behind her. She tipped her head and floated on her back in the water and watched the world spin above. Ribbon clouds threaded through the sky. The ghost limbs of dead trees reached towards it with bone-dry fingers, their trunks showing where the water level had once been. A bird perched on a branch and ruffled its feathers in the cool of the breeze. She could hear her heart thudding in her ears.

  Griffin dived under the water and pinched her toes. Tully rolled over then treaded water, looking for Griffin in the murky water. When he popped up right in front on her, he was so close their noses almost touched. Tully found it hard to breathe.

  ‘Hello,’ he murmured.

  Tully could feel his breath on her face and the heat from his body through the water. The trees threw his face into shadow, reminding her of another time with another shadowy face. A burst of white feathers exploded into the sky from a nearby tree. The cockatoos wheeled left to right as one, their raucous cries mocking those below them.

  Tully laughed and turned onto her back again, creating a wall of water as she thrashed her legs about. ‘Take ... that!’ So focused was she on her task, she failed to notice Griffin had dived beneath the water. He surfaced behind her, pushing down on her shoulders and forcing her under the water. Again she popped up, this time coughing and gasping for air.

  ‘You ... idiot!’ she gasped.

  Griffin reached toward her and she batted his hand away.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she said.

  ‘I was only...’ Griffin watched Tully swim to the overhang and hoist herself to the top of it, using a minimum of footholds. After a moment he followed her lead.

  Tully sat on the bank and stretched out her legs, kicking the Dunlop Volleys from her feet. ‘Been meaning to wash those,’ she said casually.

  Griffin sat down heavily on the ground next to her. ‘Hey, I’m sorry—’

  ‘It’s great here, isn’t it?’ said Tully, brushing salt from her lips. She shoved a chip packet his way.

  Griffin hesitated then finally reached for the chips. ‘How do you know about this place?’ he asked.

  ‘We used to live nearby. We’d come here for picnics. This was my favourite place in the world. There’s no signs or anything, so not a lot of people know about it. I thought it might be dried up.’

  ‘Maybe it’s fed by a bore?’

  Tully shrugged. ‘Or maybe it’s magic.’

  ‘How did you find it?’

  ‘Craig found it.’ Tully chewed her lip.

  ‘Is Craig your dad?’

  ‘No.’ Tully’s mouth closed over the word like a trapdoor.

  Griffin munched his chips. ‘My brother would like this place. He has swimming lessons at Fitzroy Pool.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘My brother?’

  Tully nodded.

  ‘I thought you knew all a
bout me.’ Griffin poured the remaining salt and chip pieces into his mouth. ‘His name is Josh.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘He’ll be six next February. Going to school. Hitting the big time.’

  ‘That’s a big age difference.’

  ‘Different dad,’ said Griffin. ‘You got any brothers? Sisters?’

  Tully shook her head then. ‘I always wanted a sister.’

  ‘A dad?’

  Tully shook her head again.

  ‘My dad wants me to spend some time at his house during the hols, but there’s nothing to do there. And he’s got little kids of his own. I just want to be in my real home.’

  ‘So you have other brothers?’

  ‘Two sisters. Half-sisters. I never think of us belonging together.’

  They were quiet for a while, then Tully pointed to a skink sunning itself on the overhang.

  ‘Have you ever seen any snakes around here?’ asked Griffin.

  Tully shrugged. ‘Once. Snakes are okay. You’ve just got to make enough noise so they can get out of your way.’

  ‘What is it with you and the girls at school?’ asked Griffin.

  ‘I thought we were talking about snakes,’ said Tully.

  ‘You mentioned magic before. Sara told me you were into black magic.’

  ‘Really? Sara’s never even talked to me. So how would she know what I was into?’ Tully stood up and brushed herself down.

  ‘Well, you know girls. Who knows what they think?’

  ‘ I know. I know what they’re thinking before they even think it. I know stuff about them their best friends don’t even know.’

  ‘So you are into black magic?’ Griffin grinned as shoved the empty chip packet into his pocket.

  ‘I know stuff,’ she repeated. ‘Let’s go.’

  27

  Tully’s Story

  Anyway, Griffin got his stuff from the chemist at Deer Park and then we left. I asked if he could take me home, but he said he still hadn’t figured out what to do and just needed to drive and clear his head. He told me some stories about his little brother, which were pretty funny. I could tell you those stories, if you like, but I don’t think they’d help you with what happened. They were just stories about what a goofy kid his brother is. They seemed to have a good connection.