Elegy

by Jane Abbott

  Jumping out, Gabe held up a hand. ‘Leave him, Cait.’

  She ignored the order and ran around to open Michael’s door, pulling at him so he tumbled like a sack of grain into her arms. Bent under his weight, she struggled to get him into the house, but the stairs defeated her, and it was Gabe who had to half lift, half steer his brother up and up until they reached his bed and Michael fell upon it, shaking and muttering, his hair slick with sweat. His eyes wouldn’t, or couldn’t, close; they stared blankly, huge and black in his paled face, as though witnessing terrible things Gabe couldn’t see. He had no idea what to do.

  But Cait did, and she climbed onto the bed. Taking Michael in her arms and drawing up the blanket, her long hair shrouding the two of them, she slowly rocked him, whispering over and over till it became a song: ‘Go, Michael. I’ll wait for you. Go and I’ll wait. Just go.’

  Helpless, Gabe stood and watched them both.

  He woke, exhausted by a restless sleep, his eyes gritty and his mouth dry and stale, to find Cait had left and Michael was out to it. Pulling on his jeans, Gabe padded across to his brother’s bed. Michael was breathing evenly, his face relaxed and his eyes finally closed, but the lids moved as if something heaved beneath them, pushing to get out, and when Gabe gripped Michael’s shoulder to shake him awake, he recoiled; the skin was cold, not clammy but ice-dry.

  Downstairs, he found Barb grumbling over a pile of laundry. ‘Well, at least one of you is up,’ she said. ‘Here, give me a hand with this. I can’t tell what’s yours and what’s Michael’s.’

  ‘In a sec,’ Gabe replied, pouring himself a coffee from the jug on the warming plate. Taking a sip, he scalded his tongue and cursed.

  Barb frowned. ‘Must have been some party. You two certainly made enough noise when you got in last night.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Gabe said, and began picking through the tangle of clothes to rescue boxers and socks. He pulled on a T-shirt.

  ‘Michael still asleep?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Or something, thought Gabe.

  ‘Good thing it’s Sunday,’ Barb said, picking up her share of folded items and heading down the hall.

  Bloody good thing, Gabe thought. Sunday was their usual day off from farm duties, though rest was never guaranteed. In a week school would start and the workload would double again. It was the last year for him, thank God. Michael and Cait still had a couple to go.

  Downing the coffee and pouring another, Gabe grabbed his phone and went out into the garden. The sunlight made him squint but he welcomed its warmth. Thirteen messages, none of them from anyone he wanted to speak to. Instead, he called Pete and Buzz, and Tom too. Slowly, he pieced together what had happened: Pete’s stupid bet, the girl, Casey. Everyone’s version differed slightly, but all three agreed on two things: Michael had broken Casey’s arm and no one knew how.

  ‘Serves the bastard right,’ Gabe told Pete.

  ‘Yeah, I know, and maybe if they’d punched each other, if it’d got busted in a fight, that’d be fine. But this is different, Gabe. It was weird. And Casey’s not going to drop it. He was carrying on last night about suing Michael, calling the cops. You know what he’s like.’

  Gabe knew. Casey was petty and mean and could carry a grudge further than anyone else, and his long interest in Cait didn’t make him any more likeable in Gabe’s eyes. ‘So why the hell didn’t you stop him, Pete? Before it got out of hand.’

  ‘That’s the other weird thing. We tried. I mean, we were calling, trying to get to him, but we couldn’t. We couldn’t get to any of them.’

  ‘What do you mean “couldn’t”?’

  ‘It was like there was something pushing us back. I don’t know, a … a force field or something. It’s crazy, right?’

  But thinking about it – about Michael with all his tricks, and Michael last night, hunched and dazed, and Michael upstairs, dead asleep – Gabe knew it was beyond crazy. It was real. He sighed. ‘You’re sure it was just the six of you there when it happened? No one else saw?’

  Pete groaned. ‘Pretty sure but, honestly, I can’t remember. I mean, there were other people around, but I don’t know who saw what.’

  ‘Well, find out and call me back,’ Gabe said, and cut the call.

  ‘It’s okay, Gabe.’

  Startled, he whirled around to face Cait. She didn’t look angry, as he’d expected, but seemed resigned and somehow more sad.

  She rested a hand on his arm. ‘It’s always hard at the beginning.’

  Gabe stared at her, not ready for more weirdness. ‘What’s hard?’

  ‘Letting go.’

  Pete called back with bad news. ‘Some idiot filmed it on his phone and it’s doing the rounds. Lucky for you he was half blind, so it’s shaky and out of focus. But it’s still pretty obvious what’s going on. I’ll send it through and you can see for yourself.’

  This wasn’t the first time. There was always someone with a camera at the ready, though Michael had always laughed it off: ‘It’s not real, Gabe. Just tricks. People love seeing that stuff. It’s nothing to worry about.’ And maybe he was right. Only, that’d been before, and Michael wasn’t laughing now, was he? He’d passed out, and Gabe was the one having to deal with his mess.

  ‘Who took it?’ he asked.

  ‘Barnsey. Went to get something from his car and caught it on the way back. Lasts less than a minute, but I reckon it’s enough.’

  Gabe sighed. ‘Send it through and I’ll call you back.’

  The fifty-second clip was dark and not much more than shadows on shadows. At one point the camera zoomed in on Michael, and it was obvious something wasn’t right. Then it shifted to the girl – nice legs was Gabe’s first thought, before he dismissed it – and Casey clutching her arm. The sound was muffled, save for Pete shouting Michael’s name. Then, right at the end, everything deadened before a loud noise sounded. Not a shout. Not even a word, really. More of a long, echoing moan, followed by a crack, like a tree branch snapping. Casey yelled, the girl screamed and then it was over. It might have been obvious to Pete, but to Gabe it just looked like a couple of guys arguing over a girl, and there was nothing strange about that – except that Michael hadn’t been anywhere near Casey.

  Gabe played it over and over, looking for anything that might help to explain what’d happened, but there was just that noise, and Michael, so black, so dark, like he was sucking in all the light. And all the time, resounding in Gabe’s head were Cait’s words.

  He took a deep breath and phoned Pete again. ‘Can’t see much of a problem. It’s pretty dark, and Michael’s nowhere near Casey.’

  ‘Shit, mate, that is the problem,’ Pete said, echoing Gabe’s concern.

  ‘But the camera’s not on Casey when it happens. Who’s to say he didn’t just trip and break his own bloody arm? Rough ground, one too many …’

  There was a pause. ‘Maybe. Thing is, I don’t know the girl. She’s new here and she’s probably already told half the world.’

  But it was their only hope, Gabe thought. It was their word against Casey’s: he and Michael had got into a fight, both had been drinking; maybe Casey had taken a swing at Michael. Whatever, he’d stumbled, fallen on his arm and broken it. Simple. The rest would take care of itself. Gabe knew it wouldn’t stop the rumours, but there’d been plenty of rumours about Michael before. They could deal with them.

  ‘Who does know her?’ he asked.

  ‘Sophie Hewitt and those chicks. They’ve been hanging together the last few weeks.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll handle that. The way Casey was grabbing at her, she’s hardly going to take his side, is she? You speak to the others and make sure all your stories are straight. And, Pete?’ he said, before hanging up. ‘Start doing what you’re good at.’

  As things turned out, Gabe had no need to deal with Jenny. Whether by design or by accident, it was the story of the girl and two boys that got everyone talking. The old-timers nodded their heads and clicked their tongues, passing down their judgement: What else ca
n you expect from city trash? Gabe didn’t know how much of a hand Pete had in it, but by the time school started again Jenny was the focus of everyone’s attention.

  Even so, the stories about Michael didn’t lessen and they didn’t fade. They resurfaced, each incarnation wilder than the last. And that video kept doing the rounds, along with all the others dredged up from past mistakes. Facebook posts and tweets added to the mix of YouTube comments, but eventually the consensus was that the clip was a fake and not worth anyone’s time. No reporters came knocking – and no lawyers either – reducing Casey’s threat to just another bluff.

  Michael slept for three days and Cait guarded him fiercely, much to Barb’s puzzlement, which she voiced to Gabe more than once; his tired reply, ‘She seems to know what she’s doing,’ was enough to counter any further questions. He moved downstairs to Cait’s room and, to silence Jim’s concerns, took on all of Michael’s chores and most of Cait’s too. The doctor came to check on Michael, pulling up his eyelids, pinching his skin for signs of dehydration, taking his temperature and blood pressure, all under Cait’s watchful eye. Had he taken anything? the doctor asked. Any drugs they knew of? Anything at the party? But Barb had no idea, and Cait wasn’t telling what she knew. His suggestion that Michael be moved to the hospital was met stonily. Exasperated but unable to find anything physically wrong with the boy, Dr Lawson departed, citing the mysteries of adolescence, exhaustion and a hotter-than-usual summer.

  ‘Keep him cool and hydrated, and let him rest,’ he told Barb.

  So they did. Cait stayed with him, sitting by his side, sometimes lying with him, always talking to him while he roamed that other world. But what she said was for him alone, and if anyone entered the room she’d fall silent until they left again.

  On the fourth day, when he finally returned, he opened his eyes to her smile.

  iii

  There is a door set high in the wall that separates the made from the unmade. Neither vast nor small, wide nor narrow, and without any lock or handle, it is hidden but plain to see. When Cait released Michael that night, through the door into the Unmaking, with soft words and her body pressed to his, she was afraid to let him go. While he’d been there many times before, he was young and his power raw.

  It wasn’t familiar to him and he had no memory of those who’d known him before, the shades of people he’d loved, who’d called him brother and had once been bright but were now unlit. Nothing grew there; no trees sprouted from the dust, no rain fell and there was no sun and no warmth. It was a place of waiting. Of patience and surrender.

  In that place even time is undone, and while his body lay on the bed in the attic for three days, it was much longer before he found his way back, following the lure of Cait’s voice to the door, guiding him as she had long ago, through a maze with a ball of twine. He returned greater than when he’d left, and it took time for him to adjust to being bound again in flesh. His body felt tight, restricted, and the world appeared veiled.

  Other things were clear, though – dark things, sick and lightless, that hovered within and around everyone, greedy and hate-filled. If Cait knew what Michael saw, she said nothing, but would smile gently and talk of small matters. Only when she felt he was strong enough did she begin to speak of other things, of matters that weren’t so small or harmless, things he didn’t want to hear and refused to acknowledge, things that served to remind him of a time before he’d been Michael.

  If those later days with her were hard, his nights were terrifying, filled with the cruel beaks of giant eagles and the agony of torn flesh, chains of iron and unbreakable rock, and his voice crying out in a young world. He’d wake screaming, twisted in sodden sheets, while Cait soothed with cool hands and gentle words, always patient.

  Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it; it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.

  GEORGE ELIOT, Daniel Deronda

  IV

  If Jenny’s father was surprised by her phone call, wondering why she’d decided not to stay the night at the McIntyres’, he didn’t say anything. They sat in silence all the way home and Jenny thanked God, as well as anything else she could think of, that it was her father who’d come to fetch her and not her mother. Only when they pulled into the driveway did he ask if everything was okay.

  ‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘Didn’t want to stay, that’s all.’

  But that wasn’t all, not even close. She couldn’t forget what had happened, what she’d seen and heard – that dreadful hush wrapping around them all, and Michael bent over as if in pain, his hands pressed to his head. Then, straightening suddenly, growing taller and taller, and his eyes getting darker and darker, he’d spoken; a single word, not one Jenny knew, that boomed and echoed as though called out from below, deeply caved, and the bone cracked like thunder, and Casey screamed, high and piercing. She’d run off, desperate to get away.

  ‘What do you mean you’re going?’ Sophie had said, annoyed. ‘How are you getting home?’

  ‘I’ve called my parents. They’re on their way.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  Sophie hadn’t yet heard about the argument or about Casey’s arm, and Jenny wasn’t ready to say anything. She still wasn’t sure what she’d seen.

  ‘Nothing. I just want to go home,’ she said, close to tears.

  Sophie stared at her, then shrugged. ‘Okay, whatever. Shame, though.’

  And she’d turned back to her friends, dismissing the stupid city kid. Jenny didn’t care. She left the paddock to wait alone in the dark by the front gate, standing on the gravel in her ruined sandals; the boots had vanished, snatched away as easily as they’d been given, without her even noticing.

  She didn’t sleep well that night, or for many nights after, any dreams tangled with images of Michael, his eyes so black, and of Casey screaming. Sometimes it wasn’t Casey’s arm Michael broke but his head, and as it caved and crumbled a small pair of blue boots tumbled out, transformed into a butterfly and flew away.

  The days following the party blurred in that horrible what-have-I-done way, a dirty tide after a storm. Jenny retreated, switching off her phone and laptop for the first time ever. Chatting to old friends wouldn’t help now; it wasn’t as though she could explain to any of them about Michael or what she’d seen him do. There were no words, and even if there were, she didn’t want to say or hear them. So she saw no one until the Tuesday when Kylie and Sophie came over, unannounced and unwelcome. Jenny’s mother ushered them into her room with a tight smile and hissed instructions to Open a window and clean up this pigsty!

  ‘Nice room,’ Sophie said, flopping onto the bed and grabbing a magazine; she flipped the pages idly, not really reading. She was chewing gum, something fruity. The smell was sickening.

  Was it a nice room? Jenny hadn’t noticed. Like the rest of the house – like Kincasey – it was a prison: four walls keeping her from where she really wanted to be. And she didn’t like Sophie being there, on her bed, claiming it with her thick body and her fruity gum.

  ‘Well, aren’t you the dark horse?’ Kylie said, from her chair in the corner of the room. ‘You going to tell us your side of the story?’

  ‘What story?’ Jenny asked, wary.

  ‘You know. The one about you and Michael and Casey at the party? The one everyone’s talking about?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Jenny. That’s why you left, wasn’t it? You can tell us. We won’t say anything.’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘What are you talking about?’ Sophie stared at her, but again it was Kylie who spoke for both of them. ‘You’ve seen the video, right?’

  Oh God! ‘What video?’

  ‘Show her,’ Kylie said.

  Sophie held out her phone and Jenny took it with numb hands. She watched the whole thing again, heard that noise, heard Todd’s arm break, heard her own scream. When it stopped, she wanted to cry.

  ‘I don’t know wha
t happened,’ she whispered. ‘They were all betting on me like … I had no idea and –’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. We know about that. Get to the good stuff,’ Kylie said.

  Jenny looked at them both, seeing their hunger. ‘You knew? You knew and you didn’t tell me?’

  ‘Everyone knew. It happens all the time. A new girl comes in and the guys go stupid. Heat and hormones, you know? I can’t believe you did it with Michael Webster, though. Of all people,’ Sophie accused.

  ‘I didn’t do anything. We kissed. That’s all,’ Jenny said, then wished she hadn’t. She remembered the story about Sophie and Michael. Was she jealous?

  Kylie laughed. ‘That’s not what we heard. You like the weird ones, huh?’

  ‘What?’ Jenny said, still looking at Sophie.

  ‘Michael and that creep Casey. Boy, you sure can pick them.’

  Kylie went on to tell her what they’d all surmised from the video, from the gossip. How Michael and Todd got into a fight, how none of it was Michael’s fault, how Jenny had seduced them both. Because wasn’t that what city girls did? And shouldn’t country boys be excused their bit of fun?

  ‘That’s not what happened,’ Jenny whispered, appalled. Had they actually watched the video?

  ‘Yeah? What did happen then?’ Kylie challenged.

  Jenny almost confessed then, and it would have been such a relief to put it into words, to make sense of it. But she held back, perhaps realising it was already too late. It was her word against everyone else’s, and who’d believe such a ridiculous story, anyway? Breaking a bone wasn’t the same as conjuring a butterfly. Or a pair of blue boots.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said.