They don’t want me: that’s fine. I know I made plenty of mistakes. But nothing’ll stop me worrying about them, reeling around out there from one disaster to another, taking my grandchildren with them. Least Jared hasn’t fathered any.
There’s someone knocking at the door.
This evening, Debbie had decided, was the time to deliver the letter and petition. It was leaving it a little late, but there were still some signatures to collect from the other side of town. Nobody wanted him. Nobody at all. The Department wouldn’t listen, the government wouldn’t listen, the mayor said his hands were tied. Mrs Knowles was the last resort.
She asked her husband drive her, even though it was really only just around the corner, and he said he’d be honoured and that it was great she’d at long last found something she could really commit herself to. He was so proud of her, even staying home from work this morning to give moral support when she was interviewed on Morning Report.
‘Mothers have to be responsible for their own children,’ Debbie told the interviewer. She didn’t hold with all this blaming-the-state business. In the end it came down to personal responsibility, and Knowles’s mother had to understand that there were a lot of young families with children in the area, that this part of Wanganui had changed now that everyone wanted to be near the river. As Craig said, this whole business was affecting the town’s image and could effect a downturn. Craig should know, being the president of the Mainstreet Business Association. It was criminal the way that up until now no one had listened, not even to Craig or anyone from Lions or Rotary.
One bright street-lamp cast a sharp shadow over the little house, a dun-coloured wooden one like the others in the street, but orig. cond., as Craig would advertise it. There were deep cracks in the front path, purple in the fluorescent light with thick moss bulging in them like her own varicose veins, she thought suddenly, anxiety welling as she knocked on the front door.
Craig was watching. She’d keep it short and sweet, hand it over and go. She gave him a brave little wave, just as the door opened a crack. At thigh height an old dog’s muzzle protruded, black flecked with grey.
‘Yes? Can I help you?’
There was no porch light — the wall fixture was empty. It was hard to see her — grey hair, of course, or was it an ashy blonde? The door opened further and Debbie saw that the woman who stood there was not much older than her. The same age even, in her early forties. She wore cheap cotton half-leg pants, a long black T-shirt, myriad chains around her neck. She had more wrinkles around her mouth than anywhere else — probably a smoker. Big rings in her pink, slightly protuberant ears, two dots tattooed on her cheekbones to say she’d been inside herself: like mother, like son. Debbie’s heart sank. Silly, but she’d had an idea in her head that Knowles’s mother would be ancient, grey: a mournful old lady. And Maori, since Knowles was. She’d thought she’d be a little old Maori lady. Just as she thrust the papers at her, Craig started up the car, ready to go.
‘This is a letter and list of signatures from the residents of our town,’ she announced swiftly. ‘Read it and please think about what we have to say. Thank you.’ And she turned around and strode down the path in her new adidas shoes, which really did put a new spring in her step, the first since the birth of her first child six months ago — that worth-every-penny expensive baby who would now be needing his evening feed.
‘Well done, darling,’ said Craig as he drove, giving her knee a sweet little pat.
The woman at the door looked like a television cook, like Easy-Peasy or Food in a Minute: the same wedge haircut and creamy chin rolls. Tracksuit pants didn’t do a thing for her. She smelt clean, like packaging, as if she spent so much time in places like K-Mart or The Warehouse that she’d taken on a polymer scent. The hands that delivered the papers were practical, podgy, small moon nails neatly clipped. Inside a little shiny car pulled up at the kerb was a man bent low over the steering wheel, watching, engine running, and when she turned back up the path he leaned across to open her door for her. I didn’t wait to see them drive off but carried the letter inside.
‘Dear Mrs Knowles,’ read the letter, held out under the hall light. ‘You cannot help but be aware of the level of anxiety and distress in the community over the arrival of your son. All other avenues explored to prevent this eventuality have been exhausted. We beg you to put yourself in our position and to consider either — even at this late stage — refusing to accept responsibility for the prisoner, or relocating your household elsewhere. Should you select the second option, a small fund to assist would be forthcoming. We beg you to think of this next generation growing up and of their safety. By our calculations the signatures that follow number one thousand and four.’ The list was headed by Craig and Debbie Former, with an address about two blocks away, just up the river in a new subdivision.
Maybe that was her that brought this round. That part of town people hardly go outside, all these big new houses jammed on tiny sections, televisions flickering through chinks in the curtains morning and afternoon — even if I’d walked past she would likely have been inside cleaning one of the four bogs it most likely has. No garden but plenty of places to crap.
Well, stuff her. I take the papers over to the fireplace and lay them on the grate, find some matches and set fire to them. At least, that’s what I fully intend to do, but just as I light up the match I change my mind. There’s bound to be a lot of trouble in the first few weeks Jared’s back. What if he’s assaulted, accosted? This list of names could be useful. I fold the sheets in half and put them in a kitchen drawer.
What happens, when we drive through these dark, small towns, is that I don’t actually see the lights blurring in the rain, one after another, but the grey in the back of the van shifts, ebbs, loses its grip; lets me see the face of the officer sitting opposite. There are three of them and they take turns to sit with me or up the front. Only one drives.
Three of them, returning me to the care of my mother — singular, female, getting on.
Yesterday they sent the priest to me and I asked him to tell me the story of the prodigal son. Except I couldn’t remember ‘prodigal’ properly, struggled a bit with the word, but he got my meaning.
‘It’s a parable,’ he said and he opened his Bible and read it out to me, from St Luke, and there’s no mention of the mother. There’s a father and a brother, and the brother was fucked off that he’s done everything right while the other has ‘wasted his substance with riotous living’. Lucky he had any substances to waste, I thought, and would’ve told the priest that joke, but he was an ancient old bugger and wouldn’t’ve got it. Don’t know why they sent him to me — he wasn’t going to tell me anything interesting, not until I asked him the story. Then he did.
These fat-arse officers are always hungry, stopping for chips and burgers and shit. Me, I stay in the van; they won’t even let me out for a smoke. In Taumarunui some passing dick bangs hard on the roof while we’re parked and fuckin’ freaks me. Doing well till then.
The old girl won’t believe I’m cured, but I am. Not everybody reoffends. In prison I made a survey of it — lots of them weren’t priors. I might’ve fucked up more than once, but I’m finished now. Gonna keep my head down, get a job, earn some money to get out when I can. Get up to Auckland, get a new life, a new name. That’s my dream. Possible, no reason. Get a dog, something to love. I’ll feed it, keep it close — people who look after things don’t get in so much trouble. The screw opposite has a wedding ring that lights up in the towns.
I don’t embrace him because of the other men. They stand around, watch him walk up the path towards me on the porch. He’s carrying a small bag. I’ve watched him walk up paths towards me and away from the Services before — how many times? The contents of the bag have changed over the years — teddies to track shoes, Ritalin to Aropax. Who’s to know what they’ve got him on now?
Strange how silent it is. None of the men move or talk. Jared keeps his eyes on the wet path ahead; I wa
tch the men.
‘Go now,’ I think. One of them steps away from the van, looks up and down the street as if he’d been expecting trouble and can’t believe there is none.
We go inside, close the door and look at each other.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ I tell him. I light two ciggies and hand one to him. ‘It is, Jared.’
He takes a drag, shakes his head.
‘Come in the kitchen.’ I take his hand, which is clammy and cold, and lead him to a chair by the heater.
While I get him a beer he sits quiet, though a couple of times he starts to say something, then stops himself.
‘Don’t rush yourself, pet,’ I tell him. ‘Take it slow.’
I could talk instead, tell him all the things I never have, like, for instance, how it’s not as if I ever made a decision about whether he did it or not; how some days I think he didn’t; other days I don’t know; but most days I know in my bones that he did. I could tell him that no state of mind is more bearable than any of the others, and that I don’t want him to ever try to talk to me about it. I don’t want to know.
He drinks his beer, asks for coffee and another cigarette.
‘In the drawer,’ I say, without thinking. ‘There’s a whole new packet.’
When I turn to bring him his coffee he’s standing by the dresser, reading the letter I got earlier, and the pages of signatures are fluttering in his hand like the wing of a dying bird.
The plan was that a group of about twenty girls from Plunket and Playgroup would meet at Debbie’s place before walking around to start the vigil. They were to meet a photographer from the local newspaper outside the Knowles house, who would take their picture, all of them just ordinary normal mums pushing strollers and waving placards.
After she’d provided everyone with morning tea, Debbie led the charge down to the double garage to pick up the signs that she and Craig had painted over the weekend. They leaned on their shafts against the walls, ranged around Craig’s boat.
Kerry-Anne’s ginger-haired four-year-old came to stand beside her, extending a finger to trace the O of Offender.
‘That’s for the man that sexed the little girl and killed her dead,’ she said solemnly.
‘Shsh!’ said Kerry-Anne.
‘How does she know that?’ demanded Debbie. ‘Did you tell her?’
‘Of course not!’ Behind her spectacles Kerry-Anne’s pale blue eyes widened defensively.
‘I think it’s appalling,’ Debbie said, ‘just appalling that she knows that. You’re her mother — you shouldn’t let —’
‘— TV or radio, one of the older kids —’ Kerry-Anne was saying, louder. But Debbie matched her volume.
‘— talk about it in front of her. Sponges! Kids are sponges! You’re denying her a childhood!’
‘What’s going on?’ It was Tammy, who was young and solo, like Kerry-Anne, and probably just as unskilled at parenting. They lived next door to each other in a block of scruffy units.
‘Nothing,’ said Debbie.
Kerry-Anne began to cry and her four-year-old joined in.
‘For goodness’ sake!’ said Debbie. She hoisted up a couple of signs and lugged them out to the other mothers, who were gathered outside on the driveway, chatting. ‘I could do with a hand,’ she told them.
After last night’s rain it was still overcast and cold, which made for an invigorating walk down to the Knowles house. Debbie pushed Jared in his buggy, his head a fuzzy blue sphere in his woolly hat. It was most unfortunate he shared his name with the offender — if he’d been born only six months later the shared name could have been avoided. On quite a number of occasions recently she’d wept about it, and she and Craig had had long talks into the night about whether or not they should change Baby’s name, even though it was Debbie’s favourite even from before they began the fertility treatment. Baby — that’s what he was called most of the time, but that couldn’t go on forever. Right now he was asleep, a little bubble shining on his lower lip. Poor sweet innocent, thought Debbie, hating suddenly the idea of taking him into close proximity to the monster, close enough to breathe the same air.
The house looked locked up, curtains drawn, a blind pulled over the frosted glass in the door. No smoke came from the chimney, but Debbie supposed that was because it was a renter and the landlord would have had the fireplace boarded up. Craig advised all landlords to do that, for the fire risk. Too bad if the tenants froze their arses off with no money for the power company. They were lucky, Debbie supposed, that their own house was constructed from completely modern and non-flammable materials, should they ever buy another and rent the first one out. That kind of thing was going on at the moment. An Englishman had come out and bought twenty houses in one swoop to rent out to the locals — a latter-day absentee landlord. Wanganui was definitely going ahead.
‘Should we shout things?’ one of the mothers asked her.
‘I don’t think so,’ Debbie said. ‘This is a silent vigil.’
From the tray under the pram she took the banner and unrolled it. She’d brought string, to attach it to the fence. ‘Homicidal Sex Offenders Not Welcome In Our Neighbourhood’ it said. Kerry-Anne’s sign, ‘Murderers Out!’, had been painted in the same fluorescent pink.
Once the banner was properly hooked up and the mothers had stopped standing around in groups chatting to stand in a hushed line, the vigil looked serious and important. It was professionally done, thought Debbie, if you could have a professional vigil. She wondered about the woman inside, whether she’d noticed them yet; whether, if she had, she’d pointed them out to her criminal son.
A passing truck tooted at them, a motorcyclist gave them the victory signal as he zipped by, an old couple seated at the bus stop opposite stared at them with astonishment. Debbie wondered if she should go across and explain to them what they were doing — perhaps they didn’t even know Jared Knowles was in the house, unrestrained by anyone other than his white-trash mother — but just as she took a step out onto the road the bus came along. When it pulled away the couple looked out the windows at her with a hint of fear on their faces, as if she was somehow more closely associated with the target of the vigil than the spirit of the vigil itself. It gave Debbie a start, and she wondered for the first time if she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want any of this to reflect on her and Craig.
‘Mrs Former?’ It was the photographer, lugging his tripod.
Jared and I are watching them through the nets. They can’t see us. We’ve pulled all the blinds and hooked up blankets and it’s like the inside of a cow.
‘That’s the one that brought the list.’ I point out Debbie Former. ‘The older one.’
Jared nods and I watch his eyes follow her as she takes pride of place in the pose. The photographer is quick — a couple of shots, then he’s back in his car and departing.
The women remain, waving in response to toots from supportive drivers.
‘They shouldn’t of let me out,’ Jared says quietly, his first complete sentence since he got here. He slept for a few hours, but woke suddenly and got up.
‘Mum?’ he says. ‘Should they?’
I wish he was still kipping.
‘Mum?’
‘Don’t know, son.’
‘Don’t know if I should of got out?’ His voice is harder.
‘No.’
‘No I shouldn’t of?’
‘No I don’t know.’
Jared sighs. Some of the women have brought thermos flasks and cups. They sip coffee, eat biscuits.
‘Have a nice fucking picnic, ladies,’ mutters Jared, and he turns and leaves the room, his footsteps turning down towards the bathroom. The door slams after him.
I’ve got time I reckon, if I’m quick.
Down the path I go, so nervous my toe snags twice on the cracks, even though I would know the depth and catch of them in my sleep. A little girl with red hair, a kid about four, sees me coming and tugs on her mother’s T-shirt. They all turn an
d look at me then, and I swear it’s like a bunch of old moos staring at me over the fence, giving me their full, doleful attention. Just before the letterbox I pull up.
‘I’m not defending him,’ I start, but my voice comes over wavery and thin. I clear my throat, start again. ‘I’m on your side.’
Now the faces look disbelieving. Debbie’s upper lip begins to lift into a sneer.
‘Just give us a chance, eh?’ But my voice has vanished again and they can’t hear me. I feel suddenly exhausted, dry-mouthed after all the hours spent waiting for him to arrive, then sitting while he slept, and all the time smoking, smoking, smoking. I head back up the path and it’s when I’m about halfway that they begin to yell out.
‘You shouldn’t have taken him back!’ the first one bellows, and I’m pretty sure the voice belongs to Debbie.
‘How’re you going to stop him?’ yells another.
‘Murderers out!’ yells another, and several voices join in: ‘Murderers out! Murderers out! Murderers out!’
The first drops of rain fall as I reach the sagging porch and go inside. For a moment or two I listen to it drumming under their voices, thickening on the tin roof. In the kitchen at the end of the hall I can hear Jared moving about, opening and closing the fridge, the flick and hiss of a tear-tab.
I take a deep breath and go down to him, and as I do I can sense the women on the street begin to move away, not that I can hear them from here. They’re doing the right thing: the rain is falling heavily now and I know as well as any mother does that you shouldn’t leave your baby out in the weather. If you ever catch yourself at it, if you’re doing it by mistake or on purpose, then you should face up to the fact that one day, eventually, you’re going to have to make it up to him.
Drowned Sprat and Other Stories Page 18