The Wrong Hand

by Jane Jago

  Initially she had enjoyed the idea that Liam had no prior attachments, that he was all hers to monopolize, but now it seemed sad that the father of her child had no history to bestow, and no family to speak of. She examined the photograph. It told her little. A wide arch, of silver and pink balloons and white streamers, was suspended over a stage. The black drapes, behind the assembled students, were peppered with silver stars. A sequined banner read, ‘Live Love Life’.

  Although Liam stood at the centre of the group under the arch, he appeared somehow set apart, separated from the rows of smiling youths on either side of him. His eyes looked past the camera and his mouth was a thin, closed smile. It seemed to Catherine to have been an odd affair, none of the usual pink taffeta ballgowns. Many of the girls wore unusual outfits, and her eye was drawn to the raven-haired girl with dark eyes, whom Liam had said he’d been friends with. Catherine felt an involuntary stab of jealousy, as if the girl in the red bolero knew things about Liam’s past that she never would. She collected the documents together and held them. It wasn’t much to show for a life. No pictures of his childhood. Not a letter or even a photograph of his mother. She knew the reasons from what little of the family history Liam had told her.

  After years of his father’s drinking, his mother had packed their things and returned to Scotland. Liam was to fly out from Australia and join her in a few months’ time when she was settled and had found him a school. His father had given up: he travelled around so much with his work that he hadn’t fought to keep his son.

  Liam had counted the days as he waited for word from his mother. Eventually his father had received a call informing him that Liam’s mother had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died. His father would not, or could not, provide the money for him to travel to Glasgow for her funeral. His Scottish grandmother died six months later. The following year Liam had left his father and, using the small amount of money left to him by his grandmother, applied to attend the college in Wentworthville. He hadn’t attempted to make contact with his father since and had told Catherine that as far as he was concerned his father was already dead.

  It was a sad story, and when she thought of Liam waiting for a call from his mother that would never come, her eyes filled with tears.

  She could see that Liam’s father had failed him badly, but after all this time, surely, in the absence of so much history, even an alcoholic father would be better than none. If only she could get Liam to contact him, his father could at least provide her with a sense of his past or him with a few mementos of his mother. After almost ten years maybe he had mellowed. And if that wasn’t possible, what about his mother’s side of the family? By all accounts she had loved and fought for him, his grandmother too. Surely someone from that branch of the family tree would welcome news of a nephew or cousin.

  She propped the portrait of Liam’s graduation dinner on a corner shelf in the kitchen, took the documents to the printer in the bedroom and made copies of several pages. She slid them inside a Manila envelope and folded down the flap.

  Mathew, 2008

  The back lounge of the Flag Hotel was windowless, cramped and overheated – the perfect haven for the hard-core early-morning drinkers who owned the stools at the bar. Mathew Allen sat under a tarnished mirror, printed with the figure of a cricketer parrying his bat. He knew why men came here. He used to come here to drink until he was legless. It was a hidden place where no one judged and people left you alone to guard your sorrows. Today, as he waited for his friend Father Robert, he drank ginger ale through a straw and watched the blue light of the soundless television play on the faces at the bar. Even at lunchtime the place made him feel as though it was already dark outside. After the conclusion of the trial this bar had become his second home.

  He wondered how many nights Robert had sat there and drunk whisky with him until the rage had swelled inside him, and he had smashed his fist on the table and wept like a baby. More often they sat in prolonged silence, the priest offering nothing but his presence, aware that the gospel was not always delivered in words. And when he had frequently demanded, ‘Why?’ Robert was never fool enough to insult him with a ready answer.

  Mathew and Robert, 1994

  ‘I have no explanations, Mathew. All I know is that you’re still here and somehow you must go on. Sometimes there is nothing left but to lean into God.’

  ‘There is no God, Robert.’

  The priest nodded. ‘Sometimes it’s almost worse to believe in a God who appears to oversee the evil in the world and do nothing about it. It might shock you, but there are times when I find it hard to convince myself that God exists.’

  ‘A priest?’

  ‘I sometimes think I became a priest to escape everything I see in the world – all of this.’ He looked across at the weary barmaid and sozzled punters. A couple exchanging heated words across a table. ‘And the rest of it . . . love, responsibility. Sure I convinced myself I had a calling. We can convince ourselves of anything. I may be a priest, Mathew, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t struggled or doubted.’ He sipped his whisky thoughtfully. ‘What you’re going through, I can’t pretend to know. But I do feel the pain of what you share with me. I can sit with it. That’s my real calling.’

  ‘What do you believe in?’

  Robert pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘On a good day? When I feel effective, when I’ve lifted a weight off someone for a few moments, I do feel the power of God – but after all the things I’ve heard, the things I’ve witnessed people go through, it’s people themselves I believe in, their ability to overcome almost anything and go on living.’

  Mathew slugged his whisky and eyed the priest sceptically.

  ‘If God represents a place big enough to offload what we can’t carry,’ continued the priest, ‘then I’ll always be his man.’

  ‘I want to kill them,’ said Mathew.

  ‘I’d be surprised if you didn’t.’

  ‘I think about it in detail, how I’m gonna do it. The terror in their eyes. I want them to know that no one is coming. I want to tell them, “This is for Benjamin.” They have to suffer.’ He sat back against the wall and swirled the Scotch in his glass before swilling the last of it. ‘When I do it in my mind it feels good. Two twelve-year-olds up against a grown man . . . I make myself sick.’

  ‘About the same odds they gave Benjamin.’

  Mathew checked the older man’s face for signs of judgement and found none. Robert offered him a refill from the whisky bottle. ‘No, I’ve had enough.’ He covered his glass. ‘I’m not sure about you, Robert. Aren’t you supposed to tell me that that would only make me the same as them?’

  ‘They’re normal reactions. We all have darkness and light inside us. It’s what we decide to do that matters.’

  ‘I really do want to kill them. I think about it a lot.’

  ‘You’re walking through Hell right now, Mathew, but you will get to the other side. How are things with Rachel?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s a lost cause. I can’t talk to her. Most nights, when I’m not with you, I don’t go home. I go to Ewan’s. Jen always keeps a plate for me. They don’t care what time I come in or how drunk I am. Apart from you, Ewan is the only person I can talk to. He saw what they did. I feel so guilty he had to go through that. I can see in his eyes when we talk about it – he’s got pictures in his head. It’s fucked him up. I’m supposed to be the older brother.’ Mathew’s eyes were wet with tears.

  ‘I’m sure you’d be there for him in a crisis.’

  ‘He’s always been smarter than me, more able to find the right words. It used to really piss me off sometimes.’ He wiped his face and almost smiled. ‘If I go to Mum’s she starts hovering around me like I’m a sick child – like I’m the victim. She adored Benjamin, but to spare me, I suppose, she never falls apart in front of me. I can see she’s been crying. Dad just sits there like he’s been shot – like this is just one parenting scenario beyond his map of the wo
rld, completely outside his comprehension. “I don’t know what to say, son.” I doubt he’ll still be here at Christmas. He had a tumour removed from his neck last year, and I just keep wishing he’d passed away a happy old man before this happened. I avoid them all, I can’t help it – I can’t stand to look at their faces. Especially Rachel . . . I can’t see us ever being the same again.’

  ‘Maybe if Rachel understood how isolated you feel, perhaps you could talk to someone together.’

  ‘She can’t stand me to touch her – I get it, I totally get it, but who’s there to get me? She’ll always be the heartbroken mother of my dead child and I’ll always be the husband who couldn’t protect them.’

  ‘There’s a group. It’s not just about bereavement, it’s for people who’ve lost family to violent crime.’ Robert fumbled through his wallet and pulled out a small card.

  Mathew waved it away. ‘I told you, she won’t go.’

  ‘They also have a group just for men . . . The way men and women cope with trauma is often very different.’

  ‘Honestly, Robert, what’s the point of any of it?’

  ‘Well, that’s the hardest question . . .’

  ‘The only reason I can talk to you is because you don’t pretend to have the answers.’

  The priest filled Mathew’s glass with water, and pushed an open bag of cashews in his general direction.

  ‘Underneath it all, I’m just so fucking lonely. Part of me knows Benjamin is dead and the life I lived with Rachel is over. If I could go out tomorrow and find a normal girl, a happy girl with a kind heart, if I could paper over the past and have more kids with her, I would. The other part of me can’t let Benjamin go. I don’t know what to do with myself . . . I used to be somebody’s father. Now I don’t know what I am.’ He looked into Robert’s face and was embarrassed by the empathy he saw. ‘Didn’t you ever want children?’

  ‘I was married once.’

  Mathew was surprised.

  ‘We thought she was infertile. I would’ve done the IVF if it had come to that – but we found out it was me. My ego couldn’t take it. For some reason adoption I could rationalize, but she wanted to go ahead with a sperm donor so the baby would be half “ours”.’ He laughed.

  ‘I couldn’t do it. It’s the most pathetic choice I ever made. I can’t regret it . . . Now I have many children in my life by many different fathers – but I’ll never know what it is to have a child of my own.’

  ‘She left you, then?’

  ‘No. She stood by me. I had an epiphany and skulked off to the priesthood.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Mathew fell silent, staring down at the tabletop for a while. ‘Sometimes when I’m smashed I walk over to the cemetery and lie down on the grass next to him,’ he confided quietly. ‘I talk to him, like you’d talk to any three-year-old. I dumb it down and tell him that the boys are being punished, that we miss him. It gives me comfort because that’s where his little body is. After all the searching and having him taken away, knowing he’s there gives me some relief. We always said we believed in cremation for ourselves but after what happened, the thought of inflicting any more damage, of burning his body, just seemed obscene.’

  ‘You wanted him laid to rest.’

  ‘Yeah. I remember Mum used to say after Ewan and I had moved out – we’d come home for Christmas and be out till all hours – what we did when we were away she didn’t have to worry about but when we were back under the same roof she couldn’t go to bed until we were both in ours . . . It doesn’t last long, but that’s the feeling.’

  Robert fingered the card on the table. ‘Some of the people at this group had children who were murdered – and worse.’

  ‘What good will that do me?’

  ‘People wounded in that way are the only people who can really know what you’re going through. They may have passed through stages you have. Your experiences may even help them.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’m ready for that.’

  ‘I’d be happy to go with you.’

  They had attended a single meeting together. Mathew was already half cut when Robert picked him up. He knew that Robert understood, that he would want to be drunk himself if he was in Mathew’s shoes.

  Mathew sat through the meeting in total silence, witness to different versions of the same story. Though the background and the details differed the endings were inevitable. It was his story. It helped a little to know that he was not alone in his fantasies of revenge, that other men wished suffering and death on those who had murdered their loved ones. Some who had come through it insisted it would pass, that hatred would be replaced one day with forgiveness. For the moment hatred was all Mathew had. He had never been able to make himself go to a second meeting.

  Mathew, 2008

  A chorus of ‘Hey, Father!’ broke out as some of the old-timers greeted Robert at the bar. He shook a few hands, then came to Mathew’s table. The two men embraced warmly. The priest unbuttoned the studs on his fur-lined bomber jacket but made no attempt to take it off. He held a black helmet under one arm.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  Robert glanced at the amber dregs in Mathew’s glass.

  Mathew caught the look. He had stopped drinking some years back, but had been tempted occasionally to start again. ‘Ginger ale, don’t worry.’

  ‘It’s not that. Would you mind if we got out of here and just walked for a bit? I’ve been on the scooter all morning.’

  ‘Sure.’

  The pavement outside the dour hotel was wet from a fleeting shower; a row of ugly red and yellow wheelie bins marred the view across the flagstone square to the river-front reserve. ‘Shall we cut through the park?’

  Mathew nodded. It was all the same to him. They took the signposted cycle track that wound between the giant camphor laurels.

  ‘God, they’re beautiful,’ said Robert.

  Shafts of yellow light pierced the pattern of overlapping leaves. Mathew followed his friend’s gaze and saw the enormous spread of the overhanging canopy, the shivering leaves. He smelt the camphor in the air. ‘Aren’t they supposed to be a noxious weed?’

  ‘It depends who’s looking at them.’

  ‘I’m sorry about the other night. I didn’t realize how late it was when I called,’ said Mathew.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t asleep anyway . . . I have some news, actually. I’ve been offered a position as chaplain in a country school – it’s a permanent posting, semi-retirement, really. It comes with a small house.’

  ‘That sounds good.’

  ‘It’s a long way up north, past Atherton.’

  Mathew was shocked, but tried not to show it. ‘I’m really pleased for you,’ he said, but his voice was flat.

  ‘I’m looking forward to it, and the job, of course, is a sinecure, but I’ll be working with young people, which will be quite rewarding, I think. As I get older, the thought of having a place of my own to potter about in is very appealing.’

  ‘Yeah, right. You deserve a bit of sunshine, Robert.’

  ‘Maybe you can visit me up there sometime.’

  Mathew looked at him doubtfully.

  ‘I mean it. I hope you will.’

  ‘I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment.’

  ‘And you can call me anytime . . . There’s a new guy down at St Andrews. He’s young but good.’

  ‘Please . . . Robert, you don’t have to worry about me. And don’t feel guilty about living your life. When do you go?’

  ‘In a few weeks. I made the decision today. You were one of the first people I wanted to tell.’

  A bell tinkled. A young cyclist swerved around them and onto the path ahead.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Robert. I’ll be all right.’

  Chemistry

  ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth . . .’

  Geoffrey, 2008

  Through the carriage window Geoffrey could make out the sign for Thornleigh. T
wo more stops and he’d be in Headlands. He put his feet up on the opposite seat and stared out at the shale-edged slopes that banked the railway line, the creosoted stones, and the rear yards of the faceless houses, as they shunted past.

  At Headlands a bus took him through unfamiliar streets, along a battered promenade lined with Norfolk Island pines, their needles browned and burnt by spray from a polluted sea.

  When the bus stopped at the clifftop lookout he got off and passed through the gateway of the cemetery, climbing a path through the grounds, beside sparse rows of slumped and broken early-settlement headstones. Among the lines a small fluted one caught his eye. He stopped to read the inscription. The engraved lettering was worn smooth by years of sandblasting from the buffeting winds. He ran his finger across the depressions that spelt out the few remaining words. ‘Sarah . . . beloved . . . of . . . 1883–1890. Drowned.’

  Moving towards the more ostentatious monuments on the brow of the headland, he came to the sombre polished-granite and terrazzo stones at the heart of the cemetery. The graves in this section were littered with modern funerary dross – plastic posies, laminated photographs, stuffed toys and foil balloons. Beside a gleaming black obelisk, dedicated to a ‘Beloved Mother and Grandmother’, he found what he was looking for: a simple white stone bearing the short inscription ‘Adam Paul Simpson. In God’s care. 1979–2000.’ At the base of the stone lay the remains of a dried-flower arrangement. Next to it, weighed down with a heavy stone, was a stuffed red love heart, embroidered with the words ‘In my heart always, Olivia’. A token from the half-sister Geoffrey had never met. Where was she now? Another casualty.

  He sat down and leant back against the cold stone. Below the slope of the cemetery an implacable ocean rose and fell against the rocks. He had wanted to come here to see for himself the reality of his brother’s annihilation. Here, beneath the ground, lay one relative he could safely visit in a strange confirmation of his survival. Further proof that it was all wrong, that there was no justice. It wasn’t fair.