Dylan’s heard the possum moving, though. Tim sees him glance over his shoulder, then he takes another look that lasts longer. Then he’s staring across the bare concrete towards Tim.
‘What?’
Dylan doesn’t answer. Looks again at the cage where the unhappy occupant has gone still. Whatever Dylan’s thinking, it’s got something to do with that possum. Tim feels the muscles of his stomach contract, although he doesn’t quite know why. The tension doubles when Dylan moves to stand over the cage.
‘That mannequin was just a lump of plastic. This possum is alive.’
‘No, I couldn’t.’
Dylan picks up the cage and carries it to the middle of the garage. ‘If you can’t kill the possum, you’ll never kill Cartwright.’
Tim wants to argue with him but he can’t. Dylan’s right.
‘Too hard to get at in the cage,’ says Dylan, considering the practicalities. ‘And a sack’s no good ’cause you have to be able to see it.’
He walks to an old wardrobe pressed against the broken sheet of fibro. The doors creak open and he begins to rummage around, going from shelf to shelf, pulling out odd items then tossing them aside until finally he comes across a bundle of rags inside a fishnet of bright orange plastic.
‘Mum used to buy oranges in these,’ says Dylan, obviously pleased with himself.
It’s not until the rags are dumped to one side that Tim realises it’s the fishnet bag that Dylan wants to use. Despite his rising terror, he helps to force the struggling creature from the cage into the old fruit bag until Dylan manages to tie the opening shut.
‘I c…can’t,’ he says when it’s done.
‘You have to, Tim. Cartwright’s not made of plastic. He’s alive like this possum and you’re going to kill him. That’s what we’re here for, ’cause there’s no other way to stop what he’s doing to your family.’
Tim looks down at the frightened creature as it squirms frantically, unable to stand, unable to make sense of its constraints. ‘But I don’t hate this possum.’
‘You didn’t hate the mannequin.’
‘Yes I did. It was Ian. I could see his face, I could smell him.’
‘Then pretend the possum is Ian as well.’
That’s the key. He has to hate this possum as much as he hated the mannequin, he has to turn it into Ian Cartwright. But even as he tries to convince himself, he starts to feel the ache in his muscles from last time. They aren’t just tired, he realises, they’re at peace. Smashing the dummy has drained the hatred from him.
He wishes Dylan would understand but the guy’s gone into overdrive, spilling words the way Tim rained blows onto the helpless dummy.
‘You can do it, Tim. Think of your mum, think of what he nearly did to Kirsty. Think of how he torments you, makes you stutter, makes you hurt yourself.’
Tim’s head snaps up. What’s he doing? How can he say something like that?
Dylan’s not about to back off, though. ‘You think I can’t see those scabs on your arms? You think I don’t know how they got there!’
Tim takes one hand away from the pipe to hide the scars inside the other arm.
‘No use hiding them. Cartwright’s seen them, you can be sure of that. I’ll bet he looks for them every Sunday to see what he’s made you do to yourself. He’d have a good laugh at the way you trashed your room.’
The anger is rising in Tim again. He’s furious with Dylan but he’s even more angry with Ian Cartwright.
‘Do it, kill the possum,’ Dylan urges.
Tim lets the rage take hold of him and returning his free hand to the length of pipe, he raises it above his head and finally brings his eyes into focus on the target. Sees it wriggling, breathing, sees its frightened eyes reflecting light from the single window. They glisten with life. They are Ian’s eyes, he tells himself and starts the downward sweep.
But it’s no use. His mind won’t accept it and at the last moment, he swings the deadly pipe wide. The possum jumps in fright when the metal gouges into the concrete close by its head, but it’s unharmed. Tim drops the weapon and runs out into the innocent afternoon air.
Dylan sees how it’s going to be
Dylan stares at the open door of the garage while shame rushes through him. He’d gone too far, goading Tim about the wounds on his arms. He’d done it deliberately to get him riled up so he’d kill the possum but now he feels like a bully. Was he any better than Cartwright?
He heads into the fading light of the backyard. ‘Tim, Tim!’ A forlorn figure sits on the grass under the clothes line with his knees tucked up tightly to his chest and his arms wrapped around them.
‘I’m sorry,’ Dylan says lamely as he sinks down beside him.
‘No, no, you were right. The dummy wasn’t enough. That was just hate. To kill like that, you have to let go of something inside. I don’t know what it is. Not conscience, there’s some other name for it. I don’t care about that possum but I couldn’t kill it, not while it was moving around, trying to stay alive, not while I could look into its eyes. Why, Dylan, why couldn’t I do it? Oh Christ, I’m so tired of being a weak piece of shit.’
‘Don’t say that, don’t ever say that about yourself, okay! It’s what Cartwright called you. I heard him the day I was there. He’s said it so often you believe him.’
Tim hugs his knees even tighter and after resisting for a few moments, nods his head in tiny movements up and down, his eyes closed so he doesn’t have to witness his own shame. He stops after a few seconds and they remain silent for a long time.
It’s over then, Dylan thinks to himself, this madness that’s gripped them. And it is madness, isn’t it? To kill a guy, to beat his brains out. It had seemed so easy to imagine, but impossible once you faced the hard facts. He smiles grimly to himself. Not the facts of life, but the facts of death. Ha, Ha!
He thinks ahead, to when Tim’s gone. He’ll need the straw broom from the kitchen cupboard and he’ll have to get rid of the body before his mother comes home. He smiles again at this. Get rid of the body! Yeah, good one.
The long silence continues until Tim says into the space between his knees, ‘When I trashed my room the other night, I was fighting Ian.’
‘What are you talking about? He was gone by then.’
‘Yeah, I know he was gone but I was still fighting him in my head, pushing him away, stopping him. It was what I couldn’t do when he had hold of me. He’s too strong. In my room it was easier to act out, but I’m just no good at the violent stuff, Dylan. You’re right about what happened in there.’ He waves vaguely over his shoulder towards the creaking garage. ‘There’s no way I could smash Ian over the head with a frying pan or a bit of old pipe. It’s too… close up. We’ll have to come up with something different.’
Oh shit! ‘So you still want to kill him?’ says Dylan.
‘There’s no other way he’ll leave us alone. It’s like you said on the phone. Kirsty wants to wait him out but that’s chicken shit. Pathetic. We’ve got to do something. What about a gun?’ he says suddenly, lifting his head to look Dylan in the face for the first time since he’d fled from the old garage.
Dylan considers the suggestion calmly, critically. It’s just words, after all. It’s not like he’s committing himself. ‘You wouldn’t have to get close. He couldn’t stop you like he would with a knife of a bit of pipe. More sort of remote, be like a video game.’
‘That’d be better.’
‘Where would you get one, though?’ says Dylan, practical as ever. ‘You’re too young to buy one. Besides, if you use your own gun to shoot someone, you might as well pin a confession to the body because there’ll be a trail of evidence leading straight to you. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life behind bars.’
‘Wouldn’t mind, as long as Ian couldn’t bother us any more. Mum’d be safe at least, and Melanie.’
Dylan doesn’t doubt the sincerity. It’s the deep sadness in Tim’s voice that troubles him. ‘Yeah, well, you’re not goin
g to get your hands on a gun, so I guess you’ll have to stay a free man,’ he says, trying to lighten them up a bit.
There’s more silence beneath the clothes line while they take this in. Then Tim pushes his legs out straight and props his arms back to support his shoulders. ‘What about Patrick Brady?’
‘Who’s he?’
‘A guy at school,’ Tim answers, and he turns fully towards Dylan this time, his face flushed and enthusiastic. ‘Brags nonstop about all the hunting he does with his father. They’ve got three rifles at home, according to him, anyway.’
‘So what are you going to do, ask to borrow one?’
‘Steal it,’ says Tim.
Dylan stifles a laugh. ‘How are your burglary skills? Anyway, there are rules now about keeping guns in the house. Have to keep them locked up in some kind of box with the ammunition in another country or something.’
Tim curses under his breath in frustration. ‘You’re right, I remember when they brought in those rules. Mum was still married to Ian then. They had a huge argument over his twenty-two.’
‘The rifle kind of twenty-two? You mean Cartwright’s got a gun?’
‘Yeah, Mum said he had to get rid of it, because of us kids, but he wouldn’t, of course. Wouldn’t even register it like you’re supposed to. Said it was just a rabbit gun and if he declared it, he’d have to spend money on all that security you were talking about.’ Tim chuckles suddenly, with his eyes turned away towards the sinking sun.
‘What so funny?’ Dylan wants to know.
‘Oh, just Ian and what he did with the twenty-two. He was worried Mum would hand it in to the police behind his back, so he told her he got rid of it.’
‘But he didn’t.’
‘No, just kept the bloody thing out of sight. The joke is, I saw him hide it. He climbed up through the manhole into the ceiling and put it along the rafters.’
They smile at the man’s stupidity. Dylan is still enjoying the joke when Tim springs to his feet beside him, almost tangling his head in the clothes line. ‘That rifle. It’s perfect!’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Ian’s twenty-two. The only one it can be traced back to is Ian himself.’
‘You’re thinking he might have left it up in the ceiling?’
‘No, I’ve been up there myself since then, putting buckets where the roof leaks. Didn’t see it. He must have taken it with him. Be at his new place, I suppose. Could even be in the same spot, up there in his roof.’
‘So you’re back to being a burglar.’
‘Be worth a try, though. His place is down an easement, too. The other houses aren’t close, like here.’ He waves his hands towards the Kanes’ neighbours. ‘You’ll help me, right?’
When Dylan had brought Tim home half an hour ago, he’d been in control. Now Tim was leading them places he wasn’t so sure about. It was one thing to smash up an old mannequin that reminded Dylan of his father, but a gun, a real gun. His reluctance quickly turns into an awkward silence. ‘This whole thing… I don’t know, Tim. Listen to us, for Christ’s sake! We’re sitting here in my backyard talking about murder.’
‘I’m the one talking about murder,’ says Tim. ‘All you’ve got to do is help me break into Ian’s house.’
‘Like I’m an expert.’
‘I’ll need help, that’s what I’m saying.’
Need help! You’ll need more than that, Dylan wants to shout, because he’s become certain of one thing this afternoon. If Tim couldn’t kill the possum then there’s no way he can kill a human being. All this talk of a gun, being sort of remote like a computer game - it’s all bullshit. Even if he did get his hands on Cartwright’s rife, his nerve would break at the last moment.
Tim stays in front of him, arms outstretched, pleading like some figure in a painting. Have mercy. Help me.
‘Forget it, Tim, forget the whole bloody thing.’
‘You mean that’s it! You bring me here to your place, you get me to smash up that dummy, like it’s the real thing and now you want me to piss off? I thought you were in on this, I thought you were one of us, like Kirsty and me. Some friend you are. That whole possum thing, that was so you could laugh at me, wasn’t it.’
‘No, of course not. It was supposed to be like a trial run or something. I don’t know. I’m sorry I even thought of it now.’
‘And I’m s…s…sorry I came here, too. Now I’ve got to go home and wait for Ian to come round next Sunday, got to watch what he does to my m…m…mother.’
The stuttered words pierce Dylan’s chest like bullets. He may not be a Beal but he bleeds all the same. Still seated under the clothes line he watches Tim trudge away along the broken concrete path and around the corner of the house, his slim shoulders slumped forward in dejection.
The guy is so angry, so desperate, but he couldn’t kill the possum. Someone else would have to do it for him. Someone else.
A black fog begins to swirl around Dylan. He drops his head onto his knees to shield himself from its chill. Yet even as he shivers, he can feel a heat that’s been burning in his gut since the day he met Ian Cartwright and this scares him even more. He doesn’t dare think about what it is or what it might make him do.
12
Dylan is late with an assignment
‘Where you been, mate? Hardly seen you,’ says Jarrod McLean when coincidence brings them face to face at the school gate.
‘What are you talking about? I’ve been here every day. Jorgensen thinks I’m a model student.’
‘Yeah your body’s here, maybe, but I don’t know about up here,’ says Jarrod who reaches suddenly towards Dylan’s forehead.
Dylan slaps his hand away with more force than he needs to.
‘Hey, easy, man. Just a joke. All I’m saying is that science thing’s getting close. Are we doing it together or not?’
‘Shit, I forgot.’
‘Well, I didn’t pick you for my partner ’cause of your charm and good looks, eh.’
‘Sorry, I’ve been a bit busy.’
Jarrod sways his shoulders back and makes a face. ‘Yeah, that Beal chick’s really got her hooks into you. You’re waiting for her right now, aren’t you.’
‘Piss off.’
‘There you go again. Just pulling your chain. The guys and me have noticed, that’s all. Look, if you want to see how far you can get up her skirt, that’s fine, just don’t forget your mates, okay.’
‘It’s not going to be so full-on any more. I’ll see what I can do with the science.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ Jarrod walks off into the school yard with his hands in his pockets, just as Dylan would do.
Kirsty needs a new bikini
Kirsty finds Dylan waiting for her when she gets off the bus on Thursday morning. He waves, calls to her to make sure she sees him, but at the same time he’s looking past her.
‘Tim’s not coming,’ she tells him. ‘Jorgensen’s going to freak. Might even send around the child welfare to see Mum.’ As if she needs that on top of everything else. Out loud, she tries to explain, ‘He didn’t come home until nine o’clock last night.’
‘Did he say where he’d been?’
‘No, just said he’d been walking round the streets and when Mum didn’t believe him, he started shouting at her, at all of us. He’s cracking up, Dylan. I don’t even know if I should have left him at home by himself.’
He gives her a look that shows he’s understood exactly what she means, doubling the weight she feels in her stomach just thinking about it. She wonders, for the tenth time since leaving home, whether she should hurry back there instead. But she’s spent Monday and Tuesday watching her mother for the same reason, and the fact is, she can’t bear to spend another day staring at such misery.
‘I’m wearing out, Dylan,’ she says. She hopes he will put his arms around her tenderly. That’s what she needs.
Dylan doesn’t move towards her. Instead, he half turns away and shoves his hands deep into his pockets. Kirs
ty’s the one who moves, putting her hand gently on his shoulder and saying the words she’d hoped he would say to her. ‘It’ll be all right. You’ll see.’
The bell calls them all into class but at morning recess there is no sign of Dylan, not even beneath the old gum tree. At lunch time she looks for him again but is found instead by Chloe, who has news.
‘My place on Sunday. We’re editing a video for Ms Lehane. Alana, Rachael and Phoebe and you too if you want to come.’
It’s her group. Of course she wants to come.
‘Great, bring your swimmers,’ Chloe commands.
Kirsty begins to fret. What will she wear? And her bikini is so old. Oh, to hell with it. She doesn’t need more worries, not after a week like this. Just go and have fun, she tells herself.
Dylan notices something about Mr Jorgensen’s skin
Dylan doesn’t sleep on Thursday night. Can’t wait for dawn. He rushes to school on Friday morning hoping to find Tim under the gum tree. Who’s he kidding? Did he really expect him to turn up at school when nothing had changed?
Jorgensen stops him in the yard. ‘Look, you’re mates with the Beals, aren’t you, Dylan? Do you know what’s going on there? Tim’s managed to grace us with his presence once so far this week, which is about his average, come to think of it, but Kirsty’s usually better than this. Two days on, three days off. Sounds like a roster to me. She’s not going to do a bunk on us, is she, and go full time down at Woollies or wherever? Be a shame if she does. Bit of potential there.’
You heartless bastard, Dylan says inside his head. If you knew what was going on inside that family, you wouldn’t be so sarcastic. You’d show a bit of respect, a bit of sympathy. You’d do something!
But Jorgensen doesn’t know. Only Dylan knows. To the teacher he says, ‘Tim’s not very well at the moment. Kirsty’s looking after him.’
What’s that, if it isn’t the truth?
Kill the Possum Page 10