We never mentioned it again.
I assume he made the same call to Simon, and I can only guess that Simon would have responded a little more sympathetically than I had. He, too, would have been uncomfortable with Bernard’s outburst, but at the least, he would have listened without judging.
Sometimes when I am visiting Vi, when I am sitting with her on the couch, or sorting her papers, Simon comes home. He stands, bulky in the doorway, and for a moment he does not know whether to come in or whether to go straight to his room.
Hi, he says, and he seems about to take a step towards us, but then he changes his mind.
I can see the hesitation on his face and I know why he falters.
He wonders whether we have been talking about Evie again.
He scratches his hand nervously and he turns to the stairs, and I know he must fear the places to which our talk could lead.
To Candelo.
To Mitchell.
And to the funeral that neither of us has mentioned since our return.
fourteen
Vi never told us what she knew about Mitchell. What was in the files. The few scraps of information she gave us, coupled with the little that he said, comprised the sum total of all I knew.
He was sixteen. He had been to four foster homes. He had never finished school. He sleepwalked. His family was poor. He wanted to surf. And he wanted to be in a band.
With the broom handle in one hand, he winked at Evie and started to sing. Badly. She wrinkled up her nose and blocked her ears.
You sound terrible, she told him.
He looked at us. Even Simon shook his head in acknowledgement. Maybe you could learn an instrument, he suggested.
Or use it to sweep, and I pointed at the broom handle, now clutched in his hands like a guitar.
He followed me into the lounge room, still singing, leaving Simon and Evie in the kitchen.
The room was even more of a mess in daylight, the curtains hanging by two or three hooks, the fabric torn and soiled, the chairs covered in sheets thick with dust, the paint peeling off the walls and the fireplace piled high with rubbish.
With my sleeve, I rubbed a circle in the dirt that coated the window and looked out over the garden, the fruit trees, the remains of an old well now choked with weeds, and the cypress trees marking the border between what had once been carefully cultivated and what lay beyond. In the distance, I could see the miles of rolling paddocks, not smooth, but punctuated by boulders, lichen-covered and erupting out of the earth, the stark silhouettes of streaky gums, and beyond that the grey-blue of the mountains, the snow country.
It was the stillness that was strange. I forced the window up. Nothing. Just the soft rush of the wind across the grass.
And I leant out and listened.
Can you hear? I asked Mitchell.
The quiet?
And we both stayed there, our elbows resting on the sill, not wanting to move, not wanting to break the silence.
But it didn’t last. From across the courtyard, Vi began to type, the keys clattering as she wrote, followed by a long pause before she started again. In the stillness of the morning, the sound was clear, carrying through the French doors which were open wide to let in the light.
What’s she doing? Mitchell asked. He lifted one of the dust sheets gingerly, uncertain as to what he would find beneath it.
I told him she was writing a paper.
What about?
I didn’t know. Welfare, domestic violence, youth crime. I shrugged my shoulders.
What for?
And I couldn’t answer him. It’s what she does.
He whipped another sheet off a chair, this time with a flourish, the dust floating high and then falling.
Ever been to jail? I asked him, not sure how he would react but wanting to show him that he couldn’t intimidate me. No matter what he said.
He lit a Winfield and sat on the window ledge.
What do you reckon?
I told him I thought he was too young.
I’ve been around. He grinned again, white teeth in a brown face. In the brightness of the light, I could see the scar on his knuckle more clearly. Smooth and white across his finger.
So why don’t you live with your family? I asked.
He flicked the ash onto the floor.
Who says I don’t?
Well, what are you doing with us?
Fucked if I know.
I was smiling before I could stop myself.
He offered me a cigarette.
Not wanting to tell him I didn’t smoke, I took one. He lit it for me, leaning close, forcing me to step back.
I must have gone purple with trying not to choke, the smoke billowing out from my mouth, my nose, my ears, until I was coughing and spluttering in front of him.
He laughed.
This is how you do it, and he drew back, slowly, holding it in, holding it in, finally letting out a series of perfect smoke rings.
I was dizzy. Nauseous and reeling. But I persisted.
So where do you live? I asked him, in between sporadic fits of coughing.
Depends, and he butted out his cigarette, flicking it across the verandah. Sometimes with foster parents. Sometimes in a home. Sometimes on me own.
I started sweeping. My mouth tasted dry and foul, and I was concentrating on not being sick. He still hadn’t moved. Leaning against the window frame, his back warm in the sun, watching me.
You know, and his voice was slow and lazy, you’ve got pretty good legs. Nice tan. Not bad.
And despite the fact that I was secretly pleased by what he had said, I glared at him.
You know, I said. Your dick isn’t bad either. Pity you wear it on your shoulders.
He ignored me.
He looked out again at the sharp clarity of the sky above the bleached grass before slowly letting himself down from the window ledge, his gaze still fixed somewhere out beyond the garden.
I kicked the dustpan and broom towards him.
Reckon we should get this done and get down to the beach, he said. But he didn’t move from where he was, standing there, staring out the window, seemingly mesmerised by what lay beyond. Miles of space. An emptiness he had probably never seen before.
I turned my back to him and went on with the sweeping. And because I was looking down, I didn’t see. I just heard.
His sudden shout, loud and clear, legs disappearing over the sill as I turned around and dropped the broom, clattering at my feet. Scrambling over the verandah wall, running fast across the garden, long thick grass, towards her, Evie.
She liked to pretend she was pregnant.
I remember.
She would stuff clothes, cushions up her shirt and walk around like that all day, careful of her baby.
That was how I saw her, her pillows supported with one hand, a long stick in the other, the red of her shirt startling against the golden grass and cobalt sky. And as he hurtled towards her, she dropped everything, her mouth in a wide scream as he scooped her up in his arms. So fast it was still. Just the brilliance of those colours. That is how I see it all.
Still.
Just that image.
No sound at first. And then slowly, the breeze in the cypresses, the slap of Mitchell’s thongs on the stairs as he carried her up towards us, Simon and me. And Evie’s scream.
It was a snake.
I still don’t understand how he had managed to see it from the house. But he had. Thick and oily, rearing up towards her, while she prodded it away with her stick. Coiled in the long grass.
And as Evie continued to scream, Vi came out from her room, papers clutched in one hand, reaching for Evie with the other; she seized her out of Mitchell’s hold, and she wanted to know what had happened.
Somewhere in the distance, a crow cawed.
We all waited for the explanation.
But it wasn’t him who told us.
It was Evie. Still sobbing as she described the snake.
Mitchell nod
ded in agreement. So I ran and grabbed her, he said.
And it was me who backed him up. So quick I didn’t know what was happening.
Vi put Evie down, her glasses dropping to the ground as she bent low. I watched as she reached to pick them up, thin fingers brushing Mitchell’s hand as he, too, tried to retrieve them.
I had seen the alarm on her face, the fear when she had first come out to find Mitchell holding Evie. A flicker. A moment. But enough.
She was embarrassed.
So was he.
She thanked him as he gave the glasses back to her. She thanked him again as he went back down into the garden to pick up the trail of Evie’s pillows and helped her stuff them back into her shirt.
And over lunch she told him she would think about him taking the car into town to do the shopping.
And to the beach? Simon asked, his open mouth full of food as he waited for her response.
Maybe, she said. As long as you’re careful, and she looked at Mitchell, who nodded, solemnly.
Wouldn’t be anything but, he promised.
fifteen
Despite the fact that so many girls were interested in Simon, there was only ever one who went out with him.
Rebecca Hickson.
Thirteen years old, tall, blonde, captain of the softball and netball teams, popular, and always certain of getting her own way; she cornered me outside the canteen and told me that she liked my brother.
So? With my arms folded across my chest, I stared back at her.
I want to go to the Saturday dance with him.
Well, ask him, and I moved to push past her, but she put her hand firmly on mine, the chain of her charm bracelet cold against my wrist.
I have, and her stare was cool as she repeated Simon’s words, as she told me that he didn’t want to go.
Well, there’s your answer, but as I spoke I knew there was more to this than I had at first realised, that I was not going to be allowed to leave so easily.
I want you to change his mind, and with her hand still on mine, her body still barring my way, she told me that I had until Friday. I had to get Simon to agree or she would make it known that I was the one who broke into the chemistry lab.
There was no point in telling her that I had never done anything of the kind. Rebecca Hickson’s powers, coupled with my reputation, were such that she would be believed. Despite the fact that she was lying.
And knowing I had no choice, I begged Simon to go to the dance with her.
I pleaded with him.
I don’t like those things, and he did not lift his gaze from the television as I told him that that wasn’t the point. The point was that she would make my life hell. The point was that it was only a small sacrifice. To save his sister. To save me.
Eventually he agreed. And on Friday, at three o’clock, he told her he had changed his mind.
I remember seeing the triumph on her face, the sheer satisfaction at having got what she wanted, what she had been denied. It did not matter that Simon left her as soon as they arrived, that he spent the night sitting outside watching Michael Arnold get so drunk that he took all his clothes off and danced naked under the flagpole; all that mattered was that she had said she was going with Simon and she had.
Anton was waiting awkwardly just inside my flat, a pool of water at his feet, dark on the floorboards, seeping into the edge of the rug, and as I looked at him, I wished I hadn’t asked him to come in.
I wished I didn’t have to say what I had to say.
The rain was heavy now. Loud and relentless. I knew I would need to put pots out to catch the drips from all the spots in the ceiling that leaked in downpours such as this, but I would do it later.
As we stood opposite each other, uncomfortable and without words, I remembered my determination in pursuing him and I could not help but wonder whether I deserved the situation in which I had found myself.
Because I had been determined.
Each morning, I would wake early, and extricate myself, limb by limb, from the heaviness of Marco’s body.
Don’t go, and, half asleep, he would try to pull me back down into the tight grip of his arms.
But I was gone.
Bare feet on bare boards, bathers still damp from the day before, I would close the door behind me and step out into the freshness of the day, the brilliance of the blue sky, blue sea and the first of the morning glory, opening purple and full to the sun.
The stairs that lead down to the beach are cracked and the path they make is overgrown. Thick, glossy mirror bush blocks out the light; dark, secret caves beneath their branches. I always stand at the top, still for a moment, and look out to the ocean. On the days when it is flat, I swim the bay; when it is rough, with king tides that sweep up to the rocks below the cliff path, I go to the pool.
And this was how we got to know each other.
I would find myself waiting, there at the top of the stairs, until I heard him coming up behind me. Setting it all in place, knowing what I wanted right from the start. Manoeuvring, piece by piece, until it was there in front of me. Anton smiling as he found me each morning waiting in the same spot, flicking me with his towel as he came down the stairs to stand next to me, asking me what it was going to be: The pool or the sea for you and me?
It was only later that I marvelled at how I failed to think of the others, at how determined I was, and when I do that, I remember Rebecca Hickson’s face, and I feel ashamed. I look at myself in the mirror, and I tell myself that Anton was no Simon, dragged there against his will and refusing to participate. Despite what he would say.
But it doesn’t always work.
As he stood there at my front door with his washing bundled in his arms, a peg still caught on the sleeve of a T-shirt, we could not look at each other.
I can’t stay, he said, uncertain as to why I had called him in the first place, glancing nervously up to the ceiling, up to where Louise was waiting.
I know, and I moved to close the door.
I could see the rain rushing in torrents down the path and I knew that when it finally eased, the back steps would be sagging, rotting further; the rust that eats away at everything in this building would have crept a little higher into the pipes, and the paint on the walls would have peeled a little more. Slowly decaying around us.
I was pregnant.
And I felt like a fool as I told him.
It was Marco who once described Anton as something of a used-car salesman. All charm and no substance.
It was a comment that made me wonder how much he guessed. It was a comment that I did not want to remember as I stood there opposite him, knowing that he was going to fail me.
Are you sure? he finally asked, still not looking up at me.
I told him I was.
That it was me? The ugliness of his words crossing mine.
And as the impact of what he said hit me, I knew that if I had been another person, a third person who had walked in out of the rain and stood there at my front door, listening to this, I might have felt for him, I might have understood why he said what he said, but I didn’t.
All I could do was hate him.
And wonder how I had ever fallen for him.
Don’t be afraid of single-minded pursuit, Vi used to say, and she would look at me, checking to see whether I was listening.
So long as what you want is a good thing.
And I would roll my eyes at the impossibility of her addendum.
And so long as you can be certain of . . . and she would pause, for one instant, perhaps for dramatic effect, perhaps to make sure that I was paying attention.
Of what? I would ask, impatiently.
Of what you are going to find at the end.
I turned to the sink, to the pile of dirty dishes, and as I let the tap run, he reached for my hand, but I pulled away.
Please, he said, don’t tell her, and he glanced up to the ceiling again, to where the telephone rang, to where a chair scraped overhead, to where foo
tsteps clattered across the room, to where Louise leant out the window to see where he was, to see what had happened to him.
What happens, I asked him, if I want to go ahead, if I want to do this?
The window slammed closed above us.
We could hear her, walking down the corridor, to the front door, and in Anton’s eyes there was only fear.
But you can’t, his words a whisper, her footsteps on the landing, on the stairs, as he looked at me.
I don’t know what I want, I said, the tap still running as he tried to tell me he was sorry.
But it was too late.
We could hear her knocking on the door, and as he spoke to me, he also called out to her, telling her that he was coming, not knowing whether to open it and let her in, not knowing whether to leave her or to leave me.
It is not as though he behaved in a way I hadn’t expected, I told Lizzie later. I knew what he was like, and I looked away.
I knew what he was like. But I had hoped for more.
I have to go, he said. I am sorry, he said. We will talk, he said. But his face said only one thing.
I didn’t want this either. My voice was low as he opened the door to Louise, standing there in the rain, not knowing why she had been left to wait; the rain coursing down her hair, soaking into her shirt.
Telephone, she said, not looking at me, just looking at him.
I’d better run, he said, but not to either of us, to no one in particular, and as he turned to the stairs, as he disappeared from sight, she stayed where she was.
I didn’t move. There against the sink, with her at the entrance to my flat.
Are you okay? she asked, and I told her I was.
Just a bit of family trouble, and, as if on cue, I knocked the answering machine, replaying Mari’s message asking me to call her. I reached for the stop button, but it was too late. The message had played out.
Well, she said, I suppose I’d better go too.
But she waited, just for a moment, neither of us speaking, and as I watched the rain falling behind her, I wondered whether she knew.
Because it was possible we had all been lying. Not just he and I. But all of us.
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