Five Parts Dead

by Tim Pegler

  Why have they been removed? Who took them? And how do I find out what happened to Lily?

  I replace the log and move outside, pausing to look out to sea. The sun is bright overhead and a glint on the memorial plaque below the lighthouse catches my eye. I leave the path and gingerly make my way down the slope until I’m close enough to read it.

  Lily Wilton dec. Aug 1859

  By her own hand, the Lord’s light extinguished.

  TI Historical Society

  No way. I don’t believe it. Lily wouldn’t…She seemed so determined and strong.

  When the others get back from the beach they’re desperate for hot showers. I’m itching to tell Pip about Lily but hold off. I don’t want to look too obsessive.

  Mel must sense my eagerness to get Pip alone. After the showers, she offers to cook dinner, and I ask Pip if she’d like to walk down to the boardwalk. Mum and Dad, with their radar clearly switched off, decide to join us. As we leave the cottage I hear Mel in my head: Bummer. I tried.

  The four of us wander along the path past the lighthouse and onto the wooden staircase built for the tourists who venture west to the Cape. I’m finding it easier to walk without the crutches now, if you can call it walking: lurching like a zombie.

  As is his way, Dad spots something rare, endangered or unusual and beckons the others out onto the rock platform. There’s no way I’m risking more bone breakage to see a starfish or sea slug. I lean against the railing, savouring the afternoon sun.

  The others have moved down to the waterline when I hear footsteps and sense someone behind me. Mel must be finished cooking already. I look over my shoulder but there’s no one. I could have sworn there was someone coming this way.

  Below me, a rogue wave slaps the rocks. Mum and Pip squeal with laughter as Dad, kneeling over a tidal pool, gets a face full of water.

  A teasing wind skids off the sea and scoots past my ears. The hair stands at the back of my neck. There’s got to be someone there. I can feel them. I squint back towards the lighthouse, the setting sun in my eyes. For a second I think there’s someone moving around the lighthouse balcony, then something massive, maybe an albatross, swoops from the tower. I duck, my gaze following its path out to sea. And then I see her. A girl.

  She’s lying face-up among the vicious black rocks at the ocean’s edge, her body twisted in the oil-coloured ribbons of kelp. She’s wide-eyed, her skin as pale as milk. A bruised arm points beyond me, to the lighthouse. I call to Pip and Mum, gesturing frantically for them to save the stranger before the waves snatch her away.

  They look where I’m pointing and frown back at me, confused. I begin to clamber through the railing, my cast dangling, then clunking clumsily onto the rocks. Another wave crunches ashore. Out of the corner of my eye I see Dad leap out of its reach. Why can’t they see her? I lope, then crawl towards the mesh of kelp. The girl is gone.

  I stare at the waves, knowing she couldn’t have been swept away, not without a monster wave, not without passing Pip and Mum. But she’s vanished. How? I teeter upright, scowling back at the lighthouse. As my eyes adjust to the glare, I’m certain there’s someone leaning over the balcony, looking at the ground below.

  Something grabs me from behind. I almost shit myself. There’s a familiar chuckle and Dad grips my arm, pulling me to face him.

  ‘Hey, Dan, you look like you’ve seen a…’

  I don’t hear the end of the sentence. The wind, the waves, Dad’s voice, the council of gulls squabbling are all just white noise. I lunge away from Dad, struggle onto the boardwalk and up to the lighthouse.

  I can’t keep doing this. Seeing and hearing apparitions, stuff that no one else hears or sees. Voices. Dreams. Bodies. Spirits or whatever they are. I don’t even know if I believe in ghosts, but around here…it’s like the ghosts believe in me.

  And then it hits me. The girl—Lily? Maybe it’s like the tarot reader said. Maybe I’m on the threshold and she’s calling me from somewhere on the other side?

  I storm into the lighthouse and up the stairs. Step. Clump. Step. Clump. I. Don’t. Want. To. Be. That. Guy. The weird one. Mr I-See-Dead-People. I can’t.

  Step. Clump. Step. Clump. I rest my elbows on the arm rail, head on my arms, chest straining to pull in enough oxygen. I can’t remember panting like this since the fire.

  That day is seared into my memory like a software fault, triggered every time I’m puffed. It’s happening again, the short, stabbing breaths, the starved lungs. You just don’t appreciate the stuff your body does by itself— basic stuff like breathing—not until systems fail, not until you inhale and everything turns to shit, not until you’re on the brink of death…again. Breathe, Dan, breathe…

  A horse stud on the outskirts of Melbourne. Barney and I are helping the apprentice with a controlled burn of the stubble in two ploughed paddocks. We’re crammed into a Toyota ute with a water tank, a generator, a pump and a hose on the tray, backpack water sprays and a ninety-gallon drum of water and wet Hessian sacks as back-up. The flames are compliant, dawdling north into a whisper of breeze. All too easy.

  Then the wind wakes up surly and the mood of the fire changes. Wiry tussock grasses bow to the east. Clay-coloured eucalyptus leaves skitter across the face of the burn. The flames follow, switching at right angles through a barbed-wire fence.

  The wind spits. The flames obey, marching into an uncleared paddock knee-deep with dry bracken and bordered by forest. Controlled burn, my arse.

  The apprentice slams the ute’s brakes. ‘Go! FerChrists-sakego!’ I gape at him then jump out, snatching a backpack pump and wet sack from the tray. Barney stays in the cabin as they accelerate away, my door swinging open over the blackened soil. There are horses in the bracken paddock. They have to find the gate and get the horses out. Fast.

  I wrestle the backpack over the fence. Fold myself between strands of wire. The pump pack weighs a tonne when it’s full but right now it’s barely noticeable as I slide into the straps. My right hand pumps up the pressure. My left directs the hose. The flames, no longer orderly and ankle-high, sizzle and scoff at the spray. They cavort around me like dancers, leaning, flirting, swirling away.

  I have to stop them before they reach the trees, or the whole hillside will go up. But the pump is doing nothing now—it’s either blocked or out of water. And the other guys are nowhere to be seen. I shrug out of the backpack and swipe at the flames with the sackcloth.

  The wind surges again. The dancers become snarling wolves, encircling me. Beyond the pouncing orange and gold, I can only see a bitumen blue haze.

  It’s time to concede defeat and flee. I take a deep breath and regret it the instant I inhale.

  Smoke. Hot and thick and I’ve gulped it deep into my lungs. My body screams for air, rasping, retching. No thoughts of survival. No time for flashbacks or regrets. The hunger for oxygen eclipses everything else. ‘Air! Air! Air!’ And, somehow, my body takes charge. I’m bounding like a scalded roo through crackling, snapping flames.

  Ten metres, twenty…can’t do this. Not. Without. Air.

  The sackcloth drags behind me, dry and useless. A glowing tree trunk leers ahead. I stumble, veer left, hunched and hopeless.

  Blazing bracken swirls like Catherine wheels. Shrubs hiss. I collide with the stinging wire of the boundary fence and tumble through onto blackened ground.

  V

  T: KEEP CLEAR, ENGAGED IN TRAWLING

  I make it to the lantern room by forcing myself to take deep and slow breaths after each step. There’s no one inside. I hobble out to the balcony and lean forward over the railing. Storm clouds slide east like freeway traffic as I stare at the rocks where I saw the girl. I wait for my breathing to settle—wait and think.

  I think about Carlo, Boris and Aaron, the ringleader I was sick of following. The baby that never got to be born. Lily, who endured so much that she might have reached breaking point.

  Below me, the door opens and slams shut in the wind. Brisk footsteps clatter up the tower. D
ad emerges, ruddy-faced and wary, edging towards me, his back close to the tower wall. For a bloke who likes flying he’s never been great with heights.

  ‘You all right, mate?’

  Pip follows him out, a concerned look on her face, too.

  I give them the best smile I can summon. ‘Yeah. I’m okay. Just had to check something out. Umm, I’d like to go into town tomorrow though, if that’s cool with you guys.’

  Back at the cottage, Mel catches my eye to ensure we’re on the same wavelength. I list against the kitchen doorway, waiting to hear her inside my head. I knew you’d be okay, she tells me, silently. The others are…worried. They think you’ve been through so much and…might not be able to see a way ahead. I told them you’re strong. You’d never do anything to hurt yourself…or anyone else.

  I’m aghast. Scowling, I beam Mel my response. They thought I might jump!? I’d never…I wouldn’t. No way.

  I know that, she answers. But it’s not as clear to them…You haven’t exactly been yourself lately.

  Dinner is awkward, unspoken conversations swirling around us.

  Next morning, I bounce out of bed and harass the others. Come on! Places to go, stuff to sort out.

  Heading in to Donington means driving the length of the island but Mum and Dad don’t mind. On the way I get Dad to translate the Latin from inside the lighthouse. He reckons Lucem Spero Clariorem means ‘I hope for a clearer light.’ I guess that sums up what poor old Captain Wilton was hoping to achieve.

  We drop Mel at a yabbie farm to wait for Hiroshi. She’s happy; she has mobile phone service there and plenty of mainland gossip to catch up on. Pip and I prepare to walk around town.

  I don’t know exactly what we’re looking for. Pip’s going to try the Donington Historical Society. I’m checking out the courthouse. There has to be something about Lily on file, somewhere.

  At the courthouse I step between thick limestone columns onto a verandah peppered with bird shit. Pinned on the maroon double doors is a laminated notice: ‘For enquiries, visit the police station.’

  I go next door to the police station, cross to the counter and ring the bell. A muffled voice replies from behind a frosted window: ‘Be with you in a minute.’ After a few seconds, a constable comes to the counter, swallowing and brushing flakes of pastry from his chin. ‘Sorry, mate. Morning tea. How can I help you?’

  I’m not sure where to start. ‘Umm, I’m doing some research on staff at the Cape Nicolas lighthouse. I wondered if there were any records at the courthouse— anything on accidents or injuries or missing persons… stuff like that?’

  The constable grimaces. ‘I don’t know of anything like that, off the top of my head. Might be some old files out the back, maybe…I’m not really supposed to do this but I’ll get you a key. If you need to photocopy anything you can bring it back here.’ He glances at my crutches and down to the plaster cast. ‘Don’t flog anything, okay? Even with a head start I reckon I’d catch you pretty quick.’

  A mossy brick path along the side of the courthouse leads to a yard with a clothesline, an outside toilet and a shed that looks as though it used to be a lock-up cell. The screen-door to the back verandah isn’t locked. It creaks arthritically as I tug it open. Inside, the key slides into the back door lock like they’ve been missing each other.

  The rear room of the main building is a kitchen. An ashtray cluttered with bent butts rests on a table stained with coffee mug rings. There’s a discarded newspaper on the floor beside the fireplace.

  The next room down the dark hallway is lined with filing cabinets and bookshelves. Dusty leather-bound volumes of legislation cram the shelves. How did people keep track of all this stuff before the Internet? I guess they had to remember it all.

  After wrestling the blind up, I read the labels on the filing cabinets. Dad suggested coronial cases—court enquiries into unexpected deaths—might be the place to begin. The heavy olive files are ordered alphabetically by surname. I thumb through A–G. Hang on, Ewing. That could be one of the penguin men…

  The Ewing file is brief—handwritten notes on a marbled cream page complete with inky blotches.

  Ewing was a survivor of the wreck of the Loch Awe. Last confirmed sighting at Cape Nicolas. Fellow survivor and known associate, Mr Helmut Pierson, stated that he and Ewing left Cape Nicolas en route to Donington but, after exhausting their supplies, separated in search of food.

  Pierson, who is in custody, told the court he ‘found sustenance’ but feared his companion ‘may have been consumed by a beast’ as there were known to be wild pigs in the scrub. Pierson’s sanity is questionable.

  In the absence of a body or any other testimony, Ewing is listed as missing, presumed deceased.

  The penguin men set off together on the stolen horse. Ewing never made it to town but Pierson did. And Pierson must have been arrested. I work down the aisle of magistrates’ records, searching under P.

  Pierson, Helmut

  Convicted of robbery and horse theft. Sentence: four years. Shipped to the mainland for incarceration at Adelaide Gaol.

  The file shows Pierson was caught stealing a chicken from a farm on the outskirts of Donington. He threatened the owner with a knife but was set upon by the farm dog and retreated to the henhouse for refuge. The farmer barred the gate and sent a labourer to summon the police. When they arrived, Pierson was eating the bird, raw.

  He is described as raving, confessing to an ‘unholy appetite for flesh’. The authorities seem dismissive of this claim, simply noting that Pierson is a person of interest in relation to fellow surviving crewmen from the wreck of the Loch Awe, Arthur Ewing (missing, presumed dead) and Samuel Stevenson (murdered).

  Mr Sam, murdered? That must have been the news Captain Llewellyn was keeping from Lily. Or did he tell her? Did the thought of being alone again, or losing yet another loved one, finally break her?

  As for Pierson, how did he make it to Donington when Ewing and Sam didn’t? And if he was prepared to eat dead penguins and raw chicken, what else would he be willing to do for ‘sustenance’ when lost in the scrub? Could he have waited for Sam and killed him before the young sailor could report Pierson’s cowardice at sea?

  There’s a scratching at the window. I turn to see a crow on the sill outside, glaring and pecking at the glass. I wave my arms at it, shooing it away. Undaunted, it taps the pane again before unfolding its wings and shuttling to a fence opposite the window. It stares. I shudder and pull the blind down.

  I return to the coronial cases and pull out the file marked Stevenson, Samuel.

  Stevenson, 18, journeyed on foot from Cape Nicolas, to testify against fellow survivors of the Loch Awe, Ewing and Pierson. Stevenson’s body was found in dunes near Donington. His throat had been cut and there were large chunks of flesh severed from his legs and buttocks. Pierson was arrested and interviewed in relation to the murder but claimed not to have seen Stevenson since departing Cape Nicolas.

  Stevenson’s remains formally identified by Captain Llewellyn from Cape Nicolas light station. The file remains open.

  I find the W files. Wilton, Captain Kenneth Martin. I know how the poor old captain died. It’s his daughter I want to know about. I can’t accept her story ends as the plaque at the lighthouse suggests. The Lily I’ve seen, the weeping young woman, she deserves a happier ending.

  Wilton, Lily. I slide the coroner’s file from the drawer.

  The crow tap taps at the window.

  FA: WILL YOU GIVE ME MY POSITION?

  Pip’s waiting for me in a crowded café in Main Street. She starts speaking before I can pull back a chair. ‘Unbelievable! Uninterested, unhelpful, obstructive, impolite, obstreperous…’

  ‘Wow,’ I smile. ‘Did you swallow a thesaurus?’ She fakes a growl and then bends across the table to kiss me.

  ‘That woman at the Historical Society! I told her what I was looking for and she said I wouldn’t find anything and was wasting my time. When I asked if I could have a look around anyway, she sa
id there wasn’t any point. In the end I stood in front of her and wrote down the name on her badge—Liza Bellows. I told her I was making sure I had the correct spelling to put in my letter of complaint.’

  ‘Bellows! As in the same name as the family from the lighthouse?’

  ‘Yep,’ Pip nods. ‘She must be related. That’s got to explain why she wouldn’t help us. I’ll bet she knows where every single record about Cape Nicolas is kept.’

  As Mum and Dad drive us back to the cottage, I fill Pip in on Lily’s death: ruled by the coroner as ‘by her own hand’. Suicide.

  ‘I still don’t believe it,’ I say. ‘Lily had survived so much already, why would she…’

  ‘Maybe she was …severely depressed.’ Pip pauses. ‘Or maybe she had post-traumatic stress after what happened with her Dad…’

  I squeeze her hand as I shake my head. ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But an illness doesn’t change the fact that Lily was strong, like you. There must be something else.’

  Dinner is fun. Hiroshi and Mel join the rest of us for a picnic at the lookout, where we watch waves batter the cliffs and black-faced shags dive for their supper. Hiroshi is trying to convince Mum and Dad to go bird-watching in Japan. Mel is encouraging them, punting for a chance to travel free and act as interpreter. Pip is quiet, huddled against me. I’m distracted, peering up to the lighthouse and back to the rocks below.

  Tomorrow, I’m going to check the logbook again. Later that night, Pip lies beside me in my room. ‘Why do you think I’m strong?’ she asks, muffled against my chest.

  ‘Lots of reasons,’ I answer. ‘Even before your dad was sick you were always fearless at school. You stood up for whatever you believed was right, even if it wasn’t popular, even when you copped crap from everyone.’ I roll onto my side so I can see her face.