Angel Rock

by Darren Williams

  The earth was still loose from the burial and damp with the recent rain but it still took half the night to reach her. In the early morning it began to pour with rain again and the steep sides of the hole he’d dug began to collapse. Clods of earth fell upon his back and head and his boots sank further and further into the slurry of water and earth at his feet. He stopped and looked above him at the rough circle of slate-grey sky, only a shade lighter than the darkness. The rain ran down his forehead and dripped from his ears and he licked his lips and sucked in what he could to ease his drink thirst. He saw the hole filling and him drowning before he could finish and he moaned and doubled his efforts, the mud clearing the grassy fringes of the grave in long syrupy skeins.

  When he finally heard the spade thud hollowly against wood he dropped to his knees in the pitch-black and sank his hands into the cold soup, tracing the outline of the coffin beneath him. He pulled at the lid but could not clear his own weight sufficiently from it for it to open. He flailed into the side wall of the hole he’d dug and made a space for himself, then put his feet down beside the coffin and forced the tip of the shovel into the join between coffin and lid and began to lever it up. He worked his way along the join as far as his reach extended and prised away until he had a gap between the lid wide enough to get his boot into. He put his hands in under the lid edge and lifted. The extra weight of the mud made it seem as though a grown man were standing upon the lid, but he grunted and strained and, slowly, the board cleared the slop, the catches giving way in a series of muffled cracks. He pulled at the lid until it came off completely and then he heaved it up and out of the hole. He paused, caught his breath, then bent and felt inside the coffin with his fingertips. He found a ridge of material where he thought her head must be and then he felt his way down. He put his hands under her arms and lifted her out, holding her against his chest with his arm across her torso, then edged his way to the foot of the grave. He’d left a steep ramp rather than a sheer wall but it was still a struggle to pull himself up it with one hand and keep hold of her with the other, but he managed—finally—and lay on his back on the grass, panting, thunder rumbling overhead.

  If there were any to shine a light on him when he slithered out of the ground they might have mistaken him for something recently human, recently interred himself, and the beneficiary of some form of resurrection—but there was no one, no witness, no one to even guess at his purpose and no one to testify to what they had seen. He hauled himself up and knelt beside the wet and muddy bundle he’d removed. He leant forward and set his forehead against it.

  “Damsel, I say unto thee, arise,” he whispered.

  He prayed that his breath might be enough for both of them, his heart, but when she didn’t move—not an inch, not a whisker—he began to weep again, his shoulders jerking uncontrollably. Amidst his weeping he realised what the problem was—he had too little faith. The only person he knew with enough was Father Adam. He picked Darcy up and began to walk. She seemed no weight at all in his arms and he carried her to the edge of the timber and stopped there for a moment and looked down across the town. The dozen or so streetlights cast soft yellow blooms in the swirling rain. Empty. A stage with no actors upon it. He stepped in under the cover of the trees and disappeared into the darkness.

  III

  27

  Tom almost dreamt the new day into being; knocking it up out of happier memories that had been waiting patiently to roll to the surface of the dark pool inside his head. The dream day had a clear blue sky and Flynn and Grace were there with him, not lions or fires or darkness or anything else, just Grace in a dress, and Flynn just as he remembered him. They were all holding hands and running on a beach somewhere and he was talking to them both at a mile a minute, making promises, telling them everything he knew and loved and hoped for and Grace was laughing and smiling back at him and little Flynn was just laughing.

  He woke up. He rubbed his eyes and looked out the window for a few minutes, admiring the sky and remembering more of his dream— and then he remembered where he was. A sense of urgency gripped him. In just a few more weeks he’d be back at school. Today seemed like the last chance he’d have to take hold of something—he couldn’t quite say what—before it slipped away, never to return again. Despite what Pop had said about Flynn, Tom didn’t believe he was gone, not today, and not in his heart. He sat up, swung his legs onto the floor, found Ham and picked him up, then went as quietly as he could to the door. He tiptoed up the hall to Henry’s room but he couldn’t see him inside and neither was he sprawled on the couch. He half wondered where he was, but then the thought went from his mind almost as soon as it had come. He went to the bathroom and when he came back he saw the marks on the door where his mother had measured his and Flynn’s heights. He pressed his back against the door and put his finger back against the door and turned round to look where it was.

  “Nearly three inches,” he told Ham.

  Outside, the day that he’d dreamt up was cloudless and already warm. Everything was still wet and dripping from the rain during the night and the air was fresh and clear. Ham stopped at a puddle in the road and lapped at the water.

  As he walked into town the small amount of hope he had for the future made a touch more room for itself and became something more than a feeble voice in the back of his mind. As he passed the ferry the ferrymaster lifted his finger off his pipe and acknowledged him with it, the first time he had ever done so. Tom wondered if he had seen Billy the night before but he didn’t stop to ask. When he reached town Mrs. Coop was standing outside her shop, the breeze lifting her pink-flowered dress. She looked up from under her big straw hat and saw him and waved. He waved back. She held a tin of paint in one hand and a brush in the other. Behind her was the shop’s brand-new title. Heavenly Doilies, it read. He smiled to himself and continued on down to the wrecker’s yard. Billy’s truck was still there but there was no sign of him. He went back up to the ferrymaster’s house and knocked and looked around but there was no sign of him there either. He headed back to town, slightly deflated, but as he walked along the path he sensed something following him. He stopped and looked around. All he could see was the long yellow grass waving gently in eddies of warm air and the sun catching insects as they lit and circled, lit and circled. He opened his mouth to say something but then he closed it again and walked on, fighting down the urge to run.

  When he arrived at the station house he walked up the back-yard path and into the kitchen. Pop and Grace were at the table eating breakfast. Both looked up at him in surprise, Grace with a spoonful of cornflakes halfway to her mouth.

  “Morning, Tom,” said Pop.

  “Morning.”

  “Grace tells me you slept at your place last night.”

  “Ah . . . yeah. That’s right.”

  “Might have been polite to come and tell me.”

  “Yeah,” Tom mumbled. “Sorry.”

  “No harm done,” said Pop. “Though you look like you could do with a good scrub.”

  Tom glanced at Grace and then he set Ham on the floor.

  “Come on,” said Pop, standing. “Come and say good morning to your mum before you wash up.”

  “Is she awake?”

  “She is. Feeling better, she says.”

  He went along the hall to the bedroom his mother was in and peered round the door. Sun was shining in through the window and onto her bed. She looked very pale but she opened her arms when she saw him and gave him a hug when he went to the bedside.

  “My boy,” she said, stroking his hair.

  “You look better, Mum.”

  “I feel better. You’ve been a good boy for Sergeant Mather?”

  “I’ve tried.”

  He held his mother’s hand until her eyelids began to flutter and she fell asleep. He watched her sleeping face intently for a while and then he bent and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Listen,” said Pop, as Tom sat down to breakfast. “I had a call from Ezra Steele last night. He says
he found one of his dogs dead. Have either of you heard anything about it?”

  Grace dropped the cup she was washing and looked round. She thought Tom looked about to spill his guts.

  “Grace?”

  “We didn’t see anything,” she said, looking Pop in the eye. “Isn’t that right, Tom?”

  Tom hesitated, then saw her eyes flash as Pop turned to him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”

  “Well . . . good, then,” said Pop, a touch doubtfully. After looking at them both for a little while he sighed and put on his hat and walked outside.

  “Why couldn’t we just tell him?” Tom whispered across the room.

  “I don’t know. It’s just better. We can’t do anything now. We just have to be quiet about it.”

  Grace continued washing up and Tom went and stood by her and picked up a tea towel. He breathed in her clean, girl smell while trying to look at the bare skin of her arms and shoulders without her noticing.

  “Thanks . . . thanks for telling Pop where I was.”

  “Where were you really?”

  “I was really at my house.”

  “What about Billy? Where’d you go with him?”

  He told her where they’d gone and what they’d talked about and he answered her questions until she was satisfied and all the crockery and cutlery was clean and dried.

  “I didn’t tell Pop about him. I thought you should.”

  “Yeah. I suppose. I’ve already been down to the house this morning. He’s not there.”

  “But you remember the way to the spot?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “But what? What’s the matter? Don’t you want to go back?”

  “Yeah, I do, it’s just . . . I mean . . . I don’t know . . . just not today . . . I’m not ready to find him today.”

  Grace bit her lip and was silent for a few moments.

  “What about tomorrow?” she said, softly.

  “Yeah. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Grace threw the sponge into the sink. “You can come with me, then,” she whispered.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Up to see Mr. Pope. Pop asked me whether I’d ever been up at his house with Darcy.”

  “Had you?”

  “No.”

  Tom nodded, frowning. “Why’d he ask you that?”

  “I don’t know. He said it was nothing important, but he was lying— I know he was.”

  Tom stood up. “I’ll come with you,” he said.

  Grace smiled and pulled an old leather satchel out of a cupboard near the back door. She filled a bottle with water, slipped it into the satchel and slung it over her shoulder.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  They left the station house quickly and quietly and walked down the street towards the crossroads. They didn’t see Sonny Steele in the shade of the milk bar’s awning eating an ice cream—but he saw them. He licked his lips and trotted away in the direction of his house, his entire body suddenly slick with sweat.

  The day remained clear and grew ever hotter, the sky all sapphire and lapis, the light sharp, a fresh snap of eucalyptus in the air and high kites of cloud. The sun hammered down and reclaimed the rain from the earth, and up on the road ahead the heat shimmer quivered like a genie set to appear. It took most of the morning just to clear the valley floor and start the ascent into the hills. Neither of them knew quite how far it was to the Popes’ but neither wanted to ask the other.

  They passed the old Flood house and Grace pointed it out to Tom. He stopped and stared at it.

  “Should we go in and see if Billy’s in there?”

  “You can if you want. I’m not going anywhere near it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s creepy.”

  Tom looked at the blackened boards of the house, the rusting roof, the overgrown house yard and tumbledown outbuildings. He could see what she meant. It had a deserted, lonely look to it and the thought of wandering around it wasn’t very appealing. Grace had already started walking and he had to jog to catch up to her.

  When they reached the track that led down to the dam Grace stopped and pulled the water from the satchel and drank, then handed the bottle to Tom. They could see cars parked just down the track and the faint sounds of splashing and calling.

  “Do you want to go have a look?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  They walked down and sat at the top of the broad stretch of grass that went right to the water’s edge. There were a lot of people in swimming, and more sprawled on the shore and the grass.

  “Feel like a swim?” Tom asked.

  “No. Not while everybody’s there.”

  Tom nodded and looked out along the curving dam wall to the thickly timbered slopes on the far side of the reservoir.

  “This is where Billy’s sister drowned,” he said.

  Grace shivered. “I wouldn’t swim in there. I don’t like the deep water.”

  Tom agreed that the water did look dark and forbidding, despite the full sun.

  “Come on,” he said, getting to his feet, “we can go further up. We can fill up the bottle.”

  There was a track leading away from the clearing and they took it. It was cooler in under the trees but the steepness of the track slowed them down and by the time the track meandered its way back down to the creekside they were even hotter and sweatier than they had been before. Tom suddenly put his hand on Grace’s arm and his finger to his lips. A girl and boy were standing in the creek kissing. The boy had what Henry always referred to as an axe-handle. When he saw it Tom looked away, embarrassed, but Grace, with a glitter of mischief in her eye, picked up a rock and threw it down in their direction. The rock plocked into the water behind them and made them both jump. The boy looked about wildly until he spotted them.

  “Hey!” he yelled.

  “Come on!” Grace spluttered, snorting, dragging Tom back.

  “What’d you do that for?”

  “I don’t know! Don’t be such a spoilsport!”

  “I . . . I’m not . . .”

  “Come on!” she said, grabbing his hand.

  He followed her away through the trees until they were sure the couple weren’t behind them. The track continued alongside the creekbed and finally came to a halt at a quiet tree-lined pool. Grace went to the edge and stood looking at the water.

  “This is more like it,” she said.

  Tom looked at the top of her back, the crest of backbone there like some ancient totem embedded. He saw the swell of her hips beneath the pale-green fabric of her dress. Abruptly, he put Ham down on the ground and took off his shirt. He went round to the deeper part of the pool and slid into the water, savouring the cool shock to his system. He swam around, watching Grace out of the corner of his eye. She sat down on the rocky bank and took off her sandals, then let her dusty feet down into the water. He caught a glimpse of her white underwear and the pale skin at the top of her thighs. He took a breath and ducked under the water, trying to stay down as long as he could, the strange echoing sound of the waterfall drowning out his thoughts. When his breath gave out he went to the side and clambered out. He sat on the rock edge, dripping and trying not to look at her.

  “Maybe I should jump off the top there,” he said, finally, indicating a rocky overhang on the other side of the creek.

  “What for?”

  Tom shrugged his shoulders.

  “You don’t have to prove how brave you are.”

  “I’m not very brave.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “If I am then you are too.”

  “No, I’m not.” Grace laughed.

  “I saw you at the circus. That was brave. Coming outside that night, that was brave too.”

  Grace thought about it. “I wish you hadn’t reminded me about that.”

  “Sorry. Anyway, Pop thought you were brave too.”

  “Yeah, he did. My mother went mad at him the next day when she found out.”

&nb
sp; “Why?”

  “I don’t know. They . . . don’t agree about me. My mother . . . I think she’d like it if I stayed inside with her all the time, sewing or something. Pop says I should have my freedom. They fight about it.” She looked distractedly down at the water. “Maybe it’ll be better when I leave.”

  Tom gulped. “You’re leaving?”

  “Well, after school. I’m going to go to university in Sydney.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you want to leave one day?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Don’t you know what you want to be?”

  “I don’t know. Work in the sawmill?”

  “You don’t really want to do that, do you?”

  Tom thought about it. He supposed he mustn’t.

  “Maybe I could be a policeman. Maybe I could take over from Pop.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “You don’t want to do that either.”

  He looked at her. She was going. Just the thought of her leaving— even years in the future—made his heart sink and his mouth go dry. He couldn’t think of what to say.

  Grace stood and waded out into the pool, holding her dress up out of the water. After a while she looked up, shading her eyes with her hand, at the sky.

  “It might rain later,” she said, pointing to some hazy-looking clouds to the northwest. Even as she said it her foot slipped on the rocks and she splashed down into the water, backside first. Giggling, she regained her footing, half her dress now a darker shade of green. She stood and wrung out the worst of the water and then waded over to the bank and climbed back out. She walked over to a little clearing under a tree and sat down. She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms round them. Tom looked up at the trees and then he glanced over at her and when their eyes met she inclined her head and inspected the ground before her, plucked a tiny purple flower from a ground bush and began to twirl it between her fingers.

  “Come and sit beside me,” she called out to him after a while, her voice thin and strange. He got up slowly and went and sat a few feet away from her. She held out three of the flowers she’d picked.

  “Nice,” he said.