He knew nothing else at all until he found himself outside and stumbling across wet grass. The shack was in flames behind him and then he saw that he too was ablaze. He wore a coat of flames—the finest thing he’d ever worn—but it was turning him to ash, to cinders. The pain of it wrung him out, doubled him over, and he fell, the flames hissing out against the damp ground. He crawled away to the foot of a tree at the edge of the sallow corona of light and there he rested his head and curled up into a ball.
A time later something came and stood over him and breathed in long draughts of his charred self. He thought at first it was a dog come to clean him up and he tried to bat it away with his hand, but a whole truckload of pain slammed into him when he moved and he hissed out a long hiss into the ground—his blood cold, his bones cold—until it eased. Then he felt the thing’s teeth at him, tearing him apart, getting right to the quick of him, right down inside where his life was kept, and he moved into some kind of dream. His eyes, his ears, his arms, his legs—the whole box and dice of him—all changed, and there was no more pain. Slow flames, golden light, began to weave down towards him, illuminating everything and squeezing the trees into strips as thin as insects in amber. At the centre of the light he saw a figure with bright skin. Darcy. He wanted to laugh at the sweet impossibility of her. Darcy!
“Glory be, Darce,” he managed to say, as she knelt down and put her hand against his forehead.
“You’re all done here, Billy,” she said.
“Yeah, Darce, I am,” he breathed. “I am. I’m all done.”
32
Pop reckoned they were close as something caught his eye away through the trees.
“Look, Henry. There!”
Henry peered in the direction Pop’s outstretched arm indicated. Through the trees he could see flames.
“It’s one of the sheds!” Pop shouted. “Come on!”
They could hear the rain hissing as it fell upon the heated iron roof of the shed. They held up their arms to shield themselves from the heat and peered in through the shed’s open door. At first they could see only flames, but then they each caught a glimpse of a blazing bundle on the floor just inside the door. The heat beat them back and Henry stumbled and almost fell across an obstacle lying in the long grass. Henry held up the lamp and then Pop went and knelt beside the burnt and blackened form.
“He’s dead,” said Pop.
“Billy?”
“Yeah, must be.”
Pop wiped the rain from his face and Henry looked back at the burning shed and then they both heard the first of the shots. At first they thought it was something in the fire but when they looked up to the house, a hundred or so yards away, they saw a dim light burning. Their eyes met and then they set off as one.
Tom and Grace sat on the cracked leather back seat of Reg Pope’s Rolls-Royce and listened to him grumble about the road and the rain and the dark and foolish children. Tom put his hand down on the satchel containing Ham and looked across at Grace. She was staring out the window at the black, wet night, but seemed to sense him looking. She turned to him and gave a weak smile and he reached for her hand and she gave it to him before turning back to the window. They drove for another five minutes and then the car slowed for a bend.
“Look,” Grace suddenly shouted, “it’s Pop! Stop, Mr. Pope! Stop!”
Tom peered out into the blackness. Pop was standing in front of Billy’s old house. In his hand was a black object and Tom realised it was a gun and that Pop was loading it. What surprised him even more was that Henry was standing by his side. The Rolls slid to a halt and Grace opened the door and ran across to her father. Tom followed. Away down the paddock he saw that one of the sheds was on fire.
“What is it?” Grace began, breathlessly. “What’s the matter?”
Although he was surprised to see them Tom could tell there was something else far more pressing on Pop’s mind.
“Henry, keep these kids here,” he said, his voice sharp, and then he walked up to the house, lamp in one hand, gun in the other, and went in through the open front door.
The room was a far cry from what he’d been expecting when his eyes fluttered open again. Pop Mather was there and feeling for his wounds and saying his name over and over. The blood he’d spilled glittered in the lamplight.
“What happened, Gibson? What the Christ happened?”
“It’s Smith, Pop. He’s not dead. He’s not dead. He must have run.”
Pop shook his head.
“He was here!”
“Steady on, man, steady on. I believe you. Someone sure was, unless you shot yourself up.”
“I—I saw the grave. I thought Billy had brought her here.”
“We found her. Her and Billy.”
Gibson nodded. “The bastard’s killed me, hasn’t he?”
“No,” said Pop, taking hold of his hand. “You’re not going to die. Not if I can help it. You’ve got a bullet in your gut and one in your shoulder. I’ve seen men beat worse.”
Gibson smiled.
“Should I trust you?”
“You could do worse.”
He felt himself slipping away, despite what Pop had said. Everything came back to him in a rush and he knew he had to tell it before it was too late. He reached up with his good arm and clutched at Pop’s wet shirt, his grip weak as a baby’s. Pop put his arm round his shoulders.
“Come on, son. Stay with me.”
“I shot him, Pop.”
“Smith?”
“No, not him. My father. It was me who killed him. Me.”
“You remember?”
“Yes. I remember. He was sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the races. He was surprised to see me. Me, not my mother. Make sure they know it wasn’t her. Make sure they know.”
Pop nodded. “Erskine told me he always thought it was you. He said one day you’d remember.”
Gibson nodded and squeezed back tears.
“And I remember why I did it. I remember . . .”
He was about to tell Pop everything when he heard the sound again. It was much fainter now, barely audible above the rain. A cough—then a deep, bronchial string of them. He reached up and tugged at Pop’s hand, suddenly breathless.
“Sarge, the laundry,” he gasped. “Look in the laundry.”
Pop stood and lifted up the lamp and then unlatched the laundry door with his free hand and opened it. Gibson turned his head and tried to look as well. At first he couldn’t see anything, but then he saw the glint of eyes underneath one of the concrete washtubs.
“He’s alive,” Pop whispered, awestruck. “Look at the state of him.”
He was filthy and curled up in a ball with one grubby thumb in his mouth. Pop lifted his hand to the little boy but he shrank back under the tubs. They both saw the length of rope tied round one of his ankles.
“He’s . . . he’s petrified.”
“But he’s alive.”
“Yeah, he is that,” Pop whispered. “And I’d given up hope. We all had. You were right then, Gibson. I’m sorry. Maybe the man upstairs did send you after all.”
“No, I was wrong. Smith didn’t want revenge. It was Darcy he wanted. He thought she was Annie Flood back from the dead. He did find the boys, and he must have used little Flynn to get her to . . . cooperate. He was waiting for her to come. But she never did. That’s how she thought she’d save him, Pop. That he’d have to give him back. She was a brave little soul, Pop. A brave little soul.”
Pop shook his head. “Why the Christ didn’t she just tell someone?”
Gibson couldn’t hold it all in any longer and two hot tears began to roll down his cheeks.
“Maybe she did, Sarge. Maybe she did.”
More people appeared in the doorway and Gibson slumped back against the wall, his vision wavering. They didn’t notice the boy for a few moments but then he saw Grace’s hand go up to her mouth. Henry Gunn stood there, his face ashen, and then stepped forward. The boy in the laundry shrunk back and Pop lifted
up his hand to keep them still.
“Careful,” he said. “Don’t frighten him.”
Gibson watched as Tom looked from the boy to Grace and then back again.
“Do you see him?” he whispered.
“Yes,” answered Grace.
“Really?”
“Yes, Tom. He’s really there.”
“Why doesn’t he . . .”
Tom stepped forward across the no-man’s-land of six floorboards. The little boy didn’t move, but his eyes widened.
“He’s been scared out of his wits, Tom,” Pop whispered. “Just give him a minute.”
Tom gave a slight, dreamy nod and then he put his hand down into his pocket and pulled something from it. He held it up before him, enclosed in his fist, and then he unfurled his fingers one by one. The little boy looked from Tom’s hand to his face and then back again. Tom lifted the harmonica and put it to his mouth, breathed through it, then set it in the middle of his palm and offered it.
“Go on, Flynn,” he whispered. “Take it. It’s yours. Remember?”
Flynn blinked at him.
“Flynn,” Tom repeated. “Tom.”
With painful slowness Flynn eased out from under his hiding place and stood. His torso was bare and pale and they could all see where his ribs pushed out against his skin. He stepped forward, his hand reaching out for the harmonica. Tom saw, along the inside of his arm, just down from the wrist, the burn scar from the day they’d gone missing, the day Henry’s eggs had gone into the fire. Flynn pulled in a big hitching breath and his arm went up to his face as if to wipe away tears.
“Time to come home now, Flynn.”
Flynn’s arm wavered a little, and then he let out a long, slow breath and his chin went up and down ever so slightly.
“Yeah,” he said.
Tom went to him then and dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around his middle. He put his forehead down against his brother’s little chest and left it there, his shoulders heaving and shaking, his tears flowing. When he looked up, after a long time, Gibson thought he saw equal measures of happiness and dismay and pain burning there in the boy’s wet eyes. They were almost unbearable to behold, but he could not turn away, and he did not want to.
DARREN WILLIAMS
Angel Rock
Darren Williams was born in Australia in 1967. His first novel, Swimming in Silk, was published in 1995 and won the prestigious Australian/Vogel Literary Award.
FIRST VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EDITION, JUNE 2003
Copyright © 2002 by Darren Williams
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Contemporaries and
colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Williams, Darren, 1967–
Angel Rock / Darren Williams
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
p. cm.
1. Missing Children—Fiction. 2. City and town life—Fiction.
3. Queensland—Fiction.
PR9619.3.W55 A84 2002
823’.914—dc21 2002069369
www.vintagebooks.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-42481-5
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