Taking Tom Murray Home

by Tim Slee

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Yeah you do. Sweden. As soon as we can get that money, we’re going to get passports and plane tickets and we’re going to move to Dorotea. It’s where this stupid disease comes from, it’s like semi-normal there.’

  ‘Sweden?’

  ‘Yeah, we’d arrive and people would be like, oh, you have analgesia? Whatever, so does my cousin, so does my teacher, so do I . . .’

  ‘Yeah, but Sweden?’ She’s scaring me. She’s so serious and it’s so crazy. ‘Mum would never let us.’

  ‘Mum couldn’t stop us!’ she says fiercely. ‘We’d be eighteen, we’d have our own money. Enough money to live on for years! We’d get jobs over there – they have a dairy in Dorotea, I researched it. Or work in a café or something, anything.’ She turns me to face her. ‘We’d be normal, Jack. First time in our lives.’

  ‘Can we use the money for that?’

  ‘People gave that money so we could get a new start – this is a new start. And I raised it, not Mum, not anyone else.’

  I can see she’ll explode if I don’t say yes. ‘OK.’ I say it, but I’m not feeling it yet. Sweden?

  ‘Seriously? You can’t just say it and not mean it. You have to mean it and you have to keep it quiet for five years. Can you do that?’

  ‘Why do we have to keep it quiet? Why couldn’t Mum come if she wants?’ I ask her.

  ‘We tell her, she’ll use the next five years to talk us out of it,’ she says. ‘You can hear her, right? We need the money for food, we need the money for rent. Or, it’s not your money, you asked people to donate it for the funeral. Or, you need it for medical bills, how are you supposed to pay for hospital and specialists, blah blah blah.’

  ‘Yeah, but maybe she’s right. How are we supposed to pay for doctors?’

  ‘Sweden has free healthcare. You can look it up. And Dorotea has a special clinic for people with analgesia because it’s like ground zero for people like us.’ She still has her hands on my shoulders and she shakes me. ‘You can’t tell her, all right?’

  She’s right. If we told Mum, she really would spend the next five years working on us.

  ‘Come on, it’s not like she hasn’t kept things from us,’ she says. ‘The coffin full of cattle feed? The whole thing about moving interstate? When was she going to tell us that? When we’re on a bus headed for Adelaide?’

  ‘OK. You’re right. I’m in.’

  She kisses me, full on the gob, and hugs me. ‘Yes! Yes, yes, yes.’

  I wipe my mouth. ‘But you have to promise to go to the hospital tomorrow with your hand.’

  ‘Deal,’ she smiles. ‘I was going to anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Because I’m not going to Sweden with someone who had their hand amputated because they wouldn’t admit to Mum they broke it.’

  And then we’re walking back and I realise I said it and you can’t take something like that back and I wonder what I just said yes to.

  It’s my first time at a cemetery. I expected it to look like in the zombie movies with dead trees and tombstones and wilting flowers. But the trees are still green, there’s grass mown nice and neat, lots of tombstones but with some big flowery bushes around the sides. I guess cemeteries are allowed more water than ordinary houses. There’s even a beehive set up against one wall, with bees flying in and out.

  ‘I guess they live off all the flowers people leave here. How do you think the honey tastes?’ Mr Alberti asks.

  ‘I don’t know but I’m dying to try some,’ Coach Don says.

  ‘Ouch,’ Mr Alberti nudges him as Mum walks up.

  I wanted to come with the tractor and Trevor pulling the milk cart that Danny Boy brought nearly all the way, but early in the morning Trevor pulled it to the gates of the cemetery, which is where it is when we all arrive. Mum and Jenny had a big fight about what she was going to wear but lucky for her we don’t have that many clothes any more so she got to keep her jeans but had to wear a black top that Aunty Ell had borrowed from someone and it looks quite cool like it’s actually meant to go with boots and gloves. I have dark blue jeans and a red T-shirt that make me look like some kind of Demons supporter and everyone keeps saying it.

  The council has opened the oval next door for parking and there are about twenty cars parked there already when we arrive at ten o’clock, with some people from Yardley standing by the gates with the milk cart. The whole town is here, it seems like, including a lot of people and families who weren’t in the procession but just came up for the day.

  Coach Don walks over to Mum. ‘So here we go, Dawn. End of the road.’ He holds out his arms for a hug and Mum gives him a good one, hanging on a beat too long so he starts to pat her back and then kind of shuffles back when she lets him go.

  ‘Yeah, well. End of this road,’ Mum says. She grabs me around the shoulders. ‘Still a long road ahead.’

  A lock of hair has fallen out from behind her ears and Jen reaches up and tucks it back in. ‘I’m a mess, aren’t I?’ Mum whispers to Jen.

  ‘You’re allowed to be a mess at a funeral, Mum,’ Jen tells her.

  Geraldine waves, and the reporter from Portland is there too, but the police have the cameras and reporters penned up on the other side of the gates so they can see us pull the milk cart in at ten-thirty for the eleven o’clock service.

  ‘Can we have a moment, Dawn?’ Coach Don asks. ‘While we still can?’ He nods over to the side and I see them all standing there. The Albertis and the Maynards and the Turnbolts and Aunty Ell and the Garrettses, Pop and Ben and Deb. They’ve gotten changed out of their feral forest-people gear. Ben has washed his hair and put it up in a ponytail and Deb is wearing a dress I haven’t seen before, and shoes. I realise it’s the first time I’ve seen her with shoes on. We walk over and Mum puts her hand on Mr Garrett’s arm.

  ‘I’m so sorry about Danny Boy, John.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about him,’ Mr Garrett says, looking at Mrs Garrett who nods. ‘He had the time of his life. Crowds cheering him, ride on a ferry, high-speed police chase.’ He looks down at Jen and me, ‘These two fussing over him like he was royalty. He died happy.’ He looks up at Coach Don, like he’s expecting something.

  Coach Don coughs. His face is usually brown with the sun and cracked from frowning and smiling, but right now it’s a bit flushed, everyone looking at him. ‘Yeah, well, it’s just we read what you said about quitting Yardley.’

  Mum looks surprised, but she doesn’t deny it.

  ‘And we get it,’ Coach Don says. For some reason he looks at Jen. ‘You’ve got more than enough on your hands without hanging around Yardley. Best to let history be history.’

  ‘And memories,’ Mrs Alberti says, jumping in. ‘Best to let the bad ones go, start making new ones, eh Dawn?’

  Mum nods, but I’m waiting because they’re building up to something.

  Pop can’t take it. ‘Oh for God’s sake show her will you!’

  They step aside and there’s a little car behind them on the driveway and they’re all looking at it. I mean, it’s been here the whole time, but I didn’t even notice it. Which is pretty amazing, since it’s bright yellow.

  Coach Don holds out a set of keys. ‘So we got you that. It’s a big city, you’ll need a car.’

  ‘Only fifty-five thousand on the clock,’ Pop says. ‘Small car of the year in 2012. Six litres per hundred ks.’

  ‘It’s got a CD,’ Mrs Maynard says. ‘You can have these to get you started.’ She pulls some CDs from her purse. Mum takes them, not knowing what to do with them, so Mrs Maynard takes them back again. ‘I’ll just . . . you can get them after.’

  ‘It’ll get you where you’re going,’ Mr Maynard says. ‘I gave it a solid road test yesterday afternoon. It’s in good nick.’

  ‘You’re all . . .’ Mum says. She takes the keys from Coach Don and then gives him a big hug. ‘You’re too bloody much.’ She finishes hugging and wipes her eyes, then stands and looks at it a moment, then turns to us. ‘People
will be playing Yellow Spotto with us now, eh kids?’ She looks at the faces around her. ‘But you can’t afford this. I can’t take it.’

  ‘We can and you will,’ Mrs Garrett says.

  ‘My dad paid the rego,’ Deb says. ‘I told him about you and he volunteered.’ She looks at Ben and he frowns. ‘OK, he was voluntold,’ she says.

  ‘I gave it a professional once-over too,’ Karsi says. ‘Even I can’t find anything to defect on it.’

  It’s just about the smallest, yellowest car I’ve ever seen. All I’m thinking is, wherever we’re going, I hope it’s close. And will Mum even fit?

  Pop must see my face because he rolls up next to me. ‘Don’t worry, you can’t hardly see the colour when you sit inside it. That colour is why we got such a good price.’

  ‘No, I like it,’ Mum says, overhearing him. She turns to Ben. ‘Did you pick the colour?’

  He claps Mr Garrett on the shoulder. ‘We picked it together, right Garrett?’

  ‘Did we my arse,’ Mr Garrett says but he pats Ben’s arm and holds it there around his shoulder, leaning on him a bit.

  ‘Well I like it. It’s like a sunrise. It’s like a new day,’ Mum says.

  Mrs Alberti hears that and rushes in for another hug and a big sob.

  ‘All right, Mrs A,’ Mr Alberti says, deciding enough hugs have been had. ‘We ready, Garrett?’

  ‘Let’s get this done,’ Mr Garrett says. He looks up at the coffin on the milk cart then at the front where Danny Boy should be. ‘Not quite the way I imagined bringing Tom Murray home, but . . .’

  ‘You take the front, John,’ Coach Don says quietly, ‘We’ll be behind you.’

  There are six men pulling the milk cart with Dad’s coffin in it, through the big stone gates and then around the bend, past this huge weird monument to Elvis, to the big stone church in the middle of the cemetery. Mr Garrett up front, Coach Don on the other side, Karsi in a black suit instead of his uniform, and on the other side of him Mr Alberti, Mr Turnbolt and Ben.

  We pass these buildings that don’t have doors or windows, about two storeys high and ten metres deep. Along their walls are marble plates with pictures and flowers on them and it takes me a while to realise there’s dead people behind them. I’m wondering are they in coffins or just their ashes and I’m wondering do they have to pay more than the people outside under the ground and if you pay more to be low down or high up.

  ‘Who are you looking for?’ I ask Jenny, noticing her getting fidgety and looking around. ‘Darren is here if that’s what you’re stressing about. I just saw him with Aunty Ell. Jeez, you’ll see him after.’

  ‘Good, yeah,’ she says and looks at me like, just drop it so I shrug and look at the back of the milk cart. She’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt with the cuffs pulled down over her wrists, like it’s a fashion thing, but it’s just to hide her hand from Mum, because it’s totally blue-black now even though she put foundation on it to cover it up.

  She’s really jumpy and I wonder if maybe she has a fever because of her broken bones. I should have checked.

  It’s a nice sunny morning, going to be a hot day. We walk with Mum behind the milk cart, and all the others walk behind us. I stop counting at a hundred people. We go really slow, and Mum has to stop at one point and lean on Mrs Garrett, so it takes about fifteen minutes to get to the chapel. It’s funny listening to the crunch of the wheels on the road without the sound of Danny Boy’s hooves clip-clopping as well. A couple of photographers nearly go over backwards crouching down on the road in front of the milk cart and Mr Garrett gives no sign of slowing down, but they get out of the way before we run them over.

  Mr Garrett has been holding his hat in his left hand, but he puts it on his head as the milk cart comes to a stop and he motions the others to lower the big poles they’ve been pulling the milk cart with. We wait at the back as he comes around and climbs up into the milk cart and drops the gate at the back so that he can lower down two ramps for people to use when they’re getting the coffin out.

  Mum lets go of Mrs Garrett’s arm. ‘We’ll go inside now,’ Mum says to us. ‘While the men are getting the coffin down. There’s something we have to talk about before the service.’

  I look at Jenny like, what? But she just looks away.

  Inside we walk through a lobby and into a long narrow chapel with grey carpet and four small benches on each side and big skylights up front over the altar so everything is bright and white. People from Yardley are already filling up the seats but they left space at the front just for us and we take the left side. Mrs Alberti is still crying and Mr Alberti is holding her and Mrs Maynard is patting her back. Mum waves to a couple of people and I’m sitting and waiting for her to just bloody sit down and explain and Jenny is still not looking at me. What the hell?

  Then I realise, whatever is coming, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear it.

  Maybe it’s about What Happens Next. We move interstate? Or worse, maybe we get some little apartment in Melbourne and she can work as a waitress because that’s what happens in movies to People Who Screw Up And Lose Everything.

  She turns to me. ‘One thing,’ Mum says. ‘Before the coffin comes in, I wanted you to know something.’ Why is she talking to me? Why not both of us? Jenny’s knuckles are white. She’s holding them in her lap so they don’t shake. She’s looking at the ground. Whatever it is, she already knows.

  ‘After the service we have to go to the police station,’ Mum says, and waits.

  ‘I know,’ I say straight back at her. Then I realise I haven’t been listening. I thought she said hospital. I thought she was talking about Jenny’s hand. I was already feeling relieved, if that was all it was about. We were going to be told off again for not being careful, I could deal with that. But then I realised she said police. ‘Wait, what?’

  ‘You know?’ Mum asks, frowning.

  ‘No, sorry, I thought you said . . . did you say police?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mum looks at Jenny, puts a hand on her leg, but she’s still looking down at the floor. ‘Alasdair will meet us there. Jenny has to give a statement.’

  Alasdair? I jump in, ‘Is this about the money?’

  ‘No,’ Mum says. ‘It’s about the fires.’

  Now Jenny looks up. ‘I didn’t light the first one,’ she says. ‘I don’t know who did. But I did the others.’

  ‘How did you . . .? How did the police . . .?’ My mind is whirling.

  ‘Karsi came to me last night,’ Mum says. ‘While you two were out having your walk. They saw Jenny on a CCTV camera in Warrnambool. He’s a good man Karsi, he said it should be me who asks her. So I asked your sister this morning while you were having your shower.’

  I look at Jenny. ‘You didn’t tell me. You should have told me!’ I can’t keep my voice down and I don’t care. People look over.

  She’s pale. ‘I almost did, Jack. A hundred times. But you would have stopped me,’ she says.

  ‘You let me think it was Dad! You helped me look in the coffin . . .’

  Mum looks at me strangely, but Jenny just shrugs. ‘You ask so many questions. I just wanted you to be asking the wrong ones.’

  ‘Why didn’t they arrest you?’ I ask her. ‘Last night?’

  ‘It’s sensitive times, Jack,’ Mum answers. ‘Fires, riots, banks, supermarkets, you name it. Karsi talked them into letting us get the funeral over with, but then we have to go in to the station at Southbank.’

  People are really staring at us now. I don’t care. If Jenny lit those fires, then . . . there is no Yardley conspiracy. No fake death certificate. No one out there hiding in the shadows. I’d been holding onto that hope like I was hanging by one hand off a bridge. And it’s a double burn. Because Jenny knew it the whole time and she was the one going around lighting those fires and she never told me. Why not? Hide it from everyone else, hide it from the whole world, but not me! Why? How stupid am I?

  I let out a big wail as it hits me that Dad isn’t going to miraculou
sly walk back into our lives.

  Jenny is just sitting there, looking at the ground, and before I know it I’m on my feet and punching her. A couple of people stand up and two rows back Mr Maynard says, ‘Hey there, Jack!’, but this time the heat is rising in me and I don’t care. I don’t want to let her get away with it. Jenny just curls into a ball on the pew, doesn’t fight back. I really lay into her. Mum wraps her arms around me, so I punch her a couple of times too, then someone grabs me from behind. I’m thrashing and kicking, but they’re too strong.

  ‘Sssssh, easy Jack,’ a voice says in my ear. It’s Karsi. If I could break free I’d run for it, but he doesn’t let me go. He’s got me from behind, one arm around my chest, the other around my waist, lifting me so my feet are nearly off the ground. People are looking at me like I’m a baboon in a zoo.

  ‘Just let me go all right?’ I tell him. I can’t fight him, so I go limp but he keeps holding me. ‘Let me go!’

  He loosens his grip, but he’s standing between me and the aisle, so there’s no way out. All the heat is gone. Now I just feel stupid, so I sit down. He sits next to me, like some kind of bodyguard.

  Someone handed me a bible as I walked in and I dropped it when I stood up and when I sit down again I sit on it and pull it out from under me. I think about throwing it, but there’s nothing to throw it at except the coffin, so I just sit and look at it. It’s thick and black and I just focus on the cover to block everything out – the gold-on-black letters, brown worn corners – not reading, just staring. As I look at it, a drop of something falls on the top. I wipe it off, but another drop falls. I look up at the roof of the chapel to see is it leaking, then I realise it’s me.

  I look around to see are people still looking, and I see Coach Don watching. He’s crying too, got his hanky in his hand.

  Reaches across the aisle and hands it to me.

  And beyond

  Mum lit a spark with Dad’s funeral and Jenny turned it into a wildfire. A wildfire that spread from bank to bank, State to State and it’s burning still.

  We had to move out of Uncle Leo’s place because he said Mum was turning it into a refugee centre. Which wasn’t really fair because mostly it was the telephone calls that annoyed him, Mum on the phone all day and night. But we did get people turning up at the door with nowhere to go and there was this one morning where this guy and his son, they were unemployed shearers, were making breakfast in Uncle Leo’s kitchen and Uncle Leo came in and looked at them and said, ‘Who are you?’ and they explained and Uncle Leo just sat down and nodded and he ate the fried eggs they’d made and they all talked about Gippsland and the drought and then he went out back where Mum had just finished her shower and they had a full-on shouting match.