One Boy Missing

by Stephen Orr

  Moy knew he was right.

  ‘But I stopped him, before he got the other one…he was gonna. I stopped him, Detective.’

  Moy sensed Humphris had worked out the easiest fix for the current disaster. You couldn’t continue the killing. Or take people away from the ones they loved. Make them do as you wanted, or even think as you did. Sometimes you just didn’t get rain. All you could do was stand and watch your crop perish. He wanted to say something, offer some consolation. Something like, I know how you feel but you just gotta carry on, don’t you? He knew this was the sort of phrase you taped on the back of the toilet door, not the sort of phrase you uttered to another human being. Instead, he said, ‘They weren’t hurtin’ you, were they?’

  Humphris didn’t reply.

  ‘They had nowhere else to go.’

  Humphris bowed his head, and waited. Moy thought about the mess, and the shame. And the harm. Past a certain point, he thought, life was just clinging to the few things you’d got right. George had taught him this. And Charlie.

  Moy stood up, looked at Humphris, and decided there was nothing to say. He turned and walked away. He was aware that this was stupid, but it was the only thing he could do. Waiting, as he moved closer to the house, for the sound of the gun-shot. It didn’t come until he was in the laundry, and it didn’t surprise him, or persuade him to turn and look back.

  He walked through the house and back out to the compound. Patrick was sitting in the front of one of the cars.

  ‘Was that a shotgun?’ Gary asked.

  Moy shook his head. ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘Ossie went to look.’

  Moy approached Patrick and knelt beside him. ‘We can stop for dim sims on the way home.’ And looked up at Gary. ‘No…what time do they open?’

  Gary checked his watch. ‘’Bout now. Don’t know if they’d have the fryer goin’ for a while yet.’

  Moy took a deep breath. For the first time in a long time he felt that the life going on around him everywhere might somehow be relevant. He could even taste the stale oil. He looked at Gary and said, ‘I’ll take him home…to Dad. I’ll be back later.’

  BART MOY AND PATRICK BARNES drove into a morning that had barely begun, despite the fact that the sun was already high in the sky. There was a breeze, like the first wash of tide on dry sand. The smell of hot bread.

  Moy guessed Jason was right. It would be a warm day.

  As he drove he looked at the boy, wrapped in a blanket, and noticed his wrists, red, from the deepest of the indentations.

  Patrick looked up and said, ‘He told me to play the Xbox, and wait an hour, then call you. Then he said goodbye, he said he was sorry…and went out the back.’

  ‘And you just played a game?’

  ‘Hockey. I watched the clock. But then I heard the knocking…’

  ‘It’s all over, all done. And…’ He waited. ‘I promise, as long as I live, I’ll never ask another question.’

  ‘Never?’ Patrick replied, smiling.

  ‘Never.’

  When Moy pulled into the drive George was waiting. As if he knew. He came out to the car, and without a word, took Patrick inside. Soon Mrs Miller would be there too, and Mrs Flamsteed, and half of Guilderton with the casseroles that would make things better.

  Bart Moy stood in the driveway, waiting. He heard a child’s voice off somewhere, and turned, but then looked back towards the house. He took a deep breath.

  Patrick was standing at the door. ‘Come on,’ he said.

  45

  A WEEK LATER they drove to Port Louis. Trawled each of its sandy streets, searching for the shack Patrick had lived in. They stopped at a fish shop. A few minutes later they continued, George happy in the back picking vinegar chips from a torn bag, offering them around, steaming up the windows.

  Patrick wasn’t hungry. ‘Right here,’ he said, sitting forward. But it wasn’t the shack. ‘I thought this was it…no, left, left here.’ And there it was: fibro, iron roof and a fishing net strung across the porch.

  They left George in the back seat complaining about the scallops, still frozen in the middle, and approached the front door. They knocked, but no one was home. Walked around the back, through a mess of toys, bikes and fishing rods. Patrick said, ‘Wait.’

  He ran behind the shed, then called, ‘Bart!’

  Moy joined him. He was holding a surfboard. ‘This is it.’

  It was smashed up, but usable. The fin had snapped. Patrick said, ‘It got Tom, just there.’ He indicated a spot on his own forehead. ‘Mum said he was lucky it didn’t get an eye.’

  Moy ran a hand over the surfboard, as though it might help him understand, or know Tom. ‘Did he need stitches?’

  ‘No. Just bled. Then he had a scar.’ He stopped, looking into the weeds between shed and fence. ‘But it healed okay, and Mum said…’ Moy took the surfboard from him and walked back to the car. Patrick followed. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘It’s yours. Come on.’ He opened the back door and said to George, ‘Put the window down, will yer?’

  ‘You’re not puttin’ that thing in here.’

  ‘Go on!’

  George looked at Patrick and guessed he’d better. Once it was down, Moy adjusted the surfboard so it rested horizontally through the back windows. Then he looked at Patrick and said, ‘Wipeout!’

  They drove to the beach and got out. Patrick said, ‘Should I?’

  Moy smiled at him. He realised, somehow, this boy meant everything. Love, whatever. He had no idea what that was all about. There just wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for him.

  ‘Come on.’ He grabbed the board and ran down to the breakers. Patrick came after him, and George sat on the bonnet, eating the last few chips, licking his fingers, watching them.

  Moy and Patrick stood on the hard sand. They looked out at the Southern Ocean. They’d driven hours to get here, and Moy was determined to make the most of it.

  Patrick said, ‘It’s a bit cold.’

  Moy looked at him. ‘Rubbish.’

  So Patrick smiled, sat down, took off his shoes and socks and pants and took the surfboard. ‘This is where we came,’ he said.

  Moy took a moment to think of the right words; he knew he was bad at finding them. ‘You two must’ve had some…adventures.’

  Adventures? No, not right, he thought. But he saw from Patrick’s face, it didn’t matter.

  Patrick looked at him. ‘I thought…if I waited…But I’m not gonna see him again, am I, Bart?’

  Moy moved closer and took him around the shoulder. ‘No.’

  George watched as he tipped the last batter crumbs into his palms and knew what they were saying, and thinking: his son, and the boy, who reminded him of a younger Bart.

  Patrick was crying, and Moy held his body tightly; felt ribs, and little lungs, gasping, and bony shoulders. ‘If I could do anything to get him back for you…’

  But Patrick said, ‘You can’t.’

  There were no more words. But luckily the sea: singing in their ears.

  George screwed up the paper and started thinking about what they’d have for tea.

  Patrick wiped his eyes, but the spray made them wet. ‘It’s too cold,’ he said.

  ‘Bullshit.’ Moy sat down, took off his shoes and socks, his pants, stood up and almost tore off his shirt.

  Patrick looked at him and smiled. ‘You first.’

  Moy ran in. Patrick was right, it was way too cold, but he knew he had to keep going. He stopped and looked back. ‘Come on!’

  Patrick hitched the board and followed him. ‘It’s freezing.’

  And they both laughed, and then Moy sank in the sand, overbalanced and fell and grabbed Patrick and took him with him. And cleared the long fringe from his face and said, ‘What are we gonna do with a surfboard?’

  But it didn’t matter. It had drifted too far out for them to retrieve.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to all at Text, particularly Mandy Brett, Michael
Heyward, Anne Beilby, Rachel Shepheard, Kirsty Wilson, Shalini Kunahlan, Chong Weng Ho and Michelle Calligaro.