“Get on with it!” yelled the man as motorists beeped and hooted their horns behind us.
“Breathe,” said Sabrina, her little voice slightly wobbly but nonetheless calm. “Breathe slowly and deeply, Morgan.”
“Shut up, kid,” said the main man.
But Sabrina’s calm sensibility acted like a douche and I was suddenly in control and in cop mode. I jammed my foot on the accelerator and the Mercedes sprang into roaring life. We zoomed from zero to 190, cut back and forth across the five lanes, flinging the occupants of the car first to one side and then the other.
“Awesome,” said Sabrina.
“Slow down!” yelled the man with the gun.
“No!” I shouted back.
“I’ll shoot.”
“Then we’ll all die.”
“I’ll pop the kid.”
“And then you’ve lost your bargaining power.”
There was a squeal in the back. “Don’t hurt me,” cried Sabrina. “Morgan, they’re twisting my arm.”
“Leave her alone,” I said, easing my foot off the accelerator.
“Then behave, nanny.”
There was a tracking device on the Mercedes so I was confident we’d soon be found. But then we swapped cars and my confidence evaporated. We drove south and out of the city. We turned down an earth track and bumped along it until we came to an old beach house with asbestos walls and peeling blue paint. It was surrounded by scrub. Once there’d been a garden but now only straggly red geraniums grew by the door.
The kidnappers pushed us up the splintered steps and into the hotbox house. It reeked of rat and possum poo.
“This is disgusting,” said Sabrina.
“Shut up, kid.”
“I wish people would stop telling me to shut up,” she said huffily.
They tied us to ancient steel kitchen chairs with our hands behind our backs and our legs strapped to the chair legs. Silver duct tape was smacked across our mouths. We sat there for what seemed like hours, the sweat pouring off us as the late summer sun beat on the tin roof, making us baste like rotisserie chickens in a delicatessen.
The windows and doors were shut. The temperature was stifling. Sabrina maintained a defiant pose, but she slumped as the afternoon slid into sticky evening. There was no breeze to bring relief. Mosquitoes whined and greedily sucked our blood. And we were watched the whole time by one of the men.
We could hear the others talking in a different room. The leader came in, murmured something to our guard, and then left. We heard a car drive off and then silence.
The remaining thick-wit stared stonily at us and we stared back. Finally he ripped off the tape and gave us a drink of tepid water.
“I need the bathroom,” declared Sabrina. He freed her and, as she stood, the child fell. “I can’t feel my legs,” she whimpered. “And I’m desperate.”
“You’re the nanny. You take her,” he said to me and cut through the tape binding me to the chair.
Keeping the gun trained on us, he let us stagger from the room. Our legs were numb and the movement brought painful pins and needles.
“Leave the door open,” he said at the outside loo.
“Perv,” I said.
“Shut it, bitch.”
“I can’t go if he’s watching me,” said Sabrina.
“Is it okay if I stand in front of her?” I asked.
“Yeah, as long as I can watch you when you take a pee.”
I gave him the finger. No way was I having a public tiddle, however desperate. But I also couldn’t hike up my skirt with the gun and knife still strapped to my inner thighs. At the moment he thought I was just a nanny. I wanted and needed that element of surprise. I turned to shield Sabrina and mouthed at her to follow my lead.
“Tell him your legs really, really hurt,” I whispered.
“My legs are in agony,” said the little drama queen as she came out of the toilet and she began to cry in big gulping sobs that I knew were a total put on. This kid was not a crier. I was impressed.
“Stop blubbering,” said the thug.
Sabrina cried harder and louder.
“Perhaps if I did some exercises with her it’ll help the circulation?” I said.
He regarded me suspiciously and then Sabrina began to really bawl, loud and ugly. If she’d been my kid and cried like that I would have drowned her at birth.
“Okay, okay,” he muttered ungraciously. “But no funny business.”
“Honey,” I said and Sabrina, still bawling, regarded me with dry-eyed calculation. Was it that obvious I wouldn’t call anybody ‘honey’? “Remember those dance moves I showed you?”
She frowned and hiccoughed on a false sob. She was good.
“You know, the hand jiving and can-can kicks?”
She nodded slowly and then a smile spread across her face.
“Let’s do them to ‘If I were a butterfly’, okay?” I knew learning that song would come in handy.
We began humming and singing and jiving and then I lifted my leg, spun around and landed a bruiser kick on the thug’s hand, which sent the gun spinning, and then another on the side of his head, breaking his jaw. I dived for the gun while Sabrina thumped the man neatly in the groin with her heel and then smacked him on the ear with her fist. I never thought I’d be glad about taking that assembly.
I thwacked him another couple of times, crunching his nose, and then we trussed him to the chair like an oven-ready chook.
“Good girl,” I said. “Now, let’s get ready for the others.”
I hiked up my skirt to liberate my gun and knife.
“Cool,” said Sabrina.
“Keep out of the way while I deal with them,” I said. “I don’t want you getting hit by stray bullets.” She hid behind the toilet hut and I waited in the bushes near the front of the house.
The car rumbled along the track a few minutes later. The three men got out, carrying takeaway pizzas and bottles of soft drink. I took aim and tried to ignore the tightening chest and dancing spots.
“Breathe,” whispered a little voice in my ear.
I did—in, out, in, out—and then hissed, “What the hell are you doing here? I told you to scarper.”
“I was scared.”
Poor kid, but I couldn’t shoot with her so close. I’d have to use the knife.
The men were laughing at some joke as I sent the knife spinning through the air. It hit the last man deep in the throat. He silently crumpled to the ground. The others didn’t notice.
I trained the gun on the other two. “Hold it!” I yelled. “I have a gun aimed at you.”
The leader cursed and then said, “Nannies shouldn’t play with guns.”
He raised his own and I shot him in the arm before he could fire. The other man went for his gun but I pumped a couple of shots inside him, too.
“Wicked,” said Sabrina. “Can you teach me to do that?”
“No! Stay here. And this time I mean it.” I approached with caution and, gun still trained, began to search their pockets for the ignition keys. The leader lunged for my leg and I stamped down on his hand hard, hearing a satisfying crack.
Suddenly the sweet sound of sirens pierced the night air, harmonising with the mossies and frog songs. In a few moments, police were swarming all over the place.
Danny, looking hot and flustered and mopping up copious amounts of sweat, got out of one of the cars.
“Jeepers, Morgan, you had me going there for a while,” he said. “Is the kid okay?”
“She’s fine, aren’t you, honey?” She grinned and I gave her a hug.
“You looked very impressive holding those men at gunpoint, Morgan. Completely in control. Back to the old Morgan I know and love. Excellent.”
“How did you find us, Pickles?” demanded Sabrina.
“I had a tracking device put in your Gameboy,” Danny said, beaming at her. “I didn’t think you’d leave that behind.”
“Smart,” she said.
“You bet.”
They did a high five.
“What about Ashe?” I said.
“Two holes and a river of blood, but he’s tough. He’ll live.”
I decided to pay Ashe a visit. He was semi-naked and lying on a hospital bed. His arm and chest were bandaged. In spite of his natural olive skin, he was pale around the gills and his eyes were fever-pitch bright.
“I owe you an apology, Morgan,” he said with effort. “You saved the kid.”
I stared at him, surprised, and, dare I say it, pleased. “That must’ve cost you.”
“It did. But hey, I doubted you could do it. Thought Danny had made a mistake taking you on board. You’re one hell of a woman.”
My chest suddenly went into spasm. The damned spots jiggled across my vision. Tremendous heat infused my brain, making it fuzz up.
“Breathe, Morgan. Breathe.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” I gasped. “I learnt it somewhere.”
I leaned over the bed and kissed him full and hot on the mouth.
And again, it worked.
But now it wasn’t me having breathing problems.
“Breathe, Ashe,” I said. “Breathe.”
Sarah Evans
Second Prize, 2005
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~ * ~
Mrs Wilcox’s Milk Saucepan
Five days after her mother’s body was taken from next door, there she was, Alice MacKensie-Wilcox, on my doorstep with a form for me to sign. The hoo-ha hadn’t yet died down. After all, her mother ‘Anita’ (yes, the famous artist, but always ‘Mrs Wilcox Next Door’ to me), had been found dead of a sleeping pill overdose. I was having difficulty coming to terms with Mrs Wilcox’s suicide, but as the doctor attending said to the TV cameras outside on our street, “It’s becoming more common among the elderly.”
It must have been twenty years since I’d seen Mrs Wilcox’s Alice. But in that second, after I’d opened the door wide and wiped my hands on my apron, I flashed back to more than double those years and saw Alice, a bespectacled four year old the week the Wilcox’s moved in. She’d come to introduce herself and her memorably precocious speech was oft quoted in our house: “I’m Alice MacKensie-Wilcox, I’m four years old, and I’ve come to see if you’ve a child I can play with?”We had, but none so articulate. My youngest, Anne, and Alice became fast friends and were inseparable until their early teens. It was then that Alice’s passion for insects got between them.
That Alice has inherited her father’s looks was more evident now that she was approaching fifty. She had his short-sightedness, his stoop and, poor thing, a hefty dose of his awkwardness. There she stood, pen and paper in hand, writhing with embarrassment. Mrs Wilcox’s racy circle had been appalled that her daughter had inherited none of her mother’s legendary beauty. I’d heard this said many a time and often in Alice’s hearing. I thought her life a rotten one and did what I could to bolster her ego.
Alice wouldn’t accept tea or coffee. Isn’t it the devil when people won’t? The piece of paper turned out to be a form for her mother’s superannuation. She needed someone who knew her mother, but wasn’t related, to witness her signature. We signed and she got up to leave. I could tell she had something more to say but had no idea how start. I offered every possible opening but it wasn’t until we were at the front door that she broke down. I made out the odd word while steering her back to the lounge, again offering tea, but she threw me off in a fit of frustration, said I must come next door, she had something to show me. She was distraught, eyes full of panic.
Walking up Mrs Wilcox’s garden path I was aware of a strange mixture of excitement, sadness and dread. It was years since I’d been inside the house.
I hadn’t been estranged from Mrs Wilcox but after our children were grown there wasn’t much reason for us to have regular contact. After all, you couldn’t get two people more different. I’ve never worked, I was married to the same man for fifty-three years until his death three years ago and, really, all I’ve done is be a mum and these days a keen ‘Gran’. For her part, Mrs Wilcox was the hugely successful painter, ‘Anita’, she’d had countless affairs, and was completely disinterested in being a wife, mother or homemaker. I live a quiet life; she was notoriously outspoken. Last year she caused a furore in the press over the plight of refugees. The only thing we had in common was age. We would have both turned eighty this year.
Over the years we’d developed our neighbourly habits. There’s no way Mrs Wilcox would be twitching her curtains on neighbourhood watch duty, but even so I let her know when I’d be away and she did the same for me. Her trips abroad accompanying her work to exhibitions in Paris, New York, Milan, were exotic. Mine were to family. I still visit Anne and the children for a week twice a year and, up until last year, I was going to America every other year to visit Sarah, until my doctor has ruled out international flights because of blood pressure. My youngest Simon visits regularly but seeing as he doesn’t have children I don’t bother with going to Brisbane (that awful humidity!).
For both of us, the trips had all but ceased. I can’t remember the last time Mrs Wilcox was on my doorstep telling me where she was going and for how long. Even though for the last few years we’d rarely had occasion to see each other, we’d lived in gentle awareness of each other for fifty-one years.
As Alice and I headed along the hallway past the bedrooms, the house seemed smaller than I remembered. Memory plays strange tricks. It’s still bigger than ours, of course, and much more grand. When we arrived at the back living area my heart did a sort of leap and I had to steady myself against the back of a chair and catch my breath. I was glad I’d tucked a hankie up my sleeve when I’d dressed that morning. The room was so full of her. I expected to see her lying on one of the sofas, sketchbook upon her knees, charcoal flying.
The back of the house had been modernised ten or so years ago. I know because of builders’ noise. I’d not been invited in to a viewing because Mrs Wilcox would never have thought to suggest something as mundane as coming in to look at renovations, even though there was nothing I’d have liked more. Despite its newness—the modern glass doors that replaced the wall and looked out to the lawn and her studio beyond—there was evidence of her everywhere in just the way it had always been. Her paintings, of course, friends’ works on the walls, sculptures taking up every available space. Piles of books, magazines. A familiar, lively, rich mess. I found myself way back in time, having popped over to collect Anne because she’d refused to respond to my ‘Dinner’s ready! ‘ calls over the fence. Forced away from my organised, apron-wearing existence to confront whatever was happening at the Wilcox’s. Butterflies and dry mouth notwithstanding, I’d head through the always-open front door, and run the gauntlet of the hallway into the den of iniquity, which was how I always thought of this back area.
You’d never know what to expect. It could be as mild as a poetry reading; but more often than not there’d be a nude person—fruit in their lap with any luck—modelling for a charcoal drawing, and always people, people.
Once or twice I’d stayed, my protests waived. I’d find myself halfway through a glass of red wine, the afternoon softened, melting into evening.
Late on one such afternoon, Mrs Wilcox whispered to me, “Stay,” during a general leave taking. My, “But, the children’s dinner ...” was brushed aside and a surprisingly healthy feast of fruit and cheeses was assembled for Alice and Anna. It was Clive’s night at the Masons and the other two were out, so it didn’t matter. She took me to her studio. I wouldn’t take all my clothes off, but she said I was perfect in my underwear and made masses of drawings. She gave me the finished work a couple of weeks later. The oil paint was still so fresh it was intoxicating. Clive was appalled. What on Earth was I thinking? Was I drunk? (She’d painted me with the glass of red wine.) I put the painting away in the back of the wardrobe, where it’s been ever since.
Surprisingly, Mrs Wilcox didn’t drink, despite the fact that she was often in the midst of a party.
She said it didn’t mix with painting; she didn’t have the discipline to work through a hangover. Like anything that got in the way of her work, husband included, alcohol got short shrift.
Alice hadn’t stood a chance in the face of her mother’s single-mindedness. But, she’d survived and by all accounts had become an extremely successful entomologist. On the form that I signed, she was a ‘Dr’, but nonetheless the scars were evident; her lack of social ease and the fact that she’d not formed a relationship (I won’t add ‘never had children’, for two of my own, the childless ones, tell me that this is no longer a criteria for success or happiness).
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