Of course, I’d never see her again. Deep down, I already knew that. But hope twists the mind, and tempts you to believe the unbelievable.
Mum came home that night. As her cab pulled up in the driveway, Dad called me out to meet her by the front door. We stood on the porch, watching nervously.
She stepped out of the cab to take us in. So much had changed, I guess: the gleaming white paint, the perfectly aligned weatherboards, the son and the father who now stood side-by-side. It must have been quite a shock.
She grabbed her bag and shuffled into the house without a word. Dad and I looked at each other and wondered if we’d done something wrong. Maybe she didn’t want us to fix the place up in her absence? I guess she could have taken it as a slight. She headed to the kitchen and Dad made her a cup of tea. We sat there for a time before she finally spoke.
‘The house looks nice. Should have got round to that years ago,’ she offered.
She liked it then. It was the gift it ought to be. A surge of relief gushed through me. She smiled at both of us. She looked different, clearer somehow, more thoughtful and connected to the world around her. It was as if she had finally woken up from a coma and realised where she was. And there was something else. She’d given up the smokes, I could tell from the tips of her fingers. They used to be tinged a dark yellow, but now they were a clean, bright pink. Her teeth seemed cleaner too. And her eyes. And her skin. Even the tips of her hair seemed to breathe in new life. It was amazing, as if every cell in her body was now younger and more alive.
Dad and I smiled. Mum drank her tea and smiled back. She seemed happy to be home, but then I caught the look in her eye. It was the look of fear.
She glanced down the hallway towards my room and I could feel the chill in her bones. Yes, I thought. You saw it there, didn’t you? You peered into the night and caught it looking back at you. Frightened and alone, you tried to succumb.
I looked to the oven, a few feet behind her. I pictured her despair. I saw her breathe in death, the shadow goading her to continue, and Dad, poor simple old Dad walking into that scene, carrying his bread and milk and pulling her back from the brink.
She went to her room and closed the door. She needed a nap, Dad told me. This wasn’t like my mother at all. She used to stay awake half the night, certainly never sleep during the day. It was the medication, Dad informed me. It calmed her thoughts but meant she needed time to herself. We had to give her space.
‘Why’d she come home?’ I asked. ‘She’s not ready.’
‘She wanted to be here. For you. After everything that’s happened,’ he said.
‘She’s afraid.’
‘We’re all afraid, Monty. At times like this, we should be together.’
I knew better. I knew the dog was lurking somewhere. If it didn’t lure me to its realm, it would be perfectly happy with a substitute.
‘She’s not safe here,’ I said.
‘Monty, the doctors wouldn’t let her come home if they thought she was a danger.’
‘She’s not the danger,’ I told him.
Dad looked at me curiously. I could see his mind working overtime to figure out what in the world I was talking about. He still wasn’t used to having a conversation that went for more than six syllables and was struggling to get my meaning.
‘You mean, you?’ he asked.
‘No. Something else,’ I said.
I wanted to tell him so bad about the dog and the night in the tunnel and how the only thing that brought me back was thinking of him. Dad leaned back in his chair, looking thoughtful, and stroked the thick stubble on his chin. It made a harsh, crackling sound, like rubbing your fingers over dry sandpaper.
‘Monty, I don’t mind saying this because it’s true,’ he began. ‘You are much smarter than me. When you were little, you’d say things no other kid would dream about. By the time you hit school, I couldn’t keep up with you. Not many people could. So I let you go, to learn at your own pace. I’m proud of you, Monty. I always will be. But there’s one thing you are absolutely dead-set wrong about. There is nothing else.’
He fixed me with a steely stare. I could see the bear-fisted fighter in him, all coiled up and ready to explode. I’d never seen the man angry before. Old Bob mentioned one day that my dad had once got so angry with an annoying customer that he bent a crowbar clean in half. I thought Old Bob was just having me on. Now I wasn’t so sure.
‘How do you know?’ I asked.
‘Monty, look at your mother, and where she’s been. Is that what you want?’
He stood up abruptly and left, walking out the screen door to spend the afternoon in the shed. I was with my family, reunited. I had never been more alone.
Chapter Nineteen
I couldn’t sleep. The dog kept its distance. I spent most nights alone with my thoughts. I kept the curtain open for her, just in case she came back. Weeks rolled by. Christmas came and went. We even gave each other presents, like a real family. New Year was a blur. She never made her appearance. Eventually I pulled the curtain closed.
The memory of her stained my every move. It coloured everything. I found myself writing her name over and over again. I tried to keep working at the shop, to keep myself busy, but I became more of a hindrance than a help. More than once I forgot to screw on someone’s oil filter properly and, when they drove it out the yard, all the oil drained out of their car before they even got to the main road. Old Bob was very apologetic to his customers. He told Dad I had to go back to sweeping.
Ms Finch kept calling. She even dropped by for a coffee one day and brought over some fancy chocolate biscuits. It was an attempt to talk to me on mutual terms, I guess, to get me to open up. What was I going to say? I was responsible for Eliza’s death? I couldn’t forgive myself for ignoring her?
‘Come back to school,’ she said. ‘It’ll be different now. You’ll be in with kids a year younger. Most of them won’t know your history. You’ll make new friends. And there’s now a student counsellor on staff. If you have any issues, you can take it up with her.’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’m busy. Working full-time.’
‘Sweeping up? Yes, your father told me.’
‘That’s just for now. I’ll go back to working on cars again soon. It’s honest work.’
‘I’m sure it is. But you can do so much more. Please, don’t let this ruin your life.’
‘You think I’ve ruined my life?’
‘No. I just mean you have so much to offer. I really think you could do anything. Medicine, law, science. Whatever you like. It’s all there, just waiting for you to choose.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I can’t go back.’
Work at the shop became a chore. Since I’d been demoted back to sweeping duties, I’d become increasingly distracted and I didn’t even bother to sweep much at all anymore. I just stood there like a broken statue, holding a broom. Old Bob got worried.
‘He’s not right. I can’t have him here anymore,’ he whispered to my dad.
‘You know it’s good for him. He needs this, Bob.’
‘It won’t be good for him if he gets run over. You’ve seen him. He doesn’t even look where he’s going.’
It was true. Old Bob nearly backed over me with a Mini Minor that morning. I’d been standing so still, holding that broom, that he didn’t even see me in the rear-view mirror. He tooted the horn for me to get out of the way but I just stood there, looking at my broom. Dad had to come over and lead me away to a safe corner somewhere. All this happened far away from me. It was like watching pieces on a chessboard move around. Old Bob convinced Dad to give me a few weeks off. He couldn’t afford to pay me while I was gone, but I didn’t care. School, and now work, just seemed too hard.
*
Mum slept so much it was like she was hardly there. The house seemed to relax back in her presence. The place was eerily quiet. The only sounds were the birds in the street, chatting like angry neighbours on their wires. While Dad was at work, I sa
t on the porch to watch Eliza’s house again. It was lifeless and still. I didn’t hear her come out to sit beside me.
‘She was beautiful, wasn’t she?’ asked Mum.
‘Yeah. She was.’
‘She was a lot like you.’
‘No. She was stronger.’
‘Hmm. I don’t think so,’ she said.
I looked over to Mum and saw her eyes roll back into her head. She was floating on a dreamy, tranquil sea. She took a lot of pills each day now, neatly arranged in little blister packs so she didn’t get them confused.
‘She thought you were beautiful too, Monty.’
‘What?’
‘I could tell, that time she came over. She thought the world of you.’
My body shuddered in silent remorse. My mother stood up and shuffled drearily back to the house, her slippers sliding over the porch. In a moment she’d be gone, back to bed for the rest of the day, and any memory of this moment would be gone.
‘We all think the world of you, Monty,’ she said.
Then she was gone, back to her dreams.
I took to visiting Silas again. I dropped by religiously every day. It was the only thing I had left. I watched him roll his ball down the ramp, like some mesmeric metronome. I spent hours, days, just watching him. After a while, Erik seemed to wise up.
‘I think it’s time we made a move, don’t you?’ he asked.
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘It doesn’t matter where. We just move.’
Silas shrieked and banged his head and made the festering lump under his scalp bleed. This wasn’t going to be easy.
Getting everyone into the min-van was like wrangling a bunch of mad snakes into a basket. Birdman and Keith flew about the van, looking excited. Birdman perched on his seat like some kind of parrot and it was really hard to get him to sit down to put on his seatbelt. Erik stood back and laughed. Eventually, he lent me a hand and we both managed to clip him in.
Silas was the hardest though. If you got too close to him, he’d punch you in the face. There was no malice behind it, in fact he didn’t seem to notice if he hit you or not, his arms just had a mind of their own. I kind of understood what was going on; his mind was somewhere else. It was a bubble that had permanently slipped away. Without a consciousness to guide his hand, his body was left on autopilot. I knew what to do.
I grabbed his wrists and gently guided them for him, willing myself to govern his body. It took a few moments, but his body slowly came to the conclusion that a mind was back in control, and it gave up. He succumbed to my guidance, and I clipped him in.
Erik was astounded. He’d never seen anyone get Silas into a mini-van without sustaining at least one black eye. He told me I was a natural, and if I wanted to work with Silas, I could probably get paid for it. They were always screaming out for workers, he told me. I thought about it. It could have been a good job. I was there anyway so getting paid for it would be sensible. And I’d earn the money I needed to fix the ute.
Yet the thought of leaving Middleford without Eliza crushed me. Getting out and travelling, seeing the world, all of it, meant nothing without her. I didn’t even know if I even wanted the ute anymore. I’d stopped working on it and left it in the back corner of the shop. Old Bob hadn’t complained about it taking up room yet, but I knew he eventually would, and then I’d have to face the decision. I’d either give it life, or let it slowly die. I didn’t know which.
We drove the entire afternoon, all around Middleford. We didn’t go anywhere in particular; we just drove. The guys loved it. They stared out at the sun and the passing cars and mimicked the traffic noises. You could feel them getting more relaxed, except Silas. Something in him seemed restless, as if he was just waiting to get back to his ball.
Eventually Erik pulled in and bought soft serve ice creams. I used my new technique and guided Silas’s hands to his mouth. He managed to eat it without slamming it back in my face. It was another triumph, as far as Erik was concerned, and it gave him the confidence to let the guys out for a while. It was a mistake.
The park was a wide paddock in the middle of suburbia. I pushed Silas’s wheelchair and Erik was left to herd Birdman and Keith. There was a lake in the middle; a man-made puddle about two feet deep, proudly designed by city engineers and permanently filled up with duck poo. Birdman got away from Erik and ran out into the middle of the lake to become one with the ducks, I guess. He scared them all off pretty quick, and just paddled about in the green muck for about half an hour. He only came out when we offered him a packet of chips. He stank up the mini-van all the way home, but I could see the sheer delight on his face. For a few precious moments, he had flown with his flock.
Silas didn’t seem to notice any of it. When he got back to the house, he promptly picked up his ball and rolled it back down the ramp. The trip may as well not have happened. It crushed me to watch. There truly was nothing for him, other than that ball and ramp. I said my goodbyes to Silas. Erik was right. With some people, no matter how much you try, the disconnection is just too great.
The summer heat seemed endless. I’d done nothing but wake up and sit on the porch for months when I realised it was my sixteenth birthday.
‘Happy birthday, Monty!’ beamed my mother.
‘Yes. Happy birthday son,’ grinned Dad.
We finally celebrated it. Well, as much as a family like mine could, I guess. Dad bought a chocolate cake from the supermarket and put some candles on it, in the shape of a sixteen. They both wanted to bring Silas over for lunch, but I told them not to bother him. It wasn’t like he’d enjoy it or anything. They accepted my wishes, but it seemed like they were annoyed. That just made me all the more exasperated. They’d hidden him from sight all those years, and now we were just supposed to bring him back into our lives? It was hypocritical and they knew it. I headed to my room, unable to deal with the cake.
‘You forgot your present,’ said Dad.
‘I don’t want anything,’ I told him.
‘You’ll want this.’
Even though I’d told myself I didn’t deserve it anymore, I smiled when I saw the ute. Dad and Old Bob had finished it up. They’d even gone and put some cool looking chrome wheels on it. It looked awesome. Dad tossed me the keys.
‘Go on. Start her up,’ he muttered.
I couldn’t do it. Starting that car seemed like going back on my word. It would mean forgetting about her. Dad sighed, sounding truly exhausted. He had put up with so much in his life. I don’t know how he did it. He took back the keys gently and started it up. The ute ticked over as good as new. It sounded perfect.
‘You did a good job,’ he said.
‘You mean, you and Old Bob did a good job,’ I retorted.
‘Nah. You did all the hard stuff,’ he offered. ‘We just finished it up for you. It seemed like you had other things on your mind.’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘Now you’re old enough, you can sit your driving test. You’ll ace it, no problem. I’ve booked you in.’
‘I don’t want to go,’ I told him.
‘It’s at two o’clock. Plenty of time for you to read up. We’ll take her for a spin tonight.’
I couldn’t accept the car. It was too much.
I ran up the street to her house and banged on the door until Doreen answered, looking bewildered. I pushed past her and ran up the stairs to her room. Doreen called after me to stop, but I didn’t listen and barged in.
The room was exactly as Eliza had left it, all pristine and neat, save for some moving boxes in the corner. I opened the top one and pulled out her hairbrush. Strands of her hair were still there, woven into little patterns. I pulled some out and held them in my hand, hoping for some memory of her to return. Nothing came to me. It was just hair. I let it fall to the floor.
Further inside the box was her phone. I quickly swiped the screen and flicked through the files. Images of Eliza stared at me, hauntingly. She was suddenly alive once again. I held her in my hands;
her searching eyes, her full lips, and her faraway smile that curled away in a sombre note.
‘We’re giving away her clothes,’ said Doreen, standing by the door. ‘I can’t bear to look at her things anymore. Everything’s going to charity.’
‘Probably for the best,’ I offered.
‘She wasn’t the kind of girl to have a lot of things,’ said Doreen. ‘I always thought that was strange. Don’t you?’
‘Not really. Eliza knew what was important, that’s all.’
Doreen smiled, as if I’d just helped her understand some small mystery. She looked at me curiously for a moment, then stepped close and hugged me. I burst into sudden, convulsive tears. I’d never been held like this before. My own mother had returned but, with her medication and everything, she was just as detached as she’d always been. She’d wished me happy birthday that morning, but that was all. No hug, no tender kiss on the forehead. Just words.
Doreen loosened her grasp, stepped back and looked at me seriously.
‘Monty, I need your help.’
Doreen drove us out of Middleford. I sat beside her in the passenger seat and held the urn in my hands. It was cold and hard and made of brushed steel. Inside was Eliza. Well, what was left of her after the cremation. Her dad had kept her close, even in death. She’d been placed above the TV in the lounge room, so her father could watch her and the football at the same time. I directed Doreen where to go.
‘You sure this is where she would have wanted?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. I’m sure,’ I said.
The beach was windswept and chill. Even though it was summer, the wind coming off the ocean cooled you down instantly. It bit into you, and whipped at your sides. A punishing wind, I thought. How fitting.
The gulls on the cliffs were nowhere in sight. Perhaps they were all out at sea, or maybe breeding season was over? I wondered. We trudged up the sand to the point. Beyond lay the shipwreck, and the spot where I fell in love.
The Hounded Page 22