The Hounded
Page 23
A pang of doubt rushed through me. Doreen had asked me to think of the perfect spot to spread her ashes. The only place I could think of was this beach, where we held each other, naked, under the waves. Yet was this place more important for me than it ever was for her? I guess, I’d never know.
‘It’s a good spot, Monty,’ said Doreen. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ I agreed.
We took off our shoes and waded into the waves. Together, we spread her ashes out into the ocean. Her dust billowed all around us in thick, grey furls. Eliza mixed with the waves, and dispersed into the vastness of time. She was gone now.
I watched the water until there was no more grey to be seen. Everything turned a turquoise blue again. The whitewater rushed in and fanned back out, relentless and ongoing. I pictured her ashes spreading out into the deep. She’d merge with all the sea creatures out there, I thought. Krill and shrimp and cuttlefish would eat up her dust and, in turn, fish and dolphins and sharks would eat them up. She’d become the sea. From now on, I’d always see her face reflected in the ocean.
‘Time to go, Monty,’ said Doreen.
It was getting late and dusk settled in over the sea. We’d been sitting there for hours, not saying anything, just being in the moment. She took the steel urn and filled it up with sand, then screwed the lid back on. She gave me a sneaky look and I decided I liked Doreen. I wished I’d had a mother just like her.
Night fell as she drove us back to the house. As we pulled into the drive, she looked relieved that Derek wasn’t home yet. She checked the time and hurried inside. She replaced the urn above the TV and positioned it just so. She was an expert at hiding her tracks, I thought. That only comes from a life lived under a watchful eye. I legged it home as quick as I could.
I bolted past Mum and Dad waiting for me at the dinner table. Dad wanted to know where I’d been, but I ignored them both and slammed the door to my room.
I had Eliza’s phone. I knew it was wrong of me, but I couldn’t leave it there, to be discarded. I searched through the phone. It was an invasion of her privacy but I was desperate. I just wanted to see her face again. She was gone, washed away under the waves. This was all I had of her. Then I saw it.
My gut wrenched.
I wanted to hurl.
This couldn’t be right. She had two SpeedStream accounts.
One was in the name of her alias. Eliza was Gutentag.
She had been my first, and only, true friend. There, listed in the inbox, were all our midnight conversations. She was in my head the whole time and I had no idea. It all suddenly made sense; Eliza didn’t know how to read my mind at all, she just had insider knowledge. I broke out into a curious, appreciative smile. But there was more. Unsent drafts. Her messages from beyond:
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Thursday February 14, 8.25AM (UNSENT)
You don’t who I am, do you Monty? I’m standing there right in front of you and you’re off in some other world. Do you know how frustrating that is? BTW, happy birthday :)
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Friday February 15, 12.55AM (UNSENT)
I can’t believe you egged Tony in the face. So brilliant. He’s been asking for that for years. That takes a lot of guts, Monty.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Friday February 15, 3.46AM (UNSENT)
What is it with you and coconuts? You talk about girls like you’re a five-year-old. Seriously. It’s embarrassing. Get a life.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Saturday February 16, 1.33AM (UNSENT)
I showed you the tunnel today. You looked so scared, Monty. Seriously that was pathetic. Argh! You make me want to scream.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Saturday February 16, 1.38AM (UNSENT)
I’m sorry. I was mean to you. You only went to the tunnel for me. Not for my body, just me. I know that now. Thank you.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Saturday March 22, 6.45AM (UNSENT)
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t make any sense. EVER!!!
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Monday April 14, 5.25PM (UNSENT)
Who the hell is Tim Smith?
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Monday April 14, 7.50PM (UNSENT)
Your hair was so gross, Monty. I didn’t want to touch it. But I had to. I couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. And the smell was putrid! I don’t know why I bother.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Monday April 14, 7.52PM (UNSENT)
I don’t blame you. How can I? I mean, how could your parents let you get like this?
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Monday April 14, 11.55PM (UNSENT)
I love what you said to my dad! So brilliant. I’ve never seen him so angry in my life. Thanks Monty!
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Tuesday April 24, 4.05PM (UNSENT)
I stole her phone today. They were going to destroy me.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Tuesday April 24, 4.05PM (UNSENT)
I took the picture of myself. I had to. They were going to take us both down. I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Sunday April 27, 9.45PM (UNSENT)
I met your mother today. You know what she told me? She said I was just out to hurt you. Me? Hurt YOU? How the hell could I do that when you don’t even know I exist?
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Monday May 5, 2.25AM (UNSENT)
Thank you for taking me to the ocean today.
It was so deep and I was so scared but you just held on to me. You were so strong, who knew? Just when you think you know everything about a person, they turn the world upside down.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Monday May 5, 2.28AM (UNSENT)
The ocean was so beautiful, Monty. I could live there forever. You were so strong. So sweet. I wanted to kiss you.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Monday May 5, 2.30AM (UNSENT)
I know you wanted to kiss me too. But I couldn’t, not after everything I’ve done. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve you.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Wednesday May 28, 12.20PM (UNSENT)
Why don’t you see me? I stood next to you today for half an hour before you even noticed I was there. I hate that about you.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Friday June 6, 3.12PM (UNSENT)
You dance funny. Hilarious!
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Tuesday July 1, 3.25PM (UNSENT)
Cigarettes hurt. I wore long sleeves so you wouldn’t see the burns. Deep down I hoped you would notice. But you didn’t.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Thursday July 24, 7.15AM (UNSENT)
He’s coming over tonight, Monty. For a big family dinner.
HELP ME!
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Thursday July 24, 7.20AM (UNSENT)
Uncle Terry. He’s so big and fat and disgusting. He’s grown a beard now and it just makes him look even creepier. How could they let him back in the house? How can they tell me it won’t happen again?
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Thursday July 24, 8.30PM (UNSENT)
He sat at the table with Dad and Doreen and eyed me off the whole time. I hate him. Dad noticed it, I’m sure. But he chose not to. He’s family, Dad says.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Thursday July 24, 8.33PM (UNSENT)
They should have gone to the police when I was little. I know that now. Back then, I didn’t know what was right or wrong.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Thursday July 24, 8.43PM (UNSENT)
All grown up now, he said. All grown up. I have to see you. I’m coming over.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Friday July 25, 6.45AM (UNSENT)
You helped me get through last night, Monty. You let me stay with you. You have no idea how close I was. Thank you.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Friday July 25, 6.56AM (UNSENT)
You were so beautiful about it. You just held me and we slept. I love you so much. I can’t bear it. But I’m so sorry. I can’t let anyone touch me. Not after that. Not after him.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Friday July 25, 9.10PM (UNSENT)
I’ve given you the wrong idea. I can’t be with you. I know I have to let you go now. I have to be alone.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Saturday August 2, 8.33AM (UNSENT)
How could you do this? I know, I told you to go to that stupid party. But Pippa Wilson? I’ll never forgive you. EVER!
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Saturday August 2, 10.23AM (UNSENT)
I’m sorry. It was all a stupid set up. Pippa confessed. It was all Becky’s idea. They wanted to trap you into kissing her. And you fell for it. Poor stupid Monty, taken for a ride.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Saturday August 2, 10.25AM (UNSENT)
I’ve got nowhere to go. I’ve got nothing left. I am endless. I am nothing.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Friday August 8, 1.45AM (UNSENT)
You’ve gone viral, you idiot. My god I don’t know how you’re going to survive this.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Tuesday September 16, 1.22AM (UNSENT)
You’ve been gone from school for a month now. I miss you.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Wednesday October 15, 1.18AM (UNSENT)
I see you sitting on your porch watching my house. I want to run over and hug you. I’m so sorry. I pushed you away. I ruined your life. Please forgive me?
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Sunday November 23, 4.43AM (UNSENT)
You see the dog too, don’t you Monty?
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Sunday November 23, 4.45AM (UNSENT)
It wants me to go back to the tunnel.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Wednesday November 26, 1.24AM (UNSENT)
I’ve dodged the train three nights in a row now.
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Wednesday November 26, 1.32AM (UNSENT)
I feel so empty when the dog is with me, Monty. I wish you were here right now. But the dog says you hate me. Is that true?
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Wednesday November 26, 1.37AM (UNSENT)
The dog says Mum is right there. I miss her so much. It says I can be with her. Do you think that’s true?
Alias: @Gutentag
Date: Wednesday December 10, 11.59PM (UNSENT)
I’m sorry Monty. I’m going now. I love you. Eliza.
*
I cried until I was empty. Why didn’t she send them? Why didn’t she tell me?
Chapter Twenty
Derek read the messages without expression. He didn’t seem surprised.
‘Thank you, Monty. I’ll handle this,’ he said.
‘You’ll call the police?’ I asked.
‘I’ll handle it.’
He closed the door and that was it. He never did call the police. I don’t know what came of the phone, or the messages, but I know her Uncle Terry went free. Doreen told me he moved interstate, and got a job as a youth worker.
I was such an idiot. I should have pressed send. Then at least I’d have a copy. I’d have proof. I left her pain in his hands. I trusted him and he decided to protect the living over the dead. Family, he called it.
Doreen left him soon after that. She disappeared in the dead of night. I don’t know what became of her. She didn’t say goodbye, although she did leave me the urn. It appeared on our doorstep the morning she left, the metal cold and dewy from the night. The sand inside still smelled of ocean. It took me instantly back to Eliza. I’d take the lid off and breathe her in to me. I made little patterns in the sand with the tips of my fingers. Waves descended into waves. We’re all just dust in the end, I thought. You could fight like hell all the way but, in the end, everything turns to dust and the world would turn as if you were never there.
‘Hello Monty,’ said the dog.
‘Hello dog,’ I replied.
‘You know why I’m here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. She is waiting for you.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘No. I can see her right beside you,’ it said. ‘She’s calling you. Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good,’ said the dog.
I sat on my bed and held my life in my hands. Through my bedroom door, I could hear Mum and Dad in the kitchen, making cups of tea, discussing what to have for dinner. They wouldn’t come in. They weren’t suspicious of my need for privacy. They should have been.
I thought of the ramifications. I wondered how the kids at the school would react. Would there be posts for me? Would I trend? Would I become a hot topic? Would everyone say they knew Monty Ferguson, that he was a great guy? Or would it not rate a mention? Would everyone just go on with their daily lives and forget?
I thought of Mum and Dad. They’d be crushed. I didn’t know if Mum would make it through. And if Dad lost her, surely he’d succumb eventually. I pictured Dad cold and alone and wandering the streets, the sole survivor of a chain of wreckage. He would look straight towards me, and in his eyes I’d see Martin’s face, long dead, just a skull grinning in death. The dog would have its day. But so what? I thought. I’d be with Eliza. I wanted to believe that. I wanted to go. I wanted to trust the dog. It was another lie, I knew. It had twisted her, like it was twisting me now.
‘I am here to guide you,’ said the dog. ‘Go now. Do it! Do it now!’
The thin steel cut easily. Hot blood gushed forward. The dog recoiled in shock; I had cut its throat instead. The dog scurried across the bedroom floor, spilling blood everywhere. I watched it writhe in agony as the life bled out of it.
‘Go on, dog. Die!’ I said.
The dog finally went still, lying limp on the floor in a thick pool of red. The darkness seemed to fade in its eyes. I relaxed. I opened the urn and breathed in the salty air. Eliza was there beside me. The dog was right about that. But she didn’t want me to go. She wanted me to keep moving. Just keep moving.
‘Nice try, Monty,’ said the dog.
I looked up, astonished, to see the dog sitting back beside me. There was no blood. There was no gaping wound across its neck. I hadn’t even touched it.
‘You can’t die?’ I asked.
‘No,’ it said.
Now it was my turn. Now it was my end.
Mum and Dad came rushing in. I think they must have heard me crying or something, I’m not sure, but they found me. There was no blood. I hadn’t managed to do anything. I just howled in pain. They held me and squeezed me tight and told me they loved me. We cried together, I don’t know, for what seemed hours. They were so thankful.
Mum took my head in her hands and looked me eye to eye.
‘Don’t ever do that again, Monty,’ she ordered. ‘Promise me!’
‘I don’t know if I can, Mum,’ I blubbered.
‘You can’t let it take you,’ she said. ‘It will never go away. You just have to learn to live with it.’
I’d never seen her strength before. She held me tight and strong against the tide.
‘You’ve just got to hold on,’ she said. ‘Do you understand?’
The dog sat behind them up the hall, waiting. Biding its time.
‘Yes Mum.’
I understand.
Epilogue
A year can be an eternity. And eternity repeats itself. Eventually it just runs out of options and is forced to play the same game over and over, I guess.
I got my licence. I went back to work with Dad and Old Bob. I also finished school, by correspondence though. I couldn’t bring myself to go to a new school, and going back to Middleford was never going to happen. It was just much simpler to be an external student. I only dropped in to visit the school
counsellor. She was a young woman with long, red dreadlocks. Man, it took all my willpower not to spend our sessions just staring at her hair. She really helped me. She also knew exactly what I was going through; she’d lost her best friend at high school the same way. Ms Finch kept a close eye on me, and we caught up for coffee every now and then. She was so happy when I showed her the little Parisian café; we’d connected over a shared love of caffeine. She was right about me going back to school too. I scored ninety-nine percent. I could get into any course I wanted at uni. The world was open to me. I could forge my own path.
I took the year off and went up the coast in the ute. I saw mountains and rainforests and the Great Barrier Reef. I lived my dream and worked in auto shops along the way, or picked fruit, or cleaned loos at backpackers’ hotels. I didn’t care what the work was like, just that it gave me enough cash to get to the next town. Now I wander the country, rolling, like Silas and his ball.
I call Mum and Dad every Saturday night and we talk. It’s weird. We never talked when I lived there, but now I’m gone, we spend hours chatting about anything and everything. Dolly’s still going strong. She’s living in my old room and still eats ham sandwiches. She’ll probably outlive us all. Dad reckons they all go to visit Silas once a week to take him a new ball. It’s strange how tragedy brings you together.
I’ve met a girl, from Germany of all places. Gaby’s her name. She’s tall and blonde and giggles at practically anything. She loves our country. To her the endless blue sky is like heaven. She’s travelled to another planet, she reckons. I show her around, as if I know where I’m going. I don’t have a clue of course, I think she knows that, but we just keep moving. We camp in the back of the ute and go swimming in waterholes and bushwalk until we’re red from the sun. We’re going to Darwin next. I want to see if we can get work in a crocodile farm, feeding those ancient beasts dead chooks for the tourists. We’ll probably end up cleaning the loos, but who cares? Eventually, Gaby will go back home to Germany. She’s going to study law, she reckons. Yeah, she’s smart as a whip and loves to ponder the way of things. We stay up all night nattering about the ins and outs of the world. I might go with her to Europe. I might not. We’ll see.
I’ll never forget Eliza. I’ll never forgive myself for not being there for her. Most of all, I know what she did was futile. It didn’t change a thing. The world kept turning. The kids at school forgot about her. Her father moved on. Doreen found another life. The gulls on the rocks kept calling. The waves went on crashing.