Yesterday's Dust

by Joy Dettman

  ‘You may. Come. Come.’ John followed his old teacher through the hall and into the kitchen. It was the first time he’d been inside the house, and once there he appeared ill at ease.

  ‘Sit,’ Malcolm said. ‘A cup of tea perhaps?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Leaning crutches against his chair, John sat.

  A houseproud spinster would have felt righteous in Malcolm’s kitchen. He liked a place for everything and everything in its place. Busy now at neat cupboards, he allowed time for his visitor to state his business. As he took spoons from his drawer, the red-wrapped parcel got in his way. It was definitely not in its correct place. He fumbled beneath it, found a spoon, then quickly tried to close the drawer. It jammed on the gun. He repositioned it, slid the draw in gently.

  ‘You’ve been spending some time back at the school, Mr Fletcher?’

  ‘Indeed I have. The faces of Mallawindy youths have undergone little alteration; I can still pick a West from a Dooley, but the vocabularies have taken a turn for the worse, I fear. It has been an eye opener to me, Burton. And you? What are your plans – apart from farm labourer, fencing contractor.’

  John looked at his shoe. ‘I find physical labour cleansing. I miss it.’

  ‘Cleansing? Digging in Mallawindy dirt?’

  ‘There are worse occupations.’

  ‘Indeed. Indeed. However, I admit to seeing your crowbar work as a criminal waste of a brilliant mind, and of your years of study.’

  ‘No study is ever wasted. Isn’t that what you used to say? No book ever written should be scorned.’

  ‘I used to say a lot of things, Burton, however, I have had time recently to reconsider that one. Still, one man’s poison is another man’s meat. Do you have any plans to return to your former calling?’

  ‘Some of us are called. Others enter the church seeking sanctuary.’ John shrugged, glanced at Malcolm, then away, and he looked more like Ann than his father. So young still. A life ahead of him. Malcolm envied him his youth.

  ‘You’d be in your early forties?’

  ‘Not so early.’ John looked at his hands, at his nails. They had grown long in his two weeks of inactivity. He had not inherited his father’s hands, or his well-shaped nails. He had Ellie’s hands, if somewhat magnified. Broad palms, flat nails. He linked his fingers, then looked up to his former teacher. ‘As a thinking, reasoning adult, I know I can’t continue digging post holes for the next twenty years, but I don’t often think as an adult these days, Mr Fletcher. I don’t often think. Or I try not to.’ John sat forward on his chair.

  Malcolm waited for more as he set out cups. Old cups, Jillian’s cups. She had loved this set. One by one he’d broken them until only two of the original eight remained.

  ‘The years have kept passing while I’ve been waiting, hoping that some new beginning might present itself.’ John drew a breath, held it, and the older man stood, teaspoon in hand. ‘I used to teach, Mr Fletcher. In Brisbane, then on the island for many years. I enjoyed teaching. I felt . . . felt more worthy in the classroom.’

  ‘I must admit, I have never been able to think of you as one of God’s black-suited messengers, preaching damnation to the masses.’

  John Burton held the older man’s eyes now. ‘No. Nor I. That’s one of the reasons I ended up on the island.’ He drew breath, held it. ‘A proposition was put to me this morning by Miss Fogarty.’

  Malcolm nodded. He smiled his tight little smile that barely made an impression on the mass of his face. ‘Ah hah. I see now what has brought on this visit. You, no doubt, thought you might be stepping on my toes by accepting her proposition?’ John shrugged, nodded and Malcolm patted his broad expanse of stomach. ‘Difficult to tread on my toes these days, Burton.’ He looked down. ‘Difficult to see them too, but no doubt they are still there as they continue to find the toes of others. Do feel free to accept our Miss Fogarty’s proposition. You may save me from a mild case of murder.’

  Murder. Ten minutes ago he had been planning a serious case of murder. He thought of the loaded gun in his drawer, and a shudder shook his profusion of flesh. Must remember it is in there, he thought. A blind grope for a knife might find a trigger and waste a bullet. I must remember to remove it. When he leaves.

  He stood eyeing the drawer, his mind wandering. Was he capable of taking a life? One could not, in all conscience, fire a bullet into the most deserving of flesh – unless the life-taker was prepared to donate his own life to the cause.

  He reached for a packet of imported biscuits, studied the pack, which required a knife to slit it open. He looked at the drawer he did not wish to open, at the bench, seeking a tool. Only his fingers to work on the cellophane, but they broke through and the biscuits were arranged neatly on a plate. All the while his mind was working.

  Closer to eighty than seventy. Little to look forward to, apart from a fast heart attack, or slow disintegration. Not a soul would miss him.

  Ann. She would mourn his passing. His readers might, but they would mourn Chef-Marlet, not Malcolm Fletcher. Who was Malcolm Fletcher these days? Just a lonely, fat old fool who spent too much time talking to himself. Why had he moved his family to this lucky country? To see them die? Or had he been sent to this hole in hell for a purpose? Why had he brought the gun with him, wrapped in his wife’s prized tablecloth? Why, if not to use it on the extermination of vermin? He was rubbing his chin, his mind far away, when John spoke again.

  ‘I enjoyed the children, Mr Fletcher, enjoyed watching a child’s mind open and grow. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it until . . . until Miss Fogarty’s visit.’

  Malcolm’s attention returned to his visitor. The jug had boiled. He poured water into the small pot.

  ‘Some are born to the profession, Burton. At one time I believed I had been born to teach. These days – ’ He glanced at his cutlery drawer, coughed. ‘What you achieved with Ann in those early years was quite exceptional.’

  John nodded. ‘She taught herself, once given the key.’

  ‘But isn’t this what we aim to do, to offer young minds the key to question, then set them loose on the path of life in quest of their own answers?’ He poured the tea, placed the cups on the table, offering milk and sugar, biscuits. His visitor refused the biscuits so Malcolm dispatched one. He sat munching, stirring his tea, creating a whirlpool in the cup.

  John added sugar, stirred slowly. ‘I lost my direction, or took a wrong turn too many years ago and left no footprints behind to lead me back. I was a priest who had no real belief in God.’

  ‘I consider myself a part-time atheist, Burton. Even as a child I was not a true believer in the old man with the white beard; still, the longer I live, the more I am inclined to think that there is something greater than man. Some great universal plan for all. A big computer, perhaps, deleting, adding, moving us around at will. Allowing man to progress to a certain stage then pulling the rug out from beneath his feet, watching him stumble, pick himself up and start all over again. It’s just a game, Burton, a computer game and we the small cartoon characters scuttling madly around obsessed by our own importance.’

  ‘Until we’re bowled over like tenpins.’

  ‘Yes. And fight as we may against it, that old computer in the sky finally gets us where it wants us, to do the task it has programmed into its electronics.’

  ‘You were sent here to find Annie. To turn her life around.’

  ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps not,’ he said thoughtfully, his eye on the cutlery drawer. ‘I admit, Burton, that I saw more for your sister than motherhood. She has an exceptional mind, which is now buried beneath baby mush and napkins. I saw much more than that for her.’

  ‘His genes didn’t marry well to Mum’s. They created a breed of misfits. We want to own the world, but end up malcontents, milking cows.’

  Malcolm lifted his glasses and stared at his visitor. A long silence followed, then he asked, ‘What is it between you two?’ John glanced at him, then away. ‘As a child, she was obsessed with finding you
. I spent much time with her in the months after she began speaking again. She said one day that she had to find you because you would remember all the things she had forgotten.’

  John made no reply. He sipped his tea, his eyes down, then he placed the cup on the saucer, a fine delicate thing, hand-painted flowers interlinked with gold. ‘Siblings grow apart,’ he said. ‘We . . . too much time had passed. We have nothing in common these days.’

  ‘Or too much in common, perhaps.’ Again Malcolm stared at his visitor, his old eyes magnified behind thick lenses. Then it was out. ‘Your father? Perhaps you are both aware that he is alive, Burton?’

  Johnny Burton stood abruptly, forgetting his foot. He stumbled, grasped at his chair, his face grown pale.

  Malcolm ate a biscuit, his gaze still on the younger man. Now he knew he had not been mistaken. Now he understood Ann’s refusal to discuss her father’s surmised demise. Although he had convinced himself that the man in the car had been Jack Burton, he had not been entirely certain until this very moment.

  ‘I sighted him quite recently, Burton,’ he added. His visitor’s eyes were down, studying his odd shoe. How transparent, Malcolm thought. He looks like a guilty boy caught stealing his neighbour’s apples. Both he and Ann knew that their father was alive! Ah, but where was the bastard hiding out, and why were they covering up for him? What was his game, their game? And where to go from here? A step back may be in order. A tight smile, a sip of tea. ‘A biscuit, Burton? One less for me.’

  John glanced at him and at the diminishing pile of biscuits, then away, but he sat again and he drank his tea, his face turned to the window. Denial came slowly, following the flush of blood creeping up from his neck settling in cheeks and brow. ‘Sam and May were in Warran a week back.’ He drank tea, then turned and went on quickly. ‘Annie called me. She said they’d driven up to see the baby – to see Bethany. They would have passed through town. You may have seen the brother.’

  Malcolm shrugged, pointed with his cup to the old Burton place. ‘I think not. I watched him light a cigarette, Burton. Not ten metres from my front door. I have spent many years of my life watching your father, documenting his bad habits.’

  John glanced at his old headmaster, then away. Another biscuit-munching silence followed. Malcolm had dispensed with two before John turned back to him.

  ‘I’ll guarantee you one thing, Mr Fletcher – if I ever set eyes on my father again, I won’t need to consider my future. The courts will look after that for me.’

  Malcolm nodded, his gaze on the single biscuit left lonely on its plate. He thought of his doctor, offered the biscuit to his visitor, and when it was refused, he sent it down to his gut with its mates.

  ‘I would have hoped that the old computer in the sky might have had a more worthy quest for you than breaking rubble on some chain gang. Better the crowbar, Burton. Better the crowbar,’ he said, his hands rubbing together, shedding biscuit crumbs as John stood, preparing now to leave. ‘It may have been his brother Sam. Yes. Obviously it would have been the brother. Twins, perhaps, have similar mannerisms.’ Better not to confront the issue. Let the guilty boy keep his apples today. He smiled, not wanting his visitor to leave. ‘So, shall you tame the Mallawindy rabble – teach a West to read?’

  John was at the door. ‘As you say, it is just a computer game. One program closes and another one opens and leads us to where it may, Mr Fletcher. Why fight it?’

  ‘Why indeed, Burton? Why indeed?’ He prodded his glasses higher on his nose, and glanced over his shoulder to his study. ‘Speaking of computer programs,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t be familiar with these . . . these personal computers, would you? Windows 95? Microsoft Word?’

  ‘I couldn’t keep up with the average ten year old these days, but I used to know my way around them. They use computers at the school?’ John limped back.

  ‘No. No. Yes. I do believe they have one or two, but it is my own beast I speak of.’ He coughed and gained his feet, then he turned away, spoke to his sink. ‘Would you mind stepping through to my study for a moment?’

  John collected his crutches and followed his old teacher into a room unlike the rest of the house. The walls were covered with framed portions of naked women. He moved closer, recognising the pictures as book covers. He’d seen a few, wrapped around books in Ben’s shop.

  ‘My inner sanctum, and not for everyone, Burton. Definitely not for everyone, but I believe you have a mouth like a padlocked clam. Yes?’

  John turned his frown on the older man.

  ‘Yes. So. It is as you see.’ He coughed. ‘Your sister has been more than helpful in the past; she has spent much time in here. And kept her lips sealed, I might add. It goes without saying that I expect the same silence from you on this matter, Burton.’

  John’s eyes had wandered back to the framed covers. He counted nine of them. He limped to the bookshelves. Rows of each book, solid stands of red and black and gold. Coll M Chef-Marlet.

  There had been times in the last six years when John had doubted his sanity. So it was proven. His sanity had flown. But a madman can lift a hand, point a finger, ask an insane question.

  ‘Not you?’

  Malcolm lifted his many chins, pursed his lips and nodded.

  ‘You? Him? You’re . . .’ John pointed to the bookshelves. ‘Him?’

  ‘Coll. I am indeed he.’ Malcolm selected a copy of Number 1. ‘My first-born and my favourite. Do take it.’ He pushed the novel at his visitor. ‘I receive free copies from my publisher but, for obvious reasons, I cannot give them away.’

  John took the book, but continued to stare at the man. ‘You? Coll M Chef-Marlet? You wrote that – ?’

  ‘Lewd smut. Yes. And don’t stand there gawping, Burton. We do what we do and no apologies given. Life is too brief for apologies.’ He stripped the cover from his computer, baring its face. ‘Forget Chef-Marlet. This is why I brought you in here. That confounded machine haunts my life. Ann was attempting to instruct me in its usage, but her knowledge of its internal organs, as with her time, is limited. I attempted to turn three chapters into one and they became stuck somewhere in its gut. The arrogant bastard of a thing will not give them back to me.’

  But John Burton was laughing. Years had passed since he had laughed. He could not remember the last time he’d laughed like this, but he leaned against a bookshelf now, bellowing with laughter, choking, crying with laughter.

  ‘Very amusing. Yes, indeed, Burton. Well may you laugh, but it pays admirably.’ Malcolm nodded and muttered as he reclaimed his book, placing it possessively on the shelf. ‘Come. Come now. I did not invite you in here for your amusement. There is work to be done.’

  the schoolmaster

  Friday 5 September

  John Burton leaned against the brick wall, surveying the schoolyard. Empty now. The last ball bounced on the verandah, the last bike gone from the stands, the last squabble placed on hold until Monday.

  And he wouldn’t be here to hear that squabble.

  His eyes roamed the small bitumen square and the dusty playing area. He’d played there a lifetime ago. His feet had walked him to that same school gate for six long years. Much had altered since he’d walked away. New school. New basketball ring. New fence between the playground and the headmaster’s house, but old clay, old peppercorn trees, the same tall weeds surviving against the fence with the lunch bags and lolly papers, hair ribbons and half-eaten apples.

  The headmaster’s residence hadn’t altered at all. Cream weatherboard, green roof, twin red brick chimneys, verandah up front, half-verandah at the rear. Small windows, green frames. Johnny had been inside that house; mentally he mapped it, seeing the interior as it had been in Malcolm Fletcher’s time, in the time of Malcolm’s son. He’d also been a John, which had led to confusion in the playground, so they’d called him John F, until some wit had added a K. Nicknames had been a part of life in this schoolyard, so John Kelvin Fletcher, fresh from England, had become JFK. The name had carried over to th
e Daree high school.

  He’d been a close friend, and one of too few Johnny had made in his lifetime. He’d invited Johnny to his house where he’d had his own room, his own desk, his own books, and Johnny had envied the life he’d possessed, envied him the future, planned for him by his father, the headmaster. He’d envied JFK’s new racing bike too, on that day they’d gone riding out at Dead Man’s Lane. A Saturday.

  And John Fletcher had been dead by the following Saturday, struck down by encephalitis. So much for envy. That was the week the world had ended for Johnny Burton. That was the week . . .

  John shook his head and took up his crutches, making his way to the fence where he picked up an empty cigarette packet and wondered which sixth grader had tossed it there. Not his problem. No more playing at schoolmaster. His plaster was coming off tomorrow and it would be back to the post holes and paintbrushes and long empty days.

  A removalist’s van had been parked in front of the residence for most of the afternoon. Norman O’Rouke would not be returning. Old news to Kerrie and John. Two weeks old. O’Rouke was being replaced by a senior mistress, Ms Glen White. She’d be in the classroom come Monday. She had three daughters, but would not be moving them to Mallawindy until the school residence had been ‘made habitable for human occupation’.

  ‘She’s going to share my flat for a week. I’ve got two bedrooms,’ Kerrie had said.

  ‘She sounds . . .’ John had sought a suitable description.

  ‘Tough. And I hope she’s as tough as she sounds. They’re doing the bathroom, putting new floor coverings down and splashing on a bit of paint as soon as Norman’s furniture is gone.’

  Maybe John would miss his days in the school room. He’d enjoyed the last two weeks. He’d had a place to go, a reason to put on a shirt. He’d bought a pair of jeans and a sweater. Maroon.

  Standing there, playing with the cigarette packet, he watched two men wheel a refrigerator out to the van. He watched them load it then return for a piano, and he wondered who’d played it and how they were going to get it on board. The police hadn’t been able to trace Amy. Her mother lived in Lilydale, a Melbourne suburb. She said she hadn’t heard from her daughter, but Amy’s body had not been found. The dead woman, found in Albury, had been identified as a Sydney prostitute.