Every night, Ruby and I would stagger back to our shack and collapse, too exhausted to make a futile attempt to see Tobe.
‘This is bullshit,’ Ruby said after our seventh or eighth day. ‘I’ve had a gutful.’
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
One day, the door to our shack slammed open and a Creep strode inside. He walked straight over to me, stuck his face into mine, and looked me in the eye.
‘Bill Cook?’ he asked.
‘Um, yeah.’
‘Come with me.’ Without another word, he walked back out the door. ‘Don’t make me ask twice,’ he yelled, his voice echoing down the alley.
‘Looks like someone’s in trouble,’ Ruby said with a frown.
‘She’ll be ‘right.’
I dithered for a moment, decided to do what the Creep said, and hurried after him. Ruby followed, as wary as I was. Not that there was much we could really do if trouble fell upon us.
‘The fun never stops, eh?’
I didn’t laugh.
We silently wound a path through the camp’s shantytown maze, keeping to the alleys, avoiding the market and the square. The Creep began whistling some jaunty tune, incessantly repeating the same few bars. We kept walking. The Creep’s tune slowly started to drive me crazy.
At some point, the alley we were in stopped and we found ourselves looking upon the courthouse.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me …’
The commander was sitting at the top of the stairs, leaning back in some kind of deckchair. Indolently overlooking his domain, all he needed was a gin and tonic to fulfil his civilised-man-in-the-wild fantasies, the Creep standing at his shoulder a fitting analogue for a native with a palm frond. Scorn and a kind of delighted disgust filled me in equal measure.
Ruby took my hand, forcing me to remember how seriously wrong our world was.
‘She’ll be ‘right,’ I said, my mocking smile fading away again.
Once again, I didn’t really believe my own words.
We watched the commander clamber down the stairs to meet us. He moved awkwardly, his body belying a lifetime of desk work. Scorn filled me again. Ruby squeezed my hand. I let my anger go.
‘Bill, Ruby, good afternoon.’ He looked at us like we were walking, talking pieces of meat.
‘What do you want?’ I asked.
Ruby kept silent.
‘Well, if that’s your attitude, I guess we’ll get straight to business.’
‘Come again?’
He smiled patronisingly, making sure that I knew my place. ‘You’ll see.’ He turned away, climbed back up to the stairs.
‘Tobe!’ Ruby couldn’t help herself.
The commander looked over his shoulder. He smiled; I couldn’t read anything in it. We hurried after him. The pair of Creeps that always seemed to be guarding the doors opened them with a flourish that was both deferential and mocking, taking the piss out of the commander in a way that went over his head.
I laughed. It was nice to find that the Creeps and I had something in common.
The commander turned, looked at me darkly. I shrugged. He obviously wanted us upright, I figured that I was safe enough. The commander cleared his throat in an obvious, petulant manner. He walked through the doors, almost tripping on his own feet. Ruby laughed this time, long and hard. For a beautiful moment, life didn’t seem so grim.
‘If you’ll follow me,’ the commander said, trying in vain to retain his dignity.
We left the hot sun behind, entering a lobby of obscene opulence. Every effort had been made to deny the real world, to recreate the past as a grotesque tableau—it was like walking into an antique. Heavy tapestries, wooden-framed paintings and gilt-edged mirrors covered the walls; an island-bar of leather and chrome split the room down the middle; art-deco dining furniture fought with overstuffed lounges for whatever floorspace wasn’t taken up by statues and sculptures.
‘Our mess,’ the commander explained, without a trace of shame or embarrassment.
We weaved through the insulting display of luxury. I felt sickened by such wasteful uselessness, while Ruby seemed largely indifferent, taking it in her stride as she did most everything.
The real reason for her indifference soon became apparent.
‘Come on, hurry up,’ she muttered.
The commander surprisingly did as she said, picking up his pace, leading us into a long corridor lined with faded portraits of presumably long-dead people. Doors lined the corridor: numberless, featureless, closed, and locked. It struck me that no Creeps had followed us inside. I guessed they were needed in the camp; I had never seen more than a few dozen of them at a time.
In the seat of their power, guarding a cripple and a kid hardly seemed necessary. Then it struck me that Ruby and I were alone with the commander.
We hadn’t seen anyone else the whole time, and while Ruby and I might not have posed the greatest physical threat, neither did the commander. I stared at his back, so very tempted. But then I remembered his earlier words, and thought about that great white nothing only a few kilometres away.
I realised how much they depended on us giving up hope.
‘Ah, here we are,’ the commander said, oblivious to my murderous moment, stopping us at one of the unmarked doors.
He took a set of keys from his pocket, fumbled with the lock, threw the door open. He flicked a switch on the wall, illuminating a rough-brick stairwell. We followed a set of rusty stairs down a single flight, stopping at a steel door. The Commander knocked twice, took out his keys, managed to get the door open.
We faced a squat room lined with cells. The single electric bulb shone wan, dim, greasy. A lone Creep sat at a wooden desk, his feet up, and his back to us.
‘Private,’ the commander barked.
The Creep spun in his chair, jumped to his feet, threw the commander a rough salute. ‘Sir.’
‘You’re excused.’
‘Fuck, great.’
The commander frowned, obviously unimpressed by the Creep’s language. ‘Do you enjoy it down here, Private? Or would you rather be working out in the sun?’
The Creep’s face fell.
‘Then you will mind your manners.’ The commander smiled imperiously. It was obscene how much he delighted in lording over his underlings. ‘As I said, you’re excused.’
‘Right, sir, no worries.’ He threw the commander another rough salute as he sauntered out of the room.
‘What the fuck do you want this time?’ someone called out.
It was a hoarse voice that I didn’t recognise
The commander frowned; I guessed that he wasn’t overly welcome in the cell block. I looked for the owner of the voice, couldn’t see anything. The cells were all dark, long, narrow—it was impossible to tell how many of them were occupied.
‘Answer me!’ the voice demanded. ‘What are you waiting for? Bloody Christmas?’
‘Tobe!’ Ruby yelled brightly. She pushed past me to his cell, almost knocking me down.
‘G’day,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’
Same old Tobe, as cool as can be.
‘Yeah, g’day,’ I said, unable to help myself.
Tobe stepped into the light. He looked thin and a little desperate; the Creeps must have been keeping him hungry. He reached through the bars, took my outstretched hand. He let me go, grabbed Ruby by the shoulders, looked her in the eye and smiled wide. She reached through the bars and hugged him as best she could. I just stood there staring.
‘Tobe,’ I finally said, ‘it’s …’ The words caught in my throat. ‘Mate, it’s good to see you.’
‘You too, Bill,’ he said with a gap-toothed smile.
‘Tobe?’ Ruby asked, still holding him tight.
‘Yeah?’
‘Are you coming back with us?’
Tobe laughed grimly. ‘It depends, Ruby. It’s up to our friend there.’ He nodded at the commander, who had been watching us with fascination.
‘Speaking of which,’
the commander said, ‘I think we’d better get to it.’ He looked square at Tobe. ‘Don’t you think, Tobias? Or would you rather have me explain?’
Tobe’s smile disappeared in an instant. He let Ruby go, took a step back, looked at us, looked back at the commander.
‘You gave me your word,’ Tobe said, holding the commander’s gaze.
The commander made an elaborate show of mulling over what Tobe had said. Tobe cursed him under his breath, looked back at us, met Ruby’s eye.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
The commander stepped forward. He pushed me aside, took Ruby’s arm. She snatched it away, scowling at him.
‘It’s okay,’ Tobe said to her. ‘He’s taking you back to the shack so Bill and I can have a chat, that’s all.’
‘Don’t make me go,’ she said quietly, tears welling.
Tobe smiled sadly. ‘It’ll all be over soon. Try and take it easy until then, okay?’
He winked at her. Something seemed to click—she straightened her back, looked him in the eye.
‘Right, boss, right you are.’ She looked up at the commander. ‘Are you coming or what?’
He laughed at her cheek. ‘Very well.’
He turned away, smiling to himself. He stopped at the steel door, took out his keys, fumbled with the lock. Ruby followed. She didn’t say goodbye; she didn’t look back.
‘Have fun,’ the commander yelled as he slammed the door behind him.
Twenty-One
Tobe burst into tears as soon as we were alone, keening like a fly-blown sheep. Unable to stop myself feeling sorry for him, and hating myself for doing so, I reached through the bars and squeezed his shoulder in a pathetic attempt at comfort.
He grabbed me in an awkward approximation of a hug. I struggled against him when I started to run out of breath.
He collapsed in slow motion and ended up sitting on the floor. He looked defeated, his head hanging low. Dark questions ran through my mind; I couldn’t stop them. Had he been sentenced to death? Was he to be exiled? Were Ruby and I to share his fate, as both accomplices and friends should?
I didn’t ask any of them, instead letting Tobe’s tears run their course.
‘Sorry,’ was all he said, his voice broken, small.
‘She’s ‘right, no need to apologise.’
He looked up at me with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. He didn’t speak. I started to panic; Tobe wasn’t the type to give in, I had never known him to hit the wall. I stared at him, giving him time to get it together. But he didn’t, and kept sobbing.
I cracked. I asked a stupid question. ‘Tobe, what is it?’
He shook his head, then looked back at the floor and started babbling. ‘He woke up, Bill. He couldn’t see, of course. I made sure of that. But you know what? He didn’t really need to.’
I was lost. ‘Tobe!’
But he kept on. ‘That dog-killing prick—he recognised me, he knew who I was. I should have killed him while you were unconscious, back at the train station. I should have done more than taken his eyes. But I thought that’d be enough.’
‘Tobe!’ I yelled.
He ignored me again. ‘So the bastard wakes up, and the first thing he does is tell the nearest Creep about me. And then that Creep tells the commander …’
‘Tobe!’
‘… and then he comes to visit, all pompous and smug, dangling treason and court-martials and you name it in front of me. Threatening you …’
At that one, I sat down on the desk facing Tobe’s cell, deciding to let his panic run free so that I could get a straight answer.
‘… and threatening Ruby, making me choose between telling you the truth and exile. All for a bit of fun, he said. Knowing that prick, if I chose otherwise, he’d tell you the story once I was gone. That arsehole, he’s probably listening to us right now, laughing it up.’
His torrid stream abruptly ran dry. ‘Bill, I’m so sorry.’ He fell silent, leaving it at that.
‘Tobe?’
He wouldn’t look at me.
‘Tobe, what’s going on?’ I asked again.
‘Don’t you get it?’
I didn’t answer because I didn’t get it, as confused as a roo caught in a bushfire.
‘Fuck, mate, do I have to say it?’
I still didn’t answer.
‘Bill, I was one of them.’
‘You were one of what?’
He raised an eyebrow, waved around the room. Everything started to make sense; I didn’t need him to repeat himself or explain himself. All I needed was a moment to let his words sink in.
But it was as if he needed to say it.
‘A Creep, Bill. I was a Creep.’
And just like that, everything slowly started to numb. Not a frozen-in-amber numb or the numb of deep sleep, but a dulling numb that fell over everything—my body, my feelings, my thoughts. It rendered me a spectator in my own story; all I could do was sleepwalk through it, watching helplessly as my life suddenly made no sense.
I opened my mouth to say something—anything—but nothing came out.
‘Are you happy now?’ Tobe asked.
He looked at me, his eyes cold. I had to look away.
‘Or would you like to know the rest?’ His voice had regained a little of its vinegar.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked stupidly.
Tobe started babbling again. ‘That night when it all turned to shit—when your folks took the easy way out, when we lost her in the dark, when I disappeared—well, I headed to Bendigo. I’d heard about a ruined chemist, thought I might find some antibiotics or sedatives, anything to help ease her pain. I’d barely been gone a day when I got caught in a sweep. Same as we did, Bill, after the bridge fell.’
I said nothing, stared at him blankly. Why hadn’t he told me this before? I expected to feel anger, hate, rage, betrayal. There was nothing but an emptiness, and a feeling that at any moment I might come untethered from the earth and simply drift away.
‘Anyway, those bastards hauled me up here, same as they did to the three of us.’
The thought of Ruby broke my numbness. How would she react to Tobe’s news? Badly, I guessed. Without even rationally thinking about it, I decided to try to keep it from her.
‘You’re a right bastard, Tobe,’ I said. ‘How could you lie to us?’
Once more, Tobe ignored me and kept on babbling. ‘Stuck in this shithole while she was out there suffering, I lost it pretty quick and started putting my hand up for a fight. I wasn’t a man, I was barely out of my teens, I didn’t know how to let go. My anger made me strong—I beat almost everyone I faced.’
I wanted him to be lying; that kind of bloke couldn’t be someone I loved like a brother.
‘The rest of the time, I tried to think of ways of busting out. I made it in the end, but they caught me pretty quick. I figured I was in deep shit, but they’d taken a shine to me—I put three of them in hospital before they took me down, not bad for a scrawny teenager, exactly the kind of tough they wanted. So they gave me a choice.’
‘The commander …’ I said hollowly.
Tobe smiled sourly. ‘Same rank, mate, different bastard. Same kind of bastard, though.’
‘And you chose this?’ I asked, waving around with an arm as heavy as lead.
Tobe frowned. ‘Yeah, I did. Wouldn’t you?’
That broke the numbing wall, tore through the veil of distance that lied to me, told me that everything was okay.
‘I would never become one of them. Never.’
He hung his head. Once again, his voice became a hoarse whisper. ‘Yeah, well, like I said—sorry.’
‘Fuck you.’ I said it to him quietly, hoping that cold anger would hurt him more deeply than hot rage.
‘I guess I deserve that.’
I didn’t reply, didn’t want to mollify him or absolve his guilt. Angry and sad in equal measure, all I wanted were answers. I wanted to know why. If he wouldn’t tell me, then we were done.
‘Why didn’t
you go AWOL the first time they sent you out?’
‘And do what? Go home? Mate, I spent almost a year here before I tried busting out. In that time, you’d either worked some magic and fixed up her wounds, or you hadn’t and the gangrene and infection had done their work.’ He looked up at me. ‘I couldn’t face you if she was dead, and I couldn’t face her if she wasn’t.’
He once again lowered his head. I didn’t shed a tear for him. What I wanted was to hurt him as badly as he had hurt me, no matter the cost.
‘But you came back in the end. What happened? One day you just decided to pop in and say g’day? Bit late, don’t you reckon?’
He started to curse me. And then he held his tongue, thinking better of it. ‘I did some bad things, Bill. Some really bad things. And I did them with a smile.’
My face fell, even though some part of me refused to believe what I was hearing.
‘When love’s dead, when it’s gone and gone forever, something has to take its place.’
I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘Bullshit. I know you, Tobe. You’re not like that.’
Did I know him?
‘No bullshit, Bill. You can’t imagine what it’s like out there, what it does to you.’
His voice was quiet, collected. Any hope I had that he was merely spinning a yarn disappeared in an instant.
‘You bas …’
He cut me off. ‘I’m not a bad guy, Bill, not by nature. But even when I chose to be one, there were still things I wouldn’t do.’
‘I couldn’t care less!’ I shouted, horrified. ‘Did you hurt people, Tobe? Is that what you did? Were you like those bastards that killed your dogs?’
He ignored me, kept on with a story that fought to be told.
‘One day they put me on the spot. I tried to do what they wanted, that’s how bad I’d become. But something happened, something clicked, and I couldn’t pull the trigger. So, I hauled arse in the middle of the night and went home.’ He looked at me, spread his arms wide. ‘And you know the rest.’ Despite his tears, he still managed a smile.
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