by Ben Hobson
His mother pushed through the crowd towards the bar.
On seeing her, his father’s grin faltered.
‘Liz?’ he said.
‘You got a minute?’ she said. She had to yell over the noise of the men. The boy could barely hear her.
‘Not really, Liz, no. I don’t,’ his father shouted back, pouring another beer.
‘Well then you can bloody hear it in front of all these people.’
His mother’s yelling only somewhat diminished the talking of the crowd. The men closest to her had turned to look but then returned to their conversations, perhaps wanting to avoid witnessing whatever embarrassment was to follow. The boy stood at his mother’s side, afraid.
‘You said when you were home you’d be home, Walt. And you’re never home and when you are you mope around like a beggar.’
His father’s face contorted and then he shouted, ‘Well what do you want me to do, Liz, hey? We have to bloody eat somehow.’
‘I want you to come home and be with us for a change. What was the last thing you did with Sam? Just you and him?’
‘We were going to go fishing,’ his father said. He’d looked down as he’d spoken and the boy had to strain to hear the words.
‘You’ve been home for four months now, Walt, and you haven’t done anything. You’ll be gone again in two more months.’
The men around them had grown uncomfortable and had shifted away.
His father shook his head and said, ‘Go home, would you?’
‘Sam’s growing up without you, Walt. You always said you wanted to be a dad and now you are one and it’s bloody sailing by without you. He needs you. Come home and spend some time with us. And fix the bloody mangler before another Christmas comes.’
His mother then turned and stalked away. The boy took a moment before he followed her. He watched his father as his head sagged down into his chest and he tried to meet the man’s eyes and smile at him to let him know that everything was okay. His father never looked up; never gave him the chance.
FORTY
1961
The Norman R Wright grunted through the water. The lights of the city towards which they were bound became thick, like rope, as they drew near. The boy sat in the cold breeze. He opened his bag and pulled out his jacket with his undamaged hand and struggled to pull it on. The stars dull behind the clouds. The lights of the city joined together, mottled like shells underwater swept up in sand.
They soon came to the jetty they had launched from two months earlier. The boy left the boat without speaking to the captain, who turned the boat around as soon as the boy’s feet were firm on the jetty. The boy stood and watched it move away from him through the black water.
The boy looked at the money his father had given him. He pulled the torch out of his pocket and turned it on and looked at the water. The beam pierced the top and struck the sandy bottom. There was nothing there worth seeing.
He walked. He came to the street. Some cars passed; none of them were taxis. The boy thought about hitchhiking but he didn’t know how. As he stood watching, a car honked as it passed and startled the boy. In the car park to the right he could see Phil’s car, but it was of no use to him. He walked beside the road to the left, up a hill, carrying his suitcase. As he passed under each streetlamp he felt exposed and hurried his steps.
He turned back to gaze at the water, saw the Norman R Wright in the distance, the lights hesitant in the water like faded paint scratched into wood. He thought about what was before him, what choices he had. His whole life he had been without options and now he had been left on his own. His father had forfeited what right he had to direct his son. So. The choice was now his. He would not bend himself to his father’s will.
Before him, stretching to each side, was a busier roadway. He walked to it and stood on the footpath, nervous. A faded black-and-white taxi rounded the corner. He raised his good hand and waved. The taxi braked and swerved, causing nearby cars to honk. The driver leaned over and wound down the window closest to the boy. ‘You need a ride?’ The boy nodded. ‘Where to?’
The boy didn’t know where he wanted to go, just knew he didn’t want to go to his grandparents’ house. So he said, ‘Just up the road a bit.’
‘How far?’
‘Why?’
‘Need to know if it’s worth my time.’
The boy said, ‘Five minutes.’
‘Bugger it. Get in.’
The boy climbed in the front seat after securing his suitcase in the boot and once the window was back up the traffic noise muted.
The driver sat there and regarded the boy. He raised his bushy eyebrows, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. ‘Well?’
‘Just drive up here,’ the boy said, pointing.
‘You got money?’
The boy brandished the wad of notes.
The driver clucked his tongue. He pulled into traffic, cutting off another bloke, seeming oblivious to the verbal thrashing he received. He laughed as they sped away and the boy was tossed to and fro as though he were back on the boat, doing his best not to collide with the driver. He gripped the seat with his hands, the bandaged one throbbing.
The boy recognised the neighbourhood they came to, the familiar service station on his right, and sighed in relief. He asked the driver to make a right turn, then a left, then directed him to pull into Phil’s driveway.
The boy said, ‘How much?’
‘Ten pounds.’
The boy thought this figure much too high, but didn’t dare argue. He handed over one of the notes, which the driver pocketed. The man grinned. Then the driver popped the boot and got out to remove the boy’s suitcase. The man got back behind the wheel and reversed up the driveway. The boy was briefly blinded by the headlights before being enveloped in darkness once more.
By moonlight, the boy shifted his suitcase beneath the staircase, then ascended. He looked through the darkened windows of Phil’s house with his hands cupped around his eyes and couldn’t see a thing. He fumbled for the stolen torch and switched it on and shone it through the window. There was no sign of life within. The boy couldn’t remember if Phil had mentioned housemates. His bandaged hand was throbbing greatly now and he wanted to tear off the bandage and let it be soothed by the cool breeze, but he didn’t.
There was a pot plant, uncared for and dying, sitting on the verandah near the boy’s feet. He picked it up with his good hand and hefted it through the window, the shattering of glass loud amid the silence. The boy covered his ears and looked around desperately. It would be hard to explain his presence here if anyone came to investigate. In the silence that followed his vandalism he waited for somebody to cry out, to point at him, arrest him, but nothing happened.
With his bandaged hand he shoved the remaining glass of the window into the room; it made no sound as it rained onto the carpet. He then crawled through, careful not to cut his hands. His shoes crunched against glass as he landed on the carpet. He stood. Silence in the house and the musty smell of an old rug. Dead plants. The boy had no idea how he would re-secure the house when he left again, but didn’t care enough to dwell on it. He found the car keys where his father had left them in the bowl on the kitchen bench and pocketed them.
The torch. He held it up and toyed with the idea of placing it on the kitchen bench and leaving a note for Phil explaining what he had done, but in the end he decided not to. He left quickly through the door before he changed his mind.
The car smelled old when the boy got inside it. He put the keys in the ignition and turned. He knew to open the bonnet and let it idle a bit. He watched the engine crank and the machinery whirl about itself and knew nothing about what made it work. He just watched and made sure the spinning things continued to spin. They did. After five minutes he was satisfied, so he slammed the bonnet and moved to sit behind the steering wheel again. He had never driven the car before and felt daunted by the prospect. He looked at the stick shift and pressed the pedals. He revved the engine and heard
the brakes squeak. Once he’d found the clutch he pressed it in and changed gears like he’d seen his father do. He revved as he did so but he let the clutch out too quickly and the car stalled and leaped forward. The boy turned the key again and worried he would run out of fuel. The car sprang to life and he started the process once more.
An hour later he had managed to get himself to the top of the driveway. He looked at the street before him and felt elated and proud of his accomplishment. He turned the engine off and just sat there in the relative quiet and looked at his bad hand and knew he had done well. After a moment he turned the engine back on and took the handbrake off and coasted down the hill, riding the brake the whole way down. He stopped at a stop sign and a busier road buzzed before him. Beyond that, the Brisbane River snaked through the dark, and on the river cruised a ferry lit up like a small township. The boy had to lean forward to see over the dashboard properly. He kept grabbing the wheel with his damaged hand and wincing with the pain. He watched the traffic surge by and waited for a lull. When he felt confident he turned onto the road and accelerated. The engine revved and he moved forward. Worried what the other drivers would think. He shifted up gears when the engine whirred too heavily and stopped at all the stop signs with pedal brake and handbrake both.
He stopped at the service station he had recognised earlier and walked inside.
The man behind the counter looked old and grumpy. ‘You want a fill up?’
The boy nodded.
‘Pull her up closer then.’
The boy walked back outside and started the car and stalled it as he tried to move it forward. He looked at the attendant, who looked embarrassed on his behalf. He managed it on the second go. He got out and while the attendant outside grumbled over his car he helped himself to a Mars Bar and pocketed three more. The attendant returned and went to stand behind his counter and looked at the boy, whose mouth was now covered in chocolate.
‘You old enough to be driving?’
The boy nodded. ‘I’m small for how old I am.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘Yeah? You’re not fourteen and just know the legal age enough to tell me a fib?’
‘No. I’m just small.’
The attendant smiled and rang up the chocolate and the fuel on the cash register. It dinged as he opened the drawer to retrieve the boy’s change. ‘Just don’t crash or nothing.’
The boy put the change in his pocket with his good hand. ‘I know.’
‘Where you going?’
‘Gympie Road. Up north.’
‘You know how to get there?’
The boy shook his head. The attendant squinted and gave him thorough, though hurried, directions. The boy did his best to memorise what he was told and when he climbed back into his car and put the Mars Bars on the seat beside him he felt more confident.
He pulled into traffic. At the first set of traffic lights he unwrapped another chocolate bar and was forced to scoff it when the light turned green. A man behind him revved loudly before he took off and the boy laughed at how reckless he was being.
The traffic thinned as the night grew longer. Soon he was alone on the road, the tar softened by his headlights, which shifted as he adjusted the wheel. Trucks dotted Gympie Road when he finally found it. He stayed behind one, which helped him to regulate his speed, and he felt happy and hungry. By this stage he had lost all feeling in his bad hand.
He knew the way to his grandparents’ house well and and found it easily in the dark. He parked on the road out front and sat in the car and looked at the windows. His grandmother’s lace curtains billowed in the breeze in their living room, like ghosts without purpose. There were no streetlamps. He remembered entering the house all those weeks ago immediately following his mother’s funeral. It looked no different then.
He opened the car door and didn’t shut it. He stood and put on his jacket. Before him now his choice in plain sight. He jumped the fence and glided beneath a tree. Footsteps without sound. He kept an eye on the curtains. Their movement kept tricking him. If his grandmother’s face were to emerge from the darkness he knew he would be terrified and unable to explain himself. His granddad’s snoring grew deeper as he walked beside the house and the familiar sound gave him comfort. The garden seemed more overgrown, as though his grandmother had stopped tending to it altogether. In the dark the flowers were without colour and with their dead arms they sprang up from the garden and tickled his neck and made him think of spiders.
He headed out back and unlatched the gate, grimacing at the sound, and walked into the yard. He looked around. Next to the garage was Albert, who upon sighting the boy sat up and started wagging his tail. He jerked forward on his leash, causing a racket. The boy raised his finger to his lips and tried to shush the pup. He’d grown much bigger in the two months the boy had been absent. The boy was sad he’d missed it. He was surprised the dog had recognised him at all; he had by now spent more of its life with the boy’s grandparents than with him. This made him anxious. He kneeled down when he drew close to the dog and cuddled him to his chest. When he leaned his face down he shut his eyes and mouth and received a vigorous licking.
He undid the leash and led the dog to the gate and walked him quietly through. He hurried past the house and to his relief still heard the rhythmic grunt of his granddad. He looked at the window and imagined there his grandmother’s placid face and how she would regard him in his theft and isolation.
He hurriedly bundled the dog into the car and drove off into the night.
FORTY-ONE
His mother’s grave looked healthy enough. Grass dotted the top, so long now it needed mowing. Almost as though she never was. The stone itself felt natural, like it had grown organically from the earth. By now she must be bones. She must be bones and nothing more. A skeleton down there beneath the soil piled on top, her son’s handiwork. He considered digging her up and giving her her freedom. Taking her skeleton someplace else with no idea where they’d go. Maybe to their old home. Where would she go? If skeletons could fly, he imagined his mother would be one and her wings would be skeletal but still capable of flight. A bat in the night looking down, angelic. Wings squeaking like his granddad’s gate. The boy looked at the earth and smudged it with his shoe. It started to rain. He hadn’t noticed the clouds.
FORTY-TWO
It was still pouring when the boy and his dog arrived at their shack in the middle of the night. At least he thought it was the middle of the night; he had no way of telling time. The headlights of the car illuminated the old barrels still dormant beneath their tree. He left the car in neutral and slammed the door and ran to the dumpy building. Somehow, the shack had withstood the weather. For a moment he was terrified he’d forgotten the key to the lock on the shack door, but then he remembered it was bundled together with the car key so he ran back, getting soaked, and stopped the engine. Hastily, he unlocked the door and shoved it aside. Swamped instantly upon entry with the smell of food turned bad. Possum faeces dotted the floor and both their beds. A hole near the ceiling, bent corrugated iron, leaking rain. The food they’d neglected to store effectively was torn to shreds. The cans were okay, but strewn about. His father’s toolbox still carefully arranged in the corner. The boy brushed everything down with the back of his good hand. He took the mattresses outside into the rain and shook them. When he brought them in and shone the torch upon them they were still coated in animal hair.
He brought Albert inside and lay down on the mattress, wet, and pulled the sheets up over himself without undressing, still clothed in what he had been wearing on the flensing deck. The night was warm enough despite the rain for the boy to kick the sheets off. He soon stood and took off his wet clothing and lay back down.
The dog was restless beside him and kept wandering around the shack and snuffling at the decay left by possums and probably rats. He got into something, rustling his nose in a packet. The boy stopped him with a firm word and stood as he went unhee
ded and threw what the dog had been interested in outside for whatever else might find it.
In bed, he switched on the torch and studied his damaged hand. He unwrapped the bandage. He tried to press his fingers together, but found he couldn’t. The stitches were black and in the torchlight reflected small beads of water. His fingers warped and white from pain and moisture.
He did not sleep well and woke with a start to the sun already caking the corrugated iron near his feet. His surroundings were messier than he had thought. The rain outside had stopped and through the tin he could hear birds trilling. A kookaburra barked. Albert was resting on his father’s bed with his tongue out, his ears down. The boy sat up. On the wall were thin bars of sunlight that shone through small gaps in the iron. It made him feel as though he were in prison.
His hand looked okay with the bandage off. The fingers had lost their mortician’s white. He still couldn’t squeeze them, though, and they were stiff and swollen. The wound was deep and ragged. A picture of hell. What demons would do to mortal remains.
He opened the door. The sky was bright blue and cloudless. He went to the toolbox and rummaged around till he found the matches, then he went outside and started a fire. It was a struggle with the damp wood, but he managed to find a few drier pieces at the bottom of the stack. He shoved in a can of baked beans. He would have to go to the shops for bread and water. The beans burned but he ate them anyway, sharing with Albert.
He walked through the jungle, Albert unleashed beside him, until they came to the beach. Only the day before, he had been on that island that sat on the horizon. He squinted into the sun. Impossible to see anybody, or anything. He thought he saw the Norman R Wright making its way through the meagre waves but it might have been any ship of any size.