The Cartographer

by Peter Twohig

  All drains lead to the river — that had always been my reasoning, so I thought I’d see exactly whereabouts this one came out. I took Biscuit, and told him to wait on the grey beach, which I knew was somewhere near where the drain would come out if it was straight, and gave him one of Mum’s bikkies that I had in my secret store — that would wipe the smile off his face. He didn’t have to worry about water, as the river was right there, and in fact as soon as we arrived he had a drink, even though the water was a funny brown colour. And if it got too hot for him he could always go for a paddle or hop into the main stormwater drain, which was cool and shady.

  Once I got up the hill a little, I cut across the paddock full of tea-trees and under the fence that surrounded the power station and the pool, and walked along the narrow ridge until I came to the point where I knew the steps began that would take me down to the entrance. Dangling off the top of the ridge and feeling around with my feet for a minute, I found the concrete ledge. I was looking into a brick archway filled with darkness and into which the large steel pipe plunged. On the side of the entrance was a red and white sign: DANGER. HIGH VOLTAGE POWER CABLE. It was playing my song.

  I stepped into the gloom, and turned the torch light on. The tunnel was high enough to stand up in, and had electric lights in the ceiling. The pipe ended just inside the entrance, exposing a series of thick steel cables that were held against the right wall of the tunnel by concrete brackets. Running down the centre of the tunnel was a set of narrow tram tracks with a taut cable between them. I followed the tunnel down at a steep angle for about a hundred yards, and then for a hell of a long way at a lesser angle. At one stage, I slipped and fell against the cables, and discovered they were quite warm. When the tunnel levelled out, water seeped through the ceiling and ran down the walls, and the whole place smelt like it needed a good dry. The water ran down drains at the side of the floor, and finally disappeared down a pair of grates in the middle of the tunnel. I was under the river.

  When I came out of the tunnel the sunlight hit me so hard I could hear the strum of pain in my eyeballs, and I had to put my hand over my eyes and squint to see where I was going. I was standing in an area filled with dense, high weeds. The cable emerged with me and entered a fenced-off area containing electrical stuff. Standing with its four feet around the whole area was a huge high-tension tower, at the top of which were dozens of wires running to another tower in the distance, across the far side of the river. Quite close by was a broken-down building. I knew where I was right away, because I had seen it from Como Park, on the other side of the river. I was on an island.

  I went back through the weeds, which were twice as tall as me, walked down to the riverbank, and looked across in the direction I had come from. I saw the grey beach and the mouth of the big stormwater drain. And there was Biscuit, still sitting there, waiting. I yelled out to him, just to say hello, and he looked up as if he had been struck by lightning, and saw me — he had eyes like a hawk.

  He immediately tore across the dirty sand and dived into the water, heading in my direction. But the water was moving a little fast for him, and he had to swim like mad to get anywhere. I told him to go back. I must have yelled: No, Biscuit! No, boy! a thousand times, but he was determined to get to me and kept on. He was doing well for a while, and then I could see that he was going to drown, just like I nearly did. But I hadn’t deserved it, and neither did Biscuit, who was just trying to rescue me from the island. When I saw him starting to swallow water, I waded into the river, and was surprised to find that the shore dropped away from under my feet straightaway, and I was under the water myself. I came up splashing and saw Biscuit in front of me still trying to paddle and getting nowhere fast, so I started to dog-paddle out to him. Anyway I swallowed about half the water in the river, so it probably wasn’t that deep after a while. But Biscuit was starting to sink, and I was losing all my energy at the same time. I tried to yell to him, but his head was under the water. I lunged towards him as hard as I could and grabbed his collar in my hand and pulled him towards me, then the weight of his body and the current dragged me under and I lost track of things completely, and just sort of drifted off.

  When I woke up I was on a wet wooden floor and my chest was being pumped by a red-faced man with a beard and a wheezy way of breathing, just like a steam engine. I suddenly vomited about a thousand gallons of river water and then coughed a few times, and I was wide awake again. Biscuit was there, but he was looking like he knew he had done something wrong, which was just what I was thinking too. But the people on the ferry — the Kookaburra as it turned out — were clapping and cheering and bringing me blankets and all kinds of things, and they all chipped in and gave me some money, which I put in the zip-up pocket of my jeans — it turned out to be seventeen and six. I also got a drink of brandy, which woke up all the bits of me that hadn’t made their mind up yet.

  Well, to cut a long story short, Biscuit and I were heroes, and got our picture in The Sun for trying to save each other’s lives, though in fact it had been a sailor on the Kookaburra who had saved us both, just by reaching down and grabbing us as the ferry went by.

  I reckon everyone in Melbourne must have seen that bloody picture.

  When Biscuit got his big, smiling fizzog in The Sun, so did I. For Biscuit, it was terrific. He was famous, and everyone in the street was keen to give him a treat and pat him, which I thought was a bit rough, as it had been me who’d done all the life-saving; and you could see the guilt in his eyes too. Every time I saw him coming out of Mrs Noble’s house — she was the worst — he’d have his tongue hanging out and his tail wagging, and I just knew he’d been hooking into one of her lamingtons. Then he’d see me, and the grin would disappear. And he called himself my partner. Anyway, for Biscuit it was all a bit like Christmas. But for me, that picture was nothing but trouble.

  For a start, the fat cop saw it, and came around to our house. I told you what Dad thought of cops: he hated ’em. It was definitely a photo for second, but Mum probably beat Granddad by a nose — which was definitely cheating in her case. So when she opened the door and saw the copper, all fat and red and shiny, she was not a happy little Vegemite.

  ‘G’day,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to that son of yours.’

  ‘Well you’ll have to get in the queue,’ she says, quick as a flash.

  ‘He’s in it up to his neck this time — housebreaking and thieving.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘He was in my bloody house, and pinched something. I know it was him because I saw him.’

  ‘What’s he s’posed to have nicked?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say, pending possible charges.’

  Now, it was one of those afternoons when Granddad had come over, and me and him were right there in the living room, out of sight of the copper, and I was all for shooting through like a beauty, but Granddad puts his finger to his lips, and we listen. We could see through the crack in the door that the copper wasn’t wearing his uniform — in other words, he wasn’t going to charge me at all. And that meant he wanted something. I reckoned he was after what coppers were always after, so we waited to hear his price.

  ‘Say, how’s that old man of yours? Pissed off, hasn’t he? Must be hard, bein’ by y’self. What you need’s someone to take care of you every now and then. Tell you what, you make me feel good and I’ll forget I ever saw that little bastard of yours.’

  Mum had just got home from work, and she wasn’t really in the mood for visitors, so she slowly opened the door a little wider, so the copper could see who was in the living room, and we could see him. Mum was wearing her blue floral frock and looked nice, and the fat copper had his hand on her breast and was smiling the way you do when you find an extra footy card in the bottom of your Corn Flakes box. He stopped smiling when he saw Granddad, the way a lot of people did when he had something on them.

  ‘G’day, Arch,’ he says, removing his hand.

  ‘G’day, Murph,’ says Granddad. ‘I’
d ask you in, but we just cleaned the place.’

  ‘That kid’s got something of mine, and I want it back. If he hands it over, we’ll call it quits, shall we?’

  I looked at Granddad and he looked at me, and Mum looked at both of us, and the clock in the dining room ticked a couple of times – not our dining room, next door’s.

  I must have had a painful look on my face, because Granddad said: ‘Give us a sec, will you?’ and Mum closed the door, making the copper wait outside.

  ‘What’s he after?’ Granddad asked me.

  I went to talk but my tongue had conked out; I had to swallow a few times to make it work again. I’d never lied to Granddad — well, not in the last few days.

  ‘It’s a photo of a lady and a kid. I didn’t think he’d want it.’

  ‘Well, he does now, doesn’t he? Go and get it.’

  I didn’t have to pull up the floorboard, as it was in my drawer. Granddad looked at it for a hell of a long time, and put his fingers on the lady, the way you do when you’re trying to touch someone who’s on the other side of a window, then he slipped it into his pocket. He got up, went to the door and went outside, closing the door behind him. I could hear them talking but I couldn’t make out a word. Mum just stood there staring at me without seeing me, as if she was a million miles away and I hadn’t done anything at all. I had time to make a couple of plans, but they all involved running away from home, and the last time I’d thought about that I’d almost drowned. Besides, the cops had my picture — Jesus, everyone in Melbourne had the bloody thing.

  After a while, I heard the squeak and clank of the front gate, and Granddad came back and said to me: ‘I want you to stay away from that bloke’s place from now on, d’ya hear me?’

  Fair dinkum, if I wanted to make a list in my Spirax of all the places I had to stay away from, I’d end up with writer’s cramp.

  ‘Yeah. Did you give him back the photo, Granddad?’

  ‘You forget about that photo.’

  He looked at Mum, and she sighed and shook her head and went into the kitchen. He waited until she had started making her dreaded kitchen sounds. Then he turned to me and raised his eyebrows, the way Mum did when she was going to ask a question, and he put on his secret voice.

  ‘Did yer get anything else, boy?’

  But I knew he was just trying to get my mind off the photo. That would have worked with Tom — to him a change of subject meant a fresh experience — but we both knew that I was going to find out the story behind it sooner or later.

  He saw the look on my face — it was a look I’d seen on his face many a time.

  ‘Just forget it, boy.’

  The next thing that happened was that while I was sitting in school a few days later, Miss Schaeffer received a message for me to report to the office. I was halfway there, and busy dreaming up excuses that I thought I might not have used before, reckoning that I was in trouble again, when I ran into Mother Sylvester, who was the head nun around the place, and who could have given my Nanna Blayney a run for her money as far as knockers went. She grabs hold of me — nuns do that — and speaks to me with a lowered voice, as if she’s giving me a tip for the next race.

  ‘Now you listen to me, young man. There’s a very nice man here from the RSPCA who’d like to give you a prize for rescuing your dog. So be polite and consider yourself lucky.’

  She’s dragging me along by the sleeve while she’s talking, and when we get to the corner, I see through her half-open door that the nice bloke is none other than Bob the Butcher. So I stop dead in my tracks and drag her back around the corner, out of sight, expecting to get a smack in the chops for my trouble.

  ‘Mother, that man … I saw him …’ I whisper. How do you explain some things to a nun?

  She starts shaking me around all over the place as if she’s shaking a spider out of a towel.

  ‘How dare you!’ she whispers back. ‘What are you babbling about? Come with me.’

  ‘Mother, that man tried to hurt me. He’s following me. Please don’t tell him I go to school here.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll tell him the truth.’

  ‘Mother, he wants to do things to me —’

  That was as far as I got. There was a singing bang, and I was lying on the floor, seeing colours, mainly pink ones. That nun had a textbook right. Just then Miss Schaeffer turned up and helped me to my feet.

  ‘Take this disgusting boy back to class, Miss Schaeffer.’

  She stuck her face so close to mine I could smell a mixture of Lux soap flakes, Vick’s VapoRub and calico.

  ‘Don’t you ever speak to a nun like that again, d’ya hear?’

  Whatever I’d said seemed to do the trick, as she turned suddenly, her big wooden rosary beads making a sound like the beaded curtain in Aunty Queenie’s living room, and swished away.

  20 Should old acquaintance

  After the events of the past few days, I needed cheering up. Let’s face it, it’s not all beer and skittles being a superhero, and I was feeling that I needed a bit of social life after having to put up with the stresses and strains of being frightened by Aunty Betty’s version of my life, threatened by Wonder Woman and the cop Murphy, and, worst of all, getting my picture plastered all over Melbourne.

  So, travelling by drain to avoid Bob Herbert, I took Biscuit to visit the Sandersons. The only way to get Biscuit into the drain was to walk in from the river end, which gave me a view of the place where the Yarra River Incident had taken place. As I looked across to the island, I realised that it was mine to name, and perhaps to inhabit, so I named it Josephine Island, and made a note to come back to it and check out the old building. Then Biscuit and I plunged into the big drain. I ha d to talk to him a fair bit, as he had never travelled by drain before, and took a few minutes to get the hang of it. I went about halfway to the tip, which I knew was just a few streets away from Kipling Lane, where I exited and went down to the back of the Sandersons’ place.

  Nothing had changed. It was as if they had discovered that they had a torture chamber in their back yard, and had decided that from now on the only way they were going to set foot down there was if someone held a knife to their throats.

  So Biscuit and I strolled though the overgrown jungle and around to the side door and knocked. There was no response, but there was a bell, so, after discussing the matter with Biscuit, who was all for it, I rang the bell and waited. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just ring the bell straightaway, instead of knocking. Well, that was because the kids in our neighbourhood were always ringing doorbells, and then running like hell, and well, I guess I just wanted to see how it would feel to knock.

  Somewhere there was a sound like a camel walking across the desert, and next thing I knew the door opened and there was Mr Sanderson, wearing slippers made of tartan material. I must have looked at them pretty hard — I know Biscuit did, because he was huffing and puffing as if he had just seen the funniest thing in the world. Instead of saying hello, Mr Sanderson followed our gaze for a second, then said, with a twinkle in his eye: ‘Oh, that’s the Sanderson tartan,’ but I heard Mrs Sanderson in the background saying loud enough for me to hear: ‘He’s pulling your leg, dear … Sanderson tartan!’

  So they invite me in, and I tell Biscuit: ‘Stay, Biff!’ because it turns out he answers to just about any name I call him.

  ‘I thought his name was Shadow,’ says Mr Sanderson.

  ‘Changed it,’ I answer, following him into his cool, dark house that smells like a mixture of Brasso and pianos.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ says Mrs Sanderson. ‘So, you two are a couple of heroes, aren’t you? I thought your dog’s name was Shadow. It said in the paper his name was something else — Biscuit, wasn’t it, dear? I remember I said: “Biscuit? That can’t be right.”’

  ‘People are always getting his name wrong,’ I said, hoping to put an end to this public adoration of my dog. ‘He just eats a lot of dog biscuits.’

  ‘Well, he’ll have t
o be content with a bone today, so don’t go changing his name to Bones, will you?’ They both laughed, so I did too, though I made a mental note to change his name to Bones for our next caper. The main thing was, I was enjoying myself as soon as I walked through the door. After all, the whole point of the visit was to spend time with someone who didn’t think I should be in a home.

  ‘Seems like Biff’s not the only one with a couple of names.’

  I was ready for that one. ‘All the kids have a couple of names. It’s a bit of a game,’ I said, without missing a beat.

  So things got off to a good start. The Sandersons seemed to be happy to see me and gave me some cake that had just been made, and some creamy soda, my favourite non-alcoholic drink. They gave Biscuit a bone to gnaw on, so naturally, being a Labrador, he thought it was his birthday. But it wasn’t. Actually, nobody seemed to know his real birthday, so I made it the same as mine. That way, Mum would always make him a birthday cake without knowing it, saving me having to ask and getting told that birthday cakes for dogs don’t grow on trees.

  ‘Anyway, we’re both very proud of you. We’ve stuck the picture from The Sun onto our fridge door and we show it to everyone who comes over. So, tell us, what have you been up to?’

  As I sipped the creamy soda, I had a quick meeting of the League with myself, and decided to tell them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, like in Perry Mason. I took a breath.

  ‘I’ve been visiting my cousin in New Zealand for a while. His father is a fireman, and recently had to put out a fire in an office building and rescue a whole lot of people by carrying them down a ladder to the ground, and they gave him a medal. My cousin’s name is Mick, and he’s a year younger than me, though we’re the same height. His mother says that’s because it’s a bit colder there than in Melbourne and it does something to kids’ bones that makes them grow faster. They used to live in Melbourne — in Brunswick, and I think they barracked for Fitzroy, who didn’t do too well this year. I went to New Zealand on a plane and came back on the same plane. It was a DC-3.’