Jasper Jones

by Craig Silvey;

  Jasper lightly inspects Laura’s body. Touches the thin scratches on her cheekbone and her shoulder. Runs his fingers down her smooth alabaster arms. It’s a strange and silent examination. I hope he’s not expecting me to do the same. He looks at her legs, her ankles, her feet. He is frowning. Then he lifts the hem of her nightdress. I immediately shy away. I turn and stare at the ground. I think I know what he is looking at. And I think I know what he is looking for.

  When I glance back up, Jasper is gone. He’s vanished.

  Of course, I panic. Frantic, I slew my head side to side, then behind. Another flush of goose bumps covers my back like a cape. I can’t see him anywhere. I am alone in this clearing. The walls of leaves loom. They push in at me. I shrink into myself, crouching. Eyes wide. I hold out my hand for balance and I touch Laura on the shoulder and she is warm and I flinch like I’ve touched something burning. I yell in fright. She is warm. I could faint again. Right here. Right next to her. That creep of fog is drifting down again.

  I am dizzy and sick. And it’s as though touching her has sealed my fate. I am in this story. She can’t be ignored. She’s real. I’ve touched her now. I’ve been privy to her last moments of heat, her last wisps of smoke. For some reason, I make myself look at her face. I look deep into it. Her expression is strange. Kind of puzzled and surprised and sad and terrified, all at once. And I wonder if this was her expression when the life went out of her. Frozen in time. I wonder if this is what she was feeling. I think about how much she looks like her sister Eliza. And I think about the moment when she’ll find out about this, and it twists me in two.

  I hear a dim rustle from the other side of the eucalypt. I don’t know whether to feel afraid or relieved. I jump to my feet.

  “Jasper!” I hiss.

  And he emerges, carrying a sizeable hunk of granite with both arms. He places it beside Laura’s thigh. If I didn’t know what that stone was for, if I weren’t stunned by what we’re about to do, I’d be screaming at him for leaving me alone like that.

  I shake my head, slow and low. I am so close to the edge. I really am. Jasper pauses for a moment, and we both regard each other. There’s nothing left to be said.

  After some time he kneels. Bending, he rolls the rock toward Laura’s feet. I watch him take the rope and tightly coil it around the rock; then he threads the end into a knot. He clears his throat and, delicately, lifts Laura’s bare feet. They are small and thin and dirty. With the other end of the rope, he carefully binds her ankles together. It hurts him to do this. I think I hear him murmur an apology.

  Jasper tugs hard to tighten the knots. Laura’s feet rise up as he does so. Like he’s tying the shoelaces of a distracted child. His palms must be sweaty, because he keeps running them down his shirt. It is so stuffy and stifling in this place. The air is thick and hot. Hard to breathe.

  As her legs rise, her hem spills, and Jasper pauses to adjust it, pulling her nightdress down to where it should rightfully sit. He smooths it over her knees. Even now, though it’s just us here, even though we’re preparing to discard her, he’s trying to afford her some dignity. Trying to treat her the same as he always might have. And it seems to me that maybe they were closer than Jasper let on. He seems sort of familiar in touching her tenderly. Maybe they were in love. Maybe she was his girl.

  Jasper gives a couple of neat pulls to the rope, at each of the knotted ends. He runs his hands over the stone and seems grimly satisfied.

  Laura Wishart is dead and anchored to a piece of granite. And Jasper Jones is kneeling, watching over her quietly. His eyes slit and he breathes deep and he crouches there for a long time. Just looking. As though he has just lullabied her gently to sleep and he’s just sitting at the end of her bed for a time before he leaves her bedroom.

  And I don’t know what to feel, taking this all in. It’s sad and it’s warm, but it’s so chilling and surreal. I no longer have to remind myself that she is dead. I’ve seen her eyes. I’ve touched her. She’s no longer here. Really. She might be warm, but she’s not in this space anymore. I can tell; I can feel her absence. And whether she’s slipped through to someplace else or she’s just been switched off like a light, I don’t know. But suddenly all that doesn’t seem so important anyway.

  Jasper Jones shifts, edging closer to her face. He runs the back of his hand down Laura’s cheek. I see it for certain this time. And it stings me. He runs his open hand straight down her face, a gentle brush, and her expression changes. Her eyes are closed, but she doesn’t look at ease. I want to rearrange it, sculpt it. She looks strained with a distant worry, like she’s wincing in the midst of a horrible dream. And I don’t want her to bear that forever. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to send her sinking to the bottom of this water hole, to damn her to this dam. But I’m part of this. I am the ally of Jasper Jones. I’m committing a crime. This is not an honorable act. Look at her! Look at what she’s telling us with her brow, with her tight mouth! She doesn’t want this! She doesn’t want to go!

  Jasper rises, and I step back. He turns.

  “Okay, Charlie,” he says.

  And I don’t know what that means until he points at her. He stands behind the rock. I am to grip her between the shoulders, under the arms. This is my task. I am to lift her. Heavy and yielding. I am to carry her toward the water.

  And that’s what I’m doing. I am bending, grabbing, and struggling with her weight. I shuffle for balance. Oh, she is warm. Her head lolls to the side. I grit my teeth and shaft air through my nostrils. I look at Jasper, who holds the rock to his gut. We’re not moving anywhere. She is bowed in the middle. Like she’s lying in a hammock. She is slipping. And so is her hem, again. And I know it makes Jasper Jones uneasy, because he frowns at it.

  “Are you ready?” he asks.

  “She’s slipping,” I say. “I’m going to drop her.”

  “Get your elbows under her arms and hold her across her chest. Be easier.”

  But I don’t want to do that. At the moment, I am cupping her armpits and losing my grip. I don’t want to hold any more of her. I don’t want to hug her chest. The more of her I touch, the more guilty I am for this. She is slipping. I shake my head.

  “I’m going to drop her! Put her down! Put her down!” I say, panicked.

  “Careful! Careful!” Jasper instructs, as though she’s a piece of brittle furniture and we might break her easily. We bend together and lay her down. I’m panting. My mouth is tight and dry. I breathe heavily through my nose. Jasper waits patiently, though I sense that he wants this done.

  I’ve got to get brave.

  I wipe my brow. I roll my shoulders and try to stiffen my back. Then I wipe my palms down my shirt. I puff my cheeks. Jasper bends and hoists the rock.

  I have Laura Wishart beneath the arms. Barely. She’s slipping again. I shuffle to the side. We are taking her to the water. Just meters away. We are by the edge, which even in summer is sheer and full. It’s a broad, still well.

  Jasper speaks softly:

  “Count of three, Charlie, okay?”

  And we swing her. We swing her like we’re playing an innocent prank, like we’re tossing our friend into the river for a laugh.

  One. Two. Three.

  I’m not strong enough to throw her. And so the rock that Jasper hurls high and hard simply snatches her body from my thin grasp. And it’s a thick, deep splash. A plunk. And I almost hold on. I almost follow her in. It’s a rough and sickening jolt, having her torn away, but Jasper steadies me with a hand my shoulder. And we watch. For a moment she floats. Then we watch her sink. It’s messy and it’s graceless. The bloated bubble of her nightdress. We, the undertakers. We watch her go. We can’t save her. We watch the ripples reach for our feet. And she is gone. She really is gone.

  We have drowned her.

  We are monsters.

  I stand motionless. My hands by my sides. And I watch the last pulses of the water, the softening frill of wake. I watch it right till it stills. And I am mesmerized f
or a time by the plain somber surface, like glass. Strange to think that this afternoon Laura Wishart might have been walking around Corrigan, carefree and unaware. With her friends. With her sister. Now she’s anchored to the bottom of this dark pool by the rope she was lynched with. Laura Wishart has been swallowed by the earth. Never to return. And I helped her on her way.

  I fear I might stumble forward, follow Laura’s descent. I even feel a faint pull toward the water.

  Until I hear Jasper Jones. He’s no longer at my side. I turn, sharply. His back is to me. One hand is leaning on the trunk of the tree for support. And my mouth falls open when I see his shoulders shaking, when I hear the shuddering of his breath.

  There is a sting in my throat. I should stride over there, say something strong and assured and wise. Look him right in the eyes. But I don’t. I just spectate. His other hand is to his face. This is real. His knees are bent and his muscles are taut. My lip begins to twist down at the edges.

  And I sit down heavily and cry with my head between my thighs. Very quietly and measuredly. I snatch my glasses and wipe my eyes with the back of my wrist. I don’t understand what just happened. I need a shit. I need to bathe. I need to sleep. This night has pick-pocketed me of precious things I can’t ever get back. I feel robbed, but I don’t feel cheated by Jasper Jones. It’s a curious emptiness. Like when you move to a new house and there’s no furniture or familiar walls, the same sort of weird alloy of abandonment and upheaval. It’s a lonely sensation.

  I squeeze my eyes tight. I don’t want to sniff—otherwise Jasper will know I’ve been crying too—so I pinch my nose and drag.

  When I look up and slot my glasses back on, I see Jasper is sitting now, leaning on the curved base of the tree. He looks exhausted. He has a bottle in his lap. It’s full. It doesn’t have a label. His eyes are glassy. He looks up and slowly rolls his head side to side.

  He takes a quick swig. Then glances down and tilts the bottle my way. I am sorely tempted, but I shake my head and show a palm.

  Jasper runs his hand roughly down his face and pulls at the skin on his chin. He lights a cigarette. Rests his arms on his knees.

  “Give us a smoke?” I ask.

  Jasper smiles. He strips one from its pack and straightens it. I purse the cigarette hard between my lips as he offers me a light. And I lean tentatively toward the flame, like I’m moving in to kiss a horse on the arse, waiting to be kicked.

  “Waitwaitwait!” Jasper interrupts, still smiling. “Other end, Charlie. That’s the filter, see?”

  He steals it from my mouth and lights it himself, then hands it back.

  I expected to cough, but not as much as this. One breath of it wrings my lungs like a washcloth. I splutter and spit. I try for composure and fail.

  “It’s the … asthma and that. All the … humidity. Yeah. Usually I’m …” I squint down my nose at the cigarette in my hand, as though it has just said something to confuse me. I needlessly tap ash from its hood, singe the tip of my index finger, and drop the cigarette. Of course, my instinct is to reach and catch it, which, to my surprise, I manage to succeed in doing, and so I burn the inside of my left palm. I hate this cigarette. And now I have to smoke it.

  I tear at the soft grass between my legs. It feels like we’ve weathered a storm and we’re sitting among the wreckage. We sit under that blanket of quiet for a long time.

  Jasper keeps pulling at his bottle. I don’t know what to say. It is so unearthly quiet I can hear the crackle of the paper when he inhales his smoke. The slight puck of his lips. I let my cigarette burn out discreetly between my fingers.

  “It feels like I’m dreaming this whole thing,” I say.

  Jasper raises his eyebrows. “Yair. I know it. This whole night. This whole crazy night. Fuckin hell, I wish it were a dream, Charlie. I can’t tell you. It’s like somethin’s bin ripped right out of me.”

  He grinds his cigarette and pockets it. I take the opportunity to do the same. He lights another and goes on.

  “Laura, she were the only person I ever felt like I knew. Like I dint even have to ask questions. I just felt comfortable. She was like my girl and my mum and my family all at the same time, you know. Everything was always easy. I mean, she would sometimes get in these moods where she just sat there quiet and never said nothing, but for some reason I understood that too. And I get like that anyway. But most of the time, she was real funny. And smart, Charlie. Like I said.”

  Jasper is sucking down that bottle. It’s half gone already. I frown. I worry that should he get too drunk, we may not make it back through the bush.

  Jasper reads my mind.

  “It’s orright, Charlie. I can hold my licker. Not like my old man, and he’s the whitefella. You want some? Here, garn.”

  I reach tentatively for the cold, wet bottle, more to slow him down than to quench my own desires. I sniff the lip and recoil.

  “What is it?”

  “Bushmills. Tastes like piss and oil.”

  I take a small incendiary pull. Of course, it attacks my mouth and burns down the length of my throat. I gag immediately, wiping my lips, trying to keep my lungs at bay. I slant my head and pretend to read a label that isn’t there through my clouding eyes. This shit is poison. And I realize I’ve been betrayed by the two vices that fiction promised me I’d adore. Sal Paradise held up bottles of booze like a housewife in a detergent commercial. Holden Caulfield reached for his cigarettes like an act of faith. Even Huckleberry Finn tapped on his pipe with relief and satisfaction. I can’t trust anything. If sex turns out to be this bad, I’m never reading again. At this rate, it will probably burn my dick and I’ll end up with lesions.

  I glance at my sandals and try to play down my disgust. “Yair, shit. I usually drink … what is that … single … malt?”

  “No idea, mate. Dint get much time to read the label. Beggars can’t be choosers, Charlie. You take what you can get.”

  “You mean you stole this?” I ask, handing it back to his outstretched fingers.

  “Well, I dint pay for it. Lifted it from my old man. Right out from under him. He was out of it, huggin an empty one, so I helped meself to the full one on the table.”

  I nod slowly as Jasper pauses to swallow.

  “But you probably already bin told I’m a thief, right? I’m a lifter? I steal stuff.”

  I pause. Trying to choose the right words.

  “It’s okay, Charlie. You can’t help what you hear. But it is what you heard, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Well, what you don’t know, Charlie, what nobody will ever be tellin you except me, is that outside of my old man’s pocket, I never stole a thing I dint need. For certain. I’m talkin about food, matches, clothes sometimes, whatever. Nuthin big, ever. Nuthin people couldn’t go without. And, see, it’s these people who expect three meals a day, who got pressed clothes and a missus and a car and a job, it’s them that look at me like I’m rubbish. Like I’ve got a choice. Like I’m some runt who just needs to lift his game. And they’re the ones tellin their kids that I’m no good. They don’t know shit about what it is to be me. They never ask why. Why would he be stealin? They just reckon it’s my nature. Like I don’t know any better. And you know what else, Charlie? I never once bin caught. Not even close. They all just suspect it. They expect it. Of course he’s a thief, they say. Of course he burned down the post office. Of course he hanged that poor girl. That poor girl.”

  Jasper’s lips are wet. He is starting to merge his words.

  “Your dad doesn’t even buy food?” I ask, and regret my incredulity.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Well, I don’t know. What does he spend his money on?”

  “Grog and whores and horses, mostly. But even that’s slowed down since he was laid off. He hasn’t had a job in months. The useless bastard should join the army. Go to bloody Vietnam or whatever and stay there. I’ll sort meself out.”

  “So what do you steal off him?” I press. />
  “Well, mostly the stuff that I want. Smokes, drink, money when it’s there. Whatever’s in his pockets. Trick is to do it when he’s stone-cold gone; that way he can’t be sure if he lost it, drank it, smoked it, or spent it. If he’s really bin cooked, he never even notices anyway. It’s always different. Sometimes, after he’s been layin it on, if he suspects me of clearing him out he might let it slide on account of him feelin guilty, but that’s not often.”

  Jasper scratches his chest, offers back the bottle. I scrunch my face.

  “Do you ever feel guilty? For taking his things?”

  “Not even once, mate. See, from him, I just figure I’m owed. He’s not a father’s arsehole. I got to take it, Charlie, because it’s never gonna get offered. And all my life so far, shit’s bin taken off me, so I’m evenin the ledger a bit.”

  I nod. Jasper continues.

  “But you can’t think that way all the time. It’s a poisonous way to think. There’s no point sittin down feeling sorry for yourself because other kids are gettin Christmas presents or their old men give a shit, or they’ve got a mum who’s a top cook or whatever.”

  “Yeah, but you’re still entitled to …”

  “Nah, bugger that, Charlie. I tole you, I don’t want to think like that. There’s nothing in it. I don’t know. I don’t want to have one of those bum lives where you just always expect your luck to be fucked because that’s the way it’s always bin. No. We always reckoned that things would be different once we got out of this town, you know? That’s when we reckoned it’d all turn itself around. We’d move to the city, make millions. For certain.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah. We.” Jasper looks down and thumbs the bottle neck. The heaviness drifts down again. I want to keep it at bay; it’s easier when he’s talking.

  “What’s your plan? When you get out, I mean.”