The Innocents

by Nette Hilton

  ‘Let’s go down the road further,’ she said as she scrambled free. ‘It’s easier to walk back along the bank.’

  Zill peered over the ridge.

  ‘It’ll take too long. Come on, we can get down here easy-peasy.’

  One after the other they scrambled through decaying mounds of leaves and the tangled branches of the evergreens. The poplars were further down and looked cold and naked without any leaves and their toes almost in the river. Missie shivered in sympathy.

  Small, huddled bushes stood in clumps on the very edge of the water, leaving enough room between them for fishermen to find a footing to cast out a line. Logs had been pulled into some of these small, eaten-out hollows to provide seating while the fish were making up their minds about taking bait.

  Zilla leapt down into one of these little cavities and balanced on the log. At least it wasn’t jutting out into the water.

  ‘They’re not coming,’ Missie said.

  You could hear the river sluicing by, whispering and sucking as if it was merely waiting for someone to make a mistake. Out in the middle – and Missie didn’t like to look out there for too long – branches with bits of leaves still attached twisted as they were dragged down into the muddy depths.

  ‘They’ll be here.’ Zill did her ‘walk the plank’, arms tight behind her back like Wendy in Peter Pan: head up, one foot in front of the other. When she got to the end she kept her head up and jumped, landing both feet in the mud. ‘Er, yuk!’

  ‘Better than a crocodile,’ Missie said.

  ‘Or a shark. What d’you reckon’d be the best? A shark or a crocodile?’

  A small rock landed in the water in front of them. Then another. This was followed by a stream of water which poured from a branch in one of the taller trees.

  Missie searched around looking for the source and then, when she found it, looked quickly away. She heard Zill shriek and make a big production about leaping up and out of the way.

  ‘What’d you do that for?’ she yelled as Lawrence buttoned his trousers. ‘You could have got us.’

  Lawrence sniggered and said something to Max who was seated further down in a more comfortable fork. He looked, for all the world, as comfy as if he were in any of the chairs at home. His arms were crossed and he leaned back along the junction of a branch and the trunk of the tree.

  ‘Come down here and try this,’ Zill called.

  Lawrence scrambled down, taking his time once he hit the ground to climb the last little way and join Zill back on her log.

  ‘I reckon we could move this,’ she said. ‘Here, give us a hand.’

  Missie stood back.

  She didn’t care what happened – she was not, definitely not, going to walk out on that log.

  Lawrence pushed it around and then stood back. ‘What’re we doing this for anyway?’

  ‘I’m going to show you something.’

  Carefully she stepped up onto the log. It rolled slightly before it settled into its new mud home.

  ‘Give us your hand,’ Zill called as she braced from one leg to the other, making sure of her balance.

  ‘Oh yeah. And I’ll be standing in the water. You’re mad, you are! If you fall in you’ve had it!’ Lawrence stood back with his arms crossed, daring her in spite of his words to go further out.

  Zilla did, and then turned around and nimbly ran all the way back to leap in the air and land in a star jump. ‘Not bad, eh?’

  Lawrence didn’t say anything. He looked back up to where Max was still sitting in the tree, watching.

  ‘You said you had something to show us,’ Lawrence said when he turned back.

  ‘I just did!’

  Missie picked at a green leaf. She shredded it, bit by bit. By looking up, under her fringe, she could see Max. He wasn’t stirring but he was a part of it.

  ‘Show us something else,’ Lawrence said.

  ‘Like what?’

  Lawrence stood on the leftover roots at the end of the log. It made him head and shoulders taller than Zill, and he stood with his arms crossed, blocking her way.

  ‘You know what.’

  Zilla squealed and jumped sideways, grabbing at bushes to haul herself up and away. ‘Gotta catch me first!’

  Lawrence was after her. He used Missie as a lever to hike himself back up the ledge and onto the bank. Zilla was already away and scrambling along the track. Her footsteps weren’t the lovely crisp autumn sounds. Now they were heavy thudding as she heaved herself from one damp place to another.

  ‘Help! Missie!’ her voice sang back through the bush. She was laughing and more crashing rang back down the bank, and a squeal as she lurched her way to freedom.

  Missie didn’t want to play. The ground was damp and smelt bad and her feet were like blocks of ice. There didn’t seem to be any way of getting out of here without joining in for a bit. At least then she could say she had to go home and they wouldn’t be able to call her a spoilsport.

  She didn’t have to move, though. Before she had time to set off, Zilla was hurtling past with Lawrence hot in pursuit.

  ‘Grab him!’ Zill yelled.

  Missie tried to grab but managed only to snatch a piece of shirt. Lawrence twisted himself free and Missie had a moment to see the intensity in his face as he charged off again. He wasn’t laughing. This wasn’t a game like the ones they used to play.

  She caught a glimpse of Max, who’d drifted further down. He looked across at her and she recalled the last time she’d been bailed up by the pair of them.

  Zill’s squeals pierced the cold air as she thrashed her way back again. ‘Can’t catch me!’ she cried as she leapt around behind one tree and then, just as quickly, reversed direction and popped up behind another.

  Lawrence tried to out-dodge her but she was too fast. He was, however, herding her, little by little, towards the bulkier tree that sheltered Max.

  ‘Come on, slow coach!’ Zilla leapt back and disappeared.

  There was a sudden quick scurry and then stillness. Missie started forward and was in time to see Max, arms outstretched, herding her back towards Lawrence. He hadn’t said a word, simply opened his arms, lowered his shoulders and danced, crab-like to stop her getting by.

  He looked grotesque. He looked like the awful, dreadful man she’d seen at the pictures who lived in the church steeple and rang the bells.

  Missie lifted her hands up and slammed forward, bringing them down in the middle of Lawrence’s back.

  ‘Run!’ she howled. ‘Run Zill!’

  They took off, easily outdistancing the boys. Max wouldn’t even have run. Missie knew that but she wasn’t too sure about Lawrence.

  She glanced back and saw him, wandering along like he didn’t care that he’d been outsmarted.

  Zill stopped. She turned around and laughed. A good laugh, as if it had been a good chase. Maybe for her it was. Maybe she hadn’t noticed how Max looked when he’d tried to head her off.

  ‘Hurry up,’ she called to them. ‘I’ll wait for you if you don’t take all afternoon.’

  Missie kept going. ‘I’m going home,’ she said. ‘Mum’ll be calling and I’ll cop it if I’m not there.’

  It was a lie. Her mother would be calling all right, but she wouldn’t have been calling long so Missie wouldn’t be really late. She’d be happy to get home, though, and snug down in front of the fireplace. And she had a new book from the library.

  She ambled along the track by the river. It was further this way and she’d have a long, hard uphill walk to get back to where they’d left the bike but she didn’t care. The track here was well worn and not as squelchy as the other one.

  She could hear the others somewhere behind her, their voices lifting every now and then as Zill danced about entertaining Lawrence.

  Max, she was sure, would have already gone on home. Never, in the whole time that she lived in his house had Missie known him to chase anyone. Or play games.

  She drifted on, lost in a dream of warm fires and good books. Once
she thought she heard footsteps skidding down over the heaps of leaves and looked up in time to see Oleksander straightening up. He was turning and so didn’t see her when she lifted her hand to wave at him.

  He’d been sitting there, she guessed, with his drawing book like he was the day she’d spied him down at the wharf. Just as well Zill hadn’t seen him. She’d be going on about him being a perv again.

  He walked into the scrubbier trees that clustered together higher up the bank and she saw she was right. He held his book against him as he swerved down under a branch.

  She hurried a little, thinking she might catch up with him on the top path and then they could walk home together. She was puffing by the time she got to the top but he wasn’t there. It surprised her, really, because it was a bit of a struggle getting up that bank and she was sure he’d not be so far ahead of her but, there you go. He was nowhere to be seen.

  Zilla’s bike was still there though.

  And Deirdre’s. No Deirdre though. The bundle that had been in the basket was gone but the school books were still there. They’d be ruined if it rained on them. Missie stepped closer to try and cover them a bit.

  ‘Hey!’

  Missie almost leapt out of her skin.

  ‘Is that your bike?’ Wally Watson was holding his little dog in his arms and pointing to a bike.

  ‘It’s mine.’ Zilla said as she ambled up. Lawrence must have gone off by himself.

  ‘Well, you want to be a bit more careful where you put it. Young Errol here got himself caught in the spokes. Had hell’s own trouble getting his lead untangled.’

  Missie felt her lip start to twitch and didn’t dare look across at Zilla.

  ‘Damn near took him down the hill and into the drink!’ Wally went on. ‘Poor little beggar. Running as hard as he could to get away from it and its going after him. Scared him half to death, it did!’

  Missie exploded.

  ‘Oh, that’s right. Have a good laugh! You mark my words, young lady. This bike better not be here next time Errol and me go past or I’ll be calling into the police station to come and fetch it!’

  ‘Sorry,’ Zilla managed as Missie tried to stop another explosion. ‘I’m taking it now.’

  ‘So you’d better!’

  The girls held together until Wally and Errol shuffled off over the road and down to the pub.

  ‘I’m off,’ Zill said. ‘Lawrence is going to ride home with me. He’s gone to get his bike.’

  ‘What about Deirdre?’

  Zilla looked down in the bush. It was darker down there now and the branches seeped coldness. It touched red moisture to the ends of their noses. Already Missie was doing a little foot-to-foot dance to keep herself warm.

  ‘She’ll be right,’ Zill said. ‘She’ll see we’re gone and come back up. She’s probably on the way now.’

  They looked back down the path, following it to the curve where it dipped sharply to lead down to the pool. The streetlight had come on but it didn’t light the way. It only hit the top of the fence, making the mesh look as if it was floating between the trees.

  They waited, expecting at any moment to see Deirdre’s head appear over the rise.

  ‘Yeah,’ Zilla said. ‘She’ll be on her way back already.’

  Another figure rode into view.

  Lawrence.

  He waited on his side of the road for Zilla to join him.

  ‘Here.’ Zill emptied the school bags out of the basket. ‘Here’s yours. And tell Deirdre to hurry up when you see her.’

  Missie watched them go, then she ran along the path. Her breath was clouding in front of her as she peered down the hill trying to make out Deirdre’s shape.

  Nothing.

  Nothing except frozen fingers and toes too cold to even try to dance them into warmth.

  She ran back along the path. If Deirdre’s bike was still there she was never going to see it standing here. And she’d probably walk all the way back again and find out bloody Deirdre had come up the other way, through the trees.

  It was getting really dark now. She stood on tiptoe. It should be there, right there near the crack in the footpath.

  It was impossible to tell. Night shadows of trees and dips and holes along the side of the path weren’t helping. She wasn’t heading all the way back along there to check. It’d be a waste of time and it was bloody freezing. Of course she’d be gone by now. She wasn’t stupid and it was getting dark.

  She’d be gone for sure.

  Missie turned for home.

  30

  EVENING

  JULY

  Missie stood in her shirt and singlet and pants. It was so cold she knew the bottom of the bath would feel like ice when she sat down, even though the water was hot enough to be sending up steam. No good hoping it’d warm up either. It was like the heat could only seep a little way into the metal before being chilled back out.

  Quickly she began to undo her buttons. Once this was done she could nip her undies down and then climb into the warm water and then, when she was warming around her legs, she could fling her shirt and singlet off and slide right down. At least the bits not actually resting on the bottom were going to be warm.

  She’d just stepped into the bath when she heard her mother calling for her to come down.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Her mother had sent her to have a bath and now she was yelling at her to come back down? Missie had no sooner finished yelling back that she was in the bath already than the door opened.

  Her mother stepped in, bringing the cold outside air with her. ‘Missie, were you with Deirdre this afternoon?’

  Missie sat up.

  ‘At school I was.’

  ‘Later than that.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you were down at the river.’

  Missie felt colour flame up her cheeks.

  ‘I know you were down there, Missie, and you know you’re not allowed and we’ll get to that later. Who was down there with you?’

  Missie told her.

  ‘Not Deirdre?’

  ‘Her bike was there.’

  ‘But you didn’t see her?’

  Missie shook her head. ‘I checked to see if her bike was gone when I came up the track and I couldn’t see it.’

  Her mother thought for a moment. ‘Did you see anyone else down there?’

  ‘Old Wally Watson and Errol. Wally yelled at us about the bikes...’

  ‘What about the bikes?’

  ‘He said Errol’d got tangled up in the spokes.’ What was hilariously funny this afternoon sounded hollow now. ‘And Mr Oleksander.’

  A chill sneaked up Missie’s back and sent a shudder across her shoulders. She didn’t think it was to do with the cold air. ‘What’s wrong with Deirdre? What’d she do?’

  Her mother held out a towel.

  ‘She didn’t do anything. Here, climb out.’

  There was still dirt under her fingernails. And across her knees. Her mother could see it surely.

  ‘I’m not washed.’

  There were other voices drifting up the stairs.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Just get out and let’s get your clothes back on. Deirdre’s mum is here. Deirdre didn’t come home and she’s worried. You’d better come out and tell her about this afternoon.’

  Missie let herself be hurried into her clothes. They smelt mouldy and brought images of dead leaves and rotting riverbank as she hauled her singlet back over her head.

  ‘We weren’t in the water or anything,’ Missie said. ‘We were messing around near the trees.’

  The log was in the water though. And they were playing pirates. But not properly. Not really out to the end of the log where the river sucked itself into a bad temper.

  Suddenly she wanted to be out of the bathroom, to be out there in the hall telling Deirdre’s mum that it was all right and hearing that, oh god, it’d all been a mistake and Deirdre had wandered back home.

  Only they wouldn’t know that, would th
ey? There was no way a message could get from way up the hill and Mrs Trumble’s place down to here just like that. Someone could walk down to Bethel Richards’s place and ask if they could use the phone or they could go all the way across to racecourse corner and use the public phone, but if they went that far they might as well continue on down here.

  And that’d take ages.

  Max was already there when she was ushered into the front room.

  Belle was there as well and Zill’s mum. ‘Zilla’s at home in case she comes in while we’re down here,’ she said. ‘Did you see Deirdre?’

  ‘She went to get Jimmy,’ Missie began and went on to tell the same things as she’d told her mother upstairs. This time she needed to swallow hard more often and her hands kept clamping tight. And, in spite of the warm fire, her fingers were frozen.

  ‘It’s Jimmy Johnson, isn’t it? He lives with his dad up near the mill?’ Aunt Belle was writing down names. ‘We know where Lawrence lives and his parents will be none too pleased when they hear where he was this afternoon. Max, do you have anything else you can tell us?’

  Max sat quietly with his shoulders hunched and hands tucked between his knees. ‘We were chasing Zilla and couldn’t catch her and then we left. She was walking in front of us,’ he said and pointed at Missie.

  ‘I wanted to get home,’ Missie said. She didn’t say she didn’t like the game. It didn’t seem to be important.

  ‘So you were walking along by yourself?’ Aunt Belle said. ‘Is that when you spoke to Mr Shevchenko ... Oleksander?’

  ‘I didn’t talk to him.’

  ‘What was he doing then?’

  ‘He was just sitting there.’ She could have said that she thought he was drawing the river and the trees and the afternoon chill but she wasn’t sure if this was something to be shared. It felt more like a ‘Bob’s your uncle’. ‘I was going to catch him but he was gone by the time I got to the top,’ she said instead.

  Nobody answered.

  A log dropped in the fire and some sparks flew but nobody moved to add more wood. Bev Trumble stood, one hand gripping the edge of the mantelpiece while her eyes glazed over with firelight.

  ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought she might’ve been here. You know, playing and forgotten the time or something.’ She hadn’t moved or turned so it was unclear if she was talking to anyone in particular. Or just talking out loud to herself.