The Innocents

by Nette Hilton

  She was going to get him. One day, one day soon, he was going to strike out and she’d be ready with a great big axe and she’d chop off his head.

  She dreamed back to her plan.

  If she made Max strike out when everyone could see him, he’d cop it. He was sneaky. Like a shithouse rat, that’s what Jimmy had said. He only pinched when he was sure nobody would see. Or twisted arms. Or slammed doors so they hit you. They’d maybe even see how it was probably Max who ... her heart picked up a pitch and she felt drumming in her ears. She clamped her lips tightly together and concentrated hard.

  They’d maybe even see how it was Max who had ... who had pushed Judith Mae and how it was Max who had his Buster back when it had been rescued from a pond and stolen by Deirdre.

  It was time, Missie thought, that Buster got stolen again.

  Only this time he was going to reappear in front of everyone as the prize in the middle of pass-the-parcel.

  46

  MELBOURNE

  Oleksander lay still. The earth beneath him breathed like a living thing. Here, in this place, he could feel it pressing up between his shoulderblades, pushing him away so hard that surely he would be flung off if he did not hold on.

  He did not move.

  He felt the coarseness of the fabric beneath him and beneath that the cold floor seeping dampness up, up, up to add breath from a different source. A fibre touched his finger. He could feel it trace the echoes of his own breath.

  His belly had sunk and lay along the inside ridge of his spine like it had been sucked there. A vacuum. Airless. Empty. Taut. His body stunk. He could smell it on his breath as outrage, as if his body sensed his betrayal. Snarling as it was forced to seek sustenance on itself.

  But he lay still.

  Soon they would move him. He knew this. He had heard it from the guard who had called it to another. They would open the door and take him and he would need his strength for this final escape.

  To starve to death was too long and it called up too many others who’d been forced to die this way.

  Better to choose a quicker route.

  47

  ‘CHARMAINE’

  She stole Buster.

  It wasn’t that hard and she wondered whether nicking the cards had helped. Oleksander wouldn’t be pleased, and she could easily imagine him as she ran into her room and shoved Buster on the highest shelf in her cupboard. She had to get a chair to reach and by the time she’d got down she had actually turned to make sure he wasn’t watching from the doorway.

  Of course he wasn’t.

  Nobody was home but her mother, who was downstairs napping in the sunshine at the back door. Aunt Belle had taken Max to visit Allan and Edie Mae who were going to have a new baby soon. Missie hoped that it wasn’t a fatty like Judith and then felt sorry that she’d thought it.

  It wasn’t hard to find the paper for the parcel. She used newspaper for the inside bits and brown paper for the outside. Her mother had asked her what she was doing and was happy that she was so industrious about getting her birthday ready when there was still two weeks to go.

  Two whole weeks.

  Missie looked at the parcel that was Buster and wondered if perhaps she should have left him in his other cupboard hidey-hole for a bit longer. What if Max went looking for him? Her stomach lurched at the thought. She forced it back into her middle where it belonged and made herself think. Like Miss Martin did with maths. One: How would Max know it was her that took it? Answer: He wouldn’t. But, sneaky answer, he might guess. Two: Buster smelt extra pongy. Answer: This meant that Max probably hadn’t taken him out of his cupboard for a while. Maybe not since ... Three: Should she simply go and put him back? Answer: No. She’d just have to hope that the new Master’s Voice and Lawrence and after school serials might make him forget for a while. Four: If he didn’t? Answer: He’d go looking for it. Her stomach lurched all over again but she was just going to have to take a chance.

  She clambered onto the chair again and pushed the brown-paper parcel further along the shelf. She decided her door was going to be shut up tight all the time, with a sign on it.

  Making plans was a lot more difficult than it was in the Famous Five books. It had taken most of the afternoon and the chair was only just back under her desk when she heard Aunt Belle and Max return.

  ‘Put the kettle on, Marcie,’ she heard Aunt Belle call. ‘We need a decent cup of tea and one of those scones that you made if there’s any left over.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,’ her mother’s voice, a bit sleepy, drifted up the stairs.

  ‘Came back early. Edie wasn’t really well enough to have visitors.’

  Missie went out to lean over the banister. Their voices were soft and echoed in the entrance hall. They reminded her of the night birds in the marshes.

  ‘Oh, that woman,’ Aunt Belle was saying. ‘Never understood what Allan saw in her.’

  ‘Will I bring the tea through?’

  ‘No, we’ll have it in the kitchen. Of course, she’s never liked me.’

  Missie leaned over a little further.

  ‘I don’t really know her.’ Her mother’s voice.

  ‘No, well. You’re not missing anything.’ Aunt Belle walked to the hallstand to hang her hat and straighten her hair and Missie had to duck back in case she was caught. ‘I never saw her as vicious, though.’

  Missie watched while Aunt Belle evened the swoop of hair that curved down over her ear. ‘Do you know, I think she actually blames us for poor little Judith falling down the stairs. And the way she carried on about Max...’

  Missie’s ears pricked up. She edged her way to the top stair, taking care not to step on any creaking boards. She’d have to nip down the back stairs to keep up with what they were talking about.

  ‘...She actually called him a little liar!’

  She missed her mother’s reply. They’d moved through to the kitchen and the voices were muffled. She was saying something about missing Allan Mae coming around to listen to the races, which was a little confusing as Missie clearly remembered her mother grizzling about Allan Mae and how he took up all her time and how he’d be better off staying home at his house instead of driving her nuts.

  She turned around to nip down the back stairs and almost tripped over. Quickly she straightened up and smoothed the mat back into place. Then she tiptoed along the hallway ready to rip down to the back stairs so she’d not miss too much.

  Max was waiting.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Going downstairs.’

  ‘New wireless’s coming this week,’ he said. ‘I’m getting ready for it.’

  ‘How?’

  It had never occurred to Missie that you had to actually prepare yourself to listen to a wireless.

  ‘Just getting ready. We’ve got it worked out.’

  He kept going on to his room and, in spite of herself, Missie wanted to know more.

  ‘Who’s got it worked out? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Me and Lawrence. We know how to make the most of it.’ He trailed his hand along the top of the banister.

  ‘Is Lawrence going to come here to listen to our wireless?’ Missie asked.

  ‘It’s not yours.’

  ‘It’s in this house and I live in this house so I’ll be using it too. That makes it mine as much as yours.

  ‘It does not!’

  It didn’t. Missie knew and she was beginning to suspect that if she didn’t shut up she was going to miss out all together on seeing this lovely new thing.

  ‘Where’s it going to go?’ she said.

  ‘Downstairs.’

  ‘In your mother’s rooms?’

  Max leaned over and pointed to the front room. ‘No. That room. You don’t know anything,’ he said as he flounced back to the top of the stairs. ‘If you come now I’ll show you exactly where it’s going to be.’

  It was going to be in the corner, to one side of the fireplace. Her mother and Aunt Belle
were in there as well, discussing where the furniture would need to be placed and what items might need to find a new place to live.

  ‘The fire irons and all those pieces in the wall cupboard will have to go into the other room. But the clock can stay. And the other crystal. You don’t think this room will look too bare?’

  They agreed it wouldn’t and then suggested everyone choose their chair for their first night. They were going to be allowed to bring their dinner in on trays so they could listen to the Sunday Theatre. And concerts, Aunt Belle said, would sound so much better on the wonderful new speakers that were in her wireless.

  They sat there, swinging their feet while Aunt Belle explained that it was the very latest model and had been designed in the latest style. It had a walnut exterior, she said. Whatever that meant. ‘And you children are allowed one guest on one afternoon a week to come and have a special listening time.’

  Missie could hardly contain herself. She grinned over at Max who grinned back. He wriggled himself further back in his chair and laid his arms along the padded rests.

  ‘Only one afternoon.’ Aunt Belle reminded them. ‘And only one guest. So? Who’s it going to be this week?’

  ‘Lawrence.’

  ‘I thought as much. And you, Missie. Who’ll you invite?’

  It’d be nice to have Zilla over. Zill’d liked radio stories and always used to go on about Superman and how much she’d like to be Lois, but there was a whole different Zilla to get to know.

  ‘Can I ask Jimmy?’

  Missie thought she heard Max snuffle into his hand.

  ‘None of your girlfriends?’ Aunt Belle said.

  ‘Jimmy came to see her while she was so sick,’ her mother said. ‘I think it would be nice to invite him over this week. And next week, after you’ve been back at school, you can invite one of the girls.’

  ‘Zilla,’ Missie said quietly.

  Aunt Belle sighed. ‘She’ll have to sit quietly, you know.’

  ‘It was Deirdre who talked all the time,’ Missie reminded her.

  Aunt Belle touched her head as she walked back to the kitchen. ‘I know who did the talking, Missie, but your friend Priscilla never struck me as being backward in coming forward.’

  Missie wasn’t too sure what that meant and repeated it to herself so she’d have it there to think about after tea when she was upstairs waiting for sleep.

  48

  OCTOBER

  ‘CHARMAINE’

  It was raining. Not the awful lashings of winter rain that raked at windows and sent branches screeching against glass to be let in, but the gentler insistence of summer rain come early.

  Missie snuggled down.

  On the other side of the wall her mother could be heard singing a song about April showers, which was a bit stupid because it was October.

  ‘It’s not April,’ Missie called from under her blanket.

  Her mother appeared in the doorway of her bedroom. She had a jar of Ponds in one hand and was smoothing it into her cheeks with the other. She was all shiny.

  ‘You look like those cakes,’ Missie said softly. ‘All covered in shiny icing.’

  ‘And you look like a girl who should be asleep.’

  ‘You woke me up.’

  Her mother ambled to the end of the bed and tucked the cover down. ‘Can’t wake you up if you weren’t asleep,’ she said. ‘Get yourself settled down. I’ll come back and tidy your blankets when I’ve finished icing my face.’

  Missie giggled.

  She hadn’t been asleep. Her head was full of the days at school. It was good to be back and the others made a fuss of her and said they needed her for the netball team that was going to play a game against Lansdale Central. A lot of her thoughts had been about how she was going to be the one to score the winning goal and how they’d all clap and cheer and she’d get a trophy, a proper one with a girl holding a netball on the top and her name on the bottom.

  ‘Who puts the names on trophies?’ she asked.

  ‘An engraver. A man who writes with a sharp instrument that cuts the letters into the metal. And why do you need to know this at eleven o’clock at night?’

  ‘I’m going to play in the netball team,’ Missie said.

  ‘Oh. And you’re thinking you might win a trophy?’

  How did she do that? Guess it right. Just like that. And make her go all red.

  Her mother set about straightening the bed. ‘I always wanted to win a trophy,’ she said, ‘when I was a little girl.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever get one?’

  ‘Nope. I never got to do anything where I might win one. Now. I need some ideas for a present because a certain person in this house is having a late, late, late birthday soon.’

  A small worm of excitement twisted in Missie’s belly. ‘If I had a netball hoop I could practise shooting goals...’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to think about that. I’m not sure Aunt Belle would take too kindly to a netball hoop nailed to her wall, but–’ she bent down and gave her a quick kiss – ‘while you’re drifting off to sleep you better have a think about what games we’re going to play and who’s coming to the party. We need to make some little place cards.’

  Missie braced herself and heaved over onto her side. The blankets gave a little and she felt the lovely smoothness of sheet that it left behind. ‘Zilla’s coming,’ she said.

  ‘Good.’

  She hadn’t been going to come. She probably wouldn’t even have said g’day if it hadn’t been for Mr Glasson. His voice had boomed her name over the intercom just when they were getting ready to mark their spelling.

  ‘Off you go, Missie,’ Miss Martin said. ‘I’ll check your work.’

  Everyone’s eyes were watching her as she eased out of her desk. They’d spun around as soon as the intercom had crackled into life and her name had blasted out. Immediately, he’d said, to the office.

  Missie handed over her book and hurried to the door. Her shoes clomped as she went and she was sure her shoulders were all hunched over like Faith’s. Faith clomped when she walked and nothing seemed to move at the right time.

  ‘Pick your feet up, girl,’ Miss Martin said and waited until Missie had worked at making her shoes quiet.

  Once she’d cleared the classroom and was out in the hall the brown lino silenced them for her anyway. She rather wished they’d make squelching noises like Mary’s did sometimes but they didn’t.

  Mr Glasson was waiting for her. ‘Someone to see you.’

  It was Zilla.

  She was standing beside her mother with one arm resting around her shoulders.

  Missie grinned. It was so good to see her that she momentarily forgot the last time she’d been with Zill.

  ‘Now,’ Mr Glasson was saying as he shuffled papers around on his desk. ‘I want you to look after Priscilla. She’s going to feel a little bit strange for a day or two because she’s missed so much school but then so have you, Missie.’ He looked at Zill, who looked like she couldn’t care less. ‘She’s been very sick, haven’t you, Missie?’

  Missie nodded and grinned.

  ‘And she’s only come this week as well.’ He stood up and signalled for Zill’s mum to stand. Zilla hung close. ‘Now, come along, Priscilla. Perhaps the best way to get started is for Missie to take you out to get your bottle of milk.’ He leaned closer. ‘Ahead of the others – a bit of a treat. When you’ve finished you can come back to me and I’ll take you to Miss Martin.’

  The very thought of milk was making Missie’s stomach sour. And Zilla never drank hers anyway.

  ‘You want to come?’ Missie hung at the doorway.

  ‘Yes, off you go, Priscilla.’

  Still Zill didn’t make a move to follow until Mr Glasson took her hand and, none too gently, propelled her to the door and through it. Her mother moved to follow but Mr Glasson held his hand across so she was halted. ‘I have to get you to sign this paper, Mrs Trumble, and the girls will be fine, I assure you.’

  The gir
ls weren’t fine.

  Missie walked slowly with her body half-turned to make sure she was ready to catch whatever word Zill might speak.

  She didn’t say anything, not until they got out through the kinder doors and into the sunlit playground.

  ‘What’re you gawking at?’

  Missie slowed down. ‘I’m waiting for you to say something.’

  ‘Nothing to say.’ Zill headed for the gate.

  ‘You’ll cop it if you take off,’ Missie said.

  For a moment, the briefest moment, Zill looked like she might cry. ‘I’m not staying.’

  ‘You’ve got to.’ Missie was checking along the row of windows to see if Mr Glasson was watching them. ‘How come you didn’t go to Melbourne?’

  ‘None of your business.’ Zill squinted her eyes up as if she was seeking out another escape route.

  Missie wasn’t quite sure what to say now.

  ‘We’re only staying here till me dad finds us a proper place to live. Then we’re leaving.’

  It seemed a bit odd to come to school if you were headed off to Melbourne but Missie didn’t care. For now, Zill was back.

  Missie collected two bottles of milk. They were already warm from the sun. She handed one to Zill who removed the top and poured it into the drinking trough. Milk scum lingered around the pebbly surface so it was necessary to hold the bubblers down for a bit. She kept the silver top and began rubbing her finger around in it to smooth it into a bell shape.

  Missie forced her throat open and made herself drink the milk. The punishment for pouring it down the drain was death.

  ‘Are you gonna be here for my birthday party?’

  Zill stopped rubbing. ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘It’s two weeks. On Saturday arvo.’

  Zill leaned back against the trough. ‘I’m not coming anyway. Mum reckons there’s something wrong with that house you live in. I’m not allowed there any more.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my house!’

  ‘Bloody is so! What about that kid you told me about. That one who fell down the stairs?’