by Anne Davies
I walk across the quad by myself now, without Owen. There are always a couple of guards on duty anyway in case someone has a go at climbing up the fence or onto the roof. I knock on the door, still in zombie mode. I can do this. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.
The door opens, and it’s Mr P. He’s early today. His mouth is moving, but I can’t really hear him. Then my knees buckle, and I’m on the ground, rolled up in a ball, sobbing! God, is that noise coming from me? He’s lifting me up and half-carrying me inside, but I can’t stop; I can’t stop!
I’m in Norbert’s room, curled up on his bed and trying to make myself small. My thoughts start to slow. They’ll think I’m a lunatic. What am I saying? I am one. Outside, in the main room, I become aware of Mr P murmuring something to each boy. The door closes, and a chair scrapes close to the bed. I hear it creak as Mr P settles into it. A large hand closes on my shoulder, stroking it as if it were a cat, but it feels good—soothing—my breathing slows, and my body stops its horrible jumping and tingling. The room is silent. What now?
“What’s going on, Luca?”
How can I get out of this? What can I say? I turn and sit up, leaning back on the wall. “Don’t you have to teach the boys, sir?” I say, stalling for time.
“They’re fine; don’t worry about them. They have plenty to go on with. Now, what’s happened?”
I hang my head. The silence is pressing down on me. The room seems small, and I finally look up to tell him some crap about feeling sick or something, but when I see those deep-set blue eyes boring into me, I know it’s going to be impossible to lie to him. It just starts pouring out of my mouth, all of it. ‘Pouring’ is the only word to describe it. It’s a flood, like some dam inside me has broken and everything is coming out.
Strangely, it seems to make sense, even though I have no real idea what I’m going to say before it’s out of my mouth. I tell him about Dad, Reid—how I loathed him—Mum and Katy… everything comes out. He sits there listening, totally concentrating on me and not interrupting. I pause, breathing hard, after I tell him about that night in Katy’s room. I can’t meet his eyes, and he speaks for the first time.
“Go on.”
Finally, I slow down and haltingly tell him about Katy’s visit and what she told me. I start shaking again. “It was all a mistake. I thought that as wrong as it was that I had killed him, at least I had protected Katy from him forever—but it turns out she didn’t need any protection. She loved him, and he probably loved her. He’d never shown her anything but kindness, and for that he died. I killed him. I can’t justify it even in the slightest way. The only thing that’s kept me going all this time is that I’d done it for Katy, but now I know the truth. I did it for myself. All that hatred I had built up for so long, and then I saw an excuse to attack him. I hadn’t meant to kill him—just to hurt him, just to make him go away.
“As if that would happen,” I add bitterly. “Why should he go away? He had my mother, my sister, their house and their life together. I was the problem, not him. Because of my anger, he died; Mum died; Katy lost him, her mother, everything; Mrs Brockman lost her brother. All gone because of me. That’s the truth of it. There’s no noble heroic deed done by a protective brother. There’s just an angry, hate-filled, drugged-up piece of shit that doesn’t deserve to be alive. No one should cause that much damage and be able to live.”
I stop at last, feeling somehow cleaner than I’d felt for a long while. The truth is out in the open. All that dark poison inside me is gone, spewed up in that outpouring. I know what I am.
The silence is deeper this time after my voice had filled the room for so long. Mr P’s head is down. Clearly, he can’t look at me because his disgust must be so great. He shifts in his chair, gropes in his pocket and pulls out a neatly folded handkerchief. He opens it slowly, wipes his eyes and then blows his nose.
There is a quiet knock from outside, and Norbert comes in, carrying two mugs of Milo. He puts them both down on the little bedside table and then turns to go. Mr P stands up.
“Thank you, Norbert,” he says and turns to me. “I’ll just check how everyone is going, and then I’ll be back.” He goes, and I sit there, the sweet smell of the drink filling the little room. I relish the feeling of peace that comes over me. The worst is out. I’m like a piece of driftwood that’s lying washed up on some beach, nothing hidden, nothing left—just the shape of something that once was picked bare.
Mr P comes back in, head down, still not looking me in the eye. Suddenly, he grabs my hands together in his big paws.
“This is a terrible thing you’ve been carrying, Luca, but it was a mistake—an awful, tragic mistake, but still a mistake.” I wait for him to go on, but he says nothing more.
“This isn’t just a mistake, sir. A mistake is what you do in Maths, and then you go back, cross it out, correct it and on you go. No real harm done.” My voice strengthens. I’m sure of myself now, surer than I’ve ever been. “There’s no crossing out this one. Two people are dead, and they won’t be coming back. It was bad enough knowing that I’d killed someone when I had that tiny bit of excuse to hang on to—that I thought he was hurting Katy. It was still terrible, but now there is nothing—just the cold, hard fact that I’ve taken lives, one of them my own mother’s life, and for nothing. Nothing at all.”
Even though I know what I am saying is disturbing, probably as bad as you can get, I am calm. My heart isn’t pounding, and I’m not shaking; I’m ice.
“That’s true. Nothing can change the result of what happened, but there were things beyond your control that led to it.”
“That I was off my face on drugs. Nobody’s fault but mine. I took them, no one else.”
“They’re a part of it, but really, it may have happened even if you hadn’t taken anything.”
I think about this for a moment. “I don’t know. I was totally out of control, and whether that was down to drugs or not, I don’t know. It’s a blur. I didn’t think I was killing him—just hurting him so he knew what it was like.”
“So you didn’t think a softball bat would kill him?”
“No,” I say wonderingly, “but then only a lunatic would hit someone as hard as they could with a bat and not know it was causing serious damage.”
“So it stands to reason that drugs were playing a part in how you responded that night. On the one hand, you say you had no intention of killing him, and yet you picked up and used a bat, which—as you said—only a lunatic would imagine wouldn’t do terrible damage.”
“Fair enough. But they’re both dead. It was partly due to the effect of the drugs, but you still can’t change that fact.”
“Can anything change that fact?”
“Of course not. It happened, and nothing can change it now.”
He smiles at me for the first time. “And will all your thinking about it, all your regret, all your guilt, change that fact?”
I sit silent though I can hear the boys murmuring and kookaburras laughing in the tree in the courtyard. “No,” I say at last, “nothing will ever change that fact.”
“Then, Luca, you have two choices. You can either remain locked up inside yourself, thinking only of that event, going over and over it even though you know that all the thinking in the world won’t make any difference, or…” He stops, locking me to him with those dark blue eyes of his, “…or you can move forward. That doesn’t mean dismissing what happened, but it happened; it’s in the past. Concentrate now—not on what you did but on what you can become.”
The siren rings, jerking me back to the moment. The whole morning has gone! “Sorry, sir,” I gasp.
He smiles. “You’re worth it, Luca. Now, take it easy today. Tomorrow, I’ll help you to grab the steering wheel of that mind of yours.” He opens the door, and the boys look up from their packing up.
“Well done, boys. Any questions?”
“Nothing that can’t wait till tomorrow,” Norbert answers, and the others nod.
“See you, kid. Keep your pecker up!” they chorus as I try to sneak out.
I smile at them, embarrassed, thinking yet again how different they are from the other boys in this place. They’re keen to get on with life and make a new start. Quite a few of the boys in the main building are pretty much dead-heads. You can just tell by looking in their eyes. Life’s kicked them in the teeth too many times, and they’ve given up and turned nasty or vacant. I guess I just tried to become numb.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I go to lunch and see the boys already sitting down. Archie glances up as I come over, and I see a small frown crease between his eyes.
“Hi, Arch, guys. Sorry I’ve been such a boring pain in the arse. What’s been happening?”
Archie’s face splits in a grin, the crease disappearing.
“Nothing much, man, but it’s a pretty special day today.”
“Why?”
They look at me and laugh. “You must have been out of it, dude,” says Tim. “He’s been talking about it every day since last week.”
“Exactly one month,” says Archie, quietly, and though those big white teeth of his are neoning in my face, I see the tears in his eyes.
“That’s amazing, Arch!” I reach over and slap him on the back, but even though my grin is almost as wide as his, my chest tightens. What am I going to do without him? As though he knows what I’m thinking, his smile fades.
“Yes, it is, but the bad part is that I won’t see any of you mob. I won’t even be able to visit because I’m heading straight back to Carnarvon.”
Aaron sticks his head forward from where he’s sitting slumped at the far end of the table. “Don’t think about coming back in here, Arch, even to visit. Once you’re out, stay out. Forget this place and mixing with any losers like us.”
“We’re not all losers,” Johnno breaks in. “There’s no way I’m coming back in here.” He’s more animated than I’ve ever seen him. “My Dad’s got me a pre-apprenticeship set up for when I get out. Just because I acted like a loser once doesn’t make me one forever.”
“Good luck to you, then,” Aaron mumbles and sags back, his head down.
We munch away for a while, and then Tim says, “I’m out six months after you, Arch.” We all look at him, surprised. He reddens a bit then, and keen to take the attention off himself, asks, “What about everyone else?”
It’s something we’ve never talked about. Seems to make it harder somehow.
“Three months,” says Johnno. We go around the table till it comes to me.
“No idea,” I say as casually as I can. “When they’re ready.”
Only Archie knows why I’m in here, but it dawns on the others that I’ve done something pretty damned serious. There’s an awkward silence.
“Neil will be here,” Archie breaks in.
“For how long?”
“Another three months here, and then maybe he transfers to prison.”
Another silence, more sombre this time. “What did he do?” Tim says—not the way he had said it to me so long ago but quietly, sadly.
Aaron sits forward again and looks at Archie, who looks down at the table and picks at the edge of his place mat, and then he whispers huskily, “He grabbed a girl walking along the street one night, and he and his mates took her and raped her. The thing is he kept her locked up for three days before she got away.”
I feel my guts clench in disgust, but at the same time, I think, Who am I to judge him? At least she lived. I push the thoughts away.
“You probably heard about it. It was on the news, but they didn’t say much about what happened to her—just that she was home safe. The thing is his age would have meant he got off fairly lightly from the rape charge—the other guys were older—but the kidnapping, he did alone, and that’s a really serious charge.” Archie sighed. “So God knows how long he’s got to go.”
“Deserves it,” Aaron spits out. “Imagine if that girl had been your sister or friend.”
Tim blurts out quickly, “This is meant to be a happy day! One month for Archie! What are you going to do first, Arch? Go to the movies? Hungry Jacks?”
“No way,” Archie laughs. “I’m staying outside as much as I can. I just want to look up and see the sky above me and no buildings around me. Breathe clean air. Give my mum a hug. Sit and have some good tucker with my relations.” He stops and grins wryly. “Make sure none of the kids in my mob end up here. Frighten the crap out of them. Tell them whatever I have to in order to help ’em learn good stuff to do instead of having ’em do rotten, stupid things because they’re bored.”
We nod, and then lunch finishes. I have plenty of study to do, but I can’t concentrate, so I just relax and go over what Mr P said. But what the heck did he mean about grabbing the steering wheel of my mind?
*
It doesn’t take long to find out. The next morning, when I go to the cottage, there are pillows and cushions on the floor in a circle, and the chairs are pushed back out of the way. Mr P is already there, and he smiles at me when I come in and stand, puzzled, with my books.
“Ah, you’re here, Luca. Now we can start. Everyone kick off your shoes and sit on a cushion. Make sure you’re comfortable.” There are groans and moans as the boys flop down on the floor. “No, don’t lie on the floor, you slobs; like this.” Mr P sinks down onto his cushion, back straight and legs folded underneath him.
“It looks weird! I can’t do that!” protests Norbert.
“Give it a try. You sat like that when you were a baby!”
We all frown at one another, and Mr P laughs. “Come on, or would you rather get back to your work?”
Everyone scrambles into position. It looks strange but feels okay. As long as your bum is up higher than your feet, you tip forward a bit and your legs balance you when they’re folded. Mr P’s knees are flat on the floor, but most of ours stick up at different angles.
“Don’t worry about what you look like. Just get comfortable. Your legs will flatten down in a while when the muscles stretch a bit.”
The guys start laughing and saying “Om”, trying to look saintly, and Mr P just waits. When it quiets down, he says, “Close your eyes. I want you to concentrate on the other senses.” His voice is soft and low. “First, touch. Concentrate on your feet, your ankles, the contact with the floor—and let them relax,” and so he goes slowly, from our toes to the tops of our heads. Then it’s taste, the inside of the mouth, the tongue lying soft. Then sound—no thinking about it, just experiencing it. It’s pretty restful, really, slowing down everything like that.
Finally, he gets us just to concentrate on our breathing, counting each breath slowly to 10 and then starting again. The thing is to follow your breath and not start thinking about anything else. Man, that’s hard! It sounds so easy, but just try it! I get to four or something and then I’m thinking about what maths I need to do today or about Archie leaving—anything but counting my breaths.
Mr P must know what’s happening because he says, “Don’t worry when your mind wanders. This takes practice. Just become aware you are following your thoughts, let them go and start counting again.”
After a while, he tells us to open our eyes. My God! Half an hour has gone by! It felt like it has only been 10 minutes. Everyone looks a bit stunned.
“How was that, boys?”
We go around in turn, and everyone says pretty much the same thing—how hard it was to stop thinking! “I’ll never be able to do that,” Norbert says, shaking his head. We all nod.
“You probably said the same thing the first time you got on a bike or started learning to read. You’ll get better the more you practise. Now we’d better start some work.”
We go to our desks. Everyone is very mellow, and it’s much quieter than usual. Ten minutes before the siren goes, Mr P asks us to pack away. We look up at him, surprised—he usually goes to the wire—but we do as he asks.
“How did your work go today?” Mr P asks.
“I got heaps done,�
�� I say. “More in one hit than I usually do.” The others murmur agreement.
“Why do you think that is?”
“Well,” says good old Norbert, “it was like we’d had a chill pill before we started, so I guess even though none of us seemed able to quiet down our thoughts to count to 10, they were still quieter than usual, so we could just concentrate on what was in front of us.” That sounds about right to me, and I see others nodding.
“That’s after one 30-minute session, boys. Try it for the rest of the day. When you’re eating lunch, concentrate just on your food—the flavours, the textures, the smell—instead of wolfing it down and thinking about something else. If someone speaks to you, give them your whole attention rather than thinking about your response or about something else.”
The siren rings but no one moves. Mr P raises his eyebrows.
“Sir,” I say, knowing I speak for the others, “can we start the day off the same way tomorrow? We easily made up the time.”
“Of course,” he smiles, “but remember, you can do this anytime. You can always practise being present—your mind in the ‘here’ and ‘now’ and not in regretful thoughts of the past or even hopeful thoughts of the future. Just here. Now.”
Walking out the door, something hits me. Mr P really practises what he preaches; it’s why I talked to him so easily yesterday, why I feel so good around him. He just listens so well. It seems like he’s drinking in every word, not thinking about anything else like I guess most of us do. I know I get distracted pretty easily, at least. It’s such a corny thing to say about a person—“He’s really there for me”—but with Mr P, he really is. There is nowhere else for him. I smile to myself. So that’s what he meant by taking the steering wheel of my mind!
Lunch is just ham sandwiches and some fruit, but I take my time and let the bread soften on my tongue, the saltiness of the ham starting my mouth watering. I finish one mouthful completely before taking another. The others are prattling away, food hanging out of their mouths as usual, but I resist the urge to join in and keep chewing away, relishing every bit of flavour. Finishing a banana and reaching automatically for another one, I realise I’m full—my mouth isn’t on auto pilot—and I sit back, content. Tim is talking to me under his breath—he can be such an idiot—but I fight down that thought and try listening to him.