Contrition

by Sheldon, Deborah;

  “Uh-huh, okay.”

  She was coming out of shock, he could see it on her face, in her eyes; could see her mind working again. He went and took a beer from the fridge.

  “Want a stubby?” he said.

  “Yes, please.”

  They drank in silence. At least her bleeding had stopped. The bites must have been shallow. Was that a good thing? Did the depth of the bites matter? John wasn’t sure how the infection process worked. But Donna seemed okay. That was a good thing, surely?

  Her gaze slid across the floor to Meredith’s body.

  “What about the witch?” she said.

  “Let me worry about that. While you’re cleaning up, I’ll get rid of her.”

  “How?”

  “The less you know the better.” He drew hard on the cigarette. To his surprise, his hands weren’t shaking. “Are you right to call Graeme?”

  “I think so.”

  “Maybe you should text him instead. You can’t sound scared or crazy. If he suspects anything—”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  She retrieved her jeans from the floor by the hallway. When she sat down again, she smiled stiffly and took her phone from one of the pockets.

  “Are you sure?” John said, muscles tense. “Don’t bullshit me. You can do it?”

  She nodded, pressed a few buttons on her phone, and waited.

  John watched her carefully, sweat gathering in his armpits.

  She sat up straight and put on a smile. “Graeme? Hi. Look, I’ve come down with gastro… Yeah, I know… The poached eggs at the café, probably… I’ve caught the cook before drying batch after batch with the same tea towel… Ugh, tell me about it… No, the Health Department might shut them down… Hey, it’s a good job… Graeme, listen, I didn’t ring to argue… Can you pick up Cassie today, have her sleep over tonight? I don’t want her getting sick. She’s got an excursion to the zoo on Friday, and she’s really looking forward to it… Oh, that’s great… Yeah, three-thirty. Fantastic, thanks so much… Bye.” She hung up and looked at John. “How was that?”

  He made the OK sign with thumb and forefinger.

  Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t understand what the fuck is going on here.”

  “Relax, I’ll explain everything later.”

  “You’re not going to…John, you’re not going to hurt me, are you?”

  He took her hands. “Trust me. I’ll get us out of this shit. Do you trust me?”

  “I don’t have any choice.”

  She pulled away, stood, went to a cupboard and brought down packets of sticking plasters and adhesive dressings.

  “When did you find those?” he said.

  “While hunting for a first aid kit. Get cleaned up. You’ll need to leave the house to get rid of her body, won’t you? You can’t go out looking like that. It’s not Halloween. Don’t worry about me. I’ll dress my own wounds.”

  “Yeah but count them first.”

  “Why?”

  “Jesus, like I keep saying, I’ll tell you later. Let’s get the business done before we start yakking and lounging about with our feet up.”

  “Can’t you tell me quick?”

  “No, I can’t. It’s…complicated.”

  He went and grabbed the doona from Meredith’s bed and returned to the kitchen. Donna stopped fussing with the dressings to watch, eyes wide. He spread the doona on the floor by the window, where there was glass but no blood spatter, and approached Meredith’s body. He felt a strange kind of peace, an exciting, giddy sensation that prickled the hairs on the nape of his neck. I have atoned, he thought, for everything I did—and wrongly believed that I did—to you and Lyle.

  My penance is over.

  The halo of blood had dried, formed a skin, and stuck her corpse fast to the floor. John gagged at the slurping sound as he dragged her by the ankles out of the black puddle. Her head rolled and lolled on her split neck. Jesus. Okay, next, to get her onto the doona, he had to pick her up.

  Fuck.

  He held his breath against the smell of mould and lifted her by the waist and legs to avoid touching that dark, viscous blood. Her head dangled at an unnatural angle. In his arms, Merry felt as light as a bundle of sticks. How the fuck did she kick him clear across the room? But this was no time for pondering and philosophising. He laid her on the doona and rolled her up. I’m like a gangster in a movie, he thought, except I didn’t use a rug.

  “There’s duct tape in the drawer, second from the bottom,” he said.

  Donna brought it over. John wrapped the tape once, twice around the head area and once, twice around the feet.

  “All right,” he said, panting. “I’m off to clean up. Then I’ll put her in the boot of my car. I’ll be gone for a few hours, at least, maybe until evening. Don’t leave. Don’t put on any lights. Don’t make any calls. If the phone rings or someone knocks, don’t answer.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “This is really important.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Because if anyone gets wind of what’s going on—”

  “Yes, yes, for fuck’s sake, I know. Stop harping.”

  He went to his room. Looking in the mirror gave him a fright. So much blood! He tipped his head forward to inspect the scalp wound in the reflection. Long and ragged, seeping. Now what? He got an idea. Not a great idea, but better than nothing.

  Rummaging through a drawer in his bedside table, he pushed aside envelopes, paper, pens, postage stamps, tape, paperclips. He took out the stapler and checked it. Full of staples. Returning to the mirror, he pulled the lips of the wound together with one hand and pressed the stapler into his scalp with the other, again and again and again and again, until he had closed the cut. Doing so had hardly hurt at all.

  He unwrapped the blood-soaked tea towels from his bicep and inspected the wounds. They had stopped bleeding. And seemed to be healing already. Another magical property in Meredith’s saliva besides the anaesthetic? Even so, the skin around the bites was turning purple. Bruised, even while the broken skin repaired itself at the rate of knots. Creepy.

  After showering, he dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, heavy boots. Rolling his balaclava into a beanie, he pulled it down over his scalp to hide the staples. He inspected himself in the mirror. Perfectly normal…except for that psycho look in his eyes. Maybe he should wear sunglasses.

  He went to the kitchen. Donna, wearing her jeans and torn flannelette shirt, was dropping shards of crockery into the bin.

  “Did you count the bite marks?” he said.

  She turned, her face red and blotchy from crying. “Forty-something.”

  “Forty-something?” For a moment, he felt relieved. No, come on, forty-something is vague and close to fifty-two. “Don’t tell me you guessed,” he said. “How many exactly?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said, weeping afresh.

  “Forget it. I’ll count them myself when I get back.”

  The sticking plasters and adhesive dressings sat on the bench. He took a few minutes to carefully and thoroughly dress his arm. No doubt, the exertion he was about to undertake would open the wounds and start them bleeding again. When he finished, he surveyed his handiwork. Too conspicuous. He went to his room and changed into a long-sleeved shirt so the dressings wouldn’t show.

  “What’s taking you so long?” Donna called.

  “I’m getting ready,” he shouted. “Hey, back off. I’m the one with the plan.”

  “Will you call me? Text me when you’re done?”

  “No,” he said, exiting his room. “No digital trail. Don’t call or text me either, no matter what happens. I’m turning off my phone.”

  “But how long will you be?”

  “I told you, I don’t know for sure. Three or four hours. Could be longer.”

  He
hurried down the hall, grabbed the keys from the hook, and went out the front door. The day was overcast, the light a dull grey, the sky threatening showers. He reversed his sedan through the carport and around into the back yard. Parking, he popped the boot. He alighted, took a pickaxe and a shovel from the lock-up shed in the carport, and dropped them in the boot. A battery-powered lantern, to be on the safe side. A sledgehammer. He opened the laundry door and stepped inside. Donna had the mop and bucket. The house smelled of disinfectant already.

  “You right?” he said.

  She nodded, her face strained. “You?”

  “As rain.”

  Hefting the rolled-up doona onto his shoulder, he took it outside and dropped it into the boot. And this is how it ends, he thought. A stray memory caught him by surprise: the patio of the Berg-Olsen house, summer, the dead of night, Lyle snoring in the rumpus room, John sitting at the outdoor table in his footy shorts having a smoke, and Merry standing at the door in baby-doll pyjamas, her hair mussed. Her first words to him: Got a spare durry?

  He brushed away tears and stared into the boot. Did he have everything he needed? He ran into the house and took a six-pack. From experience, he knew that digging a grave was thirsty work.

  “Please call me when you’re done,” Donna said.

  “No. What for?”

  “To let me know everything is okay. That you’re coming back.” Her teeth were clenched, the cords standing out on her throat. “What if the police pull you over for speeding? Or someone sees you getting rid of her? What if you have a prang?”

  “I’ll be back, don’t worry. No phone calls. No texts.”

  “John—”

  “Be strong. Think of Cassie.”

  She dropped her head, nodded weakly, hiccupped on a sob.

  “Clean the kitchen,” he said. “Spotless, okay? Don’t call or text me or anybody else. Don’t leave. Don’t answer the phone or the door. And if I’m not back by sun-down, remember, don’t turn on any lights. Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  He smiled with one side of his mouth. “We’ll be fine. Cross my heart.”

  “And hope to die?” She didn’t smile back.

  John drove towards Warburton. He knew the route by heart. Tension gripped his shoulders. Perhaps his fishing spot would be a 7-Eleven by now, or a petrol station; a collection of two-storey townhouses with rooms so small you couldn’t swing a cat—

  (…Oh God, Tiger, I’m so sorry…)

  —or maybe it would still be his isolated little patch of river, untouched.

  Why the compulsion to return to the same fishing spot? He didn’t know, but it felt right somehow. The twins ought to be together. John had buried one and now he must bury the other. But could he find Lyle’s grave? The location was thirty-one years in the past. He had dragged Lyle for about fifteen minutes uphill from the river. The shrubs and trees had been close together, the ground a carpet of leaf litter, every part of the forest looking the same. To find the grave seemed an impossible task.

  Yet it seemed important to try.

  The further east he travelled, the lighter the traffic. By the time the road climbed and dwindled to a single lane each way, there were only two vehicles in front of him—a ute and a station wagon—and none behind. The road began to wind.

  Bump, bump.

  John’s heart gave a kick. What the fuck was that? The sound had come from the boot. He snapped off the radio and took another curve.

  Bump, bump.

  Yes, the noise was definitely coming from the boot.

  Bump, bump.

  Gooseflesh rose on his forearms. Could Merry be…alive?

  No, out of the question. Ludicrous. She had been more or less decapitated. No matter what kind of monster she happened to be, nothing in this world could survive such a catastrophic injury. And besides, what appeared to be her entire blood supply had oozed across his kitchen tiles. The dark, sticky blood that had reeked of mould—

  Bump, bump.

  More than likely, the sounds were that of the shovel, pickaxe and lantern shifting around on the curves. Meredith’s dried-up bones wouldn’t hold enough weight. And she was wrapped, head to foot, in a cushion of feather-filled doona. No, it was the tools and the lantern. Shit, it could be his six-pack, the beer getting turned to suds. Perhaps the occy strap had come loose.

  Bump, bump.

  Gritting his teeth, he switched on the radio and cranked the volume. He tapped on the steering wheel in time with the music.

  How might Donna be getting along? The temptation to call was strong, but he resisted. Cops do this triangulation thing with mobile phones, he knew. They use two or three towers to pinpoint your location. Relax. Donna wouldn’t renege or contact the authorities, not with the threat of losing Cassie hanging over her.

  Would Donna really lose custody in this kind of situation?

  John hadn’t the faintest idea. He smiled in grim satisfaction. So, he thought, I’ve got a ‘tell’ whenever I lie? A giveaway squint? Well, you missed it this time, sweetheart. Donna would cooperate. By the time he returned home, the kitchen would be sparkling clean and Donna would be waiting for him, docile and afraid, trusting—

  Oh shit, the turn-off—

  Braking hard, John fishtailed the back end, steered onto the gravel road.

  Bump, bump.

  The gravel road was exactly as he remembered. He killed the radio and opened his driver’s side window.

  The air smelled fresh and organic, mossy, fragrant with the honey-mint scent of eucalyptus. He wanted to hear the river. This had always been the best part of the journey; hearing the river before seeing it, listening to the rush and gurgle, imagining the sleek, silvery fish darting through cool waters. But wait, he couldn’t hear the river.

  Whoa, the second turn-off—

  He almost missed it.

  Jamming on the brake, he hesitated, looked around. Was this the right place? The dirt path was overgrown, almost obscured by branches. Cautiously, he steered onto the path and edged the car forward. Switches of leaves swiped along the car body, whispering, murmuring. Could he be lost?

  The babble of the river came to him.

  Unexpectedly, tears rose.

  The branches parted. There it was, his fishing spot, looking the same.

  He parked, switched off the engine, got out and listened. Only the call of fairy wrens, the cawing of cockatoos, the mutter of the river. He crossed the spread of grey stones on the bank and dipped his hands into the water. So very cold; cold enough to numb his fingers. He splashed his face. It made him gasp. The desire to wade into the river, to feel it close over his head, felt overwhelming. But no, he had work to do.

  He looked back at the car.

  The car seemed to look back at him, expectant.

  21

  Rubbing at his neck and rolling his tight, aching shoulders, John walked to the car and stood by the boot. Despite himself, he was listening. Maybe not for the bump bump, but for something else; a scratching, a clawing, the revolutions of long nails moving around and around in circles. Sweat prickled on his forehead.

  “We’re finished, Merry,” he whispered. “You can’t hurt me any­more.”

  He popped the boot and stepped back, fists raised. Meredith leapt at him like a bloodied jack-in-the-box—but only in his imagination. He dropped his fists. You idiot, he thought, she’s dead. Stop scaring yourself. He stared at the doona and tools. The occy strap had held the beers in place. Grateful, he took a stubby, opened it and drank it in a few mouthfuls. Then he grabbed the pickaxe and shovel, and closed the boot, locking it. Even though this place seemed long deserted, it would be typical of John’s luck if a bunch of tourists, lost, turned up and decided to start peeking and poking around the car.

  He strode away from the river and into the bush. In his mind’s eye, he saw the ruins of
Lyle’s head bouncing over the uneven ground as John had dragged him by the ankles… He shook his head and blinked away tears. This was no time to get sappy. He doubled his pace and shouldered through the foliage of eucalyptus and ferns. King parrots and crimson rosellas called from high in the canopy. Leaf litter crunched underfoot. He began to hum to himself, tunelessly.

  Would he find Lyle’s grave? His stomach lurched at the thought. Would some strange kind of synchronicity lead him back to the exact spot? He felt, somehow, like that would happen, must happen, as if it were preordained. He would dig into the soil and uncover Lyle’s hand, the bony fingers outstretched.

  Stop it, he thought. Don’t lose your cool.

  The handles of the pickaxe and shovel wore at his palms. Oh, shit, he should have remembered his leather gloves. He would get blisters again, followed by calluses, just like last time. Bile rose in his throat, and he spat.

  “Okay,” he said, out loud, to reassure himself. “This ought to be far enough.”

  He had come to a small, narrow clearing between the trees. Using the shovel, he scraped the leaf litter into a big pile a few metres away. He broke ground with the pickaxe. And just like last time, the top layer of soil was soft, red and volcanic.

  Flies had begun to gather around Lyle’s nostrils and half-open eye.

  John paused, took off his beanie, and tucked it into his back pocket.

  The pickaxe juddered in his hands with every strike.

  Thunk. Thunk.

  After some half an hour, he swapped the pickaxe for the shovel and began moving the dirt to one side, piling it neatly. When he hit a thick snarl of roots, he leaned the shovel against a tree and used the pickaxe.

  Thunk. Thunk.

  Rigor mortis had pulled Lyle’s mouth into a rictus grin. In his dreams, John often saw that stiffened, dead smile. Not only in his dreams. Sometimes when his mind lay blank, when he was driving a familiar route, say, or shaving, washing a sink full of dishes, the image would come to him, unexpected and unbidden. Lyle’s mouth had taken on a shape it had never expressed in life: that of a perfect rectangle, a letterbox slot. Every tooth in Lyle’s head had been on display. In his dreams, that letterbox slot of a mouth sometimes yawned open and pulled in John’s fingers, the teeth gnashing and gnawing down to the wrist.