The Promise Seed

by Cass Moriarty

  Oh hilarious, that was. Stupid louts. Full as googs, the lot of them. Lucky they didn’t drown themselves. That waterlogged suit must’ve been heavy as lead.

  It was the best day. The absolute best day. We have to go again. Can we go again? Soon?

  Well, we’ll have to ask your mum about that.

  The mention of his mother deflated the boy. He stopped skipping. Stopped altogether. The old man turned back.

  Thank goodness you’ve stopped bouncing around like Tigger. Making me tired just watching you.

  He walked a few more paces then stopped again.

  Well, come on, we’re almost home. I don’t know how on earth you’ve got so much energy left, ’cause I’m done for. Ready for a hot shower and a cup of tea and bed.

  I don’t want to go home.

  The old man squinted through the last of the sun’s rays. The boy was slouched against a fence, his head bowed; his long hair flopped over his face. In places his skin was starting to develop an angry hue. A smattering of sand adorned his hairline, as well as the inside of his ears and the backs of his calves. A chocolate ice-cream stain all down the front of his shirt. The old man thought how young the boy seemed, how vulnerable.

  Sorry, mate, not much choice about that, I’m afraid.

  The boy met his gaze. Can’t I come home with you?

  Me? I think your mum’d have something to say about that, don’t you?

  Nope. Actually I don’t think she would.

  He kicked at the gravel.

  I don’t think she’d care at all, actually. Probably be glad. His voice was louder now, indignant.

  The old man shuffled towards the boy and put his hand on his shoulder. The boy winced.

  Ouch.

  Sorry. Guess we should’ve reapplied the sunscreen like the bottle said.

  He leant his weight back against the fence and stood beside the boy, both of them staring up the road towards their two houses squatting next to each other in the gathering night.

  We’ve had a pretty good day, haven’t we? he asked.

  The boy nodded.

  Let’s not spoil it now, hey? We can go again, sure we can. Once I recover from this episode. Maybe … maybe your mum would like to come too?

  No! The boy’s vehement response echoed against the house opposite and bounced along the empty street.

  No. No way. That’s our place. Our special place. Just for us. You have to promise!

  OK, OK, it was only an idea.

  You have to promise!

  All right, I promise.

  Swear.

  I swear, all right? We’ll go again. Just us. Now come on, let’s get home before she sends out a search party.

  As if. It’d be no search and all party, muttered the boy.

  45

  On our way up the hill towards home, the boy and I passed fences and decks strung with Christmas lights, and glowing trees framed by illuminated windows, winking with festive sparkle. That Greek family that arrived a few years ago was having a barbecue with about thirty of their relatives. Kids and dogs all over the place. The old Mitchell place was quiet, but I could see Amy Mitchell baking through her kitchen window, and I could smell her mince pies from the street. Old Amy, she must’ve been ninety if she was a day. There was a stretch of three or four houses in a row where I didn’t know the people. Bought and sold, renovated. In one I saw a very pregnant lady putting her feet up in front of the telly. In the next yard, a dad played cricket with two small boys while their mum sat on the stairs, fanning herself with junk mail. Families eating dinner and talking. I paused for a moment to get my breath.

  I looked at the boy and I thought about the families in our street, and I thought about my notion of family. Fathers defined by their absence rather than their presence. Mothering a state of benign neglect. Home the place you were barely noticed. Or ignored. Manipulation and self-preservation acting as poor substitutes for unconditional love.

  I thought about the luck of the draw in where you’re born, and where you end up. You draw the short straw, and what shred of hope do you have of a normal life? If you’re born someplace with none of the advantages that others take for granted, how do you get along in life? And if you don’t know any different, how can you hope for something better? How can you have a shot at what’s possible if you don’t even know what’s possible?

  The families I saw around us gave off the simple comfort of loving and being loved. Of having the security to hope and the confidence to dream.

  My sister had no chance to hope. No opportunity to laugh and grow and play. To love, to mourn, to take risks, to try. And my wings were clipped early too. No choice in the matter.

  The boy … what does he hope for? Where does he dream? How high will he fly without someone to show him the way?

  46

  Snake and the boy’s mother were sitting at the kitchen table. The air was thick with a potent combination of tobacco and marijuana, trapping the day’s heat. Half a bottle of rum stood next to an empty one. The Christmas decorations that his mum had put up the day before were now drooping, the humidity loosening the sticky tape. On the table, still in its unopened box, was the fancy cigarette lighter the boy had given her that morning, swiped from the shop counter while the girl was busy with another customer.

  After spending all day in fresh air and sunshine, the house was dull and slow and oppressive. His mum’s eyes were red-rimmed. She had a discoloured mark on her left cheek.

  The boy stood in the doorway. For a few moments, no-one said anything. The tick of the wall clock sounded unnaturally loud.

  Eventually the boy spoke. I’m back.

  His mum swung her head in his direction. The thought occurred to him that she looked like a doped-up cow.

  So you are. Back. Back from your adventures.

  Her head nodded in slow motion, as if confirming something to herself.

  Yes, she said, to no-one in particular.

  Snake went to the fridge and rummaged around. As he stood there in the light of the open fridge door, guzzling a beer, the boy examined the lines and scales of the tattoo that came together to form the reptile. The ink was mostly faded. Some places had been touched up recently, dots of brighter blue highlighting a curve. One spot near his underarm flared red and inflamed. An infection, the boy thought. It looked sore.

  The serpent’s eyes glittered from the back of the man’s neck, almost like they’d had flecks of gold added. With a shiver, the boy realised that despite the man’s movements, those eyes seemed fixed on his own. It was like one of those pictures in a horror movie, where the people in the paintings on the walls have eyes that follow the unsuspecting victim, watching him as he carries on unawares.

  The effect, the boy understood, was that no matter whether the man was facing towards you or away from you, there was always a pair of eyes following you, observing your every move. If Snake the man couldn’t see you, his tattoo certainly could.

  He shivered again, imagining that they were one and the same thing, but finally managed to drag his gaze away.

  Well, I’m gonna have a shower. The boy walked through the kitchen. He could feel Snake’s human eyes burning into his back.

  He shrugged out of his clothes and a spray of sand fell to the floor. He examined his sunburn. The worst bits were across his shoulders, the tops of his thighs and the backs of his arms. And his face, which sported red warpaint stripes. He stood under the cool water of the shower. Now that he was home, he realised how tired he felt.

  He pushed the shower curtain aside and listened. Raised voices in the hall. He remembered, too late, that he hadn’t locked the bathroom door. It banged open and Snake stamped into the room, grasped the curtain and pulled it from the railing. The boy couldn’t tell if the jagged sound was the tearing plastic or a cry from his own throat. Snake grabbed the boy’s upper arm and pulled him o
ver the rim of the bath. The boy’s knee banged painfully against the enamel. He started to crawl across the floor but the man stood on one outstretched arm before pulling him up and marching him across the hall towards his bedroom. Puddles of water marked their way. The boy saw his mother disappearing into the kitchen.

  He was thrown on the bed, onto a coil of rope and two belts. Where had they come from? Snake pulled back his right arm and delivered a solid punch to the boy’s temple. A shower of stars twinkled across a red sky, and then nothing.

  …

  The first slice of pain woke him from his unconsciousness, bringing him back to harsh, ugly reality. The second stroke whistled through the air before the belt cracked across his shoulders. The shock of the third brought tears to his eyes and ensured he was fully awake to his surroundings. His cries were muffled by whatever was covering his mouth. He was still naked, lying face down on his bed. His arms were tied with the rope to his bedhead. His legs felt crushed. The weight lifted as Snake rolled off. He raised his arm and then the discomfort of the boy’s crushed legs was abruptly and spectacularly drowned out by the agony of a belt buckle slicing into his sunburnt flesh. He could feel throbbing welts across his back and shoulders.

  The man stood beside the bed. The boy whimpered, his eyes squeezed shut. He could hear Snake pacing. Out of nowhere, another stroke of the belt, this one harder and stronger due to the man’s extra leverage from his standing position.

  The red swimming again in front of his eyes … the pinprick of stars …

  Oh no you don’t, you little shit. Don’t you black out on me again. You’re gonna listen to what I got to say, you hear me?

  The man grabbed a handful of the boy’s hair, wrenched his head back and slapped his face until he came to. He heard the belt drop to the floor.

  As the man spoke, he pinched the boy’s skin, a painful twist behind his knees or on his earlobe or in that tender place under his arm.

  You … little … shit, he repeated.

  You ungrateful little shit. You left your mum alone on Christmas Day. Christmas fucking Day!

  The twists became harder. The boy could feel nails biting into flesh, drawing blood.

  I told her, I said that boy needs to learn some respect. That boy needs to learn some discipline.

  The boy sensed the man’s face coming closer, smelt the foul fumes of alcohol rise into his nostrils. Snake spoke in a growled whisper.

  And I intend to teach you some.

  He reared back; all at once he had the belt in his hand once again, and he brought it down full force onto the boy’s bare buttocks. This time, even the stars were gone, as a crimson ocean washed over his pain and his thoughts and his fear, and carried him away.

  …

  He awoke to the reassuring touch of a washcloth on his brow. He held his breath as the pain flooded through his limbs. When he opened his eyes, it was Snake sitting beside him, stroking his forehead with a gentleness that was surely impossible. Maybe it was all a nightmare, thought the boy. A terrible nightmare. A movement beyond the figure of the man caught his eye. His mother, watching from the doorway. She came towards him.

  He’s awake.

  And to the boy, How’re you feeling, love? You want a drink?

  ’Course he wants a drink, after the day he’s had. Get him one of those cold Cokes.

  His mother didn’t budge, just stood there fingering her bruised cheek.

  Move it, woman!

  Her absence hovered between them. The boy flinched slightly and a great tremor of pain swept across his body. He shut his eyes.

  Best to keep still. You’ve got some nasty marks. Must’ve been a bad fall. You’ve grazed your whole back. Or maybe it was a jellyfish that stung you? Horrible, isn’t it, the dangers that are out there. If you’re not careful.

  His voice was oily, taunting. A warning, an edge as sharp as a knife.

  But don’t you worry. Me and your mum, we’re gonna take good care of you. She’s put a heap of salve on those cuts and the bruises’ll fade in a day or two.

  On his wrists the boy could see bracelets of red rubbed raw. One side of his head throbbed with a dull ache, like the background beat of loud music. He shifted his weight and found the sheet stuck tight in places by a crust of dried blood. He tried to roll onto his side and the pain seared across his back like it was on fire.

  He vomited in a sudden, violent retch, and the man sprang from the bed, cursing and wiping his trousers, flicking wads of half-digested fish and chips onto the floor.

  You little fucking bastard!

  Calling to his mother – Clean up that mess! Ungrateful shit. Try to help and get spewed on.

  And he was gone.

  His departure mobilised his mother into action. She returned to the room with cloths and a bucket of warm water.

  Come on, love, let’s get you cleaned up. You’ll feel better.

  She helped him to a sitting position, rolled up the dirty sheet and threw it into the corner. She spread out his doona and helped him lie face down again. She wetted the cloth and wiped his mouth and his hands, then rinsed it and began to pat gently, oh so gently, at the dried blood that had collected across his skin.

  The boy relaxed into her touch. All at once he was crying, silent tears wending down his cheeks. She pushed his hair back and daubed at the tears.

  Oh baby, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t cry. It’ll be fine. We’ll all be OK, I promise. Snake doesn’t mean it, baby. He likes you, he does. He only wants to make sure you grow up right. He doesn’t like it when I’m upset. I was so sad we didn’t spend Christmas together. Maybe I shouldn’t have got so sad to him. He was angry for me, really. Don’t cry. We’ll work it out.

  She pulled his head against her chest, her hands stroking his hair in a soothing rhythm. She was careful not to touch his back. The boy allowed himself to slacken into her embrace, allowed her sweet perfumed smell to erase the metallic tang of his blood. She was rocking back and forth, and stroking, and humming something, and for a moment he imagined he was two or three years old again, and being held by the most important person in his small life. He remembered the feeling: absolute dependence and trust, unwavering safety and warmth.

  His tears dampened his mother’s breast as she rocked him to sleep.

  …

  It was the smell that woke him. A sour odour that clung to the inside of his nostrils, stronger with each breath. He lay unmoving. His eyes remained closed, heavy-lidded, stuck with sleep. He wriggled his toes and arrows of pain shot up his legs. He tried flexing his arms, one at a time, but each attempt brought a fresh tide of discomfort. Nothing unbearable, though. At least nothing seemed broken.

  But that smell. What was that smell?

  His eyes refused to open. Concentrating hard, he raised one arm to his face. His fingers prised his eyelids apart and came away sticky. As he lowered his hand past his nose, the smell intensified.

  He peered through his slitted eyes. There was no moon, and it took a few minutes of blinking before he was able to discern the familiar shapes of his room. A sinister mound in the corner materialised into his chair with his jacket slung across the back. An odd structure squatting on the floor became his schoolbag topped by a pair of trainers. His bedroom door was closed, bordered by a sliver of light. He twisted his head on the pillow, slowly, painfully. The window was partly open to the night. A weak gust of hot air fluttered the mobile of paper cranes strung from a nail. Outside, in the gloom, a nightjar called.

  A figure lay across the bottom of his bed. At first he thought it was his mother, fallen asleep during her vigil. Gradually, as his eyes adjusted, the shadow of his mother realigned, reshaped, morphed into the form of a man. Snake. A bead of sweat formed on the boy’s forehead and dripped into his eye. He blinked rapidly, hoping the silhouette on the bed would change into some items of clothing or a bunched-up doona
. But his eyes picked out more details as the dimness receded. The shock of black hair. The tattoo across his chest and left bicep. The reptile’s tail that vanished into a springy dark tuft. The boy’s eyes widened as his brain registered what he was seeing. Nested on the tuft of hair. A thick, fat slug, slightly bent, obscene against the coarse hair and the tanned skin.

  The sound came from his throat as though from someone else’s voice. He was acutely aware of the need to remain silent, and yet the noise came … a frisson of fear, barely stifled. He knew, too, the impossibility of movement, and yet his body was backed against the bedhead, his feet pushing against the sheets, stinging stripes pulsing across his torso.

  Snake woke. Woke to the sound of the boy’s cry. He stared at him and then stretched, luxuriously, nonchalantly. As if the world hadn’t just stopped spinning. As if the air hadn’t become water or smoke or acid. As if he could breathe and move and function without pain or fear. As if the tableau in that room, on that bed, was normal. Slowly, watchfully, he rolled towards the boy. One hand reached out, tenderly. The boy was stricken, unable to move, unable even to take a breath. The man lowered his hand onto the boy’s groin.

  It must’ve been only a second, maybe not even that long – a fraction of a second. But in that short time, three things happened in rapid succession. Snake managed one tentative stroke, the boy’s penis stiffened, and he recognised the sour, sticky smell covering his face. He rolled off the bed in an agony of movement, flung open the door, pounded down the hall, wrenched open the back door, and ran, naked, fleeing into the night, tight sobs of fury and humiliation echoing in the emptiness and rousing the chickens from their sleep.

  47

  Just when you think you’ve seen all life has to offer, when you believe that you’ve passed enough years to have served your time and paid for your sins, they throw something else at you. I think of that expression: Things could be worse. And probably will be. Never a truer phrase. You’d think an old man would be entitled to some peace. You’d think I’d have seen enough pain and distress in my years that I’d be allowed a few quiet ones, some time at the end of my life to reflect and wallow in my own regrets, and not have to deal with some new indignity. But that is not the case. No sir. Whoever’s doing the organising up there, they’re just sitting around thinking up new ways to get at me, novel methods of abuse. Why can’t an old man live out his last years in peace, hey? That’s the question I asked the Detective Sergeant, but he merely looked blankly at me and pretended he hadn’t heard. Ramblings of an old guy, I could almost hear him thinking. And then he got back to the business of interrogating me.