But I’m not holding my breath.
At least he’s moving more easily now. I guess whatever happened has started to heal up. I try not to think about it. ’Cause if I start to consider what might have happened, what must have happened, the space in my head becomes a muddled grey cloud and I’m about driven spare by what my mind conjures up. I can’t bear to think of him hurting. It’s like someone’s got a knife in my guts, twisting it slowly.
I’ve come close to going over there. To see how he is. Once I even got as far as the front door, but then I spotted his mum hanging clothes out the side and I followed my own footsteps back home again before she knew I was there. Most of the time I see the faces of those two detectives, one scowling and mean, the other cajoling, and I tell myself, What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? Why don’t you just paint a bloody great target on your stupid mug and call the cops yourself and beg them to take you away? So after I’ve given myself a good talking-to, I hunker down at home and try to forget about it. Forget about him.
It’s a worry, though, isn’t it. I mean, obviously something happened. The kid was hurt. From what the cops were saying, he was hurt in ways I don’t even want to imagine. But maybe that was only them winding me up, trying to make me admit to something I didn’t do. But if he was hurt, why hasn’t somebody done something about it? I mean, he’s still over there with his mum. No-one’s been to the house that I can see, except for that one lady, probably from the Department of Children’s Services or Child Safety or whatever they’re called nowadays. Anyway, whoever she was, she didn’t stay more than fifteen minutes. Maybe one-off incidents like this don’t raise their radar. Maybe a kid’s got to be smacked around a few times before it’s worth them doing anything about it. Huh. Some investigation. If his mum’s hitting him, you’d think they’d bloody well do something to stop her. Or maybe it’s one of her boyfriends. Some of them are built like brick shithouses; the kid wouldn’t stand a chance. I remember one day a year or so ago, not long after I met the kid and before I knew who was who over there, I spotted this mountain of a man sitting out the back. Just sitting there, having a smoke, like he owned the place. So I go back to my tea, and next thing I know, I hear the sound of wood splintering, and I go out on my back deck to have another gander, and here’s this bloke attacking the kid’s treehouse with an axe. Bit of an eyesore it was, to be honest, only a load of old boards that he’d nailed up into a platform in the branches of the fig tree, but still. So the next time I saw the kid, I said something like So, I see your dad got rid of your old treehouse, hey? Too big for it now, I suppose? And he stared at me with this real flat expression, a mix of sadness and wary contempt.
He’s not my dad, he said.
Oh, I said. He spoke those four words with such … shame, and, I don’t know, such relief.
I said oh again, for want of anything better to say, and it was such an inadequate response for the resolve and remorse I saw reflected in his eyes. That’s the second or third time the kid’s been at pains to point out to me who isn’t his dad.
Didn’t like the fucking thing, anyway, he said, and he stalked off towards the fig tree, picked up one of the splintered boards the fellow had left lying around on the ground, and then whacked it, hard as he could, against the tree trunk. Hit it so hard he stumbled backwards from the rebound.
I saw him wiping his eyes with the back of his hands as he marched off into the house.
54
Snake hadn’t been around since that day. His mum hadn’t mentioned him. The house was a haven of calm. After riding his bike or mucking about near the creek, the boy actually looked forward to going home. For the last few weeks, that feeling of dread was absent as he approached the front gate. The unnerving fear of who might be home with his mother or what they might be doing had been replaced by the certainty of a quiet space.
His mum wasn’t drinking as much either. She still had enough to get tipsy but the boy didn’t mind that so much; she would become affectionate and chatty. It was a thin line between tipsy and drunk, but so far – lately – she hadn’t crossed it. She had teetered on the tightrope of coherence and lucidity, but maintained her balance.
The boy was keen not to push her too hard. He was trying to be useful and helpful. Trying to return her wet kisses and her clumsy embrace. With the fine-tuned antennae of prey, he would sense the moment she became distressed or irritable, sense her need to be alone, and he would hightail it outside and go off on his bike for an hour or two. When he felt enough time had passed, he would cautiously re-enter the house, calling out to announce his arrival. And every time he would find his mother alone, and welcoming, even glad to see him.
He cooked fried eggs and bacon, made tea and toast and served it on a tray in her bedroom. He cleaned the bathroom and hung out loads of washing, stumbling out to the yard with the basket of waterlogged clothes. One day he even began to pull out the weeds that had sprung up around the front verandah, but the simple action reminded him too much of the old man and he stopped. His mother never noticed the garden anyhow.
Sometimes he closed the door of his bedroom and took out his box of treasures. His fingers would roll the marbles and stones, stroke the feathers, and fit themselves inside the gold ring that he was hoping to give to her sometime soon. He would pinch the coriander seed between his fingers, raise it to his nose and inhale deeply, trying to catch a whiff of the hidden spice. In the end his hands always found their way to the metal letters that the old man had given him: cold and smooth, their sharp edges worn by time. He would press them into his palm, fold his fingers over and hold on tight, until his fist tingled. And when he opened his hand again, the imprint of a letter would be seared into his skin, like an old scar.
…
He should’ve known it was too good to last. Evenings of sitting together on the couch, munching popcorn and watching re-runs of Seinfeld or Friends. Making dinner together. Eating the meal with her at the kitchen table, cleared of cigarette packs and junk mail. The comfort. The absence of fear, of doubt.
The first time he came home to an empty house, he wasn’t anxious. It was Thursday: his mum was probably late-night shopping. In a way it was even comforting to slip into his old routines. Letting himself in and being enveloped by the house’s stillness. Cobbling together a meal from whatever he found in the fridge. Eating in front of the TV and deciding alone what to watch. But after several hours, he began to get restless. It was like getting a new tooth knocked out: he had gotten used to the presence of something that had grown gradually and imperceptibly, and then, all of a sudden, the hole was there once again, painfully familiar.
And so it was with the boy, alone in the house. He tired of the television and instead lay on his bed, reading a library book. The story was dull and not at all what he expected. He flipped the pages listlessly, hoping for a surprising twist, a death or a vicious crime. Nothing. His eyes grew tired as the print swam before them. A couple of times he jerked awake and re-read a page he was certain he hadn’t read before, until he struck a recognisable sentence and realised it was the third or fourth time he had seen the words. Finally his eyelids could no longer support the weight of encroaching sleep. The book landed with a thud on the floor. The boy sank deeper and deeper into slumber, and was soon entangled in his dreaming. Images of snakes and dragons crept through his unconscious, scales gleaming, fire dancing, jets of poison spurting from sharpened fangs. He became ensnared in his bedclothes and kicked with the furious energy of nightmares at the sweat-soaked sheets. Once, he cried out, a single mournful plea. No-one was in the house to hear. A cockroach scuttled from under the boy’s bed, crossed the rectangle of sallow light thrown down like a mat, and feasted on a crumb of scab that the boy had picked off his back and flicked on the floor. Outside, a tawny frogmouth sat in the black wattle tree, an extension of the branch, indistinguishable, its head tilted back at an unnatural angle. A fingernail of moon hung low in the night sky, wait
ing for the dawn.
55
Like they say, life goes on. I never thought I’d make old bones, but here I am. I drag my sorry self out of bed each morning, try and get through the day without forgetting something important or staining my underpants or falling over and breaking a hip. I try to remember to eat enough and drink enough, to put out the wheelie bin on the right day and to change the sheets occasionally. If the milk smells bad, I resist the urge to add it to my tea. I make the effort to stay mobile, even if it’s only to walk down to the mailbox and back.
I should get into that garden but I just can’t summon the energy.
At the end of the day, I switch off the lights and crawl back under the covers and think what a wonder it is that I’m still here. After all that’s happened.
It’s a funny thing, life. When I cast my mind back over my days, I can’t help asking what it’s all about. It didn’t start off too well, that’s for sure. And I suppose you could say things went downhill from there. I can’t say I ever felt like I got a decent break. But you’ve gotta make the best of what you’ve got, work with what God’s given you. Take opportunities when they arise. Take a chance. I think back on my life, and it’s like a story that I vaguely recognise. That kid in the Home – he doesn’t seem to be me so much as someone very like me, or someone I used to know. That man who walked out on his wife and baby girl, surely that wasn’t me, but some stranger I’ve heard of, some fella with no sense. I suppose that’s why this palaver with the boy hasn’t knocked me for six like it should have – it merely seems like one more slap on the face. I don’t pretend to understand it. Can’t make head nor tail of the whole damn situation, to be honest. But I can accept it. And that’s about all I can do. Accept it and wait to see what happens next.
56
Morning, love.
Morning, he replied warily. She was nursing a cup of tea and had an open box of painkillers on the saucer. The lines around her eyes were more pronounced than usual. Her mouth was turned down in a scowl and her hair, lank and greasy, lay flat against her scalp. A fat summer blowfly buzzed in a slow circle above her head before alighting on her toast and treading across the thickly smeared jam. His mother glanced at the fly but made no effort to shoo it away.
So … where were you last night? he asked.
What is this, the fucking inquisition?
He noticed she was slurring her words. When he studied her mouth more closely, he could see a swelling on her upper lip.
Where were you? Where were you? she parodied in a sing-song voice. What’s it to you? You my keeper now? She pushed back her chair, stumbling as she stood. I’m a big girl, you know. She swayed in a brief, unsteady dance. As she shifted away, she caught her foot on the table leg and fell heavily, landing with a thud on one knee.
Oh shit. The boy rushed to her side, knelt and peered anxiously into her face. Are you OK? Did you hurt yourself?
She laughed then, the maniacal laugh of the beaten. Did I hurt myself? Did I hurt myself? No, baby, no. Wasn’t me that did the hurting.
She rocked forward on all fours and made a clumsy attempt to rise. The boy stared in disbelief at the patch of skin revealed as her thin blouse separated from her jeans. Her back was covered in spots. Small, black spots each about half a centimetre across, each rimmed with red. He was not sure of what he saw. The thought flitted through his mind that his mother had caught chicken pox or measles, or some sort of nasty rash.
She got to her feet and he rose too and stood beside her. He was not aware that he had asked a question, but perhaps she had read his thoughts, because she muttered, Evil little fucker used me for an ashtray, didn’t he.
The boy blinked. He had nothing to say to this. No words.
She winced as she moved towards the sink. The boy noticed a streak of dried blood in her hair, and then saw a gash in the back of her head. It was deep, a grinning mouth, brown and crusty.
Mum, he whispered. Mum, you’re hurt. Your head. You’ve got a cut on your head.
S’all right. She brought up her hand behind her as if to prove her point, but thought better of it and fluttered her fingers at him in a dismissive gesture. S’nothing. Can’t even feel it anymore.
The kitchen was suffused in the pale light of morning, despite the insect-spotted grime on the window. The boy watched her and saw how terrible she looked. How old. How resigned. How much it hurt her just to move.
She reached for the tap and a grunt escaped her lips. She lowered her hand to her side.
Be a love and get me a wet washcloth, will ya?
Her voice was hollow. She shuffled to the chair, sank down, closed her eyes and moaned.
The boy went towards her and stared at the front of her shirt. A smudge of blood stained the white fabric. Unable to resist, he stretched out his fingers. For a moment he thought she might tell him off, or move out of his reach, but she submitted to his ministrations as he tugged on her shirt, and she flinched only slightly when the material was wrenched from the wound beneath, lifting a layer of skin and dried blood.
The crude carving was on her stomach, above her belly button. The wound was the size of a jar lid. A mess of ruptured skin and blue ink and smeared blood. As the boy stared, the rudimentary image swam into focus. The rough head of a snake, its mouth open wide, its long forked tongue licking his mother’s navel as if it intended to swallow it whole.
He met his mother’s eyes, forced her to look back at him.
He thought he could do it himself, she said, her voice a monotone.
Something like a hiccup escaped her lips, a snatch of a laugh or the end of a sob. She took the boy’s fingers in her own and moved them away from her mutilated stomach.
It’s OK, baby, it’s OK. The boy didn’t know if she was speaking to him or to herself.
She folded him in her arms in a tentative embrace, smoothed his hair and laid her chin on the top of his head.
You’re my best boy. My very best boy. He didn’t mean anything by it. It’s a symbol, that’s all. Of our togetherness. We belong together. He wanted to make sure I remember that. That’s all.
She brought her face alongside his.
That’ll teach me to drink too much, hey? Get into all sorts of trouble.
A smile trembled around the corners of her mouth, lopsided because of the swollen mound on her top lip.
We’ll be all right. You’ll see, she crooned. Snake’s coming round for dinner tonight, baby. How about we cook up something special together, huh? Her voice had taken on a bright and brittle note. He’s missed you these last few weeks. Said he can’t wait to see you again. Catch up before school goes back next week.
The room fell away and the boy hurtled through space, his feet scrabbling to find purchase, tendrils of hope slipping through his grasp.
57
It’s just after eight o’clock. I’m sure about the time, because the news has started not ten minutes earlier. I’m at the sink, washing up my one bowl and one cup and the small saucepan I used to heat up some soup. My hands are all sudsy, and I can hear the tick of the kitchen clock and the chirruping of crickets, even though it’s well past their bedtime. The summer day is slow to relinquish to the night. Someone’s lit a fire and I can smell the woodsmoke, carried on the easterly breeze that’s sprung up.
At first I think it’s a cat, yowling for its mate, maybe a female protesting the amorous advances of that randy tom from up the road. But something in the tenor of the cry gives me pause. I go to the open door and listen. Nothing, bar a couple of muffled noises that could be the chickens settling. I’m about to bolt the door for the night when it comes again. This time, unmistakable. A cry of chilling force. It fills the night and echoes around the room in which I stand. A visceral, primal wail.
And then, abruptly, it stops. Breaks off mid-howl. I listen intently but hear nothing but the wind and the clock, ticking its steady rhythm … tick … tick
… tick. The choir of crickets resumes.
Perhaps I imagined it, I think. Yes, I must have imagined it. Because if I didn’t imagine it, I would have to do something about it. Far better to ignore it and it will go away.
You stupid, cowardly old man, I tell myself. Who are you kidding? That was no cat.
I un-snib the screen door and make my way down the back stairs, my ears quivering with the strain of listening for any unfamiliar noise. I advance across the lawn, the dry grass whispering under my feet. For reasons I don’t quite understand, I head towards the boy’s house, which is lit up like a Christmas tree. I skirt the bordering fence and stop in the kid’s front yard at the rim between light and dark. I remain for a moment in the shadows, unwilling to cross the verge. Part of me is content to remain unseen. I know that as soon as I take one more step, I will become a part of this and the spotlight will be on me.
I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
An owl hoots in the distance. A car rolls down Boundary Road; I see its headlights bouncing off telephone poles and the bus shelter before disappearing towards Mt Coot-tha.
Oh, bugger it, I think, and I take the plunge and shuffle forward through the overgrown weeds.
The front stairs could do with some maintenance. One or two seem like they might not hold my weight. I tread with care and avoid the most rotten-looking boards. When I put my foot on one near the top, it creaks and I freeze, waiting for my presence to be noticed. Nothing. The wind continues its quiet errand. The meagre noises of the night carry on.
Once I am on the porch, I stop and listen. I can hear sounds from inside the house but can’t identify what they are or who is making them. The front door is ajar. I take a cautious step towards it, and then another, until I am in a position to peer inside. Through the sliver of open door, I see the outline of a couch, a coffee table piled high with magazines. A movement beyond the perimeter of the room catches my eye. I take a deep breath and push open the door.
The Promise Seed Page 23