‘I don’t see why you should quit altogether,’ she said. ‘I certainly enjoyed my one night.’
‘What night?’ Jess leaned forward.
‘None of your business.’ Stef glanced at her neighbour. ‘Though I don’t intend making a habit of it; once was enough.’
Adele allowed a succession of fenceposts to flash across her line of sight. ‘To tell you the truth, I always hoped for an ordinary, stable relationship – like a lot of people, I suppose. But frankly, I’m not sure such a beast exists, hence the career. One thing I know for sure, there are a lot of lonely people out there.’
A blattering motorbike passed, then another; two young leather-clad affiliates on a mission, a striking cobra emblazoned on their backs.
‘Anyway,’ Adele added, ‘the important issue right now is that we find Shaun and take care of him.’
‘I can help,’ Jess said.
Stef tried to find her in the rear-view mirror. Where did that come from? Help? She couldn’t recall that word ever passing her daughter’s richly lacquered lips. Even the fact that Jess volunteered to go had surprised her. Had some nurturing instinct been awakened? She was reminded of a similar shift when the girl once found an injured pigeon sheltering on her windowsill. Her whole personality seemed to readjust, beginning with a half-hour walk to the pet shop for special dietary feed. Days later, when the bird eventually took flight, Jess returned to her old unmotivated self. Disappointed, Stef suggested that she might like a pet of some kind but Jess had just gawked at her, as though her mother had proposed she join the Miley Cyrus fan club.
‘That’s great,’ Stef said now. ‘He would appreciate that.’
‘We could both help, couldn’t we, Elt?’ Jess leaned forward. ‘Elton wants to spend more time in the real world anyway. We could take him to the movies … or play board games.’
‘Board games?’ Elton’s face tensed.
‘Yeah, Snakes-and-Ladders and stuff like that. Or Molopoly.’
‘Monopoly.’
‘Or get into music. I’ve never had a baby brother before. We could all learn a musical instrument and start a band. I could play drums,’ she said brightly.
Elton wasn’t sure how to read Jess’s new stance. Was this another kind of mind-fuck, some new game of hers? He tried to think what instrument he’d play.
Stef looked in the side mirror and began overtaking a small truck. ‘He’d be welcome at our place,’ she said. ‘Anytime.’
As much as anything, it was her daughter she was thinking about. The idea was still firming, but if Jess was to take some interest in the boy, perhaps their shared concern might help bridge a little of the distance between them.
They drove on, the tyres humming, the country air whipping the duco, hills, houses and herds of sedentary beasts flashing backwards, disappearing into the past.
ADELE REALISED they’d gone too far when the winery came into view. They drove back, and when they reached the intersection a car was parked near the letterboxes. A man in shorts and a faded blue T-shirt was standing nearby.
‘That’s Chris,’ Adele said.
Stef tooted and the man waved. He strode across to their car and Elton gawked at his uncle’s bare legs, scabbed and scratched and extending to a pair of sockless weatherworn Blundstones. Flies orbited, some landed.
A little after 11 a.m. they finally rolled into Chris’s drive and followed the track across the blackened earth to a large patch of greenery in the distance. They drove between the low trees and parked next to the ute. Elton lowered the window and tried to absorb the setting, more otherworldly than anything on Skyrim. Before him a forlorn caravan was parked beside an enormous tree and Elton peered up at it. Like Treebeard, it seemed to have walked there, reaching out with its long limbs, intimidating the surroundings. Beneath it he saw an array of old chairs, boxes, a makeshift clothesline and an old kitchen table painted a dull yellow which perfectly matched a length of limp rag that was passed through the handle of a spade standing upright in the earth.
Jess noted Elton’s expression and concurred. ‘What a shithole,’ she said.
‘That’s enough, Jess,’ her mother cautioned. ‘This man has just come through a horrible experience.’
‘I know, but it’s still a shithole.’ Jess saw the man approaching, his lips pursed, random birdlike sounds issuing. He arrived just as they were climbing out of the car.
‘Welcome to my humble abode,’ he said, smiling.
‘Chris, this is Stef our neighbour and her daughter Jess. And let’s not forget … Elton, are you getting out?’
Her son stepped gingerly onto the dry ground in his cream vans.
‘Hello, Uncle Chris.’ He shook his uncle’s hand before slipping his pale palms back into his pockets – he certainly didn’t want to touch anything.
‘Not much to offer,’ Chris said. ‘Take a seat over there and I’ll find out what Shaun is up to. I think he’ll be pleased to see you.’
They crunched across the twiggy earth and Jess, behind Elton, grabbed him around the waist.
‘Hey, don’t do that! You scared the shit outa me.’
‘Thought it was a panther, did ya?’ She laughed.
They all turned as Chris came bounding out of the van. ‘Adele, the boy’s gone! I left a note for him this morning, said I was just making a quick trip into town. And now he’s left a note as well, says he’s decided to go.’
‘Where?’
‘No idea. Probably towards town.’
‘Why didn’t you take him with you?’
‘He was asleep. I didn’t want to … he hasn’t been sleeping very well.’
‘You shouldn’t have left him alone!’ The comment tweaked her own conscience – hadn’t she done it often enough herself? ‘Sorry, Chris. It’s not your fault.’
‘He’d definitely be heading into town,’ Elton confirmed, but his mother was not yet finished with Chris.
‘Did you see anybody on the road, when you were coming back?’
Her brother shook his head. ‘But Shaun knows the bush. If he was going to Hembridge he’d probably take a shortcut.’
They walked through the trees to the edge of the unburnt grass. Chris stretched his arm towards the northwest, indicating the boy’s likely trajectory. Elton considered the absurdity of it, hills and valleys burnt black as far as the eye could see. He suggested they call the cops. While the group were considering it, Stef proposed that some of them should at least go into town while others waited in case the boy returned – they could go in her car, she added. Chris agreed, but suggested they take his ute; he knew the road and where to look. Elton volunteered to accompany his uncle.
The three women stood together and watched them leave, pale dust floating in the air as the sound of the engine faded. Immediately they felt the stillness and found themselves standing in silence, as though the world had stopped. Adele checked her mobile, pointlessly; Shaun had deliberately left his behind. She knew he did not want to talk, the note he’d left in Melbourne said it clearly enough – it was action he craved, not words. She decided to call the police. She wasn’t sure how they would handle it but Elton was quite right, a missing person had to be reported. Shaun was a capable boy, she told them on the phone, he shouldn’t be in any danger. So where was he?
SIMON TOOK Stef’s call. The boy was missing, she said. They would not return until he was found. Her husband listened, his wife’s voice remote and indistinct. He could tell she was in the open air and instantly conceived an image of her standing in some sparse country setting. He told her that the man called Benton had disappeared. When you find Shaun, he said, don’t mention it, best to say nothing until the man is located.
When he put down the phone he screwed the cap off a bottle of wine. It was one of the reds left over after their last soirée, when he and Paul Finemore the art critic announced the death of art schools, as they were known. They had clashed glasses and spilt wine on the embroidered tablecloth, Simon grinning broadly, but the fact was h
e hated Finemore. Stef, on the other hand, quite liked the art critic and thought that beneath the pomposity there lurked a sincere man. But on that night it was she who had taken objection to him. Without warning, and urged on by the excellent shiraz, she placed the man firmly in her sights.
‘Why do you want to do it, Paul?’ she’d asked. ‘Why do you want to be an art critic, why be the one who devalues what artists do?’
Finemore paused in the manner of those who regard themselves with some intellectual standing.
‘Is that why you invited me tonight? To criticise me?’
Stef returned a penetrating look. ‘You don’t like being criticised, do you?’ she said. ‘Well, nobody else does either. Trouble is, you know as well as anyone how damaging your words can be. Rather than make things plain for the reading public, you seem more interested in the snappy turn of phrase, or derogatory comments that put people down, put artists down who have no right of reply. What possible joy is there in that?’
The room fell silent and Simon did his best to conceal his admiration. His wife had a point, and in speaking out she was showing him up as well. He’d been playing up to Finemore, whom he regarded as the worst kind of critic: an academic who tried to be an artist but, lacking in that department, resorted to telling others what they, too, were doing wrong. When praise was due, somehow it often fell upon art that enhanced the man’s own career, the art of his university gallery, of colleagues, of postgraduates with whom he was associated.
On that night, Stef had proved a worthy adversary and Simon raised his glass now in remembrance.
He had been a fool, he’d already acknowledged that. What had possessed him to take his neighbour to Sydney? What had possessed him to behave as he did, generally? When it came to sexual matters, he knew that what could be imagined and what decency actually allowed were two different worlds. It was only when a man acted upon the brain’s anarchic ruminations that things could turn very dark indeed, and that was precisely what he’d done. Simon had always seen himself as an intelligent man, but when it came to conduct, he had proved to be very stupid indeed, jeopardising everything for a few hours with a woman whom he’d paid to flatter him. Not the brightest decision he’d ever made.
Once more he tried to picture Stef in the farmland. He saw her in a grassy landscape backgrounded by wire fences, windmills and sheep grazing in the distance. Even as an artist his imagination defaulted to the cliché. And where was Shaun? He tried to find the boy in some other rural situation but nothing came to mind.
ELTON FELT a little uncomfortable in his uncle’s ute: just the two of them in the small cab, driving through forest with the shadows of old trees strapping his body, the smooth-trunked giants stuttering past, a procession of exclamation marks emphasising the importance of the mission.
Chris tried to lighten the mood. ‘What have you been doing with yourself, Elton?’
‘Um … not much. Did a year at uni, now I’m deferring.’
‘What do you think you’ll do now?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘What’s your main subject?’
‘Um … probably new media. Digital technology.’
Chris drove on and tried to imagine a topic they could share. ‘Who’re you voting for?’
‘Pardon?’
‘The federal election. Who will you vote for, who do you like?’
‘Don’t know. I don’t go for politics much.’
‘Are you enrolled to vote?’
Elton sensed the same sort of casual interrogation he used to receive from his father. ‘Not yet. Suppose I better though.’
‘Yes, you should.’
Chris had always found something lacking in the younger generation; perhaps that was why he’d never tried for children of his own.
‘Who’s the Leader of the Opposition?’ he asked.
‘The Leader of the Opposition? Why?’
‘Just a question.’
‘That’d be … I know his name, that guy with the big ears. I hate him. Mum reckons he’s a real loser, very negative.’
‘Who’s the Treasurer?’
Elton looked perplexed. ‘Is this really necessary?’
‘Sorry, son. Just wanted to get a handle on how young people feel about things; where the county’s heading and all that. Not important.’ Chris slowed when he saw the first houses of Hembridge.
THEY ARRIVED back a little after three. The women stood when they saw the car grinding up the gravel track but as the two men alighted their limp postures summarised the situation perfectly.
The dust had barely settled before a police car came into view and drove slowly up to the caravan. They were from the local station, directed from Missing Persons. Adele had already relayed on the phone what details she could – where Shaun was last seen, likely destinations and a full description of the boy.
‘Naturally,’ the female officer said, ‘we only investigate under certain conditions. Foul play, for instance; can we rule that out?’
Adele nodded.
‘Why do you suspect he has gone, then?’
‘Family conflict, I suppose; a misunderstanding.’
‘You’re the legal guardian?’
‘Legal perhaps, but I’m doubting my role as a guardian.’
‘Do you have a recent photo of Shaun?’
The words felt barbed and Adele had to think about it. She didn’t have a single picture.
‘What about you?’ The officer addressed the group collectively. ‘Anyone have a shot of the boy, a pic on their phone perhaps?’
They looked at each other and shook their heads.
‘We have a note,’ Adele said and produced it for them.
‘So the boy has run away.’
‘Yes,’ Chris said.
‘No.’ Adele regained the woman’s attention. ‘He’s gone,’ she said, ‘but he thinks he’s going home … He was born in the bush. It’s what he knows best, he feels safer there.’
‘So … you think he’s okay?’
‘As I said on the phone, I don’t think he’s in danger; I don’t think he’s lost. But obviously we have to find him. He’s just a boy.’
‘And we want him back,’ Jess emphasised. Elton nodded gravely.
CHRIS STOOD behind the caravan and slipped from his pocket a new packet of Champion Ruby. He pinched out a small quantity of the aromatic leaf and placed it in the paper’s crease, shaping it with his big, blocky fingers. He was aware that they trembled slightly and recognised how they’d become cracked and infilled with grime, like a mechanic’s. He touched the paper to his tongue and rolled it up, a torpedo-shaped projectile that might sit comfortably in an Amazonian blowpipe. He looked kindly at his effort before snapping a lighter to it and drawing the carcinogens deep into his lungs.
‘You’ve taken up smoking again.’
He turned to see his sister approaching.
‘Temporarily. I’m getting used to things that burn.’
Adele saw it instantly: her brother was feeling sorry for himself, but who wouldn’t? In one single hellish January hour he had lost a brother, a sister-in-law, and his home with everything in it. She leaned against the van beside him and asked how he was travelling. Good, he replied and smiled grimly. Adele had last seen him in a suit and tie at their brother’s funeral. Now she saw a different person, though it had little to do with his country attire or the rudimentary lifestyle. His face looked red and puffy, as if the pain had swelled it; his usual broad and steady hands were visibly troubled; the light had left his eyes. At the funeral there had been no opportunity to talk meaningfully but even now it seemed no easier. Adele wanted to reconnect.
‘Anyone new in your life?’
‘A woman? No.’
They both turned their faces towards the horizon.
‘You still think about her?’
Chris was slow to reply, drawing purposefully on his rollie. ‘Oddly, all this bloody misery makes me wish she was still here, just so I can share it. Is that warped or wha
t?’
‘Sounds normal to me, Chris. We all need others.’
They stood in silence, both ruminating on that dubious universal concept of a conjoined life.
‘How about you?’ Chris asked. ‘Any love interests?’
Adele shook her head. ‘You know, growing up, I thought a relationship was going to be easy, all those boys forever chasing; the endless choices. But then it all goes pear-shaped and leaves you cold, disillusioned. I wonder if maybe I’m just too afraid to try again.’
Chris surveyed his burnt block and blew a plume of grey smoke towards it. ‘Sounds like me,’ he said.
‘You’re dejected.’
‘Suppose so.’ He dropped his butt and screwed it into the dust.
‘We’re all dejected, Chris. I mean the whole of society. We live in dejected times.’
‘Nothing to believe in,’ her brother added, repressing memories of his thwarted plan to save the bush.
‘What is there to believe in?’ Adele asked. ‘Not each other, that’s for sure – and not religion, now that God has become a “concept” rather than a real life figure admonishing us from the heavens.’
‘Yes, well, given the reports of child abuse making headlines lately, even a few in the clergy have worked that one out. No one feels the slightest bit accountable,’ he added, relating the remark more to the environment than the sexual transgressions of priests.
A rosella looped across in front of them and landed magisterially in the grass, its conspicuous red and blue plumage contrasting vividly with the blanched tussocks. A testament to nature’s ruthlessness, Chris mused: a colourful treat for the raptors.
ELTON BUTTONED his shirtsleeves and sat in the shade, but even there his skin turned pink from the very idea of the sun touching him. He and Jess had little recourse but to remain seated among gumleaves and grass; surroundings that abused their sense of normality. Elton was restless. Earlier, his iPhone had run out and he’d taken his recharge cord into the caravan. Standing there on the tiled floor, it slowly dawned on him that electricity was as absent there as oxygen in space; as non-existent as an ordinary thing like a flushing toilet.
The Colour of the Night Page 22