After a couple of blocks she could see treetops. When she reached the trees they were massive—Moreton Bay figs and an avenue of lemon scented gums. Kings Park. Her feet made tracks in the dewy grass and her breath came out in white puffs. She walked till she came to the war memorial. Below her the vast still mirror of the Swan was pink from the dawn, with eddies of mist low on the water and a smudge of smog above. A mirror image of the bridge shimmered in the river below. Already the freeway was roaring with life.
The grassy slopes led her to a wide hollow with a pool. A bronze figure stood in the water, sturdy and foursquare, a woman holding a child. Marian set off towards it, passing a curved bench on a paving of mosaic banksias. The Prostrate Banksias. How odd. That was the cancer that killed her father. Halfway down the slope she remembered. Prostate. Not prostrate. Was it? She repeated both words to herself until neither had any meaning.
Each step of the path was dedicated to a women’s organisation. Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Macedonians, University Women, Guides, Civilian Widows, the Karrakatta Club (Judge Us By Our Actions), and of course the CWA (Through Country Women, For Country Women, By Country Women).
Such a lot of organising. Cakes made and sandwiches buttered. Agendas drawn up, resolutions passed. Not to mention holding the child.
Don’t think about the child.
She emerged from the trees above another section of river cliff, further west than before. Immediately below her was a huddle of buildings. The old brewery. The rich men’s flats. From here you could throw a stone into the car park. She couldn’t find a stone, only a small chunk of marri branch. It was too light and spiralled limply down about ten metres away, landing at the feet of a jogger with a dalmatian on a lead. The dog barked and strained towards Marian, jumping against its collar. The young man glared. In spite of the cold, he was wearing only shorts and a singlet and was sweating slightly.
Marian lowered her arm. ‘Sorry,’ she said, but man and dog had already swept away around the bend. Law Walk the path was called. He could be a lawyer.
She sat on a bench with a view of the river through trees. How would it be to live in a flat and gaze out every day on all that water?
When she was fourteen she came home from school one day to find both her parents sitting at the kitchen table. The mill was silent. There was a hush over the whole settlement.
What is it? she asked, panic rising.
Come and sit down. I’ll make you a cuppa and Dad can explain.
Her father still had his overalls on and the blue jumper with the cuff unravelling. He cleared his throat but didn’t seem to know how to explain.
Go on Dad, urged her mother.
We’ve had the management down, he said at last. They’re closing the mill.
Her panic burst its bounds. But where will we live?
It’s not that, her mother said. It’s where will Dad work?
All the mill houses were closed up and hauled off. Marian’s family was lucky. Dad got a job in the nearby town and they had a house almost the same as the old one. The difference was that behind the house, where there should have been forest, there was a fence, and beyond the fence there were neighbours.
Whenever Marian could get away she rode her bike out of town to find trees. But it got harder. I don’t like you going off on your own. Girls can’t afford to take risks. And in a town like this, you know. People talk. You don’t want to get a name.
Marian did her best not to listen. But the words burrowed their way in and she stopped riding her bike out of town, afraid of men in cars. She got a job at the green-grocer’s and concentrated on saving her money so she could go to college, become a teacher. One day she’d have trees of her own, a farm.
Marriage to Mac meant a farm, though that wasn’t her first thought about Mac. It was his boots that she fell for. The elastic sides sagged and the toes were scuffed. Like her father’s.
Mac was sitting beside his mother in outpatients when Marian brought the tea trolley around. Something about the way he was sitting touched her. Awkward, tongue-tied, twisting his hat in his hands. But he was there, caring enough about his mother to wait for her.
When Marian saw the boots she wanted to hold him. Sing to him. There there. Hush now.
Mac’s mother was beginning a long process of dying. Marian saw her grim endurance and pitied her. In those early days Marian had room in her heart for the whole world. And the family welcomed her, the father as well, in their dour undemonstrative way. They needed her, she thought, all three of them, Mac and his parents.
That idea was something to hang onto through the beginning of her marriage, though at times she wondered. She saw Mac’s harshness more often than she saw his softness.
His idea about trees was the same as his father’s, and his grandfather’s. Trees were things that had to be cleared so you could grow pasture or wheat. He told Marian she was naive and Marian believed him. He was the one with experience and she had to learn.
And she did. She learned the reality of wheat and sheep. The dust that found its way into every bit of clothing, every corner of the house. The drudgery, the anxiety. She learned about farming. Will it rain? Will it stay dry? Will the insurance cover the burnt fence? Will the harvester, tractor, harrow keep going one more year? Will the prices hold?
Once, when Charlie was small, he spent a glorious morning making tunnels through the stalks of wheat with a nest in the middle. Marian heard Mac roaring when she brought the lunch down, and was just in time to stop him belting the child.
He’s only a baby, she cried.
I don’t care. This is a farm, not a playground.
There was too much sky. Overwhelming sky and nothing to anchor you. You could be swept up into a hot easterly wind and lose your hold on the thin soil.
By the time Marian got back to the edge of the park, the road was streaming with cars. She’d forgotten her watch, but the clock at the roundabout pointed to a few minutes before eight. Breakfast. Oh hell. Seven thirty to eight fifteen, wasn’t it?
When she reached the dining room, out of breath, a girl with blue streaks in her blonde hair was clearing the tables. In the corner an elderly couple was finishing cups of tea.
‘I’m sorry. Am I too late?’
The girl pursed her lips. ‘There’s no juice left, or cereal,’ she said, examining a point behind Marian’s left ear. ‘You could have toast. Over there. It’s do-it-yourself.’
Marian extracted two slices of bread from a plastic bag and put them in the toaster.
‘Will you be checking out?’
‘Oh no. I want to stay another night or two.’
‘No worries. I’ll fix it for you. Pull the dining room door shut when you’ve finished, could you?’
The elderly couple left and Marian sat in a corner. The sachets of butter and jam were tiny and she had to put her glasses on to work out how to open them. She spread the toast and pushed pieces of it around in her mouth, but it tasted like cardboard. After half a slice she gave up. At least the tea was hot.
On the Reception desk she found a brochure about buses and caught a free City Clipper into town, feeling awake and business-like. Today she would work everything out. Find out how to visit Charlie.
She had forty minutes to spare before her appointment with Simon Ingerson so she wandered into Myers. The bottom floor seemed to be all sorts of things for men. Ties, socks. One shelf was all bottles and sprays. Deodorant. That was straightforward. But there were other things that seemed to be perfume. You couldn’t call it anything else, though it had names like Leopard and Manpower. Things to make men smell better. How extraordinary. It used to be cissy for men to smell of anything other than soap. Mac wouldn’t have dreamed of using deodorant. Did Brian? It was ages since she’d been in their bathroom. And she certainly hadn’t seen anything like this in Charlie’s room.
Perhaps it was only for gay men. She looked around hurriedly, half expecting a sign. No one was taking any notice of her and anyway, it didn’t matt
er these days. Look at those two girls yesterday. Nobody cared. You could be buying perfume for a gay brother or something.
Or a gay son?
It wasn’t true to say nobody cared. She remembered the note in the letterbox. YOU FILTHY LESOS BELONG IN PRISON.
Why was Charlie living with them anyway?
Marian had thought she knew about Charlie, but her idea of him seemed to have faded, disappeared.
The idea of a gay Charlie didn’t make sense though. Surely Lee or Sam would have said? It would have come up. One of their protests, no doubt.
Marian sniffed surreptitiously at her armpits. They weren’t the best. She should have washed again after that long walk. Or at least put on more deodorant. Evie used to have a trick, which had horrified Marian at the time, of spraying perfume directly onto the underarm material of her unwashed dresses.
Perhaps there were free testers? But Marian wasn’t game to try it in public.
Nine fifty. Hell. She was going to be late after all if she didn’t hurry.
The pedestrian light at the end of the Mall was green so she crossed at a run and reached the Terrace out of breath.
The office was in an old building cowering between its neighbours. The lift creaked and rumbled and Marian was glad to get out of it.
Behind the desk sat a trim woman, her eyes magnified by large glasses. She was years younger than Marian, but regarded her like a motherly hen, head on one side.
‘Mrs Anditon? I’m Mandy. I’m afraid Mr Ingerson isn’t in yet. He had an unexpected appointment. Can I get you a cup of coffee?’
‘Thank you.’
Mandy came out from behind the desk and bustled over to an alcove fitted out with instant hot water and a sink.
‘Milk and sugar?’
‘Milk, thanks. No sugar.’
‘Here you are. There are magazines,’ she said, pulling a pile of dog-eared Readers Digests towards Marian. ‘Or can I get you the paper?’
‘No. These are fine, thank you.’ Not the paper.
Mandy looked at her doubtfully. Marian picked up a magazine and opened it at random.
Stalked by a Brown Bear. My Night of Terror.
Mandy went back to her desk and her computer.
Marian stared at the page. Her eyes seemed to be playing up. She couldn’t get them to fix on the words long enough to get the sense. Was it real, or a story? Lost the path … couldn’t get the cigarette lighter to work … scouting songs …
She put it on the table and sat back on her seat. Immediately, Mandy stopped typing and turned, glasses flashing concern.
Hastily Marian picked up another magazine. What a Chimp in the Family Taught the Smiths.
She suppressed a rising panic as she leafed through. It was just the Readers Digest, no different from usual. The problem must be in her, that every article looked bizarre.
Dare Devil or Despairing?
On his sixth jump, Mason horrified his instructors when he disarmed his reserve chute …
Was it a great adventure, or was it a cry for help …?
Marian stared at the page, not seeing it. Was that what Charlie was doing? Crying for help?
But he’d killed other people, not himself. Shot them dead.
It was nearly eleven before Simon Ingerson rushed in.
‘Sorry to keep you. Won’t be a moment.’
Mandy, eyebrows raised, followed him into an inner office with her hands full of papers. A minute later she came out and beckoned Marian.
‘Mr Ingerson will see you now,’ she announced, with hushed importance.
The desk was wedged across one corner of the room with a computer sitting in the middle of it. Piles of paper slid away on each side. Files and books were stuffed into shelves next to the window. The only clear space in the office was the chair he pointed her towards.
‘Sit down Mrs … yes. Tea? Coffee?’
‘No thank you. I’ve just …’
But he was already pushing an intercom button. ‘Coffee thanks Mandy.’
He examined her over his glasses. ‘I’ve made an appointment for you with a colleague, a psychologist. Hope that’s all right. Thought we’d better squeeze you in while we can. Very lucky to get an appointment. You’re not going back to the country yet?’
Psychologist?
‘I don’t need …’
‘Good, good.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘Friday afternoon then. Mandy will give you the address.’
‘But …’
‘Routine. Build up a bit of a picture of Charles.’
Oh. Not for her.
‘The social issues. There’ll be a psychiatric assessment of course, brain scans and so on. Cover all the bases.’
Bases.
‘Has Charles ever used drugs?’
With awful clarity, an image of the contraption the police had shown her flashed into Marian’s mind.
‘I don’t know. The police think so. They found a bong in his room.’ Once again she had a hysterical urge to laugh. Boing boing boing.
‘Did they? Ah well. They say that parents are always the last to know.’ His eyes were too sharp.
‘Yes.’
‘That’s not a criticism. I’m defending your son, don’t forget. I’m not the enemy. Tell me if you remember anything. However small it seems.’
‘All right.’
‘Drugs. It’s the first thing the police would have looked for. That’s how they think. Makes it nice and neat. Everyone understands drugs. Who understands a boy taking a gun and shooting people when he’s stone cold sober?’
You. You have to.
The lawyer rubbed his hands. ‘Probably charge his housemates I imagine. Round it out.’
Oh no.
Her reaction surprised her. After all, she’d thought the same thing herself. But Sam and Ros weren’t bad people. They didn’t deserve any more trouble.
Lee, maybe.
There was a tap on the door and Mandy appeared carrying a tray with two mugs. She smiled brightly at Marian and balanced one of them on a pile of papers on the coffee table. ‘Just milk. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Thank you,’ said Marian weakly. The first coffee was still zizzing in her veins.
Mandy went out and Simon Ingerson loosened his tie.
‘I want to get background today. See what there might be by way of a defence. Anything you can tell me about Charles, from a family point of view.’
‘Charlie.’
‘Right. Charlie. School for instance. Did he finish school? He seems like a bright boy.’
‘Yes. He started Anthropology at the university but he hasn’t finished that.’
‘Still studying?’
‘No, he isn’t, he dropped out.’ A drop-out.
‘When was that?’
‘Early this year. Since then he’s been working on and off. Gardening.’
‘Gardening eh? You can take the boy out of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy.’
Marian didn’t respond. What did raking up leaves in green city gardens have to do with the gritty reality of the farm?
‘Father no longer alive, I gather?’
‘No.’
For once, disconcertingly, the lawyer waited in silence. Marian eased sideways in her chair. Her left foot was going to sleep. ‘He died about ten years ago.’
‘Who inherited the farm?’
‘Brian. My other son.’
‘So Charlie’s the younger son. That’s how it goes. Bit of a blow for him I suppose?’
Marian considered this. Had it been a blow for Charlie? But he’d always known.
‘Who ran the farm after your husband died?’
The question floated in front of her. Who did he think? Who the hell would run the farm?
‘I did.’
A brave little woman look formed on his face, but she was used to that, and cut across it. ‘I got in workers whenever I could afford it.’
‘Must have been hard for you.’
Hard. The dry-eye
d wakeful nights. The constant weariness. The loneliness. Sitting up, after the boys had gone to bed, with accounts that never balanced. The neighbours who were kind. The ones who weren’t. The ones who were waiting to buy her out. The ones who helped and then thought they might as well stay the night. In her bed.
As if.
‘Yes it was hard. Sometimes.’
‘Difficult choice, with two children.’
But there was nothing else she could have done. Did he think that she should have married again? But who, exactly?
‘Are you still running the show?’
‘Brian does most of it these days.’
‘Now what about girls?’
‘I only have two sons.’
Simon Ingerson laughed cheerily. ‘Charles, I mean. Girlfriends? Normal boy in that way?’
This echo of her own earlier thought irritated her.
Normal. Until Monday it had never crossed her mind that people in her life were anything other than normal. There was Tara, but that was different, just one of those things.
What was the lawyer asking?
About Charlie, whether he was normal.
‘I suppose so,’ she said reluctantly. Of course he’s not normal, she wanted to scream. He just killed two complete strangers.
She pulled herself together. ‘You’ve talked to him, have you?’
‘Yes. That’s to say I’ve visited him. I didn’t get much out of him. Perhaps he’ll talk to you. I’ve arranged for you to see him tomorrow. Hope that’s all right? You could go today if you wanted to. Up to 3pm I think it is.’
‘Thank you.’ Her insides collapsed downwards at the thought.
‘The police have been out to the farm,’ he said. ‘Checked the registration of the gun. With Brian.’
If he knew about Brian, why had he asked who ran the farm now? Was it a trick? Maybe they thought Brian knew something. Oh God. What if they thought Brian was involved in the shooting?
‘Brian didn’t know Charlie had taken it.’ Even she could hear the fear and hostility in her voice.
‘When did Charlie last come home?’
‘At least six months ago. He and Brian don’t get on.’
‘It’s okay Mrs Anditon. There’s no suggestion that Brian knew, if that’s what you’re worrying about.’
The First Week Page 8