She must try and clear her head.
Simon Ingerson spread his hands theatrically. A performer. But perhaps lawyers had to be.
‘All routine. A check on where the gun came from and how Charlie came to have it.’
‘But …’
‘I’m afraid I’ll have to wrap this up. Thanks Mrs … I’ll give you a buzz.’
Marian passed Mandy in the doorway, bustling in importantly with a pile of papers.
‘Thanks for the coffee …’ But they didn’t hear her.
She walked downhill through a vast car park. Hundreds of cars. Thousands probably. Sitting there all day waiting for their owners to get back on the freeway. Beyond the car park lay the river, the bell tower dwarfing the palms at the Barrack Street jetties. A small ferry forged across the water from South Perth. Downstream towards the Narrows the surface was grey and ruffled. There was rain coming. Along the path beside the river Marian found a seat under a palm tree and sat down, pulling her coat more tightly around her. Upstream the water was still, and there were patches of blue in the sky above the hills. Perhaps it would blow over.
She should go and see Charlie. Now, this very minute. Find out how to get there. They might know at the train station. Or she could get a taxi.
The thought of holding him on her knee when he was little was a physical sensation so real that she could feel the points of contact—legs, arms, breasts, belly.
She should be looking after him now.
What sort of a mother was she? A proper mother would want to spend every minute with him.
But she couldn’t do it. She knew she should go and see him, but she couldn’t. Tomorrow. She would go tomorrow.
The wind was picking up, making the water choppy.
Evie had joined a rowing club once and dragged Marian along with her. The early mornings were a joy, river reflecting the dawn, the clunk and creak of oars, the finely balanced boat gliding fast through the water. There were still fishermen in those days, rowing out from the boatsheds at Crawley.
The fad hadn’t lasted long. Evie said the early rising was too much, and Marian was glad enough of the extra sleep when the weather got colder.
Marian never thought about that year in the city, as though it belonged in someone else’s life.
A duck interrupted her reverie, waddling purposefully along the path towards her, coming right up and fussing around her feet.
‘Can’t help. I haven’t got anything.’ She held out her empty hands.
The duck honked and Marian was surprised into a snort of laughter. ‘Really. I mean it. Got no more than you.’
The duck turned its back and walked purposefully towards the river, bottom swaying with each step. When it reached the limestone retaining wall it took off with a sudden great clatter of wings. It wheeled above her in the sky, veering to the north-east, inland.
Marian went on staring at the water, more alone now than before the duck had come. The cold was an ache in her bones, compelling her to move, do something, at least to walk and get warm.
She could follow the duck. There was a park somewhere, she remembered. An afternoon with balloons, someone’s birthday. Up near Motor Reg. A small lake with flowers and duck shit everywhere. Big trees. The smell of fresh water and damp grass.
The memory was intense. The nostalgia.
As soon as she stood up, the sky wheeled around her and she had to hang onto the back of the seat till it stilled again. She should probably eat. Perhaps there’d be a cafe.
She set off diagonally across playing fields, blinking to clear the dark smudges from the edge of her vision. This half-fainting sensation of the last few days was becoming familiar. Perhaps her blood pressure was low. Time for one of her rare visits to the doctor. But he was prickly, the new one, not easy to talk to. And it would mean going into town, facing everyone.
Later.
This stretch towards the Causeway was flat, a vast expanse of grass, quite low lying. Probably part of the river once, she thought. Swampy at the very least. Salty too. The river was salty.
What would it have been like? Before freeways and playing fields?
Paperbarks probably. Reeds. Things that didn’t mind being flooded regularly. The trees would stretch away, twisted and ghostly, bark hanging in tatters, making dark reflections in the puddles and pools. Every now and then there’d be a stretch of higher ground, drier, with banksias. But impossible to see very far.
On a dull day like this it would have been eerie down at water level, sounds muffled. The Abos would have hunted here. Speared fish in the shallows, or tortoises. There’d be tiger snakes.
Parked cars marked another road and a bike hire place. Who would use it? Not locals, unless they drove here, rode around on bikes and then drove home. That would be crazy. It must be for tourists.
Marian struck up towards the line of buildings that marked the edge of the higher ground. The river bank. There would have been trees on the rise. More banksias, maybe bigger trees. Jarrah, marri. The clearings would open out, there’d be more light and dry ground underfoot. Rocky outcrops and wispy grass. Good camping up there, away from the river. But what about water?
Adelaide Terrace was a stream of traffic. She stood on the edge of the footpath thinking. It wouldn’t have been an easy life.
Dodging between the cars she went on up the hill. There must have been a bit of run-off surely, from a ridge this high? There should be a small creek, clear water finding its way down among rocks.
But it would run only in winter and dry up quickly, leaving a few sandy patches between the rocks to show where it had been. No use as a summer water supply. Those long-gone people must have known where to find the permanent springs, fresh water. At Mac’s uncle’s place there was a big rocky outcrop, half a hectare at least, studded with small pools, each one carefully covered with a rock lid and still holding water. A man from the museum had come poking around. Gnamma holes he called them.
They would have been careful, those vanished hunters.
But had they vanished? Marian thought of Lee. My father’s a Swan River man. They were still here. For all Marian knew, half the people in the street were descended from them.
Hay Street was narrow and blocked by a refrigerated truck trying to back into the service lane of a hotel. A four-wheel drive blasted its horn at a taxi whose driver hung out of his window yelling abuse.
Marian was startled and turned away, willing herself back into the past again.
There would have been hollows among the rocks. Daytime camps under the trees for kangaroos, and for people. It’d be cold on this ridge though, facing south, catching the souwesterlies and the rain. Did they feel the cold? She’d seen a picture somewhere, a group of women sitting cross-legged outside a shelter made of branches, wearing kangaroo-skin cloaks. Primitive. But now she wondered how they made them. You’d have to cure the skins somehow. And it would take more than one kangaroo skin to make a cloak. There’d have to be sewing. Women’s work no doubt. Marian imagined women giggling together as they sewed, plump brown babies crawling between their feet.
She stopped walking and buttoned her coat. The same wind as two hundred years ago. The same rain that now fell on concrete and bitumen. It was a good thought. Good that the same wind went on blowing, all this time. Would still be blowing when the city was gone again.
She shouldn’t have said that to Lee, about her people being lazy.
When she looked up, the trees and rocks vanished. It was a city again, and there across the road was the park she remembered. Queen’s Gardens. Established 1899. Through the gate was a different world again. A more leisurely world. The people who’d chopped down the tuarts and the banksias had planted this green-ness, brought their families here in best clothes to bowl hoops and feed the ducks.
Light misty rain was falling. Marian retreated to the bandstand. Apart from an occasional drip she was sheltered there and could watch the deserted park, the ducks huddling on the grass, heads and feet tucked in.
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It was green, so green. It was easy to forget, at the farm, that such green was possible. Even the bare trees seemed to form a soft greenish filter.
A newspaper stuck out of the top of a nearby bin, protected from the rain by a sheet of cardboard. She dashed across and pulled it out. It was clean, and a good thick edition. Saturday. Saturday’s paper was safe. It came from that other world, life before this week, when disasters belonged to other people.
She unfolded it, spread half the paper out on the floor of the bandstand next to a post and sat on it, back to the drips, facing the centre. Well why not? Deros did it. In cartoons, anyway. A few sheets bunched behind her protected her back. She kicked off her wet shoes and tucked her feet under her, spreading the Real Estate across her knees and the Cars across her chest and arms. No one would see. And if they did, what on earth did it matter?
A blanket would be nice, but this wasn’t bad. Warm enough. She slid down the post.
Sleep came in fits and starts, as she struggled against the cold, against consciousness, against the same heavy shape that she had to push away from her every time she woke. Something bad lay in wait for her.
She had done something bad.
Pins and needles prickled in her right foot and she eased it out cautiously. A cup of tea would be good. And a toilet.
Standing up was a gradual process, the way old women did it. Onto her knees first, then pulling herself up by the post, testing her feet to see if they were ready for the weight. Standing still for a few moments, one hand on the post, to get her balance.
She shrugged her shoulders and swung her arms. Not bad, she wasn’t done for yet. Folding up the newspaper she balanced it on top of the bin. Somebody else might use it. A homeless person.
The ducks were out on the lake again as she crossed the grass to the upper gate and walked into Goderich Street.
By the time she got to the Mint, she was desperate for a toilet. It would have been good to sit for a while in the cathedral, but she skirted round it, thighs clenched. The hospital. Of course. There’d be toilets and a cup of tea.
The main doors swished open and she searched out, with a sure instinct, the sign. Ladies.
The stream from her bladder made a strong satisfying noise in the toilet bowl. The emptiness inside was wonderful, a gift.
She went back into the foyer and over to the Information Counter. ‘Is there anywhere I can get a cup of tea?’
‘Along there. I’ll show you on the map.’
The warmth of the tea was another gift. Strange process, emptying yourself out and then filling yourself up again. She held the cup close to her face and watched the comings and goings of the hospital.
People were just themselves in a hospital, reduced to basics. They walked around in pyjamas or hospital gowns pushing their own drip stands, or stood outside the main doors in their slippers to smoke. Harassed women drank quick cups of coffee before pulling their bundles together and rushing onwards. Intimidated visitors bought bunches of flowers at the kiosk and crept up in the lifts.
A big man shambled past. His arms and legs were stick-thin but his belly was huge, hanging over his shorts. He held his belt in one hand and spoke in a mournful monotone to a small woman who bustled him along like a tug. ‘It cuts into me,’ he said, in the helpless whine of a six-year-old. ‘I don’t want to put it on. It cuts into me.’
Expectations in a hospital were clear-cut. Either you helped or you waited for help. You could spend all day here, waiting, blending in, hidden. No one would know. Marian tucked the idea away in the part of her mind where she kept her list of safe places. Under the verandah floor, between the fence and the peppermint. Places to hide from the Japanese.
Silly, she knew. That war was over before she was born, her father’s war, not hers. It was the films. A Town Like Alice on the flickering screen set up in the school playground. Saturday night films that came down on the bus in big square cases done up with leather straps.
The Japanese were only one version of the threat. Even as a child she’d known that. It was any creature from the Black Lagoon. Burglars, rapists, bombers, murderers.
Charlie.
Where was she going to hide from Charlie?
She stood up abruptly, and clutched the edge of the table till the buzzing in her head passed, the fading of light, not quite blackout.
‘You okay?’ asked a young woman opposite. Her face was dead-white, in startling contrast to her lustreless black hair, and in her upper lip she had a pointed stud like Sam’s eyebrow spike.
Marian smiled carefully. ‘I’m fine. Stood up too quickly.’ Murmuring a goodbye she made her way back to the street.
School must be out. Kids with bags slung over their shoulders jostled at every bus stop and overflowed from coffee shops. Marian edged around a group of girls in green blazers and pleated skirts hanging below their knees. They were giggling at a shop window, but moved on when they noticed her. She went to see what had interested them and found an Aladdin’s cave. Cushions and hangings of gold and red, trays of small brass cups, ornaments she could not imagine a use for. And there in the middle was a whole tray of bongs. Some were like Charlie’s, others were made of glass, more like something from a laboratory.
But wasn’t it illegal?
Marian’s scalp tightened. Someone was looking at her. But when she glanced around there was no one on the footpath. Turning back to the window she realised that inside the shop, beyond the display, a woman was watching and smiling. Her face was framed by two thin plaits with red ribbon woven through them. The rest of her dark hair hung down loosely over a dress made of many flowing layers.
Marian walked away quickly, forcing herself not to run. It was just a shop, like any other in the city. The shop owner was just looking for customers. Nobody else saw her. But she couldn’t shake off the idea that she must be extra careful, that she was only free to walk around on sufferance. If people knew … There may be charges.
The Barrack Street footpaths were so crowded that she continued on to the Terrace, thinking there would be more space. But the traffic noise, trapped in the bottom of the canyon, was overwhelming and the air stank. She retreated hastily into the mock-Tudor arcade behind her. London Court, alone in this city, hadn’t changed. It was forever connected with the thrill of her first pair of new shoes, school shoes, and the machine that showed the bones of your toes through the ghostly outline of the leather. Afterwards her mother had let her wait for St George and the Dragon to clank out above the clock and complete their lurching dance past each other.
There were more people in the Mall, away from the traffic. The faces were winter-pale, grey and tired with no energy left to smile or chat. Where were they all going? Did they have families waiting at home? They’d sit in comfortable chairs and relax and laugh and watch TV and help children with homework.
For a moment Marian missed Jeb painfully, her evening companion, her uncomplaining loyal friend. She wished she was going home to him. She wished she’d had a completely ordinary day, shopping in town. How good it would be to pull up near the shed. Jeb would be on the verandah, stretching, tail waving, pleased to see her.
Marian shut her eyes with the urgent longing to blot out everything, wind back the last few days, start again. Come up to the city on a long delayed visit. Hold Charlie close, stay with him. Not let him out of her sight, not let anything bad happen.
A sudden buffet knocked her sideways. Her eyes flew open and she took a half step to regain her balance. A woman with two huge shopping bags was scowling at her. ‘Watch where you’re going.’
Before Marian could say a word the woman had pushed past and was gone.
Marian walked on, shaken.
By the time she got to the freeway there was more room and she stopped to lean over the parapet. Lane after lane of traffic, almost immobile, exhaust fumes floating upwards. She hurried on and was glad of the straggly West Perth street trees.
The CWA lift was too small, unbearable. How would Charl
ie manage, shut up in a cell? Would it be a cell, with bars? Charlie who’d spent his childhood roaming far and wide.
Don’t think about that.
She stopped for breath on the stairs and then dragged herself across the foyer. The girl with blue streaks came out from behind the desk. ‘Mrs Anditon?’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s two phone messages for you. This one’s urgent. She insisted.’
Marian peered at the first piece of paper, fumbling in her bag for her glasses. ‘Is there a phone I can use?’
The young woman examined her curiously. ‘Don’t you have a mobile?’
‘No.’
‘Here, use the office phone,’ she said, with kindly pity for such inefficiency. ‘They’re only local calls. I’m going downstairs anyway.’
Marian dialled anxiously.
‘Hello?’ It was Evie’s voice.
‘Evie? It’s Marian here.’
‘Marian. Oh thank goodness. I’ve been so worried.’
Marian’s mind was blank. What was Evie worried about?
‘Marian? Are you all right? I couldn’t sleep last night, I felt so bad. I should never have let you go off on your own. I’m sorry.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘I rang Brian.’
Irritation wormed in Marian’s gut. More complications, Brian and Michelle to deal with. ‘Damn.’
‘Don’t eat me. I couldn’t think what else to do. He suggested the YWCA or the CWA so I tried both.’
‘Now he’ll be after me.’
‘It’s me who’s after you.’
‘I don’t mind that so much.’
Evie snorted. ‘Why are you being so hard on Brian? He cares about you, Marian. He’s worried.’
Marian stared at the picture on the wall behind the phone. A boy herded three unlikely looking cows towards a tumbledown shed. Pink mist swirled disturbingly around their feet. Marian shivered.
‘Thanks for ringing, Evie.’
‘What’s happening? Have you seen Charlie? Surely it’s a mistake. I keep thinking it must be a mistake.’
‘No. It’s true.’
The First Week Page 9