Oh God, Jesus, GodJesus, helpme somebodyhelpme GodGodGod Simeon pleasehelpme. I tried to call out but the words would only come as a broken whisper, just like in the worst nightmares when you can’t make anyone hear you.
I was bent over in the falling rain, my hands pasted to my eyes, crying and trying not to die when Simeon, happy now and wanting his water, ambled down the track and found me.
‘I can’t look,’ I whispered, as he helped me up the track to the van. ‘I can’t look or I’ll go crazy.’
‘It’s okay, Red,’ said Simeon, unsurprised, ‘you’re just freaking out. Jesus, wasn’t I the one who smoked the weed?’
‘I can’t look at anything, I can’t look at the world,’ I said, crazily, pressing my fingers into my eyeballs.
‘It’s cool, don’t look, I’m guiding you,’ said Simeon. ‘You’ll be okay, I promise.’
‘I can’t get any breath,’ I said.
‘Yes you can,’ he said firmly. ‘You’re still alive, so you are breathing.’
I took small steps, my legs stiff with terror. ‘You’re doing cool, Red,’ said Simeon, his arms tight around my waist, his voice close to my ear.
The rain stung my neck but I couldn’t hurry. We moved slowly, painfully, up the track, Simeon talking constantly, me trying not to go completely, permanently mad.
‘We’re at the van,’ said Simeon. ‘I’m opening the back doors so you can lie down on the mattress. It’s okay, it’s okay.’ His voice was like a mantra, too, soothing and tender. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. Can you lie down, Red?’
‘Please don’t leave me,’ I whimpered, long past caring how I sounded, what he thought.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Simeon, his arm around my waist as he helped me down onto the mattress. ‘I’m just getting a cover for you, you’re still breathing, aren’t you? You’re okay, still here, okay? I’ll lie beside you, okay? It’s all right, Red, you’ll be fine, I’ve seen this happen before, you’ll be okay, okay?’ He talked on and on, I don’t know how long, but after a while, lying on the mattress with his arms tight around me, my eyes clenched shut and my head buried in his denim jacket, I thought that perhaps I might not die, though I was sure I could never open my eyes again or the panic would come roaring back.
‘Keep talking, please tell me something,’ I said. ‘I’m so frightened, Simeon.’
‘I remembered something when you were getting the water,’ he said. ‘I had a great smoke and I lay back on the grass and I could hear birds, a bellbird, I think, fantastic sound, and I started to think about animal sounds and how groovy they were and then suddenly I remembered that the Dead were really into animal sounds too and one time they were going to record animals at the San Diego Zoo after it had closed for the day, and possibly get the animals to sing with them. That’s why I was coming to meet you, I wanted to tell you before I forgot.’
People did die of fright, I thought. ‘Tell me some more,’ I whispered, digging my face further into his chest.
‘They made this album, late sixties, right?’ said Simeon. He was laughing at some memory. I found the feeling of his chest moving in laughter — the thought of the possibility of laughter — curiously comforting. ‘And they wanted to call it Skullfuck! Isn’t that fantastic! I love that. And once they recorded the sound of the smog in L.A. Heavy air. And then they contrasted it with clean air up in the desert.’
‘Fruit cakes,’ I ventured, a tiny vein of hope unwinding in my stomach. ‘Simeon, how am I ever going to open my eyes?’ I didn’t care what he thought of such an insane question.
‘Don’t open them,’ he said, tightening his arms. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
I could hear the rain, hard now on the roof of the van. My body was softening a bit, warming under the blanket and the cloud of terror was thinning too.
‘You are good, really,’ I said into Simeon’s chest.
‘You think so?’ he said softly, loosening his arms, bending his head.
He kissed me.
He kissed me until I opened my eyes.
He kissed me until, my eyes fixed on his, my heart thumping, I pulled off his jacket and slid my arms up under his T-shirt.
He kissed me while he unbuttoned my shirt.
He kissed me and kissed me until we had no clothes on under the blanket and my hair was tangled up between us and my breathing was normal, my skin warm, the awful fear gone and the rain softer and softer and finally over.
We hardly spoke on the way home. My mind was quite empty and my body blanketed in a dead calm. I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes again, listening to the Beatles doing their loony psychedelic mystery tour. Simeon had the player on repeat and the songs came around again and again on the 300km journey home. I fell asleep finally to words I’ll never forget.
Let’s all get up and dance to a song
That was a hit before your mother was born . . .
Chapter Ten
‘Nearly there,’ said Miriam gently.
‘How could I have done it?’ I said, dabbing my eyes frantically. ‘I hate myself for sleeping with him. It was so disloyal, the ultimate betrayal. How could I have done that to Jem? I loved him so much and I didn’t love Simeon, I didn’t. It was disgusting.’
‘It was a misjudgement, Cat,’ said Miriam, ‘a mistake. It’s okay to make mistakes.’
‘No it’s not!’ I shouted. ‘Mistakes hurt people. I can’t bear that Jem got hurt. I hurt him! I ruined everything!’
‘Like Stella?’ said Miriam tentatively.
‘Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Like bloody Stella! Just like her, stupid bloody cow, and I was just as stupid, just the same — selfish, thoughtless, ruining everything!’ I sobbed into the tissues, past caring, glad to have finally said it.
‘Can’t people learn from their mistakes?’ said Miriam, in a while.
‘But I’ve made so many now,’ I said, numb with misery. ‘I’ve hurt everyone. Everyone. Jem, Cleo, Angus and Jeannie, Freddy, Penny, Stella, Nan, everyone. It’s endless.’
‘I think it’s important to admit your mistakes,’ said Miriam slowly. ‘But it’s important to go on from there as well. To forgive yourself.’
‘Some things are unforgivable,’ I said. ‘What I did to Jem.’ My head was aching from crying. ‘And Cleo.’
‘And Tiggie?’ said Miriam, ambushing me.
‘What?’ I stared at her. ‘What?’
‘Something you said,’ said Miriam.
I just kept staring.
‘Shall we do the last bit?’ she said. ‘It’s the last bit, really, isn’t it?’
‘Certainly felt like the end of everything,’ I said, leaning back in my chair, just wanting to sleep.
‘I know exactly where we should go,’ I told Jem.
It was dark by the time Simeon dropped me off at the Sanctuary and I found Jem lying on the floor in the living-room, eyes closed, listening to REM.
‘The radiator overheated,’ I said, sitting down beside him, tired as death.
‘Useless Bus, I might have known,’ said Jem, sitting up. ‘How’s it going to get us up there for real?’
‘Simeon says it’ll be okay at night, it was just hot today. God, was it hot. We should do it tomorrow, Jem,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s a good forecast. We shouldn’t delay. We might get cold feet, or the Salters might come back early. This is the perfect time of the year, plus everything’s smooth in the Sanctuary. And Simeon’s okay for tomorrow too.’
We sat cross-legged in the dark, fine-tuning the plan, and as we talked I realised that by a pure effort of will I could just insist my mind didn’t dwell on today’s events. I was very good at that. I looked Jem square in the face, I held his hands and we went through every piece of tomorrow’s action, step by step.
‘Are you excited?’ I asked him.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘if I don’t think about the Old Man.’
‘Don’t think about him,’ I said firmly, getting up, pulling Jem to his feet.
‘You’re a tough woman,’ said Jem.
‘Actually, you’re right. I am.’
I went to the bathroom and, very calm, very measured, I undressed. I had a long shower and dried myself slowly. I wrapped the towel around me and walked into Jeannie and Angus’s bedroom where Jem was lying on the bed, his arms behind his head, staring into space. He looked at me. And, very calm, very measured, very tough, I dropped the towel, turned out the light and shut the door — on all thoughts of Angus and Jeannie, Simeon, sisters, mothers, step-fathers, grandmothers, aunts, friends, panic, guilt, betrayal, remorse, and the long arm of the law.
We had long since worked out that a vehicle could be driven up the drive and backed into the Sanctuary without anyone in the house being alerted. Jem had ridden the Norton — much louder than The Bus — up and down, while I stayed inside listening to Rigoletto, The Merry Widow, and some antiquated outfit called Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass. I didn’t hear a thing.
‘But would we be listening to music at two in the morning?’ I said, suddenly doubtful.
‘Why not? People our age never go to bed,’ said Jem.
Of course the music would be playing to an empty room because we would be out at Cleo’s cage, but we had to cover ourselves from every side, since — as both Jem and I were aware — we would be the first people the police questioned.
‘We’ll also be the people who report Cleo missing,’ Jem said. ‘So that kind of gives us a head start.’
‘Nah, it’s the oldest blind in the book,’ I said. ‘Reporting your own crime. It won’t do anything for us.’
We had to spring Cleo after midnight, when we could be most sure no one would be around to notice Simeon’s highly noticeable van.
‘Couldn’t you just paint over the fluorescent stuff?’ I said to Simeon, but both he and Jem looked at me as if I were a lunatic.
‘Fuck off,’ said Simeon, ‘that took me months.’
‘May as well ask him to cut off his dong,’ said Jem.
‘She’ll be cool, Red,’ Simeon assured me. ‘I’ll even take care of the tyre marks.’
‘Christ,’ said Jem, ‘we never thought of that.’
‘That’s why you’ve got Uncle Simeon, boy.’
‘The main thing is to avoid the connection being made between the van and Jem via you,’ I said to Simeon.
‘Don’t worry, babe, I don’t want the van connected to any felony, believe me.’
‘Wouldn’t this just be a misdemeanour?’ I said, hopefully.
‘Theft as a servant,’ said Simeon, disturbingly knowledgeable. ‘Seven years max.’ He laughed at our shocked faces. ‘You pure-hearted ideologues should know what you’re getting into.’
‘This is heavy,’ said Jem.
‘Crap,’ said Simeon, damning our last escape route. ‘It’s a piece of piss.’
‘You make it sound as if it was Simeon who finally pushed it through,’ said Miriam.
‘In a way,’ I said.
‘He had the final drive?’
‘Literally,’ I said.
The dope, as Simeon gleefully referred to it, was a tranquilliser injected into Cleo’s meat which she would be fed at 5 p.m. Naturally, Simeon supplied the syringe. He also calculated the dose, according to Cleo’s weight and the length of time before we carried her out.
‘Are you sure we’ll be able to lift her?’ I asked.
‘She’s only a bit heavier than a grown man,’ said Jem. ‘Three people can do it.’
‘Slide her onto the tarp,’ said Simeon, ‘pull the tarp up the plank. Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt, as my old gran used to say.’ He seemed fearless, actually revved up by what we were going to do.
‘Where does Simeon get syringes?’ I asked Jem.
‘Don’t ask,’ said Jem.
On Sunday morning, Jem and I did the rounds of the animals, swept out the aquarium, entertained Peppy and completed the sundry other chores that kept Angus and Jeannie constantly occupied.
‘I’m nervous,’ I said to Jem, when we were feeding Henry and Min. I poured chaff and filled their water trough while Jem cleaned up the droppings. ‘I’ve got constant butterflies.’
‘Same,’ said Jem. He twisted the droppings sack and looked at me. ‘Jesus, Cat, are we doing the right thing?’
‘Yes,’ I said, fervently.
‘It was odd,’ I said to Miriam. ‘I tried to ring Stella, Freddy, Nan and Penny that afternoon, but none of them were home.’
‘And?’ said Miriam.
‘It seemed like an omen,’ I said, ‘the final permission. If I’d spoken to any of them, maybe it might have done something, pulled me back to reality or something, you know, stopped it.’
‘Maybe,’ said Miriam. ‘Maybe not.’
At four o’clock, Simeon rang.
‘The dope,’ he said. ‘I’ve recalculated. Don’t give it until nine and only half the syringe.’
‘You sure?’ I said.
‘Positive,’ he said and rang off.
At nine o’clock I watched Jem inject the slabs of horse meat that were Cleo’s staple diet.
‘Heart,’ he said, burying the needle. ‘No doubt there’s some significance in that.’ I was too afraid to think what.
‘Let’s not watch her eat it,’ I said, after I’d pushed the meat in on the end of the feeding fork, Jem shining the torch. Cleo always came straight over and pulled the meat off the prongs, growling low.
‘Now we just have to fill in five hours,’ I said as we walked back to the house.
‘I can think of a good diversion,’ said Jem.
At 10.30, just as we’d drifted off to sleep, the bedside phone rang.
‘Shit,’ said Jem, sitting up, banging round for the receiver. ‘Sim’s probably blown the head gasket.’
But it was the Old Man, calling from Blenheim. ‘Still awake, Captain!’ I could hear his voice clearly from my side of the bed.
‘Just to inquire after the bairns and beasties,’ he boomed. I turned on the light.
‘All present and correct, Gunner,’ said Jem, a look of great pain crossing his face.
‘Catriona with you?’ said Angus.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Over and out then, Cap’n. Jeannie sends her best.’ Click. The Old Man’s calls were always brief.
Jem replaced the receiver and lay back heavily on the pillows. ‘That I didn’t need,’ he said, sighing. Then a moment later he turned on his front, groaning. ‘Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!’ He put a pillow over his head and stayed buried for a long time.
I stared at the floral wallpaper, resolutely not thinking of the Salters, trying to think of something comforting to say.
‘Right,’ said Jem, eventually. He flung the pillow aside and got out of bed. ‘Music time,’ he said, reaching for his clothes.
At eleven we checked Cleo. She was in her hut, but not fully unconscious. When I shone the torch on her face, she lifted her head sleepily, a couple of centimetres off her paws.
‘Is she just going to be sleepy and co-operative?’ I said to Jem.
‘It’s better if she’s right under. Simeon better have that dose right,’ he said.
‘Sweet dreams,’ I whispered to Cleo.
‘Weren’t you scared of Cleo?’ Miriam asked.
‘Once,’ I said, thinking about it. ‘But mostly I didn’t think about her wild self, not when we were planning and everything. Except as something that would be liberated, grateful to us. If panthers ever feel grateful. Which they probably don’t.’
By 1.30 we had played the whole of Rigoletto, two U2 albums (Jem’s) and a Frank Sinatra record. We had checked Cleo again at midnight and figured she was out. We were lying on the floor together, half-way through South Pacific, when there was a rap at the window.
‘This is it,’ said Jem.
‘He’s early,’ I said, my stomach dropping to my shoes.
‘Ready, hombres?’ said Simeon, when I let him in. He was wearing the usual denim and boots, a broad grin. �
��Nervous are we? Butterflies in the tummy? Cheer up, first time’s always the worst.’
‘First what?’
‘First crime, Red.’
‘Do us a favour,’ said Jem, ‘cut the Red?’
‘The lady in question asleep? You have checked her?’
‘Of course we have and yes she is,’ said Jem. ‘Are you out of it, you fuckwit?’
‘Not at all, hombre. Merely excited by the adventure ahead.’
‘If you two are going to do this brotherly love bit, I’m off,’ I said.
‘Oooh, you’re beautiful when you’re angry, Catreeona,’ said Simeon, giving me a long look from suspiciously red eyes.
‘Okay,’ said Jem, making a big effort. ‘Cleo. You bring up The Bus, Sim. We’ll open the gate.’
‘The Bus is already up, my man,’ said Simeon, doing his private school drawl. ‘You didn’t hear a thing, right?’
‘Christ!’ said Jem. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
We turned the lights off and exited through the back door, locking it behind us. (‘Theory being,’ Simeon had said, ‘you’re in bed about now, all systems down.’) A monkey called out as we passed, but otherwise the animals were quiet or asleep.
‘What’d you do with Jem’s orange girlfriend?’ whispered Simeon. ‘The other orange girlfriend.’ He laughed softly.
‘She’s in with the marmosets,’ I hissed. ‘Shut up.’ We had agreed silence was important.
There was a high, bright, nearly full moon which seemed to shine right above Cleo’s cage.
‘Destiny,’ said Simeon, mock solemn.
I stood at the door of Cleo’s cage, looking in at the hut, waiting while Jem opened the gate in the macrocarpa and Simeon backed The Bus in. Cleo’s position hadn’t changed in the last ninety minutes. As soon as Jem rejoined me at the cage I turned the key in the padlock and opened the gate.
‘That was when I was scared,’ I said to Miriam, ‘just for a moment. When we stepped inside the gate I suddenly had this vision of Cleo busting out of the hut, leaping on us, yowling. It was like I almost heard the yowl. Though, of course, she never moved and it was actually incredibly quiet, that heavy night silence when the smallest sound is amplified — like the sound of a fingernail on metal, or a tiny clearing of the throat. And loud sounds. It’s like a hand reaches into your heart and slowly turns it over. That was what Simeon backing The Bus was like.’
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