Black Water (9 page)

Farren wondered if Isla could hear, like, really
loud
sounds. Perhaps thunder or a cannon? Or
inside
sounds, like her own
breathing, or her heart. Or the voice that told you your thoughts.

Watching her, Farren decided that perhaps he and Isla saw the world in a similar way; that, like now, they looked at the same things out of the same window, alone. Well, they were more alone and more the same than other people, anyway. He went in, truly glad that he had bought the book, because it was a good idea to give Isla something. And although it was not the same book it had been, it was still the book that he’d bought for her.

Isla began to cry and Farren didn’t know what to do. The heat of the wash-house rose like flooding water. He began to sweat.

‘It’s orright.’ He came up with a smile that he hoped might persuade her that everything was fine. It was only a book, not much of a present really. It didn’t cost much. It wasn’t even wrapped in proper paper. Hesitantly he touched Isla’s wrist, her sleeve dark and damp. ‘Don’t worry, Isla. Don’t cry.’ He hoped that she would understand. ‘It’s only a book.’

Isla’s eyes, brimming silver-blue and bright, sparkled.

‘Fah-
renn
.’ She sniffed loudly, smiled sharply, and pressed the book to her front. ‘
Than’
you.’ She hugged the book as if it was a baby.

Relief rose in Farren like the steam from the boiling copper.

‘They’d be down there, too.’ He pointed towards the glassless window. ‘Some of them birds in the pictures. Not all of ’em, but some of ’em.
Some’d
be
down
there.’

Isla opened the book and tapped at an illustration in a general kind of a way. It was a tall white wading bird, Farren saw. Probably a heron, he reckoned.

‘I see some.’ Isla smiled, Farren seeing the tip of her tongue
tucked up behind her front teeth. She touched Farren’s hand as she’d touched the illustration. ‘On na wa-tah.’

Farren laughed, as happy as she was, because sometimes he felt she might be quite unhappy – which was why, probably, that he’d wanted to give her a present in the first place. It wasn’t because he was in love with her. He liked her. And maybe he did love her, but he didn’t mind that she was keen on old Derri, because she was a lot older – and apart from everything, he just wanted her to be happy.

Isla stepped forward, kissing him so quickly on the lips he couldn’t have avoided her, even if he’d wanted to.

‘
Than
’ you.’ She patted the book. ‘
Vair
much.’

Behind them Farren heard the clatter of a tin bucket hitting concrete. He turned, catching sight of Charlotte ducking away, the contents of the bucket on the path like a puddle of vomit. Dread plummeted as embarrassment soared.

‘Bloody Charlotte.’ Farren felt his face flush. ‘I bet she got the wrong idea. She always does.’ He doubted Isla understood, but he figured that didn’t matter half as much as making sure that Charlotte did. ‘I’d better go sort it out.’

Farren didn’t have to see Brig Briggingham to know he was on his way down the hill. Hearing Brig’s red and white post-office bike rattling its guts out, and Brig shouting, made sure of it. Farren shut the woodshed door, watching the telegram boy dump his bike by the road and stride to the fence.

‘Hey, Farren! Gotta telegram for ya, mate.’ He waved it. ‘It’s from the bloody army, but don’t shit yerself, ’cos it ain’t one of them death jobs. They get good old revsy Purdue to deliver them-mies –’ Brig winked mightily, ‘because funnily enough, they don’t reckon old Briggsy-boy can be bloody trusted!’

Farren felt something jagged lodge in his chest. This telegram could only ever be about Danny. Brig handed it over.

‘Heard ya gotta sweetheart, mate.’ He fired off another wink. ‘Heard ya was pashin’ her in the wash-house.’ Brig grinned, showing a mouthful of teeth he evidently didn’t care too much about. ‘Ya sly old dog.’

Farren was desperate to open the telegram, but he knew if he didn’t straighten the telegram delivery boy out about Isla first, the
wash-house story’d be fifty times worse by five o’clock.

‘That ain’t true about Isla,’ he said. ‘Charlotte tell ya that, did she? Because if she did, she’s a bloody liar.’

Brig grinned, harder and wider, and backed off towards his bike.

‘Always two sides to every story, sport. Anyways, Farren, yer sexy secrets is safe with me, cobber. Won’t go not a ninch further.’ He picked up his bike. ‘But good luck to ya, anyhow. She’s not a bad sort, for a bit of a funny bunny.’ Brig smiled on and on.

‘Don’t worry about Isla,’ Farren said. ‘She’s orright.’ Farren knew that Brig wasn’t nearly as dumb as he made out; it was just that he’d decided early on that it was a lot more fun to act like an idiot than not. ‘Anyway, thanks for this, eh?’ Farren waved the telegram. ‘And if ya see Charlotte, give her a good hard boot up the bum.’

Brig swung his leg over his bike. ‘Will do.’ He set off up the hill, standing on the pedals. ‘And congrats on the bun in the oven, Foxy! I’ll see yer at the weddin’!’

Farren sat with his back against the woodshed door, took a deep breath, and opened the envelope. The telegram was barely one paragraph long and all it said, in heavy black type-written sentences, was that Private Daniel P Fox had been wounded in the head and arm and would be sent back to Melbourne, Australia, on board the hospital ship,
Aurelia
.

Farren sat stunned. Danny hit in the head? Hit in the head by what? How could that happen? That couldn’t be right. They couldn’t get Danny. Danny was gunna
get
them!

Farren sat without moving; it was as if he’d smashed his finger
with a hammer and was waiting for the pain to come, which it did, and with such force he was overwhelmed by what was gone from his life, what had happened to him, and what was happening to him now. It was as if everything he’d ever had, everything he’d ever relied on, everything he’d ever hoped for, was being wrenched from his grasp and smashed into a million unrecognisable little pieces.

And now this.

Farren could not, and would not, think of Danny hurt. He refused. He would not think about Danny – but he would think about the Turks.

Those
fuckin’
Turks!

Farren smashed the letter into the ground. How could those bloody hopeless, useless gypo wog Turks have got Danny?
Especially
if Danny had made his mind up to get them? They shouldn’t have even got close to him! Never! Not
ever
.

But they had.

And now he, Farren, had no idea how he was going to cope with it. He needed help, he needed help now, but who was going to give it? His mum and dad weren’t here, and although Maggie had helped him to write a letter to the army and stuff, it wasn’t that sort of help he needed. He needed his family, but there was only one other of his family left, and that was Danny. And Danny couldn’t help because now he
needed
help more than bloody anybody else. It was a wreck. The whole thing was. A bloody wreck.

Farren was caught in a torrent of despair so great, so black, the only thing he could do was go with it. And so he buried his head in his arms, and howled into the heat and darkness because he was powerless to stop
any
of this stuff. His life was a mess, he was finished, and that was bloody that.

‘Farren, are you all right? Has somethink happened?’ It was Charlotte, her two timid questions creeping up on Farren like mice.

Charlotte’s words raked him, Farren lifting his head, knowing only one thing and that was that she could not see him like this. Standing behind him on the path, Charlotte looked as if she was just about to make a run for it, although Farren hadn’t seen her run since school and even then she’d only managed as much speed as a fat, woolly sheep.

‘No, I’m not all right.’ Farren cuffed away tears, the soft cloth of his shirt pulling at his face, a loose button scratching under his eye. But there’s not much I can do about it.’ He shrugged, hard. ‘Danny’s got hurt in the war.’

‘Oh.’ Tentatively Charlotte put one worn brown shoe forward then drew it back. ‘That’s terrible. That’s awful.’

Seeing her there, her hands bunched up in her apron as if it was her only protection against the world, Farren felt anger leave him like he imagined a ghost might leave a body. He didn’t want Charlotte to know what he was feeling but he didn’t want to scare her, either, because she was scared by enough things.

‘Danny got wounded in the head,’ he added. ‘And he’s coming home. I just got a letter from the army. That’s it there.’ It lay on the ground, bearing the imprint of his fist.

‘Oh, dear me,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’ Like cautious moths her hands crept out. ‘D’you want a cuppa tea? I just made a pot. It’s fresh.’

Farren shook his head. He wouldn’t have minded having a cup of tea with Charlotte, but he was thinking of something more urgent.

‘No, thanks.’ He stood and brushed off his pants. ‘I’m just goin’ up to Maggie’s to get my stuff and then I’m goin’ back home. To my place.’ He waved at the bridge that vaulted the estuary. ‘You tell Maggie. And I’ll see yers later, all right?’

‘All right.’ Charlotte hadn’t moved from the path. ‘But what about yer letter? You better not lose it, not if it’s from the army.’

Farren didn’t even look at it. ‘I never want to see it again.’ And he set off for the gate, feeling as if he was already more than half the way home.

For company, Farren left the door of the firebox open. He sat with Hoppidy on his lap and looked at the fire, his thoughts climbing over one another as the flames climbed through the kindling. He’d swept and cleaned the parlour, brushing away the black mouse droppings before he scrubbed down every flat surface with soapy water.

It felt good to have cleaned the place and it was nice to hear the fire, but now the house seemed to hover over him as if waiting for him to say something. So he did.

‘I’m stayin’ ’ere,’ he announced. ‘I’ll pay the rent and everythin’. And when Danny gets home he can ’ave the big room and I’ll ’ave the little one. That’s it.’ That was enough for now. That was plenty. It was what he intended to do.

Before it got dark, Farren put Hoppidy in her box, and took it inside. Then he knelt next to the stove, reached back, and took out his dad’s rifle and a small cardboard box of .22 cartridges.

‘Back in a while,’ he told Hoppidy, and went out, walking away from the house and climbing two fences until he was amongst the low, bracken-covered undulations where he knew there’d be rabbits.

Farren stopped to load, the metallic precision of the rifle satisfying. Again he set off, slowly this time, moving with purpose around the fallen skeletons of ring-barked trees, their bleached branches like broken limbs. In the distance a rabbit flickered. Then another took off at Farren’s feet, abandoning its squat to run full-pelt, white tail flipping, to disappear under a log.

A minute later, Farren spotted a rabbit sitting above a burrow, and another just below. Using a stump as a gun rest, he sighted on the one above, knowing it would be less likely to struggle back down the hole if he hit it. Bunnies were tough. He didn’t like them to get away wounded.

Farren settled in for the shot, the front sight like the tip of a black thorn in the rabbit’s fur. Gently he squeezed the trigger, the sound of the shot sudden and wicked, whipping away as the rabbit somersaulted. Farren got up and ran, caught the scrabbling animal, and with one pull that took nearly all his strength, broke its neck.

Back-tracking, Farren collected the rifle, and with the rabbit dangling from his fist, set off for home. To counteract the cold company of the gloomy dusk, he conjured up a picture of Danny in a well-lit hospital in a big white bed, with a clean white bandage wrapped around his head, looking like a pirate. He’d be all right, Farren thought, for no other reason than he was Danny Fox.

Surely.

With the lamps lit, his tea of rabbit and onions eaten, and Hoppidy on his lap, Farren was very aware of the house and what was in it. In the main bedroom, in a small chest of drawers, were two of his mum’s best dresses that his dad had not allowed to be given away, and on a peg in the wall was the thick corduroy jacket his dad wore out for special occasions. Out in the shed, too, was his father’s oilskin fishing coat.

Jack Haggar had put it there, coming to the pub a week after the funeral, the heavy jacket over his arm.

‘I thought you might want this,’ Jack had said. ‘It’s too big for yer now but it’ll fit ya one day. What about you and I just walk over the bridge and hang it up in the shed, eh?’

So they’d crossed the bridge and Jack, using a bit of wire and a gum stick, had hung the jacket on the wall, where it held the outline of Tom Fox’s work years rather than Tom Fox’s bones, blood, and muscle.

Farren sat drinking sweet black tea, and although he did not want to think about death, he couldn’t help but wonder about his mum and dad. Where
were
they? Perhaps he didn’t believe in heaven, but he did want to believe that they were somewhere. He looked around the tiny parlour, at the walls, the chairs and the table, and decided categorically that they sure weren’t
here
. They
had
been, and although he reckoned he could just about summon their voices out of the air, he couldn’t summon them.

So when you died, Farren thought, what happened the next minute? The next hour? What about the next day? Did they even have days, dead people? He hoped they did but doubted it.

And what would it mean, Farren wondered, if Danny had killed some Turks? Would it mean a lot or not much? You weren’t supposed to kill people, everyone knew that; it even said so in the bible, but in a war it was different, especially because the Turks deserved to die and go to hell – and they would go, on the double, sent there by Danny because he could be ruthless when he’d decided the time for muckin’ around was over. Still. It was confusing.

Outside Farren heard a voice. It called long and loud, as if someone was shouting from the top of the bridge.

‘Fah-
rennn
!
Oh
, Fahrennn! We’ve brought you some din-
nerrrr
!’