Clowns At Midnight (17 page)

I thought of Carlo. He had mentioned Dionysos.
He
must have brought this figure to my hillside! I’d have to ask him, demand to know what he was playing at.

I kept reading. The ancient origin of the name mamuthone was possibly from
maimone
, the name not only for a scarecrow but a puppet and Bacchic idol as well, even a demon. Back when Mars was still a nature god, not yet the god of war, Roman citizens had driven a goatskin-clad figure, old Mars or old Mamurino, from the city gates as a scapegoat, driving out bad luck with him. But, whatever the variations, the link with the
tragoudia
—the goat songs in honour of Dionysos—was always there.

Too much. Too much.

I’d ask Carlo, use it all as an excuse to see Carlo again.

I logged off and went out to the kitchen. It was noon. I grabbed the phone and called the Risi number. Carlo or Raina, it didn’t matter. But I needed to speak to Carlo.

Six rings and he was there. ‘Hello? This is Carlo.’

‘Carlo, I looked up Sardinia on the Net.’

‘David. Good, good!’

‘I know about the nuraghic towers.’ It all came gushing out.

‘The
nuraghi
, ah, good. You’re learning all about us.
Bene
!’

‘Carlo, I looked up Mamoiada. I know about the Shepherds’ Carnival. The mamuthones.’

There was the barest hesitation before he answered. ‘Yes? Interesting, eh? Unforgettable.’

It wasn’t what I’d expected. A hesitation, yes, but no attempts to dissemble or evade. Just easy bonhomie, the familiar Risi affability, though with that telling hesitation.

‘Were any of your family mamuthones?’

‘Of course,’ he answered immediately. ‘But years ago,
capisce
? It is a great honour. It takes great stamina, great dedication. The bells are so heavy. The dance has to be perfect.’

I still hadn’t brought it out into the open, and I could only wonder why. I needed to externalise this, otherwise it remained locked away in my solitary experience of it. An autoplastic hell. My madness.

But speaking it would sound just as crazy, and would probably change my relationship with Carlo, take it to some new level. I wasn’t sure I wanted that. I liked him. I wanted him to like me.

I skirted the edges again. ‘Are mamuthones ever seen outside of Sardinia?’

Does anyone dress as one around here?

‘Not that I know of. It’s a nice idea. But, you know, there just aren’t enough of us. It was never kept up. We miss that.’

Did I imagine it or was there an odd, nervy edge to his tone?

‘Your father never tried to keep the old ways?’ Skirting. Probing.

‘Papa? No, David. You must understand. Leaving Mamoiada took determination and renunciation. Sacrifice, even betrayal. He made the decision and stuck by it. The clean break. So much had to be let go. So many of the old ways.’

‘What about your terracotta face?’

Carlo laughed, though again with that odd nervous quality, I thought. ‘A reminder, nothing more. So many important things are reduced to décor and what gets called lifestyle rather than deeply lived parts of a life. Raina and I have made more of an effort to keep the connection than even Papa did. He made the clean break; we’ve tried to soften the edges.’

It was so frank, so open, but laden with the odd quality I’d noticed.

‘But your Papa brought that with him.’

‘He certainly did. But fitting,
ne
, given all that was left behind? A good choice.’

‘Carlo, I’ve seen a mamuthone up on the hill.’

There, it was out. There was silence on the line for three, four seconds or more before Carlo spoke.

‘
Scusi
, David. This word? Your pronunication. It is spelt how?’

I spelt it out for him.

‘Ah, a mamuthone!’ He pronounced it mam-oo-tone-eh. ‘Thank God you have! I worried that I was the only one.’

CHAPTER 12

Again, it wasn’t what I’d expected. ‘You’ve seen it?’ I didn’t believe him for a minute. Couldn’t, though it explained the edginess I had sensed.

‘Several times,
sì
. It has to be a joke. Someone playing a joke. It has to be. But where was this? Where did you see it?’

Carlo was a master at this sort of game, at using his questions to stop mine. But I told him. Though it felt absurd to be recounting it, I told him about the figure at the edge of the forest, the fleece and mask on the cross, the blood on the bells. I told him about the bottle-trees and how I’d put up one of my own, and how they had all been destroyed.

‘David, you have met some of our friends. I don’t think I have enemies. I can’t really imagine such a thing. But who else would do it but someone out to do us harm? Who else would masquerade as a mamuthone? Raina agrees –’

‘Raina has seen it too?’

‘Raina? No. But I told her about it, of course. She will be so relieved to know you’ve seen it also. She was worried,
ne
? Poor Carlo is becoming a crazy man.’ I imagined him doing a spiral with one finger at the side of his head. ‘She will be so relieved. But it doesn’t help us.’

I didn’t know what to feel. He sounded sincere, seemed deeply, genuinely relieved. His first reaction, his hesitation, had seemed at odds, true, especially with his subsequent claims, as if he had been deciding which explanation to give and preparing a performance. Using Jack’s terms, it had seemed to be inappropriate affect, his emotional response not quite matching the stimuli of my declaration.

Now I allowed that he’d feared
I
might be teasing and provoking
him
, trying to catch
him
out. I had never thought to imagine how Carlo might appear when troubled or worried, but here it was.

‘What do we do?’ I said.

‘First thing, David, you must come over and tell Raina. Can you please? She must hear this.’

‘I’d be glad to.’

‘
Bene
! You will come over tonight?’

‘All right.’

‘
Bene grazie
! We will have dinner, yes?’ Then he hesitated once more. ‘But a mamuthone! Who would know? Who would go to the trouble? Why? It is inconceivable.’ He seemed to be genuinely marvelling at it.

‘It has to do with the tower,’ I said. ‘The fleece was on that cross outside the tower.’

‘And blood, you say?’

‘Some blood, yes.’

‘Real, you think?’

I hesitated before answering. I’d never thought to question it. ‘Carlo, I didn’t touch it. I couldn’t. It looked real. There were flies over it.’

‘You went back?’

‘I went back today. This morning. There was nothing, no blood, not that I could tell. But it would have dried. Dust could have been smeared over the wood. But no stains. I’ve been worried about this.’

‘We are not crazy men, David. One of us, yes. Two of us, no. You will come and tell Raina.’

‘I will.’

‘
Bene
. Come around six, yes?’

‘Yes.’

It was hard to wait out the afternoon. My madness had been tidied up again, shoved back into its cage, its concertina file where it stirred and shifted like bellows, swelling one moment, sinking back the next. But everything had changed. It wasn’t just another day in the life of a phobic, compulsive personality, not just grounds for lyssophobia. It was out in the real world now, part of the lives of others, being shared. It wasn’t just me.

I tried writing, tried answering emails and doing Net searches, but found it impossible. It was barely five o’clock, too early to go to the Risis’, but I couldn’t wait around knowing all this. Who else could I tell? There was Jack and Mick and Julia, so many others, but none who belonged here, who knew
this
place. Except for Gemma. I knew where she lived.

It was still bright daylight as I drove down to the gate at 5:10. The wind had continued. Great towers of cumulus stood in the sky; patterns of cloud-shadow marched across the land.

Why not tell her? Why not test whatever this can be? She knew so much of it already.

It took ten minutes to reach the Sellen Road turn-off and the house behind its screen of trees. There was the swing where Gemma had been sitting after the storm. There were the lace curtains and the deep veranda.

A woman in her early fifties answered the door, wiping her hands on an apron.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Is Gemma here please?’

The woman looked puzzled. ‘Gemma? No-one named Gemma lives here.’

‘Gemma Ewins? Isn’t this the Ewins’ place?’

‘Afraid not. You must have the wrong address.’

‘I’m sorry. Do you know the Ewins at all? They’re supposed to live around here.’

‘Sorry.’

I thanked her and returned to the car. No wonder Gemma had kept looking back at the house. It hadn’t been to see if she were being watched by a hostile or disapproving parent, hadn’t been to check if someone sleeping had been disturbed. It was checking to make sure she wasn’t seen, to maintain an illusion of living here.

It gave a whole new dimension to it. She had planned our meeting, had been told when I was leaving Starbreak Fell, probably via the mobile phone left in a car parked further along this quiet dirt road.

She had chosen the house because of the swing!

That had to be it. As crazy as it seemed, she had wanted me to find her sitting in a swing again, just like at the picnic. She or
they
: the others in this charade.

But part of a plan, a carefully coordinated plan. The scale of the deception threw me. I wasn’t imagining it. First the mamuthone, now this.

The woman at the door could have been part of it for that matter. And if her, why not all of them: Carlo and Raina, Len Catley, even Jack—all staging this quirky psychodrama for my benefit? David Leeton’s little show.

But why a swing? What was the significance there? Why go to all the trouble of arranging it so I’d find her like that, playing such a game? It seemed absurd.

But Raina knew Gemma’s real address. I recalled Connie Lambert’s words at the supermarket.
Raina will know
.
I’d ask Raina if I were you
.

It was 5:35. I took my time driving back to the Risis’, turning it all over in my mind but finding no answers. Gemma in a swing. A mamuthone on the hill. One of Gemma’s friends playing a part. Perhaps doing it herself. But
why
do it? Why bother? I’d ask Carlo and Raina.

No-one was waiting on the front veranda this time, but when I rang the large brass bell by the door, Raina answered almost immediately. The look on her face showed concern and relief.

She kissed me on both cheeks and took my hands firmly in hers. ‘You are so good to come, David. Carlo has told me.’

‘That it was a mamuthone?’

‘A mamuthone,
sì
. It has to be a trick.’

‘One that changes everything for both of us. I can’t tell you how glad I am to be here.’ I meant it, though the business with Gemma left an edge of doubt, even nagging mistrust.

Her hands tightened on mine. ‘David, forgive me but I must ask. You wouldn’t joke about this. Only our family and closest friends know. They didn’t tell you?’

‘Raina, it’s what I saw. It terrified me. It’s my problem. My area, you understand? I might have imagined it, but I’m sure I didn’t. I felt like asking Carlo if
he
was pretending for
my
benefit.’

‘He wouldn’t –’

‘I know, but I felt like accusing both of you of arranging it. As a prank. Forgive me, but I’m still not sure you haven’t, but I have to place my trust somewhere. I can’t easily tell you how relieved I am that he said he has seen it too. I don’t go anywhere without a camera now. I intend to get proof if I can.’

Raina smiled, nodded vigorously. ‘Well, now we have each other. You and Carlo have this mamuthone. I have this thing for the tower on the hill.’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’

‘I make myself go to it when I can, like the other day. So many nice places on this property, but I try to go there. We put flowers on the cross. We made it ours. But it bothers me, you know? It scares me.’

Her grip on my hands was as tight as ever, her dark eyes flashed with emotion in her weatherworn, handsome face.

‘You haven’t found the key?’

‘I’ve always had the key. It was never lost.’ She said it so matter-of-factly, and somehow it made me relax even more. ‘Forgive me. It bothers me. It should have been pulled down long ago. It shouldn’t be there.’

‘It truly was here when you arrived?’

‘
Sì
. The tower
and
the maze.’

‘The cross?’

‘That’s part of it, you see? Part of why it troubles me. That appeared there ten years ago. Someone put it up.’

‘Like the bottle-trees.’

‘
Scusi
? The what?’

‘Carlo should hear this too.’

‘Yes, yes. We should talk.
Per favore
. We’ll have a good meal and talk. Work this out.’

As I followed her down the hallway I heard voices, and realised that it wasn’t to be just the three of us as I’d expected.

Once again there were others in the large family room, sitting with Carlo before the terracotta mask, though no-one I’d met before. Tonight it was family: Carlo and Raina’s two sons, Fabrizio and Ennio, and their daughter, Fabiana, three olive-skinned, black-haired Sardinian Australians in their early thirties, all attractive, all healthy-looking, clearly people on the land: Fabrizio, the eldest son, with his Australian wife, Pauline, and their three children; Ennio and his Neapolitan wife, Mona, and their two boys, and Fabiana with her Sardinian husband, Diego, and their three children.

But thankfully it wasn’t to be a public performance. After the introductions were done, the children were ushered into the adjoining part of the room by Pauline and Mona, and the wooden concertina dividing doors pulled shut. Apparently they would be eating in there. It left only Carlo and Raina, Fabrizio, Ennio, Fabiana and the son-in-law, Diego, at the long table, with me sitting with my back to the mask, distracted by the six pairs of eyes on me, and so keenly aware of the seventh, empty but night-filled just the same, watching from the wall above the fireplace.

I didn’t argue with how Carlo and Raina wanted this to go. I would have preferred it to have been just the three of us, but understood what the seriousness of the situation required. Carlo had no doubt shared the news of his sightings with his family; this was a vindication, almost an acquittal. It was a serious thing, seeing a mamuthone here, something akin to what?—me seeing an Aboriginal Kadaitcha man? Ned Kelly? A ghost? I could think of no suitable equivalent. But like Raina, like myself, the others were clearly relieved too.

The most wonderful cooking smells came from the kitchen, but it needed to be business first. There was just too much nervous energy, too much excitement.

And Carlo started it off, telling how he had been pruning the maze several weeks ago, up on a step-ladder near the centre. Raina had gone in to Lismore; Fabrizio and Ennio were tending the pigs, installing a new gate to the main day-pen. There was no-one else around. Carlo had looked up from wielding his hedge trimmer to see someone standing near some gumtrees to the east, about four hundred metres away. It had been a heavy-looking dark figure, but Carlo hadn’t identified it as a mamuthone then, just an intruder. By the time Carlo had found his way out of the maze, the figure had gone.

A week or so later, very close to Christmas, Carlo had been on his own again while the family were either in the piggery sheds or off shopping. He was crossing the yard when he noticed someone standing on the nearer slope of a forested hill nearby, a smaller, much closer hill than mine. Carlo had gone for his binoculars, fully expecting the intruder to have vanished when he returned. But apparently the stranger had wanted to be seen this time, and Carlo was able to focus his binoculars on the figure and identify the distinctive outfit: the blacks and browns of the sheepskin and clothing, the scarf and cap, the black, brooding mask with its coarse, heavy features, the distinctive, hunchbacked clustering of bells. Then, as if satisfied that it had been seen, the figure had turned and walked up into the forest, exactly as my mamuthone had done. But by the time Carlo had driven over to investigate, there was no sign of anyone. And that was it.

It was my turn then. I told them about the bottle-trees and how I’d put up one of my own; how I’d found them all destroyed: the remains of the three up on the hill carefully cleared away. I opened a small press-seal container from the Rankins’ kitchen and tipped out my shards of glass, realising suddenly how they were no proof at all really, certainly not presented by someone with a declared psychological condition.

But Carlo had seen a mamuthone too. My audience stared at the bright fragments and listened to what I said with frank astonishment, yet also what looked like complete acceptance, their dark eyes widening and their brows lifting, but their expressions always ones of solemn attention.

I told them about the cries in the night then, the Yakkos calls in the windy dark, and endured their exchanged frowns and glances, wishing I could read them better. I resisted the idea that they were thinking: ‘Listen to this! Our new neighbour
is
crazy!’ I kept telling myself that they would accept it. They would understand and allow how easy it was to set someone up, to stage the elements of a scare so easily. They would believe that much at least.

I knew I might be blathering, raving, overstating everything, but it had to come out; it was such a vital, precious release. I described the figure at the edge of the forest, how it had stood weighed down by its panoply of bells like some fantastic insect, like a bush demon, yes, like a banksia-man with gaping seed-cases on its back, and how it had finally turned away just as Carlo’s had and was gone. I told them how, belatedly, I had pursued it through the forest and later found its trappings on the cross outside the tower, how I’d seen the blood smeared on the bells.