Death in Brunswick (15 page)

‘There's some old rice sacks in the passage,' Carl said.

‘Now you're thinking. Good boy. Go and get 'em. This knife now, I'll put it…I'll think of somewhere later.'

Carl fetched the rice bags and Dave wrapped the corpse and bound the bundle with trussing twine.

‘OK, Carl, now you take the legs.'

They lifted the body. There was a loud gurgle.

‘Christ! Dave, he's alive!' Carl dropped his end.

‘All right mate, that's just fluids inside him. Look out, I'll take him.'

‘Oh God!' Carl turned away helplessly.

Dave stopped, and with a huge effort slung the long bundle onto his shoulder.

‘Now go and keep a lookout.'

Carl stumbled out through the passage. The street was empty. He strained his eyes wildly up and down. He felt a nudge in his back; it was the shrouded head. He shrieked,

‘Dave, don't! Jesus!'

‘Shut up, go and open the car…no, the
boot.
Jesus, hurry up, he's bloody heavy.'

‘OK.' Dave dropped his burden in the boot with a groan.

‘Shit, my
leg—
you better hope it holds out! Right now, go and lock the door and we'll be off.'

Dave started the car, the old engine roaring in the silent street. They turned left in Sydney Road and drove sedately north.

‘Look, Carl, do up your seat belt, for Christ's sake. We don't want the cops stopping us.'

Carl fumbled for the strap. He saw Dave's face in the glow of the rain-blurred lights. It was relaxed. His big hands lay lightly on the steering wheel.

‘Dave, you don't know what…Dave, I'll never forget this…'

‘All right, all right. Listen, we're not even halfway getting this done, take it easy. Just keep your head, OK?'

‘Yeah, Dave, I will! I promise, I just wish…'

*

Soon they reached Bell Street and turned right, driving east for five minutes. Dave cut the lights and ignition and they coasted to a stop under a big old gum. He flicked the lights once and Carl saw a great set of wrought iron gates. Across the top in curled lettering he read ‘Coburg Cemetery'.

‘OK, now you sit tight for a minute.' Dave opened the car door.

‘Dave, please!'

But he was gone. Carl heard the groan of iron hinges and then nothing but heavy drops of rain on the car roof.

Dave opened the car door and got in again.

‘So far, no worries. Bluey, that's the caretaker, he's out like a light. He wouldn't wake up if we put old Mustafa in his bed! Now we go round to the side gate. That's where you're really going to have to help me, mate. We're going to have to carry him a fair way. Can you do it?'

‘Yeah, I guess so. I'll have to. Dave, you're…you're
enjoying
this.'

‘Ah, come on! Well yeah…in a way. Look…never mind, let's go!'

They drove slowly round the cemetery fence. Iron railings flicked past in the lights.

‘Thank Christ for this rain, there'll be no bastard wandering round. I'll park behind those bushes.'

Dave slid the car between two large grevilleas.

Thorns whipped the windows. He cut the motor.

‘Now, we need a torch. What else? A
tyre lever
, yeah.'

‘What for?'

‘You'll see. And a shovel. I'll have to go to the shed for that…we better get him up there first.'

They got out and Dave opened the boot.

‘Right. Up you come!'

And he heaved the long bundle out and laid it on the grass. Carl stared wildly round. There was a street light nearby, but they were hidden by the bushes.

‘OK,' Dave muttered, ‘Torch, tyre lever—stick it in your belt—now, where's the key? Front gate, shed, office,
side gate.
Right, beauty!'

‘Oh, Dave, hurry up, someone might come!'

‘Easy now, mate.'

Dave unlocked the gate. It swung open with a screech of rusty iron.

‘We don't use this much. Now, can you take the feet? We'll take it slow and easy. OK?'

Carl picked up his end. The bundle folded flaccidly. He felt the thick ankles through the sacking. Dave held the shoulders and backed through the gate.

‘All right, put him down. This is no good. I can't see where I'm going. I better lock up again, anyway. Now let me think…' Dave said. ‘I better carry him like a roll of carpet—like this.' He crouched, clutching the bundle to his back, holding it over his shoulders. ‘Now when I get up, you take the legs, but don't lift them too high. OK?'

Dave rose grunting. Carl took the legs and they started forward, Dave's boots crunching heavily into the gravel path.

Away from the street lights it was very dark. Carl felt rather than saw the loom of stone monuments. The rain pelted down, hissing in the blackness.

‘Why's he so
limp
?' Carl cried, stumbling. ‘I thought they went stiff!'

‘Jesus, keep your voice down—they don't get that way for hours yet, thank Christ.'

On they trudged. Carl was lost in misery, his panic replaced by an immense fatigue.

They were climbing a slight hill. The graves were flatter here and the path much narrower. Carl tripped and fell, barking his shins painfully on a marble slab. Dave was pulled backwards, dropping the bundle.

‘Shit! Watch it, Carl. Where are we?' He flashed the torch quickly onto the slab. ‘“Di Farenza”. Thank Christ. We're in the Italian section. Not far now…just hang on.'

He sat rubbing his leg.

‘What's wrong?' Carl's voice rose in the darkness.

‘Ah, it's my fucking leg.'

‘Oh, Dave, you can't stop now!'

‘All right, all right, I'm OK, come on!'

They laboured on, Carl following blindly as Dave picked his way unerringly around graves and through rank, wet grass.

‘This is it, mate.' Dave let the bundle slump. Carl knelt panting in the mud.

‘Give us a hand and we'll put him behind this stone. I'll get a shovel from the shed—you stay here and don't move!'

‘Dave, let me come! I don't want to stay here with…'

‘Don't worry, he can't hurt you now.'

They rolled the body behind a long low monument and Carl crouched over it miserably. Dave disappeared again.

Carl, his eyes straining in the dark, crawled around on his knees, his hands outstretched. He found a heap of gravel and mud. There was a rattle of falling stones. One hand slid down a long edge of slick clay and then into emptiness.
The grave.

He recoiled.

He was kneeling, his body bowed, his knees deep in the mud.
Please! If you get me out of this, I'll never…I'll
believe
in you.
He pitched forward onto the clay heap.

His mind slid away. There was a high singing in his ears. Great shining yellow circles turned, wheeled and receded in the velvet black. His limbs jerked and shuddered, ploughing the mud. Then he lay still.

‘Carl, Carl! Where the fuck are you?'

Carl felt comfortable. His cheek nestled in the soft wet earth. His limbs felt blissfully languorous, his mind drifted lazily.
I'm in the graveyard. Why
?

A blinding light flashed in his face. He sat up gasping.

‘You all right?' said Dave.

‘Yeah, sure. I just…I don't know,' Carl said.
What happened to me?

He felt he had lost some part of himself. His mouth felt sore. He had bitten his tongue.

‘Now listen,' said Dave urgently, ‘you'll have to hold the torch, right? And when I tell you, flash it on and off, but do it
quick
, OK? And hold it into the hole, it's over here. Got that?'

‘Oh yeah, right.'

‘Come on then.'

Carl wandered round in the dark.

‘Over
here
,' called Dave.

‘OK, OK.' Carl felt for the edge of the hole. He touched Dave's head.

‘Right now,' said Dave. ‘A quick flick…no! Jesus! Into the
grave
—Christ! Give it to me!' Dave climbed down, his boots thudding into the props. He reached up.

‘Here, take it, I've wrapped my shirt around so you can leave it on.'

Carl held the torch, its light channelled by Dave's T-shirt. He saw his friend's naked back stooping in the narrow shaft. He heard the scrape of a shovel. Gravel sprayed out. Soon there were hollow thuds; metal on wood.

‘Jesus, it's wet down here. Give me more light…hold it
down…
right…here it is.' Dave straightened up. Carl held the torch well down. He saw a black wooden rectangle smeared with clay. It looked like an old split door.
Open Sesame.

‘OK,' Dave said, ‘give us that tyre iron.'

‘What are you going to do?'

‘I'm going to take this lid off and give Maria a bit of company!'

‘But…OK, whatever you reckon, Dave.'

Carl felt washed by trust. He looked at Dave's face raised to his. Dave was grinning through his grey beard. His eyes shone like an excited cat's in the torchlight.

‘Give us that iron now, and hold the light well down.'

Carl pulled the tyre lever from his belt, gave it to Dave, and lay on his stomach, his arm stretched into the grave.

Dave bent grunting with effort. The muscles in his shoulders rose. There was an incredibly loud splintering crash.

‘Jesus! Lights out! Now shush!'

Carl lay, his arm pointing down, the heavy torch in his rigid fingers. He raised his head from the dirt. He could hear only the drip and splash of the rain. They waited.

‘OK, let's see.'

Carl flicked on the torch. Dave was balanced on the lowest row of props, his boots jammed into the clay. The coffin lid was split down the middle and both sides lay loose. Dave pulled them up and Carl saw a long yellow-grey tattered shape. The torchlight wavered.

‘Hold it steady!'

Dave bent again and ripped this cloth from end to end with the claw of the tyre lever. The rotten shroud came easily away.

‘Oh Jesus!'

First he saw a mask of brown ragged parchment resting on a mat of grey hair. The empty eye sockets looked quietly into Carl's mind. Gold teeth gleamed in the lipless mouth. Long pitted bones crossed the ribcage, disappearing into a slurry of green and black. Thick grey masses fell from the raised thighs. The knees were naked cord and bone. Carl dropped the torch. It went out.

‘Holy Christ! I didn't think it would…you all right, Carl?'

It wasn't
real,
it wasn't
real.

Carl fixed his reeling mind and held it.

‘Yeah, I think so…'

‘Don't worry about the light now, I'm going to have to make room for the
other.
Go away for a while if you want to.' Dave's voice shook a little.

‘No,' said Carl, ‘I'm OK.'

‘Right then.'

And Carl heard Dave jump down into
that
! He heard the heavy stamping of Dave's boots. There was a sound as of green branches splintering and breaking. He smelt a strange odour—like fungus and tar.

‘All right, Carl, go and get him.'

‘Dave, I don't think I…'

‘Go and fucking get him
now
!
'

Carl crawled around in the dark till he found the long, still bundle. The wrapping had come away from the shoulders but he grasped them anyway. He heaved, but his strength was totally gone.

‘Dave! I can't lift him!'

‘Well, fucking
roll
him then, hurry up!'

Carl shuffled forward on his knees rolling the bundle up the mound of clay.

‘Right, let him slip, I've got him.'

Carl felt Dave take the weight. There were thuds, a heavy slithering and the choc! choc! of metal on wood.

Dave sighed loudly.

‘Right, help me out…hang on, watch out for the shovel.' It clanged onto gravel.

‘Where's your hands?'

Carl clasped Dave's forearms, feeling the big muscles flex. With a heave he was out. He stood up slowly. Carl could see him faintly against the sky; the rain had stopped and a star or two hid in the clouds. Dave stooped again, picked up the shovel and threw gravel rattling into the grave.

Suddenly Carl bent, feverishly scooping up the dirt with his hands and flinging it in.

‘Hey, take it easy, Carl, we only want about six inches—that'll do, that's it. Let's get out of here! Have we got everything? I'll leave the shovel here, I got to use it tomorrow.'

‘Dave, where's the torch?'

‘Don't worry about the torch,' Dave said grimly, ‘it landed in
that
and I wasn't going to pick it out.'

‘Oh, Dave! Wasn't it…'

‘Yeah, don't think about it. But I'll tell you what, I'm getting rid of these boots!'

He knelt and took them off, throwing them violently into the darkness.

‘Phew! Right, give us your hand, let's go.'

Carl let himself be led like a child through the dim labyrinth. He could see a little more now—huge trees rose against the greying east. He heard the first birds.

‘Come on, mate,' Dave said gently. ‘It's getting light.'

They reached the gate in silence. Dave unlocked it, then:

‘Dave, what was that green stuff?' Carl's tone was level, enquiring.

‘What green…oh yeah. Fuck, I don't know.
Mould
, I guess. Jesus! They ought to
burn
them. I thought it would be just
bones.
I'm giving this job away…ah, bugger it, it's over now. Or nearly. Eleven tomorrow, there's the funeral and I'll fill it in and that's
it
.'

‘Dave, it was a woman, wasn't it?'

‘Look, Carl, just shut up about it, all right? I
told
you, that's it.' They got into the car.

‘Dave, where's your shirt?'

Dave hunched his big shoulders.

‘With the fucking torch…Look, I'll drop you home, OK?'