Mallawindy (35 page)

Red hot wind swept his hair back from his brow, and at first glance he was Jack, but he was a younger, stronger Jack. His hands on the wheel made it miniature. His arms, bare now to
the elbow, showed heavier bones, thicker wrists. His shoe on the accelerator was two sizes larger. The Vevers were made of stronger stuff, and though Ellie had donated no feature, she was at Johnny's core.

For the past hour, he had been talking aloud. It stopped his thinking in this halfway place, between here and where he must be. Mile upon mile of road he had covered.

‘Miles,' he said. ‘Why am I thinking in miles again?'

He knew the answer.

He was in the land he'd travelled with his grandfather, when he'd asked the all child's question. ‘How many more miles, Grandpa?' Every muscle was tensed, as in vain he attempted to push the car faster with his will alone. He had to get there.

He'd broken every speed limit. Lunchtime had come and gone, his only stop in Albury, to buy petrol, coffee and use the roadhouse toilets, but he was almost there.

‘I can smell it,' he said. ‘It's coming for me, drawing me in.' He squinted one eye against the sun, glancing at a sprawling weatherboard farmhouse as it flashed by. ‘That's the old Thomas place. I'm less than twenty miles out of Mallawindy. Smell the earth. Smell that river. Just follow the tree line, and you follow the river home, lad,' he said, and he thought of the old man who'd died between the main course and sweets that night. He'd tried to save him too. Back then, he'd tried to save the world, tried to save a confused little girl, tried to kill his father, but Ellie wouldn't let him.

‘Failure,' he said, then he mimicked his mother's voice. ‘“Johnny is going to be a priest when he grows up.” Maybe that's why I did it, so I wouldn't be a failure in your eyes – or was it just a good place to hide, Mum?'

He eased his wallet from his pocket, then from it he took a small foil-wrapped parcel. With one hand he unwrapped it, exposing a ring. And the sun, beating in through the window caught the shoulder diamonds, flashing red and blue fire in his eye. The car
swerved into the gravel, his wallet slid to the floor, but he gripped the ring as he pulled on the wheel, over-corrected, almost lost control. He was tiring fast, unaccustomed to a day of driving, and to this dry heat.

‘Concentrate,' he warned. ‘Concentrate. You are no good to her dead.' He glanced quickly at the ring, then he forced it for safety onto his smallest finger. It felt odd there, unclean. ‘But we can't lose it now, little Annie.'

A large ring, expensive, heavy gold band, twelve diamonds, and the square black stone. He'd almost sold it in those early years. The inscription stopped him. How could he have explained it? ‘Bent bastard,' he said, and he sounded like his father.

The road ahead appeared to be sinking too early into twilight. The wind was growing stronger too. He sniffed the air. Smoke on the wind. The scent of burning eucalypt.

‘They've got a forest fire up there somewhere,' he said. His foot went down, and the small car again picked up speed. He sighted Watson's property on his left. He was five miles out of Mallawindy.

‘A brief stop?' He shook his head. He had to get to little Annie, the rest could wait. Forty minutes should have him in Warran.

Push me Johnny, push me high. I'm a bird and I can fly. High up to the clear blue sky. I made Liza Burton – .

‘I'm in Sydney, Ann. The plane to Daree leaves around five, and it connects with the bus. I should be home before nine.'

‘I'll pick you up in Daree, David.'

‘Just be home for me when I get there, my love. I just want to know that you're there, and you're safe, and you are waiting for me. Is Branny with you?'

‘She had to go to work. She'll be here around five-thirty.'

‘Good. How have you been?'

‘I've been . . . watching television all day.'

‘You sound – '

‘Have you . . . have you seen a paper?'

‘I just landed.'

‘They've found Liza. Found her . . . body, David.'

There was a long silence. ‘Are you . . . '

‘I'm okay. Don't worry about me. Put the phone down and catch that plane and come home to me.' And the line was cut.

‘I'm fine,' she said to the empty phone. But she lied. Her heartbeat was wild, her head was crawling, and her brain wouldn't turn off. She wasn't sitting down watching television, she'd been walking the house for hours, running to telephones. They wouldn't let her sit still, and when she tried to rest, her bones kept running on the spot.

Have to think of the baby, she told herself, but when she sat, the phone rang again. She wouldn't answer it. She didn't have to any more. David was in Sydney. He was coming home.

And she didn't answer it the next time it rang.

Four more hours, and he'd be home. Just four more hours. She let it ring, ring, ring. And it kept it up until she screamed at it, because four hours was too long, and Bronny wouldn't finish work until five-thirty, and it took her twenty minutes to walk home, and she was alone, with vultures parked outside her front gate, aiming their cameras at her every time she walked to a window.

The blinds were pulled, the curtains drawn to shut them out, shut the world out, but they locked Ann in.

Shouldn't have started it. What did I expect, Annie? Not this. Not this.

The phone continued. Maybe it was Bronny. Maybe it was Ben. It rang out, and commenced once more. And she couldn't take any more. She snatched it off the hook.

Another stranger's voice.

‘I am attempting to contact Ann Taylor, formerly Ann Burt
on – .'

‘Leave me alone,' she screamed and disconnected. Then before
it could ring again, she pulled the plug from the wall, and she walked again, walked the passage, walked the rooms, walked. A caged rat, with no way out.

Far better to get in the car, drive to Daree than this. Far better.

They were leaning on the door-bell again. She stood in the passage, rubbing her eyes, her brow. The ringing continued. Insistent knocking followed. She stood, rubbing, rubbing her eyes, her hands covering her face. Cold face. Cold hands. With the windows closed, and the house airless, she had turned on the air-conditioner. The family room was cold as a freezer, and the chill was seeping down the passage.

She walked to the family room. Sat, shivered. At least the noise of the air-conditioner was a constant. She stood, walked again. She lit a cigarette then stubbed it out, and she walked, and the doorbell rang.

She sat again and looked at the wall. It was moving, closing in, as another wall had once closed in on he
r. Shadowed wall. Black. The black was coming, and she was cold, shivering cold. No strength to fight it any more.

Hold on. Hold on, Annie Blue Dress.

Footsteps on concrete. Walking away, like in that other place.

May's footsteps walking away. ‘One more dark and one more light and I'll be back. I promise you, sweetheart. Just be brave for me. One more dark, and one more light.'

She'd waited for the footsteps to return. Waited. Waited. She'd been a good girl. Aunty May's good girl.

Dark coming again soon. Footsteps coming down the side.

‘Trip-trap. Trip-trap. Trip-trap. Who's that walking over my bridge? Only me, just little Billy Goat gruff. I'm going to eat you all up, said the ogre.'

Ogres with their cameras, gobbling up lives. Parasitic life forms, their survival dependent on another's misery.

Coming to get me. Coming to get me.

It would all come out now.

‘And why did Ted Crow kill Liza, and not you, Mrs Taylor?'

‘Good question. A very good question.' Her brain could find no logical answer. She needed Malcolm's devious head to write the new scenario. He'd be good at it, but he wasn't home to write it.

‘We have to get the murderer to bury the body while the child looks on, sir, and then we have to find a reason why the murderer didn't kill the sister, and bury her too, sir.'

‘It defies logic, Burton.'

It defies logic.

The police had called. They had asked no questions, but they were coming tomorrow. They wanted her to help draw up an identikit photo of poor much maligned Ted Crow.

She laughed. Laughed loud, laughed long.

‘He had black wings and a long sharp beak,' she said, and she laughed again.

Give it up. Give in. Put it in the too hard basket, and – escape. Escape to that other place, that better place.

Hold on, Annie Blue Dress. It has begun, and we will find an end together.

Rat-a tat-tat. Tat-tat.

Rhythm in the knock.

And again. Rat-a-tat-tat. Tat-tat.

She walked to the rear passage, looked through to the opaque glass of the back door, through which she could see the shape of the one knocking. Tall as her father. Broad as her father. Dark shape.

Where was Jack Burton hiding? Were they pursuing him too? Or had he come to help them get her? Where was Ellie? Where was Ben? Where had Malcolm gone today?

Is the world out there still turning for them?

David. Poor David of the laughing eyes and smiling, asking mouth. I will be gone before you get here. Don't hurry home. Nothing to come home to. Going, going, gone.

Rat-a-tat-tat. Tat-tat-tat, and a voice.

‘Annie.'

A stranger's voice, speaking Annie's name.

‘Annie? Annie, love?'

A stranger's voice? Oh no, never, never, never a stranger.

Ann lifted her head. She stood, listening, shivering.

‘Annie, it's me. I know you're in there, love.'

And she heard. And she tried to accept the words, but her mind rejected them. This was all part of the game. This was all a part of the lie. Let go of the lie. Let it slip away. But her bones that would not lie down, were walking her to the opaque door.

‘It's me, love. Johnny. Open the door.'

Johnny.

Little name, lost too long. All gone away. Silly lonely little word, it was picked up by the north wind, tossed around the wid
e eaves to howl at the chimney, and be carried away like so much thistle down in a storm.

But a tiny echo of the name puffed itself out with its own importance.

‘I'm here. I'll look after you, love. It's Johnny.'

The voice was breaking, and her hand reached out. It grasped the door knob, and slowly, so slowly the door was opened. And he was there.

He was there.

He was.

Coal black eyes wide, she stood, afraid to move, to breathe, afraid action may make him unreal.

His tears had started. No more room for words. He reached out to the trembling rod of cold sprung steel, forced too long in rigid bend, then the steel rod snapped and Ann screamed his name.

‘Johnny.'

It was the primal scream of her childhood, the howl of a wounded tiling that wouldn't die. And the tears came. Hot, scalding
tears. A flood of tears locked away for too many years, they burst like water from a fractured main and they mixed together with her brother's as they clung there, clung in the doorway, clung until the world became a blurred distant thing, until it went away, far, far away, but she and Johnny had never needed the world.

johnny is home

They were braver later. There was a pulling back, a realisation of years past, and of the others he had left behind. They spoke, they side tracked, and they wept. Ann made tomato sandwiches, and they ate them together. They always liked tomato sandwiches. They drank tea, and he still took two sugars, and too much milk, and she always took two sugars and too much milk, because he did.

‘Never weaned,' he said, and they laughed and they looked at each other's red eyes, red noses and they wept again, and he held her and the ring on his smallest finger caught in her hair.

‘Why did you keep it?' He shook his head, and she said, ‘I went back to the sand dunes, just before Mandy died. We built sand castles there, Johnny.'

‘You remember that day, love. Fletch – John Fletcher.'

She nodded. ‘Everything. Everything now. Why did you keep
it?'

He took the ring off, handed it to her. He watched her turn it in her hand, peer at the inscription. ‘It's all I had, love. I was going to come back, when I was ... was big enough. I stayed close to you for that first year, but I never felt quite big enough. I let you down, love. I let everyone down.'

She shook her head and handed back the ring, and he tossed it
disdainfully to the table as he yawned, exhausted by emotion, and by his day, and his drive. ‘We knew we'd found something strange when we dug him up that day. The Aborigines always buried their dead in a seated position, knees up, chin down, and their skulls had teeth, but the bones we dug up were buried in a flat grave. Burnt. There wasn't much left except the skull and a leg bone. I knew as soon as I saw that ring in your hand. I knew what we'd found.

‘You were barely communicating. “I find,” you signed. “Grow on grass. I know nothing.” I looked in your golden syrup tin that night, and it was all there, love. The big black bird who the beautiful stepmother had placed a spell on. The one about the cellar. It was all there.'

‘He loved Liza. He loved her, Johnny.'

Lightning split the sky, lit the room. All the blinds were open now, the windows open.

‘How much have you told the police?'

‘Where Liza was buried. I – '

‘Tell them. Show them your little poems.'

She looked at his eyes, and her tears started again. She shook her head, and tried to dry her eyes, but tears oozed and trickled faster than she could wipe them away.

They stared at each other, and he wept with her, then he held her a while and they tried to laugh at their tears. It was all too new, this weeping. New for both. They didn't do it very well yet.

She drew away, tried to laugh off her tears, but howled again. ‘Wine,' she said. ‘Branny said to drink wine. Wine always makes me happy. Do you drink?'

He nodded, watched her take a cask of riesling from the refrigerator, watched her pour.

‘Little Bron. How did she grow?'

‘She's my rock, Johnny. I don't know who she gets it from.'

‘And Mum?'

‘She's got her cows. She's . . . I don't know how she is, or
who she is. I don't know her, Johnny. I don't know if there is anyone in her to know.' She silenced, took a tissue from the box and blew her nose. ‘Did she know?'

Johnny shook his head. ‘I don't think so, love.'

‘You didn't tell her?'

‘No. She was . . . child-like. Towards the end I got to think she was younger than I. I couldn't hurt her, Annie. I couldn't ever hurt her. She made me leave. I was fifteen, half out of my brain
. He was my father. What could I do? Kill him. I tried, but I couldn't do it to her. She married him in the church.' His voice was bitter, and he picked up his glass of wine, drank it down like medicine and poured another.

‘I never saw you as a priest. I thought I'd found you once in a used car yard.'

‘I might have made a better fist of selling cars. I sold just about everything else there for a few years. I went up to Brisbane after that first year, worked all day and went to school at night. It didn't leave me too much time to think.'

‘Mum will be pleased. Doesn't that buy her a seat in heaven? A son given to God.'

‘I'm not a priest's bootlace. Never was. It was atonement for my sins, a hole I crawled into. I had nothing, Annie love. Nothing.' He emptied the glass, then pushed it away. ‘It doesn't make me happy,' he said. ‘I stay away from it, love. What's he doing these days?'

‘Spends half his life in Narrawee, comes home and drinks. Mum has a ball when he's away. Goes to cards, plays bingo, then she tiptoes around him when he comes home. Nothing has changed. May still writes,
Sam is looking forward to seeing you at the end of the month.
And Dad picks up his briefcase and leaves.' Ann's hands played with the wine glass, she turned it in circles, turning, turning. She drank, then looked at her brother. ‘I saw Sam a few years ago, Johnny. He's a good man. He's a really good man. He doesn't drink.'

Johnny shook his head. ‘I opened his briefcase the same day I looked in your golden syrup tin. In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. I opened it with one of Mum's bent hairpins. Any proof I needed was in his case, love.'

Minutes passed, he yawned again. Weariness was overtaking him. ‘It has to come out. For you, and for me, it has to come out. My whole life has been a lie.'

‘I hated Sam when I was tiny. I hated him, Johnny.'

‘Dad nearly killed me for letting you and Liza go there. “You let them go to that filthy bastard,” he said.' Johnny silenced, yaw
ned again. ‘I should have known better. Sam always smiled too much. His eyes were cruel. They followed you. He liked to touch, but his hands were always damp – .' Ann filled her wine glass, picked up Johnny's, but he shook his head, and stood, stretched his limbs.

‘I've been up since four.'

‘Do you want to crash out for an hour?'

‘A strong coffee will do the trick. I'll wait until Bronwyn gets here, then I'll . . . I'll go . . . go home.'

She looked at him, shook her head. He couldn't go home. Bad could only be made worse. It had to stop here. He had to stay here tonight.

‘At least make yourself comfortable.' She pointed to the big recliner. ‘It's David's private property, but the bus doesn't get here until after eight.'

Johnny looked at the big chair, then he tested it. Almost big enough. He lifted the footrest, pushed back, and swung his feet up. ‘What happened to Mr Fletcher, the old school teacher?'

‘He's still in Mallawindy. He's a . . . a – ' She tried to say friend, but he was more than a friend. ‘He made me go to school.'

His eyes were closed against the glare from the window. ‘He was old when I was a kid.'

‘He's reached that era of non-ageing. Looks the same as he did ten years ago. He weighs a tonne, drinks like a fish – ' She spoke
on about the old man, pleased to think of him. She spoke of his house, and his on-going feud with Jack Burton. The wine had gone to her head, loosened her tongue, and it had dried her tears, but by the time the jug had boiled and the mug of coffee was made, she knew most of her words had fallen on sleeping ears.

She picked up the onyx ring, and stood near the window, looking at the inscription, still clear, unworn.

‘Sam and May 1953'.

On tiptoe, she walked to the bench, took up her handbag and dropped the ring into it. Car keys, sunglasses, the drapes pulled slowly, afraid the noise may wake the sleeper, but he didn't move. She slipped her shoes from her feet, and crept to his side.

‘Sleep on, my Johnny. Sleep long,' she whispered, and she was out the back door, closing it carefully behind her.

After five-thirty. She may be in time to catch Bronwyn before she left the office.

Her head held high, she walked around to the garage while cameras flashed, and she flashed the smile she saved for cameras. She waved a hand to videos. A little drunk, but ready now to write the end.

‘Mrs Taylor, Mrs Taylor. Have you got a moment?'

‘Tomorrow,' she said, and again she flashed her smile.

‘Is it true that the death of your daughter – '

‘Tomorrow.'

Tomorrow me world would be safe. She would make it safe.

Ellie sat at her kitchen table, staring vacantly at the wall. ‘Hello, loves. I wondered if you'd come down when you heard,' she greeted Ann and Bronwyn. ‘Bessy's been with me all day, but she had to go home and fix tea.'

‘Where is Dad?' Ann said.

‘Probably at the hotel, love.'

Bronwyn walked to the gun, still propped against the wall
behind the old wireless that never sang. She defused it, tossing the twin cartridges into a drawer, then she kissed her mother and told her that Johnny was asleep in Ann's family room.

Ann stood watching. Dark head, and fading gold, together. The young fresh face, and the old. Together. Arms around each other. She turned from them, walked to the stove, placed wood in it, filled the kettle, while Ellie wept her few expected tears.

Unreal tears, they soon dried, and she was cutting cake. Ellie's response to any given situation was a reflection of Jack's. He was not here to offer her guidelines. She placed slabs of fruit cake on a plate, then pointed with her knife to the photograph of Liza. ‘That poor little girl,' she said.

Ann followed the knife's point to the photograph. Unreal too. Over-painted chocolate box thing. But at least in this place unreality was the norm, so Ann slipped into unreal. She ate fruit cake, drank tea, spoke of the bushfires, and the forecast of rain. ‘I might pop up and tell Ben that Johnny is home.'

‘Ben's gone, love. I thought he would have called you?'

‘Gone? Where?'

‘Away.' Storm clouds moved, lightning flashed, thunder rolled.

‘What do you mean, away?'

‘Cape York. And he said that when he got there, he was going to get on a boat and row to China.'

‘Because of . . . because they found Liza?'

‘Oh, no love. It was before we even heard about that. It was after he cut down his trees.'

‘We didn't notice they were down. Did they reach?' Both girls were on their feet and looking out the window. They could see the space, but not the bridge.

‘He cut them down three days ago. Bob Dooley and Bessy's Mick were pulling on a rope from the other side of the river, and the trees fell exactly where Benjie wanted them to fall. Him and the others moved them together with young Mick's tractor, then they set up some pole things in the middle and hammered a few
planks on.' Ellie looked down to her folded hands. She blinked a while at the condition of her chipped nails.

‘He was so happy, like a little boy again, running backwards and forwards across his bridge, the heels of his boots making a real racket. He had half the town down here when it was finally finished. They were all helping to build a bit of a rough ramp up to Bessy's side while Ben hammered on the steps he'd made for our side.

‘When he told me to try it out, loves, he looked so proud. He was standing on Bessy's side, just looking so proud of himself. So I walked across to him. Your Dad came down too. He was being . . . like he always is with Benjie – .' She looked down at the table, swept some crumbs into her palm. ‘He said, “A drum of petrol should neaten it up okay.” Benjie knew he didn't mean i
t, because he just laughed at your Dad. “I've done what I set out to do, which is more than you ever did you useless old b-a-s-t-a-r-d,” he said.

‘Benjie never swore, and when I spoke to him about it, he said, “There comes a time when a mouse has to know when it's time to jump off the wheel, Mum.” That's the last time I saw him. Dooley came down late last night and gave me the keys to Ben's place – and his message about Cape York and going to China.'

Bronwyn and Ann had listened this far in silence. Now Bronwyn sat and placed her head on her folded arms, and she laughed, her hair in the saucer of her tea cup. She laughed until Ann joined with her.

They fried eggs later, and made toast against the red hot embers and they laughed. They made fresh tea, and giggled, trying to control twitching lips, but a word or a glance set them off anew. Ben had broken free. He'd gone off to row a boat to China, and they laughed at the visual image of him pulling on the oars, riding the waves across the ocean. Away, far far away from bloody Mallawindy.

Ellie smiled quizzically, watched them eat egg, almost choke
on egg, and her green eyes didn't understand their laughter. She shook her head at them. Surely this was not the time and place for joviality, not with little Liza dead; still, she'd been dead a long time, and Jack wasn't around to see her, and their laughter was infectious. Ben, rowing to China. Goodness me. He'd never leave his land. He was his grandfather's blood. Her blood. Of course he'd come back to his cows.

Ellie had a fine big laugh when she let it loose.

They washed the dishes, scraped egg yolk from the forks. Wiped the old table down with a cloth, then sat again.