One Sunday (36 page)

She'd clung to him then, so he'd pushed her, walked away from her. And this was the memory he must carry with him for life. He didn't deserve to live. Better if they did hang him – or he hanged himself.

He turned, walked to the barn.

Moonlight painting patterns on the floor, the rope dangling there. He reached for it, reached high, allowing it to take his weight. Then he swung across the barn, as he and Kurt had swung on that rope since childhood, when their father wasn't around. Hand over hand, he pulled himself up, knowing now what he had to do. He'd tie a noose in that bloody rope, and when that mean old bastard came out here to carve his wood at dawn, he'd find his son swinging on his precious bloody rope.

Up he went until he could throw one leg over the rafter, reach a hand over his head and hold on to a cross beam. And he was up, and perched there. I am the barn owl, he thought, though never so wise as the owl. I am the fool who killed the girl who made me a man, and without her I am not a man. Better that I am dead and with her.

It was dark in the rafters, but he tied a good noose halfway up the rope and slipped it over his head. ‘So jump. Swing, you arrogant bastard,' he said.

He couldn't do it. He didn't have the guts. And he didn't want to die, anyway. He wanted to fly an aeroplane over that bastard of a country that spawned his father, and drop a bomb on it.

His fingers found the knot attaching the rope to the rafter. Too many years since it had been tied, it wouldn't respond to his prying fingers. He needed a knife, or one of the woodcarving chisels. Gripping the rafter with his knees, he looked down at the workbench. Plenty of knives down there.

No knife in his pocket, though, only that roll of notes, which, now that they were in his possession, had lost their power. His desire had been to find that money, and to let his father know that he'd found it. What he wanted now was a knife. How much, at this moment, might he pay out of that roll for one sharp pocket-knife? He should have thought ahead, found his equipment before he'd climbed.

He never thought ahead. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. Since changing his mind about taking the long jump, he now wanted to see that rope fall. His wilful fingers had always taken what they wanted. Again they worked the knot. He tried pushing at the stump, pushing while twisting it, and maybe something moved. With total concentration then, he worked that rope stump until his thumb felt raw; maybe he gained a little slack. He ignored the rafter attempting to dissect him and worked that knot until it eased enough for him to push the stump through. Finally he had the end of it, and he held it high, wanting to scream aloud, until the stupidity of it hit him.

Just another one of his pathetic bloody victories, as meaningless as the notes in his pocket. His hand opened and the old rope fell heavily. He wasn't expecting its weight; the tug on the noose that was still around his neck almost toppled him from his perch. An upside-down hanging, he thought, slipping the noose off and flinging it to the floor where it lay in a defeated coil.

‘Shit,' he said. ‘How do I get down?'

Kurt, the old man's bootlicker, would have considered the consequences of this action before taking it. He would have looped the rope over the rafter, slid down it, then pulled it to the floor.

‘Fool.' He'd have to crawl across to the wall, use the window as a ladder and climb down to the work bench. And when he got down, then what? Get on his bike and ride? Where? Better to remain up here where no decision needed to be made, other than to crawl forward or backward, and nothing to do while deciding, other than count his father's money.

He worked the string binding off that roll and the notes, long enclosed, crept free. He thumbed through them. So much money and nothing he wanted that it would buy. All he'd asked his father for was ten lousy quid. How much did he have here? It was hard to balance on a narrow rafter when he had no hands to hold on with, but he locked his knees together and began counting. A futile task too. How could you count your riches when you couldn't see the colour of the notes you were counting, couldn't see if they were banknotes or worthless bits of paper?

He folded a note, making a dart that he sent spiralling to the moonlit floor. He couldn't see where it landed, couldn't see if it was blue, red or green. He folded another note and sent it out after the first. Then another, and another.

Katze came from his bed in the corner to watch a while, then to chase these new night flyers.

He removed and pocketed one note, and maybe it was a tenner – that's all he'd asked for, all he'd wanted. He spread the rest of the wad, fingered it, then tossed it high. Just a swarm of paper moths fluttering in the moonlight.

Nine o'clock and the town was settling down to another night of sweating heat. Tom couldn't settle – he still had a good hour and a half to wait for that train – so he wandered, forcing his eyes to stay open. He considered his veranda and a quiet puff – plus Murphy's gramophone. They were at it again. He considered his bed and forty winks – couldn't mess up that bed, Jeanne had changed the sheets and made both beds up, hospital tight. And he couldn't lock the front door until she came in, and he didn't dare close his eyes until that door was locked.

There was a sad, lonely sort of feeling about this town tonight, Murphy's gramophone playing sad, lonely songs, old Mrs Wilson out searching for one of her cats. ‘Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Here, kitty.' A baby's plaintive wail coming from Bill's house behind the garage. Too many memories were triggered by the sound of baby tears.

He'd fed and watered his prisoners, fed them bread and plum jam sandwiches. They weren't getting his meat. He'd tossed Vern a tin of smokes. Nothing more to do now, and no one to do it with. Company, that's what Tom needed, someone to talk to, someone he could try his ideas out on. He'd popped over to tell Rob Hunter what he'd learned about Ruby's misfortune, but Rob and Joan had gone early to their pillows. It could wait for tomorrow. And if that little girl didn't make it through until morning, then maybe it would be better for her infant if Tom kept his nose out of it.

He'd had a talk to Irene Murphy – a nice girl, that one; she'd told him they'd moved Ruby into the infectious diseases ward and stuck a smallpox sign on the door. ‘No one will be sticking their noses in there, Mr Thompson,' she'd said. ‘Willie is with her. He says he got a bit of sleep this afternoon so can sit with her until dawn. It might help. A lot of people seem to die at dawn. Maybe they get lonely,' she'd said.

Maybe they did. Maybe they got lonely at nine o'clock too – maybe they woke up in the morning feeling lonely. It wasn't the being with someone, that other presence in the house, that stopped loneliness; it was more about having some connection to that someone. He'd been feeling disconnected ever since he'd lost his boys.

The widow Dolan would be interested in what Miss Lizzie had told him tonight. If his legs hadn't been so achingly weary, he might have taken a ride down there. She wouldn't be in bed. She'd probably be walking around her garden, watering it with tank water while he drank mud and a shrimp or two. All of those hotel beds lying empty and I'll be sleeping on a horsehair couch, he thought.

Then, as if he wasn't feeling miserable and lonely enough, those Murphys had to go and start playing his song. All it took was a few bars of it to get tears welling up behind his eyes – which didn't prevent him walking across to the tree so he could hear it better. What a sentimental damn fool of a man he was turning into in his old age, but it wasn't only that song; it was his boys' cricket bats and that cricket ball he'd bowled at their stumps a thousand times, and it was Rosie too, and Katie Monahan and bloody Morgan and his interfering bloody nose. It was everything.

The song ended and still there was no sign of Jeanne coming out. And how the hell that girl was going to sleep through Rosie's snoring, Tom did not know. She was good with her, treated her like a two year old, but always managed her. She'd been handy for him today too, she'd cleaned up the kitchen as well as Rosie, and she liked taking telephone calls – near ate him out of house and home, though.

He was on his way back to the house when they cranked that song up again, and this time, Mary Murphy started singing along with it. Tom walked across to her picket fence, and let his own voice free, needing the relief of singing. He was a light tenor, untrained, but he had a good range. He always gave them a song or two at the Town Hall concerts, and his items went over well.

If he could desensitise himself to those words, he'd sing it at the next concert and sing it with feeling too, from his bruised heart – maybe do a duet with his neighbour. Their voices blended well.

Those Murphys started clapping when they were done, then Mary stuck her head out the screen door and asked him if he'd like to come in for a while. He thanked her, but declined the offer. Her invitation had got his shoulders a bit straighter, though, got his chin lifted a bit higher. He ought to be celebrating tonight, not feeling miserable. He'd solved a murder today. He had the culprits locked up in his cells. Forty-nine years old – almost fifty. He might have felt dog tired and a bit emotional, but he didn't feel as old as he'd felt this morning – and it was all thanks to those lads finding that handbag.

‘Ah.' Jeanne was coming out the screen door.

‘Was that a hint that you wanted to lock up, Mr Thompson?'

‘No, lass. Just enjoying the music.'

She walked through the gate, closing it behind her. ‘You haven't heard any news about Ruby, have you?'

‘Nothing new, lass.' Or nothing he wanted to discuss with her tonight. Tomorrow morning at nine-fifteen, he'd speak to her. Tomorrow morning he'd feed her a good solid breakfast then take her into his office, sit her and Miss Lizzie down, and one way or another, he'd get the full facts of that Ruby business cleared up. Tomorrow's list of things to do was growing lengthy.

He walked her to the door, opened it and was greeted by that rafter-rattling, bubbling, choking snore. ‘I hope you can get some sleep, lass.'

‘Oh, I'm used to snoring. I don't even hear it. Good night, then.'

Say what they liked about that big-mouthed little bugger, she was reliable, her manners were good, and maybe a town needed its gossips poking their noses into places other folk steered clear of – like Miss Lizzie when she'd finally got him inside that post office and closed the door so he couldn't get out.

She hadn't taken him in there to complain about his whistle, though that's what he'd been fearing.

‘As you are aware, Constable, my sister and I are sometimes forced to overhear a few snippets of private conversations – being called on as we are to interrupt at times, in order to enquire if the caller wishes to extend his call –'

‘Of course, Miss Martin. What's troubling you?'

‘Troubling me – yes, Constable, I am troubled, and have been, I might add, for some time – since I became aware that Squire and Judge Cochran had taken an inordinate interest in the welfare of Ruby's infant. They have found a childless city couple who are prepared to raise it.'

‘The girl was educated with Squire's daughters, she worked for him. It's natural enough that he'd take an interest, Miss Martin. There's not much chance of the family raising the babe in town, I'd imagine.'

She shook her head, her narrow lips expressing distaste for the subject. ‘As you say, Constable, as you say. However, I have good reason now to believe that their interest in that infant is not purely philanthropic.'

‘Who –?'

‘My information, not being first hand, and given the attitudes of many in this town regarding my unenviable situation – and a situation thrust on my sister and I, never sought – you may understand if I say no more on the subject, at least for tonight.'

He tried to get a word in, but her hand was raised.

‘If I might continue, Constable Thompson. My niece, Jeanne, has first hand information on this subject. She is a reliable girl, as you, no doubt, have come to know. I intend tomorrow to offer her a home with my sister and I, and a position. On a day such as today, it has become obvious that we require assistance handling the telephone exchange.'

And God help Molliston.

‘I feel certain,' Lizzie continued, ‘that once my niece is free of that nest of toadying fools, she will be willing to tell you all she knows of her sister's predicament – and, might I add, of her own near escape from a similar violation.'

‘Wha –?'

‘I was told in confidence earlier tonight, and thus am not at liberty to say, but be assured that this will go further than Molliston. At the time of the violation, Ruby was a fourteen year old child, a pleasant, well-spoken child who could have made something of her life. I intend taking this business all the way to the hangman's noose – which is why my sister and I feel it desirable that the information come to you first hand. If you could put aside an hour tomorrow morning, shall we say between nine and ten, I'll come by your office and we can speak to my niece together.'

‘Make it nine-fifteen,' Tom said.

He had things to do when the shops opened at nine. He needed sugar, another hunk of corned beef, a few china plates and a couple of cups – he couldn't feed city coppers off enamel, make them drink out of enamel mugs. And he'd get a decent-sized enamel teapot with a lid that didn't fall off in the cup while Tom poured the tea.

Weary, drunk now with weariness, he manoeuvred a large lump of wood into his firebox, and even that wood looked fit for a pillow. If he could get his head down on a brick, he'd probably sleep tonight. ‘And I'm not doing anyone any good walking in circles. I'll hear the train whistle when she starts her blowing,' he told himself.

He opened a few windows, opened both front and back doors, smiling as he peered through his kitchen window at the lock-up. The trio sweating it out in there wouldn't be doing much sleeping. Oh, to be one of those blowflies on the wall tonight.

He opened the parlour's side window, glanced at the couch he'd spent a lot of time sleeping on back when his boys were small. They'd slept directly across the passage from him, and by Christ could they talk.

‘Get to sleep in there, you two,' he'd say.

‘Get to sleep yourself, Dad.' And the little buggers would giggle.

Maybe he'd been more mate than father to them. Maybe he hadn't been tough enough on them, but you couldn't drive a boy in the direction you wanted him to go. Boys did what they wanted, not what you wanted them to do. Girls were different – or maybe they weren't so different, but you felt you had more hope of keeping them safe from harm. You couldn't keep a boy safe, only point him in the right direction, then hope he didn't wander off the straight and narrow. His boys had always walked the straight line, and it was that bloody straight line that had led them off to war.

He told them they weren't going over there to fight. He put his foot down hard about that. He told them it wasn't their flamin' war and they weren't going, and that was that, and he'd heard enough about it. Three days later the little buggers came home and found him sitting on this same couch. They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of him and told him they'd joined up.

‘You've got to give us your blessing, Dad.'

What man alive wouldn't have given them his blessing? What else could he have done?

Put his flamin' foot down a bit harder, that's what he should have done. Flattened the little buggers, handcuffed them to their bedheads, that's what he should have done. And they would have hated him for it. And he would have lost them anyway.

Tom sighed in a slow breath, eased it out more slowly. His boys were close tonight. He could almost smell their sweaty little heads, feel their warm little hands in his own, hear their voices echoing in his mind:
Come on, Dad. It's not dark yet. Come and have a hit with us.

‘You look after each other,' he said to a crack in the ceiling. ‘Wherever you two are up there, you look after each other for me. Righto?'

He'd given away their cricket bats tonight, and the stumps, and any other cricket paraphernalia he'd found in his vestibule. It had been a good outfit in its day, bought the Christmas of 1913, when his boys had been playing for the junior team at Carlton. Two years later they were dead and he'd carried that outfit around ever since, refusing to let it go.

But they were gone. They
were
gone, and now their cricket gear was gone, and tomorrow – or maybe not tomorrow, too much to do already tomorrow, but soon, soon, he'd start cleaning out that vestibule and see what else he could give away.

His vest off, he struck a match and checked his watch one last time, then hung his vest over a chair. Not quite nine-twenty – at least an hour to train time and he was going to use it. He'd taken his favourite feather pillow from his bed and swapped it for one stuffed with kapok, hard as rock, mentally earmarking that bed for Clarrie Morgan. Tom folded the pillow in half, propped it against the arm of the couch, placed his head down, and went out like a light.

He dreamed that he was with his boys. They were playing cricket down in front of Dawson's place.

Catch it, Dad
.

And he caught that ball, and held it too. In his sleep, Tom laughed.