The Boy Under the Table (4 page)

None of it came to anything. The police divers found nothing. There were only dead ends.

He had called Pete and Pete had come. Pete had wrapped his arms around Doug the same way as he had at the funeral for Doug’s father. Back then, he had let Doug know that he would step in for his old friend and be around when Doug needed a guiding hand. Now he came because having a cop—even a small town cop—on your side was a good thing. But eventually the city police just found Pete annoying. His belief in the basic goodness of human beings was misplaced in the city.

‘Where’s Lockie?’ Sammy asked every day.

‘We’re looking for him,’ Doug told her.

She had stopped asking the question lately and Doug had taken it as a sign. It was time to give up. Lockie was never coming home.

He had started saying it to himself as he worked, repeating the words again and again—‘He is never coming home’—in the hope that eventually they would sink in and he could accept the truth.

He wanted to die sometimes. He wanted to get into bed and not have to wake up.

He wanted to die but he had to take care of Sarah and Sammy.

When they had to return home because they were running out of money and the farm was suffering, Doug felt like he was leaving his boy to die alone. He had felt his heart tear as they pulled out of the city in the ute. The drive down had been filled with Lockie’s voice and demands for ice cream and bathroom breaks. The drive home was silent. Sammy and Sarah slept most of the way back.

When they stopped for food only Sammy could eat.

There was an unreality about the days and months that followed. Doug was alone, trapped in his bubble of pain. He wanted to help Sarah but he couldn’t help himself. What words could soothe her? What words could soothe any of them?

He and Sarah didn’t talk anymore.

They exchanged words about dinner and the farm and what avenue they should pursue next but they had nothing to say to each other.

Sarah blamed him.

Doug could see it in her face. She blamed him but that was okay. He blamed himself. He should never have left the kids.

He should have let someone else carry the cake when they asked for it to be put on the podium, but he was so damn proud of Sarah. It felt like his whole world was being applauded. It felt like the end of the bad times. The rain had begun to fall and the sheep were getting fat. After so many years of questions from the bank and late-night discussions about selling the farm they were finally back on track, and now Sarah had won first prize.

Sixty seconds. It couldn’t have been more than that. He had kept saying it to the police and even though they eventually began to give him strange looks he couldn’t stop saying it.

At home Sarah had shut down. The doctor had given her sleeping pills and she took them every night. She turned her back to him and slept until she was forced out of bed.

Doug lay awake. He could not take the pills. He had tried them once after Dr Samuels had given them to Sarah. That night his dreams were filled with rage and fear and he could see Lockie running in front of him but he couldn’t catch him. When he eventually did grab hold of him, the boy was not Lockie. Lockie was gone. The next morning he reversed the ute into the side of one of the sheds. After that, he hadn’t taken any more of the pills.

Instead he lay awake and stared at the ceiling and replayed the day in his head over and over again wondering what he had missed.

Someone had taken his child.

It was an inconceivable thought.

Every morning since it had happened he woke up convinced that it was just a dream, that he would find Lockie in his pyjamas eating his breakfast on the couch when he was supposed to be in the kitchen.

All those rules meant fuck-all now. Sarah just let Sammy do as she pleased. Doug would have given his right arm to be able to yell at Lockie for spilling milk on the couch. Literally—his right arm. He had already made that bargain with God and the universe, but if that wasn’t enough his life was also available. If Lockie could come home safe he was willing to give up his own life. He was completely certain about that.

The moment right between waking and tuning into the day was the one moment he looked forward to most of all. In that moment everything was still the same. His family was whole and the nightmare they had been living was just that—a nightmare.

Then reality would hit and he would feel his whole body sink into the mattress with the devastation that accompanied him throughout the rest of the day.

He missed Lockie so much it was an ache just above his heart. He had thought that he might be having a heart attack but the ache never changed. It just stayed that way day after day. When the lambs began to appear he thought of Lockie feeding the babies whose mothers rejected them. When the canola was ready he thought of Lockie running hell for leather through the plants with the pure joy of energy and space.

When Sammy said something funny he thought of Lockie laughing.

He thought of Lockie.

He thought of Lockie.

He thought of Lockie.

When his son’s birthday had come along he had tried to be strong. He had helped Sarah wrap the presents and put them in Lockie’s room but then he ran out of strength.

He had taken a six-pack and gone to the shed. In the morning he had stayed away from the house. When he finally did go home he found his wife curled up in his son’s bed. Sammy was eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. The house that Sarah was so proud of was littered with dirty clothes and empty packets of biscuits. Sammy was wearing the same clothes she had worn the night before. Bits of chocolate biscuit clung to her cheeks.

‘Mum is sleeping and sleeping and sleeping,’ said Sammy.

They were falling apart.

Doug heard his father’s voice then, reminding him of his role. ‘The man of the house keeps it all together, boy. Do you understand me? When the stock are dying and the heat bakes your bones you have to keep it all together so that when the rain falls again your family is still there with you.’

Doug had kept it together. He stopped drinking and he took over for Sarah. If she got up and looked after Sammy he went to work, but on the days she stayed in bed he looked after Sammy and got her to school. Or he called Pete’s wife, Margie.

He got through the day by sticking to the routines Sarah had established and he didn’t hope life would go back to normal one day. He knew better than that. Regardless of what he told Sarah and Sammy, he knew that this terrible sense of desolation would be his for life.

He tried to imagine being an old man and telling someone about the boy he had lost but he could never picture it. He could never picture Sarah sitting next to him on the veranda, watching over their grand children, though he had been able to picture it once. The image had been so clear to him, and on nights when he felt he might be losing her it had been a comfort.

Now he could no longer see them together in some bright future. He could not see them together at all. All he saw was himself—alone with only the faintest memory of his golden family.

He saw a man who had lost everything, and it had only taken sixty seconds.

Tina

Two burgers and two cartons of fries later, Tina was basically asleep on her feet. She knew she should have tried to fit in a few more jobs before she headed home but it was freezing and the streets were nearly empty.

Winter in the Cross was a lousy time to be alive.

Tina pulled out a packet of cigarettes and gave herself a treat. Each pack had to last a week. They were so fucking expensive. She gazed up at the ceiling of McDonald’s and waited for the manager to kick her out for smoking. She and Arik were almost friends. He would slip her some extra food if he could, but he always kicked her out for smoking. Rules were rules. Tina didn’t mind. She still remembered a life where everyone imagined that the world could be controlled by rules. She thought back on that life and now she knew what she had given up, how much she had given up, and there were times when she questioned her choices. Not all the time, just every day and every night. Tina allowed herself a grim smile.

She watched the empty streets and enjoyed the smoke filling her lungs.

The rain had stopped but the wind was making up for it.

She didn’t think about the boy. Every time his short, dirty blond hair and runny nose crossed her mind she didn’t think about him. The man could not be the boy’s father. Any evil fuck could have a child but Tina could not bear the thought of that man being the boy’s father. If the boy belonged to someone else, if the man had taken what was not his to take, then where had he found the boy? And what did he want him for? He told her it was good to ‘feel a woman’s lips’ so whose lips had he been feeling?

‘Jesus Fuck,’ said Tina out aloud. The food rose in her stomach and she sucked heavily on the cigarette to keep the burgers where they belonged. She finished her cigarette without having to go outside. Arik was a good bloke. He knew how cold it was. She could imagine him looking up from his desk at the back and sighing in frustration at the thin curl of cigarette smoke filling his store. She was sure he would have kicked anyone else out.

He had a wife and two little girls at home and he told Tina to go home every time he saw her.

‘You don’t belong here, Tina. You know things can only get worse. Go back home, go back to school. Do something else with your life.’

Arik was studying to be a lawyer. He had plans. One day he would have a house in the suburbs and drive one of those cars that made you smile every time you got into it. One day his wife wouldn’t be cleaning other people’s houses while she took care of her kids and tried to study to be a teacher.

Arik had a lot of
one days
in his future.

He was a lot older than Tina, but when she listened to him talk Tina felt like a grandparent listening to an eager child. She didn’t have the heart to tell him what could happen to his dream life in the suburbs. All those painted fences and electric garage doors hid a lot of the same things you saw on the streets in the Cross. Just because the package was beautifully wrapped didn’t mean it wasn’t still full of shit.

Tina never planned beyond that day, that hour, that minute. What for?

The boy’s face drifted across her mind again. He couldn’t have been more than nine.

Timmy had been eight, but he was a big eight. At least, he had been a big eight. He was really small towards the end. Just skin stretched over bones really.

‘This is my daughter Christina and my son Timothy,’ her mother had said.

‘Tim and Tina,’ laughed the man who they would come to know as Jack. Jack the do-gooder. Jack the Christian. Jack the substitute daddy.

He thought a few months at church would turn them right back into a real family.

A few sermons would make them forget everything that had happened before he arrived. It was almost funny. Some adults never grew up. They stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus but they held on to the idea of a kindly old man looking down from the clouds.

Tina found it easier to believe in the Tooth Fairy. At least she performed a simple economic transaction. Your teeth for money. Easy.

She wasn’t sure exactly what a belief in the kindly man in the sky got you. Her mother and Jack had prayed every night, begging for Tim to be saved. Jack believed, really believed right up to the end, that Tim would pull through.

Tina watched her brother shrink and knew better. All she could hold on to was the anger that warmed her. It was still there right in the churning pit of her stomach. Nothing would ever make it go away.

Tina hated Jack from day one even though he was good to Tim when he got sick.

Jack hated her back. He wanted her to be something she couldn’t be.

God wants us to keep our language pure, Christina. You do not need to use such profanity.

It’s Tina,
said Tina.
Just Tina.

You carry the name of our Lord, Christina. He was sent to save us. You should thank God every day for sending Him. God wants your gratitude. God wants us to humble ourselves before Him, Christina. You must pray on your knees. God wants you to attend church so that you may hear His glory, Christina. God wants, Christina, God wants.

Fuck what God wants
, Tina thought but she had chosen to keep silent in front of Jack. Her mother smiled at Jack and her mother laughed at Jack and her mother prayed with Jack. Her mother was happy with Jack. He had succeeded where Tim and Tina had failed. Tim was too sick to do anything and Tina had been raising herself ever since the divorce. Mothers can’t just check in when they feel like it.

Give her time, Jack
, she would hear her mother say when all the bedroom doors were closed.

Why does she have to be so belligerent, Claire? Why can’t she just get along with us? Why does every discussion have to be an argument?

I know, she’s very difficult. She and Tim are so close, I don’t know what will happen to her when it’s all over.

I can see how upset she is, Claire. I know that she feels powerless but if she could just look to God she would know that He is watching over her and she can turn to Him for help.

I know that, Jack. I can see you’re working hard to help her but when I look at Tim it all seems hopeless.

We have to believe he’ll be fine, Claire. God needs our faith and our belief or He cannot perform miracles.

I believe, Jack, I do . . . I’m just a little tired tonight.

Christina needs to pray with us. She needs to believe as well.

Oh, Jack, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m not sure what Christina believes anymore.

There were moments that it all came back and, try as she might, Tina could never control the flow of memories. What surprised her most at the time and what still continued to surprise her was how quickly things could transform. Your world could implode in an instant. When she was ten she had the perfect family. Mum, Dad, Tim and a dog named Buster. It was so boring and predictable it was pathetic. It was a life that belonged in a commercial for the latest family car. But then her father decided he’d had enough of family life. None of the commercials ever used that sort of family. The sort of family where one parent just decides he doesn’t want to deal with it all anymore. Can’t sell a car to that type of family.