This River Awakens (40 page)

He sighed. ‘I figured it was some kind of warning to the other kids. Do you bully them around for the rest of the year?’

‘No. I leave them alone, so long as they leave me alone. I don’t keep fighting all year. You know that.’

‘Where’d you learn to kick between the legs?’

‘I don’t know.’ I frowned. ‘No, wait.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Butch does it to this big guy with a knife. Anyway, the only important thing is winning. Winning the fight.’

He leaned against the engine, crossing his arms. ‘How do you do it, exactly?’

I fidgeted. ‘Well, uh, I keep my hands down until he’s close enough. Then I lift them and that’s what he looks at, so that’s when I kick him. My leg’s longer than my arms, so he’s not expecting it.’

He studied me a while longer. ‘Got that from the movie?’

‘No.’

‘Figured it out for yourself.’

‘I’ve had to think about it a lot.’

‘Because it’s a new school every year.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Makes life hard for a kid, eh?’

‘Well,’ I said, shrugging, ‘it’s just a pattern, like you said.’

Father turned around, leaned on the machine’s engine, his arms resting on its top, his chin on his hands. He stared out at the dark yard. ‘Sorry about that, son.’

‘What? It’s not your fault! Don’t say that – I don’t want you to, ’cause it’s not right.’

‘I know you know,’ he said. ‘That we’re doing our best. You have to believe you can get out of a rut, that you’re not doomed to spend all your life in it. It’s a hard climb, sometimes, and, well, sometimes you wish someone could just give you a push. That’s all it’d take. Up and out, eh?’ He fell silent again, while the darkness seeped in around us, then he sighed. ‘Your mother’s better at this than I am. If words were tools…’

‘You’d fix the world,’ I finished, grinning. ‘I’m, uh, sorry about the fight.’

‘No. You do what you have to do. No apologies, you said. Let’s make that go both ways.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Let me go in and talk to your mom first, though.’

‘I guess she’s pretty mad, huh?’

He clapped a hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s not as bad as you think. Oh, she’s mad, but not at you.’

I didn’t want him to leave just yet. ‘So, when are you going to start this up?’

He paused on the steps. ‘Tried. Wouldn’t go. Needs some fine-tuning, I guess.’

I let out a long breath. He couldn’t know, but what he’d just told me, so casual and unmindful, had left me feeling crushed. I didn’t know why – it was just some old machine, after all. He’d get it started soon, I was sure. But I felt myself trembling.

Father climbed the steps, then stopped at the door. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘your mother’s entertaining tonight, so be on your best behaviour.’

I stared at his dim form, realising that my mouth was open. ‘Entertaining? Who?’

‘Jennifer. She came by earlier, told us her version of what happened. Told us about this Gary boy. Her and your mom have been having a long talk, about lots of things.’

‘Oh my God,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘Throw a tarp over that thing then come inside.’

*   *   *

They sat in the living room like old friends. William had planted himself on Jennifer’s lap and looked like a king on his throne, his face flushed with glory.

I don’t blame him.

‘Hungry, Owen?’ Mother asked from her chair. Her eyes glittered, as if she were seeing me for the first time. In a new way, a terrible, enlightened and bold new way. ‘There’s banana bread in the kitchen,’ she said. ‘You can eat in here, if you like.’

God, I don’t have any choice, do I? Look at them, the cups of coffee on the table, the full ashtray, the crumpled napkins and the plates with crumbs on them, the stockinged feet.
Jennifer had gone home to change. She was wearing a dress, looking beautiful and …
appalling.
‘Um, sure,’ I managed. ‘I’ll be right back.’

In the kitchen I stood by the sink, staring at the oven and wishing I could crawl inside it. Instead, I cut a slice of banana bread, mixed up a glass of chocolate milk, found a napkin in a drawer, and returned to the living room. Father had disappeared, of course.
Probably in the oven.

‘Where’s Debbie and Tanya?’ I asked, not really interested in knowing, but needing something harmless to say.

‘Debbie’s giving her a bath,’ Mother said. ‘Come and sit down, Owen. No, on the sofa, beside your girlfriend. Not on the other end, beside her. There, now. So tell us what happened during your detention. Did you pass the maths test?’

‘No test,’ I said. ‘Miss Rhide just asked me lots of questions.’

Mother raised an eyebrow. She reached for her cigarettes. ‘About …
Goldfinger?
’

I glared at Jennifer. ‘Yeah, sorta.’

‘No, no, Owen. I want to get an idea of who Miss Rhide is. You’re saying she criticised your choice of reading material?’

‘Well, I haven’t really read
Goldfinger
—’

Mother laughed. ‘Heaven forbid! In fact, you’re reading a translation of some Greek historian right now, aren’t you?’

She’d been in my room, obviously. I knew I was scowling. ‘Plutarch,’ I said. ‘I finished that one.’

Jennifer turned to me. ‘Why didn’t you tell that to Rhide? Her hair would’ve fallen out! Owen!’

Chastised by my girlfriend, teased by my mother. I was in hell.

‘I know why,’ Mother said, smiling at Jennifer. ‘One thing it’s important to understand about Owen here. He likes not to be noticed. He’s not shy. He just doesn’t like being the centre of attention.’

‘Pussy Galore?’ Jennifer laughed.

‘Oh my,’ Mother said, sighing.

‘But I know what you mean,’ Jennifer continued. ‘He can’t take pictures if he’s the centre of attention, can he?’

‘Exactly. You’re very sharp, Jennifer.’

‘Common interest, I guess.’

They both looked at me. ‘Cut it out,’ I snapped, my face burning. ‘Look, you’re making Willie squirm – he doesn’t like being ignored.’

Mother’s expression changed sharply, now serious. ‘Read whatever you want, Owen.’

‘I will. She’s just a teacher.’

‘Exactly.’

‘More coffee, Jennifer?’

I settled in for a long night.

*   *   *

‘Where’s Lynk?’ I asked.

Roland shrugged.

I hesitated, feeling the hot sun on my shoulders through the t-shirt. Insects buzzed in the dry air, low over the tar- and oil-spattered ground. Behind us rose the boat-shed wall, its fresh tar glistening and dotted with dead and dying butterflies.

‘So,’ Roland said, shrugging again, ‘are we going?’

‘Lynk should be here. He’ll just say we’re lying.’

‘But we’ll know,’ Roland said, his eyes strangely flat.

‘All right,’ I said.

We headed into the brush. I found myself in the lead, taking the trail that angled towards the river. The way was harder this time. Bushes and weeds snagged the path. I clawed strands of spider’s web from my face. The midday light broke through when we neared the river.

The current matched our pace. Individual swirls spun with us, bits of wood, puffs of seeds from flowers. Watching it made me dizzy, as if the forest were doing the marching, away, away from the place we sought.

The clay underfoot was cracked, geometric, the fissures sprouting bright green blades of grass.

‘Owen.’

I stopped, turned.

Roland slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans, looked inland. For a moment he reminded me of Carl.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. What do you think we’ll find?’

‘Bones.’

‘Just bones,’ he nodded, taking a deep breath, puffing his cheeks as he let the air out. ‘Big ones, I guess, eh?’

‘Maybe. I guess. Do you think we should’ve brought Carl, at least?’

He gave me an odd look. ‘Couldn’t find him.’

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

We came to the thicket, now impenetrable with leaves, vines and thorns. Just beyond it was the lodge. I angled us inland, around the barrier. There was no wind, just the lap of water, the whine of insects. Mosquitoes spun around me, slow in the heat. I slapped one on my arm.

Something crashed through the bushes on the other side of the beaver lodge.

I stopped.

‘What was that?’ Roland’s voice was harsh and close.

I shook my head. ‘Don’t know. A deer, maybe.’ I listened. ‘Anyway, it’s gone.’

I’d thought there’d be darkness in the air, magic and ghostly. The sound of something running away should have filled me with terror – the giant’s spirit, haunting, heavy-footed with remembered weight. But even this image triggered nothing. It was as if the world’s wonder had died.

We came to the beaver lodge.

‘Shit,’ Roland said.

There was nothing. The body was gone.

‘Lynk,’ I said.

‘He was lying. He’s never come back here. No way, Owen.’ He took a couple of steps closer, bent down and studied the tangle of gnawed sticks where the body had been. ‘But maybe somebody else found it.’

‘We’d have heard,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t we?’

‘Yeah, I guess. It might have fallen back into the river.’

I laughed. ‘Maybe it never existed at all. Just a trick of the light. A dead beaver, all its fur gone. A deer, a bear.’

‘Well,’ Roland said, straightening, ‘a skinned bear looks a lot like a person, except for the head and the paws, but if you cut those off … it’s close.’ He paused, squinting, then shook his head. ‘No, it was a body. A man.’

‘I know,’ I said.

He sat down on a log. I sat as well, leaning against a stump.

‘It feels all wrong,’ Roland said.

‘What does?’

He shrugged. ‘The whole thing. It’s been in my brain, you know. Always there, and I go around and around it, all the time. It’s like…’ He shook his head, eyes on the ground, falling silent.

‘It’s like he’s in a phone booth,’ I said. ‘Taking up all the space, but you’re in there with him, moving around between him and the sides, looking for the door only there isn’t one.’

‘Shit, yeah. That’s it. My head’s a phone booth—’

‘With a dead man inside it.’

He paled, looked out over the river.

‘You’re thinking we should’ve called the cops,’ I said.

‘No. Well, only when I, uh…’

‘Get scared.’

‘Yeah. But it’s ours. Or it was, anyway.’

‘Still is,’ I said. ‘We saw it. He’s still there, like you said, in our heads. You, me, and Lynk.’

‘Carl.’

‘Yeah, Carl, too.’ I picked up a stick, flung it into the river, watched it twist away. ‘So, in a way, he’s not dead any more.’

Roland’s head snapped around, his eyes wide.

I met his gaze for a long moment, then found another stick.

‘So which one is he?’ Roland asked.

Which?
‘All of us, maybe. In different ways.’ I thought about what I’d said, wondered where the idea had come from. I thought about Lynk – he was going wild, like I always knew he would, only more than I’d ever imagined. As if the dead man was in him, fighting to get out, fighting to be anything but dead. A man drowning, endlessly drowning. Something cold touched me, the thought of eternal panic.

‘That’s what happened to it,’ Roland said in a strange, tight voice.

I looked at him. ‘What?’

‘Why the body’s gone. It came with us, Owen.’

I broke the stick in my hands. ‘That’s impossible, Roland.’

‘I know.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Your folks got money? You rich?’

I shook my head. ‘No.’

‘You poor? We’re poor, even with the farm. We’ve always been poor.’

I nodded. ‘Us, too.’

‘It’s like there’s something wrong with us.’

I kept nodding.

‘Is there? Owen?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘What? What’s wrong with us?’

‘What’s outside,’ I said, ‘doesn’t match what’s inside. That’s what’s wrong with us. We’re always acting like everything’s all right. Like everything’s going to be fine, but it never happens. We never get there, to where everything’s fine. But we keep pretending. What else can we do?’ I threw both sticks into the river. ‘It’s all around us, all those people who’ve got money. They don’t seem so different, but they are – you can see it when they look at you.’

Roland sighed. ‘It makes me tired all the time.’

‘It makes everyone tired all the time,’ I said. ‘My parents – they’re always tired, because they’re always trying so hard to make things seem normal. Now that Jennifer’s there…’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s almost desperate, how everything’s focused on her. You see, she’s got it worse, back home, I mean—’

‘I know.’

‘She told you? What did she tell you? When?’

‘I just know.’

‘She doesn’t tell me anything!’

‘You just said—’

‘I was guessing,’ I snapped.

‘What should we tell Lynk?’ Roland asked.

‘About what?’

‘The body, Owen. If we tell him it’s gone, like he said—’

‘What’ll he do?’

‘I don’t know, really. He’ll think he’s won, I guess.’

‘Won what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, he’s
your
friend, Roland.’

He scowled. ‘I can’t help it. We grew up together. I got used to explaining. For him, for the stuff he did. I held him back, too. Used to be we were always together, and I could talk him out of things. We broke into the school once, then he wanted to burn it down. I talked him out of it.’

‘Burn it down? It’s his favourite place!’

‘He’s always been like that. He’s good at pretending. People don’t like believing he’s done stuff, and I used to lie for him, too, so he always got away with it. He’s good at doing stuff then getting away. And Rhide’s stupider than most—’

‘She’s not stupid. She
wants
to believe Lynk. There’s a difference.’

‘Maybe. Anyway, you got to watch out for him. He gets people.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s what he does.’

‘But not to you.’

‘Maybe,’ Roland said, stretching a leg out and plucking at the threads around a hole in his jeans. ‘It’s changed. He doesn’t need me any more. Not to explain, or lie, or anything.’

Roland sounded sad. He’d lost a friend, I realised. ‘He was using you,’ I said.