Tomorrow When The War Began (18 page)
Read Tomorrow When The War Began Online
Authors: John Marsden
That
both deceased met their deaths EITHER as a result of bushfire
consuming the Christie residence, during which both were terribly
burnt, and that BERTRAM HUBERT SEXTON CHRISTIE believing their
injuries to be mortal and unable to bear their suffering, and
knowing also that medical aid was beyond immediate reach, killed
both deceased with single shots to the head from a rifle owned by
BERTRAM HUBERT SEXTON CHRISTIE; and that is the testimony of
BERTRAM HUBERT SEXTON CHRISTIE.OR that both deceased were wilfully
and feloniously murdered by BERTRAM HUBERT SEXTON CHRISTIE with the
aforesaid rifle, and the bodies deliberately burned in an attempt
to conceal the facts of the case.7.
That medical science cannot
say as to which came first, the bullets or the burning, and that is
the testimony of Dr JACKSON MUIRFIELD WATSON, medical practitioner
and forensic scientist, of Stratton and DistrictHospital,
Stratton.8.
That
police inquiries have been unable to locate any other persons with
evidence bearing upon the deaths of IMOGEN MARY CHRISTIE or ALFRED
BERTRAM CHRISTIE, and that is the testimony of Constable FREDERICK
JOHN WHYKES of the Police Station, Mt Tumbler.9.
That on the evidence before me
I am unable to make any further findings as to the manner in which
the deceased met their deaths.
RECOMMENDED:1.
That
urgent consideration be given to the provision of medical services
at Mt Tumbler.2.
That the Director of Public Prosecutions lays an information of
WILFUL AND FELONIOUS MURDER against BERTRAM HUBERT SEXTON
CHRISTIE.
Signed by the hand of me, HAROLD AMORY DOUGLAS BATTY, in the Mt
Tumbler Magistrate’s Court this day, the 18th of April.
Chapter
Sixteen
There were two other documents in the box.
One was a letter from Imogen Christie’s
mother. She wrote:
‘Well, they were very formal in those days.’) I am in receipt of
your letter of November 12. Indeed your position is a difficult
one. As you know I have always stood by you and defended your
account of the dreadful deaths of my dear daughter and my dear
grandson, as being the only possible true one, and I have always
believed and devoutly prayed it so to be. And I rejoiced, as you
know, when the jury pronounced you innocent, for I believe you to
have been a man unjustly accused, and if the Law does not know a
case such as yours then more shame on the law I say, but the jury
did the only thing possible, despite what the Judge said. And you
know I have always held to the one point of view and have said so
from one end of the district to the other. I cannot think that I
could have done any more. No man, and no woman either, can still
wagging tongues, and if they are as bad as you say and you will be
forced to leave the district it is a shame but there is no stopping
women once they begin to gossip, and I say it although I am a
traitor to my sex, but there it is, that is the way of the world
and no doubt always will be. And you know you will always be
welcome under the roof of,Imogen Emma Eakin
The last thing was a poem, a simple poem:
stone.Kindness in another’s trouble,Courage in your own.
When we’d read that, Lee silently wrapped
everything up again and replaced it in the tin. It didn’t surprise
me when he put the tin back in the cavity and dropped the
windowsill on top of it. I knew that we weren’t necessarily leaving
it there forever, to decay into fragments and then dust, but at the
moment there was too much to absorb, too much to think about. We
left the hut silently, and we left it to its silence.
Half way back along the creek I turned to face
Lee, who was splashing along behind me. It was about the only spot
in the cool tunnel of green where we could stand. I put my hands
around the back of his neck and kissed him hungrily. After a moment
of shock, when his lips felt numb, he began kissing me back,
pressing his mouth hard into mine. There we were, standing in the
cold stream, exchanging hot kisses. I explored not just his lips
but his smell, the feeling of his skin, the shape of his shoulder
blades, the warmth of the back of his neck. After a while I broke
off and laid my head against his shoulder, one arm still around
him. I looked down at the cool steady-flowing water, moving along
its ordained course.
‘That coroner’s report,’ I said to Lee.
‘Yes?’
‘We were talking about reason and
emotion.’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you ever known emotion dealt with so
coldly as in that report?’
‘No, I don’t think I have.’
I turned more, so that I could nuzzle into his
chest, and I whispered, ‘I don’t want to end up like a coroner’s
report.’
‘No.’ He stroked my hair, then felt up under
it and squeezed the back of my neck softly, like a massage. After a
few minutes more he said, ‘Let’s get out of this creek. I’m
freezing by slow degrees. It’s up to my knees and rising.’
I giggled. ‘Let’s go quickly then. I wouldn’t
like it to get any higher.’
Back in the clearing it was obvious that
something had happened between Homer and Fi. Homer was sitting
against a tree with Fi curled up against him. Homer was looking out
across the clearing to where one of Satan’s Steps loomed high in
the distance. They weren’t talking and when we arrived they got up
and wandered over, Homer a little self-consciously, Fi quite
naturally. But as I watched them a little during the rest of the
afternoon – not spying, just with curiosity to see what they were
like – I felt that they were different to us. They seemed more
nervous with each other, a bit like twelve-year-olds on their first
date.
Fi explained it to me when we managed to sneak
off on our own for a quick goss.
‘He’s so down on himself,’ she complained.
‘Everything I say about him he brushes off or puts himself down. Do
you know,’ she looked at me with her big innocent eyes, ‘he’s got
some weird thing about my parents being solicitors, and living in
that stupid big house. He always used to joke about it, especially
when we went there the other night, but I don’t think it’s really a
joke to him at all.’
‘Oh Fi! How long did it take you to work that
out?’
‘Why? Has he said something to you?’ She
instantly became terribly worried, in her typical Fi way. I was a
bit caught, because I wanted to protect Homer and I didn’t want to
break any confidences. So I tried to give a few hints.
‘Well, your lifestyle’s a lot different to
his. And you know the kind of blokes he’s always knocked around
with at school. They’d be more at home hanging out at the milk bar
than playing croquet with your parents.’
‘My parents do not play croquet.’
‘No, but you know what I mean.’
‘Oh, I don’t know what to do. He seems scared
to say anything in case I laugh at him or look down my nose at him.
As if I ever would. It seems so funny that he’s like that with me
when he’s so confident with everyone else.’
I sighed. ‘If I could understand Homer I’d
understand all guys.’
It was getting dark and we had to start
organising for a big night, starting with another hike up Satan’s
Steps. I was tired and not very keen to go, especially as Lee
wouldn’t be able to come. His leg was still stiff and sore. When
the time came I trudged off behind Homer and Fi, too weak to
complain – I thought I’d feel guilty if I did. But gradually the
sweetness of the night air revived me. I began to breathe it in
more deeply, and to notice the silent mountains standing gravely
around. The place was beautiful, I was with my friends and they
were good people, we were coping OK with tough circumstances. There
were a lot of things to be unhappy about, but somehow the papers
I’d read in the Hermit’s hut, and the long beautiful kiss with Lee,
had given me a better perspective on life. I knew it wouldn’t last,
but I tried to enjoy it while it did.
At the Landie we set about constructing a new
hideaway for the vehicles, so that they’d be better concealed from
anyone using the track. It wasn’t easy to do, and in the end we had
to be content with a spot behind some trees, nearly a k further
down the hill. Its big advantage was that to drive in there you had
to go over rocks, which meant no tracks would be left, as long as
the tyres were dry. Its big disadvantage was that it gave us a
longer walk to get into Hell, and it was a long enough walk
already.
Fi and Homer were going to wait up there for
the other four, whom we were expecting back from Wirrawee at about
dawn, but I didn’t want to leave Lee at the campsite on his own for
the night. So, for that charitable reason, and no other, I filled a
backpack to the brim, took a bag of clothes in my hand and, laden
like a truck, put myself into four-wheel drive and trekked back
into Hell on my own. It was about midnight when I left Fi and
Homer. They said they were going to stretch out in the back of the
Landrover for a few hours’ sleep while they waited.
That’s what they said they were going to do,
anyway.
The moon was well up by the time I left. The
rocks stood out quite brightly along the thin ridge of Tailor’s
Stitch. A small bird suddenly flew out of a low tree ahead of me,
with a yowling cry and a clatter of wings. Bushes formed shapes
like goblins and demons waiting to pounce. The path straggled
between them: if a tailor had stitched it he must have been mad or
possessed or both. White dead wood gleamed like bones ahead of me,
and my feet scrunched the little stones and the gravel. Perhaps I
should have been frightened, walking there alone in the dark. But I
wasn’t, I couldn’t be. The cool night breeze kissed my face all
over, all the time, and the smell of the wattle gave a faint
sweetness to the air. This was my country; I felt like I had grown
from its soil like the silent trees around me, like the springy,
tiny-leafed plants that lined the track. I wanted to get back to
Lee, to see his serious face again, and those brown eyes that
charmed me when they were laughing and held me by the heart when
they were grave. But I also wanted to stay here forever. If I
stayed much longer I felt that I could become part of the landscape
myself, a dark, twisted, fragrant tree.
I was walking very slowly, wanting to get to
Lee but not too quickly. I was hardly conscious of the weight of
the supplies I was carrying. I was remembering how a long time ago
– it seemed like years – I’d been thinking about this place, Hell,
and how only humans could have given it such a name. Only humans
knew about Hell; they were the experts on it. I remembered
wondering if humans were Hell. The Hermit for instance; whatever
had happened that terrible Christmas Eve, whether he’d committed an
act of great love, or an act of great evil ... But that was the
whole problem, that as a human being he could have done either and
he could have done both. Other creatures didn’t have this problem.
They just did what they did. I didn’t know if the Hermit was a
saint or a devil, but once he’d fired those two shots it seemed
that he and the people round him had sent him into Hell. They sent
him there and he sent himself there. He didn’t have to trek all the
way across to these mountains into this wild basin of heat and rock
and bush. He carried Hell with him, as we all did, like a little
load on our backs that we hardly noticed most of the time, or like
a huge great hump of suffering that bent us over with its
weight.
I too had blood on my hands, like the Hermit,
and just as I couldn’t tell whether his actions were good or bad,
so too I couldn’t tell what mine were. Had I killed out of love of
my friends, as part of a noble crusade to rescue friends and family
and keep our land free? Or had I killed because I valued my life
above that of others? Would it be OK for me to kill a dozen others
to keep myself alive? A hundred? A thousand? At what point did I
condemn myself to Hell, if I hadn’t already done so? The Bible just
said ‘Thou shalt not kill’, then told hundreds of stories of people
killing each other and becoming heroes, like David with Goliath.
That didn’t help me much.
I didn’t feel like a criminal, but I didn’t
feel like a hero either.
I was sitting on a rock on top of Mt Martin
thinking about all this. The moon was so bright I could see
forever. Trees and boulders and even the summits of other mountains
cast giant black shadows across the ranges. But nothing could be
seen of the tiny humans who crawled like bugs over the landscape,
committing their monstrous and beautiful acts. I could only see my
own shadow, thrown across the rock by the moon behind me. People,
shadows, good, bad, Heaven, Hell: all of these were names, labels,
that was all. Humans had created these opposites: Nature recognised
no opposites. Even life and death weren’t opposites in Nature: one
was merely an extension of the other.
All I could think of to do was to trust to
instinct. That was all I had really. Human laws, moral laws,
religious laws, they seemed artificial and basic, almost childlike.
I had a sense within me – often not much more than a striving – to
find the right thing to do, and I had to have faith in that sense.
Call it anything – instinct, conscience, imagination – but what it
felt like was a constant testing of everything I did against some
kind of boundaries within me; checking, checking, all the time.
Perhaps war criminals and mass murderers did the same checking
against the same boundaries and got the encouragement they needed
to keep going down the path they had taken. How then could I know
that I was different?
I got up and walked around slowly, around the
top of Mt Martin. This was really hurting my head but I had to stay
with it. I felt I was close to it, that if I kept my grip on it,
didn’t let go, I might just get it out, drag it out of my
begrudging brain. And yes, I could think of one way in which I was
different. It was confidence. The people I knew who thought brutal
thoughts and acted in brutal ways – the racists, the sexists, the
bigots – never seemed to doubt themselves. They were always so sure
that they were right. Mrs Olsen, at school, who gave out more
detentions than the rest of the staff put together and kept
complaining about ‘standards’ in the school and the ‘lack of
discipline’ among ‘these kids’; Mr Rodd, down the road from us, who
could never keep a worker for more than six weeks – he’d gone
through fourteen in two years – because they were all ‘lazy’ or
‘stupid’ or ‘insolent’; Mr and Mrs Nelson, who drove their son five
kilometres from home every time he did something wrong and dropped
him off and made him walk home again, then chucked him out for good
when he was seventeen and they found the syringes in his bedroom –
these were the ones I thought of as the ugly people. And they did
seem to have the one thing in common – a perfect belief that they
were right and the others wrong. I almost envied them the strength
of their beliefs. It must have made life so much easier for
them.
Perhaps my lack of confidence, my tortuous
habit of questioning and doubting everything I said or did, was a
gift, a good gift, something that made life painful in the short
run but in the long run might lead to ... what? The meaning of
life?
At least it might give me some chance of
working out what I should or shouldn’t do.
All this thinking had tired me out more than
the work hiking up and down the mountains. The moon was shining
brighter than ever but I couldn’t stay. I got up and went down the
rocks to the gum tree and the start of the trail. When I got back
to the campsite I was disgusted to find Lee sound asleep. I could
hardly blame him, considering how late it was, but I’d been looking
forward all evening to seeing him and talking to him again. After
all, it had been his fault that I’d been going through this mental
sweat-session. He’d started it, with his talk about my head and my
heart. Now I had to console myself with crawling into his tent and
sleeping next to him. The only consolation was that he would wake
in the morning and find he had slept with me and not even known it.
I think I was still smiling about that when I fell asleep.