Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

  “Amalthea,” said Vivian solicitously, leaning from her window. “We aren’t stopping. It’s just, we heard about your sadness, with poor Garlic. And we wondered if you managed, yourself, to escape the battering?”

  “Yes, I did, thanks, Vivian. Just a couple of glancing hits. Not you though, by the look of those bruises!”

  “Ho! This one,” Vivian gingerly touched her temple, “like to knocked me right out of me knickers! I swear it was half an hour before I could properly get my legs under me! Got my sense back just in time to see the ambulance leaving with Johnathon! Totally missed seeing the McFarlane girl . . . young Ruth . . . pull him out of the wreck! Ironic she should be the one to do that, isn’t it?”

  I drew back further into the shadows at the mention of my name.

  “Ironic? Why is it ironic, Vivian?”

  “Oh. No reason. Just is, that’s all.”

  “What about that clobbered billy?” Alf asked, quickly changing the topic. “You get him disposed of okay?”

  “Ah, thanks, Alf! That’s very thoughtful. He’s still in the house, in fact. But today’s the day, I think.”

  “I can pop ‘round with the tractor if ye like. Throw ‘im in the bucket an’ plant ‘im somewhere out the back paddock. No fuss.”

  I heard Asael and Rosemary shuffling across to listen at my back.

  “Thanks, Alf,” Amalthea said mildly, “but I’ve decided to cremate him . . . if I can use some of that old timber from under the Poinicana?”

  “Jus’ feedin’ the white ants. Use what ye want.”

  “Thanks, Alf. Actually, I jumped the gun a bit – already moved some of it around the back. I just want to give Kevin a heads-up first. He and Garlic were kind of mates, you know?”

  “Yeah? Well . . . ye gotta have mates, that’s for sure.”

  He looked off into the distance, casually assessing his cane crop.

  “Something else on your mind, Alf?”

  Vivian took up the story then.

  “It’s none of our business, dear, but we also heard that it was you found Isak Nucifora the other night, and got him to the hospital?”

  “Yes?”

  “They say he claims that . . . that he had something else there with him. A bit of space stuff – from that meteor maybe?”

  “Well . . . yes!” I could hear the hesitation in Amalthea’s voice. She wasn’t quite ready to admit that she had both a dead goat and some ‘space stuff’ in their house. “There was a strange something there!” She pointed down the appropriate headland. “Knocked down a bit of your cane, I’m afraid, Alf.”

  “Yeah? I’ll check ‘er out. Maybe temorra.”

  “The thing is,” Vivian continued, “poor old Isak has been a little . . . ‘irregular’ for years, you know. And . . . well, no one’s ever sure if he’s maybe seeing pink elephants, you know what I mean? Anyhow, the point is that he seems to have done a runner from the hospital!”

  “Done a runner?”

  “In the middle of the night! Doctor had him sedated and all but . . . well, they went to check on him this morning and he was gone. We just thought you should be warned. He was working for us the night you found him, you know, so we feel a little responsible for him being out there. And, as well, this house . . . it kind of figures large in his history, you know? There was a woman attacked here, years ago, and Isak found her. Never been the same since that night! Completely unbalanced him. And rumour has it that . . . she was on his mind during his time in hospital.”

  “Oh!”

  Amalthea and Vivian joined Alf in gazing out at the wall of cane and Alf’s plate-sized hand came up to massage his face.

  “You’ve known Isak a long time, I guess?” Amalthea mused.

  “Everyone’s known Isak for a long time,” Alf said. “Poor ol’ bastard!”

  “Why’s that, Alf? Why’s he a poor old bastard? Has he got something wrong with him?”

  “Ahh, no more’n the next man, I don’t s’pose. Bit too fond o’ the drink. But then again, who isn’t?” He laughed mechanically, ha ha, and bit it off. “Drink’s one of them things can get the best of a man . . . along with hard work . . . and women.” He smiled fondly at Vivian and she finished the thought for him.

  “Isak got past the women and hard work parts some years back, dear. That only leaves the drink. Some men never get past that.”

  “It’s hard to imagine him with a woman,” said Amalthea, and I knew straight away she was casting about for information on his relationship with Gramma G. “Hard work, yes; but a woman? Was he married or anything?”

  Alf looked at her suspiciously. “We gotta be gettin’ on. Let you get about your day.”

  He walked around the Ute and got in. Vivian, smiling helpfully, said, “He won’t be dangerous, dear. Even if he managed to get this far, which Doctor seems to think is unlikely. They’re sending folks out to look for him.”

  The engine started and Alf leaned across for a parting word.

  “Don’t leave it too long,” he called. And to Amalthea’s inquiring look, he said, “The goat. Don’t leave it too long. Dead things go off quick in the heat.”

  * * *

  Amalthea was barely back in the house when Asael started in on her. It seemed that all he’d heard of the conversation was the ‘cremating Garlic this afternoon’ bit.

  “You can’t cremate him, Amalthea! He could come back! I could . . . ! There was a dragonfly! Just now! I picked it up and . . . !”

  We both looked at him expectantly, but it seemed to be the end of his thought.

  “What are you on about, As?’” I asked, none too patiently. I was managing to re-direct my annoyance with myself, for letting him rummage through Amalthea’s albums, into annoyance with him, for not putting everything away properly.

  In answer to my question, (and my tone, I suppose) he shook his head, unable or unwilling to explain. Amalthea was heaps patient with him.

  “Sit with me a minute, Asa’,” she said softly, guiding him to the couch and sitting beside him, continuing to hold his hand. “Listen. We’re brand new friends, you and I. But being friends doesn’t mean we have to see the world in exactly the same way! Like, the way I see what’s happened to Garlic, for instance! The way I see it . . . this flesh we inhabit . . . is just a husk! A temporary home for our spirit! Mine, yours, Ruthie’s . . . your mother’s and your grandmother’s . . . all husks. But sometimes, when a husk is finished, a spirit might forget, or might not want to remember, that it has another place to go! Its real home! Its own Summerland! That’s why we help it to go free . . . help it to finish this part of its journey. So it can get on its way to a new start! That’s what we have to do for Garlic! You say Garlic could come back. I know he will come back. But you have to understand, he won’t ever come back as Garlic! Okay? Does that help?”

  “I . . . I just don’t think you should burn him, Amalthea! Not yet!”

  She tilted her head, studied him briefly and let go his hand.

  “Well we aren’t going to do anything along those lines this very minute, anyhow. There’s lots of other stuff to do before we get to that. Acres of things to do!” She jumped to her feet. “Come on! Time for these husks of ours to be busy!”

  She bustled off to the kitchen and I watched him for a minute longer, sitting and staring at Queenie, balanced impossibly on her tiny point. Whenever she’s burning this goat, I reminded myself, I have to make doubly certain we’re not here. And I went off to the kitchen, hoping to lure Amalthea into talking more about her family and the mysterious photos of young Kevin Truck.

  * * *

  Before that could happen, though, it became clear that Garlic’s fate was on more minds than just ours. Car doors slammed, a rabble of male voices erupted in the yard and heavy feet clumped onto the veranda, the whole ruckus culminating in the heel of a fist pounding on the wall and someone shouting, “Bring out the goat!”

  It was so close, so unexpectedly loud and aggressive that, though we’d
heard the engines, we both leapt in fright. I knocked over my chair and Amalthea dashed out with a cup still in her hand. In the living room, Rosemary and Asael had also jumped up and were staring in amazement at the hulking silhouette in the doorway. The ‘Bring out the goat’ shout had already set off a chanted chorus outside: Bar-b-q the goat! Bar-b-q the goat! The silhouette in the doorway was that of Darryl Sutton.

  He pushed open the screen, leaned blearily on the jamb and fixed his eyes on Asael.

  “You still here, runt? You ‘n’ the lady o’ the house got somethin’ goin’ on, have ye?” It was typical, low-grade Darryl-talk and it also confirmed that, though it was almost nine o’clock Sunday morning, Saturday night hadn’t quite finished for him.

  Amalthea strode straight across to stand in front of him, blocking his entry to the house, while the chanting outside degenerated into wild laughter and scuffling. A moment later Dale shouldered up beside his brother, filling the remaining space in the doorway.

  “I hope you boys aren’t out driving around in this condition?” Amalthea scolded. “The night’s over! The festival’s over! You should all be home in bed!”

  “We want,” Darryl said, with the exaggerated care of someone who’s using a semi-paralysed tongue, “to burn the goat. We moved the timber. Now we want the fire.”

  “Uh-huh, well I’m grateful for your help with the timber. And you’re welcome to join in the send-off. You’ll need to come back around three . . . sober.”

  “Sober my arse! An’ sober your pretty little arse as well, Am-al-thee- ah!” Even holding onto the jamb, he was barely managing to stay upright. “We ready right now! Aren’t we, bro’!”

  He held up a knife, bobbing it around in front of Amalthea’s eyes, and I pressed Asael out of sight behind me.

  “Have that bastard gutted, bar-b-qued an’ eaten inside of an hour, eh?”

  I’d hoped to stop Asael from focussing on the knife but I couldn’t shield him from the words. He pushed out from behind me, pointed a finger at Darryl as though he was Moses confronting an idolater, and shouted, “Oh no you won’t!”

  Both Dale and Darryl squinted into the shadowy interior of the house and that, I suppose, was the first time Dale saw me. He seemed almost to get a notch soberer and he snarled, “You here too, beanpole?”

  “Ruth’s here on my invitation,” Amalthea snapped, knuckling him on his big shoulder, “which you boys aren’t! Now go home and sleep it off! If you want to come back for the send-off, and you’ve sobered up, you’ll be welcome. Three o’clock! Eat before you come.”

  The light was behind Dale but something in the tilt of his head told me he hadn’t taken his eyes off me and I couldn’t resist baiting him.

  “How are your black eyes doin’, you moron?”

  Darryl hooted with laughter and Dale straightened up, swaying in the door. Then Darryl turned around and called, “Get some petrol on that timber, boys! She says to help ourselves to the goat.”

  The rabble outside became louder, more excited and began to clatter its way around the house.

  “You’re not doing this, Darryl!” Amalthea hissed.

  “You think not?”

  He put his big hand out – the one not holding the knife – and, pushing her slowly, purposefully to one side, he stepped into the room. I saw Dale reach for him in a drunken, half-hearted way, but it was Asael, to my great astonishment, who ran at him. It was like watching a Chihuahua with a death-wish. Some flicker of understanding made Darryl move the knife aside, but the other big hand twitched, almost reflexively, and flicked Asa’ onto his bum. And Darryl instantly forgot him. He weaved across to me instead, bumping and pushing furniture, making his big, stupid look-how-dangerous-I-am faces.

  “Us morons,” he said, louring over me, “don’t take well to bein’ told what we can’t do.” He put out a finger, stiff and hard as a spike, and jabbed it into my shoulder. “I bin hearin’ stories about you, ye scrawny little smart-ass. Makin’ trouble. Ye think pullin’ Cranna outta that plane gives ye some weight to throw around in this town?”

  I wasn’t frightened of Darryl, though I probably should have been. Boys when they’re drunk are a whole different animal to boys when they’re just hormonal. I thumped the heels of my hands against his chest and snarled right back at him: “You smell like a pig’s arse, Sutton. And you look like one too, you big sphincter.”

  Neither the push nor the insult budged him. In fact, he laughed in my face, a sour, humourless, evil-smelling kind of laugh and, though Amalthea was behind him, shouting at him to get out of her house, it was Asael he turned to speak to.

  “Ye know what I reckon, hero?” he said gleefully. “I reckon we’ll butcher that little four-legged pecker right here, in the shade!”

  It was at that point that Dale stepped the rest of the way into the room, though probably only I noticed it because that was also that point when Rosemary decided to intervene. She’d bounced to Asa’s side when he went down and, with Darryl turning that way again, she launched herself, rolling her head forward and lifting the nubs of her horns directly into Darryl’s groin.

  A sound came out of him like a truck horn that’s been shot in mid-honk and we all froze as, in quick succession, the knife, his knees and his forehead hit the floor. Rosemary, queen of the moment, jumped onto the broad hump of his back, stamping her little hooves a time or two, and Darryl, in very close communion with his balls, seemed hardly to notice.

  Dale, though, lurched groggily forward, taking up the momentum by aiming a feeble kick at Rosemary who, swinging her attention to him, was unprepared for Darryl’s slumping over onto his side. She fell heavily, winding herself and, in an instant, the battle swung back in the Sutton’s favour.

  Dale’s big head swung confusedly between her and his brother. Attack or rescue? It had all happened so quickly. Amalthea and I both moved to intercept him, (though how that would’ve ended is anybody’s guess; together we might have matched his weight, but we were still only a fraction of his strength!) As luck would have it though, we were beaten to the punch as, for the second time in two minutes (and probably in his entire life!) Asael threw caution to the wind and himself into danger. He flew past us and the struggling Rosemary and, like a small, soft cannonball, hurled himself against stony wall of Dale’s ribs.

  The impact, I’m sure, stunned Asa’ a good bit more than it did Dale. Nonetheless, drunk, dizzy and under attack, with his big brother already down, Dale stumbled. One hand smacked into the floor and the other, probably more by luck than design, latched like a claw onto the back of Asael’s neck.

  Movement, at that point, was everywhere: Amalthea shouting Dale’s name, Rosemary scrabbling for footing, Asael, clawing with all his puny strength at the big hand that held his neck – a neck that Dale might well break purely by accident! And Dale, twisting to give me a look that had no chance at all of penetrating the red rage flowering in my head. And it was too late for looks anyhow, because that’s when the explosion happened.

  One of the boys in the back yard had touched a match to the litres of petrol they’d poured onto the wood of Garlic’s funeral pyre. The walls of the house shook, Dale sank to one knee and I lost it completely.

  It was the apparent need of these boys to impose themselves where they weren’t wanted; the casualness of their violence. But it was also the courage of Rosemary and Asael and Amalthea in confronting it! It was the fear that wouldn’t allow Bridie to go into Madam Zodiac’s tent and it was the queen who wanted the good people and then the bad people and I didn’t know why! It was the Agnes letter and it was Bessie Crampton seeing trouble in my hand and it was Isak Nucifora, threatened into silence about my grandmother’s death. I became a thin little pony-tailed demon version of myself and, howling like a banshee, I jumped onto Dale’s back. I wrapped my legs around him, grabbed his ears and commenced to do my very best to rip them off his stupid, drunken head!

  * * *

  Not fifty meters away, in the tall grass at the edge
of the cane paddock, a ghostly white figure lies pressed to the earth. Isak has spent a couple of hours making his furtive way through the cane, bare-footed and cursing, hating a hospital staff that wraps a man in a floppy white kimono instead of a decent pair of pants. He’s travelled slowly, craftily, keeping low in the channels and headlands, until finally reaching the tangled alley of flattened cane where (how many days ago was it?) Queenie had come to wait for him. And she wasn’t there. His first thought was that she had gone back into whatever mysteriousness had hatched her.

  ‘Can’t be gone yet!’ he’d moaned. “I haven’ got it all! I can’t remember it! Gracie? Queenie? Don’ be gone! Please please please don’ be gone!”

  Somehow the lost woman and the lost Thing had begun to meld together in his mind.

  “Qu-e-e-e-n-i-e-e-e!” he’d shouted forlornly into the still morning air. He’d been counting on that magical thing, that Queenie, for some kind of further guidance, further illumination. Without illumination . . . how’s a man to know what to do?

  He’d tramped about the area, anguished and frustrated, for what seemed like ages, finding nothing. He’d cursed powerfully and continuously, hating Amalthea Byerson for finding him in the cane and hauling him to the hospital; hating Roger Dabney for sedating him instead of letting him go; hating Johnathon Cranna for starting the whole thing with his bloody airplane. Hating Sugar Town for letting the past lie. And finally, his tracker’s eye, of its own accord, found itself focussed on the path opened only hours ago by the passage of Asael and Ruth. Immediately he’d been mollified. Of course! She wouldn’t just go! She was here for a purpose! Someone’s taken her! And out in the headland he found that, not only did they leave a trail Blind Freddie could follow, but they’d left him a bicycle!

  The boys in Amalthea’s yard, had they looked up, might have seen the ghostly apparition come pedalling out of the headland, coat-tails flapping. They might have seen him drop out of sight into the long grass, hoping he hadn’t been spotted.

  He’s close enough to hear voices being raised, first in anger, then in agony. He’s close enough to feel vibrations running through the earth from the exploding petrol. He’s close enough to see the pillar of flame from behind the house and the mayhem that erupts from within as one man scrambles out on knees and one hand, the other hand clutching his balls; and a second man stumbles behind, with a raging girl mounted on his back, ripping at his ears. He’s close enough to recognise Amalthea Byerson, Asael McFarlane and the bucking, bleating goat that tumble out in pursuit. Isak’s close enough to pick off any one of them, maybe all of them, if he had his rifle and a mind to. He’s close enough to see the police car swerve into the yard and he’s canny enough to lower his head.