Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

  He looked down to see what I’d done, up to my innocent smile and back down again. The moment was fleeting, but lovely – a little reminder that I wasn’t anybody’s chump. He chewed it over for a minute, then put his big paw on top of my head and mussed my hair, the way you see heroes in the movies do to small, pathetic orphan kids.

  “My pleasure, Ratbag!” he said.

  And he walked away. Laughing. Which was definitely not what I’d intended! I snatched up the muddy shoe and almost let myself heave it at him. But then I thought, No! There’ll be other times, other ways. And I’ll enjoy the task of finding them!

  * * *

  I rinsed the shoe and foot under the tap. Then I rinsed the shoe a second time, realising that, as a result of the house fire, these were now the only shoes I owned. And the clothes I was wearing were all I had to put on. I hoped Amalthea’s bad mood wouldn’t stop her from lending me something clean.

  Carrying on around the back, I came across Kevin and Asael and Garlic. Kevin was using a long-handled rake to drag smouldering bits of timber into the remaining pool of flame. Asael sat on the ground, watching Kev’ and stroking Garlic, who lay beside him. Clutched in his lap was the old poetry book that Amalthea’d read from when we lit the fire.

  “Hey!” I said “Still going, eh?”

  Kevin nodded without looking up, Asael gave me a kind of pleading look and Garlic raised his blind eyes to the sky, where a rising breeze was dispersing the last of Rosemary’s ashes.

  I started to fluff Asa’s hair, then stopped, thinking how Dale had just done that same patronising thing to me. Instead, I scoured my hair band out of my pocket, hung it from my lips for easy access and started pulling my ponytail back into shape.

  “Whatcha got there, As’?” I mumbled, indicating the book.

  “Old book,” he said. “Kevin an’ Amalthea are arguing over it, so I’m holding it out of the way.”

  “Oh?” I didn’t know what he was talking about, but the mention of them arguing drew me back to where they’d been when I left: Kev’ confessing a relationship with Rita and Thea not able to disguise her disgust.

  I got the band into my hair and went to stand beside Kev’.

  “Y’okay?”

  He nodded again. The metal end of the rake looked hot enough to brand a cow with. I wondered if I should tell him that, apparently, the whole town had known about, or thought they’d known about – or at least speculated about – what went on between him and Rita. I wanted to remind him that I was okay with it. Far be it from me to begrudge anyone their happiness! And I wanted to tell him that he needn’t worry about Bridie’s or Asael’s reactions, either; I could handle them. I wanted to tell him those things, and I could have, but I knew that they weren’t the real problem. The real problem was one I couldn’t talk to him about – Amalthea’s perception of what kind of man he, her birth father, might be. Was he one who would take advantage of an unhappy, vulnerable woman? And was that what had happened with Amalthea’s mother?

  I patted his shoulder. “C’mon, you lot. Apparently Amalthea’s cooked us a dinner. Just got time to wash up.”

  I had to take the rake from his hands and lay it in the dirt.

  “C’mon! I got so much to tell you all! It’s been a crazy afternoon! Did Marybeth tell you what’s happening over at the Showgrounds? I talked to Bessie and the Hoggitts, and Sergeant Morrow was there and then Dale took me for a ride to the river and we looked for the place where Rita. . . . !” On and on I went.

  * * *

  Isak stayed out in Marybeth’s caravan – probably trying to convince her that ‘saved’ souls couldn’t possibly look like his! So we were four at the table and only I seemed interested in talking. I nattered out almost the entire story I’d heard at Hoggitt’s caravan, minus two bits. I left out the speculation that Kev’ and mum had been an item, it being obvious from the ragged silence that that sore point didn’t need prodding. And for Asael’s sake, I left out the ‘Morning-After Pill’ references. I talked about going down to the river with Dale and hiking into the mangroves and Dale wondering how mum got there, let alone why, and what a good question that had suddenly seemed to be.

  When I finally ground to a halt, it was for two reasons. The first was that a wave of exhaustion suddenly steam-rolled me, like a Mac truck rolling over a bandicoot. And the other was my realisation that they’d all finished their meals and I’d barely touched mine.

  “Been a big day all right,” Amalthea said and my motor mouth started up again, trying to apologise for leaving in the middle of Rosemary’s send-off. She waved it away.

  “You were right to go. The dead have their roads to walk and the living have theirs. Nobody’s supposed to come to a halt.”

  “Me ‘n’ Isak,” Asael said, “we showed Queenie to Sergeant Morrow again. He didn’t touch her this time, but he says she’ll have to go to the gov’ment.”

  “Sergeant Morrow was here?”

  “Not long after you left the Showground, apparently,” Amalthea answered. “He said he wanted to see Rosemary – see what evidence he could gather about last night. Too late for that! Anyhow, I think what he really wanted was to see Isak. I guess Franz told everyone he was here.”

  “Was there a problem?” I asked, picturing the old man menacing the Sergeant with his gun.

  “No, not at all. I don’t think that old man’s screws are as loose as he makes out. Morrow tried to coax him back to the hospital but Isak said he’d let Garlic do open-heart surgery on him before he’d risk another stay under Dabney’s care. He suggested Dabney come out here if he’s so keen to check on him.”

  “Wow! He’s just really got a trust issue happening, hasn’t he?”

  She looked across at Kevin, who was absently sorting the vegetables in his stir-fry, and said, “They’re more common than you’d think.”

  At that, he pushed his chair back and stood up.

  “Thanks for this,” he said quietly. “I’ll wash up and get out of your way. Early start tomorrow.”

  “No problem,” Amalthea murmured.

  I looked from one to the other and to Asael who, I noticed, still had the old book in his possession. I had a flashback to Amalthea reading from it for Rosemary, and to Kevin’s agitation when he first saw it. That was when it came to me that, somehow, this quarrel between Kevin and Amalthea had moved on to a new level. I stood up.

  “We’ll help,” I said. “I just want to check something in my backpack first.”

  I squinted hard at Asael and dipped my head toward the living room. He brought the book with him, as I knew he would, and handed it over without question.

  “All right,” I said, flicking through the pages, “tell me again. Why are you hanging onto this?”

  “They’re fighting over it,” he said. “Because of what’s written in the front.”

  I flicked to the first, blank page and found a faded piece of writing. It said, ‘L. Page 90. K’. Page 90 turned out to have several short poems on it but one of them, only half a dozen lines long, had an asterisk. It was called ‘Year That Trembled and Reel’d Beneath Me’.

  “I don’t know what it means,” said Asael, “But they quarrelled about it. He said, ‘Where did you get it?’ and she said, ‘A second-hand store in Wagga Wagga’ and he said, ‘I don’t believe you’ and she said ‘Here, have it if you want it’ and he said ‘No’ and then neither one of them wanted it so I took it. What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know, As’!” I said, scanning the half dozen lines for a second time. ‘Your summer wind was warm enough but the air I breathed froze me.’ And second last: ‘Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?’ The name on the cover was Walt Whitman.

  “I truly don’t know! It’s a mystery!”

  In the kitchen, I could see Kevin’s back as he stood at the sink, washing dishes. Behind him, at the table, Amalthea sat in silence, watching him. “I might see if I can find out though, eh?”

  * * *r />
  The sun was about done for the day and Amalthea was in the shower when I walked Kevin out to his motor bike. In the blue light of the dusk, I held the book out to him.

  “What’s this about, Kev’?”

  He shook his head, but he took it from my hands nonetheless and opened it to the inscription.

  “I wrote that,” he sighed. “Twenty-two, twenty-three years ago. Forever ago.”

  “Yeah? And what, you gave it to . . . L?”

  He nodded. “At the end of a year that trembled.” He flicked it open to page 90 and handed it back to me.

  “I read it already,” I said. He flicked a glance toward the house.

  “Thea said she found it . . . in a second-hand store . . . in Wagga Wagga.”

  “Oh. And you don’t believe her?”

  “I got no idea what I believe, Ru’.”

  “No, well. Join the club then, I guess. So who was ‘L’?”

  “ ‘L’? L was Elle. E-double L-E. A woman who was very important to me at a stage in my life.”

  “Yeah? Wow! You wouldn’t read about it then, would you – the coincidences there!”

  “Where? What do you mean?”

  “Well, Amalthea’s mother’s name, I happen to know, because I snooped, was E-double L-E! What’re the odds of Am’ wandering into a second-hand book store in Wagga Wagga and picking up a book meant for someone with the same name as her mother! Then coming to Sugar Town and meeting you! The very bloke who wrote in the book! I mean that’s crazy coincidental, isn’t it?” And then, because I’m nothing if not heavy-handed, I added, “I wonder how old Am’ is!”

  It wasn’t something I should have done, I know. But I hadn’t said anything directly. I’d just kind of dusted off the clues and put them together into a nice, obvious little outfit. What he made of it wasn’t anything to do with me!

  What he did was to furrow his brow and shake his head slowly from side to side, as though intent on keeping those clues from settling. I could actually see the moment when, finally, they beat him, locking themselves into place.

  “No!” he said. “No way! I would have known! Someone would have told me! She wouldn’t have gone through that on her own and not . . . ! Would she?”

  I looked at him, eyes wide and innocent.

  “But that would explain . . . !” he went on, arguing himself into submission. “Like the other night, at the bakery! And so many other times! That something in her tone, her gestures . . . the way her hair curls!” To me, he said, “There’s this look that she gets. It’s like . . . !”

  I waited but couldn’t wait forever. “Like what, Kev’? What’re you thinking?”

  “Jesus H. Crucifix!” he said, and I knew he was truly agitated because that was closer to swearing than I’d ever heard him come. “What’re the odds?” He was back talking to himself again. “That she’d be real, and I wouldn’t know! And on top of that, that she’d find me! Not by accident, no way! That’d be just too nuts! So why hasn’t she said something? Because, you blind numb-nut, she thinks you abandoned them! She just wanted to know for sure! And now she thinks, because of Rita . . . you’re just a . . .! And that’s why she’s . . . !”

  He looked back at the house and then, from the side of his eyes, at me.

  “You knew!”

  “Knew what, Kev’? Jeez! You haven’t finished a sentence in the last ten minutes! I’m not a mind-reader, you know!”

  The sun had already dipped and the light was nearly gone, Still, I folded my arms and gave him my best ‘what-are-you-picking-on-me-for, it’s-not-my-fault’ look. He pointed a dark finger at me.

  “A mind-reader is exactly what you are, Ruth!” Calling me ‘Ruth’ wasn’t a good sign. He only did that when he was truly out of sorts. “This might just be the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me and if you mess me about over it, I can promise you . . . there’ll be no more freebies for you at The Harmony Bakery.”

  I was too tired. I wagged the poetry book at him and said, “If you ever say that I said, I’ll deny it! And you can keep your old cream buns!”

  And I told him about Amalthea’s Memory Book; how Asa’d stumbled across it and we’d looked in it and how there were photos of him, as a young man. And how, that very morning, when Hoggs was waiting for Isak to shoot him, Amalthea’d told him that she was here looking for a father. Someone she’d lost, long ago. I didn’t go on with the ‘fathers-should-be-there’ part of it because that would have seemed unnecessarily cruel – not that I had any idea why Kevin hadn’t been there for ‘L’.

  He shifted his weight a little to get off the bike, I supposed to go back in the house. I blocked his way.

  “Do you think now’s the time?” I asked. “I mean, it’s already been a big day; a huge day for all of us! Am’s lost Rosemary. And she’s suddenly found herself stuck with As’ and me. And Isak. And Queenie. Not to mention Marybeth and Dorrie, and all my family’s problems. Couldn’t you pick another day to let her get stuck with a father?”

  “Stuck?” He settled back into the seat. “No! Right! We don’t want anyone to be stuck!”

  He sat for a long while, looking into some past place that only he could see.

  “Amalthea told me,” I said, “that her mum died a couple of years ago – of leukaemia. Definitely leukaemia. Not a broken heart.”

  He sighed deeply. “Well. There’s a mercy, then, eh?” Then he sat up straight, put on his helmet and turned the ignition. He revved the engine a couple of times and, even in the gloom, I could see his teeth, peeping through a broadening smile.

  He moved the bike ahead a couple of feet and stopped, holding out his hand. “Put her there, Ru’!” he said, and I took it for a shake. It was warm and dry, as always – a workman’s hand. Also, I thought, the hand of a man who loved women – kind of a scary thought. And yet a comforting one because I believed it was connected to a very good heart.

  “Congratulations, Kev’,” I said and he said, “Thanks, mate. Come by the shop tomorrow and I’ll shout you a cigar.”

  “I’ll hold you to that!”

  “I know you will. I’m counting on it.”

  “You going straight home now? You’re not going to go do something crazy and make me worry, are you?”

  “Almost straight,” he said. “I might stop and see Bridie on the way. Want to come?”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I’d like to, but I’m so knackered! Ten minutes from now, I’m going to be asleep – even if I’m still standing here in the yard. But say hi to her for us, eh! Tell her me ‘n’ As’ll be there bright and early. Oh, and you can tell her, if you want, because I forgot to, that Johnathon Cranna’s organising another place for us. Something about promises he made to the Reverend, years ago. So that’s one less thing for her to worry about.”

  * * *

  I waited until his tail light disappeared and then until the sound of the engine faded away. The evening star was out. The smoke from the mill’s stacks rolled into the dark sky like a tower of boiling milk. Someone had spread sand over the stain of Rosemary’s blood.

  I turned back toward the house, only to find Marybeth and Dorrie tip-toeing across the veranda toward their caravan. Dorrie put a finger to her lips and nodded toward the caravan.

  “Isak’s asleep already, poor man! Exhausted with his memories and his salvation. We’ve let him have our bed since we won’t be needing it. You sleep tight too, love. Everyone can sleep tight tonight. Marybeth and Dorrie are watching.”

  I moved to pass them but Marybeth clutched my arm for a final comment. “Your father was a good man, dear. He’d have known! About the Heavenly Object, and what it means! He’d have known!”

  Amalthea insisted that Asael and I sleep in her room, in her big double bed, while she took the couch. I was too tired to argue. The last thing I remember was Asael squirming under the sheet until his back was against mine. He wanted to talk and I could feel the vibration of his voice, coming through my spine. My brother / my nephew.


  “It’s going to be okay now,” he was saying. “I know it is. Queenie’s going to see to it. Before the gov’ment comes to take her away.”

  * * *

  The light from the corridor falls across Bridie’s lap as she lies in her bed, staring into a scene that’s been trying for hours to play itself out against the ceiling. That night, those shadows, the voices. Over and over, they try to resolve themselves into something familiar.

  One part is newly clear – a vision of herself, the little thirteen year-old – but this time alone on the dark street, crying. Crying for her mother; crying for her father; crying for her lost shoes. The one who comes and finds her is her father.

  Jesus Mary and Joseph! NO NO NO! What’s happened? What’s happened to you?

  My shoes! I lost my shoes!

  And he carries her off to their home, to her mother who cries anew: Who has done this? What animal? Who was it? Can you not remember, Bridie? Can you not?

  * * *

  She could not then. Now, she has been trying. To remember. To not remember. It’s all silence. Until, out of the vision comes a new voice. Voices. Sly, urgent, whispered voices. She hears them.

  No way!

  You can’t do that!

  Don’t tell me what I can’t do! I do what I want! And I want this! Now!

  She trembles, deep in her bowels. That voice! She’s wanted / not wanted to know it since waking from her drugged sleep. And now she knows it. She knows them all. All three.

  * * *

  ‘You can’t be doing this, you fool! Get back in your room!’

  ‘Don’t tell what I can’t do! I do what I want. You, of all people, should know that by now.’

  The ceiling becomes, once again, just a ceiling as the shadow of a man forms in the light that lies across her bed. She closes her eyes and feels his approach. She hasn’t moved. Her breathing hasn’t changed.

  ‘Bridie?’

  It’s Doctor Dabney, speaking very softly. She doesn’t move. She wills herself to utter stillness. As before. Until he leaves.

  ‘She’s asleep’, Bridie hears him say. He’s back in the corridor. ‘What the hell are you playing at? Don’t you see how dangerous this is?’