Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

  ‘Just paying a visit,’ says the other voice. It’s Johnathon Cranna’s voice. There’s a squeak of rubber as he turns his wheelchair.

  ‘We’ve been having some nice chats, Bridie and I,’ he says, again sly and whispery. ‘Like the old friends we are.’ He laughs, softly, far away now, the sound cutting off as Doctor Dabney pushes him back into his own room.

  She opens her eyes and, in one of them, a fat tear wells up – not quite big enough to roll.

  Asael, she whispers. You’ll never have to know.

  And she turns her back to the light.

  Chapter 22 – More Revelations (Tuesday)

  “A paternity test’d be the answer. Damn soon put an end to this whole shemozzle, once and for all. Check out the DNA, I say!”

  Asael and I were passing Johnathon’s room and I had just glanced in, only to find that it was empty and the bed had been stripped. The words had come from Bridie’s room further down the hall and, before they were half out, I’d grabbed Asael’s arm and spun him back toward the lobby.

  “Hey!” I blathered. “We’re a pair of dummies! We didn’t bring chocolate!”

  I slapped my rucksack into his hands and said, “There’s five dollars in there, down the bottom somewhere. How ‘bout you go back to the machine in the lobby and get something nice and I’ll just go make sure she’s decent, okay?”

  Thankfully, he went. Not without a grumble, but he went. And I tip-toed on, to stand just out of sight outside Bridie’s door.

  It was Sergeant Morrow’s voice that I’d heard and I gathered that, while I was fussing with Asael, some point had been made about the difficulty of collecting DNA samples from unwilling citizens. I tuned back into the conversation with Morrow saying, “There’s ways ‘n’ means, Roger. I’ll get ‘em, or I’ll know the reason why!”

  Then Bridie piped up with, “There won’t be any tests.” Even in the hallway, I raised my eyebrows at how firm she sounded.

  “Now don’t be hasty!” Morrow started again. “If you’re worried about someone botherin’ you, I can promise you absolute, perfect security! No one’s gonna get within coo-ee o’ you, I guarantee it!”

  “The only person in Sugar Town that I’m worried about right now,” she said, “is Asael. Right now, he has a father who, though he’s far away, is a good and holy man. That’s the only father I ever want him to know.”

  “But the law . . . !”

  “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still, Sergeant. And he that is righteous, let him be righteous still. The Revelation of Saint John.”

  “Oh, bugger Saint John! We aren’t talkin’ about Saint John. We’re talkin’about. . . !”

  “Enough, Sergeant!” Roger Dabney roared. “It’s enough! I’ve stood by long enough, this morning, allowing you to harangue my patients! First Johnathon, with all that ridiculous, fanciful claptrap that people have cobbled together for you! Ignorant, conspiracy-theory mumbo jumbo! And now Bridie! It’s more than enough! She’s made her wishes perfectly clear!”

  He paused and started again, making an obvious effort to sound calmer and more judicious.

  “My suggestion, Sergeant, is that you – we – all of us – respect Bridie’s very sensible wishes! The matter should never have been resurrected in the first place. And it most certainly serves no one’s best interests to carry it on! Now, if you’ve nothing else to ask about, I must ask you to excuse us. I’d like to examine my patient.”

  There was a mutter and a muffled curse from Sergeant Morrow, followed by, “Right! You do that! But I tell you what! Wishes or no wishes, I’ll be carryin’ on with my examinin’, as well! And I will get to the bottom o’ this! That’s a gold-plated promise!”

  And he stomped out, with barely a glance in my direction. I drew a couple of deep breaths, put on a goofy smile and, trying to pretend that I’d heard nothing, went in.

  “Hiya, Sis! Hello, Doctor. Is this a bad time?”

  Both of them turned startled faces to me and Doc’ Dabney’s face pinched up like a crab-apple doll’s.

  “Does no one in this town understand the concept of visiting hours?” he snapped. “Ten o’clock! That’s when they start! Go back to the lobby and wait – at least until I’ve finished my examination.”

  My instinct was to shoot straight through and, given another blink of time, I would have. But Bridie, to my absolute joy and astonishment, swung her long legs off the bed, gave him a sadly reproachful look, and dismissed him as though he was a naughty kid caught picking his nose in Sunday school.

  “I won’t be needing your examination, Doctor,” she said simply. “You can go. Ruthie’ll stay.” And after a minute, because he stood there, shuddering with disbelief, she nodded toward the door and said, “Thank you, Doctor.”

  He actually staggered a step then, but only one, and, sputtering and spitting, he gawped back and forth between us, like it had suddenly occurred to him that we’d arrived on broomsticks. I enjoyed it immensely. Not because I like seeing people made uncomfortable, but because I like seeing arrogant, self-satisfied, out-of-touch people made uncomfortable. Introducing them to a lower peg just makes communication so much easier. And it was fascinating to see the rich tomato-y colour that crawled out from behind his ears, giving the impression that his head was about to explode.

  “How dare you speak to me in that manner! This is my hospital! And until I’m satisfied that . . . !”

  “Do you know,” Bridie interrupted him, with degrees of volume that I hadn’t known she could produce; “Do you know the four things that are never satisfied, Doctor?”

  “What? What are you . . .?”

  “The grave, a barren womb, the dry earth and the fire!”

  “What?” he stammered again. “What on earth . . .?”

  “The Book of Proverbs,” she said, stamping it out as though it was the ultimate authority. As though that should make it clear what she was on about (which it certainly didn’t for me!). “Now if you’ll be so kind, I’d like to talk to my sister . . . in private. I believe your friend Mister Cranna is being discharged this morning. I’m sure he’d appreciate hearing your supportive thoughts on the ‘ridiculous, fanciful claptrap’ that people in town have ‘cobbled together’!”

  My first impression, judging from the expression on his face, was that he figured she’d slipped her moorings. Even though I was thinking that I’d never seen her saner or more in-control.

  “What? What did you . . .? What are you . . ?”

  The colour rose even higher in his cheeks and he looked between us, then to the floor, as though his dignity might be found there, lying in a wounded little pile, like a discarded sock. Then he gathered himself together and strode from the room, tossing an uncertain, “We’ll see about this!” over his shoulder. And it struck me.

  ‘Holy crap!’ I said to myself. ‘She’s frightened him! How did she do that?’

  * * *

  “Wow!” I said to Bridie when he was gone. “What just happened?”

  She held her rigid pose for a second longer, then she began to crumple.

  “Oh Ruthie!”

  For a second, I thought she was going to fall and I moved to brace her against the bed.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she breathed. “You came at just the right time. Where’s Asael? Is he all right? Didn’t he come with you?”

  “Here I am!” He was at the door, anxious to come in, but obviously nervous about her apparent state.

  “Oh, As!” She held out her arms to him. “Look! We’re okay! Let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth! Ecclesiastes.”

  And, with a visible effort at restraint, he sauntered across to her, holding out his chocolate bar.

  * * *

  We spent twenty minutes or more talking and laughing, skirting around the thorniest parts of the issues that neither Bridie nor I wanted to raise while Asael was listening. She told us about Morrow’s visit which, in her telling, was nothing more than part of his follow-
up investigation into the Night of Mayhem. And I told her of the gathering in the Showground, making the same claim – that everyone was concerned to catch whoever might have burned our house and done the other creepy things that had been done. Asa’ told about Marybeth and Dorrie camping at Amalthea’s place and how they’d tramped around the yard all night and peeped in at the doors and windows, checking, we thought, mostly on Queenie.

  “That’s the space thing,” I explained to Bridie. “Queenie’s what Isak started calling her. Kinda catchy, eh?”

  We told how, when we’d left, Marybeth, Dorrie and Isak had been sitting in the lounge room beside Queenie, chatting softly and secretively while Amalthea idled in the back yard, raking through the ashes of Rosemary’s pyre.

  “Oh, my!” Bridie said. “That poor little goat! I hope someone said some nice words over her?”

  Again, it was Asa’s story. “Amalthea read some poem-bits but Kevin didn’t like it and they argued about it afterwards.”

  “No, did they? Kevin didn’t like the words? That’s not like him! Usually he likes any kind of words! Is he all right?”

  She looked to me for confirmation and I shuffled my eyes around. I didn’t want to give away his and Amalthea’s secret but, on the other hand, I didn’t want to keep it, either.

  “I think it’s because they’re related,” Asael said. “Me ‘n’ Ruthie saw Kevin’s photo in Amalthea’s memory book from a long time ago. We weren’t peeking! It just fell out!”

  “You what?”

  So then I had to tell the story, as much of it as I knew. At the end, I shook a finger in Asael’s face and warned him, “Neither one of ‘em knows that the other knows, Asael! So you say even a peep about it to either one of them and I’ll cook your goose for you! Understand?”

  “Ruthie!” Bridie said. “That’s no way to talk! We’re family, us three – sisters and brother! We need to look after each other’s gooses! And the gooses of our friends, as well, eh, Asa’?” She winked and smiled at him, enjoying her little joke. “You wouldn’t spoil Kev’ and Thea’s secret, would you mate?”

  He shook his head and she added, “Course not! And somewhere along the way, if God wills it, they’ll discover the truth about who they are. He shall light a candle of understanding in their hearts, which shall not be put out. Apocalypse.”

  Well, there were two things there that just sprinkled a little cold water on my mood. The little one was her pulling me up as though she was back in charge of the family, even though I was the one that seemed to be carrying the brunt of things at present. And the bigger one was the reference to discovering ‘the truth about who they are’.

  Now, I didn’t have any impulse (and still don’t!) to let Asael know that his real father was a maniac rapist! But I wasn’t a kid! I was a teenager (even if only barely) and a girl (which, I don’t care what anyone says, gives you some insights) and I looked like, potentially, having to take a fair hand in caring for both of these people. I reckoned Bridie and I needed a chance, soon, to have an honest, adult conversation.

  “Hey, we’re gonna eat this bar in no time! What about we get her another one, for later, As’?”

  I pushed the last of my change at him and shooed him out the door. “Get us something nice, eh? No raisins, but!”

  When he was out of sight, I turned back to Bridie. Neither one of us was smiling.

  “Only truth between us,” I charged. “That still stands?”

  “It stands as tall as it can, Ruthie. As much truth as either of us can bear to tell or hear. That’s all I should ever have promised.”

  So I told her that I’d heard Morrow’s suggestion of a paternity test and asked why not. Didn’t she want to know who? She swung her legs from the bed and gazed down at her feet.

  “I do know, Ruthie.”

  I was gob-smacked. Not that I hadn’t thought it possible that her memory might come back; but I hadn’t thought it possible that she’d be lying here, so calmly – tousling Asa’s hair and making feeble jokes – once she knew! If it was me, I’d be out looking for a gun!

  “You remember?”

  She nodded, a gesture that she halted by pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Enough. Too much.”

  “And?”

  “For the moment, Ruthie, ‘And . . . nothing!’ I haven’t told anyone else. I don’t intend to tell anyone else and I’m counting on your silence as well.”

  “But why, Bridie? Surely they . . . !”

  “Keep your voice down! I don’t want Asael to hear! I don’t want him ever to hear. I don’t want him ever to think that he isn’t the child of the same loving parents as you and I. He’s not at fault in this and he should never have to pay for it.”

  And no matter what I had ever thought or felt or suggested or hinted at before about my sister – in that moment – for that moment – knowing what it must be costing her to say nothing – I guessed she was as close to perfect as anyone can probably get. But I wasn’t. And I needed to know.

  “Were there . . . was it Les, like everyone guessed? Shouldn’t you at least tell Bessie?”

  “No. Bessie’s fine with what she knows.”

  “So it was Les then! Which means that Isak was telling the truth! And he’s not crazy and he really did murder Les! Which is excellent! He fully got what he deserved!”

  “Ruthie, let him go. As I am. As it says in Exodus: Let him go for a scapegoat, into the wilderness.”

  “Scapegoat? What do you mean, ‘scapegoat’? He was a monster! Listen, Bridie, if you don’t want to stand up for yourself, that’s one thing! But you’re not alone in this, you know? There’s Asael as well! And Grandma G! Lot’s of people have been hurt and cheated!” I wanted to add myself to the list, but I wasn’t at all certain I could explain my sense of loss. “You have to be strong in this – for them, if not for yourself!”

  “I am strong, Ruthie. When I’m weak, then I’m strong. Remember that? From Corinthians? ‘Take delight in hardships, in persecutions and in difficulties.’ It’s what we endure that measures our strength, Ruthie; not who we manage to punish.”

  And that was the end of her perfect moment. Fragile or not, I was set to tell her how, unless the purpose of people was to be battered like punching bags, Corinthians was a load of pig swill. The frantic howl of Dorrie’s ambulance, however, threaded its way into the room at that moment, completely de-railing my train of thought.

  “What the . . .?”

  We couldn’t see through the courtyard greenery but we could tell from the sound that the car sped up to the emergency entrance, slowed and then zipped away again, siren still blazing. Why would it do that, except maybe to pick up Doctor Dabney? But for what? Only the direst emergency would have pulled Dorrie away from her vigil at Amalthea’s or the doc’away from his hospital!

  And somehow the thought of people we knew being in distress became the proof of my argument against Corinthians. If we had any value at all to one another, surely it was in providing some respite from each other’s hardships and persecutions! Some promise that we were not alone in our enduring! Which meant that she owed the truth at least to me, if not to anyone else! I turned on her.

  “Why did the doc’ scuttle off like that, Bridie? And what was that about ‘ridiculous claptrap’ and talking to Johnathon? If you know stuff that the rest of us need to know . . . !”

  She drew breath and, because once I start pushing, I have trouble knowing when to stop, I barked at her, “The truth, Bridie! Nothing else’ll do!”

  Almost immediately, I had to step back from her. She snapped onto her feet and loomed over me, becoming, just for a nanosecond, the bitter, crazy-with-rage, inch-away-from-killing, nutso- person that I’d challenged her to be. Her hands became claws between us and a demon’s face leered down on me. For the first time ever, I trembled at the power of the person who lived unseen inside her head.

  “The truth?” she spat. “Because you’re so grown up, is that why? So ready to face it all?
Ruthie? Or whatever you’re calling yourself today! You know what’s best?” She leaned into me, her face twisted with pain. “The truth,” she hissed, “is that I remember three of them. Three of them and me. In the street, in the darkness. And Doctor Dabney was not one of them. Is that enough for you? Or would you like the gory details as well? Would you like to know what it feels like to have your . . . ?”

  I gaped at her, clapping hands over my ears.

  “No-No-No! Stop! Please! Don’t! I’m sorry! I . . .!” But I couldn’t help myself. “I just . . .! Can you tell me . . . ! If Dabney wasn’t one of them . . . was Johnathon?”

  She might have railed at me again but, as fierce a thing as her rage had been, she’d already begun resolutely to reel it in and put it back in its cage. She was shaking like a leaf but her head was shaking most of all, which I, with great relief, took for a negative. But we got no further. Asael came bursting back into the room, propelled, her hands firmly planted on his shoulders, by Dana Goodrich.

  * * *

  They bowled into the room like a pair of fugitives, both of them with eyes the size of mangoes.

  “Kee-rist!” Dana was blurting. “Shit on a biscuit in Sugar Town today!” It seemed she was about to explode with news.

  “Why?” I demanded. “What’s happened? What’s going on?”

  “What bloody isn’t, more like! Zif it wasn’t enough, youse two getting the Doc’ lit up like a friggin’ sparkler! Him rippin’ a fart up the matron then spendin’ fifteen minutes screwing the ears off J.C.! We barely get ‘im under control an’ Dorrie pops up with a riot!”

  “Riot!” Bridie stammered, clutching her arms to still her trembling. “Don’t be ridiculous, Dana! Nobody riots in Sugar Town!”

  “Riot?” Dana blustered. “Who said ‘riot’?” She twisted Asael about to face her. “Did I say ‘riot’?” she demanded and he nodded mutely.

  “Crap! I wasn’t supposed to say ‘riot’! Matron told me not to go talking about it, didn’t she, As’!”

  She twisted him back to face us and shook him slightly, as though he was a large clock she was trying to get started. It worked.

  “At the Showgrounds!” he rattled out. “The Showies came back! That’s what Dorrie said! I heard her on the radio. Dana was showing me the two-way an’ we called up ‘er an’ she answered an’ I asked how Isak an’ Queenie an’ Marybeth were going an’ she said excellent! Them an’ her, they’d come up with a plan to bring something to a head, she said, an’ she had to go and then she called back straight away, like, to tell Doctor Dabney they needed ‘im at the Showground ‘cause the Showies’ve come back to fetch Bessie an’ Arturo’, she said, an’ Sergeant Morrow was there an’ there’s a riot!”