Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

  He stopped, his eyes flicking excitedly back and forth between Bridie and me. She sank back in disbelief, onto her bum and I, unable to take it in, tried to erase it.

  “Rubbish! No way! The Showies? For Bessie? Rioting? In our Showgrounds? No way!”

  But they both nodded, happy as a pair of magpies, and Dana chirped, “That’s the Dorrie story, Rory!”

  I mustered my deepest reserves of sarcasm. “So she said there’ve been actual injuries then, did she? Sugar Town people and Showies are actually going at each other?”

  “The wounded, the crippled and the lame!” Dana shrugged. “Sugar Town’s own Gallipoli, the way I heard it! All ashore that’s going ashore!”

  And then, as though her breasts were that fabled shore, she pulled Asael’s simple little head back against her and crossed her hands on his chest, allowing him to snuggle comfortably between. Leaving Bridie and me to slop around alone in the deep water.

  “No way!” I repeated. “Can’t be!” Tripping over a terrible image of Bessie huddled in the midst of a melee, being tugged in opposite directions. And then I thought, and asked, “Why would they, eh? Why would they fight? Why wouldn’t it be obvious to everyone that they were all there to protect Bessie and Arturo?”

  I looked to Bridie for support, but she only gripped the side of the bed and leaned forward as though about to vomit. “OhmyGod! OhmyGod!” she moaned. “Please don’t let that be!” And then her head snapped up. “Wait! Wait, wait, wait!” and clapping a hand on Asa’s shoulder, she demanded, “What did you say Dorrie said? That they’d come up with a plan? To bring things to a head?”

  “Pinch it like a pimple!” Dana declared. “That what she said, As’?”

  His joyous nod was deadly close to earning him a pinch from me, partly because I was a hundred and one percent certain he had no clue what ‘it’ was! And partly because not even the knowing wag of Dana’s eyebrows prompted him to ask.

  “But Sergeant Morrow’s there!”

  Dana’s eyebrows once again gave their deranged puppet waggle and Asa’s ears bumped merrily against her breasts, but something in Bridie’s tone, as though she was finding the footing that was eluding me, pulled me back.

  “And Ruthie, you said it was Frieda and Lyle who organised the people at the Showground! To protect Bessie! And to get to the bottom of . . . the situation? Our house and Rosemary and the threats and all?”

  This time it was me who nodded, an action that seemed to throw some acceleration switch in Bridie’s recovery program. She bolted upright, flashed across the room and plungied into the little ccorner closet.

  “All right!” Dana declared, as though that was exactly the response she’d been waiting for. “Here we go!” She pushed Asael upright and, “I’m gonna give Truckie a call! If there’s Humphrey’s Own Hell happening around the old Bess’, he’ll wanna be there to put his two-bob’s worth in!”

  She pulled Asael’s face around and made a loud mock-whisper: “Hey! I’m leavin’ ye here, but don’t you go telling yer sisters my secrets now, will ya, Big Fella!” And she left.

  “No clothes! Where’re my clothes?” Bridie was crying from the closet. She popped out, looking at me as though about to demand mine, before snapping, “Go! Go after her, Ruthie! Tell her I need my clothes! And tell her to get Kevin to pick you two up on his way to the Showground!”

  “But the riot . . .!”

  “There’s no riot, Ruthie! Think about it! This is Sugar Town! Nobody riots in Sugar Town. But listen! Get Kevin to drop Asael at Amalthea’s on the way.”

  “Aww!” he started, but she put an end to it straight away.

  “Listen, mate. I can’t leave until I get some clothes. I need Ruthie to check on Bessie. Because Bessie’s like one of our family, understand, and nothing can happen to her just because she’s tried to help us. And I need you . . .” she snatched up my rucksack, rummaged out my phone and put it in his hands, “. . . I need you to be with Amalthea and Isak and . . . Queenie. Because if something bad IS happening – and I’m sure it’s not but if it was – we wouldn’t want anything to hurt them, would we? So you have to watch over them for a bit! Anything strange, anything that seems wrong to you, anything you’re just worried about . . . you ring Kevin’s number, okay?”

  And just like that, a bunch of stuff was organised. It wasn’t until we were well gone that it occurred to me to wonder where Bridie would be going, once she got her clothes.

  * * *

  I’m not sure what I expected: screaming, shouting, fists flying. Bombs going off. There was none of that because, as Bridie’d predicted, there was no riot. There were some obvious out-of-towners who stood out the way outsiders always do; marked by a sense of wariness. But mostly, the campers were still determinedly camping, sprawled on chairs, sipping coffee, leaning together in small, familiar groups.

  The liveliest and noisiest group, which included several of the outsiders, was gathered around Dorrie and her ambulance, immediately outside Hoggitt’s caravan, listening to tales about Queenie.

  “Mate,” one of them was saying to her, “I once knew a bloke who had a machine that could tell your future! No joke! And your past too, if ye wanted! It mighta come from out-o’-space too, I reckon!”

  “That wasn’t a machine, Jacko,” another said. “That was Madame Zodiac! You ever let her look into your hand? Where is she, anyhow? I thought we come here to get her an’ Arturo! Not stand aroun’ here like stale bottles o’ you-rine!”

  “Inside,” Jacko answered. “The both of ‘em. Seems the good folk of Sugar Town decided to look after ‘em after all! Hey, you blokes remember Jimmy Blackbutt? Man, that fella was kidnapped by an alien space thing once! When they brought him back, they give him a type-written letter to show his missus – jus’ to prove he hadn’ been off on a spree somewheres! Very considerate, aliens are!”

  “Sure, sure,” Dorrie told them through their laughter. “It’s easier to mock than to believe!” She raised a finger skywards. “But the Divine Mystery is all around us, boys. Nudging us back from the brink. Oh, yes! The message may not be as simple as a page of writing.” She opened her eyes wide and swung the finger from face to face. “But when the darkness yields up strange answers, ye gotta re-construct your questions to make ‘em fit! And there’s not a single ‘maybe’ in that bit of advice, my friends!”

  “Yair, yer prob’ly right,” the first one answered. “Ye know, I got a strange answer once, when I was a young bloke! She was lyin’ on the beach on Hamilton Island, hot enough to melt sand. ‘How you doin’, darlin’?’ says I. An’ I can promise you, I never asked nobody that question ever again!”

  Dorrie spied Kevin and I at that stage and drew us into the circle.

  “See this girl?” she said to the men. “Well it’s her brother – a boy not more than eleven years old – who was first summoned and spoken to by the Heavenly Object!”

  “Well now!” one of the men said, winking slyly at me. “In that case, I think I just became a believer! ’Cause yer gonna be a Heavenly Object yerself one day soon, girl! Summon me whenever yer ready an’ I’ll come runnin’”

  I looked at him in surprise; him leering down at me. And suddenly, instead of being a group of mildly entertaining strangers, the men became a wall of faces, each grinning emptily, like the plastic clown heads on Sideshow Alley. And all of them seemed to be leaning in on me. I had a flickering image of Bridie; my age, alone, in the dark, confronted by men like these. Men with emptiness behind their eyes. I’m sure they thought I covered my face out of embarrassment. But it wasn’t that. It was purest horror. I needed to be out of there.

  Fortunately Kevin didn’t feel the need for a formal invitation. He yanked open the caravan door and guided me inside. It was fully an hour before I came back out, on my own, and I was shocked to find the men still there, sitting now on the ground, muttering quietly amongst themselves and to Dorrie. They fell quiet when I came out and the sly winker stood up. He took off his hat, revealin
g a thin blond fuzz of hair and a gaze that was so intense and direct I found it difficult to look at him.

  “Miss,” he said. “I apologise. For all of us; but mostly for myself. What I said was meant as a compliment. But it was inappropriate. Sorry.” Then he turned to Hoggs. “Mate, I wonder if ye could ask Arturo or Bess to pop out for a word. If things have come good here, we’re gonna make like a mob o’ dirty shirts, ‘n’ be off.”

  Just then, there was a movement at the caravan’s window and we all looked up. Doctor Roger Dabney’s face was framed there, just for a second, looking very much like he needed to prescribe himself a tonic. When the door opened a second later, it was Sergeant Morrow who stepped to the edge and looked down on us.

  He nodded an affirmation to Dorrie and, “Franz Hoggitt!” he said. “Step in here a minute, boy. Let’s hear your story one more time.” He stepped back and Hoggs slouched unhappily past him.

  The door closed and, “Hallelujah!” Dorrie exclaimed, clapping her hands. “I’m feeling the Lord’s nudge, Ruthie! And I see that brink moving away.” Then she looked around, as though she’d suddenly realised a loss. “Where’s your brother, Ruthie? Where’s Asael?”

  * * *

  Johnathon is home, back on his own ground. One of the bar staff has helped him upstairs to his flat and settled him in and gabbled on excitedly about the crash of the Moth and the splattering of the Grand Gourd and Johnathon’s miraculous control that saved the town’s citizens from slaughter. Johnathon will go down in a couple of hours and take his dinner in the hotel’s dining room. It’ll be a party. He could use a party.

  Meanwhile, he lumbers through the flat, pivoting this way and that on his borrowed crutches. He’s troubled. He’s always assumed – Dabney’s always given him to believe – that Bridie McFarlane’s memory was a ruined thing. A thing as un-reconstructable as the Grand Gourd. Over the years, he realises, he’s come to count on that.

  If it isn’t to be the case (and Roger Dabney’s whining panic seems to suggest that, unexpectedly, it’s not) then everything else he’s done has been for nothing. Or . . . everything else he’s done hasn’t been quite enough!

  His father, he knows, would be disgusted with him. The opportunities he’s had, to deal with rum-soaked Isak Nucifora! And crazy Bessie! He could have found her if he’d tried! Just grab what you want and get the hell out of the road, Johnnnie boy; before something runs over you! Because something’s surely going to try!

  In the bedroom, with the end of a crutch, he flicks a canvas bag from a high closet shelf and prods it open. Inside, there’s a pair of pink, plastic sandals. And a pair of panties. Reminders of how stupid a man can be! That ridiculous, toffee-nosed Reverend! And his gorgeous wife, Rita – cold as linoleum; except to that little black baker! He bats the bag with his crutch. Why is it still here? Why was it ever here?

  There’s a knock on the door and he shouts out. I’m okay! I’ll call you when I need you!

  The door opens, closes, and he wheels into the living room, prepared to shiver someone’s timbers.

  She stands in the room, fearless and proud, looking at him as she did for that single instant of a Harvest Festival night so long ago. Bridie McFarlane. Back then, her face had been circled with light from the streetlamp and his had been lodged in the darkness. Until that moment, the chase had been nothing more than a drunken joke. A prank. A game. Until she stopped and turned and looked at him. So like her mother! As though she was so pure that nothing could ever reach out of the darkness and touch her. What could he do but teach her otherwise?

  “Ah!” he says tentatively. “I see you’ve escaped as well!”

  “I used to think so,” she says, looking around the room. “But now it seems not!”

  * * *

  Getting Dabney out of his hospital and onto neutral ground had been Isak’s dearest wish, though according to him, it was Queenie’s idea – the only way she would ever grant him peace was if he finally sorted the details of Gracie’s dying. Happily, the germ of a plan had arrived with Dorrie and Marybeth the day they parked their caravan at Amalthea’s, and Dorrie was the key. Winning her over had been a work of many hours. On the one hand, all her training told her that the Doc’s authority was not a thing to be trifled with. On the other hand, there had been the Night of Mayhem – a troubling indicator of Sugar Town’s moral and spiritual need.

  She’d listened to the arguments, examined her conscience, consulted Marybeth, crept into Amalthea’s house to study Queenie, hoping for some inspirational contact similar to Isak’s and Asael’s and finally given in. Her justification being that the doc’ would surely have nothing to hide. Let him confront his accusers and be done with it! So long as the meeting was safe and respectful. Morrow would have to be there. And Isak must leave his gun at home.

  Morrow, already well out of patience with civilian interference in his job, had snapped, “Right! I want the Hoggits there as well. An’ Bessie and Arturo. That makes six – plus the doc’. No one else, understand?”

  The unexpected return of the Showie committee, come to lend their support to Bessie and Arturo, had prompted Dorrie to add the naughty but attractive spice of a fictional riot to her ‘need the doctor’ call. They were only bait, after all. Exterior pressure. They wouldn’t be in on the discussions.

  * * *

  Lips, then, were well and truly pursed when Kevin and I bowled in on the meeting. I suppose my family’s chronic instability was cause enough not to want me around. As was the fact that some pretty close-to-the-bone stuff was liable to be discussed. Still, they made room for us; even though I reckoned a pit bull with piles would’ve looked more at ease than did our good doctor.

  On the night of the rape, he was grumbling, yes, it sounded right that the mayor had left the pub group early. (‘Off to perform his public relations magic at the Harvest Festival, no doubt!’) Leaving, possibly, if memory served, Johnathon, Les, Alf Caletti and himself. How certain was he of that? (‘Not at all, Sergeant! It was nearly a dozen years ago, I remind you!’)

  Asked about the topic of conversation – whether it had turned toward my family or not – Dabney first fumed with indignation and refused to answer. Then he pled disinterest. (‘Can you not get it through your heads, you people, that idle gossip is for the idle and the gossipy! Neither of which, I am!’) And then, when Mayor Lyle’s recollections were repeated to him, he managed a grudging concession. (‘Yes, yes, all right! Possibly so, then! And so what? Pub talk! Meant nothing then, means nothing now! A criminal waste of my time, this is!’)

  It seemed briefly that he might storm out, but instead he launched into a rant that even I recognised as an old intimidator’s refuge.

  (‘Shame on you all! Wilfully disrupting the community’s vital services! Whose head will it be on if someone dies in my hospital? Eh? All because a stupid, drunken imbecile [by which, I gathered, he meant Les Crampton] was overwhelmed by vulgar appetites a dozen years ago? I warn you, I will personally be calling you all to account on this!’)

  In answer to that the Sergeant had calmly placed his mobile phone on the table. The Matron was on speed dial. And vice versa. And her word was that all was quiet at the hospital; that in fact that his two most pressing cases, Johnathon and Bridie, had both discharged themselves.

  “So I think ye got a lttle time”, the Sarge had assured him, “for a chat.”

  “And we know you’ve got the town’s best interests at heart, Roger!” Frieda had soothed. “Just like me an’ the mayor!”

  “Though it might be in your own interests as well!” Bessie had offered. “Your aura isn’t at all healthy, Roger!”

  “’Cause ‘e’s a feckin’ coward an’ a liar’s why!” Isak had informed us. “Tell us whatchu hidin’, ye feckin’ earwig!”

  Dabney had sighed several times, fidgeted with the Sergeant’s phone, massaged his temples and sworn beneath his breath.

  And then, “Fine!” he said. “All right! Anything to bring this charade to an end!” r />
  The best he could do, however, was to repeat that, to the best of his recollection, the crowd had shrunk to just the four of them – him, Johnathon, Alf and Les. And since talk in the pub in those days often turned to my family’s predicaments, it was reasonable to assume it did so that night as well.

  “And the gist o’ that talk, Rog’?” asked Morrow.

  Dabney’s eyes flicked from side to side and his mouth moved emptily, in a way that I just couldn’t stand.

  “Look!” I said, with all the clarity and simplicity I could muster, “I hope you’re not pussy-footing around on my account! Everybody knows, number one, that my parents’ relationship wasn’t good! And two, that Rita’s relationship with Kevin (who cringed, shame-facedly, at the corner of my vision) was better! And three – the Reverend might have had an unhealthy attachment to Bridie. I got that! We all got that! Have we all got that? Good! So can we move along? To stuff that might help explain my sister being raped, my house being burned and my. . . my friends being hurt? Okay? Can you please just blurt out what you know, Doctor?”

  “Hear, hear!” Frieda said. “Everyone else’s dirty laundry’s on show, Rog’. Let’s have a dekko at yours.”

  And that was when the new stuff started to eke out. His recollection (hazy though it was) was that, sometime after sundown, three of them had left the pub together, heading, of all places, for The Harmony Bakery. Why only three? Because somewhere in there, Les had disappeared – gone off on his own. Why go to the bakery? To find Kevin and invite him back to the bar. Oh? He was such a close mate? No, it would’ve been to ply him with drinks, I imagine! To maybe get the true goss on what was up between him and Rita, and the Reverend and Bridie. Blokey pub nonsense. And the outcome? He wasn’t home. And so? And so, they’d all peeled off and gone their separate ways. Which, for himself, had meant straight back to the hospital residence.