On the Jellicoe Road

by Melina Marchetta

  “Chaz is in so much trouble,” she says.

  “What? In gaol or painting the town,” I try to joke.

  “Taylor, his dad won’t talk to him.” I can tell that Raffy is in no mood for any kind of humour.

  I look at Griggs and cover the mouthpiece. “Chaz’s dad isn’t talking to him. Did he tell you that?”

  “Shit, no,” he says, shocked. “He’s not going to cope with that.”

  I get back to Raffy who is still talking. “…and Chaz is really cut about it and worse still, he won’t tell them where you guys are so it’s like the Cold War over there. He says his father reckons he’ll never trust him again. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Are you?”

  “Well, how can I be? You’ve run away, Jessa’s been taken by someone you’ve both told me is a serial killer, Ben’s reading the Old Testament and keeps quoting vengeance scenes and Jonah Griggs in the same breath, and Chaz is so down that he didn’t speak for half the time I was with him last night.”

  “What did you do for the other half?” I ask.

  “Very funny, Taylor. Come home and stop making things complicated,” she says angrily.

  “I can’t find my mother and things are complicated.”

  “Then make them simple and come home.”

  “Just get Jessa back. I’ll be there soon.”

  Griggs sits on the kerb with me, holding something that he’s yanked out of the engine. I can tell he has absolutely no idea what to do with cars and the more he looks at it, the more confused he is. I don’t know what to concentrate on and in what order. Should I begin with my mother, who checked out of a hospice for God knows what reason? Or with the Brigadier, who I’ve just discovered is one of her beloved childhood friends? Or maybe with Raffy, who is worried about Chaz? Or Jessa, who is being questioned as we speak? Or should I begin with Griggs, who I…who I what? I don’t even know what terminology to use. Did we have sex? Did we make love? Did we sleep together? Is he my boyfriend? And Hannah? Where’s Hannah in all this?

  “We’re going to have to take the train to Yass and then make our way from there,” Griggs says. “We’ll have to leave the car here.”

  I look at him and shake my head. “You’ve officially given me an aversion to trains leading to Yass,” I say. I dial directory assistance. “The Jellicoe Police Station,” I say.

  Griggs is looking at me as if I’m insane. They connect me and I wait for someone to answer. I say who I am and then I ask for Santangelo’s dad. I wait less than three seconds and he’s on the line.

  “Taylor? Where are you?” Shitty tone.

  “In Sydney. Is Jude Scanlon there?”

  “No. Is Jonah with you?”

  “Yes.”

  I hear the first sigh of relief. Two missing kids located. Tick.

  “Can we expect you back soon?” He’s now using a measured tone.

  “Depends on the Brigadier. Can you give him a message? Tell him that we’ll be at the hospice. The one he signed my mother out of six weeks ago. He can ring us there or he can ring us on Jonah’s phone. Tell him I want to know where my mother is and where Hannah is and I want Jessa McKenzie back in the dorms ASAP.”

  “Anything else?” Now it’s a dry tone.

  I’m about to say ‘No’ and hang up but I change my mind. “Yes, actually there is something else,” I say. “I met this boy here who I knew as a kid and his mum left him with a pedophile for two weeks when he was eight years old and I’m presuming you know everything there is to know about Jonah’s father, and that my father is dead, and my mother hasn’t been around for years, and God knows Jessa’s real story. So what I’m saying here, Sergeant, is that we’re just a tad low on the reliable adult quota so you have no right to be all self-righteous about what Chaz did and if you’re going to go around not talking to him when his only crime was wanting me to have what he has, then I think you’re going to turn out to be a bit of a dud and you know something? I’m just a bit over life’s little disappointments right now. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  He’s silent for a moment.

  “We just want you back here.” The caring tone in his voice makes me want to cry but I need to keep my anger focused or I’ll stop moving forward.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s what your mother wants and if she knew you were somewhere out there meeting up with God knows who, it would—”

  “No lectures,” I say. “Just answers. Please.”

  I hear him sigh.

  “I’ll talk to Chaz and I’ll give Jude your message. He’ll have the answers, Taylor.”

  I hang up, and Griggs looks at me, stunned.

  “You are very scary sometimes.”

  I give him back the phone and lean my head on his shoulder.

  “Do you think the Brigadier will come and get us?” I ask.

  “It’s eleven thirty,” he says. “It’s a six-to seven-hour trip, tops. I’ll bet you two trillion dollars that he’ll be here by six P.M. on the dot.”

  When he wins the bet, I tell Griggs that it will take me a lifetime to save up two trillion dollars and he tells me that he’s only giving me seventy years.

  The Brigadier pulls up in front of the hospice and as he gets out of the car, it’s very clear that he’s not happy. Like Griggs, it’s the first time I’ve seen him out of uniform and it’s really the first time I’ve got a proper look at him. I must shiver because Griggs leans over and whispers to me not to worry. The Brigadier notices the exchange and I can tell he’s unimpressed. There’s a look in his eyes that says I know what you did last night.

  “Hannah’s out of her mind with worry.”

  “Really?” I say. “Well, now she must know how I’ve felt for the past six weeks.”

  He dismisses me with a look and turns to Griggs. “I’ll drop you off at your home, Jonah. We’ll be back in two days, anyway, so there’s no point you coming all the way back.”

  I can’t move. I’m stuck to Griggs, not wanting to let go. I hate this man for even suggesting it but Griggs gently pushes me to the front passenger seat.

  “I’d prefer to return, sir.”

  “It’s not really an option, Jonah,” he says quietly.

  “Sir, whether you drive me there or whether I hitch, I’ll be returning to camp.” Griggs doesn’t even raise a sweat, which is amazing because I know how he feels about the Brigadier. He gets into the back seat and calmly puts on his seatbelt. The Brigadier looks at him through the rear-view mirror.

  “It would have been better to have left this where it was three years ago.”

  “This,” I presume, is my relationship with Griggs.

  “Like you and Narnie did?” I ask. “You had a choice. You could have kept away but you came back.”

  He sits, staring ahead.

  “Where’s my mother?” I ask.

  The Brigadier starts the car and pulls out of the narrow street.

  “Where are they? My mum and Hannah?”

  “We can’t see them for now.”

  “Stop the car!” I say angrily.

  He continues driving.

  “I want to see them now.” I take off my seatbelt. “Stop the car.”

  He doesn’t stop and I hit him hard. The car swerves and Griggs comes over the back of my seat and grabs hold of me.

  “Taylor, calm down,” he says firmly, not letting go. The Brigadier slows down and pulls over to the side of the road. I’m so furious with him I want to hurt him more than anyone I have ever known.

  “Soon,” he says, and I realise that I’ve winded him. “It’s what Tate wants, Taylor, and it might seem like the most unfair thing in the world to you but we have to go by what she wants.”

  I relax a little and Griggs lets go.

  “Sir,” he says, and there’s something different in his voice. “Tell her the truth. Please.”

  I don’t understand what he’s talking about until Griggs leans forward.

  “Her mum was in a hospice. My nan was i
n a hospice. I know what that means.”

  The Brigadier looks at me and I see him swallow hard. Slowly things start falling into place. “She doesn’t have long.”

  I hear a sound. Like some kind of animal in pain and I realise that it has come from my throat. The next minute I’m out of the car and I’m running hard. I hear the pounding of heavy boots behind me and feel a hand snake out to grab me. It stops me but I wriggle out of the Brigadier’s grasp and smash him hard over and over again. My hand is a fist and I’m yelling with rage and it hurts to be feeling this much. For a while he lets me pound into him, like he’s resigned himself to this. Then he grabs my arms painfully and holds me tight, muffling my face against him and I hear the beating of his heart against my cheek.

  Suddenly, I’m somewhere else, in another time. On the shoulders of a giant. I had wanted them to be my father’s shoulders and all this time they were Jude’s. But he holds on to me in a way that Hannah never has. I feel his relief, like he hasn’t held someone in a long, long time. And he’s wanted to.

  We don’t say much as we walk back to the car but he has his hand on my shoulder and I can feel it shaking. When we’re settled inside, he clears his throat and starts up the engine.

  “She thought you were the serial killer,” Griggs tells him.

  “I heard. From Jessa McKenzie.”

  I don’t want to talk just yet but I’m curious. “What were you doing with her?” I ask quietly.

  “Apart from questioning her about your whereabouts, I was listening to the most intriguing story about my life moonlighting as a kidnapper.”

  “Based on incriminating evidence,” Griggs adds. “Apparently you’re always around or away when someone disappears.”

  “Yes, well, kidnapping’s my thing,” he says dryly.

  “According to the newspapers, it is.”

  “That wasn’t kidnapping. That was taking you to a safer place.”

  “Me?” I ask.

  “You.”

  No information comes easily. It’s like he’s spent a lifetime censoring himself. I can understand, having known Hannah so long myself.

  “How come?”

  “You were seven. Tate rang Hannah, wasted, with absolutely no idea where she had left you. By the time I drove down, you, being so resourceful, had been found in one of the luggage carts at Central.”

  My mother leaving me places was nothing new. That it actually meant something to her, however, surprises me.

  “She was on a blinder for the next couple of days, so I stayed,” he continues. “One day when she was out, I decided to take you back to Narnie’s. Except by the time I got to Jellicoe, Tate had called the police and they had to charge me with kidnapping.”

  I bring out the photograph of me when I was three and show it to him. He takes it from me, glancing down at it for a moment before he looks back to the road.

  “You took this photo?” I ask.

  “Narnie did. You came to live with us. It was a bad time for Tate. She made us promise not to give you back to her until she was totally clean.”

  “Then why did you give me back?”

  “Because she did get clean. If there was anyone who could make Tate feel anything it was you, Taylor, but then somehow she’d slip up and go downhill fast. Sometimes she’d disappear with you. We lost track of you both for a few years and then, one day, when you were eleven, she rang up Narnie, crazy mad, and said that she was to take you. She signed the papers and told us that under no condition were we to allow her ever to have you again. That she was poison. Her self-loathing was…I can’t explain. She wouldn’t even meet Narnie. She told her that you’d be at the Seven-Eleven at twelve fifteen. But she made Narnie promise one more thing. That Narnie was never to be a mother to you. You had a mother, she insisted.”

  And Narnie honoured that. Keeping me at a distance for as long as I can remember.

  “We still have no idea what made her react that way,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say quietly, thinking of Sam.

  He looks at me carefully. “Oh, it does, believe me. Everything that’s happened to you matters.”

  “But not today, sir,” Griggs says firmly.

  We’re silent for a while and I want to ask one thousand questions but I don’t know how. I watch him as he drives. There’s a hollowness to his cheeks and a bit of a sadness in his eyes and although he is all muscle and no fat, he looks underweight and unhealthy.

  He senses me staring and looks my way for a moment. Then he smiles and it’s so lovely that it brings tears to my eyes.

  “I look like Narnie,” I say like I can read his mind.

  “A bit. But you look a lot like Webb.”

  When the silence gets too much, I put on Santangelo’s CD and he looks at me bemused.

  “Kenny Rogers?”

  “Jessa’s a fan. I’m relating to some of the music,” I tell him.

  “‘Coward of the County’?”

  I glare at him and he looks uncomfortable and for a moment I see his eyes glance in the rear-view mirror at Griggs. “I meant ‘The Gambler.’”

  “Liar.”

  But my tone is softer. We’ve reached some kind of truce and as he starts speaking again, I begin to remember his voice. I’ve known it all my life. I realise that it is between this man and Hannah that I once slept as a child. I remember waking up from nightmares, my heart thumping so bad, and how his voice, reading me stories of dragons and wild things would calm me. Every time the character in the book, Max, would make the journey back home I’d point to the page and say, “He’s going home to his mum.”

  While Griggs sleeps, he tells me stories I’ve never heard. About all the films they shot on Super 8, of dancing among the trees like pagans, of Fitz’s .22 rifle and the pot shots he’d take at anything that moved, of sitting in a tree with Webb and philosophising about the meaning of life. And of their plans to build a bomb shelter in case the Russians and Americans blew each other up with nuclear weapons and the marathon scissor-paper-rock competitions and the card games that went all night.

  I fall in love with these kids over and over again and my heart aches for their tragedies and marvels at their friendship. And it’s like we’ve been talking for five minutes instead of five hours.

  The days they loved best were spent in the clearing, talking about where they would go from there. Jude especially enjoyed these days because it meant he had something to offer them. The city was a whole new landscape, one that Jude knew better than any of them.

  Fitz was in the tree, strategically positioning the five tins. “As long as we don’t live in some wanky suburb where people drink coffee and talk shit,” he called out.

  “The gun has to stay behind,” Jude said. “People in the city don’t walk around with rifles, shooting tins out of trees.”

  Fitz swung off one branch to another and climbed down the trunk a third of the way before diving off and landing in a commando-style roll at their feet.

  “Reckon I can be in the Cadets, Jude?” he mocked.

  “You have psycho tattooed on your face, Fitz. Of course they’ll let you in.”

  Fitz picked up the gun and aimed and then fired, hitting two of the unseen tins in a row.

  “What happens to Narnie?” Tate asked. “If we leave in a year’s time, she’ll be here on her own for the year after.”

  “You can’t stay here,” Narnie said quietly. “There’s nowhere to live and there are no jobs. You have to go to the city.”

  “But we’ve got money when we turn eighteen,” Webb explained. “And we’re buying the one-acre block near the river on this side of the Jellicoe Road. The house is going to be three split levels, the one on top like an attic. It’ll have a skylight so you can see every star in the galaxy. From the front window downstairs you’ll be able to see the river and when all of us are old and grey, we’ll sit by the window and die peacefully there, smoking our pipes, talking bullshit, bringing up our kinfolk—” His accent turned American and
Narnie giggled.

  A bullet hit the third tin and a few seconds later another one hit the fourth.

  “Hey, GI Jude, can you beat that?”

  “Hey, Fucked-up Fitz, don’t want to.”

  “Good call.” Tate laughed.

  “When do we come back to build the house?” Jude asked.

  “When we finish our degrees. We come back here and build for a year and then we scatter. But the house is always here to come back to.”

  “Scatter?” Tate said. “Why? We stay here. Why go anywhere else?”

  “Because we’ll never know how great this place is until we leave it,” Narnie said.

  “I miss it more every time I go,” Jude said.

  “And you’re not even from here,” Fitz said.

  Jude stared at him. “What?” he asked angrily. “Do you have to be born here? Or do your parents have to be buried here? Or do you have to be related?”

  Fitz aimed again and fired and for a moment everyone stopped, waiting for the sound of bullet on tin. But it never came. He looked at Jude and shrugged.

  “Naw. You just have to belong. Long to be.”

  “By blood?”

  “By love,” Narnie said, not looking up.

  “Good call,” Webb said to her, proudly.

  “Then you’re in, Jude,” Fitz said jumping on him. “Because I love you. I love you, Jude; you’re my hero. Kiss kiss kiss kiss.”

  “You wish.” Jude threw him off and they wrestled amongst the leaves good-naturedly. Webb threw himself in and Narnie did, too, her giggling turning into a gurgling laugh as they tickled her.

  And Tate just watched and listened and took it all in. “Can you hear that?” she said softly, touching her belly. “Because you belong too.”

  Later, they walked back to the road to see Fitz and Jude off. As usual, their goodbyes took longer than the time they had spent together at the clearing. And when the sun had gone down and the trees swayed in the canopy overhead, they parted.

  “You never got that fifth tin,” Webb called to Fitz just before they disappeared through the trees.

  “Not to worry,” he said with a wave. “I’ll go back for a shot on another day.”

  “How come you and Hannah aren’t together anymore?” I ask drowsily as we reach the outskirts of town.