The Slipping Place

by Joanna Baker

  ‘He brought it for Treen. He said she was undernourished. Me too. Malnourished.’ Belle raised her hand again, running a finger unsteadily back and forth over the length of her top lip. There was a red patch on the back of the hand. ‘He said we should eat more nuts. And fruit.’ She had a way of tipping her head downwards when she talked that made you feel she was secretly trying to steal glances at you. ‘He says I’m supposed to keep the bag and put paper in it. For recycling.’

  She spoke the last word obediently, as if it was something new. Yes, that was Roland – faced with a son he hadn’t known about, a family in serious physical danger, and a girl like this, to be banging on about the environment.

  ‘Mayson won’t eat dried fruit and he’s too young for nuts.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Paul. He stepped towards Belle.

  But the girl’s eyes had gone to the window above the table. She tensed, as if she heard something outside.

  ‘What?’ said Paul, going back towards the door. ‘What?’

  It was nothing. Belle’s face was blank again. Any tension in her expression had been illusory, one of those changes Veronica had seen in the shop, a simple twitch of nerves, without foundation in thought or genuine feeling. Now, pointedly, as if she was attempting to guide Veronica to the important things in the room, she focused on the windowsill itself, a tiny bunch of lavender in a glass jar.

  Veronica forced another smile. ‘I’ve always liked lavender. I see you have the tough kind. In the garden. Angustifolia.’ Bad choice of words. Belle twitched with irritation. ‘Lavender’s good for stress, isn’t it; good for when you’re feeling tired?’

  ‘I’m not tired.’

  She had spoken without thinking, a stupid childish reflex.

  ‘Well … but it’s nice to have something in a vase, isn’t it?’

  The girl wasn’t one to contemplate such things. She allowed her eyes to fall again to her phone.

  And now, when she most needed it, when the outcome of this conversation was deeply, fundamentally important to her, Veronica’s ability to control it had left her. She had no idea how to proceed. Partly it was the atmosphere. She realised now that she had been expecting something quite different – squalor, dirt, injury, a distressed and noisy child.

  Or maybe it wasn’t the room, but Veronica herself, her desire to see Mayson. That was visceral and urgent. But she needed to keep her head. She had planned to ask Belle for information about Roland and his movements, then calmly ask to see Mayson, check on his physical wellbeing and make practical arrangements to take him.

  She sat down. She would start at the beginning, state something they all knew. ‘Belle.’ She stared until the girl raised her eyes. ‘Lissa’s told me about Mayson. Treen thought Roland might be the father.’ Roland. Father. Putting the two words together made her feel light-headed, queasy. She had a sudden mental image of him, looking older.

  ‘He is the father,’ said Belle. ‘She just didn’t tell anyone. But it’s true. She slept with him at a party. I was there.’

  ‘There?’

  ‘At the party.’ Belle looked scornful. ‘Not right there. That’s gross. I’m just saying, Roland is the father.’

  Belle was screwing the lid of the lip gloss backwards and forwards, small pudgy hands, one tight signet ring with a tiny red stone. Veronica let the silence drag on, hoping the girl would be uncomfortable enough to fill it. But she seemed unbothered. This wasn’t so much strength of mind as an extraordinary passivity. Drugs. Heaven knew what kind.

  Veronica said, ‘Of course, before I can take this any further, I will need to see him.’

  The girl’s eyes went to the blue door.

  ‘Roland,’ Veronica added quickly. ‘Not the child. At least, I do want to see the child in a minute.’ See the child. ‘But we’ll get to that.’

  Still the silence. Veronica tried to push her. ‘Have you found out where he is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  Belle dropped the lip gloss on the table and started making small weak-wristed flipping movements with her hands. ‘Last Sunday. I told Lissa. Dane found him here and made him leave.’ The voice was higher and weaker. The calmness had been a veneer.

  She looked back at the window. This time she stood up to peer out there. Then she quickly sat down again. Behind her Veronica could hear Paul open the door and look out. And now Veronica was worried too. Dane was supposed to be working in a wood yard. But how definite was that? How difficult would it be for him to leave work and come home? Especially as he was recently bereaved. And how dangerous was he really?

  ‘So, Roland didn’t tell you where he was staying?’

  ‘He was at some big house in town. Then at the bookshop. With that mad woman. But I don’t think he’s there now. He said it stank.’ She gave a silly giggle.

  Veronica felt a stab of anger, and this time failed to completely hide it. ‘All right, well, in that case we’ll have to proceed without him.’

  ‘Do you want to see Mayson?’

  Which undid her, of course, as the girl had known it would.

  Blood rushed to her face. She had a vivid physical memory of what it felt like to hold a small child – the soft heavy body, silky on the surface, firm underneath, hard wriggling limbs; the surprising strength of the torso, heat from the head.

  ‘Is he …?’ She mustn’t rush in on the boy in a state of high emotion. That would frighten him. She needed to focus on his needs, not her own, to be calm, to confirm that he was unharmed, to determine how he could be helped and … she needed just to see him.

  ‘Are you expecting to take him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Paul. ‘We’re here to take him away and make him safe. You asked us to come.’

  ‘Well, yes, that’s all very well.’ Belle’s voice was unnaturally flat. She had rehearsed those words. ‘But before we get to that …’ She ran out of memorised lines, hesitated, improvised the rest. ‘You have to keep me.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ said Paul.

  ‘He can go somewhere safe. But I’ll come too. He needs to live with me.’

  She wasn’t serious, thought Veronica. She remembered how pleased Belle had been to have Dane to herself.

  ‘I’m like his aunty. I’ve known him the longest. The child protection people would say he needed me.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Paul came forwards.

  ‘I’m going to let you see Mayson, but I’m keeping him. I need a new place, that’s all. A safe place. Blackmans Bay, somewhere like that. Somewhere with a lot of kids and preschools. Near the water. A house.’

  ‘A house?’

  ‘I’ll need furniture. He’s going to need uniforms and stuff and a computer.’ She had thought about this carefully. Veronica could see more than cold calculation. This was a young woman’s dream, a comfortable place to live, a child at school. Safety.

  Suddenly Veronica felt deeply sorry for her. ‘Belle, this isn’t the way to go about this.’

  ‘I’ll set up a home for him. I know how to do it. It just takes money.’

  ‘Well, there’s the word we’ve all been waiting for,’ said Paul.

  It wasn’t going to happen, thought Veronica. Roland is the boy’s father. A grandmother has the greater claim. She would consult lawyers, make paternity claims, protection orders if she had to. But that would take time. The boy needed to be made safe. Now.

  Of course, it was awful to be thinking like this. She mustn’t be dragged into a game of one-upmanship. This girl needed guidance. She needed help.

  But Paul was furious. ‘You’re having nothing to do with him.’ He had lost control of his upper lip. It was pushing down into his words, like a young child, becoming teary. ‘I saw what you did to him.’

  ‘He fell off a cupboard.’

  ‘You were there. You were in the house.’

  ‘What if Roland was in jail?’

  ‘Don’t even –’

  ‘Then I’d be the next person to hav
e Mayson. Because I raised him.’ ‘Fuck no. Fuck. No.’

  Belle began explaining this as if to someone who was slow on the uptake. ‘If Roland gets done for killing Treen –’

  ‘He didn’t.’ Paul was coming closer to her.

  Belle drew a breath, turned to look at the window, the top of the blue gum. She looked as if she was in a trance, but she might have been thinking, because she now said, ‘Treen took morphine. The police have been asking me where she got it. Not heroin. Actual medicine morphine. She must have got it from someone who had a prescription. And Roland broke his foot that time. I didn’t tell them that, but I could. And I know who drove her to the mountain. I saw the car and I saw who was driving it.’

  Veronica said, ‘It wasn’t Roland.’

  Paul put his hands on the table, leaning over Belle. ‘Roland doesn’t want anything to do with you. He wants his child to be safe and he wants rid of you.’

  Belle watched him calmly then turned to Veronica. ‘I could say Roland drove off with her. You’d never get your hands on Mayson if I did that.’

  Paul put a hand towards Belle’s upper arm. Veronica stopped him. But she felt like touching her too, felt like dragging the girl to her feet, grabbing her by the neck of the nasty cheap jacket, shaking her. ‘I came here prepared to cooperate with you. I don’t know what you think you’re going to achieve with –’

  And then, when they were both focused on Belle, when they had all forgotten about the window and the door and sounds from outside, Dane arrived.

  Nobody heard him come. It was as if suddenly the room had filled. He came through the door and across the floor in one movement, sending them leaping back. At the bench he swung himself around. Big as he was, it wasn’t his size that occupied the tiny space. It was his raw energy, the vibrating angry heat of him, beating up against the chairs, the furniture, the small window. Veronica saw it again, his uncontrolled vigour, something that could slip quickly into violence, not as a conscious choice, nor even with the crossing of a barrier, but simply as a natural extension of his normal way of behaving.

  Belle picked up the lip gloss and held it in a fist, then stood up slowly and faced him. He was still wearing the rugby top, now under a corduroy jacket with a fake sheepskin collar. His face was wide at the eyes and strong in the chin, but there were pouches of fat in his cheeks, which gave him a boyish look, and his skin was shiny from the cold morning. He stared at Belle for several seconds. She held his gaze blankly. Yes, drugged, Veronica thought. Sedated.

  ‘Who’s this?’ he said. His voice was bizarrely cheerful, hard, too loud for the room and also uncontrolled, bursting from him.

  The girl didn’t seem to think an answer was necessary. Maybe she knew from experience that none of her possible answers would help. She twisted the lip gloss once, then put it carefully on the table, obediently, as if he had asked her to do it, then she locked her hands in front of her. She held his gaze again and there was a new expression now. Not the sullen blankness, nor anxiety, none of the calculation of before. It was more a kind of resignation, as if she knew she had been caught doing the wrong thing. A dull subservience. She should be inspiring pity.

  But Veronica was thinking only of the child.

  She stepped forwards, to let him know she wasn’t afraid. ‘I –’

  The tiny female sound propelled him into action. He whirled around, throwing one hand out, knocking the table aside, sending the handbag, phone and lip gloss to the floor. He seized Belle by the ponytail, used his other hand to pull a chair out into the room and forced her down onto it.

  Veronica stared at them, wondering stupidly why the chair didn’t tip over, watching Belle’s legs kicking uselessly in front of her. Dane forced Belle’s head over the back of the chair, bending her neck. She arched her body as far as she could, scrabbling for the table and the bench, not finding either, then gripped the seat of the chair, pushing up with her feet, trying to relieve the pressure on her throat.

  ‘Are you going to tell me, Belle?’ He let Belle’s head up, held it in his hands and turned it towards Veronica. ‘And I know the fat bag’s going to ring the fucken coppers, so I may as well make a good job of you. So who is she?’ He pulled her backwards again. ‘It’s the woman from the shop. I’m not stupid. What are you cooking up?’

  Belle couldn’t speak. The angle of her head had closed her throat. ‘You think I’m stupid. That’s what I can’t stand. You don’t respect me.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Veronica, but against his voice it sounded weak, plaintive, and she hadn’t the courage to step forwards.

  The girl made a strangled croaking sound.

  ‘You know I’ve got to work,’ he said. ‘Even after Treen. I’ve still got to go out there and earn the money. Keep everybody in money. I don’t have time to be watching you all day. All you have to do is mind my boy. But I can’t trust ya, can I Belle? You have secrets. You disrespect me.’

  Suddenly Veronica’s shock melted, not into fear but into anger. ‘Leave her alone.’ Not even anger – something more manageable. Indignation. Contempt.

  She stepped closer. She was thinking clearly. First she had to make him release this poor girl. She couldn’t physically tackle him. But she could distract him. ‘It’s not her fault. I came here looking for my son. Roland Cruikshank.’

  ‘Crook. Shank.’ The high hard eyes turned on her. ‘Who’s that?’ he jerked down on the girl’s hair. ‘Role?’ Then cooed it softly nearer to Belle’s face. ‘Roley?’

  ‘I was told he’d been here.’

  He looked up at Veronica. ‘Yeah. Roley’s been here.

  Looking for things that he reckoned were his. But he’s not here now.’ Another pull on Belle’s hair. ‘You evil little bitches. You-evil-fucken-little-witches. You did everything you could to get rid of the little bastard; what are you doing now? Trying to give him to her? No fun now, is that it? Now that there’s only one of you? Not enough drama for you now that she’s gone? Is that what you want? More drama? Or is he too much for you on your own?’

  Belle made a choking sound. He pushed his face down near hers, enjoying it. ‘But Roley’s not coming again, is he Belly? You wouldn’t do that, would yer? After I said no. Because that really would be disrespecting me.’

  ‘Roland is nowhere near here. He sent me. I’m his mother.’

  He gave her a mean sneer. ‘Orr. Mummy.’ The pressure was releasing from Belle’s throat. ‘And what are you going to do?’

  ‘If you stop this I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Hah. Oo-oo-oh!’ It was a sound of mock fear, too much excitement behind it: fury, mania.

  From somewhere behind her there was a voice. A child, a tiny cry. Veronica turned and took a step towards the blue door. ‘I’m going to make sure he’s all right. And after that, if I have to, I’m going to call the police.’ It was only four steps to the door. Another round handle. Praying it wouldn’t stick, she turned it, felt it give, pushed the door open.

  It was the room she had seen from the street, the closed-in verandah – a tiny space crammed with furniture and bright fabric, a doona covered with planets, a couch full of stuffed toys.

  And a child, light-brown hair, sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by plastic things: boats, clocks, something with buttons. And jewellery spilling from an upturned box: golden chains, bracelets, necklaces.

  Then all she could see was the face turned towards her, mouth open, curious, the lips wet and parted. There was a smear of cream on a corner of his forehead. And apart from that, nothing. No bruises. No scars. The photographs were old. He was unharmed.

  She wanted to pick him up. But she mustn’t frighten him. She must contain her own fear and approach slowly, bend down to his level, smile, say something, quietly.

  Mayson. Her grandchild.

  There was a sudden burning pain, starting near her waist, jabbing down into her left buttock and up into the ribs. She was seized by a shoulder and turned, made to face Dane, smell him, and then there was ano
ther pain, near her stomach going up through her throat.

  Then she was on her knees. Dane got in front of her and put his hands under her arms. He tried to force her up. She curled her legs, protecting organs she imagined to be bleeding, feeling them soft and shattered. Somewhere above her he was shouting. At Paul, at Belle. Veronica couldn’t understand it. She heard the words ‘ten minutes’.

  He dragged her, swearing about how fat she was, cursing as she tried to curl. He pulled her through the kitchen, out the door and dropped her on the concrete. She caught herself on her hands, then allowed herself to fall sideways, curled up, feeling the cold of the ground on one cheek. She closed her eyes.

  She opened them in time to see his feet, going back through the door.

  Belle. Paul. The child. She had to stop him, find a phone, phone … who? Her thoughts stuck. Ahead of her there were two loops of wire that used to be part of a garden edge. Closer, a foil tray that once held pills, and a mound of bright moss, some tiny green flowers rising from it.

  Somewhere behind her in the house there was a high cry, then silence. The phone was in her handbag, which was in the kitchen. She lifted herself onto one elbow, but the world swung around her. Her legs wouldn’t work. The muscles of her stomach contracted.

  She vomited onto the concrete, and, wondering vaguely what that would do to the moss, pushed herself back, away from the sour pool, and lay down again.

  ‘Veronica.’ Paul was pulling at her arm, lifting it, letting cold air press into her side. He had her bag. ‘We have to go. Get up. Sorry. I know. Get up. He said I had to get you out of here.’

  Veronica pushed herself up again, tried a laugh. It didn’t sound brave, more of a wail. ‘No.’ She stayed on all fours. She found words. ‘I’m going back in there.’

  ‘We can’t.’

  Veronica forced a leg to move, put one foot on the ground, then another, pushed herself almost straight, felt her stomach shrink, tensed it, stopped it from heaving. ‘I’m going to get that little boy out of there.’