Darkness, Be My Friend

by John Marsden

  Even though he didn't want to, we made him move. He got there under his own steam, then we helped him to lie down and I pulled off his shoes. "Pooh," I said, "what a stink."

  I was trying to make him laugh, but it was a waste of breath. He was already asleep.

  Fifteen

  Trust Kevin. And trust Mrs. Gilchrist. You never know what Principals get up to. Kevin took it into his head to have a little look around her office, and surprise surprise, what does he find in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet but her own private grog supply. There was half a bottle of brandy, three-quarters of a bottle of dry sherry and a couple of cans of dry ginger.

  "Jackpot!" Kevin yelled, coming back into the staff room grinning, and holding his trophies above his head.

  We'd established ourselves in the staff room because it had the most comfortable chairs. Trust teachers for that.

  Fi was on sentry duty, but we decided she could have one glass without any serious risk. Lee was sound asleep. We realised that we'd have to keep some for him, and maybe another glass or two for Fi, and we started getting worried about what would be left for us.

  Still, it seemed we'd be able to have a little party. Homer got some glasses from the staff kitchen area. It's amazing how good the boys were at catering when there was grog involved.

  Kevin poured us all a sherry, then leaned back in his chair and raised his glass in a toast. "Underage drinking in the staff room," he said. "All my dreams come true."

  "And it's Mrs. Gilchrist's shout," Homer added. "Makes it even better."

  "Here's to happy endings," I said. "May we all live happily ever after."

  "That's looking less and less likely," Homer said. But he didn't say it like he was incredibly depressed, he said it with a laugh, like he was coping OK.

  It was funny, that's how we were all reacting, I think. The news Lee brought—or the lack of news—should have depressed us, because it was now very obvious that something had gone badly wrong for the Kiwis.

  But we'd already known that. Well, we hadn't known it, but we'd guessed it. So Lee confirming it didn't depress us any further; instead we were rapt to find that he was alive and in fairly good shape. We were rapt that we'd found him at all. We cared deeply about the New Zealanders, of course, but the five of us had a bond that went beyond anything.

  There were two dark thoughts that lurked in the bottom of my mind, in the murkiest depths. I could never bear to take them out and look at them but occasionally, when I was mega-depressed, they'd sneak out for a moment or two. One was the thought that I might never see my parents again. The other was the thought that another member of our group might get killed.

  Either way, that would have been the end of me. It would have been the absolute end. I'd never contemplated suicide, even in the worst times in Stratton Prison, but if either of those things happened it would have been the end of my life, no mistake about that.

  So, with Lee returned, we did have something to celebrate, we did have an excuse for a party. And although it wasn't the wildest or happiest party I've ever been to, it was a lot better than my last one, back in Wellington. This time it was with friends, true friends.

  We wiped out the sherry pretty quickly, then Homer and Kevin took care of the brandy and dry. Without ice I didn't like the idea of it and, besides, the sherry was already doing funny things to my head. I decided I'd better stop, especially as I was taking over sentry in an hour's time. I figured I'd already be blowing .05 or worse, and I didn't want to do sentry duty if every tree looked like a Martian, and the moon floated in the sky like a helium balloon.

  Plus, the last time I'd had too much to drink had ended so badly that I wasn't keen to do it again.

  Lee slept on and on. It was like he was heading for a record. Somehow I got through my sentry duty, but it wasn't helped by Homer and Kevin getting totally wasted and making more noise than a kindergarten at lunchtime. They had a mad game of table tennis in the staff room, which wasn't easy in the dark, then they went chasing through the building trying to tackle and wrestle each other. I kept telling them to shut up, and they weren't too bad I suppose, but compared to the noise we normally made it was way out of control.

  Then Kevin crashed on the other bed in sick bay and dropped asleep as fast as Lee had done, and all Homer's efforts to wake him failed. So Homer was left with no playmate. He came and talked to me for a while but he was pretty wiped out so he wasn't making much sense. Then he suddenly fell asleep in the chair and lolled there looking disgusting and making gross snoring noises.

  He wasn't very good company after that.

  Kevin was meant to be on sentry and I had a weak go at waking him up, but he wouldn't move, and I couldn't be bothered making an issue of it. I left him there, vowing that he could pay me back tomorrow night. He slept for twelve hours but the moment he woke I dragged him out to do a shift. He looked awful and smelt worse, and I'm not sure how much he could see through his bloodshot eyes.

  Lee slept for fifteen hours. None of us thought about the comment he'd made before he passed out, about having more news for us. Homer and Kevin were too hungover to think about it, and it just slipped my mind. Maybe I was immune to dramatic pieces of news these days. I figured I'd heard them all.

  It was around noon when I heard him stirring in the sick bay bed. I went in.

  "Have you got some food?" he asked. "I'm starving."

  This time he was able to spoon it to his mouth himself, but again I made sure he only got a small amount. He complained a bit, like before, but he seemed distracted, eating the food quickly.

  "When can I have some more?" he asked.

  "In an hour or so."

  But he seemed almost to ignore my answer.

  "Ellie," he said, "can you get the others in here?"

  The tone of his voice frightened me; his manner was so quiet and serious.

  "Is something wrong?" I asked.

  "Just get them, please."

  "Kevin's on sentry."

  "Where is he exactly?"

  "In that big reception area. You know, out the front. You can see three ways from there, and the fourth way with a bit of trouble. The only problem is that the sentry can't risk moving a lot in daylight. You're pretty visible if you do."

  I was talking too much, but Lee had made me nervous.

  "Well, I'll go into the office. Kevin'll be able to hear me from there. Tell the others to go there, too."

  He struggled to his feet and limped off towards the office. I wanted to help him but he seemed determined to get there on his own. I guess the sleep had done him good. I hurried to get the others. I felt that whatever Lee had to say would make a big difference, maybe change everything.

  I got frustrated that it took a full minute to find Homer and Fi. They were just talking in the corridor between A Block and B Block. But when they saw my face they stopped talking and followed me quickly back to the office.

  "What's it all about?" Homer asked me.

  "I haven't got a clue."

  "Oh, come on, Lee tells you everything. You must know."

  "I don't, I swear. And there's no way Lee tells me everything. Where'd you get that idea?"

  In the office Lee was sitting on a brown swivel chair, behind Mrs. Myers' desk. Kevin was leaning against the counter where he could both hear Lee and see any movement outside. He still looked pale and sorry for himself. Fi and Homer and I found places to sit: I ended up on a spare desk that was covered with dust. I sat on top of it with my arms around my knees, gazing at Lee. Quite a lot of light came in through the windows, but Lee seemed to be in the deepest shadow. It was hard to see his dark face. I wanted to see his expression. As far as I could tell he looked calm.

  When he started talking he did something that surprised me. He reached out and took Fi's hand. I hadn't expected that. I felt a pang of jealousy as I looked at his long brown fingers over Fi's pale skin. I even wondered whether they'd formed a relationship without me knowing. But I realised straightaway how ridiculous
that was. And as soon as Lee started talking I forgot that he was holding Fi's hand. Instead I was instantly mesmerised by the grimness of his tone.

  "I told you before that I had something else to tell you. I'm not sure what happened after I said it—I guess I went to sleep, did I? So I'm sorry I didn't get to say this last night. But here it is."

  He leaned forward a little and cleared his throat. His voice, already quiet, became much quieter.

  "I know pretty much what's happened to everyone's families."

  There was a gasp, a cry, a groan. I'm not sure which came from where. I felt some wall break inside me. It was like a physical thing. Kevin turned around quickly, forgetting about sentry duty. He had seen his parents more recently than the rest of us, but that was still a long time ago. It didn't mean his family were OK now. Anything could have happened to them. And the same applied to all of us.

  Lee looked at Homer. "Your parents are somewhere between Wirrawee and Stratton," he said. "They're pretty OK. They're on work parties; I'm not sure where exactly. But the last anyone heard, they were cool. They're on separate parties, so I don't think they'd see much of each other. And George is in Stratton. They've put him to work in one of the factories."

  "George in a factory," Homer said. "He won't think much of that. And Mum and Dad, they haven't been separated since they were married."

  But his broad brown face was alive with relief. He looked around the room as though he were seeing it for the first time.

  "They used to send out only one member of a family and keep the others hostage in the Showground," Lee said. "Now they do the same thing by sending them out in different groups, so if someone escapes from one group they can punish their relatives in the other groups. It's a clever system."

  He turned to Kevin.

  "Kevin, your father's on a farm somewhere to the north. He's going fine apparently. Your mother's still at the Showground. There's not a lot of people there any more, but she and some other women are running a creche. Your brothers are there too." Lee paused. "I think your mother gets kind of depressed, you know what I mean? I don't think she's too well, as far as that goes. She's fine physically, but I guess she's struggling with the mental stuff."

  Kevin grimaced and turned away again. It was impossible to know what he thought of that news. I had the feeling he didn't want to know about psychological problems. Like a lot of country guys he thought you should be tough enough to cope with anything. He thought guys should have their tear ducts surgically removed at birth. He hadn't been too keen on seeing a shrink in New Zealand. In fact Homer and Lee had accepted it better than Kevin, which is something I wouldn't have predicted.

  "Ellie," Lee said.

  I tensed, and felt sick. Why had Lee talked to the two boys first? Was there a problem with my parents?

  "Ellie, your father's being held at the Showground, in a pavilion there. It's a special area for people who haven't been too co-operative. A sort of prison I guess, but nothing like what we were in. I think he's been pretty difficult, Ellie, fighting with the guards and stuff like that. There's a small group of them, men and women, all there for the same reason. He's copped a bit of extra punishment, though, because they say he tried to sabotage a tank that he was meant to be fixing. Not a water tank, an army tank. A million dollars or so of hardware."

  I nodded, trying to stay calm.

  "But he's OK?"

  "Look, he's had some bruises, there's no doubt about that. But yes, he's pretty fair apparently, all things considered."

  "What about Mum?"

  "Well, she's been assigned to a house in Holloway, as a servant."

  "As a what?"

  Lee looked embarrassed. "Sorry! I knew you wouldn't be too impressed. But that's what they're doing, using women as servants in towns and farms. Having them do washing and ironing and cleaning and cooking. Stuff like that. They're pretty well organised now, as you can see."

  I had steam coming out of my ears. "Mum would love that. My God, she'd go mad. She hates doing our washing and ironing, let alone anyone else's. How dare they!".

  Lee didn't answer, just turned to Fi.

  "Fi, I think you might be able to see your parents."

  Fi went white, so white and so suddenly 1 thought she might pass out. I've never seen the colour drain from someone's race as quickly as that. Her hand tightened on Lee's. I could see her nails digging into the back of his hand. She opened her mouth as it to say something, but just left it open and did not speak.

  "They're both working in the District Headquarters," Lee explained. "Sometimes when people have special skills they keep them together. And besides, they've got your sister at the Showground as a hostage. So your parents work there each day from 8 a.m. till 7 p.m., on computers and paperwork and stuff like that. Administration stuff."

  It figured. Fi's parents were both solicitors, so they were pretty smart.

  "The new Headquarters is the tech," Lee continued. "Since we blew up Turner Street they've had to find a new place to run their operation, and the tech's got everything they need. Six prisoners work there, and security's pretty slack. Partly because they're holding hostages for all of them, partly because, if you don't mind my saying so, Fi, your parents aren't exactly cut out to be guerillas or terrorists."

  Fi tried to grin but failed.

  "So," Lee went on, "at lunchtime they're allowed out for half an hour. They usually go for a walk in the park. You could see them if you wanted."

  "If she wanted!" I said.

  I was at the same time happy for Fi and jealous of her. She was going to see her parents. She was going to see her parents and I wasn't. It was wonderful for her, the kind of moment we'd all dreamed about and longed for, and I was torn apart by my happiness for her and my sense of guilt that I should have been happier.

  Fi sat there as though she'd been snap-frozen. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking. She was as pale as before, and for a moment I thought of Snow White, needing love to escape her cold and lonely sleep. I moved over to her and gave her a hug, knowing as I did so that sometimes even friends aren't enough.

  "Ellie," she whispered, "I don't know what they'll say when they see my face."

  I was so shocked I couldn't speak. Fi's scar ran from under her chin to up past her mouth on the right-hand side. It faded as it got higher, so the most conspicuous part was under her chin, and by the time it got past her mouth there wasn't much of it left. I was used to it now, so I didn't notice it any more, but it infuriated me a few times in New Zealand when I saw that it did affect some people. And when I say people, I mean boys.

  Her comment there in the high school office did horrify me, though. Her parents were pretty big on the Wirrawee social scene, and her mother was heavily into expensive dresses, pearls, classical music, all that stuff. She would have spent more on one dress than my mother spent on ten. If we had spare money we spent it on a new tray for the one-tonner, or a computer programme that kept track of stock prices, or a set of portable sheep yards.

  I just couldn't understand Fi's reaction. I think she was too blown away by it all. It had happened too unexpectedly. So she grabbed hold of the first thought that went spinning past, and she spoke it.

  I didn't say anything. I held her while the others asked Lee a thousand different excited questions about their families, and I just sat there and listened.

  "How'd you find all this out?" Homer asked the obvious question.

  "There was a big fire started up by the lookout. I guess you must have seen it..."

  Lee couldn't work out why we laughed. Even Fi smiled a bit.

  "We lit it," Kevin explained. "To get away from a bunch of soldiers."

  "Really? Playing with matches? You sure burned up a bit of country. Nearly burned up the whole of Wirrawee, from what I could see. Well, while that was going on, heaps of soldiers went past in their fire-fighting gear, and I thought it'd be a good chance for me to move. I'd been hiding in the cemetery, and I didn't want to stay there any longer. Y
ou know how Iain said never to stay in the same hiding place for too long? So when the streets seemed empty I started sneaking along towards the school. That was where I'd decided I should go. And I was about halfway here when I took a shortcut across the park, and I saw Dr. Krishnananthan. So I started talking to him from out of a rhododendron bush. He got quite a shock, I think. But it turned out he's doing what your parents are doing, Fi, and he told me all about it, and about everyone else. He's actually working on a computer programme that keeps track of all the prisoners' movements, so I'd found the right person to ask. But he's not allowed to know anyone's exact location, just the region they're in. Security's still pretty tight."

  "Did you ask him about the New Zealanders?" Kevin asked.

  "Yes, of course. He didn't know anything about them. He hadn't heard of any disturbances like that. But he said the airfield's a law unto itself, so if something happened they mightn't tell the town authorities about it."

  "What else did he tell you?" I asked.

  Lee looked away into the distance for a minute. I couldn't quite work out what was going on. Finally he said: "Not much. The fire distracted us. Dr. K. was getting really worried. He was scared of the soldiers, of course, plus he thought Wirrawee was about to burn up. I think that was actually his biggest fear. We had ash raining on us the whole time we were talking. Anyway, I wasn't in good shape by then. I was so hungry, and tired. I didn't know whether to try and get back to Hell on my own, or what. I didn't know if you guys would still be there, or if you'd called Colonel Finley and got the helicopter back to New Zealand, or if you'd be coming into town looking for us. I thought if I couldn't get some food I wouldn't have the energy to get to Hell, and I didn't know where to get food. Dr. K. was no help with that. He said they controlled food so strictly for prisoners that they couldn't smuggle anything out."

  A thought struck me and I asked: "Where were you going to hide at the school?"