The Silence

by Susan Allott

  “Did you try?”

  “I did,” he says. “It didn’t go anywhere. I should have pushed it harder, in hindsight.”

  Isla slides her omelet onto a plate and sits down. Steve Mallory is a throb behind her eyes, threatening to surface. She can see the clean, orderly rooms that he lived in next door. The smell of ironing and carbolic soap. Mandy standing at the window, watching him park his truck, her shoulders tense.

  She picks up her fork. “So nobody did anything. You let it go on right under your noses, for years.”

  “Steve was a copper, love. He was on the right side of the law.”

  “All those families lost their kids.”

  He is staring intently at his cigarette. “I didn’t know how bad it was at the time.”

  “What did Mandy think of it?”

  “I don’t know.” He turns from her and looks out at the yard. “If she talked about it, I don’t remember. Long time ago.”

  Isla pushes her plate aside and stands beside him at the back door. The sun has risen over the tips of the tea trees, brightening the grass.

  “How can someone be missing for thirty years and no one notice?”

  “We thought she’d moved away,” he says, after a pause. “Her and Steve. They sold the house and moved away, down to Victoria, as I recall. Didn’t see any reason to question it.”

  She can’t catch his eye. “Wouldn’t that mean Steve was the last one to see her?”

  “I’d have thought so.”

  “Why do the police think it was you, then?”

  He is perfectly still beside her, holding smoke in his mouth. “I guess Steve has a different take on it,” he says, eventually. He puts his cigarette out. The radio is playing music now, something upbeat, and he crosses the room to turn it off.

  “Why did nobody report her missing?” Isla stands in the doorframe with the sun at her back. “What about Steve? He was a cop. Why didn’t he organize a search?”

  “I don’t know, love. You’d need to ask Steve that question.”

  “What about her family?”

  “I think she’d lost touch with them.”

  “Her dad left her his estate. He must have loved her.”

  “I’m sure he did.” Joe’s hands tremble as he pours more coffee from the jug. “Families are complicated, Isla.”

  “That’s true.”

  Isla turns away so she doesn’t have to watch him mop up the spilled coffee from the counter. The sun has gone in. The wind lifts the bunting around the trestle table.

  “You must be counting the days till you can get out of here.”

  “No.” She turns back to face him. “I’m glad I’m here, Dad.”

  “I’ll be all right, you know.” He rubs at a spot on his singlet where he has dripped coffee. “This will all blow over.”

  He finds his cigarettes and puts them in his pocket. Isla hears him move around the house, from the bathroom to the bedroom, and then the room that was Scott’s when he lived at home. Her dad keeps his vodka in there; she found it on her second morning, looking for Scott’s CDs. Three large bottles at the back of a filing cabinet. There will be more, dotted around the house. It’s always been this way, but she is stupidly surprised at how it’s taken its toll on him. She has only just realized this is why he looks unwell, why he trembles and stumbles, why he no longer drives the car. Why he seems defeated.

  She tips the last of the coffee into her mug, puts the radio back on, and scrapes her breakfast into the bin.

  15

  Sydney, 1967

  Mandy smiled at the sound of Joe’s key in the door. She’d spent the best part of the day cleaning his house and it looked good, if she did say so herself. It looked like the sort of house she liked to walk into. Clean, tidy, decluttered. She unplugged the vacuum and wound the flex up, hooking it on her thumb and down around her elbow. It was a job well done, and she’d enjoyed it. Made a change from her own house, which was so clean she’d erase it one of these days.

  She wheeled the vacuum back to the kitchen, took a few deep breaths, and tried to look nonchalant. Men often didn’t notice a clean house or understand the work that went into it. Not that Joe was accustomed to a clean house, mind you. Louisa never did keep on top of the housework. She’d seemed overwhelmed by it, always pushing clutter into cupboards and leaving dishes in the sink. But then, none of us is perfect, Mandy thought. Lou might not be house-proud but she always looked fantastic.

  She quickly pushed her hair back under her scarf as Joe came through the door.

  “What the?” He dropped his keys on the coffee table. “What the hell?”

  She saw him before he saw her. In the instant before he knew she was there, she knew she’d made a mistake. He looked shocked, and not in a good way. He looked like he’d been punched in the stomach.

  “Joe, I—” She moved forward, and he saw her.

  “Christ, Mandy!”

  “Did you forget I was coming?” She walked through to the lounge room. The carpet was damp under her feet where she’d shampooed it. “We did agree I’d come today.”

  He passed his hand over his face. “What have you done? Where is everything?”

  “I put a few things away in drawers and cupboards.” She followed his gaze, taking in the shine of the windows and the pictures she’d straightened and wiped; the clean face of his sunburst wall clock. “Then I dusted and polished. What did you expect?”

  He pulled a few drawers open and shut them again. “I’ve never seen the house like this. I don’t recognize the place.”

  “I thought you’d be pleased. I like a tidy house.”

  He sat down on the couch and ran his hand over the crown of his head. “I can see that.”

  “If there’s something you can’t find, something you’d rather I hadn’t moved—”

  “Christ.” He dropped his head into his hands and said nothing for a while. “I can’t find my wife, Mandy.”

  “Oh.” She curled her toes into the damp carpet. “I thought—”

  “Or my daughter.” He looked around him in fresh surprise. “They were here. Their mess, the things they left behind. The smell of them.”

  “You wanted me to leave the mess?”

  “I thought you were going to empty the ashtrays. Maybe wash the dishes.”

  “I didn’t realize.”

  “Did you—?” He stood up and walked quickly out of the room, his face white.

  Mandy stood for a while in the lounge room, which looked too bright and bare now that she saw it through his eyes. It looked like no one lived here.

  The house had fallen very quiet. She hesitantly checked each room and found Joe in the small bedroom at the end of the hall, sitting on a circular mat next to the bed. Two of Isla’s dolls lay abandoned on the carpet, half dressed. Digby bear was slumped in the small chair in the corner, just visible under a pile of laundry.

  “I didn’t clean the bedrooms,” she said.

  “No.” He rested his hand on the mattress. The top sheets were crumpled at the foot of the bed. Isla’s pajamas were folded on the pillow. “Please don’t come in here, Mandy. Just leave this room, please.”

  “All right.” She backed out into the hall. “I’d best be off, anyway. Steve’ll be home anytime now.”

  In the kitchen she left Joe’s spare key on the table. She was smarting with the shock of it, of how wrong she’d been. To think she’d half expected him to ask her to come back and clean again, maybe even cook a meal now and then. She untied the apron she’d borrowed and hung it back on its hook. God, the shame. She must have been out of her mind.

  She was letting herself out through the back door when she heard Joe’s voice behind her.

  “Forgive me,” he said.

  She turned to face him. “I went overboard. Totally overboard. I’m so sorry.”

  “Sit down.” He pulled a chair out and nodded for her to sit. “It’s my fault. How were you to know?”

  She sat and looked at the soapsuds dryi
ng on the tabletop; the circles she’d made with the cloth. “I can be insensitive. I don’t mean to be. Steve’s always on me about it.”

  Joe held the kettle under the tap. “Tea?”

  “Lovely. Thanks.”

  “That makes two of us,” he said. “Insensitive.”

  Mandy watched him struggle with the tap. His right hand was red raw across the knuckles and swollen as far as his wrist. “Says who?”

  “My wife.” He put the kettle down and used his left hand to turn the tap off.

  “Did you two have a big fight, then?”

  He studied his reflection in the kettle. “I think so.”

  “You think so?”

  He looked up at her. “That night she was at yours. She came back late. I’m a bit hazy on the details, but I think we argued. I think it got pretty heated.”

  Mandy nodded. “You blacked out?”

  “Must have.” He unbuttoned his collar. “Did she say anything to you about it?”

  “No, she didn’t mention anything. She had Isla with her whenever I saw her, mind you.”

  “Right. I wish I could remember.”

  “You didn’t really want me to clean your house, did you, Joe?”

  He looked at her and smiled. He had quite a smile. “Not really. I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Talk away.” She felt better for clearing that up. “You should’ve said.”

  He took two mugs from the row of hooks on the wall. “I phoned around all the docks. All the shipping companies. There’s no record of them getting on a boat to England or anywhere else. They must still be in the country, Mandy.” He smiled again. “They’re still in Australia.”

  “I don’t think so.” She spoke softly, carefully. “I don’t think they went by boat, Joe.”

  He took a long time to reply. The kettle whistled. “They went by plane?”

  “They did.”

  “They can’t have.” He opened the cupboard over the basin and closed it again, tried a few drawers and slammed them shut. “Where did you put all the ashtrays?”

  “Should be a few in here.” She leaned behind her and opened the drawer next to the stove just as he reached for it, and both their hands closed around its metal handle. “I washed them all out,” she said, sitting back into her chair. She put her hands in her lap and held them between her knees. “You had ashtrays everywhere. Spilling out over the surfaces.”

  “I know.” The cigarette in his mouth jerked as he spoke. He sat and offered her the pack. His movements were rushed, nervous. “They can’t have flown back to England, Mandy. It costs a lot of money to fly to England.”

  Mandy lit her own cigarette and let him be for a minute or two. He was quiet, in a restless way, taking in what she’d said. She figured he’d check the savings account soon enough, once the shock had worn off. She didn’t want to give him any more bad news. After a while she stood and poured tea into two mugs, found some milk, and set it all down on the table. He didn’t appear to notice.

  “I can’t get used to them being gone.” His right leg was leaping in a quick, jerky rhythm. “I keep thinking she’s in the next room. I think of something I want to tell her, and when I go to speak I remember.” He stared into the steaming mug. “She must have been planning it. She must have made her mind up a long time ago.”

  “I think you’re probably right.”

  “Not even a proper note.” He thumped the table and winced. He held his swollen fingers in his good hand. “I thought she was doing better,” he said, more to himself than to her. “I really thought so.”

  Mandy sat back in her chair and drank her tea. Joe held the cup with his hand wrapped around the base, his thumb hooked through the handle. He was miles away, working it all through, trying not to believe it. It was hard to watch.

  “Do you miss England?” she asked.

  “No.” He looked up at her. “I never have. Not for a minute.”

  “You like it here?”

  “I love this country. I loved it from the minute we got here. The extremes of it. The heat off the sun, the space between one place and the next. The sky. I’d never seen so much sky.”

  “What about the green English pastures?” She put on her English accent. “The countryside?”

  He snorted. “None of that where I come from. My England was a cold, crowded sort of place. Everyone on top of one another in concrete boxes. Rats in the gutters. I lived in the bit of England they don’t put on postcards.”

  “You don’t ever want to go back?”

  “No. No, I don’t. I hate England, to tell you the truth. People like me don’t stand a chance over there. They like to keep us in our place. Born poor, die poor.”

  She sipped her tea. “What if Louisa won’t come back?”

  He stood and went to the sink, tipped the rest of his tea down the drain. “I can’t think about that, Mandy.”

  “Sorry.” She shouldn’t have said that. He was staring hopelessly into the sink.

  “I’ve worked so hard for all this,” he said. “Louisa knows how hard I’ve worked to build a life for us here.”

  She crushed her cigarette in the ashtray and stood. It was getting late. “I’d better go. I need to get Steve’s dinner on.”

  “Right. Of course. Thanks for everything. The cleaning, and—”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  He followed her to the door. “Thank you for trying to stop her, Mandy.”

  “I think she’s made a mistake.” She reached out and touched his arm, just above the swelling. They looked at each other in surprise. “You been punching walls?”

  He held his arm still. “You noticed?”

  “’Course I noticed. There’s a hole in the wall, Joe.” She nodded toward the lounge room, where she’d picked plaster out of the carpet. “You should put ice on that hand.”

  “I’ll do that.” He stared down at his swollen knuckles. “I need to watch myself on the drink.”

  “Don’t we all.” She took her hand away and clamped it under her left arm before she did something else she hadn’t planned to do. “Thanks for the tea.”

  “Mandy?” He followed her out onto the deck. “Did you find a savings book?”

  “Yes.” The yard was in shade. It was later than she’d thought. “I did. I put it in the dresser drawer in the lounge room.”

  “Thanks. Where was it?”

  “Under the bed.” She called out to him over her shoulder as she walked toward her own house. “Pushed quite a long way under. I sucked it out with the vacuum cleaner.”

  16

  Sydney, 1967

  Mandy stood at the back of the house while the kitchen floor dried. It wouldn’t take a minute in this heat, but it was an excuse for a cigarette, a pause. She was getting through the housework too quick these past few days and the afternoons were long and empty. No Isla to distract her, was why. No one to drag her down to the beach once the washing was hung out.

  It hurt Mandy more than she wanted to let on, that Lou had taken off to England without a thought for her. It was only by chance she’d seen them out the window that morning. She hadn’t been able to say goodbye, not properly, in that hot taxi with the meter running. The thought of it made her eyes fill and she dug at them with her knuckles, told herself to buck up for God’s sake. She had no right feeling this way about somebody else’s kid. She knew what Steve would say: a child of our own will keep you busy. Which was true enough.

  She stared out at the yard. She needed to trim the long grass over by the eucalyptus. Water the plants. There wasn’t much laundry, but it wouldn’t hurt to wash the towels and dishcloths again, in the name of hygiene. She wondered if she was the only woman on earth to consider starting a family just to generate more laundry. The only woman to feel a growing panic at the idea, to reach for another cigarette.

  “Where are you, Mand?”

  She pushed the cigarette back into the packet, her hands clumsy with shock. “What are you doing home?” She just managed to put
the packet back in the drawer and push it shut before Steve came in. “It’s not even lunchtime.”

  Steve sat down at the table with his boots on and rubbed his eyes. “Ray wants me to drive back out to Ivanhoe.”

  “What, now? Weren’t you there a few weeks back?”

  “I was.”

  He was staring out the window at nothing, looking hot and tired. She ran the tap and put a glass of water on the table for him. When he didn’t look up, she pulled out the chair beside him and sat down.

  “Ray should’ve told you if there was more than one child needed removing out that way. Save you making two trips.”

  “He did.”

  “Did he?”

  He swallowed half the water down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I was meant to remove another child last time I was there. A little boy.”

  She pulled the chair up closer. “You were meant to take two kiddies the last time?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Was there trouble?”

  He was looking right at her, but his eyes were blank. She heard his stomach churn the water around.

  “No,” he said. “There wasn’t any trouble that time.”

  “Then why didn’t you—?”

  “There was no trouble because I didn’t take him. I went into the house and saw him there with his grandpa. And I couldn’t do it. So I left without him.”

  “What do you mean, you couldn’t do it?”

  “I mean, I couldn’t do it. He was just a baby, Mandy. It never sits right with me to take a baby. He looked to me like he was perfectly fine right where he was.” He pulled his boots off as he spoke, left them lying on their sides on the clean linoleum. “And the place he’d end up, if I took him, would likely be a whole lot worse.”

  Mandy picked his boots up and took them to the back door, stood them out on the paving stones. She took a few deep breaths, caught the sound of waves down on the beach, a peal of laughter. She’d never felt more reluctant to turn back into a room with her husband in it.

  He was staring at his hands.

  “You didn’t tell me about this.” She picked up a few bits of dirt that had dropped from the tread of his boots. “That you’d left a child behind. You didn’t say.”