The Silence

by Susan Allott

  “I’d better give her a hand,” Grandma said. “Don’t touch the set, d’you hear? It’ll explode one of these days and we don’t want you going up in smoke.”

  Isla nodded, her eyes on the TV. John was putting the foam into the bottom of the washing-up bowl to make padding for the dog basket.

  “Have you tried sitting on it?” Grandma said, talking to Mummy in the hallway. She shut the door behind her and in the same moment the stripes reappeared across the TV screen, rushing downward this time.

  Isla stood. From the hall she heard Grandma saying, “I wish you wouldn’t go.” Isla moved closer to the TV, willing it to work. She was going to miss the best part, where he showed you how to finish off the dog basket using a length of elastic and a stretch of material.

  “He’s no good,” Grandma said. “Haven’t I told you he’s a bad ’un?”

  Isla summoned her strength, lifted her arm high, and brought her palm down hard and flat on the top of the set, as she had seen Grandma do. The stripes widened temporarily, but the picture did not come back. Her hand stung.

  Mummy and Grandma were talking more quietly now. Isla raised her arm again and lowered it with greater force than before, delivering an almighty smack to the wooden frame. Her whole arm was throbbing now. She clutched it and watched as the screen went blank, apart from a tiny white dot in the center. A high-pitched noise grew from somewhere at the back of the set, getting louder and higher as the seconds passed.

  “Grandma!” Isla moved away from the TV in quick, backward steps. “It’s going to explode!”

  There was no reply. Isla opened the lounge room door to find her mum kneeling on the suitcase. It was a new one: a big gray oblong that she’d bought because she wanted to take things with her. Grandma was sitting on the floor with her legs out straight, trying to close the metal clasps.

  “The TV’s broken,” Isla said.

  Grandma didn’t look up. “Did you touch it?”

  “No,” Isla said, miserably. Her arm was still hurting, and she was scared by the thin, high sound coming from the TV.

  “Are you sure now?” Grandma gave up on the clasp she’d been pressing down on. Mummy stood up and the suitcase sprang open.

  “I didn’t,” Isla said.

  Grandma pushed herself up against the bottom stair and stood, pulling her apron tighter at the back. “You’ll have to leave some of these things behind, Louisa. It’s a suitcase, not a bus.”

  Mummy stared at the case as if it had done something wrong.

  “Let’s have a look at the telly,” Grandma said. She followed Isla into the lounge room and switched the TV off. The high noise faded away. “Let it cool down a while.”

  Isla wished she had thought of that.

  “I think I heard you give it a whack,” said Grandma. “Didn’t you?”

  Isla’s skin became hot all over. “No,” she said. She felt the lie as a big, quaking mass, pushing its energy into her limbs, making her more than a small person who was not yet five.

  “I heard you,” Grandma repeated. “I’m only fifty-two, lovey. I’ve all my faculties intact.”

  Isla gripped her aching arm. “Sorry,” she said, and she was small again, and not important.

  “Why did you fib?”

  “I’m not a good girl,” Isla said. She addressed the striped pocket of Grandma’s apron.

  Grandma knelt down in front of her so they were almost the same height. Isla put her hands into the pockets of her dungarees and let Grandma look at her.

  “What in God’s name makes you say that?” She squeezed Isla’s face between the palms of her hands.

  Isla did not reply. She made her hands into fists and pushed them deeper into her pockets.

  “What is it now?” Grandma said. “Tell me what’s the matter.”

  Isla didn’t know how to explain what the matter was. She knew she had enjoyed hitting the TV, and she was only sorry about it because she was missing her show and her arm hurt. And she knew—this was worse than her aching arm—that Grandma was talking about Daddy when she’d said what she’d said. He’s a bad ’un. She swayed forward within the clamp of Grandma’s hands.

  “Am I a bad ’un?”

  “No, lovey. You are not,” Grandma said.

  “But what if I am?”

  Grandma dropped her hands into her lap. “We have a way of dealing with this, where I come from.” She turned sideways and put her ear close to Isla’s mouth. “Tell me your worst secret. Go on. Say it very quietly. I won’t tell a soul.”

  Isla leaned in close against Grandma, who was warm and smelled of buttered toast. She considered what to say. She could tell Grandma that she did not like this big, cold house where everything creaked and shook. That she would be glad to leave. But she had a feeling Grandma knew this already and, besides, it wasn’t exactly true. She would not be glad to leave, because Grandma would be left behind.

  Grandma tapped her ear. “Out with it,” she said.

  “I like Mandy more than Mummy,” Isla whispered. This was exactly true, and she knew it was very bad.

  Grandma tapped her ear again. “Don’t you have anything worse than that?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well then.” Grandma turned to face her. “Your secret will stay here, in my house, and I’ll keep it safe for you. All right?”

  Isla nodded.

  “She must be terrific, this Mandy, is she?”

  Isla nodded again. She would go and see Mandy when she got home and she would tell her everything about England. She tightened her fists inside her pockets. Wanting to go home was like waiting for your arm to stop hurting. If you thought about it too much it made it worse.

  “You’re nowhere near as bad as me,” Grandma said, standing back up. “I’d say this calls for a dozen Hail Marys and a biscuit.”

  In the hallway, Mummy had somehow gotten the suitcase shut on her own. She was sitting on it, with her hands resting on her huge, round belly.

  “I wish I lived up the road in Sydney,” Grandma said. “I could pop over to see you every day and we could get on each other’s nerves, like normal people.”

  “But you won’t come,” Mummy said. “Will you?”

  “Haven’t we been over this a hundred times?”

  Mummy put her face in her hands.

  “I hope to God I’m wrong,” Grandma said, and she led Isla by the hand into the kitchen.

  54

  Sydney, 1997

  Isla stops at the top of the coastal path to look down at the beach. It’s windy down there and the waves are crashing in from the south. The sand is covered in seaweed and foam, driftwood, a large hunk of polystyrene. It’s not the best morning to say goodbye. She stands for a moment breathing the fresh air, but the wind is too strong. She walks through the yard, kicking through the long grass, and lets herself into the house.

  Her dad is in the kitchen, dressed for work. She moves around him, making coffee, tidying. He’s hurt that she’s leaving and too proud to say so, or to admit that he’d hoped she might stay. He’s making a big effort, keeping a lid on the drinking, burying his empties in the bin. Her mother’s house rules have been wordlessly reintroduced, despite her absence. Soon he will have no one to hide from. She is leaving him to face himself and she is more glad than guilty. Her bag is packed and waiting by the door.

  She puts the radio on and tunes it to something neutral: a feature about a charity auction. Her dad lights a cigarette and opens the back door. The wind blows his smoke back inside and he holds the door open with his foot.

  Princess Diana will be auctioning seventy-nine of her most lavish dresses, the radio announces.

  “Generous of her,” Joe says. “Hope she won’t be left with nothing to wear.”

  Isla turns the volume down low and the news of the auction buzzes quietly from the corner by the toaster. She sits at the table with her coffee and thinks of the basement flat in Hackney, where she will open the windows and clear out the things Dom left behind. She
will look for a new place, somewhere bright and airy. She will replace her lace-up boots.

  “You sure you want to go back to London?”

  The question disarms her. She’d expected him to dance around it a while longer. She’d planned to tell him she was conflicted, sorry to leave but also ready.

  “I’m sure,” she says, instead. “It’s where I want to be, for now.”

  “You could find work here. We have television in Australia.”

  “I like London, Dad.”

  “Don’t know why.”

  “You’ve never been to London.”

  “We went through on the train, on the way to Southampton docks. That was enough for me.” He reaches for the ashtray and the back door slams shut behind him. The wind bends the trees at the rear of the yard.

  “I thought you might decide to stay,” he says, sitting down.

  She blows on her coffee. “Maybe I’ll move back one day.”

  “No, you won’t.” He rests his ankle on his knee. The smoke from his cigarette fills the room. “I wanted to say, before you go.”

  She waits. He’s visibly shaking. His chest wheezes as he exhales.

  “I’m sorry you got dragged into that business over Mandy,” he says. “I didn’t want that to happen.”

  “You should have told me all of it from the start.”

  “I didn’t want you to know.” He looks at a place behind her head. “Those weeks after Steve left, when Mandy was next door without him. That whole mess.”

  “What whole mess do you mean?”

  “I didn’t take it well, when she lost interest. I should have backed off.” He taps his cigarette into the ashtray, although no ash has built up. “I think I scared her.”

  Rain blows hard against the window. He coughs and beats at his chest.

  “Do you think you drove her away? Down to Marlo, I mean. To get away from you?”

  He’s pale when he looks at her. His skin is waxy. “It’s the last thing I wanted,” he says.

  “But you did.”

  “I think so.”

  She puts her coffee down. It would be easy to console him. It would mend things between them. She shuts her eyes and sees ghost gums at the side of the road, their white bark and clawed branches. Blood on the couch, on the carpet.

  “It’s Mum you should apologize to,” she says.

  “Too late for that.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “She won’t forgive me.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  He can’t meet her eye. “I should never have asked you to come home. I should have kept you out of all this.”

  “I’m glad I know,” she says.

  “Are you?”

  She leans across the table toward him. “I don’t want to be like you.”

  “Isla.” He reaches for her hand and she pulls back.

  “I want to live as far from you as I can. I want to be as different from you as I can be. I’ll do it if it kills me.”

  He sits back in his chair. The radio plays a jingle, an ad for shampoo. Isla lets the moment stretch out. She has a weightless feeling, of shock and relief. She daren’t speak in case she takes it back.

  “That’s probably for the best,” he says.

  She stands, goes to the tap, and drinks a glass of water. It’s raining in gusts outside.

  “What time’s your flight?”

  “Not till five.” She can’t see his face. “Scott’s taking me for lunch first.”

  “I’ll head off to work in a minute.” He is formal, abrupt. “Make sure you lock up behind you.”

  She stays where she is, next to the radio and the clean plates in the drying rack. There is a loud knock at the door, an unfriendly rap. Neither of them moves.

  “Is that your brother?”

  “It can’t be. Too early.”

  He walks from the room without fully standing up, his shoulders stooped. She hears him talking to a woman on the doorstep, asking her inside. Isla turns the radio off and listens. She thinks she knows the woman’s voice.

  “This is Sergeant Dent,” Joe says, returning to the room.

  Sergeant Dent nods at Isla, a little sheepish. “We met.”

  “Tea? Coffee?” Isla pulls out a chair. “Will you sit down?”

  She sits. “Coffee. Thanks.” She smooths her hair, which is damp from the rain. “I have some news,” she says.

  Isla fusses with the percolator as the cop sits down. She thinks of the dark London flat, all those weeks ago, her dad’s voice on the phone, talking about a woman he used to know. Across the room, Joe asks Sergeant Dent to continue.

  “Steve Mallory gave himself up,” the cop says. “He came into the station and confessed to killing his wife.”

  Isla turns to fill the kettle, gives herself a moment with her back to them both. She has the ache of an old wound. It makes no sense to be floored by it now, when she’s known for so long that Mandy is dead. She hears her dad exhale, and when she turns around she sees her own shock in his face.

  “When did he confess?” Isla says.

  “Early last week. Not long after your visit to his workplace. He was—”

  “How did Mandy die?” She doesn’t mean to interrupt, to snap. “Sorry. Could you tell us what he told you?”

  “Mr. Mallory physically attacked his wife. She died from her injuries.” The cop sits back in her chair, looks at them both. “We found blood at the beach cabin in Marlo. The floorboards had been covered over but the stains were still visible underneath. We ran some DNA checks that confirmed it was Mrs. Mallory’s blood.”

  “Jesus.” Joe seals his mouth with his hand.

  “We’re searching through the records in Victoria for her body,” she continues. “But we’re not holding out much hope.”

  “Why not?” Isla says. “Can’t Steve tell you what he did with her?”

  “He took her body down to the ocean. The currents are dangerous on that stretch of beach. A body disposed of in those waters might not come back to shore.”

  Isla waits next to the kettle as it boils. She thinks of Mandy’s blood in the boards of an old beach cabin, covered over and undiscovered. Her body lost at sea. The huge silence that allowed her to disappear.

  “Nobody looked for her,” Isla says. “Not for thirty years.”

  Sergeant Dent gives a sympathetic smile. “It does seem extraordinary.”

  “It does.” Isla smiles back at her. “How long has your boss known about it?”

  “I don’t know.” She doesn’t blink. “I tried to check the records for the bank withdrawal Steve Mallory referred to in his statement. It turns out the bank doesn’t keep records going back that far.”

  Isla lets this sink in. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that evidence was fabricated.” She looks away, shifts in her chair. “Inspector Perry’s taken some leave. He’s thinking about early retirement.”

  Isla laughs. There is an uncomfortable pause. Joe goes to the door and stands facing the yard, his thumbs in his pockets. He swears quietly. The glass rattles in its frame.

  “Can I ask you both a question regarding Mrs. Mallory?” Sergeant Dent takes a notebook from her pocket. “It’s just a small thing. It might not be important.”

  Joe turns around. “Go ahead.”

  “Mrs. Mallory’s medical records suggest she had no children. Is that correct, to your knowledge?”

  He nods. “She never had kids.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “That’s what we thought.” She makes a note. “Thank you.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Mr. Mallory said something that didn’t quite make sense. He was very distressed. It’s probably not important.”

  Isla pours water into the percolator. “What did Steve say?”

  “He said they had a child.”

  “Did he?” Joe stands straighter. “What else did he say about that?”

  Serge
ant Dent puts her notebook into her pocket. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more.”

  “I think you can,” Joe says.

  “It’s a sensitive matter, Mr. Green.”

  “Why’s it sensitive?”

  “I can’t—”

  “Did something happen to the child?”

  “I really can’t say.”

  “Was it a boy?”

  She eyes Joe speculatively. “How did you know that?”

  “I reported it, thirty years ago,” Joe says. “I called the police and told them Steve Mallory took a child with him down to Marlo. An Aboriginal boy.”

  The cop recoils. She tucks her hair severely behind both ears.

  “It’s not a small thing,” Joe says. “It’s important. I remember that kid.”

  Sergeant Dent retrieves her notebook from her pocket. She looks from Isla to Joe. Everything slows down. Joe finds coffee cups, rinses them out, pulls out a chair. He is calm, measured, certain. His better self. Isla will think about this for a long time. It will be the memory she goes to, long after she has settled down and he is gone. She will think of the charge in the room, the sound of coffee dripping through the percolator, the cop with her notebook on her knees. It will come to mind sometimes when she smells his brand of cigarettes. She will nurture it, this moment, at the expense of the others. And she will think, he was not all bad.

  Author’s Note

  People often asked me, when I told them I was writing this book, why a British writer like myself was writing a novel set in Australia. I usually replied that I had spent some time living in Sydney in my twenties and wanted to write about this beautiful country that was never quite home for me, despite my best efforts. I sometimes explained that the book was originally about a British woman called Louisa who left Australia for England due to her overwhelming homesickness—I was trying to tell her story, which was close to my own, and found myself telling a different story in the process. What I didn’t often say, maybe because I didn’t want to admit my ignorance, was that in writing and researching this novel I was educating myself about Britain’s relationship with Australia and our colonial past. Having married an Australian, I’d come to realize that I didn’t know enough about it. The English state schools I attended in the eighties didn’t teach us about the violence our ancestors inflicted on Australia’s First Nations people when the colony was settled. What I knew about Australia, despite studying twentieth-century history at A-Level, was limited to the fictions of Ramsay Street and Summer Bay.