by Ben Hobson
‘That’s all I plan on doing. If I can find them.’
Kelly sat back, arms up behind his head. ‘Guess I don’t know where they live exactly either.’
‘No, they’ve kept that decently hidden. I know where at least one of them will be tonight, though. But we’ll just talk about it, like you said.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
Kelly smiled and said, ‘Lying in a church is probably worse than swearing.’
‘Well. Same goes as before.’
‘Yeah. Alright,’ Kelly said, and stood. ‘Do you need me?’
‘Would you come?’
‘You know I’d be there if you needed me.’
‘Yeah. I guess I know that.’
‘You come tell me if you need me.’ He ascended his pulpit once more. Reopened his journal. He said with a sigh, ‘Weymouth’s real point about goodness was that it was always selfish. There’s always something else motivating what on the surface might look like a kind act. But I don’t think the motivation nullifies the action. That’s what I should have said. You can quantify an act regardless of the motivation. Good is good and bad is bad outside of why.’
‘We’re all just banging blind into the same furniture. It’s all the same damn thing.’
‘No,’ Kelly said, looking at his friend. ‘I don’t think it is. I hope it’s not. Without a yardstick against which to measure an act then I’d agree with you. That’s all it would be. An act. There would be no good, or evil. Just decisions. I don’t know about you, but I know evil exists. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen true goodness, too. I don’t live in a world where we’re all just accidentally bumping into the furniture, like you say. That’s not what this is. I don’t think even you think that. You need to think about why you’re doing what you’re about to do. Don’t just shrug it off with that furniture nonsense. You know better.’
‘Jeez, mate.’
Kelly smiled. ‘Give me a break. I’ve been having this argument with Weymouth since the war.’
NINE
SHARON WORNKIN
Her mother’s back pressed up against the glass in the kitchen. She was outside, but she could see it, hear the timber strain a little. Her mother’s dress forced into the lace curtains. Her head smacked back into the pane. A bit of muffled yelling from her father. They’d woken her up this morning with it, and now they were at it again.
Sharon turned back to her chooks. Daisy had been stuck under the hutch when Sharon came out, after their yelling startled her awake. This was safety to her. The familiarity of her chooks, their cage. She watched Daisy intently, wondering if the silly old thing had banged her head against something, grown somehow dumber. Next thing she’d stick her head through a hole in the fence, wrench it off with a flap of her wings.
Louder yelling now. The sound of her father’s voice through the walls sharper, the words clearer.
‘It was your bloody idea to get her the damn things!’
No trace of her mother. Her back was gone from the window but as Sharon watched the panes it returned, thumped in with more force this time. Surprising the glass didn’t break.
‘How else are we supposed to get the money?!’
Then her mother’s body slumped inward. No sound for a moment. Maybe they were talking.
The yelling had become so commonplace in their home that often Sharon no longer noticed. It had started when her father was laid off at the farm. Used to be she’d climb under her bed and stay there until he calmed down, his words dripping and impotent. She remembered once, barely, him chasing her around the backyard, the terror in her breathing so real she thought she had been running for her life. Crying, pleading. When he finally caught her he’d thrown her against the shed, her knees striking the support hard enough to make her gasp. When she looked up she saw her mother standing in the doorway of the house, looking over across the grass. A slow nod of sadness. Which was worthless, really. Might as well not have bothered.
As she watched Daisy for signs of possible brain damage she heard the sound of the back door slamming open. Her father striding over to her. His rages never normally spilled this far. At least not lately. As he approached he slowed his stride, was almost gentle as he opened the door to the coop.
She looked up at him. ‘What were you yelling about?’
He got awkwardly down on his haunches. His knees were a constant complaint. He put his hands on them and beckoned her over.
She shook her head.
‘I’m all better. I’m not mad anymore.’
She didn’t move. So he rolled forward onto his knees, his ankles squished beneath, hands on his thighs.
‘We were yelling …’ he said. ‘I was yelling at your mother because we need to do something and she wasn’t listening.’
Sharon still didn’t move. ‘What do you need to do?’
‘We need to give these chickens to Mr Oxley.’
Sharon looked around at her brood. Looked at Daisy. Mr Oxley was the butcher. ‘Why?’
‘Because we don’t have much money and he said he’d give us a few bucks for them.’
‘How much?’
‘It doesn’t matter. We need the money.’
‘You could stop buying beers.’
She knew she’d gone too far the moment she said it. Her father’s face quickly twisted, the fury within him manifest in his clawed hands. He scrambled up from his position, groaning. She raced from him, ducking. He caught her around the waist.
‘You little bitch,’ he said. ‘Just like your mother.’
‘Let me go!’
‘Just like her, aren’t you?’
She struggled but had no power, none that could match his. His words became so garbled and furious she couldn’t understand him. Like the grunting of a wombat.
He shoved her against the gate, threw her outside the coop. As she sprawled she saw her mother watching sadly out the window, one hand up against the glass, offering her useless solidarity.
He locked the gate, his finger fumbling with the latch from the inside. She cried out, ran to it, threw herself against it.
‘Dad. No!’
‘Don’t you bloody open it,’ he said. His voice quiet. He walked slowly to Daisy, muttering something about money, complaining women, working his arse off. She hated how gentle he was capable of being. Such falsehood. It was unjust.
He scooped up Daisy. She saw in his back pocket the bulge of the tomahawk he normally used to cut up kindling. He removed it.
‘Dad! You can’t!’
He raised the chicken up for her to see. ‘This is you, right? Too stupid to know its place.’
He turned back from her to her chicken. She shook her head, now he wasn’t watching. She looked at the latch. Daisy’s head jerking from side to side.
‘The trick is,’ he said, ‘you gotta be careful and calm. And get their heads right off quick. You gotta hold ’em, too. Upside down, let the blood out. Hope they don’t wriggle free.’ His calm voice mollifying Daisy. ‘They don’t know they’re dead for a bit. Their body kicks around. Walking around like nothing’s happened.’
He petted her. Her brown chook. The dull yellow of her talons. The dopey manner. He lowered her into the dust, the chook too stupid to try escaping. With a quick motion he raised the tomahawk and brought it down, almost softly. The head came free instantly, rolled over like a marble, gathering sticky dust. He held the body in the crook of his arm against his shirt. He stood. He turned the body upside down but as he did so the wings came loose and started flapping. His grip weakened. He grabbed at her but she was slipping, headless, dripping muck from the neck. Soon her wings were entirely free, flapping erratically, all sense to the motion gone with the head. Her father’s face slowly mottled with red. He held his arms out straight, having lost all hope of control. The headless bird swung free, kicking, throbbing, butting into the fence.
Sharon stepped back. The blood covering her father’s arms. Leaking like a tap turned on full blast. Sh
e watched, amazed at the amount. Daisy in her death painting her father his truer shade.
They looked like her chickens. When she’d been young, she would walk through the coop trailing pellets, letting them drip from her hand, and they had crowded around her ankles, bowling one another over in their haste. Her three police officers were milling in the same manner, bumping shoulders, laughing, wanting to get at the cake.
Sharon leaned over the cake, which she hadn’t made herself. She hadn’t had time to make anything, just bought it at Freddie’s. She looked at the other pub patrons, happily ignoring the policemen. She lowered the knife, sliced into the frosting.
Jack, the youngest by far, held out a napkin-covered hand, expecting the first slice.
‘Proper manners’d say Rob gets first piece, being the oldest,’ Sharon said. She levered the slice onto the blade.
‘I don’t mind, Sharon,’ Robert said, but accepted the proffered cake anyway. Jack kept on looking, waiting his turn.
Trevor, a middle-aged bloke with a huge gut, next to Jack, said, ‘Why’re we here again?’
‘We’re starting a new Easter tradition. We’re going to be busy the day of Prisoners on the Run and the Boolarra Festival. So we’re having chocolate cake and beer now.’
Trevor said, ‘Doesn’t sound like something we’d do.’
‘For Easter,’ she repeated, giving Trev his slice.
He started eating immediately. ‘What do you mean? We don’t normally do this stuff.’ Spitting crumbs.
‘Yeah,’ Jack said. ‘We don’t even celebrate Christmas together.’
‘Well, all that’s changing.’
‘We’ll hold you to that,’ Jack said, raising his piece of cake like he was toasting their good fortune.
‘So,’ she said, ‘you boys want a beer?’
She went to the bar, ordered four beers. Previously she’d managed to distract them from Ernie’s activities with callouts, assignments. Last time she’d had them sorting boxes of old files, putting them in a new filing cabinet she’d bought. Completely useless work. Made her anxious and guilty, conning them like that. This was better. At least this way they were happy. As she turned to carry the beers back Jack dashed up beside her, taking two from her crowded hands, offering his apologetic smile.
As she sat back down, Trevor said, ‘I like it. Nice to be out, talking, not wearing the uniform.’
‘While I appreciate this whole thing, Sharon,’ Robert said, ‘I’m not sure it’s such a good idea. It leaves the town without police.’
‘It’s Newbury,’ Sharon said. ‘What’s going to happen?’
‘You never know.’
‘Nothing ever happens.’
‘When I was first a policemen here—’ Robert said.
‘Tell what it was like when those kids were kidnapped,’ Jack interrupted.
Robert took a moment. ‘No, I’ve told that one to death. This one I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody. I was around twenty years old. Yeah, I would’ve been. And one of my first callouts.’ He swallowed. ‘I went down by the prison, but it wasn’t a prison back then.’
‘What was it?’
‘It wasn’t anything back then. Was just an empty paddock. But it was around the area, you know. I was only twenty, I think. I was called down there because boys had been throwing rocks at cars.’
‘How old were you then?’
Robert laughed. ‘You bugger.’
Sharon said, ‘What year was this?’
‘Would have been the mid-sixties, I think. Maybe late sixties,’ Robert finished his cake. Dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his handkerchief, enjoying the attention, however sarcastic it might be.
‘They were throwing rocks at cars. Just being kids. As I drove up I could see smoke. I went over the hill and saw a car smashed into a tree. Really banged up. The whole front crumpled in on itself like a sandwich. You ever seen a crash like that?’
All three nodded.
‘Then you know what it’s like. Going up to the car.’
‘What did you do?’ Jack said.
‘Well, I went up to the car and my first thought is there are probably dead people inside. And I was just new on the job. So I hesitated a little. By myself, you understand? Just the first on the scene. But I radioed back and then I found my legs a bit and walked up to the car. And there was a couple in there. She was crying, he was knocked out. There was blood. He looked dead, is what I first thought. So I went to him and found his pulse and pulled him from the car while she’s screaming about her kid.’
‘Was there a kid in the back?’ Sharon asked.
‘Turned out she was pregnant. She lost that kid, was the thing of it. Yeah,’ he said, not meeting their eyes. ‘So I think about me hesitating on approach and what those moments could’ve meant to that little kid in there.’
‘The crash probably killed it on impact,’ Jack said.
Robert breathed in, leaned back. ‘So I’m saying things do happen in Newbury. Sometimes they do.’
‘It wouldn’t’ve mattered, you being there quickly,’ Sharon said. ‘A couple minutes more wouldn’t’ve made a difference.’
‘You never know, though, do you? I got her out quick.’
‘We’re just a phone call away if something happens tonight.’
‘I know, I know. But we’re all drinking a bit. We’re not alert. Next time––I’m just saying––one of us should be at the station.’
Sharon looked at her police force, saw Robert’s story had done its job. And well it should. Her reasons for keeping them at the pub were shameful. She wanted to do it right, for once, tell them to head out to the spot where the Cahills traded their weed. Arrest them. Lock them up. To hell with the consequences. She’d taken beatings.
Instead she said, ‘Well, that wouldn’t be exactly fair.’
‘I’d do it.’
Sharon finished her beer. Looked at the others’ pints, still nearly full.
Trevor said, ‘What happened to them anyway? The woman? The bloke in the car?’
‘Well, I got them on the ground and the ambulance came. You know how crashes work.’
‘Was the bloke alive?’
‘Oh yeah, he come to pretty quick. She was okay too, in the end, besides the baby. Just a bad dust-up.’
Jack said, ‘What about the kids?’
Robert looked serious. ‘What kids are you talking about? They didn’t have any other kids.’
‘The kids throwing rocks.’
‘Oh, them. Never found ’em. No idea about them.’
‘But wasn’t that why they crashed?’
Robert tilted his head. ‘For the life of me, you know, I can’t remember.’
‘Come on.’
‘I can’t remember. This is going back thirty-odd years now. You remember what happened thirty years ago when you hit my age and I’ll buy you the beer.’
‘You’ll be bloody dead by then,’ Trevor said.
Sharon went to the bar with her empty glass and when the publican looked at her she nodded and was soon greeted with a full pint, froth sloshing over the side. As she turned, instead of immediately walking back she watched the men, the two too young and the one too old. Even Robert was enjoying himself. But she had only taken them out tonight because of Ernie Cahill. Try as she might there was no way she could enjoy herself.
TEN
SIDNEY CAHILL
The back roads of Newbury ran through large pastures, blankets of empty dark, sporadic trees lonely against the starry horizon. As he drove the headlights shone on fenceposts and old farmsteads. One was dilapidated, had been since Sidney could remember. He had played with his brother there until their mother found them out. They’d ducked in between fence palings. Brendan would sometimes use them as cricket bats and Sidney would throw clods of dirt and cow pats at him, which he fended with a skill Sidney envied. It was always just the two of them when they were little. Even after Brendan found his friends he still didn’t bring them out here. As the headlight
s struck it there was only shadow, all definition lost in the ghostly light.
He turned the corner and arrived at the drop-off point. Down an old dirt road for a kilometre. He slowed the car and stopped it beside a tree. He turned off the lights. Melbourne had chosen this spot because it was only ten minutes from town, but any old bugger from Newbury or Devonshire or Trenton knew this spot. Melbourne, in their arrogance, didn’t care about his father’s protests.
He sat. With the radio off he was surrounded by darkness and little else. He wound his window down and breathed in the country air, full of cow manure and hay. He loved this smell. Most of his thoughts were centred on his daughter. He wondered when she would start walking. She’d taken a few small steps already, but had tripped over. He’d tried once to push her on. It had ended up making her cry. They’d been in the kitchen and she had stood up and he’d held out his arms and cooed and sweet-talked her, but her bottom lip had dropped and she’d cried to be picked up. He hadn’t, though. He’d kept on talking to her, urging her forward. Come on there bubba, there’s a girl. That’s the way, that’s it, Amy. Keep going. She hadn’t taken a step, crying for around three minutes, wobbling on her feet, and finally fell heavily on her front, smacking her lips and teeth on the floor, splaying her arms outward. He still felt bad about it.
Sooner than he’d expected, headlights announced a car at the turnoff down the dirt road. Sidney checked his watch. Brendan had been right. Early buggers. They crept forwards slowly. Sidney looked at the glovebox. Out the window he noticed a kangaroo behind trees. It was munching on grass as the car approached, the beams reflected in its gaze so that it too appeared alien, monstrous. It was a big bastard.
The car stopped before him, about two lengths in front. Its headlights winked out. For a moment nothing happened. Then Sidney heard a door open, and footsteps on the dirt. He opened his own door, unbuckled his seatbelt, and got out, the breeze instantly freezing. He shut the door.
