Snake Island

by Ben Hobson

  Caleb said, ‘You have to go now, right?’ He pulled away from her and stood, arching his back. ‘That bastard knows right where to hit.’ He made it to the bed and lay down.

  ‘I’m sorry, honey,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. After a moment, ‘Me too.’

  She sighed, wriggled her wrist, checking it. She was able to move it but it hurt deep within. ‘We’ll figure it out. We’ll stop him coming.’

  ‘Dad said he’d try that. Doesn’t look like it worked. Is your wrist alright?’

  ‘I know he did. And it’s okay, I think.’

  Caleb smiled. ‘At least they’re letting me out tomorrow.’

  ‘For the fun run thing?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Is that during the festival?’

  ‘We’re not in the parade. Bit scary having a bunch of crooks run in the parade with all the little kids down there,’ he said. ‘It’s just a fun run round here.’

  ‘Up and down the highway?’

  ‘Something like that. They don’t tell us where in advance.’

  She looked about them, at the bullet hole in the wall. Swallowed. ‘I’m finding it hard, Caleb. I’ve found it hard for a very long time to forgive you for what you did. I’ve stayed away from here, when I knew deep down I should come. I just … I haven’t been able to until now. I’m not sorry for not being here, because you did this to yourself. But I’m … sad I haven’t been. And I’ll be here from now on.’

  He only nodded to this. She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead and remembered doing that when he was just little. She would read him a bedtime story as he lay propped up in the crook of her arm, both of them with their back against the wooden bedhead. And then she’d lean over and kiss him on the forehead. He had never seemed to notice or return the affection in any way. A little boy being a little boy. But now, as she pulled away, she saw his eyes, and knew her kindness meant to him the world. Knew, too, that there was still hope. She never knew she’d been doubting it.

  She shut the door behind her, careful to lock it. The hallway, now with the setting sun, had lost some of its luminence, the white walls and green doors like shades of their former selves. She ran a hand along the walls as she walked.

  Margie, to Penelope, seemed fine. This did not stop the two of them entering the hospital, having Margie assessed and admitted, Margie holding her middle and groaning as though she had been slashed and her guts were distending. Penelope had to fill in the paperwork. They assessed her injuries too. Superficial cuts to the face but her wrist had regained its movement, though it was tender. And now they sat, the two of them, Margie upright in bed and Penelope in the chair beside her. They talked about what Brendan Cahill had done. Margie was infuriated by the injustice of it all.

  ‘Bloody Cahills have always been rotten,’ she said, over and over, with a shake of the head. ‘Drug dealers, you know? Oh yes, they grow marijuana, I heard, and ship it out to Melbourne. Bloody rotten Cahills, that Brendan the worst of them. He always was a dropkick. I heard from Tessa, you know her boy Phil? I heard from Tessa that Phil said that Brendan was smoking drugs in school. Right up at the back of the oval with some other boys. Can you believe it? Tessa said Phil said he had been a good boy and reported it and the school did nothing about it at all. Those bloody Cahills. I bet they had their hand in there as well, bribing the principal. I heard he was always no good, you know. I know, I know, Vernie knows him but still. Condescending, looking down on us small-town folk. Well. Those rotten mongrels better watch themselves now. I’ll be marching straight to Sharon Wornkin and reporting this whole mess. She can start caring about this town, start doing her job.’

  As she listened to all this, Penelope kept a commiserating smile on her face, just nodding and holding her friend’s hand.

  Soon, though, Margie was asleep. The hospital was a peaceful yet disturbing place, with its echoey beeps and disinfectant smell, and reminded Penelope of when she had given birth to Caleb. And when she had lost Mark. Vernon had not been there either time. With Mark because he’d been injured, with Caleb because it had not been the custom. And as though her thoughts manifested his presence, she felt a steady hand atop her shoulder.

  She turned and saw her husband looking down at her, then up at her friend. ‘She alright?’

  Penelope smiled. ‘Are you?’ She reached up a hand to hold his. ‘What happened to your face? Vernie … where’d that cut come from?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  He dragged another chair from the side of the room, making an awful noise, and sat beside her. He smiled at her as though seeing her for the first time.

  ‘What happened to her?’ he asked.

  ‘You don’t know? And why are you moving so slow?’

  ‘I’ll tell you about that later, too. What happened to the old cow?’ he said, indicating Margie with his chin.

  ‘Vernie!’ she said.

  ‘What? She’s asleep.’

  ‘They reckon people can hear you when they’re asleep.’

  He scoffed. ‘What a lot of rot.’

  ‘They do.’

  ‘That’s coma patients.’

  ‘No, they say it’s when people are asleep too. They can hear you, their subconscious.’

  ‘Come off it. Who says that?’

  ‘People. Experts.’

  He scoffed again, then leaned towards Margie’s round, sleeping face. ‘Oi. Dingbat. Wake up now or I’m pulling the cord.’ He sat back, folded his hands in his lap. ‘See? Nothing.’

  Penelope smacked his arm. ‘You’re horrid.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘They called me at home when you came in. Now would you answer the bloody question?’

  She sighed. ‘She was attacked.’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘We went to visit Caleb and that thug Brendan came in with a cricket bat.’

  She watched her husband carefully for his reaction. She knew by the way he was holding himself that he was hurt. Knew, too, that he had been through something the last day or so that had changed him. He pursed his lips in that way he had—the same look he’d given her after burying the pelican—and she knew he had made a decision. There was a look in his eyes that told her she could not change it. She could normally persuade him of anything, but once this face settled on him, there was nothing could turn him.

  She added, ‘I thought you said you’d handled it.’

  He gave her hand a squeeze. ‘I know what I said.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  VERNON MOORE

  Driving home from the hospital, well into the night, Vernon kept glancing at his wife. It was strange she wouldn’t tell him what she thought about what had happened to Caleb, or how Brendan had struck her. She hadn’t again questioned the cuts on his face, the bruises lining his eyes. It hurt him that she didn’t.

  For his part, there had been, since she mentioned Brendan’s return with his cricket bat, a slow fury building in his stomach, beneath the bruises, that he didn’t want to snuff out. He knew he should. But he wouldn’t. He stoked it with thoughts of Brendan, of Caleb, of his wife, the injustice of it. Margie’s sallow face. He pictured the man’s eyes––how empty they’d been––and beheld in them pure evil. What William Kelly had spoken about.

  At home, Penelope put her bag and keys down on the kitchen bench and said, ‘So what’re you going to do?’

  ‘How come you never tell me what you’re thinking?’

  Penelope shrugged, looking grim. ‘Tell me what you’re going to do.’

  ‘How did it feel to be assaulted by that bastard? How did it feel to watch him hit our son, Pen? Did you feel anything?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘Well?’ He held up his hands. ‘You don’t talk about it.’

  ‘What’s there to say?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She shrugged again and crossed her arms. ‘I don’t know,
Vernie. It was horrible, wasn’t it. I don’t know. I can’t talk about it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to cry.’

  In his wife was some hardness, the depth of which he could not comprehend. He felt he was somehow responsible for it. She had not been like this at the start of their relationship. She used to share her feelings with him.

  He put a hand on hers. ‘You can cry now if you want.’

  She laughed horribly. ‘You want to know why I don’t cry?’

  He didn’t know how to respond to this.

  ‘I don’t cry because I can’t anymore, Vern. I can’t. I’m too old. You, you …’ she stammered.

  Vernon stood there watching his wife. Asking more of her than she could offer.

  ‘You blame me for what he did, don’t you?’ he said. ‘You said so the other night. Said it might as well have been my hands round her throat.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Come off it, Pen.’

  ‘I do. You did it.’

  ‘I never hit you.’

  ‘I know—’

  ‘I never struck you. Barely raised my damn voice.’

  ‘Yeah, but you didn’t care enough about him to show him what a good man is, did you? You never struck me. That’s some high moral benchmark you’ve set.’

  He said nothing to this. She’d only confirmed the thoughts he’d already had, outside Kelly’s church. Absence of violence was not enough. And finally he knew—he simply had not been enough for them. His family. They’d needed direction. They’d needed his sacrifice.

  Now she was shaking. ‘You don’t understand what it means to do something good, do you, Vern? You can’t. And you gave that to Caleb. You gave him that … lack. And I hate you for it.’

  She went to the sink and filled the kettle, switched it on. He looked to his cosy chair outside. Wanted his teacup, his chair. What she said was true. He’d never led the boy astray, but he’d never led him anywhere. And in that lack the violence had been born. In his lack.

  She turned to face him. ‘So.’ She swiped a hand across her eyes. ‘What are you going to do?

  He shook his head. Breathed in. ‘I’m sorry. You’re crying?’

  ‘I was being an idiot. Don’t …’ she said, and tried to smile. ‘I don’t hate you.’

  He coughed, felt his back tighten. ‘I just know I have to do something.’

  She put her hand to her mouth, maybe chewing on her fingers. ‘You have that look in your eyes like you decided something.’

  ‘There’s no way good way through it.’

  ‘What would Bill tell you to do?’

  ‘I already did what he said and look how that turned out.’

  She went to the kettle and gathered their tea cups. He turned away then, to leave, to fix the mess of their lives he’d made. He opened the front door and was almost outside before he heard her say to his back, ‘You old fool. Get back in here.’

  He turned to her. ‘There’s no use arguing about it. I have to do something.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. She sighed audibly. ‘No use you running off without something in your stomach. Come on.’

  He shut the front door and walked back inside. ‘Maybe some of that ham?’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t get the ham.’

  ‘No, the regular ham.’

  ‘A sandwich?’

  He seated himself on a stool at the counter, watching his wife move about the kitchen. ‘You could toast it,’ he said.

  ‘Fusspot.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You know, you look terrible.’

  He rubbed his face, the makings of his grey and meagre beard. The cut on his face sore to the touch. ‘I don’t feel too good either.’

  ‘Ever since I met you, you’ve only liked about three different meals.’

  He snorted. ‘That’s not true.’

  She raised a hand and counted on her fingers. ‘Steak and mash and veg. Ham sandwiches, toasted. Sausages and mash and veg.’

  He shook his head. ‘I like more than that.’

  ‘Beer?’

  ‘Yeah. Beer.’

  She sighed. ‘That’s not a meal. You’re an old fool.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’re my old fool, though.’

  He returned her smile. ‘Yes. I am.’

  The darkness surrounding Penelope’s car seemed thicker than usual. Maybe because of the street he was in. He was parked near the bridge running into Newbury, around twenty minutes from Port Napier, on the way to the Cahills’. He’d pulled off the road next to the bridge and driven down a slope to the side and parked his car and turned off the lights. It took him a while to solidify his plan. He sat staring at the bridge, the rusted hulk of it, and thought on the possibilities. No good options, just drastic ones.

  He left the car, shutting the door quietly. He opened the back door and lifted his axe from the seat, the weight of it hurting his fingers. The police station was on Bedford Road, not five hundred metres from where he stood. He ambled up to the road and stared down it, trying to make out the shape of the station in the distance, and if there were any police cars out front, but for all the streetlamps he couldn’t see anything. He rubbed his old eyes, squinted, and kept walking.

  The building he was aiming for was on his right. It was lit dimly by one bulb behind a plastic casing over the front door. He crept up, the dull sound of whirring machinery within. There was nobody about. The axe head, in the dull light, showed the dried pelican blood. He hadn’t cleaned it well at all. He wondered if there was an alarm, but had no idea how to check for such a thing. There was a Neighbourhood Watch sign in the front window, the white people shapes against the diamond green, but there was no indication, anywhere, of anybody watching.

  Vernon swung the axe lightly against the door handle, blade up, but the handle did not break. He looked around, lifted the axe once more and dropped it down, putting his aching shoulder into it. The handle sprung free and clattered to the concrete, loud in the dark. He shouldered into the door before he could doubt himself and tensed for an alarm to sound. He waited. Nothing.

  He walked through this building he had never been in before. There were plastic strips dangling over certain doorways, air conditioning pumping throughout. He entered a room and saw the barrels he wanted near the doorway. Big bastards. He put the axe down on the floor and got his shoulder into one, trying to lift it. It was heavier than he’d expected. There was liquid inside, sloshing about, and as he lifted, it hit one of the sides and the weight sent the barrel toppling to the ground. He braced for the impact, the sound of it, but the plastic barrel on the linoleum floor was almost silent.

  With a lot of effort he managed to get two barrels to the front door—a combination of carrying, kicking and rolling, the barrels constantly banging into the walls, every part of him sore and aching. He was breathing hard and sweating by the time he made it outside. He stood with his hands on his hips and let the breeze cool him. A car motored down Bedford Road, its lights traversing the bitumen. He looked down at the barrels, estimated the travel time to his car.

  Leaving them where they were he walked back to the bridge, down the slope to the car. Gunning the engine, the old thing struggling back up the slope. Throwing his earlier precaution aside, he backed up to the front door of the building and popped the boot. He was soon driving with the two barrels of liquid secured within, the axe next to the shotgun across the back seat.

  As he drew closer to the farmhouse he started to curse his lack of forethought. He slowed the car to a crawl and stopped in the dirt at the side of the road. None of the lights were on at the farm, not even in the shed. There were clouds overhead. He stepped out of the car and sat on the bonnet and put his arms around himself. His ribs ached dully. He hadn’t brought a jacket, either. He swore and looked back at the house. No way to approach quietly in the car. They’d be sure to hear and stop him before he started. And no way to lug the barrels up by hand, old as he was.


  He walked up as quietly as he could, moonlight streaming through the branches overhead. He came to the entry to the property––a sad letterbox atop a fence post, long stretches of barbed-wire fence on either side, the cattle grid beneath his feet. He trod over it carefully, so as not to wedge a foot between the gaps. Then the crunch of gravel. He looked up. Still no lights, no sign of movement, no noise beyond the trees rustling in the breeze and the blood pumping through his ears. He walked off the driveway and onto the grass.

  He approached the shed, keeping a wary eye on the house all the while. He rounded the back and found what he was looking for leaning up against the wall: an old wheelbarrow, darkened patches in the night indicating rust. Wooden handles. He lifted it onto its wheel and started pushing, and stopped immediately: the loud squeaking threatened to wake the entire family. His eyes froze on the house. He imagined the light coming on and out of the darkness stepping Ernie, or Brendan, armed with something, aimed at his head, he the pelican lamely flapping its wing. He breathed. Nothing happened.

  Vernon stood staring at the wheelbarrow. Then he ventured around the front of the giant shed. The front door was ajar, so he stuck his head in. There on seven long tables were potted plants, standing straight and tall, their leaves dripping moisture in the darkness. An air-humidifier unit was humming somewhere. A wonder the Cahills didn’t shut the front door, keep the air in. Large, flat, hydroponic lights were suspended from the roof. He walked inside, careful not to knock the door upon entry. The plants swayed slightly, as though acclimating to his presence. He reached out a hand to feel the leaves of one.

  He noticed a cupboard against a wall and opened it, turning the handle as quietly as possible. The door creaked a little as he pulled it. Plenty of tools in here. A can of old motor oil near the bottom. He took this and didn’t bother shutting the door.

  He coated the axle of the wheelbarrow, and the dense blackness of the oil seemed to swallow the moonlight. He squinted to see better, felt the slime coating his fingertips. When he was done he flipped the wheelbarrow back onto its wheel and hesitantly pushed it forward. There was still a squeaking, although it was mostly muffled. He would risk it.