The Red Cardigan

by J. C. Burke

  ‘Actually, she’s probably setting exams,’ he says. ‘The semester ends next week. She’s been so busy.’

  Evie nods and thinks how time has crawled.

  ‘The table looks nice. What’s the catch, hey?’

  ‘Mum’s famous crockpot casserole.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Never fear, I’ve made some rice and a humungous salad.’

  ‘It’s times like this we need a dog.’

  ‘Dad!’

  Evie serves up dinner.

  ‘My, service, too.’

  ‘What brekkie did you and Theo have this morning?’

  She sits down and passes her dad the pepper.

  ‘A very boring breakfast with a very boring speaker. Thank god Theo asked a thousand questions or it would’ve been a complete flop.’

  ‘You can always rely on Theo for that.’

  ‘The Bircher muesli was good, though.’

  ‘How long have you and Theo been friends, Dad?’

  ‘Oh, let’s see,’ he counts on his fingers. ‘Close to forty years, I reckon.’

  ‘Wow. I wonder if Al and I will still be friends after that long?’

  ‘I suppose it depends on how much the friendship means to you. Theo’s always been like the brother I never had and he’s good friends with your mum, too. That makes a difference.’

  ‘Was Grandma friends with Theo’s mother?’

  ‘Eleni? Yes, they were friends, not really close but they were friends. I remember Dad’d play bowls with Theo senior sometimes. But Eleni was the superstitious one; the Greeks tend to be a bit that way. She enjoyed Mum’s company, especially her insights.’

  Evie finds the gap she is waiting for. ‘Did Grandma have any friends who were like, you know, the same as her?’

  ‘Yes.’ She watches her father put down his fork and pick up his wine, swirling the red liquid around the glass. ‘Yes. She did have a good friend, although they didn’t meet until much later. In fact, I think you were already born. They became very close, probably because they had so much in common. They were mothers, wives and yet they shared this extraordinary gift.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘You know, I only met her a few times. My mum talked about her a lot, so I felt like I knew her well. I sometimes wonder what happened to her.’

  Evie gets up and takes the plates to the sink.

  ‘What was her name?’ She holds her breath.

  ‘Victoria. Victoria Gaunt.’

  Evie closes her eyes, feeling the tap-water warm her hands.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispers.

  The next morning Evie is up early. She only has this one chance. She washes her hair, rehearsing what to say to Seb. The knot at the back of her head feels bigger. Looking in the mirror she holds it up.

  ‘I’ve got a dreadlock.’ She rakes the comb through the matted lock but it gets caught. ‘Ouch!’

  With the comb hanging from her hair, she steps into the shower to get the conditioner. She rubs a bit into the knot. It feels wet and sticky.

  ‘Yuck.’

  Evie wipes the steam off the mirror. Beyond it something moves, expanding and shrinking into itself. It looks like a person trying to step out of their skin. In a flash it’s gone, leaving only the reflection of herself.

  ‘You’re off early,’ Nick says.

  ‘I’ve got some things to do in the library,’ Evie lies.

  ‘That cardigan’s filthy, Evie. Give it to me and I’ll wash it.’

  ‘It’s fine, Mum.’

  ‘You haven’t had breakfast and your lunch isn’t ready.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get something at the canteen.’ She grabs her bag and escapes.

  She has fifteen minutes to get to Seb’s bus stop. She walks fast along the footpath, counting each step till she reaches a corner. She knows what she’s going to say. She just wishes she knew what he’ll say. It is a risk, she understands this, but everything she feels about Seb predicts it will be okay.

  The terrace houses merge into their neighbours’ as Evie’s pace quickens. She looks at her watch, seven minutes left. Her legs work faster, the steam shoots from her mouth. She turns the last corner and spots him just ahead.

  ‘Seb,’ she calls. ‘Wait.’

  She feels self-conscious running up to him. She has never been this eager to see him before. His look is puzzled but he waits.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

  She is panting and there are drops of sweat on her forehead. ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  ‘Sure?’

  She suddenly feels awkward, standing here in front of him.

  ‘Seb,’ she begins, trying to calm her voice. ‘I really need to ask you something.’

  ‘What?’

  He is walking towards the bus stop.

  ‘Um, Seb. Can we just wait here a minute? I don’t want to, well, this is, you know, kind of private.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘God, this is really, um … Look, I’m just going to say it. Yesterday, on the bus, you whispered something to me.’

  The recognition washes over his face.

  ‘You remember that, don’t you?’

  He nods. She sees his Adam’s apple jump.

  ‘You asked me if I still see her, didn’t you?’

  He nods again.

  ‘Please, Seb, please tell me what you meant. It’s …’ She hesitates. ‘It’s very, very important to me.’

  ‘My mum once told me …’ Now he hesitates. ‘That you … you sometimes used to – to see a girl at – the pin.’

  Evie grabs hold of the fence.

  ‘Your mum? But how? How did your –?’

  ‘I don’t know. Someone must have told her.’

  He slides down the fence and sits on his bag. Evie does the same.

  ‘I don’t know a hell of a lot about it, Evie. I mean, I know a girl died there.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A girl died there, at the pin. I thought it was the one you – you …’

  ‘A girl died there!’ The lump rises through her chest into her throat. She mouths the air. ‘Are, are …’

  ‘What? You didn’t know?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Evie’s jaw is trembling. ‘When? When was it?’

  ‘I think we were probably three or four. It was a hit and run. Evie, I don’t –’

  She shakes her head to stop his words. The lump is so tight now she feels like throwing up. Seb sits there, staring at his hands. Evie’s sure he understands what’s just happened. It’s like there is nothing they can say. It’s too big.

  They hear the bus coming around the corner. Seb stands up, throwing his bag over his shoulder.

  ‘Come on, Evie.’ He holds out his hand to her.

  She looks up at him and shakes her head.

  ‘Evie?’

  ‘I’m okay, Seb. I think I’ll just hang here for a while.’

  He runs to catch up with the bus. She watches him watching her, until the bus is out of sight.

  Evie sits on the ground, holding her head. Her brain sounds like fireworks. Hot tears sting her eyes. She wants to cry, she wants to howl and scream and yet somewhere she wants to jump for joy. She opens her diary planner. Her hands shake as she flicks through the pages to the note she made yesterday: 24/211 Lancet St, Randwick. Take the 503 bus from Wynyard and get off at car wash in Randwick. Corner of second street on left.

  At the bus stop she wedges her bag between her feet to steady her. The traffic whizzes by but everything looks and feels like slow motion. Even the noise on the road has slowed to a weird, echoing drone. The step on the bus seems higher, the driver’s nose looks too long, and the machine takes forever to spit out her ticket.

  Evie stumbles onto the bus, taking a seat on the right-hand side. As the pin approaches she turns and stares out the window. The girl isn’t there.

  This time, Evie’s eyes follow a barricade that runs the length of the sharp bend. She realises she has never considered why the barricade is there. But n
ow she knows. She calculates that at least twelve years ago a young girl was killed here. But she still has to see it for herself.

  At Hyde Park Evie gets off and runs to the state library. She’s done this for school assignments at least a hundred times. It’ll take ten minutes, fifteen tops. She chucks her bag in a locker and finds the newspaper drawer marked 1991. The roll for March is the first one she spots. She grabs it, hooking it onto the machine. Madly scrolling through sport sections and classifieds, the days of March 1991 rush before her.

  Nothing. She takes out May, July, December, September and does the same.

  Click– it’s there, 25 September 1991: ‘Girl Killed in Hit and Run’. The top paragraph of ‘News in Brief’. The words are jumping off the page like tiny black fleas. ‘Notorious bend – the pin – Bridgepoint Road – seven years old – massive blood loss – head injuries – killed instantly.’

  Evie’s fingers won’t cooperate as she tries to roll up the reel. She attempts to stuff it into the box but it keeps spilling out. She shoves it into the drawer and bolts.

  Back at Hyde Park, she waits for the 503 to Randwick. It’s due in eight minutes. First period is nearly finished. She checks her timetable – a geography documentary. She won’t be missed. Alex has a late start on Thursday mornings.

  Evie digs around the bottom of her bag for the eye drops. Her hands still shake as she squirts the drops in her left eye, most of it running into her mouth, their coolness still soothing the ache. She blinks, washing them through the redness and as she does a blurred pattern of shapes appears on the footpath. Three cylinders above four triangles, just like the ones in her drawing. When she blinks again they disappear.

  The 503 approaches. The square cabin of the bus speeds towards her and a thundering clamour shakes beneath her feet. Evie feels like she is falling, falling between the wheels. She screams and jumps back.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘What?’ Evie looks up. A lady is touching her arm. The others in the queue look embarrassed. She takes her arm away. ‘Yeah. I’m okay.’

  Evie hides in the corner of the back seat. A grassy smell lingers. She sniffs the end of her plait, thinking it must be the chemist brand shampoo. What Victoria will look like and all the things they will talk about drift through her mind. Evie feels peaceful, almost sleepy. Closing her eyes she hears the rumbling of the wheels and the squeal of the brakes as the bus takes her up Elizabeth Street to Randwick.

  She is not what Evie expects. Victoria is tall. Her eyes are large and brown and blink slowly as she speaks.

  ‘I thought I might see you today,’ she says softly. ‘Come in. Dear, dear, your eye is very red. I wonder what that means?’

  Evie steps into a small room wall-to-wall with photos. A cookbook is open on the table and the crossword in the newspaper is half done.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Evangaline?’

  ‘Thanks. That’d be great.’ She contemplates saying ‘everyone calls me Evie’, but decides not to. She likes Evangaline, at least today she does.

  Evie follows Victoria into the kitchen. Jars of preserved lemons line the shelves.

  ‘Are you hungry? I’ve got some fruit bun.’

  ‘I didn’t have breakfast,’ Evie remembers. ‘It’s been, let’s say, a very weird morning.’

  ‘Well, let’s sit down and have a cuppa and some bun. Then, we can have a long chat. Should you be at school?’

  Evie goes to speak.

  ‘Not important. I feel much better now you’re here, Evangaline. We’ve been worried.’

  They go back to the little sitting room. Victoria pushes the heater closer to the table. Evie feels the warm air blowing on her legs. She eats her bun, then washes it down with perhaps the most fantastic cup of tea she’s ever tasted. She laps up the comfort of this moment. She could just lie down on the floor and sleep.

  ‘There’s plenty more bun.’

  ‘No thanks,’ Evie replies, yawning and stretching her legs. ‘That was perfect.’

  ‘Do you feel tired?’ Victoria asks. ‘When things are happening,’ she makes a wide circle around her head. ‘It can be very exhausting.’

  Evie nods in agreement and the realisation dawns that in this room, at this very moment, she is free. The feeling is as powerful as it is peaceful.

  ‘You were right about yesterday,’ Evie says. ‘About someone – what was the phrase you used?’

  ‘Validating your gift, is what I think I said.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ says Evie. ‘And it was Seb. He’s the tall boy on the bus.’

  ‘And how did you feel?’

  ‘Weird. Confused. Kind of happy.’

  ‘So what happened? What did he say?’

  ‘It’s unbelievable. I don’t know what to think.’ Evie tells her about the little girl at the pin. Victoria leans across the table, nodding her head, as Evie describes the first time she saw her.

  ‘That’s my first memory of anything, you know, strange,’ explains Evie. ‘It took me till I was nearly eight to realise no one else saw her. I know how ridiculous it must sound but I really didn’t understand.’ She stops and thinks. ‘I don’t understand why Grandma or someone didn’t tell me.’

  ‘She couldn’t,’ Victoria answers.

  ‘But why couldn’t she? It would have made things so much easier.’ The hot tears sting again. ‘I didn’t know what I was seeing or hearing half the time. I still don’t, I just live with it.’ Evie blows her nose. ‘It sucks that it takes Seb to tell me the truth. That a girl really died there. Even he knew I saw her, god knows how.’

  ‘Evangaline, it was very complicated. I first met Anna, your grandma, just around that time. Your grandpa had just died. She was in despair over losing him and she was in despair about what to do with you.’

  Evie is sobbing now. She cannot stop the tears. Years of them fly everywhere, spilling down onto her red cardigan.

  ‘I’ll tell you a little about what I know.’ Victoria’s hands hold Evie’s. ‘But some of the other things –’ Evie senses a hesitation in her voice. ‘You’ll have to speak to your father about.’

  Evie understands the deal. It’s the only deal she’s had so far.

  Victoria begins to tell her a story. The sound of her voice is soothing as it gently guides Evie back to her childhood.

  ‘Anna rang me the first time you saw the girl at the pin. She was upset and confused about what to do. Your dad had told her how your mother became difficult – impossible – about it. She forbade Anna or your father to say anything to you about it.

  ‘You see, the year before a seven-year-old girl had been killed there by a hit and run. She died of massive head injuries. It was in all the local papers. It was horrible.

  ‘According to Anna, it was the first time you ever displayed your special sense, your gift. Before then no one knew whether you had it or not. You see, Nick didn’t get it and seeing he was Anna’s only child, she had to wait till the next generation to see if it’d been passed down. But your mother would not allow you to be told. Anna and Nick thought initially it was some type of denial, that she would change her mind. She never did. It caused your grandmother and your father enormous worry keeping it from you. But what could they do?

  ‘And I think Nick felt so terrible, so guilty about you getting it from his side of the family that he just blindly obeyed everything your mother said. In the end he made Anna swear that she would respect your mother’s wishes. Because, after all, she was your mother and she had the final say. What’s her name again?’

  Evie can barely form her lips around the word. ‘Robin.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Victoria’s brown eyes narrow and focus on her. Evie shifts in her seat. She feels she is about to hear why she’s been told all of this.

  ‘Evangaline, I have told you what is really none of my business. But I have told you because I think it’s time you understood your gift. You see, there is something truly special about you. Tell me, what is going on? As I said
on the phone, Anna and I sense trouble around you. And, I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’m necessarily talking about emotional trouble. Do you understand what I’m saying, Evangaline? There is a powerful energy around you. It wants you.’

  Evie swallows hard. She’s not certain where to start. She knows it’s her turn to speak but what to say? Her thoughts are tumbling.

  ‘I think I know what you mean. There’s stuff going on that I don’t have a clue about.’

  Evie feels a heat. It rises up through her chest and into her throat. She pushes it back. She has to get rid of this burden.

  Victoria squeezes her hand. ‘You’re safe here.’

  ‘It started in April, when I drew a girl’s portrait. But, I didn’t actually end up drawing her.’ Evie bites her lip. It’s still so hard to say. ‘I ended up drawing her … her – dead brother. I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t even know she had a brother or anything. Now I feel like it’s happening again but much worse. I keep drawing a young woman’s face and I don’t know who it is.’

  Evie tastes the blood as she bites her lip harder. ‘I’m,’ she swallows, ‘terrified.’

  Victoria stands up and takes the mugs and plate to the kitchen. Evie hears her filling the sink with water and the squirt of a detergent bottle. Why has Victoria walked away? She isn’t sure if she is meant to follow. She doesn’t understand the rules. She’s a novice.

  ‘Evangaline?’ calls Victoria. ‘I want you to make a list of what’s been happening.’

  ‘A list?’

  ‘Try and put it in sequence, you know, what happened first then next, then next and so on.’

  Victoria walks into the sitting room, wiping the soapsuds from her fingers.

  ‘Do you need some paper?’ she asks. ‘I think what you should do is get a little diary and start recording things as you observe them. And dreams, when an energy is strong like that, the dreams can be important, too.’

  ‘Do you think there’s –?’

  ‘Evangaline,’ says Victoria. ‘The energy is so strong I had to walk out of the room. What you’re feeling is real.’

  Evie pulls her homework diary out of her bag, then squashes it back in. ‘As if,’ she scoffs.

  ‘You must be careful,’ Victoria says, searching through a cupboard. ‘There are very few people you can trust. Unfortunately, your mother is not one of them. Not this time. The tall boy has had his use. Your father is safe and there’s another man. He has a strong perfume. You also have a good friend.’