Dad thought about this. ‘Dom’s right, we follow his plan.’
I ran over to the taxi and quickly explained to Luiz Antonio what was happening.
He agreed – it was too risky.
‘Imogen, the chip?’ I said. She handed me the ziplock bag.
Immediately Luiz Antonio knew what it was. ‘Ah, my favourite customer. Destination, please?’
‘I was thinking Nimbin,’ I said. ‘Maybe you could leave him at the Macca’s? He really loves it there.’
Luiz Antonio took his favourite customer, tossed him into the passenger’s seat and said, ‘Gus?’
‘Old bugger doesn’t want to come.’ I almost added he was going for a PB, but even on a crazy day like this that sounded way too crazy.
‘Gringo malandro,’ growled Luiz Antonio, and he took off with a squeal of tyres, making for the gates.
Dad and Mom had already removed the grate.
‘Who’s first?’ I said.
‘I’ll go,’ said Toby.
Showing surprising agility, he was quickly through the hole and into the stormwater drain. I couldn’t help but think about what Dad had said the other night, that I didn’t know what Toby’s capabilities were.
Maybe, he was right.
Maybe, there’d been no need to unleash the blogs of war.
But I knew that that wasn’t just it – The Debt had to be extinguished.
Miranda and Imogen scampered down next. Then Mom.
‘You go, Dad,’ I said.
More thunder thundered. I noticed, now, that Dad’s shirt was soaked with blood, and I could see that his arm was next to useless. I helped him down as best I could.
As I lowered myself into the hole, a drop of rain caught me right on the end of my nose, where it dribbled down to my lip and then onto my chin.
‘You go first, Toby. Mom. Miranda. Imogen. Dad. And I’ll go last. No rush, just slow and steady. And keep talking to each other, because it’ll get really dark. When you come to the first sump, stop and wait for me.’
‘What’s a sump?’ said Toby.
‘You’ll know when you reach it,’ I said.
I took out my iPhone and scrolled through my contacts until I had the one I wanted. I was going to text, when I thought: sometimes it’s just better to call. Amazingly enough, she answered almost straightaway.
‘Geez, are you okay?’ Zoe said, the worry in her voice genuine. ‘It’s the only thing on the TV now, the whole Gold Coast is up in flames.’
‘Where are you?’ I said.
‘As if I’m going to tell you that.’
‘I really need your help.’
‘You got it,’ she said.
‘I have?’
‘Yes, of course. You risked your life that day to get us off that boat.’
‘Okay, listen closely,’ I said, and I told her my plan.
A few minutes later, when I’d finished the call, I turned my phone off – I was off the grid now, they couldn’t trace me. But I’d forgotten to tell the others to do the same.
I dived into the tunnel and crawled like mad. It didn’t take long to catch up to Dad.
‘Hey, Dad, pass it on ahead – everybody needs to turn off their phones.’
I heard him say, ‘Miranda, you need to turn your phone off.’
Dad was making slow, awkward progress. And when I experimented, crawling with only one arm for a while, I could see why. Still the Silvagni train kept chugging down the tunnel. And then from ahead Toby’s voice echoed, ‘I’m here. I’m here. I’m here …’
Soon we were all at the sump, the grid above letting in light which fell in lattices on the faces of my family, of Imogen. From above we could also hear sounds: the wailing of police sirens, the shattering of glass, footsteps.
‘So everybody’s turned their phones off?’ I said.
There were five ‘yes’ responses.
‘We could just wait it out here,’ said Mom. ‘It’s not that bad.’
I thought of the raindrop that had landed on my nose. ‘That’s probably not a good idea,’ I said. And not wanting to freak everybody out, I went with a lie: ‘There are issues with the air in these places, especially with so many of us.’
‘And remember those kids who drowned in one of these a couple of years ago?’ said Miranda.
Well done, Miranda.
‘And it had just started to rain when we left,’ said Mom.
‘Let’s get a move on, then,’ said Toby. ‘Which way is it?’
I pointed to the drain to our left. ‘We’ve got about another hour, and then we come out at Preacher’s.’
‘And we’ll be safe there?’ said Mom.
That was the problem: The Debt had always been able to find me in the past. Always. And yes, I know I’d been electronically tagged then, and I know my phone was now off the grid, but I still had this sense that they could find me. That they had these extraordinary, almost supernatural, powers. We had to go somewhere where they would never find us.
‘I’ve got a plan,’ I said. ‘Trust me.’
Dad moaned and grabbed at his arm. The shirt was completely soaked in blood.
Then I remembered the pills that Imogen had given me. I felt in my pocket: they were still there. ‘Dad, hold out your hand.’
He did as I asked, and I shook four of the pills into it. ‘Painkillers,’ I said.
Dad threw them into his mouth. I took a couple, too. My hand was throbbing.
‘I’m outta here,’ said Toby, diving into the hole.
Was this really the same person who had been scared about going on television because he might get his pipe of tempered chocolate wrong?
Mom followed him.
Miranda.
Imogen.
Dad hesitated.
‘I’m just holding you up,’ he said.
‘Jesus, Dad, don’t go all midday movie on me. Gus reckons you’re the most tenacious, most determined person he ever met.’
‘Gus said that?’
‘Gus said that.’
Dad clambered into the drain. As I followed, I felt another drop of rain on the back of my neck. I looked up at the grate; rain was falling heavily.
‘Whoo-hoo!’ I said, probably the first time in ten years that I’d attempted a train noise. ‘Let’s get this choo-choo going.’
I could hear the ‘whoo-hoo’ progressing from carriage to carriage.
With Dad making such disjointed progress it was impossible to fall into any sort of rhythm with my crawling. Despite the painkillers, my hand had started sending out those skyrockets of pain again and I wondered if the butterfly closures had come loose.
I soon had my answer when blood began to seep from under the bandaid. After that, it didn’t take long for the bandaid to drop off. There was the wound, gaping. And as macabre as it was, I couldn’t help thinking that it looked like some sort of mouth, like Mr Havilland’s extra mouth.
‘Whoo-hoo!’ I yelled, and again it progressed up the carriages, but this time the volume was noticeably less. Train Silvagni was running out of steam.
When I felt the moisture under my hands, I thought it was blood, either mine or Dad’s. But when I brought my moist fingers to my nose it was rainwater I could smell.
I checked my watch. There was perhaps half an hour of crawling to go.
Dad moaned, and stopped. ‘More painkillers.’
‘You had four already,’ I said.
‘Give me another four!’
I shook some more pills out of the container and passed them to him. ‘It’s not long now.’
Dad started moving again, but it was obvious that he had very little left in the tank.
That stupid treadmill, I thought. Why didn’t he do proper exercise? Why wasn’t he fitter?
Water was flowing freely now; it completely covered my hands. ‘Full speed ahead,’ I said to Dad. ‘Pass it on.’ He passed it on, but that’s about all he was capable of, repeating the words.
What could I do? Somehow, crawl past my dad,
and made sure that at least I made it? It didn’t make any sense for two of us to drown.
I remembered the last time I was in the drain, the last time it had been raining. How PJ and I had managed to drag her brother out. All that effort, I thought, and what for? Paris Hilton was going to get him anyway.
Dad had stopped completely.
‘You keep going,’ he said.
What in the hell was wrong with me? I’d risked my life, busted an absolute gut, to drag Brandon out and I didn’t even like the little turd. This was my dad!
The water was rising rapidly; it was now up to my elbow level. But remembering how we’d half-dragged, half-floated Brandon out, I realised that was a good thing.
‘Dad, listen to me. I have to crawl over you, okay? I have to get in front of you.’
‘Of course you do,’ he said.
‘So you lie down flat and I’m going to crawl over you.’
Dad did that, arching his neck up to keep his head out of the water, and I clambered over him, trying not to touch his arm.
Then I turned around so that we were head-to-head.
‘Dom, I want you to know that –’ started Dad, but I cut him short.
‘Enough of that crap, okay? I’m not going anywhere. You need to roll over so that you’re on your back.’
With my help, he managed to do that.
‘You need to sort of push with your legs,’ I said, grabbing him by his shirt collar. ‘You ready? One. Two. Three.’
But when I yanked, Dad screamed, the most horrendous sound I’d ever heard come from a human being.
‘My arm!’ he moaned.
How dumb can you get? The shirt was also his sling. But where to get purchase? I had no choice.
‘Sorry, Dad,’ I said, as I grabbed a handful of his thick lifestyle-presenter’s hair. ‘One. Two. Three. Go!’ I pulled, and this time it worked, the same way it had worked with Brandon, the water actually in our favour, lifting Dad up, reducing the friction. Using this technique, we made very slow but steady progress down the drain. At the same time, the water level was rising just as steadily. I wondered about the others – surely they’d made it by now. And what about the other end? What then?
Something grabbed my ankles and the scream that came out of my mouth made Dad’s effort seem puny.
‘Dom, it’s me.’
‘Toby, what in the hell are you doing?’
‘I came back to help,’ he said. ‘It’s not very far, only about ten minutes.’
With Toby helping, pulling me back, we caterpillared our way down the drain.
He was right, it was only about ten minutes and then we were there; it was the place where I’d slept next to PJ, the place where the Preacher had died. And here I was again. Who gave such a crappy place permission to play such a significant part in my life? There were still remnants of PJ and Brandon’s camp: some tatty old blankets, a filthy foam mattress.
Mom was comforting Dad. There was no colour at all in his face and his breathing was laboured.
‘We need to get him to a hospital,’ said Mom.
‘Doesn’t anybody know first aid?’ I said, thinking that there must be something we could do.
In the movies they always put a tourniquet on, but maybe that’s only because it’s sort of exciting. Everybody shook their heads: not one iota of first aid between us.
‘Hell,’ I said, taking out my iPhone. It was still dry; that waterproof case had been the best thing I’d ever bought. I went to turn it on.
‘What are you doing?’ said Miranda. ‘You said to keep our phones off or they would find us on GPS.’
I actually hadn’t said anything about GPS, Miranda had worked that out herself.
‘Doctor Google,’ I said, looking at my fading father. ‘It’s our only hope.’
‘You sure there’s a signal here?’ said Toby.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘This place is like a second home to me.’
The joke, if you could call it that, was wasted on this audience.
When I turned on my phone, three messages downloaded. I couldn’t help but notice that they were from Rent-a-Cop’s number. The wheels were already in motion. Why not just call him? But I thought of what Dad had said – you never know.
I opened Safari, got onto Google and typed how to treat a gunshot wound to the arm. ‘The Survival Doctor – What to do when help is NOT on the way’ had the answers.
‘Elevate arm above the heart,’ I said.
Miranda and Imogen helped Mom to remove Dad’s arm from his homemade sling and gently raise it until it was above his heart.
‘Apply direct pressure to wound,’ I said.
‘Really?’ said Toby.
But Mom was already gently tearing Dad’s shirt open so that she could see the seeping wound more clearly. ‘Anybody have a hanky?’
‘Here,’ said Toby, handing her his, a black and grey number that had YSL embroidered in one corner.
She folded it over a couple of times. ‘You ready, darling?’ she said to Dad. He nodded. She pressed the handkerchief against the wound. Dad grimaced but didn’t scream.
‘If this doesn’t work we can also try a tourniquet,’ I said.
‘It’s working,’ said Mom. ‘It’s already bleeding much less.’
I noticed, too, that Dad had more colour in his face.
‘Maybe you should turn your phone off now, Dom,’ said Miranda.
I considered sending Zoe a text, or calling her again, but realised it was a waste of time. Either they were going to let me down yet again, or they would turn up.
‘Why don’t you just call the police?’ said Toby. ‘Tell them to come and get us?’
My god! I’d been so anti-cop, I’d completely forgotten what their role in society was. It was as simple as that.
‘Don’t!’ said Dad, his voice a broken thing. ‘Rocco has too many friends in the police force.’
I took Miranda’s advice: I turned off my phone. ‘We should probably move,’ I said. If they had fixed my position on GPS it made sense to get out of there right away.
But at the end of the drain, I could see the heavy rain slanting down outside. And Dad, though better, was in no state to go anywhere. I just had to hope that they hadn’t triangulated my position.
Because if they had, we were carne fresca.
THURSDAY
HEARSEY
Two-twenty in the morning and it was my turn.
We’d decided that each of us kids would take it in turns keeping watch, eyes on that circle of concrete, our window onto the outside world, while the others tried to steal some sleep.
‘Just like the movies,’ Toby had said.
I hadn’t pointed out the obvious: in the movies the people keeping watch are usually armed. There was absolutely nothing we could do to stop The Debt from waltzing in and sticking a bullet in each of our heads.
But something really obvious occurred to me: The Debt didn’t know we weren’t armed. As far as they knew, each of us could be toting an AK-47. So why risk getting shot when you could just play the waiting game? Sooner or later we would have to come out. And they would be there to pick us off, one by one.
Or maybe my ruse had worked and they’d hightailed it all the way to Nimbin to find a Dom-free Macca’s.
The others were all sleeping, the drain full of their sleeping sounds. Even Dad’s eyes were closed. I knew that Mom had been determined to stay up all night, to apply constant pressure to that hanky, but she, too, had dropped off. I’d already checked Dad’s wound – the blood was no longer flowing freely – so I figured it was better to let her rest.
Somebody stirred.
‘Dom?’
‘Imogen?’
‘You okay?’ she said, shuffling closer to me.
‘Sure,’ I said, keeping my eyes on the concrete circle.
There were a thousand questions Imogen could have asked, but she didn’t. Instead, looking over at Dad, she said, ‘Your father’s very brave.’
How long unt
il the police came after him, I wondered.
How long until there was a court case, the details splashed over the papers, over the internet?
How much longer would Imogen think that my father was brave?
‘Yes, he is,’ I said.
And then, from outside: a noise!
‘What’s that?’ said Imogen.
‘Shhh!’ I said. Had they realised that we were unarmed, and were now coming after us? I went to grab something, anything. But there was nothing.
More noises. Rustling, shuffling noises.
And then a silhouette at the end of the drain. And then a person. A person I knew.
‘PJ?’ I said.
She was carrying a small backpack. She quickly took in the scene, the slumbering bodies.
‘What happened?’ she whispered.
‘They came after us,’ I said. ‘They smashed their way into Halcyon Grove.’
She nodded – I understand. But the what-the-hell-is-going-on-here? look on her face said otherwise.
‘Brandon?’ I said.
She didn’t have to say anything, her face said it all: he was dead.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
PJ shrugged. ‘I’m going back to Toowoomba with the old girl, try and work it out. She says she’s going to get rid of that dipstick.’ PJ then noticed Imogen. ‘Ah, the beautiful girl,’ she said.
‘Hope it works out with your mum,’ said Imogen.
PJ shrugged. ‘I just need to get my stuff.’
What stuff? I looked at all the rubbish strewn around the place. But PJ tiptoed through the bodies until she came to a huge valve. She reached behind it, and brought out a plastic bag. Ah, that stuff.
As she tiptoed back, she stumbled slightly, and the bag flew out of her hand and onto the concrete, some of its contents spewing out. Amongst them was the Leaning Tower of Pisa statue, the one I’d bought for her in Rome. As she grabbed it and put it back into the bag, our eyes met.
PJ gave me a little smile. And, one eye on the outside, I gave her a little one back.
‘Okay, Grammar,’ she said. ‘I’m out of here.’
Take a Life Page 29
