Incurable

by John Marsden

  ‘I only want to ask him a question,’ I begged.

  ‘You know I read your book about the war,’ she said.

  ‘Oh you did?’ The first one had been published but the rest were home in a wardrobe. It hadn’t sold enough to satisfy the publisher, so they wouldn’t take the others. It seemed to me that quite a lot of people knew about the book but not so many had actually read it. Maybe it was the title. I thought The War from Hell was quite cute but I guess people who didn’t know Tailor’s Stitch and Hell didn’t get the joke until they were reading the book, and it was a bit late by then.

  I didn’t care all that much. I just like writing stuff down. It’s become a habit, and now I do it for my own sake, instead of trying to get it published.

  ‘Never thought I’d meet you,’ the nurse said. ‘It wasn’t a bad book. I made my boyfriend read it too. If it’s one question, OK, but don’t wake him up. If he’s asleep just let him be.’

  I took a moment to realise she was giving me permission to talk to Gavin.

  ‘OK, cool, thanks. And thanks for buying the book.’

  ‘I didn’t buy it, I got it from the library.’

  ‘You should buy a copy,’ Lee said loyally.

  She laughed. ‘Maybe I will now that I’Ve met you. You’re that boy whose family owned the restaurant, right?’

  Yeah, he’s Lee,’ I called back over my shoulder. Like he couldn’t speak for himself.

  I was already halfway to Gavin’s room. It would have been nice to sit down and have a long chat about literature but there were more important things to worry about.

  Lee caught up with me as I got to the door. I sure was moving slowly. That drug was a ripper. Everything felt normal enough but it had taken me a long time to travel a short distance. Story of my life.

  I felt a tremendous surf inside me when I looked at Gavin. I was getting used to this feeling. It happened every now and then. I could almost hear the waves pounding. It was the fear of his getting hurt, it was the desire to protect him, it was the not wanting to let him down, it was love. Or else it was just hormonal, maternal stuff, which probably amounts to the same thing.

  He opened one eye and looked at me. Then he opened the other. He had that stern look he gets sometimes. We just gazed at each other. With Gavin you gotta read the signals. If you get them wrong, then wham, he’ll smack you in the face and take off, he’ll head for the hills. Not literally. Well, usually not literally.

  OK, I got the message, this was not the time for stupid girly emotional stuff like, ‘Thank God you’re all right,’ or, ‘I thought I was going to die when I saw the guy grab you, I actually felt death break out inside me,’ or, ‘You mean more to me than any other human being in the whole world.’

  This was apparently not the time for any of that rubbish. No more hugs for the time being.

  ‘Gavin, what the hell was that all about?’

  ‘He’s my stepdad.’

  I gasped, and so did Lee, behind me. I toddled in a bit further.

  ‘So I can understand why anyone connected with you would want to kill you but was there any particular . . . ?’

  He couldn’t lip-read all that. Too drowsy and drugged up, like me. This was the drugged leading the drugged. He frowned and did what he normally does in those situations – guessed what I was asking. I knew that sequence of his facial expressions so well.

  So he answered what he thought I was asking. And got it right, as he usually does.

  ‘He murdered my mum.’

  EPILOGUE

  SEEMED LIKE GAVIN was the only witness. Like the Red Cross said: his mum had been murdered at the very start of the war. What they got wrong was the person or people who’d done it. They all assumed it was enemy soldiers. I don’t know who found her body, maybe one of those work teams I’d had a few encounters with myself, the people who’d been drafted to go out into shops and houses to clean up after the invasion. Maybe enemy soldiers had found her body and given it to people in a prison camp to bury or cremate.

  But from then on, everyone, right through to the Red Cross, had blamed the soldiers.

  Only Gavin knew the truth. He had seen his mum struck down from behind as she loaded the car. Over the rest of the weekend he told me about it and enacted it, as he does. She had decided to get out of the relationship, to Gavin’s relief. She’d taken Rosie to a friend’s place, along with some suitcases, then come back to the flat to get another load. Gavin and she were carrying stuff down to the car and were in the garage when the man arrived home. He hit her with a car jack, then when she fell, hit her again and again. Then he locked Gavin in the apartment. When Gavin escaped, hours later, he ran straight into the invasion.

  All this time Gavin had carried his secret knowledge, all this time the fear and sickness of it had churned away inside him. He didn’t dare tell anyone. He didn’t want to bring the man back. He didn’t want an enquiry. Like they say, you’re as sick as your secrets, and his secret was a pretty poisonous one.

  Funny I thought, Gavin and I were both the O word, the word I hated and couldn’t say, and even worse, three out of four of our parents had been murdered. It only occurred to me as I was writing this. What are the odds? I mean, you’d have to say we were unlucky.

  We had the reunion, or at least I should say Gavin and Rosie did. It was a funny experience. She was a bright little kid, feisty as hell, with fire in her eyes. The Russells seemed really nice. They were so shocked by what had happened at their place the day before. They’d seen the guy around, everyone knew him, Ken Manning was his name. He worked at the bottle shop part-time, and hung around the TAB. He must have heard on the grapevine that Gavin was coming home. Everyone had thought Gavin was dead, so it would have been a shock to him.

  Anyway, Rosie opened the door when we went back the next day. She yelled to her folks, ‘He’s here.’ Then she just stood there and said, ‘Hi Gavin.’

  ‘Hi Rosie.’

  ‘Do you wanna come in?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Well take your shoes off then, you got mud all over them.’

  It was like that for about half an hour. She bossed him around and he took it without a murmur. Maybe it was the effect of the anaesthetic still, or the painkillers, or simply the shock of yesterday. But I don’t think so.

  When Mrs Russell suggested Rosie show Gavin her room and her stuff she ignored her and when she suggested it a second time Rosie just said, ‘No way.’ But after a while they drifted into the backyard and next time I looked they were on the trampoline and they seemed to be really talking. Gavin was going through another of his famous performances and she was lying back and watching intently and laughing. I think he was showing off about what he’d done during the war, but I figured he was entitled to show off a bit. And isn’t that what little sisters are for? I haven’t been one and I haven’t got one so I wouldn’t know.

  Mrs Russell and I agreed we’d take them somewhere together next time and maybe Rosie could come and stay on the farm when they got to know each other a bit again. I think she really meant it, and I did. I do. I want Gavin to have whatever can be salvaged out of life for him, and Rosie is, as far as I know, his only relative.

  Back we went to Lee’s. We had to stay in the city an extra day for Gavin to go to Outpatients at the hospital and for both of us to have more interviews with the police. We’d had a long one already, plus they’d rung up and I’d relayed a couple of questions to Gavin about where he’d lived before the war. They were going to go and do DNA stuff in the garage I think.

  For dinner Lee gave us a special treat, KFC for the entree and Maccas cheeseburgers for the main course. I just looked at him. ‘And your parents ran a restaurant,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘My dad liked McDonald’s.’

  Honestly.

  Then the phone rang. He answered it and after a while it occurred to me that he hadn’t actually said anything. He was listening though. A kind of tension came over the room and everyone stopped eating, even Inti
ra. Pang made a face.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked her.

  She shrugged, exactly the way Lee does. Trouble,’ was all she would say.

  Lee hung up. He looked at me. ‘That was the Scarlet Pimple,’ he said softly.

  ‘And?’ I felt the knot in my stomach suddenly get pulled so tight I could hardly breathe.

  ‘There’s a problem over the border that we could maybe help with.’

  ‘And?’

  He did the shrug thing again and sat down, picking up the other half of his cheeseburger. ‘No hurry. It won’t be till the night after next.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘Oh nothing, you wouldn’t be interested. I know you don’t want to do any of that stuff any more.’

  ‘Lee! Don’t play those games with me.’

  ‘Oh, so you would be interested?’

  ‘Are they going to buy me a new motorbike?’

  ‘It’s being delivered tomorrow.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Absolutely. The Pimple said to tell you sorry it took so long. It’s a Polaris.’

  ‘Wow.’ I beamed at Gavin. ‘We’re getting a new quaddie.’

  Then I realised. I was just getting up to fetch a cloth to clean Intira. ‘Wait a minute. The new motorbike is for the mission isn’t it? That’s why they’ve suddenly supplied it. So we can use it to go out and put ourselves in mortal danger. That’s no better than a bribe.’

  Shrug.

  ‘So are you going?’

  ‘Wouldn’t mind. Haven’t got much on this week.’

  ‘Honestly Lee. You’re incurable.’ I shook my head.

  ‘Well do you wanna come?’

  I didn’t like to ask him if Jeremy was going but I could bet he was. After all, I was fairly sure Jeremy was the Scarlet Pimple. Will I get a free tank of petrol with the bike?’

  ‘That might be possible.’

  ‘What would we have to do?’

  Sometimes I think I’m the one who’s incurable.