The Promise

by Tony Birch

He pulled himself out of the water and sat at my feet.

  ‘What do you mean, what sort?’

  ‘You know, what make? It could’ve been down there for years.’

  ‘What make? How the fuck would I know? I’m not a car dealer. I can hardly see a thing down there. Come take a look.’

  He waded back into the water, swam out and dived again. I was about to follow him when I suddenly thought about Rabbit Patterson and the watery grave Red’s Pa had mentioned. I climbed up the ledge, away from the water, sat down and waited. Red dived a couple more times before coming back to the bank and climbing out.

  ‘Come on in, you lazy cunt. This is like Jacques what’s-his-name. We should get some goggles or a mask or something and take a better look.’

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t be looking too close, Red.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of the Rabbit. Remember what your Pa said.’

  ‘The Rabbit? What’s this got to do with the …’ the penny dropped. ‘Fuck me, Joe. The Rabbit. You think he might be down there, in the car?’

  ‘Why not? He could be. His car went missing with him. Said so in the paper.’

  ‘What make of car was it? Did they describe it in the paper?’

  ‘They did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘A white Valiant. They said it was a white ’64 Valiant.’

  ‘Fuck me.’

  One minute Red was ordering me around, reminding me not to say a word to anyone about the car, and the next minute he’d decided we should call the police. He’d taken to the new swimming hole and didn’t like the idea of sharing it with a rotting corpse.

  ‘We don’t know that there’s a body down there.’

  ‘You mightn’t know, but I’ve got a feeling about this, Joe. I’m sure there’s a body down there. And even if there’s not, that car will start bleeding oil soon and we won’t be able to swim here.’

  We gathered our clothes and cigarettes and headed back across the falls. We left the river, walked to the public telephone box at the railway station and tossed a coin to decide who would report the car. I’m not sure if you would call it a win or a loss, but Red correctly called heads and decided I was going to make the call. I took my T-shirt off and covered the receiver to disguise my voice, just like I’d seen on an episode of Homicide. I dialled 000 and waited.

  ‘Police, Fire or Ambulance?’

  ‘Police,’ I growled.

  I heard a click, a hissing sound and then a voice.

  ‘Victoria Police. Russell Street.’

  I tried so hard to change my voice the policeman on the other end of the line couldn’t understand what I was saying and had to ask me to repeat myself. Either that or it was a trick and he was putting a trace on the call. I talked faster, telling him that the body of the missing man, Rabbit Patterson, was in the boot of his own car, at the bottom of the river, above the falls.

  When he asked me for my name and address I hung up.

  ‘We better take off, Red. If they trace the call to us we’re history.’

  ‘Wipe your prints off first, with the T-shirt.’

  We ran back to the river and hid in the old pump house, directly across the river from the ledge we’d jumped from. We had a good view through a broken window.

  ‘Do you reckon they’ll come?’ Red asked.

  ‘Should do. They’ve been looking everywhere for him. This is a gift.’

  ‘Did it sound like the copper you were talking to believed you?’

  ‘Yeah. I think so. I could hear a tap-tap noise like he was typing out what I said. And he asked me about the spot three times. Can you repeat the location of the vehicle, sir? He said it like that. Official.’

  It was well after dark before we gave up waiting.

  ‘I’d better get home, Red, or I’ll get my arse kicked.’

  ‘Me too. We’ll have to get back here early in the morning. I want to be here when they bring him up.’

  ‘I can’t be here. I have to go to church. My cousin’s Communion. They probably won’t come. Anyway, we don’t know if he’s down there.’

  ‘I bet he is. Tied and gagged in the boot.’

  When I got home from church the next afternoon Red was standing on the street corner, waving like mad at me. When he saw my father spying him he took off around the corner.

  ‘What’s he want?’ he growled at me. ‘He’s a hell of a lot of trouble, that boy.’

  ‘No he’s not. We’re going to go for a hike.’

  ‘A hike? What do you mean, a hike?’

  ‘You know, a walk around the river.’

  He shook his head and looked at my mum for support. She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Be home before dark,’ she warned me. ‘And stay out of the water. It’s filthy.’

  I turned the corner, to where Red was waiting.

  ‘Hurry, Joe. They’re down there, now. The coppers with divers with tanks on their backs, going in where we found the car.’

  We sprinted all the way to the river and didn’t stop until we were in the pump house, sitting at the broken window. I could see a diver in the water holding a large metal hook attached to a heavy length of wire stretching from the water, over the bank, and along the ledge to a tow-truck parked on a track above the river. The diver slipped under the water and reappeared, minus the hook, about a minute later. He hopped out of the water and another copper waved to the tow-truck driver. He jumped into the truck and turned the ignition. Black smoke spluttered from the exhaust as the winch on the back of the truck began to turn. Red and me kept our eyes on the water as the wire groaned against the sandstone ledge and bubbles bigger than beach balls popped and farted on the surface of the water. The tail-light of a car broke through. As it was lifted from the river, water spewed from the open windows until the car was dangling like a white-pointer shark from the end of the line.

  Red pushed the window open, squinted into the distance then dropkicked a rusting beer can across the room.

  ‘Fuck. That’s not a Valiant. Take a look at the taillights, Joe.’

  ‘You’re right. It’s no Valiant. Maybe an FC Holden?’

  ‘FB.’

  ‘Yeah. FB. Doesn’t mean he’s not in there.’

  ‘The Rabbit’s not in there. They took him away in his own car. They would’ve dumped him in his own car. Fuck this. I’m off.’

  I caught up to him and put my arm on his shoulder as we walked home.

  ‘Hey, take it easy, Red. We’ve got the best swimming hole along the river, all to ourselves, and a lot of summer left.’

  ‘Not too bad, I suppose,’ he smiled. ‘What about the bunker?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Maybe it is here. Tomorrow, we start looking for it again. You with me?’

  ‘Yep. I’m with you.’

  REFUGE OF SINNERS

  In the months after the funeral Emma and I avoided each other as much as we could. I spent a lot of my time in the back garden raking fallen leaves and weeding the garden beds, jobs I’d never bothered with before. She buried herself under a blanket in the old armchair in the spare room at the other end of the house. Dinner times were the hardest. We’d always eaten together as a family. The kitchen table was where we came together at the end of the day and talked and argued and laughed. But no longer. She made a point of feeding the kids early, alone. I didn’t sit down to eat at all. When I did get hungry I picked at whatever was available – leftovers in the fridge, dry biscuits, sometimes cereal in the early hours of the morning.

  One afternoon Emma stood on the back verandah with a paperback tucked under her arm. I was on my knees sifting through the rose beds with my bare hands and spotted her out of the corner of my eye and continued digging. She quietly watched me for a few minutes before walking into the garden.

  ‘I’ve just spoken
to Roger. I’ve decided I’m going back to work next week.’

  I looked over my shoulder at her. The bright sun near blinded me. Emma worked as a lawyer with the Public Advocate’s Office, and was one of their most valued workers. When I didn’t respond she squatted next to me and rested a hand on my thigh.

  ‘Are you okay with that? I can put it off for another week or two, if you need me here.’

  ‘No. That’s fine. Yes, go back.’

  I didn’t want to tell her that I felt relieved. With her back at work and the kids at school the house would be empty for most of the day and I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone at all.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure, Em.’

  She set the bedside alarm for six, and left the house by seven on the following Monday morning. I heard the front door close and lay in bed listening to Alex and Nina banging around in the kitchen, making breakfast and organising themselves for school. Alex was the eldest. From the day he’d started high school I’d been happy for the children to go their separate ways of a morning. But not any longer, insisting that he drop Nina at her primary-school gate before heading off on his own.

  I waited until I heard their footsteps in the hallway before getting out of bed, and watched from the lounge-room window as they walked out the gate and headed along the street. Nina lagged behind her older brother, who was smacking his basketball against the footpath as he walked. Alex played guard for the school team. He was a genuine talent and loved the game. He carried his basketball wherever he went. He even took it to bed with him.

  It was a cool morning and I noticed that Alex was wearing Josh’s red parka over his uniform. Although he’d been wearing it all winter without complaint from me, I felt a sudden rise of anger, believing he had no right to the jacket. I rushed from the room and opened the front door, about to scream at him to come back with the jacket. Nina, who must have heard the front door open, spun around on the heels of her school shoes, smiled gently and waved at me. I returned the gesture and kept my eye on her until she’d disappeared around the corner at the end of the street. After they had left for school I had to fight a feeling I was overwhelmed by: that it would be a miracle if they both made it home that night.

  I closed the front door and headed for the back garden to retrieve my crumpled packet of cigarettes and box of matches from the darkened corner of the top shelf in the shed. For the next hour or more I sat on the verandah in my pyjamas and dressing gown smoking cigarettes and watching the birds skip from branch to branch in the bare magnolia at the bottom of the garden.

  I spent the remainder of the morning on my daily mission, wandering the house, stopping now and then to look at a family photograph in the hallway, or examine a smudged Vegemite fingerprint on a kitchen cupboard door and wonder which one of my children it belonged to. I ended my pilgrimage at the laundry doorway and studied the markings in the wooden frame where I’d recorded the heights of my children on the date of each of their birthdays. Taking my reading glasses out of my dressing-gown pocket I re-read the measurements and dates several times before running my fingertips across the scars in the wood.

  I’d be exhausted by lunchtime and would find my way to Josh’s room and his bed, where I’d lie looking up at the fine web of cracks in the ceiling that had been there since we bought the house fourteen years earlier. I’d never got around to repairing them. I never slept for long, maybe an hour or so. After getting up to leave the bedroom I’d look over my shoulder at the hollow I’d left behind.

  My days alone were occupied with the same activity – exploring the house, shuffling from room to room and rummaging through cupboards, bookshelves and storage boxes. Most of what I came across I’d already discovered, weeks earlier – until the morning I discovered the glass jar wedged between the back of the leather couch and the wall. I sat on the couch and nursed the jar in my arms. It was sealed tight after being filled with hundreds of pieces of beach glass and topped with seawater. Each piece of glass had been slowly worn smooth by sand and surf, pounded in the rhythm of the sea.

  The jar was covered in a thick layer of dust. As I washed it in the kitchen sink the colours and shapes of glass caught the sunlight streaming through the window. As I lifted the jar out of the soapy water and held it to the light it slipped from my hands and smashed onto the kitchen floor, scattering brown, green and frosted pieces of glass across the tiles. On my hands and knees I began separating out the smooth pieces of beach glass from the jagged remains of the jar. As the scent of the ocean wafted up I thought about the family trips we’d made to the beach each summer, and how the kids would compete to find the most valued pieces of glass – the rare blues and reds.

  The task of carefully sifting through the glass seemed overwhelming; demanding concentration, a skill I’d lost. Judging by the amount of dust caked on the jar – it must have been resting under the couch for some time – none of us had missed it. The easiest means of cleaning up would be to tip the lot into the bin. The job would be over in minutes.

  Armed with the brush and pan from under the sink, I was about to sweep the mess away when a piece of glass caught my eye. Holding it between my finger and thumb I thought about which one of the kids had collected it. Perhaps it was one of Emma’s finds? Or mine? I meticulously gathered each piece of glass in a colander, rinsed it under the kitchen tap and left it to drain in the sink. In the garden I searched through the shed until I found a similar-sized jar to the one I’d smashed. I cleaned it out, emptied the pieces of glass into the jar and filled it with tap water. As I was about to screw the lid down I remembered something and added a couple of spoonfuls of sea salt for effect.

  Emma seemed pleased to be back at work and began gently prodding me about when I might return myself. My answer, always the same, ‘It could be next week, I think,’ was usually enough to stop her prodding further, although I noticed she was becoming frustrated with my self-imposed isolation. I rarely left the house, even avoiding collecting the morning paper from the local newsagent, a task I’d enjoyed most mornings for many years.

  I had walked to the newsagency a week after the funeral and was shocked when Jim, the shop owner, mentioned Josh’s name.

  ‘He was my most reliable paperboy, Josh. He was never late. Not once.’

  I’d offered him the money for the newspaper without saying a word. He looked me in the eye as he handed me the change.

  ‘We all know it was an accident. It couldn’t be helped.’

  It couldn’t be helped.

  It wasn’t until I opened a letter from the advertising agency I’d been with for eight years, instructing me that I’d exhausted all my leave entitlements, paid and unpaid, that I reluctantly agreed to an appointment with my manager, Ron Hartlett. I called his secretary and told her I’d come in the following day. I burned the letter in the old incinerator in the garden along with the leaves I’d been raking up, and didn’t mention the letter or the meeting to Emma that night. I watched on, with the birds flittering around me, disturbed by the flames and smoke.

  The next morning I waited for Emma to leave then showered and left the house myself about five minutes behind the kids, catching the train into the city for the first time in months. I sat across the aisle from two teenage boys wearing a near-matching uniform of low-slung jeans, scuffed sneakers and hooded windcheaters. They each carried a skateboard. I lowered my head and looked down at my own dusty leather shoes and eavesdropped on their conversation. The boys were talking excitedly about a skating spot they were heading to behind the football stadium at Docklands. As they stood up to get off the train, one stop before my own, I almost reached out and touched one of the boys on the arm as he passed by.

  I walked from the station to my office building. Certain that I’d been called in to be told I was going to get the sack, I’d written and signed a resignation letter the previous afternoon. It was without fuss, just two short sentences. Ron Hartlet
t, my direct line manager, had been with the Melbourne office for little more than a year. The word around the corridors prior to his arrival was that he was a tough nut who’d been brought down from head office in Sydney ‘to kick a few arses and clear the place of deadwood’.

  While nobody’s arse had been kicked, not as far as I knew, I felt nervous when his secretary ushered me into his office that morning. Sinking into the leather chair opposite him I immediately worried about how I would ever get to my feet again.

  ‘Nick. Would you like a tea or coffee?’ he offered.

  ‘No. That’s no bother.’

  He looked a little embarrassed and nervous himself. Before he could say anything more I fumbled for the envelope in my jacket pocket and passed it across the desk to him. After reading it he carefully folded the letter, returned it to the envelope and placed it between us on the desktop. He rested his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. I glanced out of the window, at a magpie sitting on the ledge high above the city. It looked back at me as it pecked at the glass.

  Eventually Ron picked up the envelope again and gently tapped it on the desktop as he spoke.

  ‘Nick, I would like to hold onto this if you don’t mind. Can I suggest you give some thought to working from home? We could begin with a day or two a week until you’re … comfortable. You can send material in from home. If you can get to the monthly team meetings, that’s all we’d need, for now.’

  He passed the letter across the desk to me.

  ‘I’m not saying I won’t accept this. It’s your decision and I respect it. But I’d like us to revisit this later, if we need to.’

  He took his glasses off, held them to the light and studied the lenses. The room suddenly felt warmer and I was beginning to sweat and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to take my jacket off or run from the room and out of the building. I was about to stand up and excuse myself when Ron put his glasses back on and cleared his throat. He picked up a photograph that was sitting on the bookshelf behind his desk. It was a picture of an attractive-looking woman around the same age as Emma.