by Stephen Orr
‘Oh no, that’s not true,’ she replied. ‘Maybe if you live at Unley Park.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘I must come out and have a look one day.’
‘You’re more than welcome.’
‘Only, I don’t like to come uninvited.’
Pop looked at Dad, who just smiled. Then Pop stood up, picked up the teapot and started pouring. ‘Consider yourself invited.’
‘Nice. If I get the time. Legacy keeps me busy.’
‘Legacy?’ Pop asked.
‘My uncle,’ Dad explained.
Then Pop turned to Dad and asked, ‘So what about your mystery man?’
Dad shrugged. ‘It’s a bit like this case. Leads going everywhere, and nowhere.’
‘You deciphered those letters?’
‘No, try keep away from ’em. The more you look, the more . . .’
‘. . . you become obsessed,’ Mum said, staring at him.
‘Hardly obsessed.’
‘Okay, preoccupied.’
‘It’s my job.’
‘It’s more than that.’
Dad was the real mystery man. He was sitting on the Somerton bus reading The Rubaiyat, scribbling four cryptic lines inside the cover as he grinned. He tore the final page and put the scrap in his fob-pocket. Then he got off the bus and walked down Jetty Street, feeling in his pocket for the poison he’d bought. When he arrived at the beach he sat on a bench and looked out, taking the time to wave to a passer-by. Eventually he got up and walked to a deli, returning and sitting against the seawall with a pasty. And then he waited for night. When it was cold, and the sun’s last rays had slipped from the horizon, he put the poison on his tongue. He closed his eyes, and then lost consciousness, and his fingers opened, allowing the wax paper that had contained the poison to blow away down the beach and out to sea.
‘Maybe he drove there,’ Grandma said. ‘But where was his car? They never found it?’
‘No,’ Dad replied.
‘And he’d shaven. But where? There’s nowhere at the railway station, and didn’t you say, Bob, that none of the boarding houses or hotels recognised him?’
‘None.’
‘And why did he keep the stub for his suitcase?’
‘What’s it matter?’ I said suddenly. ‘He’s dead . . . he’s gone. What about Janice?’
Silence. Grandma looked at me. ‘Henry?’
‘Well so what? You say, “The memories will fade” . . . but they were my friends.’
Dad looked at me. ‘Henry.’ But he wasn’t really growling.
‘You’ll get over it . . .’
Grandma put her cup in her saucer. ‘It’s just a discussion, Henry. If you talked about your friends all day you’d grow morose. It helps to take your mind off things.’
I stared at her.
‘It’ll affect your moods,’ she explained. ‘You need an outing. Maybe I’ll take you to a picture show.’
I crossed my arms. ‘No thanks.’
She shook her head and looked at Dad, as if to say, Well?
‘Do you want to talk about them, Henry?’ Dad asked.
‘Just don’t wanna pretend . . . it’s over.’
‘We weren’t doing that,’ Grandma stated.
Dad looked at her. ‘He’s a kid. Let him go.’
‘I don’t believe – ’
‘Pearl!’ Pop interrupted, raising his voice. ‘Leave it!’
Grandma picked her bag up from the floor. ‘Maybe I should go,’ she whispered.
‘Mum . . .’
‘No, I seem to be saying everything wrong.’
‘Drink your tea,’ Dad said.
Grandma was unsure. But she always came back quickly. ‘Oh, look at this.’ She opened her purse and took out an envelope. Then she produced a few locks of snow-white hair, holding them in front of me, smiling. ‘Guess who?’ she asked.
‘Me?’
‘Yes. From your very first haircut. I found it the other day and thought, I must bring it and show him.’ She held the hair next to mine and said, ‘Look at that, he was like a little rabbit.’
And she was off, narrating the history of my skinny legs, crooked baby teeth and faded freckles. The story of my falling in the toilet, chicken-pox scars and my ability to read brochures when I was only four. Although she whined, her voice was full of love. For the person, I guess, that would be her replacement on this planet. And in the words she spoke I heard a eulogy for Janice, Anna and Gavin.
‘He could never balance, and when he fell, it was always face first.’
Chapter Seven
It was late March, the tail end of a summer that had dragged. The heat came in short bursts, and it would warm but never burn your skin. Weak northerlies blew early autumn leaves across footpaths dotted with gum resin. One Wednesday afternoon a man removing old windows from his house near the school started a fire in his backyard when he went in for lunch. Mr Meus smelt the smoke and rang the office to ring the fire brigade. Then he let us skip our maths lesson to watch the engines arrive, undo their hoses, remove iron from the fence and extinguish the fire.
One Saturday afternoon, as I was reading Peter Pan in the Croydon playground (the key to the shed on a piece of string around my neck), Andrew came up on his bike and called across the monkey bars, ‘Wanna come to my house?’
We arrived to find his sister watching television. She was still in her pyjamas, eating raw cornflakes from the packet, and scratching the dog with her foot. ‘Hello, Henry,’ she smiled.
‘Hello, Kate.’
She looked at her brother. ‘You could’ve at least told me.’
‘What?’
And then she returned to me. ‘Still nothing about Janice?’
‘No.’
‘Dad reckons they’re dead.’
I didn’t reply. I looked at Andrew and asked, ‘Where are your parents?’
‘Dad’s at the pub. Mum’s at work.’
Which was an invitation to spread Lego across the hallway floor, make cheese, jam and gherkin sandwiches, fire off caps in the backyard, and sword-fight with barbecue tools. And to see how fast a brake-less bike could hurtle down Henry Street.
‘Come on,’ Andrew urged, taking his own bike and urging me to use his sister’s.
‘Will she mind?’ I asked.
‘Course not. Come on.’
He rode down the driveway and straight out onto the street, narrowly avoiding a Volkswagen he hadn’t seen behind his mother’s pittosporum hedge. I walked Kate’s bike to the end of the drive and stood watching.
‘Come on,’ Andrew said as he zoomed past me, circling the roundabout and returning. He got his bike up to full speed, dropped his head to cut resistance and swerved to avoid a man pulling out of his drive. Then he slowed, turned and repeated the whole exercise.
‘I’ve never ridden a bike,’ I called out, but he couldn’t hear me.
I could return the bike and sit it out, but it looked like fun. I put my good leg over the bar and thought about it.
‘Come on,’ he said, as he hurtled past again.
I walked the bike to the road and pointed it in the right direction. If I couldn’t get my left foot working I’d soon be face down on the bitumen. I could break an arm or leg. Then Mum would arrive, screaming at me, saying, Henry, what were you thinking? I’ve told you a hundred times, think, know your limitations. As she knew them – escorting me through life, urging me to wear my orthopaedic boots when I really wanted to run barefoot down the streets of Croydon.
I pushed myself off, managing to lift both feet and place them on the pedals. Then, stretching my left foot until it cramped and burned with pain, I turned the pedals – although my shonky foot couldn’t reach the bottom of the revolution. Still, I was moving. Trees, dogs and houses floated past. I was riding – slowly, wobbly, but I’d done it. I couldn’t help but smile. My eyes lit up and I laughed. ‘Look,’ I said.
And Andrew looked at me, thinking, So?
Of c
ourse, it was just riding a bike. So, I tried not to smile or laugh. ‘Janice,’ I whispered, ‘look at me now.’
She was standing on the footpath, watching, frowning, her arms crossed. Why did you never try?, she asked.
I know. I was stupid, I replied.
I managed to circle the roundabout and start back. Andrew caught up to me and said, ‘I’ll race you.’
‘My foot,’ I began, but he was already gone.
Look, look at me! I wanted to shout. Mum . . . Dad, see, I can do it!
Janice was still watching me. You’re okay now, she called, smiling. You’re okay by yourself, eh?
I looked at her. What?
You’ll be fine.
And she walked off, waving.
Janice?
But she didn’t look back.
I perfected my clumsy action and started moving faster – fast enough to hear wind in my ears, through my hair and feel it on my skin. I dropped my head, squinted and licked my lips. As I approached the roundabout I applied the brakes but they didn’t work. At that instant I heard Kate’s voice in my ears. ‘Get off my bike!’
‘He can have a go,’ Andrew shot back. ‘Mariel rides mine.’
‘That’s different. Henry, get off my bike.’
As the words grew louder I noticed a truck approaching the roundabout from my right. I could try and go faster, and then I might beat it, but I might not. Small increments of time exploded in my face. The truck wasn’t even slowing. There was only one thing I could do. I steered the bike up a driveway and onto the footpath. Then I let myself tip over and tumble onto a nature strip of soft, green buffalo. I rolled a few times and ended up with my face a few inches away from a Stobie pole. My right foot was caught in the spokes of the rear wheel but apart from that I was fine.
The truck roared off and Andrew pulled up beside me. ‘You okay?’
‘Of course.’
And he was off again, shrugging his shoulders as if to say, So what, no big deal. ‘Hey, watch this,’ he cried, as he rode past with his front wheel in the air.
Meanwhile, Kate was pushing my foot out of the spokes as she retrieved her bike. ‘If anything’s broken, you can pay for it, Henry.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Did I say you could use it?’
Andrew pulled up again. ‘What now?’
‘He can’t ride, he’s a cripple.’
I sat up and noticed fresh, curry-coloured dog shit smeared down the side of my shirt. ‘It’s just a bad foot,’ I said.
‘Club foot. You shouldn’t be riding a bike.’
‘It should have brakes,’ I growled.
‘You should’ve asked.’
‘You don’t ask me,’ Andrew shot back.
‘Get fucked,’ his sister shouted.
‘You get fucked.’
‘Fuck off.’ Kate pulled up her pyjama bottoms. ‘You’re not welcome at our house,’ she said to me.
‘He is so,’ Andrew replied.
‘Well stay away from me.’
And with that she was off, walking her bike back towards the house, holding it with one hand as she pulled up her pyjamas with the other.
‘Fat arse!’ Andrew called.
‘Fuck off.’
I stood up. Andrew smiled. ‘Don’t worry about her.’ He looked at my shirt. ‘That stinks.’
‘I better go home.’
So there I was, walking home with my half-read Peter Pan, fighting off flies and wondering what I’d tell Mum. When I got home I told her I’d tripped on the footpath, and she just shook her head.
I should’ve stuck to counting trains, I thought, feeling around my neck for the shed key and not finding it. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I said.
‘I’m running a bath for you.’
‘I lost something.’
I found it, hanging from the picket of a nearby fence, glistening in the sun, swinging in the breeze, inches from where someone had found it.
The search for the Rileys continued throughout March. Most days there was a new lead and Dad would go next door to tell Bill and Liz. As he sat there talking Liz would play the piano, looking at the photo of her kids on the lid and singing soft, unrecognisable words. Bill would sit on a pouffe with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor, taking it all in but not making much of it anymore. Then he’d say, ‘Thanks, Bob, maybe this is the one,’ and stand and squeeze Dad’s shoulder before leaving the room.
The organised searches had finished. The papers, looking for fresh tragedies and disasters, had moved them back to page ten, fifteen and then twenty, until they just about collided with the racing section. Every few days there was a small piece in a column: Police search a camp near Anglesea, Geelong. Going on to explain how a suspected grave turned out to be a mound of rubbish. Police search well at Second Valley for Riley children. Bones of dead livestock. Reservoir search for missing Rileys, with a photo of police divers emerging from murky water with nothing but a few old shearing handpieces.
Bill and Liz returned to circulation. They would appear, hand in hand, in Joe Skurray’s shop and Joe wouldn’t know what to say. ‘Listen, Bill,’ he stammered, ‘there’s no charge.’
Bill held out a pound note. ‘Joe, we’re not a charity.’
Joe bit his bottom lip. ‘You back at work, Bill?’
‘It’s not the point. We got money.’
‘Listen, Bill, it’s just . . . I ain’t done much to help.’
Like it or not, they would cover Elizabeth Street without once opening their wallet or purse.
John Cox. ‘I tell you, Bill, without a word of a lie, my wife gets on her knees and prays for them every night, half-an-hour sometimes. She misses ’em. We all do. Just remember, you’re not alone. Any time, day or night, you know where our place is . . . but if you wanna keep to yourselves, that’s alright too.’
There were other ways of invoking the kids: Eric offering his concrete Virgin again, Ron Wells’ wife squeezing Liz’s hand as she gave her her sausages (nearly twice as many as she’d asked for), chicken casseroles and bags of carrots, lemons and oranges left on their front porch. Maybe, in a strange way, some of this horror was good for us. It renewed friendships and reminded us how easy it was to be generous. It made us forget about the price of petrol or the state of our dining-room carpets. Even me, going in and sitting with Liz, reading her Peter Pan (realising it was a bad choice, and telling her, as she laughed and begged me to continue). The Richmond Rotary Club delivered a load of firewood and stacked it against their fence. The council forgot to send their rates notice, and one day a man from City Motors arrived at their front door, asking for their keys and telling them he’d have their Austin back from its service by four, if that wasn’t too late.
In this way, the Rileys survived without accepting anyone’s charity.
School had settled into a predictable rhythm – times tables recited and cursive practised again and again against a slope card: strong, simple copperplate, minus flourishes and histrionic loops (as Mr Meus called them). Uneaten lunches thrown over fences on the way home. Ten out of ten spelling tests stuck on the fridge. A stale-smelling school bag. The rhythm of bells, and lines, and the grade ones forever holding hands. Hair tied up and shirts out. Sport narrowly avoided (although Mr Meus did ring Mum).
At lunchtime Judy’s group of four or five girls adopted me. We all sat around on a fallen log drinking warm cordial and eating burnt pasties (our student rep had promised to go and see the canteen mistress). We discussed what Katy did next, and Elizabeth Taylor’s dimples, until one of them said, ‘Why don’t you play with the boys, Henry?’
‘He’s okay, he sits next to me,’ Judy defended.
‘But it’s not normal.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s a bit . . . sissy.’
I sat staring at the ground. ‘I can’t keep up with them,’ I offered.
Judy threw her apple core to a crow. ‘Henry’s got a whole shed full of books.’
Ssh, I wan
ted to say, don’t tell them that. She’d found out the afternoon she invited herself around to my place. Mum had just vacuumed, so she told us to go and play outside. Soon there was a game of badminton, and Judy was pointing to the shed. ‘What’s in there?’
‘Stuff.’
She moved towards a crack in the iron and looked in. ‘It’s full of books.’
‘They’re mine.’
‘Can I have a look?’
‘I’m not meant to – ’
‘Have you got any Biggles?’
So there we were, moments later, browsing my collection. ‘Where’d you get all these?’ she asked.
‘I inherited them.’
‘From who?’
‘An uncle.’
She made a selection and as I locked the door I said, ‘Don’t tell anyone else.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s our neighbour’s shed.’
‘I won’t.’
Back in the yard a few days later, the group of girls, all with their hands on their knees, stared at me. ‘Can we come over?’
I looked at Judy. She bit her lip and shrugged. ‘Sorry.’
A week later they’d all visited my place and stocked up. ‘That’s it,’ I explained. ‘I’m not letting anyone else in there.’ But they weren’t content. Over the next few weeks they nagged me for more books, so I made a list of titles, and became the Croydon Primary book monitor.
So, I’d become a defacto girl. This is not something any boy wants. At the start of little or big lunch, Allan or some of the other boys would ask me if I had my make-up on. ‘You’ve lost your perm,’ they’d call out, or, ‘Was your dress in the wash today?’
If Judy heard any of this she’d have them on the ground, or in a headlock. What Janice did with words, Judy did with brute force. She’d stand with her foot on their neck and make them apologise – which would make it even harder for me next time. She’d take my hand and walk off with me and I’d think, Christ, what have I got myself into? Still, it was something I could live with.
One day Allan followed me home. As I walked he rode thirty feet behind me, stopping when I stopped, staring at me. I turned into Thomas Street and hid behind a lemon tree. When he came around the corner I said, ‘My dad’s a detective.’
‘So what?’ he replied.
