‘But you weren’t pissed!’ I cut in vehemently. ‘You were spot on.’
‘When you wake up in the morning,’ Lillian yawned, ‘you’ll see that it is all quite preposterous.’
I just stood there, shocked and completely winded, staring down at her, hardly able to believe what I’d just heard her say. The business that had been consuming all my waking time had come to nothing. Without her it would basically just disappear.
Three nights before, my old man had thrown two buckets of ice-cold water over me while I was sleeping. Once, he’d locked my mother in the old shed all night – in the cold and the dark without even a blanket. I hadn’t been there to let her out – I’d been staying at a mate’s place in town, stoned out of my head – and I suppose that was playing on my conscience.
He was getting worse. The mad patches were becoming more frequent and more terrifying. The week before, he’d threatened to electrocute me with a dodgy power cord if I didn’t start playing by his rules. No one would miss me, he said. He’d be doing the world a favour. I was filled with the bad blood of my mother’s side of the family.
Something had to be done. The icy water was nothing. I was used to stuff like that. What I wasn’t used to was moving on past the anger and powerlessness to something else. The resolve to end him had settled down in me like freshly-poured concrete left in the hot sun. Working out how to do it had been so . . . exciting.
‘Sit down,’ Lillian said again, and when I continued to stand she got up, picked up the bottle and screwed the top on. ‘I’m tired, Jonno,’ she said, ‘I’ve been working for ten hours straight.’
I opened my mouth to say something, but my head wasn’t there any more. It seemed to have tipped over into some other reality. I could feel myself falling away, and it was the weirdest sensation. Terrifying too. I grabbed the table because it felt as though I was slipping off the world and into an unknown void. And I didn’t want to go. Heat was coming up from under the grass and I could feel sweat running down my backbone.
‘Listen, Jonty,’ her voice was a long way off now, ‘I don’t want anything to do with what you’ve suggested. Do you understand me? Go home,’ she said stiffly and then peered into my face suspiciously. ‘How many bongs have you had tonight?’
‘What does it matter?’ I snapped childishly.
‘And other stuff, too,’ she said sharply. ‘You’re on ice, aren’t you?’
‘No, no . . . so what if I am?’
‘Oh Jonno . . . it does matter! Please, love.’
We stood there looking at each other. I was slipping and sliding from one greasy patch of thought to another. I was thinking about an essay I hadn’t done and then my old man and his snow-white shirts . . . The plan to kill him had given me a reason to live. It had sustained me. She had closed the door in my face, pulled away my hope . . . left me swinging on a rope, looking for a place to land.
She fetched a potted plant from under the kitchen window, took it down to the back fence. Then she reached up to take off one of the pots hanging on the fence.
I followed her, thinking that there must be something I could say to change her mind. Cut the theatrics, I told myself. I would speak softly this time. I came up behind her while she was trying to unhook another pot plant, but when she sensed me behind her she turned around quickly.
‘I mean it, Jonno,’ she said sharply, ‘I’ve had enough tonight!’
‘But he’s spreading rumours about you,’ I said, trying to keep my voice easy, ‘telling weird lies about you . . .’
‘What kind of lies?’
I heard his voice again. That Mullaney kid is a degenerate. You know he’s on with you’re aunt? Saw them with my own eyes. Caught them hard at it.
‘He says that you’ve got something going with Tom Mullaney!’ I was staring down into her face, waiting for the full shock of what I’d said to sink in. ‘He says that he saw you and Tom . . .’
She looked at me blankly for some time. I could see her face clearly in the light coming from the kitchen, and her expression didn’t change, which was simply . . . maddening.
‘Look, Jonno,’ she said very quietly after a while, ‘your father did happen to come across Tom and me . . .’
‘Tom and you?’ I didn’t understand her meaning.
‘Tom and me,’ she said again.
‘Tom and . . . you?’ I was just about choking on my own fury by this stage. ‘But you . . .’
‘Don’t jump to conclusions!’ she smiled wearily, as though all this was sort of obvious and boring and shouldn’t have to be spelt out.
‘What!’ I was yelling into her face. ‘What do you mean “Tom and you” then, for fucksake?’
‘Step back, please,’ she said putting a hand on my shoulder and giving me a little push. ‘Please, Jonno, I want you to just leave me alone tonight, okay? And we’ll talk about all this tomorrow. It really isn’t anything to . . . worry about.’
But I didn’t step back. I had her cornered up against the fence.
‘Tell me what you have going with Tom,’ I hissed.
‘I will not,’ she said, pushing me back again, this time a little harder. ‘Now, please move and . . .’
And that’s when the curtain came down. Just blackness at first and then little red and silvery stars shooting upwards in front of my eyes like fireworks.
‘Tell me! Tell me!’ I picked up both ends of the scarf she was wearing and pulled them tighter and tighter around her neck. ‘Tell me about you and Tom Mullaney!’
But how could she tell me anything? There was no way she could talk. She could hardly even make a sound, just these sort of jagged, gasping noises.
She was pulling frantically at my hands. Then her little fingers with the long pretty red nails began to scratch at my face. She was trying to go for my eyes but it was easy to brush her off. Those frantic hands were so weak and pathetic that I began to laugh. The last few obsessive weeks of plotting his death came sailing into my head. All that concentration and pent up emotion for nothing. I felt as though I’d trained hard for a race and now they were telling me that I wasn’t even allowed to run.
I let go of the scarf suddenly then pushed her backwards. I deliberately pushed her hard against the back of the fence. There was a dull crunching noise. She gave one deep wild cry before she collapsed.
I stood back, waiting for her to get up, but she didn’t. Then in the light coming from the house I saw the pointy spike sticking out of the fence.
That’s meant to have a pot plant on it, is what I thought. I looked down and saw that I was holding her necklace in one hand and her scarf in the other. Some part of me knew something terrible had happened, but I couldn’t fathom what exactly. The little heart of diamonds twinkled in the half light, so pretty and delicate, and I wondered how the hell I came to be holding it.
I bent down to look at Lillian lying on the grass. Then I moved around to the other side and saw the back of her head. All her long curly hair was wet. I put my hand out to touch it and I felt the stickiness. Did I do this? I crouched down beside her and whispered, Get up, Lillian. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . to lose it like that. It’s just that, Tom is my mate and I’m . . . I’m so stoned.
Someone was going to shout cut any minute. The lights would come up and I’d walk out of the theatre with everyone else. I never cry. But I cried then, and I couldn’t stop.
Then I heard a noise. Someone was walking up the side of the house. A voice called softly, Lillian. Are you there? Lillian? So late at night? My first thought was Tom.
Lillian! Louder now. It was a male voice, but not Tom’s. Familiar in a way, but I couldn’t place it. Then the figure emerged. It was my father. I remember thinking, but you’re the one who is meant to be lying in the grass bleeding to death.
He went straight past me to where she was lying. Didn’t say anything at first. Just stood over her. Then he squatted down and touched her. After a while he got up to face me.
‘You did this?’ he asked.<
br />
I didn’t say anything.
‘Just go. Leave now,’ he said. He rarely spoke like that to me. His voice was almost gentle. ‘Just clear out, Jonty.’
‘Where?’
He put one hand on my shoulder and looked closely into my face.
I dream about that moment. I wake up in the middle of the night to his face . . .
‘Anywhere,’ he said, ‘just go. Get away. I’ll look after this.’
I’ll look after this.
Did this mean that he would call the doctor and get her to hospital? Would I be able to come around the next day with flowers to apologise?
‘Will it be okay?’ I asked him.
‘It will be okay,’ he said, ‘just go.’
I stuffed the scarf and necklace into my pockets and walked quickly out the side gate, the way I’d come. I didn’t realise that the warm sticky stuff over my hands was blood. I walked down to the end of the street and wondered if I should go home or . . . where else I could go? Maybe I should admit myself to hospital. I’d done it before. They’d know what to do with me. I was off my head and they’d give me something to calm me down. But I didn’t. In a kind of unconscious daze I walked all the way out here . . . to these caves.
When I reached the bridge before the turn-off I wrapped the scarf around a rock and threw it into the water. Then I washed my hands and face. The caves seemed like the one place I could go. I wanted the hollow sounds and the feeling that nothing much matters because . . . time is such a long thing.
Every now and again an image of her lying on the grass would slide into my brain and I’d think . . . well that must be it. I must have done it. But I’d gone there that night to arrange killing him. Her lying still on the grass just didn’t make sense. I didn’t really believe it. All the way out to the caves I was expecting to be pulled up by the police or at least stopped by someone. But no one noticed me.
Jonty says all this with his eyes closed, rocking backward and foreword. He stops suddenly and gets up and, without looking at Tom or Alice, runs towards the track leading into the bush.
Have to get away. Those two staring at him like he’s some kind of freak. He’s making his way uphill through the trees, panting like an eighty-year-old. He knows he’s gotta do something about getting fit again! What is the point of giving up dope and fags if you can’t walk up a hill? Footy maybe?
Thing is, he remembers sitting on some great mother of a rock out here . . . it came to him like a knife in his head when he was sitting back there with the other two. But where exactly is it? Some gut instinct tells him to keep to this track for a while yet. Once he gets to the top of the hill and the trees thin out, everything will be clearer, he’ll be able to see around and have a better idea where he is. He feels sure there’re more caves down the other side, deeper darker caves if he remembers right, but . . . it was a long time ago.
You’ll unravel one day, Jonty. Everyone does. I could lean across the desk and pick a thread from that old jumper you’re wearing right now. Just one thread is all I need. Then I’ll pull and I’ll keep on pulling and we’ll both watch it come apart, bit by bit, line by line. Kinda fun, if you think about it! That will be you one day, Jonty . . . You’ll start to unravel and there will be no stopping you once you start.
Jonty walks and walks, crashing through the undergrowth, gasping and panting. Big dark sky above and he can see for miles around. And the wind! It’s blowing from the south and making the saplings bend over like a crowd of old woman. The pale grey light is blinding him. You can see right through it. How many shades of grey are there? Pearl-grey, steel-grey, charcoal and lead. Grey so dark it’s almost purple.
To the right of Jonty is the town, and just around from there, if he strains hard, he can see the blue of the sea. He closes his eyes and breathes in the smell. The birds are twittering like maniacs. They must know something is going on. What is going on? Maybe it’s just the inside of his head. A small gap in the clouds and he sees a patch of white sky. The eye of God? Hey, that would be cool. If only God would appear now and show him something important. It won’t be long before the stars come out. As a kid out on the farm, he used to love the calm before the storm – the air, soft and heavy around him, waiting to explode. It’ll be dark soon and he’s got to find that rock.
Since his father came back, Jonty has found looking in the mirror a trial. Sure looks like me but . . . do I know this person? He’d tried to explain it to Buzz the other night, but the old geezer had just nodded and changed the subject. As though Jonty had just said something completely normal. Jonno could tell he knew what he meant.
He gets these flashes and they’re like clues. Every now and again he gets a whole sequence that he’d forgotten about completely. They’re like little films rolling behind his eyes. Scary. Some stuff feels completely new. Doesn’t ring any bells at all. But he has to assume it happened, doesn’t he?
Is there more doesn’t he remember . . . yet? What else is waiting out there to ambush and twist his brain into one of those metal pot-cleaners? A mass of dense interconnecting wires that end up where they began.
Jonty is off again, making his way down through the trees to the other side of the valley, feeling pretty easy in old Luke’s coat.
‘Hey, Jay Van, your lawyer!’ the screw would yell. And there would be Luke in the visiting area, sitting at one of the tables like he’d been there forever – overweight, middle-aged and grey-haired, just like anyone’s uncle. Jonty was always glad to see him. Apart from his own mum, Luke was his only visitor. They’d shake hands and sit on opposite sides of the table.
‘Well, Jonno.’ His eyes twinkled as he offered Jonty a cigarette. ‘How are they treating you?’
‘Not too bad.’
‘That’s the spirit. You keeping that mouth shut?’
‘Yep.’
‘Good lad.’
Jonty liked watching Luke smoke. His hands were wide and blunt and meaty, the hands of a road worker rather than a lawyer. But there was something refined about the way he’d pick the cigarette out of the packet, slowly, with those thick fingers. He’d take his time to light it too, seemed to enjoy holding the unlit cigarette a while, flipping it from one hand to the other as he talked. Tom is like that too sometimes. Says he wants a smoke and then takes forever to light the damned thing. Like father, like son.
‘Now, Jonno, is there anything you need? You seen your mother?’ Luke would ask in his nice, easy, deep voice, never harsh or loud. ‘You want me to pass on any message to her?’ You’d have thought Jonty was in there for pinching a bag of lollies or something. But he’d liked Luke asking after his mother. It’s funny the things you like about people. Funny, too, the things you remember.
Even weirder the things you forget.
He is just about on the flat again and it is starting to spit. Jonty does up Luke’s coat and hurries on. It’s only six, but the dark is starting to close in now. Heavy clouds are piling up like enormous old cushions left behind after a posh party. Someone has sneaked in through the side doors and filled them with poisonous gas or maybe some other . . . dark and dangerous stuff.
He is crashing through the undergrowth. How mad was he to think that he would be able to carve out something new for himself.
It’s raining now and Jonty is walking fast. He’s puffing and panting, rushing through the bush, trying to find the place. And before long – so easily really, he finds it. Yeah. Here is is. Did he really think it had been hiding from him? He starts laughing. So he can still remember some things okay. His brain isn’t completely fried! He lays his hands on this big mother of a rock and looks up. Such a massive round prick of a thing! From this angle it looks like a huge egg. It’s been sitting in the same spot for thousands of years, maybe millions, letting the wind and sun and the rain just wear it away. This is where he came that early morning after . . . everything happened.
The rain is light but steady now and the rock is slippery. After falling on his arse a few times he manages to fi
nd a few toe holds and haul himself up, apart from a torn fingernail, more or less unscathed. He can’t see that much now. But he feels the mountain behind him, the bush all around, and above him the mammoth clouds shifting and rolling in the wind. Lightning streaks across the sky in the west, then a distant roll of thunder.
Down in the gully, nestled between two clumps of acacias, is the long narrow cave in the shape of a fat snake. This he remembers. It’s lying there in front of Jonty, black and treacherous.
‘Hey Jonty! You there mate? Coooeeee!’
Jonty hears his name but it doesn’t really penetrate. His mind is loose, flapping like a flag come away from its pole. It’s being swept up by the wind into the cliffs and the trees, down along the dirty ground and then up again. Luke’s coat flaps open, but he can’t even feel the mean wind blowing straight through him.
‘Jonteee!’ The voice comes again from a long way off. ‘It’s getting dark, mate! Come on! Where are you?’
Tom. Tom, who’s been his best mate for years but who never even passed on any word or greeting, much less rang or came to see him in detention. Tom who is out there looking for him, but it’s all too . . . way too late now. So many times during those months inside, Jonty had been tempted to ask Luke about Tom but pride had held him back.
He is sitting on top of the rock now, watching the heavy sky, feeling the rain drive down his face. He looks down at Luke’s soaking leather coat, trying to remember how come he’s wearing it. Luke is Tom’s father, not his father, so . . . how come he is wearing this coat? Where is his father? Oh yeah, that’s right. Just thinking of old Jed in jail taking the rap makes Jonty laugh. Those sharp black bits in the darkening sky, the stream of pink light coming through the edge of one cloud where the sun is sinking, what do they mean? Where are they going? Is the universe trying to tell him something? Is everything going to be . . . okay?
‘Jonteee!’
Jonty stands up. The gaping hole down in the gully is starting to move. One end seems to be slowly opening up. It’s sliding across the ground like a huge mouth or a . . . grave. His eyes are open but he’s in a nightmare. Come on, Jonno! Hold it together, man. He wishes Buzz was with him. This stuff is bullshit and he knows it is bullshit and yet he can’t help it . . . Strange that now he knows he did it, he also knows that he didn’t mean to. Killing her wasn’t what he’d had in mind.
Somebody's Crying Page 32
