by Jane Jago
The news had been delivered on the same day that the Yanks had put a man on the moon. A television had been rolled into the assembly hall at Alex’s school and he had witnessed the ghosting black-and-white broadcast of the historic moment, linking the two events for ever in his mind.
In care the worst cases were always the long-term placements who no longer hoped for rescue by their real families. Eventually the light went out in their eyes and they armed themselves with hatred and cynicism. The greatest agent of moral corrosion he knew of was to believe oneself not unloved but unlovable.
He chewed the end of his pen, remembering how badly he wanted to get interviews with Simpson and Harris, now that they were adults and could speak for themselves, not through the mealy mouths of lawyers. It was the stuff of novels really . . . He dropped his pen onto the cluttered desk and sat back in his chair.
Doubts
‘As small as a mustard seed’
Liam, 2008
He shuffled sections of the greasy broadsheet, opened one and folded it to fit his half of the undersized café table. His fingertips were black with newsprint. Apart from the real-estate section, Liam didn’t read the papers any more, if he ever had. Newspapers hadn’t been allowed to circulate in the Meadowbank Correctional Centre. He didn’t know exactly what had been written about him all those years ago. Even now when people occasionally talked about it, he knew, from what they said, that their knowledge of events far outstripped his.
Of course there was plenty of stuff on the internet but he had worked far too hard to distance himself from his past to go within a hundred miles of it. Besides, he knew his nerves would never take it. He was a different person now: he deserved a chance. That was the mantra they had given him. ‘You deserve a chance, Liam. Never forget that.’
‘If you’ve finished with the paper, Liam, I’ll take it,’ said Catherine.
‘Sure. More coffee?’
‘We’re late,’ she said, looking at her watch.
‘I’m not going back to the office. I’ve got an inspection at three.’
She looked annoyed.
‘I’ll see you at home.’ He kissed her cheek.
‘No, you won’t. We’re all going for a drink, remember?’
‘I don’t think I’ll come.’
‘Why not? Come on, Liam, you did this last time.’
‘I went last time.’
‘That was weeks ago, and I had to talk you into it.’
‘So? It’s not compulsory, is it? I see those people every day at work.’
‘Those people are our friends. You see me every day at work.’
‘Don’t make a big deal, Cath. I just feel like staying home.’
‘Well, I don’t.’
‘Go, then. I’ll cook something and we’ll have dinner when you get back.’
‘Liam, you’re becoming a fucking hermit, you know that?’
Driving to his appointment, Liam’s mind wandered, as always, to other things, circling malevolently around the unalterable reality of his past. He barely registered the streets along the route through town, automatically shifting gears, changing lanes and crossing a busy intersection.
A red Daihatsu sat outside number twenty-eight Park Road, a young couple and their son waiting beside it. Liam greeted them warmly, then led them up a pleasantly overgrown path, under a huge poinciana tree, to a solid but featureless house. ‘Once you’re inside, it’s so private you wouldn’t even know you were on the main road,’ he said, as the little family headed up the polished hall. ‘Have a look through, take your time. Great light in here. Good views from the kitchen and the rear deck. You’d never be built out . . . Master bedroom has its own bathroom.’
The couple peeled off to investigate the facilities, leaving their four-year-old son in the lounge. Liam walked back into the kitchen to give them some space. The little boy followed close behind. Liam gave him an awkward smile.
‘Is this your house?’ the child asked.
‘No,’ said Liam. His throat was dry.
‘What’s in here?’ The little boy opened a door.
‘Just the pantry.’
‘This is my room,’ the child announced, stepping inside. ‘I sleep in here,’ he said, shutting the doors on himself.
‘Better come out now,’ said Liam, after a few seconds had passed.
The little boy answered with a knock.
Liam felt suddenly anxious, his armpits were damp with sweat.
There was a distinctive knock-knock, from inside the cupboard. ‘Who’s there?’ asked Liam, reluctantly.
‘Me!’ The little boy pushed open the doors, laughing. Liam managed a lopsided grin.
‘Toby!’ called his mother, from the front of the house.
Liam began to walk to her. Without warning, Toby reached up and took his hand. It was all Liam could do not to scream.
‘Is this a reverse-cycle air-conditioner?’ asked the boy’s father.
‘N-no . . . no, it’s not. It’s just a cooler, but the roof is insulated and those gas fireplaces are pretty efficient,’ he said, recovering.
The couple looked the house over for another ten minutes; fortunately their son followed them into the yard, where he amused himself with a broken laundry trolley. Liam made a few incidental calls on his mobile to keep himself busy. He thought they might never leave.
Back at the flat he swallowed a Serepax and took a shower, leaning against the wet tiles and letting the hot water run off his back for a long time. He dressed himself in fresh clothes and bundled his sweat-stained shirt into the washing-machine. It smelt of fear.
He took a Coke from the fridge and sat down at his computer. He finished some paperwork and emailed it to the office. The computer gave a musical ping as a little envelope icon dropped into his mailbox. He clicked the in-box: more paperwork. He’d had enough for today.
It was the first Tuesday of the month. He hesitated, then clicked on his Favourites and selected Hotmail, typed in his details, and a series of asterisks appeared on the screen as he entered his password. He scrolled through the usual junk, which he subscribed to in order to keep the seldom-used address active, until he saw ‘[email protected] Subject: None.’ His heart rate increased as he clicked the message open.
Dear G, sorry I missed the last mail date. Things happening here you don’t need to worry about. JH having some trouble. OK now. CH is well. Haven’t heard from PO. Thinking of you. Miss you. Very happy you have someone. Still hoping meeting might be possible. Won’t get my hopes up. Love you. XxShe
It wasn’t much but it was enough. A few minutes later, when he had composed himself, he deleted the message, then deleted it from his trash folder.
Dear M, A rough day today. Your message made me feel better. Work OK. Some days harder than others. I will never be able to tell C everything. Meeting could be possible for July. Can’t promise. Need to talk to PO and others. XyHe
He reread the message twice and clicked send.
‘Hi! Give me a hand, will you?’ Catherine had opened the front door and was pushing her way into the flat with several heavy bags of groceries. Liam closed the email page and rushed to help her. He took the bags off her and dumped them on the kitchen bench.
‘But wait, there’s more!’ she said, holding up a finger.
‘I’ll go.’
‘No. You unpack, it’s just small stuff.’
Liam put the items on the counter in ordered groups – fridge stuff, tinned stuff, bagged stuff, bathroom stuff. There was enough for a couple of weeks.
‘There you go,’ she said, plonking down one last bag of groceries and a bottle of red wine.
‘What happened to drinks at the pub?’
‘I went off the idea.’
‘What’s this for, then?’ He indicated the wine.
‘Oh, we’ll see.’
She was in a funny mood, he thought, as he stuffed several bags of pasta into one of the pantry drawers.
Catherine sat at the kitchen table, sipping a
glass of water while she watched him work. Liam took two yellow sponges and placed them on the pile of ‘kitchen stuff’. He pulled out a colourful package from the last remaining bag, a glossy box he didn’t recognize. It was printed with pink text and a picture of a dove – probably one of her expensive face creams or hair products, he thought, then studied it more closely. Crystal Clear Midstream Pregnancy Test. He looked at Catherine, who was watching him intently. She smiled. ‘Are you pregnant?’ he gasped.
‘That’s what I’m about to find out. You look like you’re going to faint, Liam.’
‘You never said anything . . . I thought you were on the pill?’
‘I went off it.’
‘Why?’
She pulled a dumb face. ‘I went on it so that I wouldn’t get pregnant and I went off it so I could.’
‘Yes, but you said . . . We talked about it . . .’
‘Liam, calm down,’ she said, putting her arms around his shoulders. ‘It was me who didn’t want to have kids . . . Just let me use the test and find out. If I am . . . you’ll get used to the idea.’ She kissed him playfully and left the room.
Used to the idea? How could she possibly know what she was saying?
Oh, God! Please don’t let her be pregnant . . . Why the hell should God listen to him? Please, God, for the child’s sake – for hers! He knew that for him ever to hold a child, to know the love of a child, would tear his heart out of his chest. Please, God, don’t let it be true.
She’d been in the bathroom for ever. What was she doing in there? He wanted to break the door down. He wanted to nail it shut and lock her in.
When she emerged she had a strange teasing smile on her face, as if she had done something really clever, as if the whole thing had been a great big joke. She held up a strip with two pink lines across it.
‘What does that mean?’
‘I’m pregnant. I did it twice to make sure.’ She held her arms out to him. ‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’
‘No, not angry.’ Shock reverberated through his body, his mind grappling to process the implications of her news.
Catherine saw his panic and laid a hand on his cheek. ‘Don’t worry, Liam,’ she whispered. ‘I know you’ll make a wonderful father.’
Detective Kendall, 2008
The retired inspector looked down at the coloured tablets he held in the palm of his hand. For several seconds Phillip Kendall considered throwing them over the railing into the grevillea bushes. A willie wagtail dropped onto the rail, then jumped to the deck. The bold little bird ran in short, erratic bursts, fanning its tail to signal each change of direction, then flew off again.
The nausea, a result of his recent chemotherapy session, made him suddenly change his mind. He swallowed the tablets and washed them down with cold tea from a tray on the nearby table. An uneaten plate of skinless white chicken and mashed greens lay untouched beside it.
A young woman appeared at the patio doors and looked out at him with concern. He picked up a fork and made a feeble show of poking at the broccoli as she walked quietly towards him.
‘Dad,’ sighed Lauren Kendall, ‘you’ve eaten practically nothing.’
‘I’m just getting stuck into it now, love.’ He pushed some of the vegetable into his mouth and swallowed. It tasted of cardboard. He tore a small strip of flesh off the chicken breast and nibbled it. ‘I might feel more like it later.’ He put down the fork.
She moved the tray aside. ‘These are for you,’ she said, laying down two computerized mug shots. ‘If they’re who I think they are, I probably should have thrown them into the bin. I know Mum would’ve.’ She handed him his glasses.
Phillip Kendall’s face took on a professional cast. He studied the pictures carefully. ‘Where did you get them?’
‘They came in an email from Mathew Allen. I printed them out for you.’ She rested a hand on his shoulder.
‘Good girl.’ He patted the hand.
Lauren picked up the tray. ‘More tea?’
‘That’d be great.’ His eyes remained fixed on the pictures in front of him. Mathew Allen was skirting around the law by circulating images like these, but he didn’t blame him. Thirty years as a policeman had shown him that everybody deals with grief in their own way, and some cope better than others. Nobody asks to become a victim, and nobody is ever prepared for what follows. He had done his best to support the Allens over the years, to keep in touch. His relationship with them had altered his life, and in all probability the trauma of the investigation, and the controversy surrounding the early release of their son’s killers, had triggered the decline in his health that had ended in a diagnosis of cancer.
‘Operable,’ the doctor had said. If the tumour in his bowel could be reduced by chemotherapy he had a ‘fair’ chance of successful surgery and survival. His mistrust of doctors, though, ran very deep. A naturally lean man who didn’t smoke or drink, he usually discarded whatever pills he was prescribed and he was loath to surrender what remained of his life to a regimen of toxic drug treatments. He had agreed to this first round of chemotherapy only after Lauren’s urgings. With his system reeling from the effects of the poison, now pumping through his veins and irrigating even the healthy cells of his body, he didn’t rate his chances of living out the year.
Apart from the unwelcome interference of doctors, he was strangely at ease with his diagnosis and with the prospect of death. Despite his inability to comprehend the suffering he had witnessed first-hand in the world, he was a religious man who regularly made peace with his God.
He looked again at the printed faces. His detective instinct still intact, he considered all the ways in which these pictures might be employed or distributed to identify the offenders. He pondered the challenge of locating two young men, of a certain age, in a country of twenty million people. He thought about the moral implications of being party to their exposure. Even he didn’t believe they should remain in jail for ever, but he struggled with the idea of them living and working among people who were oblivious to their deeds. The thought of them having access to children while hiding behind new identities made his blood run cold.
A bank of clouds obscured the sun and cast a shadow across the deck. After a few seconds his legs began to ache. He went inside the house to the front room. Still holding the images, he lowered himself into the soft cushions of the comfortable new couch that Lauren had made him buy. He reached for the black Teledex that sat on a side-table near the phone.
‘There you are.’ Lauren put down a cup of milky tea. ‘I hope you’re not getting yourself worked up over those pictures.’
‘Not much I can do now, love,’ he said. She threw a mohair blanket over his legs and left him to rest. If all this fussing was going to help Lauren cope with the reality of losing him, he didn’t mind. He’d been exactly the same when June was ill. His wife would have made him fight too, probably in different ways – vitamins, fasting, meditation. For a moment he couldn’t help wishing she was there, but the fact that she wasn’t made it so much easier – after all, he’d only have to part with her all over again.
He took his glasses from his cardigan pocket and opened the Teledex. He might be out of commission himself but he still had friends in the force; friends who thought like him.
History
‘Better is he who never existed’
Liam, 2008
He pulled the razor across his cheek in quick light strokes, leaving tracks in his shaving-foam mask. He found it hard to look at himself in the mirror. Catherine said he was handsome, but she didn’t really know him – what did it matter anyway?
With every day of Catherine’s pregnancy Liam’s anxiety grew. Dread lay, like a stone, in his stomach. No matter how he looked at it, he could not think his way out. He should never have imagined he could have a relationship in the first place, should never have dragged Catherine into the black hole of his life. He should have been grateful simply to exist. He washed off the foam residue and buried his head in a towel.
‘Eggs?’ called Catherine, from the kitchen.
‘Yes, please.’
It wasn’t enough to carry the stone around, to be crippled by the fear. He had to convince her with his every word and gesture that he was pleased – and, despite the ‘shock’ of her sudden announcement, overwhelmed with joy. How could he explain anything less?
Catherine set his breakfast on the table in front of him. He plunged a toast finger into the yolk of a perfectly cooked five-minute egg. Catherine put a green napkin beside his plate and poured his tea. Liam noticed that she had become increasingly interested in the details of domestic life.
Finally she sat down opposite him.
‘Aren’t you having any?’ he asked.
‘No.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I feel a bit off.’
‘Oh, right,’ he said awkwardly, attacking the remainder of his egg with a spoon.
‘Are you getting used to the idea?’
‘Yes,’ he lied. What he was getting used to was that Catherine would do, say and get exactly what she wanted, no matter what they had agreed, that life with her wasn’t safe, that, like everyone else, she couldn’t be trusted. His initial fears about responding to her advances had been replaced by a new sense of safety. Catherine and coupledom had been a safe place to hide, until now.
‘Do you know that he’s already the size of a lemon?’
Liam fought the visualization forming in his head. ‘He?’
‘He, she . . . although I feel sure it’s a boy.’
He lowered his spoon. ‘You can’t know that.’
‘It’s a just a feeling. Mothers know sometimes. I can close my eyes and picture his little face . . .’
He laid the spoon on the plate in front of him. His appetite had vanished. He wanted to run out of the room screaming, to get away from her and the thing she carried inside her, but he knew he had to stay and be interested. What normal husband wouldn’t be? Oh, God! He had made another terrible mistake. There was nothing for it but to surrender to his role. ‘How long will the nausea last?’
