Kill the Possum

by James Moloney

  The ladder is returned to the station wagon. ‘Thanks, Grandad, I’d never have worked it out without you.’

  Eric raises his hand, partly in recognition of Dylan’s thanks, partly in farewell.

  He has the driver’s door open and his body ready to fold itself into place behind the wheel when a last thought occurs to him. ‘Don’t let that possum go until it’s dark. Too vulnerable in daylight. I’ll pick up the trap another time.’

  Then he reverses carefully in a tight arc, faces forward again and eases his way out through the carport.

  Dylan watches him go from beneath the clothes line. The backyard is a different place now. He sits down and pulls his knees up to his chest; rests his chin on the hard bone. Yesterday had been a fuzzy nightmare but today someone’s adjusted the focus. He doesn’t dare form the thoughts but they’re there, circling around one another since this morning in the spare parts department at Motor Mile. No, be honest Dylan, longer than that. Ever since he’d watched Tim walk away from this same spot on Wednesday.

  Cartwright’s a monster who spreads misery everywhere he goes, creates it deliberately. He gets off on it and at the thought of this a fierce anger surges through Dylan, locking his arms around his legs and stopping his breathing. Squeeze, squeeze, strain every muscle.

  Then release; his hands open and his lungs explode. He leans back, panting.

  It’s not like he didn’t have enough to be angry about in his own life.

  But is this really why he’s lying flat on his back under the clothes line? He traces the geometric patterns against the perfect blue above, hoping for distraction. It doesn’t work.

  ‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ he says to the sky. ‘I know it has to be done and I know it has to be me, I just don’t know if I can do it.’

  He stays beneath the clothes line. How long? Might have been an hour, might have been three minutes. Even when he sits up again, his mind is still barely aware of what his hands are doing. The tools and the left-over galvanised sheeting have to be put away in the garage to erase all evidence of his grandfather’s visit. When the possum shuffles nervously at the sudden intrusion he goes over to look at it.

  There’s something about it; those eyes, so round, the light so perfect in the way it reflects off the moistened spheres of the creature’s eyeballs.

  Kill the possum. That was the test, wasn’t it? The moment when Tim’s crazy fantasy was exposed as a pathetic dream?

  Is Dylan any different? The fantasy exists inside his head now. Only it can’t stay a fantasy, not if the Beals are going to survive. Kill the possum.

  He finds the fishnet bag among the junk and stands for a long time over the cage. He doesn’t want to do it. Who would? But Cartwright is down to him now and he’s got to know whether he can do it or not. He kneels beside the cage and although the task is more difficult this time without Tim’s extra pair of hands, the possum ends up inside the orange plastic.

  It thrashes around, just as it had done when Tim stood over it with the pipe in his hands. Those gleaming eyes follow his slightest movement. This is what Tim couldn’t get past, the life inside those eyes that he had to snuff out. They mean something different to Dylan, although he doesn’t know why.

  Dylan makes himself look into those eyes, makes himself see that it’s alive, and just as Tim had done, he lowers the pipe and backs away. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  He’s never going to do it cold like this. Where’s the heat he can feel when he tries to sleep? When he’s alone with nothing but his own memories of what he’s seen, what he knows? Where’s the fury that engulfed him beneath the clothes line? He needs it now. He has to be angry, he has to be in a rage, he has to feel the way he did when he saw Cartwright going at the Beals on that first Sunday. He closes his eyes to let it come. There’s more there too, this morning in the spare parts department, the events that sent him heaving his guts onto the footpath, then the letter Fiona showed him so proudly and the photograph, that bloody photograph of his father. His father and his real son.

  He turns quickly and instead of the little marsupial, it’s the images from inside his head inhabiting the orange bag. It’s not a length of pipe in his hands, it’s revenge, it’s punishment. It’s perfect.

  The possum dies with the first blow. Dylan hits it twice more, huge swings from well back behind his head, to be sure it’s over and the poor thing doesn’t suffer. It’s not moving, makes no sound and after that, he stops and stands looking down at what he’s done as a trickle of blood starts slowly across the concrete towards his shoes. He’s panting but apart from the in and out of his lungs, he feels nothing except a relief that it’s done - that he could do it.

  He stands like that for more than a minute while the colour is slowly painted back into the garage around him and the sounds of the world outside it return to his ears.

  Shit, look at the mess. The river is now half a metre long and ends in a thick pool. There’s more, in tiny red flecks sprayed all round; CSI would have a field day. And he’d only hit the thing three times. The blood doesn’t bother him but he can’t look at the misshapen head, especially the eyes which are still open. He hurries to the kitchen, returning immediately with a black garbage bag and a bucket. The possum’s carcass goes into the plastic bag and the bag into the wheelie bin, down low beneath the rest of the rubbish. The blood takes longer to scrub from the rough concrete but his mother rarely goes out to the old garage. She’ll never know what took place here.

  She returns in time to cook his dinner.

  ‘I found where the possum was getting in,’ he tells her. ‘All fixed now. I let it go out in the backyard.’

  Who’s there to contradict him? The perfect crime.

  It’s only when he flops onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling where he’d first heard the intruder that his body reacts. His breathing comes more rapidly, as though he’s back in the garage and before long he can feel sweat trickling onto the sheets from every pore.

  This is it, he thinks, I’m really going to do it.

  14

  Kirsty sits by the pool

  When Kirsty arrives at Chloe’s place on Sunday, the others are stretched out around the pool.

  ‘Darling, you’re still alive,’ Chloe shouts to the entire street, flinging her arms wide like some aging Hollywood starlet and then gives her an extravagant hug. ‘Missed you on Friday,’ she whispers in a voice for Kirsty alone.

  Kirsty’s suddenly on the verge of tears. ‘Missed you too,’ she manages to say.

  ‘Hey, Chloe, never seen you hug Byron that way,’ calls Rachael. ‘Poor guy’s lucky if he gets a peck on the cheek.’

  ‘How would you know what Byron gets?’ Chloe replies with a suggestive dance of her eyebrows. Kirsty settles in. No one seems to notice her ancient bikini. What was she worrying about? She’s among friends here and this doesn’t change even when Rachael turns her attention to Kirsty and Dylan.

  ‘Ah, the true test of a relationship is whether he rings you when you’re sick.’

  Is that all there is to it? ‘Well, he didn’t ring every day that I was away, if that’s what you mean,’ Kirsty answers.

  ‘Just as well, too. If he called every day you’d have to marry him,’ says Chloe.

  Laughter all round.

  ‘Once on Tuesday night and again on Friday. How’s that?’

  ‘Better than most guys.’ The other girls laugh and agree.

  She doesn’t tell them that the calls were mostly about Tim. Phoebe is on the banana lounge closest to Kirsty and, turning on her side, she says. ‘Bit of a dark horse, your Dylan. We always thought he was a real geek back in Year Nine with all that boring environmental stuff. Guess you’ve found something else there.’

  ‘He’s… well, he cares.’

  It’s the right thing to say. The faces around her soften in approval; there’s even a hint of jealousy. ‘Wish I could say that about the boys I’ve been out with,’ says Phoebe.

  The sun is shining on Kirsty. M
ore questions follow. She basks in the warmth of their interest and joins in when they get on to Rachael who’s got the hots for a boy named Sam.

  ‘He’s coming to my party next weekend,’ Phoebe tells them all. ‘We’ll have to keep Rachael on a leash!’

  Then they’re in the pool, with Kirsty on Phoebe’s shoulders against Alana who’s riding Rachael while Chloe films the battle on a camera no bigger than her hand. Afterwards, they sit around the television in the family room, eating chips and replaying the horse and rider fights on screen. No work is done on their video for Ms Lehane and none of them care, least of all Kirsty.

  The Beal family cycle

  Later that same Sunday, Kirsty finds her brother weeping quietly in front of a different television screen. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asks, slipping down beside him, intending to put her arms around him. She doesn’t quite make it that close.

  ‘Phew, Tim, when was the last time you had a shower?’

  He’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday; the same as Friday for that matter. He’s probably slept in them, now that she thinks about it.

  ‘Tim,’ she says softly.

  No answer.

  ‘Tim, talk to me. I’m worried about you.’

  It seems he’s determined to ignore her until his head turns and out of nowhere he says. ‘It’s Sunday night.’

  And that’s it. He lumbers off to bed about nine without saying another word and in the morning Kirsty goes to school alone.

  Chloe’s not on the bus either and when she arrives at school, Rachael supplies the reason. ‘She’s finishing that video for Ms Lehane. We promised it by today, but yesterday…’

  Kirsty looks for Dylan in the yard before the bell rings but there’s no sign of him in the quadrangle. At morning recess she heads for the ugly tree where her brother sometimes sits like a ghost and there is Dylan Kane.

  He’s come looking for Tim before he looked for her. Should she be angry about this? She did ask him to help Tim, after all. It’s a worry that they didn’t go out together during the weekend just past but that was her fault as much as his.

  ‘Hi, long time, no see,’ Dylan says through half a smile. His green eyes are glad to see her and she forgives him the nameless crime her heart has just accused him of. In fact, he holds his right arm wide, inviting her closer, closer, until he can wrap it around her and oh, how she needs it.

  ‘It’s been a bugger of a week, hasn’t it?’ he says.

  ‘The pits. Tim was crying for no reason last night.’

  ‘The Beal family cycle,’ says Dylan, letting her go so they can see each other’s face.

  She nods. God, he is one of us. ‘I wish I knew what happened last week. I don’t understand it. After you called on Tuesday he was a new guy, but when he came home the next night he was a wreck and since then he’s worse than I’ve ever seen him. Dylan, he’s not taking care of himself, you know what I mean? He must know he stinks but he doesn’t seem to care.’

  Her skin crawls at the thought of greasy, pungent skin. ‘I’m worried that if a doctor sees him, he’ll be put away somewhere. Can you imagine what that would do to Mum! Come home with me this afternoon. Please. He listens to you.’

  ‘Do you want to go now?’ says Dylan.

  He’s seen the urgency of it all and suddenly Kirsty’s body seems lighter by a hundred tonnes. ‘No, this afternoon will be okay. If I skip off now, Jorgensen really will send around the baby snatchers.’

  Tim answers a question about roofs

  Tim’s in his room when Kirsty arrives home. Melanie’s already in front of the television, having chased him away with the reasonable argument that he’s had it to himself all the time she was at school. The voices must be his sisters’ he assumes, until he picks out the deeper tones of a male.

  Shit, it’s Dylan!

  Tim doesn’t know what to think, what to do; last week has drained him of all he had left, leaving nothing but a skeleton with flesh slapped around it that insisted on breathing and shitting as though he was still alive when really he was already dead. He wonders whether his body will get the message by Sunday afternoon.

  A knock at the door. There’s Kirsty looking pleased with herself. She’s brought her boyfriend around to cheer him up. He wants to shout at Dylan, he wants to get angry and smash things. But he had his chance, didn’t he, and now the merest hint of rage punctures his soul with dread. Even anger has been stolen from him, along with the rest of his life.

  He feels their eyes on him while he sits meekly on the bed like a dispirited chimp in some flea-bitten zoo. He can’t do anything about it. He just can’t. Dylan’s in the room now but he doesn’t look the guy in the face. Once you’re denied anger, all that’s left is shame and the insides of your forearms.

  The phone saves him from whatever comes next. ‘It’s Dad,’ Melanie shouts down the hall. ‘He wants to speak to Mum.’

  ‘Typical. He knows she’s not home before five,’ says Kirsty as she hurries through the door. Tim and Dylan remain suspended, as though Kirsty has taken the magic wand with her, the one that gives their wooden frames a Pinocchio-like humanity.

  His sister’s savage responses drift down the hall. ‘Not here. No, I told you… not home yet,’ until a brighter tone becomes unmistakable and as soon as the call ends she bounds into the room.

  ‘He doesn’t want Melanie this weekend. He’s going away. Has some new woman he tried to brag about like a little kid. As if we care. Poor bitch, she’ll learn soon enough. Anyway, he’s taking her down the coast for the weekend.’

  She flops onto the bed beside Tim in the sheer pleasure of relief. Despite the stink of his body, this news earns him a hug from his sister.

  ‘We have to celebrate,’ she insists and before he can protest Tim is out in the kitchen with the others snapping open a can of Coke. When Mrs Beal climbs the stairs a short time later, he watches as the two girls greet her with a little dance and their mother weeps quietly with joy.

  ‘See, I told you this would happen,’ Kirsty says to Dylan, although Tim doesn’t quite know what she means. In fact, he’s watching them all like a spectator. If it wasn’t so sad, he’d laugh at Melanie’s reaction, because she likes having the house full of laughter for the first time in ages, yet she hasn’t got a clue why. As for himself, well… once this news would have shot his spirits into the stratosphere, but not now. He has no energy for booster rockets.

  He sees Dylan watching him, measuring his mood. With a shrug, he heads for his bedroom, only to find the guy has followed him.

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference, does it?’ says Dylan.

  ‘He might not come this Sunday, but there’s the one after that and the one after that.’

  ‘If you want to see it that way. Look, Tim, you’ve been to the guy’s house, right?’

  When Tim nods listlessly, Dylan has another question. ‘What kind of a roof has it got?’

  ‘Roof. Shit, what does it matter?’

  ‘Tiles or tin, do you remember?’

  ‘Tiles.’ For the first time in days Tim’s mind arcs with the blue flash of interest. He sees that his answer is the one Dylan wanted and this sends another charge through him. ‘Why’s it so important? Come on, tell me.’

  Dylan grasps the doorknob, not to leave but to close the door firmly, cutting off the feminine voices that play elsewhere in the house. ‘Because I know how to get tiles out of the way and climb down into the roof.’

  THE THIRD SUNDAY

  15

  Dylan Kane makes a list

  Cartwright away from Friday night to Sunday afternoon.

  Lives alone.

  Doesn’t own a dog.

  House is down a long driveway, away from other houses.

  Train stations have security cameras. Go by bus. Get on and off at separate stops. Sit apart. Check city transport site on Net for timetables.

  Clothes - black too obvious. Dark, no logos.

  Roof - two screwdrivers.

  Light - torch - Tim�
�s maglite.

  Fingerprints - rubber gloves - under sink in laundry.

  Dylan gets an invitation he can’t refuse

  On Thursday, a problem gets in the way of the plan Dylan and Tim have carefully put together.

  ‘Phoebe’s having a party on Saturday night,’ Kirsty tells Dylan.

  ‘But you’re working at the video store.’

  ‘I finish at nine-thirty, though. Party’ll just be getting started by then. Chloe’s going, all the girls.’ She threads her arm through his and presses herself against him. ‘Come on, Dylan, I really want to go and I want you to come with me.’

  Dylan thinks quickly, picturing a clock-face in his head. It’s possible if they start early. ‘Okay, sounds great. Let’s do it.’

  Tim Beal in the monster’s lair

  In the mirror, Tim can see the lampshade damaged during his rampage a fortnight earlier. His mother asked him about it only this morning, as though she was finally able to see again. She still hasn’t noticed that his curtains have disappeared altogether.

  He ticks off in his mind the jeans, the dark blue t-shirt, the bulge of the tiny torch in his pocket. He considers wearing his school shoes then rejects the idea because his runners are old and dull enough not to be seen and he can sprint in them a lot better than those heavy leather things if it comes to that.

  Jeez, it’s nearly seven. He has to get going.

  What he sees in the lounge room stops him in his tracks, despite the urgency. Mrs Beal is resting on the sofa with her legs folded beneath her and feet stretched out to one side. No early bedtime tonight. Melanie shares the cushions with her.

  This is a sight he should see every Saturday night, his sister at home where she belongs and his mother’s face free from fear. He could make it happen, make every Saturday night like this. He wants it so much and for a moment he imagines that it already is wonderfully, magically real. A strength builds steadily in his chest, he’s pleased with himself, proud. If he can make it real, then he would feel this way all the time.