I came over to see. Lucky I hadn’t fallen through there last night when I was creeping around. I put my head down and looked in. I could see some of the stone and brick piles that supported the house, and a whole world of spiderwebs and dust.
‘Hey, the water’s still on in the bathroom!’ Boges called as I lifted my head up again, hearing the sound of a flushing toilet.
‘Wish I’d known that last night,’ I said.
I carefully made my way over the floorboards to join him in what remained of the bathroom.
The sink was broken, and the shower head was missing, but the stained toilet still flushed. Boges turned a tap on and rusty brown water dribbled to the floor. I could get a bucket and put it under the sink and wash under what was left of the shower pipe.
‘Man, you wouldn’t believe the hysteria you’ve caused,’ said Boges. We were sitting out the back on the small verandah, overlooking the tangle of vines and bushes that filled the yard.
‘My mum won’t quit hassling me about it. It’s been on the news again, and look here …’ He pulled his mobile and passed it to me. I snatched it.
‘Great,’ I said, handing the mobile back. ‘I’ve always wanted to get my name in the headlines.’
‘Even Mr Lee, from school, was on the news!’ said Boges. ‘He was crapping on about how you’d always been popular, a good kid and a good student, and that he was shocked and devastated to hear you were involved in the attacks. Then Susie Miller jumped in beside him and said something like, “Yeah, me and Cal dated in, like, Year 8, and I just feel so lucky that the relationship, like, ended when it did. It could have turned real ugly.”’ Boges laughed. ‘She’s the only thing that’s turned ugly!’
What could I say? The situation was ridiculous. I couldn’t believe that I was going to have to convince my mum that I had nothing to do with what had happened.
Boges had brought me more food and drinks: water, bread, a few tins of baked beans, some chips and chocolate.
Rations.
I grabbed a bag of chips and pulled the drawings out of my backpack, spreading them out on the floor.
‘Your dad sure could draw,’ said Boges after a while. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Another angel.’
It was the second drawing of the commando angel—he was smaller than the one I already had, but wearing the same World War I tin hat, and the same gas mask around his neck.
‘Was your dad religious?’ Boges asked, staring at the figure of the angel.
‘He didn’t go to church,’ I said, ‘if that’s what you mean.’
I recalled conversations I’d had with Dad, especially out in the boat—we’d talk about the hugeness of the ocean and the sky, the sun blazing over the dark blue sea, and the gulls hanging on the wind. Maybe, Dad said, we can expand our minds like the expanding universe we live in. He said that life was his religion. You needed to live it well and honestly, being grateful for whatever came along, because everything that happened was life happening, whether we liked it or not. I wasn’t too sure that I understood him.
‘Why would he draw an angel then?’ Boges asked, ‘And to draw him twice?’
I looked closely at the angel’s unsmiling face. He didn’t actually look stern, like I’d thought at first. It was more the look of someone who didn’t have any time to waste.
Someone on a mission.
‘The doctors told me that Dad’s mind could only work around or near the ideas he was trying to draw.’
‘You mean by drawing an angel he might have meant the devil?’
I shook my head. ‘No. It wasn’t opposites. It was more of a close to.’
‘OK,’ said Boges, tapping on the next drawing. ‘What do you make of this one?’
It was a picture of a waiter, wearing a bowtie and carrying two playing cards on a tray—an ace of hearts and a jack of clubs.
‘Did your dad play cards?’
‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘we’d sit around in the summer holidays at the beach house playing board games and the occasional game of cards.’
The third drawing was a collection of smaller, odd sketches. It looked like Dad had just been doodling, trying his hand with various objects. There was an old-fashioned watch on a chain, a pair of sunglasses, a ribbon tied in a bow, some flowers attached to a hair comb and something that looked like a medallion on a chain. All I could make out on the medal was some decorative leaves and scrolls around its edges.
We turned to the next picture—a white-looking monkey with a fancy collar around its neck, and a fancy ball in its hand.
‘Why would he draw that?’ Boges asked. ‘And this one,’ he said picking up the fifth drawing.
I took it from him, studying it close. It was a sketch of the Sphinx from Egypt, crouching in the sands, staring blindly from its blunt, eroded face.
‘Did your dad ever work in Egypt?’ Boges asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I don’t remember him ever talking about Egypt.’
In front of the Sphinx, almost directly in the middle of the huge figure’s granite lion paws, there was the bust of some Roman guy.
‘So who’s this supposed to be?’ he asked. The figure looked serious, and had the folds of a toga over his shoulder.
‘No idea. A Roman emperor?’
‘And this one?’
Boges pointed to another drawing, a child with a rose.
I shook my head again.
The last drawing looked like an old-fashioned cupboard door, with some fancy carving on the top and a great big metal ring at the front. At the top of the drawing was the number five in an oval.
‘Mean anything to you?’ Boges asked.
‘Nup.’
‘What about the number five?’
‘Nup.’
‘This one with all those odd things on it—the watch, the ribbon, the sunglasses, the medal thing, the comb—reminds me of one of those “what-do-all-these-things-have-in-common” kind of intelligence tests.’
‘You’re right,’ I said, grabbing the drawing from him. ‘Even though they’re all different, they’re all things that people can wear. So what do you think it means?’
‘Actually,’ said Boges after a pause, ‘I don’t know.’
I punched his arm and laughed. ‘Well we have to work out what they mean. We’ve already made a start.’
I remembered the time Dad’s old wind-up clock crashed from his desk and burst open, scattering screws, metal plates, little gear wheels, its hands and a long, blue-black springy coil. Dad’s drawings were probably like that. Crazy random images, exploding out of a breaking-down mind.
I felt that Dad was still here, in his drawings, talking to me, sending me his messages. But would I be smart enough to work them out? That was the part I wasn’t sure about. Even with Boges’s help I was sure it was going to be a tough job.
‘Rafe is going to find out they’re missing next time he goes to the mausoleum,’ I said.
‘I’ve already thought of that,’ said Boges. ‘He’s going to think he’s lost the key first. Then he is going to have to get a new one. That gives us a bit of time before he realises they’re missing. And then, we know that at least one other party is after them. Your kidnappers.’
‘You think he might believe that the woman and her mates have got hold of them?’
‘If he already knows something about the Ormond Riddle and enough about the Ormond Singularity to pinch these drawings, he probably knows that he’s not the only one who’s after the secret. There’s no reason for him to think of you straight away.’
‘I wonder how he got onto it at all.’
‘Probably your dad told him. They are brothers.’
‘Yeah, I know. But they’ve never been close. Dad didn’t mention anything about telling Rafe. In fact he warned me against speaking to anyone about the angel, or the secret.’
Maybe Rafe’s interest in the drawings was simply because he was Dad’s identical twin—but my instincts kept telling me something else. I’d heard abou
t twins who finished each other’s sentences. What if Uncle Rafe had some sixth sense, some kind of special twin connection with my dad, even if they weren’t close?
‘There’s a lot about Rafe that I don’t trust,’ I said.
‘Let’s start with the angel,’ said Boges, straightening the drawings in a row in front of him.
He switched on his laptop and we checked out images of angels on the net. There were a lot of angels out there, pretty ones in pink, scary ones like the Valkyries, and the fallen angels. We found some pretty amazing angel stories, but we didn’t find anything like the commando angel.
At least we’d found some meaning in the collection of objects and the fact that the angel, presumably the Ormond Angel, had been drawn twice. But what was that telling us?
We searched around for a secure place to hide the drawings and lucked onto a good spot inside one of the large old fireplaces. Several loose bricks came away easily and it didn’t take long to brush out the soft sandy mortar behind them. Then we pushed the drawings, along with the transparent paper with the two names on it that I’d taken from Dad’s old suitcase, into the wall cavity, replaced the bricks and stood back. No-one would ever think to look there.
‘That sheet of tracing paper with the names on it,’ said Boges, ‘do you think that could be some sort of map? Those guys were asking you about a map, weren’t they? What if this is what they were talking about? Like those names—G’managh and Kilfane—could they be place names?’
‘You could be on to something! But what sort of map has just names on it? You need places and roads and stuff as well.’
‘Guess so. Have you tried ringing your mum again?’ said Boges. ‘She’s really worried about you.’
‘Yeah, she begged me to come home, but I can’t do that now,’ I said. ‘How can she think I hurt Gabbi and Rafe?’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Boges, picking up his bag. ‘I’m real sorry Cal, but it’s getting late and I have to get going before anyone starts asking where I’ve been.’
‘You can get out of here by crawling under the house,’ I said, showing him the hole in the floorboards. ‘That’ll take you to the front jungle.’
‘Think I’ll use the glamour exit,’ said Boges, heading back to the window he’d come through. I really wished he didn’t have to go.
‘So how long do you think you’re going to be here?’ he said, looking around at the old room with its curling wallpaper hanging like old shrouds. ‘What are you going to do?’
I had nothing to say. I didn’t know. But I had to figure this mess out so that I could protect my family. The bad guys were still out there.
353 days to go …
I sat staring at the floor, wondering what in the world I was supposed to do to get myself out of this situation. I felt completely lost.
I’d started trying to clean up the place a little, but gave up after sweeping out the piles of dead flies and rat droppings. What was the point?
I couldn’t open any of the windows for fear of being discovered, but I decided it was safe enough to leave the back door open to let the breeze in.
It was a relief to wash under the broken shower and, feeling a little refreshed, with my surroundings looking slightly better, I opened a tin of baked beans and ate them cold, with chocolate for dessert.
So this is life on the run, I thought.
I pulled the drawings out again and spread them on the floor, studying them for hours, trying to make sense of what my father might have meant when he drew them …
350 days to go …
I’d spent the last couple of days hidden in the house, studying the drawings. But I needed money and I had to get out. I jumped on a bus, took a seat at the back, kept my head down and my cap pulled low. It felt good to be out, just another kid travelling by public transport. I took another bus that went way out of the city, to an ATM in a suburb I hardly knew. I withdrew some of my savings. If the police traced the withdrawal, they’d think I was hiding there instead.
I looked around and saw a police car cruising down the street. Instinctively I jumped into a doorway, waiting for it to pass. Eventually the police car sped up and left, and I kept walking.
All the way back on the bus, I worried about Mum and my sister. I wondered how much longer I could live like this.
349 days to go …
Twice, street people—a couple of old drunks and later a man and woman with gaunt faces—had tried to break in, but I’d replaced the boards on the side window by nailing them from the inside using half a brick and some old nails I found in a jar. The back door still had a sliding bolt that I used to lock it up. If necessary, I could make a quick getaway by crawling through the hole in the floorboards to under the house. I’d also found a piece of carpet to pull over the hole.
My shoulder was still sore, but the gash on the back of my hand had become a dark pink scar by now. Sometimes I’d look at it and remember that night out on Treachery Bay. It seemed like months ago now, but if I could get through that night OK, I could get through this.
I’d bought hair gel, transfer tattoos, scissors and some fake piercing studs. By the cracked and blistered mirror in what was left of the bathroom, I hacked at my hair, shortening it and plastering it down. I smoothed the temporary tatts onto my forearms and stuck the fake studs on—one just under my lower lip and the other on my left eyebrow. I’d already lost a bit of weight and when I finally checked my reflection, I didn’t look much like the kid in the newspaper anymore.
I stared at the unfamiliar image in the mirror. I felt lonely and miserable and so angry that Mum believed I could have hurt Gabbi. I had to try and convince her of my innocence. I turned on my mobile and called her.
‘Mum?’
‘Cal! Where have you been? What are you doing? For God’s sake come home!’
‘I can’t, Mum. It’s too dangerous for me. And I don’t just mean the cops.’
‘Just come home! I’ve been going out of my mind with worry about you. Where are you? Where are you staying? Who’s looking after you?’
‘It’s OK, Mum. I’m taking good care of myself. Please don’t worry. Look, let’s get this straight right now. I came home and I found Uncle Rafe unconscious and Gabbi not breathing. I didn’t touch either of them.’
‘Cal, Rafe heard your voice. Gabbi was screaming out, “No! Cal! Please, Cal, don’t!” Those were the last words she said before we lost her to the coma.’
My mother’s voice trembled, and before bursting into inconsolable tears, she whispered to me, ‘And the police found your fingerprints on the gun, Cal.’
Frightening images of the last few days began to flash across my mind like an out of control torture slideshow. Storms, sharks, Memorial Park, the thick weave of the sack over my eyes, the angel, the crazy guy, the cemetery vault, Gabbi lifeless on the floor, the blue-black steeliness of the gun … Rafe’s gun.
‘What gun!’ I demanded. ‘Stop crying and tell me what you’re talking about?’ I shouted at my sobbing mother.
She seemed shocked at my tone and her sobbing slowed.
‘Cal, your uncle was shot,’ she said in a serious and slow voice. ‘The gun was left behind. It has your prints all over it.’
‘That was Rafe’s gun! I found it at his place the other day when I went looking for my mail.’
‘You mean you broke into Rafe’s house?’ my mum said in exhausted disbelief. She inhaled and exhaled loudly.
‘I had to! To get the drawings! He lied to you, Mum. The envelope was for me!’
‘Cal …’ my mum sighed.
‘I found the gun in his drawer,’ I said, ‘and he came back for it when he was supposed to be out with you at the solicitor’s! Where would I get a gun from, Mum? Think about it! You can’t just walk into Kmart and buy one! And Rafe reckons he heard my voice? He’s lying! I don’t know why, but he’s lying! And Gabbi must know that they’re after me! She was probably just trying to scream out and warn me!’
‘Well why did you run a
way when the police came? Oh, Cal, forget it. Please just come home. We can talk about it then. Darling, we know you wouldn’t mean to hurt anyone. You can’t even remember doing it.’
‘I didn’t do it! How could I remember something I never did?’ I said, infuriated. ‘Who’s feeding you this crap? Mum, it’s me, Cal, your son! What’s wrong with you?’ She was convinced I was guilty—that I’d hurt Gabbi—that I’d shot my uncle!
‘Please believe I don’t blame you!’ she said. ‘I know what you’ve been through—you’ve had the worst possible time of all of us. Please Cal, we can get help for you!’
‘That’s not the sort of help I need!’ I shouted. This was impossible. I couldn’t explain my innocence over the phone. ‘Mum, you’ve got to believe me!’
‘Please, Cal. Just come home. You can’t imagine what I’m going through! I feel like I’m losing both of my children!’ Her voice broke and she started sobbing again.
‘Mum,’ I said calmly. ‘I didn’t do it. Please get that through your head. Once I’ve proved that I’m innocent I’ll come home. Something so much bigger than you can ever imagine is going on—’
My mobile beeped a warning: Battery Low. I’d need to swap the battery over with the spare one Boges gave me.
Suddenly a man’s voice came on the line. ‘Callum? Is that you?’
‘Who’s that?’ I asked.
Then I realised. The cops were there with my mum!
I hung up instantly.
347 days to go …
I’d had the nightmare yet again. The same terrifying images and feelings had disturbed my sleep: being lost and helpless, shivering with fear and cold. I woke up in a sweat, and filled with despair.
January Page 8
