Promise

by Sarah Armstrong

  ‘If that’s okay?’ said Anna.

  Pat smiled. ‘Of course.’

  Sabine nodded. ‘Good. So what do you need? Bath? Sleep?’ She glanced at the crumbs on Charlie’s plate. ‘Real food?’

  ‘Oh, a bath. I’d love a bath. We both need one.’

  Sabine said, ‘The tanks are full and a storm coming. So take advantage and have a big one.’ She laid her hand briefly on Pat’s shoulder. ‘Just going to Beatie’s. Back soon.’

  Anna remembered Beatie. A bit older than Anna, she’d lived in a tent while she painstakingly and single-handedly built a cabin further up the hill. One humid, hot day she’d helped Pat and Anna make three raised vegetable beds from railway sleepers.

  Anna watched Sabine cross the yard, teacup in hand, and disappear into the forest, the clouds dark overhead.

  Chapter Twelve

  Charlie cupped her hand under the water trickling from the tap. Beside the bath was a big coloured-glass window, the red and orange triangles making the branches and leaves outside look a murky colour.

  Charlie reached for the white cake of soap and it slipped away under the water. Anna – who knelt on the floor beside the bath – retrieved it for her. Charlie sat quietly as Anna rubbed at her skin with a soapy washer, cleaning the rings of ingrained dirt at the base of Charlie’s neck. The girl’s wet skin glinted in the candlelight. Anna’s own skin must have been luminescent like this once. Had her own mother knelt beside the bath and marvelled at little Anna’s perfect skin?

  Anna tried to really see Charlie, the whole, small person in front of her. The girl had an old-fashioned face, with a high, rounded, kewpie-doll forehead and small pointed chin. The sticking-out ears and tufty hair gave her an odd, otherworldly air.

  Anna used a tin cup to scoop warm water over the girl’s back. Charlie sighed and Anna felt something suddenly unravel in her chest.

  What have you done, Anna? You’ve stolen someone’s child and there’s no going back now.

  She imagined the cops at her house right this moment, opening drawers, rifling through papers on her kitchen bench, taking away her computer.

  A chair scraped in the kitchen and panic shot through her. What if the cops had somehow tracked her down and were about to walk through the door and drag Charlie from the bath and bundle them both away?

  She swallowed and made herself keep scooping water over Charlie’s back. Scoop and tip, scoop and tip, the water sluicing down the small back, over each small, perfectly formed vertebrae. The girl sat very still. Anna knew Charlie must be charged with adrenaline. Her and Charlie both.

  Charlie is safe. I am safe. She focused on the water flowing over the girl’s glistening back and the last of the evening’s birdsong.

  From the kitchen came the sounds of Pat cooking dinner. She was grateful he was holding off asking why they were there. Anna dried her hands on one of the bath towels he had given her. He’d also brought in the candle on a saucer, and pointed out the shampoo and conditioner.

  Raindrops pattered onto the roof overhead.

  ‘I want to get out,’ said Charlie.

  Anna helped her out onto the bath mat, and patted the towel gently over her skin, avoiding the bruise on her arm. She turned her around to dry her back and saw a circular, painful-looking bruise on Charlie’s left buttock. Could a child accidentally bruise her bum? She should take a photo. The more evidence, the better. It would come to evidence at some point, she knew. She wrapped the sarong under the girl’s arms.

  ‘How did you hurt your arm, Charlie?’

  The girl looked down and said nothing for a moment. Then she whispered, ‘My mummy pushed me.’

  ‘She pushed you down the back steps?’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘Oh, Charlie. I’m so sorry that happened.’

  Tears filled Anna’s eyes as she imagined Gabby shoving Charlie’s small body out the door, setting her adrift in the air.

  Charlie lowered herself onto a wooden stool by the bath. ‘I was naughty.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter if you’re naughty, no one should ever hurt you. Not ever. Okay?’

  Charlie gave a tiny nod, picked up Bunny from the floor and fiddled with one of its ears.

  ‘I’ll put another bandage on your arm in a little while. I’m just going to have a quick bath.’

  Charlie watched as Anna dropped her clothes to the floor and stepped into the tub. Anna was past caring about the girl seeing her naked; she just wanted to get into the warm water. She lay back and let her eyes close for a moment. If Anna had known yesterday that Gabby was the one who’d injured Charlie’s arm, would it have convinced FACS to do something that same day? She doubted it. The rain drummed more loudly on the roof and she felt herself sliding into sleep in that blood-warm water.

  ‘Can you take me to the caravan?’ asked Charlie.

  Anna made herself open her eyes.

  Charlie said, ‘The bed had little windows beside it.’

  With her hair wet and stuck close to her head, Charlie’s neck looked especially fragile. Anna’s stomach clenched and she felt like she might be sick. This child was vulnerable, and Anna was the one responsible for her, and so, so out of her depth. Was it too late to hand the girl in? Anna could drop her at a police station and pretend no involvement. Except Dave would have told the cops. She should never have answered the phone.

  Anna swallowed. ‘Did Harlan live there with you?’

  Charlie shook her head. ‘Me and Mummy slept in the bed with the little windows. You push them out.’ She moved her hand to show the action. ‘Can you take me there?’ She fixed her eyes on Anna.

  ‘Where is it?’

  Charlie looked up to the ceiling. ‘It’s on a little road.’ She chewed her bottom lip. ‘And there’s a stripy pole that stops cars.’

  Anna sat up and scooped water over her face. ‘Did you like living there?’

  Charlie nodded. ‘We had fish and chips on the grass sometimes.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘And there was Nella and Melody and Saxon.’

  ‘They’re your friends?’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘And then Mummy met Harlan?’

  ‘Mmm. And I had to sleep on the little bed over the table. But I want to sleep with Mummy.’ She looked down. ‘I’m not allowed to anymore. I’m a big girl now.’

  ‘You miss sleeping with her.’

  ‘She doesn’t let me.’ Overhead, the rain fell harder. Charlie turned to meet Anna’s gaze. ‘I want to go back to the caravan. Please.’

  Anna had taken this girl from her mother, the person she loved most in the world, despite everything. Anna tried to imagine how she would have felt if someone had snatched her from her mother at five years old.

  ‘Mummy’s not at the caravan now. If I take you back to Mummy it means taking you back to Harlan.’

  Charlie shook her head and her eyes shone with tears. Anna hurriedly climbed out of the bath, the water sloshing around.

  What was I thinking, taking this child? What made me think I could take care of her?

  She landed heavily on the bath mat and reached for the thin towel.

  •

  It was dark outside when they emerged from the bathroom. Anna had turned her undies inside out and put her dirty shorts and t-shirt back on. If Sabine hadn’t been there, she’d have asked Pat if she could wear some of his clothes.

  He stood at the sink washing lettuce while something garlicky simmered in a pot on the stove. He laid lettuce leaves on a tea towel.

  ‘I’ve made up the spare bed for you two. There’s a bit of a leak in the corner of the room that I’m buggered if I can fix. I hope the dripping into the bucket doesn’t drive you mad in the night.’

  ‘I’d sleep through the sound of a freight train.’ After the bath, Anna’s limbs were heavy and slow. Charlie stood at Anna’s side, her eyelids drooping.

  Pat smiled and wiped his hands on a towel. ‘I’ll show you.’ He led them to the spare room off the kitchen.
>
  This was the room where Anna had slept when things became tricky between her and Pat. It was a small room, lined with golden pine, and with a big window to the garden. It smelled sweetly musty, as if someone had burnt lots of incense in there. She remembered lying in that bed, acutely aware of him in his own bed at the other end of the house, but glad she wasn’t lying beside him, wondering how on earth she should act.

  Pat reached up to unhook a white mosquito net from the wall above the bed. ‘You’ll need this.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She hoped she communicated with that one word how grateful she was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  At the kitchen table, Pat wound the last of the bandage around Charlie’s arm and safety-pinned the end of it. ‘Tomorrow we’ll put some comfrey salve on your arm, Charlie. Comfrey’s a magical plant.’

  Anna stood up. ‘Can I get her some dinner? I think she’s about to crash.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Sorry. I made chicken casserole. And rice. How hungry are you, Charlie?’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly and ran her hand over the bandage. ‘I’m sleepy.’

  ‘What about a bit of food first?’ asked Anna.

  Charlie shook her head.

  ‘Okay,’ said Anna. ‘I’ll take you to bed.’

  ‘Not there.’ She pointed to the spare room.

  ‘What if I lie in there with you while you go to sleep?’ asked Anna.

  The girl shook her head again. She looked like she was about to cry.

  Anna and Pat made a nest for her on the couch, piling up pillows and a feather quilt. Charlie fell asleep within a minute of lying down, curled on her side, holding Bunny, the bandaged arm bent up near her face. Anna laid a sheet over her.

  Pat picked up his tobacco pouch from the table and went to sit on the verandah. Anna watched Charlie sleep for a minute – the girl took such tiny breaths Anna had to get close to see her chest moving – then she followed Pat and sat beside him on the long wooden bench against the wall. Light spilled from the kitchen and lit up the curtain of water overflowing from the gutter. Rain drummed on the tin roof above them and the clothes hung limply from the line to her right. She hoped Sabine wouldn’t return before they had a chance to talk.

  Pat balanced the pouch on his lap and rolled a thin joint. She’d watched him do this hundreds of times, his fingers working swiftly, as if of their own volition. She looked out at the white rain as he struck a match and inhaled deeply. He exhaled a cloud of smoke and spoke loudly over the rain, ‘So . . . what’s the story?’

  ‘She’s not mine, obviously.’

  He nodded. ‘I figured that. Seeing you didn’t mention a kid when you I saw you a few years back.’

  Anna shuffled closer to him on the bench so she didn’t have to shout.

  ‘She’s the kid next door. Her stepfather beats her and bites her . . . well, someone bites her . . . and she says her mum pushed her down the stairs and that’s how her arm was hurt . . .’

  He winced and nodded slowly, looking out at the rain. He took another pull on his joint.

  ‘The stepfather threatened me. He’s . . . I saw him holding her upside-down by the feet and shaking her in the backyard.’ She swallowed. ‘So I took her.’

  ‘What? You just drove off with her?’ He glanced at her.

  She nodded.

  ‘Without the parents knowing?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon.’

  Pat shifted on the bench to look at her, his face strangely expressionless. He passed her the joint and went inside and returned with a bottle of beer and two cold glasses. He opened the bottle with the penknife on his belt and poured two beers, carefully tipping the glasses.

  His silence unnerved her. What was he thinking?

  ‘He would have killed her,’ she said. ‘I’m sure of it. They locked her out of the house for hours and hours at night. I probably don’t know the half of it. I’m sure they’re . . . using some drug. The mother always seems so out of it.’

  She held the smouldering joint between two fingers. She hadn’t smoked in years and this didn’t seem like the moment to start again.

  He passed her a glass of beer. ‘I get why you took her away. You don’t have convince me, Anna.’ He took the joint back.

  She took a sip of the beer. It was too sweet.

  ‘But the thing is, they’ll be after you.’ He sighed and rubbed a finger across his chin. ‘You’ve nicked someone’s kid. There’ll be a conga line of cops behind you.’

  ‘Well, they’ll be wandering around down south somewhere.’

  He drew on the joint and smoke leaked out with his words. ‘Don’t underestimate them or the information they have access to.’ His voice was flat. ‘What about your dad, does he know where you are?’

  ‘No. No one knows. Dad’s retired now.’ Specks of rain hit her shins and feet. ‘There’s no way for the cops to know I’m here.’ She glanced through the window at Charlie, a small curled shape under the white sheet.

  ‘What about your boyfriend?’

  ‘You mean Liam?’ When Pat had come to Sydney and stayed with her, she’d been having a three-month fling with a guitarist. ‘No, that ended. Ages ago.’

  She decided not to mention Dave. A lawyer boyfriend would spook Pat even more.

  He tapped ash into a saucer beside him. ‘So you didn’t tell anyone at all that you were coming here?’

  ‘No one.’

  He nodded and stretched his legs out in front of him.

  ‘And I got rid of my mobile phone and I didn’t stop for petrol . . . I filled jerry cans.’

  She breathed out shakily. This was not what she’d expected. She felt a hot wave of shame that she’d presumed she could just turn up and he’d take them in, no questions.

  What if he asked them to leave? Where on earth would they go?

  ‘A woman talked to us down near Coffs when I stopped for a nap. But she’s the only one we saw. And I ran into a guy on your driveway, on the way in. He’s got a ponytail and blue eyes. He got a good look at us.’

  Why was Pat so afraid of the cops? Had he done something?

  ‘That’d be Michael. I’ll talk to him. If the cops turn up he’d be most worried about them finding his dope plants.’

  ‘Which is why he might throw me to the wolves.’

  He smiled at her. ‘Michael wouldn’t collude with the authorities. He doesn’t own a phone or register his car ’cause they’re part of the machine.’

  ‘I’m sorry I lobbed in on you like this. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.’ She sighed. ‘I just scooped her up, I didn’t plan anything. But I couldn’t let her go back to that house. I really thought she might be killed.’

  ‘If it’s the stepfather who’s hurting her, what about the dad?’

  ‘Oh . . . she told me that her mother doesn’t know who he is. I don’t know if that’s true . . .’

  Pat nodded. ‘Did you drive through the night?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well . . .’ He dropped the last of the joint into the ashtray. ‘I should get you some dinner so you can go to bed too. You must be knackered.’

  ‘Is there maybe an old hut or something we could stay in for a little while? Just until I figure things out. Like the kuti hut? I’d stay out of your way . . .’

  ‘Michael’s in the kuti hut. He’s fixed it up.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘How long do you intend to keep her, Anna? What’s your plan?’

  Her only plan had been to get to Pat’s.

  ‘I’ll keep her as long as it takes for them to figure out that her home is not safe. They’ll discover the phone calls to FACS and . . .’

  ‘And how will you know when they’ve figured it out?’

  Her thoughts were spinning uselessly. She had absolutely no idea how she’d find that out.

  Pat tucked the tobacco pouch into his shirt pocket. ‘Let’s just settle you in for tonight and talk more tomorrow. Anyway,
it’s nice to see you again.’

  He squeezed her hand and gave a small dry laugh. ‘Even if it’s in slightly bizarre circumstances . . .’

  She’d forgotten how callused his hands were, how strong.

  ‘You did good to get the girl away from her stepfather.’ He squeezed her hand again, then let go and glanced in the window. ‘You did good, Anna.’

  ‘And Sabine? Do you think maybe it’s best if we don’t tell her the whole story? Just that Charlie and I are holidaying. She’s my niece, maybe?’

  ‘I’m not going to lie to Sabine.’ His voice had an edge.

  She felt a surge of embarrassment that she’d imagined his loyalty to her might be stronger than his loyalty to Sabine.

  ‘Okay. Sure. No. You’re right.’ The wind blew a gust of rain in on them.

  He topped up his glass of beer. ‘Do you like this lager? She makes it.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s good,’ she said. She took another too-sweet mouthful. ‘How long have you and Sabine been together?’

  He stretched his legs out. ‘Two years. She was WOOFing at Stefano’s. Stef’s living at the top of the hill, in Theo’s old place. You remember Theo?’

  ‘No, I don’t think he was here. What’s woofing?’

  ‘You know, backpackers working for board, doing gardening and stuff. She does cleaning now for a few families down the valley.’

  She could sense him sinking into his stoned mode. He seemed to have forgotten about dinner.

  ‘How many people live on the community now?’

  How many people did she need to hide from?

  ‘Oh, there’s Beatie and Will . . . You remember Beatie, of course. And Stefano, Avril and her kids, and Michael,’ said Pat. ‘The thing is,’ he paused for a long moment and sniffed, ‘it turns out Sabine’s here illegally. Her visa ran out ages ago. And that’s the reason I’m a bit worried about the police turning up. And why she’ll be totally freaked out.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Do you really think the cops would be interested in a backpacker overstaying their visa when they’re looking for a child who’s been taken?’ Abducted.