The Beauty Is in the Walking

by James Moloney

  19

  the third one

  Friday morning – my second-last exam ever. School exam, anyway.

  I took my new cane with me in the car and Mum obliged with a glare meant to fry me on the spot. She didn’t say anything, though, and one day of using the damn thing wasn’t going to ruin me.

  On the way up Meredith Street the town seemed particularly quiet to me, not sleepy in the way I’d become so used to over the years; this was more a hunched-shoulders anticipation of something unseen and unwanted. In hindsight I should dismiss the memory as a false one seeded in my imagination by what happened later. The mind works like that sometimes.

  Whether I truly sensed anything or not, I’d forgotten all about it by the time I walked through the school gates. ‘Made my entrance’ would be a more accurate way to describe my progress that morning. I actually wanted people to notice me, like they did when Tyke dropped me somewhere in his flash car. The wolf’s head walking stick was my red ute, I decided, and what was the point if people didn’t watch you cruise by? A few did, including Svenson.

  I headed towards him and, once we’d come to a halt, used all the play-acting in front of Mum’s mirror to strike my most dashing stance. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Mmm, I’m trying to find the word,’ he said in typical style. ‘Can’t choose between “grown-up” and “poser”.’

  He could have chosen any words and I would have laughed just as much. I was in that kind of mood.

  He wished me luck for next week’s English exam and set off towards the steps to the staffroom while clumps of kids stopped chatting to watch him go by. Mr Lambert, on his way down the same steps, deliberately switched to the other handrail to avoid him. The poor guy was a pariah.

  I set off myself, towards the gym, with Svenson’s words in my ears. ‘Poser’ was fine. I was milking my new cane for all it was worth, but ‘grown-up’? No, I wasn’t so sure. The term was used to mock kids who hadn’t really become adults yet, like the patronising grandma who cries, ‘Good heavens, my little darling is all grown-up.’

  Stuff it, I had an exam to get through. I texted Amy and got a quick reply. Good luck. Studying hard for afternoon.

  Good. I’d hang around after my own exam to show her my cane, but hours later, when I shuffled my way out of the gym behind classmates who stretched and smiled in relief, we discovered the world had changed while we’d been sealed off inside.

  ‘Did you hear? I can’t believe it! They’ve found another one.’

  Another horse. That was the word. Details were hard to get, but the announcement was all over the radio which made it official, somehow. Since the rest of the school had gone back into class, we had the yard to ourselves, a dozen groups huddled into different corners and crannies, but only one conversation. It had been the same when we’d heard about Charlotte, and because the pig had been ‘ours’ this new outrage seemed close to us, too. A few girls cried and some of the teachers had come down from the staffroom to offer comforting words.

  I wasn’t part of any of those groups jabbering away in hushed and frightened tones. No group had seemed the obvious one for me to join and a couple gave off a kind of back-turned air towards me, nothing in your face, just a feeling I got. I opened my fist around the cane’s handle to look at those predatory eyes. ‘Lone wolf,’ I muttered, as I switched on my phone.

  There was no sign of Amy in the yard, even though she had an exam starting in half an hour and no message either, but before I could call I opened one from Mum.

  Ring asap.

  I scrolled to her number and waited. She answered almost immediately.

  ‘Have you heard what’s happened?’

  ‘A third one. They’re saying it was a horse.’

  ‘A mare on agistment out past the sewage works. I’m coming to pick you up.’

  Her tone of voice killed off any objections. I had more important arguments to win than this one and, besides, I wasn’t so sorry that I’d have family close when my imagination was throwing up pictures of mutilation.

  Memory is a strange thing. How much of what I’d sensed on the morning run to school really came from that drive home when the pall over our town was so obvious to see? The midday heat wobbled the road surface, cars moved about, their drivers in search of lunch, yet every figure on the streets seemed to be in earnest conversation with another and in Meredith Street cars were lined up outside the police station. I’d heard about shock, after explosions and natural disasters. Now I knew what it looked like in people’s faces.

  ‘At a time like this everyone’s better off in their own home,’ said Mum. ‘God only knows who’s doing these terrible things.’

  God might be keeping that knowledge to himself, but there was something the rest of us could be sure of, something all of Palmerston would have to admit at last. Mahmoud Rais hadn’t done it. He was a thousand kilometres away.

  Leave it, a silent voice warned me. Mum was more upset than she was letting on and this lift home wasn’t for my safety, but her own peace of mind.

  I worried about Amy and the afternoon crew who had to drag their minds into the gym and pretend The Ripper’s third attack wasn’t a distraction. I texted her about four o’clock and again after dinner and when there was still no reply I called, but her phone was switched off.

  I logged onto Mahmoud Rais is Innocent and began to write the things I’d been tempted to say to Mum in the car. After a few lines I read my words back and decided they sounded smug, which meant deleting much of it and starting over with careful phrases until I imagined Svenson was staring over my shoulder.

  I went out to see what was on telly, just to come down a little after a hard week, and found the house dark and locked up for the night. Without Dad to come home late, the place was a morgue and after a bit of aimless channel surfing I thought I’d go make like a corpse myself.

  In the hall, though, with my hand on the doorknob, I stopped. Someone was crying. We occasionally heard noises from next door and I stood still a moment to pick up the direction, listening for longer than I needed to be sure the sound came from Mum’s bedroom. It was the bitter intensity that froze me in place. Rousing myself, I continued along the hall to her door and opened it silently. She was lying in the dim gold of her bedside lamp, turned away from me and unaware I was watching. This wasn’t a sudden outburst, this was steady rain, the kind farmers prayed for to soak their field, the kind that drained the clouds of all they had.

  I backed out of the room as quietly as I’d entered, angry at myself that I hadn’t said something to help her and wondering, too, whether I was the main cause of those tears.

  Before I got into bed that night, I pulled my curtains together and checked each end carefully so not a sliver of daylight would wake me before I was ready. And I wasn’t ready for a long time; it was gone ten by the time I poked me head into the kitchen, wary of what I’d find. If Mum had been sitting with shoulders slumped and tear tracks down her cheeks I was determined to be a better son to her than last night. But I wasn’t needed, it seemed. She had a fresh cup of tea in her hand while she scoured the newspapers.

  ‘We’ve made the front page,’ she announced, closing The Courier-Mail and stabbing at an article that extended all the way down one side. ‘Not the kind of publicity a town like this needs right now. There’s something in The Australian, too.’

  She was being Councillor O’Leary this morning, more proof that last night was over and done with. While I made myself some breakfast she took some calls on her mobile, letting loose with a couple of words I didn’t normally hear from my mother. Among the gentle swearing I picked out a couple more words I’d never heard from her before – damage control. She seemed to be helping to prepare a press release.

  Back in my room, I tried Amy’s number.

  ‘Hi, Jacob,’ she began, sounding flat.

  ‘Hey, what about yesterday? Must have been hard doing an exam with all that in your head.’

  ‘I didn’t find out until I g
ot to school and I . . . I couldn’t . . . I had to duck it.’

  This was more than I’d expected. Poor Amy. ‘Did you know the horse?’ I asked without thinking about it. She wasn’t the gymkhana type.

  ‘No, nothing like that. I just couldn’t. I don’t want to explain,’ she said quickly, as though she was warning me off.

  I spilled out all sorts of sympathy, hardly aware of what I was saying. Really, I wanted to show her my walking stick.

  ‘Why don’t you came round here, help me with Mahmoud’s page?’ I said casually.

  ‘I don’t know, Jacob. After my meltdown yesterday, Mum and Dad want me to stay close.’

  Understandable. Wouldn’t be right to push her on that. ‘I’ll find the right words. I thought I’d put in stuff about the real Ripper, too.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked sharply. ‘Have you heard something?’

  ‘No, no, I mean what we were saying ourselves, that the diehards won’t accept Mahmoud’s innocence until the police arrest someone else.’

  ‘No, don’t do that. Leave that part out of it.’

  ‘Why? You seemed as keen as I was on Wednesday.’

  ‘I was just agreeing with you. Now that I’ve thought about it, I don’t think that’s what the Mahmoud page is for. You said it yourself. Mahmoud is innocent, that’s all you’re trying to prove.’

  ‘Yeah, and the sooner everyone accepts it’s someone local, the easier that will be.’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that. It’s up to the police.’

  I was being spun around again.

  ‘Sorry, Jacob, Mum wants me for something,’ said Amy, speaking too quickly. ‘Talk to you later, okay?’ and I was left looking at the call ended sign on my phone.

  I went back to bed just for the sensation of doing nothing, and when that started to feel like doing something I logged onto Mahmoud Rais is Innocent.

  Woah! I wasn’t expecting to find much, as though everyone would wait for the great Jacob O’Leary to deliver his carefully worded verdict. Bloody fool. Every man and his kelpie had jumped into the void – three screens’ worth.

  I started to read and immediately my heart sank into my useless legs. There were dozens of messages about the latest attack and what it meant for Mahmoud’s innocence and every line dripped with the self-righteous glee I’d wanted to avoid. Many were adamant the entire town owed Mahmoud an apology. I agreed with that much, although it was never going to happen and it only served to bore it up Palmerston, just as Dad had warned. I searched for Svenson’s name among the clutter, but he must have been too busy marking exam papers. He was there in spirit, all the same, in the words of some barbed comments about the meatworks closing down. ‘You reap what you sow,’ was how one signed off. Very original.

  I posted my own version on the wall then revised my notes, ready for Monday’s English exam. Amy kept bungee-jumping into my thoughts and snapping out of them before I could grab hold. I hoped she was all right and, after the way I’d let Mum down the night before, I was feeling part guilty and part useless. I was still brooding about Wednesday, too, when I’d tried to kiss her on my own terms instead of waiting for her to choose the moment.

  Go see her tomorrow, I told myself, and with the decision made my English notes read more easily.

  Amy wasn’t the only distraction I had to resist that weekend. The Truman Show managed to catch my eye no matter where I put it, and when I finally buried it in my school bag it still taunted me to give it another go. On Sunday, when I set out with my new cane in hand to see Amy, I took it with me and detoured a couple of streets to Blockbuster.

  ‘Jacob, I thought you were too busy acing your exams to do any real work,’ Rory announced to the handful of customers.

  I held up Truman. ‘Just returning.’

  ‘I couldn’t get ten minutes of shelving out of you while you’re here?’

  ‘You’ll have to do it yourself. Might improve your waistline.’ Sparring with Rory was the best thing about my job at Blockbuster.

  A car pulled up outside. I couldn’t see who was driving, at first, just the back seat crammed with black plastic bags, like someone had cleaned out a garage. Then Callum Landis was at the return chute, carefully slotting in his DVDs one at a time like he always did.

  When he started for the door Rory called to him, ‘Not taking any new ones, Callum?’

  He turned with a jerk and stared at us both for a moment. ‘Oh, er . . . no. Moving down to Brisbane.’

  ‘But you’re our best customer. What will we do without you?’ Rory really should have been a politician, the way he’d managed to fit such a smart-arsed put-down so neatly into a compliment.

  ‘I guess,’ said Callum lamely. I doubt he’d picked up on the sarcasm. ‘No shifts at the meatworks, eh.’

  I thought of the comments on Mahmoud’s wall. Here was a victim of the town’s mean-mindedness and for a moment I almost felt sorry for the weedy little shit.

  With Callum gone, Rory wanted a look at my cane. ‘A fleet-footed creature – like yourself,’ he commented about the wolf. He was one of the few people who dared say things like that to me.

  ‘I’d beat you over a hundred metres,’ I said and headed off to Amy’s, thoroughly pleased with myself.

  Amy was just as pleased to see me and made a big thing out of my cane. ‘I love the wolf’s head. Where’d you get it?’

  Ah, slight problem there. ‘An antique shop in town,’ I told her and left Chloe’s name out of it.

  We went into her room where she pointed me to the chair beside her desk and sat herself on the edge of her unmade bed.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, then laughed at the mess to show she didn’t care. Neither did I.

  We talked about Schoolies and how it would have already started by this time next week. She used the words, I can’t believe . . . three times in a minute as though her easy way of speaking had become bogged down in safe clichés. I saw then that she was still stressed about Friday. I didn’t mentioned Mahmoud because that linked into her fears, and I’d come with happier ideas in mind.

  I moved to the bed and took her hand. When I reached up to stroke some loose strands of hair behind her ear, she closed her eyes to welcome the sensation, then rested her head on my shoulder. I slipped my arm around her and leaned closer, until her head was nuzzled against my neck.

  ‘This is nice,’ she whispered and, lifting her head, she pecked me on the cheek.

  I hadn’t come for pecks on the cheek. This was the moment. ‘Amy, I’ve been thinking about us and it’s time other people knew we’re together. No more keeping it to ourselves, okay. I want to be able to say you’re my girlfriend.’

  She stiffened and although her face was hidden below my chin I knew it had gone serious in the way I’d been trying to avoid. ‘I’m not so sure, Jacob.’

  ‘Amy, I’ve shown how much I . . . how much I care about you.’ ‘Love’ was an awkward word and I’d told myself to leave it out, yet there weren’t a lot of words I could use instead. ‘What I said about the stars is true – I think about you all the time,’ I told her. ‘Even in the exams on Thursday, you kept sneaking in and I had to chase you away off the table.’ I made a show of shooing imaginary fairies off my knee. ‘The teachers thought I was pulling some trick, a new kind of cheat.’

  That earned a laugh from Amy, at least.

  All those words tumbling out of me so quickly, though, had played merry hell with my mouth and I turned away a moment to wipe off the tiny bubble that I sensed in the wedge of my lips.

  I faced Amy again and leaned towards her, determined to kiss her properly.

  Amy backed away the same distance.

  My arm had hung loosely around her until then, but when she pulled away a fraction I tensed my muscles to hold her still. She kept leaning away further and further and drawing me with her and, because my mind was on other things, I didn’t know I’d lost my balance until I fell against her.

  Amy pushed me away and stood up. ‘I don’t l
ike the spastic way you fall on me,’ she said, with a kind of panic in her voice. ‘And I don’t want you to kiss me, all right. It’s not happening. I can’t stand the spit in the corner of your mouth.’

  I’d hauled myself upright by this time, but my head wasn’t straight about any of this. The words she’d said wouldn’t go into my ears and yet they already had. All I could do was stare up at her, too shocked to speak.

  She seemed to find my silent gaze as annoying as my attempt to kiss her. She turned away from me, pressing her hands together then throwing them apart to end up behind her as though she didn’t know what to do with them. From the look on her face you’d think she was fighting every thought that entered her head.

  ‘I don’t want anyone to know about us. Actually . . . actually I think we should stop the little things we’ve been doing, the touching at school and meeting up together. Stop it now, before anyone finds out and then there’s nothing to explain, you know, like people asking why you broke up and all that crap. It’s not like we’ve really been together.’

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ I said, yet the words she’d used showed that she did.

  ‘It’s not a real relationship, anyway. Just friends talking and having fun.’

  ‘It’s real to me. It’s all I think about. That wasn’t just something I made up, it’s the truth.’

  ‘I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea. Friends, that’s all it was. I don’t want things to go further than that. I never did, right from the start, not when I’ve always known your problems. That’s why I only kissed you to the side, sort of. I mean, the spit . . .’ and she shuddered as she said it.

  I don’t remember much after that, not the words or the movements of my pathetic body. How I ached, though – I remember that. I’d been opened up with a razor blade, like those horses, and everything had spilled right out of me until I was empty inside.

  My memory starts up again later, when I was walking home with the same tears in my eyes I’d fought on my way home from Kibble’s paddock. Then it had been the long streets ahead of me that my CP couldn’t overcome. Now I could see my whole life stretching off into the distance and it seemed just as impossible. I’d known pain before, in my muscles and joints, the pain after falls and the different kind of smarting when words were sneered in my face, but I’d never known this pain before, a hurt so deep in my chest I could barely breath.