The Cartographer

by Peter Twohig

  People said some pretty weird things. Look at what the murderer had said to the woman; what the kidnapper had said to the Harrigan kid down the drain; what Dunnett had said to Flame Boy; what the fat copper had said when he nearly caught me. And they were always making plans, like the ones Granddad and me made on Saturdays before we left home; and the ones Granddad and Blarney Barney made practically every time they ran into each other, which was far too often as far as Mum was concerned; and the ones the plainclothesmen were always making every time we saw them; and the ones everyone at the racecourse made for the money they would win when their selection got up; and the ones Mum was always making for getting out of this bloody hole, as she called it, and pissing off to Queensland. And what about Who Dunnett’s evil plan to turn my head into a hard-boiled egg?

  The point is, people say these weird things and make their plans because they don’t want to have any surprises. I’d made plans before, of course, but they hadn’t worked out that well. I guess that could be because I had always liked surprises — well, some. Now I thought I’d discover what everyone was saying about things, and use that information — intelligence, we superheroes call it — to my advantage. When I thought about the idea, I couldn’t see anything wrong with it, which should have told me something right there.

  17 Wonder Woman

  The way I look at it, there are some things you just can’t put on a map, like what I saw at the surgery of the Evil Dr Stern. The eavesdropping thing was dangerous in a different way: while there wasn’t much danger in being caught and set on fire or shot — doctors weren’t allowed to do that — there was a definite danger of becoming the Boy Who Knew Too Much, because that’s about how much I reckoned I knew. But Biggles wouldn’t have pulled out of a dive early and neither would I. Besides, I was onto something. Art Linkletter was right: people are funny. So I had a club meeting with my partner, Biscuit, and we decided to carry on. Besides, we had to see this thing through — we had to find out where the map was taking us, where it was all going to end.

  I had by now mapped a good many of the streets near my house and my drawings were looking much better. I had got Mum to buy me some new coloured pencils — which, to my surprise, smelt just like Sister Benedict (and got an eight) — and water colours in a tin, and I had turned myself into a regular Rolf Harris, though I had not been able to stop Biscuit licking the Clag. But I understood; with me it was cream biscuits.

  We had a lot of drawings of the outside of houses, but not many of the insides. There was the Sandersons’ place, of course, and the drunken copper’s place, and the Orange Tree pub, and the surgeries of Who Dunnett and the Evil Dr Stern, and one or two of the local buildings, and a few houses I had been in to eat cake and drink lemonade, which I could get practically any time from anyone in our street just by knocking on the door and announcing that I had come to visit. I did that by saying: ‘Hello, Mrs Bennett,’ — or ‘Mrs McCracken’ or whoever it was — ‘it’s me and Biscuit.’ So the houses in my own street had been mapped pretty well. I had even stuck in a photo of the cars in our street and I got that by talking Mum into taking it with her Brownie Box and giving it to me. I told her I had a new hobby and, funnily enough, she believed it, and didn’t even tell me that photos didn’t grow on trees. Of course, I knew she would only take one picture, to show me how to do it, and then she would leave me to do the rest, but that was the whole idea. Anyway, it’s important for an investigator to know his way around a camera. You never know when it’ll come in handy.

  So it was the insides of houses that were to come next, and besides, that was the best place to find people having secret conversations. It didn’t really matter where the next adventure was going to be, because as far as the insides of houses went, just about anywhere I went I was going to strike it rich. Even so, I spent a few weeks keeping my eye out for any place that fitted the bill, then decided on a large house that looked like it might have a lot of places to hide. It was one of the biggest houses in the area, and was on the other side of the river, in South Yarra.

  I had not brought my pinch bar with me because of something I once heard Blarney Barney say to Granddad — which shows the benefit of keeping your ears open. Barney said that he once got nicked by the police for being in Jumbo Jarvis’s place while Jumbo was at the West Melbourne Stadium watching his boy take Danny Houghton apart for a shot at the state bantamweight title — he lost and had to go back to jockeying, and we met him at the track one day; remind me to tell you about it. So when the copper said: ‘Hello, Barney, what a surprise finding you here; what have you got to say for yourself?’, Barney had a story all ready: he told them he was sleepwalking and must have lost his way, and just to prove it he was wearing his striped pyjamas in the North Melbourne footy club colours. So quick as a flash, the copper says: ‘So, Barney, it must be hard yakka, sleepwalking with one of those in your hand.’ And Barney looks down and sees that he is still hanging on to his wrecking bar.

  Barney said to Granddad: ‘I told the beak I was hoping to get off with trespass. “Ah, hope springs eternal,” says he.’

  So no pinch bar for me, which was just as well, as it weighed a ton. This was one of those houses that had a name — ‘Sandhurst’ — which was a lovely name, I thought, as I liked sand a lot, and was always going to the beach, at least before Dad shot through. Also, it reminded me of my friend Wasley Hurst, who we always called Wozza, though the sisters at St Felix’s never called him that, which was pretty weird. So it was off to ‘Sandhurst’ for me, and it was Stay back at the fort and stand guard for Biscuit.

  Before you trespass on someone’s property, it is necessary to case the joint, and this I had done from both the tram, which is where I first saw it, and the street. After a few walks past, I thought I could find my way around the outside at least in the dark. I had told Mum I was staying at Luigi Esposito’s place for the night, but really I was going to sleep at ‘Sandhurst’, then come home for brekkie. The tricky bit, getting into the house, would be taken care of while the family who lived there was out on Saturday arvo, unless, like a lot of the people on my side of the river, they stayed home and listened to the races on the radio.

  Anyway, I went over to ‘Sandhurst’ and had a bit of a sniff around to see if the coast was clear. I noticed that the car, an enormous black Chevrolet, was gone from its usual place out in the street, and all the curtains were closed. I found the lane around the back and went for a recce. The house was easy to locate and even easier to get into: there had once been a dog, now gone, and the family had built a special flap in the back door for him to get in, but as there was no dog, I reckoned that for the time being I would have to do.

  Inside, the house was impressive: lots of room and a big TV. Upstairs, there were two bedrooms for kids, though I had never seen any sign of them, and a big bedroom for the parents. Downstairs, the living room had a piano in it. It was black and highly polished, and made ours look like an old bomb. On the piano were photos of a couple of kids and their parents, and a few postcards that told me that the people who lived here were not the Sandhursts at all, but Ken and Lesley Palmer: the Palmers. I lifted the lid and pressed a few keys to see how it sounded, and made a mental note to get myself a piano like this one — I had always wanted to play the one at our place, but it had a cold, hollow ring that made your teeth hurt, while this one’s sound was as warm as a puppy.

  When I looked out the window to the front I had a good view of Chapel Street, which is what Church Street was called on this side of the river, and through the back windows, in the kitchen, I had a view of the back of City Boys High. Though I had seen the front of the school from the train, many times, I had never been able to think of it as a school, much less the school I would soon be attending, as it looked so much like a castle that no one used any more. Still, there was something exciting about observing the place secretly.

  I resumed my tour of the house. As every eavesdropper eventually discovers for himself, it is best to have an assortment of
hiding places, just in case you’re surprised while going about your business, at least that’s what Barney told me, though Granddad frowned at him and said: ‘What the hell are yer tellin’ ’im that for?’ So I knew that this information was something I needed to know, because grown-ups (even ones like Granddad) have a habit of not telling kids the things they need to know. Barney, however, was a bit the other way, and was always telling me things I needed to know, which drove Granddad round the bend. Once he said to Barney: ‘I’ll clock you in a minute,’ which was boxing talk, and Barney had shut up. I reckon Granddad had the wood on Barney, even though he was only half as big as him.

  So there I was, looking for hiding places. Pretty soon I found the perfect spot: the attic. Just like the fat copper’s house, this house had an attic, and as it was a big house I figured it would have a big attic. But the ceiling was a bit high, and I reckoned that even if I found a manhole, I would probably not be able to reach it and get down again. But as luck would have it, there was a little staircase going up to the attic, and when I got there I discovered that it had once been a bedroom, but was now a junk room, and had lots of cobwebs. No one had been up here for years. No one but … the Cartographer!

  I lay on the little bed that was up there, and though it squeaked, it was fairly comfortable. I nodded off just like that.

  When I woke up, the arvo was over and I could tell by the light outside, over in the direction of the city, that it was probably about seven o’clock — we explorers know about light and cities. Anyway, I was wearing my watch. Being in that strange room at the end of the day reminded me of the bedroom they put me in when I went to get help for Tom. Alone in the room I realised, just the same way you realise that Father Christmas is not real, that this was the true beginning of my life, and what came before was just me kidding myself. In that moment I wasn’t even sure that there had been a Tom. It made me think of that kid who looked like us. He lived over the other side of Church Street, and went to the state school. Thing is, this kid looked a lot like Tom and me. We used to see him hanging around the same places we went to, and we’d look at each other and look at him, and look at each other again, until our heads were wobbling around like Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men.

  ‘He’s not my brother. Must be yours.’

  ‘He’s not mine. Must be yours.’

  We walked up to him at the Baths one day, determined to work it out once and for all.

  ‘G’day.’

  ‘G’day.’

  ‘You look like us.’

  ‘No I don’t.’

  ‘’Course you do. What’s your name?’

  ‘Raffi Radion.’

  ‘Ralphy?’

  ‘Raffi.’

  ‘Come off it, we weren’t born yesterday. What kind of name is that?’

  I wished I hadn’t said that as soon as I opened my mouth, because half the kids around the place came from somewhere I’d only heard of because I collected stamps.

  ‘Armenian. What’s yours?’

  Tom dug his thumbs into the top of his bathers.

  ‘We’re the Blayney brothers. And you’re better off being our friend.’

  ‘Suits me.’

  ‘Well good. Want to join our gang?’

  Now this was all bull, because the only gang we belonged to was the Commandos, and the whole club had to agree before anyone could be asked to join.

  ‘Okay. What do I have to do?’

  The kid asked that because it was well known that before you can get into any gang, you have to pass a test, usually one that no one who was already in the gang would try in a month of Sundays.

  ‘See that diving tower,’ says Tom.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, up you go, then.’

  Raffi took one look at the diving tower and reckoned he’d stick with the gang he was already in. We didn’t blame him. You wouldn’t get us up there in a million years.

  But we could still get a bit of mileage out of the experience.

  ‘Hey, Mum, we know a kid who looks just like us.’

  ‘That’d be Val Radion’s boy.’

  If there’s an answer to that, I’m still waiting to hear it.

  I had a walk up and down the attic of ‘Sandhurst’ to see if the floorboards made any noise, and they did, so I had to walk only on the parts that had nails in them, as they marked the location of the beams underneath, but that was a bit tricky, as they were about a foot apart and hard to see. There were ceiling lights up there and a light switch near the door, but no curtains, so I reckoned it would be suicide to turn the lights on. I therefore got to work looking in all the boxes, crates and suitcases, but turned up nothing in particular. The real news came when the Palmers got home.

  There were the two parents, and they did not have the kids with them; in fact they did not have the Chev with them either, but another car altogether, a Wolseley — I had made it my business to learn the makes of all the getaway cars, and Wolseley was one of them, though not the best, and would not be able to beat a Chev in a race, everyone reckoned. It turned out that this bloke was not Mr Palmer at all, and he and the woman seemed to be having some kind of disagreement, which I could hear quite clearly, as it all took place in the main bedroom right below me.

  ‘No, Bob, I told you, I really am unwell — I mean it.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. I could tell by the way you looked at me you were just aching for a chance to get me alone —’

  Now when I heard the bloke say that, I felt as though I was standing in one of those super-fast express lifts in Myer’s, and the lift driver had just pushed the Going Down lever hard. My feet suddenly turned to electric ice, and my head to burnt rubber smoke, and in between, I sagged. This was the voice I had heard in the house in Kipling Lane. She was going to die.

  ‘Bob, you should leave. I appreciate you giving me a lift, and I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea, but you’re out of line. Ken will be back soon and you need to leave.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere — and neither is he. I loosened the distributor cap just enough so that he won’t see it for ages. We’ve got plenty of time. It’s a golden opportunity.’

  ‘You did that! Get out now, I mean it! If Ken knew it was you who —’

  ‘He won’t: I’ve been driving those things all my life. He’ll be scratching his head for hours. Probably have to ring the RACV. That gives us plenty of time —’

  ‘There’s no “us”, Bob. Now just go. You don’t know him like I do. If he knew what you were really after he’d kill you —’

  ‘I’d like to see him try. Now come here!’

  There was a fight: I know a fight when I hear one, and it was just like the fight between Mum and Uncle Maury — hell, for a minute I thought it was them, but it wasn’t, and even though Lesley — I guessed it was her — was fighting back, she suddenly made a loud noise that told me she had been winded, then started crying.

  ‘That’s the way,’ said the bloke. ‘You don’t want to get any bruises on that pretty face of yours, do you? What would the neighbours say?’

  All Lesley could say was: ‘He’ll kill you, you bastard.’

  But he had an answer for everything.

  ‘No he won’t, darling, because in an hour I’ll be on a plane — the flight’s already booked. And besides, you wouldn’t want the shame. Know what he told me when the Gordons broke up? He said if you ever did that to him he’d throw you out in the street and you could stand on corners for a crust —’

  ‘You’re wrong, he’d never throw his own kids out —’

  ‘Who said anything about the kids?’

  ‘You bastard!’

  She was crying but she had given in, and I couldn’t make out what was happening for a minute, except that it didn’t sound good. The Cartographer badly wanted to go down there and save the woman. But he had no idea how, as he has no super powers, getting by entirely on his wits. However, I had an irresistible urge to see more of the events, no matter how scary it all was. I sneaked down
from my hiding place and looked around the corner of the door. I shouldn’t have, I know. What I saw split me in half, so that I didn’t know which one of me I was for a moment. Part of me, the Cartographer, was peeking round the corner, and part of me, the kid who didn’t want to die, was high up above the room, outside the house, looking out over the rooftops. I was not there, but at the same time I was. It was not the life of the woman I was worried about, that’s what I remember the most: it was my own life. I looked out over the darkening roofs towards the city, parts of which were dying for the day, and parts of which were bleeding neon, like the top of Young and Jackson’s, and wondered how the lovely Pajama Game sign was doing. I’m ashamed that I did that, but there it is.

  But the Cartographer pulled me back and made me watch what the murderer did to the woman, and what he said — I saw it as if I had seen it every day before breakfast, as if it was normal for me. I knew in those moments that I was not going to draw what I was seeing: I wouldn’t have to. Then suddenly, there was the sound of someone running up the stairs, and I shrank back behind the door just in the nick of time. Now there was a new voice, more of a roar, really.

  A man shouted, ‘What the fuck’s going on here?’ or something like that. He might have said ‘hell’, but I know a few people, Barney included, who definitely would have said ‘fuck’.

  There was a moan from Lesley, a very tired moan that ended with her crying very loudly, and a lot of yelling from Ken and the bloke, which I wanted to see of course, but I’d already seen enough to last me about twenty-seven years. Besides, I remembered that my plan was only to listen. Then Lesley’s voice turned into a yell, and I could tell she was getting stuck into Ken for some reason.