The Cartographer

by Peter Twohig

  So I told him everything, everything up to what I did with the gun. There were some things he would never know about me and Granddad.

  ‘I was worried about having the gun so I threw it in the river,’ I said.

  ‘Whereabouts — near your place?’

  ‘No, I took a ferry and dropped it overboard up near Hawthorn. It’s gone.’

  He took a sip of his drink and relaxed, to show me that the interrogation was over.

  ‘Then that’s that.’

  But that, I thought, was about as close to being that as Frank McManus was to getting a Christmas card from the ALP that wasn’t tied to a brick. I had to warn Granddad, for one thing. Mr S might have said ‘that’s that’, but I reckoned that his idea of that’s that was probably the same as most people’s ‘I’m going to get to the bottom of this if it’s the last thing I ever bloody do’. Also I had to do something to prove to him — to them all — that I was not some kind of lunatic who runs around the drains of Melbourne in the middle of the night driving trains, doing B&E, getting up to God knows what mischief and stealing high explosives. That’s right.

  However, my prove-to-them-once-and-for-all plan would have to wait. First, I wanted to have my own turn at doing a bit of interrogating. But how to do it without dobbing in Mrs S?

  ‘When I first mentioned you to Mum, I got the feeling she already knew you. I mean, she didn’t ask any questions at all. And Mum likes to ask questions.’

  Mr S didn’t blink.

  ‘Yes, we were wartime chums, worked together for a bit. Took me a while to realise you were her son — different surname, of course. Small world. Explains a lot about you, actually.’

  Just then Mrs Sanderson appeared with a tin of Roses cream biscuits.

  ‘I knew if I looked hard enough I’d find these,’ she said, making a half-baked attempt to sound like someone’s old aunty and giving me a knowing look that told me she’d heard our conversation and was okay about it. ‘They’re left over from last time Mrs Palmer and James came to visit; I clean forgot to serve them. Looks like the three of us will have to polish them off by ourselves.’

  Her entrance was staged, of course, and I understood that the conversation about Mum was over — perhaps for good.

  I had never met people quite like Mr and Mrs S, and I knew I never would again. They were a tag-team of good guys, like Zig and Zag the Teleclowns, who never got up to mischief themselves, but seemed to tolerate it in me. I also realised at that very moment, while I was watching Mrs S pretending to be unable to get the lid off the biscuits as if she was a helpless old lady, and eventually handing it to me to open, and watching Mr S not moving at all to help, as if it was all beyond him, that they were almost certainly secret superheroes of some kind — him with his X-Ray Mind and her with the ability to appear and disappear at exactly the right moment — and I felt humbled. I resolved, on the spot, that I would use my Kim-like powers of observation, the ones detected by Mr S himself, to model myself on them, especially Mr S, and to acquire his mysterious and powerful X-Ray Mind.

  I would model myself on Mrs S too, but I wouldn’t go as far as to wear her dresses, which were a bit floral for my liking. Though I had the feeling that she wouldn’t have minded at all.

  30 Squaring things

  The following day was Saturday. As I prepared for my mission into the unknown, into the jungle, of which the Sandersons’ back yard was only a tiny part, I checked my explorer’s bag for what I knew could be the last time.

  The routine of the check caused my guard to slip, and the memory I’d had every few hours of my life for the past year jumped in before I had a chance to sing any of ‘The Happy Wanderer’, or turn myself into the Cartographer, who is one of those superheroes who believes that memories are for girls. It’s a memory that won’t sit still so you can turn it around in your mind and learn about it, like my memory of Josephine Thompson’s face; it’s one of those memories that runs like a little movie, over and over, until you’re just about out of your mind and can hardly wait for intermission. And the more it plays, the faster, louder, smellier and touchier it gets.

  It’s Tom standing up there on the monkey bar, not hanging onto anything, and taking a good look around Richmond, though Richmond is probably not taking a good look at him, and making his Tarzan noise, which means he is just about to do one of his tricks and frighten the life out of me. He’s wearing his orange T-shirt, blue jeans and blue sandshoes, and his battleship grey kid’s hat covered in flag pins, so he looks a lot like an escaped Beagle Boy — we both do. I was never more aware of the gorgeousness of our being twins than at that moment, and yet at the same time I was never more aware of the differences: the way he did his Tarzan yell, the way he curled his hands around his mouth, which I didn’t do; the way he winked at me, a slow, big wink like Dad’s, whereas my reply was quick and subtle, more like Granddad’s; the way his hair stuck out from under his hat — no wait, we both had that.

  He told me he was going to jump down behind the monkey bar and grab the side and do a swing: that was going to be his latest trick. But the monkey bar suddenly makes a lazy little cry, and leans in his direction, as if to say: ‘All right, Blayney, you smart-arse bastard, beat this trick.’ Then the whole bloody thing slowly begins to fall, but Tom does his swing anyway. He doesn’t jump off, he tries to beat the monkey bar. Which you can’t do. And it squashes his pale throat like a raw sausage roll. He can’t get his hands under it. He can’t speak. He can’t even breathe, and his face goes purple. And after a while he is still, with his eyes still looking. I am the opposite, screaming, yelling and straining to lift all at the same time. I was really good at screaming and straining. But I was lousy at lifting, at helping. I stop for a second and look around, but there is no one. And just like that, it is all over.

  And suddenly, without even saying The End, the movie is over and the lights are back on.

  The Sandersons had almost bled me dry of information. Mr and Mrs S had tortured me all afternoon, and long into the night, with cream biscuits and lemonade, followed by fish and chips for tea and chocolate ice-cream and trifle for dessert. Without his mental strength the Cartographer wouldn’t have stood a chance, and neither would his partner, Zac the Wonder Dog, who was tortured with the leftovers. It was pitiful to see how I spilled my guts about my friends and family, and some of my adventures, though I parried a few questions that cut a bit too close to the bone for the Cartographer’s liking. I was careful only to talk about Granddad as if he was some kind of pitiful old codger who was barely capable of taking care of himself unless I was around to help him, and who knew bugger all about practically everything. Whenever the conversation looked like getting on to the Cartographer’s adventures, he simply stepped sideways and jabbed his way out of trouble, like a flyweight who’d just taken a little something to see him through the fight.

  As for Railwayman, he kept his mouth shut. He was going to need his overalls of secrecy if he was to perform his role faithfully. And no matter what happened, the Outlaw would never die, just make himself scarce, but before he did, he would leave his mark. That was my plan, and afterwards my interrogators, and indeed all their secret COMPOL mates, would say: ‘How we misjudged that fine young man. In the end he demonstrated that he did indeed devote his powers to good and not to evil.’ And I would walk tall in the world of both supermen and ordinary men. But I would keep the common touch.

  I now knew that my underground network had been penetrated and could no longer be regarded as safe. I would have to abandon Fort Yarra, as I called my hideout on Josephine Island. From here on my mission would have to be conducted with top security. That meant no partner. I went out and made sure Zac had some water, and whispered his orders to him. His role was small but vital. I patted him and told him to stay, because he wasn’t tied up.

  It was dawn. I had decided to leave before the Sandersons came down, to avoid awkward questions. I put a banana and an apple and a couple of cream biscuits in my explorer’s bag, and t
hen I was off. There were two gates, and the front gate, being relatively new, was completely silent when opened, and closed silently too. The back gate, on the other hand, had developed a moaning squeak that could easily be heard inside the house. This was the gate I took. They would think that I had taken the back gate because I was not sneaking out but just going for a walk around the local streets, perhaps to check on Mum and to make sure she still had a house.

  I walked out the gate and sauntered across and down the far side of Kipling Lane, knowing that I was visible for at least part of the way from the Sandersons’ bedroom window. I was careful not to look back. If they saw me, I wanted them to say to each other: ‘There he goes, out for his morning walk, no doubt in the boyish hope of having a bit of harmless fun and spreading a small portion of summer cheer into the lives and hearts of the neighbours. Now, dearest, what shall we breakfast on this lovely, balmy morning?’

  It was quiet and still for a Saturday. You’d expect someone to be stirring, but no, there was just me, on a cloudy but warm morning. My plan had been to have a look at our house, then to go in the direction I had come to know best, one that was not on any compass: down. I did go over to Mum’s place, and I did reconnoitre the place, like Biggles of 266, but all I saw were a couple of snoring women, one taut and wiry and the other soft and lollopy. Fascinating. As for Flame Boy, he had made himself scarce, probably gone to incinerate some local edifice before brekkie, I was thinking. He was a boy after my own heart, and I wished him God speed; ten out of ten for application. Just as long as he used up all his matches before he got bored and hungry and realised that Flame Boy cannot live by fire alone.

  I had seen enough of that place, and as you know, I am not one to stare through windows at ladies unless, of course, they are in a class with Honey Warm and Hungry Girl or Josephine, after whom superheroes name islands, but Molly wasn’t, and Mum had been scratched from the fixture. So off I went, whistling a happy tune — I think it might have been ‘Tramp, Tramp, Tramp Along the Highway’, always a firm favourite with your superhero. Let’s face it, whatever Nelson Eddy lacked, Mario Lanza more than made up for.

  But I didn’t go in the direction of down just yet. I grabbed one of the early trams up Church Street, one of those trams full of people who have to go to work on a Saturday, which was a hell of a lot of the people in Richmond. I jumped off in my usual showy way, frightening the life out of a man in a dark blue Hudson, and headed off in the direction of Granddad’s place. When I arrived I went straight up to the front door and rang the bell. Granddad was an early riser, being a believer in the saying that the early bird catches the punter — I’m sure that’s how it goes. But there was no sign of him, so I went around the back to retrieve the key and let myself in. But the door was open. Or rather, the door had been smashed open and the lock was busted.

  I ran around the house, worried about what I might find; the place looked as if a bomb had hit it. Or, to be exact, it looked as if it had been turned over by someone looking for something.

  Now, I’d seen how crims turn a place over — I was with Spider Webb and his mum when we got back to their house from the flicks one day — it was Darby O’Gill and the Little People — and discovered that the whole place had been wrecked. Spider’s stepfather had been done for robbery of some kind, and had gone to jail owing people money. They’d wrecked everything, even things that weren’t worth wrecking. Dad had told me that they did that out of spite, but Granddad said they worked that way because they were as thick as bricks. And I’d also seen how cops turn a place over, leaving a lot of stuff untouched, because they know exactly what they’re after and where it might be hidden. I mean, they wreck people’s houses all day, right?

  This had been done by the coppers. I wondered for a second whether Mr Sanderson had had a hand in this, but then I felt my face go red — what was I thinking? But I had to face it: Granddad was probably down the lock-up assisting the rozzers with their enquiries. The question was: had they found it?

  Put yourself in the punter’s shoes, Granddad always said. He was a big one for the shoes thing. In this case, it was easy, as I knew Granddad a lot better than those bastards did. I went for a walk around and assessed the situation. I knew this house like I knew the inside of my adventurer’s bag, like I knew the shape of Josephine Thompson’s face. I didn’t bother with the logical hiding places; the police would have done that. This would be different. The gun was short: both the barrel and the stock had been sawn in half. It was short enough to hide in a leg holster, which is where Smokey had probably carried it. I knew that Granddad’s main concern wouldn’t be with whipping it out fast, because the last thing he would want would be to get caught with it in his hand, and waving it at the coppers. Also I knew it would be unloaded, but that the ammo would be with it. I also knew that once it was hidden he would only ever take it out for the person he was passing it on to, and that person would have to come to him. And finally, I knew that he would not let that person see where it was hidden, because he would probably want to use that hiding place again. No part of the house fitted the bill.

  I went out into the street, and took a look at the house from the front. I was looking for a window that didn’t correspond to a room in the house, in case there was a secret room or something, because as everyone knows secret rooms are quite popular in mysteries, but there wasn’t one. There were just two houses exactly the same, but mirror images of each other – a semi. Around the back it was the same story: two houses, one occupied by Granddad and the other by his neighbour, Mrs Morgan. I’d been in her house so many times I knew it nearly as well as Granddad’s, especially as it was the same shape only the other way around. Mrs Morgan was visiting her sister in Bunyip, which was in the middle of nowhere, and Granddad had been going in to feed her budgies every day, and had a key. Five minutes later I had that key and was inside Mrs Morgan’s house. Five minutes after that I found the gun and the ammo neatly slotted into the Electrolux vacuum cleaner. The punter’s shoes had paid off large.

  Now it was just a matter of getting in touch with Granddad. I rang the police and told them who I was and that my mum, Mr Taggerty’s daughter, had been taken to hospital and I needed to talk to him. To my amazement, he came to the phone.

  ‘What is it boy? They said your mother was in hospital.’

  Jesus, he sounded terrible.

  ‘No, Granddad, she’s all right. I just wanted to see what they nicked you for.’

  ‘They reckon I’ve got Smokey’s gun,’ he said, without lowering his voice. ‘But I haven’t.’

  I heard a rough voice in the background say: ‘Hurry up, Arch, you’re not staying at the bloody Chevron.’

  I knew that voice.

  ‘Isn’t that the plainclothesman I met in the pub?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a funny old world, isn’t it?’

  ‘What kind of car has he got?’

  ‘It’s a black Zephyr. Why?’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll see you later. By the way, be prepared for a shock when you get home.’

  ‘Nothing shocks me, boy.’

  ‘I know, Granddad. Granddad, I’m going to have a talk to Mr Sanderson. He’ll help.’

  ‘I don’t think so. He won’t interfere with the locals.’

  ‘We’ll see. Have you got a brief?’

  ‘Yeah, Arthur Minto. He’s on his way over. I’ll be home shortly. Where’re you callin’ from?’

  There was a loud click and I heard someone breathing.

  ‘I’m calling from’ — I thought of Mrs Morgan — ‘Aunty Vera’s. You’ll be happy to hear she’s much better, Granddad, and I’m taking care of all her housework, including the vacuuming.’

  He chuckled softly, the way he did when he’d gotten the better of some drongo or other down at the market.

  ‘Good boy. Now off you go and I’ll see you later.’

  I’d always had plans of my own for that shotgun, and now that Granddad was in trouble, I thought this would be a goo d time to put them into a
ction. I rushed home again and got the spent cartridge from under the floorboard, took it back to Granddad’s, and loaded it into the gun. A few minutes later I was down at the fish shop getting a nice long flathead, and a few minutes after that I was back at Mrs Morgan’s place wrapping up the gun with the fish. Now I looked and smelt like a boy with a fish.

  After a short tram ride I was at the cop-shop. Around the back, I found the black Zephyr. It was a Ford, like Barney’s car, so I slipped the claw end of my pry into the slot under the lock, just the way he’d shown me, and pushed it to one side until I heard a muffled click, and the boot jumped up a fraction. Then I opened it quickly, half expecting it to be full of dead bodies, and shoved the package in. The boot closed with the same little click, which told me I hadn’t wrecked it. A wipe with my hanky to get rid of my prints, then it was back to Granddad’s place to wash up and make a phone call to Russell Street Police Headquarters.

  I suddenly had one of those feelings of relief, like the one you get when your Aunty Jem buys you a book for your birthday, and you think: Oh no — not bloody rabbits with blue coats on again, and it turns out to be about warships instead.

  I was still tidying up when Granddad arrived home with Arthur Minto. I made them sit down and organised a cup of tea. I gathered that Granddad had not been charged, and the coppers had gone down even further in Granddad’s estimation, which I reckon probably put them somewhere a shade lower than a rock spider’s belly-button. I also found out that it definitely wasn’t Mr Sanderson who dobbed, but probably Barney, because he had been nicked for doing over some bloke who turned out to be a copper, and was now busy dobbing in everyone in the phone book, to avoid a long holiday. I felt like a real flamin’ dill.

  When Mr Minto left I said to Granddad: ‘Don’t worry, Granddad, it’s gone. I got rid of it.’

  ‘How’d you find it?’