The Innocents

by Nette Hilton

  But now, with the scratched arm and the sore heart, a gift of cards would be welcomed.

  Just this last cigarette and it would be done.

  This little one. She would be made happy again.

  10

  EVENING

  MISSIE’S ROOM

  The night creaked a thousand footsteps. Judith Mae’s ghost raised itself from the floor and floated up the stairs seeking her yellow cardie. The ghost who’d lived here since the house was first built rattled and tapped its way along the outside verandahs looking for a way in and there were any number of ghouls scratching to be let in at the window.

  Her heart was beating hard enough to lift fair out of her chest but it couldn’t drown out all those other sounds. She peered over the bed covers, praying that there’d be a bit of light to see by.

  Her mother’s bedroom was silent. She hadn’t come upstairs yet.

  It wasn’t even late and there were hours and hours of darkness to get through. It was true there were ghosts. Zill swore she’d seen one and that wasn’t helping.

  Now she lay on her side, aching from holding still so passing ghosts wouldn’t notice her. Her arm hurt. It was stiff and the bandage that had been tied around it was sticking and pulling. And her head hurt. That’d be her mum’s fault, the way she scrubbed it to get the cow poo out.

  Keeping her good arm safely under the blankets, she prodded around looking for lumps. Your own mother wasn’t supposed to make lumps on your head.

  There, she found one. And it hurt. She pressed it a little. It definitely bloody hurt. She explored a little further, pleased the hurt lingered and might, with just a little more pushing, result in a headache. Perhaps she’d be too sick to go to school tomorrow.

  They’d be waiting. Those girls. Joannie and Mary Sanderson. They’d had it in for her since kindergarten and they’d be out to get her again now that Jimmy Johnson had landed them with his slingshot.

  Served them right. Served them bloody well right and she found herself drifting easily from that thought to Jimmy Johnson and how he’d looked when he stood up there and aimed his shots at Joannie.

  He had nice eyes.

  And his hair was nice, too. All crinkly and tight curls. She remembered last summer when she’d seen him get out of the river how it’d stayed in tight little springs that sprayed water away as he shook his head.

  He was always bobbing up, wasn’t he.

  He’d been there back then when she’d fallen in the river side of the pool and there was only blackness under her. The water rushing into her mouth and filling her lungs was something she wasn’t going to forget in a hurry. And reaching, grabbing and floundering and going down again instead of up.

  It’d been him that had grabbed her and hauled her out. Been him that had left her, huddled and sheepish sitting on the high concrete step, shivering in the sun, trying not to think about how drowning felt. She’d gone home that day, up the hill and over the road so full of that awful fear that there shouldn’t have been room for being embarrassed. But there was and she cringed now when she thought of how she probably looked, balancing out there on that pool wall, too smart for her own good, in a place where skinny, hook-shaped girls like her didn’t go.

  And she couldn’t tell.

  She wasn’t supposed to go on the plank that divided the pool from the deep, sucking brown river. She’d had to promise and her mother said she’d get such a belting if she dared to go there.

  She’d never found out.

  And Missie did go to the pool again. But not often, and only on the hottest days in January, and never, ever, ever anywhere near the sneaky plank that kept the river on its own side.

  Jimmy Johnson was always there.

  She tried to remember what he looked like back then, but could only vaguely recall big old swimmers the same colour as the trousers that men wore when they marched in the street on Anzac Day.

  He had skinny arms, too. And she could see the ribs on his chest.

  She didn’t think he was skinny any more, though.

  He’d grown and his arms were fatter and stronger now. She wasn’t sure about his ribs but, come summer holidays, she’d remember to check.

  It was easier listening to ghosts now that her eyes were more accustomed to the light. There was a crack of it coming in from under the door.

  There was something else though.

  A definite tapping. And a shadow as if someone real was standing out there.

  Tap. Taptaptap.

  Missie kept the blanket pulled up over her ears and the top of her head. Things with long, creeping fingers were waiting to grab her around her neck if she wasn’t careful. She curled herself in a ball and tried to make out just what it was that blotted the middle of the white line of light against the floor.

  Something had been pushed under the door.

  And the shadow of someone real was gone.

  Outside the wind blew the ghosts about but, if she listened harder still, she could make out the muffled sound of a wireless playing somewhere downstairs and voices. Mr Fellows was home from the fleet. She could just make out his voice. He must be in the hallway on his way up.

  It’d be safe to leap out of bed while Mr Fellows was close by.

  He’d switch on the upstairs light as he went and the ghosts’d have to hurry away until it was dark again.

  Quickly then, with one sudden, sharp movement she’d flung the blankets back and shot across the cold floor. Her feet slapped one step, two steps on the rug and were back again on the floor, and she hit the light switch. No need to rush back now. She could stand here, back to the door safely.

  Turning the light off was going to be awful. Too awful to consider...

  It was a package. A flat package wrapped around with string.

  Missie picked it up.

  It had her name on it. It was a real parcel meant for her. The only other parcels that she got were inside the ones that her mum got from grandma who lived all the way in New South Wales. Those parcels were delivered by the postman and had stamps on them that she was supposed to collect but she always lost.

  Gently she turned the knob and eased the door open slightly. Mr Fellows’s voice rushed up to fill in the gap and her mother’s voice and Aunt Belle’s voice joined in. They were all on the way up from the sound of it. They did it every night, stood around talking about dumb news and stuff. Mr Fellows didn’t do it every night, of course. He was only home sometimes.

  It was easier to feel brave with voices and clatter and a wireless playing so Missie stretched her neck out and peered along the corridor.

  Mr Mykola.

  Mr Mykola was there standing in the light coming from the lounge room.

  He’d done it.

  He’d pushed this parcel under the door. She could tell from the way he waved and then, although she couldn’t really see him do it, she suspected he’d tapped his finger against the side of his nose.

  ‘Bob’s your uncle,’ she said quietly. And grinned.

  Then he was gone and the corridor was empty except for the light from the windows and that looked cold and empty as well. Suddenly Missie didn’t want to think too long about what might float in to fill such empty, chilled spaces.

  She ducked her head back into her own room and hurtled from the rug straight up onto the bed.

  Oleksander Mykola had left her a package.

  Quickly she tore at it, taking care not to bend it. Already, already she could feel the outline of cards. There were a few of them, enough anyway to hold the package firm and make creased outlines of themselves.

  And there they were.

  Horse ones. Two lovely, lovely horse ones. One with a horse’s face with a blaze right down her nose and her eyes that were pools of sorrow. She was enough to make you want to weep just to look at her and your fingers ached to stroke her velvet nose.

  And the other. A winged horse. A wonderful horse flying in front of a sunlit sky.

  The others were cats. A fluffy cat with a spoile
d face that looked like it might have been pressed too flat when God was making it. And another card with an elegant black cat with its front paw raised. Zilla would be over the moon with them.

  Swap cards had gone out ages ago but it didn’t matter. They’d come back and when they did, she’d have the best.

  And Zill too, of course.

  Missie lay back on her pillows.

  She’d wait until then to give Zill her cat ones. Deirdre’d probably pinch them if she handed them across now.

  The wind moaned outside her window trying to scare her but the ghosts were being kept at bay by the light. The cards lay face up on her top sheet and the wrapping paper was still creased in on itself and tangled among the string.

  She hadn’t noticed it until she started to stack them all together. The inside of that wrapping paper. It had a drawing on it.

  Missie smoothed it out.

  It was a black pen drawing of a girl who stood with a long, long lance in her hand. She had armour on and her chest was swelled out in front like she was really proud of herself. One foot was resting on a pile of people.

  It was her! It definitely was!

  Here was a picture, an actual picture of Missie Missinger in a suit of armour with her foot resting on all the girls she’d slain.

  She looked just like the saint who had her picture up on the church window in town. The Catholic church.

  Sorry, the note underneath it said, Sorry because of your trouble.

  Missie folded the paper neatly, taking care not to crease the face that was hers.

  She put the cards carefully on her desk and covered them with a book. She didn’t want anyone else to see them until she was ready to show them off.

  As she eased down onto her pillow and drew the blankets close up against her ear there were already plans for the thankyou letter she’d slip under Mr Mykola’s door.

  Perhaps she’d do a drawing. Something she was really good at. Mountains and rivers and suns and things like that.

  Whichever way it went she was definitely going to give Mr Mykola his very own letter from her.

  11

  ST MARTHA’S FAIR

  The only other true hill was the one that stood on the same ridge as the school hill. It wasn’t as high, nor as far away from the centre of town, but it was a serious hill and steep enough to be considered on hot days or in tight shoes. Bikes didn’t climb the hill easily but they gave riders a good run for their money on the way back down.

  On the top of the hill, set among lawns and gardens as still as the statue of Mary who was waiting at the gate to watch you go in, was St Martha’s Home for the Aged.

  And they were going to have a jumble sale.

  ‘Can I go?’ It was such a delicious word. Jumble. Visions of boxes full of treasures floated about in front of her. There’d be bits of all sorts. And nothing would cost much because it was all old. ‘Can I?’ It’d be too awful if she wasn’t allowed and her mother didn’t even look like she was paying attention. ‘Zill’s going.’

  And Jimmy Johnson.

  ‘And we’re meeting there tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. And it’ll be great. I’ll be good. And I don’t want much money or anything. It’s up at St Martha’s ... you know, up the top of Mitchell Street hill.’

  Her mother finally finished drying the Friday night dishes.

  ‘I know where it is. Poor old buggers. Bung ’em up there, closer to God and all they get is one more hill to climb every time they want to go for a wander.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The old folks who live there, of course.’

  Sometimes it was damn near impossible keeping up with what her mother was talking about. And she still hadn’t answered the question. ‘So, can I go?’

  ‘So ... can you go?’ It was a game. Her mum liked to play it sometimes, although standing around nearly wetting your knickers while you waited for an answer wasn’t going to make you laugh your head off. ‘I wonder ... I wonder...’

  It wasn’t even a bit funny.

  ‘Oh, all right.’ But it was worth it when she finally gave in. ‘Just as long as you remember to behave yourselves. And no running off!’

  She’d hardly slept thinking about it, and made up all sorts of fancy stories to put herself to sleep. Only they didn’t work and she was awake before daylight and in the kitchen ready to go before breakfast and here she was, for God’s sake, still waiting at quarter to eleven.

  She danced from one foot to the other while her hair was tugged into place.

  ‘Zilla’s going to be there already!’ she complained. And Jimmy. She didn’t want to miss out if they were there and she wasn’t.

  ‘There’ll be no leaving St Martha’s to run off all over town!’ her mother was saying all over again. ‘And no messing around and making a nuisance of yourselves.’

  Finally her hair was clipped back and the brush put down. ‘Here.’ Her mother tied a sixpence and a threepence and a halfpenny in a hanky. ‘Don’t spend it all at once.’

  Missie was already out the door.

  ‘And be good!’

  ‘I will!’ she howled back.

  Outside spring was giving up and turning into summer. Her mother had already shown her buds on the willows turning into full-blown blossoms. And all of the ducklings on the pond in the marsh had stopped being fluffy and were looking like proper ducks. The night air didn’t ring with cicadas yet but they weren’t far off. Soon it was going to be proper summer and this year was going to be wonderful.

  This year she had Zilla to swim with.

  And Jimmy.

  Maybe.

  She was panting as she hurried along the front side of the bowling club, then round the corner of the Scout hall.

  She glanced about, thinking of the places in town she hadn’t known until Zilla. She knew now that there was a track across the empty land near the kindergarten. You could cut across there and be almost at the bottom of the school hill before you knew it. And then there was the little lane that ran between the backs of some houses but didn’t go anywhere. It was for the dunny trucks to go along and they’d seen it once. Smelt it before they saw it and huddled down, holding their noses, to watch the dunny truck man lift the can out of Davo’s lav.

  ‘You reckon he ever slops it?’ Missie’s stomach had heaved at the thought of it.

  Max had been with them that day. ‘Course he does,’ he’d said. ‘Why d’you think he wears the shoulder thing.’ He hadn’t huddled. He’d stood for the whole world to see out in the middle of the lane, tearing up a peppercorn leaf.

  ‘Oh, yeah. What would you know?’ Usually Max finished up going his own way and Missie said he’d go a lot faster if Zilla just ignored him.

  Zilla couldn’t. And didn’t.

  ‘Hey!’ she’d said as the truck had disappeared. ‘Come and look at this.’

  She’d stopped midway along a paling fence. There was a trapdoor built into the bottom of it and she checked before bending down and releasing a catch at its base.

  Max had pressed in closer.

  They’d found kittens once, her and Zilla, when they’d gone exploring through doorways and trapdoors in the backs of lanes. Max had missed out. He missed out on the fleabites as well and the good clip under the ear that her mother had given her for messing with kittens when she had no right to.

  It hadn’t been kittens behind the trapdoor this time, though. It’d been the can and above it, the bumhole where you sat to do it.

  ‘I got Deirdre with a stick once.’

  They’d roared laughing as they skittled off down the lane leaving Max holding the open trapdoor. He’d gone ahead of them though, through Davo’s yard and blocked their way.

  ‘I’ll tell Marcie on you.’

  Missie hated it when he called her mother by her first name. She hated it even more when she thought how disgusted her mother would be if she knew she was out looking up people’s lavs and talking about bumholes.

  ‘You wouldn’t.’ It would have been be
tter if she hadn’t sounded whiney. Being bossy wasn’t going to help either.

  Max leaned closer. Like he was going to tell her a secret or something. Instead he pinched a big lump of her cheek and wobbled her face around with it. It hurt and her cheek was probably going to be stretched. ‘I will if I want to.’

  Zilla had called him a nasty little snotnosed dobber and, before he could answer, had grabbed Missie’s arm and taken off. Max hadn’t bothered chasing them. He knew he’d scared her enough.

  He hadn’t bothered following them any more either. Not where they could see him, least ways. Once he put a dead rat in the cubby hole they’d been clearing under the peppercorn tree. They knew it was him. He’d cackled and chucked stuff at them when they ran out. Sometimes he sent pebbles zinging through the air.

  It wasn’t so bad when Zill was around.

  St Martha’s hill was ahead of her. Enormous trees hid the rise from view, which was just as well because the sight of it was enough to make you decide to go back home.

  ‘Where are you going, Missie?’

  Max stepped forward. He’d been watching her from behind a tree. Another boy, Lawrence, she’d seen him before at the house, ambled out with him. He didn’t say anything but stood, feet apart, in the middle of the path blocking her way.

  Missie clutched her hanky tightly. She tried to make it as small as possible so they wouldn’t notice it.

  ‘None of your business.’

  The boy slipped his hands into his pockets and watched.

  ‘Yeah? It’s my business so long as you’re living in my house!’

  It was because the other boy was here. Max was showing off. He glanced across to check that he was being watched. ‘Tell me, Missie.’

  He had something in his hand. She could see the sharp point of it as he polished it with the tip of his thumb. It would hurt if he jabbed her with it. Really hurt.

  ‘I’m going up the hill, if you really want to know.’ She stepped wide, further out on the grass. ‘I have to go.’

  Before she had a chance to run he had her. His hand snatched out and grabbed her wrist. ‘What’s in your hand?’