The Innocents

by Nette Hilton

  Missie slid along the wall. She could just see into the kitchen, a thin wedge of vision that included her mother, hunched over finishing off another quick mend, and a bit of Dot Evans’s back.

  Her mother finished off her stitch and nipped the thread with her teeth. ‘His name isn’t Alex just the same as you don’t like being called Dorothea. It’s Oleksander. And it’s not letter writing, I expect, as most of his family are dead or missing.’

  ‘Oh, that’s awful,’ Zilla’s mum breathed quietly. She moved around the table where she was sorting and folding up clothes. ‘I don’t know how he can bear it.’

  ‘I don’t like to ask too much but I think he’s had a hard time of it.’ Her mother stood. ‘I get the feeling that there’s no-one left. Terrible things must have happened. The river reminded him of his friends, he said. He showed me a photo of them, just the once ... a little girl and a boy about his age. I asked him where they were now. Drowned he said. Just like that. Drowned...’

  ‘Very sad. Very sad,’ Dot Evans said. ‘Certainly would explain why he’s strange. But he’d be better off over there with his own kind. Least then he could set up a new life without being a worry to the likes of us.’

  Missie saw a look pass between the two mothers. ‘You’ve not got enough to worry about, Dot, if poor Oleksander is causing you sleepless nights. He’s a nice man, a lad really ... I reckon he’s not much more than twenty. You should be worrying about your own and what’s going on down at Davey’s Corner. How’re you going to like picking your own groceries off the shelf?’

  ‘It’ll never work! There’ll be all sorts dodging off without paying a brass razoo. Bloody silly idea if you ask me.’

  Missie hovered a while longer until she got bored. She wasn’t sure how anyone would be able to do their shopping and not get the man behind the counter to get everything but, as the conversation didn’t include any more information about Oleks, she crept back the way she’d come.

  She didn’t go upstairs to her room though. She continued walking, taking care to avoid any boards that creaked and told tales about her passing, and sat in the small recess between the jardinière and the French doors. Be nice if there was a rug here to sit on. It would warm her a little as the boards under her bum were freezing and the draught under the doors was doing its best to chill all the end bits – fingertips, nose, toes. Even her knees were aching with cold.

  It wasn’t enough to take her thoughts from Oleksander and his poor lost family.

  No wonder he sat alone on the day bed and smoked his cigarettes in the dark.

  Missie hugged her knees tighter to her chest and tried to think of some way she could make him feel better.

  27

  JULY

  ‘CHARMAINE’

  Zilla and Deirdre went home. They’d only stayed a couple of weeks but it felt like forever since Missie had had her room to herself.

  They’d waved goodbye early on Saturday morning leaving a sudden stillness behind them. Her room looked like it had been caught in mid-movement. Things not quite finished with and other things not quite begun.

  ‘You’ve got a bit of a mess here, old girl,’ her mother said. ‘This’ll keep you busy for a bit.’

  Missie looked over the shambles that was her bed. They’d been sleeping top and tail, her and Zill, and it was just a tangle of blankets and quilts and twisted sheets. Deirdre had slept on a trundle on the floor and sheets and blankets tumbled about it, filling up the space between it and the bed. The rug that should have lived in the middle of the floor was doing its best to huddle against the wall. Pencils and paints and books and bits of knitting and the dolls’ clothes her mother had made for her last Christmas filled the far corner. And pick-up-sticks and Ludo were fighting for whatever space was available in the corner behind the door.

  ‘I’ll be up to help you in a little while but do what you can and get all these toys and games and bits picked up, packed up and put away neatly on the shelf. When you’ve done that we might go down to Ford’s and see if we can choose some knitting wool. I’m ready to start a new jumper for you.’

  Missie let the stillness, the silence of the lovely old house seep into her bones. Even the cold was welcome.

  She tried not to but she wondered if Oleks’s country was cold and if he had a house over there. And more than anything she wondered about where she’d hide if soldiers came marching up the street to take her away from her mother.

  ‘Missie?’

  She’d almost forgotten her mother was there.

  ‘You all right?’

  Missie nodded. ‘We’re safe here, aren’t we?’ The words bumbled out before she could stop them.

  ‘From what?’

  Soldiers. Horrors. Ghosts. Men who’d take you away and lock you up.

  ‘Stuff like you said in the kitchen. Wars and stuff.’

  ‘Love a duck! You were out there in the hall stickybeakin’! That’s what you get for eavesdropping on other people’s conversations but, since you’re asking ... yes, we certainly are safe! We’re very lucky and lots of brave men went off and fought for your country so you’d better mind your p’s and q’s whenever you’re around them. Your own dad went...’

  Missie didn’t know her dad. But she knew he went to the war and didn’t come back.

  ‘Did he get killed?’

  She’d never dared ask before and wasn’t sure if she should now but, somehow, knowing about Oleksander made it easier.

  Her mother rubbed her hands over her face. ‘No, lovey. He didn’t get killed. He just didn’t come back to us, that’s all. Now, this room! Onto it before I forget that you’ve been a good kid while the girls were here and change my mind about a jumper. We might even go to the afternoon matinee if we’re quick.’

  It was something to look forward to while she worked. Her mother had said it was a funny picture with Bob Hope and Pink Crosby. It was certainly a funny name. She tried to imagine what it might be about by thinking about the other picture shows her mother had taken her to see and by the time the trundle was collected the room was all but done.

  Deirdre had taken a lot of clothes that were too small so there was extra room in the drawers and what didn’t fit in there were bundled into the bottom of the wardrobe.

  ‘Done!’ she said to herself and stood back.

  Her little tabletop was clear for the first time in ages. It begged to be sat at and for something wonderful to be done with crayons that were once again neatly lined up in their tray.

  The pencils were there too.

  Missie sat down. She slid the lid of the pencil case and smelt the lovely smell of shavings and school which was especially good on a Saturday because she wasn’t there. She had a new way of writing now and took out her writing pencil to be sure she’d remembered. The letters were formed with long, long strokes and long, long tails and they sat straight up and down and looked absolutely perfect.

  It was just like Mary’s writing and Missie rather wished she’d thought of it first.

  She wrote her name and her address all the way down to the planet.

  She wrote her mother’s name.

  She wrote her school name.

  Then she wrote the word ‘sister’ and knew exactly what she was going to draw. A little girl. The one in the photo her mother had been talking about.

  It didn’t matter if she wasn’t a true sister. Zill and Deirdre weren’t true sisters but they sure as hell felt like it when they were here. Oleks probably felt the same about that girl.

  A bit empty when she wasn’t around.

  Only his friends, that little girl and boy, weren’t coming back. Ever.

  Carefully she took out a fresh sheet of paper and drew a man that looked like Oleksander. Then she drew a little girl that looked like her only the girl had dark hair like she wished she had. She was going to draw the boy too but she couldn’t make it look right. In her head she knew exactly what she wanted and the boy didn’t fit too well.

  She drew the little girl g
iving him a great big round-the-middle hug, only it was hard to get the arms right and she had to start all over again when one arm looked like it had been stretched.

  Then, in her best colouring in, she coloured their clothes and the background with a mountain and a river in it.

  Finally she wrote the message. It was in a balloon coming from the little girl’s mouth. ‘You’re my best friend.’ It was a bit of a squash but she got it in the end.

  She wasn’t sure if Oleks would get that the little girl was the one from a long time ago. It would be good if he did because it was supposed to cheer him up.

  It might help if she wrote a letter telling him that but it was becoming too hard to get the message straight. She wasn’t too sure she wanted him to know she’d been listening in and knew all about him.

  So she simply used her very best new tall writing to sign her name. Least that way he’d know where it came from.

  Yours faithfully, Missie Missinger.

  She folded it neatly and made an envelope with lots of cutting out and folding bits and then addressed it to Oleksander. She wasn’t too sure how to spell that but she gave it a good shot.

  And then she crept along the hallway and slid it under his door.

  There.

  That should make him feel a whole lot better.

  28

  JULY

  LANSDALE WEST STATE SCHOOL

  ‘We’re meeting them down the river,’ Zilla said.

  ‘Told you he was in love with you!’ Deirdre said.

  Zilla biffed her. ‘You’re not coming so shut it!’

  ‘Am so!’

  ‘You are not!’ Zilla put her hands on her hips and glared at her sister. Deirdre glared back but, this time, sensed she was beaten. She put her feet on the pedals and gave a half-hearted shove in the direction of home.

  ‘So? Are you coming down with us? You better. Max’s coming and you can talk to him while I talk to Lawrence.’

  Missie wasn’t all that keen on the prospect of talking to Max, even if that was possible. Max’s conversation only ever happened when Max decided that he needed to talk. He wouldn’t do it otherwise.

  They were sitting on the bench in front of the school gate. They’d hung about for awhile and were pretty well the last to leave. Missie had watched while the Hendersons’s dad heaved them up into the back of the ute and rattled off down the road. They were lucky, those Henderson kids. Their dad had put a lounge up against the rear window of the cab so their bums didn’t get bounced around when he hit the corrugations on the back roads. They looked real cosy as they huddled together. Dawn waved as they took off and Missie was half-wishing she was going with them. It was only a half wish though. Sometimes the Hendersons came to school with tales about how they’d gone out rabbiting and had to sleep under the dead rabbits to stay warm when their dad was having a good run. Most of the kids knew it was going to be rabbit stew for the next couple of days when they’d heard the Hendersons had been out because Rabbity-John Henderson used to sell his catch at everyone’s back doors.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jimmy had arrived. He squatted on the ground and pulled up a piece of grass to chew. ‘We going over to the racecourse or not?’

  Missie stood up. Going to the racecourse was a much better option that heading off down to the river.

  ‘Nah.’ Zill answered for them. ‘We’re going down the river with Lawrence and Max.’

  Jimmy looked at Missie.

  ‘She’s going with Max,’ Zilla went on. ‘You can come if you like. You can be with Deirdre.’

  Missie longed to say she wasn’t going with Max and she didn’t give a damn about Lawrence. At least Jimmy might come and then she could mess around with him. ‘I thought you said Deirdre wasn’t coming.’

  ‘Neither am I.’ Jimmy stood up slowly. He spat his chewed bit of grass onto the ground and stepped around Missie without looking up. ‘Got stuff I gotta do.’

  He didn’t look back. He just kept going, stabbing a kick onto a rock that hurtled out into the middle of the road. He kicked it again and then bolted as soon as he got close to the corner. Missie could hear the bump and thud of the books and pencil cases in his bag as he went.

  ‘Let’s go then.’ Zill bundled her bag into the basket on her bike. ‘Do you want a double or not?’

  Deirdre was hovering close. She wasn’t exactly lined up to go with them but she was no longer headed for home either. She had her own bike now. Her mother had bought it when they’d gone back to their house. It was an old one, painted blue but Deirdre loved it. Her basket was stuffed with school books and a cloth bag that bulged over the top so much she’d had to take her hat out and put it on.

  ‘Miss? Are you coming or not?’

  ‘I’ll catch up.’ Missie set off after Jimmy. ‘I want to see what they’re doing over at the racecourse first.’

  ‘Yeah, right. You only want to go because Jimmy Johnson’s there.’

  ‘So? You only want to go down the river because Lawrence is there!’

  ‘It’s different. I asked you to come and made all the plans. I didn’t say I was going to go off and leave you. You must like him better than me and I’m your best friend.’

  It occurred to Missie then that Zill didn’t want to go down to the river without her. She saw herself as a bridge linking Zilla to the world that, up until that moment, she’d have thought was as much Zilla’s as hers. In the briefest part of that instant she glimpsed Zilla’s uncertainty about venturing off.

  Zill needed her.

  Missie easily remembered back to the days before Zill, when she wasn’t needed by anyone at all for anything. She’d been left out and not sure how to find the right way in. It’d been Zill who’d simply strolled in and taken a place like it had always been there waiting for her to fill it. And the amazing thing was that gradually Missie’s place had been discovered in there as well. It was a bit shaky still and Missie wasn’t all that keen on days when Zill didn’t come to school but it wasn’t as bad as before.

  Now, though, it was Zill who needed her to find the path in.

  But there was Jimmy too.

  ‘I didn’t say I wasn’t coming. I just said I wanted to see what they were doing over there.’ Jimmy would be too far away if she didn’t hurry.

  Deirdre wobbled by, trying to go as slow as she could without falling over.

  ‘Lend us your bike, Deirdre.’ Missie was already snatching at the handlebars.

  ‘Get off!’

  ‘Go on. I’ll come straight back.’

  Deirdre pushed hard and reclaimed her handlebars. She pressed down hard on the pedals and was already halfway to the corner before she balanced herself, pedals mid-cycle to call back to them. ‘I’ll go see what they’re doing and I’ll tell Jimmy you love him.’

  There was nobody left at the school and it felt as if everyone who lived close by had deserted the place as well. There wasn’t a car in sight or even the sound of one from the road over beyond the fields.

  ‘She won’t,’ Zilla said. ‘She just says stuff like that.’

  Zilla was standing straddling the centre bar, waiting for Missie to climb onto the seat behind her. ‘She really won’t,’ she went on. ‘She’s always doing it. You know ... I know what you did and I’m going to dob.’ She sashayed her hips in time with her words and then twirled one hand around her ear, almost losing the bike as she did so. ‘I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna tell that! She’s a pest. P.E.S.T.’

  She bellowed it into the empty street just as Mrs Callaghan from the old schoolhouse next door stuck her nose out from behind her hedge.

  ‘Off you go, girls.’

  Missie held on tight to Zill’s hips. She could feel her starting to laugh and jabbed her to make her stop. Mrs Callaghan would dob on them if they weren’t careful and they’d cop it for being cheeky.

  ‘Somebody should tell your mothers what you get up to after school!’ she called out as they wobbled by. ‘Cheeky little tarts!’

  They didn’t da
re look up until they crested the hill and started to pick up speed. By that time Zilla was roaring with laughter and gulping out how she must have been behind the hedge the whole time.

  By then Missie had joined in.

  It was only for a little while that they’d be down on the riverbank and it might even be fun.

  29

  LATE AFTERNOON

  RIVERBANK

  By the time the road had levelled out, the sun had dipped behind a low bank of clouds. It seemed to Missie, as she tried to swivel around to relieve the pain in her legs from holding them out past the wheels, that there was no time after school any more. How did they ever fit in walking home? And wandering down to the pool for a swim and still having leftover time to sit on the step and eat a raspberry ice-cube?

  ‘It’s gonna rain,’ she yelled. It’d be freezing down by the river if it rained.

  Zilla looked up and the bike veered dangerously towards the kerb. ‘Nah. It’ll be right.’

  She swung the bike across the road to the footpath that ran along the top of the river rise. There was a narrow strip of grass on either side, one separating the path from the road and the other disappearing down into the sudden, steep drop to the riverbank. Hector Smith disappeared down there one night on his way home from the Commercial. Missie heard her mum talking about it in the kitchen with Dot Evans. Dot Evans reckoned he was as full as a goog and that was the only thing that saved him from being hurt.

  Missie reckoned there’d be no chance of being hurt. The trees grew so close together it was almost impossible to climb down between them let alone roll down with a big fat belly full of grog.

  Zill slowed the bike and Missie got ready. They weren’t real good at stopping and usually she finished up pitching hard onto Zilla’s back and then both of them lurched and staggered around until they managed to remove themselves from the handlebars and all the other bits on a bike that jabbed at them.