The Innocents

by Nette Hilton

  And so she began the long, hard task of simply getting better. Days stretched out and loneliness and boredom made them seem even longer.

  She learned to knit cables in her jumpers and she beat Dot at rummy three times in a row. She’d sorted the button jar and drawn pictures of all sorts of fairies. She’d drawn princesses and dragons and fat dogs with their tails in the air. She’d stopped drawing the Queen though. She left her there, in her jeep, on the other side of being ill. It was too hard to think about her without thinking of all the other things that she wanted left behind as well.

  She was sitting on the window seat in the front room, a special treat that Aunt Belle had made possible. It was a sunny spot and from here all sorts of passersby and cars and deliveries and birds could be seen. Aunt Belle had made it clear that she was to stay in the front room and not venture out and, if she was able to do this, the front room would be hers every afternoon.

  She was sitting here, knitting the pale pink wool her mother had found into a new scarf, when the door opened and Jimmy Johnson walked in.

  ‘And make sure,’ her mother said as she shoved him further into the room and placed a tray with wafers and milk on a little low table next to Missie, ‘that you don’t drop any crumbs or spill milk. And keep your voices down.’

  Jimmy almost stood to attention.

  ‘Oh...’ Her mother paused. ‘Thank you for coming, Jimmy Johnson. You’re a real sight for sore eyes.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Missinger. You’re looking pretty good yourself.’ He ducked his hand down in his bag. ‘I got some books, and you know what that bloody ol–’

  ‘And there’ll be no swearing.’ Her mother spun back again. She raised one finger. ‘None! And no more cheek from you. Looking pretty good yourself, indeed.’

  This time Jimmy waited until the door was firmly closed. ‘That bloody ol’ Dulcie Martin said if any of these books get lost she’s gonna have my guts for garters.’

  He slapped her exercise books down on the bed. And then her reader with some pages marked, and her maths book with more pages marked.

  ‘You gotta read The Hobyahs, she said. It’s a mongrel of a story if you ask me. I couldn’t make sense of it whichever way I tried.’

  It was so lovely that it was Jimmy.

  If it had been Mary or Joannie Melon or Leonie she’d have worried about the way her hair was sticking out and the funny old dressing-gown that she’d wrapped around her as the afternoon cooled. She wouldn’t have known what to say to them, not if they were sitting in Aunt Belle’s front room.

  But Jimmy was just perfect. He didn’t even need her to have any answers. He just babbled away and, before she knew it, she was babbling back. She was laughing and telling him about being sick and beating Dot at cards and Jimmy said that’d be something to see. Dot Evans tried to teach him to play but the only game he knew was poker and she told him it wasn’t a game for little kids and his father should be ashamed for letting him play. Oh, suddenly there was lots to talk about and then, in a gap while they drank milk and Jimmy ate both the biscuits, Missie offered to read The Hobyahs to him.

  ‘It looks a bit scary,’ she said.

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Jimmy and eased himself back in his chair. He stretched his legs long and folded his hands over his belly. ‘Read on, McDuff.’

  So Missie read.

  She read until she couldn’t read any more for the shocked look on Jimmy’s face when the little old man and the little old woman cut off good dog Turpie’s head.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Jimmy wiped his hand across his forehead. ‘I reckon ol’ Dulc’s got a shock or two coming her way when she gets to this bit. Bloody hell. Cut off his head? Does it really say that?’

  Missie stopped laughing long enough to show him. ‘There. See? That says they cut off his head.’

  Jimmy took the reader. ‘And where does it say they cut off his legs?’ He flashed back through the book and found the page he thought was right. ‘Is this it?’

  Missie leaned out of her makeshift bed. ‘Yup! And that’s the bit that says...’

  Jimmy lowered his voice. ‘The hobyahs are coming ... the hobyahs...’

  They howled laughing and were told to quieten it down or Jimmy would be sent off home and he’d not be welcome again.

  Quietly then they read the rest of the book. There was another story that Jimmy didn’t get so Missie read that one too and then they talked about books from the library and Jimmy said he’d like to read that Treasure Island one but it was too flamin’ hard.

  ‘I could show you how,’ Missie said.

  Jimmy gave her a sideways look. ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘I would. You were already getting The Hobyahs right.’

  He thought about this for a moment and even went so far as to open the book to the last few pages of the story.

  ‘And you wouldn’t tell anyone ... that you were showing me how to read and all? I mean, all them others can do it and they’d have a right ol’ carnival if they knew a girl was teaching me.’

  Missie held his gaze. She lifted her finger to the side of her nose and said, ‘Bob’s your uncle.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just a saying.’ Quickly now she settled herself back into bed. She straightened her bedclothes. But it didn’t stop the quick vision of Oleksander Mykola swimming in front of her with his lovely long fingers and his cigarettes and the secret way he had of lowering his eyebrows and touching the side of his nose.

  She kept her face to the window. It was late enough for the trees to have formed dark shadows and she could see his face reflected back at her. ‘It means,’ she said, slowly turning back, ‘that it will be our secret.’

  He didn’t look up until he’d placed his hands back over his belly. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I never heard it before, that “Bob’s your uncle”, that’s all.’

  Missie took a chance.

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘Who?’

  Now they were leaning towards each other, voices lowered for secrets to share. Secrets that Missie knew would be safe and which suddenly seemed to want to be let loose. They’d been hers alone for too long.

  ‘I used to see him...’ she began and went on to tell him all about their chance meetings and the times she’d sought him out. She explained how he’d given them swap cards. She left out the bit about pinching Aunt Belle’s special ones. It wasn’t that Jimmy would have been shocked, he probably wouldn’t even have noticed, but she couldn’t bring herself to confess that sin.

  Jimmy stopped her every now and then and asked her questions about what he’d said and where she’d been when she saw him. She told him about the drawings and how she’d looked up and seen the curtain move.

  ‘But he was always looking at stuff and drawing it,’ she said. ‘I saw him down the river...’ And off she went again.

  And Jimmy listened. He really, really listened.

  ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you,’ she said when there was a pause in his response. ‘He never did anything. He never did. He’s in more trouble now because of me...’

  Something in the way she said it made him move his chair closer. ‘What’d you mean?’ he said. ‘It’s not your fault. You never did nothing.’

  Little by little she told him about the yellow cardigan. He didn’t interrupt her, not even when she had to take a deep breath to block out the sounds and sights of that day. Not even when she had to stop and start again when she was describing the magic painting and even when she realised it made no difference to what she was sharing, Jimmy didn’t stop her.

  Finally she ran out of steam. ‘He didn’t do anything at all. It’s because of...’ She looked out into the darkening day and then down at her fingers. ‘It’s all because of Deirdre.’

  Jimmy looked at her, his face creased as if he was trying hard to put it all together. He looked like that when he was doing jigsaws as well.

  He had leaned close to her as if he had suddenly thought of something when the door opened.


  Jimmy was on his feet with his satchel in his hand before her mother was all the way into the room.

  ‘Lord. It’s getting dark outside, Jim. I thought you’d be long gone.’

  ‘I’m going,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way. We was just talking about them library books and the one that we’re getting called Treasure Island, weren’t we Missie?’

  ‘He’s going to get it tomorrow and bring it around,’ Missie said. ‘You are bringing it tomorrow, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, sure.’

  Her mother was simply standing, smiling from one face to the other. Her arms were folded across her middle and she waited until they stopped. ‘Right. Well. Library book tomorrow, eh? Treasure Island, you reckon?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘Good,’ she said and wandered back to the doorway. ‘I’m just going to parcel you up some dinner, Jimmy. It’s late and your dad might have had his already–’

  ‘Get out,’ Jimmy interrupted. ‘He’s not home from the pub for another couple of hours.’

  ‘Pubs shut at six.’

  ‘Not when you can hang around out the back,’ Jimmy pointed out. ‘Thanks, Mrs Missinger. Can I have some bread and butter too?’

  ‘It’s a roast,’ said Missie. ‘You don’t have bread and butter with roast.’

  ‘Course you do,’ her mother said. ‘What else would you use to mop up all that gravy? I’ll put it in a bowl for you, Jim. Can you be sure to bring it back tomorrow?’

  ‘You bet.’

  He stood with his old carry-all ready until she wandered back to the kitchen.

  ‘You know what I reckon?’

  ‘What?’

  He stood still like he was listening to the traces of his thoughts.

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ he finally said. ‘But something’s wrong. I dunno what but it’s just not right, is it?’

  It was as if a huge enormous weight had lifted from her shoulders. Her chest filled and she realised she was hungry. It was a lovely feeling after being sick for so long. To be empty and needing to be fed.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said as he walked to the door.

  He turned back though and paused.

  ‘I was nearly down there with her the day it happened. Maybe it’d be different if I’d gone.’

  ‘You were mad at us.’ Missie remembered. ‘Zill wanted to be down there with Lawrence. I didn’t...’

  ‘Nah. I woulda come down.’ Jimmy moved closer. ‘See, when she came to tell me you were going down the river and I should come too and all that, I said I’d come if she put my stuff in the basket ’cause I didn’t want to go home. But she said there wasn’t enough room.’ He shrugged. ‘So I didn’t go.’

  Missie thought back. She remembered Deirdre riding off to get Jimmy. She remembered, too, the way she held her hand on the loose old bag in her basket so whatever it was wouldn’t bump out.

  ‘I remember now. I wonder what it was. In her basket?’

  ‘Dunno. Was bloody big, I can tell you that. Took up all the room.’

  They both tried to think of things that Deirdre fancied that she might have loaded up to take home.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘Nah. I guess not. Would’ve been nice if she’d made room for my stuff though. Whatever it was she wasn’t letting it go.’

  He ducked his head out into the hallway quickly, then whispered, ‘Must’ve been something she pinched.’

  ‘What, from school?’

  ‘Nah ... there’s nothing worth havin’.’ His face lit up. ‘Nah, it’d be something good like all this stuff.’ He waved his hand past the display cabinets full of ornaments, lovely glasses and big soft cushions that Missie hardly noticed. ‘Was there anything she liked, you know, when she was staying here?’

  Jimmy was getting into the whole idea.

  ‘See, what if she pinched something from his room. That Oli bloke?’ He stood a little straighter as if, having said it, now everything was explained.

  ‘You mean like she had it and was going to give it back or something?’

  ‘No, dumdum. I mean like maybe she wasn’t going to give it back and he saw she had it and tried to get it.’

  He nodded his head while he watched her trying to make it fit together.

  ‘You’re saying he might have chased her or something...’ Missie paused. ‘Like maybe she just fell when he tried to grab it ... or something...’

  It meant that Oleks wouldn’t be all the things that Zilla said he was. For a second it worked.

  She shook her head. ‘He would have pulled her out.’

  Jimmy tried to work up some sort of argument. His mouth worked and he was frowning with the effort, but it made no difference.

  ‘Yeah, yeah I guess.’

  Her mother was back before they could keep going, but it didn’t matter.

  When Missie waved goodbye out the window it was easier to think of Oleksander.

  It made no difference and nothing had been solved but she didn’t have to fight the dark thoughts that had taken root back there whenever she had to think of Zilla and that awful word, ‘perv’.

  There was another explanation, she was sure of it.

  41

  LATE SEPTEMBER

  The following morning, Dr Beatty declared her well on the road to recovery and said it was time for her to start going out for some morning walks. Time to start back in at peeling the spuds and setting the table and time, he told Aunt Belle, that Max could safely come back home although, he added, it really wasn’t necessary for him to have stayed away quite so long.

  Aunt Belle said she was pleased to hear it and set off to make plans for Max to come home. ‘He won’t want to, though,’ she said. ‘There’s no Lawrence and brand new Master’s Voice radio in this house.’

  ‘Reminds me of that song ... how’s it go?’ The doctor hummed a bit. ‘How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm...’

  It was good to get clothes back on, even if they did feel a bit scratchy after so long in old nighties. Her shoes were heavy on her feet and she clumped around in them to make sure her feet hadn’t shrunk.

  She’d been sent out to do some shopping with Aunt Belle while her mother got the house ready for Max’s return and the rooms ready for new guests.

  It had been an exhausting hour. Aunt Belle walked quickly with her head up and her shoes clacking on the cement. She made up for her rapid trips between shops by sitting and talking for ages when she finally arrived. Missie had never known anyone to take so long to make up their mind about something. The ladies in Dimples must have been getting pretty fed up as well. They’d brought out about a hundred patterns for Aunt Belle to look at and Aunt Belle didn’t even choose one of them. She said she’d come back another day. Missie kept her head down as they walked away. She was sure one of the ladies would make a really rude face at them if she looked up.

  By the time they’d got home, Missie was more than ready to go upstairs and fall in a heap.

  Her mother had other plans. She was about to start sorting through Max’s toy boxes. ‘I want to get this all sorted before he comes back,’ she said. ‘And I think there’s a copy of Treasure Island here some place.’ She flicked a few books out of the way. ‘It’s like a comic, with lots of pictures telling the story as well. It might be easier for Jimmy to read than a true library book.’

  ‘You’re always saying we shouldn’t read comics,’ Missie said.

  ‘It’s not a true comic.’ Downstairs Aunt Belle’s phone rang. ‘Damn that thing. Keep going with this will you, Missie? There’ll be hell to pay if the lord and master turns up and finds us digging about in his room.’

  Missie found the book and had the satisfaction of flicking through it and then, when she was sure nobody could hear her, declared that it certainly looked like any of the comics that she’d seen.

  Her mother reappeared to ask her to keep going and she’d be back to help just as soon as she got downstairs sorted out.
/>   Missie didn’t mind. It wasn’t a bad job. She was to take out any jigsaws or books or games that were bent or creased. They were to be placed in a wooden box that her mother had brought up for that purpose.

  Max never let anyone play with his toys anyway. His games were all perfect and the only jigsaws that she found to throw out had been used as bridges for his train sets and were a bit squashed.

  She finished the bookcase and had replaced all the jigsaws and games that were staying back in the storage space under the bay window. It was comfortable on the window seat with its soft old cushions and the afternoon sun streaming in. She was getting dozy and longed to ease down into sleep. But she’d cop it if she fell asleep and Max turned up.

  Slowly she hauled herself up and stretched. The room was done. She would just have to remember to make sure her mother told Max that it’d been her, not Missie, that’d done the sorting.

  The cupboard door was open slightly and Missie oozed from her lovely, long stretch to tap it shut with her foot.

  It didn’t tap and she leaned forward to find and move whatever was blocking it. There, tucked down behind some shoeboxes, was an old cloth bag.

  She mightn’t have noticed it except it was curled over and looked as if it belonged with the throw-outs.

  She reached in and thought she felt a cold breath pass across her neck. She twisted around to make sure nothing was behind her but it wasn’t quick enough to stop the shudder that ran the length of her spine and shook the fingers that were holding the edge of the fabric.

  She knew where she’d seen that bag.

  And she knew without having to tug it any further, she knew for absolute certain, what kept it jammed so firmly in place under the boxes.

  She had to hold her breath and clamp her teeth down hard to make herself lean forward and drag the bag open. She didn’t want to pull it out into the room, or the sunlight. It was a dark and awful thing and the sudden glare of light would be too harsh and she needed time to ease it gradually past shadows that heaved and surged from the darkest parts of her brain.