by Brown, Honey
He couldn’t hurt anyone anymore.
Billy snatched the gun from Adam. He put it on the bench. His mother crawled over the mattress and stood at the foot of the bed. She limped further forward. To see the body she had to look around Adam. Her top lip was puffed up. She had a red welt on her cheek and fingermarks around her arm. Her knee was bruised. Her eyes moved in a slow arc from each thing to the next – from the body to the gun, to the blood, to Adam, to Billy. Smoke hazed the air. There was a smoky smell. Adam’s teeth and jaw felt like they’d suffered a sonic boom. The van had contained the sound, increased it. Adam pressed his ringing ears. When he took his fingers away, Billy was saying to his mother, ‘Careful, it’s loaded.’
She’d gone across to the bench and picked up the gun.
‘It’s empty,’ Adam corrected.
She rubbed the handle and barrel with her dress. ‘You shouldn’t have touched it,’ she said to Billy.
‘You’re touching it.’
She put it down, stepped away, looked at her hands and rubbed her fingers on her dress.
The broken van door buffeted in the wind. The right sort of gust would fling it wide open. Billy and his mum looked at one another. She pulled a tissue from the box and went over to pass it to him.
‘Is everyone coming?’
Billy turned to the window and looked through the lace. ‘They’re all too scared to come.’ He wiped his tears.
Tenderly, his mother touched her belly. She pressed the top and bottom.
‘Is it all right? Did he hit you there?’
‘It’s moving.’
Billy checked again for people coming. Adam turned his back on the body. It didn’t seem human, like a thing was in the van with them. It wasn’t even dead, not like a bird could be dead, or a mouse in a trap, or a headless chicken in the grass, it was its own thing, disturbing, dropped in from another world, slumped in a van, bleeding everywhere.
‘We didn’t shoot him.’
‘Mum.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s wasn’t us. We didn’t know he was going to do that. We’re not going to get in any trouble. Whose gun is it?’
‘We did know,’ Billy said. ‘It’s not going to be okay. It’s all going to come out. Everyone is going to know we knew. Everyone is going to blame me.’
She turned her back on the body too. Billy was the only one comfortable looking at it. Adam watched his friend’s gaze take in the blood and bent limbs and partly missing skull. Billy rubbed the corner of his eye, sighed and swallowed. His mother looked at Adam, lingering over his arms and wrists, the skinniness. She looked slowly over his collarbones, his hair, his eyes, nose and mouth.
‘What happened? Why are you with him?’
‘He was at a house I went to.’
‘The house on the news?’
Billy’s chin creased and his eyes filled with tears. His mouth grew full; he covered it. He nodded.
‘Did you know he was being kept there?’
Billy shook his head, his hand clamped to his lips.
‘Did you know he was alive?’
He shook his head.
‘Why were you there?’
‘Kovac,’ Billy cried behind his hand, ‘he would take me there when I was little.’
‘To the same man who had him?’
‘But I didn’t know that.’
His mother came to Adam. She touched his arm. ‘Do you need to sit down? Are you okay? Here.’
She led him to the sink. She wet a tissue and wiped his face. There must have been blood splattered on him. The soggy tissue turned red. She wet another one and cleaned the side of his nose, under his chin, down his neck. It took a couple of tissues to get it all off. She cleaned his forehead and pulled a dry tissue through clumped strands of his hair.
‘Quite a set of lungs you’ve got.’
Adam had never been touched that way before. He’d never been so near to a woman. Her fingers were slim. The pressure was light. Her ears were small and her nose was fine-boned. The freckles were delicate and pretty across her brow. Blood spray was on his T-shirt too. She dabbed at it. The dark fabric hid it.
‘Will we turn your cap back around?’
She did it for him, rested her hand on his shoulder when it was done and looked into his eyes, right into them.
‘That looks better to go home.’
Adam wasn’t stupid. Never had been. Granted, a week ago, fresh from the backroom, he wouldn’t have been as quick to catch on. Colour and movement alone would have bogged him down, made him retreat. Time away from the backroom had changed him, though. He could keep up. Billy had taught him to keep up. Away from Joe, Adam didn’t have to hide anymore. He was free to think. He was free to look and wonder what other people were thinking. Adam could see the hurt in Billy’s mother. Years of pain. Years of being controlled. It had hardened her in all the wrong places. Her heart wasn’t dark, though. Just brittle. A shell had formed around it. Adam also saw how connecting this way to her sharpened her interest in him, made her expression lighten.
She squeezed his shoulder. ‘I was frightened. It’s no excuse.’
If you asked Adam, it was an excuse. At least he hoped it was, because fear had locked him in and stopped him for a long time.
Billy had gone to the door and was looking out as it blew open and shut. He let the wind dictate what he got to see and what he didn’t.
The change in the van was acute. Before and after were not comparable. The violence hadn’t gone for a while; it had gone forever. Billy’s father wasn’t going to get back up and start again. Not ever. And Billy’s mother felt it. She was seeing things differently. She was experiencing what Adam had, when he’d escaped the backroom. Everything looked altered, even down to the colour of things, the size, the texture, feel; fear skewed everything. Once it was gone things were closer, thoughts were sharper, movements quicker. It wasn’t just the haze of drugs or alcohol lifting; it was as much the fear leaving.
‘Are they coming yet?’ Billy’s mother asked.
‘Not yet.’
‘Who knows you’re here?’
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘Did you tell anyone you were coming?’
‘No.’
‘Did anyone see you come in?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t think so.’
‘Well, did anyone see you or didn’t they?’ she said.
She looked and sounded so much like Billy then it was interesting to watch her.
‘Why?’
‘Brother Hayden?’
‘No.’
‘Go then.’
‘What?’
‘Just go.’
‘What are you talking about? The police will be coming. Everyone heard the shots.’
‘Just go. Take him to his parents. He doesn’t need this. His parents don’t need this. Everyone coming here? No. Just go.’
‘The police will think you shot him, Mum.’
‘Is the gun someone’s?’
‘I don’t know. We can’t just go.’
‘Yes, you can. Let’s try it. It’s worth a try. Go.’
‘If you say you shot him, they’ll believe you.’
‘I think they will.’
‘You can’t do this.’
‘Why can’t I?’
‘You could go to jail.’
‘Billy,’ she said and frowned, ‘I should go to jail. I knew. I knew what Kovac was doing to you. I let you go next door to him. I let him take you. How could I have done that? Any mother, any good person, would have stopped that. I belong in jail.’
‘You did try.’ Tears began to fall again down Billy’s cheeks. ‘You left Dad.’
‘I let him back.’
‘He would have killed you.’
‘I should have risked that for you. A good mother would risk that.’
‘You did risk it,’ Billy cried.
‘What you said was right. I hurt you more than they did. What I did was worse.’
‘No,’ Bil
ly sobbed. ‘I didn’t mean it. I don’t blame you, Mum, I don’t.’
‘You should.’ She raised her hand to stop him as he went to go to her. ‘I should have got you away from your father. I should have got you away from Kovac. I should have believed you and listened to you. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me. I don’t expect this boy or his family to ever forgive me. I knew and I said nothing. It was never your fault, Billy; it was mine.’
The money was on the bench. She picked up the bundle and gave it to him.
‘Take him home.’
Scotty was jogging up the track, in his thongs, calling for everyone to stay inside, yelling that the police were on their way. Billy and Adam went out through the van door. Scotty saw them and stopped. Billy motioned to his watch, tapped the face. They were within their hour. They still had time. Scotty put his hands on his hips. His face said it all. Dumbfounded. Adam could only imagine his reaction when he saw inside the van.
During the drive in they turned the car radio on for news.
‘. . . Barbary Street Rest and Recuperation Home for Returned Servicemen,’ a report was saying, ‘privately run by the Vander family, left to Joe Vander by his mother. Neighbours described Joe Vander as a recluse. Locals knew him as the Chicken Man. Behind the locked gates and high fence, the squalid state of the property has now been revealed. Joe Vander’s only involvement in community activities was his association with the Save Wade Park committee and his annual contribution to the Skyline Fireworks, held on the Water Tower Rec reserve —’
‘Here we go,’ the radio announcer interrupted, ‘listeners, I can tell you that the Fishers are now arriving at the house. The police escort has pulled into the street . . . they’re travelling up to the gates . . . the Fisher parents are about to go inside . . . police are referring to a visit as necessary in the investigation and to assist in their search, but information leaked to the media suggests the Fishers are in no doubt that this was where their son was held . . .’
‘Bugger,’ Billy said, ‘they’ve gone to the house. That’s back the other way.’
‘Can we still go to the hospital?’
‘You wanna?’
‘I don’t want to go to the house.’
‘You sure?’
Adam nodded. ‘I don’t want to go there ever again.’
A parking spot in the city was hard to find. They drove around the busy streets, parked a fair way out. Billy left the money in the car; he locked the doors, put the car key in his pocket. He looked at his watch.
‘Is the hour gone?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Buildings funnelled the wind into a blast. Sun came in and out from behind the clouds. Billy’s arm was hurting; as they walked he patched it up as best he could, put his hand inside his sleeve, feeling for the strips that had come unstuck, re-sticking them. Leaves skittered along the sidewalk. Rubbish collected and swirled in doorways. Shoppers and office workers pushed against the hot wind or trotted along with it at their back. Those in pairs or groups were talking about the search. Their words got whisked away. It felt like at any moment someone would wise up and look twice at Billy and Adam.
Across from the hospital was a diner. Thirsty, they went in for a drink. Billy paid. Adam slid into the end booth. He sat by the window. The diner had a pressed-tin ceiling. Figures of rock’n’roll dancers were painted on the walls. Ice-cream advertisements hung on the large panes of window glass. In a taped-off area out the front of the hospital was the police caravan Adam had seen on the news. Set up on the sidewalk was a mannequin dressed to look like Adam. They’d put it in trackpants and a T-shirt. It had sneakers on, a light-brown, messy wig.
‘What did I tell you? David Bowie.’
Billy slid into the booth with the drinks. He sat across from Adam. Billy had a can of Solo. Adam had a Fruit Box. He poked the bendy straw into the foil circle. Billy cracked his can. On the diner counter a TV had been set up. It sat precariously on the counter, the cord snaked across the floor. The sound had been turned down. On the screen were pictures of Joe’s house, police cars out the front. The report cut to different footage. Adam watched his parents get out of a police car – only glimpses of them, a tall man with light-brown hair and a short beard, a woman in a dark blue cardigan and sunglasses, both of them shielded by police. The police tape was lifted for them. They went into Joe’s yard.
‘Mum probably won’t go through with it,’ Billy said. He took a long drink of Solo. ‘She’s not good at doing things she says she’s gonna do.’
Adam drank his juice. ‘She might now.’
‘Hey?’
‘She might do the things she says she’s going to do now.’
‘. . . Yeah, I guess.’
Adam tipped his drink and moved the straw. It was a fruit mix, Tropicana, a pineapple taste mostly. Billy downed another long swig of soda. He took out his smokes. Lit one. The ashtray was made of tinfoil. He tapped his smoke before there was any ash formed.
‘They’re not gonna charge you with anything if she does tell. You don’t have to worry about that. No one is going to care that you shot him. You’d be the one person in the whole city who could get away with it.’
Billy rolled his smoke in the ashtray. He probably didn’t realise, because the counter and the door were behind him, and the booth backrest was high, and because he was deep in thought, but three police officers from across the road walked in. They went up to the counter.
‘Are you sad?’ Adam said. ‘Are you upset at me?’
‘At you?’ Billy scoffed. ‘That would be pretty fucking rich, wouldn’t it? I should have done it, I suppose, years ago. I guess you think that one day they might change, they might one day love you. But he was never gonna.’
At the counter, one of the policemen opened a packet of smokes and put a cigarette between his lips. He took a lighter from his pocket and began flicking it. It wouldn’t ignite.
Billy put his hand under the table and slapped his leg. ‘The thing he did, it was all about him. He’s got scars like that on his legs too. Did it to himself, though, Mum thinks. He grew up in a church-run thing. Gets to everyone differently. It got to him.’
The policeman was shaking his lighter. He tried again to ignite it. Billy’s cigarette pack was on the table. His lighter was on top of it. He tipped the Solo and drained it, sat the empty can down with a chink. The policeman reached the front of the queue. He took his unlit smoke from between his lips, looked up at the board.
‘You never knew what was gonna make him mad,’ Billy said. ‘What he was gonna fly off the handle about. But once he lost it over something, well, that was it, he was off the chart. I mean as if Mum would ever cheat on him. The postie once waved at her and dad tied her to a kitchen chair for half a day because of it. That was him. You couldn’t work him out. The moment Kovac asked if I might want some pocket money, it was on. He reckoned Mum and Kovac had something between them. Nothing done to Kovac, of course; Dad didn’t work like that. Kovac knew it too. He read the whole thing in a snap.’ Billy clicked his fingers. The sound was sharp. The police all glanced over. The one with the unlit smoke had his wallet open. He eyed Billy’s lighter at the end of the table, put the dry smoke back in his mouth and finished paying.
‘I couldn’t not go work for Kovac because Dad woulda thought that meant something was up, but also, by working for him, Dad thought that meant something was up. You couldn’t win. You don’t know until you’ve lived with someone like that, it’s buzzin’, nonstop on the edge . . . like there’s no time to think . . .’
‘G’day there.’
The policeman had come across in three long strides, too quickly for Adam to warn Billy. He was right there, pointing at the lighter.
‘Sorry to interrupt, you don’t mind, do you?’
Billy looked up, blinked a couple of times. ‘No, you’re right.’
The policeman smiled, picked up the lighter, nodded to Adam. Adam nodded back.
‘Yeah so . . .’ Billy said
, because it would seem strange if he didn’t continue with the story he’d been midway through. He looked out the window, licked his teeth. ‘Yeah, it was like that . . .’
‘Thanks,’ the policeman said, his cigarette lit.
The man’s eyes narrowed at Billy as he placed the lighter down. He had white-blond hair, a sweeping side fringe and a small moustache, white-blond too. A pair of sunglasses was hooked in his pocket. He had a gold ring on his finger. His belt was overloaded – radio, pistol, baton, other things in leather cases. He drew in on the smoke and frowned at Billy. Billy peered out from between his lashes, his head down, his mouth small. His hand was at the ashtray, fingers frozen mid tap. Adam had a cold moment thinking he’d realised who they were . . . but the policeman then said, ‘You’re not that fella, are you?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You look like him – the Silver Wave fella.’
Billy tapped his smoke. ‘Oh. Yeah. I am.’
