Sheerwater

by Leah Swann

  He looked over at his mother, who was almost asleep next to Teddy in the dappled sun. He wanted her eyes on him.

  ‘Who is God?’

  His mother rolled onto her side and smiled at him. Her voice was warm. ‘I think God rises from the earth and comes down from the sky. God is the spirit that makes all things real and alive and glowing. God is all life and what we call love, all around us.’

  The way this answer flowed out of her seemed mixed with his sense of the bird he’d just buried, which was all flat and small and dull, all the puff gone out of it, the God gone out of it, unlike the live parrots on the branches above with their bright feathers of green and red, bustling and chirping in the leaves.

  Max wished they were with him now, those friendly parrots brighter than rainbows.

  He fell asleep. When he woke again the wind was quiet and the black clouds had gone. The clear sky contained a moon that seemed further away now and he could see lots of stars. He saw the pale mist of white and remembered that it was called the Milky Way. He’d never seen it so clearly before.

  Teddy was still snoring. Max rolled over to hug him and kept his face turned up to the sky. He didn’t feel as frightened as he had before. No-one had found them. It would be morning soon. He felt a bit of fear popping in his tummy at the thought of trying to find a phone to ring Mum, and so he hummed the lullaby again. He imagined her singing.

  Soft the breezes blow

  Rock you to and fro

  While the stars above

  Shine on you with love.

  What were stars anyway? Max closed his eyes and tried to remember what they were made of. There were different kinds. Black stars, red giants, white dwarfs, nedellas. No, not nedellas. Another name.

  A girl at school said her grandmother had died and become a star. Max was intrigued by this. When he asked what kind of star, she said he was a dummy and he didn’t know anything and he wished he hadn’t asked.

  Max thought of the dark birds they’d seen that day, their great wings beating as steady as drums. He and Teddy could follow those birds across the magic bridge that falls away with every step.

  He tightened his arm around Teddy and turned his face into his little brother’s smoky-smelling curls and shut his eyes and wished as hard as he could for morning.

  LAWRENCE

  1

  When Lawrence went into the backyard of Kirsty’s house and found the boys had vanished, he felt the terrible fury for the second time that day and knew the rage would only dissipate when he again had the boys in his possession. Where could they be now? Hiding somewhere? If he didn’t get them, someone would find them, hand them back to their mother, and he’d have to do all this again. When he had them, he’d teach some respect to that feral Teddy who too often dared to watch him with such baleful eyes, and he’d put the fear of God into Max for daring to disobey. He was very disappointed in his older son. Max was capable, but too afflicted with Ava’s emotionality. He’d cried like a baby when Lawrence had to kick a magpie off the front step. Max lacked the forward propulsion, the killer instinct, the pure will that Lawrence wished to see in his sons. He was not compliant enough when it came to Lawrence and too compliant when it came to everyone else.

  Lawrence had called out again and again into that silent and empty backyard. He’d threatened and cajoled and promised treats. Well then, let them start their own nightmare; see how they liked that.

  As Lawrence stood in that stranger’s garden with the soft rain soaking him, an inner resolve took form. On the news minutes earlier he’d eagerly watched the short clip shot by the journalist in the hotel lobby in Geelong. She was so excited, telling him that the interview would give the story a fresh perspective and gain him public sympathy. He’d enjoyed holding up the portraits of his sweet little sons and lambasting the police; but his perfectly executed performance was undermined when the news station followed it immediately with a headshot of Kirsty. The idiot must have been spotted at the accident yesterday. Now the police would be tracking her. The clock was ticking. Because of her mistake, everything was ruined; there was no time to go and search for the boys now – he had to get away from here.

  By now, too, Ava must be putting things together. The object of his obsession materialised in his mind’s eye, taking her form from the rain, the delicate light blues assembling her cheeks and hips, the pitiless menace of her eyes. How had she got the boys away from him this time? Was it how she’d brainwashed their minds, or was it her treacherous blood in their veins? She would not win at this game – how could she? He was not just the chess master; he was the chess-piece maker. Blessed are the piece makers.

  He’d repay her evil for evil. But first he must clean up, clear away, express and exorcise the fury burning so foully inside of him.

  Lawrence grabbed the fence and cleared it, the rough wood puncturing his palm, and ran back into the house. Kirsty was nowhere to be seen. He ran up the hallway to her bedroom and tried the door. It wouldn’t budge. She must have dragged a piece of furniture in front of it.

  ‘Kirsty?’

  ‘Go away!’ she shouted.

  ‘Kirsty, where’s the kerosene?’

  Silence met this question. That was all the warning the stupid cow would get. He knew very well where the kerosene was: he’d seen a great jerry can of it in the laundry when he was washing the boys’ clothes and it had inspired his earlier threat to burn down the house.

  He ran back down to the laundry. There he found brown boot polish which he slicked through his hair. He put on an old man’s fishing hat, a dusty raincoat and runners that were too large for him. He glanced in the little mirror on the laundry wall. He’d leave the two-day growth, liking how the boot polish and bristles made him look grimy. He’d wear sunglasses, catch buses and stay in shelters. He’d remake himself in appearance and in deeds, one by one, and all that frumpy detective who looked like a tuck-shop mum would have to go on was how he’d behaved up to this moment. She was no Sam Spade but by now she would have formed a picture of his habits, his life. She could not guess what he was capable of – how could she, when he did not yet know himself?

  When he was ready, Lawrence opened the lid of the kerosene tin and inhaled its pungent smell – oily, powerful and poisonous – and poured it over the seagrass matting, lovely flammable stuff. He struck a match and tossed it on the floor and had the deep and foolish pleasure of watching orange flames snake up the hallway. If he was going to break the law he might as well have some fun. He’d have liked to stay and watch the house go up – he’d only lit a big fire once before – but as some old sage had said, through discipline comes freedom.

  ‘You’d better get out, Kirsty,’ he shouted in the direction of Kirsty’s bedroom, lifting his backpack onto his shoulders. Should he have tied her up? Would she blab to the cops? Of course she would. She lacked Ava’s devotion. She’d tell them everything. She’d always been dumb, Kirsty. Stupid, sycophantic, gullible, willing, servile, useful, and ultimately useless.

  She might not have heard him. So what? Her stupidity had caused his first great fury of the day. Let the cards fall. She’d played her hand badly, he thought, stepping through the front door and walking down the path to the empty street. In his own veins the dark fire was transformed and renewed and he found he was humming an old murder ballad with almost jovial, foot-tapping vigour:

  I’ll shut your eyes so you won’t see

  I’ll blind you for etern-it-y

  He was as colossal as some ancient god, Apollo perhaps, the god of music and oracles and art and sun and light and knowledge. And what else? Yes, Apollo was the god of deadly plagues. A plague on your house, Kirsty. You thought you could threaten me – well, this is what you get. Watch me now, striding the streets, my neck a marble pillar, this fishing hat a laurel wreath.

  Two streets from Kirsty’s house, Lawrence found a bus stop and saw a bus approaching. Everything was so easily falling into place. Lawrence got on the bus just in time to see the first clouds of smo
ke through the window and hear the concerned murmurings of the passengers around him, wondering, asking, Where’s the smoke coming from? Dial triple zero. Someone call the fire brigade. Lawrence slid into the seat behind the driver. The smoke is black! Why is it black like that?

  Lawrence pulled the raincoat around him and the hat down over his eyes and leaned against the window, feigning sleep. The kerosene must have gone bad. The tin was old and the liquid was not as thin and clear as it should have been, so perhaps the blackness of the smoke was due to some sludgy bacteria living in the kerosene. Kero. Like the Greek word for wax – keri. Kirsty had as much chance as a wax cat in hell unless she unlocked that door or jumped out the window.

  Lawrence watched the sky till the clouds were all weather and no smoke, occasionally shimmering with electric light. They passed through long stretches flanked by dry-looking green fields that would be brown by summer, gum trees, dead trees, farmhouses, some cattle. All seemed flat, motionless, rural. As the road veered south he caught occasional views of the choppy ocean. Ava loved the sea. He hated it. He loathed the cold and sinister might of its cross-currents. He hated the fact that she had some mastery over its menace and he did not.

  ‘Hey, mate,’ Lawrence said, deepening his voice and broadening his vowels to address the bus driver. ‘This bus go anywhere near Sheerwater?’

  The driver didn’t take his eyes off the road. ‘Next town’s the closest you’ll get. About another ten kilometres from there. You could cab it. Or walk it. Or hitch.’

  An electronic chime sounded and the bus pulled up outside a decrepit farmhouse where a barking dog was chained to the verandah and three desolate red geranium blooms offered the only colour for miles. A large woman loaded with groceries made her way to the front of the bus. Lawrence watched the copious flesh quivering under cheap printed fabric and heard her grunting as she descended the bus steps, huffing as she hoisted the groceries up a little higher on her hips. As the bus pulled out, Lawrence enjoyed his own disdain at the squalor he imagined to be that woman’s life.

  The bus drove into a town with a green sign declaring: CULLAROY, POPULATION 50. Every one of those fifty people must live in these squat and cheaply built houses, each one dilapidated in its own unique way. There was a servo, a milk bar, a pub, and a pizza place lit up in garish neon.

  Lawrence got off the bus and headed for the servo diner, noticing a public phone booth. The fire was still in him and he wanted to share it with someone. He thought of Vanessa but didn’t stop to call her. He still had the burner phone but he didn’t want to waste the remaining credit on her. Once he’d used it again he’d probably have to dump it.

  Inside he ordered fish and chips, which, as a believer in the Paleo diet, he rarely ate. The fat and salt might cloud his consciousness, but if he was posing as a native he might as well eat like a native.

  He took a seat at the counter and noted there was no flatscreen TV showing the news – this outfit must be poor if they couldn’t afford the ubiquitous plasma TV. The young waitress had three inches of brown roots showing through her bleached curls and her body in skin-tight jeans and singlet wasn’t yet ruined. When his meal arrived he dipped chips and battered shark into lumpy tartare sauce and drank three shots of venomous black coffee. Yes, there it still was, the high; he liked a woman on hand to share this Apollo feeling, when he was strong and beautiful and powerful. It was the closest thing he had to an addiction. He took off the raincoat and fishing hat, regretting the boot polish – clean blond hair was one of his best assets.

  ‘How far’s Sheerwater from here? On foot?’ he asked the waitress when she came to remove his empty plate and cup.

  She blinked. ‘It’s ten minutes in the car.’ She was too dumb to convert car distances to walking distances. Couldn’t even make a stab at it.

  ‘Worked here long?’

  ‘My dad owns the place. So, yeah.’

  ‘Your looks are wasted here. You should go to the city, try your luck as a model.’

  The girl seemed both flattered and wary. ‘Not tall enough.’

  ‘You’re so pretty, though. I’m sure they could find you something.’

  ‘Yeah, right. I don’t reckon.’

  But she tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled to herself.

  Such a tired line, an easy line, working too well: he’d have to do without the thrill of overcoming resistance.

  ‘Got a boyfriend?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Course you do. Cute girl like you. Bet they’re lining up.’

  She twisted another lock of hair between her fingers, looking at him. She was lapping it up like a kitten that never gets milk, a soft target – and how soft, deliciously soft, like a floury bap he could squeeze in his hands, all soft bits of her to be cupped and stroked and squeezed. If anything, his excitement was amplified by its shadow of revulsion: this desert flower could end up like that appalling woman on the bus, deplorable, vast, unwashed.

  ‘You’re making me think bad things,’ he said, smiling, his lids lowered a little. ‘If you’ve got a boyfriend, I guess I’m out of luck.’

  He wasn’t out of luck. But when she leaned into him in the servo kitchen, smelling of shampoo and Impulse deodorant, he could not close his nostrils to the other less enticing smells of mouse droppings and cheap fried fat. Nor close his eyes to how her legs lifted from a work surface covered with eggy dishes and soiled pans, nor close his ears to the peculiar squeal she made at every thrust.

  Afterwards he asked if he could use her landline. He asked the girl to leave and dialled a few extra numbers to conceal where he was calling from, before ringing Vanessa.

  His mother-in-law sounded weary when she answered the phone. ‘Hello?’

  Lawrence left a silence.

  ‘Derek? That you? You’re breaking up. Derek, when are you coming home? I need you.’

  ‘Soon, soon,’ he said, in a soothing voice.

  She’d had a few, he could hear it. Wine? No, it wouldn’t be wine. She loved cocktails. Strawberry Daiquiris and Sidecars, and Cocksucking Cowboys made with butterscotch schnapps. She’d made them for him often, pouring her potent brews into tall and glamorous glasses. When she was stressed, however, she drank gin. Was she finally starting to worry about her grandsons? What had she really said to that goddamned police detective Ballard? Had she lied?

  ‘Need Derek, do you, Vanessa?’ He enjoyed making his voice sound ominous.

  There was a gasp, a short silence, and then: ‘Lawrence. Have you found the boys?’

  ‘I’m searching. I will never stop searching.’ He was the lead role in a film of his own making, the bereft father – quick-thinking, strong, unstoppable.

  ‘Do you have them? I mean—’

  ‘You know very well I don’t have them. I think you have them. You and Ava, working hand-in-glove to torture me.’

  ‘I’ve hardly talked to Ava! That’s insane!’

  ‘What do you think she’ll do when I tell her about us?’

  ‘We haven’t – we never—’

  ‘Think she’ll believe that? She’ll never talk to you again.’

  Vanessa hung up. Lawrence hit redial. He rang again and again. On the third try, she picked up.

  ‘What the hell, Lawrence?’

  ‘Where are MY SONS, Vanessa? I have good reason to believe you know.’

  ‘I don’t know! The whole country’s searching for them.’

  ‘I will tell the cops you have them. You and Ava.’

  ‘Why are you being like this, Lawrence? You’re frightening me.’

  Her voice sounded resigned, as though she knew she was letting go of her power over him. She’d never been frightened before. That was why he’d never tired of her.

  ‘Did you tell the police about Kirsty? Have you ever read my phone?’

  ‘I don’t look at your phone. I don’t know the first thing about anyone called Kirsty,’ said Vanessa.

  ‘Vanessa, if you say a word to anyone about this phone call you’ll
pay for it, I swear—’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘What would you like? My bare hands around your throat? Be a softer death if you did it yourself.’

  As he spoke, the words were stirring some early memory, the delightful sensation of a feathered neck snapping in his hands that until now he’d forgotten; the slaying of a sparrow when he was no more than ten years old. Was that the first time he’d felt the surge of glory? He relished the power of the threat, winding Vanessa up was amusing, and freeing. No-one, not even Vanessa, had the upper hand now. It was so easy.

  ‘Lawrence, for godsake, calm down. You should hear yourself. You need to speak to Dr Glover,’ she said. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said.’

  Where was she? His voice echoed back at him as though he was on a loudspeaker.

  ‘That’s not true. I am listening carefully. How can I help you, Lawrence? What do you need?’

  ‘Are you in the car? Are you driving somewhere? Don’t you go to the cops, don’t you say a word—’

  She hung up again.

  When he returned through the beaded curtain to the dining room, the late afternoon haze lit the thin dust coating the empty plastic tables, the girl told him the town’s only cab was booked for the next hour on a trip to Warrnambool. He would not wait. Why should he? She gave him a doughnut off a baking tray and hot red jam shot into his mouth and he enjoyed the secret burning of his tongue, like Kirsty’s shack and all that seaside tat going up in smoke. He had rid the world of at least one obscenity.

  He wiped his lips and kissed the girl almost fondly and set off towards Sheerwater along an alien road where the dirt, grass and sky were unified by the absence of colour. When the occasional car passed he did not flag it down. When a flock of little corellas burst the silence with their hard squawks he did not put his hands to his ears. This was nature. This was life. He would not squander these hours of pain. Something kept unfolding in him that he was both following and shaping.

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