Sheerwater

by Leah Swann

  ‘What?’ Ava shouted. ‘Had them? Where are they now?’

  ‘They called you, but Lawrence answered your phone. Tillie and her husband found the boys in their garden in Mering this morning. The boys were fine, Ava, just fine. But Lawrence has got them now. He took my car and dumped it and took the Kings’ pick-up truck. It’s a vintage Chevrolet, brightly painted, light purple I think Ballard said.’

  ‘Where’s he headed?’

  ‘No-one knows.’

  ‘Try to see them. Bring them up in your mind. Please, Simon.’

  She pulled at the bandages and felt scabs tear off. Somewhere close by Lawrence was driving too, swerving as she swerved, speeding as she sped, each of them in their separate cars and unable to stop.

  She couldn’t understand it. The more she tried, the more confused she became. All she could do was act; she couldn’t think it through, she couldn’t try to guess what Lawrence would do next. It was possible Lawrence himself did not yet know. The tarmac glittered like black sand and the glare hit her eyes as she accelerated again, passing another truck, and she remembered the truck on her way up to Sheerwater, the one she’d almost crashed into with its rumbling logs. She’d drive into it now if it blocked her path. She wouldn’t care. She’d crash and destroy. She’d been in shock but now the motherstream was stirring, receding like a vast tsunami drawback, the trough sucking down before the giant wave surges forward to fling aside buildings and whales and mountains.

  Simon called back. ‘I tried to see – I think, I’m not sure, I think he’s on the Great Ocean Road. Heading back towards Sheerwater.’

  ‘But wouldn’t he be on a freeway?’ said Ava. ‘The Great Ocean Road’s slower. Exposed. Dangerous.’

  ‘He might be thinking the cops will block the freeways first. He’ll probably dump the truck. Maybe he’ll head to a forest, like the Great Otway National Park, hide there.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Heading south towards Nirranda,’ she said. ‘The national park’s miles away. I don’t think he’ll be going there.’

  She counted through the towns in her mind: Sheerwater, Peterborough, Port Campbell, Lavers Hill, Apollo Bay, Kennett River . . . Would Lawrence head in that direction? Or would he try the other way, head out of the state, towards South Australia?

  ‘I’m pretty sure he’s on that road to Sheerwater, Ava. I can see him.’

  Simon could be right. If she knew anything about Lawrence – and it was possible she didn’t, but if she did – he’d be looking for her, wouldn’t he, so he might head for Sheerwater? It was Ava he wanted to hurt, not the boys. Nothing would be worth doing without her as an audience.

  At the end of the road was the vast Southern Ocean. Simon was still talking but she wasn’t listening. She gunned the engine and overtook a huge tourist bus, swerving back into her lane just in time to avoid a truck coming the opposite way. Simon’s voice was drowned out by the furious honking. She pressed her foot down again. She heard Simon calling, trying to get her attention, a soundtrack belonging to some other reality.

  She ran the front wheel into the gravel shoulder and skidded off to the side of the road. She came to a stop. The tourist bus passed her. She put her head over the steering wheel and tried to think. Lawrence would have had to drive to Mering to get the boys. If Simon was right, he was driving back towards Sheerwater now. He had further to go but he’d had a head start on her and would be driving even faster than she was. She clenched her hands on the wheel and surged back out onto the road, fear boring through her heart. What was he doing? Where was he going? She heard Simon’s voice calling from the phone.

  ‘It’s dangerous, Ava. Tricky. Be careful, be careful now—’

  ‘Yes!’ she shouted. The tourist bus was turning into a car park near a lookout and she sped past, aware of faces looking out of the bus windows towards the sea.

  She had to calm down, concentrate. The Great Ocean Road was demanding to drive, it was famous for it. Hungry clouds swept the horizon and the road. Suddenly a splash of unnaturally vibrant colour ahead of her, a pixel or a brushstroke, came into view.

  ‘There!’ shouted Ava. Her ears seemed to pop. The engine was roaring. She squinted at the violet dot disappearing ahead.

  ‘What?’ shouted Simon. ‘We’re coming. Be careful—’

  Ava thought she heard a siren and felt both relief that the police were coming and could help her and panic that their presence might push Lawrence into some random course of action.

  A tiny flash caught her eye in the rearview mirror. She took the curve hard and fast and the ute appeared again. She sped up, shrinking the distance between them.

  Pull over, Lawrence, she thought. Let’s talk.

  She disconnected from Simon and tried ringing Lawrence’s number.

  Lawrence, Lawrence, pick up. He wasn’t answering. She redialled.

  Lawrence, I’ll agree to anything now. Anything you want.

  What’s going through your mind? Why are you running? What are you afraid of? Where are you leading me?

  Then she remembered he’d dumped the phone, only it was her phone, not his, that he’d thrown it through the open car window onto the Princes Highway. She knew that mood. That sense of greatness that swept so hard through him that he thought he was invincible. Was that his mood now? Or had it shifted already? Was he feeling great and generous, or obtuse and determined, or sly and full of vile intent?

  Ice-blue light in the rearview mirror seared her eyes. Back off, she thought. Back off or he might do something stupid. The police must back off but she could not. Lawrence’s mind would be running hard and fast after the sense of self-righteous victimhood that fed his shoreless revenge.

  Then Ava noticed movement in the back of the ute. A tarpaulin was stretched over the tray, but now a corner peeled back. Two little heads appeared.

  Her heart leapt into her mouth. Max and Teddy were clinging to the edge of the tray with the wind whipping their hair. Why weren’t they in the cab with him? Lawrence, Lawrence, please stop. I don’t care, I’ll do anything you want, I shouldn’t have left, I know that now! What the fuck, Lawrence? What the fuck!

  She swallowed. Lawrence had to stop. There was nowhere to go. She was near enough to see that the boys were looking back at her. She saw Teddy’s baby face with the huge eyes, and Max with no expression at all, not even fear, bouncing in the back of the ute as loose as skittles.

  ‘Stop. Stop now!’ she cried out. The shriek of the police siren was getting louder.

  Ava directed all her energy, all her concentration, into a dense rope of love streaming towards her children. Could they see her? Teddy raised his hand and Max grabbed it and for a brief moment they stood up hand in hand as though they were about to jump, and then they fell backwards and she jerked with fear. When they sat up again and grabbed the side, she breathed with relief. The ute kept moving.

  Surely Lawrence had seen her. He was always watching to see who was watching. Surely he’d stop now and they could talk, work it out. She’d do anything. She’d walk to him on her knees. He would know that. He would love that. He would know that he’d proven that she was helpless and that she had no choice. He’d won.

  He’d pull over now, any minute, ready to hear her promise that she’d never do anything to upset him ever again.

  The siren was piercing. Shut up, shut up! Don’t trap him. Sweat ran down the back of her neck.

  Lawrence took a hard, sharp turn and swerved off the road.

  She gasped.

  Don’t. You won’t. Please God.

  Jump! Jump out now, boys, now’s the time to—

  The ute went hurtling through the grasses towards the cliff, and there could be no stopping now, it was going over the cliff edge, the driver’s door was opening and Lawrence was leaping out into the long grass and she screamed as the ute and Max and Teddy vanished from view.

  There was the ground. There was the sky. There was the sea. Blades of grass moved in t
he wind.

  She slammed on the brakes, pulled on the handbrake, opened the car door and fell out and hit the ground at speed and felt nothing but some force driving her onwards. She got up and ran and tripped on an unravelling bandage and got up again and ran to the cliff edge and stared into the dark water and saw the boys near the sinking truck and she moved fast with every muscle quickening, gust after gust of adrenaline aiming its full force through her faculties: judgement, reason, emotion, all silenced by instinct. Maybe the police had pulled up behind her because she heard voices calling her back as she ran, her feet skidding along the sandy gravel path to a dip where the cliff was lower, and she stared again into the inky waters where the ute was sinking fast, waves already lapping over the little bodies of her sons.

  Ava pinned her arms to her sides and dropped from the edge, pointing her toes, closing her eyes, and their blessed faces were speeding through her, burning into her, they were betrayed, they were lost. She cried out as she hit the water, cold and bright and brutal, so cold it sucked the air out of her, but she kicked out as the old training kicked in, and she was swimming underwater towards the ute. She came back to the surface for a gasping breath, swallowed seawater and spat.

  The cabin of the ute was under. The boys were floating in the water. Max’s body was being turned over by the waves and a bright flap on his skull shone red in the sunlight.

  Ava struck out, her arms and legs thrusting. She reached Teddy first and hoisted his limp body over her shoulder; she turned Max onto his back and hooked her arm through his t-shirt so that the fabric rucked up at her elbow. Her forearm grazed the cool, wet skin of his back and this made her weep, choked sobs coming up through her throat, but she must stop weeping. She had to be able to breathe if she was going to save them, because she would not leave them here in the sea. She must take them with her and she must attend to them and she must not let them fall through these dark waters. It might be the last thing she could do for them. The only thing.

  She kept swimming, pushing through water that was too harsh, too vicious, with too much power in it. Salt water flooded her mouth and scorched her eyes. She looked around wildly. She saw no shoreline, only cliff. The arm slipped through Max’s t-shirt was so cold, all sensation was leaving and the numbness was spreading, fierce, inevitable, but she could still kick, she could still move, she could do it, though her clothes were dragging her down, and the bandages – she had the extra weight of all this wet cloth. She saw a rock not far away, maybe seven feet. She knew she could reach it. The water rose, tremendous, terrifying; she felt its volatile nature, ruthless and deep and inhuman.

  She kept moving, focusing on the rock ahead, a rough indigo pyramid crowned with gulls. Breathless, she let herself drift a moment with her frozen left arm reaching through Max’s t-shirt to hold Teddy in place. Max’s arms and legs trailed through the water. Teddy was slipping off her shoulder and she grabbed his leg to wrap it over the other shoulder, to keep him there. Almost there, almost there!

  She put out her hand and gripped the stone. It was full of sharpness and holes, a kind of igneous rock, jagged and unforgiving.

  This was no place for her boys!

  A burst of fury gave her the energy she needed. She climbed up onto the rock, dragging Max just clear of the water, keeping her head forward and her back hunched so that Ted would not tumble off her shoulders. She knelt beside Max and pulled Teddy down into her arms, and rock shredded the bare skin of her knees. Max was so much bigger than she remembered! His limbs were long and strong and perfect, his tender mouth still so expressive. She stroked his cheek.

  ‘My boy,’ she said.

  Teddy’s inert form felt so heavy in her arms. Only three nights ago she’d rocked him to sleep before bed as if he were still a little baby. She kissed his brow. The boys’ cheeks were turning blue. They were so cold, so cold, her poor darlings.

  She lay beside Max on the rock and put Teddy’s body over her own. Strange gargoyle clouds were closing over the sky and the light on them was so harsh and was it her imagination or was the water getting higher around them? Teddy’s weight was depressing her chest and she gripped him, barely feeling him, her arm almost numb. She turned her head to look at Max, lying in the dip of the rock beside her and reached out to stroke the pale, almost white, bumpy skin of his arm and saw here and there a tiny hair glinting. His skin against hers seemed colder than Teddy’s. His face was in profile and she traced her eyes over his rounded brow and nose and parted lips, the tiny freckles, the fine gold whorl of hair in front of his ear, the wet curls moving only slightly in the wind, the familiar and dear features that she so loved.

  She sang to him and to Teddy. Only now there were no branches to cover them with leaf shadow and no chimes to comfort them. She sang because it was always the last thing they heard before sleep.

  Mumma warruno

  Murra wathuno.

  Sleep as falls the dark

  In your bed of bark

  None shall harm you, dear,

  Mother watches near.

  SIMON

  Night was coming to the cliff edge where the crowd had gathered.

  Simon walked among them.

  A spontaneous vigil was taking place. Dipping and sparkling through the dusk were candle flames in lanterns. White gulls streaked soundlessly through the radiance. Some people were singing, human voices at war with the hard sea breeze. Now and then he caught a fractured lyric . . . so I’ll cherish . . .

  Nothing stirred him, no tremor or craving or compulsion, nothing but this incredible dry sorrow, beyond weeping. Sounds from far and near reached into him: the waves, snatches of song swallowed by the wind, the chortling of gannets plunging into the sea, the parched cries of the shearwaters. Inside his ear quivered tiny hairs that transformed birdsong into neural signals, making sound intelligible to thought. Inside the limitless air he was so small he was almost as nothing, his heart a stone.

  A woman drew near. Simon did not look at her. They stood side by side in the violently contrasting light and shadow, on the stones and the grasses. Rocks stabbed his feet through the soles of his shoes. There was no softness anywhere.

  ‘She got em back, didn’t she?’ the woman said. Her old and guttural voice seemed satisfied, even proud.

  Simon did not want to listen. He wanted to shut this woman up and push her away. He took a few steps back and she followed. Now she was closer than before. Too close. There was some swelling near her eye, as though she’d recently been struck. Wind ruffled the crisp cotton fabric of her shawl.

  ‘Me and Kath and Freda, we sang all night long for those little boys.’

  Simon stared. He recognised Mary.

  The poor woman didn’t know what had happened. She didn’t understand. She hadn’t witnessed the horror he had seen – a father’s madness, a mother’s courage, a child’s death. She was rumpled and old and pouring inwards, into the personal story he didn’t know and couldn’t bear to know. Her eyes, though! He was drawn into the rich depths absorbing the last rays of sunlight and her gaze was not passive. She was holding him there and waiting with the patience of the old and the disregarded, the kind of waiting not bound to time.

  After a while she said: ‘We sang him home.’

  Without wanting to, Simon gave a harsh sob.

  The crowd moved around them like a current. To his right was a group of young people he recognised from the township. He smelled the drink on them. Knew it like a friend. But he had no need for it, not anymore. Above their heads he met the eyes of Caleb standing close by, his face disfigured by sadness. Caleb, who last night had lifted him cleanly out of that need and pulled him ashore. Simon reached across to grip his brother’s shoulder and Caleb said to him, ‘You know, don’t you, there’s hope for Ava and the little one? Go to them, Simon . . .’

  The surging people pushed them apart. Someone important was coming through, a photographer with a small team of helpers bearing ropes and equipment. They were heading to the cliff edge where Ava had
made the terrifying leap he’d seen when he’d run after her from the police car, her arms sealed to her body and her feet driving downwards like an arrowhead.

  The crowd followed the news crew. What did they know? What were they doing?

  Simon let himself be carried along and watched with his heart loosening and aching within him as the intrepid news photographer abseiled halfway down the cliff to take a photograph of the small and inaccessible beach that would be projected around the world.

  On this beach was the empty ute. Waves met its wheels and withdrew, leaving behind a glazed foreshore reflecting glowing cords of light linking rose and gold and blue.

  Simon turned away. With his head bowed and his hands deep in his pockets, he shouldered his way back through the crowd and the seaside scrub towards the road. He did not want to see the sun setting over a beach turning to silver and lead and darkening with the incoming tide. He would not. He would do as Caleb said.

  With the strangeness of these past three days searing inside him he would go to them, and keep watch over the long night ahead.

  MAX

  He could hear Mum singing. He wanted to speak to her.

  He couldn’t feel his body anymore. It was a dead thing.

  He heard water crashing and Mum’s voice singing.

  He was running across the falling bridge towards a shining mist from his dreams.

  He couldn’t open his eyes.

  He tried hard.

  He so wanted to see her. He was covered by the sun.

  He saw the soft redness of his closed eyes and felt the warm gold light coming through and heard his mother’s voice, so beautiful.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  For the lucky star that led me to Catherine Milne and the incredible team at HarperCollins, I am grateful. Thank you, Catherine – from your first response through to the brilliant structural edit and character observations, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such an astute reader. The inspired editorial suggestions made by Madeleine James, the literal precision of Clara Finlay and proofreaders Lu Sierra and Pam Dunne all greatly strengthened the manuscript. A heartfelt thank you to Hazel Lam for creating the beautiful and mysterious cover, and to Lucy Inglis and Kimberley Allsop for your friendly marketing expertise and professionalism. Thanks to the wonderful Gaby Naher of Left Bank Literary Agency for your belief that Sheerwater must find a readership.