The First Week (3 page)

There would be somewhere to stay. She could find somewhere. There was money in her purse. Or she could sleep in the car.

That idea was comforting. She could always sleep in the Astra.

He wasn't dead.

It took some moments of staring at the clock before she realised that it said four. And she was still sitting on the bed. How could it be four? This was no good.

Stay focused.

The first part of the trip passed in a daze. As the thin winter sunlight faded she dragged her attention back again and again to the road. Concentrate.

She gripped the wheel tight, hands at ten-to-two.

Before long the world had shrunk into darkness, the night-time trees looming up in the headlights and dropping away behind. Each white post menaced her, then fell away again, mocking.

Normally, driving at night, she would sing to keep herself awake. Singing always made her think of her father, a man who spoke little but knew every song there was.

She opened her mouth.
The bear went over the mountain …

The words came out as a grotesque croak, sending shockwaves through the quiet hum inside the car. Heat flooded up into her face. How could she think of singing at a time like this?

There wasn't a lot of traffic. Afterwards she couldn't remember any other cars except hers, alone on the road, pushing through the dark towards the terror.

Must stay alert. Turn the heater off. But she was soon shivering and pushed the lever back on, wriggling her toes and drumming on the wheel to stay awake. She clicked the radio knob, though she knew nothing would happen. It hadn't worked for ages. If only she'd dug out some cassettes.

She drove slowly through a deserted town, spitting on her fingers and rubbing the wet onto her eyes. The coldness kept her awake for another few minutes.

The pull to sleep was a soft downward slide, punctuated with shots of adrenalin when the car drifted sideways onto the rumble strips.

The warning sign for a truck stop flashed up and she made herself pull over. Sleep. She'd have to sleep.

As soon as she shut her eyes, her mind was clearer than it had been all afternoon. A lawyer, that's what she needed. She should have rung Kettleworths. They might have been able to suggest someone in the city.

But she couldn't bear the thought of speaking, couldn't think what she'd say, how the words would go.

Charlie's dead?

Sleep was fitful. The discomfort woke her a dozen times. She turned and twisted and tried to stretch different parts of her body, pulling the sleeping bag closer around her. And each time, in the first moment, half-sleeping and half-waking, she felt the dread lodged like a great hollow box in her chest.

tuesday

Marian woke with a start.

The city, it changed him. He must have got into bad company.

But he seemed all right, the first year. Something must have gone wrong when he moved out on his own. Who were these friends he lived with?

The windows had fogged up and Marian's feet were numb with cold. Someone was tapping on the glass.

She wiped the window with the end of her scarf and a frowning face appeared.

Sickness snaked in Marian's belly. This woman knew. She'd been sent to … arrest Marian.

The face was mouthing at her. ‘Are you all right?'

Marian wound the window down a crack. ‘Sorry?'

‘You're parked across the entrance. We thought something must have happened.'

Something must have happened.

Marian glanced around. Trees everywhere, their tops lit by the rising sun. Ahead of her, the rest-stop was a small oasis of red gravel surrounded by bush, connected to the highway by a sandy track.

Sure enough, she had barely made it off the edge of the road and was blocking the track.

‘Sorry,' she croaked, then cleared her throat. ‘I had to pull over last night.'

The smile she tried for felt more like a grimace. ‘I'm all right now.'

The woman seemed unconvinced. ‘You sure we can't do anything?'

‘No. I'm fine. Thanks for checking.'

‘Okay. Drive safely.' The woman backed away, still frowning.

Marian ran her fingers through her hair. If she was going to talk to people later, official people, she should tidy herself up. She had to tell them … something. She had to fight. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. He's not a bad boy.

Grabbing a rag from the floor she wiped the inside of the windscreen, then climbed out of the car and stretched, bladder bursting.

She looked round to see if there was any cover. Oh shit. The woman was still there, car just off the bitumen. A bald man in the passenger seat and two kids in the back all gawked at Marian. They were waiting for her to move.

Marian opened the back door, leaned in to wipe the rear window, and backed out awkwardly. Waving with what she hoped was nonchalance, she squeezed into the driver's seat. God, let it start first time. The engine wheezed into life and she pulled out on to the road. The rear vision mirror showed the rescuer lifting her hand in doubtful acknowledgement.

Marian crawled along at eighty until she saw the sign for a roadhouse. Thank goodness. A toilet. And she'd better wash her face, have a coffee.

A frieze of blue dolphins and whales circled the toilet wall. Marian sat and studied them. Each dolphin was chasing a diamond shaped shoal of smaller fish.

Even if she'd been able to keep Charlie at the farm, it wouldn't have been right. Brian was the older son, the farm was his. You couldn't buck that. People tried sharing farms or dividing them. But it didn't work, not without a lot of capital to buy up more land. The old places were barely viable as it was, supporting just one family.

And anyway, Charlie had never shown any interest in farming.

What had he wanted?

Running water into the basin Marian splashed her hair to damp down the bits that stuck out. The cold made her wince. She rubbed her head dry with a handful of paper towels and combed her hair flat in front of the mirror. Mouse. Mouse with grey bits, and there were bags under her eyes. Already she looked the way her mother had at sixty, dry skin on her cheeks and a red tip to her nose.

Perhaps she could get a hat in Perth. Did people wear hats? She didn't want to stand out.

The girl on the phone would be there today, and the others.

Charlie was always vague about who he was actually living with.
Oh … just friends.

What if it was some sort of gang thing? Drugs?

The girl had sounded young and frightened, but there would be others. Someone had been there in the background.

What was she getting into?

The roadhouse was an old building converted, maybe a farmhouse. The shop space was small and warm, crowded with shelves and displays. The hot food counter held six anonymous shapes wrapped in white paper and labelled with a sign in scrawled texta.
EGG AND BACON SANDWICHES.

A girl with sleep in her eyes made coffee. Marian took the cardboard cup and a sandwich and went outside.

The ground fell away steeply, a slope that two boys could roll down, laughing and shouting and kicking their legs. At the bottom of the hill the creek curved into a billabong. The grass on the bank was green and the creek racing. They must have had plenty of rain up here.

Suddenly she wanted her childhood country. The longing was physical, a piercing sensation in her chest. Softer wetter country than the farm, with big trees and the occasional flash of water. Real flowing water, not muddy dams and salt rimmed wetlands. Trees that closed over far above your head, made deep shade even in the hottest summer. A forest where you could vanish, slip through the undergrowth like a lizard. Rotting logs that sprouted weird coloured fungus. The drum beat of frogs in a gully.

In the heart of the forest was the mill and a row of small weatherboard houses. Beyond them the hazel scrub grew back in the middle of the old forestry tracks, but you could still push your way along the ruts. These secret highways took Marian far beyond the roar of the mill and any voice demanding that dishes be wiped or little brothers minded. She could slip into another world, the world of ants and beetles and skittering birds. Sometimes a lizard lumbering across the path, blue tongue flicking. Or a snake, tiger or dugite, but they were keener to get away from you than you were to get away from them. Her father told her that.
As long as you don't step on them. Make plenty of noise
, he said,
and watch where you put your feet.

But she didn't make noise, not when she was on her own. There was a stillness there. It wasn't silent, but noises had different meanings. There were no words.

One time she pushed down through prickly moses to see what was at the bottom of a gully. The sound of water reached her first. Not a lot, but enough to make her disentangle herself and keep going until she came out onto a slope of rock about the size of her bed at home. At the lowest point there was water under overhanging ti-tree. Beyond, the hillside rose steeply. She crawled under the bushes, bent to drink, and saw what made the tinkling noise. A round stone formed a dam and a miniature fall. The water trickled on each side, carving a pool lower down. Hidden by the branches Marian watched the hovering dragonflies. Beyond the leaves a blowfly droned.

Was it still there, her secret place?

Marian held the coffee cup to her face so that the steam warmed her, then set it down on the table and opened her sandwich. It was warm and bulging, made by someone generous. She imagined a big cheerful woman.

Would this woman trade lives? Marian could just stay here, beside this creek, serving anonymous drivers.

After a mouthful of sandwich she gave up. Wrapping the rest carefully she took it back to the car and put it on the dashboard for later.

The highway fed her down a narrow valley to the edge of the suburbs and a stream of cars. Morning rush hour. After twenty minutes of honking, crawling and exhaust fumes she came to signs for a new freeway entry.
Kenwick Link
. Should she take it? Impossible to know. There was always a new freeway. Every time she came to the city they'd built a new freeway.

She clung to the original highway, but nothing was familiar except the name. In thirty years the suburbs had been built and rebuilt. Pulling over into a shopping centre car park she sat shivering behind the wheel. This was hopeless. She'd have to leave the car, get a bus or a train.

Evie. Evie would know what to do.

In the phone box her voice came out a croak. Clearing her throat she tried again. ‘Evie? It's me. Marian.'

‘Hi, Marian. Um …'

She was busy.

‘Is this a bad time, Evie? It's just … I'm in the city. I don't know what to do.'

‘Are you okay?'

‘Yes. I need somewhere to leave the car. I have to … it's Charlie …'

‘I know.'

Marian was startled. ‘How …?'

Evie cut across her. ‘It's in today's paper. You could leave the car here, Marian. But I'm tied up all day.'

‘Oh yes. I wasn't expecting …'

‘And I can't ask you to stay.' An awkward silence. ‘Sorry Marian. It's Luke. And we've got his brother here.'

‘Of course, that's fine.' Marian could hear herself gabbling. ‘And don't worry about the car, I'll think of something.'

‘Hang on …'

‘Got to go. Bye.' She hung up on Evie's protest and wiped her sweating hands on her pants.

That was that then.

A pile of papers lay outside the newsagent. The front page was taken up by a single story.

Second Death in Supermarket Shooting.

But it wasn't a supermarket in the photo. A sign across the window said
Convenience Store
. Tape was looped across the doorway and something dark was splashed across an ice-cream ad.

They should clean that off.

Turning away she sat on the bench outside a chicken shop. If she waited a while, maybe the traffic would clear.

Early shoppers passed her, men and women rushing to get the day organised. A boy rattled open the roller door of
Toby Rooster
and started pushing a mop around the floor.

Marian went up to the counter.

‘Yeah?' A row of pimples across his forehead marked the line of his lank fringe.

Brian had pimples. It was years before he grew out of them. Brian had all the teenage troubles—arms and legs suddenly too long, voice either a squeak or a roar, face bursting out in huge eruptions. Not Charlie. For some reason he was lucky, and stayed neat and self-contained. It was odd. There were changes in his body, but the process was steady, not spectacular, as though he managed it while he was asleep.

‘Can I help you?' asked the boy.

‘Could I get a cup of tea here?'

‘We don't do tea.' He started to mop again, but evidently thought better of it and looked at her, eyes more focused. ‘There's a coffee shop down past the jewellers.'

‘Thanks.'

The tea was hot and Marian drank gratefully. The scone was stale, but she wasn't hungry anyway and crumbled it in her saucer. Eight thirty. The girl had said ten. Ten o'clock at the Magistrates Court in St George's Terrace.

She could leave the Astra at the station and get the train. That's what she'd do. The woman behind the counter held her hand out for the money without even a glance. Grateful for the anonymity Marian made her way out past a giant carton advertising iced coffee.

The station was around the next curve, with acres of car park. Getting out of the car and leaving it behind suddenly seemed difficult. Her last tie with home and normal. Pulling her bag out of the back she stood irresolute, key in hand.

Get on with it.

It wasn't such a big decision. The car would be fine here until later, when she'd worked out where to stay.

There was no ticket office, only a machine on the platform. Hearing the rumble of an approaching train she stabbed hastily at the machine.
City. Two zones. One adult.
With nightmare slowness she fumbled for coins. The machine rattled and poked a ticket at her from a slot. She grabbed it and spun round, but the train was only just slowing down. Relieved, she stepped forward.

But the doors didn't open.

She ran her hands frantically over the shining surface, but there was no sign of a handle.

Dimly, through the graffiti on the window, she could see faces. A young man in a suit was grimacing at her, mouth moving. He didn't want her to get in. Another passenger pointed at her.

Marian banged helplessly on the metal. ‘Please. I have to get to Perth.'

The first man leaned to one side. The doors slid smoothly open.

‘There's a button. You have to press it,' he said. Sure enough, there was a rectangular button to one side of the door.

‘Thank you,' Marian said, face burning.

The passengers held rails and straps in silence, swaying with the train. There was nothing for Marian to hang on to. She lurched.

One of the strap-hangers steadied her arm. ‘There's a seat there.'

A woman smiled at her from a wrinkled face and squeezed along the bench to make room. Marian sat down, bottom barely connecting with the seat, holding her bag on her knee. At the next station more people got in. The man standing in front of her was so close that whenever the train jolted his coat swung into her face.

At each station she twisted her head around, but the names were unfamiliar. The stations seemed new and more were being built.

They emerged from the suburbs and passed a cluster of shining buildings big enough for giants. Marian peered through the window.

‘It's the casino, you know,' said her neighbour. ‘And the dome.'

Marian looked blankly at her.

‘Burswood Dome,' the woman said. ‘Tennis.'

Marian nodded. Summer TV. Another world. People in holiday clothes going into those clean bright buildings to watch the tennis while she was slumped in the living room, exhausted after the sweat of the day, too tired to get into bed.

The train rushed on across the river, past a ruined building.
East Perth Powerhouse. Soon to be regenerated.

Soon to be regenerated. It didn't look it. Broken glass and rusted beams, in a city where everything was new.

Claisebrook. McIvor.
Then into the dark of the Perth station and a burst of activity, people pressing towards the doors. Marian stood up and was herded out of the train by a group of girls in maroon blazers, huge packs slung on their backs.

The crowd eddied away to the escalators while Marian stood still, bumped and jostled. Once the platform was empty she could reach the man in uniform near the barricade.