The First Week (9 page)

A young woman was slamming down the shutter over the reception counter when Marian stepped out of the lift.

‘Can I help you,' she asked, sighing.

‘Sorry to arrive so late,' Marian mumbled.

‘Oh that's all right. We're used to it.' The difficulties of organising country women seemed to overwhelm her for a moment. ‘Mrs Anditon, isn't it? I've put you in 205. Down on the next floor. Breakfast's at seven thirty. You can pay me then.'

The corridors were long and deserted. The carpet soaked up any sound. Room 205 was at the end of a short side passage. With enormous relief Marian pushed the door shut behind her and heard the lock click.

The room was all cream and green floral. The office buildings beyond the window were dark. The freeway, silenced by distance, still poured cars across the city. Beyond it hung a dome of flashing lights, suspended against the sky, winking at her in sequence. A message she could not understand.

A shower would be good. She was grimy all over—eyes, skin, hair. City smog.

Kicking off her shoes she pulled back the bedclothes, lay down and was asleep within seconds.

The hallway was narrow and lined with dark hangings. No matter how far she walked, the passage still stretched ahead. Other passages intersected it. At each crossroads she could hear voices, people calling to each other in distant rooms, laughter, music, the clatter of plates and cutlery. She came to a railing that blocked the passage. Beyond it the floor opened and she could see down into the first level, some sort of boiler room, the walls lined with pipes and tanks. An industrial furnace stood to one side, its door covered with dials. But the opening was deeper than that, a gateway to desolation, levels below levels below levels, disappearing into darkness. She opened her mouth to scream.

An eerie red glow filled her eyes. All around was silence.

The glow resolved itself into a digital clock. Three seventeen.

Marian was instantly, coldly awake. She knew where she was and she knew why. Charlie had killed two people and was in gaol.

Somewhere, in another part of the city, other people were lying awake. People full of grief. The mothers, the wives? Children? Oh God, don't let there be children.

Pushing back the bedding she stood up. The ear she'd been lying on was deaf and she couldn't straighten up properly. She propelled herself lopsidedly to the window and drew back the curtain. The moon had disappeared, but the dome of lights still winked at her. Like stars. Like a crown of stars.

She pinched her nostrils and blew to clear her ears. Through the pop and crackle she could make out noises. Distant cars. People still driving around. Didn't they ever stop? On a freezing night like this?

Perhaps they worked at night. Factories, she thought vaguely. Did they go all night? Or hospitals. Or gaols.

Pulling a jumper around her she went out. The passage was empty and lit only by an exit sign over the stairs. The switch was on the wall outside her door. After two flickers, the hall suddenly filled with harsh white light. She shrank back, startled, and pressed the switch off again. By feeling her way along the wall she found the toilet door and groped around to find the pedestal. If she left the door ajar she could see by the dim green light from the exit sign.

She'd almost finished when she heard the click of a bedroom door opening. Reaching forward hastily she pulled the toilet door shut. In pitch darkness she wiped herself and flushed the toilet.

She emerged into bright light. A woman stood clutching a pink dressing gown across her bony chest, mouth open in obvious protest, one hand raised to stave Marian off. The dressing gown fell open to reveal a faded floral nightie.

Marian smiled weakly and fled back to her room.

She turned on the light over the mirror and examined herself. They were Monday's clothes, pants crumpled and twisted and shirt rucked up under her armpits. Her eyes were red rimmed and her hair wild. No wonder the old girl was scared.

Shivering she stripped and put on a clean tee-shirt from her bag. The comfort of a clean top was immediate and she crawled thankfully back under the bed covers.

But sleep was gone. A jumble of the day's faces filled her mind, grimacing and telling her things. Officials, passers-by, people in shops. The woman at the truck stop, the Asian tourists. Sam, face anxious under the tufty black hair. Lee …

Lee.

Where was Lee when Charlie was out in the freezing dawn with a gun?

The thought of him keeping some lonely mad vigil was so painful that she had to move, rolling over and groaning.

And meanwhile Lee was tucked up in her cosy house with the stylish furniture.

How come she could afford chairs like that?

Had she known what Charlie was going to do?

Ros had said something.
Charlie's helping Lee with a paper.
For Uni perhaps.

Or a protest.

Marian turned on the bedside light and reached for her glasses and the envelope that Sam had given her. Some sort of magazine.
Voices from the Past.
And, in smaller letters,
Studies in Oral History and Life Writing
.

Lee's article was in the middle.
Contact Stories.

The mass of print swam in front of Marian's eyes.

… Mrs T tells a story passed on to her by her grandfather, a farm worker in the Great Southern … ‘the farmers sicced the dogs on you, he reckoned, like you was animals. No reason. If you come up to the house, asking for work and that.'

Marian shifted impatiently, pushing the pillow further up behind her head. Of course they'd use the dogs. Word got around if you were soft, and you'd soon find yourselves short of a few chooks, or worse.

One memory in particular stood out for Mrs T's grandfather. He and his young brother, a boy of twelve who was working with him, had to go up to the house and wait for the food that was their only wages. It was raining, and the boy stepped onto the verandah to get out of the rain. ‘The missus, she come out and screamed at him to get off the verandah. Him and Grandpa, they had to stand in the rain.' Mrs T remembers the pain that her grandfather still showed in telling her this story. ‘It was the way they spoke to him. You know? He couldn't hardly talk about it, all those years later. They treated their dogs better, he reckoned. He was shamed, that he couldn't protect his little brother.'

Marian dropped the magazine on the duna. She didn't have to read this. She tucked her glasses under the pillow, closed her eyes and started counting to block out the image of the boy waiting in the rain.

… seventeen, eighteen, nineteen …

Lee was a troublemaker. Collecting stories like that. Using them to twist the truth and make the farmers look bad.

And she'd dragged Charlie into it too, stirred him up.

… twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one …

A small voice spoke clearly in her head. Charlie didn't need Lee to stir him up.

There was a thought that had been trying to catch up with her all evening. Ever since she'd found out that Charlie's victims were strangers.

If you had an argument with someone, if you were angry …

Not that that's any excuse.

But at least it would make sense.

It was the randomness of it. Didn't he care who he hurt?

Did he hate everyone?

Everyone white.

There was a noise trapped inside her chest, pushing at her ribs. If she let it out it would sound like the howl of a dog.

Lee's article lay on the bed beside her. Well she had to know. She, Marian, had to find out whatever there was to find out.

It was a test.

Even if there was no connection, she still had to think about it. If she showed enough courage about this, maybe it would make up for what Charlie had done.

But even as the bargain took shape in her mind she knew that nothing could make up for two deaths. And who was she bargaining with anyway? Who set the test?

She wasn't strong enough. She was going to fail.

She fished her glasses out from under the pillow and picked up the article.

Mr A is seventy-seven years old. He describes his boyhood memory of the years when the land was ‘opened up'. From Mr A's point of view, that meant a closing, not an opening. Country was shut away behind fences so that the proper business of the passing seasons was hindered, if not prevented.

‘
Some places was all right. We could go there. But some places we got chased off. So business stopped happening, country wasn't cared for … water, rocks and that. We had to stop in one place. I was born on the mission, christened and that. But we knew, even us kids, we knew how things was supposed to be. It worried them, the old people. How long they been looking after that country? How many thousand years? They was responsible, see? They did what they could, but it wasn't right, not enough. Country got sick. Them
wadjela
didn't know the right way. Dug things up, chopped things down.'

This time Marian put the magazine right away from her on the bedside table and clicked off the light.

No more.

But an image of the old people had lodged in her brain. Was that what they were doing, when you saw them sitting around under trees? Worrying about
country
?

Country.

Our place, they meant.

She thought of the veggie patch, how it sat in a shallow cup on the slope. From there you could see the great arc of the sky, the clump of trees far down the front paddock, the curve of the horizon.

Rolling onto her side she pulled the pillow up under her cheek.

What did
business
mean? What was it they thought they were doing that kept the country in good shape?

It was true, what she'd said to Lee. The Abos didn't grow things, everyone knew that. Never stayed long enough in one place.

Anyway, they were lazy.

They must have known a bit though, to keep themselves fed.

Bush tucker on TV. That was in the tropics. Fruit and things. But in the wheatbelt there wouldn't be much, all that dry scrub. Kangaroos for meat, but you needed more than meat. Seeds and nuts perhaps?

She shouldn't have got angry.

The land would have looked very different two hundred years ago of course. Where she saw a clump of trees in a cleared paddock, a sea of yellow wheat, they would have seen … what?

All bush, anyway. And more animals, for hunting. And fresh water.

Country got sick.

She watched the unearthly glow of the city sky until her eyes closed.

wednesday

‘No,' she cried, struggling into wakefulness. For a moment she lay trembling, not knowing where she was. Slowly she turned her head. Beyond the open curtains the sky was not quite dark, not quite light. Maybe dawn coming, maybe only the city lights.

Six forty-two, said the red glow beside the bed.

She couldn't do this. Tears pricked in the back of her nose.

Get up, she told herself, keep moving. Don't think.

This time she pushed her hair straight before she left the room. Reaching the safety of the bathroom she stood under the shower in dumb gratitude, savouring the hot water on the tight strings in her neck and shoulders.

The passage was empty but nevertheless she went on tiptoe down the stairs and past
CWA for Home and Country
. Outside the early morning was cold and clear. Marian walked round the building and set off briskly through the streets.

After a couple of blocks she could see treetops. When she reached the trees they were massive—Moreton Bay figs and an avenue of lemon scented gums. Kings Park. Her feet made tracks in the dewy grass and her breath came out in white puffs. She walked till she came to the war memorial. Below her the vast still mirror of the Swan was pink from the dawn, with eddies of mist low on the water and a smudge of smog above. A mirror image of the bridge shimmered in the river below. Already the freeway was roaring with life.

The grassy slopes led her to a wide hollow with a pool. A bronze figure stood in the water, sturdy and foursquare, a woman holding a child. Marian set off towards it, passing a curved bench on a paving of mosaic banksias.
The Prostrate Banksias.
How odd. That was the cancer that killed her father. Halfway down the slope she remembered. Prostate. Not prostrate. Was it? She repeated both words to herself until neither had any meaning.

Each step of the path was dedicated to a women's organisation. Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Macedonians, University Women, Guides, Civilian Widows, the Karrakatta Club (
Judge Us By Our Actions
), and of course the CWA (
Through Country Women, For Country Women, By Country Women
).

Such a lot of organising. Cakes made and sandwiches buttered. Agendas drawn up, resolutions passed. Not to mention holding the child.

Don't think about the child.

She emerged from the trees above another section of river cliff, further west than before. Immediately below her was a huddle of buildings. The old brewery.
The rich men's flats.
From here you could throw a stone into the car park. She couldn't find a stone, only a small chunk of marri branch. It was too light and spiralled limply down about ten metres away, landing at the feet of a jogger with a dalmatian on a lead. The dog barked and strained towards Marian, jumping against its collar. The young man glared. In spite of the cold, he was wearing only shorts and a singlet and was sweating slightly.

Marian lowered her arm. ‘Sorry,' she said, but man and dog had already swept away around the bend.
Law Walk
the path was called. He could be a lawyer.

She sat on a bench with a view of the river through trees. How would it be to live in a flat and gaze out every day on all that water?

When she was fourteen she came home from school one day to find both her parents sitting at the kitchen table. The mill was silent. There was a hush over the whole settlement.

What is it?
she asked, panic rising.

Come and sit down. I'll make you a cuppa and Dad can explain.

Her father still had his overalls on and the blue jumper with the cuff unravelling. He cleared his throat but didn't seem to know how to explain.

Go on Dad
, urged her mother.

We've had the management down
, he said at last.
They're closing the mill.

Her panic burst its bounds.
But where will we live?

It's not that
, her mother said.
It's where will Dad work?

All the mill houses were closed up and hauled off. Marian's family was lucky. Dad got a job in the nearby town and they had a house almost the same as the old one. The difference was that behind the house, where there should have been forest, there was a fence, and beyond the fence there were neighbours.

Whenever Marian could get away she rode her bike out of town to find trees. But it got harder.
I don't like you going off on your own. Girls can't afford to take risks. And in a town like this, you know. People talk. You don't want to get a name.

Marian did her best not to listen. But the words burrowed their way in and she stopped riding her bike out of town, afraid of men in cars. She got a job at the green-grocer's and concentrated on saving her money so she could go to college, become a teacher. One day she'd have trees of her own, a farm.

Marriage to Mac meant a farm, though that wasn't her first thought about Mac. It was his boots that she fell for. The elastic sides sagged and the toes were scuffed. Like her father's.

Mac was sitting beside his mother in outpatients when Marian brought the tea trolley around. Something about the way he was sitting touched her. Awkward, tongue-tied, twisting his hat in his hands. But he was there, caring enough about his mother to wait for her.

When Marian saw the boots she wanted to hold him. Sing to him.
There there. Hush now.

Mac's mother was beginning a long process of dying. Marian saw her grim endurance and pitied her. In those early days Marian had room in her heart for the whole world. And the family welcomed her, the father as well, in their dour undemonstrative way. They needed her, she thought, all three of them, Mac and his parents.

That idea was something to hang onto through the beginning of her marriage, though at times she wondered. She saw Mac's harshness more often than she saw his softness.

His idea about trees was the same as his father's, and his grandfather's. Trees were things that had to be cleared so you could grow pasture or wheat. He told Marian she was naive and Marian believed him. He was the one with experience and she had to learn.

And she did. She learned the reality of wheat and sheep. The dust that found its way into every bit of clothing, every corner of the house. The drudgery, the anxiety. She learned about farming. Will it rain? Will it stay dry? Will the insurance cover the burnt fence? Will the harvester, tractor, harrow keep going one more year? Will the prices hold?

Once, when Charlie was small, he spent a glorious morning making tunnels through the stalks of wheat with a nest in the middle. Marian heard Mac roaring when she brought the lunch down, and was just in time to stop him belting the child.

He's only a baby
, she cried.

I don't care. This is a farm, not a playground.

There was too much sky. Overwhelming sky and nothing to anchor you. You could be swept up into a hot easterly wind and lose your hold on the thin soil.

By the time Marian got back to the edge of the park, the road was streaming with cars. She'd forgotten her watch, but the clock at the roundabout pointed to a few minutes before eight. Breakfast. Oh hell. Seven thirty to eight fifteen, wasn't it?

When she reached the dining room, out of breath, a girl with blue streaks in her blonde hair was clearing the tables. In the corner an elderly couple was finishing cups of tea.

‘I'm sorry. Am I too late?'

The girl pursed her lips. ‘There's no juice left, or cereal,' she said, examining a point behind Marian's left ear. ‘You could have toast. Over there. It's do-it-yourself.'

Marian extracted two slices of bread from a plastic bag and put them in the toaster.

‘Will you be checking out?'

‘Oh no. I want to stay another night or two.'

‘No worries. I'll fix it for you. Pull the dining room door shut when you've finished, could you?'

The elderly couple left and Marian sat in a corner. The sachets of butter and jam were tiny and she had to put her glasses on to work out how to open them. She spread the toast and pushed pieces of it around in her mouth, but it tasted like cardboard. After half a slice she gave up. At least the tea was hot.

On the Reception desk she found a brochure about buses and caught a free City Clipper into town, feeling awake and business-like. Today she would work everything out. Find out how to visit Charlie.

She had forty minutes to spare before her appointment with Simon Ingerson so she wandered into Myers. The bottom floor seemed to be all sorts of things for men. Ties, socks. One shelf was all bottles and sprays. Deodorant. That was straightforward. But there were other things that seemed to be perfume. You couldn't call it anything else, though it had names like Leopard and Manpower. Things to make men smell better. How extraordinary. It used to be cissy for men to smell of anything other than soap. Mac wouldn't have dreamed of using deodorant. Did Brian? It was ages since she'd been in their bathroom. And she certainly hadn't seen anything like this in Charlie's room.

Perhaps it was only for gay men. She looked around hurriedly, half expecting a sign. No one was taking any notice of her and anyway, it didn't matter these days. Look at those two girls yesterday. Nobody cared. You could be buying perfume for a gay brother or something.

Or a gay son?

It wasn't true to say nobody cared. She remembered the note in the letterbox.
YOU FILTHY LESOS BELONG IN PRISON.

Why was Charlie living with them anyway?

Marian had thought she knew about Charlie, but her idea of him seemed to have faded, disappeared.

The idea of a gay Charlie didn't make sense though. Surely Lee or Sam would have said? It would have come up. One of their protests, no doubt.

Marian sniffed surreptitiously at her armpits. They weren't the best. She should have washed again after that long walk. Or at least put on more deodorant. Evie used to have a trick, which had horrified Marian at the time, of spraying perfume directly onto the underarm material of her unwashed dresses.

Perhaps there were free testers? But Marian wasn't game to try it in public.

Nine fifty. Hell. She was going to be late after all if she didn't hurry.

The pedestrian light at the end of the Mall was green so she crossed at a run and reached the Terrace out of breath.

The office was in an old building cowering between its neighbours. The lift creaked and rumbled and Marian was glad to get out of it.

Behind the desk sat a trim woman, her eyes magnified by large glasses. She was years younger than Marian, but regarded her like a motherly hen, head on one side.

‘Mrs Anditon? I'm Mandy. I'm afraid Mr Ingerson isn't in yet. He had an unexpected appointment. Can I get you a cup of coffee?'

‘Thank you.'

Mandy came out from behind the desk and bustled over to an alcove fitted out with instant hot water and a sink.

‘Milk and sugar?'

‘Milk, thanks. No sugar.'

‘Here you are. There are magazines,' she said, pulling a pile of dog-eared Readers Digests towards Marian. ‘Or can I get you the paper?'

‘No. These are fine, thank you.' Not the paper.

Mandy looked at her doubtfully. Marian picked up a magazine and opened it at random.

Stalked by a Brown Bear. My Night of Terror.

Mandy went back to her desk and her computer.

Marian stared at the page. Her eyes seemed to be playing up. She couldn't get them to fix on the words long enough to get the sense. Was it real, or a story?
Lost the path … couldn't get the cigarette lighter to work … scouting songs …

She put it on the table and sat back on her seat. Immediately, Mandy stopped typing and turned, glasses flashing concern.

Hastily Marian picked up another magazine.
What a Chimp in the Family Taught the Smiths.

She suppressed a rising panic as she leafed through. It was just the Readers Digest, no different from usual. The problem must be in her, that every article looked bizarre.

Dare Devil or Despairing?

On his sixth jump, Mason horrified his instructors when he disarmed his reserve chute …

Was it a great adventure, or was it a cry for help …?

Marian stared at the page, not seeing it. Was that what Charlie was doing? Crying for help?

But he'd killed other people, not himself. Shot them dead.

It was nearly eleven before Simon Ingerson rushed in.

‘Sorry to keep you. Won't be a moment.'

Mandy, eyebrows raised, followed him into an inner office with her hands full of papers. A minute later she came out and beckoned Marian.

‘Mr Ingerson will see you now,' she announced, with hushed importance.

The desk was wedged across one corner of the room with a computer sitting in the middle of it. Piles of paper slid away on each side. Files and books were stuffed into shelves next to the window. The only clear space in the office was the chair he pointed her towards.

‘Sit down Mrs … yes. Tea? Coffee?'

‘No thank you. I've just …'

But he was already pushing an intercom button. ‘Coffee thanks Mandy.'

He examined her over his glasses. ‘I've made an appointment for you with a colleague, a psychologist. Hope that's all right. Thought we'd better squeeze you in while we can. Very lucky to get an appointment. You're not going back to the country yet?'

Psychologist?

‘I don't need …'

‘Good, good.' He rubbed his hands. ‘Friday afternoon then. Mandy will give you the address.'

‘But …'

‘Routine. Build up a bit of a picture of Charles.'

Oh. Not for her.

‘The social issues. There'll be a psychiatric assessment of course, brain scans and so on. Cover all the bases.'

Bases.

‘Has Charles ever used drugs?'