The Hands (12 page)

‘It doesn't matter if we miss it.'

‘I'm supposed to go.'

It was the boarders' mass, held at 6 pm every Sunday before the new term. Starchy, oven-warmed religion, held in the red-light, cracked-wall chapel, packed full of mutton-chopped farmers and their big families—mums in summer frocks, little brothers and sisters done up in suits and sandals. Aiden was familiar with the drone of the electric organ, the crackling PA and the smell of old paper from the hymnals. Voices raised in praise, but straining and cracking; mumbled complaints; St Luke cut short for the evening meal.

He pressed down on the balloon; it split open, emptied and sat small and lifeless like a stillborn calf.

‘I'll give it a term,' he'd agreed, finally, with his father. Ten weeks. Don't pay any more fees until I say.

Taking this as a good sign, Trevor had agreed.

I'll bring you home every fortnight, he'd told his son, as a sort of peace pipe he'd placed in his hands along with cash, a carton of Coke, chocolates and lollies, the plasma screen from his own room and the box of new text and exercise books.

If I can't handle it I'm gonna tell you, straight off, Aiden had explained.

Fine.

I'm not gonna be made to stay.

Okay … understood.

Aiden was staring at the balloon. ‘I really don't feel comfortable.'

Trevor looked at him. ‘Why?'

‘I'm nearly eighteen and I'm still wearing this shit.' He indicated, studying the monogram on his shirt, pulling at his knee-length shorts with their precise, Harry-made creases.

‘Your brother spent an hour doing that for you,' Trevor said.

‘So?'

‘You look very smart.'

‘We shouldn't have to wear all this, like we're still ten years old.'

Trevor shrugged. ‘You're still a student.'

‘They should treat us like adults.' His eyes drifted across the familiar landscape. There was a stretch of road, a kilometre, maybe more, where all of the white distance markers had been removed from their holes.

‘Remember this?' Trevor asked, indicating.

‘Yeah.'

It'd been a late summer afternoon. They were heading home from town. They slowed as they approached a lane of cars and trucks waiting behind a police car with its lights flashing. They got out and joined a small crowd. Further along there was an injured man, his wife and a few others gathered in a protective semi-circle. A police officer, and another man who might have been a doctor or nurse.

‘A heart attack,' someone said. ‘The Flying Doctor's gonna land on the road.'

Then one of the officers had come over and asked for a volunteer. ‘The pilot wants the markers removed,' she explained. So there was Harry and Aiden, running beside the highway, loosening each of the markers and pulling them from the ground as the plane circled overhead. Then, when they'd gone far enough, the officer waved at them and they ran back. The plane lined up, descended, roaring towards the asphalt only metres above their heads, and landed on the too-thin ribbon of grey.

‘Remember how you wanted to be a pilot?' Trevor asked.

‘I still might.'

‘Yeah?' He gave him his you-know-what-I'm-thinking look.

‘A chopper pilot, for the farm,' Aiden explained.

‘But you were interested in the Flying Doctors.'

Aiden shrugged, as if this might or might not be true.

‘So, if you want to be a pilot you gotta study maths.'

‘Not necessarily.'

‘You do.'

Aiden could still see the pilot—a tall, wide-shouldered man who flew the plane with the same ease he rode his trail bike.

‘Doesn't mean you can't try,' Trevor said.

‘What?'

‘You can't just sit back and not work and then say, Oh no, that was way too hard.'

‘Why would I do that?'

Aiden could see his brother, soaked with sweat after he'd pulled his twenty or so markers from the ground. He could remember saying something like, Good effort, Shit-for-brains. ‘Have I ever … stood back?' he asked.

‘No.'

‘Well?'

Trevor couldn't understand why the markers hadn't been replaced. It wasn't his or his boys' job, surely? ‘I can help you with most things,' he said. ‘Year Twelve, as I remember, is a hard slog. Lots of late nights.'

‘I said I'd give it a go.' And what he wanted to say: You should be grateful. With everything that's happened, I could've just refused. ‘As if I wouldn't try,' he said.

Trevor looked at him.

‘So, you're assuming I'm going back just to keep you happy?'

Perhaps, Trevor thought, but then said, ‘No.'

‘I don't really want to dress up like a three-year-old, but I can see that …'

They passed the site of the accident again. Noticed a black marker, with a red cross painted onto it. ‘Fuckin' amazing,' Trevor said. ‘It doesn't take them four years to do that.'

Aiden was caught up in his own thoughts. The uniform was too tight, and too itchy. He pulled his undies from his arse and said, ‘How far ahead was it?'

‘What?'

‘The roo.'

There was a long silence. ‘How should I know?'

‘You can't remember?'

‘Twenty metres.'

‘And it was definitely a roo?'

‘Yes.'

Aiden took his time. ‘You shoulda just hit it.'

‘I know. I should've.'

‘You've hit plenty of others.'

Murray had been left to watch Harry. Instead, he retreated to a seat just outside the laundry. Sat down with his ukulele and started playing, trying to remember rhymes, bawdy and otherwise: a mother and her three chaste daughters, and something about one of them heeding the calls of a randy butcher.

Harry came out of his dad's shed with his whip. He stood in front of the bottle tree and managed to smash half-a-dozen long necks. Then, without turning, he said to his pop: ‘Aiden reckons you won't go into that outhouse.'

Murray stopped playing. ‘It's not that I won't—it's that I don't need to.'

‘He reckons it's because of your granddad.'

Murray waited. ‘He does, does he?'

‘Yeah. Cos he hung himself in there.'

‘
Hanged
himself.' He strummed his ukulele. ‘Your brother doesn't know everything, young man.'

‘But he did, didn't he?' Harry asked.

‘Who? What?'

‘Your granddad? He hung himself?'

‘
Hanged
 … yes.'

‘Why?'

‘How should I know? I didn't get to ask him.' He started to sing. ‘
Mrs Hill had three plain-looking daughters …
'

‘Your dad must have told you?' Harry said, destroying another bottle. ‘I mean, it was his father?'

‘He never talked about it, and you don't need to either.'

‘He never said?'

‘No.'

‘What are you scared of?'

‘Christ!'

Harry kept working his whip. He felt he'd lost form, and needed to improve.

‘…
and they all wore plain-looking clothes.
'

‘Do you think his ghost is in there?' Harry asked.

‘No, I don't think his ghost is in there.'

‘Then why—'

‘Listen! There are some things a child doesn't need to know.'

Harry turned to him. ‘I just thought it was strange. How you won't go in there. I go in Mum's room. I'm even reading one of her books.'

‘You don't understand
why
he killed himself.'

‘And you do?'

‘Yes … no. Christ, sometimes you can be so bloody annoying.'

Harry shrugged. ‘He must have been depressed.'

‘No.'

‘That's why people hang themselves.'

‘There are other reasons.'

Harry stared at him, trying to work it out. ‘Did he accidentally kill someone?'

‘No.'

‘Did his wife leave him?'

‘No.'

‘Did his child die?'

Murray glared at him.

‘That happened a lot back then,' Harry explained. ‘Diphtheria? Flu? Remember all those graves at the Moonta Cemetery? Thirty, forty kids every week. And they couldn't dig the holes fast enough.'

‘No one had dip-fuckin'-theria,' Murray growled.

‘It's just that you're not scared of anything,' Harry said. ‘So I guessed there must be a good reason.'

‘I just don't want to.'

Harry knew it was all a lie. It was only a room, filled with dust, and old furniture.

They were too late for mass so they waited in the car trying the five or six gristly radio stations, each sounding like a hair dryer. Then Aiden said, ‘Should we practice my parking?'

‘Here?' Trevor asked.

‘I wanna book a test before I come home.'

Trevor found two bins and set them out near the kerb. Moved them apart, but Aiden complained, so he put them back. Aiden climbed into the driver's side, belted up and attempted a reverse parallel park. He entered too sharply and ended up against the gutter. Trevor moved the front bin and he pulled out. ‘Forty-five degrees,' he said.

‘I know.'

He tried again as Trevor watched, stopped him, moved the bins and refined his lecture. ‘Nice and tight, and when you're in, straighten.'

And again. This time his foot slipped and he shot back. He knocked over the rubbish bin, mounted the kerb and clipped a car parked five metres behind. ‘Shit,' he said, getting out.

‘What happened?' Trevor asked.

‘I was barely touching the pedal … then it just …'

They examined the damage: a dented front fender, a few crumbling flakes of paint. And on their own car: a barely noticeable scratch. Trevor looked around. ‘No one's here.'

‘Should we leave a note?'

‘How about you put the bins back and I …?'

‘
Dad
.'

‘It's nothing … they probably won't bother fixing it anyway.'

Trevor studied the carpark, and the front of the chapel, the raised voices venting across a struggling rose garden. As he moved the car, Aiden shifted the bins. Then they walked towards the chapel. ‘We could go in and ask for forgiveness,' Trevor said.

Aiden shook his head. ‘You're not much of a role model.'

Trevor shrugged. ‘Well, I'm the only one you've got.'

13

The weeks passed with only an occasional word from Aiden. Trevor took it as a good sign. There were a few phone calls about cash and mitosis but his tone was calm, considered, so Trevor knew he was on the job. Like, for instance, when they stood around discussing what to do with an animal with a broken leg, before Aiden returned to the ute and fetched the rifle.

Late afternoon, Friday. Trevor was in charge of cooking the roast. Fay had put the meat in the oven before retiring to her room, saying, ‘I can feel the start of another headache.'

Earlier, Chris had been in one of his moods. He'd returned to the compound, mouthing Puccini, a not-so-waif-like Mimi moving in rhythm with the breeze and the sheoaks that sang back to him. He'd used his hands, as though it was Tai Chi, and he'd used his lips to suffocate every word. Fay had come out and started shouting at him. ‘You're determined to put me in an early grave, aren't you?' She'd taken him by the arm and dragged him back in as Harry, at his computer, watched and grinned.

With Fay in bed, it was down to Trevor again. He'd put on an apron and secured it around his globular belly; taken a knife and started slicing the cabbage; asked Harry to set the table, and Murray to slice the bread.

Yes, the roast would get cooked, but it would all be up to him. No one would volunteer their time or show any initiative. At one point he'd said, ‘How about I put my feet up and you lot do this?' No one had replied. ‘If I waited, we'd all go hungry, wouldn't we?' But again, nothing.

Murray had managed four slices before stopping; Harry had set the placemats before sitting down to listen to his grandfather.

‘The stranger slept in the sleep-out,' Murray said. ‘He told Mary and Bill that he'd served with John, and that John was a good soldier.'

‘Did he know what had happened to him?' Harry asked.

‘Wait, yer jumpin' the gun,' Murray said. ‘The stranger told them John had been fine until this one particular battle. A big push from the Germans—heavy artillery, machine guns laying down a carpet of fire.' He paused to remember, or at least imagine. ‘He told them John had just, how would you say, flipped. He told them he'd found a hole and curled up inside, crying and shaking.'

‘Harry,' Trevor growled, and he returned to the kitchen, fetched the knives and forks from the drawer and started setting the table. ‘Haven't we heard this a hundred times before?' he asked his father.

‘The boy wants to know,' Murray said. ‘It's
your
family history.' He looked back at his grandson.

‘When's tea?' Chris asked, from the couch.

Trevor slammed down his knife. ‘When you get off your arse and help.' But this wasn't enough to convince him to venture beyond the guns of Navarone.

Murray managed another slice of bread before laying down the knife. ‘So,' he said to Harry, ‘the stranger told them John had become a sort of child, not talking, too scared to move about. You know what it was?'

‘No,' Harry pretended, although he did.

‘Shell shock. His mind had just shut down.'

‘
Dad
.'

‘Sorry.'

Harry returned to the kitchen and Trevor handed him the peeler. ‘That lot,' he said, indicating potatoes in the sink.

There was machine-gun fire and Chris sat up, fisting his hands.

‘So,' Murray said, louder, ‘to cut a long story short, one morning they woke up and John had gone. Wasn't at roll-call; they couldn't find him around the camp. They looked in town, everywhere, nothing. So they said he was missing—deserted. And that started all the trouble for Bill and Mary.'

‘Dad,' Trevor insisted, ‘if you've finished, can you butter it and cover it?'

‘Calm down.'

‘I'm very calm.' He glared at his father. ‘If you want to eat some time tonight.'

Murray started buttering. ‘Then Mary and Bill got the letter, then the
Argus
published the Cowards' List. They refused to believe he was a coward. When the stranger arrived they latched onto him, and what he was saying. They wanted to believe. They
needed
to believe.'

Trevor looked at the half a potato his son had peeled. ‘Can you work any faster?'

‘No.'

‘Give 'em here.' He took the peeler and started attacking the potatoes.

‘I can do them,' Harry said

‘I'll do them.'

‘What did I do wrong?'

‘Nothing. You did nothing wrong.'

Murray didn't care. His story was a chop, and there was still plenty of meat on it. As he continued buttering, he said, ‘Mary and Bill complained to the
Argus
but they wouldn't apologise. Said, This is what the army told us. Bill said, Well, the army is wrong. And it went on like that.'

‘Butter's too thick,' Trevor warned his father.

‘It is not.'

‘You'll go through half a tub.'

‘So, we'll buy more.' He stared back at him. Then he rewarmed his burley-blended voice. ‘No, these were not good days,' he said to Harry. ‘Neighbours were talking, shopkeepers … even at church. So Mary and Bill started taking the stranger places with them. They'd get him to explain, to tell people what had really happened to John.'

Trevor shook his head.

‘But it got worse,' Murray continued, to his audience of one. ‘John had gone to Mercy, and he'd got his name on the honour roll. Athletics, wasn't it?' he asked his son.

‘Yes.'

‘One day Bill was talkin' to this fella, and this fella said, Hey, Bill, your boy, they've taken his name off the roll.' He sat back, as if it was the first time he'd told the story. ‘What year was it?' he called to Trevor.

‘Nineteen eleven.'

‘Yep.' He returned to Harry. ‘They just scraped it off; you can still see the gap.' He let his words settle, as though Harry might actually be shocked. He finished buttering the bread, covered it with plastic and leaned forward. ‘Shame,' he whispered. ‘The worst thing that can happen to a family, isn't it?'

Harry shrugged. ‘I suppose.'

‘Believe me, it is, isn't it, son?' He looked at Trevor.

‘If you say so.'

‘So, Bill Wilkie wasn't going to live like that. He went to town and demanded a meeting with the principal. Insisted they replace John's name. He took the stranger with him, and got him to explain. Demanded an apology from the school.'

‘Did he get one?'

‘No.'

‘And they refused to replace his name?'

‘They believed the army over the stranger. That's what it was like back then. Everyone was very patriotic. If there was even an inkling …'

Trevor put the potatoes into the pot. He placed it on the stove and lit it. ‘I still gotta fill the cars,' he mumbled, mostly to himself.

‘I can do them,' Harry said.

‘No.'

‘He can help me,' Murray added.

Trevor ignored them. He opened the oven door and checked the meat.

‘Go, go, go,' Chris chanted, like a machine-pistol, as the giant doors of the fortress closed. ‘They're in,' he said, turning.

‘Another half-hour,' Trevor said, closing the oven.

‘What, I've never filled a ute?' Murray said to his son.

‘
I'll
do it.'

‘You got shit on the liver.'

‘Yeah, that's it.'

‘If you wanna sulk.' He turned to Harry but this time he was in no mood for the familiar story. Still, he continued. ‘For the next few months the stranger helped out with odd jobs. The cattle. Bill would always be asking about John. Did he look pale, sick? Did he shake? Did he talk about us, the farm, his brother, Morris? Could he look you in the eyes? Did he laugh? Did he make jokes? Did he talk about his school? His athletics? His awards? Did he ever say he'd had enough?' He stopped for breath. ‘Or, I suppose, he'd help Mary around the place. I suppose he sat right here, talkin' with 'em. Eatin' the eggs he'd helped gather, the veggies he'd helped grow.'

‘Bit of an odd jobs man?' Trevor asked his father.

‘Yes,' Murray replied. ‘He was a good builder too; helped Dad with the old yards.'

‘Probably stood here, cookin' a roast,' Trevor said. ‘Although blokes didn't do those sorts of things back then, did they? They were too busy tryin' to run the farm.'

Murray took Harry's hand. ‘Come on, we'll go fill the cars.' As he went he said, ‘Yer just diggin' yerself a bigger hole.'

Yanga kept scratching the hotspot on her cheek. Her skin was raw, bleeding. ‘Stop it, you stupid mutt,' Murray said to her, digging his foot in her side.

‘She can't help it,' Harry explained. ‘We should take her to the vet.'

Murray couldn't see the point of a vet; not for an old dog. After the eczema came the limp, the cataracts, the loose bowel, the rotten teeth. Vets just delayed the inevitable. ‘What?' he said to her, as she kept staring at him, accusingly. Then she scratched herself again. ‘Stop it.' He kept prodding her with his foot. She stood, moved a few feet and sat down on the far end of the porch.

He was smoking, watching his hot tip eat away another rollie. He studied the distant line of steel and noticed a train. Picking up his binoculars, he squinted into the cold eyepieces. ‘NR25 and 26,' he said.

‘Ladies shoes. Where does the apostrophe go?' Harry asked.

‘Wherever you want it to go,' he replied, studying the carriages, the windows, the plastic-looking forms behind the glass.

‘I think it's after the
s
,' Harry continued.

‘Silly bastards.'

‘Who?' Harry asked, looking up at the train.

‘Why would you take a train to Perth, for Christ's sake? Why wouldn't you get on a plane?'

‘They want to see Australia.'

He wiped his eyes and returned his binoculars to the table.

‘What's to see on the Nullarbor?'

‘Us.'

‘Yeah.' And returned to his cigarette.

‘Childrens Hospital?'

‘What?'

‘The apostrophe?'

Murray wasn't happy. How the hell was he meant to know about apostrophes? They just went where they fit, where they looked right. No one knew what to do with an apostrophe. It wasn't like anyone was going to check. ‘Don't they give you some sort of … rule?' he asked.

Harry shrugged. ‘I think it's after the
s
.'

‘Your father should be here. He knows all about this stuff.' He waved his hand above the assignment.

‘I wanna get full marks.'

‘Well …' He looked at the dog, looking at him. ‘Ask Fay.'

‘I did.'

Murray wasn't sure it mattered. He'd survived his few years of wireless, his Nefertiti and geometry, attempted with Morris's or Bill's unforgiving HB pencil. He'd sat where his grandson was sitting, throwing random apostrophes at the ends of words he didn't understand; he'd practised his copperplate and added rows of figures. In the end, there wasn't a lot they could teach him that he needed to know. Two years at Mercy. Before he'd stood in the middle of a lesson, walked from the room, the school, and jumped on a flat-top. Getting off, somewhere in the distance, in the stretch of cattle country that he was staring at now, and walking to the little house on the distant hill. Telling his dad, ‘That's enough of that.'

‘We've paid till the end of the year.'

‘I'll pay you back.' Going to his room, and changing into his workpants.

The train was still moving across the desert. ‘Sittin' in there with their fuckin'… riesling and clean sheets,' he said. And their air-conditioning and plate of prawns, he thought. ‘They wanna see the outback they should stop off here for a few weeks.'

‘With us?' Harry said.

‘Yes.'

‘I could rent out my room.'

Murray looked inside the house at Chris, sitting on the lounge helping his mother sew lavender bags. ‘Yeah, real bloody outback experience.'

Harry scratched his head. He looked at the next question and bit his lip. ‘
I am unsure to who, or whom, I send the letter
.' He looked at Murray.

Murray glared at him. ‘Ask your bloody father. He brought you into this world, he should be …' He trailed off again, wondering where his son had gone. His second time to Port Augusta in a week. Second time he'd shaved and ironed his clothes and said to them, ‘I should be home before tea.' Second time he'd planted a kiss on Harry's forehead and almost skipped out the front door.

He noticed a small herd of wandering cattle, picked up his binoculars and studied them. ‘All bloody bone,' he said, spitting tobacco from his lips.

The phone rang. Fay stood to answer it but he called out, ‘Leave it, I'll get it.' He flicked the last of his cigarette into his sister's lavender and went inside.

‘Yes?' he said.

‘Howdy.' A woman's voice.

Howdy?
‘Who's this?'

‘Is that Murray?'

‘Yes, who's this?'

‘My name's Gaby … a friend of Trevor's. Is he there?'

‘No.'

There was a break, and static. ‘I thought he'd be back by now,' she said.

‘From where?'

‘Here. Port Augusta.'

‘Right … he's been with you, Gaby?'

Silence, then, ‘Yes.'

He waited for an explanation.

‘He left his wallet here,' she said.

‘Where?'

‘You're Trevor's dad?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, Murray, if you could tell him? I thought he might need it.'

‘I'll tell him.'

‘Nice to speak to you,' and Murray thought, Why? Who are you? But then, in a moment of grace, he managed, ‘Yes, Gaby, I'll pass the message on. Maybe he can call you back?' He could hear shop sounds—a sliding door, a cash register. ‘Where at?'