The Lost Child (18 page)

Mum's voice is a squeak. ‘What if he doesn't?'

‘Well, he'll learn, won't he? Like we all bloody have to.' He looks into the darkness beyond the doorway where I am a spot in the bed. ‘What the hell got into him? That's what Bill wants to know.'

I press the sheet into my mouth, taste blood on my lip. Then he's gone and Mum hasn't told him, and I can breathe again.

I am still awake when she comes to bed. The mattress sighs as she climbs in. I want to tell her that I'm sure Dunc will come home in the morning, wet from searching the swampy reaches of Lake Grey for swan's nests floating in the reeds, and from wading out to the islands where the pelicans make their nests. I want to tell her that he's probably there right now, on his own little island, safe from snakes and other things. But I don't say anything.

On the lagoon, a fence of men nose about like tadpoles in a brown puddle, poking spades and hoes and garden rakes into the water. Some are wearing waders that come up to their chests even though the water is hardly higher than their knees.

Dunc has been gone two days.

Bill Morgan has been all over town, searching, questioning. Mary Campbell had to show him the spot on the jetty where she said she saw Dunc arguing with Sid McCready. Bill Morgan asked Sid if he had a fight with Dunc. Mary says he asked over and over until Sid cried and covered his ears. Bill Morgan borrowed a dinghy and poked about under the jetty where the kelp clings to the pylons with long leathery arms. Later, fathers and fishermen searched all the way to West End but there was nothing to find except skeletons of seals and squid and banjo sharks.

I sit in the kurrajong tree and think about Dunc, and about Chicken's dad and where he might be, and his mum with the Rawleigh's man, and then I remember Mr Smythe, who walked off the end of the jetty and drowned and how sometimes his old dog just sits there and has to be dragged home and tied up. A car passes and I keep very still in case they look up. In case they can read minds and everyone finds out that I told Dunc about Dad and the fire.

Later, Lizzie and I are playing sevens against her wall, when Kenny Sweet and the new boy, who's just moved into the Sneddens' house, jump the fence. ‘So what's happening?' says Kenny. ‘They found him?'

I hate Kenny's red flaky skin, the yellow glints in his eyes. And why isn't he working in his dad's shop? ‘We're talking to you,' he says, grabbing my ball.

‘Bill Morgan's started a search,' I say.

‘Constable Morgan to you. Bet he's at Bunny Brennan's soak. He's got a cubby there. Uses it for watching blue wings.'

‘You should tell someone,' says the new boy. He takes off his glasses and huffs on them.

‘Naah,' says Kenny. ‘Why spoil it for him?' With a flick of his wrist, he tosses the new boy a cricket ball and they toss and catch, toss and catch, all the way down the road.

I tear home and tell Mum. She runs to the gate and searches the street, flicks a look at Dad's house, the streaky sky. The noise inside her head is mine.
Where is he? It is too long.
Then Aunt Cele pedals up and Mum says: ‘I'm beside myself. They've done Lake Grey. Now they're doing the Back Beach again. Salmon Hole…he could be…'

‘He'll be back. He's a boy, just being a bugger. I ran away once when I was a kid. I knew coming back meant the strap, so I dragged it out until I was so darn hungry, the strap started to look good.'

When Cele rides off, Mum picks up a Mallee root for the stove. She tells me to wait at the gate, for Dad, or Bill Morgan, or anyone—someone—to tell about blue wings and the cubby at Bunny's soak. A Peewee magpie calls to its mother from Shorty's pines. For a long time I watch two wood ducks floating on the lagoon, so still and unmoving that they could be fake ducks like shooters use. Then I shout:
‘Shooo-oo-oot!'
and they take off along the surface before coming to rest far away from me and my shouting mouth.

When Dad drives up, I tell him before he's even through the gate. ‘He might be at Bunny's soak, watching for blue wings.'

‘And he might be bloody dead or drowned. You thought of that?' He's inside with Mum for hardly any time before he's striding back. ‘If he's there,' he says, climbing into his jeep, revving and reversing, ‘you're in line for a bloody good thrashing. Spreading those bloody lies.'

‘You're not the only one thinking it,' says Mum when I rush inside and ask why she told him. ‘Why shouldn't he know?'

But why did it have to be me if everyone was thinking it? Why didn't everyone say it? Why didn't Bill Morgan? Why didn't she?

Later Mrs Winkie comes with pea soup. It is raining outside and her hair is covered in grey mist. Then Cele comes with Pardie's mum and they're wet too. Mum stands with her back to the stove while we squash around the table. When Dad returns, Bill Morgan has his arm around him as if he's worse for wear. He sits Dad on the spare chair.

‘Not good, Nella,' he says. ‘Found a bower of branches at Bunny's soak where he might've slept last night. But no sign of his bike. Or him.'

Mum's eyes are eager, excited. ‘Well, where'd he go from there? That's what we need to find out.'

‘Too wet now, and too dark. We'll have to wait till morning.' Bill Morgan turns to Dad in the chair. ‘There's something else…'

Dad lifts his head. ‘We found his sock next to the soak.'

Bill Morgan's voice is gentle, careful. ‘We'll get some divers down from the Mount. You know what I'm saying, Nella?'

Mum shakes her head. ‘He's a good swimmer. You haven't looked properly.' And when no one speaks, she says it again, louder. ‘You haven't looked properly!'

‘We have to check,' says Bill Morgan.

‘No!' she says loudly, making me jump. She looks from Bill Morgan to Dad, to Cele and Jude, to Mrs Winkie, back to me. ‘No!'

I am deaf, I cannot hear Mum's scream, the splash of Dunc in Bunny's soak, the sound of leaves falling from the silver wattle tree.

They have taken Mum away. Dad turns from me. ‘Get the Old Girl to look after her. I can't stand the sight of her.'

15

At assembly, there is a minute's silence for the tragedy of a past student. Mr Tucker was waiting for me when the school bus pulled in. He told me how sorry everyone was and said Dunc was a very smart boy with a big future and he simply couldn't believe it.
Couldn't believe it!
He said anytime I needed to talk to Mrs Tucker, I could, anytime. I couldn't think of anything to tell her.

In the quiet of the assembly, I look at my feet. They are a blur in the silence of everyone's thoughts. After the minute, Mr Tucker plays a tune on his violin in memory of Dunc. He says it is a song about wings, and the bow scratches the strings in a sad and beautiful way. I keep looking at my feet and thinking of blue wings and birds' nests. I do not believe Dunc has drowned. He has run away. He will come home when he is ready. He is hiding somewhere, waiting to be found.

When it's recess, everyone is playing with the new hula hoops. I am almost at the dunnies when Mr Tucker's corn patch erupts with arms and legs and screaming heads. Boys from Grade Six and Seven form a wall around me. Their eyes glint and their faces wear red blotches of blame.

‘Your brother's floating around in a soak,' says Dessie, the boy from the farm near Bindilla. ‘He's never gunna be found. Whaddya think about that?' Someone says Old Man Tucker's coming and to get away from his corn patch. ‘Never, ever,' says Dessie, nosing up to me.

I sit on the dunny for a long time. Leaves have blown under the door and there is a paint blob on the floor shaped like a frog. I think of the Banjo Frog that Chicken brought to school and the
bonk-bonk
sound of frogs in the lagoon saying
never-bonk-never-bonk-
never
. Noise rushes through the dunny wall, the sound of water and gurgling at the trough. Then Mr Tucker's kind teacher voice:
Not much of a place to play, lads. How about the Bombers,
Dessie? Think they've got a chance?

Mum still hasn't come home. It is a new year and Elvis is in the Army. I am in Grade Four and Mrs Tucker is still my teacher.

Miss Taylor is engaged to Joe Marciano. His grandfather was an Itie who jumped ship in Burley Point and became a fisherman. Joe looks like Tony Curtis, almost as handsome, and he has started a co-op so the fishermen will make more money. He is not really a New Australian because his family has been here a long time.

Miss Taylor is wearing a diamond ring on her engagement finger, which is on the left hand. Her ring is called a cluster. When she's on yard duty, she lets us look at it and I think how good it would be if I could be her bridesmaid, or maybe a flower girl.

After school, I ask Grannie when Dunc is going to be found. She thumps at the pastry on the table then takes a hankie from her cuff and blows her nose hard. ‘I suppose there's no law against hoping. But we have to accept that he's died, even if he hasn't been found. I know it's hard but that's just a fact of life. We've got to accept it.' She upturns a plate on the dough and cuts around its shape. ‘And don't go anywhere near our dam,' she says, ‘or I'll have your guts for garters. Understand?'

‘When can I go home?'

‘That's a good question.' Her shoulders lift and sink. She says I can have a scrap of dough if I'm hungry. She says life doesn't stop for anyone and I can change into my old clothes and go and play. ‘Your father's coming for tea,' she says as I turn to leave. ‘Ticker's going out.' I hover nearby, picking at the dough. ‘Well,' she says impatiently, ‘what're you going to do with yourself?' And when I say I don't know, she says: ‘Well, what would you do if you were at home?'

‘Play with Lizzie. Or the Daley kids.'

‘Play with Blue. If Ticker hasn't taken him, you can let him off the chain. Watch your feet and don't go in the long grass in case of snakes. You can feed the fish, but don't give them too much.'

Blue has gone. His chain lies under the pines like a silver snake. On the lawn, the sprinkler hisses round like a buzzy wasp. The Phantom Julie Walker runs under the waterfall without getting wet, finds the fish food beneath the flat rock and sprinkles two pinches. She sees a fish floating, but cannot rescue it because the pond is a jungle waterhole filled with hungry crocs, nosing close to the surface, snapping their terrible jaws.

The Phantom lies on a branch, high in the old mulberry tree, and looks up at blue chinks of sky between branches and leaves. She listens to the screech of monkeys, the whispers of pygmy people. She thinks of her brother lost in the jungle. This country is riddled with sinkholes and soaks: could he be in a secret cave far beneath the surface, living on fish and rats and birds? Could he be living in the Abo cave in the bush above Uncle Ticker's new cutting? With help from the pygmy people, she will find him.

Suddenly the jungle is filled with the throb of drums. Tiny drums, giant drums, coming from all directions. A message travels over hills and valleys, over the great swamp, into the Deep Woods.
Sylvie—your—bath—is—ready.
Boom. Boom.
Sylvie—your—bath—is—ready.

I sit at the end away from the chip heater and the stain where the tap drips. What if Grannie thinks I killed that fish because I gave it too much food? She shampoos my hair, scratching at my scalp with hard fingers. Those fingers could stab a charging rhinoceros between the eyes and bring it crashing to the ground without a single blow.

‘There was a dead fish in the pond,' I tell her.

She pours water over my head and doesn't answer so I have to tell her again. ‘There was a dead fish in the pond.'

‘It must have been one of the old ones.'

‘It wasn't my fault.'

‘Fish die. It's no one's fault.' When I step out of the bath, she dries my hair and points to my pyjamas on the floor. ‘Dress yourself. Then you can look at my stamp album until your father gets here.' She bundles up my dirty clothes. ‘Stamp-collecting would be a good hobby for you. If you could get interested.'

Dad cuts a potato in two and moves it around his plate with his fork. He looks at the froth on the top of his beer glass and reads the green label on the bottle. He looks at Grannie but he doesn't look at me.

With my ears turned into eyes, I listen to the smell of him. It is cold and beery; it is a southerly wind off the sea before a storm.

‘That Pardie Moon knows more than he's letting on.'

Grannie looks over her glasses. Her nose is a pincushion of pores. ‘Pardie Moon?'

‘Yes, Pardie bloody Moon.'

‘About what?'

Under the table, Dad's foot knocks mine. Does he know that is the touch of me? ‘About Dunc. They were thick as thieves.'

‘Have you asked him?'

‘Course I've bloody asked him. He scuttles off like a rabbit. Moping around with a long face. Wagging school. I told Augie he needs a good hiding.'

‘Missing Dunc. Like all of us.'

In the silence, I slice my potato and spear it with my fork. I can hear the sound of chewing and swallowing in my ears.

‘So how's the sharking season?'

‘Swell up like a puffer fish if I'm stupid enough to nick the sperm bag and get a squirt.'

‘You'd be better off on the land.'

‘I won't work alongside him, so you can stop right there.'

‘Work never killed anyone. It's the best way to get through.'

‘What would you know?'

‘I've buried a husband and two children, that's what I know.'

‘Babies aren't the same as thirteen-year-old boys.'

Grannie looks at me as if I should close my ears. ‘Brendan wasn't a baby.'

‘He wasn't thirteen, days off fourteen.'

There is a howl in his voice that I don't think Grannie can hear. ‘We still have to keep on living.' She looks at me again. There is a whistling sound outside. It could be an owl. ‘That's the choice we make. All of us. Every day. Hold on or let go.'