The Worm King (13 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Narrandera

W
hat happened at Narrandera? Winston was trying to figure out exactly
when everyone became so gloomy. Astrid especially.

The Hat scratched the side of his head. ‘Narrandera?
Yeah, I remember. Jeez, it was nothing, I swear. You were having a kip and I
was driving. Astrid went up to this house that had a light shining in the
window, then she run back to the van like she had a greyhound up her arse. I
told her not to be such a blouse and get back in there, and find out if they
had any water, and she hasn’t spoken a civil word to me since.’

By Narrandera they’d driven three-quarters
of the way from Mulloolaloo to Griffith. This was after staying at the
observatory for five days, waiting. Waiting for the sun to appear, the power or
phones to come back on . . . any word from anyone? Anything?
Nothing. The storeroom duplex Dr Zoy had put them in subtly morphed into a pair
of stark, fetid prison cells. A type of Bangkok Hilton, custom-built for
science geeks: no rats, only deathly boring file-filled computer boxes where
the sole privilege was a torturous daydream about the impossibility of pizza. By
day five at the observatory, Astrid had persuaded them all to head for Griffith,
and with the temperature outdoors having fallen to more bearable levels, they’d
driven away in Leroy’s van which the Zoymeister had been kind enough to refill
with gas.

When they arrived in Griffith a day and a
half later, via Narrandera, it was already decidedly cool.

‘So it was either the greyhound comment, or maybe
it was because I told her about what you did at Kenny’s keg party earlier this
year.’

‘Bastard. That wouldn’t have helped. Why’d
you have to tell her that?’

The Hat shrugged.

‘What did he do, may I ask?’ inquired Lord
Brown. Azziz propped himself up on one elbow. The dog lay on the floor next to
Azziz, but slightly closer to the lantern, while Astrid, her parents and Āmiria
were asleep in the bedrooms.

‘I don’t think we need to go through that
now,’ protested Winston.

The Hat ignored the request. ‘Kenny kept
telling us to turn the stereo down, and eventually he hiffed us out, so Winston
left him a top-decker with a serving of chilli peas.’

‘Is a kind of burger?’ asked Azziz. He
hadn’t been invited to Kenny’s little soirée.

‘Sort off,’ explained the Hat. ‘It’s probably
got bits of burger
in
it. A top-decker is when you take a dump in the toilet
cistern. They’ll flush and flush and flush, and never work out where the
smell’s coming from. By the time they do, it’s usually just easier to sell the
house and fuck off from the place. A true artist. Chilli peas is when you do a
tinkle in the ice cube tray. Gives your g&t a whole new flavor.’

‘Quite limey’ reflected Winston.

‘I rather fancy a slice of lime in my
g&t,’ admitted Lord Brown.

The Hat grimaced. ‘Old limes though.’

‘Rotten,’ confirmed Winston.

‘An artist indeed,’ decreed the Lord.

‘Thank you, Master.’

 No, it wasn’t Kenny’s. And it wasn’t only
Astrid: Winston felt different too. Ever since Narrandera it felt as if someone
were watching him. You know that creepy-crawly feeling you get sometimes on the
back of your neck? When the darkness is so thick and oppressive you’d think
you’ve been swallowed whole, and things inside the belly of the creature that’s
gobbled you up are reaching out . . . touching, with cold slimy
fingers. He’d even tried that meditation technique, when you close your eyes
real tight, screwing them shut and concentrating like crazy and telling
yourself this is all completely illogical, and nonsense, and it’s just a matter
of focusing the mind; dropping to a fresher, clearer level; a thinking level
where you can—

No, someone is definitely watching. Even
down here. Winston snapped his eyes open, looking in a hundred directions at
once but seeing nothing, except Peanuts. The spaniel slumbered in the sickly,
insipid glow of the twenty dollar lantern from which their puny lives dangled. Peanuts
was the only one smart enough to sit right next to it, soaking up the pathetic
amount of warmth on offer. Astrid had warned them not to turn the lamp up
because once the fuel ran out, that’s it. “That’s it” had carried an ugly,
desperate tone like she’d pulled it straight from the chorus of some long
forgotten Gothic pyre dirge.

Satan will come. You’re all buggered.
That’s it.

‘I’ll just turn it up a smidge,’ said the
Hat. ‘She’ll never notice. Sitting in the dark all the time like this, it’s giving
me the shits, I’ll tell ya.’

‘Me too,’ agreed Winston. However, he was torn.
Torn asunder, apart and into disarray. Big head over stumpy legs into disarray.
Their relationship . . . was it called that already? No. But
whatever it was, it might struggle with the strain of another infringement by
the Hat.

Perhaps darkness made the connection between
people tighter? Maybe you could read their thoughts? Astrid had been withdrawn
since Narrandera, watching over her shoulder all the time, jumpy and nervous even
inside the house. Obviously not happy with the Hat either. The creepy-crawly
feeling he’d developed said it was more than just the Hat’s jokes, and poor personal
hygiene, which were the usual culprits when it came to the Hat and shelias.

Winston remembered how his mum always said he
could read minds. She’d thought this must be the case (surely?) when he was so vertically
cursed. There had to be some other yet to be revealed superpower balancing out the
blight inflicting him. Could her boy fly!? If he took his mind way, way back
there was the faintest glimmer of this memory from so long ago it might’ve been
before he was even walking, and he’d been laughing at her, not understanding
the question she’d just asked but loving the way her arms went flappity-flap. Then
when he’d failed to take-off, this heartrending sadness crossed her face and
he’d noticed a wisp of grey hair and creasy lines around her eyes that hadn’t
been there before. What’d he done? Hang on, maybe he could melt stuff with a single
glance, or, with a flourish of his W-emblazoned cape, become invisible! Where’s
Winnie gone! Flappity-flap.

His mum might’ve liked Astrid.

When it became clear he could neither soar
skywards nor miraculously disappear, in actual fact there’d only been mind-reading
to fall back on. After all, you can always simply take a stab at that and you only
need to get it half-right once or twice, and you’ve got them hooked.

Azziz was also troubled, and sombre as a
judge. Winston could smell his despondency from a mile off. The Egyptian had even
turned down a fantastically valuable unopened packet of deep-fried pork
crackling three hours ago, instead giving it to Āmiria. Three hours? What
did that mean anyway? Without the usual night-day cycle, time had lost all
meaning. Life had become a series of black gaps, interspersed with bleak,
deteriorating events.

‘When did that happen?’ someone might ask.

‘It happened about half-past when the baked
beans run out.’

Kenny’s birthday shindig now seemed an
awfully long time ago. The date today is seven months and fifteen days past the
last top-decker. He made an attempt to steer the conversation in a happier
direction. ‘So what’s the party scene like in Griffith?’

Azziz lay wrapped in a fluorescent pink sleeping
bag on the floor, using a cushion pulled from the sofa as a pillow. ‘Order is breaking
down. No light is making people jumpy and unpredictable. And violent, much more
so. Seeing things too.’

‘Yes, Montabelli mentioned there were problems
in Canberra like that.’

‘No, I don’t mean the government or the
civil problem. With the people themselves. The darkness. She is making them go
strange.’

The Hat gave Winston a concerned glance. ‘She?
They giving you enough time off at the hospital there, Bigboy?’

‘You are right,’ grunted Azziz, changing
position on the floor so his sleeping bag crinkled loudly until the ponderous movement
ceased. ‘Is more a “He” I think.’

‘It can’t be healthy,’ reasoned the Hat. ‘I
thought only bad things come out of the dark: your werewolves; vampires;
Dracula and that lot. They’re all night critters.’

Azziz told them he was more concerned about some
group that’d emerged opposed to the council. The Businessman’s Militia they
called themselves. Water shortages were nudging critical and everyone was living
on canned food, which would only last so long. Dysentery was rife and worse lay
on the horizon. Scurvy. Rickets. Scrofula. None of the news from the hospital sounded
good.

‘No sense going anywhere yet though,’ asserted
Winston. ‘I mean, at least till it’s easier to see and the powers back on?’

‘I know why you want to stay here, you
crafty little mongrel,’ said the Hat slyly.

Francesco was back with the latest update
from Canberra. Winston watched the councilman take a seat on the sofa while
Nathan’s wife bustled into the kitchen to rustle up weak tea and homemade
biscuits. She’d run out of flour and her biscuits were of very poor quality
indeed.

Griffith. If you believed brochures, it was
the oasis of the Riverina. The fruit bowl of New South Wales they called it. A
town of 17,000 people soaked in Italian romance and culture; a merry old wine
town, propped up by alcohol in the heartland of a nation that lives and
breathes grog in one form or another. But sneak a peek through that window and
all you’ll see is darkness, and if you’re stupid enough to go outside, the wind
and bitter cold will suck the romance right out of you in seconds.

‘Water is problem now,’ said Francesco. ‘All
the farms here, they use much irrigation. No power, they all stop. No sun, so
plants die anyway but people still taking the water from Main Canal. This is
dirty even after straining many times.’ He shook his head and scowled, rubbing
his stomach. ‘Taste very bad. Runs.’

‘You said you had news from Canberra?’ prompted
Astrid.

‘Yes, yes. A car arrive before I come here.’
He prodded his finger at the floor. ‘With two policemen, from Canberra. We
think they bring assistance but they not even have enough petrol to get back. Now
we have to look after them.’ Francesco smiled but his battered lips and
dangerous nose didn’t go along for the ride. ‘So, I am leaving for Canberra. Soon.
The Council, they want me to find out about the water. And when the power could
be back again, so I go to do this.’

‘Can I go too?’ asked Astrid. ‘I could go to
the Channel Six office, and at least check if the twins are there, or maybe we
could find Dick.’ Francesco nodded.

Winston had a suspicion he may’ve engineered
the Canberra trip simply because he knew Astrid wanted to get there. A surge of
bravado rose in his chest and before he knew what he was doing, the words had poured
out: ‘I’ll come along too if you like, help you look for them. If there’s
enough room, that is?’

Francesco shrugged. ‘Sure. No problemo.’ Winston
was surprised how quickly he agreed and immediately began to regret his offer.

‘Can someone take me to Tamworth too then? demanded
Āmiria. She sat on the floor by the lantern with the dog in front of her.

Astrid shook her head. ‘I thought we agreed
that—’

‘I’d be happy to take her,’ cut in Lord Brown.
‘If we had a car and another driver it would be no problem at all . . . ?’

‘No—’

The Hat put up his hand. ‘I can drive! I’ve
never been to Tamworth. I’d be keen as mustard. That’s where they have that C
& W festival isn’t it? When’s that on again? We’ll take the dog, he’ll keep
us honest.’ Astrid looked far from convinced but Winston could see she’d
already lost the argument.

Azziz said he’d prefer to remain in Griffith
and help out at the hospital. Ten minutes later he crawled out of his sleeping
bag and left with Francesco, who said he’d return in two hours to collect
Astrid and Winston.

An hour later it hadn’t gotten any lighter
or warmer or cheerier, and Winston, the Hat and Astrid were the only ones left
in the lounge. She’d turned off the lantern so they sat in pitch dark. Her
parents had been upset by her decision to leave and gone to their bedroom.

As the darkness enveloped them, Winston felt
himself sliding into a funk again. His mind drifted back to Narrandera, once
more trying to pinpoint the source of the melancholy. An idea began to form. It
occurred that it might not be anything specific that’d actually
happened
at Narrandera, it could be more about the
time
spent in the dark. He realized
that by Narrandera, he’d been almost exactly a week in the dark, which was
longer than he’d ever spent in his life. He’d had multi-day benders on the
sauce before, where he hadn’t seen the sun for four, maybe even five days, but
definitely never seven days on the trot. It all began to make sense. If Astrid
also confirmed that nothing specific had happened at Narrandera, this would, at
a minimum, be partial confirmation. So maybe it was only the darkness getting
him down, and in reality there was nothing to actually be frightened of!

‘So what happened at Narrandera? On the way
here.’