Bereft (15 page)

“What's that?”

He looked up, startled. Sadie was in the doorway. He thought to hide the note but realised there was no point—she had probably been watching him for some time. Besides, he wanted her to stay; he was remorseful about what had happened.

“A message,” he said.

“Who from?”

He stared at her. That long-ago evening at Abbey Wood, Fletcher had asked him the same question, which he had waved away with a dismissive mutter. But now he felt compelled to tell the truth. “It's from … a girl.”

“What kind of girl?”

He swallowed. “It's from my sister. It's from Sarah.”

Sadie came closer, tentatively, the same way a cat sidled into a room. And it was clear that, like a cat, she would have to be coaxed in, step by step. Indeed, her entire body flickered in the candlelight as if she might vanish at any moment. She brushed hair from her face and frowned. “Have you been carrying that around since … since she died?”

Quinn stared up at her from where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I didn't do it, you know. It's wrong what they call me in town. You must believe me. My uncle was the murderer.”

She watched him with her dark, pooling eyes. She had a girlish habit of running her thumb along the seam at the hip of her linen dress, up and down, up and down, indecision made manifest. She was doing it now. That portion of the fabric was grubby and worn.

“You really don't need to be afraid of me,” Quinn said. “I won't hurt you.”

Her lips moved.

“Pardon?”

“Do you
promise
?” she said.

“Of course.”

She pouted. “Cross your heart and hope to die?”

Quinn refolded the note, placed it back into the match-safe and returned that to his trouser pocket. “Alright. Cross my heart. Hope to die.”

Sadie was somewhat appeased. She looked about as if for useful scraps of conversation and continued to worry at the seam of her dress. The candle flame trembled in a breeze. Eventually, she edged completely into the room and rested against the wall. In this light she looked remote, haunted, both near and far. On her knees were patches of dirt where she had been kneeling to play her game. The hem of her dress was torn, her hair was unruly, but this was tempered by her innate elegance and defiance. Quinn felt tender towards her, concerned not only for her future but also for what might have already happened in her short life.

“I have a letter, too,” she announced. “From my brother. Do you want to see it?”

Quinn smiled with relief. He felt he had recovered her trust. “Yes. Of course.”

She bolted back into her room. He heard her rummaging around, the rattle of a tin. Then she was back, flushed and beaming. In her hand was a rumpled sheet of paper. She cast her eyes over it, as if to confirm it was the correct letter, and handed it to Quinn.

The letter was in a careful, sloping hand.

Dearest mother
,

Well here i am doing flying training. Cannot tell you where i am or the sort of planes I am learning to fly because of the sensorship but everything is well. Good fellows training here one is even from Bathurst! We work hard and are keen to getting into the action and giving the hun something to be sorry about. On the boat here i was frightfuly sick. I am getting to see the world in Egypt. I tried to ride a camel but the creature refused to move anywhere with me. I tryed and tryed. Gippoes had a good laugh at my ekspense i tell you. They are devils always tryeing to sell you something cant be trusted. I had better say fairwel now. Do not worry about me as I am sure I will be alright this war will not be long. Can you send me some socks pleese it is cold here. Look after my darling sister tell her I will send her a pcard soon.

Your loving son Thomas

The letter was dated June 1917, almost two years ago. It was most likely a letter from a dead man, mailed from England during his training. It had a ring of innocence about it; only those yet to go into battle still thought the war would finish quickly.

Sadie snatched back the letter. “See? He'll be home soon.”

“You could go to Sydney, if there is no one else to take care of you. They have organisations now that look after children like you. Orphans. You're an orphan now. The Red Cross could take care of you.”

She shook her head. “You're like Robert Dalton.”

Quinn was appalled. “No! No. I'm not like him at all. Don't even
think
that. Please. Not ever. I'm not like him.”

The girl was silent for a time until he realised, with horror, that she was weeping. He stood and crossed the room to comfort her, but she wriggled out from his embrace.

“I don't want to live with strangers,” she said. “I want Mother back, I want my brother home. Thomas will know what to do. I want it the way it was before.”

I want it the way it was before.
Quinn knew what she meant.

Sadie said something unintelligible.

“What?” he asked.

“Are you going to stay here?”

“In Flint?”

“I mean with me.”

He sat down again. “I'm not sure I did the right thing coming back. I don't know what it will achieve. I can't tell my mother who did it. She is already so sick, and the shock of seeing me—”

“You can't leave!”

“Maybe you should come with me? It's not safe here. They'll kill me if they find me. And you. If Dalton finds you, then …”

“It's safe for now. I'm waiting for Thomas. We have a few weeks until Gracie is back, and Dalton will never track us by himself. I'll work out when the tracker is home. We're safe until then.”

“But how will you know when this Gracie is coming back?”

“I'll find out. I hear everything around here. Besides, my mother taught me things.”

Quinn thought of what his father had heard at Sully's. “What? Magic things?” She glanced at him. He was unconvinced, but nodded anyway. There was no arguing with the girl.

She sat on the floor beside him. “Maybe you could kill Constable Dalton.”

“What? You really think I could do that? Kill my uncle?”

A languid shrug passed across her shoulders.

Quinn could only stare at her. At last he found his voice. “In the war they gave me a medal for bravery. I can hardly remember what I did to earn it. War is noise and confusion. They said I saved two men who had been injured and would have been killed. But I have never been brave. The medal was a bloody joke. I'm terrified of my uncle. I know what he is capable of. I caught him spying on Sarah once when she was washing and he told me he would cut my throat if I told a soul. And I never have. Until now. Besides,” he said, recalling his mother's words, “revenge is not our business. It belongs to God. I've seen a lot of dead men these past few years.”

She leaned forward. “Then what is one more? It is nothing. God isn't even watching.”

Quinn shook his head. The girl was so fervent for retribution that he wondered if she had been waiting all along for him to set it in motion. “I can't do it.”

“Edward Fitch will tell people he saw you. Gracie will help Dalton find you. He'll find me. They'll hang you.”

“How do you know I saw Fitch?”

“I
told
you,” she said with theatrical exasperation. “I see things, I hear things.”

Again Quinn was reminded that Sadie was a girl, only twelve years old, ignorant of the world. “No one believes Edward Fitch. He's a simpleton. Besides, if Dalton is as hopeless as you say, why are you so worried that he'll find us? It was just a coincidence he nearly caught us.”

“What's that?”

“Like luck. Chance.”

“There's no such thing.”

Quinn laughed uneasily. “Well, it was luck I ran into you, although I'm not sure if it was good luck or bad.”

“It wasn't
luck
.”

“What, then?”

She murmured something Quinn couldn't understand.

“What?”

“I prayed you here. For someone to come and help me. Here on this floor. Right here on this floor.” She jabbed herself in the chest with a finger. “
I
brought you here.”

“I thought you said God didn't pay us any attention. Isn't that what you said before?” He was shocked to detect an unappealing, triumphant note in his voice.

She gave him a queer, scornful look. “Yes. But there are others that do.”

Quinn shivered. Scattered about them on the floor was the food she had procured that morning: the loaf of bread, the apples and oranges. He took a swig of whiskey and grimaced as it seared his throat. Alcohol had never agreed with him—it always made him sleepy—but if there were ever a time for a man to have a vice, then it was war and its aftermath. He exhaled and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand.

“You should grow a beard,” she said after some minutes. “That way you can be certain he won't recognise you when you go and get him.”

Quinn caressed his face. During all his years of travel, through the war and beyond, he had kept up shaving with priestly devotion, as if it might safeguard his humanity among such terrible scenes. It was a small, civilised act, not always easy to accomplish. Now he touched the scar at his mouth. Perhaps the girl was right. Perhaps, out here in the middle of nowhere, there was no longer a need to shave.

He held out one of the oranges. “Here,” he said, eager to change the subject and cement their friendlier footing. “Are you hungry? Let's eat this.”

“No. They're for you. They were gifts.”

He balanced the fruit in his palm. It had cost him some restraint all day not to eat it. “No. We'll share it, you and I. Food is meant to be shared, isn't it? That makes it a meal, that's what my mother always used to say.” And, already feeling the effects of the liquor, he set about peeling the orange with fumbling fingers.

Quinn had eaten a lot of oranges in his life, but this was the best so far. They devoured it, rind included. Sweet and sharp it was, the way an orange was supposed to be. He savoured each mouthful, careful that no juice escape. Sadie licked her fingers and smirked with the sheer pleasure of it. The sight of her smiling made him happy.

“Who did you steal all this from?” he asked.

In the candle's light her teeth fluttered like a line of ragged laundry. She told him that she took something from most residents at one time or another. People followed their daily routines, and she only had to watch them for a few days to see when they would be out. Some homes she stayed away from, of course. She had been doing it for years. Her brother had taught her plenty of tricks. It was easy, and most families didn't miss an apple or a couple of slices of bread. “I could get you anything you wanted,” she boasted.

“Like what?”

“I don't know. A horse? Hammer or nails. A gun.”

“I think someone might miss their horse. Besides, stealing is wrong.”

“Better than starving to death. Wasn't
my
fault my father ran off. Or the war. How else are we supposed to live? Look around.” She sneered and made a gesture that encompassed not only the battered and peeling room in which they sat, but the rise of the Bolsheviks, the flu plague, the Great War with its gas canisters and flame throwers, and the murder of his sister by her own uncle. The girl was right. In the face of such moral catastrophe, theft was not so serious.

“So, what should I get for you?” she asked after a pause.

“I need some ordinary clothes. I hate this uniform. And more tobacco.”

Sadie looked him up and down as she picked orange pulp from her teeth. She seemed disappointed at his prosaic request. “Alright then.”

“An orange was what I really wanted, actually. Even during the war I tried to find one. I asked every farmer, harassed the quartermaster. Mother said I used to live on them when I was a boy. I've always loved them.”

Sadie nodded. “Yes, I know.”

Quinn looked up. “How do you know that?”

Sadie froze with glistening fingers halfway to her mouth. A globule of pulp hung from her lip. “You talk in your sleep.”

“I talk about oranges?”

“Yes. And other things, too. Things I can't understand. About gas. Lots of mumbling. Sometimes,” she said, smiling, warming to the odd direction their conversation had taken, “you make a sound like a dog.”

“I bark?”

“No. Not barking. Like a—I don't know—an injured dog. Whimpering, sort of.”

“Why were you watching me when I was sleeping?”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I have to be sure of who you are.”

“And how can I be sure of who
you
are?”

She smiled again.

Quinn reached out with one hand towards her, but she arched away so rapidly that she kicked over the candle on its metal plate. The flame guttered and spat, was extinguished. The room collapsed into darkness and was filled with the waxy stink of wick. He knocked aside a chair or box and swore. He fumbled about in his pockets for matches and re-lit the candle. Hot wax pricked his hand. It took several seconds for his eyes to adjust, and when his vision returned he saw Sadie standing on the far side of the room with a large knife in her fist, her wrung-sheet features drenched in fear. “I
told
you not to touch me,” she warned in a low voice.

Quinn hardly moved. He raised a finger to indicate his own lip. “You've got some orange on your mouth, that's all.”

But Sadie had gone.