Jasper Jones (10 page)

It continues in much the same way. Jeffrey retrieves the ball, bounces back, waits patiently for another turn. I wait and I watch. No batsman can get him away properly, they nick and swipe with no reward. Why can’t this stupid coach see that? Jeffrey is the only spinner here, and he’s bowled three out already.

See, I always thought that eventually there would be a sort of grudging respect for Jeffrey’s talent. Much the same as there is for Jasper. The Corrigan Colts side wouldn’t win a game if weren’t for Jasper Jones. He raises the eyebrows of even the most ardent bigot on the sideline. He’s a phenomenon, a cut above. It’s impossible not to be impressed. He never trains, doesn’t listen to the coach, doesn’t play a position, just does his own thing. He doesn’t own his own shoes. Jasper
is the toughest tackler I’ve seen. For someone five years younger than the rest of his competitors, he intimidates his opposition more than any beefy monster on the field with fire in their eyes. Jasper has incredible hands, and amazing instincts for the game. And he has a vertical leap and a burst of speed that can have a whole crowd gasping at once.

It’s hard to understand. The folks who watch Jasper play, who barrack for him like he was one of their own, are the same ones who might cut their eyes at him should he walk their way a few hours after the game. But they’ll smile and cheer and shake their heads in wonderment if he takes a run through the center or if he nails one from the pocket. His teammates too. They’ll surround him and scruff at his hair in celebration, they’ll applaud and pat his arse, but once the game is over, the pattern returns. He’s back to being shunned by the boys and privately reviled, and privately adored by the girls. Jasper hands his shoes and his jersey back, and leaves them to their changeroom.

It’s hard not to believe that something in that uniform is powerful, and that its number is significant. When fat, angry bastards are screaming advice to the best athletes in town and when women are shrieking blue murder, it’s hard not to feel as though Jasper Jones has forged himself some kind of momentary peace, because it’s patently clear that he’s a champion among them. They’re forced to accept it. That he’s the best going round. He’s one of them. Jasper Jones is the player on whom they pin their hopes.

I wonder why it can’t carry on. Why Jasper Jones has to strip off his shirt and hand it back at the end. And I wonder why Jeffrey can’t even get a slice of that, fleeting as it is. Maybe it’s because he can’t assert himself like Jasper, who broke three collarbones and two noses this season.

Jeffrey’s next delivery produces a leading edge, and it skips past him at the non-strikers’ end. Most of the bowlers let it run through them; one of them kicks it along. It bounds toward me. I trap it, roll it back. I hear them talking.

“Got your boyfriend here, Cong?”

“Chorlie loves it in the orse!”

“Eh, you love him long time, Cong?”

Someone pushes Jeffrey in the face. Someone else prods his arse hard with their finger. “Hey, I thought
he
was supposed to be Charlie, anyway?”

They all laugh at this with curled lips. Especially the coach, who looks up from his clipboard. His teeth are the color of bath grit. Warwick Trent picks Jeffrey up by the front collar with one arm. They cheer, and he throws Jeffrey backward, his thin arms flailing. More laughs. Jeffrey picks himself up quickly and resumes his position.

I don’t want to watch this anymore.

I wish Jasper Jones were here right now. I wish he were standing next to me. Then I could holler everything I want to holler. I could point and swear. I could single this coach out. Tell him he’s a bloody disgrace. That he doesn’t know a thing about the game. Then I’d tell Warwick Trent he’s a smug, odorous fool who will never leave this town, that he’ll be trapped here forever by his own stupidity, like a rat in a wheel. I’d sneer and tell him he’s got the cerebral finesse of an amoeba and delight in his squint of confusion. Then I’d punch him, hard, in the shoulder, repeating those words:
Cerebral. Cerebral. Cerebral. Amoeba. Amoeba. Amoeba
. Then I’d tell Jeffrey to put the pads on and I’d make them bowl at him and they’d realize he’s the best among them. He’d carve and slice their bowling around so effortlessly, they’d have no choice but to admire him.

But that won’t ever happen.

I scratch my chin with my shoulder. It’s twilight. And in the copper glow, I see Eliza Wishart making her way across the oval. She is still carrying that book.

Everything feels so pronounced today. All my senses are tender and buzzing. The slightest tremor feels like a quake. I feel harassed by the busy sounds of insects around me, like I’m trapped in an enormous thriving hive. I’m watching Eliza Wishart walk and I’m transfixed, she’s so assured and demure at the same time.

I think she sees me. She looks up. I look down. I can’t help it. And
when I glance back up, she is giving a short wave. I return it with a smile. I should go over there. I should go over there and say something witty about her following me around. And we’d laugh. Then I’d ask her about her book. And then we’d talk. Maybe hold hands. I’d ask her if she wanted to meet me later, by the river. I’d look her in the eyes, like it’s important. And she’d be so stunned and impressed by my forthrightness, she’d immediately agree.

So I should. I should walk over there right now, like Jasper Jones: broad-shouldered, with a long lope and a knowing grin. I’m going to go over there. Right now.

I shove my hands in my pockets.

Behind me, someone wolf-whistles. Then all of them do. I whip around. They’re laughing. Warwick Trent puts a palm to his mouth.

“Shars yer tits! Oi!”

Eliza looks down, walks a little faster.

I am horrified. I hope she doesn’t think I’m with them. Warwick Trent has his cock out and is waving it at her. They all cheer. Thankfully, she has turned away.

They laugh. They turn. They lose interest. Eliza Wishart is almost gone. I watch her disappear. I should have said something, I should have stood up. Defended her honor. I’m an idiot. I want to go. I sit down, a little woozy.

Laura Wishart is dead. Her sister doesn’t know. But soon everybody in Corrigan is going to know. I’m in the eye of the storm. The world has come apart. I don’t know what this town is going to do. It’s as though I’m waiting silently for the battle to start, knowing I’m slowly being ambushed. There’s a coil round my chest being bound ever tighter. For once, there is no comfort in knowing something nobody else does.

How can Jasper Jones expect us to go back and unravel everything? We tied her to a stone. We
buried
her in water. We
did
that. We can’t hope to solve this mystery. It’s too much. It’s too big and unwieldy. Where would we start?

Laura Wishart is dead. And she is just hours away from being
reported missing, unless she already has been. And they’re not going to find her. Unless someone confesses. Unless Mad Jack Lionel steps into town with his wrists ready for the cuffing. So what is going to happen? We’ve bought Jasper Jones some time. But how much? How long until they give up? How far will the search spread? How thorough will it be?

What I really can’t begin to understand is how it happened. How somebody could do it. How anybody could kill a girl. How they could take her into the bush and beat her down and hang her from a bare limb in her nightdress. How they could watch her die. How they could leave her there. How they could be capable. I snatch at a mosquito in front of my face. Wipe it on my shorts. I flinch. They’re everywhere. I hate insects.

Laura Wishart is dead and I touched her warm body and she’s cursed me with dread and sorrow. And I can only hope that they don’t find her until we get to the truth.

Jeffrey turns and looks around. No one has started their run in. One of the other bowlers gestures him through. Jeffrey smiles. He turns to stride in and bowl. And just as he pushes off, someone swiftly pulls his white shorts to his ankles. He stacks it, hard. They erupt again. The coach wheezes. The ball skips down the pitch. Jeffrey stands and retrieves his shorts, his little arse like a tan plum.

Meanwhile, the batsman has trapped the ball. He turns and claps the ball high and hard over the back of the nets, into a vacant block of trees and scrub. A huge hit. It’s a lost ball. Jeffrey watches it go, and it breaks my heart because that ball was a birthday gift that he’d sweated on for months.

And my eyebrows furrow and my nostrils flare as I watch Jeffrey cut his losses and walk toward his kitbag. I watch them ruffle his hair and shove him lightly.

And I look at this bastard coach. How he stands, how he intermittently pinches at his dick and shifts his weight. How his dark rodent eyes lazily survey this pack of boorish bullies. How his nubby fingers
scissor his cigarette. And I think: If he can watch this with a thin grin, what else could he watch? What other cruel things could he view without intervening?

I’m chewing the inside of my mouth and my face is hot. I look away. Part of me is faintly resentful of Jeffrey for joining them in the first place and making me feel like this. I blink hard.

Jeffrey remains unperturbed. As though he were simply undone by fair play. And they’re still spitting words at him as he hoists his bag, but I don’t want to listen anymore. I just want to go. Jeffrey walks toward me. There are grass clippings in his hair.

His head is bowed as he approaches. But when he gets closer to me, his face lifts and splits into a smile.

“Did you see that first ball? Drifted in, spun out. Bang! Top of off! Thanks very much.” He spreads his hands like the ball actually exploded off the pitch.

“It’s true. It did, a fair bit,” I say, and it feels good and defiant.

“A
bit
? It did everything, Chuck. That second-last guy got a good square drive in, but I’ve got a deep point, so it’s covered.”

“I bet you’ve got a lot of fictional fielders in the right position once they’ve belted it.” I’m anxious to keep talking and diverting.

“Charles, if you knew anything about the game, you’d understand that you’ve
got
to have a deep point. It’s fundamental. You want to get them on the back foot, so you invite that shot. Then, bang! You’ve been trapped in front. Or you kick one up and you’ve got him at first slip.” Jeffrey executes some frenetic shadowboxing combinations, punctuated by sound effects.

“Easy, Muhammad.”

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Your bat can’t hit what your eyes don’t see. Bang!” He kisses his fists.

“You’re insane.”

“What’s that, Chuck? I’m the greatest?”

“No, you’re a …”

“You’re probably right. I
am
the greatest.” And Jeffrey bursts into
round two, bobbing and feinting, his kitbag flapping on his back. Still, I shake my head, angry.

“I hate those bastards.”

Jeffrey sighs.

“Chuck, if nobody had stolen his bike, Muhammad Ali wouldn’t have hit anybody.” Then he stops and points a finger up at me. “Meanwhile, you’re an idiot.”

“Why?”

“Because you didn’t go and talk to Eliza.”

“So?” I shrug.

“Chuck, you are the
king
of idiots. It’s not like she came this way because she didn’t know you were down here. She
loves
you.”

I shake my head.

“You’re blushing!” Jeffrey says dramatically, pointing like a witness before a police lineup. “You make me sick!”

“Jeffrey, firstly, I’m
not
blushing. I’m hot. It’s been a hot day. It’s the heat. On my face. Second, there is no way Eliza could have known we were going to the oval, so she couldn’t have gone that way purely to see me. Which means,
essentially
, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jeffrey snaps his head back and drones, stumping along like a zombie, “Charles, you know
nothing
about the world of seduction. You need to be advised by an expert, namely me. I know
everything
about girls. They’re too stupid to be a mystery.”

“Jeffrey, you don’t know the first thing about girls.”

“Bollocks! What’s not to know?”

“Plenty.”

“I know why they wear makeup and perfume.”

“Why?” I sigh.

“Because they’re ugly and they stink!”

We lip-flap for the remainder of the walk home. Jeffrey spies a ripe snottygobble tree that hasn’t been raided yet. He picks a fistful and we share them as we ponder the motives of the person who first discovered
milk from a cow, who it was that arranged the letters in the alphabet and why they decided on that order. We also question why kamikaze pilots wear helmets. But my heart is never really in the conversation.

When we turn into our street, I find myself slipping in behind Jeffrey, expecting dark and daunting vehicles to be parked at jagged angles on our lawn and people in suits and sunglasses to be waiting, pointing as they see me appear. Loudspeakers. Planes. Shocked onlookers.

I’m safe, but I feel no relief. If anything, it allows my unease to compound. It adds freight to the weight.

“Stop staring at my arse!” Jeffrey says. I absently move up to his side.

Our street is a little busier than when we left it. In the cooler air, neighbors natter over front fences, watering with hoses or zinc cans. Toddlers stagger about in the nude; other kids squeal and zip around beneath rotor sprinklers in their underwear. Dinner smells seep out of open front doors. You can hear television babble, parental censure, and laughter.

Jeffrey’s dad, An, is out front, working his garden with care. He grows various odd fruits and vegetables out in back, but out here is a neat and perfect presentation of color.

An Lu is an engineer at the mine, but of an evening he’ll be obsessively tending to either his produce or his flowers, even if he’s had to work late. Jeffrey’s front yard is like Corrigan’s own botanical garden. It’s easily the most impressive scene on this street. Jeffrey says An orders in seeds and saplings from all over the world, and he has a logbook for how and when each should be set in soil. An has his land planned with the precision of a symphony. There’s a year-round blush of hues, even through the Corrigan winter, but in spring it explodes like a frozen firecracker. And An is always there, coaxing and summoning its blooms like a conductor.