Out of Time (9 page)

Reaching the front desk where Mr Woodforde had done most of his work, James pulled out his old stool and sat on it. He gazed around him. It was like being at the museum and seeing the skeleton of a dinosaur. This room was the bones of a life, the dead outline of something that once had flesh, movement, a lively eye. James had been told in Social Studies of the tribute to Christopher Wren, written over the door of St Paul's Cathedral: ‘If you would see his monument, look around.' He remembered it now, and sighed. There was
no monument here, perhaps no monument anywhere to his friend. It occurred to him that he did not even know where the scientist was buried. In the dust he wrote: ‘I am James, I am me.' There was a mirror on the wall, which he went and gazed into for several long minutes, until his face grew unfamiliar to him. He began to think that if he stayed there long enough he would see Mr Woodforde's face looking back at him from the mirror. He drew away nervously, but a little reluctantly.

On his way out of the lab James paused to examine the noticeboard near the window, where Mr Woodforde had pinned various notes and reminders. Nothing much was left on it now except a calendar, a yellowing memo from the Security Department about night-time movement around the Centre, and a newspaper photograph of a one-legged high jumper. The calendar was three years out of date but James took it down anyway and thumbed through it, for the sake of seeing Mr Woodforde's handwriting again. Sure enough there were occasional notations on it: a dental appointment, a committee meeting, a lecture by a man named Tipier. James finished his desultory scanning and prepared to pin the calendar up again, but as he did so something on the back of it caught his eye. He turned it over and read with pleasure the familiar writing:

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

James set off slowly for his house, closing the lab door behind him. His mind was crowded with images: the rats, the bare room, the poem. He was confused.

GILES GREW SLOWLY
in the suburb of Elmo. His father was an accountant and his mother a kindergarten teacher. His first memory was of a tree, in the garden across the road, being struck by lightning. It was a vicious storm. Giles heard the thunder ripping apart the sky but did not know until the next morning that the tree had been split. He went across the road and fingered the burnt trunk in wonder. Uneasy thoughts came to him and he returned home to find his blanket.

His blanket was pink and had a name. It was called Zella, though no-one knew where the name was from. The blanket had been Giles' companion and solace for a long time. He was so attached to it that it was wearing away: it had become dirty and torn. Every time his parents had washed Zella Giles had made a scene, until eventually they cut the blanket in two. Then, while one half was being washed, Giles could comfort himself with the other half. He hugged it and held it and dragged it behind him.

Many things defined Giles. His build, for instance, his appearance. At nine he was a metre sixteen tall, which was small for his age. One doctor said he was a ‘failure to thrive' kid. He had brown hair and hazel eyes and was a good-looking child: not an arresting face but
a pleasant one. There was an alertness about him that suggested intelligence. He was a Gemini; his hobbies were playing pool, collecting keys, reading and swimming. He liked computers. When he grew up he wanted to be an engineer or a sports commentator or an Air Force pilot.

He loved his dog, Choof, a sort of shocked-looking terrier. He loved, he supposed, his parents, yet there were things he said and did that made it seem he might not like them very much. He had no brothers or sisters. Both his grandfathers were dead, and one of his grandmothers. The other grandmother lived nearby; she was a formal, well-mannered lady who did not converse easily. She spent a lot of time watching current affairs programs on television.

Apart from his blanket, which became less important to him as he grew older, Giles' favourite possessions were a painted egg that had belonged to his grandfather, a wounded Teddy Bear named Jed and a pair of bookends. He had bought the bookends with his own money at a fete. Each bore a figure, which appeared to be reaching towards the other through the books.

At school Giles' best subjects were Maths and Sport, though he also liked Cooking, which they did every second Tuesday. He was learning to play piano and had passed his Grade One exams. His best friends were Hamish Woodholme and Ben Jefferson and Georgie Hatcher. His teacher was Mrs Collinson: Giles thought she was all right.

Giles didn't think about God much, taking it for granted that He existed. He thought about a lot of other things though. He wished he would be elected as a kind of world President who could get everyone to stop fighting and restore the planet to the best possible condition. But he got really bored and annoyed by politicians on TV. He wondered if his parents were really his parents, or if he might have been adopted when he was a baby. He wondered when he'd reach puberty and if he'd have pimples and if he'd be big and tough. He imagined he was the world's best skateboarder, doing handplants and McTwists in front of huge crowds. When he crossed roads at traffic lights he pretended he was a racehorse, and so were all the other pedestrians, and they were racing to be first to the other side, and he usually won, except when he was with his mother or someone he knew, and then he couldn't play that game.

When eating licorice allsorts Giles always took them apart, layer by layer, and ate the licorice first, so he could enjoy the candy parts without black interruptions.

The deepest, biggest thought in Giles, however, was something so bleak and frightening that he could never look at it. He knew it was there: always there. Like his dreams, like his doubts, like his lies, it occupied a large part of him. It was a sense of being incomplete, of there being something missing. It yawned inside him, gaping most hungrily when he was alone or tired or cold or scared, but always there.

Giles didn't understand. He never understood, even when he saw the photograph of the two babies, even when he found a birth certificate with a strange boy's name on it and a photocopy of another birth certificate with it. He didn't understand why the certificates bore his own birthdate. He didn't understand how the two babies could be the children of the same parents.

Giles kept telling himself that it didn't matter, that it was nothing, that he'd ask about it some day. He never did ask and he never quite understood.

GISELLE GREW AND
grew in the small coastal town of Casterton. She moved quickly through the events of each day, gobbling one before rushing to another. Nothing seemed to satisfy her. She roamed through the moments: as she stood in one her eyes were looking for the next.

She played games with her shadow. She tried to jump away so quickly that she and it would be separated for an instant, perhaps longer. She sidled into the shade of buildings, watching her shadow being gradually taken from her. Walking down the street she would spin suddenly around, hoping to catch her shadow by surprise as it tried to slip away.

Giselle liked some of her parents' old music, like Simon and Garfunkel, and the Beatles, and the Supremes. She wished they hadn't all broken up. Giselle played piano and had passed her Grade Two
exams: and she went to Jazz Ballet on Wednesdays after school. As well as music she liked Maths and Sport and the few Science lessons that they had.

Although Giselle had no sisters or brothers she had a family of her own. This consisted of Tatlow, a large round toy echidna; Stocky, a purple hippopotamus who was coming apart at the seams; Loretta, a Barbie doll; an injured Teddy Bear named Jed, who looked disgruntled and had been degrunted; Louisa McKnight, a nineteenth century doll of Giselle's mother's; and Chippy, a black and white elephant. Each night Giselle had to choose which of her family could fit into bed with her: there was only room for one. She was scrupulously fair, making sure they took it in turn, though deep in her heart she knew she liked Jed best.

Giselle's father was an agent for a fishing co-op: her mother was a pharmacist. Her parents were strict churchgoers so Giselle had to go too. She believed in God but wished worshipping Him wasn't so boring. The hour spent sitting still each Sunday was a torment to her.

For all her quickness of movement Giselle had a thoughtful face. Deep in her hazel eyes something sad and serious hid. Her hair, cut short, was brown, but in summer the same sun that tanned her skin bleached her hair, so that the darker became the lighter. It was astonishing that she stayed still long enough for the sun's rays to strike her but they somehow did find her and darken her.

What did Giselle think about behind those thoughtful, frightened eyes? She thought about her friends, Kate Nash, Sarah Scott, Nick Gibbons. She thought about how badly she wanted a horse, a dog and a cat, in that order. She thought about becoming Prime Minister, about whether she was maybe adopted or not, about what would happen if she found out she had leukaemia and the doctors gave her six months to live, about what would happen if her parents got killed in a car accident. She wondered when her breasts would grow, and how big they would be, and whether having her period would be good or bad. She dreamed about going on television and how proud everyone would be to know her.

When she crossed roads at intersections Giselle pretended that she was a horse in an important race, competing with the other pedestrians to be first to the other side. She usually won, except when she was with her parents or people she knew, and then she couldn't do it.

The deepest, biggest thought in Giselle, however, was something so bleak and frightening that she could never look at it. She knew it was there though, always there, like her dreams, like her doubts, like her lies. It occupied a large part of her. It was a sense of being incomplete, of there being something missing. It yawned inside her, gaping most hungrily when she was alone or tired or cold or scared, but always there.

Giselle didn't understand. She never understood, even when her mother one day at breakfast, talking
about Giselle's ears, which stuck out, said, ‘But your brother's were the same.' Her mother went red and quickly began clearing the table. Giselle went red and pretended she hadn't heard. Though she never understood, she carried a secret knowledge in her heart always. The knowledge fed on the hunger and the hunger fed on the knowledge.

THE ROAD WAS
dusty and rutted. James walked cautiously along it. He didn't know very much about where he was. Bored and restless, fretting for some activity, he had punched a set of figures into the machine, noting anxiously as he did so that the needle on the battery indicator was starting to waver at around the halfway mark. He was sure only of the date – January 7, 1876 – but was also fairly sure that he was somewhere in southern New South Wales.

As he rounded a long curve James heard the clatter of a horse's hooves in the distance. Hastily he jogged to a tree and slid behind it, as the noise grew louder. He peeped out when the rider went by, travelling at a quick clip. James had a glimpse of a young man, hatless, with a sunburnt sweating face, mounted on a stringy tall mare. Heavy little clouds of dust followed him down the road.

James emerged again and continued walking. The bush was monotonous with scrub. The leaves hung listlessly in the heat. Peering carefully into the trees James saw, however, that there was activity in the
shade, more than he had realised. Kangaroos seemed to be everywhere and birds were more numerous than he could remember ever having seen. A goanna started up out of the grass by the side of the road and strutted at speed across in front of the boy, who leapt backwards, then ran back another twenty metres to be sure he was safe. When he continued on his way he did so even more warily.

A kilometre or so down the track James came unexpectedly to a white triangular stone marker sunk into the ground. It looked fresh and new. Painted on it in black was the letter G, with the numeral 6 underneath the letter. It was clearly a milestone, but James could not be sure what town it indicated. Goulburn? Gundagai? Grenfell?

But around the next bend was a scene that James recognised from television and old pictures. A prosperous looking creek cut across the track: fat and healthy, it rolled and rattled away. Close to it a small fire poked its white streamer of smoke into the air. A few items of human property was scattered around: a blanket, some clothing, a couple of billies. Seeing nobody, James walked a few steps towards the fire, checking that the machine was in his hand and his finger close to the Return button. He stood and gazed, until a sudden rattling noise sent him into a spinning turn. The noise came from a man dragging firewood through the scrub. He was already within about twenty metres of James. Lean and dirty, followed by an equally lean and dirty yellow-brown dog, he seemed to take the boy's presence
for granted. But the dog came sniffing around James, as though that were his right and his duty.

‘G'day,' the man said.

James gulped and nodded.

‘You're young,' the man said. ‘Where's your swag?'

James shrugged, then pointed down the track.

‘What's the matter?' the man asked. ‘Cat got your tongue?'

James, deciding he would not talk, shrugged. The man grunted and pulled the branch he had carried closer to the fire. James noticed now how dirty everything was: the blanket, the billies, the fry-pan. The dog finished examining the boy and trotted away about ten metres, squatting on the ground, as if to indicate his opinion of the visitor.

‘Dressed kind of funny, aren't you?' the man asked, looking up from the fire. ‘Where'd you get that stuff? Where are you from?' James' grip tightened on the Return button but after waiting long moments for an answer the man seemed to give up. He turned away and picked up a billy.

‘Want a cuppa?' he asked.