Red (12 page)

‘That's OK,' said Red. ‘I think I'll sleep. I didn't get much last night.'

She closed her eyes as the coach started up and moved out onto the streets of Wagga.

• • • • •

She opened her eyes from time to time as the coach moved through open country of yellow-brown grassland. Beside her, Cassie was absorbed in her book. Soft music was playing and there was a low buzz of conversation. Red opened her backpack wide and felt in it for the notebook. Her hand brushed the picture book from the library. She half lifted it from her bag and stared at the girl's face. Those eyes stared back at her. She pulled the notebook from its place and the newspapers that she had picked up earlier fell onto the floor. She let her foot rest on the photo.

‘I wonder what's happened to those kids,' Cassie leant across to her. ‘Can I have a look at what it says? I hope they aren't running around the bush.'

‘Mmm.'

‘Must have been awful to be in that stuff in Sydney.' She lifted up the paper and then paused. ‘You know, this girl looks a lot like you.'

‘You reckon?'

‘Yes, same eyes, same grin.'

Red looked down at the smiling happy face. It was only three days before. ‘No. I think she looks a bit younger.'

‘Yeah, possibly. Poor kids. I couldn't bear it if I lost everything, I mean, you wouldn't have any of your precious stuff. You'd hardly even know who you were.'

• • • • •

They swung onto the Hume Highway, heading south for Victoria. Across from them, heading north, was a convoy of army trucks.

‘They'd be going up to Sydney to help clean up,' said Cassie. She turned back to her book. Red watched the heavily camouflaged vehicles till the last one disappeared from sight and then picked up the other newspaper, the
Sydney Morning Herald
. The cover page was filled with images of the rescue centre where she and Peri had been. Huge piles of clothing were stacked on trestle tables and boxes of toys lay waiting to be sorted. A single line on the bottom of the page caught her eye:
Melbourne
:
Royal Commission to Close.
See page 4.

She flipped the pages over so quickly that they tore. The Commission couldn't close. She had to get the memory stick to them. Her eyes flicked down over stories from around the nation: a rail strike in Adelaide, a new iron ore deposit in the Pilbara. There, in a small paragraph:

Royal Commissioner Justice John Stanton said yesterday
that only two days remained for hearings into
accusations of murder, drug trafficking, money laundering
and institution-alised police corruption. ‘We have
almost exhausted the list of witnesses,' the Judge said.
‘Some evidence, including police files and company and
taxation records, has been lost in the cyclone damage in
Sydney. We currently have officers from our team
searching for the missing evidence and unless computer
backups of these records can be restored, this avenue of
inquiry must close.'

Red let the newspaper lie on her lap. Two days. That meant today and tomorrow. ‘Cassie,' she said.

‘Mmm.'

‘What time do we get to Melbourne?'

‘I can't remember. Mid-afternoon I think. We stop in a few places on the way.'

Mid-afternoon. Should she wait for Peri and Jazz, or should she try to find the Commission herself? How could she do that? And if she couldn't find it …? She pushed that thought from her mind.

Red opened her notebook. She slipped a pen from its place lodged in the spiral backing and turned to the first page.
What I Remember
, she scrawled across the top. She glanced out the window. They were passing through a small town: a single pub with a garage next door, a cafe with two tired-looking chairs on either side of a small table by the window and no one in sight. Then they were back to farmland.

There was a cyclone and Peri found me in the mud
and I was saying some name. He reckons it was James
Martin. I don't know whose name that is. I didn't know
my name or anything. Now I know a few things.

1
My true name is Rhiannon Chalmers.

2
Jazz was my best friend and she broke her arm
in Year 5.

3
I left with my dad and another man and we
went on an aeroplane.

4
My dad's name is David and Jazz's mum says I
didn't have a mum – or if I did she never met
her.

5
We were flying to Adelaide and then
… 6
Now I have Dad's memory stick and I have to
get it to the Royal Commission.

7
How?

8
How?

9
How?

She closed her eyes. She could see the image of her father as he was on screen. She pressed her eyes as tightly closed as she could. Talk to me, Dad. Don't tell me all that stuff about danger. Tell me what to do. Tell me where we went. Tell me where the Commission is. Did I go to school? Where did we live? Did I have friends? Why was I back in Sydney? Who put your stick around my neck? Where are you?

Red sat bolt upright. She'd moved before. With Dad. Never a mum. In the night. Just one suitcase and a raggedy toy dog. Dad saying he was sorry to do this to her. Driving till morning. Where was that? Why? Too many questions. Where are you, Dad?

CHAPTER TEN

THEY STOPPED ON A RISE HIGH ABOVE THE FREEWAY.
Petrol pumps and fast-food cafes sprawled across an open space cut from the bush. Red followed Cassie down the aisle of the coach but when they came out into the sunshine and Cassie headed for food, Red turned from her and wandered through the carpark. She wanted silence. She wanted to think of what to do. Melbourne. She would get there and then what? It was a big city. The coach station would be much bigger than in Wagga. She would do what Peri said. She would wait. There would be lots of seats and she could just hang about till the next coach came in from Wagga. Peri would come, and Jazz. They would find someone and ask them where the judge was for the Commission, and then they would go there.

She stopped suddenly. Ahead of her was a fence, then a paddock of dry grass. A light brown horse with a splash of white over its nose stood a few metres from her, its head down, munching grass. At her footsteps it lifted its head and took a step towards the fence.

Red trembled.

There's a horse leaning over the fence. I'm watching
it. Dad says go on, pat it on the nose, it won't hurt you
but the horse tosses its head up, up and it lifts its lips
over teeth as big as teacups and they are dirty yellowygrey,
splashed with black stains and it blows through
them making weird flubbery sounds and I turn and run
back into the house and I am on my bed and I am crying
and crying and crying
.

Tears filled Red's eyes. She turned, ran back weaving her way through the cars till she was at the edge of the carpark. She stopped, her chest heaving, and leant against the pole that held up the giant entrance sign. More cars came in off the freeway. She spun around. Where was her coach? A loud blast sounded. That was it. She wiped her eyes and made her way towards it.

‘Nearly left you behind, love.' The driver slipped the coach into gear and Red made her way along the aisle and dropped down into her seat. That horse. That is where I was. A place in the country and the horse was next door. Red could feel the cotton doona and the pillow she hugged close to her chest.
Dad is standing
in the doorway. Don't be so scared, he is saying. It's only
a horse. He can't come in here. Don't be such a chicken.

‘Are you OK?' said Cassie.

Red nodded.

‘Do you want some?' She held out a bag of chocolatecovered nuts.

Red took a couple and started to suck on them gratefully.

They were back on the freeway but after about ten minutes the coach slowed.

Red looked at Cassie. The girl shrugged.

The coach stopped, then started and crawled forward, then stopped again.

‘What do you think's going on?'

‘I don't know,' said Cassie. ‘Maybe there's a prang up ahead.'

The stopping and starting continued.

Twenty minutes passed. Red couldn't read, couldn't think. She strained forward in her seat. A long line of cars stretched into the distance.

‘This will make us late getting to Melbourne, won't it?' said Red. What time would the Commission close?

‘Sure to.' Cassie looked at her watch.

The cars ahead were crawling, crossing three lanes and moving into a single line.

Finally, through the front windscreen of the coach they could see the flashing lights of police vehicles.

‘Must be an accident,' said Cassie.

Then there were policemen on the road, going from car to car.

‘They're talking to people. They're checking for something,' she said.

Red glanced at the newspapers on the floor. Were they checking for her?

The coach stopped. Two policemen were walking the length of the outside. They pressed their faces to the glass, peering in the windows. Red pushed herself down, low in her seat and opened her notebook.

A young policeman came up and into the coach. He spoke briefly to the driver and then stepped into the aisle.

‘This will only take a few minutes,' he said. ‘We are conducting a search for three young people from Sydney who are believed to be in the area: two females and one male.' He moved forward, slowly, glancing at the figures in their seats. ‘We want them for a number of things, including a theft in Wagga last night. We've been informed that they are heading for Melbourne so we are checking all the coaches on the highway.'

Red flicked her hair forward over her face. Did that make her look different enough?

The policeman was coming closer. He spoke to a boy two seats in front of her. ‘Your name, young fella?' The boy mumbled something. Red gripped her notebook, held her breath.

If he asked her name and she said ‘Rose' he would know she was the one who had been at the police station the night before, who had stolen the money. Kate and her mother must have dobbed them in. Why hadn't she given Cassie a different name?

Now he was at the seat in front. Only an old man was there.

Now he was smiling down at Cassie, now looking at Red. She kept her shoulders hunched, her eyes raised only to the wide black belt around his hips.

‘You young lady, what's your name?'

Struck dumb. A rabbit in the headlights.

‘She's my sister,' said Cassie. ‘We're from Melbourne. We're on our way home.'

‘Fair enough.' He moved on.

Red held her breath.

The policeman reached the back of the coach. He turned and walked quickly to the front. ‘Thank you all. If any of you do see them I would ask you to report that information. Have a pleasant trip.'

Red let out a deep sigh.

‘That is you in the paper, isn't it?' said Cassie.

Red nodded.

‘What happened to the other two? Your mates?'

‘They stayed in Wagga. We had to split up.' She paused. ‘Thank you for that.'

‘That's OK. It did seem like a bit of overkill. Since when do they stop buses for a theft in Wagga? They'd have to stop every bus, every day. You don't look like a crim.' She laughed. ‘We'll be in Kelly country soon.'

‘Kelly country?'

‘You know, the bushranger. Ned Kelly.'

Red nodded. She didn't have a clue what Cassie was talking about. Why had this girl helped her? So much had happened in the last hour. She wanted to take her mind back to that house in the country, the bed, her father. If she could remember that, then there must be other memories. How could she get to them?

She fixed her mind on herself, lying on the bed. If she could just get that other self to turn over, sit up, look around. What else was in the room? What else was in the house?

Cassie was still talking about the Kelly gang. Red picked up the notebook and stared at the blank page.

She started to doodle, quick scribbled lines that took on the shape of a bed.

The coach was back up to full speed. Red glanced at the wide open countryside and then back at her page. What happened next?

She closed her eyes. Stay in that room. There was a bed and a table beside it. There was a lamp on the table. Was there a bookcase like the one in Jazz's room? A computer? A desk? A wardrobe for her clothes? She tried to see them but it felt as though she was imagining these things. How could she tell what was a memory and what wasn't?

She stared at the sheet of paper till her doodles blurred.

• • • • •

We are standing in the kitchen and he is saying that I
have to go to school it is a risk but he is not going to
wreck my education I have to go. I will not go I am
saying you can't make me I don't know anyone I won't
have any friends and they will be doing different work
and they will all think I am really stupid even though I
am not and I am yelling at him not crying this time. You
are so smart I am saying you can teach me whatever I
have to know. He leans on the table and he says that he
doesn't know everything that he can teach me some stuff
but we don't have enough books and sure most stuff is
online but he has to use the computer for work and we'll
talk about it in the morning. I'm not going I say.

And I didn't. He wanted me to but in the end he got
lessons from somewhere and I did them on the table while
he worked on the computer
.

This felt true. A memory. Where had it come from? How could she know this and so little else? She looked back at her list.

10
We were in the country and I was scared of a
horse.