Red (15 page)

She was huge: her long grey hair was gathered in a pile on top of her head and as she spoke she waved her arms so the sleeves and front panels of her jacket billowed around her. Her lips were bright scarlet and her voice was angry, deep and husky. She frowned and none of the students around Red moved a muscle. Red felt she could never approach her.

She spoke on and on.

Red felt her head dropping forward and her eyes closing. She struggled to stay alert. She had to concentrate, to listen. Something might be said of her father.

More talk of things she didn't understand…phone tapping … listening devices … witness protection. At that Red sat up.
Witness protection.
That was her. Her and her father.

‘A number of our investigators and witnesses,' said the woman, ‘have been in protection for some time, and there is one in particular that I want to speak about.'

Her father. It must mean her father. Red sat forward, on the edge of her seat. The woman stopped. She looked to the back of the room. The security man had come in. He moved forward quickly to the judge's platform and spoke to him. The judge nodded, removed his glasses and stood up.

The woman was looking to him for some direction. He indicated he wanted to speak to her and for a moment their two heads were bent together and the room was silent. Then he lifted up his hand.

‘I have just been informed,' he said, placing his glasses in the top pocket of his jacket, ‘that there has been a threat to this building. I would ask you all to stand and to leave as quickly as possible. This court is adjourned until further notice.'

‘Bomb scare … bomb scare,' nervous laughter. The whisper went from one student to another. They ignored their teacher and scrambled to their feet and headed for the door.

Red stood on her toes and looked towards the bench. The judge was still there.

Now was her chance.

‘Hey, you. Where are you going?' The security guard was in front of her. A policeman had joined him.

‘I have something for the judge.'

‘No you don't. You're to leave the building immediately. All your mates have gone.'

The room was almost empty. The security guard grabbed Red's arm and swung her around. The policeman grabbed her other arm. They moved quickly for the door. Red struggled, turned her head. The huge grey-haired woman was walking past the judge's bench to a side door. The judge had gone.

‘Help!' screamed Red. ‘Help!' She kicked the policeman hard in the shins and drove her elbow into the security man's stomach.

‘Help!'

The men stopped pushing her. The grey-haired woman turned to look.

Red shook herself free of the security guard but the policeman's fingers still dug into her arm.

‘Help me,' she called to the woman. ‘I have something for the judge.'

‘You have to leave the building. There's a bomb scare.'

‘I know, but I've got something for the judge.' She was feeling around her neck for the memory stick. Her fingers locked on the cord.

‘What? You mean Judge Stanton?' The woman came towards her.

‘Yes.'

‘And you are?'

‘Red. No. That's what I'm called. Or Rose. But really I think my name is, my name is Rhiannon Chalmers.'

The woman's mouth dropped open, then spread into an enormous grin. ‘Am I pleased to meet you.' She held her arms out wide and then placed both her hands on Red's shoulders. ‘I'm Jane Martin.'

CHAPTER TWELVE

JAYMARTINJAYMARTINJAYMARTIN.

I am on the balcony at Grandma's flat. His hands are
around my neck. Dad's hands. You have to run he is
saying. Not saying, screaming. The wind flings his words
into the rain. It's pelting sideways into us. Like bullets. It
stings my cheeks, my arms, my legs. I'll stay with
Grandma, he says. I can't leave her. We'll be all right.
But you have to run. Why do I have to go, I am screaming
too. Why? The seawater's coming in. There's no power,
no phone we may not get help. I can't leave. You have to.
You have to wear this around your neck. Don't lose it.
You have to be brave and run as fast and as far as you
can. This has to go to the Commissioners in Melbourne,
OK? Melbourne. He is wrapping me in his arms. His
beard is brushing my cheek. He's soaking wet too. His
lips are in my hair. My brave girl. Give it to Jane Martin.
Say that name again. Jane Martin.

I am shivering. Sopping wet. Crying. I can't go. You
must. Say the name again. Jane Martin. Jane Martin.
Jane Martin
.

• • • • •

‘Rhiannon? Rose? Red? Are you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost.'

‘Just call me Red.'

‘We have to get out of here.' She nodded to the men, ‘I'll take care of her. We'd better all leave the building.'

Red followed her through the door and along the corridor to the lift. She took the cord from her neck and passed it to Jane. ‘He said to give you this. It's all on the stick. Stuff he recorded.'

She could see him; really see him, sitting at his computer late into the night. She would come out into the room when she'd woken up and she was scared of the dark and he would give her a hug and say stay out here with me and she'd sit beside him while he tapped away.

‘I think I know what's on it.' Jane closed her hand around the memory stick. ‘This is the evidence that's going to convict a lot of people. He's been a very brave man finding out all this. And you're a very brave girl getting it to us.'

More memories were coming back. Like waves, not drifting in but crashing, hard on the soft sand. She was running from the flat, leaving him, leaving Grandma still in bed, her eyes closed, wisps of hair loose on the pillow, her wrinkled hands still on the edge of the doona. She was not saying goodbye, the name Jane Martin,
jaymartin,
the pelting rain, the water coming up behind her, the small waves splashing her feet then bigger ones and bigger till she could not stand but was stumbling and was picked up and tossed and was rolling around in the mud and the sand … ‘Where is he?' she said. ‘Where?'

‘We're not sure. We've been contacted by a hospital in Sydney and we've sent someone just today to check and see if it is David and if he's all right. That's what I was about to say when we were told to close the court.'

He would be all right. He must be all right.

They were now at the ground level of the building. They joined others moving out across the road. Policemen were everywhere: lining the footpath, ushering crowds away from the building, directing traffic. Red wanted to grin, to dance in front of them, to call on them to catch her now, but Jane was asking her more questions.

‘Now, where are you staying in Melbourne? Who did you come here with?'

Red shook her head. ‘Nowhere. No one.'

Jane gaped. ‘You came here from Sydney on your own?'

Red nodded. She was suddenly lighter. She was OK. Dad was probably OK. With any luck Peri and Jazz were OK too. She would know everything sooner or later.

More thoughts were coming into her head; she was walking with Dad from Bronte to Bondi. Hundreds of people were walking there, looking at the sculptures set up on the sand and on the rocks and even in the water. Her favourite was a group of tiny shapes like insects made of a thin red wire while he preferred a huge solid shape of rock on the grass above the beach. He bought her a raspberry and blueberry ice cream at the shop and he had one too. When they had finished they poked their tongues out to compare the colour.

• • • • •

Moments and people were fighting their way into her mind. Red felt a door was opening. Her kindergarten teacher who gave stickers of gold kangaroos when everyone else gave stars … the special student teacher in Year Three who came from Samoa and taught them dancing … drawing pictures on the plaster Jazz wore when she broke her arm … living in the farmhouse in South Australia after the flight to Adelaide and Dad dancing in the kitchen to the songs on the radio. Come on, no one can see you he'd say, and she always said no, you are embarrassing and he'd laugh and then she'd laugh and they'd collapse, giggling, on the floor together.

Jane was talking on her phone. When she had finished she turned to Red. ‘We're abandoning the court for the day. The judge has gone back to his chambers and I am going to take the rest of the day off and spend it with you. What would you like to do?'

‘I need to know about Dad. And about Peri and Jazz.'

‘Who are they?'

‘It's a long story but I wouldn't be here without them.'

Jane nodded. ‘Let's go and get something to eat. I'll follow up about your dad and you probably need some more clothes. We can go shopping and figure out what to do next. And,' she put her arm across Red's shoulders, ‘I want to hear everything about what happened, how you managed to get here.'

• • • • •

An hour later they were sitting in a restaurant, their plates empty. Red was telling the story of Peri's food scavenging in Wagga. She had just reached the part where the boys came screaming down the lane when Jane's phone rang.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘This is Jane.' A smile filled her face. ‘Am I glad to hear from you,' she said. ‘That's right. She's a fabulous girl and she's right here. I'll put her on.' She grinned at Red. ‘Your father,' she mouthed as she passed the phone.

Red took it, her hand shaking. ‘G'day Dad,' she said.

• • • • •

TWO DAYS LATER

Red stared from the plane as it flew up the coast. She could not take her eyes from the roads, the houses and the scattered buildings, as crumpled as paper screwed up in a giant's hand. Mud and broken trees were strewn inland for hundreds of metres. Then they were over Sydney, turning west to land at a military airport kilometres in from the coast.

‘I've arranged for us to stay in a hotel,' said Jane. ‘But if you want to go back to where you stayed before, with Jazz's family, I can fix that.'

Red wasn't sure. It all felt so far away. Six days since the cyclone but it seemed like weeks and weeks. Was she the same person? Would she be friends with Jazz? And what about Peri?

‘I just want to go to the hospital and see Dad.'

• • • • •

‘The building collapsed.' Her dad shrugged and then winced with the pain. One arm was in plaster and thick bandages were wound around his head. Red sat in the chair by the bed, not saying anything. It was enough to look, to take in the face, familiar now. She knew this face, this man and she knew herself.

‘I got hit on the head and was out of it for quite a while, ages in fact. There was a fellow who lived a block away. His place was still standing and he didn't leave but he got a few other blokes together and they came through the wreck of ours and a couple of other places and they found a whole bunch of people, including me. If it hadn't been for them …'

‘And Grandma?'

Her father shook his head. ‘She was asleep when you left, unconscious maybe. She was so close to the end. When the building went down she'd not have known. I tell myself that. It is some consolation.'

‘But where is she… her body I mean.'

He shook his head. ‘Not recovered. Probably washed away. She's one of the hundreds.'

Red reached over and took his hand. Being with him here made it all real. She had done as he had asked on the memory stick. She had gone to Melbourne to deliver it and now she was back.

• • • • •

Later, back at Jazz's house, sleeping in her room, sitting on the verandah as they had done before, it was as if the whole trip was a dream. It hadn't really happened.

Jazz and her parents welcomed her back with hugs and smiles and almost no questions but Red felt uneasy. She didn't belong there. Peri was the same.

‘I'm not staying,' he said, when he was alone in the yard with her. ‘I only waited here to see that you were all right and then I'm off.'

‘Why? Where will you go?'

‘I'll be OK. Don't you worry, but,' he hesitated, ‘there's something I want to tell you. I don't know why but …' He turned away from her. ‘You know how … when we were at Kate's place and I told you all that stuff about Mum dying and Kelly and Dad and his girlfriend.' He couldn't look at Red. He flopped on the lawn and started tearing small bits of grass into tiny pieces. She didn't know what to say.

‘Well, none of that's true. I made it all up. We did live on a farm, the horse bit's true, but when Dad lost his job managing the place, in the drought, we moved into town. They're both drinkers, Mum and Dad, and when he gets blind he gets really aggro and he lashes out. I've got the scars to prove it. He hit her and he hit me, so I left.'

‘You mean there never was a car accident?'

‘No.'

‘And the little sister, Kelly?'

Peri shook his head. ‘Just me,' he said. ‘What I told you is a better story than the true one.'

‘Whew. I don't know what to believe.'

‘You can believe this. I'm not making anything up to you any more. The cops? Maybe.' He grinned.

Red flopped forward on the grass beside him. The sun was warm on her back. ‘Do you remember the first time we met?' she said.

‘ 'Course.'

‘You whacked me.'

‘Sorry.'

‘Twice. I thought you were really horrible.'

‘Thanks for the compliment.'

‘But you're not. And Dad said he wants to say thank you to you too, when you meet him, for helping me get to Melbourne, I mean.'

Peri didn't answer.

Red kept looking down at the neatly mown grass. ‘Me too.'

‘What?'

‘Thank you.'