Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking (13 page)

It’s another zombie flick.
Well, duh. I was expecting that. I could get a bit annoyed cause
some people are acting up and are making all sorts of noises, some
of them funny but still, it’s more of a silly atmosphere rather
than what I would like. I do wish I was back in the trailer,
watching this with Chris. Course, I will not say. Amy’s looking at
me quite a bit when she thinks I won’t notice so I’m going to go
with the flow and enjoy this. She’s put in a lot of effort. Lilian
too. And that’s got to be worth something.

Later on, the Hide-and-Seek
goes off. We run around the gym like stupid, hiding in the closets,
on equipment. I’m really quite surprised how much fun it is to
watch people lose all perspective. I’m losing it myself and I enjoy
seeing me doing it.

So finally, the lights are out.
For everybody.

48

In the morning, a terrible
storm breaks out. We’re stuck at the gym. Course, some people want
to go home cause it’s a Saturday and they want to get back to their
lives but it’s such bad weather it’s been decided to wait it out.
Parents are going to wait it out, at home. Cause it’s much safer
for us here, hunkered down inside the gym. And we have food.
Captain Josh opens up the canteen. Amy makes tea in the huge pot
they’ve got there, and Captain Josh makes toast for everybody.
There’s butter, jam, all kinds of stuff. Hey, we could be hunkered
down in here for ages. We could survive this.

All us kids are talking about
the weather. Gusts of wind rattle everything on the outside. It
thawed overnight and the temp is above freezing so there’s slush
two foot deep on the ground. Rain lashes the windows. It’s a real
mess; some of the window awnings are torn off, sort of. Some of
them are just hanging. Captain Josh is worried about some windows,
on that side, busting. So we are redirected to the back wall where
we sit around in a circle on the floor and play games.

Who am I?

I don’t know who I am. I can’t
guess; I don’t know that many people from around here. I don’t care
about people. That much. To notice who they are. Ah, but I’m not a
person. I’m not an animal. I’m not a book character. I wasn’t in
the zombie movie.

‘Oh, come on, Sarah, think,
dude, think.’

Okay, I’m thinking. It might
help to see me from their point of view. What do they know about
me?

‘Am I a bird?’

‘Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees. Thank
you. Finally.’

‘A bird from around here?’

‘Course, dude. It’s only local
things we all know about. Come on.’

‘Am I a...’

There is a silence. I’m looking
around in it, looking at everybody real close but no, they’re just
acting normal. So I am not. Her.

‘Am I big?’

‘Yes.’

‘Am I pretty?’

‘Ah. Hard to say. It depends.
Not as such. No.’

Okay, so I am not a pretty
bird. Maybe, I’m hard-working. Busy, poking around on the
beach.

‘No, not a hard worker.’

‘Am I loud?’

‘Aha.’

‘Am I popular?’

‘Definitely not!’ Everybody
roars. Even I crack a smile. It sounds like science fiction,
doesn’t it?

‘I mean, is there a lot of me
around here?’

‘Sure, dude, plenty of you
here.’

Right. Now I know who I am.

‘Am I a cuckoo?’

‘Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees. Thank
you. Finally.’

So I figured it out. Just as
the storm eased and we could all go home.

49

On the way home Lilian and I
talked. About the party, a bit, and I thanked her of course, cause
it turned out to be good fun. Really, Mum, thanks for the surprise,
I said. I had fun. Everybody did.

Lilian lit up like a Christmas
tree. Said Dad was going to be so pleased to hear that. Then we
started talking about the storm damage we saw around us. There was
so much destruction everywhere. Trees were down. Bushes were
flattened. There was a lot of debris on the road. Lilian was very
careful going around it. We had a couple of tense moments but I
still thought that, in a weird way, the storm hitting us with this
chaos was a good thing. It was a clean-up day for nature, out with
the old and in with the new type of thing. Well, it will be when
this gets cleaned up. Course, it’s gonna be a bit of a job.

Yes, it will be, nods Lilian.
At least our place is all right. She means the caravan; our house
is still waiting to be repaired, from, you know. But the trailer’s
in pretty good shape, Lilian informs me, mainly because of our
sheltered position. The houses in town fared much worse. Windows
were busted, things blown off. Even roofs, somewhere closer to the
harbour where it’s all open and it really blew. Listening to her, I
felt lucky I had my party before the storm hit. If we’d planned the
sleepover for tonight, I would have missed out.

We get home and hunker down,
again. The rain has intensified in the last ten minutes and we just
made it before it really bucketed down.

Lilian starts making tea while
I get dressed. In my pyjamas. We’re going to have a pyjama day.
Lilian wants to do some sowing. I’ll read.

She turns on the
television.

Starling, smiling, clutching
her sandals to her chest, fills the screen. She’s smiling at us,
our little birdie, and we freeze. There’s no elephants marching on;
there’s only the newsreader ladydude coming into focus, briefly, to
tell us that one of Starling’s sandals has washed up on shore, in
the harbour, following last night’s storm. Starling’s sandal fills
the screen now. It is it. It is. The pink plastic flowers that
Starling so liked to chew on, are still there, attached to the
buckle. It is her sandal. So what do we do now?

The phone rings. We don’t pick
up. If it’s Chris, he’ll leave a message and we’ll call him back.
But it’s not Chris. So we don’t care. It’s probably Captain Josh.
Or the press. Either way, Captain Josh will trek up here, at some
point. Reporters will get a scalding. So we’re not picking up right
now.

Sure, the day is ruined. I
might as well change into clothes cause this here pyjama day in not
going to pan out the way we planned it. We only wanted to hunker
down, read, sow, watch movies, eat some snacks, maybe comb each
other’s hair, and think about Starling, in fits, in bits and pieces
cause that’s the only way of getting through the day. Course, now,
the day is ruined. Lilian cries and I try to make her feel better.
But I’m not having any luck. Thank God we have magic pills.

50

Captain Josh turns up the next
day. I truly did not expect him until the weather’s properly
cleared. But it’s turned cold again, and everything on the ground’s
frozen, and it snowed overnight. Still, here he is, on our
doorstep, first thing in the morning, stamping the snow off his
boots, shaking it off his shoulders. He comes in, cap in hand. It’s
a sad, sombre occasion. Even the cap is looking sad; snowflakes
burrowing into its fur, dying there like we are, in shame. Shamed
into thinking that we could have done something when it mattered.
Cause that’s what everyone is saying, I see it in Captain Josh’s
eyes. Cause he is nothing but a reflection of public opinion, even
a child like me can see that.

Yes, hindsight is always
twenty-twenty, I get it. We should have installed smoke alarms, a
baby monitor, we should have had child-proof locks on the door,
higher door handles, secured windows, should have kept a closer
eye, her shoes out of her room, should have tied her to her bed and
if we’d done all that, our little girl would still be here.

‘We think she may have
drowned,’ Captain Josh says to me.

He’s given up on Lilian. She,
of course, is well under now. Unconscious she is, in Lilian’s world
where everything is soft and edgeless. Starling floats about,
somewhere in there, just for her pleasure. It’s a good place for
Lilian to exist.

‘We can definitely trace her to
the beach. We found her bear close to the water, remember?’

What does he want me to say?
That I’ve forgotten? Seriously, dude. I know you’re nervous and
this is a horrendous interview but still, would you just think
about what you’re saying.

‘The sandal is hers,’ the man
says, keeping on with the foolishness of his being alive, here,
today.

Course, I have no intention of
making it any easier. Why would I? Is it going to help me in any
way? Ease my mother’s pain? —Exactly.

Captain Josh is determined to
go down in a blaze of… I don’t know what, incompetence most likely.
We’re past silly, beyond awkward. I’ve no words. He does.

‘All evidence points to her
drowning.’

Captain Josh looks out of the
window. I’ll bet he’s ready to bolt he’s so uncomfortable with the
silence I’m maintaining. I see he’s getting ready to leave; he’s
leaning over the kitchen pull-out, a little closer towards me in
preparation. Any second he’ll lift his buttocks off the sofa. But
he won’t get off that easily.

‘What evidence?’

‘Well, Sarah, it’s what we
know. Have. The toy on the beach found near the water the day after
the fire and now her shoe found in the harbour. You don’t think it
makes sense that your sister…?

‘Drowned? No, I don’t. I see
how you would think that she might have gone down to the beach and
fell in the water. But that’s not what happened. Starling would
never have gone down to the beach on her own. We’ve told you this,
many times.’

Captain Josh is looking at me
funny.

‘Sarah. The house was on fire.
She would have been scared. Confused. She could have climbed out of
the window and ran to the only place she knew.’

The man is determined to be
dense.

‘No. She would have come to my
room first. She always came to me when she had a bad dream. I’ve
told you this before.’

‘Sarah,’ he starts but I cut
him off.

‘What about the car that was
seen around here in the weeks before the fire? You don’t think
somebody might have stalked us and stolen her?’

‘It is a possibility, yes. But
we have no evidence anyone has been around here. Your parents
didn’t see anybody. You didn’t see anybody. We’ve been over this,
Sarah.’

‘People in town saw a car
snooping around.’

He shakes his head. He’s got
his cap on the table in front of me and he’s stroking its fur as if
it were a kitten. He’s so nervous he doesn’t know what he’s
doing.

‘That was a false lead, we
think. There were a lot of press here at the time, Sarah. We think
this might have confused people. Nobody has come up with any
credible information. We’ve all sorts of conflicting stories. You
can’t go by that. You can only believe solid evidence, that’s how
it works, Sarah. I’m sorry.’

We? We? Who is this we, you
silly man. You and the auxiliary? That useless Detective Martin?
Where’s a gun when you need it. —Exactly.

Behind the curtain, Lilian
stirs. Simultaneously we turn, crane our heads towards the sound
like we’re doing synchronized swimming. It’s a ridiculous move. And
this would be funny if we were somewhere else discussing something
else.

‘I’ll come back when your
mother’s feeling better. Good bye, Sarah.’

He lets himself out.

51

We can’t get hold of Dad. It’s
been over a week. His phone’s dead. So I’m trying to reach the boat
now.

‘Hello.’

He sounds different. It’s the
distance. The crackle of the connection.

‘Dad!’

‘Which dad are you after?’

—

‘Chris.’

‘He’s left.’

—

‘You there, girlie?’

‘Yes, I’m here.’

‘It’s Sarah, is it?’

‘Yes. When did Dad leave?’

‘When we came back to shore.
Four days ago.’

‘Did he say where he was
going?’

‘No.’

‘He’s not come home.’

‘Well, I don’t know where he
is. I’ve got to go now. Good—’

‘Wait! Was there another boat
he could have got onto?’

‘I guess so. His contract with
us is finished so he’s free to sign up with another boat. Sarah,
he’s not here and I’ve got work to do.’

‘Okay. Good bye.’

He goes.

I don’t know what to do. Chris
should have been home by now. He told us he had asked for time off
and was coming to visit us. That was two weeks ago. So what has
changed, huh? It would have taken him half a day to get back home.
So where is he? And why didn’t he tell us the job was finished? He
lied about that too. Said he got a few days off. Said he was coming
home. What is this? And what am I going to tell Lilian?

52

It turns out I don’t have to.
Two weeks later, Captain Josh comes to see her, at work, of all
places. He’s waiting for her after she’s finished her shift. So she
comes home in a state.

‘Sarah-honey, your father is
gone. He’s missing. Nobody knows where he is. He’s not gone out on
any ship they know of. They don’t know what happened to him.
Captain Josh doesn’t know.’

Lilian’s bewildered by all
this, and about to burst into tears. ‘They’re talking about him,
Sarah-honey. Like he’s done something bad because—’

She leaves the unspeakable
unsaid.

‘I know, I know, Mum. Don’t
think about it. Dad would never.’

I go on like this, trying to
calm her down. Inside I am angry, at them; the cops, Captain Josh,
at whoever else is behind this. They’re forcing us to deal with
something we should never have to imagine.

But it does look bad. For
Chris, for Lilian too cause she’s defending him too much. She’s
denying it even looks suspicious that he’s left. And he has left.
Us behind. Obviously. And we don’t know what to make of that.