The Beauty Is in the Walking (17 page)

He released his hold, not entirely, but enough to let the shaft of the cane slide between his palms until the end came free.

‘Got to let a cripple have his walking stick,' Dan said brightly to cover his defeat. Because it was a defeat. I'd beaten him; the skinny cripple had got his cane back.

There was nothing more to say. I turned towards home and leaned my weight on the cane in the rhythm I was still getting used to. Bloody fantastic. Then I decided to speak after all. ‘Go, Mitch,' I called. ‘Drive on.'

The Landcruiser obeyed, while Dan pretended to be fascinated with something ahead through the windscreen and Amy's face was as blank as a TV with its cord pulled out of the wall.

I was in no hurry; wasn't even sure if I'd head straight home or hang around in Meredith Street so I could tell Tyke I'd been part of the tradition. When I turned the corner, Amy was waiting for me.

‘I made them stop to let me out,' she called as soon as I was close enough.

I'd guessed as much from the way she was standing, arms folded low across her belly and shifting from foot to foot.

‘I'm so sorry, Jacob. It's wasn't just Dan back there. All of us. We let him do whatever he wants. It's pathetic.' She glanced down at her shoes then forced herself to face me, her eyes flirting with tears. ‘I don't know what's happened to Mitch. He's been friends with you for so long. He should have made Dan give back your stick straight off.'

‘Doesn't matter,' I said with a shrug. Actually I was smiling. ‘Got it back by myself, didn't I,' and I waved
my cane above my head as I had earlier on the road. No pretending this time. After the tug of war with Dan I was Leonardo DiCaprio standing on the bow of the
Titanic
.

Amy didn't see it. She hadn't seen what really happened back on the road either, I guessed. She'd taken in Dan's cruelty, but not his defeat.

‘I really did want to walk,' I said.

‘Not the first time, you didn't. You were all set to get in the car.'

She seemed ready to apologise all over again, as though once wasn't enough, or twice, or three times. She was really beating herself up over this, which told me there was something more going on than Dan's little game. Amy and I hadn't spoken since Sunday.

Once I would have let it slide in case she got upset, but I was tired of all that. Holding my tongue seemed somehow connected to my limp, to the cautious way I had to steer my way through crowds, to my place at the picnic table. It struck me then, that I would never sit at that table again any more than the trombone players would take their place in the band. All that had been left back on the roadside behind me. I tightened my hand over the smooth curves of the wolf's head and let the confidence it gave me flow to every part of my body. The specialist Mum'd spoken to had used the right word, it seemed, more than he'd ever know.

‘This is not just about today, is it, Amy?'

Her shoulders slackened and she sighed wearily. She knew we had to get this out of the way between us, but that didn't make it any easier.

She led me across the road to a triangle of grass outside the museum, to a shaded bench beneath the only tree. A sandwich board propped open on the footpath proclaimed the museum open, but we had this tiny park to ourselves.

‘I said some things the other day,' she began. ‘I didn't mean them to come out the way they did. They hurt you and I want you to know how sorry I am.' She gave up her battle with tears and let a few painful sobs escape through a down-turned mouth. ‘It's not really who I am.'

‘I'm over it already,' I told her, and wondered if it was true. Of all the things that had gone sour in recent days, Sunday, in Amy's room, had been the worst. I didn't care about the words – spastic, spit in the corner of my lips. I resented the way she hadn't taken me seriously as a boyfriend, or was I just angry at the way I'd let her do it?

She dared look at me after more time spent glaring at her shoes, the bench beside her, anywhere but my face. I flashed a smile to reassure her and, the truth was, I still liked her. Ten minutes ago I'd wanted to sit beside her in the car, where she would have kissed me on the dry side of my mouth and told the others it was an end-of-school kiss.

That was before I'd reclaimed my cane, though.

She must have found forgiveness in my face because she straightened up and offered a tentative grin in return.

‘Do you mean that?' she asked.

I nodded and she let go another sob, of relief this time. Then she laughed at herself. ‘Sorry,' she muttered, though
now she was apologising for the tears. ‘You're letting me off easier than I deserve.'

‘Oh, I might be planning massive revenge,' I said.

‘No, you're not. You're too soft-hearted for that.' She nudged me, then dabbed away the last of the tears and let out a long breath as though she'd been holding it in all the way from the corner.

‘What I said just now, about not being myself that day, I didn't understand how true it was until I said it. Things were going on at home.'

‘What was going on?' I asked, though not to pry. I didn't really care what she told me. I was being the listener out of habit more than compassion. ‘Must have been something big,' I said, just as innocently.

Amy stared as though I'd slipped on a Frankenstein mask.

Why the sudden horror? Now I did want to know. ‘What was going on?' I asked more insistently.

She looked away. ‘Nothing. Forget I said it.'

‘No, you should talk about it. Must have really shaken you up if you missed that exam.'

‘I can't tell you,' and she was shifting on the bench, as agitated as she'd been on the corner. ‘It was a family thing that's over now, anyway. My dad sorted it out. I don't have to worry. No one has to worry anymore.'

She stayed silent after this rush of words. More than that, her mouth clamped shut like a prisoner under interrogation.

I didn't push any harder. We were done, really. She'd got the forgiveness she was after and it was obvious she just wanted to go. She was simply waiting for me to stand up first, as though she needed permission, but I was fumbling with her words inside my head. A family thing. Why hurt me so savagely if I had nothing to do with what was upsetting her? Yet she'd been furious with me, and frightened. Frankenstein again. I'd thought she was seeing me as a monster and that had hurt me more than anything she'd said. Now I had second thoughts. I'd missed something.

‘Your dad sorted it out,' I said, repeating her words.

‘Please, Jacob. Leave it alone,' she begged. Afraid of something, definitely afraid.

I couldn't leave it alone. My mind was playing back through the weekend – not just the hurt of Sunday. She'd been uneasy when I called her the day before. We'd talked about Mahmoud's innocence and when I started in about The Ripper being a local . . .

‘You know who it is, don't you?'

Fear became panic.

‘No,' she gasped, answering my question directly. Then she tried to backtrack. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘The Ripper, of course. You didn't want me stirring things up again. That's why you were mad with me.'

‘You've got it wrong, Jacob. How would I know who it was?'

She could deny it all she liked, but she had given herself away with that first look. Even now she gripped one hand over the other tight enough to crush the bones.

‘Tell me,' I demanded.

‘No, I can't.'

‘But you
do
know.'

She dropped her chin onto her chest and began to sob again, making a different sound this time, the surrender of abject misery. ‘I promised Dad.'

It was a promise she'd keep, too. I could demand my walking stick from Dan, but this belonged to Amy and I didn't have the right. Damn, I was so close to knowing.

And then I knew.

Sunday at Blockbuster was the key. The car loaded up for leaving and Rory taunting our best customer even as he lamented losing him. He was one of the oddballs listed on Mitch's fingers. It had been a game, a stupid game!

‘Your cousin,' I said. ‘Callum Landis is The Ripper.'

‘Oh God. Dad will kill me,' Amy wailed. ‘Please, Jacob, you won't tell the police, will you? Please!'

I wasn't thinking of police stations right then, or what this news meant for Mahmoud Rais. Her dad had sorted it out, she'd said. I pictured Amy's dad in a house bulging with kids. One of his own was The Ripper, a secret any man would surely keep to himself. So how did Amy know?

‘You were the one who told him,' I said, guessing out loud before I'd quite seized on the thought. ‘That's it, isn't it? You saw something, you were an eyewitness.'

‘No, I didn't see him do it.'

‘Then how did you know?'

‘The blood. I saw him in our backyard, hosing blood out of his shirt. He thought everyone was out of the house,
you see, but the exams . . . I didn't have to go until the afternoon. He got a fright when I put my head out the window to see why the tap was running. Told me some bullshit story about a messy shift at the meatworks. I thought it was strange because they wear overalls. Never get blood on their own clothes.'

‘Then you heard about the horse?'

‘Yes, when I got to school.'

‘No wonder you couldn't do the exam.'

Eyes closed, fighting tears again, she nodded over and over. ‘I threw up. Mum had to come from work to get me.'

‘You told her.'

She shook her head. ‘Mum would've freaked out. I waited for Dad to come home. He went white in the face, Jacob, like I've never seen him. Said I couldn't tell anyone else, just the two of us. Then he went out to the caravan. I thought he was going to kill bloody Callum, but he was back ten minutes later and making calls. He came to my room, closed the door. Callum was leaving, he said. Saturday would look too suspicious. It had to look like he was going because there were no shifts.'

‘He's gone to Brisbane,' I said.

‘Dad's got a mate there, going to give Callum work driving a delivery truck or something. If he's not carving up carcasses all day, maybe the madness will go away. That's what Dad's hoping. I don't know, Jacob. You won't tell, will you?'

You'd think we were little kids and I'd caught Amy with her hand in the lolly jar. ‘No, Amy, I won't tell,' I whispered.

She was shaking beside me and too late I saw what the remembering had done to her. She'd seen the horse's blood on her cousin's shirt. Not then, but hours later, the truth had fallen on her without mercy.

I slipped my arm around her and she nestled against me. ‘I can only guess what it was like when you knew it was Callum. Poor Amy, you've had to carry this around with you for days. Must be so hard,' I whispered into the hair behind her ear.

‘You have no idea. At home my brothers were fighting to tell the goriest details. All I could think of was the dead horse and I couldn't tell anyone, had to hold it in on my own. Dad said it would wreck the whole family if the truth got out and we wouldn't be able to look anyone in the eye for years.'

My left arm joined the right, hugging Amy to me as she wept and immediately she pressed against me as I'd once dreamed of her doing, unafraid to show the need in herself for what I could give her.

‘The Ripper's been living in our backyard the whole time. My own cousin.'

There was more, forced out between sobs while Amy relived the unbearable gap between knowing it was Callum and telling her father. For those hours, Amy alone had carried Palmerston on her shoulders, like Atlas holding up the sky. I wished I could have helped her.

Words finally extinguished tears and she sat up straight, breaking my hold but letting my right arm stay in place behind her. There was an intimacy in her eyes I hadn't been allowed to see before. ‘You're so good to me, after the way I treated you,' she said and then she was kissing me on the mouth. She had to lean right across to do it since I hadn't seen it coming. It was a tender kiss and lingering, the longest we had ever shared, but it was still carefully aimed to avoid the treacherous corner of my mouth.

What did the kiss mean? Was this the invitation back into the group that my other friends had botched so badly on the road? Her hand touched my cheek, which made the moment more tender, yet I couldn't help thinking, there's no one to see us and she knows it. And
she
had kissed
me
. It didn't matter if the kiss was payment for a few minutes of kindness, or one more way to show she was sorry about last week. I wanted to know something else entirely. Would she look so pleased if I'd leaned across to kiss her?

I could test that right now. My arm was still around her shoulders, holding her in place. I only needed to push forwards and find her lips as she'd found mine. It came to me then that I didn't want to. I wasn't afraid she would pull away; I simply didn't feel the affection for Amy that had once made me think of her a hundred times a day.

‘Will you come with us now? Things are starting to warm up.'

She nodded past me towards Meredith Street and I turned to follow her eye. Senior shirts everywhere,
waving at the cars ambling by and cheering when a driver sounded his horn to show he remembered his own last day at school.

‘Yeah, I suppose,' I murmured.

The way she'd said ‘us' so easily showed she still thought I belonged around that picnic table. The word was a kiss of a different kind, and, like the real kiss, it had come from her.

We crossed the road together, Amy eager to plunge into the fun yet keeping pace with me all the way without the least resentment. She truly had been someone else last week and if that was all that had made her say those things I would have stayed with her through the afternoon.

I didn't, though, and on the slow walk home I asked the wolf's head why.

Because you can do better than that, Jacob
, it told me.