The Boy Under the Table (14 page)

That’s what Lockie was—a little boy.

It could do your head in if you thought too much about the cruelty that one person could inflict on another. It was best not to think about it, but here in front of Tina stood an example of the worst cruelty in the world.

There was a large bump on one of his ribs. Tina knew what a bone that had healed itself looked like; Mark and the boys were always getting themselves into trouble.

It was too much to think about. Too much to try and imagine the pain Lockie must have been in. Too much to imagine him crying for his mother and father. He was so small, so defenceless.

‘How . . . how old are you Lockie?’ Tina asked.

Lockie looked up at her and then he held up five fingers on one hand and three on the other. When Tim was three he used to hold up three fingers. He might have done it once or twice at four but after that he would tell anyone who asked his age:

I am five years, three months and twelve days old.

Lockie wasn’t ready to be a big boy right now. Tina nodded, accepting his eight upheld fingers in lieu of words.

Suddenly she wished she’d hit the man harder. The churning anger in her stomach roared into life and she felt her throat constrict. She felt the poker in her hands again and felt a surge of adrenalin. Some people deserved to die. That was a fact. Whatever the God-botherers said, whatever the politicians said, some people just deserved to die.

‘Shit, what an arsehole.’ The words were out of her mouth before she could censor them. She had been trying to keep her language under control, just like she had done when she was with Tim.

Lockie looked up at her.

‘Not you, kid—the uniform. Did he hit you all the time?’

Lockie clenched his fists and said nothing. That was okay with Tina.

‘No one’s going to hurt you again, Lockie,’ she said, borrowing from books and movies, knowing that she didn’t have the right to promise such a thing. ‘No one is going to hurt you while you’re with me,’ she amended.

Lockie nodded at his feet and his fists unclenched.

She took down the shorts and let him step out of them. His underwear was stiff with dried urine, and there was something else as well. Blood.

How the fuck am I supposed to deal with this?
went round and round in her head. The kid should have been in hospital. He should have been surrounded by doctors and counsellors and his parents.

She turned on the shower and got it to the right temperature. She washed him twice and got him to do his bum and penis himself. No way was she going to freak him out by touching anything. He touched himself gingerly, carefully, fearfully. But he kept washing himself, washing and washing as if the dirt would never truly be washed away. Then he stood under the warm water for a few minutes, just standing with his eyes closed. Tina didn’t rush him. Everyone else could wait.

Dirt and dried blood swirled down the plughole.

She washed his hair twice as well. His ribs were a xylophone waiting for the music to start.

When he was clean she wrapped him in a towel and sat him on the small bench. He looked sleepy, like baby Tim had been after a bath and a massage.

‘I’m going to shower now. You look at the door, okay?’

Lockie nodded and turned to face the door.

Tina soaped herself, glancing at him every now and again, but he was always resolutely facing the door.

Kids should do stuff they were told not to. That was how it should be.

She washed her short black hair. The colour was nearly out again. She hated having to dye it; it made such a fucking mess. Ruby had done it for her the first time. ‘It’ll bring out your green eyes,’ she had said.

She loved the feeling of being clean. She wished she could thank Ruby again for giving her the card for the gym.

As far as the people at the gym were concerned, her name was Ruby Jenkins. Ruby had just known something was up. Colds didn’t last that long. Small cuts usually healed after a few days. Ruby had known and she had given everything away before she disappeared. They knew where she was but Ruby had no interest in sharing the last gory details. She had no interest in the doctors either. They could have helped, but Ruby was tired. Really tired. She was only twenty but she was already done with life.

‘Don’t cry for me, kid,’ Ruby had said. ‘Just try not to fuck things up like I did.’

Lockie looked almost normal when he was dressed. The clothes hid the bruises and his too-skinny body. He could be any ordinary boy. He could be any ordinary boy, but he wasn’t.

His gums bled when he brushed his teeth so she made him brush them again. Brushing them was the only way to fix things. He didn’t whine or cry, though it must have hurt. He just did what he was told.

Tina tried to picture him as he might have been, just some naughty little kid exploring the world. She hoped he would be that way again, but she knew it was probably unlikely.

She cut his nails with her nail scissors and rinsed them under hot water.

‘How come he didn’t let you shower?’

‘Who?’ asked Lockie, although Tina knew he was bluffing.

She whispered her words again. ‘Him, the uniform. How come he didn’t let you shower? His house was so clean, he was so clean.’

Lockie shook his head and looked down at his feet.

Tina shrugged. She hadn’t really expected an answer.

The clean ladies at the gym chattered about dinner and who said what. They whined about a shifty boss and a wanker boyfriend. They had no fucking clue really, but that was okay. Tina felt better knowing that for some people what to wear to work the next day was a real dilemma. It was the same way she felt good about knowing that there were people out there saving the whales. If she couldn’t do it she was glad someone was. And right now, if she couldn’t live an average life she was happy to watch others do it. That way she might not forget how to be ordinary.

Tina did her makeup, aware that the black liner would only be smudged tomorrow and she was not going out to work anyway. Just as she was getting ready to leave, Lockie said something. She leaned closer.

‘He said I was a dirty boy,’ whispered Lockie. ‘I was a dirty boy and that was why he did stuff to me, because I was dirty. It was my fault.’

‘Bullshit!’ Tina shouted and half the locker room turned around. Tina grabbed Lockie’s hand and they didn’t stop moving until they were out on the street. The cold was a shock after the warmth of the gym but she kept him walking fast until they got back home.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Lockie. It’s never the kid’s fault. The uniform was an evil piece of shit and nothing he said to you was true.’

‘It was my fault—it was,’ whined Lockie.

‘Why? Why was it your fault?’

‘I was supposed to stand by the stroller. I was supposed to hold on and not move while Mum got the prize. Dad had to carry the cake. I was supposed to stand by the stroller and not move. It was my fault.’

Lockie’s tears burst like a dam. His small shoulders heaved and his sleeve became a tissue.

Tina leaned down and grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘Look at me, Lockie.’

He did as he was told.

‘This wasn’t your fault. Kids do stuff like that all the time. I have no idea what you’re talking about but I can tell you that my little brother wandered off every chance he got. It wasn’t your fault, Lockie; you were just being a kid.’

‘Have you really got a little brother?’ His interest stopped his tears.

‘I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Jesus, you’re tiring. I think we need to figure out how to get you home.’

‘Home?’

‘Yeah. Where is home?’

‘Cootamundra.’

‘Where is that?’

Lockie shrugged. ‘We came in the ute.’

‘You came where in the ute? What does that mean?’

‘We came in the ute to Sydney.’

‘Your parents drove you here in the ute?’

‘Yeah. Me and Sammy sat in the back. Mum and Dad were in the front. Mum was worried about the cake.’

‘What cake?’

‘The cake. The wedding cake. It had black and purple roses all over it. Roses made from icing and other flowers and green stuff.’

‘What was the cake for Lockie? A wedding? Did you come to Sydney for a wedding?’

‘The Easter Show—Mum made a cake and she won a prize,’ said Lockie patiently, as though he was explaining things to an idiot. ‘She said I couldn’t have a piece of the cake but if I stood still and held the stroller I would get my corndog and my lamington. We came for the Easter Show.’

‘The Easter Show? Jesus, that was four months ago.’

‘Four months,’ said Lockie. His eyes widened in disbelief. Four months. He took a step back from her and sat down on the stained carpet. ‘Four months,’ he said quietly.

‘Yeah, Lockie, I know it was a long time ago, but you’re with me now. It’ll be . . . it’ll be okay.’

‘How many days is four months?’

Tina counted in her head. ‘I don’t know . . . about a hundred and twenty or something like that.’

‘I tried to keep counting but sometimes I forgot. I tried, but sometimes . . .’

‘It doesn’t matter anymore, Lockie. It’s over and soon you’ll be with your mum and dad. If we could just go to the police they would—’

‘The uniform said they didn’t want me anymore,’ interrupted Lockie. Tina could hear some anger underneath his faltering words. ‘He said they weren’t even looking for me.’ The words were said quietly and there was a question in them. Kids thought their parents were superheroes. Surely if they had been looking for him, they would have found him?

Tina knew better. Parents were just kids with more responsibility. They couldn’t control the world any more than an eight-year-old kid could.

‘Don’t quote that evil fuck at me, Lockie. Of course they were looking for you—but four months? Jesus. They must think you’re dead.’

‘I’m not dead . . . I’m not dead,’ said Lockie, his voice rising in panic.

‘’Course you’re not. Calm down, for god’s sake.’

‘I’m not dead.’

‘Jesus, kid, I can see that. You eat too much. Where is Cootamundra?’

Lockie shrugged again.

‘How long did it take you to get to Sydney?’

Lockie looked down at his feet but she could see him working through something. ‘I went to the toilet twice and we stopped to eat our sandwiches. Then we stopped for ice cream. I had a sleep and so did Sammy.’

‘That doesn’t exactly help, kid.’

‘Sorry, Tina.’ He wiped his face with his sleeve.

‘It’s okay, Lockie, don’t cry. I’ll figure it out.’

`You’ll figure it out.’

‘Yeah, I’ll figure it out,’ Tina said, more to herself than to him. Maybe this
was
one she could figure out. She couldn’t figure out how to help Tim or Ruby, but maybe, just maybe, she could figure this one out.

Sarah

Sarah dreamed of the beach. As a child it had simply been part of every summer holiday.

She had known she would miss the beach most of all. At first the land with its unending colours was enough to keep the longing for the blue and white of the sea at bay. But as the drought took hold and the only things to see were the patches of cracked brown dirt, she missed her home. Her head had filled with dust and she longed for a sea breeze to clear it away.

The year that Lockie was six she felt the dirt eating its way inside her. She drank litres of water trying to release its hold. Everything in the house was covered in a fine brown powder that caught in her throat. Lockie would cough all night and Sammy’s nose ran constantly.

‘We need to get away for a while,’ she said to Doug.

‘Yes,’ agreed Doug. ‘We do.’

‘So?’

‘So there’s no money, Sarah. The bank doesn’t take kindly to me using their money to have a little holiday. We can’t afford to go anywhere.’

‘We have to go, Doug. You don’t understand. I’m going insane.’

‘Oh Sarah,’ he had sighed. ‘I do understand. Whenever I find a dead sheep I understand. Whenever I lift the brown crap that passes for soil these days I understand. This is my land, Sarah, and I can’t grow a fucking blade of grass on it. I can’t keep my stock alive and I can’t make the rivers run. I can’t do anything except look to the skies like every other farmer in this godforsaken land. I understand more than you think and we can’t go away.’

She had not pushed him. Doug could become a brick wall when he needed to. Instead she had called her mother. She had swallowed her pride and called her mother. She had stamped on her anger and called her mother.

She could picture her mother’s thin lips and the slightly triumphant smirk as she said, ‘Yes, well, farming is not exactly conducive to the kind of lifestyle you grew up with.’ She emphasised the word
farming
with obvious distaste
.
But she had come through with the money and a house at the beach that belonged to a friend of a friend of a friend.

Doug’s anger had been written all over his face when she told him. He chewed over his motherin-law’s supposed generosity, knowing what it had cost Sarah. His pride had told her he would not go. It was the way you had to be in the country. Sometimes pride was the only thing the drought left you with.

Sarah had told him they were going and she had not asked for his permission or his company.

‘We need to have some time away from here. The children have to breathe some different air. I know you hate how I got the money but I really can’t think about that now. You can come if you like—and you know that’s what I want—but if you have to stay here that’s okay as well.’

She had clenched her fists as she spoke, dragging the cour agefrom inside.

In the end he had joined them for one week and she and the children had stayed for two.

Lockie and Sammy were like different children. Lockie’s freckles blossomed on his face despite the sun block. The coughing stopped and Sammy learned to swim. The children ran around from dawn till dusk without getting bored or wanting anything else. On the days when Doug was there he and Sarah drank wine at sunset and watched the waves. The whole holiday was a dream. Sarah had seen the possibility of a life that was not dictated by the land, but she had made her choice. Doug would never leave the farm, regardless of how bad things got, and she had made her choice.