The Cartographer (21 page)

I looked at Mum expectantly, but she only sighed and shook her head at Aunty Betty.

‘Your Aunty Betty has had too much sherry, I'm afraid.'

Everyone laughed.

But she hadn't. When it came to the McWilliam's Royal Reserve, Aunty Betty was a bottomless pit.

Tom would have known what to say next, but as I didn't, that was that.

So I imagined how things would have gone if Tom was here. I couldn't imagine it out loud or Mum and Granddad would have known I was pretending to be Tom. And I don't think that would have gone down too well.

‘Come on, Mum, let's see 'em. Have you got one like Granddad — what was it, Granddad, the horse-saving medal? You know, the red and blue one.'

That was how Tom would have done it. Only louder. Fishing, that's what Granddad called it, but nobody minded, really. You never know when you're going to catch a fish, though you stood a better chance of catching a cold. I didn't bother pushing Mum about the medal because these days she was happier if I just sat still and kept my mouth shut, like a normal kid. Still, I would conduct my own enquiries, secret ones, and I would get a look at the medals eventually — the Cartographer has a way with medals. Didn't he have the Cartography Cross? In fact, I think he was just about due for another. For saving the Harrigan kid. I called it the Rescue Medal. But then I remembered with shame that I hadn't rescued Tom.

Sunday's lunch conversation concerning Bob's run-in with Ken was just like the notes the nuns wrote in the ‘Handwriting' section of my school reports:
Highly unsatisfactory
. For a while there, Aunty Betty had me thinking that Bob's number really was up. But I knew that Granddad was right. So it was back to screwing my head around like a kookaburra everywhere I went.

I had finally done it: I had become the Boy Who Knew Too Much. I had rolled the dice and they had come up snake-eyes, and now I was a wanted criminal, or at least I would be when the coppers caught up with me and Wonder Woman's secret came out, and she would think I had blown the whistle on her and would tell the coppers, and Mum, and Father Hagen, and Mother Sylvester, that I was a burglar.

After the Woman Who Started World War II left, I asked if I could go for a little walk, and I was told, to my amazement, not to go too far. Too far! I was planning on going to Costa Rica, or maybe Heligoland, because I had no idea where those places were, so I reckoned no one else would either.

I had to find a place to lie low. It was plain to see that no one was going to bring up the subject of Dad and his secret hideout, and no one was going to do anything to help me get rid of the pain in my head that reminded me of Tom. So off I went, this time down to the power station pool, to investigate
the terrific entrance I had seen the night the kidnapper almost got his comeuppance. With a bit of luck, I was thinking, I might find a place to hide out. Fact is, I had only a rough idea what such a place might look like.

All drains lead to the river — that had always been my reasoning, so I thought I'd see exactly whereabouts this one came out. I took Biscuit, and told him to wait on the grey beach, which I knew was somewhere near where the drain would come out if it was straight, and gave him one of Mum's bikkies that I had in my secret store — that would wipe the smile off his face. He didn't have to worry about water, as the river was right there, and in fact as soon as we arrived he had a drink, even though the water was a funny brown colour. And if it got too hot for him he could always go for a paddle or hop into the main stormwater drain, which was cool and shady.

Once I got up the hill a little, I cut across the paddock full of tea-trees and under the fence that surrounded the power station and the pool, and walked along the narrow ridge until I came to the point where I knew the steps began that would take me down to the entrance. Dangling off the top of the ridge and feeling around with my feet for a minute, I found the concrete ledge. I was looking into a brick archway filled with darkness and into which the large steel pipe plunged. On the side of the entrance was a red and white sign:
DANGER
.
HIGH VOLTAGE POWER CABLE
. It was playing my song.

I stepped into the gloom, and turned the torch light on. The tunnel was high enough to stand up in, and had electric lights in the ceiling. The pipe ended just inside the entrance, exposing a series of thick steel cables that were held against the right wall of the tunnel by concrete brackets. Running down the centre of the tunnel was a set of narrow tram tracks with a
taut cable between them. I followed the tunnel down at a steep angle for about a hundred yards, and then for a hell of a long way at a lesser angle. At one stage, I slipped and fell against the cables, and discovered they were quite warm. When the tunnel levelled out, water seeped through the ceiling and ran down the walls, and the whole place smelt like it needed a good dry. The water ran down drains at the side of the floor, and finally disappeared down a pair of grates in the middle of the tunnel. I was under the river.

When I came out of the tunnel the sunlight hit me so hard I could hear the strum of pain in my eyeballs, and I had to put my hand over my eyes and squint to see where I was going. I was standing in an area filled with dense, high weeds. The cable emerged with me and entered a fenced-off area containing electrical stuff. Standing with its four feet around the whole area was a huge high-tension tower, at the top of which were dozens of wires running to another tower in the distance, across the far side of the river. Quite close by was a broken-down building. I knew where I was right away, because I had seen it from Como Park, on the other side of the river. I was on an island.

I went back through the weeds, which were twice as tall as me, walked down to the riverbank, and looked across in the direction I had come from. I saw the grey beach and the mouth of the big stormwater drain. And there was Biscuit, still sitting there, waiting. I yelled out to him, just to say hello, and he looked up as if he had been struck by lightning, and saw me — he had eyes like a hawk.

He immediately tore across the dirty sand and dived into the water, heading in my direction. But the water was moving a little fast for him, and he had to swim like mad
to get anywhere. I told him to go back. I must have yelled:
No, Biscuit! No, boy!
a thousand times, but he was determined to get to me and kept on. He was doing well for a while, and then I could see that he was going to drown, just like I nearly did. But I hadn't deserved it, and neither did Biscuit, who was just trying to rescue me from the island. When I saw him starting to swallow water, I waded into the river, and was surprised to find that the shore dropped away from under my feet straightaway, and I was under the water myself. I came up splashing and saw Biscuit in front of me still trying to paddle and getting nowhere fast, so I started to dog-paddle out to him. Anyway I swallowed about half the water in the river, so it probably wasn't that deep after a while. But Biscuit was starting to sink, and I was losing all my energy at the same time. I tried to yell to him, but his head was under the water. I lunged towards him as hard as I could and grabbed his collar in my hand and pulled him towards me, then the weight of his body and the current dragged me under and I lost track of things completely, and just sort of drifted off.

When I woke up I was on a wet wooden floor and my chest was being pumped by a red-faced man with a beard and a wheezy way of breathing, just like a steam engine. I suddenly vomited about a thousand gallons of river water and then coughed a few times, and I was wide awake again. Biscuit was there, but he was looking like he knew he had done something wrong, which was just what I was thinking too. But the people on the ferry — the
Kookaburra
as it turned out — were clapping and cheering and bringing me blankets and all kinds of things, and they all chipped in and gave me some money, which I put in the zip-up pocket of my jeans — it turned out to be seventeen
and six. I also got a drink of brandy, which woke up all the bits of me that hadn't made their mind up yet.

Well, to cut a long story short, Biscuit and I were heroes, and got our picture in
The Sun
for trying to save each other's lives, though in fact it had been a sailor on the
Kookaburra
who had saved us both, just by reaching down and grabbing us as the ferry went by.

I reckon everyone in Melbourne must have seen that bloody picture.

 

When Biscuit got his big, smiling fizzog in
The Sun
, so did I. For Biscuit, it was terrific. He was famous, and everyone in the street was keen to give him a treat and pat him, which I thought was a bit rough, as it had been me who'd done all the life-saving; and you could see the guilt in his eyes too. Every time I saw him coming out of Mrs Noble's house — she was the worst — he'd have his tongue hanging out and his tail wagging, and I just knew he'd been hooking into one of her lamingtons. Then he'd see me, and the grin would disappear. And he called himself my partner. Anyway, for Biscuit it was all a bit like Christmas. But for me, that picture was nothing but trouble.

For a start, the fat cop saw it, and came around to our house. I told you what Dad thought of cops: he hated 'em. It was definitely a photo for second, but Mum probably beat Granddad by a nose — which was definitely cheating in her case. So when she opened the door and saw the copper, all fat and red and shiny, she was not a happy little Vegemite.

‘G'day,' he said. ‘I want to talk to that son of yours.'

‘Well you'll have to get in the queue,' she says, quick as a flash.

‘He's in it up to his neck this time — housebreaking and thieving.'

‘Bullshit.'

‘He was in my bloody house, and pinched something. I know it was him because I saw him.'

‘What's he s'posed to have nicked?'

‘I'm not at liberty to say, pending possible charges.'

Now, it was one of those afternoons when Granddad had come over, and me and him were right there in the living room, out of sight of the copper, and I was all for shooting through like a beauty, but Granddad puts his finger to his lips, and we listen. We could see through the crack in the door that the copper wasn't wearing his uniform — in other words, he wasn't going to charge me at all. And that meant he wanted something. I reckoned he was after what coppers were always after, so we waited to hear his price.

‘Say, how's that old man of yours? Pissed off, hasn't he? Must be hard, bein' by y'self. What you need's someone to take care of you every now and then. Tell you what, you make me feel good and I'll forget I ever saw that little bastard of yours.'

Mum had just got home from work, and she wasn't really in the mood for visitors, so she slowly opened the door a little wider, so the copper could see who was in the living room, and we could see him. Mum was wearing her blue floral frock and looked nice, and the fat copper had his hand on her breast and was smiling the way you do when you find an extra footy card in the bottom of your Corn Flakes box. He stopped smiling when he saw Granddad, the way a lot of people did when he had something on them.

‘G'day, Arch,' he says, removing his hand.

‘G'day, Murph,' says Granddad. ‘I'd ask you in, but we just cleaned the place.'

‘That kid's got something of mine, and I want it back. If he hands it over, we'll call it quits, shall we?'

I looked at Granddad and he looked at me, and Mum looked at both of us, and the clock in the dining room ticked a couple of times – not our dining room, next door's.

I must have had a painful look on my face, because Granddad said: ‘Give us a sec, will you?' and Mum closed the door, making the copper wait outside.

‘What's he after?' Granddad asked me.

I went to talk but my tongue had conked out; I had to swallow a few times to make it work again. I'd never lied to Granddad — well, not in the last few days.

‘It's a photo of a lady and a kid. I didn't think he'd want it.'

‘Well, he does now, doesn't he? Go and get it.'

I didn't have to pull up the floorboard, as it was in my drawer. Granddad looked at it for a hell of a long time, and put his fingers on the lady, the way you do when you're trying to touch someone who's on the other side of a window, then he slipped it into his pocket. He got up, went to the door and went outside, closing the door behind him. I could hear them talking but I couldn't make out a word. Mum just stood there staring at me without seeing me, as if she was a million miles away and I hadn't done anything at all. I had time to make a couple of plans, but they all involved running away from home, and the last time I'd thought about that I'd almost drowned. Besides, the cops had my picture — Jesus, everyone in Melbourne had the bloody thing.

After a while, I heard the squeak and clank of the front gate, and Granddad came back and said to me: ‘I want you to stay away from that bloke's place from now on, d'ya hear me?'

Fair dinkum, if I wanted to make a list in my Spirax of all the places I had to stay away from, I'd end up with writer's cramp.

‘Yeah. Did you give him back the photo, Granddad?'

‘You forget about that photo.'

He looked at Mum, and she sighed and shook her head and went into the kitchen. He waited until she had started making her dreaded kitchen sounds. Then he turned to me and raised his eyebrows, the way Mum did when she was going to ask a question, and he put on his secret voice.

‘Did yer get anything else, boy?'

But I knew he was just trying to get my mind off the photo. That would have worked with Tom — to him a change of subject meant a fresh experience — but we both knew that I was going to find out the story behind it sooner or later.

He saw the look on my face — it was a look I'd seen on his face many a time.

‘Just forget it, boy.'

 

The next thing that happened was that while I was sitting in school a few days later, Miss Schaeffer received a message for me to report to the office. I was halfway there, and busy dreaming up excuses that I thought I might not have used before, reckoning that I was in trouble again, when I ran into Mother Sylvester, who was the head nun around the place, and who could have given my Nanna Blayney a run for her money as far as knockers went. She grabs hold of me — nuns do that — and speaks to me with a lowered voice, as if she's giving me a tip for the next race.

‘Now you listen to me, young man. There's a very nice man here from the RSPCA who'd like to give you a prize for rescuing your dog. So be polite and consider yourself lucky.'

She's dragging me along by the sleeve while she's talking, and when we get to the corner, I see through her half-open door that the nice bloke is none other than Bob the Butcher. So I stop dead in my tracks and drag her back around the corner, out of sight, expecting to get a smack in the chops for my trouble.

‘Mother, that man … I saw him …' I whisper. How do you explain some things to a nun?

She starts shaking me around all over the place as if she's shaking a spider out of a towel.

‘How dare you!' she whispers back. ‘What are you babbling about? Come with me.'

‘Mother, that man tried to hurt me. He's following me. Please don't tell him I go to school here.'