The First Week (10 page)

With awful clarity, an image of the contraption the police had shown her flashed into Marian's mind.

‘I don't know. The police think so. They found a bong in his room.' Once again she had a hysterical urge to laugh. Boing boing boing.

‘Did they? Ah well. They say that parents are always the last to know.' His eyes were too sharp.

‘Yes.'

‘That's not a criticism. I'm defending your son, don't forget. I'm not the enemy. Tell me if you remember anything. However small it seems.'

‘All right.'

‘Drugs. It's the first thing the police would have looked for. That's how they think. Makes it nice and neat. Everyone understands drugs. Who understands a boy taking a gun and shooting people when he's stone cold sober?'

You. You have to.

The lawyer rubbed his hands. ‘Probably charge his housemates I imagine. Round it out.'

Oh no.

Her reaction surprised her. After all, she'd thought the same thing herself. But Sam and Ros weren't bad people. They didn't deserve any more trouble.

Lee, maybe.

There was a tap on the door and Mandy appeared carrying a tray with two mugs. She smiled brightly at Marian and balanced one of them on a pile of papers on the coffee table. ‘Just milk. That's right, isn't it?'

‘Thank you,' said Marian weakly. The first coffee was still zizzing in her veins.

Mandy went out and Simon Ingerson loosened his tie.

‘I want to get background today. See what there might be by way of a defence. Anything you can tell me about Charles, from a family point of view.'

‘Charlie.'

‘Right. Charlie. School for instance. Did he finish school? He seems like a bright boy.'

‘Yes. He started Anthropology at the university but he hasn't finished that.'

‘Still studying?'

‘No, he isn't, he dropped out.' A drop-out.

‘When was that?'

‘Early this year. Since then he's been working on and off. Gardening.'

‘Gardening eh? You can take the boy out of the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy.'

Marian didn't respond. What did raking up leaves in green city gardens have to do with the gritty reality of the farm?

‘Father no longer alive, I gather?'

‘No.'

For once, disconcertingly, the lawyer waited in silence. Marian eased sideways in her chair. Her left foot was going to sleep. ‘He died about ten years ago.'

‘Who inherited the farm?'

‘Brian. My other son.'

‘So Charlie's the younger son. That's how it goes. Bit of a blow for him I suppose?'

Marian considered this. Had it been a blow for Charlie? But he'd always known.

‘Who ran the farm after your husband died?'

The question floated in front of her. Who did he think? Who the hell would run the farm?

‘I did.'

A
brave little woman
look formed on his face, but she was used to that, and cut across it. ‘I got in workers whenever I could afford it.'

‘Must have been hard for you.'

Hard. The dry-eyed wakeful nights. The constant weariness. The loneliness. Sitting up, after the boys had gone to bed, with accounts that never balanced. The neighbours who were kind. The ones who weren't. The ones who were waiting to buy her out. The ones who helped and then thought they might as well stay the night. In her bed.

As if.

‘Yes it was hard. Sometimes.'

‘Difficult choice, with two children.'

But there was nothing else she could have done. Did he think that she should have married again? But who, exactly?

‘Are you still running the show?'

‘Brian does most of it these days.'

‘Now what about girls?'

‘I only have two sons.'

Simon Ingerson laughed cheerily. ‘Charles, I mean. Girlfriends? Normal boy in that way?'

This echo of her own earlier thought irritated her.

Normal. Until Monday it had never crossed her mind that people in her life were anything other than normal. There was Tara, but that was different, just one of those things.

What was the lawyer asking?

About Charlie, whether he was normal.

‘I suppose so,' she said reluctantly. Of course he's not normal, she wanted to scream. He just killed two complete strangers.

She pulled herself together. ‘You've talked to him, have you?'

‘Yes. That's to say I've visited him. I didn't get much out of him. Perhaps he'll talk to you. I've arranged for you to see him tomorrow. Hope that's all right? You could go today if you wanted to. Up to 3pm I think it is.'

‘Thank you.' Her insides collapsed downwards at the thought.

‘The police have been out to the farm,' he said. ‘Checked the registration of the gun. With Brian.'

If he knew about Brian, why had he asked who ran the farm now? Was it a trick? Maybe they thought Brian knew something. Oh God. What if they thought Brian was involved in the shooting?

‘Brian didn't know Charlie had taken it.' Even she could hear the fear and hostility in her voice.

‘When did Charlie last come home?'

‘At least six months ago. He and Brian don't get on.'

‘It's okay Mrs Anditon. There's no suggestion that Brian knew, if that's what you're worrying about.'

She must try and clear her head.

Simon Ingerson spread his hands theatrically. A performer. But perhaps lawyers had to be.

‘All routine. A check on where the gun came from and how Charlie came to have it.'

‘But …'

‘I'm afraid I'll have to wrap this up. Thanks Mrs … I'll give you a buzz.'

Marian passed Mandy in the doorway, bustling in importantly with a pile of papers.

‘Thanks for the coffee …' But they didn't hear her.

She walked downhill through a vast car park. Hundreds of cars. Thousands probably. Sitting there all day waiting for their owners to get back on the freeway. Beyond the car park lay the river, the bell tower dwarfing the palms at the Barrack Street jetties. A small ferry forged across the water from South Perth. Downstream towards the Narrows the surface was grey and ruffled. There was rain coming. Along the path beside the river Marian found a seat under a palm tree and sat down, pulling her coat more tightly around her. Upstream the water was still, and there were patches of blue in the sky above the hills. Perhaps it would blow over.

She should go and see Charlie. Now, this very minute. Find out how to get there. They might know at the train station. Or she could get a taxi.

The thought of holding him on her knee when he was little was a physical sensation so real that she could feel the points of contact—legs, arms, breasts, belly.

She should be looking after him now.

What sort of a mother was she? A proper mother would want to spend every minute with him.

But she couldn't do it. She knew she should go and see him, but she couldn't. Tomorrow. She would go tomorrow.

The wind was picking up, making the water choppy.

Evie had joined a rowing club once and dragged Marian along with her. The early mornings were a joy, river reflecting the dawn, the clunk and creak of oars, the finely balanced boat gliding fast through the water. There were still fishermen in those days, rowing out from the boatsheds at Crawley.

The fad hadn't lasted long. Evie said the early rising was too much, and Marian was glad enough of the extra sleep when the weather got colder.

Marian never thought about that year in the city, as though it belonged in someone else's life.

A duck interrupted her reverie, waddling purposefully along the path towards her, coming right up and fussing around her feet.

‘Can't help. I haven't got anything.' She held out her empty hands.

The duck honked and Marian was surprised into a snort of laughter. ‘Really. I mean it. Got no more than you.'

The duck turned its back and walked purposefully towards the river, bottom swaying with each step. When it reached the limestone retaining wall it took off with a sudden great clatter of wings. It wheeled above her in the sky, veering to the north-east, inland.

Marian went on staring at the water, more alone now than before the duck had come. The cold was an ache in her bones, compelling her to move, do something, at least to walk and get warm.

She could follow the duck. There was a park somewhere, she remembered. An afternoon with balloons, someone's birthday. Up near Motor Reg. A small lake with flowers and duck shit everywhere. Big trees. The smell of fresh water and damp grass.

The memory was intense. The nostalgia.

As soon as she stood up, the sky wheeled around her and she had to hang onto the back of the seat till it stilled again. She should probably eat. Perhaps there'd be a cafe.

She set off diagonally across playing fields, blinking to clear the dark smudges from the edge of her vision. This half-fainting sensation of the last few days was becoming familiar. Perhaps her blood pressure was low. Time for one of her rare visits to the doctor. But he was prickly, the new one, not easy to talk to. And it would mean going into town, facing everyone.

Later.

This stretch towards the Causeway was flat, a vast expanse of grass, quite low lying. Probably part of the river once, she thought. Swampy at the very least. Salty too. The river was salty.

What would it have been like? Before freeways and playing fields?

Paperbarks probably. Reeds. Things that didn't mind being flooded regularly. The trees would stretch away, twisted and ghostly, bark hanging in tatters, making dark reflections in the puddles and pools. Every now and then there'd be a stretch of higher ground, drier, with banksias. But impossible to see very far.

On a dull day like this it would have been eerie down at water level, sounds muffled. The Abos would have hunted here. Speared fish in the shallows, or tortoises. There'd be tiger snakes.

Parked cars marked another road and a bike hire place. Who would use it? Not locals, unless they drove here, rode around on bikes and then drove home. That would be crazy. It must be for tourists.

Marian struck up towards the line of buildings that marked the edge of the higher ground.
The river bank.
There would have been trees on the rise. More banksias, maybe bigger trees. Jarrah, marri. The clearings would open out, there'd be more light and dry ground underfoot. Rocky outcrops and wispy grass. Good camping up there, away from the river. But what about water?

Adelaide Terrace was a stream of traffic. She stood on the edge of the footpath thinking. It wouldn't have been an easy life.

Dodging between the cars she went on up the hill. There must have been a bit of run-off surely, from a ridge this high? There should be a small creek, clear water finding its way down among rocks.

But it would run only in winter and dry up quickly, leaving a few sandy patches between the rocks to show where it had been. No use as a summer water supply. Those long-gone people must have known where to find the permanent springs, fresh water. At Mac's uncle's place there was a big rocky outcrop, half a hectare at least, studded with small pools, each one carefully covered with a rock lid and still holding water. A man from the museum had come poking around. Gnamma holes he called them.

They would have been careful, those vanished hunters.

But had they vanished? Marian thought of Lee.
My father's a Swan River man.
They were still here. For all Marian knew, half the people in the street were descended from them.

Hay Street was narrow and blocked by a refrigerated truck trying to back into the service lane of a hotel. A four-wheel drive blasted its horn at a taxi whose driver hung out of his window yelling abuse.

Marian was startled and turned away, willing herself back into the past again.

There would have been hollows among the rocks. Daytime camps under the trees for kangaroos, and for people. It'd be cold on this ridge though, facing south, catching the souwesterlies and the rain. Did they feel the cold? She'd seen a picture somewhere, a group of women sitting cross-legged outside a shelter made of branches, wearing kangaroo-skin cloaks. Primitive. But now she wondered how they made them. You'd have to cure the skins somehow. And it would take more than one kangaroo skin to make a cloak. There'd have to be sewing. Women's work no doubt. Marian imagined women giggling together as they sewed, plump brown babies crawling between their feet.

She stopped walking and buttoned her coat. The same wind as two hundred years ago. The same rain that now fell on concrete and bitumen. It was a good thought. Good that the same wind went on blowing, all this time. Would still be blowing when the city was gone again.

She shouldn't have said that to Lee, about her people being lazy.

When she looked up, the trees and rocks vanished. It was a city again, and there across the road was the park she remembered.
Queen's Gardens. Established 1899.
Through the gate was a different world again. A more leisurely world. The people who'd chopped down the tuarts and the banksias had planted this green-ness, brought their families here in best clothes to bowl hoops and feed the ducks.

Light misty rain was falling. Marian retreated to the bandstand. Apart from an occasional drip she was sheltered there and could watch the deserted park, the ducks huddling on the grass, heads and feet tucked in.

It was green, so green. It was easy to forget, at the farm, that such green was possible. Even the bare trees seemed to form a soft greenish filter.

A newspaper stuck out of the top of a nearby bin, protected from the rain by a sheet of cardboard. She dashed across and pulled it out. It was clean, and a good thick edition. Saturday. Saturday's paper was safe. It came from that other world, life before this week, when disasters belonged to other people.

She unfolded it, spread half the paper out on the floor of the bandstand next to a post and sat on it, back to the drips, facing the centre. Well why not? Deros did it. In cartoons, anyway. A few sheets bunched behind her protected her back. She kicked off her wet shoes and tucked her feet under her, spreading the
Real Estate
across her knees and the
Cars
across her chest and arms. No one would see. And if they did, what on earth did it matter?