The First Week (6 page)

Of course the police wouldn't see it that way.

‘He's never done anything like that at home. As far as I know.' But what about at school?

‘Have you ever visited the place where he lives in the city?'

‘No.' Again she thought how inadequate it sounded. One of those families that drifts apart. People not speaking to each other for years. But it's not like that, she wanted to say. She loved him. It's just that she didn't come to the city …

But Inspector Nile had apparently lost interest and was getting to his feet.

‘All right, Mrs Anditon. I think that's all for the moment. Please let us know if you change your contact details. There may be charges relating to the gun.'

Charges?

But he was gone. The sergeant frowned at Marian from the doorway, then hurried after him.

Sam and Ros were huddled together on a bench in the corridor. They got up without speaking and walked out beside Marian. Ros took her arm. Marian stiffened. But she felt the shape of the girl against her side, and the warmth of another human body was comforting.

She must be careful. If she started crying she might never stop.

The three women passed the security desk and the automatic doors slid open. The bikies were gone, but in their place was a man with a video camera who stepped forward. ‘Mrs Anditon?'

Marian looked at him, puzzled. ‘Yes?'

In response he pointed the camera at her. Her hands flew up instinctively to cover her face, but it was too late.

‘Any comment about your son?'

Marian opened her mouth, but no words came out.

It was Ros, once again, who took the lead. She had dignity, in spite of the chook on her hat.

‘He's a reporter,' she muttered and stepped in front of Marian. ‘No comment,' she said more firmly. ‘We've got nothing to say.'

Tightening her grip on Marian's arm she pushed her along the footpath. Sam trotted along on the other side.

The man made no attempt to follow them, but when Marian glanced back he was still filming.

‘Shit,' said Sam. ‘Shit shit shit …' She stopped herself. ‘Sorry.'

They walked in silence until they found a coffee shop.

Marian drank tea, but couldn't eat her biscuit. The two girls didn't seem able to eat either.

Marian made an effort to speak. ‘So you live with …'

Sam spoke at the same time. ‘Thanks for seeing us …'

Both of them stopped, confused. Sam smiled hesitantly. She was thinner than Ros. Nervy.

Their clothes weren't ragged exactly, just surprising. Ros had on a lace petticoat over her tee shirt and Sam was wearing black mittens and a school blazer. Sam's hair was too black, startling against her pale skin. Marian could hardly bear to look at the spike in the smooth flesh above and below the eyebrow. But she couldn't look away either.

Sam lifted her hand to let Marian go first.

‘You live with Charlie?' Marian asked.

‘We both do. Have done all this year.'

Do you know him well? Are you …
She didn't know how to say it, was filled with shame that she should need to ask.

‘Are you his …? I mean … how well …?'

Sam drew back. ‘Oh no. I'm not … hasn't he told you about us?'

Us?

‘Me and Ros. We're together. We just share a house with Charlie.'

Together?

Marian rubbed her face. ‘I'm sorry. Charlie hasn't told me much about his life.'

‘Charlie and I did sort of go out for a while. A couple of years ago, when he first came to the city. We were pretty young.'

Marian blinked, but Sam didn't seem aware of any irony.

‘It was a kid thing, you know? We ended up being friends. When I came out he was a bit weird, but he got over it.' Her voice faltered and she twisted her fingers in her hair. ‘I thought he did. Now I don't know what to think. Maybe that was why he did this? You know … it might have been eating at him? I feel like it's my fault.'

Ros leaned towards her. Her face was softer than Sam's. She was plump where Sam was angular, pink where Sam was black. ‘Hey Sam. It's okay. Charlie was cool about us. It's not that.'

Marian stared at them, trying to stop the room from wheeling round her head.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Anditon?' It was Ros, her face anxious. ‘You look kind of wrecked.'

Wrecked. That was it. A ship pitching onto rocks, water crashing. She nodded.

‘I reckon you should come back with us. You could crash on Charlie's bed.'

Crash. A car accident then.

Marian let the two girls steer her into a taxi. She sagged in the seat, images whirling behind her eyes. Faces mouthed at her, cars roared, trees toppled.

Ros shook her arm. ‘Mrs Anditon? We're here.'

Aware of nothing but Ros's hand Marian stumbled into the house and collapsed with relief onto a bed. The tangled sheets and duna became waves, and the giddiness rocked her into a black void.

The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a withered apple core, at eye level. Charlie's room.

The bed seemed very low. She reached a hand out. Floor. A mattress on the floor.

That was Charlie too. He never wanted
things
.

The apple core was sitting on bare boards next to a battered copy of
Lord of the Rings
. Someone had picked the book up and dropped it carelessly so that it splayed open, pages bent under the cover, disturbing the dust on the floorboards. Charlie wouldn't have done that. He loved that book.

The corner of a photo was visible under the book. Without thinking she pulled it towards her, then hesitated.
Keep out of my room.
But it would be a long time before it was Charlie's room again.

Marian picked the photo up and held it away from her, straining to see it without her glasses. Mac? And Brian. They were in the bush. Rocks behind them and scrub, a long vista. The Stirlings?

She tucked it back into the book, straightened the cover and rolled over onto her back. The room was dim. Ros must have pulled the curtains. No, not curtains. An old flannelette sheet was draped across the window, light glowing through it from outside.

It was daytime then.

Her watch said four thirty so she must have slept for hours. Or a whole day? Was it still the same day? It seemed to have gone on for a very long time.

Her eyes were gritty and her body unwashed. When she raised her arms there was a strong whiff of armpit. The smell of hard yakka. All very well on the farm, not in the city. She thought with regret of her bag in the station locker. At least Charlie would have a towel, surely?

Rolling off the mattress onto her knees she levered herself upright and stood with a grunt. The room swung and settled.

She moved cautiously across the cluttered floor to the window and lifted the sheet. A piece of string hung from a nail at one side, for tying the curtain back. It was Charlie all over, makeshift but efficient.

The room was untidy, which wasn't like Charlie. He might not bother to clean, but he was orderly with his few belongings.

Used to be.

A set of shelves next to the door had been emptied out on to the floor. Clothes and books were piled higgledy piggledy, as though it had been done in a great hurry. Tatty blue jeans tangled with a pile of tee-shirts, and a book called
Teleological Ethics: An end to right and wrong
, lay on top of a pair of jocks. Other socks and jocks were piled on a bundle of loose papers. The folder that might once have held them lay to one side, face down.

Under the papers lay a small leather-bound book. With an odd jolt of recognition Marian bent down and picked it up.
Holy Bible
. It was hers, her old Sunday School Bible. There it was on the first page.
Marian Bradley. Good Behaviour.
How many years since she'd held this in her hands? And how on earth had Charlie got hold of it?

Replacing the book on the pile, she stood back and looked at the mess. What had he been looking for?

On the back of the door hung a grimy towel. Reluctantly she lifted it down.

Opening the door she heard noises coming from the back of the house and made her way in that direction. A kitchen. Ros. Already the girl's soft face and pink curls looked familiar. But the young man was a stranger. Did he live here too? What did he know about all this?

Silence fell as Marian stopped in the doorway.

‘Could I have a shower?'

Ros jumped up. ‘Oh yeah. I'll show you.'

The bathroom was back up the hall next to Charlie's room.

‘Do you need anything?' Ros asked, looking doubtfully at the greyish towel in Marian's hand.

Marian blushed. ‘I found this on the back of Charlie's door.'

‘Oh yuk.' Ros stopped, embarrassed. ‘I mean, I'll get you a clean one.'

She reappeared from the front room and gave Marian a yellow towel, worn thin, but clean. ‘Give me Charlie's,' she said. ‘I'll do it. He's not very big on using the washing machine,' she added apologetically.

Marian smiled and the girl's eyes filled unexpectedly with tears. ‘I shouldn't say that, I guess. I don't mean there's anything wrong with him.'

‘It's all right. I know he's not very domestic. I probably didn't bring him up right.'

But she hadn't brought him up to kill people.

She put out her hand to the doorframe to steady herself.

‘I'll put the kettle on,' said Ros, and fled.

The bathroom was old. The shower hung over the bath, years of brown drip marks staining the peeling paint behind the tap. The bath itself was full of soaking clothes.

Marian sat on the toilet. On the back of the door was a large poster, a forest clearing full of stumps and smoke haze.
Man Commits Suicide With Axe
it said, and underneath, in smaller letters,
No Trees, No Air, No Life.

There was no sign of a bucket or bowl. She could have a shower with her feet in the clothes, but it might overflow the bath. And anyway, perhaps it wasn't just washing. It was very black. Marian stirred the water doubtfully with one finger. Were they dyeing something?

She couldn't face going back to ask.

Turning on the tap in the basin she sloshed her face and hands and wiped her armpits with the damp towel. It's the clothes that smell sweaty, she thought, not the skin itself. She studied herself in the mirror, patted her hair down and hung the towel neatly on the rail.

Ros was alone and gave Marian a worried smile.

‘Thanks,' Marian said. ‘That feels better.'

‘Would you like a coffee? The kettle's boiled.'

‘Yes please.'

Marian sat down. The table was red laminex, chipped around the edges, but clean. Ros arranged mugs, all very ordinary and domestic.

‘We've only got soy milk. Is that okay?'

‘Yes,' Marian said. ‘At least, I suppose so. I've never had it before.'

‘I guess you have real milk do you? On the farm I mean.'

Marian blinked. ‘You mean from a cow? Oh no. We don't milk a cow.'

Something more seemed to be called for. ‘I did it for a while when the boys were small.'

She remembered her fantasy of a kitchen table with a red-checked cloth, cream in a jug, real butter, the boys scrubbed and beaming with snowy white teeth. Like an Ovaltine ad. But the reality was different. Endless washing and scalding of buckets. Milk going off in the heat. Then the cow getting mastitis, udder hard and hot.

‘I gave it up. More milk than we could get through.'

‘So what type of farm is it?'

‘Wheat and sheep. Hasn't Charlie told you about it?'

Ros made a face. ‘Charlie doesn't talk much.'

A phone buzzed suddenly. Ros pulled a mobile out of her pocket and, with an apologetic gesture towards Marian, went out the back door, speaking as she went.

Marian sipped her coffee. On the fridge a row of identical postcards showed a cartoon sheep behind bars.
Stop The Live Sheep Trade.

Her comfort in the ordinariness of the house dissolved. City kids. What would they know?

But it was Charlie's house too.

Charlie, a teenager, handing back his plate of lamb, quiet, but deadly serious.
No thanks Dad. I'm a vegetarian.

Like a slow-motion replay of a silent movie she saw Mac's fist descending towards the table, vegetables flying, gravy splattering upwards.

Ros came back in, shoving the phone into her back pocket. ‘Sorry about that. Can I get you anything to eat?'

‘Oh no. I don't want to make work for you.'

‘You're not. We want to do something. Help somehow.'

‘I don't know what there is to do. I have to see the lawyer.'

Lawyer. The word made a silence between them.

‘Maybe you could tell me what happened?' Marian asked with an effort.

‘I can tell you a bit. But I was at work. I do overnights at a nursing home. Sam can tell you more. She'll be back in a minute, just went to do the shopping.'

‘I hope your friend didn't leave because of me?'

‘Nah. You mean Ben? From next door? He had to go to work, the afternoon shift. By the way, Lee said to come and see her later if you want. She probably knows more about Charlie than anyone. They hang out a lot. Charlie's been helping with a paper she's writing.'

The front door banged and Sam appeared in the kitchen, thin face even more pinched than usual.

‘Look at this.' She spread out a note in front of them. Its crude printed letters crowded off the white edges of the paper.
YOU FILTHY LESOS BELONG IN PRISON WITH YOUR MURDERER MATE.

The three women stared at it in silence.

‘Where was it?' Ros asked at last.

‘Letterbox.' Sam put down a handful of envelopes on the table and sat down. ‘Sorry, Mrs Anditon. I got a shock. I shouldn't have sprung it on you.'