The First Week (7 page)

‘Marian.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Please call me Marian.'

Ros was crying, silently and helplessly, tears pouring down her face. Sam dragged her chair along and put one arm around her. ‘Hey,' she murmured. ‘Hey baby. It'll be okay.'

Marian looked away, embarrassed.

The calendar behind the door showed a photo of jonquils under a bare tree. August. Mum's birthday. A cream foam of flowers escaped from the gardens along the edges of the track behind the township. They'd pick great bunches, the sweetness filling the house.

Happy birthday Mum.

Ros gulped and pulled out a hanky. ‘Sorry,' she said shakily. ‘It's just … but I guess it must be worse for you Mrs … Marian.'

Marian dragged her mind back. Worse for her? Both girls were watching her. ‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I can't seem to take it in. My mind keeps wandering.'

Sam stirred. ‘Yeah. I know what you mean. I get confused. Last night I kept waking up thinking Charlie was dead.'

Marian was surprised. ‘Yes. That's it. Me too.'

‘Tell Marian what happened,' Ros said. ‘She needs to, like, get a picture of it.'

Sam traced a whorl in the laminex with her finger. ‘Where will I start?'

‘Start on Sunday night,' Ros said. ‘How did you know there was something wrong?'

‘I didn't. Not really. But Charlie was a bit off.'

‘What do you mean,
off
?'

‘I'm not sure. I was here on my own.' She turned to Marian. ‘Ros was at work. Ben and Charlie had dinner here, then went next door. They were …'

‘Tell Marian the whole thing,' Ros said. Marian saw that though she might look softer than Sam she was the stronger one. ‘The cops know anyway.'

Sam took a deep breath. ‘They smoked a bit. Nothing much.' She must have seen the blankness in Marian's face. ‘Marijuana,' she said.

So it was drugs. Marian looked at Ros. Was she in it too? Ros was listening to Sam and didn't seem shocked.

Sam hurried on. ‘I think they were playing cards. The next thing I knew it was about midnight. Charlie marched in here looking totally wired.'

Wired.

‘Tense. Angry. I said
what's up?
But he ignored me, I'm not sure he even heard me. I was reading, so I didn't take much notice. I thought he'd had a row with Lee, the way they do.' She slumped back. ‘I should have done something.'

Lee. Next door, Ros had said, with the young man from earlier on. Another household next door.

Ros leaned towards Sam. ‘Hey. It's not your fault, remember?'

Sam sighed. ‘He kind of crashed into his room and out the front door again. I thought …' Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I thought
you moody bastard
.'

She swallowed. ‘That's about it. I went to bed not long after and I didn't wake up till Ros came home in the morning. About eight I guess. I had a shower, cup of coffee. Started washing up. I had no idea. I figured Charlie must have come in late and still be asleep. I thought
I hope he wakes up in a better mood.
But that was all. I didn't have any, you know, premonition or anything. Till the cops came.' She shivered.

‘When was that?' Marian asked.

‘I'm not sure. About nine? They said
does Charles Thomas Anditon live here?
They flashed their badges at me. Then they pushed right in. I didn't know what to do. It seemed a bit over the top. Three of them.'

‘They should have had a warrant,' Ros said indignantly. ‘Isn't that right, Marian?'

Marian shook her head. ‘I don't know. They do in books.'

‘They did show me something,' Sam said. ‘Some piece of paper, maybe it was a warrant. Whatever. They just sort of waved it at me. I didn't get a chance to read it.'

‘Go on.'

‘I thought Charlie was still in bed. I said
what's going on?
They wouldn't tell me. Just that there'd been
a serious incident
. They made me wake Ros up and they searched Charlie's room.'

Of course. That was why it was in such a mess.

Sam tucked her hands under her arms and rocked on the chair. ‘By then I knew he wasn't here, and I started to freak. But I still thought maybe it was a protest or a traffic thing. Or maybe he'd been down at the wharves.'

‘Wharves?' Marian asked sharply. ‘What would he be doing at the wharves?' Smuggling drugs?

‘Oh,' said Sam. ‘We've been down there a lot because of the sheep ships.'

‘You mean protests?' Marian was angry now. The girl made it sound ordinary, as though everyone did things like that.

‘Yeah,' Sam agreed, not looking at Marian. ‘There's been a lot going on.'

‘How did the cops figure out he knew Lee?' Ros asked.

‘I told them,' Sam said. ‘Before you got up. I shouldn't have. The tough one kept making me go through everything Charlie did on Sunday night. So then they got Ben and Lee in here too. They said Charlie had a gun.'

Ros interrupted. ‘It was bizarre. Like a movie or something. They just went off and left us here. Gave us a number and said ring if we
remembered
anything else. Like they didn't believe anything we'd said.'

‘They didn't tell us they'd arrested Charlie already,' Sam said. ‘But they must have, how else would they know his name? But we didn't figure that out till later. We thought we should maybe go and find him before the cops got him. But then we thought maybe he'd gone mad.' She pulled out a tattered hanky and blew her nose.

‘Sam thought of you,' Ros said. ‘That we should warn you or something. Let you know.'

Charlie might be in trouble.

‘So then we had to try and find your number.'

‘Where was he all night?' asked Sam, following her own thought. ‘In the paper they said he was at the supermarket when it opened at seven thirty.'

‘Lee said we should see if there was anything on the news, so we put the radio on. We heard then. They didn't say a name, but we figured it must be Charlie. Shit. That was so …'

‘Like being in a nightmare, not being able to wake up,' Sam added. ‘It was all … we were trying to think what to do, you know, where to get a lawyer and all that. We went to the lock-up but no one would talk to us. So we rang the number they'd given us and asked could we arrange bail for Charlie but the guy said
you've got to be joking
. He hung up on us.'

‘But the men,' said Marian. ‘The ones he shot. Who were they? He must have known them.'

‘That's what we thought. But the police really quizzed us. We'd never even heard of them, didn't recognise their names, their photos. Charlie never mentioned them. It looks like they were strangers.'

Marian was dismayed. Two ordinary people with no idea, no warning, going about the business of the day.

Ros burst out. ‘If only we'd known he had a gun. We would never have let him have it here. We're pacifists, you know? A gun!' She put her head in her hands. ‘It's like the whole house is full of shit now. It feels terrible.'

Sam spoke quietly. ‘We can do a cleansing. Come on Ros, it'll be okay.'

But Ros was crying now. ‘What if it was our fault? Something went really wrong here.'

‘No.' It came out with more force than Marian had intended. ‘No. You mustn't think like that. It's … I don't know. It goes back further than this.'

She stopped. Did she believe it? These girls … smoking marijuana, going on protests. Asking for trouble.

Every bone in her body ached.
My Charlie.

He was somewhere in the city. Locked up. And she had to work out how to find him. And then … would they let her see him? Visitors once a week, or was that just on TV? She should do something. The lawyer, Mr Ingerson, tomorrow. He'd know what to do, be able to get her in to see Charlie.

If she wanted to see him.

She pushed that thought away. Charlie needed her.

But there was something she had to understand too.

‘Why? Why would he …?'

Ros shook her head.

‘We should talk to Lee.' Sam said.

Lee again.

‘Yes.'

‘I'll take you next door if you like.'

‘Yeah,' Ros said. ‘You go. I need a sleep before work.'

The two houses were mirror images of each other. Instead of going out of one gate and in at the other, Sam stepped over the low fence between the two yards. The soil was compacted on either side. It was a well used path.

Sam tried the handle of the screen door. It was locked so she tapped on the metal frame and called. ‘Lee? You home? It's me.'

A figure appeared behind the screen. After a few moments of rattling, the door opened, the woman behind it standing back against the wall to let them in.

‘Sorry,' she said. ‘We've been locking it … since yesterday.'

Marian followed her in to the living room.

The woman was Aboriginal. No one had mentioned that.

They wouldn't think it mattered, probably.

But it did.

Lee perched on the edge of an armchair. She seemed surer of herself than either Ros or Sam. Older. Her skin wasn't all that dark really, when you looked at it, and her eyes were no blacker than Sam's. It was her nose—that was how you knew. But not just that, it was the combination. Brown skin, the nose, the big dark eyes, the wavy brown hair. You could always tell.

The room was a surprise. It was different from the other house. What was it? Nothing was new or expensive, but things looked right together. The armchair was the same material as the cushions on the sofa.

Marian realised that Lee was watching and her face grew hot. ‘Nice room,' she said.

‘Thank you.' The tone was dry and Lee wasn't smiling.

The heat spread through Marian's body.

Sam sat forward. ‘We were trying to work things out. Sunday night. Marian wants to know what happened.'

‘Yes,' Lee said. ‘Me too.' The dry tone again.

‘What was Charlie upset about?' Sam asked.

‘I don't know.' She glanced at Marian, then focused on Sam. ‘I've been over and over it with Ben. It's not like there was a row or anything. Charlie didn't say much, but you know what he's like.'

Sam nodded. Marian looked from one to the other. What did that mean? What was he like?

‘I just thought he was a bit low,' Lee said. ‘We had a smoke, played cards, then he took off. We thought he'd gone home. So what happened?'

Sam dropped her head forward. Her shoulders sagged.

What happened? The question was an invisible weight in the room.

‘How do you know Charlie?' Marian asked Lee, to break the silence.

‘Lee's got family near Katanning,' Sam said.

‘It was chance,' Lee said. ‘Someone at a party told me where he grew up so I introduced myself. I was interested.'

‘Do you come from Katanning?'

‘My Granny grew up on the mission at Tolgerup.'

‘Oh.' The mission. Forerunner of the Reserve.

Silence fell. Marian realised that Lee was watching her, quite calmly. Waiting for a reaction. The confidence of the younger woman was galling. They've been lovers, Marian thought suddenly. This girl and Charlie. The idea disturbed her in a way that the idea of Sam and Charlie,
just a kid thing
, had not. She was uncomfortably aware of Lee's body, the glow of her brown skin, the way her breasts swelled under her jumper. Marian looked away.

‘Charlie wanted to know about it,' Lee was saying, ‘The Mission. The Reserve. He reckoned it was his history too, you know?'

‘But we're not …'

‘No. You aren't, are you? White as white.'

This woman didn't like her.

Well it was mutual. Marian felt her own hostility as a physical force in every nerve ending. She was completely awake now.

What did Charlie care about the Reserve? One of his troublemaking ideas. Marian didn't trust it. And she didn't trust Lee.

‘So you didn't grow up down there?'

‘No. Mum came up to the city. Reckoned there was no future down there. She was right, eh?'

Lee didn't wait for Marian's response. ‘I was born here. I've got aunties and uncles down there though. I stay with them sometimes. Could have met you there.'

This time Lee smiled, a momentary gleam of amusement. ‘Charlie liked that. That we'd almost met before.'

She rubbed the side of her nose. ‘He was homesick, I guess. Homesick but glad to be away at the same time. Love-hate sort of thing.'

Love-hate. Marian felt that in her body. The stab of rejection.

Lee looked at her, head on one side. ‘Well it isn't exactly progressive, is it, Tolgerup? Charlie wouldn't fit in too well down there. He needed to get away.'

Marian was angry. Who the hell was this girl? What would she know about Tolgerup, or about Charlie?

Sam leaned forward. ‘Marian? Don't, you know, take it personally. Lee doesn't mean to upset you. Do you Lee?' she pleaded.

Like hell she didn't. Marian looked past Sam to Lee. Lee's face was neutral.

‘Oh no,' she said. ‘Let's not have anyone upset. Dead maybe, but not upset.' But her face softened as she looked at Sam. ‘Sorry,' she said. ‘I get cynical.'

Marian nodded. She had to keep her temper. Keep trying to find out. Whatever it was.

‘Does your Granny still live in Tolgerup?' she asked stiffly.

‘No, she's dead now. Brought her kids up on the Reserve then died, soon after they moved into town. When the Reserve was closed.'

Marian didn't want to think about the Reserve. She rubbed her finger across the fabric of the chair. Cotton, perhaps. With a strong rib in it.

‘Did you ever go there?' Lee asked.

‘To the Reserve? No.'

The question was loaded. Of course she'd never been to the Reserve. Nobody she knew had ever been to the Reserve. Nobody white.