The Innocents (18 page)

She'd be gone for sure.

Missie turned for home.

30

Missie stood in her shirt and singlet and pants. It was so cold she knew the bottom of the bath would feel like ice when she sat down, even though the water was hot enough to be sending up steam. No good hoping it'd warm up either. It was like the heat could only seep a little way into the metal before being chilled back out.

Quickly she began to undo her buttons. Once this was done she could nip her undies down and then climb into the warm water and then, when she was warming around her legs, she could fling her shirt and singlet off and slide right down. At least the bits not actually resting on the bottom were going to be warm.

She'd just stepped into the bath when she heard her mother calling for her to come down.

It didn't make sense.

Her mother had sent her to have a bath and now she was yelling at her to come back down? Missie had no sooner finished yelling back that she was in the bath already than the door opened.

Her mother stepped in, bringing the cold outside air with her. ‘Missie, were you with Deirdre this afternoon?'

Missie sat up.

‘At school I was.'

‘Later than that.'

‘When?'

‘When you were down at the river.'

Missie felt colour flame up her cheeks.

‘I know you were down there, Missie, and you know you're not allowed and we'll get to that later. Who was down there with you?'

Missie told her.

‘Not Deirdre?'

‘Her bike was there.'

‘But you didn't see her?'

Missie shook her head. ‘I checked to see if her bike was gone when I came up the track and I couldn't see it.'

Her mother thought for a moment. ‘Did you see anyone else down there?'

‘Old Wally Watson and Errol. Wally yelled at us about the bikes...'

‘What about the bikes?'

‘He said Errol'd got tangled up in the spokes.' What was hilariously funny this afternoon sounded hollow now. ‘And Mr Oleksander.'

A chill sneaked up Missie's back and sent a shudder across her shoulders. She didn't think it was to do with the cold air. ‘What's wrong with Deirdre? What'd she do?'

Her mother held out a towel.

‘She didn't do anything. Here, climb out.'

There was still dirt under her fingernails. And across her knees. Her mother could see it surely.

‘I'm not washed.'

There were other voices drifting up the stairs.

‘It doesn't matter. Just get out and let's get your clothes back on. Deirdre's mum is here. Deirdre didn't come home and she's worried. You'd better come out and tell her about this afternoon.'

Missie let herself be hurried into her clothes. They smelt mouldy and brought images of dead leaves and rotting riverbank as she hauled her singlet back over her head.

‘We weren't in the water or anything,' Missie said. ‘We were messing around near the trees.'

The log was in the water though. And they were playing pirates. But not properly. Not really out to the end of the log where the river sucked itself into a bad temper.

Suddenly she wanted to be out of the bathroom, to be out there in the hall telling Deirdre's mum that it was all right and hearing that, oh god, it'd all been a mistake and Deirdre had wandered back home.

Only they wouldn't know that, would they? There was no way a message could get from way up the hill and Mrs Trumble's place down to here just like that. Someone could walk down to Bethel Richards's place and ask if they could use the phone or they could go all the way across to racecourse corner and use the public phone, but if they went that far they might as well continue on down here.

And that'd take ages.

Max was already there when she was ushered into the front room.

Belle was there as well and Zill's mum. ‘Zilla's at home in case she comes in while we're down here,' she said. ‘Did you see Deirdre?'

‘She went to get Jimmy,' Missie began and went on to tell the same things as she'd told her mother upstairs. This time she needed to swallow hard more often and her hands kept clamping tight. And, in spite of the warm fire, her fingers were frozen.

‘It's Jimmy Johnson, isn't it? He lives with his dad up near the mill?' Aunt Belle was writing down names. ‘We know where Lawrence lives and his parents will be none too pleased when they hear where he was this afternoon. Max, do you have anything else you can tell us?'

Max sat quietly with his shoulders hunched and hands tucked between his knees. ‘We were chasing Zilla and couldn't catch her and then we left. She was walking in front of us,' he said and pointed at Missie.

‘I wanted to get home,' Missie said. She didn't say she didn't like the game. It didn't seem to be important.

‘So you were walking along by yourself?' Aunt Belle said. ‘Is that when you spoke to Mr Shevchenko ... Oleksander?'

‘I didn't talk to him.'

‘What was he doing then?'

‘He was just sitting there.' She could have said that she thought he was drawing the river and the trees and the afternoon chill but she wasn't sure if this was something to be shared. It felt more like a ‘Bob's your uncle'. ‘I was going to catch him but he was gone by the time I got to the top,' she said instead.

Nobody answered.

A log dropped in the fire and some sparks flew but nobody moved to add more wood. Bev Trumble stood, one hand gripping the edge of the mantelpiece while her eyes glazed over with firelight.

‘I don't know what else to do,' she said quietly. ‘I thought she might've been here. You know, playing and forgotten the time or something.' She hadn't moved or turned so it was unclear if she was talking to anyone in particular. Or just talking out loud to herself.

Aunt Belle stood. ‘Marcie, why don't you get Bev a cup of tea...'

Missie still stood in her grubby clothes. She felt she was standing at attention, like they had to do at school when announcements were being made at assembly.

Bev Trumble had straightened up and was pulling her coat back on like she had to get going right now.

‘I can't stay.' She'd collected her string-bag and was pulling on her hat when Aunt Belle gently turned her back. ‘There's Zilla. I can't leave Zill up there by herself.'

‘I'll get Zilla,' Aunt Belle said. ‘And Marcie will get you a hot drink with lots of sugar in it, please Marcie. And then we'll call David Campbell down at the police station. He'll know what to do.'

Missie wasn't sure what she should do. Adults were moving in all directions now and her mother had asked Bev to stoke up the fire because Deirdre'd probably be cold by the time they got her back here from wherever she was.

Bev lifted the fire iron and prodded around. She heaved another log into the flames and then simply stayed sitting in front of it.

Her mother's words fell like stones into the room. Deirdre would be cold...

Missie shivered.

‘You two can go back up and have your baths,' her mother said. ‘And make sure you have a good scrub. Perhaps you'd better get your dressing-gowns and slippers on because Constable Campbell might want to ask you about this afternoon.'

As Missie climbed back up the stairs she thought she could feel the ghost of Judith Mae watching her from the balcony. She didn't look up just in case she was mistaken and it wasn't Judith at all.

She especially didn't want to think it might be someone else.

Someone who should have been home and wasn't.

She ran the last few steps, tossing her head back so her hair would have flown out behind her, if she'd had hair long enough, like Maid Marian's in
Robin Hood.

'Course it wasn't a ghost. And 'course,
of course
it couldn't be Deirdre.

Deirdre was there this afternoon. Driving them nuts.

As Missie raced down the long corridor and into the bathroom she didn't dare look back and no amount of tossing her head could get rid of the feeling that she was mistaken and it wasn't Judith Mae at all.

31

Constable Campbell took up most of the room on the couch. He sat with his knees pointed in opposite directions and his hat on the floor between his feet. Missie was glad it was there. It meant she wasn't going to have to stand too close to him. As it was she hovered so close to her mother that she had to be reminded, by a gentle shove on her shoulder-blades, to step forward.

‘Been down the river today then, kids?'

Missie nodded. Max simply kept his head bent forward and touched the toe of his slipper to the petal of one of the carpet roses.

‘Not a very safe place to play, is it?'

Again Missie nodded. As long as she lived she was never going down there again. Never.

‘What about you, lad? You reckon it's a good place to play?'

Max looked up at him. ‘I hardly ever go there.'

‘But you did today...'

Missie stood waiting. She felt her mother's hand on her shoulder and saw Aunt Belle beckon Max over to sit by her in the big winged chair.

‘Tell me about the bikes.'

Again Missie repeated how she'd walked up the hill and couldn't see Deirdre's bike so she'd thought she'd gone home.

‘And you saw Wally and Errol earlier. Is that right?'

Missie nodded.

‘And Wally went mad because he was worried Errol'd get caught up in the spokes. He said you and Zilla had had a good old laugh about it.'

Missie wished Zilla was here with them now but she was home with her mother in case Deirdre turned up. Although – and Missie quickly turned away from the thought – it was so dark and so late and cold that she couldn't imagine where Deirdre might be that she could turn up from.

‘I reckon he's telling the truth, don't you?'

She thought she should nod and tried but her neck felt so stiff she was sure it'd crack if she tried to bend it.

‘Reckon I'd laugh too,' Constable Campbell said. ‘That Errol is a ratbag of a dog. Well.' He scratched his head. ‘Turns out that Wally wandered back along the path and, when he saw a bike still there he gave it a bit of a shove and sent it sailing down the hill. Did you see him do that?'

‘No.' Missie felt pressure from her mother's hand. ‘No, sir,' she corrected herself.

‘Did you hear it?'

‘No.'

‘And what about you, my fine young man. Hear it? See Wally give it a shove by any chance?'

Max shook his head.

‘Did you see that Mr Shevchenko?' He had to say it slowly like he was reading it for the first time. ‘The one who lives upstairs?'

‘I did,' Missie said. ‘I tried to catch up to him.'

‘I saw him, too,' Max said. ‘He didn't go up the track.'

‘So where did he go?' Constable Campbell said quietly.

Max shrugged. ‘Just over the track and down into all that bush on the other side.'

‘Why d'you think he did that? Any ideas?'

Max twisted the tassel on the end of his dressing-gown cord. He looked across at his mother from under his eyebrows.

‘Well?' she said. ‘Any ideas?'

‘I saw a bloke do a wee in there once...'

Missie felt her face colour as she remembered the stream Lawrence had done into the river.

‘For someone who doesn't go down there very often you know a lot about it,' the constable said.

Max laid the tassel neatly in his lap. ‘This house is so high I can easily see over there from my window. And it happened one time in summer when I was walking along the track to the rowing shed with Mum.'

Right now it was hard to imagine a summer's day with sunlight and slow walks under the poplars. The track ambled around next to the river and, halfway to the pool, opened out onto a little bit of a clearing where the rowing shed was. In summer blokes in singlets climbed aboard and ripped out into the middle of the river like they weren't a bit scared of all the awful brown swirl so close to the rim of their boats.

Perhaps that's where Deirdre was. Perhaps she'd gone down there looking for them and then couldn't find her way back because it was too dark.

And it had begun to rain not long after she'd come in.

Perhaps Deirdre didn't want to get soaked and she'd stayed under the shelter of the rowing shed.

It was raining now. A cold hard winter's rain that blew in gusts against the window. More cars had arrived and Missie could hear their doors slamming and the slush of tyres in new puddles as they turned in the circle at the front door. Men's voices and torchlight punctuated the rain splatter.

‘She might be at the rowing shed.' Her voice had crept out uninvited and now everyone had turned to look at her.

‘Why?' Constable Campbell tucked his hat under his arm and bent down closer. ‘Is that somewhere you like to play?'

Missie shook her head. ‘I just thought she might be there.'

Constable Campbell's hand rested on her head. Like priests did.

‘It's a blessing,' her mother had explained back then when she'd asked. ‘It's a way of saying God loves you and is watching over you.'

She wasn't sure if Constable Campbell was blessing her but she hoped God still loved her even though she hadn't gone to see where Deirdre was and to tell her to get on home after Zilla.

‘These children can go up to bed now, thank you ladies.'

‘Dinner first.' Missie's mother led them towards the kitchen. ‘Come on, Max. Better late than never.'

Missie paused to see if Max was following. She saw him climb out of his mother's chair and head slowly to the door.

Constable Campbell had turned back, though. ‘This Shevchenko chappie,' he said in a quieter voice to Aunt Belle. ‘Could you direct me to his room, please?'

‘I'm here,' Oleksander Shevchenko said from the top of the stairs. His voice also was quiet, and he carried a great, black shiny coat over his arm. ‘I'm very happy to help you. I have taken a torch from John's room, Belle. I am sure this will be all right.'

He continued down to the bottom step and moved to open the door. ‘I need to help with the searching. I should report to someone in charge?'

‘No,' Constable Campbell said and put one enormous hand on the door. ‘You don't need to report to anyone at all, yet. First we'll have a little chat about this afternoon and your time down at the river.'

Missie felt herself being propelled through to the kitchen.

It didn't sound like a little chat to her. Not the sort of chat that they'd just had, anyway.

It sounded a bit like the little chats Miss Martin wanted when she was pretty certain it'd been Jimmy Johnson who'd been up to no good, even though he wasn't telling.

‘Why's Constable Campbell being so bossy with Oleksander?' Missie wanted to know as soon as the kitchen door was shut. ‘He didn't do anything.'

‘It's Mr Oleksander to you and I expect Constable Campbell just wants to double-check if perhaps he'd seen her down there this afternoon.'

‘He'd have sent her home if he had. He doesn't reckon it's safe down by the river. He told me so. Do you know what he said?'

Max was leaning up on the table making little tents with the napkins. He raised his eyes to look up at her, waiting for her to go on.

‘What?' Her mother dished out some vegetable soup and put it down on the table, straightening the napkins and Max as she went.

‘He said he knew a little girl once who'd fallen in a deep river and she got drowned. She went under one of those ... one of those...' She made a sloped line with her arm trying to remember the proper word for the place where boats are moored.

‘Pontoons? Like over at the boat ramp?' her mother said very softly. ‘Oh my goodness.' Her mother stopped dishing up the vegetables. ‘That's awful, Missie. When did he tell you that?'

‘Not long ago. In the hall one night.'

‘People where he comes from can't swim anyway,' Max said. ‘There's snow all the time.'

‘Not all the time.' Her mother put some bread on their plates. ‘They have summer too. Just like here.'

‘Yeah. But they're not like us.'

‘Are so!' Missie said.

‘What would you know?'

As quick as a flash Missie thought of the swap cards. She'd show him! ‘They have swap cards just like us. So there!'

‘Liar!'

‘Am not. He told me and he gave me some. Two for me and two for Zilla.'

‘Probably just bought them down the street,' Max said smugly. ‘He's a loony, anyway. Grown-ups don't have swap cards. Only kids do!'

Her mother leaned between them to pour their tea. ‘That's enough, both of you. Missie, if Mr Shevchenko gave you some swap cards you're very lucky. I hope you remembered to say thank you.' Her mother looked straight at her. ‘And next time someone wants to give you something, check with me first. And you, Max, you're quite right. Mr Shevchenko is not like us. He's not that lucky. In his country people are fighting for their lives and some of them, just some of them, were lucky enough to escape to come and live here with us. Our country is very much safer and happier than where he's come from. You should ask him. I'm sure he'd like to tell you.'

Max didn't say a word.

Missie ate her soup. She dipped her spoon in the side closest to her and Max dipped his on the other side. He tipped his bowl that way as well which was stupid and she was never going to do it.

‘It's because you don't know good manners,' Max had told her way back when she was still learning that Max wasn't anybody's friend and certainly not hers. ‘Ignorant people slop their soup from the wrong side.'

She'd thumped him and got into trouble and Aunt Belle had said that it was, in fact, good manners to eat from the far side of the bowl because, if you spilt it when you tipped, it went across the table and not down into your lap.

La-de-dah! That's what she thought of that!

It was quiet with just the sound of spoons and soup and the slow hiss of the fire and the low rumble of voices from beyond the kitchen door. Missie couldn't make out any words, or Oleksander's voice at all. Just the other one. It was something to do, though, while there was no-one talking at the table.

The kitchen door opened and Oleksander walked in. Constable Campbell stood behind him. ‘I wonder, Mrs Missinger, if you heard Mr, uh, Shevchenko come in this afternoon?'

‘Yes, I did,' her mother answered.

Missie saw her mother look down and a slight frown crease her forehead the way it did when she was trying to remember something. The fingers of one hand opened slightly, too, so the memory, when it flashed by, could be snared and held.

‘I did hear him because I'd gone into the front room to light the fire. It had suddenly turned really cold and the rain was moving in fast.'

‘Do you know what time that was?'

Missie saw her turn, as if the clock could tell her now.

‘I'd have thought it was before Missie came in.' She pressed her hands to her head. ‘But that can't be right can it?'

Nobody spoke. Max looked from one to the other. Missie smiled at Oleksander but his smile in return looked tight and uncomfortable.

‘I did not know Missie was trying to catch me up,' he said to Constable Campbell. ‘But I think I would be home before her. It was raining and I did not go far over the track.'

Constable Campbell ignored him.

‘Did you see him when you came in, Missie?'

‘No.' It confused her. It wasn't polite to ignore someone. Her mother was always getting into her ear about it. ‘I came in here to get a drink and then Mum took me upstairs to run the bath.' It was beginning to sound like Oleks was in trouble which didn't make any sense. He already said he'd come home before her. What difference would it make if he hadn't? He was allowed to wander around down the river if he wanted to. And anyway, he didn't even know Deirdre. Not really. What would he have to do with her not coming home? ‘I'm not allowed to go up Mr–' she took a deep breath to make sure she'd get it right – ‘Shevchenko' s end anyway.'

‘And why's that?'

‘The children aren't to play at that end of the corridor because the guests don't want to be disturbed,' Aunt Belle spoke up. She'd moved further into the kitchen. ‘Apart from that, John sleeps through the day when he's home and it's imperative the children don't wake him.'

Constable Campbell nodded like he wasn't listening and didn't care too much at all.

‘But you do go up that end, don't you?'

Missie felt her face warming up to give her away. How did he know?

‘Your Aunt Belle told me she found you up there once with Mr Shev ... chenko.'

It wasn't exactly that she'd forgotten it. It wasn't important enough to really remember but now, when he said it, she remembered too clearly the sudden pulling away when she'd stumbled and the way Aunt Belle had sent her scurrying. It was a bit like Aunt Belle was seeing something that wasn't happening. Something she'd be so sure about that you almost believed it yourself. Once Miss Martin had come around the corner when Missie had lifted the corner of a topsy-turvy doll to see the Cinderella in her sad clothes instead of her ball gown. It was a doll on display for the fete and Missie knew she wasn't to touch it, but she had no intention of taking it.

None.

But the message in Miss Martin's eyes was clear when she'd been sent packing. It was so damning that Missie almost believed, just for a second, that she had really been about to thieve it away.

‘Aunt Belle found you up there, didn't she, Missie? You were sitting on his knee.'

‘She roused on me,' Missie admitted.

Now her mother turned to look at her.

‘And it's no more than you deserve. Now, Constable Campbell...' Her mother swooped around and began tidying the plates although nobody had really had time to eat yet so they certainly hadn't made a mess. ‘I'm sure you've got better things to do than to stand around listening to our house rules. I'm sorry I can't help you with the time that Oleksander came in. As I said, I would have thought it was before Missie came home but there you are ... not much help at all. If you have any more questions perhaps you could check with Belle. I'm sure she'll be only too happy to fill in any other details you need.'