Time's Long Ruin (33 page)

Back on the esplanade, Harry sat down on a bench beside Dad. ‘I saw them,' he said.

‘When?' Dad asked.

‘Three, or soon after. They were walking down Semaphore Road.'

‘With anyone?'

‘No.'

Dad sat back. ‘There couldn't have been someone following them, or waiting in a car?'

‘I don't think so, they were walking at full speed. I said hello and Janice said they were headed home. Didn't think to ask how. Just supposed Bill or Liz were picking them up.'

‘It was definitely them?'

‘Without a doubt.'

‘They had a bag?'

‘Janice – a big one.'

‘They were dressed?'

‘I think.'

‘Did it look like they'd been swimming?'

Harry stopped to think. ‘Yes.'

‘Okay, thanks, Harry.'

‘You are gonna find them, aren't you, Bob? Janice was a real character.'

‘We've got hundreds out.'

Harry shook his head in disbelief. ‘All three. Where did they go? You can't steal three kiddies, Bob. One of them woulda got loose, surely. When I saw them in the paper . . . How's Liz?'

‘Sedated.'

‘Bill?'

Dad pointed towards the playground.

‘I should go say something,' Harry continued.

‘Leave it,' Dad replied. ‘I'll tell him this, eh?'

‘Thanks. Best of luck, Bob. How's Henry?'

‘Fine, thanks Harry.'

And Harry was off, riding over the grass, dispersing a flock of seagulls. Bert came out of the caravan and sat next to him. ‘What's up?' he asked.

Dad told him about the sighting and Bert shook his head. ‘So, where's our mystery man?'

Dad looked at him. ‘Who?'

‘The fella in the blue bathers?'

‘Either it wasn't him or he left them and picked them up afterwards, so he wouldn't be seen leaving with them. Unless there was someone else.'

‘Anyway,' Bert added, ‘why would you be worried about that if half of Adelaide's just seen you playing on the grass with them?'

‘Or was the stuff at the beach quite innocent?' Dad mused. ‘Maybe someone else picked them up. Someone who saw them walking home, hurrying, who guessed they were late and sure to accept a lift.'

Bert shook his head. ‘That's quite a coincidence, two separate men. Unless the first had something to do with the second. Fella in the blue bathers goes to the phone: Hey, listen, whoever, I just met some very nice little kiddies. Whoever replies: Where are they now? First one says: Headin' down Semaphore Road.'

Dad stretched his head back. ‘No, something simpler.'

‘Not necessarily.'

‘Maybe the fella in the blue bathers leaves them. But later he thinks, Why not? Goes back and they've gone. Looks for them. Meets them further down Semaphore Road.' He stopped. ‘God knows. Maybe they're just lost. Maybe they're wandering around Ethelton.'

‘You reckon?'

‘No.'

Taman Shud. The End. Dad was staring into the plaster bust again. ‘Christ, it must have been him. Patterson must be wrong.'

Bert wiped his forehead and sighed. ‘The good thing is, it was busy. Lots of people are coming forward. All we need are a few more bits and pieces.'

‘Like our mate at Somerton?' Dad asked.

‘That's different.'

‘Is it?'

‘I think we should release this fella's description.'

‘Coulda been him. Coulda been Robert Menzies. Everyone's lookin' for a tall, blond guy when the real culprit – '

‘We'll explain, say it's just one option. People will understand.'

Dad looked at him, unsure.

‘We gotta try,' Bert pleaded.

Dad lifted his hands into the air, his palms facing upwards as he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Okay, go see Jim. Tell him we want a new press release.'

Bert stood up and took out his notepad.

‘Go tell that Scottish prick first,' Dad said.

Bert walked off. Dad watched as Bill talked to parents in the playground. He stood up and walked over, determined to tell him what the postie had seen, and to make it sound like good news.

On top of everything else, my principal was at the Rileys' front door. ‘Michael Coulson,' he called down the hallway. ‘The girls' principal. Anyone home?'

I sat in the lounge room, unwilling to answer the door. Let him stew, I thought. Liz, Mum and Rosa were in the backyard and I was running things now. I watched his reflection in the sliding-glass door as he went to loosen his tie but then thought better of it. He was holding a casserole dish that he put down on the verandah so he could hitch up his pants. His shoulders sagged. At school, at lunchtime, he'd patrol the yard with a stoop, as though he was piggybacking a small African elephant. He'd stop and sit on a fallen log. He'd take out a handkerchief and wipe his forehead. Then he'd cough up phlegm and spit on the ground. He'd examine it, frowning, smiling, and raising his eyebrows with surprise and delight.

‘Hello, anyone home?' he called.

Mum came in the back door. ‘Coming.' She walked up the hallway, stopped at the lounge-room door and looked at me. ‘You could've got that.' Then she took a few more steps and opened the screen door.

‘Hello?' she smiled. ‘Mister Coulson?'

‘Michael.' He extended his hand and she shook it. ‘You're Henry's mum?'

‘Ellen Page.'

‘Nice to see you again. I've come to see Missus Riley. I couldn't believe it when I saw it in the paper.'

‘Come in,' Mum said, opening the door.

Please, no, I thought. Take him out the back.

‘If you want to wait in the lounge,' Mum continued. ‘I'll get Liz.'

‘I've brought a casserole. My wife made it this morning. It's a curry, a mild one.' Mr Coulson walked into the lounge. ‘Hello, Henry, how are you? Of course, you're friends with Janice. You were in her class, weren't you?'

‘Yes,' I replied, watching his stomach squeeze out over his belt as he sat down.

‘Well, it won't be long now, eh? They'll find them soon.'

Then Mum did the unthinkable: she left me alone with my principal.

‘You had a good holiday?' he asked.

I nodded. ‘We went to Goolwa.'

‘We?'

‘Me, Janice, Anna and Gavin.'

‘Ah.' He paused to think. ‘Lots of things could've happened. They could've got lost.' Trailing off, trying to sound like he actually believed it. Still, that's what teachers do, I figured. Spin stories: Archimedes jumping out of his bathtub, pyramids made out of one-ton blocks, long division and grammar.

‘Everything ready for school?' he asked, awkwardly.

‘I suppose.'

‘What grade are you in now?'

‘Six.'

‘Big day Monday?'

And then I just looked at him. ‘I'm not going to school Monday,' I said.

He lifted his eyebrows. ‘That's understandable. Still, it'll be cleared up by then.'

‘How do you know?'

He looked at me fiercely, as though I'd crossed some invisible line.

‘This happens all the time,' he said.

‘Not what my dad reckons. He's a detective.'

‘Well . . .'

‘If they were lost, they would've been found by now.'

‘I don't know about that.'

I stared at him, but he tried not to look at me. He pulled the foil tight over the top of his curry. ‘Come on, Henry,' he whispered quietly. ‘There's no need for that.'

Which was his way of trying to be principal on my turf.

‘They'll find them, it'll all be cleared up. You and Janice, you in the same class again? I think you've both got Mister Meus.'

‘Who's Mister Meus?'

‘New chap, Italian fella, bloody nice . . . very nice.'

‘But I won't be there.'

He stared at me, and I returned his stare, plus some. Mum, Rosa and Liz came into the room. Mr Coulson stood up. ‘Missus Riley?'

‘Liz.'

‘I'm Michael Coulson, from Croydon Primary. I just came to say – '

‘They're still looking,' Liz interrupted. ‘Hundreds of them. Bill rang and told me. Isn't that great?

‘Absolutely. If they're out there . . .' He stopped, realising he'd have to choose his words. ‘Several teachers rang me this morning. They're all very concerned. Some were going to come but I said it would be better . . . you've obviously got a lot to deal with.' He stopped again, realising he was sounding like a newspaper columnist. ‘Anyway, I thought you'd be too busy to cook, so my wife made you this curry, a mild one.' He presented the casserole like some sort of consolation prize, and Mum took it.

‘Thank you,' Liz said, sitting down, staring out of the window, remembering where she was and looking at Mr Coulson. ‘This time yesterday, they were already on the train,' she managed.

‘What have the police said?' Mr Coulson asked.

‘They're still looking. Hundreds of them – Boy Scouts, firemen, everyone.' Then she looked out of the window again.

‘Would you like a coffee?' Mum asked Mr Coulson.

‘No, I won't keep you.'

‘It's no bother. White?'

‘No . . . yes . . . white, two sugars.'

Mum carried the curry from the room like a communion cup. I took the opportunity to escape, darting down the hallway, barging through the screen door and hobbling across the yard. I settled in behind a rosemary bush, sitting with my legs hunched up under my chin as a few neighbours walked past, slowing and staring in the front door. But they didn't hear the screaming or see the commotion I suppose they expected, so they passed on. A few cars slowed, and heads turned and looked at the house, mouths flapping and fingers pointing out the poor kiddies' house, looking so normal, like everyone else's. They would have to find other ways of observing the Rileys' suffering, of tasting their despair without swallowing it, of hearing and smelling and touching what they'd all known in imperceptibly small doses. 7A as a nightmare. A fairytale. A morality tale. A horror story with wilting agapanthus.

I turned around and saw Rosa's legs. They were hairier than usual. Her corns had split the sides of her black satin slippers and the soles had come away. Her dress, again black, had come unpicked at the hem. ‘Should we look for them?' she asked.

‘Okay,' I smiled, climbing out from behind the bush.

We walked to the playground, sat on a bench and watched as a boy in shorts sat on a swing, twisted it and let it unravel. We laughed when he stood up, stumbled a few steps and then fell over, narrowly missing a pole.

‘I never even thought of this,' I said, suddenly.

‘What?' Rosa asked.

‘That someone could just disappear.'

Dogs disappear, I thought. People tape notices to Stobie poles, without ever expecting to see them again. Dogs get knocked over by cars and people run over them until they're just a red stain on the road. And then the rain washes them away. And sometimes people's relatives disappear. When they're a bit loopy. Found wandering barefoot beside highways. Taken to asylums and forgotten. But every time there's a reason, I guessed. Someone's dad running off with a girl twenty years his junior. Bill had a song about that.

But this was different. This was a UFO: a metal disk floating across the sky supported by fishing line. The
Marie
Celeste
. Dan O' Mara, the Irishman working on the Overland Telegraph who walked into the bush and just disappeared. This was the
x
in algebra. And yet there was no mathematical means of solving this equation. It was God's fault. We'd all been to church. Janice had even prayed under the healing tree, kneeling on grass so dead it had become dirt. We were semi-regulars at St Barnabas'. So what? If there was a secret, God wasn't letting on.

‘It's only been a day,' Rosa said.

‘I should've gone with them,' I managed. ‘Janice asked me.

If there were four of us – ' I lowered my head and, for the first time, I cried. They were gone, and I was part of the reason why. I sobbed. I fitted. Rosa pulled me close and buried my head in the gap between her arm and body. The boy in the long shorts looked and Rosa stared at him. He returned to the swing and continued twisting himself.

‘No,' Rosa hushed, ‘whatever it was, it wasn't your fault. It would've happened. We might have lost you too.'

‘I'd rather that,' I gasped.