The Lost Child (20 page)

Hands under his arms, she tries to help him up. ‘No-o-o-o-o!' he bellows. It is the wail made by calves at cattle sales when they're taken from their mothers. The wail of someone fallen deep down in a well. But somehow Layle lifts him out of the well, jams his hat on his head and moves him to the jeep while he's gabbing at her. ‘I looked away for a minute…just a minute…and when I looked back he'd just disappeared…there one minute and gone the next, how can you explain that? I couldn't find him…I tried…I tell you I tried—'

‘Shhhh,' says Layle, as if she's talking to a baby. ‘It's not your fault, you know that, and it's a long time ago. Come on, get in.'

And somehow he's in the jeep and she's brushing dirt off his face, slamming the door, grabbing her basket from the road and climbing in the driver's side. Another glance at me. ‘It's okay, Sylvie, you can go home now.'

Then they've gone, and the sun has gone, and the road shines white in the fading light. But it's not okay. How could he have looked away for a minute, and then looked back? Dunc was gone three days before they found his sock at the soak. And it hasn't been a long time ago since he disappeared. It's only been one year. So what was Dad talking about? How could he have been there?

Then Pardie goes too. Mrs Winkie tells Mum he'll turn into a juvenile delinquent in the city—if he's not one already—what with his loafing around and not getting a job and wearing bodgie clothes. She says those bodgies and widgies should be sent off to the Nullarbor on a rail gang; that'd soon put a stop to their rocking and rolling. She bites on her Anzac biscuit and crumbs fall onto her chin. Given half a chance, she says she'd be out there marching with the Ban the Bombers because what happened in Hiroshima was just plain wrong. And as for that Khrushchev and his Sputniks; if the Yanks are stupid enough to make it a race, good luck to them. She's never had much time for Yanks, not since the war, when she saw those soldiers on R and R in the city, turning heads with their fancy talk then leaving our girls in the family way to fend for themselves; don't get her started.

Mum sips her tea and sucks on her ciggie, both at the same time. She looks dizzy-eyed, as if Sputniks are spinning close to her ears and she can't think properly.

I think about Pardie at the school fete, just before he left town. Mum didn't come to the fete even though I won first prize for Grade Five flower arranging. Colleen said it was favouritism because Mrs Denver Boland was the judge and my sweet peas came from her garden. So what? They had to come from somewhere. She didn't know Mrs Denver taught me to arrange them on her sunroom table and that the spiky thing in the bottom of the vase belonged to her too.

In the shelter shed, Roy had set up his gramophone and when Lizzie and I arrived, Pardie was dancing with Lizzie's sister, Mary, rocking and swinging and whirly-gigging, better than anyone. Mr Allen was back because Mrs Tucker was sick again, but I'm in Mr Tucker's class so I didn't care. Mr Allen was watching and clapping along with everyone else to ‘Party Doll', and Lizzie and I tried to jive along too but we couldn't get the steps right and just ended up giggling and doing Elvis wiggles. Then I saw Pardie watching us and there was something about those eyes picking me out like a spotlight that made me stop dancing.

Next thing, Mr Allen's gone back to the city and Pardie's left town without Rastas, or his
Loving You
LP. Only a pile of comics on our back step. Not even a goodbye.

I hide in the kurrajong tree. Bridie Maguire stumbles past, tripping all over the road from too many shandies in the pub. I drop itchy pods onto her head but she has the luck of drunks and lurches away from every one of them. I hide from Lizzie, who walks arm in arm with Faye Daley under my tree, their long-legged shadows leading them down the road. I hide from Mum at the back door, her strangled scream. ‘Sylvie! Where are you?' Another scream. ‘Sylvie!'

On my leg I have a school sore with a thick brown scab. I pick at the scab and loosen it; I pick around the edge and let the blood ooze out. Smoke from the stove curls through the tree. It smells of black crows and turnip weed. Mum runs at the clothesline, pulls off sheets and tucks them under her chin, folds them in four and then four more. Blood trickles down my shin and drips onto the bark.

Mrs Winkie persuades Mum to go to the Institute on Sunday to hear Billy Graham.

‘Billy who?'

‘The evangelist. It'll do you good.'

We put on our best dresses. Mum wears gloves, stockings, high heels and a little pink hat, the whole bit. Her hair has grown back and she's had a fluffy perm: she looks like a pink carnation on long-stemmed sandal shoes. Mrs Winkie has saved us seats. On the back of her head she wears a feathered hat that looks like a green lorikeet.

It is standing room only with everyone squashed onto the blue chairs where yesterday Lizzie and I saw
Pillow Talk
and
Ma and
Pa Kettle
. The Daleys are there, but no Uncle Ticker or Grannie: Catholics are not meant to come but I'm half-Methodist because of Mum. Next to me is Mrs Bullfrog Fraser, but no Bullfrog. Chicken and Roy are in the front row with Sid and Grandma McCready. When Lizzie gives Chicken a wave, her mother slaps her hand down and says it's the same as being in church and keep that in mind.

On the stage, a huge poster of Billy Graham hangs over the screen. He is not like old Father Brennan or the Methodist minister. He has lovely golden-brown curly hair, sparkling blue eyes, perfect white teeth, a real movie star smile. Mrs Bullfrog shifts and sighs but we don't have long to wait: soon a minister from the Mount leads us in the Lord's Prayer, then Billy's voice comes preaching out of the speakers.

‘And this great crowd here today is due to the spiritual hunger of
thousands of people in this age of despair and discouragement. Nations
are arming themselves to the teeth with hydrogen bombs, shaking their
fists at each other, and it seems the world is about to come to an end…'

It's the first American voice I've heard, except in the movies and singers like Elvis and Jerry Lee. But Billy Graham's voice is different, strong and syrupy like honey bees feeding off wattles on a spring day. There's not even a cough or shuffle.

‘
Many of you have come here with spiritual hunger and thirst.
Many are here with burdens that cannot be lifted, problems that
seemingly are too great to master. And you're searching for an answer.'

It feels as if he's speaking just to me. Maybe it's the same for Mrs Bullfrog because when I sneak a look, her mouth's hanging open as if she's died and gone to Heaven. Mum has shiny eyes as if she's trying not to cry. Even Lizzie is staring at Billy's poster in the same way that she drools over her
Love Me Tender
poster of Elvis on her bedroom wall.

‘I tell you there's going to be a resurrection and all of those
loved ones of yours who have died in the past in Christ, they're going
to be raised. And there's going to be a glorious and grand reunion
that day.'

There are tears trickling down Mum's cheeks. Is she wondering if Dunc is going to be raised? And if he died in Christ, and what if he didn't? What if he believed in apes like Dad? I will not worry about this because I know that he is alive and one day he will be found. The music wells up and Billy Graham's voice is reaching out and filling me with something big and fluttering.

‘Now Christ doesn't promise to take your troubles away…but he
promises a new dimension to your life, new strength, a new power…if
you are willing to receive him.'

A ripple seems to run right through the Institute and Billy Graham says: ‘
By this open acknowledgment today, you're saying I
receive Christ openly in front of everyone as my saviour and my Lord.
You get up and come quickly from everywhere.'

Beside me, Mum stands and I do too, without even thinking. But Mrs Winkie hisses at Mum: ‘You don't have to go, Nella, not if you already believe.' And Mum sits down again. But Lizzie is pushing along the row and I'm following. I look around and see everyone's shuffling up to the front and I've got Mrs Bullfrog pushing behind me, so I squeeze past Mum and Mrs Winkie and join everyone else in the aisle with Billy saying:
‘Hundreds are
coming from everywhere. There's plenty of time, just take your time.
What a glorious moment this is.'
As I shuffle forward, it seems as if I'm drawn along on strings until I reach the stage and the minister from the Mount blesses me. I feel it's a magic moment, a great wave, and I know that Dunc will be found, I just know. I float back to my seat with everyone smiling and some people crying, some standing right there and cuddling each other and, although Lizzie and I don't do any of that, I feel everything will be fine from now on because God is on my side: Dunc will come home, Mum will go out more and be the same as other mothers, I will stop picking my shin.

‘It's a private thing,' says Mum on the way home. ‘You can believe without making a spectacle of yourself.'

*

‘I'm almost ten, I don't need you to wash me.'

She bends over the bath until her nose is almost touching my leg. ‘It was getting better. What've you done to it?'

She yanks my ankle out of the water and plants it on the edge of the bath. ‘Don't,' I say, trying to yank it back.

‘Have you been touching this?'

I pat it with the flannel. ‘I'm touching it now.'

‘Get out.' Her voice has that poker sound that warns me not to press her. She tells me it's probably infected and asks if I'm pleased with myself. She says how do I think she's going to get time off work to take me to a doctor?

In bed, my fingers pick at the plaster strip that she's stuck on the wound. That's what she calls it.
The Wound.
As if I'm a soldier, as if I'm at war. I think of Mr Patchett kicking Chicken's old dog off his shop veranda: how he did this after he stood next to me at Billy Graham and was blessed. I think of being a saviour in Christ and the glorious and grand reunion day. So why hasn't Dunc been found? And when is it going to happen?

And why don't I feel special anymore? Why do I feel as if I've drifted away from myself and can't feel anything? I rub and rub on my skull ring; I rub until it is hot on my finger. Then I give up and lift the plaster from my shin. I pick all around the edge. I feel the rip of skin.

On the train Mum tries not to look at me because I'm the reason she'll miss a day's pay and money doesn't grow on trees. My wound is definitely infected, that's what she says. All the ointment in the world won't fix it. And what's wrong with me?

At Muswell, she pulls me along Main Street and into the doctor's surgery where we flick through magazines. When it's our turn, instead of old Dr Jeffries there's a new doctor with a wispy moustache; he's perched on the corner of his desk as if he knows Mum already.

‘How are you, Nella?'

‘Getting there,' says Mum, smiling at him. The name on his door is Dr Richard Sorenson. And her smile is the same shy, flirty smile that Roy sometimes gives me. Then I notice her new Sunray pleated skirt, her best twin-set, her strand of Mikimotos. ‘It's about Sylvie's leg,' she begins and, before I can even open my mouth, she tells him it started out as a school sore, that I fell out of a tree and grazed it some more and the scab came off and it just won't heal. The whole time she's telling him this, her eyes are warning me not to speak.

Dr Sorenson tells me to climb up on the bed. He has short clipped nails and smells of soap and mints. Before I have time to wince, he rips off the plaster. ‘Goodness,' he says, ‘how did it get like this?'

For a moment, I wonder myself. It looks like someone else's leg. Again Mum goes on about what she's done to dress it. She doesn't mention I've had it on and off for almost two years, or that she's tried tying mittens on me at night but I still get them off.

‘Odd shape,' he says as he swabs it. Then he tells Mum to come and watch because she'll have to dress it herself every second day.

Mum looks as if she likes standing next to him. I can hear him breathing through his moustache, her breathing too, as soft as when she's sleeping next to me. I cough loudly and he tells me to sit still.

‘I want it left alone,' says Dr Sorenson when he's finished, looking straight at me. ‘Understand?'

‘What about school?' I say in a fluster.

‘Hop down,' he says. I limp across the carpet. ‘If you can walk, you can go to school,' he says, smirking at Mum.

Mum nods and crosses her knees like the women in the waiting-room magazines. And sure enough, when he hands her the prescription, she gives him another flirty smile. As soon as we're on the footpath, she lights up a ciggie and stands there sucking for her life. At first I think she's trying to decide how to fill in time until the train arrives. Then I see her staring at a car parked in the gutter, a spiffy red MG Sports with silver-spoke wheels and a black canvas hood.

It's his! I know it is. Straightaway, I see him driving around town with the hood down, flashing around corners and speeding along Muswell Road. Mum's sitting next to him, laughing her head off, her perm a mass of wild curls blowing about in the breeze. Worse, I'm standing alone on the footpath, not knowing what to do.

‘Whose car is that?' I ask.

‘How would I know?' She stubs out her ciggie with the toe of her high pink sandal. ‘And why are you wearing that ring all the time? Don't think I haven't seen.'

PART THREE

17

After a while I forget things. The colour of Dunc's hair, his eyebrows and ears: unless I look at a photo, I can't remember him having any ears at all. Mum forgets worse than I do. She says she's got huge blanks because of what they did to her in the hospital; you can forget a lot with electricity but some things you never forget. She says no one knows what it's like to have a lost child, it's supposed to get easier but it doesn't, and she never stops thinking.