The Choke Page 15

  The older cop said, ‘Does Raymond Andrew Lee live here?’

  Pop said, ‘I live here.’

  ‘Is your name Raymond Andrew Lee?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does Raymond Andrew Lee live here?’ the older cop asked.

  I looked up at Pop.

  He said, ‘What do you need to know for?’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘You tell me what you want him for.’ Pop’s voice sounded shaky and dry, like the thinnest branch on the gum tree.

  The older cop said, ‘You better let us in, Mr Lee.’

  A smell was coming from Pop. It was the same smell as when the Worlley calf ’s ear was cut off because of infection, the same smell. Pop’s shirt and face were damp. He said, ‘Wait here.’

  I followed him back down the hall.

  Pop called out, ‘Ray!’

  The policemen didn’t do what Pop said; they didn’t wait at the front. They followed us into the house. Ray stepped into the kitchen at the same time as the cops. He said, ‘What the fuck?’ He was tall, his hair shining and black, his face pale.

  The older cop said, ‘Raymond Andrew Lee, you are under arrest for the rape and assault of Stacey Chisholm.’

  I heard Pop gasp.

  ‘You are not obliged to say or do anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you say or do may be used in evidence. Do you understand?’

  Dad touched the inside of his mouth with his tongue. His eyes narrowed. He said, ‘This is bullshit.’ He leaned against the kitchen table and folded his arms.

  ‘We’re not going to talk about that now,’ said the older cop.

  Dad said, ‘Fucken bullshit.’

  The older cop said, ‘Cuff him,’ to the younger cop. Dad’s hand shot out and hit the younger cop in the side of the head.

  Pop said, ‘No, son!’

  The older cop had his gun out and aimed at my dad’s face. He said, ‘Handcuff him!’

  My dad went still when he saw the gun. The younger cop pulled my dad’s hands behind his back, and put the cuffs around his wrists. ‘Fucken bullshit,’ Dad said again. He wasn’t scared. Even then.

  ‘Son, don’t…’ Pop said.

  I heard crying. Was it Stacey? Was it Sherry? It filled the kitchen, louder and louder. But nobody else seemed to hear it; only me. The cops pushed my dad down the hall, both of them behind him, the older cop with a hand on his back; they had to, or he wouldn’t have moved. He would have gone to Bathurst. He would have found his friends to help him. He would have shot both cops and covered their heads with his checked coat.

  I followed them out of the house. Nobody tried to stop me. Pop stayed where he was, sagging against the bench. The cries in my ears grew louder.

  I watched from the front door as the cops pushed Dad down the steps and across the drive to the police car. I was waiting for him to turn his head and see me there. But he didn’t. The younger cop opened the door of the police car and the bigger one put his hand on my dad’s head and pushed him into the back seat.

  The last I saw of my dad was the back of his black-and-red checked coat through the glass of the police car window.

  I stood on Pop’s front steps, the cries in my ears weaving around each other, growing loud enough to reach the forest. What had my dad done? Only the kangaroos and the emus and the possums could tell me, only the cods and the eels and the owls. They were there that night. They’d seen into the darkness of Stacey’s half-built house.

  When I came back inside Pop was still standing at the kitchen bench. He turned around to me. ‘What happened out there, Justine?’

  ‘The cops took Dad,’ I said.

  ‘No. At Stacey’s place on Friday night. What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You were there, Justine. If anything happened you would have seen it.’ I couldn’t find words to say. What did happen out there? I saw the stars, I held Sherry, I heard screaming. Dad woke me and said we had to go. I couldn’t see Stacey anywhere.

  I followed Pop out to Dad’s truck. Pop was talking, saying words under his breath. Ray…Ray…son…Christ…Lizzy…bastards…Stacey Chisholm! Christ! Jesus! He got in the truck and opened the glove box. Pop took out Dad’s Smith and his bullets, then he went back inside to the door that led to the gun cupboard. I listened from the top as he went down the stairs, opened the cupboard and put Dad’s Smith inside it. Soon he came back up the stairs. When he saw me he looked surprised. ‘Christ,’ he said. If I had stood somewhere else, or gone somewhere else, what difference would it have made? The only difference I made was in the breech. That was the only time I could be felt.

  All afternoon Pop sat on his camp chair in front of his fire, the edges of his hands pressed to his mouth. He stared into the flames as if they could take him back to the start, when Lizzy was there. When she might have been able to help.

  On Sunday night I stayed on my bed and barely moved; if I tried to get up the room spun and I wanted to vomit. I didn’t eat. Pop left me alone. When I slept it was Dad who woke me. Get up, Justine. What about Sherry?

  Leave her, put her back in her room, move it.

  27.

  On Monday morning Pop said, ‘I’ll drive you to school.’ He didn’t say why. He got in the truck and said, ‘Come on, Justine.’

  Halfway down the Henley Trail Pop said, ‘Anything happened out there, you would’ve seen it.’ I didn’t know if it was a question or an answer.

  As we came to the school gates Pop looked at the other kids and parents and teachers going through the gate as if they were the Japs. His eyes widened, he looked over his shoulder and back to the front. ‘Off you go,’ he said.

  After I got out of his truck I didn’t wait for Michael at the front, the way I did on other mornings. I took a bottle of milk from the crates and went down to the shelter sheds. I kept my eyes down. When I got to the sheds I sat on the concrete and held my milk.

  In the distance I saw more and more kids arriving. Soon I saw Dawn and Noreena walking towards me, holding their bottles. What did they want? We weren’t even friends anymore. When they got to me, Dawn said, ‘We were looking for you, Justine. What are you doing down here?’ I shrugged.

  ‘I hate this place,’ said Noreena. ‘The boys piss behind the wall.’ She waved her hand in front of her nose. ‘Hey, Jussy,’ she said.

  I looked at the ground.

  ‘Have a good weekend?’

  ‘Did you do anything?’ Noreena smiled.

  ‘Anything fun?’ Dawn asked.

  There was quiet for a while.

  ‘Anything at all?’ Noreena raised her eyebrows.

  My milk bottle felt damp, as if the milk was seeping through the glass.

  ‘Did anything exciting happen?’ Dawn asked.

  Noreena flicked her hair over her shoulder. ‘Yeah. Anything exciting happen?’

  I didn’t answer.

  Noreena said, ‘It’s just that we heard…’

  I looked up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We heard your dad might have…’

  ‘What?’

  Noreena looked at Dawn.

  ‘What did your dad do, Jussy?’ Dawn pulled the lid off her milk bottle and took a sip. ‘We heard he did something. Do you know what it was?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing.’

  Noreena stepped closer. ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yeah, nothing.’

  ‘That’s not what we heard,’ Dawn said.

  ‘We heard they found Stacey in the cattle trough,’ said Noreena.

  We went quiet for a moment. I felt sick.

  ‘Yeah, she nearly drowned. Her head was in the trough,’ said Noreena.

  The ground came up to my face. I leaned back against the shed wall.

  ‘If her uncle hadn’t come over to take a look at her taps,’ said Dawn, wiping milk from her lip, ‘she could have died. That’s what we heard.’

  ‘She wasn’t wearing any clothes,’ Noreena whispered.

&nb
sp; Can you know and not know?

  ‘She could hardly walk and the only thing that kept her going was her baby; she had to get back to the baby,’ said Dawn. The ground tipped again. ‘She had to go to the hospital for stitches. You could see her head where her hair was torn out.’

  ‘Stacey Chisholm had nice hair,’ said Noreena.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Dawn. ‘Her hair was really nice. Jane Tawney did it up for her wedding.’

  ‘She was pretty.’

  ‘Really pretty,’ said Dawn. ‘I saw photos from the wedding. A professional did her make-up.’

  ‘Stacey’s a liar,’ I said. It took all my strength. I had barely enough left to get up and walk away.

  Michael didn’t come to school that day. I looked at the glass square in the door for the top of his head but I never saw it. Kids talked to each other and stared at me and whispered.

  28.

  On Tuesday morning I pulled on the clothes I had worn the day before, then I went straight out the back. Pop hadn’t let the chooks out of the run yet.

  I opened the gate. ‘Hey, girls,’ I said. ‘Hey, ladies.’ The chooks looked at me, heads moving from one side to the other trying to understand why I was there. It was always Pop who opened the gate in the mornings. ‘Come on, girls,’ I said. ‘It’s me letting you out this morning. Pop’s not up yet.’ I lifted my arms and shoo-ed them through. ‘Come on.’ I scooped up a bucket of the good seed from the drum and scattered it over the grass. Pop didn’t like me doing that; it brought the rats. ‘Here, girls; here, ladies.’

  ‘He’ll get seven years for what he did,’ said Matt Dunning as we walked up the path to class. ‘Seven years, easy. Maybe more. It’s up to Stacey; she can choose.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what was happening, what they were talking about, and I did know at the same time. I felt myself shrinking, pulling myself in, layer by layer, so I hardly existed. Only the outside existed. The bell rang for class. I looked around for Michael. What if he didn’t come? What if he was at the hospital for another day? I didn’t think I could stay at school if he wasn’t there. But then I turned and saw Mrs Hooper opening her car door at the school gate. I wanted to run down to the car. There was a lump in my throat. I could only stand and watch and wait. The crutches came out first then Michael followed. When he was on his feet he turned and saw me waiting. He came up the school path as if he wasn’t heading for the school—he didn’t care if the school was there or not; the school could have caught fire behind me, the building in flames, and he still wouldn’t look—he was only heading for me. From the street outside the school Mrs Hooper lifted her hand and waved. She looked sad.

  When he was close I looked into his eyes; they went down deep, like green tunnels. Even though my dad left Stacey in the cattle trough he let me look. As we walked to class Michael didn’t ask me anything about my dad, or what happened at the caravan. He didn’t always need words either; he had learned other ways.

  Michael and me sat at our desk and Michael opened his map book at the desert. The sun came over the dunes. The sand was in waves as if a wind had blown over the surface. There were small purple flowers growing in the sand. There was a picture of a camel with rope from its nose. ‘Mrs Turning,’ said Michael. I stayed close to him all day. The only time I couldn’t see him was when I went to the girls’ toilets. He leaned against the wall, waiting for me.

  At lunch Matt Dunning and Brian Lawson came over to us at the benches. Matt said, ‘Barry Grock’s dad went to jail four years ago for carjacking, and he’s still there.’

  Brian said, ‘If you fight back they keep you there forever, but if you don’t fight back the other prisoners take you down.’

  Michael picked up his crutch and swung it into Brian’s shin.

  Brian jumped back. ‘Hey!’ he said, rubbing his leg.

  ‘Stick you!’ said Michael.

  ‘Freaks,’ said Matt as they walked away.

  29.

  At the end of the last week of school it was the Christmas concert. I walked to the bus stop and waited at Pop’s rock. Pop didn’t come to the concert; he would only visit Sandy. He told the chickens and the walls and the esky and the fire and his White Ox, Can’t trust anybody. Learned that the hard way.

  In the afternoon the whole school was in the hall to do the Christmas play and the songs. Nobody wore their uniforms; everyone wore red and green shirts and shorts and dresses. There were rows of chairs in front of the stage. The parents and grandparents came into the hall, everyone taking a chair. The hall was filled with the whispering parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters, waiting for the concert to start.

  The kids from Mrs Turning’s class came out from behind the curtain. The room, though full, was still; everybody was waiting. Michael stood beside me. I could see his mother and father and his little brother, Nicky, in the front row, holding each other’s hands. Sabine raised her stick, everyone took a breath, lifting our chins to follow the stick. Sabine nodded at us, mouthing the words, ‘Holly and the Ivy’. Mr Briggs played the piano. The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown…Everybody around me sang so loud I didn’t know if I was singing or not. Though I moved my mouth to the words I could remember, I didn’t know if I was singing. I didn’t know what was my own sound.

  But I heard Michael. He sang loud for his mother and father and his brother as they watched him from the front row, their faces alight and open. Michael didn’t care who laughed, who stared, who called him names, spastic elastic hooper drooper crutches retard. He sang as loud as he could, as Sabine waved her stick, her dress bright in green and red, her mouth wide, part in smile, part in song. Michael nudged me. I knew the code of his movements. I took a deep breath, turned to face the front and sang. The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown, of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown! My voice and Michael Hooper’s floated through the windows of the hall, out over the school, and the town of Nullabri, over the trucks and semis and utes along the Murray Valley Highway. O the rising of the sun and the running of the deer, the playing of the merry organ, sweet singing in the choir. Higher and higher our voices rose, floating over the police, over my dad in custody in the city, over Stacey Worlley in the caravan. The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown, of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown. Until everyone who heard lifted their heads and said, ‘It’s Justine and Michael Hooper. Can you hear them singing? Justine and Michael Hooper!’

  After the concert Mr and Mrs Hooper came to their son and took his shoulders and said, ‘Well done! Well done, son.’

  Nicky held onto his brother’s leg.

  I stood to the side and looked at the ground. Did Mr and Mrs Hooper know about my dad? Did they know what happened? Everybody else did. I kept my eyes low.

  Michael said, ‘Justine, come here!’

  Mrs Hooper said, ‘Hello, Justine, how are you?’

  ‘You’re a good friend of Michael’s,’ said Mr Hooper. ‘He’s going to miss you in the holidays.’ I couldn’t say anything or look at him.

  Mrs Hooper stepped towards me and put her arms around me. I went stiff. She pressed me to her.

  30.

  Every morning since Dad went away, when Pop first woke up I saw more of the track between Burma and Siam as if it had been laid on him in the night. It ran from his eyes to his chin, down his neck, then under his clothes and down his legs. The Eastern Bullet could have used his body to transport ammunition. Pop told his cigarette and his tea and the radio. Death Rail was right, Lizzy, and for what? Bastards. We sat at the table and breathed in the smoke from his White Ox. The kindest animal was my friend too.

  Aunty Rita didn’t write me a letter and Pop never came into the house carrying anything for me from the letter box. I took her numbers down from the fan and tried to read them. I didn’t know if they were backwards or forwards. She never rang on the telephone to speak to me. Even on Christmas Day she didn’t ring. Kirk and Steve c
ame around and we ate chicken wings and did a toast to Dad. Relle said, Even when he’s not here, the bastard’s here. When she wiped the tears away from her eyes she left smudges of make-up like green wings out the sides. Kirk said, Cops are pigs, and Steve pulled out his pocketknife and cut the bark off Pop’s tree.

  All day I waited for Aunty Rita to call on the telephone. Is Justine there? Put her on, Pop, the little beauty, tell her it’s her Aunty Rita. No new pyjamas wrapped in brown paper arrived for me; it was as if Aunty Rita’s visit had never been and Aunty Rita wasn’t real. Pop never spoke her name.

  When Relle and Pop went inside, Kirk, Steve and me took it in turns to drag on a White Ox. We didn’t fight about it. We all knew how to suck back the smoke, as if the kindest animal had shown us himself. For one moment, at the top of the suck when our heads were full of smoke, there was no trial, no father in custody, and the words ‘sexual assault’ didn’t drift from the kitchen.

  On Christmas night I dreamed about Aunty Rita. We were swimming at The Choke when the banks on either side of the river reached for each other, squeezing the water out from in between. The land was choking the water. I watched the Murray spill over the red gums, covering the highest branches. Aunty Rita waved to me across the rising water. This way, Justine!

  The next day was Boxing Day. There were beer cans lying on their sides around the fire and pink wrapping paper in the grass from the necklace Kirk and Steve gave Relle.

  ‘Where is Aunty Rita?’ I said to Pop as we gathered kindling by the fence. Pop had a White Ox balanced on his lip. The smoke never stopped coming out of him; he was like a house on fire, smoke drifting from his ears and eyes and out the top of his head, wrapping around his face so I couldn’t see into his eyes.

  Pop said, ‘I don’t have a daughter. There is no bloody Aunty Rita.’ He picked up a stick and threw it in the wheelbarrow.

  I said, ‘Yes, you do.’