Текст книги "On the Jellicoe Road "

Автор книги: Melina Marchetta

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Chapter 11

It is dark, surreally dark, and I’m hanging upside down from the tree. My legs are hooked over a branch and my arms stretched as far as they can go. From upside-down I see the silhouette of the boy, but this time he is on the ground.

“If I fall, will you catch me?” I call out to him.

He doesn’t answer and begins to walk away. I feel myself slip. One leg first, the position so painful that I am perspiring like hell.

“Hey!” I call out again. “Will you catch me?”

He turns around. “Catch yourself, Taylor.”

I can no longer hold on. My scream hurts my own ears. The ground comes quickly and I hit it with a sickening thud.

I avoid the House front. I notice that most of the students have started eating dinner in their rooms. Probably to avoid me. The common area is empty and silent. News has already hit the streets that I’m losing control of my House and Richard is all ready to take the reins.

I begin to develop a pattern. During the day I hide outside Hannah’s house. The peace I feel here is overwhelming. Monkey Puzzle trees and rose bushes are scattered all around and the result is a mix of scents and colour and sounds of birds flying low and nature in such perfect harmony that it seems wrong that the very person who created it is nowhere to be found.

There’s a point just outside Hannah’s house where the river makes a sand bar. I sit there often and one day I see Jonah Griggs standing on the bank on the other side, against a gum tree. I don’t know what to feel. For a moment it seems like the most natural thing in the world for him to be there, for one of us to call out a hey rather than ignore or accuse each other. The distance between us is no more than twenty metres and neither of us move for what seems like hours. There is a question in his eyes; I can see. That and something more. I can hear the ducks in the distance but no one stirs, except for the finches, which have no idea about the territory wars and boundaries. They leave my side and make their way over to his, as if to say, “Don’t involve us in this; we’re just enjoying the view.”

At night the Prayer Tree becomes my shrine. I spend most of my time searching the carvings on the trunk while the rest of the world is dead silent, sinister phantoms seemingly absent from their sleeping dreams. Unlike mine. I look for anything. Links, I’d call them. There are phrases that sound like song lyrics and the biblical references are there and as I shine my torch on every single carving, I come across another piece of the puzzle. I find the names. Narnie. Jude. Fitz. Webb. Tate.

All scattered but there. Like they exist, not just in Hannah’s imagination but in real life. A little voice tells me that the Prayer Tree could easily be the inspiration for her story but I know deep down it’s more than that. Worse still, one of them is dead. I know that from the story. And I grieve like I’ve known them all my life. I copy down the song lyrics and back in my room I enter the words in a search engine. I find the bands and the songs and in one there’s a line about Brigadoon and a rain-dirty valley that reminds me of something in Hannah’s manuscript. I download them all, creating a soundtrack of the past. When I finally hear the song that the boy in the tree in my dreams plays to me, I cry for the first time since being on the train with Jonah Griggs. I wrap myself in the music, curled up in my bed, thinking of Hannah, eyes wide open, forcing myself to keep awake. Unlike Macbeth, who has sleep taken away from him, I take sleep away from myself. And Hannah’s sick pathetic cat sits in the corner, still huddled in its state of fear.

Chapter 12

Over the weekend Ben gets word through Raffaela that the Townies and Cadets want to meet at the scout hall in town. It’s about the last thing I want to do but these days I can’t give Richard any more of an excuse to take over and I certainly don’t want to be at home.

I don’t talk much on the walk there. Ben keeps on stealing glances at me, about to say something a few times and then changing his mind before finally giving in.

“Rough week?”

I shrug.

“Raffy’s worried that the Townies and Cadets will have more to bargain with,” he says.

“I don’t think Raffaela has much faith in me.”

“Well, you’re wrong,” he says, serious for a change.

“I don’t think anyone in my House does.”

He grabs my arm gently and stops me from walking any farther. “Don’t say that. Because I know it’s not true.”

“You weren’t there this week, Ben,” I say quietly.

“No, but they told me stuff and all I remember hearing was concern in their voices. And I remember something else. Hanging out with you and Raffy in year seven, skating around that Evangelical church car park. All those Christians were praising the Lord at the top of their voices and you stopped for a moment and asked us, ‘Who do you believe in?’ I wanted to be all mystical and Mr. Miyagi-like from The Karate Kid. Do you remember what Raffy said?”

But we reach the scout hall and I see Raffaela waiting there for us.

“People like Raffy don’t lose faith,” he says quietly as we walk in.

Santangelo and the Mullet Brothers, who are clutching guitars, are sitting on the stage and then Jonah Griggs enters with his second-in-command, Anson Choi, and we all sit down at a trestle table.

“You guys don’t seem happy,” Santangelo says.

“It was a long walk. We need some of those trails,” I say.

“I’ve got a proposition, so can we begin?” Santangelo asks.

“It would be smart of you,” Griggs tells him. “Because out of everyone here you’ve got the least to offer.”

There’s a silence between them and I know that at any minute there will be a full-on brawl.

“Wouldn’t you say that letting any of you walk down our streets on weekends is a great deal to offer?” Santangelo threatens icily.

“You can’t control that. Too many of us belong here,” Raffaela says.

“You haven’t belonged here for years.” He sneers.

“What are you implying?” Raffaela asks, and I see hurt there as well as anger.

“Accusing, not implying. Would you like me to point out the difference?” he asks.

“He beats me in one spelling bee and now he’s Mr. Intellectual,” she says, looking at me as if I’m really going to get involved in this ridiculous exchange. “In second grade,” she continues. “Get over it, Chaz!”

“Are we finished?” Griggs asks politely. “Because we’d like to get into a discussion about having access to at least one of the water ways.”

I look at him, shaking my head. “No chance. It’d be like cutting off our hands.”

“Then learn to live without your hands.”

“No, because then we won’t be able to do this,” Ben says, giving him the finger. Jonah Griggs calls him a little bastard and almost leaps across the table and everyone’s either pulling both of them back or swearing or threatening.

“Let’s talk about the Club House!” Santangelo says forcefully.

“Then talk!”

“I don’t want to talk about the Club House,” Griggs says. “We want water access. That’s what we’re here for.”

Santangelo is shaking his head. “You know what you are? You are a—”

“What? Say it!”

They are both on their feet now, fists clenched and it’s on for young and old. Yet again.

“Santangelo!” I yell above it all. “The proposition. Now. Or we walk and we are not coming back. Ever.”

It takes him a moment to calm down and I point to the chair.

“No interruptions,” he says, sitting down. He stares at Raffaela and I turn to her and put my finger to my lips. She takes a deep breath and nods, as if it’s the most difficult thing she’ll ever have to do. Anson Choi gets Jonah Griggs back into his chair and it’s semi-calm again.

“Okay. Seniors only and that means year eleven. We open three nights a week, hours eleven thirty to two A.M. Cover charge five dollars. No more than a hundred people per night. For each of those nights, one of us is in charge so that means organising entertainment, food, alcohol, et cetera.”

“Alcohol is an issue,” I say. “First, how do we get hold of it, and second, what happens when some moron gets plastered, breaks his neck trying to get back into dorms and Houses or…tents, or drives back to town under the influence? The teachers will be on us like flies and we’ll get stuck inside forever.”

“She’s got a point.” This from Jonah Griggs. “Anyway, Cadets signed a contract saying no drugs or alcohol while we’re out here. If we get caught, it’s zero tolerance expulsion.”

“Where’s the fun?” Ben asks.

“It’s not as if we have to give up alcohol, Ben,” Raffaela says. “We never had it in the first place.”

“But if we’re going to socialise and there’s going to be live music….”

“Hold on, hold on. What live music?” Santangelo asks.

“As if there isn’t,” one of the Mullet Brothers argues. “We’ve got a band…kind of.”

“What you have is not a band. It’s two guitarists,” Santangelo says to them.

The Mullet Brothers are offended beyond words, staring at Santangelo as if he has betrayed them, and without even having to consult each other they turn and walk away towards the stage in a huff.

“Let’s get back to the plan and work out the lack of entertainment later,” Jonah Griggs says. “We might contemplate sharing the Club House, but it’s them that control most of the space around it.”

Then they’re all looking at me. “Seventy foreigners on our land three nights a week? That’s a lot to agree to.”

“Plus access to the river,” Jonah Griggs persists.

On the stage the Mullet Brothers are rehearsing and the amps are so loud we can hardly hear ourselves.

“I want to know one thing,” I say. “What’s in this for me? For us?” I say, pointing to Ben, hoping he likes the fact that I’m using his line. Except Ben is too wrapped up in what’s happening on stage.

“Put the amps on two. It’ll sound better,” he calls out to them, as if they asked him.

“Ben?” I say, looking at him, reminding him why we’re here. I can tell by the expression on his face that I’ve lost him for the afternoon.

“And put the electric guitar amps lower than the bass amps!” Choi shouts out. Jonah Griggs doesn’t say anything to him. Just stares.

“Find us a venue where we don’t have to put up with this crap,” I say, standing and starting to leave.

“I know the perfect venue,” Santangelo calls out. “It’s called the Club House.”

I swing around. “Once more with feeling. What’s in it for me?”

I realise Ben isn’t even following me. He’s already close to the stage, arguing with Choi and the Mullet Brothers about the amps.

Instead, Jonah Griggs and Santangelo are standing there, almost side by side. Almost.

“Information,” Santangelo says. He has that look again, as if he wants to tell me something but doesn’t know how. He shakes his head, like he’s changed his mind.

“Chaz? What?” Raffaela snaps.

“Nothing.”

“Well, call me when you’ve got something,” I say, walking away again.

“The Brigadier knew your mother,” Jonah Griggs says, dropping what he knows is a bombshell.

I don’t want to stop, but I do. Because I can’t believe his audacity and I’m curious to see where he’s going with this.

“Do you want me to let you in on a little secret?” I say. “Lots of men knew my mother. So don’t go there.”

“You wanted to go there three years ago,” he says, walking towards me.

We are so close we’re almost touching. My fists are clenched at my side, and I’m trying to find the right words.

“Oh, so you think I’m still that person I was on the train?” I say, seething with anger. “My needs have moved on, thank you very much. It’s what happens when you’re betrayed.”

He doesn’t even flinch. “What I know is a whole lot more than I did back then and I can tell that this dickwit knows something about you, too,” he says, glancing at Santangelo. “And I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re still an emotional mess looking for your mother and you know that if you find her, you’ll find your father as well. So let’s talk about river access and the Club House,” he continues coolly, “and I’ll tell you what you’ve been desperate to find out for most of your life.”

I’m staring at him, so angry I can barely speak. “You know what I’m desperate to know, Griggs?” I spit at him. “What did you use on your father? Was it a gun or a knife?”

The room goes sickeningly silent except for the sound of Choi’s footsteps hurrying towards us, like he knows what Griggs’s next move is going to be. But he is too slow, because Griggs has me pinned against the wall, my feet dangling so that we’re eye to eye.

Ben is on him and then Santangelo. Raffaela is clutching onto me but I don’t break eye contact with Griggs. Choi shakes a finger at me, like he’s saying that my time will come and then pulls Griggs away and they walk out.

Ben, Santangelo, and Raffaela are looking at me in shock.

“Are you insane?”

I don’t know who asks and I don’t answer because I feel nothing but a need to get away from everyone. Instinct tells me to go to Hannah’s, but she doesn’t live there anymore and that’s when I realise the major difference between my mother and Hannah. My mother deserted me at the 7-Eleven, hundred of kilometres away from home.

Hannah, however, did the unforgivable.

She deserted me in our own backyard.

As I walk back to the school on my own, I realise I’m crying. So I go back to the stories I’ve read about the five and I try to make sense of their lives because in making sense of theirs, I may understand mine. I say their names over and over again. Narnie, Webb, Tate, Fitz, Jude; Narnie, Webb, Tate, Fitz, Jude; Narnie, Webb, Tate, Fitz, Jude; Narnie, Narnie…

“Narnie! Open the door, Narnie, please!”

Webb’s face had a sick pallor. Tate held on to him, crying, while Fitz paced the corridor outside Narnie’s room.

“Get out of the way,” Jude said, pushing Webb aside. He pounded on the door over and over again. “Fucking open it, Narnie.”

After a while they heard the click of the lock and Jude yanked it open before she could change her mind.

“Narnie?” Webb said, holding her. “Don’t do that to us. Please.”

“What did you take?” Tate asked, shaking her gently.

“Panadol. I had a headache,” she murmured.

“How many?”

“I need to sleep,” she said. “If I sleep, everything will be better.”

Webb led her to the bed and Tate sat down beside her.

Jude watched them fussing over her like they always seemed to. He remembered the story Webb had told him about Narnie in the car on the night of the accident. It was after Fitz had come by to free them. How Narnie was stuck, frozen with fear, refusing to move. Narnie the fragile one who couldn’t cope with living.

“If you’re going to kill yourself, don’t do it until tomorrow night at ten,” Tate said.

“Promise?” Webb begged.

“I had a headache and it wouldn’t go away. That’s why I rang you, Webb.”

“Cross your heart, hope to die.”

“But she does hope to die,” Jude snapped.

“She knows what I mean,” Tate said.

Narnie crossed her heart.

“That’s not where her heart is,” Jude said bitingly.

“Scano, leave it,” Webb said tiredly.

“Well, it’s not. She just crossed her shoulder blade. What kind of a suicide victim are you, Narnie, when you don’t even know where the life force is that you’re dying to squash? Right here.” He poked her in the heart. “You want to do it properly, you make sure you get yourself right there.”

Narnie looked at him and he felt a wave of self-hatred, but he didn’t care.

“You’re an arsehole, Jude. Big time,” Tate said, almost in tears, putting an arm around Narnie.

“Yeah, I probably am. But I can’t be a part of this deal-making. Screw you, Narnie. If you die, a big chunk of us dies with you.”

He slammed out of the room and even Fitz seemed speechless.

Narnie curled up on the mattress and Tate lay beside her. “We’ll see you guys tomorrow,” she told them.

Webb leaned over, kissing Narnie and then Tate.

“You can keep Chairman Meow with you,” he said, snuggling the cat in next to Narnie before leaving.

Tate smoothed her brow. “Maybe it’s a good idea not to go to sleep for a while.”

“I can’t stay awake.”

“I’ll tell you about To Kill a Mockingbird. You might get in trouble if you don’t read it for English by tomorrow,” Tate said. “Do you remember what you’re up to?”

Narnie thought for a moment and then nodded. “Atticus makes Jem read to the old woman.”

Tate settled in next to her. “Well,” she began, “Mrs. Dubose is really nasty. She lives next door and calls out to them every single time they walk past the house about how disrespectful they are and blah blah blah. Anyway, every afternoon Jem has to read to her and sometimes he takes Scout along and what they discover is that Mrs. Dubose is dying. But there’s a problem. You see, she’s been addicted to morphine most of her life and because she’s such a proud woman, she figures that she doesn’t want to die beholden to anything or anyone.”

“Even though the morphine would ease the pain of her dying?” Narnie asked.

“Uh-huh. So her pain-killer is actually Jem reading to her. It takes her mind off it. At the end of the chapter she dies, but she’s free and Jem’s respect for her is intense.”

“My father…he would have made us do that as well.” After a moment Narnie smiled. “Read to me, Jem.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Dubose.”

So Tate read to Narnie all night and in the morning, when Tate could hardly keep her eyes open and Narnie could actually see some kind of light, they both closed their eyes.

“One day, if you need me to, I’ll be Jem and you be Mrs. Dubose,” Narnie promised sleepily.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Tate said softly, and they both slept.

Back in my room, the stand-off with the dying cat ends. It’s listless as I hold it in my arms and suddenly I’m engulfed with a feeling of love for it and a need to set it free. I consider the best place and take it out to a spot in Hannah’s garden, near the river.

For a long time I sit and watch it, but it doesn’t move. It doesn’t run away, like I expected. It doesn’t hiss or snarl. It’s like it wants to give up but doesn’t know how.

“Go!” I tell it, but it’s shivering, its misery so visible that for the second time today I find myself crying. I remember what Hannah said once, that it had been dying for years and should have been put out of its misery long ago. But she didn’t have the guts. So I need to. I gather the cat in my arms, whispering soothingly in its ears, and take it to the river. I can’t bear the idea of it being under the water on its own so I go down with it, clutching it, whispering, “I’m here, I’m here,” over and over again until we are underwater, eyes open, watching each other. I want to know its secrets and for a moment I sense something unexplainable. Peaceful. It makes me want to stay down there even after the cat stops moving. But above me I see the sun push its way through the branches of the oak tree and it’s like a light beckoning me to something better. I swim us both to the surface, my lungs exploding, and suddenly I can breathe in a way I haven’t been able to for a while.

Later, I lie on the sand bar in the river, my body shaking from the cold, but I feel a peace come over me. As I drift off to sleep, I sense that I’m not alone and I feel myself being carried and it’s like I’m back in my childhood, on the shoulders of a giant again, happy.

When I wake up I’m in my room and Raffaela and Ms. Morris are there.

“Would you like something to eat?” Ms. Morris asks gently.

I nod. She walks out and Raffaela fusses with the blankets around me, avoiding my gaze. We don’t talk for a moment or two and I take her hand to stop the fussing.

She clutches onto it and it’s the safest I’ve felt since Hannah left. It’s the power Raffaela has always had and maybe that’s why I’ve spent most of our lives together pushing her away. Because being so dependent on people scares me. But I don’t have the energy to keep Raffaela out anymore.

“I’m going to look for my mother,” I tell her quietly.

“No,” she says, and I can hear her frustration. “This is your home, Taylor, regardless of what you think it is. When school finishes next year, we’ll go to uni in Bathurst and then you can come back here and stay with Hannah. Because this is where you belong. In this town.”

But Raffy knows it’s a lost cause.

“Raffy,” I ask, “remember the dorms? I told you something about what happened in the city when I was young. You cried. Do you remember?”

She doesn’t move for a moment. Her face is pinched and tense and then she nods.

“Well, I can’t remember and I need you to tell me what it was.”

She shakes her head emphatically.

“That’s my memory,” I say firmly. “Mine. You need to give it back to me.”

“What you told me,” she begins, “won’t lead to your mother. It’ll just make you remember something that should be forgotten and never spoken about again. You’re right. It is your memory and you have more right to it than me but I’m holding this one, Taylor.”

“You need to ask Santangelo what he knows,” I try instead.

“Santangelo knows nothing,” she says, and she’s crying. “He’s an idiot. He thinks he’s going to be a big-shot Fed and he thinks he’s too good-looking and he feels too much and never forgives anything and I hate him because he’s going to make you go crazy.”

I hold on to her tightly. “Don’t,” I say. “I need you to help me run this House…this school and I can’t do that if we’re both crying.”

“When the Brigadier carried you in here…I thought you were dead…. I always think you’re going to do something to yourself, Taylor….”

I let go of her and shake my head. “Not interested in dying just yet,” I say, getting out of bed.

When I walk out of my room, I stop suddenly. They all seem to be there. The seniors in my House. Some sitting on the steps, leaning on the railing, standing around. As if they’ve been waiting for me. I don’t know what to say to them but as I make my way down the stairs, I realise they are all looking for something in my face to show that I’m okay. There’s so much silence that it eats away at my skin and leaves me exposed.

Do I remember what Raffaela said in the car park of the Evangelical church?

“Who do you believe in?” she had repeated as if it was the dumbest question she’d ever heard. “I believe in you, Taylor Markham.”

“Dinner is in an hour,” I say to them all firmly. “Seniors are on duty. And we eat together tonight.”

I walk into the dorm study towards Jessa and Chloe P. I sit down next to Chloe, take the protractor out of her trembling hand, and make a perfect circle. My hand is shaking, too, and when I look up, I see fear in Jessa’s eyes. I feel like those psycho fathers in movies: one minute abusive, next minute human.

“I’ll come and find you next time Hannah rings, Taylor,” Chloe P. whispers. “I promise. Wherever you are.”

I nod, swallowing hard. My hands are still shaking.

Jessa takes hold of both my scratched hands, pressing them until they stop. “That’s what my dad used to do when I was scared,” she tells me.

Later, I stand side by side with Ms. Morris and Raffaela and the other seniors preparing dinner while Jessa and Chloe P. and the rest of the juniors annoy us with ridiculous questionnaires from teen magazines and force us to listen to bizarre hypotheticals. But it calms down my heart rate and it makes me laugh and each time one of them walks by, I feel a hand on my shoulder or a squeeze of my arm and it makes me feel that tonight it will be safe for me to go to sleep.