Digging to Australia (25 page)

I could not get Bronwyn out of my head. Bronwyn and the flying man. I could almost hear the beating of the wings.

‘Do you know anything?' Susan said. ‘You can tell me, I wouldn't pass it on. Honest.'

I shook my head.

If I screw up my eyes I can see Bronwyn crouching in the church and Johnny holding the candle out so that he can see her, the light glinting in his clear eyes. Johnny wouldn't have hurt her. But if he had … I cannot allow that because it was me that sent her. Nobody knows. I lied to her, sweetly, confidingly. I said I had done it with Johnny. But inside I am still sealed. I imagine a closed pink flower. A clean nub. Intact. I said he'd done it with me and he'd like to do it with her. But she may not have gone to Johnny. Probably not. Surely she wouldn't have been so stupid? So stupid and believing. And he may not still have been there. The whistling I heard may not have been him. Someone else might have been there. It might even have been a bird. Or perhaps it was nothing at all
.

‘What if she is dead?' I whispered to Susan on the way home.

Susan frowned at me. ‘She's probably just run off with a boy,' she said.

‘Yes,' I said, and I felt relieved. ‘Yes, that's probably right.' Susan smiled, her little nose wrinkling up. We linked arms. ‘She was sex mad,' I said, ‘that's what she told me.'

‘Really?'

‘And her dad's in prison.'

‘He isn't.'

‘He is.' There was something wedged in my throat. Something that was close to painful. Something that made me try and hurt Bronwyn, even now.
Although I didn't really mean her any harm
. Something that made me try and hurt her memory. And, of course, Susan was probably right. Bronwyn had run off with a boy, and it was nothing to do with me, nothing at all.

‘Shall we ask if I can move desks and sit next to you?' Susan suggested. ‘Just until Bronwyn gets back, of course.'

When I got home, Mama was sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hands. I began to tell her about Bronwyn but she already knew. Mrs Broom had been round, and the police, and they were coming back to interview me. ‘Poor woman, poor poor woman,' she kept saying. ‘I can't take much more of this myself, I can't stand the strain.'

‘It's all right,' I said, uselessly, ‘I'm sure she'll be all right.'

‘Are you?' she looked at me hopefully, as if she really thought I knew, but then the hopelessness closed over her face again, like a skin of water. ‘And it's not just that, it's Bob too. We've had the doctor in again. He's failing. She didn't say as much but I know. He won't eat, he won't drink. He doesn't care. He's got that look. He's given up.' She began to sob and it was an awful dry wrenching sound, but there were no tears in her eyes. ‘Stupid man,' she gasped. ‘Can't he see what he's doing? Doesn't he care about me? About us? Selfish old bugger.'

I had never heard Mama swear before. I didn't even know she knew how. It was awful. I lurked uselessly behind her. There was no comfort I could think of to give. No cup of tea was going to make this better. She made a terrible roaring, teeth-gritting sound and then got herself back under control. I could see her; literally, pulling herself – her face, her limbs, her voice – together, like a puppet I thought, like a puppeteer gathering the strings, but that only made me think of Johnny and something he'd said about bodies being puppets. Borrowed puppets. And I knew there was no way out of it. I'd have to tell them about Johnny.

I went upstairs and peeped round Bob's door. Someone had taken away most of the pillows, so that he lay almost flat, his face a dreadful mustard colour against the white pillowcase. He may have been asleep. His eyes were sealed and his breath was shallow and rattling. There was a frightful smell like that of a dirty animal cage. I closed the door softly and went into my own room. I sat on my bed and composed myself so that I would be ready for Mrs Broom and the police when they arrived.

I told them about Johnny. I told them I had taken Bronwyn to the church, once, a long time ago. I said that I had never been back. And I had no idea whether Bronwyn had. I had no reason to think so. They listened gravely, but the policeman smirked at the policewoman when I had told them about Johnny's wings, and she pressed her lips together to flatten her smile. They thought I had been spun a yarn, and perhaps they were right. But when I told them about the church they said there'd be a search. The land beside the church was due for clearance they said, overdue. They were clearing it to make a park with a lake and trees and swings. A place for children to play.

After they'd left, Mama would not at first speak to me, or even look at me. ‘How could you?' she squeezed out eventually. She'd made some sort of food for tea, and we made some sort of pretence of eating it. ‘How could you be so deceitful? All those secrets? All those lies?' She raised her eyes from her plate and they met mine, but they were not as I had expected, full of rage. They were like gone-out fires. There was nothing I could say. I thought of her lies, of Jacqueline, of my November birthday, but there was no point in speaking of that. I scraped our tea into the bin and washed the dishes while Mama went upstairs to be with Bob.

The evening paper was still on the mat. I carried it into the kitchen and unfolded it on the table. And there was Bronwyn. The picture was taken when she was younger, before I knew her, when she still wore her hair dragged to the side and tied with a bow. Otherwise she looked just the same, with her dark thick brows and her pale lips pursed upon some secret. The photograph was a blown-up section of a snapshot, enlarged so that the gaps between the tiny dots showed through, giving her the look of someone dispersed, already part of the past. The newspaper report gave her full name. Bronwyn Margaret Rose Broom. I hadn't known she had middle names, and such dignified names too. They made her sound like someone else. Somehow that made it worse.

Later, I looked into Mama and Bob's room. I think Mama was asleep in the chair. At least, her eyes were closed. Bob had stopped breathing. His cold yellow toes with their curved ivory nails stuck out from the end of the bed. I covered them up, and then I crept to my room and shut the door.

That night I dreamed of the church, empty of wings. The bricks had been knocked from the windows and the light flooded in and lay in swaths on the floor, like silk. It was silk. I lifted the edge and flapped it so that it floated and rippled. Under the silk, in the place where I had seen the bones, lay Bronwyn. The silk fluttered down and covered her. I flapped the silk again to see her, to be sure that it was her. She was solidly white and naked in the sun's glare, whiter than the silk. Her nipples were like orange flowers. Her head was to one side and she was dead. I flapped the silk again and again in order to catch quick rippling glimpses. And then all at once she was gone and the silk lay flat on the earthen floor, and it was only light, after all, and impossible to lift.

When I woke I was relieved for an instant that it had been nothing but a dream. I lay basking for an ignorant moment, the real sunshine spilling onto my bed, and then the horror caught up with me. It may have been only a dream, but Bronwyn had really gone, and might really be dead, as white and still as the dream Bronwyn. And Bob
was
dead. He had not been breathing last night, and Mama had screwed her eyes tightly shut against the truth. But it would still be there this morning.

PART THREE

25

Susan and I slumped in front of the television. We had the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun that otherwise blotted the picture from the screen. It was midsummer's day. Last year it had been my birthday. There was a box of chocolates on the sofa between Susan and me, Mama's gift, though she hadn't said why. The significance of the day was unspoken. Mama came in and sat down. I held out the box and she chose a Montelimar. It was hot in the room, the people on the screen flickered like shadows. Susan's mouth was open. I offered her a chocolate but she didn't see. She leant forward, absorbed. I was proud that she could be so content in my house. We were watching
Crackerjack
, which I thought a stupid programme. Susan liked it though and I liked to watch her watching. Someone was hit by a custard pie and Susan giggled. She sat back and took a chocolate. Mama reached for her knitting. She was making me a school cardigan, perfectly plain, no cable or fancy stitches, just like Susan's. A sunbeam inveigled its way through a gap in the curtains and lit the points of her needles, so they flashed like sparks. My mouth was full of sweet and melting chocolate. I'd been showing Susan my first set of photographs, and they remained spread out all over the floor in front of us. Most of them were unsuccessful, subjects were blurred or missed altogether, several of them showed nothing but the bloated smudge of my thumb in front of the lens – but there was one that was perfect. It was a picture of Mama on the back doorstep. She was wearing her apron, and her hair was all windblown wisps, and her hand was a fuzzy streak on its way to her mouth, for I had caught her by surprise and her mouth was open in protest. It was a good picture, a real picture, better than the one Mama had taken of me, perfectly in focus, posed in front of a rose bush, with a stiff smile on my face.

The programme ended. ‘Fabulous,' Susan said. ‘I
love Crackerjack
– especially Leslie Crowther. I
do
,' she protested to Mama who was shaking her head with amusement.

I took another chocolate and jolted my teeth against a hazelnut. Bob had liked hazelnuts. He would have chosen that one first if he'd been there. My happiness was blunted when I thought – as I often did – of Bob. It had not been my fault that he'd been ill, no one ever suggested that. It had been his own fault that he hadn't accepted the treatment that might have saved him. I knew that, but all the same a cloud drifted across my happiness now and then, casting a shadow that made me think that he had sulked himself to death because of me. I couldn't enjoy the light fluffiness of my hair without a flicker of guilt. I couldn't slump in front of the television without thinking of the gamma rays. I couldn't drag myself sluggishly from bed without thinking of the daily dozen. And despite all that, I badly missed him. No one bothered with the crossword anymore, and the lawn was long and daisy spattered. In the winter, the heating would be haphazard, because Mama had never got the hang of the system.

I never meant Bronwyn any harm. Her own feet carried her wherever she went. Nobody held her hand. And someone else took her. It wasn't me. People shouldn't believe lies. I wouldn't harm a fly. I wouldn't feel guilt for Bronwyn, I wouldn't and I won't
.

Mrs Broom called me over once and invited me in for tea. When I hesitated, not liking to say no, she called at our house and asked Mama if I might go. She wanted someone young in her house, she said. She saw me as innocent. She hadn't linked my visit with what followed. And why should she? Bronwyn was headstrong, always had been. Whatever she'd done it would have been her own decision. And she might come back after all. There was no reason to think – a big strong girl like that. But she would like me there to help her remember, just for a bit of company. Her hands darted nervously about as she spoke, and there was a fluttering at her temple. All the curl had fallen out of her hair.

It was impossible. I had to stay away. I had to look away, even, when I saw her again. She wore her braveness like a coat, imperfectly buttoned over her despair, and I could not bear it. I felt the grey film round the edges of my eyes whenever she was close. I simply could not bear to see her. Mama declined for me. She visited Mrs Broom sometimes and returned home looking squeezed-out, exhausted. I fussed around her then, trying to make amends, bringing her tea and aspirins.

One afternoon I arrived home to find that Mama had tea ready on the special trays with legs she'd bought, so we could eat in front of the television. But the set was not switched on and the room was unnaturally quiet. The sun shone sharply onto our plates of salad. Mama was waiting for me, and she was looking grave. ‘Sit down,' she said. ‘Bronwyn's clothes have been found. The police came to tell me.' There was a wobble in her voice.

‘Just her clothes?'

‘Yes. On some wasteland near the old cemetery. Some council workers found them.'

‘
Just
her clothes?'

‘All of them.'

‘Well then, she probably left them there herself. She probably changed and went off, ran off …'

Mama shook her head. ‘Well, perhaps you're right, but that's not what the police are thinking. They're thinking murder. It's only a matter of time, in cases like these, they say, till they find her.'

I thought what an ugly word murder was. It was ridiculous, not related to Bronwyn at all. It was too serious. I thought of her big silliness, of her dolls, of her difficulty with long words. She wouldn't even have been able to spell it. The salad on my plate was brilliantly coloured. I saw it as if magnified – the furled lettuce leaf cradling drops of water – the translucent cucumber slices – the beetroot leaking purple juice into the white of an egg.

‘Oh dear,' I said, uselessly. Somewhere far off I could hear the ice-cream van's jingle.

‘Poor, poor, Mrs Broom … Betty,' Mama whispered.

‘It still might not be,' I insisted stubbornly. ‘She might not be. We can't be sure, not unless they find the …' body I was going to say, remembering the way Bronwyn's body strained against her clothes, the plodding of her feet, her sickly scent of sweat and violets.

‘No,' Mama agreed, ‘you're right. We must look on the bright side.' She speared a piece of cucumber and put it in her mouth. ‘We mustn't dwell on it.'

‘No,' I agreed, and I switched the television on and we sat side by side, eating our tea, our eyes fixed on the screen.