The Best Australian Stories (51 page)

Later in the bat cave Kirsten expressed her surprise at this display of contrition. ‘I thought they were supposed to be hard cases,' she whispered as they lay on their sleeping bag in the dark.

‘They are.' He sighed. ‘I think it's the boat. They haven't been half as much trouble as I feared they might be. The boat seems to be having a soothing effect on them.'

Yes, she thought. It was the flow. The endless flow.

‘Also,' he added, ‘it's their age. In another year, they'll be impossible. Terminal cynicism will have set in.'

‘I won't come next year,' she said, laughing.

‘Neither will I.'

On Good Friday it was her birthday and, as it happened, Terry's birthday as well. Tom had told the kids and they organised a surprise party. Tom bought a cake at the little town where they stopped the day before and they hid it under Ruth's bunk. After dinner – spaghetti bolognese at Terry's request and a Caesar salad (or what passed as one) for her – she and Terry blew the candles out together. There were ten candles, though he was fourteen and she twenty-three. Then the kids presented her with a gift bought from a whip-around of their pocket money. It was a small pyrex casserole dish with blue cornflowers on it because she was ‘such an ace chef'. At this point Tom allowed himself an ironic smirk and she knew exactly what he was thinking. Then one of the smallest and, at school, most troublesome of the boys, Patrick, a scrawny boy with protuberant ears, stood up from his bench and leapt onto the table. The cutlery went flying in all directions and a bowl fell to the floor and broke but no-one seemed to care, least of all Tom. With a half smile of anticipation he was looking up at Patrick, who had broken out into a wild patter, a kind of high ululating sound, half yodelling, half keening, as if he were speaking in tongues. In fact he was mocking them, mocking them all in a semi-coherent rant of cruel mimicry. It seemed he had prepared for this moment (with Tom's collusion?) spraying his words over their heads like verbal confetti. And when this went down well he launched into his Elvis impersonations, and he was such a natural, so manically gifted in either mode, that they all surged as one to the edge of hysteria, drunk with laughter. Two of the rowdier boys scruffed one another and began to whoop and bray, while the more self-conscious boys like Yusuf shook quietly and blushed at their own mirth. Kirsten laughed so hard she had a coughing fit, while around her the exuberant girls, led by Ruth, clutched one another and shrieked so piercingly that the drab narrow boat seemed to vibrate into the stillness of the countryside. Even Tom guffawed into his beard.

Curfew was approaching and Kirsten wanted to do something; it was unthinkable that after such a good time they should all just fall into their bunks without ceremony. She stood up and rummaged around for the new frying pan, and the chocolate sauce she had stashed away, and she set about making flapjacks for supper. At the first sight of these the kids swooped on her, and the mixing and the pouring and the frying seemed to take forever, because of course there were so many of them, and they wanted to eat and eat and eat; wanted the night to go on and on until they were comatose with a fullness they rarely felt.

When Patrick's turn came he dipped his fingers into the sauce and daubed his face in brown chocolate streaks, flapping his arms and legs and whooping around the cabin like a lithe little demon.

*

Their last night.

It had been a hard day on the locks and the kids were subdued, almost sombre. ‘They know they're going home,' Tom muttered, as he settled into the sleeping bag, ‘and they're not looking forward to it.'

Jesus, I am, she thought. She was looking forward to a hot shower. But the kids seemed to be in another space altogether. A few of them were sullen, angry even at the prospect of having to leave the boat.

In the middle of the night she was woken by a tap on the door. Tom was a heavy sleeper. He didn't stir. ‘Who is it?' she called in a pronounced whisper.

‘It's Ruth, Miss. It's Joel. He's acting all funny.'

When she entered the main cabin she couldn't see the boy at first and shone her torch into the corner behind the table. There was Joel, curled up in a foetal ball on the damp floor, keening in a low, shivering moan.

In a dismissive gesture she patted Ruth on the shoulder and nodded in the direction of the bunks at the far end. Then she moved towards the boy.

‘What's the matter, Joel?'

The boy looked through her.

Again she asked, and again, but he would not reply, nor would he respond to her requests that he return to his bunk. Even when she crouched beside him and looked directly into his eyes he continued to stare ahead with a glazed expression, his arms locked around his sides. It occurred to her then that she should wake Tom, that the situation might be beyond her, but Tom had a long drive ahead of him the next day and it was worth at least one more try. So she began quietly, so the others couldn't hear, to talk coaxingly to Joel; about the trip, about what a good time they had all had and how it was a pity to spoil it now, about how, whatever was bothering him, he could talk to Tom in the morning and she was sure that Tom would be able to help in some way. All the while she could feel the chill from the damp floor-boards rising up through the soles of her feet, through the thin skein of her thermals and into the small of her back. Her feet were turning numb. Damn this kid, she thought. She would try a more forceful approach and if that didn't work she would have to send Ruth for Tom. Squatting on her haunches she grabbed hold of his arms and attempted awkwardly to raise him to his feet, but with a sudden jerk he twisted to one side and then fell back against the wall of the cabin so that his head made a dull thud against the wood. For a second or two he lay there and then, like a puppet, he sat up as if in shock, with one hand held gingerly to his head.

Kirsten was relieved to see that he was conscious. ‘Will you get back into your bunk now, Joel?'

The boy shook his head.

This was too much. ‘Ruth!' she hissed. ‘Bring me the blankets off his bunk.'

Soon two outstretched arms were handing her a mound of grey blankets, disgusting army-ration serge for those without sleeping bags. She disentangled a blanket from the pile and laid it across Joel.

What now? She couldn't possibly leave him here like this. There was only one thing to do and that was to snuggle into the corner against him and draw the other blanket around her.

The boy made no resistance. Indeed, he had become calm. Before long his breathing slowed and deepened and she knew he was asleep.

Good, she thought, and allowed herself a slow exhaling sigh. Thank you. Thank you, God. It was their very last night and all they had to do was get through it without further mishap. There were so many things that could have gone wrong, and hadn't, and she had played her part well, all things considered, all natural obstacles taken into account … and with this thought she settled beneath the blanket, her head drooped and she began a slow drifting into sleep, but not before she caught a glimpse of herself as a figure from one of those sentimental prints of the kind that had hung in her great-grandmother's house. ‘Young maiden comforts orphan in the night'.

And she felt almost virtuous. She was cold, she was uncomfortable but she had done a good deed.

What woke her was the sound of the splash.

It wasn't loud, but instantly she knew what that sound meant. She opened her eyes and glanced instinctively to her left where Joel had been sleeping, but the corner of the boat was empty. As she flung back the sliding door of the cabin she shouted, ‘Tom! Tom!' and glanced hastily up and down the narrow deck. Then she saw him, a shadowy figure flailing in silence by the edge of the lock and seeming to sink before her eyes. ‘Tom!' she shouted again, and at the moment of shouting leapt from the deck of the barge.

The icy shock of the water rose up through her blood like voltage.

Later it would seem as if at that moment she were lifted off the deck by some blind force, for she had no sense of agency, of any operation of will. She simply leapt into the black water and grabbed hold of the lump that was rising up to the surface. At first she thought Joel might be unconscious but the minute she grasped hold of him he began to howl and writhe. Fortunately he was puny, but he bit her on the left hand so that for a moment she lost her grip and had to struggle – treading water all the time – to lock her right arm around his skinny neck. And still Joel fought her, lashing out with his feet. It was a full moon, and an eerie lambent glow bathed the canal and surrounding fields in a ghostly sepia gloom. Those few moments when they thrashed around in the dark chill of the English countryside seemed like an eternity until, in a sudden moment of apprehension, she understood that the boy wanted to die.

By this time Tom and the other children were crowding onto the deck. Some of the boys had leapt onto the embankment for a better view and stood shivering in their pyjamas. Tom, meanwhile, was kneeling on the deck, preparing to grab hold of Joel as Kirsten manoeuvred him alongside the barge. Assisted by Terry, he managed to drag the dripping Joel onto the deck and by the time Kirsten had climbed aboard they had wrapped Joel in a blanket. ‘Hold onto him,' Tom said to Terry, and a look of grim understanding passed between them. Then, turning in consternation to Kirsten: ‘Are you OK?'

It was a feeble question and she resented it. If it hadn't been for him and his bloody excursion she would not now be standing here in a state almost of shock. ‘Go to the cabin,' he began, ‘use my towel to dry off. I'll deal with Joel and I'll be along in a minute. I'll get Ruth to make you a hot drink.'

‘You can't just leave him there unsupervised.' She was shaking violently.

‘True.' He hesitated. ‘I'll probably have to sleep in there for the rest of the night. On the floor. But I'll come back to the cabin first.'

Without a word Kirsten returned to the bat cave. Her eyes felt as if they were coated in icy grit and she had a headache from the chill of the water. From the neck down she was numb. Standing, dripping, outside the door, she stripped off and bundled her sodden clothes into a nearby bucket. Inside she towelled herself down as briskly as she could and put on her warmest gear. The torch had disappeared. Too shaky and exhausted to zip the doona up into a sleeping pouch, she wrapped it tight around her and then, almost falling onto the air mattress, she lay there bent in a foetal arc and could not control her trembling.

After a while Ruth appeared with a tin mug and set it down beside Kirsten's head. ‘Here you are, Miss,' she said. ‘They put Joel to bed in one of the bunks and Sir is lying with him so's he can't move.'

‘You'd better go back,' Kirsten whispered. ‘I'll be OK.' But when she sat up and took a sip from the mug it was full of a tepid and sickly cocoa that made her gag.

Tom did not return.

In the morning the kids were mute as they packed up their kits and went about cleaning the interior of the main cabin. Joel had been placed under Terry's watchful eye but for the moment he appeared OK; he had eaten some toast for breakfast and would nod when spoken to by Tom. Mostly the kids ignored him, deep in their own reluctance to leave the boat. They had the air of mourners in the wake of a funeral procession. As the barge glided and bumped into the mooring dock they gazed with blank, resigned faces at the big green bus that awaited them. Then, hoisting their packs over their shoulders, they lined up by the cabin door and awaited Tom's command to walk the plank.

Kirsten felt like death. Her head throbbed, her throat was raw, her limbs ached in every muscle and joint and she knew that some bug or virus had ambushed her in the night. All she wanted was to crawl under a blanket but she knew she must stand and say goodbye to the kids. She waved from the open door of the bat cave as Tom stood at the end of the plank and shook hands with each boy and girl as they trooped off, and she saw a gruff male courtliness in her lover that she hadn't seen before … but was too sick to hold this thought for long.

After they had waved the kids off on the bus she fell into Tom's car, aching in every bone. It was clear that Joel must travel back with them and Terry was delegated to the back seat to sit beside him and keep an eye out for sudden moves. Tom was afraid that the boy might open the door and attempt to leap out, but for most of the drive home he seemed almost normal, as if that nocturnal parabola of watery f light had purged him of his demon. At least for now. Kirsten was beyond caring. All the way back to London she drifted in and out of a painful sleep in which it felt as if her body were encased in a rotating drum of fire. Tom, exhausted, drove like a maniac.

*

She spent the next three days in bed.

It was the sickest she had ever been in her life. All day and all night she lay in her track pants and polar-fleece jacket under the thick doona and still she was cold. Her head felt as if it were being compressed by an iron weight while a current of raking pain tormented her back and joints. Her fever it seemed came and went, and came again, and with it a series of dreams so torrid that at times it was hard to tell whether she was dreaming or hallucinating. One late afternoon she dreamed that she was kneeling on top of the main cabin of the narrow boat and banging with her fist on the door, and the door was stuck so that she had to break in through the hatch. And there they all were, the children lying on their bunks like angels, their eyes closed beatifically while through the open hatch poured a torrent of milk so that in their sleep they were force-fed, their skin bathed in rivulets of cream, their eyelids glazed with a thick white coating. Not long after, Tom came home from school and sat by her bed, muttering about Joel who had gone berserk in the playground. Joel? Who was Joel? Then the doctor arrived; a shadowy figure, like an apparition in a cloud of warm pink fog.

On the third day, the fever broke. In the early morning she woke, feeling better. Instinctively she fumbled for the torch, but of course it wasn't there. The book was there,
Madame Bovary
, looking much the worse for wear, mottled and wavy from where hot tea had been spilled on the cover. Poor Emma, she thought, poor Emma. Too young to be the wife and mother of a plain man in a small village; too constrained too early. Thank God that she, Kirsten, wasn't married. She wouldn't marry Tom, and perhaps not anyone. And with that thought, suddenly into her head came the image of a narrow boat, not the boat they had just returned from, which had no name, but the photograph in the book; that strange picture of the
Gort
. There in the gloom she could see the young bargemaster's wife at the door of her dark hollow; could see the tightly wound ringlets that framed her head, the prim white collar, the neat cuffs and the wide serge skirt of dull grey, so wide it skimmed the sides of the doorway.
How on earth had she borne it?
And how solemnly she gazed back at her onlooker, though the seriousness in her eyes was an enigma. How steadily she held herself before the camera, because it took so long to make an exposure then, and it was impossible to hold a smile for long without feeling foolish. And perhaps, after all, she was not inclined. It was unbelievable that anyone could live in that dark, confined space, never mind make a home of it for a child. Day after day, on the drab water, so flat and oily in its manmade channels; so dense with the sense of enclosure, of brick and tar and charcoal and smoke. And in her arms, still, the white swaddled baby, its blank face all but erased save for those eyes like two sepia smudges, staring out in hope.