The Dark Part of Me (31 page)

In the darkness, I could hardly see him when his voice came to me: small, disembodied, strange. ‘Let me tell you a story.’

‘What story?’

‘A story the spirits told me,’ he said, solemnly. He paused, poking his spear amongst the dying coals. ‘One day the three youngest children of the tribe were playing in the
cave when some evil spirits came and sniffed them out. The evil spirits had the power to imitate voices and they started calling out in the voices of their mothers and grandmothers, saying they
should go home because the hunters had returned with a big kill. But the good spirits, who lived in the rocks of the cave, realized the children were in great danger and warned them to stay put
until the evil spirits went away. Night fell and the children lay down and slept together on the floor of the cave. Although they were frightened they trusted the good spirits to keep them
safe.

‘By the third day the children were thirsty and hungry and yet the evil spirits still lingered outside the cave. That night, the rocks trembled as the good spirits called out for help
across the land. But, sensing a battle, the evil spirits did the same. Weak and starving, the children could hear the hum of the evil spirits buzzing around outside the cave. They clung to each
other with fear. If they opened their eyes, they could see the yellow eyes of the evil spirits peering through the cracks in the cave. No matter what the good spirits said to soothe them, they were
terrified. The children had a bad feeling that the good spirits would be outnumbered. So, they made a secret pact. If the good spirits were losing, they would hold their breath until they died.
Anything was better than being ripped apart by evil spirits who would gobble their livers and munch their bones and use their teeth for decoration.

‘All night the children stayed awake listening to the battle raging around them. At first, it sounded like the good spirits were winning but then the evil spirits fought back with roars
and snarls and the sounds of ripping flesh. As dawn broke, the good spirits’ powers were weakening. The roar of the evil spirits was deafening and the children decided it was time to hold
their breath. So, the three children held their breath and died.’

Danny stopped. I could hear him breathing. The slightest breeze blew from outside, tickling my shoulders. Hollie stirred. She sat up on her elbows, rubbing her eyes.

‘But less than a second after they died, the heavens opened and the rain came down washing the evil spirits away. The children had mistaken the roar of thunder for the sound of the evil
spirits winning. When the good spirits returned to the rocks of the cave, they looked down upon the children and thought they were just sleeping. “Wake up, children,” they said.
“The evil spirits have been washed away by the storm we called for you.” But the children were dead and the rocks of the cave shook and heaved as the good spirits mourned their parting,
imitating the wails of their mothers and their grandmothers.’

I felt like crying. It was a beautiful story.

Hollie whispered in my ear, ‘It’s not true. He made it up.’ She sighed and went back to sleep. Danny came towards me. He was holding something cradled in both hands which he
then set on top of the egg rock. He knelt before it, tears carving white streaks down his dirty face. It was the baby skull.

‘Danny?’ I said. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘They’re calling me.’

‘Who?’

‘The spirits. They want me. Can’t you hear them?’

‘You’re imagining things. Come to sleep.’

But he stood up and paced around the cave.

‘Don’t go outside,’ I mumbled, only half-aware in my sleepiness of a vague dread, a muted fear. ‘It’s dark.’ I rolled onto my side with my arms tucked up for
a pillow and watched Danny, stomping through the dead embers, back and forth, back and forth, chanting under his breath. I called out once more for him to lie down with us, but he didn’t seem
to hear me.

I woke with a start, bolt upright. I didn’t know where I was but then I looked down and there was Hollie, asleep, her arms around my middle. We were both naked. My head
was pounding and my mouth was dry as dirt. I checked my watch. It was seven thirty-two on New Year’s Day morning. In less than six hours I was meant to be on a plane to London. I glanced
around for Danny but he wasn’t in the cave.

‘Hollie.’ I shook her by the shoulders. ‘Wake up.’

She mumbled something, snuggling closer to me.

‘Hollie,’ I said, a little louder. ‘Get up.’

She yawned and opened her eyes, a clear startling blue. ‘We’re in the cave.’

‘Yeah, we’re in the cave,’ I said.

‘We’ve got no clothes on!’ With a cheeky, childish grin, Hollie folded her arms across her chest. She was acting like the old Hollie, all girly innocence like nothing had
happened, but I could remember it all, especially the sex.

‘Where’s Danny?’ Hollie asked, bum-wriggling into her daks.

‘Don’t know.’ I snatched my Bonds out of the dirt and put them on. Something gnawed at the edge of my brain like rats in the roof but I couldn’t think straight. Thin
light seeped through the entrance and there was a lingering smell of smoke. Clutching my head with one hand, I stumbled out of the cave for some fresh air.

I was choking even before I got outside. The further I went, the more difficult it was to see. My eyes were smarting, and when I stood up in the clearing, the red roof of Hollie’s house
was obscured by a white mist. But it was the silence of the bush, usually teeming with the trills and whips of the morning chorus, which got me freaked. I listened for the tiniest sign of life but
there was nothing, nothing except a deep, low rumble. Then, from behind me, further up the hill, came the frantic scurry of bush animals through the undergrowth – and birds, wings flapping
and whirring above me, bursting through the tree-tops. I spun around and was hit by a hot blast of air. Thick, grey smoke smothered me. A raging wall of orange and yellow flame was descending from
about two hundred metres up the mountain. It could only be a few minutes before the inferno reached the cave. Already, I could feel the air temperature rising around me and it was harder to breath,
but the ground beneath my feet was soft and strangely cool. Dizzy and gasping, I rushed back inside the cave, now hazy with smoke.

‘Hollie! There’s a fire!’

She jumped up, her eyes wide with panic. ‘Where’s Danny?’

I peered around the cave but there was still no sign of him.

‘We have to find him.’ Hollie raced outside.

‘We don’t have time,’ I shouted, scampering after her.

She disappeared into the smoke and I could hear her screaming, ‘Danny! Where are you? Danny!’

‘Hollie!’ I shouted in the direction of her voice. ‘We won’t find him. It’s too thick.’

‘Danny!’ she screamed, running towards the flames. ‘Danny-Dilly!’

I took off after her up the hill. The fire roared above us. ‘Hollie, come back!’ I raced around, my arms thrashing about for her, yelling and tripping over rocks in the white fog
until I stumbled into her. Her eyes blazed blue with terror. She was crying.

‘He’s not here, Hollie!’ I heard the crackling of burning scrub, the whoosh of bushes exploding into flame. I could hardly breathe. Black spots appeared like gnats before my
eyes. ‘We’ve got to go!’ I yelled at her.

‘No!’ She kicked and spat and scratched at me. She beat her fists against my breasts, but I grabbed her hand and turned, pelting blind, dragging her with me, through the billowing
smoke. The fire chased us like a rampant dragon devouring everything in its path, a great flaming mouth of destruction. A blazing gum tree tumbled from the sky and ash rained down upon us. Branches
lashed at our arms. Our heels singed. The tips of our hair caught alight, scorching our naked backs. A huge black crow rose like a phoenix out of the tree-tops, its feathers aflame, as we screamed
Danny-Dilly, Danny-Dilly, Danny-Dilly
all the way down the mountain.

The police hounded us. They came around to Mum’s, where Hollie and I were recuperating, and interrogated us in bed. They thought we’d started the fire. They wanted
to know where Danny was and what we’d been doing in the bush that night, if we’d been drinking or taking drugs. I wondered what they would have said if we’d told them the truth
– that we’d danced around the fire and ate roast possum and sculled pink champagne and lay down in the dirt and had sex. God knows what I said to them; I was still in shock. The top of
my left ear had got burnt and it was sore and throbbing. I was on heaps of painkillers and I had the shakes real bad. When they asked me if we’d lit a fire, I said I couldn’t remember.
When they asked me where exactly we were, I muttered something vague. I didn’t say a word about the cave. Even though they took us into separate rooms, neither of us mentioned the cave. I was
sure they’d nail us for something but in the end they buggered off.

We were at Mum’s for a couple of days and then we moved back to Hollie’s. There was more room for us there and Mr Bailey pretty much left us alone. It seemed like the right thing to
do and I was relieved to get away from the Mum and Randy love-nest. We watched the bushfires, which were still raging only a couple of hundred metres from the living-room window, and when a man
from the fire brigade ordered us to evacuate, Mr Bailey refused to budge. It took them more than a week to control the blaze. By then, the bush was devastated, not a single blade of grass was left.
It was a picture of hell; blackened stumps, smouldering ash, rising clouds of grey vapour and, every now and then, the splitting sound of a charred tree-trunk crashing to the ground.

Once the fire had died down, the forensic cops went up to search for Danny’s body. They reckoned it was arson. They figured that if they could find his body, it would give them some clue
as to who’d started it. But, after a week tramping around in the ashes, they didn’t find anything. The police issued a statement, saying it was a stray spark from the Mount Coot-tha
fireworks that was to blame – not arsonists after all – and that Danny was presumed dead. But I knew that Bomber and Scott had something to do with it.

For a whole month, Hollie didn’t speak to anyone. Not to me. Not to Mr Bailey. She locked herself in Mrs Bailey’s bedroom and didn’t eat a thing. She was adamant Danny was
still alive. She took the fact that they hadn’t found a body as proof he was still up there roaming about, hunting possum with his spear. One night, soon after the cops had cleared out and
the media had gone home, we went up to the cave to look for him. Inside, everything was just how it’d been on New Year’s Eve. All perfectly preserved. Like the fire hadn’t touched
it. We found the possum bones and the stereo and the empty bottles of champagne and our clothes draped over rocks and the satin cushions and the wicker basket, the food rank and rotting inside. The
baby skull was still sitting on top of the egg rock where Danny had put it – except there was no Danny. From then on, Hollie spent her days wandering about in the bush or sitting for hours at
a time in the cave. I tried to reason with her, to explain how it would have been impossible for him to escape, but she’d scream and stick her fingers in her ears, streaking up the track in
her muslin skirts, filthy with soot.

That’s why I still haven’t told her about Scott and Bomber being up there. The last time I spoke to Scott was on the phone, a few weeks ago. I wanted him to know that I knew he and
Bomber had been up in the bush the night of the fire. He answered on the second ring, laughter in his voice. Mrs Greenwood was in the background, humming.

‘It’s me.’ We hadn’t spoken since Christmas.

‘Oh.’ His laughter faded. ‘Hi.’

‘How’re things?’

‘Fine.’

‘How’s Amber?’

‘Yeah. Good.’

I paused. ‘It was you guys, wasn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘Danny.’

‘Yeah, what about him?’ He sounded impatient to get off the phone. ‘He’s dead. It was on the news.’

‘Bomber said he was gonna kill him.’

‘He was just talking shit.’

‘But I heard you. That night. You and Bomber were up there.’

I heard his knuckles tightening around the receiver.

‘Breakfast’s ready!’ Mrs Greenwood sung out.

Scott cut to a whisper. ‘Listen. I know what you’re thinking but you’re wrong, OK? Bomber and me had nothing to do with it. Alright, we gave him a hard time at school and I
feel bad enough about that, but you’ve got it wrong if you think us guys had anything to do with it.’ He coughed. ‘I’ve gotta go.’ He hung up but I knew then for sure
that it was Scott and Bomber who’d lit the fire. I was going to tell the cops but for some reason I haven’t – at least, not yet. I guess it’s harder for me to go through
with it now Scott’s a father. And with no body found, I wonder how they could prove that Scott and Bomber did it anyway.

In February, Mr Bailey reluctantly organized a memorial service at Pinnaro Lawn Cemetery. Hollie reacted badly, spitting in her father’s face, threatening to kill herself. She said it was
like burying him alive. I stayed out of it, shutting myself in Hollie’s bedroom.