The Ellie Chronicles (58 page)

So I told them about Gavin mostly, how Gavin’s stepfather had murdered Gavin’s mother in the last few minutes of the peace or the first few minutes of the war, how Gavin had run off and lived as a street kid in Stratton, seeing other kids coming and going around him, seeing them dying sometimes, of neglect and injuries and in one case at least from being lost in the bush, how I’d found him and kept him with me, and how Gavin’s stepfather had only recently tried to kill the poor kid. I didn’t say much about me because I didn’t want them to guess who I was – assuming they’d heard of me in the first place – but I did say I had no family left and Gavin was now my brother and the only person I had in the whole wide world.

At the end there was a short silence and I said to Toddy, ‘I’ve got a few hundred dollars American, if they want money to tell me where he is.’

‘Just wait,’ he said.

But one of the men had heard the magic word and he looked at me directly for the first time. ‘One thousand dollars,’ he said.

‘I haven’t got that much,’ I lied.

Suddenly they all forgot their card game and everyone was talking at each other. I couldn’t work out what was going on but they were pretty agitated. I looked at Toddy and he gave a little shake of the head. When they kept going hammer and tongs at each other he said quietly to me, ‘They’re arguing about the money. The others don’t like him asking for it.’

The man nearest to me turned around in his chair and looked at me. I hadn’t seen anything much of him before, just the back of his head. Now I realised he was the youngest of them, only about nineteen, and quite goodlooking. He put his cards down on the table where they could all see them. Obviously he wasn’t going to win that hand. ‘We’ll tell you where he is,’ he said. He didn’t speak in English, and to my left Toddy was translating, but I didn’t need the translation. Somehow I knew exactly what the guy was saying. ‘We’ll tell you where he is, but that’s all we’ll do. You’re on your own after that. If you’re going to get him out of there it’s up to you.’

I nodded to thank him. The other men had all gone silent and they’d chucked their cards on the table too. They just watched the young guy like they no longer had anything to do with this. The man glanced at his watch, turned to Toddy, and started talking to him in their own language, pretty fast, Toddy nodding at the end of every sentence. Then it was over. They picked up their cards, the young guy turning back to the table, and Toddy signalled to me that it was time to leave.

‘Thanks very much,’ I said awkwardly to the young guy’s neck. He didn’t respond. I followed Toddy down the corridor, past the bedrooms and through the front door. We continued downstairs without saying a word. Out into the street, towards the bright lights again, walking very fast, this time Toddy right beside me, kind of pulling me along. A hundred metres from the main street he stopped abruptly and dragged me to the right into the grounds of the church.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘listen good. They told me the place and I take you there now. I leave you there and what you do, it’s up to you.’ His English started to collapse under pressure. ‘You live, die, I don’t know, I only Toddy, I no fight. You want little, you take little, I do nothing.’

I realised he meant ‘little boy’, but I didn’t say anything. ‘You get him, you don’t come to my house, you go to place I tell you, if I can find you I help you, OK? You don’t never come to my place, you understand? You never come my place.’

‘All right,’ I said. I resented this, but I could see it from his point of view too. It wasn’t his war. He had to survive. He didn’t want to lose his life for a couple of strangers.

‘All right,’ he echoed me. ‘All right. You stay here. I get motorbike. I bring your stuff. Then you never need my place.’

‘So you’re going to take me to Gavin right now?’

I nearly gagged with the fear of what I was about to do, the situation I was about to enter. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently. ‘These people, they move all the time. We go fast, before they move again. They move, we never find them.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘You go get the bike. I’ll wait here.’

ALTHOUGH MY FEELINGS about Toddy were now pretty mixed I clung to him as I rode on the back of his motorbike. He might be the last human I ever clung to. The only comment he made when he came back with the bike was, ‘You shouldn’t have said about the money,’ but I didn’t care. Maybe it was a mistake but it had changed the atmosphere in that room and somehow it had made things happen. I think Toddy just liked being in control of the situation, didn’t like that I’d ignored his instructions. Now I didn’t compare him much to Homer at all. Homer had more, I don’t know, well, not more, less . . . Less vanity, less fear, less ‘I’m in charge here.’

We rode through the sweet cool night air, which made it hard to understand why sweat kept dripping down the back of my neck. Why my face felt so hot. On the edge of town Toddy stopped to show me a hiding place where he said he’d look for me the next day. Me and Gavin, I reminded him, and he was, ‘Oh yeah, that’s right, of course,’ and I realised he was sure he’d never see me again, let alone have the pleasure of meeting Gavin. It made me determined to succeed, if only for the completely stupid reason that I wanted to prove to Toddy that I wasn’t helpless and hopeless.

The hiding place was on the edge of an old cemetery, which seemed appropriate. One way or another it seemed likely I’d end up in a cemetery by the next day. I took a quick look around and then got back on the bike. Away we went, towards an unknown and probably impossible destination. To my surprise we headed back into town. I’d always had a picture of these guys holed up in the countryside somewhere, a remote place where I’d have to sneak across paddocks and in and out of trees to reach them. That was the way we’d operated a lot of the time in the war. But now we rode right towards the CBD, Toddy occasionally pointing out something that would help me navigate back to the cemetery.

Twenty minutes later we were in what must have been one of the oldest parts of Havelock. It was the kind of respectable suburb where prices are high, where dentists and architects live. We rode slowly down a wide street that had a lot of speed bumps and was closed at the far end so nasty noisy old trucks and buses couldn’t disturb the sleep of the dentists. Toddy kept peering at the numbers. Three blocks from the far end he stopped and turned off the motor. ‘Down there,’ he whispered.

‘OK.’

‘Number 503.’

‘OK.’

‘Good luck.’

I didn’t bother answering, just got off the bike. I think he was feeling a bit embarrassed at dumping me like this. Or maybe he’d always planned to do this. Whatever, he reached into the pannier of the bike and pulled out a leather pouch, unwrapped it and showed me a handgun. Like everything about Toddy it was a little larger than life, with a silver handle and a long barrel.

‘Do you know how to use these?’

I took it from him, slipped the safety off, and checked the breech and then the magazine. It was fully loaded. It was a nice weapon too, a little heavy but beautifully balanced. I was aware that my confidence with it was impressing Toddy and I admit I played up to that a bit. I just wished I could have twirled it around my finger and shot a sparrow a hundred metres away to impress him a bit more, but it didn’t seem like a good idea.

‘Thanks,’ I said gratefully. He hesitated. I think he’d been hoping I’d say I didn’t know how to handle guns or I didn’t want it or something, but now he was committed to giving it to me. He swallowed and said, ‘No problem.’ At least I hadn’t taken his motorbike. Not yet anyway.

‘I’ll bring it back,’ I promised.

Liberation had told me not to bring any weapons because the consequences would be too serious if I were caught. They’d said the people in Havelock would be able to get me something, and now it seemed that they had, at the last minute.

I walked away then, without any sentimental goodbyes. I wasn’t in the mood. I did appreciate Toddy’s help but I had to concentrate on what was coming, and dealing with Toddy seemed to take a lot of energy. I heard the bike start up behind me and I could tell he was wheeling it around and then came the quiet fade-out as he rode away down the street. I wondered if I’d ever see him again.

From 493 on came a row of terrace houses, pretty much like terrace houses everywhere, two or three storeys, with bits added on top of some of them. Each one had its wrought-iron fence and garden about A4 size. Some gardens were neat, some scruffy, and one was a spectacular crop of weeds that would have supported a couple of steers for a week. I guessed that would be Number 503, but of course I was wrong; my houseful of suspected terrorists had the prettiest garden in the block. I walked past. I was still wearing the black wig but not the face mask of course. It wasn’t much of a disguise but at least anyone looking down from a window probably wouldn’t be too alarmed.

I felt dismayed at what I saw on my brief inspection. The way terrace houses are all stuck together means you can’t go sneaking up the side to have a look or to get in a window or to try a side door. I kept on going and went all the way to the corner. At this hour of the night things were really quiet. That was the good news. The only good news. I turned right and went down the road a bit until I came to the lane that ran behind the houses. They had them in Stratton too, these narrow cobbled access lanes that in the old days were used by the nightcart men, the guys who came into your back yard to pick up the bucket of poo and pee from your dunny and take it out to the truck. That would have been a nice job. Especially when you tripped with a full bucket on your shoulder and went sprawling onto the cobblestones. Your social life could be affected for a while every time that happened.

I walked quietly up the lane past the high fences and back gates. You couldn’t see into any of the places but I could tell which one was 503 because 501 had its number painted on the fence in a sloppy mess of yellow. Again I walked past. If they had sentries front and back they’d be starting to wonder about me by now. It was all very peaceful though. I wondered if I’d come to the right house, if those guys had told us the truth, or if Toddy had just mixed the details up. He hadn’t written anything down when the young guy talked to him.

I went up to the next intersection and turned right, then crossed over at the next one into a small park. Christ this was difficult. I didn’t know what to do. Toddy had been adamant that this was my only chance: it was tonight or never. Well, I had to go with that. There was no other advice floating around. No second opinions. Somehow I had to take a crack at that house, and if I failed in the attempt . . . well, I didn’t need to scare myself with the consequences.

At least it kind of focuses your mind when there’s only one alternative. I sat there, not thinking any more about whether I should do this or whether I should lie low until tomorrow night and try again then. All I had to think about was how to get into a terrace house. And it had to be through the front or the back. Or the roof I suppose, or from underneath, but they didn’t seem viable options. The first thing I thought of was just to walk up and try the front door. There must have been a chance that they didn’t lock it. People do stupid and careless things so easily. If that failed and there was no sentry, then no problem. If there was a sentry, then I might have a very big problem.

I moved to a different position in the park, where I could see 503 more clearly. Maybe someone would go in or out and I’d get a better idea of what was going on. Surveillance, like the cops do.

Another option was to go round the back. I’d have to climb the back fence and I didn’t know what I’d find when I dropped into the courtyard. Could be a nice party of armed guys enjoying a quiet beer. But I could peep through a hole in the fence first. If I did get in there, the back door might be unlocked.

I could walk up to the front door and knock on it and pretend I was collecting for the Red Cross or I was a Jehovah’s Witness . . . but it was a little late at night. Plus, when you’re the alien you can’t do stuff like that. I shook my head and tried to get back on track.

The front of the house matched the others in the row in lots of ways, like I said. That included having all kinds of bits and pieces stuck on the front of it. Someone had covered in the upstairs veranda for example, and one of the ground-floor windows had been converted with a sort of box arrangement. Plus there was a lot of ivy. As I crouched there I imagined I could see a route going up the front of the building that someone reasonably fit and athletic could climb. And I was the girl who’d got Gavin off the cliff on Tailor’s Stitch, not so long ago. Compared to Tailor’s Stitch this didn’t look too hard. The biggest difference was that on Tailor’s Stitch there were no windows, and so not much chance that someone would lean out a window and calmly shoot me.

I didn’t know what laws were operating in this town. Would they be allowed to shoot me in cold blood if they caught me climbing into their house? Probably. And if not, I guessed they wouldn’t have too much of a problem taking me somewhere quiet out of town and doing the job there.

Occasionally cars went down the street but I hadn’t seen a pedestrian the whole time I’d been there. That meant I should be safe from being caught by a passer-by. The cars were a problem though. They tended to go slowly, because of the speed bumps, and being a deadend street they were people going home, not racing past at a hundred k’s. If they saw me stuck on the front of the house like Spiderman I couldn’t expect much mercy.

By now it was 1.30 am. I thought it was time to do something. If I waited too long I wouldn’t have the strength or energy I was going to need. And if by some crazy fluke I was successful, I needed time to get both Gavin and myself out of town to that cemetery. It had to be an hour’s walk. God knows how we’d do that. I’d have to wait and see.

I left the park and slowly crossed the road, quite a way up the street from the house. I didn’t want some wideawake sentry seeing me heading purposefully towards the place. I wondered again if I had the right house. If I didn’t this could be one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. Not to mention the fact that I’d be back where I started, with even less hope of rescuing Gavin.

It was about 1.40 when I reached number 503 again. Now I didn’t pretend to be an innocent passer-by. There was no point. It was better to try not to be seen at all. From two houses away I sidled along the fence as quietly as I could. Being quiet wasn’t difficult; I was on a bitumen footpath and there were no dried leaves or twigs or bark, the stuff that makes it so difficult when you’re out in the bush.

At the house I paused for a moment only. It all seemed innocent. I slipped down to the gate and eased it open. Bloody thing, hadn’t they ever heard of lubricating oil? It squeaked like a wounded rabbit. Trying not to breathe I snuck into the pretty little garden. What were my instincts telling me? My basic instincts? Was anyone watching? Was I about to get clobbered? And you know, something funny happened. I didn’t know if I was being watched or not, although I was terrified. I didn’t know if someone was about to jump me. But I suddenly knew with absolute certainty that Gavin was very close. It sent my whole spine tingling, all the way down to my tail bone. This nice suburban house in the middle of Havelock with its daffodils and early rosebuds and a big hydrangea was holding my favourite person in the world. I knew it.

It motivated me. I actually muttered something corny like, ‘OK Gavin kiddo, I’m coming to get you.’ I went to the right-hand corner and took a hold of the wall and searched upwards to see what I would find. My fingers gripped the corner of the top of the window and I got up on the sill. I was going to try to avoid the windows but at least this one had a curtain across it.

From there the climb immediately started getting difficult. I had to rely on the ivy, which I wasn’t too happy about as it didn’t have that great a grip on the wall. It was thick enough and strong enough, cos it had obviously been growing there a long time, but from the start it kept pulling away when I put weight on it. I got above the ground-floor window quite easily, which I was pleased about as it meant I was now up a good way. But I didn’t feel at all safe. I thought my best chance was to get over to that box-window arrangement and from the roof of that use a drainpipe to get to the closed-in veranda.

I started to reach across to the left and at that very moment a car came slowly along the street. I cursed it. Talk about timing. These people were making no effort to help me at all. I waited there, suspended, knowing that if you don’t make a movement you can be amazingly invisible. On the other hand a faint tremor of your eyelashes and you can be spotted a k away. That’s how it worked in the bush anyway, and I had to assume it’d be the same here.

Then the ivy pulled out by the roots and I fell backwards into the garden.

I landed on the hydrangea. I don’t mind hydrangeas normally but now I realised just how strong and hard those branches are. Spiky even. The ivy was on top of me and I lay there for a moment too shocked to move. The fall had knocked the wind out of me. I was wondering who’d catch me first, the people in the car or the people in the house. I started to struggle. Humans are so stupid at times like that, well at least I am. Caught between the minor pain of being spiked by the hydrangeas, and the major pain of being splattered into pieces by high-velocity bullets, I was pretty much six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. Cursing the hydrangeas and feeling some really sharp, horrible pain in different places, struggling to get out of the bush, and at the same time listening for an opening door, running footsteps, shouts of alarm, rifles rattling as they were lifted into position . . . with one eye I was looking at my left arm to see if it was bleeding, with the other I was looking at the house to see if lights were coming on.