Gone, p.10
Gone, page 10
Virginia put her hands up in surrender. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you. We’ll be off then.’
At the time, I didn’t notice that the cameraman was holding the camera at waist height, aimed at us, a little red light on the top as he filmed everything we’d said. How naive Robyn and I had been. They’d got their grab. Robyn saying, A young girl who got mixed up with a teacher. Me saying, Rebecca, please come home. All of it tightly edited into a bigger story on the news that night, fronted by Virginia saying that two days before the Healy murder-suicide, Rebecca Bundy, their babysitter, had disappeared. The same girl who had also been named as the student who allegedly went to her teacher’s house during school hours. The story made Rebecca’s disappearance appear sinister, with the added hint of a sexual scandal.
Having no idea we’d just been tricked, Robyn pulled the yellow envelope out of her apron pocket, started shuffling through the photos to show me. We shared a Kit-Kat while gazing at photos of Sinead’s lovely blonde kids, smiling. A couple of Audrey posing in first position wearing a pale blue tutu. Some with Jacob playfighting on the floor with Elliot.
‘Those little darlings,’ Robyn said, her fingers gently touching their faces.
And unexpectedly, wonderfully, there was a shot of Rebecca feeding Mason in his highchair, a spoon in her hand, grinning widely, eyes bright, into the photographer’s face. Audrey, in the ballet dress, was in the background.
‘Jacob must’ve taken that one,’ Robyn said. ‘Sinead would’ve been at work.’
Rebecca was grinning into Jacob Healy’s face.
‘You can keep it if you want,’ she said, handing the photo to me.
‘Thanks.’
‘And perhaps you should take a break from here, love, until we have some certainty about where Rebecca is. We don’t want any more journalists bothering us.’
I knew Robyn was right, but if I didn’t have the shop to go to, all I had was home, which was stressful and boring. Mum with her cups of tea and glasses of white wine in front of the TV soaps.
If Mum wasn’t already distressed enough, the Channel 9 News story sent her off the Richter scale with bouts of uncontrollable crying, curled up in bed, lashing out at Dad to do something. She became obsessed about what people were saying about us. They should throw away the key on that Errol Soydan. How dare that reporter imply my daughter had something to do with what happened to the Healys! Bull Tennant knows the truth. What did I ever do to deserve this?
It felt like she was more concerned about the gossip than Rebecca’s whereabouts. And if she felt responsible for her daughter’s disappearance I never heard her say so.
As it turned out, the Channel 9 News story just fuelled salacious speculation. Rebecca had been murdered. She’d run away with an unnamed lover. She was seen hitchhiking on the Pacific Highway near Newcastle. And then, so quickly, Rebecca’s disappearance was just another story. We were media fodder, used, then forgotten.
In some ways, Dad had disappeared too. Harvest had started so there were twelve or more pickers to organise among the trees. Plus other workers in the shed who graded the apples for size, packed and stored them before loading the truck for Dad to take to the distributor, who sold the apples at the Footscray Market.
During that busy time Bryce Jones was around constantly. His too-long dark hair resting on his shoulders as he drove the tractor and trailer with three bins of apples to the shed, returning with empty bins for the pickers to fill again. In the warm weather he wore a navy singlet that showed off his tattoos on both arms, one a curved triangle that looked like plaited rope, and the other one was something blurry that I never got close enough to see. Every second day he came to the back door to drop off a cardboard box of groceries, and Mum’s white wine cask, all purchased in Benalla close to where he lived.
Everything around Dad, Mum and me felt high-pitched, brittle, intense. The only respite from feeling so exposed was in routine, being private, staying close to home. I took charge of the kitchen. Set the table, put salad on the plates with cold meat, or sausages, sometimes fried egg with baked beans and toast. Without being asked I did the dishes and swept the floor, took the rubbish out to the incinerator. I fed the chooks and brought in the eggs. I took down all the Christmas cards, carried the dead tree outside, and packed the decorations away. If either of my parents noticed I was being so responsible neither mentioned it to me. All I wanted was a small compliment, acknowledgement that I was being so well behaved. I was being the daughter they had always wanted me to be, yet it made no difference.
After another trip to see Dr Sandbrook in Melbourne, Mum’s medications were changed. There were different bottles of tablets in the bathroom cupboard, and she didn’t appear so sleepy or drugged. Still, she seemed distracted. And strangely, she started to wear makeup again, and her Chanel No. 5 – a perfume that for the rest of my life took me back to those traumatic days immediately after Rebecca went missing. It was an odd thing to notice, Mum’s red lips and made-up eyes, when nothing else about her was like before.
On the day before I started back at school, Ripper died. In the end it wasn’t really a surprise the way his breathing had turned to panting, his sad eyes staring like he was begging for help. I sat with him and stroked his head, talked to him and just waited. Because Dad was a practical person we’d never taken our pets to the vet; most country people were like that. ‘He’s an old dog,’ he said. And I heard him tell Mum that if Ripper didn’t improve overnight he’d take him down to the mulberry tree with his gun and bury him there. But Ripper died alone sometime during the night. I was with Dad when he put heavy rocks on his grave to stop the foxes digging him up. And when I laid a bunch of roses on top, I cried for the whole mess of my family and because Rebecca didn’t know that our dog had died.
ELEVEN
On the first day of school, I stood under the blue gum waiting for the bus. The dead leaves under my feet were thick, like standing on a cushion. A little further along, towards the Community Hall, a skinny cat poked its head out from a clump of grass and eyed me off, a feral creature with low-hanging teats. I was trying to decide if I should return later in the day to feed it when Jenny Russo, from Glen Lochan Road, drove past in a silver Nissan Patrol that looked the same colour and shape as Sinead’s car. Maybe it was Sinead’s car because it would’ve been sold at the clearing sale, held a couple of weeks earlier at the Healys’ property. And when Jenny waved, I turned away because I wasn’t up to being friendly with anyone, except maybe with the cat, who had disappeared behind the hall.
Then Andy’s father, Ted Knightly, drove by in his Toyota ute, and if he saw me I didn’t know because I pretended to look at my feet, which got me thinking that the last time I’d stood in that spot Rebecca had been with me, like she had been every other day I’d gone to school. It was the same feeling I had at home. Her silence made me feel lonely, yet I didn’t want anyone else around me. I took a deep breath and knew I was very tired. Something was wrong with me, a secret illness, or perhaps it was a secret power, because the night before I’d sliced my thigh with Dad’s razor, just a quick stab to release something from my body, and ever since then when the cut hurt, I breathed easier.
I took my seat on the bus, always the same one, seven seats down on the left. Years earlier we’d somehow established who sat where and stuck to it. The usual kids were already seated, plus a couple of little kids starting Year 7 with their neat uniforms and anxious faces. Andy Knightly was two seats behind me on the right. When he leaned forward to speak to me, I slunk down and looked out the window. I felt self-conscious, a strange buzz in my ears. Most of those kids on the bus had witnessed Mum and Rebecca’s fight at the showgrounds. And after all the weeks since, which had involved the Healy tragedy and their funerals, Christmas, for some holidays away from the mountain, there we were again starting a new school year. And in all that time – aside from the buzzing rumours about Errol Soydan and Rebecca – there had only been a couple of false sightings of her.
At school I read the timetable and somehow managed to find my way from one class to the next. I couldn’t concentrate. I was aware of the teachers out the front, walking around, writing on the blackboard. Kids sitting in rows of desks. Words being spoken. Kids flicking the pages of textbooks. Whenever the bell rang it was too loud, too shrill and vibrated through me. I blinked at the sound of laughter because it’d been so long since I’d heard any. I could feel everyone staring at me, looking at me sideways, talking about me. More like talking about Rebecca, that she’d gone with Mr Soydan to his house.
I was diligent in avoiding Jasmine because she’d always intimidated me, but on that first day back at school we came face to face in the girls’ toilets. She was Rebecca’s best friend, but looking at her, the piercings, thin black hair, heavily made-up eyes, a certain haughtiness, it made no sense to me why Rebecca liked her.
We stood in front of each other, and it was me who looked away first.
‘Sorry about Rebecca,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’
‘Any news?’
‘Not really.’
‘It’s really horrible,’ Jasmine said.
Perhaps because she was showing me kindness, empathy, I found my voice. ‘Is it true about Mr Soydan? You know, Rebecca going to his place?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why did she go?’
‘Why do you think?’ she said, leaning forward, staring into my eyes for emphasis, communicating that she thought I was too immature, or guileless, to understand, which at the time was probably right.
‘How do you know that’s true and not just a rumour?’ I asked.
‘Because she told me.’
I blushed, felt small, hot. With the ammonia stench of the toilets, I thought I might drop onto the concrete floor.
‘Keep me posted,’ she said, walking away.
Aside from seeing her at a distance at school, in the corridor, or the quadrangle, it was almost four decades before we spoke again.
On those first couple of days my friends, Rachel and Andrea, stood around me with exaggerated energy. I hated their prying questions about Rebecca and they soon started avoiding me because I was acting so strangely. I used to love school. The smell of new text books, the feel of new pens and pencils, writing neat lines.
The loneliest place in the world was the schoolyard, probably still is. On the third day, I found a quiet place around the back of the school, a no-man’s-land that wasn’t on the way to anywhere. So that’s where I was when I wasn’t in class, sitting on a concrete step staring at the clouds. Or I’d pick up a stick and draw patterns in the garden bed beside me. Sometimes a bird with brown and yellow feathers darted into a grevillea. I loved it when that little bird sat on one of those fine branches and gazed around as if expecting to find something. I counted the seconds it stayed, sometimes for thirty or more.
At lunchtime on the fourth day, I walked out of the school gate and headed for the showgrounds. I didn’t know why, except my chest was heavy and I simply couldn’t stay at school. I didn’t want to go home. All I wanted was for Rebecca to come and find me and take me to wherever she was. As I walked along the pathway beside the Deveron River, I spoke to her, earnest words, begging words, tears wetting my face. I wiped my nose on my arm. Whenever a car passed me I turned away, acting like I was looking at something in the distance.
Through the granite pillars, across to the row of Moreton Bay figs and into their long casting shadows. I sat on the same concrete bench as the last time I was there. I counted back. It was almost seven and a half weeks since that terrible day. I liked being away from people, yet I wanted to be held by someone. But I couldn’t think who by. Mum hadn’t hugged me in a long time, she wasn’t the type. Last time I’d tried to hug Dad he held my arms so I couldn’t get close, which offended me. Auntie Helen hugged me, but she was away on an overseas holiday, somewhere in Europe. Robyn at the shop hugged me sometimes, but only when she was fooling around being playful. Other faces came and went. People I’d known on the mountain all my life. There was no one else. So, I sat there and wished I had a cigarette to smoke, only because it was something Rebecca and Bull did. Instead, I picked the scab on my thigh until it oozed a warm red thread down my leg. And when that secret comfort stopped bleeding I wiped it up with a tissue.
Perhaps I dozed. Time drifted. At school everything was controlled by bells, the routine of classes and breaks, but sitting on that concrete seat, I had no idea how long I’d been there. I studied the angle of the sun, still couldn’t make a good guess. I thought I should go and catch the bus home, but still I didn’t move. I watched the clouds slowly morph from a giant baby’s profile to a map of Africa then into Dad’s Massey Ferguson tractor that we called ‘Fergie’. A car came into the showgrounds, parked at the pavilion, stayed a few minutes and left. I kept glancing around in case the blue-shirted man with the black dog was lurking around. Later a woman walked onto the oval with her golden retriever and played fetch with a tennis ball. I heard her laughter and the dog bark. Somewhere behind the toilets a dove cooed.
I had the feeling someone was close. I looked up. Andy Knightly was walking towards me, a can of Coke in his hand.
‘What’re you doing here?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’
He sat beside me, took a sip. I glanced at him, baby whiskers above his lip, grey shadows on his front teeth. He was in his school uniform, tie loose, the top button of his shirt undone.
He scrummaged inside his schoolbag, took out a packet of Winfields and a lighter, then lit up as if he was on his own, not sharing. He must have seen my pleading eyes.
‘Want one?’
I nodded.
We smoked, staring ahead.
He offered me a sip of his Coke and I took it.
‘It’s shit about Rebecca,’ he said. ‘Where do you reckon she is?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Saw you on TV.’
‘It wasn’t a real interview. Robyn and I didn’t know we were being filmed.’
‘Yeah, heard that. So, Bull’s in trouble with the cops again.’
‘He doesn’t know anything.’
‘You reckon?’
‘He has no idea where she is. I know that for a fact.’
‘And Mr Soydan. Jesus. That can’t be true.’
‘It’s just a stupid rumour.’
‘Really?’
I glared at him.
‘Fair enough. So how are you doing then with all this going on?’
No one else had asked, not so directly, and when I tried to answer no words came, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
‘You okay?’ he said.
Still, I couldn’t speak.
His arm went across my back as he hugged me into the side of his body. The feeling of his grip and the heat coming from him made me feel strange. I leaned forward as his other arm swung in front to keep me from falling.
‘Hey,’ Andy said, ‘it’s all right.’
‘No, it’s not.’
His fingers were up and down my arm, unexpectedly tender for a boy.
‘What’s going on at your place?’ he asked.
Careful, I thought.
‘Dad’s flat out with harvest. And Mum isn’t coping. She’s really upset.’
‘Yeah, fair enough. So have you heard anything?’
‘Not really.’
‘What, so that’s it? Rebecca takes a walk and everyone just guesses where she went?’
I told Andy about the missing travel bag, the summer clothes she’d taken. And yet as I heard my voice I remembered that her new bra had been in the laundry. Her favourite white shorts were in her bedroom drawer. That for certain she would’ve taken those things with her. And she must’ve come home wearing her school uniform and left wearing it. Why didn’t she change out of it?
‘Does that mean she’s taken off then?’ Andy said.
‘But she’s not phoned to say where she is and tell us she’s okay. I can’t believe she’d do that. Not even on Christmas Day. She used to babysit the Healy kids and she’s not even called us to talk about what happened to them. And our dog died, and she doesn’t know.’
‘Rebecca doesn’t want your parents dragging her back home,’ he said, pausing, gathering up his words. ‘Because your mother is a bit, you know, over the top. But you already know that.’
Andy was still holding me, so I was caught between his opinion of my mother and my feelings about him, especially his warm breath on my neck. It was an impulse when I turned, surprised how close our faces were. In a moment his lips were on mine, soft and slow, weird, but exciting.
In the dark shade of those ancient trees, Andy and I walked further back to a hidden bench. My memory of what happened next was like I wasn’t in my body, but watching the two of us from above. A fourteen-year-old girl too willing to lie back and open her legs. Andy pushing inside me. My eyes squeezed shut. Jaws clenched as the weight of him rammed me into the concrete table. It only took seconds before he grunted into my ear. Then straight away he lifted himself off me, zipped his school trousers as I put my undies back on.
‘How’d you do that?’ he asked, pointing to my thigh.
‘Accident.’
‘Needs stitches, I reckon.’
‘It’ll be okay.’
We lit up, and didn’t talk. I blew smoke through my nostrils. There was a rightness between us and the first time since Rebecca had left I felt my chest loosen. I could breathe.
Andy looked at his watch. ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘we need to get going.’
So we ran, Andy in front because he was faster. We talked with panting breath.
‘You want to catch up sometime?’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Okay.’
Across the railway line, down the concrete path beside the Deveron River.
The bus was up ahead.
Along the aisle, and without a backward glance, Andy strode ahead and sat in his usual seat beside Shaun Taylor. I risked a fleeting look and saw his face was blank and his arms were crossed on his chest as if he might fall asleep. I sat alone, imitating his posture. But all my attention was on the wet feeling between my legs. That’s when I counted the days from my last period and when I worked it out a shudder of alarm washed through me.
