Louis Beside Himself (20 page)

Try again
.

No
.

I waited a bit instead. A bat squeaked and flapped overhead. I held my breath again but this time I did it deliberately to prevent breathing in any particles of bat wee. Singo said you can get a fatal disease by inhaling bat wee, and you never know when a bat is going to
U
RINATE
, as it probably doesn't have to stand still to wee, like we do – it probably lets go mid-air, right over your head.

Now you can go home, satisfied that you tried, but really,
there was nothing you could do.

And what will be at home?

I tried again.

Nothing happened. I stepped back and looked up at the sky. The moon was rising now over the rooftops. The silence was unnerving. Sometimes the quiet is like a giant
C
AMOUFLAGED
animal waiting to spring out at you. I was just about to go when I heard a noise from inside the house. I put my ear to the door.

Music. Faint as smoke. Some old rock song. An old Neil Young song. I remembered that. Dad had played it over and over last year.

The front windows were closed. The house looked locked and empty. I put my head against a window. Now there was the sound of a piano. That made me feel bolder. It vanished the animal of silence, making everything more ordinary. What if I looked at the whole thing more like a puzzle I had to solve? Or if the door suddenly opened I could say I was doing a charity drive and did they have any small coins?

I decided to explore around the back, which meant sneaking down the dark corridor beside the house. Long weeds and crawly things brushed my legs. About halfway along, a window with bubbly glass appeared above me. The bathroom? I scrambled around a leaking water tank, and then arrived, suddenly, at the back of the house. My stomach gurgled in the silence. Here, quite possibly, the resident of number 124 could be sitting on outdoor furniture, taking in the fresh night air.

I flattened myself against the side wall, panting. Then I peeped around and saw a pocket of grass with a clothesline slung between two posts. A pair of black jeans and a man's T-shirt hung there. I swallowed. The waist of the jeans' was wide, the legs long and worn at the knees. They were made for a very big man.

But the yard was empty. I inched out along the brick wall. No doors here, just a large window above my head. I rose up on tiptoes.

A sink, a fridge covered with photos and notices, cupboards, and a wooden table.

And on the wooden table was a radio. A man was talking, I could make it out quite easily now, about the
D
ELETERIOUS
effects of carbon gases on our climate. ‘Neil Young was singing about it back in the seventies', he said. ‘And now for another song of his, “Like a Hurricane”. '

I knew this song, too. Somehow, that was reassuring. Even here, in the home of a serious criminal and a woman blind to the truth, was Neil Young who'd sung about the dangers of climate change long before most.

I rapped at the window, and startled a beetle crouched in the corner of the windowpane. But there was no answering movement in the house. I tried the window. It rose an inch. It wasn't locked.

This is your only chance.

I pushed up the window as far as it would go and levered my knee onto the sill. A tingly rush of memory nearly toppled me back onto the grass. I was watching myself break into a stranger's kitchen just as I'd watched Cordelia break into mine. In slow motion. With horror.
I
RONIC
, wasn't it?

I crawled through and landed with my knees on the stainless steel sink. Imagine if someone came in now, from the bathroom maybe, and found me! But no, probably the radio had been left on deliberately. Dad did that when we went away for a weekend – so thieves would think someone was home.

I checked the fridge for photos. And yes, there was Cordelia, with long hair. A woman was smiling, with her arm around her. This must be her mum. Cordelia was frowning into the camera. Her mouth looked lugubrious.

I padded out of the kitchen, into the hall. On the right was a large bedroom, with a key in the door. And beyond that was the living room, which looked out onto the front porch and lawn.

My stomach was churning. I had to do something. Even if I couldn't talk to anyone, I had to let Cordelia's mother know how much her daughter missed her. Maybe I should leave a message.

On the kitchen bench there was a hairbrush and comb, a bowl with a shell necklace, a notepad and pen. I picked up the pad.

Buy milk, pick up dry-cleaning, Friday 6pm meet Kathy
at Café Gigi

I folded over the page and wrote.

Dear Cordelia's mother
, and then I stopped. How to say everything and not everything? How to tell about Cordelia and not reveal where she was?

I sucked the pen. Singo hated this habit of mine. I could see his horrified face. Who might have been sucking that pen before me? A vision of those big jeans hanging on the clothesline outside floated into my mind. I shuddered and put down the pen, picking up the shell necklace. I was committing the sin of
P
ROCRASTINATION
, which means wasting time doing anything else but the job you're supposed to do. My fingers trailed through rubber bands, paperclips, a pencil sharpener, some odd buttons. I suppose you'd also call this
S
NOOPING
, which is of course a far worse sin.

Just then a soft click came from the front of the house.

No!

A key in the lock, the squeak of a door opening.

I stopped breathing.

A thud and then a trickle of smaller thuds made me stand rigid to attention, the pad scrunched tight in my hand.

There was a grunt, as if someone was bending down to pick up the thud-things.

The door slammed.

Someone was home. And here I was in the Someone's kitchen, with nowhere to hide. I glanced at the back door with a deadlock, the window behind me. No time. But I couldn't bear the silence of waiting, the thick mounting terror, the choking stillness . . .

I dashed out with my hands up.

‘Sorry!' I cried, coming face to face with the woman from the photograph, plus the bag of oranges that were escaping. Although I was as wired as an electric cable, I felt a rush of relief that she wasn't the owner of the big jeans. We were so close that I could smell pizza – with anchovies? – on her breath. I realised two things at the same time: I was taller than her, and she must have been to Café Gigi with Kathy.

‘Did you have the anchovy pizza? That's my favourite.'

‘What?' The woman's face was wild, her eyes trapped.

I tried again, but nothing came out.

Oh voice, don't fail me now! I punched the wall in frustration.

The woman went still. But her mouth and eyes were tossing around like major landmarks caught in a wind.

‘No, it's not like that!' I cried, and reached out for her arm.

She yelped and a shudder like a quake ran through her body. She shoved the bag at me and my arms instinctively reached out for it. As I stood holding the oranges, she dashed up the hall to the kitchen.

I dashed after her, shouting something, trying to explain, but she snatched up the phone. ‘Police!' she cried, and grabbed a knife off the bench. ‘Come any closer and I'll kill you!'

I froze. All the muscles in my body stopped working and I dropped the oranges. My hands went up in total surrender without my telling them to, and I realised, watching them in front of my face, that my left hand still held the notepad. I held it out to her, jabbing at the words I'd written.

‘
Dear Cordelia's mother
,' she read out loud. Her mouth opened in a perfect O. Her face stopped going wild and she looked right into my eyes.

‘What?' she said into the phone. ‘Oh no, never mind.' And she put it down on the wall.

We examined each other. Blonde wavy hair, fine straight nose, lips pursed and drawn in like Cordelia's. Her face would have been lugubrious if not for her deep green eyes flecked with gold. Calming eyes. They made you think of lovely duck ponds with the afternoon sun shining on them.

‘You know my daughter?' she said softly.

‘A country like Australia could supply most of its domestic needs with solar and wind energy,' said the radio.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘And I'm sorry to barge in like this, it must have given you a dreadful fright – I've had a few of those myself lately – but I wanted to tell you about her and try to . . . well, try to help.'

‘We could be at the forefront of the alternative energy industry if only our politicians took the lead and invested— '

Cordelia's mother leaned over and turned off the radio. ‘What's your name? Do you live around here? When was the last time you saw Cordelia?'

‘Louis. Yes. And I saw Cordelia this morning. Well, at least, I sort of glimpsed her . . . but she's okay, she's absolutely well, no need to worry about
that
, except she misses you terribly.' I took a deep breath. I had so much to say, but I could tell that Cordelia's mother would have trouble taking it all in, and I did have the bad habit of swamping people with my ideas and the entire panorama of my brain. So I decided to count to ten before I went on.

‘I'm Anne,' said Cordelia's mother. She put out her hand for a chair and sort of tottered over to it. Sinking onto the seat, she gestured for me to sit too.

We both looked down at the oranges, but neither of us thought of picking them up.

‘Hi Anne,' I said.

‘Hi Louis.' Then she smiled. My heart melted. It really did. It may be a common expression, but it's an absolutely true description of the way your chest eases so that your insides feel warm and cosy like rivers of butter flowing gently with the tilt of the pan.

Anne had a beautiful smile, just like her daughter's. She sighed with relief, pushing back her hair, and a large gold earring flashed into sight.

‘So, how did you meet Cordelia? Where is she?'

‘Well, it's like this,' I said, to give myself time. This was a story, a true story. I'd try to tell it well, but mainly I'd be reporting . . . and giving the truth the best slant. It was like introducing a person, or showing their best side in a photograph. It would be important to consider what to leave out – the silences would be as important as the words.

‘Cordelia loves you and misses you. She's safe and she's staying with us . . .' But how could I say how we met? A mother wouldn't want to hear that her daughter had been a burglar. But that was the question she'd asked.

‘Are you sure she's all right?' Anne was searching my face. Her green eyes had grown darker, glittery, like emeralds. ‘Is there something you're not telling me?'

To answer her truthfully I'd have to say Cordelia was running from danger . . . which meant I'd have to tell her about Jimmy. And if I told the story
C
HRONOLOGICALLY
, as in
real time
, I'd have to begin with Jimmy, which wasn't a good place to start. I'd been wanting to work up to that . . . after all, according to Cordelia, her mother was in love with the man. Oh why didn't real life
ever
go as you imagined in your head?

‘No, yes, well, see . . .' I stammered.

This was going nowhere.

And then I thought about the politician Dad and I saw on last night's news. He'd listened politely to the interviewer's questions, but answered only those that suited him. Dad said afterwards that he'd ducked awkward issues like Mohammed Ali ducked punches.

Well, why not do that, I thought wildly – be my own politician! I could avoid the first question and go straight to my message.

‘Cordelia is staying in our tent,' I said boldly. ‘She's quite comfortable and well fed, but of course she can't stay there for ever.'

Anne opened her mouth to say something. But, like the politician I was becoming, I forged ahead.

‘Your daughter is a very caring, good person, isn't she?' I said, making my voice go down at the end like a statement, not up at the end like a question. ‘While staying with us,' I went on, ‘she's done all kinds of things around the place. She's mown the lawn, which was actually my job. She's fixed the gate, which was also supposed to be my job, only I never got around to it. She pruned back the great mess of ivy and did, oh, a
M
ULTITUDE
of other good works. She didn't
have
to do them, and she did them really well.'

Here I took a moment to breathe, but when Anne said, ‘Wha— ' I quickly covered her voice with mine.

‘Which all goes to show how energetic and hard-working she is. Personally, I think this demonstrates that she's been very well brought-up, with good
R
OBUST
values built on trust and consideration.'

Anne was smiling at me now, and a little giggle burst from the corner of her mouth. I didn't know what she found amusing – no one giggled like that at the politicians – but it was better than her interrogating me about things I didn't want to talk about yet. I moved on to my next point.

‘Cordelia told me about the house down south where you both used to live. She loved that place, didn't she. Collecting kindling together, sitting around the fire in the evenings. She loved the vegie garden and the ducks— '

‘She told you about the ducks?' Anne's face lit up. She leaned forward and touched my arm. ‘She remembers all that?'

‘Oh yes, she said it was a wonderful time.'

Anne was nodding, her smile quivery, tears sparkling at the corners of her eyes. This moment, I realised, was just as I'd imagined: a mother's joy at hearing her daughter was safe, and me being the one to bring the good news. Any moment now Anne would jump up and offer me a lovely cold drink – my mouth was so dry from all that walking and worrying – and then she'd show me Cordelia's teddy and baby photos and thank me for everything I'd done.