Time's Long Ruin (50 page)

‘Come on,' Andrew said as he zoomed past me, circling the roundabout and returning. He got his bike up to full speed, dropped his head to cut resistance and swerved to avoid a man pulling out of his drive. Then he slowed, turned and repeated the whole exercise.

‘I've never ridden a bike,' I called out, but he couldn't hear me.

I could return the bike and sit it out, but it looked like fun. I put my good leg over the bar and thought about it.

‘Come on,' he said, as he hurtled past again.

I walked the bike to the road and pointed it in the right direction. If I couldn't get my left foot working I'd soon be face down on the bitumen. I could break an arm or leg. Then Mum would arrive, screaming at me, saying, Henry, what were you thinking? I've told you a hundred times, think, know your limitations. As she knew them – escorting me through life, urging me to wear my orthopaedic boots when I really wanted to run barefoot down the streets of Croydon.

I pushed myself off, managing to lift both feet and place them on the pedals. Then, stretching my left foot until it cramped and burned with pain, I turned the pedals – although my shonky foot couldn't reach the bottom of the revolution. Still, I was moving. Trees, dogs and houses floated past. I was riding – slowly, wobbly, but I'd done it. I couldn't help but smile. My eyes lit up and I laughed. ‘Look,' I said.

And Andrew looked at me, thinking, So?

Of course, it was just riding a bike. So, I tried not to smile or laugh. ‘Janice,' I whispered, ‘look at me now.'

She was standing on the footpath, watching, frowning, her arms crossed.
Why did you never try?
, she asked.

I know. I was stupid
, I replied.

I managed to circle the roundabout and start back. Andrew caught up to me and said, ‘I'll race you.'

‘My foot,' I began, but he was already gone.

Look, look at me! I wanted to shout. Mum . . . Dad, see, I
can
do it!

Janice was still watching me.
You're okay now
, she called, smiling.
You're okay by yourself, eh?

I looked at her.
What?

You'll be fine.

And she walked off, waving.

Janice?

But she didn't look back.

I perfected my clumsy action and started moving faster – fast enough to hear wind in my ears, through my hair and feel it on my skin. I dropped my head, squinted and licked my lips. As I approached the roundabout I applied the brakes but they didn't work. At that instant I heard Kate's voice in my ears. ‘Get off my bike!'

‘He can have a go,' Andrew shot back. ‘Mariel rides mine.'

‘That's different. Henry, get off my bike.'

As the words grew louder I noticed a truck approaching the roundabout from my right. I could try and go faster, and then I might beat it, but I might not. Small increments of time exploded in my face. The truck wasn't even slowing. There was only one thing I could do. I steered the bike up a driveway and onto the footpath. Then I let myself tip over and tumble onto a nature strip of soft, green buffalo. I rolled a few times and ended up with my face a few inches away from a Stobie pole. My right foot was caught in the spokes of the rear wheel but apart from that I was fine.

The truck roared off and Andrew pulled up beside me. ‘You okay?'

‘Of course.'

And he was off again, shrugging his shoulders as if to say, So what, no big deal. ‘Hey, watch this,' he cried, as he rode past with his front wheel in the air.

Meanwhile, Kate was pushing my foot out of the spokes as she retrieved her bike. ‘If anything's broken, you can pay for it, Henry.'

‘It's fine.'

‘Did I say you could use it?'

Andrew pulled up again. ‘What now?'

‘He can't ride, he's a cripple.'

I sat up and noticed fresh, curry-coloured dog shit smeared down the side of my shirt. ‘It's just a bad foot,' I said.

‘Club foot. You shouldn't be riding a bike.'

‘It should have brakes,' I growled.

‘You should've asked.'

‘You don't ask me,' Andrew shot back.

‘Get fucked,' his sister shouted.

‘You get fucked.'

‘Fuck off.' Kate pulled up her pyjama bottoms. ‘You're not welcome at our house,' she said to me.

‘He is so,' Andrew replied.

‘Well stay away from me.'

And with that she was off, walking her bike back towards the house, holding it with one hand as she pulled up her pyjamas with the other.

‘Fat arse!' Andrew called.

‘Fuck off.'

I stood up. Andrew smiled. ‘Don't worry about her.' He looked at my shirt. ‘That stinks.'

‘I better go home.'

So there I was, walking home with my half-read
Peter Pan
, fighting off flies and wondering what I'd tell Mum. When I got home I told her I'd tripped on the footpath, and she just shook her head.

I should've stuck to counting trains, I thought, feeling around my neck for the shed key and not finding it. ‘I'll be back in a minute,' I said.

‘I'm running a bath for you.'

‘I lost something.'

I found it, hanging from the picket of a nearby fence, glistening in the sun, swinging in the breeze, inches from where someone had found it.

The search for the Rileys continued throughout March. Most days there was a new lead and Dad would go next door to tell Bill and Liz. As he sat there talking Liz would play the piano, looking at the photo of her kids on the lid and singing soft, unrecognisable words. Bill would sit on a pouffe with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor, taking it all in but not making much of it anymore. Then he'd say, ‘Thanks, Bob, maybe this is the one,' and stand and squeeze Dad's shoulder before leaving the room.

The organised searches had finished. The papers, looking for fresh tragedies and disasters, had moved them back to page ten, fifteen and then twenty, until they just about collided with the racing section. Every few days there was a small piece in a column:
Police search a camp near Anglesea,
Geelong
. Going on to explain how a suspected grave turned out to be a mound of rubbish.
Police search well at Second Valley
for Riley children
. Bones of dead livestock.
Reservoir search for
missing Rileys
, with a photo of police divers emerging from murky water with nothing but a few old shearing handpieces.

Bill and Liz returned to circulation. They would appear, hand in hand, in Joe Skurray's shop and Joe wouldn't know what to say. ‘Listen, Bill,' he stammered, ‘there's no charge.'

Bill held out a pound note. ‘Joe, we're not a charity.'

Joe bit his bottom lip. ‘You back at work, Bill?'

‘It's not the point. We got money.'

‘Listen, Bill, it's just . . . I ain't done much to help.'

Like it or not, they would cover Elizabeth Street without once opening their wallet or purse.

John Cox. ‘I tell you, Bill, without a word of a lie, my wife gets on her knees and prays for them every night, half-an-hour sometimes. She misses 'em. We all do. Just remember, you're not alone. Any time, day or night, you know where our place is . . . but if you wanna keep to yourselves, that's alright too.'

There were other ways of invoking the kids: Eric offering his concrete Virgin again, Ron Wells' wife squeezing Liz's hand as she gave her her sausages (nearly twice as many as she'd asked for), chicken casseroles and bags of carrots, lemons and oranges left on their front porch. Maybe, in a strange way, some of this horror was good for us. It renewed friendships and reminded us how easy it was to be generous. It made us forget about the price of petrol or the state of our dining-room carpets. Even me, going in and sitting with Liz, reading her
Peter Pan
(realising it was a bad choice, and telling her, as she laughed and begged me to continue). The Richmond Rotary Club delivered a load of firewood and stacked it against their fence. The council forgot to send their rates notice, and one day a man from City Motors arrived at their front door, asking for their keys and telling them he'd have their Austin back from its service by four, if that wasn't too late.

In this way, the Rileys survived without accepting anyone's charity.

School had settled into a predictable rhythm – times tables recited and cursive practised again and again against a slope card: strong, simple copperplate, minus flourishes and histrionic loops (as Mr Meus called them). Uneaten lunches thrown over fences on the way home. Ten out of ten spelling tests stuck on the fridge. A stale-smelling school bag. The rhythm of bells, and lines, and the grade ones forever holding hands. Hair tied up and shirts out. Sport narrowly avoided (although Mr Meus did ring Mum).

At lunchtime Judy's group of four or five girls adopted me. We all sat around on a fallen log drinking warm cordial and eating burnt pasties (our student rep had promised to go and see the canteen mistress). We discussed what Katy did next, and Elizabeth Taylor's dimples, until one of them said, ‘Why don't you play with the boys, Henry?'

‘He's okay, he sits next to me,' Judy defended.

‘But it's not normal.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's a bit . . . sissy.'

I sat staring at the ground. ‘I can't keep up with them,' I offered.

Judy threw her apple core to a crow. ‘Henry's got a whole shed full of books.'

Ssh, I wanted to say, don't tell them that. She'd found out the afternoon she invited herself around to my place. Mum had just vacuumed, so she told us to go and play outside. Soon there was a game of badminton, and Judy was pointing to the shed. ‘What's in there?'

‘Stuff.'

She moved towards a crack in the iron and looked in. ‘It's full of books.'

‘They're mine.'

‘Can I have a look?'

‘I'm not meant to – '

‘Have you got any Biggles?'

So there we were, moments later, browsing my collection. ‘Where'd you get all these?' she asked.

‘I inherited them.'

‘From who?'

‘An uncle.'

She made a selection and as I locked the door I said, ‘Don't tell anyone else.'

‘Why?'

‘It's our neighbour's shed.'

‘I won't.'

Back in the yard a few days later, the group of girls, all with their hands on their knees, stared at me. ‘Can we come over?'

I looked at Judy. She bit her lip and shrugged. ‘Sorry.'

A week later they'd all visited my place and stocked up. ‘That's it,' I explained. ‘I'm not letting anyone else in there.' But they weren't content. Over the next few weeks they nagged me for more books, so I made a list of titles, and became the Croydon Primary book monitor.

So, I'd become a defacto girl. This is not something any boy wants. At the start of little or big lunch, Allan or some of the other boys would ask me if I had my make-up on. ‘You've lost your perm,' they'd call out, or, ‘Was your dress in the wash today?'

If Judy heard any of this she'd have them on the ground, or in a headlock. What Janice did with words, Judy did with brute force. She'd stand with her foot on their neck and make them apologise – which would make it even harder for me next time. She'd take my hand and walk off with me and I'd think, Christ, what have I got myself into? Still, it was something I could live with.

One day Allan followed me home. As I walked he rode thirty feet behind me, stopping when I stopped, staring at me. I turned into Thomas Street and hid behind a lemon tree. When he came around the corner I said, ‘My dad's a detective.'

‘So what?' he replied.

‘He can find out anything about you, or your family.'

‘So? You threatening me?'

‘You following me?'

He got off his bike and took a few steps towards me. ‘You want a brawl?'

‘What?'

‘On the mound.'

‘What mound?'

And then he described what he'd done to boys a lot bigger and smarter and stronger than me. How he'd meet them on the hummocks behind the glass factory at Kilkenny. How he'd flatten them with a single punch. Right there, he said, pointing to his nose. Right in the middle of their face.

‘You do that to me, you'd be in juvenile detention,' I said.

‘So?'

‘So.' This was the level I'd been dragged down to. ‘My dad caught a murderer, and later on he was hung.'

‘Bullshit.'

‘Bullshit nothing. I'll show you the paper.'

‘Allan!' Without him noticing it, Judy had picked up Allan's bike and was riding it in circles around the roundabout. He shot after her but she was off at full speed down Thomas Street. She widened the gap. When she was far enough ahead she got off his bike and left it in the middle of the road in front of an oncoming car. Then she ran off. The car stopped and the driver got out and gave Allan a mouthful of abuse as he rescued his bike.