Cold Skin (8 page)
There’s blood on her face.
Jesus! No!
I rush to her side
and touch her cold skin,
hoping against hope for a pulse.
The girl is dead.
I reel into the bushes to vomit
until nothing comes but bile and tears.
I sink to my hands and knees
to catch my breath,
my eyes tightly shut,
and a pain throbbing against my temple.
Behind me lies a girl
admired by everybody in town.
Frank and Betty’s daughter.
Sweat prickles on my forehead
and I shiver with the breeze across the water,
across Colleen.
I return to her body
and start searching for evidence, anything,
before I tell the town what’s happened.
Once I do that
this place will be a swarm of anger,
kicking up sand,
masking clues that must still be here.
Every second I look
Colleen’s body lies there
and pleads for covering.
Her body begs to be taken away
and put into a warm bed
with the sheets pulled high,
even though nothing can help now.
I can’t stay here much longer.
Colleen deserves better than this.
Her skirt is torn and twisted around her hips
a smear of dark sand on the fabric.
Scuffed footprints, shattered glass
and a cigarette butt
that could have been here for days
or minutes . . .
Who in my town could do this?
Eddie
I wander back to Central Station
and bunk down in the huge waiting room.
Moths fly around the light
as I roll my jumper into a pillow
and lie down,
hoping no one will disturb me
before the train home tomorrow.
A kerosene heater burns in the corner
and I hope it lasts all night.
Now I know why Mr Butcher
comes here every weekend.
But I can’t tell anyone.
No one would believe me.
Butcher can’t get a wife
so he pays for it.
He’s not the first to do that.
So why am I following him,
like some peeping Tom?
Maybe I’ll let Mr Butcher know what I’ve seen.
What then?
Better marks in exams?
The bastard would deny it
and make up some story.
If Dad found out,
I’d be in deep trouble.
As I drift between sleep and the city
I picture Sally and Colleen,
and how Mr Butcher always smiles at them.
I thought it was because they got good grades.
He likes young girls.
The creep likes young girls.
Sergeant Grainger
As I drive back to town,
I can’t bear the thought of leaving her there.
Someone else finding her.
And late evening dew
settling on her body.
I knock on the front door of
The Guardian
office.
Mr Carter will phone the undertaker
and do what has to be done,
without question.
It’s ironic,
the town newspaperman
is the only person I can trust
to keep it quiet for tonight.
The tremor in my voice
tells him something is terribly wrong.
I blurt out my story
and he doesn’t say a word.
He crosses himself and asks,
‘Do you want me to come with you, Pete?
To tell Frank and Betty?’
I shake my head.
‘No. It’s my duty, Mr Carter.’
And a bastard of a job at that.
We shake hands for no particular reason
and arrange to meet back at the river
with Mr Smyth, the undertaker,
in fifteen minutes,
to bring Colleen back to town.
Sergeant Grainger
There’s a cricket on my windscreen
when I park outside the O’Connors’.
He crawls along the glass
and hops onto the warm bonnet,
rubbing his wings for all it’s worth.
When I was a kid
we’d put them in a glass jar
with a few pin-holes in the lid
and hide them in our parents’ room.
Dad would rampage around half the night
shouting, swearing,
pulling the sheets off the bed,
tossing stuff out of the wardrobe.
In the next room,
my sister and me
did our best not to scream with laughter.
My sister lives in the city now,
with a daughter of her own.
The last time I visited,
we sat in her back garden,
the crickets kicking up a racket,
watching her little girl
playing in the sandpit.
‘It’s the greatest gift, Pete.
A child.’
Every light in the O’Connor house is on.
Mr Carter
Pete takes the camera from my hands.
I can’t bring myself to photograph the girl
even though it must be done.
The flash blazes in the cold air,
lighting everything in a vicious glow.
The Bible says:
‘Walk by faith, not by sight.’
We drape a sheet over Colleen
and carry her gently,
to the undertaker’s van.
Mr Smyth drives away as we return to the river.
I splash cold water on my face.
To be honest
I don’t want to leave this place.
Let me go back to yesterday
when this town was full
of miners and shopkeepers,
clerks and accountants,
school children and farmers,
husbands and wives,
sons and daughters.
From tomorrow,
until Pete finds out who did this,
our town will be full of murderers.
Eddie
The journey home is sleepy
as the train stops at every station,
even though no one gets on or off.
I think of the girl last night,
naked.
Only I imagine her as Sally
and she lets me into the room . . .
I put my arms around her
and touch her soft skin.
Sally moves her hand along her bare stomach
and I get goose bumps,
crossing my legs quickly
at the thought of what we could do
together in the city, all night to spare.
The train whistle scares me awake
and I smell the coal smoke
as we round the final bend into town.
A chill breeze blows through the carriage.
I make a promise to myself
to watch Butcher;
not to let him near Sally.
That’s a good enough excuse
for being with her.
As the train winds down the mountain
I look out at Burruga.
It seems so much smaller from up here.
The river meanders to the east,
the houses all crowd along the cross streets,
except our place, of course.
The sports oval is covered in early morning mist
and the mine rises above everything.
That’s the only reason there’s a town
in this tight little valley.
Mr Carter
No chance of sleep last night.
I just sat in my chair,
watching the street outside,
thinking,
I was one of the last to see the poor child.
I cursed myself,
getting up for a cup of tea
after she walked by.
Someone may have followed.
But why would I have acted?
An old man finds regret
wherever he looks.
Before dawn
a stray dog walked across the road,
sniffing for food
or company.
He wandered to the window,
saw me watching,
wagged his tail,
barked once
and trotted away.
As the sun beams in,
I draw the blinds to shut out the town.
Today I’ll draft an obituary for Monday’s edition.
What I write won’t be good enough.
It won’t ease the pain for anyone.
But I must say something
to make us proud for having known Colleen.
For her parents.
For all of us.
Eddie
I climb through the window
real quietly.
Larry is snoring, as usual.
Mum and Dad are in the kitchen
talking in urgent whispers.
They haven’t noticed the kettle
boiling on the stove.
I must be in trouble.
They don’t say much to each other,
not since Dad came home.
I fill the bathroom sink
and dunk my head,
scrubbing the city away.
In the mirror
a face rough as guts stares back
but I can’t sleep.
Time for some cock-and-bull story
they won’t believe,
no matter what I say.
Dad looks away when I enter.
He coughs and shuffles in his chair.
He seems embarrassed.
Mum asks if I want eggs,
wiping her hands on her apron.
They don’t even know I’ve been gone.
Larry’s got up to no good, I reckon.
Dad walks outside to get more firewood
and Mum fusses at the stove,
her shoulders stiff
as she waits for the pan to heat up.
As soon as I finish my eggs
I’m getting out of here,
before Larry wakes
and the shouting starts.
Eddie
Sally’s Spot is at the bottom of her street.
In the shade under our rope tree
there’s a patch of grass soft enough for sleeping.
All I hear is the flow of the stream
and the distant cackle of cockatoos.
When I left this morning
the strap was missing from the hook
behind the door.
One day, Larry will strike back at Dad
and there’ll be hell to pay.
Before I drift off
there’s a noise from the bushes.
Sally runs down the track
and jumps into my arms,
her head tight against my chest.
I don’t know what to say,
so I hold her close.
She’s crying,
hiding her face in my shirt.
Has Butcher done something already?
But he wouldn’t be back from town yet.
She grips my arms and looks up at me,
‘Isn’t it terrible?’
She sees I don’t understand
and starts crying again.
‘What?’
She sits down in the grass.
Her lip starts to quiver,
her hands shake.
‘Colleen is dead!
Mum told me this morning,
when I woke.’
Tears squeeze down her face.
‘Mum said she was murdered.’
I close my eyes
and gently wrap my arms around Sally.
All I can think of is Butcher
running late for the train.
Sally
I fold against Eddie’s chest,
my eyes stinging with tears.
I’m torn between staying beside the river,
or taking his hand and leaving town,
just leaving, somehow,
never coming back.
I want to escape this place
and what’s happened,
what’s going to happen.
That’s what scares me most.
What now?
Who do we trust?
Eddie strokes my hair
and I know it’s him and me and family.
No one else.
I shiver at the creeping thought
of someone living here among us,
doing what he did to poor Colleen.
Talking to each of us in the daylight
and wandering dangerous at night . . .
Mr Carter
I pass the bare rose bushes,
stark in the front garden,
and knock quietly at the door.
Mrs O’Connor’s face is pale and tear-stained.
Overnight her body has shrunk.
She shuffles into the lounge room
with the curtains partly drawn
and the photos of Colleen
on the mantel above the fireplace.
She says,
‘You’ll have tea, won’t you?’
Then she stands looking
at some children walking past,
carrying fishing lines.
One boy is tossing his hat in the air
and trying to catch it behind his back.
As they pass, her hollow eyes follow them
all the way down the street.
I sit opposite Mr O’Connor
and offer him my apologies and the obituary.
‘I won’t print anything without your word, Frank.’
His lips tighten as he reads the page,
the paper white against his brown calloused hands.
I’m sorry to do this
to a man who’s been through enough
these past few years.
He hands the page to his wife
and looks across the room to Colleen’s picture,
listening to her absence,
breathing deeply the air she can’t share.
He sits up straight
and looks at me for what seems like ages,
then he leans forward and offers his hand.
‘Thanks, Mr Carter.
Thanks for your kind thoughts.’
Men walk through tragedy, quietly,
calm and precise on the outside,
tearing themselves to shreds inside.
Sergeant Grainger
Today I start asking questions
and losing friends.
Everyone pushed for details of last night
will get nervous and call in our history.
I’ll spend the day being reminded
of long-ago drinking sessions
before I left for the Academy,
and hard yards on the footy field
when we had a losing streak
that lasted for years.
No one will want to talk about here and now.
Not to a copper investigating a murder.
But I figure it’s just like the schoolyard,
you know,
when someone broke a window,
or got into a fight.
You could tell who was guilty,
who was lying,
by looking into their eyes.
That’s what I’m doing all this week.
Looking deep into my hometown
and studying the reflection.
Mayor Paley phones me early