I Am the Messenger (31 page)

“I want to give the kid something, you know? When it’s older.”

“You don’t know if it’s a he or a she?”

“No.”

He pulls an old slice of notepad from his wallet. When he unfolds it, I can tell the address that’s written there has been traced over several times to never fade.

17 Cabramatta Road, Auburn.

“Some of her friends,” Marv speaks blankly. “When the family just disappeared, I went to her friends and begged them to tell me where she went. God, it was pitiful. I was crying on Sarah Bishop’s front doorstep, for Christ’s sake.” The words seem to echo now, out of his mouth, which appears motionless. Almost numb. “Man, that girl Suzanne. That sweet Suzanne.” He spits out a sarcastic laugh. “Cha—her old man was such a stern bastard—but she snuck out a few nights a week, an hour before dawn, and we’d go out to this old field where a man used to grow corn.” He almost smiles now. “We had a blanket and we’d go there and have it a few nights a week…. She was so brilliant, Ed.” He looks directly at me because if he’s going to tell someone, he wants to do it right. “She tasted so good.” The smile hangs on desperately. “Sometimes we’d push our luck and stay till the sun came up….”

“It sounds beautiful, Marv.”

I’ve spoken those words to the windscreen—I can’t believe Marv and I are talking like this. Usually we argue to show our friendship.

“The orange sky,” Marv continues, “the wet grass—and I always remember the warmth of her. Inside her and on her skin….”

I imagine it well, but Marv murders it instantly with one savage breath.

“Then one day the house was emptied. I went to the field, but it was just me and the corn.”

The girl got pregnant.

Not unusual in these parts, but obviously not condoned by the Boyds.

The family left town.

Nothing was ever said, and the Boyds were never really missed. People always come and go through here. If they make money, they move somewhere better. If they struggle, they move somewhere equally as shitty to try their luck somewhere else.

“I guess,” Marv says later, “her old man was ashamed of having a sixteen-year-old girl of his getting stitched up, especially by someone like me. I guess he was right to be stern….”

At this point, I have no idea what to say.

“They left town,” he tells me. “Barely a word was spoken.” Now he looks over. I feel his eyes on my face. “And I’ve been living with it for three years.”

Not anymore,
I think, but I can’t be sure.

It feels more like wayward hope or desperation.

He’s calmer now, but he sits stiffly in his seat. An hour goes past. I wait. I ask.

“Have you been to that address?”

He stiffens further. “No. I’ve tried, but I can’t.” He resumes telling the story. “About a week after that day at the Bishop place, Sarah came to where I was working. She hands me the note and says, ‘I promised not to tell
anyone
—especially you—but I just don’t think it’s right.’ Then she says, ‘But you be careful, Marv. Suzie’s old man says he’ll kill you if you so much as set foot near her again.’ And she left.” A blankness blankets his face. “It was raining that day, I remember. Small sheets of rain.”

“Sarah,” I ask, “that’s that tall, brown, pretty one?”

“That’s her,” Marv confirms. “After what she said, I drove into the city a few times. Once I even had ten grand in my pocket—to help out. That’s all I want, Ed.”

“I believe you.”

Solemnly, he rubs his face and says, “I know. Thanks.”

“So you’ve never even seen the kid?”

“No. I never have the neck to even turn onto the street—I’m pathetic.” He begins to chant. “Pathetic, pathetic,” and gently, fiercely, he beats his fist on the wheel. I expect him to explode, but Marv can’t find the strength for any outflow of emotion. He’s past that. For three years, since that girl left, his front has been impeccable. Now it peels from his skin, leaving the truth of him at the wheel of his car.

“This”—he shakes—“this is what I look like at three a.m., Ed. Every morning. I see that girl—that dirt-poor, spectacular girl. Sometimes I walk to that field and sink to my knees. I hear my heart beating, but I don’t want to. I hate my heartbeat. It’s too loud in that field. It falls down. Right out of me. But then it just gets back up again.”

I hear it.

I imagine it.

His legs yield.

His trousers scratch the dirt.

Kneeling there with earth-bruised knees and a collapsing heart.

It hits the ground next to him, hard, and it…

Beats. Beats.

Beats.

It refuses to die or run cold, always finding its way back into Marv’s body. But one night, surely, it has to succumb.

“Fifty grand,” Marv tells me. “I’m stopping at fifty. At first it was ten, then twenty, but I just couldn’t stop.”

“Paying off the guilt.”

“That’s right.” He tries to start the car a few times, and eventually we head off. “But it isn’t money that’ll fix me.” He stops in the middle of the road. The brakes burn, and Marv’s face ignites. “I want to touch that kid….”

“You have to.”

“There are plenty of ways to do it,” he says.

“But only one,” I reply.

Marv nods.

When he drops me back home, the night has turned cold.

“Hey, Marv,” I say just before I get out.

He looks into me.

“I’ll come with you.”

His eyes close.

He goes to speak but can’t. It’s better unsaid.

Tomorrow is the day.

After I’ve walked in, I retire to the lounge room and sit there, completely exhausted, on the couch. Close to five minutes later, Marv calls and tells me. He doesn’t say hello.

“We’ll go tomorrow.”

“About six?”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“No,” I say. “I’ll drive you in the cab.”

“Good idea. If I get the crap beaten out of me, we might want a car that starts first go.”

The time arrives and we leave my place at six, making it to Auburn by nearly seven. Traffic’s heavy.

“I hope the bloody kid’s still up,” I wonder out loud.

Marv doesn’t answer.

Pulling up at 17 Cabramatta Road, I can’t help but notice it’s exactly the same sort of fibro shithole the Boyds used to live in back home. We’re on the other side of the road, in typical messenger style.

Marv looks at the clock.

“I’ll go in at seven-oh-five.”

7:05 comes and goes.

“Okay. Seven-ten.”

“No worries, Marv.”

At 7:46, Marv gets out of the car and stands there.

“Good luck,” I say. God, I can hear his heart from inside the cab. It’s a wonder it isn’t bludgeoning the poor guy to death.

He stands there. Three minutes.

He crosses the road. Two attempts.

The yard is different. First go—a surprise.

Then, the big one.

Fourteen
attempts at knocking on the door. When I finally hear his knuckles hit the wood, it sounds like bruises.

The door is answered, and Marv is there in jeans, nice shirt, boots. Words are spoken but I don’t hear them, of course. I’m clogged with the memory of Marv’s heartbeat and the knocking on the door.

He walks in, and now it’s
my
heart I can hear.
This could be the longest wait of my life,
I think. I’m wrong.

About thirty seconds later, Marv comes rushing backward out the door. He hurtles. Through the doorway and onto the yard. Henry Boyd, Suzanne’s father, is giving Marv a hiding he won’t soon forget. A small trace of blood flows from Marv to the grass. I get out of the cab.

To give you an idea, Henry Boyd is not a big man, but he’s powerful.

He’s short but heavy.

And he has the will. He’s a kind of pocket-size version of my Edgar Street message. Also, he’s sober, and I don’t have a gun.

As I cross the street, Marv is splayed on the front yard like a frozen starjump.

He gets kicked.

By words.

He gets shot.

By Henry Boyd’s pointing finger.

“Now get the hell out of here!”

The small, steak-tough man is standing over Marv, beginning now to rub his hands together.

“Sir,” I hear Marv plead. Only his lips move. Nothing else. He speaks to the sky. “I’ve got nearly fifty thousand—”

But Henry Boyd isn’t interested. He moves closer to stand directly over him.

There’s a kid crying. Neighbors are collecting on the street. They’ve come out to take in the show. Henry turns on them and tells them all to get their big Turkish arses back inside. His words, not mine.

“And you!” He punishes Marv with his voice again. “Never,
ever
come back here again, you hear?”

I arrive and crouch next to Marv. His top lip is extremely large and dipped with blood. He isn’t particularly conscious.

“And who the hell are you?”

Shit,
I think, very nervously indeed,
I think that’s me
. I answer quickly. Respectfully. “I’m just picking up my friend here from your lawn.”

“Good idea.”

Now I see Suzanne. She holds a small kid’s hand at the door. A girl.
You’ve got a little girl!
I want to shout to Marv, but I think very much the better of it.

I nod at her, at Suzanne.

“Get inside, Suzie!”

She nods back.

“Now!”

The kid cries again.

She’s gone, and I help Marv to his feet. There’s a stray drop of blood on his shirt.

Henry Boyd has tears of rage on him now. They puncture his eyes. “That bastard put shame on my family.”

“So did your daughter.” I can’t believe the words I’m hearing from my own mouth.

“You better get moving, boy, or you two’ll go home like twins.”

Nice.

That’s when I ask Marv if he can stand on his own. He can, and I walk closer to Henry Boyd. I’m not sure that’s happened to him a lot. He’s short but even more powerful the closer you get. At this point, he’s stunned.

I look at him respectfully.

“That looks like a beautiful kid in there,” I say. There are no shivers in my voice. This comes as a surprise, giving me the courage to continue. “Well, is she, sir?”

He struggles. I know what he’s debating in his mind. He wants to strangle me but can smell the strange confidence that dresses everything I say. Eventually, he answers. He has sideburns. They move slightly before he speaks. “Damn right she’s beautiful.”

Now I point to Marv as I stand as straight as I can in front of Mr. Boyd. His arms hang. They’re short and muscular. I say, “He may have brought you shame, and I know you left town for it.” Again, I look at the slightly bloodied figure that is Marv. “But what he just did in facing you—that was respect. You don’t get any more decent or proud than that.” Marv shivers and takes a slight sip of his blood. “He knew this would happen, but here he is.” Now I get my eyes to step into his. “If you were him, would you have been able to do the same? Would you have faced you?”

The man’s voice is quiet now.

“Please,” he pleads. I realize a giant sorrow has arrived in me for this man. He’s suffered. “Go on. Leave.”

I don’t.

I remain in him a few moments longer, saying,
Think that over
.

At the car, I realize I’m alone.

I’m alone because there’s a young man with blood across his mouth who has taken a few extra steps. He’s walked forward, toward the house. The girl he used to meet in the field and make love to till dawn is on the porch.

They’re staring, each to each.