The Low Road (23 page)

Anyway. There's a drug which is used in childbirth. It causes the muscles of the womb to contract very strongly. Wild rubbed again at his shoe and fingered a crust of mud at the hem of his trousers. And it's administered when the baby is nearly born and it helps with the delivery of the placenta, but this particular night I administered the drug too soon, when the child's head wasn't crowned properly yet, when . . . the head wasn't out enough. Wild held his large hands out in front of himself as if cradling some small, invisible thing. His breathing was shallow and he sat up straighter in his chair.

And what happens if you do that?

Wild brought his hands together slowly with a soft, hollow clap. His gaze was fixed on some point on the wooden table. What happens? What happens is that the child—the
boy
—is crushed in the contraction. Suffocates. And dies.

Shit.

Right there in the bedroom. Everyone is crying at this stage, can you imagine? Frank with a hand across his mouth. And I say to him, to Frank, this young man of—I don't know—twenty-eight or something, maybe even younger, I say:
What should I do?
The baby is in my hands like a wet kitten. The ambulance comes and these guys take over. Just shove me out of the way and . . . But the boy is dead. It's terrible.
What should I do?
Still can't believe I said that. Really can't believe it.

A dead baby is the worst possible thing. Their first child, can you imagine? Couple didn't survive after all that. Broke up. Takes it out of you, that kind of thing. Sometimes a death in the family is like a bomb. Everyone gets caught up. The family is ruined. All that love gone to waste. The kid would be walking now if it wasn't for me. An entirely new person—what should have been the best thing in their lives. Actually, I think I'm more afraid of seeing Louise and Frank again than I am of jail. I assume they would have come. To court, I mean. They would have come to court and sat there chewing over that terrible night.

Lee felt sorry for Wild. If he was expected to offer some sort of consolation, however, he didn't know what on earth it could be. What are you looking at?

What?

In jail.

Wild laughed humourlessly. I suspect it doesn't matter. One year, ten years. A hundred. Any time in jail is too much for someone like me. I can't do it. Not to mention the fact that I'll never work again.

And you got nowhere else to go?

Wild picked up a spoon and folded it through the stew several times. No. Nowhere. Left my own house the day before I was meant to be in court. Just packed and got in the car and drove away. So, you see, staying here is about as good an option as I have at the moment, at least for the time being. Stay out of sight. Wait for something to happen. God knows what.

Wild began to eat without enthusiasm and for some time the only sound was of his chewing. What are
you
going to do? he asked when he had almost finished his meal.

Lee shrugged. Stick with the plan, I guess. Take the money and go to my sister's place. Stay with her for a while. Get a job. Try and go straight. Get away from here. It was strange to hear himself saying it out loud and he almost wished he hadn't spoken at all. It seemed stark.

Won't they come after you? Wild asked. After their precious money?

He preferred not to talk about Josef. I don't see how they can find me.

Won't they just look for your sister or your parents? Track you down?

Lee shook his head. They don't know anything about me. Probably think everyone is dead.

Why would they think that?

No reason.

Wild nodded slowly. I see. When exactly are you thinking of leaving?

In a few days, I guess. Soon as I'm up to moving again.

There's probably still bullet shards in you.

Lee grimaced. Really?

You'll have to get yourself checked out as soon as you can. Watch those ribs, as well. You need to be careful. You're not out of the woods yet, as they say. Keep the dressing fresh and clean.

OK. I'll remember that. Thanks.

Yes. Apparently you remember everything.

It's true, I do have a great memory.

Well. You haven't lived very long. You've got less to remember than some of us.

Lee thought with distaste of the pieces of the world he now carried within him. He had a sudden thought. Why don't you come with me?

Go with you?

Yeah.

To live with your
sister
?

Well. For a while, at least. Could be a good chance to get away. We can both lie low. Try and stay out of trouble. In the country. By the lake.

By the lake?

Yeah. By the lake. Where they live. It's beautiful there. Nobody would know we were there. It's perfect.

Wild said nothing, just crouched over the table and continued to eat, hurriedly, as if afraid his meal would soon try to escape.

22

T
he sound was barely audible, a small mewling somewhere nearby. It soaked into Wild's sleep like water into a sponge, deeper and deeper until he awoke. He shifted heavily and pulled the blankets over his head. The smell of his body was thick under their soft weight; the flavours of sweat, of warm skin and stale breath. Disgusting.

He had taken to sleeping on one of the couches in the lounge room, from where he could stare out the large bay windows throughout the insomniac night and observe the relentless progress of the stars, the rise and fall of the moon. In addition, there was the company of the open fire.

The crying sound sharpened, but became no louder, remained an aural mirage at the edge of hearing. Eventually, he flung back the blankets and sat on the corner of the couch. He raised his grizzled head to listen and stared into the gloom, completely still, listening with his entire body as if the sound might be detected by senses other than hearing. He passed a hand through his hair and ran his tongue about his muggy mouth. What time could it be? Early morning, before dawn. He couldn't be dreaming; he had long ago annihilated any capacity for dreaming. Again the small, despairing siren. It was, he realised, the raw, desperate sound of a baby. What kind of darkness was this?

He waited until he was able to make out the shapes of the surrounding furniture: the other couch, a side table, the gleam from an oil painting high on the wall, the imposing sideboard with its assortment of glassware and dried flowers. He stood unsteadily and pulled on his shirt and trousers. Like a ghost he moved through the house, along the narrow hall with its carpets underfoot. Things rattled as he passed. The crying was coming from the garden. He made his way to the kitchen and stood at the back door.

The air outside was fresh and cool. He peered into the garden gloom. When he was last here it was well maintained, with benches and chairs placed conveniently beneath luxuriant overhangs. Now, it resembled an abandoned city trapped beneath the fierce clutch of vines and weeds, with the smell peculiar to buildings reclaimed by nature. He could sense its chaos through the darkness, the constant rustling and creaking, the twitter of tiny things moving about.

Leaving the door open, Wild hugged himself and stepped out onto the slippery patio. His bare toes gripped the moist bricks; moss squelched beneath his feet. There was a smell of geraniums and the tang of ivy. His lungs filled with moist air. Again he listened, but there was nothing. The night had become still and quiet, the way the night is supposed to be. He was about to go back inside when he heard it again. There, that sharp bleat.

He scratched his nose and wondered if he should fetch Lee. He waited, not breathing. Just the whirr of his heart and the murmur of his blood. He angled his head to better determine from where the baby's cries were emanating. The garden sprawled drunkenly at the front of the old weatherboard house and along the entire eastern side. He followed the path down that side, grimly aware of the bugs being crushed beneath his feet and the occasional sticky drag of spider web across his face. An entire garden world, going about its business.

The baby's cries were still sporadic, devoid of any apparent human rhythm. He moved through the front garden, ducking beneath the low tree limbs he sensed rather than saw. Dry leaves snagged in his hair. He stood finally on a small patch of dew-soaked lawn but the sound had vanished. There was nothing here. The child—or whatever it was—was elsewhere.

After a minute or two, perhaps even longer, Wild made his way back along the side path to the rear of the house. The sound was clearer here, definitely coming from the back somewhere. He rubbed his palms together for warmth as he walked. The garden seemed aware of him. Thousands of small eyes blinked from cocoons and knotholes, from vantage points along the gutters and eaves. By now his feet were wet and unwieldy, growing numb with cold. He stopped breathing to listen. There it was, a small sound, a whimpering.

He edged towards the back of the property, where the garden was most overgrown. Sherman would be turning in his grave at the sight of this. He had loved nothing more than to potter about in what he called his
kingdom
on a Sunday afternoon, pulling at weeds and tying things back, murmuring softly to his more-favoured subjects. Leaves crunched like soggy toast beneath Wild's feet. The ground rose here at the back, became more even. There was a small mossy patio. When all this was finished, he thought, when things panned out whatever way they were going to, he would find and visit Sherman's grave. God knows what he could say to the old man, but he would go there and do whatever people do at gravesides, weep or pray or sit with him, perhaps forever, as Sherman had done for him on so many nights.

The sound was clear now, a sort of unbearable, plangent keening. Some teenager has abandoned her newborn baby in the back shed, he thought, and as this idea took root within him he moved quicker, pushing leaves and webs aside with his outstretched hands. Cold, flat leaves slapped against his face. His shirt snagged on a branch. He remembered reading of a schoolgirl who secretly gave birth over a sheet of newspaper in her parents' garden, one hand clutching a sapling for balance and the other cupped beneath her to gather her blood and offspring. It was not out of the question; the local teenagers probably knew Sherman's place was abandoned. Appallingly, the child was probably
conceived
here.

Panting with anxiety and exertion, he stopped at the shed's flimsy wooden door. He wondered what he would do if this were the case. What would he do with a girl in the dirt? Would that be the worst thing, the most horrifying scene? Should he return quickly to the house to fetch some medical equipment? That damn bag of his, probably in police hands by now. He imagined its crouching shape, the lustre of its black leather like that of a beetle's shell. Forget it.

The shed door was secured by a narrow bolt. He wriggled it back and forth. He yanked the door open to the smells of fertiliser and grass clippings, of rust and machine oil, the endlessly perpetuated perfume of country sheds. It was dark. Something scurried in a corner and slapped against the wooden wall before falling still or escaping into the garden. Then it was quiet.

Wild held his breath and listened. There was movement on the ground nearby, the blind and voiceless curling of something newborn. He lowered into a crouch with one hand crabbed on the dirt floor for balance. His eyes adjusted to the gloom and he could make out vague shapes. A bicycle. A trestle table. A sack of earth or manure. Blood roared through him.

He opened his mouth to whisper into the darkness but his voice turned to dust somewhere in his throat. What could he say? He closed his eyes and allowed his head to droop until his chin rested on his chest. His breathing was loud and deep. He stayed like that for some time.

Finally he stood, swaying a little, his body unstable as if preparing to buckle. His head felt vast and heavy, a labyrinth atop his shoulders. Water dripped somewhere nearby and there was a sigh of wind through the trees outside. Suddenly aware of the cold, the hairs on his body rose in pitiful defence. Of course there was no child. There never was.

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