Thought Crimes (18 page)
At breakfast, the Watsons were vibrant as their hosts were shellshocked. Though Ian never discussed this matter with his parents, he suspected that they had been through an ordeal similar to his own.
Mrs Watson insisted on cooking breakfast. In fact, cooking was a misnomer. Her fried eggs were heated to a point just beyond transparency. Ian couldn't muster the courage to tackle one, but Duncan and Helen forked their yolks enthusiastically.
Mr Watson mustn't have taken breakfast, because Ian recalled him jamming tobacco into his pipe while his wife launched into a long, irrational monologue. In all likelihood, Ian stared at the crotch of Mr Watson's trousers, looking for a hidden cone. He'd expected the Watsons to stay indefinitely, but they left later that morning. Ian was never so relieved to see a taxi. His parents dashed to find the Watsons' heavy luggage and cart it to the front gate.
Ian was frightened that Mrs Watson might try to kiss him as she had the previous evening, but instead she rubbed his scalp and told him he'd need to eat hearty breakfasts if he was going to become a warrior for Jesus. Without saying a word to anyone, Duncan hopped straight into the back seat of the taxi, but Helen stood silently by the open door.
In Ian's last memory of the red-headed Helen, she was standing by the open door of the cab, dressed in a fashion twenty years behind the times. He'd hoped that she might smile at him and say goodbye, but the image that remained was of Helen scratching her genitals through the pleats of a tartan skirt.
The Darkness Transmitted
Things were never the same after the Watsons' visit. All questions were deflected. Even now, if Ian were to ask his elderly parents what had become of the missionaries, they'd pretend not to remember them. At the time, his mother said Mr Watson had been offered a parish in western New South Wales.
In the following months, the Hall family's involvement with the church diminished. They attended services every third or fourth Sunday. No reason was ever given for this change. The family still prayed, and his dad still said grace, but Ian recalled him getting into a heated argument with a church elder after an evening service. Graham Hall now insisted that evangelism was immoral. Everyone had to take responsibility for finding their own way to God.
Increasingly, their Sundays were spent on picnics, visiting relatives, or driving to the display homes springing up everywhere in the newly treeless suburbs of the outer east. Having been taught that good people make do, the young man saw his parents become obsessed with labour-saving appliances. His was the first family in the area to own a dishwasher.
Though he never gave much thought to Duncan's penis, it must have been about this time that Ian developed his fascination with murder-suicides.
Murder-suicide was the one thing Australians had invented for global export. Wherever you looked, depressed farmers were shooting their families before turning the gun on themselves. Fathers killed their children rather than let estranged wives have custody. These useless men were somehow capable of imagining that their families couldn't possibly exist without them.
The adolescent Ian Hall scoured the papers and kept cuttings. If a murder-suicide report appeared on the television news, he'd watch every bulletin he could for the next few days. The name he always listened for was Watson. He even felt a slight disappointment when a detail disqualified the Watsons from being the tragic family alluded to in a news item. Disappointment coupled with that rare confusion he'd known when Mrs Watson pressed her lips to his.
Not surprisingly, Ian's parents counselled against this fascination. A teacher contacted them about essays he'd written in class, stories about sacked employees and bankrupt farmers who'd taken out their entire families.
Ian now wondered how he'd respond if a teacher asked to speak to him about a child's odd behaviour. Adult interventions had never dissuaded him where an obsessive interest was concerned. And even now, Ian couldn't say that he'd grown out of his fascination with the darker forms of human conduct. But it wasn't necessary to keep a scrapbook, or to give each murder-suicide his special attention. There were so many.
While cradling Natasha, Sam automatically croons a song his mother sang to him, having learnt it from his own parents. How can he recall the words to a song he hasn't heard for three decades? He continues to sing through a breaking wave of nostalgia. If the child notices this mood-change, it doesn't curb her delight. According to Sam, Natasha has his mother's eyes.
Having disagreed about most things since their wedding day, Stavros and Brittany suddenly find themselves in accord on a serious issue. Parenthood. This agreement represents a major change of position. When Stav wanted her to help with the business, Brittany chose to keep teaching, and when he took the view that children should be their first priority, she argued that family would require an upstairs extension.
Each imagined the other would rush to the police in a situation like this, but they agreed to wait. They would act only if they heard a media report of a lost or abandoned child. In the meantime, the boy would be Michael. Despite their confusion, the couple couldn't stop smiling.
Karen and Marie had each entertained sperm provided by a mutual friend. When the turkey-baster failed Karen, she blamed Jason for shooting blanks, but Marie became pregnant first try. Conceiving was no problem. But after the older woman's third miscarriage, the couple chose to take a break, which may have been their way of making a decision they couldn't make. The lovers couldn't allow their feelings for one another to be swamped by an endless tide of grief.
At first, Karen thought Eamon was a cruel practical joke. A misogynist neighbour trying to set them up.
Stuck behind a funeral procession on their way to the police station, Karen saw Marie gazing deep into the child's eyes. Eamon needed them. They decided to take their chances.
None of these individuals, or others yet to be introduced, would describe themselves as careless when dealing with important matters. Yet all chose not to mention these children when speaking to friends or relatives, and none chose to contact authorities. Instead, they began to shop in distant suburbs where no acquaintances would see them purchasing cots and nappies, and the foods favoured by babies.
The babies were transported to their doors by a discreet tsunami. So far as the recipients knew, their baby was the only such child, a fluke of divine providence, an infant to be loved by those who hadn't known how much their lives were missing that love.
Even now, no one can say for certain how many babies there were, since recipients remain cautious about coming forward. Some headed overseas the moment they obtained a false birth certificate.
So far as we know, the phenomenon was peculiar to the bay- side suburb of Hampton, though one should be careful about inferring too much from this geographical coincidence. Seers versed in ancient knowledge of the earth's energy zones might be less hesitant. Childless couples have now rushed the area, paying above-market rates, desperately hoping that Hampton hasn't seen its last foundling, but these hopes may betray a need to misinterpret the facts.
When little Trish became feverish, Kylie and Nick resisted calling a doctor, fearing that she'd be taken from them. Finally, they drove forty kilometres to a clinic in the outer east, and fudged when Dr Wendt, a mature GP who'd encountered most situations, asked about the child's medical history. The parents didn't know their daughter's blood type. Nor could they answer questions about immunisation or childhood illnesses. Aware that the hospital where they said Trish was born had no maternity ward, Dr Wendt notified local police. Two detectives soon discovered that none of the personal details Kylie and Nick gave the doctor were valid.
Hampton traders would notice an unaccountable downturn in sales as Beachcomber mothers and fathers took their business to people who couldn't know that they weren't the natural parents of the babies they so clearly adored.
Whenever someone asked Ross and Ingrid too many questions, they made excuses and decamped. If a parent on television began to speak about the distress of having lost a child, they changed channels lest they discover that Jeff was the child in question. Ross and Ingrid found it impossible to believe that Jeff 's natural parents could love the baby more than they loved him. This gift was no accident. They had been chosen because they had the exact qualities of love Jeff needed.
