Stephen Irwin - The Darkening

Nicholas let himself in the front gate and walked around the small house to the backyard. The young man was again carrying his bottles of cleaning liquids across the yard.

‘Hey,’ said Nicholas.

The boy didn’t break stride, but his eyes slid over to Nicholas.

‘Stop,’ said Nicholas. He could hear how quiet his voice was. ‘You can stop.’

But the young man didn’t stop. Nicholas could see the eyes in his round face were puffy and red.

He told himself to turn around and go back to his hiding spot on the footpath. Yet he found his feet carrying him to the open door of the garden shed.

Inside was a folding card table on which the boy had placed his bottles. Nicholas watched him pour bleach, ant poison and — he found himself with the insane urge to laugh — Listerine into a jug. Spread out on the table was a short letter on floral notepaper, the soft, swirling handwriting of a woman. There were no hearts, circles or crosses at the bottom.

‘Please don’t,’ said Nicholas.

The boy lifted the jug, locked his eyes on Nicholas, and drank deeply.

Of course he can’t stop. He’ll never stop.

The boy gagged silently, but kept swallowing.

‘Are you in there?’ asked Nicholas.

The boy’s face started turning bright scarlet. His eyes closed tight with pain.

Nicholas left and hurried back to the street.

What had happened to the joy in that boy’s life? Or in Dylan Thomas’s life? Or Cate’s life? Were the happy moments of their lives evaporated, boiled instantly away until all that was left was the moment of their death? What happened to the laughter? What happened to the years of contented sighs, when Cate fell asleep curled in his arms, knowing she was wanted and loved? Did it last anywhere, in some other universe, in some distant heaven? Or only now in his own memory? How much of her was trapped in that tiny bathroom in Ealing, or underground in Newham Cemetery, or in his own miserable heart?

No answers.

He stepped back behind the lasiandra, which suddenly whispered as a cold breeze hurried up the darkening street. Afternoon was turning to dusk.

Across and down the road, the Myrtle Street shops were quiet. A car parked. A man entered the convenience store and emerged shortly after with two stuffed bags of groceries. The light in the computer repair shop went out. Two minutes later, a lanky man stepped out and locked the front door. He leaned and sidestepped to peer into Plough amp; Vine Health Foods, gave a short wave, then trotted around to the side street where his Nissan was parked. He drove away.

Nicholas checked his watch. It was 5.34.

The lights inside the health food store went out.

He took a small step back, lowering himself a little behind the tangled shrubs.

A moment later, the door of Plough amp; Vine Health Foods opened and a tall, slender young woman stepped out. Rowena. She reached into her handbag for keys, dropped them, knelt to pick them up and locked the door. Nicholas watched her test the door was secure, then she checked her watch and hurried out from under the awning of the shops, away from his hiding spot. He watched her draw her long, knitted coat about herself as she strode away. He waited until she was far enough away that he would be just a shadowed stranger in the distance before stepping out from behind the lasiandra to follow.

Sedgely had her shop here. Quill had her shop here. But did that automatically cast any tenant of the shop under suspicion? Of course not. Ahead, Rowena’s coltish long legs took her across Myrtle Street and up to the corner of Madeglass, where she turned left. She was moving fast, so Nicholas picked up his pace.

Old Bretherton. Old Sedgely. Old Quill. The old woman walking in the woods with Garnock. Were they the same person? He’d come to think so. But was there any connection between them and the vital young woman hurrying ahead of him? Was there any similarity between the friendly, clumsy woman who sold wheat germ and organic liquorice with a lovely smile and the sinister, bent thing that had watched with glittering eyes from her nest between hanging dresses? He couldn’t see it.

At the end of Madeglass Street was a busier road that led under the railway line. At the corner, a small huddle of people waited at a bus shelter. Relief seemed to soften Rowena’s tall form, and she slowed her pace as she moved to the end of the queue.

Nicholas slowed and stopped behind a power pole fifty metres away. He leaned against the hard wood and the faint tang of creosote rose through the chill air. The sun was gone now, and the first sparkles of stars were appearing in the purple sky. He watched Rowena. She was chatting with the middle-aged woman in the queue ahead of her. Both women laughed. Rowena’s teeth were white in the gloom. The headlights of a bus appeared in the railway underpass, its windows glowing warm yellow. A moment later it let out an elephantine sigh and stopped to take on passengers. Rowena got on board. Nicholas watched her pick her way down the aisle to a seat halfway back. The bus rumbled and soon was gone.

Nicholas drove his hands further into his pockets. There was no malefic air about Rowena. Her shop was Quill’s and her door still bore Quill’s mark, but was that her fault? Of course not. Was she in danger herself? He didn’t think so. The old woman who had been Quill had found somewhere else to hide, a new centre for her web. She was in the woods.

He felt the cold wind of night grab at his hair. He turned and walked slowly home to Bymar Street.

‘. . and then the princess realised he was the kindest, gentlest and best of all the animals, and she loved him most of all. .’

Bryan’s voice flowed down the hall like warm water, soothing and calm. Suzette could picture Quincy’s eyes rolling and straining to focus as she fought to stay awake and hear the rest of her favourite story. Bryan had been so good, keeping Quincy occupied all day and well away from her sick brother.

Suzette was in Nelson’s room. It was dark. He lay on the bed, his chest barely rising and falling. The doctor had suggested it was some kind of chest infection and, after conducting all manner of tests for meningococcal, pneumonia and SARS, had let him go home. Bryan had argued that he needed to be in hospital, and Suzette loved him for it. ‘Trust me,’ she said. He did, and she loved him for that too.

She finished writing Nelson’s full name on a candle that was so purple it was almost black. Already waiting on a tray was a small poppet, a roughly human-shaped thing of white cotton and smelling strongly of sage, garlic and lavender. She’d sewn the poppet closed with Nelson’s hair.

How dare she? thought Suzette. How dare she attack my child? But a part of her begged her to be quiet, to be grateful. Quill’s done so much worse.

She listened. Silence from the far end of the house. Story time was done; Quincy was asleep.

Time to start.

She lit the candle.

Pritam sat on the Right Reverend Hird’s bare mattress, unsure where to begin.

The ambulance had taken John’s body away in the early hours of yesterday morning. Yesterday itself had been a blur: phone calls, discussions with the archdiocese about funeral arrangements, hunting through John’s telephone book and finding with relief that he had no siblings or hidden children that needed contacting. At the end of the long day, Pritam, utterly spent, had collapsed in his room ready for sleep, but instead had lain awake for hours, playing over and over the last few minutes of his friend’s life.

When John collapsed, Pritam had phoned 000. He’d surprised himself — maybe disappointed himself — with how calm he’d sounded talking to the emergency operator. He’d performed CPR at the operator’s instructions, wincing guiltily at the papery dryness of the old man’s lips beneath his own. As he pressed the heel of his palm into John’s chest, counting, breathing, counting, his eyes had drifted up to the photograph of Eleanor Bretherton. Was it coincidence that John had suffered such a severe attack while looking at the photograph? Surely. But Pritam had seen the look on John’s face. It began as one of wonder, and became something he’d never seen in the old man before. Now, sitting in his room and waiting to pack his few belongings, Pritam had convinced himself that he knew what the expression was.