John Marsden - While I live

But considering the experiences I’d had in the war, hanging out in the bush and fighting like a tiger cat, staying alive even with half an army chasing us, I can hardly believe, looking back, that I didn’t take more care. Dumb, dumb, dumb. You make a lot of mistakes in life. You leave your bus pass at home, you forget to take the scones out of the oven, you lose a library book, you call Mrs Mackenzie ‘Mum’ in a moment of absent-mindedness. None of those things matter an awful lot.

You don’t take the idea of a raid on your place seriously, and as a result your parents and Mrs Mackenzie are killed.

I knew a lot more about guerilla fighting than my parents did. I should have been the one to think this through.

I don’t know how to describe those first few days. I don’t know how to describe those first few minutes. Gavin went into shock. I mean real, serious shock. I’d seen a kind of shock before, during the war. My friend Kevin had it, especially when a group of us, as we ran feral and loose around the countryside, blew up Wirrawee Airfield as a contribution to the war effort. Kevin had been a mixture of catatonic, sulky and terrified while that was happening.

Now Gavin was a complete mess, lying on the verandah like he was having a fit, white-faced and shaking, his eyes way back in his head, his teeth chattering. It was completely distracting, coming back towards the house, trying to get my head around what had happened, trying to come to terms with the bodies and the blood and the death and the way my life had changed, and in the middle of all that suddenly realising that I had to look after Gavin. He didn’t reply to anything I said. He wasn’t unconscious, but he might as well have been. I had to make myself function, go to the linen press and get a blanket, and then another blanket when he still didn’t stop shaking, and sit with him and hold him and talk to him and sing to him.

I don’t suppose he heard any of what I said but I don’t think it mattered. There were times when I resented Gavin’s arrival in our family, even though I was the cause of it, but this wasn’t one of those times.

From time to time I had glimpses of Homer. He was holding Dad’s rifle and first I saw him hurrying through the kitchen, then prowling around the outside of the house, eyes searching the garden and the trees, occasionally stopping to poke into a bush or throw open the door of a shed and look inside. It was brave that he did that: if anyone was there, they would have got him pretty easily I think.

The phone in the house rang but I didn’t answer it and eventually it stopped.

After a while Gavin got some colour in his face and his skin felt a bit warmer. He’d more or less stopped shaking and I thought he might have gone to sleep. I got up. It was hard: my legs had certainly gone to sleep, and I didn’t seem able to walk properly. Gavin moved when I got up, but he didn’t open his eyes, so I took a few steps away. When he still didn’t move I hurried back into the house. Homer burst in from the other side, giving me a fright because for a moment I didn’t know who was coming through the door. He had a second rifle, obviously taken from a dead soldier, and he gave it to me and together we carefully checked each room. I was in automatic mode; I think I quite liked having something to do so I didn’t have to think, didn’t have to feel.

But then I couldn’t postpone it any longer. I went back into the kitchen.

Homer and I still hadn’t exchanged a word. I took another look at the two bodies in there, as if I wanted to see whether they might have come back to life. Then I went to the linen press again and got two more blankets.

‘Do you want to go after them?’ Homer asked. He meant the soldiers. I don’t know why I call them soldiers. They were murderers. I shook my head. I was even angry at him, that all he could think of was punishment and revenge. It was unfair, but I was filled with such rage and despair that anything would have made me angry. To be honest I was angry that he’d even spoken. A house spider ran across the kitchen bench and I slammed it so hard with an old copy of Vogue Living that its little black body disintegrated.

I sat down in Mum’s favourite chair with my head on my arms. I stayed like that for a while then got up and called the police. I felt listless. When they answered I said, ‘My parents have been shot. And Mrs Mackenzie. They’re all dead.’ Then, stupidly, I hung up. A moment later they rang back. I don’t know how they worked out I was the one who’d rung them. And I didn’t know the guy. I think his name was Elliott. He said, ‘Is this right? There’s been a shooting? At the Linton place?’

I gave the phone to Homer and went back to look at Gavin. He still seemed asleep. I took yet another blanket, from Gavin’s bed this time. One thing we did still have was a lot of blankets. I went outside. All the time I could hear Homer’s voice, low and urgent, talking to the cops. I wondered how he was feeling. He loved my mother and idolised my father. I went outside to my father and put the blanket over him. Blood was still seeping from his body but it seemed to be coagulating now. Surprisingly there was only one fly buzzing around him. I was grateful for that. I returned to the house.

I’m not sure what we did until the police came. It seems like it took them quite a while but I’m not sure about that either. Homer told me to sit with Gavin. ‘Shock can kill people,’ he said. ‘Keep him warm. Look after him.’ I guess he knew it was good for me to have something else to do.

After a while Gavin did wake up. He didn’t say anything. I just sat there rubbing his head and stroking his hair. I knew how much he loved this, like a dog, and how it calmed him. I thought about the strange route he had taken, from the wild streets of Stratton to being on our verandah as a member of our family, and I wondered if I’d done him any favours. Maybe I should have left him back there to live or die on his own.

Occasionally a little tear ran down his face, leaving a track like a snail trail, and a fit of trembling shook his body.

The police arrived and the ambulance about a second later. I’m not sure if Homer rang the ambulance; I don’t think he did. The police probably arranged that. There wasn’t much for the ambos to do.

There were two police cars, three men and one woman. I had this feeling that I only wanted to talk to the woman so I stuck pretty close to her.

Not that there was much to say. We’d been heading up the spur for a picnic on Tailor’s Stitch, just the three of us. First time we’d been up there for ages. Heard the shots, came running back. Found dead people everywhere. End of story.

There was a lot of activity. People moving around, talking in hushed voices, photos, and in the middle of it Homer got everyone coffee. I thought I didn’t want it but he made me take it and maybe the caffeine helped.

The ambulance went away again. I had thought it would take the bodies, but it didn’t, just left them. Bodies.

It seemed weird to think of my parents as being bodies. Like they had become objects. Homer’s mum, Mrs Yannos, arrived, and other neighbours and friends, I can’t even remember who they were. Gavin came in and tried to crawl into my lap but he was really too big and I didn’t have enough compassion left for him now. Mrs Yannos gave me lots of hugs but I hardly felt them.

Two more cars arrived, station wagons, and some men in grey suits. They spoke to me in voices that were so hushed and oily that I felt a little ill, like I’d eaten a sausage that wasn’t cooked properly. They gave me forms to sign and I signed them. It took me a long time to figure out who they were and what they wanted. Then I realised they were undertakers. I stood up and screamed at them, but Mrs Yannos grabbed me from one side and Homer from the other, and I had to stand and watch as they took what was left of my mother and Mrs Mackenzie away, on metal stretchers. Then to torture myself, or to do him honour, or for both reasons, I went out on the verandah and watched as they got my father. They came back for one of the killers.