Incurable

CHAPTER 18

I could hardly eat breakfast for the nervousness I felt about this reunion between Gavin and his sister. In a way it wasn’t my business but of course it was too. Not long ago I’d told Gavin he was my brother, but I hadn’t known then that I was about to join an extended family.

When I thought about it I realised that a lot of my nervousness was to do with wanting him to handle the situation the right way. It’s hard to describe how this works but I knew I’d be upset if Gavin screwed up. I’d felt the same when I watched him at the school athletics: I didn’t want him to come last because I figured he’d feel bad. When he was with other kids, if he did anything that was uncool that had them frowning and turning away, I wanted to run over and say to him, ‘No, not like that, that’s not how you do it,’ and to say to the other kids, ‘Hey, he’s OK, you just misunderstood, he is cool really, really he is.’

I had the horrible feeling that he was going to say the wrong thing to his little sister, or the people who were looking after her, and that because of this he would miss out on a whole series of future possibilities.

If I was stressed, Gavin was a disaster zone. Not in a million years would he admit to being nervous but you didn’t have to be a psychologist to figure it out. You don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Gavin wouldn’t get dressed, said something evil to Intira that had her screaming and running to Lee, broke a cereal bowl and wouldn’t eat breakfast anyway, then told me I was a stupid bitch when I did the ‘Enough already, quit it or I’ll take you to the zoo and feed you to meerkats.’

Rather than have one or both of us explode, I got him out of the apartment and told him we’d walk to Marlon. He didn’t seem to mind that. We left so early that we could have walked backwards and still been on time, but at least he was not in a confined space. Even so, he didn’t get any better. It was weird, I couldn’t help feeling that there was something else going on, something more than his natural nerves at this big change in his life. I started trying to guess what it might be but my imagination couldn’t grip onto much. I thought maybe he was worried I’d leave him there, that once he was with Rosie and the Russells I’d nick off to the nearest bus stop and go bush. I hoped he didn’t have such a bad opinion of me, but he was an insecure kid. The thing was though, that even if he did think that, it still didn’t explain the way he was carrying on. To be honest, it was like I didn’t matter much to him that morning. His mind was on something else, something more than a reunion. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what it might be.

If I had known what it was I would have grabbed him then and there and run hard in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately I’d put the pressure on him to make this trip and he’d given in to the pressure. It would have been better if he’d resisted a bit more, even though I wouldn’t have thanked him for it at the time.

It was easy enough to get to Marlon, you just follow Fiddleback Road. It goes forever. And Gavin was confident that once we got to Marlon he knew how to find Green Street. Besides, we could always ask. But navigation was never an issue. The first clue I got that we were getting close was the North Marlon Tyre Service, followed by Marlon North Dry Cleaning, North Marlon Pizza and North Marlon Car Wash. We still had nearly forty-five minutes to go, so that was fine.

As we got into Marlon proper, Gavin nudged me to cross the road, into a big park. He said it was a short cut, and I don’t know, maybe he felt safer in a park. It was closer to the kind of environment he was used to now. But it didn’t stop him looking around even more, getting jumpier, and infecting me with his nervousness.

If it hadn’t been for that, I would have enjoyed the walk. Marlon didn’t look nearly as bad as I remembered it, and the park was seriously nice. There was an old footy ground with a grandstand just like the one in Wirrawee, but not the kind of grandstand you see in the city any more. Then we went up a bank of fairly wet earth and down into a huge flat area where people were exercising their dogs. It was quite cool: the owners hung around in groups talking, or sat on the grass reading, or lay back and looked at the clouds while the dogs partied. There must have been twenty dogs, ranging from a thing the size of a Shetland pony to a couple of large rats. Beyond that were two footy ovals, both with kids getting ready for games, and a bitumen tennis court and an old toilet block. Beyond that was a bunch of trees and a fountain, and then came the suburb of Marlon.

As we passed one of the football teams I got the first real clue that we were back in Gavin’s home territory. A boy who was chasing a loose ball grabbed it to his chest as it bounced, and at exactly the same moment saw Gavin. He looked astonished, then said, ‘Hey, Gavin,’ in a completely normal voice, which sounded very calm compared to the expression on his face.

‘Hi Lucas,’ Gavin grunted, looking a bit embarrassed, then said to me, ‘That’s Lucas Bright.’ I think the last name was Bright. Anyway, the kid said to Gavin, ‘I thought you were…’ and then paused and switched to something safer. ‘I haven’t seen you since the war.’

‘Nah,’ said Gavin, Tve been staying with her.’ He nodded at me.

‘Cool,’ said Lucas Bright. Well, I gotta get back…’ He nodded at the team.

‘No worries,’ I said, and off went Lucas.

It was always hard to tell Gavin’s feelings, and although he looked a bit red faced after the unexpected meeting, he also seemed pleased. I was hoping it would calm him down a bit as we went on through the trees towards the next street.

The Russells were two and a half blocks away. Once we’d left the park we got into a part of Marlon that was more the way I remembered it. Lots of shabby old houses, built right to the street, and lots of shabby new ones that didn’t look very well built at all. Half-a-dozen dumped cars, or if they weren’t dumped, they should have been. A couple of derelict houses, graffiti that wasn’t even funny, just off, a school surrounded by a wire fence so high that it was more like a prison camp. And in the middle of this was Green Street.

If I’d suspected Gavin was frightened before, then I was sure of it now. He grabbed my hand. Gavin holding my hand in public was about as common as dogs dancing with bunny rabbits. And the way he hung on to me, I’d be lucky if I still had a hand by tomorrow morning. I don’t think there could have been any more blood in it, the way he was squeezing it. And his hand felt so sweaty. When we turned left into Green Street he looked so awful that I stopped and said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? We can go home and think about it some more.’

He just grabbed my other hand and said, ‘No, we got to get it over and done with,’ and let go again.

I shrugged and we kept walking. Counting down the numbers. 177, 157, 137. I could estimate where 87 would be. There was a row of houses that had little front gardens, some of which were pretty and filled with flowers and stuff, and others which were filled with weeds. Number 87 had to be in the middle of that stretch.

There was no-one out in front, at least that’s what I first thought. As we passed the place next door I could see that the Russells had a really nice garden, with some fuchsias and two miniature trees that looked like they might have apples or pears in summer, and a brick path leading from the front gate to the veranda. The house wasn’t the greatest though. The window frames hadn’t been painted for a long time and were getting a bit rotten, and it was a long time since the gutter on the roof had held any water. Maybe they didn’t have much money.

The front gate was open, which I hoped was done deliberately, to invite Gavin in, but then my heart gave a great flip as I realised that the front door was open as well, and above it was a big sign on white paper, done in a child’s clumsy printing, with lots of hearts and stars and smiley faces, and the words Welcome Back Gavin.

I felt my nerves fade and a glow spread from my body to my face. I know a huge smile was forming. I hurried forward, clutching Gavin, almost dragging him with me.

I was expecting to see a little girl pop out, followed by her foster parents I guess, so all my concentration was on the doorway. The dark movement from the front corner of the house took me by surprise. A thought started to form in my head, ‘Oh, they’re coming around the side,’ but then I realised there was no access at the sides of the house, and that someone must have been standing there in the shadows. I glanced across and saw a man. Gavin had already seen him.

I can remember the next few seconds as though they took a minute and a half. As I noticed the man, Gavin’s face was already turning towards me and his mouth opening. The man, who was a weaselly-looking guy wearing a tracksuit, probably thirty-five or so, said, ‘Hello Gavin.’ Gavin wouldn’t have heard this, or rather seen it. I saw Gavin’s mouth open, and it was weird, I almost read the word before my ears heard it. It was like my eyes sent the word to my brain before my ears did.

It figures. I guess the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound.

He said only one word. ‘Run.’

He let go my hand and took off, back through the gate and turning right, down Green Street, the way we’d come. I took off after him, and the man took off after both of us.

I did half shut the gate as I went. I tried to shut it completely but it didn’t catch, and bounced back, which, as I could see looking around, slowed the guy by a couple of seconds. Boy, did we need those couple of seconds. I didn’t know if he had a weapon or not, but there had been something menacing about him even before Gavin spoke. Now his eyes were narrowed and he had a look of total determination. I didn’t think he had Gavin’s best interests at heart. I stopped looking at him and raced on, swinging right after Gavin, along the street we’d taken just a few minutes before.

As I ran, the question pounded in my head: What the hell is happening?’

Gavin was ahead of me by thirty or forty metres. He was flying. All that pent-up emotion which had grown in him day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, as I first pressed him to come to the city, and as we got closer and closer to Rosie, had now translated into energy. I was struggling, trying to get my second wind. I took a quick glance behind again and realised the guy was gaining. I didn’t really need to look: the pounding of his footsteps could have told me that.

I wondered what would happen if and when he caught up with me. Would he overtake me and keep going after Gavin? It was like his life depended on catching Gavin. What if he was seriously out to hurt Gavin? Sure seemed that way. Maybe I was just a nuisance in the equation. On the other hand, if he was going to hurt Gavin, then what would he do about me?

There didn’t seem to be witnesses to this so far. I hadn’t seen anyone appear in the corridor of the house during the couple of seconds that we’d been inside their front garden. And the streets of Marlon were quiet.

I guess it was Gavin’s recent lifestyle that convinced him to head for the bush. The only bush available of course was the park. If he’d thought about it, he would have been safest in a crowded place. A shopping centre would have been ideal. Or, if he was so determined to go to the park, a dive straight into the middle of a football match would have been just as good. But during the war Gavin had learnt to go for cover, to get away from people, to avoid trouble, to hide. And since the war he’d learnt to trust the outdoors, and he’d developed a confidence in himself when he was in the open. So he wasn’t thinking shopping centres or football teams.

We sprinted two and a half blocks. That is a long long way. Crossing one street Gavin nearly got hit by a taxi. The guy swerved and hit the brakes, letting off enough smoke from the tyres to attract the CFA. At the next crossing I nearly belted straight into a woman on a bicycle. She had to swerve and brake pretty fast too. The way she abused me! I didn’t even look around.

I did think though, as I raced on, that there was one positive about these near misses. At least there were now two witnesses to our mad sprint. I don’t know if they saw the guy chasing us, but if we both got murdered, then the taxi driver and the cyclist could give evidence at the inquest. Maybe then they’d start checking to see why we were running.

It wasn’t a very comforting thought. I decided I’d better concentrate on getting away from the weaselly guy.

Ahead of me, Gavin belted across the road next to the park. He was still running strongly, driven by demons that I didn’t know about. But he was pretty fit. This road was wide and looked like it would normally be very busy, but there wasn’t a car to be seen. I didn’t dare look around again, but I knew the guy was even closer to me, probably within ten metres. Gavin was no more than twenty-five metres ahead, so we had gained on him, probably because we were both bigger and stronger and took longer strides. But the way the guy was panting, I’d say he was feeling the strain, and the way my chest and legs felt, I was definitely feeling the strain, and I thought Gavin would be reaching his limit too.

I was praying for him to head left, towards the football games, but he headed right, into the trees.

Of course it was nothing like the bush. These were nice old trees, elms and oaks and things like that, not a lot of leaves on them at this time of the year, but big thick trunks. Gavin ran straight down a bitumen path, then veered off across the lawn. He was heading for the thickest clump of trees, but I couldn’t see how this was a good plan. Wherever he hid, the guy only had to look behind a maximum of a dozen trees to find him. It was a pretty short-sighted strategy.

I glanced back again at the man. He still had that look of absolute determination, his face focused on one thing only. And he must have been fitter than I thought, fitter than his panting had suggested. He looked full of running. Ahead, Gavin had disappeared. He’d chosen one of those trees and was behind it right now.

I swerved left, ducked behind a tree, then used it as cover to get behind the next one. This was like a childhood game of hide’n’seek, except it was no game. I’d seen expressions like this guy’s before. To me it meant only one thing. He wanted to do grievous bodily harm.

He came after me. He skidded around the tree I’d just left, and when he saw I wasn’t there came straight for the tree I’d chosen. Watching with the corner of my eye, I saw that one thing had changed. He was now carrying a knife. The blade must have been twenty centimetres long, if not thirty. That is a knife.

I broke cover and bolted across another path, swerved behind a gum tree, and zigzagged around a couple more trees, getting a glimpse of him at one stage. But he didn’t see me. I was now behind one of the English trees, a thin young one. I took the risk of going back across the path again, hoping to find Gavin. Now the man saw me. So much for all that zigzagging. I’d wasted my advantage. I headed back towards the first couple of trees, but as I did I saw Gavin. The man must have flushed him out because Gavin was now running like crazy down the second path.

The man was following Gavin. I set out on a different route, to meet Gavin at the fountain. I don’t think the guy saw me at any stage. He’d somehow hidden the knife again. I don’t know how he did that, unless it was one of those trick knives that retract into the shaft. I guess he could have shoved it into his tracksuit pocket, but he’d want to be careful. He was gaining on Gavin. Gavin reached the fountain about three seconds before me, chucked a right, and went down another path, then immediately charged off to the left. I followed him. I’d say the guy was about three seconds behind.

Gavin had disappeared again, behind one of the trees. I chose a tree at random, knowing the guy was too close and he’d see me for sure. But I was close to my limit and couldn’t do much else. I did at least choose the widest tree I could find, a big pine.

We started another one of those childhood games, except that I don’t think this one has a name, just me circling the trunk, and him doing the same, me trying not to meet, him trying very hard to get closely acquainted. It was bluff and double bluff. Rock scissors paper, trying to anticipate what your opponent will do. I edged around to my right, then looked back and realised he was following. I went faster, and nearly ran into him as he came the other way. He had the knife again, but instead of stabbing with it, he tried to grab me with his free hand while pulling back the hand with the knife, so that he’d get velocity. I pulled my hand away, shrank back, then ran to the next tree, round the other side of it. The game continued. This tree was much thinner, so there wasn’t much room for bluffing and counter-bluffing. It was just me spinning around the tree, trying to keep away from his hands. Then, as he changed direction again, I jumped back and raced to another tree. All the time I was thinking that someone would come along, see what was happening, intervene, save us. This seemed like the quietest park I’d ever been in.

Suddenly, like a wild little creature from the forest, Gavin raced up, kicked for the man’s balls, missed, but by a miracle got the knife instead. It spun through the air and bounced on the bitumen path. But it was too close to the guy for either of us to risk diving at it. Gavin had already taken off again so I followed him, the man losing a couple of seconds as he got his knife back.

I’d only looked into his face for a second, but I thought I would remember it forever. The heavy eyelids, the thin eyebrows, the sharp nose, the badly shaved chin, but above all, the expression of cold hatred or, even worse, of no feeling at all. The total focus on one objective, getting rid of two people, and the sense that, nothing else existed, everything else in the world could take care of itself until this mission was accomplished. He was the ugliest, most horrible human being I had ever seen, but I guess I was biased by the fact that he was trying to kill us. If he’d been collecting for the Salvos I might have felt differently. If he’d been bending over me in hospital administering life-saving antibiotics… but no, I felt sickened at the image. That wasn’t in his face, kindness wasn’t possible for him.

Yet we were in a dance. The sun suddenly spread light over the whole park and over the three of us. There was no real warmth in it, but it felt warmer than the shade we’d been in, the shade of the clouds. And I was plenty hot enough. So we kept dancing. Gavin ran across the stage, from tree to tree, but in the distance. I couldn’t work out how he’d got so far ahead. But it looked like he was doubling back towards the road we’d crossed a few minutes before. I hoped so. Any place where we could find humans was OK with me. His instincts, to run and hide, to be furtive, were not working well for us.

Like I said, the sun was out, but we were dancing in the dark. Except that the darkness was the mystery of what was happening now, and what would happen in the future. Who was this man? Why was he doing this? Would we still be alive in one minute, in five minutes, in a couple of hours? The questions were in my head instinctively as I ran through the trees, even though I had no time to formulate them, and certainly no time to think of answers.

I set out after Gavin. He was the leader of this dance. I had a sudden wave of fury that he was deaf. If he’d had hearing, this whole thing could have been resolved ten minutes ago. I would have shouted to him, ‘Go to the footballers!’ But he hadn’t figured that out, and because he was deaf he couldn’t hear it from me. All I could do was chase him, and at the same time try to keep myself alive.

The man chased Gavin too. I’m not sure if that was a logical thing to do, because I was closer. If he was going to kill Gavin, then the smart thing would be to kill me as well, and it didn’t really matter who he got first. But logic had gone out the window. I guess his primary target had always been Gavin. His focus was still on him, and he was gradually adjusting to my being in the picture.

So we both chased the little lonely lost boy. He reached the end of the park and turned left along the footpath for about fifty metres, while I prayed that he would keep going into a more public area, or that a whole crowd of people would suddenly emerge so he could run right into the middle of them. Where was everybody? It was a Saturday morning for God’s sake! I guess they were shopping or at sport or sleeping in. They were probably the three choices for the teenagers. Plus it wasn’t a very nice day, so that probably kept people away.

To my horror Gavin did what I suppose he could be counted upon to do: the worst thing possible. He turned left again and raced into the thickest patch of trees, the wildest and most remote corner of the park.

By then, the man was ahead of me. We had hit the footpath at different angles, and his had been better than mine, so if I had run the adjacent and the opposite, he had run the hypotenuse. Life’s just all triangles. His route brought him out about ten metres ahead of me, onto the concrete. Suddenly I was in the weird position of chasing the guy with the knife, not knowing what I would do if I caught him. I probably would have caught him too. But I didn’t dare to. I’m fairly strong, but I didn’t think I was strong enough for him. If I tackled him from behind, I might bring him down. He might knock himself out on the footpath. But there was no guarantee of that. He could just as easily roll over on top of me and stab me to death. He could hear me coming, turn, and let me run onto the knife. Even as we ran, I was terrified that he would turn suddenly and I would be onto the knife before I could stop myself. The gap wasn’t really as close as that. But if he turned and came at me, it would be a close thing. I would have to go left or right, or turn around, and in doing any of those things I would lose a split second, and he would be so close then that I wouldn’t have put a dollar on my own chances.

But he didn’t turn around. He wanted Gavin.

The cruellest thing of all happened then. A car came along the road. I thought it was unlucky that there was only one. He was going the same way we were, and I didn’t hear him until he was fairly close. By then we were near the point where Gavin had plunged off the path. I had a terrible choice. Should I swerve onto the road and force the car to stop? If I did, by the time the driver got out and I explained what was happening, the man with the knife would have plenty of time to run into the trees, find Gavin, and kill him while I was still out on the road talking.

I could wave my hand to stop the car and at the same time keep running. Or I could ignore the car and concentrate on the man and Gavin.

With only a second to choose I waved my hand and veered, so that I was running along the edge of the gutter, trying to get the best of both worlds.

The car drove right on past. I had a glimpse of the driver, and he was talking on his mobile phone. He didn’t even see me.

The man with the knife chucked a hard left, and went into the trees. I had to follow. It was dense in there, pretty really, like a European forest, or so I’d imagine, never having been in one. It was very quiet. The ground was sodden with dead leaves, and I tried to see any possible Gavin tracks, where he might have left the little bitumen path and headed into the trees.

Again, I didn’t know what to do. Should I follow the man? Or should I go off on a different tangent and look for Gavin myself, and gamble that I would find him before the man did? If I followed the man and he found Gavin, he could have killed Gavin by the time I caught up with them. One violent stab to the heart would be all it took. Even if I threw myself on them before he had stabbed, what guarantee did that give? What hope did I have of holding his arm, of wrestling with him, of overpowering him?

Yet it seemed impossibly cold and heartless to leave him and go in a different direction.

As I thought about this, the man did what I had feared while we were running along the street. He turned suddenly and came straight back at me, at full speed, with the knife held in front of him. He wanted to run me through. I had another perfect mental photograph of his face. His eyes were so narrow that they might as well have been closed. His top lip was drawn back from his teeth, which made his teeth look like fangs. I think he was totally focused on killing me, and no other thought was in his mind, except of course the other one that said, ‘Kill Gavin.’ I could sympathise with that as there were moments when I’d felt the same way, but this man was taking it too far.

I swerved left, leaving the path. Right away, though, my legs were slowed by wet leaves. There were lots of conifers in this part of the park, but a lot of deciduous trees too, and they had shed leaves big-time. I was panting like crazy by now, and thinking that surely Gavin, even Gavin, could hear my fear, and then I had a quick thought about his terror, the special fear that comes with silence. The feeling he must have, hiding behind a tree and not knowing whether the man might appear beside him with knife raised. For Gavin, there would be no warning. Unless he could smell the man. But surely if he was smelling anything right now it would be my fear. People say cattle and dogs can smell fear. Maybe Gavin could do the same. If so, the smell of me must be filling his nostrils and overpowering his sense of smell, because I was terrified. This whole thing was totally inexplicable to me, and I guess that added to the fear. ‘May fears always have names…’ That’s from a poem I once read. This fear had a name, it was ‘man trying to kill us with knife’, but I needed more information. Who the hell was he? Had Gavin done something terrible to him? Surely not. I know I whinge about Gavin all the time, and it might give a false impression of him, because the truth is that he’s a pretty sweet kid in many ways. He really loves animals, which made the whole thing with Mark’s neighbours’ cat so hard to understand, but he loves people too, only they don’t always give him a chance to show it. If you saw the way he hangs around Homer, and his constant attempts to guess what Homer might want when he’s doing any work at my place… he gets him tools and holds the other end of things and rides on the back of Homer’s bike without a word of complaint (he hates riding on the back of my bike). If I cook something, all he wants is to take pieces outside to feed to Homer, even more than he wants to eat it himself. And of course he never gets any argument from Homer on that one.

No-one in his right mind would want to kill Gavin.

So, this guy wasn’t in his right mind.

That face, the pure focus on killing, the light of murder shining from him, the devotion to putting a knife through me and then through Gavin: he had to be totally psycho.

I skidded around a bush and for a moment I was out of his sight. I thought of doing a quick zig but decided on a zag instead. God, it’s awful when your entire existence depends on whether you zig or zag. I was half trying to avoid the man and half looking for Gavin. I saw the fountain, closer than I’d expected, and sprinted back towards it, I’m not sure why. It was like that was the centre of the park. I suppose you are automatically drawn to the centre of everything. And maybe Gavin would be drawn to it too.

I got to it and ran around the side. Circumnavigation. Christ there he was. In the middle of the bloody fountain! Trying to be a cherub. Well, he would have needed more than a harp and a pair of wings. It was a pretty impressive fountain, with some old guy, his arms and legs spread out, holding a sceptre or a spear or something. Gavin had wet legs up to his knees, and he was clinging to the old guy like he was clinging to life itself. It actually wasn’t a bad hiding place because someone small like Gavin, so long as he saw the man coming, could clamber around from side to side and even wriggle down into a spot deep inside the arms where I think he would have been well and truly hidden. The trouble was that instead of choosing the safe option, Gavin had popped up and was waving to me. He got my attention but he also got the attention of the man with the knife.

Things happened kind of fast from then on. The man hesitated but he was obviously going to wade across the pool. Gavin turned around to look at him. I didn’t think Gavin could get down from the fountain and run through the water with his little legs in time to get away from the man. So I used the statue for cover and started into the pool. Freezing cold it was too. Fm surprised it didn’t turn me to stone like it had the statue. But I ploughed fast through the water. Jumping in that quickly had given me a lead over the man, although I didn’t realise it until I saw him again. He had only just got in and I was nearly at the left leg. Then he saw me and that revved him up a bit. He started coming at me like a hippo on heat. Not that I’ve ever seen a hippo on heat but I’ve got an imagination. Gavin had gone up the statue instead of down. I wasn’t sure about that. He was pinning a lot of faith in this statue. But I realised that it had possibilities. The guy could chase us all over the statue but if he had to hang on with one hand while he stabbed at us with the other, we might be able to get out of his reach. We just had to be careful not to get trapped at the ends of the arms. And sooner or later someone had to come along. Didn’t they?

So I climbed too. But I was surprised at how difficult it was. Wet and slippery, green with slime and moss, and I guess a bit of pigeon poo too. It didn’t compare to the cliff on Tailor’s Stitch but I struggled to get a grip. I was just above the old man’s rock knee when the guy with the knife lunged at me. He grabbed my ankle with a grip that clamped me straight to the spot. I kicked out and his grip slipped a little, so that he had my foot rather than my ankle. I kicked again and my wet shoe came off, taking his hand with it. I climbed then, climbed like a professional fountain climber, motivated by terror, and reached the chest in about two seconds flat. I probably set a record for statue climbing.

The guy wasn’t far behind me though. Gavin manoeuvred himself around to the back where I couldn’t see him but that was OK as I thought he was fairly safe there. I went higher, up to the neck and then onto the beard, and sat looking down at the guy. I thought I was in a good position. If he came up there I could kick out and knock the knife from his hand, if not dislodge him as well. I glanced at the pocked and lined face of the statue. His blind eyes stared out at the park, at the sky, at nothing. Yet I felt there was wisdom in those eyes. Maybe I could trust my life to him. I peered around the back and could just see Gavin’s hand and a part of his arm. I looked down again and saw the man. He was going after Gavin, seemed like, edging around the front of the statue. He was like a blot on the huge old figure, like a moving cancer. I wondered how God could create people like Robyn and Fi and Lee and Homer, who were good people, always trying to do their best, and also create people like this, who wanted only to destroy. And he was dangerously close to doing that. I don’t think Gavin realised how close he was, because as I glanced down again Gavin came into view, doing a traverse around the back of the statue until he was directly underneath me.

He looked up and saw me, and I waved to him to come up, and at the same time started going down to help him. I guess I distracted him for that moment and suddenly the man’s hand came around the side of the fountain and grabbed Gavin’s ankle in the same vice grip that I’d felt only a minute or two before. Gavin looked like he’d got 240 volts up his bum. He arched his back and nearly lost his grip. For a moment he did a different kind of dance to the earlier one through the park; this time he waved his arms and kicked out with his free leg and waggled his head frantically, trying to keep his balance. The guy started dragging at him. I couldn’t even see the man, could only see his hand and most of his arm, but I could see the pressure mount as Gavin got drawn away. He wrapped both hands around a knobbly bit of the statue, a kind of tree stump that the giant was leaning against, and he hung on for dear life, literally.

By then I was nearly at his level, descending fast and furious. That practice on the cliff had definitely helped, although I almost slipped and crashed down at one point. Still, on the scale of things that had happened to me, I thought that rated pretty low. I was on a route that took me out of sight of Gavin, pretty much, because I wanted to get around the other side. But he grunted, ‘Help me, Ellie,’ in one of the clearest statements I’d ever heard him make. It was a grunt, but one that would have gladdened the heart of any Speech and Drama teacher. Then I heard him scream.

Funny, I thought I’d been going fast before that, but I’d been shuffling along at the pace of a ute with thirty bales of hay. I know that because when I accelerated I could feel the wind through my hair. Almost. I got around the side of that fountain and launched myself onto the guy with a burning ambition: ‘Kill him.’

I think from my limited knowledge that when you fight someone who wants to kill you, you’re at a bit of a disadvantage. His motivation is stronger than yours. He wants to save himself from being killed, plus he wants to kill you. You only want to save yourself. But that’s not enough. He’s got double the drive that you have. So you have to want to kill him too. Otherwise your energy won’t be as good. It’s horrible but it’s true. So I developed in that instant, from nowhere except my war experience, a total focus on ending his life right there in the cold waters of the fountain.

He had stabbed Gavin in the leg, to make him let go of the knobbly bit he was hanging on to, and so the first thing I saw was blood down the man’s arm and on the knife and dripping into the water. At the same time he had heard me coming so he was expecting me, and he let go of Gavin and turned to take care of me. At least I’d taken the heat off Gavin for a moment. Now all I had to do was to kill this person. Our pleasant Saturday morning stroll through the park, towards a meeting that should have been wonderful, had turned into this: me intent on an act of homicide, having no greater purpose in life than to kill another human being.

I threw myself on him with such force that I knocked him off the waist of the statue. That was good. He didn’t belong there anyway. Neither did I maybe, but he definitely didn’t. We rolled down into the water. I no longer felt the cold. Weird. It had no temperature at all. Perhaps he had already stabbed me and killed me and I just didn’t know it yet. But if I were dead, my eyes were still working. I see therefore I am. I saw his arm lifting to bring the knife down into me. We had this much in common: we both wanted to be locked together, him so he could kill me, me so I could kill him. I decided attack was the best method of defence and launched myself up at his arm, as fast and hard as I could, but not as fast or hard as I would have liked, seeing he was trying to cling to me. I knocked his hand at the base, next to the wrist. He kept his grip on the knife. I really wanted him to lose that knife. But he was thrown off balance. He swung around sideways and had to change his position quickly to get his balance back. I drove in hard at him and he went down. The trouble was that I went down with him. We were well and truly in the water now. I still didn’t feel any heat or coldness but I had a problem with the weight of the water. It slowed me down all the time.

I could see the knife and I had another dive at it but he twisted away and then stabbed up at me, a short sudden attack out of nothing and nowhere. It was clever of him because I had thought he was too off balance. I recoiled but he got me all right, to the left of my belly button. I saw a bit of blood appear, not much, and no pain, just a thudding sensation, like I’d been punched there, and not even very hard. But it was shocking, really shocking. I gasped for breath, then realised I had to focus on what I was doing, killing him. I couldn’t allow other thoughts or feelings. I kicked at the knife, knowing I wouldn’t connect but just to give him something to think about, and at the same time with my right hand punched in at his face. I didn’t connect with either my foot or my hand but already I’d followed that up by diving in on top of him. Now I had some advantage. He was quite light and I’m heavy enough and he was under water. Water that had my blood trailing through it.

I might have knocked his head on the bottom of the pool. I wasn’t sure about that. Not very hard anyway. Not as hard as I would have liked.

The knife arm was on its way around again, strong and vicious. I leant sideways to push it away and this time tried to bang his head on the bottom. It didn’t work. I felt like the knife had made contact again, but I didn’t know exactly where and I didn’t know how far it had penetrated. I decided to strangle him and drown him at the same time. I got my hands around his throat and leant forward, pushing down on him to make sure he couldn’t get up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his arm lifting. I realised this wasn’t going to work, that he would be able to stab me many times before I could drive the life out of his body.

Until the knife went flying. Its silver shape spun through the air like a metal boomerang. A boomerang that wouldn’t be… yeah, well, the ‘delete cliche’ button won’t let me finish that sentence. But Gavin had arrived. The pocket commando, splattered with his own blood, had smashed the guy’s hand with something, I didn’t know what, couldn’t see, and now I was free to concentrate on killing him. God these words, they flow so easily out of my brain but I shut off, fiercely and totally, the awareness of what they mean, otherwise I could never write them. I used my weight on his body and my arms around his neck to stop him breathing ever again. He started to kick and convulse. The force of him was frightening and I didn’t know if I’d be able to hold him down, although Gavin piled in on top of me then and the extra weight did help.

The man suddenly went limp and I almost relaxed but something told me it was a trick. He still felt too tense. I made my grip even stronger, which was easier now that he had stopped fighting. God it was awful. I feel sick as I remember his throat, his neck. There was bone in it, but mostly it felt like muscle, although I don’t think that can be right. And I’m never going to ask a science teacher. He had quite a scrawny neck and the first part was just all fleshy, or rather like the wattles under a turkey neck. Then there was the part that felt like muscle and then the bone was way back there somewhere. That was the part I was trying to reach. I pressed even tighter, wanting to have nothing but bone in my hands. And yeah Homer, go ahead and laugh at that but I’m not changing it.

I was right about the bluffing because suddenly he came back to life again and now he was desperate. He went crazy on me, like a fighting fish. Or a crocodile. Don’t know, haven’t caught one of those lately. He even got his head out of the water for a moment, but I’m sure he didn’t get any air as my grip was too strong. His face was horrible, grey, and his eyes were staring at me and for the first time they were wide open but he didn’t see me or anything else.

I got him under again and this time he went limp for real. I could feel the difference right away. I still didn’t let go. I figured if I did, his reflexes would take over and breathe for him. He’d come back to life. I didn’t want that. Then the cop grabbed me from behind and pulled me away.