While I live

CHAPTER 19

The conversation with Bronte gave me some heart but by that night I was really down about it again. The situation seemed hopeless. There were too many forces on too many fronts to battle against. It was all very well for Bronte to say ‘Fight’, but I’d never had enemies like these before.

I needed someone else to talk to so I rang Lee. He wasn’t always the first person I called when I was up to my neck in mud, but in my life there were Lee-times and Fi-times and sometimes even Homer-times, and this felt like a Lee-time.

His little sister, Pang, answered. I’d only met Lee’s sisters and brothers a couple of times but I’d talked to Pang a lot on the phone, and she was my favourite. She was nine, and as bubbly as Lee was still, as noisy as he was silent, as funny as he was grave.

‘Hi, Pang,’ I said, ‘how’s life? Is Lee being good to you?’

‘No, he’s being horrible. He’s always yelling at us and he picks on me and he’s the worst cook in the world.’

‘Why, what’d he give you for tea tonight?’

‘Tonight. We had burnt newspaper and bits of old carpet, and… um…’ Pang was obviously looking around the room for inspiration. ‘And then we had the budgie for dessert.’

‘You did? What’s that I can hear singing in the background?’

‘He was reincarnated.’

I could hear Lee saying, ‘C’mon, Pang, is that Ellie? Give me the phone,’ so I said a quick goodbye as she handed it over.

But when Lee came on I suddenly dried up. It had been an effort to be light and chatty with Pang. Now I couldn’t keep making the effort. I heard Lee gradually getting more concerned. ‘Ellie, are you OK?… Hello, Ellie… Ellie, what’s wrong?’

Finally I whispered, ‘I think I’m going to lose the farm.’

‘What do you mean? Why? Are you broke?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Was today the court case?’

‘Yep.’

‘Oh sorry. I would have rung. I thought it was next week.’

‘Well it wasn’t.’

‘And you lost?’

There was another long silence. I said, ‘Why is the world so awful?’

‘Is it?’

‘Everyone’s so greedy. Everyone only looks after themselves. They’re just out for all they can get.’

‘Are they?’

‘Well, take Mr Sayle for instance.’

‘Take Robyn Mathers.’

‘Take Mr Rodd.’

‘Take Mr and Mrs Yannos.’

‘Take the women in the prison ward, when I was shot. During the war.’

‘Take Mrs Xannides.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘The lady in the next apartment. She comes in and looks after the kids when I’m going to be late home.’

‘I still think I’m right though. What about Hitler?’

‘What about Nelson Mandela?’

‘Stalin.’

‘Martin Luther King.’

‘Pol Pot.’

‘I’ll see your Pol Pot with Mother Theresa and raise you a Pastor Neimoller.’

‘Who?’

‘He was in a concentration camp in World War II and he volunteered to take the place of a guy who was about to be shot, because the other guy had a wife and kids.’

‘God is there anything you don’t know?’

He ignored that and ripped off another string of names, most of which I’d never heard of: ‘Ralph Nader. Gandhi. John Lennon. Paul Robeson. Marie Curie. Bob Brown. Lassie.’

‘Oh I don’t know, Jack the Ripper. Stop being so annoying.’

He laughed, and I did too.

I rang Mrs Yannos and got loads of sympathy but when I started asking about any relationship between Mr Sayle and Mr Rodd I got nowhere. She just went all vague again. So I took a bit of a risk and rang Mrs Sanderson. I was really working the phone that night. I guess it was my way of fighting back, a little bit at least.

Mrs Sanderson was new to Wirrawee but she already knew ten times more about the district than I did. We talked about rainfall, cattle prices, and government rules and regulations, which had all become compulsory topics around here. After a while I got onto the subject of Mr Rodd’s life and times, and just asked her straight out: ‘Is his brother-in-law Mr Sayle, the lawyer in town?’

‘Well, not exactly. No, there’s no real relationship there. Mr Sayle’s wife has a sister and she lived with Mr Rodd for a while. But that broke up pretty fast. I think it only lasted a couple of months.’

‘That seems to happen a lot to Mr Rodd.’

‘Yes, he’s not my favourite person.’

I was exhausted after talking to her. I don’t know why shopping, sitting in class and talking on the phone are all so tiring, but they are, especially shopping. Still, I wasn’t ready to give up yet. My last call was to Fi’s mum. I told her everything that had happened, including the bit about Mr Sayle being connected to Mr Rodd.

At the end she said what I expected: ‘It’s not looking good for you, Ellie.’

‘But there must be something I can do.’

‘Oh yes, you can lodge an appeal. But to be honest I’d be surprised if they agree to hear it. Appeal courts decide for themselves which cases they’ll hear. I mean, the courts are so clogged and you haven’t got any new evidence and I doubt if the magistrate’s made any errors in law.’

‘What about the connection between Sayle and Mr Rodd?’

‘That’s nothing by itself. His sister-in-law… And she and Mr Rodd aren’t even together anymore. You’d have to prove a conspiracy, and you won’t be able to do that. Look, I’m not sure of the law in this area, but I suspect that as your guardian he can probably sell the property to Mr Rodd at any halfway fair price. If he sells it at twenty cents a hectare obviously you can stop that. But as long as it’s in a reasonable range he’d probably get away with it.’

‘This is so wrong,’ I wailed. ‘It’s so unfair.’

‘Ellie, have you ever thought that maybe you’re being a bit paranoid? He may have no intention of cheating you. After all, your father obviously trusted him. You’re not going to like this, darling, but he may be right about the property. It may not be possible to keep it. He may just be acting in your best interests.’

Nothing in my heart or mind would let me accept this idea. I went to bed feeling that the only person on my side was Gavin, and I hadn’t even been able to tell him what happened in court yet. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I was so caught up in the whole thing, worrying myself into a coma, that I could have completely missed what was going on the very next day at the Youngs’ place.

‘Adderley’ was about six k’s from us. The Youngs had three kids: the twins, Shannon and Sam, and their younger brother Alastair, who was ten. All the kids were funny, which in itself was funny, because Mr and Mrs Young had as much sense of humour as a John Deere four wheel drive tractor. They seemed constantly baffled by their children. Mrs Young’s brother had owned the property next door but he’d been killed in the war, on the first day. The Youngs inherited it but it was taken off them again in the redistribution, so they basically ended up back where they started.

‘Adderley’ was a small place but it was on the river, so it had good soil. It was well fenced, with a famous old shearing shed that hadn’t been used for decades, and the biggest machinery shed I’ve ever seen. Mrs Young’s family had owned it since the fifteenth century or something like that.

You had the feeling that nothing ever changed on ‘Adderley’ which is why, the day after the court case, I should have noticed that something was different. But it took Gavin’s sharp eyes to pick it up. We were both on the school bus, sitting three seats apart. Homer and we were the only kids left on board. The first footy match between Wirrawee and Keating since the war was happening back in town, so a lot of people had stayed on for that. But Homer hated team sports and I had too much stuff to do back home.

I was three-quarters asleep and Homer, behind me, was completely asleep. Suddenly Gavin was standing next to me. He looked puzzled.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘The Youngs’ house,’ he said, nodding backwards.

‘What about it?’

‘There’s a light upstairs. It keeps going on and off.’ He demonstrated with his hands.

‘It what?’

‘On and off. All the time.’

‘What do you…? But that’s weird.’

He stood back while I got up and went over to the other side of the bus, but of course the house was already out of sight.

I only had a moment to make a decision. I didn’t have a clue what might be going on. It was probably Alastair, mucking around, but we’d been warned so often to be on guard. There’d been lots of ads saying things like ‘Every bell is an alarm bell.’ ‘Be super alert.’ A light turning on and off was probably nothing. But ignoring it seemed like a bad idea.

I told Gavin to wake Homer, which I knew he’d enjoy, and I ran forward to stop the bus. Barry was driving. He was pretty easygoing and when I told him we wanted to get off he just shrugged and pulled over. I didn’t tell him why, because I was already feeling a bit stupid. I mean, what were we doing? Getting off in the middle of nowhere because the Youngs’ house had a problem with electricity? How were we meant to get home?

Homer was really grumpy, like a bear who’s just come out of hibernation. The bus galumphed away down the road. ‘What’s this all about?’ Homer asked.

‘Gavin said there’s a light upstairs at the Youngs’ place that keeps going on and off.’

‘So what?’ He hesitated, then relented a bit. ‘Oh well, I suppose we’d better check it out, seeing we’re here now.’

‘We’re getting like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys or something, solving mysteries.’

‘Well, it does sound a bit odd. The light, I mean.’

We walked quite quickly down the road. As we went Homer pulled out his mobile and dialled a number. To me he muttered, ‘I’m going to tell Liberation what we’re doing. We need to tell someone.’

‘Good idea.’

I couldn’t hear who answered, though I wished I could. Homer did all the talking anyway, then the other person said something, and that was the end of the conversation.

‘You could ring the Youngs,’ I suggested.

‘OK.’

I looked up their number in my little address book. We were already at their boundary.

Homer dialled and waited for a bit.

‘Just the answering machine,’ he said, cutting the call off.

‘What about ringing the cops?’

It seemed funny suggesting that. We’d never before been in a situation where ringing the cops was an option. Times had changed.

‘Yeah right, and tell them what? That they should get out here fast because Alastair Young has been playing with a light switch?’

I didn’t bother answering that, just said, ‘Well, we’d better not go through the front gate. Let’s cut across the paddock here.’

We made our way along the ploughed furrows, trying not to break too many ankles. From a row of trees we could at last see the house. There was no movement. And no light going on and off. Homer and I both looked at Gavin. He spread his hands out, palms up.

‘Hey, don’t blame me.’

‘What do you think?’ Homer asked me.

‘We’ve come this far. Might as well finish the job.’

It was difficult in broad daylight to work out a good approach. We took the obvious route, towards the massive machinery shed, which would put us reasonably close to the house.

We were being a bit casual, not casual exactly, but I imagine we all thought the same thing, that nothing was wrong and we were on a wild-goose chase. And we reached the machinery shed with no drama. By then Homer was getting embarrassed.

‘Shannon and Sam are going to give us heaps about this,’ he complained.

I just shrugged. We were committed, for better or for worse.

Unlike most machinery sheds this one had a side door. And unlike most machinery sheds this one was spotlessly clean and tidy. Put ours to shame. We snuck in through the side door. All was quiet, except for us. No matter how careful we tried to be, our footsteps echoed a bit. I kept to the shadows and went past the workbench. I stood there, hidden by a big yellow Kubota.

By then I was starting to swing back to thinking that Gavin might be right. It was one of those ‘nothing is wrong and that’s what’s wrong’ situations. Both the cars were in the carport yet the place was dead still. And I hoped I didn’t mean ‘dead’. At this time of day, in this kind of weather, the Youngs should have been zigzagging all over the place, from the house to the machinery shed, from the shed to the fuel pumps, from the bowsers to the dumpster, from the dumpster to the chooks, etc etc etc. Instead, if a blowie hadn’t been buzzing past me in the machinery shed, nothing would have moved.

Gavin came up beside me, touched my elbow, and pointed down. I looked. There was a fresh red line of blood drops on the concrete floor.

I felt a lurch at my heart, like someone was trying to pull it out of position. I looked at Homer and he looked back at me. I suspect his face was mirroring mine: a kind of sick expression of ‘No, please, not again’. He may have been a member of Liberation and he may have enjoyed the excitement of war, but at that moment I think he’d had enough. I know I had.

‘It mightn’t be human,’ he muttered.

I shook my head and turned my attention to the house. I wanted to try to get in the upstairs part, because I thought it would be safer. Whoever had flashed the light had done it from upstairs, so for a time at least they had felt safe up there. And going that way would give us the advantage of surprise. General Finley had sometimes used the word ‘hostiles’ to describe enemy soldiers. I quite liked it as a word. If there were hostiles in this house the last thing they would expect was visitors through the upstairs windows.

I looked at Homer and said, ‘Let’s get in through the first floor.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘A trampoline?’

I didn’t answer, just kept looking, impatient to start moving, but reminding myself that reconnaissance was three-quarters of any battle. ‘Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted.’

There was a triangle of water tanks immediately beside the house, and they had flat tops. That had to be the route. This wasn’t like some old house in an Enid Blyton story, with ivy conveniently growing up the wall. The Youngs’ place was quite English looking, in a slightly fake way: one of those brick houses with a tiled roof. At least all the upstairs windows that I could see were open.

I gave Homer a look that was meant to say ‘I don’t know about this but do we have a choice?’

I’m not sure if he understood the look, but I was not happy. In spite of our conversation about the agony and ecstasy of these combat episodes, taking a majorly dangerous route into a potentially lethal situation wasn’t how I wanted to spend the afternoon. It was an afternoon that had been going along in a quiet and straightforward fashion. Maybe I’d find nothing in the house more shocking than Alastair watching ‘South Park’. Sure hoped so.