LITMIR.BIZ

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kitchen of the station house and made himself a pot of tea with much more care than he usually took – warming the pot, warming the cup, putting the milk in first – and then he sat out on the station house’s back verandah in a steamer chair and watched the sun set. One of the tracker dogs had followed a trail that afternoon, way out to the west, but then had lost it. Pop couldn’t believe – if it actually was the boys – how far they had travelled. He went through his plan of action for the next morning and then he closed his eyes for a moment. He dozed for a few minutes but when he woke it seemed hours had passed. It was dark, and his back was as stiff as the southerly that had loped in, all bluster and show, when he hadn’t been looking. He reckoned the clouds that had come with it, swirling over the town, would barely shed enough rain to damp down the dust.

      After a while – he thought it might have been five minutes or so but was unsure until he looked at his watch and saw that fifteen had ticked away – he stood up and stretched his back. He heard a plaintive sound from inside the house and looked round the doorjamb to see what it was. Grace was standing under the hall light in her new dress and Lil, pins in mouth, was on the floor adjusting the hem. Pop could tell by the look on his daughter’s face that she wasn’t enjoying herself at all.

      He’d forgotten all about the dance. It had been postponed from Saturday, and while some had voiced their opposition, he thought it was probably about time it went ahead. God knew they could all do with something to cheer them up. Christmas was just over a week away now and he doubted whether anyone was quite ready for that. He took a last look at the evening sky before going inside. He gave his grimacing daughter a wink and then he went on into his room to change his clothes.

      Grace didn’t really expect Darcy to be there when she walked into the hall with her mother and father, so when she saw her sitting on a chair up the back she almost stopped dead in her tracks. Fortunately her parents had already peeled off from her side to talk to people so they didn’t notice. Darcy looked up, caught her eye, then looked away again. Grace hesitated and then went to the side of the hall and sat down. Slowly, more people arrived, but the mood and the volume of the evening remained subdued and very seldom did anyone raise their voice or even laugh out loud. She avoided dancing when the music began and every so often she would glance over at Darcy to see what she was doing. Sometimes her brother Sonny was sitting beside her and sometimes she saw Charlie Perry, who worked on the Steeles’ farm, whispering in her ear. She liked Charlie and was a little jealous of Darcy sitting next to him, a little hurt by the fact that he was the only boy who hadn’t come and asked her for a dance. She was thinking about slipping out the side door and home when her father sat down beside her.

      ‘You and Darcy have a falling out?’ he asked.

      She shook her head. Pop didn’t repeat the question, just leant back and crossed his arms and sat like that beside her for a good five minutes.

      ‘Why don’t you just go and say hello,’ he said, finally. ‘Wouldn’t do any harm, would it?’

      Grace shook her head again. Pop sighed and wandered away. She watched him go, feeling as though she’d let him down somehow, but also a little annoyed at him.

      She waited until neither Sonny nor Charlie were around and then she stood and began to walk. When she was a few yards away from Darcy she stopped. Darcy was barefoot – her shoes discarded under the chair beside her – and she wore the pale cream dress borrowed weeks ago from Grace’s own wardrobe. It was too small for her across the bust and she looked uncomfortable and self-conscious in it. Pinned to the bodice was a wilting carnation and around her neck hung the cowrie shell Grace had found on the beach last summer and brought back for her. They both looked up at the same time and their eyes met. Grace saw the unhappiness in her friend’s eye and was instantly ashamed of herself. She had just taken her first step forward when all the lights in the hall suddenly winked out. She stood there for a moment in stunned surprise, her eyes adjusting to the dark, people jostling past her, some making jibes about the county council and their beautiful timing. She heard people pulling out drawers in the kitchen at the back of the hall and then matches were struck and candles lit and her surroundings reappeared, but altered subtly, as if the darkness had changed something, moved things around, worked some curious magic. She looked back to Darcy, who was now fiddling nervously with her hands. Without another thought she went and sat down beside her and took one of her cool, dry hands and pressed it between hers. They sat like that for a few minutes, saying nothing amidst all the commotion, and then Grace squeezed her hand tightly and Darcy lowered her head and rested it against the top of her friend’s arm. Grace looked down at the top of her head and, despite a much deeper current of confusion running through her, was sure she’d done the right thing. After a while she lowered her head until her mouth was right over Darcy’s ear.

      ‘How can I help you if you won’t tell me what the matter is?’ she whispered. She felt her friend take a deeper breath, as if she were about to speak, but then she let it out again, and Grace began to wonder, despairingly, whether Darcy would ever answer.

7

      Tom took a few more shaky steps and then stopped. There was a road beneath his feet but its flat hardness felt more like the deck of a rolling ship. The road glistened with dew and there were lights shining upon it. He blinked and looked down at his feet for a moment and then he looked up at the source of the lights and began to walk towards it.

      It was much further than he thought possible and more than once his legs nearly gave way beneath him, but he kept walking, a determination untainted by reason or any other consideration keeping him moving. A sound grew and swirled around him. It was like a swarm of wasps, maybe a whole plague of them. He thought he heard words in the sound but he was also quite certain it was not speech and had nothing to say to him. He stopped and sucked in air until the sound receded back into nothing and all he could hear were the trees on either side of the road and the leaves rustling in the slight evening breeze. He walked on, his head down, until he reached the gate of the house. He put his hand on the gate and rested for a few moments and then he opened it and walked up to the front door and knocked. Golden light streamed from the windows. He thought he could smell food. A flustered-looking woman opened the door and stared at him for a moment, her eyes growing slowly wider and wider.

      ‘Tom Ferry!’ she breathed. She crossed herself as if he were a ghost and then she brought up her big arms and embraced him. He looked into her eyes and saw the worry, the big buttery dollops of concern, and was overwhelmed, lost for even the simplest of words. Then the woman’s children came and thrust their heads between the doorway and their mother to blink and stare at the ragtag boy on their front step. Then she looked through him, past him, behind him, already looking for his little slip of a brother, his little shadow.

      ‘Where’s your brother, Tom? Where’s Flynn?’ asked the woman – over and over – but he could not answer her, and could not even begin to. Things began to whirl around him then. One of the children raced by, up the road, into town, shouting at the top of his lungs. Tom stepped back and sat down, pulling his legs up and hugging his knees. The woman came and helped him up and together they walked down the path and out onto the road. When he next looked up there was a whole crowd of people running towards him. There were girls in nice dresses, boys in suits, men and women following behind. He could see the hall in the near distance, the people standing on its front steps holding candles, their flickering shadows falling in every direction.

      Grace Mather was one of the first to reach him. She stopped a few yards away, sucking in breaths like a Gift runner, and just stared at him. He saw Sonny, his sister Darcy, and then everyone was around him, all talking at once, all making no sense. Sergeant Mather elbowed his way through the crush and bent down and put his hand on Tom’s shoulder and peered hard into his face. There was a hush as he began to speak.

      ‘It’s Sergeant Mather, son – Pop Mather,’ he said quietly. ‘Can you tell me your name?’

      Tom nodded. ‘Thomas Ferry,’ he said.

      ‘Good boy,’ Pop said. He let the air out of his chest through rounded lips and then helped Tom to his feet. ‘All right,’ he said,

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