On the Jellicoe Road

  “Put the amps on two. It’ll sound better,” he calls out to them, as if they asked him.

  “Ben?” I say, looking at him, reminding him why we’re here. I can tell by the expression on his face that I’ve lost him for the afternoon.

  “And put the electric guitar amps lower than the bass amps!” Choi shouts out. Jonah Griggs doesn’t say anything to him. Just stares.

  “Find us a venue where we don’t have to put up with this crap,” I say, standing and starting to leave.

  “I know the perfect venue,” Santangelo calls out. “It’s called the Club House.”

  I swing around. “Once more with feeling. What’s in it for me?”

  I realise Ben isn’t even following me. He’s already close to the stage, arguing with Choi and the Mullet Brothers about the amps.

  Instead, Jonah Griggs and Santangelo are standing there, almost side by side. Almost.

  “Information,” Santangelo says. He has that look again, as if he wants to tell me something but doesn’t know how. He shakes his head, like he’s changed his mind.

  “Chaz? What?” Raffaela snaps.

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, call me when you’ve got something,” I say, walking away again.

  “The Brigadier knew your mother,” Jonah Griggs says, dropping what he knows is a bombshell.

  I don’t want to stop, but I do. Because I can’t believe his audacity and I’m curious to see where he’s going with this.

  “Do you want me to let you in on a little secret?” I say. “Lots of men knew my mother. So don’t go there.”

  “You wanted to go there three years ago,” he says, walking towards me.

  We are so close we’re almost touching. My fists are clenched at my side, and I’m trying to find the right words.

  “Oh, so you think I’m still that person I was on the train?” I say, seething with anger. “My needs have moved on, thank you very much. It’s what happens when you’re betrayed.”

  He doesn’t even flinch. “What I know is a whole lot more than I did back then and I can tell that this dickwit knows something about you, too,” he says, glancing at Santangelo. “And I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re still an emotional mess looking for your mother and you know that if you find her, you’ll find your father as well. So let’s talk about river access and the Club House,” he continues coolly, “and I’ll tell you what you’ve been desperate to find out for most of your life.”

  I’m staring at him, so angry I can barely speak. “You know what I’m desperate to know, Griggs?” I spit at him. “What did you use on your father? Was it a gun or a knife?”

  The room goes sickeningly silent except for the sound of Choi’s footsteps hurrying towards us, like he knows what Griggs’s next move is going to be. But he is too slow, because Griggs has me pinned against the wall, my feet dangling so that we’re eye to eye.

  Ben is on him and then Santangelo. Raffaela is clutching onto me but I don’t break eye contact with Griggs. Choi shakes a finger at me, like he’s saying that my time will come and then pulls Griggs away and they walk out.

  Ben, Santangelo, and Raffaela are looking at me in shock.

  “Are you insane?”

  I don’t know who asks and I don’t answer because I feel nothing but a need to get away from everyone. Instinct tells me to go to Hannah’s, but she doesn’t live there anymore and that’s when I realise the major difference between my mother and Hannah. My mother deserted me at the 7-Eleven, hundred of kilometres away from home.

  Hannah, however, did the unforgivable.

  She deserted me in our own backyard.

  As I walk back to the school on my own, I realise I’m crying. So I go back to the stories I’ve read about the five and I try to make sense of their lives because in making sense of theirs, I may understand mine. I say their names over and over again. Narnie, Webb, Tate, Fitz, Jude; Narnie, Webb, Tate, Fitz, Jude; Narnie, Webb, Tate, Fitz, Jude; Narnie, Narnie…

  “Narnie! Open the door, Narnie, please!”

  Webb’s face had a sick pallor. Tate held on to him, crying, while Fitz paced the corridor outside Narnie’s room.

  “Get out of the way,” Jude said, pushing Webb aside. He pounded on the door over and over again. “Fucking open it, Narnie.”

  After a while they heard the click of the lock and Jude yanked it open before she could change her mind.

  “Narnie?” Webb said, holding her. “Don’t do that to us. Please.”

  “What did you take?” Tate asked, shaking her gently.

  “Panadol. I had a headache,” she murmured.

  “How many?”

  “I need to sleep,” she said. “If I sleep, everything will be better.”

  Webb led her to the bed and Tate sat down beside her.

  Jude watched them fussing over her like they always seemed to. He remembered the story Webb had told him about Narnie in the car on the night of the accident. It was after Fitz had come by to free them. How Narnie was stuck, frozen with fear, refusing to move. Narnie the fragile one who couldn’t cope with living.

  “If you’re going to kill yourself, don’t do it until tomorrow night at ten,” Tate said.

  “Promise?” Webb begged.

  “I had a headache and it wouldn’t go away. That’s why I rang you, Webb.”

  “Cross your heart, hope to die.”

  “But she does hope to die,” Jude snapped.

  “She knows what I mean,” Tate said.

  Narnie crossed her heart.

  “That’s not where her heart is,” Jude said bitingly.

  “Scano, leave it,” Webb said tiredly.

  “Well, it’s not. She just crossed her shoulder blade. What kind of a suicide victim are you, Narnie, when you don’t even know where the life force is that you’re dying to squash? Right here.” He poked her in the heart. “You want to do it properly, you make sure you get yourself right there.”

  Narnie looked at him and he felt a wave of self-hatred, but he didn’t care.

  “You’re an arsehole, Jude. Big time,” Tate said, almost in tears, putting an arm around Narnie.

  “Yeah, I probably am. But I can’t be a part of this deal-making. Screw you, Narnie. If you die, a big chunk of us dies with you.”

  He slammed out of the room and even Fitz seemed speechless.

  Narnie curled up on the mattress and Tate lay beside her. “We’ll see you guys tomorrow,” she told them.

  Webb leaned over, kissing Narnie and then Tate.

  “You can keep Chairman Meow with you,” he said, snuggling the cat in next to Narnie before leaving.

  Tate smoothed her brow. “Maybe it’s a good idea not to go to sleep for a while.”

  “I can’t stay awake.”

  “I’ll tell you about To Kill a Mockingbird. You might get in trouble if you don’t read it for English by tomorrow,” Tate said. “Do you remember what you’re up to?”

  Narnie thought for a moment and then nodded. “Atticus makes Jem read to the old woman.”

  Tate settled in next to her. “Well,” she began, “Mrs. Dubose is really nasty. She lives next door and calls out to them every single time they walk past the house about how disrespectful they are and blah blah blah. Anyway, every afternoon Jem has to read to her and sometimes he takes Scout along and what they discover is that Mrs. Dubose is dying. But there’s a problem. You see, she’s been addicted to morphine most of her life and because she’s such a proud woman, she figures that she doesn’t want to die beholden to anything or anyone.”

  “Even though the morphine would ease the pain of her dying?” Narnie asked.

  “Uh-huh. So her pain-killer is actually Jem reading to her. It takes her mind off it. At the end of the chapter she dies, but she’s free and Jem’s respect for her is intense.”

  “My father…he would have made us do that as well.” After a moment Narnie smiled. “Read to me, Jem.”

  “Sure thing, Mrs. Dubose.”

  So Tate re
ad to Narnie all night and in the morning, when Tate could hardly keep her eyes open and Narnie could actually see some kind of light, they both closed their eyes.

  “One day, if you need me to, I’ll be Jem and you be Mrs. Dubose,” Narnie promised sleepily.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Tate said softly, and they both slept.

  Back in my room, the stand-off with the dying cat ends. It’s listless as I hold it in my arms and suddenly I’m engulfed with a feeling of love for it and a need to set it free. I consider the best place and take it out to a spot in Hannah’s garden, near the river.

  For a long time I sit and watch it, but it doesn’t move. It doesn’t run away, like I expected. It doesn’t hiss or snarl. It’s like it wants to give up but doesn’t know how.

  “Go!” I tell it, but it’s shivering, its misery so visible that for the second time today I find myself crying. I remember what Hannah said once, that it had been dying for years and should have been put out of its misery long ago. But she didn’t have the guts. So I need to. I gather the cat in my arms, whispering soothingly in its ears, and take it to the river. I can’t bear the idea of it being under the water on its own so I go down with it, clutching it, whispering, “I’m here, I’m here,” over and over again until we are underwater, eyes open, watching each other. I want to know its secrets and for a moment I sense something unexplainable. Peaceful. It makes me want to stay down there even after the cat stops moving. But above me I see the sun push its way through the branches of the oak tree and it’s like a light beckoning me to something better. I swim us both to the surface, my lungs exploding, and suddenly I can breathe in a way I haven’t been able to for a while.

  Later, I lie on the sand bar in the river, my body shaking from the cold, but I feel a peace come over me. As I drift off to sleep, I sense that I’m not alone and I feel myself being carried and it’s like I’m back in my childhood, on the shoulders of a giant again, happy.

  When I wake up I’m in my room and Raffaela and Ms. Morris are there.

  “Would you like something to eat?” Ms. Morris asks gently.

  I nod. She walks out and Raffaela fusses with the blankets around me, avoiding my gaze. We don’t talk for a moment or two and I take her hand to stop the fussing.

  She clutches onto it and it’s the safest I’ve felt since Hannah left. It’s the power Raffaela has always had and maybe that’s why I’ve spent most of our lives together pushing her away. Because being so dependent on people scares me. But I don’t have the energy to keep Raffaela out anymore.

  “I’m going to look for my mother,” I tell her quietly.

  “No,” she says, and I can hear her frustration. “This is your home, Taylor, regardless of what you think it is. When school finishes next year, we’ll go to uni in Bathurst and then you can come back here and stay with Hannah. Because this is where you belong. In this town.”

  But Raffy knows it’s a lost cause.

  “Raffy,” I ask, “remember the dorms? I told you something about what happened in the city when I was young. You cried. Do you remember?”

  She doesn’t move for a moment. Her face is pinched and tense and then she nods.

  “Well, I can’t remember and I need you to tell me what it was.”

  She shakes her head emphatically.

  “That’s my memory,” I say firmly. “Mine. You need to give it back to me.”

  “What you told me,” she begins, “won’t lead to your mother. It’ll just make you remember something that should be forgotten and never spoken about again. You’re right. It is your memory and you have more right to it than me but I’m holding this one, Taylor.”

  “You need to ask Santangelo what he knows,” I try instead.

  “Santangelo knows nothing,” she says, and she’s crying. “He’s an idiot. He thinks he’s going to be a big-shot Fed and he thinks he’s too good-looking and he feels too much and never forgives anything and I hate him because he’s going to make you go crazy.”

  I hold on to her tightly. “Don’t,” I say. “I need you to help me run this House…this school and I can’t do that if we’re both crying.”

  “When the Brigadier carried you in here…I thought you were dead…. I always think you’re going to do something to yourself, Taylor….”

  I let go of her and shake my head. “Not interested in dying just yet,” I say, getting out of bed.

  When I walk out of my room, I stop suddenly. They all seem to be there. The seniors in my House. Some sitting on the steps, leaning on the railing, standing around. As if they’ve been waiting for me. I don’t know what to say to them but as I make my way down the stairs, I realise they are all looking for something in my face to show that I’m okay. There’s so much silence that it eats away at my skin and leaves me exposed.

  Do I remember what Raffaela said in the car park of the Evangelical church?

  “Who do you believe in?” she had repeated as if it was the dumbest question she’d ever heard. “I believe in you, Taylor Markham.”

  “Dinner is in an hour,” I say to them all firmly. “Seniors are on duty. And we eat together tonight.”

  I walk into the dorm study towards Jessa and Chloe P. I sit down next to Chloe, take the protractor out of her trembling hand, and make a perfect circle. My hand is shaking, too, and when I look up, I see fear in Jessa’s eyes. I feel like those psycho fathers in movies: one minute abusive, next minute human.

  “I’ll come and find you next time Hannah rings, Taylor,” Chloe P. whispers. “I promise. Wherever you are.”

  I nod, swallowing hard. My hands are still shaking.

  Jessa takes hold of both my scratched hands, pressing them until they stop. “That’s what my dad used to do when I was scared,” she tells me.

  Later, I stand side by side with Ms. Morris and Raffaela and the other seniors preparing dinner while Jessa and Chloe P. and the rest of the juniors annoy us with ridiculous questionnaires from teen magazines and force us to listen to bizarre hypotheticals. But it calms down my heart rate and it makes me laugh and each time one of them walks by, I feel a hand on my shoulder or a squeeze of my arm and it makes me feel that tonight it will be safe for me to go to sleep.

  Chapter 13

  Three things happen in the next week that keep us tense and on edge.

  First, we hear on the news that two girls have gone missing from the highway near a town named Rabine. It’s nowhere near us but Jessa manages to convince everyone that we could be next. Second, Richard attempts a coup and sends out word to the Townies and Cadets that, due to unforeseen circumstances, he is taking control of the UC. And finally, the Cadets, true to form, exploit the situation and take three Darling House girls hostage.

  “What are they playing at?” I say to Raffaela and Ben as we race towards the clearing.

  “They sent a message back with Chloe P.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Kind of. She’s halfway between total hysteria and total excitement, so it could go either way.”

  “Richard thinks he’s in charge,” Raffaela says.

  Like hell he is.

  News has got around quickly and a mass exodus from the Houses takes place, with most people joining up in the valley outside Murrumbidgee House where Trini, the leader of Darling House, is being consoled. Ben gives a wave to two of the teachers who are looking at us suspiciously, and the sobbing from Trini is put on hold.

  “Bushwalk!” he calls out to them. “You interested?”

  They wave us off and walk away and once they are out of sight the sobbing re-commences.

  “Let’s go,” I say, breaking into a run. We take the trail just behind Murray House, which is probably the densest and least cultivated.

  “What kind of a deal are they looking at?” I ask Chloe P.

  “He just said that negotiations for a possible release of hostages would take place at four thirty,” she says, panting alongside me.

  “Are you sure they weren’t taken by the serial killer???
? Jessa pipes up. She’s torn between excitement and concern. I hear gasps of dismay from the younger kids. I stop to catch my breath and I’m amazed at just how large a crowd has gathered, squashed into almost single file on a track that hasn’t seen too many walkers in its time.

  “Get back to the Houses,” I say firmly. “All juniors back to your Houses!”

  There are complaints and pleading and the younger boys especially are begging me to let them come along.

  “We need to have the Houses guarded as well,” I tell the leaders standing around me. “I read about this happening in ninety-two. They kidnapped three students and while the leaders went to negotiate, they invaded the Houses and the teachers never found out because the students were kept hidden.”

  “Why would we hide them?” the leader of Hastings asks.

  “No choice. The rules of invasion allow the invaders twenty-four hours of diplomatic immunity within enemy territory,” Raffaela explains to them.

  “Any point of entry in every House is to be locked and all juniors are to be confined indoors. Raffy, I want you back home.”

  It takes us a while to get to the boundary and I have to spend most of the time listening to the threats from some of the senior boys about what they’ll do when they come across the Cadets. Which is slightly amusing because, knowing these guys, one look at Jonah Griggs and they’ll be pushing me forward as a human shield.

  We reach the clearing and Chloe P. is brought back up to me.

  “Is this the place?” I ask patiently.

  She nods solemnly. “See, there’s Teresa’s beret.”

  More sobbing from Trini, who clutches the beret tragically. Ben exchanges a long-suffering look with me and I push him towards her. While he methodically pats her on the back, I walk away and check the markings of the boundaries. I can’t help thinking how petty the Cadets have been on this occasion. The girls would have taken no more than two steps into their territory before they were on them. I begin to wonder what Jonah Griggs is up to. I try to listen out for their approach, giving the others a silent shush gesture. But staying inconspicuous is not going to work. Trini is hyperventilating and some of the senior boys are continually swinging around in a paranoid attempt to see who’s behind them. Even I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.