Beyond the Labyrinth Read online

  5.

  ‘You wanna play a game, Shell?’ Michael shouts to his sister.

  ‘What’re you playing?’ Shelley appears at the door of the family room, brushing her hair.

  ‘Pandemonium. I won the last four games,’ Michael boasts.

  ‘You beat Brenton four times in a row? I don’t believe it!’ She gives him a suspicious look. ‘Are you letting him win, Brenton?’

  Brenton grins his maddening, secretive grin and says nothing. He shuffles a pack of cards with a snap, cuts it and pushes it across to Michael.

  ‘Are you?’ Michael demands, a look of dismay crossing his face as the joy of victory suddenly wanes.

  ‘Why not?’ Brenton asks. ‘You play to win, and you win. I play to lose and I lose. That way both of us win, and we’re both happy.’

  But for Michael the essence of winning is that someone else should be beaten. ‘You dickhead!’ he yells, picking up the pack of cards and throwing it at his brother. ‘I’m going to start playing tricks on you!’

  6.

  ‘Why’s she got to come to us anyway?’ Brenton asks his mother, his thoughts returning to Victoria.

  ‘You know the whole family went to Africa a couple of years ago? Well, now Vicky’s twelve she needs to go to a proper school, so she’s going to boarding school in the city and coming to us for the holidays.’ Chris’s expression is not happy as she tells Brenton this. In fact she is wishing she had never agreed to have Victoria. If she could go back to the moment when she made the decision she would revoke it.

  7.

  Geoff Trethewan guns his Commodore up the drive and slams the brakes on at the last moment. It’s the way he always arrives home. It never fails to terrify Chris. She’s afraid one day he will misjudge it, roll the vehicle, or hit one of the children or animals that are always around the place.

  The door slams as he jumps out of the car, and the screen door slams too as he comes into the kitchen. He is a big man, sandy-haired like two of his children and blue-eyed. Dominating, energetic and forceful, he carries an air of possible violence about with him, which means he almost always gets his own way.

  He puts his arms round his wife and kisses her. She does not return his hug, but that may simply be because she is cooking dinner and her hands are floury.

  ‘How was your day?’ she asks.

  ‘Bloody terrible. They’re sounding me out again about shifting up north. Someone somewhere is trying to get rid of me. Bastards,’ he adds as an afterthought. ‘I’ve just got the new building completed too. No one else could have done it in that time within the budget. And once I’m out of the way, they’ll try and close the hospital down.’

  ‘We can’t leave here,’ Chris says anxiously. ‘This is our home. There’s no way I’m going up north.’

  Geoff contemplates the future gloomily for a minute or two, then his natural high spirits reassert themselves. He gives his wife a pat on the rear. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Any letters?’

  ‘There’s one over there from the Hares.’

  ‘They all still alive?’

  ‘Very much so. Jenny says they’re just starting to make headway; they’re planning on staying indefinitely, and they want us to have Vicky.’

  ‘What, living here?’

  ‘Just for the holidays. She’ll be at boarding school most of the time.’

  ‘She’s a bit young, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’ll be twelve when she gets here. What do you think?’

  Geoff is pouring himself a beer. ‘Get you a drink, love?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, dear. Well?’

  ‘Typical of Peter,’ Geoff observes, sucking deeply at the beer. ‘He’s so keen to do good he expects someone else to look after his own kids.’

  ‘It’s only Vicky.’

  ‘It’s only Vicky now, but what happens when Simon needs to go to school? I suppose we’ll be asked to have him too. Can’t they find anyone else? Why does it have to be us?’

  ‘I’m one of Jenny’s oldest friends after all. We did our training together. And they haven’t any family in Australia. Peter came out from England and Jenny’s parents are dead.’

  ‘Typical bloody pom,’ Geoff complains. ‘What about what it costs. We’re finding it hard enough to get by—there’s what we owe the bank on this place, and our own kids cost me an arm and a leg every time they get out of bed. It’s not as though we’ve got two incomes,’ he adds, giving her a loaded glance.

  ‘They’re going to send money for her keep,’ Chris says, ignoring the implications of his last remark. ‘I think it would be good to have her; she’s always been a lovely kid.’

  ‘I suppose it’s up to you. You’re the one that’ll have to do the extra running around.’

  ‘I’m hoping Vicky will be quite a help in the house.’

  ‘Okay then,’ He grins at her, puts down the empty glass, smacks his lips in satisfaction, and gets another can from the fridge. ‘It’s settled. When’s she coming?’

  ‘She starts school in February. I think I’ll suggest to Jenny that she come at the beginning of the holidays. That way she can settle in before she goes away to school.’

  8.

  ‘Don’t you want her to come?’ Brenton asks astutely.

  ‘Of course I do,’ Chris replies, putting aside her doubts. ‘I just hope you and Mick will make her feel at home.’

  ‘She used to be Mick’s friend more than mine.’ Brenton is trying to remember what she looks like, but his memories of her are fairly vague, even though their two families have been friends since before either of them was born. The motion of the car has put his mind into neutral, and suddenly there floats up to the surface of his memory a scene from years ago that he had completely forgotten until this moment.

  9.

  ‘Say you’re sorry!’

  Michael is gasping as he surfaces. Brenton relentlessly pushes him underwater again. The sandy head bobs up spluttering, ‘Let go, Brenton, I’m drowning. Hel...!’ He swallows a gulp of salty water as his head is pushed under again.

  ‘Ouch!’ Brenton lets go with a yelp as a small, wiry figure hurls itself onto him and bites one of the hands that are holding Michael down.

  ‘You little monster!’ Brenton says to Victoria in astonishment.

  She is frantic with rage. ‘Leave him alone, you big bully!’

  ‘He put a dead fish in my bed!’

  ‘Serves you right!’

  ‘I suppose you did it too.’ He grabs her by the wrists and holds her firmly. ‘You can apologise as well.’

  Victoria tries to kick him under water, loses her balance and submerges. Michael, having recovered his breath, launches an attack on Brenton from behind. All three children disappear. When they surface Victoria and Michael are metres away, making swiftly for the shore. Brenton pursues them, arms flailing. He is the fastest swimmer, but they have a head start. By the time he reaches the shore they have all but vanished. He just sees a flicker of movement at the mouth of one of the caves. Stealthily he creeps up to the entrance and positions himself where he can jump on them if they come out. He feels like a hunter waiting patiently for his prey. ‘Vicky and Micky,’ he whispers to himself, ‘I’m going to get you!’

  10.

  ‘Is she coming all that way by herself?’ he asks, half-enviously.

  ‘Some friends of her parents are seeing her as far as Rome, and then she’s coming on alone on the Qantas flight. The stewardesses look after unaccompanied children; she’s probably having a marvellous time.’ Chris is driving fast now, holding the wheel lightly with one hand, her other arm leaning casually on the open window. The breeze is making her hair fly about.

  Brenton is trying to picture someone leaving their family behind and taking off for a completely new life. Starting afresh. He wishes he could. He looks at his mother. She drives the same way she does everything else—competently and forcefully, with a great deal of nervous energy. She is a hard person to be relaxed with. He thinks it would be nice to get away from her for a while, nice to get away from the whole family. It would give him time to catch his breath long enough to find out who he is.

  His mother notices his eyes on her. Her jaw juts out in its familiar, pugnacious expression, and she shoots a quick glance at him. ‘It will be good for you to have someone else around,’ she says. ‘You’re getting very selfish.’

  An accusing note has crept into her voice. Brenton hunches his shoulders and looks out of the window without answering. Sometimes she seems to need to vent her irritation by pursuing him relentlessly until they have an all-out row. He hopes he can divert her with silence.

  Huge grey grain silos flash past. He has a momentary vision of different silos, their tops opening and the sleek, pointed, unbelievable weapons sliding out with a whoosh up into the sky. He shuts his eyes and begins to count slowly.

  Will he get to one hundred before the bombs start to fall?

  Seventy-eight, seventy-nine...

  The car swerves suddenly. He opens his eyes involuntarily. The landscape looks barren enough to have been blasted by a firestorm, but in fact it is the normal, everyday face of the peninsula, treeless and stony. Away to the right extend the mud flats of the gulf, the tide almost at full ebb. It is getting hot. Chris winds up her window and puts on the air conditioner.

  ‘Don’t you think that’s true?’ she challenges.

  ‘What?’ Brenton has forgotten what she was talking about.

  ‘That you’re getting very selfish.’

  He shrugs his shoulders. ‘I don’t know!’ The question of being selfish doesn’t seem very relevant to him. If you’re not going to live to grow up what difference does it make? Besides, selfishness has got to be relative; it all depends on your point of view. It seems to him t
he height of selfishness to pursue, as his parents do, your own comfortable existence while the human race rushes towards extinction all around you.

  11.

  ‘Brenton, stop fiddling with those dice!’ Chris gives her son an exasperated look as the smooth-voiced PA divulges information: ‘Qantas flight from Perth, Singapore, Bahrain, Rome and London has arrived. Passengers are now disembarking...’

  Six and five. Brenton scoops the dice quickly up and composes his features in a welcoming grin.

  ‘There she is!’ Chris exclaims. Among the crowds of exuberant Europeans Brenton sees a small, dark-haired girl following the stewardess, clutching a flight bag. Her face is tanned and serious and she is screwing up her eyes, squinting a little as if she might be short-sighted. As they walk through the glass doors, the stewardess turns to say goodbye to someone, and the heavy shoulder bag hits the girl quite hard on the head. Brenton watches her. She flinches a little, but she is not fazed. She squares her shoulders and frowns a little more deeply. Now he can see that this is the girl who bit him in rage.

  She sees Chris and Brenton. For a moment she looks panic-stricken. Then she smiles. The smile breaks up the precocious sternness of her face, crinkles her hazel eyes and makes dimples appear on either side of her mouth. He is not sorry he has to like her, especially since she only comes up to his shoulder.

  ‘Hi!’ he says and lets her have the full effect of the welcoming grin.

  ‘How was the trip?’ Chris says predictably, as she bends down to kiss Victoria.

  12.

  The Trip is a kaleidoscope of memories like a dream. At one moment she is saying a heart-chilling goodbye to her family at Kano airport, the next she is looking out of the window of the 747 and seeing thousands of metres below her the twinkling of small fires in the desert. Now she can feel Mrs Stephenson’s cheek against hers as they kiss goodbye in Rome, and now it is the smooth pillow and the red blanket, and she’s trying to sleep on the plane. The engines drone on and on, and everything smells cold and stale. She’s woken up when she wants to sleep and given food when she’s not hungry, and when she’s wide awake and starving all the lights are out and nobody moves for hours. At one airport a kind Chinese man shows her all the fabulous electronic gadgets, but she finds his accent hard to understand, and her face aches from smiling. A string of interchangeable flight attendants greet her, ask her identical friendly questions without waiting for the answers and give her colouring books as though she were six. She feels as though she has stepped outside her own body and is watching everything that happens like an unconcerned observer. She doesn’t like it. She wants to get back into the mainstream of life again.

  13.

  ‘It was okay,’ Victoria answers, forcing another smile for Chris and Brenton. But she is thinking, ‘Why did it have to be Brenton? I wish Mick had come instead.’

  14.

  The Falcon crosses the empty city and takes the road north.

  ‘Do you remember it all, Vicky?’ Chris asks her. The three of them are in the front seat, Brenton in the middle, Victoria next to the window.

  ‘I thought I did. But it all looks completely different.’

  There seems to be too much of everything. Everything is too new, shiny and wealthy. The people’s faces are too white and, in spite of the wealthiness, unhappy. She thought she was coming home. Now she realises the place she left is home. And already she’s feeling homesick!

  ‘It’s so different from Nigeria,’ she says helplessly.

  ‘What’s it like there?’ Brenton asks curiously. ‘Is everybody starving?’ He visualises helpless black people, emaciated in the desert with the word APPEAL printed in red across them.

  She knows what he is talking about because it is an image, along with beautiful brown babies and soldiers with machine-guns, that she used to share. But the African people are no longer a series of clichéd images to her. They have become real people, as real as her own family, more real than the Trethewans.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ she tries to explain. ‘It’s nothing like we used to see on TV over here before we went there. Things are bad, but not everything... some things are really great, better than here...’ her voice trails away. ‘I can’t really describe it,’ she finishes rather helplessly. ‘I’ve got some photos, I’ll show them to you later.’

  ‘Are all the family all right?’ Chris enquires. ‘Simon was quite sick for a while, wasn’t he?’

  ‘He had an ear infection. Mum couldn’t get hold of any antibiotics. He’s all right now. They all are. Mum and Dad work really hard though. There’s always so much to do, and it’s hard getting anything done. The phones don’t work and the electricity’s always being cut off. But Mum’s got her clinic set up—and Dad thinks he’s on the track of something really exciting...’

  Her voice fades away. It is strange talking about her parents. It makes her feel very far away from them, far away and suddenly grown up.

  ‘What does your dad do there?’ Brenton asks.

  ‘He’s a plant geneticist, remember. He’s trying to develop new strains of plants, groundnuts in particular, that give a bigger crop and don’t get spoiled by insects.’

  ‘Why does he have to go to Nigeria to do that?’ Brenton looks sideways at her, puzzled.

  ‘He thinks he can be more use there than here,’ Victoria replies rather distractedly, as though she is thinking of something else.

  15.

  Peter Hare tells the children at dinner. They are sitting at the table in their house in the Hills. It’s already dark, but the curtains are not yet drawn; the family likes to look out the window at the lights of the city spread out below.

  Victoria is nine, Simon seven. The whole family is startlingly alike, small built and dark-haired. Simon has his mother’s blue eyes, Victoria her father’s hazel ones.

  ‘Mum and I have been thinking about things,’ her father says. The children eye him silently. Their parents are always thinking about things, with strong and not always welcome results.

  ‘I’ve been offered a job in a country in Africa, and Mum and I think we should go there.’

  ‘What about us?’ For a moment Victoria thinks the children will be left behind.

  ‘We’d all go there,’ their mother says quickly. ‘But it will be for quite a long time. We’ll have to sell the house.’

  ‘Will I have to go to a new school?’ Simon says in alarm.

  Victoria’s reaction is equally alarmed. ‘What about Sparky and the cats?’

  ‘We’ll find homes for them,’ her mother assures her. ‘And there may not be any schools where we are. You’ll have to do correspondence lessons.’

  ‘No school? Is there any television?’ Simon’s alarm is increasing rapidly.

  ‘That’s one of the reasons I want to go,’ Peter says firmly. I don’t want you two growing up only in this society. I don’t like it very much. I want you to see how other people live. All you’re learning to value here is affluence and materialism. I want to use the skills I’ve been lucky enough to get helping other people, not just accumulating more things for myself. And your mother feels the same. She doesn’t want to take private nursing jobs to put you through private schools like most of her friends have ended up doing.’

  Victoria and Simon exchange glances. They’ve heard it all before. It’s part of their parents’ strict philosophy, along with taking responsibility for yourself, being unselfish and not eating lollies. They don’t disagree with it, but sometimes it’s hard work. Contemplating this new departure, Victoria sees herself giving a cup of cold water to a little black child. She likes black children, she thinks they are beautiful, much prettier than white children.

  Another image comes into her mind, less comforting. A soldier with a machine-gun stalks through a forest.

  ‘Will there be a war there?’ she asks, trying not to sound frightened.

  ‘Of course not,’ her father says. ‘It’s a very peaceful place.’

  16.

  Her head has started to nod, and she opens her eyes with a jolt. Outside the window the suburbs are giving way to open countryside. On the left of the highway marshy water shimmers in the afternoon heat. For a moment she does not know where in the world she is.

  ‘We’re just going up the side of the gulf,’ Brenton explains. ‘When we get to the top, we go down the other side—that’s the peninsula.’