I was right. She was searching. Not on foot either. She was tearing about in the Commodore. I had made it through the Methodist carpark, past Philpott’s place and onto the forest fringe where the tarseal ends when I spotted her—or, rather, spotted the Commodore with its shiny bullbar and CB aerial, Wimmera Wheatman lettering on the side. It was on the next street along. Tilda spotted me too and yelled for me to wait, stop. The car squealed, skidding to a halt. It reversed with another squeal and fishtailed into a right turn, the rear wheel clipping the curb. I sprinted up a dirt parting in the scrub in the direction of Ringo Point. Did so out of habit—Ringo Point was the opposite direction to Hastings Road. I kept running there anyway: its ironbark clusters would make me invisible. I got in among them and crouched to catch my breath and my heartbeat. I slumped the backpack to the ground but didn’t take off my runners. My ankle would have to ache and swell—this was no time to care about ankles. Dusk was setting just the other side of the treetops. A dark breeze was leaning heavier on the branches. The sky was cloudy, which meant the forest would blind me soon. I needed to stay in sight of streetlights to keep my night bearings.
A car was going up the Ringo Point road. The Commodore, I was sure. But I wasn’t about to peep to check. I remained in the ironbarks’ protection and listened to the wheels grinding gravel. A sift of dust moved through the vegetation. I had so many choices of trunks to touch wood on I touched a dozen within two steps of me: ‘Tilda, if that’s you, go home. Don’t stop. Don’t get out and search for me. Keep driving, touch wood. Touch wood you’re keeping driving.’ But wood was only ever wood. The car slowed and Tilda’s voice called out, ‘Colin? You here, Colin?’
At first she sounded clipped and angered. Then she called my name more sweetly. ‘Colin, sweetheart? Darling? Please, sweetheart, please come home with me.’ Then sharpish again: ‘At least do me the courtesy of answering. At least give me the respect of speaking.’ Her voice cracked as if she were talking through crying. ‘Come to me now, Colin. Come here, now,’ she yelled, so high-pitched she started losing her voice. She gave one last ‘Come here, you bastard’ and went silent for a few seconds. Then the car ripped away up the road in the sundial’s direction. I heard the faint rasp of it turning around on the loose surface, sliding from too much speed off the mark. Back down the road the car came. I touched wood it would not stop for more of Tilda’s yelling. It didn’t. It ripped past like a signal of good riddance to me.
She might have been playing games, parked up the road to catch me as I emerged, so I stayed among trees till the last impression of light offered me vision. Then I limped to Hastings Road. I’d untied my runner to let my ankle blow out and had to spring myself along on my toes.
I had no coins for the phone so I made the call collect via the operator. Donna’s number was engaged. I waited five minutes, sat on the sandy grass out of the streetlight’s glow, and tried again. Still engaged. Another five minutes. Engaged. I kept trying but the operator said, ‘Sorry, sir, the line is busy.’ The phone was off the hook, that was the logical reason. Who could blame her after Tilda’s hateful serve? I imagined Donna pacing about, wringing her hands, wanting to put the receiver back in case I rang. I expect she was desperate to hear that I was bearing up to the acrimony. I expect she wanted to say she loved me and express support. Thinking that heartened me.
I hobbled from the phone box to a council toddler park near the Housing Commission project. Not much to speak of, as parks go—a garbage bin, swing, plastic slide, plastic tree house—but I decided the tree house was good for spending the night. I climbed into it. I had never slept in my clothes before. I tried to think of it as an adventure, not a homewrecking. I had the injured ankle of an adventurer but the rest of me had the scared-of-life sensation; too much of it for easy slumber. I counted the lorries and their earthquakes. I held my nerve, though, and did not limp home to Tilda.
I fell asleep eventually. Woke many times through the night but the earthquakes were enough of a distraction to have me count them until I dozed off again. I woke for the last time at 7am. Scintilla was well daylit by then. Seven is peak-hour for traffic in the country—cars and one-tonners going past at a rate of one every fifteen seconds.
I splashed my eyes with water from the park tap and set off for the Wheatman office. My gait was a hop-shuffle given the ankle but I hurried as best I could to avoid gossip: ‘What on earth is Colin Butcher up to, lame and head down like he’s trying to hide?’ The office opened officially at 8.30 but compositors were usually in before then. My intention was to slip by them, grab the Commodore’s spare keys from the front desk drawer, then sneak into my own backyard and retrieve the vehicle like a just thief.
Chapter 77
Very proud of his heritage is Vigourman. He was waiting for me, new lamb-chop sideburns framing his face. The centenary of his family settling in Scintilla was a month away. What better way to commemorate the occasion than copying his sepia great-grandfather’s features?
The salt-and-pepper fuzz aged him. So did the sleepy redness in the gutters of his eyes. ‘I’ve hardly had a wink,’ he said, stirring black tea at the staff basin. ‘Half the night I’ve spent in consultation with police. Your ears must be burning.’
‘How so?’
‘Come with me.’ He indicated my desk would do for a serious discussion. Then changed his mind—it was too close to the compositors to be private. He brushed past me, dripping his tea, ignoring it splashing his shoes. He opened the storage room door and told me to sit on a pile of Wheatman back issues. He perched on the taller Gazette pile. He was his usual full-of-himself self, shoulders back, chest and stomach spinnakered, but his voice wasn’t normal. It was muted. He hardly parted his lips to let the words out. ‘You are aware of what Tilda did last night?’
I presumed he meant the bath-burning scene. A neighbour must have witnessed it after all and blabbed.
‘It was an experiment,’ I began explaining—but Vigourman was not referring to underwear.
Tilda had driven the Commodore to Watercook and threatened to kill Donna, burn her house down and let her and Ruth burn in it. She had splashed turpentine at the back door, set it alight and only the fact the house was brick and the door was a glass slider stopped the premises catching fire. She then rammed Donna’s car in the drive. There was a heap of damage to the Commodore’s front end.
Vigourman had insurance concerns given Tilda was not the authorised company driver. ‘All because you were tomcatting. Oh, this is very distasteful. Very distasteful indeed. This is deeply embarrassing to the Wheatman, to me, to Tilda, Mrs Wilkins, you. It reflects so poorly on you I am more than disappointed, son. More than disappointed. Your whole future in my employment is under review, I’m afraid.’ He sipped his tea but was too infuriated to swallow. He spat the mouthful back into the mug. ‘How could you do it to your poor wife? After what she’s been through, to do this to her goes directly to your character, or lack of it.’
I leant forward, my hand held up to request more details from him. ‘Is Donna all right? Ruth all right?’ Last on the list was Tilda.
‘Yes, yes,’ he replied irritably. ‘That’s something to be thankful for. I have, I think, convinced the Watercook police that this is a very private matter and no charges should be brought against Tilda to embarrass us further. Mrs Wilkins can try and force the issue but she will not necessarily find a sympathetic ear in the senior sergeant. None of us have much sympathy for her—her husband still warm in the ground and she’s off tempting you into tomcatting. This community embraced you as a Scintillan, Colin. I embraced you and gave you a start. And you do this to us.’