Wolfe Island Page 13

  ‘It’s not so bad.’

  ‘Then why was it so bad moving here? I suppose now’s the time you remind me about Tobe and his incredible connection to the land.’ She did that finger thing around the words. ‘Which consisted of killing everything he could. “Go play with your brother.” Meaning checking his death traps: crab pots, fishing lines, muskrat cages.’

  ‘It was just the island way.’

  ‘Can’t really complain there’s nothing left, can you? I know he was your kid. But did you ever think that might not be my thing?’

  It was coming back, the cold fog of it approaching, which was not only because of the way she was, but the way things were between us when we left Wolfe. ‘I have to go out now,’ I said.

  ‘Of course you do.’

  Girl and I walked fast down the street beneath the plane trees. It was warmer today and another time it might have been pleasant moving down the long green tunnel they made, the morning light sending shadows across gardens and houses, falling everywhere, fallen like leaves. Oh, that feeling, that dread softness in my chest. I kept on.

  It was mid-morning when I got back and Claudie was getting a sandwich for Cat.

  ‘That looks nice,’ I said.

  She rolled her eyes.

  ‘I see you’re still sixteen.’

  ‘Sarcasm. Nice parenting there.’

  ‘You think I favoured Tobe.’

  She poured juice into a glass and put it on the tray, then leaned against the bench and folded her arms.

  ‘I didn’t,’ I said.

  ‘Doesn’t matter now. It wasn’t his fault. I worked that out in the end. I’m glad we were talking.’

  ‘I worried about him. You made friends the first day at school. Remember that?’

  ‘Yeah, what a great day that was.’ Every word was on the same note, and if ‘great’ was a piano key it was like she gave it a good whack. ‘You shouldn’t have left.’

  ‘Well I did. You didn’t want me there – but your father was. And I wasn’t there for Tobe, and you were all right and he wasn’t. That’s what I live with.’

  ‘Why do you suppose I have one child?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘So I couldn’t have a favourite. Pretty funny, don’t you think?’

  ‘Claudie, I’m sorry. I am. I don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘Nothing. Now you can send my daughter home.’

  ‘As if I could make her.’

  Chapter 12

  Autumn

  The hollow-eyed Watermen beckoned from a distance, and there were the few houses, the dock, and the figure of Alejandra running down its length. Families are as alive as a dog or an island or a country; each has its own drive and way of being. It’s not easy to change its direction. I hugged Claudie more than once in parting, but I knew that wasn’t the end. We hadn’t learned in an instant how to be mother and daughter any more than she and Cat had. But I told her I loved her and I had no reason to lie about such a thing and she had no reason to disbelieve me. There is hope built into that. It was another kind of family on the island.

  We slid into harbour, feeling the change in the water, the way it accepted the boat. Cat looked about – for Josh, I suppose – but there were just Alejandra and, a little way behind, Luis to meet us.

  ‘Where’s the baby? Show me the baby. Where is she?’ Alejandra clamoured, jumping about. ‘Girl!’ she squealed.

  Girl leaped out of the boat and I followed. Alejandra threw her arms around me and I kissed the top of her head. ‘Hello, miss. Tell me everything.’ She quieted at that. ‘Did you forget the garden? Doesn’t matter. It’s enough to see you.’

  Luis helped Cat and Treasure onto the dock and we all had to admire the baby again. Treasure had made Cat a different person. What was Luis now? I gave him a half-hug, which he took quite well. He smiled, anyway.

  ‘She okay?’ he asked in a quiet aside.

  ‘She’s wonderful. And Treasure – exactly like Cat.’

  ‘It’s hard to tell when she’s all wrapped up.’ His face was very still right then, and mine was too, and I thought that we’d explained to each other quite well with our faces that we were each relieved that she hadn’t taken after Josh.

  ‘Things okay around here?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Luis said.

  ‘No they’re not,’ Alejandra said. ‘Josh got really mad yesterday, Kitty. He even punched a wall.’

  ‘Did he? Why would he do that?’

  ‘I think he might have got an email,’ Luis said, trying to tell me something with his eyes.

  ‘I’ll go find him.’

  But I couldn’t find him. I went back to my place, where I felt like a visitor, as if everything was pretending its familiarity. There was one more conversation I had with Claudie that wouldn’t leave my mind. But I’m aiming to be truthful for Claudie, or whoever might read this, and writing it down might help.

  We were walking down to the harbour when Claudie burst out, ‘You’ve got to leave Wolfe, Mother. It used to be eccentric, but it’s just weird now.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You really can. Winter’s coming. What if something happens with Catalina or Treasure? I just can’t believe you. I can’t believe myself. I should have the police here. I should have got Rob.’

  ‘We’ve got phones, computers, and there are rescue planes.’ But I was thinking in an island way and she wasn’t, and she worried and worried at me until finally I burst out, ‘I’m not letting Tobe down again.’ It didn’t come out right. I meant that the island was the place he loved, and giving up on it would be like turning my back on him again and walking away.

  ‘Oh my God. Of course it would be about Tobe. He is dead, Mother, dead, and even he knew he couldn’t stay there forever.’

  ‘That’s enough, Claudia.’

  ‘Claudia,’ she mocked. ‘You can’t send me to my room now.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Mother,’ she said, with slow patience, ‘Tobe left Wolfe.’

  ‘Because we made him.’

  ‘Only the first time. Feel whatever you want to about that. It’s on Dad too. If you ask me, you should have left years earlier, you should have seen what was coming. The second time, Tobe left on his own. He hadn’t given up. He wasn’t a victim of the changing world or whatever you want to think. He was fighting for himself. He was thinking about his future.’

  ‘He was miserable.’

  ‘Who isn’t sometimes? He was seeing a doctor, he was working on it.’

  ‘He would have been safe on the island.’

  ‘He was twenty-four, not four. He came to see us.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A couple of times. He was looking for other work, getting involved. We talked about you . . . how we thought it was time you left. And that’s a while ago now.’

  My face, my chest were boiling. I put my hands to my cheeks to try to cool them. Anything to stop the feeling. ‘I work out there. I’m not just sitting around. I’ve been working the whole time. That’s my job. It’s connected to that place.’

  ‘I’ve seen the films – my mother, Kitty Hawke, artist, outlier. Did you have to go buddy up with a murderer?’

  ‘Claudie. You have to stop.’

  ‘And now you’ve got my daughter out there.’

  ‘She ran away.’

  ‘Lucky me. I’ve had a mother and a daughter run away from me now. How special am I?’ Her eyes glittered and furious tears began spilling. ‘I was going to be better than you.’

  ‘Claudie, Claudie, sweetheart.’

  ‘My turn to say enough.’

  That’s how it went. It was exhausting.

  Late in the afternoon I spied Josh on the marsh walkway, and went that way, calling out so I didn’t startle him.

 
‘Kitty,’ he said, when I drew closer.

  ‘I came to say congratulations.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Cat didn’t tell you then, that she’s breaking up with me? Or broken up apparently, nice of her to let me know, said we were too young, some shit. My parents would have liked it. They always wanted a daughter.’ He spoke in a bitter sort of way, and scratched his unshaven cheek.

  ‘Maybe later.’ But later what? I’d seen how he made her hate the thought of being tricked by the way other people saw him. She’d thought better of herself. How could he not see that?

  He made some disbelieving sound, and rubbed a thumb over the knuckles of his other hand. They were red and grazed, puffy-looking. Seeing my attention, he thrust his fist into his pocket. ‘I’ll fix it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. The house won’t be there for much longer. Something to keep in mind – for all of you.’

  ‘I don’t even know why we’re still here.’

  ‘Luis is waiting for word. Cat was waiting for the baby. You were waiting for her. Isn’t that it?’

  ‘They’re not going to free his mother, Luis knows that. He’s scared of what comes next.’ And then he said, ‘She didn’t give me a chance.’

  ‘Might be time to move on?’

  ‘That’s what I told her.’

  ‘For you, I mean,’ I said. ‘Make your own way.’

  ‘As long as she’s here, I’m not leaving.’

  ‘Even if she’s turned from you.’

  He seemed wild and stricken somehow then, looking at his injured fist again and pressing it to his front, as if that could stop all his terrible feelings, and I took pity.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’ll fix up your hand. Things will seem better soon.’

  He came along, seeming comforted by my quiet lie.

  It was like the air itself was crackling after that. Girl raised her head and looked about for its source. (Another complication: I was pretty sure Girl was expecting. It might have been that night out in the forests, or while Claudie was at Doree’s and I was distracted. She was eating more, and was touchier.) It was as if we’d dragged the mainland back with us and couldn’t shake it free.

  Three weeks after we got back from the main Josh left on a run – a one-night job, and he was gone for two. As afternoon deepened on the second day Cat watched from the upstairs window. I thought she might be missing him. ‘If he’s been caught, if he talks,’ she said as I came up the stairs. ‘Where could we hide Luis and Alejandra? Stillwater? If he’s done something stupid.’

  ‘There’s plenty of places,’ I said.

  Josh returned at dinnertime the next day, coming through the door after a short knock that made us all leap. We were on edge by then. Cat ran at him and his face lit up; he thought she was glad to see him. ‘Where were you? You couldn’t find somewhere to send a message? We didn’t know whether you’d been caught.’ She stopped herself from shoving him, though her hands came close to his chest. ‘My God, you stink.’

  He reared back. ‘Real nice welcome.’ He stepped around her to the table and sat. A strong smell of fuel wafted about him, his cheeks were smudged, and his hands were marked by burns and a wound that he’d wrapped roughly in some torn cloth. Mostly I noticed his feverish brightness, the way his legs jittered, and he rubbed his arms, and grinned as if he didn’t know any of us anymore.

  ‘Something happen?’ Luis asked.

  ‘All good, man,’ Josh said. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand and returned it to his knee and pressed it. He shivered, and shook his hand as if trying to flick something away.

  ‘Josh?’ Cat said.

  ‘What?’ It came back hard as a punch. ‘I’ll tell you once.’ He shook his head in a rhythmic way. ‘First night, picked up the runner. All good. Just another guy heading north. Then, about an hour in, we were pulled over coming into a town. Unmarked car, plainclothes officer, and they saw him. It was like your mother, Luis. They just took him. No papers. They asked if I knew him, I said no. He’d nearly made it, that guy. Not much older than us.’ He was shaking. ‘They wanted my licence.’

  ‘No,’ Cat said.

  ‘Don’t worry – I’m sure you won’t. I had my fake. I said he was a hitchhiker. They got my details, and the car plates. I told them the car was borrowed. That was okay. It’s the truth. It’ll need new plates and papers for whoever they get to do the next run – don’t want them making any connections.’ Here, he glanced at Cat. She nodded. ‘But I’m finished. They took photos of me and the licence. They let me off with a warning – can you believe it? I thought it was a trick, they’d put a tail on me, see where I went. So I went driving all over until it got darker. I drove into a forest and stayed there until it was night and ended up at an old friend’s from school. We did a few things that we maybe shouldn’t have last year.’ Cat was on the point of speaking. ‘Nothing to do with you,’ Josh said to her. ‘We got talking. That’s all you need to know.’ He looked at his hands and held the fingers out, and shivered again.

  ‘I have some anaesthetic cream,’ I said.

  ‘You do? They hurt. I forgot how much.’

  I got the first-aid kit, some antiseptic, and a few clean soft cloths. They watched as I carefully cleaned the dirt and charred skin and the greasy residue of some rich smoke away. He swore, but under his breath, and it didn’t seem directed at me. It was like he was an injured animal we’d picked up from the roadside. No one talked. I dabbed some ointment on the burns and wrapped the soft gauze on the larger ones, loosely. I mention this because I think we hadn’t given up on him yet. In our minds he was still one of us and something bad had happened.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Luis said.

  ‘I thought of your mother. I didn’t know that guy from shit. But your mother . . . I could see how it would have been. My mother, my father . . .’ Josh was looking inside, not seeming to find anything he cared for.

  Luis clasped his shoulder briefly.

  Alejandra had gone to sleep and Luis didn’t have the heart to move her. He sat quietly on the porch steps watching the dark shapes of Cat walking Josh back to Shipleys.

  ‘Strange night,’ I said. He nodded. ‘Something the matter?’

  He lifted a shoulder and let it fall.

  ‘You can tell me.’

  ‘Lone goose. Saw it come in tonight.’

  ‘Superstition.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  There was a heavy frost next morning, the first of the season. Everything was white, the dainty spiderwebs too, all glittering and hard. Girl went running, looking back to make me gambol with her, so I did my best, and it seemed like she was laughing at me. She loves the cold.

  That was the first thing. Of course the frost had killed the vegetable garden. The tomatoes, beans and peas were black and drooped by mid-morning, and the pumpkins were showing off and the last tomatoes blinked from the ruined plants like the brightest eyes. Alejandra had joined us by then. She got a bowl and began picking the tomatoes and anything else that hadn’t been spoiled. Cat and Luis came out with steaming cups of coffee and sat on the garden wall with Treasure, admiring Alejandra’s collection. We were laughing about something, I don’t know what, because it was sad too. They’d made the garden and now it was done. The laughter might have been to hide the sadness.

  Girl looked up then. She stood with her ears pricked. She stared at me and yipped and I looked up too, but everyone else was still laughing.

  ‘Quiet,’ I hissed, as if someone invisible was among us and they might overhear. They were quiet. I heard the buzz then. ‘Quickly now, get inside fast. That’s a drone.’

  Cat ran with Treasure into the makings room. Luis scooped Alejandra around her middle and ran after her. Alejandra was still holding her watering can and the water slopped a trail behind. I went down the path, looking up all the while. There it was, a dark thing so like a dragon
fly that it seemed close at first, though it was still quite high. I hate them anyway, and I hated this one for what it might mean. It dropped lower. I leaped the porch stairs, went inside – ‘Stay down,’ I shouted through the house – and pulled my rifle from the top of the kitchen cupboards and was outside again, taking aim.

  The shining thing was nosing along the street a few lots down by then, like it was looking for the right address. I shot it and broke a wing and with the next shot hit its carapace and it lay down. It was as intricate as a brooch, buzzing still, and even though I knew it wasn’t a living thing I wanted it perfectly dead. There was a rock at Beauforts’ front gatepost. I heaved it free and dashed it onto the metal.

  They poured from the house and came to look.

  Josh came up the road shouting. At the sight of him Alejandra took hold of my hand and pressed into my side.

  ‘A drone,’ I said when Josh reached us.

  Cat said, ‘You idiot. You used your phone to pay, I know you did, and they’ve found us.’ She was almost panting with rage. Alejandra and I stared down at the crushed metal.

  Josh said, ‘I had to. I’m not going to steal. But seventy miles away. God, what is wrong with you? Why wouldn’t it be you? Who saw you in town – both of you?’ (Here, Josh looked at me.) ‘And don’t tell me no one heard the baby. Why wouldn’t it be you?’

  That shut us up.

  He crouched by the drone, lifted the rock aside and peered close.

  ‘Do you know anything about them?’ I said.

  ‘My dad brought a few home to try out,’ Josh said. ‘His line of work. I’ve seen similar.’

  ‘Who was controlling it?’ I said. We looked to the sea, but there was no boat to operate it from out there, and no one had arrived at the docks. I hoped everyone had got inside before they’d been filmed.

  Cat said, ‘Bury it.’

  I said, ‘Drown it. Deadness gut – that’s the deepest, always been the best place for secrets. Get some salt water into it.’

  I picked the drone up by one of its stubby limbs and left Josh and Cat on the road talking, I don’t know what about, though I did see Josh take hold of Treasure’s hand and her pull it back, and his look of hurt.