The Darkening

That’s right. Not too sharp, are you? Twenty-five years you’ve had to figure that out. Maybe Teale was just the sheepdog. Maybe Teale didn’t kill Tristram.

‘Then who did?’ he whispered.

The same person that told Gavin to kill himself. The same person that made a talisman from a dead bird.

Nicholas put his feet over the bed edge. He had to talk about this, lance it before it swelled in his head like a sac of spoiled blood and poisoned him. He had to tell Suzette. He stood and struggled into his hoodie with shaking arms.

The hall was dark. Suzette’s door was open. Her bed was unmade.

Nicholas frowned and padded to his mother’s door. No snores came from inside.

‘Mum?’

Nothing. He put his hand on the doorknob, but let it rest there. He could feel her wakefulness on the other side of the door. A dull slosh of anger rolled inside him, which he swallowed down.

Can you blame her, weirdo? You’re an albatross.

Nicholas realised he was still shaking. His legs were weak and vibrated like cello strings. He shuffled to the kitchen and made tea, then stumped to the lounge room.

Suzette was curled asleep on the sofa, her face a deathly grey in the television’s glow. The set’s volume was so low it was no wonder he hadn’t heard it.

He sat beside her and watched as he sipped his tea. After two infomercials (one for a company that implied it would loan you cash even if you’d just broken out of prison and held schoolchildren hostage, and another showing pretty women with loose morals who could not possibly make it through the night without his phone call), a news update. Elliot Guyatt, remanded in custody and due to face court next week charged with the murder of local seven year old Dylan Thomas, had been found dead in his remand cell, having apparently suffered a brain aneurysm. A coroner’s report was pending. Today, the funeral service for Dylan Thomas had been held at St John’s Anglican Cathedral, with his schoolmates forming a guard of honour. .

Nicholas dropped the remote three times before he could switch off the set.

It took over an hour to fall asleep.

But once asleep, he dreamed.

He was Tristram. Sweat poured down his temples, his armpits, his crotch. He was on his good hand and knees, pushing through a dark, cobwebbed tunnel. With every inch forward, spider webs cloaked his face, clogged his nostrils, coated his lips. Tiny legs spindled on his arms, his neck, his lips and eyelids. He wanted to scream but couldn’t, because spiders would get in his mouth. The tunnel seemed never to end, and the webs got thicker, and the numbers of spiders on his legs, his arms, crawling down his shirt, burrowing into his ears, became so great they weighed him down. Soon, the webs over his eyes as were thick as a shroud; they shut out the light and cloyed his limbs so he could not move. He screamed now, but the spider silk was wrapped tight about his jaw and he couldn’t open his mouth. He struggled, but the sticky silk held him tight. And the spiders — thousands of spiders — stopped crawling and started to feed.

8

He woke to the distant clinking of metal spoons in ceramic bowls. He rose and wiped the corners of his eyes. It was just after seven.

Shuffling down the hall, he heard an elephantine rumble coming from behind Suzette’s bedroom door. As he approached the kitchen, the sound of thick bubbling made him wonder whether he’d round the corner and see his mother in a hooded cloak, sprinkling dried dead things into a soot-stained cauldron. The imagining didn’t amuse him; it made him slightly ill. He shook off the thought and entered the kitchen.

Katharine was in her pink nightgown, stirring a pot of porridge. ‘Good morning,’ she said. She didn’t turn around.

He’d intended to tell her what he’d seen on last night’s news: that Elliot Guyatt had died in his cell. But Katharine was stirring the bubbling oatmeal with such stiff briskness, her shoulders set so hard, that he remained silent. She was tense. Or angry. Or. . afraid.

No. There’d be no talk about killers of children this morning.

She finally turned, wearing a bright, forced smile. ‘Tea’s made, and the porridge is nearly done. You look pale.’

‘I call it PTSD-chic.’ He sat.

‘You could have a flu.’

Christ, he thought. If only all I had was a flu. ‘Paper?’

She shook her head and nodded to the front door.

He stood again, shuffled back up the hall and opened the door. He yelped in surprise. Gavin stood there, the gun under his chin. A moment later, the gun silently kicked and Gavin’s jaw split open. The ghost smiled at Nicholas, repositioned the gun under his ruined chin, and it jerked again. Gavin’s scalp jumped and he fell to the steps without a sound.

Nicholas stood frozen.

A moment later, Gavin was gone.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ whispered Nicholas. His voice shook.

‘What’s that?’ called Katharine.

Gavin was now fifty metres up Lambeth Street, walking towards the front gate. The day was harshly bright.

‘Nicholas?’

‘Nothing.’

He clenched his teeth and hurried down to the footpath where the rolled newspaper lay in dew. He sidestepped Gavin on the way back in.

Katharine had the porridge dished out. Nicholas stared wearily at his bowl.

‘I think you’re sick,’ she said.

He shook his head. His stomach felt ready to disgorge, as if he’d swallowed a mugful of old blood. He was cold.

Katharine touched the back of her hand to his forehead. He could feel her thin skin vibrating. She was shaking.

‘Bit hot,’ she said.

He took a mouthful of tea and left his porridge untouched.

‘I’ll be in the garage.’

He felt her eyes on the back of his head as he walked to the back door.

Katharine sat watching a skin harden over the porridge in her bowl. It was, she decided, the exact colour of the poo that had come out of her children when they were breastfeeding — a wheaty shit with the sweet smell of just-turning milk. She dropped her spoon with a deliberate clatter.

‘Fine,’ she said to herself.

You bring these creatures into the world. You guide their little, darting dumb heads onto your swollen-then-aching-then-numb nipples, you change ten thousand nappies. . but what does that guarantee? That they will love you? That they will talk with you? That they will be good?

No. No. No.

She was angry. And her anger stayed on a slow simmer because it fed itself; she didn’t quite know why. Everything had been so normal a few weeks ago. Deliciously boring. A warm, smooth-sided routine. She could step from the shower and loll into every day: breakfast, tidying, check the last firing, discard the breakages, peel the thick plastic off the clay, boil the kettle, wet the wheel. . and then it was dinner time and the possibility of a phone