Molly’s eyes fall on the box beside her lamp. Aubrey smiles.
‘I thought the house might have been robbed,’ Aubrey says. ‘Filthy . . .’ – searching for the word – ‘opportunists . . . Molly. Everybody’s evacuating their houses and all through town those evacuated houses are being looted by filthy opportunists making the most of this . . .’ – he takes a while longer to find this word – ‘precarious . . . situation . . . Darwin has . . . found itself in.’
A wobble. A stagger.
‘Imagine that: robbing the homes of people running for their lives from the Japs.’
‘Next they’ll be robbing from the dead,’ Molly says.
Aubrey smiles, waves a knowing forefinger at Molly. Then he relaxes his right arm, lets the rifle down, waves it about. ‘I thought I’d better grab Horace’s rifle and explore the extent of the burglary,’ he says. ‘Then, to my surprise, I saw a flicker of light from the kitchen window. Someone was walking through the cemetery. And now, who should I find burying . . . my . . . valuable . . .’ – another search for the right word, another stagger – ‘tr . . . tr . . . treasure.’
‘It doesn’t belong to—’
‘Be quiet now, child,’ Aubrey snaps. ‘You talk too much, child. Maybe that’s why you talk all that gibberish to the sky. There’s nobody left on earth who can stand listening to your drivel.’ He moves closer to Molly. He leans down and takes the lamp by its hooped wire handle. His eyes settle on the duffel bag hanging over Molly’s shoulder. ‘Hand me the bag,’ he says.
Molly reluctantly slips the bag from her shoulders, hands it to her uncle who tips the contents onto the ground by his boots. Canned goods and utensils. Water. A thick black book with yellowed pages. Aubrey squats down to examine the book’s spine. ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,’ he reads.
He stands once more. ‘You going somewhere, Molly?’ he asks. ‘You disappearing into the bush again? You about to get yourself lost in the godless wild again?’
‘I’m going to find Longcoat Bob,’ Molly replies.
Aubrey laughs, the lamp moving in his hand, sending light to new points of darkness.
‘And why . . .’ – Aubrey shakes his head, piecing his words together slowly – ‘would you . . . seek . . . to find . . . that sssssssnakey sssssssorcerer . . . Longcoat Bob?’
‘I’m going to ask him to lift the curse he put on our family,’ Molly says, flatly.
Aubrey howls with laughter. ‘Of course, of course, the curse,’ he says. ‘You still believe in curses, Molly?’ He nods his head vigorously. He moves closer to her from the shadows. He hisses at her. ‘You still believe in sssssssorcery?’
She doesn’t look at him. He’s Medusa from the shadows.
‘Even after everything I’ve told you about Tom Berry,’ he says.
Closer still.
‘How many times do I have to tell you, child, that some children are born into this world destined to lead lives of pure and unavoidable misery?’ He extends a crooked right forefinger and he taps it hard three times on her chest as he says, ‘And you are . . .’ – tap – ‘quite simply . . .’ – tap – ‘. . . one of those children.’ Tap.
Aubrey turns and tilts his head to the stars. ‘You can’t blame Longcoat Bob,’ he says, snidely, waving a finger at the sky. ‘Blame God. Blame your precious sky. Blame your shimmering stars.’ He turns to Molly. He snarls at her. The shadow snarl. ‘Blame your mother,’ he says. He laughs. Staggers on his feet again.
‘I was there, Molly,’ he says, his drunk head bobbing on his shoulders.
Molly can’t resist Medusa. ‘Where?’ she asks.
‘When your mother gave birth to you,’ he says. ‘I was there.’ His drunk legs move beneath him, but his head returns to the stars. ‘I saw the sadness of you arrive from nothingness. One minute your sadness was not in this universe, and the next minute it was.’ His hands make a mushroom cloud. ‘Pwoof. Like one of those stars arriving up there. You were suddenly . . . here. You arrived, Molly, in all your tragic . . . predestined . . . hardly immaculate . . .’ – he turns back to her – ‘misery.’
He walks over to her and smiles. He grips her chin, lifts her face to the lamplight.
‘It was remarkable how quickly it all unfolded,’ Aubrey says. ‘The single worst thing that ever happened to us.’
He studies her eyes. ‘I do wonder, young Molly,’ he says. He laughs to himself and shakes his head. ‘If you are so evidently capable of believing in the notion of sorcerers and curses, I do wonder if you are also capable of believing in the notion that the lives of your mother and your father and, indeed, your uncle, only descended into misery the moment you were born. I wonder if you have ever considered the possibility, Molly Hook, that there was a curse given to this family – and that curse was you.’
He keeps hold of her face, stares deep into her eyes. Molly gives nothing away. Her uncle smiles. ‘But, alas, still no tears,’ he says.
Aubrey staggers backwards four paces then drops himself down on his backside on the hard dirt and grass, rolls himself a smoke.
Molly watches him lick his tobacco papers. I will never be afraid, she tells herself. I will feel no pain. Rock is hard. Can’t be broken. ‘You ought to believe in Longcoat Bob’s curse,’ she says. ‘Because it has passed to you, Uncle Aubrey. I know this now.’
He does not look up. ‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Only a cursed man would say those things to a child,’ Molly says. ‘That curse has got into your heart and turned you black. You’re only shadow now, Uncle Aubrey.’
He lights his smoke with a match. ‘I won’t argue with that,’ he murmurs. Then he sucks on his smoke and exhales slowly, the grey smoke floating across the nearby gravestones like the souls of their occupants escaping. ‘Now, tell me Molly,’ Aubrey asks, waving the smoke away. ‘How do you intend
