Charlie

When Charlie came out of the clink for the first time in ten years, he carried all his possessions in a duffel bag slung across his shoulder and enough money to pay for a woman. Sunshine exploded inside his pupils as he stumbled through the high iron gate into the open air. He spat and steadied himself. A free man. 

An empty shingle road stretched before him, curving around the woods towards the township. A rickety settlement kept together by those who stayed even after forestry no longer offered much work, and those who found jobs in the nearby prison. They clung to each other, ex-lumber jacks and factory hands planting dope for a living in their backyards, beating their wives on benefit days and fixing cars older than their children. It was enough to keep the cops and prison guards employed. 

The breeze rustled leaves into a shiver, disturbing droplets that hung on their edges. 

Charlie looked towards the woods. He inhaled deeply, letting the sharp scent of damp earth and early buds fill his lungs. He closed his eyes to a familiar sight; a young girl sitting on a swing made of an old truck tire, her feet dangling over an almost bare patch of grass, loose strands of pale blonde hair hiding her face and a small child in her arms. 

He shook his head slightly as he always did when he needed to clear it, straightened the straps of his duffel bag, then took to the road with long, purposeful strides. He knew it well; it was the same stretch of dirt his old man drove to and from work each day to put food in his and his brothers’ bellies, as he was fond of saying. The same road their mother crossed to jump into the other man’s car; “I am going away to find work in the big city and a place for us to live. This place is a shithole, and I am fed up with your father’s drinking and giving us a hiding whenever he feels like it. I will come back for ya boys very soon. It’s gonna be fine. It’s all gonna be just fine.” She pulled the car-door shut and the man behind the steering wheel made it speed away. 

That was years ago, when Charlie and his two brothers were still kids. For a long time Charlie believed he had seen Ma’s hand waving at them from the car-window, her thumb firmly extended upwards against the dust-cloud.

The old man worked shifts, slept, drank, and whored. He never laid a hand on his boys again. Charlie once saw him sitting by his youngest brother’s bed the whole night while the boy was burning with fever. Charlie could swear there was a fat tear rolling down the old man’s cheek. 

When their voices started to break, the old man took each of them to Trish’s. “She keeps a fine establishment Trish does”, he said. 

Charlie could still recall the jasmine scent of the first whore he had at Trish’s. He was the oldest, and the old man told him to “just follow the lass, and you will soon pant as a farm-dog on a hot summer day.” The old man paid for the newest girl, a young Polish gal going by the name of Lena. She had the subtle body of a trapeze artist and firm, small breasts. When she took her slip off, the curls of her long blonde hair brushed against large peach-coloured nipples. Charlie could not remember his mouth ever being so dry. 

The sun was starting to beat down on his neck, pale as a baby’s bottom after years spent indoors. He rolled up his collar and quickened his pace. Touched the little stash of cash inside his pocket, wondering how much has changed at Trish’s. He knew from the prison guards that it is Trish’s daughter that runs the place now. The old girl still sits most nights behind the bar, talking to old-timers. 

Charlie smiled, thinking of Trish and the old times. He knew she was fond of his old man, even if she never said as much. She always had a big heart on her, Trish did. She once brought home a pregnant lass from somewhere up north with cigarette burns all over her. Trish put the girl up and paid for the doctor. When the baby was born, all the girls cooed over it like they each gave birth to it. There were regular scuffles over who would take the baby out for a walk. Charlie could not remember what had happened to that baby. 

He was almost upon the first houses. 

Single story weatherboard bungalows, with peeling paint and old sofas perched on verandas, stuffing spilling out of them. A couple of guys in leather jackets stood around an old Harley drinking beer from cans and arguing about something. Strands of their matted hairs flapped in the breeze like pieces of wool left to dry for too long. Charlie lowered his head and quickened his pace. He did not want anyone to notice him. He figured he could reach Trish’s in about ten minutes or so, slip through the back door and leave the place before dawn, unseen. He had spent a long time planning it all and debating with himself whether to visit Trish’s for one last time before leaving the whole damn town behind him. 

He could never think about leaving without remembering his mother and how she called the place a shithole just before she left. She was probably right; he should have left ages ago. Not that he had not thought about it. He did — all the nights he sat on the front porch gazing down the road, waiting for her to come back and take him and his brothers to the city like she said she would. 

When his old man found out and put a stop to it, Charlie ordered his brothers to sit and wait for Ma. Jeremy said he could not remember what Ma looked like. Charlie slapped him so hard; to knock him over, and would’ve beaten his life out of him if the next door neighbour had not pulled him off. It was the first time Charlie felt the rage emerging from him like a geyser, from depths he did not know were inside him. 

That night, the old man took Charlie to a pub with him and treated him to a beer laced with lemonade. Then he told him that Ma is not coming back. She has gone with another fellow and they are likely married by now. Have a brat or two of their own. 

Charlie ran out of the pub, crying tears of rage and hurt. They burned a hole in his gut and set his chest on fire. He ran past his house and onto the same stretch of shingle leading out of town. The next day local cops brought him back home. He was starving, and the soles of his feet had bleeding blisters. Charlie never waited for his mother again. His old man made sure no one mentioned her in front of the boys. 

He was approaching the town’s main square. An open semicircle surrounded by the post office, cop-shop, paper-decorated Chinese takeaway, a couple of forlorn-looking stores, and a courthouse. A tall wooden statue of a forestry worker, with his shirt’s sleeves rolled up and holding a chainsaw, stood in the middle, his gaze fixed on the town below. Cigarette butts and empty bags of potato chips were scattered around the man’s feet. 

Charlie looked down the road past the courthouse and the corner where a library and the town’s only high school stood. The library entrance was much bigger than he remembered, vivid colours of the mural painted around it glistened in the sun. For a moment Charlie felt the urge to walk into the school’s yard and check whether the opening in the fence he cut all those years ago might still be there. He went to a lot of trouble to make it big enough for the two of them to pass through. Smuggling tools was not a problem. He was always good at woodwork and had almost free access to the school’s workshop. The trouble was how to work on the fence without being seen by anyone, especially any of his classmates or the school’s janitor. In the end, he did it all at night and returned the tools before school started. He wanted to make sure nobody found out. 

As if slotted into an old-fashioned projector, a picture of the day he had shown her the opening for the first time appeared in Charlie’s mind. It was winter, and snowflakes twirled in the sharp air before landing on the heavy branches of the tall pine trees planted in a small cluster at the edge of the field. He had chosen that part of the school field to cut the opening because of those trees. They sheltered the fence perfectly. It was what he always wanted; to keep her safe, sheltered. Ever since she first arrived at their school. 

Charlie was in his final year for the second time because his old man was adamant all of his boys would finish high school and did not give up even when Charlie had to repeat the year because of his absences. What Charlie really wanted was to quit school and find a job with the local forestry gang. The money was good, and almost all his mates were doing the same. But the old man threatened to throw him out on the street and break his neck in the process, so Charlie returned to school. 

It was a dusty afternoon of late summer, bronze and gold shimmering across the desks, when the teacher walked in with a blonde girl in tow. The teacher was a slim woman wearing an oversized pair of glasses and a bright orange scarf. She tapped her desk a couple of times and introduced the girl standing next to her, “It is my pleasure to welcome Ines to our school. Ines has only recently moved to our town and is still getting used to it. I am sure we will all do our best to make Ines feel part of our little community.” A few boys sniggered. The blonde girl did not raise her eyes or swipe the long strands of her blonde hair off her face while the teacher was talking. She walked to the desk the teacher indicated and slipped into its empty seat. 

Charlie thought, “the girl has an odd name and does not look like someone who is meant to be at school.” She did not carry a school bag, and her long, flowery dress reminded Charlie of the photographs in the magazines his Ma left behind, that he had stashed under the old schoolbooks in the attic before his old man had a chance to throw them out. He still sometimes leafed through pages filled with willowy young girls wearing dresses similar to the one the girl was wearing, and sometimes flowers pinned to their long hair. 

As class ended, Charlie walked to Ines’ desk, stretched a grin across his face and said, “Hi, I am Charlie.” Ines did not raise her head or unclasp her hands from her lap. When Charlie asked if the cat had gotten her tongue, Ines stood up and walked away. Charlie felt like he had been slapped. He let out a soft whistle for the lack of knowing what else to do. 

At the end of the school day, Charlie went looking for Ines. He saw her walking across the school’s rugby field then turning towards Bond Street. He knew he could follow her without her noticing. When she turned into Elizabeth Street, Charlie could think of only one place she was going to – Fat Betty’s foster home. 

Fat Betty went into the fostering business after her fellow ran away with the local pub’s new waitress and left her to fend for herself and their three kids. Betty figured that taking in others who had nowhere else to go or have been thrown out of all other places, could feed her and her children. The social welfare cheques helped. 

The place was cramped and smelt of piss, burned milk, and stale cigarette butts. Some of Charlie’s schoolmates were Fat Betty’s kids. They came to school without lunches on most days, but Fat Betty never laid a hand on them, and they had safe beds to sleep in, which was more than they had in the places they came from. 

When he saw Ines opening Fat Betty’s gate, Charlie knew he had guessed right, turned around and walked home. That evening while sitting at the table with his brothers and their old man, eating baked beans and chips, Charlie decided to make Ines talk to him even if just once. 

Years later, squatting on the bench of the prison’s exercise yard, Charlie would come to think of that evening as the exact moment his life started to slide out from under him. 

Charlie used every trick he knew to get Ines attention. He would try to sit next to her in classes under the pretext of helping a newbie, ignoring his classmates’ sniggers. Ines was younger than Charlie, and while the school-work was not something Charlie cared much for, he was familiar with most of the material for her year. Ines kept on turning up with a single notebook she mainly used for doodling during classes. With her blonde hair hanging loose, flowing dresses and colourful pieces of string tied around her right ankle, she looked like someone who just stepped out of a folktale without noticing. 

On the rare occasions when teachers called her name, Ines looked up like someone who had been rudely woken up from a deep slumber. She never used the answers Charlie whispered to her, even when the teacher commented that she should honour Charlie’s efforts by repeating the answers he was so gallantly providing her with. Ines remained silent. During the mid-term test in biology, Charlie slipped the answers inside a tightly wrapped note. Ines squeezed it into the palm of her hand without opening it. She then walked to the teacher’s desk, placed the test on it and walked out of the class with the answers still scrunched inside the palm of her hand. 

Watching her walking out, gliding through the door, oblivious to anything around her, Charlie made up his mind to visit Fat Betty’s home that evening and find out what’s really going on with Ines. He could not name it, but an odd sensation of being pulled towards and away from her at the same time was bothering him a little bit more every day. It was not something Charlie had ever felt before. 

Thanks to his old man and Trish’s fine establishment, girls were not a problem for Charlie. He loved the plump girls with great booties and easy smiles. They always threw their heads back, laughing at his ready-make jokes with their whole bodies, their bosoms bouncing inside their low-cut tops. 

The only time he made Ines laugh was when he offered her his peanut butter and banana sandwich. When she said it was super-yummy, he asked whether she never had one before. That made her laugh. It sounded like water rushing over pebbles, fast and clear. 

After the biology class, Charlie went looking for Ines but could not find her anywhere and decided she must have gone straight home. Sitting through another long English lesson, Charlie examined his idea to visit Fat Betty’s home. He remembered the sound of Ines’ voice when she told him to never, ever follow her again. He was only fooling, making it look like he was following her around the schoolyard. Her words came out in sharp, angry bursts. They made his shenanigans look foolish instead of funny. In the end, Charlie reasoned that going to Fat Betty’s wouldn’t count as following since he would be coming on his own. As a visitor. 

As soon as school was out, Charlie set out towards Fat Betty’s. The scent of wood burning was starting to linger in the autumn air. Walking towards Bond Street, Charlie wondered whether he would manage to speak with Ines in private. Whether visitors were even allowed. It occurred to him that he had not visited anyone living there before. 

A small iron gate separated the street from Fat Betty’s front yard. It was half-open and refused to move when Charlie tried to close it behind him. Charlie left it in its place and made his way up the steps doing his best to avoid parts of plastic toys, a broken tricycle, deflated paddling pool and various other articles heralding the presence of young children. 

The entrance door mimicked the gate, crooked and half-open. For a moment, Charlie could not decide whether to enter, or knock and wait. He could hear voices inside the house and smell the musty odour of poorly aired rooms. He chose to do both; knock lightly, then enter as his dad’s mates did when they came by their place. 

The small hallway was crammed with brightly coloured raincoats, school bags, and variously sized gumboots. Charlie manoeuvred his way towards the voices. A thick, forest-green curtain was stretched inside the doorway as a replacement for the missing door. Charlie pushed it to one side and found himself looking into a big room fitted with a large stove, long wooden table, and a heavy, old-fashioned cupboard. 

A large black and white cat was staring at Charlie from the window ledge, opening into the backyard. Standing in the doorframe, not knowing what to do next, Charlie noticed an empty curtain rail above the kitchen window and the stares of children’s eyes fixed on him with the determination of those unaccustomed to visitors. Shifting from one foot to another, Charlie smiled and was about to ask if anyone knew Ines when the back door opened. A boyish-looking girl of four or five came in, leaving the door behind her wide open.

He saw her then. Swaying leisurely on a cut-out truck tyre tied to a branch of a large tree growing next to a do-it-yourself clothesline. Hair flowing freely around her face. Bare feet brushing over patched grass. 

Charlie’s feet crossed the kitchen floor and carried him through the door before he could form a single thought. He was almost in front of the tree when the sounds of approaching footsteps made her turn around. It was then Charlie saw the small child she was cradling close to her.

If Charlie ever saw Michelangelo’s Madonna with a Child painting, he would have remembered it then. But Charlie never saw that painting. What he did see made him feel cold inside. 

The child’s face was a tangled mess of scars. Like some evil deity decided to play with it and deform its features until they barely resemble human. Even the child’s eyes looked like they had been moved from their ordinary positions and then fixed on an odd angle inside mangled skin. A few moments passed before he became aware of Ines’ gaze on him. It was a calm and steady gaze directed straight at him. Her body stayed wrapped around the small child she was holding. 

They would have remained in that frozen tableau if it wasn’t for the loud swearing followed by crying that burst through the open back door from the kitchen. 

Fat Betty had returned home and was demanding to know where that useless girl was with her brat, and why no tea has been made, and everyone is starving!

Ines slipped from the tyre and passed Charlie on her way inside. 

It was only later, much later, while lying on the cot in his cell, unable to sleep, unable to stop his blood burning, that he remembered that it was the first time he saw the colour of her eyes. They were green. Deep green. Like a river.

Charlie never followed Ines inside. He made tracks back to the front yard and left Fat Betty’s. On his way home, he felt an inexplicable desire to run. As fast as his feet could carry him. 

That night Charlie waited for his old man. 

Heavy footsteps and the scraping of steel capped boots against the front door roused Charlie from the daze he had fallen in leaning on the kitchen table. He shook himself and reached for the door, but it swung wide open before he could touch it. His old man smelled of wood and glue, and his eyes were bloodshot from staring for hours into machines that flattened and glued sheets of wood into plywood. 

The old man’s surprise gave way to gladness. It had been a long time since he arrived home from the graveyard shift to find anyone awake. Charlie put the kettle on and took the factory issued Swanndri from his dad. 

They sat down to two steaming mugs of tea in silence. One was chipped at the handle and had remnants of decorations made in primary school for some long-forgotten Father’s Day. 

Charlie waited until his father took the first sip of tea and pronounced it a decent brew. The old man wanted to know right away what it was that Charlie needed help with. Charlie pinched a small island of skin between his thumb and forefinger, the way he did when he was nervous. He was desperate to start his speech with something (anything) except “there is this girl at my school…” but in the end, he could not find any other words. The moment Charlie uttered those words, the laughter burst from his old man like from an open faucet. It was as Charlie feared. 

His eyes sparkling with laughing tears, his old man told Charlie that of course, there is a girl and that there always will be. It is how things work. He then wanted to know if Charlie had got the girl up the duff, and once it was clear that he had not, he advised him to go to bed and have a decent sleep. Plenty more where that one came from. 

Charlie watched his old man drain his cup of tea, rinse the mug in the sink and disappear down the hallway to the bedroom he once shared with his mother. He then turned around, fished the bottle of bourbon from behind the dusty baking utensils nobody had used for years and poured a good measure of it into the rest of his tea. 

That night Charlie dreamed of his mother for the first time in years. 

In the weeks that followed, Charlie kept himself away from everyone. He went to school, did his chores around the house, smoked more than usual and muttered insults at anyone who bothered to ask him; “how’s life treating ya?” Rage was steadily carving its permanent layer inside Charlie. He neither saw nor was searching for Ines. On a morning so cold that tiny icicles formed inside his nostrils, Charlie entered the school gates and tossed his last buttamongst the frosty bushes. He was late but not in a hurry. 

The long corridor sprawled like a linoleum snake in front of him, doors firmly shut on either side. An old cleaner was lazily dragging a mop from one side to the other. There was a nook with a panelled door at the end of the corridor – the principal’s office. Charlie knew it well from all the talks he endured there. He felt like walking in and declaring that he is done with school and all that bullshit. He had been thinking about it more often than usual. Charlie made a few determined steps towards the nook when the sound of the door opening and soft male voices stopped him. Escorted out of the principal’s office and towards the stairs on the other side was Ines. Her back turned to him, a large man’s hand resting midway between her shoulder blades, guiding her outside. A hand-knitted bag slung across her body and a long woollen cardie covering half of her long skirt. Loose hair cascading down her back as she disappeared from Charlie’s view. 

If Charlie were given to reading poetry, he would have searched for some familiar verses to help him ease his anguish. Of being young and in love and alone. But Charlie did not read poetry. He stood rooted to the spot, and all he felt was anger. Hot, urgent fury to tear down windows, punch the walls, smash the principal’s office.

But Charlie did none of those things. Instead he turned slowly and walked out of the school building the same way he came in. Only his legs felt even heavier. As if filled with lead. He squatted behind the woodwork room, found the last pinch of tobacco in his pocket and wept. Silently, hugging his knees and keeping his eyes down. Small clouds of frozen breath mixed with cigarette smoke rose towards the sky. 

Later, when the flames in his chest started to cool, he figured the school must have Ines’ forwarding address. They always ask for one. When the office lady refused to tell him anything about Ines’ whereabouts on account of some privacy laws, Charlie made his way back to Fat Betty, hoping she might know. Fat Betty was slumped across an old sofa in that peculiar state of tipsiness when the urge to give advice is irresistible. She neither had, she said, nor cared to know the address of that lazy slut and her clingy, deformed brat. That sort is good for nothing, and Charlie should not waste any time on the likes of her. Didn’t he know that girl was dumb? She could not even read. Not a bloody word, at that age! Charlie ran outside and away from Fat Betty’s before he could no longer control the urge to shut her up with his fist. 

He moved his feet down the familiar street, and his body followed. But all Charlie could see was the day Ines walked out of the classroom with his note clenched in her fist. Never even looked at it. He never thought it was because she could not read. He never came across anyone above the age of seven who could not read. Charlie wanted to kick himself for being so dumb. 

Fortified with guilt, Charlie’s determination to find Ines grew and gave him wings. 

Kevin was a chubby youth with a pimply face and hands permanently stashed deep inside his trousers’ pockets. He was also the school’s secretary’s son. His mum was a big woman fond of dresses with matching jackets. She was also very fond of “proper process and procedures” and at pains to point out that there will be no favours for anyone on her watch. Especially not for Kevin, who “even if I say so myself, is in the top five per cent, all thanks to good old hard work and perseverance.” 

Kevin and his mum attended church on Sundays, and their pastor sometimes asked Kevin to talk about his love for science and maths to young parishioners, hoping they might follow his example. Kevin feigned indifference while walking to the improvised podium with all eyes on him. Remembering to keep his hands out of his pockets and trying his best to look slightly detached in a manner he thought all scientists did, Kevin talked about algebra and robotics and the future of science. Keeping his voice steady, Kevin used as many long words as he could remember. Hoping someone would ask questions. Nobody ever did. Later, while leading the ladies in prayer, his mother assured those who needed it that God had plans for their sons too.

Charlie never gave Kevin a second glance until the day he saw him emerging from his mum’s car just before the main gate. He watched Kevin drag his bulging backpack towards the physics lab, and before he saw him disappear behind the lab’s glass door, a thought formed in Charlie’s mind. Kevin could be useful.

For the rest of the day, Charlie’s brain buzzed with schemes. How to get Kevin to help him enter the school’s office his mother was in charge of. Once inside, Charlie was sure to find Ines’ file and her forwarding address in it. In the end, it was easier than he thought it would be. All he needed to do was casually mention his ‘special privileges’ at Trish’s for Kevin to lap it all up. Once Charlie managed to reassure Kevin that there was absolutely no chance of anyone, most importantly his mother, finding out about his little excursion, Kevin agreed to cut the key. It was as his old man always said – “every man has his price.”

Charlie got Trish to usher Kevin through her back door to let him salivate over the impressive bosom of its bored owner, whose one stroke of the youth’s bulging crotch produced the desired result even before she had a chance to stroke it properly. For that privilege, Kevin produced not only the key to the school office but the filing cabinet too. 

The files inside the filing drawer that glided open as Charlie pushed the key into its lock were ordered in strict alphabetical order. Charlie felt beads of sweat above his upper lip. The urgency he felt was at odds with the emptiness of the building he knew was deserted at that time of night. Charlie started separating the files stacked behind the divider with a bold letter “I” written on its plastic holder when he realised he needed to be looking under surnames. He did not know Ines surname. An angry “fuck” pierced the stale air. He brushed his fingers over the cabinet’s entire contents, which made it sound like an accordion. To look into each file to find one with Ines as a first name would take hours! 

Charlie could feel the familiar warmth of anger starting to fill his lungs when he spotted a small plastic box on top of the filing cabinet that looked like its miniature version. A small key dangled from its tiny lock. Charlie turned the key and moved the lid that opened upwards, revealing a stack of what looked like cards. Then he saw it. Each card had the contents of a single filing cabinet drawer written on it in block letters; CURRENT PUPILS, INVOICES, DETENTION NOTICES, STOOD DOWN, MEETING MINUTES, LEFT THIS YEAR. Bingo! It was the last drawer. The records of those that have left the school were kept in there. Only three files were in the drawer. One of them was for SWARTZ, Ines. 

Charlie felt his hand shaking while he leafed through the file holding the brief history of Ines’ stay at his school. In his town. A few loose papers with red and black markings. Tests Ines returned unfinished. A letter to the caregiver. The mandatory form with spaces left empty for name, date of birth, sex, parents names, addresses was glued on the inside of the file’s left cover. An elegant looking business card was stapled to the top of the form, inside the space intended for personal details. The words “Quality second-hand goods” looped in an arch meant to draw the eye to it. The shop’s address and a phone number printed under it in a smaller font. Charlie recognised the name of the city. It was the biggest city he knew. About a four hour drive up north. The old man took him and his brothers on a road trip there a few Christmases ago. To play with their cousins while he went fishing. Charlie loved the road trip but disliked the city. 

Realising that the business card with its shop address was all there was, Charlie shoved it in his pocket and tucked the almost empty file back in its place. He closed the cabinet, returned the card into its miniature slot and left the office as quietly as he could. The rest of the night he spent trying to figure out how to organise his trip to the city to find out whether a man whose name (Joseph Swartz) he found handwritten on the back of the business card could help him find Ines. Charlie figured that the man was probably Ines’ father or at least some relative, given they had the same foreign surname. 

It took Charlie over a week before he finally worked out a plausible enough lie to take the bus to the big city without making his father suspicious. He dialled the shop number a couple of times, but he’d hang up before anyone answered. Charlie could not think of any way to explain how he had come by the phone number he believed was connected with Ines or why he was looking for her.

Tormented by those thoughts, Charlie decided the best course of action was to simply bus to the city, find the shop and act as a customer to start with. With a little bit of luck, he might be able to strike up a conversation with a shop assistant, and you never know what you might hear. People love to talk. Charlie remembered how people always used to say to his old man to “watch that kid – he can talk his way out of jail!” It made him feel better. 

The bus would have been empty but for a few men dozing over their overstuffed bags and well-used maps. Rolling hills dotted with cattle were passing in what seemed an endless succession. The bus engine’s monotony and the passing landscapes lulled Charlie into a daze from which he was jolted when the bus abruptly stopped at traffic lights. They were approaching the city. Charlie rubbed his eyes and tried to stretch his neck that had gone stiff. His legs were no better, and he needed a smoke. 

The bus terminal was the biggest Charlie had ever seen. He swore softly into his chin and moved towards what he decided must be an exit. A man dressed in a bus driver’s shirt and holding an unlit cigarette in his hand was walking away from the bus terminal. Charlie followed him to a corner with an ashtray. After they both took their first drags, Charlie asked the man if he knew the shortest route to the suburb named on the business card. The man said, “no trouble at all; my bus stops there.” He asked what street Charlie was looking for. Charlie said he was looking for a second-hand shop. The driver said, “no sweat there is a bus stop not far from it, I’ll let you know.”

Charlie was relieved and thanked the man. He was worried it might take him a long time to find the place.

Once they finished smoking, Charlie and the bus driver walked towards the bus, and Charlie climbed into the nook behind the driver’s seat. He settled next to the window and looked out. The narrow streets of the inner city started to open into wide suburban landscapes; broad streets dotted with single-storey bungalows separated by low gates of similar making. The further south from the central city they went, the shabbier the dwellings became. Charlie was surprised at how similar the city looked to some parts of his hometown. The old couches on some of the porches looked like they came from his own street. The bus moved slowly from one stop to the other, and eventually, more people were coming in than going out, so the air became heavy with human odours. Charlie was contemplating opening a window when the bus driver shouted that the next stop was his if he still wanted to find that shop. Charlie thanked the driver and exited the bus. He followed the bus driver’s directions and soon found himself in front of what looked like an island amongst the rows of houses. There was a fish and chip shop, a dairy, Thai and Indian takeaway, pharmacy and a second-hand shop with the name displayed above the front door in the same lettering as the business card in his pocket. 

Charlie stood still for a few moments, then turned back towards the bus stop. He wanted to sit inside the bus shelter for a few moments and gather his thoughts. His heart was racing, and his hands started to sweat. Charlie was grateful the bus shelter was empty. He lit a smoke and inhaled deeply. He felt a familiar release and told himself to think. Has he really gone to all this trouble only to turn back with nothing but a used bus ticket? He felt that odd sensation pulling him in two opposite directions. He stubbed the cigarette out with more force than was necessary, tucked his hands into the side pockets of his jacket and walked towards the shop. The moment he pulled the door open, a loud mechanical voice coming from somewhere above him exclaimed, “Hello and Welcome!” The noise startled Charlie. He could not see anyone in the shop. The place was small and crammed with goods of different ages and means of use.

Bookcases of various dimensions lined the walls. Their shelves stuffed with kitchen utensils, pots, pans, the odd mixer, kettles with knitted tops, tea sets with drawings of delicate roses with matching cream and sugar bowls, next to old-fashioned garden tools, a hatchet, racks of clothing, and piles of costume jewellery, including what looked like a wedding tiara. The air was gloomy from poor lighting and full of the musty odour of old furniture. It reminded Charlie of his grandmother’s house just before she died. There were cabinets with glass doors and tiny locks that required keys to open. In one of them, there was a display of what seemed like military memorabilia. Charlie moved closer and peered inside. The cabinet was lined with burgundy coloured material that might have been a luxurious velvet once but was now worn and thin in places. Several medals were on display, none of which Charlie had any knowledge of. There were pieces of fabric in various colours and shapes that look like they came off military coats. As if guarding its contents, a black and white photograph of a young man dressed in full uniform stood at the back of the cabinet. The photograph was yellow in places, and it was difficult to see the man clearly. There was a painting of a girl on the right side of the cabinet, no more than six or seven years old. She was wearing a white dress with a wide fuchsia-coloured sash fastened across her waist. The girl’s hair was long and brushed into soft curls that cascaded down her back. She was painted sitting in a bay window, her gaze following the rolling hills outside, sloping towards the beach. Charlie stared at the painting. He was surprised by an urge to yank the cabinet’s door open and reach for it. The sound behind him startled Charlie, and he almost fell on the nearby clothing rack. A bulky man with a clipped moustache laughed and helped Charlie steady himself. 

The man’s bulk was restrained inside the suspenders and trousers of a well-worn suit. He had a fleshy mouth and small beady eyes that darted over Charlie as if examining him. His thin moustache seemed painted over his upper lip. He had a comb-over and a manner that was simultaneously overly friendly and overly confident. There was a time when a particular type of woman found him irresistible. Charlie started to thank the man for helping him, but before he could say anything, the man slapped him on the shoulder and asked if he was a military fan too. Charlie was confused by the questions and did not know what to say. The man did not wait for an answer. He was overjoyed to have a visitor that seemed interested in the contents of the cabinet. While searching for the right key to open the cabinet’s glass door, he told Charlie that the man in the uniform was his father at the start of the war. The medals are what he brought home at the end of it. His old man started as a private but ended up as a decorated officer. He was wounded too. Twice. On the Eastern front both times. When it all went tits up as it did, his old man managed to ship the family to Australia. It was the safest place, he said. But life turned to proper shite there. 

“Dad could not find work. Nobody would employ him. He was a butcher by trade. A damn good one too. Trained before the war. But they would not give him a break. Because he was German. Mum could not stop crying. When it all became too much, he took us to New Zealand. It was easier there. Mind you, time was doing its thing too. The old man found work. Started building his first shop. Kids went to school. It was going to come right. Later I took over the trade. Opened more shops. We were getting somewhere. Then, what do you know, I met that silly slut I later married. She was pretty, mind you. They always are to start with. She was living in some shithole timber town, desperate to escape. Promised all sorts. Did them too. Not a shy bone in her body. It wasn’t until I married her that it came out she has some brats in that shitty town she ran away from. Could you believe that! Like I am a fool who feeds other man’s brats! Not a chance! Not a chance in hell! She went off her head after that. Has not been right since.”

As rapidly as they started, the man’s words trailed off, and he looked at Charlie somewhat surprised. Like he had only just seen him. Charlie felt hot and almost dizzy from the shop’s stifling air and the man’s rapid chatter, but did not know what to do to change that. He heard the man’s voice asking him what it is that he is looking for. Later, Charlie could never tell what made him do it, but he pointed at the cabinet and said that he would like to see the painting. The man flinched as if somebody had slapped him. He straightened his bulk and looked Charlie straight in the eye. He asked why he wanted to see the painting. It was an unexpected question, and Charlie blurted the first thing that came to his mind; “It is very pretty.”

The man laughed. His laughter sent shivers through Charlie. It jolted an image he did not know was still lodged somewhere in the crevices of his mind. A puffed, blue-veined face of a fellow Trish threw out once, and his old mad roughed up a bit when it was found he was fond of girls too young to have pubes.

The man with the painted moustaches said, yes, it is pretty, and the girl was pretty too. He then asked Charlie if he is fond of pretty girls. Charlie did not answer but asked the man whether he knew who the girl in the painting was. The man’s face shadowed slightly, and he said that she was his daughter. She died. For reasons he would never be able to explain, Charlie asked what the girl’s name was. 

It was a female voice that answered: “Her name was Ines. And she did not just die. She killed herself when this fat bastard made her give up her little girl. He called the little mite a monster. And he was the baby’s father, too, even if he keeps on denying it! But I know! I am her mother, and mothers always know!” The shrill in the woman’s voice was rising until she was screaming. What happened next imprinted itself in Charlie’s memory as permanently as handprints on cave walls.

The flow of air and time stopped inside the room, overstuffed with remnants of human lives. At the end of the shop, where a divider with fake paintings of geishas separated the shop from the living quarters, Charlie’s mother stood in a pale pink dressing gown that hung loosely over her thin shoulders. Her hair was matted, and large tears rolled down her hollow cheeks. The man and Charlie moved towards her simultaneously. As the man reached for his mother, Charlie reached for the hatchet lying on the shelf next to him. 

The first blow struck the man between the shoulders. He stumbled, knees buckling under the bulk. Charlie gripped the handle tighter and swung again. The skull cracked open. Blood erupted like a fountain. The last blow sprawled the man on the floor, the hatched jammed in the back of his head.

When the police arrived, they found a thin woman kneeling on one side of the large corpse, rocking silently back and forth, and a young man kneeling on the other side, bloodied and hoarse, chanting the word “mum,” over and over.