Kill the Possum Read online

  ‘You see that, don’t you?’ he appeals to Dylan, suddenly remembering his audience of one. ‘You know what’s sad about all of this?’

  Dylan doesn’t answer him. He knows that Cartwright is simply bouncing words against him the way a kid hits a tennis ball against a wall. He might as well be made of brick.

  Cartwright’s voice becomes melancholy, almost gentle. ‘I’ll tell you what’s so sad. This house used to be a really happy place.’

  He pauses and looks around, seemingly lost in a memory. ‘Yeah, a happy place.

  ‘It could be again, you know,’ he says suddenly. ‘That’s what I want, more than anything.’ The show of sincerity is strangely touching and for a moment Dylan almost believes him.

  ‘That’s why I’m here now, not just to bring Melanie back.’ He advances on Mrs Beal again, stooping low and bending his knees so that his face is below hers, staring up into her miserable eyes. He pushes upwards, bringing his face ever closer until she leans back in disgust to avoid their foreheads touching.

  ‘I’m here right now because this woman is still my wife, and you know what Dylan?’ he says, face to face with Mrs Beal now, their heads level and only centimetres apart. ‘I still love her.’

  Mrs Beal whimpers in her throat, an involuntary sound but clearly audible. It is the most pathetic thing Dylan has ever heard.

  ‘Isn’t that incredible?’ says Cartwright, surprised by his own generosity and forgiveness. ‘After all she’s done to me, with the divorce and taking my house and everything, I still want her back.’

  Another whimper from Mrs Beal. She holds insect arms crooked against her chest, hands flopped downwards, as though she’s praying to a merciful God.

  There is no mercy. She begins to shake uncontrollably.

  ‘Look at her,’ Cartwright continues. ‘I have to take her back because she can’t look after herself. Everyone can see that, even the courts will see it when I get another chance to show them the truth.’

  ‘They won’t, they won’t,’ she wails.

  ‘Don’t deny it. You even know it yourself,’ says Cartwright. ‘More than that, you want me back too because deep down you still love me. Isn’t that so, Louise.’ His voice is a practiced blend of sincerity and demand. Mrs Beal doesn’t answer. Perhaps she can’t. She’s lost the power of speech.

  ‘You do love me, Louise, you always will. If it wasn’t for those hairy-legged man-haters poking their noses in where they had no business, none of this would have happened. We’d still be together, a big happy family.’

  He spreads his arms wide, curling them upwards. Dylan thinks of ballerinas, the Sugar-Plum fairy. The image is so grotesque he feels a grunt of laughter welling behind his nose and stifles it just in time.

  ‘Leave us alone. Just go,’ says Mrs Beal recovering her voice. Her words are an act of reckless bravery. Cartwright could flatten her with a blow she wouldn’t even see. He is so close. The threat is overpowering. Tears pool beneath her nose so that anything else she says will splutter pathetically through dampened lips. Having used up all her courage, she weeps helplessly.

  ‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ says Cartwright. ‘You’ve made me make you cry. There’s no need for that.’

  Dylan can barely stand it. How can this man treat Mrs Beal like this and still claim he loves her? The incandescent anger is back. Each breath makes his chest swell. He feels himself growing bigger. He’s never known the feeling that has taken hold of his entire body.

  ‘We could all do with that cup of tea now, don’t you think?’ says Cartwright. ‘Sure you won’t reconsider?’

  Mrs Beal raises her head, but she doesn’t look at Cartwright. She can’t. She turns aside and says to Kirsty, ‘Make him a bloody cup of tea, for God sake.’

  Kirsty resists but she has no choice. She walks slowly towards the kitchen.

  ‘No, d-d-don’t d-d-do it,’ Tim calls to her then stiffens in horror at the way his tongue has betrayed him. His fists clench and he pulls his elbows back viciously into his own stomach, doubling over at the blow and leaving his head sunk onto his chest. He lets out a defeated wail to match his mother’s.

  Cartwright’s head snaps round, his eyes radiant with glee. ‘Ah-ha, he’s here at last, the old T-T-Timothy that we know and love. Don’t say anything more, kid. It’s too bloody painful to listen to.’

  Cartwright’s grin pushes his flushed cheeks upwards to form rosy dumplings beneath his eyes. With a cotton-wool beard, he could be Santa and the carnage around him the presents he’s brought in his sleigh.

  He can afford to be gracious now. ‘Kirsty, make a cup for everyone, and don’t forget your boyfriend. Get out the good cups, too, do it properly,’ he calls through into the kitchen.

  ‘Piss off,’ she calls back, making him laugh. But she returns quickly with a cup of tea balanced in the centre of an ornate saucer. Wisps of steam twirl in the air above it. She holds it out to Cartwright who makes her wait for a few seconds before taking it from her.

  Kirsty joins Tim and together they hold up their mother, helping her to the sofa. Cartwright watches, sipping from the cup with the saucer held below in an oddly mannered pose.

  While Cartwright watches the Beals, Dylan watches him. It frightens him, what he feels now, a fury he can barely keep under control. This man was the father in this house once. How can he treat them like this? What goes on in his head, his heart?

  Cartwright takes a last sip then sets the cup and saucer down on the arm of a chair. Turns towards the door. He has forgotten Dylan and looks surprised to see him. Before Cartwright begins to move, their eyes meet. Dylan expects to see the manic glee of a madman, but instead he finds the cool deliberation of a man who’s got what he came for. He steps past Dylan, walks quickly out onto the porch and down the stairs.

  Kirsty and Tim just manage to get their mother out of the lounge room before the little girl arrives. Dylan knows her name is Melanie. He sees in her face that she has no idea of what’s just taken place. Amid the rest of his exquisite anger, he feels enraged all over again by her innocence.

  2

  Kirsty comforts her mother

  Kirsty Beal sits on the edge of the bed, leaning over Mrs Beal. ‘It’s all right, Mum, he’s gone now.’

  She senses Tim’s presence behind her, hovering, trying to see their mother’s face over her shoulder. He hasn’t said anything since he called out to her about the tea. He doesn’t trust his own voice. It’s up to her to soothe their mother.

  ‘I can’t stand it any more,’ Mrs Beal says into the bedspread.

  ‘You did all right, you stood up to him,’ says Kirsty, who knows that lies can heal as well as harm.

  A voice calls from out in the hall. ‘Mum, I’m home. Can I come in?’

  ‘No, stay there, Melanie,’ Kirsty calls back. ‘Mum’s sick. She’ll be better in a little while and then you can see her. Go watch TV.’

  ‘There’s someone in the lounge room, a boy,’ Melanie says through the door to explain why this is not as welcome as it sounds.

  Oh shit! Dylan. Kirsty stands up suddenly, forcing Tim back a step. ‘Stay here with Mum. Don’t leave her until I come back, not even for a minute.’

  She’s not sure whether her words have gone in. At times like this Tim gets a certain look and she doesn’t know how much of him is really there behind his eyes. She leans forward to the bedside cabinet and opens a drawer. Tiny bottles roll madly among the nail scissors and the tampons. She picks out the one she wants and puts it in her pocket. The pills rattle as she walks to the door.

  She can see Dylan as she comes along the hall. He stares at her and she recognises the look on his face. He’s bewildered and doesn’t know what to do. That’s why he’s still here.

  ‘I think you should go,’ she says gently.

  Her words are a spell that brings him to life, a fairytale kiss without the touching of lips. They give Dylan the answer he couldn’t work out for himself. She’d been like that herself once when Ian put
on one of his shows. Couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything.

  ‘That guy?’ he says to her uncertainly.

  ‘I know. Look, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s better if you just go.’

  She watches Dylan head for the door and thinks of what she has to do.

  Melanie is hanging back, forlorn and neglected in the hallway. She needs to be welcomed home properly and assured her mother will be better soon. She’ll need some dinner. Better look in the fridge to see what’s there.

  But Kirsty doesn’t go into the kitchen. She walks out onto the porch instead and sees Dylan halfway down the stairs. ‘Why did you come round?’ she calls down to him. ‘Did you want something?’

  Dylan turns back to face her but can’t seem to find an answer. Then it comes to him. ‘To see you,’ he says, as though she should have guessed this.

  Of course he’d come to see her. She doesn’t know how this makes her feel, though. There are parts of her that are dead right now. She doesn’t respond, not even with a smile. The silence becomes awkward and she has to say something.

  ‘I’m sorry about… about what you saw. With Ian, I mean.’ How can she explain?

  Below her, Dylan’s face is full of questions.

  No, please don’t, Kirsty begs in her mind. For once a prayer is answered and Dylan shrugs and heads for the gate with his hands in his pockets.

  Tim and Melanie watch The Simpsons

  The sun goes down. Kirsty makes them all a dinner of sausages and mash. Melanie makes shapes in her potato and wishes out loud that her mother was at the table with them. By this time Kirsty’s already gone back to the bedroom while the other two finish eating. Then they sit side by side on the sofa watching The Simpsons.

  Tim’s eyes look at the screen flickering in front of him but he might as well be blind. Certainly, his ears are deaf to Homer and Bart and instead he hears his own voice. ‘D… d… don’t.’ The victory in Cartwright’s eyes is a pain he can’t stand. His left hand moves towards his right, slips up from the palm, over the wrist to the fleshy forearm which turns obediently to meet it. Fingers arch and lock, the nails dig into the skin, deeper, deeper. He works at it. Fingernails aren’t the most efficient weapon. They take time. Finally there is blood. One pain defeats another. Release.

  In his mind, Ian Cartwright is still in the room. In his mind, Tim gets up from the sofa, he’s bigger, more upright. He stands chest to chest with the man. He shouts in his face, the words flowing crisply from his tongue. ‘Go, get out of our house and never come back.’

  Cartwright steps back sullenly, head bowed. He turns and hurries out the door.

  There is no pain in Tim’s arm.

  ‘Why is Mum always sick when I come home from a weekend at Dad’s place?’ Melanie asks her brother.

  She waits for an answer until she realises Tim isn’t going to offer one. He’s too absorbed in the television. Melanie gets off the sofa and goes searching for her own answers. She presses an ear to her mother’s door. Kirsty is speaking but she can’t make out what she’s saying.

  Melanie reaches for the knob. She’s a good spy. They rarely catch her. It’s one of the advantages of being the youngest by so many years. The door opens without a sound, leaving the narrowest crack for Melanie’s eye. Not much to see for her efforts, though. Mrs Beal is lying on the bed, turned away from the door so Melanie can’t see her face. Kirsty is sitting beside her with one hand resting on her mother’s shoulder.

  Dad says her mother’s a stupid woman, a nut case. Melanie doesn’t like it when he says this, even if her mum does act pretty strange sometimes, like crying for no reason and staying in bed for days at a time. She tells her dad these things, but he always wants more. He asks her all the time what goes on in their house but she never knows what to tell him. She listens now, hoping for something.

  ‘He’ll get tired of doing this to us,’ she hears Kirsty say in a whisper.

  ‘You know that’s not the worst of it. What happens when she’s older, the age you were?’ their mother says in reply.

  Who are they talking about?

  Melanie waits two long minutes for a name but nothing more is said and becoming bored she goes back to The Simpsons.

  Dylan takes out the rubbish

  Dylan Kane is watching The Simpsons as well, while his mother washes up in the kitchen. He hardly remembers the walk home, just the way he stood in the Beals’ lounge room, unable to make a decision until Kirsty came out and told him to go.

  His mother calls out to him, bringing him back to the present.

  ‘What?’

  She speaks again, but he still doesn’t hear clearly. Something about boxes.

  ‘What boxes?’ he shouts back. Swearing mildly under his breath, he goes into the kitchen to find out.

  Dylan’s mother is a large woman. He’s seen the wedding photos, which she didn’t throw out in a fit of rage as divorced wives are supposed to do. The plumpness was beginning to press beneath her skin even then, but all women are pretty on their wedding day and she looked so happy in the frothy dress. The weight came later in the pregnancy and just kept coming after Dylan was born, apparently. His father has another family now, with a much slimmer wife, twin daughters younger than Melanie Beal and a baby son just a few months old.

  ‘I couldn’t hear ’cause of the television. What did you say about boxes?’

  She sends him to dump three cardboard boxes from the spare room. ‘Put what’s inside them into the rubbish, then flatten the boxes so they won’t take up too much space in the recycling,’ she says.

  Dylan walks around the side of the house carrying the three boxes. At the bins he dumps the contents but thoughts of his own little half-sisters have somehow spliced with Kirsty’s, and Dylan is back in the Beals’ house. It was incredible. The guy just waltzed in and ten minutes later it was a slaughter house without the blood. Every movement, every word, plays in his head like a movie he can’t switch off. Instead of flattening each of the boxes, he stacks them untidily, one within another and doesn’t even notice that the lid won’t close over them.

  Later, in bed, he can’t sleep. The night has turned cool but he throws off the covers. That man shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. Dylan’s heard of wife-bashing, domestic violence they call it; abuse - the catch-word for everything. He feels his blood begin to boil. Thinks of Ian Cartwright and his entire body stiffens with a rage that frightens him.

  Poor Mrs Beal. She was utterly defenceless once he started shouting in her face. Kirsty’s brother too. What was his name? Tim, that was it. He was terrorised into stuttering. His father knew it, worked on him until it happened. What a bastard, what a mongrel coward to do that, when he was twice Tim’s size.

  Dylan sleeps eventually, wakes at three, cold and exhausted. Goes back to sleep. In the morning he’s irritable and morose at the kitchen table.

  ‘You didn’t do what I asked you,’ says his mother.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The boxes.’

  They’ve already had this conversation, haven’t they? He can feel himself getting angry, the frustration building quickly, creasing his face into an ugly frown. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I asked you to press those boxes flat so they’d fit into the recycling bin.’

  For a moment Dylan balances precariously between rage at something so trivial, and simply admitting his mistake. There is no middle ground, only the extremes like mountain peaks on either side and he must choose one or the other. Bizarre, absolutely bizarre!

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ he says, making his choice.

  When he’s dressed for school he goes out to the bins. Press the boxes flat, his mother insisted. No, stuff that. He kicks at the nearest with his heavy black shoes. The side staves in, in an oddly pleasing way. He stomps on the other side, and the ends which are already half-collapsed. His school shoes are thick-soled, protecting his feet from damage. Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, the other boxes are quickly as flat as the first.

&
nbsp; When the mutilated cardboard is sealed inside the bin he goes inside to his mother. ‘Aren’t there laws to protect wives from being abused, you know, by their husbands?’

  Mrs Kane stares at her son. ‘I suppose so. What’s brought this on all of a sudden?’

  Dylan thinks quickly. ‘Just something I saw on telly last night.’

  ‘I’m not the one to ask. Never had to worry about it. Your father never hurt me, not that way. He might have deserted me, left me on my own with a one-year-old, but he never raised his hand.’

  ‘Never shouted at you?’

  ‘I was the one who did the shouting, I’ll tell you that much. He copped it a few times when he said he was leaving. Call it verbal abuse if you want.’

  ‘No, no,’ says Dylan, holding up his hands. This is getting away from what he wants to know. ‘Bashing and stuff. There are ways you can stop it.’

  His mother’s eyebrows form perfect arches. She isn’t used to such impatient demands from her son and certainly not at the breakfast table. ‘There’s something called an AVO. Don’t ask me what the “a” is for but the “v” stands for violence, I’m pretty sure. The police get involved. The man’s not supposed to go near the woman, can’t ring her on the phone, that sort of thing. Men who don’t toe the line end up in court.’

  ‘In court,’ says Dylan. He creates an image behind his eyes of Ian Cartwright standing meekly before a judge, apologising, pleading for mercy. The thought is a kind of retribution, and he feels a rush just as he had out at the bins when he stomped those boxes to pulp.

  ‘An AVO,’ he says, then snatches up his bag and heads to school.

  3

  Dylan and the AVO

  Dylan searches for Kirsty at school but she’s not there. He’s frustrated. He has the solution but no one to give it to. He considers going round to the Beal’s house on his way home and the thought runs a cold thrill across his skin - a chance to visit the scene of the crime.