Only Killers and Thieves(34)
The housemaid appeared in the doorway. Sullivan gestured for them to leave. Billy shook his head and stomped to the door; Tommy was slower in following him out. As he left the room Tommy glanced back at Sullivan and Locke, whispering together close-in. Sullivan caught his eye and smiled at him, nodding enthusiastically, the smile supposed to be reassuring, Tommy guessed. He didn’t return it, hurrying after the others as they went along the hall.
The atrium was square and entirely open, vaulted into the roof space and encircled by a balcony landing that covered three sides of the first floor. Its walls were decorated with ornaments and display cases and, on one side, a row of animal heads mounted on wooden boards. There were doors everywhere—Tommy had never seen so many doors. All of them identical, white-paneled; all of them closed. As he walked up the stairs he looked over the rail and the height made his stomach dip. He gripped the polished banister. The wood felt oddly cool. He followed Billy and the girl around the landing and onto a corridor lit by golden sconces and lined with more doors, until Billy stopped suddenly and asked, “Which one’s Mary’s room? Our sister, which one’s she in?”
The housemaid looked around nervously, then pointed to the door nearest Tommy. “That one there. Only, I’m not meant to say.”
The room glowed in candlelight. Weeks was hunched over the bed. As they entered he glanced over his shoulder, then continued with his work. Mary lay beneath him, only her face visible, the blanket pulled to her chin. She had her eyes closed and her bunches spilled across the pillow. Her skin was pale and bloodless, but she looked peaceful, asleep.
They weren’t alone in the room. A woman sat on a chair by the window at the end of Mary’s bed, fingering rosary beads in her lap. She wore a cream housedress and heavy ringlets of dark brown hair fell onto her chest. She stood when she saw them, her skirts ruffling as she crossed the little room.
“I’m so sorry to hear what happened. They’re monsters, all of them. A terrible, terrible thing. I’m Mrs. Sullivan. Katherine. Kate. So sorry for your loss.”
She offered her hand. Tommy took it awkwardly, more of a hold than a shake. She smiled and he saw her age for what it was: she resembled a girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes. Could not have been out of her teenage years.
“How is she?” Billy asked, and Weeks straightened, wiping his hands on a rag.
“I took the ball out. It had gone in deep, tore her up on the way through. She’s all but bled out, unfortunately. I doubt she can feel anything, but I gave her a drop of laudanum all the same. There ain’t nothing for it but to wait.”
Tommy edged forward to look at her, lying there so peaceful and small. The stain of her wound showed on the blankets, a faded crimson spot. Up close her face looked yellow and tired, her lips like cracked earth.
“You boys look wrung inside out,” Mrs. Sullivan said. “Why not get off to bed? There’s some clean clothes for both of you, and a basin for a wash. If you leave your things outside your door we’ll get them scrubbed and dried.”
“Thank you,” Billy mumbled.
“Shouldn’t we stay?” Tommy asked.
Mrs. Sullivan smiled at him warmly. “If she changes, we’ll wake you. You have my word. But the best you can do for her is to get some rest yourselves. I promise, someone will fetch you. Go on now. Get yourselves to bed.”
That night they lay in separate iron-framed beds, in a room whose walls were floral-papered, the drapes blanket thick. Tommy couldn’t sleep. The mattress was too soft, the feather bedding too heavy and warm. The total silence was unnerving: the glass windows masked all outside noise, and there were no gaps in the walls, no uneven shingle roof. Sometimes a sound would travel through the house, echoing footsteps, a door closing, someone coughing or clearing their throat, and Tommy would try to trace it, mapping the rooms in his mind, wondering if it was Mrs. Sullivan or Jenny or Weeks bringing news. It never was. There wasn’t any news. The light around the door never darkened, until Tommy woke to find that he’d been sleeping and all the candles had been snuffed. He lay listening. He was sweating, his stomach churned, the dawning recognition that this was all real. He couldn’t help but picture them. How they’d both been lying, all else he had seen. Or maybe he was still sleeping, he couldn’t quite tell; a night filled with delirious, lucid dreams. At some point he felt Billy crawl into bed beside him, his back against Tommy’s back, the way it had always been. But the next time he woke it was morning, and Billy was gone again.
12
Two pairs of stockmen carried them from the house, bundled in white bedsheets, gleaming in the sun. A slow processional across the clearing and out into the nearby scrub, to the bald patch of earth where the little group was gathered and two graves had been dug, mounds of red soil piled alongside.
Tommy watched them come. He was standing with his brother, both of them smeared in dirt and sweat from the digging; Sullivan had offered his men but the boys had refused, it felt like their task to do. Father would have wanted it, certainly. Would not have liked Sullivan’s men preparing a McBride grave. Bad enough Sullivan was even here, squinting solemnly at the bodies as they advanced. He had brought his ex-priest with him. He waited at the head of the graves. A grizzled old bushman, gray beard and flaking skin, sun-narrowed eyes and a body of bones, clutching a ragged and loose-leafed Bible in his hands. Tommy didn’t even know his name, this man who would be sending their parents off, but he knew what Father would have made of it, all this, them standing here with Sullivan, using his priest, his tools, wearing his clothes. Nothing felt right about it. Shame on top of grief.