Scrublands(16)

Martin gets to the church and switches his thoughts to the young constable, trying to imagine what might have been going through his mind. Holding his stein as Haus-Jones might have held his gun, Martin walks the length of the church, pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath and steps around the corner. ‘Shit.’

‘What?’ says the boy sitting on the church step.

‘Sorry,’ says Martin. ‘Didn’t expect to find anyone here.’

‘That’s obvious,’ says the boy. He’s dressed in shorts, t-shirt, a bucket hat and thongs. ‘What’s that?’

‘This? A German beer stein. Containing coffee.’

‘Does it taste better like that?’

‘No, but it’s big.’

‘You must like coffee.’

‘Yes. I do.’

The boy is thirteen or so, just hitting puberty. Martin walks up to him, looks around and sits on the side of a large planter box. There’s nothing growing in it, just hard-packed dirt. ‘My name’s Martin. What’s yours?’

‘Luke McIntyre.’

‘Whatcha doing here, Luke? Isn’t it a school day?’

The boy frowns. ‘You don’t have kids, do you?’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘It’s January. Middle of school holidays.’

Martin recalls the deserted school grounds. ‘Of course it is.’

‘Isn’t it a work day?’

‘Yeah, good point. Even so, it’s a strange place to be on your holidays, on a hot day, sitting in the sun.’

‘You’re not going to give me the skin cancer lecture, are you? I’m wearing a hat.’

‘No, I promise—no lectures. But I am interested in what you’re doing here.’

‘Nothing. I’m not doing anything wrong. I just come here to sit. No one ever comes here. It’s peaceful.’

‘It is now. But you know what happened here, I guess.’

‘Yeah. The shooting. He was sitting here, you know, when the cop shot him. One moment he was alive, breathing, the next he was dead. Shot dead. Two bullets in the chest. One got him in the heart.’

Martin frowns. There is a faraway quality in the boy’s voice. ‘Is that why you come here?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Did you know him? The priest?’

‘Reverend Swift? Sure.’

‘Can you tell me about him? What was he like?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I’m a journalist, writing a story. Trying to figure out what happened.’

‘I don’t like journalists. You’re not D’Arcy Defoe, are you?’

‘No, I’m not. I told you, my name’s Martin. Martin Scarsden. I don’t want to quote you; I won’t write your name or anything. I just want to know what happened.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Look, Luke, if you think the other journalist was wrong, here’s your chance to help me get it right.’

Luke considers this for a moment, then places his palm flat on the step beside him, eyes shut, as if seeking guidance. Or permission. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Well, just what sort of guy Reverend Swift was.’

‘Byron. He told us to call him by his first name. He was awesome. He looked out for us kids, stopped the big kids from bullying us. Got us to do shit together. Taught us how to be friends. We’d go down there, across the road to the weir, go swimming, camping, light campfires. A couple of times he hired a bus, took us to Bellington, to the water park or go-karting. Paid for it himself. And he taught us cool stuff. How to light fires without matches, how to track animals, what to do if you are bitten by a snake. All the stuff my old man could never be fucked doing. And we played sport: footy, cricket, basketball. He wasn’t like other grown-ups.’

‘And the policeman, Constable Haus-Jones? He helped out too, didn’t he?’

‘Yeah. But I don’t think he really gave a shit about us kids.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The big kids said he had the hots for Byron.’

Martin smiles, despite himself. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘Nah. They’re full of shit.’

‘You obviously thought a lot of Reverend Swift. And he must have thought a lot of you. Tell me, did he ever…’

‘Oh, shit. Here we go. Not like the other reporters? Bullshit. Here’s the bit where you ask if he ever touched me. Or if he asked me to touch him. Whether he showed me his dick, or asked me to kiss it. Or if he ever fucked me in the arse. Well, fuck you. You news people, and the teachers, and the fucking cops and even me own mum. No, he never did any of those things. Not to me, not to anyone else. I was a kid. I was twelve. I didn’t even know what those things were, that they even existed. And then you come along, you know-it-all adults, and want to know whether he did this or did that. And he was dead, fucking shot dead, and none of you gave a shit about that. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.’ The boy has tears in his eyes and tears on his cheeks. ‘And you come here, right where he was killed, and ask me again? You know something? You’re a cunt, Martin Scarsden.’ The boy stands and runs off, across the road, past the trees and up the levee, before disappearing down the embankment towards the river.