Halfmen Of O Read online

  At ten o’clock he said good-night to the adults and went to bed. He said he was tired after all that driving. His mother blew him a kiss.

  He’d been in bed ten minutes when Susan opened the door and put her head in. ‘Good-night, Nick. Thank you.’ She was gone. He imagined her lying in her bed, holding that pebble with its crazy ‘message’, planning what she was going to do. He could not let her. She hadn’t seen that man. Nick knew he was evil. He’d felt his hands, and seen his eyes, and smelt the chemical stink of his breath. Susan didn’t know what she was getting into. But he’d made her a promise and he knew he couldn’t break it. There was only one thing he could do. He could follow her, he could watch without her knowing. That way he’d be able to run for help.

  When he’d decided that he felt better. He rolled over. His bed was cool. Soon he went to sleep. But uneasiness followed him even there. Shapes came floating in his dreams, hands came after him, and eyes of hideous red grew up in the dark and peered at him. He heard a screeching sound, and he woke sweating. It was a mosquito buzzing round his face. He gave a sigh, thankful it was nothing worse. But he knew he’d have a hard time getting back to sleep. His arms ached and his jaw was throbbing. He sat up. His mouth was dry as sandpaper. Silently he went down to the kitchen for some water.

  In the lounge the adults had turned off the TV set. They were talking – having a nightcap, from the sound of glasses. He wished he could go in and talk to them. He drank his water, listening at the door. They sounded serious. Soon he understood why. They were talking about Susan. ‘Doctor,’ someone murmured, ‘psychiatrist.’ ‘Not in the real world.’ He went closer. Susan’s mother: she had a tinny voice, usually sharp with laughter or complaint. Now it seemed to have a grieving edge. ‘She was like that when she was a baby. Remember Ted, how she’d be looking away, way out over the horizon, as though there was something there only she could see?’

  ‘Funny birth she had,’ Uncle Ted said. ‘Something went wrong there. That’s what I reckon. Blame it on the flood.’

  ‘It’s more than that,’ came Aunt Pattie’s voice. ‘It was that old man. I know it was.’

  Nick listened, hardly breathing. His aunt fell into a kind of tearful sing-song. Uncle Ted put a rumbling word in here and there. Twelve years ago. Nick could almost see it. They lived in the old house then, the one they used as a hay barn now. The baby was due. But there was flooding in the valley, Uncle Ted could not get his wife to the hospital. He could not even get his neighbour’s help. So, in the little room upstairs, under the sloping roof, while rain hammered on the iron, he delivered the baby himself. Everything went smoothly. At one o’clock she arrived. Susan. A perfect little girl. He wrapped her tightly in blankets and put her in a bassinet by the bed. He made his wife comfortable. Then he left her dozing and went down to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. He was worn out. After a while he went to sleep himself, with his head on the table.

  ‘Then I heard this awful screech.’

  He rushed upstairs. Aunt Pattie was sitting up in bed screaming.

  ‘I woke up and saw him,’ Aunt Pattie said. ‘He was standing by the bassinet. He was leaning over her.’

  It was a little old man. He had white hair and a white beard, she saw it plainly in the light of the lamp Ted had left burning. But the strangest thing, the most frightening thing, was the colour of his skin. ‘I saw it when I screamed. He looked at me. He was like someone from a flying saucer.’ His skin had a reddish colour and seemed to glow from within.

  ‘Now Pattie, now,’ Uncle Ted said, ‘that was imagination. You’d just gone through a pretty tough time. He was some old prospector. They’re always hanging round here, fossicking up the creeks. There’s one up there now.’

  ‘It was red. I saw him. I know.’

  ‘Well, well,’ Uncle Ted said, ‘it might have been a trick of the light. But he was there all right. I got a look at him, just saw him duck out the door when I went to the bed. Might have been old but he sure was quick.’

  Uncle Ted chased him down the stairs and out of the house. He did not follow far. The old man vanished like a ghost into the night, into the beating rain.

  ‘I came back to poor old Pattie here. She’d grabbed the baby and was holding it. But I don’t reckon he’d meant her any harm. He’d unwrapped her blankets a bit.’

  ‘He put her birthmark on her,’ Aunt Pattie said.

  ‘Now, Pattie.’

  ‘He did. She had no mark till he touched her.’

  ‘Well,’ Uncle Ted admitted, ‘I’d had a pretty good look at her. I didn’t see any mark. But when Pattie looked she had this round spot, here, on the inside of her wrist. And a sort of patch up her arm and shoulder.’

  ‘He put it on her. You know that.’

  Uncle Ted said nothing. And by the door, in the dark of the kitchen, Nick began to shiver. It was all coming clear. The birthmark. But Uncle Ted was going on with the story. The rains stopped. The floods went down. The doctor got through and had a good look at the baby. She was all right. The birthmark was nothing to worry about. Lots of kids had those. He wouldn’t listen to talk about funny old men. Reckoned that was just imagination.

  ‘It wasn’t,’ Aunt Pattie said.

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Uncle Ted. ‘I went up Lodestone Creek after the flood. Checking stock. I found him up there. Up by the old gold mine. Been dead about three days. He’d fallen down a cliff and broke his neck.’

  ‘Tell them the rest,’ Aunt Pattie said.

  ‘Well,’ said Uncle Ted. He sounded nervous. ‘I had a good look at him, see. He did have a sort of red skin. But that was nothing – just sort of weather-beaten, I reckon. What he did have though was a birthmark. Here, on the inside of his wrist. Same as Susan’s. Same place. Same colour.’

  ‘There,’ Aunt Pattie said. ‘And Susan’s been strange ever since.’

  ‘She’s a funny kid, all right,’ Uncle Ted said.

  There was more clinking of glasses. Nobody spoke for a while. Then Nick’s parents began making comforting sounds. He could tell they thought Uncle Ted and Aunt Pattie were a bit weird themselves. He could imagine them giving each other secret looks and little winks. But Nick knew better. He turned and went quietly back to his room. He could understand Susan now, and he felt a deep loyalty to her. He understood her need to talk to that old man. He even understood what the message was.

  Nick had seen the birthmark on the inside of her wrist. It was about the size of a fifty-cent piece. Patches and smears trailed away from it up her arm. It was almost as if someone had painted a circle, very neatly, and then been given a fright and dragged his brush away. But if you looked more closely you saw the mark on her wrist had two parts. Each was shaped like a tear drop, curved like a moon. They fitted into each other perfectly. One was bright red, almost purple; and the other golden brown. In summer it almost vanished in Susan’s tan.

  Nick climbed into bed. He pulled the sheet up to his chin. He had it all worked out. If someone wanted to draw a mark like that, and only had a pebble and a knife, he’d scratch a circle on the stone, then through it he’d draw a curved mark like an S.

  Nick thought of Susan sleeping in her bed, holding that strange message in her hand.

  2

  Jimmy Jaspers

  It was mid-morning when Susan started out. Nick was in the orchard picking plums. He caught a glimpse of her blue T-shirt as she went down the track leading to the river. He ran to the house and put the plums on the bench.

  ‘I’m going for a swim.’

  ‘Susan’s just gone,’ Aunt Pattie said. ‘You’ll catch her if you hurry.’

  He grabbed his togs and ran down to the track. Once there, he did not hurry. He kept her in sight as she walked through the scrub and over the swing bridge. She turned aside when she reached the paddock, and Nick saw she meant to go up the creek. That gave him the time he needed. He waited until she was out of sight, then ran up the paddock through the islands of blackberry, taking the way he’d travelled the pre
vious evening. Soon he heard the distant noise of the old man’s suction dredge.

  When he came to the scrub he went more slowly. The sound of the motor drowned out everything, but he had begun to see the old man as not belonging in the natural world. There was no telling what he might be able to do: hear like a cat? see in the dark with those eyes? He slipped by the tree trunks, through the ferns and mossy boulders, like a shadow. He saw he had made a mistake in wearing bright-coloured clothes.

  Lodestone Creek seemed to vibrate in a kind of patient agony under the noise of that hideous engine. The old man was busily sweeping the shallows, but as Nick came to rest in a hidden cleft between two giant boulders, he straightened up and sent his red glare up and down the creek. He had sensed something. Nick shivered. The old man splashed across to the raft and switched the motor off. Again that menacing silence. Nick tried not to breathe. But after standing for a moment, hands on hips, the old man went to the bank and sat down. A billy was steaming over a fire of twigs. He took a mug from his pack and poured in tea red as blood. He sucked it through his lips with a plug-hole noise. Nick watched him, fascinated. For all his age, there was about him an air of being coiled ready to spring. It gave him the kind of menace one felt in a wild boar.

  He lifted his mug again, sucked at it noisily, wiped his mouth with his hand. Suddenly he was still, with the mug half-way to his mouth. He looked under his eyebrows down the creek. Nick followed his gaze. There was Susan. She had come up silently, and now she stood on a dry stone in the creek and watched the old man with a curious expression, half fright, half expectation. He put his mug down carefully. He grinned at her, showing crooked teeth yellow as corn.

  ‘So girlie,’ he said, ‘that nipper give yer me message?’

  Susan stood with her feet wide apart. Nick saw she was ready to move back the way she had come. The old man saw it too. He gave a laugh.

  ‘Come and talk to me, girlie. I don’t bite.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Susan said. Her voice was soft, a whisper.

  The old man winked cunningly. He stroked his chin and the sound of his hand rasping whiskers came clearly over the creek.

  ‘Ah, that’d be tellin’. But I know all about yer. Nothin’s secret from me.’ He raised his finger, grinning, and drew a circle in the air. He made a curving line through it: an S. It seemed to hypnotize Susan. She moved closer to him, stepping off the rock and approaching along the shingle at the creek-side. She stopped again, out of his reach, and he said in a wheedling tone, ‘Yer don’t have ter be scared of ole Jimmy Jaspers.’

  ‘Are you the one who put the mark on me?’

  ‘What mark, girlie? Show me the mark. I gotter be sure.’

  Susan raised her arm. She showed her wrist. Nick saw the birthmark plainly. It seemed to shine like a brand-new coin.

  ‘Yeah,’ the old man said, ‘that’s the one. Lemme have a squizz. Come a bit closer.’

  Don’t go, Nick wanted to shout. She seemed to be less cautious now. She stepped up to the old man, still showing her wrist, and he nodded and looked at her sidelong. ‘I reckon that’s it, all rightie. No mistake. Ha! Tough luck, girl.’ His hand shot out. He had her by the wrist. She struggled but he gave a laugh. ‘Don’t wriggle. Yer can’t get away. Ole Jimmy’s got yer.’

  ‘Stop, you’re hurting me.’

  ‘Don’t make no difference.’ But he relaxed his grip. ‘Sit down. Keep still. ’Tain’t me yer gotter be scared of.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Jimmy Jaspers. That’s all yer need ter know.’

  ‘You’re not the one who put the mark on me.’

  ‘Never said I was.’

  ‘Where is he? I want to see him.’

  ‘Too late fer that. They fixed ’im long ago.’

  ‘What –’ Susan’s face had a look of such shock and grief Nick felt himself stretching out his hands to comfort her.

  ‘They bust ’is neck. They don’t muck about, them Halfies don’t.’

  ‘He can’t be dead,’ Susan cried. ‘I’ve been waiting. I’ve been waiting all my life.’

  ‘Wasted yer time then, didn’ yer?’ He snapped his fingers, sharp as cracking bones. ‘No trouble ter them geezers. Lemme give yer some advice. Do what they says.’

  Tears were running down Susan’s face. The old man let go her wrist. He looked down at her, seeming pleased at her sorrow. ‘Waterworks won’t get yer nowhere. I gotter send yer through.’ He stepped over his fire and rummaged in his pack. Now, Nick thought, now was the time for Susan to run. He wanted to shout at her, but she was so crumpled, so white, crouched on the ground, that he knew she’d never make it. He felt helpless. What should he do? Go for help? But then he wouldn’t know where the old man took her. He had to keep close and wait for his chance.

  The old man came back to Susan. Nick strained to see what he had in his hand. It was something blue, glittering dully. He said roughly, ‘Come on, girl. Time yer had a sniff.’

  Susan looked up at him. She did not seem to hear properly. She rubbed her wet face with her hands.

  ‘Nuff of that. On yer feet.’ He pulled her up by her arm. It shook her out of her grief and she began to struggle. ‘Keep still, damn yer. Like a ruddy eel.’ He slipped his hand round her back, grabbing a fistful of hair. Susan cried out.

  ‘Stop wrigglin’ an’ it won’t hurt. Now. All yer gotter do is sniff this ’ere.’

  Nick saw it clearly: a blue bottle about the size of a miniature whisky bottle. The old man held it in three fingers and worked the cork out with his forefinger and thumb. It came out with a soft pop. He dropped it on the ground. ‘Come on. This is better’n French perfoom.’

  A yellow smoke began to come from the bottle. It oozed up, almost solid, swaying like a snake. Nick thought it was alive. He smelt again the carbide stink. Susan pulled her head back, threw it back between her shoulder blades, trying to get away from the yellow thing that twisted at her face. But the old man gave her hair a jerk and held her still. The smoke turned easily and coiled by her mouth. Nick saw she was holding her breath. He was holding his own.

  Jimmy Jaspers laughed. ‘Come on girlie, you’ll go pop in a minute.’ And in the end she had to draw in breath; and Nick saw the yellow smoke rush in like a live thing through her mouth.

  The old man let her drop. He picked up the cork and jammed it in the bottle. A puff of yellow drifted over the creek. It seemed to come at Nick and he shrank down. But it went high over him and broke and vanished in the leaves of the trees. When he looked out again the old man was putting the bottle in his pack. Susan was on her knees, with her head hanging down and her hair trailing on the ground. The old man buckled his pack. He grinned at her.

  ‘Better get goin’, girlie. Doesn’t pay ter keep them Halfies waitin’.’

  Susan raised her head. She did not look at him but seemed to glare over the creek. Her face was tightened in a painful grimace. And her eyes, staring blindly, had changed their colour to a reddish-brown. Nick felt the hair prickle on his neck. She stood up. Jimmy Jaspers watched her with a grin. ‘Tell ’em I’ll be comin’ fer me gold.’

  Susan did not make any sign of hearing. She turned and walked stiffly away up Lodestone Creek. She made no attempt to walk on the shingle or move from rock to rock, but marched in a wooden way through the water, not caring as it came up her legs and wet her shorts. Her hair lay in a tangle on her back. She came to a bend in the creek, turned mechanically, and went out of sight.

  Jimmy Jaspers watched her. He did a capering dance, squelching on the shingle fan with his water-logged boots. ‘Whee,’ he yelled, ‘I’m gunner be rich.’

  Nick waited no longer. He slipped back out of the boulders, scuttled up through the bush and ran along the paddock again. Soon he came to its end and followed a path in the scrub. It wound towards the creek, and plunged at last down the face of a cliff to the water. He saw Susan passing below him, still walking in that stiff unhuman way. ‘Susan,’ he called softly. She did not seem to hear. ‘Susan it’s me.
’ She went on and passed from sight. Nick looked cautiously back down the creek. No sign of Jimmy Jaspers. He scrambled down and jumped into the shallow water. He was faster than Susan, he knew. It would be no trouble catching her.

  She was nearly at the gorge when he grabbed her shoulder. ‘Susan. Stop, it’s me.’ She turned her face to him. The burning smell of carbide sent him reeling back. Her red eyes glared at him like fire. She shook herself free and ploughed on through the water. He came at her again. ‘Susan, stop. He’s drugged you. You’ve got to listen.’ He grabbed her by the waist and wrestled her down in the water. She thrashed with her arms and legs, trying to break away. He held her down. ‘Susan, come on. We’ve got to get you home.’ He saw something in her eyes, a flash of blue, flecks of blue, swimming, sinking, underneath the red. That had to be her, that had to be Susan, fighting to get free of the drug.

  ‘Nick,’ she said, ‘Nick. Oh help me, Nick.’ But as she spoke her body kept pulling away, straining to continue that robot walk up Lodestone Creek. And when he lifted her to her feet and dragged her back a few steps towards home, she began to scream; a thin despairing sound like the screaming of a shot rabbit. ‘Oh Nick, oh Nick, it’s pulling me. Oh, let me go. It’s pulling off my head.’ He felt the desperate straining in her, saw her eyes straining in her face. He let her go. At once she set up that wooden walking, ploughed ahead and went into the gorge. All he could do was follow. The grey walls closed over them. The water deepened. He thought for a moment of those giant eels, and then stopped thinking. Nothing was important now except staying close to Susan, saving her.

  She kept ahead of him, walking up to her waist, then up to her armpits, in the black water. The walls of the gorge hung above, leaning in a way that made Nick dizzy. The sky was a thread of blue. He swam side-stroke after her. At last they came out, and a valley he had never seen opened up before him. Susan waded to the bank and set off again. He walked at her side, bending to see her face. Once he tried to hold her by the shoulder, but she sobbed as if he had struck her. ‘Nick, Nick, it’s pulling me.’ There was no way he could help. He held her hand and kept close by her side.