Wrath

PROLOGUE

I’ve never been in a courtroom before. There’s something creepy about it. I don’t know if it’s all that old wood everywhere with panelling on the walls, doors, benches, and rails—a bit like a coffin, really. It’s how I imagine it might be after you die, sitting and waiting to see if you’re going to be sent to Heaven or Hell. Not that I believe in any of that crap. When you’re dead, you’re dead. Kaputzki! That’s all, folks.

Look at that old codger behind the bench up there. He’s the one who’s going to finally say what happens to me. What makes him God? He will decide whether I’m guilty or not. That shouldn’t be too hard. I rang the cops and said I’d killed him—them. Hardly rocket science.

The panel comes in and sits down. I don’t get a real jury because of my age. I look at them one by one with my toughest face on, the one where I make my eyes go kind of dead.

First there’s a man of about 50, I guess, and he doesn’t really want to be here. I can tell. He’s sneaking a look at the clock on the wall behind the judge’s head. His shirt and tie look cheap and tacky, like he’s dressed for a funeral. Maybe he is.

My heart thumps, and I make it calm down. Don’t think. Just look. I can’t really see the rest of him from where I’m sitting. He sees me looking at him and looks away fast.

There’s a woman next to him. She looks like someone’s kind grandmother, with hair like white fairy floss in a bun on top of her head and a powdery, lined face. She catches me looking at her too and swivels her head down quickly.

One by one, I scan them, feeling like a robot or maybe one of those clown things at the Royal Show—the ones that turn their heads while you drop balls down their gaping mouths. I wish I were a machine too—no feelings—but as I think that, it happens: that horrible, deep, dark…what can I call it? Tingle? No, that’s not strong enough. It’s like a deep electrical shock running through my body—up my legs, down my arms. It’s bad, really bad. I feel like I’m going to fall.

I’m not a machine! I want to shout. I’m a boy! I’m real, and I want to go home now! Make all this stop! But I have no home—no mother, no father, no sister…and no stepfather either. Can he really be gone forever? Thank God! Not that God wants to be thanked by me. Not after what I did. When I die, I’ll go to Hell… Oh, bullshit. Don’t fall for all that bullshit. But what if…? Just shut up! Shut up!

I hear a voice. It’s Mr Bloom. Are you all right, Luca? You’re twitching and mumbling. Keep calm! he whispers. I nod and concentrate on breathing slower than slow so that everything fades and there’s nothing but the drone of voices…

CHAPTER ONE

Last night, I dreamed I was flying. I know heaps of kids who say they’ve dreamed that. Why is that? Maybe because we’re kind of chained to the earth. Think about it. Nearly every sport there is tries to free us from the dirt, if only for a moment. We try to jump higher, longer; we run so we can leap away; we swim so we can know weightlessness; we climb mountains, ice skate, paraglide. So if we’re supposed to have ‘come from dust’, why are we so desperate to get away from it?

Anyway, my dream: I was flying. I can’t exactly remember how I got in the air, but I felt so good. The wind was warm in my face, and there was no sound except for the wind’s hiss in my ears as I swooped and glided. I looked down, and the earth below me—which had been so neatly drawn up into rectangles of emerald, lime and yellow—began changing, and I felt panic. I could see beneath the green, and it was not controlled by lines but by mouldy seething brown. I was falling towards it faster and faster.

The wind was screaming in my ears now—or was that my screaming?—and I knew that if I hit the ground, I would be dead, but I did hit it and just passed straight through. Now there was no wind in my ears—only silence and darkness—but I kept on falling, and I knew it would never stop. Then I woke with a jump, shouting garbled, strangled sounds.

I lay in the dark, panting and almost glad to have woken up in my bed, even if this cell is a type of grave, a type of earthless burrow where I’ll be stuck forever. I know I’m trapped here. I’m in here for 23 out of 24 hours at the moment, ‘under observation’. That may change, or maybe I’ll have no one to talk to—ever. No way I’m going to talk to that psych the court appointed. But there is somebody… There’s you. I can talk to you. I know you’ll never answer, but you’re out there. I’ll write everything down—not like those ‘Dear Diary’ things that girls write in and giggle over, all little plastic locks and pink butterflies—no, I’m writing to you. I know you’re out there; I can feel you there.

I want to go over all of this in my mind to get it straight—no, not in my mind; I get all messed up and panicky when I think all the time. I want to write it down. It has to be orderly then—not one thought crowding another out. I just want to tell you everything that’s happened so you can help me make sense of it, help me understand. I need to know there’s someone out there who’s listening to me. I know it’s not possible, but unless I do this, I’m going to go nuts. I can feel insanity creeping up on me. I won’t even imagine you as a woman or a man, old or young—just someone who’ll hear me out and help me.

Just listen to me. Please.

I’ll start right at the beginning. We were born near Geraldton, a town on the coast of Western Australia, if you haven’t heard of it. I’ll just explain that ‘we’ first. I’m a twin, so I’ve never really felt that saying ‘I was born’ sounds right. I was born first and then 10 minutes later, Katy. It’s a funny thought that we were squashed up together, floating around and maybe battling for room near the end, sleeping and growing in that reddish glow that must be the womb. How many old grans have made that joke! Oh, you’re a pair of womb mates! And they cackle away as though they’ve just made the most hilarious joke in history.

I wonder how it was decided that I came first? I was a bit bigger than Katy, so I probably muscled my way down, head locked in position like a torpedo, and then boom! Out we came like two slippery fish, my mother said. Mum, you gave me life and then I took yours away. God help me. But I’m not going to think about that now. I’m not going to think about what’s happening now at all. I’m just going back. Trying to remember my life, my existence when I did exist, out there.

Home was a typical little country town half an hour’s drive from Geraldton. There was really just a pub, a shop that sold everything from farm machinery to flour to razor blades, a post office, a Catholic church, a hall, a railway station and a cluster of little houses with red tin roofs and saggy fences. The school was a 20-minute walk away from my house, sandwiched between the Anglican church and the river. Just up the road from home was the football oval with a couple of corrugated iron lean-tos—one for our supporters and one for the opposing team’s—and a dry, dusty tennis court with sprigs of grass groping up through the cracks.

My first memories are of our room. Katy and I didn’t exactly share a room; it was a sleep-out that Dad had made by filling in the L-shaped veranda that went around the front and side of our little house. Katy’s bed was at one end of the L and mine was at the other, so we couldn’t see each other around the corner, but we could hear each other and talk as much as we liked.

We thought it was perfect. Katy would say, It’s good that we’ve got our own space but we’re still kind of together. That’s how it’ll always be, won’t it, Luca? Wherever you are, even if I can’t see you, I know you’ll be just around the corner and you’ll be able to hear me one way or another.

And I’d say, Always, Katy. We’ll always be near each other. And when we die, we’ll die at the same time, just like how we were born at the same time.

Funny; I always thought I had hardly any memory at all of when I was a little kid, but somehow being in here and being so quiet has made things jump out at me from the past. It’s like the past is murky water and now that everything’s still, all the dirt’s settled on the bottom and bits are starting to clear. Or maybe it’s just because I’m writing it down so I can tell you about it. Who knows? Anyway, I like it. It reminds me that I’m more than just a lump of meat locked in a cell.

Katy and I both got Dad’s black hair, but mine’s fairly curly while Katy’s is just soft and wavy. Come to think of it, it’s like she got the softer version all the way. Her eyes are big and blue; mine are dark. Her nose is a smaller version of mine—lucky for her, because mine is huge. Her mouth is small and full; mine is a line with hardly any lips at all. Despite all that, you can still tell we’re twins, easy!

Her name’s cute and soft too—whereas mine…! What were they thinking? Mum says there was a song she used to like which had the first line ‘My name is Luca’ and then when she met Dad, he told her he’d gotten his black curly hair from his grandfather, whose name was Luca, in Italy. That clinched it for her. She thought it was a sign. Kids at school called me ‘Lucy’. Great.

Dad was a mechanic, and he had a big workshop out the back. The back yard wasn’t too pretty, with cars and trucks waiting to be repaired and car parts spilling out of the shed, but I loved it. Just walking outside and into that shed made me want to hurry and grow up. It smelt like man stuff, and Dad smelt that way too. Kind of an oily, tangy, slightly sweaty smell with a mix of a whole lot of stuff I can’t really name. Dad went out to the farms to fix the tractors, trucks, generators and pumps. He did okay even though most people on the land are pretty handy.

Mum was always trying to get some flowers to grow out there, but with all the customers’ boots and greasy water sluicing out over the ground, she had no hope. She’d say, Just a few roses for the house; just a spot for some vegetables, and she’d work away, trying to keep the sun from shrivelling those little plants to death if they’d made it past everything else. But they’d all die, no matter what. It seemed to be such a big thing to her.

I’d said to her once, when she was down on her knees pulling out all those dried up little plant bodies, Don’t worry about it, Mum. Just buy some veggies and flowers, but she’d turned on me, her eyes filling with tears, and she’d said, You just don’t understand! I’ve got to get something to grow.

Then in a day or two, there she’d be with a new packet of seeds, down on her knees in that gravelly red dirt, planting each one and tucking it in like it was a newborn baby. Her face would be all smiley and soft, and she’d look up at me and say, Maybe this time, Luca. I feel like these ones are going to grow. ’Course they never did.

I found out a lot later why she was so upset. One night, when I got up to go out the back, I heard her snuffling away and Dad murmuring soft, and then her voice rose and she said, But Dan, even the cow in the paddock can drop a calf. I’ve done it before. Why can’t I do it again? I couldn’t hear what Dad said, but I went back to bed a bit stunned. I’d never thought Mum would want more than just Katy and me. Any other kid would be the odd one out here. I shook my head and rolled over. A pity those plants wouldn’t grow, maybe then she’d forget about growing more kids.

Apart from that, life rolled on, one day pretty much the same as the next. Katy and I would play together, with her making up stories and mud pies, and me building cities, roads, bridges and wharves out of all the nuts and bolts, bricks and odd tins that littered our yard, near each other but rarely doing the same thing.

Sometimes, Dad would shout, Luca! Come and give me a hand, and I’d drop what I had in my hand and run to the shed. I really didn’t do much, just clean up or sort screws into their different containers, but what I loved was the talk. Dad would start, and I’d just open my ears and brain and suck it in. He’d always talk about his family. I can see it now, the light slanting in through the clear panels he’d put in the roof, dust dancing in the rays. He’d lean back on the bench and file away at some rusty old bit of metal till it was just the shape and size he wanted. I’d see the dust streaked in the sweat down his forehead, his olive skin gleaming.

Have I ever told you about my brother Peter? he’d say, and though I knew it all by heart, I’d shake my head. No, Dad, not really.

"He was the eldest in our family. First Peter, then Anthony, then Philippa, then me. He was eight years older than me, but he was the one I loved the most. He used to take me with him whenever he went out with his mates. They would get a bit sick of me tagging along, I think. We’d go down to the river and swim, and if any of the boys got too rough with me, Peter would grab them and threaten to flatten them. His eyes would flash, and he’d grit his teeth as he spoke, and even I got frightened.

"One day, one of the boys, Jeremy Muir, said, ‘But Peter, why don’t you leave him home sometimes? He’s just a little pest.’

"‘He’s my brother,’ Peter said flatly.

"‘I know, but we’re your friends.’

"Peter smiled at him. ‘I know that, but you may not always be my friends. He will always be my brother. He wants to come, and I want him here. If you don’t like it, swim somewhere else.’

That’s how he was, Luca. Family first—always. You remember that. And I’d nod and sort some screws, and we’d both be silent. I loved those times.

Got to stop now. Meal time. The siren’s just gone, so in a minute the door will swing open, and there will be the guard. I can hear doors opening and the sound of footsteps getting louder as he gets closer.

CHAPTER TWO

The door rasps open, and I look up, expecting the guard to put a tray of food on the small desk in the corner. Instead, he says, Right, sport. No more room service. Time to join everyone else in the dining room.

I look up at him, taking in the grey, clipped hair, the blue eyes, the blank expression and the name tag on his shirt that says ‘Owen’.

Come on, look lively!

I jump off the bed and move towards the door.

Wait till I’m outside! he barks, turning and leaving my room. I walk to the door and step outside. To my left, I see a row of boys, mostly a bit older than me, I think, stretching back to the end of a wide corridor. Across the gap to the other side, there is another row of boys in a line, shuffling towards a pair of large swing doors at the end of the building. The boys are all dressed like me, in navy-blue track pants and T-shirts.

One of them is staring at me, his face hard. His orange hair clashes oddly with his red face, and he glowers at me as though he hates me. Then I realise that he is at the head of the row and they are all waiting for me to get in line and start walking. I turn to the right and step in behind the guard. He strides off towards the doors, which open with a loud whirring noise as we get closer.

Beyond the doors is a large room so brightly lit that I wince, with rows of tables and benches. On the back wall is a line of older boys standing behind steaming pots of food, large ladles ready in their hands. The boys in the long line I had seen on the other side of the corridor are grabbing trays, and as they file past each upraised ladle, food is tipped onto their plates. As the line moves along, there is no talk, just the sound of the plates rattling and shoes scuffing across the grey linoleum floor.

I follow the guard to the end of the first line, and then he steps back, motioning me forward with an impatient wave. I take a tray from the pile and step back to the line to wait my turn for the food. He nudges me and mutters, Table Five.

I turn and see numbers in metal holders in the middle of each table, and then it is my turn at the first counter.

Soup?

I nod, and a quick ladlefull is dropped in a bowl and pushed towards me. I put it on my tray and then move along. The food looks watery, but there is plenty of it—boiled potatoes, beans, carrots, sausages—and I nod for all of it. At the end of the counter are tubs of yoghurt and small dishes of jelly and custard. I load up, shoving the plates close together to make room, and then, eyes straight ahead, I walk to Table Five.

Boys sit on the benches lining the tables all over the room, and low chatter and the odd laugh merges into a low, swelling undercurrent of noise. I put my tray on the table, step over the bench and sit down, trying not to hunch over too much, and then I start eating the soup slowly even though I want to slurp it down fast, grab the tray and run back to my room.

What ya’ in for, Skinny?

I force myself to count to five and then turn and look straight at the rat-faced boy next to me.

Flattening arseholes with big mouths, I say quietly and then keep eating my soup. I will my hand to keep steady, but my heart is jumping.

A laugh bursts out of the dark boy opposite me. Good answer, kid, he says.

I look up, keeping my face blank. He’s about 17, with a snub nose and warm, deep-set eyes,