The Dark and What It Said Read online

  But it was the other thing that really attracted their attention. Somewhat behind the weird pedestrians, the twenty or thirty faces pushing in and out, in and out of the dark, each one upturned to the men at the windows: women, children, men, old, young, and one or two none could be sure of. The faces, the people, the things done, the secret memories, all waiting their turn to be whispered back from the safe, dead past.

  The Cross Talk

  Only later did it come back to him with any significance that the telephone rang that afternoon with an odd, flat sound. Not its normal tone.

  Half asleep on the couch, Jeff sat up, a twinge of middle-age backache making itself known in his lower spine as he swung his legs to the floor.

  “Lucy! Lucy?”

  There was no answer from anywhere in the house and the phone was still ringing.

  “What’s the use of being married if you have to answer the phone yourself,” Jeff muttered. He shuffled across to the other side of the living room, picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  Nothing. Not even the honey bee drone of the dial tone.

  He hung up, grumbling, then leaned through the lounge room door. “Lucy?” Jeff frowned. “Where is she?” He clucked his tongue, suddenly remembering. “Of course. Her shopping spree. Brian’s coming home tonight.”

  If Jeff was being honest with himself he had to admit he wasn’t entirely looking forward to meeting again with his estranged son. He’d left the house two years ago, parting on bad terms with his father. “You never take the time to understand me.”

  Jeff had never actually uttered the word disappointment but it’d come close to it. “You never do what I tell you,” had been his reoccurring phrase that had finally pushed Brian away. Now a reunion, brokered by Lucy, the mother, the wife, who had always tried to see both sides. Though she would often tell Jeff that Brian was not a child anymore. “You can’t tell him how to live.”

  Brian was nineteen now –

  No, must be nearer twenty.

  – yet despite misgivings Jeff was curious as to what his son’s independence had wrought. Had he made anything of himself? Was he still as stubborn as he had been or was he more amenable now?

  Jeff turned around and was once more heading for the couch when the phone started again. He glared at it, waiting for it to stop. But it kept ringing, that odd, flat sound. Not its normal ring. Jeff shrugged and picked up the receiver again.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  “Hell-o!”

  Still nothing. He was about to drop the receiver back into its cradle when a faraway voice said, “Dad.”

  Jeff pressed the receiver close to his ear. “Brian? Brian, is that you?”

  “Dad? Dad?” The voice grew louder. “Yes, it’s me. It’s Brian.”

  Two years away and he didn’t sound any different from the day he left.

  In a voice cracked with emotion Jeff said, “Hello, son. How have you been?”

  “Dad, I need your advice.”

  Jeff hesitated. He didn’t know how to answer. His independent son was asking his advice. “About what?” he asked carefully.

  “Dad, I want to know which way to go.”

  “Which way to go? I don’t quite –“

  “I need to know whether I should go on or go back.”

  “Go on or go back? Brian, you’re not making sense.”

  “I don’t know how to express it. I’d like to go back.”

  “Go back?” said Jeff incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  “Absolutely not!”

  “But Dad, I want to … and yet, now that I’m here it seems wrong somehow.”

  “Where’s here?” said Jeff with some of the old annoyance with his son coming back into his voice. It was then that he heard that other sound on the line: an echoing babble, unintelligible and faint in the background as if Brian were calling from a crowded, noisy hall. “Brian, I don’t understand. Where are you?”

  “On the highway … I’m on the highway.”

  “All right. Now tell me what’s happened.”

  “No time to explain –“

  “You’re still the same, aren’t you. Everything I tell you you gainsay.”

  “No … no time … no time.” The voice was fading again as if to underline that there was no time. “Please, Dad. I’ll do what you say. You were right … you were right … but I need to know now: should I go on or should I go back?”

  “You’ll listen to me for once?”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  “Go on.”

  “OK, Dad, I will go on.”

  “You know, Brian, your mother and I really want to see you –“ Jeff stopped, aware he was now talking to silence. The background sounds, the faraway babble had cut off suddenly, without even the click of a receiver being hung up.

  ***

  Brian’s was a closed coffin funeral. His highway accident had smashed him up very badly, though had not killed him outright. He had lingered.

  “I said go on,” Jeff whispered to himself at the graveside. Lucy, crying mother’s tears, never understood what he meant by this; and her husband, never forgiving, never explained.

  Phones make him nervous now. He still waits for one to ring again with that odd, flat sound, not its normal tone.

  All on St. Mark’s Eve

  In the middle of the 19th century divorce was a social stigma; messy, complicated and above all expensive. Murder was easier.

  At least so it seemed to Mrs Katherine Baxter, the young and attractive wife of an elderly retired merchant. Lively and vivacious and with a love of dancing and the theatre, she felt eternally chained by her husband’s reclusive nature and recurring illnesses. Rumour about the village had it that she had only married him for his money. If that were so, Katherine had been terribly short-changed. That they did not seem to have much in common was plain enough, and their arguments were both numerous and raucous. Her few nights out, always taken alone and on nights her husband fell asleep early through exhaustion and illness, she thought of as escapes.

  It was during one of these ‘escapes’ to a country ball that she met a good-looking doctor of her own age by the name of Henderson. Gossip soon whispered of clandestine meetings with this young doctor and how Mrs Baxter was longing, more than ever now, for her husband’s death.

  The sight and sound and particularly the smell of old Baxter when sick nauseated and infuriated her: his pallor, his hacking cough, his constant bed-ridden condition and perpetually drinking of medicines and swallowing of pills. Whether the idea of murder first occurred to Katherine or to her paramour, later neither could remember. Putting the thought into action, she persuaded her ailing husband to give up his own doctor on the pretext that he was not doing him any good, and consult her medical lover. So Dr Henderson, smiling, kindly Dr Henderson, became Mr Baxter’s new physician, coming every day in his sulky with phials and seething mixtures so strangely different to the medicines administered by his predecessor.

  Not long after this Mr Baxter grew steadily more ill, growing paler and weaker. Indeed, the servants in the house implored Mrs Baxter to reinstate the original doctor, but she would not hear of it. They also noticed that the worse the master became the more cheerful was Mrs Baxter’s demeanour.

  By now the two lovers had grown less circumspect and were openly socializing with each other at dances, the theatre and glamorous parties. One evening while attending a soirée given by the fashionable and somewhat bizarre Mrs Salisbury, their hostess, dressed in silks of red and yellow, approached, and with a cryptic smile and a nod said, “The 24th of April is at hand, my dear, the Eve of St Mark’s.”

  “Indeed?” said Katherine politely, but exchanged puzzled glances with her partner the doctor, for neither understood to what she referred.

  “Ah! The younger generation’s neglect of tradition,” Mrs Salisbury sighed, realizing the problem “When I was a girl it was quite the thing on the Eve of St Mark’s for those with nerves strong enough to
watch at the midnight hour on the porch of the church.”

  “Watch for what?” asked Dr Henderson.

  “For the phantasms of those of the parish destined to die over the following twelve months.”

  “And does the village make an outing of it?”

  “Oh no! No one from the village goes near the church on the Eve of St Mark’s. None but the old believe in the silly superstition, and the old won’t go for fear of what they might see.” She gave Katherine Baxter a wink. “But it would be a curious experience if a death were expected, would it not?”

  And with that she was gone in a whirl of red and yellow to dispense pearls of unlooked-for wisdom among her other party guests, leaving Dr Henderson and his lady to once more exchange glances. But this time the glances were speculative for now their thoughts were filling with a wild surmise.

  ***

  On St Mark’s Eve, Katherine Baxter and Dr Henderson arrived at the church in the doctor’s sulky just as the stroke of twelve sounded on the village hall clock. All was dark and quiet, as was the small churchyard, deserted and still, the headstones showing as dark, brooding shadows seeming to hump out of the ground.

  The two crept to the church porch, there to wait and to watch for whatever may happen. The midnight wind blew cold from across the cemetery and swirled into the porch and about the lovers as if to warn them of what was to come, implore them to leave while they still could. Neither spoke but only huddled together for warmth and to ward off fear – especially the fear of what they expected, even hoped, to see.

  They did not have long to wait.

  The wind suddenly dropped. Somewhere out in the night in the direction of the churchyard came the long, loud squeak of the lichgate opening, and presently through the darkness a form, somewhat stooped, came silently and with slow, measured steps along the path to the main door of the church. Huddling there, Mrs Baxter and Dr Henderson shrank back as it approached, a bent, shrunken thing in a grey winding sheet gaining definition as it neared.

  It was old Baxter. Even with the ravages of illness, death and the effects of the doctor’s potions upon his features, he was still recognizable as the aged and despised husband.

  The door to the church swung back of its own accord, and the corpse, looking neither right nor left, stalked by the pair and entered, leaving behind the sickly scent of corruption. The door closed silently behind it, and for an instant every window of the church lit with a brilliant, unearthly light. Then all was still and dark again.

  For a moment the two stood on the porch, too astonished to move or to speak. Then as their senses returned an evil glee stirred within them, conquering their fear. They embraced, kissed and laughed together a wicked laugh, knowing their deed would be fulfilled. Sick old man Baxter would die and his un-grieving widow would be free to remarry, to live and be happy once more.

  Taking her by the hand, Dr Henderson raced Katherine Baxter with flying steps back to the sulky, and galloped away, their hearts filled with joy and dark passions.

  In later days as they sat in their separate places pondering their future they may have regretted so hasty a departure from the church porch. If they had stayed a while longer they might have seen two more phantasms, each in its grey winding sheet, slip through the squeaking lichgate, troop up to the church door and enter, smelling of death. They might have seen that it was themselves, their heads lolling lopsided as they stepped, the hangman’s rope still close about the neck.

  Due West

  One afternoon, Arthur Lewisham peered through the keyhole of an empty room in his own home and regretted it for ever after.

  Lewisham had lived in the house nearly two years: a neat and recently built cottage on Murphy Road in the town of Graxton, a hundred miles due west of Brisbane in the vast back country of Queensland. While others had flocked to the cities for what little work there was in the middle of the Great Depression, Lewisham, a retired history teacher, had retreated to this quiet country town to write his book on the causes and consequences of the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. It had taken his son Michael, and he was determined to make what sense he could of it.

  The cottage, one of a scattering along Murphy Road, had two bedrooms. Mr Lewisham slept in the smaller of them, using the master bedroom at the back to store his excess of books, journals and papers. As a result, the master bedroom was rarely entered.

  On one of these occasions, late on a busy writing day, Lewisham deposited a pile of papers and books on the floor of the back bedroom, beside another pile of books and in front of another pile of papers. He straightened up, feeling the bones click down his spine. He knew he’d been hunched over his typewriter too long, that he should get out for some exercise, even if it was just a short bicycle ride along Murphy Road. But his writing had reached the Battle of Lone Pine, a point of particular and personal interest. Besides, it was late in the day; the afternoon sun slanted faint red through the window.

  He hurried out and closed the door. It had never latched properly, so long ago he had contrived to keep it shut by looping a rubber band over the doorknob and knotting the other end around a nail hammered into the jamb. However, as soon as he’d stretched the band over the doorknob it occurred to him he couldn’t recall if he had switched off the room’s light. Electricity had only reached Graxton the year before, and the house had been wired just a few weeks previous. Two years away from cities had made Lewisham unused to light switches.

  He muttered to himself. His writing called and it was all too much trouble to unhook the band from around the doorknob again, open the door and see. He peeped through the keyhole.

  All was dark within, which satisfied him -- though only for an instant. As he lifted his eye away it occurred to him that it was too dark. Where was the light from the side window?

  He peered through again. Was there something there, obstructing his view? Had he left a coat hanging on the inside doorknob?

  Feeling a martyr to curiosity he took the few seconds to stretch the rubber band off and open the door.

  Afternoon light shone weakly through the side window, giving the room a sense of twilight. Diffuse shadows stretched from piles of books and papers, and pooled beneath and behind an old armchair, broken and unstuffed. He craned his head around the door and made sure there was nothing hanging from the inside knob. He stepped into the room and put his eye to the keyhole. He saw part of the room’s wall and part of the door frame.

  Again he went to the other side and, holding the door ajar, looked through from there. His view took in part of a wall, the piles of books, the broken chair, all plainly visible.

  Closing the door and holding it shut with his hand, he pressed an eye yet again to the keyhole.

  Darkness.

  “Bloody queer.” He swept the door open, as if to surprise the mystery. But the room stood as it should.

  By now he had forgotten his eagerness to return to the typewriter. Determined not to be defeated by this puzzle, he tried various experiments. He fetched the key of the room and locked and unlocked the door as it stood open, then looked again, seeing nothing more or less than what he should. He shone a lantern though either side and saw its light each time without obstruction. He took a stepladder into the room and sat the lantern on its top step so that it shone directly at the keyhole. He then went out, shut the door and peered through into the room. He saw only darkness.

  “Damnation!”

  He made to push the door open again, but stopped when he saw the darkness was not complete. As if his eye were becoming accustomed to a night scene, it seemed he could now make out stars in a night sky.

  They were dim and needed time to be perceived clearly, but it soon grew on Lewisham that he was seeing the incredible through the keyhole of his back bedroom door. And not only stars: the features of a landscape, silhouettes of trees, a grassy paddock hedged by an old-fashioned fence of ironbark poles, all bathed in a full moonlight that grew stronger as he looked. Arthur Lewisham pulled his eye from the keyhole. It scared h
im, it bewildered him, but above all it filled him with a sense of wonder unfelt since childhood.

  ***

  Lone Pine was a knowing sacrifice of the youth of Australia. It was supposed to be a feint to distract the Turks from a British landing at Suvla Bay. Instead it turned into a massacre for both sides in mostly hand-to-hand fighting, the ferocity of which has been unmatched in --

  Arthur Lewisham stared at the unfinished sentence in his typewriter; stared without really seeing. The sun had since set and the swiftness of a bush night had settled over Graxton, Murphy Road and Arthur Lewisham. For the first time in a long while he was not thinking of the useless waste of his son’s life. He was not thinking of anything. Electric light blazed all through the house. Every so often he raised his eyes and turned his head to look through the kitchen to the back bedroom door. It hadn’t so much as trembled in the three hours since he’d backed away from it in awe. He wanted to look again, but dared not. What if something looked back?

  Maybe something is looking back, right now, watching me through the keyhole sitting here like a frightened child, too scared to act, to think, to do anything but sit in the light.

  At length he bestirred himself, going over his notes and the finished portion of his manuscript. But it all seemed a jumble of meaningless words and he soon found his attention drifting back, his head turning again to that door, knowing that sooner or later he would be once more pressing his eye to its keyhole.

  As it was, Nature rather than the Bizarre called first. The earth closet was in the back yard, so he put off his body’s urgings for as long as he could with any spurious excuse his mind could find. He checked his notes again. He stacked wood and kindling beside the kitchen stove. He even thought of going out the front and into the empty paddock opposite. But in the end he stood up and strode out the back, passing the back bedroom door as if it didn’t really matter.