Free Candelo by Georgia Blain Page A

being such anabsent father. An appalling father. He needed to know that I forgave him. And as he talked to me, he started to cry.
    I was speechless.
    Don’t
, I finally managed to say.
    He told me he understood if I did not want to talk. But he needed to tell me he was sorry.
    We never mentioned it again.
    I assume he made the same call to Simon, and I can only guess that Simon would have responded a little more sympathetically than I had. He, too, would have been uncomfortable with Bernard’s outburst, but at the least, he would have listened without judging.
    Sometimes when I am visiting Vi, when I am sitting with her on the couch, or sorting her papers, Simon comes home. He stands, bulky in the doorway, and for a moment he does not know whether to come in or whether to go straight to his room.
    Hi
, he says, and he seems about to take a step towards us, but then he changes his mind.
    I can see the hesitation on his face and I know why he falters.
    He wonders whether we have been talking about Evie again.
    He scratches his hand nervously and he turns to the stairs, and I know he must fear the places to which our talk could lead.
    To Candelo.
    To Mitchell.
    And to the funeral that neither of us has mentioned since our return.

fourteen

    Vi never told us what she knew about Mitchell. What was in the files. The few scraps of information she gave us, coupled with the little that he said, comprised the sum total of all I knew.
    He was sixteen. He had been to four foster homes. He had never finished school. He sleepwalked. His family was poor. He wanted to surf. And he wanted to be in a band.
    With the broom handle in one hand, he winked at Evie and started to sing. Badly. She wrinkled up her nose and blocked her ears.
    You sound terrible
, she told him.
    He looked at us. Even Simon shook his head in acknowledgement.
Maybe you could learn an instrument
, he suggested.
    Or use it to sweep
, and I pointed at the broom handle, now clutched in his hands like a guitar.
    He followed me into the lounge room, still singing, leaving Simon and Evie in the kitchen.
    The room was even more of a mess in daylight, the curtains hanging by two or three hooks, the fabric torn and soiled, thechairs covered in sheets thick with dust, the paint peeling off the walls and the fireplace piled high with rubbish.
    With my sleeve, I rubbed a circle in the dirt that coated the window and looked out over the garden, the fruit trees, the remains of an old well now choked with weeds, and the cypress trees marking the border between what had once been carefully cultivated and what lay beyond. In the distance, I could see the miles of rolling paddocks, not smooth, but punctuated by boulders, lichen-covered and erupting out of the earth, the stark silhouettes of streaky gums, and beyond that the grey-blue of the mountains, the snow country.
    It was the stillness that was strange. I forced the window up. Nothing. Just the soft rush of the wind across the grass.
    And I leant out and listened.
    Can you hear?
I asked Mitchell.
    The quiet?
    And we both stayed there, our elbows resting on the sill, not wanting to move, not wanting to break the silence.
    But it didn’t last. From across the courtyard, Vi began to type, the keys clattering as she wrote, followed by a long pause before she started again. In the stillness of the morning, the sound was clear, carrying through the French doors which were open wide to let in the light.
    What’s she doing?
Mitchell asked. He lifted one of the dust sheets gingerly, uncertain as to what he would find beneath it.
    I told him she was writing a paper.
    What about?
    I didn’t know.
Welfare, domestic violence, youth crime
. I shrugged my shoulders.
    What for?
    And I couldn’t answer him.
It’s what she does
.
    He whipped another sheet off a chair, this time with a flourish, the dust floating high and then falling.
    Ever been to jail?
I asked him, not sure how he would react but wanting to show him that he