Game as Ned Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Kristin

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  PART 1: NED

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  PART 2: ERIN

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  PART 3: ERIN & NED

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  PART 1

  NED

  CHAPTER 1

  I know what people say. They reckon I’m simple. Call me dumb. Retard. Spastic. Some of them don’t even bother doing it behind my back. They don’t get a response so they do it to my face. Think I don’t understand.

  Nigel Collier started it. Back in primary school. From the moment I arrived, he was on my case. Thought he had my number, he did. He lived a couple of blocks from my place. He’d seen me around. Knew I wouldn’t answer back, no matter what he dished out. So he started this chant: ‘Neddy, Neddy, never ready; ain’t got nothin’ in his heady.’ For a moron like Nigel, it was probably his greatest work.

  I was walking home from school when the chant began. Burst from nowhere. Everywhere and nowhere. Noise, noise, sneering, jeering, horrible noise! I remember spinning around, expecting to see Collier or one of his mates. The footpath, vacant. The chant, the noise, coming from all around. For a moment I just stood there, so crook-in-the-guts-scared I nearly threw up.

  Had to run. Surely the chant couldn’t follow. I took off, hurtling down the Barnaby Street hill. Then a thud against my shoulder — an apple hurled from somewhere. I stopped. Peered back up the hill. Saw Collier and three of his buddies climbing down from trees beside the path. Heard them: ‘We’re coming to get you, spazzo!’

  Running again, sprinting, desperately afraid. Then tripping, falling forward, hands outstretched. Palms shredded and burning. School trousers scored and dark with blood. In the distance, laughter. I understood hate then. Tasted it. For the first time, I hated. Hated Nigel Collier.

  My nickname, Ned, stuck from when I was born. My proper name is Nicholas. Nicholas Edwards. The nurses wrote N. Edwards on the crib but Grandpa forgot his specs when he visited. He read the card aloud as ‘Nedwards’ and, laughing, abbreviated it to Ned.

  Dad’s dead. Killed in Vietnam, he was. He and Mum were only kids when they had me. Barely seventeen. Dad didn’t stick around when he found out Mum was pregnant. He left and went to the city.

  Mum did a runner too. Six months after I was born. Maybe she went looking for Dad. Don’t know if she found him. We heard he got an apprenticeship, then joined the army. That he died when I was eight. Mum wrote a few times but we haven’t heard from her. Not for years.

  Gran and Grandpa brought me up. Gran died five years ago. It’s just the two of us now. Grandpa and me. We live a quiet, orderly life. Almost totally quiet. Because I don’t speak. Not ever. I don’t like to communicate at all.

  Over the years I’ve had all sorts of doctors and experts look me over. Peer in my ears. Shine lights down my throat and into my eyes. ‘Unresponsive’ is a word I’ve heard a lot of. ‘No medical reason …’ is another phrase they use. The white-coats pin my silence on all manner of things. Autism. Brain damage. Even plain old bad behaviour.

  They’ve stuck pins in me, trying to make me cry out. Set off loud noises to startle me into speaking. Even tried teasing me, provoking me to respond. Thankfully, Grandpa always intervened before they could take things further. Before they tried electric shocks or stuff like that.

  If it weren’t for Grandpa, I’d probably be locked away by now. He told ’em. Said he wouldn’t have a bar of it. No medications. No cruel therapy. He told them he’d care for me as I am, autistic or otherwise.

  Grandpa has his own theories on why I keep things to myself. He blames it on my mum.

  ‘You know, Ned,’ he says in the one-way conversations he has with me. ‘I reckon you’re like a garden. When your mother walked out she planted a tree in that garden that blocked out the sun. Maybe when that tree grows so tall that its branches let the sun in again, things will start to grow. Maybe then you’ll come out of the shadows.’

  That’s Grandpa. He likes to think stuff through. Explain it in ways he understands. Why not? The doctors never gave him anything better to work with.

  Is my silence because of Mum? I don’t know. I don’t remember her. Just the absence of her. The empty space. Grandpa doesn’t discuss her. Gran, while she was still with us, burst into tears if anyone mentioned her name.

  There are no photos of Mum around the house. They probably thought pictures might upset me. The truth is I’d be curious. I’d like to look at her face. See if she’s like me. I like to watch people, as long as they don’t notice. Reckon I’m a good judge of character, too. Have to be. It helps me avoid people: anyone who might intrude on my space.

  Thinking about Mum confuses me. I don’t know what I feel. Or what I should feel. And it’s when I’m uncertain the panic begins. It rises up, black and heavy. Dumps me like a wave. Sucks me under. Rips me away into its ocean. Unfathomable fear.

  CHAPTER 2

  I told you I live an ordered life. Consistent. No surprises. That’s ’cause routine means nothing swoops like a spring magpie. Nothing shocks like a cranky dog, barking from behind a fence. Routine helps me feel safe.

  For instance, each and every night Grandpa grips the warm plates with a crinkled tea towel and carries them from the bench to the table. He slides the dinner plates into their places between the knives and forks, frowning with concentration just like when he’s parking the car. Next he leans back and neatly drapes the towel over the rail in front of the sink. He slowly pulls his chair towards him, lifting it ever so slightly so the legs don’t catch in the holes worn in the lino. Gripping the table, he sits slowly and bows his head. Time for him to pray: ‘God is good. We are grateful. Thank you, God, for this here plateful.’ Then he lifts his head. His tired eyes twinkle. He grins. Time to eat.

  I wrap myself in routines like old blankets. They don’t just make me feel safe; they give shape to my day. I’ve got routines for everything. Getting dressed. Doing chores. Even for walking around town.

  As I walk, there’s stuff I check on. Every day, my catalogue of constancy: a cat that suns itself on a veranda; a nest high in a tree; faded signs on shop walls; a creaking weather vane; a splinter of quartz glinting in an asphalt footpath. It feels solid, knowing they don’t change. Gives me certainty. Lets me know there’s stuff I can rely on.

  Silence protects me too. You watch any room of people. The loud ones get all the attention. The quiet ones get ignored. The quiet ones don’t put demands on the people in charge. They just make up the numbers.

  At school I’d been silent so long I was furniture. Invisible. Th
e kids ignored me, except for Collier and his buddies. The teachers, apart from Miss Kendall, never asked me questions. I was an empty desk at the back of the room. A shadow.

  It’s one thing to be cocooned by silence, another to keep your feelings from the world. I tramp my feelings down. Stamp them into a dark, private place. Somewhere hidden, so no one can guess what is going on. I don’t let emotion bubble to the surface. Won’t even let a frown flicker across my forehead, if I can help it.

  It wasn’t always this way. I had to learn. Learn to slow my breathing. Wrestle down my pulse until the surges of fear subside. Focus on a safe thought or image. Picture it in my mind again and again, over and over, around and around until it spins, spins so fast it wipes all feelings away. Spins me numb.

  When I was very young, only pain worked to stamp down the terror. Or moving, fast as I could. I’d curl up, press my fists to my eyes. Wrap myself in a blanket, barricade the clamour of noises, block out the needles of light. Or bite my hands. Squeeze my fingernails into my palms until they bled. Run in spirals. Or rock back and forth, back and forth for hours. Alone. Afraid. Always afraid.

  Then I found things that calmed me. Safe stuff. A favourite ribbon; a threadbare teddy; a box of smooth riverstones collected on a fishing trip with Grandpa. These things made me feel secure. Until Nigel Collier. He demolished the sanctuary I was beginning to build.

  Gran and Grandpa used to take me to church. Every Sunday. I’d sit between them, clutching Bear. I’d try to make sense of the routines: when to stand, when to sit, when to close my eyes. Then Collier struck. Played a trick. Made me scream inside.

  Amid the mumble of prayer, I closed my eyes. Bear was beside me. Opened my eyes; Bear was gone. I froze, breathless with panic. Gritted my teeth until the terror, rage, horror bounced slower in my chest. Looked left, then right. Forced myself to lower my head for another prayer, delaying my search. The prayer ended. Bear was back. I grasped him so tight my arm cramped.

  Then a final prayer, ending the service. And I felt it again. Someone tugging. Don’t touch! No! Don’t touch! Someone trying to take Bear away again.

  The service over, my grandparents stood and began the polite ritual of greeting people. I turned slightly, without raising my head enough to look anyone in the eyes. Saw Nigel Collier. My tormentor. One chubby arm reaching for Bear through the back of the pew.

  A sneer smeared across his face.

  Tough lesson. I stopped carrying Bear around. In case he went missing. Got nicked. I couldn’t put my faith in things. No more than people. Strength had to come from inside.

  CHAPTER 3

  I didn’t attend the early years of school. Didn’t like mixing with other kids. Too unpredictable. Too noisy. Besides, the experts kept telling Grandpa that as long as I was ‘unresponsive’, I’d be better off in an institution. So I stayed home.

  After my encounter with Collier, I learned to keep to myself. To block other kids out. I was getting good at it — attending church, going shopping — following public routines without visible distress. I guess that’s when they decided I was ready for school.

  The principal of Lawler Street Primary School, Mr Barry, was a kind, gnomish man, friendly with Grandpa. Whether he demanded the staff take me in I’ll never know. But I was deposited straight into Grade 4 with kids a year younger than me. And Nigel Collier, who was repeating.

  I shut myself down. Bricked them out. Didn’t participate. Ever. The teacher, he ignored me. That was fine by me. I’m grateful to him for another thing, too. He was the one who came up with the idea of shunting me off to the library, to get me out of his classroom.

  At the end of each year I was promoted to the next grade. Beats me how. I had nothing to show for proof of learning. Guess each teacher thought they’d had their turn. The shadow could disappear into the darkness, in someone else’s class.

  But when I got to Grade 6, there was nowhere to go. I jammed in the system.

  From what I can gather, there was no way they could promote me to high school. I couldn’t go forwards, couldn’t go backwards. So they just left me where I was. I sat in the back of the Grade 6 room or was sent off to the library. For three more years. Left alone, I came to know that old school like the lines on Grandpa’s face.

  The main building was a proud red brick with granite steps and a steep slate roof. The classroom floors were silver-green lino, but in the wide, coat-hooked corridors, there was zigzagged parquetry etched by decades of scuffing Grosbys and slapping sandals.

  The classrooms had high, white ceilings and tall windows with temperamental roller blinds with minds of their own. Out of the blue, the blinds would hurtle upwards, scaring everyone in the room. The other kids loved that.

  In summer, the kids sat happily on the lino. The extra hint of coolness made the sticky afternoons more bearable. In winter, they jostled for space on striped mats, creeping ever closer to the heater panting away beside their teacher’s desk.

  Outside, a bitumen lake lapped against the buildings. Ancient gums strained at the fencelines like magic beanstalks, sending out muscly roots to ripple and burst through the cruel grey crust.

  Away from the classrooms, the bitumen gave way to monkey bars and climbing frames set in swampy gravel pits, then a small oval of buffalo grass where sprinklers chuffed year-round.

  Beside the oval, hunchbacked peppercorns sweated sap as they stood watch over rugged games of kick-to-kick, British Bulldog and ‘hoppo bumpo’. Lawler Street was nicknamed Brawler Street by staff. They had to break up fights almost every lunchtime.

  In six years at this school, I came to love its routines and rhythms. The music lesson broadcasts, the chimes for recess, the Colonel Bogey March and God Save the Queen for Monday assemblies and the general shuffle of the seasons.

  I didn’t utter a word the entire time. Just watched. Listened. Took it all in. This was easy enough. People generally pretended I wasn’t there. Only one teacher tried to make a connection with me. She was more successful than she’ll ever know. Miss Kendall helped set me free.

  CHAPTER 4

  Miss Kendall was the Lawler Street librarian. She was also the teacher I spent the most time with. The other staff found it unnerving having me around. They usually banished me. Claimed I unsettled their students. It wasn’t true. The kids had given up trying to get a reaction out of me.

  I sometimes spent entire days in the library. Watched other classes come and go. Miss Kendall always included me in activities, to the point that the kids would protest ‘but, Miss, he doesn’t understand’ when she spoke to me as she would any other pupil. I didn’t show it, but I was grateful each time she defended me. It felt good when she responded, ‘Keep your opinions to yourself, please. You cannot and do not know what Ned understands’.

  If anyone ever came close to knowing what I understood it was Miss Kendall. She caught me out. Surprised me as much as it did her.

  She’d always spoken to me, chatting away in a quiet voice whenever she didn’t have a class. Like Grandpa, she was obviously OK with lopsided conversation. And I didn’t mind. She never confronted me or put me on the spot. We coexisted. I felt safe with her in the quietest room in the school. It’s probably what caught me off guard.

  Library sessions began with a story. The kids would gather around Miss Kendall’s comfy armchair, squabbling like mynahs over the multi-coloured cushions on the mat. If Miss Kendall was having a theme week, she’d have a book selected to suit — something on the weather, the Olympics, the Aboriginal Dreamtime, pets or the like. Sometimes she let the kids choose. There’d be an excited chatter as the class waited to see what one of their number would pluck from the shelves.

  More often than not, they’d pick a class favourite — and Miss Kendall would take a deep breath and begin reading Where the Wild Things Are or James and the Giant Peach for the umpteenth time.

  One sugary afternoon she asked me to choose the story. I was up off my cushion and over to the shelves before I remembered. I should have sat
still. Ignored the request like I would in any other class. Instead, I felt my heart bounce against my ribcage as I slid a book from the shelf. My favourite.

  As I stepped back among the cushions and bodies to hand over my selection, I noticed the kids were looking at me differently. There was a sea of goldfish mouths, ringed red and orange from lunchtime ice-blocks.

  I handed over the book. Made my way back to the rear of the reading area, without hearing a sound. Sat down. Caught Miss Kendall’s gaze, just for a second. A tear glistened in the corner of her eye.

  ‘Thank you, Ned,’ she began, her voice wavering. ‘Midnite: The Story of a Wild Colonial Boy,’ she told the class. ‘We haven’t had this one for a while …’

  Of all the stories I’d heard, I liked bushranger tales best. Miss Kendall had organised two bushranger theme weeks in my time at Lawler Street. I’d been captivated by the stories, whether real or fictional. Give me a Captain Starlight over a Tarzan or a Biggles any day.

  Left to browse the library on my own, I found myself drawn to the nonfiction. I read about heroes. I read about villains. Triumphs and tragedies. The conquest of Everest. The wreck of the Titanic. Florence Nightingale. Custer’s last stand. I read anything about courage. Anything where people found the steel inside themselves. And whenever I could, I read about bushrangers.

  I consumed anything I could find about the likes of Captain Moonlight, Ben Hall (600-plus hold-ups!) and Mad Dan Morgan. I knew their stories by heart.

  Some were larrikins who made a rash decision they couldn’t take back. Decisions that changed their destinies and committed them to life on the run. Some were thugs, unable or unwilling to live by the rules. And then there was Ned Kelly.

  Kelly was both. He had a bob each way. One minute the lair, showing off on horseback. Boxing. Dancing. Spinning yarns. Flirting. The next minute a fugitive. A cop-killer. Thought so dangerous the government brought in a cannon to end his war with authority.

  What most impressed me about Kelly was his confidence. His sense of identity. Poor, Irish, persecuted — Kelly knew who he was and where he’d come from. He understood what it is to be picked on. And he didn’t just cop it. No way. He raged against the unfairness of his world.