Angola waved my polite query away. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You’d never believe me.’
‘I’ve heard some pretty wild stories, you know.’
He looked at me for a long time, as if attempting to peer into my soul. It was unsettling. I saw now – by what light I couldn’t say, for the sun had well and truly set – that his face was pitted with acne scars and that his left earlobe was malformed. But there, by the road, he told me something so bizarre, and in such a strange manner – looking from side to side, shrugging, mumbling – that I had no choice but to believe him.
I carried the torch as we squelched across a field and ducked between the barbed wire of several fences. I asked him about Africa, but he was reluctant to disclose his reasons for being there and became curiously sullen, saying merely that it was a terrible place and that he hadn’t deserved to be there at all.
It was only when we saw the lights of his small house in the distance that I realized, and stopped. ‘Your name,’ I said, trying to keep the panic from my voice. ‘It’s not for the country is it?’
My companion paused and wiped his meaty paw beneath his nose.
It was freezing. My shoes were sticky with mud. ‘It’s for the prison, isn’t it? In America.’ I recalled an entry from the 1972 Ripley’s annual; an inmate who – although he had never left the state of Louisiana – built a precise scale model of central Paris from toothpicks, complete with street signs and roadside markets, tiny apples and pears.
‘Course it is,’ he growled, and continued walking.
I stared after him until I could barely make him out in the darkness. I pondered my options, which were few. After a minute, I staggered after him.
It was a decision I have come to regret.
Angola’s house was large, but cluttered with thick-legged furniture, piles of toys and the detritus of domestic activity: mounds of knitting, fishing bags, a cricket set. Angola’s wife Carol, elbow-deep in dishwater, seemed perplexed to see me in her house but shook my hand with her own sudsy one and offered me a beer. A teenage boy appeared and grunted at his father before sulking off. I peered around for the daughter about whom I had heard such amazing things, but there was no sign of her. Another son materialised, dutifully shook my hand and vanished. The television blared and I recognised the dopey voice-overs of Australia’s Funniest Home Videos. The sons laughed themselves stupid at something. I think I’ll just take a walk up here on the icy roof . . . Angola and his wife bickered good-naturedly about an unpaid bill. Boinggg.
With their permission, I phoned Elaine from the dim, unheated study at the rear of the house. The window sills were lined with children’s sporting trophies. Football, cricket, tennis. Best and fairest. Under 12 Champion. The small desk was covered with bank statements, shopping catalogues, letters from a local school.
Elaine sounded harried – but not drunk, at least. Her French-accented voice was damp with unshed tears. Not for the first time I felt I might have been starring unwittingly in some mournful European film. She had had a bad day of it: a tradesman had tracked mud into the house and then been unable to fix a pipe we had been waiting on for two weeks; Therese had to be changed three times.
‘But she did a funny thing, Dan. You won’t believe this but I went in this afternoon, she was in the sunroom – you know how she loves to stare at the birds at the feeder – and I swear she reached out to stroke my hair as I leaned over her.’
I paused to take this in. I heard our fridge humming in the background. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘She stroked your hair?’
‘Yes.’
This could be a breakthrough. I leaned forward, elbows on the desk. ‘For how long?’
‘Well. A few seconds.’
‘It could be something, though, couldn’t it?’
‘Sure. Yeah.’
‘It wasn’t just a –’
‘Dan. I’m sure.’
Pinned to the wall above the desk where I sat was a child’s drawing of a dog. Bulbous shapes conjoined by stick-like limbs, a scribble of blue cloud. I imagined Therese in her low bed staring at the ceiling where I had stuck luminous stars; her implacable face, her shining eyes. She might have contained entire oceans, shipwrecked galleons, dragons, concertos. I loved my daughter more when I was away from her; her actual presence only highlighted my inability to help her. My beery breath bounced back at me from the plastic receiver, and for the thousandth time since her accident I was flooded with sudden, acute disappointment at how I had so quickly reached the limits of my love.
I told Elaine I would be back the day after tomorrow at the latest, depending on how long it took to get the car repaired.
‘Dan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you promise?’
She often asked me that. ‘Yes,’ I said.
Returning to the lounge room, I passed a carpeted hallway I hadn’t noticed earlier. Pop music drifted through a part-open door at the other end and a long matchstick of light fell on the swirling carpet. This must be the daughter’s bedroom. I paused to listen, as if the music might offer a clue. I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky. Kylie Minogue. Hysterical laughter from the lounge-room, Angola asking his sons something. I shuffled down the hall towards the daughter’s room. She was singing along to the music in a low voice. Despite myself, I sensed the thrill of discovering something truly incredible. What if her father had been telling the truth? I crept closer, almost holding my breath.
‘You right, mate?’
I swivelled around to see Angola standing at the other end of the corridor. Although he was in silhouette, I could tell he was glaring at me. ‘Yes, I was just – ’
‘That’s Chloe’s room.’
‘Oh. I was, ah, looking for the bathroom.’
It was clear he didn’t believe me. He wiped the back of his hand under his nose, then pointed the way I had come. ‘That way. And dinner’s ready.’
In any case, I didn’t have long to wait before seeing the daughter. When I returned from the bathroom, the family was gathered at the dinner table and looked up expectantly at my entrance. The daughter, Chloe, was seated opposite me. She looked ordinary enough, but I couldn’t help inspecting her whenever the opportunity arose.
Dinner was roast lamb with mint sauce and vegetables. Everyone talked at once. The boys bickered and thumped each other. Carol lit up a cigarette at the table as soon as she had eaten. Angola talked on his mobile phone for several minutes. The television raved away in the background. It was disconcerting to be at such a rowdy family dinner, but gradually, with the help of a few beers, I began to enjoy myself. So, I thought, this is family life.
Angola had cooled towards me, but I regaled the gathering with tales from my years as a verifier for Ripley’s. Soon they were all laughing and wide-eyed, gasping in astonishment at South Pacific cargo cults, at the man who dived into buckets of water from great heights, the parachutist who shaved and smoked a cigarette in the time it took to float back to earth.
Angola picked something from his teeth. ‘And do people make, you know, money out of these things?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Sometimes.’
At this, Angola’s wife uttered a curious sound. I could restrain myself no longer and turned to the girl Chloe, who had been quiet the entire meal. ‘So. Your father tells me that you have quite an unusual talent yourself? Would you like to show me what you can do?’
The family fell silent. Then Carol put her head in her hands. ‘Jesus, Dave. I knew it. You told him didn’t you? I knew it …’
Angola started to protest, but his justifications were trumped by the only words I heard Chloe speak. ‘No,’ she piped, ‘that’s my sister Emily. She’s in the shed.’
The shed was really a stable about one hundred metres from the house. A wind buffeted us as we made our way across the yard with a torch. I was anxious. Many years ago I met a woman who claimed to have a portion of Hitler’s jawbone – complete with some piece of paperwork or other that verified it – but from the moment I stepped into her stinking, ramshackle entrance hall I knew she was just a lonely madwoman with a house full of junk. That I fell for it has long been a source of embarrassment for me, but in my business one needed to check all reasonable leads. Would this perhaps be the same? Or even worse?
Angola unbolted the massive door and swung it open. The stable was dimly lit. Pausing on the threshold, I could smell wet hay and the sweat of animals. I knew the rest of the family were standing at the kitchen window, watching to see what I, a stranger, would make of their daughter. After the other daughter Chloe had spoken up at the dinner table, there had been a heated discussion of money, of fame and reality TV that I did my best to dampen while still allowing them enough enthusiasm to show me their curious prize.
I stepped inside. Angola followed and closed the door behind me. Something stirred in a far corner, I heard a clank of chain. Angola brushed past me and went to another door on the other side of the stable. He paused with his hand on the wooden knob. ‘You ready?’
I nodded. By this time my heart was hammering. The miraculous has a smell, and this Godforsaken place was ripe with it. Angola opened the door and went in. Another rustle of chain, the swish of straw. Murmured words, kindly words. He beckoned me over. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said, then to his daughter, ‘This is Mr Shaw, love.’
I said hello and drifted into the room, which was spacious, decorated like any 14-year-old girl’s room: posters of pop stars, family photographs, drawings of horses. The girl, Emily was sitting on a low bed placed along one wall. She was slight, pretty, with long brown hair and large eyes. She looked momentarily startled, but quickly recovered, said good evening and smiled. It was clear we had interrupted her reading a book; it was placed face-down on the bed next to her. Then I saw the iron hoop around her ankle and the short chain attached at the other end to the bed frame. Emily noticed me staring at it and shrugged. Angola seemed nervous and asked her if she might show me her trick.
