I am sitting on a bench watching the children on the merry-go-round. I can’t stop myself from thinking of something that happened a whole year ago. People are walking by, talking and laughing and eating fruit and ice creams, and I wish I could see everything as I once did see it. As the children wave to me from the little painted horses I wave and smile and, for a moment, forget that I am frightened.
The day we went for the Barbecue was very hot and we were quite a crowd, four couples and eighteen children between us. Molly and Tom have only two, small-boned little girls with fair skins and far too many dresses. Most of the children were mine because I had my sister’s two boys staying with me while she was in hospital waiting for an operation.
What happened that day is so much on my mind I have to make an effort to think of something else. Bessie, Molly, Betty and myself were all at school together and when we married, much about the same time, we all went on a Barbecue. Every year since then, we have all met and gone to the same place. And every year there have been more children, mostly mine as I have had a child every year.
So on that hot day we all piled out of the cars in a curve of sandy scrub and the spiky green and brown and grey country stretched quietly out away on all sides. We soon filled the silence with our noise, gathering wood for the fire, pouring drinks and handing round thick slices of egg-and-bacon pie. Bessie’s man, Hartley, is the first to do everything. He wears thick-rimmed glasses and, when he swears in five languages, everyone admires him. Of course he organised the cooking and fixed up the billy for making the tea. I don’t think I ever saw sausages and chops disappear so quickly and all the great basins of salad were empty in no time.
Hartley, showing off, seized one of Molly’s girls and swung her round and up in the air. Her fair skin flushed and she looked pleased to be chosen by Hartley. When suddenly he set her down and cried out that something from her had stuck a splinter in his finger. He looked at her accusingly and sucked his finger, complaining about the pain. Everyone rushed to help him, he is like that. Draws every bit of attention. Not mine because I saw Molly’s Cynthia standing flushed and dizzy, her eyes full of tears, because of being blamed.
Molly bandaged Hartley, fussing and telling Cynthia she was a wicked child to hurt her Uncle Hartley. I felt really mad at Hartley but Fred, that’s my husband, said if we wanted to get to the Pelican in time we should put out the fire and go.
Our car was full of children so two of my girls went in with Molly and Tom. It was quite a long drive and the children sang all the songs they knew.
I better explain The Pelican is a rock which looks like a pelican, especially at dusk for then the outline is dark against the sky as if a great Bird was turned into stone on coming down to the earth. We always try to arrive at dusk to watch the Bird appear out of the rocks. We all touch the Pelican in turn and wish for every one of us health and happiness and success. Even the hands of the babies are put to touch the Pelican. It has become a real ceremony to us.
It was very lonely on the road, only our cars. At last we were there, there was a beautiful moon and there was our Pelican strong and majestic and unchanged. We all said our words of good wishes and Hartley, who made his sound like a prayer, was first to put his hands on the rock. He called Bessie and she called her children.
‘Arthur, Harry and Mary!’ They went up to the Pelican and Mary called Betty and William. And Betty called her children.
‘Simon, Archie and little Arthur.’ Little Arthur in his reedy voice called,
‘Tom and Molly!’ and Molly called,
‘Cynthia and Rosie!’ and Molly called,
‘Cynthia!’ again. Rosie stood back in the quiet dark evening waiting for her sister. But there was no sign of Cynthia.
All the time the Pelican seemed bigger and blacker as the moon raced up the sky.
‘Cynthia be quick! It’s getting late!’ Molly called into the silence. ‘She travelled with you, didn’t she?’ Molly asked me, her voice sharp with fear.
‘No,’ I said. ‘We only had the boys and baby, my girls went with you.’ I could hardly speak for the fear I felt. It seemed cold suddenly. Rosie began to cry and Molly shouted at Tom, and Tom, who is always as quiet as a refrigerator box, shouted back at Molly. Then Fred said we must all go back and look for Cynthia. The children were all very subdued with what had happened, we counted them all into the cars.
We had to drive back all those miles of dark winding road to look for Cynthia. I kept thinking of the little girl alone in the bush afraid of witches and ghosts and afraid, if we find her, of our anger. And gradually that fear will have turned into a more terrible fear with the coming night as she is all alone with no one there except what she thinks is there lurking in the scrub.
At last we were there. It was as if we had come to the wrong place, it was so dark and strange. The children sat quietly in the cars while we spread out to try to find Cynthia. I peered into the frightening mysterious undergrowth. Twigs and leaves crackled under our feet and when we called her name, our own voices frightened us. It was as if a strange silent person was watching us stumbling about. I felt I couldn’t stand it and then Molly began to run wildly falling down and screaming.
Fred said it was no use to look. We must get Molly home. Perhaps, he suggested, Cynthia walked along the road and was picked up by a passing car. This quieted Molly.
We didn’t find Cynthia on the way and the Police did not have her or any news about her. There was nothing about Cynthia for us.
Molly and Tom came to our place and we put the children to bed, Rosie in with our two girls. We didn’t go to bed ourselves, I tried to persuade Molly to lie down but she kept going to the window to stare out into the darkness.
‘Remember, Liz,’ she said to me, ‘remember last year, Cynthia never touched the Pelican when we all did. Remember she was naughty, she pretended to fall, and took so long and Hartley sent her back to wait in the car. I stopped her from touching the Pelican, I was so angry, and now —’ Molly began to cry, the most weary hopeless crying I have ever heard. And I knew we should never see Cynthia again. That was what happened last year.
Everything was done to try to find the little girl. The bush was searched but she was never found, not even a piece of clothing or a shoe. Nothing was ever found. Nothing.
All that was a year ago but I am not able to get it out of my mind. I suppose if you feed thoughts like this they will grow, but you see not one of us, neither Fred nor myself nor my children, nor my sister’s boys, who are still with me, not one of us touched the Pelican last year.