JULIA AGRIPPINA | Empress of Rome
Rumoured to have ruthlessly murdered her husband Claudius so her son Nero could inherit the throne. In a later grab for power, Nero ordered Julia Agrippina’s own assassination.
Where in Melbourne would an eighteen-year-old hide? I drove to our old house in Hawthorn, a place Caleb still sometimes called home, even while telling myself no one runs away home. Behind the security gate Stephen had installed, the house looked locked up and empty. Caleb was more likely to be somewhere else entirely, someplace I’d never been, perhaps never heard of. Why didn’t I know him better? I searched Lygon Street in Carlton, where he used to love pizza. I cruised Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, where he used to look at clothes. I paused beachfront in St Kilda, where he used to swim. Of course, all of this was futile. The drive took hours and he was in none of these places.
I returned to Brunton. By then, it was nearly morning. I was helpless, though all I wanted to do was help. I was alone, though I had chosen to have a family. The only email I had was from Marco, attaching more of his article.
Who would you be talking to, if you made an appointment through time and spoke to Nero? Marco asked. Surviving statues suggest answers. Meeting Nero when he was first created Emperor, you’d find a sixteen-year-old with a receding bottom lip. His brushed-forward hair would remind you of the early Beatles. The look didn’t shock Imperial Rome the way it reportedly shocked London. In fact, Nero’s mother Julia Agrippina might have encouraged his moptop because it was a copy of his ancestor Julius’s do. After murdering his mother, Nero changed his hairstyle. He began to have his hair curled into two rows apparently inspired by a wreath. He wanted to look like a grown up. Like Tom Hanks in Big, Nero wanted to be big. He removed Agrippina’s image from coins issued from his mint and ordered the construction of a statue of himself dressed as the sun god Sol. The Colossus of Nero, at thirty metres tall, was very, very Big.
I remembered one hot day on a dig in an ancient cemetery. ‘Doesn’t taking these things ever bother you?’ I’d asked Marco. ‘People buried them on purpose. For their own eternities.’
Marco’s answer had predictably been about knowledge and museums.
‘Future archaeologists will be very confused by our museums,’ I’d commented, thinking of the remains of Rome and Egypt, treasures from the Americas and Asia, now scattered in institutions around the world. Tiger bones in Melbourne, elephant skulls in Sydney. My own coffee table collection. The temptation to begin a personal collection had been strong long before, illicitly, I smuggled my first little pot past Italy’s antiquities police. The provenance of that pot had bothered me when I got it home. Not knowing who had owned and cared for that pot robbed it of meaning. Now I knew the story of every item I treasured.
But I’d enjoyed the orderliness of digging, knowing how to use the pick, shovel, trowel, brush, sieve. After a day’s hard work, my hair sweaty and flattened beneath a hard hat, my shoulders would ache. And I’d be exhausted enough to believe, like Marco, that uncovering the truth required nothing more than having the right equipment and knowing how to use it.
Marco’s email deserved a reply. I didn’t know how to begin. I had to tell him about Caleb. In the body of his email, Marco described a Roman dining room with an ivory ceiling that moved aside, releasing a rain of perfumed petals. The floor was round, and revolved constantly, day and night like the Heavens, he wrote. The ancients were fascinated by the mechanical. Hephaestus, Greek god of blacksmiths, built robot-like automatons of metal to work for him – creatures like Caleb attached to truth-detecting wires. That was Marco’s world, while I was here, living the choice I made when I left him for Stephen.
Relationships are complicated. Stephen had been somewhat jealous of Marco, especially when looking for an excuse to be with Ivy. I saw that now. But in his own eccentric way, Marco was married to his work. I was sure he was occasionally involved with other women, maybe men, but nothing meant as much to him as research. And when one dig finished and he had to move on, he was never sad to do so.
I abandoned my email attempt. The room was brighter – the sun had risen. Caleb still wasn’t home. I couldn’t help reliving his absence during the fire. I’d felt so relieved, finding him on the street, mistakenly believing our crisis was over. I tried his phone again, just in case. Maybe the battery was dead by now. There was nothing to do but wait.
In desperation, I tracked the Caleb who remained accessible, the Caleb who was recorded and secured in my chest of drawers. The Caleb of report cards and school photos, health records and AFL club memberships. His school information was a particular mess, as if searching police officers had suspected evidence of pyromania in his maths results. But one after another, from preschool, until so recently, they showed the same Caleb. There were one or two incidents, notably the marijuana that prompted our move here, but nothing out of the ordinary. Mostly, he was an ideal student, bright, quiet, a sporty high achiever. Not a lout, not a bully, not the antisocial outsider that newspapers described.
I found his Year 11 yearbook and flipped through the black and white pages. There Caleb stood in his class photo, next to his school-friend, Ethan Bennett, who was still in hospital suffering from burns. And on his other side, Penelope. She was with him again in the senior debating photo, both wearing the happy, confident smiles of winners. These grins were repeated on other pages where they weren’t together – Caleb in the victorious boys’ AFL team, Penelope captain of netball. Caleb shaking hands with the principal, receiving an academic award for history, Penelope receiving a similar certificate for chemistry. I hadn’t noticed her in this book before. My eyes had only been on Caleb.
So much information here but what could I do with it? I tried Penelope’s phone number and once again listened to her voicemail. I sent her another email but once again could only wait for a reply. Presumably, Caleb had ways of getting through to her. There was still time to kill. Caleb had left his room open, an invitation. I needed to understand him. After all, it was part of my house. And you could argue that, in running away, Caleb had given me no choice.
Incredibly, the room was even messier than after the search. Clothes were strewn everywhere. Pants he hadn’t worn in years. Shirts I didn’t remember buying. And toys we could have donated to charity long ago! The wiry insides of a remote-controlled car, tangled around plastic dinosaurs. Boxes of Lego still in their original shrink wrapping. A treasured position on his cupboard’s highest shelf was held by the bear, Theodore. In this, the room of a boy who was just an ordinary kid, with just an ordinary kid’s things, police had looked for evidence of murder.
I had the perfect right to do this, I told myself. I was his mother. Caleb needed help. I was a researcher, trying to make sense of his life. I needed to know things he wouldn’t tell me, that he kept secret. His belongings were my primary sources. I should have done this earlier, before the police took away what they thought was evidence.
I examined his toys, his clothes, his bookshelf. I pulled out old schoolbooks, looking for him in the incorrect calculus and badly drawn graphs. Was some message hidden in his terrible essay about Atonement (originally graded at 70% and with 25% deducted for being a week late)? How had he expected to get into Law with grades like that? I knew I’d never ask. I have too many other questions.
Caleb, where are you? Why do people say these things about you?
I’d heard him confess to things before. Things that might shock other parents. That marijuana, again. ‘I did it. I’ll be honest with you,’ he said, as if that was the most important thing.
Why didn’t I know him better? I turned to his computer. Caleb had changed his password. Maybe he had suspicions. I was addicted to this research by now. On my own computer, I checked his Facebook profile and the Goth Chat page. I had to know what he was thinking, how he was really responding to the accusations.
The results I got nearly knocked me out of my chair. Facebook users were telling the world Caleb was a rich boy who was hiding behind his privilege and should have been arrested sooner. They said he should burn at the stake. That he should be dragged from his bed and suffocated like his victims. That someone should set fire to his house.
They gave my address.
My address. I called the police. ‘My name is Phoebe Wharton. I’m reporting a threat against my property.’
The receptionist – or maybe she was a police officer, I couldn’t be sure – was dry, uninterested. ‘What kind of a threat?’
‘On Facebook. People are asking each other to burn my house.’
‘Is there any reason for finding this threat credible…? Wait a moment.’ The woman’s voice became sharper, more engaged. ‘You said you’re Phoebe Wharton?’
‘Mother of Caleb Wharton?’
‘Yes, I—’
‘My cousin died fighting the fire. I see you’ve got a problem. Let me put you through to someone who can help.’
She hung up. I recorded the conversation in my notes, ready to report it to Genevieve and Douglas but I already knew they’d say to save complaints until a possible appeal later, when we’d already lost. And that later, where Caleb was destroyed, was a place I didn’t want to go.
Meanwhile, Caleb had a similar lack of success. He had gone ‘home’ to Hawthorn, apparently arriving shortly after I left. I saw his visit later, on footage from Stephen’s CCTV; I saw it repeatedly. I saved it on my computer. That night has become a frozen present, where a security camera winks redly at Caleb as he steps back from the locked gate and waves.
No one responds. Caleb presses an entry button again, holding his finger down for a long time. Finally, the speaker buzzes into life. I’d been wrong to assume no one was home.
‘Yes?’ Ivy sounds irritated.
‘It’s Caleb. Can you let me in?’
‘Not right now, no.’
‘What?’
‘This isn’t a convenient time.’
‘You can’t do this. I live here.’
‘I’m trying to sleep. Goodbye, Caleb.’
Caleb presses the button, holds it down continuously. Eventually Ivy’s voice returns. ‘If you don’t stop I’ll call the police. Go away.’
Caleb grabs the tall gate, shaking it until it rattles. ‘Let me in! Let me in!’ He shakes the bars more violently.
I imagine what he’s thinking. Ivy won’t want to be embarrassed in front of the neighbours. That bitch, who stole his dad. ‘Let me in!’
‘I’ve got my phone! I’m calling your father!’
‘You do that! You tell him you won’t let me in! This is my home!’
Caleb holds his finger down on the button. Eventually there’s the sound of a door slamming open and Ivy storms into the camera’s view in a white nightie and white slippers with fierce feathers. She thrusts her mobile phone through the gate. ‘Go away or I really will call Stephen and tell him how violent you’re being.’
Silence. Ivy’s lips twitch into a satisfied smile.
‘I came to visit,’ Caleb says. ‘I’ll stay in my room.’
‘You don’t have a room,’ Ivy hisses, moving closer to the gate.
Caleb reaches through the bars, grabs the phone. Ivy is too startled to resist. He clenches it, then throws it at the ground. Ivy squeals a little, but the phone doesn’t break. Caleb jumps on it. Ivy squeals again. This time the phone smashes to pieces.
Caleb jumps on it again and again. But Ivy doesn’t keep squealing. She walks back into the house. I imagined her closing the door with a firm pull from her perfectly manicured hand.
Caleb came home, eventually. Of course. Hearing footsteps on the porch, I raced to let him in. My face was wet, my eyes swollen. Did he notice?
‘Mum, I’m sorry.’ He let me hug him, if only briefly.
He had to be starving. I threw a frozen pizza into the oven and washed my face. Caleb waited in the sitting room. I found an old episode of The Twilight Zone for him to watch while the pizza cooked and sat beside him. ‘I’m glad you decided to come back.’
‘Ivy decided for me.’
‘Oh, Caleb.’ I rested my hand on his shoulder. He was a man now, this boy of mine. But I was still his mum. My job, still, was holding him together.
‘She must think I’ll set fire to her house.’
Caleb slipped into his room. Obviously there was no hidden order to his chaos: he said nothing about suspecting I’d been there. I followed and sat on the edge of his bed. ‘I wish you’d talk to me!’
Caleb moved that long fringe from his eyes with a white hand, and sat up. Suddenly very much larger than me. ‘What do you want me to say?’
Did you do this? was obviously wrong. I had to say something. ‘Do you remember what happened in the fire? Was it the bang on your head?’
His anger seemed to increase. I stood too, suddenly vulnerable. My mouth felt dry, my eyes hurt.
‘What about the truth being the most important thing we have?’ he demanded. ‘That’s what you used to say. Whatever happened about telling the truth?’
‘Do you mean about the sketchbook? I just want to understand!’
‘I mean about everything!’
‘I want to protect you.’
He sneered. ‘How about protecting other people?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Everyone thinks I’m a murderer. They think those people would be alive if it weren’t for me.’
‘Caleb, this isn’t rational. They only think that because they think you lit the fire. But that isn’t true. You know that. We just have to convince them.’
‘They want me dead. That’s the truth. Rosie wants me dead.’
I only wanted what I could bear. I took a backwards step, towards the door. ‘You shouldn’t have to go through this.’
‘The truth is they’re right. I deserve to be hated.’
‘I don’t want to hear this.’
‘I want you to clear yourself. That’s what you want, too.’
‘Is it? Are you sure?’
Of course I was sure. He was my son.
Jack came over. ‘I saw In Australia Tonight. I’ll do whatever I can to help.’
We had coffee. I didn’t know what to say. He tried sitting close to me like none of this was really happening. I wanted to pretend that was true. He was warm and strong.
‘You’re tired,’ he said. ‘Lunch tomorrow?’
‘All right.’
We’d been in the tiny Brunton Primary staffroom the first time I really noticed Jack as a man, and not as a generic firey (pictured semi-naked on a fundraising calendar). This was over a year before the fire. ‘I’ve seen you playing guitar at the Brunton Hotel,’ he’d said.
It was a long time since anyone flirted with me. ‘I do that once a month or so,’ I’d replied.
‘Your songs were great. I nearly bought you a drink.’
I grinned at him. ‘You should have done that.’
His returning smile was bright. ‘I will next time. Assume you like wine?’
It had been nice to feel attractive, especially after Stephen and Ivy. We went out for coffee and discovered a lot more to like about each other. He once brought a bunch of herbs for me, ‘Not from my own yard, obviously. Brown thumbs,’ and, eventually, roses.