DEA TACITA | Goddess of the Dead and Silence
Dea Tacita could be asked to destroy a hated person. She represented the terror of obscurity. A rite could be performed asking her to ‘seal up hostile mouths’.
City traffic had been driven to chaos while police diverted buses and cars around climate change protesters, but eventually I left my car in one of Melbourne’s ridiculously overpriced parking stations and exited to La Trobe Street. Back in the valley, fallen trees had been removed but more kept falling. It was hard to walk down Bourke Street Mall and not expect things to fall. I hadn’t been to Stephen’s legal chambers for years, but nothing fell here and little had changed. The city smelled of wet concrete. Two women in too-small skirts leaned against the wall, smoking. A blob of fresh green chewing gum awaited an unsuspecting shoe. A blue garbage truck lumbered past, mouth exuding the stench of rotting fruit and vomit. A magazine, spine fastened to something in the gutter, flapped half-heartedly in the wind. I could have slipped into the twentieth century.
This was the city world of my life with Stephen, scrubbed stone walls (and someone to scrub them), smashed avocado on toasted ciabatta with coffee at any one of a hundred cafes, theatre subscriptions and instantly arriving Ubers. None of those things had really made me happy. And although back then, I hadn’t needed to deal instead with bushfires, arrest warrants, Sadie Riley – or with my son being vilified – Stephen hadn’t made me happy. He hadn’t made his own mother happy. Claire had left the Wharton house to Caleb because she knew Stephen would simply sell it and his family history be lost in the general hoard of undifferentiated wealth that was what he really valued.
I took the grey-lined lift to his commercial law practice. The door slid open to reveal a grey reception desk and a reassuringly large grey painting. It had all the artistic merit that a Melbourne company with a fledgling office in London could afford.
The receptionist was a brightly blond young man in his midtwenties, dressed as an intimidatingly up-to-date fashion statement. To his right was a picture window framed to imply that Melbourne, as much as the large grey painting, had been designed specifically to enhance the law firm’s prestige. He lifted the corners of silicon-puffed lips as I approached. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I’m here to see Stephen Wharton.’
‘Is he expecting you?’
‘He won’t be surprised.’
The receptionist looked doubtful. ‘Whom shall I say is here?’
I touched my head. How long since I last visited a hairdresser? And leaned over the desk, conscious of narrowing my eyes. This young man would know Ivy – perhaps well.
‘Mrs Wharton,’ I said, pointedly.
The receptionist lifted his phone receiver and pressed in a few numbers.
‘Stephen, there’s a Mrs Wharton here asking to see you.’ He raised one eyebrow into a little, nasty point. ‘Not Ivy. Maybe it’s your mother.’
Great.
Stephen guided me to the dark leather sofa beneath a picture window in his office. Outside, silenced by safety glass, protesters milled, waving placards demanding that the government acknowledge reasons for the disaster and that the Prime Minister resign. Stephen sat, oblivious. Perhaps this was where he normally sat with vexed or troublesome clients. ‘I know you’re angry about Ivy locking him out,’ he said. ‘She was frightened. It won’t happen again.’
I remained standing. ‘That’s not why I came.’
‘Ahh,’ he said. ‘Come on, Phoebe, sit. Did Caleb calm down at all?’
‘He’s upset…’ I began. ‘Confused.’
‘I’m doing what I can,’ he said. ‘I have to be careful. I’m not bringing in a lot of business right now. The partners are reasonably patient.’
‘You need to convince him to fight this charge.’
‘I can’t defend him.’
I felt my eyes widen.
Stephen raised his hand. ‘I don’t mean he’s indefensible. I’m not that sort of a lawyer. And, I’m his father.’
‘You can do something about this.’ I waved the printout of Goth Chat comments at him. ‘This discussion. Penelope as good as says he’s protecting someone else. Isn’t that an alibi?’
‘If we can get him to admit he’s Onyx and if this is true. Whatever it is.’
‘We have to do something! Have you searched for him on Facebook? Found the hate pages? Do you know how bad they are?’
I’d printed out the Facebook pages too. Stephen read them. His whiskers looked darker, like they did when the skin behind them turned white. ‘The law hasn’t kept up with the internet,’ he observed, frustratingly analytical.
‘You have to stop them! You said Sadie Riley could be arrested if she took her accusations too far.’
‘She could, if she published them. These comments are from private people.’
‘They say he should be burned at the stake. They give my address. It can’t be legal.’
Stephen’s top lip curled like it did when people had interests less important than the law. ‘It isn’t legal…’
‘Then make it stop!’
‘Phoebe, it isn’t legal but there’s no simple way to stop them.’
I sank into his sofa, defeated. ‘It’s like an angry mob is coming and you won’t do anything to help.’
‘You’re not rational.’ But he sat beside me. ‘Phoebe, I know it’s hard. In a way it’s better now he’s been arrested.’
‘Better?’
‘This Pastel girl is right. The matter is sub judice now. The press aren’t as free to comment.’
I lowered my face into my hands, felt my pulse behind my eyes. ‘If Caleb goes to trial, there’ll be a jury. People will have seen this. It won’t ever stop following him.’
‘I’ll do what I can to make sure that’s not the case. You have to be patient, Phoebe. This isn’t easy on us, either.’
‘Us?’ I repeated, an unpleasant realisation dawning on me.
‘Ivy is having a tough time. She had a nasty experience in her hair salon.’
‘What?’
‘She had her hair covered in dye when she overheard a conversation. She couldn’t leave. Her hairdresser said Caleb should be burned at the stake. Another customer said, don’t waste the firewood.’
Was I expected to care about Ivy? I hated Stephen. I shouldn’t have come.
‘She says the baby should have her surname. It’s hard to hear. I’ve always been proud of my family.’
‘So your mum used to say,’ I said, ironically.
Stephen gave me a hurt look. ‘I’ve always known I was a Wharton from Brunton.’
‘You’ve hardly been to Brunton in years.’
Did I have to give up on Stephen? ‘Plenty of people use the mother’s surname now.’ It was advice I could have given a stranger.
‘You didn’t, with Caleb.’
I didn’t want to hear his regrets. He had made his choice. ‘Those were different days.’
Caleb knew what had prompted our move. Separating him from his troubled friends, putting him back on what Genevieve and Stephen called the right path. I was offered the job of principal at the tiny Brunton school. Mary Ross had called to let me know.
‘We’ve examined your work in Hawthorn and are excited you’d like to join us,’ she said. ‘We’d love Brunton Primary to become the most innovative learning environment in the valley.’
Perfect. It had seemed.
‘Are you safe to drive home?’ Stephen asked in the foyer. ‘Remember what they said at the sleep lab?’
‘I’m fine.’
His pretence at caring was irritating. I needed to drive home and knew I wouldn’t doze off. There was a crowd of protesters to navigate and, anyway, my mind was racing, wishing I could control what everyone said on the witness stand. Doze. Ha. That was a laugh.
‘It won’t help Caleb if you have a car accident.’
I clutched my steering wheel, emotions on fire. Within a frame of charred branches, the road home had been swept clear. Bright green moss grew over ashes and charcoal as though an oversized graffiti artist had sprayed it from a can. In those areas the fire hadn’t destroyed, you could see how it had spread. Trees were decorated with strips of falling bark like tinsel. Just a touch of flame and they’d become torches.
Damn. Police cars lurked outside my house. Again. Maybe I should charge for parking. A man in a suit stood beside Hong Feng, looking frustrated by my locked front door. They turned as I approached.
‘This is the mother of the accused,’ Detective Feng said.
The suited man clutched a bundle of legal forms. With his other hand, he touched his head, looking like he wanted to doff a hat, if he’d had one. Perhaps he imagined himself in a black and white film. Cary Grant maybe. For all this, he had a wide-eyed expression of sympathy. He didn’t enjoy his job, but had to do it. ‘Phoebe Wharton? I have to inform you that the residence here owned by Mr Caleb Wharton is being secured against future claims.’
What? I imagined a hand reaching from the sky, fingers of flame, picking up our house. I’d thought nothing new could possibly astonish me. ‘You’re seizing our house?’
‘Not yet. But we do need to ensure it remains available for claims in the future. You will have to consult your own legal team of course.’
I tried to make the form he gave me swim into focus. ‘You’re taking our house? But I live here.’
‘Legally—’ the lawyer began.
Detective Feng interrupted. ‘Phoebe, legally the house was left to Caleb.’
Claire had thought the house would be a good start in life for Caleb. Those had been her exact words. A good start in life. In legalese I was too familiar with, the form I’d been handed said a number of alleged victims intend to seek compensation for property loss, and for pain and suffering. It told me the property needs to be restrained to ensure maximum equity is maintained.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Where are you taking it? How?’
Detective Feng actually smiled. I suppose I was ridiculous. ‘The house will stay here… Anyone guilty of destroying property can have their own goods seized to compensate victims. What we’re doing now is securing the property in case of future claims.’
‘Douglas Anderson’s office has been notified,’ one of the lawyers added.
‘Why are you here?’ I asked Detective Feng.
‘We’ve asked for police presence to ensure there are no untoward incidents when these documents are served,’ said the lawyer who had wanted to doff his hat.
Untoward? I was a school principal, a (supposed) pillar of the community. I bore the name Wharton like a local street, like the football oval. What might I do? Slip the house into my pocket and run off? ‘Do I need to leave now?’
Detective Feng shook his head. ‘You’ll have a while. You can’t make significant changes to the property. Or destroy anything. But you need to prepare to leave.’
They walked back to their cars. Next door, Rosie watched. No longer my neighbour. No longer our house. Lost. Our home destroyed.
What would I take, this time, if I had to flee, as I had fled the fire?
Firstly, of course, anything that might be useful to Caleb. Were these photographs and yearbooks useful for his defence? They proved Caleb didn’t fit any arsonist profile I’d ever read. Until the accident where Sean was injured, he’d been, if not perfect in every way, the perfect son. There was a photo of Caleb, winning subject awards early in his school career. Caleb who thought football was nowhere near as important as history and who excelled at both. Caleb with his big plans to be successful like his father.
Should I scan the reports, send them to people? Sadie Riley, for instance? Would a more complete picture of Caleb make her kinder to him? I remembered Caleb’s hopes for the lie detector test and his disappointment. I wouldn’t share these personal things with reporters. If I had to leave my home – Caleb’s home – I’d take them with me. If I had to leave our home…
Where would I go?
I called Jack. I didn’t know what else to do. Over the past few weeks, no doubt we’d become less close. Perhaps he was pulling away. Perhaps he felt guilty because we were suffering and he felt there was nothing he could do to help. Certainly, I didn’t have the same time for him. But he listened when I told him what the lawyer said. ‘I won’t know where to go.’
‘There’s my place…’ Jack offered refuge like on the day this started.
It was all so hopeless, the law licking into every corner of my life. ‘I don’t want us to move in together because I have no choice.’
Jack sucked in his breath. It took a long while for him to speak, maybe he didn’t know what to say. ‘You could do with a hug.’ He was a good man. ‘I’ll do what I can to help, Phoebe. People have already lost enough. At least let me make you a coffee.’
‘I’ll run over to your place. I need to exercise out some stress.’
What I took that time was simple: my wallet, my phone, my keys. Just the things I always took because I was never sure when I might need them. And I ran.
It shouldn’t be like this. I crunched over ash and soot, lighting my path with torchlight. Our relationship should have been growing in its slow, own time. A new, happier life. The fire had destroyed that as well. I ran past a dugout built for a fire sanctuary over a hundred years ago. These days people die because they think bathtubs are safe. Why should I even mind losing the house? It could be a relief to leave Brunton. Our neighbours hated us…
But I didn’t want to be chased away, and I wanted to be here when Caleb was released. I wanted to have safeguarded his home. Confused, I ran faster.
What actual evidence did the police have? Fingerprints? Phone records? Claims made by other Brunton residents? Eventually, we’d get a brief, but I needed to know now. We could not survive like this.
I ran further than I’d run in months. I needed the exercise. Without it I feared my old insomnia would return. A ghost, never quite exorcised. I had so many thoughts in my head, there was nothing for it but to race them out through my feet. Brunton Hotel’s white tower came into focus ahead. My phone rang. Douglas? Stephen? More trouble? Or – my heart swelled – trouble ended, charges dropped. I nearly laughed to see that it was Marco. The first thing he said was, ‘Tell me I haven’t called at a bad time.’ Then: ‘Phoebe?’
‘I’m puffed. I’m out running.’
Marco knew a different Phoebe, the one who studied history, not vindictive newspaper articles. He knew nothing about Caleb’s arrest.
‘I’ve mentioned you in my article,’ he said. ‘Something Caleb said, too. His line about Instagram and reality. I’m proud of this. Can you read it now?’
‘I’m standing in the middle of the street.’
‘Then listen.’ He read.
In those days, fake news took a lot longer to be disseminated. Art historian Phoebe Wharton has previously written about ancient statues of Nero that the Emperor’s cheapskate successors had altered into likenesses of themselves. Nero’s own reputation was subject to similar rebranding. His Domus Aurea began to be dismantled and put to other uses almost as soon as he died. The artificial lake, once large enough for battle ships to sail in, was filled in and became the site of the Colosseum. Gladiators and other slaves were quartered in the humble ruins of the palace’s halls. One story that could have begun as a Twitter rumour is that Nero, far from Rome in his hometown of Antium when the fire began, was inspired by news of the flames to take to the stage and sing about the destruction of Troy. More than a century later, the historian Cassius Dio first reported that Nero watched the city burn, while playing a musical instrument known as a kithara. But he didn’t Instagram it, so it didn’t really happen.
I laughed. And then – I couldn’t help myself – I sobbed.
‘Phoebe, what’s wrong?’
‘You need to see the Australian news. Google Caleb’s name.’
He’d see it, I knew. He was quiet. I began to run again, slowly, waiting for him to finally learn what was going on. His shocked breathing was audible.
‘Oh, Phoebe. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’
What could I say? I’d had no idea either, until it happened.
‘I need to go,’ I said.
‘You don’t want to…? No. Okay, Phoebe. Remember to call if you need anything.’
I stopped suddenly, disconnecting. A memory had come back to me, one so terrible I didn’t understand why I hadn’t thought of it before now. At eight, Caleb’s favourite toy was a Nintendo Game Boy. I refused to buy him a new model because the old one still worked… so he burned the old one.
Burned it. Set fire to it.
No one knew except me. Well, me and Caleb of course. I stood there, the smell of burning plastic floating around me as it had floated all those years ago.
Was Caleb an arsonist?
I hated myself for wondering. What sort of mother indulged these doubts? The sort of mother I would not be. Genevieve had always doubted me. I pushed the thought from my mind. What I needed to wonder was when Caleb would get bail.
One foot in front of the other. Left foot, right foot.
I paused at the window of Bryce Miller’s real estate agency. Not just in Brunton but in surrounding towns, many houses were for sale and prices were sinking even more quickly than in Melbourne. Would I need another place to live?
‘Sad, innit?’ asked a voice at my elbow. I jumped. Leanne Beckwith.
‘So many things. Which one do you mean?’
‘All them houses.’ She pointed at the pictures. ‘Most of them burned.’
Of course. ‘Why would the agent leave these pictures?’
Leanne frowned, like the answer to this too was obvious. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
I leaned my forehead against the cool glass window.
‘You all right?’ Leanne asked.
‘I’m fine.’
She rested her hand on my shoulder. She’d surprised me with her need on the day of the fire, but now she offered her own help in return. I closed my hand over hers. ‘Having kids is hard. I understand,’ she said. ‘Harmony’s no firebug but I still cry inside when people treat her bad. It’ll get better.’
Impulsively, I pulled her into a hug before I ran off. Even though Leanne instinctively said the wrong thing, she meant well. We had so few allies. I couldn’t afford to lose one.
With an enveloping hug, Jack welcomed me to the garage where he was living. For a moment, I collapsed into that comfort. Then I pulled away. It was wonderful, it was what I’d believed I needed, but it wasn’t enough.
‘You promised coffee?’
Jack had a dark expression on his face. ‘It’s already brewing. Phoebe, I – I wish there was something more I could do.’
In this tiny place, it was easy to remember the things he’d lost too – his antiques, his vinyl collection. An old sofa with a sleeping bag tossed over the back faced an even older television set, a black box with bunny ears on top. He’d fixed a row of cabinets and a couple of hotplates to one wall for a makeshift kitchen.
The single window revealed a row of ash-stained terracotta pots that, like the garage itself, had miraculously avoided the flames. They rested at rakish angles atop a wooden sleeper apparently designed for breeding redback spiders. ‘It’s a pretty basic place but I have everything I need.’ He gave me my coffee.
‘Thanks. Can we watch the news? I have to know what people are saying.’
There were two bushfire news stories: Caleb’s arrest – and a shorter piece about a water-bombing helicopter pilot now dropping eucalyptus seeds over the regenerating bush. Jack sat beside me. ‘It must be hard for you to watch this.’
‘It’s not as bad as online. Facebook threats are getting worse.’
Jack opened a plastic lid beside him – a small new record player. He was starting to replace his collection of blues music. ‘Hong Feng promised me police cars are regularly driving past your house.’
‘Do they file reports?’ I nodded at his laptop. Where once I dreamed of his arms around me, his fingers in my hair, on my back, now I dreamed of using his password.
‘I suppose so. There are reports on everything.’
‘Can I see them?’
He laughed. ‘I don’t have access to those.’
‘What do you have access to?’
‘Not much. Honestly, Phoebe.’ The track ended. Jack touched the record but I was impatient to have his entire attention. ‘Show me.’
‘Well… All right.’
He wasn’t careful with his password at all. He trusted that I would only ever look at the files he said it was okay for me to see. Did he know me? I thought of all the times we’d spent together. Good times. But I wasn’t the only one involved in betrayal. Jack should have been helping me more.
I asked for more coffee. When he turned back to the makeshift kitchen bench, I logged back into his computer. One eye on Jack, I searched his files, looking for Caleb and Phosphorus. I saved it all on the USB stick on my keychain, copying every file the search located. I’d read them at home.
They took a while to copy. Jack returned to the sofa. Fortunately, he was very distractible. He was very warm and solid too and while… distracting him, I could pretend nothing terrible was going on. For a few minutes, anyway.
‘Will you come here?’ Jack asked, when we were lying together on the sofa that served as his bed.
‘I’m already here.’
‘I mean, if you need a home. I know it’s not much but I’ll rebuild—’
‘It won’t come to that. It can’t.’
I plugged the USB stick into my own laptop as soon as I got home. I pored through reports. I stared at video files of CCTV footage. I read transcripts of my neighbours’ statements until my spirits felt battered like a pinball in the machine Stephen used to play. How little my neighbours had shared with me, the newcomer, the blow-in. On the few occasions I’d met the Gordons, they’d seemed like good people. I found evidence in statements made by their grieving friends. They might, one day, have been Caleb’s in-laws. He couldn’t be responsible for their deaths.
I checked the witness list, trying to find anyone who might point the blame at Caleb to move suspicion away from themselves. Bernie Lippard could have wanted a fire to get promoted in the CFA. Bob or Bruce from Elecnet could want community anger to have a focus other than their employer, whose only defence was the likelihood that service had already been disrupted. Nancy Bailey was frustrated Caleb had never conformed and saw herself as an instrument of divine wrath. Brian Nally wanted to invite the Apocalypse. Fireys like Craig Silva might crave excitement.
I found myself rehearsing the witnesses’ names again and again, like I was calling them to account myself. Bernie. Bob. Bruce. When had I first met them? Who was a possible ally? Who might have a reason to hurt Caleb? Each piece of evidence was an historical source. I redoubled my research into arson. Soon, I knew as much about investigating fires as any member of Taskforce Phosphorus. I knew about means, motives, opportunities. I knew about burn patterns and ignition points and fuel loads. What could I do with this information?
The question followed me into my dreams where Caleb, riding like the dog-napping neighbour in The Wizard of Oz, was transformed into a witch (wizard, perhaps) as his bicycle flew. He said no one believed him. But I would believe, so he couldn’t be right. Those little flickers of doubt that occasionally fanned into life were dangerous. I’d stamp them out. I’d protect my son.
Words from a poem by Shirley Blakley, now Shirley Laskin, echoed through my mind.
Burn the witch. Caleb was the witch. He was different, weird, easy to blame. And people were desperate for someone to blame. If only I could find something, on someone. Something.
Caleb had been charged, and therefore gossip had done as much harm as it possibly could. Surely?
But I was wrong. Flames took hold and burned his reputation, licked into the corners of stories people had always known were true. I checked and rechecked my files, desperate to succeed at one thing I’d believed I could with no effort: understand my child. In one of Caleb’s oldest graphic novels, I found a list of overdue library books. I collapsed onto his bed, clutching the piece of paper and remainder of lists I had at work, computerised school library records that still existed though all the books had been lost, along with some of the children who’d borrowed them.
Rumours continued to grow and change online and in newspapers and on television. Classmates who once signed his yearbook (See you in law school! Remember me when you’re Prime Minister!) now said he’d always been strange.
A group of his former Hawthorn classmates, their faces blurred for anonymity, spoke to In Australia Tonight. ‘In the junior AFL, Caleb walked kilometres for a fundraising challenge, but it was a ruse to go on the end of season camp,’ one boy said. ‘He wanted to learn about bonfires.’
‘He was pushy,’ said another. ‘Always captain of every team. I know. I was his best friend in primary school.’
That couldn’t be true. I didn’t remember him at all.
The boy continued, ‘We had a school excursion to the CFA one time, and he was all over the fire engine. Desperate to find out how everything worked.’
His face was replaced with that of a young woman who said she was Penelope’s best friend and, ‘I never liked Caleb. I warned her to be careful. He was always really… I dunno… strange.’
I stood. I could listen better with more wine.
I refilled my glass and, in the kitchen, checked my email. Marco had sent a message of care and concern including a lot of virtual hugs and photos of the rotating dining room floor his Roman team was uncovering. How connected everything is, I thought, topping up my glass again. How strange, given this, how little sense any of it makes.
Nero allegedly burned Rome to the ground to make space for his Domus Aurea palace. In the time that passed between Stephen leaving and Caleb’s first trouble, I sometimes imagined that when Caleb was grown, I’d rejoin Marco in Rome. The dome of the octagonal rotunda his team found was once covered with glass mosaics, my own area of expertise. I’d match Marco’s excitement about ancient mechanics with my own excitement about ancient art. I would put that mosaic together, piece by piece. Instead I was here, with this puzzle of Caleb’s day and its separate, painfully sharp pieces.
With my wine, I padded down the hall, and pushed his door open. The mess. At least I could fix that. Tomorrow I’d fill big green garbage bags with outgrown clothes, and toys he’d ignored for over a decade. His absence reminded me of times I’d missed him before. At least now I knew where he was.
His room was an art installation, A Boy’s Life, offering evidence of all the Calebs who’d lived here. The Caleb who eventually came home would be a different person again. One by one, I inspected his drawings like they were roadmaps into his deepest thoughts. But I was still lost.
In the morning, Genevieve came over, with her own ridiculous idea of proof that she was trying to help: she brought a gift of expensive Estée Lauder cosmetics. ‘Come out. You’re rotting away locked up in a classroom or this crumbling old house. People need to believe in you, too. So you need to look believable. Normal.’
She took me to a local cafe, reconstructed with minimalist colours, mismatched chairs, and signed digital prints of exaggerated fashion plates, a determined attempt to bring smashed avocado culture to Brunton. I’d believed Genevieve was a good lawyer. But really, she was all about show. Another fact I’d recently realised: I was a better mother than she had been. After my disastrous final year of school – it was Genevieve who called it disastrous; my teachers said I’d done rather well – when I’d decided to study art history, Genevieve spoke about it like I’d joined the circus. ‘If you do well in first year, you can probably arrange a transfer,’ she’d said.
I told her I’d never been interested in law. Genevieve had opened one of the briefs she brought home and got back to work. ‘I don’t want sour grapes.’
‘I want to study art history.’
I hadn’t been sure she’d heard me. But she’d looked up a few moments later. ‘You might as well. I’m sure that particular university department is full of people who didn’t get into law school.’