CHAPTER 20

I’ve heard grown-ups say, ‘Be careful what you wish for’. I know what that means now.

It had seemed so unfair that Dad had dinner at Aunty Maisie’s every Sunday, which meant that Caleb got to see him for so much extra time. And a couple of times he went to tea at the Hodgesons’. But he never came to Henley Beach. So when I heard Aunty Jean answer the phone as I walked past it, and was pretty sure I heard Dad’s voice, I hoped this meant it was my turn to have him come over to tea. I was afraid to ask outright, and Aunty Jean just gave me a glowering look until I had walked away. I huddled near the door, but I couldn’t hear anything. I was so keen to see him that I actually did some Sunday school homework to show Aunty Jean to get into her good books.

I took it to her at the time I was expected to present for inspection, and was pleased to see that Uncle Paul was already home, which surprised me because he was often late from work, but I’d never known him to be early. I thought perhaps Dad was coming for tea that very night and Uncle Paul had come home especially early to have time with him too. I wouldn’t mind sharing Dad with Uncle Paul. Well, actually I would, but another thing grown-ups say is ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’.

When I walked into the kitchen, Aunty Jean and Uncle Paul were sitting close to each other at the dining table, leaning in and whispering. For a moment I had a horrible feeling Dad was coming over because I’d done something wrong again. I stood at the kitchen door for a moment, allowing the movie of the last couple of weeks to roll over in my head, but I couldn’t put my finger on anything I should worry about.

Since Ida Rose’s letter, I really had been trying to do nice things for people like Dorcas in the Bible. I had done Maudie’s turn of drying the dishes three times without being asked. I had taken the hoover out and vacuumed the lounge and our bedroom. I’d shined up the kitchen sink with Vim the way I’d seen Aunty Jean do it, and I’d tidied up all the newspapers in the laundry into a neat pile and tied them up with string ready for the rag and bone man.

Aunty Jean realised I was standing watching them, and tapped Uncle Paul on the shoulder. He turned around and looked at me. At that very moment, I heard a car pull up in the driveway, and I just knew it was my Dad.

‘Who is it?’ I cried out. ‘Who is it? Is it Ruthy? Is it Caleb? Is it Mr Driver? Is it Mum? Has something happened to Mum?’

They just stared at me, and there was no colour in Uncle Paul’s white face.

I ran to the front flywire door, and wrestled with the snib that kept it closed. It seemed to me that it was deliberately getting in my way so I couldn’t get to Dad, who seemed to be just sitting in the car.

Finally I got through the door and ran across the dead grass. I was in my socks, and a bindi stuck into my foot, but I just hopped the last few yards to the car door. I pulled at the door, but Dad still had the little black rubber stopper down, and it wouldn’t open. I leaned down to look at him through the glass, and I felt I saw the end of the world on his darling face.

Ruthy gave me an account of what happened, explained to her by Dad after a visit from the police.

She took a lot of notes after he spoke to her so she could tell me as much as possible, seeing as I wasn’t allowed to go home straight away. We went over and over the story together. For a while I just couldn’t get enough of it, and needed to talk about every sentence, every thought, every idea, so I could get a feeling for what Caleb had been through. After she told me, I found some paper and made notes of questions I thought she might be able to answer, or at least discuss together. As a result, the story I ran over and over in my head is now quite detailed. On several occasions Ruthy went to Lincoln Waterford’s house to ask him what she called supplementary questions. He was very sad and very happy to talk about it and to try to help. He hadn’t been to school since, and his parents were making him talk to a priest every day for a while to help him get over what happened.

When Ruthy first turned up at the Waterfords’ door, she said Mrs Waterford wouldn’t let her inside. She pushed her back on to the porch and asked what she wanted with Lincoln. Ruthy said she thinks she is quite a good mother and was probably worried we would blame her for what happened, but Ruthy told her straight away we didn’t, and that we were very glad Caleb had a terrific friend like Lincoln who really tried to help, and that something would have happened anyway because Caleb was trying hard to rescue Dad. Mrs Waterford stepped towards Ruthy, grabbed her in the tightest hug in the world, and cried and cried. They let her in to see Lincoln, who also seemed wary for a few minutes, and who then also cried and cried and said how sorry he was. He was eager to talk and Ruthy took lots of notes so she could share the story with me.

So from what we can piece together, Caleb had consulted Lincoln Waterford daily about how to stop Dad from being sacrificed. Lincoln had asked his mum, his dad, an old priest and a couple of nuns whether there was anything that could have been done to stop Jesus from being nailed to the cross, but apparently they had said no, he had to sacrifice himself to save the world. This didn’t seem fair to me, because I’m not convinced he was really given a choice, even though at our church they said he was. I think this is a bit like saying Daniel had a choice at seventeen about whether he had to be sent to New South Wales, or whether he could be a lawyer when he left school, but when you are brought up to hear the same thing year after year, and told to obey your parents, in my opinion it’s pretty hard to pick something you know everyone will be upset about, so I think Jesus, just like Daniel, didn’t really have an option.

Lincoln tried to cheer Caleb up by pointing out that our dad wasn’t, as far as he could tell, the Son of God or part of the Holy Trinity, whatever that was, and therefore he couldn’t be expected to die for everybody. Caleb sent him back to the Catholic experts with this question, which I thought was a good one: ‘He may not be the Son of God, but could he be another Son of God?’ Apparently the answer was something along the lines of ‘don’t be ridiculous’, so the boys crossed that off the list of concerns. As a result, in Lincoln’s opinion, if they could find a suitable alternative sacrifice, Dad should be okay.

Caleb was much cheered by this advice, but had no clues as to what the alternative sacrifice might be. Caleb remembered that someone or other had sacrificed a sheep, but they felt this would be too cruel and they weren’t sure where they’d get one. Lincoln thought Sampson had cut off his hair as a sacrifice, but Caleb said no, some girl cut if off when he was asleep. What they did agree on was there seemed to be a lot of stuff about burnt offerings, so they were settled on fire as part of the deal.

Once again, Caleb’s hero and mentor, Lincoln Waterford, stepped into the breach as Ruthy put it. She said this was what very brave people did when something hard had to be done that took courage, so I am happy to agree to this term. Having given it a lot of thought, Caleb and Lincoln decided that if they could steal a cross from a church and burn it like Joan of Arc, this should do the trick.

Caleb liked the idea of burning a cross because he felt it sorted out the nailed-to-a-cross business, along with the burning of Joan of Arc business, and apparently said, like his favourite character Virgil in Thunderbirds, ‘Thunderbirds are go!’

The next problem was how to find the right cross. Lincoln Waterford suggested one from our church would work best because it seemed it was our god that was causing the trouble. This confused Caleb, who had been told there was only one God, but Lincoln Waterford said he was sure his god and Caleb’s were not the same, and that ours was probably a more junior version. He felt it was likely that our god was like the captain of the Sturt Football Club in South Australia, whereas his god was like the captain of Carlton in the Victorian Football League, which was more important.

Lincoln was shocked when Caleb explained we didn’t have any crosses in our church because it was considered worshipping idols. He asked what other sacred objects we had that might serve the purpose, but all Caleb could think of was the little glasses in the wooden trays that held the wine, or the little tin dishes that held the bread. When Lincoln found out everyone could handle these, and in fact Caleb sometimes had to do a turn drying them in the middle hall after the Memorial Meeting, he was sure they wouldn’t fit the bill.

They discussed further the possibility of junior and senior gods, and compared it to whether all the Thunderbirds were equal. They finally decided that our god was probably more like the Brains character because we had to do church exams, whereas Lincoln’s was probably more like Jeff Tracy who was an ex-astronaut and founder of the Thunderbirds, and definitely the boss. They agreed that a cross from a more senior god was required.

Lincoln Waterford said they might be in luck, because things had changed at his church that just might sort out the problem. Apparently something called Vatican II happened, which was a really big deal in Italy somewhere. I gather it was a bit like our annual Christadelphian Conference that was held in a different city every year. When it was in Adelaide, we had to hire a whole high school for it. But theirs involved men in white and red robes and hats, whereas we just wore our Sunday best, and I gather there was quite a lot more fuss made about theirs.

The boss of their church, who I take it is the Pope, decided they should make a few changes. The priests in the long white frocks would stop praying to a big cross on the wall with their back to the audience, and would turn around and look at them across a big table with a smallish cross on it. This was ideal for Caleb, who told Lincoln Waterford that perhaps it was in God’s plan to save Dad after all, and that’s why God did a toy version of the idol they could steal. All they had to do was to snatch one of the new smaller crosses and burn it somewhere.

According to Lincoln Waterford, this wouldn’t be too much of a problem because he was in an upcoming Christmas play, and he had a practice straight after school in the church on Thursday night. If Caleb asked permission to go to his house to play after school, they could both turn up to practice and Caleb could check out the cross to see if he thought it would do a bang-up job. They would find a way to snaffle the cross and hide it somewhere overnight. Apparently this wouldn’t be too hard, because the practice was in their Sunday school room, not the main bit of the church hall, so it wouldn’t be noticed straight away. They could both sneak out of home very early the next morning, meet to burn the booty, and be back in time for school with Dad rendered quite safe.

Lincoln was a bit leery about stealing the cross, and they had a discussion about whether God might strike them dead, or send them boils and leprosy, or take their bikes away as a punishment. But Caleb pointed out that the more senior god probably wouldn’t bother about what a kid from a more junior god got up to. He asked Lincoln if Lincoln thought the coach of Carlton would know or care what the coach of Sturt was up to, and they both agreed this would be unlikely, and Lincoln felt more relaxed.

Their scheme ran to plan and they got the cross. They had a lot of discussion about where to burn it. Caleb was sure the tree house was the right place, because Dad had made it, no one would expect them to be there, and because of the beads on the string hanging on the tree. He explained the family string theory to Lincoln, who was quite impressed, and said he’d like to see the beads. He asked if a bead could be added for him, given he was helping to rescue Dad, and Caleb said he’d be happy to discuss this with the three of us when the sacrifice problem was solved.

So the boys agreed to burn the cross in our tree house, and they hid in a tree in the olive grove until Dad pulled out early the next morning to go to work. They had also pinched a lot of candles from the Catholic Church, because Lincoln said there were candles all over the place, and it would help make the sacrifice properly serious. They put all the stolen loot, along with two boxes of matches – Lincoln said they didn’t have to steal those because he and Caleb had always agreed a boy should have a box in his pocket for unexpected adventures – on a little branch we regularly used as a narrow table, and discussed the best way to do it.

The main problem was that the cross was metal, and they weren’t sure it would burn properly, but Caleb said he’d seen pictures of Joan of Arc where they tied her to a pole and put lots of kindling around her so that she would go up properly, so they built a nest on the floor of the tree house and sat the cross in the centre. Apparently, given it was so hot and dry by then, the pyre went up in no time flat with just a couple of matches.

Of course it quickly spread along the tree branches and the floor caught alight in no time. Lincoln raced down the steps calling for Caleb to follow, but Caleb kept saying he needed to see the cross start to burn, and Lincoln left him to it. Lincoln told Ruthy this was the thing that gave him the worst nightmares. Perhaps if he’d gone back and pulled Caleb out, he could have avoided what happened next. Ruthy told him she doubted it. She said Caleb was a sweet, skinny, sickly boy but he had a big streak of stubbornness and bravery in him, and nothing would have changed his mind. I think this was quite kind of Ruthy, and I wouldn’t have thought to say this.

Within minutes our timber picket back fence was ablaze, and Lincoln heard the neighbours start to shout. He ran as fast as he could to the olive grove and climbed a tree, waiting for Caleb to join him. He saw Mr Driver and a tall boy run out of Mr Driver’s house to the backyard, and other neighbours come out onto the street, screaming. Mr Driver spotted Lincoln and sent the tall boy to ask him what was going on. Lincoln was crying and said ‘Caleb’ and pointed to the backyard. The tall boy raced down the drive of our house to the backyard, calling out to Mr Driver that Caleb was in the garden. Lincoln didn’t see what happened in the garden but he saw the fire brigade arrive, and then ran home.

The fire destroyed the olive tree, the tree house, the back fence, parts of four neighbouring fences, Mr Driver’s greenhouse, Dad’s shed and the big shed belonging to the Spinelli family who lived behind us. Luckily a few neighbours were able to manage it until the fire truck arrived, and the firemen put it out before it burned houses to the ground.

The tall boy Lincoln had seen was my brother Daniel. We didn’t know it, but he had hitchhiked home and arrived late the night before. He had arranged to stay with Mr Driver until he could ring Dad to tell him he was home and to ask if they could talk. Mr Driver and Daniel were pretty much responsible for saving all the neighbours’ houses, but they couldn’t save Caleb.

Daniel ran into the fire and pulled him out, which was very brave, and resulted in burns on his arms and legs that meant he had to go in an ambulance to the hospital, but Caleb was already dead when he carried him out to the street screaming for help. Caleb wasn’t all burned up, but he had breathed in too much smoke, fallen as he tried to escape, and gone to sleep forever.

Ruthy told me they found the cross intact in the fire mess. She had gone to look for the string with our beads on it, but it had been burned up. She said there was a poetic justice in that, which I don’t understand, but I liked the sound of the word poetic given everything was so sad.