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I wipe the blood out of my eye and search the ground beside Ralph. I lift my knees high over a low, spiky zamia palm to grab the barrel of the gun with my good hand and hoist it against my hip.
Ralph shivers like he’s cold or is about to have a fit. Is that what someone looks like when they die? Did the roo give one last shiver before its heart stopped, prompting Ralph to hit it again?
‘Don’t hurt him!’ cries Marilyn, paused at the edge of the clearing. ‘Is he alright? Is he under that tree that fell?’
‘Stay there!’ I shout back. I bend down to get a better look at where the tree has squashed Ralph. My head swoons. A spike on the end of the branch has penetrated the left side of Ralph’s back, splitting him between the ribs. It’s an inch thick, like a tent peg, but it’s hard to tell how long. He’s still making noise, but it’s more of a wet, crackling sigh as he breathes out.
Now I just need to get Marilyn under control. ‘He’s injured! Stay there!’
I head for her, eye to eye. She takes a step backwards. Those fantastic high heels buckle, and she slides backwards, her neck bouncing sickeningly as her bum drops to the ground.
I’m relieved I didn’t need to point the gun. Those things can go off suddenly. I throw the gun sideways. It drops, butt-first, into a thicket and vanishes.
I jump on Marilyn, straddling her waist, my knee and good hand high on her chest. Her fingernails bite into the back of my hand.
We roll around. I go down on my side, gravel in my ear, dirt clinging to the wet stickiness on my cheek. She’s stronger than I expected. I clamp my legs harder, brace and ride her as she bucks. When she stops suddenly, I push up until she’s underneath me. She wriggles weakly, sniffles, coughs against the dirt. I loosen my hand. To my right, a white snake catches my eye—the rope.
Marilyn is flat, and I feel the fight go out of her. Her torso vibrates with sobs. I jerk one of her arms back, pin it with my knee and then get the other arm; they are like two fat dead weights, like lamb roasts.
She’s covered in apricot-coloured dust. My eyes are gritty with it. As I secure her wrists, my head pounds, which makes me tie her hands tighter than necessary. Loop over, down, and back, the scouting way, but one-handed. Walshy would be proud of me.
I get up and check that Ralph hasn’t moved, risking getting close. He looks like he’s asleep, his mouth open, lips loose, spittle bubbling as he sucks air in and out.
‘I can’t hear anything!’ Marilyn yells. ‘You killed him,’ she sobs into the dirt. ‘Ralphy? Ralphy, my love? Oh God, oh God. What am I going to do?’
‘Nothing. You’re going to stay there, kissing gravel, you fucking cow!’ Out comes the adrenaline-fuelled poetry. I feel a hundred times stronger. Feel like I could jump a tree ... or lift one ... a branch at least. Maybe to release a nasty fuckwit who will need hospital if he’s ever going to face court. But not yet.
‘You have some explaining to do, Marilyn.’
She whimpers. ‘I don’t care. Let me die! Ralphy, Ralphy.’
I’d roll my eyes if I wasn’t already struggling to see. I cradle my aching hand gently in my good one.
‘He’s alive, but he needs to go to hospital. Stick through the lung.’
Her head lifts up. Her face is an abomination of makeup, snot and dirt. Mascara has drawn a warpaint of thick charcoal down her cheeks, like a mud-smeared doll.
‘He’s alive?’
‘Only if we get him to hospital.’
Life returns, and she performs a caterpillar motion with her knees and gets to kneeling, wincing and sniffing hard, her kneecaps on the gravel. ‘Hurry! Help him.’
‘Sure.’ I lean against a tree where I can see them both. My hand throbs. ‘Start talking.’
She blinks, her watery eyes wide. Then her mouth clamps shut, and she swallows.
I hold up the candlestick. ‘Ralph put that poor roo out of its misery. Should I do the same to him? He’s badly injured. Wouldn’t take much.’
‘No! No, don’t hurt him! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!’
‘HURRY!’ I sound angry. I’m proud of myself.
Ralph groans, and Marilyn’s eyes track there and then back to me.
‘Start with Ned.’
Marilyn clears her throat. ‘Ned is Ralph’s ... father.’
‘Ralph’s what? Don’t fucking bullshit me, Marilyn!’
‘He is. He is! I promise!’ Her face changes, the light dying in her eyes. ‘Well, his ... stepfather, I guess,’ she stammers. ‘He’s also ... Ned’s also yours.’
The oxygen goes out of my fire.