'Christopher'	Chapter < two > of sample chapters
	by Myra Howerd, July 1996
	Copywrite held by Claudia Klaus, P.O. Box 5102, Mackay M.C., QLD 4741, Australia

Down at the dried-up old creek bed Christopher was wondering miserably just what to do next. Now that the initial panic was over he was coming to realise just how foolish he'd been. He had nothing, not even his bag, and that was by far the worst disaster of all. In that bag was everything he owned and all the proof in the world of who and what he was. Or wasn't.

He realised now that running away hadn't been such a good idea after all with shame and now the boy now recalled Eric's usual disparagement of people who acted first and thought about things afterwards.

'It's what makes people whole, boy. Forethought. Careful weighing of all the factors. Miss out on that and you'll always be like a bloody emu, goin' flat out to nowhere!'

Somehow it felt as if he'd let the old man down already. With this thought more tears leaked from his reddened eyes and he angrily brushed them away. It was no good crying about what was past. What to do next? That was the big question.

Maybe the best thing would be to go and see this Mrs Beebe, the boarding house lady Eric had told him about. No, from the old man's word-picture he guessed she'd probably simply ring the police with the best of intentions, out of pity for a young boy now alone with no kinfolk, no money, and nowhere to go. He could hardly expect her to act any differently or to consider keeping him herself. She must be as old as Eric was... had been.

Sleeping was no problem. He and Eric had often slept out, but he would need more clothes... and food... those were endless needs of daily existence that he'd come to take for granted for so long now. Well, not exactly for granted, but together Eric and he had always managed to get whatever they needed, somehow.

'Slow down. Take each problem one at a time, one by one. Don't be a butterfly mind!' That's what Eric would have said.

His bag. It all came back to his bag. He just had to have it back for it held the very stuff of his existence as well as the various other small comforts for everyday living on the road. That would have to be his first priority, the bag. Where would it be now?

He glanced up at the late afternoon sun fragmenting itself behind the black silhouettes of the gums and tried to think like a policeman. What would he do if he suddenly had an old man arrive dead on the bus and two travel bags?

Lock them up, he supposed, but where? The Police Station, of course. That would make it much more difficult. How many policemen would there be? He tried to remember all the Police Stations he'd ever seen in all the small country towns, but soon admitted to himself that he and Eric had usually avoided such places as much as possible and that as a consequence he had no real idea of what they might be like inside.

Many of them had appeared to be no more than just ordinary houses, that much he did remember, so presumably inside there were one or two rooms set apart from family use for police business.

Christopher was so tied up with his planning that he didn't hear the girl approach at all and the first he knew of her presence was the perfume. It came to him silently, stealing over the tired grey boulders and penetrating his defences long before his subconscious recognised it and sounded the alarm.

When he finally did become aware of this delicate, new element in his environment he hesitated, then slowly and carefully scanned the creekbed in front of him, then to the side, in each direction.

The breeze was so slight and variable it gave no help at all in tracing the fragrance. His eyes found nothing out of the ordinary until at last he turned to look behind, up on the bank top. Then he was so surprised his mouth hung open and he froze, just like an old goanna caught stealing eggs. She was less than three meters away, an elfin figure in white shorts and tennis shoes, wearing a light coloured top. She was simply sitting there, watching him with her chin resting in her hands, her elbows on her knees. On her face there was simple curiosity and when her eyes caught his he saw that they were a startling blue. Her own inspection of him was calm and unruffled.

Christopher started and drew a ragged breath, unaware until then that he'd been holding it at all. He prepared for flight, cursing himself for being so tied up with his thoughts that he'd allowed someone to get that close to him without his being aware of it.

She watched him tense, his intentions plain enough, but she didn't react at all, simply continuing to gaze at him in an interested sort of way. She had brown hair, he noted distractedly, and a nose that was ever so slightly turned up, like his own. Age? Uncertain.

"I've got your bag," she said then, quietly and with a perfectly ordinary voice. There was the merest trace of an accent, he noticed, and there was some amusement, too. She said nothing else but continued to watch as if fully aware of the turmoil her simple statement had produced in him.

His bag! His precious bag with all it meant in his life!

Emotion roared hotly through him, completely overpowering the automatic flight response, and a faint hope was born in him, hope that maybe he could get it back from her. Surely that would be infinitely easier than trying to steal it from a police station?

On the other hand it put him at her mercy, and he recognised instantly the real meaning behind her ordinary words.

Nothing was ever for free. Eric again.

Then there came a dull anger, a resentment that he could ever be so vulnerable. Four soft words from an angel mouth and he was captured, as easy as that...

Maybe she's lying, a desperate part of his mind screamed out but in her calm gaze he recognised simple truth, not lies, and besides, how would she have known about it at all if she didn't have it? She had the bag.

He licked his lips, trying to think of a suitable response but before he'd formulated it she was speaking again.

"I think we'd better talk," she went on after that first long silence.

"I want to have a talk with you, anyway, even if you don't want to do any answering back. But not here. That was really a stupid thing to do, you know, running away like that."

He knew she wasn't just referring to the flight from the bus station, but the leaving behind of the one vital factor in his life. She was measuring his judgement, not the action itself, as if his desire to stay 'free' was perfectly understandable and acceptable, normal even, but his lack of foresight the only stupid thing.

She was perfectly right. Eric would have been much sharper with his criticism, telling him in measured tones what he'd lost and why, but now Eric was dead... He felt tears forming again, unbidden.

"I... I had to go..." he finally said lamely. "They would have put me in a home or something..." he choked on the words, his mind suddenly full of his own personal hell, a picture of queueing up for breakfast and asking for 'more' just like Oliver Twist.

"It would have been much smarter to wait, then," she said, reasonably. "There would have been other opportunities and more time to plan. What's wrong with a Home, anyway? Don't you have any people, any family?"

Her gaze was steady and he felt anger grow again. How could a girl like this ever know what it was like to have nobody. Well, not exactly nobody, but Perth was half a continent away. He'd make it. Somehow. And he'd get his bag back first.

"I didn't think," he admitted. "Eric was my family and now he's gone. He is dead, isn't he...?" His eyes lit with a sudden flare of hope. Perhaps Eric was only having another one of his turns... The hope died when the girl nodded gently.

"Yes, he's dead. Possibly a heart attack, the ambulance attendant could only guess. What are you going to do now?"

Christopher thought about it. This girl had a disconcertingly direct manner and those eyes pinned him to the rock as effectively as a needlethorn through the back of one of those wonderfully irridescent green beetles. Her's was a very good question indeed, and now he recalled the priorities he'd established earlier.

Get the bag back first. The girl had the bag, and surely it would be easier to get it away from her than from the Police station. Perhaps things were turning in his favour after all. But why had she taken it? That was another question entirely and a new factor in his personal equation. Was it from sympathy? She could take her sympathy and put it... where it hurt most! He didn't want anyone's sympathy. Or help.

She must have seen it all in his eyes for she moved to stand looking down at him.

"When you've thought about it come and see me. I'm in the motel, unit six. The policeman won't touch you now, he thinks you're with me, so you're safe from him now, at least for the moment."

With a final glance she turned and daintily picked her way from rock to rock until she was back on the gravel road and then began to walk up the street, quite unhurried.

Christopher watched her go, his feelings in turmoil. She was the only link with his bag and she was leaving! It was as if she were a spider and had spun the finest sticky silk thread and then reached out and attached it to him, leaving, withdrawing to a safe distance while he fought the softness and entangled himself, but remaining tied to her all the time.

Why was she doing this? Why should any person choose to involve themselves in the life of another? He remembered Eric's words on the subject.

'Watch out for do-gooders, Christopher-me-lad, they're vampires, all of them, they feed on your soul. They get their pleasure out of watching you twist and squirm, forced to accept their generosity. They like to see you grovel. A man's never free if he lets himself become beholden to people like them.'

Only this girl didn't quite fit that picture. True, there had been some sympathy in her gaze, but none of the soul-hunger he'd come to recognise. She knew the rules, knew that nothing is ever truly given or taken away. She was aware.

When she was nearly fifty meters away he stood and slowly followed, hating himself for his weakness but obeying the greater need. She had his bag! That was reason enough.

He didn't attempt to catch up but trudged alone behind her in the ripe yellow of the last of the sun that made a beckoning silhouette of the girl's slight form as they turned onto a west-bound street, making him squint once again.

Steadily they approached the heavier concentration of buildings he'd so recently run from in panic, and he felt his mouth go dry with anticipation. Was she telling the truth about the policeman? There was only the one way to find out.

There was an ache in him now, a new, raw, empty place, an absence. Where was Eric now? Where did you go when you died...? Did it all just stop, or was there more? Was the old man really dead?

The girl turned into the dusty red yard at the back of the motel block and continued along to the end unit. There was a white car parked outside, one of the small Japanese makes that Eric despised so much. Had despised. She opened the motel door with a key and without a backward glance went inside. Again he felt helpless rage. She was so sure of him!

Slowly he dragged his feet through the dust to the same door and fought a silent battle with himself, recognising the one last chance to break the thread and leave. Hopefully he looked inside the car. Maybe she'd left his bag in there, but no, it was empty. Pity. He could open cars. At last he sternly reminded himself that he had to get the bag back, no matter what the cost, and he knocked firmly on the door.

There was a muffled sound from within that he took for an invitation, so he twisted the knob and opened it, looking in.

She was across the room, barefoot now and plugging in the cord of an ordinary electric jug. The room was carpeted and cool with air conditioning, and he could see she'd left her dust-marred shoes just inside the door. Elsewhere there were two single beds and a small table. Further back he saw the door to what must be the bathroom.

"Well, come on in, then. Leave your sandals at the door." She picked up a newspaper from the table and began to study it, ignoring him totally as he clumsily complied, suddenly feeling very dirty and defensive in this cool, air-conditioned palace.

"The shower's in through there." She looked up at him long enough to convey the absolute inflexibility of her expectations. "I want you scrubbed and shining pink. Make sure you wash your hair as well, you can use my shampoo." Then she was back to perusing the newspaper, seemingly oblivious to him again. After a long pause while he fought the angry impulse to simply walk back out of the door he finally padded barefoot over the carpet to the bathroom and the cold tiles.

He was baffled and off-balance, on the defensive again before he'd even had a chance, and it didn't help that he understood her motives, that her attitude was deliberate.

He was also embarrassed, for showers were a rarity in his life on the road or in country shearing quarters. He felt alien, out of place, even more than the girl intended.

Carefully he investigated the shower cubicle and found out by trial and error how to balance the flow to a pleasing temperature, then very ostentatiously closed the bathroom door before stripping off. Her shampoo was in a strangely shaped plastic bottle that was interesting in itself but he doggedly stuck to the task of getting clean.

Not that he was really dirty. Afterall, he'd been in his very best clothes for the bus trip, for Eric always said you had to make a good impression. Privately Christopher thought the effect was somewhat marred by the smoke-blackened billys hanging from their bags and by Eric's battered old felt hat and whiskers, but he knew better than to mention it.

After the shower he towelled himself briskly, enjoying the coarseness against his skin and quite undismayed by the visible smears of red appearing on the cloth. When there was a knock at the door he was at once confused and awkward and hurriedly wrapped the towel around his waist and said "Yes?"

The girl opened the door and came in, a cup of coffee in one hand.

"Washed? Let me see... hmmm, you missed here, and here... and over there, on your neck. In you go once more. Now. I'll be checking up on you again in a few minutes."

Without further comment she turned and walked out, sipping the coffee and pulling the door closed behind her. Christopher felt his face hot with mortification and angrily let the towel drop. She was right, though, he decided. He could see other places on one leg he'd missed. It was a totally new experience for him, this being picked over like a side of mutton, and he didn't know how to react.

In the end his native common sense came to his rescue and he restarted the shower, this time scrubbing and washing places he'd never bothered about much before. There was no way he wanted another rejection! He was still under the water when he heard the door open again and he froze in panic, remembering that he'd left his only cover, the towel, just outside the shower curtain. His worry was premature, for the door closed once more and when he ventured out of the cubicle he found fresh clothes from his bag there, underpants, jeans and a shirt.

Another hot surge of anger went through him.

She'd been into his bag!

To Christopher this was the very worst sacrilege, the greatest invasion of privacy imaginable. Even Eric never touched his bag, never! He fumbled as he dressed and went back out into the main room and the girl looked up.

"Ahh, finished, I see. Let me look at you... hair, you haven't done your hair." She produced a comb and beckoned him over and without a quiver of emotion set about combing his hair. When she'd finished she looked at him critically and nodded.

"What's your name? Christopher, isn't it?" He nodded. "I'm... you can call me Nicole. Now I think we'd better have that little talk I mentioned. Before we go any further, here's your bag."

She pointed over to the second bed and there it was, seeming smaller than he remembered it, dark brown and very worn, especially where the handle of the billy rubbed across the cloth all the time as it swung.

Hesitantly he went over and checked it out, noticing that all the clothes were folded and tidier than he'd left them. The tobacco tin was still in it's usual place in the side pocket, apparently untouched, but then he remembered she'd known his name, so she must have opened it at some stage. His fingers lingered on it but he resisted the impulse to grab it to check that the precious contents were secure. He had too much pride for that. Not while the girl watched. He felt her eyes on him now, so he replaced the bag on the bed and turned to sit down facing her, suddenly aware that he should thank her and amazed to realise that apart from the few words at the beginning, down by the creek, he'd not said anything to her at all.

He wondered how to begin, and as the silence grew he looked directly at her and found her calmly and frankly gazing back.

"I... thank you, I guess," he finally said, feeling his face flush red again with embarrassment. She smiled at him then, and he saw her whole face light up. Why, she's very pretty, he decided.

"I should think so," she said, her smile taking the sting out of the words. "You've no idea how many lies I told for you this afternoon. Who was that old man, was he your father?"

"No, Eric was my great-uncle, my mother's uncle, I think. Is he really dead, I mean, really...?" His eyes earnestly searched her own, his face betraying the desperation locked inside him.

She nodded, gently.

"Yes, of course. I said so before, and you knew that or you wouldn't have run. That was foolish, you know. What were you afraid of, the police?"

Christopher felt tears well again in spite of his best efforts to suppress them, and dumbly he shook his head.

"No? Then what was it, this orphanage business? They would have looked after you, you know, without all this drama."

The boy struggled to assemble words that would adequately describe the great aching loss of a friend and the longtime horror he held of being incarcerated in a home for children who had no parents. His own private hell. After all, he did have a mother!

"I didn't... It was a shock, realising he was dead, I mean. He never even had a chance to say anything. Now there's nobody, and they'll put me in a home and the other children will laugh at me and it won't be possible to get back to my mother any more it's not fair...."

He began to cry like the child he really was, knuckling his eyes and letting the anguish pour out in great heaving sobs that tore at the girl's heart. He lay back on the bed, his back to her and the crying muffled by his arm.

Without comment she reached to the table and passed a box of tissues over, laying it beside him and briefly touched his shoulder before returning to her own seat. When the sobs lessened to sniffles and she was fairly sure he was listening again she began to talk.

"I think you might have the wrong idea about institutions like orphanages. They might have been sad, hard places once but I think they're much, much better nowadays. The children in them get plenty to eat and have their own rooms and personal things, and of course they go to ordinary schools and meet and play with other kids. I don't think they laugh at other people. After all, they're in the same situation themselves, aren't they? They should be the ones who best understand. Besides, you mentioned a mother just now. Is she still alive?"

By this time even the sniffles had wound down and when he turned around to face her it was plain that Christopher had benefitted from the emotional release, for he was able to answer quite coherently as he dabbed at his reddened eyes.

"Yes, I think so. Eric told me she was, anyway."

"What about your father... or your grandparents? Surely they would like to hear from you too?"

A strange look passed over the boy's face at that and a certain mulish expression settled there.

"I don't have a father and I've never met my grandparents. I've been with Eric for as long as I can remember."

"Then where do you live? You must have some place you call home, somewhere..."

He shook his head.

"No, we've always been moving, doing the shearing sheds or the orchards. Sometimes we stay in one place for a month but Eric says... said... it's no good getting settled when you've got to be off shearing again next season."

The girl looked at him with growing astonishment.

"You mean you never lived anywhere? What about school, don't you have to go to school someplace?"

"Oh yes, sometimes. When we stop in a place for a while the local policeman makes me go but I always hate it because all the other kids laugh at me and call me names. Eric used to teach me. He taught me to write and to read and I always get books and things at the libraries."

"Really? And do you like reading?"

He nodded his enthusiasm.

"Mmmm. It's fun, and you can find out things, interesting things, instead of the dry old subjects the teachers give you."

The girl regarded him with new interest. It was the first time she'd ever met anyone who had never been to school, at least not permanently, and she was fascinated.

"What about living and eating and sleeping? What if it rains...?" she finally asked.

"Oh, when we're doing the shearing in the season... Eric is the cook, he goes with one of the crews from New Zealand, mostly... then the cockie provides the bunkhouse and there's always room for one more. If the cockie's mean or moans about it those Maoris just start talking about how much costs are going up or start telling each other about what happened to some other bloke who'd upset his shearing crews. That always does the trick, we've got lots of Maori mates." Christopher looked at her in defiance.

"What about those times in between or when there's no shearing?"

"In the off season we go down into Victoria or South Australia doing fruit picking, or sometimes up in the mountains to break horses. Eric's famous for breaking horses..."

"But where do you live otherwise?"

The boy shrugged.

"On the road we camp out a lot or sometimes we stop at boarding houses like the one here in this town. That's where we were going to, Mrs Beebe's. Eric's owed some money by a cockie who lives near here, or so he says..." He broke off again, stricken face showing the returning memory of a dead and slumped Eric who would never see Mrs Beebe or get the money owed to him.

There grew a silence as the girl digested his words.

"I never thought I'd ever meet anyone who actually still lived the way you describe," she admitted. "I thought people like Eric had died out fifty years ago, but then here you are. You're an anachronism, that's what. Do you know what that is?"

"Anak... no, but I can guess. We're out of our time, is that what you're saying?"

"That's very good, the books must teach you things after all. Well, I can see we've got a lot more to talk about and I'm getting hungry, aren't you?" The boy nodded.

"Fine, we'll go into the restaurant, then, and have something to eat, and while we're doing that we can make plans. What do you say to that?"

She smiled at the horrified look on his face and added.

"And don't worry, I'm paying, you can eat as much as you like. Consider it payment for the stories you're telling me, OK? Are you ready?"

She put on some large round glasses that had the very peculiar effect of changing the blue of her eyes to a washed out slate colour. Christopher looked at her uncertainly and nodded, then followed her out of the unit and along the length of the building to the small restaurant attached to the motel for the convenience of the guests and other long distance travellers.

For the boy the meal passed in a haze of unreality. He barely noticed what they ate or what questions she asked, but he did remember the pain of being reminded about Eric. Nicole was very gentle with him then, changing the subject and drawing him out instead on how he'd lived for these years.

Of course he couldn't tell him all that much, for it had seemed so natural a life, uncomplicated and free. When it seemed she might probe too close or too deeply he managed to sidetrack her into discussion about books.

Christopher loved books. He chatted happily for nearly two hours and only when the meal was virtually over did he realise that he'd learned virtually nothing about his hostess at all.

In chagrin he fell silent at the end and was quite unprepared when she started on the subject he most dreaded.

"Well, Christopher, what do we do with you now? You're alone, and I presume you have little or no money, and your guardian is dead. Surely you see that you must now get help from someone?"

The boy's expression became petulant as she spoke, then hard with resolve.

"I won't go into a home, ever!" he averred, then abruptly changed the subject. "Why did you do what you did? Get my bag, I mean?"

She coloured a little and shrugged.

"I was waiting for the bus... watching for someone... when I saw what happened. I don't really know why I went to the trouble to get your bag, I guess it was just on impulse, that's all. Maybe I felt sorry for you, but I can't run your life for you."

"Where are you going... you are travelling, aren't you?"

She nodded, carefully watching his face.

"Yes, of course I am. Nobody in their right mind would hang around a place like this if they didn't have a family or a job. Dullsville." She grimaced.

"Which way are you going, west? I could come with you... there's no point in my staying around here, you just said so in so many words, and if I gave myself up to the policeman he'd just send me to Adelaide, wouldn't he? If you're going there I could go with you, couldn't I, Nicole? Besides, what are you going to say to the policeman if I end up with him here now...?" The words all came tumbling out, a rush of hope and emotion, and his eyes fixed on her face.

The girl looked at the table for a long time before she answered. Warring expressions ran across her fine-featured face and with a small tingle of hope he saw she was nibbling her bottom lip.

"You're right, it would be embarrassing," she admitted. "It so happens I am heading west, so there's no real reason why I couldn't take you, no practical reason, anyway. I'll have to think about it... you have no idea who I am or what I do, so don't try to pressure me into things.

"Right now you've got nowhere to stay and nobody, so I can't see any harm in your staying in the motel tonight. In the morning we'll discuss the matter further, and you'd better come up with a good reason why I should carry you onwards. Is that understood?"

Christopher didn't trust himself to speak. He nodded, his eyes shining.

"Very well, until the morning, then. Finished? We might as well go back now, I suppose."

They returned to the unit in silence and when they were inside Nicole pointed to the bed he'd left his bag on and told him he could sleep there. Then she disappeared into the bathroom.

Christopher stood there, feeling a little lost and wondering just how this would work out. He had no sleepwear and had never in his life slept in the same room as a girl before. What should he do?

At last he came to a decision and swiftly stripped to his underpants, then slipped in between the cool white sheets, pulling them up to his chin just as the toilet flushed and Nicole returned. She smiled at him and went over to switch the light out before going over to her own bed.

Christopher tried hard not to look, but he'd trapped himself by laying on his back, and he thought it would be far too obvious if he turned over to hide his eyes. Unconcerned, she turned her back on him and removed the top, then the shorts, leaving herself clad exactly as he himself was. Without fuss she pulled the covers of her own bed back and slipped in, and she was pulling the covers up again before he had time to realise that she'd managed the whole exercise with perfect decorum. He didn't know whether to be relieved or sad.

He was still thinking about what it must be like to be a girl when the cobwebs filled his head and he slept.

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