The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies Read online

  THE KINGDOM

  WHERE

  NOBODY DIES

  Kimberley Starr was born in the USA and arrived in Australia as a young child. Since then she has lived in Armidale, Sydney, Canberra and Toowoomba before moving to her current home of Brisbane. She studied English literature at Sydney University and Macquarie University and writing at the University of Queensland. Winner of the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Best Emerging Author, her writing has appeared in a variety of publications. The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies is her first novel.

  for Martin Elliget

  for my sons, Benjamin and Thomas

  and for my parents

  Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age

  The child is grown, and puts away childish things.

  Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

  Nobody that matters, that is.

  Edna St Vincent Millay

  from Wine from these Grapes, 1934

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Author Bio

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Imprint Page

  One

  Shoulders surfboard-straight, eyes round enough to watch the entire globe, Lachlan has taken our earlier conversation to heart. He is Being a Man. His yellow hat, orange T-shirt and almost obscenely blue runners are the only patches of colour in this grey-carpeted, grey-painted corridor. A schoolbag, bulky with spare clothes and shoes, drags heavily from his fingers.

  “Mum,” he says, his other hand pulling free of mine. “I’ll knock?”

  I nod. I’ve been standing here too long, aware of how much I’m not wanted in the apartment beyond. Lachlan, of course, has noticed my reluctance.

  “All right,” I say, clearing my throat. There’s something about that door, something in its bland, placid grey expanse, that repulses my own touch. “I’m sure they’re looking forward to seeing you. Both of them.”

  The pause is Lachlan’s now. He repeats my name before knocking, as if to make up for the next few days.

  “Mum, I don’t want you to worry about me, okay? I’ll be fine.”

  We both listen to the approaching footsteps, Lachlan’s fingers snaking their way back into my hand. He smiles to reassure me, but the expression is school-photograph false, lips stretched to reveal his overbite, no joy in his eyes.

  “Lachie, of course you’ll be fine.” As if my voice has somehow shrunk, I can fit no brightness into it. What I’d like to do is seize his schoolbag, tighten my grip on his fingers and escape. We just need to run down the hall to the elevator, to the taxi waiting downstairs. But I’ve long outgrown my teenaged belief that adults are free to do whatever they like. It’s too late, the moment is over. The doorknob is already turning.

  Nicole’s face, long nose first, peeks through. She looks suspicious, despite our phone call from the security desk downstairs. I know Lachlan hoped his father would answer; his fingers soften with disappointment, then stiffen again with new resolve. He has accepted Nicole into his life, of course. She may have been around for only a couple of years, but he’s just turned six. Those years form most of his recorded history.

  “Madeleine. Lachlan.” Nicole’s eyes skim the length of my business suit, pausing briefly at those parts of my legs visible beneath my skirt. I’d never felt that I had dumpy knees until I met Nicole.

  “I was about to go for a run when you rang,” she says. “Come in, Lachlan. Your daddy’s in the bathroom. He’s very busy today.”

  Lachlan’s body is already too tense for me to feel a reaction to this welcome. Nicole takes his bag, her plaited ponytail swinging as she strides the short distance to the dining table.

  “Thanks for doing this,” I say. My need to assert myself is absurd and needs to be controlled.

  Nicole turns. “Aren’t you lucky to have us here any time you want to fly off somewhere? I don’t know how other single mothers manage it. Lachlan, take your things through to the study. We’ll let you sleep in there.”

  Lachlan trudges away and, just in time to prevent Nicole and me being left alone, my husband appears. He moves quietly; for a big man, he’s always known how to handle his bulk with grace. He nods at me, then turns to Nicole, who looks as if she deserves to be kissed, standing there in her cute little cropped shirt and jogging shorts. But he nods at her, too.

  “Ah, Flip!” says Nicole, who must hate my visits as much as I do. “Here you are.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him. Flip? But my husband doesn’t blink. Perhaps he thinks one name is as good as another.

  “So, you’re working today?” I ask. “I haven’t seen you in a suit in a long time.”

  “You know how it is. Always a busy time of year.”

  Nicole threads an arm through one of his. “Of course he’s working. It’s Wednesday,” she says. “You’d better be back by the weekend, you know, Madeleine. We’re going out to Great Keppel and they don’t like children.”

  There’s a rustling sound in the barely furnished room Nicole calls the study. No doubt it’s Lachlan, looking through the plastic bin of toys kept there, to see if there’s anything new. I’d like to have this part of the unpleasantness over with before he comes out again.

  “I’ll do the best I can,” I tell her.

  Nicole’s eyes narrow, and she holds more firmly onto my husband’s arm. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Maddy,” she says. The words are ominous. “We both want to make sure you don’t use us as a convenience. Flip pays very good child support for Lachlan to stay with you.”

  The shadow in the doorway gradually resolves itself into a sad-faced Lachlan. I look towards my husband, waiting for him to interrupt, to remind Nicole that his son is loved and welcome here. But he clears his throat and looks away. Circumstances change us, I think. He is not the man I once knew. I might as well call him Flip, too. Yet I wince as his familiar hand pats her rear.

  “I’ll try to be back by Friday,” I say. “Lachlan, do you want to come out and say goodbye?”

  My son’s shadowy head nods, but his feet don’t move. I can read his thoughts from here. I know his mind; it grew in me. Daddy is going to work. I will have to spend today with Nicole. Mummy, don’t go.

  I turn back to Flip. “You really can’t take the day off?”

  “It’s a big opportunity, Madeleine. You know about my work.”

  I nod. I know. Lachlan retreats once more to the darkness of the study. I want to be as angry with myself as I am with Flip, but I’m not capable of the impartiality. Lachlan lives with me, I think. I am here for him every day.

  “You’ve heard the news from Brisbane?” I ask Flip. “You know why I have to go down there?”

  He nods. But Nicole hasn’t given up yet. She does not like to be thwarted. Evidently the weekend at Great Keppel is very important to her. Again, I have the feeling that, in his new lover, my husband has added an extra child to our relationship. We have to work together to keep her under control.

  “I’m sure they really need you there now,” Nicole’s mouth curves into a smile. “Sure, Maddy, they need you, we believe that. It’s not as if they’ve already caught the guy or anything.”

  She looks towards Flip, who shrugs uncomfortably. How like a stage prop he is, I think — apparently strong, yet incapable of offering real support. It’s worse for him with both Nicole and me here. He can’t seem to decide who has the lead role in his life. Not understanding that Nicole hates me because she’s hurt me, he doesn’t know what to say.

 
“It’s been on the news, Maddy,” Nicole continues. “You can’t go on pretending you have to get down there or all these terrible things will happen. It’s over. I —”

  Here, at last, my husband raises a hand.

  “You say they’ve asked for you in particular?” he asks me.

  I nod and struggle to keep myself under control. “It’s not just my research project,” I explain. Neither of them knows my more personal reason for going to Brisbane. And I’ll keep that to myself. “The man they’ve arrested has some connection to Cameron Seymour. They think my previous experience might help.”

  Nicole looks from Flip to me but doesn’t seem to register the surprised expression in his eyes. “I’ve never heard of Cameron Seymour,” she says. “Maddy, the point is that you can’t keep doing this to us. We don’t have room here for a child. If we didn’t have to keep paying so much maintenance for him, maybe we could move somewhere bigger. Which means if you’re not back by Friday, we might just sue for custody.”

  In the doorway, little shadowy shoulders heave. My husband has picked up a magazine and slides into a nearby seat, pretending to be fascinated by the editorial. Lachlan, all my nerves cry out, my little man, you’ll be all right, you will, but this time I really have to go.

  “Custody?” I repeat.

  “We’re getting married,” Nicole says. “Aren’t we, honey? Tell her.”

  I think of our own wedding, and try to make eye contact over a shared memory that must have entered his mind too. But Flip is busy with an apple he’s just chosen from the fruit bowl and munched into. Our life together has been archived in some part of his mind that he has no desire to access. At least she has him eating fruit.

  I push past them, into the small room where Lachlan will sleep, handing him a Matchbox car I’d hidden in my handbag, and pulling him against me. “You know I have to do this? That I have to go?”

  “Mum, I said I understand.”

  I sink into the sofa bed. “You’ll be all right here?”

  “Course. We’ll both go to the beach on the weekend though, yeah?”

  “Can’t think of anything I’d rather do. We’ll take your new camera. Maybe you’ll get a picture that’s better than my paintings.”

  Lachlan is at the age where realism is the peak form of art. “Yeah, Mum,” he says. “Maybe I’ll show you what they really look like.”

  I kiss the top of his head, breathing the potency of baby shampoo and pheromones that radiates from him. The smell is an umbilical bond.

  “You’ll try to be nice to Nicole, won’t you? She makes Daddy happy. And you can call me on my mobile at any time. Remember the number?”

  Lachlan recites the digits like a mantra. In case he forgets, I’ve written it inside the sleeve of his jacket with indelible ink.

  “Time for us to go back, hey?” I ask, kissing him.

  “Lachie!” Nicole says. Her voice is newly cheerful; Flip must have said something to her. She reaches into a hallstand drawer, pulls out a paper hat and deposits it awkwardly on her head. “Do you recognise this?”

  Lachlan’s mouth drops open, and he shakes his head.

  “You know!” Nicole prompts. Recently, she has featured in a television commercial for a local bakery, which makes her something of a celebrity in Rockhampton. “Bread from Heaven! Straight to You!”

  Lachlan shrugs, colouring. I can see how much he doesn’t want to disappoint her.

  “Mum only lets me watch the ABC,” he starts to explain.

  Nicole glares to tell me I’ve been unspeakably neglectful. “Well, Lachlan, you can watch what you like when you’re here,” she says. “Look, you can even have the hat!”

  Lachlan crinkles the paper between his fingers, as if worried I might disapprove. His love touches me in an almost painful way.

  “I won’t be long,” I promise.

  Lachlan’s hand is an even smaller thing as I wave from the taxi, three floors below. I force my face into a bright smile, unsure of the limit of his vision. “Bye, baby,” I mouth.

  “You enjoy your stay?” the taxi driver asks.

  I give him a noncommittal mumble that means I don’t want to talk. He doesn’t care.

  “You should come with me at night-time,” he says. “Rocky can be beautiful then.”

  He begins to list some of Rockhampton’s famous landmarks and locations: the nearby caves, the botanical gardens, the heritage village.

  I unbuckle my briefcase and pull out a folder I brought with me. I just want to get to the airport.

  “Rockhampton’s sometimes called the serial killer capital of Australia,” he continues. “Did you know that?”

  I look more closely at the folder. I’d left everything in the car while I took Lachlan upstairs. Has the driver been looking through my notes? Surely not. I unlocked it just then — didn’t I?

  “Actually,” I say, “I thought that was Adelaide.”

  The driver waves the rival city away with a flick of his hand — the same flick, I suspect, that would wave away all of Sydney or even New York as potential rivals to his hometown.

  “At night from the hills you can see streetlights spelling out the word HELL in capital letters. It was on the news,” he tells me. “Adelaide’s got nothing like that.”

  I shake my head. “I suppose not.”

  “Tell that to Buffy,” the driver says. “Huh.”

  Once I’ve checked in at the airport, I find a quiet corner and begin to read through my notes. Apparently, I’ll receive a more detailed case file in Brisbane. This one doesn’t reveal much more than I could read in a recent newspaper. The man who has been preying on young boys along the Brisbane River has finally been caught.

  “I’m willing to come — I planned a visit to Brisbane soon, anyway. But how can I help you?” I’d asked the Brisbane police officer who called me this morning.

  “We’ll talk more when you get here,” he replied.

  Silently, I’d waited for him to elaborate. An old interrogator’s trick.

  There’d been a cough on the other end of the line. “Let’s just say that when we searched the files, your name came up.” The police officer, too, was used to interrogation and gave away as little information as he could.

  I continued to wait.

  He coughed. “In connection with certain earlier cases.”

  “I haven’t been to Brisbane often over the past few years,” I said. “If you could just give me a bit more information … Perhaps it’s one of my colleagues you’re really after.”

  “No, it’s you, Ms Jeffreys.” The officer assumed a patient, knowledgeable tone. “The case we’d like to talk about happened twenty years ago. I’m sure you remember the name Cameron Seymour?”

  I’d felt a shivering spread from my legs into my gut. Cameron Seymour. The name still ticks through my mind like too many CNN repeats. I wrote a piece about him just a couple of months ago, an article that must have found its way into the police files. Otherwise why would they call me? Profiling is a burgeoning profession; there are plenty of Brisbane psychologists capable of this work. Especially now the perpetrator has been arrested. As Nicole insinuated, I won’t exactly be tracking an active killer, like in some Hollywood FBI movie.

  I wonder if the police found some other reference to me in the Cameron Seymour files. The past is never as far away as I like to pretend. I’m going there now; this is as much a journey into my past as it is a journey to a physical place. My fourteen-year-old self still lives along certain stretches of the Brisbane River and for me the city is haunted. My ghosts aren’t displaced souls, I’ve made them myself. They are the shadows of people I once knew and loved, the shades of my former passions. As with other reminders of change and failure, I don’t care to walk too close, don’t like being forced to acknowledge that people I’ve loved no longer exist outside my memory. I cherish and fear them and can’t help imagining that they are there waiting for me.

  River Pocket, 1984

  Even to my resentful eyes,
it didn’t seem a frightening place. A typical Sunday meant crowds along the river, children’s parties, family picnics. Aerogard kept flies off tanned skin, lent eucalypt flavouring to sizzling sausages and lamb chops. Beetle-shiny new cars disgorged women in linen shirts, picnic baskets, babies. Men in baggy shorts and kids in jeans kicked bright plastic balls.

  On my own, I wore acid-wash jeans and hummed “Eye of the Tiger” as I sat on dried grass beneath a towering eucalypt, trying to draw. I wanted to capture the river in its precise shades of brown and bronze, to copy the lines that marked happiness into faces of mothers, fathers, children. Parents and kids. No one noticed me, no one watched as I crumpled up pages of my sketchpad. I was frustrated, couldn’t succeed, couldn’t identify what made them happy. There were families everywhere, and I hated them.

  Cameron Seymour must have been there, playing on swings, riding his bike down the boat ramp … Perhaps I walked past while he helped his father wash their car or mow the lawn. He was no one in particular; I didn’t notice him at all.

  I longed to be in a proper family, to have my mother alive again. I smoke, drank, told people I was years older than I was. Not that it mattered. Somehow, part of me seemed erased by my mother’s death. My life had taken one of those turns as unpredictable as the bends that intercepted the river in its sea-bound journey here for a short detour south before deflecting north again as if it had been lost for a while.

  The water’s diversion seemed planned to embrace the pocket of land and the picnickers in its folds. I didn’t want it embracing me. I didn’t want contact at all.

  Of course, I was willing to make exceptions: I was fourteen years old. Every day, I looked out for Andrew Coleman. I was lonely and grieving and how could I not be in love with him? He was everything that I was not. He was good-looking, popular, already known in Queensland’s sports-mad world as one-most-likely. I wanted his attention even more than I wanted my previous life back; so, with the logic of my age, I ignored him completely. We’d lived next door to each other for eight weeks and I knew as much about him as it was possible for a neighbour to learn. He did not know my name.