as his hands and knees dug into them, until he had rolled himself over the back seat into the front. The car roof was buckled low above them, but he just squeezed through. Then he was on his stomach facing the driver’s door. He struggled and squirmed to sit up, reached for the handle and pushed. The door opened. No–one outside was blocking it. He pushed it further open and scrambled out.
There was no sign of his father. There was no sign of anything. They had rolled so far from the rough track, he could no longer see any road. Beyond the light of the car interior, it was very dark in the waiting bush. And silent. As if the car crashing had silenced all the creatures, shocked the trees even, and everything in the world was holding its breath. Except for Xavier. He was still crying steadily.
‘Come on,’ Vianney pulled and tugged at the back door, until it opened slightly – it had been buckled and pranged in the rolling. He needed someone to push from inside. But Xavier was frozen into his position, weeping and whimpering. Vianney reached his hand in and tugged at Xavier’s curled up legs, ‘come on, little pip squeak!’ He had hoped the insult would fire him up, but Xavier cried harder.
‘Wait Vianney!’ Lolly instructed. Lolly was now wriggling over into the front seat, pulling and pushing himself to get out. He was much bigger than Vianney – it was a tight fit. Eventually he heaved himself out onto the road. The car light shone on the side of his bloodied face.
‘Yuck’ Vianney pulled a face. But Lolly just rubbed his hand over his eyes, moving hair and blood out of his way. ‘You’re not so good looking yourself,’ he said. Vianney touched his own face. His left hand felt something raw and wet, and came away with blood. Shit. Amazing. He hadn’t felt a thing.
Lolly stood beside Vianney in the dark hot night. Together they yanked and pulled the back door open as far as they could. They regarded their youngest sobbing brother, now firmly locked into foetal position.
‘Come on Xavier,’ Vianney urged, ‘you’re not even hurt. Lolly and I cushioned your fall. Look, Lolly and I are bleeding.’ He hoped the information might entertain or divert, but Xavier just wailed more.
‘Ssshh, Vianney.’ Lolly pushed him gently away. ‘Stop it. He’s only four.’
The two older boys half lugged Xavier out into the night. Once he was standing, his wails lessened. In the dark of the bush, Lolly’s blood was less visible, a damp current in his black hair. He patted Xavier on the back, and waited for a while. ‘Okay mate?’ Xavier nodded. He still couldn’t speak for the sobs, but he was trying to master himself.
Lolly looked around him with alert confidence. ‘Hold hands’ he instructed, putting Xavier in between him and Vianney. ‘This way,’ Lolly said with conviction as if he could see. As if he had firm knowledge of their direction, and the place they had found themselves in.
There was a powerful relief in being bossed around by Lolly. Vianney had thought it might all have to be up to him.
Chapter 7 - Seek and ye shall find
The text came through from Claudia saying that Vianney had arrived at their place, and like someone in a TV crime drama, Hilary stealthily entered the sunroom/study/junkroom, thrilled by anxiety – Lolly and Claudia’s place was only about ten minutes brisk walk away. They lived, of course, closer to the beach, money paving the way.
Hilary moved her old guitar case out of the way. Surprised to see it there. Had Vianney been playing? She spoke soothingly, in case it was getting excited by her touch, sensing her close presence from inside its battered case. ‘One day, one day, soon,’ she lied.
She lifted the old framed photo of Vianney’s father gently from its position on his desk. Handsome Sean Ryan, forever young, smiled out at her from his yellowy orange Polaroid world, his black hair 70’s long, his strong working hands resting on top of a young Vianney’s shoulders. Xavier was a mop-topped cherub with only the top half of his face showing in the bottom part of the picture, and half of Lolly was glimpsed to the right. Whoever had taken the photo - Kate? - was either a hopeless photographer or had had eyes only for Sean.
Hilary started with the papers piled up around Vianney’s laptop. She could see bits and pieces of Vianney’s own script about the loving but doomed 19th century Ryan brothers. Vianney had been working on it for years. Philip Ryan had come out from County Kilkenny to NSW as a free settler, to support his brother Michael, a convict. Framed, they had declared, ‘a sincere patriot’, and innocent of the charge of murder. Circumstantial evidence, jealous neighbours etc. The brothers had established a small dairy holding, working hard on the land. Stolen land, of course, from the traditional owners, just as it had been in Ireland, but that didn’t concern any of the Irish then. Then the convict brother Michael, clearly a loser, had drowned in a Maitland flash flood in 1859. The whites had not yet come to understand Australia’s ecology.
It was Vianney’s script that was doomed, Claudia had said, privately, (so she thought) to Siena. Irish Australia was no longer TV fodder. They’d had The Sullivans, and Brides of Christ. What more did they want? It was time to move on. There were other voices in Australia now.
‘I hadn’t noticed they’ve asked you Anglo guys to shut up yet.’ Siena claimed she had retorted to Claudia. ‘Personally if I see another program about the fucking Tudors on the ABC, I’ll scream my fucking head off.’
Hilary looked underneath Vianney’s script, and went rifling through a sheaf of papers. Feeling terrible, feeling excited. Realised she was not really breathing.
It was almost too easy in the end. Her eye leapt at the word Davitt, in a pile of papers clipped together. She had found him! Found Xavier bloody Ryan, the wounded child, the youngest brother. The one in all the fairy tales who won the princess. The spoilt brat.
Claudia and Lolly would be thrilled with her. She felt the warmth of their gratitude in advance.
The email address read [email protected]. Whoever Johanna Reynolds was, the latest Doll she supposed, it was Xavier’s voice that leapt out at Hilary. Enthusiastic, incoherent, close.
Oh how I hate writing. Hope you got my Ilfracombe scene. Poor old Anna Parnell. Still, I don’t think she’d want my pity. She wouldn’t admit she had been broken. Yet she was. Politics is a terrible game. Though I guess our own dear Davitt provided some redemption.
What I’m thinking, as I’m writing, well I’m feeling, really, I’m feeling THEM. All their power. It’s like entering a force field, such a fierce energy, that will for justice. No wonder they thought God was with them. That God who loves the poor. Remember Him? Ha ha. We haven’t seen him around lately.
You say you can sometimes feel the grief of the ancestors, but what I’m feeling is their rage. The rage which built Australia really. And the hope. And the courage. They were so fucking brave. Of course they had a fantasy Ireland to live and work for. I just wish we had a fantasy Australia – something high and beautiful and noble. Enough. I’m tired. Have a look dear bro and tell me what you think.
Hilary knew she was eavesdropping. Xavier was talking to the one who loved and guarded him, shielded him as if he were the jewel in the Ryan crown. Vianney the big brother, protector and defender. A role men were supposed to extend to their women, weren’t they? In some way she’d been fighting Xavier Ryan all her (un)married life. For that special place in Vianney’s heart. And after all these years, she hadn’t been able to dislodge him yet.
She heard footsteps on the stairs outside. Something shot through her. Something sharp and violent, extreme
