On the Jellicoe Road

“You want me to take care of this?” he said to the officer on duty.

“It’s all yours.”

Jude noticed that the constable didn’t look much older than them. Up close, his olive skin was smooth and his dark eyes were questioning but kind.

“So you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“You’re kind of the fourth person and no one’s really listening,” Jude said.

“I’m listening.”

“We’re missing someone.”

“Not Fitz?”

“No, but he’s gone AWOL. Our friend Webb—Narnie’s brother—he’s gone. You’ve probably received word from the school. We don’t know where he is but it’s been two days.”

The young cop’s stomach turned. He knew these kids—the girls, anyway. During his first week on the job five years ago he had been called out to an accident on the Jellicoe Road. It had been the first time he had ever seen dead bodies and he remembered how he had thrown up on the side of the road while his sergeant had told him to pull himself together. He remembered these faces. He remembered Fitz with them, a new look in the troubled kid’s eyes.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Jude said. “Some shit about him being seventeen and probably taking a bit of ‘time out.’ But I bet if his parents were beating down your door, you’d be listening.”

“I said I’m listening,” the constable said firmly.

His gaze went from Jude to the girls. “Who was the last to see him?”

A muffled sound came from Tate but Jude could hardly look at her. It was as if she had disappeared in the last two days. Like the light had gone out of her eyes. He couldn’t handle Tate like this. Narnie, he was used to but not Tate.

“Was he acting strange?” the cop asked. “Did he take anything with him?”

“Nothing’s really missing,” Jude said. “Probably what he would always have on him. Like his Felix cap and he always had his Walkman and that’s gone. But nothing else.”

“What about money?”

Jude looked at Narnie and she numbly shook her head. “There’s no money until we’re eighteen.”

“But that’s soon, isn’t it?” he asked gently.

She gave the young constable the full force of her stare. “Why are you asking us this? He didn’t leave. He would never leave. Something has happened to him. Something bad.”

“Look,” he said. “I’m not saying I don’t believe that but we hear stories like this all the time. That there’s no way someone would run away or just take off, but they do. Stuff happens that not even the closest person to them knows about.”

“You don’t know my brother.”

“Tate, you were the last to see him,” Jude said. “Can you remember?”

She looked at Jude, bewildered. “Remember? I can remember everything I’ve ever said to him and every single thing he’s ever said to me.”

They looked at her, waiting. “He told me about his university choices and that he was looking in the city papers for a place to live for me and him and how Narnie would come and join us next year when school was out. And how we’d stay in the city for just four years and then we’d come back here because he’s going to build me a house. A house for me and Narnie and him. And that it was going to be hard leaving Fitz behind but maybe, just maybe, we could convince Fitz to come to the city with us and that Jude would be there, too, and then I told him…I told him we were going to have a baby.”

“Tate.” Narnie breathed softly. “Oh, Tate.”

“He was…I don’t know, shocked. Like he couldn’t believe it. I mean, we’ve been together…in that way…forever…because there was never going to be anyone but Webb. That night,” she said, looking at Narnie. “Remember that night? I heard his voice and it was like…it was like God spoke and I knew, from that moment on, that I’d be with him for the rest of my life. That’s the only reason I lived. To be with that boy with that voice. Remember, Narnie? He climbed through the window, through all that glass, just to hold my hand.”

“No, Tate, you climbed through the window to hold our hands. You cut your arm, remember? Just to be with us.”

Jude watched Narnie put her arm around Tate. He didn’t know this Narnie. Her voice was stronger and he had spent the last two days not being able to look at her because her gaze was so sharp and focused that it pierced through him.

“Maybe he decided—” the cop started.

“No,” Narnie said, staring at him as if warning him against saying anything that would upset Tate. “My brother would never in a million years leave us. You quote all your statistics and what you’ve seen on this job but you don’t know Webb.”

The constable picked up his pen and began to record details, adopting an air of professionalism but deep down he felt a sorrow for these kids that made his insides churn.

“I need a photo,” he said, “and can I suggest a GP? My wife’s having a baby as well, you see.”

Narnie looked at Tate and nodded.

“Let’s start with his name,” the constable said.

We attend another meeting with the Townies and Cadets in the scout hall, ready to talk real issues and make intelligent demands. When Raffaela, Ben, and I arrive, some of the Townie girls are hanging around the entrance where Jonah Griggs and Anson Choi are just about to walk in. One of the girls approaches Jonah Griggs and just hands him her phone. No warm up, no “Hi, how are you, can I call you sometime?” She just hands over a mobile phone so he can record his number. I want to be petty and tell them we don’t have coverage out off the Jellicoe Road but that would just mean I cared.

“Sorry, we don’t have phone coverage off the Jellicoe Road,” Jonah Griggs says, handing it back and disappearing beyond the doors.

As I walk past the girls, I hear one say, “That’s his girlfriend,” and I stop and face them.

“What did you say?”

They ignore me with that wide-eyed how-uncool-is-this-girl-for-responding look on their face.

“I’m not his girlfriend,” I say forcefully.

“Well, good for us,” one of them says snidely.

“Not really,” Raffaela tells them. “He’s got a girlfriend and he’s madly in love with her. She lives next door back home.”

I am surprised by this news. Even more surprised that Raffy knows but then again Raffy has this way of knowing everything. As we enter the room, I ask the burning question as indifferently as I can. “How did you find out all that stuff about Griggs and his girlfriend?”

“It was easy. I lied.”

The meeting is a farce from the moment things get started. Santangelo is babysitting three of his sisters and they practise Beyoncé dance movements while the Mullet Brothers insist on playing their guitars.

“Your mother told my mother that she wants Jessa McKenzie for the holidays,” Raffaela tells Santangelo above the noise. “Do you guys know her?”

It’s the first I’ve heard of the plan and I feel an anxiety that I can’t explain.

“Oh, bloody wonderful,” he says bitterly. “Because there just aren’t enough women living in my house already.”

The Mullet Brothers fight amongst themselves the whole time and at one stage Anson Choi and Ben are trying to keep them off each other while having an argument themselves about musical pitch and when Jonah Griggs yells, “This is ridiculous! I’m not coming back,” I have to agree for once.

Outside, the Townie girls are still hanging around and while we wait for Ben, I notice them speaking to Griggs, who is very amused at what they have to say, which has to be fake because there is no way these girls would be witty.

We walk home, the Cadets behind us and, not really wanting the Cadets to listen to our conversation, Ben, Raffaela, and I walk in silence.