The Family Across the Street by Nicole Trope

46

Gladys

She took the children into her house and made them sit on the floor in front of the television set. But she wasn’t able to stay with them. She needed to see what was happening.

‘Watch them, Lou,’ she commanded. He nodded, his face pale with shock. The gunshot had echoed through the air, terrifyingly and certainly confirming that something had been wrong all day.

‘My mum,’ wailed George, ‘he’ll hurt my mum.’

Lou reached out for the boy who instead cuddled his sister, holding on to her tightly.

‘Stay here, George, I’ll see, I’ll go and see, just stay here.’ She dashed out of the room and her house, her heart pounding.

Now she is looking down the road, waiting for the police. Doors have begun to open, people emerging from air-conditioned homes into the street, drawn by the sound, curiosity dragging them from the safety of their own walls.

Go away, Gladys wants to shout at those she can see, but will they listen? Will they believe her?

The police finally arrive, parking slowly, without a care in the world. A woman constable gets out of the car with a smile on her face, angering Gladys. A man climbs out as well, his hat in his hands, a sheen of sweat instantly appearing on his face. Neither of them looks terribly concerned. Gladys explained what was happening on the phone and she had expected, had wanted, lights and sirens and urgency from the police.

‘Quickly, quickly!’ Gladys shouts, hurrying them up. ‘He has a gun. I heard a shot.’

‘Why don’t you explain…’ begins the constable, holding up her hands to calm a hysterical woman. Gladys wants to grab the woman and shake her. Don’t you understand? Why don’t you understand?

‘Gladys, Gladys,’ Lou shouts, frantic panic in his voice, ‘the boy has run away, he’s run away.’

Gladys darts away from the police, back to her own house, to see what Lou is doing.

‘What?’ she says.

‘He’s run away, the boy, he left.’ Lou has gotten himself into his wheelchair and wheeled himself to the front door of their house and is struggling to get up.

‘But you were supposed to watch them, oh Lou,’ she cries, knowing that he did what he could.

Gladys turns back, runs down her front path, her lungs burning with the unwelcome activity. The policewoman is still standing there, just waiting. ‘There’s a child… a child,’ she stutters, unable to get the words out. She didn’t see George come past her but he must have gone back into the house, he must have.

‘Okay wait, just…’ begins the policewoman.

And then there are two more shots.

Two more shots.

The two constables run towards the house, down the side, disappearing from view. They know what they’ve heard.

‘Oh no,’ moans Gladys as they disappear from sight, her knees sagging.

‘What’s happening, Gladys?’ she hears, and she looks across the street to see Margo, holding Joseph. She is right across the road, standing at her open front door looking directly into Katherine’s front garden over her low white fence. The baby smiles widely.

‘Oh Margo,’ she says, standing up straight again, looking at the baby, the precious baby in Margo’s arms, ‘go back inside, go back. He has a gun. Go inside.’

‘What?’ Margo sounds confused, disbelieving. Gladys desperately tries to make her understand, waving her arms.

‘Get back inside, Margo. It’s Katherine, it was… Didn’t you hear? It was gunshots… Please go back, take the baby away.’

She looks down the street at other residents who are making their way onto the road. ‘Go back into your houses,’ she shouts, hurting her throat.

Margo opens her mouth to say something else but then Joseph says, ‘Gaah,’ and she nods her head and scurries back inside her house, behind the safety of her walls.

Gladys cannot believe what’s happening, what she’s heard. How can such a thing be possible on this quiet street on a broiling afternoon when even dogs cannot be bothered to bark?

Three gunshots. That’s what she heard and she knows it’s the truth. She has been right all along. Something has been going on in that house all day and instead of calling the police earlier, she has allowed Lou and her own need not to be seen as the interfering neighbour to stop her from doing so. She is so grateful the police are in the house now. She can hear them shouting. She imagines John with his wide smile and quick laugh holding a gun, pointing a gun at his wife and children. It’s a horrifying image. Where is George? Where is Sophie? She darts back up her front path, her panting breath burning her lungs. ‘Sophie?’ she asks Lou, who is still trying to get out of his chair.

‘She’s in there. George told her to stay. She’s watching the television but don’t worry, I’m coming, Glad, I’m coming.’

‘No, no,’ she says, moving down her front path again. What is going on? What has John done?

She has always liked him but at the same time she has not liked him. He was nice enough but also a little too nice. No, that’s not fair. She’s trying to pretend she had an inkling about John but she didn’t have one – not at all. Gladys shakes her head. She’s going around in circles.

She knows that sometimes when you find out the truth about a person, you are able to point to something, some small thing about them that always made you just a little suspicious. But that’s not the case here. That’s not the truth. John is a lovely man. Last year when the big storm blew through the suburb, ripping roof tiles off and allowing the rain to come pouring in, she called the State Emergency Service but they were so busy they told her they’d be hours. She pulled the ladder out of the garage and leaned it up against the wall, a plastic sheet in her hand. She meant to try and get the sheet on the roof. She had some bricks in a bucket to hold it down.

But before she even set a foot on the ladder, John was there. ‘Gladys, what are you doing? Let me. Why didn’t you just call?’

He climbed up, a tool belt on his hips, and secured a tarpaulin. He had been soaked to the bone but still grinned when she offered him a cup of tea.

Gladys had been almost tearful after he left. He was a good man, a nice man, and he loved his children. She’s seen that he loved them. He took them to the beach and the park and he built them a treehouse in the large fig tree in their backyard. How could he want to hurt them now?

She wants to run in after George, but the police are there.

She hears a crash and she knows that Lou has fallen down. She turns and speeds for her house but stops to look when she hears a car pull up, the crunch of tyres on gravel. It’s a blue sedan, not one she’s seen before in this street.

John climbs out. He is dressed in a suit, rumpled from the long hot day, his tie askew. His hair is blonde but filled with the same kinks and curls that George has, and his green eyes are bright in his tanned face.

‘Oh,’ says Gladys, shock stealing her words. She stops.

‘Gladys,’ he replies. ‘What’s going on? Why are the police here? Is Lou okay?’

‘No, he fell down… oh Lou, I’m coming…’ she yells and she runs up her front path.

John follows her, dropping the briefcase he is holding, and together they lift Lou back into his chair. ‘You’re home early and you weren’t… you weren’t at work,’ says Gladys as she helps Lou sit up straight.

‘I’m… Yes, it was a conference and then the mechanic needed the car overnight… How do you know I wasn’t at work? What’s going on, Gladys?’ John stands up straight, his face damp from the effort of lifting Lou.

And another shot rings out.

John looks at his house, his mouth opening and closing again as he tries to process what he has just heard.

‘I thought you were in there,’ says Gladys. ‘I thought you were home.’ In the heat she feels her face flush red at all the assumptions she has made. All the things she has gotten wrong today. She opens her mouth to try and explain but it is too much to describe, she has no idea where to start.

‘But what?’ says John and then as the sound of more sirens fills the air, he runs for the house. ‘Oh God, oh God, Katherine, Katherine, Sophie, George…’ he shouts as he sprints for his front door.

‘John, don’t,’ calls Gladys, racing after him, but he is already gone, and as he gets there the door opens and a policewoman holds up her hands.

He pushes past her, screaming, ‘Katherine, George, Sophie!’

Gladys sinks to her knees by her front gate. Sophie is in her house but not George. The little boy ran to his mother. Did he run to his mother? Where is George?

She feels like she might pass out. This cannot be happening.

‘Gladys, old girl, are you okay? Are you okay, old girl?’ says Lou, fright making his voice tremble.

Gladys drops her head into her hands. ‘Oh Lou,’ she says and then she begins to cry.