Digger

By Paul Bucci.

He’s up the back of his folks’ place in Gipps St, right on the edge of the property, 60 metres from the house, where it backs on to the new Court. More accurately his mum’s place now that his dad is going gaga in Moyneyana House. Poor old sod. This was always his dad’s territory: the old shed and the veggie garden. Even as a kid he never played up this end of the garden. So it was a bit weird now being up there without his old man growling at him.

He’s planning to plant some natives to act as a bit of a wind break. He’s got eight of them lined up ready to go. A beautiful spring day, warm after a bit of rain, blossom on the fruit trees and the roar of the ocean in the background. Paradise.

It was always fun digging holes in the garden. The place was the site of the original pub in town and you couldn’t dig a hole without unearthing a bit of china or glass. His dad had even found a couple of old pennies. 1797 they were.

So he’s not surprised when he hits something a couple of feet down in the first hole next to the shed. A bit of fabric wrapped round something harder. He works his spade around a bit, trying to get under the thing but it’s bigger than it seemed so he gets down on all fours and tries to get hold of it, tugging. The cloth is fragile, rips and a piece comes away in his hand. It’s pretty dirty but nevertheless recognizable as the material used in the Consolidated School uniform. It hadn’t changed for years. He puts it to one side, puzzled, and tackles the hole again. He sees a piece of stone, perhaps, or bone maybe. And then he realizes. He realizes it’s a human hand. Skeletal. He sits down, stunned. Wondering.

And then he knows. He knows who it is. Who it must be. Julie Ringwood. She was in his class in year 5 and went missing. 33 years ago now.

Julie Ringwood. Just didn’t come home from school one day. No explanation. Virtually the whole town questioned, kids and parents, tradies, fishermen. Alibis checked. Road blocks, searches, tracker dogs, cops on horses, boats. Trawled the river. Reporters everywhere.

No CCTV cameras, no mobile phones in those days of course. No DNA testing either, come to that.

Nothing. No sign of her ever again. No arrests, no court case. Nothing. And here she is buried next to his father’s shed. He sits down with his back against the shed. Starts shaking. Thinking back.

He remembers the town before Julie, the change after. He remembers the freedom kids had, going to the shops by themselves, the beach, parks. But after, the innocence was gone. Plenty of people, most maybe, thought that she’d been killed or abducted by someone local. Everyone was scrutinized , no-one trusted. Rumours spread. People left town. Neighbours and friends started to wonder. Started to watch.

He remembered it well, the most exciting and the most scary thing that happened to him as a kid. And now this.

His father!  It had to be his father. This was his private world, no-one came up this far. Only his dad. His dad. A difficult man, quick to anger, detached, hard. But now. Now his dad didn’t know what happened 3 minutes ago let alone 33 years ago.

Christ what was he going to do? He thought of his mother. Dear old mum. 77 now with her own problems – dad going senile in the nursing home, her own health on the blink. Not able to drive any more. Living on the pension. It would kill her. No, he couldn’t do it to his mum.

At the time, he remembered, the whole town was on edge. For the first time parents started walking their kids to and from school. For years no-one left their kids alone at the beach, in the playground. Nowhere.

It was a strange time but after a while the Melbourne cops started to disappear and the town put on an air of normality despite its loss of innocence and being in the eye of the nation for a few weeks.

He still saw Julie’s mum up the street sometimes. What would this do to her? ‘Provide closure?’ What a cliché. Stir up old wounds more like.

He wondered. He wondered what he was going to do. Destroy his father’s reputation? Send his mother to her grave, miserable and ashamed? Open up the wounds for the Ringwood family? Bugger up his own life, destroy the business, put his kids at risk, become the centre of attention and gossip?

No it made no sense. There wouldn’t be any winners in any of that. Better to keep quiet maybe. Even though it didn’t sit right he couldn’t put his mother through it. Couldn’t see who would benefit.

He got back to his feet, picked up his spade and filled the hole in. Said a silent sorry to Julie Ringwood.

He moved a couple of metres more into the property, far enough away to keep clear of the problem and started digging again – another hole and then another, frenzied. He dug til he hurt and kept digging still. Hole after hole. It wasn’t until the sixth hole that he found the second body.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I’m Paul and I moved to Geelong earlier this year after 33 years living in Port Fairy. I have done – and am doing – lots of different things with my life. My first creative writing piece after school was published in the Mid-Herts College of Further Education student magazine, Sqog, in 1962. Writing under the pseudonym of Ivan Itch, my first sentence was: ‘I’m fed up wiv orl this tork about luv an secks today.’

Have I moved on? That’s for you to judge.