Hiding From The World

When the rain started, I headed for my favourite bolt-hole, an old abandoned water pipe that lay on some wasteland just outside Elizabeth North shopping centre. Curled up in the middle of the water pipe I still felt fairly cold, even in my duffel coat, but at least I was afforded a measure of protection, not only from the rain, but also, to some extent, from the lacerating impact of my own thoughts.

It was five to ten in the morning, which meant that I still had almost six hours to endure before home time. Had Arthur been with me they would have been six hours of fun rather than endurance, but Arthur, exhibiting the characteristic common sense that made him in so many ways my superior, had let me down, as in all honesty I had known he would, and so my third day of truancy, like the previous two, would be a prolonged, intermittently excruciating battle with the feelings of inadequacy engendered by my afflictions at the hands of Sisters Damien and Vincent.

At least I would have the illusion of being in control, however, of having at least retaliated, if not quite triumphed.

Earlier that morning, I had remained aboard my bus for two stops longer than usual, eventually alighting at the end of Tolmer Road, a couple of hundred metres or so from Arthur’s home. At almost exactly half past eight, and somewhat to my surprise, Arthur had emerged from his house and ventured across the road to the patch of scrubland in which, perched behind a tiny bush in a gesture of concealment, I was waiting, as per our agreement.

Things were not as they seemed, however. “I can’t come,” said Arthur, without preamble, his studied frown not quite masking the underlying sense of relief I was hardly surprised to discern. “Dad said he’d drive me to school this morning because it looks like it’s going to rain.”

“Oh,” I said, which in the circumstances seemed the safest.

Arthur muttered something about being sorry, said he’d see me at school, and left me to confront both my demons and my destiny alone. His departing footsteps were the hurried, ungainly ones of the not quite penitential.

Because of the impending rain, I decided to head for one of the local shopping centres rather than venture into the hills, where finding shelter might prove a problem. Curled up in the water pipe I experienced an illusory sense of inviolability. Being enclosed was tantamount to being set apart, to being held in loving arms.

The rain became torrential. To pass the time, I recited lists of trivial facts that I had committed to memory: the average distances of each of the planets from the sun; the names of all the footballers in the 1965 Mobil Footy Photos card series; premiership teams since 1907; obscure statistical information about various dinosaurs – height, length, weight, number and size of brains; the names of the fifty American states; the world’s capital cities and their populations; the names, nicknames and colours of footy clubs from Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania; and so on.

Eventually, the rain abated, and so I walked across the intervening strip of wasteland into the shopping centre in order to check the time. To my horrified disbelief, I discovered that it was only twenty-five to eleven. Nevertheless, I returned to the sanctuary of my water pipe, and spent a few minutes eating a couple of my lunch time sandwiches. Then I visited the toilet, and on my return to the water pipe decided to eat the rest of my lunch.

Returning to the shopping centre, I peered into the window of the library to scrutinise the clock on the wall behind the counter. It read eleven fifteen. I would have liked to have gone into the library and spent some time reading, but I knew it would be too risky. However, the thought of reading gave me an idea: I returned to the water pipe, took my Wide Range reader out of my satchel, and spent what I convinced myself was a good three hours or so immersed – as far as that was possible - in the irreducibly tame, straight-laced, passionless tales contained therein.

When I next visited the library to find out the time it was twenty past twelve – still nearly four hours before I could realistically head home. I might have elected to move on and find myself another hiding place, but the rain had begun again in earnest, and so I had no alternative but to return to the water pipe.

Although my school uniform was hidden from view beneath my duffel coat, I carried a satchel, and was clearly a boy of school age. It might seem strange therefore that no-one confronted me, and asked me what I was doing at the shopping centre. However, although I was only nine years old I had already acquired mastery of the art of remaining invisible, an achievement that most people do not manage until it is effectively thrust upon them during old age. While playing truant I visited shopping centres in Elizabeth North, Elizabeth Park, Elizabeth Downs, Elizabeth Vale, Elizabeth Fields and the city centre. I paced the streets of all these suburbs and more. I lay in water pipes, sat at train stations, and played on swings, slides and climbing frames at various playgrounds. Not once during all this time was I so much as spoken to by an adult.

Perhaps I actually am invisible, I thought. Perhaps I don’t exist.

At two thirty or so the rain relented once again and I decided to head for home. I would tell my mum that we had had football training, but the coach had cancelled it because of the weather, and sent us home early. She would believe me. She almost always did.