Brisbane—9 November 1983
Michael Shelley kidnapped Elijah on a sunlit Monday afternoon.
The Bruce Highway teemed with gleaming bonnets. Two thin men with ponytails sat in a gold Holden Commodore, rented back in Sydney. Michael was driving. His face was scenic as a beach. Long, sandy curls. A neatly trimmed beard. Eyes bluer than the cloudless sky.
At the age of thirty-seven, Michael was the Australian Jesus Christ or a homeless sociopath, depending on your perspective. The New South Welshman was about to declare holy war on the godforsaken state of Queensland.
“At that time Michael, the archangel who stands guard over your nation, will arise,” he kept proclaiming in an educated Australian accent; Daniel 12:1.
The front-seat passenger was a nineteen-year-old hitchhiker named Glen Elliott. His eyes and hair were brown like the Brisbane River. A few days earlier, Michael had picked up Glen from a highway on the outskirts of Byron Bay. They promptly bonded over mutual mummy issues. Now Glen was a budding child abduction accomplice. Life was funny like that.
The Commodore exited onto Strathpine Road. It was half an hour north of the Brisbane CBD. Developers had bulldozed the sugar mill for a shopping centre, and timber plantations for subdivisions of snug 700 square metre blocks.
To Michael, Strathpine was just another soulless shithole on a continent stolen from Aboriginals by fat, illiterate sporting fanatics. He hated the games Australians played, the beer they drank, the food they ate, and the way they all called each other MAAATE. Mateship was a bonding ritual for satanists.
The Westfield Shopping Centre sign was a guiding star, red and white against a blue sky. The car park of the new shopping centre was filled with tired housewives bribing their children to stop crying with Kinder Surprises.
Michael went left. They passed a strip of video rental stores, fish-and-chip shops and used-car dealerships. Another left over the bridge above the train line. Here, the kitsch subdivision had a ridiculous classical music theme.
Chopin Street. Symphony Avenue. Beethoven Road.
It made Michael smile snidely, despite the high stakes. The brick homes were cheap enough for Australian dreamers who couldn’t afford Aspley, but steep enough to keep out the fibros across the Bruce Highway in Bracken Ridge.
The Commodore reached the destination. 24 Danube Drive. A narrow one-storey home surrounded by palm trees. White bricks and brown roof tiles. A Kreepy Krauly chugged through a swimming pool in the backyard. It provided a bass line to the concerto of suburbia: clicking cicadas and chirping birds.
“Do not be anxious, Glen,” said Michael to the shaking teenager. The two men parked three doors down. They climbed out but didn’t slam their doors shut. Michael left the motor running. Sweat drenched his blue jeans dark and white t-shirt see-through. The street scorched the skin of his bare feet.
Michael tied his flowing hair into a ponytail, like he was loading a rifle. He waited for the theme song of Play School to chime through the fly screens. Open wide. Come inside. Blessedly, one of Elijah’s foster sisters had forgotten to lock the front door after getting home from school.
He waited for the theme song of Play School to chime through the fly screens. Open wide. Come inside.
Michael opened it and stepped aside. Glen was supposed to snatch Elijah. That was the whole point of recruiting a disciple. Instead, Glen froze like a broken robot. Michael rose to the occasion. History insisted upon this.
“Despite their location being a secret,” Michael wrote afterwards, “we found where Elijah lived by the grace of GOD. I did not even have to go into the house. Elijah was waiting right at the front door and rose up to meet me.”
His version of events was disputed by Debbie, Elijah’s nineteen-year-old foster sister. She saw a “pigtailed hippy” storm into the lounge room. Three-year-old Elijah wore a pair of budgie smugglers. He was blue-eyed and blond-haired. The son Fran and Neil Williams had always wanted. But he was also the biological son of Michael Shelley.
Elijah’s foster sisters—Debbie, Linda and Cindy—were brown-eyed brunettes, like their mother Fran. Everyone in the house froze, except Michael. He snatched Elijah off the carpet. The toddler dropped a stuffed monkey.
“Mumma!” cried Elijah, reaching for Fran. She was motionless.
Michael carried Elijah through the door. Then he passed him to Glen on the front lawn. The fumbling accomplice burrowed into the backseat. Michael hit the accelerator. Glen hugged and soothed the child. Elijah was shocked and silent.
“We are going to see your real mumma!” said Michael.
Elijah’s foster sisters chased the getaway vehicle. Debbie chanted the three letters and three digits on the yellow New South Wales number plate. It was a hymn to freeze reality. But the car slipped from the street like a dream.
The actual getaway vehicle was a white Winnebago, with a bunk above the driver’s seat and Queensland number plates. It was the slowest and most conspicuous possible Trojan horse and would therefore be invisible to police.
The van sat at a campsite ten minutes west of Strathpine. In the sleeping quarters lay Mary Shelley, a forty-year-old British citizen of Jewish descent. In 1962, her face had graced the front cover of Women’s Weekly, beautiful and euphoric. Back then, Mary was a glamourous Sydney socialite.
By 1983, Mary’s brown eyes were profoundly anxious. She cradled a four-month-old baby boy named Saul. They had the same olive skin. The baby’s dark hair had golden tips from Michael Shelley, his biological father. Michael was Mary’s third husband. She was Michael’s third wife.
The Commodore arrived, unfollowed by sirens. Glen left a letter of apology on the dashboard for failing to return the rental car, but not for the kidnapping. Michael bundled Elijah into the van. Mary presented Saul to Elijah.
Glen left a letter of apology on the dashboard for failing to return the rental car, but not for the kidnapping.
“Elijah, this is your baby brother, Saul!” announced Michael.
“Hallelujah!” cried Mary.
Elijah sullenly studied his younger brother. Saul burst into tears.
Mary drove the Winnebago, as per the plan. Police were searching for a Commodore driven by a man who looked like Jesus Christ. The campervan passed unnoticed into New South Wales via the Gold Coast hinterland.
“C’mon, Aussie, c’mon, c’mon,” sang Elijah, his mood improving.
It was a war cry for the Australian cricket team. Michael felt newly vindicated about the kidnapping. At school, he could never fathom why the other students worshipped the cricketers and footballers, rather than geniuses like him.
“How about a real song, Elijah?” asked Michael.
He serenaded Elijah and Saul with an acoustic cover of “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens, trying to exorcise the demon of the Australian dream from Elijah’s soul. His voice was deep and sweet. But Elijah was unmoved.
“No!” cried Elijah. “C’mon, Aussie, c’mon!”
Michael seethed. Glen offered a happy medium. He drew smiling faces on two bananas and dangled them above the newly amused brothers.
“Bananas in pyjamas are coming down the stairs,” sang Glen.
Safely across the border, Michael took the wheel so that Mary could breastfeed Saul. At 9 pm, they reached an unlit beach on the Mid North Coast. South West Rocks. For the first time, Elijah and Saul slept under the same roof.
Later, their names were changed by social workers to hide them from Michael and Mary. The biological brothers would be raised with different surnames in separate foster homes. Life was a lottery, especially when you were born into the bottom of society. This was how Saul Shelley became Steven Blaine, the son of Lenore and Tom.
This is an extract from Australian Gospel: A Family Saga by Lech Blaine (Black Inc.), available now at your local independent bookseller.
