The Roadhouse

by Kerry McGinnis

  ‘That’s mean,’ Mike said. ‘What sort of things are we talking about?’

  ‘There was a book I loved – it went. And my little family, and a gold locket I got for my birthday. She was so jealous when I got it I was sure she’d taken it, but I never saw her wear it, so the chain might have broken … Anyway, it vanished. And there could have been other stuff too that I’ve forgotten about.’

  ‘So, maybe her being involved in that robbery wasn’t such a departure after all? Maybe she started out nicking your things and graduated to shoplifting, as a way of working up to a real robbery. I wonder if the jewellery shop was the first one they’d done?’

  ‘Unless they catch this Paul we’ll never know. And only then if he confesses.’ I stretched and yawned. ‘Still a couple of hours to home. Maybe we’d better get going again.’ I drained the thermos and Mike stood up, snapping erect from his stockman’s squat as if his knees were springs.

  ‘Yeah, time to kill a metre. Want me to drive?’

  I assented and we were soon on our way, crossing the Mt Farlow boundary grid into Upatack country and shortly afterwards meeting the last of the road trains. This one had no intention of ceding us an inch of space, which, as we were crossing a culvert at the time of meeting, forced Mike to head precipitously down the bank into the table drain, swearing as we pitched over the side.

  ‘Road-hogging bastard!’ I grabbed the handhold as the vehicle tilted alarmingly on the steep slope. The huge truck roared past, then the back of the vehicle lurched and Mike swore again.

  ‘Bugger! Thought I’d missed it. There goes the tyre.’

  The scattered bones of a beast, probably one hit and killed the previous year by another road train, had caused the blow-out. Mike eyed the wheel sitting on its rim and sighed. ‘It’s a write-off, or will be by the time I’ve shifted it. Can’t change it where it is. Sorry, Charlie.’

  ‘Don’t be, it wasn’t your fault. I’m glad you were driving – I might’ve tipped us over getting down here.’ I pressed my shaking hands together, for the angle the vehicle had achieved was acute. ‘I’ll get the tools out.’

  The tyre had a long split where the bone had gone through the case. ‘Might be able to get it retreaded,’ Mike said doubtfully. He rolled the spare around and fitted it. ‘I could ask Kevin to take it into town on the weekend.’

  ‘I’ll see what Bob thinks.’ I handed him the last nut and glanced at the sun. ‘You’re going to be driving in the dark.’ It was thirty kilometres from the turn-off where he’d left his vehicle into the outstation where the stock camp was based.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ He leant sideways and kissed me, the brim of his hat knocking mine off. ‘That never happens in the movies.’ He dusted it off and handed it back. ‘Maybe that’s why the gal always has hers hanging from a string round her neck?’

  ‘I thought that was to save film and time – so the director didn’t have to keep yelling ‘Cut!’ every time the wind blew it off. I’m glad you came today, Mike. Apart from not crashing us, I’d still be getting the nuts off if I’d had to change the tyre myself.’

  ‘You know how, then?’

  ‘Of course! First thing Bob taught me when I started driving.’

  ‘Always at a lady’s service,’ he said, mouth downturned, ‘but here I was hoping it was my company you valued.’

  ‘Hah! Fishing for compliments now. How about I consider it while we drive?’

  We parted with a long kiss at his turn-off and I drove back to the Garnet through the early darkness, dust motes dancing in the headlights, which meant that somewhere ahead there were, or had been, cattle on the road. I slowed, keeping a sharp lookout but they must have crossed over for I saw nothing until the lights of the road camp, and then the Garnet came into view. I garaged the vehicle and went in, thinking of Mike, remembering the touch and taste of his lips and the feel of his long body pressed against mine.

  On Monday evening Mum rang from the Thorntons’. She sounded a little tired and, when asked, confessed to weariness, blaming the way the Alice hospital had kept her hanging around. She was doing well, she said, and was looking forward to getting home in a day or two.

  ‘We’ll see, Mum,’ I said firmly. ‘We’re pretty busy at present so there’s no chance of me getting away to pick you up. Probably not for a week at the earliest.’ Better to let her get used to the idea that she wasn’t going straight back to work. ‘Anyway, won’t you have a follow-up appointment with the hospital?’

  ‘I’ll see Dr Clive for that on his clinic run.’

  ‘That’s not a good idea,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s three weeks till his next visit. Anyway, what could he do except take you back to town if there’s a problem? We’re managing here, so there’s no reason for you to rush home. Just take things easy and enjoy the rest. Lord knows you’re due a spell.’

  ‘Charlie,’ she said, with an edge of exasperation. ‘I’m perfectly capable of managing my own life. You never used to be bossy.’

  ‘You’ve never had a heart operation before either,’ I said. ‘Look, I have to go. Give Rae my best, won’t you? Bye for now.’

  Several uneventful days passed. Ute and Eric, I saw, were now taking their meals together, him hanging back in the queue of men until he was last, which gave her the opportunity to collect her own meal and eat with him. The blinis must have made an impression, I thought with an inward smile. Meanwhile, the work on the causeways went steadily forward and the amount of spraying the tanker had done on the route past the roadhouse had even encouraged the growth of green shoots beside it.

  ‘What will you do when the camp moves on?’ I asked Ute, as we stacked dirty plates on the sink. ‘About Eric, I mean. You seem to be getting along, the two of you.’

  She nodded happily. ‘Like the burning house, no? He is interesting man, Charlie. Very simpatico.’ She swirled dishwashing liquid into the sink. ‘When they move they have no cook. Eric says perhaps I cook for them? Your mother is well by then, yes? So, we shall see.’

  ‘Do you really like him that much? I mean, you have to leave this country at some point because of your visa – what happens then?’

  She frowned, bringing two vertical lines between her brows, her wide blue eyes thoughtful. ‘This we talk about. He is serious man, Eric. He does not make the rush into new things. We wait and we learn each other and then we decide. Is the best way, he says.’

  ‘Umm, I suppose it is. Where’s he from?’

  She raised her brows. ‘Where he puts the hat, he says. He wants no past for there is much sadness in him. His young wife is killed and his little son also. Very tragic. So he lives in the camps. He is the engineer once, but now he drives the machines and lives like the crab in the rock.’

  ‘The crab? Oh, like a hermit, you mean. That is sad.’

  ‘Yes. But is life, Charlie. Comes the big surprise one day when the sky is clear, and is not always nice. Your cousin thinks so too, yes, when they kill her?’

  ‘I imagine she did,’ I said feebly. Not for the first time I wondered if it was just Ute’s haphazard command of English that was responsible for her unexpected take on living.

  Chapter Eighteen

  On Friday morning I was watering the front garden beds when Tom Cleary pulled up short of the fuel apron and beckoned me across.

  ‘I’m not stopping, Charlie,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘I just wanted to let you know that they’ve located your cousin’s place of residence. I’m being sent to collect her belongings for my boss in the Alice. When they’ve completed their examination you’ll probably be able to have back anything not needed for a trial – if the case ever gets that far.’

  ‘Right.’ I absorbed the news, keeping one hand on the doorframe to prevent him taking off. ‘How was it found? Where exactly was she living?’

  ‘They had her pic running on TV and somebody recognised her and rang in. It’s a flat in Mount Isa. I’m catching a flight over this arvo.’

  ‘I see. I wonder what she was doing t
here.’ I had assumed she would still be residing somewhere on the coast. ‘How come you get to be the errand boy, Tom? Couldn’t they have sent a constable from the Alice?’

  He shook his head. ‘Rodeo. They’ll need every man they’ve got for the weekend. They made a hundred or so arrests last year for drunk and disorderly behaviour.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll take the plane trip any day.’

  ‘When you put it like that … Well, thanks for letting us know.’ I lifted my hand and watched him drive off. The police would be looking for documents, I supposed. Bills, accounts, bank statements – anything that helped to expand their knowledge of Annabelle’s life. It was strange to think that faceless officers would wind up knowing more about her than her own family did. It still left the mystery of her handbag’s whereabouts though. She must have had one with her, but it hadn’t been found at the scene of her death. Unless for some reason the police were keeping shtum about it. Still, there was a lot of bush along the highway and her murderer could have dumped it anywhere. If it hadn’t been for the Wilders’ penchant for fossicking, Annabelle’s supposed suicide would have been accepted and her body never discovered.

  The road camp returned to the Garnet for lunch, spruced up in clean clothes ready to hit the road when the meal was over. They were affected, it seemed, with rodeo fever like the rest of the country. Only Eric had volunteered to stay, to keep an eye on the camp, Rob Wyper said, when he paused by the counter to ask if there was anything he could bring out for us.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘If you’ve room could you pick up twenty loaves from the bakery and a carton of butter from Woolworths? And say, a dozen two-litre bottles of milk? Be nice to have fresh for a change. I’ll phone the order through so they’ll expect you.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘The big esky always travels with me and it’ll fit in that. See you Monday, then.’

  They left in a burst of noisy good humour, plainly looking forward to the break from camp life. The dust and noise of their going settled until only the throb of the diesel and the piercing call of a peewee broke the sun-filled silence. I yawned and stretched, eyeing Eric and Ute murmuring together at the corner table that had come to be accepted as theirs.

  ‘I doubt we’ll see many more callers today, Bob. I might leave you to it and get some housework done. I’ve been meaning to give Mum’s room a good going over before she gets back. The rest of the house could do with vacuuming too. By the way, Mike’ll be here tomorrow and he wants a task for the weekend – maybe he could finish the painting?’ The timber out front still lacked its final coat. Once that was completed the old place would, I hoped, pleasantly surprise its owner upon her return.

  ‘Long as he knows what he’s doing,’ Bob said grudgingly. ‘I don’t want no bodgy job.’

  ‘I’m sure he does,’ I protested.

  ‘We’ll see.’ He sounded unconvinced. I stuck out my tongue at him and left.

  There was something soothing about housework, the repetition of effort that left one’s mind free to wander. I vacuumed and mopped, and smoothed chair covers, changed the linen on the beds, and sprayed and cleaned windows and tidied drawers. When the whole house sparkled I dug out a couple of vases from the display cabinet in the lounge and spent an enjoyable half hour selecting and arranging flowers and greenery to fill them. Petunias were ideal, and the bright heads of marigolds made their own bold statement when teamed with sprays of the hardy asparagus fern.

  Pleased with the final result, I placed one vase on the kitchen bench and carried the second through to the lounge. To complete the afternoon’s work, I turned out the linen chest, separating the towels into neat stacks and aligning the edges of the sheet pile. Some of the doilies had become crumpled in the general disorder and I ironed and changed them for the ones on display, then re-housed the rest in the bedside drawers of Annabelle’s old room.

  I was turning away when a faint voice called ‘Charlie?’ For an instant I froze, the hair at my nape standing erect, then common sense re-asserted itself. Annabelle was dead, and anyway the intonation was definitely Ute’s.

  ‘Coming.’ She was waiting in the kitchen and with mild shock I realised that the sun was setting. ‘I didn’t realise it was so late.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said in her precise accented English. ‘Almost the meal is ready. I have come to ask that Eric might eat with us tonight? There is him only and it would be the friendliness to include him, yes? But it is your table, so I ask.’

  ‘Of course, Ute. He can be your guest.’

  ‘Thank you, Charlie. I will tell him then is in the house tonight?’

  ‘On the house,’ I corrected. ‘Otherwise he’ll think you mean we’re eating over here.’

  ‘On,’ she murmured, nodding. ‘I will remember.’

  We actually wound up eating inside the Garnet, for the evenings now were just too chilly to make the back verandah inviting. I pushed two tables together and spread a cloth over them, then switched off the lights above the counter leaving only the eating area illuminated. Ute had made some sort of goulash filled with tiny, flavoursome dumplings – a staple, she said, of her homeland, though lacking an apparently essential herb I’d never heard of.

  ‘Very tasty, anyway,’ Eric pronounced, chasing the last of the gravy with one of her dainty little dinner rolls. ‘You’re a wonderful cook, Ute.’

  She beamed happily at him and I thought that his lean face softened as their gazes met, making him look younger. I had put his age at or near forty but now mentally revised it downward by five years. He was a quiet man, not shy for he’d conversed quite well on a number of topics over the meal, but self-contained. Having watched them interact, I thought they just might work with each other long-term. I could see Ute with her strength and common sense transplanting successfully from her European roots, but Eric also managing equally well in another country, for together they made their own island of understanding. There was a growing empathy between them that must lead ultimately to union and I felt a moment’s envy. Would Mike and I be as lucky, or was ours only a temporary attraction that would pall and run its course?

  At that moment an engine sounded briefly over the diesel’s thudding, then stopped and we all heard a door slam.

  ‘Who’s this?’ I said in exasperation that vanished when the screen door opened to admit Mike as if my recent thoughts had conjured him. I rose eagerly, feeling the smile stretch my face. ‘I didn’t expect you till the morning!’

  ‘It was a tough decision. Staring at the wall in the men’s quarters or company at the Garnet. You won by a short head.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ I said ironically. ‘Have you eaten? We’re just about ready for sweets.’

  Grinning, he greeted the others. ‘I won’t turn that down, then. Rice pudding once a week, that’s our quota at the station.’

  His arrival made the evening shine for me. Once the clearing up was over I brought out the battered old Monopoly set I’d discovered in the bottom of the linen chest and even Bob consented to a game. His reason for doing so emerged after much hilarity when we were packing away the banknotes and markers.

  ‘Got your swag with you, Mike?’ he asked, swilling down the last of his coffee.

  ‘Yeah, I have,’ Mike said. ‘I didn’t want to put Charlie to any bother.’

  ‘No bother.’ Bob’s gaze was steely and I was unsure whether to be amused or annoyed as he growled, ‘You can bunk down at my place.’ Obviously there was to be no possibility of hanky-panky on his watch.

  ‘Thanks,’ Mike said diplomatically.

  ‘Right, then.’ Bob got to his feet. ‘I’ll show you where now. Night all. We’ll see yer at breakfast.’

  Eric and Ute took their own leave then. I wondered, before finding a torch and switching out the light, if both were headed for the same bed. Without Bob’s intervention, I thought, I might at least have got a kiss, even if it was a bit soon to be taking things further between us.

  The night air bit coldly and I pulled the neck of my coat closed
as I hurried along the path and through the gate to the old homestead. I stepped gratefully into the shelter of the verandah and shone the torch’s beam at the light switch, then stopped in my tracks as I heard footsteps inside.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ How much more telling did Bryan need? Sudden fury welled in me as I snatched the door open, shouting, ‘Right, that’s it, Bryan. You can get out now! And come morning I’m reporting you to the pol—’ and was knocked flat as a body barrelled into me, smacking my head back against the doorframe. The torch, which had showed only the briefest, jangled image of a dark male shape, flew from my hand, and something pointed and hard hit my cheek as I fell and the intruder rushed past. I yelled in pain and fright as I went down and, through the fading echo of the sound, heard the slap of running feet on the path.

  Winded, gasping for breath and terrified, I stayed on the floor, holding my head, which felt as if it had been coshed. But my trembling fingers felt no wetness there and after a moment I crawled to the nearest cupboard and pulled myself shakily up. The torch had broken, as I discovered when I took a step and felt the remains crunch under my shoe. A distracted patting of the wall located the switch and I gasped again as the light came on.

  My shining tidy room – in fact, the entire house as I was soon to discover – had been ransacked. The torch was broken, but it was bits of vase I’d trodden on. Marigolds strewed the floor along with the contents of upended drawers and cupboards. There was cutlery and tea towels, spilled rice and flour, and loose tea leaves amid a clutter of saucepans, jugs and broken sauce bottles spread over the slates. Only the crockery, ranged in the open-fronted wall cabinet, had been spared – perhaps as a result of my arrival.

  The rest of the rooms were in a similar state. Touring them open-mouthed, I saw broken chair legs, cracked drawers, skewed frames where pictures had been yanked from walls … Whoever it was (for however irritating his fixation on me, I realised that I couldn’t blame Bryan for this) must have been in the house for hours, and the destruction was proof that he hadn’t found what he’d sought. Did that mean he was coming back?