The Far-Back Country

by Kate Lyons

  ‘A place called Ruby Downs. I’m staying there.’ In something called Rose Cottage, she added, which sounded completely ludicrous, out there.

  ‘Ah. The spa room. If it does rain, you’ll be in luck. That roof leaks like a sieve.’

  She bent down to look at him but his eyes were closed against the dust falling from the bottom of the car.

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘Yeah. Told you. That’s where I live.’

  ‘You said it was Oak Springs.’

  ‘Bald Hill, Ruby Downs, Oak Springs. Same diff. Bald Hill used to be a neighbour but we bought them out. Oak Springs is just the name of the B&B.’

  The question was like a bubble in her throat. But for some reason, the same reason she hadn’t asked the woman who’d answered the phone at Ruby Downs about Ray, just told her she was on holiday and needed a room, she couldn’t seem to spit it out. Something about not wanting to jinx this journey before it had begun. Some dimly lit notion that in finding these clues, piecing them together and walking in Ray’s footsteps, she was piecing herself together. Unpicking herself, back and back, toward some fatal flaw.

  ‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up though. Not an oak nor a spring in sight.’

  ‘Well, why did you call it that?’

  He laughed, the sound ending in a wheeze.

  ‘Jesus, I don’t own it. Thank God. That was Freda’s idea. She reads too much.’

  The crowbar slipped and he swore, crabbing out from under the car. Hopping round in a circle, he looked a bit mad. Maybe it wasn’t Ventolin in that little inhaler after all.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Fine. Just cramp. That wheel’s not though. You’re not going anywhere without a winch. Sam’s got one on his truck. We can come back tomorrow. For now though, you’d better hop in with me.’

  She looked at the car, its helpless, shiny black bulk. At that moment it felt like the closest thing she had to home.

  ‘I can’t just leave it. What if it rains? And the creek fills up?’

  ‘Listen, lady. If it rains out here, I’ll eat your tyre.’

  In the end she persuaded him to have one more go, with her help. Felt his eyes on her as she tucked her dress into her undies, squatted down and took hold of the wheel. While he crowbarred, she pulled, his arm right next to her face. A hot peppery smell coming off him, like fennel gone wild in the sun. Then the tyre gave and she fell back and the first few drops arrived, turning the dust she was sitting on to mud.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  For the first two weeks he slept in the shed. Lily offered him the sleep-out but it was crammed with her husband’s old home-brewing equipment, his work clothes, stacks of Playboy magazines. When Mick said he’d get wet out there if it rained, Ray said if it rained here, he’d dance naked in it. Then blushed when he realised Lily was in the room.

  The shed was OK. After he’d pushed out the dead tractor, hauled out a pub’s worth of empty beer bottles and swept the floor, he made a nest for himself in one corner with his tarp and his sleeping bag. Wasn’t cold, despite the patchy roof and lack of walls. Forty degrees most days, and what remained of the tin roof held heat well into the night. And there was something about the way air tuned itself out there, a thin ragged fluting through all that rusting shambles, himself temporary and light-boned beneath it, that reminded him of the desert. Something fine as a hangnail between him, the earth and the sky.

  He woke at dawn each day. No use lying around waiting for the heat. Brewing tea on the primus so as not to wake the house, he took his mug on walkabout, his eye roving from hill to ridge and creek line. Reading boundaries, touching only on what could be achieved in an hour, a morning. A day. No use thinking about the great big shape of it, you’d end up paralysed. Or paralytic, like Mick’s dad.

  Trick with a job like this was to break it into sections, like a long run of fence. Some floorboards here, a patched rain tank there. That big one near the house could be made to hold water, if he could get the tools. He’d spotted an old bore pump too, in one of the sheds. But it needed parts and he didn’t have a drill. And even if he had one, there was nothing to pump. The bore had run dry. No access to the creek, according to Lily, even though it ran straight across the far paddock, a faint line of olive-green scrub in the dust. Some trouble between the husband and the neighbour, an illegal, boundary-hopping fence. Never got the gist of it, because in the middle of telling him about it, Lily had to go and lie down.

  Climbing the ridge above the creek, he drank his tea, lit a cigarette. From here you could see the whole spread, such as it was. Even in the soft bloom of dawn, the place was a tragedy. Dirt, fleece, rust and dust. Sheds were strewn across the landscape like half-finished thoughts. The house itself looked like it had been through a prize fight, all scattered bearings and blackened outlooks. The land it sat on like a gnawed yellow bone. Three dams, all dry, every fence in tatters. In any case, there was nothing to keep in or out. Just a few chickens scratching round the front yard. Those bloody hens drove him mad at night. Yesterday he’d woken with one gone broody on his chest. Sitting there, all fluffed up, regarding him with its sad chicken eye.

  A henhouse. Should be easy enough. Bit of iron from one of the sheds, a roll of wire he’d liberated from Sam’s. Some of those palings he’d taken from the back door would patch the front verandah boards. They lapped up in places like the tongue of a shoe. Lily, on her rare trips outside, tottered dangerously, grasping at posts, like a woman at sea.

  Wouldn’t fix it properly of course. That whole verandah was an accident waiting to happen, as Dad used to say about Ray himself. Piers were shot, the earth receding from the foundations like bad gums. Looked at from here, in bald morning light, he saw that the whole left side was curling down and sideways, pulling the house with it, not a windowsill plumb. One good jump by Mick as he launched himself from the front step to achieve a skateboard wheelie in the front yard and the lot would peel away, take off the front of the house.

  The foundations needed propping, at the very least. A few stones from the river, some bricks if he could find them. New joists, pack the bearers, try and level the weight between the posts. But he’d need fresh lumber and a decent screw jack and a second pair of hands. And Mick was worse than useless, lying around on the lounge, watching TV. He refused to either go back to school or go back to Sam’s. Anyway, even with help, no amount of sweat would fix what was wrong here, not without money or rain. It would take six men six months and thousands of dollars to get a place like this going again. And he wouldn’t be here that long. Another week. Two at the most.

  He’d told himself that at least three times a day. He hadn’t been intending to stay at all. Taking Mick back to his mother in the hospital, he’d seen himself pushing off from that car park toward another empty horizon, like a swimmer launching from a wall. Travelling to somewhere he could mourn Mam in peace and silence, to where he could wait for Urs to call. And if she didn’t, if there was just more silence, well, he would live with that. He’d lived with it for over thirty years.

  But when they’d arrived at the ward, they’d found Lily speechless with nausea, half-lying in the waiting room chair. The chair, her brown dress, even her suitcase, looked too big for her. Cheryl had a work emergency. There was no one to drive her home. What sort of emergency you got in country town hairdressing, with your sister-in-law sick and your nephew with nowhere to stay, Ray wasn’t sure. But he’d said nothing. Just walked them out, carrying Lily’s bag, while Mick half-carried his mother toward the lift.

  ‘It’s fine, Mr McCullough,’ she kept saying. ‘We don’t want to hold you up. You’ve done enough. We’ll get a cab from here.’ Those last few words seemed to exhaust her entirely and she had to sit down at the bus stop. No cabs in sight. When she’d stumbled in the car park and he’d caught her arm, she’d felt like a kite, skin strung on bone.

  Getting back to the house, it was worse than he remembered. The tea towel curtains, the wrecked driveway and broken window, the b
oarded-up back door. The front door was stuck fast. When he’d put his shoulder to it, the whole thing splintered from the frame.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, gesturing feebly. She’d said sorry all the way home.

  Inside it was hotter than outside. The kitchen window was broken, the place billowing with dust and leaves. Glass and possum shit all over the kitchen floor. Somewhere, faint but getting stronger, the musky smell of mice. Lily flushed with shame, before Mick led her off to bed. A second later though, Ray heard him call out, high, panicky. Come quick. Ray? I dunno what to do.

  When Ray went in, he saw there was a hole in the ceiling, above her bed. Right through the tin, the sky peeking through. The bed itself was covered with dirt and leaves, the pillow dusted with something white. Ceiling plaster, he hoped. He thought of changing the sheets but mice had got into the pile of dry washing in the basket and, anyway, by the time he came back in with the only semi-clean set he could find, she’d gone to sleep, in the middle of the mess, and Mick had scurried off into the living room.

  Ray stood there, looking at the muck on the pillow. Could be anything. Asbestos even. Trying to brush it off, his finger caught in a lock of her hair and it came away in his hand. He stood horrified, clutching the glossy black hank. Unsure what else to do and not wanting Mick to find it, he put it in his pocket, crept away.

  Mick was prone on the lounge, clicking irritably at the remote and swearing at the blank TV.

  ‘Mate. Think about it. No electricity.’

  Mick threw the remote across the room. ‘Everything’s shit.’

  ‘There a broom somewhere?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you won’t find it lying there.’

  After he’d set Mick to work sweeping up the broken glass, he foraged in the shed for a hammer and nails. He put the front door frame back together as best he could, then nailed a few garbage bags over the kitchen window, to stop the wildlife getting in. The washing he took straight to the incinerator, watched unflinching as tiny pink things wriggled in the flames. Back in the house, he tore down the boards nailed across the back door, noting again the frantic overkill, the boards lapping over and over. To keep things out, or in?

  In the kitchen, with more light, he saw the extent of things. Bare shelves, holes in the lino, a burn mark above the stove. A fist-shaped dent in the fridge. On top, a stack of bills so old, dust had turned the envelopes pink. In the fridge itself, a half-loaf of greenish Tip Top and a carton of milk which Cheryl must have delivered a week ago.

  The sun was getting low. He flicked at the light switch as he’d now done three times without thinking. No hot water either, of course. Lucky it was daylight saving. Lucky it was summer. Lucky they were on bottles and the stove was gas.

  He found Mick outside chucking stones at the dog. Dog was trying to fetch them, like the idiot it was.

  ‘I’m heading back to town. Need to get a few things. Be back in an hour.’

  ‘Can I come?’ Mick trailed Ray to the door of the ute. The look on him wary and hopeless, like when he’d been left at the beach.

  ‘Nuh. Stay here. Look after your mum. It’ll be dark soon. Try and get that going if you can.’ He pointed to the old heater he’d found in the shed.

  ‘We don’t have any kero.’ The old whine in his voice.

  ‘I’ll get some. Maybe go and find some wood while you’re waiting. There’s heaps of dry stuff near the creek.’

  ‘Why?’

  Breathing deep, Ray put his seatbelt on.

  ‘To make a fire, Einstein. Keep an eye on my dog too. Until I get back.’

  He left the dog there as hostage. The boy stood tall and still in front of the house, getting smaller and dimmer as Ray drove away.

  In town he bought kero, refilled the gas bottle, got a bit of meat and veg at the supermarket. Just enough to last them a few days. At the post office he sweet-talked his way past the woman locking up, got her to open the till again so he could pay the bills. Didn’t like to think of Lily and Mick out there, without lights or a phone, once he was gone.

  On the way back, passing the sign to the highway proper, he was tempted but he was low on petrol and the only open servo was all the way on the other side of town. And it was getting late, roos would be out. And he couldn’t just leave them there, without any food. And his tent was there, on the verandah. Not to mention his dog.

  By the time he got back, it was nearly dark. Mick was a melancholy figure in the twilight, languidly collecting twigs. At that rate, they’d have a fire by next year. Too late to rig the gas bottle up now though, and the connection was rusted shut. In the sleep-out, Ray found some old hurricane lamps which he filled and lit and hung from the wonky eaves. There was a generator in the shed, ancient and spidery, but it might work. He could use it to power up his car fridge at least, leave it with them until the electric came on. Could always buy another fridge, when he was back on the road.

  ‘Right. I’ve got sausages. Onions, potatoes. We’ll have a barbie.’

  ‘But we don’t have a barbie.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Holding onto his temper with difficulty, Ray reached into the back of his ute, finding the dog in there already, perched on a roll of wire. Gazing nobly out toward some unknown horizon. He batted it off.

  ‘Here. This is called a shovel. You dig. I’ll chop some proper logs.’

  While he set up his tripod and his griddle and his camp oven, he talked Mick through the mysterious art of digging a fire pit, not too wide, not too deep, gabbling like an idiot to hide the sounds of retching coming from the house. We’ll eat alfresco, he said, and Mick, poking morosely at the flames, said Al who?

  At least the place looked a bit better, in the forgiving glow of the fire. Lily’s face when she came out and sat down, so close to the pit he worried she’d catch alight, had lost some of its greenish tinge. At least twenty degrees out here and even with the roaring fire and his old coat and the blanket and a beanie on, she was still shivering. At Mick’s urging she managed a bite of sausage and bread. How’s that, he asked. Wonderful, she told him, after the muck in the hospital.

  ‘Better than Cheryl’s Christmas dinner.’

  Mick muttered, ‘Shit, wouldn’t be hard.’

  Lily seemed too tired to tell him not to swear.

  Kneeling down to stoke the fire, Ray saw the way she was baulking at the single mouthful she’d taken, her throat white and painful, like she was trying to swallow her tongue. Under cover of looking for her glass of water, she spat out the sausage and the dog gobbled it up.

  The sun was twinging over the ridge now, earth growing warm beneath his boots. Another hour and it’d be too hot up on the roof. He drained his tea, set off.

  Under the house there was an old ladder, missing several rungs. Setting it up against the wildly tilting chimney, he hauled his tarp out of the shed, kicking chickens from beneath him, then climbed the ladder hauling the plastic behind him, his mouth full of nails. He’d make do with the sleeping bag and the fly off his tent. Only a couple more nights.

  The henhouse and verandah would have to wait. The roof was shot. The tin was barely held together by rust and a few rivets, half the battens were missing, one joist rotted clean away. The gaping hole over Lily’s bedroom was the worst. He could see right down to that little slice of her bed. She’d edged it so far away from the rain of gunk falling from the ceiling, she was almost sleeping in the hall.

  When she slept of course. In the middle of the night, or before dawn, he often saw the kitchen light go on. Heard the toilet flushing, heard her retching, crying. Her gaunt shape behind the window in uneasy, flickering light.

  Just until she was on her feet, he told himself again as he secured the tarp temporarily with stones. But she wasn’t on her feet, was she? The night before, she’d barely made it from bedroom to dinner table before listing sideways and collapsing on the lounge.

  ‘Mum! I told ya. Go back to bed. I’ll bring a tray.’

  ‘I’m fine, mate. I’m si
ck of lying around.’ She tried to settle herself upright on the cushions, got halfway, slumped back. ‘Don’t think I could eat anything though.’

  ‘You’ve got to. Or at least drink something. All that spewing. Ray says you’ll get unhydrated.’

  ‘Well, a cup of tea would be nice.’

  Turning on the kettle with his elbow while frying curry paste at the stove, Ray noticed the boy’s small attempts at grace. The sheet tucked into the lounge cushions, the pillow fetched from the bedroom, the little folding table set up ready for the tea cup. A Tim Tam on a plate. Then Mick started trying to find reception on the set, swivelling the rabbit-ears aerial this way and that. When that didn’t work, he twisted a coat hanger into a question mark, stuck it on top.

  ‘There’s one of them David Attaborough things on later. After the news.’

  ‘Oh. What’s it about?’

  ‘I dunno. Plants and shit.’

  She was fretting at the blanket, her hair. Another clump had fallen out. She closed her fist on it, burying it beneath a cushion. Ray looked away. Mick hadn’t seen. He was still wrestling with the aerial. Now he’d strung the whole contraption on an old coat stand from the verandah. Stuck the lot out the front window, where it rattled wildly with each puff of wind.

  ‘Be careful, love. That sill’s broken. It won’t stay up.’

  ‘I am being careful.’ He banged the side of the TV and his leg knocked the table, splashing tea on the floor. ‘Shit. Sorry.’

  ‘I’ll get it. Stay there.’

  Lily smiled at Ray, a watery thing, but still a smile. Ray focused on mopping up the tea, then went back to the stove, concentrating on frying onions, not too fast.

  ‘Ray? Let me help. I can do the potatoes. If you give me a bowl.’ He didn’t want to tell her that those were for his store, out in the ute, that he liked to keep it topped up. Ready to head off at a moment’s notice, carrying everything he needed, like a snail. That it was curry tonight and he’d be serving rice.