‘Never mind. I doubt there’ll be a train station now.’ I set the tray on the edge of the table and hand her a plate. Once I taste the pasta, I realise how hungry I am. Moni needs encouragement to eat; I pass her a biscuit, and lean in to read what she has written. Dad is helping him. He’ll be alright. When you come back we can go and visit. You can tell him he is BLAST. He’ll like that. I read on until Moni senses what I’m doing and snaps the book shut.
We play Scrabble, which is probably Moni’s favourite game, except for reading words out of the dictionary and guessing their meaning; she is word mad.
‘Niobe. Is that a word?’ she asks, cocking her head as she examines her letters.
I have to give it to her; the dictionary is in the caravan, and after a few seconds of intense thought, she is convinced it is a word. Can’t tell me what it means though.
We are down to the last few letters when Eddie gets back. ‘How is he?’ I ask, pushing myself up, trying to ignore the pins and needles in my feet. Moni stands too, clutching her letter-holder in her hands.
‘We’ve put him in one of the portacabins. Susan will fly out first thing tomorrow.’ There is an odd sense of calm about him.
‘Will you watch Moni?’ I ask.
Eddie nods. ‘It’s alright now,’ he says, smiling with such a peaceful look on his face.
I will never forget that look.
After taking a torch from the hall cupboard, I head out to the caravan. Michael is round the back, burning rubbish in one of the oil drums.
‘Do you think Mr M will be alright?’ I ask, startling him. Smoke and darkness distort his face as he carries on slamming rubbish into the drum. I watch the flames lick the sides, moving back to get away from the heat.
When Michael has thrown the last bit of rubbish onto the fire, he asks. ‘Are you coming with us?’
Our eyes drive through the smoke. I shake my head, too upset to speak.
‘I’m going to finish packing,’ he says. ‘Why did you let him film you?’
Thoughts come and go but nothing stays long enough for me to form a proper sentence. So Michael heads towards the caravan.
‘Wait,’ I plead.
He stops. The fire spits and roars with the unexpected breeze. I take a step towards him, staying this side of the oil drum. ‘Do you hate me?’ I ask. My whole body is trembling.
Michael talks the way he talks into his Dictaphone. ‘Moni and I are leaving tomorrow, if the pilot gets back, or else the day after. If we ever find Georgie, it won’t be here. You know that as well as I do.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Moni doesn’t want to stay here.’
I stare at him, trying to make sense of it all. ‘We can’t give up.’
‘It’s not about giving up,’ he says.
‘Would you really leave without me?’
He doesn’t answer. A large brown moth hovers about the flames. Michael tries to bat it away but it comes back; there is a faint hissing sound as it catches fire.
I shoot past him into the caravan and pick up the first box I find, flinging it through the open door, then I throw out the next one and the next. He tries to stop me, wrestling a box of books out of my hands. I snatch some clothes from the suitcase and stuff them through the window, lunging for another box before Michael pins my arms to my sides. He pulls me into him; my back presses up against his chest. His breath warms the nape of my neck.
‘Calm down,’ he says, still holding me.
I laugh and cry at the same time, overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all. His grip slackens, but he doesn’t let go. His body feels warm where his skin touches mine. I inch my legs back so that my calves touch his legs, just for a second. I can feel the hem of his shorts through my dress, against my thighs. His arms drop.
‘Don’t let go,’ I whisper, staying where I am.
Feeling his hand against my thigh, I search for his other hand and pull it around me, planting it onto my stomach. Slowly he turns me round. I run my fingers over his hair and down his face, as if I am blind, as if this will help me remember what is now completely lost. As my fingers travel over his lips, he bites them.
I slap him so hard, my hand burns. He doesn’t move until I go for him again, and then he lunges at me while I kick and punch. He defends himself, grappling with me as our joint weight casts us to the floor. I lose track of where my arms and legs are, our limbs flail about so much. We keep moving and resisting each other; each time we pull apart, we get closer. And the smell, our smell, wet, frowzy, mildew, covers everything. My dress gets torn. Grit from the floor wedges in my back. Eventually we shed our clothes and cling onto each other, battling through sex as if we were at war, losing ourselves until we both surrender. And for a second I see Eddie. I feel Eddie. Then just at the moment Michael’s body goes rigid against mine, I tell him, ‘I love you.’ He opens his eyes and stares at me in disbelief.
After that, he pulls away and lies by my side. Our hands barely touch; our bodies stiffen like two river logs, already drifting apart. He turns to face the wall. I watch his back for a while before pulling on my dress, which is now missing three buttons. Taking a cigarette from my bag, I prop myself against the caravan door and light up, finding the smoke vaguely reassuring. The petrol pumps look like headless soldiers reflected in the faint moonlight.
The bed creaks as Michael gets up. He moves about the caravan. I don’t look to see what he’s doing until he presents me with a sandwich on a piece of kitchen towel. He’s made one for himself.
‘I’ve told Moni we’re leaving tomorrow,’ he says, sitting on the edge of the bed, talking between mouthfuls.
I put the sandwich down beside me and continue to look out past the service station. At night the bush comes alive, as if it is breathing. ‘I know she’s not alive. But we have to find her. We can’t just abandon her.’ I talk and think and talk, not knowing which is which.
Michael says, ‘I’m not suggesting we leave the country. I just know she isn’t here.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It’s Moni you should think about.’
He crosses over to the table and sits down on the cushioned bench. Using his teeth, he pulls off the top of his pen and starts to write.
I stub out my cigarette on the step and pick up the sandwich, dusting off the ants. There are suddenly so many ants. The crumbs get attacked as soon as they hit the floor. After putting the kettle on, I wipe the surfaces while I’m waiting, watching the army of ants troop across the steps. I pour boiling water on them, scattering them like shrapnel; some get swept along in the tide, a warning to other unsuspecting ants. My father always said, if you don’t wipe them out straight away, they’ll take over.
‘I’m going to check on Moni. I’ll sleep on the settee tonight,’ I say.
Michael grunts and shrugs, making that annoying clicking sound with his false tooth. I snatch the torch off the draining board and hesitate long enough to realise that I am hoping he will say something. He doesn’t even look up.
I cross the tarmac, ignoring the rising panic in my chest, in my throat; it won’t go away. I creep through the shop into the hall. The lights are out and the sitting-room door is open. Moni mumbles in her sleep: a low persistent drone. I stand at the end of the camp bed and watch her. Whatever she is dreaming plays itself out in her body as if she were awake. I want to wake her up, to hear her voice, to tell her something, anything. Instead, I rearrange her sheet and lightly touch her cheek.
In Eddie’s office, I run my hands across the wall, feeling the small lumpy contours where the plasterer got lazy. Why do we need walls? What are we so afraid of? That someone will come and knock them down, that without them we’ll be exposed to each other as we really are? Is it just that we all need a place to hide?
I poke my head around Eddie’s bedroom door. ‘Eddie?’ There’s no answer. The blinds are drawn; it is completely dark. ‘Are you awake?’
I just want to hear a voice, any voice except my own. My mind keeps th
rowing out the blackest thoughts. I creep back through the office, the sitting room, and tiptoe down the hall. I close the bathroom door behind me. The toilet seat feels refreshingly cold through my dress as I sit. Turning on the radio, I let the air fill up with chatter: soft drawling voices that lull me to sleep. I sleep awake on the toilet, not knowing whether my eyes are open or closed.
The sun is gushing through the window when Moni pushes open the door.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks, stepping up to the sink, pinching her toothbrush between her fingers.
‘I must have fallen asleep. What time is it?’
‘Uncle Eddie’s gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘To get Georgie.’
She turns on the tap but there is no water. ‘See if the kitchen taps work,’ I say, getting up and stretching my legs, which have gone stiff. My neck is killing me. I switch off the radio and follow Moni through to the kitchen. She spits the toothpaste froth onto the dishes in the sink. These taps don’t work either. ‘He’s probably gone to fix the water. Let’s go and find Dad. He might have made breakfast. You never know.’ I give her a bit of undiluted orange squash to wash away the taste.
Today must be the hottest day on record, despite the swelling clouds. The melted tarmac sticks to our flip flops, making it hard to walk. Flies attempt to feed off our sweat. I hate these flies. I hate that rotten caravan. I hate feeling like I’m being barbecued.
Eddie’s truck has gone. (I never asked him what he did with that kangaroo.)
Moni points at the galahs lined up on the telegraph wire. ‘Shall we feed them?’
‘Your dad might have fed them already.’ As we approach the caravan, I say, ‘This looks like a good place for breakfast. What do you think?’
I see myself playing waitress to Moni and Michael as they peer at invisible menus. How could I have risked losing the most important thing? Moni raps on the door and calls out, ‘Is this café open?’ She marches in. I’m right behind her.
Everything is packed, except for the pictures I bought in Wattle Creek, and the drawings Moni and Georgie made of Mr M. I check the cupboards and the wardrobe. My clothes are still hanging up, but the rest have gone.
‘I’ll go and find him,’ Moni says, ripping the pictures and drawings down, leaving them on the table before she darts outside.
‘You can’t go on your own. It’s not safe,’ I call after her, but she has started running. I try to follow but my legs buckle under me. ‘Come back,’ I shout, struggling to stand. I watch her shrinking as my eyelids flicker.
The sweat on my skin turns cold. And all I can see is miles and miles of empty space.
MICHAEL
I am driving – Akarula Street shrinks in the rear-view mirror as I head towards Wattle Creek – slow driving, curling round potholes and sharp gullies. Being behind the wheel again feels like running with my eyes closed; anything could happen.
The sun bounces off the road in waves of silvery white light. It’s the light that makes the ground seem to roll up in dusty folds of terracotta. I can hardly tell the earth from the sky. Through the rear-view mirror I check on Mr M, who is sprawled across the back seat. He winces every time we hit a bump. His face is disfigured with bruises, one of his eyes too swollen to open.
Around 5am Eddie hammered on the caravan window, shouting in a way that made me think he’d found Georgie. I was half-asleep, so what he said didn’t register until afterwards. He practically dragged me outside and over to the truck. I was still dressed from the day before. It wasn’t until we were almost at the portacabin that I fully understood.
‘I can’t get through to the hospital,’ Eddie said. ‘The line’s engaged.’ His face was blanched and he was shivering. ‘Susan isn’t answering. If we wait, it’ll be too late.’ There was panic in his voice. I’d never seen him so shaken up.
When we got to the portacabin door, Eddie rushed past me. Mr M was choking and coughing blood.
‘Look at him,’ Eddie screeched.
The great Edward Harvey was losing control, flailing his arms about as if he was drowning. ‘Can you hear us?’ he shouted into Mr M’s face, like some bad actor in a sitcom.
I wanted to say something about Father, about why he left us that way, but I didn’t know exactly how to start, and the moment passed before I could find the right words. Eddie has Father’s eyes.
‘Calm down,’ is what I offered.
I propped Mr M up with a pillow so that he could clear his throat. Then I knelt beside the bed and tried to get him to tell us what was happening, but his mouth was badly cut and when his lips parted, all that came out was spit and blood.
Eddie squatted on the floor beside me, holding his hand an inch from Mr M’s cheek. After a while he drew back and seemed to be praying. Or cursing. At any rate, his hands were clasped and he was mumbling like an idiot. For a second, I didn’t recognise him. My proud cock-and-bull brother wouldn’t kneel at someone’s feet, not the invincible Eddie. Whether he read my thoughts, or whether the pain of losing himself to a higher cause got too much, I don’t know, but within seconds he was pushing himself up. He started trying to fix the faulty door catch.
‘Some bastard’s got it in for me,’ he said, rattling the catch the way a child might shake a broken toy.
‘For you?’ It was almost amusing under the circumstances.
We carried Mr M out to the truck and laid him on the back seat. He kept convulsing. We almost dropped him twice. Eddie wore this manic look, the whites of his eyes taking over his whole face as he ranted about Akarula and the mine, not making any sense.
‘You’ll have to drive,’ I said. ‘Just try the hospital again. It won’t be easy for him being stuck in the car for five hours.’ I didn’t say what I was thinking, but I could see Eddie being stranded on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere with a dead man on the back seat.
‘Mike?’ Eddie clung onto the top of the truck door as I got in the back with Mr M. ‘Is it too late?’
I had no time for his theatricals, so I yanked at the door and told him to get a move on.
While he was gone, I stretched forwards between the seats and played with the radio dial, surfing the stations to get a decent reception. I talked about God knows what, to hold Mr M’s attention, to stop him from closing his one good eye. Eddie wasn’t long. I heard him racing back across the tarmac.
‘They said it’ll be quicker to drive. You’ll have to drive.’ He was panting and holding his side as if he was in pain.
‘I can’t.’ But I could see he wasn’t in a fit state to do anything. He could hardly breathe. And so I rearranged Mr M on the back seat, belting his body in as best I could, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Eddie swam in the tail lights as I pulled out onto the road. It’s nearly six years since I sat behind a wheel. I could have killed that boy.
The smell of sun-baked rocks coats the warm breeze, hitting my face as I wind down the window. With Akarula behind me, I can sense the boundless expanse Eddie talked about: no walls, no borders, no houses, just miles and miles of arid bush. I drive past colossal termite mounds, memorials to the primacy of insects. The cracked red earth looks shell-like. Georgie has fallen down one of these cracks. Whatever we do now will not bring her back.
Without warning, the shine slips out of the sun. I sense the familiar void descending on me. How can you wake up one day and feel as if the earth is being smothered by the sky? It wasn’t even like that; it wasn’t one day. It crept up on me, this overwhelming feeling of pointlessness; there was no way of dodging it. Believe me, I tried. I did everything I could. It just got worse and worse.
I press the throttle down, faster, as fast as the rutted dirt road will allow, stirring the surface dust, covering my tracks. I force myself to breathe. We should be there by eleven at this rate.
‘How are we doing back there?’ I ask, peering at Mr M through the rear-view mirror as he closes and opens his good eye. What does he make of all this? He tried warning us, told me weeks ag
o that people were getting restless, that it was time for us to go. It must have been a few days before Georgie disappeared. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He laughed when I asked him if he’d read it in the stars. But he knew. At the time I remember thinking he’s right, we should go. I told Caroline.
I drive along this endless road for hours. Near Wattle Creek, the surface improves, turning into bitumen a few miles out of town. Wattle Creek is roughly the same size as Alice Springs. There is one main shopping street, but the houses sprawl in all directions.
‘Alright, Mr M? We’ll have you in a proper bed in no time.’
He presses his hands into the seat. If he’s trying to lift himself, he makes no headway. Still, he’s alive. And we’re nearly there.
The drive through this plain, dusty, ten-horse town takes all of three minutes. I pull up in front of the hospital, a grey building with two portacabins to the side.
‘I’ll fetch a helper,’ I say. ‘Won’t be long.’
He nods. No, he doesn’t nod; he shifts his head slightly, and winces with pain. I nod, slamming the truck door, and sprint towards the entrance.
There’s a reception area in the small foyer. I press the brass bell on the desk. It’s a little after eleven. A nurse arrives, the same one we had the last time I was here with Moni, although she doesn’t seem to recognise me.
‘My brother rang this morning,’ I explain. ‘I’ll need help getting my friend inside. Is Susan here?’
This young, severe-looking woman whose hair is scraped back in a high ponytail, picks her nail as she responds. ‘Doctor Marshall’s on a call at the moment. Why don’t you take a seat while we get your friend inside?’ She gives me a form to fill in, offering a pen from her top pocket. ‘As soon as she arrives, I’ll let her know you’re here.’ She accelerates down the corridor in her plain white pumps. A few minutes later, two male hospital workers carry Mr M past me on a stretcher.
My arms get chicken skin from the air-conditioning, which circulates the smell of disinfectant. I study the pictures of hand-painted fruit trees on the wall behind the desk: simple drawings done by an amateur. The nurse appears again with a cup of coffee and a snack pack of digestive biscuits.
Swimming on Dry Land Page 12
