Carrier

by Vanessa Garden

  The torch slipped from my fingers and switched off when it landed on the dirt, but the guy continued talking into the darkness.

  ‘I followed his tracks since early this morning and they led to this fence. I saw the house and thought maybe his friend lived here. We’ve never met her. But we know she sometimes gives him rabbits.’

  Icy cold blood drained to my feet as the crack of the gunshot from last night echoed inside my brain. I slowly brought my hands to my face and rubbed my numb cheeks.

  So this was why Mum was acting so weird. She’d been meeting a man and that man was this boy’s father. But it didn’t explain why she had shot him.

  The boy’s heavy breathing in the dark unsettled me, so I groped the dirt for the torch and turned it back on.

  ‘Is your mum home with your brothers?’ I asked, searching for something positive to focus on while inside my head all I could think about was how hard Mum had cried herself to sleep last night. She had obviously cared about the man she had shot. Perhaps they had been lovers.

  He looked away and shook his head. ‘She died years ago, from the disease.’

  Though I felt sorry for him, I stepped back. If his mother had died then it meant her family of boys were most likely diseased. Where else would she have gotten the Y-Carrier from?

  ‘No!’ He frowned when he saw my face. ‘No, we didn’t give it to her. My family are clean. I would have killed myself if I’d done my own mum in.’

  He seemed sincere, but I wasn’t sure I could trust my gut instinct, not when I’d never had to rely on it until this moment.

  ‘You’ve got to turn away and never come back,’ I said, with a lump in my throat, because I would have liked to have gotten to know this boy with a face as handsome as Jeffery C, and I would have liked to have been able to help him and his family.

  My chest tightened as I imagined him returning home to his brothers without their father. I mentally noted his scruffy, uncut hair, the ragged shirt and jeans that were covered with so many patches that it was hard to see the original material.

  Every inch of me burned to help him, but helping this stranger would begin by me telling him that it was quite possible my own mother had shot his father. And I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Even worse, if Mum saw this boy, given what she’d done last night, she would most certainly shoot him on the spot. I had to send him away for his own good.

  ‘You have to go.’

  ‘We’re clean, my brothers, my dad and I.’

  I was about to tell him it didn’t matter if he was clean, that my mother was a psycho, but before I could utter a word he stepped right up to the fence and began to unbutton his flannelette shirt, gradually revealing bare, tanned skin from chest to navel.

  ‘Come closer. I won’t touch you,’ he said, his voice low and gravelly.

  At first I shirked away, but then he said, ‘Males with the Y-Carrier don’t die, but they’re left with a permanent rash all over their torso. ‘Look. See for yourself. I’m clean. I don’t have the disease.’

  The rash part I remembered reading about in Dad’s notes.

  With my breath held in case the disease was airborne, I stepped closer to inspect the body presented before me.

  The torch shook in my hand as I trained the light from the boy’s neck, down the length of his bare chest, stopping at base of his stomach where his jeans began.

  Because the power on the torch was running low, I had to bring my face right up close for a better inspection.

  His chest was broad and his stomach lined with corded muscles. A thin trail of dark hair started below his belly button and disappeared down the hem of his jeans. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been staring, but suddenly the boy cleared his throat and pulled back, briskly doing up his shirt.

  My face burned. I’d been too fascinated by the differences in his body to mine that I’d failed to do a thorough check for the rash. Now I had to assume that he was telling the truth. Though I was pretty sure I would have noticed a rash if it had been there.

  ‘See. I’m not a Carrier,’ he said with a shiver. I shivered too. The night air was cooling rapidly.

  We held eyes for a long moment, me trying to keep my breath in and him breathing out hard.

  The muffled sound of my dingos doing their yap-howl thing from way back at the shed broke me from my trance and I finally exhaled. Mum could burst out of the house waving a loaded shotgun any minute.

  But the boy didn’t seem to notice or care about the noise. He was leaning his head against the fence, the hair from his fringe poking through. I had an urge to touch it, to see if it was soft; just like I’d had an urge to touch his stomach when he’d showed me, to see if it was hard. But that would be both dangerous and just…weird.

  ‘My mum died helping a man who came to our house asking for food. She made us go outside and then he raped her — we didn’t know until after it had happened. Dad was out hunting at the time with my older brother.’ His eyes glazed over and he looked away. ‘He had threatened to kill us all and she’d sacrificed herself for us.’ His fingers tightened around the wire and his voice turned soft and faraway. ‘I loved her more than anything in this world.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I whispered.

  He nodded and cleared his throat.

  I threw a glance at the house before turning back to face him. ‘Look, I’m so sorry, but you have to go.’ My voice turned thick and my eyes began to sting. ‘If my mum comes out...she’ll, well, she’ll shoot you.’

  For a long moment the boy stared at me and I thought maybe he’d guessed what had happened to his dad, but he merely nodded.

  ‘Sorry, but she’s...overprotective,’ I said, my voice cracking.

  His shoulders sank before he pushed himself away from the fence, as though about to leave, but he turned back to face me, flicking his fringe away from his eyes with his fingers.

  ‘If my dad doesn’t show by tomorrow night, I’ll be back here to look around. At least if I find his body I’ll know.’

  I bent down and fiddled with my backpack zipper so I had an excuse to avoid his eyes — so he couldn’t see the horrible truth in mine.

  ‘Okay. If you come back, I’ll try to distract Mum so she doesn’t shoot you, but I can’t guarantee it. Try not to make any noise and I’ll bring you some food.’

  He stared down at me for a long time. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  I tried to ignore the shrill sound of the dingos going off inside the shed and the way my heart was ready to pound its way up my neck.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Patrick.’ A ghost of a smile flickered across his face for half a second and his eyes glittered like the stars above. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Lena,’ I said, before adding, ‘I’ve got something for you, Patrick.’ Saying his name, a stranger’s name, out loud, sent a thrill shooting through my veins.

  I dropped the torch and fumbled in the dark for the cooked rabbit in my backpack.

  ‘Take this home and feed it to your family. It’s just a rabbit...’ I set the bag down and fished around for some dried figs before grabbing the torch and training the light on the goodies.

  His eyes widened at the food, but his cheeks flushed at the same time and he shook his head.

  ‘Thanks. But I can’t take it. It’s not right. You and your mother need it just as much.’ He wouldn’t meet my eyes. His stooped posture seemed to radiate shame.

  ‘Well, if you don’t take it, it’ll go off and be a waste. You could share it with your little brothers.’ I raised my brows and pleaded with my eyes. ‘Please, Patrick.’

  After a long pause, his eyes met mine. ‘Okay. I’ll take it to my brothers. Thanks.’

  I sighed with relief, as if feeding his family could somehow counteract the terrible thing my mum had done.

  He started to climb the fence and my stomach swirled with nerves. All of the warnings about the male species that Mum had drummed into my head since I was a little girl shouted at me to hurl the ra
bbit and run. But for once I ignored them and listened to my own voice.

  The boy stopped at the razor-wired top and dangled one of his hands over.

  ‘I won’t climb right over. Just pass it up to me. I promise I won’t touch you, even though I’m safe.’

  I slipped the backpack on backwards so that it rested against my stomach and tucked the rabbit in before beginning to climb. I only needed to go three-quarters of the way because Patrick’s arms were long enough to reach down.

  As I became close enough to pass, my hands trembled as I took the rabbit out and held it up with a shaking hand. He took it.

  Next I passed the figs and this time our fingers brushed.

  I gasped. But it wasn’t because I was worried about the Y-Carrier. It was because it was the first time I’d touched somebody other than my mother in over ten years.

  Patrick’s eyes widened. ‘Sorry. But it’s okay. Remember, I’m not diseased.’

  I didn’t say a word. I was too busy storing the feel of his warm fingers against my own inside my treasure trove of memories. Even if I never saw him again, this moment was mine to keep and to draw from in the many lonely years to come.

  Still, in a reflex action, I wiped my hand against my shirt. His eyes followed and took stock of my gesture.

  ‘Do I have to show you my chest again to make you believe me?’

  It was difficult to tell in the moonlight whether Patrick was being serious or attempting to lighten the atmosphere with some humour. But my face heated anyway and I shook my head and sort of stumbled back down, falling hard on my bottom.

  Bone-splitting pain radiated from my tailbone down to my toes. I’d jarred nearly every bone in the lower half of my body.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Patrick asked after he descended back down his side of the fence in a single, graceful leap.

  I dusted down my clothes, picked up the torch and aimed it at the ground, making a sun in the dirt. My rear end felt as though it had been kicked twenty times.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, because something light and warm was spreading through my chest. I’d done what I’d always dreamed of doing since I was little. I’d touched a stranger. I’d smiled and he had smiled. My food was now his food. That was the domino effect. It meant that I existed.

  As I stepped back, away from the fence, I finally allowed the wide smile that had so wanted to stretch my face since the moment I saw him; my jaw muscles tingling from being so stiff and unused most of the time.

  ‘You’re small, but you seem strong,’ Patrick said through the fence, his eyes full of admiration, ‘a bit like my mum.’ He smiled, transforming his boyish features into something beautiful. ‘She always wanted a daughter, but ended up with just us boys.’ His intense gaze left my face and swept down to my toes and back up again, making me wish Mum hadn’t chopped all my hair off. It would be nice to have someone think I was pretty.

  ‘You’re the first girl I’ve ever seen,’ he added, before clearing his throat.

  My cheeks warmed and I glanced down at the fading torch-sun in the dirt.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I whispered, shuffling back from the fence. I wanted to add ‘my friend’, but didn’t because friends don’t keep secrets from each other. A real friend would have told Patrick about his dad.

  ‘Goodnight, Lena. Thank you.’ His voice faded as darkness swallowed him whole. The sound of my name on his lips made me smile again.

  As I turned away, my eyes shot up to Alice’s star in silent prayer.

  Please, by some miracle, let the man Mum shot not be Patrick’s dad. Please, Alice.

  I approached the house carefully, as if it weren’t my own. The dingos were silent again. Perhaps, intuitively, they’d understood I hadn’t truly left them.

  While I crept up the veranda steps, I wrapped my arms around my body in a hug.

  I had met a boy. A boy named Patrick, who had used my name and confirmed my existence in the world.

  I took one last, longing look at the moonlit night — seeing it for the first time as something other than a nether of danger — before opening the door to the house and entering.

  Mum didn’t answer when I knocked on her door. I jiggled the doorknob but it was still locked. However, when I pressed my ear up against the door, Mum’s faint ragged snoring put me at ease.

  That night, I dreamed again.

  In my dream I rested my hand against Patrick’s bare chest, the vibrations of his heartbeat tickling my palm. But seconds later I shrieked in horror and drew my hand away, because his torso was no longer smooth and tan, but instead blanketed in a raised red rash.

  Chapter 3

  The next day, with Mum still taking refuge in her room, Alice was never more missed. How fun it would have been to sit on the veranda’s love seat with my cousin and giggle about Patrick in the same way the girls in my novels always did about boys. Perhaps I would have introduced her to Patrick. Then together she and I could have snuck out and visited with his family.

  To pass the day away I tidied the house, refreshed our water supply, cooked a root vegetable stew and left a bowl outside Mum’s bedroom door, milked Nanny and replenished the dingos’ water. Luckily we didn’t need to feed our girls — they were supreme hunters; the only thing they ate of ours was the internal organs and the bones of our catch. Otherwise, they were self-sufficient which was a good thing, because we’d starve if we had to share our food with them all the time.

  Finally evening came and it was time to get dressed. For the first time in my life I actually considered myself in front of my bedroom mirror, my eyes lingering over my short hair. I sighed with disgust. Though my hair hadn’t been long for years, this was the first time I was really bothered by the fact.

  When I was a kid I’d had hair so long I could sit on it. The colouring was unique to Dad and me; light brown with streaks of red and gold. Fire hair, Mum used to say. But one day, not long after we had lost Alice, while I was playing hopscotch, the squares drawn in the red dirt with a sharp stick, Mum seized me by my hair, wrapped its length around her knuckles and chopped it all off.

  I was only seven years old and hated Mum for doing it. My flaming hair was the only pretty thing about me — Alice had said so — and Mum had hacked it off like it was the end of an old, frayed rope.

  I’d refused to eat for days after and wore a hat constantly, but eventually I’d caved and accepted the loss of my one beauty. I even became used to it. A couple of years later I’d learnt of Mum’s motive. Make Lena look like a boy and perhaps if those men, Alice’s men, came roaming again, they’d take no notice. So in her mind, she was protecting me.

  I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair, making the strands neat.

  My face was round, with a small nose and wide, brown eyes. With longer hair I might even have been sort of pretty, but without it I was at best a young, delicate boyish-looking girl who looked dirty most of the time because you could never really wash the red dust from your skin and hair. I was perpetually tanned or bronzed; whether it was from the sun or the dirt I didn’t know, because I’d never had a true break from either one.

  After throwing several things into my backpack, I locked the girls in the shed again — this time I had to chase them for several minutes before I managed to get them through the door.

  On my journey to the fence, I hesitated when passing by the enormous salmon bark. A light evening breeze was blowing, the leaves on the ancient tree making ghostly whispering sounds.

  Three mounds of sand — one higher and fresher than the others — now rested beneath its shade. Invisible cold fingers of death traced my skin and left me with goose bumps that wouldn’t rub off no matter how hard I tried. I bent my head and muttered a small ‘sorry’ to the stranger who now rested there, before shuffling away as quickly as my legs could go.

  Soon the sun disappeared over the horizon and darkness fell as softly as ash over the property. I plonked myself on the ground beside the fence, setting the container of stew and thermos full of goa
t’s milk down before making a pillow out of Dad’s jacket. I rested my head and stared up at rapidly darkening the sky.

  Time passed.

  Once shy stars now brightened and swirled against the night in clusters like thin streams of milk. The calls of the nocturnal kept me awake, though I knew it was now past candle-out time.

  Nerves pooled in my lower belly. Patrick hadn’t showed yet, and minute by minute, my hope at seeing him again died. I started to wonder if perhaps he’d indeed found his father and therefore had no reason to roam this way again.

  Above all else I wanted Patrick and his brothers to have their father back. But I couldn’t help the cold emptiness spreading inside me like winter frost at the idea of never seeing him again, of not having anyone else in the world but Mum.

  An hour later the shed had grown silent, and I yawned, picturing the warm bodies of my girls huddled together on the floor of the shed. With all the excitement from last night and the dream about Patrick with the rash, sleep hadn’t been easy.

  Drawing my shirt tighter around me, I concentrated on the stars in a desperate bid to keep awake. The star I’d named Alice was much harder to find when the sky was lit up like this. But just before my lids closed over what was the most spectacular ceiling I’d ever slept beneath, my tiny star winked in the north-westerly sky, letting me know that I wasn’t as alone as I felt.

  *

  A creamy mauve sky stared back at me when I opened my eyes again. It wasn’t early enough to herald morning birdsong, but light enough to know that the rising sun was not too far away.

  Scrambling into sitting position, I nearly screamed when I spotted Patrick lying on the other side of the fence. He was propped up on one elbow and resting his head in the palm of his hand. His eyes remained fixed on me as though he’d been watching me sleep the entire night.

  I ran my fingers through my hair and rubbed at my face.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, a gentle smile curving his lips.