Book Read Free

Carrier

Page 6

by Vanessa Garden


  ‘That’s right, because I can’t trust you anymore.’ I knew she was talking about Patrick’s footprints by the fence. She poked a finger at my face. ‘Everything you do will be under my supervision from now on.’

  A bitter laugh nearly spluttered from my lips. I’d been under her supervision for my entire life so this punishment was nothing new. I sucked in a deep breath and glanced up.

  The sky had darkened to blue-black and thunder rumbled somewhere in the north. By evening the second storm would hit. I had to leave much earlier than I’d planned.

  ‘No, Mum. I’m going out…’ More thunder rumbled. ‘…after lunch. I want to find the waterhole, by myself. I’ll take my slingshot and my knife.’

  Mum stared at me, her eyes wet and shiny.

  ‘Lena, if you do this, if you disobey me...you won’t be welcome back.’ She stifled a sob and brushed past me, the metal buttons of her shirt scratching against my bare forearm. ‘I mean it.’

  I followed her around the veranda to the front door where she’d left her boots and stormed into the house. She was in the kitchen, wiping down her hands in the sink with a wet flannel.

  ‘Mum, this is ridiculous. So you want to lock me up for life because you’re worried for me and want to protect me, but now you’re ready to wash your hands of me the minute I say I’m going?’ My hands found my hair and I pulled at the short tufts. ‘Dad’s and Alice’s deaths have made you one crazy, unhappy, lady.’

  There was a sudden flash of pain against my skin as my face was flung to the left with the force of Mum’s slap. The kitchen bench bit into my hip as I fell against it.

  ‘Don’t you ever...’ Mum paused, her chest heaving, her lips trembling, ‘…ever, speak to me like that again. Or you’ll be one very sorry girl.’ She stared down at her hand as though it had an independent brain inside of it, her fingers flexing and curling.

  Tears burned to be freed but I held them intact. My stinging cheek begged to be cradled in my open hand, but I stood frozen, my limbs trapped with shock. Mum had always been a bit rough with me, yanking me by the hair whenever she cut it, dragging me by my shirt collar or the scruff of my singlet if she thought I was slacking off in my chores, but she had never slapped me. Now I knew what Alice had felt when Mum had hit her — she had felt alone and unloved and hated, right down to the bone.

  ‘I’m going to get some things before I leave,’ I said, backing out of the kitchen and starting down the hallway. ‘But I’ll be back, Mum, maybe not tonight, but in a couple of days. You can’t refuse me my own home.’ Muttering beneath my breath, I tacked on, ‘Dad built this house for all of us, not just you. He would hate you for this.’

  Before I could reach my bedroom door Mum came bounding towards me, her hand hurtling towards my face.

  This time I staggered back from the brunt, my shoulder hitting the wall, hard. Emma yapped at Mum and bared her teeth.

  Mum stared down at the dingo and back up at me, blinking, her eyes glassy and her trembling hands fluttering around her face.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lena. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was just a reaction to what you said. I’m so sorry, darling.’ She lurched forward to hug me, pressing her bony frame against me, pushing me into the wall, but I slithered out from her grasp and scrambled into my bedroom, slamming the door behind me.

  With the hem of my shirt, I wiped my eyes dry while mentally stowing the pain I felt in the farthest corner of my soul. There was no time for wallowing. No time to obsess over Mum’s craziness and her lack of love for me.

  Emma kept guard while I tossed all manner of things into my backpack; Jeffery C’s picture, my pocketknife, my slingshot, my torch, a change of clothes and Dad’s jacket — I would need it in the wet weather. It was then that I remembered Dad’s glasses.

  The hallway was empty and the house silent when I stepped out. The only noise was the scraping sound my backpack made against my back each time I took a step. Luckily, Mum’s bedroom door was open, and with a quick wave of my torch, empty too.

  Dad’s framed photo rested on the bedside table, a moth-eaten doily beneath it for decoration.

  Bending down, I examined my father’s face. We shared the same small nose, wide eyes and fire-hair, but my sight was one hundred per cent whereas my dad had been short-sighted.

  I rooted around in the messy top drawer until my fingers brushed against metal frames. There were two pairs, without their cases, so I wrapped them separately in two of Dad’s old handkerchiefs, to keep them safe, before depositing them into the front pocket of my backpack.

  ‘Bye Dad,’ I whispered to the man I had hardly known, the man who I had tried to get to know by reading his medical journals and sci-fi stories, the man who had loved me and had held onto hope for a future, for my future`, right up until the day he had died.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect outside as I slipped out of the room and walked down the hall like a prisoner to the gallows.

  A thin tendril of smoke wafted towards me as I stepped out onto the creaky veranda. Mum had started a small fire only a couple of metres away from the house, which was odd seeing as she was always on at me about fire dangers and making sure I made them well away from the house.

  But then I saw what she was burning.

  ‘No Mum!’ I yelled, clearing the veranda in a single leap and running to her, the contents of my backpack jangling. In her thin, heavily veined hands she held Alice’s journal, and one by one she proceeded to pluck a page before screwing it into a ball and tossing it into the fire.

  I pleaded once more, through a veil of smoke, for her to stop, but my begging seemed to make her fingers work faster, tossing several pages at once into the hungry flames.

  An animal growl tore from my throat. She may as well have been throwing pieces of Alice into the fire, toe by toe, limb by limb.

  Acrid smoke coated my throat, burning my insides and making my eyes water, as I closed in on Mum, my hands groping for the journal. But before I could get it, she tossed the entire thing in.

  Orange flames licked the glossy black cover and set a flurry of sparks flying. I grabbed a nearby stick and poked around the coals to get the last remnant of the diary out. But all I managed to save was the spiral binding and a single charred edged scrap of paper, which I quickly flattened between my palms.

  Blinking away tears, I retreated from the dying flames, my chest aching as if it had been punched with a metal fist, as though Alice had died all over again.

  ‘Now I know what’s gotten into your head,’ Mum said, shaking her head. ‘It was Alice all along. This person, standing in front of me now, is not my Lena. Not the girl I know and love and who loves me. You’re just Alice all over again, a foolish girl with a death wish.’ Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving dark wet drops on her shirt.

  ‘I am not! I’m still Lena. And Lena wants freedom too, Mum. Everybody wants freedom.’

  Mum’s face was in her hands now, her bony shoulders shaking, and despite her harsh words my heart twisted to see her unravel.

  ‘You’re all I’ve got, Lena,’ she said, her voice a croak behind her hands. ‘I’m sorry I’m such a bitch sometimes...but I don’t want you to leave me.’

  It was hard to remain rigid and to restrain myself from putting my arms around her. But I knew what I had to do.

  ‘I love you, Mum. But I’m going.’

  With a stone heart, I turned and started the long walk to the front gate, the sky above me bruised and angry.

  Charlotte howled mournfully from the shed — Mum must have locked her in after the hunt — and Emma raced back and forth between me and Charlotte, yapping at us both, undecided which to protect. I whistled and knelt down and she leapt into my arms, licking my face and nuzzling my neck. I buried my face into her stinky fur before I got up and pointed back at the house.

  ‘You go, Emma. You go be a good girl and protect your sister. Protect Mum too.’

  She blinked her small black eyes at me and ran, yapping and screeching at the rumbl
ing sky.

  I turned and continued towards the gate.

  Choking down a sharp sob, I opened my cupped hands to read all that remained of Alice.

  The small, fragile strip of paper fluttered between my fingers like a butterfly.

  It was just the one word, but it spoke more to me than all the passages in all of the books I’d ever read put together.

  ‘Freedom...’

  Chapter 8

  Mum had the key to the padlocked gate, but it didn’t matter because I was going to scale it instead. I thought of Alice as I wrapped my fingers around the solid bars and started to climb. I pictured her cheering me on as I swung one leg over the top, being extra careful not to catch my clothes on the razor wire.

  The ground on the other side of the rose to meet me with an almighty crack, jarring my ankles as though I’d split bones. But the pain was nothing beside the sense of freedom, which hit me from every angle like several swift whacks to my senses.

  I staggered back, until I felt the metal gate pressing into my spine. Everything was so wide open, without the comfort and restraint of a boundary, and although it was liberating experience, it also came with the eerie sensation of being exposed, watched by unseen eyes.

  I wanted to dash and hide behind the nearest bush, bury myself beneath the red dust, anything to take away the prickling sensation along the lengths of my arms and the back of my neck. I rooted around my back pocket for my knife just in case, though it was ridiculous to expect every diseased male in the country to be awaiting my arrival.

  Something rustled the leaves of a shrub to my left. My stomach clenched and my hand shook but only a dugite slithered out into view, its tiny forked tongue darting out before it sped away over the orange sand like a streak of black lightening. I spluttered a nervous sigh of relief.

  More thunder grumbled from the north, where smoky grey clouds came towards me like an enormous dark blanket. It was only just after midday, but the dim sky could have been easily mistaken for dusk. If I got a move on, I could make it to the waterhole by three o’clock. And then...well, I wasn’t sure what my plans were. Though I’d told Mum I would be back, part of me entertained the idea of finding Patrick’s house and just staying there with him and his brothers until Mum calmed down.

  According to Alice’s diary, if I continued north of the waterhole, I’d eventually come across Patrick’s house, and hopefully, Patrick too.

  Tiny shards of lightning forked the northern sky. I quickened my pace, stirring the red earth with my feet.

  If darkness or the storm came before I reached Patrick’s, I had to trust that the caves Dad had jotted down on his crude map of the area were really there. Then, of course, I would have to trust that those caves weren’t inhabited by Carriers or wild animals.

  I turned around to view my house, almost completely obscured behind fat bushes and salmon barks, and broke out into a run, whispering a ‘thank you’ as I warily passed Alice’s spot, which was marked by a small pile of smooth river stones Mum had stacked there.

  With my eyes and ears wide open, absorbing every shifting shape, every scratching sound, and with my sweaty hand tightly wrapped around my knife, I continued on without looking back until I got a stitch some time later and had to stop for a breather.

  Although the ground was still dry and dusty, thicker, greener shrubs grew in these parts, along with the occasional pale, wiry tree with paper-like bark peeling off the branches and trunks. Desert Downs was no longer in view and this lush greenery told me the waterhole was close.

  I quickened my steps towards a large cluster of trees in the distance — before heading straight into a cloud of mosquitos. Screaming, I started slapping at my arms and legs. A mosquito could feed on a Carrier then pierce my skin and infect me with the disease.

  I ran towards the trees to escape them, bolting flat-tack for several hundred metres until the tinny smell of the water hit my nostrils.

  The humming mosquitoes now behind me, I ceased my slap-dance and stared out across the shimmering water banked by several ancient eucalypts.

  The pool was a dark, shimmering black beneath the shade of the surrounding trees, more beautiful and picturesque than I had ever imagined — better than any water I’d ever seen in a book or photo album.

  In crouch pose, I scoped the area, randomly stabbing at the air behind shrubs and trees with my knife until I was satisfied I was alone. My backpack fell to the ground with a soft thud. Kicking my shoes off, I stretched one foot out and dipped my toes into the water. It was surprisingly warm. I’d never had a bath before. Mum had always made me wash inside with a flannel and a bucket of water, even though she had always bathed beneath the sky in a tub. She’d said it was for my own good. That if a boy or a man came across my young, naked body he might go crazy with lust.

  I smiled at my reflection in the water.

  The cargo pants came off first, then the singlet, both of which I draped onto a low-lying branch by the water’s edge before I waded in.

  My feet slipped around, making me wobble as I moved along the slimy bottom of the pool, inch by inch, careful not to take too great a step should I find myself in over my head. A quarter of the way across, I bent forward and cupped a handful of water and, after sniffing it, wet my lips. It tasted fine — I knew it would, seeing as Mum filled our bottles and canteens with the stuff whenever our well became dry. I drank a handful, and then another, until my thirst diminished. Then I knelt in the water so that it swallowed me right up to my shoulders.

  A long sigh escaped my lips.

  The surrounding trees created a canopy of pale green leaves above, offering the illusion of privacy.

  It was a sanctuary. No wonder Alice had come here. No wonder Mum came here so often. It was heaven. I closed my eyes and sloshed the water around with my arms.

  ‘Hey, girl, no swimming in the waterhole, this is a drinking one only!’

  I froze, my pulse thudding in my ears.

  My eyes snapped open and rested on a dark shadow reflected in the shimmering surface of the water. The shadow smiled and revealed a row of beaming white teeth.

  ‘Hey, girl, what’s your name? Get out of the water, silly.’

  I spun around to find a tall, thin girl with dark, shiny skin and long, sun-kissed brown hair staring down at me.

  ‘Can’t you hear or something? Are you deaf, sister? Get out of our drinking water,’ she said, her brow creasing into a frown.

  ‘Turn around,’ I said, my teeth suddenly chattering, ‘...then I’ll get out.’

  She rolled her eyes and turned. ‘Whatever.’

  Watching her back like a hawk, I rushed out of the water, but swore under my breath when I had nothing to dry myself with. I considered my clothes, dangling nearby, but I didn’t want to soak them and have to wear them all night so I did the only thing I could think of — shook my body and head from side to side like I’d seen my dingos do. It worked for them, so why not me?

  But after a few seconds, the action made me dizzy and before I knew it I was face down in the soft mud of the bank.

  Dirt seeped into my mouth and I spat it out repeatedly before staring up into the face of the girl who had turned back around to face me. My cheeks throbbed with the heat, with mortifying embarrassment, as I watched her smooth shoulders shaking with amusement.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ she said, before covering her grinning mouth.

  After several failed attempts at getting to my feet while desperately trying to cover my nudity with my arms and fingers, the girl stuck out a thin, heavy-knuckled hand.

  ‘Come on, take it,’ she spluttered out between laughs. ‘I haven’t got a disease.’

  I stared at the proffered hand and threw her a sharp, scrutinising glance.

  ‘Do I look dead to you? Like I’m melting inside?’ the girl said, rolling her eyes again. ‘You’ve sort of got no choice. Take my hand or stay there and roll around like a pig in its own shit.’

  For some reason, instead of anger or shame I
felt a certain warmth building up inside of me. It bubbled up my throat and out of my mouth, into something I hadn’t done for a long time. I clutched at the girl’s hand, but slid back down into the mud again, this time weakened with laughter.

  She fell down beside me, clutching her slim stomach, the mud beneath her making a squelching sound.

  ‘I was watching your reflection in the water,’ she said, slapping her thighs and laughing between words, ‘and you shook...like a dog...like some crazy bitch.’

  The laughter made me grip my own naked stomach and fall back against the bank, the cold mud slapping against my back hard. Ouch.

  The impending storm glowered down at me through the green canopy above, daring me to waste another minute. It would probably hit on my way to Patrick’s place, but, right now, strangely enough, I didn’t care.

  ‘Why are you so scared of people seeing you in your birthday kit?’ said the girl, her laughter now subdued into random giggles. ‘Everyone I know has seen me naked.’

  I stood up and waded into the water to wash off the mud, keeping my back to the girl, but talking over my shoulder.

  ‘How old are you?’ I asked, ignoring her question.

  ‘How old do you think?’ She put her hands to her hips, struck a pose. The blue cotton dress she wore rode up her thighs. It was several sizes too small.

  I shrugged. ‘Seventeen?’

  ‘Try sixteen. My cousins and I, we come here to the waterhole all the time.’ She gnawed on her bottom lip. ‘And sometimes we walk around the edge of your property. We’ve wanted to get your attention for a long time. But my grandmother warned me how crazy your mum is with her big gun and everything so we don’t get too close.’

  Goose bumps prickled my wet skin as I remembered the creepy silhouettes from the night before.

  ‘Did you come to my bedroom window last night, with somebody else?’ I asked, hoping she’d say yes.

  She frowned and drew her head back like I’d slapped her.

  ‘Are you insane? Your mum is way too scary.’

 

‹ Prev