Carrier

by Vanessa Garden

  ‘Heaps of times — mostly when I’ve been caught out in a dust storm or rain like this. But when we were kids, Markus and I used to sneak out and spend the night.’ He raised his eyes to the black clouds. ‘Looks like the sky’s about to open up again.’

  A great gust of howling wind came at us from beyond the hill, bowling me back, causing me to reach out for Patrick. He swore and caught me by the hand, drawing me in.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’re close,’ he shouted over the screeching wind. I nodded my head and, clinging to his arm, pushed forward through the icy blast. Large, cold splotches of rain hit my forehead and the top of my head in heavy splats.

  ‘Can we build a fire in this cave of yours?’ I shouted through chattering teeth.

  ‘First thing we’ll do!’ he shouted back, half turning so I could see his smile. ‘Come on, let’s run.’

  We ran side by side, our arms latched together. I couldn’t help but think of Alice and of how she’d been denied this. Tears filmed my eyes, but the wind whipped them away before they had a chance to fall.

  ‘Did you find my note last night?’

  ‘Yes,’ Patrick said between ragged breaths. ‘Thanks.’ He remained silent for a long while before adding, ‘I don’t think I’m going to find my dad. He would have come back to us if he was alive. It’s like Markus all over again.’

  I slowed to a jog, my lungs burning.

  Patrick, whose face had grown tight with emotion, waved at me to stop.

  ‘Catch your breath for a second. We’re nearly there.’

  The rain started to pelt down. Sapphire’s words reverberated inside my head, as did Alice’s from her diary.

  ‘I think my cousin Alice, knew Markus. She kept a diary and was going to run away with him.’

  Patrick, who was resting his hands on his knees, looked up sharply.

  ‘What do you mean? How — ’

  ‘She died the same night she planned to leave with him,’ I said, between breaths.

  Patrick bowed his head before standing up and wiping the streaming rain from his face. ‘Do you know when she died? What date?’ he shouted over the rain, cupping his hands over his eyes. I nodded, shielding my face in the same way.

  ‘October the 5th.’

  Patrick shook his head and stared at the ground.

  ‘That’s the day Markus disappeared. He was going to meet a girl and bring her back to stay with us.’ Patrick looked at me, with wet, red eyes. ‘When he never came home I figured that he had run away with her...and forgot all about us.’

  ‘He didn’t get to run away with Alice,’ I said, my voice tight. ‘Alice died that night and I think Markus may have died trying to fend off her killers.’

  Patrick stayed quiet for a long time, pacing back and forth while the wind swirled his wet hair around his head in some crazy dance. When he finally spoke up, his voice was hard and stiff with contained grief. ‘I’m sorry about your cousin, about Alice.’ He shook his head. ‘I always thought Markus had found a life.’ His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. ‘Even though it was a kick in the guts to think he’d left us all, it was better than thinking he was dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’ I reached out and touched his arm, but he brushed me away and wiped a forearm across his rain and possibly tear-streaked face.

  ‘Don’t be,’ he shouted above the howling wind.

  We started moved again, this time a slow jog.

  ‘Maybe we could pretend that they ran away together and travelled for miles to the coast and started a new life, where thousands of others are doing the same,’ I shouted through the rain.

  Patrick turned sharply and met my gaze, the rage in his eyes quickly softening.

  ‘They could be sending for us…any day now,’ he said, between breaths. ‘Markus is going to teach me how to surf when we visit the coast.’

  ‘Alice is taking me shopping for a new dress,’ I added, a real smile forming on my lips, as though I believed my own lies.

  After running another half an hour through the pelting rain, Patrick seized my hand in his, sending a ray of warmth shooting up my arm. ‘It’s not that far now,’ he said.

  ‘By the way,’ I said while running to keep up with Patrick’s long strides. ‘I’ve got some smoked rabbit and dried figs in my pack. We can eat some tonight and save the rest for your brothers tomorrow.’

  Patrick swallowed thickly, his pace slowing for a moment, and when he turned his head to look at me I thought he might stop and rip my backpack off to eat the food then and there.

  ‘Can’t wait,’ he said, with true hunger in his eyes, and for the first time I noticed the way his cheekbones and jaw jutted beneath his skin.

  ‘So, do you think your family will like me?’ I said, to take my mind off Patrick’s lean frame and because I truly wanted to know more about his little brothers.

  Patrick laughed between pants of breath and I had to sneak a peek at his face, because he was truly something beautiful when he smiled. He slowed his jog to a walk and let go of my hand.

  ‘Of course they’ll like you. They’ll probably fall in love with you,’ he added, his voice lowered so that I could only just hear it above the rain.

  ‘No they won’t,’ I answered back, my voice just as low, but inside my heart was flying soaring over the barren landscape before me. I was going to meet a family and they might actually like me. Why on earth had Mum not wanted our families to meet?

  Patrick nodded to his right and from out of nowhere, it seemed, a large rock face appeared.

  ‘There’s our home for the night. Cave sweet cave.’

  Chapter 10

  I dropped to my knees and followed Patrick, crawling into the mouth of the cave, the small opening double my width but half my height. Before I could reach into my backpack for my torch to light up the pitch-black interior, I heard a click and everything illuminated around me.

  The cave was spacious, about the size of the living room at Desert Downs, except it had a low ceiling. Patrick beamed the light form his torch across the rust-coloured walls. At the end it narrowed into a tunnel and I shivered, imagining the kinds of slithery creatures that might live there. On the right-hand wall, the largest wall of the cave, I caught a glimpse of some kind of drawings.

  ‘Wait, Patrick, shine the light back over there to your right. I think I saw some indigenous art.’

  Patrick ignored me and shone the torch on the opposite wall, which was blank.

  I reached into my backpack and flicked my own torch on so that I could see for myself, but as I drew closer with the light, it was clear that these were not indigenous drawings. These etchings were modern and had names scratched in beneath them.

  A hunting scene depicted a man with two sons who looked like Patrick, in another scene a mother held her small dark-haired child. There was a family portrait of various aged boys, eight of them with their mother and father. I read the names — Mum, Dad, Markus, Me, James, Joshua, David, Matt, Lukas, George.

  ‘Don’t worry about those. They’re just...something I do when I’m bored.’

  ‘They’re great.’ My eyes roved further along the rusty-orange walls to where several women had been drawn. Some had long red hair, others blonde and brunette, their facial features and the detail in their clothing so intricate and fine.

  ‘Let’s get a fire started. Come on, they’re just stupid drawings,’ he said, his voice edgy and tight.

  When I didn’t respond or turn away from the paintings, I heard Patrick sigh and then the thud of his backpack as it was thrown to the ground.

  I was about to ask why he was so mad but stopped myself when my eyes rested on the last drawing, the one of a naked woman, a life-sized naked woman. She was outrageously curvy and the look in her eye made my stomach flutter and my face grow hot.

  Okay. So now I knew why he didn’t want me looking. I, too, would have been mortified if anybody had ever found out about my picture of Jeffery C and how I used to kiss it sometimes. Maybe
Patrick kissed this fantasy woman when he was alone. Maybe he imagined himself alone with her, in this cave. My face burned just to think of it.

  I fumbled around for the off switch to my torch, turned around and muttered, ‘Sorry.’ But Patrick ignored me and seized a chunk of coal from an old fire before charging towards the beautiful naked woman and marring her image with great streaks of black.

  ‘Don’t, Patrick, please!’ I grabbed his arm and could feel the tightening of his muscles as he continued to scrub out his piece of art. I gave up wrestling him and threw my backpack down.

  ‘Wait. Stop! Promise me you’ll stop and let me show you something first before you destroy her anymore.’

  Patrick hesitated and drew his arm away from the wall, his head hanging down.

  ‘What is it?’ he said, refusing eye contact.

  Quickly, before I could stop the crazy thing I was about to do, I rooted around inside my backpack until my fingers touched on my most precious possession.

  Patrick remained as stiff as a board by the wall, his back to me.

  ‘Here. This is my picture.’ I reached around and held it in front of Patrick. He took it and peered down at it with interest.

  ‘I don’t know who this man is, but I know his name is Jeffery C. I used to kiss him every night. I would still do it, but I had to stop because I was wearing away his head.’ My confession left me with a hot face and an overworked heart, but at least now we were even.

  Patrick gave me a funny sideways glance, but didn’t laugh. ‘I know this guy,’ he said, staring back at the picture. ‘I mean, I don’t personally know him. But we have some movies of his.’ He handed it back to me. ‘I’ve never watched them though, not any movie. Mum used to tell us the stories while we each took a turn to hold the covers on different days of the week. My day was Sunday.’ He half-smiled and scratched the back of his neck, his cheeks tinted pink. ‘But I can show you the movie covers, more pictures of this actor, when we get to my place.’

  ‘That would be great.’

  An awkward silence followed, broken only when Patrick’s eyes crinkled up at the corners with amusement. ‘You nearly wore away his head?’

  He must have seen the look on my face because he threw up his hands.

  ‘Hey, there’s nothing wrong with kissing pictures...’ he looked at his feet and scratched the back of his head, ‘…especially when the real thing isn’t around.’

  Patrick’s words hung heavily in the thick, humid air of the cave. We were the real thing, right here right now, flesh and blood, boy and girl, standing before each other, in a cave with the rain crashing about outside.

  My heart started to race, and when Patrick slowly lowered his eyes to meet mine, his pupils black and deep, it looked as though his heart might have been racing just as fast.

  Thunder cracked all around us and I jumped and stumbled forward, only to be caught by Patrick’s outstretched arms. He bent his head, his breathing hard. ‘Are you okay, Lena?’

  I nodded, unable to speak because of the way his warm hands on my shoulders were making me feel — all tingly inside — and because of the way he was looking at me, like I was something beautiful, like I was that naked woman he had so artfully drawn on the cave wall.

  His eyes moved to my lips and then back up to my eyes, making my stomach flutter.

  ‘Let’s start a fire,’ I whispered when I could finally manage words.

  Patrick cleared his throat and after a few seconds, gently released me. ‘Good idea.’

  I set about busying myself with unpacking my things while Patrick crossed the cave to the darkened corner where I’d imagined the snakes and skeletal remains earlier. He returned with an armful of kindling and several medium-sized branches.

  ‘I always keep a good stock of firewood just in case,’ he said, before kneeling beside the small black mound of black coals from an old fire.

  Seeing as he was sorting out the fire, I figured I should do my bit and get the food prepared for our first meal together. Plus I needed to keep busy so that my mind didn’t dwell on the fact that I’d be spending my first night away from home, away from Mum — in a small cave, with a boy I hardly knew, a boy who was making me feel all fluttery and warm inside.

  While I unwrapped the smoked rabbit, I couldn’t help but watch Patrick. Boys were as much a mythical creature to me as unicorns and dragons. He was fantasy come to life. Every movement he made had me riveted. The way his forearm muscles flexed and the way his knuckles bulged when he snapped the branches for kindling.

  The way he chewed on his bottom lip while he carefully constructed the wood into a pile. The way his eyes kept finding mine before quickly skipping away.

  A single spark from the flint stones Patrick clutched in each hand, and the fire exploded into life. I had to slide my jacket, with our precious food on it, away from the flames in case a spark flew. Patrick worked on the fire, first stacking the kindling, then the slightly heavier branches, watching it with a careful gaze until it all burned down and made enough prime coals to lay some of the thicker chunks on top.

  ‘This will help dry us off,’ Patrick said, glancing at me over the flames.

  I smiled and dipped my head to take a peek out at the opening of the cave, and saw that it was completely black outside. The rain had eased off to a drizzle. In a way, I had hoped it would stay heavy and stormy, to keep the Carriers away. It was the only logical reason why I hadn’t crossed a Carrier on my journey here.

  The rabbit I shared equally — a leg and a strip of back-meat each. Patrick moved to sit beside me and I slid the food his way before seizing a leg and resting my back against the wall.

  Patrick bit into the tiny leg and groaned. ‘This is good,’ he said, between bites.

  I couldn’t answer, my mouth was too full, but I continued to watch him eat. There was something pleasurable and rewarding about seeing Patrick put food, which I’d prepared, into his mouth and enjoy it.

  After tossing the bare bones into the fire and wetting a terry cloth with water from my bottle to wipe my hands with, I watched Patrick, who crawled through the entrance of the cave and dangled his hands out in the rain for a few seconds before returning to his place by the fire. He rubbed his hands together and gave them a few shakes. Raindrops clung to his hair to drip down his face. He wiped them away with the sleeve of his shirt and sighed.

  ‘Thanks for dinner.’ He rubbed a hand across his flat belly, his cheeks flushing pink. ‘I could eat about ten of those little legs.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the fire…and the place to sleep.’ The cloth I’d wiped my hands with smelt like eucalyptus and made me think of home. I inhaled deeply and hoped that Mum wasn’t too distressed with me gone.

  Patrick frowned and smiled at the same time. ‘I’m hardly going to make you sleep outside,’ he said, before reaching behind him for his backpack and yanking out a fresh pair of jeans and shirt.

  I’d almost forgotten that I was soaking wet and followed suit, taking out a change of clothes for myself, with no idea as to how I was actually going to find the guts to strip in front of Patrick.

  ‘We can get changed at the same time, with our backs to each other,’ Patrick suggested, when I hesitated.

  ‘Okay.’ I stood up and turned around, checking over my shoulder to make sure that Patrick was doing the same thing. He was. In fact he was already out of his shirt and his hands were working on the front of his pants. As soon as I heard the zipper coming down, I turned back around, blushing from my neck up.

  I tugged my shirt up and over my head before slapping it down on the cave floor. My pants came next and as soon as they were off I reached down and snatched my change of clothes from the ground.

  ‘Are you dressed yet?’ I called over my shoulder, paranoid he was going to be dressed already and turn around.

  When I got no answer, I snuck a peek and found a fully dressed Patrick facing me, front on, his eyes wide.

  ‘Turn around!’ I screamed at him, and he
did, after a few slow seconds had passed.

  ‘Sorry...I thought when you asked...I thought you were already dressed,’ he said, his voice low and raspy and full of apology.

  Within about ten seconds I was fully clothed and trembling all over.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to, Lena.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s just forget about it.’

  I wasn’t angry at him. I was more embarrassed by my androgynous body that could no way measure up to the voluptuous woman he’d etched into the cave walls. The way he’d stared at my nakedness with that look of surprise in his eyes, I was certain he was disappointed at his first real-life naked girl.

  By this time I had finished fussing around with my wet clothes, stretching them out across my backpack to dry, Patrick had moved to the far side of the cave, laying with his back to me. He’d taken his meagre belongings with him but had left a blanket beside the fire, for me, I supposed.

  I cleared my throat.

  ‘You left your blanket, here. You’ll be cold over there, away from the fire.’ To be honest, I didn’t like the idea of sleeping so close to the cave entrance on my own.

  ‘I want you to have it,’ he called over his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ My palms itched against the scratchy wool as I held it to my chest and walked around the fire to the other side of the cave. Patrick kept his head down while I cast a shadow over him. ‘Here. It’s yours.’

  ‘Just take the blanket, please, Lena,’ he groaned, sounding tired. ‘I always sleep over here. I’m not cold.’ When I didn’t leave, he added. ‘Can you just go away and get some sleep?’

  I stood there, wondering what I could have done to make him want to get as far away from me as possible, when from out the corner of my eye I spotted the naked lady drawing. And then I knew.

  ‘Did I look that bad?’ I said, my voice quavering with the rejection that I was ashamed for even caring about. ‘Is that what this is all about? How ugly I look?’

  Patrick kept his eyes on the back wall of the cave.