by Gee, Maurice
‘Put those sacks on them.’
‘They’re not cold.’
‘I don’t want anyone to see.’
They covered the goats and climbed out and Lex closed the door.
‘Where are we taking them?’
‘Up the valley. Up the side of Corkie.’
‘Are you setting them free?’
‘Yup. There’s no feed for them here. I’m only keeping half a dozen.’
‘You’re not supposed to set goats free, are you?’
‘There’s lots of things you’re not supposed to do.’
She got in the front beside him and he drove down to the road, past the tethered goat, and turned up the valley. He told Hayley he’d released twenty-three goats in the last week, that was why he’d bought the Land-Rover. ‘You’ve got to keep it secret.’
‘I will.’ She was delighted. ‘Where are they all?’
‘Some up on Lud Hill. Some over on the coast, back of Salty Bay. I took six way up past Coppermine yesterday and another six last week across by the Heaphy, back of Bainham. Nearly got caught by some trampers there.’
‘Won’t they just get shot?’
‘Some of them will. Some will probably get caught again. I’ve told them what the score is. They’re all willing to take their chance.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Sure I do.’
‘You talk to goats? They understand?’
‘Better than fourth-formers, I’ll tell you that. Those three in the back, they kicked a bit, don’t like all that handling and tying up, but that’s just something they’ve got to do. They know where they’re going.’
Hayley laughed uneasily. It made her nervous, Lex being loopy, though loopy was not a bad thing when you thought of some of the people who weren’t.
They went onto a metalled road by the Baptist camp. It followed the course of the river, switching from side to side over one-way bridges with rails shattered where hoons in cars had hit them. The Saxton water-pipe made a curving leap across the gorge. Before, when she’d seen it, Hayley had wanted to walk across, but felt today she’d left that behind.
‘Will you try and catch them when the drought’s over?’
‘Nope. They’re on their own. I’ll go back and see them now and then, if I can find them. I mix them bucks and does so they can breed. I guess they’ll team up with wild ones though.’
‘What will you do when you’ve got none left?’
‘I’m keeping the ones at home. These are the last I’m turning loose.’
‘Yeah, but for money, for a job?’
‘You sound like Sandra.’
‘Is that why she’s not your girlfriend now? ‘Cause you’ve got no money?’
‘I’ve got some. She left,’ he grinned at her, ‘because she reckoned I was turning myself into a goat. She reckoned I’d start saying baa pretty soon.’
His eyes were like a goat’s eyes, Hayley thought. The pupils were OK but the coloured part seemed blind, or saw what people weren’t supposed to see.
‘I like goats better than people,’ Lex said. ‘They only know what they’ve got to know.’
They turned into a track climbing in scrub and came out in a forest of pines. It seemed like a different level of the world. Hayley leaned on him for company. The pines were no taller than the Land-Rover but soon the road ran into a block of older trees that hid the sky. She wanted him to say something friendly.
‘Hey, Lex.’
‘Yeah? What?’
‘You used to teach Shelley, eh?’
‘Who’s Shelley?’
‘My sister. She used to run.’
‘What about her?’
‘Her boyfriend’s back in town. He’s been in prison. Dad’s scared Shelley’s gone back to him.’
‘He the one who got her to use that credit card?’
Hayley was pleased. ‘That’s him. He’s, like, got her hypnotized.’
‘Who is this bloke?’
‘Neil Chote. He acts tough but he’s not really tough, he’s kind of crazy. He’ll do anything. He doesn’t care.’
‘Sounds like Shelley should steer clear of him.’
‘I think she wants to but she can’t. He tried to make her take some LSD. One time he burned her with his cigarette.’ She wished Lex would offer to sort out Neil Chote.
‘Better stay away from him, I reckon. Up here we go. It’s pretty rough so hang on tight. Don’t lean on me, I can’t steer.’
She moved away, offended. Below her door, the land dropped into a gorge where little fans of white water showed between boulders. The front wheel spun and pointed, angling out then back, a tire’s width away from the edge. If the clay caved in they’d end up a hundred metres down, smashed on rocks; but she wasn’t scared. She did not believe Lex would make mistakes; and she forgot his coldness, yelled, ‘Hey, this is great,’ and put her arm outside and banged the door.
‘Beehives,’ Lex said.
They stood, a city, pink and blue and white, in a clearing on his side of the road.
‘Bush honey, better than clover.’
Then it was behind and branches thrashed the Land-Rover on his side while empty air pulled them like a magnet on hers. If the track got any steeper, she thought, they’d turn over backwards and roll all the way down to Saxton, end over end.
‘How far now?’
‘’Nother twenty minutes. We’ve got to get round the side of Corkie, where she runs into the mineral belt. The bush opens up there. Goats have got to have a bit of space.’
‘Will we meet anyone?’
‘Shouldn’t do.’
‘Can I drive?’
‘No fear, you’d have us down the gorge. No more pines eh, real bush. This is the way it used to be.’
She put her head out the window and looked back. A bit of Saxton showed, scraps of grey, like dirty paper, beyond half a dozen folds of hill. The plains, with orchards and gardens indistinct, dull green or navy blue or faded brown, went off to the foothills and the mountains and the sky. The inlet was full, milky blue, with Stoat Island, Jacks Island, lying flat and ragged and half swamped. Long Island, with its pines turned black and a thread of breaking sea on its five-mile beach, closed the inlet. Yachts and trawlers sailed on the bay, making little smudges on the glitter, and a black and yellow tanker lay off the Cut.
‘I’ve never been so high,’ Hayley yelled. ‘My ears went pop.’
They bumped over a ford where the water was almost dried up, and further on Hayley got out and dragged a fallen branch from the track.
‘That means no one’s been here. Not for a while.’
‘There could be trampers. But they mostly go up the top of Corkie. We turn here. See how the bush is getting stunted? This is the snowline.’
They drove in a dry creek bed, with the Land-Rover crawling on rocks and easing its tyres down the other side. It turned so far over, her way first, then Lex’s, it would have capsized if it had been a boat. When she looked back the long view was gone. Tops crowded round and the way they leaned inwards made her shiver.
‘What’s up?’
‘I was wondering if you’d turn into a goat.’
‘Not today. You’re pretty safe.’
They stopped in scurfy beech trees no higher than her head.
‘This’ll do. See over there, those brown hills are in the mineral belt. So they’ll have the open country and the tops and the bush for shelter lower down. Real goat country. Better than being fenced in, eh? There’s too many concentration camps.’
‘With those oblong pupils in their eyes, do they see things kind of square?’
‘Maybe. They see things different, that’s all I know.’
They lifted the goats out and Lex untied their legs. At once they scrambled up, almost threw themselves onto their feet, and clattered away ten metres on the stony ground and suddenly stopped.
‘Go on. Get lost.’
‘Do they want to say goodbye?’
‘Goats don’t go
in for that. They’re sizing things up. Piss off, you silly buggers. If you hang around here some bastard with a gun will come and shoot you.’
‘Maybe they want to stay with you. Aren’t you their friend?’
He moved away from her and she felt as if he’d pushed her out of a room and closed the door. If he did not want people sharing his goats why had he brought her with him then? She leaned on the tail of the Land-Rover and watched. But Lex did nothing more and the goats walked further off, stopping to look at him in their side-headed way as if they expected him to follow. They scrambled up a bank and went around some beech trees and were gone.
Then Hayley felt Lex shift out of himself. She felt him travel off with the goats. It was like a tearing, part from part, in his head. ‘Lex.’ She went towards him, unsure what to do, and put her arms round him from behind. He made a hard twisting of his shoulders, enough to throw her several steps away.
‘Come on, Lex.’
She held him again, pressing her cheek in his shoulder blades. He smelled of goats. She knew she must bring him back from there.
After a while he loosened her hands and turned around. She had thought he might be crying but his eyes were dry and hard, a human look.
‘All I had to do was start.’
‘Then I would have been left here alone.’
Lex was quiet. He laughed. ‘That never crossed my mind.’ He put his arms around her and she thought, It’s going to happen. She was terrified. ‘One day, Hayley, I’m going where they are. And I’m not coming back.’
‘What would you eat?’
He smiled, and said, ‘I’ve got to get rid of all this stuff we carry round. So if you and me fuck it’s a oncer. You can’t hold me to it later on.’
‘You’ll be a goat, you mean?’
‘I don’t know what I’ll be. You want to do it? I don’t mind if you say no.’
‘Yes, I want to. Where do we go?’
‘In the back.’
‘The goats have pooped in there.’
‘Drag all those sacks out. Just leave the clean ones on the top.’
‘I don’t want to do it where the goats were.’
‘Sure, OK. I guess it’s kind of soft over here.’
She took off her T-shirt and laid it on the ground and knelt beside it. ‘Lex.’
He was watching her.
‘Don’t just open up your fly.’
‘Is that what your boyfriend does? Sounds like he’s got a lot to learn.’
‘If it’s just for once it’s got to be proper.’
‘Don’t worry Hayley, it’ll be proper.’ He knelt in front of her and pulled her close and when she tried to unzip his jeans would not give her room. She quietened down, kept still. He seemed to step them back and make a place for them to start again.
They made a bed of all their clothes on the ground.
‘No, cut that out,’ holding her face where he could see.
‘I thought you’d like it.’
‘We don’t need any tricks. Nice and simple, that’s the way.’
He made her move easily and slow. She had never come properly with Gary, but came soon after Lex was inside her, and he stayed in and talked to her a while, then moved some more and she came again, and was doing it all the time, it went on and on and when she thought it was going to finish another one started. She heard her voice calling out, making sounds not words, and heard herself panting as though a race was over.
‘Noisy, aren’t you?’ Lex said.
‘I hope no one heard.’
‘I heard.’
‘Well, I wanted you to. Are you supposed to stay hard like that?’
‘I hardly moved. I let you do all the work.’
‘Haven’t you come?’
‘Not yet. Wasn’t easy.’
‘I want you to. I want everything.’
‘Do you want to get pregnant?’
‘Don’t go. Stay in, please.’
‘You couldn’t come again if I stayed all night. No you don’t, no mouths. Your hand is fine.’
She did it with her hand and was happy at the shout he made.
‘Is it always as good as this, Lex?’
‘Depends on who you’re with.’
‘Can’t we do it another time?’
‘Nope. A deal’s a deal.’
‘Where can I find someone as good as you?’
‘It ain’t easy. But listen Hayley, don’t start shopping round.’
‘I won’t. No more Garys, that’s for sure.’ She closed her eyes and smiled. She was so pleased with herself she wanted to make purring sounds.
‘Come on, time to go.’
‘Was I asleep?’
‘Yep. On my jeans. I can’t get dressed.’
‘Do we have to get dressed?’
‘’Fraid so, Hayley. If I’m going to get you back.’
She pulled on her clothes. ‘What are you looking at me like that for?’
‘So I’ll remember. Give us …’ He took her hand and moved it between his own, to feel the way her bones ran side by side. He pressed his fingertips on the edge of her nails.
‘Oh, Lex.’
‘Hey, we’re OK. Nothing bad is going to happen.’
‘Why don’t you be like other people?’
‘Come on. In the cab.’
‘Why, Lex?’
‘Can’t, that’s all. Thanks, Hayley. I’m glad you came to see me. I guess it was more than I deserve. Hands off. No more.’
They drove down to his house and said goodbye.
Hayley rode home along the valley.
And Shelley, who went to visit Neil Chote, where is she? As Hayley rides by the river and through town Shelley is in a car by the soccer ground. She sits in the back, where girlfriends sit, and every now and then she puts the back of her hand to her mouth and brings it away smeared with blood.
The sun goes down and the sky above the mountains turns red. Around the soccer ground and over the water by the marina streetlights go on. She leans on the car door, her cheek on the window, and waits. She waits for nothing. She does not care what happens to her now. The pain in her swollen wrist, which she holds in front of her as though her forearm is suspended on a hook, scarcely seems to be part of her.
She hears feet running far away and shouts like seagull cries and squeals like a dog. Then they stop.
Slowly the evening turns to night. The lights harden up and make a field of yellow round themselves. Voices are talking in the right-of-way. A policeman comes out and looks around and crosses the road. He opens the front door of the car and shines a torch on her. His smile gleams in the dark.
‘Shelley Birtles, eh? We thought we might find you in on this.’
12
The dog snored in his basket by the sofa, the TV set laughed in another room, Stella and Miranda competed in knowledge of the world, in the clever word, and Norma wished herself at home. She had not come to listen to these girls. She’d had enough half-bakedness, articulate or not, in her year, and wanted to relax and chat with Josie, who had phoned and asked her round for a pot-luck meal (salad and quiche, nothing pot-luck about it, vegetarian cordon bleu). Tom was on the tiles so the pair of them could have a couple of drinks and a good old natter, Josie said. Norma had supposed Mandy and Stella would be out.
‘It’s not a drought, it’s simply a dry spell,’ Miranda said.
‘Abnormally dry.’ Stella.
‘Oh but it’s hardly summer yet. To talk of drought when all we’ve had is six weeks without rain –’
‘And spring’s scarcely over –’
‘And the rivers are full of water –’
‘It shows how much the farming mentality rules in this country. If the grass doesn’t grow we’re in mortal danger one would think.’
Belinda put her head in from the TV room. ‘Ever Decreasing Circles,’ she shouted, and was gone.
‘I think some of those redneck farmers would sacrifice virgins for an inch or two of rain.’ Miranda.
‘They’d keep the virgins,’ Stella, ‘and sacrifice their dried-up wives instead.’
‘Ever Decreasing Circles,’ Belinda cried.
‘You should try to wean her off TV, Mum. God knows what the inside of her mind is getting like.’
‘Oh, I watch that.’ Miranda stood up. ‘It’s one of the more literate sitcoms.’
Stella blinked. Remade herself. ‘That main character has got a very interesting psychosis.’
‘And there’s a dishy neighbour,’ Miranda said. ‘I fancy him.’
Miranda was growing up, Norma thought, almost liking her. Stella’s confusion was likable too. Would she follow Mandy? Yes, she would, though awkwardly. ‘It’s nearly holidays, I guess I can slum.’ It took a Round to wrong-foot a Round.
‘Let’s sit by the pool,’ Josie said. ‘You can swim if you like. I’ll lend you some togs.’
‘I don’t think I will. Chlorine makes me sneeze.’ She settled in a canvas chair and looked at the luminescent surface. ‘There’ll be water restrictions soon. You’ll have to close it.’
‘Oh, Tom pumps from the river. There’s nothing in nature Tom can’t overcome. Droughts, floods, you name it. He just pops into a phone booth and changes costume.’
Norma laughed. She hoped they were not going to talk about Tom.
‘What he can’t handle is other people’s feelings. Other people’s feelings,’ Josie puffed her cigarette, hunting for something shrewd, ‘trespass on his space.’
They were going to talk about Tom.
‘He’d like us all in neutral,’ Josie said.
‘This Stephanie,’ Norma hoped she had the licence, ‘doesn’t she take the pressure off?’
‘Increases it. He comes home and seems to think he’s got to re-establish himself here.’
‘With you?’
‘It’s the idea he likes. Running two women.’
‘Let’s not talk about Tom,’ Norma said.
‘Why not? He makes for pretty good conversation. I think I climbed Tom because he was there. He’s just something I stuck my flag on top of. Mount Tom. Nice when the sunset catches him. I wish the bastard wouldn’t keep coming home.’
‘Climb another mountain.’ She was not sure flippancy was called for. Wasn’t Josie asking for help?
Josie laughed. She turned up her face and blew smoke into the air. ‘I have no desire,’ – with a nasal pitch; delivery comic, content hard.
