The Whip Hand

by Nadine Browne

  She called Tony. Tony drove to all three liquor stores in town, then he drove to the one outside of town. He looked all over for the silver Ford Falcon that his father drove, the one with all the dents and scratches from previous drunken trips. He looked in car parks out the back of pubs, he looked in the shopping centre car parks, he even looked in the car park at the train station. Two hours later he came home unsuccessful.

  I didn’t say anything. Tony sat on the lounge-room chair, and concentrated on his phone as if willing it to ring. I tried to make small talk to get his mind off it all. I wanted to say: Don’t waste your life. I wanted to say: If he wants to kill himself, let him. I wanted to tell him of all the times I’d worried about my mother and wondered where she was, about all the times I’d resigned myself to being an orphan.

  Instead I busied myself making a new soup recipe and when I turned around to comment on the copious amounts of sour cream the recipe called for, I saw he was crying. Shiny tears glistened all over his face. It was shocking to see the way his heavy shoulders heaved up and down with each massive sob, the way his thick, oil-stained fingers reached up to violently wipe the tears away. He looked over at me and said, ‘What am I gonna do about him?’ I went over and sat next to him. ‘I mean, why is he so screwed up?’ He gasped for breath in between sobs. It looked painful. ‘He did so much for us; it’s all just a waste.’ Tears streamed down his face and congregated at his chin, forming a constant drip.

  After a long time I got up to check the potatoes on the stove. Tony had stopped crying, and was now slumped in front of the seven-thirty news. I re-examined the soup recipe and saw it asked for horseradish, which I didn’t have. I stood at the bench and thought about giving up on the whole endeavour of a new recipe. There was a shepherd’s pie in the freezer. I looked at my watch; I could still make it to the IGA before eight p.m.

  As I came out of the IGA with my one jar of horseradish I heard the sound of a car horn. It didn’t stop or start the way horns normally do, but gave a consistent ear-piercing blast. I could see that a crowd had formed at the entrance of the shopping centre car park where the sound was coming from and I went over to look under the dim streetlight. Over the shoulders of fellow onlookers, I saw the dented and bruised silver Ford Falcon. Somehow the car had been driven at great speed over a high embankment and ended up half inside the raised garden bed at the shopping centre entrance. Tony’s dad was still at the wheel. He had passed out, with his head resting on the horn button in the centre of the steering wheel. Steam came out from under the crumpled bonnet. The car headlights were smashed but still shining. The engine revved because, although he had somehow got the gears into park, his foot was still planted firmly on the accelerator.

  A few straggly young boys near me had a giggle and I guess it would have been funny if it wasn’t so unfortunate – passed out in the centre of town with your head resting on the horn, heralding to the entire neighbourhood your complete lack of dignity. I stepped forward from the crowd and wrenched the car door open.

  ‘Hey,’ I shouted, ‘wake up!’ I tugged at his shoulder. For a minute I panicked, thinking he might actually be dead. Maybe he’d had a heart attack – he’d been told not to drink or smoke after the last one. But soon he mumbled something that I couldn’t make out.

  I got his head and yanked it off the steering wheel, just to shut the noise up. That’s when I heard the police sirens. ‘C’mon,’ I shook him, ‘you gotta get out of this car.’ I undid the seatbelt and grabbed his hand from his lap, the hand that had been mangled by the factory accident when he was nineteen. The factory accident had put him out of work for two years. It had stopped him tinkering, fixing things, stopped him playing piano. It was the factory accident that had started, possibly, his first downward spiral.

  His head was now resting on the back of his headrest and, realising there wasn’t much hope of me pulling him out, I sat down in the passenger seat and closed the door.

  He looked over at me and sighed. Then he said, ‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’ His voice had a quiver to it that embarrassed me. I couldn’t look at him. ‘I know, I’m not good.’ His English was never that great so I couldn’t tell if he meant it’s not good or I’m not good. He turned his head to look at the mess that was the front end of his car. ‘Just sometimes,’ he said, ‘I feel so, so bad.’ I looked back at his face, and there was something unexpected in his expression, something like hurt and surprise mashed together. I looked down at his mangled hand again and imagined for a moment that the nineteen-year-old, with all his dreams and aspirations, was somewhere inside his body. I thought maybe he got a glimpse of it now and then and tried, with the help of the bottle, to push it back down. I imagined his hope stretching back like an elastic band – further and further – being pulled taut until it was let go and he was flung back into despair.

  As the blue lights of the police car came up behind us, his head dropped down to his chest and he was asleep again.

  Playing Dead

  When Rick’s ute turned around and shone its headlights down the road, Diane jumped into the scrubby verge behind her. She was quick and agile like a cat. If she was cat-like, she thought, what kind of animal was Rick? A dog? A wild boar? She often compared people to animals. A by-product of growing up on farms; the traits of animals often more keenly observed than those of humans.

  She crawled on her belly looking for a place to hide but there was little foliage, only the slight dip of the drain. Minutes before she’d been in the sweaty cab of the ute with Rick screaming, driving 110 down the gravel road. His voice was still ringing in her ears. It seemed to have grown louder, sharper over the years, until all she could do was jump, bolt, run, throw her body in any direction to distance herself from it.

  Her nose was tickled by the wild oats, a rock dug into her right cheek, a piece of dead wood gouged at her stomach, but she let go of all these physical sensations because that’s what you do when you’re playing dead. Often she imagined she was on a stage in front of a darkened audience talking into a microphone: ‘When you play dead, you have to lie flat and taut without breathing, it’s a practised art, a kind of meditation.’ She often imagined herself giving training seminars on it, complete with PowerPoint slides and photographic examples – How to Pretend You’re Dead: A Practical Guide.

  She had seen a lot of tiger snakes along this road, but somehow, lying on her belly in the ditch, awaiting Rick’s violent wrath, a tiger snake didn’t seem like much of a threat. At that moment a tiger snake seemed so domestic and benevolent that if one came by she imagined herself reaching out to pet it.

  She concentrated on the sound of the ute moving down gears, its tyres crunching the gravel underneath, its diesel engine thudding loudly under the bonnet. It slowed down just near her face, idling fitfully like it was about to conk out. She held her body stiff and flat. She knew she couldn’t hold her breath much longer; her temples began to thump in time with the clatter of the engine.

  ***

  A week later she looked out on the yellowed paddocks that reached to the horizon. A single wattle tree, stunted and disfigured, sat in the centre of her view. Sheep congregated around it, hanging their heads in wait for the passing heat of the day. She let the dirty dishwater go and dried her hands on the tea towel. Seventeen years she’d been looking out on the same scene. Soon, she thought, she’d be faced with different views altogether, maybe looking out onto a street or a park, or the pretty lights of a city. The thought triggered a deep, almost painful breath and her teeth ground tight against each other. She had long ago trained herself to shut down any feeling of hope; like blocking out light in a darkened room, she closed herself off to the tiniest shard of it.

  She looked over at the shed. Calling from the truck one night, Rick had asked her to turn on the water timer in there. That was when she’d first seen it, the grow room. She had known he was up to something; ever since he’d connected a backup generator and stockpiled several varieties of fertiliser months before. Since then, the fa
rm – seven hundred acres and a thousand head of sheep – had fallen by the wayside. She’d known from the day she moved out here, Rick couldn’t run a farm, you had to like hard work to farm anything, and Rick was what her father would have called ‘work shy’.

  The night he’d called from the truck, and when she’d gone and opened the newly installed door at the back of Rick’s shed, hot bright lights hit her face. Low-hanging fluorescent tubes were dangling from the roof and below them was a sea of shocking green – violent, exotic green – green like she had never seen before. In front of her had been over a hundred full-size marijuana plants. Hot tears had pooled at her eyelids – the work! the achievement! Part of her thought: for once, he had gotten off his arse. The plants were so dainty and unexpected she had wanted to pull them all to her body and bathe in their soft, fine beauty. Then she felt rage itch at the back of her throat – after all she’d been through, he’d keep this from her?

  ***

  Diane lay awake on top of the sheets and thought about the plants. The image of them was burned into her brain and they were often the last thing she thought of at night. She had done some research and she couldn’t believe that one plant alone could be worth up to three thousand dollars. Rick lay next to her; she had never been able to get used to his loud and erratic snoring, which would always jolt her into terrified awakeness. She had to see them again, the plants, make sure they were still there, that she hadn’t dreamed it all up. She needed to count them too – was there really a hundred? Or was it more like fifty? Or maybe it was two hundred. Lately, more nights than not, she stayed up fantasising about all the things she would do with the money, when she was free of Rick: shopping, plastic surgery, frivolous things like getting her hair and nails done. She knew these things wouldn’t make her happy, but she thought they might pave a path, or be stepping stones to happiness or maybe even at least a distraction until she figured out what happiness actually was.

  She tiptoed breathlessly out of the bedroom and down the hallway. She often felt proud of her physical agility. At forty-four, it was one of the few advantages honed from living with a man who might, at any moment, throw you at the nearest sharp object. In the kitchen, the light of the full moon reflected off the benchtop. She went into the pantry and took a single silver key hanging from a shelf, then crept out the back door towards the shed. The dog followed, half-asleep, out of instinct, and she patted his soft head. The heavy tin door of the shed squealed as she pulled it open. As she entered and pawed against the wall looking for the light switch, her eye caught on a sliver of light coming from under the doorframe at the back of the shed.

  Only once had he mentioned the plants outright; half-drunk, in the heat of an argument, he’d screamed, ‘Tell anyone about my plants, I’ll fuckin’ crush you, crush you like a bug.’

  ‘Plants?’ she’d asked, feigning ignorance, ‘what plants?’

  A year ago Rick had got Foxtel installed and this had taken up most of his waking hours. He’d started drinking earlier in the day. He had grown slow and fat and more irritable than ever. Being around the house with Rick was like trekking through a thick foreign jungle trying to avoid landmines. Now, she realised, Rick wasn’t just hanging around, he was waiting. Waiting for the plants.

  The fluorescent tubes above gave a delayed flicker before lighting up and she shivered. The old out-of-commission farm truck was in front of her, a big green F250. Three years ago she had been allowed to drive it, now she wasn’t allowed to leave without Rick, she wasn’t allowed to make a phone call without his supervision.

  She weaved her way between paint tins and buckets of fertiliser and a quad bike, all the time being careful not to brush against anything and soil her nightie. She got to the back of the shed where she had seen the strip of light. Rick had installed the door and a new wall of gyprock covered the original back wall of the shed to make the room. She put the key into the large silver padlock on the door.

  Then she heard Rick bellowing from the house. ‘Diane?’ he called out. Her jaw clenched and she bit the side of her mouth. She turned and hopped over the paint tins, bounded over bags of fertiliser, alert and nimble as a gazelle sensing a predator.

  Just as she closed the shed behind her, the lights in the kitchen turned on. ‘I’m out here babe,’ she tried to sound light and sweet, taking all the terror out of her voice and putting it somewhere deeper and lower in her body. She patted the dog hard.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing out there?’ His voice like a chainsaw starting up.

  ‘Just looking at the stars.’ She threw the keys up into the air, ridiculously, trying to rid herself of them, her hands shaking. They landed near the stairs.

  ‘Don’t bullshit me,’ Rick yelled, appearing at the back door, ‘you get back inside.’ The dog waddled away, tail between his legs.

  She held her breath.

  ‘GET INSIDE.’ His scream seemed to make the whole house shudder. Diane bounded up the stairs and through the back door. She felt his hand take hold of her neck as she came in. His hands were thick and coarse and her thin, ageing skin pinched under his fingers. It was a familiar sensation, predictable. She no longer felt cat-like, gazelle-like, only disgustingly human.

  ‘You little slut, you were nosin’ around my plants, weren’t you?’

  ‘I wasn’t, hon’, I just went out for some fresh air.’

  ‘Don’t you lie to me.’

  She tried to turn her head to look up at him but could only see the bottom of his blue boxers and his hairy, sinewy legs.

  ‘No, I just couldn’t sleep. Honestly babe.’ With his hand at her neck he pushed her forward and towards the floor. She was ready for that, managing to bring herself up from hitting the tiles. He went towards the pantry.

  ‘Honey, I didn’t go in your shed.’ She was acting on instinct but she was lost. Maybe she should start running again – just bolt, her body didn’t hold up against the beatings like it used to and what did she have to prove? As he swung the pantry door she made a leap for the back door again.

  ‘You lying little cunt.’ On the last word he made a punch for her and got her in the side. She hit the doorframe hard with her shoulder.

  ‘Where’s the key?’ He grabbed her by her hair. She knew it was better to get this over with. In the early days she’d play dumb, deny his accusations, try to fight. She’d regretted that behaviour, especially since the kids had seen it.

  ‘Bottom of the stairs,’ she whispered. He dragged her down the stairs by her hair. She didn’t bother with screaming anymore, it took too much energy. Only panting whimpers came out against her will as she tried to breathe.

  ‘What the fuck is your problem, what do you want with my plants?’

  She went limp under his hands. That’s what you had to do, she’d learnt now, become pliable, submit.

  ‘After all I’ve done for you.’

  ‘Honestly, Rick, I didn’t go in there. I was, I was looking for a torch. I wanted to go for a walk.’

  ‘I don’t believe a fucking word you say. You cannot be trusted.’ She felt a rain of saliva on her shoulder as he spat out the words. ‘You sit up in this house doing fuck-all while I provide a roof over your ugly fuckin’ head, then you go sneaking around into my private business.’

  ‘I didn’t see your plants, Rick.’

  ‘You’ll never leave here, do you understand that?’

  There was something unimaginative and tedious about the exchange. When she was younger, she thought with disgust, it had almost been exciting, never in a good way of course, but in a challenging sort of way, like if she could withstand his beatings and his violence she would be vindicated and worthy. But she couldn’t imagine who she was trying to impress. Who would vindicate her? Rick? Even the kids had given up on her, and her sister and mother hadn’t spoken to her in years. And what was she trying to prove? That she wasn’t afraid of death? Or was it how stoic and tough she was? Her father had always seen that as a virtue; ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
,’ he used to say. It was a pretty crap saying, she thought now, definitely not one to live your life by.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’ he rattled her head around, ‘I’ll put you in the ground, you useless bitch. You’re no good to anyone, even the kids don’t wanna see ya no more.’ She felt her hair coming out by the roots.

  ***

  She woke up with bright lights in her eyes, the smell of bleach and the crisp hard cotton of the pillowcase on her face; she knew she was in hospital. Her first thought went to the plants. What time was it? Was it morning? Had he harvested them already while she was out of the picture?

  ‘How long have I been here?’ she asked a nurse coming into the room.

  ‘Two days.’ The nurse was stocky and had an efficient, brusque air about her. She stood at the side of the bed holding a file. ‘You’ve got some serious injuries.’ The nurse scanned her face. ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘I fell.’ She glanced at the nurse, sure one of them would laugh, but neither she nor the nurse cracked a smile. It wasn’t much of a joke really, she thought, too clichéd.

  ‘I need to leave here.’ She tugged at the sheet folded tightly across her chest.

  ‘You need to sit tight, my dear.’ The nurse, fussing with the files and papers, looked at her. ‘You know there is an excellent DV support service here in Merredin, they can provide you with accommodation.’

  ‘I know. I’m leaving him. I have a plan.’

  As the nurse left the room she caught the condescending curve that was still etched into the woman’s mouth.

  ‘Hey,’ she shouted after her, ‘you couldn’t give me something to help me sleep?’

  ‘I’ll be back with something.’ The nurse nodded and closed the door.

  From her bed she looked out the window to the dried-out geraniums and the dusty white gums surrounding the car park. When she was a kid she had been the top of everything in her class, so quick and bright – she remembered happily all the praise, and the jealousy too. Maybe that had been her problem, why she didn’t want to admit the truth now, why she’d been stuck out here so long. She was just too proud.