A flock of birds swim under the plane like a shoal of tiddlers, and beneath them Cassie can see nothing but jerky glimpses of a junction, a neat cross, the arms of which give out again into the scrub. And one track threading away, travelling miles to nowhere obvious. Nowhere but the bush.
‘Where are the houses?’
‘Long gone.’ The plane jerks and Graham gulps and nearly breaks her fingers. Cassie scowls at the smug red neck beneath the hat, the oily-looking strands of hair that show beneath. He surely is enjoying himself.
‘Steady on, Kip!’ Larry says to the pilot. He raises a wiry eyebrow at Cassie. ‘All right?’ He nods at Graham.
Graham snaps open his eyes. ‘I’m fine,’ he says.
Cassie’s fingers are numb. She disengages her hand and shakes it to get the circulation back, a drip of sweat splashing on her knee. She reaches for her water bottle, swigs, offers it to Graham but he ignores her.
‘Just hang on,’ she says.
Again the bush has closed below them, featureless but for a rock here, something a bit greener there. The sun is lower in the sky, making the ridge glow, powdering the green with gold, complicating it with shadows.
Cassie leans forward and touches Larry’s shoulder. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she says, gesturing at the glorious effect of the light. The aeroplane dips, tilts a wing and her heart soars.
The landing is a bumping roar culminating in a dusty choke of red so that for a moment there is nothing to see but dust. Graham is out, soon as the door opens, just in time, turns away, puking on the ground.
Kip grins. ‘Oh dear. Pom got crook, eh?’ Cassie flicks him a look and goes to stand by Graham, but she has to dip her head to hide a smile. So they really do talk like that. Or is he having her on?
‘Care for a beer?’ Larry says.
Kip shakes his head. ‘Nah, mate, wanna get back before dark.’ He turns back to the plane, unloads the rucksacks and the eskies of food, dumps them in the dirt beside the plane.
Graham straightens up.
‘OK now?’ Cassie says.
He grins sheepishly, scrubs his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Never better,’ he says.
‘See yers,’ Kip says. ‘G’luck.’ He jumps back into the plane and it takes off, churning up the dust again. They turn, hands shielding their eyes to watch it rising into a glare of sun, banking and diminishing into a speck of black, mosquito small till it strains their eyes to see. He leaves a hush in which the rhythmic creaking of the pump is the only sound.
‘Welcome,’ Larry says. ‘Welcome at last to Woolagong Station.’
‘Ta.’ Graham spits and, out of the corner of her eye, Cassie catches Larry’s wince.
‘I recognise it,’ she says, seeing the angle from which the photo was taken. The pump, the giant tree, the buildings, the hens pecking about in the dust. And even the same old piebald dog staggering towards them, wagging a stubby tail.
‘Meet Yella,’ Larry says.
‘Hi Yella.’ Cassie pats his head.
‘Deaf as a post.’
‘Poor thing.’
Larry turns to Graham. ‘Recovered now?’
‘Fine.’ Graham picks up his rucksack and swings it over his shoulder.
‘And we’ll finally get to meet Mara.’ Cassie looks around, surprised that the woman hasn’t come running out to meet them. Or at least to welcome Larry home.
‘She’ll be resting.’
‘She must have heard the plane.’
‘She is – somewhat shy of strangers on occasion. Come on, I’ll show you in and you can unpack,’ Larry says. ‘Freshen up. I’ll sort you out some supper.’
‘Thanks,’ Cassie says. ‘Could you face anything, Gray?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You’ll soon feel better.’ Larry hefts an eskie under each arm and leads them across to the sprawling building, past a low shed, up the steps of a veranda where the dog settles down under a table. Larry pushes open a door and they are in the kitchen. A flyscreen bounces tinnily behind them. The room is hot and dim, almost filled with a square table, cluttered with crockery, papers, tools, fruit. A rusty black range with pans and a kettle on top takes up one wall. Despite the screen, flies buzz. A speckled flypaper dangles beside the window, another over the table. A greasy ceiling fan swishes the heat about.
Larry pushes his load on to the table, picks up a paper bag with a note scrawled on it. He reads it, nods, screws it up, opens the door of the range and throws it in. He looks at his watch. ‘Just missed Fred,’ he says. ‘What about a cup of tea before I show you your quarters?’ He moves the kettle a few inches and immediately it starts to bubble.
‘Fred?’
‘Nearest neighbour. I employ him to help out. You’ll meet him soon enough.’
At least there are neighbours, Cassie thinks, looking round for any signs of a woman. It is a masculine room. Nothing like a tablecloth or curtains. An oily spanner rests on a plate of wizened oranges.
‘Generator,’ Larry says. He goes out again.
Graham pulls out his tobacco.
‘You could ask if he minds you smoking in the kitchen,’ Cassie says.
‘He’ll say if he does.’
There’s a stutter and then a hum. Larry comes back in. ‘We use the generator, couple of hours morning and night. Electricity for the fridge and lights. Otherwise we rely on the solar panels. So no wastage, please.’
‘Solar power. Good,’ Cassie says.
‘Glad you approve.’ Larry smiles and she flushes, feeling foolish. Larry stows sausages, milk, cheese and bread into a wardrobe-sized fridge. He empties a round brown teapot into a bin, rinses it with water from the kettle, spoons tea leaves inside. ‘I think, possibly, that we’ll save the introductions for tomorrow,’ he says. ‘We’ll all feel brighter in the morning.’
Before Cassie can react, Larry’s eyes are on her. ‘Or would you like me to disturb her now?’
‘Of course not!’ She forces a smile. ‘I just thought – well, assumed – that she’d be interested to meet us. We’re dying to meet her, aren’t we, Gray?’
‘Yeah.’
She follows Graham’s gaze to a small vivid photo on the wall beside the door.
‘All in good time.’ Larry pours the tea into tin mugs for them. Cassie takes a sip and burns her lips on the rim. She thinks longingly of thin bone china or even the chunky pottery Graham likes. The sort of thing Jas is prone to giving them for Christmas, a matching pair of ugly mugs. Anything’s better than tin though. First trip to town, top of the list: nice mugs.
‘This is the pantry.’ Larry opens a door. More flypapers dangle inside the door of the deep, dark space. The shelves are crammed with cans. He kicks a metal bin. ‘Flour,’ he says. ‘You must always keep the lid on everything. Ants. Or worse. Now,’ he says, lacing his fingers together and bending them back till his knuckles pop, ‘finish your tea and I’ll show you to your new,’ he smiles, ‘home. Home from home.’
‘Aren’t we staying here?’
‘Thought you’d prefer some privacy. I’ll take your bags round.’ Larry picks up Cassie’s rucksack and goes out, the flyscreen bouncing shut behind him.
Graham goes to take a closer look at the picture – not a photo, a painting, a small square of painted wood, richly coloured like an icon. Cassie peers over his shoulder. It is not any sort of icon but a painting of a woman and two blonde-haired children, photo-sharp, surrounded by a heavenly glow. ‘Wonder if that’s Mara?’
‘Or maybe she did it?’
The door bangs making them both jump. ‘Ready?’ Larry holds the door open and sweeps his hand in an exaggeratedly polite gesture. They follow him down the steps. Outside, Graham stops to grind his fag out in the dirt and Cassie catches sight of something – some kind of lizard, big as a Jack Russell, gleaming violet-blue, poised as if frozen beneath the steps.
‘Look, Gray.’
Larry turns. ‘Oh, that’s just our old goanna,’ he says. ‘He lives under the veranda. Won’t hurt you.
Meant to bring good fortune, I believe.’
She stoops to look closer at the glistening folds of scaly skin, the closed trap of its jaw, the exact cold circles of its eyes.
‘Isn’t he amazing?’ she says, but Larry and Graham have disappeared round the side of the house. She follows them round the back, which is really the front of the house, though it looks like it’s never used. She can’t see any garden. The steps up to that door are wonky, a rusty old swing-seat on the veranda. They go through a patch of bushes and scrubby trees to a long, corrugated-tin shed.
‘Shearers’ shed – as was,’ Larry says. ‘Quite a crowd, the shearers, itinerants. Once a year they’d descend.’
‘But no more?’ Cassie asks. Obvious.
‘What is there to shear?’ Larry laughs. ‘Your own private residence. And conveniences.’ He points out the dunny. On one wall of the outside of the shed is a tin sink. ‘Your bathroom,’ he says, without apparent irony. ‘There is usually water but don’t drink it. That well is shallow – saline. Warm too – suitable for washing. Drink only the kitchen water.’
‘No proper bathroom?’ Cassie looks dubiously at something hanging from a hook above the sink that might once have been a flannel, and a lump of dusty hair-encrusted soap.
‘We don’t extend to modern conveniences, I’m afraid, but you’ll soon get used to it.’ Larry opens a door on to a dim corridor with six further doors. ‘You can take your pick,’ he says, ‘except this one –’ he indicates a door, ‘that’s Fred’s when he stays. But I prepared this one. Only one with a double bed.’
He opens the first door on to a room in which their rucksacks squat like old friends beside a sagging iron-framed bed. The curtains, drawn against the windows, are patterned with the ghosts of unicorns. On the wide, splintery floorboards, like a tan and white butterfly, a whole cowskin. On the box by the bed, a jug and two plastic beakers, and a thick white candle, fresh but warped by the heat, melted on to a jam-jar lid.
‘What do you think?’ Larry says.
‘I love it,’ Cassie says, breathing in the dry biscuity smell.
Graham flops down on the bed, grating the rusty springs, causing a patter of rust.
‘Rather basic, I’m afraid,’ Larry says.
‘No, it’s lovely.’ The look of the bed – it makes Cassie’s legs tremble with tiredness.
‘You must keep the door shut – and the window,’ Larry says. ‘Against flies, mosquitoes, spiders, snakes.’
Cassie catches Graham’s expression and goes to the window to hide her smile. She lifts the curtain to look out, nothing but scratchy twigs jammed against the glass. ‘I wanted to ask you, I was reading about, you know redbacks and funnel-webs.’
‘Don’t get funnel-webs here.’
Cassie lets the curtain fall back, and turns. ‘No, but what do you do in an, um, emergency?’
‘We cope.’
‘Presumably you radio for help?’
‘We don’t have a radio here,’ Larry says.’ ‘And anyway I’m a doctor.’
‘You?’ Cassie stares. ‘You never said.’
He shakes his head and tuts. ‘You didn’t ask!’ He smiles. ‘So you see, you’ve nothing to worry about. By the way, do notice the fire sensor.’ He indicates a small box attached to the ceiling. ‘You’ll see we’ve got them everywhere. Obviously, there’s no fire brigade round the corner. But there are extinguishers. Familiarise yourself with their whereabouts, please.’
‘But no radio?’
‘I think you would do well to unpack. Wash, get settled in. It’s getting dark.’ Larry flicks a match to the candle. ‘You’ll need more candles – pantry. There’s a lamp in the kitchen you can bring back with you. Top of the the fridge. Electricity doesn’t extend over here. Used to –’ he indicates a switch by the door, ‘but that was in the old days. While this was still a working operation. I’ll put your supper on the table. I’ll leave you to have it in peace. And see you in the morning. I’ve got things to do. And, tomorrow you really will meet Mara.’ He smiles and closes the door behind him.
‘Well,’ Graham says. ‘Here we go then. Operation Cassie.’
‘Don’t,’ she says. ‘No radio?’
‘Right now,’ Graham stretches and yawns. ‘I don’t give a shit.’
‘No proper bathroom. He never told me that!’ She unfastens her rucksack and takes out her washbag. The familiar candy-pink stripes make her want to cry.
Graham touches her on the shoulder. ‘Hey?’
‘It’s OK, isn’t it?’ She tilts back her head to stop the stupid tears that have risen like hot beads behind her eyes.
‘It’s cool. More or less our own place.’
‘S’pose.’ She presses her lips together, waits for the wave of self-pity to subside. Just tiredness. Exhaustion. She sniffs and delves down in her rucksack, pulling out knickers, books, T-shirts, until she finds two small framed photos: one of her parents, arm in arm, taken a year before her dad died; one of Patsy with baby Katie. She stands them on top of the chest of drawers. She fishes out the mirror that was her gran’s. Wrapped up in a fleece and not broken. An oval hand-mirror, black, lacquered with purple pansies. She and Patsy had fought over it for ages when they were children, but she had won. She peers at her tired face for a moment and puts it down. ‘There.’
Graham laughs. ‘Anything else in there?’
‘Just making it more homey.’ She bites her tongue. He’s allergic to that word. ‘At least he’s a doctor,’ she says. ‘That makes me feel safer.’ She sits down on the bed. The mattress is soft. She bounces a bit, squealing the springs. ‘I do like the room. No electricity though.’ She takes off Her sandals and lies down beside him. They tumble in towards each other.
‘Crap mattress,’ he says, enclosing her in his arms.
‘We should go and eat.’
‘Let’s just rest a minute.’
She feels fuzzy, light-headed, the horizontal position claiming her, reminding her body about all the sleep it has missed. They press themselves together. His familiar body feels so right and comforting. In and out in all the right places. His breath is sour but it is still his breath and she holds him tight, her face against his neck, looking over his shoulder at the outline of the window, fast disappearing in the dying light.
‘Listen,’ Graham murmurs, his breath tickling her ear.
She listens. ‘What?’
‘Nothing. That’s just it. Fuck all. Silence.’
She hears it. There are sounds – a creaking from the pump, the hum of the generator, but behind all that, silence is happening in a big way. Millions upon millions of square miles of bush and desert crowded out with silence.
‘It’s never silent,’ she says. ‘There’s always something. Listen.’
There is a dry scuttle from somewhere like the rush of a frightened heart. ‘It’s never silent,’ she says again, her voice small. They lie together, hearts beating, breath mingling. It is too hot in the stale trapped air of the room to be so close but too silent not to be. The physical noise of a friendly being pressed up close is the only thing to drown out the silence. She shuts her eyes.
And wakes to him shaking her.
‘Hey sleepy, let’s go and eat.’
She hauls herself up, a thick furry taste in her mouth, bleary eyes, and allows him to lead her outside. It’s now properly dark. He shines a torch on the ground and they pick their way through the bushes. She feels as if she’s dreaming, the strange landscape hinting at itself through the dark, a high moon sailing. In the kitchen Larry has laid out hard-boiled eggs, bread, cheese and tomatoes with a couple of bottles of beer. The electric light is dim and there is a constant buzzing: flies, the generator perhaps, a sound that seems to Cassie as if it’s emanating from her own ears.
‘Well, cheers.’ Graham snaps the beer bottles open and hands one to her. The dull light emphasises the blue shadows under his eyes.
‘Cheers,’ Cassie says, ‘to us. To our – adventure.’ They chink their bottles and gul
p cold beer.
Six
The sun shines through the thin curtains, and Cassie lies for a few moments looking at the outlines of the unicorns. They are really here! Graham is still asleep, lashes dark against his cheeks, a little trail of drool escaping from his mouth. She climbs out of bed, careful not to jolt him awake. The walls are pale pink, an old pleated lampshade hangs from a bulbless socket. It is a lovely room, square, pleasing, though a little small and she’ll have to get rid of the cowskin rug – makes her feel queasy, stepping on it.
She looks at the photo of Patsy. Apart from missing her this is going to be great, she thinks. It’s so amazing to be somewhere so other. You don’t realise what a rut you’ve been in till you climb out of it. She can feel in her bones that this is going to be good.
Graham is looking at her. ‘Hi Gorgeous,’ he says.
‘Gorgeous yourself,’ she says. She leans over to kiss him and he tries to pull her down.
‘Come on, let’s go and get something to eat,’ she says, ‘I’m starving.’
For breakfast they eat oranges and porridge with molasses. Strange breakfast to start a new life on but Larry has made porridge for Mara and extra in case they want some too, and they feel obliged to want it. And though porridge is just about the last thing Cassie could possibly have imagined wanting, she eats greedily till she’s scraping the spoon round her bowl. It fills in between her ribs, makes her feel solid, earthed after all the flight and movement of the past few days.
She washes the dishes and Graham feeds the sloppy strips of dead porridge that float off the sides of the pan to Yella, making him stand up on his back legs like a circus dog. Larry sits at the table, flicking through some papers.
‘Oh, by the way, what do we do about post?’ Cassie asks him.
Larry looks up over his reading specs. ‘Writing home already?’
‘Well, we need to say we got here safely.’
‘Put your letters in that –’ he nods towards a cigar box on the side. ‘They’ll be taken to the roadhouse, though I warn you it won’t be often. We have a mailbox there.’
‘That’s where our post will come to?’
As Far as You Can Go Page 4
