Graham shakes his head. If they can just get past this difficult bit. This track must lead somewhere. Will probably meet the road a bit further along, that’s all. They’re going in the right direction, he’s almost sure. Probably driving parallel to the highway.
He yawns and lets in a wave of weariness. Should have got a bit of shut-eye but he’d lain there, feeling Cassie fidgeting beside him. If he’d allowed himself to sleep he might not have woken up and they’d have been stuck there another day and he could not trust himself near Larry another minute. Past the trees now and the track’s smoothed out. No more trees, low ground. At least there’s a chance he will be able to see. Maybe the lights of a road train will show them where the highway is. He thinks of the cosy cab of Frank’s truck. That hammock.
‘Oi!’ Cassie prods him.
He starts. ‘What?’
‘You were falling asleep.’
‘No,’ he says, blinking at the bleached track unravelling in the light.
But he was half-asleep. They should stop but she doesn’t want to stop. Not till they’re safe. She glances at his profile, hunched forward over the steering wheel, fingers gripping. If he’d only let her drive. She wants to say relax but thinks that might bug him. Not as if she’s relaxed, anyway. And she’s seen the petrol gauge, the red ‘empty’ sign lit up. He must have seen it too. Her stomach is a solid, aching ball. She shuts her eyes against the dizzying grey on grey on grey, the speckled ground that seems to have gone black now. They should be on the road. It’s way past an hour.
She sways her body slightly as if this will keep them going. Can’t wait to talk to another person, another ordinary person, can’t wait to see something – a traffic jam or Boots the Chemist or a postbox – normal. Focus on home. If, when, they’ll ring from the roadhouse, yes, talk to Patsy and maybe Mum, buy something for Katie at the airport – a cuddly koala.
‘Do you realise, we haven’t seen a single koala bear,’ she says. ‘Ooooh,’ as they jolt over a bump. ‘Need to pee. Sorry.’
‘OK.’ Graham stops, bows his head forward and leans his forehead on the steering wheel.
‘You OK?’
‘Just knackered.’
‘I’ll drive.’
He shakes his head.
She gets out and takes a few steps into the dark. Cold. A charry smell. The ground black, must have been a bush fire. Things give under her feet, tiny snappings, bits of twig or bone or God knows. It’s cold and clear, faint moonlight on the stubbly charcoal. She pulls down her jeans and squats. She can hear echoes, of what, she doesn’t know, a throb of something, like a heartbeat almost. Like the heartbeat of the earth. Only the blood in your own ears, idiot.
She stands and pulls up her jeans, damp now. She tilts her head back and looks up into the ache of space above her. The sky is a bright whirl, curdled by the Milky Way and underneath it all she feels dizzied. Minute, insignificant to the point of vanishing. She gets back into the car quick.
Cassie takes a few steps away and bobs down, white cardigan disappearing from view. He bites the skin beside his thumbnail. He has to face it: he’s cocked up. Been going far, far too long and the terrain’s all wrong. Gas can’t hold out much longer. Should have turned back when he first suspected. Stupid, stupid. Can’t be far wrong though. He turned right, didn’t Fred turn right? And there haven’t been any other choices. Any other junctions. Have there? He hasn’t seen any other junctions but then he can see nothing really, just the lit-up bit in front of the car. Maybe there was a choice and without even knowing he chose wrong.
‘Brrrr.’ Cassie slams the door and rubs her hands up and down her arms.
‘OK?’
‘Yup.’
They drive on. The track ruttier, stuff strewn about, burnt stuff. Graham stops and peers forward. The skeleton of a burnt tree right in front of them. They are no longer on a track at all. He turns the key and everything goes quiet.
‘What’s up?’
‘Is there a torch?’ He gestures at the glove compartment. Cassie opens it and rifles through.
‘All sorts in here – peppermints and, yes, a torch. She clicks it. “Doesn’t work though.” She shakes it and a dull gleam appears though it doesn’t extend much further than the tiny bulb. He takes the torch and gets out.
‘Gray?’
He walks about waving the useless smudge of light ahead of him. Why didn’t he think to bring a torch? A loud flap makes him jump and yell, some big bird startled: a kookaburra, mad cackle of loony-toons laughter. That cry had made them laugh when they first arrived but no one’s laughing now. He grits his teeth. He’s only lost the track, hasn’t he? Walks round behind the car. Can see nothing much beyond the red glow of the rear lights but from what he can see he surmises that they’ve been off the track for a while. How did he manage that? Can’t believe it. They will have to go back. No point in panicking. It’s quite simple. Just turn the car round and drive back the opposite way.
He gets back in.
‘We’re lost, aren’t we?’ Cassie says.
‘Just gone off the track a bit.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure. OK?’
‘We don’t want to go getting lost.’
He bangs his hand on the steering wheel. ‘Fuck’s sake, Cassie. Just feel free to state the bleeding obvious, why don’t you? Right,’ he says, making his voice level. ‘We just want to go back the way we’ve come. Just a short way.’ He reverses and moves the car round. That was a full 360 degrees, wasn’t it? They approached the burnt tree from that way so – but. How to know which way? He stops.
Cassie keeps her mouth shut this time, he can hear the effort it takes her. He gets out again, slamming the door, smacking the torch against his hand to try and make more light. He crouches down and shines it at the ground. If he could just see the tyre tracks he’d know which direction they’d come from and follow back. Should have made some marker. Wanker. It’s tiredness, that’s what it is, he is so knackered he can’t think straight. The monotony of driving, the adrenaline that had kept him going is trickling away now, he can feel it running out through the soles of his feet. The scorched smell is sickening. And then he does see what looks like the track, definitely a rut, a flaky charcoal tyre-print. He lifts his head. Thank you, mate, he mutters at the sky.
Twenty-nine
‘Right we are.’ He jumps back into the car. ‘Found the track.’
‘Good.’ Her voice is small.
‘Oh come on, Cass.’
She turns. Pushes her hair back from her face. ‘Yeah. OK, let’s go.’ She squeezes his knee. ‘Have a peppermint.’ She opens the tin. ‘Curiously Strong,’ she says.
They jolt along for a bit. It is definitely a track. Cassie is just starting to say something when there’s a bang and she chokes on her mint. He switches off the engine quick.
‘Dunno,’ he says before she can say a thing. He jumps out, praying for it not to be a tyre. But it is. The back left-hand tyre, a broken bottle, jag of glass embedded in the rubber. He rocks back on his heels and puts his head back. The Milky Way is a great sticky net slung across the sky.
She waits for a moment. Can’t see him. She’s reluctant to leave the safe little room of the car, to step out into that emptiness. She opens the glove compartment. Nothing else of much use – some paper sachets – she shudders. MediSwabs. She tears open one and the smell makes her stomach buck. She opens the door, almost afraid she’s going to throw up but it subsides. The medicated smell, her body remembers; she can feel a cold wipe, a thin chilly sensation when all else was a blur. She bites the end of one thumb, jams the other hand between her legs.
Graham calls her.
She bites again, inhales. Forget it. ‘What?’
‘Flat.’
‘A puncture? Is there a spare?’ She gets out. He’s hunkered down by the wheel. He points out the broken glass that’s done the damage.
‘Part of a whisky bottle.’ She picks a piece up, recognising the label. ‘Red Labe
l.’
‘Very interesting.’
‘No, I mean if someone’s been here drinking we can’t be too far from anywhere, can we? We can’t really be in the wilderness.’ Why did she have to say that? Wilderness.
Graham opens the back of the car. ‘Good news is,’ he says, ‘a spare. And a jack.’
‘Good old Larry.’
‘Ha ha.’
‘Can I help?’ Her legs are suddenly tired, knees watery weak.
‘Nah, you get back in.’
She stands a minute watching as he gathers the tools and hefts the spare tyre out. Feels a surge of love for him standing in the middle of nowhere being brave. She wonders if he’s ever changed a tyre before. She hasn’t. Wouldn’t know where to start.
‘I could shine the torch for you.’
‘Wouldn’t make much difference.’ He sounds pretty cheerful. He kneels down by the wheel again. Some creature, maybe a dingo, howls, a curl of cold sound. She shivers.
‘Get back in,’ he says, ‘no point us both getting cold.’
A beetly thing flickers across the ground between her feet. She gets back inside the car and shuts the door, pops another peppermint in her mouth. She puts her head back and lets her eyes shut as another wave of tiredness washes over her. Not washed. The horrible sensation of a swab, that smell. But she can’t remember. It is all a mess in her mind, that night. Just forget it. Whatever happened it’s not my fault. She imagines the tiredness like a vine, green shoots curling round and up until –
The door slams and she wakes with a start, a crawl of minty drool down her cheek. ‘Is it done?’
He doesn’t answer immediately. Then sighs heavily. ‘Sorry. No.’ Clearly an effort to keep his voice under control. ‘Can’t undo the poxy nuts, can I? Jammed on. Can’t get a grip.’
‘You can’t get the wheel off?’
‘No. And I’ve cut my finger.’
His index finger glistens darkly.
‘I’ll clean that. Look,’ her voice wobbles as she retrieves the MediSwab, ‘good old Larry again.’ She pulls the damp gauzy stuff from its pouch and, holding her breath against its smell, wipes away the blood. A dark smear has somehow got on her cardigan sleeve. She tries to rub it away but it only spreads the stain. She stuffs the wipe down beside the seat.
They sit a minute, wordlessly.
‘Couldn’t you change the tyre without taking the wheel off?’ she suggests.
He gives her a look, then goes back to staring at the steering wheel.
‘Couldn’t we drive – slowly – on the flat?’ she says. Blood trickles down his finger. ‘You need a plaster on that. Might have one. Hang on.’ And she does have a few plasters in the bottom of her bag. She peels off the backing and wraps it tight around. ‘That’ll keep it clean, at least.’
‘I reckon we could drive on a bit,’ he says. ‘Get nearer the road at least.’
‘How far do you think?’
‘Not too far.’
He jerks the car into drive again and they nose off, a slow bumpy trundle. It is looking more like a definite track, that’s something. If only that smell would go away. She doesn’t want to state the obvious again but it has to be said: ‘Aren’t we going back the way we came?’
‘We’re going back to find where we went wrong. Must have been a fork we missed. Keep looking.’
‘But I can’t see.’ She screws her eyes up and peers forward but the headlights make a diffuse cone of light only in front of them, the edges going off into gloom between bushes, and every couple of metres are places that might be forks in the track but probably aren’t.
‘Why don’t we stop?’ she says.
He looks at her.
‘Wait till it’s light. It’s impossible to see and we’re tired – you must be totally knackered. We’re far enough away to be safe.’ She pauses. ‘Get a bit of kip and wait for sunrise?’
Graham drives for a few moments more then sighs, stops the engine and switches off the lights. At once it is easier to see the blackened bush, to see the pallid moonlight bleaching the twigs and scrubby half-burnt trees.
Wilderness.
He smiles wanly at her. ‘Let’s get a bit of shut-eye then.’ He simply drops his head back against the seat.
‘Put your arm round me,’ Cassie says. She snuggles up to him, head against his neck. He smells sourly of sweat and she is uncomfortable, her neck crooked awkwardly, but he goes to sleep at once and she doesn’t want to wake him. At least he is warm and she can feel his heartbeat against her cheek. She shuts her eyes against what is outside the windows, and though she doesn’t think she will, she also falls asleep.
Graham wakes to see a sky streaked lemon and pearly green. He eases a dead arm out from under Cassie, flexes his fist, wincing at the prickly pulse of blood. She mumbles in her sleep and wriggles herself into another position. He opens the door and steps out. There are high, clear bird sounds though he can’t see any birds. They are in the middle of an expanse of burnt bush that stretches on every side of them as far as he can see. In the very distance is a ridge of hills. The same hills you can see from Woolagong, he thinks, the same ridge. If they drove towards that with Fred – then can this be right? Or are they further away? He turns again and realises that there is another ridge in the opposite direction, just a low ripple of red caught up in the early light over the black land. Which is the right range?
He pisses on the ground, bubbles floating with particles of charcoal. The remains of the bushes are blistery spikes. There’s another broken bottle – which might suggest, as Cassie said, that they’re not too far from civilisation. But the label is burnt off. Could have been dropped last week or a hundred years ago.
Cassie gets out of the car, stretches and winces. ‘Oooo – ouch – crick in my neck.’
‘At least we slept. Good call, Cass.’
‘Can you see where we are?’
‘Sort of.’ He reaches into the car for the water and glugs some down.
‘Looks like hell, doesn’t it?’ She stands twisting and rubbing her neck, gazing around at the charred bush. ‘Hey, just look at that sky.’ She smiles up into it, the pastel colours run like watercolours on her face. It’s not too hot yet, the temperature of a perfect English summer morning, the kind you get maybe twice a year. There’s even a bit of breeze. ‘Want an orange?’ she says.
‘Didn’t know we had oranges.’
She fetches two from the car and chucks him one. He winces as it hits his bad finger.
‘Sorry.’
They stand together, backs against the filthy bonnet of the car, peeling the oranges and munching the sweet flesh, juice running down their chins, spitting pips out. He drops his peel on the ground.
‘Hey,’ she says, ‘don’t drop litter. Orange peel takes years to decompose in the open, you know.’
He looks at her in disbelief. She has her peel scrunched in her hand. He shakes his head and laughs. It’s a good feeling after the night they’ve had – the day they might be about to have. He grabs her and gives her a gentle orangey kiss.
‘That’s nice,’ she whispers.
‘Yeah.’
They lean into each other, a moment’s peace. But even as he holds her he feels a sting on the back of his neck as the sun begins to strengthen. Time to hit the track. If there’s just enough petrol to get them to the road, he plans, they’ll leave the car and hitch.
The car won’t start. Maybe it’s just cold. Graham turns the key again and again but there’s nothing. Completely dead. He stops trying and puts his head against the steering wheel. He gets out and opens the bonnet. After a numb moment, Cassie gets out too and they stand staring at the engine which, she knows, is nearly as much of a mystery to him as it is to her.
‘Would it be the spark plugs, do you think?’ She searches her mind for the sorts of things it could be.
‘Shit shit shit shit shit.’ He slams the lid down, kicks the side of the car and walks off. She stares at the dusty metal, smudged and streaked with fi
ngermarks and trails. An orange pip. She flicks it off. She looks around. It’s worse in the light – you can see just how much nothing there really is. She gets back into the car and waits. The windows are fuzzed with dust and specks of cinder, the sun beginning to sizzle through.
He comes back, opens the door and leans in. ‘We’ll have to walk,’ he says.
‘Wouldn’t it be safer to stay with the car? We might get lost.’
‘Nah. We just follow this branch of the track to where we went wrong. Then walk up the main track to the road. Something might pick us up on the way.’
She considers. ‘Did you see anything when you were with Fred?’
He looks away. ‘Yeah. A car or two. A cattle truck.’
He is a rotten liar.
‘Don’t fret,’ he says. ‘We’ve got water. That’s the main thing. We’ll have to leave our stuff. Just carry what we need. The minimum for –’ He stops.
Survival she finishes for him in her head.
‘We’ll claim it all on insurance,’ she says, quickly to stop the thought. ‘This is just the sort of thing insurance is for.’ She’s reluctant to leave the womb-like space of the car. At least it is walls, windows, a roof. Something to be in. But she gets out, rubs her stiff neck, looks at him. ‘I don’t know –’
‘Even if we had to walk a couple of hours,’ he says, ‘it wouldn’t kill us. We’ll get to the road. But if we stay put, we might still be here tonight minus the water. Or else Larry might find a way –’
Of course he’s right. Ridiculous to sit by a broken-down car all day when the road is just a walk away. And maybe they could send for their stuff, if Larry manages to get the car back. Maybe he’d send it if they reimbursed postage? ‘I’ll change my shoes,’ she says. They both change out of sandals into socks and trainers. They slather themselves in suncream, put on hats and shades. She ties the white cardigan, filthy now, around her waist.
‘It’s ruined,’ she says, looking at the dust and charcoal and blood on the flimsy white wool.
‘I’ll buy you one just the same, for Christmas,’ Graham says.
She smiles at him, a wormy curl of love in her belly. Could it work? Could it? His face is greasy with cream, dark bristles poking through.
As Far as You Can Go Page 24
