All the Birds, Singing

by Evie Wyld

  I buy three packets of smokes – they have the kind me and Karen used to smoke, Holidays, like that’s going to trick you – a box of matches and a postcard with a photograph of a dolphin on it from the gas station, and I smoke a whole packet in my non-smoking room. I feel bad after the lady gave me the chocolate and let me park round the back, near Eddie’s boat, but I’m not ready for the outside yet. I prop the postcard up on the pillow and use it as something to look at. It’s hot as hell, and probably the cigarette smoke is not the most refreshing smell, but it feels so good and I push away the memory of Otto’s red little penis.

  After the smokes, I have a long hot shower and get into bed still wet so that the ceiling fan will cool me off while I sleep. I dream of the sheep out there alone with Otto and Kelly, and start up in the night with my heart pounding wondering what will happen to them. I sleep again but wake at dawn to throw up over and over into the loo, like I’m turning inside out, getting rid of the chops and the dog hair, Otto’s tongue and Kelly’s mackerel breath. I drink water from the tap in the way Mum used to shout at us for, in case the spider was up there nesting. I drink long hard gulps of it. I watch the day come while I smoke a Holiday and the birds sing and everything smells brand new.

  In a servo someone has left behind a newspaper called Shearing World. I get a cup of black coffee and a juice and flick through the paper. There’s a column at the back where they advertise for work, and where people advertise themselves as wanting work. Almost every one has a tick by ‘Experienced’. I can hold a bloody sheep, and I can take its fleece off. Yes, I think, fuelled by the coffee and reaching for my Holidays. I pick a place that sounds busy, and that is far away, Kalgoorlie, and I buy a map in the servo so I can find it. It is nearly two thousand kilometres if I drive to the coast. I also buy three litres of tropical juice and two litres of water. My money should last, I can take my time getting down to Kalgoorlie if I want. Otto has been surprisingly good at saving, there’s more money than I was expecting in the tin. I wonder if I should have just taken half. It makes me think again how if he does find me he’ll kill me.

  On my way, I stop now and again to look at how the land changes. The further south I get the redder things are. I get to the coast in the early morning, after a drive through the night, and tread out in the flat water at Monkey Mia. It smells familiar and good. There’s a sign that says SWIM WITH THE DOLPHINS, and about a dozen tourists wearing orange life jackets bob around in the water at the end of a pier. I’m stunned at seeing so many people all at once. A smallish fin flits between them and I can hear them laughing apart from one young girl who screams because she’s terrified. And she should be, that orange’ll be visible to any passing darkness, not just the dolphins. I walk away from them up the beach, far out from the shore, but somehow the water only ever reaches my calves, not deep enough to swim in. Right on the point, a pod of dolphins, sixteen or so of them, come in close to me, and I can see their slick rounded backs and their blow-holes as well as their fins. I wave my arms about; partly I am waving hello and partly I want them not to come too close.

  Back inland, at an empty truck stop, there’s a goanna on the picnic table and I sit for a while on a rock nearby and watch him. When I stand up he darts off the table, and rizzles into the scrub. There’s a dunny at the picnic area, but just going near it sets off a bloom of blue bottles and the smell is a familiar one. I go in the scrub and say sorry out loud to the goanna.

  I park up on the side of the road, because I’m too tired to keep going the hour and half to the next servo marked on the map. But it’s a jumpy night, and even though Otto doesn’t know what direction I went in, I turn the engine back on, drive onto the plain and park behind a lump of flowering scrub for a bit of protection. The doors are locked and then I sleep deeply, curved to the shape of the truck’s seats, with the handbrake butting my ribs. I wake before dawn and there’s a small dingo not far from the truck, he’s got his paws around the back leg of something that died a long time ago, and he’s chowing down happily. My stomach moves inside me, and hurts. It’s probably time I ate something. I swig on the last of the tropical juice and decide not to ever drink it again, three litres is too much.

  When I reach the next servo, everything smells of cooked meat, and it takes me such a long time to choose something to eat, the lady behind the till gets itchy.

  ‘Something you can’t find, doll?’ I jump.

  ‘I just can’t decide.’ And I flush because it sounds like I think I’m choosing a wedding ring. I find a salad roll tucked away in a corner of the fridge and pick up a bag of cheese twists and a Coke.

  ‘After all that,’ says the lady, but now I’m up close to her I can see she’s not trying to be a bitch, and I smile. ‘You’d better have one of those on the house,’ she says like she’s poured me a whisky. She’s added a chocolate Freddie the Frog to my toddler’s meal. I catch sight of myself in the window as I go to sit down and I am thin and even in the reflection I can see the dark shadows under my cheekbones. I save the Freddie the Frog until it melts in the glove compartment. He represents something I’m not sure I understand.

  When I see kangaroos I am so surprised I don’t slow or swerve or do anything other than watch as they bound past the bonnet of the car, and I catch one on the hindquarters and it flies up in the air like I’ve made it into a different creature by hitting it. It comes down and when it lands it doesn’t just lie there dead, it’s on its feet before I can even stop the truck, and it is gone into the low brush faster even than it was moving before. I sit watching, my hands wrapped hotly around the steering wheel, my heart bouncing at my gullet. I can’t believe it just got up and went, I was going at least ninety. I laugh out loud at how wonderful life is that it takes a hell of a knock like that and it’s just fine, and I find the steadiness in myself and get out of the car to check the damage. The fender is dented, but there is nothing to be done about that, and the paintwork has gone, through to the body. I look up at the roo as she bounds mightily away, but all at once she stops mid-bound, and her legs fly out from under her, spazzing, like she’s caught on an electric fence. She drops and lurches up again, her legs going every which way, her small arms stretched at the sky, her claws splayed like stars, and the dust flying all around. The others are just blurs in the distance now, and she is going mad, I can hear her body smack the earth every time she lands. I don’t let my thoughts touch the sides as I take the crowbar out of the toolbox in the back of the truck and I cross over the empty road.

  All I let myself think walking through that scrub towards her is that I am capable, I am strong in the arm and so is my crowbar. She is all over the place, there is blood coming from somewhere, which is all around the clearing she has made in the scrub. Her eyes roll and her thrashing makes a wind at my face. I wish my crowbar was a rifle. I watch her head, wait for it to come around with her twitching, which has slowed, and when it comes towards me I raise the crowbar high in the air, picturing the sheep with the black spots on its nose and thinking, You are capable, and I bring it down with everything in me onto the side of her head, and there is a crunch – I’ve broken through which is good news for both of us in the long term. Her juddering slows, but there is still movement, and quickly I bring it down again and again until long after she has stopped her twitching and until there is really not much of a head left.

  I take a step back. Behind me I hear something coming on the highway and when I look it’s a road train. It honks loudly at the sight of my truck, which is not pulled over and is in the middle of the road, but he doesn’t slow down; instead he crosses to the other side to pass it, but not enough that he doesn’t take off my wing mirror. Even from here I can hear a voice laughing from inside the cab as my wing mirror bounces and then smashes on the bitumen.

  11

  Inside, while Lloyd sat on the sofa, I’d filled a mug with water. He drank it and then held his forehead in his hands. I washed the mud off my face and dried it with a tea towel. Outside rattled against the wi
ndows. I turned the kitchen light on and it flickered on and off and on again.

  I wondered how old he was – younger than my father the last time I’d seen him, but older than the farmers who came to offer their services. I took mugs out of the cupboard and put them back. I found a pack of paracetamol and set them on the counter, wondering if I should offer them to him, or if that would encourage him to stay. I watched him from the corner of my eye, watched for a look or a sudden movement. I ran an itinerary of the kitchen. Hammer under the sink, half a brick on the window sill.

  ‘I told you in the woolshed that someone’s been killing my sheep,’ I said with my back to him.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, last night’s a bit patchy.’ I turned around to look at him. He smiled. ‘Er, do you think they’re doing it on purpose?’ I held his gaze.

  ‘Yes.’

  He didn’t turn away, but after a while, when I suppose it got awkward, he smiled and cleared his throat. I handed him the paracetamol, more to break the stillness than anything else.

  ‘This is so kind of you,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ He popped out four of the pills and chewed them, with a long gulp of water afterwards.

  ‘How many sheep do you have?’ he asked, and looked pleased to have thought of a question.

  ‘Fifty. But I lost two this month, so less.’

  ‘What’s getting them? A fox?’

  ‘Maybe. Might be kids. Might be someone else.’ He looked relaxed like he’d always been sitting there, like we were old friends, like he knew what would happen next and nothing was out of the ordinary.

  ‘Kids? Jesus.’ He smiled. ‘When I was a kid the worst we got up to was stealing cigarettes and liquorice.’

  ‘Well.’

  ‘You really think kids would be capable of something like that?’

  I picked up my mug of water and drank but didn’t answer. Lloyd stopped talking. The wind screamed down the pipe of the Rayburn and soot scuttled down the chimney.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift into town,’ I said, and Lloyd looked up. He glanced out the window.

  ‘Oh, right. Sure – that’s good of you.’ He made no move to get up, so I picked my keys out of my pocket and shook them to make the sound of leaving. Even Dog remained sitting. Lightning flash with thunder dead on top.

  ‘If we go now, I’ll be able to . . .’ I trailed off, not quick enough to think of a reason, but holding my keys out.

  ‘Oh, sure, now?’ He looked out the window again. ‘Is it safe you think? To drive in?’

  ‘It’s just weather.’

  ‘Sure, sure.’ He stood, creaking under his breath. He patted Dog on the head. ‘No hard feelings, eh?’ he said to him and Dog narrowed his eyes in a friendly way. I wondered a moment what he planned on doing that would give Dog hard feelings.

  ‘He’s coming with us,’ I said.

  ‘Righto.’

  Rain blasted against the window. I struggled to open the front door, the wind was now possibly a gale.

  ‘Hoo!’ said Lloyd, and the three of us ran to the truck.

  In the driver’s door was the short metal spirit level I’d found in the shed – sharp edges, heavy, and I knew it fit closely in the palm of my hand. When Lloyd closed the door on the passenger side, the truck felt smaller, like he’d used up all the air. My left side burnt with being close to him. I would drive with one eye on him and if he reached out I could brake suddenly – the seatbelt on his passenger side had lost its retractor, and so it just hung there loosely. He would be catapulted into the dashboard. And then I’d have the spirit level. I looked at Dog in the back seat – I’d just have to hope he was lying down at the time.

  With the wipers on full, I could catch glimpses of the track, between the rain and dead leaves and twigs. As we came over the crest of the hill, the truck shook as the wind hit us side on.

  ‘Oooh,’ said Lloyd and his arm came up and I jumped and looked at him. He jumped too, but he was only bracing himself against the ceiling. He craned to look out of his window.

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  A beech had fallen over the track which would lead us to the woods and out onto the road. Lloyd sucked air through his teeth. I didn’t slow down, we would go around it, because this was exactly the kind of thing a four-wheel-drive vehicle was built for.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Lloyd and looped his other hand through the door handle. I stopped and clunked the gear stick into four-wheel drive and the engine took on its deeper growl and I ground us off the road and into the field with the truck bouncing from side to side and Lloyd saying over and over, ‘Gosh’ and ‘Hoo’ every time the truck rocked. ‘Right!’ he said loudly as we powered at the incline that would get us back up onto the road, and it was then that I knew we wouldn’t make it, the empty sound of the wheels spinning without purchase, of the truck sinking deeper into its hole, digging itself in, relaxing and staying put. I revved the engine until the air stank. The windows fogged. I hit the steering wheel and closed my eyes and shouted, ‘Shit and fuck and balls,’ and in the silence afterwards, Lloyd said,

  ‘Whoops. Stuck in the mud. Been a lot of that today.’

  The water still ran, and steam made it out from under the door while Lloyd showered in the downstairs bathroom. I scanned the spare room. There were sheets that had been left in the cupboard when I moved in, and I made what I decided was a bed that was not welcoming, but adequate. Good enough for one night but not encouraging a long stopover. The blanket was itchy at any rate. He had helped with the sheep, I reminded myself. He had pushed the truck when I’d asked him too, had taken a face full of mud and had suggested filling the trenches the wheels had dug with sticks for grip, but we had only sunk deeper. It was a job for Don and his towbar, another mark in the incompetency column, but when we’d got back to the house, freezing and soaked, Don hadn’t answered the phone.

  I opened the window as an afterthought; the room smelled of damp and dust. Dead moths blew in from the window sill, and I scooped them into my hand, suddenly embarrassed.

  When Lloyd came out of the bathroom, he had the towel wrapped around his midriff. I tried not to look at the bare parts of him, but that was the larger part. There was a lot of hair on his chest, some of it grey. He ambled towards me and I felt a horror that the towel might drop.

  ‘Is there somewhere I could wash these?’ he asked, holding up his mud-soaked clothes. ‘Or even just dry them?’

  ‘I can put them in the wash,’ I said, but my voice came out in a squeak I wasn’t expecting. I cleared my throat and spoke in a voice that was deeper than my own. ‘And then they can dry on the radiator.’

  ‘If it’s not too much bother,’ he said, ‘thanks so much. Feeling better already.’ He smiled. I frowned, and turned away.

  He sauntered around the room in his towel, looking at the pictures that hung on the walls. ‘These yours?’ he said, pointing at one of a set of men in uniform.

  ‘Here when I moved in.’

  He had an annoying habit of flexing the calf that showed through the gap in the side of the towel.

  ‘They belong to Don – I bought the place off him.’

  Lloyd nodded and made a mooing noise. ‘He left them for you?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Huh.’

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but it was something annoying. Would we just sit there and wait until his clothes were clean and dry? I tried calling Don again. There was no answer. It was getting late – if he didn’t answer soon, it meant he was staying the night in town. I tried to calculate the time we would spend waiting for the storm to pass, for night to be over, for Don to come home and answer his phone.

  ‘Would you like something to eat?’

  Lloyd looked at me and so did Dog. ‘I – I hate to put you out.’

  ‘Well,’ I said.

  I put the same stew on the stove I’d been heating the night before. Lloyd sighed and sat heavily on the sofa. I watched him out of the corner of my e
ye, knew that the sigh of comfort was in fact an intake of breath through pain, because he had thrown himself down on the dividing bar of the sofa where it was hard and broken. I turned my back, pretended not to notice him do it, but I could see him in the reflection of the window. He rubbed the sore spot on his lower back and Dog clambered up next to him and Lloyd fondled his ears. I forced my shoulders to drop.

  Lloyd’s leg peeped out of its towel again, flexing. He leant his head on his arm so that I saw his armpit. I went to the cupboard and found a dressing gown Don had also left behind. I put it on the side of the sofa.

  ‘You can wear this,’ I said and went back to the stove.

  ‘Lovely,’ he said and when I turned around he was tying it up, his wet hair now done up with the towel in a turban. The dressing gown had belonged to Don’s wife, I assumed. It had a trail of daisies down both lapels and a trim of cartoon mice. Lloyd sat down a little more carefully and he said, ‘Very nice,’ quietly to himself.

  The time passed slowly.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ I blinked at myself.

  ‘If it’s not too much of an imposition,’ he said, ‘that would be so lovely.’

  I poured him some whisky and he held his glass with both hands as he lifted it to his mouth.

  I sat at the kitchen table and he sat on the sofa and every now and then he sighed in a way that was supposed to seem like the start of a conversation. We drank our whisky; I drank mine quickly because every time the silence became uncomfortable, I took another sip.

  ‘So,’ he said eventually, ‘I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing up here?’

  I didn’t reply, just watched him. He shuffled forward and put his glass down on the floor next to his foot. ‘Look,’ he said in a tone that was too warm and comforting for my liking, ‘I just thought it might make you feel a little odd that I just turned up.’ His voice went up at the end, like he had an accent I hadn’t noticed before. I sat up straight.