“Sure.”
“I wasn’t. He thinks he knows everything now he’s living in the city.”
Satchel smiled. He blew on the table and roused a fog of particles. “What have you got to tell me today?”
“You’re never going to believe it.”
He straightened and looked at her. Her hands were clasped and tucked under her chin and her face was lit with excitement. “Well,” he said, “come in.”
He wiped the table and she perched on one corner, he on the opposite. She did not smell of lavender today, but of horse and hay, which was easier to breathe. While she talked he toyed with the dusting cloth, unravelling its woven hem. Moke lay under the table and watched each loosened thread drifting to the floor.
“Remember,” she said, “how I told you that people are always claiming to have seen the thylacine, in Tasmania, and here, on the mainland?”
“But no proof has been found.”
“Right, nothing. In 1937, a year after the last captive tiger died, people started looking for them. A search party was organized in Tasmania. They found paw prints in an area where thylacines were known to have lived, and they asked that the place be made into a sanctuary, but it wasn’t. They asked twice, and both times they were refused. A few years after that, another search found nothing. If tigers had been living in that place, they weren’t there any more. They weren’t anywhere. They were gone. People kept searching for them, though, and they still do. In Tasmania they put out baited cages, and hook up cameras along animal trails, and make sandpits for footprints. Some of these searches last months, even years. One search set more than four thousand snares in a few months.”
“What did they catch?”
Chelsea paused. “Well, no thylacines. But since 1936, there’s been thousands of sightings. Not just one or two – thousands. Even now, there’s usually three or four a year. Some of them have been wrong – they say the animal has a bushy tail, or long ears – but some have been right. I mean, some have mentioned things about the tiger that aren’t so well known, things like the huge jaws, or the way it can stand like a kangaroo.”
“You found out about those things. Anyone else could too.”
“Yeah, they could, but why would they bother? Why make up a story about seeing an extinct creature when you can’t prove anything and most people would laugh at you?”
Satchel grimaced, and resumed shredding the cloth. Chelsea brought her feet up and sat crosslegged on the table. She was wearing leather sandals and her clubby toes were exposed and white with the cold: she had painted their nails a ghastly shade of green. “On the mainland,” she continued, “everything says that the tigers died out about three thousand years ago. All the remains that have been found, the bones, the mummified carcass, the cave paintings – they’re all at least four thousand years old. But sightings of tigers are always coming in, from every single part of the country.”
“But no proof. Thousands of years, but not one bit of proof.”
“Some people say it’s a conspiracy. That proof is found all the time but it gets covered up.”
Satchel laughed, and Chelsea allowed herself a tolerant smile. When she thought he’d had amusement enough she leaned closer and said, “But listen, Satchel. Remember how, the other day, you said you might believe the tiger survived in Tasmania, but that you couldn’t believe it survived on the mainland because it has been gone from here so long? Do you still say that?”
“I guess.”
Chelsea looked cagey. She glanced around the garage as if spies slunk in every corner. “Listen to this, then. Around the turn of the century, when the bounties were killing thylacines, there was also a trade in live tigers. They were trapped and sent all over the world, mainly to collectors and zoos. Do you think some of them were sent here, to the mainland?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Probably. They probably were. There’s a record of sixteen thylacines that were supposed to come here, and they probably did. And these tigers were meant to be released into the bush, to start a wild population. Records weren’t kept well and it’s impossible to say what happened exactly, but maybe what was meant to happen did happen, as it should have. Maybe they were set free, here.”
Satchel looked away from her, gazing down the driveway. Chelsea let a minute go by before she spoke again.
“If you admit tigers might have survived in Tasmania because it’s not such a long time since they were living there,” she said, “you’ve got to admit they could have survived on the mainland too, if they were brought here just as recently.”
“Dingoes drove them out of here the first time,” he reminded her. “How would tigers live with dingoes?”
“They wouldn’t have to – not if they were released where there weren’t any dingoes, where there had never been any dingoes. A place a lot like this place, in fact. The sixteen thylacines were supposed to be released in an area about four hours by car from here. You could go there right now, and be home again before bedtime.”
He stared at her, his fingers tight around what was left of the cloth. Chelsea’s teeth were pressed into her lip and her eyes were as large as plates.
“They could have come here,” she whispered. “They could travel the distance, over that many years. If those records are right, and those thylacines really were set free on the mainland, they could have walked here and found the mountain and decided to stay. The tiger you saw could have been a great-great-grandchild, or something like that. And where there’s one, there must be others.”
They heard the sound of footsteps and she sprang to the floor, blundering against the table. William appeared between the garage doors and grinned at the pair of them. “Hello,” he said. “I thought I could hear voices.”
“Hello, Mr O’Rye,” croaked Chelsea.
He made no move to enter the garage, hovering by the doors with his hands on his hips. He had slicked his dark hair down severely, and greased it with something that mapped the path of the comb. And he was squinting, unable, against the dimness of the building and of his eyes, to see them distinctly. Satchel was sometimes bothered by the thought that there was something indefinably ludicrous about his father’s appearance, and he thought it now. “How do you like what Satchel’s doing to the kitchen table?” William asked Chelsea.
She seemed confused, and cast Satchel and the table a fleeting, panicked glance. “It’s a nice table.”
“Hopefully it will be nicer soon. But I think it’s a shame, really. When you take the paint off something, you’re taking away some of its history. We’ve eaten a lot of breakfasts on that table, but it’s not the same table now.”
“It’s a better table,” said Satchel. “It doesn’t wobble any more.”
“But that was part of its character, I thought. It had personality. We all need a few wobbles. Wobbles are the spice of life.”
Satchel looked dour and said nothing; Chelsea gave a stumbling laugh. William smiled generously, as if he’d given amusement to her like a gift. He asked, “What were you two talking about, anyway?”
“Leroy.”
William slouched from one foot to the other. “Leroy. A boy with many a wobble indeed. Cup of tea? Coffee?”
“No.”
“Pardon me but I wasn’t asking you, Satchel. I was asking your guest.”
“No thanks, Mr O’Rye,” said Chelsea.
William nodded deeply. “All right. Sing out if you change your mind. Goodbye, then.”
He took a step away, and a step back again. “You wouldn’t care if I stayed and talked with you, would you? I’m a bit bored.”
“We would,” said Satchel. “Go away, Dad.”
“What about if I just sit here and listen?”
“Dad!”
He went, sag-shouldered, and they sat silently while his footsteps ebbed away. Chelsea licked her lips nervously. “I thought – I thought he might say something about the bus.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“But he
probably doesn’t like me—”
“Forget about him,” Satchel said sharply. His father’s interruption had frizzled the mood and he stepped from the table, snatched up the sanding block. Chelsea watched him inspect the wood and use a fingernail to remove a sliver of paint caught in a shallow. She said, “I think it looks nice, this table. I think you’ve done a good job.”
Satchel muttered, “Thank you.”
Chelsea scanned the garage. The shelves on the walls were set in shadows, the windows insufficient for the size of the building. It was strewn with the clutter typical of its purpose and the air smelled of oil. Beyond the table a great hoist was bolted to the floor, lowered as far as it would go. Moke, flat out beneath the table, swished her tail politely when Chelsea looked at her.
“Satchel,” she said eventually, “I believe you. I think you saw something amazing.”
“You’re the only one who would.”
“Not if we can prove it.”
He had crouched to inspect the underside of the table and he ducked his head to see her.
“If we could catch it,” she said, “everyone would believe you.”
He wiped his fringe from his eyes and watched her wander around. She said, “Imagine what it would do for this town, if we could prove that thylacines are living here. This place would be special: everyone would want to come here. People would travel from all over the world. The highway would have signs along it, pointing out the way. This town is going to collapse one day – it’s already dying. But thylacines would save it. They’d stop it from disappearing, that’s for sure. And we wouldn’t disappear with it.”
She butted a heel against the hoist and the steel gonged dully. Satchel’s hands were grey with grit from the sandpaper and he dragged them across his knees.
“I think it should stay here,” she continued absently, “not be sent to a zoo or something. We’d build a big cage for it, make it all nice and natural, put it where it can see the mountain. We’ll sell photographs of it, and have a tourist place where people can buy things and learn about the tiger. We’d be famous. Everyone who came here would want to talk to us. Magazines would pay for our story. I’d tell them that you discovered it, but I could say I helped you later, couldn’t I? Because I believed you. We might even be on television. We probably would be, I reckon.”
She turned to him, her expression suddenly serious. “We’d be rich and famous, Satchel. We’d never have to worry about a thing, not for the rest of our lives.”
Satchel stared at her. He didn’t, he realized, know her at all, and he felt foolish for imagining her to be something that she was not. She was no resigned, defeated creature with an embedded desire to disappear. Rather, she still clung fiercely to her old yearning to be recognized, to have her existence acknowledged. She wanted everyone to know her, and maybe she imagined this would make them like her, too. He supposed he should pity her anyway, but he didn’t any more. He turned back to the sanding. “It’s hard enough to find the thing,” he said, “let alone catch it as well.”
“Yeah, but it could be done. You could build some sort of trap. I’d help you set it, and I’d inspect it every morning before I took the bus out, if you couldn’t be bothered doing that.”
He forced the block against the table, particles of wooddust cascading into his eyes. He said, “I thought you wanted to find a tiger because finding one would make the world a better place. Not because it would make you rich.”
She wheeled, and the answer she gave jumped from her defensively, as if he had seen her doing something sneaky and depraved. “I’m just saying that’s what would happen, if we caught it,” she said. “If we did, that’s all.”
“Well,” he said, “we won’t. That was just a dog I saw.”
He thought she might try to talk herself out of her disgrace, but she did not: she remained only a few minutes before deciding she should go home to prepare for the afternoon bus run, and hurrying off down the drive.
For the next two days he worked on the table. He thinned the crimson stain and wiped it into the wood, sponging the excess as he went. When the stain was dry he popped the lid of the lacquer and painted the table carefully; the following morning he sanded flat the air bubbles and gave it a second coat. When it was complete and dry his mother helped him cart it back to the kitchen, where its deep glossy surface reflected the light bulb that hung from the ceiling. William came to look at it, bending at the waist so his nose came close to the table. He said nothing and Satchel watched him watching his own image, the blotted flattened echo of himself wavering in the shine.
After dinner Satchel did the washing-up and his mother did the drying. William went to his bedroom to work on his latest miniature. Laura held tea towels in both her hands, trying to protect her skin. At the geriatric home she had to grind pills into powder before they could be forced down flaccid, tired throats, and her hands were not improving. Now and then he heard her catch her breath as the suds burst against the splits in her skin. “Leave the dishes,” he said eventually. “They’ll dry by themselves.”
When he finished at the sink he wiped the kitchen benches and went outside. The sky was black but the moon was almost full, and everything was vaguely silver. Moke was sitting on the veranda and she got up to follow him through the yard, halting at the door of the chicken coop when he stopped to check the birds were safely in their shelter and a stray had not been left outside. One side of the coop was starting to list and he reminded himself to attend to it before it collapsed completely. He walked down the driveway and collected his tools from the garage before hauling shut the doors. He gave a cursory glance to the remains of the service station, then trudged up the drive again, lifting the hatch of the station wagon, when he reached it, and dropping the tools into their box. It was cold outside, and so quiet he could hear the tap of Moke’s nails on the cement, but he did not hurry to go inside, where a fire was lit in the lounge room and a movie was beginning on TV. He stopped, and listened to what he could hear. A truck changed gear on the highway, a distant renewal of strength. When he could no longer hear the sound of its engine he listened harder, but Moke was standing still beside him and the night was absolutely silent. He patted his thigh and the dog trotted after him into the house, where he locked the door behind him and put the key on the nail.
The animal returned to its rocky bedding at dawn. It loped a zagging course through the grasses, the tip of its tail raised just above the dirt, and when it came to open spaces it broke into a canter. It was seen, as it went, by many eyes beyond its reach, by magpies who bowed their noble heads and by thornbills who were not distracted from their ceaseless scouring. The animal slowed as it approached the mountain, and raised its head to listen. It sniffed all around the entrance of its home, detecting the scent of those who had passed in the night. A rattle in the trees made it swing its body and stare, its feet stamping nervously, but it saw only a branch rebounding with the departure of some hefty bird. After some moments it turned to the shelter and stepped inside, the hair on its spine ruffling against the roof. The earth was damp at the mouth of the cave and stuck in clumps to its paws, but beyond this the cave straitened into a cramped, dry, cosy space, and here the animal lay down. It licked at a patch of its foreleg, its head nodding rhythmically, until the hair was dark and its eyes were closed. It flopped, then, onto its side, its legs stretching stiffly before curling up to its chest, and fell soundly asleep.
Satchel woke at dawn, his face against the mattress. He groped for his pillow blindly and his arm slipped from the side of the bed, his knuckles knocking the boards. The slight pain woke him thoroughly and he lifted his head. He lay precariously on the brink of the mattress and his pillow was doubled over on the floor. His blankets were snarled at his waist and his shoulders were cold. He did not usually sleep restlessly and he wondered what had bothered him, what he must have dreamed.
He got up and went to the kitchen, filling the kettle high. Moke stood up in her basket, shook herself heartily and b
ounced across the room to greet him. Satchel lit the fire, bundling newspaper into spheres and arranging twigs upon them. He flicked insects from the larger chunks before setting the pieces amongst the flames.
He washed his face in the bathroom while the tea brewed in its pot, the tap water frigid and smarting. The mirror showed his hair everywhere, in urgent need of cutting. He studied his image gravely, his frown denting a crease in the bridge of his nose. His hair was black, his eyes were purple-blue, his face was broad at the cheeks but less so at his chin. He pondered the likelihood that he was ugly, or if some mornings he simply felt that way.
In the kitchen he poured a mug of tea and filled a saucerful for Moke, adding more milk for her than he did for himself. She lapped at the plate untidily, splattering droplets in an arc over the floor. Satchel took his tea to his room and dressed in a hurry, in clothes he’d worn the previous day. He heard his mother cough in her bedroom and tried to move more quietly.
The kitchen was warmer when he returned there; Moke had finished her tea and looked at him expectantly. He unlocked the door and they both went outside, Moke racing for the privacy of the orchard. Satchel headed to the chicken coop and the birds were there, grouped together by the fencing and pecking pointlessly at the ground. He wished them good morning and for the first time in months the words, meeting the air, were not overcast by haze. Spring had made inroads, and the difference between his body’s inside and outside was no longer so stark. He threw the grain over the top of the coop and the chickens went haywire.
He went to the station wagon and Moke came running, wary of being left behind. He pulled out the choke and pumped the accelerator before turning the key, but the car stuttered grumpily and fell silent. Satchel sighed, weary of this daily ritual. He tried the key again and Moke licked his cheek consolingly when he swore. On the fourth attempt the engine fired and he forced his foot against the pedal to keep it that way, careless of the roar that erupted from the car and of the cloud of smoke that exploded from its rear. He imagined his mother cramming her pillow about her ears and the grizzling of William, claiming for himself the right to complain. Satchel gave the engine time to warm and then looked at Moke. “Out,” he said.
Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf Page 10
