by Colin Dray
27
Outside, Sam spotted Dettie standing at an open phone box near the train tracks. He walked towards her, still trying to squeeze some kind of whistle from his mouth, wondering if she was talking to his mother. Her back was turned and she was crushing a cigarette under her toe.
‘No. No, you listen.’ Her voice sounded strained. ‘I’m not the one flying off the handle—’ She was hunched over the handpiece, hissing. ‘Yes, of course I realise how far it is. That’s not the issue—’
If it was his mother, that meant that Dettie had called to check on her. To see how she was going with the movers. Which meant she hadn’t left home yet. And Dettie seemed oddly tense, shifting her weight on her feet.
‘Oh, they’re not terrified,’ she said. Sam stopped. Dettie’s back was still turned, and she stammered, ‘Don’t be so melodramatic.’ The voice on the other end of the line was obviously yelling.
‘No. No, I’m not telling you. Not until you calm down,’ Dettie said, pressing her fingers to her temples. ‘You sound crazy, Donald, honestly.’
It was his father. She was talking to his father. Sam’s body went stiff. His first thought was to run back to the car and get Katie, but as he stood in place, watching Dettie’s stilted movements, her little puffs and starts, it was obvious his father was shouting. He was shouting at Dettie.
Was there a change of plans?
Their parents had spoken to one another. They’d patched things up. Dettie had spoken to them both. Everything was fine. When Dettie called their mother at work it was like old times, Dettie had said. She’d said, ‘Old times.’ They were all going to live together in Perth. They were already on their way. Two days in. If they had to turn around now…
Sam had tried to be wary about it all at first. It had all happened so fast. So very fast. He’d wondered about Roger. He’d wondered about his mother’s job. And school. But he’d put it from his mind. They were on the road. Heading to Perth. It was happening.
Except now he found himself standing beside a railway-station toilet, frozen, feeling suddenly exposed. Had it been too much to hope for? It was just like being back in his bedroom, reading Katie their father’s farewell letter again. Or in his hospital bed, staring at the card Dettie had delivered from his father wishing him well, but apologising that he couldn’t come to visit. Was this all just another promise he was stupid enough to let himself believe? Were they going to have to turn back?
He knelt out of sight behind a bin and strained to listen.
‘How?’ Dettie was saying. ‘How, Donald? Your children were petrified. This family was being ripped apart. Strangers were coming into their house. Their mother is—’ Dettie’s voice was rising as she poked the air. ‘No, this is happening, Donald, so your children don’t grow up not knowing who their father is.’
The sun was lying on his back, but Sam was shivering. He wanted to run to the phone and yell into it. To tell them not to fight. That it was all okay. He wanted to tell his father that they were sorry—whatever was wrong. That he was sorry. That he and Katie missed him. That they couldn’t wait to see him. That Perth would be great. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t even sure what was happening. Why they were both upset. Just like the bird in the drain. He couldn’t tell what was going on. Useless. His mouth hung open and dumb. His throat tightened on his vent. He felt tears in his eyes.
‘I don’t appreciate that, Donald. I really don’t. I would not touch a hair—’ She was squeezing her lighter, tapping it on the glass.
Sam tried to look back at the car, but saw only the wall of the concrete toilet block.
‘Oh, don’t be foolish. You want these kids thinking— Donald. Donald, calm down. That language. I thought you might want to know we’re on our way, that’s all. I could just as easily turn around.’
Sam’s stomach lurched. So they were still on their way! But she was threatening to head home? Why would she do that?
There seemed to be more shouting, and Dettie shushed into the receiver. She started to turn towards the garbage bin Sam was crouched behind and he tensed. He needed to run. To grab the phone. Every muscle felt it. His whole body was clenched. But then what? What if he made it worse? The feeling went on, chewing him up. It was as if just running itself—running nowhere, even—might be enough to soothe the ache in his belly.
‘Well, fine. If that’s the way you feel—’
He thought of Katie alone in the car. Should he run to her? And do what? He felt his breath quickening. Sweat prickled on his skin. His head buzzed. A familiar darkness began closing in.
‘We’ll see you soon. Yes, I will, Donald. And you’d better be a bit more rational. I’m warning you.’
So they were still going? The trip was still on?
‘Honestly, I thought you’d be a bit more mature.’
Sam crept out and inched slowly over the dirt. The further he got away from her, the more bent and fierce Dettie seemed to become, pacing around the phone, snarling. When he had passed the toilets, he turned and sprinted.
The car doors were hanging open. Katie was cupping her hands around her lips, blowing raspberries through them. Spittle sparkled on her chin. He was out of breath, and his sunburn throbbed.
‘Did you hear my elephant call?’ Katie smiled.
He stood still, stalled by the sight of her playing happily. He wondered what to say. He wondered how to say it. And if he did tell her something, what then? Their father was waiting. Or he wasn’t. Either way, there was nothing for them to do. Their father was in Perth. Their mother was on the way. They were stuck. But they had Dettie. Like she had the boy with the broken teeth, she would take care of them. Keep them safe until their parents—one, or hopefully both of them—arrived.
The sun faded and the sound of the park sprinklers slapped the air. Sam looked up into the shadow of the tree. Its branches shook.
28
The last house on the outskirts of Mildura disappeared behind them. A vineyard, with rows of grapevines covered in plastic. Sam watched in the side mirror as the road swallowed it up. The car lurched around curves and over hills. Dettie didn’t slow down, and she hadn’t spoken since they’d put their seatbelts on. Sam was tugged from side to side and Katie bounced on the back seat, singing. His blanket had been kicked onto the floor and he had the straw hat on his lap, covering his arms.
‘Do you think they can put the teeth back in?’ Katie leant forward to ask.
The car rattled over a line of potholes and Dettie jerked it back towards the middle of the road.
‘You know, the boy?’ Katie asked. ‘I heard at school if they find the tooth they can stick it in again. Except for if you swallow it. Then it’s gone.’
‘He’s fine,’ Dettie said, not glancing away from the road. The tight sound—the sound from the telephone call—was still in her voice.
Katie played with her kneecaps, thinking. She sat forward. ‘Wasn’t I fast to get the first-aid kit, Aunty Dettie?’ she asked. ‘I ran really fast.’
Dettie nodded, staring at the back of the ute ahead of them.
‘Sam was fast too. But I had to run all the way to the car and back.’
‘Hmm…You were both fast.’
‘And he was just getting water, but I had to look everywhere. Even under the seats.’
Dettie hummed quickly.
‘And then, when I lifted up the pillow—’
‘Katie!’ Dettie snapped. ‘I’m trying to concentrate on the road.’
The car veered around a corner and the hat shook off Sam’s knees. Katie’s mouth hung open. Her eyes darted from Dettie to Sam to the first-aid kit beside her. She was going to say something, then slumped down in her seat and chewed her lip.
Dettie cleared her throat, blinking. ‘I was very proud of you both,’ she said, and loosened her grip on the steering wheel.
The shaking eased off as they swept around each bend. The air vents hissed.
In the glove box, under the car manual and scrunched receipts, Sam fished out a f
aded map and a pen that worked. He folded the map so its blank side was exposed and wrote as legibly as he could manage, Are we still going to Perth? He held it up to Dettie.
At first she didn’t look, but he kept holding it. Eventually, she glanced down at it, twice. She raised an eyebrow, and smiled. ‘Yes. Yes, of course, honey. How silly. Don’t you see the signs? You watch next time one comes along.’
White road markers shot past on the road. There were no signs, or none that he’d seen that said Perth. But he knew that Perth was west, and they were driving towards the sunset.
He scrawled again on the paper, Does Dad want us to come?
This made Dettie look at him strangely, steadily, like she was weighing up something in her head. She re-read the message. ‘Now that is a very silly question,’ she said slowly. ‘Your daddy’s waiting for all of us. In Perth. Waiting for us to get there.’
He ducked a moment, writing, and lifted the map. Where’s Mum?
‘Yes, your mother too.’ Dettie exhaled a hiss. ‘She’s waiting.’
‘Mummy?’ Katie sat up. ‘Is Mummy there already?’
‘Yes, yes. She’s with your daddy. They’re setting everything up. Now settle down.’
Sam started on a question, but Katie was faster, ‘How did Mummy get there so fast?’
Dettie checked her side mirror. ‘Hmm?’
‘To Perth. How did she beat us?’ Katie stretched forward.
‘Well, she’s—she’s not there yet. But soon. She’ll get there before we do. And she’ll be waiting.’
‘How did she get in front of us?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘But how?’
‘She just did!’ Dettie snapped. ‘Now both of you stop bothering me. I need to drive.’ The car jerked.
Sam scratched out what he’d written. The look of the words sitting there, exposed on the page, bothered him somehow.
Katie moaned and flapped her arms. ‘I’m hot.’
Dettie jabbed the fan’s setting as high as it would go. ‘There. Is that enough?’
‘Can we open a window?’ Katie whined.
‘Katie, I don’t want bugs—’
‘There’s no bugs. I’m hot…’
‘Katie, so help me—’
‘I want to wind the window down.’ She had her fingers on the handle.
‘Katie!’ Dettie barked. She had turned, looking back, taking one hand off the wheel. ‘Do you want me to pull this car over?’
‘Mummy lets us wind the window down. All the way down.’
‘Well, your mother isn’t here.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Honestly, Katie, if you don’t settle down—’
‘I’m sick of this!’ Katie yelled, kicking the back of Sam’s seat. ‘I want to go home!’
Dettie slammed on the brakes. The car skidded and wobbled. It veered to the left. Katie screamed. The belt pulled the wind out of Sam’s chest and the motor sputtered. When the vehicle had stopped they were nosed into the dirt at the side of the road. Dettie’s buckle snapped open and she leapt out.
‘Quick! Get out! Come on!’
Sam fumbled with the doorhandle. His hat was crushed under his feet. Whimpering, Katie scrambled out and stood in a patch of grass, looking back at the car. She grabbed Sam’s elbow tightly, afraid, twisting his sunburn.
Ahead of them, Dettie was wringing her hands. ‘You want to go home?’ she called out. ‘Back to that? Back to a house that—’ She squeezed the bridge of her nose, covering her eyes.
Katie stared at the engine. Sam’s legs shook. Dust was settling around the wheels. Suddenly, he wanted to run again. The feeling tightened his legs. Katie’s fingers gripped harder.
‘Look where we are,’ Dettie said. ‘Both of you. We’re nowhere.’
In every direction all Sam could see were browning fields and long stalks of straw. A corrugated tank tilted like a giant sleeping head in the paddock closest to them, and further along, a barbed wire fence was bent under a fallen branch.
‘We don’t have a home anymore,’ Dettie said, swiping at the flies. ‘This is us now. Our home.’
Katie was bent over. She was crying.
‘Remember that kangaroo? Remember? On the side of the road?’ Dettie was pointing off behind them, pacing on the spot. ‘Because that’s what happens in the wild,’ she said. ‘Out here. And that’s us now. Wild. So if you want to end up like that, then fine.’
Sam felt sick. Tears stung his eyes.
‘Out here,’ Dettie said, pressing a hand to her neck, ‘there’s no giving up. We have to hold on to each other and not let go, or we’re lost.’
Waves of heat lifted from the bitumen. Their shoes were sinking into the tar.
‘I want to go home,’ Katie whispered.
Dettie smiled, and the cold look in her eyes started to fade. ‘There is no home back there, sweetie. It’s gone. There’s just Perth now. Where you belong. With your daddy. And your mummy.’ She lowered her arms, her shoulders going slack. ‘And with mean old Aunty Dettie who has to drive you there.’ She peered down at them with a sad smile, tilting her head.
Katie’s grip on Sam’s elbow loosened. A soft breeze pushed the grass around. An ant crawled up Sam’s ankle and he shuddered, recalling the way the kangaroo had rippled with insects. He hurriedly kicked his leg, bending to brush it from his flesh.
Shaking her wristwatch until it faced upward, Dettie checked the time. ‘Now let’s all get back in the car, shall we? Let’s stop messing about. We’ve got to go and put our family back together. Quick smart.’
Sam and Katie were still trembling, but they followed her, slowly. As they climbed back in Dettie noticed Katie was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.
‘Where’d you get that?’ she asked.
Katie jerked, surprised. ‘Mummy gave it to me!’ she yelled, and stuffed it into her sleeve.
29
Flocks of birds speckled the fields. As they landed they would fold away their long white wings and dip their beaks to the earth. Some hopped about, raising their heads as the car went past. Sam tried to imagine the squawking among them all, bickering over a seed or a nut—he wasn’t sure what cockatoos ate. What if one was in charge? He’d seen TV shows about dogs. How they were pack animals. One was always in charge, and it would bite at the others to make them stay in line. Pack leader. He searched for the two galahs Dettie had told them about. The ones that travelled in every family. Sometimes they were in the furthest corners of the group, other times surrounded by the swarm. But she was right. They were always together.
Since the ant had crawled up his ankle a prickling sensation had been irritating his leg. He tried to scratch it slowly, rubbing the base of his palm along his skin.
Katie lay on the back seat with her pillow over her head.
Dettie had let her cry until she was quiet, but she kept looking over her shoulder to check on her. ‘Let’s all play a game, shall we?’ she said suddenly. ‘Let’s all try to remember a fun memory about your father. Do you want to do that?’
Their mother’s handkerchief was twisted around Katie’s finger, and before she had buried herself beneath the pillow, Dettie seemed distracted by the way Katie was cradling it, stroking the cotton.
‘That sounds good.’ Dettie grinned, her yellow teeth clenched. ‘I’ll start. Let’s see,’ she hummed, tapping her nails on the steering wheel. ‘All right. Here’s one.’ She sat up in her seat. ‘When your father and I were little, we had chores to do around the farm. And my job, you see, was to bring in the eggs from the hen house. So one morning I go out, as usual, and all the eggs have just disappeared. Couldn’t find one.’
She hunted in the rear-view mirror for Katie’s reaction.
‘I didn’t think much of it until the next morning when the same thing happened,’ she said. ‘Then the morning after that. And the one after that. Two weeks and not a single egg. Eventually, I woke up extra early and snuck out with a cricket bat, thinking maybe there was a fo
x—but I looked, and there were the eggs, still under the chooks. So I hid and waited to see what was happening. Soon enough, here comes something sneaking in through the door. And what do you think it was?’
Sam was glad he couldn’t speak, because Dettie didn’t bother turning to him with the same look of expectation that she trained on his sister. Katie didn’t move.
‘My brother,’ Dettie said. ‘Your father. With a filthy big grin on his face.’ She was smiling at the thought of it, shaking her head. ‘So I wrestled him to the ground, telling him what a dirty stinker I thought he was, and he fought and screamed and punched. We ended up waking the whole house, and that was that. Your grandpa pulled us apart with his big hands. He said we were thick as thieves, and gave us such a hiding I couldn’t sit for a week.’
Dettie chuckled and laid her hands at the bottom of the wheel. ‘Turns out your father had been stealing them for weeks. He was taking them to school. Selling them to his friends. Throwing them at other kids on the way home. I tell you, he was the dickens back then,’ she wheezed.
It was hard to imagine Dettie that young. With her tense jerking gestures and the tight sound in her voice, she had always seemed old to Sam. Even the photo of her as a child that hung in her apartment had always looked peculiar, as though it was somebody else’s face shining out from it, smiling carelessly over the tricycle’s handlebars.
‘Does anyone else have a story?’ She flashed hopeful glances at them both. ‘Sammy, I bet you’d remember your daddy getting you ready for the swimming carnival,’ she said, drumming her thumbs. ‘How he took you down to the pool with him in the mornings. The two of you sneaking out of the house with your towels.’
Sam remembered the swims, but not fondly. He turned back to the window.
‘He’d hold you up in the water. Your little legs kicking. The sun still creeping over the city.’ Dettie hummed. ‘How I wish I could have been there to see it.’ The corner of her mouth turned up.
What Sam recalled was very different. His father, off on his own, running long, steady strokes, face down, unspeaking, in the water. Sam thrashing through a sloppy lap or two before waiting around in the shallow end, hungry for breakfast, tracing circles with his feet on the concrete base of the pool and ducking his shoulders below the surface of the water to avoid the morning breeze.
