by Scot Gardner
The carved wooden sign at the entrance to the town said ‘Fishwood est. 1871’. Most of the houses in the main street must have been originals. Timber cottages with little doors and tiny windows. They didn’t have any Burger Boss signs and I wondered how long I could last in a bush town like this. How much fun would it be? I told Dad all the directions I’d got from Kerry and he drove us straight to their door. Mate, what an awesome place. I got out and helped Ernie down from the back. He went tear-arsing around the outside of the house, pissing on everything that didn’t move. I locked my door and Dad locked his with the key. Nobody was home. Nobody except Jesus the cat. He came flying out of the bushes to greet us, jingling like Santa’s sleigh. Ernie spotted him and froze, sniffed once at him and bolted off around the outside of the house again. There was a note pinned to the door.
Wayne and Mick,
You made it. Well done! This door is open. Please come in and make yourself at home. We are all out at the moment but we’ll be back around 4.30.
Love Kerry and the humorous Humes
‘I guess we didn’t have to lock the car,’ Dad said as he wiped his boots on the front doormat.
The house was like a well-lit cave. Solid and airy. Every window had a little panel of stained glass in it and the colours fell on the slate floor and rough earth walls. Smelt like incense. Smelt like their place in Fairleigh already. I could see Ernie through one of the big windows in the lounge. He was eating something that he’d found like he hadn’t eaten for a month. I hoped like hell that it wasn’t a bird or rare possum or something.
‘Hey! Ernie,’ I shouted. He looked up—couldn’t see me through the glass—with a wholemeal bread crust hanging from his mouth. Dad opened the door and smelt the air. ‘Nice place.’
He walked slowly back out to the ute and started unloading my stuff. My pack, my sleeping bag, the bag of dog food. When he was done, he rested on the back of the ute and kicked at a white stone in the driveway. ‘You going to be okay here for a couple of hours by yourself?’
Ernie trotted around from the other side of the house.
‘Yeah. Yellow dog will keep me company. Won’t you, Ernie?’
His tail started chopping the air but he was nose-down hunting for more treasures.
Dad nodded as he walked around to the driver’s door and sat behind the wheel. He stuck out his hand. I took it and shook it.
‘I’ll give you a call next week and see how you’re going,’ he said.
The door clunked closed and he had to help the window unwind with his free hand. ‘Have fun.’
‘Guaranteed,’ I shouted as he pointed the ute back out the way we’d come in. He hung his hand out the window and spun the wheels on the end of the drive. The van bucked and squeaked then he was gone.
It was so bloody quiet. I stood there on the drive for a minute and listened to the birds and that. I could hear sheep nearby and after the oily exhaust fumes had cleared I could smell the trees. Smelt like cough lollies. I walked along the side of the house, past a green tin shed that would have been bigger than the flat and two huge water tanks that had been painted the same colour as the shed. The roof of the house stretched to make a carport that almost touched the water tanks.
A clucking commotion burst from the other side of the house and I bolted around to find Ernie in the Humes’ chook pen. I growled and shouted. Chooks slapped into the wire in a squawking panic. I ducked through the door of the cage and grabbed him by the collar. He crouched down low with his bushy tail flat along the ground. I had to drag him out through a fog of white feathers. His ears spread low and his eyes squinted as I growled at him. I clipped him on the back of the head and his whole body went tense. The chooks had stopped crashing into the walls; now they strutted around with their necks outstretched and silly red combs flopping around like crabby old grannies. None were obviously dead. Some of them could die from shock later I supposed. God, what a welcoming. Hi guys, did you have anything planned for dinner? Ernie killed a couple of chooks. I found his lead and tied him to a post near the door. He was chomping on something. I pulled his mouth open expecting to find feathers and part of a chook. His pink tongue flashed in and out and he wriggled to get free. He’d been eating chook food. Big brave killer dog had a mouthful of pellets.
The house seemed really empty when I went in to scab up a drink. There was a bottle of orange juice in the door of the fridge but it wasn’t open so I had a glass of water from the tap. I didn’t know that water could taste sweet. Maybe there were some dregs of cordial in the glass. I sat down in the lounge. I could hear birds and that outside but none of them were playing the electric guitar or telling me about the three-games-for-the-price-of-one at Plaza Bowling. I found Den’s room, a Feral Pigs CD and the volume knob. Nice house.
I was lying on Den’s bed when he kicked the door open. Scared the shit out of me and I sat up holding my throat.
‘Keep singing,’ he shouted, and smiled. He chucked his school bag on the floor and dived on me with his elbow into my guts like he’d jumped off the ropes in a wrestling match. We rolled to the floor and the bed cracked into the wall. I groaned and laughed, struggling to my feet. Then Kerry flew through the door and hit me like a fullback and I ended up on my arse on the bed.
She was hugging me and jiggling, squealing into my neck. ‘You made it. You’re here . . . I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.’
‘Get off him, Kez. He can’t breathe. His face is going red.’
She lifted her face from my neck and roughly kissed my forehead and eyes. There was another body in the doorway. A big bloke who could only just fit through without ducking. He smiled at me and put out his hand.
‘Wayne. I’m Chris. I live down the road.’
Kerry got off me and introduced us officially as I shook his hand. The skin was rough and he had a solid grip. I was glad I didn’t know him as well as I knew the Humes or he would have busted my ribs.
We moved to the kitchen and Den made a huge pot of noodles. Every minute or so Kez would cluck like a chook and wrap herself around me then walk off and sigh. She told me that Baz and Gracie were shopping after work and they’d be home soon. We made absolute pigs of ourselves at their breakfast bar.
‘Oh, you might have to check the chooks later. Ernie freaked them out.’
‘What, went for them?’ Den asked.
‘Yeah. No. Sort of,’ I said, and they laughed. I explained that Ernie had gone in for a feed of pellets and the chooks had gone crazy and flapped into the wire.
Chris shivered. ‘You can have that all by yourself,’ he said. His voice boomed and rumbled through the house like Hogeson, the PE teacher, going off.
‘Have what?’ I asked.
Den laughed and slapped Chris on the back. ‘Chris’s frightened of chickens.’
I sat there open-mouthed, waiting for the punchline.
The big bloke nodded, hung his head and shrugged. ‘They freak me out. Since I was little. Only when they’re flapping about and that.’ He shivered. ‘Gives me goose bumps when I think about it.’
I was glad I didn’t laugh.
‘Got to come to Rovers with us tonight, Wayne,’ Den said. ‘It’s awesome. At the leisure centre where we meet they’ve got this massive abseiling and rock-climbing wall.’
‘Cool,’ I said, and pushed my empty noodle bowl away with my stump.
Chris glanced at me.
I pulled up my sleeve. ‘Have they got a handicapped section? You know, for people who abseil in their wheelchairs and that?’
Den grunted and looked at his bowl. ‘Yeah. You just stand at the top and I push.’
I held my breath and looked at him. He stared right back and for a second his eyes were full of anger or something. He opened his mouth then closed it again and smiled at Chris.
‘Should come,’ he said, almost under his breath.
‘I’d better get going,’ Chris said, and grabbed his bag. He slipped out the back door and waved through the glass.
; ‘Coming for a walk?’ Kerry asked, and grabbed me by the elbow. Nearly dragged me off my chair.
‘Suppose. Can yellow dog come too? Any chickens on the way?’
She giggled. ‘Not a one.’
‘Am I allowed to come?’ Den asked, and rocked back on his stool. ‘Or is it a boyfriend-girlfriend-humpy-bumpy sort of walk?’
Kerry slapped him in the arm. ‘You can come if you want.’
Where the sun hung low, a thin strip of bush opened onto farmland but the rest of the property was covered with old grey-barked giants. A gentle hill rose from the back of the house but I couldn’t tell how far it went; the trees hid it like a cloak. That’s where we walked, through a little gate on the fence that Kez told me was the boundary of their place, and up to a rough dirt road.
‘Go to the rocks?’ Kez asked her brother.
‘Nah, the river.’
‘We haven’t got time. It’ll be dark. You’ve got to go out.’
‘Okay. The rocks.’
We turned right and with the speckled sun and a shadow on our backs, walked along the track. Kez told me to let Ernie off his lead.
‘What if he pisses off?’
‘We’ll call him. He’ll come, won’t you Ernie?’ Kez chirped.
She unclipped his lead. ‘He’ll probably just hang around.’
She was right. A black beast darted through the scrub and Ernie froze to the track.
‘Wallaby,’ Den said.
Kez patted him. ‘See. He’s a good dog.’
We walked for ten minutes. We talked in whispers. The birds were chatting to each other as they settled down for the night. The air was still and heavy with bush smells. Ernie was blissing out. The track grew brighter as we rounded a bend to a place where great lumps of rock grew instead of trees. The rocks were golden and the orange sunlight reflecting off the streaky clouds made them glow. They’d fallen down the track from a sheer face of grey and orange high up on the hill.
‘Wicked,’ I said, and scrambled onto a boulder as big as the ute.
‘Thought you’d like it,’ Den chuckled. ‘There’s a cave over here.’
He skipped over the rocks like a little bird and vanished inside a crack. Two truck-sized stones had fallen against each other and made a gap in between big enough for a couple of ping-pong tables. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I found a flat seat of rock. Kez propped beside me. Den walked right through and scrambled up a small ledge to the outside.
Kerry grabbed my hand. ‘Missed you.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Heaps.’
‘Missed you, too.’
Ernie bounced out the hole Den had climbed through. Den chucked a rock through the gap and it clattered into my shoe.
‘Oi!’ I shouted, and he laughed.
‘How’s school and that?’ Kez asked.
‘Yeah, good,’ I said, but my knee started jiggling. ‘What’s it like here?’
‘Great. Great school. Really nice people and that. Really nice.’
She looked out the hole we’d entered through and bit her top lip. A trail of saliva splattered on the rock in front of her and we looked up to see Den’s head hanging over the edge of the rock with a crazy look on his face. His cheeks were red and his eyes looked like they were going to pop out.
‘Really nice,’ he echoed. ‘Tell him about Aaron.’
‘Shut up, arsehole,’ she barked.
‘Aaron?’
She let go of my hand and stood up. ‘Just this kid at school.’
Den grunted. ‘Just this kid? He wants her body, Wayne. Look out.’
‘Shut up.’
She looked at me, shrugged and started hopping from one rock to another, going in circles.
‘Have you kissed him?’
‘No,’ she spat, and Den laughed. His head disappeared from the edge of the cave. I could hear him calling for Ernie.
She flopped down on the rock next to me. ‘He kissed me.’
Thank God, I thought, and hissed like someone had unscrewed the lid on a shaken bottle of Coke.
‘I don’t even really like him. He stinks like fish and I don’t think he’s ever brushed his teeth.’
‘Whatever,’ I said, and stood up.
She looked like she was going to cry.
‘Don’t worry about it. It happens,’ I said, and shrugged. I walked into the fading golden light and held out my hand. ‘Don’t worry. It’s cool. Come on.’
She took my hand and we walked out to the road. Den and Ernie scampered over the rocks to catch up with us. Kez kicked Den in the ankle. He didn’t make a sound.
Ernie kept three metres in front with his nose to the ground the whole time. I wondered what Mum would be doing.
We’d passed the gate and were picking our way through the bush towards the lights of the house in the half-dark when Ernie froze. He growled.
A man stood on the rough track ahead with his back to us. He wore a black hat, dark coat and gumboots.
Ernie rumbled like I’d never heard him before. He yelped. It was so close to the sound of a kid squealing that it made my skin prickle.
The man turned. ‘Shit,’ he said when he saw Ernie, and backed into a tree. He dropped something heavy and bent quickly to pick it up. Binoculars.
Kerry gripped my hand. ‘What are you doing?’ she growled at the man.
‘What?’ he stammered, and started walking towards the paddocks next door.
‘What are you doing?’ Kez spat.
‘You shut your mouth, young lady,’ he croaked, and kept walking. ‘Shut your mouth.’
The fence creaked as he levered himself over, then he was gone.
‘Who was that?’
‘Don’t ask,’ Den said.
‘Fucking sicko,’ Kez spat.
From where he’d been standing I had a clear view of the house, its windows lit from inside, Gracie standing at the kitchen bench preparing tea. Barry was in the bedroom scruffing his head with a bath towel.
‘He was out there again,’ Kerry said to her mum when we got inside, and flopped on the couch with her arms crossed. No ‘Hi Mum, nice to see you’. Her eyes were almost all pupil.
Gracie looked at Den, who nodded. ‘Barry,’ she shouted. ‘Got a minute?’
I could see Barry’s form hopping along the darkened hallway. He was trying to hurry his foot into the leg hole of his undies. The towel was over his shoulders.
‘Wayne!’ he shouted, and shook my hand until the bones rattled. ‘You made it.’
Gracie apologised and stepped out of the kitchen to give me a kiss and a forearm hug. Her hands were covered in flour. She pointed with her head at Kerry, still scrunched up on the couch.
‘He’s been birdwatching again,’ she said coldly to Barry.
Barry sighed and sat next to Kerry. Den and I huddled in the kitchen with Gracie. He poured me a glass of water.
‘Who is he?’ I asked the kitchen bench.
‘He’s our next-door neighbour. A lonely old man who insists on watching us through the windows,’ Gracie said, and wiped her brow with the crook of her arm.
‘Why don’t you tell the police?’
‘We have,’ Den said. ‘About ten times. They can’t do anything. He did the same with the people who lived here before us.’
‘That’s a bit feral.’
‘Yeah,’ Kerry said. ‘That’s what he called me when I first caught him. Feral. He’s the fucking feral.’
Barry put his hand on her knee and shushed her.
Gracie looked at the clock and asked Den in a whisper if he was ready to go. He nodded and told her that he’d get his stuff.
Kerry moved to the kitchen. ‘What’s for tea? Parathas? Best.’
‘Have you shown Wayne his room?’ Gracie asked.
Kerry grabbed me by the hand and led me down the long hall. Halfway along we hacked a leftie and she flicked the lights. A few piled boxes with the flowery camp bed mattress unfolded on the floor. Two clean towels and a pair of slippers that I rec
ognised as Den’s. She helped me unpack my stuff and gave me a quick tour of the house. Toilet, bathroom, spa, bedroom, bedroom, study and what seemed like five more bedrooms. It was five more bedrooms. The house was huge.
Barry lit the fire. It was one of those self-contained jobs with a big glass panel on the front and after our meal—sort of like fried curry pasties—we sat down to watch it while Gracie took Den into town.
Baz asked me about school. I held his daughter’s hand while we talked and I started sweating in my armpits for no reason. I asked him about his work and he looked like a fireworks display as he filled me in on the details. Kerry sat mute, staring into the fire. She jumped up, wiped the hand I’d been holding and let Ernie in the door. He scrambled around on the slate then came to rest on the big rug in front of the fire. Looked like he was watching the flames.
‘Are you going to come to the show tomorrow?’ Kez asked, and I had to grind through my memory to work out what she was talking about.
Before I’d got to answer, Barry said, ‘I thought Den had arranged to go camping with him. Remember, you guys agreed to share Wayne this holiday.’
‘Yeah, but it is Wayne’s choice. What do you think?’
I shrugged. ‘That’s a hard one. Church music or camping. Whoo.’
‘It’s not church music. Sacred chants. God, you know nothing,’ she said, and slapped my thigh.
‘Thank you for being honest, Wayne,’ Baz said, then behind me to Kerry, ‘Boys are allowed to be boys.’
Kez decided to go to bed soon after that. I was knackered, too. I decided to sleep in my boxers and Kez came in to kiss me goodnight. It wasn’t exactly a peck on the cheek and the silky pyjamas she wore made my fingers tingle. Made me lie awake for a long time listening to Ernie snuffling on the end of my bed, wishing she’d sneak back in.
Chapter Eighteen
I CREPT TO KERRY’S ROOM IN THE MORNING. IT SEEMED LIKE some time just after fish o’clock but she was already up. I found her in the kitchen, shower-fresh and dressed in her school uniform. Den was still in bed.
