The Other Side of Beautiful

by Kim Lock

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The van was a rental camper: tidy and newish, clean and white with a bright orange logo on the side and a sloped pod on the top. It stopped a little way from Mercy and the engine shut off.

  Through the windscreen, Mercy could make out only one figure inside. When the driver’s door opened and the figure began to climb out, Mercy hurried around the Hijet, readying to climb in.

  ‘They told me to go to Australia in the spring,’ said a man’s voice. A thick Scottish accent; he sounded amused. ‘That’s when the weather’s the nicest, they said. But if it gets hotter than this—’ He paused, and when Mercy looked up he was ducking his head to wipe his face on his sleeve. ‘I don’t know how you Aussies don’t all burst into flames.’ He was aged somewhere in his thirties, wearing work boots, cargo shorts and a snug, white T-shirt. Re-adjusting a navy peaked cap, he gave Mercy a warm smile. ‘All right, darlin’?’

  ‘Fine, thank you.’ She grabbed the door handle. It wouldn’t open.

  The man tucked his hands in his pockets, squinting out over the highway towards the Flinders Ranges. A band of sun-pink tinged his right bicep.

  Mercy jiggled the latch. Nothing. Wasabi barked from the passenger seat.

  ‘Have a swatch at that,’ the man went on, nodding towards the Ranges. ‘I mean, they’re impressive, right enough, but I must admit for a mountain range I was expecting something a wee bit … taller? These’re really just hills.’

  Mercy paused. The ranges weren’t magnificent Alps, it was true. But looking at them anew now she thought they were beautiful. Rugged folds of dark jade, rocky outcrops and gentle swells of gold. In a flat, featureless space filled with saltbush and spindly, peeling gums, the Ranges gave the impression of watching over the land, providing relief with their steep damp gullies, shade and sanctuary.

  ‘They probably pre-date the dinosaurs,’ she said. ‘Maybe give them a break.’

  He laughed, toeing the gravel with his boot.

  ‘Nice van you got there,’ he said, surveying the Hijet. ‘“Home is wherever you are” …’ He leaned backwards, looking for the rest of the sentence. ‘Och—that’s it? Well, I guess that’s got some truth in it, eh?’

  How easily he stood there, in front of a complete stranger on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Feet propped, elbows swinging. Early thirties, then; he certainly couldn’t be older than her. And she had to assume he was a tourist: the accent, the rental van, the you Aussies. Mercy felt a twinge of envy followed by a sharp pang of insecurity at the sight of him—so easily occupying his freedom. He appeared as casual and self-possessed as Mercy was iffy and hysterical.

  ‘Where’re you off to then?’

  ‘Oh, just … you know …’ Mercy gestured vaguely towards the highway.

  He was smiling at her. There was a dark shadow of stubble across his jaw. ‘Is this your van then?’

  She looked at it, as if to make sure. ‘Yes.’

  He nodded appreciatively. ‘Bit of a cult vehicle, these. Japanese.’

  Mercy felt a flicker of alarm. She was driving a van from a Japanese cult?

  ‘If you look after it, you could make yourself a small fortune. They’re only going up in price. Hard to find sometimes. They’re a bit of a collector’s item.’

  Oh, she thought with relief. That kind of cult. As in something exclusive. She considered the Hijet with a new appreciation. It was battered and grimy and hand-painted. The bumpers were covered in dents and flecked with rust. But it was square as a loaf of bread, and with its big rounded headlights she could see that it was sort of … cute.

  If you discounted the box of human remains in the back.

  Shit. She really had to get back to Adelaide. Taking a hold of the door handle, she tried to yank discreetly but the door stayed closed. Wasabi barked again.

  ‘Well, then,’ she said, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Better keep—’ more vague gesturing ‘—rolling, and all that.’ Damn this door. It was going to make a spectacle of her in front of this man. This Scottish man. This Scottish man whose biceps pressed pleasingly into his T-shirt sleeves.

  She was rallying herself, gathering her strength to slam her hip unceremoniously into the door when he said, ‘D’you fancy a cuppa?’

  A Pavlovian ping of synapses in her brain: caffeine. Now she felt the empty growl of her stomach, the dull band of pain tightening around her forehead. Yes, she would love a cup of coffee. Suddenly it was the only thing she wanted. Right now, she wanted more than anything—more than fearing panic, more than her burned-down house, more than cremated remains—to sit, not move, and drink a cup of coffee.

  ‘I’m making one and you’re welcome to join me if you like.’

  He strode away, disappearing behind his campervan. Mercy heard the side door roll open; the van rocked as he climbed in then she heard rustling, clanging sounds.

  Dropping the door handle, Mercy crept sideways. She leaned, peering.

  The man appeared to be doing exactly what he’d said he was going to do: make a cup of coffee. He set a small kettle on a cooktop; he took out a jar of instant coffee. His back was turned but she could see the inside of the camper: a small cabinet with a stovetop, just like inside her own van—although his was much larger, and considerably more modern. Off to one side she could see the foot of a mattress, the rumpled end of a blanket.

  Mercy stumbled. She had leaned so far she had lost her balance. Her feet scuffed the gravel and the man looked up.

  ‘One for you then?’ He held up a plastic cup.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she heard herself answer.

  ‘Milk?’

  ‘You have milk?’

  ‘Aye, I do.’ He pointed to a small silver box at the base of the cabinet. ‘Got myself a fridge here big enough for a carton of milk and not much else.’

  Mercy opened the back of the Hijet and lifted Wasabi down. The dog immediately ran to the nearest tree and began to investigate the ground around it.

  The man stepped out of his campervan, two steaming cups in hand. He passed one to Mercy. She slurped, burning her mouth.

  For a moment they sipped in silence, listening to the cars pass on the road, the birds chirping in the bushes. After a while the Scottish man disappeared back into his camper and reappeared with a folding chair. Setting it down in the shade, he said, ‘Take a seat, if you like.’

  Mercy retrieved the chair the old man had given her and they sat in the shifting shade of a gum tree, sipping their drinks. Wasabi trotted about on his stumpy legs, belly swinging, sniffing dried leaves and rocks and scraps of bark. Mercy felt the ache in her head slipping away. For a moment she forgot to be anxious until she remembered it again with a jolt.

  ‘So anyway, I’m Andy.’ He held out his hand. ‘Andrew Macauley.’

  Mercy paused before taking his hand briefly in her own. She felt the warmth of his palm beneath her fingers. ‘Mercy,’ she said.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Mercy.’ He grinned at her from under his cap and heat flushed up her neck. ‘So,’ he said, sipping his coffee, ‘you been on the road long?’

  She glanced at the Hijet, as if it could answer for her. ‘Not exactly.’

  He took another sip from his cup, waiting for more, but she said, ‘What about you?’

  ‘Just a couple of days. Picked this thing up from the airport—’ he waved in the direction of the camper ‘—and after a sleep, I took off. Now I’m here.’ He settled back in his chair. ‘Where’re you travelling from?’

  Mercy gulped the last of her coffee and stood up. ‘Thank you for the drink. But I really have to get going.’

  He stretched out his legs; he was in no hurry to move. ‘Where’re you off to, then?’

  ‘Back to Adelaide, I have to …’ She trailed off.

  ‘Have to?’

  Rebuild my house. Return a box of ashes. She remembered the missed call, the voicemail on her phone.

  I have to face the consequences.

  ‘I have to go. Thank you, again
, for the coffee.’

  ‘Cheerio, then.’ He smiled and relaxed further in his chair. ‘Safe travels.’

  Picking up her chair, Mercy closed it with a snap. She flung the chair into the back of the Hijet with such fury it clanged against the cabinet and bounced to the floor. A cry gathered in the back of her throat.

  She didn’t want to return to Adelaide. She didn’t want to go back to it all.

  She wanted it to be over.

  The Flinders Ranges stretched into the distance, disappearing north in a haze of sunshine and cobalt sky. What was at the end of the Ranges? Outback. And what was at the end of that? More outback. And then, eventually, further north beyond all that outback was the tropics, and then the sea. Mercy thought of the northern sea, glittering thousands of miles away. A rippling spread of blue on the other side of the continent.

  She wanted it to be over—she wanted to be on the other side of it all.

  On the highway a fuel tanker hauled past, heading north. One, two, three silver tanks, gleaming in the sunlight, heading goodness knows where. Mercy watched the truck until it had disappeared. Hurry up and slow down, the man at the caravan park had said. You’ll take her for a good trip, won’t you, love? the old man who sold her the van had said.

  And then Mercy knew. She wanted to be over it.

  She would get to the other side of it, literally. She would take herself to the other side of the country, to the sparkling blue ocean at the other end. For two years Mercy had not left her home but now she had a home she could carry with her. Like a hermit crab. Or more accurately, given her speed on the road, a snail.

  Mercy would drive to Darwin.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A little under an hour later, Mercy rolled into Port Augusta—grey saltbush, pink earth, sweeping sky—and the first thing she found was a bottle shop. She ran inside and bought a bottle of whisky.

  Then she found a supermarket.

  Hunched over the wheel, squinting through the windscreen, Mercy drove up and down the rows of parked cars, scoping out the store like a robber at a bank. Would she feel better parking right outside the doors, so she could make a quick getaway? Or should she park on the far side of the carpark, away from everyone else, in that row of empty spaces? In the end she decided on the latter—a quiet place to recuperate, to make a plan. Nosing into a space shaded by a bottlebrush, she saw straight ahead what looked like a river, but when she checked the map she realised it was actually the very tip, the final northward trailing crack, of the Spencer Gulf. This was where the Southern Ocean ended; from this point on, Mercy would not see the ocean again until she reached the other side of the continent.

  The thought was amazing, inexplicable, and terrifying.

  But Mercy didn’t give herself time to contemplate this ending of the ocean. Instead she unscrewed the lid of the whisky, put the bottle to her lips and took a generous swig. And then another, grimacing as the liquid seared its way down.

  Wasabi panted from the passenger seat. Without the wind blowing through, the van had grown stuffy. Mercy rolled both windows all the way down, letting in the cool breeze lifting off the water. Climbing into the back, she tipped the forks, spoon and knives out of the plastic ice-cream container, filled the bottom with two inches of water, and set it on the floor for the dog. Wasabi sniffed, took a few licks, then jumped onto the bed and settled his nose on his paws, tan eyebrows twitching as he watched her.

  Pulling her phone from her pocket, Mercy spent the next few minutes making herself a list as detailed and thorough as she possibly could. Mentally she walked through her house, recalling what items she needed in her daily routine: wake up, make coffee, shower, make breakfast … she tried to stay focussed on practicality, concentrating on each step of the task. What would she absolutely need? What could she make do without? What was flexible or versatile enough to serve more than one purpose? She tried not to get lost in the images and thoughts and what ifs that swept in, clotting up her mind like storm clouds, taking her away from the here, now. Tried not to pay attention to the accusing red circles of notifications, or the voicemail lurking there, unheard.

  When the list was done, Mercy took another bracing draught before screwing the lid back on the bottle, then she shoved her phone in her pocket, rolled the windows up high enough so Wasabi couldn’t jump out, and hopped out of the van.

  Lots of people experiencing a panic attack for the first time, Mercy knew, arrive at Emergency convinced they’re having a heart attack. Terrified they are about to die, they front up to the ED and gasp for their life. But when it happened to Mercy for the first time, four days after it all went down, it wasn’t her heart she was worried about. It was her mind.

  Riding the elevator up to the postnatal ward, checking her watch and running through the countless tasks she’d never be able to complete that shift, what struck her suddenly was a feeling of such intense restlessness she punched the buttons on the elevator to get it to stop. Any floor would do—she just had to stop. Whatever floor it was that the elevator doors had shunted open upon—Mercy still couldn’t remember—she had staggered out and fumbled to a bathroom, then locked the door and paced the tiles, tugging at her hair until her scalp burned. All she could think was that she didn’t want to be in her body anymore. Didn’t know how to be in her body anymore. Grabbing hold of the sink, Mercy had stared at her reflection in the mirror and seen the desperation of someone trapped. A prisoner. It was only in hindsight—only when what had happened in the elevator started happening again and again, everywhere—she realised that what she had been experiencing was fear. Pure, unaccountable, insurmountable fear.

  But fear of what, Mercy could not say. All she had known was that everything was abruptly and irrevocably wrong.

  Mercy thought about that first panic attack now, as she crossed the supermarket carpark feeling for all the world as though she were heading into battle. If two years ago, that day in the elevator, she had been so taken by surprise that she had pulled out her own hair in anguish, then today she had an advantage: at this, at fear, Mercy was now a seasoned pro. There was nothing meek about the way she tackled the whooshing glass entrance doors. Fuelled by willpower and whisky, Mercy fronted up to the tiger that was the Port Augusta Woolworths.

  She grabbed a trolley and started at the top of her list: coffee.

  Her hands shook, and the most difficult points were the ends of the aisles, where her view to the exit was blocked by towering racks of products. The trolley had a shonky wheel and kept humping off to the left; at one point Mercy had to wrestle it away from a precarious display of toilet paper, flooded with a vision of rolls strewn across the floor and a hundred faces turning to stare at her, but she pushed the thought away and concentrated on the next item on her list.

  The trolley piled up: canned soup, instant pasta, more baked beans. Apples, tomatoes, a bag of lettuce. Dry food and a lead for Wasabi. More casks of water and, when the display ceased wobbling, a four-pack of toilet paper. There were no blankets as such but there was a display of fuzzy chenille throws with images of cats on them, and Mercy took one, as well as a small blue towel. A man-size puffer jacket, too big but it would be warm. A cheap pair of sunglasses, flimsy as cardboard, but at least she could stop squinting. Several pairs of new underwear, beige coloured and supremely high-waisted but far cleaner than the single pair she had been wearing for longer than she would ever care to admit.

  By the time she approached the checkout, Mercy was feeling victorious.

  Then she saw the queue.

  Why do supermarkets bother installing twelve checkout stations if only two of them are ever open? she wanted to shout. Panic lifted everything in her body upwards, as if she’d been hurled over a speed bump. Blood surged, nerves sang, even her hair stood on end.

  How many times in those early days had she run out of the store, a part-filled trolley left to languish halfway up an aisle? Or abandoned a loaded trolley in the checkout queue? Excuse me, Mercy had gasped to the other shoppers as she
squeezed through, I just have to check something … And she had run through the doors and never gone back.

  Trolleys inched forward. Items were scanned through with maddeningly slow, intermittent beeps. An older lady was counting out one hundred and eighteen dollars and forty-five cents in coins while she chatted with the checkout operator about someone named Gladys and her broken fridge. Mercy could leave the trolley; there was no obligation for her to buy all this. People would stare but she would be back in the van and driving away in a matter of seconds, never seeing any of them again.

  But then she’d have nothing. She would be right back where she started. It was the Spalding Welcome Mart all over again.

  If she craned her neck she could just see, through the store windows, the back quarter panel of the Hijet. She pictured Wasabi inside, snoozing peacefully. Silky brown ears puddled on his forepaws, plump belly rising and falling as he waited for her.

  Be here now.

  The old lady had finished counting out her coins and was shuffling away with her trolley. The checkout operator was turning to Mercy, smiling, asking after her day. Mercy was piling the items on the belt, one after the other, and she too was smiling and saying, Fine, thanks, how are you? Damn it, she didn’t have any bags, and she was about to say Yes, please to the offer of twenty-cent plastic ones when she remembered that plastics were choking the oceans, so she grabbed a couple of hessian bags from the stand and handed those over, five dollars each.

  She put the packed bags in the trolley. She asked for some cash out; she paid. She nodded and said Thank you again and then—sweet Lord! She’d done it!—Mercy was pushing her trolley through the doors and she was outside, into the fresh air, and she was free.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Leaving Port Augusta, a large intersection appeared and a road sign loomed, offering Mercy a choice between two monumental destinations, thousands of kilometres away and a continent apart: to the left, Perth, Western Australia; to the right, Darwin, Northern Territory. Flicking on the indicator to turn right felt portentous, loaded. It felt as though she was signalling not just her intention to turn the vehicle, but admitting she was slicing open the future of her whole life. A future she had never considered. The gravel in the median strip was raked into neat broad strokes of dark and light red, like hazard stripes to the beginning of the outback.