by Kim Lock
Bert’s face fell.
‘What is it, dear?’ Jan said. ‘Can we call someone to fix it?’
‘I’m afraid not.’ Bert turned to Mercy and said gravely, ‘I think it’s cooked.’
‘Cooked?’ Mercy repeated, uncomprehending. ‘Can it be … uncooked? Because it’s one twenty, and I have to be at the airport by five.’
Bert and Jan exchanged a look.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mercy was rambling now. ‘I lied, the other night at happy hour. I don’t work for the tax department. I’m a doctor—an obstetrician, to be precise—and I’ve got to be in Adelaide on Monday. I have … well, I have to attend an inquest.’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I thought I had two more weeks but I don’t, and …’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I really, really have to get home.’ The last word came out a sob.
‘Oh, you poor dear.’ Jan continued to rub her back. Wasabi licked her ankle.
Mercy looked up at Bert, the man with all the pockets. She remembered his brimming first aid kit; she remembered applying butterfly strips to Andy’s bloodied face. Andy. Her heart gave a kick. Would he be back in Katherine, thinking she had stood him up? Would he be worried? Beginning with dashing across the street from Eugene’s house that morning eight days ago, it seemed she was making a habit of running off on men who were being helpful to her. Or at least trying to.
Mercy took a deep breath. ‘You said it has a split radiator hose?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. I can get another one from a service station, right?’
Bert shook his head. ‘It’s not just the radiator hose. Your oil looks like iced coffee—there’s water in it. The head’s cracked.’
‘Oh dear,’ Jan said.
Mercy looked between then. ‘So it needs new oil? And a new head?’
‘I’m real sorry, love,’ Bert said gently. ‘The engine’s dead. As in locked up. As in pistons jammed into the block never to come out again. As in,’ he looked at her sadly and gestured to the van, ‘what you’ve got here is nothing but a boat anchor.’
Mercy wanted Bert to tell it to her straight. She needed to hear the correct, unmistakeable words.
‘Bert, is the van dead?’
‘Yes, love. The van is dead.’
Jan continued to pat Mercy’s back. Pat, pat, pat.
The sun beat down. It was one thirty.
‘You got your ears on there, Pete?’
Bert toggled the radio in a squelch of static. The LandCruiser was an air-conditioned oasis. Jan had produced two ice-cold apple juice boxes from a refrigerator and Mercy sat in the back seat, sipping from her straw, trying to ignore how much of a child she felt. Wasabi was sitting at her feet, panting, filling the car with his doggy breath.
‘Pete, comeback, Pete,’ Bert tried again.
Another burst of empty static.
‘He wouldn’t have left the vehicle, would he?’ Jan murmured to her husband. Bert shook his head.
And then a man’s voice crackled over the radio: ‘Loud and clear, Bert. Go ahead.’
Bert’s whole body beamed with happiness, but his voice was perfunctory as an airline pilot. ‘We got a situation here, Pete. Got a lady stranded on the side of the highway. Vehicle situation dire. Repeat, dire. Are you still at Emerald Springs? Over.’
There was a pause, then, ‘Affirmative. Current location Emerald Springs. Over.’
‘Roger that. Are you still heading up to Darwin today?’
‘That’s an affirmative.’
‘Request you have seat for one extra soul?’
A long pause ensued. Mercy held her breath. The whole LandCruiser held its breath.
‘Affirmative.’
Jan exhaled and turned to Mercy with a smile. ‘There, now. See? We’ll have you there in no time.’
Mercy looked at her phone. One forty.
Bert put his hand on the gear shift.
Mercy said, ‘Wait!’
Startled, Bert turned to her. The engine idled.
‘There’s something I need from the van.’
Without waiting for a reply, Mercy slid out of the car. She walked to the poor dead Hijet, a corpse on the gravel. She opened the back and smelled the musty, dusty inside. The scent of the last seven days. Clambering in, she lifted the mattress and drew out the box of ashes. Jenny Cleggett. Mercy ran her hand over the box. Looking up, out through the windscreen, she remembered the huntsman spider that had appeared on the glass as she left Crystal Brook. The spider had never reappeared—it must have been outside the glass after all. Although she was thankful not to have seen it again, that spider had determined that Mercy had headed north, instead of returning to Adelaide. For almost three thousand kilometres, this little van had carried her across the country, trying its best to get her to the other side. Running her fingertips over the creased, dusty cardboard, she smiled.
For the last time, she climbed out of the Daihatsu Hijet. She closed the door, her hand lingering on the warm metal.
Home is wherever you ARE.
Mercy said, ‘Thank you.’
Tucking the box of ashes under her arm, she turned and walked away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Bert and Jan weren’t going as far as Darwin today. Instead, Bert had plans to disappear ‘off the beaten track’ for a week or four, maybe head out to Kakadu or Arnhem Land. Maybe over the border into Queensland.
‘Otherwise we’d be happy to take you to the airport,’ Bert said. ‘But lucky for you, Pete and Jules are headed that way! Ho ho,’ he said, laughing, ‘you’re in for a real treat with those two!’
‘Oh, Bert, stop it,’ Jan said, playfully swatting her husband’s arm. ‘You’ll scare the poor girl.’
Mercy attempted to make reassuring noises. She would have liked to set Wasabi in her lap, but she didn’t want to put the dog on Bert and Jan’s pristine seats. Instead she clutched her hessian shopping bag, the dank scent of her own clothes rising from within it. Surreptitiously she dug out her deodorant and tried to roll some on without lifting her arms.
The LandCruiser sped along, air-conditioner purring, nobody having to shout to be heard over the wind. Even travelling at a hundred and ten, dragging a caravan, the engine did not die in a smoking ruin. When they arrived at the roadhouse, Mercy’s face was cool, dry and dust free. If the Hijet had held out for another ten kilometres, Mercy would have at least made it to Emerald Springs: a roadhouse, truck stop and leafy camping area on the side of the highway.
Bert parked in a truck bay. Leaving the engine idling, he turned in his seat.
‘Well, love, this is where we leave you.’ He pointed to the roadhouse. ‘That’s Pete and Jules waiting up there. See?’ He waved at someone.
Mercy’s chest began to tighten. She was about to get into a car with a pair of complete strangers, a mythical couple who existed only in tales of outrageous happy hours. Bert had shown no hesitation in suggesting Mercy catch a lift with the pair of grey nomads to Darwin. The question wasn’t so much could she trust this Pete and Jules, but did she trust Bert?
He was turned towards her, one elbow propped on the centre console, other hand resting on the steering wheel. The epaulette on his shoulder bent up in a loop. He was smiling. She had known him since that first night in Crystal Brook. He was livin’ the dream.
‘Thank you both so much,’ Mercy said.
Jan reached back and took Mercy’s hand, giving it a tender squeeze. ‘You take care, dear. Good luck with whatever it is you need to do.’
Mercy squeezed Jan’s hand, picked up her bag, her dog and her box of cremated remains, and hopped out of the car. Wasabi trotted along beside her. Her footsteps crunched across the gravel. She heard the sound of Bert and Jan pulling onto the highway; a horn tooted. She turned and watched them go, waving.
Parked up ahead, alongside the roadhouse, was an enormous Dodge Ram. Jet black paint, gleaming chrome and Mafia-tinted windows. Radio aerials bristling like a police car. Attached at its rear was a caravan made of checker-plate steel. Standing out th
e front of the vehicle was a smallish, grey-haired man and a tall, willowy woman. Mercy looked from side to side, expecting the real Pete and Jules to show up any minute, decked out head to toe in camo print.
Nervously, Mercy approached.
‘Are you …’ She cast about again. ‘Are you Pete and Jules? I’m Mercy Blain. Bert called you just now on the radio, about Darwin …’
Stepping forward, the man extended his hand. ‘Peter Boothey. A pleasure to meet you. Bert indicated you had some trouble with your vehicle. I’m sorry to hear it. How stressful, when you have a deadline to meet at the airport.’
Mercy blinked, shaking his tiny, cool hand. The man was a few inches shorter than her and his hair was combed neatly from one side of his head to the other. His short-sleeved, button-down shirt was tucked into belted plaid shorts. Mercy wasn’t sure what she was expecting Pete to look like, but, coupled with the giant Dodge Ram, it wasn’t … this. Courtly and unassuming, he almost needed a British accent and a monocle.
‘Allow me to introduce my wife, Julie. Goodness, it’s almost two o’clock, we must be pressing on. Your flight is at five, yes? Okay. Well, let’s be timely. Here, let me pack that in the back for you.’
He made to take the box from Mercy but she tightened her grip on the cardboard. ‘Thank you, but there’s no need. I’ll keep it with me.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘I’ll stow it safely with our canned goods.’
‘I’ll just nurse it.’
A brief yet exceedingly polite tug-of-war ensued, Mercy smiling, Pete smiling, box of cremated remains shuttling between them, until Pete stepped back. ‘As you wish,’ he conceded with a nod of his head.
Mercy was about to shake Jules’s hand when the woman leaned towards Mercy in a waft of frankincense, touched her cheek to Mercy’s and squeezed her shoulders. She said nothing, just smiled, took Mercy’s hessian bag and turned towards the vehicle, long purple skirt billowing out behind her.
Mercy’s insides felt sloppy as she climbed into the Dodge. The dark window tint gave the interior of the vehicle a greenish hue. Mercy’s sweaty thighs squeaked across black leather seats. Wasabi put his paws up but she pushed him down into the footwell, thinking of dog hairs and red dirt across the leather. She clutched Jenny Cleggett in her lap.
On the dashboard, all manner of handsets hung from loops of curled cord, digital displays cycled radio frequencies, touchscreens glowed with maps. Mercy wanted to ask how it was possible to operate so many radios at once, but then she realised one of those radios had saved her stranded arse.
So she said, ‘I like all your radios.’
Jules waved a hand at the dashboard but said nothing.
‘And your car is lovely.’
‘It gets us from A to B,’ said Pete, pressing the start button. Mercy couldn’t hear the engine, but she could feel the sudden subtle vibration; the dash lit up like a cockpit.
‘Did you know there used to be an open speed limit in the Northern Territory?’ asked Pete as he navigated the Dodge onto the highway, his seat racked in close to the wheel so he could peer through the windscreen.
‘Anything would have been faster than my poor van,’ Mercy said.
‘Pity,’ Pete said. ‘We could have had you at the airport in less than ninety minutes.’ He was turning the wheel by shuffling it carefully through his hands. Mercy opened her mouth to laugh at his joke.
And then the Dodge rocketed forwards. Mercy fell back in her seat, spine flattening against the leather. Jenny Cleggett shunted into her guts.
In the front, Jules calmly popped the top on a tube of hand cream. Squeezing a dob into her palm, the car filled with the scent of roses.
No service.
Scenery blurred past silently, like a fast-forwarded movie screen on mute.
No service.
Although they were speeding along at an effortless 130—nearly double Mercy’s top speed of the last seven days—the minutes crawled by, drawn out like taffy.
No service.
‘Come on,’ Mercy muttered at her phone.
In the twenty minutes they had been speeding up the highway, Mercy had learned Pete and Jules had two sons and three grandchildren. Both sons worked in finance; both were happily married. Pete was retired now, but he, too, had worked in finance. Mercy waited for the punchline, the upsurge of laughter to reveal their true party-animal selves, but nothing came. After asking Mercy a few polite questions, for which she breathed deeply and answered with the truth (separated; no kids; an obstetrician, not presently practising), they seemed perfectly satisfied to let her be. Jules produced a set of knitting needles and quietly clacked; Pete drove, hands at ten-and-two, occasionally touching a screen, tapping a button or silencing a radio.
And Mercy stared down at her phone, willing it into service.
Eighty kilometres out of Darwin, it happened. Her phone lit up, pinging and buzzing. One bar of service: in came text messages from Eugene. Two bars: voicemail.
Three bars: Mercy opened a web browser.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
White Pages displayed twenty-eight listings in South Australia for Cleggett. Closing her eyes, Mercy recalled the moment she had dashed from Eugene’s house and across the street, the heady scent of perfume trailing after her, Jose’s words ringing in her ears: she is her own problem. She remembered the nauseating, blinding soup of confusion and panic as she had tried to listen to the old man’s sales spiel about the van; she remembered charred roof frames stabbing the sky. Opening her eyes, she typed the name of Eugene’s street into the search bar, but there were zero results. No listings for a Cleggett on Eugene’s street. She tried Eugene’s suburb but that also yielded nothing. Eventually, she opened the White Pages search to Cleggetts in the greater Adelaide region (nine) and started dialling.
‘Hello,’ Mercy said, when the first call was answered. ‘This might seem strange, but I’m looking for an older gentleman who lives in North Adelaide, a retired mechanic, who recently sold me a Daihatsu Hijet … No? Don’t know anyone by that description? What about the name Jenny Cleggett, do you know anyone by that name—’ Glancing at the front seats, Mercy lowered her voice, turning her face towards the window ‘—possibly deceased? Oh. Okay, well, sorry to bother you. Thank you for your ti—’
They hung up.
‘Everything okay?’ Pete asked. ‘Can we get you anything? Might you need to stop and use the facilities at all?’
Now that he mentioned it, Mercy did, but she steeled herself and declined. It was just before three pm. At this rate, Mercy was going to make it to the airport on time. There was no way she would ask them to stop.
The next two calls went to voicemail. The fourth and fifth went unanswered, ringing for an eternity before finally going dead. The next two calls were answered, and Mercy repeated her request to the same end. No old mechanic named Cleggett, no dead Jenny.
She dialled the last number. It rang and rang.
‘Shit,’ she muttered. She was about to hang up and google Can I take human cremains on a plane, when the line clicked.
A shuffling noise, and then, quietly, ‘Hello?’
‘Hello?’ said Mercy.
‘Hello?’ The man cleared his throat, then demanded, ‘Who is it?’
Mercy’s free hand tightened around the cardboard box. ‘I’m looking for a man named Cleggett.’ Repeating her spiel about the Hijet, she finished, ‘Does that sound like anyone you know?’
‘Of course it does,’ said the man.
‘It does?’
‘Yes. It’s me, you goose. Harry Cleggett. How’d you find me?’
Exhaling with relief, Mercy explained dialling all the Cleggetts in Adelaide.
‘Oh, sorry,’ Harry Cleggett said with a laugh. ‘Forgot to tell the phone company I moved. Sadly, it’s one of the reasons I had to sell her—this new place has a shed the size of a matchbox.’ He muttered inaudibly and sighed. Then, more brightly, ‘So—how’s the old girl doing?’
Mercy wanted to laug
h. She wanted to weep. What she ended up doing was somewhere in between, chuckling and wiping her leaking eyes, her breath coming in halting puffs that were neither happy nor sad. Jules’s knitting needles paused, then resumed their tidy clicking.
‘Mr Cleggett,’ she managed to say. ‘Is Jenny … your wife?’
‘I don’t mean Jenny. I mean the van. How’s she doing?’
Mercy’s last glimpse of the Hijet had been through the window of Bert’s LandCruiser, her view swallowed up by the white box of his caravan as they had pulled onto the highway. The faithful old van, filled with her own sweat and tears, stalled on the side of the Stuart Highway, three thousand kilometres of dust caked to its flanks, bleeding out its milky oil into the gravel.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mercy said. ‘It—she didn’t quite make it.’
Another sigh. ‘Ahh, well. How far’d you get? Please, I’d like to hear about it.’
So Mercy told him. Starting at Crystal Brook, she told him about the huntsman spider, the decision to keep going north. She detailed the trip across the desert, the roadtrains blasting past. When she described the muffler falling off on the way back from the waterhole, the old man hooted with laughter. She told him about driving into the tropics, the way the humidity crept in first as a hint, and then all at once, like opening an oven door.
‘Sounds like you did all right,’ Harry said when she was done. He sniffed, and the catch in his throat was back. ‘I asked you to take her for a good trip, and you did.’
‘I’m sorry to leave her on the side of the road,’ Mercy said. ‘I’ll arrange for a tow truck or a car carrier. Or something.’ She glanced at the time. Three ten pm.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I want you to leave her there. What you’ve described sounds like an adventure. A fitting end for her. Don’t worry, the cops will pick her up eventually, and she’ll be taken to the impound, and one day, who knows? Maybe she’ll be recycled into something brand new. She might end up in a Mercedes Benz, or a refrigerator, or a fancy new television. Anything.’ Quiet came over the line for a few moments. ‘That sounds like a fine end for a fine girl.’
