When there’s nowhere else to Run

by Murray Middleton

  Her breath smelt like cans of really sweet Coke. She knew exactly what she was doing. She told him not to be nervous and showed him where to put his hands. He clung to her hips and watched her head bob up and down in front of the blurry stars. Did women always keep their eyes closed during it? He tried to last as long as he could. This, he felt certain, was love.

  KAT, 2000

  Then there was the year that Kat asked Maggie to give her driving lessons. There was nothing else to do on the farm now that she wasn’t allowed to bring friends anymore. She was happy to avoid Tom. He was always staring at her with his pathetic puppy-dog eyes. William was always doing his homework. He was such a fucking nerd. She didn’t want Don to teach her how to drive because he’d just lose his temper. He was so loud when he was angry and other times he looked so quiet and depressed. But he tried to hide it from Ian and Lesley on the farm because he must have known that if they saw him like that, they wouldn’t want to be his friends.

  Every morning she and Maggie spent half an hour sputtering along the driveway in the white Corolla. They’d finish by practising reversing and parallel parking near the woodshed where Don got out some of his anger in the afternoon. Maggie was so patient. She still called Kat ‘sweetie’ when she was giving her instructions. It was nice that she never got angry about the piercings. Kat could tell, without a word being said, that her mum was shit-scared she was going to get a tattoo once she turned eighteen.

  On the final morning, as Maggie was explaining why it was so important to slow down on dirt roads, Kat realised how pretty her mum was in a natural kind of way. She must have had the chance to fuck a lot of guys when she was younger, particularly with the whole free love thing in the sixties and seventies. Why did she even stay with Don? He was always pissing and moaning about the bookshop and he looked so weird when he watched the sunset. It was actually embarrassing thinking about how they used to sing Easter songs together.

  ‘We’ll buy you a car once you get your licence,’ said Maggie. ‘No, don’t,’ said Kat. ‘You’ve already done enough.’ She was more interested in finding a way to get to Europe. She’d been saving up by stacking shelves at Coles. It was okay work as long as she was stoned. She could see herself flying over to Europe and never coming back. She’d miss Maggie, but there was no one else she’d miss in this small, backward, bogan country where people couldn’t even be who they really were.

  IAN, 2001

  Then there was the year that Tom brought his new girlfriend, Grace, to the farm. She was a private-school girl, which didn’t sit too well with Lesley. God knew why she was interested in Tom. She didn’t like that they all had to share the same toilet, and she got disproportionately flustered when they ran out of hot water on the second morning. But the worst thing of all, as far as Ian was concerned, was that she’d never heard Paul Kelly’s music.

  Tom and Grace retreated to the living room straight after dinner every night. They didn’t even want to stay up for some Tim Tams and a chat. Ian insisted that they sleep on separate mattresses and he had already warned Tom that there wasn’t to be any funny business. He hadn’t done any funny business of his own until he met Lesley. He knew he was on to a good thing because of how nurturing she was at the beginning. Not that anyone at the farm would have guessed it from the way she spoke about George W. Bush at dinner.

  Ian felt sorry for William, who spent most of his time cooped up in the bedroom with the horrible pink wallpaper. What sort of sixteen-year-old knew they wanted to study medicine? He couldn’t pinpoint the exact year when Tom and William had stopped kicking the footy. He sensed the boys apathy to one another was a sticking point for Don and Maggie, too. There was also a strange tension between Grace and Kat, even though they were polite enough to each other most of the time. At the barbecue on Sunday, they had a heated debate about the merits of body art, which only ended when Kat stormed off and hurled her sausage against the side of the farmhouse.

  On the final night, Lesley flat out admitted that she didn’t like Grace. She was adamant that it wasn’t going to last. As Lesley spoke softly, knowing how thin the walls were, Ian wondered if she was projecting some of her own discontentment on to the poor girl. He knew he’d never know. Even though Tom dated Grace for the next four years, and they were briefly engaged, she never came back to Burnt Hill Farm.

  DON, 2002

  Then there was the year that Kat asked Don to walk to the dam with her. When had she started calling him Don, not Dad? She’d spent her teenage years angry with him for reasons that escaped him. The more he tried to understand, the angrier it seemed to make her. She was about to fly to London, and any warmth that the request ought to have sparked in him was counteracted by his fear that some home truth was about to be delivered.

  They walked in silence through the rye grass, careful to watch out for snakes, then settled on the dry clay by the dam. The water level was much lower than Don had expected. It was a very peaceful spot. He could see why Maggie had liked to read there all those years ago and how it mightn’t have been as much of an affront to him as he’d thought at the time.

  Once they got talking, they talked for over an hour. It was just like when Kat wanted to be a dancer, a singer and an actress. She even teased him for not having a mobile phone; not that he could see what he’d use it for. Don was too afraid to press for a reason why he was being afforded such a pleasant allotment of daughterly time. Then finally, while he was explaining why he didn’t need an electronic database at the bookshop, Kat said, ‘You know I had an abortion, right?’

  Of all the questions that flashed through his wounded mind, all he could think to ask was, ‘When?’ She told him it was when she was sixteen. He didn’t know how he’d missed it, but he knew it was his fault in some way and he knew he’d never forgive himself. He used to feed this girl the froth from his cappuccino with a teaspoon and he used to start writing lyrics for their Easter songs a month before Easter. How could it have all gone so wrong?

  When he didn’t say anything else, Kat started skipping yonnies across the water. She wasn’t even close to crying. There had been life in her tummy beneath that God-awful bellybutton ring. It was the most harrowing thought of his life. ‘Does your mum know?’ he asked at last. ‘She drove me there,’ said Kat.

  TOM, 2003

  Then there was the year that Lesley brought her friend Marcia from the kindergarten along. Marcia’s husband of twelve years had recently left her for his legal secretary. Her wrists looked too skinny to Tom. Even though it put a dampener on the whole holiday, he understood why his parents had invited her. They were good people. Some of the people he was starting to make friends with at uni reminded him of them, always talking about forcing the prime minister to say sorry and how greenhouse gases were going to ruin the planet.

  Marcia spent Sunday morning singing in the kitchen, preparing a pear and walnut salad for the barbecue. At lunch Tom overheard her telling Lesley that she should have seen the signs. Marcia spent the rest of the afternoon in the living room. No one touched the walnut salad, but Maggie emptied a third of it into the rubbish bin to be polite. He could still remember what Maggie looked like sitting half-naked on the toilet, trying to cover herself up. In a strange way, he found the memory more enticing than any he had of Grace.

  Out of boredom, Tom asked Don if he could teach him how to chop wood. Don kept crapping on about how important it was to let your top hand slide down the axe. He said the actors could never get it right in the movies. Tom knew he looked flimsy with the axe in his hands, and he was terrified that he was going to drive the thing into his shins. He slowly learnt to trust himself. The funny thing was, he’d always assumed that whatever logs Don chopped went straight into the fire that night. But Don said it was important to let the wood dry out, and they probably never even got to use any of the logs he chopped.

  The next morning Tom caught Marcia lingering near the woodshed, watching him clumsily wield the axe. He decided not to mention it to his parents. But he could
n’t sleep that night. He kept imagining another meeting at the woodshed with Marcia, getting to know her skeletal form against the stumps of wood. Somehow he didn’t think she’d be afraid of the spiders.

  Tom eventually got out of bed and made his way cautiously along the pitch-black hallway. He thought he could hear mice in the kitchen. He lingered outside the door to the living room, picturing Marcia’s bony ribs going up and down as she slept. He bet she knew things he’d never even dreamt of. How could anyone cheat on her? There were so many things in life just like this, waiting right there for him to take, if only he wanted them badly enough.

  LESLEY, 2004

  Then there was the year of the big HECS argument. Lesley, Ian, Don and Maggie stayed up late the first night, catching up on their lives and firing each other up about the senselessness of the Iraq War. It made Lesley worry about the planet they were leaving to their children and their children’s children. They’d all attended the big demonstrations in the city, even though they were never going to sway Bush and Blair and all those other puppets who thought a war on terror was anything other than an oxymoron.

  It got Ian reminiscing about all the protests they’d attended in their uni days and how an education used to be a free and eye-opening experience. He worried that, given Tom was doing a bloody arts degree, he was going to spend the rest of his life with a HECS debt hanging over his head. Lesley knew there was something strange in the silence from across the table. ‘Aren’t you worried about Kat and William?’ she asked. Not that Kat was interested in anything other than travelling, getting pissed and asking for handouts.

  ‘We paid up front for William,’ said Maggie, avoiding making eye contact. It didn’t have to be something to be ashamed of, which made Maggie’s reaction even more frustrating. Lesley knew that Maggie was propping up the bookshop with the money from her parents’ estate, but she hadn’t realised how flush they were. If they were so well off, why didn’t they get solar panels put on their roof? She could feel her limbs starting to shake. Her knee was killing her. No wonder Tom and William had drifted apart. They probably both knew they were destined for different worlds.

  ‘No, seriously, that’s great,’ said Lesley. ‘But don’t ever make any excuses for him.’ Ian gave her thigh a quick squeeze under the table. Maggie looked like she was about to start crying, which wasn’t going to solve anything. Lesley felt certain that it’d be the last time they all visited the farm. And bloody Don just sat there turning logs over in the fire, feeling sorry for himself as usual, as though there weren’t much bigger issues in the world that deserved his attention.

  WILLIAM, 2005

  Then there was the year that Don pleaded with William to change his mind about not coming to the farm. In the end William gave in, not that he condoned the emotional wreck that his dad had become. He didn’t understand why Don had to read the obituaries in the paper every morning, like he wanted grief to arrive on his doorstep. There was plenty of time for grief. William had already seen his share at the clinical school. The amputee ward was the hardest to stomach. Sometimes living didn’t seem like the most humane option.

  It took him a few days to relearn how to relax. Dad always accused him of seeming preoccupied, but he didn’t see what William was up against at uni. Preoccupied was the least he had to be. Mum made him a strawberry smoothie after breakfast every morning. It was nice to be mothered again. He could tell she was proud of him. He hadn’t given them half the trouble that Kat had over the years. Did they even know the whole truth about her?

  Ian forced Lesley to talk to William about a pain in her knee that had been keeping her up at night. William tried to examine her in the same composed, scrupulous manner as the doctors he’d been observing at the clinic. As he was bending and straightening Lesley’s leg in the kitchen, testing its function, he expected Ian to start making wisecracks about foot massages. But he didn’t. It was strange how all of a sudden everyone had stopped treating him like a child just because of what he was studying to become.

  He finally managed to succumb to the mood of the farm late on Sunday afternoon, lying on the grass under the clothesline, sharing a six-pack of Coopers with Tom. Tom had been at it all day. He gave William shit about the footy game he used to play by himself around the clothesline, but at least he hadn’t been afraid of a windmill. It was funny how neither of them cared about footy anymore.

  William admitted that he’d pissed his pants while throwing mud grenades all those years ago. Tom admitted he was having second thoughts about marrying Grace. ‘Some days I even start hoping she has an accident on her way home from work,’ he said. William knew his old friend wasn’t being serious, but if Tom knew what it really meant to be in an accident, and there was one in particular that stuck in his mind, he wouldn’t even joke about it.

  KAT, 2006

  Then there was the year that Kat showed up at the farm with her friend Neela. They’d met working in an Australian pub in London and had been inseparable ever since. It was even harder for Neela; there was no way she could tell her parents back in Delhi. Kat sure as hell wasn’t asking her to. She hadn’t even told any of her friends. The only reason William knew was because he’d busted her and a random girl she’d met going at it in the laneway at her farewell drinks.

  Don’s first question when he was introduced to Neela outside the woodshed was, ‘Do you follow the cricket?’ Kat apologised to her afterwards. Maggie’s eyes went straight to the Hindu tattoo on Neela’s neck. They slept in the living room, just like Tom and his stuck-up girlfriend had. Neither of them felt like having sex because Kat’s parents were in the next room, but they enjoyed the novelty of sleeping on the floor and having the LCD television on in the background while they chatted late at night.

  Kat showed Neela around the farm and explained everything that had happened over the years. She even showed her the spot where she had made the worst mistake of her life, with Tom. It wasn’t fun talking about it, but she wanted total disclosure in their relationship so that they wouldn’t end up like her parents. As Neela listened to the story, her bold black eyeliner started trickling down her cheeks. When it was over, she put her arm around Kat and stroked her hair, which for the first time in years was its natural colour.

  Funnily enough, the first person to say anything about it to Kat was Ian. As she was drying dishes in the kitchen, watching a crimson rosella drink out of the birdbath, he tapped her on the shoulder and said, ‘I just want you to know I think it’s lovely.’ Even though he sounded ridiculous, she gave him a hug and thanked him.

  Kat and Neela held hands at the barbecue on Sunday. Kat tried not to look nervous and tried to be as opinionated as ever when everyone was discussing the Cronulla riots. But she could feel everyone’s eyes on them and she was terrified of what Don might think but never have the nerve to say.

  MAGGIE, 2007

  Then there was the year Ian decided he would write the great Australian novel. By Easter he was already halfway through his annual leave, but he was only up to the fifth chapter. Lesley was being very supportive. She was more reasonable now that she was taking anti-inflammatories. Every morning Maggie entered the kitchen to find Ian hunched over his school-issued laptop, nursing a mug of instant coffee. She’d never seen him with stubble before. His morning smell was even more pungent than Don’s, if that was possible.

  Maggie and Don made sure they encouraged Ian. But at night Don complained that the whole exercise was self-indulgent and it was rude of Ian to have brought his laptop to the farmhouse. Life as he knew it was a series of small sacrifices, one after another, that had to be made. Seeing Ian working so feverishly on their holiday, writing God knows what, he felt like his friend was spitting in the face of all the sacrifices he had made; sacrifices that denied him such a luxury. Besides, he didn’t see how Ian could possibly hope to crack the market at his age.

  Maggie didn’t bother to argue with Don, because she thought it was all a response, in one way or another, to the Kat situation. So much
went unsaid these days. What did it matter whether man loved woman or man loved man or woman loved woman? It was all the same. He couldn’t ignore Kat forever just because she wasn’t going to give him grandkids. Surely in the end Kat’s happiness was more important than his.

  Ian explained the plot of his novel to Maggie while they were sitting out on the back porch, drinking tea, during one of his three hour-long breaks for the day. Don was having an afternoon nap. Even though the plot sounded a little convoluted, Ian really believed in the story he had to tell. Maggie glanced at the pot plants and the flowerbeds where she and Lesley used to hide the mini eggs when the kids were little. When was it that they had stopped going on their afternoon walks?

  She offered to proofread the opening chapters for Ian. At dinner he presented her with a stack of recycled paper that was already covered in Lesley’s handwriting. Tom rolled his eyes. As she slowly read the manuscript in bed that night, she could feel the scorn in Don’s silence. Despite Ian’s assurances that the story was fictional, all she could imagine in the struggles of the central characters were the lives of Ian, Lesley and Tom.

  IAN, 2008

  Then there was the year that they suddenly had a full house. Tom brought along his new girlfriend, Stephanie. He never seemed to have any trouble finding them. Keeping them was another thing. But maybe that was just the way of the younger generation. Stephanie was more sociable than the last few and she laughed at all of Ian’s jokes. She reminded him a bit of Lesley when she was at university. It wasn’t so much the way she looked as the way she threw her head back when she laughed.

  Kat and Neela had flown back from Delhi the week before and were about to move into an apartment together. Don and Maggie were even going to put up the bond.

  Late on Saturday night, William showed up with a nurse he’d met on his regional placement. She had beautiful blue eyes and it was obvious she loved him from the way she teased him about his awful fashion sense. Things got so crowded that they had to make a bathroom roster for the last two mornings.