When there’s nowhere else to Run

by Murray Middleton

  Ian loved having everyone under the one roof. If he listened carefully during the day, he could hear sounds coming from every part of the farmhouse. Taps screeching on and off, water rushing along the pipes, windows rattling, old boards squeaking, low voices and that unmistakable rustling in the ceiling. The only problem was that it distracted him from the novel that had eaten its way into his professional life and, fifty-six thousand words in, showed no sign of nearing completion.

  Instead of a barbecue on the Sunday, Neela cooked a chicken curry for lunch. She promised to go easy on the chilli powder. Even Don got through his bowl without grimacing. Neela explained to everyone what Diwali was. Maggie asked a lot of questions. Afterwards it started to rain, forcing them all inside for coffee and Tim Tams. As they crowded around the kitchen table, with Ian trying desperately to avoid farting, Tom said he had an announcement to make. He clasped Stephanie’s hand and, looking mostly at Lesley, announced that they were expecting their first child.

  The ten of them, eleven counting the unborn gem, stayed in the kitchen for hours as the rain bucketed over the garden bed. Don got the fire going and asked if he could feel whether Ian and Lesley’s grandkid was kicking. He was a strange bugger sometimes. Stephanie didn’t seem to mind. As Ian watched Don pat her knitted sweater, whispering rubbish about literature, sport and politics, he wondered whether he should include the scene somewhere in his novel.

  DON, 2009

  The sun slides towards the dark mountains like an egg down a hot frying pan. Tom is bouncing little Scarlett up and down on his thighs, talking in that funny language that he and Stephanie think they’ve invented. What did Maggie used to call the urge to talk nonsense to a baby? She definitely had a name for it. Tom has bags under his eyes now, but maybe those bags are giving his life some purpose at last. Don’s priorities changed the second Kat was born. Everything since then has been for her and William, even if they don’t see it.

  Kat is tickling the bub on the cheek and making faces. She could still be such an amazing mother. But he knows he’s got to stop thinking like that. Besides, it’s not like she’s doing it just to give him the shits. Not like all those bad haircuts and ugly piercings. And at least she doesn’t rub his face in it like some of the touchy-feely couples that come into the bookshop.

  When is William going to start having kids? He’s less serious now that he’s in a serious relationship. How on earth did he convince such a beautiful woman to shack up with him? It’s hard to imagine him pursuing anyone if it was more practical to be studying. But, at the end of the day, practical is what you want standing by your bedside. It’s still incredible to think that people’s lives are going to be in his son’s hands.

  Ian and Lesley are marvelling at every sound that comes out of Scarlett’s mouth. It’s impossible to talk to them for a whole minute these days without seeing their eyes searching for the bub. They’re talking about taking swing-dancing classes once Lesley’s back on her feet. It’s easy to picture them shuffling around in a room full of twenty-year-olds, out of time with the music, enjoying every second of it.

  Is Maggie annoyed that he’s never danced with her? It’s probably the least of her annoyances. He never meant to give her so many. Sometimes he can hear himself starting up on a rant and at the same time another part of him knows it’s not worth going through with it. But there’s nothing he can do about it all now. What matters is that they’ve stood the test of time. They’ve even stayed together long enough to see a black president of the United States of America.

  ‘Do you mind if I hold Scarlett?’ he asks Tom. She groans when he starts cradling her and looks like she’s about to start bawling. The pinkie finger should fix it. It always used to calm Kat down. He loves the slippery feel of the bub’s saliva. An entire human hand wrapped around his puffy, wrinkled finger. Who would have thought it? The whole thing probably comforts him more than the child.

  Everyone goes silent as the golden glow spreads across the paddocks one last time. There’s nothing but beauty as far as the eye can see. Even Scarlett senses it. Don tries his best not to cry. He knows that there is still gold in the hills all around the farmhouse and that there always will be.

  By Ian Sinclair

  JUBILEE MILE

  It was a bit of an impossible situation. At least, that’s what Emily’s mum called it when she was explaining why Emily would have to catch the bus to school for the first time in four and a half years. If it wasn’t for the school play opening the following night—and Emily playing the lead female in it—she was sure her mum would have let her stay home with Aunt Marilyn. She always used to look up to her aunt, who had shown up at their house the night before, unannounced, sporting a black eye.

  The bus huffed and puffed its way past Home Timber and Hardware, the Gateway Motor Inn and the rundown timber cottages along the creek. They were stuck behind a truck full of sandbags. It was a freezing morning. The power lines stretched across the grasslands, disappearing into the mist. The parallel pylons looked freaky up close, like something plucked from the pages of an old science-fiction book. Emily had no idea where they started and where they might end.

  A group of girls at the back of the bus were making an awful racket, trying to coordinate the harmonies of a song called ‘Firework’. Emily had seen the clip on The Loop at Maddie’s house and it was the most laughable thing ever. One of the girls couldn’t hit a high note to save her life. Their wailing was drowning out the song on the driver’s radio, which he’d set to a station that played ‘classics’ from over twenty years ago. Her dad was always listening to the same station when he picked her up from school in the afternoon. Even his singing was better than the girls’.

  The bus driver grunted whenever a kid greeted him. Some of the boys from the junior campus sniggered as they walked along the aisle after validating their tickets. It was hard to tell whether the driver gave a crap. He had a greying beard that matched his wiry hair and he kept drinking from a big plastic coffee cup. All of his weight converged at his stomach to form a rounded swell beneath his fluffy red vest. His posture was the worst Emily had ever seen. His cheeks were an inflamed red, almost purple, not unlike her aunt’s cheeks.

  She watched him stare lifelessly out the windscreen as the bus started climbing the hill, passing the last of the service stations and making its way towards Valley Steel Sales. She spotted Sam Kowalski’s house. The after-party was going to be there once they’d bumped out on Friday night. There was a picket sign next to the driveway that read: FIREWOOD RED GUM $150 FREE BAG OF KINDLING. The sign had gone up three months after Sam’s mother passed away from breast cancer. Emily felt relieved when he wasn’t standing with Maddie at the next stop.

  ‘Oh my God, what are you doing on here?’ said Maddie, smothering Emily in a big hug, something she’d only started doing since the summer holidays.

  ‘Mum had some other stuff to do this morning.’ She didn’t want to mention Marilyn. She hated it when the other kids at school, particularly some of the girls in her year, made a melodrama out of their problems. Most of the time they weren’t even real problems.

  ‘I am totally freaking out about the play,’ said Maddie.

  ‘You’re barely even in it.’

  ‘I know. I’m just worried I’m going to trip over on stage or do something embarrassing in front of everyone.’

  Emily laughed and shook her head. ‘You’ll be fine, trust me.’

  ‘It’s easy for you, you’re a natural at it.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ said Emily. She could feel the colour rising to her cheeks and she hated herself for it.

  ‘Do you mind if we quickly practise our scene?’

  Emily shrugged. ‘Sure, if you want.’

  They ran through their lines twice. Maddie kept stuffing hers up. The bus pulled into the terminus that overlooked the football oval. Emily made a point of thanking the driver before getting off the bus. He didn’t respond. Maddie started rehearsing the scene again and Emily listened absent
ly as she breathed in the smell of the eucalypts. She loved the smell of wet bark. It was much nicer than any perfume. She noticed the hideous mural on the wall of the underpass that she’d helped to paint in her first year at the senior campus. Predictably, she’d painted a brown filly galloping towards the winning post.

  ■

  In English class, her teacher was listing persuasive writing techniques on the whiteboard: inclusive language, alliteration, repetition, use of humour, metaphor and, of course, rhetorical questions. They were all so obvious, thought Emily, her eyes drifting to the window. Three crows were squabbling over a sandwich in the courtyard and an aeroplane glided below the clouds until it disappeared from her line of sight. She was still annoyed about being cast as Oriel Lamb. Why hadn’t they let her play Dolly Pickles? There hadn’t even been any auditions. Once, just once, she wanted to play a train wreck, cheating on her husband, fighting with her daughter, staggering around the stage and passing out. Was it too much to ask?

  Sam Kowalski—who was playing her husband, Lester—was copying the writing techniques into his exercise book. Some of her friends, particularly Maddie, had started teasing her about Sam. He was a good actor, probably the second best in the class. The main problem was that he hung out with the footy boys who always came in stinking of sweat after lunch. Some of their answers in class made her feel embarrassed for them. Sam had started growing a blond moustache in recent weeks. She wondered, at odd moments, when he was going to shave the thing off.

  Another aeroplane glided past. She’d never been on one. It was difficult to fit long trips in around her dad’s schedule. Marilyn used to fly overseas every winter. Her aunt had always had an exotic, almost tropical aura. No one else Emily knew wore colourful Balinese dresses to the races. When Emily was little, she thought Marilyn was cultured in a way that none of the other local women ever could be and she firmly believed that it was because her aunt got to fly on more aeroplanes. Whenever Marilyn visited them, it was as though everything slowed down and took on a more casual feel.

  The first thing Marilyn always did when she visited on Christmas Day, aside from fixing a drink, was walk out to the stables. Sometimes Emily caught her kissing the horses between the eyes and whispering to them. Marilyn had named Jubilee Mile, her dad’s most famous racehorse. She used to brag about it every Christmas. A friend of Emily’s parents’ from the farmers’ market once observed that the family all talked about Jubilee Mile as though she was Emily’s sister. At the time Emily had thought it was a compliment.

  She remembered a party at their house years ago, after Jubilee Mile had run second in the Seymour Cup. Everyone was happy. Even her mum’s cheeks were flushed. Late in the evening she’d gone exploring and had found Marilyn trapped underneath her boyfriend Dan in one of the vacant stables. They were both wriggling about and groaning. Marilyn had a strange, widemouthed expression. When she finally noticed Emily, she yelled, ‘Dearie me!’ and jumped up, brushing the straw off her dress. Dan gave Emily a piggyback ride back to the house, breaking into a gallop and whinnying.

  Dan was always so much fun to be around. He was ten years younger than Marilyn, but they seemed to be ‘on the same wavelength’, as her mum put it. He had hair down to his shoulders, he played guitar and he knew all kinds of card tricks. Emily always made sure there was a deck handy come Christmas Day. It was sad the year Dan didn’t show up to do card tricks. Since then, Marilyn had brought a number of men along who all made Emily feel uncomfortable in a similar way. One of them said he made his living betting on the greyhounds. Another borrowed Marilyn’s car one morning and never returned it. Last year’s man—a chef at the RSL—dropped by late one night in tears, asking her parents for money.

  It was funny now, thinking back on it all. When Emily was younger, she had wanted to wear the same lipstick as her aunt and she had wanted to laugh her aunt’s happy laugh because it was so contagious. She even tried to hold her plastic cup with the same cocked wrist when she was drinking lemonade at her friends’ birthday parties. Marilyn knew how to have fun. Not like Emily’s parents. Their lives were bound by rules, many of them way too strict, and they always seemed to want to limit the amount of fun everyone was having.

  But now, after seeing Marilyn’s half-closed eye when she’d answered the front door the night before, and overhearing her parents consoling Marilyn in their bedroom, Emily pitied her aunt for the first time.

  ■

  As soon as the lunch bell rang, Emily hurried out to the football oval. It was soaked and covered in stud marks. Her shoes quickly became caked with mud. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but she wasn’t in the mood for the gossip of the canteen. It always stank of dim sims anyway. She turned around to make sure no one was watching then made her way down a slope behind the cricket nets. At the bottom of the slope, she found a trail that looked like it led into the heart of the nature reserve. She’d never followed it before. There was a rehearsal straight after school so this was the last chance she’d get to spend any time alone. Her chest felt lighter already.

  There were tyre marks all along the trail. Brown water trickled beneath the embankments and kangaroo droppings were scattered on the wet grass. After walking for ten minutes, Emily rounded a bend that opened out onto a lake where a rusty dinghy was moored. Beside the boat was a sign reading: PRIVATE PROPERTY NO FISHING NO SWIMMING. The reflection of the eucalypts on the water’s surface reminded her of the Impressionist paintings they’d studied in art history.

  ‘Greetings, Ms Corby,’ said a familiar voice, startling her.

  She glanced to the right and saw a man sitting on a big rock no more than ten metres from her. It was Mr Whitlock, the most popular teacher at school. He was wearing a grey duffle coat and holding a purple book.

  ‘I wasn’t aware that students were permitted to leave the school grounds at lunch,’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘I trust you have a note from your parents.’

  ‘No, sorry.’ She considered using Marilyn as an excuse, but decided it might make her seem weak. ‘Are you going to tell anyone?’

  He massaged his sharp chin and smiled cryptically. ‘Should I?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Seeing as we’re no longer on campus, you can probably call me Jonathan.’

  She felt herself smile. ‘Okay, Jonathan.’

  ‘Much better.’ He removed a bookmark from his coat pocket and slotted it into the book.

  ‘What are you reading?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Nothing exciting, I’m afraid. It’s just a style guide. We teachers don’t get much time for what I like to call pleasure reading.’

  ‘We don’t either with all the homework you guys give us.’

  ‘I can assure you we’re only retaliating,’ he said, raising both hands as though he was surrendering.

  ‘So are you going to dob me in or not?’ she asked, surprising herself with how unafraid she sounded.

  He smiled again and laid the book down on the rock. She’d never had him as a teacher. When he took spare periods, all of the students seemed to be on familiar, kind of friendly terms with him. She’d never seen him lose his temper, or even come close.

  ‘So, the play,’ he said. ‘How are the lines coming along?’

  ‘Fine. I’ve known them for weeks.’

  ‘Any nerves?’

  ‘No, I don’t really get that way.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Emily wished that Marilyn could bring a man like Mr Whitlock to their house next Christmas Day.

  ‘Are you coming to see it?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘What night?’ She hated herself for sounding so obvious.

  ‘Tomorrow. I’ve been looking forward to it actually, which is a bit of a rarity when it comes to school productions. Many moons ago I studied the novel. Back before penny-farthings became obsolete.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘Let the record show, that was a joke.’

  Emily tried to laugh, but instead produced a fake, high-pitched sound that
was unlike any other she’d ever heard herself make. ‘I wanted to play Dolly Pickles,’ she said. ‘But they made me play Oriel.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Oriel? She’s probably the most important character in the book, or play, rather.’

  ‘She’s too serious.’

  ‘Who cares? Oriel’s the unsung hero. Without her, the whole house would fall apart.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Trust me, it’s a great role. And I’m sure you’ll nail it. You were great in Antigone last year.’

  A strange thrill raced through Emily’s body when she realised that he was aware of her theatrical past. In the seconds that followed, it became more of a tingle.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit down for a minute?’ she asked.

  ‘Be my guest.’

  She sat on the edge of the rock, centimetres away from the style guide. Mr Whitlock glanced at his watch and started absently inspecting a patch of moss with his fingers. He was an odd man, she thought. The only thing she could remember hearing about him was that he used to teach in the city.

  ‘You’re obviously very serious about acting,’ he said. ‘Is it something you see yourself pursuing?’

  ‘I’m not really sure. I think maybe I’d rather be a vet.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, nodding. ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Whenever the vet comes to the stables, she seems so at peace around the horses and the horses look more peaceful around her. I kind of envy that.’ Emily stopped and dug at some moss herself. ‘I don’t really know if that’s a good reason to want to do something.’

  ‘Of course it’s a good reason,’ he said, looking at her so hard that something seemed to plummet inside her chest. ‘What was it Churchill once said? “The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man.” ’

  She tried to laugh without making that weird, high-pitched sound again.

  ‘Has your dad trained many winners lately?’