A chorus, half a dozen voices. Someone laughed. The mood lightened a little.
‘Nice one … Now, you’ve all heard my plan and you’re all welcome to join me.’
No one spoke, no one moved.
‘Fine. If that’s how you feel, then fuck the lot of you.’
Louise nearly screamed. ‘Tobe! What’s the rush? Give us a chance to sleep on it, it’s almost dawn.’
Another silence.
‘Okay, fair enough. Listen up, all of you. I’ll be off at sunrise tomorrow. I like the …’ He struggled for the word. ‘… the drama of it.’
Someone groaned. I did the same. From nowhere, thirst consumed me.
‘Water?’ I rasped. It was pathetic.
‘You’ve got to travel light and make your own way here. I don’t want to waste any more fuel.’
‘Water?’ Still pathetic.
‘Bring whatever food you have, we might be on the road a long time.’
‘Water?’ A little louder.
‘I’ll be here from midnight, to start packing people in.’
‘Water?’ Louder again.
‘Don’t be late, because …’
‘Water?’
‘Fuck, what is that?’
‘Water?’
‘Bill!’
Everyone stared, shocked into silence. I waved pitifully. Tobe and Louise whooped happily as they rushed over. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so heartfelt. I smiled, took the canteen from Tobe’s hand, drank deep. Louise reached out, stroked my head, running her hands through my greasy hair.
‘You gave us a fright, mate,’ Tobe said.
I tried to answer, started coughing. Louise parked herself next to me and kept stroking my head. I smiled stupidly, deeply touched.
‘You okay?’
‘Yeah, she’s right.’
Exhausted again, I collapsed back on the couch. Everyone else had fallen into quiet conversation, giving us some space.
‘Lou, mate. Could you maybe fix us a cuppa?’ Tobe asked.
‘Lazy bastard, do it yourself.’
Tobe gave her a funny look. The penny must have dropped; she stood, smiled, blew me a kiss, walked away. I didn’t want her to go, but needs must and all that.
‘What did I miss?’ I asked.
‘What did you hear?’
‘Bit of this, bit of that.’
‘Well, we’re in the shit.’
‘And?’
‘What do you reckon? We’ve got to haul arse.’
‘Hang on …’
Tobe started to interrupt but Louise appeared, stopping him dead. She held out a battered tin cup of billy tea. I sipped at it, felt the burn in the pit of my stomach.
‘Cheers.’
‘No worries. I’ll leave you boys to it.’
There was bitterness in her voice. I mouthed a ‘sorry’ and she winked at me as she walked away.
‘Forget what you heard, mate. All that matters is that you’re okay.’
Tobe stood, addressing the rest of the townsfolk. They were still milling around, still arguing amongst themselves, still debating his plan.
‘Like I said, I’ll be here at midnight and gone at dawn. Now go home, get some sleep.’
Louise’s anger shook the walls. ‘Tobe! This is still my pub and I still give the orders! You lot—whoever wants to stay can stay, there’s plenty of room to rest up before heading home.’
The crowd began breaking apart. I caught Tobe’s eye, waved him over. He bent down, pulled me to my feet, threw his arm around me to keep me steady.
‘Let’s go.’
Louise was swamped; everyone was asking questions, demanding drinks. She blew me another kiss and smiled a wicked smile. I knew that we would have our time; that she would wait for me to come back.
‘Lead on,’ I said.
Tobe didn’t correct me this time, he just dragged me away.
He kicked the door open, helped me outside. Dawn was coming, the sky tinged purple. I took a shuddering step and almost fell over Red and Blue, who were cuddled up together on a blanket by the door.
‘Easy,’ Tobe said, grabbing my arm.
‘Cheers.’
‘I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to her.’
Blue was growling low in her throat. I crouched, held out my hand. Every muscle ached. Blue sniffed me, licked my palm, and stopped growling.
‘Sorry.’
‘No worries.’
I stood back up and took a few steps. My legs shook, threatening to buckle. I caught sight of the transport, swore to myself.
‘Guess it wasn’t a bad dream then.’
Tobe started rolling some bush tobacco. He passed it over, started rolling one for himself.
‘Got a light?’
He tossed me his Zippo.
‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘I feel like shit.’
Tobe smiled grimly. He whacked the side of the transport with his open hand. ‘These babies are armed, to stop cheeky buggers like us getting inside. A bit of a shock will send anyone packing.’
I looked him in the eye. ‘How do you know this?’
He broke my gaze, looked at his feet. ‘You learn these things, out there on the land. Anyway, forget it. You need some rest, that’ll fix you right up.’
He whacked the transport again. My exhaustion and pain forced me to drop my question.
‘You want a ride?’
I shuddered. I’d had enough of the Creeps and their toys. But there was no way I could manage the walk home.
‘Fuck it.’
Tobe laughed. I followed him to the transport, walking slowly with my head down. And then I saw something in the dirt lining the road.
‘Tobe!’
‘What?’
‘Come here, have a look.’
‘All right, all right.’
He wandered over, bent down low. Small footprints were tramped into the dirt. Tobe and I turned back to the transport. The side door hung open, the footprints leading away from it and into the darkness.
‘Shit.’
We stared at each other. I knew we were sharing the same thought—it was the girl. It was Tobe’s fault. If we had left her on the land like I had suggested, she wouldn’t have been able to follow us and hitch a sneaky ride.
‘What do you want to do?’ I asked.
Tobe scratched his chin. ‘Give me a minute.’
He walked away, back into the pub. I leaned on the transport, staring at the stars. My head swam, my legs cramped. The sky slowly lightened as I waited for the pain to pass. Eventually, I wrenched on the passenger door. Locked. I wrenched on the driver’s door, settled myself inside.
I groaned.
‘You okay?’ Tobe asked, appearing from nowhere.
‘She’s right.’
‘Well, let’s get you home then. Red and Blue will be fine with Lou.’
He didn’t mention our stowaway.
‘And what about the girl?’
‘Oh, yeah. I asked everyone to keep an eye out.’
‘Good one.’
‘Are you going to scoot over or what?’
I managed to do so. The cabin was cramped; the dashboard was a mess of dials, more complicated than it probably needed to be. Tobe’s rusted keyring hung from the ignition. I couldn’t tell whether he had hot-wired it or simply had good luck with his souvenirs.
Tobe started the engine. Its roar filled the air.
‘And away we go …’
We cruised down the broken highway, headlights shining bright in the sombre dawn glow. Wrecks and fallen trees occasionally appeared ahead; Tobe calmly steered around them. I opened my window, letting fresh air flood the cabin. The dilapidated houses passed in a blur, giving way to flat empty paddocks and rolling hills of dark bush. I tried to enjoy the ride; it had been years.
Tobe turned the steering wheel sharply and the transport fishtailed. I looked over as he got it under control and pulled onto my road.
‘Sorry about that.’
‘No worries.’
The transport shuddered on the potholed dirt road. I gritted my teeth. Tobe did the same. He stared straight ahead, eyes fixed on the world beyond.
‘Here’s the plan …’
I groaned, exhausted and pained. ‘Save it, I can guess what you’re going to say. You fancy yourself as our hero, leading the tribe in search of a new land.’
‘You just fancy yourself,’ he said.
‘Dickhead.’
Tobe smirked.
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
Tobe didn’t reply, a look both broken and defiant on his face. We kept driving.
Our strained silence stretched on until we reached my driveway and stopped at the gate.
Tobe didn’t kill the engine. He turned to me. ‘You don’t know the half of it, Bill.’
‘Sure I do.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘Tobe, now’s not the time.’
I swung the door open, started to heave myself out. Tobe watched me. He didn’t move, he didn’t speak. I didn’t know what else to do, so I gave in.
‘Tobe, you know that I don’t want to be here when the Creeps show up. I love this place, I can’t watch it burn. So if you’ve got a plan, well, that’s more than I’ve got. But not now, no way.’
He was almost bouncing in his chair. ‘But …’
‘I’m not interested, won’t be until after I’ve had a decent kip.’
He slumped. ‘Okay … I’ll come get you some time before midnight. That all right?’
‘No worries.’ I made it out of the transport. ‘Catch you later.’
Tobe threw me a salute and revved the engine. It roared loud enough to shake the trees. A shadowy shape—some night time animal—raced across the paddock that stretched before me. The roar of the engine built to a scream. Tobe took off in a cloud of dust. I smiled.
Another wave of exhaustion crashed through me.
I steeled myself, took a shuddering step. I somehow started walking, slowly following the driveway.
Twelve
Something broke my dreamless sleep, a shapeless light that steadily grew brighter. The darkness slowly split, and then I was awake. The light drenched my bedroom. It moved, dipped, disappeared completely. The gloom returned. I sat up, felt around for my glasses. Without warning the light came back brighter than before. I rushed across the room, made it to the window and opened the threadbare curtain. The transport was parked right outside, headlights drowning me in their cold blue beams. I shielded my eyes and had a better look.
Tobe was sitting cross-legged on the roof, the girl next to him.
‘What?’
I dropped the curtain, turned away, got dressed in the same clothes that I had worn to the Borough. I felt my way into the kitchen, struck a flame, lit a lantern. I groaned, barely aware I was doing so—the pain of my earlier shock had left me heavy and slow.
‘You get a cuppa on?’
I turned at Tobe’s voice. He still wore his body armour, was still a deadly shadow. All my nagging questions and suspicions returned, only to be blotted out by the sight of the girl trailing behind him. Someone had found an over sized pair of coveralls for her, the sleeves cut off. She was still barefoot. Someone had also taken the time to bathe her; her skin was copper brown tinged with red, her jet-black hair full of tangles.
She could have been an ordinary girl.
‘G’day, Tobe.’
I looked at the girl. ‘And, yeah, g’day.’
Nothing. I gave up, led them into the kitchen and poured three glasses of cloudy water.
‘Here we are then.’
I ignored Tobe. I knew that it would be the last time we would start a ridiculous adventure from the comfort of my kitchen, knew that it was time to leave forever. Never again would I look over the valley or laze under the veranda or sleep under my own roof. All those years waiting, it didn’t seem real now that the time had come.
I couldn’t speak for fear of breaking down.
I picked up the lantern and left Tobe and the girl behind. Thankfully, they let me be. I sleepwalked from room to room, absently touching knick-knacks and trinkets, drifting through the house, trying to take it all in.
I took my time saying goodbye to the old girl.
‘You ‘right?’ Tobe asked when I was done.
I nodded. I didn’t look at him, didn’t want him to see me cry. He patted me on the shoulder, a feeble but sincere attempt at comfort. The girl stared at me, expressionless. I had no idea why she had tagged along. I also didn’t care—my grief welled, threatened to swamp me.
‘Fuck this.’
I knocked off my water and sat the cup down. I knew that would be the last time I would ever drink from it. For some reason, that hurt.
‘You guys should strip the garden. I’ll give you a hand to drain the tank when I’m done.’
My voice was hollow, the words coming automatically. I left Tobe and the girl to it, limped through the house, found my spare pack, crammed in some clothes, gathered up whatever ammunition I could find. I left my tools behind, hoping that Tobe hadn’t done the same. I dithered, decided against taking any more mementoes. I was saying goodbye—a clean break seemed right.
I couldn’t help myself and packed a few keepsakes.
As always, my hat was in its usual place, hanging on the rusty nail that had been hammered into the wall long before I had been born. I plucked it from the nail, put it on, pulled the nail itself from the wall and stuck it in my pocket.
It’s funny that the little things are sometimes the ones that affect us the most.
‘Are you done?’ Tobe was next to me, as sneaky as a spider. There was nothing but sorrow on his face.
‘Yeah, I reckon I am.’
‘Sorry, mate.’
I smiled softly. ‘Thanks.’
We walked outside—he headed for the transport, I shuffled off to the barn. The girl was squatting in the garden, digging in the dirt. She scooped out a handful of earth, rooted through it, and fished out a worm and a grub, then tucked them in her pocket. She completely ignored me. I made a mental note to ask Tobe what was what and why she was with us, and then shuffled on. I opened the barn, hung the lantern from a rafter, hurried over to the tank. I wasn’t sad about seeing the end of that place; one less reminder of bad memories is a good thing.
A roar echoed around me.
Tobe was already backing the transport in. A fog of exhaust had me coughing. The roar stopped but I kept coughing. Tobe jumped out and passed me a canteen.
‘Cheers.’
He was already dragging a hose out, connecting one end to the tank, hauling the other to the transport.
‘Anything I can do?’
‘Give us a hand here, would you?’
He jammed a broken pinch-bar into a latch on the side of the transport. We wrenched on it. Metal shrieked. The latch finally sprang open with enough force to throw us on our arses.
Tobe was already on his feet, feeding the hose into the space we had opened up.
He started the pump. Eventually, a dribble of water splashed back. Tobe was on it quick smart, pulling the hose from the transport and filling a dozen battered jerry cans he had found. When that was done, he hustled onto the transport’s roof.
‘What are you waiting for? Bloody Christmas?’
I passed him the first jerry can, my body creaking like a rusty windmill. He strapped it down. I passed him another.
‘Why do I always get the shit jobs?’
‘Shut your yap, we’re almost done.’
After a while, Tobe secured the last jerry can and jumped down to the ground. He flung open the transport’s side door. I stuck my head in—the girl sat on the floor, sorting through the meagre efforts of my garden. Cactus paddles, prickly pears, desert limes, leathery figs, shrunken fruit, the snake I had killed a few days earlier, some berries from the bush behind the house that I hadn’t realised were edible.
It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.
The girl looked at me, didn’t speak, got back to work. The transport’s interior was packed with crates, strongboxes and more jerry cans. The tang of gasoline was strong. The tools I had been relying on Tobe to remember were strapped against the wall: a fence of shovels, axes, picks, saws.
‘Is the kitchen sink in there too?’
He didn’t laugh.
‘Did you get any sleep?’ I asked.
‘A couple of hours, enough to see me through.’
Typical … I looked at the girl again. I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I had been dying to ask. ‘What’s with you two?’
Tobe frowned. ‘First things first, her name’s Ruby. And you shouldn’t worry about her—she was out in that wasteland a long time, I’m sure she’ll be fine riding in the back.’
‘She spoke, did she?’
‘A little.’
‘What did she say?’
His face grew cold. ‘This and that. Enough.’
‘Don’t give me that.’
He looked me in the eye. ‘Let’s just say that, thanks to a loving family, at least one person survived.’
I suddenly didn’t want to know; it was a familiar story. I broke Tobe’s dead gaze, turned away, trudged outside. The purple-black sky cast everything in a sombre glow. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath.
I took a last look at my property. We all lose in the end.
‘Sorry, mate,’ Tobe said once again, joining me.
I knew he meant it. ‘Yeah, cheers.’ I looked at him. ‘One last thing.’
He smiled sadly and we tramped away, cutting through a paddock of dead grass, stopping at her grave.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
Some night-time animal howled. It seemed all too fitting.
‘But this is it, the day has come.’
I had first farewelled her a long time ago; I didn’t want to do it again. I burst into tears, unable to keep going. Tobe tactfully looked away. I slowly pulled myself together so he could say his piece.
‘Goodbye, love,’ he said. ‘I wish that you were here to come with us. Imagine that, the times we could have had …’
His voice was strangely calm, all his sadness in his face.
‘And I wish it hadn’t been like this. There isn’t a day that I’m not sorry for what happened.’ He kneeled, lowered his head. ‘But you know that,’ he whispered.
The Rain Never Came Page 11
