Beneath the Skin

by Melissa James

  Elly drew into a shadow between buildings and watched the young couple walk past. Just as she’d been thinking of people who couldn’t give up or move on, here were Wirrah and Lani Miraki. Could her luck be worse? How, why had they come to this tiny outback town where Adam lived? She didn’t believe in coincidence to this degree.

  She closed her eyes, remembering the last words Lani had spoken to her with such hate in her eyes before they’d left Moongallee Creek: ‘Gubba! You’re not one of us, and you never will be!’

  The cruellest taunt Elly had ever known. How many times had she heard that, or felt it, in her life? ‘Gubba’ meant ‘ghost’—the original term their people had for the whitefellas when they’d first entered the land and the Eora people thought the pale skin meant they were spirits. Now it had much harsher connotations, much like the German auslander. That was how so many people saw her: a foreigner, or outsider. A lot of her own family had seen her that way, less for her mother’s half-English background than for her upbringing with the Jepsons, while the Jepsons had never seen her as anything but a blackfella.

  A lifetime of standing on the outside, looking in. Caught in the crosshairs between lives and cultures, loved but never understood, cared for but never able to fit in. Even Adam had left her. He’d known and loved her as no one else had for the four years after her mother’s death, but then he’d forgotten her as if she didn’t exist. He hadn’t even recognised her today. She’d turned him on, but so what? It meant nothing beyond the usual male reaction to a woman.

  Being who she was, she’d always known the hope of fitting in to any culture had always been tenuous; she’d accepted it. But she hadn’t realised until now how hard she’d held to the hope of rediscovering something with Adam. But now it too had walked into the mist of disappointment on quiet feet, and vanished without sound. Within an hour, it was over.

  Picking up the broken pieces of her childhood love would be no hardship; she’d done it for years. A week or so, and she’d be gone—because this time, disappearing didn’t mean just giving her peace of mind.

  Adam’s life could depend on it.

  Gibson Desert, Western Australia

  ‘Yeah, I’ve seen that girl a couple of weeks back. A boonger, right? Pretty one, with freckles, and great boobs.’

  Don’t call my Janie a boonger. Don’t look at her body!

  Danny watched Bert with eyes that didn’t feel like his own. He couldn’t explain it even to himself. The other entity inside him was growing stronger, and that Danny worked out every nuance, planned for any eventuality. That Danny—the shrink had said that if he named him something besides ‘the other Danny’ it would make him real, and he, the real person, would be lost—that other Danny knew one thing.

  Kill something, someone, or I’ll take over, it whispered.

  ‘You gave her a lift?’ Danny asked, keeping it casual. Hands in pockets to hide the shaking.

  ‘Yeah.’ Bert grinned at him. ‘I give rides to lots of people. Makes life interesting when you’re on the road. Someone to talk to besides yourself, you know?’

  He nodded. He could hardly believe his luck. He’d been catching rides with truckers up and down the region, from Tom Price to Laverton, from Mount Magnet to Halls Creek. He’d expected it would take a few weeks to find the right trucker, but in eight days, he was with the man who’d taken his Janie away from him.

  ‘Where did you take her?’ Still cool, casual. Fingers twitching in his pockets, curling over.

  A knife … yes, cool and soothing, the feel of it in our hand as we rip through his skin …

  She’ll hate me for it.

  There are sheep in the back, use them, another voice sounded in the back of his mind, with something like regret for what he hadn’t yet done. The one he called his voice of reason—his voice, the one who wanted Janie’s good opinion.

  But the other one was growing stronger, the nameless one who wanted to punish Janie for running away, the one who would take Janie and lock her away somewhere safe, where no other man would ever see her and she’d be his, all his.

  Just like the man in Austria that raped his own daughter and kept her in the cellar for eighteen years?

  His fingernails dug into his palms. Even the other Danny felt sick thinking of that.

  Janie isn’t your daughter, other Danny said, and real Danny felt his triumph. You won’t do that to your own kids. And when she’s had a baby and you’re sure it’s yours, yeah, she can come out then. A baby bonds a woman to its father for life. You won’t have to force her then. It’s just for a little while.

  I had a vasectomy, moron, he told other Danny.

  So? It can be reversed. You can do IVF. All easy. She’ll have our child either way, and she’ll be ours for life.

  The relief of it, the pain fleeing his hands as his fingers relaxed. Janie would only be unhappy for a little while. Then he’d make her so happy …

  That’s it, Danny, you have him now. Control, keep it calm and he can’t take over. Granddad can’t win, either.

  Just watch me, the other Danny said. And you know Granddad always wins. He knows where Janie is, and isn’t telling us until he thinks we’re ready to obey him, like we’re one of his servants.

  Shut up, he snarled. I know what Granddad’s up to. You don’t have to remind me.

  Then why are we sitting here dithering like a girl? Do what you have to. Be a man.

  The sheep bleated in the back of the truck. Inviting him. We’re so easy to do.

  Other Danny whispered, Remember how you did it at Gundawin?

  His stomach churned. He hadn’t eaten today, and that’s when other Danny took over. He had to fill the tank, keep himself strong. Scrabbling in his bag, he found the packet of beef jerky he always kept on hand, and some dried fruit. Can’t just eat meat, it only feeds the monster. Fruit is good for you, yeah, that’s what everyone says. Drink water so your mind doesn’t cloud up. He gets in then.

  He gulped down all that was left in his bottle. There was more in the back of the cab, he’d seen it as he climbed in. He’d grab it when Bert no longer needed it—

  No, you’re not going to win! Real Danny felt the frantic edge to his thought. He was losing control. The attack on the laundry truck had fed the monster. Yes, Monster, that was a perfect—

  Don’t name him!

  ‘I took her as far as the 95 crossroads at Newman,’ Bert was saying. ‘It was a few hundred out of my way, but she made it worth my while, if you know what I’m saying.’ He winked and made a gun with his hand, giving a conspiratorial grin.

  Monster (Don’t name him! Stop it!) tipped his head and considered Bert. A middle-aged trucker with watery blue eyes and rounded brows that made him look perpetually surprised, spiky iron-grey hair, dropped jowls and the belly of a man who sat down for a living, with little better to do than eat and drink on the way to anywhere.

  Janie wouldn’t do it with the likes of him.

  Wouldn’t she? If she was desperate to get away, Monster whispered back.

  She’s not desperate to get away from me. She’s just confused and innocent. No! Stop it! You won’t make me hate her too. It’s Bert that’s lying. You really are a monster—

  But the black mist came over his eyes. All he saw was Monster filling him like pulsing blood, beautiful in his perfect rage. It felt so good.

  No, no, real Danny moaned.

  But when the mist receded and he was back inside his own body, Monster had already used the glass shard he’d taken from the truck and slashed it across Bert’s lying throat. The truck was careering off the road, slowing as it bumped over rocks. The truck was crawling now, but one rock was right in front of it, too big, and any moment now, the truck would tip—

  Snatching up his backpack, Danny jumped from the truck and rolled away just before the cab’s tyre bumped over the sharp-edged rock, and tipped up. It didn’t roll, but as the rock ground into its hydraulics, the truck groaned and made roaring sounds, trying to move.

  It�
�s gonna blow, Monster warned him. Get us out of here. Get us safe.

  He ran around to the cab again, climbed up and grabbed the food and water, all of it, and shoved it in Bert’s massive pack. He found a knife, and took that, too. Then he put another of his little homemade bombs under the dash, just some petrol in a soft-drink bottle and a wick for a timer. The kind of thing that melted under fierce flame, and forensics would have a hard time discovering. Just an accident, really, that’s all this was. Nothing more. Truckers died on the road all the time. He lit the wick. Two minutes and counting.

  About to jump out again, he glanced at Bert, throat gaping like a fool’s mouth, jaw sagging and eyes staring at nothing. ‘I wish you hadn’t asked for it,’ he whispered, almost in regret. ‘You shouldn’t have said that about Janie.’

  No, he shouldn’t, Monster said, in a soft, contented voice. Lots of people ask for death, don’t they, Danny? The stupid ones.

  Yes, real Danny agreed with sorrow as he sprinted back toward the road. I wish they didn’t, but they do.

  The truck blew up a little sooner than he’d planned. Lifted off his feet, he landed face down on sharp red rocks and a patch of thorny scrub.

  You’ll have to make the next wick a bit longer, Monster said.

  He didn’t answer Monster, busy working out the logistics of it.

  Once back on the 95, he began hitching again. South, yes, she’d gone south. Heading for the Nullarbor Plain and the road leading east. She was going home.

  And so was he.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Elly waited for Adam outside the station. The sun beat down, adding pulsing restlessness to the close of day. Shimmering waves of heat rose from the sticky-tar road to the blazing cloudless expanse above. Flocks of sulphur-crested cockatoos and grey and pink galahs took flight from twisted ghost gums, their screeching echoes falling from empty sky to parched ground. It was a lost cry, a lament for so much that could have been—for Macks Lake … and for her. A fascinating and beautiful land gone half arid, half urbanised. She could almost see the thousands of ghost hands reaching down through the millennia, trying to hold on to what was left. A century of farming and romantic transportation by river, now abandoned for cities, jobs and shopping malls.

  A life of promise swamped by fear.

  Adam was walking toward her. Silver ripples of heat curled around his skin, enveloping him in their tendrils. His body exuded steaming haze.

  Just like that, the pieces of childhood friendship she’d convinced herself she could pick up with ease shattered and fell. He was wildness barely contained, a leopard straining on a leash, and it set her heart pounding and warmth blooming all over her skin. She’d never felt so alive, so feminine, yet he’d barely touched her.

  When Aunty Hat told her of the family’s fears for Adam, Elly had reacted on impulse, wanting to lighten his burden. Dressing in a way she never normally would to shock him, she’d expected him to pick up on her game, to wake from his self-imposed sleep. She’d hoped he’d be in the squad car when she’d driven past it that morning. She’d hoped reminding him of their childhood stunts would remind him of the time when life was filled with promise and excitement. Adam needed an enormous jolt to bring him back to the boy he’d been, and she was the woman to do it.

  She had so little time. A week to relive childhood fun with Claudius—and if at the end he put behind him some of the repression of the Jepsons and his stick-in-the-mud Sharon, she’d be satisfied. Anything else was impossible. He’d already lost enough. He needed a woman who’d stay the distance, not one who had to disappear so soon.

  What she needed didn’t matter. She couldn’t let it matter.

  Janie, I’m coming for you …

  She closed her eyes, but the vision burned in her mind day and night. Against the darkness was a pleasant, almost handsome face with skin tanned to teak in the outback sun, startling grey eyes and dark wavy hair. A nose broken in one too many fights, and a mouth that lost its generosity in base possessiveness: the only kind of love he’d ever known. Danny Spencer’s father had died when he was three. After his mother abandoned him a year later, his grandfather raised him. Jeremiah Spencer, owner of Gundawin, a property of half a million acres rich in uranium, was obscenely rich and highly influential, but knew nothing of love, only ownership. He revelled in playing games with people, even his unstable grandson, and had to win—at any cost.

  The last night in Mullalabuk was the recurring nightmare that wouldn’t let her go: Danny’s hands running down the length of her after he’d dropped his knife, while Mickey and Minnie, her darling pup and kitten, stared sightlessly up at her in dumb reproach.

  Blood on her skin, staining her soul.

  This is how much I love you, Janie. Can you see? Do you understand?

  Revulsion and pain racking her, hating even the name her dead mother gave her because he used it—

  ‘Elly? Sorry I’m late. Paperwork.’

  Adam’s voice brought her back from the crest of darkness, washing the unwanted hatred fouling her mouth until it was no more than a hovering spectre, waiting its chance to return. Instant healing, just as he’d always done for her without trying. It wasn’t hard to smile now.

  ‘Hey, Claudius. Like what you see?’ She smoothed a hand over the flame-red duco.

  His gaze dropped to the four-seater convertible she’d bought in Broken Hill, then followed the line of her hand and arm to her creamy, cross-strapped sundress, and to her face. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said in that soft growling voice, making her senses shiver.

  She forced enthusiasm into her voice. ‘Great, isn’t she? An absolute bargain, too. She was a repossession job.’

  He drew closer. ‘You don’t get Beemers at bargain prices.’ He gazed at the beautiful car she’d bought just for him with something near anguish. He wasn’t looking at her or talking about her—and most importantly, he wasn’t asking questions.

  Relieved she’d been able to distract him, she told him how much she’d paid for it.

  His mouth dropped open. ‘Impossible!’

  ‘The bank just wanted its loan covered.’ Laughing, she saw the old magic already at work in him. ‘I thought you’d know all about repos, and what bargains you can get.’

  ‘Mmm-hmm, of course, but I’m a father, a cop. I can’t go around in a car like this. It’s irresponsible.’ The words were almost a parody of what his father would have said—what Sharon would have said – as his wistful gaze roamed the smooth-as-satin dash, the sweep of the leather seats.

  ‘Go ahead, Claudius. Touch her.’ She opened the passenger door, moving her hand along the seat. ‘Soft, isn’t it? Feels so good beneath your skin.’

  ‘Hmm.’ His hand traced each curve and hollow with exquisite slowness, like a lover’s caress, and she smiled. Her wild, reckless, loving Adam still lived and breathed, trying to find his way out from within the hard-nosed cop and the stifled Jepson. ‘She’s beautiful,’ he murmured, almost in silence, as if ashamed to admit so much.

  Time for temptation. ‘Want to take her for a spin?’

  He blew out a sigh, and shook his head. ‘I have to pick up Zoe.’

  ‘And she’d hate this car?’ she retorted in mock-sympathy. Wondering how he’d answer. Was Zoe his child, or Sharon’s?

  ‘She’d love the car, but not you.’ He shrugged with obvious regret. ‘As I said, she’s my self-appointed guard dog against women who look sideways at me.’

  She nodded again. ‘Memory turned into instinct. She’s afraid of losing you, too.’

  He turned away. ‘She was only nineteen months, but she never got over it. She broke both legs, three ribs, and had massive concussion. She was out of it for three days. The only thing she remembers is the pain, and that Mummy went away.’

  ‘I don’t even remember my father.’ She fixed her gaze on the shivering mirage in the middle of the road ahead of them. ‘I lived on the road with my mother for years, moving every few months. I never let her out of my sight, except
when she was at work. She had a boyfriend when I was about eight. I made his life hell until he left.’

  He grinned at her. ‘Why is it so easy for me to envision that?’

  ‘The same reason I envision those big hands of yours itchin’ to get a grip on my red baby’s wheel, going at a hot one-ten,’ she retorted. ‘We’re two of a kind, Claudius. We always were.’

  He looked away, frowning into that shimmering tar. ‘Are we, Elly? Are we still?’

  ‘I think so.’ She paused, breathed in a few times before she said it. ‘That’s how I knew not to come to Sharon and Zack’s funeral.’

  She could see where the anguish hit him: the solar plexus. ‘Thank God someone did,’ he muttered. ‘The clan made it a wake to remember. I got five offers to take the “burden” of Zoe off my hands.’

  She touched his arm. ‘How could I not know how you’d feel, after old Abe?’

  His face softened with the memories of that golden, innocent summer. She remembered too: he was fifteen and a half, a sulky boy cooped up too long after a bout of pleurisy, needing to run; she was almost eleven, a grieving tomboy who knew every hidden rock, billabong and hollow of the farm, but not how to talk to people. She understood his need to run; he shared her love of wild things, open spaces and adventure, and helped her trust people again. From their first day together, she’d felt the impetuous, rebellious heart trying to break forth from the weight of convention and expectation, just as he felt her grief, and accepted it. For the first and last time, she’d met a kindred spirit. Together they’d forged a bond that surpassed Jepson understanding.

  She’d fallen in love with Adam’s dog, Abe, the day they’d met—it was the only way she’d come to Adam at first. The Jepsons had sent Abe with Adam to his grandparents’ farm when he’d needed to recuperate in the country. Adam’s father wasn’t prepared to tolerate a howling dog looking for his master.

  Then near the end of that summer, Abe had fallen asleep and never woken again.

  She’d slipped away from Abe’s graveside after a faltering prayer, leaving a silent, stony-faced Adam alone with his grief. That night, she’d watched in silence from her tree as he’d stolen Uncle Adam’s tractor and taken it on a mad joyride across the fields, tearing up crops. She’d taken the punishment for him the next day. With all her simple child’s heart, her love focused on the boy who understood her as no one else ever had. She’d have done anything for Adam. Anything.