Hinterland

by Steven Lang

  Emily all but the last child to emerge, behind even the stragglers, shirt tails out, hat squint, socks around her ankles, unwashed face transforming when she saw her mother. Dropping her bag to come into her arms as if they’d been apart for days not six or seven hours.

  ‘I thought we could go get an ice cream,’ Eugenie said. ‘If you’d like.’

  Emily nodded, as yet unable to speak, still caught in what Eugenie couldn’t help but think of as the enlarged joy of the moment. Her daughter possessed of a thespian’s world view, given to producing dramatic gestures which in themselves provoked more emotion. The extraordinary fragility of this girl who lived in a world only peripherally connected to things: shoes, hats, bags and coats, meals, all being secondary to whatever was going on in her mind at any given moment, even more than was usually the case for a ten-year-old. Nothing to do with intelligence. She was smart, emotionally as well as intellectually, more so even than her sister, but little drawn to other children’s activities. Preferring her own complex imaginary world. Never going to fit in well.

  Taking her hand and making for the car as the long line of school buses fired up their big diesels and lumbered out into the shuffling cars. Asking questions about her day but not getting answers and not expecting to.

  ‘Where’s Sandrine?’ Emily asked.

  ‘She’s walking into town with friends. We’ll meet her there. We’ve got to go out to Lindl’s.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, just dam stuff,’ she said.

  Making as little of it as possible. Negotiating the clogged main street, finding another park, getting her daughter out of the car again, none of which happened quickly. From a short distance away she saw Ange at one of the café tables, bent over her phone, texting, looking more frail than she had in the rotunda, or for that matter at the creek. Younger, more vulnerable, almost childlike. The thought coming to mind unbidden that this was the real Ange, that, unobserved, the girl wasn’t yet anything, was, in fact, only a mirror for other people’s projections.

  As soon as Ange saw them, though, she bounced up, smiling, full of dark piratical energy.

  Eugenie offered to buy her an ice cream. ‘My shout,’ she said. ‘We’re having a treat.’

  ‘Sure,’ Ange said. ‘I like treats.’

  Coming inside with them to choose flavours. Emily shy of the wild girl, keeping her mother’s body between them at all times, behaviour which might have led Eugenie to some conclusion about Ange’s trustworthiness only that Sandrine appeared, coming into the café with two friends. Within moments she had struck up some sort of rapport with Ange. The friends drifting away. As if just the existence of a being such as Ange, with her airy speech and dreadlocks was a fascination.

  Outside at the table, eating their ice creams, Eugenie told Sandrine they were going out to Lindl’s, expecting resistance.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Sandrine asked.

  ‘Nothing, we’re just going there for dinner. Ange is going to come along.’

  ‘Cool.’

  sixteen

  Will

  She’s not returning messages. It’s late afternoon and he’s still not heard a word. Must have sent her twenty fucking texts. Still pissed at him. When he dropped her at the doctor’s they were having the worst kind of fight, about all the usual shit. When Ange’s not happy about something she just cuts him out. It’s what she does. No fucking defence against it.

  Now, when he could be out looking for her, he has Jaz, of all people, telling him what to do. Pick the fucking drums up and reload. Try it again.

  They’re doing a dry run in the paddock behind the house. Jaz’s got them practising unloading the drums out of the ute, emptying them in the creek. You wouldn’t think it’d be that fucking hard to manage. He and Damo are taking them from Ren who’s swinging the bastards off the back of the ute while they catch them, pretend to open them and toss the lids in the back of the ute (there’s nothing to be left behind, no drums, no lids, no fingerprints) lying them down, four at a time. They need to get as much of the stuff in the creek at one time as they can because that way they get a better kill. But also because while they do that, Jaz’s going to be up at the house keeping anyone who’s there busy, and time’s going to be short and it’s going to be dark. This has to be surgical, he says, in and out, no fucking around, but the drums are heavy and they’ve done it twice already. You can see why they might need to do it two times because there was a fucking mess the first time, all on top of each other, but a third time? It’s hot and they’re working without a break and the other two are just sitting there watching. And who is it that’s telling them what to do? The very same fucker who caused the fucking blow-up in the first place. Who was into his girl in the kitchen that morning. Not that he’s going to say shit about it. No point in that. Not now. But if it was any other cunt he’d have already decked him.

  He’d driven down to Brissie to get her a couple of days before. She’d been in Sydney to see her mum. Hard to describe how good it felt to meet her at the airport. They’d talked most nights she’d been away, that’s how serious it was, these calls which went on and on but were really just Ange jabbering on about her mum or her aunty Ann or her cousins and their babies and what all else. Will standing out the back of The House listening hard because it was her and he needed to hear her voice, even if she was telling him all kinds of shit, but also because he had to know if she’d been with someone else, couldn’t live with the idea of it. Not a hint of it, though, just a selfie of her breasts (nothing more) for his pains, to keep you interested, she said, as if she really did miss him. When he looked at her beside him in the passenger seat of the Triton, her feet up on the dash, her skirt pushed up, he saw, again, just how fucking gorgeous she was. Sitting there with him. Coming to him like a kind of pain, which is how he knew it was real.

  What? she said, looking back at him, reaching across to squeeze his balls, D’you miss me then? Resting her head on his shoulder as they waltzed on up the Bruce.

  He drove her straight to the camp. Hadn’t been there since she left. They went in her tent, neither of them giving a shit about it being musty from the rain.

  That night, when they went up to eat, she put her arm through his and it felt as if she was actually there, she wanted him with her, even after they were done, even with other people about.

  The ‘kitchens’ are just a machinery shed, four bays, three of them open on the front. Hay bales for seats, spread round upturned wooden cable rolls. Alt was in the closed section with the cooks when they lined up to get their food. Will saw him through the servery, saw him watching them. After a while he came over. Sat down. Nobody close by. Maybe that was coincidence.

  ‘So, Will,’ he said, ‘you been away.’

  ‘Yeah, but Ange is back see.’

  ‘I do. I do. And you’ve got plans, have you?’

  ‘Not so much, hey.’ Nervous. Alt could make him feel like that pretty much anytime, but in this case he was thinking about the twenty drums he had in the back of the ute, wondering if maybe Alt had got wind of them. Jaz had given him the job of buying the stuff. He’d been to pool places and hardware stores all over the shop, from Noosa to South Brisbane, getting them one at a time, paying cash. He’d figured they were safe locked under the tonneau cover. Now he was thinking maybe he ought to have stored them back at The House.

  ‘Just wondering. I wasn’t sure we were going to see you again.’

  ‘Yeah, well here I am.’

  Alt glanced around the shed. Took out a packet of tobacco, rolled himself a cigarette. Taking his time. ‘Here’s the thing, Will,’ he said. ‘I like you. By all accounts you’re all right with machines. I think I understand you. But I have to say I was glad we weren’t seeing such a lot of you.’

  ‘How’s that?’ Will said.

  ‘We had a few complaints.’

  Alt rolled very thin cigarettes. When he took a drag the thing all but disappeared.

  ‘People round here aren’t so ke
en on your attitude.’

  ‘I haven’t hurt anyone.’

  ‘Scared the living shit out of some,’ Alt said.

  That would be this leatherworker dude. Before she went away. It wasn’t like he did anything, didn’t even touch him, just stepped in and looked at the guy. Not that it was the bloke’s fault, he could see that. Ange did it. She didn’t even know she was doing it. You asked her what she was up to and she said, Nothing, I’m just talking to the guy, can’t I talk to someone now? like he was a fucking stalker when anyone could see she was putting out, shaking her head and twirling her hair and pushing out her tits, her shirt falling off, shorts so short you can see the cheeks of her bum, leaning in close, touching the bloke on the arm, you name it. When she does that it’s like something in him just goes off. Like she needs protecting from herself. Like she needs protecting for him, but she says, afterwards, after he’s stepped in, that she hates it, it’s bullshit, she never wants to see him again, I mean, what happens if one of these guys fights back? You gonna pull a knife on him? and he doesn’t have an answer to that, he says he’s sorry, but it makes no difference. She’s gone. Then later she comes back to him and says she’s sorry, she doesn’t know what it is, but it’s like when there’s something really good in her life she has to run away from it and she curls up next to him and says, I like it that you care about me. Sometimes, though, I’m scared. What about? he asks. That you’ll hurt me, and he says there’s no way he’d do that, no way at all, he’s not his fucking old man.

  ‘The thing is,’ Alt said. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I don’t want to, but I have to. People don’t want you round here.’

  ‘What people?’ Ange said, fired up. ‘I want him here.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s not the point,’ Alt said.

  ‘It’s exactly the fucking point,’ she said. ‘Can’t I have a man visit me anymore? Is that what this is? Just because you’re a bloke you have the right to decide who I’m fucking, is that it?’

  Winding herself up. Loud. Embarrassing him. One for the books. Not a girl who likes being told what to do. ‘You lot,’ she said. ‘You’re all fucking blowins. Will’s the only local in the whole camp but he’s the one who has to fucking leave?’

  ‘This isn’t about where Will’s from,’ Alt said. Staying real calm.

  ‘It’s not?’ Ange said. ‘Who’re you protecting the place for then? Eh?’

  Will not able to speak in case he somehow screwed up the raid. But it was like getting kicked in the guts. Alt might’ve had fucked-up views about stuff but he’d liked him. Something real about the man. Like he really did understand. But when it came down to it an arsehole, same as the rest of them. Jaz was right. They didn’t know shit about the way the world worked. Coming in and telling people who lived someplace what they should or shouldn’t do on their land. Not even asking to see what people thought because they knew they were right. It was like what Damo said, If we hadn’t sold our land to these arseholes they wouldn’t have a say in any of this shit. Never mind the fucking hippies.

  Ange wanted to keep on about it, but he blew it off. Said it was okay, he’d go.

  ‘Well I’m going too, then,’ she said. ‘I’m not staying in this shithole.’

  He took her back to The House. Left the tent and all the gear for another day. He’d never seen her so angry. Pissed at him, too. Letting him have it while they drove over there for not taking Alt on.

  As soon as he stopped outside, but, she changed. ‘You sure this is okay?’ she said.

  The boys were watching a film on the big TV, sound up loud. Ange kind of slipped in, like she was shy, took a chair at the back, out of the way. Not that they even seemed to notice, didn’t want the film interrupted.

  When it was over they wanted to know what was up. He told them he’d been kicked out.

  ‘How come?’ Ren said.

  ‘Too fucking rough for these cunts. What d’you reckon, love?’ he said, turning to Ange, getting a little smile out of her.

  ‘Soon enough they’ll get theirs,’ Damo said.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Jaz said.

  ‘Birrup, birrup,’ Ren said, making like a frog.

  ‘I said that’s fucking enough,’ Jaz said.

  No doubt about it, Ren could be a dickhead. Too much dope will do that every time.

  What makes arseing about with the drums worse is Jaz has a couple of mates, Garry and Clive, up to help. They’re sitting on the back veranda. In the shade, watching, offering fucking advice. Drinking cans of light though it’s only four o’clock and you’d think with all the nonsense Jaz is putting them through alcohol would be off the table. Maybe Jaz doesn’t get to tell everyone what to do.

  These guys come up from time to time. Not together. Garry’s a bikie. A big bloke, getting bigger all the time. He was with Jaz in Bosnia, collects weapons: guns, knives, swords, you name it. Making up for losing his hair by growing a beard and covering every bit of his skin in tatts. Clive’s a skinny little fuck with a nearly shaven head and a way of talking out of the side of his mouth. Slowly. Garry likes to think he gives off this don’t-fuck-with-me vibe but Clive’s the one who has it. One of the things you learn quickly when you get in the army is who to avoid. Clive would be one of them. He works with Jaz in some way up at the camps, or he did until Jaz’s troubles came up. They’re going to drive the other vehicles.

  ‘What’s up with you, Will?’ Garry yells out.

  Will ignores him.

  ‘You not speaking to me now?’ Garry says.

  ‘He’s cunt-struck,’ Ren offers.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ Damo says under his breath, for which Will’s grateful. This is one of Garry’s things, he likes to get a rise out of you. Will’s not in the mood. He’s close to hitting someone. The thing is, but, the more Garry sees he’s getting somewhere the worse he gets.

  ‘Who’s the lucky girl, then?’ he says. When Will still doesn’t bite he says, ‘Maybe it’s the dog? You been getting into Damo’s bitch have you?’

  ‘Lay off it,’ Jaz says to Garry.

  They’re loading the drums back in the ute again. All but done. ‘You figure you can get this right now?’ Jaz says to them.

  ‘Who’s paying for all this shit?’ Garry says. ‘You still on the government’s tit?’

  ‘Sometimes, Garry, you can be a fucking pain,’ Jaz says.

  ‘That’s okay. I can take my bat and ball and be off home whenever you want. What’s getting your goat now?’

  ‘I never was on the government.’

  ‘Technically.’

  ‘Technically,’ Jaz replies, ‘is good enough for me.’

  ‘So you’re saying this one’s on you?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything,’ Jaz says.

  ‘Well you never fucking do, do you?’ Garry says, shaking his head.

  Clive’s sitting on the arm of the sofa, cleaning his nails with the tip of his blade, his beer in a stubby holder beside him. The blade’s a Hissatsu Folder. He showed it to Will before. Assisted opening, as they say. What they used to call a flick knife. He glances up at Will with those oval fucking eyes of his and then looks down again.

  He’d taken her down the beach to get away from them all. She wouldn’t do it in the sleep-out with him. Someone might hear, she’d said, never mind how horny they were, which meant he’d spent the night curled up against her in the single bed, barely sleeping, nursing a bone so hard it hurt.

  In the car, but, just the two of them, she had her hand on his leg, all rosy-like in herself, happy. Still pissed about what had happened at the camp the night before. Taking it personally. ‘Nobody says crap like that to my man,’ she said. ‘I tell you, that lot have shit for brains. They need to listen to some real people, not just their own fucking ideas. They need to listen to people from round here.’

  As if she’d never lived at the protest camp. Going on about it so that he wanted to tell her what was in the back of the ute. Let her know they were onto it. That they had
ways to get around these in-comers and their fucking ideas.

  They went over the north shore, nobody around on a weekday, found a place out of the way to lie under the trees. Ange wanting it just as bad as him, it really had been a kind of shyness that kept her from it at The House. Sleeping on his arm afterwards, their skin prickly with the salt and the sun. Waking up and going for another swim. On the way back out to the ute he stopped for a shower. She asked for the keys and before he’d given it a thought he tossed them to her and she’d gone and unlocked the tonneau cover to throw her wet towel in the back.

  ‘What’s all this?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘just some stuff I got for Jaz.’

  She let it go, which wasn’t like her, she wasn’t one to let much go past, but he didn’t think about it at the time, they were hot and hungry, going off to find somewhere to eat.

  When they went to bed that night she was sore.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, ‘It hurts when I pee. Maybe a bit of sand got in.’

  He was up at five with the others for the stretches and the run, needing to work off some steam, putting up with their jibes for being exhausted from all the exercise he’d had during the night. Let them think what they want. Ange up and about in the kitchen when they got back, in her little denim skirt and some sort of wrap-around that left her belly bare. The four of them coming in with this kind of wave of testosterone, big men in the small room with her in the middle looking at them over the rim of her coffee mug, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the answers Damo or Ren or even Jaz, or maybe Jaz especially, gave to the questions she asked about their routine. Lapping up the attention.

  He went off to shower. Holding it down, telling himself to trust her, because he knew she hated it, he fucking hated it himself. But when he came back out – not sneaking or anything – he just opened the door and there they were, the two of them, alone in the kitchen. Ange in the same place as before, back to the bench, hands resting on its edge, but now Jaz was right beside her, all over her, eating her up. You could see it, clear as if it was written. Ange looking up at him. Fucking purring. Jaz stepped away. Maybe he’d heard the door open. He didn’t turn around to look at Will, he just went over to the sink, as natural as you like, and poured the last of his coffee out. It was the way he did that, more than anything, that clinched it for him, made it certain that Jaz had a hard-on for her.