by Stephen Orr
‘The Titanic … but I need some round bits for the funnels.’
She waited, but guessed he wouldn’t respond. ‘If you want something later, tell me. I’ll warm it up.’
Everyone assumed he was asleep. It wasn’t unusual. He was often asleep by 7 pm during the muster, or after a long drive from town. Snoring by 8 pm; his light and radio left on.
The next morning it took a while to notice. Fay opened his door and saw the made bed with its single indentation. The thought occurred to her, she dismissed it. There were a hundred places he could be. She went out to the lounge room. The rest of the family was gathered around the table. ‘Anyone seen Trevor?’
No reply. Just slowly grinding jaws; Murray reading the Stock Journal.
‘His bed hasn’t been slept in,’ she said.
‘Prob’ly gone to see his girlfriend.’
Aiden looked at him. ‘The car’s still there.’
Silence; as they all looked at Murray. ‘What about the bikes?’ he asked.
Harry jumped up. Ran outside and was back in a few seconds.
‘Just the one.’
‘He’s off on some job?’ Fay asked.
‘No,’ Murray replied. ‘I’ve been awake since five. I haven’t heard a thing.’
Unusual, since it had always been an unwritten rule (even if you were in a shit) that you told someone where you were going.
Aiden stood. Walked outside and they heard him calling, ‘Dad?’ Heard him walking around the house and into the sheds. ‘Dad, where are you?’
Fay was worried. ‘What do you reckon, Murray?’
He took a few moments. ‘Mighta just took off into town.’
‘He always says something.’
‘Well, maybe he didn’t.’
But she couldn’t imagine it. ‘It’s not like him.’
‘He’s been upset,’ Harry said.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘He was very … down last night.’
‘What time?’ Murray asked.
‘When did I go in there …? Six, seven?’
Murray felt the warm breath of history. ‘Maybe we should call the girlfriend?’
Aiden came back in. ‘Nothing,’ he said, standing in the doorway, waiting. Then Fay noticed his keys and wallet sitting in their usual spot on the end of the bench. ‘He would’ve taken them,’ she said, indicating.
‘Right!’ Murray knew this was another problem he’d have to fix. ‘Harry, hop on yer bike, ride down towards the highway. Fay, get Chris, go through the house, the sheds, all around. The bike track. The old airstrip. The yards. And take a phone. Aiden, you come with me.’
Ten minutes later they’d separated and were travelling around and away from the house. Aiden was driving the ute at full speed along the bore run. It jumped, dropped, settled, followed the low land, spun out in sand, gripped the earth and carried on. Murray was holding his door, his feet planted on the floor. ‘He knows better,’ he said.
Aiden didn’t reply. He was searching the distant flats and gibbers for his broken-down or out-of-fuel father. That’s all it could be, he thought. Something technical, something mechanical.
After a silent drive they arrived at Number one. They got out and Aiden said, ‘Have a look inside. I’ll go for a walk.’
Murray waited. ‘You go in.’
‘Don’t be stupid … I’m gonna climb some of these dunes, get a good look.’ He was gone, sprinting across the sand, climbing the highest of the hills in the mid-distance.
Murray looked at the small shack, its door left open to the desert.
Come on, you silly old cunt, he said to himself. Come on.
He approached and slowly climbed the steps.
Come on. If he’s done something he wouldn’t do it here … why would he?
He kept walking, stopped at the door but then went in. It was dark. His eyes took ten or fifteen seconds to adjust: the spare jerry-cans; the containers of water; the first-aid kit. Then he looked up at the few inches of wood he’d been avoiding for so long. It was rough, but there were no marks, no signs, or at least nothing he could make out in the semi-dark. ‘Shit,’ he whispered, feeling his heart race.
Aiden was behind him. ‘Pop, come on, I’ve found him.’
They went out, climbed into the ute and Aiden started it. He pumped the accelerator a few times and said, ‘I can see his bike.’ They set off across the flats. Murray took out his phone and said, ‘I’ll call Fay.’
‘Wait. Let’s see what’s happened.’ He imagined the scene; the accident; the result of their desert chase.
‘Christ knows what he was thinking,’ Murray said, refusing to believe, even now, there was more to his son than Bundeena.
‘He was just trying to get away.’
‘From what?’
He just looked at him.
They stopped beside the bike. Aiden got out, looked around and called, ‘Dad?’ He waited. Louder. ‘Dad?’ Then lifted and shook the bike. ‘Empty.’ He noticed tracks heading west. Walked over and stood beside them. ‘I’ll follow them, you drive.’
They continued for ten minutes, Murray keeping the ute in second, sinking, revving, driving on, Aiden with his head down. The tracks started deep but shallowed. They came across his boots. Aiden picked them up and showed them to Murray.
They continued until they found his shirt; his pants; his socks. Until Aiden said, ‘He’s going round in circles.’ He pointed to Number one, a few hundred metres to the east. ‘Dad!’ he shouted. Louder. ‘Dad!’
The tracks continued into another depression. Now, Aiden was running and Murray was in third, fourth.
‘Dad!’
As it dawned on him how little time they had.
‘Dad!’
The tracks were unevenly spaced, blurred, where his father was dragging his feet. He came over another rise and there he was, lying near-naked under a gidgee tree. ‘Dad!’ He knelt beside him. ‘Dad …’ He gently shook him but there was no response.
Murray got out of the ute and came over. ‘How is he?’
He could see that he was alive, moving, stretching out on the hot sand. ‘Get some water.’
Murray returned to the ute, fetched a bottle of water and returned. Aiden sat his father between his legs and lifted him so he was mostly upright. He took the water from Murray and tried to make him drink. At first he wouldn’t take it, but then started swallowing. Then he kept going until the bottle was empty.
Aiden stood, lifted his father and slung him across his shoulder. He didn’t feel the weight. He carried him towards the ute, waited until Murray dropped the back panel and lifted him onto the tray. ‘Right, you get in, I’ll drive,’ he said to his grandfather. He unbuttoned and slid off his pants and rolled them into a tight cylinder. Then he propped them under his father’s head.
28
When Aiden carried his father inside, Fay knew she’d been right. As he laid him on his bed she cursed herself for not having done more. Discussing it with the others (although Murray wouldn’t have cared). Calling a doctor. Finding Gaby.
But, for now, she realised, they’d have to fix the body. So, she ordered the boys to find extra fans, bring them in, fix them on their father; she washed him with a cold flannel and spent an hour rubbing aloe cream into his red skin. She made him keep drinking and covered him with a sheet as he pissed into a pan from the medical kit. Stayed with him as he slept, or at least pretended to. Said, ‘Aiden wants to call for help,’ and he replied, ‘No, I’ll be better tomorrow, Aunt.’
When she started falling asleep she asked Chris to come and sit with him. When she woke the next morning he was still there.
She was soon back at work: bedpan; aloe; flannel. She stared at him, sometimes muttering comments like, ‘Get you up and about’ or ‘See how you feel tomorrow.’
Later in the morning, he got up, walked to the toilet, returned and sat up in bed. ‘I’m alright now,’ he said. ‘You’ve got stuff to do.’
Instead of going, she just smiled. ‘It’
s always been my job.’
‘What has?’
‘Looking out for you. Murray was never the father-type, I don’t think. I worked that out a long time ago.’
‘So did I.’
‘You wouldn’t remember, but when you were little we all went to the Claradine race meeting.’
He looked up, curious she’d never mentioned it before.
‘Murray was off somewhere and you,’ and she touched his arm and smiled, ‘sprinted across the track in front of the horses.’
He studied her old eyes. Maybe she was making it up. Maybe it had happened. Either way, he sensed, it was the notion more than the memory.
‘So there’s me,’ she continued, ‘off across the track after you, these horses coming towards us …’
‘What happened?’
She tried to remember. ‘I must have got you back.’
He was convinced it might have happened, in some form or another. Perhaps he’d run onto a road and the story had grown. Perhaps it was something Chris had done and she was substituting, like different attachments on her old Mixmaster. Perhaps it was something she’d seen on a telly show, and dreamed into existence. Or perhaps it had never happened at all.
She said, ‘A lot of water under the bridge.’
He didn’t reply.
‘But if it’s come to this,’ and she squeezed his hand, ‘perhaps it’s better to move on.’
He waited.
‘Sometimes things don’t repair … can’t.’
He looked down. ‘Thirty-eight thousand hectares,’ he said.
‘Murray’s carved from salt. You wait for him to change … even drop off the perch … there’ll be nothing left.’
‘It’s all down to me.’
‘So? You ring up, they take some photos, they put them on the internet. Some fella calls, makes an offer, you say, I’m gonna refer you to my father, and if Murray says no …’
He waited. He’d already decided (as he laid awake, bladder-full, during the night). It wasn’t so hard; it was just the mechanics of leaving.
‘It’s all over,’ she said to him.
‘I know.’
‘For the boys’ sake … you and Gaby.’
He waited.
‘I’ve been worried about you for months,’ she said. ‘I knew this day would come. I’m only glad you didn’t …’
He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. She was still chasing him, he guessed, across the track, turning to see how close the horses were.
Harry stood in the shed, looking at the hand, laying his own beside it and comparing them. It was almost a perfect match: the length of his fingers, the curve of his thumb. He ran his hand over the knuckles, between the webbing, along the sharp edge of the fingernails. He guessed it was finished. His father had taken down the photos and burned ‘H. WILKIE 2006’ on the plane of amputation. He took the sculpture and went inside.
Sitting down between Chris and Aiden, he placed his hand beside his plate. Murray was serving stew from a dish. He looked at the hand and said, ‘Not on the table.’
He looked up and said, ‘It’s finished.’
‘Not on the table.’
He made no attempt to move it.
‘Did you hear me?’ He almost threw a bowl of stew down in front of him.
‘I want to look at it.’
‘This is the problem, isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘Causing people grief.’
‘Who?’
Murray decided it was wiser to back off, for now. He gave Chris and Aiden their stew and they all started eating.
The next minute was cutlery on china, the whispers of Fay and Trevor from the other room, a radio left on, somewhere.
Then Murray said, ‘I did have a plan.’
They all looked at him.
‘The Coopers are interested in that land beyond the railway line.’
Again, silence.
‘Jeff Cooper, he’s been asking about it for years.’
Aiden didn’t believe a word he said. More games; more blame shifting. And if things came good, it’d all be forgotten.
‘I’s thinking of going to see him and asking if he wants to make an offer.’ He waved his hand in the air. ‘That’s what I was gonna tell Trev … before all this business. I’m still willing, but I don’t know how this changes things.’
‘How what changes things?’ Aiden asked.
‘This … drama.’
‘You think he … got lost?’
Murray stopped eating. He didn’t know how to have this conversation.
‘You can say it, Pop,’ Aiden continued.
He just ate.
‘He didn’t want to be found,’ said Aiden.
‘Just eat yer stew.’
‘And you know why.’
‘Quiet!’ He slammed his fist on the table. ‘I’ve come up with a solution. Ten thousand acres … even if he only offers a couple of hundred an acre. Next year we restock … it rains.’
All three looked at him.
‘It’s a bit late for that,’ Aiden said.
‘It’s not my fault that he—’
‘It is.’
Trevor was standing in the hallway. He came forward. Fay came up behind him. ‘Alright boys,’ he said. ‘In yer room … I’ll get yer cases.’
They all stared at him. They could see he was tired, but determined.
‘Get your stuff packed,’ he continued. ‘We’re going.’
29
Aiden drove towards Port Augusta. He was still in his shorts, T-shirt and slippers. Harry sat in the back, a case in his side, clothes (a small mountain of them they’d just thrown in) under his feet and across his lap. Shoes and boots. Books (dozens he’d pulled from his bookcase and shoved under the seats and in the gaps between the half-tonne of junk they’d salvaged).
As Murray stood on the porch shaking his head, saying, ‘Nice performance, son.’
By now, Trevor didn’t see the point of speaking to him. He just kept going between bedroom and car, loading, squeezing, telling Harry to get his assignments, his toothbrush, his pyjamas.
‘Leave it to me,’ Murray was saying. ‘Chris can help with the muster.’
Fay had returned to the kitchen to clean up. Her job was done. Things might, in one way or another, fix themselves now. But she would still have to live with her brother. So it was back to the kitchen and the part she’d played for the last forty years. It was back to Bruce Willis and the smell of cheap tobacco, the memory of the Tea and Sugar.
Trevor had put his chair back. As Aiden drove he watched the desert pass, but didn’t feel a part of it anymore. It was just landscape. The grass would grow without him. The animals would still fuck and have their own little children (full of spirit and a million possibilities) but he mightn’t be there to help them breech.
For the first time in a long time, he was happy. He looked at Aiden and felt proud to the point of crying. Everything was right; everything would work out. This was the realisation he’d had, in the desert, as he heard, but couldn’t see, the distant Indian Pacific. Harry, too, would be the greatest man who ever lived. He shuddered when he thought of the accident and what might have happened but fought for breath when he remembered, realised, how much he loved his sons.
There was nothing else now except the three of them, the four of them.
He turned and looked at Aiden. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Why?’
He couldn’t answer. But Aiden knew it wasn’t about Gaby or his mum or his walk into the desert. It was about how they’d been living, for so long.
And then he remembered. Be! He felt in his pocket and the small piece of paper was still there. Be! He didn’t even take it out. He remembered what it said; about the voice of life crying: Be!
An hour after they’d gone, Murray went into his son’s room and lay down on his bed. He wondered how long he’d be gone. Overnight, at least. A few days at most. He wondered why he’d taken so much gear. Bu
t that was Trevor—always the actor. The drawers were all hanging open, empty, apart from some of Carelyn’s clothes; the hangers in the wardrobe were twisted at awkward angles.
Then he noticed a letter on the bedside table. The name, Murray, printed on the front. He sat up, took it, studied it. Opened it. It was written on lavender-scented paper. He imagined what Fay had said to Trevor. He knew she would’ve told him, or at least encouraged him, to go. She had never put down Bundeena roots. She’d never understood the place. But it had been his responsibility to take her in. That’s what no one seemed to realise. It wasn’t about what you wanted.
Time to sell up. If you put it on the market I’ll come back and help you sell it, destock. Then, I take enough to buy a place in town. Somewhere close to Mercy, and the garage. You keep enough for a unit. You decide. My mobile number’s on the fridge.
He screwed it up and threw it across the room. It settled in a pile of abandoned underwear.
The Wilkie men stopped at the car-house. They got out, sat on the bonnet and drank from a bottle of flat Coke Trevor had grabbed on the way out. ‘It’s gonna be hot,’ he said to his sons.
‘Fucking hot,’ Aiden replied, smiling.
‘Really fucking hot,’ he said.
There was nothing but silence; then a B-triple hurtling past. Harry ran over to the old house, with its bonnet walls, its hub-cap tiles, its wind-down windows. He looked back at them and said, ‘This place is so ugly.’ Ripping a hub-cap from the wall, he threw it into the yard. And again. Until Aiden joined him, and they had a competition to see who could throw the furthest.
‘Ugly!’ Harry called. He kicked one of the wall panels, and another. He ripped a few down. He stood on a bucket seat and kicked in a window; another. Aiden joined in. They pulled down tyres and rolled them out towards the highway; they pulled down a row of ornamental carburettors and kicked over a table fashioned from an engine-block. Then they moved away from the house, gathered stones and started smashing windows. One after another, as they laughed, and dared each other, and Harry called, ‘Ugly!’
Trevor just watched, wondering if they should burn it down as well; wondering how Chris would keep, as the sole moving target.
