The Practice Baby

by LM Ardor

  Maybe she’d missed the town.

  When the road widened a little she pulled over to check Google maps. There was no phone reception. She was getting as technology-dependent as the kids. She checked the odometer. There were another six kilometres to go.

  In ten minutes the terrain flattened out and the forest was replaced by scrub. She overshot a turn to the left, then noticed a stone chimney half overgrown with lantana. This must be the place. She turned around. The side road was signposted ‘The Eldrich Historic Pub’.

  Dee drove around the several blocks of what may once have been a town. There were half-a-dozen old stone buildings still standing and more that were just a chimney or a wall in an overgrown garden.

  The pub was a traditional building surrounded by a veranda. There were tables and chairs and a sign that advertised live music on Saturday night. A car and motorcycle were parked outside. It was the only place that looked occupied.

  Halfway along the veranda there was a sign ‘Post Office’, a bank of PO boxes and a half fly-screen door. She had arrived at Majors Creek Post Office.

  35.

  The rickety screen door slammed behind her and a bell tinkled. She had stepped back forty years. There was a high counter, brass scales and a rack of ink stamps. The wooden pigeonholes behind the counter had six letters scattered among them. The floor was dusty and the light that entered through a torn holland blind gave the whole space the sepia tone of an old photograph. A pile of cartons sat in the corner and several addressed boxes on the floor. On her right, a rack of prepaid envelopes and express post satchels reassured her that this was a current post office but there was no sign of an official or service person.

  Dee perused the framed ‘paintings by a local artist’—lurid sunsets over the valley and a pretty drawing of the old hotel she was standing in.

  After several minutes she opened and closed the door—the faint tinkle didn’t summon any of the spirits who inhabited the place.

  The bar next door had a dartboard hung underneath a large TV broadcasting cricket to two elderly men perched on stools. Both had a schooner of beer in front of them and appeared balanced by elbows resting on towelling strips along the edge of the bar.

  A woman with a face like crushed tissue paper and hair dyed an unnatural black greeted Dee.

  ‘You’re too late for the counter lunches but there’s two pies left. Beer?’

  ‘No thanks. I’m here for the post office.’

  ‘I’ll meet you there.’ The woman stepped through a door at the end of the bar and waved Dee towards the veranda.

  Inside the post office, the woman wiped her hands on her apron and pushed at a loose strand of hair at her neck.

  ‘Yes, love?’

  Dee could see that a direct request for information was not likely to succeed. Why did she think she could just come and expect people in this remote area to trust her?

  ‘Yes. Can I buy three envelopes and stamps. And I’d like to have them franked as coming from here. Is that okay?’

  ‘Post them here and they’ll be franked from here,’ the woman said as she handed over the goods.

  ‘Okay, I’ll have these postcards too then.’

  ‘The stamps are cheaper if you just put them on the postcard without envelopes,’ the woman said with a shake of her head.

  ‘Good idea.’ Dee handed back the envelopes. ‘I might take you up on that pie and a middy too.’

  ‘Veranda?’

  ‘Inside maybe, it’s a bit cooler.’

  Dee sat at a round laminex table in the corner of the bar and ate her pie. Fat, meat, carbs and salt uncontaminated by anything healthy. The beer was perfect with it and washed away the dust of the seventy kilometres of dirt road.

  She addressed the postcards to the kids and Raj, and sent one to Rob as well, let him wonder what she was doing away in the country. The old men at the counter talked about the cricket, old games and old players but with sideways glances at Dee.

  On the screen a century was scored by a young player, his first.

  ‘You must have seen plenty of those?’ said Dee.

  ‘You’re not wrong there, love. What’ya say, Eddie?’ The man closest to her had silver hair combed straight back from the top of his head and a generous dusting of dandruff on the waistcoat he was wearing in spite of the temperature.

  Eddie was more casually dressed in a cotton shirt, braces and jeans with a pale corduroy cap pulled down over his forehead. He nodded and pushed out his lower lip.

  ‘Eddie knows all the scores from Australia’s first test on. Ask him anything.’ This brought another nod from Eddie who was now staring at Dee rather than the TV.

  Dee had some knowledge of cricket, mostly from James, an elderly test player who was a patient. He always had to go through all the latest cricket news before he’d let her deal with his multiple illnesses.

  It was enough. By the time she’d finished her beer Eddie was talking to her too.

  *

  When the cricketers broke for tea, Cedric, the older and more sociable of the two, asked, ‘And what’s a young lass like yourself doing all the way out here?’

  ‘Ah, I just brought the kids down to the coast for the holidays and I heard a friend was staying up here somewhere and thought I’d look her up.’

  ‘Staying around here, you say? This is it for places to stay, ain’t it, Eddie?’

  ‘I’m not sure where she’s at though. She sent a letter from here last week, Friday around two in the afternoon.’

  Cedric climbed down from his bar stool and sat next to Dee. He made Eddie come over too. ‘C’mon, you old sourpuss. How often do you have an attractive young woman wanting to talk to you?’

  The smell of ingrained beer and sweat when Eddie sat down were strong enough to make Dee’s eyes water. Cedric appeared not to notice.

  ‘Another beer?’ Dee asked.

  She bought a round and switched to the draft brew the old men favoured.

  ‘And what’s your friend’s name then?’

  ‘Leah.’ Cedric and Eddie shook their heads. Dee pressed on. ‘She’s young, about twenty and a bit of a hippy. Probably doesn’t drink either.’ Dee bit her tongue. She didn’t want to give away that she wasn’t Leah’s best friend, but Eddie and Cedric didn’t react.

  ‘Know anyone called Leah, Misty?’ Cedric called to the barmaid. Misty was a ridiculous name for a woman of seventy.

  ‘Posted a letter last Friday?’ Cedric continued.

  ‘Joe was working Friday; he’ll be in later. Don’t know any Leah,’ said Misty. ‘No one new around here; no young girls are going to get away unnoticed.’

  Dee shuddered as she wondered what that might mean. The beer had gone to her head. She and ‘the boys’, as Misty referred to them, were on their third schooner. Dee had to keep up or they’d clam up. She hoped for an introduction to Joe later if she could still speak. There was no way she’d make it back to Moruya tonight. She found her mobile in her purse but there was no signal.

  Eddie smiled. ‘No service on that up here,’ he said with some pride. ‘You’re not in the city anymore.’

  On the veranda there was a public telephone in working order. She hadn’t seen one for years. With her credit card, she called the kids. None of them picked up. She left a message that she would have to stay overnight.

  *

  The bedroom was taller than it was wide. There was a narrow bed against each of the side walls and a window opening onto a shed housing a generator. Each was covered with a dusty brown bedspread from the fifties. The bathroom was down the hall. It had an ancient bath with a handheld shower. The linoleum on the floor was cracked and sticky with a crusty bloodstain on the floor next to the toilet. Dee decided to stop drinking beer to avoid having to use the facilities too often.

  Around sunset the oldsters toddled off in opposite directions towards what looked like abandoned houses. Misty had disappeared into the warren of tumbledown, tin-roofed lean-tos attached to the back of the pub. Dee mo
ved onto the veranda to watch the sun go down over the paddock opposite. In the slanted evening light, the bramble-covered ruins of a stone house and the silver grey fencing of the paddock softened to romantic ruins.

  The sun went down leaving only reflected light above the hills to the east. An intense buzzing sound from the south gradually grew louder. After some minutes a huge motorcycle pulled up with a growling purr. The rider, a tall stringy man, took off a black full-face helmet to reveal a weather-beaten face and straggly blond hair in a ponytail. His black leathers were scratched and worn. He took off his gloves and Dee noticed that his nails were kept long and filed at an angle—a guitarist. His eyes, protected by his brows, were less damaged, not as old, as the rest of his skin. He was lithe and easy in his movements without the stiffness of even a forty-year-old, she thought. He might be anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five, a country boy, weather-beaten before his time. His eyes flicked quickly past the older woman sitting alone on the veranda. He walked straight into the bar.

  *

  Mosquitoes appeared with the twilight. Once they started to attack, Dee had an excuse to retreat inside. The bikie was behind the bar. He must be Joe.

  She sat on a stool at the bar.

  ‘You’ve got some enthusiastic mozzies up here,’ she said to cover the embarrassment of following him inside.

  He nodded.

  ‘Drink? Or something to eat?’ he asked and handed her a menu and drinks list.

  Dinner was steak or burgers with chips or mash. Misty reappeared. She offered to defrost some sausages or a veggie burger if Dee wanted them.

  Joe said he’d have a steak with the lot and a glass of red wine. He probably got free meals in return for manning the pub when Misty was away.

  Dee took the lead from Joe and chose steak and chips. It would be cooked fresh and hard to get completely wrong.

  ‘This is Joe,’ said Misty after she had poured him a glass of red from a two-litre cask from the fridge. ‘This lady wants to know about last Friday.’

  Joe grunted noncommittally. It was hard to tell if he was shy or surly.

  Misty disappeared into the mysterious rear of the hotel.

  ‘How’s the red?’ Dee asked.

  ‘Drinkable.’ He looked at her for the first time.

  ‘Do you have anything that’s more than drinkable?’ Dee asked with her best smile.

  Their meals arrived together. Misty set one table for both of them. Dee poured a second glass of red for Joe from the bottle she’d bought. She asked if he knew Leah. He didn’t deny knowledge of her. That was as good as an admission that he knew the girl. He didn’t give much away but wasn’t hostile to Dee’s questions.

  She didn’t have to drive anywhere. Another glass or two of wine and he would hopefully trust her.

  36.

  As promised, Joe was outside with his bike at first light. There was no sign of Misty and the kitchen and bar were locked. Dee mixed the instant coffee with long-life milk from her room and swallowed it straight down while he waited. Their quest was to reach Bendethra, a remote valley accessible only by high-level four-wheel drive.

  At first Dee sat back. She balanced with a light touch at Joe’s waist. As they turned onto the old fire trail she slid her arms further around his sides and clung to him like a limpet. The gravel road sloped steeply downwards towards a sheer drop on the right. Dee hung on, arms linked around Joe’s skinny torso.

  She could see where his leathers got their scratches and scrapes. She was wearing trousers but the thin fabric, and her skin, would be shredded by the gravel if Joe misjudged a turn. Already he tilted the bike close to horizontal on the corners. Her leg was only centimetres from the rough surface. If they came off, she’d be crushed by the heavy bike—she stayed tense ready to fling herself backwards if Joe lost control. It could be days before anyone found them.

  Would Misty sound the alarm? Or was her old hippy brain damaged by too many drugs? Dee couldn’t think of her as a competent person. Misty wasn’t someone to rely on.

  According to Joe the letter was brought in by a mountain man, Jim Davies, who had come to set up a retreat from civilisation in the seventies. His followers had come and gone for a few years but now there was just the old man, living self-sufficiently in the remoter reaches of the already remote Bendethra National Park.

  The trip went on and on. Dee wanted to ask how much further it was but she knew Joe wouldn’t be able to hear her. After an hour of relentless ups and downs, clinging to the sides of jagged hills, they came to a green flat clearing with a river meandering over flat rocks. Shadows still ruled the depths of the valley but it would be idyllic once the sun was overhead.

  Joe slowed and Dee let go with one hand to rap on his helmet.

  ‘How much further?’

  Joe took off his helmet and got off the bike. Dee did too. She stretched her arms and legs to unlock them. He set the bike on its stand.

  ‘Who knows. Jimmy moves about a bit; and he ain’t keen on visitors, especially unannounced visitors.’

  ‘Well if I knew how to announce myself then I wouldn’t need to risk my life on the back of your bike,’ Dee said with more spirit than she meant to reveal.

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be okay,’ he said kindly without any reaction to her criticism. ‘I’ll have a bit of a scout around. You stay here.’

  The bike roared off and Dee was alone. Would he ever come back? Would anyone find her down here? Would they think to look?

  Her throat was dry and her head was stuffed with cotton wool that was expanding and contracting in rhythm with her breath. The helmet and the dust from the road? More likely the beers and red wine yesterday. Why hadn’t she brought water?

  The sun slowly crept onto a patch of dark green grass right at the edge of the stream. The sparkle of light from the water triggered jagged lines across the vision of her right eye. She hadn’t had a bad migraine since menopause. It wouldn’t be good on the back of a bike. There were aspirin at the bottom of her handbag. She’d have to drink unboiled water from the stream. How many diseases could she get? Hepatitis A she’d been vaccinated against; what about giardia?

  A clip-lock bag she still had from playing detective at Tom’s flat served as a cup. The water was fresh, delicious, like no water she’d ever drunk. She drank several bagfuls and washed cool water over her throbbing head and face. She took off her shoes then waded to ankle depth to wash her dusty feet in the stream. There was nowhere to sit comfortably so she lay on the soft cushiony grass face down with her back in the sun. She was a kid with no cares, the child she’d been on summer holidays in Moruya.

  *

  The wet sound of chewing woke her and she opened her eyes to see a wallaby nibbling the grass inches from her face. Slowly she moved her head to look around. There was a smaller animal next to the dark-faced creature near her. Both looked suddenly towards the bush off to the right and the joey leapt headfirst into its mother’s pouch then the mother bounded away with a pair of spindly legs sticking out from her middle.

  As she lifted her head Dee couldn’t see or hear anything that might have spooked them. Then a movement came from where the wallaby had looked. Dee gasped, then realised it couldn’t be anything dangerous—it was probably only a bird or a possum. Still she stayed still and stared at the spot. The red new tips of the saplings quivered for a moment and all at once the figure of Leah differentiated itself from the bush.

  ‘Dr Dee,’ she shouted, ‘are you okay?’ She ran through a few metres of low saplings and strands of bark that covered the forest floor, across the grass and threw herself onto the ground to embrace Dee.

  The girl was trembling and held hard onto Dee. Her face was wet and smeared with dirt. She was wearing the same clothes Dee last saw her in. Leaves and twigs clung to her dreadlocks. The soles of her bare feet were cracked with deep dirt-filled crevices around the heels.

  When the faun-like girl had stopped shivering, Dee moved a little. Still holding the girl’s hand, she asked, �
��What’s wrong? Are you frightened of something?’

  ‘I thought he’d got you.’ Leah’s voice shuddered and she took several gasping breaths. Dee waited and held her till the girl was ready to talk. ‘You were laying on the grass and you didn’t move. I thought he’d killed you too.’

  ‘I’m fine. No one even knows where I am,’ Dee said although she realised as she said it that no one knowing where she was could be a problem.

  Slowly, Leah told her bits of what was happening. Her flat in Sydney had been ransacked and she’d fled to Jimmy, an old guru her mother had known in the valley in the seventies. Now she was staying with him in caves in the hills. Two weeks ago the police had been asking her flatmates questions about Tom.

  ‘They wanted to know about the insurance policy. The life insurance Tom took out. It was lots of money, $250,000. They say I have to come back to claim it. But they’re suss, I reckon it’s some sort of trick.’

  ‘Do you think Tom told Skye about it?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  Dee waited.

  Eventually Leah said, ‘I think so. She was angry with him because of me. The insurance was part of why she was upset.’

  ‘At least the thirty days are up soon.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you can stop hiding out down here after that.’

  Leah shook her head. ‘What about the professor?’

  ‘Why would Professor Fairborn murder Tom, let alone want to follow you?’

  ‘I told you. Tom found out he was into bad stuff. Tom thought he was dangerous. Dangerous enough to force me to stay away. Tom said I could trust you. You have to believe me.’

  ‘There are things you don’t know about Glen. He could easily have been the man you saw in the car.’