Beyond Fear

by Jaye Ford

  ‘Not such a great start, huh? Well, hate to break it to you but I can only take two of you in the truck.’

  There was some muttering and someone said, ‘Fuck it all.’ He agreed. It was definitely a fuck-it-all situation.

  Jodie ran a hand through her funky short hair. ‘So how far out of Bald Hill are we?’

  ‘About forty k’s. Half an hour in the truck.’

  ‘Can we get a taxi this far out of town? On a Friday night?’

  Matt raised an eyebrow. ‘Bald Hill isn’t exactly rocking on a Friday night. I’ll radio our one and only cabbie on the two-way. He should be here by the time the car’s up on the hoist.’ He wouldn’t leave them in the dark on their own, anyway. It wasn’t a place to leave anyone.

  Matt went back to the truck, radioed Dougie and told him not to take his sweet time about it. Told him there were four nice city women pissed at being run off the road and waiting in the cold so he should get his arse out here quick. That guy needed a bomb under him sometimes.

  Matt took as long as he could to get the Mazda ready for towing but there was still no sign of Dougie when he was done. As he radioed again, the women huddled together in the cold, the luggage they’d taken from the car in a heap beside them.

  ‘The cabbie said he’s about five minutes away. I’ll wait till he gets here. You can get in the truck to keep warm, if you want,’ Matt said.

  Jodie stepped forward. ‘We’re a bit worried about the time, actually. We have to pick up a key at a shop in town by eight and it’s almost seven-thirty already. If you left with two of us now, we might get there before they close.’

  Matt looked up and down the dark road. ‘Which shop is it?’

  She unfolded a piece of paper. ‘Smith’s Food Mart.’

  That made sense. It was next door to the real estate agent. He didn’t know the Smiths well – they hadn’t owned the place when he’d lived in Bald Hill as a kid – but everyone knew they liked to close on time. It was a fair drive to their property out of town.

  Matt shook his head slowly. ‘It’s not a great place to be waiting at night.’

  Jodie checked her watch. ‘Look, you said yourself the cab’s only five minutes away. It’s probably just around the corner. And a couple of minutes might be the difference between getting our key and finding some place else that can put up four people at short notice.’

  Matt scanned the road again. He could ring the pub and get someone to drop around to Smith’s. He took his phone out of his pocket. No bars. Reliable reception was a figment of the imagination out here. He looked at Jodie. He didn’t like the idea but he could see her point. He could spend ten minutes trying to hunt down reception or he could hit the road and save them a lot of stuffing around.

  *

  Jodie watched the tow truck driver think it through. He seemed like a nice guy, despite the breathalyser crack. Not bad looking, either. Tall, muscled without being beefy. Excellent smile. But he wasn’t smiling about leaving them.

  She wasn’t too happy about the idea either. It was damn dark out here. There was no question she’d stay behind. It was her car. Her fault, really. It was the risk she always took as the self-appointed designated driver wherever she went. Her life was in her own hands that way, with her own overblown sense of caution. But the flip side was that if anything went wrong, it was her responsibility. Staying behind wasn’t the problem, though. If they didn’t get the key, she’d be guilty of another ‘houseboat’ weekend and in a year’s time they’d be discussing leaking loos versus no roof over their heads.

  She smiled encouragingly at the driver, watched him juggle the phone in his palm for a moment. He closed his hand around it, dropped it back in his pocket and looked down at her.

  ‘Okay, let’s get rolling,’ he said.

  Jodie chaired a brief meeting over who was going in the truck.

  ‘We could all stay,’ Hannah suggested.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Jodie said. ‘A cab won’t fit all of us and the luggage. Look, I’m staying. Lou needs to pee so unless she wants to duck behind a dark, creepy bush to relieve herself, she should go into town.’

  Lou made a face, a mixture of apology and relief. Jodie turned to Corrine and Hannah. No one was volunteering now – to stay or go. ‘Hannah is freezing in that thin jacket so Corrine either gives Hannah her coat or stays with me.’

  Corrine bordered on skinny while Hannah was carrying a couple of extra kilos. It was unlikely Corrine’s figure-hugging coat would meet around Hannah’s middle.

  Hannah looked Corrine up and down, tugged the hem of her sweater over her belly and tucked her short, brown bob behind her ears. ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind but …’

  Corrine shrugged and sighed, then stood with her hands in her pockets, looking unimpressed, as Jodie passed luggage up to Hannah and Louise in the truck. When Jodie closed the door, more than half the cases were still on the dirt at her feet and everyone, including the driver, looked unhappy about the arrangement.

  Brilliant bloody start to the weekend, Jodie.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’re fine,’ she said. ‘See you in Bald Hill.’ She shooed them off, waving about the torch the driver had given her and smiling like she and Corrine were already having a ball.

  She stood in the centre of the road and watched the truck’s headlights flare into the night sky as it crested the hill, then disappear as it dropped over the other side. She thought of the tunnel her own lights had carved in the darkness not so long ago and felt a chill at the black and lonely place she was now standing in.

  2

  ‘Better save the batteries,’ Jodie said and flipped off the torch. Night wrapped itself around them like a black shroud.

  ‘Christ, it’s freezing.’ Corrine’s voice sounded deeper than usual in the silence of the wide-open space.

  Jodie turned away from the road, strained her eyes in the darkness, thought she could see the faint glow of Corrine’s blonde hair. ‘And dark. It’s bloody dark.’

  ‘The cold’s worse.’

  ‘No way. Dark like this gives me the creeps.’ She stepped cautiously in the direction of Corrine’s voice, not wanting to stumble into the luggage, willing herself not to flinch at the feeling that the night was breathing down her neck. ‘We should have borrowed the fluoro vest the tow truck driver was wearing.’

  ‘Are you kidding? That colour would look terrible on me.’ Corrine’s face suddenly appeared, lit in blue by Hannah’s mobile phone – it was the only one that had found reception. ‘Okay, it’s seven-thirty-two. We give the taxi ten minutes before we start yelling down the phone.’

  Jodie grinned as Corrine looked up at her. ‘God, you look like something out of a ghost story. A decapitation victim whose head haunts the highway, terrifying drivers, causing unexplained accidents.’

  Corrine moved the phone under her chin so the light made her look like a glowing blue skull. ‘Could this face do anything but inspire a lifelong trust in good skin care?’

  Jodie laughed, heard Corrine’s husky chuckle and was glad her friend had decided not to stick with the huffy silence over having to wait behind. ‘Thanks for staying with me.’

  The light slid downwards and disappeared as Corrine dropped the phone in her pocket. ‘I guess that’s what I get for having a strong bladder and a warm coat.’

  She said it laughingly but Jodie got the message – it was the short straw, not a good deed. ‘Sorry about all this.’

  ‘It’s not your fault that driver tried to run us off the road.’

  ‘Did you get a look at the car?’

  ‘Briefly. I was opening the champagne.’

  ‘I thought it was one of those big, chunky utes. Black or something dark. With lights mounted on top. Floodlights or something.’

  ‘I think it had a sort of frame over the tray section,’ Corrine said. ‘Fat, silver posts. Or maybe they were white. I only got a glimpse.’

  Jodie flicked the torch on, walked the five paces to the edge of the road, looked right
to the crest of the hill then left to the bend.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Corrine asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Just looking.’

  ‘The view’s the same from here, you know.’

  Jodie swung the torch around, lit up the bags and Corrine and the bush at her back. ‘Yeah, I know. But walking and looking feels better than standing still.’ She left the light on as she made her way around the luggage, flicked it off, folded her arms tight across her chest. Beside her, Corrine’s boots shuffled about on the roadside gravel. She could smell Corrine’s perfume. Something far off made a birdlike sound. The light from the phone appeared at waist-height, briefly lit Corrine’s manicured hand, then disappeared again.

  The sound of an engine began like a whisper in the silent night, grew to a rumble then the bush beyond the bend glowed.

  ‘Thank God,’ Corrine said.

  Headlights speared the darkness and a moment later a car careered around the bend. It was going the wrong way to be coming from Bald Hill but maybe the cab hadn’t started there. Corrine slung her handbag over a shoulder, picked up a suitcase and stood like she was waiting for the bus. Jodie walked towards the road, moving the torch from side to side in a wide arc, letting the cabbie know he’d found them.

  The car was almost on her before she realised it wasn’t the cab. No telltale taxi light on top, no attempt to slow down. She squinted in the glare of the headlights, glanced a shadowy, lone driver at the wheel as it rushed past, then watched until its red tail-lights disappeared over the hill.

  ‘Shit,’ Corrine said. Something hit the gravel. Jodie guessed it was the bag, hoped Corrine hadn’t slumped to the ground in a sulk.

  Jodie stepped onto the smooth surface of the road and stood in the centre, torch still pointed at the corner. ‘Shit.’ After the blaze of light, the dark seemed even more oppressive. She didn’t like it. Or the way it made her heart hammer inside her chest. ‘What time is it?’

  The blue light appeared. ‘Seven-forty.’

  ‘I’m going to call.’ Jodie walked back, took Hannah’s phone, crossed the road and had a shoulder pressed into the bush on the other side before one reception bar lit up. She dialled the number the tow truck driver had given her and watched the torchlight dim a little as she listened to the ringtone switch to the cabbie’s message bank. She left a polite message – we’re here, we’re waiting, be great to see you soon. She phoned Louise then the truck driver. No answer on both counts.

  By the time she reached Corrine, the torch beam looked like it’d been connected to a dimmer and turned to low. She flicked it off, sucking in a breath at the sudden blackness. ‘Bloody hell, I can’t see a thing.’

  Corrine was silent for a moment. ‘I can make out the top of the trees against the sky.’

  Jodie lifted her eyes, saw shadows materialise as her vision adjusted to the dark – the ragged edge of treetops silhouetted against a starless dome of sky, the looming, solid mass of a gum tree, the white roadside markers. She sensed again the darkness at her back, wanted to turn around, check they were alone. Don’t be paranoid, Jodie. You’re past that. She pushed her hands into her pockets. ‘I can see the white lines on the road, too.’

  ‘I can see you. Your face but not your hair.’

  ‘Your hair looks like a puff of steam.’

  ‘Thanks for that.’

  ‘Any time.’

  ‘Christ, it’s cold.’

  Corrine shuffled her feet again. Jodie repositioned her weight from one frozen foot to the other, blew on her hands, hitched at the collar of her jacket. It was so quiet, she could hear her pulse thud softly inside her head. Icy tentacles of wind played across her face, rustled the bush behind her – a gentle, shushing sound that was amplified in the eerie, dark silence and made her feel suddenly, irrationally alone.

  ‘Adam said you went all the way back to school for his model plane today,’ Jodie said loudly, a little too cheerily. She notched it down a tad. ‘He’s so forgetful. Hope it wasn’t too much of a rush to get packed.’

  ‘No problem. My bags were already waiting by the door. Besides, he looked like his little heart would break if I didn’t.’

  Jodie smiled, relieved to hear Corrine’s voice. ‘He really wanted his dad to see it,’ she said, wishing she could tell Corrine how thankful she was.

  Corrine had banned her from saying thank you two and a half years ago. That was a week after Jodie had gone back to full-time work, still angry and reeling from James’s decision to give up on their rocky marriage. She’d been stuck in traffic then late to pick up Adam and Isabelle from after-school care. The kids were upset, Jodie felt sick with guilt and it’d cost her a fortune in late fees. Then Corrine dropped by to see how the new job was going. She was the most unlikely candidate for childminding – the woman was so perfectly groomed and styled, it was hard to believe she had children of her own – but it was Corrine’s idea. Jodie had to stay behind to teach a senior sport class on Wednesdays and Fridays, and Corrine was at the primary school anyway, to collect Zoe, her youngest. So after that, Corrine picked up all three kids two days a week, took them home, fed them afternoon tea and let them play until Jodie arrived. No need for thankyous, Corrine had said. She enjoyed their laughing and shouting and running around. Her late husband Roland had loved a raucous house.

  More often than not, Corrine had a chilled bottle of champagne waiting for Jodie’s arrival on Fridays. Hannah or Lou might drop by and all the kids would be shooed down to Corrine’s huge rumpus room or out to the pool. Sometimes, after Hannah or Lou had gone home to their husbands, Jodie and Corrine would order takeaway or make something easy like cheese on toast, sit around the table with their four children and conjure up some of that relaxed, end-of-the-week family time they both missed about being married.

  ‘Just don’t let James think I did it for him,’ Corrine said and Jodie knew she’d have that piqued tilt to her chin now. Corrine had never forgiven James for walking away from his family – not when he’d seen how hers was torn apart by Roland’s heart attack only months earlier. If ever Jodie needed company for a bit of liberating ex-husband ranting, Corrine was her girl.

  ‘Won’t even mention it,’ Jodie promised then heard the scuffle of Corrine’s feet, saw her bend over the luggage.

  ‘What happened to the champagne?’ Corrine asked.

  ‘Champagne? Are you kidding? It’s too cold.’

  ‘Honey, it’s never too cold for champagne. I saw it with the bags. Here it … what … oh, bugger. It got knocked over.’ More scuffling. ‘Oh. Oh, fuck it all.’ Gravel skittered across the ground. ‘I’ve been squatting in a big puddle of champagne. It’s soaked the hem of my coat. Christ!’ Jodie heard the muted sounds of Corrine slapping at her coat, the scrunch of gravel as she flailed about. ‘Where the hell is that cab? Give me the phone. I’m going to call.’

  Jodie handed her the phone and the torch. She heard a couple of sighs then Corrine said, ‘How do you work this thing? Oh, got it.’ The torch came to life and Jodie screwed up her eyes as the beam shone straight into her face. ‘Let’s see what this cab driver’s got to say for himself,’ Corrine said.

  The cabbie would get an earful. Jodie grinned to herself as Corrine lit a path around the bags but as she stalked across the road, the smile on Jodie’s face dropped away. The torch beam had wiped out her night vision and the further away Corrine got, the blacker everything became. The jagged edge of sky was gone, so was the looming tree. She thought about running over to her – they could huddle together in the light, make defamatory comments about the cabbie while they waited for him to answer – but she couldn’t see her own feet, thought she’d probably do an ankle tripping over the luggage. She pulled her coat tighter, tried to keep her eyes on Corrine, felt her chest tighten, her heart beat faster. Where was the damn cab? And what the hell happened to five minutes away? They’d been waiting fifteen already, freezing their butts …

  A snap. In the brush.

  Jodie spun around, blinked bl
indly at the darkness. Something familiar and unpleasant fluttered in the pit of her belly. Her hands turned to fists inside her pockets. She stood perfectly still, ears straining in the silence, listening. For footsteps, breathing, whispering. It was like a sensory deprivation tank out here – no sound, no sight. Then behind her, Corrine swore.

  Jodie jumped so hard it sent little stones scattering. Adrenaline buzzed in her head, tingled across her shoulders. She turned, saw Corrine in her halo of phone light, punching buttons on the mobile. Get a grip, Jodie. There is no one out here. No one could be. It’s just you and Corrine. The fashion queen and her tracksuit-and-runners friend. Shake it off, Jodie. Take a damn breath.

  ‘Any luck?’ She called it loudly, filling the darkness with the sound of her own voice.

  ‘I left a message for the cabbie and Lou’s phone rang out,’ Corrine said as her heels clacked back across the road. ‘What the hell are they doing? They should be waiting for us to call.’

  Jodie felt a flicker of concern. ‘Maybe it’s the reception out here. I could only get one bar. Maybe the calls aren’t even getting through to them. They’re fine. I’m sure they are. I’m sure it’s just a reception problem.’

  Corrine skirted the luggage, came to a stop beside Jodie and switched the torch off at the end of a long sigh.

  ‘Leave it on,’ Jodie said.

  ‘My hand’s cold.’

  ‘I’ll hold it.’

  The torch came back on. Jodie took it from Corrine, ran the light over the bags at their feet, then in a wider circle around the luggage, across the gravel, the skid marks in the stones, the bent-over white post. She turned around and shone the glow into the bush behind them. See, Jodie, just bush. The light was little more than a dim disc now. The batteries wouldn’t last much longer. She should turn it off. She didn’t.

  ‘So what’s the latest on the school dinner?’ Jodie said it like the ins and outs of the fundraising committee were prime conversation. She didn’t have the time or the skills to organise a classy dinner and Corrine’s enthusiasm for table decorations and menu options had, to this point, encouraged her to steer clear of the topic but right now, she’d be happy to hear all of it. Anything to keep them talking, to fill the silence, to take the edge off the darkness.