I spear open the other, lighter box, and uncover another bag that stretches to every corner of the box and is filled with the same material. There is no ring in this one. I’m confused yet again. I close the boxes. I cannot think of anything useful, and I begin to understand that I am an insignificant bystander in a complex underworld game. They’ve accidentally sent me stuff, and they’ll probably kill me for it and not think another thing about it. I’m going to take the boxes back to the mailbox, and leave them there. Sooner or later, the robber bloke will come along. Sooner or later, someone will tell the person sending this stuff that they’ve got the wrong address.
I take one beer out of the fridge, and down it. What if they don’t have the wrong address? Who would be hoping to pick up boxes at my address? I hardly even notice the first beer going down. When I’m finished, I look at the bottle a couple of times to make sure it really is all gone. What if the other Dave Martin really is missing a box of play money and has nothing to do with all of this?
In the past year, nobody has lived here except me: before that, Sarah, James, and me, and before that, me, my father and mother. Mum got early-onset Alzheimer’s, but died much more quickly than expected. Dad eventually moved to the nursing home, and gave up. This was significantly painful, but ten years ago, and there’s been plenty of pain to swamp it since. So there’s no one here who could be hoping to receive parcels. If they’re not meant for the other Dave, either it’s someone who lives nearby, or they have been deliberately sent to me. Why would you send money to a busted-arse farmer? He’s likely to spend it, or tell the police, or do a bit of both. I open another beer. There’s no reason why not. Reasons for anything escape me.
I take all the boxes back to the mailbox, struggling to keep the ute on the road because the flat tyre is dragging sideways. A storm is developing in the south, and I know if it comes in, it will ruin the boxes. The rain will soften the cardboard, and with a little pressure the sides will fall apart, leaving the bricks of money. I put them all in the ute, and decide to put them out when this change moves through. I must be preoccupied, because out of nothing a vehicle glides in alongside me. Ian Blent, unmarked and smiley, winds down his window, and sticks a big, gnarled paw on the doorframe.
‘Looks like you suddenly got popular, Davo.’ One finger lazily indicates the boxes.
I push my beer bottle out of sight. ‘Huh? Yeah.’ Ian is one of the good guys on the planet. He is Ben Ruder’s neighbour on this side, and he still talks civilly to Ben, which probably makes him a saint. He is Mandy’s husband. I’ve always thought I’d like to be better friends with him, but we never saw him about that much. Different friends, different parties. We talk about the season, and the weather, and he curses cattle prices. It is calming. I think again about how we didn’t try harder to make a link with him.
‘Your tyre’s a bit soft.’ He doesn’t bother to indicate which one.
I say, ‘Yeah,’ and nod, but don’t bother with the ludicrous explanations that come to mind.
Then he says, in a guarded way, ‘If you wanted a hand with those sheep, I’d be happy to …’
‘I’m on top of it, thanks.’
‘No worries. But you could just give me a call if an extra pair of hands would help.’
‘Thanks.’
He makes a face that does its best to say, It’s nothing. And then, in an offhanded change of topic, he says, ‘Terrible news about Elaine Slade,’ and pushes his lips together.
‘Why? What happened?’
‘She’s dead. They found her body this morning, in her house, bashed. Bloody awful.’
‘Shit.’ Reality has smashed its way into my rainbow bubble. ‘She’s dead?’
‘According to the local paper.’ He reaches across to his passenger seat, and picks up a newspaper. It is the local weekly. The Waterglen Times. Barely news, and only just a paper. No one knows how it still functions. He flattens the paper out to show me the front page, and shows me the article with its headline: ‘Local Woman Found Dead in House’. ‘I didn’t know her very well. Hardly spoken to her. But something like that is just terrible.’
He examines me, sees my distress, and says, ‘Sorry, mate. I didn’t realise you knew her that well.’
‘I don’t. I didn’t. It’s just that …’
‘Shit. Sorry. How bloody insensitive of me. What you’ve been through. I should have thought before I spoke.’ He looks wretched.
‘No. No. That’s not it. She called in here the other day. Before that, it’s maybe a year since I’d seen her. And now this.’
‘Strange, isn’t it? The way that happens. You don’t see someone for ages, and then you see them once, and suddenly it feels like they’re everywhere. The violence, though. We’re normally shielded from that sort of stuff. I don’t like to think it’s come this way.’ I think he realises that talking about death is bad territory, so he says, ‘Anyway, I’d better get going before that storm catches me,’ and points at the clouds that have become black and noisy.
Any other time I would be glad of the rain to make the grass and the oats grow and stay green before winter and its frosts arrive. Now it only means me, and my boxes, will get wet. Ian leaves, and I watch him drive towards the storm. I try not to think on the life that will never be.
Elaine is dead. It doesn’t feel like it can be true. She had only just come into my life, dramatically, and now has swiftly gone. I feel pain for someone else for the first time in eighteen months. But not for long. My rational mind is too quick to tell me she had had a good life, a better life than most people on the planet; she got nearly four decades. I have no factual basis for the assertions, but it’s better than saying she was lucky.
I know the police will want to talk to me. There’s a pretty good chance I’ve seen her killer. Blond, tall, fit, not yet forty. Those are my guesses, based on the glimpse of him I had. Is that why he hasn’t come looking for me? Was the death of Elaine enough to scare him off? Now my death is a genuine possibility.
I put the boxes in the back next to the fridges. By the time I’ve cracked open another beer, a police car sweeps into the drive, and the rain comes with them in large drops, hitting hard. The two police that I spoke to last night get out and run to my front door. I put my beer down and walk out to meet them, friendly and open. They apologise, dripping, for bothering me, but say there are a couple of things to do with an incident at the Slade house that they need to ask me about. Thunder and delayed lightning dramatise the moment, as if it needs it. I don’t invite them in, and they don’t suggest it. Under the cover at my front step, they proceed to ask me where I was and what I was doing the night I found Elaine bashed in her house.
I remember the policewoman’s name is something Murray. She has red hair pulled back tightly, and it doesn’t make her any more friendly. She does not like me — no prizes for guessing that.
I say, ‘She’s dead, isn’t she? That’s what the media said.’
‘What media?’ the policeman questions me with a sudden intensity.
‘The local paper.’
‘You saw an article?’ He is inspecting me like I am a newly discovered species.
‘I saw the headline. Didn’t read the piece. It’s true, isn’t it?’ I’m losing confidence, even though I trust Ian, and I actually saw the headline.
‘No.’ They look at each other.
‘No? Is the paper lying?’ Now they both look at me as if I am a pathetic sort of small-time trouble-maker.
The policeman says, ‘There was some confusion at the hospital. A woman called Ellen Sade, who lived on the other side of town, was found dead in her house. The editor of the newspaper has apologised for the mix-up on the radio, reprinted the issue, taken back the copies they can.’
‘Is Elaine Slade okay?’
‘Yes. Staying over at her boyfriend’s place.’
Murray squints a little, and changes
tack: ‘You didn’t give Mrs Slade that gash on her head the first time, did you?’ Despite their sodden circumstance, they have the air of people who have already won the war. They weren’t like this the first time I met them.
‘Of course not. I found her, helped her.’ The rain redoubles, causing the road to run a river, and the water to pool in the paddocks.
‘Weren’t hiding in her house? Snuck up on her, hit her real hard, and then claimed the hero thing when she came around?’
‘Did Elaine say that?’ It’s preposterous, but really unnerving. I have trouble coming at me from all sides.
Murray ignores the question and says, ‘Can we suggest you don’t leave town?’
I nod, and they leave. Where did they think I was going to go?
Now I am supposed to make sense of this distorted jigsaw. Elaine was hit on the head by Mick’s money-stealer, went to hospital, discharged herself with her boyfriend, and stayed at his place. Nothing illogical about any of that. Did the robber know about my boxed money, or did he just see Mick and me raking it in at the races? Seems pretty likely to me that none of this has had anything to do with the money or the ash in the boxes. I grab a beer and open it, realising that Mick has made a significant hole in my supply. I drink like someone else might come along and take the remaining bottles. For a meal, I eat something straight from the pack, and listen to music on the TV.
6
It’s morning, and I am dry-mouthed and queasy-stomached. My eyes are sore and crusty, and the TV is still running the country-music channel that I must have been watching. I am hoping I still have some eggs and that the bacon isn’t off. It takes a long while for bacon to go off. A stumbling examination gives me an affirmative on both counts, so after water and painkillers I fry up breakfast, which includes a couple of soggy tomatoes. Out the window, the storms have gone, so I resolve to return the boxes to their place under the mailbox. I haul myself out to the ute to change the tyre. A fifteen-minute job takes me nearly an hour. The rim is not damaged, so my day is improving.
When we were first married, Sarah used to change and repair tyres. She had no intention of doing all our cleaning and cooking, and so she said she couldn’t leave all the outside chores like changing tyres up to me. I would always prefer to change a tyre than clean a bathroom, but I was happy with the logic.
My father thought we were insane. He had a kind of grudging appreciation for Sarah, but his opinion was that a wife shouldn’t work. If your wife had to work anywhere except the house and the garden, then you had obviously failed as a provider, and in some sense failed as a man. Mum never wanted to work on the farm, but I think she would have if she thought she could contribute. Despite the dominance of my father, she grew stronger and more assertive as the years went by. They fought loudly when they thought I was out of earshot. It was mostly about money, but it often seemed to be about the smallest things — things you would not think were worth having a heated argument about.
After James was born, Sarah had enough to do, so we settled back into traditional roles. And as James grew he had to do those outside tasks, and Sarah never went back to changing tyres. It is not helpful for me to think about this stuff.
But I remember now how quickly she got pregnant. We joked about being able to get pregnant by just ‘passing each other in the corridor’. (It is my recollection we did a damn sight more than just pass in the corridor.) Which made it so much harder to accept when she couldn’t get pregnant again. We saw doctors, nutritionists, and reproductive specialists, and read about turkey basters and fertility gurus. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t her. It took us so long to accept that it wasn’t going to happen, but by the time we got to the possibility of IVF we decided we couldn’t face it and the associated pain. We agreed we should count our blessing: James.
I walk out into the garden. It is a redneck mess, and I am happy with it. The lawn is long, and the leaves are thick on it. Shrubs, vines, and climbing roses are taking the opportunity to increase their territory and smother other plants. Hitler would be proud of them. But one area is under control. In the front corner of the garden is a rectangular patch of green, even manicured, lawn. At the end of the lawn is a small garden bed with roses that have been regularly pruned and are in deep, red flower. In front of the bed are a plaque and a grave. I walk to the grave, kneel, and say, ‘Hey.’ As I do every time. Council allowed us to have James here. Compassion, I suppose. It means I am anchored to this place forever, whether I like it or not. I ask him if he knows what’s going on with the boxes, and he gives me no answer. And this is why I don’t want to be me. I don’t want to be the bloke who lost his son. I don’t want to be the one who cannot escape this story. I don’t want to be the father who will always be without James, and will always have to live with the worst possible thing, no matter what good happens. There is not a day when I don’t want to lie down here, shut my eyes, and cease to exist.
But it is not going to be today, because I feel a weight of responsibility that is new to me. I have things I need to set right. It is time to go on a trip. I need to be away from this house and the people that are coming to it.
I phone Ian, and tell him I need to get away for a few days, and ask would he mind feeding my dogs. He offers to do a water run and anything else that might help, but I tell him it’s fine. I don’t know why, but I don’t want him to see the mess the place is in, even if he probably already knows. When I hang up, I consider ringing him straight back to tell him not to worry. I’ll just give the dogs a really big feed. What if the bad guys or this Dave bloke turn up and hurt Ian? But surely they know what I look like, and Ian will only be here for half an hour a day, and I might be gone longer than a couple of days. I dismiss the thought.
I put the boxes in a large bag, and then I pack small one for myself. Where am I going? That’s a question as good as any other. A motel somewhere. A caravan park. And then I hit upon the perfect strategy. I won’t go anywhere. I’ll camp here, above the house, and see who comes and goes. Ian is the perfect cover. He’ll tell anyone who asks that I’m away, and I’ll be able to piece together who owns the cash. I pull a large esky out of the pantry, and fill it with whatever food is left and the ice bricks that remain. There is a tent, a one-man tent, I remember, and I search until I find it in the laundry — a little mouldy, but in one piece. Then I load the ute, and take the track behind my house across the oats paddock (with no oats in it) up into the low hill that looks over the farm.
It is midafternoon as I set up my camp. I don’t want to be seen from the house or the main road, but I need to be able to see out. I pitch my tent on a flat area back from the edge of a steep decline. The light from my fire should be shielded from the lower country, and the smoke blown away before it becomes eye-catching. I lie on my stomach in the leaves and sticks, and look at my house through binoculars. I wonder how long it will be before they come. The roof looks even worse from up here. The red paint is peeling or faded, and the sagging roofline suggests the battens are warped or rotted. Thank goodness my mother can’t see it. Thanks goodness I’m the only one who sees it from this vantage. But if I cared that much, I’d do something about it, wouldn’t I? And I’m not going to do anything about it.
To the south of the house, a wedge-tailed eagle hangs in the sky, then circles slowly on an updraft. He is twice as large as anything else in the air. He holds his loop, and I know he has noticed something he wants. I’ve never seen a wedge-tailed eagle take a live lamb, but I know they’re keen for the freshly dead. Two ravens that patrol this part of the property as their territory join him for a moment and then drop to the ground, and begin cawing and strutting. Through the binoculars, I see they have a dead rabbit, probably killed by Mixo or one of the other more recent viruses.
The eagle lands heavily nearby, and the ravens retreat and then advance, and start harassing him — first one, and then the other. The wedgie threatens them with his beak, and then picks up the corpse in hi
s huge talons and begins to flap his great wings. It takes several motions to get him off the ground, and for a moment he looks like he never will. Then he is in the air, and flying is suddenly effortless. The ravens keep up their racket of disappointment back and forth across the patch where the rabbit had been lying. Then they do their worst impression of elegance to get themselves into the air, and follow the eagle. They are still complaining as they swoop the big bird, hoping his irritation will cause him to drop his prize. But the wedge-tail is unworried as he makes his way into the trees, where I know he will have a nest at the highest point. There might just be beauty in what I have seen.
As a little boy, I would come up here and hide from the adults. I could look down on everyone and pretend I was the king of the world. James used to take his friends up here when they were just old enough to camp on their own. Then, when they were older, teenagers, the same group came back to camp, and snuck alcohol in with them. Sarah and I knew, and I used to go and check on them, at night mostly, to satisfy the other parents. I always made plenty of noise as I approached their camp so they would have time to stash what they needed to stash. No alcohol was ever found. I think Sarah and I felt that if they were going to experiment, it was as safe here as anywhere. I have often wished to go back in time, for all sorts of reasons. That is certainly a period I would like to go back to: when kids experimenting with alcohol was our biggest worry. ‘We were happy,’ I say out loud, and the words roll out like obscenities. ‘Happy’ is now an odd, unlikely concept that is beyond my imagining. I can’t think of a world where I could be ‘happy’. And now I’m stealing money and hiding on my own property from criminals.
On a flat spot back from the edge, I scratch back the grass and sticks to make a bare area for the fire. When it is crackling, I pitch the tent, and then get sausages and bread from the esky, put them near the fire to defrost, set out my deckchair, and sit to watch the fire. I have that feeling I always have when I camp, that maybe I’ll stay here forever and never return to the house, with all its echoing memories and pain. There is much pleasure in being away from a place where every creak of a wall or a contraction in the roof makes me think it’s James coming up the hallway or Sarah getting ready for bed.
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