Dyschronia
Page 13
‘The government,’ says the second woman, tall, impatient.
‘They don’t know,’ says the third. ‘Don’t worry them.’
‘It’s not the government’s land,’ says Jean. ‘It belongs to a private company.’ We’re sure she doesn’t mean to sound dismissive. But the women just look bemused.
There’s an awkward silence.
‘I mean it’s probably somebody’s land, originally,’ Fiona says.
‘Don’t you know whose country you’re on?’ The tall woman puts her hands on her hips and we feel ourselves move slightly closer together. Quayde hangs on to the back of his mother’s leg, a fat white shadow. She nearly steps on him, and he makes a worried, breathy sound.
We always thought Clapstone had an Indigenous ring to it, sort of like clapsticks, but now that we think about it, it probably doesn’t.
‘Well,’ says the tall one, glancing at her friends. ‘This place. I’d be careful if I was you. It’s got really bad dreaming.’
We huddle now, bumping against each other. We try to read their faces. The two younger women look at us with mournful eyes, then one of them tries to hide a smile behind her hand.
‘Stop it,’ the other whispers.
The tall one bats a hand at us, like a bear. ‘I’m just having a go at you. We’re from New South Wales.’ Her friends release their laughter. Our own surrendering hands become a feeble wave as they get back in their station wagon, and we hear the laughter disappear into the dust.
Busy seasons come and go, and we adapt to them. We get used to the plumes of dust appearing on the road, to the craned necks and raised phones, to answering the same handful of questions. The older demographic likes to pause and wonder. But after a while the older tourists start to dry up as well, soaking away like water into cracked ground. There are days, then weeks, then months when nobody comes, and the kind that do are sometimes just here to break things.
‘Maybe it’s this weird weather,’ says Allan. It has been windy lately; they say the patterns are moving.
‘Fuel shortages,’ says Jean. Certainly that must be part of it.
‘The novelty’s worn off,’ says Roger, who’s upset. The surge in online traffic didn’t last, and hasn’t been repeated. He takes the loss too personally. ‘People move on to the next thing. They forget about you.’ He doesn’t take so many pictures any more, though recently there’s been a run of sunsets.
Even Belemnite Enterprises has forgotten us, apparently, because we haven’t heard anything more from them. We keep the letters folded in the top drawers of our cabinets, and still nobody comes to talk to us about our brighter future, or our remaining debts. We settle into a peaceful routine, safe beneath our dome. We’re protected from the changing winds, real and economic. And if we hear things breaking in the night sometimes, we don’t worry; like the barking of the dogs, they are much too far away to concern us.
We hear that Ash and Snow found work up north, exploring for gas. They come to say a solemn goodbye. In worse times we’d be sending boys like that to war; now they go again into the landscape. We wish them all the best, and we wonder what Jill will do. Surely she can’t stay here forever. She’s living more or less on her own in that barn; since tourism has slowed, we suppose she can manage the work quite easily, but it must be lonely. There’s Sam, but she’s not – well. She isn’t like other people. We hardly ever see Sam out and about. She lives in that old house now like an animal lives in its burrow, like a grub snuggled into a cocoon. We think she’s ashamed to show her face.
As for us, at our age, we like the quiet. We become accustomed to a bit of solitude; over the years, we adapt to it. So when the trucks come, we’re shy at first. We watch through our blinds.
A single white ute with orange lights on the roof leads the way. After it, four large, blue semi-trailers come trundling down the main road, strange equipment like obscure farm machinery piled on the back. The road needs maintenance; we can hear their gears grinding and engines straining as they heave over the potholes and ditches. Maybe they’ve come to do something about it. But they drive on into Clapstone.
Then we think maybe they’re here for the park; it could be another rehabilitation project. They’re going to take the last of the buildings down, demolish the wheel. They’ll take it away for scrap metal, which must be all it’s good for now. Quietly, we think it is time it was all dismantled; vandals have done enough damage, and those flimsy buildings are just about ready to fall down. But instead of continuing to the park, the trucks turn along Samphire, then up the run-down track to the Aspco plant. To the reserve, we should say, where the plant used to be. Before it was revitalised.
That’s what the map says, but it isn’t really a reserve. It’s just a weedy paddock now, slowly eroding. The line of gums that used to mark the river’s edge have all turned grey. Some have fallen in as the banks decayed; termites are turning others to dust. We don’t go up there much because there’s nothing there worth looking at. But we can’t see what the trucks are up to from our front rooms.
We walk. The air is good and it isn’t far and we’re frugal with our fuel these days. The road is overgrown now, patches of old asphalt crumbling below the grass, rocks that have wandered across it somehow. We follow the track through the weeds towards the white ute. It’s a new model, electric, still factory-clean. There’s a reflective sticker-stripe around the tray, but no government coat of arms, and no logo, as far as we can see.
There’s a man leaning on it. He doesn’t look like a supervisor; for a start, he’s not watching anything except his feet. He’s dressed informally in jeans and sneakers, orange safety vest hanging open over a polo shirt, greying beard. He looks a bit annoyed when he lifts his head to see us coming up the path, but the vest makes us feel entitled to approach him.
‘Nice day,’ we say.
He nods, glances over at the trucks. They have clustered around a specific place and are unloading some of the equipment. They must be planning to sleep up here, because they’ve brought their own swags and everything.
‘What’s happening here?’ we ask him. ‘If you don’t mind us asking.’
He frowns, spits something out from behind his teeth. ‘Drilling,’ he says.
‘Drilling what?’ we ask.
He looks at us like we’re idiots. ‘Holes,’ he says. His neck is short, rows of whiskers stuck in it like tiny pins in a pincushion. One lower tooth is a gap.
‘What are you, a mining company?’ we ask.
He shakes his head. ‘Just doing some testing.’ The neck bunches. He looks at a small orange box on his belt with lights and numbers on it.
‘What kind of testing?’
He frowns at his box. ‘Geological.’
We were sure that all this ground had been investigated already, a long time ago, and found to be worthless. Ed spent months running it through tests, back in the day. It occurs to us that there are new kinds of metals now, rarer earths, and many shortages. Plus, technology is always advancing. Could be there’s a resource here we didn’t know about back then, or a new way to extract it.
That would certainly change things.
‘Are you from Belemnite?’ Allan asks him, sounding out the name uncertainly.
There’s a little insignia on the polo shirt, just visible under the vest, but he moves quickly so we can’t see it. ‘Yeah-nah,’ he says, and prods between his teeth with a fingernail.
‘What exactly are you looking for?’ Jean asks, gesturing at the other workers setting up their machines.
‘Issues,’ he says. The nail emerges, is examined. Goes back to work.
‘What sort of issues?’
He makes an exasperated sound. ‘Look, I just look after the trucks,’ he says. ‘You got a beef with the company, you’d have to take it up with them yourself. It’s all mandated.’ Then he turns his back on us and starts fidgeting with s
omething in the tray, and even though he’s only clicking and unclicking an ocky strap from one of the hooks, we get the message. It’s time for us to go.
On our way home we notice several scraps of green plastic lying around, and we’re about to go back and complain to him about the workers littering, but then we recognise the colour, shredded and faded. They’re the tubes from Ed’s tree-planting, all those years ago. It’s amazing they’ve survived all this time, especially given that none of the plants have.
20
They jangled the change in their pockets and talked from the front step, waiting to be invited in. Some of them brought hedgehog slice or honey joys; Ed joked about his sweet tooth but always left the treats in the fridge for Sam. These neighbours who had kept her awake half the night last year, phoning at all hours, making threats, even driving past the house, now mussed her hair and called her a treasure, a real little marvel. One by one they turned in their contracts, signed and completed, like homework.
As they came and went, people noticed things that Ivy had ceased to notice. A broken chair was removed and mended. The strip in front of their house was mowed. The Corolla was given a new starter motor that didn’t cough, and its bald front tyres were replaced. Half of Clapstone had found something they thought she could use in their shed, and the other half brought wine. She thanked them all, but didn’t drink the wine, just lined the bottles up on a high shelf like trophies. She’d started humming to herself sometimes, the way Ed liked to whistle.
The summer holidays unfurled with languid ease. Without school, time slowed almost to a halt. Some mornings, Sam and Jill rode their bikes down to the water early and lay stretched in the shallows where the fine, muddy sand stayed cool. Sam wouldn’t go in any further. More often she slept in, happy to wake with a clear head and no pain. Ivy was wrong about the stress; Sam’s health was improving, not worsening. Her days were full of energy, of a happy impatience. While other kids were desperate for a Christmas that promised to be more extravagant than most, Sam was desperate for rain.
She sat on the shaded back step, one of Ed’s leadership books open on her lap, keeping an eye on the horizon. The hard year after the suicides had just been a correction. This was what normal life was supposed to look like: neighbours were generous, the world was orderly and kind, and her head felt clear. She stretched out across the warm cement and listened to the gentle laughter bubbling from the house.
Ivy came outside with a mug of tea, placed it on the step and settled down beside it. She lifted the cover of Sam’s book with a finger.
‘At least you’re reading something,’ she said, smiling.
Sam put the book facedown on the concrete and they both stared out at the empty space in the yard where Ken had cleared away some lantana with his brush cutter. Beyond it, the dead summer grass was stacked with the last few pallets of baby trees in plastic tubes that Ed hadn’t got around to planting. They were just dry twigs now.
‘I filled out the paperwork,’ Ivy said.
She was the last to do so.
Sam found her mother’s hand. For a minute it was just their two hands tightly held between them, the way it had always been; the rest was scenery. Then Ivy cleared her throat.
‘Whatever happens, love,’ she started, and Sam felt her heart begin to sink. But Ed appeared at the back door as though summoned, raised his phone and grinned, and Ivy let go.
‘You’ll get to meet Ned,’ he said. ‘He’s coming down for a visit.’
‘I know,’ said Sam. Her eyes sought Ivy’s. ‘I saw that.’
Her mother’s face angled away, buried its expression in the mug of tea. Moving, her hair caught the light; Sam could see some silver glinting in the blonde. Ed pushed between them into the yard, shaking his head happily.
‘Of course you did,’ he said, turning to face her. Standing in the sun, his eyes were even brighter than usual. Behind him, the heat was radiating off the ground in a shimmer. He shoved his hands into his pockets, tilted his head back to face the sky. She watched his heels rise and fall as he rocked in place.
‘Now we just need the rain to come,’ he said. He winked at her. ‘Think you can manage that?’
Sam felt Ivy stiffen beside her.
Ivy arranged plastic containers under the more persistent drips, threw down towels to catch the overflow. She held a bucket against her hip, shifted another with her foot. The budgies chattered and shat on the counter. Sam sat beside them with a hair dryer, trying to get their feathers to unclog. They were shivering with damp but didn’t want to be blow-dried. Spring cowered behind the fruit bowl, and when Sam got hold of Winter, he wriggled around and bit her on the hand.
‘I don’t think they like it,’ said Ivy. ‘You better put them back where they belong.’
Sam returned them to their enclosure, where they huddled together in watchful silence. Even standing on the front veranda, she could feel the spray from the downpour. Tiny creeks ran across the yard and onto the asphalt, sweeping leaves and debris into the gutters. The houses across the street were disappearing in the mist, which had already swallowed the hills beyond. Her skin felt charged with moisture, her whole body swollen and alive. It was like a monsoon, the news said. Totally out of the blue. Tropical storms had been marching south, a little further each year, but this was a leap. Probably it should have worried them, but there was something about rain in the country: even when it came at the wrong time, it felt like a benediction.
Across the state the rain hit needy farms and river systems. It put out fires and cleaned streets. It filled the tanks and dams, the reservoirs and lakes. And it made the rivers flow. The Luck began to swell and rise, to rush towards the sea, to flex and push against its banks like muscle. Water plastered the windows of Sam’s house, came in at the edges of louvres, cascaded from the holes in the gutters in fat, silver ropes. The sound of it hammered down, almost drowning out Ed’s gleeful whistle. Sam watched from the shelter of her room, waiting for the streets to fill the way they were supposed to.
On the third morning, it looked like it was easing. The houses across the road were growing solid in her bedroom window, dim daylight breaking through the cloud. Sam ran a hand across the condensation to peer through the louvres. Rain was still falling, but it was sedate now. The streets were yet to disappear beneath that rising water.
While she watched, a taxi pulled up and a boy clambered out of the front seat, holding a newspaper over his head with one hand, carrying a bag with the other. He paid the driver, waved at them, and walked up their driveway. His shape was bent against the drizzle. The taxi company was all the way in Hummock; it would have cost a fortune.
Sam ran to open the door before he had a chance to knock.
He stood on the veranda, familiar and not familiar, and lowered the paper to let himself be looked at. He was pale-skinned, with a dark brown fringe of hair, his gentle, expressive eyes deep set and the same colour as the hair. They lit on her but did not seem to judge her. He was different, younger than she thought, though the boy in the car could only be days away.
Ed’s warm bulk appeared behind her. ‘Ned,’ he said. ‘Come in.’
‘Dad.’ The two hugged awkwardly, and Sam ducked out of their way. Over Ed’s broad back the boy’s face was oddly cold, turning to study everything about the house with an unreadable expression. In a few days, maybe sooner, they would all be in Ed’s silver hybrid, laughing together. For now, there was a strange solemnity about him.
Sam laid the table while Ivy showed Ned to a fold-out bed in the lounge room.
‘It isn’t much,’ she said, perhaps catching something in his expression.
Ed was light on his feet. ‘I wanted to pay for a room at the Commie but Ive insists on looking after you,’ he said. ‘At least for the first few days.’ Ned lifted his small sports bag onto the couch and dusted the water from his shoulders, but he didn’t sit down until he was told to.
Ned looked at Ed, who said, ‘Oh, years. Wouldn’t it be?’
‘Years,’ said Ned. His soft mouth twisted. His hair had too much fringe, his expression too much disdain. Was it private school that made boys like this, bundled them with this damp confidence and extravagance with taxis? Possibly it was Ed. His son deferred to him, respectful, almost wary.
‘You must hardly recognise each other,’ said Sam, and watched them both prickle. Some exclusion flickered between them. She glanced back at Ivy, who had retreated to the kitchen. ‘Now we’re all here,’ she said.
No-one seemed to have heard her speak. At a look from her mother, she gave the men their space. They sat close on the couch, not touching, talking in tones too low for her to hear. Sam went to her room, wondering how the unsteady balance the three of them had found would be affected by a fourth. With luck, he wouldn’t stay long.
She texted Jill, but the signal was out, so she escaped the confinement of the house alone. She walked to the river to watch the level rise. The clouds were crumbling apart, loosing fragments of blue sky. The water had settled to a faint drizzle; as much of it rose as mist as fell as rain.
The river’s banks had been piled with soil at various times, loose fill left over from digging roads or drains. The piles weren’t arranged in any particular order, but they had formed a sort of levee. Sam climbed to the top of a small mound of earth covered in couch grass and prickles that were already shooting out new green extensions. The river had water in it. A lot of water. It was rushing, and she could see plastic bottles and old thongs floating along its surface. But the piles of earth had provided a good defence. The river had risen almost to the top of these false banks but hadn’t broken them. Sam watched, waiting for it to rise some more.
The water rolled along comfortably, made itself at home. Warmth in the air lifted the mist from its surface, forming a weak fog. Sticks swirled by, the blister of a plastic bag.