All Our Shimmering Skies

by Trent Dalton

  ‘You need to lie back down, mister,’ says a young soldier, hauling the dead body of an elderly woman out of the truck.

  Aubrey says nothing. He coughs up a mouthful of blood and spits it onto the brown dirt by his boots, then looks down at his soiled shirt, blood-spattered and bomb-torn. He shuffles away from the army transport, his head turned to the hospital entrance where nurses and police officers and soldiers carry too many bodies into the casualty ward. Movement all around him and he moves so slow. One foot after the other. Finding his balance. In his clouded mind, he tries to find purpose. What just happened? Where was he going? What does he need to do now? And he fixes on an image in his head. Molly Hook and Greta Maze standing over him. The brown-haired gravedigger girl and the blonde-haired actress.

  There is a temporary medical station under a tarpaulin outside the hospital. A nurse is handing out canvas water bags to soldiers. ‘I need two,’ Aubrey says softly, his body aching with the effort of speaking. A wooden bucket filled with fruit stands beside the nurse’s table. Aubrey reaches for a banana and two large orange and red mangoes. He sits in the gutter of the footpath outside the hospital and glugs down the water, sinks his teeth into the skin of a mango and drives his face hard into its juicy flesh like a rabid dog. Only animal now. Primal. A beast with no past. A beast with only one goal. To find the gravedigger girl and the actress.

  An olive-coloured Model A Ford pulls in to the hospital driveway. The driver rushes around to the rear-left passenger door, grabs the hands of a wounded man in a suit, and drags him cumbersomely out of the seat. Aubrey recognises the driver as Frank Roach, one of the business managers at the Bank of New South Wales on Smith Street. Frank Roach pants and strains as he drags the body of his friend along the ground, his arms hooked under the man’s armpits.

  Roach spots Aubrey watching him from the gutter. ‘Well, don’t just sit there,’ he barks. ‘Help me, dammit.’

  Aubrey shuffles over wearily, lifts the man’s legs and helps place him on a stretcher at the hospital entrance.

  ‘Thank you,’ a breathless Roach says to Aubrey, who nods silently. Roach follows two soldiers as they drag the stretchered man into the casualty ward.

  Aubrey turns away from the hospital and returns to the fruit and water bags he has left by the gutter. Then he walks casually to the driver’s side of Frank Roach’s Model A Ford. He starts the car and coughs up another mouthful of blood that he spits out the window. Only animal now. He slams his foot on the accelerator and the wind through the car window refreshes him. But there is something more mysterious than wind keeping him upright, keeping him breathing in one last buried pocket of air. Something dangerous and energising that is fuelling him from the inside. And as the Ford speeds south out of Darwin he knows this mystery force for what it is. He learned long ago not to underestimate its power.

  Only animal now. Only hate.

  Her face is stained with the stomach blood of the wallaby she ate yesterday. She doesn’t bark, she moans, and the sound of that moan tells the younger ones in the pack that she is second in charge behind her partner, the dominant male who walks ahead. Her coat is fire-coloured but the fur on her feet is the colour of snow. She knows a ripple of disharmony has spread through the pack. The dry season was lean and she was forced to kill the newly born pups of another pack mother, as much to maintain her own authority as to allow the spoils of pack kills to spread further. She’s been walking through the boggy wetlands for most of the day and she is hungry and tired and wants to go home.

  But, ahead, her partner stops behind the screen of a purple turkey bush, so she snorts twice and the rest of the pack instantly freeze behind her. She lightens her step and moves to her partner, stopping when her nose reaches his right hindleg. She is old, but she is younger than him and has better vision and she sees immediately the subject of his gaze. A field of bush apple trees in the distance, the likes of which neither of them has ever seen. The trees are so plentiful and so closely bunched together that the apples on their branches have formed a vast red apple roof that is now sheltering a small herd of wild water buffalo at rest.

  She purrs softly to her partner, informing him that she, too, can see the buffalo calf drinking from a small water build-up some distance away from the rest of the herd.

  She can twist her neck to face almost directly behind her, and her feet do not even move when she turns to signal to the rest of the pack that it’s time to hunt.

  Momentum. No going back, Molly, she tells herself. For the first time in your life you are only moving forward. You might have a copper pan scrawled with directions, but there is only one way to go now. Here to there. Molly to Bob. No going back.

  An avenue of creamy pink Northern Territory salmon gums and a red utility truck running between them on a narrow and damp red-dirt road filled with dry holes and full puddles. Beyond the scrub to Molly’s left is the rail line running south to Alice Springs. Momentum. Destiny. She feels this. Every moment in her life unfolding precisely as it needed to in order to place the gravedigger girl right here in a fast car beside the actress.

  ‘Faster,’ Molly says.

  ‘You wanna drive?’ Greta responds, weaving the vehicle through deep potholes in the road. She brakes at a flooded road crossing.

  ‘We can make it across,’ Molly says.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ Greta asks.

  ‘Because we’re meant to make it across,’ she says. ‘We’ve only just begun. There’s no way they’d make us stop so soon when we’ve only just begun.’

  ‘Who’s “they”?’

  ‘Everybody,’ Molly says. ‘Everything.’

  Greta hits the accelerator and the truck powers into a stretch of floodwater that rises above its old worn rubber tyres and halfway up the front grille. More gas and Greta keeps the steering straight and Molly gives her driver an encouraging pat on the shoulder. ‘Almost there,’ she says. ‘Keep going.’

  The car feels like it will stall, but Greta presses harder on the accelerator and the wheels grip the road and the truck lurches back out of the flooded crossing. Molly claps her hands.

  ‘Pass me one of them smokes, will ya?’ Greta asks.

  Molly taps a cigarette from Greta’s pack and lights it for her with two confident strikes of a match. She passes the lit smoke to Greta who sticks it in the left corner of her lips where all cigarettes seem to Molly to belong.

  ‘You need anything else?’ Molly asks. ‘I got food. Water.’

  Greta turns to Molly. Raises her eyebrows. ‘We’re gonna need more of both, you know,’ she says.

  ‘I know,’ Molly says. ‘I know how to get more of both, too.’

  ‘More tips from your boyfriend, Tyrone Power?’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ Molly says.

  ‘He’s not? I thought you two were gonna run away together?’

  Molly shakes her head. She looks out the window. Two sapphire-blue butterflies are bobbing around a Leichhardt tree with the kind of glossy green leaves Molly could fan her face with in high summer, and yellow and white flowers that look to Molly like peeled oranges sitting on lollypop sticks.

  ‘So when’s this turn-off comin’?’ Greta asks.

  ‘Soon,’ Molly says.

  ‘Read that pan out again, will ya?’ Greta asks.

  Molly doesn’t have to read from the pan. She knows the words by heart. ‘“The longer I stand, the shorter I grow”,’ she recites. ‘“And the water runs to the silver road.”’ Then she sniffs. She’s got something stuck up her nose, a ball of dried blood, a clump of dirt. Ash, maybe.

  ‘Why did he write all these directions in riddles?’ Greta asks, frustrated. ‘Why didn’t he just say straight up where the bloody gold was?’

  ‘Because those riddles were just for him,’ Molly says. She blows her nose into her cupped hand. ‘He didn’t want anyone else to know what he was talking about. But maybe he wanted my mum to know. And maybe he wanted me to know one day and he knew we’d understand. We’d understand
what he was talking about because we look at the world the same way he does. Because we’re poetic.’

  Molly sticks half a forefinger up her nose.

  ‘You’re poetic?’ Greta asks.

  ‘Yeah, poetic and graceful, like how my mum taught me to be,’ Molly says, not looking at Greta as she pulls a large black ball of snot from her nose and flicks it casually out her window.

  Greta shakes her head. ‘You sure you know where you’re going?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Molly says. ‘You sure you want to come with me?’

  Greta gives a half-smile, eyes fixed on the narrow side road that bends now past a row of honeysuckle trees with showy orange flowers that look to Molly like big fat orange caterpillars who have enjoyed too much plonk, which is why they’re crawling aimlessly across the tops of those silvery fern leaves.

  ‘Why did you come back for me?’ Molly asks.

  ‘Because you’re gonna take me to all that shiny gold,’ Greta says. ‘And then I’m gonna fly away to Hollywood like you said.’

  Molly smiles with her lips closed. ‘I think there was something else you came back for,’ she says. And the gravedigger girl turns her head to study Greta’s face and she watches her driver drag hard on her smoke and then she looks past Greta’s perfect profile, past her bruised and swollen left eye and the line of her forehead and the straight bridge of her nose, to a line of trees on the right-hand side of the road, and among those trees she sees movement. Something black and fast. Four legs. Long black horns. Then something else beside it coming out of the trees. Charging.

  ‘Watch out!’ Molly screams.

  And Greta turns her head just in time to see nine large water buffalo, frightened and reckless, charging at full speed through the scrub and onto the thin dirt road. Behind them Molly sees streaks of yellow-orange fur. Two vicious dingoes pursuing the smallest buffalo in the herd.

  One buffalo loses its footing in the uneven roadside and careens unstoppably into Greta’s door, horns crashing into moving metal. The fierce impact causes Greta to yank the steering wheel hard left and the truck slides across the slippery dirt road, then she reefs the wheel right and straightens the vehicle just as another confused and breathless buffalo charges across the road in front of her. Greta instantly turns hard right again, sending the truck flying down the sharp incline at the side of the road towards a thick cluster of stringybark trees, then she stamps on the flat metal brake lever and the utility glides on the wet grass until it crashes hard into the trees, though thankfully not hard enough to make Molly’s forehead traverse the mere three inches of air required for her head to make contact with the windscreen.

  The buffalo charge on and through the wall of scrub lining the left side of the road and Greta’s neck whips back and forth and she’s so disturbed by what’s happened that her fingers remain fixed to the steering wheel.

  She drops her head. Breathes deeply.

  Then she says, ‘Let me get this straight. We just survived an aerial bombing from the Japs, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Molly says.

  ‘Then we set off in search of buried treasure?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Then we got attacked by a bunch of wild water buffalo?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say “attacked”,’ Molly says. ‘But definitely fair to say we were charged by about ten water buffalo.’

  ‘What now?’ Greta asks.

  ‘Now we walk.’

  Molly grips Bert the shovel and grabs the shoulder strap of her duffel bag. She slips out of the truck and closes the door, turns to talk through the open window.

  ‘I’m glad you came back for me, Greta.’

  ‘I wish I could say the same thing, Molly,’ Greta says, resting her head in her hands.

  ‘I know why you came back for me, Greta.’

  ‘You do?’ Greta replies, rubbing the whiplashed muscles in her neck.

  ‘You were worried about me,’ Molly says. And that thought makes the gravedigger girl smile as she walks on down the narrow road.

  Greta watches the girl through two cracks that now curve across the windscreen. That strange child. Every last dark thing she’s witnessed so far today. And she wonders what mysterious, unstoppable force must be flowing inside that girl to make her do what she is doing up there on that road now.

  The gravedigger girl, skipping.

  *

  An empty dirt road separating bushland walls of banksias with furry yellow flowers that stick out from their branches like hot corncobs spitting butter, and these trees grow beside weeping paperbark shade trees that do their grieving in the open through outbursts of creamy white flowers that look to Molly like Greta Garbo’s eyelashes when they flutter in silver screen distress.

  ‘You ever been in deep country?’ Molly asks, using Bert the shovel as a walking stick.

  ‘Can’t say I have,’ Greta says, her eyes on the growing amount of road dirt flicking up on to her canvas saddle shoes.

  ‘You’re gonna love it,’ Molly says. ‘There’s so many things you can see there. It’s like a different world once you’re really inside it. There’s magic in there, Greta. You can start to see things the way the animals see things.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve been in deep country many times,’ Greta says.

  ‘Yeah,’ Molly says, marching on. ‘In my head I have.’

  Brute wandering. Molly knows the secret to a long walk. Never think about the destination. Just think about the air in your lungs, the motion of your arms and legs. There is a rhythm to it, and once you have found it that rhythm can tick-tock through time forever. She loves the great riddle of walking. The more you take the more you leave behind: footsteps. And she looks behind her to see her footsteps stretching as far as she can see along the road that winds back through ironbark borders.

  Don’t think of the destination. Think of the red-tailed black cockatoo up there in the stringybark, with scarlet panels beneath its tail flaps, like fire is fuelling its take-off. And marvel at the way it flies through the sky. It doesn’t fly like falcons and kites fly; instead its wings work hard, like the bird is rowing through the sky, rowing upstream through air.

  ‘Cockatoo,’ Molly points.

  ‘Woo hoo,’ Greta says, slapping a fat mosquito with an abdomen full of her own blood. ‘We any closer to this turn-off?’

  ‘Yep,’ Molly says, but her attention is taken by something resting on the branch of a billygoat plum tree. ‘Stick insect,’ she whispers, approaching the cryptic creature with soft footsteps. The insect is the same straw colour as the branch it rests on. ‘This feller has the most beautiful colouring hidden under his wings,’ Molly says.

  ‘Listen, kid, are you gonna stop and gaze at every little creature you find among the trees?’ Greta replies.

  ‘Just the ones worth gazing at.’ Molly beams then moves closer to the insect. ‘You ever wonder why things are the way they are, Greta?’ she whispers. ‘What if this feller was supposed to be right here on this leaf in this very moment? What if he was put here to remind you and me about something.’

  ‘Like what?’ Greta asks.

  ‘Like how pretty it all really is,’ Molly replies. ‘Who decided that gold would be worth so much, anyway? I’d take this feller over a gold pebble any day of the week.’

  She blows gently on the stick insect, and the lanky creature raises its head and tail and moves its wings to make a hissing sound and that movement reveals its great treasure, its glorious spoils: a vivid pink at the base of its hind wings, a pink so deep and appealing to Molly that it makes her giggle. ‘You’re all right, mate,’ she says. ‘Don’t be scared. This is Greta Maze and I’m Molly Hook. We’re heading deep into your scrub now because I gotta find Longcoat Bob. But don’t worry about us, okay. Greta and me. We’re the good people. We’re the good guys.’

  The insect’s head ducks back down and the creature creeps on along the branch.

  Molly smiles at Greta then returns to the dirt road. ‘Not far now,’ she s
ays.

  *

  A bridge with no guard rails on its sides, stretching twenty feet across the thin freshwater creek running beneath it. The bridge is made of railway sleepers that are permanently wet and rotting. Molly stops in the middle of the bridge and she rests her backside on the edge of a sleeper, letting her legs and her dig boots dangle over the creek. From her duffel bag she pulls her water bag and glugs down four mouthfuls of rusty Darwin tap water, before throwing the bag to Greta, who splashes water across her sweaty face and enjoys a refreshing drink.

  ‘“The longer I stand, the shorter I grow,”’ Molly recites. She opens a small tin of pineapple pieces with a rusted can opener, sucks the syrupy juice down first and lifts the wedges of preserved pineapple to her mouth with grubby fingers.

  Her eyes follow the flow of the creek, which disappears into a tunnel of foliage, where monsoon vines and scrub and weed have woven together to create a perfect cylinder that snakes off into the blackness. That tunnel, Molly thinks, could be just big enough for the old Ghan train to Adelaide to run through.

  ‘They say you can’t see nuthin’ in the daylight further up this creek,’ she says out loud. ‘It gets so dark up there you need a candle to find your way out, even in the daytime.’ Molly looks round at Greta. ‘That’s how it got its name. Candlelight Creek.’ She turns back to the tunnel. ‘“The longer I stand, the shorter I grow,”’ Molly repeats.

  Greta nods her head, something dawning on her. ‘A candle,’ she says.

  Molly nods. ‘Candlelight Creek. The water that leads to the silver road.’

  ‘You plan on walkin’ up there?’ Greta asks.

  ‘That’s the way to the silver road,’ Molly says.

  Greta feels a cold shiver in her bones. ‘It gives me the willies,’ she says, looking deep into the tunnel. ‘You ever been up there?’