by Sarah Hay
‘Thank you,’ he said, before he left the room.
She stared across the bed to where his pillow rested beside hers, feeling strangely vulnerable without him. She breathed deeply the shaded air. A dove’s wing pattered on the other side of the screen and it cooed doodle doo, it’ll do, it’ll do, through the flywire. Sounds were louder with the generator turned off. She heard a vehicle start down by the sheds and the little boys’ chatter on the lawn. Then there was Laura’s voice, her London accent familiar from all the British comedies on the ABC that Susannah had watched with her mother. Susannah moved into the laundry. Clothes were in piles on the floor: shirts and shorts, faded and soft, wrinkled and crumpled, baskets brimming. She was swimming in clothes, suffocated by everyone’s clothes.
She pushed open the white gate into the yard, noticing her bare arm red from sunburn and the gate wet from the sprinkler. She stepped out of the shade and the sun pierced the back of her eyes. She had just returned from visiting Irish to tell him that John would be away for a few days. Irish reminded her of a man who used to help her father with the mulesing. They were both old men who kept away from the cities and their own pasts for reasons they never revealed.
The man who worked for her father came from Austria many years ago and used to own one of the virgin blocks that bordered the boundary of their farm. He lived alone in a caravan in the bush. Sometimes he came for dinner and he sat opposite her father; both of them cleaned of the lambs’ blood which by the end of the day had hardened on their hands and faces. His land was taken away by the government because, unlike the other farmers in the area, he’d resisted clearing it all, warning there would be problems with the drainage of water if he did. It bothered her that she couldn’t remember his name or if he still lived on the edge of their farm; if he was still alive to see the salt patches spreading in that part of the country.
Her head felt as though it was stuffed full of cloud. She thought it was probably the heat. It was becoming humid again.
She smoothed the seams of her T-shirt from her waist to her hips and it reassured herself of her own shape. Laura was squatting with her arm outstretched, her head level with the boys as the two of them peered into her cupped hand. Susannah couldn’t see what she was holding. Ollie hopped about on one foot while Ned, his body stiff with intense excitement, continued to lean towards Laura. Then he shuffled backwards. He looked up across the lawn, noticing his mother.
Texas ‘Look, Mummy. It’s a frog.’
‘A frog,’ echoed Ollie, hopping in a circle around Laura.
‘A froggy frog, a froggy frog, a froggy frog.’
Ollie’s dance widened to include Susannah. In Laura’s hand was a small dark green frog. Laura smiled and straightened carefully, the frog pinned to her hand by her thumb.
‘Litoria splendida. The magnificent green tree frog,’ she said, adding apologetically, ‘My dad was a biology teacher. Used to bore us to death with details from his latest herpetology newsletter.’ Her face shone with warmth. ‘It’s amazing. These frogs were only discovered recently. They’re usually found in caves and places that are damp and dark.’
‘Really,’ said Susannah, and to the boys, ‘Shush, you’re making a lot of noise.’
‘Give me a look.’
‘I want to see the frog. I want to see the frog.’
‘You’d think they’d boil in this heat, wouldn’t you?’ said Laura to Susannah.
‘Can we kill it?’ asked Ollie.
‘No,’ said Laura, laughing. ‘We must look after him. People think they’re very special. Native Americans put them at the bottom of their totem poles.’ Laura knelt down between the boys. ‘What we’ll do is we’ll find a container and we’ll keep him as a pet. What do you think?’ She looked up at Susannah. ‘Is that okay?’
‘Sure.’ Susannah shrugged and turned away.
A willy-willy gusted dustily at the edge of the lawn, disturbing the dry leaves and the little baked pieces of rock.
III
Susannah lay on the bed she shared with her husband. A breeze moved through the trees and the leaves clattered together. Her head was enveloped by the pillow for the foam had started to separate. Someone had turned the lighting plant on again. It must have been Irish, since Texas was still camped out on the boundary. She could hear the pulse of the engine quicken as it kicked into gear and the light flashed above her.
It was only supposed to be on during certain times of the day and night, to conserve fuel, but there was no schedule now that her husband was away. When it went off she let clothes soak in the tub. She could hear children’s voices and then quick little feet becoming fainter as they travelled up the hallway. Susannah imagined what it might be like to be someone else. A rider swinging up into the saddle, leaning into the horse’s warmth, gathering up the reins, squeezing with her knees and feeling the horse move beneath her, faster and faster. Her centre would become the centre of her horse, in rhythm, rocking, and crossing the country, long shadows slipping quickly past.
The frog sat in a clear Tupperware container on the bench beside the sink. They’d poked holes in the lid for it to breathe.
Amber eyes with a black elongated pupil. Its legs tucked into itself. The children called it Hoppy. Susannah wiped around the container.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Laura peered in at the frog. ‘Look at
Texas the bright yellow outline of its legs. When it jumps away from predators it flashes yellow to startle them.’
Susannah stopped what she was doing and watched her. Laura looked up and flushed slightly.
‘Frogs are great, don’t you think? We’ve killed almost all of ours off except for the grass frog.’
‘I hadn’t really thought about them,’ said Susannah. ‘We used to cut them up for biology.’
‘In the backyard of our house in London we had a pond where frogs would spawn. Every year I watched them hatch into tadpoles.’
‘I used to catch tadpoles,’ said Susannah, turning to face Laura.
Susannah pulled out a chair and sat down. She clutched in both hands the cloth she had been using to wipe the bench.
‘When we were kids I remember at the end of our driveway there were gravel pits which used to fill up with water in the winter. There would be islands and sometimes we made bridges between them with old fence posts. We had a dog. I’d follow her through the scrub so that I wouldn’t get caught up in these big spiders’ webs. The bush there is full of chittick and banksias. And orchids as well. You had to look carefully to see them.’
Susannah stopped then and Laura came back into focus. But Susannah wasn’t ready to see her so she looked away.
‘Where was this?’ asked Laura.
‘Oh . . .’ said Susannah reluctantly. ‘South from here.’
She twisted the cloth in her hand. There was a silence that widened into an ocean.
IV
Irish moved lopsidedly along the track. Susannah could see the water level had dropped where it crossed the road. Frogs made plonk plonk noises from below the grassy banks. Irish turned off the road, following the creek upstream towards the sound of running water. The old man was leading, the two boys in between, walking quietly, occasionally looking over their shoulders to check where their mother was. They followed the meanderings of the creek. Grass grew to the edges and saplings leant towards it. The water was shallow where it ran noisily over rocks and stones like a small rapid. Leaves from the trees on the other side of the bank lay on its surface, flecking the mirror image of a sky framed by foliage. Irish reached a flattened patch of grass where the bank rose a little higher and, below, the water was still, and rustles in the bush hinted of animals they didn’t want to see. They watched as he baited a small hook with what looked like a piece of red meat from a tobacco tin.
His breath rattled noisily.
‘I want to . . .’ whined Ollie.
‘Shush,’ said Susannah. ‘Remember what he said. Come, we’ll sit here and then we’ll be able to see w
hen he gets a fish.’
They heard the wings of a large bird leave the water further down.
‘Pelican,’ Irish said wheezily as he threw his line into the water.
How strange, she thought, for it to be so far inland. The baited hook landed with a gentle plop and little rings of water
Texas widened around it. Susannah couldn’t see the bottom. She looked around for something to sit on and settled on a fallen tree branch. Ollie moved in to lean against her.
‘Mummy,’ he spoke in an exaggerated whisper. ‘Can the fishes see us out their window?’
‘Ha ha, fishes don’t have windows,’ said Ned scornfully.
Ollie pushed Ned’s shoulder. ‘Do so.’
‘Be quiet both of you, else we go home.’ Susannah took Ollie and held his arms. ‘The water is like a window. I don’t know whether they see like we do.’
There were no creeks or rivers on the farm where Susannah grew up. Just ground water which seeped to the surface and created stark wooden sculptures where once there had been trees. Irish was sitting on a tree stump and his breathing seemed to have settled a little. He cleared his throat and spat into the creek. She wanted to ask him if he was okay. She saw the line twitch in his hand. He jerked it.
‘Bastard. Gone.’ He pushed the brim of his hat back. ‘When I was a young fella . . .’
The line went taut and he stood up. She saw it zigzag across the water. Muscles in his forearms stretched tight as he pulled it towards him. All of them, standing; the boys struggling to contain themselves. The line dug deep into the rough skin of his forefinger and gathered loosely at his feet. Straining, he landed the fish in the grass where it lay flapping.
‘Not a bad size eh?’
The boys leant over it.
‘It’s talking,’ shouted Ned.
The gold-coloured fish gasped. It was like the bream that swam in the southern rivers. She leant in closer. It was making a grunting noise. Irish picked the fish up under its gills and worked the hook free. The boys moved back towards her. He laid the fish on the grass again and used his knife to remove its scales. The sun slipped behind the trees and the creek was in shadow. He cut an opening in the fish with his knife and hooked out its guts with his finger.
‘Good tucker,’ he said, wiping the blade of his knife on his trousers, holding the fish in his other hand.
The light was leaving. Irish sat down on his tree stump, facing them instead of the river. He placed the fish on the grass beside him and the boys crawled towards it then rested on their haunches. Ollie picked up a stick and prodded its eye.
‘Watch im, he might bite.’
The boys edged a little way back and Irish grinned. His teeth were an ugly brown and his lips were blue. There was a splash in the water further upstream.
‘Are there crocodiles in the river?’
‘Maybe a little one, you know freshwater.’
‘What about in town?’
‘I stay out of town. Too much fighting and drinking these days. All me old mates have gone.’
He cleared his throat and unscrewed the tobacco tin lid. It was the one with the bait. He replaced it and took the other one from his pocket.
‘Them poor little half-caste blokes gone to that government station. Like that fella Texas, he was one of them. Taken away
Texas when he was just a snipe. Same time his mob were moved off here.’
She’d heard of Aboriginal people being forced from stations, leaving their country to live on the fringes of towns, but she hadn’t known anyone directly affected by it. His eyes narrowed as he lit the rollie with a match. Light flashed and went out and the smoke caught him and his body seized, coughing. He stood up and the coughing subsided eventually. They all watched him replace the tobacco tin.
‘You know, I could take you into town. See a doctor.’
Irish stared past the gaps in the trees to where the water was coloured pink by the sky.
‘No need of them old girls any more.’ He sat down again on the broken branch. ‘Texas and his cousin, they hadn’t worked out here since the other bloke was running the show.’
It took her a moment to realise what he was talking about.
‘How did he get a name like Texas?’ she asked.
‘Ah, from when he was a snipe I reckon. He grew up over the back here, maybe twenty, thirty years ago. I remember all them little fellas, keen as mustard, hanging about the yards like a mob of galahs.’ He paused, wheezing gently. ‘One of them bloomin old ringers probably give it to him and it just stuck. Those fellas, they been sitting on a horse or riding a bull from the time they could walk. Better than any fella.’
She remembered watching some of the men ride out one morning. Before they appeared, she heard shod hooves strike the stony track, horses’ bits jangling, and from the veranda she could smell their tobacco. They rode through the opening in the fence and then one of them turned back to close the gate.
He leant down, holding his reins in one hand, kicking his horse, manoeuvring it backwards, and then squeezed it forward and it leapt into a lumpy canter to catch up with the others. They were heading north-west away from the homestead to where the country rose steadily and then sharply towards a sandstone ridge. The sun was not long up and it lit the slope and the bright textured rock and the rounded curves of the animals.
They stepped out in single file through clumps of grass with thin wispy spears and balls of spinifex and lean white trees, and in that moment time had seemed to stretch like the line of men as their horses separated and settled into their own pace.
Irish reached for his fish and stood up and dangled the tail over the boys so that they shrieked with gleeful horror. He held it out to her.
‘Here, you take it for supper eh?’
‘Oh no, I couldn’t, you need it.’
He nodded towards her. ‘I got me some leftover stew.’
She didn’t really relish the thought of eating this inland fish but he obviously wanted her to have it. She herded the boys out of the long grass and along the track, carrying the fish by a piece of transparent line that Irish had threaded through its mouth and gills. The harsh exclamations of cockatoos in the treetops followed them home. She noticed as soon as they reached the homestead that the generator was off. There had been an unnatural absence of sound all afternoon but she hadn’t realised what it meant. There were no lights anywhere.
She hoped Irish would turn on the lighting plant when he
Texas returned to his camp. She ushered the boys into the dim hallway, wondering where Laura was, then she saw her out on the veranda. She’d taken two chairs from the kitchen and was sitting on one of them and resting her feet on the other. She must have noticed Susannah’s eyes on her book because she leant down and picked it up off the ground.
‘I found heaps of these cowboy stories over at the camp. Have you read this one?’ She held it close to her face since it was almost dark now and read: ‘Clayt Blain turned Shana away from him, but kept her locked under his encircling arm. Together, they walked in the dying sunlight to the ranch house. The End. ’ She looked up and grinned. ‘Is that romantic or not?’
‘I don’t have time to read,’ said Susannah, thinking about the children and what to do with the fish.
‘Oh and what’s happened to the lights? They’re not working?’
Susannah looked back at her. ‘The generator’s off. And Irish doesn’t seem to have done anything about it.’ She continued half to herself: ‘I don’t know where Gerry is.’
‘So you mean we’re without light?’
‘If Irish doesn’t get it going.’
The kitchen darkness was unfriendly and behind her was Laura, holding the door open for the remnants of outdoor light. The torch was at the end of the bench and when she turned it on light swept around the edges of the room. At the storeroom door she asked Laura to hold the torch while she looked for the candles, concentrating on what was within the circle of light and not the strange shadows it produced, thinkin
g it was like the beam of a lighthouse. There was a bundle on the shelf below the tobacco and quickly she reached for it and retreated. They placed the candles in jars around the kitchen and told the boys to stay away from them and eventually the children grew tired of prancing and dancing in front of the monster-like shapes they created. She bathed them quickly since they smelt of the fish. They’d swum it across the lawn and into the bougainvillea, which was where she decided it could stay.
After all the jobs were done she noticed that somehow the warm glow from the candles had transformed her kitchen, her children were content and the face of the woman across the table was comfortably familiar. She thought fleetingly of Irish and wondered if she should have gone to see him.
‘I was just thinking. Before I came here I’d never been anywhere where there wasn’t any electric light.’
Laura was smiling in a sort of self-satisfied way and it irritated Susannah.
‘I remember,’ Laura continued, ‘I was on a bus on the King’s Road and I saw a sign which said Outback Adventures and there was a picture of a kangaroo and I think it must have been Ayers Rock. And then when I came here I met a man in the pub who said his name was Outback. I thought he was joking but he even gave me his card.’
Susannah took the children’s bowls to the sink and turned around. ‘Why did you come here?’
‘I always wanted to work on a station in Australia. For as long as I can remember.’
Susannah allowed herself a small smile, and then she said:
‘I’d better put the children to bed.’
Texas When she returned she was surprised that Laura was still there. She had cleaned the kitchen and washed up the dishes. In another place they might have been friends.
Laura faced her. ‘I’ve just put the kettle on. Do you want one?’
Susannah was about to say that she would see her in the morning. ‘Why don’t we have a drink?’ she said instead, suddenly feeling lighter, more generous.
Laura’s hair was below her shoulders and the blonde streaks glinted in the candlelight. She wore a green singlet and khaki shorts and she looked like every other young girl Susannah had seen with a backpack travelling around Australia.