The Road to Winter

by Mark Smith

  Rowdy has been getting more active, following me around the house since I got back from the beach. I’m starting to think he had been hungry more than anything. He hasn’t lost the limp, but he seems to be getting some of his strength back. Still, I’m not going to risk taking him with us to the beach. He needs to rest up for tonight.

  Lunch is beans again and two new eggs I find in the nest. Hopefully we’ll have fish for dinner. Outside, the sun is now high and the wind has eased off.

  Rowdy isn’t happy about being left behind in the house so I leave some scraps in his bowl to keep him busy. Kas has pulled on an old skirt of Mum’s and limps along behind me with the bag of clean clothes. Willow sticks close by.

  I avoid the paddock with the body by taking a detour and coming out higher on Parker Street. There’s a track that follows the cliff tops. We could walk around the beach to the point, but that’d leave us too exposed. Up here we’re still in the cover of the tea tree and low stringybarks.

  ‘Finn!’

  Kas has stopped at a gap in the trees and is looking out at the ocean.

  ‘It’s beautiful!’

  She has her arms outstretched and the wind coming off the sea blows her hair off her face.

  ‘You didn’t tell me it was so big! And the colour… It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.’

  I can’t help smiling. ‘It’s a bit chopped up today. You should see it when the offshore’s blowing and the sets are lining up.’

  She looks at me, bewildered. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it sounds amazing.’

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ I say, taking her arm and pulling her along. ‘We don’t have time now.’

  The rock pools are like big potholes in the reef when it’s exposed at low tide, deep and perfectly clear. We walk out to the rock shelf. Kas keeps stopping to pick up shells, kelp and cuttlefish. She runs her finger around the rim of an abalone shell.

  I show her and Willow the safest pool to swim in, then I strip off to my shorts, take my snorkel, mask and catch bag, and drop off the ledge into deep water. It’s colder out here than back in the bay and straightaway I regret not bringing my wetsuit. The swell is bigger than I would like too, but it’s not breaking over the reef.

  I wait on the surface to get my breath, then dive. There is a blue down here different from up on the surface—it presses in on you and darkens as you go deeper. The sun filters down in shafts but eventually they’re swallowed by the blue too.

  I know exactly where I’ll find abalone. I unsheathe the knife and dive down a couple of metres. Dad showed me years ago how to slide the knife in under them and twist it to lever them off the rock. I have to come back up a few times for air, but before too long I’ve got eight good-sized ones.

  I surface and start to climb out of the water.

  ‘Stay there,’ Kas shouts when I clamber back up onto the reef. ‘Willow and me aren’t ready yet.’

  Their heads and shoulders are poking out of the rock pool.

  ‘Turn around,’ Kas calls. ‘We have to get dressed.’

  I sit on the edge of the shelf and look back along the coast to where Red Rock juts out in the distance. If Rose followed the map she would have travelled that way to Ray’s. Tonight can’t come fast enough—we need to get out there and make sure she’s safe. I sneak a quick look to see if they’re ready. Kas, who is leaning over to help Willow out of the water, just has a singlet and a pair of undies on. They stick to her wet skin and the sun catches on the water dripping from her hair onto her back and legs. As she lowers Willow down on the rocks, she sees me staring.

  ‘You perving, Finn?’ she says. I can hear a snigger in her voice. I look away.

  Next thing I know she’s squatting down beside me, close enough for her hair to be touching my shoulder.

  ‘The water’s so salty!’ she says. ‘But it feels amazing. I love it.’

  She puts her hand on my arm. Her skin is cold enough to spread goosebumps along my wrist.

  ‘What you got?’ she asks.

  I try to act natural, even though all I can think about is her body next me, dripping wet, and her breasts pushing against her singlet.

  ‘Um…a heap of abs.’

  I open the bag for her. Kas calls Willow over to have a look.

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘We’d better head back.’

  The sun is getting low and the wind has dropped away. Kas walks in front while I piggyback Willow, who’s too tired now not to accept a ride.

  ‘Stop looking at my bum,’ Kas says without turning around.

  Willow giggles. I wonder how Kas even knew.

  We make it home just as the sky is starting to darken. We creep along, but there’s no sign of movement in the yard except for Yogi’s big silhouette. He lifts his head to check us out then goes back to munching the grass.

  Rowdy is waiting by the door to greet us. Willow pats him, and he follows her into the lounge room. The house is quiet, just Kas and me tiptoeing around each other, and the sound of Willow talking to Rowdy. The room seems small all of a sudden and I’m aware of Kas in the space, the way she moves, the way her hair falls over her face when she leans forwards. It’s like we’re doing some sort of weird dance, trying to avoid each other but not really wanting to. I empty the abs into the sink and run some water over them.

  When she’s next to me again our shoulders touch.

  ‘We have to eat these while they’re fresh,’ I say, grabbing a knife. ‘I’ll show you how to shell them. The trick is to get them out without cutting your hand off.’

  I slide the blade under the soft flesh and scrape it along the inside edge of the shell. The first one comes away easily.

  Kas has a go, but she can’t get the blade in deep enough so I put my hand over hers and push it in, then flick the flesh out. She laughs when she pushes too hard on the next one and it flies off and lands on the floor. Even when we’re finished, I don’t want to move. I like being here, close to her. I steal glances at her while she’s not looking. Her skin is perfectly smooth and she has this habit of sliding her tongue along her lips to moisten them.

  ‘Next step,’ I say. ‘Belt the shit out of them.’

  ‘What are you saying? You’re an idiot!’ She’s laughing again.

  ‘Serious,’ I say. ‘You’ve got to hit them with a hammer to make them tender. Otherwise you can’t eat them. Come on.’

  I scoop the abs into a bucket with a bit of water and take them out to the shed. Kas follows, still thinking I’m having her on. I put them on the bench and hit them hard and fast with the hammer, one at a time. Dad and I did this for years without me ever thinking how strange it looked.

  ‘We’ll cook them now,’ I say. ‘We need to cut them into strips and fry them.’

  Kas leans back against the bench, the last of the light catching her bare shoulders. She’s still wearing the too-big singlet and all I want to do is reach out and touch her.

  ‘You know,’ she says, ‘I’d been wondering how you survived here on your own for so long. I thought you must have made it up—that there was someone else here, an adult, that helped you. But you’re pretty clever. And it’s all stuff I don’t know anything about.’

  ‘You mean you thought I was lying?’

  ‘No. I just thought…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you exaggerated things.’

  ‘Well, now you know,’ I say.

  ‘Now I know.’

  As I turn to walk out of the shed, she blocks my way. I try to squeeze past, but she moves and blocks me again. Then, without warning, she leans in and kisses me on the mouth. Not a soft kiss; her mouth is open and she presses her lips hard against mine. I can taste the salt on her skin and feel her hair touching my face. A couple of strands catch between our lips.

  She moves away, pulls the hair back behind her ear and puts her arms around my neck. This time she pushes her whole body against me and I can feel her tongue inside my mouth. I don’t know how long we kiss for. I’
m not even sure if I’m still breathing. I feel myself get hard against her, but I’m not embarrassed. I’ve never felt so alive.

  At last she pulls back, but she stays so close I can feel her breathing in and out. She’s smiling and I can’t stop myself from smiling either. She dips her head and puts her ear to my chest. I’m sure my heart must be deafening. I loop my arms around her and we stay like this for ages, just holding each other. I lift her singlet at the back and run my fingertips over her skin, smooth and soft.

  ‘What are you two doing?’

  It’s Willow, standing in the doorway.

  We push apart, laughing.

  ‘Nothing,’ Kas says. ‘Finn just had something in his eye and I was trying to get it out.’

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ Willow says. ‘You were kissing.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Kas says, swooping her up in her arms. ‘We were kissing.’

  She burrows her face into Willow’s chest, blows a raspberry against her skin and carries her out of the shed.

  We fry up the abs in the kitchen, the glow of the gas jets the only light. I keep looking back at Kas at the table with Willow on her lap. When she looks at me and smiles, her teeth shine in the glow of the flame.

  I try to concentrate on the cooking—I don’t want to overdo them or they’ll be too rubbery to eat—but all I can think of is kissing her again, feeling her body against mine.

  When the abs are done I put the pan in the middle of the table and we eat with our fingers, picking up the hot strips and juggling them from hand to hand to cool them. We’re so hungry that no one talks. The fat drips down Kas’s chin.

  ‘So, ladies,’ I say, in the smoothest voice I can muster up. ‘What do you think about abalone?’

  ‘It’s delicious,’ Willow says, picking another strip out of the pan.

  ‘I’ve never tasted anything like them,’ Kas says. ‘They taste like the smell of the sea.’

  ‘You wait till you try mussels,’ I say. ‘And oysters. Red Rocks Point is the best place for them. If we stay at Ray’s for a while, I’ll collect some and we’ll have a feast.’

  ‘This is a feast, Finn,’ Kas says.

  She stops eating and looks across the table at me. I can’t read her expression in the shadows, but her fingers walk across the table and weave through mine.

  We don’t have time to sit and enjoy the feeling of a full belly. We have to get going.

  Out in the yard, Kas slips the bridle over Yogi’s head. We fill the saddlebags with tinned food, clothes and a couple of knives. Then I boost Willow onto Yogi’s back and she grabs a handful of his mane.

  Rowdy’s excited by all the preparations. He’s still favouring one of his back legs but seems happy enough to walk.

  By the time we are ready to go, the moon is already high. It’s almost full and I’m worried it might give too much light, but clouds begin to move in off the ocean.

  ‘We have to cross the river,’ I say.

  ‘Okay,’ Kas says. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘How’s the leg?’

  ‘All right,’ she says, but I see that she’s still limping heavily.

  ‘I thought you were going to ride.’

  ‘Yogi’s got enough to carry. I’ll be fine.’

  We retrace our steps from the morning until we veer off to find the spot where the river has been piped under the old tip road. There’s a wide verge on the side that’s well concealed by the taller trees and we take the chance on following it, moving in and out of the shadows. It leads us to the intersection with the coast road, where they built the barriers when the town was quarantined. Anything burnable is long gone, but the big orange barriers are still there.

  We need to follow the road for a couple of ks towards Pinchgut Junction. Then we’ll turn east along the coast road leading to the top of Ray’s valley.

  The road is more overgrown here so we have to walk Yogi out on the last remaining strip of bitumen. His clip-clopping echoes through the bush. Rowdy lopes along on three legs next to Kas. He almost looks his old self again after a couple of good feeds.

  Kas leads Yogi and I watch her silhouette: even with the limp, I love the way her body moves. Her shoulders look wider from behind and she seems to taper down to her hips. Her legs are bare below her shorts and the muscles of her calves are bunched and tight. I’m feeling things that a couple of weeks ago I thought I’d never get to feel—the need to be with a girl, to have her touch me, to kiss me.

  The more time I spend with Kas, the more I notice the differences between her and Rose. She’s less defensive and, even with the danger that threatens almost everywhere, she’s fun to be around. From what I can make out, Rose copped the worst of what went on in Longley and she probably has every right to be less trusting. But Kas is more open, maybe more innocent. More like me, I guess.

  We are still about an hour from Ray’s place when Kas slows for me to catch her up.

  ‘You know at the meeting in the valley?’ she says. ‘When you first saw me?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What’d Harry mean when he said you’d nearly killed Ramage?’

  I tell her about the night at the hayshed. About the wire and cutting Ramage’s hand.

  ‘Why his hand?’

  ‘Because that’s where Rose was cut. She never said who did it, but I guessed it was Ramage.’

  ‘Her left hand?’

  ‘Yeah. Why?’

  Kas takes my fingers and runs them over the back of her left hand. There’s something hard under the skin.

  ‘What’s that?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s an implant. All Sileys have them. So we could be tracked—back when there was the technology to do it.’

  ‘So…’

  ‘So I think she might have cut it out herself.’

  ‘But why? They can’t track you now.’

  ‘But they can still identify us,’ Kas says. ‘Rose always hated it, was always picking at it. It meant you were someone else’s property, bought and sold like an animal. Do you know what that feels like?’

  She stops. The moonlight is behind her and it makes a halo of her hair.

  ‘What’s wrong with people in this country, Finn? Even before the virus it was so beautiful here; you had everything. But you were so cruel.’

  I don’t have an answer to that. We walk on in silence. There’s a word on the tip of my tongue but I find it hard to let out. It’s like admitting she’s right, like saying we are—we always were—cruel.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say at last into the night.

  Kas reaches for my hand. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s never the kids’ fault.’

  The moon has almost set by the time we make it to the top of Ray’s valley. To avoid getting swiped by the low branches, Willow slides down from Yogi and walks.

  Finally, the trees start to thin and we come to the fence that marks the beginning of Ray’s place. I know exactly where the trip-wire is so we go along to a break in the fence past the closed gate. We still can’t see Ray’s house from here, but as we drop down into the valley I pick out the silhouette of his roof and chimney against the night sky. There’s no light and no smell of smoke.

  When we get within fifty metres of the house, I whistle long and low. Ray’s probably asleep. I whistle again and wait, then I hear the creak of a screen door.

  ‘That you, young Finn?’

  ‘Yep, it’s me.’

  A shadow comes out to meet us and I recognise Ray’s bow-legged walk. Rowdy is already rubbing his nose against Ray’s leg and Ray is scratching him under the chin.

  ‘Jesus, Finn, I’m not runnin’ a bloody guesthouse,’ Ray says when he sees Kas, Willow and Yogi, but there’s a chuckle in his voice. He draws me into a big bear hug.

  By the time we get to the porch he’s lit a small kero lamp.

  ‘Who might these ladies be, then?’

  I introduce Kas and Willow. Ray brings the lamp closer to Kas’s face and nods.

  ‘You must be Rose’s sister.’

&nb
sp; Kas can’t contain herself. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘Come inside,’ he says quietly.

  We follow the lantern light along the hallway to the kitchen. I notice the door to one of the bedrooms is closed.

  Ray hangs the lamp above the table and we sit down. Willow climbs into my lap, her eyes wide now as she takes in this new place. Ray winks at her.

  ‘Where is she?’ Kas asks.

  ‘She’s sleeping.’ Ray points his chin towards the closed door.

  Kas jumps to her feet, but Ray takes her by the arm.

  ‘Let her sleep, girl. She’s okay, but I have to tell you what’s happened.’ He leans his elbows on the table and sighs long and deep. The way the shadows fall across his face makes him look older than I remember.

  ‘She arrived here three or four days ago,’ he begins. ‘In pretty bad shape. Her clothes torn, cuts all over her, and disorientated. She was feverish, too, stumbling and making no sense at all. She’s crook, Finn, too crook for me to look after. I’ve been feeding her, but I don’t have a lotta food to spare. I got her to eat some soup today, but she’s just skin and bone. When she’s awake she holds her belly the whole time, stroking it and talking to the baby.’ Ray takes a deep breath. ‘It don’t look good. I reckon the baby isn’t far off coming.’

  ‘But she thought she was only six months pregnant,’ I say.

  ‘She’s probably more than six months,’ Kas says, and then, ‘Don’t ask me how I know.’

  Ray goes on. ‘You were right about that cut on her hand, Finn. I reckon that’s where the fever has come from. The infection’s spread.’

  ‘I’ve got to see her,’ Kas says, moving towards the door.

  Ray glances at me and I nod.

  ‘Just be real quiet,’ he says. ‘Sleep’s the best thing for her now.’

  Kas quietly opens the door off the kitchen. She starts to move through, then reaches her hand back for me.

  The first thing I notice, while my eyes adjust to the dark, is the sound of Rose’s breathing. It’s not regular. She inhales and seems to hold her breath for ages before letting it out. Then she breathes short and sharp, like she’s panting.