by Sofie Laguna
Pop said, ‘Good, darlin’. Be home for tea.’ Pop was glad I lived with him on his Three. Since Dad went away he let me drink tea, he let me light the fire and throw in the wood.
As I walked down to the Murray, questions rose like bubbles in my chest. Why was Jamie drinking with Kirk? They used to be friends before the fall-out, but I was the first to touch his scar, not Kirk. It was me Jamie picked up in the Valiant. Or did he pick up Kirk too? What were they doing together? Why did he want to be friends with Kirk and me? Why not just me?
I closed my eyes as I walked the path, feeling Silver’s warm, strong body beneath me. My rifle swung over my shoulder. I sang, He robbed the rich, he helped the poor, he shot James MacEvoy, a terror to Australia was the wild colonial boy. It was the first song John Wayne heard when he came to Innisfree. Light moved through me. My stomach felt shrunken and tight. I couldn’t breathe as deep. The feather pushed its way along the top of my skirt, moving up under my shirt.
I came to my keepout. Mary Kate said, Who gave you leave to be kissing me? Thornton answered, So, you can talk! Mary Kate said, Yes, I can, I will and I do! And it’s more than talk you’ll be getting if you step a step closer to me!
I swept the floor of my keepout with a branch of leaves. Every time Mary Kate pushed the broom her long green skirt danced across the dirt. I watched my branch-broom stir up the dirt then smooth it, seeing my green hem darken. Thornton would be home from mustering soon. He would leave his secrets behind him. He would be home for a long time—two months or three months before he had to leave again. He would teach me things. We would drive to places in his car. I would make him lunch. Sometimes he was Jamie and sometimes he was Thornton and sometimes he was Ray. His skin became other skins, as if it was elastic. He was Rooster Cogburn, he was Jamie, he was the Quiet Man and he was my dad.
I walked to The Choke; every time the river was the same, and every time it was different. The water was always moving between the banks, even if it was slow, it never stopped flowing. I didn’t know what time it was. Was it lunchtime? I tried not to think about Kirk and why he had been with Jamie. Why was Jamie friends with Kirk? But he wouldn’t say Kirk was cute. He wouldn’t go for a swim with Kirk, would he? I wasn’t sure. Was it crying I could hear? Whose voices were they?
I started to scrape dirt into the shape of a chair, with a back and sides. I gathered stones and sticks and made the arms of the chair. Sean Thornton, the men of Innisfree bid you welcome home. As I worked, my hum became a song. And that was how they captured him, the wild colonial boy. The chair could fit Mary Kate and Thornton and that’s all. There wouldn’t be room for Kirk or Steve. There was a tree nearby to tether the Miracle Horse and Silver. I put my arms around the trunk, my cheek against the bark. Thornton said, There’ll be no locks or bolts between us.
‘Hey, Justine!’
I looked up and saw Jamie coming through the trees. He smiled at me. My heart thumped. I needed to go to the toilet. I stepped away from the tree. I didn’t know whether to push down the chair I had made.
When Jamie was closer he said, ‘Nice day for it.’
His eyes were so blue, I couldn’t look.
Jamie turned to face the river. He hadn’t seen the chair. He was wearing jeans and his legs were strong like my dad’s and his hands were in his pockets. His hair was light and came over his collar at the back. He was wide across the shoulders. I felt as if I wasn’t there; only he was there. He said, ‘G’day, cutie.’
The feather brushed the insides of my arms.
He said, ‘You ready for a swim?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. There was no spit in my mouth.
Jamie unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them down. He was wearing shorts underneath. He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off and I saw the scar and the tooth in the middle left over from the dogs. Jamie had grown up around the scar, the scar was the centre; it decided how tall he grew, how strong he became, what he did.
Jamie stood shimmering in the sunlight. ‘Coming in?’ He held his hand out to me. It was big, like my dad’s. When my hand was inside my dad’s, it looked small, like a baby bird in a nest.
I pulled my dress over my head. My hair caught in the button. I kept pulling at it but couldn’t get the dress over my head. I couldn’t see out from under the dress. My face felt hot. It was dark. I felt the same as when Dawn and Noreena talked to me, or when I didn’t get the words and letters right at school. Stupid. I wanted to turn around and run back to Pop’s Three with the dress still over my head. Never pull it off. Stay in my room with the dress over my head forever.
Jamie said, ‘Don’t move.’
I kept as still as I could as his fingers brushed against my neck. He was standing so close I could hear him breathe. The feather went up the back of my legs, stopping behind my knees. Then it was light again and the dress lay on the dirt beside us.
Jamie took my hand—he didn’t look at my swimmers hanging loose and old, and tight in places. We climbed down the steep side. When we came to the bottom we slid into the brown river water. It felt cold; I stood up with my arms crossed around me. Jamie said, ‘Justine, you are so cute.’ The feather tickled under the bum of my swimmers.
He went under and I couldn’t see him. I looked around but he was nowhere. I looked across to the bank on the other side, but all I saw was water and reeds and the trees. It had turned quiet. I looked back at the bank we had just climbed down. Where had he gone?
Suddenly I felt my legs grabbed and Jamie came up laughing. ‘Gotcha!’ he said.
I splashed him and screamed and it came out like any other girl in the school playground—a girl like Dawn or Noreena.
Jamie swam close, put his back to me, and said, ‘Climb on.’ He patted his shoulder. ‘I’ll take you for a ride, little mermaid.’
I put my hands on Jamie’s shoulders. He dived under and I held tight. We went down deep where it was cold and black, my hands on his shoulders as he pulled me deeper through the water, moving through the darkness on our way to our underwater home. If we kept swimming we would push through the same dirt that buried my dad’s secrets, that buried knowing. We would push through it, our faces and bodies and feet bursting through the dirt and there we would be on the other side, and nothing would be hidden, everything would be clear and known in the light.
My chest felt tighter and tighter. Jamie kept swimming deeper. I thought my chest would burst, then he pushed up from the bottom and we came through the water into the dry world. We sucked back the breath. Jamie kicked up and lay on his back and I trod water, watching him. Pieces of him rose and sunk. He flipped back up. ‘Smoko?’ he said, and swam to the shore. I followed and he put out his hand for mine as we climbed out.
When we were on the bank Jamie shook the water from his hands and took his cigarettes from the pocket of his shirt. When he went to sit down on the edge, I took his hand and led him to my chair. He said, ‘Is that for us? Justine, you’re so cute.’
We sat down in my chair and Jamie took a cigarette out of the box. He offered me one but I shook my head. ‘You can have some of mine,’ he said. He leaned against me while he smoked. He passed me the cigarette when it was halfway down and I took a small puff. I held the smoke in my mouth then blew it out, and didn’t cough.
When Jamie leaned forward to put the cigarette out in the dirt, I saw his scar. ‘You can touch it if you like,’ he said.
I didn’t move.
‘Come on, it won’t bite. Remember? Touch it.’
Jamie took my fingers and put them against the scar. My mouth felt dry. I ran my finger down the red waves and up the middle and Jamie shivered. I took my hand away. Jamie said, ‘Don’t stop.’
But I did stop. I didn’t want to touch it anymore.
Jamie leaned against the back of our chair and the dirt fell flat and we did too. Jamie laughed. He said, ‘It was good when we were kids, remember?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
He sat up. ‘How old are you, Justine?’
‘
Thirteen. Fourteen soon.’
‘Soon?’
‘A few months.’
‘How old do you think I am?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m nearly twenty. Bit older than you. Do I scare you?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘I can’t hear you.’
‘No.’
‘Louder.’
‘No.’
‘I still can’t hear you. Do I scare you?’
‘No!’ I shouted. ‘No! No! No! No!’ A cockatoo screeched in the sky.
‘That’s better,’ Jamie said.
We sat and looked at the water. I wanted to ask about Kirk, but I didn’t want anything to stop or change. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear the answer.
Jamie pushed at the dirt at our feet until he made two small hills. He said, ‘Weird coming back here. A lot of shit’s gone down.’ I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or to himself. ‘Been nice seeing you, Justine. You’re different to…the others.’
I swallowed. What did he mean I was different? To who? To Kirk and Steve?
He looked at his watch. ‘We’ll do this again.’ He turned to me. ‘You want to?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Cute.’ He shook his head. He stood and stepped into his jeans. As I watched him thread the end of his belt through the buckle, the feather flew down between my legs. Jamie put out his hand and pulled me to my feet. ‘There’s nothing to you, Justine,’ he said. ‘Not like some of the girls in this place.’ He laughed to himself. ‘I could pick you up and throw you.’ He didn’t let go of my hand as we walked through the bush to where he’d parked the Valiant. I couldn’t swallow or speak. The feather kept tickling under my swimmers. When we came to his car he said, ‘I’m heading into town. You want me to drop you home?’
‘No,’ I said.
He said, ‘I’ll find you and we’ll set something up.’ He got into his car and turned on the engine. ‘See you, Justine,’ he said through the open window.
‘See you.’
‘Jamie.’
‘What?’
‘See you, Jamie,’ he said.
I felt heat on my cheeks. ‘See you, Jamie.’
‘That’s better.’ He revved the engine hard, smiling at me, then he turned onto the road and was gone.
I went back to my keepout and made Thornton sandwiches of sticks and dirt. I poured him a beer of Murray water and after he drank it we had a rest on the keepout floor. The feather tickled me to sleep and there was no crying. It didn’t come at all. I heard birds and breeze and water. I stayed and stayed in my keepout home. I had a letter box made of sticks and Aunty Rita sent me a letter. It said, Friends make the difference. Dare to know.
When it grew dark I walked back to Pop’s Three, my stomach growling and empty. I felt clean and light. Jamie’s smile had taken away everything all the way back to my first mistake. There was no breech, no split, no Donna, no Michael, no Stacey, no Pentridge, no Echuca High. Jamie had rubbed out all the wrong words I had written and read and spoken, and made me new, like an empty page.
42.
That night the feather came out from under my pyjamas and drew pictures of Jamie and me as we walked the streets of Dublin. It was The Quiet Man. Jamie put his fists up at the enemy and said, I’m mad enough to kill. In my dream the scar on Jamie’s back became the road to Stacey’s half-built house. Sherry called, ‘Mum! Come home!’ I held her in my arms and said, ‘Won’t be long now.’
In the day I was either at the river or walking the Henley Trail looking for the Valiant. When I heard a car coming I stood at the side and waited, my heart pounding. When it wasn’t him, I felt empty and flat. It was a long time between cars. I went down to the river to fix my keepout. For five days I watched the road and waited, and worked on my keepout home. I built shelves that reached the ceiling, dug a hole to hide supplies, and shaped a window with a bark frame. The Quiet Man in Dublin became Sheriff Chance in Arizona. I was Feathers or Mary Kate or Mattie Ross. I was in the river with Jamie underwater, riding on his back deeper and deeper until we pushed through the dirt and came out on the other side where nothing was hidden.
It became hard to eat. Sometimes I was dizzy. The world outside of Jamie was finished. Aunty Rita and Michael had never been. There was no Black Beauty or Joe Evans. Nobody missed anybody else. Nobody was separated. I didn’t need answers or letters or words.
On Saturday morning I was on the trail when a car came. It won’t be him it won’t be him this time I won’t look because it won’t be him. For the first time I didn’t stop or turn around. The car slowed down beside me, and Jamie said, ‘You’re hard to find.’
I didn’t know how to stop walking.
He said, ‘The silent treatment, hey?’
I kept going.
He said, ‘Justine, stop.’
But I couldn’t. I had been walking for so many days, up and down, I didn’t know how.
‘Justine, come on!’ His voice was sharp. At last I stopped. He said, ‘That’s better. Let me look at you. I’ve missed you, cutie.’
The feather tickled me under my skirt.
‘Are you busy tonight?’
I shook my head and wiped sweat from my lip.
He said, ‘Good. What about I meet you right here, right here at this spot?’ He looked around at the trees and road. ‘We’ll go somewhere. We’ll get fish and chips and eat them at the river, how does that sound?’
I nodded.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Well…at five. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘Ah, she speaks.’ He tipped back his head and laughed, and the volts came from him and lit up the road so that I could see all the way to Innisfree.
I walked back to Pop’s and found him in the kitchen. He said, ‘Come and feed the girls with me.’ We went down to the run and took handfuls of the seeds that cost a bloody fortune out of the bucket and scattered them around the grass. Pop said, ‘Hello, girls.’ He looked at me as I was changing the water and said, ‘Justine, you are growing up.’ He took three eggs out of the hen’s boxes, held them up to me and said, ‘Want some lunch?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, and even though my stomach was light and sick I swallowed every yellow liquid bite.
Pop burped and rolled a White Ox. ‘Good thing I took you in, Justine—someone to share the eggs with.’
I wiped yolk from my chin and he grinned at me.
I said, ‘What’s the time, Pop?’
‘One o’clock,’ he said.
The next time I asked it he said, ‘What’s the bloody difference what the time is? Going somewhere?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Dawn’s.’
‘When?’
‘Five o’clock. Just before.’
‘I’ll let you know when it’s nearly five, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘How will you get there?’
‘Her mum’s picking me up at the rock.’
‘On the trail?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How is her mum?’
‘Okay.’
‘Nice you’re seeing Dawn again,’ he said. ‘Eat your toast.’
I dragged my toast across my plate and waited for nearly five.
43.
Pop never did tell me the time. He sat on the camp chair near his fire, threw crusts to the girls and drank beers. There were empty cans all around his feet. He smoked and talked to the flames. ‘Bloody hell, Ray. What were you thinking? You weren’t bloody thinking, that’s the trouble.’ He got up and went down to the gate that led to the river. ‘You old bastard, Cockyboy,’ he said. ‘I know, I know, they all belong to you, ole bastard. Come here and talk to me.’ I didn’t want to say, Is it nearly five yet, Pop? I just waited until he went inside for a beer, then I left.
I walked along the trail to the place where I had last seen Jamie. I didn’t know what time it was. I kicked
around at the grass until it was flat and then I sat down. I crossed my legs, and put my chin in my hands. Jamie was Stacey’s brother. He wasn’t in Yolamundi the night I was in Stacey’s caravan; he was in Goonyella at the mines with Brian. He didn’t see what happened to Stacey. But he knew Stacey wasn’t with Brian anymore. She couldn’t be a wife anymore. She couldn’t be on her own out there. Did Jamie think my dad did it? I heard crying and put my hands over my ears, trying to rub out the sound.
When I looked up I saw the white Valiant coming along the road. I jumped to my feet. The crying stopped.
The car pulled in close to me. Jamie leaned over and spoke through the open window. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. He opened the passenger door. ‘Get in.’
I got in the car. It smelled of ash and petrol. Jamie looked at me; there was electrical light around his face. It was too bright to see into his eyes. He drove out onto the road. One side was the river and the other side was Yolamundi. There were trees all around us. Eagles flew in high circles in the sky. I wanted to keep going. Keep driving through the trees, sitting beside Jamie, eagles in the sky. He drove out onto the highway.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To pick up some beers,’ he said. He touched my knee. The feather tickled up to my underpants. ‘That okay?’
‘Yeah.’
He drove to the Yolamundi pub and parked in the street outside. ‘Back in a minute,’ he said.
I watched as he went inside. I saw Noreena’s mother, Mrs Rimes, come into the car park on her way back from the shop. I slid down against the seat and didn’t sit up again until she was gone. She knew where my dad was; everybody did. It’s all or fucken nothing with your father, Relle told the boys. Free as a fucken bird, or locked up in a bloody cage. Everybody knew.
At last Jamie came out of the pub through the back door, carrying three paper bags. He got in the car. ‘Wasn’t too long, was I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Getting cheeky on me, now, huh?’ His smile made me dizzy.