Dreaming the Enemy

by David Metzenthen

  Maybe, Johnny thought, to be born thick might just be a blessing.

  The girl in white walked in Johnny’s direction. Don’t panic, he told himself. Light a smoke. Pretend you’re normal and she’ll be on her way in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Briefly she disappeared behind a boatshed then reappeared. Hands held low, she picked her way along the rocky path, lean-limbed, skin coloured dark by the sun. Now she was close, too close, Johnny thought, but there was nothing he could do about that. Spotting him, she pulled up, crossing her arms.

  ‘Gidday,’ Johnny said. ‘How yer goin’?’

  A spray of gum leaves framed her like an old-fashioned photograph.

  ‘All right,’ she said, without feeling. ‘You?’

  Johnny lit a cigarette. Let smoke out in a tight grey stream.

  ‘Yeah, fine. Nice place.’ It sounded wrong, the words grinding like shovelled stones. ‘Spot on.’

  The girl held worn pink thongs against a plain dress that wasn’t new, looked cheap, and had a couple of dirty lines on it as if she’d leant against a wire fence. Johnny was aware of his army shirt, the only shirt he wore that didn’t feel like it belonged to a kid who’d passed away years ago.

  ‘I seen you drive down.’ She smiled, a flash of teeth, maybe one missing. ‘Y’in the army? Yer shirt ’n’ hair ’n’ that. Yer look like it.’

  Johnny choked on words. Images leapt out of the fiery pit; of a bad battle, the worst battle, the boys fighting for their lives, and losing.

  ‘I was, yeah,’ he said. ‘But I’m out now.’

  He felt she looked at him as if he was a decent but unknown dog: had decided he was not dangerous, to her, anyhow. She tucked dark hair back with thin, supple-looking fingers.

  ‘I sit there sometimes, too.’ Surprising him, she sat a couple of yards away on a flat rock, eyes on the green water, assessing it. ‘The tide’s turned. Sharks come in on it. And rays. Big black ones. Dolphins, too.’

  Johnny looked at the inlet. He could see the water moving as a whole, inland. Sharks and stingrays. Jesus. If only they were all he had to deal with. It was peculiar, he thought, that what worried him now had no heartbeat, did not sleep, did not breathe, but existed only in his head. The too-real had become the unreal. The dead had re-joined the living. The survivors became the casualties. And those three young VC fighters whom he’d fought tracked him endlessly, led by Khan – a trio of ghosts that had locked onto him as he’d once locked onto them, with no mercy in mind.

  ‘Jesus, sharks.’ Johnny tried to sound concerned. ‘Gee.’

  The girl told him her name was Carly, she didn’t have a job, and she lived up the river. She knocked back the smoke he offered.

  ‘Sometimes I work for Malcolm.’ She pointed where the strip of riverside bush gave way to hilly green paddocks. ‘Whatever needs doin’. He owns all that land up there. So what d’you do now?’ She glanced at him. ‘If you don’t mind me askin’.’

  Johnny liked her simple way of talking. Straightforward. No bullshit. He judged that she had grown up in a poor family in a hard place. A girl who spent more time in a paddock or packing shed than in front of a mirror.

  ‘I’m recoverin’.’ He took a drag, managed a weak grin, like adding sugar to bad coffee. ‘From Vietnam. I hope.’

  She nodded. ‘Right.’

  Her hands were lithe and veined. Thin gold rings pierced her ears. She wasn’t flat-chested but wore no bra, as if she’d put on her clothes without a thought, as if she neither expected nor cared about running into anyone.

  ‘You went there?’ She looked at him with eyes that were more silver than blue. He couldn’t imagine her going to school or reading a book. There was something wild about her, as if she was connected to this place but not the people. ‘That war.’

  ‘I did.’ The size of the experience was like a tidal wave sweeping through a slum. Total chaos. ‘Not much chop.’ He exhaled. ‘Really. At all.’

  ‘I bet.’ She dropped a small white shell into the water. ‘I seen it on TV. Horrible. Swamps. Fires. Them little guys. The helicopters an’ jets.’

  Her tone held him. He looked at her for more than a moment. What could she see? What did she know? There was a thoughtful stillness to her, even in this place of bright sunshine and clean water that pushed Vietnam further back into its own endless maze of shadows and fear.

  ‘I thought the beach might help.’ He wondered if she might be someone he could tell a little of the truth to. ‘A few waves and some blue sky. A bit of peace and quiet. Some drinking. A fair bit of that.’ He found a laugh, a poor one.

  ‘The beach helps me.’ She tossed another tiny shell, the size of a fingernail, into the water. ‘But I ain’t been where you been.’

  He wanted to tell her that she mightn’t have seen what he’d seen or done what he’d done, but she was soothing him bit by bit as if he was a shocked horse. He took a risk.

  ‘Is there a place I can stay around here?’

  She looked over Johnny’s head, up the open slope then back again, to him and the water gently nudging the sand.

  ‘Malcolm’s got an old fishin’ hut a bit along the river. He’d let yer use it, I reckon. It’s rough, but.’

  Johnny nodded. ‘No problem. How do I find him?’

  ‘I’ll show ya.’ She stood, dropped her thongs, and slipped her feet into them. ‘We can walk. Over the hill. Not far. Five minutes.’

  Johnny could see a farm gate that opened into a lumpy paddock. No house in sight. He also saw, as he stood, she had a short fixed-blade hunting knife in her pocket. Weapon or tool, he didn’t care. He was sure she had her reasons.

  The farm was like an odd little country village, Shoey thought. Large machinery sheds and two cottages were sited at a respectful distance around a low white homestead. The galvanised-iron roofs were a flaking cherry red.

  ‘How many people live here?’ Johnny surveyed the place: old and worn but grand and strange.

  ‘One.’ Carly shrugged, opened another gate, let Johnny through. ‘Malcolm’s family got it all a real long time ago.’

  A long valley widened behind the homestead. Like a painting on a butcher’s wall, Johnny thought; cattle grazing in the blue shadows of white gums and camel-humped hills. He climbed steps to stand with Carly under vines that released an old-fashioned fruity smell that he didn’t like. Through a window he could see an upright piano and paintings in gold frames. A dog yapped.

  ‘Freddy.’ Carly stared at her feet. ‘Malcolm’s home.’

  A sausage dog appeared, followed by a man who Johnny reckoned had to be six foot six. His face was long and craggy, his shoulders were broad and straight, but he looked worn-out and stiff rather than strong.

  ‘Afternoon.’ The farmer stepped out onto the veranda.

  Johnny waited for him to say more but he didn’t.

  ‘Hi, Malcolm.’ Carly brushed away the webs of silence by introducing Johnny. In ten seconds she outlined his story.

  ‘I’ll pay,’ Shoey said. ‘I’m from the bush. I won’t burn it down.’ It stuck in his guts to have to justify himself to anyone.

  ‘Not necessary.’ Malcolm took a step back. ‘Just give it a sweep. Carly will get you a broom. There might also be a lantern in the tractor shed.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll see you later.’ And he was gone, followed by Freddy who waddled importantly away, as if he also was six foot six.

  It struck Johnny as bizarre that a country where one person could own so much would bother to declare war on a country where men owned so little. Then it struck him: that was the reason.

  Five

  When Shoey’s number was drawn from a barrel by a Test cricketer on TV, he didn’t know what to say. All he could do was watch as his mum leant forward, hid her face, and cried. For the moment, Donald, Shoey’s stepfather, sat unmoving, his combed hair catching yellow lamplight. A newspaper was draped over his knees like a blanket.

  ‘The mongrels.’ Then Donald got up awkwardly, as if there was someone he wanted to argue with. He glared
at the TV. ‘The bastards. I’m really sorry, John.’ He went over and put an arm around Johnny’s mother, spoke to her bowed head. ‘It’ll work out, April. He might not end up going, anyway. It’s not always straightforward.’

  ‘Well, this’ll be interesting.’ Johnny sat back, arms crossed, thinking, I am in the bloody army. They bloody got me; which would be somewhat of a change from Donald’s furniture shop, where he’d spent the last year pretending to care about three-seater lounges and tartan recliner-rockers. Johnny took in a big breath that did not seem big enough. ‘Well, holy hell. There you go then.’ He figured there was nothing much to add, although he knew there would be at a later date.

  There’d be plenty.

  The next day, as hot as the one before, Johnny walked through the backstreets of Taralia towards the cemetery. Brown grass held on grimly and small houses brooded behind pulled blinds. He felt as if he was being cooked under a magnifying glass.

  Johnny thought about his dad. Les had been a bloke born for work and grateful for it. He would have seen Johnny’s call-up as something serious that the country required; not good but no argument given. Les would’ve taken Johnny to the Woolpack Hotel, found a quiet corner, and lifted a pot of Carlton in his direction.

  Cheers, mate. They would’ve have clicked rims. Proud of ya, son. Look after yourself. You’ll be right.

  And that would’ve been that.

  Johnny navigated rows of graves until he stood in front of a headstone the dull grey of new track ballast. That, at least, would’ve pleased Les, he thought. A railway man to the last.

  Johnny, standing in the middle of a grim sea of memorials, looked around. It was unbelievable that he could be ordered to join the army, no questions asked or answered. How could people he didn’t know, people out of sight and reach, have such power? At some level, it had to be wrong.

  Who was he going to fight anyway?

  Yeah, the Viet Cong, he knew that much. Seen them on TV. Little fellers in black shorts, nooses around their necks, hands tied behind their backs as they were hauled out of marshes at gunpoint. To Johnny they didn’t look much but he got the feeling there was a calculated deadliness to them, viperous, cruel, and ugly. If he ended up in those rice paddies, it was going to be a nightmare; he would have to kill those people, him, Johnny Shoebridge, with his own hands. Or get killed. In that one moment, knowing this, that it was real, he was changed forever.

  Johnny looked at his hands; they were square-palmed, tanned, and strong from storeroom work and season after season of footy and cricket. What they were capable of he had no idea, but he had the feeling one day he’d find out. Kneeling, he touched the grey marble bed with two fingers, registering the heat of the sun stored in the stone.

  ‘I’ll see yer, Les.’ The grave was unyielding. So he spoke to the dry brown hills that ringed the town. ‘Soon.’ Or as soon as might be humanly possible.

  He and Jilly sat in the ute at the Taralia lookout. Below, the town was mapped by a scatter of lights that faded out along the train line. The football ground was lit up like a landing pad, the Tigers’ pre-season well underway. Next to it the trotting track glowed like a spaceship. This spelled out, Johnny figured, what the town rated important. He felt he’d been separated out, like a sheep for export.

  Jilly Goldsborough looked at him steadily. Her blue eyes were bracketed by curly hair the colour of varnished pine. Her fingertips, pink-nailed and neat, sought each other out.

  ‘So what about us, Johnny? When you leave.’

  Two days ago he’d paused at the gilt-edged window of James Scott Jewellers. Engagement rings in heart-shaped beds of blue velvet reminded him of sideshow prizes, a bit too glittery to be true. He’d walked on, his future changed by people in Canberra, a place he’d seen on TV that looked like a laboratory complex.

  ‘I’ll go away—’ He laughed softly, his eyes on the town surrounded by darkness. ‘Then I’ll come back. That’s the theory.’

  ‘And we’ll pick up just where we left off?’ Jilly posed the question like she posed all her questions; quietly confident she had some idea about the answer. ‘All set to go. Maybe?’

  She’d done better at school than he had. Not that she mentioned it or either of them cared; it just wasn’t important in the overall scheme of things. The two had paired up as if directed by a dancing teacher. It had seemed inevitable then but it didn’t seem like that now. A wild card had been dealt and Johnny had picked it up.

  Jilly looked down on the straight wide streets where hardly a car moved, every family in every house in for the evening. ‘Well, we might,’ she added, answering her own question. ‘I hope.’

  Taralia, Johnny knew, was a place as solid as the Commonwealth Savings Bank. Here folks liked wool, wheat, footy, cricket, T-bone steak, Carlton Draught, Peters Ice Cream, the news, and the weather. And they expected weddings after engagements and no backing out.

  ‘Good as I can do, kid. At this point.’ Johnny felt too much was being asked of him by too many people. And there was the knowledge conferred upon him by his country, not to be shared with civilians, as unfathomable as space, that he had been designated as a killer. ‘I’m not lying.’

  Jilly studied him. ‘You never do.’ She squeezed his hand, hard, as if it was half-punishment. ‘I love you anyway, Johnny. And always.’

  Anyway or any way? Always or all ways? These were questions that could not be answered – not at this time. Maybe later, maybe a couple of years down the track, when he might know what sort of a person he had become.

  ‘I love you, too.’ And that was the truth, as far as Johnny Shoebridge could see that Saturday night. ‘I promise.’

  Six

  Johnny sat on the army bus next to a lanky bloke who’d folded sharp elbows and bony knees into the window seat. The guy wore white jeans, no socks, brown desert boots, and looked out of the window, Johnny reckoned, as if he was checking for chicks on a school excursion. But there weren’t going to be too many girls out here. Melbourne had dropped way back as the old coach laboured up the Hume Highway.

  ‘Never thought I’d be doing this.’ The guy forked long fingers through wavy blond hair. ‘Not in a million years. The army. Far out, they wouldn’t even let me bring my stick. Brand new. Trigger Brothers. Bummer, eh? Good waves in Asia. So Captain Goodvibes tells me in Tracks.’

  Johnny guessed the feller was talking about surfing. He looked like a surfer. Well, he didn’t look like a country boy. And he didn’t sound like one, either. Clipped his words then dispensed them neatly and effortlessly. Never been within a hundred miles of Taralia High, Johnny thought. Or had an old man who only spoke about the weather, work, beer, and football.

  ‘Where ya from?’ Johnny figured he might as well ask, since they had a couple of years together to get through.

  The guy didn’t look at Johnny, as if he’d worked him out, trusted him already.

  ‘Black Rock. Melbourne. Bayside. You?’

  ‘The bush, mate.’ Johnny felt rough and ready but proud enough. ‘Taralia, mate. Past Ballarat. Home of the mighty Tigers. Who haven’t won a flag for forty years.’

  ‘Good stuff.’ The boy put out a wide, flat hand. ‘Andrew Lexington. Call me Lex.’

  They shook hands. Johnny named himself, noting that Lex wore bright knotted cord bracelets, and a leopard-spotted cowrie shell on a leather necklace. That shit’d be gone in a flash, he thought, as well as the long hair and the bloody ridiculous no-socks bit.

  ‘When we finish with this crap,’ Lex continued, ‘which I cannot fucking believe, you and me are going surfing, Johnny-boy. It’s gunna be one long hot summer of sex, sand, Southern Comfort, peroxide, and reckless Kombi-driving.’

  To Johnny that seemed like a great idea although he’d never been surfing, had only ever seen a Kombi on TV, and hated Southern Comfort like poison. He could at least picture a beach without too much difficulty: long and empty at sunset, breaking waves, a warm wind blowing in his face and tickling his stomach, the army-thing fading like
the spreading rings of a skipped stone until there was nothing to see but smooth water.

  ‘I’m in.’ Johnny nodded with conviction. ‘Bloody oath. We’ll drive to Darwin. Make five grand on the prawn trawlers. Then do it all again.’

  The bus crawled into the Puckapunyal Army Camp as if it was going to die there. When it stopped among blue wooden buildings the boys jumped up, cheered, and smacked on the seats. This stopped as soon as a big man in uniform stepped aboard – a big man who shouted at them non-stop for the next three months. Then it was on to Cobungra for jungle warfare training, and a ship that sailed from Sydney. Johnny could hardly believe any of it.

  ‘It’s embarrassing, Shoebridge,’ Lex said, staring at his beer on the bar, on the Friday night before they sailed for Vietnam. ‘How shit I am at the piano but how good I am with a rifle.’ He drank, adam’s apple sliding, put down the empty glass. ‘My mother teaches music. She’d be appalled.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Johnny folded up shirt sleeves on arms that were bigger and stronger than they’d ever been. ‘I’m bloody rapt. You keep it up.’

  Lex looked thoughtful. ‘Yeah, I suppose flattening the little bastards with a saxophone was never going to be practical. Looks like we’re gunna have to shoot them after all.’

  Johnny sipped Sydney beer. ‘All going well.’ For two, maybe three seconds, in the shallow lines on Lex’s face and the strange, changing light in his eyes, Johnny understood the complexity and seriousness of what they were being sent to do. ‘All goin’ well.’

  ‘Can’t get my head around it,’ Lex said suddenly, rearing back, as if from the very idea. He looked at Johnny. ‘Me? Us? You? Shooting people? Shooting them dead? Jesus Christ.’ Lex pulled his chin in. ‘It’s fuckin’ crazy.’

  Johnny knew a wildfire about to start when he saw one.

  ‘Yeah, but that’s the story, mate.’ He fixed the tall boy next to him with a stare and held him to it. ‘It’s us or them, Lexy. It’s you and me and the boys. We’ll be right. Gotta be done. Only forwards. Yeah? Together. The boys.’