1988

by Andrew McGahan

  Then there was Kevin. He was sitting watchfully in the dirt at Barry’s feet. He seemed a sharper, meaner dog. He’d already forgotten Wayne and me.

  I said, ‘Have you always owned Kevin?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Why does he hate Russel so much.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that. Kevvie hates whoever I tell him to hate.’

  We were lucky alright. Under Barry, Cape Don would’ve been a prison camp.

  Time passed. The fish were thrown on the barbecue and we ate. Despite everything it was delicious—big juicy fillets baked in vinegar and butter. Not even half of what we caught that afternoon was being eaten. Barry talked about fishing trips of his past. And not just fish. He’d gone after things like turtle and dugong. He’d also eaten goanna, snake, wallaby, crocodile. Everything the national park had to offer.

  I said, ‘I thought only the Gurig could hunt around here.’

  ‘It’s alright. I’m square with the big bossman. Allan Price. You met him yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’d love you two.’

  We settled into drinking. I found myself trying to keep pace with Barry. Wayne was matching it as well. We had to prove we could do something as well as he could. Drinking was our only strength. It was a mistake. Barry slammed down beer after beer. I couldn’t keep up. My stomach was swelling, bloating.

  Barry’s wasn’t. It didn’t seem to touch him. He drank and smoked and sneered at us. He started pestering Wayne about art. Even there Wayne couldn’t win. Barry knew what he was talking about. His main interest was photography. He even had a book due out soon, in conjunction with the Commission. Photos and accompanying text concerning one of the wetland national parks, south of Darwin.

  Wayne was struggling. He tried to explain himself, what his theories were, why he was having trouble with his painting at the moment. Barry tore it all apart. Wayne tensed up, got more extravagant. Nothing he said was very coherent. And he was looking his worst. Dense curls of blond hair, white skin, thin hunched shoulders. He had nowhere to argue from, no certainty. Barry was bigger and tougher and had no doubts about anything.

  I was getting too drunk. The atmosphere was making me ill. It was ugly, nearing some sort of violence. From time to time Vince or I tried to steer the conversation to other things. It didn’t help. Even Barry was drunk now, and he was focused. The fishing had started it, then the crab-hunting, the oyster. Wayne was the victim for the night. Barry got on to the idea of Wayne doing portraits of the Cobourg locals.

  ‘I can’t believe they’d ask a kid from Brisbane to do it.’

  ‘I didn’t want it,’ said Wayne, ‘I’m not even going to do it.’

  Barry was hardly listening. ‘What the hell are you two even doing up here? There’s people in Darwin need a job.’

  ‘My father fixed it up.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, your father?’

  It went on. It was both Wayne and I now. Did we know anything at all about the Territory? We didn’t. Did we plan to stay up north when the job was finished? We didn’t. Had we seen anything of the Peninsula at all? We hadn’t. We were wanting in everything. Dump us alone in the bush and we wouldn’t last three days. Give us a broken-down engine to fix and we were helpless. Barry didn’t even like the way I smoked. I didn’t inhale properly. I sucked on it like a girl.

  ‘It wouldn’t be so bad if you could really paint, or you could really write. But what would you write about, what would you paint about? You’ve got no guts, no experience, you don’t know anything. Why would anyone listen to anything you two had to say?’

  I couldn’t think of any answers. He was right. We didn’t know anything. Wayne was silent, staring at the ground. In the end we simply got up and walked home. Once we were inside I realised Wayne had tears in his eyes. He went into his studio, switched on the music. I sat on the back verandah. I felt low and dirty. And stupid.

  Barry had got to me. I hated him and his opinion meant nothing, but he had got to me. What did I think I was doing up there? Did it matter that I’d just hidden away in my room these last few months? Would a real writer do that?

  Maybe it really was a farce, me thinking I could write novels. Certainly I’d had doubts about it before, periods when I hadn’t written anything. But the idea that I never would was something new. It was disturbing and depressing. It was failure on a whole new scale.

  I made an effort. I went in to Wayne. He was sitting on the floor, looking at his paintings. Barry had got to him too, seriously. Somehow that was even worse. I hadn’t thought anything could get to Wayne.

  ‘C’mon,’ I said, ‘Just because we’re useless in a place like this, and to someone like Barry, it doesn’t mean we’re completely fucked. How would he survive in Brisbane?’

  Wayne’s eyes were dry. ‘They’d worship him. They’d make a TV show out of him. He’s good-looking. He can do everything. He’s the great Australian dream. Believe me, they’d take him over us any day.’

  We sat there.

  It was true. They would.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Barry flew out the next day with his scuba gear and his spear gun and his dog. We were finally left in peace. There were no more visitors. It didn’t matter. The damage was done. Cape Don had been unmasked. It was an abode of the defeated.

  Over the next few weeks Wayne took down his canvases and stayed away from the studio. He painted nothing, sketched nothing. It was over. There wasn’t going to be any exhibition. I understood, a little, of what he felt. There wasn’t going to be any novel either. I went through the pages I’d written. They were very bad. Worse than I’d imagined. Barry had ruined it for the both of us, revealed an ugly truth. No one was ever going to be interested. We were wasting our time.

  I strayed around the house, wondering what to do. I smoked a cigarette every two hours or so. Even they were beginning to annoy me. I could smoke them comfortably, but I still had no real taste for nicotine. I wasn’t a smoker. I smoked for image. It was another pretence. My mind was going into a loop, picking my life to pieces. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. Even my body was a problem. It was the boils. The one on my thigh hadn’t been too bad—it’d grown, popped and passed—but now there was one growing on the cheek of my arse. It was big and painful and I was sick of boils.

  Vince was no better. He stayed with his port and his scotch. It’d been a downhill few weeks, ever since Danny had left. Barry couldn’t have helped. He’d fixed the outboard with appalling ease. He’d caught fish. He’d done everything Vince couldn’t. There hadn’t even been any nervous breakdown. Barry had just taken the cruiser and left. Demanded a new job, got it. A man of action, a man in charge of his own destiny.

  It must’ve been the last straw. One Friday afternoon the supply plane arrived and I drove out as usual with Vince. While I unloaded the boxes I heard him talking to the pilot. He was organising a flight back to Darwin. He said he wanted to see Commission headquarters about getting a transfer. If Barry could do it, so could he. He’d had enough. He wanted out. Fast.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was though. And disturbed.

  ‘What’ll you tell them?’ I asked, on the drive home.

  ‘That they made a mistake.’

  We got back. I starting stocking the groceries in the fridge. Wayne came in, flicked through his mail. I told him about Vince.

  ‘Good,’ he said, ‘Least someone is getting outta here.’

  ‘Maybe. But Vince was the last person I thought it’d be. What’re we supposed to do.’

  Wayne didn’t answer for a minute.

  ‘He’s not the only one,’ he said.

  I looked at him. He handed me a letter. It was from the Queensland Department of Transport. Wayne’s painting of roadworkers had won their Expo competition. The prize was five thousand dollars. The money would be awarded at a gala dinner, in Brisbane. They wanted him there. They were willing, the letter said, to fly him to Brisbane for the event, all expenses paid, economy class, return. It
was in one week. Could he possibly attend?

  Vince called a dinner to discuss the situation. All five Cape Don residents were present. I took a stool for once, because of the boil. I was worried about it. How was I going to pop one that I couldn’t even see? I was depressed about other things too. Vince was going. Wayne was going. I wasn’t.

  Wayne himself was subdued about the prize. He could certainly use the money, but he’d never liked the painting, so he saw it as no great victory. Getting away from Cape Don was the main thing. Vince, too, was in a morbidly hopeful mood, now that he’d made the decision to leave. Wayne would fly out on the same plane as Vince. On Monday.

  ‘Are you coming back?’ Vince asked Wayne.

  ‘He’d better,’ I said.

  We’d already gone through it. There was no way I was letting Wayne out of his remaining contract. The job was his, after all, not mine. We’d worked out that he’d be gone just over a week. It was strange though, the idea of Wayne simply flying to Brisbane for dinner, then flying straight back again. It brought the real world too close, destroyed the sense of exile and distance. If there wasn’t at least remoteness to define Cape Don, then what was there?

  Either way, Wayne was jetting off to success and I was being left to handle the weather on my own. All the observations. Every three hours. Night and day.

  Vince wasn’t sympathetic. ‘I had to do it before you guys got here. It’s a shit way to live, but you’ve only got it for eight or nine days.’

  Vince, too, would be gone at least that long, if he ever came back at all. Russel would be in charge of the station. I would be in charge of the generators. Everyone seemed content with the arrangement. Everyone but me. Vince and Wayne grew progressively more cheerful as the drinks went down. They’d never been the best of friends, now they were getting along fine. Vince was impressed about the prize. Wayne might not have known much about engines or anything else, but he’d won five thousand dollars for his artwork. He couldn’t be all bad.

  Five thousand dollars. I was trying not to think about it. It was more money than I ever dreamed of having. I was happy for Wayne but deeply envious. I would never win any prizes. What had I done? Not even a chapter in two years. Knowing how to change the generators was all very well, but where was it going to get me? I drank and felt my boil ache and struggled to remain civil.

  Russel and Eve were the only ones who didn’t seem to care. Russel was polite and indifferent, Eve was silent and guarded. The same as ever. Art awards didn’t impress them. I wondered if anything we did ever would. I watched the two of them, sitting there, watching us. It occurred to me then that Vince and Wayne were celebrating their departure from a place that Russel and Eve called home.

  It was something I hadn’t thought about. Whatever happened, in two months, six months, a year, we three whites would be long gone. Russel and Eve would still be there. Someone else would be inviting them over for dinner. And someone else again after that. All transients. And if I couldn’t be bothered getting to know the Chinese back in Brisbane, why should Russel and Eve bother getting to know us? We had our own homes, and sooner or later we’d always go back to them.

  Wayne was also watching Russel and Eve. He was quite drunk now. Cheerful. He said, ‘What about a video Russel? I hear you two’ve got a video over there, and some movies.’

  Eve shot Russel a startled glance. Russel was on his seventh or eighth beer, looking sleepy. He shrugged and nodded. ‘Yeah, we got movies.’

  ‘You gonna invite the rest of us over to watch one some day?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Why not tonight?’

  I said, ‘It hasn’t gotta be tonight.’

  ‘What’s wrong with tonight?’ Wayne asked. ‘Tonight’s fine with you isn’t it Russel?’

  Russel looked up at Eve. She was frowning, gazing off down the hall. She didn’t say anything. He smiled uncomfortably. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Vince, ‘I’ve got resignation letters to write.’

  Wayne drained his beer. ‘What’ve you got to drink over there?’

  ‘We’ll bring our own,’ I said, ‘We can go back to our house and get some.’

  Russel nodded again. He wasn’t looking so happy about it now. Wayne and I got up and headed out across the compound.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ I said.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Invite yourself over to Russel and Eve’s?’

  ‘I didn’t invite myself. They asked.’

  ‘They didn’t ask. You forced them into it.’

  ‘They could’ve said no.’

  ‘You didn’t give them a chance.’

  ‘It’s only for a movie.’

  ‘It’s their house Wayne. We shouldn’t just charge in if they don’t want us.’

  ‘Russel didn’t seem worried.’

  ‘He’s drunk. Eve isn’t.’

  ‘Well it’s too late now.’

  Indeed it was. We stocked up with more beer and cigarettes, then went over and knocked. Russel came to the door and took us in. Their house was the same design as the other two, but more spartan. In the living room there was only one couch, one chair, and the TV. Nothing on the walls, no other furniture, the floorboards swept smooth and clean. There was a video machine on top of the TV, and several stacks of videos on the floor.

  Eve was curled up in the chair, her arms folded. She nodded at us. Russel stood there, tall and awkward. He waved his hand towards the videos. ‘Which one d’you want?’

  We squatted down to check them out. I felt bad. This was an invasion. There was nothing the four of us could talk about. Something stood in the way of casual conversation. An ignorance. A dislike. I didn’t know. We were limited to single sentence statements. Nods. Shrugs.

  The videos, as Wayne had said, were exclusively martial arts and westerns. We chose a western. Shane. Neither of us had seen it before. I assumed Russel and Eve had seen them all. That made it worse. Russel took the cassette and loaded it up, pressed play. None of us said anything. Wayne wanted a movie, we were getting one. We sat on the couch, our beers between our feet. Russel settled on the floor, leaning back into Eve’s chair. The movie started.

  We sat there for the next two hours. I didn’t know what to make of it. All I saw were images, unconnected passages of dialogue. Nothing had any meaning. I was out of the habit. Preoccupied. From time to time I glanced at Russel and Eve. Russel seemed to have fallen asleep. Eve was watching the screen, her head resting on her hand, resigned. Had we chosen the longest film we possibly could?

  It was dreadful. I drank beer and smoked and waited. I cursed Wayne. Finally Shane rode off into the mountains, the boy calling after him. It wasn’t the ending I wanted. I’d been hoping he would die. Tumble off his horse into the dust in the final scene. I also hated the boy. Inane and whining. Deserving of a movie death.

  We stood up, stretched. Russel woke and yawned. ‘Finished?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I said.

  ‘One movie’ll do eh?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks for having us.’

  The nod. The shrug.

  ‘Thanks Eve,’ I added.

  Her expression was flat. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  We gathered up our warm beer and ventured out into the night.

  ‘Satisfied?’ I said.

  Wayne nodded. ‘That was horrible.’

  ‘What’d you expect?’

  ‘Why can’t we talk to them? Why does it feel so impossible?’

  ‘It might’ve helped if they’d wanted us there.’

  ‘It’s not my fault.’

  ‘Whose is it then?’

  ‘Right, it’s always me. I do everything wrong.’

  ‘Yes, most of the time you do.’

  He looked hurt. ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Go back to Brisbane.’

  ‘Thank Christ too. I’m sick of being told how useless I am.’

  ‘You could
try at least.’

  ‘I have been.’ We were back at the house, on the front steps. ‘Why do you think I mentioned the videos in the first place? I was trying to be friendly.’

  He vanished into his bedroom. I went to the kitchen. Swapped a warm beer for a cold one. Sat on the back verandah. I lit a cigarette. My fourteenth or fifteenth for the night. Hard core.

  I felt lousy. Wayne didn’t deserve me coming down on him like that. What was wrong with me? I sat there. Scared. I was beginning to hate the things I was doing. I’d been bored with what I was before. Gone through times of self-pity and loathing. But this was different. This was the emergence of someone cheap and petty and bitter.

  I drank. I smoked another cigarette. Nausea bloomed. Too much nicotine. It didn’t matter. I smoked another one. Sucking on it, hard. Then I stood up, leaned over the side of the verandah and vomited. I fetched another beer, forced it down. Wayne came out, got himself a drink. He stood on the verandah a moment, looking out. I couldn’t say anything to him. He said nothing to me. He went away.

  On Monday morning I drove Vince and Wayne over to the airstrip. The plane was there. They said goodbye, climbed in and flew away. I drove home. Another boil had appeared, in my armpit. The one on my arse was already causing me serious difficulties. I felt grimy and diseased. Clean, healthy people didn’t get boils. And what was in my head was worse.

  That afternoon Russel appeared at my door. He’d been on the radio to Araru. An elderly cousin was dying, over on Croker Island. The clans were related in an important manner. He and Eve had to attend. I drove the two of them down to the beach, wincing at the bumps. They fuelled-up and motored off, out of sight. They’d be back, they said, in a week or two. It depended on the cousin. I drove home again.

  Dusk came on. It was warm and still. There were no lights on in Vince’s house, no lights in Russel and Eve’s. No lights in Wayne’s studio. No lights, even, out on the ocean.