by Ali Lewis
I dragged the sheets onto my bed and lay on top of them, face down. I breathed in the detergent smell and knew it had taken away the last trace of Jonny. I wanted to go to wherever he was.
When I heard a quiet knock at the door, I knew it would be the Pommie. No one else ever knocked. I ignored it at first. I didn’t want to see her ever again. But then she knocked a bit louder and I heard the door handle scrape round, so I said, ‘Rack off!’ but she came in anyway and sat down on Jonny’s bed. I said, ‘Get off Jonny’s bed, or I will get a stick and flog you.’ She stood up again and left.
I needed to get out of our room then. It didn’t feel right any more. It was like Jonny was shouting at me from every shelf, every corner, even from the curtains. The Pommie had tied them back to the wall; pretty, like strangers. I couldn’t work out if it was them or me that didn’t belong.
I pushed open the fly screen and ran down the steps into the yard. It was real quiet. The generator had gone off, it must have overheated. When Buzz saw me coming he shouted out – gave a fanfare. From that far away, he looked a bit like a brown cloud on stilts. I wished he was bigger, and that we were further on in our training, so I could just swing my leg over his hump and let him take me for miles across the desert.
He rubbed his neck against me. He must have had an itch, but he nearly knocked me over, he was so strong. He knew we were going for our walk and got a bit excited. I guess that calf pen meant the same to him, as the school room for me. I threw the rope around him and unhitched the gate. He was impatient, so I had to have a word with him. I pulled his face round to look at me, his eyes were big and lazy, like he didn’t want to hear it. I told him, ‘Buzz, I’m having a bad day, so don’t you start with me.’ He made a little growling noise and blew a saggy raspberry with his lips, making them wobble like rubber. Then he sort of head-butted me – not hard, just like he was playing. I batted him away and kept walking, but he did it again. I didn’t know whether to laugh at him or flog him. As we looked at each other, for no reason at all, I started to run with him by my side, all lanky and jerky, his hairy hump wobbled back and forth, while his neck stretched like Granddad’s accordion.
We’d gone a fair way when I had to stop and have a puff on my inhaler. He was jumpy, all fired up, ready for more. Once I’d caught my breath we started to run again, but this time, I dunno why, I let go of the rope. I suppose I wanted to see if I really could trust him.
As we jogged through the dirt with the sun on us, the spiky grass whipped our knees. The rope dangled like a pendulum at his side, just within my reach. He didn’t know I’d let go, so he kept to my rhythm and distance.
A few paces further and the penny dropped. When I leaped over a big bush, the rope slid off Buzz’s curly chest and for the first time it felt like he understood we were equals. He threw his head back into the sky. I felt sick and dry inside, knowing I had no control, but I kept on going. There was nothing between me, Buzz and the desert – just the hope that he’d be loyal to me.
As we ran, I tried not to crowd him. I didn’t want to push him away, but every now and then I’d look to see where he was. Once or twice I saw him doing the same. He was never more than a few yards away. I felt tired and sweaty from running around so I slowed down and started to walk. I didn’t know if he’d stop, or just keep running. My chest heaved in and out. I put my hands on my hips to rest them while I watched Buzz. Fear slid down into my stomach. He stood still for a while, wondering if I would play some more. Then, bored of waiting, he decided to graze on the scratchy grass.
I almost ran over to grab him and snatch him back, but I wanted us to have more than that. I let him eat for a good while. I just kneeled down in the dirt and enjoyed the space we had. Every now and then he’d look over, chewing spiky sticks of grass, which stuck out of his lips. I guess he was just making sure he could still see my hat. That made me realise that I wouldn’t need a rope; instead I’d just call him. Not like a dog, but more like a mate.
I got to my feet and turned my back to Buzz and whistled. He looked up, like I’d disturbed him. ‘Come on, Buzz, let’s go!’ I called, swinging my arm over my shoulder. I shut my eyes and pleaded for him to follow. I didn’t want to lose anything else today. I didn’t look back again. I figured that if I was Buzz, and he checked up on me like that, it’d be like an insult, or something. I shut my eyes and prayed as hard as I could that Buzz would follow me and not the desert.
Ten
When I heard a thudding sound, I wasn’t sure if it was my feet, my heart or him. I breathed slowly to make myself as quiet as I could and then listened for a sign he was with me. I knew that if I lost Buzz I’d have nothing.
When I opened my eyes, it felt like someone did it for me because I couldn’t believe what I saw. There, by my side, was Buzz, acting like everything was normal, so I swallowed my excitement and pretended it was a day like any other.
As we went back to the station yard, Dad stepped out of the open barn where he was working. He tipped his hat back to have a good look as Buzz and me walked past, shoulder to shoulder. The look on his face told me he was impressed. Noticing something different was happening, the fellas stopped what they were doing too. Elliot gave me a nod. I felt like I had something they all wanted.
When I got to the calves’ pen, it was real quiet. The Pommie was round the other side feeding them, so I opened the gate for Buzz and wondered if he’d go in on his own. He hesitated. I opened the gate wider, so we could go through together. He liked that. I rubbed his neck and behind his ears until he purred.
The Pommie saw us and I could tell she didn’t know what to do. We looked at each other for a bit, before she said, ‘I love Buzz’s knees.’ I don’t think anyone had ever admired his knees before. Mum always went on about his eyelashes and Dad laughed at how his fur was like Aunty Veronica’s hair after the disastrous perm. When I looked down at his knees, they made me smile.
After that the Pommie said, ‘I’m sorry about Jonny … He sounds like he was a great brother.’ I guess Bobbie or someone had told her everything, so I said it was OK. I felt stupid, like when your flies are down. I looked at the ground for a bit and kicked at the dirt, as I tried to think what to say. Then the Pommie said she was going to go and feed the pigs. When she’d gone I gave Buzz his milk.
The Pommie didn’t look at me at the dinner table that night and so I tried not to look at her either. But I wondered what she was thinking. When Dad was talking about Jaben Point, the Pommie asked where it was. Dad told her it was about ten-miles south of the station – a rock that stuck up out of the desert. It was the highest point on our station and you could climb up it and get a view of the whole of the desert. That made me realise she didn’t really know where anything was. She’d only seen the house and the yard, the poddies, Buzz, the chooks and the pigs. The Pommie hadn’t dobbed us in about the ball fight and the bed sheets, and I guess it wasn’t her fault nobody had told her about Jonny. I reckoned I owed her one. I said I’d take her to Jaben Point the next day, if she wanted. She looked kind of surprised, like she didn’t expect me to be nice to her. Dad said that was a real good idea. The Pommie shrugged and said she’d like to see it. I smiled at her and she smiled back.
So the next day, after I’d spent some time with Buzz and the Pommie had finished all her chores, I went to get the Old Rover.
The Old Rover was the station Land Rover. He was ancient, but real reliable, which was kind of how he got his name – he’d been roving around the station for ever. He only had two seats and the one on the passenger side looked like the springy ghost of the seat that once sat there. The Pommie didn’t complain about it, though. Emily would have. The only problem with the Old Rover was his steering wheel. The black stuff that covered the metal, Dad called it Bakelite, was all cracked, so when you gripped it, it pinched your skin. There was quite a knack to steering because of that.
The Pommie couldn’t believe I could drive. I told her all of us could. Even Emily could ride a motorbike. The Pommie
wasn’t sure if that was a joke or not, but eventually, after I swore on Buzz’s life that I was telling the truth, she said she believed me. She was amazed. She said it had taken her more than forty hours of lessons to learn to drive, and even then she failed her driving test twice. I could believe that.
As we headed out to Jaben Point, the Pommie kept taking pictures – just of the desert. When we saw a couple of big reds, she turned round so far in the passenger seat as she tried to take as many pictures as she could that I thought she was going to fall out. I dunno what else was so interesting, but she kept clicking away. She seemed to be taking pictures of the dirt track in front of us and the scrub at either side – the witchetty bushes, I guess. I asked her about it and she said it was because if she didn’t take pictures of everything no one at home in England would believe where she was. I dunno why.
We turned off the dirt road and the Pommie saw Jaben Point rising out of the desert in front of us. She made me stop while she took some photos of me in the Old Rover with the point sticking into the sky behind me. She reckoned no one in England would believe a thirteen-year-old could drive, either.
When we got to where the fellas were working, Dad said I should let the Pommie drive back to the station. He reckoned it’d be good for her to get used to driving the Old Rover, so when the muster started she’d be able to take their lunch to the desert for them. I shrugged and jumped out so she could slide across from the passenger seat. She turned the key in the ignition and then stalled it twice in front of all the fellas. I looked up and saw Lloyd smile and shake his head. I’ve never heard a gearbox make the noises the Old Rover’s did that day.
When the Pommie finally found first gear, I reckon she was so glad to have found it, she didn’t want to change it again. The engine screamed and the wheels skidded on the dusty ground. Where it was sandy, it was real easy to skid. Eventually she worked out what the gear stick was for and slowly we started to move forward without the engine sounding like it was going to explode. I felt sorry for the Old Rover.
We got to the top of the rise, near the point, where there are fewer trees and the spinifex is real patchy. That’s where the dirt track meets the dirt road. You can turn north to Timber Creek, or go south to Warlawurru. The view from there is pretty good, you can see for miles across the desert – the orange ground all patchy with pale-green and brown bushes and trees, and the odd lighter patch where there are rocks.
I was busy looking at the line where the sky meets the desert and wondering how far away it was, when I realised the Pommie was driving the wrong way. I asked her where she was going. She shouted back, ‘The station!’ And when she saw the look on my face, like she’d totally lost it, she added, ‘I don’t know; everything looks the same to me.’ I couldn’t believe that. We’d only just come from the station, but she couldn’t find her way back there. How dumb’s that?
I told Dad about it later on and he said, ‘Makes you wonder how they found Australia in the first place.’
She was concentrating real hard on driving, so we didn’t say much. When we got back to the station, the Pommie braked hard, but forgot to use the clutch, so the Old Rover stalled. The sharp movement made my neck hurt. I said to her I reckoned she could do with a few more driving lessons. She nodded and smiled. I dunno why, but as we walked across the yard to the house, I said I was sorry Emily and me had made a mess of the clean bed sheets with the bull balls. I said we didn’t mean to. It was just a game. The Pommie shrugged. Then she said, ‘I guess you have to make your own fun out here – it’s not like you can go to the park or the cinema or anything. I bet you and Jonny played some great games together.’
I couldn’t catch my breath. No one talked about Jonny like that, like he was ordinary. I had to use my inhaler. Then for some reason I opened my mouth to speak and I heard myself telling her about the time Dad found Jonny’s cricket ball. It was about a month after the accident. Dad went up on the roof to fix the gutter. He wanted to make sure we were ready if the rains came. While he was up there he found the ball. It was stuck between the gutter and the house. Mum and I were at the bottom holding the ladder. Dad stood very still up there, clutching the ball against his chest. They told me to go and help Emily feed the chooks, but that’s not a job for two people. I guess Mum and Dad just wanted to be alone with the ladder and Jonny’s cricket ball.
The Pommie listened and then said, ‘Bobbie told me Jonny fell off the roof, right?’ I didn’t look at her, I just nodded. She held the fly screen open for me and we went into the dining room. The Pommie looked at me for a moment, like she was going to say something else, but changed her mind.
Eleven
When we all went over to the house for smoko the next day, the Pommie was in the garden hanging out some washing, so we went over there to eat the biscuits she’d left for us. Smoko was what we called the break we had in the morning. Bobbie reckoned it was because it was when people had a smoke. The Pommie said in England it was called elevenses because they had a break at eleven o’clock. Anyway, as she pegged the clothes onto the line she asked if I’d take her for another drive. She reckoned she needed to get used to the Old Rover. I looked at Bobbie to see what she thought. Bobbie shrugged and said it was a good idea. We all knew Liz needed the practice, I was just surprised she’d thought of it.
I asked the Pommie where she wanted to go, but she didn’t know. She didn’t know the station, so I said I’d take her to Simpson’s Dam to see the memorial to old Arthur. That watering hole was the furthest one from the station, so I reckoned it’d give her plenty of time to get used to driving the Old Rover. It was right on the western side of our land. There was a pointy grey stone over there with his name on it. It said:
In memory of Arthur Simpson
A decent man who worked hard
Died June 12 1930
After we’d had lunch and the Pommie had washed up, we went to get the Old Rover. I told her she needed to be a bit gentler with him – he was an old fella and he didn’t take kindly to being treated roughly. She smiled and nodded as she started his engine. She was concentrating real hard, finding the right gears and trying not to let the Old Rover skid on the sandy roads. When he did, she panicked a bit, like she thought she was going to crash. I told her not to brake – that just made it worse. After a while she started to relax a bit more.
The sun was real high in the sky and I was glad I had Greg’s hat. The Pommie had on a pair of sunnies, like the tourists in Alice Springs. I said she should wear a hat too, but she said she didn’t have one. I reckoned we’d have one she could use. I said I’d have a look when we got back to the station. The wind was cool as we drove along, but the Pommie didn’t go very fast, so when I touched the top of my hat, it felt real hot.
We had to turn off the road to Warlawurru onto a dirt track, which was bumpier, to get to Simpson’s Dam. There were bigger witchetty bushes and gumtrees along the track, which gave a bit of shade. The Pommie didn’t like it, though. She slowed down for each and every little bump and hole in the road. I told her the Old Rover’s suspension was pretty tough, so she could speed up a bit, but she was scared she’d crash. We crawled along, zigzagging across the little dirt track as the Pommie did her best to drive round every little pebble and hole. Two wild horses came out of nowhere and crossed the road ahead of us. The Pommie stopped and said, ‘What was that?’ Like she wasn’t sure if what she’d seen was real or not. I explained how there were a few wild horses in the desert. They’d escaped from stations over the years and roamed free. I told her they were a pain in the neck and we hated them – we shot them whenever we could. She didn’t get it, so I had to explain how they got in with the cattle sometimes during the muster and broke the fences and stuff. She was too busy looking at the road to really listen though.
Eventually, after almost an hour of crawling through the desert, we came out of the trees and bushes to a more open area. Below us was the dam – a kind of big hole in the desert, which was meant to be full of water. It wasn’t
full, though, because of the drought. You could see a mark stretching all around the dam showing how high the water used to be, but it was much lower than that now. I guess it was like if a pond dried up and became a puddle – only bigger.
Arthur’s stone stuck up out of the ground next to the dam like a grey tooth. I pointed to it and told the Pommie to drive down there. She pulled up next to it and jumped out to have a proper look. She ran her hand over the top, like she was stroking Buzz. I told her how my great-granddad bought Timber Creek Station after Arthur died. Dad reckoned it had been a wild place back then. Not long before Arthur died, a bunch of whitefellas came out to the desert to kill all the Blackfellas. I think it was something to do with a Blackfella killing a gin-jockey.
The Pommie didn’t know what a gin-jockey was. It was kind of embarrassing explaining it to her. A gin-jockey was what we called whitefellas who rooted with black women. The Pommie opened her eyes wide and said she didn’t understand what the problem was. I guess she didn’t understand anything. I told her how being a gin-jockey was bad – kind of gross. She shook her head and said she thought the word gin-jockey was bad and gross. I nodded. I reckoned she understood what I meant, but I was wrong. She said it didn’t matter if you were black or white, people could be with whoever they wanted. I told her she didn’t get it. She said, ‘If you like Mick and Gil Smith, why can’t you like a black woman?’ I shrugged. It’s just that Mick was Dad’s mate, so it was different with them.
Anyway, I carried on with my story and told her how when the whitefellas rode out into the desert to kill the Blackfellas, Arthur Simpson wouldn’t join in with them, so he had a hard time because of it. The Pommie said he sounded like a nice man. She wanted to know more, but I didn’t know anything else about it. She was real interested, so I told her she should ask Dad.