The Best Australian Stories 2013

by Kim Scott

  ‘You sure it was her?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure. She looked a bit heavier. There was a kid running around. I suppose it was hers. But the face, and that red hair and her eyes. It was China, all right.’

  ‘She say anything to you?’

  ‘You didn’t know who I was when you saw me, so why would she? She didn’t know I existed when she lived here, so she wouldn’t know me now. Anyway, she didn’t really look at me. She handed him the phone and walked back inside. But it was her.’

  I didn’t say much for the rest of the drive. When he stopped at the gate I sat in the car without moving.

  ‘We’re here, mate. You getting off? Or do you want to come out to my place for a good feed?’

  ‘What’s the best way over there?’

  ‘Where? My place?’

  ‘No. The lion park.’

  ‘Oh. You cut across country. Take the fire road out behind the speedway. It gives you a straight run to the highway. It’s about another forty k on from there. You thinking of catching up with her? I’m sure she’d be married to this bloke. They looked pretty homely out there. I can’t see him laying out the welcome mat for an old boyfriend a month out of the nick.’

  ‘I’m not driving over there. Just curious. As it is, I got no car. Thanks for the lift.’

  Old Bob was standing by the gate, waiting for me.

  ‘How much longer you thinking of being with us, Cal? I don’t like my boat out in the sun.’

  ‘Oh, not much longer at all, Bob. I’m about to move on.’

  I skipped my mother’s cooking and lay on top of the bed thinking about what Bruce had said. Just on dark I grabbed my jacket and wallet, left the garage and headed for an old haunt, the car park at the RSL. I walked the aisles and settled on a battered Ford sedan with an unlocked back passenger door. I’d wired the car in less than a minute and was on the road in another thirty seconds. I passed the speedway and turned onto the fire road, driving through the pitch-black night. Pairs of eyes flashed at me from the scrub and behind trees. A fox raced across the dirt road carrying the bloodied carcass of a rabbit in its mouth. I felt the left front wheel slam into it, crushing its ribcage. By the time I’d turned onto the highway I’d dodged a dozen more animals and hit maybe two or three, although I couldn’t be sure on account of the bumps and divots in the road.

  The lion park wasn’t hard to find. A faded billboard with the face of a roaring lion welcomed visitors. I pulled off the road at the gates. A light burned on the porch of a house at the end of a drive. I left the car and walked. A dog barked and came running from its bed on the porch. It was an aged blue heeler, a little timid. The porch light went on and the door opened.

  There was no mistaking China. The shapely silhouette resting against a verandah post could belong to no one else. Another dog sat by her side.

  ‘Can I help you? This is private property.’

  ‘China,’ I croaked, as if someone had shoved a handful of dust in my mouth.

  She stepped forward and stood under the porch light. She was barefoot and wore a floral cotton dress, with her hair tied in a bun. She looked beautiful.

  ‘Jesus, Cal. Is it you?’

  I felt shy all of a sudden, like a schoolboy.

  ‘It’s me.’

  She came down from the porch and walked across the yard.

  ‘Christ. It is you. Let me look. Wow. What are you doing here?’ She was a little nervous. ‘My husband, he’s away at an ag meet. He’ll be back soon.’

  ‘I don’t want any trouble, China. I was just driving by.’

  She raised a hand, the same soft hand she used to rest in the small of my back.

  ‘It’s no trouble. It’s just that I wouldn’t have expected you to show up out of the blue like this. How long has it been? Four years?’

  ‘A little more.’

  ‘I read about you in the papers. How long have you been …?’

  ‘About a month. I’ve been staying back with mum.’

  She looked out to the highway, to where the stolen car was parked.

  ‘You say you were driving by? How did you know where I was? I haven’t been in contact …’

  ‘This fella I’ve been working with, Bruce Conlan, I guess you don’t remember him? He bought one of your dogs some time back. We were talking and your name came up and he told me that he’d seen you. I had to come over this way and I thought, only then when I saw the old sign, that I’d call in and see how you are. But like I said, I don’t want to cause you any trouble.’

  She shifted on her feet, reached behind her head with her hand and pulled a clip from the back of her hair. It dropped, bounced and rested on her bare shoulders.

  ‘Where are you heading to?’

  I heard a car engine, turned and spotted headlights at the end of the drive. China nervously smoothed the front of her dress.

  ‘Here’s my husband now.’

  I had only seconds left to me.

  ‘China, I just wanted to tell you that when I was inside I thought about you. A lot. It sounds stupid but I need to tell you that you were a good person. I never understood that before. I was too wild to know anything when we were going out.’

  I scraped my boot in the dirt.

  ‘And I want to also tell you that you were beautiful. You are beautiful.’

  ‘You told me that plenty of times,’ she laughed. ‘You were pretty nice yourself.’

  ‘Oh, I was trouble. I’ve always been trouble.’

  ‘You were not.’ She leaned forward and brushed my arm with a fingertip. ‘You were sweet. Most of the time.’

  The car pulled into the yard and the dogs ran to meet it. The driver hopped out. He was tall and thin and fit looking, full of purpose, and no doubt suspicious of me.

  ‘Can I help you? Is that your car on the highway?’

  ‘I’m working for a farmer over east and he’s after one of your working dogs. I was driving this way and I thought I’d call in on the off-chance. I shouldn’t have. It’s late. My apologies.’

  He relaxed a little.

  ‘We don’t have pups at the moment. It’s not the time of the year for them. You should have called ahead.’

  ‘Your wife was just explaining to me, that they’re out of season.’

  He kissed China on the cheek.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Marg. It went on longer than I expected.’

  I hadn’t heard China called by her proper name since school rollcall. He took out his wallet and handed me a business card.

  ‘You give me a call around December and I’ll let you know what we’ve got. Should have some pups then.’ He offered his hand. ‘Tom.’

  ‘Bruce,’ I answered. I took the card. ‘Thanks.’

  I stepped back and took a last look at China, arm in arm with her husband.

  ‘And thank you, Marg.’

  ‘You too,’ she answered, looking down at her bare feet.

  I sat in the car for an hour or more. I couldn’t get my mind off her. I got out of the car and watched the house. A honeyed glow framed a narrow window on the side of the house. I walked quietly behind a row of apple trees until I reached the window and stood among the trees, listening to my own heavy breaths as I watched China through the window. She stood naked before a mirror, brushing her hair. Her husband lay back on their bed, smoking a cigarette and admiring her until she turned to him.

  I walked back along the driveway to the car, gunned the engine and turned onto the highway. The country gradually flattened until the dark horizon fell away. Although the air was cold I wound down the window to keep myself from fading away. I could smell the sea in the wind and thought of China and the nights we’d spent in each other’s arms. I could see her hair glowing against the moon and hear her laugh.

  I didn’
t want the highway patrol bearing down on me. I turned onto an irrigation road. It would run flat and hard for a long way. I could see a radio tower in the distance, pulsing a beam of red light across the dark sky. I set my bearings for it, as I would if I were following the Star of Bethlehem itself.

  Island

  Old Friends

  Andy Kissane

  Paul took her order and brought the Portuguese tart and skim latte back to her table. There was something familiar about her, though he wasn’t sure what. She was wearing dark sunglasses, her hair was cropped short and her head was buried in the newspaper.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  He should have recognised her voice, he thought afterwards, for he had heard it so many times before, had marvelled at the timbre and colour of her vocal range. But what triggered his memory was the way that she picked up the Portuguese tart. The fluidity of her hand moving through the air, the extension of her long fingers as she lifted the tart to her lips.

  ‘Ursula?’ he asked. It has to be her. It has to be, he thought.

  ‘Paul? Paul Somerville. How wonderful … I’m sorry I didn’t …’

  It was good to see her smile, this woman he had trained with at the National Institute of Dramatic Art when they were both in their twenties. If only he had known then what he knew now about acting. But Ursula had made it – in film and on stage – at least for a while. Though he hadn’t seen her name around lately – perhaps for the last five or ten years. He imagined it was just the shortage of decent roles for older women, for Ursula had talent and undeniable presence. Even just sitting alone she seemed to draw other people’s attention.

  Unfortunately, Paul had customers to serve, so he excused himself and hurried over to a large table to take their orders. Whenever he could, he glanced back towards Ursula, hoping that she wouldn’t leave before he had time to catch up. But The Last Drop filled up with the usual lunch crowd and he didn’t get another chance. It must have been fifteen or twenty minutes later when he looked around to see that Ursula was gone. He was surprised at the disappointment that rose in his throat.

  Then he heard her voice, right behind him.

  He turned and Ursula took his elbow warmly. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘Have you heard about Julian?’

  Paul frowned. ‘Julian. Julian Rhodes?’ Back at NIDA Paul and Julian had been ‘this close.’ Until they asked Julian to leave in third year – the last one to be thrown out of their group, the last one to be told that he didn’t have what it takes. Not that having it necessarily got you anywhere, as Paul now knew. ‘No, I haven’t,’ he replied. He could see from the expression on Ursula’s face that she was hoping he knew, hoping she wouldn’t have to say anything.

  ‘Julian’s sick. Very sick. He’s in Prince Alfred Hospital. I’m sure he’d love to see you.’

  ‘I’ll look him up. I’m sorry, but …’ Paul said, aware that the barista was motioning to him, and that there were three plates of food waiting on the counter.

  Ursula nodded, gave him a quick hug and kissed him on the cheek.

  He told her that he hoped she’d dine there again, suppressing a groan at how formal he sounded. Maybe next time he wouldn’t be so busy and he could sit down and chat. Reluctantly, he turned away and put his energy into the work.

  On the way home he remembered how funny Julian was, how much they had kicked around together at NIDA, how they had supported each other. Julian had been particularly good with Jack, Paul and Leeanna’s baby son, a fact that Paul had managed to keep from the NIDA staff for the whole of the course. It wasn’t that you couldn’t have children, that they could have made any logical objection. But NIDA wasn’t the sort of place where logic held sway. They wanted commitment, a total all-consuming commitment to developing your acting skills, and leaving classes early to change nappies or feed your son pumpkin mash was not the sort of commitment they were looking for.

  Paul had managed to get by on the days when Leeanna was working, with lots of help from Julian, Ursula and the others. They would take it in turns to miss Theatre History or Movement Studies or Voice and the whole thing was such a well-kept secret and so well organised that the staff never suspected a thing.

  Then their third year started with that fateful production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Paul had played Lysander and Julian had played Demetrius, the two Athenians who were vying for the affection of Ursula’s Hermia. The director was young and brilliant and his ideas shaped the whole production. As Paul remembered it, he put a lot of emphasis on the rude mechanicals and their play within the play. He had an obsession with space and height and had set the wood above the ground. Oberon and Titania swung through the air on small trampolines suspended by ropes, while Lysander and Demetrius chased the girls up and down ladders and along these thin platforms high above the stage. Then the girls chased them. One wrong step, one mistimed push could have resulted in a sickening fall. It was Shakespeare for acrobats. It might have turned out fine if Julian hadn’t been desperately afraid of heights.

  It was a stressful time, yet in the end neither of them fell. Julian’s performance was the best that could have been expected, given the circumstances. It had been nuanced, honest, truthful. They were always going on about truth at NIDA, the importance of truth in acting, how you had to think and feel your way into a character’s world, how you had to find the truth from within and not fake it. Even when you produced your best work, the Head of Acting was rarely impressed. Your truths were his lies. You were labelled a fake, a deceiver. There was no point defending yourself. Nothing to be achieved by arguing back. You might as well just go to the pub, get drunk and start all over again.

  Unfortunately, Julian never really learnt how to keep quiet. He challenged their authority, he justified his decisions. Even in the Dream, when he’d been too scared of falling to really get it right. After the last performance when the director gave out his notes and everyone was glum and dejected, they took Julian aside and asked him to leave. It was common in first and second year, but hardly anyone made it to third year and was told to go. Julian was shattered. He had no idea it was coming and tried to change their minds. He went to see everyone to plead his case, but they refused to budge, then they altered the security code you had to punch in, so Julian couldn’t even get into the building.

  Of course, Julian asked Paul for the new code. He couldn’t believe that Paul wouldn’t give it to him. He didn’t listen when Paul told him to let go. Why not make your own way in the industry? No one could argue with success. But thinking back, it was probably inevitable that they drifted apart. Paul didn’t blame Julian. After all, in Julian’s eyes, Paul had succeeded while Julian had failed.

  Paul went to visit Julian that afternoon. Rather than turn up empty handed, he stopped at the bottle shop of the Marlborough Hotel and bought a hip flask of whisky. He also purchased a box of Maltesers from the hospital gift shop, remembering how they had religiously eaten a box when they went to the movies every Friday night through first and second year. It had been their way of winding down after the week’s stresses. They alternated between Hollywood schlock and art-house movies, then went for a drink afterwards to dissect the film, often talking into the early hours of the morning about acting, life, and anything, anything at all.

  Paul rode the lift to the fifth floor. His stomach seemed to be travelling faster than the rest of his body and he could feel sweat collecting on the back of his neck. He was nervous, more nervous than he’d ever felt before going onstage. He didn’t know how Julian would react to him, didn’t know if he’d embrace him, yell at him or snub him.

  He asked a nurse for directions and found Julian’s bed by the window in a ward of four. Julian’s face was a dreadful shade of yellow and although he was propped up on three pillows, his eyes were closed.

  Paul stood awkwardly for a moment, then put the Maltesers and the whisky down on the bedside cabinet
. He felt as if he had entered a crowded room and could not find a single familiar face. He gazed out the window. When he turned back to the bed, Julian had opened his eyes and was looking at him.

  ‘Paul?’ Julian said, in a voice that was soft and sounded tired.

  ‘Hi, Julian …’ Paul began, then abruptly stopped. What else to say? He could hardly tell him how sick he looked, he didn’t want to apologise, he didn’t want to dredge up the past. ‘Here, I brought you these,’ he finally muttered, gesturing at the whisky and chocolates.

  ‘Thank you,’ Julian said, picking up the whisky and laughing. ‘But I can’t touch this stuff, so why don’t you keep it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought you might be hanging out for something strong, like in those movies where hospitals seem like prisons …’

  ‘Yeah. Would be nice. But my liver’s shot. Can’t drink a drop. Hep C, you know.’

  ‘Shit, Julian. I’m sorry. Ursula didn’t say …’

  ‘So that’s how you found out. You know when I opened my eyes, I thought for a moment I was back at NIDA rehearsing that two-hander. Can’t think what it’s called … the Albee play?’

  ‘Zoo Story?’

  ‘Yeah. You had to beat me senseless.’

  ‘No. You beat me up. I was left on the garden bench, pretending to be dead.’

  ‘Trying to look like you weren’t breathing.’

  ‘If the director tells you to stop breathing, you stop breathing,’ Paul said, suddenly uneasy about this reference to death in front of an obviously sick man.

  ‘I hate directors,’ Julian replied. If he was affected by the allusion he showed no signs of it.