The Crying Place

by Lia Hills

  ‘Nara’s not in Alice anymore.’

  ‘Shit.’

  I sat down at the table. Someone had drawn in the wood with a black pen, a cross with dots at the end of each point.

  ‘The woman I spoke to said she’d gone home.’

  ‘Home?’

  ‘To Ininyingi.’

  She crunched on a stick of celery.

  ‘You could call her,’ she said.

  ‘But I don’t have her number.’

  ‘It’s not a big community. You could ring the public phone box, or the store, or even the health clinic. I’ll look the number up for you.’

  Before I could say anything, she’d headed into the small living room they used as a home office. I turned the jar around. The muesli was the dusty kind, no doubt organic. Lou returned, a Post-it stuck to the back of her hand. She peeled it off.

  ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Try this number.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘The phone’s over there.’

  ‘What, now?’

  Lou shrugged. ‘Who knows how long she’ll be there?’ she said. ‘She may have already left.’

  She tapped the bench beside the phone. Grabbed an apple from a bowl, and left me to it.

  I picked up the receiver. Punched in the number on the Post-it. It rang a long time before there was a click at the other end. No one spoke.

  ‘Hello?’

  A woman answered, but I didn’t understand what she said. There were other voices in the background, what sounded like an argument in full swing. A dog yelped as if it had been stood on.

  ‘Hello,’ I repeated. ‘Is Nara there?’

  ‘Nara.’

  The woman said more, but I could only make out a few words in English, heavily accented. Store. Clinic. Other voices joined in, one that sounded like a child’s, high-pitched and pleading, but no one seemed to be speaking into the receiver.

  ‘Wait,’ said someone, then nothing more.

  So I waited, the fridge working its way through a series of operations, marked by rattles and clicks, till it too fell silent.

  Finally a woman shouted at the other end, her nasally cry indecipherable but backed up by a dog. Then I heard the receiver being pressed against a face.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Nara?’

  ‘Nara not here.’

  ‘Not in Ininyingi?’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘D’you mean she’s gone away?’

  I could hear the woman breathing, the others having left or fallen silent.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Can I speak to her?’

  Lou poked her head round the side of the door, her dreadlocks falling forwards like a curtain of ropes.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  I shrugged.

  She held out her hand, fingers laden with silver rings.

  ‘One minute,’ I said into the receiver and passed Lou the phone.

  She spoke to the woman in pared-down English, but also in another language, punctuated with the word uwa. Finally Lou nodded and hung up.

  ‘She’s gone to get Nara. You can ring back in ten minutes.’

  ‘Thanks. So how come you speak Pitjantjatjara?’ I asked, assuming that was what I’d heard.

  ‘I worked in Amata for a while, at the school. I like languages.’

  When I rang back ten minutes later, something in me was hoping Nara wouldn’t answer. There was a click as the receiver was lifted, but nothing else.

  ‘Nara?’

  ‘Yes.’

  For a moment it seemed so unlikely that it was actually her, I couldn’t think what to say. From the living room, I heard the shuffle of Lou’s bare feet.

  ‘My name’s Saul. I’m a friend of Jed’s.’

  ‘Jed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he there?’

  ‘No.’

  I flattened the photo of her on the bench. Tried to equate her subdued voice with the full mouth in the picture.

  ‘I’d like to come and see you,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘There are some things I’d like to talk to you about.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Saul. A good friend of Jed’s.’

  ‘Saul?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘No.’

  The word sat there, a hundred narratives collecting around it like it was an artefact. My mother had hesitated before she’d made the announcement, allowed the worst to enter. And now I was doing the same thing.

  ‘He’s not okay,’ I told Nara. ‘He’s dead.’

  She drew in a breath, deeply, like the sea before it sends the waves hurtling in. And then she screamed. So loud I had to hold the receiver away from my ear.

  ‘Nara?!’

  I heard the phone hitting against something solid as it was dropped. Voices in Pitjantjatjara. The click of the receiver being put back on the hook.

  Lou was already at the door – had the scream been loud enough for her to hear?

  I held the phone out to her like it was plague-ridden, and she stared at it, reluctant to be a party to whatever it was that was making me shake like that.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘What happened, Saul?’

  My hand went up, a tremor in it that I wanted to smack away. I hated her using my name like she had some purchase on me, on the infinite ways in which I might betray the world. But there was only one way to get that sound out of my head.

  ‘She screamed,’ I said.

  ‘What did you say to her?’

  ‘I told her that … that he’s dead.’

  ‘What?! You can’t just …’

  The tremor began to spread, my guts on fire, my mind overcorrecting, childish in its default, you didn’t do nothing.

  Lou gripped her belly and moaned, and for a horrible moment I thought she might be going into labour. But then she let go, her hands held up and spread as if she were trying to hang on to something big that threatened to slip away.

  ‘I’m so sick of people coming up here with no bloody idea. Enough damage has been done by bastards …’

  ‘I didn’t …’

  ‘Of course, you didn’t. You thought you’d just leap right in there, get what you came for, and piss off again!’

  Lou sucked air in hard. She was talking about someone else, I realised, or a series of someones, not just me.

  ‘You don’t know anything, do you? Sorry business? Any of it? You just launch in there … Fuck!’

  A thought marched across her forehead, sought the right weapon. Went for anthropological.

  ‘In Anangu culture, grieving is a very sensitive subject,’ she said.

  ‘Unlike our own.’

  At that moment, Ziggy came in, plastic bags gorged with shopping.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, her eyes flitting between me and Lou, trying to gauge what she’d just walked into. ‘Everything okay?’

  Lou threw her hands up as Ziggy placed her load on the bench. An orange rolled out and came to rest against the juicer. Alec followed also carrying bags, a book tucked under his arm. Behind him was an old man wearing a cowboy hat and a white buttoned-up shirt. He was a head shorter than Alec, the skin of his hands and face as black as his pointy-toed boots.

  ‘This is Daniel,’ said Alec.

  ‘I’m Saul,’ I said and held out my hand.

  Daniel more enfolded than shook it. Kept his head down, his eyes shielded by his hat. Lou fumed in her corner by the fridge, a dreadlock almost wrung free. It was clear she was trying to contain herself in front of Daniel. Something about her restraint pissed me off, closed in, till the room felt the size of a fist – the last week, all those kilometres and faces and warnings, pushing up against me, rough-shouldered. I threw a look at Ziggy. At Alec. At a painting on the wall that looked like someone had put an animal up against the canvas and shot the thing. But there was no conduit, no fixed point of release.

&n
bsp; I pressed my forehead with the tips of my fingers.

  ‘I have to …’

  ‘What?’ asked Ziggy.

  But I was already moving. Fast. Out the open front door and into the light – like those dingoes I’d seen at Owen Springs, though there was nothing tactical in my response. My ears radars. Picking up a sound that ricocheted off unseen loci across a vast and arcane space.

  Resonant.

  Honest.

  A stand-in for my own voice.

  Nara screaming.

  38

  It was hours before I was ready to go back. Hours in which I wondered what the hell I was doing here. And how unlikely it was that this was where I’d find the answers I was looking for, make my peace. I’d known loneliness – it was the flipside of autonomy – but Nara’s scream, the way they’d all looked at me as I’d run from that room, put an edge to it that I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to handle. No matter where I’d travelled, what city or village I’d landed in, Jed was either there in person or in spirit. Even in absentia, he was more present than most of the people around me. I couldn’t explain it, had rarely felt the need to – it would be like trying to rationalise the wind or the stars. But Jed was a fact that I could no longer rely on. I was on my own now. And, it was becoming gallingly clear to me, I was not equipped.

  When I got back to the house, Alec was in the garden with Daniel, the two of them squatting beside a bush. Daniel rubbed a tapered leaf between his fingers, brought his nose to its dark tip, inhaled, the gesture tender. As soon as Alec saw me he got up, his long body a spring released. Walked over with the determination of a man who had something to say. But by the time he reached me, his conviction seemed to have left him.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘I went for a walk. Out by the ranges.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Sorry if I pissed everybody off. I’m not handling things as well as I’d hoped.’

  ‘Lou told me about your friend. Sorry to hear it,’ he said, rubbing his chin.

  ‘Thanks. Lou okay?’

  ‘Yeah. She tried calling back, to see if she could speak to the woman …’

  ‘Nara.’

  ‘But she couldn’t get hold of her.’

  I looked towards the ranges, the sun emphasising the folds in the rock, the deep shadows its absence caused. Once I’d got moving, I’d felt calmer. The changing terrain. A massive river gum at the base of the range pocked with burls, a monument to forbearance. The rock too had kept me company. But now I was parched and it was messing with my concentration. The thirst and something else.

  ‘Daniel’s taking me out on country,’ said Alec, gesturing to the HiLux. A couple of swags and a camp oven were thrown in the back.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘West,’ he said. I couldn’t tell if his imprecision was deliberate.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Come with us.’

  I looked across at Daniel. He was still squatting beside the emu bush, rubbing dust from his boot with the pad of his thumb.

  ‘You don’t think he’ll mind?’

  ‘His idea.’

  ‘How long you going for?’

  ‘Just the one night.’

  ‘I’ll get my stuff.’

  I headed into the house. Downed two glasses of water before going upstairs. There was no sign of Lou, but Ziggy was on the balcony reading. She’d changed into a dress, the first time I’d seen her in one. It suited her, emphasised the smallness of her waist. Was almost the same trapped-sea-blue as the opal of her ring.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked, putting down her book.

  ‘I fucked up.’

  ‘A little, yeah. I should have said something before.’

  ‘That scream. It was bloody horrible. Can’t get it out of my head.’

  Ziggy shuddered. ‘Poor woman.’

  ‘The last thing I wanted to do was make it worse than it had to be,’ I said. ‘And now look what I’ve done. At least one thing’s for sure – Jed was important to her.’

  I slumped into the seat opposite Ziggy. The thought had plagued me as I’d leant against the burly river gum – that in the very instant I’d understood just how much Jed had meant to Nara, I’d blown any chance of meeting her.

  ‘Looks like the whole thing backfired,’ I said.

  ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘Not much else I can do. In the meantime, Alec’s asked me if I want to go out bush with him and Daniel.’

  ‘You should. Daniel has a lot of knowledge. And it’ll take your mind off things, at least for a bit. You look exhausted.’

  ‘I am,’ I said, feeling the truth of it in my bones. ‘It was decent of them to ask me, especially considering my behaviour has been less than shiny. Plus, it’s probably not a bad thing if I get out of Lou’s hair.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Lou – she’ll be fine. She’s a bit protective. Seen too many bad things, too many people being treated like they didn’t deserve better. There’s family stuff tied in there, too.’

  ‘Shit. I didn’t realise she was Aboriginal.’

  ‘She’s not.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Lou was born in Israel. But on her mother’s side, they were Polish Jews. From Krakow.’

  Maybe it was the hours of sun I’d copped wandering at the base of the ranges, but it took me a moment to register the connection. And on top of that how it might sit with Ziggy, given that she was German.

  ‘I’ll be more careful in the future.’

  Ziggy picked at the corner of her book.

  ‘Here,’ I said, dragging my car keys out of the pocket of my jeans. ‘You might as well hold on to these while I’m away. Take it for a spin if you want.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘How long you sticking around for?’

  ‘About a week. What about you?’

  ‘Don’t know now.’

  Ziggy pulled up a strap that had slipped down her shoulder. I wanted to touch her skin there, pale, smoother than was reasonable. Behind her was the door to the room in which I’d slept, the bed unmade, a blanket bleeding onto the floor. How lulling it would be to slip between those sheets with her, if she’d have me. Feel the reassurance of human flesh – its warm weight, opening to touch – and for one sweet moment forget all of this. Just bodies without consequence.

  But there was no such thing. Or rarely, at least in my experience. And, given the events of the afternoon, I wasn’t sure how much I was to be trusted, no matter how good my intentions.

  No, best just to head out, I told myself.

  Allow chance and the road to align themselves, as I so often had.

  39

  The cold was solidifying by the time we set up camp beside a dry river bed, the moon anaemic above such full-blooded country. Three swags were positioned around the fire, including the one I’d borrowed from Ziggy – I’d be sleeping in her bed after all. The mulga ejected small thin flames, reluctant to give up its hard-won fuel. Suspended above it was the camp oven, its sides charred from other fires, its contents audible, the persistent pop of spiced air, a curry Lou had made for us to take along. Squares of root vegetables bobbed to its surface. In the sand was damper, prepared and buried by Daniel. He was leaning back in his camp chair, the dusty soles of his cowboy boots – a hangover from his days as a stockman out near Hermannsburg – following the flames like solar panels pivoting to the sun.

  Alec stood beneath a swollen river gum. He was swinging a billy in wide circles, the tip of the arc passing precariously close to a low-hanging branch, and with each swoop, I braced myself for the hot tannin rain that would accompany a hit, the metallic thwack. But he knew what he was doing, the ritual taking over his face, giving it the composure of a monk whose thoughts had been briefly rescued from distraction. The swing slowed, the billy slipping on its downward fall, almost spilling its contents. He poured the tea into three enamel mugs lined up in the sand. Handed one to Daniel, another to me.

  The sky was so congested wit
h stars that it was more a city than a place revealed by our distance from one, the stars so luminous that they fell into relief against the dark spaces between them. Ziggy had told me that night at Owen Springs that some of the Dreaming stories could be seen in the gaps between the constellations, not just in the groupings themselves. That the songlines were not only terrestrial, but interstellar.

  I looked across at Daniel, his soles roasting, and wondered what he knew. How much of him was stockman, gardener, ex-mission boy, how much guardian. But I couldn’t ask him; I had no place to begin. Besides, he was gulping down that tea like he had a tongue made of leather.

  Done, he held the empty mug out to Alec, who poured the remaining liquid into it, passed him the plastic container of sugar, Daniel’s finger beckoning it like you would a child afraid to approach a fire. As we’d driven out of Alice, the sheer pleasure of leaving it behind, of heading out, had been visible on Daniel’s face. That smile had increased the more kilometres we’d covered, the closer we’d got to this place.

  Once he’d downed the second mug of tea, Daniel dug up the damper. He tapped it with a stick then listened, before knocking off the ash that still clung to it with the rag Alec had used to lift the camp oven off its tripod. The old man broke the damper in half, and in half again, while Alec dished out the curry, huge steaming mounds of it. Hunger was humming in me. That, and a fatigue born of fuck-ups whose consequences might be nil, might be monumental – for me, for Nara, for whoever else was caught in the wake of what Jed had done. I couldn’t tell, but the food was making up for it, even if Lou seemed to have measured out her rage in chilli. Daniel raked sweat out of the furrows in his forehead, Alec grinning back at him, the two of them clearly initiated into the emotions of her cooking.

  ‘She likes it fiery.’ Alec nodded at his plate and Daniel let loose a wheeze of a laugh.

  I broke the damper into small pieces, stirred them in the way the Tuareg had, the tagella torn up and divided, by bread and salt we are united.

  From a river gum, a crow keened. Mournful bastard. Summoned up that sound again – Nara’s scream – as if it had somehow entered its repertoire, a bird not habitually given to mimicry. The fire strewed shadows across the ground. Made dark places of the tyre ruts in the sand.

  ‘How do you say crow in Arrernte?’ I asked Alec, driven more by a need to throw off that sound than anything linguistic.