The Crying Place

by Lia Hills

  ‘As will your grief,’ I warned the finches.

  They twitched. Jerked their jointed necks, the shadow line rising almost visibly up the wall in swift correlation to the dropping temperature.

  I shivered again, my breath present in my ear, amplified by the blocked passageways till it sounded like someone was beside me, leaning into my shoulder, persistent. I stepped away, my boot almost knocking over a pile of stones. It looked like a cairn, though the gorge was so narrow it hardly required waypoints.

  Above me was the cragginess of the old man’s nose, positioned to observe whoever entered. Or maybe there was some other story here, one that had been the making of this place. Tjukuritja – the marking of tjukurpa, of the Dreaming, on the rock. Kata had said there were important carvings high in the gorge, petroglyphs, though I couldn’t see any, couldn’t be sure, dark inscriptions that might be watermarks, might be the work of a man. Maybe that was why Jed had come here, more than once, bringing with him new knowledge of his ancestry, something changed in him from which he could never go back. When I’d come here with Kata, as he’d told me about ngalungku – two men going through business together – it had felt like a place that could hold whatever you brought to it. Memories. Longing. Grief. The kind of dream that haunted Thaddeus’ days.

  From the far end of the gorge came a cracking sound.

  I spun around, but there was no one there, the crouched boys unmoving, the nose still poised to sniff the wind. The floor and the lower sections of the walls had been worn smooth by a river that was gone now but that could return at any time, stealing its way through the gap, crashing through the old gum, taking everything with it. Spitting out only the few. And for a moment, it was as if he was here, beside me.

  That he wasn’t alone.

  ‘Jed?’

  The finches cocked their heads, their red beaks like a last-minute touch.

  ‘I tried,’ I said. ‘To find you. Bring you back somehow. Do you understand? I managed to that other time – the day after the river flooded, when we finally made it to Abalessa, to where the bitumen ran out. You said it was like the road had gone underground, remember? Like subterranean water. And we rode out, went beyond it, even though we knew the border was closed and that we might end up in no-man’s-land. We didn’t give a fuck! Just kept going and going, battling with the bulldust, till we reached that massive dune – the one we later named The Edge of No Return. And it was as if in that moment I finally understood. Do you remember, Jed, how I suddenly turned around? Used the slope of that huge dune and circled back, you just behind me, flanking me. Began the long ride out of the desert. We’d done what we came for. It was time to go home. But this time …’

  High on the cliff face, something fell, the finches startled into flight.

  As I stepped back, my foot caught the stone on top of the cairn. Sent it skidding along the surface of the rock, each bounce tracked by its echo. While I watched, the rest of the stones toppled. One after the other.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said, looking quickly around me, but the finches had flown, the gorge hushed and empty once more.

  I crouched.

  Collected the stones one by one, fumbled like a boy with his marbles, too many for his hands.

  Sized them up: which had been the base stone, the foundation upon which everything was built.

  It was the width of my palm – its edge jagged from having been split in half – and suddenly I knew, as if it had been so etched into my cognitive mapping of the world that it would not be possible to stray from it. This hour. This place. This fragment of rock. Everything had been leading here.

  I returned to the waterhole, and knelt.

  Dipped my hands into the dark water.

  Splashed my chest like a man preparing to dive.

  The stone – the one that fit so convincingly in my palm – had all the virtues of a tool. Weight. Function. A wrought edge. I sized it up, its attitude in my hand, the cold riffling my skin, entering my bones, lending its clarity.

  This could work, I promised myself. It had worked for others. Since long before I was born.

  I pressed the sharpest point of the rock into my chest.

  Dragged it across my skin.

  I could barely feel it, my teeth stitching up the pain, but I could hear my voice, a fly nagging my ear like a frightened child, one doubtful that what we suffer could be made visible. One line, that was all, below the clavicle, like so many I’d seen healed into a welted ridge. Like those mourning caps – an impossible process made measurable.

  But the stone snagged, its edge imperfect to the task, so that I had to look at what I was doing. Will my hand to continue. The skin puckered and tore, not mine, but mine, till finally the cut was the right length.

  I dropped the stone.

  Heard the thud.

  There was blood on my hands. My chest burned as if it had been cauterised.

  Throwing my head back, once more the madman, I let loose a hollow laugh. Its echo rode up the gorge and back again – taunting – persisted beyond its sound. A reminder that in the end I was alone in this. Always had been.

  I lowered myself to the rock.

  It was warm against my face and my shoulder except where it connected with the bones. There was blood, but not enough to kill a man.

  My shirt still hung drying over the edge of the shelf and I deliberated over whether to haul myself up and get it. Whether to use it as a bandage, or a pillow. I could sleep for a year – at least until the sun came back. And the wind. Even that had gone. All that remained was a mosquito, its feet denting the taut surface of the waterhole, and a doubt, dogged as the descending cold.

  That what was lost ever relinquished its claim.

  81

  A howl did the waking, one I recognised, though so lean I thought I’d dreamt it. It was coming from the entrance to the gorge, the moon full, pitching shadows as black as if it was day. Another howl made me sit, the skin across my chest tight with blood that had dried into a craggy mess. The air was so cold it was like a coating, the after-effects of sleep protecting me from it, but only briefly.

  The dingo was on the move. It was heading away from me, another joining it, a volley of calls. My watch face was silver, last man in the world, the dashes legible. Three hours I’d slept, stripped from the waist up, the only blanket the sky with its white trail. A shiver repeated itself, set in, a sure sign that I needed to get moving.

  Follow those dogs.

  Head back to Ininyingi while I was still capable.

  I reached for my shirt, rife with the smell of the afternoon’s efforts. Reassuring. If I could make my way here, I could make my way back: straight physics. My chest protested at the stretch as I slid one arm in after the other, buttoned it slowly, the moon barefaced and present at every turn. My hands were stained. They needed washing.

  The surface of the waterhole was static, so dark that it was hard to believe it was liquid. To enter that water now would foul it, bloodied as I was, not absolve.

  Another howl and I stood to my full height. Kicked the cutting stone, sent it skidding away. But I couldn’t make myself walk. The moon ensnared in the water, a ghost gum, the walls – once I left, it would all be broken. I would never be able to return.

  ‘Stay and you’ll freeze, fool.’

  The voice was mine, but underscored, and not by the wind.

  I lifted my collar.

  Buttoned it to my chin.

  One more howl and I was on the move.

  82

  The moon stretched the world, a grey thing, connived with the wind that returned once I was out of the gorge, travelling low and flat across the dunes, lifting and shaping them, making a joke of my thin shirt. Footprints led in the wrong direction, so I skirted them, chatted to keep myself company. The dingoes were nowhere to be seen, only heard, braying to the fat white globe that gave those howls the scale they sought. There are more stars here than anywhere else in the world, I told myself, a cold man speaking, also seeking solace i
n magnitude. The Southern Cross a guiding finger, I followed my shadow too, the moon over my shoulder.

  I held my hand to my chest, as if the night required a pledge, the chatter involuntary now, only my teeth. Somewhere to the south of me a lone dingo was moving fast, its voice sometimes close, sometimes snatched by the wind, like Kurpany, shape-shifting across country, becoming bark, bird, grass, though never forsaking his true self. A mamu. A ghost.

  So cold, so cold.

  Howling into the tunnel of my fingers.

  And then it was coming from the east, the calling, multiplying, the lights of Ininyingi a spangled mirage that refused to quit. The wind carried me, prodded my back, it too drawn towards the rows of streetlamps, an earthbound constellation, my gut aching for food, my legs for arrival, my mind for any kind of rest.

  They were behind me and in front now.

  I fell.

  Got up.

  Continued. Navigated by light and howl, my chest a source of heat, but also a guarantee, so that when they came, their tails whips, their barks forgetting, I wasn’t afraid.

  ‘You know me,’ I said.

  And they remembered, bowed, led me in. A rough posse bringing in the one who’d outlawed himself, the remnants of a fire burning in a front yard, spitting at the dark sky. Voices reverent. Not one of them interrupting the rhythm of my boots, because they knew where they were going now, bounded by a motley ring of escorts.

  Thin-flanked.

  Ears pricked to the sky.

  83

  The Bullet glowed silver, like a thing made of offcuts of the moon. The fraternity lingered at the gate with me, sniffing the air.

  ‘Go on now,’ I said.

  But they didn’t move, pelts ruffled by the wind.

  ‘It’s over,’ I said, backing my words this time with a brandished rock.

  Two broke off. Took out their thwarted hunger on the other’s hind legs, their snapping and low growls adopted, passed around the pack as if they shared a single mind. Only one dog remained stiff and focused on the moon. As I edged away, it watched me, crouched, its pale haunches ready. Not a camp dog, but a white dingo, full-blood, its hair slick and blanched.

  I turned to face it.

  Held my hand up in defence, but then to steady.

  ‘It’s time,’ I said to him.

  It cocked its head, eyes fixed on mine, its wet muzzle twitching, sensing the full force of my words.

  ‘It’s time,’ I said once more.

  The dingo rose. Pawed at the ground as if trying to dig up something that refused to be unearthed. I went to touch its neck, but it drew back, ears folded, its coat lunar.

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  A howl rang out from the direction of the ranges, sorrowful, on the brink of distress. With a swivel of its head the dingo rallied the pack. Took one last glance at me before leading them away, a wiry straggler nipped but not left behind.

  I dropped on the steps, my back against the door. The metal sculptures in the garden cast two shadows – from the moon, from the sickly yellow light that fell from the windows. They danced a little in the cold, my head as heavy as a planet, my cut chest rattled by each breath. I’d given everything I had on the journey back.

  ‘Thaddeus,’ I said, loud as I could, but the wind wouldn’t leave me my voice. ‘Thaddeus. Thaddeus.’

  Eyes closed, I tried not to hear them, the ones he’d spoken about. But I couldn’t be sure what I’d let in or out.

  Jadeus. Jadeus.

  ‘What the hell?’

  I fell through, the light extreme, hands under my arms, wrenching at the skin across my chest, my protests not quite coordinating into sound.

  ‘Saul.’

  His face a scowl, his eyes dipping, crumpled. My shirt with its dark mess.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I went there.’

  ‘Where, son?’

  ‘To the place.’

  ‘I don’t know what place you’re talking about. Jesus, you’re in a state. Hang on, I’ll get you a blanket.’

  ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘You’re shivering fit to churn butter.’

  He grabbed a blanket from the couch and wrapped it around me, never taking his eyes off the patch of blood, its crazed pattern.

  ‘Who did this to you?’ he asked.

  ‘No one. He was there.’

  ‘Who? Hold still. I need to take a look.’

  He unbuttoned my shirt. Breathed in when he saw the state of my chest, air seething between his teeth. Half closed his eyes.

  ‘You did this?’ he asked.

  ‘He was there,’ I said, sitting up. ‘They all were, Thaddeus.’

  ‘Settle down now.’

  ‘I didn’t see them, but I knew.’

  Thaddeus frowned. Let the shirt fall back into place. His mouth twitched. He put a hand up to steady it.

  ‘Best not to get yourself worked up, eh? You’re in shock, and the cold hasn’t done you any good. Doesn’t look like it needs stitches. I’ve got some Dettol here somewhere. It’ll hurt like buggery, but you can’t leave it like that.’

  He left, the buzz of the fluorescent tube on the ceiling out of tune with the hum in my head. I swayed. Pressed my palms against the cold lino of the floor. Parts of my body were an inferno, parts ice. Thaddeus returned with a chipped white bowl. Cotton wool. A towel the green of spring grass, a memory coming to me of the way we’d shoved fistfuls of it into the diamond-shaped gaps of the school fence one lunch hour – how long ago? – the monster we’d created as malformed as any collective nightmare.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ he said, crouched beside me, his gammy knee forcing a wince.

  The Dettol was like bottled fire. Burnt a hole into me with each application, his hand pausing above my chest till it relaxed. The dried blood, now diluted, ran down onto my stomach. Thaddeus blocked the stream with the towel.

  ‘Bits of him got lost,’ I said. ‘Scattered. At the lake, out in the desert, in that place. I’ve been collecting them, taking care of them. You understand?’

  ‘Sure. Just let me get you sorted here and you can tell me all about it. You’ve made a right mess of it. Bit amateurish.’

  Thaddeus attempted a grin. Dipped some cotton wool into the bowl of water.

  ‘I had no idea things were this bad with you,’ he said, scrutinising my face.

  ‘I failed, Thaddeus.’

  ‘That’s not what matters now.’

  ‘I could’ve saved him.’

  ‘You can’t know that for sure. A man is a mystery unto himself. The saving’s all ahead of you now.’

  Thaddeus moved to the deepest part of the cut, where the rock had snagged. As he cleaned it, it began to bleed again. He applied pressure, the wad of cotton wool soon soaked with red. He replaced it with another.

  ‘History’s a hard taskmaster,’ Thaddeus muttered to himself.

  The flow abating, he put some Dettol on. I tried not to flinch. His fingers reminded me of my father’s, thick-knuckled but made for fine work. He noticed me watching him. Put down the antiseptic.

  ‘The place you’re talking about – it’s the waterhole at the entrance to the ranges, where the petroglyphs are?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Kata told me he took you there. But you went there alone this time, I take it.’

  I nodded. Hung my head. My chest throbbed as if that which drove the blood to it was now present in every artery and cell.

  Thaddeus dried my ribs and stomach with the towel.

  ‘You did this there?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How’d you make it back?’

  ‘The dogs brought me in.’

  ‘Full moon intense as this one, you’re lucky they didn’t finish you off.’

  I thought of the white dingo. How, when he’d crouched, for a moment I’d thought he’d attack. But I’d been wrong, wrong about so many things.

  ‘Thaddeus … the ghosts.’

  ‘It’s just you and me to
night.’

  ‘They’re not after a sacrifice.’

  Thaddeus closed my shirt.

  ‘Best you get some sleep, eh? Does Nara know where you are?’

  I shook my head. Lay down. Drew the blanket into a fist around my body. Listened to Thaddeus shuffle over to the sink. Rinse the bowl. Fill the kettle.

  Out there – somewhere towards the ranges – a lone howl.

  But I stayed where I was.

  84

  I woke to music, the sun resilient through the window above the mattress where I lay, though not enough to counter the tense strains, the tightness of my chest. Thaddeus was leaning over the sink, a saucepan gripped in his hand. Water ricocheted out of it, light fixed in the spray. His body pitched with the aria, a woman’s voice, beseeching, his hand conducting the flow – either he’d forgotten I was there or was transfixed beyond caring. I hauled myself free of the knot of blankets, scratched at the sand in my hair. Unbuttoned the navy King Gee shirt Thaddeus had lent me. The cut was cleaner now but angry around the edges, dark patches where the blood had clotted into clumps. My head was less clogged, an ache nagging my shoulder, though I couldn’t remember having injured it.

  ‘Górecki,’ said Thaddeus.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Symphony number three. “Sorrowful Songs.” Only thing to drive across the desert to, full bore, sun blaring in your face.’

  He handed me a glass of water. The strings played the long final note, Thaddeus tipping his hand as if to catch it.

  ‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

  ‘Like shit.’

  ‘To be expected. And the cut?’

  ‘Better.’

  ‘Serving its purpose, then.’