Anchor Point

by Alice Robinson

  ‘Oh … no worries, love. How are you?’ It was Vik. Bruce listened, and Laura watched his hot lunch cool. A quarter of an hour passed before he said goodbye and sat back down. ‘Wants you to phone her back,’ he said. ‘Had a lecture to go to.’

  Laura gave a small, frustrated smile. Only a few months gone and Vik didn’t seem to rate the amount of work there was to do around the place. Laura couldn’t really spare the time, the hours Vik wanted to spend chatting, but it also secretly pleased her. To be needed.

  Bruce picked up his knife and fork, resumed eating. It was a little bit strange, they agreed warily. Each skirted their discomfort. Neither wanted to be in the conversation; neither wanted to let it go. Strange, Laura hazarded, that Vik was calling every day.

  ‘I really miss you,’ Vik had said sadly, a couple of days before, sounding thoroughly shocked. Laura wondered, for the first time, if she had done her sister a disservice. By protecting, taking care, had she set Vik up to flourish, or fail?

  Though the days were getting shorter, temperatures were high. It still hadn’t rained. Days of total fire ban had become intrinsic to the structure of time, like morning, noon and night. Still feeding the sheep by hand, Bruce sat hunched over his ledger in the evenings, blotting brow-sweat. Their paddocks were rough and dry. Laura wondered where the topsoil went when it blew away. Probably down to Melbourne. It would be swept into little pans with little brooms, and thrown out.

  Only that morning she had come upon Bruce leaning up against the shearing shed. He looked odd, but she couldn’t work out why. Then she realised: she never saw him standing still. His arms were folded. He might have appeared nonchalant from a distance, a man on a work break – if he took them. Another sheep was badly flyblown, the third that week. Bruce’s arms seemed crossed to hold in spilling intestines, like those of a man shot in the gut. He gazed out at the view. Worn paddocks rolled down into the dusty valley, dirt waves washing into a brown pool. A twig cracked and he turned, running a sleeve across his face.

  ‘Listen,’ Laura said, ‘you reckon this study thing’s such a good idea? Maybe I should, you know, think about staying.’

  ‘You being here’s not gonna change the weather,’ Bruce said, leaving the wall. ‘Besides, you’ll be back before you know it.’

  Laura’s jaw clenched. She felt propelled, the way shoppers moved up through levels in the Bindara mall, standing on escalators, ascending, standing still. Bruce clapped her shoulder. They were almost the same height. It felt more like he was leaning on her than offering comfort. Laura smiled weakly. Later she went and shot the sheep herself.

  She was in the veggie garden when the phone next rang. Water trickled across the concrete earth, but would not soak in.

  ‘Ran into Vik,’ Joseph said by way of hello.

  Laura tried to control her voice. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Said you’re moving. To Sydney.’

  Laura sighed. She could hear the strain in Joseph’s voice, the confusion, and pride, preventing him from saying more. Bruce had tried to talk her out of Sydney. So had Vik. It didn’t make sense, they said, to go so far away, not when she already had friends in Melbourne; Laura still wasn’t sure how big Joseph’s family was, but it seemed from his stories that he knew more people in the city than lived in Kyree. ‘Us mob,’ he said, and each time Laura imagined a surge of people, flowing around and over her, a wave. To be washed along like that.

  Her stomach seized up every time she thought of going off on her own, and to a strange place, but she stood firm. A part of her acknowledged that the prospect of a place where no one knew her, or her family, was thrilling. For the first time, she would not be known as the girl whose mother went missing.

  She had made one quick decision all those years ago: Kath’s letter, turned ember. From then, her whole life, like the course of sheep through yards, was charted, penned. So she had claimed this thing for herself: a temporary location.

  Laura said, ‘We’ll both end up back in this shithole, though. Won’t we?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Joseph said quietly.

  Laura said she was sorry. She could tell that he was hurt; she was hurting him.

  ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘You don’t owe me. Do what you want.’

  Though the words stung, he was right – to a point. Even so, Laura was suddenly livid. She tried to explain, loud and fast, that Bruce was making her go. Mangled by anger, a lifetime of duty and guilt gushed out. Joseph listened. Wearily, Laura sat down on the floor. ‘Never mind,’ she finished softly. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  She went out to shoot rabbits. Bruce caught her by the shed, asked who had phoned and what they’d said. Laura couldn’t speak. She shrugged, scowling. Bruce’s mouth, a twist-tie of confusion and concern. He looked like a man faced with a difficult crossword puzzle, and Laura didn’t have the energy to help him sort the answers out. There was an edge to her kindness. All her life, the small square of space reserved for herself was threatened, constantly under siege. Bruce called out as she walked away. The paddock gate clanged shut behind her.

  There was a stark and startling beauty in the big, hot, empty silence of the paddocks on the hill. She got into the rhythm of her uphill gait, the all-consuming quiet. It was hot work, but it felt good to sweat. She crossed the hay paddock, locked up against stock. The grass was sweet and warm, smelling of summer. Whenever Laura saw gold – necklaces and rings – it always reminded her of that smell: hay and sunshine. She trudged up past the dam, breathing hard. On the ridge it was possible to see all the way to town.

  The dry land made her wince. At the same time, looking down into the valley, Laura felt something well up. She was overcome with the sense that she was seeing a view that was hers alone to know, so truly and so well, and that she was lucky to have it; she was blessed. It was hard to express. She understood that the feeling lay beyond language, but that it need not be communicated; she shouldn’t even try. She loved the place, and in that moment she felt it loved her back.

  She’d brought the rifle for the rabbits, its bullets hollow-point. On impact, they left bruising, but now she did not shoot for meat. The shock of the hit would knock the rabbit down. It would stay down. Laura kept careful watch for burrows as she walked. She would find a rest, something to lean the rifle on. Any stump would do.

  By the time she got home, the sun had sunk to a glowing orange line. Propped up on the front porch, her old bike gleamed. The measure of Bruce’s love was apparent in the freshly oiled chain. He had wiped the cobwebs clean, pumped tyres fat. Laura stopped to admire the work, throat tight. It had been at least five years since she’d passed her driving test.

  ‘That you, Laura, love?’ Bruce said.

  He came outside in his slippers, smiling shyly. Side-by-side, they took in his work. He leaned over, dinged the bell. It pealed high and clear, no sign of rust.

  Laura touched her chest. ‘Didn’t have to do that, you know,’ she said. ‘Thanks, but.’

  Bruce shrugged. They stood together. His hand fluttered at her back. She brushed his arm. He masked his awkwardness, squeezing the back tyre. She touched, lovingly, the freshly polished seat.

  ‘Fixed the brakes for you too,’ Bruce said.

  Laura felt the pinch of tears behind her nose. ‘C’mon,’ she said. ‘Let’s get tea on. It’s getting late.’

  She waited until summer was almost over to depart – didn’t want to go too soon after Vik and leave Bruce alone during the most difficult season. Now the fleece was growing back, oily and thick. Main Street was awash with bronze, flooded with autumn leaves. Naked, the Avenue of Honour elms, branches bare as the bones they were there to commemorate, seemed incongruous against the azure sky. The leaves dropped in a single cool week, which, like a sigh of relief, calmed the district down. Then came fever on the wind: the hottest March day in a hundred years, and no shade.

  The morning of Laura’s departure was hot and still as sand. Pulling on her socks and boots, Laura noticed that the scraggly summer roses lining th
e side of the house still hadn’t bloomed. In the shed, she filled an ice-cream container with feed for the chooks. The bag of feed was low. I’ll have to get more, she thought, and winced.

  There was a new nest in the big lone gum out back. Although it had survived the clearing work and the fire, Bruce still threatened to chop it down.

  An image surfaced: Joseph, a skinny kid. Boats made of bark, people long gone. Now Laura stared up through branches. She thought of Kath. Would she have met Joseph without all that drama? Without police and dogs and men? Yet now they were not speaking. Laura wasn’t sure how to make things up, if Joseph still wanted to be friends. She felt the knot of her own departure tightening around her neck. How real it was. She was leaving. Travelling away from him. And Bruce. She caught a glimpse of something then, her understanding: a bright white feather, flashing. How they had worked to change the land. Their mark was on it, fingerprints in fence and stump. But a print is not a body. Once she walked off the place, where was she?

  At Kyree Station, Bruce sat with feet spread on the platform. Laura checked her ticket. Theirs was the only car in the parking lot. Just five minutes left.

  Bruce said, ‘Got a little something for you.’ He produced a roll of notes.

  Laura gasped. ‘Oh!’ On either side of the tracks, dry paddocks stretched. Brittle, balding, the colour of a cardboard box. She pushed away Bruce’s hand; he pushed back.

  ‘A little something I’ve been putting by,’ he said.

  The train approached. Tsk of wheel on track. Laura’s eyes, scratchy from dust. There was no time to contemplate the money, how he had ever saved it up. She relented, pressing the cash into the pocket of her jeans. The train hissed to a stop. A conductor leaned out. There were beads of sweat on his brow; stains bled into the breast of his shirt.

  Bruce called, ‘G’day! Mate, one to Sydney here!’

  His back was damp beneath her hands; whiskers scratched her cheek. While the train hummed and hissed, waiting, Laura fumbled with the chain around her neck. She worked the clasp and felt it slither open. The tiny padlock key was spotted with age and rust. Ignoring the uncomfortable lightness she felt without it, anxiety prickling like pins and needles, Laura pressed it into Bruce’s hand. ‘You’ll need this.’

  The conductor blew his whistle, and she stepped hurriedly into the nearest carriage. She found her seat, wedged in, as the train began to crawl away. It took all her concentration not to get up, run back. She lifted a heavy hand to wave. Bruce couldn’t see her through the glass; she rolled past, hidden. As she was borne off, she saw him walk back towards the ute. How tiny he looked, growing smaller, until he finally disappeared.

  That first night in Sydney, Laura called Vik from a phone box, forehead pressed against the glass. Heads down, slick as seals, Sydneysiders trudged through the downpour, lit up by jags of light. Laura shivered. The storm-dark sky was so like bushfire smoke, Sydney might have been alight.

  She had thought for one mad instant that Vik might offer some advice, some comfort, having just been through a move herself. But the phone had hardly rung before Vik was answering, breathlessly happy, as Laura had never heard her. Laura only just managed to confirm that Vik had received her latest care package: little items from home, lovingly wrapped. Before posting, Laura handled each gift reverently, imagining the joy it might bring to her sister, alone in a strange city. The homemade jam, the dried fruit, a new pair of slippers lined with wool. Now she felt a fool.

  ‘I’m so glad you phoned,’ Vik squealed, after barely offering thanks. ‘Got heaps to tell you!’

  Laura shifted uncomfortably, using her address book as a fan.

  ‘I met someone,’ Vik said, giggling. ‘You know, a boy. A … man.’

  Laura’s stomach dropped. She hated the quick stab of jealousy that got her before she could clamp it down. There had never been any competition between them; there was no point. In Kyree, Vik’s big dreams could have condemned her. But she was undeniably beautiful, as Kath had been, so was somehow forgiven her nerdiness, even revered, out in the dusty schoolyard. Laura believed that no one in town looked at her twice, with her roughly calloused hands and op-shop jeans; there was nothing special about her worn-out walk. She thought of Joseph, the way he watched her. It was a hitch in the stories she told about herself.

  ‘That’s great, Viko,’ she managed, trying to find her way into the warm, caring voice she knew she should use. ‘Who is he?’

  But her sister needed no invitation. She was already feverishly describing Michael: how kind he was, how funny. Laura listened, watching the traffic churn past.

  ‘You’ll like him, Lor,’ Vik was saying. ‘He makes really bad jokes. Dad jokes. It’s hilarious!’

  Laura gave a noncommittal sound, gritting her teeth. Though her mind was racing, she couldn’t think what to say, the phone box feeling like a submarine.

  ‘And you’ll never guess where he’s from!’

  Laura’s exhaustion seemed to pulse. ‘Where?’

  ‘Austria,’ Vik said in the special voice she reserved for Kath. ‘Came here ten years ago. Speaks German and everything.’

  Oh for goodness’ sake! Laura longed to say. Vik couldn’t even speak their mother’s language. But what was it to her who Vik chose? It was obvious that their feelings for Kath were worlds apart. Laura understood that, but understanding it didn’t make it easier.

  Appalled by the strength of her reaction, she took a deep breath. There was an awkward pause in which she could feel Vik’s mouth turning down. She wanted to say something encouraging, but all she could think was that she herself could only remember what felt like very basic German, at least compared to the fluency she had once enjoyed.

  Michael ran a restoration business, Vik said; his skill was making broken things whole. It sounded like finicky work, vaguely feminine. But useful, Laura thought, to repair what might otherwise be thrown away.

  Laura’s TAFE clung to the outskirts of a large university just a short walk from her hostel. The suburb was alive with shops and restaurants, so many she felt no one could possibly remember, let alone experience, them all. In any case, she had no money for such things – wouldn’t know where to begin. She knew enough to understand that she was woefully ignorant, unfashionable. Sometimes she caught sight of the shop girls, distorted through glass: apparitions. Heavily painted, underdressed, shoes like hobbles, crippling – they looked alien. With her old parka tight around her, Laura walked past briskly. She tried to think through the fact that those girls, as well as the terrace houses – old buildings lined up like crowded teeth – the rain and roads and traffic, all existed simultaneously with the wide, chalky landscape back home. Her mind couldn’t wrap around it.

  After the first week, her cheap shoes fell apart. She bought gumboots, a sturdy umbrella. But she couldn’t get used to the noise. The seemingly uninterrupted patter of rain felt physical, like ringing in her ears, though it was the blare of cars, human chatter, the noise of life being lived in the city that made her head pound. It never got properly dark. Laura slept with a pillow pressed against her eyes, trying to cut the neon glare from streetlights and shops. No matter how carefully she drew her curtains, headlights sliced the walls of her room. She longed for the oceanic quiet and darkness of the big paddocks at night; she found stars, like brilliant plankton, comforting. But even on clear nights there were no stars above the city. The sky was blank. The light electric, harsh. Laura felt it burn. It left a residue, black spots. Reflected in every slick surface across the drowning city, she lived among disco balls made of puddles, spray and gleaming wet glass.

  Her TAFE course was filled with rural kids hoping to run the family farm, or buy their own. A few retirees with lifestyle properties, whose ideas about rural life made the country kids titter. Hung between groups, Laura was left to make herself invisible. She had perfected the trick years ago. Some part of her had thought, hoped, that things might be different in Sydney. But she saw now that she had brought herself along. She longed t
o wake in her own room on the farm, her day neatly arranged by tasks that were predictable, known. In that place she was useful, handy, calm. She knew what needed doing and she could get the job done.

  The course was meant to be practical – ‘It’s not rocket science!’ one retiree said – but assignments still needed writing, which meant there was reading to be done. Laura sat silent at the back of the class, dreaming with eyes open. Each day she wanted nothing more than for it to be over, so that she might go back to her room and crawl into the cave of her bed. As the semester wore on, she felt as though she was sinking into mud. The rest of the students seemed to glide over the bog of work, barely breaking a sweat.

  When the first assignment was returned covered in red pen, Laura felt herself go under. Those five hundred words had cost a night’s sleep, each one a pinprick, drawing blood. Why did she have to describe how to run a drought-lot for her sheep? Couldn’t she just show how it might be done? Her desk chair clattered as she stood. Every head turned. Crushed, she stuffed her assignment into her bag. Out in the dingy corridor, she heard the teacher faintly call her name. Head down, she kept going, shame dripping like rain. Running down her face.

  The next day a man about Laura’s age turned up, bounding through the classroom door. From her vantage at the back of the room, Laura stared at the gleaming ball of his shoulder, the arc of his long neck. His baggy singlet needed washing, his feet were bare, but his blatant beauty – strong nose, square jaw, black cherubic curls – sent a charge through the class, which fell silent. Everyone stared.

  ‘Yo, sorry I’m late.’ He addressed the teacher casually, as though he had missed minutes, rather than weeks. His hands were deep in cargo pockets. Laura watched beads of water rolling from his hair down his neck.

  The teacher gaped. A crimson blush was bleeding up her throat. There was something in the slow smile the young man gave that showed he knew the effect he was having.