Gunshot Road

by Adrian Hyland

  My blood was just off the boil an hour later when I headed back to town. As I cut through the back streets, I passed the government housing area. Couldn’t help but notice the new police Cruiser squatting in the driveway of the most anal house in the street: viciously manicured lawn, pesticide splatter-marks, pot plants lined up like a police academy parade. Even the driveway had been blasted with a fire hose.

  Cockburn, for sure. He’d been washing the car, even though it was brand new. Venting his spleen on an automobile. That’d be right. I allowed myself a brief smile: maybe I was getting to him as much as he was getting to me.

  The blinds were drawn, the air-conditioner roared from the roof.

  Cockburn at ease: the prospect beggared the imagination. I knew nothing about his personal life, but could imagine the officious prick sitting in there getting his rocks off on pornos. Or sixties musicals. Working out on the home gym, polishing the trophies, stringing the racquets.

  Fuck him, I wasn’t finished yet. If I was going down, it might as well be in flames.

  I hit the brakes, dropped a U-ie, pulled into the curb, went up and thumped on the door.

  Coontown

  A TEENAGE BOY ANSWERED. Maybe fifteen years old. He had a basketball in his hands, a surly expression on his face, a neat, athletic build. Shoulder-length, ice-blond hair.

  Kids. Shit. I hadn’t thought of that. Cockburn had a family.

  The boy looked as surprised—and as pleased—to see me as I was to see him.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘My name’s Emily Tempest. I work with your old man. Is he in?’

  He gazed at me blankly, then turned away without a word. Obviously a graduate of his father’s charm school.

  I heard him calling from somewhere round the back of the house: ‘Dad!’ Then a string of furious whispers, among which I thought I heard the word ‘coon’.

  A woman came to the door. Thin faced, bottle blonde, pretty in an anaemic way. Lippy and liner, lycra top, running shoes. Was everyone in the family a bloody jock?

  ‘I’m sorry. You must be Emily.’ She ran a nervous hand down a taut thigh, glanced back over her shoulder. ‘I’m Kerry Cockburn. Bruce won’t be a moment.’

  We stood there awkwardly as the conversation out back grew more intense. I found my eagerness for a fight evaporating fast.

  ‘Don’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘It’s no trouble, really—he knows you’re here.’

  ‘Maybe I could come back later…’

  ‘No, please, come in.’ She ushered me into a spotless living room. ‘Can I get you something to drink?’

  ‘Thanks. Glass of cold water’d be lovely.

  Bloody hot out there…’ Bloody hot in here too, if the argument between the Cockburn males was anything to go by. When Kerry disappeared into the kitchen, I pulled back a blind, glanced out into the backyard.

  Cockburn was standing on the patio, legs squared, veins popping, anger twisting his mouth. He was wearing crisp shorts and a fluorescent green singlet, blue thongs. He had a spray can in one hand. Looked like the altercation had interrupted his daily slaughter of the weeds.

  His son stood in front of him, and the pair were having words. More than words: fingers were being pointed, fists clenched. There were old battles being re-fought here. Despite his wife’s assurances, it didn’t look like the acting superintendent would be joining us straightaway.

  I couldn’t hear much of what they were saying over the air-conditioner, but suddenly the boy exploded: ‘Family! What kind of family do you call this! You drag us here to some dirty coon town where the air’s so hot you catch fuckin fire just walkin down the street…!’

  ‘How dare you talk like that to your father?’

  ‘Father!’ The boy spat the word as if it were a curse. He spun round, began to walk away.

  ‘Jarrod! You stop right there!’

  He did pause, but only for long enough to fling the basketball at his father; Cockburn threw up an arm, deflected it into a window. Glass splintered and flew.

  Cockburn looked up, caught my eye. I lowered the blind. I heard a screen door slam, and the boy stormed through the house. As he passed the open doorway he glanced at me, his features distorted with rage.

  Not at me, I intuited: at his martinet father and the one-pub, two-horse shit-hole of a town he’d forced his family to live in.

  Coon town? Maybe it did have something to do with me.

  Jarrod burst out the front door, his long arms quivering at his sides, stomped off down the road.

  I shifted nervously, wondering how the hell I was going to extricate myself from this mess. I’d come here looking for a fight, but not this one.

  Moments later Cockburn was standing there, head scarfed with scowls. He gazed at the door, simmering, then turned to me.

  Shit, was I going to cop it now?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I was amazed to hear him murmur. ‘Sorry you had to hear that.’

  I groped around for a response. ‘No need,’ was the best I could come up with.

  ‘You’re a visitor to my home.’

  ‘Uninvited.’

  He thrummed his fingers on the wall, seemed not to know which way to turn. ‘Teenagers…’ He tried a diplomatic smile, but it was a pathetic effort.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I commiserated. I couldn’t help myself; the man was suffering. ‘Doesn’t seem that long ago I was having that kind of scene with my own old man.’

  Cockburn seemed lost for words. I was seeing a side of him I hadn’t seen before: the ill-at-ease, captain-losing-the-crew side.

  ‘I guess Bluebush is a bit of a let-down after Queensland,’ I added. ‘All those beaches, all that blue water.’

  ‘That other thing…you heard what he said…’

  An excruciating silence, broken only by the rattle of the air-con.

  ‘He’s just a boy,’ I said.

  ‘He’s never heard that word in this house. Not from his mother, not from me.’ He paused, drew a hand across his cheeks. ‘Whatever you might think.’

  ‘Would have heard it in plenty of others; don’t have to slit your wrists. Don’t you want to go after him?

  ‘He usually comes back by himself.’

  ‘He’s done this before?’ I thanked the Lord I wasn’t a parent. Cockburn walked over to the door, gazed out through the dark mesh. He stood there, hands on hips, jaw working at a piece of gum.

  ‘Sort of—he’s at that age—has to challenge everything.’

  If you run your home anything like you run a police station, I thought, I’m not surprised. Did they communicate by post-it note?

  Out loud I said, ‘Yeah—I can identify with that,’ and shrugged. ‘Not happy with anything, and when things change not happy with that either.’

  ‘He did have it pretty good over in Rockie. Even if he didn’t know it…’

  I looked out the window, out onto the sad, sunblasted streets of Bluebush. Not much to see. A dog struggled against the tide of heat, tongue lolling; it bunched up, dropped a jobbie on the pavement. A mad-looking fellow in lycra jogged past. Walked past, to be strictly truthful, but moving as if he meant it. Poncing down the road like he had a duck shoved up his arse. The other side of the drain offered a panoramic view of the Drunks’ Camp.

  I tried to imagine what it would be like for a fifteen-year-old boy, finding yourself in this pissant town after all that Queensland tropicana. Found myself thinking back to my own tearaway years, the monthly rage, the river of tears, the sublimated grief for my mother.

  ‘You know,’ I said, ‘whenever I got the shits and took off… which was often enough…there was always a part of me wanted my old man to come and find me.’

  Cockburn raised his head.

  ‘It was like a test,’ I elaborated.

  ‘Test?’ His teeth clenched. ‘I’ll give him a test. He’s not coming back into this house until he apologises.’

  ‘Your house, your rules—never big on apologies at our place. But
looking at me and Dad from a distance, I reckon I was daring him. Trying to see how much he cared.’

  Cockburn caught sight of his wife, hovering nervously around the kitchen.

  ‘I’m only saying what it was like for me.’

  He steepled his thumbs, rocked back and forth, distractedly.

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Did he what?’

  ‘Find you.’

  ‘Eventually.’ I smiled curtly. ‘Didn’t want to make it too easy for him.’

  ‘How do you get on with him now?’

  ‘Motor Jack? Quirky old bastard. Couldn’t imagine the world without him.’

  He rested an arm on a display cabinet—bristling, I couldn’t help but notice, with squash trophies; at least I’d been right there.

  ‘McGillivray told me a bit about your background. White bloke, isn’t he, your father? Some station out on the plains?’

  ‘Back then? Moonlight Downs, yeah.’

  Kerry appeared in the doorway, water glasses in hand, gave one of them to me. ‘Had its hairy moments, growing up out there, I’d imagine.’

  ‘Mate, sometimes I thought it was gonna kill me. Trying to work out where I fitted in. Whether I was black or white. Whether I wanted to conquer the world, or cut and run. Dunno if I ever threw a basketball through the window, but I did the Moonlight equivalent—heaps. Plenty of fighting sticks flying round the camp when I was in it. Jack was usually there to pick up the pieces.’

  Cockburn and his wife glanced at each other.

  ‘Mind you,’ I added, ‘he had to know where to look.’

  I took a sip of water; ice tinkled and clinked. Cockburn ran his tongue around his cheeks, like he was searching for the spearmint.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Must be a lot easier in town than out bush—I had a horse! My poor old man had hundreds of square miles to cover.’

  ‘The sports ground,’ suggested Kerry. ‘Spends half his life down there, Bruce, shooting hoops, running up and down. Him and Crimsy and the others.’

  ‘Huh!’ grumbled Cockburn. ‘Crimsy!’

  ‘At least he’s a friend, Bruce. Not what you’d call a respectable family, but…’

  ‘His father’s a crook!’

  Her voice shivered in response. ‘His father’s a boilermaker, Bruce, with an ancient conviction for receiving stolen goods. And frankly, where would Jarrod be without him? Him and the others. The boy needs friends.’

  There was a protracted silence, broken only by the tapping of Cockburn’s foot on the floor. He cracked his knuckles and sighed, then turned, slowly, began to walk towards the door. Picked up a red baseball cap and pair of shades from a table. As he went out he paused, tilted his head back at me.

  ‘What was it you wanted, Emily?’

  ‘Not sure if now’s the time…’

  ‘This about Green Swamp?’

  ‘I just want a few days down there, pottering around. Maybe talk to the Stonehouse mob.’

  ‘Stonehouse?’

  ‘Community out west of the roadhouse. People we met at the accident the other day. I’d like to ask them about this place Doc was doing his research. They’d know, if anybody does.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Might speak to the miners as well, see if any of em can shed any…’

  ‘I said all right.’

  ‘All right what?’

  He walked over to a key rack in the kitchen, picked out a bunch of keys. ‘Get you out of my hair for a couple of days.’ With the keys in hand, he was the boss again. ‘Radio schedule every morning. Purchase order book in the glove box. Manual oughta tell you everything you want to know. Make sure you’re watered and fuelled up. No hitch-hikers! Official business only.’ He tossed the keys at me. ‘And if there’s a scratch on my Toyota, it’s coming out of your wages.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any wages yet.’

  He paused in the doorway. ‘You haven’t earned em yet.’

  Oh Danny boy

  I PULLED INTO THE supermarket, stocked up on a few essentials—tobacco, tea and tampons. As I stood at the check-out, I heard a kerfuffle going on outside: a door slamming, an angry shout, a burst of footsteps whipping round the corner.

  I rushed outside, as did Merv Todd, owner of Bluebush Electronics next door.

  ‘You little cunt!’ the unhappy businessman roared in my direction.

  Here we go, I thought. But it wasn’t aimed at me. He came dashing past, or as close to a dash as the middle-aged gut would get him, then saw sense and gave up. Leaned over, hands on knees, gasping.

  ‘Emily,’ he panted when he saw me. ‘Heard you were on the job. Thought you were supposed to control the thieving little bastards in this town.’

  ‘Signed up with the cops Merv, not the Third Reich.’

  ‘You recognise him?’

  ‘All I saw was a pair of heels.’

  ‘I’ll have his hide if he ever puts a foot inside my store again.’

  ‘Was that a mixed metaphor?’

  ‘No, it was an iPod Touch and it was worth five hundred bucks.’

  I took down the details, scouted round the usual haunts and suspects, found no trace of the stolen iPod or its stealer. Headed for home. Which, when I was in Bluebush, was my boyfriend Jojo’s shack out on the Three Mile.

  As I was driving out there I spotted a solitary figure beneath a bloodwood. A boy, I thought. He was leaning against the trunk and staring into the desert that gnawed at the town’s edge. I drew closer, noticed a set of headphones on his ears, a silver iPod in his hands.

  I pulled over, turned the motor off. So absorbed was he in his music or his thoughts, he didn’t notice me.

  To the west, the desert of emblems, a cycle of endless rivers and winds, of hot red hills and yellow plains.

  To the east, behind him, was the town: a whitefeller whirlwind of concrete hotboxes and shimmering bitumen racked by smelters and smokestacks, by toxic blue dams, the even more toxic bottle shops and pubs.

  Between the two—framed, somehow, by these contrasting images—was Danny Brambles.

  There were bits of leaf in his dreadlocks, beads of sweat on his brow. His fingers were working at the player.

  I climbed down, tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Danny.’

  He jumped, looked at me—and at the police car I was driving—nervously. Took out the phones, tried to bury the iPod in his hands.

  ‘Em’ly.’

  ‘Warm day.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Merv have anything decent loaded on the iPod?’

  He licked his lips. ‘Er—this one mine.’

  ‘Gotta receipt for it?’

  ‘Receipt?’

  ‘Come on, Danny, I know somebody just flogged it from Merv Todd. I assume that was you, but if we returned it straightaway, maybe arranged for you to do a bit of work out at the hobby farm, he might be willing to forget about it.’

  ‘Aw, Emily…’ He sighed, ran a thumb across its glistening surface. ‘You know how much music they put in this little machine?’

  ‘Some more work at the farm, you might be able to buy one for yourself.’

  He scratched his head, looked like he was about to do a runner, thought better of it. Not that many places to run round here, especially from the likes of me. He gave it a last caress, handed it over.

  ‘Where you want to go?’ I asked.

  He looked at the car warily, then shrugged.

  ‘Still the same old Emily, I suppose. Maybe round me dad’s place?’

  Danny’s father was Bandy Mabulu, a Queensland yeller-feller who’d come through years before as a guitarist with Rick and Thel’s Travelling Country Band and never made it out of Bluebush. I’d been too young to know him back then but I could imagine: a glimmer in his eye, a swagger in his hips and a bedroll that had played host to half the eligible females in the district—and a good portion of the ineligible ones.

  Somewhere along the way he drifted through a piecemeal relationship with Rosie Brambles, th
e original good-time girl. The good times had long gone; the only thing left of their liaison was the boy in front of me.

  Bandy had done most of the parenting since the day he came back to the Gutter Camp and found his four-year-old son screaming in the middle of a body-bruising drunken brawl. And despite everything, he’d turned out to be a pretty good father.

  I opened the door. ‘Come on, Danny.’

  He climbed aboard, and five minutes later we pulled into Bandy’s place—a concrete bomb-shelter in Bleaker Street. A huddle of deflated figures were stretched out in the shade of a candelabra wattle. Some of them stirred as we approached. A couple hauled themselves to their feet—alarmed, presumably, by the vehicle—and shuffled away.

  Cowboy Coulter came lurching round from the back of the house wearing dirty blue jeans and an ugly smile; took umbrage at the presence of some poor sod in one of the bedrolls and began kicking the crap out of him.

  The said sod looked like copping a terrible hiding, but got his act together sufficiently to climb out of the blanket and fight back. I recognised him: Jimmy Grimshaw, a featherweight whitefeller, notorious for his sneaky drop-kick and his merciless tackle-grab.

  Jimmy, uncharacteristically, went straight for Cowboy’s throat, and the pair of them disappeared in a cloud of flowers and dust. I was desperately trying not to remember that I was a cop of sorts, and presumably meant to do something about such disturbances.

  Danny’s father emerged from the house. He spotted us, dragged the combatants to their feet and sent them on their respective ways with a couple of well-aimed kicks. Came over and shook his son’s hand.

  ‘Danny boy. Emily.’

  ‘Bandy.’

  He was wearing khaki shorts and a shark-tooth necklace; his powerful arms were a jungle of tattoos, blue and green. People said he had Pacific Islander blood in him. He sure as hell had something: he brought to mind the razor-eyed Tongans who haunt the doors of your nastier Melbourne nightclubs. Somewhere in his late forties, he was still a brutally handsome man.

  ‘What was that all about?’ I nodded at the departing revellers.

  ‘Cowboy’n Jimmy? Pah! Nothing. Bit of an early morning workout.’