Crow's Breath

by John Kinsella

  CROW’S BREATH

  The town was dead from salt. The wheat bins were optimism. The shop served as post office, petrol station (a single bowser), liquor store and grocer’s. When she pushed the shredded fly-strips aside, she hesitated, trying to see past the shadows. No one at the counter, which was worn and dirty. She was looking for water and maybe potato chips. There was one packet on a shelf with nothing else. Below it, other shelves held the odd rusted can or roll of toilet paper. She looked at the chip packet, which had been chewed by something – mice? They were six months beyond their use-by date. The fridge was making an unholy noise and had frozen over, though it wasn’t a freezer. She thought she detected patches of green at the back. She opened the door, scooped up three waters, looked at them, and put them back. Hearing a noise behind her, at the counter, she looked around to see a very old man. She could hear something around his feet. A dog? Canna help ya, Missus? She backed away towards the fly-strip, her mouth half-open, Errrr … Then someone bumped into her, pushing her bodily into the middle of the store. Sorry! A blowsy early-thirties blonde yelled at her, Didn’t see ya there in the shadows.

  *

  Dad, how long’s Mum gunna be?

  Not long now, I shouldn’t think.

  Look at that kid, Dad.

  Too young to be riding one of those things!

  Lots of kids in my class have four-wheelers, Dad.

  Ten-year-olds riding those things unsupervised can only mean disaster.

  Roger Davidson broke his arm on one, Dad. Gee, look at that kid go.

  Shouldn’t be on the bloody bitumen!

  Haven’t seen any other cars, Dad. Is this town dead?

  That kid will be dead if he comes off at that speed. What’s wrong with his parents?

  How long’s Mum gunna be, Dad? It’s been ages.

  Yes, it’s been a while. If she’s not back in a minute, I’ll poke my head in and see what’s happening.

  Dump of a place. I wouldn’t want to go in there. Looks dingy. Festery.

  You can stay here; I’ll just poke my head in.

  It’s probably cool in there, though. Or maybe it’s hot and rotten. It’s hot sitting here. Can you turn the air-con on, Dad?

  It’s not that hot. Just wind your window down. Not healthy running the air-conditioning all the time.

  Mum’s sure taking a long time. What’s that yelling, Dad? What’s going on? There’s a dog going mental in there. There’s yelling in the shop. I’m scared, Dad! Where’s Mum? I want Mum!

  *

  Shoplifting? Are you joking? Get that bloody dog on a chain or there’ll be hell to pay.

  You threatening me?

  No, I am saying that the dog needs chaining. It’s dangerous.

  Only to criminals.

  What are you on about, you old fool? I didn’t take anything. Look, nothing in my pockets. Bloody cheek. And there’s nothing to take anyway. It’s a disgrace.

  See, Ange, she obviously came here intending to steal. Now she’s insulting us instead.

  You city people make me sick! Trying to steal from an old man. Good thing I turned up and bumped into the bitch, Dad.

  Yes, my darling, you’ve always got an eye out for your old man.

  Steady on here. Are you accusing my wife of stealing something? What – where is the stolen item?

  Under her shirt or down her panties, I reckon. Bitch.

  Excuse me! What on earth are you talking about?

  We want to see! Show us if you’ve nothing to hide.

  She will do no such thing!

  Billy! Go back to the car.

  What’s wrong, Mum? I’m scared. It stinks in here. That dog looks like it’s crazy. It looks sick.

  Back in the car!

  City bludgers. It’s you people who’re hurting this town. Making judgements.

  We’re not from the city, we’re from …

  Billy, don’t say another word! Back to the car – we’re leaving. Call the police if you like, but we’re leaving now!

  *

  A dying town is a sad town. But those who stay on in the hope of better times can’t afford to be sad. Some, in fact, get a zest that seems to outsiders almost unnatural. And whether or not you’d call it ‘zest’ is debatable. The town’s school had closed, so kids caught the bus to the next town down the line, a good thirty k’s away. The grain trains no longer stopped at the A-type wheat bin which had been the town’s pulse for decades. But a maintenance crew still dropped by every few weeks just in case it was ever needed. To see the boy go round and round the bin on his four-wheeler led the older maintenance worker to say, Now there’s enthusiasm. Like his workmates, the older one was at the point of cracking from the incessant buzz of the four-wheeler, so that gives us a measure of the zest that was left. Sometimes the kid caught the bus, but most times he wagged school. Truant officers and the school seemed to have forgotten him, and the town. The bus driver was more than happy to drive on through, and didn’t even wait an extra couple of minutes at the stop just in case the last children remaining in town, the boy and his sister, were late.

  The four-wheeler boy’s sister was thirteen. A novice – no, more of a learn-as-you-go – taxidermist, she was looking forward to the imminent passing of her grandfather’s dog so she could stuff it. She had found a couple of old Tontine pillows at the tip and thought they might work well. She liked looking at herself in the mirror, but not so much out of vanity as to keep herself company. She preferred to be alone. Tall, thin and pale, with a body that would be permanently adolescent, she would almost vanish when she stepped into the salty marginal areas where skerricks of bush clung on and old fence posts dissolved. More than one passer-by who had seen her vanish had described her as a ‘wraith’. Next to her airy thinness, the boy was dumpy. They generally kept apart and didn’t say much, but various grunts and squeaks passed between them, indicating a connection deeper than outsiders might register.

  Without a father – he had left, drunk, a few years ago with the general exodus from the town, yelling: Bitch, you can have your feral kids and your putrid old man, and rot with what’s left of the town! – they relied on their ebullient mother, who helped run the general store with her father, and was responsible for the mail. She was the life and soul of the town. Out of her, they would rebuild. She had planned many revival activities: just a few of the more recent were bingo nights in the now-closed town hall; a cake stall; an invitation to the car-rally people in the city, who’d alienated every other town in the district – her town would welcome them. But as soon as one scheme evolved, another turned to dust. Sometimes she got so excited with her ideas, she collapsed in a heap, worn out with her … zest.

  Her grandfather – her father’s father – had worked at the cattle research station in the 1950s but was told to leave. Dismissed without explanation! he said. Bastards. Government bastards. No imagination. It made her bitter just thinking about it.

  Sometimes at dusk the family would sit outside the shop and stare at the wheatbin. The last caws of crows stretched with the fading light. Dusk is a crushing time for a dying town. If dawn surprises and mocks with hopelessness, the suggestion that light might lift it all, then dusk is worn out and can’t be bothered taunting. Crow’s breath, the maintenance workers called it, enough to singe the bin’s whitewash. And when that goes, this town will sink under the murk.

  *

  In attempting to reanimate the dog’s corpse with a cable torn from her bedside lamp, the girl shorted the entire house out. There was a little light creeping through the windows of the house, but not much. Her mother yelled from the kitchen, Fuse! as a fait accompli, and then there was shuffling, and complete darkness fell, and the lights came back on. The girl looked at the smoking ends of the cable where the two wires had touched, and deeply inhaled the stench of burn. The corpse looked much the same as it had before. She knew she’d have to drag it outside and worry about it in the morning.

  *

  The four-wheeler pulled up a
longside the older maintenance worker, and the boy grunted. What do you want, kid? Nuthin. Shouldn’t you be in school? Nup. Grandpop wants to know why youse blokes never buy anything from our shop. The man studied the knotted face of the boy, who lifted himself out of the saddle and let loose a grisly fart. Phew, boy, what have you been eatin’? I think you need to see a doctor. Grandpop wants to know why you won’t buy local.

  *

  She looks like she’d scrub up okay.

  Which one, the mother or the daughter? asked the older maintenance worker.

  Don’t be sick! Don’t even joke about it.

  Then don’t joke about the mother either. There’s something not right there. You poke her and you’ll pay.

  What have you heard?

  Nothing, but don’t think you can drop by a place, take a sample, then move on without consequences.

  Well, I’m going to try the shop. I forgot to bring my lunch and I’m hungry.

  We don’t shop there. You can share my lunch, said the older bloke.

  Come off it. I just want a pie and a Coke.

  It’s not healthy in there. Filthy place.

  Geez, you blokes are soft. You go on about work drying up and you’re the first ones to put the nails in the coffin.

  I’ve heard they don’t bother with coffins around here.

  Sure, no one left to bury.

  Whatever. Want to share my lunch? urged the older bloke.

  Well, thanks. I appreciate the gesture. S’pose I’ll just have a bite and grab a drink from the rainwater tank over at the old quarters. Nothing much to do during smoko round here except count crows along the wires. Bloody lot of crows hanging around here!

  *

  Family is the building block of community. That’s what I said right back in our heyday. There were four hundred people in this town and our bin was one of the bigger receival points in the region. When they turfed me out of the research facility, I started this shop, and it became the hub of the place. I am telling you all this for the record, so it’s not all lost. I know you don’t want to listen – I am not completely insensitive – but I feel the need to share. We shared back then – the good and the bad of it. The salt? Well, the government people said it was from over-clearing, but there’s always been salt around here. When it started to break through the streets and creep into people’s backyards, they said it was different. Not really – was there all along, just covered over. Words like ‘creeps’ and ‘sneaks up’ and ‘overwhelms’ are just emotive shit. I told them to just cover it over, it wouldn’t matter. A bit of asphalt and fill. And then some more when that goes. No vision. Gets you down some days. You’ve gotta turn it to your advantage.

  *

  If you bury a robin in the salt, it turns into a mummy. It’s like a Christmas tree ornament. When I was a very little girl, and Mum rode Dad around the lounge room yelling, Giddy-up, giddy-up!, we had a frosted angel on top of the tree. Grandpop says the angel was covered in snow. I have buried so many angels in the salt, and dug them up and watched the light come alive in them. Nothing is ever completely dead.

  MONITOR

  There’s a lot of debate over whether these are racehorse goannas or bungarras or Gould’s monitors. They look similar. Some say they are one and the same thing. They are all monitors. Some even call them sand monitors, though they are wrong in this. The parchment intagliated yellow, prehensile claws that reach across the eras like hands deprived, but knowing what they want. The way the tail does or doesn’t curl, that arboreal inclination or a preference for sand. The sleek but rough-andready body. So much is in the skin, she thought.

  Mary stayed indoors during the summer, or went out covered from head to toe, no matter how hot. People assumed she’d become religious, living alone and in isolation for so long. The truth was no doubt a mixture of some kind of inherent withdrawal that amounted to spiritual vocation, but also the brutal reality of having had so many skin cancers burned from her overly white skin. Those years of rounding sheep and fencing. When she’d inherited from her parents – after their car accident – she managed it alone, and did the work with Danny, or Black Dan, as the other white farming families called him. Young, strong and reliable, they’d say, with something almost approaching approval. They did not approve when she took up with Black Dan. They did not approve, either, of Mary spending so much time in the sun. Not because of the cancer – they didn’t really know or care much back then – but rather because such white skin is to be treasured, to be filed away for breeding and archival purposes, a legacy of origins, an insurance against country’s merciless assimilations.

  Mary and Dan worked the farm for a few years before Dan said he’d had enough. Now she was on her own. There was a lot to it, but Mary tried not to think about cause and effect, pushing the trauma as far back, as deep down, as she could.

  Dan could chase down a bungarra. He’d lift it by its tail and show her. Mostly, she thought, they just stand still and fix on you, when you approach, but a sudden move and they’ll shoot off, even climbing trees. Her father had shot them. For no good reason. Most of the farmers in the district, and their wives, would swerve their cars to hit a snake, but few would bother a bungarra on the edge of the road. Her father, though, was vengeful against anything that didn’t bear profit. He hated the sight of what came out of the land without his conjuring.

  Dan told Mary that the bungarra was his totem animal, and though it made good eating he wouldn’t eat it. She would have liked to forget this as well, but she occasionally saw these monitors darting and scratching about the farm. They favoured a breakaway area of bush in the far northern corner of the property, where they had built an empire of burrows. Yes, an empire.

  When the farm was broken up because she could no longer manage, Mary kept the breakaway block, though it was a long way from the house. It had no cropping or grazing value, which went against the grain of her upbringing. Locals thought her retaining it was confirmation, as if any was needed, that she was losing touch, or even going senile. The thing was that the breakaway block edged the rapidly expanding town of Y, and developers had long had their eye on it. Pressure was at first subtly exerted on Mary, then somewhat more heavy-handedly. She resisted, without explanation.

  Mary’s crisis was more straightforward. The monitors were out in the summer heat, and she had always enjoyed hanging around the breakaway, watching them. Now she got out there rarely, and then so covered that she felt a prisoner in the open spaces. The contradiction was hard to handle. Perversely, on an intensely hot day after the harvest was in, and the town no longer smelt like a bread oven, she covered herself entirely in white robes, hatted and veiled, and went out to the breakaway at noon. There was an extreme fire warning and it was tinder dry. She even worried about her robes as they rustled and caught on the scrub: could the friction make sparks? It was a compulsion to be there, and she was prone to compulsions.

  That’s when she came across the firebug, lighting matches and blowing them out. When he saw and heard her approach, he didn’t budge an inch, didn’t flinch. Just kept lighting matches and blowing them out.

  She screamed a muffled scream through her veil. ‘What are you doing?!’

  The teenage boy laughed. ‘I am the son of the man who would unland you …’, as if that was all that was necessary. Explanation in itself. He spoke in a private-school way, she recognised. A city boarder home for the holidays. A pompous high achiever.

  ‘Stop with those matches, you’ll burn the district out!’ She could sense even the green of the jam trees, the rough bark of York gums, and deadwood encrusted by termite mud-work bending to the flame. Their and our fatal attraction, she thought slowly as her brain raced with fear. She’d always had two speeds to her personality: her heart beating fast and her thoughts rushing, then another layer that seemed to move slowly, almost indifferently, at its own pace.

  ‘True,’ he said nonchalantly. Lighting another match and letting it burn down and into his fingers. ‘It would please my f
ather, though.’

  ‘It wouldn’t please anyone and you’d spend a good time in jail,’ she said, shaking. ‘No, you’d be burnt to death along with the rest of us.’

  He hesitated. Stopped lighting matches and said, ‘You are a strange-looking hen.’ He seemed proud of his word choice. ‘Dad said you were like an old hen – he was right, and he rarely is, so I’ve got to give him his due.’

  Mary pulled off her hat and veil, exposing her fair hair and white skin to the furious sunlight. ‘Get off my property! I will call the police.’

  ‘You do that,’ he said. And wandered off towards the gravel road and town, without looking back.

  A monitor appeared. Mary watched it, feeling her skin burning. She wanted to cry but couldn’t; the heat had taken the moisture out of her body.

  Back home, Mary went to ring the police, but then changed her mind. She felt ill from sunburn and exposure. She rang the property developer. She knew him and yet didn’t know him. He had rung her and written to her and pleaded and threatened. She was holding up the evolution of the town. Mary rang him, and the son answered. ‘Who is it?’ Locating the voice, she hung up.

  The following day she covered herself and went to the breakaway, again at midday. The firebug was there, watching a monitor as it stood still, raised on its front legs, watching him, eye to eye. She went up close and watched the monitor as well. ‘There’s something inside this one,’ he said, without moving his gaze.

  ‘Yes, there is,’ she replied calmly, as if she’d known him all his life.

  ‘My dad hates them, ‘he said.

  ‘Mine did too.’

  ‘Before my dad sent me away to school I used to sneak up here and watch them for hours, ‘he continued. ‘I saw you then, sometimes, watching as well. I wondered why you never saw me. It was like you couldn’t see anything else but the goannas.’

  ‘Maybe I did see you,’ she ventured, though she realised she never had. He could be lying but she didn’t think so. It was something about those lit matches. The kid didn’t care. He had nothing to lose in the truth.