In the desert, lost and lonely, company
a white plane high and silent, the burning
ground a mile and more from sound.
Then I notice grains of paler sandstone on the red bull dust. This etching is recent. I copy the poem in my notebook and get back in the Toyota. When I swing a U-turn off the track, I realise I’m not the first to have driven here only to head back to Route 1. Another 4WD had recently detoured to return south.
If my mystery man has been out to the ruin, and for whatever reason wants to know the Reverend McCreedy and his Kenyan orphanage a little better, I may have a way of finding out. With the help of Anna, and a broken law, or two.
But I have to wait until midnight to start my ‘investigation’. So I sit at a computer in the youth hostel waiting for the bars to close and the backpackers and drunken locals to stumble home. I buy a postcard of a kangaroo from a stand on the counter.
Dear Gemma
This is Daddy writing all the way from Australia. It is the other side of the world, so I’m feeling a bit dizzy upside down! I’m being silly, but it is a long way away. Do you like the picture of the kangaroo? Did you know they have pockets in their tummies? I’m sorry we didn’t go to White Farm on Saturday. I promise we will when I get back. See you soon. xxx ooo Daddy
When the streets are quiet I walk to one of only two 4WD hire centres in Alice Springs. I feel conspicuous, guilty just thinking about my next move, convicted by the plan in my head to burgle. But I’ve learned from the crooks I’ve caught. The crook I was, a fourteen-year-old stealing food and clothes.
The first office has no alarm, just a pair of sliding doors that lift off their runners. No need for gloves, as they’ll never know I was even here. Because they keep records on good old-fashioned paper, all I have to do is wait for the photocopier to warm up.
Office two is a little trickier. But I guess there’s no remote connection to the alarm so disable the bell by bending back the hammer, and the light by simply unscrewing the bulb. I slip around the side of the building, take off my jacket and spread it over the toilet window. Then, my heart in my mouth, I have the sensation of being watched. And I am. A black cat, still as a gargoyle, perched on the fence above, staring. I hiss, throw out my hand. The cat slinks away and I scan the dark yard again. I punch straight and hard, creasing my face to try and hide the noise of breaking glass. The alarm triggers, rattling faintly inside the plastic cover. Inside, with their computers left on, my only problem is finding paper to print off the customer list.
Walking the empty roads back to the hostel, the lists folded and tucked into my back pocket, my head tipped to the glittering heavens, a police car flashes then pulls up beside me. I feel my knees suddenly knocking, the adrenaline stream.
‘Sorry, officer,’ I say. ‘Star-gazing instead of watching the traffic.’ I wonder if they can hear the wobble in my throat.
‘No worries. We thought you might be pissed.’
‘Just admiring your clear skies.’
‘You’re a Pom, ay?’
‘Last time I opened my passport.’
‘Well, make the most of the stars before you get back to the smog.’
They laugh. I tell them I will. When the car turns the corner I realise my heart is thumping. For the first time in twenty years another policeman has made me nervous.
Back at the hostel I sit at a computer. The clerk watches a late-night horror film on a portable TV. I open a Word file and type out the names from the stolen customer lists. There’s no Philip. But this means nothing. In fact it tells me if this guy isn’t who he said he was, he has the funds, or the know-how, for a manufactured ID. And he’s not the only one.
Next I mail Anna. I know she wants some emotion, some longing, but typing I miss you seems like a defeat, and I hit the delete key.
But then I type it again, because when I stop being afraid of feeling, I do want her, curled against my back in bed, her hands across my chest.
First I ask her to cross-reference the names stolen from the 4WD hire centre with passenger lists from Sydney to Nairobi, advising to hint terrorism so the airlines immediately comply. Secondly, if a name from the hire centre matches with a passenger, I need her to return to my house. I tell her to pull up the length of string attached to a key buried beneath the rose bush.
In the kitchen, sealed in a gap behind the top tile behind the back left burner of the cooker, is a plastic freezer bag containing a credit card, driving licence, and passport. The picture is mine. The name is not. Three years ago I went undercover for Vice as a Charles Nash. I thought this man could one day be helpful, so I kept the identity live.
I instruct Anna to take out the bag, and replace the tile with some grouting from a tube and spatula kept under the sink, then FedEx the ID to Koala Rocks Youth Hostel, Queen Street, Sydney, and book Charles Nash on a flight to Nairobi.
And if a name doesn’t jump from one list to another, I ask her to book me on a flight to Heathrow. As Jim Dent.
Terra Incognita
Prodded life into the smouldering bike and crawled to and from the bank, ripping out exposed and rotten roots for kindling. Built the fire around the back wheel, making sure the flames licked against what tyre hadn’t melted into the sand. The black smoke beacon is my best chance of rescue. I’ve taken off the front wheel so I can roll it on the fire when the rear tyre has burned away. Although I could loosen the nuts with my left hand, I couldn’t even raise my elbow from my ribs when attempting to lift the wheel off. Doubt my shoulder could even take a crutch, if I decided to hobble out of here.
Am I weak to feel loneliness? A hardy explorer wouldn’t consider such abandonment a problem, just another challenge.
Took an hour of tedious and painful manoeuvring to boil water for some porridge. Spilled first pot when I tried to lift from flames with right hand, precious H2O hissed away. Swore to the sky, the grinning skeleton, at myself. I need a nurse, my mother, and have no shame in this admittance.
Or is it just the morbid thought of a last breath that makes me want to make peace with my parents?
No. I’m not planning on death just yet, so I have no need for this false longing. Because I found you, or because you found me, I could forget the past, my father, my mother, the flesh and blood that brought me into the world squealing, then abandoned me to the mercy of others. I know I should tell you more. I know I should’ve told you more, when we were lovers gently interrogating each other, finding out who we’d fallen for. You talked and I listened. You were open, free with who you were. I edited my biography, and you knew, but blamed it on my Englishness. When we meet again I promise I’ll tell all, the uncensored Cal, the triumphs and tragedies. But to talk about this now would sound like my last words. Which they are not.
Energised by coffee, and electric thoughts of you, I scrabbled to the top of the creek bank. Only 2–3 m high, but triumphant as Hillary on the peak of Everest, even though the view was more scrub and sand, spinifex and the odd dead tree. Except for a stand of gum trees around what I thought was a pale, rocky outcrop. I almost jumped on my broken leg for joy when I saw what looked to be a building. I pulled out the binoculars and focused. Yes, man-made. A tumbledown ruin without roof or rafter.
Scrabbled back to the bike and checked the map. Neither ruin nor creek marked. I’m definitely south of the Sandover Highway, but how far? For the 50 km I wound the creek bed, the bearing had only slightly wavered between NNE and NE. 20–30 km seems a fair guess.
And the tumbledown shack? 5–7 km further up the creek. I can’t waste water and energy on both as a destination. The ruin could be an old storehouse for a homestead. Maybe a track leading to an unmarked farmhouse? But how far?
Too many questions without answers. I have nothing to wager, and no second chance. I’ll crawl, hobble, hop, and scrabble to the highway. I’ll rest here today, stow the essentials in the backpack and set out before dawn tomorrow. I’ll fashion a crutch from the exhaust in the hope that my shoulder can bear some w
eight by the morning.
Feels good to have a mission. My spirits have lifted. Again you give me strength. And to think you cycled from south to north by pedal-power alone, no cheating with a combustion engine – what good they are.
Dozed through midday, then burned the last tyre rubber on fire. The black smoke distress signal is finished. After hammering a crutch from the exhaust pipe, I realised my panic had actually turned to a brief peace. I lay in the shade of the bank, undeterred by my grinning skeleton friend, and watched puffs of cloud drift on the wind.
To see the clouds waltz across the sky is to think of the day you walked into the bar in Darwin, scarf swept over your shoulder, announcing you had conquered the length of Australia with a flick of your hair and dusted boots. Where the Victorians set out to cross the sunburned plains as though marching to war, you rode into the desert to befriend its wilderness, to learn from those who evolved on the scorching sand, how a flame can leap from a twisted stick, the waterholes and quenching plants.
Any man who saw you in that room didn’t go home and think of his wife. My trip lost meaning, it seemed trivial. I suddenly had nothing to do in Australia except win your heart.
Fitful sleep. In and out of ibuprofen daze. Strengthening wind rustling bushes and whipping up sand. My paranoia turned a whistling breeze into hissing snakes. Last thing I need is a King Brown in my sleeping bag.
But the real threats are nothing to the imagined, what the brain can do to a weakened body, the fleeting dream I conjured of the skeleton last night. I closed my eyes from the starry sky to see the sunlit desert and a reverend approaching in a black frock, his coat-tails whipping in the wind like a flapping raven. I looked to the creek grave. It was empty, the body gone. The reverend strode towards where I lay, crippled and pinned by the bike. He carried a shovel that glinted in the sun. The closer he came, the more frantically I tried to wriggle free. When I finally wrenched away the bike, I saw my legs had gone. I dragged my torso along by my hands, but the reverend didn’t chase.
It wasn’t me he was laying to rest. He was digging his own grave. The body he pulled from the bushes was his, but naked, a swine-pink belly that wobbled, the same ruddy cheeks and fuzz of thinning red hair, fat fingers bulging over the knuckles. And the silver cross, which the living lifted over his head and placed upon the corpse. He then took the shovel and cut the ground with the fervour of a man tunnelling to the centre of the world. He climbed from the grave and rolled in his dead self. No thud, as though the body never hit the bottom, still falling. He shovelled on the dirt, but it didn’t fill the grave. I woke when he walked away because I was terrified. Terrified he hadn’t even noticed my presence. Even in my own dream I could die a forgotten death.
It was still an hour before dawn, and while the western desert glowed with the coming dawn, the sunlight in my sleep had been so bright my eyes had to adjust. Is this possible? That the glare in a dream can dazzle on waking?
And of course the bones were still in the creek. I’m a fool for even checking.
Built up the fire to boil water – 3.4 litres remaining – for porridge and coffee. Stocked backpack with ALL food, stove, Swiss Army knife, lighter, sleeping bag, First Aid box, compass, and map.
The exhaust pipe crutch is redundant. Shoulder too numb for the weight. Because the broken leg and dislocation are on my right side, I have no use for a prop. I have to crawl out of here. For my life.
Two hours of slow progress, maybe 1 km covered? Impossible to crawl in a straight line as spinifex so thick. Thirsty already, but must stick to ration.
Sure I can get to the highway – if estimation of km and direction correct. Leg swollen from blood pumping around break, shin dark purple. But a direct, no-nonsense pain is easier to defeat than the electric nerve damage shooting along my neck and shoulder.
And worse than the physical toil, the snapped tibia and twinge of shoulder, is that I can only guess at my progress by calculation. I squat on my good knee and look above the bush, but have no landmark to gauge distance. It really is nothing but horizon, the irony of a landscape so flat you can see the camber of the earth. Death would seem a preferable end to crawling this arid plain for ever.
Palms scalded from burning sand, and not even midday. I can barely grip the pen. Crawled and cursed through pain for nearly two hours in sweltering heat – cooling breeze has blown to sweeter climes. Took socks off and wore over hands. If anyone did find me like this, crawling on all threes – tied right arm into sling with underpants – with the snakes and scorpions, they’d have me committed for believing I were a marsupial. Even the lizards seem to laugh, skittering away, then stopping and turning, cocking their heads to mutter, ‘Who’s this idiot stumbling through our desert?’
Unzipped my sleeping bag and slung it between two of the more sturdy bushes. Solid shade, but I’m roasting without the breeze and soaked with sweat. Hate to think the salty millilitres in my clothes exceed what I’m drinking.
Feel fresher without ibuprofen – and hopefully no nightmares of resurrected priests – but every drag of right leg a Herculean effort. My jaw aches from gritting my teeth so hard. Need to focus pain away from aggression, as swearing as loud as I do must burn precious calories. Have to trick my brain into believing a broken leg is bliss. Somehow.
Will rest out heat, boil pasta – lid on to stop precious water evaporating – and crawl on.
So hot. Napped two hours then cooked. Pasta, tuna, onion, tomato puree, and a little pepper never tasted so good.
Plan to beat pain by thoughts of future … with you. Forgive me for the liberties I’m taking, but I’m going to transcend agony and doubt by building us a home in my mind. I picture a little stone cottage by a bend in a river, caressed by weeping willows and fields of corn, where the only sounds are the wind in the leaves and chattering ducks. My focus, instead of staring at the sand and bearing pain, will be constructing a dream by hand. I can see pallets of stacked bricks on the gravel driveway, waiting to be laid. And when I’ve finished the house I’ll weed, trim, cut, and prune the garden. You’ll be able to meander a stone path to the river edge, between rosebushes and bougainvillaea, and toss crusts of bread to the swans.
Sorry to presume so much of your brief affection, but I need a world beyond this burning sand.
Foundations of our little stone cottage dug. I’ve gone for small and beautiful: kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, and a roof terrace. When it’s warm we can haul the bed outside and sleep beneath the stars. Already the walls are two feet tall. Progress rapid because I’ve tricked pain into creation. With each shuffle of my buckled body I laid another brick and crawled closer to rescue.
Only resting does the agony return. And the doubt. Or is it logic? Maybe I can make the distance. Maybe I can beat the pain. But without water? I’m down to 2.4 litres – 2.9 if you count the emergency supply I’ve been saving in the empty Gatorade bottle. Even if I drink my own urine the fuel remaining won’t last the journey. How far could I crawl without hydration?
My thoughts are spiralling. Should rest mind and body, but need to cook before the sun goes down. Tonight’s chef special is rice, packet tomato soup and, you guessed, a little pepper.
Sitting before a huge fire of spinifex and a dead tree. If I torch the bush could I hitch a lift home on the fire truck?
Leg numb, shoulder aching from dangling when crawling. But if I take the pain and consider the progress of our little stone cottage, I’m almost content. If not showing you around the construction of the kitchen, I think of us again in Lichfield Park, camped by the bubbling spring, where that species of fish evolved like a hidden people. We sat and watched them glide, a stream so clear they were hung in ether. And then, naked as the day we were born, we swam, bodies glowing by the light of the stars, our laughter echoing across the universe.
Right now, before this fire, I sit and watch the Milky Way turn through heaven. And I’m not in pain, nor afraid of what the morning may bring.
Only by reading what I w
rote last night have my spirits lifted. A mantra of two plus two equals three rattled my dreams. First I was back at school in maths. Each time the teacher asked two plus two, I answered four. Each time he cracked my knuckles with a wooden ruler. ‘Three!’ he barked. And so the scenes continued: Selling rubber life-saving rings on a market stall priced at £20 each. A man buys two and gives me £30. I say twenty plus twenty is forty and he laughs in my face. Next I was a racing-car driver, a world champion whizzing through chicanes. With the chequered flag in sight, the engine whines and dies. I’m stranded metres short of the finish line. The team manager runs on to the track, throws down his clipboard, and shouts, ‘What the fuck were you doing? What do you think powers an engine? You missed the fuel stop. I said four more laps.’ The rest of my team hold up lap-time boards, except the numbers have been rearranged into sums: 2 + 2 = 3.
In each scene, one face remained constant. The red-haired reverend was the maths teacher, the man at the market stall, and the race team manager.
I’m not superstitious. I played rugby and wore the number 13. I don’t believe in signs or omens. A broken mirror is an accident, a crow a bird. But logic tells me the reverend’s right. I can’t crawl 20, possibly 30 km to the track on 1.9 l of water. The sums don’t add up.
Fuck.
Fucking idiot. Fucking shoulder. Fucking leg. Fucking decision to take a short cut. This has been my life, slacking off and not doing things properly. I’ve fucked up. If I were a better mechanic I could’ve fixed my bike. If I were a better map-reader I’d never have taken the creek that took me so far from the track.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Sorry. I’ve calmed down now. I needed the words to have an audience instead of vanishing into sky. Right then I just wanted to be heard, to feel human, to be more than this ragged mute crawling across a desert.
Show Me The Sky Page 8