by Kim Scott
Shreds in advance of a solid bank of clouds moved quickly across a moon that was like bone in an X-ray, a shadowy crescent.
A gust of wind. Something slammed.
Inside the house again, and shadows jumped and merged in the candlelight, sprung apart again. Shifted.
‘All in one room, unna?’
‘You boys in one room, I’ll have the other.’
‘Tilly . . .’
‘I’ll be alright. I’m not frightened. You two look after yourselves. I believe you; the old people will be glad to see me back.’
Tilly stood by the bed, holding the candle. The house was neat and clean. A blanket tucked in and tight. Surfaces shone in the candlelight. Leapt at her as lightning flashed again. In the window glass, lit only by the candle, her melting reflection waved a greeting. She might be a ghost herself.
She lay down, saw the face of some small spirit creature rising over the windowsill. It reminded her of the twins, though older, wizened and shrunken. It grinned. Was gone. She dreaming?
Somewhere outside, something clanged in a gust of wind.
*
Those two named Gerry lay side by side on a double mattress, fully clothed, only their shoes removed.
‘She really our people?’
‘I dunno, Ger. She might’ve been away too long, brought up wadjela way and all.’
‘We’re all coming from the same place, from here, the same old ancestor way back.’
‘DNA’s pretty diluted in her.’
‘The same place, Ger, thousands of generations before us. You seen those places today. Gotta mean something.’
‘Don’t you gotta draw the line somewhere, though?’
‘Shut the fuck up.’
‘She never been with us, Ger, she never really lived with black people.’
‘Shuttup.’
The world outside grumbling.
‘But I think about these things, Gerald.’
There was no reply.
Tilly flat on her back. Eyes open.
The brothers turned and turned in their sleep. Moved closer together.
Tilly slept calmly. Her eyes opened, but she did not wake. Eyes closed again. Her breath came deep and slow.
The wind died. The sky grumbled and muttered. Lightning. Among the many animal prints in the creek bed, the marks of their shoes from earlier in the day. And of many small, bare feet.
Thunder.
Lightning.
Gleaming eyes all around the creek bed.
And this truth: a curlew screaming.
*
Gerald opened his eyes and saw the back of his twin’s skull; the thin tousled hair, the skin beneath. It could be his own sleeping self. We age, he thought, and here I am back inside stone walls again so soon. He raised himself to his feet, and the simple act of walking out of the room elated him.
He stood pissing, and the wind moved from the creek up the slope, over brittle yellow stalks that, bent and broken, whispered of the crumbling earth.
When he returned to the room his twin brother had a needle in his arm. Looked up, his gaze scarcely registering Gerald’s presence.
‘Where’d you get that?’
Gerald listened to his brother grinding his teeth as they walked to the creek. Let him stumble, moving that way in fits and starts.
They found Tilly sitting on rock spread like a sheet or a blanket amid the banks of coarse river sand. She was at the edge of the rock, beside a pool of water itself surrounded by tussocks and ribbons of grass. A tree leaned over her. She was making those small footprints with her hand, clumsily. Beyond her arm’s reach there were more perfect examples.
*
The car went through the creek; drops of water were flung from the tyres, landed in the sand and disappeared. Coming up the bank, leaving the water, a mallee hen walked out of the jam trees and stood on the track, facing the vehicle. They pulled up. Bird and people stared at one another through the windscreen.
A second bird joined the first.
Tilly stepped from the car. The birds, unhurriedly, walked away into the forest of such small trees, that company of tree trunks. There was a small path, a narrow foot trail, winding away from the road and Tilly followed it. She soon lost sight of the birds, but her feet kept moving along the curving track.
Trees stood back; a small clearing, and a diagonal shaft of light pointing to a cluster of tiny flowers, purple and blue. The flowers made the shape of a body, lying on its side and curled up like a baby. A small adult’s body. A body Tilly’s size.
‘Tilly.’
She jumped at her name.
Looked around the circle. Stepped back from the edge of flowers.
‘Tilly. We don’t want you getting lost!’
She could hear the twins, but not see them.
Felt a little surge of panic.
Fingernails deep in the skin at her palms.
‘Shame. Blackfella lost in bush!’
Tilly smiled to herself.
‘Ok. I’m coming.’ I think. She started on the return path.
*
Gerry met her and helped her find the channel of the road. They did not speak, and in the silence she heard his teeth grinding.
The car moved. The sound of gravel on the tyres. A little wind from the open window. Suddenly, emus sprang from the trees on the right as if they’d been waiting to ambush them. Gerry slammed on the brakes, and the car wallowed for a moment among tail feathers, arching necks and wide-eyed, indignant expressions. The emus’ legs seized and threw large increments of space behind themselves: already they were on the other side of the road, had disappeared between the trees. The sense of them remained beyond knotted trees, filigree of leaves.
At first no one spoke, and then Tilly. ‘Back there, I found like a grave. Flowers in the shape of a curved back, like a baby in a womb, you know, but grown size, legs curled up and arms around.’
‘Yeah? And his brother warriors guarding him.’
Gerald laughed. ‘They let us go anyways.’
‘Aren’t they but, these trees. Like warriors.’
‘We’re coming back d’rectly!’
The car approached a gateway, and an eagle sat on the post each side. The car went slowly, and its passengers made eye contact, were held in the stern gaze of the two raptors. Then the winged beasts lifted themselves, their great pinions bending as they cupped the air in their feathers, spiralled up and up and up.
A rushing sound beneath Tilly’s feet; the air at her window roaring. She craned her neck, held her hair to her cheek because of the wind, leaned out beyond the restricting glass. The eagles tiny and distant now in the shredding clouds.
BUSFUL
The bus was running late from the start. Wally James driving, but being late wasn’t his fault. Left to himself, he’d be early, always. Wally liked to work; liked to have purpose and structure in his day, a role, liked being useful. He especially enjoyed driving, whether bus, truck, tractor, forklift, grader . . . You name it, Wally had driven it. It may have been perversity, or a sense of family obligation, that led him to take on this particular driving job, because he certainly knew it would come with a lot of frustration.
Wally was at the bus hire company’s door as they opened: he’d arranged to be dropped off, had his ID ready, and a list of the names and addresses of those he needed to pick up. Had already filled in all the forms.
Thus began perversity and obligation.
‘A real bunch of characters,’ was how he later shaped the anecdote. ‘A bus full of characters,’ he’d say, time and time again. Though, mind you, plenty of passengers from other trips would tell you he was a bit of a character himself. Didn’t put up with any shit, Wally. A previous bus trip had become a nightmare for at least one of his passengers. Wally usually didn’t allow anyone to drink
alcohol when he was driving, but this one time they had, and it got so that there was a toilet stop every ten minutes. Eventually, Wally had refused. One woman was jumping around, screaming at him to stop, but he refused. She pissed herself. She never forgave him for that, Wally would tell you, laughing the whole time: at himself, or her distress? It was hard to tell.
‘A bus full of characters. If you aren’t on your toes they’ll make you their private taxi. Then who gets the blame for being late, for leaving people behind?’
‘Just call in on so and so. Just drop into the shops – I need smokes, a drink, a pie, the newspaper. Come on, Wally, brother.’
First person picked up was Wally’s ex-wife, Ruby. Least, that was what he told the later passengers. But really, he’d stayed the night at her place and they’d gone together to pick up the bus.
She’d never been his wife anyway, not really: only his de facto. They never really married properly, although in his memory he had literally carried her over the threshold; jumped the broomstick, as people said. They’d loved one another, hurt one another and now – getting on in years – had come to an understanding. They’d never got on so well. The kids were doing alright, and they had the grannies to think of.
She knew what he was like. ‘I was born a rambling man,’ he’d sing.
‘All you have to offer me is you,’ Ruby sang in reply. She was the better singer, but not so confident. ‘Shit, Wally, you and George Jones.’
‘You’re my number one, Ruby,’ he’d remind her, adjusting the peak of his baseball cap. Everyone knew he’d stayed with Ruby – he always did in town – but not the actual sleeping arrangements. It made people curious, especially because Wally and Ruby were so secretive about it. If he was feeling spritely he might even, like in his younger days, rise up on his toes, bounce a little, even touch or tilt his pelvis. Grab his private parts and act all macho as if he was one of the kids in their falling-down pants.
Wally had worn a baseball cap for years; wore his hair long and tied in a ponytail, the cap concealing his tonsured skull. These days he dyed his hair too. Oh, he was vain, was Wally. He liked women (ask Ruby), though he was very jealous (ditto).
It was a two- or three-hour drive from King George Town to Hopetown. Plenty of time, then; they had all day to get there. The trip started with just the two of them on the bus. Ruby sat as close as she could to the driver, and kept moving back in the bus as they picked up passengers. She didn’t want people getting the wrong idea about her and Wally. Wally was the one running after her, not she after him.
*
Wally scanned his list of names, looking for who he might forget to collect. He had no say in the list; most were rehab; elders and carers the rest.
This trip was different, because of the Peace Park opening. The Kepalup Local Historical Society hoped that (since there was a ‘culture camp’ anyway) they might provide some art, maybe a song or dance or do a Welcome as part of the opening.
Wally was glad to drive the bus.
Ruby snatched the list from him. Last night they’d agreed who to get and in what order. Methodical, see.
Her phone rang.
‘Change of plan,’ she said to Wally, ending the call.
He grunted, unsurprised.
‘Old girl stayed with Henry last night.’
‘Angela off her head again?’
‘No. Dunno. Probably. Aunty says we gotta pick Angela up too.’
‘See about that.’
‘She’s old girl’s carer, Wally!’
Wally ignored her. He was thinking about the bus, he was thinking about traffic; not alcoholics and addicts.
Wally would tell you everyone in King George Town needed a car. No public transport to speak of, and not everyone able to walk where they wanna go. Those that can, too lazy. The town was stitched together with bitumen, one strip of which they now rolled along on their way to collect the first, and – Wally and Ruby agreed – the most important of their passengers.
Flinders was one of those suburbs it’s hard to leave: most of its residents would have to walk, cadge a lift, or wait half a day for a bus. A few years back, after the visit of a senior health worker and activist from the capital city, the local paper ran the headline: ‘King George Town’s Bronx’. The paper ran the usual photos of bare-bummed and snotty-nosed kids, car bodies in weed-infested yards, packs of stray dogs, groups of people drinking in the playground park.
Wally and Ruby didn’t think the suburb so bad. It was an improvement on the reserve they’d grown up on, and a lot better even than the suburb – next step up from the neighbouring reserve – it had been. A lot of the newer houses still held some of their shine and gloss. A lot of people had jobs. Most of the kids went to school, or slumped in front of electronic screens of one sort or another. The teenagers were no more restless than elsewhere. Families gathered around animated screens as once they may have around a campfire. On pension day it seemed many rose as one from behind their separating walls and, bumping doorframes as they escaped, stumbled to consummate their desires. Two or three days a fortnight the games machines were rested at the local pawn shop, and older brothers and sisters who had left school took their younger siblings on the long expedition to the school gates, handed them over, then made their way back through the traffic that moved in shoals about the school.
Wally was of no fixed address, moving between the homes of his daughters and sons, sometimes a while with Ruby, a guest in various homes he paid for. For months at a stretch he lived in camps, on mines or farms. He liked machines, and although he’d never articulated it, their use and maintenance healed him.
Nita was sitting beside her front door, one arm resting on her walking frame, as the bus pulled into her driveway. A thin and wiry woman, she raised her chin and her large sunglasses tilted to the sky. The verge was littered with traffic detritus; broken glass, warped hubcaps, various flattened cartons and cans.
Angela sat on the step beside her, smoking a cigarette with a determined ferocity, and softly holding her nan’s hand. She glared defiantly at the bus and her lips moved as she told her grandmother who had arrived, then dropped her gaze as she moved the walking frame to the old woman. The frame was stacked with blankets and bags, and Nita’s face seemed to float above them like something detached from her body.
Angela avoided Wally’s gaze when the door opened. He leaned ostentatiously to see who was there to help Nita, and looked disappointed when he realised there was only her, Angela.
‘We’re on time so far, Wally, but for how long, unna? What time we gunna be there?’ asked the old woman.
Wally and Ruby answered at the same time.
‘’Bout noon,’ said Wally.
‘Near on dark,’ said Ruby.
They looked at one another, each with an eyebrow raised.
Nita threw her walking frame up the steps into the bus and grabbed a rail. Ruby got to her feet and reached to help, Nita brushed her hand away. She tilted her body, lifted one hip and with her hands helped her leg position the foot on the step before hauling herself up one step more into the bus. It was a slow and clunky ascension.
Nita talked at Wally’s back as he drove. From time to time he looked in the rear-view mirror to check Nita, and nodded while Ruby trilled an accompaniment to Nita’s voice, reminding the old woman she was indeed well respected.
Inside, the bus was white and grey and black, with the aroma of plastic and cleaning fluids. The passengers bounced and shook within thin, resonant walls.
‘Wally, any smokes?’
Wally’s eyes moved to Ruby, then to Nita in the mirror. He answered firmly. ‘Nah. Given up.’
Nita allowed a long silence while Wally drove with a particular intensity.
‘Pull into the shops.’
‘Later.’
‘Angela took my last smoke yesterday morning.’ Nita glared at her
granddaughter. ‘Pension’ll be on the key card by now.’
‘Aunty . . .’
‘This old woman needs a smoke, Wally. This lot like the grog and that. I’m not the one on rehab, but I need my smoke and tobacco’s not illegal, least not last I heard . . .’
Wally was at Nita’s open door, the slam of his own bus door still resonating. There was this rule: No Smoking on the Bus.
Ruby went into the shops for Nita’s cigarettes. Hardly had Angela set the walking frame at the foot of the steps when Nita alighted upon it, claws gripping the rails, slippered feet touching the ground but lightly. By some sleight of hand she produced a lit cigarette. Wally, keeping Ruby’s sturdy figure at the counter in his vision, took a long drag. When Ruby returned thin, blue smoke curled around the conspirators’ heads like an unkempt and collective halo.
The bus ricocheted deeper into the suburb’s many right angles; weeds poked from beyond boundaries, shrubs spilled over the corner of fences. Sometimes a surprise of precisely bordered, green and manicured grass. Older houses isolated within a larger space, the huddled houses around them backing closer.
Children single file to school, tallest leading.
The bus pulled into yet another driveway and a man in his fifties, with the heavy body and rounded shoulders of a pugilist, came out of the front door, a packed bag held lightly in one hand. ‘She’s just getting dressed,’ he said as he threw the bag into the bus and stepped back, reaching into his pocket.
Most of the party was off the bus and had formed a small circle around him before he could move any closer to the house. He looked around with bloodshot eyes, and ruefully offered an opened packet of cigarettes. Ruby muttered at them as she walked away from the bus. ‘Next time dry camp is gunna mean no baccy too. Next time,’ she said. ‘I’ll give her a hand, shall I?’
Wally had inhaled and was handing the cigarette back as Ruby disappeared into the house. With a dramatic air of resignation, Nita held out hers for him to take next.