The Other Side of Beautiful

by Kim Lock

  He was right; there was room enough to stand upright inside his campervan. The kitchenette had a sink, a two-burner stove, a fridge, and cabinets filled with helpful utensils and cookware. There was a tidy double-bed at the back and, up front, the seats were plush as armchairs.

  Andy’s van also had air conditioning; the inside was free of dust, insect carcases and other detritus. And according to Andy, the van was perfectly comfortable cruising the highway at a hundred and ten. When Mercy had asked how, in that case, she had managed to beat him to Marla, he had picked up a small vial of stone chips.

  ‘I went noodling in Coober Pedy,’ he said, tipping the vial so its contents caught the light: chips of creamy rock glinting gold, blue and green. Thinking of all the missing bodies, Mercy told him she hoped he’d kept a close watch on the open shafts.

  ‘Oh wait,’ Andy said now, ‘apparently it “may also contain chicken, pork or ham”.’ He lowered the can. ‘D’you reckon the makers of—’ he tilted the can to read the front label ‘—“Blokes R Tuff N Stuff Stew” know that pork and ham are from the same animal?’

  ‘Well,’ Mercy said, taking the can from him to study it herself, ‘they seem to think that beef and meat are different things.’

  Andy heated the stew while Mercy stirred boiled water into the rice. When the food was ready they sat outside, steaming bowls in hand, and looked over the evening-shrouded desert.

  ‘Whatever this actually is,’ Mercy said, her mouth full, ‘I don’t care. It’s delicious.’

  ‘It’s the meat that makes it so good,’ Andy agreed.

  Mercy spooned up another mouthful. Salty, rich with gravy—she could almost feel her hungry, wind-pummelled muscles plumping in pleasure. They ate in companionable silence, listening to the birds going quiet, hearing the gentle chatter and hum of the other campers. The kids in the swimming pool had gone; lit from above by a moth-flecked lamp, the water was rippling blue.

  Andy wolfed his meal then produced a bottle of red wine and, after digging around in the camper, reappeared with two plastic flutes.

  ‘It’s right classy this van, so it is.’

  Mercy didn’t tell him that her camper might not have plastic glasses, but it did contain a box of cremated remains.

  ‘Will you tell me a wee bit about yourself, Doctor Mercy?’ Andy asked, glugging wine into the flutes. ‘At home is there a husband or kids?’

  Mercy worried a grain of rice with her spoon. ‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘Neither.’ She took a flute from him and sipped. ‘You?’

  ‘If you’re asking if I’ve a husband the answer’s no,’ he said with a grin. ‘But I did once have a wife.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mercy said.

  ‘I don’t anymore.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘And I’ve two weans, a boy and a girl. Eleven and five.’ Pulling his phone from his pocket, he scrolled for a moment before leaning forward to show her the screen. A boy and a young girl crouched in bright white snow, red-cheeked and beaming with fluffy scarfs around their necks and jackets so puffy the little girl’s arms were stuck straight out. They both had honey brown eyes, lighter than their father’s, but there Andy was in the smiles lifted higher at one corner of their mouths.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Mercy murmured. ‘You must miss them.’

  ‘I do.’ After smiling again at the photo, he tucked his phone back in his pocket.

  ‘So.’ Mercy studied her last grains of rice. ‘What happened to the wife?’

  He gazed into his glass and Mercy thought suddenly, Oh god. He wasn’t widowed, was he?

  ‘We married too young. Ended up just …’ He spread his hands. ‘Going in different directions. Maybe I changed, or maybe she changed, but in the end it doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘Probably not.’ Mercy exhaled silently.

  ‘One day we realised that, besides the kids, we didn’t have anything in common anymore. We could be eating dinner or driving somewhere and neither of us would talk the entire time. Not because we were raging with each other, or anything like that, but just because we had nothing to say.’ He sounded rueful. ‘When she said she was moving out I think I was relieved, more than anything else.’ He paused to take a swig of wine. ‘What’s that word they always use when you’re just lucky enough that your divorce isn’t completely god awful? Amicable, aye, that’s it. But it’s just that she’s …’ He paused, looking out over the bush.

  Mercy waited.

  ‘She’s getting married again.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m happy for her. I know it’s a cliché and it probably doesn’t seem like it—what with me flying to the other side of the world to drive across the outback—but I really am happy for her, because I’ve not seen her this happy in … well, years. You know? And when she’s smiling, the little’uns are smiling. But it’s just … ach.’ He cut himself short. ‘It’s a bit shite, is all.’

  ‘I understand,’ Mercy said, because she really did. ‘Were you together long?’

  ‘Since we were kids.’

  ‘That’s tough.’

  Another silence settled. Mercy set down her empty bowl and rested her head against the musty canvas chair.

  Andy was sprawled with his arms and legs out, head tipped back and gazing up at the stars. At length he asked, ‘Is it your turn now?’

  Mercy breathed in the sharp night air. She swallowed her wine. After a while she said, ‘My house burned down.’

  Andy said nothing, and she wondered if he was struck dumb.

  ‘It was the first time I’d left it in two years.’

  He lifted his head. ‘Wait—at all?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘That’s a long time not to leave your house.’

  Mercy squeezed the plastic wine flute in her fingers, making the stem creak. ‘It wasn’t like in the movies. I wasn’t newspapering up the windows or fumbling to the letterbox with my eyes shut. I’d go out into the yard, and sometimes I’d walk up the street, but …’ She went quiet.

  Andy’s body was relaxed, splayed out on his chair, but his face was alert, his expression one of restrained shock. ‘D’you want to talk about why?’

  Mercy knocked back the last of her drink. ‘Panic attacks,’ she said, and left it at that.

  ‘Have you …’ he began. ‘Had you always been …?’

  ‘House-bound?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He gave her a little smile.

  She shook her head. ‘No. Just these past two years.’ Then she heard herself say, ‘Something happened. At work. There was—’ Her throat tightened, choking off the words, refusing to make them real. ‘A lot of things happened all at once. And at the time, my husband had just left me. He met someone else.’ She twirled her empty wine flute, adding, ‘He fell in love with a man. Now there’s your cliché.’

  Andy picked up the bottle and held it forward, and she let him fill her glass to the brim.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘I don’t really know what to say.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I mean, to not be able to leave your house must be hard enough, but then it burned down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That sucks. Christ …’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘I’m really sorry, Mercy.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  A long silence fell.

  And then Andy said, ‘What happened at work?’

  She clamped her lips, shook her head.

  ‘So now you’re seeing the country.’

  ‘I was getting nowhere. I was so tired of being stagnant. I wanted to be on the other side of it all. So that’s what I’ve decided to do.’

  ‘I have to say, that’s a hell of a way to end two years of not leaving your house.’

  ‘By watching it burn down then buying a crappy old van and driving through the desert?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Stars wheeled. Crickets chirped. The waxing moon poked its pale face over the saltbush. Around them the park slipped into nightfall; plates clinked as they were packed away, cara
van doors snicked open and closed, water pumps groaned.

  ‘That sounds heavy, Doctor Mercy. And I guess that explains the assistance dog.’

  For a long time Mercy didn’t reply, slugging back wine like it was water, sunburn throbbing on her legs.

  That’s not all, she wanted to say. But she didn’t. Instead they sat together in the quiet, looking out into the velvet black of the outback night.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Dawn was a pale pink smudge on the horizon and the inside of the van was cold when Mercy was awakened by a rising chorus of engines.

  Yawning, she lifted her head and made to shuffle up the mattress until the movement of her burned skin on the velour made her yelp in pain. Wincing, keeping the throw rug tucked around her neck, she craned up on her elbows to peer outside, watching as men in puffy vests and shorts climbed into driver’s seats and women checked indicators and brake lights before climbing into passenger seats. It was never the other way around, Mercy had noticed.

  Engines roared and caravans rocked and squeaked out of the park, one after the other, chasing each other towards the highway.

  Mercy groaned, shivered, and pulled her warm cat blanket back over her head.

  It was just after nine am when she awoke again. Her phone was vibrating on the cabinet.

  She ignored it, and it went quiet. Almost immediately it started up again. Then again.

  Eugene.

  It was as if the world came flooding in. As though a flock of news cameras suddenly appeared inside the Hijet, the seeking black eyes of lenses pointed straight at her. Clickbait headlines blared, commentators frothed outraged op-eds, Facebook groups imploded. The quiet thrum of the desert, the red dust, the crackling silver bush—it all disappeared. The world and its screaming opinions pressed down on her chest, flattening the air from her lungs.

  ‘Mercy, where are you?’

  She had to take a deep breath. ‘Marla.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Not far south of the border.’

  ‘Border? What border?’

  ‘For god’s sake, Eugene,’ she said. ‘The fucking Arctic Circle.’

  He was quiet. No chatter of background noise; he must be at home, Mercy realised. He was calling on his day off. She pictured him sitting alone in his silent kitchen, in his T-shirt and track pants, coffee steaming beside him as he made a phone call through obligation. She imagined him pinching the bridge of his nose.

  Mercy sighed. ‘The Northern Territory border. According to the map, I’ve got just over two hours left in SA.’ She gave a wry laugh. ‘Or ninety minutes in a normal car.’

  Eugene exhaled against the speaker. ‘I’ve had a phone call from Legal.’

  A bolt of nerves shot up her spine. ‘Why are they calling you?’

  ‘Because they can’t get hold of you. I’m your …’ He paused again. ‘I’m still your next of kin. There’s been some movement on her case.’

  Mercy hesitated. ‘I know,’ she admitted. ‘They got in touch again, last week. Just before …’

  Before the fire.

  Images snapped into her mind unbidden: Standing in her bedroom, watching smoke curl in wisps under the door. Stark silence from the fire alarm. The shirtless neighbour, Mike, suddenly appearing wide-eyed in her bedroom.

  Naked, pale skin. Do something.

  ‘Merce, you there?’

  Be here now. Mercy heard the warble of a magpie. Out the window she saw the bird perched on the fence, right behind the van. If she opened the back door, she could reach out and touch it. Jet black and snowy white, the bird lifted its vicious-looking beak, opened its throat to the sky and sang a beautiful, lilting song.

  Mercy looked over at the cabinet where she’d set the box of ashes. She didn’t like to keep them under the bed overnight; she didn’t like the idea of sleeping over whoever it was.

  Mercy said, ‘I’m still travelling right now.’

  ‘I know that. But you’ll need to keep an eye on your email—can you do that?’ He paused, and the silence stretched heavy. ‘And you have to take their calls. It’s … it’s the law, Merce. You don’t have a choice.’

  Mercy hung up. The magpie opened its wings and was gone.

  Mercy continued north. As she drove out of the park, she saw Andy’s campsite was empty. She wondered if he had left in the mass exodus at the crack of dawn, embracing the race to hurry up and slow down.

  See? Andy was running from something too, she reminded herself as she pulled onto the highway. The happiness of his ex-wife had sent him across the planet to try and reconcile or escape it.

  Maybe they were all running from something. Grey nomads with their caravan slogans: Living the dream or Not dead yet—who were they trying to prove it to? Themselves? Everyone else? Aren’t we all, Mercy thought, seeking to validate ourselves? To know we’re okay—no matter what we’ve done?

  The red dirt and low scrub continued. In the distance flat-topped peaks appeared, eased closer, then disappeared behind her. Trucks and vans overtook, belching hot, dusty air. A stretch of half an hour passed without a single bend in the road, the ribbon of asphalt stretching endlessly in front and behind.

  After a while, Mercy noticed the vegetation began to change. From the sparse silver it had been yesterday it was now tinged with green, growing thicker. The soil lightened to apricot. The trees remained stunted and stick-like but foliage turned lime green.

  A bridge approached and Mercy perked up, hoping to see water, but Tarcoonyinna Creek turned out to be a wide, flat expanse of tyre-tracked sand and sprawling low mallees.

  Mercy drove on.

  It was too hot to wear Jose’s jeans, especially on her sunburned thighs, but Mercy had draped her towel over her lap to shield herself from the sun. Still, the heat of the sun’s rays baked through the fabric, setting her burned skin howling. More bridges appeared; more broad dry creek beds. Though the land was parched, the presence of these water courses buoyed Mercy, as she pictured them as runoffs from the monsoonal tropics far ahead. She imagined them swollen with leftover floodwater, wide and shallow and teeming with life. Arteries of nutrients and oxygen and moisture for the thirsty outback.

  Mercy passed a single tall tree and cried, ‘Look, Wasabi!’ That single tree became another, then another.

  As she was driving along a flat field of pale green, her stomach rumbled and her bladder squeezed uncomfortably. She was considering stopping when a sign appeared: STATE BORDER, 1 KM.

  Mercy’s heart leapt. One kilometre to go.

  She gripped the wheel. A minute passed.

  The road widened as a slip lane appeared. There, up ahead. A turn-off to a parking bay, a low, studded-post fence surrounding a broad patch of sand. And alongside the road, a huge slab of orange concrete with an enormous triangular brown wedge soaring up:

  WELCOME TO THE NORTHERN TERRITORY.

  1791 km to go

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mercy stood in front of the state border marker and stared at her phone. It occurred to her that she had no one to send the selfie to. No friends to share it with, no family eager to hear about her progress, not even a bunch of acquaintances on social media anymore for whom to confect airs of living the road-trip life and being so blessed.

  Running across the ground below her was a straight concrete path denoting the divide between the two states and Mercy was standing with her feet on it, imagining she had one foot in the south, the other in the north. Was she balanced on the tipping point, leaving the before and ready to fall into the after? On the highway a car drove past without bothering to stop for the border’s concrete ceremony; one moment south, the next, north. The sun was too bright for Mercy to see the screen of her phone with any clarity, but she could make out the outline of her head, the ludicrous bouff of her hair and Wasabi’s snout mid-lick on her chin, and behind them the hulking shadow of the concrete slab that read WELCOME TO THE NORTHERN TERRITORY.

  Two other vehicles were parked in the rest area: a car towing a caravan,
and a tremendous, slick-looking RV, which had pulled in a few minutes after Mercy and from which a pair of teenage girls had slunk, followed by a man, a woman and a toddler—floppy hatted, hiking booted, fly swatting.

  As Mercy’s thumb hovered over her phone, wondering if she could send the photo to Eugene as a kind of olive branch for hanging up on him, the woman from the RV approached, toddler clinging to her hip.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the woman said. ‘Could you take our photo?’

  The woman’s floppy straw hat drooped down over her face. Though she backhanded the hat up with her wrist, the child kept grabbing at it and the woman was fighting a losing battle. All Mercy could see of the woman’s face were spots of sunlight coming through the weave onto her cheeks and chin.

  ‘Sure,’ Mercy said, shoving her phone away, selfie sent to no one. She glanced around for Wasabi; he had wandered a short way to inspect a patch of shade and she felt the invisible string in her chest pull tight.

  The woman handed Mercy a brand new iPhone, twisting it away from the plump little hand reaching for it. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but there’s three of them altogether—’ tucking her free hand into her pocket she dug out another two phones ‘—if you wouldn’t mind? The older girls, you know. For their Snapchats.’ In the woman’s voice Mercy heard the roll of her eyes. ‘Or whatever.’

  ‘Right.’ Mercy juggled the phones, hoping she wouldn’t drop one onto the sun-baked ground and break a teenage girl’s heart. Possibly ruin her life forever.

  Wasabi had found a scent and was zigzagging further away, nose pressed to the ground. Mercy wanted to call him back but Floppy-hat, the man and two teenage girls were standing in the shade of the border sign, waiting for their photo. One girl was chewing a nail, the other had her arms crossed and was glaring in the direction of the highway as if she had a personal grudge with it.

  ‘Do you want us to say “cheese”?’ the woman called out.