Yesterday's Dust

by Joy Dettman

  Who would miss him, mourn his passing? Ann, perhaps. And he would miss her. Miss watching her tiny Bethany grow.

  ‘Time’s great plan, Malcolm. Time for the old to make way for the new.’

  John Burton may miss the Sunday evenings spent in discussion. John, named as Malcolm’s own son had been named, and tonight he would be with his son and poor Jillian.

  Or would they disown him?

  ‘You’re good for me, Mack,’ she panted. ‘You make me young again. Only you. Only ever you. We’ve got years of life to live.’

  ‘Speak for yourself, Bell. And you haven’t got the legs for life on the run.’ His hand slid down to her knee, bone and sinew, and not much else.

  ‘A pity you can’t write your own end, Coll. You make me young again. But the world will know who you were tomorrow.’

  On his death, Ann was to give up his secret. Let them laugh at him then. Let them call him impotent old fool then. He’d have the last laugh. Pleasure in that thought. Something to look forward to.

  ‘A pity I won’t be around to see it.’

  His eyes had long given up the fight to see by night. Not knowing from which direction Jack Burton would approach, Malcolm didn’t bother looking. He rested his eyes and allowed his ears to work for him. His hearing was good. He’d hear him, and from his position against the tree he could see the outline of the car.

  But it was his eyes that had seen the bright spark of a match being struck before his ears had picked up the sound of footsteps. His walking stick placed against the tree, he’d tugged his gun free.

  Armpits dripping with perspiration, hands dripping, shaking, he’d pointed both gun and flashlight, and heard the walking stick fall, hit the mulch-covered earth. Still, he would not need it to prod its slow way home tonight. He would not be going home. Let the laconic lawman worry about getting him out, bring in a bulldozer, a fork-lift.

  One fat index finger ready on the trigger, his second index finger poised over the on/off flashlight switch, Malcolm had spread his feet and begun counting down his seconds of life.

  He’d have to be close. Two metres. He’d need to be that close. With only two bullets he couldn’t afford to miss.

  Soft the mumble of feet through dust and gravel. Soft the sigh, slow the footsteps. Small orange glow-worm of cigarette.

  A breath. Deep drawn. The air had tasted sweet, heavy with eucalypt and honey. The arm holding the gun lifted, Malcolm braced himself to fight his last war, his weapon saved fifty years for this night. For this moment. He would do it. He could do it.

  And no thinking, Malcolm. No change of heart. Him first, then a fast shot into the temple and no backward glance.

  The glow of cigarette close enough, Malcolm had stepped forward, his left index finger bearing down on the flashlight switch.

  Instant light, finding, blinding his quarry.

  ‘Get that bloody thing out of my eyes, you stupid bastard.’

  Jack threw a hand up to cover his eyes as Malcolm swayed there, looking at the trees, so green by torchlight as his finger moved against the trigger.

  And drew a blank.

  So it was not meant to be a murder/suicide, so change the script Malcolm, but quickly. One bullet would be enough. But his torch slipped, fell to the earth. Day birds above complained at the spotlight in their eyes and Jack Burton laughed and kicked the light, sending it flying, a fluorescent football aimed accurately between the goalposts of river gums as Malcolm clumsily ejected the bullet and stepped back. His weight applied to one end of his fallen walking stick, it leaped up from the mulch, hit him in his knee, and his knee went. He swayed back. The trunk of the tree stopped his fall, leant its support.

  Laughter. Light now behind the laughter. Bright light from the old Burton verandah. He could see Jack Burton in silhouette.

  Both hands on the gun, Malcolm pushed off from the tree, two, three steps forwards, the gun aimed up at the silhouette, up at the laughter.

  And his finger squeezed the trigger as the bars of a padded cell squeezed his heart.

  The gun exploded in his hands, echoing and re-echoing through the forest.

  Faulty German workmanship! the fat man thought as he fell.

  seeing stars

  His mind away on the planet Dune, Johnny had been seated in the kitchen, his novel two-thirds read, when he’d seen a light sweep by his window. He’d placed the book face down and stood, walked to the passage, turning on the outside lights before making his way around the house, seeking a torch bearer – someone looking for a cheap chicken dinner. Most of the town families had received invitations to Ellie’s party at the beer garden, but there were a few who had not. A good night for prowling, and Ellie’s free-range chickens were tempting.

  He’d been on the front verandah when he’d seen the glow, and he’d frowned, his head to one side, staring at what appeared to be a spotlight sending its bright alien beam high into the heavens.

  Old Robbie West out star-gazing, or a UFO homing in on the west paddock? The light had not moved, so he’d walked off to investigate.

  A strange sweating night. Though the sun had long left for Perth, it hadn’t taken its heat with it. Not the breath of breeze about.

  He had left Ben’s house after a late dinner. No excuses given. None asked. A few months back Ellie would have pleaded with him to go, but she had her friend now.

  Johnny had known Bob Johnson as the local cop back in the late sixties. He’d aged some, lost most of his hair, but he still had that same quiet good sense about him. Let him celebrate Jack Burton’s life – or his death – with Ellie. Johnny would take no part in the farce.

  Annie? She hadn’t said that she would drive down with Bronwyn – or that she wouldn’t.

  ‘Ann,’ he said. ‘Annie.’

  David called her Ann. Malcolm and Kerrie called her Ann. Only to the family she remained Annie.

  ‘Annie Lizabeth.’

  Bethany had brought memories of that other dark-eyed baby flooding back this afternoon, and for a moment they’d threatened to submerge him. Silly little gaping smile, perfect little grasping hands. And the chuckle.

  He could remember the day his father had brought Annie home from the hospital. They’d propped her in the old pram in the kitchen. No tears, just that little head turning, and those big eyes staring at all the faces.

  Maybe he’d go to Warran tomorrow.

  The spotlight in the paddock wasn’t moving. It was in the far corner, close to the road, and the shortest route there was through the fowl yard. That was the route he’d taken.

  Space debris, he’d thought. A Martian landing? Or careless chicken thief who had taken a fall?

  He was squeezing between the fence wires when he heard the explosion. It halted his progress, and his head lifted, his ears seeking direction, his eyes seeking the stationary light, expecting it to flare or die.

  It didn’t.

  When he moved forward once more, he was sucking a wire cut on his palm – until he heard the car, saw the headlights on the road.

  Then he ran.

  one. two. three.

  Jack’s motor was running and so was he when his headlights picked up the hulk of flesh in his pathway. He couldn’t run over it, so he backed up. And his lights saw red, saw the colour of blood.

  ‘You stupid old bastard,’ he moaned and he turned off the motor and stepped back to the road. The headlights died. Left him in the dark. ‘Bloody modern, bloody inventions!’ he snarled, and again turned the key in the ignition. The motor running, lights blazing, he walked to the hump of flesh sprawled like a beached whale on the verge of the road.

  ‘Get up. You’re not dead.’ He prodded a flat slipper with his own shoe. Malcolm Fletcher didn’t move. Jack looked down at the blood and at the mutilated hand that had pumped the blood. ‘You’re bleeding. You can’t be dead. Get off the bloody road.’

  No movement. No sound.

  ‘I didn’t do anything to you, you rattlesnake-brained old slug,’ he said, stoopi
ng, prodding at whale blubber. ‘Are you dead, or dead bloody drunk?’

  Then he was down, slow to his knees, an ear placed close to where a heart might be. No heart – or too much blubber between it and the ear placed to hear it. He picked up the right hand first, let it drop back. He picked up the left.

  ‘I’ve seen worse on bonfire night. Get up,’ he yelled. ‘Where’s Number 10, you eavesdropping old bastard?’ He felt the wrist for a pulse and couldn’t find one. Got blood on his hands for his trouble. The hand dropped fast, it flopped like a dead fish onto the gravel, and Jack pulled back. ‘Number 10 placed on hold. Permanently too, by the look of bloody things.’

  His face turned then to his car, motor still purring, calling him away. He had to get out of here. The lights were on at the old place now and he had a fair idea of who had turned them on and it wasn’t Ellie or her boyfriend. The old slug’s heart might have stopped, but his own was beating in his brain. Go. Go. Go.

  He placed his palm close to the mouth. No air. ‘Shit,’ he snarled as two uneasy fingers felt for the carotid artery. Not a flutter, not a mutter. Malcolm Fletcher was a goner, and he stunk of sweated brandy.

  Jack looked over his shoulder. ‘Run, you crazy bastard. Find a phone and ring someone.’ He tried to gain his feet, but his knee pressed hard on a baked clay ridge, and the pain drove his heart rate higher. He repositioned the knee and decided to stay down.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, feeling for his cigarettes; his hand came out holding a box of matches. He squinted at it, considered it, then tossed the tray and matches onto the earth and manoeuvred the sturdy outer casing between the teeth of the dead man before applying his mouth to the other end of the box. And he blew.

  It didn’t do any good. The dead stayed dead. Always, they’d stayed dead. His mother, Liza, Linda, May.

  The box left in the mouth like a rectangular cigar, Jack placed the heels of his hands at the base of the breastbone, or where the breastbone might have been – if he’d had one. He pushed down hard, trying to remember what the blonde doctor had done on the television show last week. Not that it had done much good. She’d ended up hitting the corpse with electricity. A hairy old bugger, it’d set the hairs of his chest on fire.

  But he bore down anyway.

  One. Two. Three. And a One. Two. Three. Again he blew into the matchbox. That’s what they did. Pumped half a dozen times or so, then blew.

  The air wasn’t going anywhere.

  You had to move the head back or something, so they weren’t blocking off their own windpipes. He grabbed a handful of hair and dragged the head down. It flopped to the side then rolled back to its original place. ‘Bloody shit, to it.’ He snatched at a slipper, then the other, small, but big enough to scrape up a neck-rest of gravel, big enough to prop the bloody head back, open up the windpipe, then he blew again through his matchbox and this time the chest rose! He leaned on fat, pushed the air out.

  ‘Shit!’ he said, getting into the rhythm. External heart massage was supposed to compress the heart between spine and ribs. It might be possible to compress it between fat.

  One. Two. Three. Blow. And the matchbox almost disappeared down the gaping maw. He fished it out, wiped his fingers on his jeans.

  ‘Breathe, you bastard,’ he said. One. Two. Three. ‘Breathe. I don’t need any more bloody guilt.’

  Involved in his rhythm, Jack was unaware of the second presence until the shadow fell across him. He knew who it was before he heard the voice, which sounded like him doing a Sam – without the sibilant Ss.

  ‘Added another notch to your gun?’

  Jack’s head turned slowly, and his hands became still. So the old war wasn’t over. He tried to rise then, to ready himself for war, to push off from the hump of dead fat, but he was too bloody old and his knees were too stiff. Getting down had been bad enough; getting up again was worse. He stayed down, turned back to what he’d started. Blew.

  ‘What did you do to him?’

  One. Two. Three.

  ‘Don’t blame me for this one. And get out of my bloody light or I’ll lose my box down his throat.’

  The shadow moved. Johnny Burton was squatting over the old man, looking at the matchbox in the mouth, feeling for a pulse at the throat.

  ‘Who else do I blame?’

  ‘I don’t give a shit who you blame, do I? Take your blame and go to buggery with it.’ One. Two. Three. ‘I’ve had enough of your bloody blame.’

  One. Two. Three. Blow.

  ‘Have you called an ambulance?’

  ‘Yeah. Telephone dangling from every bloody tree. Doctors hiding in the bushes.’ One. Two. Three. ‘The crazy old bastard tried to shoot me.’ One. Two. Three. ‘Blew his bloody hands up.’ One. Two. Three. ‘Might slow his typing down.’

  Nothing Johnny could say to that. But he could make the phone call. He ran to Malcolm’s house and was back in moments, just standing to the side, looking down at an old man on his knees, blowing air through a disintegrating matchbox.

  So close to the scene but distanced, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Lock his hands around that throat and squeeze? Lash out with a boot, kick that head in?

  What was he supposed to say?

  Why?

  Too late for whys.

  ‘Breathe, you crazy old bastard. Suck on bloody life.’ The voice was the same, and the jolt of that head as it turned to him. ‘Get on your knees and perform a bloody miracle or something. I’m not wearing any more guilt and I can’t keep this up all night.’

  But he kept it up.

  One. Two. Three. Blow.

  ‘You came back.’

  One. Two. Three. Blow. Jack sucked air for himself and his lungs howled. He coughed, coughed, lost his rhythm.

  ‘I came back. That’s my guilt. I’ll wear it.’ One. Two. Three. Blow. And the matchbox cover split at the seam. Jack pitched it, pitched it to buggery, and he sucked air deep. ‘I came back . . . came back to mourn for poor bloody old Jack Burton. That’s why I came back.’ One. Two. Three. ‘Nobody else will.’ One. Two. Three. ‘She’s up there celebrating her $250,000 . . . with her bloody new boyfriend, Bob.’

  One. Two. Three.

  ‘You’re worth more dead than you ever were alive.’

  ‘Yeah.’ One. Two. Three. ‘You’re probably right.’ One. Two. Three. ‘And I’m too bloody old to argue, so climb down off your pulpit and do something useful.’ One. Two. Three. ‘He’s that author, Chef-bloody-Marlet, the old bastard. We’ve got to keep getting air into him – and by the living Jesus, I draw the line at kissing that bloody mouth.’

  Two old men beside a dark road. Old adversaries. One not breathing and the other tiring fast. His matchbox gone, Jack made a funnel of his hand and he held the hand to the gaping mouth, blew his air through it. Too much escaped his fingers.

  Johnny Burton knelt then at the old teacher’s head, one hand cupping the many chins, he closed off the nostrils with his cheek and forced his air in. Close to his father. Head to head with his father. Eye to eye with his father. He glanced at the eyes, and for an instant they met, then Jack’s head was down as he pumped. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. He rested, sat back and shook his bad wrist as he watched his son inflate the tired old lungs.

  Eyeball to eyeball these two, and not a word spoken.

  Motor purring, lights glaring. John looked at his father’s hair, almost white under the car’s headlights. At his beard. Almost white. Glasses glinting. Nothing left of that black-headed bastard who had given him life.

  Nothing.

  And not so big.

  Only those hands, familiar, and close. Crossed now, pumping, pumping, pumping life. Old face sweating, mouth grimacing as he sucked air enough for his own lungs.

  Father and son. Enemies. Sworn enemies, but fighting side by side tonight for a worthwhile cause.

  celebration of life

  Soft sigh of the river as it started its long slow curve, lonely cry of a night bird, and on the sand dunes, rabbits, up to their
old habits, courted and cavorted beneath a black blanket sky. A well-worn blanket this one – enough to hold in the heat of the day, but here, there, and everywhere, ragged holes allowed old heaven’s light straight through.

  Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. A choir of mosquitoes hummed in the reed beds and in the hot mulch of the forest floor. They had fed and bred and their eggs were spread.

  ‘Might,’ a lone frog croaked. ‘Might.’ And he swallowed a few contraltos before giving them his slow, clap, clap, clap.

  In the trees an owl hooted, and possums coughed their agreement like a meeting of consumptive old men.

  ‘Wish tonight,’ a feral cat hissed and crouched, ready to pounce. Small possum was sweet, and a cat had to eat. ‘Wish tonight.’

  Old familiar song of the Mallawindy bush. But into it came the discordant scream of an ambulance siren, and the flashing light, and movement of shadow.

  And the owl flew, and the cat looked up, its eyes glinted gold as the frog stopped his slow clap, clap to dive deep beneath a rotting log, and on the sand dunes, the rabbits ceased their play.

  A hot, sweating night in Mallawindy, courtship and death all around.

  There was a diamond sparkling on Kerrie Fogarty’s finger, and two in Ben Burton’s eyes. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop smiling.

  Jeff Rowan couldn’t stop scowling. ‘Not the time or the place for it.’ If he’d said it once, he’d said it forty times, and he’d only spoken to a third of Ellie’s guests. ‘Bloody poor taste, I call it.’

  Or sour grapes.

  Ann, Bron and Ben had always been a close-knit threesome, now Kerrie had joined them. They sat at a corner table for four. Nick and David were in Warran, babysitting and watching a video.

  Father Fogarty had been droning on for half an hour. Few were listening – which was to the good. The priest was old, his memory wasn’t what it ought to be, and the man he spoke of was unknown in Mallawindy.