Strange Ink

by Gary Kemble

  At the Paddo Tavern, Christine opened one of the fridge doors and reached for a bottle of cheap-ish sparkling wine. Harry made her put it back, and took down a bottle from the top shelf.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ she said.

  Harry shrugged. ‘What else am I going to do with my money?’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. But she looked at the ground when she said it.

  He grabbed a bottle of bourbon and a bottle of Coke for himself, ignoring Christine when she cleared her throat and raised her eyebrows. Darryl bought a six-pack of beer. They paid for their drinks and climbed back into the cab.

  When the taxi finally stopped, Harry thought the driver had got the directions wrong. They were sitting at the top of Red Hill. On the other side of the road, a row of shops – only the chemist and No-No’s Lebanese takeaway were open. On this side of the road, a party shop, tyre fitter, laundromat. All closed.

  Darryl paid the driver with his card. When Harry opened the door, he heard the music. The discordant clash of guitars, a crazy rockabilly beat, double-bass. A low, resonant voice bellowing over the top. Harry climbed out of the cab, still looking for the source of the noise. People milled in front of the laundromat. Jaunty hats, striped tights, the dim glow of iPhones.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. She led them down the side of the laundromat, through the gaggle. ‘Have you got any cash on you?’

  Harry checked his wallet. ‘Yeah.’

  At a small desk, two guys manned a cash register. The sign tacked to it read: The Hangar. $10 cover charge.

  ‘Ten bucks? To drink our own piss?’

  Christine nudged him. He paid. She and Darryl led the way down the side of the building. At the back there was a small courtyard, packed with people. Under the building, an even smaller room, pulsing with red light. The band was so much louder down here.

  Harry, Christine and Darryl stood together in the courtyard. Around them people shuffled about, yelling to be heard over the music. Over in the corner a guy with a jester’s hat pirouetted, lost in his own world.

  Christine cracked open her bubbly. She looked at the label, shook her head.

  ‘I really shouldn’t be doing this but. . . cheers,’ she said, and swigged out of the bottle.

  Harry looked around, realised he’d left his Coke in the cab.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said. He twisted the top off the bourbon bottle, took a swig. ‘Cheers.’

  He turned the bottle cap over in his fingers a couple of times before cursing again and casting it into the weeds by the rusty chain-link fence.

  ‘I’m sorry about the awards,’ Harry said.

  Christine shrugged. ‘Forget about it. Seriously. Probably wouldn’t have hung around much longer anyway. You can bet Redwood’s not done throwing punches. By morning no-one will remember.’

  No. Harry thought that no matter how drunk Redwood got, he would remember. He’d been goading Harry for years, trying to elicit this exact response. And Harry had always turned the other cheek. He shook his head, angry at himself. Redwood had let Rob down, and maybe Rob had died as a result. But Harry couldn’t let himself lose control like that.

  ‘. . . isn’t going to last long,’ Darryl said.

  ‘Sorry?’ Harry said.

  ‘I said this place. It’s not going to last long.’

  ‘Really?’ Harry replied. He took a big mouthful of bourbon. It burned inside him.

  ‘They’re developing this site. They’re going to build apartments here. Like Brisbane needs more apartments.’

  ‘Who’s doing it?’ Harry asked.

  Darryl pointed. Up on the chain-link fence was a faded Swenson Constructions sign. Harry thought about what Nick had told him. Without the water tower project, the company was dead.

  ‘Well, maybe it won’t happen.’

  Christine didn’t look convinced. ‘They’re not even meant to be here tonight. Let’s make the most of it.’

  Christine dragged Darryl over to the doorway, leaving Harry by himself. People pushed in and out of the room where the band hammered out their tunes. It reminded Harry of the parties he went to when he was at uni. People roaming about, usually out the front of some run-down old Queenslander. No method to the madness, just the need to keep moving. Harry felt older than ever.

  Harry followed Christine and Darryl, shuffling into the room. The double bass thumped through his body, resonating with his tattoos. The heat hit him hard. His mind flashed on his days labouring, digging holes on a housing estate – the first job he had out of school. Then Afghanistan, lying on the ground in the heat, peering through the sight of his sniper rifle.

  He drank some more bourbon, felt the buzz coming back.

  The lead singer was leaning on the mic stand, like Jim Morrison. The posturing was where the similarity began and ended. Both arms were covered in tattoos. Bits and pieces of everything: skulls, a zombie nurse, a dragon. It shouldn’t have worked but it did.

  The singer wore a battered pork-pie hat. A red t-shirt with a black vest over the top. As he threw his arms wide the vest opened, revealing the t-shirt design: SATAN CLAWS, above a picture of a zombified Santa leering over sleeping children.

  There was a woman on the double bass, fake eyelashes and heavy eye make-up, tattooed werewolf lurching from her bare upper arm. A small guy on the drums. Another on the slide guitar, with a thick swathe of dark, unkempt hair and a fairly restrained goatee. He had laughter in his eyes.

  The band amped up. The music pulsed through the room and the people cramped in there moved as one. Christine dragged Darryl into the middle of the throng. They danced. Harry felt sullen jealousy building.

  Darryl smiled and Christine laughed. The song ended and the next one began. Harry couldn’t watch anymore. He retreated to the relative cool of the courtyard, peering from the shadows, feeling more like an outsider than ever. When they finally emerged, Harry had worked his way through half his bourbon. Darryl’s hand was on Christine’s waist, guiding her through the crowd.

  Harry strode over.

  Darryl cocked his head. ‘I’m going to the. . .’ Christine smiled as he disappeared back inside.

  ‘I thought you’d gone home,’ she said to Harry.

  He stared at her. ‘You’re beautiful.’

  She looked away. He felt a twinge of annoyance. The band cranked up again, slide guitar leading the way this time. He took her hand.

  ‘I’m serious, Chris.’

  ‘Harry. . .’

  He gripped her hands tighter. She was shaking slightly. He let go, raising his free hand to the side of her face.

  ‘I think I’m in love with you,’ he said. He leant forward to kiss her.

  She pulled away. ‘What?’

  ‘I said. . .’ but he looked into her eyes and saw only anger.

  She pulled free. ‘Go home and get some sleep, Harry.’

  His own anger flared. He threw the bottle of bourbon. It smashed against the concrete. Someone cheered. There was always someone around to cheer. He strode out of the courtyard, up along the side of the building, pushing his way through the crowd. What were they? Fucking Gen Y pukes playing dress-up! Fucking country music!

  ‘Harry!’

  He ignored her. First Bec. Now this. As he walked home, the ground threatening to spin from under his feet, the thoughts came faster. Every moment with Christine over the past month. Assessing. Every moment. He wanted to believe that she’d led him on but the more he looked at it, the only deception was on his part. He’d been lying to himself.

  CHAPTER 20

  Harry walked across the petrol-station forecourt, sun baking down on his head. Cars edged past and out onto the highway, heading north. It was a perfect day for a quick trip up the coast.

  He slipped into his car, not for the first time wishing that he had a decent ride with air-conditioning. The hangover wasn’t anywhere near as bad as he deserved. He’d woken up a little later than usual, but still forced himself out for his run. After a shower, some paracetamol and breakfast, he felt
almost normal. Harry popped out the Counting Crows tape. The time for crying was over. He opened his glovebox and pawed through it until he found was he was looking for. He slid the tape in.

  The opening guitar riff of Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Bombtrack’ pulsed through the speakers, and Harry grinned.

  He flashed back to the night before, and shook his head. It wasn’t like him. He was usually a melancholic drunk. Not angry, or aggressive. And certainly not sleazy. Redwood was going to be a big problem now, particularly if it turned out that he did indeed have something to do with Rob’s fate. And Christine. . . She showed a bit of interest in him in the wake of the break-up, and this was how he repaid her? He’d texted her an apology, but she hadn’t responded.

  Harry pulled out onto the highway, the Corolla struggling to get up to the 100 kays-per-hour speed limit. Big, shiny four-wheel-drives roared past, most likely forgoing off-road adventures in favour of braving the speed bumps on Noosa’s glitzy shopping strip, an hour or so north of Brisbane. Like members of a secret clan, drivers’ had plastered their rear windows with stickers proclaiming membership of elite schools, and ‘My Family’ decals – stickmen playing golf, women going shopping – masking the reality of overwork and mortgage stress.

  The highway threaded through endless suburbs packed with low-set brick homes on small blocks, huddling behind concrete noise barriers. Meagre farmland, two giant radio masts towering over dusty cattle. Eucalypt scrubland looking dry and diseased despite the recent rain.

  Then more houses, orange and grey under the sun. Satellite suburbs for the wage slaves. Estates with posh-sounding names that would be forgotten before the houses needed a fresh coat of paint. Crystal Waters. Freshwater Lakes. Paradise Grove. Streets that curled in on themselves like fractals, lined with McMansions and postage-stamp gardens.

  Harry passed a billboard for ‘Eden Valley’, a new estate somewhere to the north-west. A nuclear family and a dog, walking in a luminous green rainforest. The Swenson Constructions logo stamped in the bottom right. He wondered again about Nick’s revelation. If the company really was on the brink, and Cardinal killed The Towers, it looked as though there were a lot of projects that would go unfinished.

  After about half an hour the suburbs gave way to pine forests – hectare after hectare of plantation timber. A few years earlier a man broke down in one of the plantations. He left his car, got lost, died of thirst. Looking along the rows of identical trees, it wasn’t hard to see how easily that could happen.

  Harry pulled off onto Steve Irwin Way, leaving the state forests behind him. Mount Tibragargan loomed over the road – it had always amazed Harry how a geological formation could look so much like a giant face, staring out to sea. At Landsborough he cut across the rail line, then passed a small block of shops and a cricket oval.

  Harry checked the street directory on the passenger seat. He loved his iPhone, but there were some things he still liked to do the old-fashioned way. He turned down the volume on the music, concentrating on finding the right street. Lots of low-set houses, established but by no means old. A couple of girls pushed their bikes along the side of the road. He followed the streets back from the highway, towards the mountain. The trees on the sides of the road got bigger, the scrub thicker. The standard house blocks stretched to half an acre and then a full acre.

  Harry was struggling to read the numbers on the mail boxes when he saw the woman waiting on the side of the road. She was dressed in old jeans and a t-shirt, with a broad-brimmed straw hat casting her face in shadow. She looked like she’d been doing some gardening. She waved. He pulled over.

  ‘Harry!’ Not a question. She hurried around the side of the car, opening the passenger door. Harry picked up the street directory and threw it on the floor, just before she dropped into the seat.

  She thrust a hand at him. ‘Sorry. Sandy. Sandy Flores.’

  ‘Harry Hendrick.’

  He took her hand. She felt fevered. She was about his Mum’s age, but had clearly spent a lot of time outside in the sun. Deep lines spread out from the corners of her eyes and her mouth. They struck Harry as the sort of lines one got from smiling a lot. But she wasn’t smiling now.

  ‘Turn around,’ she said.

  Harry stared at her.

  ‘Quickly. The spirits sent me a message last night. About you.’

  Harry got the car moving, pulling into Sandy’s driveway so he could turn the car around.

  ‘A message?’

  ‘Well, not so much a message. A vision. A place. It’s important.’

  ‘Important how?’

  ‘I don’t know! It was like this with the boy. That poor boy. The spirits gave me a vision, showed me where he was. Quick. It’s fading.’

  Harry pulled back out onto the street and switched the stereo off. He remembered the article he’d found online. She found a body, just the wrong one. A body. She knew where Rob’s body was buried. Or the spirits knew, and had passed on the information to her. Where would it be? All the way back in Brisbane? Or somewhere up here, in the state forests he’d just motored past? Row after row of pine trees, tombstones stabbing up at the sky.

  She directed him to Landsborough, back the way he’d come.

  ‘You used to do readings? Why not anymore?’

  ‘Shh!’

  She laid a hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry. Sometimes these messages are strong. Sometimes they’re barely audible or visible. This is the latter. We can talk later.’

  When they got to the highway, Sandy sat there, head pivoting left and right as cars zoomed past. He could feel the stress radiating off her, smell her sweat.

  ‘Which way?’ he asked.

  The car behind beeped. Harry raised a hand. A couple of Harleys boomed past, heading north. The car beeped again.

  ‘Sandy?’

  ‘North. No. . . south! South!’

  Harry pulled out, wheels spinning slightly. Heading towards Brisbane. As they pulled into the traffic, Sandy looked behind her, then ahead, then behind her again.

  ‘No, no, this looks right,’ she said.

  Harry offered her a doubtful look. All the enthusiasm he’d felt this morning, the sense that he was finally going to get some answers, was evaporating. He could feel heat rising up his neck, his scalp prickling with sweat. Panic threatened to take over. What if this was it? What was the next step if this turned out to be as fruitless as it appeared it was going to be? Another trip to the counsellor? A visit to a psychiatric hospital, where they could lock him up so there could be no more nocturnal visits to the tattooist?

  He felt so stupid. It was clear they were all in on it. Sian, lying through her teeth. And then laughing about it behind his back with Mack and the rest of them.

  No.

  The cacophony cut off in his head, just like that. One word. Did he speak it or did someone else? It didn’t matter. He could feel calm returning. His heart rate dropped. The sweat evaporated. He breathed deeply. He was in control of this situation. He was staring down the scope, target firmly within the reticle. He saw the man with the silver hair walking towards the compound. But this time he took the shot. The round opened his target’s head like a melon, blood fanning out on the mud-brick wall. And he felt no remorse. No sadness. No guilt. He felt like a soldier who’d just done the world a favour.

  ‘. . . housing estate.’

  ‘Huh?’ For a moment Harry remained in Afghanistan. Then he saw the truck looming large in front of him and wondered how the hell he’d kept the car on the road. What was it the counsellor had called it? Dissociative fugue.

  ‘The place. It’s in a housing estate.’

  ‘Are they talking to you?’

  ‘No. Yes.’

  She turned away from him, staring out at the rows of pine trees. ‘It’s as though someone is trying to talk to me. But they’re a long way away, so all I get is the image.’

  ‘A long way away? Like Brisbane?’

  She laughed, placed a warm hand on his arm. ‘No, not in that wa
y.’

  She kept her hand on his arm. ‘That’s one of the tattoos, I take it?’

  Harry glanced down, as though he’d forgotten it was there. ‘Yeah. That’s the Fajar Baru one. Will touching it give you anything?’

  She shrugged, and drew away. ‘Maybe. Probably. I don’t know. Usually it’s jewellery. Clothing. But I need to stay clear.’

  ‘Won’t touching the tattoo help?’

  She shook her head. A cattle truck roared past in the overtaking lane. Harry glanced over and saw rolling eyes peering at him between wooden slats. The truck stank of shit and death.

  ‘No. This is. . . this is something else.’

  Harry was starting to think he really would end up driving all the way back to Brisbane when she spoke again.

  ‘Look for a low brick wall out the front, and green grass,’ she said.

  Sandy stared out the side window. Again, Harry felt like this was going to be a waste of time. She’d seen the Eden Valley billboard from the highway, he imagined, absorbed it subconsciously and then regurgitated it as a vision. Except, he recalled, the sign didn’t feature a low brick wall and green grass, it featured an advertising family. Mum, dad, boy, girl.

  They rounded the corner, and Harry saw the low brick wall with the green grass. There were also a few weeds. The wall carried a sign: Cedar Falls. There was no cedar to be seen, no waterfalls either.

  ‘Can you feel it?’ she asked.

  Harry nodded. Tension, in his shoulders.

  They entered the labyrinth. Curving streets, houses that weren’t identical but clearly siblings. Generated by a computer at a glitzy showroom somewhere. One-storey, two-storey. Single garage, double garage. Some took up their entire allotment of land, some left enough space for a small lawn out the front, cowering behind the faux stone letterbox. This was a housing estate in the prime of its life. All the blocks had been sold, built on and had the landscaping done. But none of the houses had got to the point where they’d started to look dated or seedy. A few had Christmas lights out the front, or a tree positioned so it was visible through the front window.