Finding Kerra

by Rosanne Hawke

  ‘You know how bad, I was?’

  I shook my head, willing myself to stay calm. This was just a sad and frightened little girl. ‘No, tell me.’ It’s always best to tell, Mum’s voice resounded in my head.

  She hesitated. ‘You’ll still like me?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ I held my breath even though I thought of numerous things it could be, but there were still shocks in store for me.

  ‘I ruined Blake’s life.’

  ‘No!’ That wasn’t what I expected. ‘That’s not true.’ She was only a child. How could she ruin someone’s life, or even think she did?

  ‘Dad said it wasn’t my fault that Mum died, but he wasn’t there, he doesn’t know. It was.’

  ‘Who said it was your fault?’ I couldn’t stay calm anymore or keep my voice steady. ‘Who said? Kerra, who!’ But I forgot she was used to people bigger than her telling her loudly what to do. She pulled her firm blank face down, the one she kept for Blake.

  If she knew, she wasn’t going to tell.

  Later, Blake was teaching me to dance in the kitchen in preparation for The Cup. I should have been chopping red onions for the pizzas. Matt had rung saying he and Richelle would pop in to watch footy with us, so Blake said he’d cook the pizzas outside. The Townsends had a brick pizza oven in the garden that Blake and his dad had built when he was younger.

  ‘Most of the guys know all the dances, so you don’t have to worry much.’

  ‘What do you mean “most of the guys”?’

  ‘Well, in half the dances you change partners, like this barn dance I’m trying to show you if you’d put that knife down. They still have a lot of the old dances at these shindigs because everybody goes, even kids. Though lately they all end up line dancing, especially at a do like The Cup when it’s outside.’

  Then I wanted to know how to line dance. When Blake was like that—laughing and chuckling and purposely tripping me up so I’ll fall into his arms—I could forget that Kerra’s problems loomed between us. He made me only think of the Camel Cup and how much fun we’d have in the night, dancing on the race track. The best country band in the state had been hired and in the excitement, I forgot my earlier resolve to keep Kerra out of our conversations.

  ‘Kerra will go?’

  ‘Yep.’ And I felt a definite drawing back when I mentioned her name. That was my time for keeping quiet. I was learning not to give into that urge to ‘interfere’ as Blake called it. To me it was ‘being helpful’.

  ‘Blake, I tried to talk with your father yesterday. About your mother.’

  ‘He told me.’ I thought he’d say more and I waited before I asked the next bit; I didn’t want a repeat of the scene at the gorge.

  ‘What was it like when she died?’

  He shrugged. ‘I got through it. It was hard. Mum and I had a special relationship. We were much alike.’ He seemed cool but there was a mixture of hurt and sadness in his eyes. I’d seen that in Kerra’s face at times and I stepped forward quickly and hugged him. I’d learnt something the other day: don’t get in a guy’s face when he’s talking about his feelings.

  When I pulled away he said softly, ‘Let’s get up early tomorrow. I’ll take you on a road trip in the Cruiser. Tons of things to show you.’

  He pulled me closer to him again and I laid my head against his chest. I breathed in the smell of him, the hint of deodorant underlying the horse scent I was growing to enjoy. Mum’s voice was in my head, more time together always helps relationships.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  My emotions were buoyant when Matt and Richelle arrived. It was always a treat to see Matt, and Richelle even complimented both Blake and me on the pizzas. That night there was no reception to watch the footy, so we stood around the oven, keeping warm while listening to a battery radio—not that I understood much. Dad had tried to teach me introductory AFL but it hadn’t stuck. At least I knew the two South Australian teams. I caught Richelle’s glance shifting from me to Blake a few times, but I tried not to let anything bother me. She didn’t glower at me for once, even when Blake put his arm around me. Then I realised, if Blake was happy, so was Richelle.

  14

  We left at six in the ute. It was still dark. Blake had packed a thermos of tea and lamb-and-beetroot sandwiches. I didn’t say how over lamb I was. He had poured milk in the tea and it reminded me of Pakistani chai. Chai always accompanied fellowship and I looked forward to the day ahead as if I were on an excursion to the Karakorum Mountains.

  ‘You don’t mind coming in the ute?’ he asked. ‘I only use the Mazda for driving down to Adelaide.’

  I shook my head, remembering the old blue car he had in Adelaide. Blake put a CD on.

  ‘Sorry I don’t have a place to plug an iPod in.’ His taste in music was eclectic: John Mayer to Guy Sebastian, as well as old stuff like U2 and the Bee Gees. Even country.

  ‘You don’t like heavy music?’ Kate Sample said country music was just for hicks from the bush.

  He shook his head. ‘Too much in my head already without compounding it.’

  People were always surprising. Take me: I missed out on a decade of Western music growing up in Pakistan, so I liked classics, Celtic, even Keith Urban. I kept that pretty quiet, as I suspected this was a music map of my mother’s generation.

  ‘Keep an eye out for roos and emus,’ Blake said. We’d just passed a sign about wandering stock as well. ‘Sunrise and dusk are the worst time for roos, but emus are so dumb they cross the road at any time.’

  It took an hour to town and another on the Oodnadatta track to reach Farina.

  ‘I want you to see this,’ Blake said with a mysterious smile. He sounded like Danny had last year wanting to show me a movie theatre. ‘This’ was a ghost town that was in the process of being restored. ‘Volunteers come during July to work on it,’ he said. ‘Too hot any other time.’

  We walked down lanes where a bank, shops, a school and houses had once stood. There were ruins of some, just the foundations or underground storerooms of others. I looked through an ancient window at the spinifex-littered desert, stretching to the horizon below a bright blue sky. I imagined living here in the nineteenth century: washing clothes by hand, cooking in a wood oven, writing endless letters and waiting for camel strings to bring supplies and the mail.

  Blake stepped behind me and, just then, my stomach gurgled. We hadn’t had much breakfast, just dried fruit. He chuckled.

  ‘This isn’t all, there’s a huge baker’s oven.’ He took me across the dirt road to see it. It had been restored. ‘The oldest working oven in Australia,’ Blake said with pride. ‘Bakers from all over the country come to volunteer to run the bakery during the winter.’

  It was underground. I stepped down to look at the black-and-gold metal work. A huge wooden spatula, like a pizza ladle, stood to the side. I’d seen an old oven like this in Pakistan; it was used for baking naan.

  I could smell delicious yeasty things. ‘Do we get to sample the bread?’

  Blake grabbed my hand. ‘We get to have breakfast.’

  We walked hand in hand towards a tent where the baked goods were sold. My hand felt warm in his and I knew it was going to be a great day.

  ‘Choose,’ he said.

  I opted for an egg-and-bacon roll and a finger bun. Blake also bought old-fashioned loaves to take home.

  ‘It will be shut on the way back,’ he explained.

  I took pics to put on Facebook later for my family. Maybe Jasper and Ayesha would see them too. Elly would love a giant oven; she was already showing a talent with food. Blake took a selfie of us. We laughed so hard, but we looked good in twin Akubras—his blond hair sticking out under the brim and my plait slung over my shoulder.

  On the two-hour trip to Beltana, I thought how different Blake was away from the homestead. Like stones slid off his shoulders. He was full of jokes and stor
ies from the flying school he attended north of Adelaide. Nothing about when he was young though. At that moment a ute flew past us in a cloud of dust from the opposite direction, then I saw the emus.

  ‘Look!’

  Blake slowed down but the emus couldn’t decide which way to go. One strutted across and stopped halfway, thought better of it and ran back, only to try again.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Blake said.

  He kept the ute rolling slowly and finally we got through without hitting any of those long legs. I looked back and yelled for Blake to stop.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘There’s another emu there in the bush on the other side of the road. It can’t get up.’ I stared in horror as the bird continually flapped to rise but flopped back to the ground. Blake stopped the ute.

  ‘It’s been hit.’ He said more under his breath that I didn’t catch. He strode to the back of the ute. I jumped out and saw him load his rifle.

  ‘What are you doing? Isn’t there an animal rescue group up here?’

  Blake put the gun down and came to me, putting his hands gently on my shoulders.

  ‘Jaime, its legs are broken. Like a horse, it won’t survive. Can’t eat in the wild without legs.’

  He picked the gun up and strode over to the bird. I didn’t look, just got into the ute. There was only one shot. I had tears in my eyes. When Blake started the engine again, he laid a hand on mine.

  ‘Dingoes or eagles would have ripped it apart. This way it won’t suffer.’

  We were quiet after that, me staring down the straight gravel road, thinking about the harsh reality of living up there. Blake gave no indication of what he was thinking.

  Then, right out of the blue, he asked, ‘Were there places like this in Pakistan?’ Lately he’d hardly mentioned my former life and it startled me.

  ‘Um, yeah, down south there is desert, in the Sindh. But I didn’t go there, just passed through once on a train trip to Karachi.’

  ‘You’ve seen a lot.’

  ‘Guess so. Coming home for holidays we stayed in Singapore, Malaysia, even the Philippines once, just for a few days.’

  ‘Do you like living here more or do you have a hankering to go back?’

  I glanced at him, but he faced the road ahead, a muscle clenching in his cheek.

  ‘Australia has a higher standard of living than Third World countries like Pakistan, but there’ll always be things I miss. Almost my whole childhood was spent there. I miss special places and atmosphere—but I’m feeling an atmosphere up here too.’

  He smiled then. ‘Yep, life’s better up here than in the city. I could get bored down there.’

  I wondered, if it was so much better up here, why he couldn’t be happy at home. I realised that it wasn’t the Outback or isolation which bothered him. It had to be Kerra and I wished I knew why.

  We reached Beltana by lunchtime and Blake straightaway took me to the museum in the shearing shed.

  ‘This is where Afghan camel drivers bred camels. Explorers would come to choose them for their expeditions. Ernest Giles took camels from here to find a way across the desert to Perth. He was the first European to do it.’

  ‘So where are the camels?’ I asked.

  ‘None here anymore. They were let go when the trucks took over their carting business. Now we have half a million in the wild. We ship a few to Saudi for racing or eating, but not as many as people think.’

  In the museum I soaked up the history of the Afghans and their camels who came to SA. I touched camel bags, similar to some I’d seen in Pakistan, even a shalwar qameez and a man’s woollen shawl. There were old rugs too. When we emerged I saw three alpacas stalking across the yard as though they were dogs on patrol. I chuckled; no camels, just alpacas.

  We drove to a secluded spot—not hard to do in the far north—where there was a well and a canal.

  ‘They call this an Afghan well, where they used to water the camels.’ A round tank made of stones stood nearby. ‘Stockmen use it now.’ Blake had a picnic rug and laid out the plastic boxes of sandwiches and two tin cups for the tea. We sat side by side.

  He spread his hands apart as if offering a feast. ‘Dig in,’ he said.

  I took a sandwich and eyed it warily. Even warm lamb with gravy was wearing thin. Surprisingly I liked the cold lamb and beetroot combination.

  ‘Tastier than you’d expect,’ I said.

  ‘Yep.’

  Blake was a nice guy and I wondered if his treatment of Kerra was born of some sort of hurt. I poured us a cup of tea each. It was still hot. I sighed. A bird called, then another; the sun was shining.

  ‘It’s lovely out here.’

  ‘Jaime—’

  In his outstretched hand was a stone. I took it. ‘It’s a heart. Where did you find it?’

  He pointed to the ground. ‘Just here. Mum used to find them everywhere. One time she went to the beach on Yorke Peninsula to see a friend and came back with one for each of us.’

  He was staring at me, the green in his eyes darkening like deep water. My breath caught as he leaned closer. As our lips touched, his hand cradled my head. His mouth was warm, so gentle, and it felt as though our hearts were opening, fusing, like the night we watched the stars, only sweeter. He sat back.

  ‘I’ve wanted to do that for a while.’

  I breathed in to steady myself.

  ‘Maybe we should do it again then.’

  We returned late (we’d spent a long time just lying side by side, describing what shapes the wispy clouds turned into) but I still found Kerra awake in my room. She seemed less strange; the talk with her dad must have helped. Or maybe it was just me, seeing her through different eyes.

  ‘I want to do something special like Mariama.’ Her face shone, the first time I’d seen it like that. She looked almost like Elly and any other ten-year-old. I scooped her up in my arms. ‘I could save Blake.’

  I still had my arms around her, but I stiffened and slowly released her. ‘You’ve already done something special. Remember how you let the kitten off the hook? That was brave.’

  ‘That kitten’s all right now.’ Then I saw a touch of the old Kerra again. ‘I wish someone would save me like the kitten. Like Mr Kimberley and Liana saved you.’

  That could be a normal childish reaction to a story like Liana’s, but I knew there was more, and I took a punt: ‘Do you believe me when I say that you are not to blame for your mum’s death, Kerra. It happened; it was no one’s fault.’ I don’t think she heard me.

  ‘Do you think God’s real, Jaime?’

  ‘Sure I do. And I reckon He doesn’t blame you. Your dad doesn’t blame you, Blake doesn’t either.’ I hoped I was right about that last one.

  Kerra’s face brightened for a moment, then it clouded over.

  ‘Blake does so.’

  ‘How do you know? Just because he’s not kind to you?’ My fingers closed around the stone in my pocket.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shouts sometimes?’ I tried to humour her out of the mood I could tell was looming.

  ‘He only shouts when I annoy him on purpose.’

  ‘How then?’ And I felt the fear choking me, telling me to stop asking, to change the subject. Jaime, you won’t want to know.

  ‘He told me.’

  At first I was silent, and my voice was deathly quiet when I continued questioning her. I had to keep calm. This was Blake, the guy I had kissed today. The guy who gave me a heart-shaped stone. Could he really do this and deny he was hurting her? I tried to keep my tone light.

  ‘When did he say that?’

  ‘When it happened.’ When what happened?

  I clutched at the small relief her words brought. She didn’t say yesterday, or today, but ‘when it happened’. I breathed in deeply and carefully. ‘You were too young. You told me you coul
dn’t remember.’

  ‘Once we had an argument’—once?—‘and I spilt his drink over his good pants. He said I ruin everything. Mum would still be alive if it weren’t for me.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘I was in prep. I remember now.’ She sounded defensive and I knew she was telling the truth. If she was five, Blake was only fourteen. I could imagine a young, hurting Blake saying angry things he didn’t mean. But that was five years ago. Desperately I needed to believe the Blake I knew wasn’t like that now.

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t still think that.’ I took a breath. ‘He must have said it because he was upset. Did he ever say it again?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘There you are then.’

  But her lower lip came out. ‘He said it. He meant it. He must still think it.’

  ‘Then you’re going to have to be brave again.’

  She stared at me, her lip still protruding. ‘Why?’

  ‘Remember how Gul, Begal’s sister, felt when she spoke to the king? Maybe you need to say what you feel to Blake.’

  ‘How? What would I say?’ She wasn’t making it easy, making excuses because she knew it wouldn’t work.

  ‘Ask him what he thinks now. Or better still, tell him he had it wrong.’

  She sat thinking and I wondered if I’d asked too much. To be able to do all that, she’d have to understand her mother’s death wasn’t her fault. And what if I was wrong? I didn’t know what had happened. I could hear an echo of Blake’s voice, she could do something really weird. So, she’d drowned the kittens. Was that such a crime? Misguided, but not mean. She didn’t enjoy it like a psychopath would.

  I sat there, looking at Kerra, who was staring back at me, as I tried not to let my fear show. Even if I was right, and it wasn’t her fault, what if she’d believed the lie for too long?

  15

  The day of the Camel Cup dawned sunny and blue after a cold, cloudless night. I awoke with anticipation. The effect of our road trip the day before hadn’t left me. I stretched and felt more relaxed than I had for a long time, with the memory of our kiss and my let’s do it again. My Pakistani friends would think me unseemly. The warmth of our time together made me smile. Even though emotions had flared up easily between Blake and myself during the past week, I expected our relationship to be smoother from now on. Surely Blake would be more understanding towards Kerra too.