The Backpacker

by John Harris

  I turned my head against the wind, first one way and then the other but it didn’t work, the tears started to come again. Sniffing and turning away from Rick, but not before catching his gaze, I saw him trying to force his eyes wide open, the way children do to keep the tears where they don’t belong. The weight of grief pressed down on our shoulders and I tried not to cry out, just letting some air escape in sickening, short, weak little breaths.

  I don’t know how long Rick and I stood there; maybe an hour, maybe more, long enough for me to go through all the emotions and back again.

  ‘C’mon boys.’ Bob’s friend’s hand slid over each of our shoulders.

  Rick and I looked at each other, made a slit of the lips that wasn’t a smile but a thought: shall we give in, go home to England? No, England wasn’t home anymore and it would feel somehow wrong to Dave, as though we were throwing in the towel after only a token round or two. No fucking way.

  We turned and stood, facing the retreating figure as he stepped into the car and fastened the seatbelt, and for a moment neither of us could move. I didn’t dare look over my shoulder at the sea because I knew Dave was still there, and he’d be forced back up, back up inside me, tears waiting inside ducts.

  The car engine whined into life.

  Taking a deep breath, we stepped forward towards the car, wondering what lay ahead. I only knew one thing for sure: I didn’t want to look out to sea again. Australia’s barren outback should be just the ticket.

  TWO

  Pine Creek, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs; all names that had sounded so romantic became nothing more than words on road signs or maps. Not because I didn’t pay attention to the places we passed through, but because they were nothing more than names. Given a road atlas of Australia and seeing lots of dots along our route, I imagined that we would pass through towns, at least one of which I expected to satisfy my touristy eye. The dots and names, however, were nothing more than that: a creek or a single road-house surrounded by an expanse of waist-high green bushes that stretched as far as the eye could see. There wasn’t even any desert to look at, not real desert.

  Even Alice Springs, where we stayed overnight, was just like Darwin. We decided to forget Ayers Rock, and move on to a more civilised part of Australia. I think we must be the only foreigners to go though Alice without visiting the rock.

  Eventually, after three days on the road, we neared Wagga Wagga and the countryside changed from one of extreme monotony to one which was only slightly less boring. Very similar to England in fact. Row after row after row of cultivated orchards stretching off to the next hillside like fields of corduroy.

  ‘It’s your choice, boys.’ Bob’s friend shifted gear and crossed the small bridge over a picturesque stream as a tractor pulled out of a side lane. ‘Take your pick. You’re in the heart of fruit-picking country now, so if your gonna get work it’ll be around here somewhere.’ He double-clutched and we shot past the tractor.

  A road sign said Batlow 2, and I watched it pass before saying to Bob’s friend, ‘Where do you think?’

  ‘Well I’m going to Wagga, but there’s not much there for you two blokes. You’d be better off around here.’

  ‘Drop us off in the next village,’ Rick said without looking from the window.

  ‘Next place is Batlow, I think. That should do you, there are always plenty of orchard workers there. Just go to the RSL club, someone’s bound to need help.’

  Rick turned around and we both said, ‘What’s the RSL club?’

  ‘Returned Servicemen’s League. Sounds a bit militaristic, but it’s not, it’s really just a pub. There are hundreds of them all over the country.’

  Rick looked at me and I shrugged. I just wasn’t sure any more. To say I had doubts is an understatement; neither of us had any clothes to speak of, and I knew that the minute we got dropped off it would mean we would have to find a job or starve.

  After five minutes of silent driving we turned off the main road and entered what looked like the main street of a village. There was a bank at one end, a few decrepit looking shops and houses along both sides and a large pub, before the road curved back out of town.

  Bob’s friend pulled up outside the RSL club. ‘This is it, boys,’ he said, and smiled awkwardly at us.

  We thanked him and got out of the car. Instinctively I searched for my bag, and I noticed Rick doing the same, before realising we didn’t have any. We looked at each other over the roof of the car and both made a frightened face, to cover the fact that we really were frightened, and I slapped the roof with the palm of my hand.

  ‘Good luck,’ Bob’s friend shouted, and drove off, leaving us two staring after him.

  Two minutes later we were standing at the other end of town, wondering if we had been dropped off in the wrong place by mistake.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said, looking in the window of a small supermarket at the clock on the wall, ‘only three o’clock. Three more hours until that RSL place opens, Rick.’

  ‘Mm,’ he sat down on a wall, ‘and there’s no guarantee that we’ll meet anyone who can give us work when it does. This place looks pretty dead to me.’

  Apart from Bob’s friend, and the woman at the checkout in the supermarket, we hadn’t seen another person. One car had driven by, but otherwise the place was deserted.

  I looked up and down the road, hoisting up Bob’s trousers that were two sizes too big. ‘Least it’s not raining,’ I remarked, and leaned against the plate glass shop window.

  Rick thought for a moment, looking up at the sky as though checking the likelihood of rain. ‘I don’t like just waiting around for something to happen, do you? I feel better if I’m on the move.’

  I nodded. ‘Proactive, yeah. We could walk out of here and just go on to one of the orchards and ask for a job. It’s got to be better than sitting here.’

  He stood up. ‘How much money have you got?’

  I pulled out my passport, inside of which were ten Aussie dollars, and held it up.

  ‘Ten. I’ve got five, that’s fifteen. Let me have it.’ He took the money and disappeared into the supermarket, emerging a moment later with a two ounce packet of tobacco, cigarette papers and a box of matches. ‘That’s the last of the money gone. Let’s get going.’

  I was stunned. ‘Shouldn’t we have spent it on food?’

  ‘Food?’ He laughed. ‘You’re in the middle of about a million square miles of orchard!’

  Within five minutes of leaving the village we were walking alongside vast open fields of fruit trees, each one sloping off gently either side of the road. Snatched glimpses of bright warm sunshine came and went as the clouds blew across the huge sky, making fast dark shadows on the rolling green hills. The weather was considerably colder than it had been in Darwin and I felt, for the first time since leaving England, what fresh air unladen with moisture tasted like.

  For the first half an hour of walking the air actually hurt my lungs, and I wondered whether constantly breathing tropical air had turned them into saturated sponges. Rick said his hurt too, which made me feel better, so we decided that a roll-up was just what the doctor ordered, and smoked constantly, only occasionally stopping to eat a stolen apple.

  A few cars passed us by as we walked, but none of them offered to give us a lift. One of them did stop, and when we enquired about the surrounding orchards, the occupants just shook their heads and said they only ate the fruit, they had no idea who or what picked it.

  We kept on walking, and, for the first few hours at least, felt reasonably happy. As the sun got lower and lower in the sky, however, and the wind chilled, I began to wonder what we had done to deserve the punishment. My feet and legs started to ache, and what started out as a quick walk into the surrounding orchards was soon turning into a route march in which Rick and I both began to complain about Bob’s friend. Although we had been walking beside orchards, there didn’t appear to be any beginning or end to them, they just ran for mile after mile without any sign of an entranc
e gate or farm house.

  I sat down on the roadside grass verge with a sigh, leaning against a fence post. ‘D’you think we should turn back? I’m shattered.’

  ‘Too late.’ Rick looked back along the road that wound its way, seemingly, to infinity. ‘Anyway, what’d be the point? We haven’t got any money for a hotel room, and we can’t even buy a beer in the pub.’ He vaulted the wire fence and went into the orchard, disappearing from view.

  I pulled off one of Bob’s son’s trainers to inspect my feet and got a nasty shock. What I’d taken to be sweat causing my foot to slide around in the shoe was in fact the pus from a huge blister on my heel that had burst. Seeing it made my feet feel worse and I regretted taking the sock off. The cool air felt nice on them though, so I took the other one off and wiggled my toes.

  The fence post wobbled and Rick landed an inch from my foot, making me draw it back quickly. ‘Get that down you,’ he said, holding out a peach that was bigger than a cricket ball. When I held it, encircling it with both hands, the tops of my fingers and thumbs just managed to touch. It must have weighed about two pounds.

  ‘That’s deformed,’ I said, bouncing it my palm. Inserting both thumbs into the dimple of the fruit, I split it in half. A huge grub fell onto my lap. ‘Uggh! I don’t know what fertiliser they use around here, but that’s going to turn into a mother of a moth.’ It crawled off into the grass and I stood up on one foot, splattering the peach on the road, thoroughly disgusted by the sight.

  ‘There’re people starving in India, John,’ Rick said laughing, and bit into his own peach.

  ‘Well they can eat it then. Fuck, that’s disgusting. Trust you to find that funny.’ I pulled on my sock and shoe, suddenly feeling drops of water on the back of my neck, and looked up. ‘Oh no, please God, not now!’

  ‘What were you saying about the weather?’

  We quickened the pace to a cover of large trees at the top of the hill and took our bearings. Cows and sheep were dotted about for miles around, and in the bottom of the valley, about two miles away, was what looked like a small out-building of some kind. About half a mile further on we could see a house with smoke drifting up from a chimney, and, beyond that, another orchard with ant-sized people milling about. I could just see a track leading up to the house, but it seemed to go off in the opposite direction to us.

  ‘What d’you reckon?’ Rick asked, looking into the valley, apparently reading my thoughts.

  ‘Definitely. It’s either that or get wet.’ I looked up at the sky. ‘It’s going to be dark in half an hour and I don’t want to be stumbling around out here at night.’

  ‘Poof.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Let’s get moving then, city boy. I’ll show you how it’s done.’ He put his hands on a fence post. ‘Just follow me.’

  ‘We could be shot for trespassing you know?’ I said, causing him to pause mid-vault.

  Bob’s flared trousers snagged on a wire twist and Rick was sent face first onto the ground on the other side, one hand sinking up to his wrist in cow shit. ‘Fooking hell.’

  ‘Maybe we ought to find the road into the place,’ I said, looking down at him and suppressing a giggle, ‘that way looks pretty dangerous to me.’

  He pulled himself up, wiping the shit onto the fence. ‘Come on. We could walk for hours looking for the entrance.’

  We traipsed down the hill into the valley, towards the outbuilding, Rick trying to smoke himself into an early grave, while I tried hard to block out the cows in the field, all of which seemed to be staring menacingly at me.

  ‘Rick, are you sure there are no bulls in this field?’

  ‘It’s all bull, John,’ he said angrily, hunching up against the cold. ‘Fooking hell, why didn’t we stay in the tropics?’

  The distance was deceptive. Either that or we underestimated how quickly the sun sets in the southern hemisphere. Before we’d even got halfway it was dark, and I couldn’t tell the difference between cowpats and dips in the ground through the blackness. ‘Rick, this is ridiculous,’ I huffed, picking myself up for the umpteenth time. ‘Where’s that building we saw earlier?’

  He stopped just ahead of me. ‘Up that way, I think. Come on, just keep moving.’

  The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle by the time we spotted the building again, and this time we just walked towards it, saying nothing to each other until we were standing outside. Without any moonlight it looked like a bungalow, but when I went up to it and rapped on the wall I realised it was only made of corrugated iron, and that it must indeed be some kind of out-building. ‘A shed of some kind,’ I said in a hushed voice.

  ‘Why are you whispering?’ Rick whispered back.

  We circled it once and found that the building had a few windows but that they were either boarded over or smashed, and that the front porch was rank with accumulated cow shit, piled a foot deep on the floor.

  ‘A cow shed?’ Rick suggested, putting one hand on the doorknob.

  ‘Or sheep,’ I replied, pulling a tuft of wool from a jagged edge of the corrugated iron. I looked up the hillside to where I could just see lights flickering through the evening mist. ‘Do you think we should go up to the house first and ask them if it’s OK?’

  ‘What, "Hello, I’ve got no money and nowhere to stay, please help me"?’ He turned the doorknob and slowly pushed the door open. It creaked and groaned then fell off its hinges, crashing onto the wooden floorboards. Something flew out of the dark room, making us both leap sideways with a start. ‘Shit, what was that?’

  ‘A bat,’ I said panting with fright, my heart thumping. ‘Well, if there is anyone in here they’ve definitely heard us now.’

  The building was sub-divided into four large rooms, all of which had corrugated iron walls, a sloping corrugated iron roof and boarded wooden floors. There were piles of fleeces everywhere, and we guessed that it must have been intended as living quarters for the shearers because the room we had first entered contained a brick fireplace.

  After an initial recce under the light of a burning rolled-up newspaper that served as a cobweb burner as much as anything else, we pulled up a few floorboards from one of the rooms and built a fire. The room also contained a wooden table and some chairs, all of which ended up as fuel. We overdid it a bit, and soon we were both sitting as far away from the hearth as possible without actually leaving the room to escape the heat. Our clothes were laid out on the floor, steaming as they dried, while the pair of us sat there in our underpants and watched the flames as they licked up one of the chair legs.

  ‘I hope no one lives here,’ I said, hypnotised by the dancing flames.

  Rick shrugged. ‘Well if they do they won’t have a table to eat off any more.’

  THREE

  The dreams came and went that night like butterflies flying in and out of an open window on a spring morning. I use the butterfly analogy simply because one of the dreams was about butterflies flying in and out of windows. Butterflies, a dream about cows with human heads, and one about maggots, no doubt inspired by the huge peach. John and the giant peach, Rick called it.

  Rick also said that he’d dreamt a lot on that flrst night, though his were much, much weirder and harder to fathom than mine. In one of his nightmares he gave birth to a sheep, and the sheep, in turn, gave birth to him. I analysed it for him, saying that it meant that we had created a new episode in our travels, and that it indicated a new start for him, hence the second birth. He nodded wisely and said what a load of bollocks I talked, before throwing more chairs onto the fire and slithering back under a fleece.

  We woke constantly through the night, only snatching the odd hour or two of sleep. We’d feed the flames until they were licking around the mantelpiece and slip back into a dream, only to find an hour later that the tinder-dry wood had burnt itself out and the room was freezing once again. Rick found two more battered old bug-infested fleeces that fell apart when he picked them up, but we gathered them together, along with all the other bundles of sh
eep’s wool we could find, and made a kind of loose quilt. It stank to high heaven and made me scratch non-stop, but it was beautifully warm, and in the early hours I awoke again, this time in a pool of sweat.

  Rick got the shock of his life when he woke to find a six-foot tall sheep walking around the room on its hind legs, lit only by the flickering orange glow of the fire. It couldn’t have helped his state of mind much to have been halfway through the sheep dream at the time. I had got up to go to the toilet outside, and most of the sheep’s wool was still stuck to the sweat on my body. Rick hadn’t seen me go out but he later told me that the sound of the broken door being moved to one side had woken him from the dream. Still half-dazed he’d looked up to see this huge white, two-legged sheep staring back at him. He was about to jump up and run when the sheep turned around and had the decency to put the door quietly back into its hole, revealing very un-sheep-like boxer shorts. Putting another table leg onto the fire, I slipped back under the fleece, staring back at Rick’s astonished eyes, his face a mask of perspiration. ‘Thank God,’ he gasped, turned over and went back to sleep.

  There were a lot of creepy shadows in the shed too. Not just shadows created and brought to life by the flames, but other smaller, darker shadows that crept around in corners, or scurried across the floorboards. Bob had told us horror stories of the spiders that had their home in Australia, and New South Wales in particular. And, as if that wasn’t particular enough, I remembered him saying that we’d never come into contact with any because it was unlikely that we’d ever live in an old out-building, which is where the most deadly species tended to nest. Great, I thought, of all the places to live we choose Black Widow Central. The wool made my skin crawl anyway, but the thought of spiders creeping onto my head while I was asleep filled me with horror. I harboured a nightmare scenario whereby one of them crawled up my neck and laid eggs in one of my ears. Two weeks later I’d be complaining of earache when suddenly, while shaving in a mirror, the side of my head would explode into an avalanche of tiny spiders.