Ironbark

by Jay Carmichael

  I thought you’d be with Grayson.

  And you with Cecily.

  She undoes her fingers from the wire and turns to me, then links arms.

  I look round, seeing if anyone has noticed us. We pass out of the first shed and cross the short distance into the next. The first exhibits are sheep wool, already graded and awarded, before we come to the art at the far end. We slow, because we’ve traversed the entire tin shed and haven’t found Georges’s portraits, the ones I’d expected to see hanging.

  What are you looking for? Elmyra says beside me.

  Nothing, I say. I’m looking for nothing. I’m thinking nothing. I’m laughing at nothing. I’m dreaming nothing. Speaking nothing. Am nothing. I turn my head back to look at her then say, Nothing. Just looking.

  That’s not true, she says, I can see it in your eyes.

  Ay?

  What are you looking for?

  I wanted to see Georges’s pictures.

  Pictures?

  Yair, I say, the portraits he did of all of us. He was going to enter them.

  She laughs. Says, He just entered one painting, under the school’s name. It’s back down here. She unlinks herself, turns, and leads back to a spot we’ve already passed. She clasps her hands in front of her and nods to a broad canvas hanging above a fluffy pile of wool.

  It’s a wide crimson road and a night sky painted dark blue, the colour I’ve heard Georges call phthalo or something. The stars are pure-white dabs. To one side runs a barbed-wire fence, glistening with transparent raindrops. Ironbarks, their leaves fuzzy patches, stand illuminated, dully, by an orange-yellow moon breaking the horizon clouds. The painting’s won Champion Exhibit and Best Exhibit, the same as Elmyra’s dress.

  Standing before Georges’s art, I feel like I know him. Where do you think he is? I say.

  Probably at home—

  Why?

  She laughs. He’s probably as embarrassed his thoughts have been emblazoned on a wall as mine have on a mannequin.

  Then why aren’t you hiding at home like he is?

  It’s only a month or two after this that the school holidays begin. Summer, its searing whiteness and brittle calamity, dehydrates the Depression. The cicadas sing. I get a text from you at a quarter past noon.

  We goin’ campen?

  Of course.

  Sleeping beside someone: I’ve never done it.

  Elmyra’s old man an’ I used t’ top an’ tail when we were your age, Rene says as he lays out two pillows. One at the bottom for me, and the other, at the top of the bed, meant for you.

  I look at your pillow and wonder why we can’t sleep side by side, like Rene does with Elba. I say, Won’t my feet get in his face?

  Rene stands up after flattening the sheets. Just hope he doesn’t have funguses growing.

  It’s not the fungus I’m worrying about.

  Rene tells me to fill in time.

  He’ll be here soon, I say.

  Not till after four, bud, says Rene.

  So there I go, again: I do jobs on Rene’s farm. Whenever I do this, I try to complete them as best I can. But I’m always distracted. By things such as how the land formed a kazillion years ago — long before some cocksure defined what’s natural and what’s not, and definitely long before the buildings in town were erected or the man-made bushlands around the Lake were established. I like to imagine how the earth ripped itself apart, swallowed the pastoral plains of the Depression and plunged it into an antiquity of generational quicksand. In my mind, I make the woman engineer who planned and built not only Narioka but also the only road, zigzagging up the cliffs and over to the higher Plain, a hero holding up a trophy. And I wonder if an asteroid collided with Earth the second I was born, and if that, somehow, would make me a creation of this geography.

  When I get back to the house, you’re standing at the front door with dishelmed hair, maybe just-woken, and smiling as if you’ve injected liquid happiness: a potion of clear sunlight, the motion of butterflies and not the butterflies themselves, and every note of laughter to have ever escaped. Even the bad tones of laughter, like when Elmyra told us how her cat had climbed under the bonnet of her mother’s car and fallen asleep on the engine, and been fried there when she’d started it. They hadn’t known about it until it’d begun to smoke from under the bonnet. An old lady in the street, El had told me with a smile, had said they’d best be checking the water. Then, without a smile, she said how her mother’d plied the steaming body from the engine and dumped it in the footpath bin, saying they didn’t need the fucken stupid thing anyway. One less mouth to feed.

  At dinner, you pull the peas away from the mash with the fine prongs of your fork. While you do it, you tell me about the time you broke into the public swimming pool and say, We should do it, too.

  One day, I reply.

  And you say, One day will get away from you.

  By and by, we sneak a swig of port or marsala or some equal repugnance; by and by, we shower and you tell me to get out from under the water and you turn it up real hot, cut the cold, so we’re in a sauna or steam room, and it’s cool because the white mist is rising up and your immoderate laugh is that very steam; by and by, the movie you brought over (Bad Boy Bubby) finishes and Rene, tired-eyes, says bed; and, by and by, we’re side by side, none of that top-and-tail crap.

  In the morning, you turn to me and say, We’re wild today, no need for clothes and towels and shit.

  We pushbike toward the Lake without our helmets on. Going fast, we both have speed-wobbles as we pass the path to school and head around the bend where the bush around the Lake begins. The crushed stone crunches as the rubber touches it, and we scream and yell, Fuck you, fucken cunts, and the wind from our speed shakes the sound through the green leaves above, a noise that makes me smile. I close my eyes. My front wheel enters a cleft in the road. Jars. Shimmies. Flips. I zoom over the handlebars into a weedy table drain. I roll through brittle grass. You skid to a stop. I make a guttural sound as I come to a halt.

  I can’t tell if you’re bending over because of the angle the drain’s at or because of your laughter. You’re laughing hard: no noise comes out, and your face is red, and you drop to the ground beside me, and your hands wrap around your stomach.

  Get the fuck up, I say.

  We pull up near some small eucalypts on the edge of the Lake. Their roots break past the bank and twist into the water.

  Carn, let’s get this fucker out. You throw the bundled tent on the ground. It tumbles toward the water and you run after it to stop it.

  I place the fishing rods against a tree.

  The sunlight drops. Bull ants (Myrmecia gulosa) crawl at our feet. Cockatoos roost. I cast the fishing line.

  You spit on the ground and say, How’s the new kid?

  I open my mouth. Phlegm catches. I cough and then say, Buff?

  Buff, he calls himself. Came from the city. Bloody wanker.

  You don’t know him.

  Anyone wearing sunnies on their first day is a wanker, and who introduces themself with a nickname?

  I reel in and cast again.

  What’s Georges think? you say.

  He doesn’t say much about anything.

  He’s a top bloke. You should give him a shot, and I don’t mean pickin’ him on the school footy team. You pat your pockets. Did you bring ciggies?

  I shake my head and say, Georges told me he doesn’t like footy.

  Yair, when? Footy’s like one of the biggest things for you, Markus.

  Yair whatever, Gray, he said it. And footy’s not a big thing for me, it’s just Rene trying to be young again through me.

  You climb inside the tent. When you come back out, you’ve already lit up. I think you should give Georges a chance, Markus. The kid’s good, an’ bloody brilliant at drawing.

  I scratch my nose. Wha
t makes him a good bloke?

  You sit down and hint that he’s more like me.

  What’s that mean?

  He’s just, I dunno, like you, and I reckon you’d hit it off. Ask him. You’ll know.

  I don’t answer. I reel in and cast again. The sinker plods before the current drags the line away. I flick the bail over and rest the rod between my legs.

  We make a fire and stretch across the dirt. I’ve given up on fish.

  The sky twinkles with stars.

  You, through a mouthful of biscuit, ask me, What are y’gunna do when school finishes, like when it’s over?

  Dunno. You?

  Mm, I wanna go to the conservatorium in the city. Gunna shove it up the arse-munchers. You laugh. Mum can’t afford that, but. I’ll stay around here, might get a giggin’ job at one of the pubs.

  With a band?

  You don’t answer.

  The fire’s embers crack.

  Markus.

  Yair?

  It’d be nice to get outta here.

  I sniff.

  Just a thought, you say.

  It’s absurd how much I need you, even though I know that needing you is bad for me. You ask me, What’s ticking in that head of yours?

  The stars.

  You push your chin back and gaze to the heavens. You say, There’s gotta be more than a trillion.

  Kazillion, I say.

  Ha! That’s a bit much.

  What do you mean?

  There’s heaps, but a kazillion’s a bit much.

  Overwhelming?

  You agree.

  Why would too many be overwhelming? I say.

  I don’t even know where the fuck to look, you say.

  I point to one among others. That one.

  I’m not sure you’re looking at the right one. And you say you don’t know.

  The one that stands out.

  You say, The moon?

  I shake my head.

  Why not? It’s the biggest and brightest.

  Don’t you remember, Teacher said it reflects the light of the sun; it’s fake. What would you choose?

  You point over the top of my face. That one, the one that gets away before the night’s done, an’ rises again with the sun.

  Crickets and cicadas buzz.

  You say, it’s too hot to sleep in clothes.

  We strip to our undies and then to nakedness. Hang our clothes on a low tree branch. Under the moonlight, our skins are silver.

  You run down to and dive under the water. Bubbles. You come up for air. Coming in, Markus? Or gunna stand there starkers? You spray the drips off your lips. You’ll be fine once you get in.

  My body splashes, waves eat at the undercut ridge on the bank. When I come up for air, the night’s much colder. I don’t want to leave. I can’t see you. Oi, cunt! I call. My feet swivel in the sludge at the bottom.

  Your voice replies from the bank.

  The fuck? The waterline bobs around my diaphragm.

  You wipe your pearl skin and pull your undies on. It was just to cool down, Markus.

  I could yell and lie back and float and gaze past the dark leaves of the trees, gaze up into the deep, dark, exposed universe. Laugh and get that flock of bloody cockatoos awake and squawking. Your voice, and the way you turn and duck inside the tent, draws me out.

  You’re lying on top of your sleeping bag. Your hands behind your head. You’re looking at the tent’s canopy.

  I lay on my own sleeping bag. The cotton from my undies sticks to my groin. I avoid unpicking it.

  Two-man tents are really for a single person, you say.

  I listen to the noises outside.

  You roll onto your shoulder.

  We’re facing each other.

  Buff’ll be here tomorrow night, you say. And for now your eyes sink and I look back to those brown smiling eyes. You breathe as older boys do when they turn into men. You smell of oranges and cut grass, a scent that lingers from when we’d eaten stolen oranges before we rode out here.

  You’re right about two-man tents, I say.

  The school holidays aren’t always so full of people. Some days, Myf Warhurst is the only person to lunch with me. In the background, on the radio, her voice heavy and used to the frequency. Elmyra told me that female radio presenters are told to lower the tone of their voices so they’re not whiney-high and sound more masculine. Myf leaves me out of the conversation. There’s a song she plays that invites me to sing along.

  I lie on the couch after lunchtime and read a book about Rimbaud’s lost voyage to Java. I mouth the words I know from the radio. I don’t take in a word of the book. Later, there’s a thunderstorm. Rain falls heavy and the thunder settles down someplace in the room with me, grumbling around the space I’m not occupying. Rimbaud remains elusive.

  I get a message from you asking if I sent you anything.

  I read it a few times. Perhaps this message was meant for someone else. I send back: Yep I sent a message earlier but mightn’t have had enough service.

  You don’t reply.

  In my bedroom, I undress to nakedness. Built-up tension and the horniness of a fifteen-year-old combine with a genuine sense of exploration, as if discovering virgin lands. I masturbate as the summer storm outside asserts its presence over the Depression.

  When I’m laying spent on my bed, you text me a silly excuse for not replying earlier; another excuse I try to ignore. You tell me you were mowing the lawns, and I doubt this because it’s storming outside. You say: We’ll make plans at the back of the rail yard.

  We go.

  We smoke and cough and shiver, shielding our bodies from the rain. Huddling against the grain shed, I look across to the silo. Its smooth walls melt with the rainwater. From the side of the grain store, you dart out of shelter. Your foot lands on the rusted rail tracks cutting through the middle of the yard. You suspend the moment before your knee springs out, and your body leaps over and toward the silo. You’re like a ballet dancer, in control of every muscle. You put your hands against the tower to stop your momentum.

  You’re ducking from the rain as if ducking from a hurtling stone. You yell, Carn.

  I butt out the cigarette, half-smoked, and rush through the increasing rain. I trip on the rail tracks. I get beside you beneath the silo’s tiny, inset door.

  Wanna go up, you say, mi compañero? Close and muggy, your breath lands against my neck.

  I could kiss you. You’re not even looking at me.

  You’re running your fingers over the hinges of the door.

  I blink in the rain, which slants under the cover and lands about my face.

  You can’t sit at home forever, Markus, making plans for things you say you’re gunna do an’ never do. You stand up and push me aside. You get at the door handle. Jig it and, after having to put your foot against the wall, you pull ajar the door.

  Dust comes out and is pattered away by rain.

  Follow me.

  The door was welded shut for a reason, I say.

  Shitty welder if ever — faaark, Markus.

  It’s about to fall over, I say, gazing up the side of the silo. The clouds swirling make its walls seem not to be melting but to be descending over us.

  Trust me, you say.

  I say, where’ve I heard that before?

  Hasn’t failed you yet? You wink and punch my shoulder.

  Inside is cold. Rubbing my skin makes no difference. The windows, of which there’re six, run vertically up the central column of the silo. Beyond those walls, the siren of an ambulance yawns. In here smells like rat (Rattus) and pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes). The latter coo down at us, perhaps commenting on our appearance, as if we’ve disrupted an important meeting.

  I think the ladder’ll break from rust, I say.

  Bu
t you climb, regardless of the rust, up that steel ladder inside, pulling yourself to the top of the silo. I stay down on the ground, minding my feet in the piles of pigeon shit, looking up. I call out, I’ll catch you if you fall.

  Afterward, we take our pushies down the Lake, take our pushies and nothing more. The day’s dying. There’s a faraway pinhead light in the sky, gleaming over the rim of the cliffs. Grey cloud orbits it. Unchaseable.

  Venus, you say putting your back brakes on. The rubber wheel snakes along the dirt.

  Bull.

  See? It’s not twinkling, means the light off it is reflected, means it’s not a star — you told me that.

  We dismount: for now, rooted to the valley’s floor. Our bikes topple. The section of the Lake we choose might be said to be near town. We say it’s enough away to make as much noise as we can, and still the Depression will eat up our existence. I could die here, because only the hardest people leave the security of the Depression. Near the edge where we pull up is a eucalypt. It’s bare and could be dead. It stands as if waiting in the evening for a lover to call.

  I climb. Grainy bark presses at the palms of my hands and knocks against my kneecaps. Bare toes scratch at the trunk and find a way to stable footing. The babbling water makes me think of you. I call out, Coming up? My voice doesn’t echo; it speeds out over the landscape and becomes lost somewhere near the edge of town. As it does, I continue stretching my eyes upward. With my young chest pushing out, I draw my body further into the tangle of twigs. I’m cheerful. I call again, Come on up.

  Your voice denies anything outside of you. I hear it loudly say, Little boys climb trees. It deflects off the environment and becomes intimate, like a thought.

  This is when the Lake fills. Unexpectedly, the water authorities release excess water into the system. It falls over the lip of the cliffs and into the Lake. No one, even those in the Mayday Hills old people’s home, has seen this before. At lunchtimes, the nurses bring the elderly out to the shoreline. Their wheelchairs and walking frames catch in the sand and make them laugh. The water continues falling, muddies, and begins rising as a slush creeps onto the shores of the Lake. Sun excites the surface.

  Rene takes me fishing.

  Fish? I ask. Grayson and I caught nothing the other day in the creek.