‘Shaun,’ I said, clenching the steering wheel hard to stop my own shaking. ‘Hey, brother. It’s alright.’
Then I glanced at him.
He was staring ahead, frozen. His jaw clenched. His face red.
Then his eyes widened, and he pointed ahead.
‘Tryst! Look out!’
The second I spotted the gum tree that we were headed straight towards, time slowed, space warped, and my senses sharpened. I shifted down a gear, put my foot on the brake and jerked the wheel to the right. As the Tank lurched across the road I could feel the rubbery bumps and grooves of the steering wheel. As my side of the car went off the road I could hear the bristly heads of the setaria grass whipping my door, and on Shaun’s side, the water splashing from the potholes, and the rocks flicking up under the wheels. I could smell my damp shirt, Shaun’s soggy socks, and engine oil. Then, through Shaun’s window, I could see the gum tree pass us by on the other side of the road, its sopping wet bark peeling off in long dangly strips, insect lines etched into its metre-wide trunk and I shivered as I imagined what would’ve happened if we’d hit it.
I looked out the front windscreen. We were off the road now, ploughing through the five-foot-tall grass.
Time and space went back to normal.
We were safe.
Then something brown and white and huge—as wide as the car—popped up into the grass in front of us.
‘Cow!’
‘Fuck!’ I jerked the wheel left and the Tank lurched back across the road and ploughed into a thicket of lantana.
Twisted spiky branches pressed against the window. I breathed deep and hard. The tangy scent of the lantana leaves stung my nostrils.
I killed the engine.
‘Phew.’ I wiped the sweat off my forehead. ‘That was close!’
Shaun grabbed my arm and squeezed, real hard. ‘Move!’ he screamed, shoulder-barging his door open. ‘We’ve got to move!’
‘What? Huh?’
‘Now, Trysten. MOVE NOW!’
Shaun stood in the drizzle staring down Findle Creek Road.
A rumbling sound came from the end of the valley.
‘Shaun!’
‘Shhh!’ He held his index finger to his lips, his gaze locked on the road.
‘Shaun! Oi, what are you doing? It’s just Jim’s cattle truck.’ He spun round to stare at me but his eyes weren’t focused. It was like he was looking through me. Like he wasn’t even registering I was there. ‘Move! They’re fucken coming! Move, move, move!’
Pebbly brown water flicked up and landed on my shirt as Shaun dug his boots in and fled towards the twin gums.
I didn’t think there was anything coming for us, but I was scared of what he’d do if I didn’t follow his orders. My legs were still too wobbly, though, so I just stood watching him run and wondering what the hell he thought he was running from. Then, when the skies opened up once more, bucketing down on Shaun so hard I lost sight of him, I put my head down and ran too. I followed. As ordered.
Then, when I saw Jim Davis’s old cattle truck coming round the bend—old baccy-stained-teeth, bent-nosed, friendliest-farmer-on-earth Jim Davis—I was certain that I wasn’t running from danger. I was running towards it.
16
I hunkered down between the metre-high buttress roots of the fig tree, heart pounding, head spinning. I pranged the car and Shaun’s flipped. My gut told me to go straight inside and tell Mum. But I was scared as. She’d flip too. WHAT? You pranged the car and Shaun’s flipped out? No way, I couldn’t face her. I had to go and see Shaun. But I was even more scared of that.
When I’d reached the top of the driveway, lagging behind him by twenty metres, after all that fucken fuss he’d made yelling at me to move and follow him, he’d suddenly turned and shaken his head as if to say, Don’t follow. Then he’d charged into the shed and slid the door closed with such force it thundered and shrieked along the tracks like a derailing train. He’d drawn the curtains. Turned his music on. Cranked it right up.
I didn’t know what to do. ‘Shit!’ I thumped the buttress root with the side of my fist. Thunk!
‘Fuck!’ Thunk!
‘Shit!’ Thunk!
I cast my eyes down to the bottom paddock. Through the sleety rain I could see the grimy dairy window. It was glazed with light, which coloured it like burnt toffee.
Trev’s gas lantern was on. He must be up and about. Maybe he’d spotted Shaun tearing up the driveway. I could go to him, maybe. Ask him for help with Shaun.
Nah. I’d rather have a run-in with both Shaun and Mum than visit Trev all by myself.
Shaun, I decided. I’d see him first. I had to. I had to check on him. See if he’d settled. I had to say sorry, too. Sorry for almost running us into that tree. Sorry for pranging the car into the lantana. Sorry for taking my eyes off the road.
I hauled myself out from between the roots and trudged through the pouring rain up to the shed. I sheltered under the awning and knocked on the door.
Nothing.
I eased the door open a crack.
‘Shaun? Hey, Shaun…you right?’
‘Yeah yeah yeah. Fine, Tryst. Fine fine fine.’
Bullshit! I reached for the curtain and began to draw it.
Shaun’s hand shot out, grabbed my wrist and wrung it. ‘No! Leave it shut!’
I let go of the curtain. Shaun released my wrist. I moved down a couple of steps, further into the rain.
‘Fuck!’ I rubbed the burning skin on my wrist. My chin trembled. I felt tears coming, but I wasn’t going to let them flow. ‘Well, stuff you then!’ I yelled. ‘I’m going to see Mum if you ain’t gonna talk to me.’
Shaun drew the curtain, popped his head out. ‘Wait! Hey, hang on. Sorry I spooked ya. No need to talk to Mum, hey.’ He kept his head down. ‘What you gonna tell her anyway? That you ran off the road and pranged into the lantana? That you weren’t paying attention? She’ll be cross. Real cross. Why do you want to tell her what happened?’
‘I’ll have to tell her something—look at my arm. From the lantana.’
Shaun studied the cut that ran from below my elbow right up to my shoulder, the cut I hadn’t even noticed till I was halfway up the driveway. Then he looked at my face.
His eyes were red and raw. And pleading. ‘I dunno. Jesus, Tryst, just make something up! C’mon, you can do that, can’t ya?’
‘Yeah. Okay. Guess so. Guess I can.’
‘Thanks, Little Man. Thanks.’
I walked to the house, blood trickling down my arm. Before I climbed up to the verandah I rinsed my wound under the water that gushed from the busted downpipe while I thought about what bullshit story I was going to spin to Mum.
Inside was like a whole different world.
‘Whoa,’ I said, taking it all in. ‘Jesus Christ!’
A song from Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas CD blasted from the old stereo. Star-shaped lights hung along the lounge-room walls, tacked up in ocean-wave patterns. Mum stood on a stool in the corner of the room hanging a long cut of green tinsel. The other end of the tinsel—along with seven other lengths (red green red green red green red)—emerged from the gap in the ceiling that’d been left when the fan’d fallen. It created a strange effect, like a giant squid was stuck in our roof and spreading its tentacles through the hole searching for prey.
Mum turned and climbed off the stool. ‘Watch yer mouth. Shouldn’t be talking like that, especially at this time of—’
Her eyes fixed on my arm. She dropped her container of thumbtacks and rushed towards me. ‘God, Trysten! What happened? What happened to your arm?’
‘Oh yeah, that. Just a few scratches, hey. My drive with Shaun was going fine—he’s a great teacher!—was going really bloody fine till we spotted one of the Davises’ calves stuck in a lantana thicket. Looked real spooked, hey. Poor thing. Shaun and I decided to pull up. Help her out, y’know.’
‘Oh, that was good of youse.’
‘Yeah, only thing is I got my arm cu
t up getting in there to move her out. Then, when we tried to start the Tank she wouldn’t oblige. Shaun stuck his head under the hood, but couldn’t work out what was up with her.’
‘Oh, okay. Well, where’s he now? Didn’t get his arm cut too, did he?’
‘Nah, he’s fine. He’s in the shed.’
‘Good!’ Mum led me to the bathroom. ‘Once we’ve got your arm cleaned up you can help me put up the tree. Last thing I’ve gotta do!’
‘The tree?’ I asked as she inspected my wounds and wiped a warm washer gently over my arm. We’d stopped putting the tree up years ago. ‘Really?’
‘Yep. Going all out this year!’
While I was ferrying the first of the four boxes of decorations and lights from under the house to the lounge room, I remembered one of the last times we’d had the tree up, way back when I was six, the Christmas I found out Santa wasn’t real.
Shaun and I had shuffled into the lounge room right on sun-up, rubbing our sleep-crusted eyes. The room was full of presents, but only one of them was wrapped. Dad snored in the recliner clutching some sticky tape, a pair of scissors and a roll of wrapping paper. On the coffee table was the bottle of Baileys Mum had said to leave for Santa. It was almost empty. Eyeing the loot, Shaun yelled, ‘BMX!’ and then I shouted, ‘Ninja Turtles!’ Old Greggy Boy’s eyes sprang open and the scissors and tape and paper went flying across the room. Straight away he started waffling on, bumbling his way through a story about Santa getting held up in New Zealand and having to drop the presents and run and leave the parents to do all the wrapping. I must’ve had Shaun in my ear about Santa not being real before all that, must’ve been a bit suss on it, because I don’t remember being too shocked or sad when I twigged.
I placed the first box of decorations in the lounge room, remembering how Shaun had laughed his arse off, pointing at Dad and saying, ‘Game’s up, old man! ’Bout time Tryst found out anyway!’ Then, when I went under the house to grab the second box of decorations, I started thinking about the other Christmas doozies we’d had.
The next year, or maybe two later, was another shocker. Mum had decided to roast a turkey instead of the usual chook. Figuring it was twice the size of a chook she calculated it’d take twice as long to cook. Shaun and I were only a couple of bites into our drumsticks when Mum snatched them from us and tossed them into the tray with the rest of the charred bird and lobbed it, tray and all, out the window. Dad swore he hadn’t said anything, but Mum said he hadn’t needed to—it was all about the look on his face.
The year after that was even worse. Trev’d been staying in the house for a week or so when one of his mates, Bumper—this short stumpy fella with a thick neck, massive arms, a bald head and a silver-toothed smile—rocked up in his beaten-up four-wheel drive a couple of days before Christmas and asked if he could camp for a bit in the front paddock. Mum agreed, provided him and Trev kept out of the way. Dad didn’t even get a chance to protest, and from the way he stomped round the house over those few days and glared down at Bumper’s camp from the front verandah, he wasn’t happy. Not one little bit.
Christmas lunch that year was just the four of us. Trev had scabbed some food off Mum and taken it down to share with Bumper. Dad was cagey all lunch. Then, as we were clearing the table to make way for Mum’s trifle, shouts had rung from the bottom paddock. Clang went the piles of plates on the table. We raced out to the verandah to see a cop car parked across our cattle grid. Two coppers were tearing across the bottom paddock after Bumper. ‘Stop stop!’ the cops yelled. ‘Stop right now!’ Bumper wasn’t fucken stopping, though—he was moving as fast as his stocky little legs would go. Then one of the cops, this tall skinny fella, held his gun in the air and fired straight up into the sky. Well, that sent Bumper to the ground real quick. Arms behind his back ready for cuffing. It was almost like he’d practised that move once or twice before. As the cops dragged Bumper away he screamed at Trev, who was standing in the middle of the driveway, ‘You cunt, Trevor. You conniving fucken cunt.’ Jeez, it was wild.
As I handed Mum the decorations I wondered whose turn it was to wreck Christmas this year. Shaun? Or me? Or both of us?
Mum got her fuss on something fierce while she decorated the tree. Slowly, delicately, she draped the lights over the branches then took a step back. Assessing her work and deciding it wasn’t good enough, she pulled all of them off and draped them round again. And again. And again. Then, when she finally got to hanging up the baubles and stars and angels and all the other shit, she crapped on and on about the history of every single fucken item. And this is from your Great Nan Beth. Oh, and these were made by your Great Uncle Bruce. Oh, and this, I just got this from the two-dollar shop. On sale too!
Mariah Carey kept blasting on the stereo inside—I was close to throwing a brick at the fucken thing. Out in the shed Shaun was blasting his heavy metal. Even with the rain bucketing down and Mariah moaning like a sick horse and Mum babbling on and bloody on, I could make out the track Shaun was playing: ‘Black Label’ by Lamb of God. He must have had it turned up over three-quarters. It was like he didn’t even give a shit about popping his speakers. What was he doing out there? Playing pool? Drinking again?
The prang in the Tank played over and over in my mind. The tree. The setaria. The jolting potholes. The cow. The lantana. Shaun yelling.
I looked at Mum, thinking about breaking my promise to Shaun. Telling her. Or maybe just hinting at it. Something to get her up there to check on him.
‘…And see this?’ she said. ‘Yer dad’s uncle, your Great-Uncle Bruce, made this. Carved it himself!’
‘Wow.’
She hung up the carved nutcracker, her eyes shiny like the tinsel. ‘You know what I reckon?’
‘What, Mum?’
‘This is going to be one terrific Christmas.’
All Christmas Eve, while the rain pelted, backing up the guttering and spilling over the edges like little waterfalls, while the puddles grew and grew and the sodden bottlebrush bushes hunched like old men with bad backs, I waited for something to happen.
Something.
Anything.
For Shaun to emerge from the shed where he’d stayed holed up, alone, ever since the prang. For him to walk down to the house and say, Hey, Little Man, I’m all good now. Right as rain!
And if not that, then for Mum to realise something was up with Shaun. For her to get suss on him being out there by himself for so long. For her to bound into my room and interrogate me. For her to lose it when she found out I’d set Shaun off. For her to say, Ah, fuck it! and unscrew the lid off a rum bottle and take a long, hard swig.
Or for Dad, for old bloody Greg, to get moving. For him to come up from the creek, for him to walk in the front door and say, Surprise, made it up early, and How’s that big boy of mine? just like he used to say to Shaun years and years ago. For him to apologise to Shaun and for them to sort their shit out.
For Trev—yeah, even fucken Trev—who first thing in the morning had hitched a ride into town to go to the pub for Christmas Eve drinks with his buddies, Francis and Vern, to come back to the dairy. If he did I’d suck it up and go and tell him what had happened, tell him about Shaun and the prang and how wild it’d made him.
When I was a real little kid, before finding out Santa was Greggy Boy, no day of the year felt as long as Christmas Eve. It was a whole day stretched out by all the daydreaming about my presents, all the waiting for Santa to come. Well, this Christmas Eve felt longer than all those wrapped into one. Not waiting for Santa, but waiting for something to happen.
17
The noise shook me from my sleep like a monster in a nightmare.
I listened. Rain pounded the roof. Tree boughs creaked. Thunder rumbled. And way up the end of the valley somewhere, lightning cracked.
Must’ve just been a storm noise. Just a branch coming down.
I rolled over and closed my eyes. Then the noise came again.
‘Aarrggh!’
It was Shaun.<
br />
‘Aarrggh!’
Shaun was screaming.
I flicked off the sheet and bolted out to the verandah.
‘No!’ Shaun’s voice exploded from the shed, above the booming clouds and pelting rain. ‘Get back!’
Someone was in the shed with him. Someone was trying to get him!
I switched on the verandah light and searched for a weapon. The block-splitter? Too heavy. Rake? Too long. Cricket bat? Perfect.
I launched off the verandah and powered up the slope, digging the bat into the sloshy earth to keep myself from slipping.
My feet slapped on the steps as I took them three at a time.
‘No!’ Shaun yelled. ‘Get back!’
I reached for the door, wondering who I’d find on the other side, when, from behind me, Mum screamed.
‘Trysten! Get in there, quick. Help him!’
She leapt from the verandah, arms outstretched. I turned and slid the door open and entered. I was only two steps inside when I felt Mum’s hand on my back. She’d made it up in a flash, as if she’d leapt off the verandah and then flown up and over everything—the side lawn, the slope, the steps—and straight into the shed.
Inside, the light from the work shed next door poured through the window, casting a cone-shaped glow round Shaun—perched on the edge of the sofa, head lowered, staring at the wine-stained rug.
‘No,’ he said in between fast shallow breaths. ‘No. No!’
‘Shaun!’ Mum nudged past me and scooted towards him.
‘Kirsty. Stop!’
The voice shot from the corner of the shed like a dart.
In the shadows a tiny ember glowed brighter—Trev taking a drag on his durry. He stepped into the light. As he edged past the pool table he dropped his durry and squashed it under his boot like a bug.
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