Arms Race

by Nic Low

  There was a sudden crunching of tyres over gravel. Pete’s ute powered up the drive, a flash of green. The weight of Christie’s breast was at my lips and then was gone. She dashed into the house and I lurched to my feet, fumbling for my shirt, working at buttons.

  Morning, Steve.

  Pete’s voice was breezy. Out of his work clothes he looked even younger. He’d spiked his hair, and I caught a whiff of something perfumed and chemical.

  I was in the area, he said. Brought you guys some rabbits.

  Thanks, I said. Come in. Coffee?

  Pete put his bundle on the kitchen table. With my back to him I refilled the percolator and set it on the stove. I tried to be calm.

  Jeez, he said. What are they for?

  I turned. Pete was inspecting the hacksawed nose of one of the bullets.

  That’d make a scene, he said. Roo shooting?

  No, we just found them.

  Pete looked at me, quizzical. The hallway door opened and Christie came in. She’d changed into a long-sleeved top and jeans, despite the heat. Her cheeks were flushed. She looked irritable and gorgeous.

  Pete stood up too quickly. Hi, he said. I’m Pete.

  Christie.

  They shook hands, and I saw that they were about the same age.

  So, how you like it out here? Pete’s voice was full of warmth.

  Not bad, Christie said. She looked at the bag of meat on the table and I could see her clocking why he’d come. I smiled to myself. Smart girl.

  You got uni holidays? Pete asked.

  No. I’m not studying at the moment.

  Yeah, cool. Pete leaned forward, waiting for her to say more, and I had the absurd feeling that I was intruding. I pretended to look for something in the walk-in pantry.

  So you look more like your mum, hey? I heard Pete say. I just mean, ’cause with your skin you don’t look so much like—

  I went back out into the kitchen clutching a bag of sugar. Pete tailed off. The coffee pot began to murmur on the stove.

  So, what’s to do round here on a Saturday? I asked.

  Pete gave a half shrug. Go into town, he said. Do your shopping, go down the pub for dinner. Actually, there’s a party at Jono’s tonight. You guys should come for a beer.

  Thanks, I said. But I think we’re planning a quiet one tonight. It’s been a long week.

  I don’t know, Christie said, her brown eyes daring me. I haven’t been to a party in ages.

  You should totally come, Pete said.

  I’ll see if I can convince him, Christie said. He’s got your number?

  Yeah. Or I could…pick you up?

  Christie smiled. I’ll let you know. Steve, I’m going for a walk.

  The pot was boiling now. I turned off the element. You don’t want any coffee?

  No.

  Okay. I’ll come find you. Where?

  Other side of the mine. You’ve got the map.

  I’d be careful, Pete said. There’s a lot of unmarked shafts round here. Stick to the tracks.

  Yes, Dad, Christie said in a mocking, flirtatious voice.

  With Christie gone, Pete didn’t stick around. I saw him off and started the climb up behind the house. A few hundred metres along I found the head of the mine. I stood and looked out over the vast bite it took from the valley. I was certain Pete hadn’t seen us, but I felt unsettled. I wasn’t sure which was more strange: pretending Christie was my daughter, or the fact that she wasn’t.

  Down the other side of the slope I found a crumbling dry-stone wall. The surrounding bush was peppered with the alien green of European trees. I felt a small thrill of discovery.

  Christie? I called.

  Steven!

  The air smelled different here, snatches of something foreign and sweet. I moved clear of the bush and found the crumbling stone footings of an old stamper battery. There were still a few of these things running when I was young: the hammer of engines, the earth pulverised beneath iron hoofs. The main building here was gone to a scattering of stone but beyond, more recent outbuildings sagged beneath the weight of creepers.

  In here, Christie called. Look.

  I moved towards the nearest shed. Christie emerged from the darkness. She placed something small and heavy in my palm. It was another .22 shell, this time with its nose intact.

  You haven’t told Pete yet, she said.

  I pursed my lips. No. Sorry. I haven’t been able to find the right—

  Don’t be weird about it, she said. Tell him, okay?

  I will.

  Christie looked down at the bullet. What do you think of that?

  Coincidence, I said. They’re pretty common.

  Boring. Maybe the guy who lived here dumped that ute after a robbery.

  What? Someone lived here?

  Yeah. And just abandoned the place. Come and look.

  The shed had been roughly lined with fibro panels to create two small rooms. Creepers had prised apart the boards, and daylight gleamed like jewels above. In the living room an armchair faced a window looking over the valley. A side table held dusty photographs: a middle-aged couple tiny against the red stone bulk of Uluru; the man in rubber waders proudly holding a fish; the man again, arm around what looked like his daughter. She was a striking, sharp-featured girl in school uniform and knee-high socks. I crouched beside a swollen chipboard bookcase and fingered the contents. Nabokov. The I Ching. Books I had read.

  Educated people, I said.

  There was a camp stove on a bench in the corner. Christie held up a rusty tin of soup. Doesn’t look like he ever learned how to cook.

  You don’t know it was a he.

  Look at the bath! she said, sounding delighted. Only a man could let it get that disgusting.

  Outside the back door a tiny bathtub crouched beneath an old-fashioned showerhead. It was full of flaking paint and leaves, and was darkly scummed with grease.

  And look in the bedroom, Christie said. Men’s clothes. He didn’t even take them all.

  In the bedroom a row of dusty shirts lay on the still-made bed. A pair of men’s leather shoes peeked out from under the bed. There was something about those shoes I could not bear.

  I have to go outside, I said.

  And this, Christie said, triumphant. This is his treasure. Look.

  She placed a stack of old VHS boxes in my hand. I turned them to the light. Beneath a layer of dirt I saw pink flesh and open mouths. Girl on Girl. Screamers. Young and Fuckable.

  Oh.

  They’ve still got tapes in them. Creepy!

  I opened Young and Fuckable. There was an unmarked home-recording VHS tape inside. I closed it and handed the tapes back.

  I have to go outside, I said again.

  5

  We left the shack and I walked on ahead by myself. I needed the open air of the bush. I passed down the slope and began to breathe, but the trees thinned and I came immediately to another clea
ring. In the centre, with a commanding view of the plains to the west, was a house-sized mound of charred debris. I felt sick. A skeletal chimney rose from a rubble of half-burned books and timbers gagged with weeds.

  I shaded my eyes from the noontime glare and saw it all. The man drunk in bed with his guilty pleasure burning quickly down. His hand wavering with sleep, the glowing tip sighing into polyester sheets. Suffocated into waking. The dead terror of pulling yourself hand over hand down your own greasy hallway, birthed out the front steps into the night while at your back your life was quickly and mercilessly used up. The terrible heat on your face. The smoke in your scorched lungs. The loneliness to follow. Screamers. Young and Fuckable.

  Christie walked among the ruins.

  The poor guy, I said. Pete told me about him. He burned the place down smoking in bed.

  What a stupid old fuck, Christie said.

  I rounded on her. You know what, I said. I think Pete fancies you.

  Christie flushed. What? So? He thinks I’m your daughter.

  Shall I tell him you’re not?

  What are you going to say? You know how I was sucking my daughter’s tits—well, that’s not my daughter?

  He didn’t see anything. I’ll tell him on Monday you’re not available. He’ll be disappointed. I reckon you’re the only thing young and fuckable this side of Perth.

  Fuck you, Christie said. That’s not funny.

  No, fuck you.

  What’s the matter with you? She sounded close to tears.

  I stared at her, standing among the ruins in knee-high grass with her lips askew and her hair a dark tangle, and I was damn near overcome with the force of my need. I felt rage in me, rage and hunger, incoherent, geological. I had a vision of a girl flung back in the grass with her jeans around her ankles and someone, some weathered old man, me, straining away on top. I dropped my gaze.

  It’s this place, I said. It’s getting to us.

  Christie said nothing.

  I need a break. Can we go into town? Have a meal at the pub?

  She nodded warily. Okay.

  6

  In the truck on the way in, Christie broke the long silence.

  Maybe it’s the mine, she said.

  What is?

  Why everything feels so weird. Like the mine has some kind of—negative energy.

  I don’t know about negative energy, I said.

  You’re the one who said the place was getting to you. She paused. Maybe the mine’s like a scar. Or a wound that hasn’t healed. What if something bad happened there in the past?

  I don’t know. I doubt it.

  But what about those bullets, and the ute and that burned house?

  I shrugged. It’s the past. It can’t affect us.

  Christie turned her head away and was quiet. Dusk was settling over the bush and I switched on the headlights. When I looked over again, I thought she had fallen asleep. Then I saw her watching my reflection in the glass.

  Steven, she said.

  Yes?

  If the past can’t affect us, how can we affect the future?

  I took one hand from the wheel and squeezed her thigh, and smiled. By having children, I said.

  As the light faded into evening we came past the stockyards and into the town. There was a wide street of neat shops with a handsome stone pub at the corner. Four-wheel-drives and utes filled the car park.

  We sat for a moment with the engine ticking in the stillness.

  Let’s get one thing straight, Christie said. I’m not your daughter.

  You’re not my daughter, I said. I’m sorry I said that. That was stupid.

  Yes, she said. She leaned over and kissed my cheek. Stupid. You need to tell people the truth. And I think you owe me a drink.

  We pushed open the door of the pub. There were nods and a polite smile or two from the locals. I followed Christie to the bar, and tried not to stare at her switch-hipped walk.

  What can I get you?

  The woman behind the bar was about my age. She had grey hair pulled back from a tanned, no-nonsense face.

  Crownie for him, Christie said. Have you got cider?

  Cider?

  Sorry, Christie said. I just—

  Course we got cider. I’m kidding. Apple or pear?

  Pear, thanks.

  The woman looked at me with interest. You’re the engineer come to look at the mine, right?

  Yes. I’m Steven. This is Christie.

  Lindy. How’s it going out there?

  So far, so good.

  It’d be bloody marvellous if you got it running again. There you go. She placed our drinks on the bar and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. She smiled at me. So, how you liking Enmore? Not too lonely?

  Well—

  Yeah, Christie cut in. A bit. It’s pretty quiet.

  Not much to do out there at your age, the woman said. How you keeping busy?

  Christie shrugged. Reading books. Or going exploring. It’s a weird place.

  Oh yeah? the woman said lightly.

  There’s a stolen ute dumped behind our house. I found bullets in the glove box.

  The woman raised her eyebrows.

  It’s been there a while, I said. But I guess we could report it.

  Wouldn’t bother, she replied. There’s cars dumped all over round here.

  And, Christie said, there’s a place that burned down that’s got a really creepy vibe.

  Oh. I know the one.

  You knew those people? What happened?

  It’s okay, I said. It’s none of our—

  Bloke was an alcoholic, the woman said. She took a cloth and began wiping down the bar. House burned down, wife left him, daughter ran away. It happens.

  Definitely weird, Christie said. She sipped her drink. You know the other thing? Steven’s got this scar that’s like a map of the mine and all those houses.

  A map?

  Check it out.

  Christie lifted my arm into the light, and I could see the woman watching, her top lip faintly curled. I pulled my arm away, uncomfortable, embarrassed.

  It’s like the mine’s a scar itself, Christie said. I reckon something bad happened out there.

  Yeah, like what? The woman threw her cloth into the sink, and there was a note in her voice I did not like.

  Something full on, Christie said. Not sure I want to know.

  Anyway, I said, let’s—

  Maybe, the woman said, lowering her voice, you’ll find bodies at the bottom of the mine.

  Christie leaned forward, nodding.

  People killed in the cave-in. Or maybe the mine was on an Aboriginal burial ground. But you know what I really think?

  What?

  I think they threw bodies in there after a massacre.

  Oh, shit, Christie said, and there was a change in her face
: youthful fascination pinched out by something hard and cold. You think so?

  Oh, for sure, the woman said, her voice now ripe with scorn. There were massacres all round here. Got to be connected. Your Abos, the scar, the mine, the ute, the burned house, yeah, and the man who messes with his daughter. Got to be connected.

  Christie said nothing, her face slammed shut. I lifted the cold glass of my bottle to my lips but could not drink. I felt old and wrong.

  Or, the woman said, it’s just a bunch of poor fucks living in the middle of nowhere, with no jobs. There’s no mystery. Bad shit happens to people like that all the time. You get that mine opened and watch it get better. Seventeen.

  Excuse me? I said.

  Seventeen dollars. Round here you have to pay for your drinks.

  I took out my wallet and handed her a twenty.

  She walked to the till, then called back over her shoulder. It’s just a hole in the fucking ground. Your daughter’s been reading too many books.

  I could feel fury shimmering off Christie like heat from the Pilbara at noon. I found her hand.

  She’s not my daughter, I called back.

  Two men along the bar turned to look, and I saw their gaze slide from me to Christie.

  We’re partners, I said, as loudly as I dared.

  THE LOTUS EATERS

  On the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eater, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower… I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home.

  —Homer, THE ODYSSEY

  IT WAS tourist season when I arrived. Resorts gleamed among the jungle. Backpackers filled the bars. I crossed the steel bridge at Nong Khiaw in suffocating heat. The locals lay sleeping in the shade. Ahead on the road I heard a mocking singsong voice cry out in French.