by Kathryn Hind
The vehicle shuddered along. Lucy calmed down, accepted Amelia’s insistent massage around her ears.
Pops proved to be good at the no-questions thing. He ran a commentary, with interludes, and all she needed to do was demonstrate that she was listening. ‘Never much traffic along this stretch, for some reason,’ Pops said, or ‘Bloody rich farmin’ out here, I tell ya,’ and, after a long stint of nothing, ‘Had this car for its whole life. She just goes and goes and goes.’ To these Amelia responded with affirmative sounds and words: ‘Huh’, ‘Right’, and ‘Wow’.
They’d been travelling for just over three hours when he said, ‘Me mate Linda’s house isn’t far now. I’ll just pop in, won’t be a minute.’
‘Right, okay. No rush. I’ll leave you to it. I’m pretty tired so …’
‘You’re not thinking about leaving me, are ya?’ Pops said. ‘Don’t go breakin’ my heart.’
Amelia said nothing.
‘It wouldn’t sit right with me, leaving you out here … God only knows what trouble you might find. I just couldn’t do it. Anyway, there’s a bloody big pot she wants moved and I need your help. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours … You don’t mind helping me out, do ya?’
Pops flicked on the indicator for a turn-off Amelia couldn’t see. No street signs, no driveways, no pots to water. Paddock fencing along the road promised farmhouses somewhere in the distance.
Pops pulled in and stopped at a gate, wrenched the handbrake up. The engine puttered, threatening to stall.
‘Well, out ya get,’ Pops said.
‘Sorry?’ Amelia said.
‘The gate, darl. Driver never gets the gate, didn’t you know?’ His shoulders were bouncing, teeth whistling.
‘Right, got it.’
‘No gates in Bondi, eh?’ he went on, still laughing at her. She slipped down and out of the car.
Lucy followed her, pissed by the side of the driveway, where wheel prints were pressed into the dirt. Amelia narrowed her eyes in the headlights. Her vision was blotched with white as she walked to the gate, took in the opening mechanism; her every move was exposed and she was determined to get it right first time. A padlock was attached to a chain, though, on closer inspection, she saw it was unlocked.
The gate opened and she pulled it away from the car. Pops moved slowly through the small gap. She held the fence against her like a shield, gripping and releasing the rounded metal. Grip and release, grip and release. She could run, now. Her body tingled, the bottoms of her feet already feeling the pound of the road as she sprinted down it, her arms pumping back and forth, her legs absorbing her weight, pushing it up again, the pull of barbed wire in her hair as she ducked under a fence and hid. The throbbing heartbeat of being followed, of being found.
Red lights came on, the brakes squeaking. She closed the gate and climbed into the car.
Stupid girl.
‘Ta, darl,’ Pops said. Lucy jumped into the footwell and Pops pushed the handbrake down. The dirt road was rough, with potholes so large Pops almost reached a standstill, negotiating them in first gear. Amelia held on tight to the handle above her door with one hand, Lucy’s collar with the other. Fallen branches were lit by the headlights and Pops snapped over them, the bigger limbs scraping the undercarriage of the car as they passed beneath.
‘This road’s shithouse,’ Pops said. ‘You’re holdin’ on for dear life, aren’t ya darlin’?’
‘Yeah,’ she said.
They drove for a long time; it was clear she had made the wrong choice. Three more bends, and she promised to ask how much further. Then she didn’t, and she didn’t, and she didn’t.
But then the road had flowers in pots, and white pebbles running alongside it, and a weatherboard house grew out of the shadows ahead.
‘Here we are,’ she said. Lucy stood, sensing the change, her hot breath on Amelia’s leg.
‘Here we are,’ Pops said, crunching to a stop beside a Hills hoist with bare, misshapen arms. The car rolled backwards slightly as his foot left the brake. He swung down to the ground, slammed his door. As she sat there, still, everything seemed to dip and roll.
A knock on her window and she jumped. Pops’s face was right up beside hers, the tip of his nose pressed against the glass.
‘See ya in a sec,’ he said. He gave the window a farewell knuckle-tap, ducked under the clothesline and disappeared around the side of the house. The windows were all dark, and she waited for the house to light up as he moved through it.
The car hissed and ticked as it cooled. Minutes passed, and no light shone from inside the house.
She wound down her window, sucked in fresh air, then listened. The angry-insect sound of a small engine started up, revving high. It drove out from behind the house and away from her; a red tail-light gave away the motorbike’s movement, then a headlight flashed on, illuminating clumps of dry grass before it. The bike travelled up and over mounds and then was swallowed by bushland.
Moments later, the lights reappeared higher and much further away. The bike had made rapid progress. The journey of it gave Amelia a sense of the surrounding landscape: the house was in a valley, hills and bush looming over her. Then the bike was gone.
She listened, tried to block out the cicadas and the call of a bird she didn’t recognise, and tune her ear to the vehicle. If it was there, somewhere in the distance, it was beyond her perception.
The wind shifted a set of chimes hanging at the corner of the house. She wound up her window. Lucy nuzzled her leg and Amelia rubbed the soft fur beneath her chin while scanning the terrain out the front window for a flicker of light. It was darker out there than it had been before, now that she’d had the light and lost it.
She pressed the lock down on her door, reached across to the other doors and did the same. She waited. Her jaw was clenched and she opened it wide; the click of it reverberated in the car. Her eyes adjusted and she listed items as they materialised from the grey fuzz: watering can, window shutter, lattice. No human figures waiting in ambush.
Resting her hand on the door, she closed her eyes, counted three breaths, and unlocked it. She jumped to the ground, landed light and ready, but there was no attack. At the back of the car, she ran her hands down the boot, searched for a handle. Dust collected on her fingers as she traced over the keyhole, went lower and under to find the latch. Locked. She tried it again, harder, then with a jiggle. Still locked. She pulled hard enough that something gave way near her shoulderblade. The boot didn’t open.
A twig cracked. Amelia tensed, pressed flat onto the car, waited for an ensuing footstep. Nothing. Lucy sneezed, snuffled at the car’s back tyre.
Amelia climbed up to the passenger seat and reached across the console, felt around Pops’s seat for the sharp metal of keys. She climbed across the gearstick and sank into the mould of his body; the sheepskin remembered the shape and smell of him. The keys weren’t in the ignition, either. Slapping at the roof for the interior light, she scanned knobs and buttons in the yellow glow for one that would pop the boot.
‘No, no, no,’ she whispered, pulling and twisting things, pressing on panels, popping the bonnet by mistake. She stopped, filled her lungs, then started again, moving methodically across the dashboard from left to right.
She sat back in Pops’s seat, rested her cheek on the wool. The passenger seat was there, the place she’d been, and she was him, watching on. He would have seen the whiteness in her hands as she tensed them, her chest moving in and out with controlled breathing, the way she tugged at her clothes, hiding skin. She shivered, looked away.
She clicked off the interior light, slid down and out of the car. The smell of Pops was strong. She held her breath. Blinded by the fresh darkness, she reached out her hands to feel for him, thought of touching him in the wrong places by mistake: her fingers dipping in to soft skin folds, scruffs of beard, warmth and wetness. But she touched only air.
A shadow passed over white curtains inside the house. She watched the same window, the exa
ct spot she’d seen movement, until a shadow crossed over it again, and then again. At the edge of the house, beside the window, the silhouette of a tree moved in time with the shadow, bending in the wind. She bowed her head, raised it again at the next noise, a snap, and the next. The night was moving in around her.
She followed a pebbled path around the house, walking between garden beds lined with rocks. She tripped on a metal bucket and it clanged along the ground; she froze, straining to hear waking scrapes and groans from the house, someone rising from bed, walking down a hallway to the front door. But there was only Lucy snorting in dust somewhere near the car.
As she walked around the corner of the house, a light came on with an innocent click: she was caught. She blinked against the sudden flare of brightness. She waited there, listening and still. The light switched off; she moved her arm, and it came on again.
A birdcage sat on a porch, a ragged cockatiel clutching its white rung. Yellow thongs sat weathered and loyal by the top step.
Amelia pushed down on the front screen door’s metal handle; it opened with a shiver. Lucy appeared at Amelia’s calf as she reached out and touched her fingers to the rounded doorknob; it was greasy and warm, and it twisted easily. Amelia recoiled as the door creaked open a crack. Lucy opened it further with her nose, setting the whine of its hinges echoing into the house.
‘Get back,’ Amelia hissed. She pulled the door to. Despite her attempts to be gentle, the screen shook in its frame as it closed, the sound continuing even as she turned her back.
Crunching a few steps away on the pebbles, Amelia turned and watched the entrance. Insects mobbed the sensor light, the larger ones hammering against its plastic.
On the way back to the car, a tension gripped her low down in her belly. She walked with her hand on the skin there, looking out around her.
It has come to this. It has come … to this.
She gathered spit in her mouth then swallowed it down, pretended it was water. Lucy hesitated at the car door, lowered onto her haunches as if about to jump into the passenger seat, but didn’t.
‘Come on, girl,’ Amelia said, clicking her fingers, and Lucy obeyed. Amelia pulled her in close, wrapped her arms around her and buried her face in Lucy’s fur. She held her there, tightly, until Lucy wriggled and pulled away.
Amelia reached through and unlocked the back door. She crawled onto the back seat, pushing aside newspapers and empty drink cans. She stretched out as best she could across the prickly back seat, trying to find a position where seatbelt plugs did not dig in to her back. A rag dangled out of the seat pocket near her head; she gave it a tug. It smelled of petrol but she pulled it over her for the comfort of its weight, the flannel soft on her thigh.
Lucy stirred in the front of the car, panted. Amelia bent her arm behind her head. Exhaustion ached through her body but her mind darted towards each scrabble and rustle outside. She rolled over to her side, pressed her back into the curve of the seats, and closed her eyes.
She sat up with a start. Morning light filled the car. Outside, the house was still, the path of pebbles blaring white in the sun. The land dipped away behind it then rose again into bushland. She placed a hand low on her belly, beneath her shorts, and felt the tensing and shifting inside. She flinched at a sudden internal tug, leaned back against the inside of the door. She closed her eyes against nausea.
There were new bites down her arms and legs, on her neck, but she let the itches tingle, pressed instead into the ache, into the hardness in her abdomen.
Lucy stirred and appeared between the front seats, two paws on the centre console, releasing hot breaths. Amelia lolled her head towards her, gave her a half-formed smile. Lucy licked her hand with a dry tongue.
‘Okay, girl, okay,’ Amelia said.
Amelia worked in stages: she dragged herself to vertical, moved her legs to the floor, then rested her pounding head against the back of Pops’s chair, gathering herself; she opened the car door, sat at the edge of the seat, hung her legs outside. Lucy scrambled across the console, left white scratches on Amelia’s thigh as she pushed out of the car.
The air smelled of eucalyptus leaves drying. It was hot, but the sky held the deeper blue of morning; she guessed it was about seven o’clock. Her throat was dry. She lifted her T-shirt to let the heat of the sun soothe her belly. A pair of crimson rosellas flew above her, chirping, flaunting their energy.
She slid down from the car, kept a hand on the warm metal of it while she checked the boot. It was still locked. Wetness spread into her underpants.
She reached through the back and unlocked Pops’s door, climbed up behind the wheel. In the new light, she went over every button and switch, but nothing opened the boot. She tried to get comfortable in Pops’s seat, to fill the shape of his back and bottom. Outside, Lucy lapped at a muddy puddle in a rut.
It has come to this.
Amelia lifted the top of her shorts, the seam of them constricting over the tender area. She sat in a moment of relief, before the cramping took hold again. She willed herself to her feet, slipped down from the car. A small patch of blood spread where she’d sat, the edges creeping out then darkening as she watched.
She buried her hands in her pockets but there was only lint and crumbs. Pops’s glove box, the sides of the doors, the pockets of the seats held nothing of use. She bundled the oily rag she’d used as a bedcover into her fist.
An orb spider had built a web strung between two branches; the creature waited in the perfect centre of it. Amelia ducked beneath it and crouched behind a tree. The deep red in her undies had gone through to the crotch of her shorts. She peed, dark and pungent, then gathered bark and gum leaves from the ground, choosing a handful that were relatively intact. With these she tried to wipe out what mess she could; her blood was violent against the green of the leaves.
She laid a handful of foliage on her undies and wrapped Pops’s cloth around these, tucked it into itself. She cleaned her hands as best she could on the cloth then dragged her fingers up her calves to get the remaining blood off, leaving faint, fading red stripes. She pulled up her shorts.
The bulk of the pad changed the way she walked. At the edge of the scrub, she reached up to a branch and pulled down on it, stretching out the tightness in her pelvis. Her back cracked and she stretched deeper. Beyond the house, she could now see a rusted tin shed and another structure of green plastic, partially obstructed from view at the far corner of the house. She released the branch, improved her angle of vision: a water tank.
She sprinted towards it, leapt over garden beds, the pad loosening in her crotch. Lucy bounded along beside her. A hose was attached to the tank and she reeled the orange nozzle in, turned the tap on. There was a delay before a choked spurt. Water streamed out, sharp, and she filled her mouth, let it bubble over. It was warm at first and tasted of plastic, but this gave way to cooler, fresher rainwater, spiced with the flavour of sticks and leaves. She sprayed it on her face, the jet burning up her nose so she spluttered and struggled for breath. She shook her head, sending drops flying.
Lucy barked, her back arched, bum in the air and front legs spread in play. Water soaked the front of Amelia’s shirt, ran down in streams that filled her shoes. She held the nozzle over her head, soaking her hair, savouring the shock of coolness down her back. She closed her eyes, let her ears fill with water, scrubbed the raw skin on her face.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doin’?’
Amelia opened her eyes; a woman crunched around the side of the house holding a pair of old gardening scissors. Amelia directed the hose to the garden, fumbled the tap off.
‘Sorry, I –’ Amelia said, gasping, wiping snot from beneath her nose.
‘This is my property,’ the woman said, stopping a couple of metres up the path. She put her hands on her hips, the scissors at an angle, sharp ends out.
‘Sorry, I was waiting here –’
‘You’re trespassing.’ The woman was in a faded blue nightie. A jagged fring
e sat on her eyebrows, a long, thin ponytail hanging over her shoulder.
‘I’m waiting, a guy called Pops brought me here, he said he –’
‘Why would I care? You’re not s’posed to be here. This is private property.’
Drops tinkled from Amelia’s body, hitting the cement. ‘But your friend, Pops. He left me here, said he was looking after your place while you were away … are you Linda?’
‘What were ya gonna do? Take my water then snip me hose, make a happy little bong for yourself?’ She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Scared the shit outta me.’
‘I’ve been out here all night, in the car, I didn’t know –’
‘Ya can’t just camp out in someone’s yard, girly,’ she said. The woman stood on one leg while she scratched the inside of her calf with a big toe.
‘I know, I’m sorry … my stuff’s locked in the car.’ Amelia was hunched over with cramps; she tried to straighten up.
‘Not my problem. Get.’ The woman stomped a foot towards Amelia, brandished the scissors. Lucy skittered back a few metres. ‘Go on, get,’ she said, swooping her arms forward, then bluffing another charge. ‘You’re bloody lucky the old man’s passed out or you’d be in some real trouble,’ she said. ‘I’d be clearing out in a hurry if I were you.’
‘I’ll go, I’ll go,’ Amelia said, taking a step backwards, her hands raised in surrender. ‘But please – do you mean Pops?’
‘What would I know about your little friend? Shove off, girly, I’m serious. Go and do your wandering somewhere else. And don’t you dream of wasting a drop more of my water, you greedy bitch.’
‘But my stuff is locked in the car, and I need –’
‘You’ve got no idea, do ya? Go, G-O,’ the woman said.
Amelia lowered her hands, turned around slowly.
‘No use huffin’ and puffin’, girl,’ the woman said. ‘You’re getting off lightly. This is private property … Giving me the spooks first thing in the morning …’