Acts of Mutiny (14 page)

Then, while I am in the central valley under a hang of car fronts, a cloud before the sun splits. The Rockies of chromium and rust on my left blaze up as if on fire. The dump is beautiful and terrible. It is the playground of children I am not supposed to mix with – and Erica has forbidden it me. Under blinding skies I have already searched it for treasures: imported American goods – prime among them a ripped wireless, half buried in earth and smelling of rot, which lies in my bedroom.

Up one of the steepest mounds there is the hint of a path. And, having gained enough height to command my private desert, I can rest a moment to see our township itself the other side of the tracks. Beyond that the eastern hills are genuine purple; they take the colour each evening, and stretch off towards Mount Lofty and Adelaide. But so beautiful, Erica says, the hills. And they are truly hard to believe, even after my whole year here, glowing like a tinted photograph. There, on the level plain before them, the freight train crawls south. It glints in the distance, running between the township and the Weapons Research Establishment, where the men go to work.

But with time and light failing, I can only resume my quest and search over the next ridge, sheath-knife in hand. I find at last the wreck my friend Garrity and I used for a ritual. Down in the dump’s trough it is directly in front of me, beyond an overturned utility van. It is a hulk: a fire-damaged Holden saloon with a bashed-in roof. There is nothing so special about that. In this country every car is a Holden of some kind; by and large, there is only one make. I think of identical shapes and configurations. Miles away to the north, Robert and Penny set fire to Hugh’s car. Further on still they are even now lying in Robert’s.

In a pool of shadow between a crazy bed frame with rusted springs and a galvanised storage tank, the car’s window yawns a toothless mouth. I must go down, and step into the stiff dried weeds grown up so quickly since the last rainstorm. Even in broad daylight I would fight shy of treading here.

I try to thump each footfall of earth as I touch it. Downward, the underbrush grows darker by the second, but eventually I have done enough and am able to crouch by the car door at the slope’s foot. With my face scrunched up, I make myself peer in. A knife is paltry defence – against a king brown, say. I expect an attack any moment.

But yes, the scarecrow figure we stole from the field beyond the Great North Road, the
guy
, lies, yes, exactly as we placed him on the back seat, fake face down, one barbeque skewer through his back, two through his backside, pinned to the upholstery. To be burnt. When they light the dump. Which they do periodically. We have seen them, Garrity and I. But not burnt yet. The man in the truck might come down and do it tonight, even. The paper trilby and the labels stuck to the guy’s midriff still bear the inscription
Chaunteyman
, waiting for it.

Something gives under my shoe. I feel myself jolt and snatch my foot away. Then freeze. I have just enough sense not to go running. I can just make out, tangled under some stalks, a spread of old clothes and toys, spilled from that sack in the weeds higher up. I have stepped on the body of a child’s doll, in a white-spotted dress, quite hidden in the grass. A stupid impulse makes me pick it up. I have broken its body.

It has the exact likeness of Penny, of course: a mocking chubby likeness. When I turn it, the eyes blink open in the gloom. Then, heedless of fangs or anything, my body decides for me – scoots me to the ridge’s crest before I know it. Because a six-inch stinging centipede drops out of the doll’s crack and falls right next to me. In the air it leaves a kicking, twisting trace – the same shape as my scream.

Penny and Robert: it is as I feared. The cause is in my own heart and I myself am the instrument. Not Chaunteyman, but my own thoughts and deeds. My Holden crib staged some history I was supposed to suppress. It destroyed those I loved and who loved one another. There is something in the blood – my father was right. The wind shames me; but the sun stands full on the horizon, the pit is too dark and I shall lose my escape. No cloud flares now, the sky has turned smoky and there are a few faint stars.

Yet I still could go down again, quickly reach in and remove the stakes that hold the image there. Even if Penny and Robert are already dead and the act could make no difference yet it might just be done – a gesture of atonement and good faith. ‘It takes guts, Ralphie. It’s a man’s world.’ – Dad. Below me, the shadows of the dump’s valleys are pools of murk. Hard to make out even the Holden’s shape, now, the car, the bed frame and the doll are lapped by a tide of incoming night. Down in the long grass a rustle sounds like a slither, and I lose my nerve. ‘I can’t! I can’t! That’s enough!’

That night as I lie in bed I wish only to be as Penny and Robert, at one with their desert, whose colours are of rage, black-edged. My heart is a shrine to their bleached, anhydrous bodies, slumped out of a car’s open door. I see the glare on their windscreen, the coachwork. And the two of them: inverted, borne on a life-raft of shadow. All around scorched air coats the pink dust, the bright scatter of flint. I have them die together, a heat death, in the instant; her forearm blistered, next to his. The contamination hints like an intimate opal under her wrist, where it touches the ground; and under his cheek – like the paint on the hands of my luminous watch. It glows in the dark.

Perhaps I am already dead and turned to nickel, gold, plutonium inside. Yes, surely I have died; that is Australia and thus are my very thoughts turned fatal.

We weighed anchor. Dawn steam rose from the Port Said lagoon. The early chill in the air was a brief concession to winter. ‘That over there’s the Nile, kid.’ Mr Chaunteyman was staring into the distance. ‘You see it?’

I believed him unquestioningly, in a kind of manly rapture. To compensate for the too-brief loan of his service revolver, he had already bought me a Winchester repeater popgun from the shop on D deck, and a real-looking six-shooter of my own, which he was teaching me how to twirl. In Australia we should have a fridge for ice lollies and a record-player for the latest pop records. With him I felt safe.

‘Do you ever have a bad dream, Mr Chaunteyman?’

‘Call me Dave, OK. How many times do I have to tell you.’

‘OK … Dave. But do you?’

‘The hell. I surely don’t. Well, everyone has them sometime.’

‘We had to … My dad taught me how to stop yourself dreaming.’

‘Oh? Isn’t that great!’

‘He taught me mind control. For my tests. For the Navy. He said the mind’s like an electrical circuit. He said it was a hard, cruel world and you had to be got ready. He wanted to harden me up. When he’d be there and there was a bad dream he’d teach me how to control it. But now he’s not here.’

‘Christ!’

‘What tortures do the American Navy use?’

‘Whoa there! Hey, son, we’re the good guys, remember. Bad dreams, tortures. You want a drink already, candy bar? Is that it? Why can’t you just ask for one. American Navy. Someone has been neglecting your political education, Mr Lightfoot. It isn’t agreeable to a gentleman, kid, to find himself comparisoned with Japs. Or Commies. A decent man doesn’t likes it, understand?’

‘Sorry’

‘Good. Now those nasty little bamboo boys’ll torture you in any number of ways before they take a second glance. They’re inventive.’

‘I was just … I just wanted to … I don’t know if I’ve got enough grit. To take it … like a man, I mean, if it comes … The Japs aren’t ever going to get to Australia, are they?’

‘Jesus, no. Don’t you worry any on that score. They won’t try any damn thing again if they know what’s good for them. Not after the licking they got last time. Know how to get a Jap out of a cave? Flame-thrower. Know how to get a Jap out of a war?’ He chuckled.

‘Yeah.’ I made myself chuckle too. ‘But in the US Navy. Do they have punishments, then. Tests …? I was going to tell you …’

‘What the hell d’you want to go on about things like that for? Torture. Punishments. D’you want me to tell you about the cat? You’ve done something you shouldn’t? Now listen. A nice guy like me does not order up my shipmate for a flogging. Hell knows there’ve been some I’d have liked to. But nobody gets the damn cat. It doesn’t happen any more. What’s with you this morning? Think ol’ Dave’s going to come after you, do you?’

‘I thought if I told it to you. He said not to tell anyone, my dad. But … He said we have to preserve the British …’

‘Yeah. England expects. But that’s all over now, for Christ’s sake.’ He looked at his wrist-watch, an enviable knobbed and knurled creation he called a chronometer. ‘The lime-juice legacy. Post-colonial frenzy. Know something? It’s only three years ago your guys ripped up this harbour entrance and blocked the waterway. But that’s all over too. And your Marines only killed six hundred or so Egyptians. Right over there.’ He pointed. ‘How about that? Not good guys, eh? Stupid guys. Who uses the Canal? Yeah. Stupid guys. England’s all over. It’s blown; just forget it.’

He adjusted his jacket and touched his moustache. ‘But I believe I have an appointment with your mother in just one minute, kid. Do me a favour and keep an eye on that Arab down there. I’ve been watching him. I think he’s up to something. Wait right here and don’t come down. This is the mysterious East, son. Your mother and I’ll be busy.’

For twenty minutes, as conscientiously as I could, I watched the Arab who sat on the foredeck, surrounded by his wares. Seemingly he had woken with the ship. Next to one of the winches, he was motionless under a large head-blanket. It made a tent against the sun. Hardly any other passengers were about. Bored and beginning to sweat, I turned to look at the receding city.

Within moments, however, there came a sound of thumping plimsolls from behind me. I knew what they announced and prepared myself, hunching over the rail and affecting to take no notice. But it was to no avail: Barnwell’s aircrew, jogging their circuit of the deck as a squad, broke off and slung themselves either side of me, panting.

‘Been to a party then have you, mate?’ said the one closest to me.

‘No.’

‘Oh. Thought you’d gone and got lit up somewhere.’ They guffawed.

‘Nice pyjamas, then,’ from the one on the other side. ‘Friend or foe?’

‘Friend.’

‘That’s a relief, mate. Bet you’d go down a treat in Cairo.’

Their laughter burst open raucously.

One who had not yet spoken intervened. ‘He’s not a Gippo, Tosher. He’s just been down in the hold all night. Getting toasted. And that’s how you’ll end up, Michael, my lad!’

‘Shut it, Maclean.’

‘Yes, corporal.’

‘Rest over. Come on, you lot.’

‘Oi, oi,’ said the first. ‘Just socialising with one of our young nobs. Nice weather we’re having, don’t you know. Warming up, in’t it, for the time of year? Know how we used to kill flies in the desert? I’m talking to you, sunshine.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘That’s enough, Tosher. Get moving.’

‘Treacle-belly flap cock. You take the treacle, see …’

Once more the others roared their amusement.

‘Bet yours bloody glows in the dark by now, Len.’

‘Yeah. Get Barnwell to run his ticker over it for you. He likes you, Lennie. You’re always up his arse, aren’t you? Get him to check your prospects.’

‘Shag yourself, mate.’

‘You’re going on a fucking charge, Maclean. Now get formed up.’ To me: ‘Sorry, mate. No shore leave. Can’t be too hard on ’em.’ But the corporal was smiling too. They trotted off.

Because it was a Sunday, services of various denominations would be held. And Robert would take care to avoid them. He walked slowly to the head of the promenade deck, and then down where the stairs dropped into a region of no man’s land, until he stood before the short run of steps up again to the cluttered foredeck.

The
Armorica
eased her way across a glass-green surface to join a queue of three other ships waiting to enter the Canal. In the brief delay we held water, effortlessly, between Ports Fuad on the left, and Said on the right. It was indeed a gateway. Eastward, in the huge lagoon from which the Canal was constructed, Fuad lay, a low, commercial reef. Various smaller ships were moored up against its sand-coloured wharves. Set back from its waterfront, drawn sharply dark by the sun’s morning angle, and interspersed with the odd miraculous cypress, modern housing ran in a pattern of flattened cubes. Rebuilt, Robert supposed: though there was actually no sign of bomb damage. One might believe it had never happened. Further down, in the direction the bows pointed, there were small cranes and the spoil of dredging; and the smoke smudge from a cargo vessel. But of what he knew had actually taken place there were no certain traces at all.

He turned from the further shore’s haze. A bum-boatman far below had kept pace with his progress and now hoped to catch his attention. Robert ignored him, and hung instead over the starboard gunwale. From here he could stare back on to the former British government building, just slipping astern. Russell had helpfully pointed it out last night. Drenched in brilliant morning, with its flag-pole, its two storeys of sugar-white arches supporting the central domes, it seemed to have risen from the water. And beyond the place floated the odd little city itself, where he and Penny had walked. That was bright, too, and rendered romantically simple by only a slight distance.