Draw the Brisbane Line (9 page)

‘Hey, do you think you could sign something for me?  My mum’s a big fan.  She —’

Before Dave could even think of a response, Papetti was hustling him out the door.  ‘We gotta go,’ she said.  ‘Now.’  They were outside before Dave could even mutter a sorry.  She kept a tight grip on his elbow as she marched him back to the Humvee.

‘I can manage this walking thing,’ he said.  ‘Don’t need the help.

She let him go and peeled around to the driver’s side.  ‘Try not to talk to anyone, OK?’

He waited until they were both in their seats before he said, ‘What?’

‘Don’t talk to anyone.’

‘But everyone talks to me.’

‘So ignore them.  How hard is that?’

He didn’t bother replying, she’d never understand.  He was Dave Holden.  If someone wanted to talk to him, they’d talk to him. And if he didn’t talk back?  How could he not talk back?  He’d been conditioned for what felt like his entire life to answer the questions, shake the hands, smile and nod and laugh at the right time.  It was like telling someone with allergies not to sneeze.

Papetti pulled a fairly unmodern-looking phone from a dock just below the dash.  ‘Wait here,’ she said.  ‘I need to make a call.’

She was gone less than a minute.  He watched her standing with her back to the car about five meters away, nodding every few seconds.  When she returned to her seat, she let out a long breath.

‘We’re driving,’ she said.

‘Driving?  Do you have any idea how far it is from here to Noosa?’

‘About six hundred and seventy miles,’ Papetti said.  She started the engine.

‘If all flights are cancelled, the roads are going to be choked.  We’ll be lucky to get there before tomorrow morning.’

‘You want to find your fiancée, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course, but I…’

‘But?’

Dave tried to swallow down his frustration.  He wanted to teleport to Jenny, he didn’t want to fucking drive to her.  It was strange that before the day had properly begun he hadn’t entertained a single thought of going to Jenny, but now it was all he could think of.

Maybe if he hadn’t been such a dick, she’d still be with him in Sydney. Or he’d be with her, somewhere else.

‘We better get moving then,’ he said.  

Dave couldn’t figure out where everyone was going.  The traffic heading into the airport was still a solid stream of stubborn, while the road back into the city was as lightly populated as a pre-dawn city street.  He checked his phone for the millionth time for any missed calls, and opened his Twitter app.  He searched on
Sydney airport
and the results filled the screen.

Good Morning Today!
@GMTOz

Tensions rise at SYD airport in national strike drama. Travel plans in ruins.  Follow the full story
here
.

Sydney Airport
@SydneyAirport

All outbound flights cancelled due to industrial action.  Go
here
for updates.

smh.com.au
@SMH

Travellers continue to fill Sydney Airport despite nationwide strike.  Riot police are being deployed to deter hostilities.  Full story: ow.ly/z66R4ss

Sure
, Dave thought. 
That’s one way to deter hostilities: send in the riot police.  That always calms people down
.  So it was stubbornness which was keeping the road out clear.  Dave wasn’t complaining, it meant they reached the turnoff to the bridge in about ten minutes.

‘You should take the tunnel,’ Dave said when he saw Papetti indicating to turn off for the bridge.

‘Don’t like tunnels,’ Papetti said as she took the turn.

Tough shit
, Dave thought as they entered a short tight tunnel and began a winding ascent through the sandstone-cut channel up to bridge level.  Papetti didn’t appear to believe in slowing down, and Dave lurched hard to the right, his insides wanting to go that little bit further.  He was oddly grateful for having thrown up earlier.  The high whine of a motorcycle built up behind them, and the shiny black of bike and rider began to pass slowly on the outside.  If Papetti swerved the Humvee just slightly to the right, on such a tight curve, the motorcyclist would be a smear of flesh and steel and leather on the high rock wall.

‘Idiot,’ Dave said.

Papetti didn’t swerve, but her left hand moved to the butt of the pistol and she flicked off the restraining strap with her thumb.  Dave held his breath, waiting to see what she’d do.  The motorcycle stayed level with them, probably because he was in the outside lane and couldn’t accelerate much more and still stay in control of the turn.  Papetti settled her hand around the gun, and pulled it an inch from the holster.  Dave was about to say something, anything, like wait or stop or why, but then the road straightened and the motorcyclist shot ahead of them with a pocket-sized roar.

She nudged the gun back into place and snapped the catch over the butt.  He stared at her, waiting for her to say something, but she kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead and her mouth shut.  They thundered across the bridge with a thorough disregard for things like speed limits and lane markings.  Speed cameras flashed and popped, but Dave doubted they’d reap a payment from any one of those violations.

Damn this heat.

Jenny walked behind Tait, her eyes mostly on the ground and the sticks and the branches, which just might be snakes if she happened to step on any of them.  The high cover of trees sheltered them from the worst of the sun’s hot edge, but still … this
heat
.  The sun held her clothing in disdain as it barged past the weak cotton and steadily poached her in her own sweat.  Compounding her discomfort was the troop of flies escorting her through the Tewantin State Forest, attracted not just by her hot sweaty funk but also, no doubt, by the fine residue of vomit on her shirt, and maybe even in her hair.

Their walking pace started out normal, careful.  After only a few minutes of cautious progress, their stride began to lift by an unspoken mutual assent, and pretty soon they were practically running.  She didn’t know what Tait was thinking, but her internal monologue was a freaked-out Tinkerbell screeching,
fire fire fire FIRE FIRE!

‘Tait … are you sure you know … where we’re going?’

‘I know where we’re
not
going.  We’re not going back … the way we came.’

‘Good enough for me … I suppose.’

‘Look … see there.  Through the trees.  You see that?’

‘More trees?’

‘What else?’

‘Um … lots of trees?  Is it a different kind of tree?’

‘Look.  What are the trees … growing out of?’

‘If you don’t make your point real soon … I’m going to hire two bouncers … and a tree surgeon … and I’m going to have the bouncers hold you down … while the tree surgeon … implants a gum tree sapling … in your rectum.  Then I’ll circle back to your question … so I can answer …
out of your arse
.  Oh Jesus Christ … I really need to stop running.’  She planted her hands on her knees and sucked in several lungfuls of hot, gumtree-scented air.  And possibly a couple of flies.

‘OK, OK.  Look what the ground is doing … up ahead.  You see what it’s doing?  It’s rising … and it’s doing that … because it’s leading up to a mountain.’

‘
That’s
the mountain you were … talking about?’

‘Well, yeah, but you can’t really … see it yet.’

‘Huh.  I was expecting … something bigger.’

‘So at the bottom of the mountain … is what?’

‘Er … Beer Can Drive?’

Tait laced his fingers behind his head.  ‘Tinbeerwah Road.  And Tinbeerwah Road leads to Cooroy, and somewhere along that road … we’ll be able to catch a ride.  Cooroy will hook us into the highway, and from there it’s a leisurely panicked drive to Brisbane.’  He gestured towards Brisbane with a clumsy flourish.

They took a few more minutes to get their heart rates back to a sensible level before moving on at a speed less likely to kill them.  The ground did indeed start to rise, and after about ten minutes, Jenny thought she could hear the sound of cars.

‘Sounds like Beer Can Drive,’ she said.

‘Tinbeerwah.’

‘I like mine better.  Let’s just hope someone stops.’

‘Why wouldn’t they, for such a pretty hitch-hiker … and his movie-star companion?’

‘Ha bloody ha.  But I saw what my sister’s car looked like on her way out … chock-full.  Otherwise I’d probably have gone with her.  People might not have room for more passengers, pretty or otherwise.’

‘Yeah, but I’m sure that more than a few left in a hurry. Between the looting and the fire.’

‘Too much of a hurry to stop, maybe?’

‘Not for such a pretty hitch-hiker and his —’

A huge metallic thump covered Tait’s words, a destructive crunch with accents of breaking glass.  Before Jenny could ask the obvious
what was that
question, Tait was off running through the bush in the direction of the noise, and she was close behind him.  She picked up some scratches from low branches on young trees and the occasional close scrape with a larger trunk, but adrenaline forced her to ignore these niggles.  They pelted as fast as they were able towards the source of the huge thump.

The first sight they had of the car crash was the unmistakable bright orange flickering through the lacework gaps between tree, after tree, after tree.  As they drew closer, Jenny could see flashes of black through the dense foliage, which just
had
to be Beer Can Drive.

A huge eucalyptus, thick enough to hollow out and turn into a lighthouse, was decorated with a silver Mercedes. It was hard to tell, looking at it, where the initial impact had been.  When you step on the side of an aluminium can and the rim and base curl up to grab at your shoe?  Like that.  Black smoke poured from the wreckage in a thick stream, straight up in the still forest.

They stopped when they felt the heat from the building flames.  The car was on its side, roof to tree, and she could see some of the driver through the splintered and bloodied windscreen.  He looked Asian, perhaps Vietnamese, but it was hard to say for sure because he appeared to be missing a large part of his face.

This time it wasn’t morning sickness which bent her over and flicked the vomit switch.  Hands on knees she painted the dry ground-cover in an orange wash.

‘Fuck me,’ Tait said between laboured breaths.

Movement near the car caught her eye.  She wiped her forearm across her mouth and looked up to see something long and dark whipping around beneath the car.  It was a snake.

‘Brown snake,’ Tait said.  ‘Big one.’

It twisted back and forth, striking at this big thing which had landed on its back, but not finding purchase for its fangs.

Tait moved closer to the car.

‘Don’t,’ she said.  ‘The snake.’

‘I’ll keep out of range.’

‘The fire.’

‘I won’t touch it.’

‘It might explode.’

He turned back and grinned at her, boyish mischief punching dimples in his cheeks.  ‘Only in the movies.’

He gave the snake a wide berth and she could see him trying to get up on his toes to see inside the driver’s window, but the flames rolling up the undercarriage kept him back.

‘Hello?’ he shouted.  ‘Can anyone hear me?’

She listened with him, but all she could hear was the occasional thump of the snake’s head against the bonnet.  Not even a groan.

Tait looked around and moved to a nearby wattle tree.  He started to climb.  When he got as high as the tree would let him without bending back to the ground, he leaned over and peered down into the car.  It was only a brief glance, but she saw him screw his eyes shut and look away with an appalled grimace.

Hee, hee, hee.

Every follicle on her body puckered.  She straightened and said to Tait, ‘What the hell is that?’

‘Sounds like a dog,’ he said, jumping down from the tree.

‘No dog I’ve ever heard.’

But he was right, there was an unmistakable canine quality to the drawn out keening, the wail.  Whatever it was, it was in pain, and it was close.

‘Over there,’ Tait said, coming back to where she was standing.

‘Watch the sick,’ she said, pointing at the patch of damp orange, and followed his gaze.

A man walked through the trees, a bear of a farmer lumbering towards the car.  He wore a red flannel shirt and Moleskins, his thick brown boots grinding the twigs and leaves on the ground to powder and crumbs.  A battered Akubra sagged down low over his eyes.  In his right hand he held a keening, bloodied beagle by its scruff.

‘I was right behind them,’ the man said, projecting his voice through his Roman nose.  ‘Saw the dog thrown free, launched out of the sunroof.’

‘You went to the dog first?’

‘Love, I saw the crash.  Figured the dog was the only one with a chance of survival.’

Tait nodded short and sharp and closed his eyes to the image.

‘The hell are you two doing out here?’

‘Running,’ she said, still breathing hard.  ‘What are you going to do … with the dog?’

The fur on the beagle’s head was soaked flat with blood, running down its neck and legs and dripping onto the ground.

‘Got a twenty-two in the car,’ the farmer said.  ‘Plan to put the poor little bugger out of his misery.  I’m pretty sure his back’s broken.’

She looked into the dog’s wide staring eyes, rolling around like some malfunctioning children’s toy while its jaw worked out another dying whine of
hee, hee, hee
.  She nodded.

The farmer pushed his hat up away from his eyes, regarding her, almost appraising her, she thought.  His creased and tanned eyelids dipped low at the corners, partially covering irises the colour of a faded Tiffany bag.  Would he even know a Tiffany bag if he saw one?  Probably not.  Call it chambray then, a sweat-stained and sun-bleached chambray work shirt.  He probably had a few hanging in the wardrobe back at the homestead.  She thought he was waiting to see if she’d object to his plans for the beagle, maybe insist on some irrational bout of girlish folly that he find a vet, that the beagle deserved a shot at survival.

Sure.  Tell that to Mr and Mrs Roadkill in the Mercedes.

He settled the Akubra back down over his brow and turned in the direction of the road.

‘You folks might want to follow me,’ he said.  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t mind a lift somewhere.’

‘My car was stolen,’ she said.

He grunted.  ‘Whole state’s gone to bits.’

Hee, hee, heeee
.

The dog seemed to be winding down, its twisting growing more lethargic, and its keening less piercing.

‘You certainly don’t want to stay on foot around here, you’d be done in by the bush-fire.  It’ll be here soon enough.’

Jenny looked more closely at the ground they were walking on, the paper-dry leaves and twigs and branches, the brown grass, the peeling bark on the trees.  The whole forest was a fire trap.

‘Would it be OK if you gave us a lift?  Just out of the rain forest?’

‘Of course.  I can take you as far as Brisbane if you’d like.’

‘Nah, yeah,’ Tait said.  ‘That’d be awesome.’

‘
Awesome
,’ the farmer said, mocking Tait’s surfer tone.  ‘
Dude
.’

Hee, hee, heee
.

An old green LandCruiser was parked on the shoulder of the road, and traffic slowed as it passed to gawk at the crash.  No-one stopped though.  The farmer went to the rear of the big off-roader and laid the dog out on the grass.  It wasn’t moving a great deal by that stage, only panting out faint
hee, hee, hee
sounds and twitching its forelegs as though it was dreaming of chasing rabbits.  Jenny hoped that’s what it was doing, dreaming of haring after bunnies in some lush open paddock.  She hoped it wasn’t aware of the farmer as he settled the rifle’s muzzle half a foot from its head and sent him off to doggie heaven with a flat crack.  He returned the rifle to the LandCruiser and carried the dog’s limp body about five metres downslope from the road, where he set it down on the open ground.

‘You’re not going to bury it?’ she said to him on his way back.

‘She can have a cremation,’ he said.  ‘Fire’ll take her.’

She
.  Jenny hadn’t even thought to check.

‘Hop in,’ he said.  ‘One of you’ll have to make some room in the back, I’ve got quite a bit of gear thrown in there.’

Tait went straight to the back door and started moving around bags and boxes and other loose pieces clothing and kitchenalia to free up some space for him to squeeze in.  Jenny took the front seat, fastened her belt and realised in that enclosed space just how hard she was still breathing.  Her legs applauded at the respite from running and standing, and they tingled and twitched and threatened to cramp if she didn’t rehydrate soon.

‘Do you have any water?’ she said to the farmer when he pulled himself in behind the wheel.

‘Sure, there are cases of it in the boot, a few loose bottles packed somewhere near your friend.  Help yourself.’

Tait rummage around the piles in the back and handed her a large bottle of mineral water.  She drank about half of it without stopping to breathe.

‘Does this mean a toilet break in ten minutes?’ the farmer said with a dry smile scooped into the well-worn creases at the sides of his mouth.

‘I’m pregnant.  There’ll be toilet breaks
every
ten minutes.  I’m Jenny, that’s Tait.’

Fuck Dave and fuck Clary White
, she thought to herself. 
I will tell everyone and anyone I meet from here on out that I am pregnant if there’s the slimmest of chances it will see me to safety.

‘Hi,’ Tait said from the back.

‘Aldous Weir.  Call me Al.’

She smiled.  ‘Do I have to sing it?’

He frowned.  ‘Why would you sing it?’

‘You know … the song?  Call Me Al?’

He held that frown for a good ten seconds before he let it relax.  ‘Just playing with you.  I know the song.  It’s not like I live in a cave.  I even have television on the farm, that’s how I know who you are, Miss Jennifer Lucas.’