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‘She should have put yours.'

‘But she didn't. Here it is. Next of kin. Robin May.'

‘I couldn't...'

‘Rob, you couldn't.' I stepped between them again and said to him, ‘She's a student.'

He talked past me. ‘Why did she put your name on the paper?' He pushed the invoice at Robin.

I grabbed it. ‘That's enough.'

He said, ‘You didn't even go to her funeral. It wasn't just me. You didn't go either.'

‘Stop it.' I reached my hand forward to push him. He swatted it away.

‘You know what I think?' he said. ‘That's why she put your name on the paper. She knew you wouldn't come. Not when she got sick. Not when she was dead.'

‘Leave her alone, you prick.' I chested him and made him take a step back.

‘What did you say?'

‘Leave her alone.' I tossed the rifle down and raised my fists.

The dog growled.

He moved the bottle into his left hand like it wasn't a weapon. Then he looked over my shoulder and said, ‘She's getting away.'

I turned. She was. Robin was running out of the gap in the hill. Damn. I sighed and turned back in time for Bill to punch me. I fell on my arse in the dirt. Blood dripped onto my chest. ‘You hit me.'

‘It was a fight. You lost.'

‘But I wasn't looking.'

‘Yeah, that was the idea. Now fuck off and leave me alone.'

I tried to wipe my nose but it hurt. I got up and looked around for the torch. When I grabbed his gas lamp he didn't say anything. I got the rifle and went after Robin.

Her tracks were easy to follow. She was running straight, with deep steps, fleeing out across the desert.

Her footprints ended at one of the mine holes where they skidded in the dirt.

‘Rob?'

The light from the lantern spread easily across the ground but not so well down into the old dig. I tipped the lamp and found her on a ledge, huddled in the corner. The ledge was only about half a metre wide before the shaft went down again beyond.

‘Jesus fucking Christ, Rob.'

She had scrapes on her arms and a bruise rising on her cheek.

‘Anything broken?'

She giggled. ‘You said you wanted to meet my family. Careful what you wish for.' She sounded a little drunk.

‘Can you stand up?'

‘I thought he had all the answers. You know, living out here, away from – all the noise. My mysterious father.'

I took the light off her and looked around the top of the mine shaft for something to use to drag her out. There was a broken wooden winch but no rope. Only rocks poked from the mound of dirt.

‘All this way and no answers to the meaning of life. What a rip-off.'

In the shaft were weathered poles of wood stacked lengthways along the sides, but they looked too smooth to climb.

‘Can you stand up?'

Robin started to get up but saw the edge and she pushed back into the corner. ‘You should leave me.'

‘How about I get you out of this hole, and we'll see?'

‘Ah, you're considering it.'

‘Never.'

‘I don't blame you. I'm a shit.'

‘Can we talk about this later?'

‘That's what I say.' She was looking into the darkness below her. ‘I have no idea why I do shit. Why I do anything. Two days ago, I quit uni. I went in and I sold all my books.'

‘Oh.' I tried to catch up. ‘Yeah, I never saw you as a dentist.'

‘What?'

‘I can't imagine you being an actual dentist.'

‘Yeah, well, snap. I need to see a shrink.'

I lay down on the ground with my arm reaching over the side. If she stood, I could almost reach her. ‘I'm going to have to go back to his camp and get some rope.'

‘No.'

‘Rob, you're stuck.'

‘Don't care.'

‘You're being stupid.'

‘Am not.'

‘Are too.'

‘You are.'

She smiled.

I said, ‘We'll use the rifle. If you can hold on and kind of step up on those logs along the edge of the shaft.'

She squinted up at the light of the lamp in a studying kind of way and said, ‘You should have held up that petrol station, you know.'

‘Yeah. I really wanted to. But, you know.'

‘The cops would have come. I'd have to take over driving while you held them off with the rifle.'

‘I'd shoot out their tyres.' I moved the lamp onto a mound so it angled further into the shaft, then got the rifle and lowered the butt end towards her, but she wasn't moving. I said, ‘Stand up, Rob.' When she didn't, I said, ‘Of course, we would have to come out here because the cops would radio for all the police everywhere to get us. We'd have to hide out with your dad.'

‘What? No.'

‘Yeah. We'd be in his one-room rock house surrounded by hundreds of cops around the hill like in
Butch Cassidy.'

‘They die in
Butch Cassidy.'

‘Well, I don't want to have to correct you, but they don't die. The shot freezes. Before they are dead. Like
Thelma & Louise.
Anyway, we get away. There's this hidden mine shaft under his hut. But he tells you all the secrets first and says he'll hold them off and we get away.'

She nodded.

‘Stand up.'

Robin stood, pushing back into the corner. ‘Can he take a bullet?'

‘He steps outside after we're gone, full of regrets. Gets riddled, especially by the Gatling gun on the chopper.' I pushed the butt at her again. ‘Okay, now if you grab the stock, and I grab the barrel. Whatever you do, don't touch the trigger. Or let go.'

She had the stock.

‘I'm not lifting you. You're stepping up on those bits of wood.'

She nodded.

The barrel was slippery. ‘Just a sec.' I got up on one knee and I got one arm right along the barrel, kind of wound around. ‘Okay.'

Robin pulled and I leaned back on my heels as she started to walk up the wall. I leaned further and further back as she found footholds between the wood logs shoring up the side. Her face appeared at the top. She was straining now but there didn't seem to be a way for her to take the last steps up onto level ground.

‘Hold on,' I said.

And I held hard on the barrel and let myself fall back, dragging Robin up the last bit and over the edge and onto the ground, where she fell forward onto her knees. I lay looking up at the heavy stars, gasping for breath.

Robin stood, dusting herself like she'd simply tripped over.

‘We did it,' I said.

‘Yep, let's go.'

‘Robin! Give me a sec.'

She picked up the rifle and her father's lantern while I got up and winkled my fingers to get the circulation back.

‘Where's all the blood from?'

She held up the lantern, examining my bloody t-shirt.

‘Your father. He sucker-punched me.'

She scowled. ‘When we get back to Perth, I'll move out.'

‘I just saved your life.'

‘I know. I'm letting you go.' She gave me the rifle and started walking.

I followed. I didn't say anything. I had nothing left. Not after ‘I saved your life'.

‘You'll thank me,' she said after we'd gone a little way.

I could see a distant glow. Our fire had died down, but the car light was a presence in the darkness under the trillion stars. ‘It's so quiet out here.'

We both stopped walking and listened.

‘Your mum sounds like she was good. Working. Keeping you all together. Doing whatever she could for everyone.'

‘Yeah.'

We started walking again.

After a while she said, ‘When I left Kal, Mum and Gail and Liz came to the train station to see me off. The big success. So proud. “Off to university.” “You're so smart.” So excited. But, just as I was about to get on the train, she pushes this casserole dish at me. I mean, you've seen it. It's an oven pot, with a lid. “Still warm. For your first night.” It was tuna casserole. What are you going to do, right? I've got a suitcase; I've got my pack, a handbag, sleeping bag. Now here's this giant tuna casserole – to cart through the city, while I find my way to the uni. Geek-girl from the country. No idea. “Bring the dish with you next time you're back up.” Sure Mum. Next time – I'm back.' Robin stopped walking and gritted her teeth and battled not to cry. Instead, she growled, low and determined like a cough she wouldn't let finish.

‘It's okay, Rob,' I said, reaching to pat her shoulder, but she shook me off.

‘No it's not.'

We walked again. She walked. I walked with her. The fire embers were clear now, warm and orange on the earth near her old house.

‘It wasn't the washing, it was the fucking people. The fucking customers. Strangers. When they'd give us the washing, they'd smile their smiles, “Here, this should help.” Like they were giving us a fucking donation. “Here you go, lass.” She'd have to kill herself every day to get their small change. And they wanted eternal fucking gratitude. Their squeaky Christian voices: “You should be very proud of your mum.” “I hope you help her.” My mother was a saint, Zac. Ask anyone. Everyone. In fact, the only two people in the whole world who didn't love my mother were my father and me.'

‘No.'

She stopped and she pointed at me with a sneaky smile. ‘He said she put my name on the invoice cos she knew I wouldn't come. He has no idea. She thought I caused the sunshine. The letters. Even near the end. I didn't hate him. I hated her, for making me feel bad every day of my life, and I ran away, like he said, as soon as I could. And I never came back. Even when she got sick. Even when she tried to call. Even when she ... she died.' Robin gasped but the gasp didn't stop. It was like a ruptured pipe in her chest. Her cry came from inside but like it was nothing to do with her.

I hugged her. She shook in my arms, her shoulders, her chest. The tremors kept breaking from her mouth in these awful moans. I hugged her until the gasps came back into shudders and pants for breath.

‘It's okay. Shhh.'

‘I'm cracking up.'

I hugged her so she wouldn't see that I was scared too.

Then she said, ‘She loved me. She loved me, and I hated her, and I ran away, just like him. Even when she died, I didn't come back.'

‘You're back now.'

‘It's too late now.'

I needed something wise to say, something hopeful and true and useful. I needed to say something to help her and I had nothing. I had no idea. I wasn't smart enough.

‘Are you crying?' she asked.

‘I'm sorry, Rob. I'm so, so sorry.'

‘I should be. Not you.'

‘I know. I'm sorry.'

‘Stop it.' She pushed herself away again. We were by the embers of the fire.

I said, ‘No.'

‘Leave me be.'

‘You can trust me, Robin. You can trust me to know this stuff about you and still love you.'

‘Haven't you been listening? I don't understand the word.'

‘What?'

‘I'm not sure I love you.'

‘Oh.'

The dog fretting woke me. It was dawn and still cold. I eased out of my sleeping bag quietly so as not to wake Robin. She was asleep in her sleeping bag on the back seat, her cheeks smudged from tears and dust.

I patted the dog and got the rifle and used the butt end to scrape sand out from around the tyre. I went and got a piece of weatherboard from the house and slid that under.

One of the most beautiful songs on the Bo Diddley album that I can't name because I can't remember who burned the album for me is ‘I'm Sorry'. It's got a slow musical intro with mournful guitar and piano and drums. Bo's voice is distant. The backup singers are girls. I should have played it before we'd gone to bed; so we could have swayed slowly together in the desert. It's a very sentimental song. Robin would have grabbed the rifle and shot me, if I'd done it. But it would have been neat.

The dog whimpered and Robin popped up looking down at me digging.

‘Hi,' I said.

‘Tell me I had a long bad dream.'

‘It was all true and you promised me lots of sex.'

She looked at the rifle. ‘It's kind of a Swiss Army rifle isn't it?'

The dog whined again and Robin slid across the back seat to look over at it. She scanned the remains of the town.

I stood. ‘He must have come while we were asleep. He took his lamp back.'

She slithered out of her sleeping bag and climbed out of the car and patted the dog.

‘I think he's a present,' I said.

Robin untied the rope where it was knotted at the dog's collar. It ran off into the desert towards Bill's camp.

I said, ‘I guess he hadn't thought it through.'

‘No idea.'

‘He tried.'

Robin considered that. ‘An empty gesture being better than none at all you mean?'

I shrugged.

She looked at me oddly. Said, ‘Your nose is crooked.'

I turned to give her my left profile and turned again to show her my right.

‘More Marlon Brando now. Maybe Montgomery Clift.'

‘After the car accident.'

‘Which is better than James Dean after the car accident.'

We both winced.

She said, ‘I'm not magically fixed because I told you stuff.'

‘I think we're out,' I said, tossing the rifle aside. ‘You wanna start the engine? I'll push.'

She looked back out into the desert one more time, but got behind the wheel.

‘You don't have to move out right away, you know. We could keep playing it by ear,' I said.

I couldn't hear Robin's reply because the engine caught and growled.

I kept pushing.

At last deliverance is almost here. Of course I was clumsy. I didn't know how to shoot; I almost missed myself. Of course it would have been better to have died at once, but after all, they were not able to extract the bullet and then heart complications set in.'