Prohibited Zone (12 page)

‘G'day, Rolley,' I called. ‘Luke in?'

‘Think so,' he replied, taking a swig of his beer. ‘He was here last night, anyway. Think I heard him snorin' just now, too.' He staggered towards an old Holden, every panel of which seemed to be painted a different colour.

‘You leaving?'

‘Yeah, gotta dash. Cop you later.' He got into the car, started it and reversed out of the driveway at high speed. Then he stopped, ground some gears and drove forward towards the end of the cul-de-sac. He did a fast lap of the turning circle and roared back past the house, horn blaring. I had an impression of grinning teeth and a raised beer as he flashed by. There was a screech of tyres as no doubt he took a corner at high speed, and I listened for the crash but it didn't come. I bet he didn't even spill his beer. The day was being dulled by the heat; the sky was almost white, although there were no distinguishable clouds. I was glad there had been no crash; it would only have made the air hotter.

I turned my attention to the house. A squadron of flies had taken advantage of an open screen door and was busily exploring the territory beyond. They must have been attracted by the smell. I stood at the entranceway, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the relative darkness and my nose to adjust to the stench. I made a break for the kitchen, following the flies, and wished I hadn't. The sink was full of dirty dishes and empty cans of West End beer, and there were more empties on the floor. There was a homemade bong on the table next to a bowl of half-eaten cereal that had also been used as an ash tray. An almost-full plastic bottle of milk sat nearby with its lid off and a blowfly on its lip. Someone was snoring in another room and a dog was barking in the backyard. I followed the snores and came to a bedroom door, which I opened.

‘Wake up, slob,' I said.

In the darkness within, a figure stirred, but not much.

I walked to the window, flung open the curtains and turned to see the effect. A naked and very hairy beast started squirming on the bed with a twisted, dirty-looking sheet between his legs, desperately trying to protect his eyes from the light.

‘Who is it?' he moaned. ‘Fuck off, will ya?'

‘Relax, it's only me.'

He stopped squirming but kept his eyes squeezed tight. ‘Steve? You bastard.'

‘Yes, it's Steve, the bastard. Your brother. Did you forget I was coming down?'

‘Nah, I remembered. I just didn't expect you at the crack of dawn. Thought you'd be with Lucy. I know
I
would be, if you'd ever give me her address.'

‘She's in the phone book.'

He rubbed his face and ran his hands through his tousled black hair. He hadn't shaved for a week.

‘I just saw Rolley drive off in his jocks like a maniac,' I said.

He scratched his chin, and then his chest, and then his balls. He still hadn't opened his eyes. ‘Don't know what that's about. We had a few last night.'

‘You don't say?'

‘Yeah. Hey, what
is
the time, anyway?'

‘'Bout nine-thirty.'

He started laughing. ‘I know why Rolley must have gone off in such a hurry. He was meant to pick his girlfriend up at the airport at nine.'

‘She's not going to be impressed if he turns up late in his jocks.'

Luke stopped laughing for a few seconds while he pictured the scene, then started again. ‘Nah, she's not!' he said. ‘She can be a real bitch, too.'

Glee at Rolley's predicament was enough for Luke to open his eyes, get out of bed, shower and dress. He even cleared a path through the fallen beer cans to the fridge, but he couldn't do anything about the smell of sour beer, stale cigarettes and hydrogen sulphide.

‘What did you do last night, have a farting competition?' I asked.

‘What if we did?'

We went outside to escape the smell and to play with the dog, a kelpie. He hadn't been designed for a suburban backyard. As soon as we walked out he started jumping around, licking and pawing and gnawing at us, his tail wagging furiously. We were armed with coffee, some of which survived the walk towards a couple of deckchairs set out in the middle of a small patch of uncut lawn under the Hills hoist. We slung a couple of beach towels over the clothes line for some shade.

‘Bozo, sit,' said Luke. Bozo didn't sit. ‘Bozo, sit,' repeated Luke. Bozo repeated not sitting. In fact, Bozo didn't sit once in the next twenty minutes.

‘Jeez, he's well trained,' I said.

‘I'm working on it,' said Luke. ‘Sit, you little fucker.' The dog jumped higher to show him he was listening. He loved his master but clearly didn't understand him. He was a fine-looking animal, mostly brown except for a white breast, white feet and a white tip on his tail. His snout was white, too, tapering to brown between the eyes, and the tip of his nose was a mottled pink. After a while he got sick of jumping and decided to do a few laps of the Hills hoist at full speed. He had long legs, large feet and the gait of an athlete. He was barking with joy.

‘Has he been wormed for hydatids?' I asked.

‘Possibly. Why?'

‘Nothing. Just something Col said.'

‘Bozo, give it a rest. I've got a bugger of a headache and that isn't helping.' Bozo ran even faster and barked even louder.

‘Was all that beer just between you and Rolley?'

‘Nah, there were a few others. And a couple of chicks.'

‘Really? Get yourself laid?'

‘Not last night. At least I don't think so.'

‘Jesus, Luke, I think you'd remember.'

‘Yeah, I guess so.'

His brow deepened as he tried to remember something that almost certainly didn't take place. I told him what had happened to me in the last day or so.

‘Shit, who would have thought, my brother, a people smuggler,' he said. ‘You did the right thing, man.' Luke was a student and could afford thoughts of rebellion. It was about all he could afford, other than cheap beer. ‘I mean, what's happening to this country?' he said. ‘Do we still believe in a fair go? Aren't we a nation of immigrants, anyway? Bozo, will you stop for one fucking second?' Bozo left his circuit at a tangent, bounded to the bottom of the yard and ran back again with something unsavoury in his mouth. ‘I suppose I'd better take this mutt for a walk,' said Luke. ‘I might cruise down to Sellicks Beach. He loves it there. I can let him off the lead and he can run around like a fucking idiot. He'll hunt for crabs for hours until one bites him on the nose. What are you going to do?'

‘I'm going to pick up a girl.'

‘Any old girl, or a specific one?'

‘A specific one. Kara, the girl from Woomera. I thought I'd bring her here. She needs a place to camp for a few days.'

‘Okay, I'll put up a tent.'

‘I've got a better idea. How about tidying up a bit? She can sleep in the spare room.'

11

T
ERESA
'
S MOTHER LIVED IN
H
OLDEN
H
ILL
, a place where white people on the way down mingled with coloured people on the way up. Sometimes they didn't mingle too well, with the occasional episode of race-inspired violence making the news. But today it was too hot for racism or violence and the streets were lifeless. Teresa's mother had a double-fronted brick house built in the seventies, which had been a brutal decade for Adelaidean architecture. All the houses on the street had been built in the same era with the same beige brick and pretty much the same design. Teresa's mother's house was roofed in fading tiles and the gutters were rusty. The eaves and fascia boards were as thirsty for paint as the alleged garden was thirsty for water. Limp canvas awnings hung over the front windows like drooping eyelids, giving the house a forlorn expression that matched the mood of the street. The garden contained an impressive stock of thigh-high dead thistles about the same colour as the house. The only way through it without a machete was a broken concrete path that led to the front steps, on either side of which sat two beige pots growing thigh-high dead thistles.

I parked on the street, wound down my window and studied the scene for a while. Perhaps a dozen cars were parked along the length of the street, some with reflective shades on their windscreens. Three houses down, a man of probably Indian extraction was watering his dying lawn with a hose, but otherwise I couldn't see much that was living, either animal or vegetable. The sun was swamping the street in oppressive waves of light and heat, beating it down and turning everything to beige.

The front door of Teresa's mother's house opened and disgorged Kara carrying her satchel and another small suitcase. She was wearing a bright red polo shirt that was a vivid contrast to the ghastly brick wall of the house. She was squinting in the glare. Behind her shuffled pale Teresa, her lip studs glinting in the sun. They walked down the concrete path to the street. I watched in the side mirror as Kara put her suitcase on the ground and, keeping hold of her satchel, used one hand to unhitch the ute's tray cover. She threw in her suitcase and did the cover back up before turning to Teresa.

‘You're going to stay somewhere else for a few nights, right, Tess?' she asked.

‘Yeah, I've got an offer. No way I'm staying here with Mum. Like, the fat cow has called up one of her boyfriends to come round and keep her company. They'll have a great time catching up and that's something I
don't
want to see. Or hear.'

Kara put her arms around her. ‘Don't be too harsh on her. It's all a bit fucking scary. Can't blame her for reacting the way she did.'

‘Whatever. See you tonight?'

‘Yeah, see you tonight.' They broke apart and Teresa slothed and gothed her way back to the house. Kara went around the back of the ute and climbed into the passenger seat.

‘Let's go.'

I hadn't seen anything moving on the street since I'd arrived but as we reached the corner I noticed a beige sedan pull out from the kerb.

‘Is everything beige in this place?' I muttered, mostly to myself. Kara was rummaging around in her satchel and pulled out a pair of sunglasses, which she put on.

‘So where are we heading?' she asked.

‘My brother's house.'

‘Oh God, I'm not sure I can handle
two
Wests.'

‘I don't suppose you have to handle us. Unless you want to.' I turned right onto Grand Junction Road, which ran from the foot of the Hills all the way to the Port.

‘Where does he live?'

‘Other side of town.'

‘Care to be more specific?'

‘No.'

We drove in silence for a while, me battling the bad-tempered traffic. It wasn't a good time to be out driving on a Sunday. It was past midday and seriously hot. I guessed that much of the traffic was heading to the seaside, which we could see glistening blue in the distance. They'd arrive sweaty and irritable at about the hottest time of the day, just in time to get burnt and dehydrated. I turned left down North East Road and noticed the beige sedan turned left as well.

‘I wonder if your evil-phone-call dude drives a beige sedan,' I said.

‘What's this thing you have about beige?'

‘One's behind us, that's all.'

She turned quickly and looked out the back window. The sedan was a hundred metres or so behind us and there were several other cars between us.

‘I don't see it,' she said. ‘Do you think we're being followed?'

‘It wouldn't be surprising, would it?'

‘Can you lose them?'

‘Maybe. But I don't know this side of Adelaide too well. I'm more likely to lose myself.'

She grabbed the street directory from the passenger side pocket.

‘And you would have even less idea,' I said.

‘I can read a map, though. What road are we on?'

I told her and she started flicking pages. Adelaide's streets are laid out in a grid that runs north to south and east to west, with a few self-explanatory roads, such as North East, cutting diagonally across, usually in the general direction of the city centre. For the particularly simple-minded there is even a road called Diagonal Road.

‘Where on North East Road?' she asked after a while. ‘It's a fucking long road.'

‘We're heading south-west along it and coming up to the junction with Sudholz Road.'

She turned a couple of pages. ‘Got it.' She studied the map for a minute. ‘Okay. Just do what I say.' I took my eyes off the road to look at her. She was scanning the street ahead, her face tense, focused. She seemed energised by the chance of some action.

‘Stay in the left lane and keep your eyes on the road,' she said. She consulted the map again. ‘Take the second left.' We'd just passed a small shopping centre and were coming to Albert Street. The next one was Cookes Road.

‘This one,' she said. ‘Take it nice and easy, then floor it and take the first right.'

I did as instructed, turning left off North East and then immediately right onto Hillburn Avenue, which ran parallel to North East. I looked in the rear-view mirror; no sign of the beige sedan.

‘I think we've lost it,' I said. ‘If it
was
actually following us.'

‘Let's make sure,' she said. ‘Take the next left.' She navigated me through a series of suburban streets until eventually we came back to North East Road. I hadn't seen anything beige since we'd made the first turn.

‘Turn right,' she said.

‘Right? That's going back the way we came.'

‘Just do it, will you?'

I did it. Then she ordered me to take the first left, a small street called Balmoral. We followed that to where it joined Shropshire, which led us to Fosters Road. This ran north and would have taken us all the way back to Grand Junction Road except that she instructed me to take another minor road to our left. Eventually she brought us out onto Regency Road, a major road running west.