The Best Australian Stories 2014 (20 page)

‘Camp'ere years ago, drovin'. Back when. Old times. Eat'ere. Shoot a steer and string'im up there,' he said, pointing to a tree by the water. ‘Salt'im, pack'im up and keep movin'.'

Agnes spoke to him in language and Jimmy nodded. ‘Rations,' he said, ‘Big bag a flour, tea, sugar. Whole family. Movin' camp to camp.'

Cunningham fell into the rhythm of the old man's voice. ‘Old times,' he said.

‘Mmm. Ol' times. Back when. Workin' that Tipperary station. Take them cattle all the way to Adelaide River. Put'em on the train.'

The evening fell quickly and their voices grew low around the fire. Cunningham huddled in closer for warmth and Daisy passed him a blanket. He had no way of knowing whether his presence was accepted or merely tolerated by his three companions. He understood that their history was so much older and stronger than anything he could be certain of. He knew Jimmy was probably linked to this same patch of ground by thousands of years of hunting and fishing and cooking. The old man had come home. Cunningham saw his connection with it in the way he sat, the way he slipped effortlessly in and out of language, the way memories seemed to hover about him.

Cunningham drew the blanket around his body and drifted towards sleep, while the murmuring of the old people melted into the steady shifting of the fire and the smell of burning wood. He slept fitfully, turning from side to side to keep warm. Jimmy lay on the mattress with Daisy and Agnes and snored loudly.

Cunningham woke in the pre-dawn to a chorus of birds that grew as the light increased. His shoulders and hips were stiff from sleeping on the ground and he had grit in his mouth. Agnes was sitting cross-legged by the fire cooking johnny-cakes in the coals. Jimmy and Daisy were sitting up on the mattress.

‘You hungry, Rupert?' the old man asked. Agnes lifted one of the little damper cakes out of the fire and passed it to him.

‘Jam'ere, too,' Jimmy said.

They ate quietly in each other's company, washing the cakes down with hot tea. When they had eaten Jimmy spoke. ‘Best get on our way, eh?' He rose to his feet and walked down to the water while Agnes and Daisy began to pack the camp. Cunningham followed him and stopped at the bank to roll up his trousers. The creases were gone. The two men stood shin-deep and splashed water onto their faces. Jimmy pulled on his beard and tucked his hair behind his ears. Then he motioned Cunningham to lean over. He ran water over his head and asked him to lift his shirt. He placed his wet hand on Cunningham's navel.

‘You safe in this country now,' he said, then turned and walked back towards the camp.

The old man called over his shoulder, ‘Better watch that croc in there though,' and laughed. Cunningham stepped quickly out of the water and followed him back.

They drove out of the camp with Jimmy sitting in the front seat again. He had buttoned up his shirt and rolled the jeans down over his ankles. ‘Better dress proper for that sorry business,' he'd said. Agnes and Daisy sat in the back. The old man directed Cunningham through the burnt scrub to the road and they resumed their journey in silence. When they reached Adelaide River in the early afternoon, Jimmy climbed down and the two women unloaded their bags from the back.

Agnes and Daisy waved shyly and walked off. Jimmy looked at the ground and moved one foot slowly back and forth across the asphalt.

Cunningham held out his hand. ‘Thank you,' he said.

Jimmy nodded, shook his hand and walked away towards the pub.

Flicking the Flint

Anna Krien

Dad smokes on the toilet. When he's done, he parts his knees wide and drops the butt between his thighs, lets it whoosh past his balls. Listens to it sizzle. A laxative ciggie, he calls it. Most of his cigarettes are called something – there's the post-wank ciggie, the knock-off ciggie, a keep-warm ciggie, the I'm-done-with-dinner-now-clear-the-plates ciggie. Sometimes he just stands in the yard, flicking the flint of his lighter under his thumb, cigarette burning low in the other hand, ghosts coming out of his mouth. The
chip-chip-chip
of the flint like a bird call. That's a fuck-off-I'm-thinking ciggie.

I wasn't sure if it was one of those ciggies when I stepped out the door, schoolbag in my hand, and found him on the porch. I froze like I'd seen a snake. He had been in the search party looking for a guest and we hadn't seen him for a couple days. It was part of his job at the resort. Mum and I listened to the radio reports about it last night until Mum told me to go to bed. The collar of his orange fluoro work jacket was flipped up, covering the back of his neck, his beanie pulled low over his brow, laces of his work boots undone. Cigarette cupped in his hand.

‘Hi?' I said, a puff of cold air coming out of my mouth. Dad turned, his jacket rustling, to stare at me. He was silent.

‘Did you find him?' I asked. Dad sucked on his cigarette and turned away. I shifted my schoolbag onto my shoulder. Mum was hovering in the doorway now, peering out at Dad nervously. ‘The stupid idiot decided to go for a stroll in the blizzard,' Dad said suddenly, starting to laugh. ‘He was so drunk he didn't even notice.' He described how they'd spotted the jacket, it was hanging on a branch, then a jumper, then a pair of boots placed side by side, and a little way off, a pair of jeans with socks peering out of the legs. Finally, under a mound of snow, there was the guest – curled up like a baby in his undies and a singlet, blue mouth stinking of sweet bourbon. ‘Frozen so hard you could knock on him like a door.' Dad stood up, flicking his butt into the garden. It hissed as it landed in a patch of icy grass. ‘So was he dead?' I asked, not wanting to break the spell but not quite getting it. Dad turned to look at me again, his eyes narrowing. ‘Of course, you dimwit, what do you think? Anyway, long story short, fuck off kid. Don't you have any friends?'

*

Dad knew I didn't have any friends. It was one of his favourite things to ask me. ‘Where are your friends?' he'd needle, or ‘Who'd you play with at school today?' On the weekends it was, ‘You got someone whose house you can go to so me and your mum can have some time without you?' Once I tried to explain that there was no one to play with, that we lived on the side of a mountain in a row of three houses and that was it and the only people who came through were tourists, and I did have a friend once, remember, back in Preston when we lived in the city, but Dad snapped his head at that. ‘You sound like your mother, boy. I'd watch that if I were you. Soon you'll be playing with dolls and growing a pair of tits.'

*

One day, I lied. I said I'd made a friend at school. School was at the bottom of the mountain. A few portable classrooms, an oval and about fifty kids. I caught the bus there. I called my friend Chet. Dad's face lit up and he insisted on driving me to school the next day. I felt sick. I tried to lie awake all night, as if by some power I could hold back the morning with my eyes, but I couldn't keep them open and when I woke it was light. I stayed in bed when Mum came in, clung to the sheets with my hands and said I felt sick. But then I heard Dad yelling at her, that she was too soft, that there was nothing wrong with me, that I was a mummy's boy. I got up. I pulled on my clothes with a grim sense of being filled with cement.

We drove down the mountain in silence. I watched the sunlight jump across my seatbelt like an animation as Dad sped around the bends until he drew up behind a little maroon car, an old woman, her little white head hunched over the steering wheel, carefully navigating the turns. Dad beeped and revved, then dropped back and beeped, and revved close again, almost nudging her boot. ‘I don't have time for this,' he muttered. ‘For Christ's sake,' he spat, grinding his fist into the horn. The old lady twisted in her seat, trying to look behind at us. ‘C'mon!' Dad yelled. When the mountain levelled, he overtook her on a straight, almost skinning the side of her car. I sank low in my seat to avoid the old lady's gaze at she squinted at us, trying to make out who we were.

At the school gates, I grabbed my bag before Dad cut the engine and opened the door. ‘Thanks, Dad,' I said, jumping out. ‘See you,' I added, hopefully. Dad pulled the clutch and put the handbrake on. ‘Oh no, Gerard, I'm coming in with you, remember? I want to meet this new friend of yours.' He gave me a big smile. It didn't reach his eyes. They stayed cold like a lake that gets no sun. ‘That still okay with you?' he said, as if it was my idea.

I nodded.

He got out of the car and walked into the yard with me. He looked around slowly and then settled on a group of boys my age. ‘Chet?' he called out in a singsong voice. ‘Any of you Chet?' When they shook their heads, he walked over to them. ‘Where's Chet? My son here says he's friends with Chet.' He smiled at them slyly, as if sharing a joke with them. They shrugged. ‘Never heard of him,' said Billy, a boy covered in freckles. ‘That's odd, son,' he said, turning back to me. ‘Never heard of him. Maybe I'll go inside and ask one of the teachers.'

I looked at my sneakers. ‘There is no Chet.'

‘What, son?' Dad said in his chipper voice.

‘There is no Chet,' I said, louder, still looking down.

The other kids had moved away, eyes on us. It felt like the whole schoolyard had stopped. Past Dad's legs I could see Miss Munro next to the bin, her hand poised above it. Balls stopped bouncing. Even the litter flipping on the ground in the breeze – empty chip packets, fruit juice poppers, the leaves – had stopped.

‘Look at me when you're speaking to me.'

I couldn't get my eyes off the gravel. I had to haul them up, lift them like they were rocks, make them grab hold of Dad's shoes and drag them up past his laces, his jeans, belt, his neck, thick with its tendons tight, and finally, his face.

‘You know why you've got no friends, Gerard?' I shook my head. ‘Because you're a liar. And no one wants to be friends with a liar.' He looked over at Billy. ‘Isn't that right?' Billy quickly dropped his eyes, his face turning red. He shrugged.

Dad looked back at me. ‘So what are you telling me, Gerard? I took time out of my day to drive you here and this is what I get? Do you think I've nothing else to do? Do you?' I shook my head, my schoolbag slipping off my shoulder and landing on the ground at my sneakers. Dad's face folded in on itself as if he smelt something rotten, his nose flaring. He spat out a sigh. ‘We'll finish this at home.' He walked past me to the car, the back of his hand brushing against my shoulder, the shock of it making me stumble. Only when he started the car did it feel like the yard started to move again. Miss Munro dropped her litter in the bin. I heard the
thunk
of aluminium as it hit the bottom. A basketball ricocheted off the backboard. A fruit juice popper rolled onto its side. My knees were shaking.

*

We live in a weatherboard house halfway up the mountain. When Dad told us he had got a job here he said it was full-time, that he'd be getting paid more than Mum had been getting. ‘There'll be lots of kids for Gerry to play with and you won't have to get the train to work every day,' he'd said to Mum. We were living in a red-brick flat and he bought a bottle of champagne, letting me uncork it on the balcony. I aimed it at the window of the guy Dad was having a fight with about putting the bins out. He liked that, ruffling my hair. My entire chest flushed with warmth at his touch. I nodded at everything he said. ‘Yeah! It'll be fun, Mum,' I said. Mum brought out two glasses, looked at them and went inside and came out with two different ones. She looked at them again, as if trying to judge them through Dad's eyes, and turned around again to change them. ‘Oh for Christ's sake, Jean, they're fine,' snapped Dad. She put them on the table, her hands trembling. She was biting her lip, trying not to cry.

Mum had a typing job in a solicitor's office where Aunty Bron worked. She got it at the start of the year. Dad didn't like it. He said it was making her snobby, that she was starting to put on airs like her sister. But that evening, Dad had nothing but good things to say about Aunty Bron. ‘She can come and stay with us. I'll make sure she gets a guest room, free of charge,' he said generously. ‘And Gerry can learn how to ski.' I nodded my head, up and down, at Mum. Dad put his arm around me and drew me into his lap. Mum looked at the street below us and sipped the champagne.

*

That was two ski seasons ago and I haven't put on a pair of skis yet. And for a full-time job Dad does a lot of standing in the yard, the flint of the lighter going
chip-chip-chip.
Aunty Bron hasn't visited either. I don't think her and Mum talk anymore. The last time I saw her was in our flat. She stood in the tiny kitchen, her tall reedy frame like a plant that had outgrown its surroundings, arms bent and trying to fit in awkward places, the gap between the counter and the cupboard. Mum sat at the Laminex table, hands tugging at a paper napkin, face bent over a mug. Aunty Bron wouldn't take off her coat or sit down.

‘Jean, just fucking once, I want a phone call from you that doesn't involve a cup of chamomile fucking tea,' she said, pacing. Mum nodded, eyes filling with steam from the tea.

‘What I'd kill for a phone call like that. Instead I get the same old broken record. You know the rest of us have problems too, only we try to
do
something about them.' Mum put her hands on the mug. The napkin was in shreds. ‘I'm sorry,' she said in a small voice. ‘I didn't know things were hard for you too. How is Stuart? The kids?'

*

So when we moved here and Dad was only working a few hours a week, not full-time like he said and we had to go back on benefits, Mum didn't call Aunty Bron to complain. When Mum brought it up with Dad one night, he put his knife and fork down real slow.

‘You calling me a liar, Jean?' he said, chewing each word before spitting it out. I edged my chair back from the table and thinned my eyes so everything started to blur.

‘No! I jus—'

‘You think I'm not working hard enough?'

Even with my eyes like this, I knew how my mum looked. Her eyes wide, fingers clasping the edge of the table, mouth stammering.

‘No—'

‘You don't believe me? You want to check up on what I say?' He stood up and grabbed the portable phone. He started pressing numbers. I could hear them beep a little longer than usual, the buttons slowly recovering from the force of his fingers. ‘You want to ask them at the resort?' He thrust the phone at her. ‘It's ringing. Ask them if your husband is a liar. Go on.'

I opened my eyes. Mum was shaking, her mouth open, hands splayed over her heart. Dad stood over her, the phone thrust in her face. A little tinny ‘Hello?' was coming out of the receiver. ‘Hello? Breakfast Mountain Resort. Hello?'

With the phone still in her face, Dad pressed the hang-up button with his thumb, then swung it back, making out as if he was going to hit her with the phone. Mum and I screamed, the phone stopping an inch from her face, and Dad looked at us as if we were the most pathetic, predictable animals he'd ever seen. He dropped the phone on Mum's lap, her skirt swallowing the dial tone, and walked out.

*

I've started doing this thing when stuff like that happens. When Dad starts circling us like a shark. I crimp my eyes thin so everything is blurry and imagine I'm on the school bus, coming down the mountain with school still a way to go, and Miss Munro is sitting behind me. Her blonde hair short and neat like a helmet, folded over her ears and those red dangly earrings. She saw me looking at them once as I twisted in my seat to speak to her, and she took one off to show me, and let me run my finger over its chalky surface.

‘It's coral. From the sea,' she said. ‘I suppose they dye it.' When she put it back on, her fingers fiddling and fixed around her lobe, she tilted her head and the morning light flickering through the trees touched her cheek, tiny white hairs glowing for a moment before the bus turned round a bend. ‘You ever been to the beach, Gerry?' she asked.

I snorted. ‘Course I've been to the beach,' I said, turning back to face the front so she couldn't see my face. ‘Oh, you're lucky,' she said. ‘I never saw the beach till I was an adult.' Amazed, I turned back around.

‘Really? Why?'

She shrugged. ‘Oh, you know. We lived in the country and my family wasn't one of those families that did things together.'

It was the first inkling I got that other families weren't what I thought they were – perfect and having barbeques and going on holidays together.

‘Oh, we do everything together,' I said, quickly. Miss Munro nodded at me, her eyes – they were green, I realised, not blue as I first thought – betrayed nothing. I turned to face the front, feeling my cheeks go warm. Did she think I was a liar? It was true though, we never did things on our own. Dad always found a reason for all of us to go to the shops when Mum needed to go to the supermarket, and at my last school, when Quentin Riley asked if I wanted to go to his house, Dad insisted on meeting him and his mum first. My heart sank when I saw Quentin's mum waiting at the gate to meet us. She was tall with short grey hair and thick black glasses. Her lips were painted bright red and she wore men's suit pants. Dad said right in front of them there was no way I was going to some lesbian's place to play with her fat kid. So in a way, we did do everything together; we weren't allowed to do anything else and we didn't do much.