Texas (10 page)

‘Stupid buggers leaving the door open. Letting in the bloody snakes.' He held it open and called out, ‘Hans, Sven, you in there mate?' He stood in the doorway and took off his hat and scratched his head and looked around. ‘I reckon we better go and have a look over at the sheds.'

They started around the other side of the house and heard voices. Two men were walking through the long grass towards them from the direction of the creek. When they reached the yard, she realised they looked more like boys. One of them was blond and flushed, wearing a light-coloured T-shirt and long

Texas khaki shorts, and the other was dark, with thicker, wavier hair, collared shirt and shorts. Both wore long socks and boots and were without hats. They were carrying a bucket between them.

‘What are you up to you blokes? Leaving the bloody door open. Get a bloody big snake in there you'll know all about it.'

They glanced at each other, and at John, and quickly at her, smiling.

The blond answered: ‘We catch some little fish.'

He held up the bucket and inside it were fingerlings swimming in brackish water.

‘What, there's water in that creek?'

‘A little,' answered the darker one and then he turned to Laura. ‘Hello, I am Sven and this is my friend Hans. We have been staying here for three month. We are from Sweden.'

‘I'm Laura,' she smiled and for some reason she didn't bother mentioning that she was from England.

‘Put the billy on, what do you reckon?' John was heading towards the door.

They sat around a dirty formica table in the dimly lit kitchen. The remnants of recent cooking lay scattered about the bench and the sink. The kettle was whining on the stove as the metal started to heat. A fan overhead pushed the warm air around but did little to dispel the closeness.

‘Would you like some food?' asked Hans.

‘Mate. Not if it's any of that fish in a tube stuff,' said John and he pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Got a few sandwiches in the esky.'

‘How did you come to be out here?' asked Laura. She was sitting with her back against the wall on a low bench, glad to be out of the vehicle and finding the heavily accented English a little unexpected.

Hans disappeared through a door to her left and Sven, who was assembling cups on the bench, said: ‘Our Kombi van broke down. We didn't have enough money to get it fixed. The mechanic said they needed a caretaker. So they pay the mechanic while we are here. We stay here for three months.'

‘So where do you go for supplies and food, that sort of thing?'

John returned and slapped the sandwiches wrapped in grease proof paper on the table.

‘There's a roadhouse,' said John. ‘Here, help yourself.' He looked at Laura and opened the paper around the sandwiches.

‘There's a track on the other side of the creek. Shortcut to the highway. About an hour or so away. That's where they fixed the Kombi. Going all right now?'

‘Yes but the track is very rough. We only go there two times.

It takes much longer, maybe two hours.'

Hans entered with a cardboard box and a tube of some sort of paste. While Sven poured hot water into cups, Hans opened a box of crispbread and pointed to the tube.

‘This is Swedish caviar. You must try. We buy it in Darwin.'

His face was still rosy, particularly his nose and cheeks. His eyes, framed by pale lashes, had a glassy look that suggested he hadn't slept for a while.

‘Mate. Tried it last time. Think I'll stick to the roast beef.'

‘I'll have some. Thanks,' said Laura.

Texas It tasted like fishy mayonnaise and she took a large mouthful of tea to wash it down. John drained his mug and picked up another sandwich and stood up.

‘Sven, give us a hand, mate. Lift a post-hole digger onto the back of the Toyota.' He looked back at Laura. ‘You finish your dinner. I'll be back in a bit.'

‘Would you like some more?' asked Hans.

The fan continued its idle rotation above their heads.

‘I'm fine thanks.' She looked around. ‘So what's it been like?'

Her eye followed the shelving along the wall and above the bench and sink; most of it was empty except for the odd pale blue plate, some light-coloured bowls and old-woman teacups with delicate handles and saucers, placed there, she decided, by someone who must have been hopeful. Hans glanced at her and then to the left of her shoulder; he looked as though he'd been crying, but perhaps he was just sunburnt.

‘It has been very quiet. No people. No one. We see John two times, maybe three. And we go to the roadhouse two times. In the north of Sweden it can be like that sometimes. When the snow is very heavy.'

‘So what do you do?'

‘One day we went for a walk. We tried to climb the hill. It was very hot. There was a big lizard like a dinosaur. Very big. And then we see it again with a bird in its mouth. Here.' He gestured to the door. ‘And it swallow the bird and its stomach, you could see the bird in there.' He shuddered. ‘We do not go far.'

Laura wasn't sure whether she believed him. As big as a dinosaur.

She stood up and placed her mug in the sink. ‘I think I might go outside. Have a look around.'

Hans stood up quickly. ‘Yes, of course. I'll come with you.

‘You know,' he said when they were beside the oleander bush in the middle of the yard, ‘there is a strange sound here every night. Like rain but there is no rain.' He looked at her.

‘When do you leave?'

His face relaxed a little. ‘In ten days' time.'

Across the yard she could see the low line of the shed roof and from that direction she heard the vehicle start up.

‘I'm sure it's nothing,' she said, turning back towards him, smiling in a way she hoped was reassuring. And then behind him she noticed, above the roof of the homestead, some sort of aerial, obviously no longer in use, with a creeper entwined around a horizontal bar and the vertical bar above it. From this angle, it looked like a crucifix made of bush.

‘How do you contact anyone here?' she asked.

‘There's a phone at the roadhouse,' he said.

John pulled up at the fence and Sven got out of the vehicle.

‘I think we're leaving now.'

His eyes left hers.

‘Enjoy the rest of your travelling,' she added.

She glanced back quickly before the homestead was obscured from sight. There was no sign of anyone. John looked in the rear-vision mirror and then at her.

‘So what did you think?'

About what? she wondered. And then: ‘They seemed very nice.'

Texas ‘Not bad blokes. A bit useless. Went without power for a week or so. Couldn't work out how to get it going again after they ran it out of fuel. They put more fuel in but didn't bleed the injectors so they had air in the fuel pump.'

‘I spoke to Hans. He seemed a bit . . .' She searched for the right word as the landscape slipped beneath the vehicle. ‘Nervous.'

‘There's always something to spook you in this country. If you go looking for it.'

‘They'll be all right?'

‘Bloody hell.' John braked and the vehicle slowed. ‘Did you see that?'

‘What?' Startled, looking to where John was looking, suddenly aware that her sense of well-being was easily disturbed.
‘What is it?'

The vehicle stopped. John opened the car door. But he stayed where he was. His eyes searched the scrub, which in that section of the track had closed in, with the range rising steeply behind it and the gullies shaded like folds in fabric.

‘It was a bloody big cat. I'm sure of it. Biggest cat I ever saw. The size of a dog.'

She was thinking lions, tigers.

‘Not much point in getting the gun out. It'd be long gone.'

‘What sort of cat?' she asked as his attention returned to the middle of the road and he pushed the gear into first, the vehicle slowly gaining speed.

‘Cat gone wild. You know, like a domestic cat. The thing is, it's a few generations on, and god knows in this country, with plenty of tucker, what we might end up with.'

The vehicle retraced their tracks, occasionally deviating slightly when John avoided a rock or a dip in the road. The constant bumping, changing down a gear, slowing for rough patches, changing up, the sun slipping lower so that at times it shone directly into her window, brought on a pleasurable somnolence that seemed to suspend time. They reached the river which, other than the line of ranges they were leaving behind, was the most defining aspect of her landscape. The light had yellowed and with it, green became green-gold and the blemish-free limbs of the river gums glowed. As they descended the bank, she thought of being stuck there, sunk in sand that was striped now by shade. But John took the vehicle through a slightly different route where the ground was firmer and they got to the other side without any trouble. The top of the bank was covered in grass. When they reached it he stopped the vehicle and turned off the engine. Birds rose nervously from the treetops like fluttering triangles of paper, shifting across the sky in formation, noisy and indignant as they settled again in the trees on the far side.

‘Corellas,' he said.

He offered her a can of beer from the esky. They sat side by side on the tailgate of the vehicle. She was feeling comradely while he began to talk. He became more expansive, revealing his passion for the country, how his grandfather had taught him to ride and describing the place that would have been his. Then he moved on to how Susannah made him feel, saying that his wife didn't understand. That she never appreciated how hard he worked. The job was tough, always battling against people who wanted to keep things the way they were. It was nothing like running a few sheep down south. He had to prove to the boss he could do it and he had to prove it to his bloody wife as well.

Unlike the old man Irish, John had no reticence when it came to talking about himself. Sitting overlooking the riverbed, birds riotous and intrusive, Laura felt included and then, after the second beer or was it the third, he jumped off the back of the vehicle and stood in front of her, placing both hands on her knees.

‘Laura,' he said. His head was tilted upwards and his hat fell off, revealing oily blond hair pasted to his skull.

She realised he expected her to lean towards him, kiss him perhaps.

‘Ever since I saw you, I knew you felt the same.'

Fuck. What was it about men that they didn't realise she was only being friendly? That she was just being polite, showing an interest in what they were saying. She'd enjoyed his company, his knowledge of the country, but for godsake why did it have to end with sex? She watched with horror as his hands moved from her knees, up her legs, his fingers sliding across her jeans, touching her inner thigh, and then he grasped her waist, his body leaning closer, his breathing louder. She remembered Ben and felt sick. The sympathy she felt when he told her about his relationship with Susannah evaporated. What a stupid man. She inched backwards a bit and brought up her right knee and used her leg to push him from her. She jumped off the vehicle and moved away, looking over her shoulder, seeing him pick up his hat from the dirt. She followed the track away from the river.

‘Where are you going?' he called after her. ‘It's a long walk back.'

She heard the vehicle start and then it was behind her, its lights obliterating his face. She had no choice but to climb inside and they didn't speak for the rest of the way. Instead of being angry, he seemed embarrassed and she knew she was partly to blame. She should never have appeared so interested.

VI

The kitchen floor smelt of disinfectant and the benches were spotted with droplets of water. Laura hesitated by the flywire.

Susannah glanced at her and filled the kettle at the sink and then lit the stove.

‘Cup of tea?' asked Susannah.

‘Thanks.'

‘Are you going to sit down?'

Laura pulled out a chair.

‘There are some biscuits on the table.'

Laura reached for one out of the jar.

Susannah took another cup from under the bench.

‘Susannah,' Laura began. ‘There's something I want to tell you.' Susannah straightened. Laura watched her pause before the window, both hands holding the empty cup. ‘Yesterday, John . . .'

‘Look, I don't want to know.' Susannah turned, eyes avoiding hers. She filled both cups and moved one of them across to Laura. ‘Sometimes,' she added, looking down, ‘it's better not to know. You've just got to get on with it. Don't you think?

‘Sugar?' she asked, pushing the bowl towards Laura.

‘Yeah, thanks. I suppose,' said Laura and she took a deep breath. After a while she continued. ‘But then if you don't have all the information, how can you make the right decision?'

‘It's always the right one at the time. You have to think that.'

‘Why?'

‘Otherwise you'd spend your whole life regretting things.'

‘I don't plan on doing that.'

Susannah smiled tightly.

‘None of us do.'

VII

When shadows lengthened and the light softened and corellas roosted in the tree above the yards, Laura slipped the bridle from her horse and gently tapped its rump to send it off out into the paddock. She had just hung the bridle on the nail beside the saddle when the birds rose again. She looked to see what had disturbed them. Metal bolts slid and clunked and hinges of gates groaned as the stockman moved through the barriers between them.

‘Hi,' said Laura.

‘You need to get a swag from the missus. Boss said I'm taking you out to the camp.'

Light leaked through the finger-like leaves of the eucalypt in front of them. The skin of its trunk glowed white and galah shapes flew over its shadow. They were noisier than the corellas.

Laura looked around the small bedroom, then collected her clothes from the cupboard, leaving a dress and two skirts hanging in the wardrobe. There were footsteps. Susannah held a bundle of sheets and a blanket in her arms.