Texas (11 page)

‘I thought you might need this.'

Laura looked down at the torch that sat on top of the bedding.

‘Thanks.'

She took it and placed it in her backpack.

‘Is there anything else you need? From the stores?'

‘No,' said Laura, trying not to betray her nervousness, her sudden realisation that there would be no electricity. That she was going to be out in the bush.

‘I don't think you should go. You don't have to.'

Laura stopped what she was doing and looked into the face of the woman in the doorway.

‘But I want to,' she said.

‘Yeah well, just be careful of the blokes.'

‘Oh, I'll be fine. I know Texas.'

Texas Susannah blinked rapidly and then turned away. It wasn't like Susannah to show that much emotion but Laura couldn't worry about it now. This was her adventure. She stuffed the bedding into the top of the backpack, fastened it and lifted one of the straps over her shoulder.

Texas was waiting by the vehicle. The canvas bed-roll they called a swag was on the back and she lifted her pack on there as well and opened the door. The window was streaked by a mess of insects, squashed and spread by wiper blades. She drew a mark with her finger in the dust on the dashboard. He slid in behind the wheel, his hat almost touching the roof. The key turned over. He pumped the accelerator to inject more fuel into the engine. Something clicked and then it rattled into life, fumes filling the cab. Hot engine air breathed through the rusted cracks in the chassis, warming her lower right leg. She wondered how he could see anything through the windscreen.

About twenty minutes later they pulled up at a gate. The sun had sunk behind the bush and the purple sky was darkening by the minute. She waited by the gate as the vehicle passed and, as she closed it, the motor stuttered and stopped and the sounds of the bush were suddenly amplified. A screeching erupted from the treetops which sounded almost human, and even though she knew it could only be some outback animal, it made her feel a long way from home. Her fear—or was it excitement?—intensified. Sometimes the emotions were too similar to separate. The engine took over again and Texas wound down his window to let out the smoke of his cigarette.

He turned on the headlights and they defined the dark edges of the track.

‘Cheeky snake up there maybe. Those black cockies, they don't like him much.'

He passed her his tin of Log Cabin and released the clutch.

She attempted to roll herself a cigarette but the tobacco fell out of the paper and onto her jeans. She could feel him glancing at her every now and then. And then he slowed the vehicle.

‘Here, you gotta roll the tobacca like this. Rub it first, break it all up. See, like this.'

He handed her a slim, firmly rolled cigarette.

She smiled her thanks. The taste was strong and even though she didn't often smoke, it brought a sense of unreality that was quite pleasurable. And she was able to view from a distance her journey in the cab of that vehicle with a man she barely knew, as they glided through soft sand, bounced and rattled over potholes and corrugations, the dark behind the windows creating a mirror which reflected the flash of the match light and the warm end of a cigarette.

Fate threw them
together

I

It was still dark when Susannah got up to make the salt-beef sandwiches. She wrapped John's lunch in greaseproof paper and put it in the cold room. She placed the other sandwiches in the small foam esky. She was looking forward to the trip to town. John opened the flywire door. He didn't bother to take off his hat.

‘You got a full tank and I checked the oil,' he said.

‘What about the tyres?' she asked, feeling his eyes on her as she put away the tomato sauce.

He was watchful. He had been ever since Laura left for the stock camp. Susannah knew why, of course, but she was never going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. There was no point. It wouldn't lead anywhere or change anything.

‘There are two spares,' he replied.

She wiped the bench and the lino tabletop again. All she had to do was wake up the boys and put them in the car.

‘You got that list for O'Malley?'

‘Yes,' she said, her shoulder brushing his as she passed him in the doorway.

She stepped onto the lawn, noticing the hint of light behind the hills. Small birds, erratic and cheerful, darted in different directions. She placed the esky and her handbag in the ute and went back for the boys. John left the house for the work sheds, the brim of his hat tilted towards the ground. She thought of her father and wondered what he was doing. Perhaps he wouldn't be up yet. The sun appeared, roughly in the direction she would be travelling, and transformed the sky into coloured ripples of cloud.

The wheels slid a little on the loose stones. Following the track as it curved around the thick body of a tree, she remembered the red ribbon of dirt, highlighted by headlights, as it unravelled before them the night they arrived. But she hadn't been able to see the tall rocky outcrops that sloped away from the road. Sunlight spread from a gap between the hills and lit the spinifex clumps, glowing yellow and bright, outlined by green and the copper-coloured grasses in between. The dirt was iron red. White posts signalled the end of the driveway and the ute slowed for the cattle grid. She glanced at the boys and they all vibrated over the bars as they drove across it, laughing together. The glove box opened and a couple of cassettes fell out onto the floor. She turned towards town onto a road that was barely more than a track; the tyres rattled on top of rocks

Texas and caused the wheel to shake and her hands that gripped it. She drove slowly and carefully, slipping into the grooves carved by other vehicles, trying to prevent the wheels from sliding. She had to concentrate. Otherwise she might think about John and Laura and imagine what had happened between them. On both sides of the road was a chaotic tangle of grass and sharp-angled rock that looked as though it was cut from a quarry. She didn't blame John really. How could she? It was probably her own fault. She should have been more cheerful. But just thinking like that made her feel so tired.

The hills had ridges like scar tissue and gullies and cracks through them that would have been carved by heavy rushing water. Trees stood out from the slopes like spindly twigs reaching for the sky, with ground-cover grasses the same colour and texture as the coarse bleached hair of a surfer. In places the grass was burnt and white snappy gums seemed naked amongst the new shoots of green. In the distance a red hill was like a lump of clay, set hard before it could be moulded. A blackened tree stump became a rearing horse. Rough dark bark, livid green leaves. A Buddha created by termites squatted beneath the trees. More mounds like the wet sand sculptures she remembered some children making on a beach. She had forgotten that holiday. Lying beside John on that beach, the two of them sharing a towel, and when he sat up, brushing the sand from his shoulders. She blinked quickly. It was another time, before there were children. She remembered he had been so attentive that weekend, away from his job. They'd driven to the sea while the overseer's cottage was being painted. They stayed in an old two-storey hotel set back from the beach and because the bar was full of young surfers, they sat out on the veranda and he told her his plans and she thought his plans were enough for both of them. She wiped the corners of her eyes. There was no way back now.

Her eyes narrowed. There was something on the road ahead.

It was a bullock. She slowed, knowing it would move away as they got closer. A horned head turned towards her; the beast was tall with enormous front quarters that curved into a small pelvis. A meatworker steer. The car was crawling. Beside the road cattle sheltered under a tree, tails flicking their rumps.

She changed out of gear and revved the engine. The bullock sprang up and trotted into the bush. The wheel was slippery. It reminded her of the night they arrived. She looked across at the boys, who weren't big enough to see out of the window. Every now and then the road dipped for a creek. Mostly they were dry gullies but sometimes there was a puddle at the bottom to skim through. Later in the year when the rains came, swollen waterways would cross the country and prevent them from leaving the station. They would see no one for months. It would be just her and John and the children. She knew that if she tried to speak to him he would only get defensive, and then it would be her fault. It was better to leave things as they were.

She became conscious of the tightness between her shoulders.

She breathed deeply and stretched her fingers. Eyes on the road.

Keep your eyes on the road, her mother would say when they drove into town, when she had just got her licence. Keep your eyes on the thin ribbon of bitumen that divided neighbours

Texas from each other, their sown paddocks and the occasional orange flowering tree, the sort of trees drawn by every school-age child for their straight trunk and the simple dense curves of their foliage. They were called Christmas trees, probably for the time of the year they flowered. It was also at Christmas the crops ripened and the air became hazy with heat and dust. Harvesters carved patterns in the paddock like the design made by a shearer's comb as it peeled the fleece away from the sheep. She could see her mother out of the corner of her eye, sitting where the boys were now, holding her handbag on her knee. She'd be talking about what was needed for the garden, the pantry, her mind too busy to imagine another life.

The sun was directly above when she came to a road sign, signalling that she was reaching a T-junction. Susannah had forgotten there could be other vehicles on the road. She turned onto the bitumen, crossing the white lines which marked the edge of the road, and straightened the wheel, the ute moving smoothly over the hard surface. For the first time since she left the house her body relaxed. She took one hand off the wheel to flick the hair away from her neck. She leant forwards, discovering her back was wet with sweat. The car followed the curve in the road. She noticed tyre marks on the bitumen, then a cow on its back; its feet were in the air, body rounded and solid like a plastic farm animal. A maroon-coloured sedan, abandoned. Its front end crushed. The animal was swollen with gas and she realised that the accident must have happened days ago.

About an hour later they slowed for the speed limit on the outskirts of town. The boys had been kicking each other and now they were hungry even though they'd eaten their sandwiches.

She turned off the road that would take her south and onto the gravel road leading into town. Dust clouded behind as they passed light-coloured fibro houses on stumps and a low-lying motel that seemed to have no windows, palms transplanted perhaps from a desert island, flowering oleanders and a tree she hadn't seen before with bright yellow blossoms that hung on the end of weeping branches. There were buildings of brown brick and a sign which read
Vera's Fashion
. White rendered arches marked the entrance to shops on the corner, and the pavement blocks met end to end over fine red dirt. Above the trees to the north were two craggy hills, their irregular shapes an offence to the regimented lines of the street. She parked in front of the co-op. When she turned off the ignition she remembered she had to drive all the way back again.

The woman in the co-op was expecting her. ‘Do you want any help with the boxes?' she asked. ‘Look like their dad, don't they? Nah . . . don't touch that.

‘How's the jillaroo working out?' she continued. ‘She's from England, isn't she?'

The shopkeeper's pencil-thin eyebrows were curved like half-moons. She adjusted her high-waisted jeans over her stomach as she moved away from the till. ‘Are you okay? Your eyes look a bit red.'

‘It's just the dust,' mumbled Susannah.

‘It takes a bit of getting used to, doesn't it?'

The woman had a figure like one of the wide boabs they passed on their way into town.

Texas ‘You don't hear of many jillaroos around the place,' the woman continued.

‘She's had quite a lot of experience on a ranch in France,' said Susannah.

She didn't want to think about Laura. The woman's eyebrows rose a little.

‘What about the people before us? Do you know anything about them?' asked Susannah quickly.

‘Yes, well . . .' the shop woman began. ‘The family that built that homestead, they were one of the first mob to bring cattle over the top from Queensland.' She paused. ‘It's a shame really you don't see many owners out here nowadays. Actually there's a new manager near you. Further out. He's a horsebreaker and she was the nurse up here. She's from down south too. I heard she's got some time on one of the channels, you know, on the Flying Doctor radio, for all you women to talk to each other. I'm not sure how often it is.'

Susannah had been holding the hands of her children tight so they wouldn't pull anything off the woman's shelves.

‘Mmm,' said Susannah, face flushed, feeling slightly disorientated from the drive.

It was the change in perspective; from watching the road as it pulled her towards the horizon, to everything being close-up and closed in. The stores were stacked in cardboard boxes at the back of the shop.

‘I've packed a few extra things I thought you might not realise you need. You'll be in again next month?'

‘I hadn't really thought. I don't know.'

‘Ronnie,' the woman, her name was Marge, called to a man wheeling cartons of toilet paper in. ‘Help, will you.'

She gave the boys a Chupa Chup each and watched as Susannah put the ute into reverse. Susannah smiled carefully as she pulled out, telling the boys to wave. She drove down the end of the street and around the block. The tavern on the corner appeared closed since the benches in the fenced beer garden were empty. Susannah was back on the road they came in on, a gravel road divided by a patch of grass where people sat in small groups. She passed the pub, turning left and into O'Malley's yard. The children seemed happy enough in the car, sucking on their lollipops. O'Malley came out from behind the counter, his hand scratching a large stomach, offering a glimpse of pale skin beneath a khaki work shirt. She waited while he read the list.