The Wish Kin (3 page)

The moon slips slowly into its bed. The children grow stiff from clinging to the earth, from taking their weight upon their hands. Colm's eyeballs ache from watching the fire. When he closes his eyes the flame is there still, burning red against the black backs of his eyelids.

The blaze dies down and the town smoulders to ash. Colm and Lydia turn from the scene in silence, cross the creek bed and climb up the other side. The stars above them blink and flicker and one by one go out. The sky lightens, first to silver then to a soft powdery blue. How is it, Colm wonders, that the sky seems the same? That it bears not a hint of the pain of the land? That it looks as though it was born for the first time this very day? But then he gets a whiff of the smoke on the air and he looks again at the crumbled town behind them and sees the sky there stained grey and suffering.

‘How did you know we should leave, Lydia?' Colm asks his sister.

Lydia shrugs. ‘Don't know. Just did.'

‘Did you know there would be a raid?'

‘No. Only that we had to go.'

The coolness of the night passes with the gradual spreading of the sun's rays. Lydia is walking more slowly now. Colm thinks she might need a rest, so they stop in the shade of a rock and take a mouthful of bread and the last of their brown brackish water. They
feel foolish but say nothing to the other of how it was that they left Nurrengar without first finding water and filling their bottles. Clearly there must have been some water in the town somewhere but there is no option now of returning.

Another thought plays on Colm's mind but he cannot bear to give words to it. He thinks of the raid on their farm in the hills and then of the raid on the town. Surely it was a dreadful coincidence that twice in so short a time they were in such a situation. He lets it lie, he thinks no further, but knows that he must think soon. For the moment, though, he stands and takes Lydia's hand and they walk again, quickly, quietly, under the melting sky.

They stop when the heat weighs upon them, when the ground flares up beneath them. There is no water left in their bottles and the next town is still a long way away. They are used to being thirsty – it is the primary physical state they have known since birth – but never before have they survived on so little, with the prospect of relief so remote.

They sleep, though Colm wonders if this is wise. He tries to stay awake, to keep alert and on watch, but heat and exhaustion are stronger and he gives himself up to them. He dreams. Bright white light and heat make their way into his slumber now as always. Thirst and an edge of hunger. The farm with its watchtower and sturdy wire fences. Billowing smoke and walls of fire. His father and the dog.

He wakes, his head dark and throbbing. The sun has crept around and they are no longer in shade. He curses himself and nudges Lydia. She blinks at her brother with swollen red eyes and follows him to a small dapple beneath a gum tree. Green shoots sprout from its blackened trunk.

There has been a bushfire, they realise. The tree is one of several of its kind, each of which bears the marks of a blaze. The children's hands when they draw them from the trunk come away black with the rasp of charcoal. They pluck a piece of the bright green shoot and suck at its stem for moisture. The ache in Colm's head thickens.

‘Come on,' he says. ‘Can't stop yet. They might not be too far behind.'

Lydia looks at him, bewildered.

‘Who?'

Colm blinks and stumbles, sees in the open his secret fear.

‘The raiders,' he says. But that is all. He does not go any further.

The sun sears a path in the dirt and it is this that they follow. Their lips harden and chafe, their tongues stick like parched sponges to the roof of their mouths. They are silent. Words, they know, will dry them out further. They walk on.

The sun lowers. Ahead, some distance away, a flash of silver light breaks the monotony of the plain. The children are anxious, wary, yet inquisitive. They walk
slowly, waiting for the evening to descend that they may be hidden in its lengths. But still the sun lives and again they see the flash of light, a little closer now and sharper.

‘What is it?' Lydia asks. Colm is unsure and walks with caution. Soon, though, the brightness of the day makes way for a more gentle covering and they proceed with a little more courage through the gathering greyness.

They stop about fifty metres from where they think the light came from. They haven't seen it since the sun went down so cannot be sure. They peer into the gloom. There is movement, slow and shuffled, and a human form.

‘Father?' breathes Lydia softly. But they know it is not. Their father is a tall, lean and muscular man. The person before them is shorter, thick across the girth and with solid, meaty limbs.

‘Joe!' shouts Colm. For Joe it is, Joe from Joe's Emporium in Nurrengar, proud Tidy Town entrant 2027. They fly across the salt bush and leap jubilantly over the spinifex. Joe stands at the shout and nods and smiles as the children approach.

‘Whaddaya know,' he says, and whistles in his long, slow way. ‘Who'da guessed? Thought you kids were gonners in the lean-to.' And he grins and shakes his head and ruffles his hand through Colm's hair.

‘We saw a light,' said Lydia, panting. ‘What was it, Joe?'

Joe turns and points to a small truck parked nearby. ‘Could be Sheila,' he said. ‘Could be the sun on 'er windows when I opened the door. Could be.'

‘Probably was, Joe,' said Colm, sitting and taking the bottle of water the man was holding out to him. ‘What are you doing out here anyway?'

‘On my way to Elan Plains, I reckon. Find the kids and grandkids. Raid last night. Lost everything. No one's left, I reckon. Not Annie.' He is quiet and looks down at his feet. ‘Lucky,' he continues. ‘Packed Sheila last night thinkin' I would go fossickin' past Midgin first thing. So she's got a bit of juice in 'er. Reckon we can get a fair way before we run out.'

‘Could we come with you for a while, Joe?' asks Colm. ‘We've got a bit of money. We could pay.'

Joe looks bewildered. ‘Course, young fella,' he says. ‘Think I'd leave you out here?' He snorts. ‘You're your father's son all right.'

‘What do you mean?' asks Colm.

Joe furrows his brow. ‘Too honest for your own good,' he says. He looks at Colm a moment longer then shifts his gaze to Lydia. ‘Wanna gimme a hand with the tucker, Miss Bell?' he asks. ‘Let's see if we can't slap together a bit of a feed.'

The two pad across the cooling dust to the truck. Colm squats down beside his pack and begins to unload it properly for the first time since they left the farm. He holds each item thoughtfully in his hands, feeling its weight, remembering its past, wondering
about its future. One by one he places the items carefully on the ground until he has emptied his pack completely, until he can see before him everything that he has in his life and everything upon which his life will now be built.

They leave their campsite early, while the cold earth is still in the company of darkness. The three of them sit together in the front seat of Joe's truck as Sheila rattles over the sleeping plain leaving great blooms of dark dust in her wake. The children cling to the dash, to the door handle, to the edge of the seat, to stop the feeling that their organs are being thrown about inside them.

Colm hasn't been in a vehicle for years, not since the days when they'd drive into Nurrengar for supplies. Lydia can hardly remember.

‘Dad had an old truck, older than Sheila,' he says.

‘Musta been pretty old,' chuckles Joe. ‘Sheila's no filly.'

‘What colour was it?' asks Lydia.

‘Hard to tell. It was always dirty. Pretty rusty, too. Kind of brownish, I think.'

‘What happened to it?'

Colm looks at his sister. She's tough, he thinks. She has to be. But she's still pretty young. He pushes a strand of yellow hair behind her ear and wonders how much she knows. How much she remembers of their mother.

All he says, though, is, ‘Landslide. Took out the truck. And the road.'

Lydia nods, her eyes distant and dreamy. Colm thinks she looks tired. He puts his arm around her and she nestles into the circle of skin. Her eyelids droop. Her breath is even and measured.

‘How far is Elan Plains, Joe?' asks the boy when he is sure his sister is sleeping.

‘Few hundred clicks, I s'pose. Dunno exactly.'

‘Have you heard of a place called Wonding? On the far north coast of Queensland?'

‘Wonding. Is it a big place?'

‘No, it's pretty small.' He pulls out the map from his pack and unfolds it. ‘Here,' he says, and points to a small black dot on the page. ‘Father told us to head to Wonding if we got separated. It's where his sister lives.'

Joe clicks his tongue. ‘Well, you got a long trip ahead of you.'

A spread of small hills slowly emerges on the dim horizon. Slowly, so slowly, that Colm realises he has been looking at them for some time before actually seeing them. The road is a straight line towards the southernmost end.

‘You were lucky up in Hirrup's Range, I reckon,' says Joe.

‘Yeah, we were.'

‘Those hills, they kept the raiders away a long time.'

‘Yeah.'

‘But your dad, too. He would've kept 'em away. With all those gadgets of his.'

Colm nodded, bit his lip. ‘Do you reckon he's gander, Joe?'

‘Course,' says Joe. ‘Don't you worry, son. He's too smart not to be.'

Lydia shifts and sighs. Colm braces his arm more firmly around her, feels the heaviness of her sleeping form against his side. The darkness gives way slowly to the encroaching light. The black earth becomes grey, becomes red.

They drive through the morning, the landscape slithering beside them. The sun burns above them, burns into them. Colm makes his sister put on her long-sleeved shirt despite her sleepy protests that she is already too hot. Joe's bald head turns pink and sweats.

It is late afternoon. The range of small hills is directly before them. ‘Be on the lookout for any signs of a town, or petrol,' Joe says. The children nod and rub their eyes. Colm's eyelids feel puffy. He wishes he could put cool patches of wet cloth on them but there is little water left. He can hear it sloshing around in the jerry can behind them. He wishes he could drink a tiny bit more but knows that he must wait for Joe.

The truck snakes through the crumbling hills. The brown slopes are thirsty and dry. On the right they pass a cattle grid leading to a private road. Joe shifts gear as the road begins to climb.

They heave up the hill, round a corner and find themselves at the top looking over to the other side. A dry riverbed crosses the plain below, irritated at its elbow by a cluster of tired buildings. The three of them get out to stretch their legs.

‘Midgin,' says Joe. He is leaning against Sheila's bonnet, his eyes squinting in the last of the sun, his head dry now but still pink. ‘Reckon we might find somewhere to kip. Get some supplies.'

Colm looks at the town with uncertainty. It has an empty look, hollow. It seems almost dead. He wonders if there is anyone there at all. But then, he thinks, Nurrengar didn't look much better and they found Joe and beds and cans of Fanta there. He stands on his toes and reaches his hands high into the air, stretches to the very tips of his fingers so that his sleeping muscles wake and breathe again.

‘Let's get goin' then,' says Joe after a minute, and climbs back into the truck.

Colm shakes himself and calls out to Lydia. She is standing a little away from the truck, her eyes fixed on the town below.

‘Lyd,' calls Colm. ‘We're going.'

He sees her flinch, but she doesn't move, doesn't turn.

‘Come on,' he calls again. ‘You'll get left behind.'

Still she stands motionless. Colm trots over to her and shakes her shoulder. ‘Lyd,' he says. ‘Joe's waiting.'

His sister doesn't answer at first, then speaks in a strong, firm voice.

‘We mustn't go there, Colm.'

Colm drops his hand from her shoulder. ‘Why not?' he asks, impatient, exasperated. He can hear Joe turning Sheila's motor over. But then he remembers the events of two nights ago and softens. He makes his way back to the truck.

‘Joe,' he says through the cabin window. ‘We didn't die in the lean-to in Nurrengar because Lydia knew something was going to happen and made us leave. She's saying the same thing now. She doesn't want us to go down to Midgin.'

He feels foolish, embarrassed. Maybe the other night was a coincidence and this is a stupid mistake, he thinks. He has no way of telling.

Joe looks puzzled. His mouth is turned down and his forehead is furrowed. Colm thinks he sees sweat breaking out on his pink pate again.

‘Right,' says Joe. He turns off the engine and drums his thick fingers on the steering wheel. ‘You know we're just about outta juice, and there's only enough water for a few more hours. If we don't go into Midgin, what are we gunna do about supplies?'

Colm shuffles and scuffs under Joe's gaze. He doesn't know what to say.

‘Son,' continues Joe. ‘I want you to get your sister and put her in the truck. We're gunna go down to Midgin or we're gunna die.'

Colm doesn't look at Joe. ‘I can't, Joe,' he says. ‘She won't come.'

Joe exhales loudly then gets out of the truck and walks over to where Lydia is still standing staring at the town.

‘Come on, Miss Bell,' he says kindly. ‘We've got a long way to go yet.'

‘I know, Joe,' she replies. ‘But that's not the way.'

‘Which is, then?' asks Joe.

Lydia looks about her for a moment, even turns around and looks back in the direction they came. She wrinkles her brow as though remembering.

‘I don't know,' she says. She does not seem at all distressed about this. Colm wonders why she isn't embarrassed.

‘Come on, Lyd,' he calls. ‘If we can't go that way, which way can we go?'

Lydia turns her face to him and he sees in her eyes the same fiery resolve that revealed itself when they were confronted by the brown snake. His own eyes weaken under her stare and he knows that arguing is useless. Joe, too, seems to have given way to a greater authority, and the three of them climb into the truck in silence. Joe spins the wheel in a circle and they head back the way they came, following the winding road down through the hills. When they reach again the
cattle grid and the private road, Lydia commands Joe to turn into it. He baulks momentarily, then swings the truck off the public road and across the grid.

The road is bad. Sheila hauls herself in and out of potholes, creaking and groaning with every turn of her wheels. Joe drives slowly, worried that if he goes into a hole too quickly one of the axles will break. Colm feels unbearable shame. What if something terrible should happen on this road? Joe would never forgive them. He tries to make himself as small as he can by pressing himself against the cabin door. Lydia, he notices, has no such compunction. She is sitting upright and staring straight ahead at the road. Her eyes hold still their fire of resolve.

They pass signs, warning signs.
Trespassers prosecuted. Beware of dogs. Property patrolled by AAA Security.
The signs are old and rusted and fading. But they are threatening enough that a seed of anxiety takes root in Colm's chest and begins to grow there.

The night is folding in around them when they see ahead the dark shape of a farmhouse. Joe brings Sheila to a halt and they sit in the gloom, watching. They are quiet and still, waiting for some indication as to whether it is safe to go any further.

A light comes on in the house. It illuminates what they take to be the kitchen. The figure of a woman, not young, Colm thinks, but not old either, moves about from table to stove, the hem of her clothes pawed at by two small children. The three of them watch the
woman lift the children into chairs stacked high on blocks and place bowls of food in front of them. The little girl can feed herself but the boy, who is smaller, waits with his mouth open for his mother.

Colm realises he is hungry, imagines the others must be too.

‘Any food left, Joe?' he asks.

‘A bit,' says Joe.

‘Maybe we could take it in to her,' he says. ‘Maybe she'd let us cook it there. We can tell her we've got money.'

Joe turns to Colm suddenly. ‘Look, son,' he says, ‘you're like you're father in lotsa ways but one: you got no common sense. And it's contagious. I don't even know what I'm doin' here watching some woman feed her kids when I could be eatin' me own tucker in a pub in Midgin. And ya gotta stop talkin' about ya money. Not everyone's gunna be nice to ya, ya know. Sooner or later someone's gunna take ya for a ride, and ya ain't gunna have no money left. Dja understand?'

Colm twists his face. ‘Sure, Joe,' he says.

‘Right,' says Joe. ‘Come on then, both of youse.'

They get out of the car and walk quietly towards the house. Joe knocks and they wait. Almost at once they hear footsteps and the sound of a gun being cocked.

‘Who is it?' demands a voice from the other side of the door.

‘M'name's Joe Hammersmith. I've come from Nurrengar. Got these kids here with me an' wouldn't
mind finding out where we can get hold of some petrol 'n' some water. Make it worth ya while.'

The door opens slightly, and an eye appears in the gap, underlined by a chain hanging between the door and the post. The eye moves over the three of them. Colm can think of no reason why the woman should open the door to them. The eye rests on Joe, follows his form up and down, then the chain is slid back and the door opens. The woman lowers her gun.

‘Don't know if I can help you with the petrol,' she says. ‘But I got a bit of water. And a bed if you want it.'

They follow the woman, whose name is Marla, through the house and into the kitchen. Everything is faded, dilapidated, crumbling. But it is not unclean.

‘Sit here,' she says, and they sit on a long bench under the window. The two small children stare at them, terrified. The little girl starts to whimper, the little boy, taking his sister's lead, to bawl.

‘Hush Kiah, Ganan.' Marla kisses the top of the little girl's head and presses a spoonful of food into the little boy's mouth. Their bottom lips protrude but they stop crying.

‘They haven't seen no one for a long time,' says Marla. ‘Their dad left a while back with the two older ones. Been makin' do ever since.'

She serves her visitors a brew which she tells them will take away their thirst. ‘You don't need much of it,' she says. ‘It lines the mouth and throat long after the
last drop has been swallowed. That's how we live out here, so far away from everything.'

‘You got no bore water?' asks Joe.

‘A bit. Not much. Enough to get us by.'

‘But what about Midgin?' Colm asks. ‘Don't you ever go there?'

‘Used to,' says Marla. ‘Not any more. Place had bad sewers, no water. Rats came in and bit everyone with their sick little teeth. Nobody lived. The rats took over. They own the town now. Go there and you die.'

Joe snorts. ‘I've seen hundreds of rat plagues in my time,' he says. ‘But never any that ya can't get rid of in the end.'

Marla shrugs and loads another spoonful of food for Ganan. ‘You try tellin' that to the folk of Midgin if you can find any. Some of 'em were lucky enough to make it to the grave. Most were eaten by the rats where they died. Not pretty, I've heard.'

‘How could you hear if everyone died?' asks Lydia. But Marla says no more.

Later, she makes up beds for them all. The farmhouse was once large, but sections have been dismantled for firewood and tools. Still, Colm and Lydia are in a room of their own with a window that looks out into the blackness of the hills.

‘How did you know, Lyd?' Colm asks his sister as they lie on their mattresses. ‘About Midgin and the rats.'

‘Just had a feeling,' Lydia says quietly.

‘Do you believe that stuff?'

‘Don't you?'

‘I don't know.'

The house softens around them. Lydia falls into sleep, blowing away the day as she breathes into the night air. The room heats and sweats. Colm rises to open a window and hears as he does so a distant whimpering, a crying. He imagines it is one of the children and walks softly to the door, listening. Nothing. He unfastens the window and is about to return to his mattress when the sound comes again. This time he opens the door and walks carefully down the corridor. As he moves through the house again he hears something. Is it the same sound? He's not sure. It sounds slightly different. He stops outside the room it seems to be coming from. The door is slightly ajar. It is a bedroom, he can see, and Marla and Joe are standing together by the window with their mouths moving over one another's face and neck. Joe has his hands around Marla's waist. Marla is sighing and making little noises like an owl. Joe pinches the flesh on her ribs and Marla squeals and slaps at him. Colm backs away and hurries to his room. He pulls the covers over his head and stuffs his fingers into his ears, willing himself to sleep.