The Waterhole, page 24
You wouldn’t latch.
‘Because of my tongue?’
Yes because of your tongue, you little prick, but I fixed that with my scissors. Now get up!
Greg lurched awake. The dog had let him go. The ugly shaggy orange-black monster of a thing was up near the steps looking at him with that dragon eye. What was it doing here? He’d checked Tracey’s house for a dog. The dog shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t fair.
He had to get away.
He slid on his belly like a snake, waiting for his head to clear. Then he crawled. His leg ached. He reached down to probe through the tear in his jeans. His finger sunk in a warm well of flesh gone gritty where he’d dragged his boot through sand.
Bloody dog.
He stood slowly. Pain exploded all over his skull and he vomited a yellow stream.
Which way was the van?
He’d left it in the bush.
The sun hurt his eyes. He’d lost his hat.
He narrowed his eyes ’til he was peering through dark slits. There were trees everywhere, and he could hear chanting. A thousand voices chanting. Frogs! It was a prettier sound than the dog barking. That dog would lead them to him. He had to get away.
Where was the van?
He staggered forward, hands out, and his shoulder smacked into the thin shafts of young saplings. He grasped at reeds for balance but they were sharp and the edges cut his skin.
It wasn’t fair. He’d bet there were snakes out here too. The snakes would eat all the frogs.
He was so thirsty. His right foot slipped and squelched like he’d stepped in a puddle. But there weren’t any puddles so why was his sock wet?
Did I do a bush wee in my boot?
He giggled. Then he tripped and thrust his hands out to break the fall, going down hard.
He smelled water. He crawled through the reeds and weeds and runty trees because he had to get to the van. If he could just get to the van he could get away.
Get up, Gregory.
You think I’m not tired too? You think I haven’t been up all night?
The baby’s screaming you useless little prick. Get up and help me!
‘Sorry, Mum.’
Call me Nurse Shirley.
‘I’m sorry, Nurse Shirley. I’ll get the baby. I’ll go.’
He struggled up off the ground.
His leg was stiff. It wouldn’t work properly. He could smell water everywhere.
So thirsty.
There it was.
He was on his knees and there was a pond, water deep and cool. He leaned out to scoop it up with his hands, but the movement caused that red explosion in his head and made him whimper. He lay on his tummy and used his hand as a scoop …
Greg? Gregory!
You fell back to sleep you lazy little prick!
Didya think I’d like to fall back to sleep? Oh no. It’s me who has to get up for the baby.
He choked up water, spewing it out of burning lungs and then he lay for a moment with his head on the side, trying to keep his aching eyes open so he didn’t fall asleep again. He didn’t want to make Nurse Shirley mad.
The rock was hot and hard beneath his cheek. He’d got sand in his ear.
He touched the spot that hurt most on the back of his head and almost passed out from the pain. That bitch had given him a huge egg on his skull.
Something moved.
He tried to focus on it, out there in the trees, a flash of orange. He sobbed and tried to push himself up. It wasn’t fair. Not that dog again.
As he stared, the orange flash sharpened into the long arm of an excavator across the creek. That’s where all those trees had been pushed together like matchsticks. He’d been there yesterday. He’d watched Tracey. She’d hitched her denim shorts up her crack, just for him.
But whatever approached him walked on two legs not four. He was pretty sure of that. Two legs moving slowly.
Not the dog.
A face staring down.
Thank you, God.
‘Help me.’ He put out his hand.
But those eyes peered at him. No pity in them. No help.
A mewling sound trickled from his lips and he tried to crawl away.
He couldn’t get balanced. Why couldn’t he get balanced? Something had hold of his ankles!
He crashed onto his nose and his face dragged across the rocks.
Where’s my camera, Gregory? Bring me my camera! We promised to take some pictures of this beautiful new mumma with her beautiful new baby.
Where was his mum’s camera? She’d kill him if he lost her camera. Where were his photographs? Were they in his pocket?
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Mum.’
He tried to turn, but his neck wouldn’t work. Blood stained red in his eyes. He couldn’t see.
He pitched face first into the pool. The cold shock cleared his head. This wasn’t Mum. Those hands were too strong for Mum. Was it Nurse Shirley?
He flailed his arms, trying to get back up to the air.
He couldn’t die here like this. This wasn’t possible. It wasn’t fair.
He lost his air in a burst. Silver bubbles dove and darted. They didn’t know which way was up. They whispered in the water. Laughing. Sharp and shining. Cutting.
Just like Mum’s scissors. Or were they Nurse Shirley’s scissors?
You useless little prick. You fell asleep. You lazy good-for-nothing sod of a thing …
38
May 2018. Cowaramup
The entrance to the national park didn’t look so different to this day last year, or the year before that. But oh, it was different to the way Annette remembered it in 1994.
Back then, the gravel road into the national park finished at the trees as if a beige-coloured carpet hit a living green wall. There’d been a sign hammered into the ground proclaiming it national park, and that was that.
Now, the road and the carpark were sealed bitumen and there was a small gate at the entrance. It had stiff-bristled brushes at the bottom with a plaque that asked walkers to clean their shoes to prevent the spread of dieback. An information bay offered photographs of the popular trees and text about the wildflowers and the importance of protecting the native habitat. A newer sign commemorated the collaboration between Parks and Wildlife and the local mountain bike committee for the Rails to Trails project.
A triangular metal gate on a simple swivel hinge barred the track where Annette had once found that white van. Bike tyre tracks snaked either side of the gate, making ribbons in the sand.
She pulled her backpack from the backseat, checked it held her water bottle and phone, locked her car and set off.
The day was cool and overcast. It had rained yesterday and there’d been rain overnight and sprinkles this morning, but it made for pleasant walking. Not too hot.
Occasionally, the breeze would stir through the leaves dislodging raindrops that would ping off the brim of her hat.
Memories hugged her like a favourite coat.
She half expected to see the ghost of Velvet bounding in front of her, but then she’d hear a rock-breaker, or the rat-tat of a nail gun, or the moan of car engines on the distant highway and she’d remember how much had changed. Velvet was gone years and years ago. If she peered hard enough, forcing her eyes to see through the trees, she could piece together the A-line of a silver roof, gleaming dimly.
It was so alien-looking, the south-west bush. Grotesquely shaped banksias, grass trees, crooked blackened trunks and branches from controlled burns. Yet she’d always loved it. She’d always felt at home here.
Annette pulled the collar of her coat higher and walked on, taking her time, watching where she put her feet. This part of the track was flat and easy.
The cottage used to lie just over there. She remembered the day the bulldozers knocked it down. The iron got peeled from the roof and stacked in shining sheets. Then the weatherboard planks were stripped and the frame picked clean like a brown jarrah skeleton.
Then that too was pulled apart, and the cottage was gone. It might never have been there at all.
Her nose wrinkled. Something had died in the bush here, she could smell it. The stench so strong it was an acrid coat in her throat.
She’d found that white van just around the corner.
Suddenly, her step wasn’t so brave. The bush pressed upon her like a grave. Dark green-grey canopy of leaves overhead. Grey-black trunks all around. Clouds.
Taking the backpack off her shoulders, she took out her water bottle and sipped, trying to clear the smell and taste of death from her throat.
Should she turn back now, get in her car and drive home, take Bill in her arms and be glad she’d got all these years with him, glad that she’d been able to love him?
Any normal seventy-two-year-old woman would do just that.
She’d never been any normal woman.
‘Come on, Annette. Get it together.’
She said the words aloud, quietly, resolutely, as she’d once willed herself the courage to chase a killer into the creek.
Bill contemplated the wire of the boundary fence where it met the national park. How the hell would he get through without falling flat on his face?
The dogs jumped about him, Megsie already on the other side, Gus whining and sniffing the grass toward the dam, taking ten steps and barking, running back.
‘Gus, you goose. It’s just a fence. What is it over there? Where’s the rabbits?’
At the mention of rabbits, Gus grew bolder. He raced toward the dam edge and Bill returned his attention to how he would get through the fence.
‘You’re a damn bloody fool, William Ross.’
It sucked getting old, but then, what was the alternative? You couldn’t just stop living. You had to keep going ’til the day you didn’t wake up for your toast.
Behind him, Gus barked.
Megsie, hearing all the noise, came scampering back up the track, yapping.
‘Shut up, Megs. Gus! Get back here,’ Bill called over his shoulder. Bloody dogs!
‘It’s not gonna get any lower if all you do is look at it,’ cackled a voice he’d know anywhere.
‘Piss off, Jack,’ he said, turning to see his brother in his cap, Jack’s head stuck up over the wall of the dam. ‘If you’re stealing my marron again …’
‘Your marron are they? What happened to our marron?’
‘There is no our marron. They’re all mine.’
‘I used to think that about my wife.’
‘Piss off, Jack,’ he said, again, stooping to pick up Gussie who was whining, and lowering him over the other side of the wire with Megs. The movement hurt his bung hip. His hip hurt his knee. His ankle went out with both in sympathy.
‘How’s that dodgy hip these days?’ Jack chuckled.
‘Fit as a fiddle. How’s your dick? Shrivelled up completely?’
‘Don’t be like that.’
Bill straightened, not without difficulty, and regarded the fence every bit as balefully as he regarded his brother.
‘Thanks for wrecking my newspaper the other day.’
‘Soduku the height of your Sunday is it?’
‘Nah, dickhead. Waking up with Netty is the highlight of my Sunday. It’s the highlight of my every day.’
Something dark brushed across Jack’s face and Bill felt just a bit bad for rubbing it in. Just a bit bad.
‘I thought you’d steal the eggs out of me hen house or something… whip all me oranges off the tree. Something to get me back for all the junk mail anyways,’ Jack said.
‘We wouldn’t stoop so low.’
‘Higher than bloody thou, you two. And boring in your old age.’
The dogs chased each other into the park, tails bouncing. Just Bill’s luck he’d run into a ranger and get fined for not having the dogs on a leash.
‘Ah, sod it.’
Netty should have finished her walk by now. She wasn’t answering her phone and she should be home. He had to go look for her. ‘Delightful as it is talking to you about old times, dickhead, I want to make sure Annette’s okay.’
Jack stood tall and hiked over the shallow edge of the dam, then closer. ‘Why’d ya think she wouldn’t be okay?’
‘She’s not usually this late. That’s all.’
‘Doesn’t she know she’s seventy-two? Tell her to walk around the house instead of climb the ridge if she wants some exercise.’
‘Don’t you know what day it is, dickhead? Twenty-four years since the divorce came through,’ Bill said, cheerfully. ‘She’s doing her anniversary celebration walk.’
‘Twenty-four years, hey? Doesn’t time fly?’ Jack winked.
Bill growled three syllables, all of them uncomplimentary, as he put his left hand on the second highest horizontal wire, pushing down.
He got his left leg through the fence. Then he leaned as low as he could, keeping his back flat, feeling the wire scrape gently at his shoulders. It knocked his hat off and he stopped halfway, one boot each side of the fence and himself in no man’s land, wire pressing his groin, wire pressing his spine.
‘I’ll give you a shove if you like?’ Jack said.
‘For the love of God will you bugger off.’
Bill put his right hand out carefully and managed to snag his hat between his fingers. It took a while, but he got his left foot out of his way and managed to get his bung hip, his shoulders and his right leg and foot to follow him through the gap and, well, whaddaya know. He was through.
First time he’d been this side of the fence in years.
He shoved his hat back on his head, held it there so the wind wouldn’t blow it off, and followed the dogs deeper into the park, not looking back.
‘There’s all sorts of scumbags using these tracks. They fly up and down on their fancy bikes. I had a stack of kids raising hell on my place a few weeks back. You be careful.’
Bill stopped and turned. Jack had his hands on the top wire, watching. He wasn’t grinning now. The warning sounded genuine enough. You never knew with Jack.
‘I’ll be careful, dickhead. Thanks.’
Annette’s pulse flew—she could feel her heart pounding all the way from her toes and she was so sweaty under her coat but her fingers wouldn’t cooperate to undo the zips. They were so stiff. It was a struggle to get the lid off her water bottle. She tried to take rests, let her heart settle before it rattled out of her chest.
The trees thinned. It wasn’t far to the lookout. Just back from that, hidden in the bush, was the grassy patch where she used to sneak away to meet Bill on the rare times the Army let him come home. Stolen hours. Stolen weeks. Stolen years. Was that the eighties? Was it the late seventies? How long had he stayed away from her after 1971? These days, it all got a bit fuzzy.
She turned into the horseshoe-shaped curve approaching the lookout over the estate. The going here had always been treacherous—limestone shards and broken-off pieces of rock. Sometimes she’d put one hand on her thigh to help push up and off into the next step. Maybe it was time for walking sticks? She’d always sworn she’d never use them.
A stitch dug into her left side, right beneath her ribs. The pain of it stole the air from her lungs and she stood straight, staring ahead, taking quick breaths to fight the pain.
Something moved.
A boy in the bush. A lanky teenager with a flop of brown fringe and hair in need of a good wash. He leaned on the seat of his bike, rocking it, and smoothing a shape into the sand with the sole of his foot. His attention was on his foot. He hadn’t seen her.
But somebody had.
Two voices shouted at once.
‘What’re you looking at, lady?’
‘Oi! James! Thought you were meant to be watching out?’
Annette hadn’t seen the two boys sitting on the bench seat at the lookout. With their heads close together—one sandy-haired, one orange-red, both wearing t-shirts and shorts, both with their backs to the subdivision—they obviously had no interest in the view. They were picking through something laid out across their laps, but now those fingers and hands stilled.
The boy on the bike jumped and spun to face them. ‘I was watching,’ he said, face slowly flushing red. ‘The uphill. I was watching for Rusty.’
‘Maybe we’ll have to let Dinner keep watch from now on. He’s probably got some super tribal bush skills in tracking and stuff.’ He elbowed the red-headed boy on the bench beside him.
‘Be his only dumb skill,’ the red-head said, sourly, speaking around a lollipop he sucked in his mouth.
There were backpacks strewn at their feet. Plastic bags on their laps rustled in the breeze.
Sunlight glinted from the metallic paint of thrown-down bikes with huge-treaded black tyres. Plastic water bottles littered the ground about the backpacks.
‘I hope you’re going to take those plastic bottles when you go,’ she said. The simple sentence left her short of breath.
Both boys glanced at the bottles, then back at Annette, and the red-haired kid said, ‘They’re not ours.’
‘I’ll take them, then.’ Annette moved closer. She was sure the bottles did belong to the boys—the colours on the bright blue plastic cap and label were bold and new and there was water in both—but she wouldn’t argue. Instead, she moved toward them, doing her best to ignore the stitch that wouldn’t stop spreading in her ribs, intent on picking up the plastic rubbish to keep it clear of her beloved park.
‘Fuck off, lady!’ The red-headed boy growled through his teeth, snatching for his backpack and placing it over the plastic bag on his knees.
Annette stopped dead. The kid was like that snarling dog from years ago; the animal that chased Velvet up this ridge the day Bill came home.
She’d run up here that day.
Her heart, already pounding from the walk, stuttered in her chest. The pressure in her ribs grew—a blossoming ache—and it was hard to relax and draw her next breath.
‘Maybe she’s senile?’ The sandy-haired boy said with a laugh. ‘She’s not leaving.’
‘Maybe she’s deaf,’ the other boy joined in, growing bolder.
