They’re woken at dawn by the birds and the sun. The ice on the swags crackles when they stir. There’s fresh energy in the air. In the light of day, the car in the claypan looks even worse than it did the night before but Sean is feeling ready to deal with whatever the day dishes up. Something has changed in him between sunset and sunup. The nerve ends of the storyteller that live inside him are tingling with anticipation as to how this drama will unravel. Simultaneously cleaning his teeth and draining his bladder he calls over his shoulder to Charles, ‘If this were a story, we’d be the characters, the claypan the setting, the bogged car the problem and by lunchtime … well the denouement!’
Charles is not so bright. He’s looking at the map again and feeling overwhelmingly responsible for what has happened, and for finding a way out.
‘Yeh well, before the ‘denouement’ we have a long walk ahead of us.’ His interest in story telling has shrivelled. ‘There’s a homestead along the track about eight kilometres.’
They tidy the camp and with a bottle of water and an apple each, strike out for help.
They walk through mangy country. Rabbits hurry on in front of them like fleas. There are no recent human marks visible, no fresh tyre tracks – no sign of freshly cultivated land. Sean’s mind is working over time to make something of it. The sleeves of his black polo neck jumper are pushed up to his elbows, his long pale fingers gesturing. ‘You know, there are layers of history, stories embedded in this landscape.’
‘I’m glad you find it inspiring,’ says Charles.
And on they trudge.
Two hours later they come to some outbuildings and sheep-yards that look as if they’ve not been used for years. Sean makes his eyes into slits, tilts his head back and tries to sense human presence while Charles’s eyes search the ground for something concrete, a boot print, a paw print, a cigarette butt … anything – he’s getting worried. Then they come to a large open shed. There’s a Suzuki four-wheel drive parked inside; things are looking up. Sean says, ‘Well there’s no one here. I can feel it’s deserted.’
‘We’ve walked a long way, the least we can do now is find a door and knock on it.’ Charles is willing someone to be home.
They come to a long veranda with generations of stuff stacked on it. Dead refrigerators, fishing rods, a playpen, a stack of wheel rims, yabby pots – it’s all old and cacked in dirt. Half way along there’s a door. It has a solid panel at the bottom and fly wire at the top. Charles tries to open it but its snibbed on the inside so he knocks loudly on the panel. Sean sits on the edge of the verandah, ‘You’re wasting your time,’ he says knowingly. ‘There’s no one here.’
Charles knocked again. Then he turns and sits down beside Sean.
‘We’ll wait. Someone drives that Suzuki.’
There’s a click – the sound of a latch. Both turn. Charles jumps to his feet and peers into the screen. The solid door behind is open releasing a smell of stuffy house. In the darkness he can make out a human shape. ‘Excuse me. I’m very sorry to disturb you but yesterday we drove in to see the anabranch and unfortunately our car is bogged in the clay pan between the first and second lake just east of the highway and we were wondering if there was anyone here who could tow us out?’
The face moves closer to the screen. Charles can see a young woman and she has a baby on her hip. Sean is now on his feet trying to make himself visible over Charles’s shoulder. Finally a small voice says, ‘Can’t help yous. Sorry. Husbands shearing. I could ring me father-in-law in Wentworth, but I dunno if yous really want me to do that.’
It pains Charles to say it. ‘We’re honestly bogged. We had to spend the night on the claypan. If your father-in-law could come and winch us out, that would be kind.’
‘Do yous want me to ring him then? Sure? He won’t like it.’
Sean beams a smile at her from the background. She closes the door and they listen to her footsteps retreating into the belly of the house.
They stand around the door for a while, pace up and down the veranda and finally sit down again. This is obviously a long phone conversation. At last the latch clicks. ‘He’s comin’.’ Her voice is barely audible. ‘He’s angry but he’s comin’ anyway.’ Then tentatively, ‘Would yous like a cuppa tea?’
The men nod. The door is closed in their faces again, and again the footsteps fade into the house.
Its fifteen minutes before it reopens. Now she stands there, without the baby but with a mug of tea, which she passes around the screen door to Charles. Then she carefully snibs it and disappears again only to reappear seconds later with a cup for Sean. Gone again. Then they hear something being dragged across the floor and suddenly, there she is, framed in the top part of the screen door. She’s sitting on a high stool. Behind the flimsy door – securely snibbed – and at a safe distance, she settles herself with a mug of tea and waits for a conversation to begin. Its ten days since she last talked to anyone, face to face. She’s going to enjoy this – cautiously.
‘How old is your baby?’ Sean asks politely.
‘Nine months.’
‘Boy or girl?’ Charles’s turn.
‘Boy.’
‘What’s his name?’ Sean again.
‘Vincent … but we call him Scruff.’ Pause. She takes a deep breath and straightens herself for the explanation of Scruff’s patrilineal line. ‘His Dad’s name’s Vincent too but he’s called Fred. Scruff’s the fourth Vincent to live on this property. My Father-in-law’s Vincent but everyone calls him Gus an his father was a Vincent … an I think they called him Vincent.’
‘Oh, so there’s a kind of pattern to it,’ Charles is trying to apply some logic.
‘Nah. It’s just that everyone hates the name Vincent.’
Long pause.
Sean clears his throat and begins again, ‘So..um..you’ve got sheep then?’
‘Nah. This place’s eaten out. Gus, me father-in-law, he walked off and said we could have it. He an Eileen sells petrol in Wentworth now.’
‘So whose sheep does your husband shear?’
‘Other peoples.’ She sips her tea. ‘Wadda yous do?’
‘I’m a puppeteer – currently on a rural tour …puppet shows.’
‘Like the Muppets?’
‘Yeah, something like that.’
‘Uh huh. An the other one?’
‘Charles? He’s an instructional DVD designer.’
‘Huh?’
‘He makes teaching DVDs so people who live a long way from the city can still learn things.’
‘What about?’
‘Oh .. diesel engine maintenance, sprinkler systems, hair perms, composting … things like that.’
‘Huh huh .. do yous want some cake?’
Both Sean and Charles nod and mumble something about the long walk and working up an appetite. She disappears into the blackness and after a while reaches around the door with two slices of cake. Charles is glad that Sean is doing the talking.
They hear it before they see it – the roaring engine. They rise to their feet and look in the direction of the sound. He’s angry, she’d warned them, and now they can hear the anger in the engine. A white ute spins into the yard and a man in his sixties, tall and solid steps out and slams the door. Charles and Sean stand frozen. He looks down at them both, holding their pieces of cake and grunts at them to follow. The woman steps onto the veranda and they see her at last. She’s very young and squints into the light. A faded cotton dress hangs on her thin frame; translucent skin stretches over tight bones. Her sandy hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She smiles at her father-in-law, a crooked smile with crooked teeth. He stops at the edge of the verandah and lifts his face so she can plant a kiss on his cheek. “You OK luv?” he rumbles. He shoots a murderous look at Charles and Sean. So this is the ‘Vincent’ everyone calls ‘Gus’.
All that sky around them, all that space and yet Vincent manages to impose a silence on them that is as oppressive as if they were trapped in an overheated, overcrowded elevator. They’re led to the shed and signalled to get into to the small four-wheel drive, the Suzuki. Sean opens the passenger door; there’s a rifle and a blood stained knife across the seat. Vincent reaches in and fixes the rifle across the dash and tosses the knife into the tray at the back. Sean follows the trajectory of the knife and sees that it lands next to an axe with sticky blood and hair all over the blade and handle. The man climbs into the driver’s seat, turns and eyeballing the two of them, speaks to them for the first time, and in reference to the axe. ‘We get a lotta vermin around here.’ And switches on the ignition.
Charles and Sean have to make a decision quickly. The car is very little. One of them has to sit beside the driver, straddle the gear stick and rub thighs. Sean concludes, with the speed of light, that he is the slenderer of the two and makes a move to climb in but Charles pushes him aside and beats him to it. He has decided that since he got them into this mess, it’s his duty, and besides, he suddenly sees his friend through the big man’s eyes and thinks he looks effeminate and he suspects that would be and issue for Vincent.
Sean slams the door and their flesh squeezes together. Vincent reaches down to shift the gear stick into reverse and stops. He sighs an exaggerated sigh, looks down between Charles’s legs and spits out the window. The men take the cue. Sean opens his knees and somehow Charles manages to swing his right leg over to join the left and squeeze both between Sean’s knees. And with tyres spinning and engine screaming, they reverse out of the shed and speed back up the track towards the bogged station wagon.
They crash into potholes and slide on clay. Sean twists around and grabs a broken strap with one hand to stop from banging into the windscreen. He has minimal support from the saggy seat belt. With the other hand, he clutches at the back of Charles’s collar, who has only a bit of the dash to stabilise himself. The big man speaks. ‘Didn’t you see the bloody signs? It says PRIVATE PROPERTY.’
‘Yes we did,’ begins Charles, ‘but I …’
‘Then why’d you ignore em?’
‘Well I thought …’
‘Well you thought wrong. Do you realise the trouble yous’ve caused? Have yous any idea what we’re going through out here? I’m paid by the hour. I’m not being paid right now. Who the fuck do yous think you are?’
Neither Charles nor Sean has an answer for that.
At last the station wagon comes into view. Vincent takes in the situation at a glance. He backs up to the bogged car, swings down from the drivers seat and reaches into the tray for a rope that he ties to the four wheel drive and then the station wagon. ‘Well one of yous better get behind the wheels.’
Charles has the engine of the station wagon revving and in a flash the car is pulled free of the clay and back onto the hard ground. It’s that easy. He rummages in his bag under the seat and emerges with a cheque that he hands over to the big man who, after a glance, folds and puts in the top pocket of his shirt. Nothing is said; no eye contact made. Vincent heaves his bulk back into the Suzuki then leaning out the window he looks both Sean and Charles up and down very slowly as if they were stock, and hisses. He slams the gear into first and speeds away.
Shaken, Charles slumps forward onto the bonnet of the idling wagon.
‘C’mon, you’re going to have to drive us out of here,’ Sean coaxes him into the driver’s seat. Neither of them speaks until they’re safely back on the bitumen and heading toward Broken Hill.
Back in Melbourne and a month later the two meet at the usual place in Carlton for a coffee, cake and an update on the film project. Charles is feeling edgy. Since his return he’s been nurturing an idea that has grown into a single-minded passion. He hasn’t shared his thoughts with anyone, not even Liz. He hasn’t felt like this for. Today he’s going to share it with Sean. The coffee arrives and it’s down to business. Sean begins, ‘Well, I’ve got quite a few thoughts here …’ and he leans over into his bag and rummages for the relevant bits of paper.
“Charles interrupts. ‘There’s only one story I want to tell.’
‘Which is?’
‘The anabranch.’
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