‘Mullet! Cummeer!’
The siren scent of the dead thing made the dog skittish as he approached the house; he kept veering away and coming to heel again. His toenails clicked on the front steps. His tail was almost caught in the screen door as it slammed shut. An overwhelming potpourri of smells immediately struck him, all of them associated with food, water, sweat, grease, smoke. The man’s heavy boots made the floor creak. He said: ‘Nathan?’
There was no reply. A refrigerator gurgled and a clock ticked; the only other sound was the man’s ragged breathing. He went into the kitchen and Mullet followed him, bustling about, snuffling at kickboards. One by one, the cupboard doors banged open – bang, bang, bang. Mullet was assailed by hot and spicy smells, wheaten smells, the musty smell of old potatoes. But he had to tear himself away, because the man was moving on.
‘Mullet!’ he said. ‘Cummeer. Nathan! Where are ya? Come out, come out, wherever you are.’
They crossed the living room and entered the first bedroom. It contained a double bed, an old wardrobe, a cabinet, an unpacked suitcase. There were clothes strewn everywhere – a woman’s clothes, a child’s clothes. A ghostly sheep’s skull sat on a bedside table.
The man opened the wardrobe, grunted, and closed it again. He looked under the bed. He was carrying a rifle.
Mullet preceded him into the next bedroom, which was small and cluttered, and smelled strongly of tobacco. The walls and ceiling were brown with old smoke. The bed was a single, draped in a drab chenille cover. There were two chests of drawers which supported piles of mismatched objects: an antique sewing machine, a transistor radio, a lamp, an alarm clock, a tin money box, a shoe horn, a spectacle-case, a china dog, a crystal inkwell. The wardrobe was stuffed with clothes, and nothing else. More objects had collected in the corners of the room, among them an ancient bag of golf clubs, a broken gramophone, a box of magazines, a bakelite ashtray on a stand. No one was hiding under the bed, because there was no room to hide. That space, too, was packed with dusty possessions.
The man led Mullet into the bathroom, where they checked behind the door and inside the wickerwork laundry hamper. A tap was dripping. From the bathroom they retraced their steps up the hall, stopping briefly in the first bedroom to collect a soiled pair of shorts (size six). From there they made their way to the enclosed verandah, which was full of old newspapers and collapsed chairs; Mullet sniffed out no one in that long, narrow room, nor in the caravan wedged against it. The door of the caravan had to be forced, and this was done by means of a hammer retrieved from the garage. The garage, too, was searched very thoroughly, with Mullet inserting himself into every pocket of empty space.
No one was hiding behind the blistered meat safe, beneath the old bedspread, or inside the empty oil drum.
‘Fuck ’im,’ the man said. He emerged into the yard again looking angry, and narrowed his eyes against the sun. Mullet began to poke around some of the piles of rubbish, then veered off again towards the dead thing. He could smell other dogs. The smell was very strong – as was the reek of rotting flesh.
‘Mullet!’
So powerful, so irresistible were the smells ahead of him that Mullet ignored his master’s shout until his collar was seized. He was hauled backwards, choking, and the memory of other, similar incidents cowed him. Then the dirty shorts were thrust under his nose. He was familiar with their scent, which had been spread throughout the house behind him; he knew it from other houses too, from cars, from his own kennel. The boy had once hidden in his kennel while Mullet strained at the end of a taut piece of nylon rope that was tied to a Hills hoist. The boy had been something of an interloper. An intruder. Mullet had been banished from his presence, on occasion, as well as from the territory that Mullet had marked out as his own. There had been confusing spells in a wire pen, among the stink of poultry and engine oil. The boy’s appearance had always seemed to herald one of these spells.
Knowing what was expected of him, he began to follow the boy’s scent around the yard, trotting from one jumble of wood and iron and plastic to the next. Most of the traces were very faint. Some were strong, but not fresh. The smell of dog was everywhere too, and it distracted him. Finally they ended up down the back, near the gate, where the man peered into the rusty hulk of an old car.
Here Mullet found a trail that would have made him bark, if he had still possessed functioning vocal cords. (His master hated noisy dogs.) He pursued it to the gate, was checked, tracked it back to the house, then retraced his steps.
‘What’s that?’ said the man. ‘You got something?’
The gate was in the way. Mullet paced back and forth in front of it, his nose to the ground. When the gate was finally opened, he trotted through it ahead of his master and cast about until he found what he was looking for.
‘That’s it. That’s my boy. Get him, Mullet, the little shit.’
There were secondary trails ambling about, and Mullet was fooled by them once or twice, but the strongest – the straightest – headed away from the house, towards the west.
So he set off in that direction, with the man at his heels.
CHAPTER 5
‘We should have been there by now.’
At last Noel admitted it. Peter had been thinking the same thing for some time, but had been afraid to voice his misgivings. They had left Broken Hill at ten fifteen. It was now half past one. And they hadn’t even reached the roadhouse yet – let alone Mildura.
‘Could we be on the wrong road?’ Linda inquired.
‘I can’t see how.’ Noel was muttering. He always muttered when he was under stress. ‘There aren’t too many roads out here.’
‘But could we have taken the road to Menindee by mistake? Or the road to Adelaide?’
Noel shook his head.
‘If we had,’ he said, ‘we still would have reached something before this. It doesn’t take three hours to get to Menindee. And Coburn’s not far from Broken Hill, on the Adelaide Road. Not that Coburn’s very big, but it’s something.’
‘Then what’s going on?’ Linda demanded.
‘I don’t know.’
‘We haven’t been going slowly, have we? It doesn’t feel like we have.’
‘We haven’t,’ Noel declared. ‘I always check the speedometer.’
‘Could it be broken?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Mum,’ said Rose. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘You can have an apple.’
‘I don’t want an apple.’
‘Well I’m sorry, that’s all you can have.’
‘But I wanna biscuit . . .’
‘Oh be quiet, Rose, will you?’ Peter snapped. He knew that she was getting tired of the car – that she was bored and restless – but he had no sympathy. He was getting tired of the car himself. ‘You’re being a pain.’
Rose’s face crumpled. ‘I’m not!’ she cried. ‘Don’t say that!’
‘Peter!’ Linda’s voice was sharp and threatening. ‘Stop it! You kids be good, all right? Just be good.’
‘I was being good,’ Louise mumbled, but no one paid any attention. As Rose blubbered, and her parents conversed, Louise continued to draw pictures of girls with long hair in her sketch book. Peter leaned forward.
‘It’s not the way I remember it,’ he said uneasily. ‘The bush should be getting thicker. Don’t you think? When we first left Wentworth, on the way to Broken Hill, there was thicker bush.’
‘I didn’t notice,’ his mother retorted. ‘I was too busy doling out sweets and settling arguments.’
‘Don’t you remember, Dad?’ Peter turned to Noel, who pondered this proposal for a while before answering.
‘Yes,’ he confessed, reluctantly. ‘But there must be a logical explanation.’
They all gazed at the road before them, which shot southwards in a dead straight line. It gleamed a little in the sun. Their car seemed to be eating it up; the tarred surface disappeared under the wheels beneath them as if it was being sucked into a great ho
llow stomach attached to the rear axle.
Yet on either side of this endless grey ribbon the countryside remained strangely static. Everywhere you looked there were the same grey-green daubs of vegetation, yellow grass and sandy salt pans; the same patches of dark green scrub; the same creek on the right, in the distance; the same faraway power pylons flickering on the left, like a mirage.
A red Land Rover barrelled towards them and flashed past, heading north. The sight of it comforted Peter, for some reason. He realised that they hadn’t passed anyone for ages.
‘Maybe we should have waved them down,’ Linda suddenly remarked. ‘Asked them how long they’ve been driving for.’
‘Dad.’ Peter was peering through the gap between his parents’ seats. His eyes had strayed from the speedometer to the fuel gauge. Beside the bobbing red indicator (which was poised just above the line marked “E”) a little electronic light was glowing. Superimposed on this luminous disk was a simplified picture of a petrol pump. ‘Are we – are we going to run out of petrol?’
Linda gasped as Noel sighed.
‘Actually, Peter, I wasn’t going to comment on that for a little while,’ he said.
‘Noel!’ Linda spoke very clearly and urgently. ‘The tank’s almost empty, in case you haven’t noticed!’
‘It’s not as bad as you think.’
‘Noel –’
‘It always looks worse than it is. You know that. There’s always a bit in reserve when the needle strikes “E”.’
‘Which means we’ve got what? Ten minutes?’
‘I’m not sure . . .’
Linda tackled the bag at her feet again. She searched through it until she found her mobile phone.
‘That’s not going to work,’ said Noel.
‘There’s no harm in trying.’
‘It won’t work, out here.’
‘Have you got a better idea, then?’ Linda growled. Peter shrank back into his seat, praying that they wouldn’t start to argue – it would only make things worse in that cramped little car. Rose said: ‘Mummy.’
Peter tapped her arm and gave her a frown of warning. Even Louise was now alert to the drama. She had closed her sketch book and was chewing on the end of a perfumed pencil, eyeing the back of her mother’s head.
‘Nothing,’ Linda fretted, after pushing a few buttons on her mobile, pressing it to her ear, giving it a shake and repeating the process all over again. ‘Not a thing.’
Noel made no comment, but the words ‘I told you so’ seemed to hang heavy in the air.
‘What happens if we do run out?’ Linda wanted to know. ‘Will our insurance cover a tow truck? I can’t see the NRMA in Broken Hill sending a motor mechanic all the way out here with a can of petrol.’
‘We won’t need a tow truck or a motor mechanic,’ Noel replied reassuringly. ‘There’s bound to be a farm along here somewhere. We’ll just knock on the door and ask them if they have a bit of spare petrol that we could buy. These places generally do. Lots of people must run low along this highway.’
‘Did you fill it up before we left?’ Linda demanded.
‘You know I did.’
‘Then what the hell’s going on?’
‘I‘m not sure.’
‘Kids!’ Linda raised her voice. She craned around, struggling to look her children in the eye. ‘Has anyone seen a mailbox or anything, recently? Maybe the name of a farm or a family painted on a sign – something like that? I know I haven’t.’
Peter tried to think. He hadn’t been looking for mailboxes. He had been looking for distance markers, because there didn’t seem to be a single one on that particular stretch of highway that wasn’t bent or peppered with shot or wind-scoured into incomprehensibility. He had a vague recollection of a dirt road, winding off in the direction of the creek – maybe even two dirt roads – but not of any mailbox or name on a board.
He surely would have remembered, if he had seen such a thing. Mailboxes out here were often interesting creations, made of oil drums and microwave ovens and other diverse objects, and signage was so rare that any words written along the highway would have lingered in his mind, leaving a sort of echo, like a catchy tune.
‘I didn’t see anything,’ he confessed at last.
‘I did,’ said Louise, and everyone – except Noel – looked at her.
‘You did?’ Linda sounded sceptical. ‘Where?’
‘Back there. It was a mailbox, painted white. Beside a road.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘How far back was it?’ asked Peter, before his mother could. Louise screwed up her face, which was olive skinned, like Linda’s.
‘I don’t remember,’ she said. ‘Quite a long way.’
‘Stop the car.’
Linda’s tone was calm, but Noel was startled nonetheless. There was a minimal slackening of speed as he adjusted the weight of his foot on the accelerator.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘Stop the car. Please.’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘Just stop it. Please.’
Noel made a long-suffering noise. He flicked the indicator (though there was no one behind him for as far as the eye could see) and pulled over to the side of the road. Then he turned off the engine.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
‘Mum? Can I go to the toilet?’
‘In a minute, Rosie.’ Noel was looking at his wife, who sat with her elbow resting on the windowsill, and her forehead resting on her hand. ‘Are you feeling sick?’
‘No.’
‘Then –’
‘Louise,’ Linda interrupted, ‘will you please get out and help Rose go to the toilet? Put your shoes on first. And take this tissue.’
‘Oh, but Mum . . .’
‘Now. You too, Peter. You can get out and stretch your legs. You’ve been sitting down for too long.’
Peter didn’t argue. It would have been unwise to do so; his mother was in a touchy mood. He knew that she was only ejecting her kids from the car because she wanted to talk to Noel in private. But, although he was curious, he wasn’t going to insist on taking part in the conversation.
‘Come on,’ he said to Rose. ‘We’ll find you a big bush.’
‘Okay.’ Rose was quite happy to piss in the dirt, because she welcomed the excitement of it. Pissing in the dirt was the sort of thing that she could tell her friends about in kindergarten.
For Louise, however, the novelty of crouching behind a bush to pass urine didn’t make up for the discomfort and embarrassment she felt whenever another car passed them while she was so engaged.
‘I think I’ll wait for the roadhouse,’ she said as she climbed out of the car. Peter shrugged.
‘Suit yourself,’ he replied. ‘But at this rate, we might not even get there.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’ She sounded cross. ‘We have to get there some time. It’s on this road.’
‘Yeah, but haven’t you noticed? There’s something pretty weird happening.’
Together, he and Louise guided Rose across the ditch, past the line of white posts and into the wastes beyond. Dry pellets of animal dung crumbled beneath their feet. A spiky twig worked its way into Louise’s sandals, making her yelp. The sun warmed their scalps and dried the sweat on their skin.
They headed for a clump of small trees (or large bushes) which stood about twenty metres from the side of the road. It wouldn’t provide a lot of cover, but it would certainly act as a better screen than the thin grass and silver-grey ground-hugging saltbush. Peter made as much noise as possible, crunching along heavily, to scare away any nearby snakes. He didn’t think there were any snakes, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He saw some ants, and wondered if they were the type called meat ants. A pamphlet at the Broken Hill Visitors’ Centre had referred to meat ants, but Peter hadn’t discovered the significance of the name. He hoped that they weren’t like piranhas, able to strip the flesh off a human foot in a few min
utes flat.
It seemed unlikely.
‘Okay. Here,’ said Louise. They stopped behind the nearest tree, which wasn’t much taller than Noel, and Rose pulled her pants down. Peter looked away. He surveyed the area around him and saw a crow sitting on one of the other trees in the stunted little thicket. It sat quite still, head cocked, looking at Peter with one eye. He said ‘Shoo’, but it didn’t move. It didn’t even blink.
‘Finished?’ said Louise. ‘Okay, here.’
‘Can you wipe my bottom?’ Rose pleaded.
‘No, I can’t. You’re five years old. You can wipe your own bottom.’
Suddenly Peter spotted another crow. Like the first, it had fixed him with its bright, blank gaze – though unlike the first it was standing on the ground, near an ants’ nest. Its feathers were glossy, its legs gnarled. For some reason it made him nervous.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I can’t!’ Rose protested. She was having trouble with her shorts, which had somehow become entwined in her underpants. With a sigh, Louise corrected the problem. Then they went back to the car, Louise chivvying Rose along whenever the little girl stopped to pick up a feather or study a pellet of dung. Several times along the way Peter glanced over his shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of the two crows. But they had disappeared from sight.
In the car, Noel and Linda had come to a decision.
‘We’re going back to that mailbox,’ Linda informed her offspring. ‘We don’t have much petrol left in the tank, so we’re going back to borrow some from the people who live in the house with the mailbox.’
Peter and Louise exchanged glances. Louise said: ‘What about the roadhouse? Can’t we buy petrol there?’
‘We can’t be sure we’ll get to it,’ Linda replied. ‘Not with what we’ve got in the tank right now.’
‘But you said we were really close,’ Louise objected.