A Prayer for Blue Delaney (13 page)

The days wore on, long and monotonous. Colm’s neck was sore from always turning his head one way to watch the fence. After a few days, Colm took over filling the wombat holes while Bill patched holes in the wire mesh. They topped up the water containers at every dam or tank, and ate tinned corned beef and tinned vegetables until Colm felt he couldn’t take another mouthful of them. The nearest town was hundreds of miles away and it would be a long wait for the promised book of comics or anything interesting to eat or drink.

One morning, Rusty wasn’t in camp when they rose. Colm helped Bill pack up the breakfast dishes, all the while scanning the low scrub, looking for a sign of movement.

‘Where is that damn dog?’ said Bill. He put two fingers into his mouth and blew a long, piercing whistle. Nothing moved.

‘I’ll find her,’ said Colm. He trotted out into the low scrub and then stood very still. If he shut his eyes and willed it, then he should be able to feel Rusty wherever she was. He folded his arms across his chest and frowned in concentration. He was sure she was close by.

When he opened his eyes, he noticed a tiny flicker of dust. Rusty was lying under a bush, twitching violently, her eyes rolled back and a trickle of saliva pooling in the dirt beside her mouth.

‘Grandad,’ called Colm, urgently. ‘Grandad, here, I’ve found her! But something’s wrong! Hurry!’

Bill knelt beside the dog. When he ran his hands over her body, Rusty jerked beneath his touch.

‘What is it?’ asked Colm.

‘Snakebite, maybe. Then again, maybe not.’

Rusty started convulsing uncontrollably, her whole body fitting and shaking as if charged with electricity. Her eyes flashed nothing but white and saliva frothed in her mouth. Colm grew cold with fear.

‘What’s wrong?’ he cried, feeling tears prick his eyes.

‘I reckon she’s taken dingo bait. Poison. It might be a kindness to put her down.’

When the seizure had passed, Bill scooped the dog into his arms and cradled her against his chest. ‘My poor pup,’ he said.

Colm walked beside Bill as he carried Rusty over to the ute and laid her on her blanket in the back. Bill reached across for the knife he used to butcher rabbits.

‘No! What are you doing!’ Colm grabbed Bill’s wrist. ‘We have to save her.’

‘For chrissake, get out of my way,’ said Bill, pushing Colm aside and taking hold of Rusty’s head. Quickly, deftly, he slit cuts on the side of Rusty’s ears. Blood flooded down, matting her fur.

‘Now go and fill the billy.’ Bill thrust the can at Colm, and then rummaged for something in the food supplies.

Colm ran to the canvas waterbags that were strapped to the front of the car. When he returned, Bill threw two fistfuls of salt into the water and stirred it up.

Rusty was fitting violently again, but when the convulsion had run its course Bill took her in his arms and squatted down, holding her firmly between his knees. ‘Now I’ll keep her jaw open. I want you to tip that salty water straight down her throat.’

Colm tried to keep the water flowing steadily, even though his hands were shaking. The salt water made Rusty vomit. When Bill set her down in the dirt, she staggered around the ute, throwing up over and over again. As soon as Rusty was up to it, they poured more salt water down her throat. Finally, when she’d finished, Bill carried her over to the lone mallee tree and laid her on her old blanket in the shade. Rusty started convulsing again. Between fits, her hind legs curled up beneath her in a painful cramp. Bill and Colm knelt beside her, rubbing her down, massaging the constricted muscles to offer some small relief. But the fitting went on. Colm felt it was never going to stop. His hands were sore from working on Rusty’s knotted muscles, and sweat poured off him.

‘Here, you need a break,’ said Bill. ‘Go get yourself a drink and rest in the car. I’ll call you if I need you.’

‘What are you going to do? You can’t shoot her, Grandad. You can’t.’

‘Settle down. I’m hoping it won’t come to that.’

Colm walked back to Tin Annie, fighting back tears.

The morning grew hotter. For a while, Colm fell asleep and then, when he woke, felt ashamed. He took the photo of Blue Delaney out of the glovebox. It wasn’t a holy card, but at least it was something. He put the photograph inside his shirt pocket and prayed as hard as he could. He was still praying when he heard the sound of Rusty barking - a thin, hollow sort of bark, but a bark. It sent him racing across to where she lay with her head resting in Bill’s lap.

‘I prayed for her,’ said Colm. ‘Maybe it helped.’

‘Maybe it did,’ said Bill. ‘Between your prayers and my hard work, she’ll be back to her old self in no time.’

That night, Colm stayed by the fire with Rusty nuzzled up against him. He didn’t want to get back into Tin Annie to sleep.

‘Reckon that old dog needs both of us tonight,’ said Bill, as if he could read Colm’s thoughts.

‘I’ll get my swag,’ said Colm.

He rolled out a thin flock mattress on the ground and then plumped up his battered pillow. Rusty sighed as Colm tucked the blanket around her and snuggled up close. Lying beside her, he savoured the warmth of the campfire on his face and the starry blaze of the night sky above.

When Bill’s steady breathing changed to snores, Colm pulled out the photo from his pocket and angled it towards the flame. He liked seeing the bright face by firelight, the way Blue Delaney was smiling with her mouth slightly open, as if she was about to laugh at something the photographer had said.

‘Thanks, Blue,’ he whispered. He was sure his prayers had helped save Rusty. He looked up at the Seven Sisters and felt that someone, somewhere, was looking out for all of them.

19
Dare and McCabe

Something changed during the next few days, something deep inside Colm. As they travelled further inland, the mallee was replaced by red dirt and spinifex and then the spinifex gave way to stony gibber desert and saltbush. At the same time, the way Colm saw the desert, the way he saw his place in it, began to shift. Perhaps it was the silences, the long hours where they were both concentrating on the fence. Perhaps it was the spirit of the ancient stones, the red soil, the far horizons. It felt so timeless, as if it had been there forever and time had no meaning. And then, in the early mornings, or late in the evening when Tin Annie was quiet, he was sure he could could hear the voice of the landscape. It sang in a low, sweet hum. If he stood quietly, he could feel the song move right through his skin. It was as if the desert got inside Colm. He didn’t feel frightened of it any more. He could hardly remember the things that used to scare him. The past receded into a small speck on a lost horizon, and every morning was like a new beginning.

It was slow work, repairing the fence, and there were days on end when they didn’t see another living creature. On a couple of occasions, they stopped at a homestead to replenish their water or catch up on news from the outside world. But for Colm, none of the news seemed real. It was as if the people they met were all aliens and the only real world was the one that he and Bill shared with Rusty.

One night when they were camped in a flat, open stretch of country, a great arc of fire shot across the sky above them.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ said Bill, jumping to his feet. Rusty began barking.

‘What is it?’ said Colm.

‘Rocket fire,’ answered Bill, shaking his head. ‘There’s bad business going on out there. Getting ready for another war, they are. Testing some new murderous weapon. When I was a younger man, I fought in the war to end all war. But looks like it didn’t end anything.’

‘I think my Dad died in the war when I was a baby. Maybe that’s why it was just me and my mum. That’s not the war your Clancy died in, is it?’ asked Colm.

‘My Clancy . . .’ Bill looked away, out into the desert night. He seemed smaller, his shoulders hunched up, his fists clenched. ‘I’ve lost so many people, boy. Sometimes, it feels like the shadow of everyone that’s gone steals away all the brightness of those left behind.’

‘Do you think that’s maybe why my mum left me at the orphanage?’ asked Colm. ‘Because of my dad’s shadow?’

Bill looked startled, as if he suddenly realised that he hadn’t been talking to himself.

‘No, cobber. Don’t you listen to the ravings of a foolish fond old man. You settle yourself down and get some sleep.’ He knelt beside Colm and reached to tuck the blanket around him.

‘What’s that there?’ he asked, pointing to the photo of Blue Delaney lying on Colm’s pillow.

‘Just a picture,’ said Colm, snatching it up. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘Mind if I take a look?’

Colm hesitated. He pressed the image against his chest, hiding it from view.

‘It’s a picture of my mother,’ he said, listening to the sound of the lie and trying hard to believe it.

‘You didn’t tell me you had a picture of her,’ said Bill.

‘I don’t tell you everything.’

‘No, and I don’t tell you everything either. That’s the way it should be between an old man and a young tacker. But I’d still like to see the photo.’

Reluctantly, Colm handed it over.

Bill squatted down next to the fire and held it close to the flames. Then he laughed out loud. Colm wanted to sink down into the ground. Why had he said it was his mother? It had to be someone Bill knew.

‘You reckon she’s your mother, eh?’ asked Bill.

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said Colm, looking at his hands, avoiding meeting Bill’s gaze. ‘She could be. She looks like her. Like the way I remember her.’

Bill passed the photo back. It was looking much grubbier than when Colm had taken it from the cigar box - well fingered and with a smidgen of ash in the top corner.

‘You know her, don’t you?’ said Colm.

‘Maybe I used to. Maybe I don’t want to talk about her.’

‘Then you don’t mind if I keep the photo? To remind me of my mother.’

‘Sure, but I don’t reckon that gal’s got any kids.’

Colm didn’t want to hear. He put his hands up over his ears. ‘She looks like my mother, that’s all,’ he said, lying down again and turning his back to the fire. ‘Besides, maybe she had a boy and you just don’t know.’

‘Maybe,’ said Bill softly.

They drove into Coober Pedy in the middle of the afternoon. ‘I thought you said there was a real town here,’ said Colm, unable to disguise a twinge of disappointment at seeing only a couple of tin shanties.

Bill laughed. ‘You’ll see. There’s a town here all right.’

Colm followed Bill into what looked like the entrance to a cave in a mound of rock and discovered a whole world of activity going on underground. Inside the dugout there were shelves of tins and boxes of dry goods piled up to the rough-hewn stone ceiling. It was like being in a cave but the floor and walls had been ground smooth and the coloured rock almost looked as though it had been painted for special effect. When they emerged from the dugout, the light seemed so stripped, so white, that Colm felt his whole face grow tired from squinting.

Beyond the town were great white hills of rock and rubble, like a strange moonscape. Bill drove down the road to a white mound of rubble. A piece of corrugated tin acted as a sign above a doorway in the rock. As they passed through the door, Colm smelt the familiar odour of a pub. Bill knew the man behind the bar and ordered a glass of squash for Colm and a beer for himself. It was cool inside the dugout pub, and the air felt heavy and still after the endless rattling of Tin Annie.

‘You’re only going to have one beer, aren’t you?’ asked Colm hopefully.

Bill turned the glass of amber brew around in his hands, admiring its head.

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ he said.

Colm pushed his squash away and walked out of the pub. The last few weeks had been so much better since Bill’s beer supply had run out. They’d sat around the fire in the evenings and Bill had told him stories about Ireland and going to school in Dublin. He’d talked about a wild limestone desert called the Burren where he’d played as a small boy. Sometimes he’d hum a fragment of an old Irish tune and Colm would play it for him on his harmonica. If Bill started drinking again, he’d go back to staring morosely into the fire or reciting long, incomprehensible poems about the bush.

When Bill came out of the pub carrying a box full of beer. Colm kicked the back tyre of the old ute. ‘Bloody beer.’

Bill shook his head, laughing in a way that was more angry than amused. ‘Crikey! I reckon you could be Blue’s boy. Once she got her mind set on something, you never could shake that girl loose of the idea.’

‘You know Blue Delaney? Why do you pretend you don’t? Why do you have to drink that stupid stuff?’

‘Like I said, just like Blue. Big on telling a man how he should live his life.’

‘Maybe she was right. Maybe you should have listened!’ shouted Colm.

Bill slapped Colm hard across the face. Colm gasped. He held a hand against his stinging cheek and stared at Bill. A hot wind blew down the street, sending grit and dust into whirling eddies. Bill turned and walked away, disappearing back into the underground pub.

Colm felt blind with rage. He reached into the front seat of Tin Annie, fumbling for his hat and a canteen of water. He strode down to the highway, kicking a stone ahead of him. When he reached the main road he turned south, with a vague idea of hitchhiking a ride and going in search of Doreen. The desert was completely still, not a car or a human in sight. He pulled out his harmonica and played a fierce marching tune.

Even though he was angry with Bill, he couldn’t help feeling a rush of relief when he heard Tin Annie chugging down the road. The old car pulled up alongside and the passenger door flew open.

‘I was wrong to hit you, Colm,’ shouted Bill through the open door. ‘But don’t you be stubborn and crazy. You get in this car right now. You can’t walk to the next town. It’s over five hundred bloody miles.’

Feigning reluctance, Colm climbed in. He folded his arms across his chest and looked out the window as Bill turned the ute around.

‘Oi, you,’ said Bill. ‘Cobbers have to forgive each other. You and me, we’re a team. A good working partnership. You don’t want to go breaking up a partnership when it works, do you?’ He glanced across at Colm.