Catherine Jinks TheRoad (38 page)

He was a fast reader, though, and he was getting close to the end. Just thirty-six more pages and he would be stuck without anything to do. Please, he thought – please God, don’t make me stay here all night with nothing to read.

‘I’m going to have a word with Dad,’ Linda declared, and got out of the car. The children stayed where they were, having already explored their immediate surroundings. There was a wire fence, a red ditch, some grass and a shredded fragment of tyre. There were a few low shrubs and various coloured pebbles. Rose had played with the pebbles for a while, but Louise and Peter had found nothing to amuse them outside the car.

‘This is so bad,’ Louise remarked fretfully. ‘I’m starving.’

‘No you’re not,’ Peter replied, without lifting his gaze from his book. ‘If you were really starving, you wouldn’t be able to sit up and complain.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘I’m hot,’ said Rosie.

‘It’ll cool down, soon.’ Peter tried to be comforting. ‘As it gets darker, it’ll cool down.’

‘Oh, great,’ said Louise. ‘So we
will
be sleeping in the car.’

‘I doubt it. Somebody will come along.’

‘What happened to that man and that lady? Why haven’t they sent us help?’

‘It’s probably on its way.’

Peter was attempting to reassure himself as much as Louise. He couldn’t understand why no one had turned up to rescue them. The more he pondered it, the crosser he became; the whole family could
easily
have fitted into that caravan. Who would have known? There weren’t any police cars along this highway.

If there had been, they would have been back in Broken Hill by now – because police cars, he knew, were equipped with things like two-way radios.

‘Look!’ cried Louise. ‘What’s Daddy doing?’ She pointed at Noel, who was waving at something on the road behind them. They all turned, and peered over the top of the back seat. A car was approaching from the south.

‘Yay!’ cried Rose.

‘I hope it stops,’ said Louise.

Peter remained silent. He watched the vehicle draw nearer, trying to work out what it was. Not a four-wheel drive – it was too low. His father was waving both arms; his mother too. They crossed his line of vision. Then he saw that the car was slowing . . . slowing ...veering off the highway. It was an old-fashioned-looking vehicle, extremely beat up. One headlight was cracked, and mended with silver duct tape. There were dents all over its boot and bumper bar. It was also coated with dust and dried mud, but despite all this dirt, Peter could see that the car was multicoloured. Its roof was white, its bottom part was black, and the middle bit was pink.

Weird, he thought, before he suddenly realised that the car was a station wagon. A station wagon! With only one person inside!

Silver letters just above the wagon’s front grille spelled out ‘FORD’ over a four-pointed star.

‘Look,’ said Rose. ‘A dog. Can I pat it?’

‘Wait,’ Peter warned. The dog was in the Ford’s front passenger seat. Noel approached the vehicle from the other side, stooping to address the driver, who could have been a man or a woman – it was hard to tell. Linda hovered a few steps behind Noel.

There was a murmur of conversation, a few expansive hand movements. The dog barked, and was given a mighty shove by its owner. Then Noel turned his head and addressed Linda, who joined him at the driver’s window. She began to smile and nod.

‘Mum looks happy,’ said Louise.

‘I think we’re in,’ said Peter.

Sure enough, when Linda finally broke away and trotted towards them, her expression was encouraging. ‘Kids!’ she exclaimed. ‘Kids, we’re getting a lift! This lady is giving us a lift, isn’t that nice?’

‘To where?’ asked Peter, scrambling out of his seat. ‘To the house up the road?’

‘To Broken Hill.’ Linda wrenched open Noel’s door and yanked at the lever just inside it. The boot popped open. ‘Get whatever you want to take with you – we’ll be able to fit one suitcase.’

‘All of us
and
one suitcase?’ Peter was amazed. ‘Is there that much room?’

‘It’s a station wagon,’ Linda replied, adding: ‘Rose will have to sit on my lap. Go on, hurry. Don’t keep the lady waiting.’

Warily, Peter approached the Ford. Noel was smiling and beckoning. When Peter reached him, Noel put an arm around his shoulder.

‘This is my son Peter,’ Noel said. ‘Pete, this is Del.’

‘Del Deegan. How ya goin?’

She was quite old, Peter thought, and she looked a bit like a man. Her coarse grey hair was cut short under a sweat-stained Akubra. Her elbow was resting on the window sill – a fleshy, freckled, sun-spotted elbow poking out of a rolled-up shirt sleeve. Over the shirt she wore a black T-shirt, and over that a sleeveless knitted vest, which was unravelling at the seams. One of her front teeth was missing.

Her voice was like a cockatoo’s.

‘You just hop in the back seat, darlin. Don’t mind Mongrel, he won’t hurt ya. Hello, what’s your name?’

‘Rose.’

‘Rose. That’s a pretty name. Pretty name for a pretty girl. Just chuck all that stuff in the back there, darl – Mongrel! Gidoudavit!’

The seats inside the Ford were made of black leather, and they were coming apart. Stuffing protruded from their seams. The locks were little buttons like golf tees, sitting up high on the window sills. Peter said: ‘This is a really old car.’

‘Sure is,’ Del agreed. ‘It’s more’n forty years old.’

Louise, who was sliding in beside Peter, opened her eyes very wide.

‘Wow,’ she murmured. ‘That’s
really
old.’

‘Not as old as I am!’ Del squawked, with a laugh. Peter, who had been throwing newspapers and cans of dog food and nuts and bolts and clutch cables over the back of the seat, saw that the space behind them was filled with blankets, boxes, plastic bags, more newspaper, and a fraying wickerwork dog basket. He asked if Mongrel slept in the car.

‘Yup,’ Del replied. ‘He’s my guard dog.’

‘But you’re not supposed to lock dogs in cars,’ Louise objected.

‘I don’t. I leave the windows open.’

‘But what if someone gets in?’

Del gave a snort. Mongrel, who was a big, brown dog with silky ears, panted at the children over the top of the front seat.

Peter had never before seen a front seat that stretched across the entire width of the car. It meant – as he soon discovered – that you could cram more than two people in the front.

‘I can stick Mongrel right up the back, if ya want,’ said Del, when Noel had loaded the family’s smallest suitcase into the back of Del’s car, and wriggled in next to her dog. ‘Then yiz can put the little girl in here beside me.’

‘No, no. It’s all right,’ Linda replied quickly. ‘I’ve got her on my lap.’

‘Sure? Mongrel won’t mind. Well – he
will
mind, he’s spoiled rotten, but he’s too old to kick up a stink.’

‘It’s all right, thanks,’ Linda assured her. ‘Rose can use my seat-belt. It’s safer, I think.’

‘I don’t even have a seatbelt,’ Louise remarked, in a low voice, and Peter saw that it was true. His own seatbelt fastened across his lap, even though he was sitting next to the window.

It was all very odd.

‘I hope our car will be all right,’ Noel sighed as they drove past the Nissan, which was sitting forlornly on the side of the road. ‘I don’t like leaving it, but we don’t seem to have much choice. Not if we want to get anywhere before dark.’

‘Oh,it’ll be fine,’said Del.‘Y’won’t get people strippin it down for a day or so, and by that time yiz’ll be back here with petrol or a tow truck, no worries.’

‘Stripping it down?’ Noel echoed, staring at her in amazement. ‘You get people stripping cars that fast, way out here?’

‘My oath. Usually takes about six days. Two weeks at the most.’

‘Good Lord.’

‘Mum,’ Rose suddenly piped up. ‘What’s that thing on the back of the seat?’ She pointed.

‘That? That’s an ashtray.’

‘What’s it doing there?’ Peter inquired, and his mother shrugged.

‘People used to smoke a lot,’ she said.

‘That’s where I keep Mongrel’s little treats,’ Del warned, ‘so don’t open it up, or he’ll be all over ya.’

Peter wondered about that. Mongrel looked very old. He had bleary eyes, and grey on his muzzle. He didn’t look like a dog with much energy.

‘Okay,’ said Del. ‘Off to the Big Smoke, eh? Broken Hill. Dja live there, Noel, or what?’

The landscape flew past as the sun dropped slowly towards the horizon.

The house looked deserted.

Chris had pulled up just in front of the open gate, beyond which lay a yard full of junk. Between stretches of dry, beaten earth lay outcrops of twisted metal, cracked and weathered plastic, splintered grey wood. Except for a brand new aluminium garage, the structures inside the yard bore a strong resemblance to the piles of junk scattered around them. The sheds – even the house – appeared to have been tacked together out of scraps and offcuts.

‘What do you reckon?’ asked Chris.

‘Keep going,’ Graham replied. ‘Once around the house, just in case.’

They inched forward, following the course of a roughly delineated driveway. It threaded through a jumble of collapsed coops and pens, broken furniture, rusty machinery. It skirted a pile of rocks, from which a saltbush sprouted. It widened right in front of the house, where three wooden steps led up to a battered

screen door, standing slightly ajar. The front door, too, was open.

‘Should we go in?’ Graham asked doubtfully.

Chris shook his head. ‘Not yet,’ he murmured.

They kept moving. Ahead was a peppercorn tree, not far from the garage. The Land Rover passed between these two landmarks, loose stones crunching under its tyres; by this time a foul smell had begun to penetrate the vehicle’s air vents, and Graham wrinkled his nose.

‘There,’ he said suddenly. ‘Look.’

‘What is it? Not –’

‘No.’ Graham pressed his face against the glass as they crawled past a bloated, blackish shape lying on the ground. It was the focus of a great deal of insect activity. ‘I think . . . It looks like it might be a dog.’

‘But it’s obviously been dead a while.’

‘Yeah.’

They swung around another small, dilapidated shed and began to head back in the opposite direction, keeping to the perimeter of the yard, plotting a course that took them behind the garage. Everything was very still. The back of the house cast a long shadow, which engulfed a water tank, a Hills hoist, a stretch of concrete. It didn’t reach as far as the abandoned car.

‘Look,’ Graham breathed. Beside a couple of fly-blown dog bowls lay a pair of tiny rubber thongs.

‘Oh shit,’ said Chris. ‘
Shit
, Gray!’

‘Keep going.’

They circled the house, narrowly avoiding a corner of the caravan that was attached to it. A crow flapped into the air, frightened by the noise and movement of the Land Rover, but nothing else stirred. The wire fence seemed almost to be straining under the pressure of the saltbush and acacia plants that were crowding against it, but inside the fence there was very little vegetation. Some yellow grass, a handful of shrubs, and the peppercorn tree.

When they reached the front door again, Chris eased to a halt.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘Are we going in, or aren’t we?’

Graham didn’t respond for a while. He surveyed the tortured shapes in the piles of rubbish, the piece of frayed tyre dangling from the peppercorn tree, the gleaming garage which screened the dog’s rotting corpse. At last he said: ‘I don’t know. It’s a bit creepy, isn’t it?’

‘The dead dog is creepy,’ Chris replied, and shrugged. ‘The rest is just . . . well, you know. Your standard fringe-dwelling junk heap. I’m surprised there aren’t more car bodies.’

Suddenly a movement caught his eye. He squinted, frowning. Graham gasped.

‘Oh shit!’ Graham squealed. ‘Chris!’

Someone was crawling out of the garage. One of its doors was standing open, revealing a dim interior, and a body was sliding out of the shadows on its stomach, using its elbows to propel it forward.

Graham reached for his door handle.

‘Wait,’ Chris barked. He took his foot off the brake, allowing the four-wheel drive to roll forward a few metres before he applied pressure again. The moment he did, Graham leapt out.

‘Gray!’ said Chris. ‘Wait!’

What happened next, happened very quickly. Chris’s thoughts were on the house – on the possibility that someone was watching them from the house, perhaps even aiming a gun at them. He reached behind him for the axe. At almost the same instant, the body on the ground reared up until it was kneeling. Chris had time to absorb the fact that he was looking at a man – only that – before the man produced from somewhere behind or beside him a heavy-looking rifle, heaving the thing against his shoulder in one laboured movement. He dropped his chin slightly. Graham spun around.

‘Gray!’
Chris screamed.

The explosion jarred Chris to the very bone. In the second or so that it took him to recover from the shock, Graham fell flat on the ground, blood spurting from somewhere – Chris wasn’t sure where, because he had seen that the man was reloading, yanking at the rifle bolt, raising the sight to his eye again as he stepped forward.