Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (46 page)

Oh, Stephen. I’m missing you already ...

The sun is completely gone as I breeze past West Wyalong. An image of Kerry suddenly fills my windscreen, painted across the road. She has blonde, curly hair cut just above her shoulders. Her eyes are green and lined at the corners. She doesn’t smile often, but when she does it lights up her whole face. Her shoulders and back are taut from years of dancing, and her buttocks and thighs are as solid as rock, yet flexible. She can put both ankles behind her head, and do the splits in a variety of positions; both make her spectacular in bed. She has a small mole just above her pubic hair which we nick-named Cape Barren Island the first time we had sex.

The first time we
made love
, I asked her to marry me, and she said no. But we’ve lived together for six years since, and I guess that counts for something. Maybe we weren’t happy some of the time— we certainly argued a lot, and we’d grown apart in a thousand subtle ways without really noticing—but we could still fuck up a storm when we wanted to. Which wasn’t as often as either of us would have liked, after Stephen; not that we would admit it to each other any more. But it wasn’t too late. We still could have—

I catch myself with a start when I realize that I am thinking about her in the past tense.

Keep it up,
says Old Max.
Makes it easier in the long run.

Cowra looms ahead: a light-blistered boil bursting out of the night. I pull into the first service station I come across and park next to a bowser. Before I get out, I check the rear vision mirror. I am turning blue, and my eyes look more than a little strange. Sunglasses only accentuate the sickly tone of my skin, so I don’t bother to put them on. The attendant is watching me idly from the desk. Feigning tiredness, I climb out of the Commodore and fill the tank for the last time.

The attendant’s face crumples into a grimace of distaste as I step into the showroom to pay. Christ, how badly do I smell now? I’ve only been in the room a second and he’s already disgusted.

Handing him a fifty, I mutter, “Keep the change,” and leave without looking back. At least I can still talk.

On the road again, I refuse to think about anyone at all: not Graeme, not Kerry, and especially not Stephen. But of course it doesn’t work. If I can’t look forward to the end of my journey, my thoughts inevitably return to the beginning, to Coober Pedy ...

Although Graeme wasn’t to be the main focus of my undeath, just as he hadn’t been in life, he
had
killed me. I still needed to warn Kerry. Maybe she would be next.

I actually called the number out of my mobile phone’s memory and pressed Send before thinking twice. “Honey, I’m dead.” Was that what I was going to say to her, in the middle of the night? She would laugh in my ear, accuse me of being pissed and hang up. And if I managed to tell her that Graeme, her old friend, had done it, then her response would only be more skeptical. I needed to hammer the truth down her throat, and I couldn’t do that over a telephone line from Coober Pedy.

And then there was Stephen. Images of his childhood suddenly filled my mind; not painful, as they are now, but with a clarity that could not be denied: nappies, dummies, bottles, toys; gurgling, babbling, crawling, walking. All of it came back to me in a vivid rush, and the desert night around me seemed to vanish. It was as though he was calling for me across the thousands of kilometres lying between us, as though he somehow knew what had happened to me and sent part of himself to be with me when I needed him most.

How could I fight something like that?

So I hung up before she could answer, switched off the phone and started driving. The trip had taken me three days on the way over, but I hadn’t been really trying. I figured I could do it in a single day, and figure I can still do it, if only I—

Hurry,
says Old Max, beginning to sound like a stuck CD.
Turn up looking like something from a ghost story and he’s not even going to know who you are ...

Then, as now, I had no other option.

Bathurst breezes by.

Then Lithgow.

Blackheath.

Katoomba.

Lawson.

Springwood.

Penrith ...

The suburbs of Sydney swallow the Commodore wagon like the waters of a bottomless lake. I feel like a stone that has skipped across the surface before finally sinking. Normality is everywhere I look, as long as I avoid the mirror. Even at such a late hour the streets are busy and I have to fight the impulse to speed. The last thing I want is to be pulled over by the police.

Red lights make me itch and the radio, when I turn it on, emits an irritating noise. Old Max is silent, sensing my impatience, the proximity of my journey’s climax. Or perhaps he has already said enough.

Familiar streets roll by; corners I have turned for years tick past one by one; landmarks I could draw from memory appear in their proper places and fall behind. This is
my
place, yet I feel like an outsider. And the sadness wells again, as inevitably as the tide.

Home ...

I pull into Argent Lane with my heart in my mouth. The street is dark and empty. Two houses from the end, near the letter box and behind the hedge we always meant to trim before winter came: there it is.

My house. After eighteen hundred kilometres and twenty-three hours of slow decay, I’m finally here.

I swing the Commodore as close to the left as I can in preparation for entering the driveway, then—

Wait!

Old Max’s warning comes barely in time. There is another car in the driveway.

I slam on the brakes. “Shit.” Confused, I stare at it for a moment, wondering whether I’ve got the wrong house. But no: behind the unfamiliar car is Kerry’s 121, tucked safely under the carport where she likes it, where the birds can’t crap on it. And the house itself is right. There’s no mistaking the white-plastered brick walls, the shallow verandah, the lawn in perpetual need of a mow and the bicycle, now a size too small, abandoned for the night by the red front door.

The lights are out. Whoever owns the car is here to stay.

The first spark of anger blossoms somewhere deep in my gut. I turn off the headlights and park the wagon further along the curb. Kerry’s sister doesn’t have a license. A friend, then? Maybe. How good a friend, though, is the question.

Can a corpse be jealous? It seems so. I feel abandoned, left out.

How do you think I’ve felt?
puts in Old Max.
All these years a bone, with no one to talk to but my descendants when they die. It gives you a new perspective, believe me. I’ve seen this situation a dozen times and I’m beginning to wonder why people get so upset. In the long run Kerry means nothing. Hold onto that thought and you’ll feel better.

Doubting it, but saying nothing, I leave the confines of the Commodore and inch my way up the driveway as quietly as I can. My balance is shot to hell and I keep one hand ready to catch me should I stumble. The car is an Avis rental, a Ford Falcon about five years out of date. The bonnet is cold. Its driver has left something on the seat, and I peer through the passenger window for a better look.

An airline ticket. Squinting, forcing my stubborn eyes to focus, I make out the carrier: Ansett. Destination: Sydney. Passenger’s name ...

Mr G J Parkinson.

I freeze.
Graeme ...
?

Old Max is silent as I reel back a step, stunned by the revelation. My murderer has beaten me home, after all I’ve been through to get here first! He must have flown to Alice Springs in the light aircraft he chartered, then caught a plane to Sydney. He could have been here for hours. God only know what he could have done in that time, who he might have hurt now ...

Then another thought occurs to me. I turn to face the dark, silent house. My hands are shaking. I remember the times I’ve been out while Graeme’s been in town, the times I’ve come home to find him hanging around with Kerry. His Sydney residence is not far from ours, and she likes strong, tall men. They knew each other before I met either of them; maybe they were lovers in the past.

They both love money ... and I know for a fact that one of them will murder for it. Maybe two.

Graeme hasn’t just beaten me home. He’s been here—to put it metaphorically—all along.

A red fury turns the night inside out. The hatred is back, twice as strong. I want to smash my way through the bedroom window and rip their treacherous hearts out—Kerry’s first, then Graeme’s. I want to see the fear in their eyes as I enact my vengeance. I want them to suffer; I want them to see their plans come to nothing; I want them to
die ...

I take one unsteady step towards the house, then stop.

Why?
asks Old Max, and I have to admit, even through the pain, that he is right.

Revenge, bitter-sweet though it might well be, is meaningless; it ultimately hurts the one person who really matters.

I turn to my right and make my way around the side of the house, up the carport, counting windows as I go: lounge, bathroom, toilet, kitchen ...

The last window faces the small backyard, with its swing and toy-strewn sandpit. The curtains are patterned with the characters from
Thomas the Tank Engine
but I can’t make out their faces in the darkness. The screen is old and comes off easily. My reflection leans close as I raise one soft-knuckled fist to tap three times on the glass.

I wait for a minute, then try again. “Stephen?”

The curtains stir, and another face appears within my reflection: another me, from years ago.

“Dad?” he mouths, and I nod with relief.

He tugs at the latch as I take the whistle out of my mouth. My four-year-old son moves with all the innocent confidence and grace of an animal, with my eyes, my nose, my olive skin and my dark hair in tow. The only things he’s inherited from his mother are her small ears and lips. Otherwise he’s me, and everything that entails.

Finally the window is open. I reach in to hug him, and he returns the clasp.

“I’ve missed you, Stephen,” I say. My tongue is thick and heavy, but the words are clear.

His sweet voice in my ear whispers back: “You smell, Dad.”

I pull away. Shit, I’d forgotten about that. “I’m sorry. Oh God, I’m sorry. I got here as fast as I could but—”

“Where’ve you
been?”
His eyes are wide and curious.

“I—” What do I say? I was dying, son, dying to get home. “I was up at Coober Pedy with Graeme to check out the mine. Remember?”

“Uncle Gray came to dinner,” he said, not realizing how much his words hurt me. Self-absorption rules the day at this age. “We had chips and sausages.”

“That’s nice,” I respond, trying to keep the grief bottled in my chest. “Stephen, I brought you a present.”

His eyes light up. “Did you? Where is it?”

“It’s in my hand, but first you have to promise to keep it a secret. Don’t tell Mum ... or Uncle Gray. I want you to keep it safe from everyone.”

He nods seriously. “Okay, Dad.”

“And I want you to listen to me carefully. Something’s happened to me.”
I’m dead.
“I won’t be able to come home. I won’t be able to live with you any more.”
I’m rotting in front of your eyes.
“You and Mum will have to manage without me from now on.”

“Why, Dad?” His face loses its happy glow, and for a moment I am unable to speak.

“Dad?”

“I love you, Stephen.” I reach out with one hand and put Old Max on the window sill. “And here’s your present.”

He picks it up and turns it over, studying it. His tiny fingers are dwarfed by the size of the thumb-bone, and I marvel that one day his hands will be that big.

“What is it?”

“It’s a whistle. You blow in one end and—” I shrug. “— sometimes it makes a noise.”

He raises it to his lips and blows experimentally through it.

Goodbye, Billy,
says Old Max, softly but distinctly.
I’ll tell him when it’s time.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Stephen says.

“You will when you’re older.” When you’re dead, I add to myself. There’s no way I can even begin to explain; four is too young to comprehend natural death, let alone the unnatural one awaiting him.
We die young but take our time passing on; it’s hereditary. I’m sorry, son.
“Keep trying, and one day you’ll hear it. It’s name is ‘Old Max’.”

“Is it magic?” he asks, programmed by TV to believe in such things.

I smile, glad that he has unintentionally given me an explanation that he will understand. “Yes.”

He smiles back and we stand there, sharing our secret in silence for a full minute.

Then he shivers. His pyjamas are thin and the air must be like a refrigerator’s breath this time of year, piercing with its chill although I am oblivious to it.

I feel for him. Leaning out of the window talking to his decomposing father, with the bone of his great-great-great-great-grandfather in his hand: this is no place for a little kid. He should be in bed, dreaming about Thomas while he still can.

“I can’t stay,” I say, frightened that I’m going to cry in front of him, frightened that that will frighten him.