Yesterday's Dust (40 page)

Jack's motor was running and so was he when his headlights picked up the hulk of flesh in his pathway. He couldn't run over it, so he backed up. And his lights saw red, saw the colour of blood.

‘You stupid old bastard,' he moaned and he turned off the motor and stepped back to the road. The headlights died. Left him in the dark. ‘Bloody
modern, bloody inventions!' he snarled, and again turned the key in the ignition. The motor running, lights blazing, he walked to the hump of flesh sprawled like a beached whale on the verge of the road.

‘Get up. You're not dead.' He prodded a flat slipper with his own shoe. Malcolm Fletcher didn't move. Jack looked down at the blood and at the mutilated hand that had pumped the blood. ‘You're
bleeding. You can't be dead. Get off the bloody road.'

No movement. No sound.

‘I didn't do anything to you, you rattlesnake-brained old slug,' he said, stooping, prodding at whale blubber. ‘Are you dead, or dead bloody drunk?'

Then he was down, slow to his knees, an ear placed close to where a heart might be. No heart – or too much blubber between it and the ear placed to hear it. He picked
up the right hand first, let it drop back. He picked up the left.

‘I've seen worse on bonfire night. Get up,' he yelled. ‘Where's Number 10, you eavesdropping old bastard?' He felt the wrist for a pulse and couldn't find one. Got blood on his hands for his trouble.
The hand dropped fast, it flopped like a dead fish onto the gravel, and Jack pulled back. ‘Number 10 placed on hold. Permanently
too, by the look of bloody things.'

His face turned then to his car, motor still purring, calling him away. He had to get out of here. The lights were on at the old place now and he had a fair idea of who had turned them on and it wasn't Ellie or her boyfriend. The old slug's heart might have stopped, but his own was beating in his brain. Go. Go. Go.

He placed his palm close to the mouth. No
air. ‘Shit,' he snarled as two uneasy fingers felt for the carotid artery. Not a flutter, not a mutter. Malcolm Fletcher was a goner, and he stunk of sweated brandy.

Jack looked over his shoulder. ‘Run, you crazy bastard. Find a phone and ring someone.' He tried to gain his feet, but his knee pressed hard on a baked clay ridge, and the pain drove his heart rate higher. He repositioned the knee
and decided to stay down.

‘Shit,' he said, feeling for his cigarettes; his hand came out holding a box of matches. He squinted at it, considered it, then tossed the tray and matches onto the earth and manoeuvred the sturdy outer casing between the teeth of the dead man before applying his mouth to the other end of the box. And he blew.

It didn't do any good. The dead stayed dead. Always, they'd
stayed dead. His mother, Liza, Linda, May.

The box left in the mouth like a rectangular cigar, Jack placed the heels of his hands at the base of the breastbone, or where the breastbone might have been – if he'd had one. He pushed down hard, trying to remember what the blonde doctor had done on the television show last week. Not that it had done much good. She'd ended up hitting the corpse with
electricity. A hairy old bugger, it'd set the hairs of his chest on fire.

But he bore down anyway.

One. Two. Three. And a One. Two. Three. Again he blew into the matchbox. That's what they did. Pumped half a dozen times or so, then blew.

The air wasn't going anywhere.

You had to move the head back or something, so they weren't blocking off their own windpipes. He grabbed a handful of hair
and dragged the head down. It flopped to the side then rolled back to its original place. ‘Bloody shit, to it.' He snatched at a slipper, then the other, small, but big enough to scrape up a neck-rest of gravel, big enough to prop the bloody head back, open up the windpipe, then he blew again through his matchbox and this time the chest rose! He leaned on fat, pushed the air out.

‘Shit!' he said,
getting into the rhythm. External heart massage was supposed to compress the heart between spine and ribs. It might be possible to compress it between fat.

One. Two. Three. Blow. And the matchbox almost disappeared down the gaping maw. He fished it out, wiped his fingers on his jeans.

‘Breathe, you bastard,' he said. One. Two. Three. ‘Breathe. I don't need any more bloody guilt.'

Involved in
his rhythm, Jack was unaware of the second presence until the shadow fell across him. He knew who it was before he heard the voice, which sounded like him doing a Sam – without the sibilant Ss.

‘Added another notch to your gun?'

Jack's head turned slowly, and his hands became still. So the old war wasn't over. He tried to rise then, to ready himself for war, to push off from the hump of dead
fat, but he was too bloody old and his knees were too stiff. Getting down had been bad enough; getting up again was worse. He stayed down, turned back to what he'd started. Blew.

‘What did you do to him?'

One. Two. Three.

‘Don't blame me for this one. And get out of my bloody light or I'll lose my box down his throat.'

The shadow moved. Johnny Burton was squatting over the old man, looking
at the matchbox in the mouth, feeling for a pulse at the throat.

‘Who else do I blame?'

‘I don't give a shit who you blame, do I? Take your blame and go to buggery with it.' One. Two. Three. ‘I've had enough of your bloody blame.'

One. Two. Three. Blow.

‘Have you called an ambulance?'

‘Yeah. Telephone dangling from every bloody tree. Doctors hiding in the bushes.' One. Two. Three. ‘The crazy
old bastard tried to shoot me.' One. Two. Three. ‘Blew his bloody hands up.' One. Two. Three. ‘Might slow his typing down.'

Nothing Johnny could say to that. But he could make the phone call. He ran to Malcolm's house and was back in moments, just standing to the side, looking down at an old man on his knees, blowing air through a disintegrating matchbox.

So close to the scene but distanced,
he didn't know what he was supposed to do. Lock his hands around that throat and squeeze? Lash out with a boot, kick that head in?

What was he supposed to say?

Why?

Too late for whys.

‘Breathe, you crazy old bastard. Suck on bloody life.' The voice was the same, and the jolt of that head as it turned to him. ‘Get on your knees and perform a bloody miracle or something. I'm not wearing any
more guilt and I can't keep this up all night.'

But he kept it up.

One. Two. Three. Blow.

‘You came back.'

One. Two. Three. Blow. Jack sucked air for himself and his lungs howled. He coughed, coughed, lost his rhythm.

‘I came back. That's my guilt. I'll wear it.' One. Two. Three. Blow. And the matchbox cover split at the seam. Jack pitched it, pitched it to buggery, and he sucked air deep.
‘I came back . . . came back to mourn for poor bloody old Jack Burton. That's why I came back.' One. Two. Three. ‘Nobody else will.' One. Two. Three.
‘She's up there celebrating her $250,000 . . . with her bloody new boyfriend, Bob.'

One. Two. Three.

‘You're worth more dead than you ever were alive.'

‘Yeah.' One. Two. Three. ‘You're probably right.' One. Two. Three. ‘And I'm too bloody old
to argue, so climb down off your pulpit and do something useful.' One. Two. Three. ‘He's that author, Chef-bloody-Marlet, the old bastard. We've got to keep getting air into him – and by the living Jesus, I draw the line at kissing that bloody mouth.'

Two old men beside a dark road. Old adversaries. One not breathing and the other tiring fast. His matchbox gone, Jack made a funnel of his hand
and he held the hand to the gaping mouth, blew his air through it. Too much escaped his fingers.

Johnny Burton knelt then at the old teacher's head, one hand cupping the many chins, he closed off the nostrils with his cheek and forced his air in. Close to his father. Head to head with his father. Eye to eye with his father. He glanced at the eyes, and for an instant they met, then Jack's head
was down as he pumped. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. He rested, sat back and shook his bad wrist as he watched his son inflate the tired old lungs.

Eyeball to eyeball these two, and not a word spoken.

Motor purring, lights glaring. John looked at his father's hair, almost white under the car's headlights. At his beard. Almost white. Glasses glinting. Nothing left of that black-headed bastard
who had given him life.

Nothing.

And not so big.

Only those hands, familiar, and close. Crossed now, pumping, pumping, pumping life. Old face sweating, mouth grimacing as he sucked air enough for his own lungs.

Father and son. Enemies. Sworn enemies, but fighting side by side tonight for a worthwhile cause.

Soft sigh of the river as it started its long slow curve, lonely cry of a night bird, and on the sand dunes, rabbits, up to their old habits, courted and cavorted beneath a black blanket sky. A well-worn blanket this one – enough to hold in the heat of the day, but here, there, and everywhere, ragged holes allowed old heaven's light straight
through.

Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight
. A choir of mosquitoes hummed in the reed beds and in the hot mulch of the forest floor. They had fed and bred and their eggs were spread.

‘
Might
,' a lone frog croaked. ‘
Might
.' And he swallowed a few contraltos before giving them his slow, clap, clap, clap.

In the trees an owl hooted, and possums coughed their agreement like a meeting
of consumptive old men.

‘
Wish tonight
,' a feral cat hissed and crouched, ready to pounce. Small possum was sweet, and a cat had to eat. ‘
Wish tonight
.'

Old familiar song of the Mallawindy bush. But into it came the discordant scream of an ambulance siren, and the flashing light, and movement of shadow.

And the owl flew, and the cat looked up, its eyes glinted gold as the frog stopped his slow
clap, clap to dive deep beneath a rotting log, and on the sand dunes, the rabbits ceased their play.

A hot, sweating night in Mallawindy, courtship and death all around.

There was a diamond sparkling on Kerrie Fogarty's finger, and two in Ben Burton's eyes. Try as he might, he couldn't stop smiling.

Jeff Rowan couldn't stop scowling. ‘Not the time or the place for it.' If he'd said it once,
he'd said it forty times, and he'd only spoken to a third of Ellie's guests. ‘Bloody poor taste, I call it.'

Or sour grapes.

Ann, Bron and Ben had always been a close-knit threesome, now Kerrie had joined them. They sat at a corner table for four. Nick and David were in Warran, babysitting and watching a video.

Father Fogarty had been droning on for half an hour. Few were listening – which
was to the good. The priest was old, his memory wasn't what it ought to be, and the man he spoke of was unknown in Mallawindy.

Ellie sighed. Still no sign of Sam. She'd been expecting him all day, and it wouldn't have hurt him to put off his overseas trip for his only brother. She glanced at the priest, and for once wished he'd stop praying. Jack would have hated this. After weeks of planning
and three days of baking, the night wasn't turning out the way she'd imagined it would. She looked towards the corner table, flinched.

It wasn't as if the engagement had been announced tonight. Benjie wouldn't do a thing like that! Still, a stranger walking in on this party wouldn't know it. Everyone seemed to be crowded around their table, shaking Benjie's hand and kissing Kerrie. Everyone was
laughing. Annie and Bron too. And Father Fogarty still droning on.

‘How am I supposed to get all that way to Bega for their wedding, Bob?'

‘It will be a nice drive in autumn, Ellie.' And maybe just what the doctor ordered, Bob thought. Two days in the car, no Bessy in
the back seat. He'd make sure of that.

Then Father Fogarty closed his mouth and Joe Willis was up there, edging him away.

‘Jack always did my tax returns in the early years. Always got me a bloody good refund too, until the bloody tax man decided to audit me one year – '

Ellie knew all about audits. She turned her back, offered the cream puffs around. ‘Jack used to love these,' she said, taking up a cake, biting into it.

But was it Jack or her father who had loved her cream puffs? Jack had loved her pumpkin cake.
Johnny loved her Christmas cake. Annie loved her pastry.

‘It's . . . it's like people say, isn't it, Bob? When people go, we start to forget the little things, don't we?'

Bronwyn was pointing to the drip of cream on Ellie's chin. Bob wiped it away with his handkerchief, then he touched her short wash-and-wear waves.

‘We go on, love. That's what we do – and you look like a new woman tonight
with all that hair cut off.'

‘It still feels a bit funny. Sort of . . . sort of like I'm light-headed. I'm glad I did it, though. You know, the hardest part of doing anything is letting yourself do it. Like with getting over Jack. I tried to hold on to him by remembering all the good parts.'

‘Where there any bloody good parts?' Bessy said.

‘Bessy! Remember where you are and why you're here.
And you know there were. Jack mightn't have always been an easy man to live with, but we've all got our faults.' Ellie's head and voice lifted.

Loyal Ellie. Not an intentional mean bone in her body, Bob thought, but he'd had about enough of Jack for one night. ‘Young Annie turned up, I see.'

Ellie looked across to the far corner, to the girl who was Jack in woman's clothing. ‘I had a feeling
that she'd come. She used to love Jack, you know. Used to sit with him for hours when she was little,
and talk to him with her little hands. He could understand her too. I couldn't . . . or not more than a few words. I should have tried harder with her.'

‘It's never too late to start, Ellie.' Bob poured another beer. ‘Why don't you go over and give her a kiss? Tell her how pleased you are that
she came down.'

Ellie took two steps forward, but Granny Bourke was making her way towards the corner table, so Ellie stepped back.

A walking frame used as a battering ram before her, Gran cleared a pathway through. Not that she needed a bleeding walking frame. They'd stuck her ankle together with a metal plate and screws when they realised she had no intention of dying.

‘I say. I say, weddings
and wakes. That's the way it ought to be. As long as it's not my wake, eh?'

‘You just plan to be the last one standing, Gran,' Bronwyn said.

‘Too right I do. They're running a book in the bar, you know. Two to one odds that your mother won't hold out more than three months.'

‘Jesus! That's a bit rough!'

‘Her and Bob Johnson,' Gran said, aiming a slap at Bronwyn's arm. ‘You knew what I meant.'

‘We did not. We thought you were offering us odds on our own mother's funeral, didn't we, Annie?'

Ann nodded, but her attention was on Bill Dooley, now having his say about the deceased. She was tempted to toss her wineglass at him, or its contents at the old dame. Shouldn't have come. It was a farce. Shouldn't have come.

‘Bob will make a good catch for your mother; he's not after her for her
money or her land; he's got his cop pension.' She eyed Jim Watson, who was eyeing Bessy, who also had good river frontage. ‘Still, there's more ways of killing a cat than choking him with cream. They'd make a fine pair, they would. Ugly as a bag full of rats.'

‘You're evil, Gran.'

‘Yeah, I am, aren't I?' The old dame prodded Bronwyn's stomach with a gnarled finger. ‘You look as if you're going
to pop out of your britches any minute. How long have you been married?'

‘It's quads. They're not due for another five months.'

‘Pull the other one, it's made out of rubber – or on second thoughts, you'd better not. It's got more metal in it than rubber these days. I say, did I ever tell you about old Jimmy Willis, Joe's father? Well he come back from the war with a bleedin' metal plate in his
head. It fried his brain every time he went out in the sun. Took fits, he did, and one day . . .'

Bill Dooley was out of words, or beer. He wandered off and Father Fogarty started in again.

‘It's a fiasco,' Ann said, and she stood.

‘If you're going to the loo, I'll come with you, Annie.'

‘Give me two minutes, Bron.'

She walked to Father Fogarty, interrupting his discourse on the hereafter,
then from her pocket took a page of printed text. She'd planned to read it, but decided against it. Maybe it was right for him. Maybe it was wrong for Ellie. She didn't know, but somehow it suddenly felt right for her.

She drew a deep breath and found her mother's eyes, held them as she drew a second deeper breath. Then her chin lifted.

Her voice was low, but strong. It silenced the drinkers.
They'd known her as a mute, seen her on television, but rarely saw her in Mallawindy.

Old knight, the lonely wanderer, is restless with unrest.
A shadow amid shadows, hiding secrets, guarding fears,
And cold, the dank mist clinging to his ageless breast,
Like frozen tears.

On feet of clay he stands outside the circle of pure light,
Never asked to come within, unwanted by new day,
Yet ever hoping
for reward and what should be his right,
To watch her play.

She bathes the grass with dewdrops and paints the sky at dawn,
She makes the birds awaken; he's listened to their call.
He's seen her golden beauty, and felt her chill of scorn.
And that is all.

Lost to him the children of his cold and barren earth,
The cloak he wears is held too close, his dark hand offered not.
None will greet him
from their beds. None can see his worth.
He's best forgot.

Old knight, old weary warrior, go shed your cloak of black,
That covers, yet can not disguise, the lost one hid beneath.
Step now into morning, and walk ahead, not back.
Forget your grief.

Ellie was weeping and she didn't know why, but Bob's arm was around her, and he was guiding her forward, towards that tall daughter. Such a crowd
here tonight, and all of them wanting to talk. Maybe with Bob beside her she'd make it to the other side.

Ambulance siren in the distance. Outside the Grand Central Hotel, King Billy's dogs lifted their heads. No circular hole in the black blanket sky for a full moon tonight, no reason to howl, but they howled anyway. Didn't like that siren. Bad day when the siren came to town.

They killed its
noise then, their work done, great heads dropped back to paws and they dreamed on.

But Granny Bourke's reptilian eyes had turned to the road. ‘I say. I say, they only turn the siren off if they're already dead.' Her walking frame left standing, she hobbled off towards the bar for a stout and the latest news.
So the river crept onward, twisting, turning, fighting the will of the Dreamtime gods,
who had charted its course west towards the arid centre. It crept into billabongs, seeped underground, until the gods washed their hands of this matter and let it flow where it would, while it still could.

And in the gum trees beside the river a night bird swooped, and a small possum tumbled from its mother's back to the mulch below. The feral cat pounced, licked warm blood, while the lone frog
swallowed a few sopranos, just to keep the mosquito chorus in balance, then with a clap-clap, he frog-kicked downstream in search of a mate.

And on the sand dunes out Dead Man's Lane, the rabbits played.