The Road by Catherine Jinks
‘Don’t bring it in here!’
‘It could be dangerous,’ Noel added nervously. ‘Driving with a loaded gun . . .’
‘It’s not loaded.’ With a grunt, Del squeezed herself behind the steering wheel. ‘I’ve got the magazine right here, see?’ Then she shut her door, and passed a small, black box to Alec. ‘I reckon yiz can shoot, eh? One a these things?’
Alec nodded.
‘It’s spring loaded. Bit stiff.’ So was the gearstick, which Del had to shove and jerk before she could guide her Ford back onto the road. ‘Yiz’ll have to give the magazine a good, hard whack before it’ll slide in –’
‘Del,’ Linda interjected (and Peter could tell that she was trying very hard to keep her voice level) ‘I’d rather you put that gun away. You’re scaring the children.’
‘With a Lee Enfield? Nah.’ Del tossed a quick grin over her shoulder. ‘I bet this little bloke wants a hold, don’t ya, darl? Boys love guns.’
Peter wondered if he was supposed to reply. Whatever he decided to say, it would certainly offend someone. Fortunately, however, Linda answered for him.
‘We don’t believe in guns,’ she declared stiffly.
‘Zat so?’
‘Whatever the problem might be,’ Linda went on, ‘a gun isn’t going to solve anything.’
‘Well, ya could be right,’ Del responded philosophically, as Alec fiddled with the .303. He cradled its butt against his shoulder, squinting down the barrel, which was thrust out the window. Then he dropped the butt on the floor between his knees, so that the barrel was scraping the ceiling, and struggled to push the magazine home. ‘But I don’t wanna take chances,’ Del finished. ‘Not when there’s another gun around.’
‘Another gun?’
‘Later,’ said Noel.
Silence fell. The only sounds were Mongrel’s whining, Rosie’s snores, and the ‘click’ of a rifle bolt, which Alec was testing.
They drove on through the thickening darkness.
CHAPTER 9
At last Ross conceded that something was not right. He didn’t have much choice, because they had run out of petrol.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he kept repeating. ‘We should have been there by now. We should have been there!’
Thin-lipped, Verlie made no response. The car had rolled to a standstill, drifting onto the dusty verge while the caravan bobbed and swayed dangerously behind it. Now they were becalmed in a settling cloud of dust.
And it was getting dark outside.
‘That map must be wrong,’ Ross continued. ‘I’m going to sue the printers.’
‘Oh stop it, Ross.’
‘This doesn’t make sense, Verlie!’ he exclaimed, colour mottling his face. ‘Not unless the map is incorrect!’
‘Well, don’t get in a state about it. There’s nothing we can do now.’ Verlie sighed, rubbing her wrist across her forehead. ‘At least we have a caravan to sleep in. Supplies. A camp stove. What about that poor family we left back there?’
‘I told you,’ said Ross, ‘it wasn’t my fault. According to the map, we were less than half an hour –’
‘I know, Ross. I know. I just wish we’d told them that the farm was within walking distance, that’s all. At the very least.’
They struggled out of the car, stiff-jointed, and made preparations. Ross kept assuring Verlie that someone would be along soon – that he would flag down the next passing car, and request that the driver contact someone about their plight – but Verlie ignored him. Even if someone was driving in the outback at night, and happened to encounter them in the next fifteen minutes, rescue would still be a long way off. They were miles from anywhere, and dusk was falling. The smart thing to do was to make dinner and prepare for a bit of a wait.
The caravan, untethered, lurched from side to side as Verlie pottered about finding spaghetti, knives, onions.
‘I’ve left the hazard lights on, but it’s going to drain the battery,’ Ross observed. He was lighting the camp-stove, at Verlie’s request. ‘I’ll have to turn them off, in a minute.’
‘As soon as you get that going, I’ll boil water for tea. I need a cup of tea.’
‘I just hope we don’t get some idiot ploughing up our backside in the dark. This caravan is so bulky, but I couldn’t bring it across any more, because of that ditch . . .’
‘I’ll put some water in the hot water bottles, as well. It’s bound to get cold, and the heater won’t work.’
Verlie boiled up some spaghetti, then opened a tin of bolognaise sauce, adding a few extra herbs to spice it up. She also made a salad out of some lettuce and rather limp celery, wishing that she had stocked up a bit more; it was difficult trying to chop vegetables in such bad light. She was worried about the Fergusons. They were probably still stranded out there with those poor kids. Remembering what Noel had said before Ross interrupted him – something about a three-hour drive from Broken Hill – Verlie cursed her husband silently for being such a know-all. He was right so often that he simply wouldn’t admit that sometimes he could be wrong.
Oh well, she thought, it’s an adventure. I’ll be able to tell everyone about it when we get home.
‘Verl!’ Ross’s voice suddenly pierced the encroaching silence. ‘There’s someone coming.’
‘Oh.’
‘Can you hear it?’
Verlie listened hard. Over the sound of a trilling insect (a cricket of some sort, possibly) she could just make out a distant hum. It was coming from the south, and seemed to be getting louder. Leaning out of the caravan’s door, she peered down the road, which was being swallowed up in a grey mist as the sun set. Was that a faint beam of light?
‘It’s a car,’ she said.
‘I’ll flag it down.’
‘Be careful.’
‘Do you want to hitch a lift, or stay here and wait?’
‘Stay,’ Verlie replied. She had never hitchhiked in her life before, and didn’t intend to start now. Not at night. Not in the middle of nowhere. Not even if Ross was with her.
Besides, what about the caravan? They couldn’t leave it here, to be robbed and vandalised. Someone was bound to take the television and the video player, at the very least.
‘That’s an old car,’ said Ross, waving his arms. ‘You can tell by the shape of the headlights. Ahoy!’
Wiping her hands on a tea-towel, Verlie descended the stairs very carefully (her knees weren’t what they had been) and joined Ross at the roadside. The moving vehicle was almost upon them, and suddenly its headlights swerved sideways, bouncing and weaving. With a puff of dust and a crunch of pebbles, it eased to a halt behind the caravan.
‘Hello,’ someone said, over the noisy rattle of an ancient engine. ‘What happened to you?’
The voice sounded vaguely familiar. But there were so many people crammed into the idling station wagon, and the light was so poor, that for several seconds Verlie was confused. She didn’t recognise the car at all, and the passenger nearest to her seemed to be carrying – was it a gun, that thing pointed towards the sky? She was stepping backwards, her hand on her heart, when she spotted a pale face at the rear window. A child’s face.
‘Is that the Fergusons?’ said Ross, in disbelief.
‘That’s right.’ Noel Ferguson leaned across the man with the gun. ‘I don’t think we ever got your name, though.’
‘R-Ross. Harwood.’
‘And Verlie,’ said Verlie.
‘Do you blokes know each other?’ the driver of the station wagon demanded, in tones as harsh and unlovely as the screech of a rusty gate.
‘They stopped to help us earlier,’ Noel explained. ‘They were going to put a call through to the NRMA –’
‘The map’s wrong,’ Ross interrupted. He was now more collected, after the initial shock of encountering the Fergusons again. Verlie knew that he could not admit to the shameful truth without first laying the blame on someone else. ‘According to the map, it should have been no more than three and a half hours from Mi
‘Then you musta been drivin bloody slowly,’ the driver interjected. ‘I could practically walk from Mildura to Broken Hill in five hours.’
There was a sudden surge of raised voices: Ross’s, Noel’s, Linda’s. Verlie noticed that the scruffy man with the gun said nothing, and she was disturbed by this. He was sitting there like Death at the Feast, being utterly ignored, when his presence demanded an explanation.
‘So you ran out of petrol too?’ Noel was saying. ‘Well that’s odd. So did Alec, here. This is Alec. You may have noticed his truck.’
‘Yes, the truck. We saw that,’ Ross replied. ‘But where have you come from?’ he demanded of the female driver. ‘Have you come from Mildura?’
‘Yeah, and it’s taken me just under three hours.’
‘It can’t have.’
‘It bloody well did, mate.’
‘But it can’t have!’ Ross’s voice was pitched high. ‘There’s nothing wrong with our car, it’s just been serviced, and we were driving close to eighty the whole way!’
‘You know, it’s odd,’ Noel said, ‘because we had exactly the same experience going in the opposite direction, and it didn’t make sense because we did the whole thing in less than four when we were driving to Broken Hill –’
‘Look,’ the driver interjected, ‘you blokes aren’t locals, you mighta done a detour somewhere, on some side road, but I’m tellin ya, I done this drive a million times, it’s no more than three, three and a half hours door-to-door –’
‘I’m a local too,’ said Alec.
Everyone stared at him, including Verlie. His eyes were shut. He looked drained and tired.
The driver – whom Verlie couldn’t see as more than a dense shadow, from her vantage point – turned off the vehicle’s engine, and addressed Alec.
‘You what?’ she said.
‘I’m a local too,’ he repeated, his voice low and husky. ‘I know this road. It’s me route, okay? I started in Mildura this morning with a seven-hundred-litre fuel load. And this is as far as I got.’
To Verlie, such a revelation meant precisely nothing. She used the silence that followed it to spare a thought for the children, who seemed nervous and washed-out. Her husband, however, clearly spent the time more productively, turning numbers around in his head.
‘Is that normal?’ he finally asked Alec. ‘How long did it take you?’
‘That can’t be right,’ the harsh-voiced driver objected. ‘Nah. Seven hundred litres – what are yiz drivin, a container ship?’
‘That’s why I flagged down those two blokes,’ Alec continued, without answering either question. ‘Chris and Graham. They were headin for Broken Hill, but we never got there. Drove and drove and never got there. Ran outta petrol. Refilled. Kept goin. Finally I got ’em to turn back, and track down a land line. That’s why we . . .’ He jerked his head, as if everyone else knew the end of the story. But Ross didn’t.
‘Why you what?’ he demanded. Verlie sensed a sudden change in the atmosphere; she realised that at least some of the station wagon’s occupants could have finished Alec’s sentence for him. Moreover, from the way that Noel lowered his head and pursed his lips, she deduced that the story’s ending wasn’t an entirely happy one.
Before Alec could explain, however, the driver suddenly interrupted. She said to him: ‘Whaddaya sayin, mate? That we’ll never get to Broken Hill?’
There was a pause. Then Alec shrugged. ‘You could try,’ he mumbled.
‘Eh?’
‘I said you could try.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Now don’t let’s get stroppy, Del, please,’ Noel broke in. ‘Alec has had a tough time, you know that.’
‘Why?’ said Ross. ‘What’s going on?’
Del and Noel exchanged glances. Linda leaned forward, placing one hand on the back of her husband’s seat.
‘Excuse me – Verlie, is it?’ she said.
‘Yes.’ Stooping a little, Verlie could see Linda’s face. Light gleamed along the bridge of her nose, and the rim of one eye socket. Her skin looked greasy. ‘Yes, I’m Verlie.’
‘Are you cooking something, Verlie? I can smell food.’
‘Oh!’ Verlie had forgotten her spaghetti. ‘Yes I am, as a matter of fact –’
‘Well then, if we’re going to sit here talking, could we maybe have a bite to eat?’ Linda was speaking to the whole group. ‘Just for the kids, I mean. They haven’t eaten since lunchtime, and the poor things are starving, so if you have a bit to spare, Verlie, I’d be very grateful.’
‘Oh, of course!’ Verlie exclaimed, displeased with herself for not thinking to offer a meal sooner. ‘Of course, they must be terribly hungry, it’s just spaghetti bolognaise, but I can easily stretch the sauce and cook up some more pasta. And we’ve got biscuits and fruit . . .’
There was a shifting of bodies in the back seat, and a childish murmur of approval. It was Del, however, who responded.
‘I dunno,’ she drawled. ‘I dunno if we should stop.’
‘We’re stopped now,’ Linda pointed out. ‘It won’t take a minute.’
‘Yeah, but who knows what might be comin up behind? We’re sittin ducks, out here.’
‘Sitting ducks?’ said Ross. He sounded impatient. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Listen.’ Noel raised his hand, speaking calmly, firmly, clearly. ‘Linda, why don’t you and the kids go very quickly with Mrs Harwood and get something to eat, while Del and Alec and I give Mr Harwood a run-down of what’s happened. You might like to join us yourself, in a minute – you ought to hear the details.’
‘Okay.’ Linda nodded. ‘All right.’
‘Is that fine with you, Del?’
An explosive sigh from the driver’s seat. ‘Yeah, I s’pose so.’
‘Quick, then. Peter? Off you go. You too, Louise.’
The children tumbled out of the station wagon, staggering as their feet hit the ground. Even in the dimness, Verlie could see that their clothes were crushed, their hair was ruffled and their skin was damp. Linda exited through the door on the other side of the vehicle, still clutching her youngest daughter in her arms. The little one, Verlie saw, was half asleep, her head cradled against her mother’s shoulder.
Verlie clicked her tongue.
‘Come this way,’ she said. ‘You can all sit at the table in the caravan. Have you been in a caravan before?’
‘No,’ the boy replied. ‘Do you think – could we have a drink, please?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ve got orange juice or cocoa . . . water . . . whatever you like.’
Even with so much to take in and process, Verlie had realised that the children were being protected from something – from something that had occurred to Alec, perhaps. His tough time, perhaps? No one was going to talk about it while the kids were around, so they had to be dispatched. This realisation made her uneasy, but she couldn’t spare the mystery much thought because she had three hungry children on her hands, and a limited store of perishables. Inviting her groggy-eyed guests into the caravan, she dragged three large plates from a high cupboard, asking Linda if she would be kind enough to drain the spaghetti into the colander, but not let the water run down the plughole. Working at top speed, Verlie dished out salad and dressing. She opened a tin of asparagus and distributed handfuls of Jatz biscuits. She found some sultanas.
‘Now you eat up quickly,’ she instructed, after sauce had been slapped on each serving of spaghetti, ‘and you can have a piece of chocolate for dessert. If that’s all right with Mum?’
‘That’s fine,’ Linda said. ‘Verlie, I can’t thank you enough –’
‘No, no. Really. It’s my pleasure.’
‘I can pay you –’
‘Don’t be silly!’ Obviously, Verlie decided, they were nice people. That offer of money had clinched it. Not that she’d had any doubts, really: the children were
‘Oh – well – maybe just a couple of biscuits. Thank you so much.’
‘There’s spaghetti left. And some sauce –’
‘No, no. We’ve made a big enough dent in your dinner already.’
‘Oh, we’ve got lots. I just have to cook it up. Are you sure?’
‘I’m positive.’
And then someone tapped on the caravan siding.
Alec was hungry. He had eaten almost nothing since breakfast, and had put in a lot of work since then. He was fuzzy-headed – fading fast. Time had splintered into little shards of bright and painful images, each wrapped around with some gut-wrenching emotion: the half-severed wrist; the dusty outline of a rock, which he had been staring at while he hid behind the saltbush; the sight of his truck, waiting patiently where he had left it; the approach of Del’s old Ford, from exactly the wrong direction. But he had reminded himself that beggars can’t be choosers, and had flagged down the station wagon anyway, despite his irrational fear that he was hitching a lift with the gunman. What an effort it had been, waving his arms at the oncoming vehicle! All his instincts had told him to run and hide.
Fortunately, his instincts had been wrong. Del was no killer, despite the .303 in her possession. No killer would have handed someone else her gun. As for the Fergusons, they were about as threatening as a Devonshire tea. Dad, Mum and the kids – Alec found their presence reassuring, though he hadn’t quite sorted them out yet. His mind was on other matters, when it was working at all. Some things were clear in his head, as sharp as a jagged piece of glass (his first glimpse of the dead woman, for instance) but many of his thoughts were blurred, scrambled, full of vacant patches that prevented him from anticipating problems or arguing his way out of them. Events had slipped away from him, slowly but surely. He had merely reported the shooting, and had allowed Del to carry him off down the road towards Broken Hill, despite everything he knew, despite the fact that they would almost certainly never reach their destination. Perhaps a new driver had imbued him with fresh hope. Or perhaps he had sensed, deep in his gut, that if he had started to talk about time loops and returning to Coombah, he would never have been offered a lift in the first place.