The Road by Catherine Jinks
Col enjoyed music. He had a little collection of classical pieces that he played over and over again: Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture; the Dambusters March; highlights from Carmen; Handel’s Messiah. This time he chose Beethoven’s ninth symphony, using it to give him courage. He was quite sure that these trips to Broken Hill were draining the life out of him. Slowly but surely they were breaking him down. He made a point of not dwelling on life’s less pleasant aspects, but it was hard, sometimes, when you were getting on. When your friends were succumbing to pneumonia and emphysema and osteoporosis. When your sister was disintegrating – turning into a vegetable. One day, he knew, he would not have the strength to drive back. Not immediately. He would have to find a bed somewhere and recover overnight.
If he had a few grandchildren, it might help. But his waster son had failed in this department also. There would be no young life investing Col’s last years with vigour and warmth. Not unless you took into account his little next-door neighbour.
Col sometimes tried to work out where he had gone wrong with Kevin – where he and Helen had both gone wrong. It had always been his firmly held belief that Kevin took after his Uncle Morris, Helen’s useless brother. What could you do, with genes like that? Morris, it seemed, had been born selfish. He had done nothing but sponge and booze and wander from pillar to post his whole life. Col had never lifted a hand to Kevin. He had never spoiled the boy, but had provided everything that a child could ever want: home, food, clothes, birthday presents, sound advice, money for an apprenticeship, money for long-distance education, money to set himself up in Melbourne . . . And for what? So he could live off his girlfriends, off the government, off his mother, even off poor Elspeth when her mind first started to go. Col clenched the steering wheel when he thought of that. He swatted the memory away; but it would return, he knew. In the dark of the night, or during lunch at the club, or on the bowling green. It kept popping up like an evil little wasp, trying to puncture his carefully constructed feeling of wellbeing. He would never forgive his son for taking advantage of Elspeth. That was when he had turned away – when he had given up on the useless little so-and-so. He’d decided that he had his own life to live, and couldn’t live Kevin’s for him.
It had destroyed his marriage, of course. Not that he and Helen were by that time the same couple who had married in her father’s own church, down near Bendigo. They had been very young then, and had grown into different people. But they had managed to rub along all right until the business with Elspeth. After that, they had become estranged. Helen had kept making excuses for her son, even when he repeatedly failed to visit her in hospital. Kevin had claimed that it upset him too much, to see her there. And she had believed it, too.
Col, who was no stranger to hospitals, had been ashamed of Kevin. A man might be unmanned by suffering, but that didn’t mean he ran away from it. On the contrary. He fronted up every visiting hour with a bunch of flowers and as much family gossip as he could painstakingly collect.
Kevin had been drunk or stoned at his mother’s funeral. Col was sure of it.
His thoughts snapped back to the present as his gaze snagged on a shape up ahead. Blinking, he saw that it was a car. No – a car and a man. Two separate shapes, in fact, which grew more distinct the closer Col got to them. The car was a utility, but not a utility like Col’s. Though covered in dust, and dented here and there, it was a fancy new model, dark navy, with tinted windows and antennae sticking up all over it. A mean-looking machine, big and heavy and challenging.
Its driver presented a striking contrast.
Drawing up alongside him, Col was surprised to see how young the man was. No more than thirty-five. From a distance he had looked much older – perhaps because of his clothes. That style of shirt, for instance; it wasn’t what you normally saw on men under fifty these days. The pants too were strangely old-fashioned, like something that might have been worn by Gregory Peck or Cary Grant. And they didn’t fit well, either. Col noticed that. They were too short at the ankle.
Lifting his gaze to the face of the stranded motorist, Col registered his unshaven jaw and crooked nose. The fellow was badly sunburned too. But on closer inspection, he seemed harmless enough: small and wiry, with deep-set eyes and hollow cheeks, he looked as if he hadn’t been eating too well. In fact he looked a bit off colour.
‘You all right, mate?’ Col inquired, switching off Beethoven’s ninth in mid-adagio.
The motorist rubbed his hands on his dusty beige trousers. Nervously, he glanced up the highway.
‘Uh . . .’ he said.
‘Car trouble?’
‘Yeah . . .’ Something about the way he forced out that word, in a kind of breathless bark, made Col wonder if he had a speech problem. He had that look about him – that withdrawn, slightly defensive look displayed by one of Col’s former work-mates, who had suffered from a badly repaired cleft palate. Poor little bastard. He’d hardly ever opened his mouth.
But it soon became obvious that the problem wasn’t one of expression. It was one of embarrassment. Shamefaced, the motorist mumbled something. He scratched his neck, and shuffled his feet.
‘What?’ said Col. ‘You’ll have to speak up, I’m not as young as I used to be.’
‘I ran outta petrol,’ the young man admitted, in a surprisingly rough voice. He gave a half-hearted smile, which sent jagged lines crawling up one cheek. ‘God knows how.’
‘Bit of a guzzler, is she?’ Col remarked, studying the well-endowed vehicle in front of him with a practised eye. Its driver glanced back, still fidgeting.
‘A bit,’ he said.
‘Well you’re out of luck here, mate,’ said Col. ‘I’ve not got any spare on me. Do you want to hop in, or wait for someone else?’
The young man hesitated. He seemed rather lost. Col wondered what he was doing out here, in those Salvation Army clothes, driving such a flash truck. He would have looked more at home in a Depression-era jalopy, Col thought.
Could he have stolen it?
‘Did you come from Broken Hill?’ Col continued. (The ute was facing south.) ‘Because that’s where I’m going.’ And if he didn’t get a move on, he wouldn’t get there in time. ‘Your choice, mate,’ he added impatiently. ‘Only I can’t afford to waste time.’
‘Thanks,’ said the young man, as if the word had been jerked out of him. ‘I’ll come.’
‘Coombah’s closer –’
‘I’ll come.’
He walked around the front of Col’s ute, heading for the passenger door. Upon reaching it, however, he paused. Then his pale eyes flicked towards his own vehicle.
‘You want to bring something?’ asked Col. ‘You can sling it in the back.’
But the young man shook his head, and climbed into the seat beside Col. He seemed to shrink into himself, hunching his shoulders, folding his arms and pressing his knees together. A muscle flexed in his jaw. He didn’t even glance around as Col changed gears and started off again, leaving the other ute behind.
He seemed preoccupied.
‘Nice truck,’ said Col. ‘Is it new?’
‘Nah.’
‘Must have cost a bit, though,’ Col pressed. He had a hunch that this bloke didn’t actually own the vehicle, and was surprised when his remark elicited a sudden torrent of words.
‘I bought it off a mate. With my insurance money. It was an accident. Bloody kangaroo, bloody huge, the size of a cow, straight out of nowhere in the middle of the night. Eyes like headlights. Went straight at me. That’s why I got the bullbar. Never again.’
Col blinked. ‘Ah, well,’ he said. ‘It happens. Roos on the road.’
The young man sniffed, and gazed out the window. Col didn’t know what to make of him. He didn’t seem drunk, or drugged, but there was something a little off-centre about him. Col couldn’t put his finger on it, at first. Desiring more information, he said: ‘What’s your name, anyway? Mine’s Col.’
‘John.’
‘Got family in Broken Hill, John?’
‘Nah.’
‘I do. Sister’s there. And my niece. Funny old place, Broken Hill. Do you live there?’
A brief pause. John shifted, and began to rub his hands together.
‘No,’ he said at last.
‘From further afield, are you?’
John nodded.
‘Queensland?’ asked Col, and John turned a pair of deep-set, bloodshot eyes on him.
‘I thought my mate could help me out,’ he rasped. ‘I thought he had a job for me, but I was wrong. I lost me other job.’
‘Ah,’ said Col.
‘I had that job eight years, and they sacked me. For no reason.’ The harsh voice grew even harsher. ‘Then the roo wrecked me car, and I did me back in. Best mate did the dirty on me. Wife chucked me out. It’s been one thing after the other, like a bloody curse. I’m having nightmares.’
‘And now you’ve run out of petrol,’ said Col. ‘That’s too bad.’
Nevertheless, he spoke with a hint of relief – because he knew what the matter was now. He knew why John had an edgy and broken-backed look. The poor bloke was punch-drunk from ill fortune. His life was going down the toilet. Ten to one, he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Well, that was all right. Col could cope with that. There was no shame in buckling, when you lost everything you’d ever worked for.
The shame was when you didn’t work for anything, and had nothing to lose.
CHAPTER 13
It was ten thirty-seven when Del finally returned. Peter knew the exact time because he was checking his watch at the same instant he heard her car. As a matter of fact, he had been checking his watch at increasingly frequent intervals, partly for something to do, partly because – like everyone else – he had been growing more and more worried. Why were the others so late? What could have happened to delay them?
He had an awful feeling that they were never going to come back.
But for once his premonitions of doom had proved to be unfounded. He heard an engine, looked up and there they were, Del and Ross and Alec and Mongrel, slowly coming into focus in the beat-up old Ford station wagon – which was so plastered with dust that its multicoloured paintwork was barely visible. Linda whooped. Verlie started to dab at her eyes.
Peter was relieved, but hung back until the Ford had swerved off the road and shuddered to a halt behind the caravan. Then he joined the crowd that surged towards it. Del was out of her seat before the engine had even been switched off. Ross emerged more sedately, looking a bit stiff, and was immediately claimed by his wife.
Alec sat for a few minutes behind the wheel. Peter watched him, because it seemed to Peter that Alec had more insight into their situation than anyone else. And when he saw that Alec’s face was pale, and that his eyes were red with strain, Peter’s sudden rush of high spirits drained away like water down a plughole.
‘It’s all right,’ Del was saying. ‘We’re all right. Sorry we’re late, but it was all in a good cause.’
‘What happened?’ Linda wanted to know. ‘What’s all that stuff in the back seat?’
‘Supplies.’ Del gave an unconvincing, lopsided smile, displaying her jagged yellow teeth. ‘We got ’em from Thorndale.’
‘Thorndale?’
‘Alec was quite right,’ Ross broke in, and Peter gave him credit for saying so – because it had always seemed to Peter that Ross didn’t think much of Alec. But Ross, on closer inspection, seemed to have changed. Peter couldn’t put his finger on it; he could tell only that Mr Harwood looked older, somehow. The man’s eyes were pouchy and his shoulders sagged. ‘We’re only about fifteen minutes from Thorndale,’ he continued, ‘and there definitely has been a shooting. Several shootings.’
‘Uh – right,’ said Noel, with a nervous glance at Rosie. ‘Peter, why don’t you take the girls into the caravan and play with them?’ Peter was appalled. Play with them? ‘But Dad . . .’
‘Go on, please. Off you go.’
‘Let’s play dragon in the dark,’ said Rose happily, taking her brother’s hand, and Louise said: ‘I don’t wanna play dragon in the dark. It’s my turn for the headphones.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you do, just go and do something,’ Noel instructed, with a grave and reproving glance at Peter. Del was saying, ‘We found some petrol. Just one can. The other cans were empty, but there was one that musta been missed – and we got some extra fuel outta the Land Rover . . .’ Ross was fighting off Verlie’s suggestions that he come and lie down, have a cup of tea (or maybe coffee), relax, put his feet up . . .
Peter took Rose around the back of the caravan, where he tried to teach her how to play noughts-and-crosses.
He understood exactly what must have happened. Del and Ross and Alec must have driven a short distance down the road, found Alec’s truck, and decided to head for Thorndale – perhaps so that they could pick up more petrol. There couldn’t have been anybody at Thorndale, at least not anybody who wasn’t dead (Peter knew quite well what they meant by ‘a shooting’), so they had loaded up the station wagon with extra food, water, blankets or whatever. And they had managed to get back. That was interesting. They couldn’t reach Broken Hill or Coombah, but they had been able to reach Thorndale, and then they had retraced their route, at least as far as the caravan.
What did it mean?
Overnight, Peter’s attitude towards their predicament had changed. The day before, he had withdrawn himself slightly from everything that was going on. He had retreated into his head, which was well furnished with fantasy scenarios and alternative worlds and longings for things like roast chicken and TV and hot showers. He had recognised that they were in a bit of a mess, but had figured that it would all blow over – that the adults would find a solution – and that they would be home before he missed anything important, like his friend Henry’s birthday party.
The long night in the caravan, however, had transformed him. He had never expected to be stuck out in the desert for a whole night; the fact that it had actually happened suggested to him that things were way out of control. He’d had trouble sleeping, and during his wakeful moments had found himself pondering the exact nature of the events overtaking them. If Alec was right – and Peter had become more and more convinced that he was right – then they were in the middle of something supernatural. Something you might see in a film, or read about in one of his science fiction novels. Something that most adults, he knew, would find hard to accept.
All indications pointed towards the possibility that they were stuck inside some sort of temporal loop. They weren’t doing the same things over and over again, but they were passing the same place over and over again. That much was obvious. You didn’t have to be a genius to work that out. The question was, Why? And how could the loop be broken?
Peter had read about people seeing UFOs out in desert country like this. He wondered if what had befallen them was somehow connected with the passage of a UFO. He also wondered if the government had established some kind of secret facility way out here – like the old nuclear test sites they’d once built at Woomera – where scientists (probably physicists) were actually experimenting with temporal inversions and things. Maybe the scientists had developed some kind of ray. Maybe they’d had some kind of leak, like a radiation leak, only different.
These were the thoughts that had passed through Peter’s mind while he lay on the floor of the caravan. Now, having determined that Alec’s claims had been well and truly substantiated – to the satisfaction even of a sceptic like Mr Harwood – he considered the question of whether or not he should discuss his theories with someone else. With his dad, say. Or with Alec.
It soon became obvious, however, that he wouldn’t be able to raise the topic of temporal dislocation any time soon. Not while the adults were arguing. For they were arguing, though not very heatedly, about what they should do next. Peter could hear their raised voices quite clearly, even behind the caravan.
Rose, who was carefully drawing a noughts-and
‘. . . said there’s a fridge there. Water. Electricity.’ It was Linda speaking. ‘Wouldn’t it be better for the kids if some of us waited at Thorndale, while the rest tried to find a way through to Broken Hill? Wouldn’t that make sense? The kids need baths. They need to run around a bit.’
‘. . . don’t wanna be there . . .’ Alec replied, in muffled accents. ‘. . . bodies . . .’
‘Well obviously we’d clear the bodies away first.’
‘What, are ya mad?’ Del squawked. ‘Can’t disturb a crime scene! It’s against the law!’
Noel said something, too softly for Peter to hear. Linda added that of course it wasn’t against the law, not in emergency situations. Del pointed out that there was something else to consider. ‘We never found the kid,’ she squawked. ‘There was a kid livin there, and we never found ’im. Mongrel didn’t find ’im. If we go back, we could take another look.’
‘A kid?’ gasped Linda. ‘What kid?’
‘He wasn’t there,’ Alec growled. ‘Look – we tried, all right? He could have been anywhere.’
‘We did try,’ Ross assured someone – possibly Linda. ‘We gave the dog a T-shirt, but he’s not much of a tracker.’
‘That kid must have been all over the place!’ Del protested. ‘It was confusing for the poor old bugger!’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Alec sighed. ‘But like I said, he could be anywhere. You could search for a week and never find him. He might be in Sydney, for all we know.’
‘Unless he’s hiding,’ Linda observed, worried. ‘He might be hiding. Deliberately. If we bring other kids to the place, he might realise it’s safe to come out.’
‘Linda,’ Ross interrupted, ‘the phone’s dead. Apart from anything else –’
‘I know the phone’s dead, you already told us.’
‘– apart from anything else, Linda, you’d be cut off out there. And you don’t know . . . well, you don’t know who might come back . . .’