bloodshot.
You blokes comin to the Point?
Yeah! cries Bird.
I told you, Darkie, it’s Sunday. School tomorrow.
We’re playin one short. It’s a weddin.
You’ll be fine.
They booked us.
I’ve got the kids. Told you when they booked it.
They can sleep in the ute, can’t you, Bullet?
Bullet has come in with Sal who’s finishing the plait in her hair. It’s the colour of shortbread. Sweat glistens on her neck.
Bird launches herself toward her mother and Fox rocks alone, pissed off that they’ve done it again. He’ll be to and fro all night from the car, playing with only half his mind on the music.
By midnight Darkie and Sal will be wound up tight and the party will move on to someone else’s place and they’ll get blasted.
He’ll either drive the kids home himself or doss down with them on the tray of the ute. In the morning they’ll be slit-eyed and cranky and likely miss school.
Carn, mate, says Darkie. Don’t be such an old woman.
Well you’ve told em now. The genie’s out of the bottle. I’ll bring some sheets.
Whew, says Sal. Too hot for jeans. Where’s that dress again?
When Fox gets out to the yard they’re all waiting. The dirt is pink from brakelights.
Carn, Lu, says Bullet from the tray of the one-tonner.
Want me to drive? he calls to his brother. You probly shouldn’t.
Get in, says Darkie lazily.
Fox throws some bedclothes and his old Martin in the back and climbs up with the kids. He kicks a few furry melon stalks aside and sits back against the cab window with the kids snuggled up to him in their pyjamas. He smells the sweet, dry grass and watches their dust rise pink and white into the star-blown sky. In front Sal’s laughter is just audible over the squelch of gravel and the old Holden motor. Even in the dark the amber blossoms of the Christmas trees hang vivid at the track’s edge.
Bird begins to sing.
I love a sunburnt country
A land of sweeping plains
They pick up speed, Darkie lairizing a little at the wheel to make the kids giggle. Fox cranes to see Sal cuddled up against Darkie, kissing his neck. He turns back, sees his olive trees, the ones he planted as seedlings, fall by in a dusty procession in the front paddock.
Fishtail! yells Bullet.
Darkie gives the old Holden some throttle and the tray slides into a drift, kicks back while the kids shriek with pleasure.
Behind them the ruts of the drive yaw in and out of view.
And then there’s dirt in his mouth. The sky gone completely.
For a few moments Fox thinks he’s gone to sleep, it’s been a long, hot day and the travelling air is cool. But dead grass rasps against his cheek and a queer red light washes over the 117 earth. Strange, but he thinks first of his mother, that he’s there again on the ground beside her. And he considers the olives which fall to the dirt, season after season. He smells fuel, rolls over and is rent with the most abrupt pain like a hatchet high in the chest. God Almighty, he’s out in the paddock. He feels a sudden panic that he’s been left behind and scans the dark swathe of the highway beyond the gate. He gets to his knees and quickly understands that his collarbone is broken. Upright, arms crossed before him, he tries to take it in. Light pours up out of the ground and a red cloud of dust rolls along the drive until it overtakes him and billows out onto the blacktop.
He shambles across stony dirt to the drainage ditch where the ute’s headlights burn into the ground. Fencewire twitches in the hay stubble, hissing, snagging as he stumbles. He blunders down to the upturned one-tonner calling their names, all their names, revolted by the beetle-like underbelly of the vehicle, the evil turning of the rear wheel.
There’s no sign of the kids; they must be safe, but before he can call out for them he spies Darkie half out of the cab and he goes to him, kneels to see that his arm is pulp and the rest of him feels like a kitbag full of loose tools. God Almighty,
You blokes comin to the Point?
Yeah! cries Bird.
I told you, Darkie, it’s Sunday. School tomorrow.
We’re playin one short. It’s a weddin.
You’ll be fine.
They booked us.
I’ve got the kids. Told you when they booked it.
They can sleep in the ute, can’t you, Bullet?
Bullet has come in with Sal who’s finishing the plait in her hair. It’s the colour of shortbread. Sweat glistens on her neck.
Bird launches herself toward her mother and Fox rocks alone, pissed off that they’ve done it again. He’ll be to and fro all night from the car, playing with only half his mind on the music.
By midnight Darkie and Sal will be wound up tight and the party will move on to someone else’s place and they’ll get blasted.
He’ll either drive the kids home himself or doss down with them on the tray of the ute. In the morning they’ll be slit-eyed and cranky and likely miss school.
Carn, mate, says Darkie. Don’t be such an old woman.
Well you’ve told em now. The genie’s out of the bottle. I’ll bring some sheets.
Whew, says Sal. Too hot for jeans. Where’s that dress again?
When Fox gets out to the yard they’re all waiting. The dirt is pink from brakelights.
Carn, Lu, says Bullet from the tray of the one-tonner.
Want me to drive? he calls to his brother. You probly shouldn’t.
Get in, says Darkie lazily.
Fox throws some bedclothes and his old Martin in the back and climbs up with the kids. He kicks a few furry melon stalks aside and sits back against the cab window with the kids snuggled up to him in their pyjamas. He smells the sweet, dry grass and watches their dust rise pink and white into the star-blown sky. In front Sal’s laughter is just audible over the squelch of gravel and the old Holden motor. Even in the dark the amber blossoms of the Christmas trees hang vivid at the track’s edge.
Bird begins to sing.
I love a sunburnt country
A land of sweeping plains
They pick up speed, Darkie lairizing a little at the wheel to make the kids giggle. Fox cranes to see Sal cuddled up against Darkie, kissing his neck. He turns back, sees his olive trees, the ones he planted as seedlings, fall by in a dusty procession in the front paddock.
Fishtail! yells Bullet.
Darkie gives the old Holden some throttle and the tray slides into a drift, kicks back while the kids shriek with pleasure.
Behind them the ruts of the drive yaw in and out of view.
And then there’s dirt in his mouth. The sky gone completely.
For a few moments Fox thinks he’s gone to sleep, it’s been a long, hot day and the travelling air is cool. But dead grass rasps against his cheek and a queer red light washes over the 117 earth. Strange, but he thinks first of his mother, that he’s there again on the ground beside her. And he considers the olives which fall to the dirt, season after season. He smells fuel, rolls over and is rent with the most abrupt pain like a hatchet high in the chest. God Almighty, he’s out in the paddock. He feels a sudden panic that he’s been left behind and scans the dark swathe of the highway beyond the gate. He gets to his knees and quickly understands that his collarbone is broken. Upright, arms crossed before him, he tries to take it in. Light pours up out of the ground and a red cloud of dust rolls along the drive until it overtakes him and billows out onto the blacktop.
He shambles across stony dirt to the drainage ditch where the ute’s headlights burn into the ground. Fencewire twitches in the hay stubble, hissing, snagging as he stumbles. He blunders down to the upturned one-tonner calling their names, all their names, revolted by the beetle-like underbelly of the vehicle, the evil turning of the rear wheel.
There’s no sign of the kids; they must be safe, but before he can call out for them he spies Darkie half out of the cab and he goes to him, kneels to see that his arm is pulp and the rest of him feels like a kitbag full of loose tools. God Almighty,
Similar Books
