snaps, ‘or you’ll lose it.’
Silence, glary, as he flies down the axle-breaking road. Trees lean in close, branches slap against the car and your hand sneaks back outside: trying to grab the night’s coolness with your palm.
‘Get in !’
You withdraw your hand from the slap of the air but put your bare feet on the dashboard, as you always do.
Violent braking.
You jerk forward.
The car’s clicking stillness.
He looks at you in that stopping as if he’s never come across anything like you: half wild, half human, utterly incomprehensible, impossible to contain.
You spurt a laugh, in nervousness as much as anything. ‘What?’ You shrug, perplexed. Your feet remain on the dash.
He revs and shoots forward, your feet can’t grip, they drop.
‘Good one, mate,’ you giggle and raise your thumb.
He chuckles, shaking his head; he’s given up. For a moment there’s a slipping into something else.
His hand. On the leather gearstick. The fingers you’ve never seen before. Not worker’s fingers. No coarseness, no calluses, no grubby black collecting in crevices. You want to lick them, like an animal; learn them. Hold each tip still and savouring in the cave of your mouth. You lift up both your own blunt hands in front of your face and turn them around in wonder, as if you’ve never seen the like of them before; staring at the dirt compacted in crescent moons under the nails and the river map of lines in the cracks of your palms and not just your hands, of course, but your bare feet, too; you sit cross-legged on the seat and drag them up—yep, filthy black, as they always are, with the skin ridged up the sides in deep fissured cracks; and then your knees, you’re curving right over now and examining the coal dust permanently tattooed across them in thin leeches and you lick them and of course the black doesn’t come off and how bizarre you must seem to someone like him and it is as if you have awareness of your bush self, for the first time in your life—all the raggedness, the loudness, the rawness in this place—the vast affront of who you are and what you represent. To someone like him.
You stare across, at his eyes, resolutely not engaging with you.
With everything he is not.
Lesson 59
The age of chivalry, with all its benefits and harmfulness, is gone by for us women
The gate to his property.
Locked.
You burst out laughing. Despite himself, he does too.
‘Yes, I am going mad. Alright. You win. Don’t ask. Too much in my head.’ He shakes it as he stops the car, as if trying to clear it out, takes the keys from the ignition and hands them across. Looks at you. Cocks his head.
‘It’s the small silver one.’
Well, that’s one rule of the bush he’s absorbed. You jump out grinning and swing the two halves wide. Glad to help, mister, glad to help. He drives through and stops abrupt.
‘Padlock it.’
‘Aren’t you coming back?’
‘You might get back before me.’ He raises his eyes to the heavens. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’
You fiddle with the lock, standing with the sole of one foot resting on your knee, as you always do; it takes a while, you can’t make the loop click. He toots in exasperation.
‘Come on. Your dinner’s getting cold.’
‘But it’s not fair, I want to come back,’ you tease, standing tall at the front of his car, your feet on his bumper and balancing withyour hands on the bonnet, the ten year old wheedling to her dad. ‘Pleeeeeeeeease.’
Something shuts down his face like a roller door on a shop. In an instant his mood has changed. You’ve gone too far. He gets out of the car.
‘I have work to do. Alright? And you’re not welcome in this place.’ He grips your shoulders hard and lifts you out of the way and propels you towards the passenger seat. You rub your collarbone and examine the affronted skin on your upper arms, the bruises like pale yellow petals already rushing onto it.
A clotted silence.
That you’re wrong in some way.
Silence, glary, as he flies down the axle-breaking road. Trees lean in close, branches slap against the car and your hand sneaks back outside: trying to grab the night’s coolness with your palm.
‘Get in !’
You withdraw your hand from the slap of the air but put your bare feet on the dashboard, as you always do.
Violent braking.
You jerk forward.
The car’s clicking stillness.
He looks at you in that stopping as if he’s never come across anything like you: half wild, half human, utterly incomprehensible, impossible to contain.
You spurt a laugh, in nervousness as much as anything. ‘What?’ You shrug, perplexed. Your feet remain on the dash.
He revs and shoots forward, your feet can’t grip, they drop.
‘Good one, mate,’ you giggle and raise your thumb.
He chuckles, shaking his head; he’s given up. For a moment there’s a slipping into something else.
His hand. On the leather gearstick. The fingers you’ve never seen before. Not worker’s fingers. No coarseness, no calluses, no grubby black collecting in crevices. You want to lick them, like an animal; learn them. Hold each tip still and savouring in the cave of your mouth. You lift up both your own blunt hands in front of your face and turn them around in wonder, as if you’ve never seen the like of them before; staring at the dirt compacted in crescent moons under the nails and the river map of lines in the cracks of your palms and not just your hands, of course, but your bare feet, too; you sit cross-legged on the seat and drag them up—yep, filthy black, as they always are, with the skin ridged up the sides in deep fissured cracks; and then your knees, you’re curving right over now and examining the coal dust permanently tattooed across them in thin leeches and you lick them and of course the black doesn’t come off and how bizarre you must seem to someone like him and it is as if you have awareness of your bush self, for the first time in your life—all the raggedness, the loudness, the rawness in this place—the vast affront of who you are and what you represent. To someone like him.
You stare across, at his eyes, resolutely not engaging with you.
With everything he is not.
Lesson 59
The age of chivalry, with all its benefits and harmfulness, is gone by for us women
The gate to his property.
Locked.
You burst out laughing. Despite himself, he does too.
‘Yes, I am going mad. Alright. You win. Don’t ask. Too much in my head.’ He shakes it as he stops the car, as if trying to clear it out, takes the keys from the ignition and hands them across. Looks at you. Cocks his head.
‘It’s the small silver one.’
Well, that’s one rule of the bush he’s absorbed. You jump out grinning and swing the two halves wide. Glad to help, mister, glad to help. He drives through and stops abrupt.
‘Padlock it.’
‘Aren’t you coming back?’
‘You might get back before me.’ He raises his eyes to the heavens. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’
You fiddle with the lock, standing with the sole of one foot resting on your knee, as you always do; it takes a while, you can’t make the loop click. He toots in exasperation.
‘Come on. Your dinner’s getting cold.’
‘But it’s not fair, I want to come back,’ you tease, standing tall at the front of his car, your feet on his bumper and balancing withyour hands on the bonnet, the ten year old wheedling to her dad. ‘Pleeeeeeeeease.’
Something shuts down his face like a roller door on a shop. In an instant his mood has changed. You’ve gone too far. He gets out of the car.
‘I have work to do. Alright? And you’re not welcome in this place.’ He grips your shoulders hard and lifts you out of the way and propels you towards the passenger seat. You rub your collarbone and examine the affronted skin on your upper arms, the bruises like pale yellow petals already rushing onto it.
A clotted silence.
That you’re wrong in some way.
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