He was already driving away, watching in his rear-view, by the time Bob had squeezed the bottle out of her hand and was shouting, ‘It wasn’t him, Victoria, it wasn’t, I promise you it wasn’t him,’ holding the woman against him. As Frank turned the corner he saw her go limp, saw Bob’s face crumple in the grotesque smile that was a man crying.
He drove home in a vacuum, shallow breathing, and when he got to his house he sat in his truck and cried. Strings of spit and snot attached to the steering wheel, and every time he wiped his face to try to calm himself down it got worse, and waves and waves of something terrible crashed down over him, and he bawled like he was the last man on earth.
When he was finished with crying he went inside and drank himself to sleep. It was the only possible solution and he thanked it as it went down his throat, thank God, thank God. He woke in the darkest part of the night, close to pissing himself on the bed. When he stood up he realised he would be sick and made for the veranda, crashing his shoulder against the door frame as he went. He spewed with the bitter taste of banana peel, and retched and retched until no more would come out, straight out into the dark like he was leaning over the rail of a ship. Then he straightened up and pissed, not caring where. The Creeping Jesus howled. It was close, it was doing its thing and he had disturbed it. It came running towards him through the cane and he was scared, but could not move. The sound was right on top of him and then it stopped, just short of where he could see in the dark, and all the night was silent, the frogs and cicadas quiet, no noise from the highway. There was just the afterwards and then a kookaburra laughed long and loud and bubbly, shattering everything. He backed towards his door, not brave enough to look hard for what was eyeing him from the dark, but not game to turn and look away. He lay awake and shivering on top of the covers, too scared of the noise it would make to pull them from underneath him.
And then it was the fifth day, and everything became terrible and real again, and he wished it were night time, when some creature might gobble him up.
28
To hide the sound of the tread of his feet, Leon sang the cobbled-together refrains of songs he had listened to on the radio, but he sang with such sandy croaking that he stopped, and hours passed in silence while his heart beat in his ankles and he tried to remember why he was there. Answers presented themselves, but they were like answers to different questions. The butterfly hands of his mother flapping at the old man when it would have been better to do anything but flap. That thick jungle with the breath of the fresh dead right there in the mist for him to inhale. The thing mawing in the night. He threw his arms in the air, mouthed the things in his head, which helped unsettle the flies that landed on the sun blisters on his face and stayed there, comfortable as cattle.
At the point when he had started to imagine someone finding his body and peeling back the layers of cooked meat, picturing how the only wet thing about him might be his heart, floundering around in what liquid blood was left in his body, a speck appeared in the distance. A car. His breath came hot out of him and his throat burnt in anticipation of talking to someone, of drinking. What if the car was full of bastards and they didn’t stop? Surely they would stop, who wouldn’t? But if it was a car, it was a stationary one, it didn’t get bigger or smaller as the minutes passed. When he got closer he could see that it was a rusted oil drum shot through with bullet holes. He stood in front of it and took it in. Someone had gone to the trouble of chalking the words A CUNT on to the side of the barrel in a childish hand, beneath it a pair of chalk breasts, or they could have been wide-open eyes.
The drum gave out a long shadow and Leon was able to lie fully in it. The boots came off, sticking sickly to his torn ankles. He let the flies settle. For Chrissake, they looked crook. His eyes were pissed in and when they were closed, everything was red. Something touched his face, nosed him, but he kept his eyes closed. Whatever it was could stuff itself. A wind blew against him and he slipped down the barrel and didn’t care except that he might be late back tonight and it would be a shame to make them worry. He saw himself tied by the wrists and dragged along behind a truck, in the dirt, the last of his skin left on the ground, laughing all the way. A bird sang ‘Matilda’
It was the thirst again that woke him. He’d been dreaming of a man passing him a glass of water and he could see it crisp and cold. He took hold of the glass and brought it to his lips, but to do that took for ever and it never reached his mouth. He opened his eyes and the dark was thick, but it wasn’t the dark of night — this was the dark of inside. His bladder ached dully and he rolled on to his side and heaved slowly to standing. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, but it was better than before. His stomach told him it’d been through a night of terrible drinking and his head wailed as he stood straight and leant against the wall. The wood of the house was dry and light, and it snagged on the skin of his palm. His eyes didn’t like to focus on anything and he let the ground settle under his feet before he tried to walk. His ankles were hot and he could feel that they were bandaged tightly. A cool breeze came in through an open window, and Christ what a thirst! He moved unsteadily, the dark around him growing less intense, and he found the door and then another, and then, praise the lord, a toilet with a tap. He turned on the tap and the water came, sweet-smelling, warm but good, and he gulped fishlike under it. When he was done with that he pissed strong and happy into the loo, unable to stop a moan at the joy of it.
‘Morning, Princess,’ came a voice from outside.
He was given a bucket of water by the men who were sitting by the campfire in legless plastic chairs, and shown round the back of the house where he peeled off his clothes and doused himself to feel the sand melting out of his skin. There were seven of them altogether, all bearded and with the same quiet uninterested smile when he introduced himself. Someone gave him antiseptic cream for his ankles and someone else gave him a bacon sandwich, which he couldn’t eat but enjoyed smelling. It was difficult to talk but no one seemed to take offence. Klyde, the one who had found him, looked old because of his wide matted beard but young in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. He had a smell about him of raw meat and engine oil. Somebody gave him some water with sugar and salt mixed in, and he sipped it as he took in the news that he’d been asleep for two days.
‘Thought we was going to have to dig you a bed out there, mate,’ one of them said, pointing into the dark with an odd tone to his voice that might have been regret. A chicken frilled in the dark. The rest of the night passed in a strange blur, sounds and colours were not how Leon remembered, and the men drank beer and commented on the hoot of an owl or the angle of a knife that someone was sharpening. He could feel his shins healing and the skin of his face was easily and drily peeled off, and mostly it was painless.
When he next woke it was to the sound of a car and the sun was high. Pulling on his clothes, he saw his brown Holden roll up to the front of the house.
‘Got your car, mate,’ said one of the men.
‘Thanks,’ he said, surprised at the generosity.
The man took something out of the back seat. ‘And what is more, I found peaches all along the road!’ The man smiled happily, showing him the cans. ‘Looks like we eat pudding tonight.’ He walked past Leon towards the kitchen before turning. ‘Oh — and for the future, probably a good idea to fill up on petrol once in a blue moon before heading out into the desert.’ He gave a wink and disappeared inside with his peaches. Leon blushed and felt like a priss.
A few days later Klyde took him out to show him around the old grazier’s station and shoot some rabbits. ‘No bugger can see us from the road,’ he explained. ‘Place belongs to Colin, he was supposed to be rearing cows on it. Here we are.’ They’d come to a fallen tree, the only tree as far as Leon could tell, and Klyde had produced a sack of rotten oranges from his backpack. He started lining them up on the tree trunk. ‘Pretty unusual to get a fella on his own out here. Were you supposed to be on your way to something?’