‘I just can’t decide.’ And I flush because it sounds like I think I’m choosing a wedding ring. I find a salad roll tucked away in a corner of the fridge and pick up a bag of cheese twists and a Coke.
‘After all that,’ says the lady, but now I’m up close to her I can see she’s not trying to be a bitch, and I smile. ‘You’d better have one of those on the house,’ she says like she’s poured me a whisky. She’s added a chocolate Freddie the Frog to my toddler’s meal. I catch sight of myself in the window as I go to sit down and I am thin and even in the reflection I can see the dark shadows under my cheekbones. I save the Freddie the Frog until it melts in the glove compartment. He represents something I’m not sure I understand.
When I see kangaroos I am so surprised I don’t slow or swerve or do anything other than watch as they bound past the bonnet of the car, and I catch one on the hindquarters and it flies up in the air like I’ve made it into a different creature by hitting it. It comes down and when it lands it doesn’t just lie there dead, it’s on its feet before I can even stop the truck, and it is gone into the low brush faster even than it was moving before. I sit watching, my hands wrapped hotly around the steering wheel, my heart bouncing at my gullet. I can’t believe it just got up and went, I was going at least ninety. I laugh out loud at how wonderful life is that it takes a hell of a knock like that and it’s just fine, and I find the steadiness in myself and get out of the car to check the damage. The fender is dented, but there is nothing to be done about that, and the paintwork has gone, through to the body. I look up at the roo as she bounds mightily away, but all at once she stops mid-bound, and her legs fly out from under her, spazzing, like she’s caught on an electric fence. She drops and lurches up again, her legs going every which way, her small arms stretched at the sky, her claws splayed like stars, and the dust flying all around. The others are just blurs in the distance now, and she is going mad, I can hear her body smack the earth every time she lands. I don’t let my thoughts touch the sides as I take the crowbar out of the toolbox in the back of the truck and I cross over the empty road.
All I let myself think walking through that scrub towards her is that I am capable, I am strong in the arm and so is my crowbar. She is all over the place, there is blood coming from somewhere, which is all around the clearing she has made in the scrub. Her eyes roll and her thrashing makes a wind at my face. I wish my crowbar was a rifle. I watch her head, wait for it to come around with her twitching, which has slowed, and when it comes towards me I raise the crowbar high in the air, picturing the sheep with the black spots on its nose and thinking, You are capable, and I bring it down with everything in me onto the side of her head, and there is a crunch — I’ve broken through which is good news for both of us in the long term. Her juddering slows, but there is still movement, and quickly I bring it down again and again until long after she has stopped her twitching and until there is really not much of a head left.
I take a step back. Behind me I hear something coming on the highway and when I look it’s a road train. It honks loudly at the sight of my truck, which is not pulled over and is in the middle of the road, but he doesn’t slow down; instead he crosses to the other side to pass it, but not enough that he doesn’t take off my wing mirror. Even from here I can hear a voice laughing from inside the cab as my wing mirror bounces and then smashes on the bitumen.
11
Inside, while Lloyd sat on the sofa, I’d filled a mug with water. He drank it and then held his forehead in his hands. I washed the mud off my face and dried it with a tea towel. Outside rattled against the windows. I turned the kitchen light on and it flickered on and off and on again.
I wondered how old he was — younger than my father the last time I’d seen him, but older than the farmers who came to offer their services. I took mugs out of the cupboard and put them back. I found a pack of paracetamol and set them on the counter, wondering if I should offer them to him, or if that would encourage him to stay. I watched him from the corner of my eye, watched for a look or a sudden movement. I ran an itinerary of the kitchen. Hammer under the sink, half a brick on the window sill.
‘I told you in the woolshed that someone’s been killing my sheep,’ I said with my back to him.
‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, last night’s a bit patchy.’ I turned around to look at him. He smiled. ‘Er, do you think they’re doing it on purpose?’ I held his gaze.
‘Yes.’
He didn’t turn away, but after a while, when I suppose it got awkward, he smiled and cleared his throat. I handed him the paracetamol, more to break the stillness than anything else.
‘This is so kind of you,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ He popped out four of the pills and chewed them, with a long gulp of water afterwards.
‘How many sheep do you have?’ he asked, and looked pleased to have thought of a question.
‘Fifty. But I lost two this month, so less.’
‘What’s getting them? A fox?’
‘Maybe. Might be kids. Might be someone else.’ He looked relaxed like he’d always been sitting there, like we were old friends, like he knew what would happen next and nothing was out of the ordinary.
‘Kids? Jesus.’ He smiled. ‘When I was a kid the worst we got up to was stealing cigarettes and liquorice.’
‘Well.’
‘You really think kids would be capable of something like that?’
I picked up my mug of water and drank but didn’t answer. Lloyd stopped talking. The wind screamed down the pipe of the Rayburn and soot scuttled down the chimney.
‘I’ll give you a lift into town,’ I said, and Lloyd looked up. He glanced out the window.
‘Oh, right. Sure — that’s good of you.’ He made no move to get up, so I picked my keys out of my pocket and shook them to make the sound of leaving. Even Dog remained sitting. Lightning flash with thunder dead on top.
‘If we go now, I’ll be able to…’ I trailed off, not quick enough to think of a reason, but holding my keys out.
‘Oh, sure, now?’ He looked out the window again. ‘Is it safe you think? To drive in?’
‘It’s just weather.’
‘Sure, sure.’ He stood, creaking under his breath. He patted Dog on the head. ‘No hard feelings, eh?’ he said to him and Dog narrowed his eyes in a friendly way. I wondered a moment what he planned on doing that would give Dog hard feelings.
‘He’s coming with us,’ I said.
‘Righto.’
Rain blasted against the window. I struggled to open the front door, the wind was now possibly a gale.
‘Hoo!’ said Lloyd, and the three of us ran to the truck.
In the driver’s door was the short metal spirit level I’d found in the shed — sharp edges, heavy, and I knew it fit closely in the palm of my hand. When Lloyd closed the door on the passenger side, the truck felt smaller, like he’d used up all the air. My left side burnt with being close to him. I would drive with one eye on him and if he reached out I could brake suddenly — the seatbelt on his passenger side had lost its retractor, and so it just hung there loosely. He would be catapulted into the dashboard. And then I’d have the spirit level. I looked at Dog in the back seat — I’d just have to hope he was lying down at the time.
With the wipers on full, I could catch glimpses of the track, between the rain and dead leaves and twigs. As we came over the crest of the hill, the truck shook as the wind hit us side on.
‘Oooh,’ said Lloyd and his arm came up and I jumped and looked at him. He jumped too, but he was only bracing himself against the ceiling. He craned to look out of his window.