‘Why?’ I said, sharper than I had meant to.
‘I mean, you’re tall,’ he said and looked at his empty glass.
‘Drinking laws the same in Australia?’ he asked, looking like he’d just thought of a really interesting question, and I realised I’d embarrassed him.
‘I guess so,’ I said. I drained my glass too and went to the bar. The barman looked at me for a moment before coming over.
‘Same again?’ he asked and I nodded and focused on the bottles on the wall behind him. The transaction took place in silence.
When I got back, Lloyd had found a book on the pub bookshelf called Teach Yourself: Sheepdog Training. The photo on the front showed a farmer with thick grey sideburns and his obedient dog sitting at his feet. In the background some Welsh Mountain sheep were penned neatly and cleanly, all looking at the camera.
‘It says here,’ said Lloyd, ‘that it’s possible to teach a collie at any age, the basics of sheep control.’ I put my glass in front of my mouth so that I wouldn’t be expected to comment. ‘Worth a go isn’t it?’ he asked. I didn’t move my glass.
By the time the pub closed, I was too drunk to drive, but Lloyd’s eyes were sleepy-looking and he stopped mid-sentence, saying, ‘Look look look, we can’t drive, why don’t we—’ and either couldn’t think of what to say next or forgot he was speaking.
We got in the truck and Dog turned his back on us, disgusted at being left in the car park and at the state we came out of the pub in. I gripped the steering wheel as we left the street lights, and drove deeper into the dark.
‘My father told me,’ said Lloyd in a thick voice, ‘when I passed my driving test, he said, “Son, if you’re coming home in the car, half-cut, wind down the window and just rest your head on the frame and keep your eyes on the white line at the side of the road. Can’t go wrong.’’’
I glanced at Lloyd, who had shut his eyes and leant his head back against the headrest. ‘Can’t go wrong,’ he said again to himself. He was asleep in three minutes, which was good, because I had to concentrate. He snored softly and it made me smile. It was a relief to be heading back with him, that he would be there, downstairs during the night. I hadn’t even brought up the idea of driving him into town — it seemed pointless when his bed was already made. There had been a moment not long before closing when he’d got up to get another round and steadied himself on my shoulder as he stood, just for balance. Even though a jolt went through me, like I should stand up and push him over, I hadn’t. I’d sat there and while he was at the bar I felt the ghost of his hand on my shoulder and it made me count back to the last time someone had touched me just for balance, just out of absent-minded laziness. I glanced over again at his sleeping profile, the strong bone of his nose, and the truck wobbled a little, so I put my eyes back on the road and squinted into the dark. The headlights lit up a lot of insects for that time of year, white in the beams, large-winged flakes like ash. It took me a while to understand that they weren’t insects, that it was snow. I lifted my foot off the accelerator and coasted through the dark watching it fall. I thought to wake Lloyd and show him, but I got the feeling it was performing something just for me. In the headlights a large fox or a deer, but looking nothing like either of those things, ran a split hair in front of the truck and I braked so that Lloyd flew forward and hit his head on the dashboard; there was a squeak from Dog as he rolled off the back seat. ‘Fuck!’ shouted Lloyd.
‘Did you see it?’ I hissed, yanking on the handbrake and opening the door, forgetting to take off my seatbelt and struggling in the doorway, my breath coming out white.
‘See what? I’m bleeding! Jesus Christ. I said we were too drunk to drive.’
I stood at the edge of the woods looking hard into the silence, with the snow falling and my heart beating and the engine running. It had looked at me, looked right at me before it disappeared and it was large and dark and its eyes were yellow.
14
Shortland Street is on twice a day and we watch it either in the afternoon or the evening, but sometimes we watch both. There are always drinks that are left on tables, undrunk. Coffee or beer, ordered and then sometimes not even lifted to the lips before the actor storms off, or slopes away with a sad look. Through the whole thing, Otto explains bits to me.
‘See that one, he’s got a history of playing around — an’ that’s his ex-wife, but really he’s fallen in love with this one over here. But she’s after his money.’ And, ‘He’s referring to the big fire that happened. That’s where his father was killed.’ And I nod and watch the drinks being wasted. By the end I’m thirsty and sad but I think of my last cigarette, hidden where Otto will not look. I’ve put it on top of my wardrobe and I’ve been checking on it now and then to make sure nothing has started to eat it or steal the tobacco for a nest. Suddenly though it doesn’t matter if a clutch of spiders have made it their home, I’m going to smoke it.
I sneak out to the dunny. I’d thought I’d smoke it in there, but the heat has made the drop toilet even worse than usual, and I think, Balls to it, I’ll just stand behind. Kelly is under the house panting in the dirt and she doesn’t give me a second glance for once, and I feel like a hero lighting the match behind the dunny shed, taking that first deep draw which makes me smile and sends my head into a spin. I don’t know how long it’s been. Months. Maybe half a year. The smoke gets rid of the flies around my face. A terrorist confidence gets into me and I sneak a look around the corner, and Kelly’s back is to me, heaving away under the shadow of the house, and the side wall which faces me has no window, so I come around the front of the shed and stand like anyone else would stand, smoking a cigarette, without anything being the matter, without it being the bad thing to do and without the slightest worry. Underneath the house the dirt is lumpy from Kelly’s digging. I’ve seen her before dragging some animal’s stinking carcass out of the paddock and starting to bury it there. If she catches me looking she stops, out-stares me and waits for me to leave so she can dig in secrecy. Like she’s stocking a larder.
The sun is at that moment not an unbearable sting on my eyes, but a clean memory of being a kid, and of having got one over the olds. I close my eyes and think of the smell of eucalypt in the heat. It could be the hit from the cigarette, but I feel good. I open my eyes because there’s a noise, and I hold the smoke I’ve sucked in deep in my lungs. Otto has come out of the house and is unbuttoning himself at the veranda. He is facing me, there’s no way he can’t see me, but he doesn’t. Don’t move, The human eye senses movement before all else. I don’t move, I don’t blink or exhale, and Otto pisses a long stretch of yellow out over the veranda. It lands not too far from where Kelly is lying heaving in the dirt, and she whips her head around and looks at the mud puddle it makes on the ground, ears up. I can see that between her paws is a woman’s shoe, hot pink and to fit a very small foot. She has chewed the heel off it, the toe is sharp and pointed. Kelly is unimpressed by the urine and goes back to staring into the dark. Otto cracks off a fart and sighs. My hand trembles but I still it. He shakes his little cock off once, twice, then stuffs it back in his pants, singing a song of his own invention which goes Doodle dee doodle doo, as he turns around and walks back into the house, the fly-screen smashing behind him.
Otto’s in a good mood today and so I get a driving lesson — my first in months. It all comes together much more easily. I’m smoother, and Otto shows me how to reverse, and it gives me no problems at all. I get up a bit of speed, and the air comes in sweet through the window. Otto chuckles less this time, and when we get back to the house his mood’s changed. Quiet, like there’s something on his mind.