‘You okay, baby?’ I ask him, hanging my arms around his shoulders. I want to be good so that he lets me drive more. His face darkens a little.
‘Don’t use that slut talk with me,’ he says and moves my arms away so they fall at my sides. He can get cranky when he’s hungry, so I fix him some sandwiches made with cold lamb and yellow mustard. He eats them but doesn’t look at me, instead he’s looking out at the truck while he licks his fingers.
A couple of days pass and when I ask him about having another go, he laughs. ‘Why do you need to learn? You want to take Kelly on a date?’ He laughs so much at this that by the end I have trouble holding my smile. I don’t ask again for a couple of days until I’ve thought up a reason.
‘What if something happens to you? All the way out here, I’d need to get you to a doctor.’
He is annoyed, and he waves me away. ‘I’m not going in any bloody hospital,’ he says and that’s that. I don’t ask what would happen to me, left here with Kelly, if I couldn’t drive myself out — left like those sheep after Carole had gone.
I shear the sheep alone in the following days. By the third day I’m getting fast at it, the flies don’t bother me any more. I slow down because once they’re shorn there will be no excuse to be out here all day. I take breaks in between each sheep and dig antlions out of their holes with a stalk of grass, watching them attack it and then burrow away backwards. I find a horned lizard that thinks I can’t see it, watch it shift standing feet like a dancer, and the paper skin of a brown snake. There is always a large bird passing overhead, looking at the sheep or a rabbit, or the lizard or me.
I make the final ten last me a whole day, and then I consider going back over the first ones, the ones I did when I was less sure of myself, but even those are not bad.
Karen is in the supermarket. I cannot believe it. She’s comparing two packets of cereal bars, and her eyes go large and round when she sees me, but she smiles too. I go to hug her, but she holds up her hand between us to show me the sparkly ring on her finger and says in the same breath, ‘I’ve got meself married, what are you doing here?’ And I take a second to see what she means; a bloke with a hat pulled low over his face has looked up at us from the newspaper stand, and she nods to him.
‘Oh, I’m staying with my uncle,’ I say in a way I hope she will get what I mean. I point to Otto who is waiting outside the shop, watching and looking uncomfortable.
‘That’s great,’ says Karen and she’s still smiling, but just with her lips. She looks frightened, if I let myself think about it.
‘Where are you living?’ I ask her, and her eyes dart over my face and her smile fades.
‘Stay safe, darl,’ she whispers and hands me her box of cereal bars, and as she does it she strokes the back of my hand, hidden behind the box. She turns and walks down the aisle to the guy in the hat who is watching with a frown on his face. She takes him by the elbow and laughs high and flirty and mumbles something to him. He takes one more look at me and pulls his hat down and they leave the shop without buying anything; Karen glances back once and then is lost, and I am not sure any more if I actually saw her, if she was really there or if I imagined it. I pretend I am also interested in the cereal bars, I pick up one that has chocolate on one side and one that is made with real honey and hold them out next to each other in front of me. There is a yank on my heart, which takes me a little bit to still. I’d like to be able to have a Coke with Karen. I remember the air at the harbour and wonder if life was so bad back then after all.
In the truck, Otto says, ‘Who was that?’
‘Just an old friend,’ I tell him, and when he looks sharp I say, ‘More of an acquaintance.’ He doesn’t talk all the way back to the station, which is fine by me, because I’m thinking of all those times with a six-pack down by the beach when me and Karen’d take a night off, even if we couldn’t afford it. I think about when she gave me five whole packets of Holidays because a regular had gone abroad and got her duty-free. I hope the bloke with the hat is good, I hope he is the one that got her the duty-free.
That night, I hear Otto padding down the hall to my room, and I start to make myself ready. He likes to be able to see my scars these days, says it makes him feel protective over me which I guess can’t be a bad thing. So I yank up my T-shirt over my head, and I’ve hooked my thumbs into the sides of my shorts to pull them off too, but his footsteps stop outside my door, and he doesn’t come in. Instead there’s a scraping noise, and the doorknob rattles. Still he doesn’t come in and I’m looking at the door expecting him to walk through it, but then his footsteps go back down the hallway, and I realise he has locked the door to my room.
Right, I think.
A fortnight later, I am cleaning the oven when Otto comes into the kitchen holding his hat in his hands.
‘I’m going to the shops,’ he says, turning the hat around a full circle. I get up from the floor and pull the handkerchief from my head.
‘I’ll just wash my hands, then I’ll be ready,’ I say, but Otto lets go of the hat with one hand and holds his palm down to the floor.
‘No — you stay here,’ he says. ‘I can see you’re busy.’
‘It’s fine, I can leave the oven-cleaner to work — I need some more Dettol for the sheep — the flies—’
Otto interrupts to say, ‘I’ll get that for you.’
I go to the sink anyway to wash my hands, hang the rubber gloves over the faucet. ‘It’s fine, I can finish the oven later.’
My back is turned to him and he says in a voice with an edge to it, ‘You’ll stay here.’ And the fly-screen snaps behind him.
When I turn around, he is getting into the truck and leaving Kelly, which he never does. Kelly stands out the front watching him leave, and then she turns to look at me. I put my hand up to the fly-screen and she lowers her head, keeps her eyes trained on me. I’m not to leave the house.
When he gets back that evening, I see Otto take out the keys, and I see him lock the ute up and hang the keys high up above the sink. He’s never locked the ute before. Not even in town. I take this small thing that I see to bed and think about it as I watch out the window. There has been a change — I can sense it in the smell of the place, which has started to get to me.
And when he comes to my room, the sex is different, it’s too tender, makes me feel like I’m made of wax. He holds my trunk for a long time afterwards, his head resting on my belly. He kisses the space above my navel and sighs into me. I look at the bald spot at the top of his head that is covered in liver spots, and where the hair is greased by his own scalp. I get the feeling I’d rather be fucked hard and hated, I’d rather his socks in my mouth.
‘Do you need anything?’ he asks me. ‘Do you need the loo?’
When I come back from the toilet he has smoothed over my bed sheets and put a glass of water on the table by the bed. He pulls back the sheets for me to get in, and when I comply, he tugs up the sheets around my shoulders, makes sure my man’s arms are covered, even though it’s a hot night. He tucks my feet in so that my toes point downwards. He kisses my forehead and tells me, ‘Goodnight, sleep tight.’ And in that moment I think I might cry, but I manage to wait until he has left the room and I hear the click of him locking me in again. Kelly scratches in the dirt underneath the house and tonight I cannot bear the sound. I get out of bed and hit the metal cage of my window to try and get her to go away. She barks loudly and I sit back down on my bed and wait to hear Otto’s footsteps padding down past my room and looking out on Kelly. I hear him say, ‘What’s it?’ and Kelly’s whine. ‘Good girl,’ he says quietly and he goes back to bed, pausing at my door, listening perhaps. I bounce a little on the bed, to make a noise like I might be turning over in my sleep. I hear Kelly growl, then bite at the fleas on her back. She heaves herself up and starts to dig again. I get quietly out of bed and I do push-ups in the dark. When my arms can’t take my weight any more, I do sit-ups and finally I crawl into bed and as I fall asleep a bird cries in the night, and it sounds just like a fire horn.