The first question Bob asked Tom Reilly when he learned that he had a radio was “How old am I?”
“Oh, I dunno. It’s July 1944.”
“I’m twenty-one.” And Mark, wherever he was, was twenty-four. Now the news was that the war was ending. An odd tension filled the camp then. Bob felt consumed with an unfamiliar pain. It took him a while to figure out it was hope. He was hauling a body to the pit for burial, a wet beriberi. Wet beriberis didn’t burn. He had the arms of the bloated man and was struggling up a muddy slope when the body burst, drenching him and his companion with the stagnant juices. For a moment he thought he would cry, but it passed. What was he hoping for? The long road that wound its way through the flat bush toward his family home would only bring the war back to a place that he had hoped to protect from it. He would no longer be a person but a reminder of absences — Mark’s and his own. He was now an ugly thing, a sore upon the landscape, a battered body which told a story that no one wished to hear.
Bob’s survival was incomprehensible. The wedding was an odd affair. Bob’s jacket was now too big; he worried that people would think it was Mark’s. Noreen wore a dress that she’d ordered during the war to keep her spirits up — something to distract her from Mark’s agonizing silence. Her eyes were red around the edges as she walked to stand before the minister. Bob felt like a ghost darkening what should have been a happy event, even though everyone agreed that he was doing the right thing. He stared at the bowls of coleslaw, steaks, and pineapple chicken on the checkered tablecloth in complete noncomprehension; he regarded the cake — fruitcake with plastic icing as demanded by tradition — which looked more like an enameled tooth than anything else. The day was punctuated with uncomfortable silence. Bob and Noreen circled each other in close, awkward orbits, never touching. She smiled bravely and her strength was admirable. No one mentioned Mark, which made it obvious that all were thinking of him. Few people danced to the violin’s entreaties; few people sang. As evening settled over the gathering, the beer began to take hold on Bob’s father. He rubbed tears from his eyes and he set his mouth in a bitter, clenched way. Bob went to sit across from him — silent and comforting, but his father looked away.
Noreen accepted the situation. She seemed to remember Bob talking more than he did, but wasn’t altogether sure. The expanse of red land that stretched in a never-ending flatness had a way of sucking the sounds out of the house. The land swallowed all conversation, and replaced it with a thin film of dust that coated everything — fresh puddings, eyeballs, sheets. Besides, if Bob had a lot to say, he probably wouldn’t have the time to say it.
Bob worked long hours riding out to the far corners of the station. Usually he was with Stan, an aborigine, who seldom spoke. Stan had thoughts of his own that he never shared and the two enjoyed a mutual, comfortable silence; they only discussed what was essential — sheep, dogs, and drought. Even during lunch, while Bob sprawled up against a tree and Stan squatted completely still, only moving to swat the flies that crawled near his eyes, they never conversed. Sometimes, Stan would squint hard at the barren landscape and Bob would look, but see nothing but the baked land or an occasional lizard, and Stan would say “dingo” or “rain” or “stray.” Although Bob could never see the evidence of what inspired these words, Stan was never wrong. He was more a part of the bush than a part of the sheep business. Even Stan’s features echoed the landscape: a flattened nose that flared into nostrils, like the eroded rock protrusions with their mysterious caves; wiry hair, which reminded Bob of the toughest, drought-surviving grass; brilliant white teeth that gleamed as pure and indestructible as polished limestone; limbs as thin and supple as a gum tree. When one day Stan disappeared, Bob was not altogether surprised. Noreen, who was eight months along at the time, thought the situation to be intolerable.
“Noreen, let it go,” Bob had said. “There’s a guy out at Coon-awarra says he’s looking for something. I’ll drive over there later.”
“Where’d Stan go? You’ve been working with him a whole year and then he just up and leaves?”
Bob just shook his head.
“You’re out there twelve bloody hours a day. He must have said something.”
“He didn’t have to. He’s on walkabout, Noreen.”
Walkabout. Strange. The black workers did that, one day in the routine and seemingly happy, the next stricken with the need to leave all behind. Sometimes it was over in a matter of days. Sometimes they showed up months later. Or they never came back at all. A few people had a respect for the spiritual aspect, but the majority of the station owners found the walkabout thing damned inconvenient. Noreen returned from the kitchen with a beer. At first Bob thought it was for him, but she drank half the bottle in quick silent gulps. She looked over at Bob with her head cocked to one side.
“This guy over at Coonawarra, is he black?”
Some people claimed that Stan was still in the area. They saw him every now and then, but it was a big area, and at any rate, Stan had done nothing about getting his old job back.
A couple of weeks later, Bob got an invitation in the mail. He looked at the tasteful cream-colored envelope for a good five minutes before he opened it. A reunion was incomprehensible. All those years of longing to see other faces and people who had not been reduced to sinewy specters. . And now they were talking about renting a banquet room at the Sheraton in Perth. Did Bob want to make a donation? Was he going to bring his wife? He let his hand that still held the letter dangle off the side of the chair. Noreen, who was now enormous, took his wrist and read the letter sideways.
“I’m telling you, Bob, you should go. It’ll be good for you.”
“Noreen, don’t be daft.”
“It’s time to put the past where it belongs.”
“Noreen, I’m warning you. This is none of your business.”
“None of my business? Two more weeks and you’ll be a father. What then?”
“What does that have to do with—”
“Everything, Bob. It has everything to do with everything.”
Bob crumpled up the invitation and sent it flying across the room. He went into the kitchen for a beer. Now that Noreen was very pregnant she could no longer race him for the fridge where she would fling herself in front of it, barring access until she’d had her say. The invitation had been signed by Graham Watt. Bob had no idea who Graham Watt was. Was Graham Watt leading a good life? Were Thailand and the railroad things that Graham Watt wanted to remember?
Bob got insomnia that night. Noreen had learned to sleep through his late-night peregrinations and no longer questioned sleepily from her side of the bed. Bob wandered out the back door — stepping carefully over the dog, who twitched and whined in a dream about a particularly stubborn ewe — onto the back veranda. The sky stretched in an immense blackness across the land and the stars glowed through it fiercely. Bob thought that night was a threadbare cloak pulled across the white heat of day. The darkness was comforting. He looked out in the direction of the shed, where a gentle breeze rattled the corrugated iron in a rhythmic way. Possums shook the branches overhead and the smell of wattle drifted in from the creek. Bob was thinking of walking over to the bottlebrush tree, where he’d seen a wombat earlier that week, when he noticed a figure standing in the gloom. He had his right foot resting against his left knee and was leaning on a stick. Bob watched, his heart pounding, because the stick seemed to resemble the long arm of the shovel. And he, whoever he was, was staring out protectively in the direction of the flock. Bob shuddered, then drew himself up and began to walk in the direction of the man. He was about to call to him, when he realized that he was not supposed to speak. Instead, he whistled the first few notes of “The Drover’s Dream.” Bob waited for the response, and the wind carried it back to him, mournful and strange. Mark had returned. That was all. Bob turned in silence and headed back to the house. But if he’d listened carefully, he would have recognized that the notes belonged to a magpie heralding the coming day. And if he’d only taken a few more steps, he would have realized that the figure was Stan, lost in meditation of his last night in the area, studying the stars that would dictate his wandering.