‘Ah, you’re awake,’ Tobe said.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by his voice, but I was.
‘This should help.’
He threw the curtains open. I groaned a third time, dazed by the bright light. Blinking it away, I realised that I was home. How? I turned to look at Tobe, but he was already walking out the door. I sat up, waved away the first flies of a brand new day, wished my head would stop hurting, wondered where my glasses had gone. The low moan of the wind joined the sweet birdsong echoing from the bush and the occasional scrape of the rusted windmill in an otherworldly symphony.
The quiet broke as Tobe started banging around in the kitchen. ‘Here, this’ll fix you right up,’ he said when he re-entered the room.
I sat up. He passed me a chipped cup of black billy tea, rolled me some bush tobacco, passed that over too.
‘Thanks,’ I croaked.
‘No worries.’
He smiled at me. He was clear-eyed, the bastard. He flopped down on the edge of the bed; I sipped at my tea, guzzled more water, slowly started feeling better. Before the first cup of tea was done, Tobe offered to make another. I nodded gratefully. He disappeared into the kitchen, came back with two fresh cups and the bottle of whiskey. Red and Blue trotted along beside him, their tails wagging. He shooed them away; the slam of the flyscreen door echoed behind them as they bolted outside.
‘Fancy a bit of a pick-me-up?’
Tobe poured a shot into his cup. He looked at me, hard eyed, daring me to say no. He smirked, kissing the rim of my cup with the neck of the bottle.
‘No bloody way.’
He shrugged. ‘Girl.’
I decided to chance having a smoke and lit the bush tobacco Tobe had rolled for me. My stomach heaved and I hacked up my guts. Tobe smirked again, plucking the rollie from my fingers.
‘Shit, I forgot—I’ve got something that might cheer you up.’
I tried not to act surprised. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn wooden box about six inches by three.
‘Here you go.’
He passed it over. Inside was a clean square of cloth. I eased it out, opened it up. My hands shook; I almost dropped a brand new pair of glasses.
No way…
They seemed untouched; I couldn’t even guess how old they must have been. I slipped them on. A little fuzzy in spots, not perfect, but nothing is. However, the world was suddenly much clearer than it had been from behind the cracked, good-for-nothing pair I had been wearing.
‘Cheers, mate.’ I knew better than to ask where they came from.
‘No worries,’ he said, a genuinely happy smile creasing his face.
I lay back down, still not really awake, and marvelled at the fact that at last I could once again count the cracks in the ceiling. Tobe pulled something else from his pocket and started rolling a breakfast joint, whistling tunelessly under his breath. I yawned. My hangover went from being indescribably painful to just ordinarily painful. Eventually, Tobe lit the joint, took a drag, waved it my way. I blanched, my stomach a churning ocean. He muttered something under his breath, something I guessed to be a crude insult on my manhood.
‘Dickhead,’ I replied.
He laughed.
‘So, anyway—how’d the rest of last night go?’ I asked.
I don’t know why I asked, beyond the gruesome fascination with accidents and disasters we all share. Maybe it was the slightly crazed shine in Tobe’s eyes; he looked like he had been hitting it hard and hadn’t managed to stop, like he needed to get something out but didn’t know how.
‘It didn’t rain, everyone cracked it, the mood got ugly…’
‘Yeah, yeah, come on, give me some credit, I made it that far.’
‘As I was saying—the mood got ugly, there were a couple of fights, you threw up on your boots, I had to dink you home. You know, the usual.’
Tobe started laughing, which soon became a cough deep in his chest. He hacked into his fist, rubbing at the tears streaming from his bloodshot eyes. Once he had gotten himself under control, he offered me the joint again.
I ignored it and his laughter. ‘So what about those lights? What were they all about?’
Tobe’s laughter stopped dead. ‘Don’t know, mate.’
There was something in his voice, a catch or stumble. I looked at him, unable to tell whether he was messing with me or not.
‘That’s a shame about the rain,’ I muttered.
No reply.
An awkward silence hung between us. Tobe didn’t move, didn’t say anything. A little weirded out, I gave up, hauling myself out of bed. Tobe sat there, his face glazed. I left him to his stoned reverie, slowly got dressed. From nowhere, my head started swimming and I staggered a little.
‘Easy, easy,’ Tobe said, getting to his feet, offering me his arm like someone does a cripple or a senior citizen.
I clutched at him, nearly pulling him off his feet.
‘Come on, Bill, get it together.’
I couldn’t do it, and Tobe lowered me back onto the bed. His face unreadable, he just looked down at me. This went on for a moment too long—I reluctantly got back to my feet, Tobe’s stare drilling into me.
And then he shook his head. ‘Sorry, got lost for a sec,’ he said, smiling a smart-arse smile.
I let it slide. ‘Right, what’s the plan?’ I asked, more out of a desire to speed up his departure than because I was dying to know. I had another long day ahead of me and knew that nothing would get done in a hurry.
‘I reckon I’m off down to the pub. I want to check out the damage, maybe even start making some plans, if last night I did what I think I did… Hey, you know what? If I did take over, that’d make me your new publican.’
I whistled low as it all came back to me. ‘Nice one, dickhead.’
He ignored my slight. ‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘What are you up to?’
I pretended to think about it, scratching my head. ‘Chores and jobs and stuff.’
‘Different day.’
‘Same bullshit.’
We laughed together, unrepentant lovers of an old joke.
‘Right, then,’ I said. ‘Lead on, MacDuff.’
Tobe rolled his eyes but didn’t correct me. I followed him through the dark house, every curtain drawn to keep the heat at bay. We walked down the old hallway and past the dusty rooms, making our way more by memory than by sight, winding through what had once been my parents’ house, my grandparents’ house, my great-grandparents’ house. We walked outside, into the hot, dry air. Flies swarmed us and we did the salute. Fresh sweat was already bleeding through my coveralls. I held my canteen out. Tobe declined.
‘Red! Blue! Come on, stop fucking about!’ he yelled, calling his dogs to him.
They appeared in the distance, ran to us, collapsed at Tobe’s feet. He smiled at them, gave them a pat and a scratch, and then he straddled his bike. Red and Blue both groaned. They looked at him with sad, wet eyes, but they got to their feet nonetheless.
‘Take it easy, all right?’
‘You too, mate, you too. We’ll have some games soon, all right?’
‘No worries.’
He dinged his bell a cheery goodbye, Red and Blue hurrying after him. I waved until he was nothing but a speck in the distance.
The house loomed behind me. In front of me, the dirt road leading into town—the road that Tobe had taken—was a distant, dusty sliver. I stared at nothing, those flashing lights in the sky playing in my mind’s eye.
It quickly grew too hot to stand there in the sun.