Arms Race (8 page)

3

The next day we rose early to go for a walk before I started work. Christie wanted
to find the third clearing. The day's first light brushed the tops of the gums with
gold. In a terracotta birdbath beside the front path a pair of nimble honeyeaters
splashed and flapped and then were gone among the leaves.

I like it here, I said. You don't get that in Mandera.

I guess, Christie said.

What do you mean, you guess?

It's so quiet. Especially when you're away at work. It's a bit freaky.

A bit freaky? You'll get used to it.

Sometimes I speak to Christie as if she were a school girl.

We followed the same track as the day before. Old rain had washed deep channels through
the dirt, and here and there spines of rock surfaced from the deep. I pointed them
out to Christie.

Basalt, I said. Six million years old. Granite. Three billion years.

If we have a boy, Christie said, let's call him Granite.

Do you think you might already be pregnant? I couldn't stop myself asking.

Jeez! she said, laughing. Is it that urgent?

I thought of the need to procreate that had seized my
friends over the decades. The
women first, then the men, maddened by the desire to breed. In my work, time was
measured in millions of years. Against that slow patience of stone the need to reproduce
had always seemed like vanity. Then I met Christie, and I felt my slackened skin
beneath her hand, and I saw that the real vanity was my own. I had not thought to
have children because I had not thought that I would die.

We reached a saddle and began to descend. Down in the trees I saw the pale silver
eye of a tin roof. A small house of tawny stone lay in the third clearing, bordered
by marshy ground ripe with the prints of roos. The house had empty sockets in place
of doors and windows. Its garden had long ago drowned in a sea of gorse.

Hello, Christie called softly. Anyone home?

We stood and listened, and there was no sound. Christie walked ahead and entered
the house, calling as she went. I followed her onto a rough dirt floor and let my
eyes adjust. A stack of timber stood against one wall, keeping watch over a mouse-soiled
mattress. I wondered idly who had used that bed.

At the back I found a tiny bedroom, with a mezzanine built into the far wall. Above
the platform a stained-glass window glowed ochre and gold in the early sun.

Look at this, I called.

Christie came up behind me and put her arms around my waist.

It's the only thing they finished, she said wistfully. It's beautiful. Maybe we could
finish the rest for them.

It wouldn't take much, I said. It's quiet, though. Not too freaky for you?

No. I wonder why they never finished it?

Because they were hippies.

Steven.

Because things happen, I said. People make plans that don't work out.

Christie was quiet. Then she said, Do you think this will work out?

What, this house?

No, this. She took my hand and placed it on her belly.

I thought of all the plans I had made and dropped before Christie was even born.
I thought of her plans to finish her degree and travel, and how readily I had accepted
their abandonment. I thought of my mother, meeting Christie for the first time: how
she'd held her knife and fork like she didn't know what they were for, and how her
face was confused and brave and shamed, and how her shame at times became my own.
I thought of my father's joking that he wanted me to father a grandchild, not marry
one. My friends who would not meet my eye, and those too keen to meet Christie's.
Her own family, somewhere up in the Pilbara, unmet, unknown, never discussed; just
the freight of their history within her youthful frame.

We had only known each other a year. The pull of that year had been strong. But to
the stones of this house and the shoals of rock that ran beneath, the pull of that
year meant nothing.

Will it work out?

Why not, I said. Then, more forcefully, Yes.

4

Christie woke me on Saturday with coffee and a week-old newspaper saved from Perth.
The sun was long up. We sat in its heat with our shirts off. I looked to the sweet
curved shadows below Christie's breasts, and soon was kneeling by her side to lick
at her nipples. I tasted the sharp scent of coffee on my breath and her morning warmth,
and felt her hand in my hair.

There was a sudden crunching of tyres over gravel. Pete's ute powered up the drive,
a flash of green. The weight of Christie's breast was at my lips and then was gone.
She dashed into the house and I lurched to my feet, fumbling for my shirt, working
at buttons.

Morning, Steve.

Pete's voice was breezy. Out of his work clothes he looked even younger. He'd spiked
his hair, and I caught a whiff of something perfumed and chemical.

I was in the area, he said. Brought you guys some rabbits.

Thanks, I said. Come in. Coffee?

Pete put his bundle on the kitchen table. With my back to him I refilled the percolator
and set it on the stove. I tried to be calm.

Jeez, he said. What are they for?

I turned. Pete was inspecting the hacksawed nose of one of the bullets.

That'd make a scene, he said. Roo shooting?

No, we just found them.

Pete looked at me, quizzical. The hallway door opened and Christie came in. She'd
changed into a long-sleeved top and jeans, despite the heat. Her cheeks were flushed.
She looked irritable and gorgeous.

Pete stood up too quickly. Hi, he said. I'm Pete.

Christie.

They shook hands, and I saw that they were about the same age.

So, how you like it out here? Pete's voice was full of warmth.

Not bad, Christie said. She looked at the bag of meat on the table and I could see
her clocking why he'd come. I smiled to myself. Smart girl.

You got uni holidays? Pete asked.

No. I'm not studying at the moment.

Yeah, cool. Pete leaned forward, waiting for her to say more, and I had the absurd
feeling that I was intruding. I pretended to look for something in the walk-in pantry.

So you look more like your mum, hey? I heard Pete say. I just mean, 'cause with your
skin you don't look so much like—

I went back out into the kitchen clutching a bag of sugar. Pete tailed off. The coffee
pot began to murmur on the stove.

So, what's to do round here on a Saturday? I asked.

Pete gave a half shrug. Go into town, he said. Do your shopping, go down the pub
for dinner. Actually, there's a party at Jono's tonight. You guys should come for
a beer.

Thanks, I said. But I think we're planning a quiet one tonight. It's been a long
week.

I don't know, Christie said, her brown eyes daring me. I haven't been to a party
in ages.

You should totally come, Pete said.

I'll see if I can convince him, Christie said. He's got your number?

Yeah. Or I could…pick you up?

Christie smiled. I'll let you know. Steve, I'm going for a walk.

The pot was boiling now. I turned off the element. You don't want any coffee?

No.

Okay. I'll come find you. Where?

Other side of the mine. You've got the map.

I'd be careful, Pete said. There's a lot of unmarked
shafts round here. Stick to
the tracks.

Yes, Dad, Christie said in a mocking, flirtatious voice.

With Christie gone, Pete didn't stick around. I saw him off and started the climb
up behind the house. A few hundred metres along I found the head of the mine. I stood
and looked out over the vast bite it took from the valley. I was certain Pete hadn't
seen us, but I felt unsettled. I wasn't sure which was more strange: pretending Christie
was my daughter, or the fact that she wasn't.

Down the other side of the slope I found a crumbling dry-stone wall. The surrounding
bush was peppered with the alien green of European trees. I felt a small thrill of
discovery.

Christie? I called.

Steven!

The air smelled different here, snatches of something foreign and sweet. I moved
clear of the bush and found the crumbling stone footings of an old stamper battery.
There were still a few of these things running when I was young: the hammer of engines,
the earth pulverised beneath iron hoofs. The main building here was gone to a scattering
of stone but beyond, more recent outbuildings sagged beneath the weight of creepers.

In here, Christie called. Look.

I moved towards the nearest shed. Christie emerged from the darkness. She placed
something small and heavy
in my palm. It was another .22 shell, this time with its
nose intact.

You haven't told Pete yet, she said.

I pursed my lips. No. Sorry. I haven't been able to find the right—

Don't be weird about it, she said. Tell him, okay?

I will.

Christie looked down at the bullet. What do you think of that?

Coincidence, I said. They're pretty common.

Boring. Maybe the guy who lived here dumped that ute after a robbery.

What? Someone lived here?

Yeah. And just abandoned the place. Come and look.

The shed had been roughly lined with fibro panels to create two small rooms. Creepers
had prised apart the boards, and daylight gleamed like jewels above. In the living
room an armchair faced a window looking over the valley. A side table held dusty
photographs: a middle-aged couple tiny against the red stone bulk of Uluru; the man
in rubber waders proudly holding a fish; the man again, arm around what looked like
his daughter. She was a striking, sharp-featured girl in school uniform and knee-high
socks. I crouched beside a swollen chipboard bookcase and fingered the contents.
Nabokov.
The I Ching
. Books I had read.

Educated people, I said.

There was a camp stove on a bench in the corner.
Christie held up a rusty tin of
soup. Doesn't look like he ever learned how to cook.

You don't know it was a he.

Look at the bath! she said, sounding delighted. Only a man could let it get that
disgusting.

Outside the back door a tiny bathtub crouched beneath an old-fashioned showerhead.
It was full of flaking paint and leaves, and was darkly scummed with grease.

And look in the bedroom, Christie said. Men's clothes. He didn't even take them all.

In the bedroom a row of dusty shirts lay on the still-made bed. A pair of men's leather
shoes peeked out from under the bed. There was something about those shoes I could
not bear.

I have to go outside, I said.

And this, Christie said, triumphant. This is his treasure. Look.

She placed a stack of old VHS boxes in my hand. I turned them to the light. Beneath
a layer of dirt I saw pink flesh and open mouths.
Girl on Girl. Screamers. Young
and Fuckable
.

Oh.

They've still got tapes in them. Creepy!

I opened
Young and Fuckable
. There was an unmarked home-recording VHS tape inside.
I closed it and handed the tapes back.

I have to go outside, I said again.

5

We left the shack and I walked on ahead by myself. I needed the open air of the bush.
I passed down the slope and began to breathe, but the trees thinned and I came immediately
to another clearing. In the centre, with a commanding view of the plains to the west,
was a house-sized mound of charred debris. I felt sick. A skeletal chimney rose from
a rubble of half-burned books and timbers gagged with weeds.

I shaded my eyes from the noontime glare and saw it all. The man drunk in bed with
his guilty pleasure burning quickly down. His hand wavering with sleep, the glowing
tip sighing into polyester sheets. Suffocated into waking. The dead terror of pulling
yourself hand over hand down your own greasy hallway, birthed out the front steps
into the night while at your back your life was quickly and mercilessly used up.
The terrible heat on your face. The smoke in your scorched lungs. The loneliness
to follow.
Screamers. Young and Fuckable
.

Christie walked among the ruins.

The poor guy, I said. Pete told me about him. He burned the place down smoking in
bed.

What a stupid old fuck, Christie said.

I rounded on her. You know what, I said. I think Pete fancies you.

Christie flushed. What? So? He thinks I'm your daughter.

Shall I tell him you're not?

What are you going to say? You know how I was sucking my daughter's tits—well, that's
not my daughter?

He didn't see anything. I'll tell him on Monday you're not available. He'll be disappointed.
I reckon you're the only thing young and fuckable this side of Perth.

Fuck you, Christie said. That's not funny.

No, fuck you.

What's the matter with you? She sounded close to tears.

I stared at her, standing among the ruins in knee-high grass with her lips askew
and her hair a dark tangle, and I was damn near overcome with the force of my need.
I felt rage in me, rage and hunger, incoherent, geological. I had a vision of a girl
flung back in the grass with her jeans around her ankles and someone, some weathered
old man, me, straining away on top. I dropped my gaze.

It's this place, I said. It's getting to us.

Christie said nothing.

I need a break. Can we go into town? Have a meal at the pub?

She nodded warily. Okay.

6

In the truck on the way in, Christie broke the long silence.

Maybe it's the mine,
she said.

What is?

Why everything feels so weird. Like the mine has some kind of—negative energy.

I don't know about negative energy, I said.

You're the one who said the place was getting to you. She paused. Maybe the mine's
like a scar. Or a wound that hasn't healed. What if something bad happened there
in the past?