Where There's Smoke (16 page)

The Station Master, Mr O'Leary, was a gardener, his platform a tame jungle of staghorns, elkhorns, hoyas, maidenhair ferns in hanging baskets, tree orchids cut straight from the trunk. He was out there in all weathers in his shirtsleeves whispering to his favourites. ‘Hullo, ducky,' he'd be singing, ‘here's a nice drop of water for you. That's a girl! You'll enjoy this.'

She'd pause at her knitting to listen to him. He used the same tone when he was talking to her. It made her feel quite tender towards him. But he was always respectful – she was, after all, a married woman.

Sometimes, in the late afternoon, when everything was at a low point and even the bush sounds had dropped to nothing, he would talk of his son Reggie, the footballer, who had been in her class at primary school and was now a POW in Malaya. Reggie had played the mouth organ, that's what she remembered. A chunk of honeycomb at his lips and his breath swarming in the golden cells, that's what she remembered. ‘The Flight of the Bumble Bee.'

‘It's a blessing his mother's already gone,' Mr O'Leary would tell her softly while the light slanted and turned pink. ‘At least she's spared the waiting. Once you've got kiddies, Dulce, you're never free, not ever. I spend half my time asking myself what he's getting to eat, he's such a big feller. If he's got a mate an' that. I'm only half here sometimes.'

She listened and was sympathetic but did not understand, not really. Douglas and Donald were still way off in the future, waiting there in the shadows beyond the track; they had not yet found her. But she liked listening to Mr O'Leary. No one had ever thought her worth confiding in, not till this. She felt quite grown up. An independent woman. She was all of twenty-three.

Under the influence of the many unscheduled trains that were running up and down the line, all those lives the war had forced out of their expected course, she was led to wonder what direction she herself might be headed in. Odd, she thought now, that she had never considered her marriage a direction, let alone a terminus. But that was the times, the war. Everything normal was suspended for the duration. Afterwards, anything might be possible.

‘You won't find me stickin' round once the war is over.'

This was Jim Haddy, the Station Master's Assistant. ‘No fear! I'll be off like a shot. You watch my dust!'

At sixteen, Jim Haddy was the most amazing boy she'd ever come across. He was so full of things, so dedicated. He thought the Queensland Railways were God and got quite upset if you threw off at them or said things like, ‘You know the theme song of the Queensland Railways, don't you? “I Walk Beside You.”' He thought Mr O'Leary was ‘slack' because when they went out with their flags and lamps and things to wave a train through, he left the tabs on his waistcoat unfastened. Jim was a stickler. He did not roll his sleeves up on even the muggiest days. Always wore his soft felt Railway hat. And his waistcoat, even if it was unbuttoned in front, was always properly buckled at the sides.

He was a soft-faced kid who got overexcited and had, as Mr O'Leary put it, to be watched. He knew all there was to know about the Royal Houses of Europe, and talked about the Teck Mecklenburgs and the Bourbon Parmas as if they owned cane farms down the road, and Queen Marie of Romania and King Zog as if they were his auntie and uncle. He spent a lot of the Railway's time settling them like starlings in their family trees on sheets of austerity butcher's paper.

‘What a funny boy you are,' she would tell him dreamily as she leaned over his shoulder to watch.

The summer sun would be sheeting down, a wall of impenetrable light, and when it stopped, the view would be back, so green it hurt your eyes, and the earth in Mr O'Leary's flowerbeds would steam and give off smells. The little room where they sat at the end of the platform would be all misty with heat. She'd be thinking: When I get home I'll have to take Leonard's shoes out of the lowboy and brush the mould off. ‘Where
is
Montenegro?' she'd ask, and Jim was only too happy to tell, though she was none the wiser.

That boy needs watching
.

But she had lost sight of him. Like so much else from that time. And from other times. She was surprised now that he had come back, and so clearly that as she leaned over his shoulder she caught the vinegary smell of his neck under the raw haircut.

‘What happened to you, Jim Haddy?' she found herself asking in her own voice, her feet in the powdery red soil. ‘Where are you, I wonder? And where are Queen Marie and King Zog?' She hadn't heard much of them lately either.

‘I'm here,' she announced, in case Jim was somewhere in the vicinity and listening.

She looked about and saw that she was in the midst of a lot of small grey-green bushes, with daylight coming and no landmarks she could recognise.

‘My God,' she said to herself, ‘where?
Where
am I? This isn't my life.'

Off in the distance a train was rumbling in over the tracks: a great whooshing sound that grew and grew, and before she knew it passed so close to where she was standing that she was blown clear off her feet in a blaze of dust. It cleared, and she realised that high up in a window of one of the carriages as it went thundering past she had seen her own face, dreaming behind the glass and smiling. Going south. She picked herself up and got going again.

The Rock was there. Looming. Dark against the skyline. She made for that.

The sun was coming up, hot out of the oven, and almost immediately now the earth grew too hot to walk on. The bushes around her went suddenly dry; her mouth parched, she sat down dump. There was no shade. She must have dozed off.

When she looked up again a small boy was squatting in front of her. Not Donald. And not Douglas either. He was about five years old and black. He squatted on his heels. When her eyes clicked open he stared at her for a moment, then took off shouting.

When she opened her eyes again there were others, six or seven of them. Shy but curious, with big eyes. They squatted and stared. When she raised a hand they drew back. Dared one another to come closer. Poked. Then giggled and sprang away.

At last one little girl, older than the rest, trotted off and came back with some scraps of bread and a cup full of water. The others looked on while the little girl pushed dry crusts into the open mouth, as if feeding a sick bird, and tipped the cup. The cup was old and crumpled, the child's fingers rather dirty. Oh well, she thought, it's a bit late to be worrying over my peck of dirt.

She swallowed, and the children watched as her old throat dealt with the warmish water, got it down.

She saw that it was a test. To see what she was. Old woman or spirit.

No need to look so puzzled, she told them, though not in so many words. It's just me, Dulcie MacIntyre. It's no use expecting anything more. This is it.

But they continued to watch as if they were not convinced.

She lay like a package while they sat waiting. As if, when the package finally unwrapped itself, it might contain something interesting. Oh well, she thought, they'll find out. If they're disappointed, that's their lookout.

After a while she must have seemed permanent and familiar to them as any other lump of earth because they got bored, some of them – the littlies – and went back to whatever game they'd been playing when that first one interrupted them, shouting, ‘Hey, look what I found! Over here!'

But two or three of them stayed. Watching the old lizard turn its head on the wrinkled, outstretched neck. Slowly lifting its gaze. Shifting it north. Then east. The dry mouth open.

They fed her dribbles of water. Went off in relays and brought back armfuls of dry scrub and built a screen to keep the sun off, which was fierce, and moved it as the sun moved so that she was always in shade. She had never in all her life felt so closely attended to, cared for. They continued to sit close beside her and watch. They were waiting for something else now. But what?

‘I told you,' she said weakly, ‘it's no good expecting anything more.' They had been watching so long, poor things. It was a shame they had to be disappointed.

They must have waited all day, because at last she felt the sun's heat fall from her shoulders, though its light was still full in the face of her watchers. Then a shadow moved over them. The shadow of the Rock. She knew this because they kept lifting their eyes towards it, from her to it then back again. The Rock was changing colour now as the sun sank behind it.

The shadow continued to move, like a giant red scarf that was being drawn over them. The Rock, which had been hoarding the sun's heat all day, was giving it off now in a kindlier form as it turned from orange-red to purple. If she could swing her body around now to face it, to look at it, she might understand something. Might. But then again she might not. Better to take what she could, this gentle heat, and leave the show to these others.

I'm sorry, she chuckled, I can't compete.

She was beginning to rise up now, feeling even what was lightest in her, her thoughts, drop gently away. And the children, poor things, had their eyes fixed in the wrong place. No, she wanted to shout to them. Here I am. Up here.

One of the little ones, sitting there with a look of such intense puzzlement on his face, and baffled expectation, was Donald. I'm sorry, Donald, she said softly. But he too was looking in the wrong place.

*

The big fish dolphin lay stranded. The smaller waves no longer reached it. There were sandgrits in its eyes, the mouth was open, a pulse throbbed under its gills. It was changing colour like a sunset: electric pink and mauve flashes, blushings of yellow-green.

‘What is it?' Betty Olds asked. ‘What's happening to it?'

‘Shush,' Isobel told her.

So they sat, all three and watched. The waves continued to whisper at the edge of the beach. The colours continued to play over the humped back and belly, flushing, changing, until slowly they became less vivid. The pulsing under the gills fluttered, then ceased, and the flesh, slowly as they watched, grew silvery-grey, then leaden.

‘What's happened?' Betty asked again. ‘Is it dead now?'

‘I think so,' Isobel told her. Then, seeing Betty's lip begin to quiver, put her arm around her sister's shoulder and drew her close. ‘It's all right, Bets,' she whispered. ‘It was old.'

Dulcie said nothing. She too was breathless. This was a moment, she knew, that she would never forget. Never. As long as she lived. She also knew, with certainty, that she would live forever.

I SEE RED

SHANE MALONEY

Everything was going great until that maniac with the axe burst through the door.

Let me tell you, when you're not expecting it, something like that can really throw you off your stroke. Scared the crap right out of me, I don't mind telling you. Makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, just thinking about it.

There I am, right in the middle of the job, really cruising. Then, bam! The door flies open and there he is, some huge guy in work boots and a flannel shirt, never clapped eyes on him in my entire life, going at me with a fucking axe.

No way was it just a coincidence. You can't tell me he happened to be passing, was overcome by a sudden fit of curiosity, took a peek through the window and just reacted spontaneously. That's plain unbelievable. No, he must have been outside the whole time, just waiting to make his move. The whole thing's got set-up written all over it. There's no way it wasn't a sting.

For starters, it's not like there's any passing traffic, way out there, middle of nowhere. That's how come the joint caught my eye in the first place. There it is, standing all by itself, no other houses around, way out on the far side of the trees. No road, just a dinky sort of little path that comes winding out of the woods, going nowhere in particular. You can't tell me the guy just happened to be passing by. Absolutely no way.

And it's not like I didn't check out the whole area before I made my move. I'm a professional, after all. This is what I do for a living. You put in the time, do your homework, sniff the wind, stalk around, get a very clear picture of the situation, the comings and goings. And believe me, this was just about the perfect scenario. One of the sweetest I've ever seen. The old biddy lived by herself. Not even a pet. And there'd been nobody near the place for days.

Getting inside was a cinch. The doors on those old-fashioned cottages, most of the time they're not even locked. On top of which, the woman was sick, so I knew she wasn't going to give me any trouble. Old and sick, sort of turns your stomach when you think about it. But, hey, I'd been having a lean time of it. You do what you have to.

And the girl turning up in the middle of things, that was pure gold. The way I played it, I don't mind saying myself, it was inspired.

She was a pretty sharp cookie, too. Just a slip of a thing, but sharp as a tack. Nobody could accuse her of being a few sandwiches short of a picnic. So I knew it wouldn't be long before she twigged, but it's amazing how trusting people can be, especially kids.

My disguise was crap, of course, but I was improvising. And the voice, Jesus, the kid would've had to have been a halfwit not to pick up on the voice. Still, I had her there for a minute, hooked in, just toying with her.
All the better to hear you with. All the better to see you with
. Priceless, eh?

A few more seconds and that would've been it. One quick lunge and voila – goodnight sweetheart. But then the bozo with the axe arrives and it all goes down the toilet on me.

An axe, for Chrissake! What sort of a lunatic walks around with an axe?

What's really got me beat is how he got onto me in the first place. I work alone. I improvise, go with my instincts. No equipment, no trail, no fancy stuff.

Or maybe, and this is the only thing that makes sense, he wasn't after me at all. Maybe it was the old lady. Or more likely, the chick. Maybe he'd followed her. Yeah, that adds up. Bastard was stalking her. Trailed her though the woods, saw her go into the house, just went for it. Me, I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was damned lucky to get out of there alive. Nearly chopped my head right off, he did. Blood and fur everywhere, great chunk of my tail gone.

Well it sure as shit won't happen again. I've learned my lesson. From now on, I'm picking my marks a lot more carefully. Targets nobody else'd be interested in, not in a million years. Make sure 100% there's nobody lurking around with a weapon.

I've been thinking about those three new places going up on the far side of the mountain. The guys building them, there's nobody else checking them out, I'm pretty sure. Not unless it's some total weirdo with a thing for hairy chins. These guys, believe me, they're real pigs.

Soon as my wounds heal up, I'm taking a closer look. I've got a real good feeling about this one.