Ironbark Read online

  ‘Wallabies,’ says Granddad. He reaches down and pulls out this hardcore torch, points it into the night. A pool of light shows two wallabies sitting outside the fence, their eyes demon-red. Granddad sweeps the beam and there are others, all along the perimeter.

  ‘Reason for the fence,’ he says. ‘Not that it keeps ’em out. Bastards’ll be in during the night, having a go at my vegies.’

  ‘Language, dude,’ I say.

  He stares at me, his face a puzzled maze of wrinkles.

  ‘What?’ he says.

  ‘The B word, Gramps. Unnecessary. And apt to stir up feelings of aggression.’ I like the word ‘apt’. Got it from some random counsellor in Melbourne and I try to use it whenever I can.

  He chews on that, washes it down with the last of his Boag’s and the silence gathers again. I feel a twinge of guilt, so I try to kick-start the stalled dialogue.

  ‘How do they get in?’ I say. ‘The wallabies, I mean. Dig a tunnel?’

  Granddad stares at me again like I’m some kind of idiot. ‘They jump,’ he says. ‘They’re wallabies. That’s what wallabies do. Jump.’

  I get this wild vision of wallabies queuing up outside the fence, poles in their stubby little forearms, vaulting over the fence. I haven’t got the energy to share it.

  Granddad whistles and the scruffy dog prises itself from under the verandah. I’d forgotten about it, to be honest. It kinda staggers into the pool of light like a reluctant star. The mutt, it has to be said, is a sad-looking beast. Used to be a border collie, I guess, before old age and hair loss and rheumatism took their toll. It looks up at Granddad like he’s some kind of god. Big, watery eyes filled with devotion. The dog and Granddad. Gramps ruffles him behind the ear and then flicks his fingers towards the fence. The dog lurches off. His back leg – at least one – looks crook as hell. He gives a half-hearted bark and the wallabies scatter, the glowing red dots of their eyes blinking out. The thud of legs is distant thunder. The dog limps back, looking pretty proud of his performance, and slumps at Granddad’s feet. He pants as if he’s just rounded up all the sheep in Tassie. The dog, I mean. Not Granddad. Though he does a bit of panting too.

  ‘Does that work?’ I ask. ‘Keep the critters away?’

  ‘Nope,’ says Granddad. ‘Doesn’t work a good goddamn.’ Silence settles again.

  ‘Plenty of wildlife round here, I guess.’ It’s not a profound remark, I know, but I throw it in nonetheless.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Must get spooky at night. I mean, them eyes. A whole row of red dots surrounding you. Doesn’t it freak you out?’ ‘Nope. Them’s just wallabies. And the noises in the night. Devils. We get plenty round here, specially if something’s died in the bush. Rowdy buggers. Pests. Then there’s wombats, echidnas. Possums, of course. It’s noisy here, in the middle of nowhere. You’ll get used to it.’

  I want to tell him I don’t want to get used to it, that if I want to see wildlife I’ll go to the Melbourne Zoo. Not likely, of course. Not in this lifetime. But I’m thinking about that feeling I got in the forest, of something following me, and I want to track down some information.

  ‘Anything dangerous out there, dude? I don’t mean spiders and snakes and stuff. I mean, anything large that’s liable to knock you down and eat your entrails.’

  Granddad looks at me like he’s considering promoting me from idiot to fully paid-up retard.

  ‘What?’ he says. ‘Like a crocodile?’

  ‘Hey, dude,’ I say in this hurt tone. ‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, man. I mean, I’m from the mainland. I don’t know the local fauna like you do.’

  Granddad leans back in his chair. The hairs escaping from his battered old nose are bathed in the yellow candlelight. Shadows play around his face, carving out fissures and cracks, revealing dried, leathery skin. Age has beat him up bad. He gazes into the night with his big old watery eyes and breathes deeply. The hairs in his nose vibrate like crazy.

  ‘There’s nothing out there to worry about,’ he says finally, but he’s taken so long to dredge up the comment that I can’t help but think there’s more to it. Then again, he’s clearly constipated when it comes to words, so it doesn’t prove anything.

  ‘There is something out there, then?’ I say. Jeez, talk about pushing a conversation uphill. ‘Even if it’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Well . . . who really knows what’s out there? Whole areas in Tasmania have never been visited by white men. Maybe by any men. So, if it’s never been explored, we can’t know for sure what’s there.’

  I can’t fault his logic. Anyway, some kind of conversational dam has been breached because he’s off again with barely a pause for breath.

  ‘Coupla years back I saw something on this mountain that everyone reckons is impossible . . .’

  What mountain? I think. All I could see today was trees. How could you hide a mountain? Then it hits me: if there is a mountain, it might be the answer to my mobile phone problem. By the time I’ve given this consideration, Granddad has moved on apace and I have to do some catching up on the verbals.

  ‘. . . plain as the nose on your face. Saw the stripes and everything. Stood in the clearing for . . . oh, must’ve been twenty, thirty seconds. Then it lifts its head, sniffs the air and, whoomf, gone.’

  ‘Whoa, man,’ I say. ‘Are you pulling my old fella? You saw a Tassie tiger? Two years ago?’

  ‘Yup. And them thylacines extinct for near on seventy years. Apparently no one told them they were extinct. Makes you think, doesn’t it? If there’s one impossible thing out there, why not more?’

  I love all this true life mystery stuff. I lap up those pay TV programs. Of course, it’s odds-on that what was tracking me through the forest was a wallaby with insomnia, but what else is there to do around here but speculate? Then Granddad goes and ruins it.

  ‘I hear voices, you know,’ he says. ‘Right in the middle of the day. They tell me things.’

  I light another cigarette.

  ‘Those wallabies don’t come in for any special kinda plants in your vegie patch, do they, Gramps? You know, spiky-leaved specimens, pretty good when you dry ’em out and smoke ’em?’ It’s a long shot, but, hey, you never know. Granddad ignores it, though. He turns those swimming eyes on me instead.

  ‘Do ya believe in angels?’

  I nearly choke on my smoke.

  ‘What? Big dudes in white. Sprouty wings. Sort of dead? Let me think . . . Nah.’

  ‘Guardian angels. Spirits that watch over you.’

  ‘Oh, them kinda angels. Let me think . . . Nah. Don’t believe in them either.’ I mean, I know I said I was into mystery and the imagination, but I do have standards. Of sorts.

  Granddad doesn’t react. He just sits there, the hairs up his nose thrashing around in all available directions. I’m almost relieved the silence is back. We sit in it for a couple of minutes and I feel the creeping onset of hypothermia in my extremities. I tell ya. It’s colder than a penguin’s armpit out here.

  ‘Hey, Gramps,’ I say. ‘It’s nearly eight-thirty. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun? Better grab some zees; be fresh for another roller-coaster ride tomorrow, huh?’

  Truth is, I’ve got to start this journal and I’m not looking forward to it. Plus, if my English homework is anything to go by it’s gonna take me a couple of hours to get a paragraph down. Actually, if my English homework is anything to go by, I’ll never get a word on paper. But that’s not an option. That has been made very plain to me.

  Granddad doesn’t say anything, just hands me the torch. I carry my bag across the clearing to my ‘room’, and stand for a while on the rickety planks that pass for a verandah. The door to the shack is one of those craggy wooden things with an old-fashioned latch of heavy timber, the kind you see in medieval movies with dungeons and random knights in clanking armour. I open up and go in. I have no idea what to expect, but I have to admit I’m pleasantly surprised. For one thing, there’s a fire and the room is warm. Makes me
wonder what I was doing freezing my rectum off outside with Granddad when I could have been in here developing hot flushes. And there’s a light switch – another car-parts contraption – that operates a tiny fluoro by the bed. The double bed is made up with heavy-duty blankets. A couple of battered chairs, a table. Look, it’s not Holiday Inn, but it’s better than I was expecting.

  Just one room. No bathroom. I’m buggered if I’ll use the outside dunny in the night. If I need to point percy at the porcelain, I’ll use the big one outside. Just the thought makes me want to get rid of the Boag’s, so I nip outside and around the corner. It’s pitch-black and I can hear the thump and scuffle of wallabies, almost certainly practising their high-jump manoeuvres. Overhead the Milky Way snakes across the sky. There are stars everywhere. It’s as if some madman has taken a brush, loaded it with white paint and flicked it across a huge black canvas. No moon, though, and I have to be careful not to drench my Etnies, which is tricky with my hands trembling with cold and other parts of my anatomy shrivelling at the prospect of being exposed to the raw Tasmanian night air.

  Back inside I pull out an exercise book and a pen from the side pocket of my bag, place them neatly on the old wooden table and rig up the torch to spotlight the book, so I can see what I’m doing. Trust me, I’m incredibly aware of how sad this all is. A journal. How peachy. Maybe I should cover it with special adhesive paper featuring a boy band or a random assortment of cute felines and write my name in bubble writing with sparkly gel pens. The more I think about it, the more depressed I get. But this has to be done.

  So I open to the first page and just write. I don’t think about what I’m writing. That wasn’t part of the deal. And if it’s writing they want, then it’s writing I’ll give them. No one said anything about quality and I don’t want to waste any more time on this than strictly necessary.

  Someone – who knows, I can’t remember – said I should write about what happened. But no one understands. I’ve told a million people. A million times. And I don’t understand. Maybe everyone reckons I’m lying. I’m not. I don’t think I am.

  How weird. How weird when you don’t know the truth of things yourself.

  But I’ll try. I’ll tell what I think I remember. What other people said happened. Things are mixed. Truth and memory and imagination. Boundaries blurred.

  The hell of it is, I didn’t want a burger. That’s one thing I can swear to. The owners of the joint went ballistic, like they’re a serious restaurant with a serious reputation. Hah. Maybe. If greasy fries and wafer-thin patties of dubious meat turn you on. They should pay me to eat there, rather than the other way round. Even then . . .

  Kris wanted a burger. What Kris wants, Kris gets.

  We queued. That’s another thing. For a fast food place, it’s as slow as . . . hell, I can’t think what it’s as slow as. Queues of sixty people. Staff moving as if they’re a hundred and fifteen years old. Instead of twelve. Acne blooming in the haze of oily smoke. Can you catch acne from an acne-polluted burger?

  If I think about this too much I get angry.

  Kris shuffled forward in line. She was wearing short shorts. Showing a sweet curve of cheek. It’s a big no-no at school. Anything like that is a no-no at school. They want us to behave as if we’re fifty and tired of living.

  Anyway, Kris. She keeps a change of clothes in her bag. Cute as hell, Kris. And knows it. So when she walks, she swings her hips. Very annoying. Bordering on phoney. But the reaction of guys cracks me up. Eyes on stalks. Jaws hitting the floor. Kris is well stacked too.

  We inched forward.

  Then this dude behind me said, ‘She should get a burger to go with that shake.’

  That wasn’t when I got angry. I don’t think it was.

  Just turned and fixed him with a withering glance. I’m a black belt at withering glances. Fourth dan. I practise it. And I said, ‘What did you say?’

  Calm. Quiet.

  True, different inside. Blood thumping in my veins.

  A warning sign, all right, but it wasn’t so bad I needed to self-talk. I was way in control. So he looked at me like I was something brown and smelly. Something in a gutter with flies around it. And he said, ‘I wasn’t talking to you, mate.’

  The ‘mate’ was liquid sarcasm. It dripped all over the floor. Even then . . . I could have handled it.

  But he turned to a seriously ugly chick next to him and said, ‘Is there a foul smell around here, or is it just me?’

  From that point? Well, nothing much filed in the memory banks.

  Next thing, there’s a fat copper sitting on me. My face smashed into the floor tiles. My arms wrenched up to my shoulder blades. Getting cuffed. Then the fat cop dragged me to my feet. He didn’t try very hard to be gentle. Didn’t try at all.

  I looked around as he hauled me away.

  They said at the court hearing I did thirty thousand dollars worth of damage. Where do they get sums like that? Someone makes it up. Thirty grand? No way.

  I guess they ramped up the costs as much as possible.

  To screw Dad into the ground. Fair enough. I’d do the same if I had the chance.

  But the joint was a mess. Burgers and cola cups all over the place. Smashed tables. Seems I even managed to uproot some chairs – the ones bolted to the floor so you can’t adjust them, even though they’re uncomfortable. Why do they do that? Who’d want to steal them?

  There was a clear space of about six metres around me. Then a solid crowd. Faces all turned to me. No one said anything. You’d expect some people to laugh or jeer when someone’s getting handcuffs slapped on. Not a whisper.

  I saw the guy who’d been behind me in the queue.

  Blood all over his face. Behind him, the ugly chick. I remember the expression on her face. Scared. Really scared.

  Of me. That was strange.

  I didn’t see Kris at all.

  The worst bit was seeing this family. The cops dragged me past them. A mum and dad and a little girl, about five or six. She was clutching one of those stupid plastic toys they have in meals for rugrats and she was staring at me and crying and tears were running down her cheeks. But she wasn’t making a sound.

  Not a sound.

  As the cops hauled me past, the dad grabbed the girl. Hid her behind his legs. Like I was an infectious disease.

  I play that scene in my mind and freeze-frame her face. I don’t know whether to be terrified or sad.

  I don’t want to write any more tonight. It depresses me.

  I close the exercise book. I should probably read it over, but I can’t be bothered. The heat from the fire is making me drowsy. I haven’t brushed my teeth, but I’d have to use the tap in the outside dunny or the main shack and I don’t have the energy. I’ll clean them in the morning. As I stick the toothbrush back into my toiletry bag, my hands close on a pill bottle. I open it and shake one capsule into my hand. I can see the tears running down the face of the little girl. I shake the rest of the tablets out.

  The cold air hits me like a fist. You’ve got to give Granddad credit. My shack can’t be too leaky – it certainly keeps the heat in and the cold out. I shuffle down to the fence, scanning the ground with the torch so I don’t stick my foot into a hole and break my leg. With my luck it’s almost a certainty. As I get close to the fence I hear the wallabies scattering. I don’t even break stride. I cast my hand back and fling the tablets in a wide arc as far into the trees as I can. It would be cool to say that I hear them pattering into the foliage like raindrops, but I don’t. I stand for a while and breathe the cold air into my lungs. I’ve crossed a bridge. If I’m gonna defeat this thing, I’m gonna have to do it without the drugs. I should be scared, but I’m not. For once, I feel free.

  It’s then, right then, that I feel it. The pressure of eyes on me. There, in the pitch dark, in the middle of nowhere.

  I raise the torch and direct the beam into the bush. I don’t even have to move it from side to side. Because I know exactly where they will be. The red eyes
stare back at me and they don’t move. It’s a wallaby, I tell myself. A wallaby that doesn’t scare easily.

  But I know it isn’t.

  I back away, moving slowly towards the shack. I don’t take the beam off the eyes. And they don’t move. They don’t blink. I stumble when my heels hit the verandah, but I manage to get up the three steps. I turn quickly to unlatch the door and when I turn back the eyes have gone. I swing the torch beam from side to side, but there’s nothing there. I close the door and jam the back of the chair up against the knob.

  It’s too hot for the blanket on the bed, so I take it off and drape it over the window, which has a curtain rod across the top of it, but no actual curtains. There is no way I’m taking the chance of anything looking in at me while I sleep. I’m shaking as I get into bed. There’s a post embedded in the wall at the side of the bedhead. It’s a log that hasn’t been turned. As if it’s just come from the forest. I get my pocketknife from a side compartment of my bag. I carefully carve a one into the wood.

  Maybe I’ve watched too many movies about guys banged up in jail, but I feel better when I’ve done it. I try not to think about eyes in the forest or little girls with wet cheeks. But it’s weird. There is one thing, completely unimportant, that I can’t stop thinking about.

  After the fast food business, I wasn’t identified in the local newspaper. It said the boy could not be named for legal reasons, because I was a minor. I think that’s good. It should apply all over. Not identified for legal reasons. It’s the last thing I’m thinking about as I drop off to sleep.

  I’m woken by a thin sunbeam turning the inside of my eyelids pink.

  When I open my eyes it takes a moment or two to make sense of what’s around me. The unfamiliar room, a drift of grey ashes in a fireplace, a chair wedged under a doorknob. I blink against the light streaming through the window. The blanket must have fallen off the curtain rod some time in the night.

  I remember why I put it up there. I remember why I blocked the door with the chair. Dumb, dumb, dumb. It’s weird the way the morning light cuts through scary stuff. My grandmother once said that darkness eggs on the imagination, but light smacks it on the bottom and tells it to grow up.