Determined to stand
tall on the untamed
frontier

I

Laura learnt to ride on a tight rein, her horse circling an instructor in a small well-kept yard located on the edge of Greater London and on some maps it was probably considered to be in the county of Hertfordshire. The instructor repeated many times how Laura was to hold her hands, and what she was to do with her feet, toes pointed forwards, elbows close to her sides. When Laura accepted a job as a jillaroo soon after arriving in a small town in the far north of Western Australia, she wondered if the station horses would respond to the same commands.

She was driven out to the station sandwiched between the manager, who she had just met, and the new head stockman, a man surprisingly called Texas, and on the back of the same utility were two other men who were going to work as stockmen.

They passed through country that looked like the African landscape she’d seen as a child in a TV program called Daktari, and reached the station homestead after dark, the ute pulling up in front of a fence. A woman was standing beneath the light on the veranda. Laura was relieved to discover that she was not the only female. She hadn’t expected the trip to take so long.

The silences between the men made it longer. Even though the woman at the hostel had known of John and the place he managed, there’d been too much time for ideas to creep into her mind and make her uneasy.

As the light had left the country they were driving through, it had begun to feel more foreign. Occasionally John, the manager, would ask Texas a question and when Texas replied he seemed to be laughing to himself, but even when she listened closely she couldn’t hear anything funny about what he’d just said. John told Texas she was from England. Texas made a small noise in the back of his throat and looked out the window.

‘She can ride,’ added John.

Texas glanced at her and back at the windscreen, a slight nod, and then she saw that he was grinning.

‘Maybe ride one of them buckjumpers eh?’

She smiled warily, unsure whether to laugh or not.

The woman under the light stepped forward to meet them.

Laura looked back at Texas; he was watching her and then he turned and followed the other two men. They seemed to know where to go because they vanished into the darkness. She stared after them. It was the first time she’d met an Australian Aboriginal.

After London, she’d expected every city to be a mix of people

Texas from different places and cultures, but in Perth, surprisingly, it hadn’t been like that, not where she had stayed.

John was holding the door open. He nodded towards the woman. ‘My wife Susannah.’

Their eyes met, Susannah’s resting on hers briefly before they flicked across to her husband.

‘Are the kids in bed?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Susannah croaked and cleared her voice, repeating ‘Yes’, more loudly.

She seemed startled and it made Laura uncomfortable since obviously Susannah wasn’t expecting her. Laura searched her memory for something similar, a reference point, but there wasn’t one. Instead she became aware of the silence that seemed to exist beyond the boundaries of her own experience. Sounds emerged from it, scratchy and insignificant, the far-off engine, the footsteps of the woman across the veranda, her own shuffle that followed. It felt as though she’d dived into the gap between what she’d imagined a station in Australia to be like and the reality, and it was a bottomless drop. Susannah stopped in the doorway in front of Laura, glanced over her shoulder and then back at John who was still standing by the door.

‘Shouldn’t she go with the others?’ she said to him.

John stepped into the kitchen.

‘She can’t go with the blokes. Cook’s out bush. She can have that room that was the governess’s.’

He dragged out a chair for himself and sat down.

‘Pull up a pew,’ he nodded towards Laura. ‘You want a cup of tea?’

They sat in silence while Susannah poured water into a pot. Her back was blank, unreadable, and the sleeveless top she wore revealed arms that were slight yet muscular. There was a smell of cooked meat in the room and dishes lay neatly stacked on the sink. Although the place was clean, it looked old and shabby, more like a workers’ cottage. Laura tried to catch the woman’s eye when she turned around. Susannah seemed to relent a little, adjusting her features into a small tight smile.

John was talking.

‘I’ll get you to give us a bit of a hand around the place. The other blokes’ll head out to camp tomorrow. They’re behind with the mustering.’

Laura nodded, having no idea what he meant by that.

She took a sip of tea. She should have looked for a job in town or waited until she got to Darwin, worked in a café or a dress shop. But she’d been determined to work on a station in Australia. It started when she read The Thorn Birds years ago. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t remember the story, it was the feeling of anticipation she was left with when she finished it. She glanced at Susannah again but her eyes were elsewhere and her expression inscrutable. Laura hoped they might become friends.

Laura had arrived at the small Kimberley town from Perth five days earlier on a Greyhound bus. Pressing her face to the tinted windows and watching the landscape slide sideways, she felt as though she was trapped in a metal capsule for forty-eight hours. She was impatient to breathe the warm dry air.

Her mind’s eye was able to see her travels as a spidery trajectory across the continent, the shape of which she had long ago memorised. When she thought of how much blue lay between where she was now and the green-shaded island of another hemisphere, she leant back in her seat and closed her eyes. When she opened them again the outback sun was surfacing, an aberration in size and colour, breaking through strips of cloud wrinkling the sky. Tree shadows striped the pale dirt and she became breathless at the thought of her own courage. The bus followed the road as it carved through rock and grass and hills that bled red into the distance. Grass grew in thin yellow spears clinging to the contours of the land and the silver trunks of the boabs glowed like fat-bellied sentinels. The bus drove over a steel-framed bridge and beneath was water that curved into a lake on the side she was sitting. The driver turned off onto a gravel road, away from the lake, to where bungalows sat squarely on large blocks of land; eventually he slowed and stopped outside a flat-roofed, brown-brick building with a sign above it advertising Four X. Her pack was taken out from underneath the bus and placed on the side of the road by the driver.

The dirt was fine like flour and it leaked rusty colour onto her flip-flops and between her toes. The door of the bus swung shut and she was left standing alone. She glanced at her watch. It was seven in the morning. There were people she’d met in Perth who could have told her where the youth hostel was but she hadn’t thought to ask and she hadn’t expected to be the only person getting off at that stop. The place reminded her of a town she’d visited on a tour to the goldfields, a ghost town, but further down the road there were dark shapes of people drifting between the light and into the shade of trees. She walked across to the double doors of the pub and peered through the glass. The bar was closed and the concrete pavement had a sickly smell of spilt beer. She returned to her belongings and dragged them along the dirt to the shade of a tree that had leaves like green butterflies. She heard a vehicle in the distance.

It sounded like a four-by-four as it changed through the gears.

Then it faded. It was so quiet she could hear leaves flick to the ground. They were brittle, hard-edged leaves. She broke one in half and threw it away. Sharp-beaked birds fluttered in the branches above. A grey bird with black speckles around its neck, a dove perhaps, dropped into the dirt like a helicopter landing and scattered dust and debris. It cooed and she realised it was the bird responsible for the persistent call she had heard in the distance whenever the bus had stopped for food. The driver said it was a peaceful dove. Whoever named it must have been comfortable in this strange outback land. Not crushed by the weight of its sky.

Laura’s attention returned to the fluorescent light of the station kitchen and the man and woman on the other side of the table. She finished her tea and eventually Susannah offered to take her to her room. Laura followed her through the door and waited while Susannah collected some linen. Laura discovered her room was across the lawn, away from the other buildings. When Susannah turned on the light, Laura saw that she had her own bathroom. They made the bed and, just when Laura thought everything was going to be all right, Susannah

Texas straightened, standing tall by the door, and said, ‘Where did John find you?’

Laura replied at the youth hostel, but she knew the question was somehow more complicated than that. After Susannah left, Laura discovered that the shower produced only cold water.

A few days later Laura was still wary of Susannah. That morning the woman had been angry with her children for wandering across to Laura’s quarters. Laura had liked talking to the boys since they reminded her of her niece who would be about the same age as them. Now Laura sat on the cool edge of the veranda, listening to the cicadas that seemed to sizzle in the dry grass. The hills beyond the fence appeared unattached to the earth and she could hear the children in another part of the house. She stood up and decided it was more comfortable in her own place. John could find her there. She walked about twenty metres past the stores shed to the other end of the yard and stepped into the area that was like a veranda enclosed by flywire where along one wall was a single bed. Lying there, it was possible to feel the slightest tremor of a breeze passing through the wire. She wondered if there might be something else to do today, rather than accompany John as he drove seemingly endlessly through the bush and the grass, apparently checking the troughs and the machines that pumped water. She had caught glimpses of wide-eyed cattle and he talked about improving the herd, conversation and silences broken by the intermittent appearance of a gate. She supposed he liked having someone to open them.

She re-read the letter she’d collected at the GPO in Perth.

Perhaps her family had already left for France. Her mother told her they had sold their caravan and bought a new one that had a microwave. They hadn’t decided yet but they might stay at the caravan park below the chateau on the hill in the Loire before they drove on to the Camargue and to their favourite place by the sea. Your father has a new hobby, she wrote, he is painting copies of the photos from our family trips in watercolours.

She enclosed a postcard-size picture of some wetlands and a watery sky above it. When Laura had arrived in Perth it had been raining in England. It was easy to imagine the wet streets, the cars and the buses passing through puddles, a train surfacing from a tunnel, streaming with water, whining to a halt at its station. From there she could remember what it was like to enter their semidetached house in north London, the heavy door and the narrow passageway, the coat rack swollen with padded jackets and beanies and scarves, and then announcing through the thick warm air to her mother that she was home.

But it was harder now that she knew the house in Mill Hill lay empty. There would be a letter waiting at the post office in Darwin. It was another place on the map but there was so much in between. Perhaps her parents would be wondering why she hadn’t written and they’d also know she hadn’t written to her sister. She looked at the little watercolour painting again. It would be impossible for her father to paint in watercolours the landscape she could see through her bedroom window. He wouldn’t have the right palette to use, just as she couldn’t find the right words to describe it. She got up from the single bed

Texas to return the letter to the inside pocket of her backpack in the bedroom. It was where she also kept her passport, her return plane ticket and a round-Australia bus pass. The bedroom was a small, square room with an overhead fan and just enough room for a double bed and a wardrobe. The floorboards were a parched grey and marked with splotches of paint from when someone had painted the walls, and the window looked out past the lawn to a fat boab tree and to faraway hills. Without the letter from her parents it was possible to imagine that she didn’t belong anywhere.

II

There was no one on the veranda, so Laura moved hesitantly towards the kitchen door. She didn’t know why she did that. She wasn’t normally shy but the station people made her feel slightly awkward as though, perhaps, she was in need of them and not the other way round. They were in the kitchen talking.

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you. You said you wanted someone to talk to.’

‘Oh . . . so that’s why she’s here.’

Laura was peering tentatively through the flywire. Susannah’s knuckles disappeared into the dough she was kneading on the bench. She looked up.

‘I was just looking for John,’ said Laura.

Susannah inclined her head towards the table. John was sitting there with some papers spread out before him.

‘Laura, there’s a mob of weaners that should be arriving this afternoon,’ he said, shuffling through the paperwork. ‘I need you to make sure they’re run into the yard with the trough or just get the driver to do it.’ He paused for a moment. ‘You can manage that?’

Laura stood there for a moment wondering what to do next, thinking it would be nice to be offered a cup of tea, too embarrassed to move away.

She called through the flywire: ‘Is there anything else you’d like me to do before then?’

There was a pause before Susannah answered: ‘You can water the lawn. Thanks.’

‘What about that stuff by the door?’ added John. ‘I keep tripping over it. Why don’t you get her to take it over to him?’

‘It’s fine. I’ll do it later.’

‘What is it?’ asked Laura. ‘I can do it.’

Susannah came to the door and opened it.

‘If you want to,’ she said flatly, and gestured to the cardboard box on the ground. ‘It’s for the old bloke who lives in the caravan near the shed.’

Laura was trying to maintain her brightness, her enthusiasm for being on a station, a place quite different from what she’d expected. It wasn’t anything like she could remember from The Thorn Birds. There was a strange emptiness that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the landscape.

Texas The old man’s camp was about halfway between the work sheds and the cattle yards, beside a small stand of thin boabs that must have grown from a single seed. The area around the sheds was like a desert, the dirt a deep red, compacted from all the traffic that obviously passed between the two places. It was about two hundred metres away from the homestead fence and she couldn’t help but notice the contrast between the baked earth she was now walking on and the soft moist grass behind her. The green band that skirted the homestead was like a barrier, coaxed into existence by endless rotations of sprinklers.

The work sheds were part of one big structure, the roof and the walls built from corrugated iron that was either stained red by rust or the dust, the openings beneath revealing spaces cluttered with tyres and welding equipment and broken vehicles. The sound of someone hammering metal on metal came from within.

Irish’s camp was an untidy arrangement of rusty iron and spinifex thatch beside an old caravan. The box had grown quite heavy in her arms since it contained mostly cans of food. She walked in under the open-sided shelter and placed it on the table beside the outside wall of the caravan. There were boxes beneath the table and on top there were bottles and plastic containers.

‘Excuse me,’ she called, hesitating, wondering whether she should leave, but she was curious about this person who lived like a gypsy. There had been a gypsy camp on the fringe of her grandmother’s village north of London. Her grandmother kept a bike for her and her sister to ride when they visited. Before they left they had to lock it up in the conservatory in case the gypsies took it. She remembered her mother being cross with their grandmother for telling them that. There was movement in the caravan and it shook slightly with the sound of his footsteps. He appeared in the doorway, shirtless, thin tufts of grey hair growing patchily on the skin below his neckline which was much lighter in colour than his arms and neck. He looked like a man who was shrinking. He unhooked his hat from a nail in the timber post that supported the roof and sat on the edge of a camp bed. There was the faint smell of urine and something rotten mixed with smoke. On one side of the camp were the smouldering remains of a fire. It was surrounded by three small sheets of iron that must have acted like a wind break, and beside it were blackened pots sitting in the dirt. He nodded at her.

‘You’re not that woman from the homestead.’ His cloudy eyes seemed to water with the intensity of his gaze.

She smiled quickly. ‘Oh, I just arrived. From England.’

Thinking there was no trace of Ireland in the old man’s voice.

‘What’ve they done with the other one?’

‘The other one?’ she frowned. ‘Oh, you mean Susannah.

She’s up at the house. I’m just working here,’ she added, almost apologetically.

‘Sit down.’ He waved his hand. ‘You making me tired.’

She sat on an empty flour drum on the other side of the table, feeling a little like she did when visiting an elderly neighbour in a nursing home: her response to the closeness

Texas and ugliness of old age confused by pity and curiosity. He nodded towards some cuttings of a plant he had hung upside down from one of the beams.

‘Kapok. Call it snow bush too.’

He stood up slowly from the camp bed and limped out to the fire. He unhooked a tea towel hanging from a metal stake and wrapped it around the wire handle of a black can that was sitting on the edge of it, bringing it to the table. He poured dark liquid into two mugs.

‘Kapok,’ he repeated. ‘That stuff brought here by the Afghans. Them camel saddles stuffed with Kapok. Seeds fell out all the way from here to bloomin Queensland.’

He heaped five spoonfuls of sugar into his cup from the jam jar on the table and sat back on the bed.

‘I didn’t know there were Afghans in Australia in those days,’ she said and sipped the tea. It was bitter and body warm.

‘One fella had seventy-two camels. Traded with a Chinese family up at the port and then hawked his stuff down this way and over to the east.’

She hadn’t realised there were Chinese people either. She’d only heard stories about the English.

‘Old Ali Khan. That was his name. They give him a bit of land for his camels on that big place over the border. He liked to gamble that fella. Whenever the missus from the big house couldn’t find her girls, that’s where they’d be, gambling with old Ali and listening to his bloomin Indian music. One time the missus got fed up and kicked him out. Last time I heard he was heading down to Alice. All his bloomin camels, running wild.

‘Blackfella mob south of here. Fellas there called Ally, same word, you know. That old Afghan, he might a been their daddy or granddaddy, I reckon,’ he chuckled and reached for his tobacco tin which was on the bed beside him.

The rollie paper stuck to his mottled lip, he looked down at his hands as he rubbed the tobacco, grinding the soft pad of one hand into the palm of the other, the top of them covered in patches of hair springing from pink and brown scabby skin.

He rolled the tobacco into a thin line that fitted the crease of his palm, took the paper from his mouth, wound it around and licked its seal. The cicadas and the grasshoppers clicked and buzzed like some metallic beast outside. A light movement of air seemed to pass through from the east and heat radiated downwards from the roof. The match scraped the box and she smelt the sulphur then rich, harsh smoke. He stared through it, eyes moist. He paused and rolled the butt between his forefinger and thumb. He looked up.

‘Do you have any family out here?’ she asked.

‘Not that’ve come forward,’ he chuckled, then wheezed.

‘What about back in Ireland?

He squinted, looking away from her. Not speaking for a while.

‘This’s where I belong,’ he muttered.

She wanted to ask the bush man more about himself but his eyes had left her and he started to cough. He waved at her and she assumed it meant she was to leave him alone.

Later that afternoon the truck arrived with the cattle. She heard it from her room and from the veranda she watched it

Texas pass by the homestead, wheels churning the fine dirt into liquid and the last of the sunlight catching the bulldog emblem on its bonnet. The children poured eagerly from the kitchen with their mother following. The driver released the horn and it sounded like a big tug. She offered to take the boys with her down to the yards but Susannah said it was their bath time. When the dust settled a little, Laura walked to where the road train had pulled up beside the cattle ramp. She called hello to the driver and he acknowledged her with an exaggerated salute. She climbed four sets of rails to open the gate on the other side of the yard so that the animals would be able to run through into the paddock where there was a trough. The driver pulled back the gate on the truck and stood away from the opening, prodding an animal through the gap in the rails with a piece of black poly pipe. She could see a velvet nose pressed between the rails, snorting the strange air, and a wet brown eye. The cattle shuffled and squashed each other against the side of the truck. Heads angled downwards. They bellowed from deep within their throats, a noise only their mothers would recognise. One of them stepped forward, forced into the lead, others quickly following, coloured in all shades of black, brown, grey and white with loose velvety skin and large ears that flopped and flicked, backwards and forwards. They were exotic creatures, nothing like cattle she had ever seen before, except perhaps in photos of Asia. They were only half grown and their flanks were sunken and ribs rippled their skin. She noticed Irish at the yards a few metres away. Both hands were holding the rail above his head and his face leant in towards the gap. The cattle had bunched up on the other side beneath the shade of a tree.

‘Them cattle no good,’ he said when she came up to stand beside him.

‘Make bad mothers. If a dingo attack a calf. That mother she gone like that.’ He drew his head back and brought his hands down from the rail to slap his palms together. He looked at her for the first time and she noticed his skin was flecked like light-coloured granite.

‘Old Billy Carsen, he had some over his place. He reckoned if you didn’t wean them real young they suck the old girl right through until she has the next calf and it starves the next calf.’

He shook his head again. ‘They’re terrible cattle.’ He spat into the yard. ‘They reckon a brahma cow will suck herself and the bulls will suck her. Or you get a cow with a calf and the young bulls following her around. That calf ’s buggered then.

‘The last fella brought in a couple of bulls,’ he continued.

‘Few years back. They lost them. In the hills. Scrubbers now with a bit of brahma in them. The only way to get them out is with a bull catcher.’

‘Really,’ she said. How did you catch a wild bull? She looked through the gaps in the rails at the animals with doe-like eyes and long lashes.

The afternoon sun cast shadows in the gullies that ran down from the hills. The windmill behind the yards groaned and a gust of wind rattled the scraggly leaves of the nearby tree and it sounded like rain. The driver climbed down the side of his

Texas truck and walked over to where they were standing. He could have been any age, wearing small black shorts, faded grey, and a sleeveless shirt revealing ropy muscular limbs.

‘A member of Johnny’s new team eh?’ He grinned and took a packet of cigarettes from the top pocket of his shirt and held them out towards her. ‘The name’s Steve. Here, have a tailor.’

His nails and hands were dirty.

She shook her head. ‘No thanks.’

His attention shifted to Irish.

‘What’s happening, old fella?’

Irish leant up against the yards, spitting before he spoke. ‘Mustering that bloody black soil country. He’d be a couple of men down I reckon after those fellas pulled out a few weeks back.’

‘Yeah I heard he got Texas and his mob working for him.’

The driver turned to face her and pushed up the greasy brim of his hat. She crossed her arms over her chest. He responded with a lazy smile.

‘Johnny and the jillaroo. Where do you hail from?’

‘London. I’m travelling around Australia,’ she said. ‘I’m just here for a few weeks to see what it’s like on a station.’ She didn’t like the way her words sounded. Then she realised what he’d said and looked away.

‘And now you know eh? Just plenty of heat and dust and flies. Ain’t that right, old man?’ He flicked the butt on the ground and stepped on it. ‘Well I better get going. Gotta get this rig out to Morrison by the morning.’

She heard the truck start up and it moved off, chugging through its gear changes. The cattle had spread out in the yards, some reaching the water. Irish shifted his weight forward and inclined his head towards her. She realised he hadn’t finished.

‘You know there’s a bit of water in that creek over there.

Catch a few fish when it starts getting hotter. They got plenty of fat on them then.’

He shuffled his feet around until he was facing the direction of his camp. He seemed to be a man who didn’t mind talking, as long as it wasn’t about himself.

III

Mealtimes were awkward, eating with strangers, although it was easier tonight since John was apparently spending the night out at the stock camp. She told Susannah what Irish had said about the cattle.

‘The owners want to turn this into a place for breeding brahmans,’ Susannah replied. She was sitting where John usually sat. ‘What these people don’t realise is that brahmans are better suited to the tropics. When you crossbreed them with shorthorn, the calves are bigger and they grow faster. They’re also tick resistant and they cope better in the heat.’

Laura reached for the salt.

Texas ‘You wouldn’t have seen them in England?’

Laura paused, her fork about to enter her mouth. She put it back on her plate.

‘No,’ she said, carefully. ‘I’ve never seen cattle like that before. But I visited a ranch in the Camargue in France. They had small black cattle. I don’t know what sort they were.’

Laura picked up her fork again. She looked across the table. Strands of hair had escaped from Susannah’s ponytail and they hung lifelessly around her face. Her eyes might have been brown or hazel. Laura wasn’t confident enough to hold her gaze for any length of time. But she noticed that Susannah rarely varied the type of clothes she wore. It was always shorts and a T-shirt. This evening her T-shirt was red and the fabric appeared soft and faded as though it had been washed too many times. She might have been in her late twenties or perhaps she was older. Narrow lines marked either side of her mouth. Laura took a deep breath.

‘I don’t think you really want me here.’

Susannah’s knife and fork clattered on her plate. She looked at Laura, her eyes startled as though caught in bright light. Laura thought she might cry but then she stared past her, towards the window.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said after a moment, her gaze returning to Laura’s. ‘I didn’t mean for you to think that. Oh god, perhaps I did. It’s just that . . .’

‘It’s okay,’ said Laura quickly. ‘I thought maybe I should leave. It’s not really what I expected anyway.’

‘Oh no. Please . . . Don’t do that.’

Susannah was frowning deeply. She pushed the hair back from her face. It was Laura’s turn to look away.

‘It’s just that . . . he thinks he can make all the decisions.’

Laura didn’t know what to say. She was embarrassed to have blundered into something so personal but it felt good for the words to have left her head.

‘You must stay until the end of the season.’

Laura realised the older woman was pleading.

She was tempted to ask why, was it for her, or was it for some other reason? The thought of leaving was attractive, but then her travels had been planned around a station experience and if she left now, what else was there to do? Susannah cleared her throat and sat straighter in her chair. She reached over for Laura’s plate.

‘You finished?’

‘Yes.’

Laura joined Susannah at the sink and together, they washed and dried the dishes. The noise the plates made when Laura set them down on the bench seemed unnaturally loud. But she wasn’t about to interrupt the silence again. Susannah stepped back.

‘I’ve got something for you. Wait here.’

A few minutes later she returned with a brown stockman’s hat.

‘If you’re going to be working outside, you really need one of these. The sun’s fierce. You don’t want it to age you.’

Later that night when the moonlight penetrated the dark corners of her room, Laura couldn’t sleep and it felt as though

Texas her bed was floating. She raised her arm to remind herself it was connected to her body, so strange she felt in this place that seemed to have no definition. She was glad of the ceiling with its grey patches above her head, shielding her from the startling space of the sky. So she would stay for the season, whatever that meant. She wondered why she hadn’t been comforted by Susannah’s attempt at friendship. Perhaps because it had appeared to be such an effort. The hat would be useful though. It was something she could take back to England. Show off to her friends. It seemed such a long time since they were all together for her send-off at the bar on the high street. Although part of that night she preferred to forget. Towards the end of it when they’d had too much to drink, Ben had leant heavily on her and mumbled in her ear that she’d changed. She wasn’t a nurse any more. But it was how they met, working on the same wards, how they became friends. Then on the way home he insisted they have sex.

‘You know you want it,’ he said.

And wondering if perhaps she did without knowing it. A few glasses of red reducing her ability to remember clearly. Not sure what she’d said, if there was anything she’d done to lead him to think that. She spent the night with him out of guilt, and she couldn’t wait to get on the plane.

Another friend, Anna, who came to the airport with her, said: ‘I think he suddenly saw the real you and decided he liked what he saw.’

But who was the real Laura? Anna didn’t say.

IV

Laura reversed the ute out of the shed and drove across to the other side of the yards and pulled up alongside the hay. It was stacked in rectangular-shaped bales wrapped in two pieces of twine. Standing on top of them, she had worked out that she could lift one carefully onto the fence and then tilt it and roll it down into the tray, since they were almost too heavy for her to place on the back of the vehicle. The cattle had begun milling around the gate. If there was anything that pacified them it was feeding them hay. She’d been tailing the young cattle since they arrived a few days ago. John explained that if the weaners were let out in the bush they’d run wild and be difficult to muster later. It was her job to ride around them, get them used to a horse so they’d be quieter and easier to handle. She remembered the first day back on a horse. The men had returned from camping out in the bush to replenish their supplies of stores and horses. At breakfast John said there’d be a horse ready for her at the yards. The grey horse in the round yard looked up and its eyes followed her as she came through the gate. It was a dirty grey with eyes that wept. She carried the bridle over her shoulder, and as she entered, the horse moved away, angling its tail towards her. She walked in a tight circle, hoping to head it off, to get it to stand, but it trotted away. The gate behind her opened.

‘She behaving like a mongrel?’

The man she’d met on the journey from town walked towards the horse with his arms outstretched.

Texas ‘Hah,’ he said loudly when it looked like it was going to trot off again.

He wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck and he held out his hand for the bridle.

‘Oh, it’s fine. I can do it.’

Laura came around to the front of the horse and fitted the bit into its mouth and tightened the strap around its neck.

‘Thanks,’ she conceded.

He held the horse briefly by the velvety skin of its nostrils until it flicked his hand away. He grinned and slapped it gently on the rump.

‘Good old girl.’

Laura led the grey out to where she’d left the saddle and looped the reins over the rail. The reins were different from what she was used to and the stock saddle was bigger and heavier. The horse stood quietly while she pulled up the girth, blowing gently through its nostrils, flicking its head to unsettle a buffalo fly. She looked across the seat of the saddle towards the man who had helped her and remembered his name was Texas. He opened the gate to bring in the rest of the horses. She led the horse through another gate and out into the paddock, savouring its warm, earthy smell. It was patient as she adjusted the length of her stirrups and swung up into the saddle. She leant over its neck and stroked the hair behind its ear. More men were at the yards. Their shapes moved between the rails and at times they sat perched above them. A wasp whined and circled her horse’s head. It snorted and the bit jangled. Green parrots chattered and flew from the white branch of a gum to another. Black ants trickled down the trunk and leaves clattered together as the wind moved through them.

She faced into it and took her feet out of the stirrups, letting her horse doze, its head resting on the bit in its mouth. She watched the cattle, small silken-skinned animals with velvet ears, gaze warily and nudge each other into lines. Every now and then she roused her horse to step slowly around them, carefully turning the strayers back towards the others. The men had lit a fire at the yards and horses were tethered in a row along a rail. She heard the sounds of metal banging on metal and realised they were shoeing. The cattle settled and wandered about looking for grass. She noticed the bank of hills behind the homestead and the shadows that darkened the dirt. The line of trees in the distance indicated the creek as it zigzagged through the valley, passing below the yards, with another, smaller one joining it and leading away from the homestead.

She’d discovered that one was just a dry bed of sand. The horse stiffened, alert, neck curled back towards the gate, nickering softly, like a spring that was tightening. She gathered the reins and pressed with her knees. The horse started to step a little one way and then another, pushing ever so slightly against her control. Horses streamed from the open gate, riderless, biting and squealing and kicking high. She held her horse tightly, nervously, unsure of it now, unsure of how far it would test her. She tightened one rein and turned it in on itself while hooves clattered over the rocky ground, dust hanging in the still air. She noticed the weaners had bolted along the fence line and behind her a horse galloped and halted, reined up by

Texas Texas. He sat firm as it protested. He grinned and wheeled his horse around.

‘Come on! We’re taking the horses back to the horse paddock.’

She followed at a carefully controlled canter as they circled the mob of free-moving horses, eventually reaching a gate. They ushered the stock through and positioned themselves between the gate and the weaners that followed. She found it exhilarating. Then they rode along the fence line back to the yards and her horse’s gait lengthened beside his and saffron light leaked through the gaps in the trees. He’d joked with her, teased her about her questions. It seemed that the English were always known for being ill prepared for the outback, for thinking that all roads led somewhere, for calling a creek a stream. There were no fields, only vast areas called flats and paddocks.

After she dropped hay from the back of the ute at regular intervals, scattering it in a long line so all the animals had an equal share, she returned the vehicle to its place under the shed. John’s four-by-four was parked in front of the homestead which meant he would be in for dinner. When she reached the gate into the homestead yard, she noticed there was another vehicle, the battered Toyota she’d occasionally seen the stockmen using. She hoped it might be Texas. He was crossing the lawn as she was and he stopped and told her they were moving camp; they’d be mustering towards country where two rivers met, like a forked branch. It was called the junction. She liked the way he squinted into the horizon when he talked and then looked back every now and then into her face. Frown marks were etched deep between his eyes, and his brows were thick and dark, but his mouth was ready to smile. The door of the kitchen banged shut behind them. The sound of footsteps on the veranda followed and then John was standing at her elbow.

‘You better get going if you’re heading back tonight.’

His attention was on Texas and he didn’t acknowledge her until Texas had moved away. She was disappointed that John had interrupted their conversation.

‘Laura,’ he said as she started to turn away. ‘Early start tomorrow. Heading across the river to pick up some gear.’

‘What time?’ she asked.

‘Leave about four-thirty.’

‘Okay. Great.’

She opened the flywire door into her quarters. Perhaps she would see where Texas was working. As she stepped inside, she remembered the sound of his voice.

V

Laura moved self-consciously around the kitchen. Taking the bread from the toaster and placing it on a plate, the harsh sound of the knife scraping the surface and the bright neon light; assaults on the senses which expect to be lulled at that time of the day by darkness and quiet. Aware of the other person in the room and the intimacy of the moment when he

Texas asked: ‘How do you have your tea?’ A question that somehow seemed inappropriate.

Headlights shone a path through the bush and they flushed out a kangaroo and the slinking flash of a dingo. They stopped in front of a pair of wide metal gates joined at the centre by thick links of chain. Instead of waiting for her to open it, John stepped out of the vehicle and walked along the fence line which was coming into focus with the bright edge of light threading through a thin layer of cloud in the east. A bird called from the treetop, a pure piping melody amplified by the still morning air, and it went on and on and then stopped and others began. Dove calls followed each other, like a dance, weaving in and out of the trees. And then over the top another chorus began, a crazed gathering of sound, echoing, and gold light shone into the leaf canopy revealing a pair of blue-feathered birds. John disappeared into the undergrowth and the sun striped the leaf litter and the sticks that crunched beneath her feet. Up ahead, she could hear the sound of his footsteps and she followed their direction. At times she thought the Australian bush looked barely alive with its broken branches and trees with no leaves, but, unlike the English deciduous, they were stark timber sculptures, bleached grey by the sun, which perhaps with the next wind or storm would be turned into mulch. Suddenly noise filled the spaces, of heavy animals crashing and bush breaking and dust dense like fog, and through it she caught a glimpse of cattle rushing towards her and then they veered away and the scrub closed behind them. The cattle had kicked up fine grey sand, and shafts of light fell through the gaps in the trees and caught the dust as it stayed suspended in the aftermath. She could see the silhouette of the cattleman. He was in the middle of a clearing, bending over something, and behind him was a trough and the strained corner posts of two lines of fences, meeting at right angles, and beyond, a low grassy hill. Her boots sank into the soft sand, pitted and potholed by the movement of many cattle. She realised on reaching him that he was standing over an injured calf. He straightened and pushed up the rim of his hat when he saw her.

‘Bloody dingoes.’

She looked down and the calf ’s head moved and then the horror. That it was still alive although its backside had been eaten.

‘Grab my gun will you, it’s behind the seat.’

She walked back to the vehicle, worrying there might still be cattle among the trees, but the bush was silent, even of birds.

The lever on the seat would not release, and after several attempts to get it to come forward, she thought she was going to have to return without the gun. The sun was warm through the window and she was beginning to sweat. She gave it another try and it flung forward and the gun lay there behind the seat in which she had sat. It was in a leather case and carefully she lifted it out and carried it across the sand. John was investigating the trough and she handed it to him and then walked over to the fence corner, staring past it, noticing the animal trails weaving through the grassy clumps to the top of the small hill.

The shot seemed to rearrange every cell in her body. The sounds of birds lifting en masse, collectively startled, eventually faded

Texas like a final echo. She turned back and witnessed John dragging the calf by its front leg into the bush. Together they returned to the vehicle, her steps matching his. Something like this was to be expected, and if he thought she might be affected by it, she would show that she wasn’t and that she understood. He emptied the cartridge, dropping the bullets into his trouser pocket, and replaced the gun behind the seat. The vehicle continued along the two-wheel track. Sometimes the dirt would be red and soft and then other times it was like gravel, hard and scattered with rock. They crossed creeks which seemed only to exist for the suggestion of water, the beds lined with blue sharp-edged stones and John carefully eased the vehicle over them to avoid puncturing the tyres. There were two spares, he explained, but after that it’d be a long walk. They drove onto a black-soil plain and the track became pitted with cracks; the grass on either side, dense and tufted.

‘Bloody good cattle country all through here,’ said John.

She wound down her window and gazed out to her left, nodding her head slightly to signal her interest; silvery grasslands stretching to the river line of trees in the distance, the continuity and consistency suggestive of man’s involvement, although she suspected that wasn’t really the case.

‘What kind of grass is it?’

‘Mitchell and native millet,’ he said.

Along the way John named the trees. Through the red country it was snappy gum and crocodile and bloodwoods. And by the watercourses there were coolabahs and ghost gums and paperbarks, and out in the flat country, the bauhinias and the kurrajongs.

‘Bloody good tucker. You can fatten cattle on this. But you gotta have good cattle. No use these bloody half-breed animals that’ve been running wild around the place. It’ll be the bloody jewel of the Kimberley when I get it sorted out.’

‘Are the men mustering around here?’

The vehicle slowed as they came upon some rocky ground and he brought his other hand up to the wheel.

‘They’re north-east of here, the other end.’ He turned to her.

‘Problem is, trying to get good people to work for you.’

She caught his glance and looked away.

By mid-morning they reached the river. On the other side of it the track continued and headed towards some ranges that from a distance were shaped like waves. It took several attempts for the vehicle to get through the soft sand of the riverbed and she hopped out and stood in the middle of the deep trench to watch. There was a slip of water to drive through, but most of it was dry, and it was impossible to imagine a robust, flowing current above her, swiping the upper branches of trees where a tangle of flotsam still resided. Upstream something glinted in the sun. Perhaps it was where the river widened, or maybe it was rock. She climbed back into the vehicle and as they drove up the bank John pointed to the red hill in the distance. On one side it was steeply curved and there was a narrow gap between it and the rest of the range.

‘There was a blackfella apparently hid up there, had all the

Texas bloody police after him, murdered some fella who stole his woman, or tried to, something like that.’

‘Really? What happened to him?’

‘They got him in the end. Chased him somewhere out here.’ He gestured to the area on his right. ‘He put up a pretty good fight, they reckon.’

She looked across the dashboard, through the windscreen. The country was the same as it had been all along, and there was nothing there that signified a past she could recognise. As they drove closer towards the range the shape of it filled more of her window. Without a watch she didn’t have much idea of the time, but when they stopped again for a gate she realised the sun was overhead. She struggled to open the gate since it was made of wire and timber and she couldn’t work out what she needed to do to release it. John opened the car door and he was grinning.

‘I was waiting to see how far you’d get with that old cocky gate.’

He reached down to a wire band that seemed to hold a piece of timber wedged between the fence post and the gate. He slipped it off and the gate collapsed. They were back in the vehicle.

‘Bloody pain in the arse those gates. We’ll be replacing all of them and putting in more fences all round the joint.’

Laura realised she was hungry and thirsty and she was about to ask how far when the track rose a little and turned a corner and there were buildings huddled at the base of the hill that marked the end of the range, with a creek running below them.

‘This place used to be another station. Too small now to be viable.’

‘Does anyone live here?’ she asked as they pulled up in front of a fence, white paint peeling to reveal rust-coloured railings.

The entrance into the yard was marked on either side by painted wagon wheels.

‘The buggers haven’t done any watering by the looks of it.’

He opened the car door and placed one foot out into the dirt and then turned to face her. ‘Oh yeah, couple of Swedish fellas been caretaking the place.’

She followed him through the gate. A bougainvillea seemed to have taken over one end of the house and the lawn had yellowed and gone to seed. Windows were covered by metal shutters which presumably had the effect of screening out the sunlight but letting in the breeze. The building was L-shaped and at the end there was a flywire door which was ajar.

‘Stupid buggers leaving the door open. Letting in the bloody snakes.’ He held it open and called out, ‘Hans, Sven, you in there mate?’ He stood in the doorway and took off his hat and scratched his head and looked around. ‘I reckon we better go and have a look over at the sheds.’

They started around the other side of the house and heard voices. Two men were walking through the long grass towards them from the direction of the creek. When they reached the yard, she realised they looked more like boys. One of them was blond and flushed, wearing a light-coloured T-shirt and long

Texas khaki shorts, and the other was dark, with thicker, wavier hair, collared shirt and shorts. Both wore long socks and boots and were without hats. They were carrying a bucket between them.

‘What are you up to you blokes? Leaving the bloody door open. Get a bloody big snake in there you’ll know all about it.’

They glanced at each other, and at John, and quickly at her, smiling.

The blond answered: ‘We catch some little fish.’

He held up the bucket and inside it were fingerlings swimming in brackish water.

‘What, there’s water in that creek?’

‘A little,’ answered the darker one and then he turned to Laura. ‘Hello, I am Sven and this is my friend Hans. We have been staying here for three month. We are from Sweden.’

‘I’m Laura,’ she smiled and for some reason she didn’t bother mentioning that she was from England.

‘Put the billy on, what do you reckon?’ John was heading towards the door.

They sat around a dirty formica table in the dimly lit kitchen. The remnants of recent cooking lay scattered about the bench and the sink. The kettle was whining on the stove as the metal started to heat. A fan overhead pushed the warm air around but did little to dispel the closeness.

‘Would you like some food?’ asked Hans.

‘Mate. Not if it’s any of that fish in a tube stuff,’ said John and he pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Got a few sandwiches in the esky.’

‘How did you come to be out here?’ asked Laura. She was sitting with her back against the wall on a low bench, glad to be out of the vehicle and finding the heavily accented English a little unexpected.

Hans disappeared through a door to her left and Sven, who was assembling cups on the bench, said: ‘Our Kombi van broke down. We didn’t have enough money to get it fixed. The mechanic said they needed a caretaker. So they pay the mechanic while we are here. We stay here for three months.’

‘So where do you go for supplies and food, that sort of thing?’

John returned and slapped the sandwiches wrapped in grease proof paper on the table.

‘There’s a roadhouse,’ said John. ‘Here, help yourself.’ He looked at Laura and opened the paper around the sandwiches.

‘There’s a track on the other side of the creek. Shortcut to the highway. About an hour or so away. That’s where they fixed the Kombi. Going all right now?’

‘Yes but the track is very rough. We only go there two times.

It takes much longer, maybe two hours.’

Hans entered with a cardboard box and a tube of some sort of paste. While Sven poured hot water into cups, Hans opened a box of crispbread and pointed to the tube.

‘This is Swedish caviar. You must try. We buy it in Darwin.’

His face was still rosy, particularly his nose and cheeks. His eyes, framed by pale lashes, had a glassy look that suggested he hadn’t slept for a while.

‘Mate. Tried it last time. Think I’ll stick to the roast beef.’

‘I’ll have some. Thanks,’ said Laura.

Texas It tasted like fishy mayonnaise and she took a large mouthful of tea to wash it down. John drained his mug and picked up another sandwich and stood up.

‘Sven, give us a hand, mate. Lift a post-hole digger onto the back of the Toyota.’ He looked back at Laura. ‘You finish your dinner. I’ll be back in a bit.’

‘Would you like some more?’ asked Hans.

The fan continued its idle rotation above their heads.

‘I’m fine thanks.’ She looked around. ‘So what’s it been like?’

Her eye followed the shelving along the wall and above the bench and sink; most of it was empty except for the odd pale blue plate, some light-coloured bowls and old-woman teacups with delicate handles and saucers, placed there, she decided, by someone who must have been hopeful. Hans glanced at her and then to the left of her shoulder; he looked as though he’d been crying, but perhaps he was just sunburnt.

‘It has been very quiet. No people. No one. We see John two times, maybe three. And we go to the roadhouse two times. In the north of Sweden it can be like that sometimes. When the snow is very heavy.’

‘So what do you do?’

‘One day we went for a walk. We tried to climb the hill. It was very hot. There was a big lizard like a dinosaur. Very big. And then we see it again with a bird in its mouth. Here.’ He gestured to the door. ‘And it swallow the bird and its stomach, you could see the bird in there.’ He shuddered. ‘We do not go far.’

Laura wasn’t sure whether she believed him. As big as a dinosaur.

She stood up and placed her mug in the sink. ‘I think I might go outside. Have a look around.’

Hans stood up quickly. ‘Yes, of course. I’ll come with you.

‘You know,’ he said when they were beside the oleander bush in the middle of the yard, ‘there is a strange sound here every night. Like rain but there is no rain.’ He looked at her.

‘When do you leave?’

His face relaxed a little. ‘In ten days’ time.’

Across the yard she could see the low line of the shed roof and from that direction she heard the vehicle start up.

‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ she said, turning back towards him, smiling in a way she hoped was reassuring. And then behind him she noticed, above the roof of the homestead, some sort of aerial, obviously no longer in use, with a creeper entwined around a horizontal bar and the vertical bar above it. From this angle, it looked like a crucifix made of bush.

‘How do you contact anyone here?’ she asked.

‘There’s a phone at the roadhouse,’ he said.

John pulled up at the fence and Sven got out of the vehicle.

‘I think we’re leaving now.’

His eyes left hers.

‘Enjoy the rest of your travelling,’ she added.

She glanced back quickly before the homestead was obscured from sight. There was no sign of anyone. John looked in the rear-vision mirror and then at her.

‘So what did you think?’

About what? she wondered. And then: ‘They seemed very nice.’

Texas ‘Not bad blokes. A bit useless. Went without power for a week or so. Couldn’t work out how to get it going again after they ran it out of fuel. They put more fuel in but didn’t bleed the injectors so they had air in the fuel pump.’

‘I spoke to Hans. He seemed a bit . . .’ She searched for the right word as the landscape slipped beneath the vehicle. ‘Nervous.’

‘There’s always something to spook you in this country. If you go looking for it.’

‘They’ll be all right?’

‘Bloody hell.’ John braked and the vehicle slowed. ‘Did you see that?’

‘What?’ Startled, looking to where John was looking, suddenly aware that her sense of well-being was easily disturbed. ‘What is it?’

The vehicle stopped. John opened the car door. But he stayed where he was. His eyes searched the scrub, which in that section of the track had closed in, with the range rising steeply behind it and the gullies shaded like folds in fabric.

‘It was a bloody big cat. I’m sure of it. Biggest cat I ever saw. The size of a dog.’

She was thinking lions, tigers.

‘Not much point in getting the gun out. It’d be long gone.’

‘What sort of cat?’ she asked as his attention returned to the middle of the road and he pushed the gear into first, the vehicle slowly gaining speed.

‘Cat gone wild. You know, like a domestic cat. The thing is, it’s a few generations on, and god knows in this country, with plenty of tucker, what we might end up with.’

The vehicle retraced their tracks, occasionally deviating slightly when John avoided a rock or a dip in the road. The constant bumping, changing down a gear, slowing for rough patches, changing up, the sun slipping lower so that at times it shone directly into her window, brought on a pleasurable somnolence that seemed to suspend time. They reached the river which, other than the line of ranges they were leaving behind, was the most defining aspect of her landscape. The light had yellowed and with it, green became green-gold and the blemish-free limbs of the river gums glowed. As they descended the bank, she thought of being stuck there, sunk in sand that was striped now by shade. But John took the vehicle through a slightly different route where the ground was firmer and they got to the other side without any trouble. The top of the bank was covered in grass. When they reached it he stopped the vehicle and turned off the engine. Birds rose nervously from the treetops like fluttering triangles of paper, shifting across the sky in formation, noisy and indignant as they settled again in the trees on the far side.

‘Corellas,’ he said.

He offered her a can of beer from the esky. They sat side by side on the tailgate of the vehicle. She was feeling comradely while he began to talk. He became more expansive, revealing his passion for the country, how his grandfather had taught him to ride and describing the place that would have been his. Then he moved on to how Susannah made him feel, saying that his wife didn’t understand. That she never appreciated how hard he worked. The job was tough, always battling against people who wanted to keep things the way they were. It was nothing like running a few sheep down south. He had to prove to the boss he could do it and he had to prove it to his bloody wife as well.

Unlike the old man Irish, John had no reticence when it came to talking about himself. Sitting overlooking the riverbed, birds riotous and intrusive, Laura felt included and then, after the second beer or was it the third, he jumped off the back of the vehicle and stood in front of her, placing both hands on her knees.

‘Laura,’ he said. His head was tilted upwards and his hat fell off, revealing oily blond hair pasted to his skull.

She realised he expected her to lean towards him, kiss him perhaps.

‘Ever since I saw you, I knew you felt the same.’

Fuck. What was it about men that they didn’t realise she was only being friendly? That she was just being polite, showing an interest in what they were saying. She’d enjoyed his company, his knowledge of the country, but for godsake why did it have to end with sex? She watched with horror as his hands moved from her knees, up her legs, his fingers sliding across her jeans, touching her inner thigh, and then he grasped her waist, his body leaning closer, his breathing louder. She remembered Ben and felt sick. The sympathy she felt when he told her about his relationship with Susannah evaporated. What a stupid man. She inched backwards a bit and brought up her right knee and used her leg to push him from her. She jumped off the vehicle and moved away, looking over her shoulder, seeing him pick up his hat from the dirt. She followed the track away from the river.

‘Where are you going?’ he called after her. ‘It’s a long walk back.’

She heard the vehicle start and then it was behind her, its lights obliterating his face. She had no choice but to climb inside and they didn’t speak for the rest of the way. Instead of being angry, he seemed embarrassed and she knew she was partly to blame. She should never have appeared so interested.

VI

The kitchen floor smelt of disinfectant and the benches were spotted with droplets of water. Laura hesitated by the flywire.

Susannah glanced at her and filled the kettle at the sink and then lit the stove.

‘Cup of tea?’ asked Susannah.

‘Thanks.’

‘Are you going to sit down?’

Laura pulled out a chair.

‘There are some biscuits on the table.’

Laura reached for one out of the jar.

Susannah took another cup from under the bench.

‘Susannah,’ Laura began. ‘There’s something I want to tell you.’ Susannah straightened. Laura watched her pause before the window, both hands holding the empty cup. ‘Yesterday, John . . .’

‘Look, I don’t want to know.’ Susannah turned, eyes avoiding hers. She filled both cups and moved one of them across to Laura. ‘Sometimes,’ she added, looking down, ‘it’s better not to know. You’ve just got to get on with it. Don’t you think?

‘Sugar?’ she asked, pushing the bowl towards Laura.

‘Yeah, thanks. I suppose,’ said Laura and she took a deep breath. After a while she continued. ‘But then if you don’t have all the information, how can you make the right decision?’

‘It’s always the right one at the time. You have to think that.’

‘Why?’

‘Otherwise you’d spend your whole life regretting things.’

‘I don’t plan on doing that.’

Susannah smiled tightly.

‘None of us do.’

VII

When shadows lengthened and the light softened and corellas roosted in the tree above the yards, Laura slipped the bridle from her horse and gently tapped its rump to send it off out into the paddock. She had just hung the bridle on the nail beside the saddle when the birds rose again. She looked to see what had disturbed them. Metal bolts slid and clunked and hinges of gates groaned as the stockman moved through the barriers between them.

‘Hi,’ said Laura.

‘You need to get a swag from the missus. Boss said I’m taking you out to the camp.’

Light leaked through the finger-like leaves of the eucalypt in front of them. The skin of its trunk glowed white and galah shapes flew over its shadow. They were noisier than the corellas.

Laura looked around the small bedroom, then collected her clothes from the cupboard, leaving a dress and two skirts hanging in the wardrobe. There were footsteps. Susannah held a bundle of sheets and a blanket in her arms.

‘I thought you might need this.’

Laura looked down at the torch that sat on top of the bedding.

‘Thanks.’

She took it and placed it in her backpack.

‘Is there anything else you need? From the stores?’

‘No,’ said Laura, trying not to betray her nervousness, her sudden realisation that there would be no electricity. That she was going to be out in the bush.

‘I don’t think you should go. You don’t have to.’

Laura stopped what she was doing and looked into the face of the woman in the doorway.

‘But I want to,’ she said.

‘Yeah well, just be careful of the blokes.’

‘Oh, I’ll be fine. I know Texas.’

Texas Susannah blinked rapidly and then turned away. It wasn’t like Susannah to show that much emotion but Laura couldn’t worry about it now. This was her adventure. She stuffed the bedding into the top of the backpack, fastened it and lifted one of the straps over her shoulder.

Texas was waiting by the vehicle. The canvas bed-roll they called a swag was on the back and she lifted her pack on there as well and opened the door. The window was streaked by a mess of insects, squashed and spread by wiper blades. She drew a mark with her finger in the dust on the dashboard. He slid in behind the wheel, his hat almost touching the roof. The key turned over. He pumped the accelerator to inject more fuel into the engine. Something clicked and then it rattled into life, fumes filling the cab. Hot engine air breathed through the rusted cracks in the chassis, warming her lower right leg. She wondered how he could see anything through the windscreen.

About twenty minutes later they pulled up at a gate. The sun had sunk behind the bush and the purple sky was darkening by the minute. She waited by the gate as the vehicle passed and, as she closed it, the motor stuttered and stopped and the sounds of the bush were suddenly amplified. A screeching erupted from the treetops which sounded almost human, and even though she knew it could only be some outback animal, it made her feel a long way from home. Her fear—or was it excitement?—intensified. Sometimes the emotions were too similar to separate. The engine took over again and Texas wound down his window to let out the smoke of his cigarette.

He turned on the headlights and they defined the dark edges of the track.

‘Cheeky snake up there maybe. Those black cockies, they don’t like him much.’

He passed her his tin of Log Cabin and released the clutch.

She attempted to roll herself a cigarette but the tobacco fell out of the paper and onto her jeans. She could feel him glancing at her every now and then. And then he slowed the vehicle.

‘Here, you gotta roll the tobacca like this. Rub it first, break it all up. See, like this.’

He handed her a slim, firmly rolled cigarette.

She smiled her thanks. The taste was strong and even though she didn’t often smoke, it brought a sense of unreality that was quite pleasurable. And she was able to view from a distance her journey in the cab of that vehicle with a man she barely knew, as they glided through soft sand, bounced and rattled over potholes and corrugations, the dark behind the windows creating a mirror which reflected the flash of the match light and the warm end of a cigarette.