And so time in the camp passed, the days bleeding together until one was no different from another. I settled in, tried to adjust. Every morning, Ruby and I joined the hungry hordes’ march to the courthouse. Every afternoon, we did our best to stay out of the heat. Every evening, we fell asleep with the faint sound of fighting in our ears. Every day, the Creeps guarding the courthouse refused to let us see Tobe. Dispirited, Ruby and I would shuffle away. We would spend the rest of our day spinning our wheels until the sun went down, either sitting around our shack or loitering in the square or hanging out with Jacko.
After a while, I hammered into the wall of our shack the rusty nail that my hat had hung upon back home, carrying out such a mundane task with almost ridiculous reverence.
Jacko quickly went from being a good neighbour to a good friend to a good mate. On our second day in the camp, he warned us to stay away from a stall offering ‘bush medicine and tooth pulling’, which was run by a frantic young guy who, when he wasn’t actually drunk, was suffering from the DTs. That same day, Jacko also didn’t hesitate to point out where the men and women walked the walk and worked the oldest profession.
He showed us around the rest of what he called ‘the real camp’, introducing us to the ‘decent’ traders, advising us on whom to avoid, explaining the market’s strange rules and customs. As he showed us around, he told tall tales and outrageous stories, each one filed with bittersweet detail, black humour, a hint of regret. He knew everyone and everyone knew him, if not by name then by face. Those who made a living on their backs seemed to know him the best.
Despite his easy familiarity with pretty much everyone, Creeps included, he couldn’t get us in to see Tobe.
The market itself was a frenetic thing, the square buzzing day and night with people offering seemingly everything—the simplest scrap salvaged from the graveyard of junk; extra food and water; scavenged keepsakes and mementoes; sly grog, bush tobacco, wild weed; the sheer grunt-power of their bodies. The Creeps were actively involved, boldly trading out in the open. No one seemed to care or find it strange; in a sense they were prisoners as well, with all the same problems.
At least until their tours expired, anyway.
Eventually, Ruby and I decided to find some work. It wasn’t just that the rations the Creeps provided were only sufficient if all we did was sit in the shade staring into space; our boredom was slowly killing us as well, dulling our wits along with our hope. With a bit of help from Jacko, we ended up finding jobs as part of a salvage crew. Considering my ruined condition, Mac—the crew’s short, stocky, red-faced leader—assigned me to be a lookout. I was entrusted with a barely working walkie-talkie, told to haul arse to the graveyard of junk, and to call in when some fresh scrap was dumped. Ruby would then come out and pick through it. If the load looked promising, we were to call in again so that a crew could haul it back.
‘Take care of it,’ Mac said, pointing at my walkie-talkie. ‘If it wasn’t for those babies, my business would be in the shitter.’
For a whole day, from some time after breakfast until a little before dark, I sat in whatever shade I could find and looked over the graveyard of junk, waiting for a work detail to dump a load of rubble. Ruby visited me in the afternoon, making sure that I was okay, doing her best to keep my morale up.
‘Bill, how’s it going?’
‘Couldn’t be better, looks like I got the cushiest job of the lot.’
‘Yeah, well, at least you’ve got something to do. I’m so bored …’
‘Sorry.’
‘And I miss Tobe.’
‘Yeah, I know. I miss him too.’
We fell silent. Together, we looked out at a stark wasteland that was like a savannah at the end of the world. Tobe hovered over us like a ghost that wouldn’t pass on, there in spirit if not the flesh. After a while, Ruby got up and left. I resumed my solitary vigil, barely moving, barely brushing the flies away.
No one came. Nothing happened.
When dusk started to roll in, I limped back to the square. Mac was waiting by his stall, arms crossed over his chest.
‘Bill,’ he said, barely nodding.
‘How are you, Mac?’
‘All right.’
I passed his walkie-talkie back. He didn’t thank me. Instead, he started walking away.
‘So …’
‘What?’ he asked gruffly, turning back.
‘Um, when do I get paid?’
‘You don’t get shit for today—you didn’t call anything in.’
‘But nothing came in.’
‘Not my problem. Now, piss off until tomorrow.’
I didn’t clock on the next morning, despite Jacko’s assurances that he would have a word with Mac. Instead, Ruby and I volunteered for one of the Creep’s work details. By some ridiculous stroke of good fortune, we were chosen.
Working for the Creeps was worse than working for a vulture-scumbag like Mac.
The first day, we spent six or seven hours in the sun, repairing fences on the camp’s northern border. The second day, we cleaned a rundown hall, making it comfortable for a First Country caravan that a lookout had spotted on the Mallee. The third day, we waited on said caravan, fetching food and water, running errands for them, showing them around the camp. The fourth and fifth days passed in much the same way. On the sixth day, the First Country caravan having departed, we were sent out to clear some fallen trees that were blocking the train tracks leading in and out of camp.
At the end of every shift, Ruby and I would be handed our reward: a scarred metal token. Every morning, we exchanged the token for an extra half-litre of water and a handful of whatever extra food the cooks—fellow holdouts, no less—could spare. Most of the time, it was barely enough to make up for our labour.
Every night, Ruby and I would stagger back to our shack and collapse, too exhausted to make a futile attempt to see Tobe.
‘This is bullshit,’ Ruby said after our seventh or eighth day. ‘I’ve had a gutful.’
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
One day, the door to our shack slammed open and a Creep strode inside. He walked straight over to me, stuck his face into mine, and looked me in the eye.
‘Bill Cook?’ he asked.
‘Um, yeah.’
‘Come with me.’ Without another word, he walked back out the door. ‘Don’t make me ask twice,’ he yelled, his voice echoing down the alley.
‘Looks like someone’s in trouble,’ Ruby said with a frown.
‘She’ll be ‘right.’
I dithered for a moment, decided to do what the Creep said, and hurried after him. Ruby followed, as wary as I was. Not that there was much we could really do if trouble fell upon us.
‘The fun never stops, eh?’
I didn’t laugh.
We silently wound a path through the camp’s shantytown maze, keeping to the alleys, avoiding the market and the square. The Creep began whistling some jaunty tune, incessantly repeating the same few bars. We kept walking. The Creep’s tune slowly started to drive me crazy.
At some point, the alley we were in stopped and we found ourselves looking upon the courthouse.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me …’
The commander was sitting at the top of the stairs, leaning back in some kind of deckchair. Indolently overlooking his domain, all he needed was a gin and tonic to fulfil his civilised-man-in-the-wild fantasies, the Creep standing at his shoulder a fitting analogue for a native with a palm frond. Scorn and a kind of delighted disgust filled me in equal measure.
Ruby took my hand, forcing me to remember how seriously wrong our world was.
‘She’ll be ‘right,’ I said, my mocking smile fading away again.
Once again, I didn’t really believe my own words.
We watched the commander clamber down the stairs to meet us. He moved awkwardly, his body belying a lifetime of desk work. Scorn filled me again. Ruby squeezed my hand. I let my anger go.
‘Bill, Ruby, good afternoon.’ He looked at us like we were walking, talking pieces of meat.
‘What do you want?’ I asked.
Ruby kept silent.
‘Well, if that’s your attitude, I guess we’ll get straight to business.’
‘Come again?’
He smiled patronisingly, making sure that I knew my place. ‘You’ll see.’ He turned away, climbed back up to the stairs.
‘Tobe!’ Ruby couldn’t help herself.
The commander looked over his shoulder. He smiled; I couldn’t read anything in it. We hurried after him. The pair of Creeps that always seemed to be guarding the doors opened them with a flourish that was both deferential and mocking, taking the piss out of the commander in a way that went over his head.
I laughed. It was nice to find that the Creeps and I had something in common.
The commander turned, looked at me darkly. I shrugged. He obviously wanted us upright, I figured that I was safe enough. The commander cleared his throat in an obvious, petulant manner. He walked through the doors, almost tripping on his own feet. Ruby laughed this time, long and hard. For a beautiful moment, life didn’t seem so grim.
‘If you’ll follow me,’ the commander said, trying in vain to retain his dignity.
We left the hot sun behind, entering a lobby of obscene opulence. Every effort had been made to deny the real world, to recreate the past as a grotesque tableau—it was like walking into an antique. Heavy tapestries, wooden-framed paintings and gilt-edged mirrors covered the walls; an island-bar of leather and chrome split the room down the middle; art-deco dining furniture fought with overstuffed lounges for whatever floorspace wasn’t taken up by statues and sculptures.
‘Our mess,’ the commander explained, without a trace of shame or embarrassment.
We weaved through the insulting display of luxury. I felt sickened by such wasteful uselessness, while Ruby seemed largely indifferent, taking it in her stride as she did most everything.
The real reason for her indifference soon became apparent.
‘Come on, hurry up,’ she muttered.
The commander surprisingly did as she said, picking up his pace, leading us into a long corridor lined with faded portraits of presumably long-dead people. Doors lined the corridor: numberless, featureless, closed, and locked. It struck me that no Creeps had followed us inside. I guessed they were needed in the camp; I had never seen more than a few dozen of them at a time.
In the seat of their power, guarding a cripple and a kid hardly seemed necessary. Then it struck me that Ruby and I were alone with the commander.
We hadn’t seen anyone else the whole time, and while Ruby and I might not have posed the greatest physical threat, neither did the commander. I stared at his back, so very tempted. But then I remembered his earlier words, and thought about that great white nothing only a few kilometres away.
I realised how much they depended on us giving up hope.
‘Ah, here we are,’ the commander said, oblivious to my murderous moment, stopping us at one of the unmarked doors.
He took a set of keys from his pocket, fumbled with the lock, threw the door open. He flicked a switch on the wall, illuminating a rough-brick stairwell. We followed a set of rusty stairs down a single flight, stopping at a steel door. The Commander knocked twice, took out his keys, managed to get the door open.
We faced a squat room lined with cells. The single electric bulb shone wan, dim, greasy. A lone Creep sat at a wooden desk, his feet up, and his back to us.
‘Private,’ the commander barked.
The Creep spun in his chair, jumped to his feet, threw the commander a rough salute. ‘Sir.’
‘You’re excused.’
‘Fuck, great.’
The commander frowned, obviously unimpressed by the Creep’s language. ‘Do you enjoy it down here, Private? Or would you rather be working out in the sun?’
The Creep’s face fell.
‘Then you will mind your manners.’ The commander smiled imperiously. It was obscene how much he delighted in lording over his underlings. ‘As I said, you’re excused.’
‘Right, sir, no worries.’ He threw the commander another rough salute as he sauntered out of the room.
‘What the fuck do you want this time?’ someone called out.
It was a hoarse voice that I didn’t recognise
The commander frowned; I guessed that he wasn’t overly welcome in the cell block. I looked for the owner of the voice, couldn’t see anything. The cells were all dark, long, narrow—it was impossible to tell how many of them were occupied.
‘Answer me!’ the voice demanded. ‘What are you waiting for? Bloody Christmas?’
‘Tobe!’ Ruby yelled brightly. She pushed past me to his cell, almost knocking me down.
‘G’day,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’
Same old Tobe, as cool as can be.
‘Yeah, g’day,’ I said, unable to help myself.
Tobe stepped into the light. He looked thin and a little desperate; the Creeps must have been keeping him hungry. He reached through the bars, took my outstretched hand. He let me go, grabbed Ruby by the shoulders, looked her in the eye and smiled wide. She reached through the bars and hugged him as best she could. I just stood there staring.
‘Tobe,’ I finally said, ‘it’s …’ The words caught in my throat. ‘Mate, it’s good to see you.’
‘You too, Bill,’ he said with a gap-toothed smile.
‘Tobe?’ Ruby asked, still holding him tight.
‘Yeah?’
‘Are you coming back with us?’
Tobe laughed grimly. ‘It depends, Ruby. It’s up to our friend there.’ He nodded at the commander, who had been watching us with fascination.
‘Speaking of which,’ the commander said, ‘I think we’d better get to it.’ He looked square at Tobe. ‘Don’t you think, Tobias? Or would you rather have me explain?’
Tobe’s smile disappeared in an instant. He let Ruby go, took a step back, looked at us, looked back at the commander.
‘You gave me your word,’ Tobe said, holding the commander’s gaze.
The commander made an elaborate show of mulling over what Tobe had said. Tobe cursed him under his breath, looked back at us, met Ruby’s eye.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
The commander stepped forward. He pushed me aside, took Ruby’s arm. She snatched it away, scowling at him.
‘It’s okay,’ Tobe said to her. ‘He’s taking you back to the shack so Bill and I can have a chat, that’s all.’
‘Don’t make me go,’ she said quietly, tears welling.
Tobe smiled sadly. ‘It’ll all be over soon. Try and take it easy until then, okay?’
He winked at her. Something seemed to click—she straightened her back, looked him in the eye.
‘Right, boss, right you are.’ She looked up at the commander. ‘Are you coming or what?’
He laughed at her cheek. ‘Very well.’
He turned away, smiling to himself. He stopped at the steel door, took out his keys, fumbled with the lock. Ruby followed. She didn’t say goodbye; she didn’t look back.
‘Have fun,’ the commander yelled as he slammed the door behind him.