IT HAD BEEN Erica’s idea to bring a thermos of tea. Along with the scarf and the coat with deep pockets – it’s what you did when you left the city in a car. If she owned a travelling rug she would have thrown it onto the back seat too.
‘As well,’ she said without turning her head, ‘I have a slice of ginger cake.’
‘Sometimes I wish I had your practical mind,’ Sophie gave a comfortable stretch. ‘It would make my life that much easier. Although, kindly look at me: I shouldn’t be having a single calorie of anything.’
It took a while to find a suitable spot, a matter of avoiding ditches and slopes and gates. On the one hand they didn’t want an open space, where they’d be the only visible things in it, and yet too many trees close to the road gave them no space at all. Sophie said it was worse than buying clothes. They could have gone on for hours, never quite satisfied, until they both agreed on a single white gum tree and, although obviously not perfect, Erica braked hard, and skidded to stop near it.
At intervals a car passed and enveloped them in a system of metallic rubber rattling, vibrations.
Erica sat with the door open, holding the cup in both hands; she had her feet on the ground. Opposite was an old wooden farmhouse surrounded by dozens of rusting agricultural implements which appeared as gigantic, disabled insects. She had looked up and gazed at them. Under the Brittle Gum, Sophie’s Italian ankle boots made a racket on the strips of dry bark littering the ground, for in new surroundings she liked to pace backwards and forwards.
Following Sophie’s restlessness, Erica tried to imagine her stillness and patience, hour after hour, in her work. How could she do it? Only a person with a certain psychological necessity could submit.
Sophie had stopped moving. ‘We must be in the country. Here comes a man on a horse, behind you.’
Erica could have reached out and touched it. It was a solid living mass, dark tan and glossy, here and there quivering, as it trod daintily. Jogging ahead was the man’s kelpie, tongue hanging out, as if searching for water.
With all the space in the world, out in the wide open country, the man and his brown horse had come between the car and Sophie, two women, who were being crowded out. Peevishly, Erica decided he could have used the other side of the road.
The horse and rider stopped. Affecting a laborious style the man dismounted and came towards them, the women looking up at him.
As soon as the hat came off he looked ordinary. Vertical lines on his forehead and running down from his eyes traced the nation’s crows, creekbeds, the salt plain, and tightened his mouth. His green shirt was stained, the pocket where he kept his smokes falling apart.
Indicating with his hat he said, ‘You won’t be getting far on that one.’
Sophie slipped into a little girl’s voice, without being quite aware of it. If it was meant to make the stranger stronger it made this one crouch further over the tyre. Erica watched. Could they at least hold something or pass a spanner? Not very talkative. Already he had jacked up the back and with fat fingers fiddled with the nuts, hardly a fumble. It was a strain squatting on his haunches, two women looking at him from behind. He cleared his throat. ‘They call the tree you’re standing under the widow-maker. A branch is liable to land on the head.’
What’s he telling us that for?
‘Then it’s curtains,’ he said wiping his hands on his trousers.
Sophie was reaching out to the horse. ‘What do you call him? He’s not going to bite, is he?’ This particular man she was approaching through his horse; it was as if Erica, her friend, wasn’t there. Veins were bulging on his neck as he tightened the last of the wheel nuts, which allowed him to get moving and not say another word.