Charlie left Broome on the coaster he had expected would carry Wendy and himself to Perth, to their new life. Because this should have been their journey and was not, he had her unquiet presence with him all the way. He could not wait to leave the ship and lose himself in the vast continent he sensed spreading out before him.
Perth itself would not do. It was too close to Broome. He needed the catharsis of a long journey to help him break through into the new life that had somehow to be found.
The Cloud Forest, he told himself. The refuge on top of the mountain, the idea of it, drew him. Perhaps there he would find healing.
How to get there was another matter. He had virtually no money. No problem; his mind was made up. By whatever means was possible, he would go.
Charlie had barely scratched the edge of the country when he realised that a train was the only realistic way to do it, assuming he wanted to have any feet left by the time he reached the east coast.
He came to a railway halt on the edge of the desert. There was a big shed standing beside the rails that disappeared over the eastern horizon. There was a bloke with a hat and battered boots waiting in the shade of the shed. He had a swag with him. It was small and didn’t look as though it had much in it. He was sitting easy, legs stretched out and his bum in the dirt, which couldn’t have been doing his pants much good; not that they’d been much to begin with, by the look of them. The stranger gave him an appraising scrutiny.
‘Waitin’ for the train?’
Charlie wasn’t prepared to say whether he was or not. ‘What time’s it come through?’
‘’Bout nine.’ Five hours. The other man looked at him. ‘What’s that accent? You some kind of foreigner?’
‘My dad was an Australian. Died in the war. My mother is French.’
‘I could tell.’ Charlie wondered if he planned to make something of it, but he didn’t seem to care. ‘Don’ have no baccy, I suppose?’
‘Sorry.’ He had the makings in his pocket but wasn’t about to share them with this stranger, certainly not until he knew him a good deal better than he did at the moment. He gestured with his chin at the rails disappearing into the haze. ‘Used to this, are you?’
‘Done it before, all right. You?’
‘First time.’
‘Lucky you come across me then. I’ll put you right, no worries.’
The train drew in a little after nine: a locomotive hauling two passenger cars and a long line of closed trucks. Charlie and Doug, his new friend, watched from the rear of the shed. Two dismal lights hung above the track; otherwise all was black. The red glare of the coalbox reflected from the engine smoke as a handful of people got off. Some freight was dumped beside the rails.
Charlie made to get up, but Doug put his hand on his arm.
‘Wait …’
‘What if it leaves without us?’
‘It won’t.’
What they were waiting for Charlie couldn’t see, but he was prepared to be guided. In any case, he soon found out. A portly little bloke in a uniform, hat perched like a pimple on the top of his head, came strutting down the line of wagons: lep ri’, lep ri’, Mr Self-Important himself. He had a long wooden switch in his hand and a torch that he shone under each car in turn.
‘What’s he up to?’
‘Looking for blokes like us.’
‘What for?’
‘So he can chuck ’em off. Get the blues on them, maybe. Makes that sorta bloke feel good, pulling tricks like that.’
The strutting little man found no one. No doubt disappointed, he went back to the guard van. With the end of his switch he decapitated a wildflower growing beside the track. Take that! Maybe it made him feel better.
The engine whistled. The train stirred uneasily in a clank of steel buffers and began to move.
‘Come on!’
They ran forward. The sliding gate of one of the cars was ajar. Doug gripped the handrail, swung himself up and squeezed through the opening. Charlie followed. It was dark inside, with the faint smell of machine oil. From somewhere, Doug produced a torch. The light played on the shining surface of what looked like portable generators.
‘Plenty of room,’ said Doug.
‘What if that bloke saw us?’
The train had gathered speed. Beyond the door, before Doug pulled it shut, Charlie caught a last glimpse of telegraph poles speeding past in the darkness. Doug sat down on a piece of sacking, leaning his back against the side of the truck.
‘Can’ do much about it now, can he?’
‘And the next stop?’
‘Any luck, that won’t be for a couple o’ hundred miles. Maybe longer. Time enough to worry about it then.’
They dozed through the night. When it started to grow light, Doug pulled back the door an inch or two. They looked out. In the pre-dawn light, the flat land through which they were travelling seemed endless, utterly without feature. The sky was clear, the air cold as it blew through the opening. Doug shivered and pulled the door shut again.
‘Got any grub?’ Doug asked.
‘Bit of bread and cheese. Want some?’
They munched companionably.
‘How far is it?’
‘Depends where you’re goin’.’
‘I’m heading for Queensland.’
Even to say the name gave him a tremor of excitement, as though it brought closer the place that had been the focus of his secret dreams for so long. Grief over Wendy’s loss remained but the past was the past.
Doug’s voice brought him back to earth. ‘Not in this train you’re not.’
‘Where’s it going?’
‘Sydney, any luck. What you wanner go to Queensland for? Nuthin up there but sugar cane, and that’s bloody hard yakker. They got that Weil’s Disease up there, too. Keep clear of the cane fields is my advice to you. Leave it to the Kanakas.’
‘I’m looking for something.’
The strengthening light was beginning to seep into the truck. For the first time Charlie took a proper look at his companion. Doug was older than he’d thought, his face eroded by years of wind and weather. Beneath the hat that he still wore pulled low over his face, his hair showed white.
‘Something? Or someone?’
‘Something. A place my dad found.’
Doug’s eyes watched from the shadow of his hat. ‘What’s there?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘You’re goin’ all the way to Queensland and you’re not sure? You any idea how far it is?’
Put like that, it certainly sounded crazy.
‘You wanner stay in Sydney,’ Doug told him. ‘Tabbigai Cliffs, just south of Cape Solander, that’s the place. A bloke I know’s got a place there, cut out of the cliff. Step out the door and you’re in the sea, hundred foot straight down! He’s a good bloke. Rough as rats, but who cares about that? Tell him I sent you, he’ll make you feel at home. Plenty of food, too, if you don’t mind fish. A sight better than Queensland, I promise you.’
But Charlie’s mind was made up. ‘I’ll be going on,’ he said.
‘Suit yourself.’ Doug shifted his buttocks on the steel floor of the speeding wagon and gave Charlie a quizzical look. ‘You’re a Frog, you say?’
‘My mother is French. My father was Australian.’
Doug tipped his hat over his eyes. ‘Frog mother. Maybe that accounts for it.’
It was midmorning when the train began to slow.
Doug scrambled to his feet. ‘Get your boots on!’
They jumped off just before a crest, rolling down the embankment, arms and legs everywhere. When they’d pulled themselves together they climbed back up to the top of the embankment in time to see the train draw to a stop at a little place with a siding and a grain silo, with a gantry sticking out from it, maybe ten or fifteen feet above the track. That was it; no other buildings, nothing in sight in any direction.
‘There’s got to be a town or something!’
‘There will be.’
‘Why so far from the train?’
‘The town was already there before the track was built. It runs in a straight line, see? Wouldn’t do to be zigzagging all over the place. The locals want the train, they got to take a drive.’
‘So far away!’
‘Not really. This part of the world, they think a hundred miles is next door.’
The train had barely stopped when they saw the guard, switch flailing, come chasing down the side of the wagons.
Doug chortled delightedly. ‘Lookin’ for us. Must’ve seen us, after all.’
They watched gleefully while the guard searched and seached. Eventually, disappointed, he gave up and went stamping back down the train. Even from here they could feel his fury.
‘Real crook,’ said Doug. ‘Come on.’
He didn’t wait for Charlie but leapt to his feet and began to run flat out, with Charlie on his heels wondering, Now what?
Smoke jetted from the funnel. The engine whistled. Doug reached the silo and began to clamber up the steel ladder to the gantry. As he reached it, the train began to move.
No time for explanations. He reached the end of the gantry, waited a moment to steady himself and dropped onto the roof of the moving wagon beneath him. Charlie shut his eyes. I got to be mad. But followed, hanging from his arms and letting himself go. For an instant the air flew past, then he was down, skidding on the wagon’s roof in a clatter of boots. He came to a stop and opened his eyes. Still in one piece.
From the next wagon Doug waved.
Charlie thought of jumping across to join him. He inched to the end of the wagon and looked at the distance between the two, the blur of the track below him, the occasional silver flash of the razor-sharp wheels, and thought again. It was pretty exposed, even where he was, but he’d be better off staying put.
He settled down as best he could, while the wheels sang their iron song, the ground sped past and the featureless land unfolded, unchanging yet enigmatic.
Slowly the day drew on, while the train continued its dogged journey eastwards. It was hot up here; then, as evening drew on, cold. It was uncomfortable all the time, but at least they were getting there. Getting somewhere. In the last of the light he looked about him. From the appearance of the landscape, they might have been standing still all day.
At the front of the train, the engine wailed. Smoke blew back. He made himself as comfortable as he could on the hard metal roof and fell asleep.
He woke to find the train stopped, a light shining in his face, a harsh voice ordering him to get the hell out of there. Now!
Not knowing what was going on, he climbed down. God, he was stiff.
‘Get a move on!’ A clip round the head to go with it. ‘We’re about sick of youse blokes!’
He bunched his fists. ‘You hang on a minute!’
‘Or you’ll do what?’ Something large and pointed thumped him in the middle of the chest. ‘Eh?’ Thump. ‘Eh?’ Thump.
Whoever he was, he was a big bloke. He moved, the light fell on a uniformed sleeve and Charlie understood. A cop. And he’d been that close to belting him.
He glanced around but could see no sign of Doug, who was obviously a lot smarter than he was.
‘He’s one of the men who boarded east of Perth.’ A new voice, prissy, tight with outrage: the guard, puffed-up face to go with his puffed-up manner, a bristling moustache.
‘Wanner lay charges?’ the cop wondered.
That was a different matter. ‘Mustn’t delay the train.’
‘Better forget it then.’
The bully-boy cop didn’t sound as though he thought much of the guard, either. Maybe he didn’t like anybody, which would probably make his job easier. He turned back to Charlie.
‘You ’n’ me need a chat.’ He walked a little way up the track and waited, thumping his truncheon — so that was what it had been! — in his hand while he looked back at Charlie, standing all of a heap in a cloud of steam.
He played with the idea of staying put but knew he’d only get a clout if the cop had to come back for him. Took his time joining him, all the same.
‘Disappointed in you,’ said the cop. ‘For a moment I hoped I was going to have to come and fetch you. I’d have enjoyed that.’
He waited but Charlie said nothing.
They watched as the train pulled out.
‘Well, what d’you know? Looks like I made you miss your train. Sorry about that, Wally.’
Silence.
‘Cat got your tongue? Back there, I thought you wanted to take a swing at me. Don’t let me stop you, mate.’
‘And you with a club in your hand.’
‘Darn right I got a club in my hand. I’ll use it too. Don’t you forget that. Now, what we going to do with you?’
‘Arrest me, why doncha?’ At least it would be a night in a bed, with maybe even a breakfast at the end of it.
‘And tell my missus she’s got a meal to cook? No bloody way! Reckon you can just get lost.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Lemme spell it out for you. It means you keep moving. Got it? I see you agen, I’ll knock the shit outa you.’
‘Where’s the town?’
‘Don’ even think of it,’ the cop told him.