 
Focus 2012: highlights of Australian short fiction

Compiled by Tehani Wessely

Smashwords Edition

Individual stories and artwork copyright © to the respective creators

ISBN: 978-0-9922844-2-8

This anthology © FableCroft Publishing 2013

http://fablecroft.com.au

Cover artwork by Kathleen Jennings

Cover design by Tehani Wessely

Design and layout by Tehani Wessely

The moral right of the authors has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry  
Title: Focus 2012: highlights of Australian short fiction / Tehani Wessely.  
ISBN: 9780992284428 (ebook)  
Subjects: Short stories, Australian—21st century.  
Other Authors/Contributors: Wessely, Tehani, editor.  
Dewey Number: A823.4

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

# TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The Wisdom of Ants by Thoraiya Dyer

Kathleen Jennings – 2012 Cover Art

The Mornington Ride by Jason Nahrung

Significant Dust by Margo Lanagan

Kathleen Jennings – Illustration Friday

Birthday Suit by Martin Livings

Kathleen Jennings – the Dalek Game

Sanaa's Army by Joanne Anderton

Escena de un Asesinato by Robert Hood

Kathleen Jennings – Commissions

Sky by Kaaron Warren

About the Contributors...

Also from FableCroft Publishing...

#  INTRODUCTION

Every year around the globe there are numerous peer-voted and jury-judged awards that celebrate published short fiction. In Australia, in the speculative fiction arena alone, we have a handful across the genres, both national and state-based, and this expands throughout the world, where Australian work is frequently recognised on the international awards scene.

In addition to annual awards, several Year's Best anthologies are published annually, focusing on Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction in various combinations. These anthologies are excellent for the reader who likes to cherry pick their short fiction, and are staples of the field.

In the Focus series, we are combining both these ideas. With the framework of annual awards shortlists to inform us, we have drawn together the most critically acclaimed Australian speculative fiction of the year into one volume. Each story appearing here has won or been shortlisted for a prestigious short speculative fiction award. With this inaugural book, we showcase the crème de la crème of Australian writing for 2012, accentuated by the marvellous artwork of the multi-award winning Kathleen Jennings.

Australian speculative fiction writers are making their presence known on the world stage—in Focus 2012, we offer you their best. Enjoy!

Tehani Wessely

October 2013

#  The Wisdom of Ants by Thoraiya Dyer

"The Wisdom of Ants" was first published at Clarkesworld (12/12). The story won both the Ditmar Award for Best Short Story and the Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Short Story.

The sound of something flailing in the soft sludge distracted me and my bare foot slipped on the thin, bowed branch.

The branch cracked. I fell.

As I plunged shoulder-deep into fetid sink-silt, I had time to think, I'm not fit to take Mother's place, before the arboreal ants' nest I'd been reaching for dropped after me, cracking open on my upturned face.

The copper and iron in the dilly bags at my waist dragged me down, deeper than I could have gone down alone. I clenched everything, crying silently, bearing the pain of the bites without opening my eyes or mouth until the silt closed over my head and the ants began drowning.

I could hold my breath longer than they could.

Eventually, with stale air burning in my lungs, I reached overhead, breaking the surface of the tidal flat while my scissoring legs created a water-filled space, reducing the suction. My fingers found the arched stilt-roots of the mangrove tree I'd been climbing and I pulled myself slowly, laboriously out of the muck.

There was a thin layer of briny water on top of the silt. My arm and back muscles burned, but I skimmed some water for washing my face, which was already beginning to swell.

The bites didn't burn as badly as my pride.

Everybody will see them!

Mother would see, and I didn't even have the prize to show for it. The ants' nest, made of mangrove leaves cemented with larval silk, with its core of precious gold metal, was now lost in the mud. Only floating leaves and gold-ant corpses were left behind. At least my bag belt had held; at least I hadn't lost the whole day's forage.

Nosey, the yellow hunting dog who had found the nest for me, whined softly from his seat on a stilt platform of mangrove roots and flotsam. The sunset behind him gave him a florescent pink aura.

"Sorry, Nosey," I said quietly. His reward was usually chunks of ant larvae and the salty-sweet jelly that surrounded the metal core. "Did you hear that sound, though?"

Nosey tilted his long face to one side. He had a blind eye and worn-down teeth. His hearing wasn't that great, but his nose still worked.

The sound had come from downwind.

I hugged a tree trunk and, trying to make up for my earlier impatience, expanded my awareness. Sharks wouldn't come into the mangroves, risking entrapment and death. Nor would crocodiles, unable to navigate the maze of aerial roots. If the wallowing animal was one of the Island People coming to trade, they had missed the beach camp by about two kilometres and I hadn't heard the distinctive whirr of their heli.

If it was wireminds, perhaps my noisy fall had frightened them away.

I shivered.

If it was wireminds, perhaps they killed all the Island People, and there will be no trade, no whirring heli, ever again.

Once again, I berated myself: Mother would never think that way. It was probably an eagle taking a fish! The Island People are due in four days.

The Island People.

We called them Balanda, once. Five hundred years ago they stole our land. Two hundred years ago, they gave it back. Except for Shark Island, which they said was strategic and necessary for them to protect us from the wireminds that lived across the sea.

Ten years ago, though, when the wireminds invaded from the other direction, the Island People were helpless to stop them. All of our initiated men gathered up their explosive-tipped spears and returning EMP boomerangs and went to fight.

None of the men came back. Not my father and not my mother's brother. I was one of the oldest children and I remember the weeping.

The wireminds temporarily won for themselves what they thought was isolated territory, free of the modified, metal-mining ants that had ravaged the rest of the world. They saw us and thought we were proof. Little did they know we had been living with the ants for decades, that we were skilled in keeping our few precious electronic devices safe from them.

Ants ate the wiremind shelters, their vehicles, exoskeletons and communications devices. They ate their wristwatches. Their boot buckles. When the soldiers lay down to sleep, they were woken by ants trying to bore through their skulls to get at the metal implants inside.

Cut off from their commanders, they were too afraid of us to ask for help. Or perhaps they thought they had killed us all. They starved, died of exposure or poisoned themselves unknowingly with the flesh of native animals.

For our land and seas were polluted with pesticides that had failed to stop the relentless march of the ants. Every animal that survived had adapted by sequestering or becoming resistant to the toxins. We could only eat the animals ourselves because of the vials of gut bacteria constantly supplied to us by the Island People in exchange for metallic gold, silver, copper and iron. The island that they had kept was their only refuge, their southern heartland destroyed, fallen into lawlessness.

Just as I was about to give up and return to the beach camp, I heard the noise again from the direction of open water.

With my hand, I gave Nosey the signal to circle behind prey; he went away silently, paddy paws light on the stilt-roots.

Camouflaged by my coating of mud, I went in a straight line toward the source of the sound.

It was a tall, skinny woman dragging a pair of pressurised gas tanks behind her. A pair of flippers were abandoned far behind her, where it seemed they'd become a liability in the mud, but she persisted with the bulky metal cylinders, though she must have known they would attract ants.

She was pale, not from breeding, I thought, but from being kept in the dark. Her head was shaved. A square electronic device was strapped to her chest over the top of a soggy, sack-like smock. Bra straps stuck out over her shoulders. Her exposed arms were covered in fresh insect bites. Older bites on her legs were turned to weeping, mud-smeared sores.

"This is Clan territory," I said, and she jolted feverishly as though ants had already started eating her bra wire. "Are you lost?"

I saw Nosey cut off her retreat to the ocean, sniffing interestedly at her flippers.

"I got to find Rivers-of-Milk," she gasped, naming the one who was birth mother to me and spiritual mother to the Clan.

"I am Quiet-One," I said.

"You're her daughter, then."

"You know me? What else do you know about us?"

She laughed crazily.

"I know you have vials of bacteria. I know that you trade for them. My name is Muhsina. They sterilised my gut as punishment. If you don't help me, I'll die."

#####

Fires flickered on the beach.

Rivers-of-Milk stood with her hunting dog, Bloodmuzzle, beneath the safe tree, where dilly bags of metals were hung like sparkling fruit.

Each time we moved camp, a tree was chosen that harboured nests of fierce, meat-eating green ants. Green ants could not prevail over the metal-mining ants for more than a season; they had monstrous, crushing, acid-oozing mandibles, but their numbers were too small.

Still, it was only a few days until the trade tide, and then our small guardians would no longer be needed. Children caught crickets and cicadas and pinned them to the bark of high branches to keep the green ants moving up and down the trunk, hyper-alert for intruders from any rival nest.

Nosey ran straight over to Bloodmuzzle and started licking his shit-caked anus. Bloodmuzzle did the same to Nosey. Dogs were disgusting. The shaved-headed woman, Muhsina, shadowed me. I'd helped tie her tanks to a mangrove tree and submerge them so that ants wouldn't get them.

Mother accepted my mud-stinking bags. She didn't mention my stung face. Her encouraging smile was the same whether I brought great chunks of metal or none at all, but eating me inside was the drive to deliver, just once, more metal than she had gathered herself.

To prove myself.

Skink's mother, Brushfire, felt no need to be encouraging. The plump little woman leaned over to peer at the bags—her eyesight was failing—and cackled,

"Not even enough for a full vial, girl. You want us hungry. You want to be Rivers-of-Milk yourself. Ha ha ha!"

Skink would be my husband when he became an initiated man. He hid behind his mother's legs now, a twelve year old boy with long eyelashes.

Skink and I had no need to drink the vials of bacteria. The Island People said that sometimes, with children, the intestinal environment was suitable for the bacteria to breed by themselves.

Whatever that meant.

The point was, if we didn't have metals to trade, it would be the adults who starved to death.

I felt conscious of Muhsina close by me. She had not said whether she would require a single vial in order to survive, or repeated doses.

The cooking smells were distracting and had to be making Muhsina's mouth water. Poison toad, poison croc and poison barracuda; they roasted on long spits over the fires, but Muhsina could not eat, not without first drinking a vial, and only my mother could grant one to her.

"What is your story, Island Woman?" Rivers-of-Milk asked, beckoning to Muhsina.

Muhsina's exhausted, shambling shape moved around me, to sit at my mother's feet in supplication.

"My name is Muhsina," she said. "They said I was crazy, but I'm not crazy. People scare me sometimes, that's what. Lots of people all in one place, breathing on me like wasp stings. All those women in the same room as me, sleeping, sucking up my oxygen, I had to kill them. It's better out here."

"Of course it is," my mother said without blinking. "Why did you take so long to come?"

"'Cause I'll die, that's what. After I killed those others, they put in a stomach tube and flushed me out with antibiotics. Left me in hospital to starve to death, but after I'd been starving for a while, I could fit through the bars. Didn't think of that, did they? Stole the thing that the net-divers use, the thing that makes the electrical signature of the mother of all sharks. Kept me safe as far as the mainland."

"You asked for me by name."

"I heard them talking about you. Said you hid in the bushes and watched while all those metalminds starved, because you had no mercy for them not of your own kind."

"The metalminds killed our men."

"And I killed Island People, and you've got a treaty with them. Are you gonna let me starve? Because to me, Rivers-of-Milk is the name of a woman who feeds starving people."

Rivers-of-Milk put her hand on Bloodmuzzle's head, smoothing one silken ear.

"This dog serves the Clan and I feed him. How will you serve, Muhsina?"

"Information," Muhsina said with a glint in her eye. "And then I'll be gone. Over the mountains and west. You'll never see me again. You'll never need to worry if I'll bring harm to your young ones, because I'll be gone away forever."

"Give her a vial," Rivers-of-Milk said to Skink, who scrambled immediately up the tree to fetch one.

And because we had saved her, Muhsina told us everything she knew, in the firelight, as we ate poison toad, poison croc and poison barramundi.

She told us more than we wanted to know about what the Island People had done with all of the metals we had given them.

#####

In the morning, I helped my mother prepare for the ceremony.

Muhsina was already gone and my mind was with spinning with all that she had said.

While Rivers-of-Milk made the sweet sugar-cane water intended to fill the drinker with the wisdom of birds, I ground drowned green ants between two rocks to make the citrus-acid water that filled the drinker with the wisdom of ants. Brushfire beat a malleable golden ant-core into the shape of a metal flame, fixing it in place of a spear-tip on a long, hardwood haft, and Skink prepared strips of dried turtle and shark meat, saying the words over them so they would give the eater the wisdom of reptiles and the wisdom of fish, respectively.

"How can it be true," I blurted at last, "that the Island People can manufacture a great wave, a great flood, such as the one Muhsina described?"

"It is a great stupidity," my mother said angrily. "Their machine will drown all of us but it will not drown the ants. Water will cover us but it will not cover the high mountains. The ants will come back, worse than before. Do they not know that mountain ants eat through living flesh to reach the minerals in bones? That they build their nests around white, bony cores? If the Island People kill the gold ants and the silver ants and the copper ants, the bone ants will come."

"The madwoman lied to us," Brushfire scoffed. "There will be no wave. If the Island People are so clever why do they need to wait for the wet season before unleashing this great wave? Why not do it now? We need do nothing, Freshwater."

Freshwater was my mother's name before she became leader. Before she became Rivers-of-Milk. Brushfire shouldn't have called her that.

"I must ask for guidance," was all my mother said.

"Let me help you with that, Mother," I said, wanting to show her that I paid attention, that I remembered how to make the bird drink. I took the rest of the cane from her.

"You look too ugly for my son," Brushfire said to me. "Your face tells me that you have the wisdom of ants already!"

"The pelican is my sister," I said, naming my spirit animal, thinking furiously: It will be the wisdom of birds that we need. The pelican flies far inland to nest. We should go far inland, where the wave will not reach us.

We should go where Muhsina went. Over the mountains and west.

#####

When night fell, fifty-seven warm bodies gathered around the fire.

Fifty-seven members of my great family began to sing, tossing dried coconut palm fronds into the flame to feed it.

I stared across at my mother, imagining I was her. When Skink became a man and I became his wife, all of my mother's tasks would become mine.

Her chin was lifted. Eyes lidded. Hands outstretched. She was our protector. She was our mother.

I was so hypnotised by her that I didn't even see the golden flame fall. Didn't know which direction it had shown to her until her lips moved.

"What we need is the wisdom of ants," she said, lifting the wooden bowl full of the elixir I had prepared. She sipped from it and passed the bowl to Brushfire, who sat beside her.

Because I watched her so closely, I saw the flicker of fear on her face.

I was shocked to realise she didn't know what to say next.

The spirits had not spoken to her.

I felt in that moment I left childhood behind, though it was some time since I'd become a woman. The wisdom of ants which we waited for was nothing but my mother's own wisdom. It fell to her alone to decide whether Muhsina was lying or whether the Island People had betrayed us; whether we could trust them and continue trading with them or whether they would use a machine made of copper, iron, silver and gold to make an underwater earthquake and an unprecedented tidal wave in the hope that the mainland could be made safe for their growing numbers and their metal-loving way of life.

"The ants that live by freshwater," my mother said, "build their leaf-nests high in the branches of trees. When the wet season raises the water level, the nests stay safe. The ants teach us that the trees are safe. When we go to the forest camp for the wet season, we will build wooden platforms high in the trees. They will keep us safe when the wave comes."

"And the Island People?" Brushfire demanded. "Will we continue to trade with them?"

"We will give them no more metals," my mother answered calmly. "Ants keep their gold and silver safe, close to their hearts. We shall do the same."

Fifty-seven warm bodies leaped to their feet, roaring in outrage. It was my mother's death sentence. It meant the death of half the Clan.

In all the commotion, I felt Skink's hand sneaking into my palm and gripping tight.

I squeezed his hand in return without looking at him. He would be shamed if anybody noticed his need for comfort, his future wife included. My heart thudded. I realised that my mother did not trust the Island People; had never trusted them, though they had kept us alive all this time with their magical vials.

"Come here, Quiet-One," Rivers-of-Milk commanded, and I quickly detached my hand and fell to the sand at my mother's feet. She took the glass bottle that had hung on a cord around her neck since the men had gone away, and put it around my neck. "I give up the name Rivers-of-Milk. It is yours, now. I am Freshwater. I will take no more food from the Clan. I have died. I will go to the sea caves."

I stared at her, rivers of tears flowing down my cheeks.

That is the new name I deserve: Rivers-of-Tears.

Rivers-of-Mud.

Rivers-of-Bodies, drowned in the flood, if I make poor decisions for the Clan.

I reached for her, but she could not take my hand. She was gone; dead. She had said the words. Without trade, there would be no more vials, and instead of starving horrifically in front of the children, my mother and the other women would, instead, leave us with untarnished memories by starving alone in the caves.

She made the motion with her hand for Bloodmuzzle to stay behind, and his plaintive whimper was the whimper I wanted to make.

Don't leave me, I begged her with my eyes in silence, but she turned and walked away.

Brushfire's teeth were bared in fury, but she spat,

"I have died. I will go to the sea caves."

She turned on her heel to follow Freshwater into darkness. I remembered my mother eating ant-jelly in secret; she was supposed to give it to the dog but she couldn't help eating it herself. I remembered Brushfire, talking to her husband's totem, the turtle, telling it how much she missed him every day.

When Brushfire caught up with Freshwater, she struck her old friend, hard, on the back of the head, but it didn't matter what dead people did; they couldn't be acknowledged by the living. One by one, the women said the words and went away from the fire, until there was nobody left but crying children and me. I was technically a woman but had been a child at heart until only a moment past.

The bottle. I wrapped my palm around the glass. My mother had carried it since the warriors went away to die. Inside, a tiny, solar-powered voice recorder, sealed in black plastic, floated in seawater that would keep it safe from ants until the time came for Skink's initiation. The voice of my mother's dead brother would tell Skink what to do.

"I will take care of you," I said to the children. Some of them stopped crying, but most of them had to be pushed away by the dead people they were trying to cling to.

It felt stupid. I couldn't take care of them. I wanted to give Skink the bottle right now and send him away for his initiation. He would come back to us with a new name, Blood-of-the-Shark, and it would be his responsibility to see that the Clan obeyed the wisdom of the ant, that safe tree-houses were built when we moved to the forest camp.

I looked around at what was left of us, twenty-eight little bodies around a smouldering beach fire, and I realised that a bunch of children could never build wooden platforms in high treetops. We were small and still-growing.

We were weak.

"Skink, help me put them to bed," I begged, and we tucked the other children into their bark tents and shushed them until they stopped crying and fell asleep. I tried not to think of all the mothers at the caves, in blackness, sitting in sand, watching the waves that would soon wash their spirits back out to sea, to the place where spirits came from.

The wisdom of ants.

"Two days until the Island People come," Skink said as we banked the fire.

"Do you think I should trade with them?" I asked him at once. If I could get more vials, the mothers wouldn't have to die. I could save them. They're dead, but I'm Rivers-of-Milk, now. I could give life back to them! Just this once, I could deliver something better than my mother delivered. Life, instead of death.

"Ask the ants, I suppose," Skink shrugged. "I suppose we won't kill those ants anymore."

"Why not?"

"They're like a totem for the Clan, aren't they?"

"The totem for the Clan is the shark. We still kill sharks."

"Only when making new men."

And I saw his mouth firm with determination, and felt shame at my cowardice at wanting to pass my burden on to this brave, shy little boy.

The wisdom of ants.

"Maybe you're right," I said slowly. "Maybe we shouldn't kill them any more. Maybe we should even protect them from the Island People."

"How?" Skink wanted to know.

"Take care of the others," I told Skink. "Keep Bloodmuzzle with you. I'll come back in two days. I'll be here when the Island People come. Don't be afraid. And don't let any of the children join the dead."

#####

The first day, I waited in mud.

Muhsina's metal tanks were buried in mud except for the thin metal rims and twin openings at the top. It only took two hours for the first, fresh-hatched silver-ant-queen to arrive, with a cadre of winged workers, also fresh-hatched, to help her begin construction of a new nest.

The tang of metal had induced the nearby nest to divide. It had drawn the new queen.

As soon as she and her workers moved into the tank, I leaped up and flung enough ant-jelly on top of them to trap them in the bottom of the tank, followed by two handfuls of mangrove muck to make sure they didn't eat through the jelly and escape. I put the tank seals on before digging the tanks out and moving to a new place on the tidal flat.

Nosey sniffed out a new nest for me within minutes. This one was copper-ants. I re-buried the tanks at the base of the tree where the nest was, and waited for another queen to be hatched.

By nightfall, the sealed tank contained twenty new ant queens.

I shouldered the tanks as the moon rose over the sea and the incoming tide lapped at the flippers on my feet. Jelly and trapped air would keep the queens alive. I had until sunrise before the earliest-caught ants, energised by the rich jelly, breached the metal of the tank.

"You think the tank metal is a treat?" I whispered to the ants as I waded into the water, the shark-signal device strapped to my chest, already activated. "Just wait until you get to the Island."

I swam out to sea, green turtles lolling in the water on either side of me, mistaking me for some monstrous relative, showing no fear. We came to the surface together to breathe, emptying capacious lungs and drinking air from sweet darkness before diving again.

#####

There was a net.

Muhsina had not mentioned how she'd passed it.

In the moonlight, I'd seen the floats on the surface, forming a ring around Shark Island. I'd seen razor wire gleaming under the sweep of spotlights, mounted on the Island's stone towers beside guns of terrible range and accuracy.

When I went to swim under, the net caught and held me by the left arm and left leg. I hadn't seen it. I had no shell blade with me, and if I had, it wouldn't have been sharp enough to cut the plastic rope.

I tried to relax my body; to behave as I might if I was caught in mangrove sludge.

Think.

Conserve energy.

There will be no more oxygen unless you think of a way to get free!

A spotlight brightened the water around me.

For an instant, I saw the bodies of dead sharks trapped in the net.

Shark Island.

The totem for the Clan is the shark.

My body felt numb; I didn't know if it was because I was drowning or because I finally knew what I must do to escape the net. I took the glass bottle around my neck and smashed it against the metal tanks.

I had no spare hand to catch the voice recorder as it floated away; I could only grip tight to the neck of the bottle. With the broken glass, I sheared quickly and easily through the net.

Surfacing on the other side was like walking into the death caves. I had killed the Clan. Skink and the other young boys could never become men. There would be no more children.

I tried my best not to bawl as I swam the rest of the way to the Island. I should never have come. Everything was ruined. The mothers had sacrificed themselves for nothing.

When I reached the fortified shores, it was as though the shark spirit whose egg-casing had become Shark Island sought to comfort me. Swinging spotlights missed me by hand's-breadths. By chance, I'd come aground by a concrete pipe that dribbled effluent, and was able to climb inside.

I crawled up the pipe until I came to a plastic grate, which I smashed with the heavy weight of the tanks and passed through into a room full of glass stills, vials and wooden racks. There was a ceramic jar of sea salt and a stack of cut cane.

The blackness was held at bay only by the red light on my shark-mimicking device which flashed when it was operational. I used the tiny guide to escape the still-room into a stairwell that led up to a walled vegetable garden.

With the last of my strength, I buried the tanks in the brown, sewer-smelling soil of the garden, re-planted two rows of carrots on top, then crawled back into the stairwell to fall asleep in the muck at the bottom.

"I'm sorry, Skink," I whispered in the dark, my heart broken all over again.

#####

When I woke, ants were crawling on the device still strapped to me.

Stifling a shout, I crushed out the lives of three little workers. They were my allies, but I needed the device to get home. My face was crusted with mud and still swollen from earlier bites. It felt like lifetimes since I'd brought my meagre bounty back to my mother, Muhsina in tow.

I heard voices from the still-room. Risked a look through the light-filled crack of the closed door.

A man in a clean, white coat was pulling folded white napkins, soiled with what looked and smelled like baby-shit, from a white plastic bag. A second man was scraping the shit off the napkins with a wooden spoon.

He mixed it in a large beaker with water, squeezing fresh sugar cane juice into the water, adding a pinch of salt and the yolk of an egg.

Then, he divided the mixture amongst twenty vials, stoppered them with sugar cane pith, and packed them into the loops of a belt I had seen many times before.

"Incubator's down," he said to the other man, laughing. "Body heat will do."

I retreated to the stairwell.

Though it was still dark under there, I wondered that my bare hands weren't made incandescent by my anger. It was shit; the precious vials that we bartered for were nothing but baby shit in salty sugar-water.

The Island People said that sometimes, with children, the intestinal environment was suitable for the bacteria to breed by themselves.

And the meaning, which had seemed so mysterious before, resolved itself in my understanding. All that I needed to save the mothers was my own guts, or the guts of the other children, the ones who had no need to drink from the vials because all the bacteria that they needed to break down the poisoned flesh of their prey was inside them.

The Island People had been laughing at us the whole time. Using us to get metals for them.

See how you like the wisdom of ants, I thought furiously.

Long after the men had gone, I made a beaker of sugar-water to re-energise myself before returning, in darkness, to the sea.

#####

Skink and the two dogs waited for me when I staggered up the beach.

I didn't want to look at him. I didn't want to talk to him. I collapsed on the sand and he built a fire beside me, bringing poison toad, poison croc and poison barramundi.

"Nice swim?" he asked.

I was saved from having to answer him by the whirring sound of the Island People's heli. It would land in knee-deep water on the tidal flat.

They always landed in water.

"Skink," I said, "when the Island People leave their machine, I want you to fill it with the nests of iron-ants. Nosey and Bloodmuzzle will find them for you."

We gazed at one another. Iron-ants were the most plentiful. I hadn't taken any with me to the Island, because they were the fastest at stripping down steel, and they would have escaped Muhsina's tanks long before I'd made landfall.

"You are a good leader, Rivers-of-Milk," Skink said, and tears came to my eyes, because he hadn't noticed that the precious glass bottle was missing from around my neck.

He leaped to his feet, the dogs at his heels, and ran straight towards the mangroves. I gathered myself, ready to face the two men in their white coats and the two guards with electric prods and teargas that always appeared alongside them.

Wind from the flying machine made white water on the flat. It took the Island people a long time to find a place they liked the look of and lower the dragonfly's spindly legs into the water. Then, they inflated a rubber boat, climbed into it and drove it into dry sand, rather than get their trousers wet.

I waited by the little fire that Skink had made for me. Without turning my head away from their bow wave, I saw Skink pushing a floating piece of bark out towards the machine. It was covered in the broken, pulsating nests of iron ants.

They were so confident. They were so commanding that they even commanded the full attention of themselves. They didn't look back.

"Welcome to Clan territory," I told them when they came to a halt before me.

"The same tree?" one of the white-coated men asked casually.

"There will be no trade today. You will stay as our guests."

"No," one of the guards said, starting to step forward, but the white-coated man was curious and unafraid.

"Guests for how long?" he asked.

"Permanent guests," I said, and the guards, swearing, turned in time to see Skink flinging nests into the open hatch of their heli. They pulled out guns and fired bullets at him, but he dived into the water and swam away.

They pointed their guns at me, but I laughed in their faces.

"Kill me," I said, "and the Clan will vanish into the forest. You'll never find them. You can drink those vials under your coat for a while, but then you'll die."

"Another helicopter will come from the Island," the man said, struggling to remain calm.

"Maybe. Maybe they've got ant troubles of their own, on the Island. Come with me, now. We're going to the caves. There are some women there who will need those vials."

"Wait," the second white-coated man said. "You don't understand. We can't stay here. Our instruments have detected a big storm approaching. There will be a wave like nothing that you've—"

"Yes," I said, grimacing, turning away from him. "I know about the wave. Put your weapons down and follow me. We'll be going through the trees. If you bring any metals, the ants will smell it. They can taste it from very far away, and they'll come."

One of the guards didn't follow.

He sloshed back through the water to the flying machine and climbed into the cockpit. I watched him struggle with the controls, twitching while the ants bit him again and again. The motor started and the machine's mounted wings began to whir.

In silence, the three that remained watched the heli fly crazily back towards the island.

"The protocols," the white-coated man whispered. "Without them, they'll shoot it down."

But nobody shot it down.

"I think they're busy," I said.

The remaining guard put his weapons down shakily.

Ants were already marching out onto the sand.

#####

Nosey came to me, hours later, but there was still no sign of Skink.

"Show me where he is, Nosey," I said, making the signal for Nosey to find people. The old yellow dog whuffed and skittered off into the mangroves.

I followed with a sense of dread.

The Island People had been set to building bark tents and catching toads; I was expecting many more Island People to arrive over the following days and weeks. We would not stay. They would be angry with us. There might be more shootings.

But the Island People were not like the wireminds. They knew about the local poisons as well as the bacterial remedy, and so long as they brought their children with them, they would not die if left alone. I would let their anger cool in our absence. Maybe, one day, we would make contact with them again.

Nosey whuffed again, excitedly.

"Skink!" I shrieked, and ran to my future husband.

He sat in a bloody puddle of mud, staring into the dead, filmed eyes of an enormous shark that had wriggled its way through the shallow water, desperate to get to him, but then become trapped by the gills in a snarl of stilt-roots.

"Skink!" I cried again, shaking him by the shoulders. "Where are you hurt?"

Skink's dark eyes gradually focused on me.

"A bullet went through my leg," he said quietly. "It's not bleeding any more."

"Where's Bloodmuzzle?"

"Inside the shark," he said.

He didn't cry.

Nosey licked the small leg wound clean, and I helped Skink return to the camp. Once he was settled, I went back to the mangroves with a long shell knife and cut the dead shark open, determined to get my mother's dog out of its guts.

Inside its stomach, along with poor Bloodmuzzle's remains, I found a little black plastic package.

The totem for the Clan is the shark.

I held the voice of my mother's brother in my hand. The vials had brought life back to the dead mothers in the caves. The recorder would bring life back to the whole Clan.

"I am Rivers-of-Milk," I said with astonishment to Nosey.

He tilted his long face to one side. His hearing wasn't that great.

#  Kathleen Jennings – 2012 Cover Art

World Fantasy Award-nominated, Ditmar Award-winning artist Kathleen Jennings produces amazing professional and fan art and is being recognised at home and internationally for her work. In 2012, her work graced the covers of several books, including FableCroft's own To Spin A Darker Stair.

Cover for  To Spin a Darker Stair by Catherynne M Valente & Faith Mudge (FableCroft Publishing)

Cover for  Midnight and Moonshine by Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter (Ticonderoga Publications)

Cover for  Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link (Subterranean Press)

Cover for Zeb and the Great Ruckus by Joshua Donellan (Odyssey Books)

Covers reproduced with kind permission of Kathleen and the publishers.

# The Mornington Ride by Jason Nahrung

"The Mornington Ride" first appeared in the FableCroft Publishing anthology Epilogue. It won the Chronos Award for Best Short Story and was shortlisted for the international Washington Science Fiction Association's Small Press Award for Short Fiction.

### I

The moon goes from full to new to almost full again in the time it takes me to ride from the gallows tree to End'o, and the bullet never comes.

I don't feel lucky and I don't feel justified. I'm just tired, all the way to my bones.

I've been to End-of-the-Line before, driving cattle. We'd come in from the northern side, coz that's where the cattle station was, up in the sticks close to the radiation belt, but not close enough for the stock to glow in the dark or for their hair to fall out.

This trip, the last trip, it's just me and my nag, sneaking in through those messed up streets of wrecks and weeds, past the shells of houses and empty office blocks. I can feel the reffos and the no-hopers watching from where they squat in the vacants, no power, no water 'cept what they could fetch from the river, waiting for their chance to earn a crust, to earn a ticket outta there. When I was with the cattle, some would come out, begging for a bite to eat. Joking half-hearted about us losing a beast here or there, that no one would miss it. Wasn't worth our hide to play that game. They wanted tucker, they had to cough up at the swap meet just like everyone else.

Ned's hooves sound mighty loud on the concrete. I'm painful aware of his value, as bony as he is, and I keep the Ruger handy as I scope out the enclave on the other side of the river. There's a checkpoint guarding the bridge, the only way through the rampart of piled up cars and fridges and TVs, all tied together with barbed wire. All the stuff that was once so important, now just a way of keeping reality at bay. Hell, maybe that's what it's always been about, just now it's being honest about it.

There are people in stocks in the open space this side of the river. Signs with them: stole food; stole clothes. And two hanging from a gibbet: murder; rape. Presumably, some beak rapped his gavel before the rope was swung, but it's not a given. Justice isn't that different behind the walls.

Tendrils of smoke drift up from the enclave, and over it all, the air hangs heavy with the pong of blood and bone. The stockyards and abattoir are downstream, with the tannery and all that kinda stuff. They use the waste to fertilise the veggie gardens upstream. On a still day, there's no getting away from that stink. Lavender and other smelly shit like that is worth a bucket. Pity I got none.

I figure sundown's my best bet. Catch them when the shift is changing, when their minds are on a warm fire and a nip or two. And when the night will give me some cover to bolt if things go sour. I don't reckon the boss has had time to get a bounty posted—I been travelling pretty quick, as quick as Ned can go—but you can never be too paranoid.

Venus is out when I ride up with my hands on the saddle, reins loose, answer their hail from the wall, dismount when they say to and lead Ned in under those eyes and barrels. They shut the gate behind me. No bolting there, then.

The militia wear yella singlets—I guess they call it gold—edged in green over their scruffy clothes; it makes their shotguns official, but it feels like being held up by a basketball team. They keep a close watch, though I've left the Ruger in its saddle holster. Ned's too knackered to be nervous. He deserves a pension; deserves quiet days in the long paddock, cropping at his ease.

"What you got, old fella?" the young bloke in charge asks.

Old fella? Old enough to be their father, perhaps. Has the road been that unkind?

A siren wails. That makes Ned perk up his ears, give a little stomp. The noise makes me start, too; sounds as if we're about to be bombed. Foolish; no one has planes any more.

Another squad approaches from a nearby pub, a double-storey joint with faded VB signs peeling off its boards, and the lads get a move on.

I mention the bloke I normally deal with, earn myself a grunt.

"Givin' it up, are ya?"

"Yeah. Saddle sores," I say.

They take my rifle and Ned, but don't search my saddlebags so good. Distracted them out of a decent gander with the dregs of my tuckerbag: a fist-sized jar of pickled onions and another of jam, both bottled back at the homestead. They tell me the rifle and the horse will buy me a ticket to Houpeton with enough left over for dinner. But the Mornington Express don't leave for two days.

I ask what I'll do for tucker them other days, and the young fella says over his shoulder as he drops the first of the bars across the closed gate, "You can suck cock, can't ya?"

I wonder if I wouldn't be better off to just keep on riding. I've come this far and the Ruger and Ned have seen me through all right. What's another week or three? But I'm down to the last of my bullets and Ned's down to his last breath, and there are voices and laughter and singing coming from the pub, and firelight glowing red and warm through the cracks in the shutters, and the thought of even another night out there with a growling belly and nothing but Ned and the ghosts for company is all too much.

Let the boy have his joke.

He can keep the rifle.

I'm done with it.

I tuck the chit he hands me into a leather pouch inside my shirt, then give Ned a final rub, my forehead to his. Got a big heart, this nag; bigger'n Phar Lap's. The lads are already unbuckling the girth strap. I breathe in deep of that familiar perfume of horse sweat and dust and try not to look him in the eye.

The change of guard give me the look as they arrive, pissed at having missed their cut, no doubt. I ignore them, them and the sound of weary hoofs on tarmac as they lead Ned away. I walk, stiff and bowed under the cumbersome weight of my swag, towards the sounds of life. Might as well see if it's worth it.

When I open the pub door, it's the noise that hits me first. The noise, and then the smell.

The babble of voices, and some bloke sawing away at a violin up the back, another bloke tapping out a beat on bongos. Have to press through the racket, like the air is dough-thick and spiked with broken glass. That din in place of wind whispers and popping campfire and hooves stomping as Ned shifts his feet, and eyes roaming over me when all I'm used to is stars. Yeah, at that point, there in the doorway, I could just turn around and go back, tell them to keep the preserves and the rifle if only I can have my horse and tack.

But I'm here and Ned's gone and some bloke's pushing through from outside and so I stumble in.

Just gone sundown and there's already quite a crowd lining the bar. Makes my mouth water, the stale grog smell; that and onions frying. Stronger even than the stink of bodies, the wood smoke from the fireplace and kero from the lamps. I've been living off black tea for weeks. Whatever hooch the bar is serving will be a welcome change. But business first.

Booth is set up at the far end. I thought he'd be at the station or have his own joint, but I figure when you're the only game in town, the trade will come to you. Might as well make it easy for yourself.

I line up, waiting for some old codger with a walking stick and tatty army greatcoat to conduct his business. Not happy, arguing for a pensioner discount. Fuck, what year is he living in? Bloody lucky to be that old, let alone be looking for a discount.

Booth's of the same opinion. Takes the two hessian sacks and slip of paper the old digger offers and gives him nothing back but a plastic token. Black, a gold crown etched on it. He has red ones and green ones on the table, too, piled in short towers around his pewter mug.

Mumbling, the digger hides his token inside his clothing and stalks off, hunched and particular like some kind of heron, to the bar.

I give Booth my chit. "This is for red," he says. "You wanna upgrade to black?"

"What'll it cost me?"

"What've ya got?"

"What's the difference?"

"Black comes with tucker and a bed. Red, you look after yourself or pay extra down the line."

"What's green?"

"You don't want green."

"I got some jerky."

"Who hasn't?"

He's looking past me to whoever's queued up behind. He licks his lips; they remind me of leeches.

"Got a couple of needles," I say.

"What, like, knitting needles?" I have his attention again, piggy little eyes squinting at me.

I dig in my saddle bag. Three hypodermics, still in plastic seals, though the paper backing's gone yellow.

"Where'd you get them?" he asks.

"Out in the sticks."

"New arrival, eh?"

"Sure."

"Any run-ins with the bushrangers? They're like flies on shit around here."

I'd seen one pack but steered well clear, not liking the shape of what was on their spit. "Nah," I say.

"They even held up the train once," he continues. "But mostly, they just pick off the reffos and the occasional farmhouse."

This is the first time I realise that I'm actually a reffo. The tag doesn't fit too good.

"What else you got? Weapons?"

"Nothin'. Gave it all up at the gate."

"Too bad. If you was a decent shooter, I would've put you on the roof."

"I'm happy just to go for the ride."

"No meds?"

"No nothin'," I say.

He snuffles, a dog sniffing dirt where it had hoped for tucker, and slides the black across to me. "The express heads out at dawn, day after tomorrow." Then he recites, kinda poetic-like, from practice, no doubt, "Don't be late. She don't wait."

I take the counter. "There somewhere I can find a bunk, a bath maybe?"

Booth nods to the bar. "You can pull up a vacant or Joe's got bunks if you like a bit of security. Tell him to pour you a hot tub, my shout." He taps the needles. "And let me know if you change your mind about riding shotgun. Can always use a bloke with a good eye and a steady hand."

I give him a nod and turn, damn near run into the woman behind me. 'Bout my age, jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and an Akubra beat outta shape and plenty stained. Tanned and thin but not unhealthy looking, her eyes darting and cautious as she pushes that brim up, her other hand resting on the battered handbag slung over one shoulder. The strap is a piece of rope.

A young buck barges past me and drapes an arm around her shoulders and asks something about why she's leaving and wouldn't she like to make her last night a memorable one.

He shuts up right quick as he finds his nose bumping nostrils with the snout of a rusty old revolver, the kind of thing her grampa would've brought back from the war before last. Thing'd probably blow her hand off, even if it fired, but the buck isn't taking the risk.

"Not tonight," she tells him, voice low but clear in the sudden quiet.

Booth tells him to quit hassling the customers.

He backs off, and the silence crashes into noise and the bouncers stand down. Her hand shakes, though, as she returns the gat to her bag. A spark, of recognition, of understandin', maybe, jumps from her trigger finger to mine. There are days, but mostly nights, when my hand shakes like hers.

I tip the brim of my hat, every bit as beat up as hers. She stares back, her look wary, and I feel the urgent need for a drink of something stronger than tea. She brushes past, smelling of bleach.

By the time I've made my arrangements with Publican Joe, she's gone and some other poor bugger is handing over his hard-earned for a seat. Still, as I head out the back to the bath house, I can't help wondering what colour ticket she's been given for the Mornington Express.

#####

"Whose calf you got there?"

The boss wasn't happy, one hand on the gat at his belt. Johnny Stroud was already playing with his rope; the others had their guns out. We made a semi circle around the coolibah tree; it sat on the bank of a waterhole, little more than a mud puddle. The lamb and damper I'd had for brekkie turned to acid in my guts.

The reffos huddled around a campfire, meat charring, flies pestering. Flesh and bone, the lot of them; if they were cattle, you'd put them down and call it mercy. Out here, we might just as well call it justice.

There was a missus and a couple of kids, crouched in the tree's speckled shade. The father walked out to stand between them and us. He had that red face and peeling skin and frayed hair of a no-hoper, but it might've just been the sunstroke.

"We were hungry," he said. "Nothing but rice..."

"But whose is that calf you got there?"

He shrugged.

"Coz judging by that ear mark on that carcass there, I'd say it was mine."

"We were starving. Come all the way from—"

"Well, so are me and mine. But we don't go stealing other people's stock."

"Where you from?" I asked. Their shoes were little more than rags.

"Don't matter," the boss said. "Fact is, they are on my land, eating my cattle."

"Jesus, boss, look at them."

"Not even worth rootin'," Stroud said. "But I'll give it a go."

### II

The bath is an iron claw-foot with bricks at one end where the feet are missing. Not enough water, not enough soap; the lukewarm water turns to mud in an instant. It's kind of wasted, since I have only road-dirty clothes to put back on. I draw the line at trying to shave. My kit is back at the homestead and my pocket-knife isn't up to the task. Better bushy than butchered, I figure.

I detour past the dunny, a cubicle of tin around a wooden seat, the hole smelling of too much shit and not enough sawdust, and head back towards the pub.

A woman leans against the wall by the back door.

Akubra.

Arms crossed, hat down.

"Hey," she says as I get close.

"Hey."

"You got a ticket on the express, eh."

"Yeah." I want to ask what colour she'd got, but hold my tongue.

"I...I'm a little short."

Takes me a moment, coz she's about my height.

"Fat bastard's put the price up. Third time he's done it to me."

"Why's that?"

"He's got tickets on himself."

I laugh, kind of a snort that reminds me of Ned flapping his lips when the flies are buzzing round his head.

"So I was wondering...wondering if you could help me out, maybe. I could pay you back when we get to Houpeton, once I've got myself sorted."

"I gave Booth all I got."

"Nothing in those saddlebags you could spare? I'm good for my word, I swear."

The door bangs open; two blokes stumble out.

"You on the game now?" one asks.

"Does Joe know you're trickin' on his back step?"

"We're just talking," I tell them. Solid lads; remind me of Stroud and his dingo eyes, always lookin' for the easy kill.

"I got a little extra," one offers, grabbing his crotch.

"Just talking," she says, a hand in her bag.

The lads cackle, edgy, like rusty shears; say, course you are, whatever you reckon, and swagger off to piss against the side of the dunny.

"Please," she says. "I saw those needles. You got anything else?"

"I just can't spare—"

She undoes a button on her shirt, then another, so I can see the sides of her tits. But her face has gone all stiff, like a statue on an ANZAC monument, looking out at something you can't see, maybe something not just distant but a long time ago.

"Why didn't you offer that to Booth?"

"I wouldn't give that cunt the satisfaction."

"Here," I say, digging in my bags. My last, full jar of peaches, a half-bottle of iodine I been saving for a rainy day. "That be enough?"

"I hope so."

She unbuckles her belt and turns around, hands working at button and zip. "No kissing, no back hole. Be quick before he puts the price up again."

The blokes at the dunny shout and whistle.

The top swell of her arse appears, covered in the thin white material of her knickers. "Stop. Keep it."

"You want a franger?" she asks, peering over her shoulder.

"It ain't that."

"Should I be thankful or insulted?"

The lads call out again, something about limp dick and two-for-one.

"Please, keep it," I tell her again.

She hauls her jeans up, buttons her shirt. I hold the door for her as we walk inside, hoping she can't see the bulge in my pants. It's been a long time. But I couldn't, not like this.

I'm knocking back a shot at the bar not long after when she walks over. She holds her fist out to me, secret-like, a kid showing off a bug and afraid it might fly out. Her counter's black. My heart beat does a little tango.

"You're a good man," she says.

"No I ain't."

"Well, tonight, to me, you are. You got a place to stay?"

I tell her yeah, about all I can squeeze out coz my lungs aren't working so well. Glad to be sitting down as I picture again her jeans slidin' down. Behind her back, Booth scowls at me. I'll make damn sure I don't miss that train.

"Okay," she says. "I owe you one."

"See you then."

And she leaves, and I have another drink, thinking I'm some special kind of fool to not even ask her to buy a round. After a third hit of hooch, I pull up a bunk in the transients' dorm with the other single hands. One has snuck a woman in. I envy their energy but hate their volume. Hate my own stiff cock even more. I finally nod off despite the groans and the snores and the nightmare whimpers.

#####

#####

"Keep it in your pants, Stroud," I said. "We ain't animals."

The father backed away, closer to his missus. A kid cried.

"Boss..." I said. Ned shuffled, picking up on my unease.

The boss ignored me. "That she-oak over there. Got some strong branches."

"They're just kids..."

"You gonna look after 'em?"

"I could run them down to End'o, next mob we take down."

"I'm gonna feed 'em 'til then, eh? Gonna put up a sign about the charity I'm running so every stinking reffo this side of the ranges can come get some? You know what happens to rustlers."

I done my share of shootin', make no mistake. Desperate times and all that. But this lot... "They're hardly rustlers."

"Is that beast dead? Can they pay for it?"

"We'll work," the father offered. Pleaded.

"Doin' what—microwavin' food with the rads you're givin' off?" Stroud said.

Stroud was the kind of cunt who'd try for double or nothing with the whores at the cathouse in End'o. His agitation was getting to the boys. Thumbs worked hammers.

"C'mon, boss, let me take them in," I said. "Only a week or two."

"Round 'em up. Take 'em to the tree."

The father drew a knife from behind his back.

They shot him down. They shot them all.

The boss said, "Fucking waste of bullets, that. Hang 'em anyway, for the next lot who come along."

### III

Sky's pink and I shiver inside my coat. The station sign is long torn down; End-of-the Line is painted bold and jagged on the once-white wall now the colour of weathered bone. Posters tell the story, as if anyone here needs to be told: "Houpeton. Electricity. Medicine. Police. Life goes on."

The entrance looks like the arse end of a muster. People everywhere, milling around, quiet in the morning stillness, all fixin' to get the hell away. Crows rasp over the murmur; dogs bark. They could use a few heelers here to keep the mob movin'. I nudge my way in at the end.

And then the band starts up: a three-piece with lagerphone, violin and acoustic guitar, butchering ballads like we're about to board the bloody Titanic.

"Do you have anyone waiting for you?" the old digger I seen at the pub asks as we brush elbows.

"Nup. You?"

"No, but I'm hoping there might be a few of the RSL there. Still set up. Maybe you and I—"

"You're up," I tell him, and he flusters and turns away to present his black counter to the guards at the gate.

"You're not looking for friends?" the woman in the Akubra says from behind me. I never even heard her approach. Maybe it's the chatter, or the grizzling kids. Maybe I'm already gettin' slow, now that I'm off the road.

"Jus' picky," I say, eyeing her off, trying not to be too obvious, like.

"Beggars can't be choosers," she says. "You're up." There's a half smile at the corner of her mouth that says that's not what she was talking about, and I'm glad for the excuse to turn away.

I flash my counter and the guards let me through.

The nameplate Mornington Express is stuck on the side of the loco, half covered in rust and ash. There's three of them old timber carriages tucked in behind the loco and the coal and the water, with an open goods cart and a windowless baggage car bringing up the rear. There's a measure of comfort to be had from the bars and shutters on the windows, not to mention them guys with the guns waiting to go up on the roof, two to a car, to huddle down behind their sandbags. One of them has my Ruger. I hope they've given him more ammo. But he's welcome to it. I don't want no more part of that.

I get sent up to the front wagon. It's got a black dot painted on it; they haven't bothered with the crown. I haul myself up and in.

There's a mother, so tired, her old man staring vacant–like, like he's been striped down the forehead with a piece of four-by-two.

I pause as I reach them. The boy in her arms is sweaty, pale, dark-eyed.

She looks up at me, real tense.

The husband's eyes flicker, the brow creases, and then he returns to his zombie state, one hand on his daughter's hair as she sits with a filthy, mostly naked dolly.

"You got anything for him?" I ask.

"A little. Dunno if it's doing any good, it's so old."

She looks at me, pleading, but I got nothing.

Tears, then, and she wipes her cheek with the back of her hand. "They say there's med'cine in Houpeton. Do you know if that's true?"

"So the flier says."

I move on, trying not to think of those other reffos, of the blood on the sand, of the sound of a rope under strain, rubbing against the bark of a tree as the weight swung beneath it. The way the blood made dimples in the sand, like filthy raindrops.

I stow my swag into the overhead rack and settle into the bench seat. The ancient vinyl creaks under me as I slide over beside the wall.

The crew go through their checks; the guards finger their guns and smoke roll-your-owns, the smell harsh in the morning air—I got plenty of vices but that ain't one of them. Could never afford it, for starters. Still, maybe the smokers have got the last laugh on all them joggers and Lycra freaks. Healthy or not, didn't matter when the axe came down. When the tellies were off and the petrol pumps was empty, the bombs falling and the rads creeping down from the north, it didn't matter a fuck that you could run three steps or a mile: luck of the draw was, you was alive or dead. You'd wanna hope you'd had a fun life, is all.

A kid hollers from the door and I wince. Been too used to the quiet, out there on the road. Just me and the kookaburras and the crackle of the campfire.

Boots thump on the roof as the guards clamber up—I hope they don't piss over the sides, I imagine it'd blow in pretty good with the windows down. More passengers dribble in: wide-eyed and slow, the most of them, survivors of a sort, starting to thaw out now that they can see the light at the end of a bloody long, bloody dark tunnel. A couple of younger fellas, sporty types, off the farms maybe, heading off to what in the life before might've been the big smoke to make their fortune, dig those spuds outta their ears and get themselves a wife with shiny stockings and all her teeth. Good luck on that score, boys. That pensioner with his walking stick and what's left of a uniform; he'd be chatty, I bet. I manage to give off a pretty good fart when he looks like sitting close by and he moves on, his knobbly hand gripping each seat back as he passes.

Doors slam shut. Voices shout. There's a sharp whistle and a kid up the front claps and jumps on the seat. A baby bawls and its mum makes a half-hearted shushing sound. The jocks slap each other. The old digger nods to himself like he's back on the troop train to some shithole that needs a flag flied over.

Akubra sits at the aisle end of the bench facing me, gives me a nod and I return it. She puts her feet up in front of her and slumps back in the seat as though it's a hammock on a beach somewhere, her dirty hat pulled down over her face, her arms crossed.

"You goin' all the way?" I ask.

She peeks out from under the brim, the look of a mother who has just been asked the same question for the umpteenth time and is tossing up lying or just sending the kid to its room.

She relents. "Isn't everyone?" And then, "What do you know about the place?"

"Jus' what I heard. Put up a fence across the peninsula and called it Houpeton. They got power and lights and stuff. It's safe, day and night. No rads, not much bomb damage. Not down there on the Mornington."

"I heard that. Got some outposts, farms and stuff. Self-sufficient. Plenty of work."

"What kind of work you lookin' for?"

"Whatever. Something with kids'd be nice. I was going to be a teacher..."

"That what you did before—teachin'? If you don't mind me askin'." Always a delicate question, but she sat here, right? I must be the least threatening bloke in the carriage.

"You know when you used to go into a supermarket and there'd be someone in an apron offering you the latest in sausage or yoghurt or biscuits? That was me." She quotes, her voice all proper: "Flavoursome, all Australian products, healthy..."

I don't know, actually; no supermarkets like that out where I was from, none that needed to give you samples, anyways. "Australian-made. Guess it's all Aussie now, eh."

"I guess so. I been working bars, cleaning houses, hoeing gardens...whatever, just to get by. What about you?

"Guess you'd call me a drover, like."

"I'm sure they'll have work for you."

"They'll want you, too."

"But for what, Mr Drover, that's the question, isn't it."

And my cock gets twitchy, thinking again of her outside the pub, and I hope she gets better employ than that.

There's a toot, a lurch and a crunch, then another toot, a long one, and we are on our way, smoke and steam and ash blowing back against the windows, that easy rhythm making the carriages sway. Luggage rattles in the racks; the shutters bang.

The mother sings. The song drifts down the carriage like smoke and Akubra joins in, real quiet, maybe not even realising she's doing it. She smiles, embarrassed-like, when she sees I'm listening, and I feel myself smile, too. I don't sing, but.

We are on our way, rolling and rocking down to Houpeton, finally, to the old Morningtown Ride, its jaunty beat keeping time with the clack-clack of the train, and I hear—really hear—the lyrics for the first time. I've always thought of it as a lullaby, something meant to make you look forward to the new day. But maybe it's a lullaby for the other end of the line: maybe Morningtown is really the hereafter. Who'd have thought the Seekers would be such miserable bastards, eh?

I settle back into my seat and listen to the song. Two days and a sleepover and we'll see if our Mornington is deserving of a lullaby or a dirge.

#####

Stroud gathered up the meat and the knife and whatever else he found on the reffos. "Hey," he said. "Who'd a thunk these no-hopers could read?"

"You don't know they got the sickness," I said.

"You don't know they don't."

The poor bastards, driven south by the creeping death of the planet and the inevitable scrap that comes of not enough people having what they need or want, and the nuclear tit-for-tat that ended it. Half the world, cutting off its nose to spite its face.

Stroud waved a piece of wrinkled paper, real tattered around the edges like a dog had been chomping on it. There was fresh blood, a bright stain, in one corner, like them wax seals fancy folks used to show their piece of paper was worth something. The paper had a flag with the stars of the Southern Cross on it, the words: "Houpeton on the Mornington. Electricity. Medicine. Police. Life goes on."

Stroud threw it on the camp fire. The boss ordered more wood. He wanted a pyre to get rid of their stuff. Said they might be diseased, have fleas, something.

I stayed in the saddle. The smoke made my eyes water.

### IV

We stop twice at fortress towns that the conductor—more of a guard, really, stomping up and down the train to make sure everyone's behaving, trying to score a bit of gash or graft where he can—calls bailiwicks. Call them what you want, I figure. Folks huddled behind walls is what they are.

Before dark, we pull over at a stockade called Coalinup, a fence and a shed and a tower, given over to water and coal.

"Can't travel at night," the conductor says as we file off. "Bushrangers'll take a shot. It happens."

We get hot food, a cold wash, a bunk. Grog, too.

Akubra sits beside me at the trestle table while we eat.

I use bread to clean off my plate, sopping up the beans.

What's the shelf life of beans, does she know, her being a demonstrator and all?

Forever, she reckons.

"Still, we gotta run out eventually. We'll have to grow our own shit."

"Can you make Vegemite?" she asks, and I say I can't, and it makes me kinda quiet. A jar of Vegemite could be worth a hell of a lot when the last warehouse is empty.

The mother I seen in our carriage shrieks and there's a sheila shouting at her, "What've you got there? Hey, bitch, I'm talking to you!"

The sheila scrabbles at the mother, who's bent over, arms over her head. "I seen it—you got meds, you slut. Wastin' 'em on your no-hoper kid when the rest of us could use 'em."

The digger hobbles over and brandishes his walking stick. "Leave her alone!"

The sheila pushes him so he tumbles, and then two fellas in the jerseys of vanished footy teams lay into him. They tower over the family until the mother hands over a plastic bottle.

Akubra reaches for her pistol. I stop her.

Two guards shamble over, asking about the meaning of all the ruckus. The sheila hands them both a couple of black-and-red capsules and they leave with instructions to keep the noise down. The young 'uns return to their table. The sheila shakes the bottle like a trophy, pops it down her top.

"They only would've come back later tonight or tomorrow," I tell Akubra. "It was the guards' place to stop it."

"It was waiting for the guards to stop it that got us all into this mess in the first place."

"How's that?"

"Governments. Corporates. All that lot. We waited and we waited, but it was all about the money."

"Ain't no money, now."

"Ain't no nothing, now."

"There's hope." And fuck, that sounds lame.

"Tell her that," she says, pointing at the mother where she clings to her son while her daughter sobs and her husband sits there with tears on his face.

"Houpeton tomorrow," I say. "It'll be better there."

"I bloody well hope so," she says, and she's so angry, we don't talk any more after that, just finish our tea and then hit the sack.

We sleep that night in a communal barracks. It's like, now that I'm under cover, my body's gone all slack. Like gravity is magnified, pulling my bones down. There's a weight in my eyes, in my legs; my whole brain feels like it's been transplanted.

We all get mixed up in the shed, but you can see how the folks keep to their carriage groups, more or less. We'd picked up some new passengers, lost a couple, at the other towns we stopped at, but most of us in the black carriage group together.

The digger folds his trousers neat and precise and lays them on top of his swag. He's got a hell of a shiner.

The young bucks take over a corner, sharin' booze and sheilas.

The mother tries to keep her kids from noticing, humming that song. I wonder if those tablets she'd had were any good. They must've been old. The stuff I'd found with the hypos had been well past its use-by, them what I could read the label of.

Akubra pulls up a bunk near mine.

I ask, "You follow the footy at all?"

"What footy?" she says without even looking at me.

"Some blokes back in End'o was talkin' about it. They was puttin' together a league again. Should put it on the fliers, eh? That'd get the reffos in."

"They mention any schools at all?"

"Nah, but they're bound to have some. For the kids, like."

"Maybe they should put that on the fliers."

Her tone sounds like she might be feeling the gravity, too. But later, before the lamps are turned out for the night, I see her looking at me, just for a bit, before she pulls the hat over her eyes. Sleeping on her back, boots still on, a hand under her pillow where I'm fairly certain she's got the gat tucked away. She's a fine looking woman, no mistake.

I don't get much sleep. Not with the young ones rooting like possums.

Maybe I should've stayed out bush, but looking at Akubra there, I just don't know. Whatever we find when we reach Houpeton tomorrow, it has to be better than what I've left. That's what the posters say.

#####

"Houpeton on the Mornington. Electricity. Medicine. Police. Life goes on."

I'd seen those words before. It was on all the fliers that the mail riders brought with them when they dropped in at the station, whether with a delivery or just to rest their nags. They were always welcome with whatever news.

"Dunno why you take that shit north," the boss would say when they offered to leave a few Houpeton posters. "Last thing you lot need down there is more bloody reffos sucking on your tit."

Some riders would say the pamphlets made good fire starters and loo paper, some would just change the subject. Those who argued—We're all Aussies, eh?—would find themselves in the bunk house without the customary night cap and cigarette.

Life goes on, but only if you don't get caught.

### V

We pile into the carriage, the young 'uns looking tired but mighty pleased with themselves, another floozy hanging with them this morning looking bow legged and even more tired, too tired even to do her shirt up proper, tits hangin' out like a jersey cow. The exuberance of youth, eh? And these are the shits who are inheriting the Earth. I guess they can't do no worse, but you'd think they'd at least try to do better.

The mother makes sure her kids aren't facing that mob. The digger takes his post at the far end with a look of contempt. And Akubra sits at the end of the bench again, facing me.

We stay quiet, the two of us, our feet up and hats pushed down, the land sliding by outside under the watchful barrels of the gunners on the roof. 'Til we reach another stop, and she asks, "What do you think you'll do in Houpeton?"

"Stock work, maybe. Sheep or cattle, I don't much care. Long as I'm outside."

"Not much of a one for being closed in, hey?"

"Not much of a one for people, if you must know. Why I went west in the first place, before the shit hit the fan. So how come you became a—what do you call them people?"

"A demonstrator? Nah. Just happened. I really wanted to teach, but I got knocked up, dropped out. Did what I could. What I had to. I was trying to make enough to get back to school when the wheels all came off."

"Where's the kid now?" I ask, and curse myself, silently, for bein' so stupid.

She shakes her head.

Her anguish hits like an axe to my chest.

Maybe it's for the better, I think. A world like this, it ain't a place for kids. But what I say is, "Sorry to hear that."

"She got sick. The water, the food..." She shrugs. "We had a doctor but no medicine. He bled himself out, not long after that. Couldn't take it, all the knowing and none of the fixing, I guess."

"Helpless," I say.

"Hope-less," she says. "I decided to make for Houpeton. Got as far as End'o and decided to stay 'til I could take the train. Safer that way."

"Yeah, that's what I figured, too."

"So why'd you leave the station? The cattle property, I mean; not the train station, obviously."

She has a lovely laugh when she dares to let it out. The kind of sound I want to hear more of. A dangerous thing, hope: it'll let you down, time and again. You hope the planet don't go to hell. You hope the bombs don't fall. You hope the boss has a heart...

"I hoped for something better."

#####

The boss glared at me, that angry tic teasing at the corner of his mouth. "If you ain't gonna carry your weight, you can draw what you're owed and piss off. But you leave the rifle and the nag and you be thankful you get to keep your hide."

Stroud spat on the ground at my nag's feet, making Ned shy a step back.

That night, I snuck away and headed straight for End'o. The horse and the rifle were mine; the boss could root his boot if he thought I was givin' them up. I sure would miss his wife's cooking, but.

### VI

The Houpeton stockade is proper posh, all concrete and timber, towers on either side of the iron-plated gate. The Eureka flag flies from a pole.

The train stops outside of the fence. There's a compound and a hut, a tent with a red cross painted on it, men in green uniforms with guns. Some hold batons of different colours.

Our car disembarks first and we all get Geigered but no one spikes. We get our chests listened to. Cough for the man in the breathing mask.

The family is taken away to the first-aid tent. The mother's crying—because there are meds or because there aren't, I dunno.

The rest of us troop down to the militia sitting at a desk, stripes sewn slightly out of kilter on his sleeve, paper and pen before him.Name, age, last place of residence.

"How long ago?" someone ahead of me asks.

"Last place you lived," he tells them. I figure I'll lie, just in case the boss posts bounty.

We shuffle along, watching as the queue gets split out to gather behind the men and women with batons.

The sun's bright and hot, but there's a chill wind carrying the smell of briny rot. Can't hear the sea, but there are gulls.

"What about you old timer?" the militia asks the digger.

"Army."

"Looks like you lost your last war, eh?"

"Him and all of us!" some wag says.

After the laughter has dribbled off, the sarge asks, "You see any action up north?"

A shake of the head, the mumbled admission: "Riverina CMF."

"Saved by the Brissie Line, eh, for what it was worth. What did you do for a crust when you weren't playing soldiers?"

"Postman. Ran an outlet with my wife, but when she—"

"We got post. Go see that chap with the yellow baton there. Tell him 'postie'." He writes in his exercise book, like a kid drawing his alphabet.

"I...I can't lift things so good no more."

"Everyone has to do their share, pops. The mail has to get through, right? G'arn."

And then it's my turn.

"What'd you do?"

"Drover. Good with cattle, sheep; motors and stuff."

"You ride and you shoot, eh."

I nod, mouth suddenly too dry to make words.

"Militia. Green baton."

"I'd rather work with stock. You got cattle, right?"

"We need all the dead eye dicks we can get. Those damn bushrangers, you know? Plus no-hopers, reffos: we gotta hold the line. Next."

I pause, feeling the weight of the despair, the threat of Stroud and the boss waiting out there in the sticks, the thought of those dangling bodies turning black on the branches like shrivelled fruit. Would these blokes give me back my Ruger?

"You can always go back to End'o, mate. Or take your chances in the sticks."

I shake my head.

"You get time off for good behaviour, but. Extra rations. And the chicks, they love a man in uniform. Think of it as looking after the herd, here."

As I step away, the sarge asks Akubra, "What do you do, love?"

And there's a silence, a guillotine blade suspended between question and answer.

"She's a teacher," I say.

"Youse together?"

We share a look. "Nah, we was just talking on the train. Primary school, she said. English, maths, all that stuff."

"That right?"

Akubra takes off her hat. "Yeah. Yes. That's right."

"Great, we need teachers. Join that blue line, there."

The blue line is mighty short. She calls and we stand for a moment, between the green and the blue.

She tells me her name and I tell her mine. We shake hands and wish each other luck.

"I still owe you a can of peaches and a bottle of iodine," she says.

"I told you, you don't owe me nothin'."

"Then let me make you dinner."

I say okay, then press my luck. "Just the one?"

And she says, "One at a time's good cookin'." And she gives me a smile like I never thought I'd see, and think to myself as I walk off to collect my badge and gun, that just maybe this time the propaganda is right. Life does go on.

###

#  Significant Dust by Margo Lanagan

"Significant Dust" made its first showing in Margo's Twelve Planets collection Cracklescape, from Twelfth Planet Press. The story won the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story, featured on the  Locus Recommended Reading List, and was shortlisted for the Best Novella/Novelette Ditmar.

...no significant dust was observed on the vehicle as presented for inspection.

—Lab report on the car involved in the Mundrabilla UFO encounter, Western Australia, 1988.

"So what's your plan, Vanessa?" says Dave.

Everyone turns from the fire to look at her. The light from the floodlit yard cuts hard, peculiar shadows across their faces.

"Plan? I have a plan?"

"Course you do—you're a girl."

"What?" A nervous laugh pops out of her. "Why would—"

"I tell you, every bloke who comes out here, they're runnin away from somethin—kids, wives, the rat race, you name it. Every chick, they come because they've got a plan, and this is part of the plan. So where d'you go from here? What's your plan?"

She takes a sip of her lime and soda. Under the barbecue plate, the fire is a cosy orange cave. She'd like to crawl in there, lie and glow awhile.

"Well,' she says. 'All I thought was, I'd earn some money, and there'd be nothing to spend it on, so I'd save." She didn't think anything of the sort, but what business is that of Dave's, or anyone's?

"Nothing to spend it on? Haven't you seen Kim's mail order catalogues?"

Huh—they'd have to pay her to buy any of that crap. She doesn't want to be rude, though, so she shrugs.

"What'll you buy, then? Car? Trip overseas?"

"Maybe." The idea of driving-and-driving appeals, of flying-and-flying. "Maybe travel."

"Where'd you most wanna go? Which country?"

Which country? He might as well ask which star. Look at them up there, all the same, all more or less bright. She makes a face and shakes her head. She can tell she's a disappointment in the conversation stakes, in the being-colourful stakes. Well, too bad.

"I think that's admirable," says Joe. It's still early enough for his kinder, sober self to show through. "She doesn't have to have a plan worked out yet. But when she does, she'll have a bit of money to put behind it."

Everyone nods, a bit bored. Good. They'll move on from her soon.

"Maertje's got a plan, haven't you, Maertje?" says Dave.

"To see as much of Australia as I ken, in two years," says Maertje like a calm little wind-up doll, "wurking my way from place to place. Then, going back to d'Nederlands and...well, it's not much of a plen, going straight beck to where I was six munss ago, with no more good prospects den det."

"Oh you won't be going back," Joe says kindly. "Not right back. You'll have more worldly experience. Your mind'll be broader."

"Joe's finding a lot of things to admire about the ladies tonight, aren't you, Joe?" Theo's young and handsome and everything Joe's not. He won't stay long here; there's not enough adventure for him. Not enough girls to go through.

"Aargh." Even this early, it doesn't take much to set the drink snarling in Joe. "They've got more bloody sense than us blokes, mostly."

They start arguing that, outdoing each other with examples for and against, leaving Vanessa alone under the stars, the girl with no plan. Or so they think. She had a plan, but it's done and dusted now; she got out of Perth, away from the coast, away from that beach, and from what she did, and everyone who saw. The disaster she brought down, that's still there, but at least she doesn't have to bear people's looks and silences any more. And no one here needs to know about all that back there. Ever.

#####

The sun's not up yet, but the sky is light. Vanessa opens the restaurant for the day. No cars wait outside. But she's barely back in the kitchen when the bell rings over the door.

She keeps her face neutral when she sees him. "Morning." There's only him and her, here in this morning. If he's trouble, she hasn't got a lot of options.

He looks as if he's waited hours for opening, slept in his car, slept in his clothes—a great fat parka on him here in the middle of summer. He's brought in a smell—bad, sweetish, like that time the freezer died and the sausages broke out in green wounds. And he's tracked in filth, a black dust like cartoon gunpowder. All the way from door to counter he's dropped it, across the tiles that Maertje mopped last night. It showers out of his hair onto the glass-topped counter, and off his arms, which he sets one on top of the other like a rampart in front of himself, rigid, his hands fisted.

"Cup of tea?" he says, with a touch of hilarity, as if he can hardly believe in such a thing—and if it did exist, how could he possibly deserve it? He examines everything behind her, the cheap panelling, the clock, the tubes of liquid soap, insect repellent. It all seems to surprise him, as if every few seconds he's been freshly woken up.

"White?" says Vanessa.

"Sorry?" Woken again, he drags his gaze down to her. His eyes are like coal-miners' eyes in old photos, pale grey in his dust-blackened face.

"White tea? Milk in your tea?"

He processes the question. Will he faint or break out raving? But then, "Thanks," comes out of him, as if he coughed it up accidentally. "Yes. I better have it takeaway."

"It's fine," she says—why's she being kind to him, when he smells so bad, when there's clearly something wrong? "You can sit here." She waves grandly at the empty restaurant. "We've got plenty of room."

He looks pointedly down at himself and the sprinkled counter. She waggles her head that that doesn't matter. "Nothing to eat?" she says.

"Oh, no." The rampart comes apart and he looks at his filthy palms.

He has money; he lays it on the counter doubtfully, watches as if he expects her to call his bluff. She tries to shake the dust out of it without him seeing. She rings it up and counts the change out of the drawer. It feels as if she's rescuing him. She wishes someone would do this for her, reel her back into herself, back into the world.

"Take a seat." She puts the change into his shaking hand. "I'll bring your tea. I won't be a minute."

"What day is it?" he says.

"Wednesday."

His cogwheels try to grind again, but they can't get a grip on that word.

"Wednesday, the ninth of January, 1982." She waits for the moment he'll admit that he's joking.

He flinches, checks her for signs of lying, looks away. "But '82 was when Riley was born." Back come the pale eyes. "My boy."

She only wants to keep him from breaking things—from breaking her, yes, while there are no men about and no Kim, but mainly from hurting himself, by word or action. "Well," she says slowly and calmly, 'I guess you've got that to look forward to, then.'

That seems to makes sense to him for a few seconds. Then it doesn't, and he turns bewildered towards all the empty tables and chairs.

She goes to the kitchen, makes the tea. When she comes back, he's sitting head in hands by the window, at the first table, right at the carpet edge. He's realised about the parka and taken it off; powerful body odour has joined the dead-meat smell. She'll have to air the place out, spray Glen 20 around.

He straightens as she comes, sees the blackness he's shed on the table, brushes some of it into his lap.

"Here we go." The pot crunches as she sets it down, the milk jug, the cup and saucer.

"Good on you." He doesn't tell her to sit down so he can explain. Just as well; she doesn't want to know about his boy, about his confusion, about anything. And besides, she's got a lot of chores still to get through.

#####

Holidays. She sits on the wall at the end of the row of them, Tash and Tash's friends. Her own mates have left town or gone straight into summer jobs. Come with us, Tash said, not realising what she was inviting, and now Vanessa sits swinging her legs and eating an iceblock, next to her sister, included in her sister's group.

She stepped on her sunglasses yesterday and broke them, so the world is bleached-out like an old home movie. Happy families, handsome surfers, bikini girls, big old tums-on-legs men with white chest-hair—all these people are arranged along the beach like ornaments, like props in a movie about how free she is now, how school's finished and the world is waiting and she might go anywhere from here.

What are she and Tash talking about? They don't talk, really, when they're out with people; they only hunt for things to say that will start everyone on long series of jokes at each other, the girls leaning about laughing, the boys shouldering each other. Once Brett even tumbled Brendan off the wall, dropped after him to the sand and wrestled him there. Everyone laughed; everyone cheered them on. Which is why, when Tash beside her tips back with the giggles, and wobbles and shrieks, Vanessa gives her that little elbow-nudge that sends her backwards, over.

That little nudge. Nobody made her do it. It was completely her own idea. She wouldn't have been surprised if Tash, better balanced than she seemed, had righted herself, pushed her back—if she herself, Vanessa, had fallen. That would have been fairer.

#####

She runs through the saltbush—or the bluebush. She can't tell the difference in the dusk, and does she care anyway? She runs because she can, running away from the fact that she can—running is the problem and the cure both at once, the same mess as everything.

The bushes grow well apart, but they're only knee-high; she can just jump over them if they get in the way. Jumping is good, dodging is good; it gives her just enough to do to keep her from thinking. If she runs far enough, she leaves the roadhouse and all its nosy people behind her. The moon seems less as if it's watching. The escarpment stops hulking and goes back to the dream it was having before she burst out here and pitched herself at the distance, disturbing the silence with her melancholy rage.

#####

Tash upside-down, falling, irreversible. Tash's neat bottom, perfectly tanned thighs. The wall-edge has pressed red marks into the skin—has pressed some sand, too, which glitters in the sunlight, either side of the triangle of bikini-bottoms, sun-yellow, printed with crimson hibiscus flowers. Afterwards, hibiscus were everywhere. They shouldered forward on their bushes out of every park and garden, thrust themselves at Vanessa, reminding her. Everything reminded her, everything accused her.

The pretty bum, the neat bikini parcel—they're a snapshot portrait of everything that's on its way out: dressing for summer, or even caring what season it is; sex, ever; colour; flowering; this group, carefree like this, because afterwards it'll turn into a competition for who's the goodiest two-shoes, and then fall apart from the strain of the tragedy. Everyone'll fly off in different directions—as she's flown off (but she's different, has different reasons).

Beside these great losses, what Vanessa's lost—sound sleep, unstained optimism, the last shreds of childhood—looks like nothing. She can lose all that and still be the lucky one. She can be an embarrassment to everyone, and disgusting to herself and a complete waste of space, life and moving parts, and still she can walk away.

#####

Tony Tripp, the copper from Eucla, comes in for a can of drink and a toasted sandwich, because they're there, because they're the closest roadhouse. They might have seen something—that's his excuse. What he really wants is to gossip.

He stretches his legs out under the tea-room table. They always look too big for this room, men in uniform, even just the Greyhound drivers. Their stiff, crested epaulettes command more space than the curling, often-washed ones on the Boss's khaki work shirts.

"Slewed off the road just near the first cattle grid there, down by Dave's." Tony shows with his hands how the car ended, facing the highway ninety degrees on. "Hasn't rolled or anythink. There's no dammidge."

"And no one around?" says Kim. She's the Boss's girlfriend, tough as nails. Never had a moment's doubt in her life.

"Not a soul. Walked all over. Cooee'd. Sounded the siren. Drove up the top past Dave's and checked it out from up there."

"Send a chopper over?" says Theo. "Bloke could've collapsed in the scrub miles off. Never get found."

"Could've hitched out of there," says Kim. "Could've set the whole thing up to disappear himself. Or herself, some crazy broad."

Vanessa leafs through a magazine unseeing. The pages are soft with use, soothing to turn. Film stars smile strenuously; chicken pieces lean in enticing piles in glistening apricot sauce.

"Exactly," says Tony. "Might not wanna be found." He tilts his head at an engine sound from the west. "Here comes Jonesy now. Come and have a squizz. Don't touch anythink, but."

A lot of dusty cars roll up here—not often on a tilt tray, though. And this isn't orange desert dust; this it that black stuff again, gunpowder-grit, still whispering onto the tray from this curve and that crevice of the vehicle. The stink of it fills up the driveway.

"Gawd, what is it? I won't touch, don't worry." Covering her mouth and nose, Kim walks up and scowls into a wheel-rim. "Did he try to torch it or something?"

"Looks like that, dunnit?" says Tony. 'But you look at the akshul car, none of it's burnt? It's like someone burnt something else, then come and dumped the ashes of that on him."

Vanessa stands halfway to the truck, within smell of it and not wanting to go closer. A daggy blue sedan, she thinks, for a dirty grey-eyed man. / A half a pot of tea / was all that was left to see.

She was surprised to find him gone, and disappointed—she'd been going to offer him a shower in the campground block, fetch him a towel and everything. She would have washed the used towel with her own things so no one would remark on any dust on it, any smell; she'd had it all worked out. She didn't know why. He was troubled, that was all, and she would have been glad to be able to help him in some little way—not too much, not to get involved. And she would have been glad to show—to show whom, if she was going to keep it so quiet?—that she could respect his silence.

But he went. He must've gone out with that couple who came in while he was drinking his tea, or she'd have heard his separate bell. She cleared the table, wiped it down, and the gritty chair; she went at the black spillage on the carpet with a dustpan and brush to get the worst off. He wasn't out in the driveway, or down the highway either way with his thumb out, or under the awning keeping a lookout for a ride. He must have driven off with that couple, though she hadn't heard them talking. They must have come to their agreement outside.

"And no luggage no nothing," says Kim, sauntering hands in pockets back to Tony.

"Not a sausage. Who knows who the bastard is?"

#####

As she tips, Tash holds Vanessa's gaze, her face changing from giggles to fear and back to laughter, cueing Vanessa to stop laughing, start again, to clutch her face in theatrical terror. She can feel her hands again any time she wants, hot, rough with dried salt, the right one tacky with ice-block melt.

You bitch! Tash shouts on the way down. Vanessa treasures that shout more than anything, the sharing-in-the-joke tone, the edge of I'll get you back for this! The trust. Tash believed, just as much as Vanessa did, that everything would be all right.

What were glimpses, reassuring, have stretched out to forever in Vanessa's memory. Tash turns slowly head-down, still in a sitting position, her arms out, left wrist pretty with bangles, right hand holding the ice-block stick. Her hair and shirt, weightless as an astronaut's, flag out, and still she smiles. Her golden legs kick from the knee, as if she could swim her way out of trouble; the shine of her lacquered toenails claws a little light into one side of Vanessa's vision.

Idly Vanessa looks ahead of Tash's fall. It's shady down there; that will be nice for Tash, to be out of the glare. And look at that sand, so soft, mounded all aglow in reflected sunlight. It's almost as good as falling into a pile of feather pillows.

#####

She lies awake a lot of nights; whether she runs or not doesn't make much difference. She leaves the blind and the window a quarter open for any breath of breeze. Cars and trucks from the west make faint, grey window-squares on her wall, doubled up and overlapping if both headlights work. They rise first on the wardrobe and creep across it slowly-slowly, slowly. Engine noise joins in at some stage, steady sometimes, sometimes just wafts, swipes of sound, depending on the wind. Then the engine reaches its peak, and the light-squares rush along the wall up to her head; the lights cut out and the noise drops by half as the vehicle roars past beyond the roadhouse and rumbles on eastward.

If two cars travel together, the lights of the one behind throw shadows of the driver and passenger into the mix of rectangles on the wardrobe. These heads never talk to each other, or sing, or laugh, or glance across. The driver grips the wheel and they both look ahead at the highway with its nothingness either side. From one horizon they labour across to the other, then drop out of sight and hearing, out of Vanessa's world, out of the night altogether.

Between these events—these leisurely minutes of come and come on, and go, and gone—hours can pass, lit only by the glow from the walkway outside, travelled only by Vanessa's perfectly circular thoughts spiralling on towards dawn.

#####

A bright fog descends, sunlit, an old family movie with only patchy sound. Sometimes it rushes, sometimes it freezes, mis-catching on the spinning spokes that play it. It closes Vanessa in, hollows out the earth underneath her. She's very stiff; she doesn't want to move, not until Tash moves. Through all the Oh God Tash Tash Say something Tash and Don't touch her! and people running and sand kicking up into the sunlight, and the lifeguards, and Brett dashing for the phone box—through all that, she stands watching, hugging herself and the fog hugging her. Every detail burns itself into her brain—the faded tag sticking up at the back of Dan's T-shirt collar as he bends over motionless Tash; Tash's eyelids fluttering and her eyes looking out, trying to put it all together from a very long way away; a crumpled Sunny Boy tetrapak, worn and bleached, wedged into a crack of the wall. She picks up Tash's green thong from the concrete, where it dropped when Tash fell; it seems like the only thing she can do to help.

#####

The escarpment—scrubby on the lower slopes, bare on the upper ones, scrubby again along the rim—hides all the country to the north. Southward the saltbush and bluebush speckle the flat spread of dull-orange ground; eventually, out of sight but not too far beyond that, the country drops in sheer cliffs to the Bight. Famous cliffs, they are, although Vanessa had never heard of them before she came here.

Dave drove all the roadhouse girls there in his ute once. It was something he thought that Maertje should 'have a look-see of', being a tourist.

Along the way they saw trees—"Actual trees!" crowed Nora beside Vanessa—a few thin-legged things throwing feeble shade over a greyed caravan, a dead fireplace. A dogger's camp, said Dave. The dogger had gone to Norseman; one of his wife's relatives had died.

The scrub went on as before, and they arrived above the sea. The dust of their driving floated off the cliff top, pale against the blue-green ocean and its trailing dabs o cream. After all the weeks of baked-hard land, of blazed-clean sky, the sea was a breathing thing—it almost mused, full of mysterious depths.

Maertje peered along the cliffs."Broken off like a cookie."

"Like a biscuit," said Nora. "We say 'biscuit' here, not cookie. You and your crazy Yank English lessons."

Maertje and Nora took pictures of the cliffs east and west, then made the group stand together for a photo with the western cliffs angling out into the Bight behind them.

"Like a tour group!" said Nora, and everyone made the right faces and was boisterous for the cameras. Then there was nothing left to do: look at an indigo horizon instead of a scrubby orange one, kick a pebble off the cliff, lean on the ute bonnet. Some joke of Nora's set Dave off on one of his long, unhurried stories, this one about a feral cat that wouldn't die; behind his dry delivery, his cobbled-together not-sentences, Vanessa heard his whole life in huge landscapes like this, hardly any people and all of them a bit mad from the emptiness. Plenty of room here for madness to flap around in.

Vanessa felt more foreign even than Maertje. The girls laughed and bowed around Dave, hardly believing the awfulness of the staggering staved-in-headed cat. Dave kept on delivering, pleased and embarrassed together, near motionless, elbows hooked back on the tray side. Vanessa smiled to show she wasn't a snob, or in a mood, or in a hurry to go. It was a good story. She could picture a different Vanessa, a truly lucky Vanessa, carrying it into her future and retelling it, and people laughing, her unimaginable friends.

"Can you believe that guy?" Nora said when Dave dropped them back at the roadhouse. "You can see how much he loves this place."

Vanessa loves it too, but only for what it's not. Everything, she can pretend, is wiped off the slate. There's only the one shelter in the entire landscape, if you don't know about the dogger's van; there's only the one possible livelihood, and everything is spelt out in the chores list. There's the desert up there, then this shelf of scrubland, and away down south the sea. The world skims at you along the highway, manageable parcels of it. It stands around for a while stretching its legs, refreshing itself, marvelling at the absence of everything, then climbs into its vehicle and beetles away.

#####

The ambulance glides down the ramp and sits there flashing; a crowd gathers. What happened? She fell off the wall. Everyone's voices are foggy. The ambulance officers—she loves them. They wear crisp uniforms, they're paid to be grown-up, they know what they're doing, they'll fix things. Natasha? they say, Tash? They speak conversationally, as if they've known her for years. Wriggle your toes, they tell her. Squeeze my hand.

I am, Tash says through her teeth. I'm squeezing. But she isn't; Vanessa can see her hand in the officer's and it's not moving. Vanessa presses her hipbones against the wall above, hugging the thong, watching. If she pays attention to all these details she's collecting, gathers the full picture, she might be able to reach in and change it, like editing a movie. She doesn't blink through the whole thing. Clare has an arm around her—it's just what she needs, but it's also a cold weight, a terrible necessity. Clare doesn't know yet, none of them know. They don't know to feel so terribly awkward around Vanessa. They don't know yet that they should cast her out. That'll all come later. No one will say anything, of course, no one will mean to be mean. It'll just happen that way, that she'll find herself alone.

#####

She knows about the other light, too—without noticing, without worrying or understanding or caring very much. How often has she seen it? Maybe she dreams it, and dreams its recurring-ness, too.

It's never surprised her, this different light. Yellower, brighter than car lights, it throws a larger, softer-edged rectangle onto the wardrobe—so it must be closer, no? Does that matter? It doesn't follow the same path as the others; it moves as if something's veered off the highway and is bashing about in the scrub looking for a way back.

She welcomes it, even, maybe. Every time she sees it, it leads into a dream that ought to be a nightmare, but isn't. The landscape ought to be daubed and shuddering with anxiety, but instead it sits back patiently while the hunchbacked giant carries his lamp about searching for his sheep; while the lost family in the car, the kids clinging wide-eyed to their parents' seatbacks, throw frantic advice, the scrub rearing into the beams, roos bounding across; while Tony and his team from the city, with their special elaborate mobile light from HQ, cast about grim-faced for a body; while a great golden eye peers and peers, seeking something more to alight on than saltbush, than bluebush, than dust.

#####

"In the bar, of a night," Kim said, trying to unlock Vanessa's room, "first drink's free but you pay for any after." She swapped keys and tried again.

"I don't drink," said Vanessa, still dazed from the bus trip, from arriving here, from the emptying-out of the world. She heard Mum's sigh of relief in her head; she realised, then, that this was why Mum sent her away: so that she could say that, and hear it as her own words, not Mum speaking through her.

"My God," Kim said. "There'll be bugger-all for you to do in your off-time." And she stepped into the hot-box of the room, threw the folded sheets onto one of the two beds, pushed the key at Vanessa and left.

A broom stood in the corner, and the floor crunched underfoot. So as not to just lie down on the unmade bed and pass out, Vanessa swept. The bed was low, and she had to get down on her knees to reach right back under it. Modest spiderwebs bridged three of the corners between the bed-legs and the base, and in each sat a small black spider with a clear dab of red on its back. She blew on the nearest one; it scrambled in its web like a fist assembling, then stilled. She would leave them there, she decided.

She swept the dirt over the doorsill, moved her case onto the floor and shook out one of the sheets. It had a small hole in it; it was a cast-off from the Smoking rooms in the motel. Grabby from being washed in bore water, it smelt strong and sweetly of detergent with an underlay of rotten eggs. She flung it over the sad bed and began to straighten and smooth.

#####

Libby brings the other thong up from the sand, following the ambulance officers and their trolley, with Tash neck-braced and blanketed on it.

She gives the thong to Vanessa; someone else brings Tash's beach bag, with the towel slopped through the bamboo handle. Vanessa takes these brightly coloured items and hugs them. Let them not be relics; let Tash use them again.

"This is her sister." Tash's mates push Vanessa forward at the ambos.

"You better come too, love. Hop in the front," says the officer, backing past Tash's sandy foot-soles into the complicated room of the van.

Vanessa amazes herself, dealing with the door handle, climbing in, strapping herself to the seat. She's a wonder of self-propulsion and coordination. The driver gets in opposite, gives her a small serious smile that tells her: This won't be all right. Quiet, incomprehensible murmurs and tinkering happen in the back. They move off as smoothly as a limousine. Vanessa stares straight ahead at the dodging holiday-makers, at the picnickers, at the world she's leaving behind.

She's been in that ambulance ever since, really, its slow quiet glide, her sister in the back silent, being attended to, everything bright beyond the glass, and the weight of her own foolishness on her shoulders, bearing down, crushing.

#####

Drinking used to be fun, part of the great joke of life. She and her mates did it, and it only made the girls more dazed and pretty, the boys more recklessly handsome. It brought them closer as a group; they propped each other up, helped each other home if they'd had too much, told the stories afterwards. She heard of bad things happening because of drink, but none of her mates ever really lost it and hurt themselves. Everyone came back fresh as daisies next day. Or looked a little more tousled, a little paler, held their head and groaned to get a laugh. Then someone gave them a couple of Panadol and they were okay.

But Joe and some of the others who work at and visit the roadhouse, some of them are really old and still grogging on hard, and she sees how un-pretty it is, clearly and coldly through her lemon-lime-and-bitters. Kim gets loud and argumentative and only talks to the men; Joe snarls; that truckie Arnold Ofie who brings the Frigmobile through, he turns into this horrible soppy weeping creature. You have to keep away from him; he paws the girls or flings his arm around the blokes, bellowing in their ear and crying. The conversations grow more passionate the less relevant they are to anything out here—private schools, the Labor Party, the new Princess of Wales. Effortfully, people grasp after the second halves of sentences. Beyond them, the windows show the lit-up gravel drive, the insects dancing around the lights, then black nothing. The clean empty distance that feels so wonderful during the day is gone, and Vanessa's trapped in a box with a bunch of slippery minds half off their leashes. Only the Boss, combed and sober behind the bar, holds everyone back from making some savage attack on each other, or on themselves, or on her—why not? She's here. Only the rawest luck protects her, the merest custom of politeness, and why shouldn't it run out, at any moment?

She goes to her room—some nights, she's been in her room all along—to read a book, or just lie in the dark and watch the lights on the wardrobe. Only her watch, on the drawers next to the water jug and glass, shows that this room's hers.

She thought there'd be silence out here; she hoped for it. But the generator roars on; Joe'll shut it down at one in the morning. The air-conditioners rattle out over the beaten dirt yard, cooling the Boss's house and the bar. Maertje's taken charge of some kittens, horrible half-feral things that have developed mysterious dry warts all over their bodies, and they squeal and mewl in the next room most of the night, Maertje herself cooing over them now and again. Silent as Vanessa might be here in her room, life keeps going on beyond it.

#####

The first few days, she couldn't stop crying. It was too unfair, how little she'd meant by that elbow-nudge, how much she'd ruined, the blind bad luck of it, the pointless cruelty.

Then there came a moment, her in Mum's arms and Dad behind her saying in the coldest of cold voices, "Crying won't help. Just buck up and do what you can. Show you're sorry with concrete action. Nobody's counting your tears."

"Gary," Mum said.

"There's no getting past it. One moment's silliness, four lives stuffed. She has to face what she's done, what it is."

"Well, it's only natural to be distressed by it." Mum drew back and held Vanessa's shoulders, her own face red and eyes dewy.

"We're all distressed. Who's got time to cry? Tash's distressed, but she's got rehab to get through. We're distressed, but all this new stuff has to be sorted out. Don't waste everyone's time, Ness, I'm telling you. Just be as big a help around the house as you can."

And she had stood there, the sobs stopped in her throat but the tears still crawling down, and Mum looking at her all concerned and yet agreeing, somehow, with Dad—not telling him off, anyway, not telling him to go away and let Mum handle this. Things had changed, in that moment. All Vanessa's fear and franticness and beating up of herself had turned as rock-like and cold as Dad's voice. She had stopped being a silly girl and had turned instead into a bitter old woman, instantly, at Dad's bidding.

#####

She likes the evening shift best. It quietens as it goes, rather than building to the panic of the lunch rush. And at the end is her favourite bit. She closes the restaurant and turns the sign around. Vacuuming is tedious around all those table legs and the noise is horrible, but then the worst's over. Back in the kitchen, she sprinkles Bon Ami generously along the counters, and scrubs them with a damp square of towelling, putting her back and arms into the job. The powder melts and leaves blue streaks, which she scrubs away to white. Then she takes a new towel, clean and dry, and rubs it all even harder to get the residue off, leaving each bench polished spotless behind her. The fluorescent lights show that she's done a perfect job, again. She sweeps the floor. She mops it with bleach-water. All the while the bar buzzes and muzaks on the other side of the double doors, but she doesn't have to go there if she doesn't want to.

She lets herself out and crosses the beaten-dirt yard. Halfway across, she stops, because all that awaits her is the room, the heat there, the kittens mewling through the wall. She stands in the cloud of sweet chemical air she's brought from the kitchen, turns her face up. Night has thrown open its black door and sprayed its milk-bucket of stars across the dark. She could reach up and pull out a chunk of thousands of them, dislodge thousands more; she could stand here in the cold sparkling cataract of them. They might cleanse her, of smells, clothes, flesh. Finally, perhaps, the ground underfoot would weaken and crumble and fall away. She would owe no one anything, no work of her hands, no bite of her conscience. She would just be tumbling bones with the rest, pouring darkness, thoughtless, memory-free.

#####

The worst thing had been how useless she was. Nobody needed her help to do all the things necessary to deal with what she'd caused. She couldn't fix anything, and she didn't know what to organise. All she could do was obey orders: clean, shop, try to get better at planning and cooking dinners. She sat over cookbooks and worried and made lists, and tried not to bother Mum with nervous questions, while everyone else rushed about doing appallingly adult things that she was incompetent to do.

The house had to change shape. There had to be ramps, and a lift put in, and doorways had to be widened to get the wheelchair through. Tash had to have the main bedroom; equipment had to be installed for getting her in and out of bed. Everything cost staggering amounts of money; Mum would have to work full-time again. Tash would have to have a caregiver, and Mum and Dad and Vanessa would have to be trained too, in all the equipment, and Tash's new rituals. Vanessa didn't think she could bear that; at the same time, it seemed like the most perfectly, exquisitely calculated form of punishment, that her own limbs should be put to the work that Tash's could no longer do It's only fair, after all, she thought with dread.

#####

She always starts her run along the highway, in the cool of the evening or the cool of the morning, depending on her shift. But if any vehicle lifts itself onto the plain, ahead of or behind her, first she runs onto the shoulder and then, well before the driver can spot her, into the scrub. She doesn't want to be buffeted by their passing, or their noise, or to meet anyone's eye, or hear anyone's horn, or be waved at.

"You can use my Walkman if you want," says Nora. "With ear plugs. They won't fall off you like a thing." She mimes a headset on herself. "And heaps of cassettes you can choose from. You've seen my collection."

Vanessa wrinkles her nose for a second and shakes her head. "Thanks, though." It'll sound weird if she says she can't stand music, anything passionate, anything with singing particularly, anything in English. It's exhausting, other people's emotions, especially piped straight into her head. It makes her want to curl up into a ball.

"Don't you get bored, just you and the wind?" says Nora.

"I guess. It's okay, though; it doesn't bother me."

"Kind of like a meditation, I guess."

"Oh, no," says Vanessa. "I'm not chewing over anything."

"That's what I mean. A meditation. Where you try and empty out your head of all thoughts."

"Oh." That doesn't sound right, but, "Yeah, pretty much," she says.

Nora smiles at her. Her steady eyes make it a smile of sympathy, of curiosity, an invitation to confide.

"Thanks anyway," says Vanessa. She doesn't want any of that, either.

#####

Vanessa approached the bed. Tash was immobilised by the neck brace, but awake. Her eyes met Vanessa's upside-down in the mirror. "Oh, it's you."

In a cold little silence Mum went forward and kissed Tash's cheek. Vanessa watched Tash not react, the mirror eyes unblinking.

"I suppose," said Tash, "you expect me to give a shit whether you're sorry or not."

"Natasha!" said Mum.

Deep in her wormiest, weaseliest insides Vanessa found a piece of ammunition. "It's not my fault you forgot how to fall."

"Vanessa!"

"All those extracurricular gym lessons, they were a waste of money, weren't they?"

Tash's upside-down eyes widened, all but flaming.

"Vanessa, I cannot believe how insensitive—"

"It's all right, Mum—" and Tash spluttered there, and then the two of them, Tash and Ness, were convulsed by a horrible, painful laughter. Tears ran out the sides of Tash's eyes, first from the laughter and then from something else—they set Vanessa off too, and she blundered past all the equipment to sit the other side. She couldn't grab Tash's hand—what would be the point? She couldn't touch her sister's head—that would be weird. "I am sorry!" she choked out hopelessly.

"Shut up, I know you are. But a fat lot of good that does me, you know?"

And they sat there, lay there, ragged and wretched inside the situation, with Mum not quite understanding beside them, just letting them work it out as they would.

"Wipe my eyes, for God's sake!" Tash said. "Get me a tissue to blow into!" And Mum leapt into action.

"This's how it'll be, huh?" Vanessa tried to laugh, mopping her own eyes. "Everyone running round doing your bidding?" Her tone finished up all resentment.

"Oh, don't worry." Tash had given a bitter smirk. "I promise not to enjoy it any more than you do. Oh, and if it starts getting to you?"

She slid her eyes towards Vanessa, couldn't quite see her, couldn't even resettle her own head to make it possible. "You can always walk away!" she breathed. The high giggle she gave lodged in Vanessa's head, and from then on chimed out over her whenever self-pity threatened, burning it off like so much waste gas from the top of a polluted pond.

#####

She wakes and the room is lit gold, almost unbearably hot. A puff of dust comes in under the near-closed blind, a puff of death. The thing whines in the otherwise complete silence, summoning or questioning—investigative. Vanessa pushes up very slowly off the bed, swings her feet down, stands facing the windows and the moving light.

It attaches to the roof softly, determined, crackling the thin metal—and to the hot fibro wall, which shudders and pops. Heat pours through, and a sense of the thing's heaviness, its care not to bear down too hard, not to break what it needs to touch.

"Maertje!" she calls out, because she feels she ought to, although she wanted this thing to visit, would have invited it if she knew how. Her voice comes out low, a slowed-down murmur, hardly more than a sigh. Maertje will never hear it through the whining. The dust churns in the window, rains onto Vanessa's pillow, slides into the crater her head left there.

"Maertje!" She tries to force her voice loud, to force it high, to force it to be her voice, but instead it sounds like some man's, some creepy, slow-talking, joking man's. Maaaaairtyerrrrr—like an engine turning over without catching.

Nothing touches her but her own nightdress and the lino underfoot, but she's being tugged on, gently, preliminary to being hauled sideways out of this existence. It's strong; even as it tests her she sees her senses back there, and the reality of the body she's used to, and feels herself forsaking them. It's powerfully interesting, the crumpled handkerchief of her self-left-behind, the illusions it had of being all there was, or at least at the centre round which it all revolved. Her back, front, scalp run with sweat; the room, the bed, will foomp! up in flames any minute.

But the heat cuts out, the questioning and the pull. She slips back into her old arrangement, ordinary again, alive, ongoing. She darts to the wall and presses her hands to the fibro. The thing disengages from the other side. The room should fly apart now, but it only darkens. She pulls roughly on the blind to open it, but it's old and delicate and it jams. She scrabbles it away from the window, pushes herself to the glass, her knee in the death-dusty pillow, stirring up the smell of smoking flesh.

Something bright snatches itself away at the top of the window. The glass is even smudgier now; the dust-clad smudges are almost all she can see, the glare of the walkway lights on them. She may as well be in the city, for all she can see of the sky.

She runs out, and around the building. A ring of the gunpowder-dust marks the sun-faded pink wall. With her arms wide she can just touch both edges. She examines the sky, brushing the dust from her fingertips, from her knee and nightdress. Nothing up there, only the moon, unexpectedly low, scooting through wisps of cloud.

#####

She can never run far enough to get lost. She could lose sight of the roadhouse run east or west over the horizon, or north up the escarpment and on and on—but there would always be the highway to bring her back, or the sun to direct her, or the stars, whose key clumps, whose tiltings through the night, she's beginning to know.

She could run south. She could do it at night, choose a moonless night so that she wouldn't see the edge when she came to it. She'd only know when the earth refused to meet her last step and the stars snatched themselves away and then spun—underfoot, overhead, underfoot. Then the water would welcome her, or the rocks wipe out her whole past self.

She hasn't got the courage for it. She hasn't even self or shape enough to take that much control. With a kind of inner lip-curling, she watches herself fill her water-bottle at the tank before her run, notes on each outing the moment when she turns, when she heads back, when she seems to have decided to continue. How vain it is of her, how smug, how insufferably lightweightedly teenaged. The legs run, and dodge, and carry her; the little spare water sloshes in the bottle.

#####

She hears the Boss's story in pieces as she takes the dinners out of the fridge in their cling-wrap, microwaves them one by one and ferries them through to the staff dining room. She hears enough from these fragments: the mother babbling, making the Boss come and look at the car; the big dirty circle on the roof, and how she made him pick up some of the dust with his finger; the boys stinking of fear; the mother's burnt hand, red one side, dust-blackened the other.

"So then we have this big fight. 'Friday!' she says, 'It's Friday! Tuesday night we were in Melbourne, Wednesday night Adelaide, Thursday we're coming along here hoping to make Norseman, weren't we, boys? When this happens!' So I say, 'You sure you didn't get a bit of a bump on the head, lady, in among all these shenanigans?' Well, he goes to deck me! So I come in the bar and grab the newspaper, so's I can show her Tuesday written there—"

When Vanessa finally sits down herself, the Boss is repeating about the light and how evil they'd said it felt—he smiles at that and everyone around the table smiles too, because he's that kind of man, unflappable, knowing blank terror when he sees it. First they chased it and then, when it chased them, they spun the car and drove back as fast as they could—I was goin' two-twenty k's, mate! said the son. As fast as they could, and still they couldn't outrun it.

"And she was so angry with me!" the Boss says laughing, and they all imagine him standing there, taking the woman's scolding as politely as he can. "You'd've thought I organised this thing to go after them. Or at least I must know who did. All you crazy hicks must be in on this together! She didn't say that, but that was what she was thinking, all right."

#####

Christmas came and went, all but uncelebrated among the half-finished renovations. Mum and Dad went out to a couple of dinners with friends; Vanessa stayed home—in disgrace, she felt, although, "Pat says you'd be very welcome," Mum said, pinning her hair up into its 'evening' style around her tired face. "It might be better than drinking yourself into a stupor here at home." Which was what Vanessa had taken to doing, quietly steadily knocking herself out every evening.

New Year's Eve crept up. There was a party; Vanessa was invited—by mistake, she suspected, or out of charity, in the hope that the crowd would diffuse her aura of shame. She dressed for the evening grimly and with great concentration. She'd lost weight—it was like dressing a skeleton—and nothing she could do would fix her eyes.

"You look nice," Mum said when she came downstairs to the lounge room. Mum had been at work; she was tired, it went without saying. Stocking feet tucked in beside her, glass of cask wine at her elbow, TV wittering away in front.

"I do not." Vanessa threw down the little clutch bag, kicked off the silly shoes. "I look like a gargoyle. I don't think I'll go." She lay down on the couch, closed her eyes.

Sudden silence, of Mum turning off the TV; sudden falling-silent of the voice that had been whinging inside Vanessa, But what'll I say? How do parties go, again? How will I ever last until midnight? She didn't cry—Nobody's counting your tears. You can always walk away! She only

lay there looking down the open throat of the year ahead.

"Ness, you need to get some kind of work," Mum said, quite gently. "Any kind. And anywhere, but probably... I hate to say it, but probably away from this town."

Vanessa opened her eyes a moment, stared at Mum half-accusing, half-surprised. Saw herself understood. Hid her face again.

"You just need to break out of here," Mum's voice went on, even more gently, "break away. You just need to put some—" She paused as if winding up to the effort of putting the words out. "Plain old geographical distance between yourself and this thing."

"This thing," Vanessa said, her voice blurry and rough. "This thing that I did."

Silence, because there was no denying it.

"But I can't help, if I'm away," Vanessa said muddily. "I can't, you know, attend to my duties. Cook and stuff, be useful—well, try to be. I s'pose I could send money home—"

"Don't worry about that," said Mum. "It'll help enough just to know that you're..." After another pause the phrase came out, toneless, dry, like foreign words tried for the first time: "Pursuing happiness."

#####

Early hours, generator off, no engine-noise on the highway. Only this rectangle of light wavering on the wall, yellow, soft, preoccupied.

She gets up, dresses for running, lets herself out of the room. She steps lightly around everyone else's sleep, past the dark staff quarters, the dark Boss's house, along the crunching drive to the highway. When she gains the sealed road she sets off westward.

It's up ahead, not on the highway but a little north of it, over the scrub. It looks like a flat mushroom cap seen side-on, with a stub of stem left underneath, glowing brightest of all. It doesn't pulse or stretch; it moves about like something sensitive, like something apprehending every small feature and movement below it, adjusting in response.

She runs, with longer strides than usual, but at a pace she can keep up for a while. This is the best time to run—the coolness, the clarity, the star-frosted sky. It feels good to leave the roadhouse, the workplace, all those humans, feuding, griping, looking for laughs or oblivion. It's good to just run, not think, to move like a machine through the night, across the plain, towards any possibility at all.

#  Kathleen Jennings – Illustration Friday

It seems Kathleen's creativity is boundless, and she showcases it weekly in her  "Illustration Friday" posts. Three of her 2012 pieces are shown here.

Imagination

Lonely

Hitched

#  Birthday Suit by Martin Livings

First published in Martin's collection, Living with the Dead, "Birthday Suit" won the Short Fiction category of the Australian Shadows Awards, and was also shortlisted for the Tin Duck awards. The story is dedicated to Paul Haines.

The first birthday suit I remember seeing was when I turned seven. I'm not sure why I don't remember the ones I received prior to that; perhaps I was too young, or they didn't make an impact on me the way this one did. Perhaps it was because I'd spent a year at school, where other kids had talked about theirs, usually in hushed, excited voices. Sometimes I wish I'd retained that naïve, innocent mindlessness of them, their importance, their gravity. Once that's gone, you can't get it back.

Whatever the reason may be, it was on my seventh birthday that I really paid attention to the suit for the first time.

I woke up early that morning, excited, eager to see what the tailor had brought me. And there, hanging on the door of my wardrobe, was the suit. I immediately clambered out of bed, all arms and legs, and rushed over to it. It was slung over a black plastic coat hanger, pink and fleshy and limp, its head slumped down over its chest. I reached up and grabbed its hair, my hair, and lifted it up to see its empty face. It was like seeing a carnival mirror reflection of myself, twisted and warped. The open zipper, also pink and fleshy, ran down the middle of its chest, from neck to navel. Its penis was floppy, an uninflated balloon, ready for a birthday party. I just stood there and looked at it for the longest time.

Then I took off my pyjamas and climbed into it.

It was tight, of course, skin tight. It felt weird pulling its head over my own, and for a moment I felt trapped, constricted, like I was going to suffocate. But that passed quickly enough, and a moment later it didn't even feel like I was wearing anything at all. I walked out of my bedroom into the hallway, the beginnings of dawn light starting to filter down its length, and went into the bathroom to examine myself in the mirror. I looked...the same, really. No, not the same. One year older. A bit taller, thanks to the increased padding in the feet. My hair was a little longer. The zipper at the front was still open, and in the gap I could see the faint line left behind by last year's suit, climbing upwards from my six-year-old bellybutton.

I smiled at my reflection, then pulled the zipper of the new birthday suit shut with a strangely organic rattling noise, all the way up to under my chin. I felt it click into place. And that was that. Another year.

My parents were awake by the time I was dressed, and told me how much I'd grown, how much more mature I looked. Mum cried a little, said I was growing up so fast. I gave her a hug. "Don't worry, Mum," I told her. "I won't grow any more, not this year."

Dad ruffled my new hair, my seven-year-old hair, and chuckled. Then they gave me my presents.

From that day onwards, birthday suits became a big part of my life. All through the rest of my childhood, I'd wake up on my birthday to find my new suit waiting for me, always without explanation, always on those cheap black plastic hangers. Every year I'd check it out thoroughly, see the way my face was changing, my hair, my body. Every year I'd pull it on; there'd be that moment of strangled panic as the new face came down over the old one, then I'd fasten the zipper up my chest. Within a day or two, the zipper was gone, healed, leaving behind nothing but a raised ridge of flesh. It was exciting, to see yourself grow each and every year. And afterwards, the year ahead seemed to crawl on, the time between suits interminable, never-ending. Another year of waiting to see what your birthday suit would be like.

A year is a lifetime when you're a kid. When you get older, it can be the other way around.

When I was ten, like so many other naughty boys and girls before me, I conspired to stay up the night before my birthday, to try and catch a glimpse of the tailor. My scheme was a bit more involved than most, I'd imagine, and involved some No-Doz pills I found hidden in my parents' medicine cabinet combined with a large bottle of Pepsi Cola. The soft drink served two useful purposes in my endeavour: first and foremost, it topped up my caffeine and sugar levels even further than the No-Doz, though my heartbeat was so fast that a couple of times during the night I almost thought I was dying. The other purpose of the Pepsi was to fill my bladder. It's hard to go to sleep when you need to take a whiz every hour on the hour.

Hard, yes. Impossible? Evidently not. I don't remember falling asleep, but I must have, because I dreamt that the floor of my bedroom opened up as if there was a trapdoor there, one I'd never seen. My Matchbox cars went skittering off into the corners of my room. There was a hissing noise, and another strange sound, like an engine, high-pitched and whining. It echoed as well, soft at first, then louder. Then the small front wheel of a motor scooter appeared on the lip of the new hole in my floor.

I found my eyelids growing heavy, despite the caffeine and sugar, but I fought tooth and claw to stay awake, to watch what was happening. The scooter appeared in its entirety, just a normal, everyday scooter, like any other you might see on the streets. The man riding it was wearing a pale three-piece suit, almost the same colour as his skin. His hair was short and dark, and he wore big glasses with thick frames. He didn't seem to notice me watching him. Behind the scooter, attached at the back, was a small-wheeled trailer, metallic and enclosed, roughly the size of a toy box or coffee table. The man stopped the engine of his scooter, but the hissing noise persisted, and I felt that weird dizzy feeling of falling asleep within the dream, unable to keep my eyes open any longer. The last thing I remember thinking was that a person could have fitted into that trailer. I could have fitted into it, hidden in it. Found out where it went.

Then nothing; I awoke, and the dream quickly faded in the morning sunlight. And I had a brand new birthday suit to distract me as well. But I never completely forgot the dream.

The years went past, and with every year, another new birthday suit. Once I was in my teens, a lot of the childish excitement of birthday mornings had worn off, but something new had replaced it, a burning curiosity, the desire to see what came next. Each suit was so different to the one before it, bigger, more filled out. Often spottier as well, something I didn't appreciate as much. I remember the year I found pubic hairs on the suit for the first time, those curly little bastards under the arms and on the groin, even one or two errant and lonely hairs on the chest. That was an amazing year.

I spent the night before my sixteenth birthday with Susan Elthorn. Her mum and my mum had met in hospital giving birth to us. We shared the same birthday. We'd gone to school together, primary and high, but had never been enormously close, really. That year, though, the night before my birthday, our birthdays, she telephoned me and asked if she could come over. Her parents were away on business for a few days, and being a mature and responsible almost-sixteen-year-old, she was allowed to look after herself, the house, and the cat. Clearly their confidence in her wasn't entirely justified. I snuck her into my room through my window, terrified my own mum and dad would find out. I was excited, and it wasn't the birthday excitement I'd had when I was a little kid. Susan was beautiful, long dark hair and blue eyes, her teeth recently freed from braces and now perfect and white, framed by gorgeous pink lips. And she'd certainly filled out considerably since we'd thrown sticks at each other in the playground all those years earlier.

She was a young woman, and I was a gangly teen. But she was in my bedroom.

We slept together that night. No, not in that way, just sleep. We didn't even touch; I slept on the floor while she slept in my single bed. And 'slept' is probably not even the right word, as I don't think I slept very much. But I must have, because morning came, and Susan was shaking me awake. "Look", she whispered, and pointed at my wardrobe door. I sat up on the floor, my back aching, and looked.

There were two birthday suits hanging there. Hers and mine.

I'd never seen a female birthday suit before. I'd seen pictures of naked girls, of course, had spent countless hours searching them out in fact, but never like this. I couldn't take my eyes off her suit. It hung there, limp and empty, and entirely unattractive. Even the fuzz between its hollow legs did nothing for me. She, on the other hand, seemed utterly fascinated by my birthday suit. She went over and examined it closely. Her hands ran across its folds, down its chest. Then she cupped the suit's genitals in her small, beautiful hand, gently, tentatively. Something stirred in my shorts at the sight. Then she spun around to face me again.

"Let's put them on," she said. And she got undressed.

I got to my feet and removed my own clothes in a daze, unable to take my eyes off this girl, this woman, stripping down in front of me. She seemed totally at ease with it. I, on the other hand, was intensely embarrassed, especially because of the growing erection I was already sporting. But I couldn't stop, any more than I could stop looking at her. In moments, we were both naked. Without thinking, I took a step towards my birthday suit.

"No," she said with a strange kind of smile. "Put on mine." She took my birthday suit off its hanger and stepped into it.

I didn't quite know how to react to this. I reached over and grasped her birthday suit by the shoulders, removed it from the plastic hanger. It felt cool and fleshy, not quite alive, like the softest leather. It was a very different texture to my own, and I shuddered involuntarily at its slightly-alien touch. Then, following Susan's lead, I put my feet into its legs.

It was tight, too tight for me, but it stretched enough to allow me to pull its legs on. They should have been shapely, but instead they just looked...wrong. The arms too were much too snug, the fingers too short. Then I pulled the head over mine. I didn't pull the zipper up, of course. I looked over at Susan, who had finished climbing into my suit. She beckoned me over to the mirror on the door of my wardrobe, and I joined her, shaking in her skin.

We looked at ourselves, at each other. Susan was smiling with my face. I tried, but it didn't quite work. "Aren't we beautiful?" she asked me. I looked closer, strained to see what she saw, but all I could see in that reflection was sheer grotesquery; two people in ill-fitting skins, Susan's beautiful breasts reduced to deflated balloons against my chest, my penis a pathetic empty sausage skin between her legs. My own erection, already constricted within Susan's birthday suit, had now withered to a flaccid nothing, almost as limp as the one on my suit.

Susan turned to me. "Kiss me," she ordered, and before I could respond, she took my...her...head in her...my...hands and pressed her...my...lips to mine. Hers. We kissed for a long time, running each other's hands over our own bodies. I imagined I could taste my own breath coming from those lips. It disgusted me.

Then she stepped away from me suddenly, and the look in her eyes through mine must have echoed mine through hers. She turned away from me and removed my suit. "Don't look," she said in a small, oddly child-like voice. The confident young woman who'd been there just minutes earlier was gone, and I saw her for what she really was, still just a kid, an awkward teenager, just like me. I did the same, turned my back, removed her birthday suit and got back into my clothes. By the time I'd turned around, she was dressed again. She held out my suit to me, an expression of mild disgust on her face. I took it, and handed over hers. Without another word, and without meeting my eyes, she climbed out of my bedroom window, leaving me alone and confused.

We barely spoke after that. When high school finished, she moved interstate, and I never heard from her again.

I didn't really understand what had happened at the time. It's only now, with the benefit of age and hindsight, that I get it. There's such a thing as being too intimate, seeing too much of someone. Getting inside their skin. Susan and I, innocently, stupidly, crossed a line that birthday morning, and there was no way back from that.

Life went on, though, and those events quickly faded in my memory. High school became university, university became the workplace. And birthday suits became less and less interesting, just another part of getting older. Not bad, but not good either. Just there. One year, I thought I'd try not putting it on at all, I just left it bundled up in my room. But the next day, when I awoke, I was in it, the zipper already healing on my chest. It was unavoidable.

The years ran together like melted crayons, colours blurring into a single nondescript purple. My twenties gave way to my thirties. I fell in love, not for the first time, but for the last. Tamara and I were married less than a year later. We figured we'd already wasted enough time, enough years. Enough suits.

Less than two years after that, she was pregnant. I knew something was up when I saw her birthday suit that year. Her boobs were huge.

I was present for the birth of our daughter, Robyn Louise. The labour went on longer than I could believe possible, and by the end of it I had a new respect for Tamara that was beyond anything I'd imagined. She never gave in. Not that she could have, I guess, but she never even expressed the desire to give in, though I'm sure she was thinking about it. I think I'd have checked out after the first three or four hours.

Then, finally, those first beams of light began to emerge from my beautiful, swollen wife's body. The attending nurse said, rather unnecessarily, "It's coming!"

And then she emerged. Robyn Louise, the name chosen before the birth. We knew it was going to be a girl, the same way we knew that she was going to be born on that day; the tiny birthday suit that appeared overnight gave away the surprise. I was holding the suit in my hands as Tamara gave birth. The nurse held Robyn in her hands, and I looked at her in utter wonder.

She was just a ball of golden luminescence, almost too bright to look at, shining like a miniature sun, a star fallen from heaven and caught in a nurse's steady, experienced hands. I couldn't take my eyes off the beautiful, amazing thing that was my daughter.

"Sir?" the nurse prompted me. "The suit?"

It took me a second to shake myself out of my trance. I held my daughter's first birthday suit out, and the nurse carefully inserted the ball of light into it. I watched as the arms and legs filled up, then she pulled the head over and closed the minuscule zipper up to the top of the baby's neck. The last of the light disappeared beneath the suit, but I fancied I could still see it, just under the skin, shining softly like a sleeping glow-worm.

There was that awful moment when nothing happened. Then Robyn took a single, ragged breath, and, from inside that birthday suit, she began to scream.

We sat through the night, the three of us—our new family. My wife and I took turns holding our brand new baby daughter. And when Tamara finally fell asleep, I just sat by her side and held Robyn in my arms, watching her sleep as well, still seeing those tiny flashes of light deep within her, beneath the first birthday suit. The suit was beautiful, yes, in its own special, newborn way, but I'd seen a glimpse of what lies underneath it, underneath all of our suits. And I knew that each one, each year's birthday suit, was just another layer between that glorious light and the outside world. You could cut off a finger, toe, leg or head and count the rings to figure out how old you were, how much that light had been smothered, year after year.

Birthday suits were never the same again. Every year I'd receive another one, and each year it'd be a bit older, a bit fatter. A bit more disappointing. The hair would be thinner, or growing in places I'd never thought possible. I don't know if Tamara felt the same way; certainly there was that tired resignation every year when her suit arrived. We raised our daughter from a helpless infant into a fearless and ferociously independent toddler, though, putting on her birthday suit for her each year. I looked forward to her understanding what was happening with them, finding that childish excitement that I'd lost so long ago. I hoped that maybe it would be infectious, just a little bit.

The second time I dreamt of the tailor was the night before my forty-first birthday. It was stinking hot, as it tended to be for my birthday, even though it was technically autumn, and our air conditioner had broken down again. We were sleeping with a fan on us, and I'd put a wet flannel over my face in a desperate attempt to cool down. In my dream, I heard that soft hiss again, barely audible over the whup-whup-whup of the fan. I reached up to remove the flannel, but some instinct told me to just pull the top of it down, to reveal my eyes while leaving my nose and mouth covered. I carefully angled my head and looked around the room.

The floor had opened up again, just like I'd dreamt it had in my childhood bedroom all those years before. And the same scooter had emerged, carrying the same rider. He looked exactly as he had over thirty years earlier, still the short dark hair, still the horn-rimmed glasses. He climbed off the scooter and walked around it to the back. There was the trailer, just as I remembered it, a metal box glinting in what little light there was in the bedroom. He opened it up, reached inside, and pulled out a birthday suit. My birthday suit, my next birthday suit. Then he walked to the wardrobe to hang it.

I took the opportunity that I hadn't when I was a kid. While the man's back was turned, still holding the cloth to my face, I slipped out of bed, checking on Tamara as I went—she was sleeping deeply, and didn't react at all to my movement—then hurried to the trailer, which the man had left open. Inside were some threadbare woollen blankets. I quickly climbed in and covered myself with one of the blankets, tried to make myself as flat as possible. And waited.

A few seconds later, I heard footsteps approach. There was a moment's silence, and I was sure I would be discovered. But then there was a clang as the trailer lid was closed, and a second or two later we were moving.

Downwards.

It felt like being in a lift, except there was a little lateral movement as well. But mostly it was a vertigo-inducing descent. It went on for what could have been seconds, minutes, even hours, it was hard to tell there in the cramped, pitch-black interior of the trailer. Then the scooter came to a halt, and before I had a chance to react, the trailer was open and the blanket pulled off me. The sudden brightness hurt my eyes.

"Get out," the man said, not angrily. He looked down at me, his face kind but firm.

I shuffled away from him, still holding the wet flannel to my face.

"Come on," he said. "And you can drop the cloth, there's no gas down here." He held his hand out to me.

I didn't have much choice. I took it, and he hauled me out. I dropped the flannel at my feet.

We were in a cave, the roof so high that it all but disappeared over our heads. The scooter was parked at the front of what looked like a huge but pretty ratty old building, red bricks faded and stained brown, a wooden roof which had been patched many, many times. The front doors were huge and metallic, and there was a computer console by them. I blinked as I looked at it, not quite sure what was going on. I felt light, somehow, like I'd been pumped full of helium. Like I'd float away, given the chance.

"Where am I?" I asked. My voice sounded funny. The air didn't feel right, tasted strange at the back of my throat. It was hard to breathe it.

"The warehouse," the tailor replied. "This is where we make the birthday suits."

"You...you make them?" I asked.

He nodded. "Well, we help. It's mostly automated these days, of course. Billions to make every year. Look." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. On it was a barcode. He walked over to the computer and swiped the card across a reader. Immediately, there was a rumbling noise from somewhere deep in the warehouse. "With so many people," he continued, "we have to have a bloody good asset management system. Every person has a barcode. It's your fingerprint, actually."

I glanced at my index finger, but couldn't see it.

The rumbling noise grew louder. Then the great steel doors opened with a metallic grinding sound, and a wooden wardrobe emerged, held aloft by a huge robot arm. It plonked the wardrobe down next to the computer.

"Javier Alessandro Cruz," the tailor announced. "Age sixty-three. Take a look."

I walked over to the wardrobe and opened it. Inside were ten birthday suits, each older than the one before it.

"We like to stay ahead of the game," the tailor said. "Ten is the usual number of suits we have in reserve. Just in case of emergencies. Like that time the skin farms under-produced." He grimaced. "That was a bad year."

I stepped away from the wardrobe, and the tailor pressed a button on the computer. The wardrobe took off into the air again, and vanished back into the warehouse. The doors were still open, though, and through them, I could see row after row of them, all these wooden wardrobes, all different, all the same, stacked up like building blocks, disappearing into the distance and darkness.

On impulse, I quickly walked over to the computer and ran my fingertip across the reader.

"No," the tailor said, "I wouldn't do that."

But it was too late. The rumbling had already started deep in the bowels of the warehouse. The tailor stood back, a horrified look on his face, as the wardrobe, my wardrobe, came out. And it was my wardrobe, identical down to the scratches on its side.

I went over and opened it.

Something wasn't right. It wasn't full enough. I counted the hangers. "Why aren't there ten suits in mine?"

The tailor didn't reply.

I flicked through them, like a sneak preview. A small measure of the excitement I used to have as a boy returned to me then, though it was tempered by the increasingly aged appearance of each suit. Growing old was never pretty.

I came to the last suit in the wardrobe, and looked at it, not quite understanding what I was seeing at first. Every other suit was clearly a bit fatter than the one before it, but not this one. This one was considerably slimmer. But that's not what stopped the heart in my chest, froze the breath in my throat.

It was the face. The gaunt cheeks, the bruised-looking bags under the eyes. Under my eyes. And the skin itself was sallow and yellowed, like a smoker's fingers. I looked at it, knowing I'd seen it somewhere before.

Then I remembered. My dad, in his final year, before he was gone for good, and we buried him in his best suit, his best suit and all his birthday suits, and somewhere beneath the dirt and the suits, somewhere there was whatever was left of my dad, the light finally extinguished, crushed inside his Russian Doll corpse. That was what my dad had looked like. That face.

I turned back to the tailor, the question in my eyes. He couldn't meet them. Instead, he just raised a hand, and I heard that hissing noise again. I opened my mouth to ask him, to beg him. But the world turned black, and my dream ended.

I woke up in bed the next day, my wife by my side, birthday suit hanging on the wardrobe, exactly as I'd dreamed it. I tried to forget what I'd imagined the night before. I almost succeeded, too.

The strangest thing was, I never did find that flannel. I looked everywhere for the damned thing.

It was six years and six more birthday suits later that I first got sick. A persistent pain in my lower back proved to be something much worse than a strained muscle. The following months and years were a medicated blur, in and out of hospital, sudden surgeries, slow recoveries. Treatments that made my hair fall out and my skin peel. But the doctors always seemed confident and optimistic. They said I was responding well.

Then one morning I found the gaunt birthday suit hanging from my wardrobe door. That sickly off colour, the ribs showing. Even the smell of it was wrong. And it had a small note attached to it.

I'm so sorry

I didn't put it on. I grabbed it off its hanger, threw the note on the floor, and stormed out of the house, still in my pyjamas, grabbing only my car keys on the way. I drove for hours, the birthday suit crumpled on the back seat, not paying any attention to where I was going, just taking turns randomly. Finally I came to an industrial area and saw an enormous skip bin outside a building that looked alarmingly like the one in my dreams. I stopped and got out of the car, grabbed the birthday suit, and jammed it into the skip bin. Then I drove home, to find Tamara going nuts with worry. She cried at me, slapped me for taking off without telling her where I'd gone, demanded to know what I'd been doing. I didn't tell her. I couldn't.

The next morning, I awoke inside that fucking nightmare of a birthday suit, the zipper already pulled up to my neck, its fleshy teeth meshed and healing on my sunken chest. I just curled my wasted body into a ball on the bed and wept. Tamara held me, not understanding, not yet.

That was a year ago. Now I'm lying in bed, my thin, hard hospital bed, the night before my birthday, and it's like I'm ten years old again, trying desperately to stay awake. The doctors say I've been drifting in and out of consciousness for a week or two now. They don't say I'm responding well any more. In fact, they don't say much of anything, not to me at any rate. They talk to Tamara a lot, outside the hospital room. They think I can't hear them, and I can't, not the words, but I hear my wife crying sometimes. Robyn visits all the time, sits on my over-starched white sheets and asks when Daddy's coming home, and I tell her soon, chicken, soon.

I lie to my daughter. What else can I do?

Now I'm alone, and it's late, and it's dark, and I have to concentrate to keep breathing. Sometimes I forget, and it's so easy to forget to breathe now, but I have to keep breathing, I have to, for Tamara, for Robyn. I can't leave them like this, not now. The oxygen mask over my face makes a soft hissing noise, like the one I've dreamed of before, but there's no sign of the tailor, not yet.

It's like I'm ten years old again, waiting for my birthday suit to arrive. So many years dreading them, and now all I want is just one more, just one. Please God, just one more.

A year is a lifetime when you're a kid. When you get older, it can be the other way around.

#  Kathleen Jennings – The Dalek Game

In April 2011 Kathleen began drawing the Dalek Game pictures and posting them on her blog, and she's still going strong. In these illustrations, she replaces important words in book titles with "Dalek".  Kathleen says the pictures are all drawn in sepia ink with a dip pen on A6 medium-weight drawing paper (except for the 75 or so which are still drafts pencilled on yellow sticky notes). Here are some favourites from 2012.

#  Sanaa's Army by Joanne Anderton

"Sanaa's Army" was first published in the Bloodstones anthology (Ticonderoga Publications) and reprinted this year in Joanne's debut collection,  The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories. The story was shortlisted in two different Aurealis Awards categories (Fantasy Short Story and Horror Short Story), as well as the Best Short Story section of the Ditmar awards.

Sanaa was lying face down against the threadbare carpet when the doorbell rang. She drew one final, deep breath, savouring the many-layered scent of death rising from the basement, and gradually sat up. From their smell, she could predict, to the nearest inch, the thickness of flesh or fur on the carcasses beneath her. Not enough clean bones. Not yet, anyway.

Her kneecaps took advantage of the movement to flee, hiding somewhere in her hips. Her femurs rallied in response, stretching and bulging to fill the gap. It made standing difficult.

Cat Box, At Christmas dragged itself toward her. One of her earliest works: a cat's skull with a wire neck, a shoebox body filled with flickering Christmas lights, rib-cage legs and a battery pack tail. It was a good pet, always tried to help even though it wasn't much use. As long as she remembered to change the battery.

Sanaa struggled to her bare, misshapen feet and shuffled down the hallway, clinging to the walls for support. She pulled up the hood of her dark jumper, shook her long fringe loose and tightened the drawstrings to hide as much of her face as possible.

She opened the door to three dirty children, carrying a large cardboard box between them.

Oh, how they smelled of death. The not-too-fresh odour of whatever offering they carried, and the lingering touch of their own, slow decay. The inevitable shortening of hard little lives.

"We found something for you, miss," the middle one said. A girl, maybe twelve.

Sanaa smiled as best she could. She liked it when they called her miss. "Alice, isn't it?" she asked. The girl nodded. "Don't know these two." Sanaa leaned forward and sniffed at them.

Alice swallowed visibly. "This one here's Matt." Another boy, about the same age, gaunt and empty as a shell. "The little guy's Pete."

Sanaa stepped back to let the children in. Their smell wrapped around her, stronger than usual. There was something odd about it, a depth that did not belong to their living flesh, even flesh as starved and abused as theirs.

Artworks reached out from their canvasses on the wall as the children walked down the hallway. Lonely fishbone fingers stretched; thick layers of oil paints undulated; seashell castles with insect kings rattled. Sanaa chided them silently—they were bored, locked away in her dark townhouse, but it wasn't polite to scare the children. Alice knew to keep her head down, not to encourage them. The little one gawked, open-mouthed, at every single moving bone. The older boy hardly seemed aware of anything, and Sanaa focused her breathing there. The smell definitely came from him.

"Put it down," Sanaa said, patting the tabletop with her crooked hand, as they entered the kitchen. She didn't have much food, didn't eat much. But the kids weren't fussy. She found them milk still within its expiration date, clumpy chocolate powder, frozen bread and Vegemite.

"Move to the other end of the table," she instructed. "Don't eat near dead things. It isn't healthy."

She left them to their reward, and lifted the lid on the box they had brought. Several pieces of dead animals, each at a different stage of decay. An electrocuted fruit bat, a couple of rats, severed wings complete with feathers. A possum—by far their best find. It had been dead a while, the tail was gone, some of the vertebrae too, but skull and claws and hind legs all remained intact.

"It's good, right, miss?" the girl—Alice—asked. "We did good this time, didn't we? Better than usual, even?"

Sanaa glanced down the table. Was the child actually attempting to engage her in conversation? The street kids who brought her dead animals in exchange for food were usually too grateful and terrified to talk. Alice wasn't eating, which was odd. Instead, she was trying to push a half-frozen sandwich into the older boy's unresponsive mouth. Odder still.

Unsure how to react, Sanaa collected a knife from the table and pried loose some of the possum's hard skin. It came away clean, revealing pale bone beneath. She quivered, her entire skeleton rattling. "Yes," she said. "Good."

"Then, miss, I had wondered—" Alice hesitated "—if you would, if you could—" She had one hand wrapped around the older boy's chin and was making his jaw move, forcing him to chew.

Sanaa shuffled closer. "What's wrong with him?" she asked, even as the currents of that rotten scent wrapped warm and heady around her. He smelled wrong, so wrong. Not like a living thing at all.

"It's been calling him, miss," Alice answered. "Breaking him, slowly, until he don't eat, don't speak. Soon, when he don't bother to breathe, it'll call him one last time and never give him back."

Sanaa leaned closer. He was thin, yes, but they were all thin. Dirty, but they were all dirty. He looked just like the rest of them. Her small street army of carrion gatherers. "What has been calling him?"

"Dunno," the little boy piped up, mouth full, eyes wide and fearful. Alice pinched him until he added a squeaking, "miss! I seen it, but dunno what. Got eyes, got teeth. Stays in the darkness. Gotta keep the lights on all night, miss. Once it touches you, you're good as dead."

"I thought," Alice whispered. "I hoped, if we brought you good animals, lots of animals, a whole possum even, that you could, that you might—"

"—help us," the boy finished for her, and drained his glass of milk.

Sanaa staggered back, clutching the table to keep herself upright. Her kneecaps had still not returned. "Help you?"

"No one else believes us, miss," Alice pleaded. "Thought you might."

That made a hard kind of sense. Why wouldn't Sanaa believe in a monster hunting them from the shadows? After all, she was a monster herself. But what did they expect her to do? "Shouldn't you go to the police? Or community services?" Sanaa had been well known to the department as a child. They'd thought all her broken, dislocated, freakishly altered bones were proof of parental abuse. Wouldn't listen to her explanations. Wouldn't believe. Tried to give her to foster families who refused to let her play with the dead things she found—

She closed her eyes against the memories.

Alice didn't answer. Didn't need to. Sanaa understood the street kids. Maybe they knew that. Maybe that's why they trusted her.

Why they asked for her help.

"I don't know what I can do," Sanaa whispered. She glanced over her shoulder. Her neck twisted too easily, too far. Several vertebrae slipped away to pester her elbows, and her spine stretched out to compensate, her muscles seized up and the nerves down her arms screamed.

The front door behind her loomed large, its peephole a sinister bright eye. Sanaa hadn't gone into the too-bright, too-revealing outside world in so long. The kids brought her the bones she needed, her agent sold her artworks (the ones that had exhausted the strength of their second life and were finally ready to move on), and the Internet delivered the rest. How could the kids know what they were really asking?

"Please," the young boy whispered. "We got no one else to ask."

Damn him for looking up at her, so small and lost. Damn them all for putting her in this position. And damn her, for softening. For starting to care.

Sanaa drew herself up as straight as her skeleton would allow. If she was going to do this, she would do it properly.

"You—" she struggled to remember the little boy's name "—Pete, finish the food and watch your friend." She tried to sound like she was used to organising children. "Alice, pick up the box and follow me."

She led Alice to the basement.

Cat Box emerged and followed eagerly, winding its awkward way around her ankles, and sniffing derisively at Alice's bare feet. The girl once again proved her worth by neither screaming nor running at the sight. That pleased Sanaa, though she couldn't have explained why.

"Here we are." She switched on dim lighting.

Her collection of bodies rested on layers of slatted, metal shelves. The top row was cleanest: mostly bones and dry skin. The lowest wiggled with insects. The floor beneath them was thick with newspaper, which she changed once a month.

Alice did as she was directed, slotting the rats and the bat toward the bottom, and carrying the possum through to Sanaa's studio. She helped find an appropriately sized piece of corrugated iron to use as a canvas.

"What're we doing, miss?" Alice asked. She hung back against a cold brick wall while Sanaa suspended her canvas from the ceiling, and collected her blowtorch, drill, and small hand-held saw. "Going to be dark soon. Going back is dangerous in the dark, and the others are waiting."

"Be patient." Sanaa stripped the possum of its desiccated skin. It was laborious; her uncooperative fingers itched to escape and dot the landscape of her back. "I can't go like this. Not yet."

Despite Alice's anxiety, Sanaa took her time over the possum. Carefully, gradually, she gave it a new life, a clean form, woven through the iron's waves. Art, for her, could never be meaningless. Every inch and moment of its creation was tied to her own body in ways she'd never understood. For with each piece of bone she glued and wired into shape, her disobedient skeleton settled down. Claw-tipped paws tore through rust like the dead rising—and her fingers calmed. Skull, inverted, jaw hinged loosely with copper wire—and her back realigned. Final touches with ink and the roar of the blowtorch—and her kneecaps returned.

Cat Box watched her work. It coiled and glowed, empty sockets following as she threaded the possum's spine.

"Possum On A Hot Tin Roof?" she asked it.

Cat Box's lights died instantly, and one of the possum's legs jerked.

"No?" Sanaa didn't like leaving her artworks without a name, but maybe it didn't matter this time. She was already feeling stronger.

Nothing like fresh bones.

She turned to Alice, unafraid for once to show the girl her face. "And now we can go."

While Alice and Pete extracted Matt from the kitchen, Sanaa prepared as best she could. She changed into fresh tracksuit pants, plaited her hair back tightly, wrapped a scarf around her head and did up the zipper on a high-necked, knitted jumper. All in black. She took Possum up from the basement and hung it in a storage room, where it'd have plenty of new friends to talk to. "Think about what you'd like to be called," she said, and ran a finger across its skull. So many bones rattled around her, all tense with concern. They could sense her apprehension, feel her fear. They were, after all, a part of her, each joined to her strange body through the life she had given them and the relief they gave in return. King Rat Trap tried to follow her, so she placed it in RooStone's arms.

"You're always with me," she whispered. "Don't fret, I'm never alone." But it was hard. As she learned against the wall, just outside the door, listening to King Rat Trap struggle and Possum kick, Cat Box rubbed against her shins. She scooped it up before she could have second thoughts, wrapped it in a towel and shoved it into an old, dusty backpack. "Not alone—" she whispered, as it struggled "—never ever." She gave it two replacement AA batteries to keep it quiet.

Almost as an afterthought, she included her most portable tools. The saw. The pliers. A small roll of copper wire. She was setting out to face a monster. What other weapons did she own?

Then Sanaa made her slow, reluctant way down the hallway, patting each of the artworks there. "It will be all right," she tried to reassure them as they clutched and snapped after her. "I'll be back soon."

It was evening by the time Sanaa stepped out into the world. The sky was quiet, muted by clouds. A cold breeze touched her face and she found the unfamiliar, fresh air pleasant. Alice and Pete, holding Matt's hands, waited for her in the street. Sanaa steadied shoulders that for once complied, and followed them.

There were too many lights on. They beamed out of shop windows and restaurants, sparkled and wound through treetops. The last time Sanaa had walked down this street it'd looked nothing like this. All boarded up windows, empty shops, and homeless old men. Just the kind of place where no one would notice the smell of rotting animals, or care about the strange woman who lived above them. Cat Box, responding to her distress, kicked tiny holes in the side of her backpack, the movement drawing looks from a group of well-dressed women walking past. Sanaa drew her scarf down, almost covering her eyes.

The children took her to the train station. This was a shock—didn't they live just a few minutes down the road, squatting in the old community housing? She stopped, turned, peered down the street. The fibros were completely gone, replaced with sleek white apartments. "Jesus. When did this happen?"

Her guides paused reluctantly. "Miss?"

Sanaa shook her head. How could the inner city have changed so much around her? How could she not have noticed?

"We need to hurry, miss."

One last look. The park on the corner, where no one dared to tread after dark—now full of people and bright market stalls. Music playing. Women laughing. Sanaa caught a glimpse of something small scurrying in the darkness of the gutter and took comfort in the idea that at least the rats and stray cats remained. Just like her, they were the last remnants of an older, dirtier time.

The train station had been developed, too. It was neat, clean, and well-lit. It made Sanaa's skin crawl just to look at. "N-no way I'm going in there," she stammered. Too many people, too close together. Ticket machines, turnstiles, guards all watching, watching. Her teeth chattered, involuntarily. "You'll just have to look after yourselves. I can't, I won't—"

But Alice, brave Alice, took her hand. Her fingers were dirty, but still pale against Sanaa's dark skin. Alice drew her not into the station itself, but through a gap in the wire fence and onto the tracks. "Good spot here," Alice was saying. She talked smoothly, constantly. "Always find a bird or two, and usually a bat. I think it's the wires—" Sanaa glanced up at the snaking cables above, so thick and full they hummed with hidden power "—they land on them and get fried." The children wound a complicated pattern along the tracks, avoiding the trains that rattled fiercely past. "But you gotta be careful not to get hit—"

In the end, and to Sanaa's intense relief, they didn't catch any trains. The children led her away from the station, down one of the lines, past abandoned carriages rusting away and an old unused platform, to another break in the fence. They pushed through untidy bushes, shopping trolleys, and onto backstreets where decrepit townhouses, empty warehouses, and vacant lots were ringed by colourfully spray-painted walls.

Now this was more like the city Sanaa knew. Most of the streetlights here were broken. It was so dark in places that she couldn't even see the vermin that followed them; the critters scratching cement and splashing in an overflowing drain.

They arrived at a bizarre little camp, in the corner of one warehouse. Two more children sat with their backs to the wall, surrounded by countless lights all rigged up to a single power point.

"I brought her!" Alice and Pete broke into a run, dragging Sanaa and Matt along with them. "See, didn't I tell you? I brought her!"

Sanaa quailed and pulled her hand free. Lights. Too many lights.

"Quick, miss," Pete called. "It'll come now. It must have seen us, must have heard. It knows we're here!"

Cat Box was squirming against her, kicking and tearing through the backpack.

"Miss?" Alice tried to push Matt into the light, but he held his ground. "Please, miss. Help me."

Sanaa's throat clenched as three teeth cracked loose from her jawbone to shimmy into her neck. Too much exertion. All that walking and talking and worry were eating quickly through the strength the possum had given her. Would have been better just staying at home. Would have lasted longer.

Then Matt turned, all of his own volition, and stared intently into the darkness behind her. "Coming," he said, and stepped forward. Alice, white with fear, allowed Pete to draw her into the circle of light.

Sanaa froze as Matt walked past her. He walked awkwardly, chest thrust forward as though a hand had hooked into his ribcage and pulled him.

With a great clatter of bones and a tearing of fabric, Cat Box finally freed itself. It pressed its dented shoebox against Sanaa's shins and arched as best it could. Sanaa turned. She blinked, squinted—something moved. Faintly pale, a bulging face, teeth and eyes. Sanaa clutched Matt's wrist and dragged him against her. His smell wrapped around her—unnatural decay and too-clean bones.

"Don't," Matt gasped, but he didn't fight her. "Let me go." There was no conviction in his words. "I have to go."

Sanaa swallowed hard against her loose teeth, and lifted her head. "Who's there?" she called. Even as she spoke, her right shin shattered; shards migrated to wedge themselves between her ribs. She didn't so much as flinch.

When nothing answered she glanced down at Cat Box, with its bright Christmas lights. How she hated to ask it to do anything more than she had already forced it to. "Will you show me?" she asked. Cat Box tensed, dimmed. "Shine your lights? Show me the monster that has been hurting these children." It didn't move. "They brought you to me, do you remember that? Found you when you were nothing but a dead cat on the side of the road, gave you to me so I could make you live again. They helped you. They help me. Now it's our turn." A battery-tail twitch. "For me?"

The steady lights of Cat Box's bulbs revealed a man. A strange, small, twisted man. He was bent on one horribly dislocated knee, all his fingers were on backwards, one foot stuck out at the wrong angle, his neck bent, one shoulder missing, face a mess of mountains and valleys—

Though his skin was white and he was a man and she'd never, ever seen him before, she knew that body immediately. Intimately.

"You—" Sanaa gasped. "You're—" She couldn't speak. "Not possible."

The man looked up. His eyes were sunken and dry. "Possible. 'Nother one," he said, his words so distorted she could barely understand them. "Not met one for long time. Never one looks as good as you." He stood with a groan and a million painful pops. He nodded to Cat Box. "What this?"

"Cat Box, at Christmas," Sanaa answered, as though in a daze. "It's my pet." She clicked her fingers and Cat Box returned to her. The man followed, keeping within its light.

Matt flinched and tried to pull free. Sanaa held him, while she still could.

"Wanna use?" the man asked. He scanned the children. "Doesn't bother. Plenty more." He held out his hand. Oh, but he must be in such constant pain. His elbow was long gone, his shoulder had worked its way around to his chest. "Already got started on that one. You take others. He's mine."

"Have to," Matt hissed, trying to pull away. "Hurts. Let me go. Have to."

"I—" Sanaa swallowed hard. "I don't understand. Are you an artist, too?"

He laughed at that, and it was horrible: mouth too slack and throat shaking, all his bones bouncing beneath his skin. "Artist? Me?" He waved at Matt. "Show."

Sanaa released him as Matt pulled off his thin, torn shirt. She sucked in a horrified breath at the body underneath. Broken, so broken. His upper arms were all terrible indents and lumps from bones shattered, then poorly healed. His ribs were a mess, all wrong angles, some in visible pieces. When he started to tug his pants down she caught the knobbed edges of misaligned hips—

"Stop," Sanaa gasped. "Don't. That's enough."

The pale man grinned, mouth too wide. "Break the bones, move the bones, turn them into something new." He nodded slowly. "See now, like artwork. But more. Belongs to me, part of me. Feels what I feel. Comes to me when I call. Needs to. Only way to ease the pain."

Matt stepped forward. "Please." He glanced at Sanaa. "I have to. He's hurting now, hurting so much. And I can feel it all. So let me go with him. It's the only way to stop—"

"Quiet!" the pale man snapped. "No more talking. Come now. Hurting now!"

"But," Sanaa whispered. "He isn't dead. You know what it feels like—the pain, the body that won't do as it is told. How could you possibly inflict that on anyone else?"

The man tipped his head like he just didn't understand her. "Look you, stand all tall. You must, too."

"No, no I don't. Not like this. And I won't let you keep doing it. I can't!"

He chuckled, a low sound that reverberated in her chest and left hairline fractures in its wake. "Stop me?"

Matt, poor alive innocent Matt, stood between them. "I'm sorry." His lips hardly moved. "If you don't go away, he'll make me hurt you. I'm sorry, I can't stop it."

Sanaa, torn, unsure what she could possibly do, held her breath. "Please," Pete whispered behind her, where he huddled in the light. She met Matt's terrified gaze, eyes wide and cheek twitching, but the rest of him still and hard as stone.

Then the smallest, strangest noises echoed through the warehouse. Scratching, like dozens of rats' claws against cement, then the screech of metal on stone. It grew faster, closer, louder, until even the pale man turned to peer into the darkness behind him.

Possum On A Hot Tin Roof led the way, kicking and clawing into the light. Then the others emerged, all of them. King Rat Trap in a chaos of steel and tiny limbs, helped RooStone drag its heavy granite body. Her favourites from the hallway walls, the pile she'd thought too powerless to move anymore and therefore ready to sell, half-made sketches in feather and bone, massive pieces from her larger installations. Their canvases were muddy, their paint scratched. Most had parts missing. One had definitely been run over by a train.

"You followed me," she whispered. "How did you know I would need you?" Possum's empty eyes peered up at her. Cat Box rubbed against her shins. They were a part of her, bound to her, bones to bones, death and life. How could they not have known?

The pale man had Matt. Sanaa had an army.

She didn't even need to tell them what to do, at least not out loud. Her artworks swarmed over the man, covering him in bones and wire and steel mesh, bearing him down to the ground, pinning him. When Matt turned to fight for him they smothered him too, but gentler, immobilising but never hurting. Careful with one of their own.

It looked to Sanaa like a work of art, each piece a part of a powerful whole, with the cement floor as its canvas. Watching, avid, she slipped the broken backpack from her shoulders. "Alice," she called. "Get my tools out."

Saw in hand, she crouched, inspected. Measured with her eyes, and imagined. "Pale Man?" she whispered, and glanced at Cat Box. "What do you think about that for a name?"

#####

Sanaa bought the old warehouse for a fraction of the cost of her townhouse and moved in straight away. Boxes of dead animals would have been a challenge for any removalists, but her army of carrion gathers made it easy. No questions to answer, either.

She bought beds for the kids, and let them sleep with the lights on. She set up an enormous studio and was more productive than ever. She even went outside, on occasion. Rare occasion.

All thanks to Pale Man, and his unending strength.

Every morning, before she helped Alice prepare breakfast, before coffee—which she was developing a taste for—Sanaa visited Pale Man in his room, secure behind a heavy metal door and Cat Box, ever guarding.

His bones, wiped clean, were pale indeed, and shone far whiter than his skin had. He'd made the most beautiful installation piece, and the strength he gave her never faded. She wasn't cruel, not even to him. She'd made him far more perfect than he would ever have otherwise been. She'd made him human.

All the right bones in all the right order, tied together with copper, silver, and dotted with flecks of gold. His wrists were bound to the ceiling and his feet to the floor, and he floated in between, suspend on a spider web of wire. Fairy lights surrounded him, like those she'd seen in the trees on her street. She'd installed a fake window, with a lamp and a fan behind it, so he could feel the warmth of a pretend sun, and the brush of a cooling breeze.

She fed him tiny, nameless artworks, made from bird wings, or mice. Just enough to make sure he never tired and, she hoped, alleviate his pain. This wasn't punishment or revenge. This was art.

He might have been a monster, but, after all, so was she.

# Escena de un Asesinato by Robert Hood

Originally seeing print in  Exotic Gothic 4 from PS Publishing, "Escena de un Asesinato" was shortlisted for the Horror Short Story category of the Aurealis Awards and the Long Fiction section of the Australian Shadows Awards. It was also included in Paula Guran's _Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2012_ from Prime Books.

"Buy a photo?" I say without hope, talking to a rotund man in a business suit. He's stopped to check out the prints stuck on my tatty pin-board, which leans uncertainly on the wall next to me.

"I don't think so," he mutters, on the verge of turning away. But something in the photographs keeps him standing there.

"Some of them aren't bad," he mutters at last.

I shrug, feeling the texture of the brick wall against my back, the cold resistance of the footpath under my arse. I can smell my own sweat and despondency. "Ten dollars. Give an aging ex-photographer a break!"

"How much for that one?" He points at a street scene in a Mexican town.

There are two people prominent in the foreground. One is an old woman, the other a masked visage with only the eyes showing. Though the masked man is not always in the photo, he's there now. He's rarely been so close. The intensity in his eyes is unnerving.

"You from Mexico?" I ask.

The man scowls, considering. "My mother was."

"Did she work for the government?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. Not that it's any of your business."

"You have a wife? Kids?"

He nods absently.

"I can't sell you that one," I say, resisting the deep-seated compulsion that urges me to do the opposite. I grip the object hidden in my pocket.

"Why not?"

"The masked man in the picture means you harm."

My potential customer scowls again, more expressively this time. He thinks I'm crazy and he might be right. Yet even if he deserves the ill fortune owning that photograph would bring, I can't do it to him.

"How about another one?" I gesture vaguely at a picture of Mayan ruins.

Landscape only. No people. I've never seen anyone in that particular photograph.

The man shrugs. "No thanks." He flicks a coin into the empty camera case I use as a pauper bowl and takes off down the street, looking back once or twice as though afraid I'll follow him.

I feel the anger radiating from the photo of the woman and the masked man. El Roto's eyes burn with frustration.

"I won't let you kill again," I whisper, holding onto the small primitive doll for my life.

#####

August 1999, it's cold, and I'm in Sydney—that ex-colonial metropolis hunkering down in fin de siècle tension between rising ocean and expanding desert interior. Westward, tendrils of suburban indifference spread outward from its heart. I stare through reflections on glass at the city's patterns of artificial light, burnt into the haze and dark. I'm not feeling optimistic.

My exhibition of travel photography—Susurros del Roto—opens tonight. There are fewer than thirty people in attendance, one of them an influential TV talking-head who writes for the Herald's culture pages and is likely to give me a much-needed review if the work either impresses him or he thinks I'm on the rise and wants to hedge his bets. At the moment he's talking to an over-sexed, under-dressed young woman in high heels who's offering him a sultry smile. My most recent girlfriend. I'm hoping Sioni's rather crude allure will get him on side.

"That streetscape is a work of genius, Morley," a middle-aged woman says with undue familiarity, sleazing up to me and waving her umpteenth glass of New Zealand Pinot Noir between the tips of over-painted fingers. I have no idea who she is. "You've absolutely captured the essence of the country's post-revolutionary despair."

The 'framed silver gelatin' (aka black-and-white) print she alludes to is one I took a few years ago in Ocosingo, a town in the Chiapas state of Mexico. I can't give an exact date. My notes are less than precise and my memory's a bag with holes. An ordinary street behind the market area, made evocative by shallow depth of field, a splash of darker paint on flimsy-looking walls, and close focus on the wrinkled features of an old woman just appearing out of a doorway. Parts of the street are suspended in her gaze. She looks as though she's about to curse.

"You think so?" I say. "I liked the contrast of the woman's ornate wrinkles against the barren poverty of the buildings. They're akin, yet profoundly separate. Aesthetics, that's all. No politics."

She makes a small coughing sound. "But surely the figure emerging from the shadows at the far end of the street is part of an ongoing discourse on the Country's unresolved past?" She squints at me expectantly.

"What figure?" I say, amused. "The street's empty. If anything about that photo is symbolic, it's the emptiness."

"There's definitely a figure there, Mr Turrand. I can see it clearly. Not its features as such but the general shape. A desperado or something."

I turn toward the photo. "There's nothing..." The words fall away. There is something. Behind the face of the old woman, barely distinguishable from the blur of the distant street, lurks a human form. It's unclear whether, as I'd pressed the shutter release, the figure had been moving or was stationary, observing. Nor can I tell where it's looking, though I have an unsettling sense that it's staring straight towards the camera. I've studied that image many times as I prepared the photographs for display, and I'm positive I've never seen that shape before.

I push past the woman, who grunts her own displeasure and begins whining about artistic eccentricity to someone near her. I don't care. I lean close to the print, but the figure is real enough—not simply a simulacra, not a smudge or chemical stain. It's dressed in what appears to be a loose-fitting black poncho gathered in at the waist, with a black hood or scarf tied at the top of the head to form a mask, so that only a light smear of face is visible. It may hold a rifle.

I've seen it before, or something like it.

#####

June 1996. I'm sitting in an ordinary cantina in the township of Ocosingo, brooding over a mug of cheap comiteco. I look up as a woman sits at my table. It's unexpected, because there's a sign on the door forbidding entry to policemen, dogs and whores. No one seems bothered by her presence though.

"Buenas noches," she says, with a sardonic smile. She's smoking a small cigar.

"Sorry," I say, groping for the words, "I'm not looking for, um, companionship."

Those eyes, that were copal only a moment ago, darken. "You assume I am a puta? Why? Because I sit uninvited? Because I talk to a stranger?"

I hadn't expected my crude Spanish to be understood. Her English, however, is fine. I look her over. Her white shirt is open at the neck, but not enough to reveal cleavage, just soft café con leche skin. She's wearing baggy black pants. I imagine the small hips, and the firm, reddish-tanned legs they cover. "Are you?" I ask, reverting to English.

"Does it make a difference?"

"Maybe."

Her eyes are darkly luminous, her hair black and cut short around her ears. No obvious make-up, but she's not colourless or plain for all that. With a hat and serape, she'd almost pass for a man from a distance, but up close, her body is distinctly feminine and her face mesmerising: full lips slightly parted, rounded cheeks, and the centres of the eyebrows, over Frida Kahlo eyes that won't let you off too easily, raised, questioning.

"Care for a drink?"

"I don't drink," she replies and falls silent, staring at me.

I lean a little closer, smelling scented vanilla mixed with white chocolate.

"How can I help you then?"

She shrugs and blows a cloud of smoke over my head. "I sit. I wait."

Now I feel discomfort, even a sense of danger, though she has made no threatening moves. Her rich, unpainted lips caress the cigar with delight, teasingly. After a few moments she reaches down into a pocket in her pants, and I inhale. She fetches some object and places it on the table in front of me. Her hand draws away, leaving it standing there.

The thing is a small rough doll, whether man or woman is unclear. About eight or nine centimetres high, it's dressed in what is meant to be a black serape, head covered in a hood except for a slit from which two eyes peer, sewn in black thread. Hands and visible face are the only white fabric—though a twine made of black-and-white yarns crosses its chest like bandoliers. In its nascent hands it holds a crude rifle made of wood.

"What's this?" I ask.

"Zapatista doll," she murmurs.

I touch it then pull my hand back. "Zapatista?"

She glares critically, but that only makes her more captivating. "You are not very perceptive, are you, Señor Turrand? You photograph but you do not see."

"Well, I don't know what you want me to see—"

"Zapatistas are rebels," she says. "Bandidos, if you will. Part of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional. They have opposed the oppressive Mexican state since 1994—the tail-end of a war that has gone on for many decades. To many they are heroes. The better known of them have been turned into these figures, so." She gestures at the doll. "It is good for tourism."

"Is that right?" I lean closer to the doll, pondering the ubiquitous tradition that transforms social malcontents into celebrities. Robin Hood, Ned Kelly, Phoolan Devi, Ishikawa Goemon, Dick Turpin, Pancho Villa: hero-bandits all. "Who's this bloke?"

"El Roto." She offers a half-grin. "Once Genaro el Roto, Genaro the Broken, the Lost."

"Is he particularly famous?"

"Famous for being dead. He was shot here in this town during the fighting two years ago, murdered by the government's militia. His first name was indeed Genaro. But his last was a secret, his nom de guerre El Roto, after our famous Mexican outlaw from a century ago. Others have adopted that name now. El Roto lives on in them."

"Others?"

"The fight continues, Señor Turrand. But it is now in the hands of the new generation, with their different methods. This man needs to be freed. Vengeance does not work for the greater good, and he is become a liability. Do you understand?"

I shrug, bewildered by her words and her quiet passion.

She smiles, her sensuality warming me. "You, too, are El Roto. I see it in your eyes."

"If you say so."

"I do. Take it." She gestures at the doll. "I want you to have it."

What's she after? I don't know how to respond.

"Those who die without resolution often return," she adds, "and may not serve the best interests of the country. It can be disruptive."

"You mean they become martyrs to the cause?"

"Victims merely. But vengeful ones."

Her burnt honey eyes hold meaning she doesn't speak. "So where was El Roto killed?" I ask, unnerved by the depth of those eyes, which now half close.

"The market square. Along with others." She gestures again. "Take the doll. It is a gift. Take it back with you when you go home, to remind you that not all find peace."

I frown again at the insistence in her tone.

"Take it," she repeats.

"I meant no disrespect."

She watches with curious intensity as I reach out and let my fingers wrap around the doll. When I draw it closer to myself, it's as though she relaxes. I can feel the atmosphere around us lighten.

Her eyes rest on me gently, perhaps sadly now.

"Más comiteco, Señor?" Torn from my distraction, I look up into an indifferent, plump and pitted, mustachioed face—the tabernero's.

"No thanks, though the lady might want something."

He looks confused. Perhaps I'd said it incorrectly; my grasp of Spanish and local dialects is horrible, frankly. "Lady?" he queries.

"This one—" I glance across the table to where the alluring woman was sitting, but she's no longer there. Nor can I see her anywhere in the room. Only the chocolatey scent of Ocosingo's fully-bloomed ceiba flowers lingers.

"Señor?"

"She appears to have gone."

Ragged eyebrows bend into a frown. "There are no ladies here, Señor." He shrugs, and adds, "It is prohibited."

"She gave me this." I hold out the doll.

He dismisses it as commonplace, immediately backing away from it. I can tell it worries him. "What's going on here?" I demand.

"Please leave."

His face is hard and serious. Then he turns and shuffles back toward the bar.

I don't bother arguing; I've had enough of this. I drop the doll on the table and head for the door.

#####

January 1994. I'm stumbling through a street off the market square, the bullet lodged in my thigh burning as fiercely as my anger. Around me, the air vibrates with shouting, gunfire and the choking breath of my own fear. From behind, a percussive rifle shot catches up to me, overtakes and echoes along the street ahead.

"Genaro!" Acatl cries and I glance back.

He falls to one knee, hand clutching his shoulder—and beyond him several Government militia run toward us, yelling and waving their rifles. I take a hesitant step forward, aware that we are being hemmed in, but not wanting to abandon my friend. Another shot cracks and bounces off the walls to either side. Acatl jerks forward onto his face, the road surface muffling his cry.

I regain my balance and turn to run on, desperation energising my aching muscles. Bullets explode into the ground to my right, and I leap awkwardly towards the nearest cover, behind some concrete stairs. One more step then my left thigh erupts in pain, throwing me forward. My leg collapses and I crash to the ground.

I'm aware of the thud of heavy boots drawing near. A soldier looms over me. He's breathing heavily.

I glance up at him. "Bastardo!" I say, a mere whisper.

The man—large and black against the sky and the eaves of shops on the far side of the road—looks down in silence. His face is harsh, and his rifle poised and ready.

I hear the shot and feel near-simultaneous pain in my forehead—a blood-flash before the bullet ruptures my skull.

#####

August 1999, the day after my exhibition's opening night. I've been drinking for hours now, appeasing my own unhappiness through the pursuit of oblivion. The morning newspapers are strewn over the floor of my apartment, torn and crumpled.

"Had enough, Morley?"

Sioni stands in the bedroom doorway, her hair untidy and make-up smeared. She's wearing a Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt and nothing else. It'd make me take her straight back to bed if I wasn't so pissed.

I drag my carcass off the sofa, and squint. "So what's with Groban anyway?" I re-fill my scotch glass. "I saw you playing up to the bastard."

"You told me to."

"'More post-colonial landscapes from Morley Turrand. Yawn.' What sort of a review is that?"

"Is that what he wrote? He told me he liked your snaps."

I stand close, so close I can feel the heat of her.

"Likes my snaps? I guess the blow-job you gave him in the backroom wasn't up to scratch then."

"Fuck you, Morley."

"Sioni, it's all you're good for. Least you can do is get it right."

She glares, her whipped-puppy eyes moist. She's on the verge. It's so damn easy.

But she fights it. I see the moment of vulnerability pass. "Maybe it's your snaps that are fucked."

Before any reactive synaptic activity can generate a response in my muscles, her fist catches my left cheek, even though she was aiming for my mouth. It wouldn't have been so bad but she's got a silver skull ring on her third finger, Keith Richards-style; one I gave her! I stumble back a bit.

After a moment she looks up at me. Tears glint in her eyes—but they're hot tears, not the lukewarm drizzle of misery. "You want me to be sorry, Morley? Well, I'm sorry you didn't get what you wanted from me. I'm sorry about your career and I'm sorry you're an arsehole. Most of all I'm sorry I've had anything to do with you."

Her words cut through the alcoholic haze. "Sioni, I'm bleeding here—"

"And don't bother to apologise. I'm going as soon as I get dressed. I won't be back."

The bedroom door slams. For a moment I fight an impulse to kick it down, but the fire dies quickly. I don't even try to talk her out of it.

She's as good as her word. Still disheveled but dressed in the red, impossibly sexy silk dress she'd been wearing last night, she emerges from the bedroom about ten minutes later. "I am sorry, Sioni," I almost bawl. "It's the bloody alcohol, my head, that dick Groban—"

She gives me little more than a side-glance before turning away. The fact that she doesn't even have the passion left to slam the front door as she leaves paralyses me.

So I take another swig of scotch and follow up by tossing the glass, half-full though it is, against the wall. It shatters with satisfactory violence.

How long I slump in the chair, mindless with self-pity, I don't know—but I'm pulled out of it by the phone. It's Grace Nye, the gallery owner—the last person I want to talk to. When I left the exhibition at about eleven, only one or two minor unnumbered pieces had been sold.

"Not good, eh, Grace," I say.

"Not in volume, no—and yes, I noticed Groban's comment this morning."

Silence. I'm afraid to say anything.

"But I have one piece of good news. You sold one of the major pieces."

"Good god! Which one?"

"Escena de un Asesinato. The street scene with the old woman's face—"

"Really?"

"It was Norma Rivera. You know her? She seemed to know you quite well."

I didn't, but I get Grace to describe her and I place her at once.

"The thing is, Morley," Grace continues, "she wanted to take it with her. Number one of the run. Seemed rather obsessive about it."

"I don't usually do that—and besides, the print was flawed." Remembering the phantom shape, I immediately determine to check the other prints.

"Was it? I didn't notice. Anyway, she insisted. Even offered to pay more. I could hardly refuse." Grace tells me how much more and all my objections suddenly dissipate in a cloud of mercenary relief. "Anyway," she continues, "can you bring me another print? Maybe a few of them, just in case. I'll get one framed before we open this afternoon. We might be on a winner there."

"Sure, sure."

As I hang up, I start to shout for Sioni, to tell her the good news.

Then I feel my face and remember that she's gone.

#####

June 1996, a few days after I met the woman in the cantina. I've been wandering the countryside around Ocosingo, on this occasion photographing the nearby Mayan ruins at Toniná in a way that I hope will appeal to tourists. Travel Scene Magazine somehow heard that I'm here in Mexico and tracked me down to the Hotel de Destino. The editor wants me to take some appropriate shots of the area, on commission. I can use the money, so I reluctantly agree to prostitute myself. Now I'm busy playing the back-door whore. It's not hard. It's what I've always done.

The day is warm, not hot enough to irritate me. It rained last night, lightly, so the air's clear. I'm feeling almost optimistic. I take some panoramic shots of the view then proceed through random clusters of trees toward the detritus of ancient stonework and Toniná's huge central pyramid. It rises from grass and vegetation as though thrust up from underground.

Despite its openness, there's a shadowy quality to Toniná that quickly drags me back into myself after the innocence of the surrounding fields. The ancient ruins are scattered over much of the hillside like the broken corpse of a city, but as I pass a sacrificial altar isolated in an open area of grass, and climb the stairs into the ruins proper, the ornate rubble closes around me and begins to squeeze my soul.

Toniná's antique paths, foundations and walls become a maze-like complex that is, they say, oriented to the night-sky, with occasional openings thick with shadow that lead downward into the earth. But I'm so enmeshed in the details, I can't see the pattern. Friezes solidify out of the rough stonework as I move about, many of them depicting bound and headless prisoners. The most prominent is of King Kan-Xul from nearby Palenque, cowering with rope tied around one constricted arm. Among Toniná's greatest achievements were, apparently, the defeat of Palenque and the capture of the King, who subsequently suffered ten years of humiliation at his captors' hands before execution. So my guidebook tells me.

I come across a sarcophagus carved out of a single large stone, its lid missing and its mortal contents long gone. By now I've lost the bucolic peace I'd found in the green fields and darker green clumps of trees that sweep across the gently rolling land around the hilltop ruins, oppressed by an awareness that what remains longest of civilisation are the scars of violence and death. I wonder if the original inhabitant of the sarcophagus is still here somewhere, unwilling to leave. As I take picture after picture, the sun gradually lowers and the light glows eerily.

A breeze picks up as the day dwindles. I've been shooting the outside of a half-buried wall topped by cacti, with three arched doorways leading below ground-level to a labyrinth known as the Palace of the Underworld. Snapping shots as I go, I approach the central opening. Thick darkness beyond it gives me a momentary frisson that makes my skin squirm. It's a psychosomatic response, I know, but the shiver is real enough.

Looking through my Minolta, I set up a frame that encompasses only the central archway and surrounding stonework. As the scene comes into focus I'm aware of a figure standing in the internal shadows beyond the rough architrave. I take the shot then pull the camera away from my face, blinking to peer through the lowering sunlight. The opening's about one hundred metres distant, so if someone's there I should be able to see him. But I can't, only that dark gaping hole into the Underworld. Another glance through the camera's viewfinder, using a close-in zoom, reveals nothing. Whoever it was must have stepped backwards into the labyrinth.

I approach the middle doorway, but even standing right at the shadow's edge I can't peer more than a metre or two beyond the entrance. Without consciously acknowledging the fact, I am unable to enter, muscular control drained by an awareness of evil. Instead I discharge the camera's flash, splashing its garish light over the rough internal walls. At the far end of the passage is a male, almost naked, what clothing he wears tattered and meagre. His eyes spark red. I gasp, and step back as the afterimage fades.

"Señor?" comes a voice from behind me. I expel a weak gasp as I turn and stumble to the side. A small man wearing farmer's clothes and a large straw hat squints up at me with sardonic curiosity, as though my reaction is an absurdity he can't quite fathom.

I apologise in my uncertain Spanish. "You, um, surprised me. There was someone... In the, um...en el laberinto."

He stares in that direction then scowls, his lips twitching like anxious slugs. "Bandido?"

I try to explain that the figure seemed like an ancient Mayan, like many of the friezes that depict Toniná's prisoners.

He shrugs incomprehension or indifference then steps into the dark passage. I try to stop him, but he brushes me off and disappears. I hear his feet scraping down the rough path. A minute or two later he returns. His dark pupils peek through a mass of wrinkles, enough to evaluate me.

"Nada?" I say.

He nods.

"Do they hide here? Bandidos? Do they hide in those—?" I gesture toward the darkness.

He says nothing. Either he can't understand me or he thinks me crazy.

After a few moments of silence, irritated by his inaction, I ask him what he'd wanted in the first place.

"Turrand?" The word seems distasteful to him.

"Morley Turrand. Sí."

His long battered hand offers me a Zapatista doll. It looks familiar. I remember leaving it behind in the cantina a few days before.

"Where did you get this?" I ask.

"Qué?"

"The doll...Zapatista doll? Who gave it to you?"

"Fantasma," he answers without a hint of irony. A ghost? He follows up with a jumble of words I'm too surprised to translate, though I gather he thinks I've been careless.

I ask if he knows who the ghost was.

He says I know her—that is what matters.

"What do you mean?"

"Fantasma," he repeats, pointing at my chest.

#####

June 1996. Sometimes this is how I remember meeting the woman. She sits across the table from me, smoking her thin cigarette with calm intensity. She isn't pleased. We have spoken briefly and though she denies being a prostitute I can't imagine why else she would be here.

Offering me the Zapatista doll was an unsettling moment—so familiar, giving me a shiver of déjà vu, and filled with the white chocolate-mixed-with-vanilla fragrance of ceiba. Yet her explanation fascinates me, even if it smacks of unstated intent. I should refuse it and send her away.

"Take the doll," she whispers. "It is a gift. To remind you that not all find peace."

I frown at the insistence in her tone.

"Take it," she repeats.

I grasp the doll despite myself and study the odd crudity of its making to avoid the embarrassment of having obeyed her so easily. Now, however, having accepted her gift, I find myself drawn to the woman. My skin tingles as though her slim fingers caress my face. I raise my eyes from the doll to stare at her, imagining the small blossom of a body she hides beneath unappealingly masculine clothes. The beginnings of desire stir in my gut. "Now you want me," she says, "whether or not I am a puta."

"If you're a streetwalker, I'm not interested."

Her smile is private and knowing. I feel voyeuristic merely seeing it.

"To pay for sex," she says, "would be an affront to your masculinity, would it?"

"No, that's not—"

"Do not fear, Señor Turrand," she interrupts, "I have not loved for a long time, and would not consider it now except that you interest me."

"I interest you?" I say, taken aback by her forthright manner.

"Sí. As I interest you."

I should be put off by her condescending manner, but the deep tones of her voice vibrate through my mind, overturning denial and stoking the fires of arousal.

"What's your name?" I ask.

"Once, I was called Coronela María de la Luz Espinosa Barrera. Perhaps you have heard of me."

I haven't and she knows it. Her smile makes my heart beat faster.

"Should I?"

"If you cared for more than yourself, perhaps...yes. History is importante, Señor."

Annoyance rises again, but it only fuels my desire for her. I frown—and the woman laughs. "Just Coronela then."

"Coronela." I taste the word, letting it vibrate in my throat.

"Come!" She takes my hand and pulls me to my feet. The table rattles and the tabernero glances our way. I extract money from my pocket and ostentatiously place it under my half-empty glass.

"Enough?" I yell across the room.

He gestures uncertainly, a little befuddled, but doesn't pursue the matter.

Coronela leads me out into the street. "Where are we going?" I ask.

"I do not make love on cantina tables. Or in back alleys." She gestures. "Your hotel, I think."

Speechless, I follow.

After a few blocks, she indicates a large space that opens out to our right beyond the buildings at the end of a narrow road. "That is the market," she says. "It is there that many Zapatista rebels died when their peaceful occupation of the township was repressed most violently by Government butchers." She gestures around us. "Here is where Genaro el Roto was murdered. Remember the spot. You must come back and photograph it, no?"

"I guess."

"You will photograph it, won't you, Señor Morley?"

I stare at her accusingly. "How do you know my name, Coronela?" I demand. "How did you know what I do? I never told you."

That secret smile again, advising me that she has no intention of answering my question. "Much depends on you photographing this spot." She grabs my arm and pulls me close, forcing me to look directly into her eyes. Their black depth mesmerises me. "When you do, you must carry the doll with you."

"The doll?"

"Sí, you must keep it close."

"Okay, okay, I will."

"You must."

She lets go.

"Also when you go to Toniná in three days time," she continues, "you must take care what you photograph."

"What d'you mean?"

"There are things in that place, ancient resentments, which you must not capture with your camera. The doll, El Roto—it marks you as his and will keep the others at bay. Stupidly, however, you went there without it."

"Went there without it? Look, I've never been to Toniná. I've no intention of going there."

"You will have reason to go to Toniná—and you will go, without protection. But I have righted that error. Now you will take the doll."

"You righted it? Even though I haven't gone there yet?"

Her eyes hold me in their silence.

"I don't have a clue what the hell you're talking about," I say.

She doesn't smile as she takes my hand. "Come, I will give you what you think you want. Later you may understand."

#####

June 1996. Toniná. Is this the way it happens? It feels wrong.

I'm photographing the ruins for Travel Scene Magazine, fairly unenthusiastically, I must confess. I've been at it for several hours already and am now facing a wall with three stone-framed doorways leading to underground tunnels—the Palace of the Underworld. Raising the viewfinder of the Minolta to my eye, I focus on the central passage. A lighter shadow lingers in the internal darkness beyond the rough architrave. I take the shot then pull the camera away from my face, but there's no one there, only that dark gaping hole into the Underworld. Another glance through the camera's viewfinder. Nothing.

I must be imagining things. There aren't even tourists around—I haven't seen anyone all day. Nervously I grip the Zapatista doll, which is in my coat pocket. My breathing calms and once again the day seems ordinary.

I take more shots of the ruins, even forcing myself to get a few inside the structure itself. I find no evidence of other people among its evocative shadows. When I re-emerge from the gloom the atmospheric sunlight has turned into a flat gloaming and I begin the long trek back to Ocosingo. It's dark by the time I get to the hotel.

#####

August, 1999. When I check them, none of the other prints of Escena de un Asesinato show any background markings that might be construed as a human being. I take numbers two to ten to Grace at the gallery and she accepts them eagerly. She's hoping that Norma Rivera's excessive enthusiasm for the picture will be the start of a trend. Even if others pay less, the commission will help reduce the loss she clearly expects to make.

"How many are there in the run, Morley?" she asks. I point toward my hand-drawn signature. Under it I've written #2 of 17. "Only seventeen?"

"That's how you make these things valuable, Grace."

"But we usually extend the run to fifty or one hundred."

"I want this to be very collectible."

"Why?"

I frown, not having considered it before. "I don't know. Why not? I burnt the negatives of all the exclusives. There has to be a guarantee of limitation."

"That's ridiculous, Morley. Do you realise what we could lose on a deal like that?"

"It's how I want it."

She gives me a side-glance sneer that says you think far too highly of yourself, though she doesn't articulate it further. When I don't respond she turns her gaze toward the picture.

"It's a nice shot, Morley. There's something compelling in it. Why's it called Escena de un Asesinato?"

"Murder Scene. A revolutionary was killed there in 1994."

She nods thoughtfully. "That explains something the Rivera woman said: An echo of the last Ocosingo insurgents. She reckoned there was a bandit further up the street. She was keen to show it to her husband. Couldn't see it myself."

"You couldn't?"

She shrugs, holding up print #2. "Well, can you?"

As I leave her to her business, I feel a sense of disquiet scratching at the insides of my skull. I'm sure there had been a shape there on the street in print #1 of Escena de un Asesinato, the suggestion of a bandit-like spectre coming my way. Norma Rivera had seen it. So had I. Why not Grace?

#####

June 1996.

Do I make love with Coronela?

"You must see, Morley, and if not you, you must let your camera see what is before you."

I peer through the lens down a shadowy street, snapping pictures as she directs.

"There," Coronela says, "El Roto is there. Do you see?"

Someone is there, in the distance. His eyes are black holes—all three of them, one in his forehead. An old woman with wrinkled skin and withered lips appears in the frame. "No camera!" she screeches.

Click.

After we reach the Hotel de Destino, does Coronela come up to my room and with the aggressive lack of subtlety that seems typical of her, does she remove her clothes, place my hands on her skin, encourage arousal in herself and in me? I don't know. I can't remember. There are images in my head, erotic moments, heat and passion, all infused with the ceiba scent, but I don't know if they are memories or simply phantoms of desire.

"Do you seek love among the dead?" I hear her whisper in my ear. "Futile if you don't find it first among the living. Should life get too dark, then in death there will only be profounder darkness."

"There! El Roto is there."

Click.

She consumes me, draining any desire to escape. I try to push her away, but instead find myself drawn further and further into the heart of her.

I want to know who she is.

"Coronela María de la Luz Espinosa Barrera was a veteran of the Mexican Revolution of 1910," she tells me. "She fought with greater distinction than most men, and was awarded a pension once the fighting was done. But she became an exile in her own land, her temperament unsuited to peacetime society's inane mores. She wandered the country like a lost ghost, dressed as a man, abandoned in a time that was no longer her own."

"And you're this La Coronela, are you?"

She laughs. "Perhaps. Perhaps not."

"What do you want from me?"

"There! He watches you from the shadows. Shoot!"

Click.

"What will I do?"

"You will take these pictures back to your land," she says, tapping the camera on the table near me. Her voice is no more definite than breath. "The doll will protect you, but your actions will feed El Roto's desires."

Click.

Click.

A black bird flaps against the window and startles me. I open my eyes to the bloody dimness of twilight as it leaks in through tattered curtains.

I'm alone. The sheets are crumpled and sweaty. I untangle myself, needing to use the toilet, and look for my pants. My camera is lying on the floor near my discarded clothes. I check how many pictures have been taken, only to discover the entire roll is spent. I'm sure it was new only an hour before.

Later, when I develop the film, I see I have taken a series of pictures in the streets around Ocosingo's market square. I don't remember doing it.

"These are good," I mutter to myself, knowing I've found the soul of my upcoming exhibition.

#####

August 1999, and it's the day after the opening.

In a display of useless pretension, I seek out Norma Rivera, ostensibly to give her the choice of obtaining an unblemished print for her money, just to be fair. But in truth I don't care about her or fairness. I simply want to see the thing, to assure myself that the figure we both saw at the opening is still there, and not a glitch of memory.

It turns out that Norma Rivera is the wife of Alex Rivera, CEO of Harvest Futures. Their mansion is on the Harbour foreshore in an exclusive northside suburb, and I can't even get past the gate. But an intercom device, its far end impersonating some sort of semi-articulate minder, finally listens long enough to discover what I want, and replies with the terse diagnosis: "She's dead."

"Dead?"

I pause, trying to summon either genuine surprise or a modicum of sympathy. Neither comes.

"Um, perhaps I could speak to Mr Rivera then, if he's not too busy," I say at last, rather tactlessly.

"I'm sorry, sir," the voice replies, "Mr Rivera is...unavailable."

Now a pinprick of apprehension scratches across the inside of my belly.

The intercom coughs and faintly I hear a gruff voice: "I'll take care of it."

At that moment, I spot a blue flash through the bushes, down the distant end of the curving driveway. A cop car. Of course there'd be police.

"Who is this?" the voice growls.

"I'm a photographer," I manage then add hastily, "Not the press."

He asks me to explain and I do and by the time I've finished there's an officer approaching the gate. I resist the urge to run, experiencing a moment of Hitchcockian paranoia. I didn't do it, I want to shout.

The cop opens the gate. "Mr Turrand?"

I acknowledge the fact and he asks me to accompany him back to the house. He says nothing as we follow the roadway up to Rivera's mansion. The day has become colder, but sweat soaks into my shirt.

Something rather gothic is what I expect from the place, but the house turns out to be modern—all straight lines, glass and hard, functional edges. An incongruously soft-edged man in a dark suit nods in my direction. He approaches and holds out his hand.

"Detective-Inspector Greer," he says. "Thank you for cooperating, Mr Turrand."

"Ah," I say, shaking his clammy palm, "I have no idea how I can help. I don't even know what's happened."

"They're both dead." His placid eyes stare into mine. I sense his evaluation, though not as a threat.

"That's terrible," I offer, without much conviction. "How?"

"Undecided. Did you know the victims?"

"Victims?"

"Did you know them?"

"No, no, not at all. The woman...Mrs Rivera...spoke to me at the opening yesterday. I didn't know who she was. And I've never met the other."

"I see. If you could follow me, I'd like to show you something."

At the door he gives me plastic covers to put over my shoes. "Don't touch anything," he mutters. "We're still examining the scene."

He guides me into an open area that looks out through huge plate-glass windows onto an immaculately kept and spacious yard, leading down to a small wharf and Sydney Harbour beyond. It's the kind of view you see on calendars and has to be worth millions. In the room are more cops, a forensic team with assorted gadgets and bags, and two bodies. Norma Rivera is on the floor, leaning against a white wall with her eyes staring at me, sightless—mouth open as though frozen in the middle of a passionate monologue, all secret in their meaning. There doesn't appear to be a mark on her. A man I assume is Alexander Rivera is spread-eagled on the far side of the room. There's blood pooled around him and before Greer guides me away, artfully obscuring sight of him, I realise that his head is shattered, with blood and gore forming a Jackson Pollock splatter across the polished boards.

"Is this your photograph?" Greer asks.

Norma has already hung it, giving it pride of place on an open wall beside a small bar. But the glass has been shattered and the photograph ruined; it looks as though three bullets have been fired through the print into the wall behind.

"I guess he didn't like it," I say.

"Where was the stain you reckon was on the print?"

"There." I point. "Right where the holes are."

"Do you know of any reason why the victim might have done this?"

"I told you, Inspector, I've never met the man. It was just a picture I took while I was in Mexico a few years ago."

He nods to himself, rubbing at his chin as though what I've just said is the key to some grim insight.

Then he asks if I have any objection to being fingerprinted.

"Am I a suspect?" I ask.

He shrugs. "I very much doubt it. But you did turn up here at the scene and there are procedures."

As one of his underlings takes my fingerprints and particulars, Greer presses me some more, with questions relating to my whereabouts and movements the previous night, perhaps hoping I'll be distracted by the bureaucratic chores and give myself away. He takes down Sioni's contact number so she can corroborate my alibi. I wonder if she will. Finally he decides I'm either innocent or a complete drongo and gets one of his men to show me out.

In the days that follow I discover from one of Grace's PR acquaintances that ballistics indicates it was definitely Alex Rivera who pumped three bullets into Escena de un Asesinato #1 of 17—but no other rounds had been fired.

"What about the one that killed him?" I ask. "He was clearly shot in the head."

"Not so, apparently," she replies. "No other bullets anywhere, no chemical residue in the wound, no projectile scoring on the skull fragments. He wasn't shot, or battered to death for that matter. They don't know what caused it. That's what's got them confused."

"I don't understand."

"Incidentally," she adds, "were you aware that he was a native of Chiapas state?"

"What?"

"Born in San Cristóbal, Mexico. Quite a coincidence, eh? Apparently his father was in the Mexican army during the 1920s and fought against the rebels. He may have been ex-militia himself. At any rate the cops suspect that Rivera was a member of one of the larger drug cartels and involved in illegal importation. They think he may have swindled his Mexican bosses. That'd be why he was killed. Retribution."

#####

I'm aware of someone sitting on the bench at my feet, their presence obvious to me though I haven't opened my eyes yet. Do not resist him, a female voice whispers. My pulse quickens. I pull my old coat off my head and push myself onto one aching elbow. The night has been cold and my joints are stiff. There's no one there.

"What d'you want of me?" I shout at the empty space, scaring a group of pigeons into panicked flight. An early morning commuter across the park glances in my direction and quickly looks away again. He hurries toward the sounds of traffic beyond the trees.

#####

June 1996. In retrospect, I realise that I can't remember ever feeling Coronela's breath on my skin, hearing her heart beat or sensing her warmth as our bodies press together. Is she still here beside me, I wonder? Was she ever here?

"We avenge our men and ourselves," she whispers. "It may be the men who die, but it is the women who suffer."

I want to reach over and touch her, but suddenly I'm afraid of what I'll find. It makes no sense.

The darkness thickens and night palls.

"Why me?" I ask.

Her voice seems to linger, no longer immediate, but more like a memory.

"I'm sorry, Señor Morley," she whispers.

In the morning, she's gone.

#####

August/September 1999. A cleaner named Emilio Torres dies in his flat, his skull shattered, though from what investigating officers can't tell. Inconsistencies in the forensic detail run counter to evidence that it might have been the result of a physical blow. Torres wasn't a rich man, and had lived alone, yet he'd felt compelled to buy one of my overpriced Escena de un Asesinato prints. He'd limped badly—from an injury sustained during the Chiapas uprising of 1994, he told Grace. That's why he was so fascinated with the photo. She sold him one of the later numbers, unframed. It was found crumpled near his body.

A few days later Gabriel Moreno, owner of a chain of Mexican restaurants, is shot in the head in his home, though no bullet can be found at the scene and nor does forensic analysis reveal sign of a weapon's discharge. He was holding the print of Escena de un Asesinato that he'd purchased the previous evening. His wife and son are found dead in other parts of the house, though their bodies reveal no signs of violence at all.

Robert Ortega and his wife die under mysterious circumstances the following evening. They have also bought one of my Escena de un Asesinato prints. Ortega has diplomatic connections with the Mexican government, though none of my sources can discover what those connections are. Whatever his job might be, it ensures that the details of his death remain hidden from the press.

I sleep badly. In the night I dream I am running through the streets of Ocosingo, pursued by a man with no face. There is a pattern, I'm sure of that, and I also know that if I can only work out what it is, I can escape the inevitable fate that awaits me. But in my blind panic I can't see the pattern, only chaos. I try to change the dream, knowing the outcome, but am unable to. Inevitably the faceless man will catch me.

Juliana Estranez buys Escena de un Asesinato #5 of 17, takes it home and subsequently tries to burn it. She fails and is discovered next day by her cleaner, dead on the floor near the fireplace. There is no sign of violence. Later I learn that her father had been an officer in the Mexican army during the first half of the twentieth century.

Before too long, manic with weariness and fear, I embrace what my rational mind has been avoiding and collect all remaining copies of Escena de un Asesinato from Grace. She doesn't understand and I can't explain. We argue.

"At least leave me a couple of them," she pleads.

"I can't."

"What are you going to do with them?"

"Doesn't matter. Just push the other photos, Grace."

"No one wants the others, Morley. They want Escena de un Asesinato."

"I'm not selling any more of them. That's it."

In frustration, she points out that this sort of idiosyncratic behaviour might be tolerated in the Greats of the Art World, but it isn't going to do a second-rater like me much good at all.

I shrug.

She cancels the exhibition not long after I leave.

I'm too fixated on my absurd belief that the prints are haunted, too terrified of the impossible, to care one way or the other. Back in my studio, I rip the remaining prints of Escena de un Asesinato apart, tossing the shreds into a metal waste bin and setting them alight. For a while, as I decimate the run, I don't notice the decrease in room temperature that causes my breath to cloud, despite the flames and the heated air rising from the bin. After four or five prints have turned to ash, it seems as though my strength has leaked away, weariness overtaking me and turning the deepening shadows into a weight I can barely carry. Any blood still flowing through my veins becomes lethargic.

"Leave me alone!" I growl at the shadows that seem to fill the room.

But I've been careless. I don't have the Zapatista doll on me. It lies on a nearby bench, far away, and I glance at it now, fighting despair. My muscles have weakened to the point of almost total incapacity; I fight the feeling, staggering forward with my hand extended. The remaining prints drop from my fingers, scattering across the floor. I stagger. Ambient hiss in my ears becomes louder and louder as the sound of traffic beyond the walls disappears. And then, all around me, yet dim as though echoing from far away, I hear voices shouting in Spanish. I can't make out what they're saying, but the fury they express is unmistakable.

My fingers clasp the doll. Instantly the sounds disappear and my strength returns. The atmosphere lightens.

"Just stay away!" I rasp at the room. "I won't let this continue."

Holding onto the doll with one hand, I scoop up the scattered prints and one-by-one drop them into the fire. Flame consumes them. But as the last blackens and shrivels, consciousness leaks out of me and I collapse onto the floor.

#####

Living on the streets should make you feel free, but it doesn't. It's like a constant ache, a bone-cold reminder of the human connections that have foresworn you—or that you have foresworn. You are not part of the current that rushes time and the world forward. Rather, you dwell in a psychological billabong of your own, a stagnant backwater where the detritus of your past gathers to groan, to mutate, to drown you.

My life is a torrent of memories and desires, regrets and delusions. But why do the memories keep changing? Everything can't be true.

A cold wind rakes its claws through the park and I shut my eyes and hunker further into my coat. It is old and no doubt smelly, but I'm used to the stink and it's at least thick, the weave tight. It keeps out some of the chill.

Half the time now I can't remember why I burned the photos, what it was that made me imagine that posthumous resentments lingered in dark places within my mind and escaped via memory of that confused three-week visit to Mexico. The ghost of El Roto? I looked him up, back when I had internet access. El Roto—Chucho el Roto—was a bandit active at the end of the nineteenth century. He was famous, an ambiguous hero, a lover of the theatre, a seducer, and a 'non-violent' thief, but he died in prison in Veracruz in 1885, possibly beaten to death. Not in the streets of Ocosingo in 1994. The woman I knew, Coronela—she'd said the doll was Genaro el Roto. Not Chucho. The designation 'el roto'—'broken', 'discarded', 'abandoned'—has been applied to many unfortunates, many outlaws. What does it mean? Why did he, whoever he is, pick me to be his courier, his 'people smuggler'?

You, too, are El Roto, she said.

It wasn't until much later—expelled from my studio and my apartment with whatever prints I could scavenge—when the money was gone, and I was hungry and desperate—that I decided to do what others did and sell my old, unwanted goods on the street. Some spruiked ink drawings, some old comic books, some bits of metal twisted into ornaments. Photographs? Why not? What good are they to me? As I pinned them to a scrap of cardboard in the hope that someone would buy them, one grabbed my attention. I seemed to remember it. Escena de un Asesinato. Hadn't I destroyed them all? One of that run, just one, had somehow survived. I couldn't recall why I'd burned the rest.

Why does knowing that one still exists give me the tremors? I clutch at the doll I keep stuffed in my coat pocket till the fear subsides.

Escena de un Asesinato has a strange possessing power, there's no doubt about that. Though I know I shouldn't, I can't help displaying it with the other, harmless prints of Mayan ruins and Chiapas countryside. An overweight man in a brown business suit is staring at me from further down the street. I recognise him, even though I see many people in a day at my railway-entrance post. He's been here before. He shuffles up, hesitant, frowning.

"That photo?" he says. "I want it."

I know which one he's referring to.

"It's not for sale."

Obsession's twitching his muscles. I imagine the fire that scalds his belly and tightens its grip on his heart, so intensely I imagine for a moment that I can see the flames burning away his resistance.

"Fight it," I say, feeling the eyes of the hooded man in the picture drilling the back of my skull.

"What?"

"It's him." I gestured at the image. The eyes are visible through the mask; at that moment their intensity makes me pull away. "It's El Roto," I explain. "He's the one that's making you want the picture."

I force myself to stand, though I feel weak and unsteady. As I lean toward him the man draws back.

"He was murdered," I whisper. "His hatred runs deep."

The man looks panicked and for a moment I believe he's about to run off again.

"He'll kill you," I tell him. "He'll kill your family."

I see the moment he capitulates. El Roto's fire leaps into his eyes. He reaches out and grabs me by the coat, teeth gritted and violence turning his desire into a weapon. "Shut up!" he snarls, and pushes me aside. I'm too weakened to resist. I stumble and fall, cracking my head against the brickwork. Commuters drift past like ghosts, some looking, conflicted, but declining to commit to helping me. I've been exiled from their stable, civilised lives and don't command protection.

Dazed, I watch the man in the business suit grab the picture, but it's too quick and my vision is too blurred for me to tell if there is triumph in the eyes of Genaro el Roto.

"Wait!" I manage, reaching into my coat and extracting the doll. "Take this. It belongs with the picture."

The man stares at it.

"They belong together," I insist, desperate for him to have it. "It'll save you."

For a moment he clutches at his forehead, as though the pressure is already building within his skull. Perhaps, at a level beyond the control of El Roto, he knows I mean what I say, even if my words seem to be nonsense.

He leans down and snatches the rough doll from my outstretched hand. The undercurrent of guilt that lies beneath El Roto's passion breaks through. I see it on his face.

Then it's gone. The man turns and runs.

Perhaps I saved him. I'll never know.

#####

Three days later, I huddle in a disused sewer outfall, listening to the obsessive sounds of my own inner workings. The rush of blood through veins and the tighter hiss of its passage into smaller capillaries leading to the brain. Gurgling from my stomach and intestines, as they struggle to deal with whatever scraps I can find to send to them. The thudding of my heart. The white noise of tinnitus.

It should comfort me perhaps, this symphony of corporeal existence, but instead it fills me with dread. I don't know if they're the sounds of life or reminders of mortality.

Something—a shadow of something—has appeared in the photographs of ancient Mayan ruins that I took one afternoon in Toniná. It's a shape formed from shadows and I think it is coming closer. At first I believed it was El Roto, back to have his revenge on me. But no, this is something different, something more ancient and perhaps more terrible.

I don't know what to do. I'm too weak to resist, and Coronela's protection is gone.

Keep it with you at all times, she'd whispered.

So all I can do is sit.

And wait.

Perhaps she'll come back to me—and change my memories once again.

#  Kathleen Jennings – Commissions

Kathleen is often asked to do commissions for various projects, and always produces great pieces to support the work in question. Here are two from 2012.

Portrait of author Jason Nahrung, for the "Lair of the Evil Doctors Brain" interview series.

Illustration for "Runaway Bride", one of the  New Who in Conversation series of reviews by David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely.

#  Sky by Kaaron Warren

After making its first appearance in Kaaron's Twelve Planets collection  Through Splintered Walls (Twelfth Planet Press), "Sky" went on to scoop the pool of Australian national awards, winning the Horror Short Story category of the Aurealis Awards, the Ditmar for Best Novella, and the Australian Shadows Long Fiction section. It also garnered significant international attention, winning the Novella category of the Shirley Jackson Award, being shortlisted for the World Fantasy Awards Novella category, and appearing on the Locus Recommended Reading List (Novellas).

My wife has very strong teeth. She eats sugared almonds, crunch, crunch, without grimacing. The sound sickens me and makes me doubt my sanity.

The sound makes me sick because an old man went shopping at a particular supermarket, at a particular hour, a long time ago.

part one

The man pushed his shopping trolley slowly, allowing people to swerve out of his way. His hands moved of their own accord, stretching and collecting, as he shuffled forward. He selected each item carefully, reaching way back. He didn't like goods which had been handled too frequently. People stood back as he reached the checkout counter. The staff knew him, saw him twice a year. He never spoke. He paid in cash. His hair was unwashed but combed. He never looked you in the eye.

He bought rice pops, malt biscuits, dry biscuits, cat food, chocolate drink mix, shredded wheat biscuits, wholemeal bread and dates. He bought a lot of each item and handed the checkout boy $285.92. He paid the money without blinking, notes and coins from a plastic bag, and rolled away.

He imagined he was safe. He was a tall man, though thin, with scars on his knuckles. He imagined people would pity him enough to leave him alone.

He was left alone in the gutter, where he awoke. His organs ached, his food and his wallet were gone. He did not move. He stared at the moon until his eyes watered. Then he rose and went home. He let the cat out to fend for itself and gave into the temptation of suicide. There, without food or money, he died. His name was David Wall.

part two

Zed Reeves was the King of Show and Tell. His reign began well before Ms Barnes took over the class. His most famous story was the one he told in Grade One, about "Why mummies and daddies shower together, especially if your real mummy was in the hospital having your sister and the other mummy in the shower was called "Oh, Shit." As Zed's father was a senior public servant, the story had a long life in the staffroom.

Ms Barnes was warned to do nothing more than blink during Zed's turn at Show and Tell, and to simply say, "Thank you, Zed. Time's up," if too many children in the audience were crying. However, she learned for herself to inspect the exhibit first. She had been severely reprimanded and the children sent home to angry parents the day she allowed Zed to pass a box around without looking first.

"Some things I found when I was walking to school," he said, and she imagined pebbles, bottle tops, perhaps a coin and a piece of broken egg shell.

A dead rabbit. Very dead.

"Why does a rabbit wriggle?" a child said.

"And why does it smell?"

"Did it get measles?" The children giggled. Zed, whose name was Albert, but who had been called Zed since his parents fought over the name, told them all the story of the rabbit. Ms Barnes, too tired from a night out, thinking of her boyfriend while the children did not need so much supervision, realised belatedly the children were not laughing.

They were crying.

"What's the matter, children?" she said.

"Zed said the rabbit is in the pies and pasties."

"And sausage rolls."

"And he poos on the lettuce so you should wash it in the dishwasher."

"Give me the box," she said. Inside was the rabbit, victim of a hit-and-run driver. Very ripe. She had smelt it and thought it was poor little Tilly, whose parents did not seem to bother about cleanliness.

She could not redeem the situation. She started to talk about rabbits as pests, and their introduction to Australia by an Englishman who wanted them for sport.

"Soccer or Rugby League?" Kate said. Her father was a football player with an open mind. He liked both codes.

"Soccer's nancy boys playing ping pong."

"Hah rugby thugby."

Ms Barnes despaired at the tiny mouths spouting adult, ancient, nonsense arguments. It was no good asking them to think for themselves. Parents liked their children to support their views.

Poor little Tilly cried the loudest, over the top of the argument and the floor-wrestle. Others joined her, scared by the noise, and Ms Barnes could not comfort them all.

She was relieved when the headmaster came in. It meant trouble, but it also meant the incident was over and she could settle herself to learn from it.

That was months ago. She was strong, now. Not one item for Show and Tell passed into the public arena without her inspection. They had discussed free speech, though the concept was lost on children to whom free meant they didn't have to spend hard-saved coins.

"Free speech is everyone's right," she told them. "Sometimes you need to think about what you say and how it will hurt people. Sometimes when you hear other people you have to say, "That's only what they think." Because everyone has a right to think, too."

It was a mistake. Whenever he could, Zed said, "That's only what you think." There was no comeback to that.

Three weeks from the end of her first school year, Ms Barnes was feeling excited. A new batch next year, lessons learnt this year used seamlessly on the new kids, and they wouldn't know of the fumbles, the mistakes. But then she made her biggest mistake of the year. Zed had been in a fight with Jack, the smartest and smallest child in her class, and Jack had lost badly. His nose was bloody, and he sat crying in the corner, refusing offers of help or retribution.

"Fighting never solved anything," Ms Barnes said to Zed, and he nodded, but with his enemy weak and vanquished it was not much of an argument. To change the subject, she said, "Well, now, who has something for Show and Tell?"

"I want to go first," Zed said.

"How unusual," Ms Barnes said. The children didn't laugh. They knew Zed's impatience. He liked to be first just in case someone had a better Show and Tell. He had never forgotten the time Paul showed x-rays of his broken arm. All other items, including Zed's book with a murder in it, were outdone.

"All right, Zed. Come and show me what you've got."

He passed her his plastic bag.

"Boxes or string bags are better for the environment," she said, without hearing the words. She opened the bag.

"What is it?" she said. He didn't answer. She turned to her desk and upended the plastic bag, knowing you don't deliberately touch any of Zed's exhibits.

It rolled out, bounced. Rested. It was grey.

With a red fingernail.

It was a human finger.

#####

"I've had three notes from his father. None from his mother in the last two weeks," Ms Barnes said to the headmaster. She was a little breathless. Her words came out too quickly, because she had saved them up through the long, long morning until recess, when the headmaster wasn't available, and lunch. She watched him eat a ham salad, his utensils clicking quietly.

She had thrown her own lunch away in order to store the finger in her lunch box. She filled the box with ice from the staffroom freezer, but it was a warm day and she wondered how to keep the ice from melting. She didn't want to put the lunch box in the freezer, for fear of someone opening it.

She balked at writing 'Human finger. Do not open' on the lid. So she kept it with her, hearing it slosh and clink.

The headmaster said, "Leave it with me. I'll pass it on to the police," and he waved his fork, beetroot juice flying, to send her away.

#####

"I'm sure some people think a human finger is no big deal. But I saw Zed's mother's hands. I'm sure she painted her nails," Ms Barnes said to her boyfriend Richard that night.

"A lot of women do. Some men also," he said.

"But what if she's missing? What if he's killed her and no one does anything about it?"

"Why not ask the kid? He should know if his mum's missing."

"I don't want to traumatise him," Ms Barnes said. She couldn't finish her meal. After drinking a little too much white wine she made a phone call.

"'Allo?" she said. French accent. "Possibly may I speak to Mrs Reeves?"

"Mrs Reeves is not in at present. May I take a message?" The voice was young, female, plummy, with undertones of the suburbs.

"Would perhaps Mr Reeves be available?"

"Oh, no, he's still at work. In a meeting," the young woman said.

"I see," said Ms Barnes.

"Come on, Gloria, there's a good show starting," Richard called. "Leave the Reeves alone."

No one cares about the woman, Ms Barnes thought. Husband matters, and kids, but not her.

#####

Zed had Show and Tell in the morning. A magazine he found under his uncle's bed. Ms Barnes cut it up in front of the class and threw it away.

"Why don't you tell us about your mum's holiday instead," she said.

"Mum didn't go on holidays," he said.

"But you haven't seen her for quite a while, have you?"

"No, not quite a while."

"And have you got a new mummy?"

"Oh, yes," said Zed. His eyes flickered about the room, looking for clues. "She's nice. She wears no clothes and lets me look at her bosoms." The class squealed and could not be settled. Ms Barnes began to read a story and one by one they sat at her feet to listen. She had learned that if she told a story quietly they would assume it was a secret and come close to listen.

She waited until after school to visit the headmaster this time. She knocked on his door. He grunted. He was eating afternoon tea, a slice of the sponge cake made for him by a mother. He received a cake or two a week and never shared.

The spoils were never seen in the staffroom.

He said, "Yes, Miss Barnes?" She knew he only did it to annoy her, and to make her say, "Ms," so he could say, "Ms Barnes," in an exaggerated voice. His theory was that women should just get on with the job, earn respect, and not worry about titles, names, nonsense like that. The female teachers called him Miss behind his back. They all swore one day they would say it to his face.

He breathed heavily through his nose, like a snorting bull. His hair was pulled up in tufts like horns. Ms Barnes felt she should say, "Moo." The crumbs on his chin quivered with each breath.

"What is it?" he said. A hard day for the headmaster meant a hard day for everyone.

"I was just wondering what the police said." As Ms Barnes spoke, she saw her lunch box on the corner of his desk. "About that."

"Do you imagine I've had a minute to myself today? Do you imagine I sit here for my own pleasure?"

"I'd be happy to take it to them myself," she said. He waved his arm at her, making the decision hers and covering himself if anything went wrong.

Ms Barnes picked up her lunch box, glad of its watertight seal, and went to the police station, where she was assured matters were in hand.

"We even have a Finger File," said the policewoman. "All photographed and catalogued, waiting for the rest of the body to show up. I hope that eases your concern."

"Well, not really. As I say, the boy's mother has not been seen, and there is another woman installed in the place. I just think if someone went round there to see."

The policewoman smiled. "You know what this town's like. We pop in to see Mr Reeves, the press wants to know why. Then your name comes into it and all of a sudden you're a celebrity. They know where you live, they ask questions about your past. Are you ready for that?"

"Look, I'm not a rape victim. I've got nothing to do with whatever crime was committed. All I'm saying is, go and see."

"You found the finger, Ms Barnes. That makes you part of it. But I'm only giving you the picture so you'll be prepared. We'll send a couple of detectives round to talk to Zed about the finger, and they can have a little look for mum while they're there. How's that?"

"That would be acceptable," Ms Barnes said.

#####

"I can't understand why I'm the only one who makes the connection," she said to Richard later. He was massaging her feet in front of the television. "Am I so naïve that a human finger shocks me? No one else seems concerned."

"I'm concerned. I really am. But if he's killed his wife it's too late. So what's the panic?"

"What about the children, then? Are they safe? Who knows what a man like that is capable of? I feel like going to the papers."

Ms Barnes and Richard shared a bottle of sweet white wine. Music played. She felt inner-city, free. Worries about her career were secondary.

Then there was a knock on the door.

A loud knock. A thumping. "Your cop mates," Richard said, yawning. "I'll have a quick shower while you're talking to them."

Richard was obsessive with cleanliness. He showered twice a day, changing his underwear every time. He washed his hands after every activity, and cleaned his ears and nails in any idle moment. He always smelt of soap. He brought his own to Ms Barnes' house, because she bought cheap soap. His cost as much as her shampoo. She didn't use his soap. He took it carefully away each time he finished with it.

"Be quiet in there," she said.

"They won't care," he said. She worried about people. What they thought about her morals. An unmarried teacher with a naked man in her house would not look good. It was old-fashioned but she couldn't help it.

"Just be quiet in there," she said. Only moments had passed but the door was thumped on again.

She opened the door, a little flushed from wine.

"Hello, Ms Barnes." It was Mr Reeves. With Zed, and Petra, Zed's little sister. And behind them, another figure.

"I think you've met my wife," he said, and he pushed Mrs Reeves forward into the light.

"Yes, of course," said Ms Barnes. "How are you, Mrs Reeves?"

"Alive, as you can see. And very amused, isn't that right, darling?" Mr Reeves said.

Mrs Reeves tittered. "You thought he'd killed me and chopped me up."

"Zed said he'd found the finger in your freezer. I thought it was possible." Ms Barnes laughed. And laughed. The Reeves family didn't join in.

"Tell her where you really found it, Arthur," said Mr Reeves.

"I found it when the cat had it," Zed said.

"I see," said Ms Barnes, though no one explained whose finger it was.

"I hope you do," said Mr Reeves. "I really hope so. Because you'll have a while to think about it. We and the other parents have requested your immediate suspension on the grounds of instability, bigotry and immoral influence. Hello, Richard."

Richard placed his hands on Ms Barnes shoulders. "Hey, Roy. How's that knee of yours?"

"Good, good, not bad. Look, I'm sorry you had to get dragged into this mess."

"Don't worry. I'm not," Richard said. He kissed Ms Barnes on the head. "This is Gloria's very own private mess."

#####

Ms Barnes parked her car two doors up from the house she knew to be Zed's. It was four pm and there was only one car in the driveway. It seemed likely Mr Reeves wasn't at home. Ms Barnes didn't feel she could face him. He would be so pleased with himself for arranging her suspension, and suspicious of her motives for being at his home.

She twisted her ankle when she slipped on the loose-pebbled path but she ignored the pain and continued to the front door. She had no real plan of what she wanted to say, but thought that once she saw Zed the words would come.

Mrs Reeves answered the door. "Oh, hello, Miss Barnes, how are you?" she said, politeness making her forget what had passed between them. "Come in," she said, and Ms Barnes stepped over the threshold. Mrs Reeves sucked in her breath. "Oh," she said, remembering.

"I'm afraid things have gotten out of control," Ms Barnes said. "I didn't mean any of this to happen."

"No," said Mrs Reeves.

"I was just concerned for your safety."

"That really was kind," Mrs Reeves said. She laid her hand on Ms Barnes' arm. "Can I make you a cuppa? I've just taken a tray of shortbread out of the oven for the kids."

"Yes, please. I've been on the go all day."

They entered the kitchen. Zed was squatting on the kitchen bench, his fist full of shortbread.

"Hop down, Zed. Where's your sister? Look who's come to visit. Nice Miss Barnes."

"MS," said Zed.

There was a whimper from below the oven.

"Petra?" Mrs Reeves said. Petra was crouched on the floor. Her hair was streaked with flour. She was crying.

"Zed keeps throwing things at me," Petra said. Ms Barnes had been looking forward to having Petra in her class the next year. All reports had her as quiet and intelligent.

"I didn't want her to eat any biscuits until you were here, Ms Barnes," Zed said.

"How sweet," his mother said. Ms Barnes knew her visit was a surprise. Zed was lying.

"I was wondering if Zed would like to come out for a milkshake," Ms Barnes said.

"That sounds nice, doesn't it?" Mrs Reeves said. It never crossed her mind that Ms Barnes could be bent on revenge.

#####

"Do you think I'll ever get my finger back?" Zed said. Ms Barnes laughed.

"It wasn't your finger, Zed. It belonged to someone else. It was once attached to someone's hand. And anyway, I think the police will hang on to it."

Zed frowned. "I'd hate to be a policeman. I think it would be the worst job in the world."

"Why? I thought you liked dead bodies and crime and solving puzzles."

"But they're always stopping people from doing stuff."

"What sort of stuff?" Ms Barnes asked. Zed was quiet. "Zed? Is someone you know doing things they shouldn't?"

He shook his head. "Not Jack. Or his brother. Sometimes they just find good stuff. They don't steal it or anything."

"Where do they get good stuff?"

"They find it. They found it from this gross old man last time. The gross guy didn't have much good stuff. Only rice pops and malt biscuits and cat food and dates. Dumb stuff. Jack gave me some bikkies and he gave the cat food to the cat who lives next door. He likes that cat. It scratches good."

Zed took a bite of his hamburger.

Ms Barnes stared at him.

"And is that the cat who had the finger? That's where you found it?"

"Well, I didn't really find it. I had to fight for it."

"Jack?" said Ms Barnes.

"Hmmm. He showed me before school and said he wasn't going to show anyone else. All I had was the cut on my knee to Show and Tell. I was going to pick off the scab."

"Jack had the finger?"

"Yep. He found the cat playing with it."

"What sort of cat food was it?"

He snorted. "How would I know? Ask that man, the gross old one."

"Maybe Jack will remember."

"I'll ask him," Zed said quickly. He didn't want his spot as Ms Barnes' friend taken. "I'll ring him and ask him tonight."

#####

Ms Barnes found she enjoyed not working, though it made her talk to herself. Sometimes, she didn't have a shower till midday, and she went shopping in tracksuit pants and an old jumper if she felt like it. Richard was often busy, and she stopped calling him at work.

She pushed her trolley around the supermarket, thinking idly of Jack's brother, wondering how he picked his robbery victims. She selected bread and cheese, cereal, no indulgences because she wouldn't let herself go. Things would change soon; people would listen to her again. She didn't want to be in pieces when she regained respectability.

She paused by the cat food area, searching for Feline Feast. Zed had struggled with the name on repeating his conversation with Jack. He'd never heard of a feline, or a feast. Ms Barnes could see no stack of cans. There was a space, though, between no-name and expensive. Feline Feast, the little tag said. A printed notice said, "Withdrawn."

"Is Feline Feast withdrawn everywhere?" Ms Barnes asked. The shelf-stacker shrugged. "All I know is we haven't got it here. You'll have to ask the manager."

"People were finding things in it, apparently. I've been waiting for the police to catch on, but no one's asking questions. Hushed up, I'd say. Mafia business," said the manager.

"Anything's possible," said Ms Barnes. "So what sort of things were they finding?"

"Nasty bits, actually. Not that anyone is shocked these days. Fingers, toes. Extremities, you might say,"

"You might," said Ms Barnes, and she went home.

She visited the library, where she scoured the newspapers for reports on the cat food company. She had no recollection of it but didn't read the papers very often. She felt all the world's events could be seen within the walls of her classroom.

The tabloids had different stories to the broadsheets, but they seemed to share the basic facts. Feline Feast, produced in Sky, a country town she'd never heard of, had shut down. There were photos: the ghost factory; workers idle; blurry photos of the body parts found. She could not identify Zed's finger amongst them and wondered why they had not been interviewed. Mr Reeves' desire for privacy, perhaps.

It was odd, though. The investigators found that a worker, a Mrs Eva Brown, had fallen into the vat where the substances to become pulverised waited. The only reason she was found was the pulveriser wasn't working as well as it should have been. Other animal product items were also reported found: cow tail tips, pig lips, bits the public weren't meant to see.

Ms Barnes copied every photo she found, and put together a composite woman.

There were three index fingers. One was without a bright red fingernail. And it was very small, so very, very small she felt she could close her palm around it and a child's hand would form, she would lead that lovely child to safety and she would not have to fear death for a long time.

Ms Barnes packed a small suitcase, told Richard she needed time to think, and drove to pay Sky a visit.

She was not seen back home again.

part three

"Time to get up, Zed," Mum said.

Getting out of bed was important. It hadn't mattered during school. Mum would roll me out, dress me, clean me in time for school. At uni, no one cared what time you arrived or left, or what state you were in.

But now I'm a working man.

It was cold, bloody cold. I shuffled in my duvet to the lounge room where the one heater was and snapped it on. I stooped like a turtle over the warm air, then went to brave the shower.

We had central heating, but Dad insisted it wasn't cold enough to use it. Since my sister went overseas to live, he says it's not worth heating for the three of us. I missed the luxury of heat in every room, even the bathroom. Dad stood over it to shave, before, so he says he's made sacrifices too.

I dragged myself into the shower. Mum passed me in a cup of tea, her head turned the other way. "You'd better hurry, Zed," she said. "Come on, Friday, last day of the week."

She's been saying that since I was a kid.

It was a good day at work. I received commendation in the morning. Another good client report. I had lunch in a café with my assistant at work, who finds me very funny, and we went out and partied that night.

Too sick in the morning to do much but read the tabloids. My secret vice. I love bad news, terrible news, people crying. I like all the details of it, the funny stuff. I found a tiny square that read, "Kitty Quisine, formerly known as Feline Feast, will change its name to Pussy Pudding. Managing director Karl Custer says, "We feel in order to be competitive we must change with society." Pussy Pudding will continue to be produced out of Sky, a small town known as Cat Food Capital."

I snatched up some scissors and started cutting.

"You're kidding me. You've gotta be kidding me. Pussy Pudding. They can't be serious."

I pinned the clipping to my funny board, and laughed every time I walked past.

I still saw Jack, friend from primary school, because our parents were friends, but truly we had nothing in common. We got drunk, we argued and sometimes fought. Jack's blood was a familiar colour to me. Usually we sat in silence, comfortable not having to make any effort.

We often met on a Saturday, sometimes in a bar, usually at my place, where we could sit in peace and not have people wondering why we weren't talking.

"Anything new on the funny board?" Jack asked when he showed up. I wondered if I provided the only laughs Jack ever got. He went straight into the public service when we left school. No uni for that smart kid. Now he worked his way stodgily up the ladder. "Ha ha, Pussy Pudding," Jack said, then leant over and read the article again. "I thought they shut down for good," he said. "After all those fingers people found."

"Is that the one?" I said. "Remind me never to feed a cat commercial food. Hey, remember when we found that finger?"

"I found the finger," Jack said automatically.

"Whatever. Remember? And that teacher who pinched it pissed off somewhere."

"Yeah, after your dad wrecked her life. He probably killed her and chopped her up."

"Ms Barnes. She was a bitch," I said.

"No, she wasn't."

With sudden, absolute clarity, and for the first time, I realised I had been the cause of my teacher's downfall.

"So you're okay then, are you?" he asked.

"Bit sore in the head. Why?"

"It was a big one last night, that's all. Wondered what you remembered of it."

"Not much."

Once Jack left, I sat and tried to identify what I was feeling. It was the same as when I ran over that bloody kid and drove away. Guilt. The kid was okay, just a broken leg, and I was sure Ms Barnes was too. But there was something there, a secret I had kept so well I had forgotten it.

I pulled out my box of treasures from under the bed. I hadn't opened it in years. It wasn't the sort of thing you showed to girlfriends.

Inside: a small plastic case full of dead ants; a folded plastic bag which had contained a severed finger for a few wonderful hours; a photo of a dead body; a photo of a severed arm; a fingernail, torn out by playground equipment and rescued while everyone else was crying over the victim; a marble which looked like a glass eye, and a napkin with the imprint of Ms Barnes' lips. I had kept that for a reason.

I sat with a cup of coffee, playing with the napkin. What was the reason I'd kept it? We had eaten hamburgers. This was the last time she took me out for milkshakes or whatever. She asked me about the finger, and Jack, and Jack's brother, and I told her about the gross old man they had robbed. I remembered the conversation because I repeated it to some friend, trying to impress, the next day. I repeated it a few times.

"I'm going away for a while," she had said. "If I tell you where, will you keep it a secret?"

I'd nodded.

"I'm going to Sky. Where the cat food is. I'm going to investigate. But you can't tell anyone. I'm in enough trouble already."

"'Cos of Dad."

"Well, partly. But I think they were just looking for an excuse. I'm too vocal. Do you know what that means?"

I shook my head. I remember wishing that I knew the answer; I wanted her to think I was clever.

"It means I talk a lot about what I believe in. Some people don't like that."

"People don't like it when I talk, either," I said.

"No. You know what it's like, then. They only want to hear nice things. You've only got horrible things to say."

"I never fib, though."

"Except about who found the finger."

I went red. "I SHOULD have found it. If we had a cat I would have." I had never owned a cat. I had cat books under my bed that no one knew about; a secret love.

Ms Barnes blotted her lips on the napkin. "If I'm not back in two weeks, you tell your dad to come looking for me."

She smiled, but she nodded at me, urging me to nod back.

"Okay," I said. I took the napkin to remind me.

Fifteen years later, I remembered at last. I knew I would have to go to Sky myself and find out what happened to her.

#####

I approached the outskirts of Sky and pulled into the side of the dusty road. I combed my hair, washed my face with water from the radiator bottle and prepared to be laughed at.

"Fifteen years ago a school teacher may or may not have been here for a visit. Do you remember her? Because I barely do, and she taught me for a full school year."

I didn't even know why it was important. No one really thought Dad had killed her.

I drove past the town cemetery, saving the pleasure of wandering through it for later. It was quite vast; white stones reaching into the hills. Flowers were sown in the grass. The result was almost hypnotic, white green red. I felt if I was in a helicopter, there would be a message or a symbol to read. I laughed at my foolishness.

The air was no longer fresh and I wound up my windows. An abattoir and cat's breath. The Cat Food Factory—it could only be that—loomed in the distance. Between me and that great steel structure stood the town proper. Two pubs, a general store, post office cum bookshop, a video store and a café. A sign in front of the post office said, "Unemployed in Sky—0" and I decided on the spur of the moment to go in undercover.

I wandered into the first pub, ordered a beer, sat at the counter. The barman stared at me, waiting for an explanation.

"Just drifting through," I said, trying to sound lazy. "Stopping here, stopping there, you know." The barman nodded, and the other drinkers went back to their conversation.

"Was wondering if there was any work going." The barman moved up the bar, leant into my face.

"What sort of work you after?"

"I'll try anything. Do anything. Just don't like being out of work."

"He's right there," said the room full of people. Mutterings.

"He's right there. Nothing worse than nothing to do. Can't keep a good man down."

"You could always go ask up the factory. That's where most of the people around here work."

Mutters again, of assent, and I turned around to lift my glass to them.

"Good one, mate," they said. Five men, all at separate tables, talking in one low hum of conversation.

"You look like a tough young fella," the barman said. He nudged me with his knuckles. "Tool's the name."

"Tool?" I wished I was older, that I was past toilet humour and penis jokes. I wanted to snort. I looked over Tool's shoulder and counted beer glasses.

"Yeah, short for Toulouse. Mum was into art." He gestured over his head, and I saw the curl-edged prints surrounding the room. Fly-spattered, smoke-yellowed; beneath the filth were can-can girls, men in top hats. Scenes from Gay Paree.

"As in Toulouse Lautrec," I said.

"That's the one. Didn't pick you for an arty type."

"Nah, I'm not really. Had a girlfriend once who was into all that stuff."

Tool poured me another beer.

"This one's on the house, mate."

"Thanks, mate. Next round's on me," and there was the rapid swallowing of men emptying their glasses.

One of the men collected the glasses and brought them to be filled.

"This's Packo. He's a mongrel, but ya gotta be nice to him. He's the garbage collector." Packo had no teeth.

"Day off today, is it?" I said.

"Shift work," Packo said, and shuffled back with the beers.

"This town never sleeps, you'll find out," Tool said. "Always something on the go."

"Is this the best place to stay? I mean, stay for a few weeks?"

"Well, ya wouldn't want to go to the other hotel. Unless you're really a woman." Tool laughed. I raised my eyebrows.

"That's the women's pub, is it?"

"Yeah. Used to be the abos' pub, but we got rid of that lot."

"What, just bussed them out?" I hid my surprise at the use of the word. We didn't call them abo in the city. We called them Original Inhabitants. Or we called them by their tribe name.

"Something like that, yeah. This is our place. We built it. We didn't want anyone wrecking it for us. Tell ya what, haven't needed cops since they left, have we boys?"

"No," they all said. "God, no."

"Got our own internal laws. We know what's what, what happens if ya stuff up."

"I guess I better get a look at those laws, if I'm going to stay a while."

"Ya reckon? Like I said, ya just gotta know it. And you'll have to get a job before you can stay on here."

"Ya think I could grab a night's sleep first?" I said. I wasn't old enough for this. It was getting beyond me.

Tool threw a key at me. "Upstairs, third on the right. Share the bathroom. No complaints about the noise. We like it noisy. Send up a din so people know we're here."

"You talk too much, Tool," said Packo, and the others laughed.

"You'll be able to grab a bite down the road. They do a good mince on toast."

The smell of the cat food factory made me queasy.

"Sounds good," I said, "but I might have to go a steak. It's been a big day."

"Suit yourself," Tool said.

#####

I folded back my bed to check for stains and bugs and had a quick wash. The bathroom was very clean and smelt of Jif.

It was a pleasure to bathe there.

I dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, showing off my good muscles, my long arms, my eager fingers. It was clear smoking was allowed in the bedroom. Stale fumes, beer and cigarettes 40%, oxygen 60%. I opened the window the few centimetres it would go.

Down the stairs and through the bar with a nod at my reflection. No one else was in the room. Even Tool had gone.

The street was deserted. I entered the empty café, Mandy's Munchies, and sat reading an old local newspaper for a few minutes.

My stomach rumbled.

I said, "Hello?" and looked behind the counter. I looked in the kitchen. Out the back. I wandered on to the street and said, "Hello?" I didn't feel brave enough to shout it.

I read the local paper again.

I found out the pub cricket team looked like beating the town cricket team at the annual this year.

That the school teacher celebrated thirty years on the job.

That the men's pub was having a film night. No ladies allowed.

I helped myself to a soft drink from the fridge in the kitchen, and considered making myself a sandwich. The kitchen was clean, well-lit, and the meat I saw seemed beef or lamb-like. There were no kangaroo carcasses hanging, nor any human limbs waiting for consumption. Tension left me like gas from a beer, hissed out and left me flat, relaxed.

"Can I help you there, love?"

"Mandy?" I said. She laughed. "That's what they call me. Never was a Mandy, truth to tell. Found the name in a woman's mag, liked the sound of it. Better than Gretchen. Less foreign, you know."

"Gretchen, that's, what, German, is it?"

"Was, once. What can I get you, anyway? Hop around the other side and park your bum, I'll bring out my special. Been a big day for you, I hear."

I nodded. Sat down, watched her through the kitchen. I wondered if she was a widow. She was dressed all in black.

"Hear you're after a job," she said. I grinned. And I thought Canberra was a small town.

"Yeah. Just for a short hop," I said. A day or two. I had till Monday week off (a broken arm the excuse. I had a doctor mate who'd plaster me up when I got back) and planned to spend a couple of days here in Sky then enjoy a bit of a holiday.

"We're not big on short hops," she shouted from the kitchen. She was bent over. I could see her broad bum and wondered if I was supposed to flirt with her. She wasn't much more than fifteen years older than me.

"Here ya go," she said. Mince on toast. I began to eat without a word.

She lit a cigarette, watched me eat. I glanced up, saw her fingers, was mesmerised. Long, with long red nails. She grinned at me.

"Don't begrudge an old woman her only pleasure," she said. So I was meant to flirt.

The door opened and a crowd came in, chattering, chattering. They silenced when they saw me, sat in seats around.

"This is the young fella who'll likely take old Geoff's job," Mandy said.

"That so? You're a lucky one, then. Your timing couldn't be better. Didn't even have to work for it."

"Some people have all the luck." My face ached. I realised I was smiling around a mouthful of mince. I swallowed.

"Nice to meet you all," I said. They nodded. They were all in black.

"Come on, Mandy, a little food to cheer us all up. Nothing like a funeral to make you hungry."

"Town's paying, is it?" Mandy said, her hands poised to part the fly strips.

"Town's paying," said the man. "Geoff was a good bloke for an old fella, he deserves a bit of a send off," and there was a low cheer.

I finished my mince and got up to pay.

"Town's paying," said the man. He touched my hand. I realised he was wearing a large copper cross. "In the memory of old Geoff."

"No, I couldn't. I didn't even know the old fella. Maybe for the next funeral." One of those stupid things you say when you're nervous. To my surprise, they laughed.

"But what if it's yours?" said the man, and winked. "Father George, at your service. Services held Sunday before opening time at the women's pub, all welcome. Even Jewish." He winked again.

"I'm not Jewish," I said. I didn't tell them I was nothing at all.

"All welcome, all welcome," said Father George. "Your money's no good here." I put my money away.

"Geoff worked the midnight to eight am shift, friend," said Father George. "You get a snatch of sleep and head on out here. Can't be late first time out." He handed me a funeral programme. "He was a good man."

I had been planning a good night's sleep then a pretence at job seeking while asking people about Ms Barnes. Now it seemed I had a job without trying.

"You're right, Father George. Better hit the sack. My condolences regarding Geoff."

"Good lad," said Father George.

The street was alive. The General Store was open and doing swift business. The pubs were full and loud.

Tool wasn't behind the bar. Not his shift, I thought. I dreamt of going straight to my room.

"Hey, mate, Tool tells me you're kipping upstairs. Not turning in yet, are you?" The barman was very small. He appeared to be standing on a box to speak. One ear was cauliflower. "Stop for one," he said.

"I've got to get to work at midnight," I said.

"Aw, you'll be right. A quick whisky'll knock you out, and we'll send someone up to get you when it's time—okay? Can't have a drink with Tool and not with Golly."

"Gidday, Golly," I said. I accepted the whisky. Took a sip.

"So, been here long?" I said.

Golly smiled, "All my life so far, can't imagine living anywhere else. How about you?"

"I've driven up from Canberra."

"Yeah? What, people drive themselves down there? I thought it was all limousines and chauffeurs." I smiled.

"We drive," I said. "Good roads."

"Yeah, and we know whose money pays for them," said someone from behind. It was a different group, all in black.

I nodded at Golly and went up to bed. They laughed behind me. I chose not to be paranoid. I sat up and read comics for a while before falling asleep.

The knock on the door came at 11.30.

"You've got thirty minutes, mate. Someone'll run you up there 'cos it's your first night, and you'll get a lift back."

"It's all right. I've got a car," I said.

"Umm, yeah. It might be better if you get a lift this time."

What is this, the Cars that Ate Paris? I thought. My car was fine, though, when I checked it later. Untouched.

I went downstairs. Five drinkers and Golly.

"Gidday," I said.

"Off to work then?" Golly said.

"Looks like it. No such thing as a holiday here."

A drinker snorted. "Ya ready for that lift?"

"I thought I might grab a bite first." The mince on toast had hardly been a meal.

The drinker shook his head as he led me to his car. "I wouldn't. First night at the factory? I wouldn't. Best having nothing in your belly up there till you get used to it."

The smell was bad enough in town. I had no delusions about what it would be like up there.

"Well, I guess I'm ready, then."

"So, what do you think of our little town so far? The name's Horse, by the way. Well, it's Barry, but I like Horse. Most people call me Barry. You can call me Horse or Barry." His car smelt of coconut air freshener.

"I'm going to have to get a nickname, I can tell," I said. Barry drove very slowly, as if we were in a ticker tape parade.

"We're working on one, don't worry. Once you've been here a couple of weeks we'll plonk it on ya."

I thought I wouldn't be here that long but I didn't mention that plan. "Yeah, it's not a bad town," I said.

"Grows on you. The life is good. You'll never have to worry about work, and I mean never. Even the kiddies have jobs here."

"Backbone of the country, eh?"

"Don't you joke about it. It's us who keep the government going. We're your perfect place to live, climate, plenty for everyone. No street kids here."

"What if people want to do different jobs? Like an accountant."

"We've got one of those," said Barry. "It's up to you, if you want his job. Wait until you're settled a bit, want to stay. Can't have you pinching his job then disappearing."

I laughed, but Barry didn't respond. We pulled up at the factory. I opened the door and the smell was overwhelming.

"Thanks for the lift."

"No worries. Coming up here anyway." Barry got out, too.

We walked up the steps to enter the factory. I had a sudden moment of dizziness as the true smell hit me. I thought, Hang on, I'm on a mission here. I had something to do and now I'm working in a cat food factory. I glanced at Barry.

He winked. I realised with a chill that I was a little scared of these people. I was scared they wouldn't like me.

A woman waited at the door for me.

"You must be Zed," she said. "Welcome to Pussy Pudding. I'm the tour guide."

I had a terrible thought that I had been hired as a male prostitute. I could see people behind her though, uniforms, hair in nets.

Crazy.

"I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be working. Old Geoff's spot, they said."

"Yes, weren't you lucky? Not everyone finds job hunting so easy." Uniforms were folded in piles on the floor, and she passed me a set. She dug her fingers into my arm and led me down the corridor. Barry kept in step behind us. She was taller than me, and very strong. Everyone I met was healthy. She had a jagged scar across her throat, and she did nothing to conceal it. Her uniform was unzipped between her breasts, and I watched as we walked and the zip sank lower and lower.

"Here we go then," she said, and opened a thick plastic door.

The noise inside was like a needle through my brain and the stench made me glad I hadn't eaten. The woman pointed at a person who waved. The woman made the sign of okay in my face then gave me a gentle shove in the back and disappeared.

Barry cupped his ears with his hands and pointed. Earmuffs hung on a wall behind me. I couldn't imagine how anything would work against the din, but I curled an orange pair over my skull and clamped them down. It muffled just a little.

I walked towards the figure. He was standing on a platform by a large vat, a long-handled spike in his hand. He motioned me to stand beside him, and he leaned into the vat with his spike, cleared a blockage from the circular blade and leaned back.

I spewed, a little bile and whisky. Spat it down behind the platform.

Inside the vat were animals. Kangaroos, cats, cows, sheep, bits of, slowly, slowly being pulverised. The blade blocked, the figure unblocked it again and handed the pole to me. He patted me on the back, jogged down the stairs, left the room.

It was now my job.

I could see heads bobbing on the other side of the vat, one of them Barry. I was not the only worker.

The blade clogged. I hefted my spike, and it was lighter than I imagined, and I jabbed, loosening what looked like a kangaroo tail. I pulled back my spike and watched the tail disappear into the mess.

Mesmerising.

The wall behind me had photos, eight, the last one of the dead Geoff. I had seen a photo of him on the funeral program Father George had given me.

"Geoff," it said. There was Brendan, Astrid, Charlotte, Nicole, Barry, Milo and Sam. Staring at my back.

Another blockage, remove it, stand there, another blockage. There was no pause for coffee break, no pause for meal break. At eight in the morning three figures appeared in the doorway to take over from us.

I followed them blindly. Took off my earmuffs. Unzipped my filthy overalls and left them in a hopper just outside the door.

We pushed through the door and let it flap behind us. Instant relief.

"For fuck's sake," I said.

"What's up, mate, too much for you?" Barry said.

"I coulda done with some sort of break in between."

"What, and stop the machines? I don't think so."

"I think the unions might have something to say about that."

"Wouldn't worry about the unions here, mate. Either you want your job or you don't, and if you don't, piss off."

We reached the outer doors. Barry left me without a word. I didn't know if he was my lift, didn't like to ask. Other workers poured out as the shift ended, poured around me like tide around a pebble. No one spoke to me or touched me.

I was left alone.

I began to walk.

I had never been so tired. At the firm you could be there twelve hours but you stopped, you made coffee, you had momentary human contact.

I walked, plodding foot after foot. Ahead, the town hummed. People just beginning their day, I thought, kids getting ready for school. People having breakfast. Was Mandy on duty? Could I say hello to Mandy?

I tried to focus on the reason I was there, plod, plod, the sun warm and welcome on my face. Ms Barnes. Ms Barnes. No reason. What did it matter if a teacher I hardly knew disappeared fifteen years ago? Who was she to give that sort of responsibility to a kid, anyway? What was I supposed to do? Rescue her? From what? A bad job?

A job. If she had a job here, it would have been at the school, if she tore up her references and lied about her past.

I decided I would pack up my things and visit the school on the way home.

Mandy wasn't at the café, but a woman who looked like her was.

"Bacon and egg sandwich, please."

"You'll have to pop home for a wash first. We don't serve 'em straight from the factory. Health regulations and all that. You know."

"Can't I just take it with me?"

"Didn't you hear me? I said, health regulations."

I pushed myself up from the chair. "Fine," I said. I didn't want any enemies in this small town. "Sorry," I said. "It was my first shift and I'm a little tired."

She shook her head. "Poor dear. How about I send it over for you? You can eat it in your room, or at the bar."

"Would you? Thank you. Thank you." I was so tired I could cry.

I stumbled across the road to the pub. The third barman was on.

"Fosters, mate?" he said.

"Um, no, no. I might grab a bite first."

The five drinkers in the room laughed.

"No, mate, that's me name. Wouldn't give you a beer on an empty stomach."

"Nice to meet you, Fosters. But I gotta have a shower."

My room had been touched. Quite drastically, too; everything neatened, folded, cleaned. My comics were gone, and my books. I needed sleep before I said anything. Shower, food and sleep.

The shower was good, hot and strong. Spikes of water massaged my shoulders, my face, and I could have slept like that and been happy.

A knock on the door. "Brekkie's here, mate," and I had to re-emerge into reality.

I wrapped a towel around my waist, thinking the shower alone was a reason to stay a bit longer in Sky, and I opened the door.

One of the drinkers was there, sandwich on a plate.

"Nothing like a good shower, is there? That's hard work, your job. I did it for a while."

I stared at him. I had memorised the names and faces over eight hours.

"Milo," I said. "But I thought all the photos were of dead people."

"Oh, the picture gallery? Nah, just folks who've done the job. Geoff stuck at it 'cos he wasn't much of a chance at anything else. You know. Fact, if he hadn't decided he'd go for an office job up there, he'd still be alive today."

"Why, what happened?"

"Well, he lost, didn't he?" Milo gave a little shake of his head. "Anyway, I'll leave you to it."

The sandwich was greasy, perfect. I didn't even wipe my mouth before I fell asleep.

#####

I was awoken by shouts and shrieks. I struggled for movement, but everything said stay, stay.

I had not yet spent twenty-four hours in Sky. I stretched out of bed and went to the window.

I had expected morning. I saw afternoon. It took me a minute to remember I had not gone to bed until ten am.

It was just after four now. I hadn't had enough sleep.

In the street were children. On their way home from school, and I realised I had missed my chance to talk to the teacher, unless I tracked her down at home and I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to commit to the task and have to explain it.

I realised two girls were fighting in the centre of the shrieking, shouting children. Adults were watching too, smoking, smiling, arms crossed, they watched as the two little girls tore at each other.

"Hey!" I said. My window still wouldn't open more than a handspan. I bent and shouted through the gap. Couldn't the other adults tell how vicious the fight was becoming?

There was blood; they had scratched each other. One girl swung her school bag again and again at the head of the other. The other scrabbled for pebbles from the road and threw them at her face. The first girl tipped over her school bag and clutched up a knife. The second girl found a rock and dove at the first girl's legs, knocking her to the ground, the knife flying. Her head cracked on the road.

"HEY!" I called, but no one listened. I pulled on jeans, ran out, didn't lock up, buttoned as I ran, through the pub, empty because everyone was watching, onto the street and, "Hey!" People glanced at me. I tried to push through.

"She's killing her. She's killing her!" I shouted. Kids giggled. Suddenly I wondered if this was all an elaborate act. Street theatre.

Then I reached the centre and saw the girl, her head cracked open, red and grey. Her arms limp.

Ignored.

"To the new paper girl," came the shout as they lifted the winner aloft, then people went about their business.

Someone bundled up the dead girl, someone else cleaned the road, all while I watched, shivering. Sharp pebbles in my feet, unable to breathe.

"Have a beer, mate." Tool was barman. "On the house."

The bar was full. After work drinks, people relaxing after a hard day.

"Did you see that?"

"What's that?"

"The fight. That girl killed her."

Tool laughed. "Been reading too many of those horror books. Just a little fight there. A skirmish. It's one way to settle a job dispute."

I looked at the smiling faces in the bar. I wanted one of them to be sane. Shocked. One person to confirm what I'd seen.

Barry was there. "He did well, first day out," Barry said. "Bit of a whinger, but he's come from Canberra, so what do you expect?"

The bar laughed.

"You won't get challenged for that spot too often," someone said. "Easy Street." The bar laughed again, and I laughed too, relieved Barry wasn't an enemy after all. Then

I went upstairs to sleep again before work. I would leave the next day.

"Don't worry about a lift tomorrow, I can take my car," I said to Barry before I went.

"Yeah, ya could. Only we like the idea of sharing around here. You know, saving the Earth's resources, that sort of thing. You can come with me. Take your car the next day."

"Fine. Good," I said. I was halfway up the stairs when I remembered my missing things. The laughter down there told me to wait till tomorrow. My car had been touched, too, cleaned. It shone. The red duco looked like flames.

#####

Waking naturally, I felt recovered and very, very hungry.

Mandy supplied me spaghetti bolognaise with cheddar cheese on top, and I felt ready to complete my night's work and get on with my investigation in the morning. There was a public phone outside and I stepped into the booth. I wanted to call the police, just to report what I'd seen, to have it on record if that little girl turned up missing. My mobile phone didn't work; no coverage out here.

I picked up the phone.

"Hello?" A clear female voice. I hadn't dialled.

"Police, please," I said.

"You can't make long distance calls from that phone, sir."

"I just wanted the local police."

"There are no local police. I can put you through to the mayor."

"Yes, please."

Clicks.

"Tool speaking."

I thought quickly, small town, they gossip, be honest.

"I was told I could find the mayor there," I said. My voice low.

"That you, Zed? Yeah, believe it or not, I'm the mayor when I'm at home. When I'm at work, too, actually. So how can I help you? You after citizenship?"

I laughed. "No, no, just trying to get a handle on local politics. I like to know where I'm at."

"Uni boy and all," Tool said. "I went to uni, too, you know. I know about curiosity. Doesn't always do you any good, but sometimes it's just nice to know."

"That's right."

Silence.

"Well, I better let you get back to it," I said.

Later, I said to Barry, "Do you think they'd let me have a tour of the factory?"

Barry shrugged. "If we get there early."

"I'll buy you a beer to make up for the extra time."

"Deal. Better head off then."

I didn't think of the job ahead as we drove. "Is there anywhere I can call long distance? I want to let my mum know I'm okay."

"Be easier to write her a letter, mate. We got all the phones STD barred to save money. Post office is very reliable, last I heard. No telco will come out here for the mobile phones."

I nodded. I would write it down, at least, as it appeared in my head.

The tour guide girl was there, happy to show me around. She talked in jargon, nonsense I ignored. There were photos everywhere, hundreds of photos. If I had the time I could track a person's career from one machine to the next.

I arrived at the pulveriser room just before my shift. Pulled on earmuffs, adjusted my overalls.

I walked to Barry's position. Barry was not in place yet. He still had five minutes. Amongst the photos on his wall was one of Mandy, much younger.

I worked my eight hours, singing in my head, making up stories, because the job was both gross and boring.

Barry and I walked out together. I didn't mention my weariness this time, or the Unions. I said as we drove off,

"Didn't know Mandy ever worked here."

"Yeah, just for a while. While her sister Eva ran the school lunch room. Twinnies, they were. You'd never imagine they could be so different on the inside. Evil and good. Good and evil." He shook his head. "But don't listen to me. I'm just an old bachelor." He thumped me on the thigh. I wondered which sister he considered evil.

"Now, how about that beer?"

"Now? It's eight o'clock in the morning."

"I'm not waiting till bloody Christmas. You're a bit of a troublemaker, aren't you? Can't just fit in, gotta be big city decision maker, everyone has to know your opinion of everything."

"Not really. I'm just not used to night shift, that's all."

"Yeah, well, don't mind me. I'm just an old grouch. Been here too long."

"How long have you been here?"

"Born here. Born here. Went to school in the little old schoolhouse over there, learned how to read and write, got a job. One day I'll retire and sit in the pub all day drinking, telling stories of how it used to be. Won't that liven up the town?"

"But you couldn't be much more than forty. You've got years to go."

"Either that or I'll knock off one of the old blokes. What'd'ya reckon?"

I shrugged. I didn't like to answer questions.

"So what was your teacher like?"

"Mrs Rilke? She taught the lot of us. She's still down there."

"Ever had another teacher?"

"Naah, she was it. I remember she had to defend it, once, years ago. Some cow from out of town came asking for teaching jobs. Can you believe it? Good old Mrs Rilke, though. No one was ever cheeky after that."

"Can you remember this other woman's name?"

"She didn't have a name. None of them do. Sallies and Billies the lot of them. Now, how's about that beer?"

"Yep. I'll just check my car first, meet you in there."

I found my car even cleaner than it had been the day before. Completely detailed on the inside, not even my street directory was left behind.

I went inside, paid for Barry's beer and one for myself. Fosters was barman.

"Listen, Fosters, have one for yourself as well."

"Cheers, mate. Little early for me, but if you're buying."

"I am. Listen, I'm a bit worried about stuff in my room. And my car. Few things seem to have gone missing."

"We don't have any crime around here."

"I'm not saying there's any crime, I'm just saying there's a few things missing. I don't know if whoever cleaned up stashed them somewhere, or what."

"You'll have to talk to Angela about that. She's the one who does your room."

"Could I have a chat to her now, do you think?"

"I'd say that'd be up to Angela, wouldn't you?"

"Do you think I could drop around to her place?"

"Why not?"

I went to my room, showered, ate the packet of salt and vinegar chips I bought for breakfast. I would have to get to the grocery store today, buy some basic food.

For the trip home.

I wanted to speak to two women, and I didn't know where to begin.

Angela, about my missing things.

And Mrs Rilke, about Ms Barnes. That was the most important. Teachers had never bothered me. I always had a good rapport with teachers. I did what I wanted to and they let me.

I was curious about Mandy and her twin, too. Good and evil.

My car still worked. That surprised me. I'd been building myself into a state of nervous tension, conspiracy theories filling my head. When it started, I really wanted to drive, just drive, turn the car around and leave Sky, Ms Barnes, leave it all and run.

I couldn't do that, though. Go back home to Mum and Dad, safety, have a few drinks, smash a window by mistake, get in a fight, a brawl, wild man at work amongst the other accountants. I had to finish this.

I was about to take off when Barry came banging on my window.

"Give us a lift, mate."

"Where to?"

"Just drop us wherever you're going. I've gotta get away for a minute or two."

I drove.

"So where are you off to, anyway? Not heading back to Canberra? You'll have to wait till you get a replacement before you do that. Whole town's relying on you."

"What's this, country town curiosity? You didn't strike me as the type."

"Yeah, well, if you want to call concern curiosity, that's up to you."

We pulled up at the school. It was recess. The kids filed out, well-behaved. They moved in groups to play areas, marbles, skipping rope, football.

"Black the school uniform, is it?" I said.

"Little friend of theirs died."

I felt a chill. "But everyone said I imagined that fight."

"What fight? This little girl passed away because of cancer. Terrible to watch. Terrible. Wouldn't mention it if I were you. That fight business. Because she lost the fight with cancer. Wouldn't talk about it if I were you."

I nodded. Got out of the car. "Back soon, if you want a lift again."

He nodded.

"Watch Mrs Rilke. She's snappy. Not bad in a fight, either' He looked at me. I thought he was thinking, "What are you seeing this woman for? What are you up to?" He'd be worth money in town if he found out what I was up to.

I knew that little girl had been murdered. And I'd report it when I got back to reality.

After I spoke to Mrs Rilke.

The classroom was quite dark, the windows blocked with posters. I couldn't see until my eyes adjusted. Stranger Danger. And Dole Bludger. And How to Get That Job. I had seen no teenagers pouring out of the room. Presumably they went away to high school.

There was a figure at the front of the room, head bent. The hair was white, and as I approached I could see a bald patch in the centre of the scalp.

The fingers shook.

For a terrible moment I expected the head to rise and it was Ms Barnes, old, sick, some magic spell sapping her years, making her an old, old woman.

She ticked and crossed.

I cleared my throat.

She turned pages.

"Excuse me," I said.

Without lifting her head, "This is neither a side show nor a mother's club. If you have a question, direct it to the school council."

"I'm not sure they'll be able to help me," I said.

She looked up then, and it wasn't my Ms Barnes.

I have never seen an old woman who looked like this. She was tired, I could tell that from the stoop of her shoulders, the slow way she lifted her head, the carefulness of her movements. But her eyes were like shining pin lights. And her nose was broken like a boxer's.

I had never seen an old lady with a broken nose before.

She had long scars down her cheeks.

"Are you cross-eyed, or are you staring at my nose?" she said. Her voice was pure school teacher.

"It's a very broken nose," I said. I smiled. "Very impressive."

"You think violence is impressive, young man? Bend over, I'll impress you no end."

Like lightning, a giant ruler appeared, and she slammed it on the desk.

"I'm not bothered by pain," I said. I saw that look in her eyes. Just a hint of fear. All my teachers had it when they realised I wasn't scared of them. This was just an old lady who didn't have anyone to fix her nose.

"What is it you want? I'm very busy."

"I'm actually trying to track down an old teacher. We're having a class reunion and I'd love her to come."

"I'm the only teacher here," she said. "Now and forever."

"She came through here about fifteen years ago. I thought you might have spoken to her."

"Name?" she said.

"Ms Barnes."

She chuckled. "Barnes, Barn Door. Who do you think gave me this face? Scars and nose?"

"Not Ms Barnes. She was gentle."

"You'd be surprised what people are capable of if they think there's a job in it."

"So she did work here."

"She wanted to work here. I already worked here. She lost. Silly Sally."

"I don't think her name was Sally."

"It is now." She began to cackle, that chicken neck stretched and writhed until I thought it would break.

"Silly Sally ferreted about for a fortnight then thought she'd come to work here. She soon learned otherwise."

Two weeks. If I'd come, I might have been able to take her home in time.

"Everything okay in here? You're not upsetting Mrs Rilke, are you?" Barry stood in the doorway, a massive silhouette. Kids around him coming up to his knees, his thighs.

"I'm perfectly fine, thank you Barry, please move aside to allow the children to continue their lessons."

"I think we'd better go," he said.

The kids whacked me as I passed through them. Tiny fists like tack hammers.

We sat in the car while I gathered my thoughts.

"So you weren't just drifting through," said Barry. His voice was controlled, his words angry.

"Yes, I was. But I realised an old teacher had been here once, or I thought she had. Now I know she was here."

"So where did she go next?"

"I don't know. I never had a letter, or a note. I was only a kid. I forgot all about her."

"That's the city for you. No one forgets about anyone here. Or anything."

I didn't need Barry's philosophy on country living, I needed to think. I was free from this place, now. Ms Barnes had been here, missed out on a job, moved elsewhere. I could leave, forget about my stolen belongings, forget about Mandy and Barry and whatever tragic past they had. That was all for curiosity.

But where would Ms Barnes go from here? Where would I go, if I didn't have a home to go to?

"You must remember her," I said to Barry. "She was a bit of a loner. She came to visit at about the time the factory shut down."

"We get a lot of loners here. And the factory never shut down. It ceased operations until we cleaned the place up. Couldn't find anything cleaner than Sky now."

"I found one of those fingers, you know. In a can of your cat food. Took it to school for Show and Tell and made everyone sick."

I missed Show and Tell, the concept of standing higher than people, having their full attention, and telling them anything you liked.

"Found a finger," said Barry, and he wouldn't speak to me again, even when I offered him a beer at the pub.

I packed my things up, a mental goodbye. Then I saw a note on the dresser.

"Please see me. Angela."

It seemed churlish not to let her explain. I would see her, have a sleep, then drive back to Canberra. They would have to find someone else to unclog the blade.

I wore another strand off the carpet passing by the bar.

"Zed," said Tool. Fosters was behind the bar. Tool was there on mayoral business. "Look, we need a big favour. I'll let you have that room for half-price if you say yes."

On a tangent, I remembered I had wages coming. I'd have to ask someone where to pick them up. "What's up?" I said.

"It's the little girl, the one who just died of cancer," he said, and I swear I saw him wink. "Her little body's all ready to go, but we've only got old bombs here and the undertaker's car's been totalled. We were wondering if we could borrow your car to take her out to the cemetery."

I didn't like it. But the room was full of drinking men and

I couldn't see how to say no.

"When's the funeral?"

"Ten am tomorrow. But we'll need the car now, do it up with ribbons, that sort of thing."

So I stay one more night. I work another shift. I'm even more appreciative of life when I get back to it.

Because this wasn't life.

This was limbo.

#####

And then I met Angela.

I walked to her house because they had my car. I'd had a number of brandies: have another mate, and another.

Angela did two jobs. She was very lucky. She cleaned the rooms at the hotel and she took wedding photos.

I expected a middle-aged woman with children, aggressive, defensive, and crooked.

Then Angela opened the door.

Beautiful women have never bothered me. I know they have the same insecurities all women do, add loneliness, and they like you to talk about their personalities. Angela was beautiful and she saw right through me. The back of my head. All my secrets, and plans, all my shame.

Of course she didn't. But she smiled, disarmed me. She said, "Come in," and I felt as if honey had dropped into my ears. I don't know if her intention was to seduce me and make me forget about the thefts. If she brought the stuff out and laid it on my lap I'd have trouble recognising it.

"Sorry to barge in," I said.

"Don't be silly. I invited you. I feel like I know you already." She smiled. I thought of my room, dirty underpants I found folded, scraps of letters, of course she knew me. She was a snoop, a spy.

"The whole town's talking about you," she said. "I hear you were talking to Mrs Rilke. Very brave." We had a small laugh at that.

"How do you like our town?" she asked. I had learned people didn't want a truthful answer.

"Very impressive," I said. She threw her head back and laughed, and for a moment I was appalled. She looked like a young Mrs Rilke.

"I'm afraid I burnt your comics and books," she said suddenly.

"Why would you do that?"

"We're not big believers in free speech and free press here. There's some things best left unsaid, plenty of things left unread. I didn't want to risk children getting hold of your things and being influenced."

"I could have just kept them in my bag."

"Yes, but we didn't know what sort of man you were, did we? You may have been here to sell those things to our children."

"I wasn't."

"I realise that now. And I'm genuinely sorry about your things. Maybe you'll stay for lunch, let me make things up to you."

"I was just going to grab something then have a sleep. I've got to work tonight." I wasn't sure what was happening, whether she really wanted me to stay or was just being polite. These people had taken me over too much. I felt Zed disappearing, some creature of their creation emerging.

"You should stay," she said.

"I'd love to, if you'll give me another drop of brandy."

I surprised her there. She laughed, and I felt it was the first genuine laugh I'd heard since arriving in Sky.

I sat on the couch. Her coffee table was covered with photo albums. "Your work?" I said. She nodded. "None of them are very good," she said.

"Let this big city boy be the judge of that," I said, and I started flicking through.

She was right. They weren't very good.

"These are excellent," I said, sending my words towards the kitchen. "You've got an unusual eye."

"There are some characters around here. That makes it a little bit easier."

There were some older photos too. "Family career, is it?" I said.

"Yes, Dad was the photographer before me. I hope to be as good as he was some day."

It wasn't much to aspire to.

"You know, I've often thought it would be a good idea to make funeral videos. To remember who's there, that kind of thing. You'd be the one to know how to do that," I said.

She smiled. "You're full of ideas, aren't you?"

There was Tool, best man at wedding after wedding. "Always the Best Man, never the best man," he'd said to me. He was looking for a princess. Other faces I recognised.

Barry and... "Is this Mandy or her sister?" I asked. Angela came into the room. She had water crackers and dip. The crackers were too dry, the dip too salty.

"That's Eva," she said. I looked closely at her figure. "Is that a shotgun I see in her hand?"

She laughed. "I know. Dad tried to hide it in the photo but she was too far gone."

"Nice of Barry to do the right thing."

"Specially as it wasn't his baby."

"You're kidding."

"Wish I was, for poor Barry's sake. He thought it was his, married her, then the thing comes out brown. Half abo."

It shocked me to hear the words coming from a young woman's mouth. They were bad enough from ignorant men like Tool, just spouting racism without thinking.

"So did he get used to the idea?"

"From a distance. He moved out as soon as the boy was born. Up to the pub. Couldn't stand living in the house with them."

All this said in a friendly, gossipy tone. She wandered into the kitchen. I had been dreaming of a nice, home cooked meal. She was making meatballs. I was very tired of mince.

"So what happened?"

"You really should ask Barry all this."

"I thought he was a mean old bachelor. I had no idea he was married. He's pretty tight about it."

"We try to forget it happened. Sally and Billy are gone, now. No need to commemorate tragedy."

"What happened?"

"I thought you knew that bit. You found a finger. I thought you knew all about it. It was people like you who closed our town down for a while. Whingers."

"I never whinged. I was eight. It was my teacher. She pinched it off me and I never saw it again."

I had felt enough guilt for Ms Barnes. If she wanted to come here and interfere, dig up Barry's tragedy...

"How did his wife get into the cat food?"

Angela laughed, the Sky laugh. "Very direct."

"I just thought of it. Did she fall into the pulveriser?"

"They don't think so."

"Not pushed?"

"God, no. It seemed pretty clear. She killed the kid then jumped in and shot herself. They had to drain the vat and they found a gun down there. Rings, too, a few of them, and plenty of coins."

"What did they do with all that shit in the vat? There's tonnes of it in there."

"You've got an inquisitive mind, haven't you?" She sat on the arm of the couch and stroked my hair. "You like to ask a lot of questions."

My mouth stretched. "Tell me you didn't eat it."

"I really couldn't say. I was only five at the time." I could feel my eyes stretch wide. "Ooh, you're easy to tease. Of course we didn't eat it. It was buried out and about." She waved her arm. Such a shapely arm.

She picked up a sugared almond from a ceramic bowl on the table. Crunched it. I was amazed at the strength of her teeth.

"Do you want to eat here or at the kitchen table?"

"Table. Should I go grab some wine?"

"Better not. They'll all be talking about us anyway. Lunch'll be ready in a couple of minutes."

I flicked through photo after photo. Faces I vaguely knew, strangers. Always the same faces in the background.

"I'm just going into the garden for a little parsley," she said.

"Good," I said. Because I had brought along my school photo with my teacher standing proudly beside the class. Young. Her eyes were wide. Her mouth was slack.

I slid the photo out and placed the book under the others. "Where's this one from?"

She took it from me. "That's one of Dad's I think. Couldn't say. Why, is she your girlfriend?"

"Haven't got a girlfriend."

She winked at me. We were flirting. It was good. I was foolish, cheeky, she was cute. When I tried to kiss her, though, one of those moments where you're leaning towards each other and staring at each other's lips, she said, "I think you'd better go."

The town was back in control again. I walked away, obedient as a well-trained puppy, fantasising about smashing her door down, ripping her clothes off, taking what I wanted, and her wanting it too.

It was only a dream.

#####

I had a sleep coming and I took it. Went and did my shift, staring into the mess and thinking about Barry's wife in there, and a little kid.

I cleared the blockage.

Who had cleared the blockage of Eva and her child? There were no dates on the photos behind me. Barry was amongst them, though. He had held this job for just a few months, then someone died and he moved on. I would have to ask. Barry hadn't spoken on the way to work after he'd said, "Anything you need to tell me?" I couldn't think. Unless Angela was his sister, or his girlfriend, and he thought I'd done something I shouldn't.

"Can't think of anything." I said, and he snorted.

The men of Sky seemed to be inexperienced in the ways of women. I hardly saw women, unless they were serving me. Neither side seemed keen to sit down and talk.

I'd been enjoying myself. All I had to do was smile at any girl I saw on the street, say, "Good Morning," and I'd be a step ahead. If I complimented a dress or a shade of lipstick (all tricks I'd learned from my distracted, disinterested father) and I had their undivided attention.

The men called me Casanova, and jokingly asked me for tips. They sometimes made kissing noises when I entered the bar, and Golly always asked me if I was feeling lucky.

"Not so's you'd notice," was my response, and it was a well-appreciated joke.

Barry left the factory without me again and I had to walk into town. No one offered me a lift. I had done something wrong—tried a kiss? It was like the town had seen into my dreams. My intentions.

I stopped off at Mandy's for a toasted sandwich. My feet stank, as did I.

Mandy was on. I couldn't figure out the shifts in the café.

"We don't serve until you've had a shower," she said. Every day one of them said it. Every day I hoped they'd let me get away with it. There was something about filth which kept me safe.

"Go on, fuck off," she said.

"Mandy!" I said. "Is everything okay?" She glared at me.

"If you wanted a home cooked feed you didn't have to go begging to Madam."

"I didn't. She asked me."

"And if I'd asked, would you have come?"

"Sure. You never asked, though. Try me now. I'll even go and have a shower."

She looked me up and down.

"Too late, now, isn't it?"

"Nothing happened over there. I swear."

"You ate her food. That'll do me."

"You're a hard woman, Mandy," I said. I tried to get the flirt back. It wouldn't help to have the only cook in town as an enemy.

"I'll have your sandwich ready for you when you get back," she said, but I couldn't tell if I'd been forgiven.

People nodded and winked at me in the pub.

They were all in black.

"Came in in a blind fug last night," Tool said. "Didn't know if you were coming or going. Leaving or staying."

I shrugged. "You know how it is," I said.

"Oh, yeah, man of the world like me," he said. I laughed, went upstairs to clean myself. "We'll call you half an hour before the little girl's funeral. Right?" he called after me.

My room had been done. I searched for a message from Angela, hoping I hadn't blown my chances.

She had kissed lipstick onto my mirror.

I emptied my pockets, laid the photo on my bed and threw my jeans in the corner. Had another look at the tiny face of Ms Barnes.

I felt like she was looking directly at me.

"Zed, come and find me. You can Show and Tell me. Rescue me." I was too tired. Seeing things. Like little girls.

The funeral was in an hour and a half. My internal clock just did as it was told, because it really didn't know what time it was. I had a good hot shower, ignored the pubic hair in the soap, scrubbed and scrubbed. I could smell Angela's perfume in my hair, but that was just fancy.

Then I realised it was the soap. Pale purple, it smelled of lilac, my mother's favourite perfume, and they all smelled like that.

They all used the same soap.

It struck me as funny, and I sat on the edge of the bath and laughed until the water ran cold.

Most of my clothes were black so I didn't have to put on anything special, borrow anything. I walked over and picked up my sandwich from a silent Mandy, who closed the shop behind me. The whole town would stop for the funeral, as it had for old Geoff's.

This time I was invited.

We all lined the street, waiting for my car with the kid's body in it to cruise past. I hadn't seen the whole town out before, and I thought how lucky they were a drifter with mean intentions didn't pass through while they were all otherwise occupied.

Most of them kept their savings at home in openly revealed places. The local artist spent most of his time making clay money boxes, with 'money' in ceramic on the front and no place for a lock.

These people trusted each other.

I couldn't imagine they had much savings, though. Same as in the real world, what you earn is what it cost to live. What you make is what you spend.

I tried to see Angela but the women all had scarves over their heads. No one carried a camera.

Barry elbowed me. "Shut up," he said. I had no idea what I had been saying. There was silence, then the rumble-roar, so familiar, of my car.

There was a low sigh as my car appeared. I'm sure they thought it was very right, very mournful, but they should have asked me first.

They'd painted my car black.

There was a low mumble as my car drove slowly past and we fell into place for the long walk to the cemetery.

"Sally, Sally, Sally," they all said, like they were reciting the rosary.

The mumble stopped. We walked in silence. The smell of lilac was all around me and I thought of my mother.

Ms Barnes thought my father had killed Mum, all those years ago. I was never told this, I just picked it up. She thought Dad had killed Mum and chopped her up.

Sometimes I thought it was possible.

"Dad's a pacifist," I've been telling people all my life. But only because it was what he said, and Mum said. When I was old enough to think about these things—fifteen or so, I was a late rebeller after my childhood misbehaviour—I realised that saying it didn't make it so. He did hit Mum, make her cry. He could say one word, make her drop a glass or a plate. He used the word love a lot but never showed it.

Mum wouldn't leave him, though. She liked the life, being looked after. She liked not having to think.

When I got back to Canberra I'd tell her to Number One, get a new perfume, Number Two, ditch the old bastard.

We walked, we didn't speak. No one banged into each other. The rhythm of the march hypnotised me, I thought we were a giant black insect with hundreds of legs. I have an adaptable imagination. The few times I've tried drugs have been a disaster, total paranoia and my friends freaking out. So I gave it up.

We reached the cemetery. My car was waiting, its doors open.

I hadn't visited the cemetery before, although it had topped my list on arrival. So vast, so white.

There was an open grave and we surrounded it, so many of us we had to stand amongst the other graves to fit. No one stood on a grave proper. My heel rested over an imaginary line and someone gently tugged me back into position.

"Sorry," I said, and looked at the person. "Angela! I was looking for you!"

"Shh," she said, but she held my arm tightly enough that I knew she meant it.

The service was long and my eyes drifted. I wondered if anyone would notice me strolling about. There were a lot of graves here, and I wanted to make sure one of them didn't belong to Ms Barnes.

I loosened Angela's grip, gave her arm a quick squeeze. Everyone stared ahead, eyes blank. The priest spoke in Latin and I wished I could remember what I'd learned at my ridiculous school, because it sounded like gibberish to me. I could hear words like mozzarella and pizziola.

No one knew I was alive.

I read the gravestone nearest me.

Sally. That's all it said. The next one. Billy. Nothing more. I walked back towards the road, panic rising in me. I knew it was strange and that I had lost my grip on reality, but I didn't realise they were insane.

Every one said either Sally or Billy.

I reached my car. The keys weren't there. I raged against an education which taught me eight words of an ancient language but not how to steal my own car.

I sat in the front seat. It even smelt different; lilac, now I knew the smell, and of the little body which had lain across the back seat. I contemplated walking but the nearest neighbour was over a hundred kilometres away.

I couldn't make it.

Sally and Billy. If I died here I would become Billy. And Ms Barnes had become Sally.

The path was clear ahead. And impossible.

If I managed to get back to Canberra. If I could convince some kind of authority (beginning with my father, the greatest test) that a teacher, whose first name I didn't even know, was dead. If they believed me and came out here...where would they begin?

There were dozens of Sally graves.

"First funeral?" It was the priest I'd met at Mandy's when I first arrived. "It's always a disturbing experience. I'm afraid I still haven't become hardened. Each one moves me as the first did."

I said, "But they're all called Sally or Billy." He smiled at me. Touched my arm.

"We're all one under the eyes of God. If we go to the grave carrying our identity with us, we carry ego, too, I want this and I want that. Here, we go as a son of God or a daughter of God. He will know where to put us."

It sounded so very reasonable.

"Father giving you the word, is he, Zed? Trying to save that black soul of yours? Come on, you can drive into town with us. Hop into the back." Tool wanted to drive. And he wanted me in the back of my own car. Where a dead girl had been.

"It is my car," I said, so weakly my voice cracked. I needed to gargle. "It's my car. I'll drive it back."

The priest said, "I do apologise. I understood the car had been donated for the good of the church."

"I can't imagine Zed would argue with that. A car's only worth the people it services, isn't that right, Father? And this car can service the needy of Sky." Tool tapped his foot, wanting me out of the driver's seat.

"Of course," I said. "Sorry." I was thinking of my spare keys, in the room, in the toe of my boot. If they were still there it was a sign I was meant to leave.

"Room for one more?" Angela was panting lightly, her chest heaving, her cheeks red, her eyes bright. All other thoughts left my head. I wanted to make her look like that again.

"Hop in," I said. She flopped herself in, landing half on me, and not pulling away. "First time I've been in the back seat of my own car," I said.

"Oh, sure, big city boy like you? Bet you had the girls back here every night of the week."

She pinched my thigh and I yelped. The priest turned. "Please, young people. We are still contemplating the passing of that dear child."

#####

Without being asked, Tool dropped me off with Angela at her place.

"I'm afraid town gossip has us as an item," she said.

"Yuck," I said.

"If that's the way you feel you can turn around and disappear."

"I was joking. Teasing. I should have said, 'I'm flattered to be mentioned in the same breath as you.'"

"You're joking again."

"No, I'm serious this time. If they want to think the worst, let them. All I know is, when I saw you there today, I thought, 'This woman's worth staying put for.'"

"I must admit I was pleased to see you too. I wanted to apologise for yesterday. I was just a little scared of how fast things were going."

Fast girls in the city, you meet them at a band and take them home that night. Or they take you home and eat you alive.

"I'm sorry. We'll just go at your pace," I said. I estimated her pace to be a couple of weeks. I couldn't last here that long. I was going to have to cut my losses.

Then she lunged at me, kissed me, sucked my tongue in a way that made it feel like my dick. I groaned.

"Do you like that?" she said. Her voice was low, her eyes lidded.

"Yeah," I said. I grabbed her shoulders, drew her in, kissed her. She writhed, then wriggled away from me.

"You've done this before," she said.

"So have you."

"Maybe." She unbuttoned her black funeral shirt and let it drop. She had a lacy black bra on, and I wondered briefly where she'd got it. It wasn't on sale at the general store. Mail order? Did they get all their clothes through mail order?

I reached for her. She let me touch her, raise goosebumps on her beautiful flesh. I kissed her belly.

"I don't think I've got anything," I said. Her mouth turned.

"I hope not," she said. "I certainly haven't. Why, have you been with someone who had something?"

"No, no, I don't mean disease. I mean protection. You know. A condom."

"Yuck," she said. "Doesn't matter. I've got one of those things."

"What things?"

"A lady doesn't talk about it." She began to dance for me, her breasts swaying, her hips, and I struggled out of my clothes while I watched, kicked off shoes, rolled off socks.

"You're lovely," she said.

"So are you," I said. She came and kissed me again. She grabbed me, rubbed, juiced me up.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you too. God I love you," I said. Mad words.

"So let's get married, then," she said.

"Yeah, yeah, fine," I said. I was prepared to say anything.

"Good. We should probably wait, then. I think so."

She peeled herself off me. My eyes spun. "What is it?" I said. "What's wrong?" I was urgent.

"If we're going to get married, we should wait for our wedding night. If we're not going to get married, it's lucky we stopped."

"But if we're going to get married, what's wrong with now? It's an act of love, it's not just physical." My voice sounded weak and childish, like it had throughout my teenage years. Wheedling.

It had never worked then, either.

"We'll start making plans tomorrow," she said. "We're a little too overheated at the moment to think properly."

She watched while I dressed, then I was out on my ear. Frustrated. Pissed off. I kicked at a bush and got prickles in my ankles. I'd forgotten my socks.

"Fuck fuck fuck," I shouted. A door opened. "Fuck fuck fuck." I punched a letterbox.

#####

They were all pissed up the pub.

"Give us a brandy," I said.

"You're working tonight, aren't you?" said Tool. They changed the rules when they felt like it.

"I thought everyone had the day off."

"Do I look like I'm lazing? It's all on again at midnight, anyway. You'll just have to hold off until your shift's over."

"Fuck you," I said. I threw a punch over the bar at him, caught him by surprise and knocked him sideways.

"After my job, are you?" he said.

"Gotta be fuckin' joking. Just give me a drink."

He filled a glass and placed it before me.

"That'll be it, though, mate. You go upstairs and sleep off whatever it is, then Barry here'll drive you to work."

"Maybe I'll be too sick to go to work," I said.

"There's no sickies here," Tool said. "You go to work, or someone takes your job. It's as simple as that. You don't wanna be a silly Billy, do you, Zed? You're not a bad kid. Go sleep it off."

I stumbled up the stairs. Keys, I thought. I'll grab my keys, say I'm walking to work to clear my head, I'll walk to the church and pinch my own car back.

My shoes were neatly lined up. Someone had sprayed air freshener, one of those cheap sharp ones which smell worse than body odour.

There were no keys in my shoes. I tried in my runners, and my boots. I tipped them upside down, whacked them.

There were no keys there. I needed to sleep, go to work, gain myself an extra day.

So I slept.

#####

My wake up call came as it always did. Barry was waiting, ready. I asked him to get me a toasted sandwich while I washed the sleep out, and he ran to it.

"Congratulations, Zed," Golly said. "Got yourself a good 'un there."

"What?"

"Blushing bride, handsome groom, all that. Taking the plunge."

I groaned. She was telling people. She was serious.

"It's not definite yet," I said. It was 11.30 at night—how much could she have done?

"She got the priest all excited. Hasn't been a wedding here for a while."

I shook my head. "Whatever," I said. I was almost looking forward to looking into a pit of guts and blood for eight hours. It would give me time to think.

"Did you ever find your Ms Barnes?" Golly asked. He was being an arsehole. He knew she was dead.

I had to drive. Barry was shaking. He'd forgotten about being pissed off with me...for talking to Mandy about his past? I couldn't figure it.

"What's up with you?" I said.

"Don't worry about it. It's nothing to do with you."

"Tell me anyway. Then I'll tell you my troubles."

I'd never tell him, though. The township wouldn't admire my true intentions for their precious photographer.

"You know Parisha? She's the one who always wears purple, works at the factory."

"Yep."

"It's her sister. She wants to move here. They haven't got any kids, at least. But she's going to go for a job in the women's pub, and her husband wants my job."

"Why your job?"

"Dunno. Maybe he's been told he can beat me."

"But you're in the job. They can't just kick you out."

We had arrived at the factory. It was familiar, now, on my fourth night. It was pay day, I'd been told. I'd feel safer with a bit of Sky money in my pocket.

"You don't understand," Barry whispered. There was a queue to get in the door. They were passing out the money.

"Don't worry about it. Why would they dump you for an outsider?"

I received my pay packet. "I'll just take a quick Polaroid," said the woman doing the pay. Flash. "For the wall." I counted my money.

"Hang on, this isn't mine," I said. The woman said, "Why?"

"There's hardly anything in it."

"You've had deductions."

That was true. Half of it for tax, though it seemed unlikely any of it would reach the Federal coffers. And money for this and that, a drink, a sandwich, my lifts to work, everything I'd taken as country hospitality.

"Who'd live here?" I said, but I walked ahead because Barry poked me.

"The thing is," he said, "I'm not much of a fighter."

"Who wants to fight you? You've never bothered me enough." It was meant to be a joke. He didn't laugh.

"I don't want to die, Zed. Not for a job."

"What are you talking about? You don't mean you're going to physically fight for your job? As in punch up? Why do that?"

"It's law."

"To punch someone up to get a job?"

We pushed open the doors of the Pulveriser Room. The noise hit us. I started hearing things.

Because I could have sworn Barry said to the death. If I leant way over, risked falling into the pulveriser, I could see Barry's head. The photos behind me took on new meaning. These people had worked the job until they died or killed someone for another job. They owed the job their lives and they died for it.

There was no unemployment in Sky.

By the end of the shift, I knew what we would do. A lot depended on how flexible Barry was, how quickly he would respond.

"Can you give me a lift to Angela's?" I said.

"Don't you want a shower first?"

"She won't be bothered. A quick stop there, then we'll talk about your problem." I took a quick glance at his fuel gauge.

"My turn to put petrol in," I said. We stopped at the pump in the main street.

"Why does he want your job, anyway?" I said. I wanted my mind off Angela for the moment.

"Someone said I was the weakest, I suppose," he said. He shrugged.

"That's gotta hurt," I said. I grinned at him.

I drove to Angela's

"Wait here," I said. "Read the street directory or something."

He sat, staring ahead.

Doors were never locked in Sky. I hoped she wasn't out on assignment. This wasn't a vital part of the plan, but I wanted to do it.

I wanted to leave my mark.

"Angela," I said.

"Who's there?" Lazy bitch was still in bed. "Zed! Have you come straight from work?"

"Yep' I said. I leant over and kissed her. She wrinkled her nose.

"Why don't you hop straight in the shower? I'll get dressed and put the coffee on. We don't want you to see all my secrets, do we?"

"You're nothing special," I said. Later, I imagined my intention had been merely to break off the engagement. That's not true. I went there to do what I did.

She wasn't a virgin. There was no blood, no resistance when I fucked her, held her arms above her head and fucked her. I didn't look at her or kiss her, I just relieved myself inside her. That's all.

She didn't move or speak as I rolled off the bed. She wasn't dead. I didn't hurt her. She just lay there, trying to make a point.

"Where are my car keys?" I said. She turned her head away. My car would have been a bonus. I gave up on that.

"Wedding's off," I said, and left the room. I glanced back, caught her hand snaking out to the phone.

"No long distance calls," I said. I pulled the phone out of the wall. I considered tying her up, but decided that was proof of what I'd done. This way, she'd be too ashamed to tell anyone. They'd think she wanted it.

"No one likes a cock tease, Angela," I said, and I left.

Barry was sitting where I left him.

"I need a shower," he said.

"Later. We're going for a drive."

"I haven't got time for a drive. I have to practise fighting. Where are we going? To the pub?"

We passed the pub. "To visit someone?" We passed the last house. "I don't want to go to the cemetery," he said. "I don't want to see where Billy lives."

"We're going for a drive, I said." And we drove through the night further than he'd ever been, and they didn't follow us. The further we got away the more unbelievable Sky was.

No one would believe a word.

So we'd tell them nothing.

part four

I could say, "Five weeks passed," but that would mean nothing, say nothing of what those weeks were like.

I headed for home, because I didn't know where else to go. I needed to sit somewhere and get my spirit back.

Barry had an asthma attack when we were just half an hour out of Sky, as if the air was suddenly cleaner and he couldn't cope. I didn't know what to do so I did nothing. I thought, "If he dies, I've still got the car." I didn't mean it callously. I was trying to come to terms with being useless.

I laid him on the back seat and kept driving. I sang songs with rhythm, banging my hands on the wheel, ticking like a clock or a bomb. Willing him to breathe with me.

I just drove.

We were a long way from Canberra and there were a lot of cities to pass through. Barry sat up as we neared the outskirts of the first one, the unfamiliar smell giving him nightmares.

"All right?" I said. He nodded. We were barely clean, having stopped at a service station to rinse whatever parts of our body we could reach in the basin. We didn't have much money so we slept in the car, bought cheese sandwiches. The food tasted different, flavourless, almost, and I could see Barry wondering what he was doing.

The air was dirty but full of new smells. He was like a dog, his nose twitching. Every now and then, he'd smile.

No one had followed us. Either they didn't know we were gone yet, or they didn't care. The latter would be preferable. So preferable I almost prayed for it.

"Let's make a move," I said. He was okay to drive once we hit the open road. He avoided the small stops, anything which looked like home to him.

And then we hit Sydney.

"Not far to go now," I said. "We'll stop here for something to eat, maybe a drink, then take off again."

"Isn't this it?"

"Nah. We'll grab some petrol, bit of food, then head home. Mum'll be thrilled."

I doubted very much she'd received the letter I sent from Sky. I sent it to Dad's PO Box at work, thinking that'd be safer. I hoped they hadn't given my bedroom away.

I parked the car in Sydney's city centre after circling for twenty minutes and we got out to stretch our legs. There was a guy spewing into a rubbish bin. Good of him to make it that far.

There was a girl asleep in a bus shelter, her skirt around her waist. Barry stared open-mouthed.

"You've seen it before. Let's go."

"Can't we stay here? They might be able to find us in Canberra."

"We can't afford it. We'll stay at Mum and Dad's until we find you a job, then we'll think about the next thing."

I was due back at my job on Monday. It seemed like a different life. I'd forgotten to get my arm in plaster. Too much to do.

"Come on, let's go." We bought stale sandwiches. The car's mirrors had been smashed. Barry couldn't believe it.

"We'll get them fixed in Canberra," I said. We took off.

"Who'll I have to fight for a job?" he said.

"It's not like that there. You see a job you like, you try to explain why you'd be good at it. You get the job or you don't. Simple as that."

He shook his head.

"And if you don't get a job, you go on the dole for a while. Until you find your feet."

He laughed. "Yeah, right. I'm no poof, ya know. I don't need a handout."

He was going to get me in trouble at home and I loved it. I practised making him say outrageous things, opinions which were the norm in Sky.

We drove in silence for an hour or so. Then I said, "Listen, just to get it out there, I know about your wife. And the kid who was supposed to be yours."

"I heard you were asking questions. What do you know?"

"She killed herself. And the kid."

"Is that how you'd do it? Chuck yourself into a vat of offal and shoot yourself before you drown?"

"I never thought about how I'd do it. I'm not the type. But no, I can't imagine that way would be any good."

"Yeah, well, neither can I. And I didn't care that much if the kid wasn't mine. We coulda given it to someone else. Had another. Simple."

"So...what?"

"So she had no reason to kill herself. But how old do you think the garbo, Packo's, kid is? Age my kid would have been. How long has his wife been running the school lunch room? Eva was good at that job, the best. It's the fibbing I can't stand."

"That place is weird," I said.

Barry laughed like a hyena.

"If you don't think it's funny, don't laugh, mate." I'd never heard a worse sound.

We were silent as we pulled into the outskirts of Canberra.

"Here we go, boredom capital of the Universe," I said. I knew the place so well I could hardly stand coming back to it.

"Looks all right to me."

"Yeah, well, when we get to the border don't say anything. We don't want them searching you for your number tattoo."

"I haven't got one! We never had them in Sky!"

"It's a joke, Barry. No need for numbers or anything else. There's no border. Nothing to be scared about."

It was a lie, though. We had shit to worry about. The men of Sky finding us before I could gather the protection of my mates, for one.

And there was my dad's reaction. He wasn't pleased with me before I left, wanted me out so he could have Mum to himself, lock her in a room and do what he wanted to her.

I had the same sudden chill I often had as I approached home. Would my mum be there?

"Is this where you grew up? Posh? You don't act like it."

"Something I've worked on."

He had a bag of lolly raspberries. He'd been eating them for two hours. His teeth were red. Life was good. This was a man who had been due a duel to the death.

I pulled into the driveway behind Dad's BMW. Mum's was in front. It was always that way. She was never out when he was home.

"Ready?" I said. Barry shrugged. It was all weird to him.

Meeting my parents wasn't going to make much difference.

"They pretend to be open-minded, leftie, but I know they vote Liberal. No matter what you say, they'll nod, say how interesting. Dad'll plan to stab you in the back. Mum'll make little comments about the sort of friends I'm making."

"Silly Billy. Silly Sally," he said. Each kilometre we moved beyond Sky, he seemed to lose maturity. I had a kid sitting beside me.

"No, we want them alive," I said. "They're not anywhere we want to be."

"I'm kidding," he said, and grinned.

Got me.

We had no luggage. We were filthy. I didn't even have a front door key anymore. And they weren't going to believe me when I said where I'd been.

I knocked on the door. The house was very quiet.

Then Dad opened the door. He stared at me, and at Barry, and said, "Where the hell have you been?"

"I missed you, too, Dad," I said. I pushed past him. Barry followed.

"This is Barry. I rescued him."

"Yeah, sure. I would've been all right," Barry said.

"Yeah, sure. Where's Mum?"

"In the kitchen. We've got people for dinner tonight. The two of you will have to make yourselves scarce." He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out fifty dollars.

"I don't need it, Dad. I've got a job, remember."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that. They've been ringing all week wanting you to come in. We said we had no idea where you were."

"You said."

"I have no idea what your mother said. I can only assume she followed my example. They were under the impression you had broken your arm."

Barry was emitting a high-pitched squeal, like a phone left off the hook. This was too much like a confrontation for him.

"We'll hide in my room tonight, Dad. No need to lay a space at the table for us."

"If that's what you want," he said.

I led Barry into the kitchen. He didn't speak. "You'll like Mum," I said, and pushed open the kitchen door.

She was dolloping cream cheese onto black bread. Adding a shaving of smoked salmon.

All with one hand.

She looked up, saw me, started to cry.

"What happened, Mum?"

She hugged me, squeezed me like I was a soft toy. All one-armed.

"Mum, what happened?"

"I had a little accident." Her arm was thick and white with plaster. "Nothing serious."

"So I fib about a broken arm and you get one."

Mum smiled. Her teeth were yellow. She smoked too much. "It's only a sprain," she said. "Is this a little friend?"

"Mum, I'm twenty-three. I don't have little friends. Barry here's been married and everything."

"Didn't bring your wife along?"

"Been married, Mum, as in was. No longer."

"Oh, that's a shame. You look like a lovely fellow."

"Thanks, Mrs Reeves. Actually, I don't really like to talk about my wife much."

"Well, then, we won't. But Zed, Zed." She started to cry again.

"I know, Mum, I'm sorry. I tried to send you a letter but it didn't get through, obviously."

"We didn't hear a word. Not a word."

"I was visiting Barry in his home town. Nice little place. Ms Barnes went there once. Remember her?"

"A girlfriend of yours?"

"No, no, teacher. Remember? About the finger in the cat food and she thought Dad had killed you and chopped you up."

"Oh, yes. She left the school, didn't she? I remember we went to visit her and she had a naked man in her house."

"Mum's got a dirty mind. She sees naked men everywhere."

She hit me with the back of her hand. "Terrible boy. I haven't slept for a week, the police weren't interested. All people think about is the past. They can't imagine people have changed."

"I was a bit of a rebel as a kid. Police got sick of bringing me home. Then I got sick of leaving home," I said to Barry.

"Too much hard work," Mum said. "Got your mum to do it here."

"I promise I'll help out more, specially with your hurt arm."

"I'll help too, Mrs Reeves. I've been looking after myself for years now. I can make a mean savoury mince."

"Can we leave off mince for a few days? Maybe a good steak or two, ay, Mum, build us up."

"We'll have whatever you like."

"What's on tonight?"

"Tonight? Oh. Oh. One of your father's things. I've got to get to work. Your father's got people coming over and I haven't peeled the veggies. Chicken's in, but I'm not sure about it. I haven't done the veggies or the soup and I'm nearly finished these little things. I've still got to have a shower and do my hair. I can't do it properly but he says I have to try. I'm not going to get everything done."

"If you've got three minutes, I'll leap in the shower, leap out, do my share. I'm a dab hand at veggies," Barry said.

"So long as you put your clothes back on," Mum said, then squealed at her own cheekiness.

"I'd give you a hand too, Mum, but I've got to get ready for work on Monday. Iron shirts, pack my briefcase. Practise my excuse."

#####

Barry stayed in my sister's room that first night. Mum suggested it. I didn't want to mention her, because they're a bit dark about me and the Petra thing at the moment.

It was a chance for me to go in there and have a good sticky beak. Petra never let me in without screaming for Mum—even as adults.

Not long before Petra ran away overseas, I decided I was sick of having restricted movement in my own home, so I just went in there and lay on her bed. I had some comics, and I lay on her bed and read comics and ate nuts until she came home.

She's never had any sense of humour, Petra. In primary school, she was the one left standing when everyone else rolled on the ground and got told off by a teacher for being hysterical. I'd tell jokes at dinner, Show and Tell, to make her laugh. It made her cry if I told enough, and Mum would say, "Leaveralone," one word 'cos she said it so often.

At least I got a reaction.

I read three comics before Petra got home. It didn't take long—I'd read them all before and knew which bits to skip.

"Get out, Zed. This is my room," Petra said.

"Der." I ate some peanuts, flicked some at her. "Ownership is a capitalist structure designed to stifle the creative mind, thus controlling the masses."

"Just get out, Zed. I'm tired. I want to lie down."

Too tired to scream for Mum, it seemed.

"Been out shopping for my birthday present?" I said. I would turn twenty-three in two days.

"Doubtful." She laughed, thinking she'd won.

"Well, I'll just take something of yours, then," I said. It was a good plan, on my feet. I had coveted her CD player since she got it.

"I'll take this on spec, see if I like it, then swap it for something else." I unplugged her clock radio. My plan was to disorientate her, take this, swap that, until she was happy for me to take the CD player if I left her alone.

She tried to stop me, but I curled my fist and she cringed onto the bed.

As if I'd hit her. As if I'd hit her again.

She pissed off overseas and thwarted the plan.

It was good with Barry in her room. He had no concept of privacy, so I could sit on her bed, tip out the contents of her bedside drawers and investigate.

I didn't find a diary. That depressed me. I would have liked to read about myself.

#####

"It was my mother who broke her arm," I said. "I'm sure I told you that. She can't do a thing around the house. I dropped up the country to get a friend to look after her. So she's fine now. It's to be expected at her age."

My boss was about the same age, I knew that.

"She's hardly at the brittle bone stage," my boss said. I grinned.

"I know. I always imagine her as a delicate flower, though. And Dad waters her with a bucket." I slouched a little in my chair.

"Okay, Zed. We won't discuss it any further. You've got two client meetings this morning, so I suggest you spend an hour freshening up your knowledge of the files. I know what two weeks away can do to you."

"I'm up to speed. Don't worry. I've actually got a bit of an idea to run past you."

In a place not known for ideas, I was the ideas man. Even the most mediocre lateral thinking stunned them. I left my boss's office golden boy again.

I was tired. Barry couldn't sleep all weekend after years of working through the night, and my body clock was a little confused, too. We sat up and watched television. Something Barry had only seen at the pub, tuned to the races and other sports.

"We're not into TV," he said. I left him at three am, flicking from a movie about a boy with no legs, to American news, to a mini series about women on the farm, to an educational program about bees.

He was asleep, curled up on the lounge, when I left for work. I beat Dad out, as I was determined to do. To save him from saying, "If you're not going to work till lunchtime, you're going to have to move that car. Some of us work regular hours." Rumour had it that Dad was an old softie at work, but that was all part of the deception. "Mr Reeves never raises his voice. I can't imagine him angry. He never appears to be a violent man." All part of the plan.

Barry's car was covered with red dust. It proved I'd driven up-country so I left it dirty. I wrote in the dust, "I know I'm fucking dirty." People seem to think 'Wash me' is still funny after all these years.

I shared a personal assistant with three others but had managed it so she gave priority to my work. She knew I only said urgent when it was urgent, and I bought her lunch enough times for us to be friends. We'd been out for drinks on Friday night before I went on my Barnes search, and I thought we'd separated on good terms.

She wasn't there, though. Some made-up, smiling thing.

"You must be Zed," all bright and look at me. "I'm just a temp, but I love it here. Everyone's so friendly."

"Where's Adrienne?"

"She left a week ago or something. Had a new job."

"She didn't mention it to me."

"Called first thing on the Monday. I had to send her personal things in a box. Came up suddenly, I heard. Offer she couldn't refuse." She laughed.

"Were you about to get yourself a coffee?" I said.

"I was, I suppose. Can I grab you one?"

"That'd be lovely."

She smiled. "They told me not to let you take advantage of me, but that's what I'm here for, isn't it?"

"I think we're going to get on very well."

She brought me coffee and I tackled the job. If it got dull I thought, "I could be poking intestines out of a blade." No job could be as bad as that.

I wondered briefly who had taken my place in the Pulveriser Room. Some other sucker conned into believing they were lucky. I'd never do that job again.

I spent a moment fantasising about what job I would do, if I was in Sky. Nothing in the factory, though pay master could be satisfying. All those crestfallen faces. Enough coffee and the client meetings went well. It made me more human, that I'd taken time off to care for my mother. They liked it.

Back at my desk at three. "Your mum called," said the temp. "She sounds nice. She said don't call back, but could you bring home three steaks and some mince."

"Thanks," I said. My new human image: a nagging mum.

I lay my head on my desk for just a minute, woke up an hour later, the imprint of a pen in my cheek. She wasn't bad, this temp. She knew when to leave me alone.

The politics of being home before Dad were problematic. My car (Barry's car) would be blocked in by his, and any request to move it would be met only by a lecture on whatever topic he fancied. If I arrived after him, I would have to leave before him, and that both scored points and got me to work early.

I shuffled through my in-tray, sorted priorities, made a to-do list for the next day. In the middle was a letter from Adrienne.

"Fuck You," it said. "You're lucky I'm just leaving. One day you'll meet someone stronger."

There was no one stronger than me.

So much had happened since that Friday night, it was a minor blip on the landscape. When I sucked my tongue I could vaguely remember the taste of her mouth, cigarettes and alcoholic cider. She had wanted that kiss, I knew that.

She had asked for it.

I packed up my desk, told the temp I had a meeting then straight home, and went to a bar.

There were familiar faces but I didn't know their names. You didn't give out your name so easily here. You were 'that guy' with a description. The good fighter, the chick magnet, the bad dresser. You were one of those things.

I stayed until I thought Dad would be home, then headed off. I remembered the steaks and went to the twenty-four hour Coles. Three steaks and forget the mince. Either Dad wasn't joining in, or Barry wanted to stick to mince. I couldn't face the stuff.

My head was full of these mundane thoughts. I didn't want to be on that level. I was different.

I was the King of Show and Tell.

Barry and Mum had spent a pleasant day together. Dad was out for the night and they looked relaxed. A little guilty and nervous, when I arrived. Barry didn't care about the mince.

"So, what's been happening today?" I said.

"Oh, this and that. Barry's been telling me all about his little town. It sounds lovely."

"Not getting homesick, are you, Barry? Don't forget you haven't got a job there anymore."

"I wouldn't forget that."

"What will you do for work here, Barry? Maybe Zed can get you a job with him."

"It doesn't work like that, Mum," I said. I threw the meat onto the table. "I'm going out," I said. I didn't feel like happy families, Barry thinking he could be my father.

"Oh, Zed, not this again. Can't you stay home tonight? You look exhausted. Give your system a rest from alcohol for a couple of days. We'll have a good steak, sit up in front of the TV. Hmmm? I'll make chocolate mousse."

I laughed. "You can't bribe me like a child, Mum." She looked so hopeful I changed my mind. "I'll stay for dinner. So long as I don't hear about Barry's broken jaw."

"I haven't got a broken jaw."

"No, but you will if you turn into a nag like Mum."

"Zed, stop it, it's not funny."

It was a pleasant evening. My plan was to stick around until they got sleepy, then call Jack for a night out. But I was the one who fell asleep on the couch. I awoke with dried dribble on my cheek, a blanket tossed over me.

I don't have to be out every night of the week.

I had a sudden twinge of desire for one of Mandy's toasted sandwiches.

The week went that way. There were no phone calls. People hadn't clicked I was back in town yet.

I wouldn't confess to my mother, but she was right; it was much easier to be at work when I had enough sleep. I figured I'd make the most of it. Next week, my body clock would tick back in and I'd hit the town again. This was recovery week.

Dad and Mum took to Barry. They loved him. He ate with them, became one of the adults, and I was left behind. He bored me, but I was his rescuer. He should be playing up to me, not them.

You can only trust your old friends.

Friday afternoon I called Jack.

"I thought you'd gone," he said. "We missed you at cricket."

"Just for a while."

"Not long enough."

"Yeah, mate, I missed you, too."

"I thought you were going away till people forgot you."

"I went away to find Ms Barnes. Remember her?"

"You started talking about her just before you left. So is everything okay?"

"Fine. It's all fine."

I met him straight after work to avoid a lecture. Changed into my Friday clothes at the office, an emergency change I keep in the closet. Jeans and a shirt.

The shirt was a mess. I had forgotten to take it home. I had come back that Friday, changed back into work clothes, gone home. Great plan, but I forgot to take the shirt home.

It was stained, red wine and beer, it looked like.

I stopped at the store on the way to meet Jack and bought a new shirt

"Did we get in a fight the other week?" I said to him. He blinked.

"I wish I had your memory. It's a real self-defence mechanism."

"Did we win?"

"We won. But it wasn't a popular win."

He always said that.

We drank at the Sportsman's Bar, played a bit of pool. Two girls played at the table next to us and we clicked pool cues, "Excuse me," clicked bums. They liked us but they left, and we couldn't be bothered following through.

"So how's Adrienne?" Jack said.

"Good, I'm guessing. She got some job somewhere else, just left me in the lurch."

"You're not surprised, surely?"

"Yeah, I know, they're all like that. This one up the country was the same. She came through for me, though."

"Bullshit."

"Just because it's your impossible dream."

"Oh, yeah."

Past midnight, the crowd in the street was rowdier, more alive. Jack wanted to go home.

"You're kidding. Weak bastard."

"I don't need abuse, mate. Try it on one of your women."

So I went to the next club alone. Pushed through the queue because they knew me at the door.

"You're barred, mate. Piss off or we're calling the cops."

"What for? Fucking harassment." These guys wanted a fight. I bent my head and rammed one in the belly.

I woke up in the gutter. Daylight. Vomit on my cheek. My limbs fire pokers left in the heat. For a moment I thought I was home, and Mum had let me be the victim for a change.

Then I remembered.

My wallet was gone. I took a taxi home; Mum would pay.

They were up already. Mum gave me money for the taxi, though Dad objected. Barry was washing windows, Mum washing clothes, Dad mowing the lawn. There was a spot for me there, somewhere, but I just couldn't take it.

I made a pot of coffee, took them each a mug. I said, "Everyone's busy today." The whole street was at it. Washing, mowing, sweeping. Everyone in their front yards. "Everyone's keeping busy. We had a bit of a drama last night," Mum said.

"No one wants to miss out on any news," Dad said.

I looked up the street and saw Mrs Lawrence's place, cordoned off, news vans, police. The taxi had driven from the opposite direction, with me slumped in the backseat.

"What happened to Mrs Lawrence?"

"We think she was robbed in the night," Mum said.

"What did they get?"

"That's what we're wasting time to find out," Dad said.

"And if she's all right," Mum said.

Barry sipped his coffee. Our little Maltese Terrier, Chunky, sniffed at his feet. He kicked at her till she yelped. He smiled. I remembered him in Sky, when a kid of seven asked him for twenty cents. He hit the kid. I remember it; the kid flying, landing on his knees.

"There's a rumour she kept money in a biscuit jar," Mum said.

"I never heard that rumour."

"The money wouldn't still be there if you had, is that right?" Dad said. He grinned, though.

No one asked me where I'd spent the night. They did me the honour of suspecting I'd had a one-night stand, and Mum didn't like to discuss that sort of thing. It was Dad's place.

"Careful last night, I hope?" he said.

"Always."

"Not bad coffee."

The police made their way down the street. People met them at front gates, eager to talk, hear the news. It travelled on the wind, she's dead, she's dead.

"Hey, where's the car?" Barry said.

"Yeah, left it at work."

"But I might need it today."

"Barry, I got robbed last night too, ya know. Bit of sympathy."

"What? Darling, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Mum. But they got my wallet, all my ID. Why else would I get you to pay for the cab?"

"Did they hurt you?"

"I'm fine, Mum. Just a couple of bruises."

The police arrived at our gate.

"Are you the Reeves family?"

"Plus guest," Mum said. She put her arm around Barry.

"And the guest's name?"

"Barry Brown," he said.

They asked us what we saw, who we saw, what we were doing. I was out, I said. They could ask Jack. Mrs Lawrence was attacked just before midnight.

"We were asleep," Mum said, and Dad nodded. Friday was their conjugal night.

"I'm afraid I've only got the TV to vouch for me," Barry said. "I'm recently off night-shift and I can't get used to the hours yet."

"What was it you did, Mr Brown?"

"Foreman. Twenty-four hour factory."

"We can vouch for him. He's a friend of my son's," Dad said.

The police looked at my bruised face, my hair a mess, wondering if that was a worthy thing to be. They love to judge.

They moved next door. Neighbours congregated outside Mrs Lawrence's, and Dad sent Mum down to find out what happened. All work ceased.

"She was hit over the head," Mum said. "With her own lampshade."

"Not that horrid one she was so proud of? The inlaid one she said cost a fortune?"

Mum nodded.

"Stupid old woman," Dad said.

"If it wasn't that it would have been something else, Dad."

"Perhaps. But maybe he found the lampshade so hideous it became his motive."

"Maybe he was a she," Barry said.

Mum said, "Women don't do things like that." Barry gave me a look—not here, perhaps, it said.

"So she really is dead? Poor old thing," I said. I hadn't minded her. She loved animals but she liked to shout abuse from the front window.

"Who's going to take care of her zoo?" I said.

"What's she got?" Barry asked. I didn't think he'd be the best possible carer.

"Few dogs, heaps of cats, she used to have a little tortoise family and she fed the possums as well."

"I could do that," Barry said.

"I don't know who'd pay you. Or for the food."

"That's all right. She's bound to have a relative. I'll just use my own money until they show up."

Barry didn't have any money.

"I might need to stay over there," he said.

"Wouldn't you mind? Staying where someone's died?"

"I wouldn't sleep in her bedroom. I'd use the spare. Until her relative shows up."

"That's very good of you, Barry. I'll let the street know you've volunteered," Dad said. "Zed'll be able to help you on weekends but he's got too much at stake with work to spend his time during the week."

"I'll manage, Roy," he said. Roy. People don't call my father Roy. Only professionals. Doctors. Lawyers.

"I'm sure you will," he said.

Barry moved in when the police were gone, ducked under the crime tape and the place was his.

We all went to the funeral. My boss wasn't keen on me taking the afternoon off, but she relented when I said the woman was like the grandmother I'd never known.

"All right, Zed. Reschedule your meetings. But this is it. We can't have you off every two days. It's no example to the juniors." Meaning I was no longer a junior.

We went in Dad's car. Barry and I sitting up like children in the back.

"What's that?" Mum said, glancing in the rear view mirror.

"Sally, Sally, Sally," Barry said.

"He's just saying prayers to himself," I said. Barry nodded. "Sally, Sally, Sally," he said. It was comforting for him. As scary as my first Sky funeral had been. He didn't like it; went to wait in the car.

"Come on," he said. "Gotta get back. Gotta feed the animals."

"I should get back to work, too," I said. "Get a couple of hours in."

"And me," Dad said. "Are you right to go?" Mum nodded. She'd been crying.

The only time Mum drank was when someone died or got married. I told Dad my idea about funeral videos and he thought it was okay.

"It'd have to be tasteful, of course."

"Why? Wedding videos aren't. Have you seen one lately? Soft porn, garter, bare thigh, serious stuff."

"I think you'd have to avoid nudity."

"I guess so. Unless I went in and videoed the embalming. Get the undertaker having his way."

"Putting the make-up on."

"And on the corpse." We both snorted, I'm amused but it's not hilarious.

"It's not a bad idea. I'd consider backing you, if you gave me a proper proposal, costs, all that."

"Okay," I said. I heard him later, though. On the phone to one of his buddies. Laughing at me. He never meant it for a second.

He dropped us back home. I took Barry's car into work.

The others had all been at a long lunch, they were pissy, pretending to be sober.

Three of them hung around the temp's desk, swaying. I could smell garlic and booze. Their lips were red from wine.

"Skipping off while the boss is away, ay?" I said.

"You're not the boss, Zed," Mike said. He was four years older than me. We were paid the same.

"It was a joke, Mikey. Ha ha. You remember humour. I'm her boss, anyway." I pointed at the temp. She couldn't control her lazy eyes.

"Where were you, anyway?"

"Farewell lunch for Adrienne."

"You're kidding. You should have made it tomorrow. I would have gone."

"She didn't want you there," Mike said.

"I think he should have gone. So he could see her," Julia said.

"You should have seen her," the temp said.

"I've seen her. I know what she looks like. Why'd you do it this week, anyway? She getting long lunches at her new job already?"

"There was no new job," Julia said. "She's going to Melbourne for reconstructive surgery."

I looked into their faces for a clue. They hated me. That was clear.

"She said you wouldn't remember. Private Bin? Couple of weeks ago?" I shook my head.

"I've been away. I can't remember what happened here yesterday, let alone weeks ago. It's all the same, day after day."

No one joined me.

"I think it's time you did some work," I said. I shut myself in my office and dialled so fast I hurt my index finger.

"Jack, Jack, what'd I do to Adrienne the other week? I really can't remember."

"Really? God. I don't know if I should tell you."

"Tell me."

"How was the funeral, by the way?"

"Boring. Thanks for asking. What about Adrienne?"

"Well, we were dancing, things were fine, she had a nice friend. Then you got some drinks, which none of us needed, and she tickled you. You dropped the tray, smashed the lot. Everyone laughed, you know, taxi, that sort of thing. You bent down to clean it up but you picked up one of the beer bottle bits and slashed her face with it."

"I didn't," I said, but I could see it, the flesh opening, the blood. I could hear her scream, as if the music stopped and we were making the only sounds.

"So did everyone see it?"

"Only me, really. You were fast. Her friend was in the toilet. She's screaming, "He cut me, he cut me," and we got out of there fast. You had to elbow a bouncer in the head on the way out, of course. But no one came looking for you. And she hasn't said anything?"

"That's because she's a good Greek girl who wasn't supposed to be out at all. She knows her life wouldn't stand up to inspection."

"Lucky for you."

"Now she's gone out to lunch with them all and told them all about it."

"Her version."

"Yeah, what about my version?" I thought fast. "Thanks, mate, gotta go."

I buzzed for the temp to come in.

She sat down, knees pressed together, sucking in her natural smile.

She wouldn't smile at me.

"Rhonda, I wanted to talk to you about what happened to Adrienne. But you have to promise me it won't go outside this office."

She nodded. No one can resist an exclusive. I knew she wouldn't tell the lot, but she'd give out hints, enough they wouldn't hate me any more.

I considered getting up to lock the door, to make it more intimate, but I didn't want to scare her.

"Do you believe in déjà vu?" I said. I knew she was into astrology, coincidences. She often said, "Isn't that funny?" when it wasn't funny at all.

"I don't know if you know Adrienne very well."

"I only met her at lunch. But I thought she was very nice."

"She is very nice. That's the problem. My ex-wife was very nice, too."

"You're divorced? But you're only young."

"I was married very young. And I got married for the wrong reason."

"Your parents?"

I considered going that way. "Sort of," I said. I poured a drink from the brandy bottle I keep in my drawer. She glanced at her watch and accepted one too.

"She got pregnant. I was so young I hardly knew one thing led to another. She was a fair bit older. I've always been attracted to older women."

"Did your father leave when you were young and you were brought up only by your mother?"

These daytime talk shows were dangerous. People like her, half a brain, were giving out psychoanalysis for free.

"No, they're still together. I don't like them that much older. Just a few years. Ten, maybe."

She didn't want to be flattered or seduced, but I guessed it didn't happen very often.

"So she was pregnant and you married her."

"Yep. I thought everything would be perfect. I liked the idea of becoming a father. So we got married. Huge bloody affair, everyone we knew there, her in a beautiful white dress, like a fairy princess." I sighed.

"But that sounds wonderful," Rhonda said.

"It was. Until the baby was born." I shut up. Took a sip of brandy.

"Was there something wrong with it?"

"Her. Her. It was a girl. No. She was beautiful. Perfect. In every way."

"So what was wrong?"

"I wasn't her father."

"How could you tell? How did you know?"

I laughed. "There was no mistaking it." I took a sip, poured another. "The kid was black," I said.

She sucked in air. "Oh, my God," she said.

"I didn't care what colour she was," I said.

"Of course not."

"Because I can say I'm not racist, with no buts. The thing was, this was not my child."

"Did it really matter? Did you really care? I mean, if you loved her, your wife, and the baby was beautiful."

"All I wanted was for her to say who the father was, so I would be able to tell the truth when my daughter asked. Because I did intend for her to be my daughter. I didn't want her to be ashamed of what happened."

"How did your wife think she was going to get away with it?"

"I don't think she cared. I think once she got the ring she thought she was safe. My dad's pretty rich. I think she thought she'd marry me and that would be it. I wouldn't kick up a fuss. And I didn't. Except I wanted to know who the father was.

"She said it was none of my business. I asked again. Same answer. Then I asked again. That's what I'll never forgive myself for. I asked again. I thought, 'I'll just ask once more, then leave it, try again in a couple of years.'

"She screamed at me, 'You'll never know.' She ran out of the house, carrying the baby.

"I thought she'd gone to our little bungalow at the back. Dad said he'd buy us a place of our own, but I wanted to support my own family. So we were staying back there until something we could afford came up.

"I left it for a while, gave her privacy, then went out with a cup of tea. I couldn't hear anything. Couldn't see any movement. 'Darling,' I'm saying. 'I'm sorry. It's none of my business.' But she wasn't there." I sighed.

"What is it?"

"They found her and my little girl three weeks later."

I was silent.

"She'd drowned herself and our child in the lake."

"Oh, my God," Rhonda said. I buried my face in my hands. She began to sob. "Oh, God, that's so sad. How could she do that? Oh, my God."

I nodded. "So when Adrienne and I spent that one night together..."

"She never told us about that."

"She wanted to keep it a secret. We spent just one night together. But when she told me that Friday night that she was pregnant, and that I was the father, I knew she was lying. Either I wasn't the father, or she wasn't pregnant. Because you see, Rhonda, after my little girl died, I decided I'd never be ready to be a father. I had a vasectomy. We had used condoms anyway, if you don't mind me being personal. You need to protect yourself, and I didn't want to tell her the whole story. I didn't think she'd understand."

"She wasn't really your type, anyway."

"No, that's right. Too young. So when she told me this in the night club, something clicked inside me. It was like she was my wife, and all my regrets and guilt and anger came out in that one terrible action."

"You poor man," said Rhonda. "You poor, poor man."

She came around to me, held my head against her matronly bosom.

"I like your perfume," I said. It was a cheap smell, girl's first perfume smell.

"It's Tabu. Been around since the '20s."

"Really? It's very unusual."

I let her break away first.

"I'm not going to be able to do much the rest of the day. Can I give you a lift home?"

"That's okay. My boyfriend's picking me up."

"Good. I hope he looks after you. You let me know if he doesn't. I'll have a word with him."

"He's okay so far. But I'll let you know."

#####

I went home after stealing Barry's story, got changed, told Mum not to wait up and went up the road to the old woman's place. Barry's place.

"When am I getting my car back?" he said.

"I need it for work. You're just here fixing the house, feeding the animals. We can go out on the weekend to get supplies for you."

"But I need money soon. I'll have to get a job, then I'll need the car."

"Just go on the dole until you're settled. You've paid taxes all your life."

He nodded.

"And you'll be working on the house. It's like you're being paid to renovate."

He nodded again.

"And what about the old woman's money, anyway? Isn't there a bit of it about?"

"I can't find any if there is," he said. "Those bastards must have found it all."

"Bastards," I said.

Mum told me later they had been to the hardware store together, and he spent hundreds of cash dollars. Barry doesn't mind sympathy.

He was in his tracksuit pants and a t-shirt covered with stains. In front of the TV. He stank like he hadn't showered in a couple of days. At his feet were fish and chip leftovers.

"Went out for a walk, did you, Barry?"

He jumped. "Just having a rest," he said.

"Don't worry about it. We're not in Sky now. People rest here. Some people don't have jobs here." I leant over and picked a potato cake out of the pile. Cold and greasy.

"Feel like going out for a beer?" I said. He shrugged.

"I wouldn't even know what to order."

"I'll get the drinks. You just sit there and keep me company."

"Sounds good." He turned off the TV and stood up. "I'll just put my shoes on."

"Barry, mate, I think a shower might be called for. And a change of clothes. Look, you hop in, I'll go get you some things of mine. There's a lot of women out there. Ya wanna be ready."

#####

Mum dropped us in town. Dad had not come home from work yet, and he hadn't called, so this was her small rebellion.

"Are you coming in for a drink?" Barry said.

"I haven't been asked," Mum said.

"You don't have to be asked. You know you're always welcome, Mum. It might be a little rough, but you can handle it. You don't mind smoke, swearing, and fights, do you?"

Mum shook her head. "No, look I'd better get home. Wouldn't want to see your dad's face if I wasn't there when he got home."

"Well, you wouldn't see it, if you weren't there."

"You know what I mean. Off you go. Enjoy yourselves."

I hadn't shown Barry the town centre yet. Not exactly New York; more like half a New York block stretched out over a whole city, but it's not a bad place. The whole city centre is banned to cars, so you can stagger where you like without fear of some drunk running you over. People like to vomit in the corners or in the plants, so you rarely step in someone else's lunch. And there's enough bars so you can do a bit of a crawl, pretend you're in a big city.

I didn't let Jack know I'd be out tonight. I couldn't see him being patient with Barry. He knew I'd come back from the country with someone, but had no interest.

There were places we couldn't go in town.

"It's like the woman's pub. They don't want me in there and I don't want to go there. It works out well."

Barry nodded. He always understood if I brought Sky into it.

I knew he didn't mind a beer but I hadn't seen him drunk. We set ourselves up at the bar and swallowed until our noses were numb. Then we took a beer and grabbed a table to watch the social parade.

It was a quiet crowd, talkative, friendly, non-aggressive. There were no fights to be had here and the women were the intellectual type. I amused Barry by pretending I'd slept with every one and could remember which way their tastes lay.

He chuckled at everything, no matter how extreme. I began to wonder if he'd had sex at all, making his story even sadder. I couldn't ask him, though.

He was a bit of a sook as far as that subject was concerned.

We moved on to the next pub at about eleven. Stopped off at Chicken Gourmet for a box of food, ate it standing up. It started raining. Rain sends people feral when they're out. They stood in it, danced, were unconcerned by it. We went to the Irish bar and stood there breathing other people's smoke while we had three beers. Then we went next door where girls were dancing to bad music.

"You know a lot of people," Barry said.

I shrugged. "You get to meet a few in twenty-three years," I said.

A couple of friends were playing pool, so we crashed their party. Barry was a snappy player. Pool was big in Sky. He seemed sober when he had the cue in his hand, could hardly stand up when he put it down. He had more beers.

Barry started to talk with his eyes shut, so it was time to make a move.

"Pub crawl," I said to him. The others had just started a game, said they'd catch up with us.

It was a strange night. People weren't going home, so there were taxis waiting in a snake. We walked to the Private Bin, and there was a snaking queue there as well.

Barry was in a mood by the time we got in the door. Elbowing people. Knocking over drinks. Licking girls' faces.

I left him to it.

#####

On Saturday, Mum made me a big breakfast. Dad hadn't come home. He'd called at midnight to say he was sleeping at the office. Bastard.

"Don't worry, Mum. I'll look after you." I wondered how she'd go in Sky. She could set up a little catering service, wouldn't have to take anyone's job. Cooked meals delivered to your home.

"I reckon we should get the locks changed, keep him out," I said.

"Throw all his clothes onto the front lawn," Mum said. We laughed. It was a pleasant fantasy. Neither of us would stand up to him.

"How about Barry? I bet he'd like some brekkie too."

Barry did, all right. He and Mum laughed and joked, and he got the best bits of bacon, the ones I liked. Then they went out grocery shopping. I went back to bed.

Dad was there, up on the roof, clearing out the drains when they got back.

"Amazing how the rain clogs these things up," he shouted.

Mum didn't answer. She'd let him eat shit for an hour or so, then offer him a cup of tea. That's how it always happened.

#####

I worked late every day that week, and either found Barry laughing with Mum in the kitchen or watching TV with her. They weren't interested in my day at work. They didn't seem to notice that Dad wasn't around much. Barry didn't go home much.

On Thursday, Barry got called up for an interview at the dole office and wanted help to prepare. I told him he'd have to get the bus there because I needed the car and Mum said she'd drive him. She loaned him one of Dad's good ties.

I had a good day at work. The temp was still there and the others were nicer to me. I was invited to lunch but I didn't go. There was a new girl in despatch and I had already planned to eat with her.

Mum called me in the afternoon. "Can you come home early today? Barry had a bad time at the interview and he could do with a little cheering up."

"I've got too much on. I'll be home later, but I'll bring home a bottle of wine or something. Grab Barry on the way."

"Oh, he's already here." Her voice lowered. "Actually, he's very morose. I'm not sure what to do with him."

"Sit him in front of the TV. What happened in the interview?"

"He didn't have any ID so he can't go on the dole. And when he described his work experience, they seemed to think he'd have more luck going for a disability pension. He's not feeling very positive."

"Like I said, whack the TV on and leave him to it. We'll cheer him up when I get home."

"Thanks, Zed," she said. I was glad I wasn't left alone with him.

I killed a cat on the way home. It ran straight under my wheels, rolled over, slumped in the gutter. I took off. I'd had a couple of brandies with the despatch girl, slipped a tongue in when she said goodnight. Then a wine tasting at the bottle shop. So I didn't stop.

Mum and Barry were watching the game shows. Dad was cooking dinner. Very strange. He was making chilli con carne.

"Barry says he's partial to mince," Dad said.

"He didn't have my classy upbringing," I said. Dad winked. I poured wine for us all, drank a glass standing there, poured another. I handed one to Barry.

"Thanks, Billy," he said. His mind was on the TV, he didn't look at me.

Thanks, Billy.

He stayed the night again at our place, leaving the house down the street empty. I wandered down to make sure everything was locked up except the back door which didn't lock, and which led to a sun room, a stunning clutter, a century of artefacts, knives, spears, dolls, boxes. I fell asleep in the armchair. Very comfortable. It seemed designed to be slept in, though when I awoke my head was tilted back, my neck exposed, and I felt vulnerable and unsafe. I went home.

No one had noticed my absence.

I showered, dressed, left for work. Barry offered to make me a cup of tea, but I refused. I'm not keen on tea.

I took the despatch girl, Nicky, out for lunch again. She'd been told off for our long lunch yesterday. Easy to forget the privilege position brings you. This time I told her boss I needed her to help in archives.

We had sandwiches and lemonade in the park. The grass was soft, green, and a little damp, but we lay down and let it stain us. It was my old suit, anyway, and she just had jeans and a jumper on.

"I should lie on top of you so my suit doesn't get wrecked," I said. She laughed. I gave her another month in despatch before one of the divisions snatched her up.

"I'd like to take you out for dinner tonight," I said as we walked back to work. We didn't hold hands. Prying eyes.

"Let's go straight from work," she said. "I won't have time to get nervous that way. Have a few drinks first."

"Why would you be nervous of me?"

She laughed.

"We can go past my place and I'll put something good on," she said.

"Only if we can go past my place so I can put something bad on," I said.

I picked up a bottle of brandy on the way. Gave it to Barry. I said, "I thought maybe you could give Mum the night off, go home to your place. I'm spending the night out. She needs a bit of time to herself."

"Sure, mate," he said. I went up to change. When I came down he was talking to Nicky, who was waiting in the car.

"Wish I was twenty years younger," Barry said.

"What difference would that make? Now piss off home." I started the car.

"This is actually Barry's. I used to have an excellent car but an undertaker pinched it," I said.

"You're kidding," Nicky said.

We went to an Italian restaurant in the suburbs. She had changed into a deep purple dress, tight and low, and she leant over whenever she said anything. She touched my hand any chance she got. I was smiling, couldn't help myself. I felt free with a woman who knew nothing about me, didn't judge me. She didn't say, "So, tell me about yourself." We slagged off people at work, told jokes, talked about good food we'd eaten. We shared a bottle of wine. I hardly felt tipsy, fine to drive.

I took her home.

Pulled into the curb. There was an old car in the driveway.

"Nice car," I said.

"It's mine."

"Very cute." She grinned.

With my hand on the key I smiled at her.

She smiled back.

"Come in for coffee," she said, although we'd had two cappuccinos each.

"And port?"

"If you drink port, you won't be fit to drive home."

"That's true. We'd better stick to coffee."

Inside, there was port. No coffee. She sat beside me.

"I had a great time tonight. I hope the boss doesn't find out."

"He's already jealous of me, anyway. I'm his least favourite in the building."

"He just can't handle the competition."

She was a beautiful girl. Her lips were thin and curved upwards. Her eyes were dark.

She crossed her legs and leaned towards me. The slit in her skirt went past her thigh. I leaned in and kissed her.

Marvellous. Port and garlic-tasting. She breathed gently through her nose. I could feel the air against my cheek.

Don't stop me, I thought. Please don't stop me.

I didn't want to hurt her.

She didn't stop me. I unzipped her, peeled the dress off to show her in matching bra and undies. So she had planned this too. She'd put on good underwear just in case.

I kissed her neck. She tilted her head back. I sucked her neck, her exposed, vulnerable neck. I kissed her shoulder, the top of her breast.

She lifted off my t-shirt, kissing me with her tongue. She covered my bare back with her hands, touching every inch of skin.

"Soft skin for a man," she murmured.

"Soft skin, soft heart," I said. I kissed her, laid her back on the couch, stripped her naked. It's hard to be graceful taking your clothes off, and we got the giggles, trying to be sexy taking socks off.

She got up, naked, and put a CD on, some classical thing with lots of boom boom bang. I didn't ask her what it was. I'm older, I'm supposed to know more.

I had condoms in my pocket but my jeans were turned inside out. She sucked me while I was looking, got me trembling so I couldn't do a thing.

Then I was inside her and we both shut our eyes and I saw numbers 123456789. She told me later she saw waves, hammocks, sunshine.

Women are weird.

She got up and made us coffee and we went to bed. Belatedly I asked about other residents. She lived alone. It was her parents' house but they were both dead.

We dozed, talked, had sex again, till about two am. I said, "Would you mind if I went out and watched TV for a while? I'm too excited to sleep."

"Whatever," she said. She was very sleepy.

I turned the TV on. Got dressed, picked up her keys from the kitchen bench.

It used to be her father's car. She didn't take it to work because the bus was easier, and she said it made her uncomfortable and sad, sometimes. He left it to her. It was a real old Dad's car; reliable, silent, undistinguished.

It started easily. I pulled out. I'm going for milk and fresh bread and the papers, I could say.

I stopped three doors from Barry's place. I had gloves in my coat pockets.

The street was dead. Dark. I climbed over the low side fence. The animals knew me, made just a little fuss. I pushed the back door open and walked into the sun room.

I picked up a sheathed knife. Mrs Lawrence sometimes sliced meat for beef stroganoff with this one.

Barry wasn't in the armchair, neck displayed. He was upstairs in bed, just his undies on, duvet tossed off. The room was dark. The TV glowed. I could see the TV Guide open under his hand.

He snored, he stank, he didn't stir when I entered the room.

"Goodbye, Billy," I said, and I slit his throat. He needn't think he could take my place.

I knew he had the old woman's money around. A quick search and there it was in his undie drawer, as if he thought no one'd look there. It was in big notes, probably why he hadn't spent much. I'd be able to manage. Any bank would change it for me.

I put the bedside lamp in his hand, and searched the room violently.

I was violent, silently, in other rooms as well. I found a bit of jewellery Nicky might like, and some other bits and pieces I could sell as a bonus. Or give away. The knife I put back in its sheath and tossed in the sun room. They'd find it or they wouldn't.

I disconnected the Xbox, left that by the window as if I'd been disturbed, and left the way I'd come. I picked up milk, bread and the papers, drove back to Nicky's place, turned off the TV, slid into bed beside her. Fell asleep.

I called Mum in the morning to say I was staying at a friend's place. Nicky made orange juice while I read the headlines. It was a slow news day. We learned all about genius kids, new cars, cats that could spell and what's a five letter word meaning four (prefix).

We showered together late in the afternoon. Talked about going out. Decided we'd get takeaway, eat it in bed.

We woke up early on Sunday, went for a drive. Her car. I drove. We stopped along the way because she had her hand on my thigh and wouldn't let go. We stopped in the country and had sex in the back seat of her father's car.

She got a little bit upset. I couldn't figure out why. Because it was her dad's car and both her parents were dead, I supposed.

I kissed her. She was quiet. I started telling her about trees, cows, I was the King of Show and Tell. She smiled, cheered up enough to stop for lunch in a country pub. Unfamiliar faces but these people weren't strangers. We had a steak in the garden, good, unwatered beer, and we stayed there for hours.

"I don't want to get back to reality," she said. I thought briefly of her in Sky, but I couldn't see it. Whose job could she fight for? There wasn't much call for career women in Sky.

We had sex one last time in her bed, then I went home. I was already thinking that Nicky would make a great personal assistant while she went to uni at night, then we could start our own small accounting firm.

Mum and Dad were both home. Dad had a go at me for not showing my face all weekend. Not that it mattered. There was only a bit of cleaning up to do.

We sat in front of the TV with soup for dinner.

"Where's Barry?" I said.

"Haven't seen him all weekend either. Think he wants a bit of time alone," Mum said.

"Time that man stood on his own two feet. He can't expect you to support him," Dad said.

"I don't mind. He's a friend," I said.

"Speaking of friends," Mum said, and she glanced at Dad, "which one did you spend the weekend with?"

"You haven't met her. Yet," I said, to entice her.

"Her? From work?"

"Yep."

"That's nice." Mum is terrified I'm going to marry someone I meet in a bar.

"I'll bring her over for dinner next week."

I was worn out, so went to bed early and read. Nicky loves books. She has them everywhere, and she liked the fact I'd heard of most of the writers.

I fell asleep after a page or two. Woke up in the morning with the book crushed beneath me.

I was down in despatch with a letter to mail by 9.30 am. Nicky was there, stamping and sorting.

"Which slot will I put this in?" I said. It wasn't funny. She frowned at me, and I wished I'd bitten my tongue off. Now she thought I thought the weekend was all a big joke, a crude laugh.

"Lunch?" I said. "Cheese and tomato in the park?" She smiled and nodded. I went up to concentrate on work.

It was a good week.

#####

We found Barry on Saturday morning. Mum had asked about him every couple of days, to Dad's annoyance. "Leave the man alone, would you? He's probably got himself a girlfriend and the last thing he wants is for you to be knocking at his door."

She asked me if we'd had a fight, and Dad and I both laughed. "Again, grown men," Dad said.

By Saturday, though, Mum insisted. Neighbours hadn't seen him, and his animals were howling, prowling. Dad and I went around the back, followed by the man next door, and we searched around till we found him. His TV was still on, the TV Guide open to last Friday, so they knew when he died. He died the night I was with Nicky.

"House of Death" the papers called it. No one wanted the publicity but it couldn't be helped. Two deaths within weeks of each other, both by intruders. An investigative reporter came up with the idea there was treasure hidden in the old lady's house, and the police had more pressing work to do than guard it, so it was a free-for-all. People coming from all over, digging up the backyard, ripping up the floorboards.

Dad paid removalists to pack everything up, and he paid for storage too. So the house became a husk.

We paid for the funeral as well. We were the only ones there.

I took some things and spent the next few days at Nicky's. Too much activity at our place. We went to work together, came home together, just like a real couple.

Mum rang me at work on Thursday.

"Just thought I'd let you know, a couple of your friends are on their way. They came last night and I said the best place to catch you was at work. They were going to stop off and see Barry at the cemetery then drop in and see you."

"Thanks, Mum," I said. The only common friends Barry and I had were the men of Sky.

Someone must have seen a national newspaper.

#####

I had the car with me. I didn't need anything. I had money in the bank, enough to keep me going, and I could call Mum, get her to send the rest when I got to New Zealand. She wouldn't care where I got it from.

There was Nicky to say goodbye to, but I'd have to call her, too. I'd left my favourite flannelette shirt at her place. She could wear it in years to come. Remember me.

I picked up the car keys, my plans made.

But Mum had called me too late.

I went down the fire stairs, through despatch. Nicky wasn't there. I had to duck around to Barry's car, like James Bond hiding behind bushes.

They were lounging on Barry's car.

Tool. Angela's brother, Adam. And a couple of guys from the factory. I felt important. Who was doing their shifts?

There was no point in running. All that would do was show them how scared I was. And they'd catch me. I didn't know if they'd kill me here or take me back to Sky.

"Shame about old Billy," Tool said. I nodded.

"Can't fight fate," I said. Tool nodded.

"How's it going?" I said.

"Life goes on," he said. "You remember Angela's brother?"

"Yeah, Adam, mate, how's it going?" I shook his hand.

"Not bad. Little bit of trouble back home," he said.

"What's up?"

"It's Angela." I knew then I was going to die. She'd told them lies about what happened, and I was going to die.

"She still taking photos?" I said.

"Yeah, she wouldn't give that up. Not even when the baby comes," Adam said.

So that was it. Paternity with a clenched fist.

"She's pregnant?" I said. The men nodded. I had to make the right statement.

"Jeez, I didn't know. I mean, no offence, or anything, I knew it was her first time, but I thought she was looking after it. I never would've left town if I'd known."

"Yeah, bit of a runner, mate."

"Yeah, Mum wasn't well," I said.

"Better now?"

"Not that good. Needs looking after. She'd love to be a grandmother. Reckon there's room for one more? She's a great cook. Maybe she could do meals at the pub, something like that."

"What about your dad?"

"He's an arsehole."

When they laughed, I knew I wasn't going to die.

Tool came with me in Barry's car, the others followed.

"What do you think of the big city?" I said.

"Shit house," he said.

Mum was making a cake. She had a black eye.

"Mum, I want you to come for a holiday with me. Up the country. You'll love it."

She began to cry. "What about your father?"

"Leave him a note. Come on, pack a bag and let's go." I didn't want to leave her with him. And I thought having her around might keep me safe.

So Mum and I went to Sky.

part five

Tool came with us in Barry's car and he and Mum got on very well. She was impressed to hear he was Mayor of Sky, such an average, natural man. She giggled. With her sunglasses on you couldn't see her black eye.

I stopped once at a supermarket.

"Do you mind?" I said. "I've just got to pick up a couple of things."

I got two photographic magazines, some photo albums and a bag of sugared almonds for Angela. And I bought dozens of cakes of soap.

None of them smelling of lilac.

I tried to imagine talking to Angela. I could see Nicky's face, her mouth, her laughter, the games she didn't play, her honesty. I would pretend Angela was her.

"Isn't it beautiful countryside?" Mum said. Her voice sounded ten years younger.

"Oh, we love it," Tool said. We were close to home, now. I smelt the place, felt its thickness, magic.

I felt it taking over.

"My goodness. Look at that cemetery," Mum said.

"We'll have a look there, one day," I said.

"After a funeral," Tool said. "We see it as bad luck to wander though a cemetery for curiosity." He glanced at me.

Angela's pregnancy was bad luck, it seemed.

"Very proper," Mum said.

We drove into Sky.

"Oh," she said. People waved at us, smiled. "Isn't it different?"

"You've only been here one minute," I said. I pulled up at the pub.

"Na, na, up to Barry's place. No one's moved in there." Tool winked at me. "Can't have you all living at the pub. You can stay there till the wedding, then it's up to you which place you choose."

"Wedding?" Mum said.

"Didn't have a chance to tell you, Mrs Reeves. There's been a bit of an unplanned pregnancy, but Zed's more than happy to make amends."

"Angela's a lovely girl, Mum, you'll like her." Mum smiled at me and took my hand.

We had our engagement party that night in the men's pub. As a special treat, the women were allowed in.

Angela looked lovely, rosy-cheeked, happy.

"Oh, Zed, I knew you'd come back."

"Of course," I said. Nothing mattered if it was real or fake. It was all how we remembered things.

The fellas picked me up and carted me to Tool's place, where we drank beer and talked loudly. I'd never imagined I would have a buck's night, but here it was.

The ladies drank champagne in the pub until someone started vomiting.

Tool dropped me home after three in the morning. Mum was sitting up with a glass of milk, flicking through Barry's old car magazines.

The place was a mess. Barry was a pig. I collapsed beside Mum, laid my head on a cushion in her lap and went to sleep with her stroking my hair. As I drifted off I realised I hadn't been told when the wedding was.

"Next Saturday," Mum said. "Thankfully. It'll give you time to look human again. And we'll clean this place till it shines. We've got to have it nice for your bride."

"But she's got her own place. I thought she might like to live there."

"No," Mum said firmly. "We discussed it at the pub. She feels like a change of scenery, and Barry fought long and hard for this place. The least we can do is live in it for him."

I thought briefly of Barry. They would be calling it Street of Doom, now, deaths and disappearances. I wondered how Dad was dealing with the press. I wondered if Nicky missed me.

I wondered what would happen if she was pregnant too.

I hadn't asked anybody to confirm the baby was mine. I stole Barry's story, now I had to live with it. If the baby was mine, the story would change.

Mum and I cleaned Barry's place. Our place. I wasn't sure what to do with his rubbish, his clothes, magazines, things we didn't want in the house, so we piled everything into one room.

Mum made sandwiches. I said, "Mandy already does sandwiches. Can you make those little quiches? And your bread with sesame seeds? If you charge a bit more it's a different business to Mandy's."

"And once we clear out Barry's things, maybe we can set up some armchairs and coffee tables, for people to come, sit, relax. They can read books, talk, listen to music, while I serve them a feast."

Mum was happier than I'd ever seen her. Even when I made it through high school she wasn't this thrilled. I hugged her. "I'm proud of you," I said.

"Everything's going to work out perfectly," she said. "Your Angela is a lovely girl. She can't stop thinking about you. You broke her heart when you left her behind."

"I know, Mum. I had no idea how she felt about me till Tool showed up."

"And now we've left poor Nicky behind. I think she was pretty keen, too, from what you've said."

"I think so." I wondered what happened in Sky if you wanted a new wife. Is that considered a job? Would a fight do it?

Mum and I wandered into town. I introduced her to Mandy, who was very nice and polite. We had mince on toast.

"Barry used to love mince. Did you know Barry?" Mum said.

Mandy nodded. "He was my brother-in-law until my sister died. Bit of an idiot, I always thought."

"A Silly Billy, you might say," I said.

"I didn't know he was dead. I knew someone was after his job, but I thought he ran away."

"You can't run forever," I said. I smiled in what I hoped was a rueful manner. I liked our flirting, but it only worked if it was potentially possible.

"People are very clever, here," Mum said as we walked home. "They pick things up so quickly."

"They make 'em smart here, all right," I said. I poked her in the ribs. "Granny."

"Granny? I don't know about that. How about Ma-ma, something like that?"

"Ma-ma?"

"Oh, all right. Granny."

We shared a bottle of Barry's wine, good stuff he must have inherited, then went to bed.

I wanted to be sure I knew what was going on in the morning.

#####

Everything was arranged. No room for second thoughts.

Escape.

Tool picked me up. He was best man. Mum was nothing. I wanted her to be in the party but that didn't happen.

Angela's brother gave her away, her three sisters were bridesmaids. I had Tool, Golly and Fosters. My dearest friends in the world.

We stood at the front, waiting. I could hear Mum trying not to cry, little choking noises. I didn't dare turn around. Tool pinched my elbow. Gave me a wink.

And then the music started.

It was Angela. I had dreamed she would not show up, have second thoughts, send a postcard from Hobart saying, "Sorry I hurt you." But she was there. Lovely in white, frilly, ridiculous. I remembered tearing scratches across her belly in my eagerness. I wondered what marks remained.

I would find out tonight.

We were spending our honeymoon in Catman's Cottage, the place honeymooners went. It was an hour out of Sky, further west, nothing but country. Nothing to do but have sex. Someone would drive us out and pick us up the next day, so we didn't have to worry.

It was a traditional service. Everyone else had practised, using a young guy from the factory as the groom. I wondered about him and his intentions.

And about what someone did if they wanted a new husband.

I followed their actions, repeated words. We had to kneel down throughout the service, on thin cushions, so we suffered, couldn't possibly fall asleep.

My eyes wandered as the priest discussed fidelity, respect, understanding. Angela squeezed my hand on every point, forcing me to believe too.

The walls in the church were odd. I had been here before, for funerals, but never at this level, for so long. We knelt for ages and my eyes wandered, fixating on the solid rock-brick walls.

I could see eyes staring at me.

Eye sockets.

I could see skulls set skilfully into the low rock of the walls.

I gasped. The congregation chuckled.

"You may kiss the bride," the priest said. He smiled at me. They thought I was gasping for joy.

The reception was held in the women's pub, all done up in white. I stood in the doorway with Angela, greeting people, thanking them, needing a drink. Finally champagne arrived and that would do it. I skulled my first, gulped my second, sipped my third.

"Better slow down," Angela said. During the signing of the register she had been quite angry with me. I kept standing up to look at those dead bones.

"Slow down," she said.

"I have," I said. "Are you going to tell me what that church is all about?"

"It's about God and faith, darling. Now don't be silly."

"The skulls, Angela. Whose are they? How did they get there?"

"Someone's told you all this already, Zed. You've just forgotten."

"Tell me again. Please," I said. I kissed her cheek, ruffled her hair.

"Don't mess my hair," she said. "It's the abos. We told you already."

"You buried indigenous Australians alive in the walls of your church?"

"No, they were dead."

"You killed a whole family of people?"

"How did you imagine we got rid of them? They don't just disappear, you know. They won't go when you tell them to. And they killed our founding parents, so they deserved it."

"But Sky's been here for over a hundred years."

"That's right. And it wasn't until twenty years ago their deaths were avenged."

"Is that what you learned from Mrs Rilke? I can see why they wouldn't want a replacement."

"No one wants the job anyway," she said.

"Someone did."

"No one."

The bridal waltz came on. My feet moved, my body followed, otherwise I would not have been able to function. I couldn't tell Mum we were living on a site of genocide.

"Just tell me one more thing."

"I'll tell you anything. I'm your wife now." And she reached and cupped my balls so quickly I didn't have time to take a breath. "What do you want to know?"

"The founding parents. What were their names?"

"We're going to have to set up night classes to satisfy your curiosity. They were the Martins. Sally and Billy."

I drank champagne. Glass after glass, because there was nothing else. Mum was at it too, singing, dancing. Making them all laugh, being one of them. Someone drove us to the cabin. Undressed me. I awoke with Angela, still in her seductive bride's underwear, curled up at my side like a cat demanding heat.

I shifted, groaned. She was up out of bed and back with a fresh orange juice before I could decide whether or not to vomit.

"Aspirin?" I said. "Berocca?" She had both. She came in with an enamel bowl filled with warm soapy water and she sponged me down.

"You're a sweaty boy," she said. As she leaned over, I could see the curve of her belly, and I rested my palms there.

"I can feel it kicking," I said. He was going to be strong. Or she.

Kick. Kick. Kick. Stronger than either of us.

I dreaded to think what was going to happen when he grew up.

part six

Married life was strange. I didn't feel any different, but people treated me differently. I had gained respectability. People expected me to come out with mature statements about the weather. The women stopped smiling back when I flirted with them. I felt like I had been forced into a secondhand suit. Shiny at the seat, yellow under the arms, an old hanky in the pocket. Not my style at all.

Angela smiled a lot when people were around, but in private it was like I didn't exist. We slept in the same bed, and every night she would lie there with the light on, lift up her nightie and close her eyes. I couldn't figure out what her game was so I could stuff it up, but whatever the plan was, I couldn't force myself to be attracted to her.

It was nice having meals cooked for me. The night-time one, anyway. Angela never felt like much breakfast so I usually burnt some toast, lunch I ate at Mandy's.

Angela was a great cook. I preferred it if Mum, Tool or one of our other friends was visiting, because there would be conversation. When it was just Angela and me, I struggled. She stared at me, nodded if I spoke, rarely spoke back. I don't know what sort of fantasy she had about married life. Moral support and lots of loving. Talk about the day at work.

I wandered the town and confines a lot. If I got too far, someone would drive out and pick me up. They started calling me the Abo. The name made me nervous. I knew what they thought about the people whose land they stole. I would have to get myself another nickname. I tried to bring something back for Show and Tell every day. Angela came home from her cleaning and I made her a cup of tea and showed her what I'd found. I slowly, slowly won her over.

"This is a petrified carrot," I said. "Only one of its kind in the country. There is apparently a frozen one in Antarctica but no one can confirm that." She smiled. Hid it behind her hand, but I could see her eyes wrinkle up. I kissed her as she was brushing her teeth that night.

Two nights later I brought her a collection of round pebbles, which she liked, and a bone.

Slowly, she forgave me.

Angela and Mum got on very well. I had not been asked to find work yet. I was helping Mum cook but that clearly couldn't last. The baby grew stronger every day. I imagined I could hear it shouting through the walls of Angela's stomach.

She was taking photos of herself, and of me. She labelled them, "Daddy when he didn't have a job for three weeks." I couldn't stand to go back to the factory. There were no jobs there, anyway, and the idea of killing someone to be back there was ludicrous.

I spent some time at the pub. A lot of time. I became the sixth permanent drinker. I should have stayed home. I may not have been noticed. They may have left me alone.

I began to feel unwelcome, and unwelcome in Sky is like being a goody-goody in Hell. If Tool hadn't taken to visiting Mum, I think someone would have fought me for the air I breathed.

He loved her cooking. He finished his shift then came round. Mandy wasn't pleased, but she had plenty of other customers.

I thought I could drift.

Be a loner, a family man.

Until someone changed the sign.

"Unemployed in Sky—1" it said.

"You have to make a decision," Tool said. "Decide what you want and go for it." Angela had said the same thing over breakfast. After she'd laughed her head off at my funeral video idea. "You should get a job at the bar." I thought of Tool, Golly, Fosters. I didn't think they'd be giving up the job too soon.

"We could spend more time together. You'd have to check out my work, make sure I was cleaning the rooms properly."

"But the others don't seem keen to quit."

"Just pick one and go for it. You could beat any of them."

I thought about the paper round (twelve year old boy) or the old man who gave directions in the street. He knew where everyone lived and how to get there.

"I've got high hopes for you, Zed. With women like these behind you, there's no reason you couldn't follow in my footsteps."

"I don't know," I said. There was one reason. I'd have to fight a lot of people who were stronger than me to get there.

"You really like Mum, don't you?" I said.

"She's a lovely woman. How do you feel about that?"

"What happened to your last wife?" I said.

"I've never married. Confirmed bachelor. And look at me, silly as a sparrow about your Mum." He shook his head. "And if things work out I might even get a share in being a grandad."

It all depends on you. These were the words he didn't say. It all depends on you.

"I'm sure you'll be around to see the kid through high school at least," I said. It was meant to be a joke.

"We don't send kids to high school here, mate. Wreck their heads. Straight to work, that's the idea."

It was another plan I'd have to make later.

Golly had never struck me as a clever man. He poured beers from his box but never managed a joke. Sometimes he said, "So how's the big city boy," but he thought he was living in the big city, so he didn't understand his own words.

The pub was quieter during his hours. Livened up a little just after dinner time, but people were quieter. He was sensitive about his height and a tough little shit. I'd seen him break someone's finger with a twist. Then turn back to the beer taps.

Fosters, morning shift, was more popular. He refilled beers if you spilled them, gave away potato chips if they passed their use by date. People didn't buy chips very often. They just waited.

And Tool loved my mum. That was the end of that.

If I took Golly's job, I'd be the least popular. If I took Foster's job, there'd still be Golly to hate. People could say, "He's not as bad as Golly." If Golly was gone, they'd soon forget what a grouch he was.

Fosters was a big Mandy fan. He liked her food. He liked her. He had given me a hard time, in the past, knowing she was keen on me. So there was feeling I could exploit.

"Tool, how would you feel about me working in the bar?"

"What shift?" He didn't look at me, but I could see his neck muscles tensing.

"Morning."

He nodded. "No reason why not. Does he know about it yet?"

"I haven't decided whether to challenge or surprise."

"Everyone loves a surprise," Tool said. He knew that was my best chance. I really had to thank Mum. Tool's support would make it possible.

Mandy liked the fact I didn't work, though she pretended to find me disgusting. There was an old competition between Mandy and Angela, even though they were fifteen years apart in age. Angela was being nicer to me but still thought she was in charge. A bit of gossip would help me out.

Mandy liked me because I stayed to talk. Most of the other townspeople ordered, read the paper, left. I wanted to know. Mandy knew all the dark stories of the town.

"You and your sister looked a lot alike," I said one day. I ate mince on toast. She put an extra shaving of cheddar cheese on top.

She liked to keep busy while she was talking to me. Scrubbing the bench, making sandwiches, wrapping them in plastic wrap where they'd sweat until someone bought one.

She opened cans of beetroot and pineapple. "We were identical twins," she said. "People couldn't tell us apart."

"I bet I could have," I said. She gave me the heel of the roast beef to gnaw on. "What about Barry? He used to say you were different as chalk and cheese." Mandy laughed.

"Poor old Barry. He never knew what he had."

"Poor old Barry." I shook my head.

"If only he'd learned how to fight, he would have been okay. But he never had the courage to do what he wanted to do."

"What did he want to do?"

She shrugged. "Who cares? I'd love to tell him the truth."

She started the milkshake maker, then swallowed the contents straight from the container.

"He married both of us," she said. "Well, he married Eva, but it was me on his wedding night. She hated all that stuff. Her by day, me by night. Until she got too big with the baby, then we let him alone."

"What about the father of the baby?"

"He was the one who put her on to it, he was the one who turned her off it."

"And Barry never realised?"

"Naah. I was nasty to him so he never imagined I was his lover. He wasn't very bright."

"No," I said. "So how did Barry get along with Angela?" I said, fishing for information.

"Hardly knew each other," she said.

I struggled to find the answer for the animosity. If it wasn't jealousy over Barry, what was it?

"Barry thought there was someone else involved in your sister's death. He was sure of it," I told Mandy. I wasn't sure if it would comfort her or not.

"Barry was an idiot, you know that. But he could have been right, there. Eva wouldn't have been the first loved one I've lost that way."

I wished Barry had known that his theory of the Packo's killing Eva and her child for their own advancement was held elsewhere.

"Who else is there?" I said.

"Poor old Mum, years ago. Still, did me a favour in a way. Wouldn't be running the place if someone hadn't taken her job. Thought she was too old to be cleaning the pub, see? But I was only a few years from taking over—coulda done it straight away if needs be. But no, they had to take her away."

Jobs were bloodline, here, if they weren't blood fist.

"Not Angela, surely. She would have been too young."

"Her bloody dragon of a mother. Lord, I don't know how the husband survived as long as he did. She was perfectly fine at the factory, but, oh, no, she had to move up in the world. The daughter's just the same. Sorry, Zed, but it's the truth."

"Naah, don't worry. I'd agree with you if I wasn't married to her."

We had a chuckle at that one.

#####

It was the pub versus town cricket game in two days. I was playing on pub side, because of my connections. Golly, Tool, Fosters and some of the drinkers made up the rest of the team.

We expected to win. We had one training session and a spy. There was no way we could lose.

Mum made meat pies for the team the night before. I helped. I made a special one for Fosters.

I had a couple of tabs of ecstasy (well, a few more than that, but I wasn't going to waste them all) and I ground two until they were fine dust. Then I lifted the lid of Fosters' pie and sprinkled the magic in. His was the one without onions. Fosters hated onions.

Big turnout in the morning. People brought picnics, booze; this was a big day out. A day off. Skeleton staff only at the factory, everything else shut down.

We ate our pies for breakfast.

Townies batted first and they did a fair job. All out for ninety-nine, a little higher than expected but not too much of an ask. People were laughing at Fosters, calling him an old drunk. He held his belly, "I'm dizzy," he kept moaning. No one was interested.

The batting team lined up in front of the stands. When the cricket action was dull the audience watched the team. We played up a little. I started to strip off, there were mock fights. People were ready to be entertained.

Fosters stood up. He was next with the bat. He swung low, one eye on the activities on the field.

"Can I borrow your bat?" I said to Tool. He passed it to me.

"Hey, Billy," I said to Fosters. The crowd hushed slowly. "Hey, Billy."

Fosters didn't respond. He didn't know he was Billy.

I tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, Billy," I said. He turned. He was weakened, confused, smiling. He felt no threat; that's what I wanted. I stepped back, swung, hit a sixer on the side of his face. He fell like a rag doll. I hit two fours and three singles, and then I stopped. There was no frenzy in me, just a little disgust.

The crowd cheered. "Billy, Billy, Billy," they said. Tool took the bat off me, the body was bundled away.

The game went on. Even with a man down, we won by an innings and twenty-six runs.

part seven

Once I got my job behind the bar I no longer felt like the village idiot. I worked hard at getting a new nickname—'Abo' turned my stomach.

I began to tell a lot of jokes, anything I could think of, to anyone who asked or would listen. It was better if I could incorporate an object, "See that painting up there?" and get them looking.

"I've always been a joker," I told people. It was an experiment in manipulation. Who would be the first to crack?

It wasn't until I moved to practical jokes that people caught on. I handed over whisky with a plastic fly, beer with ice, soft drinks with booze in them. That's when people finally started to say, "You're a joker, mate." I think Packo said it first, after I handed him a plate of chips with a cockroach hidden in the centre. "You're a real joker."

"Rubbish for the rubbish man," I said. It wasn't quite my intention that my nickname was sarcastic, but give it a few years and the sarcasm would be forgotten, the nickname remembered. People would say about me, "He's a funny bloke. Laugh?" and they'd laugh, just thinking about me.

I realised why Mandy had strict rules about cleanliness. The workers from the factory would come in, a cloud of stench about them, cat food in a thin layer covering their skin and clothes. I could never stop my gut from twisting when the men came in. Although we lived with the smell in the air molecules, it was concentrated on the workers.

It made me sick to think I had once smelt like that. One motivating factor in fighting for the pub job was avoidance of the factory.

I couldn't stand to go back there.

I got the feeling people thought I smelt a bit funny, and Angela, and Mum, too, while she lived with us. The first time Tool took a shower at our place (and if that's not announcing your intentions I don't know what is) he came out whinging about the soap.

"Why don't you use normal soap?" he asked.

"Zed hates lilac," Angela said. Her lips curled. She thought she'd made a point.

The plain soap wasn't going to last forever. I put it away, saved it for special occasions, when I wanted to smell like myself.

People were happier when I smelt like lilac.

The funny thing was, everything stank of cat food, the whole town existed because of cats, but there wasn't a single cat in the place. No one had a pet cat. It seemed like a waste, like a nudist colony producing fine silk underwear. All anyone said was, "Hate cats."

My body was better than it had ever been; hard, tough, strong. I worked out twice a day, punched bags like everyone else in town. Even Mum learnt how to fight, on Tool's suggestion. She was working hard at turning our front room into a café. First, she gave all Barry's things to the Father, to give to the poor, though I was yet to see a needy person in Sky. Then she moved the furniture around, setting a cosy little room up. Tool appeared with this and that; a toast rack, a fire iron, cushions, things to make it seem special.

Mandy didn't mind. "We need a place that's special," she said. She's a smart woman, I realised the more I spoke to her.

She noticed as I built up, squeezed my muscles.

It didn't make me feel safe, though. I couldn't relax. I didn't have that killer instinct.

At least not with people around who were bigger and stronger than me.

I liked my job. Didn't have to pay for beers, and it was like a giant TV set, watching the people at play. They made me laugh. I broke the rules a couple of times and let Mum in, but only when she was with Tool. He was becoming increasingly protective of her, and I was waiting for the day when they asked me if I minded their engagement.

Bigamy was not an issue here.

Mum would move out, leave me alone with Angela and Todd.

Todd. He's my little boy, all right. Identical to me when I was born, and Dad, too, I've seen the photos. He cries a bit but not so you wanted to shake him. We were celebrating his one month birthday on Saturday.

Then Packo's wife came screaming into the pub. No one knew how or when he'd managed it, but Mrs Packo had given birth to a little boy a month before Todd was born. It was their, what, eighth?

"That'll be nice, a companion for ours when it's born," I said.

Angela grimaced. "There's already too many companions," she said. I didn't know what she meant at the time.

Mrs Packo climbed onto the bar. "Give me my baby, you bastard." She grabbed at my shirt, but I ducked out of the way.

"I haven't got your baby, love. Maybe you threw it out with the bath water." I rolled my eyes at the room.

"That woman of yours has got him. Give me my baby. Give me my Andrew."

The men had to hold her down, carry her out. Packo was furious.

"Jeez, woman. This is MY time. We had that agreed. Don't come in here hystericising all the time."

Their baby was a sweet thing, a smiler. I had seen Angela stare at him, though, and a sudden ice-wind circled me.

After all I'd seen, all I'd done, I still didn't want this to happen.

"Mind the bar for a tick, will ya?" I said to George. He was all right. Too weak to want a job here, but happy to help out. I was in weight training, fight training. No one was going to beat me out of the job.

I ran home. Mum was at Tool's place. I couldn't find Angela. "Angela, Angela," and then I found her in the garage.

It's a concrete block, our garage. Freezing cold. Built for cyclones. Most of the town had one.

I found her by following the sounds of babies crying. Either there was an echo, or there were two babies.

They were in the garage. Todd lay in the corner on a piece of tarpaulin. My tools were on there, greasy and solid. I picked him up.

I couldn't see the other baby.

Angela climbed in her car, and I wondered if she'd be angry I ever imagined she meant harm to another baby.

She smiled at me. I leaned in her window.

"Where are you off to?" I said.

"Nowhere," she said, and she put the car into reverse.

"Angela," I said. She looked at me. I recognised the look. I'd seen it in the mirror, my own terrified face, on the morning of the cricket match.

"You don't have to do this," I said.

"Better now than later," she said.

I heard a baby cry. It wasn't Todd.

She rolled slowly backwards.

The crack of Andrew Packo's skull under the wheel of her car was like a witch warden eating sugared almonds.

#  About the Contributors...

Joanne Anderton lives in Sydney with her husband and too many pets. By day she is a mild-mannered marketing coordinator for an Australian book distributor. By night, weekends and lunchtimes she writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Her short story collection The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories was published by Fablecroft Publishing in 2013. Her debut novel, Debris was published by Angry Robot Books in 2011, followed by Suited in 2012. She had been shortlisted for multiple Aurealis and Ditmar awards, and won the 2012 Ditmar for Best New Talent.

You can find her online at http://joanneanderton.com

THORAIYA DYER's short science fiction and fantasy stories have appeared in Cosmos, Redstone SF, Apex and Clarkesworld magazines. She is a multi-award-winning Australian writer whose collection of original short fiction, Asymmetry, was released in 2013 from Twelfth Planet Press.

Find Thoraiya at http://www.thoraiyadyer.com or look her up at http://www.goodreads.com

ROBERT HOOD has over 120 short stories published nationally and internationally, as well as three collections of his own work, five novels, a heap of kids' books, an opera libretto and several plays. He's appeared in Karl Edward Wagner's Year's Best Horror, and has been nominated for various awards, including a Readercon award for best collection, and the Ditmar and Aurealis awards. He has won two Atheling Awards for Genre Criticism. He co-edited a number of anthologies, including the award-winning Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales. His latest publications are a novella "Soul Killer" in IDW's franchise anthology Zombies vs Robots: Diplomacy, and the epic high-fantasy novel Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead (Borgo/Wildside).

He currently lives with his partner Cat Sparks and a number of small-c cats on the Illawarra Coast and earns a crust as a Graphic Designer in the Faculty of Business at the University of Wollongong. The house he shares with Cat is full of books, pictures, movies, graphic novels and strange artefacts. And lots and lots of little Godzillas.

Find out more at http://www.roberthood.net/

KATHLEEN JENNINGS is a Brisbane writer and illustrator. She works in black and white and colour, but prefers to work in pen and ink or scratchboard with subsequent digital editing and colour. Examples are on her blog (http://tanaudel.wordpress.com) and her Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanaudel). Kathleen's clients include covers and internal illustrations for Small Beer Press, Subterranean Press, Ticonderoga Press, Fablecroft Press, Odyssey Press, _Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine_ and Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild as well as individual commissions.

Kathleen has had short stories published by _Antipodean SF_ , the _Shadow Box_ _anthology_ _, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine_ #41 and #52, _After the Rain_ , Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear __ and a comic "Finishing School" in Candlewick Press' _Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories_. She was the 2009, 2010 and 2011 president of Vision writers group, and the 2010 recipient of the Inaugural Kris Hembury Encouragement Award for Emerging Artists and Writers.

MARGO LANAGAN lives in Sydney. Her first publications were of poetry during her teens and twenties, and she then published teenage romance, junior fantasy and gritty-realist YA novels before turning to fantasy.

She has published four collections of speculative short stories (White Time, Black Juice, Red Spikes and Yellowcake) and two dark fantasy novels, Tender Morsels and Sea Hearts. She attended Clarion West Writers Workshop in 1999, and was an instructor at Clarion South in 2005, 2007 and 2009, and at Clarion West in 2011.

Margo's stories have won four World Fantasy Awards (for Short Story, Collection, Novel and Novella), multiple Aurealises and many Ditmars, as well as a Victorian Premier's Prize, CBCA Book of the Year, and two Michael L. Printz Honors. They have been shortlisted in the Hugo, Nebula, Shirley Jackson, James Tiptree Jr, Bram Stoker, Theodore Sturgeon, International Horror Guild, BSFA, Seiun, and NSW and Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific section); and longlisted in the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

Margo can be found online at http://amongamidwhile.blogspot.com.au/

Perth-based writer MARTIN LIVINGS has had over eighty short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. His short works have been listed in the Recommended Reading list in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and have appeared in both The Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy and Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror.

His first novel, Carnies, was published by Hachette Livre in 2006 and was nominated for both the Aurealis and Ditmar awards. His first collection, Living with the Dead, was published by Dark Prints Press in 2012.

Find Martin at http://www.martinlivings.com/

JASON NAHRUNG grew up on a Queensland cattle property and worked as a newspaper journalist for more than twenty years. He now lives in Ballarat, Australia, with his wife, and fellow writer, Kirstyn McDermott.

Jason's writing has won the William Atheling Jnr award for Criticism or Review, been highly commended in the Aurealis Awards and shortlisted in the Ditmars and the Australian Shadows. In 2012, he received a Chronos award for Best Fan Writer, and in 2013 won Chronos awards for Best Novel ( _Salvage_ , Twelfth Planet Press) and Best Short Story ('Mornington Ride', _Epilogue_ , FableCroft Publishing). _Salvage_ was also a Ditmar award finalist for Best Novel and, along with _Blood and Dust_ , was a finalist for Best Horror Novel in the Aurealis Awards. _Blood and Dust_ was also a finalist in the Australian Shadows awards.

Jason's debut novel, The Darkness Within (Hachette Australia), was based on a novella written with his then girlfriend Mil Clayton by email when they were living two states apart. It has also sold to Germany.

In 2008, Jason finished a Master of Arts (research) in creative writing with a focus on Australian vampire Gothic. He was director of the Aurealis Awards in 2004 and has served on various judging panels since.

Jason's fiction, detailed in the bibliography the bibliography on his website, is invariably darkly themed.

KAARON WARREN has lived in Canberra since 1993, the year she sold her first short story. Since then, she's sold over a hundred stories, three novels (the award-winning Slights, Walking the Tree and Mistification) and four short story collections. Two of her collections have won the ACT Publishers' and Writers' Award for fiction. She has been shortlisted for the prestigious Bram Stoker Award and was Special Guest at the National Science Fiction Convention in Canberra 2013.

She is a mentor as part of the Australian Government's JUMP program and has been an invited guest at Readercon in Boston. The short film A Positive, inspired by her award-winning story of the same name, won the award for Best Australian short at "A Night of Horror" International Film Festival.

Find Kaaron online at http://kaaronwarren.wordpress.com/

# Also from FableCroft Publishing...

"Flower and Weed" by Margo Lanagan

Path of Night by Dirk Flinthart

Splashdance Silver by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Liquid Gold by Tansy Rayner Roberts

The Aware by Glenda Larke

Gilfeather by Glenda Larke

Epilogue (edited by Tehani Wessely)

After the Rain (edited by Tehani Wessely)

One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries (edited by Tehani Wessely)

The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories by Joanne Anderton

Canterbury 2100: pilgrimages in a new world (edited by Dirk Flinthart)

Coming soon...

Ink Black Magic by Tansy Rayner Roberts

The Tainted by Glenda Larke

