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  ‘Have you had any dinner?’ He yawned.

  ‘I et some chips.’

  They wandered about the house. He was trying not to pry, but now that he was here, by gum he may as well be curious. He wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for that would render his own life so uninteresting by comparison. A part of him, the histrionic part, even wondered if the mother might be dead in a bedroom. But no, no, no. The sink was full of filthy dishes. The air smelled of stale smoke. He spied old roaches in an ash tray, crumbs of dope on the table top, empty chip packets scattered about the television. Those were the days. The calendar on the fridge had not a day circled on it. This was as close to anarchy as he could imagine.

  ‘So you’ve been waiting here by yourself since you got home from school?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Where’s she gone, your mum?’

  ‘Out to a party. She works very hard and needs to take time out to relax.’

  ‘Did she tell you to say that?’ (May as well be presumptuous, he thought, I’m the adult here.)

  ‘No. It’s true.’

  ‘Does your mum have a phone?’

  ‘She didn’t pay the bill.’

  ‘Hmm… so you don’t exactly know if she’ll be home in an hour or not.’

  ‘I think she will. She always comes home.’

  On the news the body count was updated. Pie charts and bar graphs described the state of the conflict. Dean knew they couldn’t stay here. Imagine if the mother came back to find a strange man in his pyjamas in her house with her daughter. Besides, he was now witness to her, not to put too fine a point on it, evident squalor. Where would he sit? It was Shona who had met the mother, offered her a lift once or twice, had commented on her dreadlocks. In his heart, Dean had nothing whatsoever against dreadlocks.

  ‘What happened to your pet rat?’ he asked.

  ‘It ran under the couch and all the other rats that live there killed it.’

  Dean looked at the couch. It had an aura, he thought, of many things. He moved away from it. Apart from some newspapers, it was strewn with clothes, clean or dirty he could not tell. Did they move? An open packet of ear-buds lay spilled on the floor. The shade about the light was full of dried moths. He made a sudden, executive decision to return to his own home with Bridie and make up a bed for her on the lounge. (Trust Shona to be right about that, too.)

  He left a note on the kitchen bench, first clearing a corner so the note would not be lost in the general clutter. He wrote his phone number, then scribbled it out, remembering that Bridie’s phone had been cut off. Then he considered that the mother (he didn’t even know her name!) might think he did not want her to contact him, so he wrote another note, this time leaving his phone number intact. He was trying to do the right thing here. It was the bloody mother who was off gallivanting about town, after all. He did not turn off the lights.

  After thinking about it for a few steps, Dean went back and retrieved the note, pinning it eventually to the outside of the door where it couldn’t be missed. Street lights glowed wanly through the fog. The last train hooted. It was a forlorn sound he never grew tired of. One or two darkened dogs a-yap behind fences. Their paws scratching the gravel. The sound of possums. Back at Dean’s house, Bridie said she was hungry. Dean yawned. The kid didn’t look sleepy at all. He made her some cheese and pickles on toast, which she proceeded to wolf down. He was now so tired himself that he wondered if he should just go to bed and let her have the run of the place; but all he really knew of Bridie was that she was supposedly feral. Something to that effect. Some gossip. Trust did not come into it. Seemed rather placid, really, kinda sweet, if that word was allowed anymore. Grace hadn’t wanted to play with her much since the business of the rat. They had a shared interest in puddles, but that was as far as it went. Grace said Bridie was a little bit weird.

  * * *

  They were sitting on the floor playing dominoes. The only sound was the soft click of the tiles. It was after two o’clock. Dean wondered if he should take tomorrow—no, it was now today—off but what sort of excuse was that, to sit up with a feral kid till her mum came home? Why didn’t she just go to sleep? Dean’s jaw stretched as he yawned again.

  Eventually there was a knock at the door. Not even the dog moved.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Father Christmas,’ a voice growled.

  Father Christmas? What the—? I don’t have time for these—Dean was angry. He threw open the door. A man stepped into the light. He was wearing a leather jacket. Dean took a step backwards at the sight of it.

  ‘Who the—?’

  A map suddenly appeared in his mind, on it were the locations of the nearest blunt instruments. The knives. Just in case.

  ‘Where’s Bridie?’ said the man through an odour of alcohol.

  For a moment Dean lost it.‘Who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Where’s the kid?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Glancing at Dean’s pyjamas, the man’s aggression abated with a hiss.

  ‘Sorry… Shit… Look, sorry mate. It’s been a shit of a night. All there is is this note saying you’ve taken the kid.’

  ‘That’s right. She’s here.’

  ‘Well, I’ve come to fetch her home.’

  ‘Well, I repeat. Who the fuck are you?’

  Dean had had time to analyse his feelings about the leather jacket and had decided that it was only a leather jacket after all.

  ‘I’m Paul.’

  ‘Well piss off, Paul…Where’s the mother?’

  ‘Mate, look, we’ve been at the pub, she’s drunk as a skunk. Too embarrassed to show her face.’

  Paul was now trying as best he could to relay some of this embarrassment. From the far end of the room Bridie called, ‘Is that Mum?’

  ‘It’s a man called Paul,’ said Dean. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Hi, Paul,’ she called again.

  Paul poked his head around the door and smiled at Bridie. The girl picked herself up and walked past Dean out into the night as if the whole thing had been neatly arranged. Parental pick-up after handy child minding. Thanks so much. Owe you one. Toodles. Dean was not sure if he should let the child go, but he could hardly snatch at her.

  ‘Bridie, do you know this man?’

  ‘He’s Paul.’

  ‘Mate,’ said Paul, ‘it’s cool. I’m the boyfriend. Look, we’re sorry about the hassle. Her mum’s too upset. Domestics. We thought it was a kidnap. She asked me to come. I’ll get her to come around tomorrow to explain. Thanks for looking after her.’

  After this speech, Dean watched them climb the steps and fade into the shadows. The street lights looked odd at this time of night. Then he went to bed. His side of the mattress was stone cold.

  In the morning he felt as though the—what was it?—incident—had not happened at all. He was only reminded of it when Grace asked over breakfast, ‘Have you been playing with my dominoes again?’

  When he packed them away he found one of the tiles was missing.

  * * *

  The mother did not come around to explain anything. In fact, Dean suspected that apart from some general, abstract humiliation, she had no recollection of her part in the evening either. Those were the days. Shona seemed to have no idea what had occurred during the previous night, snoring away in her bliss, only that Deano was in a grumpy mood again. He felt this was an unjust imputation and stewed quietly in his resentment. There was a certain tension about breakfast. Then he saw that he should not, as he would otherwise normally be accused of, be thinking solely about himself. So he thought about Bridie. The poor brat had probably been left on her own more times than she’d had hot dinners and who had sat up with her? Me, me, me. He wondered, is this the sort of case he should report to DOCS, or whatever the bloody authorities called themselves? Child negligence? God forb
id Dean should be a witness to anything. And that bloke Paul certainly didn’t fill him with confidence. And what would he tell them? That he wandered about the moonlit streets in his pyjamas with the girl shivering at his side?

  No, not shivering, she’d said she wasn’t cold…

  Hmm.

  A likely story.

  * * *

  The first Dean knew of it, Grace had informed him that Bridie, whom she’d never got on with anyway, was moving. Moving? How could such people afford to pack up and move? He knew the answer to that one. How quickly desperation could drive you.

  They were having a garage sale. Getting rid of some of their stuff.

  After some interrogation, Grace admitted she had never heard Bridie speak of a man called Paul, but then the only thing they’d ever had in common was an interest in puddles. They weren’t friends. Didn’t he understand that?

  So, leashing the dog, wrapping themselves in coats, they took a walk, he and Shona. A nice, sunny afternoon. This could well be the end of everything, he thought. Who cared anymore about desperation? It seemed almost a normal state of being. Shona restrained the dog with both hands. All the furniture at Bridie’s house was lumped higgledy-piggledy over the side of the road, down the driveway, leaning into bushes. There wasn’t a great deal. Dean wondered if maybe this fellow Paul had gone berserk and thrown everything out onto the road. But no—there was Bridie, amidst boxes, behind a sign proclaiming 4 Sal. Grace dawdled on, following a drain, as was her right.

  ‘Hello, Bridie,’ Dean said, ‘are you moving?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Bridie, looking at her shoe.

  ‘How is your mum?’

  ‘She’s asleep.’

  ‘Is she well?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Not meeting his eye. Surrounded by her things. 4 Sal.

  ‘Did you get home safely the other night?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Do you know what happened?’

  ‘She came home. I told you, she always comes home. I go to school. Same as before. Now we’re moving.’

  ‘What about that fellow, Paul, the boyfriend?’

  ‘He’s not her friend anymore.’

  ‘Did he do this?’ Waving his hand at the furniture.

  ‘No. He’s a lazy cunt.’

  ‘Who helped you move all this stuff out here?’

  ‘Me mum. Who else? The truck’ll be here soon.’

  ‘Well, I hope it doesn’t rain.’

  ‘Me too… Hey Mister, how much will you give me for this couch?’

  Dean moved on and did not reply. The trees overhead shushed in the strengthening breeze; it was always windy this time of year. Currawongs tuned their pipes in the elastic branches. Grace and Shona and the dog dawdled ahead. He felt appalled that he did not want to catch them up. If the wind were to drop it might be cold enough to snow. Every footstep felt the same.

  STEALTH

  During the filming of the climactic scene in the action-packed Hollywood blockbuster Stealth, I was chief fire officer for the Megalong Valley CFA. I have not seen the film myself, not being much of a movie-goer, but I am told it is close to a masterpiece. Or maybe that is a masterpiece of extravagance? Either way, it reflects well, even though only a few minutes of my work made it into the final film. A few minutes, after all that effort, with Ross Livingstone losing his work shed, and kissing goodbye to an old Harley-Davidson he was working on in pieces on the floor. All up in smoke. Ah well! Sad but true. My son, Barry, wants me to take him to see the film, but I don’t think it’s an appropriate sort of entertainment, what with all the violence and ‘adult themes’.

  It’s a long story. But in a nutshell, Stealth is a tale about an intelligent jet-fighter plane that wants to save the free world by blowing the billy-o out of the hanging swamp along Mount Hay Road. I don’t know what the free world has to fear from the hanging swamp along Mount Hay Road. The producers claimed that blowing the billy-o out of things was in keeping with the plane’s character and therefore crucial to the plot. You don’t really expect Hollywood producers to come up with sensible explanations. It makes you wonder where they cook up these ideas. The hanging swamp was supposed to represent a desert of some kind, the kind of desert that harboured evil terrorists. Unfortunately, the swamp was also home to some endangered skink, or butterfly or rare parasite that lives only in the roots of the moss that grows there. Not sure if I’ve got the right end of the stick here. When we read this in the Gazette, Barry said he didn’t want the butterflies to be blown up. He likes butterflies. And skinks. And birds.

  This is where the greenies stepped in, taking the law into their own hands. ‘Save the parasites,’ they shouted. They chained themselves to gates; lay down in the path of the napalm; chanted, We shall not be moved, even though there were only about twenty of them. After a few photographs, the police dragged them off.

  It worked. Unfortunate for Hollywood, but lucky for us, the protesters won. A victory for the environment; a victory for the defenceless. As you’d expect, being a big budget blockbuster, money was no object. The Stealth producers shopped around. They offered Ross Livingstone (after he rang up and volunteered) a bucketful of dosh to let them transfer the location of the shoot (I’ve got all the lingo) from the hanging swamp up on the mountain, down into the shadows of the valley where they could blow the billy-o out of his property, on which he ran several horses and a few head of shivering cattle. Think of the money these Yanks would bring down into the valley, Livingstone argued in the community hall. They would need accommodation. And they would need dinner. And breakfast. And probably lunch. They would eat the teashop out of house and home. It would be an economic boom.

  So we agreed. The valley is a magical place, as anyone will tell you. The cliffs of Narrowneck plateau rise to the east, so that each day begins like a kid poking his face up over a fence. Barry, who has an affinity with animals, would ride a horse from sunup to sunset if he could, all the way over the Cox to the Wild Dogs and back. And the horse would do that for him. But as Ross said, money is money.

  Even though the location had changed, the valley was still meant to represent the desert. The intelligent fighter plane, Stealth, was supposed to be able to fly through the night sky like a bat, reading people’s thoughts and such-like but I don’t reckon the producers rated the intelligence of the audience too highly. Continuity, I think it’s called. Or lack of it. Since when did the Megalong Valley look like a desert?

  Anyhow, they splashed their big bucks around, sneered at the greenies, and Ross Livingstone said, yes, they could blow up whatever they wanted on his property. Within reason. They couldn’t touch his shed, for example. He’d need some guarantee. That’s where the Country Fire Authority came in. The biggest controlled explosion in the, oh I don’t know, the Southern Hemisphere? Something like that. It was certainly bigger than the last cracker night we had down in the valley before they were banned. And much cheaper for them, blowing up things here in Australia than in their own backyard. I examined their permit and it was all above board. So, fire away. I thought Barry might get a good memory out of all the razzle-dazzle.

  Our job was to help plant the pyrotechnics. That is, to supervise the Hollywood powder monkey while he wired up the Nitropril and detonators, poured petrol—petrol by the tanker load—down the trunks of hollow trees, into rabbit burrows, all over Livingstone’s doomed but profitable property. They were very professional. Only once, in my official capacity, did I have to tell them that they were pouring their diesel in a trench too close to the creek that fed the Cox, which was part of the Sydney water catchment and might get a few people jumping up and down. It was a disaster waiting to happen. They were pretty good about it. They didn’t want another environmental fuss on their hands.

  But Ross told me to keep my damn nose out of it. It was his private property, he said, and he had given permission to blow up anything the direct
or thought would look good cart-wheeling through the air on fire. So long as they paid. It was a deal they had and he didn’t want me to put the mockers on it. The director said he did not wish to enter into local politics, he was simply remaining faithful to the script; this project had artistic integrity. And money was no object in the pursuit of artistic integrity. I couldn’t help thinking that he was making it up as he went along. There was talk of shooting a scene where the intelligent fighter plane confronted the greenies about the value of parasites and the value of life in general, thereby developing his character to a more sophisticated level, but underneath realising that the greenies were really terrorists and didn’t care a hoot about the value of life, no, they only cared about power and so deserved to have the billy-o blown out of them. I don’t know if that scene made it into the final film.

  It was all very interesting how they went about things. My second-in-command, Barry, jiggled from foot to foot in anticipation. He was hoping to meet movie stars. He was eighteen and this sure made a change from the quiet life in the shadows he was used to. A dead kangaroo on the side of the road is about as much excitement as we get around here and takes a bit of working through. He watched them set up their caravans and catering tents and camera dollies and all the other film paraphernalia. But the only stars in this scene were a handful of extras and stuntmen who were to play corpses in the desert. Even Stealth, the star of the show, was back in a studio hangar somewhere.

  Once they were all set up, Mrs Lewis brought over some scones and homemade jam from the teashop, but the crew only wanted their hotdogs and Pepsi. Did they not want anything at all from the local shop? No thanks, Ma’am, they were fully self-sufficient. Barry and I loved her scones so we tucked in. Barry asked a stuntman for his autograph. And got it. He clutched the piece of paper like a jewel, showed it to Mrs Lewis.