Scrublands(6)

Inside reception, there’s still no respite from the heat. Martin can hear a television from somewhere deep inside the building. There’s a buzzer on the counter, a doorbell adapted for the task. Martin presses it and hears a distant chirping off in the direction of the television. While he waits, he checks out a handful of brochures in a wire rack hanging from the brick wall. Pizza, Murray River cruises, a winery, a citrus farm, gliding, go-karts, another motel, a bed and breakfast. A swimming pool with water slides. All of them forty minutes away, in Bellington, down on the Murray. On the counter itself are a handful of takeaway menus printed in red ink. Saigon Asian—Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Indian, Australian meals. Services Club, Riversend. Martin folds one and puts it in his pocket. At least he won’t starve.

A blowzy woman in her fifties wafts out from behind a semi-mirrored swing door, bringing with her an ephemeral gust of cool air and the smell of cleaning products. Her shoulder-length hair is two-tone: most of it’s blonde, but the inch or so closest to her scalp has grown out into a doormat weave of brown and grey. ‘Hi, love. After a room?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Quick kip or overnight?’

‘No, probably three or four nights.’

She takes a longer look at Martin. ‘Not a problem. Let me check our bookings.’

The woman sits down and kicks an ageing computer to life. Martin looks out the door. There are no other cars, only his, under the carport.

‘You’re in luck. Four nights was it?’

‘Sure.’

‘Not a problem. Payment in advance, if that’s okay with you. Day by day after that if you stay longer.’

Martin hands over his Fairfax company credit card. The woman looks at it, then up at Martin, placing him in context.

‘You’re from The Age?’

‘Sydney Morning Herald.’

‘Not a problem,’ she murmurs and runs the card through the EFTPOS handset. ‘Okay, love, you’re in six. Here’s your key. Wait a tick, I’ll get you some milk. Turn your fridge on when you get in, and make sure you turn the lights and air-con off when you leave the room. Power bills are killing us.’

‘Thanks,’ says Martin. ‘Do you have wi-fi?’

‘Nup.’

‘And no mobile reception?’

‘Did before the election. Now the tower’s down. Expect they’ll fix it in time for the next vote.’ Her smile is a sardonic one. ‘There’s a landline in your room. Worked last time I checked. Anything else I can help you with?’

‘Yeah. The name of your motel. It’s a bit strange, isn’t it?’

‘Nup. Not forty years ago it wasn’t. Why should we change it just because some bunch of losers like the sound of it?’



Martin’s room is soulless. Having read Defoe’s piece, he’d been looking forward to staying in the pub: beers with the locals, a flow of information from candid bar staff, a counter meal of local steak and overcooked vegetables, a short climb up the stairs to sleep. Perhaps a midnight stagger down the corridor to the communal toilet for a piss, to be sure, but an old building with some character, oozing stories, not the utilitarian blandness of this dogbox: a bare fluorescent tube for a light, a sagging bed with brown spread, the chemical stench of air freshener, a grunting bar fridge and a clanking air-conditioner. There’s a phone and a bedside clock, both decades old. Better than sleeping in the car, but not much. He calls the news desk, gives them the motel’s number, warns them that his mobile is out of action.

Martin strips off, goes into the bathroom, flushes the dead flies that have accumulated in the toilet bowl, relieves himself, flushes again. He runs the tap at the basin, fills one of the tumblers. The water smells of chlorine and tastes of river. He gets the shower going, not bothering with the hot tap, scowls at the flaccid water pressure, then steps under the flow and lets the water fall across him. He stands there until it no longer feels cool. He holds up his hands, examines them. They’ve turned white and puffy, wrinkled by the water, like a drowned corpse. When did his hands begin to look so foreign to him?

His body cooler, the room reluctantly cooling, he dries himself and climbs into the bed, throwing off all but the sheet. He needs to rest. It’s been a long day: the early start, the flight, the drive, the heat. The heat. He sleeps. Awakens to a room growing darker.

He dresses, drinks more of the abominable water, looks at his watch: seven-twenty.

Outside, behind the motel, the sun persists in the January sky, hanging large and orange above the horizon. Martin leaves the car and walks. The Black Dog Motel, he realises, really is on the edge of town. There’s only a derelict service station between it and the empty paddocks. Across the road, there’s a railway line and a set of towering wheat silos, glowing golden in the setting sun. Martin takes a snap. Then he walks past the abandoned petrol station to where the entrance of the town is marked by the obligatory signs: RIVERSEND, says one; POPULATION 800, says another; LEVEL 5 WATER RESTRICTIONS NOW IN PLACE, says a third. Martin climbs a low ridge running perpendicular to the highway, not more than a metre high; he frames the signs with the abandoned service station on the left and the wheat silos on the right, the setting sun sending his shadow across the road behind the signs. He wonders how long ago the population was eight hundred, what it might be now.

He walks back towards town, feeling the power of the sun on his back even this late in the day. There are houses abandoned and houses occupied, houses with drought-dead gardens and houses boasting bore-water verdure. He passes the green corrugated-steel shed of the volunteer fire brigade before pausing at the junction with Hay Road, with its shops sheltering beneath their joined awnings. Another photograph.