Scrublands(8)

‘Thanks,’ he says, taking a long draught of his beer.

‘I’d let you sit here and eat it, but I need to be closing up myself. Only customers we get on a night like tonight—people having a quick one while they wait for their takeaway. But we’re open every night ’cept Sunday. And lunchtimes every day except Monday. Want to take any drink with you?’

Martin imagines drinking by himself in his room at the Black Dog Motel. ‘No thanks,’ he says and drains his beer. He thanks the volunteer barman and extends his hand. ‘Martin,’ he says.

‘Errol. Errol Ryding,’ says the barman, taking Martin’s hand in his own impressive mitt.

Errol, thinks Martin. So this is where all the Errols have gone.



In the blackness Martin tries to stretch out and finds he can’t. His legs can’t straighten. Dread descends like a curtain, smothering him in claustrophobia. Tentatively he reaches out, fearful of what his fingers will find and knowing already the resistance they must encounter. Steel. Unbending, unforgiving, unrelenting. Fear is wrapping itself around his neck, stifling his breathing. He holds his breath, lest someone hear his slightest expiration. That noise—what is it he can hear? Footsteps? Come to free him, come to kill him? More noise. The distant crump of artillery, the soft percussion of impact. Martin no longer wants to stretch. He folds himself tighter, foetus-like, and puts his fingers in his ears, fearing the donkey bray of an AK-47. And yet there is a noise, a rumbling, a clanking. He removes his fingers, listens in hope and fear. A tank? Could it be a tank? He strains to hear the rumble of the engine, the clank of the tread. It must be close. The Israelis, invading? Come to rescue him? But do they know he’s here? Will they simply run the tank over him, crush him in his prison, unaware of his existence? Should he yell? Should he not? No. The soldiers would never hear him. Others might. And now. That roaring. Coming closer. A real roaring. An F16? One missile, one bomb, no one will ever know he was here, what became of him. The roar, closer and closer. What are they doing, coming in so low? A louder clank, and he’s awake, gulping air, tearing at his blanket. The lights from the passing truck penetrate the flimsy curtains of the Black Dog Motel as it roars its way east. ‘Fuck,’ exclaims Martin. The growl of the truck recedes, leaving only the tank-engine whir of the air-con. ‘Fuck,’ says Martin again, extricating himself from the blanket, turning on the fluoro strip light. The bedside clock says 3.45 am. He sits up and gulps down a tumbler of pungent water, but his mouth is still dry and salty from the takeaway. Perhaps he should have brought some grog back after all. He considers the pills in his travel bag, but he’s not going back there. Instead, he begins the long wait for dawn.





MARTIN WALKS OUT BEFORE THE DAWN, THE AIR COOL AND THE SKY MUTED, finding his way through deserted streets to the epicentre of his story: St James. He stands before the church as the sun lifts from the horizon and sends shafts of golden light through the branches of the river red gums. He’s seeing it for the first time, but the building is familiar nevertheless: red brick and corrugated-iron roof, raised ever so slightly above the surrounding ground, half a dozen steps leading up to a utilitarian oblong of a building, its purpose suggested by the arch of its portico, the pitch of its roof and the length of its windows, and confirmed by the cross on its roof. A rudimentary belltower stands to one side: two concrete pillars, a bell and a rope. ST JAMES: SERVICES FIRST AND THIRD SUNDAYS OF THE MONTH—11 AM, says the sign, black paint on white. The church stands alone, austere. There is no surrounding wall, no graveyard, no protective shrubs or trees.

Martin walks the cracked concrete path to the steps. There is nothing to indicate what occurred here almost a year ago: no plaque, no homemade crosses, no withered flowers. Martin wonders why not: the most traumatic event in the town’s history and nothing to mark it. Nothing for the victims, nothing for the bereaved. Perhaps it’s too soon, the events still too raw; perhaps the town is wary of sightseers and souvenir hunters; perhaps it wants to erase the shooting from its collective memory and pretend it never happened.

He examines the steps. No stains, no marks; the sun has bleached the cement, sterilised the crime scene. On either side of the path, the grass looks dead, killed off by the sun and lack of water. He tries the door, hoping the interior might prove more forthcoming, give some insight into the town’s reaction, but finds it locked. So he walks around the building, searching for some useful detail, but there is nothing to see. St James remains impervious to scrutiny, surrendering nothing to journalistic inquiry. He takes some pictures he knows he will never look at.

A longing for coffee is building inside him; he wonders what time the bookstore opens. His watch says six-thirty. Not yet, he guesses. He follows Somerset Street south, St James on his right, the primary school to his left. The road curves. He can see the rear of the motel behind a wooden fence. He passes the police station and arrives back at Hay Road, the main street. In the centre of the intersection, standing on a pedestal, head bowed, is the life-size statue of a soldier dressed in the uniform of the First World War: boots, leggings, slouch hat. The soldier is standing at ease, his gun by his side. Martin looks up, regarding the dead bronze eyes. There are white marble slabs mounted on the plinth listing the locals who died for their country: the Boer War, the world wars, Korea and Vietnam. Martin looks again into the face of the bronze digger. This town is not new to trauma and the traumatised. But perhaps war is easier to memorialise than mass murder; war has some point to it, or so its widows are told.