I think, Go down, bring her back, talk to her, join her, hell, get shit-faced at six in the morning with her if it helps. But I can’t help the need to sleep, can I? An’ the bed’s warm. An’ before I’ve made up my mind what to do, I’m asleep again. There’s good places to be in sleep.’
Bob was still, apart from his eyelids that fluttered like the moth’s wings.
In the distance a road train rumbled by, the black of its back end just visible.
Frank laid a hand on Bob’s shoulder as he passed behind him for more beer, but he didn’t seem to notice. ‘We met out west, you know,’ he said as if this explained a lot. ‘She’s younger than she looks. She was working with the Tourist Board down on Rottenest.’
‘Funny place.’
‘Yeah – she lived on army barracks when I met her. It was winter – lonely sort of a place in winter. Just you an’ the quokkas it feels like. I’d been travelling about with this mob of kids, left them in Perth. You know how it is – there was all the grog, the pills, sharing a sleeping bag in the back of a car with a bloke who smells like piss and mustard. You get to the point you want your privacy.’ Bob laughed.
Frank thought of that night sharing a bed with Bo when he’d been ready to swing for him at the slightest breath on the back of his neck.
‘We got to Perth and I just had enough, they were heading up to Broome to sleep on the beaches, and the weather was filthy. I just split, told them I’d meet them up there. Knew I wouldn’t see them again. That’s a good feeling – like you’re shedding skin. Took the ferry over, crook as a chook all the way. Salt, wind, rain. White sky for as far as you could see, and this black little dot of an island. Funny now – feels like she was waiting there for me, like I was going there just to find her.’
A paddymelon appeared at the edge of the cane and watched them. It grazed a little.
Bob went on. ‘She was pregnant within a month. Funny, but it didn’t worry us. Probably should’ve. We felt so easy then, like we could go wherever, do whatever felt good. That’s where the first chooks come from. Rottenest hens. That’s all we took with us. It’s how it’s supposed to work, you know? We got this chicken empire now. We live off the land we own. We eat out of the sea, dig in our own dirt. We want a holiday we hop in the truck; an hour down the road you could be on a desert island. It’s just all so perfect.’ Bob had his eyes closed and smiled.
‘So, what happened?’
Bob opened his eyes ‘The kid died.’
‘Holy.’
‘Leukaemia. A couple of years back.’
‘Mate.’
‘Yep.’
The silence was back and this time it stayed. Frank felt the foam of too much drink clearing, as he took it in. He felt his bum muscles tighten as he tried to think of something to say. In the end he let it go and the two of them worked through to the last of their beer, and Frank went back to the fridge softly, not letting the screen door close too sharply. Bob rolled a cigarette, appearing to put all his concentration into it, pulling away tobacco fibres, wetting his fingers and tightening the roll. The sound of bottles gasping open.
‘Somethin’ about this place. I dunno if it’s something rubbed off from my old man – he was a hippy joker. Long hair ’n’ everything – caravan, the whole fucking Kulu. Anyways, this place’s been good to us – let us live on after.’ Bob looked up at Frank, caught his eye. ‘It was a bad death, y’see. Real bad.’
Frank plucked at the neck of his T-shirt. ‘I’m sorry to hear it, mate. Really sorry.’
‘She was this funny colour, that was the bit that got to me. She kept spewing up all this stuff, lime-grey – same colour as her skin by that time. An’ of course all the hair goes.’ He closed his eyes and let his head fall back. A moth landed in Frank’s hair but he didn’t move to get rid of it.
‘The worst thing is you see this little budling of a creature turn into something it makes you sick to look at. You want to cuddle her up,