taking a break only once to buy two bottles of beer and return with them to drink. He leans against the Waratah, one hand resting on the strip of Axminster glued to the tank, the other cooling around the beer. The net curtains are drawn across the long window in the front sitting room; they hang a foot or so short of the floor. A few dead flies lie behind the glass and further in he can see three pairs of slippers, the mottled flesh rising out of them like puddings. Every now and then Betty’s white lace-ups appear among the slippers. She must be feeding the slippered men, helping them with their teeth, adjusting their dressing gowns. He resents this work she does, resents the people she cares for. Why doesn’t she notice him? Why doesn’t she come out to the lawn now and speak to him properly? Her tea break comes and goes. He finishes the beer, but keeps hold of the empty bottle. There are men in this town he has never seen without a beer bottle in one hand. He considers throwing the bottle into the hedge, but someone will have to pick it up. Betty bends down then, just once, in front of the window. The hem of her dress dips into view and he starts within himself as if the fabric is being drawn across his skin.
He rides out of town, past the cemetery and the butter factory; the saleyards are a mass of afternoon shadows as the sun picks out the posts and rails. He rides through weed blossom; gorse and ragwort flowers are sucked against his coat. The road follows the river for a few miles then peels away and curves across the Tragowel Plains. He opens the throttle. It’s warmer out here – the plains have their own weather – the sun’s eye opens wider across the flat. He moves up to third. He’s doing thirty now – really moving – the ring and pop of the pistons has blurred into a throb. It’s as close as you can get to cruising – except he’s constantly checking the road ahead for potholes and getting up out of the saddle when the shakes set in. He slows down to second for the crossing at Mincha. Four white signposts mark the road in each direction: south to Pyramid Hill, west to Gladfield, east to Turrumberry, north, behind him, back to Cohuna. A stranger wouldn’t know this place had a name – that a crossing of two roads surrounded by acres of flat paddocks was a place in itself. Harry helped his father cart hay at Mincha. Harry and his father and a dog in a dray with no springs summer after summer. Back at school the rhythm of the dray was caught inside him and he was always in trouble for rocking on his chair.
The road doglegs after Mincha, the land to the south is low-lying and inundated with brackish water, backwash from Kow Swamp. The beer is thick in his bladder and he pulls over to the side of the road to piss. Once the Waratah is warm it runs rich and doesn’t idle easily, he has to sit adjusting the throttle for a few minutes until it settles. He moves away from the exhaust and pisses over the chipped gravel. A pair of brolgas stalk through the shallows in the boggy paddock to the south. He watches them strut along the waterline, their black rod legs hinging tentatively beneath them. The native companion. They must be able to see him standing up on the road and to hear the motorcycle, but they show no sign of it. The larger bird stabs at something in the mud then lifts its head. Harry can see the dark, hairy dewlap that hangs underneath its throat. A breeze lifts the feathers on the bend of the bird’s neck and the pink, penile skin beneath it is exposed. The brolgas look ancient, foreign, misplaced somehow. He feels uncomfortable watching them, as if he is intruding.
He gets back on the Waratah and coaxes it through the gears. The road is deteriorating. He puts his hand out to block the sun from his eyes and feels the wind push back against it. He rides past a horse paddock where three sets of ears swivel at the sound of him approaching, and then receding, without lifting their heads from the pick. The hill is coming into view. From this