The Colour of Kerosene and Other Stories Read online

  The five-hour drive from Adelaide to Yorke Peninsula had taken them through Martin’s hometown and he had felt an urge to visit his old school to see if the tree he’d planted was still there. Maybe on the way back.

  Sally and Gordon arrived on the edge of dusk. Martin helped them set up tent and then the three of them retreated to the communal kitchen where Rachel was cooking dinner. Over beers, steak and sausages at a slatted wooden table, they planned the next few days. Gordon was keen to try out his new rod and Martin was willing to tag along and ‘wet a line’. Rachel and Sally wanted to look at some local real estate.

  His meal finished, Daniel dug his iPod out of his backpack and began playing a game.

  ‘What about you, Daniel?’ asked Gordon. ‘Coming fishing with us tomorrow?’

  Daniel looked up quickly from the screen and stole a glance at his mother. Rachel said nothing. Daniel grimaced. ‘If I have to,’ he said. He didn’t look at Martin.

  Martin stood alongside Sally, wiping the dishes as she washed and stacked. It was two years since Martin had found her on Facebook and sent her the message that had rekindled their high-school friendship. But this was their first shared holiday.

  Sally and Gordon had lost their only child, Kate, five years ago. Martin had the feeling they had locked the world out for much of the first few years and had grown away from some of their friends. Kate would have been a year older than Daniel.

  When the dishes were done and the leftovers Glad-wrapped and stowed away, Martin kissed Sally on the cheek, said goodnight, and walked back to his tent. It was the first time he’d kissed her since high school.

  Martin slept lightly until an hour or so before dawn and then lay there, not wanting to get the day off to a bad start by stumbling around a campsite in the dark. He thought of work, then of Flanagan, his bow-tie-wearing colleague in the Department of Environmental Science. Older, louder, and with flamboyance to burn, Flanagan had been a climate-change denier in the early 2000s, his research stumped up by oil interests.

  Flanagan’s three children were in their mid to late thirties and were all, if Flanagan could be believed, near the top of their professions. He put it down to having brought them up on a half-acre block in the hills, with nature on their doorstep. At a faculty meeting he showed photos of his renovated bluestone cottage. All the women sighed and the men stared for a second then passed them on and muttered about ‘oil money’ later, in the linoleumed corridor.

  At breakfast, Daniel toyed with his cereal, his iPod on, playing a game. Martin tried to fire him up with the idea of catching fish for dinner. The beach was several kilometres away, on the southern side of the point. Daniel grunted and kept his eyes on the screen.

  ‘Alright,’ said Martin. ‘I think you need a break from that thing.’

  Daniel ignored him and took another spoonful of Weet-Bix. This was his punishment, Martin knew, for being so selfish as to deny Daniel a sibling.

  ‘Hand it over,’ said Martin. ‘It’s holiday time.’

  Daniel looked across the table at his mother. Rachel shrugged her shoulders. Gordon, sitting alongside her, carefully studied the fishing guide he’d got from the van park store.

  ‘Fine,’ snapped Daniel, pushing the iPod away. He got up, went to the kitchen bench and returned with another Weet-Bix in his bowl, frosted with a thick layer of sugar.

  When he’d finished it he got up, went to the bench, put another biscuit in his bowl and sat down again. Gordon was showing Martin the rig he used to catch whiting. Martin glanced up and Daniel gave him his flat look. Rachel excused herself and left.

  When Daniel went to the kitchen bench for his fifth helping of Weet-Bix, Martin exploded, banging his fist on the slatted table. Gordon put his hand on Martin’s shoulder. ‘It’s alright,’ he said. ‘Let me handle it. Go get your gear ready.’

  At their campsite, Rachel was organising towels and snorkelling gear for their trip to the beach. She had Daniel’s surfboard out. They had bought it for his birthday, five months ago, and it had stood in the corner of his room since then, collecting dust. Martin told her what had happened.

  ‘Maybe he thinks you only ever take things from him,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, so you’re on his side, are you?’

  Rachel rolled her eyes. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I just think that maybe you need to offer some incentives. Ticks and crosses.’

  ‘It’s gone way beyond that,’ said Martin. She didn’t get it, he knew. She didn’t see the political nuances that surrounded every interaction he had with his son. ‘We’ve moved into new territory,’ he added. She crossed her arms and turned side-on to him.

  ‘It’s a war,’ he said.

  ‘Well, it’s a war you can’t win.’

  ‘Then we’ll just both have to lose,’ said Martin. Even as he said it he knew what a terrible thing it was to say and he could see the seamless corridor and Flanagan’s smug face.

  They returned from their fishing trip with half a dozen bony whiting. Later, Martin drove his family north, through the dullest landscape he could imagine, relieved only by a string of drab towns with boarded up shops and buildings no taller than lemon trees. The Barkers hung on their tail, a hundred metres behind them in their Corolla.

  ‘When can I have my iPod back?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘When I can see you’re making an effort – ’ began Martin, struggling to work out what to say next. He realised he couldn’t remember the last time Daniel had smiled at him. He scanned the road ahead for kangaroos.

  ‘An effort?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘Well, yes. When I can see you’re taking an interest in something that doesn’t involve electrical circuits and a screen.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Like the world around you, for instance.’

  Daniel stared out at the flatness rushing past.

  The thing that had really pissed Martin off was what Flanagan had written on the ‘Ideas’ board in the staffroom: ‘The failures of our children speak to us in a clear, merciless way, of our own developmental failures’. Martin had no answer for that. At one point he’d rubbed it off, only to find it up again two days later. Then someone else had rubbed it off, for good.

  Martin stopped outside the Your Property shop in Edithburgh. Two pubs, a post office, half a dozen tacky shops. Daniel got out ‘to stretch my legs in the outside world’ as he put it and began walking towards the ocean. The four adults climbed up onto the veranda of the real estate office to look at the properties displayed in the window. Martin beckoned Rachel over to a photo of a run-down homestead on one acre between Edithburgh and Yorketown. ‘Yuck,’ said Rachel. ‘You’d have to fight off the snakes.’ She slid off sideways to see what Sally was ooo-ing about.

  Martin turned around to see his son a hundred metres away, at the edge of the sea cliff, holding onto the railing. Daniel looked skinny, his windcheater loose and flapping around him in the breeze.

  ‘Whatya thinking?’ asked Gordon.

  ‘The mortgage,’ said Martin. Two-hundred-and-seventy-five thousand in the red after the renos, at nearly eight percent, and the interest alone bleeding close to two grand each month.

  ‘Making any headway?’ asked Gordon. The old checked shirt he wore was flecked with blood.

  ‘Nup. You?’

  ‘Nup.’

  Sally and Rachel came out of the shop with the real estate agent in tow. A thin man with a smile that came and went. Martin had to look at him twice to convince himself he wasn’t the tight-faced kid who’d been ostracised at his school, twenty-odd years ago. What was his name? This man’s name was Craig and that didn’t ring any bells for Martin.

  Craig let them into a two-storey town house with sweeping views of the back of the pub and occasional glimpses of ocean. Rachel and Sally weaved through the rooms, taking careful note of built-in storage space while Martin, Gordon and Daniel tagged along behind them, getting stuck in doorways.

  Back at the van park, in the communal kitchen, Martin tried to read a book that
a colleague had recommended, on the social construction of knowledge. The words buzzed and swarmed at him. He put the book down and shut his eyes.

  ‘Fancy a walk?’ Sally was standing beside him in a long dress,her hair tied up in a neat bun.

  ‘Sure,’ said Martin.

  At the edge of the park they found a dirt road that branched off towards the dunes. There were sugar gums here and an understorey of native shrubs. Sally looked pretty with her hair up. The sun was getting low and the light slanted in golden and forgiving.

  ‘You wouldn’t really move back out this way, would you?’ asked Martin.

  Sally laughed. ‘God no. Can’t think of anything worse.’

  ‘Ditto,’ said Martin. Ahead, he could see the low sand dunes where the tidal flats began. There was a faint smell of seaweed on the air.

  ‘You remember that kid we all ostracised?’ he asked.

  Sally stopped walking and turned to him. ‘Yeah, I was thinking about him today. That’s weird.’

  ‘The real estate agent,’ said Martin. ‘He looks just like him.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it.’ Sally started walking again. ‘Charlie,’ she added. They were close to the dunes now.

  ‘Charlie,’ agreed Martin. ‘I’d forgotten his name.’ And now that he could name him, a memory came back. He was on his way home from school, watching as the son of the leader of the local bikie gang punched Charlie in the guts and upended his school bag onto the dirt. Martin had stood there, frozen, wishing he was elsewhere.

  ‘I wonder what happened to him,’ said Sally, climbing the first dune. Martin followed her, the wind in his face, looking out over the tidal flats to the south where gulls were hunting small creatures in the mud and the shallows. He hoped Charlie was somewhere good, living well, but he couldn’t imagine it. He waited until the wind had dried his eyes before he talked again.

  The property was in the main street of Edithburgh, just a few doors down from the real estate office. They’d decided at breakfast to look at one more house and then round off the day with a visit to the rocky bay so Daniel could try out his board.

  Martin and Gordon hung back, on the footpath, eyeing the bakery across the road. Several families were camped at the tables outside, eating pies and pasties. An old man shuffled out from behind the fly-strapped doorway.

  Martin saw the old man hesitate as he came to the edge of the pavement. He put his foot out over the road, lowered it too fast and Martin winced out loud as he saw his ankle buckle beneath him and then the old man was down, on the bitumen, groaning.

  Martin and Gordon rushed across the road. They helped him up and onto one of the plastic chairs on the pavement. The old man was disoriented and panicky but knew his name was Harold and that he lived around the corner somewhere. He had a sprained ankle and a nasty graze that had peeled away the thin skin of his shin. Martin shivered when he saw it. He held a serviette to Harold’s leg to quell the bleeding while Gordon went inside the bakery to see who they should call.

  When Craig ambled over with Rachel, Sally and Daniel, Martin asked him if he knew where the old man lived and Craig scratched his head and said, ‘Dunno. Must be new to town’, and seemed prepared to leave it at that. He checked his watch and then he was gone.

  Gordon came out of the bakery, shrugging his shoulders. The staff had suggested they drive him to the health clinic, down the road. Rachel and Sally helped Harold to Martin’s car and eased him into the back seat. Daniel jumped in and helped strap him in and Martin smiled at his son and said, ‘Thanks, mate.’

  But the bakery staff hadn’t mentioned that the clinic was closed on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Outside the clinic, with the engine running, it was decided that the only thing they could do was to take Harold to his house, make him comfortable, and ring for a doctor.

  The bay was a crescent, lined with massive rocks. On the eastern flank the rocks jutted out a hundred metres into the ocean. Martin stood near its tip, deep water on both sides, conscious of the swells surging in great unbroken curves past him and into the bay, towards the small beach. Gordon was reeling in his fourth fish in twenty minutes. The swell thumped into the rocks directly below, sending up a plume of spray. Storm clouds lumbered at them from the south.

  ‘Never turn your back to the swell,’ Gordon had told him the day before. Martin reeled in his line, letting the surge lift the rig up and over the rocks. But his eyes were on Daniel. He’d left him with Sally and Rachel on the beach, waxing his board.

  Daniel was in his wetsuit now, knee-deep, his board riding the foam near the shore. He launched himself at the first rush of white water, arms flailing. It was only a small, broken wave, but Daniel lost his balance and the board speared up and into the air, its white belly glinting.

  Martin turned around and Gordon gave him the thumbs up. He was watching Daniel too. Martin reached into the bucket at his feet for another cockle. While he was re-baiting, Daniel got past the first low break and headed for the second. The main break. The swell that thumped and sucked with such force that Martin could feel the vibrations through the dense granite beneath his feet.

  For twenty minutes the boy struggled to get past the break as Martin willed him on, holding his breath each time Daniel was sucked under, releasing it only when his son came up for air. Finally, the boy was being drawn towards a glassy wall of water. He paddled furiously at the wave, then Martin lost him for an agonising moment as the line of swell erased Daniel from view and then the gleaming belly of the board crested the wave, whacked down onto the smooth water behind it and Daniel was safe now, past the break, heading towards them.

  Daniel looked around, exhausted. Martin waved to his son and Daniel waved back and Martin felt all his combativeness drain from him like it was a tubful of water and someone had found the plug.

  Gordon was at his side now, his line wound in. ‘He’s gonna be okay,’ said Gordon. ‘He’s gonna turn out fine.’

  Martin turned to him, met his eyes and nodded and there was a redness and moistness about Gordon’s eyes but it might just have been the wind and the salt.

  The next day, on the drive back home, Martin stopped at his old school. He hoisted himself over the low fence and Rachel and Daniel tagged along a few paces behind as he cut through the playground. He was heading for the edge of the oval where the class of ’86 had planted their trees on graduation.

  As soon as he rounded the old arts and crafts building he could see something was wrong but he kept on, his head jerking from side to side as he tried to get his bearings. When he reached the middle of the oval he stopped and waited for Rachel and Daniel to catch up. He turned to them and stretched out a hand to the edge of the field. A long industrial shed sat where the sugar gums had been.

  ‘They’ve cut me tree down,’ he said, mock-humorously, feeling a quiver in his lip.

  Rachel gave a hesitant smile. She rested a hand on his elbow. ‘I’m sorry, honey,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I guess it beats finding it stunted or half dead,’ said Martin.

  Daniel smiled and then gave a laugh and Martin hesitated for just a second and then joined in with his son, loud and deep.

  Lives Less Valuable

  Sergeant Simon Hastings – thick forearms, face like a mug shot, a voice full of gravel. Looking at him now, I was aware of how much I’d missed the company of men. The sense of fraternity. We walked into the Colac Hotel, shoulder to shoulder. At the bar, two clapped-out bikies, flying their colours, scowled and looked away.

  A beer in one hand, a forkful of peppered steak halfway to his mouth in the other, he paused. ‘You just have to take what you can from this job,’ he said, and took a slug of beer to wash down the meat, then looked closely at me. He had a way of slowing conversation down and looking you in the eye, gauging your reactions. ‘You know what I take?’ he continued.

  ‘No,’ I said, leaning towards my own glass of beer.

  ‘Little glimpses of lives less valuable than mine.’

  I blinked. We stare
d at each other.

  ‘That helps?’ I said at last.

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ Hastings took another forkful of steak, chewed it slowly. ‘You’d be very surprised.’

  I didn’t press him. Two weeks into the job and something similar was already working its way into me. The lives of the people we investigated seemed so disjointed, their personalities and characters so twisted out of shape, it made my own life seem full of symmetry and purpose.

  I’d never been inside the Colac before. Polished jarrah boards, but everything else spoke of ambulances at four am – plastic chairs, bamboo ashtrays, tables bolted to the floorboards. Nothing that could maim if thrown. Faded portraits of horses hung above the pool table in the far corner of the room.

  ‘Whatdya think of it?’ asked Hastings, turning to follow my gaze.

  There are places you know instinctively to avoid, and this was one of them. The Colac was a throwback to an uglier time. It had escaped the boom of the mid 2000s that had cut a swathe of concrete and glass through Port Adelaide. This was the last bastion of what, in one of my sociology lectures in my previous life, I would’ve called ‘the disaffected’.

  ‘I’ve seen more inviting jails,’ I said. At the other end of the room, a topless barmaid took money from a man in boots, shorts and singlet covered in dust. The shadows under her eyes looked painted on, even from fifteen metres away. I picked a fishbone out of my mouth, studied it.

  ‘I’m gonna have to work on you, aren’t I?’ said Hastings.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He ignored my question. ‘I went to uni too, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Well, for a year and a half.’

  ‘What’d you do?’