The Drifter Read online

  ‘Where shall we go, Mac?’

  He looked towards the sheds. He wanted to find Henry.

  ‘Okay,’ she agreed. ‘Let’s go see what he’s up to.’

  She found Henry at the dam again, watching the willy-wagtails. She walked slowly down the embankment and sat next to him on his lounge, looking over the dwindling water.

  ‘Who died?’ he asked, as two of the birds fluttered after the same bug, jumping about in excitement.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Who died? I saw the way you were holding that rabbit skin.’

  ‘Well, the rabbit wasn’t looking too good.’

  ‘Don’t bullshit me – I’ve seen that look. I invented that look.’ He didn’t look at her, but when she glanced at him he was holding an open beer towards her. She took it.

  ‘A friend of mine.’

  He nodded. ‘When?’

  ‘A month ago.’

  He scratched his hairy cheek as if she hadn’t spoken and he didn’t care.

  She took a long sip of beer. It bit her on the way down. Maybe she didn’t hate it as much as she thought. She studied his arm briefly. There was a tattoo there she’d never really noticed. It was an eagle killing a bear. Seemed unlikely. She studied it for a few moments. It looked like a specific design, as if Henry hadn’t simply wandered drunk into a parlour with a really cool idea about birds and bears. His muscles moved under it.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he muttered.

  ‘Sorry. Don’t have one if you don’t want people to look at it.’

  He rubbed his arm with his free hand, as if something large had just walked over his grave and thought about digging it up, then he left his hand there.

  ‘So what did you get up to today?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Oh, nothing interesting. I just helped Aunty Ida clear out some stuff.’

  ‘Is she going somewhere?’

  ‘No, she’s refusing to, but I think it might be better for her here if she can get about the place more easily and find the stuff she really wants.’

  ‘She never had kids of her own?’

  ‘No. I’m not sure about the story there, but she and Uncle Jack never did.’

  ‘That must’ve been hard on her.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ It was getting dark. ‘I suppose I never really thought about it before.’ She stood up to leave him and made her way reluctantly up the slope, but then she turned and saw the long shadows of the gum trees behind him reaching out to touch his collar. He was perfectly still.

  ‘Hey, Henry?’

  His shaggy head moved, just a fraction. Maybe his eyes caught a final glimpse of light on the water.

  ‘Who died?’

  He gazed up so slowly, so slightly, at the darkening sky. She looked at his long hair and the back of his worn-out shirt stretched across his huge sad shoulders, wondering if he would speak.

  ‘I did,’ he said.

  CHAPTER 8

  It was a long night. Ida was up a couple of times; Cate listened to her shuffle from her bedroom to the kitchen to the bathroom and back again. She rolled over in bed and thought about Henry’s vigil at the dam. She thought she heard the quiet call of the curlew down in the bush, and imagined Henry creeping about out there, hunting for rabbits or dragging foxes from their dens. She heard Ida again, and began to wonder if she was okay. After midnight, there she was again, shuffling up the corridor. Cate got out of bed. There was something going on. She opened her door.

  ‘Aunty Ida? Are you okay?’

  There was no reply at first, then her aunt’s voice came from the kitchen. ‘Cate? Dear? I don’t feel well . . .’

  Cate ran up the corridor to the kitchen. Ida was slumped on the table. She looked grey.

  ‘Hey! What can I get you? Is there any medicine?’

  Her aunt nodded and slowly descended to the floor.

  Cate yelled again. ‘Where? Where is it? In your room?’

  Ida nodded again, and Cate ran. She found a spray dispenser on Ida’s bedside table that looked medical. She ran back to Ida and held it close to her face. Ida nodded and opened her mouth, while Cate squirted the medicine three times. She held Ida’s hand and found it cold and clammy. Panic clawed into her.

  ‘Back in a sec,’ she promised, and dashed to the car. She reached in the window and leaned on the horn, blasting one, two, three times. The honking was a rude intrusion into the night, but she knew he’d come. She dashed back inside and by the time she was taking Ida’s pulse, Henry was there.

  ‘What? What is it?’ His voice was urgent and he was still pulling on his shirt.

  ‘Ida. She’s having some sort of episode.’

  He dropped to his knees beside her. ‘Ida! Ida! Can you hear me?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What medication is she on?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know she was on anything.’ She held up the spray.

  He took a quick look at the label. ‘I think that’s for angina. It’s her heart.’ He put his ear to her mouth, listened for a moment to her breathing, took her wrist and looked at her feet. ‘It’s fast. Call the ambulance. Tell them we’ll meet them on the way.’

  Cate ran to the phone, passed on the message and dashed to her room while Henry carried Ida to the car. She grabbed a bra and jeans, struggling into them as she trotted unevenly out to the car. She fell into the passenger seat, glanced back at Ida, who was lying across the back seat with a towel under her head, and they took off into the night.

  ‘How long has she been off-colour?’ Henry asked Cate, as she struggled with her bra under her T-shirt. ‘And what the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘About two hours. And welcome to civilisation, Caveman. We wear clothes here.’

  His beard appeared to be grinning like it just ate something.

  ‘Watch out for the ambulance. I guess they left Windstorm about five minutes ago, so – something, something maths, we could be seeing them any time.’

  Henry nodded. ‘Excellent. Nice work, Stephen Hawking.’

  They drove in silence, gently lit by the light from the headlights bouncing back on them from the road. Cate turned to check on Ida, who seemed to be lying quietly. She hoped that was a good thing. Soon enough they saw flashing lights up ahead, and Henry pulled over to the side of the road. The ambulance officers quickly assessed Ida and settled her into the back of the ambulance. In what seemed like a few moments they were ready to go.

  ‘See you there,’ they said, and pulled out into the night. Cate stood watching their lights disappearing over the horizon, taking with them the sound of their engine, pulling it out to a thin, distant thread. She shivered. Her heart was pounding and her skin was icy. She gulped some air and listened to Ida’s journey to hospital, still seeing the lights of the ambulance flashing by the side of the road, where she had sat for so long and for no time at all, with Brigit in her arms. Bile was rising in her throat, and she was glad the darkness was hiding her tears. She stamped her feet as if she could shake the chill.

  It was getting late. Henry’s hand dropped briefly to her shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘She’ll be safe in a hospital bed by the time we get there.’

  Cate nodded. He opened the car door for her, climbed into the driver’s seat and they followed Ida to the hospital, through the darkness of the night.

  The lights of the Narrogin Regional Hospital were very welcome, and Henry was right – Ida was dozing by the time they were allowed in to her room. A doctor was there.

  ‘Hi – Cate?’ she asked. Cate nodded. ‘I’m Jane. Ida is doing well. As you can see, we have her on a drip to manage her pain.’

  ‘Will she be okay?’

  She paused.

  ‘We’ve given her an ECG to record how her heart is doing, and we’re taking blood to run tests, which will take a little while to come back.’

  ‘But after that. Ida will be fine, won’t she?’ Cate was staring at Ida’s still form lying in the hospital bed.

  ‘Well, that depends on
what we find. If the heart’s blood supply is compromised – most likely by a narrowing of the blood vessels – we’ll have to assess the best course of action.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘But try not to worry too much. Ida is in the best place she can be for now, and we’ll keep a close eye on her. We may need to send her to Perth for an angiogram, but we’ll deal with that later.’

  Cate had been nodding nervously throughout Jane’s explanation. Henry put a hand on her shoulder to prompt her.

  ‘Oh. Okay. Thanks very much for everything you’re doing.’

  A nurse popped her head around the door. ‘Doctor Wright?’ she murmured. ‘Mr Pedlow is asking for you – he’s insisting on walking home again.’

  Jane smiled. ‘I’ll be right there,’ she said, and turned back to Cate and Henry. ‘Well, I must be off for a moment, but don’t worry, we have Ida under constant observation. Feel free to spend a few minutes with her before you go.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Cate murmured, a mixture of relief and worry crawling through her chest.

  They were alone with Ida, and the room felt suddenly very still. Cate walked forward and gently took her hand. It was cool but no longer clammy. She glanced at the drip in her other arm, and took in how fragile she looked, lying there asleep. She leaned in. ‘You’ll be okay, Aunty Ida,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll be okay.’ She placed her hand down again and stroked her hair, while Henry stood by looking through the dark window into the night.

  Before too long a nurse came into the ward and checked the monitors. She made quiet approving noises and turned to Henry. ‘Take her home,’ she said. ‘Mrs Christie’s not going anywhere. She’ll sleep through the night.’

  ‘Cate?’ He touched her arm briefly. ‘It’s time to go.’

  ‘Okay.’ Her feet didn’t want her to. The nurse put an arm around her.

  Ida could die. And there she was, alone in her little house, waiting for Jack to come home to her again. She was so isolated, Cate thought, out there on the farm with no one nearby. Anything could happen. Cate must have paled, because Henry came forward and lifted a hand ineffectually towards her, as if he knew she needed something he didn’t have. The nurse looked sympathetic.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Your boyfriend will take you home and look after you.’ She passed Cate into the awkward care of Henry, and they walked slowly down the corridor to the car.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ she murmured in the hallway.

  ‘No worries.’ His voice was gruff.

  ‘You were great.’

  ‘No worries.’

  She glanced at him.

  ‘Let’s go home.’

  ‘Yep.’

  Cate was tired now that the stress of the journey to the hospital was over, and the warmth of the car was sending her to sleep. She was strangely comforted by the silent bulk of Henry beside her. She watched the stars out of her side window reflect on the dark glass as Henry drove her back to the farm, feeling her thoughts touch on him, press at him in soft places he had long forgotten, afraid he shouldn’t have been there at all.

  CHAPTER 9

  Ida was in Narrogin Regional Hospital for almost a week, and Cate drove to see her every day. She was still in some pain, and Doctor Wright thought it prudent to continue daily ECGs until she could be satisfied Ida was recovering well. Cate made sure she gave Ida news of the farm, maintaining a jolly façade until she could get away from the hospital and the horribly worrying sight of Ida incapacitated in a hospital bed. She wished the pain would stop and that Ida would be sent home with a bottle of pills that would cure her. As the days went on it appeared to become less likely.

  Henry was still nowhere to be seen. He had walked out of the kitchen and disappeared back to the shed and old house, avoiding seeing her, rejecting her company. It was as if he wanted to pretend she wasn’t there, like she’d intruded on his solitary life and reminded him of things he’d rather forget. Maybe she was imagining it, but the idea that she had imposed upon him stayed with her and rankled.

  On the fourth day of Ida’s incapacitation Cate found she wasn’t her only visitor. She had been keeping her parents up-to-date on Ida’s progress, and they had been growing more concerned about her welfare.

  ‘Ah, here she is.’ Cate heard a familiar voice as she came into the ward. Her father, Derek, was sitting beside her rather worried-looking mother.

  ‘Mum! Dad!’ She hugged her father briefly and kissed his cheek. He was tall, like Cate, but darker, and he was as neatly dressed as always, the kind of person who refused to own jeans or a T-shirt without a collar. His thick eyebrows were like a thermometer by which Cate measured how she was doing. Up, and he was pleasantly surprised by her; down, and she was being silly again. He kissed her hair. They had a mostly cordial relationship, in which he shook his head, mystified, as she dashed out the door to a dinner, a date or a party. Sometimes he would try to pin her down on where her life was going, but mostly she ducked his questions and was gone before he could rephrase them. His vague disappointment in her had sharpened since Brigit, but fear of something worse kept his ire in check. She kissed her mother, Claire, hello and perched on the end of Ida’s bed. Her father sat back in his seat.

  ‘How’ve you been, Catie?’ he asked. ‘Out in the bush with this crazy old lady?’

  Ida laughed heartily, and Cate smiled in relief.

  ‘It’s been good, hasn’t it, Aunty Ida? Current heart problem aside.’

  Her aunt nodded. ‘I’ve loved having young people around again after all this time,’ she said happily.

  Her dad was confused. ‘Young people?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We’ve got a swagman in the old mudbrick house,’ she announced with great satisfaction, as if that was exactly what the farm had always been missing.

  Her dad looked sceptical. ‘A young swagman?’ He glanced at Cate. It sounded like something she would do.

  Cate gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. ‘He’s just a hairy drifter dude with non-violent issues. He helps out now and again – turns out he’s great in a crisis. He likes Mac,’ she added as a character reference.

  ‘And I like him,’ Ida declared stoutly. ‘He and Cate got me here last week.’

  Her dad was looking at her as if to say, This is going to be properly explained later.

  ‘Right now, we need to think about you, Aunty Ida. Doctor Wright is sending you to Perth for an angiogram, I hear. She wants to check out your heart – see if we can sort out what’s going on.’

  Ida smiled benignly. ‘I’m eighty-four. There may not be much to sort out,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t I just go home?’

  ‘Not for a while. Perhaps Cate could stay and look after your dog for you. Would that make you feel better? And we could ask the, ah, homeless guy to move on. I’m sure he’d understand.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Cate quickly. She could easily pretend to do that. She turned to her aunt. ‘Hey, Aunty Ida, did you want me to get a couple of guys in for shearing?’

  ‘Oh, yes please, dear. I use Alf McKenzie. Reg at the co-op will have his number.’

  Cate nodded. ‘Sure thing. I’ll call as soon as I get home.’

  Ida smiled vaguely, and Cate sensed she was still in pain. ‘I’m afraid payment might be a tad dicey. I mean, there’s money to pay them, but I can’t get to it at the moment.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be home by then.’

  ‘Or I’ll sort something out while I’m in Perth,’ she decided.

  Cate’s father looked pleased. ‘So you’ll come, then?’

  She sighed. ‘If they can get me more mobile than this, it’ll be worth it.’ She had never had much time for infirmity in any form, and was bound to resent it now that it was hers.

  Cate checked her phone. Narrogin had much better reception than Windstorm, and she liked getting small updates from the girls when they popped up on her phone. The first was from Saskia. I’m size 8. In Alannah Hill. Alert the press. Then there were three from Madonna. Are you here this weekend? Hello? And
I need advice on some loser who thinks he may be my boyfriend. Not a doctor. And finally, ‘Not a doctor’ has redeeming qualities. Yes I mean sex.

  Too soon it was time to go, and the family ushered themselves out, waving cheerily and making plans to take Ida to the city as soon as possible. Cate looked at her watch. She wanted to get back now. She had a few chores to do. The chooks needed feeding, and Mac was on his own . . .

  ‘Time for a coffee?’ her dad asked, and her mum looked hopeful.

  ‘Of course.’ The chooks would be fine. They had Mac. And Henry.

  She chatted to her parents about her life on the farm, and the families they would have remembered from their time in the district, and ordered two flat whites in quick succession. She kept the conversation moving. She didn’t want them to have time to ask her how she was. She couldn’t take another chat about Brigit or the accident. There was surely nothing they could add that would make it okay or make her feel any better. A girl had died, and it was her fault. Finally, she couldn’t avoid it any longer, and there was a pause in the conversation.

  ‘Well, Catie,’ her mother began, touching her short grey hair self-consciously, ‘we’ve been wondering about your plans, now.’ The bright beads she wore rattled gently across her elegant throat, and her blue eyes regarded Cate keenly.

  Cate looked at her blankly.

  ‘I mean, you’ve gone to the farm for a little break, and I think it was very nice of you, but now, well, your father and I are wondering if you’re coming back to Perth shortly? To find a job? Join the world again?’ She seemed hopeful and doubtful at the same time, and her father looked stern but didn’t speak, as if this was some sort of rehearsed intervention.

  Cate stirred her coffee. ‘Uh, I guess I haven’t really thought about it,’ she began, and her father snorted, a tiny involuntary sound like he was spitting in his cup. She stopped stirring.

  ‘Okay, Catie,’ her mother continued, ‘but, you know, soon it’ll be time to put this whole horrible episode behind you, and, well, get on with your life.’ She looked to her husband for backup. ‘I mean, you can’t keep drifting forever. You’ve got to find the thing you’re going to do.’