John Marsden - Incurable

The reason I can say that about her is that sometimes I do it too, which may explain why there are times when Jess really irritates me.

I have to admit that the way I got out of the car that night was a good example. I knew I had to find Gavin, so it wasn’t a bullshit situation, but to do it that way, OK, yeah, I knew there would be a certain impact on the others. To be honest, it was more like a scene out of a movie than real life. I guess the others knew that. Lee covered his face with one hand and groaned, Jeremy said, ‘You must be joking,’ and Homer just looked straight at me and said, ‘Here’s a suggestion — why don’t you tell us what’s going on.’ To my surprise, Jess opened her door and came around to where I was standing. I’m not sure what she had in mind, I don’t think she was planning on coming with me, but she sure wasn’t running away.

I realised I hadn’t been fair to them. I made a bit of a face, and said, ‘Sorry.’ It took me a minute to think of how to explain it all. So much had happened that I could hardly remember Gavin, let alone what he had done. In forcing my mind to go back a few hours I felt like I was taking a thousand-kilometre journey. It was actually tiring, and I didn’t need it, on top of the exhaustion that was leaving me limp and feeble. But somehow I got back the full thousand kilometres and remembered, and said, ‘Before you went Gavin had already left. He hijacked a motorbike, waited somewhere down the paddock and followed you. I lost his tracks near the border. But he took a shotgun.’

‘You don’t think he went shooting rabbits or something?’ Jess asked.

I shook my head.

‘He could be home again,’ said Jeremy.

‘If you knew Gavin,’ Homer said to him, ‘well, put it this way, you remember that Japanese soldier they found in the jungle forty years after the Second World War? Still fighting on?’

I didn’t, but I got the general drift. Nobody said anything else for a few moments. But the trouble with the kind of situation we were in is that you can’t sit around having a group discussion. Finally I did something which I don’t remember doing too often. I said to Lee: What do you think I should do?’

He raised his eyebrows slightly, which for Lee was the equivalent of laughing hysterically. It was probably the first time I’d asked him directly for advice about something personal. And this felt personal to me.

‘I don’t see what you can do,’ he said. ‘He could be anywhere. I mean, we’re talking about an area of maybe a thousand square kilometres. It’s like looking for one particular grain of sand on the beach. Like Jeremy said, he could be back home. I think you’ll have to start again from there. If he’s still missing, we can try to get information through the Scarlet Pimple or Liberation.’

He was clever, Lee. He’d thought of a reason to get me back home. Two reasons even. Gavin could be there, and if he wasn’t, I might have a better chance of finding him from my place than by zigzagging aimlessly about the countryside.

I got back in the ute. Jess got in too.

Somehow, as we took off again, I felt quite fearless. Considering all we had been through, and the danger we were still in, that seems a bit ridiculous, but my mind was on Gavin, and that stopped me getting too scared. I think also that after surviving the Battle of the Coconut Tree I felt a bit invincible. By getting ourselves out of that almost impossible situation it seemed like God wouldn’t be so cruel as to have us caught by an off-duty gardener with a whipper-snipper.

We had a bit more to contend with than off-duty gardeners though. We’d been stupid to stop for so long and have a conversation. Well, I’d been stupid, but the others were nice enough not to point that out. To be honest, I was probably underestimating the opposition too. Just like those netball games when Robyn was captain. Wirrawee was quite a netball powerhouse, and it wasn’t unusual for us to win games by forty points. One season, when we were in Year 5, we won every game by a minimum twenty-five points. But by Years 6 and 7 we drifted into bad habits. In particular, in almost every game, we would lead by a big margin at half-time and either lose the second half or play really scratchily. It cost us a few games. It nearly cost Robyn her sanity. Oh, those half-time speeches! Oh, those full-time accusations!

We could have done with Robyn in the car that night. We could have done with Robyn any time. But in particular that night, because it would have helped to be reminded of the netball games and the importance of not getting too casual, of maintaining the intensity.

About a kilometre down the road we started to climb a bit and Homer, looking back, said, ‘You know, it’s really buzzing over there.’

‘My God,’ said Jeremy, ‘you’re not wrong.’

‘What’s happening?’ I asked, thinking that I had better keep my eyes on the road.

‘Helicopters,’ Homer said.

I had been driving with headlights on, thinking that we would look like any other car on the road, but now Lee said, ‘I think you better turn the lights off.’ I did so, straight away, and almost straight away Homer said quietly, ‘That might have been a mistake.’

I didn’t trust Homer when he spoke so quietly. I was slowing down as fast as I could without using the brakes, because I knew how bright brake lights are. I’d been pulling over to the left, but I jumped when he said that, and applied a bit of handbrake and got even further left, looking for shelter in the few straggly trees that lined the road. Suddenly Homer yelled from the back seat, so loudly that I jumped like a firecracker had gone off in my ass. ‘Get going!’

I hit the accelerator. We took off with gravel and dust flying and the tail of the ute swinging madly from side to side. During the war I’d quite often had to drive at night without headlights, in fact without any lights. It was terrifying, but luckily I’d often had good moon. The moon had been medium strength this night, but now it was pretty much obliterated by cloud, and of course I’d had no time to let my eyes adjust. If you’ve got plenty of time to get used to it, there’s a chance you can do it and not kill yourself in the first hundred metres. But here I was in severe darkness, with my eyes still thinking ‘headlights’, not even knowing what I was escaping from, but with the dreaded word ‘helicopter’ echoing in my ears.

Jess started to scream, thought better of it, gurgled instead, and said, ‘Oh my God.’ Then she did scream.

With a rush and a roar the helicopter was on us.

There’s nothing more savage than a helicopter on the hunt. This seemed like a small one but that just made it more agile. It swooped low over us like a magpie and more dust swirled and more gravel flew. I was on the bitumen but with no idea of where the bitumen went, and the lights of the helicopter blinded me all over again. Then he switched on a spotlight, which for a moment lit the road ahead, and I saw we were heading for the trees. The road seemed to go left, and it looked like a long curve. I spun the wheel and we angled left, but almost too late, we were on gravel again and a low branch whipped the windscreen. The spotlight came onto us and settled on us for a moment. As far as my seeing where I was going, I didn’t know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, because although it gave me some light it was way too blinding. As far as our safety went it was definitely a bad thing.

A voice yelled at us through some kind of speaker from the helicopter.

‘Oh my God it’s God,’ Homer yelled from the back seat. He actually sounded quite cheerful but I don’t think even Homer’s that stupid.

‘How come he doesn’t speak English?’ Jeremy asked.

They were doing a comedy routine! If they thought they were helping they were wrong but there wasn’t time to tell them that. The spotlight was bobbing and weaving because whoever was holding it had to match up with both the pilot and me, so there were times when I had a glimpse of the road ahead and times when I didn’t. When it shone right on us it was like a physical creature, not just a light but something real, a blinding white dragon that attacked from out of the dark. I was driving fast when I could see a straight patch of road and then clamping on the brakes when I got to the end of the bit that I’d seen — or where I thought the end was. It was a rough ride for the passengers. Lucky Marmie wasn’t on the tray, like she would be if we were going around the paddocks at home. She’d have been thrown off in the first fifty metres.