Evie Wyld - All the Birds, Singing

Shortland Street is on twice a day and we watch it either in the afternoon or the evening, but sometimes we watch both. There are always drinks that are left on tables, undrunk. Coffee or beer, ordered and then sometimes not even lifted to the lips before the actor storms off, or slopes away with a sad look. Through the whole thing, Otto explains bits to me.

‘See that one, he’s got a history of playing around — an’ that’s his ex-wife, but really he’s fallen in love with this one over here. But she’s after his money.’ And, ‘He’s referring to the big fire that happened. That’s where his father was killed.’ And I nod and watch the drinks being wasted. By the end I’m thirsty and sad but I think of my last cigarette, hidden where Otto will not look. I’ve put it on top of my wardrobe and I’ve been checking on it now and then to make sure nothing has started to eat it or steal the tobacco for a nest. Suddenly though it doesn’t matter if a clutch of spiders have made it their home, I’m going to smoke it.

I sneak out to the dunny. I’d thought I’d smoke it in there, but the heat has made the drop toilet even worse than usual, and I think, Balls to it, I’ll just stand behind . Kelly is under the house panting in the dirt and she doesn’t give me a second glance for once, and I feel like a hero lighting the match behind the dunny shed, taking that first deep draw which makes me smile and sends my head into a spin. I don’t know how long it’s been. Months. Maybe half a year. The smoke gets rid of the flies around my face. A terrorist confidence gets into me and I sneak a look around the corner, and Kelly’s back is to me, heaving away under the shadow of the house, and the side wall which faces me has no window, so I come around the front of the shed and stand like anyone else would stand, smoking a cigarette, without anything being the matter, without it being the bad thing to do and without the slightest worry. Underneath the house the dirt is lumpy from Kelly’s digging. I’ve seen her before dragging some animal’s stinking carcass out of the paddock and starting to bury it there. If she catches me looking she stops, out-stares me and waits for me to leave so she can dig in secrecy. Like she’s stocking a larder.

The sun is at that moment not an unbearable sting on my eyes, but a clean memory of being a kid, and of having got one over the olds. I close my eyes and think of the smell of eucalypt in the heat. It could be the hit from the cigarette, but I feel good. I open my eyes because there’s a noise, and I hold the smoke I’ve sucked in deep in my lungs. Otto has come out of the house and is unbuttoning himself at the veranda. He is facing me, there’s no way he can’t see me, but he doesn’t. Don’t move, The human eye senses movement before all else . I don’t move, I don’t blink or exhale, and Otto pisses a long stretch of yellow out over the veranda. It lands not too far from where Kelly is lying heaving in the dirt, and she whips her head around and looks at the mud puddle it makes on the ground, ears up. I can see that between her paws is a woman’s shoe, hot pink and to fit a very small foot. She has chewed the heel off it, the toe is sharp and pointed. Kelly is unimpressed by the urine and goes back to staring into the dark. Otto cracks off a fart and sighs. My hand trembles but I still it. He shakes his little cock off once, twice, then stuffs it back in his pants, singing a song of his own invention which goes Doodle dee doodle doo , as he turns around and walks back into the house, the fly-screen smashing behind him.

Otto’s in a good mood today and so I get a driving lesson — my first in months. It all comes together much more easily. I’m smoother, and Otto shows me how to reverse, and it gives me no problems at all. I get up a bit of speed, and the air comes in sweet through the window. Otto chuckles less this time, and when we get back to the house his mood’s changed. Quiet, like there’s something on his mind.

‘You okay, baby?’ I ask him, hanging my arms around his shoulders. I want to be good so that he lets me drive more. His face darkens a little.

‘Don’t use that slut talk with me,’ he says and moves my arms away so they fall at my sides. He can get cranky when he’s hungry, so I fix him some sandwiches made with cold lamb and yellow mustard. He eats them but doesn’t look at me, instead he’s looking out at the truck while he licks his fingers.

A couple of days pass and when I ask him about having another go, he laughs. ‘Why do you need to learn? You want to take Kelly on a date?’ He laughs so much at this that by the end I have trouble holding my smile. I don’t ask again for a couple of days until I’ve thought up a reason.

‘What if something happens to you? All the way out here, I’d need to get you to a doctor.’

He is annoyed, and he waves me away. ‘I’m not going in any bloody hospital,’ he says and that’s that. I don’t ask what would happen to me, left here with Kelly, if I couldn’t drive myself out — left like those sheep after Carole had gone.

I shear the sheep alone in the following days. By the third day I’m getting fast at it, the flies don’t bother me any more. I slow down because once they’re shorn there will be no excuse to be out here all day. I take breaks in between each sheep and dig antlions out of their holes with a stalk of grass, watching them attack it and then burrow away backwards. I find a horned lizard that thinks I can’t see it, watch it shift standing feet like a dancer, and the paper skin of a brown snake. There is always a large bird passing overhead, looking at the sheep or a rabbit, or the lizard or me.

I make the final ten last me a whole day, and then I consider going back over the first ones, the ones I did when I was less sure of myself, but even those are not bad.

Karen is in the supermarket. I cannot believe it. She’s comparing two packets of cereal bars, and her eyes go large and round when she sees me, but she smiles too. I go to hug her, but she holds up her hand between us to show me the sparkly ring on her finger and says in the same breath, ‘I’ve got meself married, what are you doing here?’ And I take a second to see what she means; a bloke with a hat pulled low over his face has looked up at us from the newspaper stand, and she nods to him.

‘Oh, I’m staying with my uncle,’ I say in a way I hope she will get what I mean. I point to Otto who is waiting outside the shop, watching and looking uncomfortable.

‘That’s great,’ says Karen and she’s still smiling, but just with her lips. She looks frightened, if I let myself think about it.

‘Where are you living?’ I ask her, and her eyes dart over my face and her smile fades.

‘Stay safe, darl,’ she whispers and hands me her box of cereal bars, and as she does it she strokes the back of my hand, hidden behind the box. She turns and walks down the aisle to the guy in the hat who is watching with a frown on his face. She takes him by the elbow and laughs high and flirty and mumbles something to him. He takes one more look at me and pulls his hat down and they leave the shop without buying anything; Karen glances back once and then is lost, and I am not sure any more if I actually saw her, if she was really there or if I imagined it. I pretend I am also interested in the cereal bars, I pick up one that has chocolate on one side and one that is made with real honey and hold them out next to each other in front of me. There is a yank on my heart, which takes me a little bit to still. I’d like to be able to have a Coke with Karen. I remember the air at the harbour and wonder if life was so bad back then after all.

In the truck, Otto says, ‘Who was that?’