Evie Wyld - After the Fire, A Still Small Voice

That night he lay awake, hearing the noise that echoed over the tops of the cane. Sometimes it sounded like a dog or a fox and other times it had the lightest touch of man or woman about it, like it was trying to shape a word it couldn’t finish. He couldn’t sleep for a memory of Lucy sitting at the end of their bed. He’d lain there watching her through half-slitted eyes, just lain there when he could have touched her or spoken to her, heard her voice directed at him. She’d brushed her hair without ever getting any of the tangle out of it, just pulling the teeth through, ripping, the noise of it like tearing cabbage leaves. She wore too many beads, so that they caught in everything: her clothes, her hair, the curtains. Her lips were raw like she’d been in the cold. She looked in the mirror and ran a finger round the side of her mouth. There. Better. She turned to look at him and he closed his eyes. ‘I know you’re watching.’

He said nothing. Let his eyes close fully.

‘I know you’re awake, Franko.’ There was a laugh in her voice, and he thought he might laugh too, but he stayed still, slack-faced, gummy-eyed. He felt their old soft mattress sink at the foot, felt her clambering towards him, up his body, saying softly, ‘Frank. Franko. Woohoo, is anybody in there?’

And her voice was soft and she was warm on top of him, and he felt the pulse of his penis under the covers, a separate heartbeat. And from nowhere he could place, anger. She had the backs of her fingers on his throat, she was stroking him, he could feel her smile next to his face and he shoved her, hard. ‘Will you just let me sleep?’ he bellowed and he saw that she nearly laughed, even as she had the wind knocked out of her. Her face a pale half-moon in the dim light, took the shock slowly as she understood he was not joking, and he turned his back to her.

The silence thickened, so that the room felt soupy. There was one sniff from the foot of the bed and nothing more. He kept his eyes closed, his heart beating strong in his chest, the anger remaining all the while the silence did. The sound of her gathering her things about her, the snuffle of old tissues, the heavy greatcoat with the grub holes in it shifted over her back, he heard it swamp her. She zipped something up and left the room. Out in the hall, he heard her find her keys; the scented silver jangle of her key chain. The front door opened. Closed. Her feet clacked down the street. He opened his eyes and the room was soaked in red light, the morning sun coming through the rag-rug curtains. He let the breath run out of him, the anger evaporated like it had gone out of the door with her, like he had simply given it to her.

He rolled over and reached for the phone, but her mobile rang on her side of the bed. The anger rose again in his throat. There would be no getting hold of her then, no chance of getting in there quick and making things better. What did she expect? That he would chase her out into the street naked? He threw his phone at the floor and again the anger went, and he just felt sore and sorry and lonely. That was the beginning of when he’d got bad, that was the first time.

In his camp bed, Frank plucked at the frayed edge of his blanket. There wasn’t much space, but there was space enough for another body next to him, a length of mattress that was cool and vacant, an open hand waiting to receive something. The teeth in his head ached and he sat up to pour himself a drink to get him to sleep while the night dripped slowly by. Jesus was in the cane again, and that didn’t help matters, cooing and growling at the heavy air. It didn’t seem right to drink beer, so he unearthed a bottle of brandy he’d bought to cook with and it smelt like Christmas. Something, Jesus or maybe a frogmouth, barked not too far away and Frank raised his cup to the window, ‘An’ you sleep tight too, sweetheart.’ After a pause he added, ‘Don’t let anything bite.’

It had started as a tight feeling under his ribs, like a drawstring for his lungs, but then in the thickest part of the night, Leon found himself sweating and gulping like a drowning fish, clamped to the open-air dunny. After the bouts of scorching liquid that shot from his bowels came a moment of wonderful cold. He sat, shitting by starlight, sweat coming off his face while his teeth chattered against the after-frost, and frog song echoed up around him, drowning out the sound of what was going on in the toilet shute. The meaty thick air around the dunny and an ache in his tail bone made him feel worse, but there was no getting off the seat, and he looked up at the cool space of the night sky and wanted that air to come down closer to him. Over by the cookhouse someone smoked, the orange glow of it lighting up a shine on his rifle. Cripes, he thought, if there was trouble now I’d just sit here and let it come. No one’d come near me anyway with the smell of it. They’d have to grenade me .

There was the hollow-wood sound of an owl, beyond that the chirrup and hiss of the night-time things. The moon looked damp nearly hidden by banana leaves. As another cramp struck him in the guts so that he bent forward and a creak escaped his lips, he saw a star move. He panted with his tongue out and watched as the satellite drew, smooth and slow as melting ice, right through the centre of his patch of sky, happy as a larrikin.

At breakfast Pete clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You look crook, mate.’

‘Not feeling great.’

‘They call that acclimatisation. You’ve got the acclimatising shits.’

‘Beaudy.’

Pete turned to face everyone and held up a couple of letters. ‘Post for Clive,’ he said. ‘Won’t be much more of this for a while.’ He wasn’t able to hide a greedy look at the sealed envelopes as he handed them out. ‘Posties are on strike. Hopefully it’ll get sorted out soon, but.’ There was a long silence.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Cray and he spat, then held the back of his head with both hands, his elbows far out to the side like he was limbering up for a fight. He stood on the balls of his feet and took his hat off, slamming it down on his thigh. The others swore and shook their heads, stubbed their toes into the dirt and looked at the floor. ‘Who in the fuck do they think they are?’ Cray walked away, his hat still held at his side; drawing his thumb over and over his forehead, he disappeared behind the cookhouse.

‘All a bloke fuckin’ needs,’ said Pete. ‘Our own cunting country. Fuck ’em.’ Leon dug in the dirt with his heel. There was nothing he’d expect in the post except maybe another crazy-faced postcard from his mother. But he thought of their own postie, the miserable bastard who’d delivered the conscription notice, with his low unfriendly looks and the way he’d never say hello. He’d get a kick out of it for sure. There was a loud clang from behind the cookhouse where Cray was kicking something hard enough to dent it, but nobody took any notice, because Clive was crying. He was holding the opened letter up to his head with both hands, his eyes closed, his lips drawn back over his teeth and his body rocking in time with the quiet sobs that came out of him. They all moved close, and Pete went and took the letter from Clive’s fist and swept his eyes over it. He nodded, patted Clive on the back and walked over to the noticeboard. He ripped off a flyer that warned about drinking still water, and used the tack to pin up the letter. He took the pen that hung on a string from the board and wrote SELFISH FUCKING BITCH along the side. Clive was still holding his face, and Leon reached out and touched his shoulder, patted it awkwardly, felt the prominent bone that wouldn’t have been there a month ago.

Pete looked at his watch. ‘Right. Let’s get some grog inside this man.’ They all moved, with Clive in among the middle of them, prodded and patted and trundled him on, sat him down on a bench and put a small bottle of whisky in his hand. He drank long and deep from it, his nose ran and he hiccuped.