Peter Carey - His Illegal Self

Thank you, said the boy.

It was not until Bog Onion Road that she could no longer ignore the extent of Dave Rubbo’s deceit, but by then she had other creeps to deal with.

When Trevor came back into the clearing, she threw the lump of wood down at the Rabbitoh’s feet and walked toward the boy. His hand was sticky but she held it tight.

Where are we going?

There was always a way forward. She dragged the boy, resisting, toward the road.

Oh come on. The Rabbitoh was slinking after her, his hands outspread. Don’t be so uptight.

We’ll drive you, Trevor said. He had to raise his voice because they were already well up the first hill. Do you want a receipt?

Receipt for a fucking robbery, she thought. But she had money left, whosever money it was. She would damn well need it too, and all she knew was she must buy a map, find out where she was. She must go where no one knew about this treasure, this currency that she could not change.

Her name was Anna Xenos. Xenos meant displaced person, stranger, a man who arrived on the island of Zákinthos years before the birth of Christ.

Trevor called, Don’t you want to know where I live? His was a full-chested shout, filling the steep valley of peeling trees.

She paused a moment, looking down the track at the two men.

You should get his address, the boy said quietly.

If she had been nicer she would have answered him but she had too many battles raging inside her head. She was imagining their bodies, her’s and Che’s, found decaying in woods.

What about our money, Dial? Shouldn’t we get his address?

Shut up, she said. OK?

She left him to trudge up the track behind her huge hard fury.

Can you, she demanded, just for once, not have an opinion? You’re seven, for Christ’s sake.

She waited for him to tell her he was almost eight. He didn’t. They walked some more, a little slower.

He knows my daddy, he said.

He stopped then and he stood before her, his arms straight by his side, so armored against her that his little gray eyes had become pinholes in his face.

No, she said. He does not.

I think he does, Dial. I’m pretty certain.

She thought, You’ll go mad with this, not knowing who you are.

He knows about my daddy then, he said. He shoved his hands into his tight little pockets and stared up at her, a dreadful rigid smile upon his face.

No, babe.

He can tell my daddy where we are.

Sweetie, do not do this to yourself.

She had not meant to be harsh but now his chin began to wobble and he would have broken down if he had not heard the Ford laboring up the hill toward them. She pulled the boy off the track, with his face against her stomach, but as the car came to a stop beside them, he slipped free.

Come on, called Trevor, his thick arm lay in the open window. Get in.

No thanks, she said, but the boy was already at the car.

Nothing’s going to happen, Trevor said. He’s sorry. He nodded toward the driver. He’s a creep.

I’m meant to be a Christian, said the Rabbitoh, his eyes shining like an animal’s in the darkness of its hide.

Please, Dial, can we?

She opened the door and she and the boy sat close together with the kitten in its cardigan between.

Say you’re sorry, Trevor said. She was not displeased by his authority, the bulldog body, the thick neck.

The Rabbitoh then apologized and she watched him fold himself across the steering wheel. She thought of the pleasures of submission, a topic she knew more about than she was ready to admit.

Shush, she said to the Rabbitoh, as if he were a child to be forgiven, not some shit with a very nasty knife and a sense of sexual entitlement.

Trevor turned in his seat and held her eyes. John has written you a receipt, he said slowly. You don’t want it, OK, but can I give it to his nibs? It’s got my postal address? he asked the driver.

It has, he said.

Trevor gave the piece of paper to the boy, who seemed to read it, but it was unclear how much of this was a performance. He certainly folded it extremely carefully before undoing his rubber bands to accommodate it with his stuff.

Abandoned on the highway they watched the Ford turn toward the back road and leave its blue exhaust lying on the blacktop. They were left alone in the shadeless heat, buffeted by the big trucks, dirt swirling up beside them.

Can we just stop going places, Dial?

Soon, she said.

To be honest, he had liked it best in Oakland, when they were just together in the motel, eating pizza, playing cards. She read to him then, like for hours at a time and in the night as well. He was as happy as he could ever remember, to have her to himself finally, at last, and the prospect of his father, that electric cloud of surprise hanging over him like vapor from an open bathroom door. She sat cross-legged on the bed and put her skirt in her lap. She had a big mouth and she kissed him lots, her breath all soft and ashen.

Can we stop going places, Dial.

He saw how she paused and listened to him properly, her eyes resting seriously upon his.

Soon, she said. First we have to go to Nambour, baby.

Maybe we don’t need to, Dial.

He had carefully retrieved his sodden Uno cards from the backseat of the car and now she gently took possession, kneeled by the highway and fitted them in the outside pocket of her backpack.

He watched her, thinking it must hurt her knees.

We need to go to Nambour now, she said.

What if we get caught?

Her mouth turned down. She didn’t know he saw that, the way the whole of her lower face could lose its bones.

What if they take you away from me, he said.

She did not even look at him, but lifted her pack to her shoulders and combed with her fingers at her hair.

What if I could get our money back, Dial?

Shush.

Because I know where it is.

Her hand got caught in a big tangle and she jerked at it, making a face. It had to hurt.

You’re a dear brave boy, she said at last, but you better forget whatever it is you saw.

Why?

Because I said so.

She rubbed his head but the nice mood was spoiled.

It’s cool, Dial, he said, trying to get it back again.

Shush, she said.

We’ll go with the flow.

That should make her smile. It didn’t. She started walking with her thumb held out and he was left to carry Buck under the burning sun, along the rutted gravel edges and through the choking dust beside the Bruce Highway, where they finally caught a ride with the manager of a cactus farm who dropped them by the high school.

There were trees by the school but everything else had been chopped down in Nambour long ago, so there was no shade remaining. They itched and hurt, the mother and the boy. They were unwashed, unloved, ripped, “feral” to the local eye. The mother had one infected bite on her calf. She had ten thousand dollars inside her hem, she whispered. This remaining money was secured by a piece of fuse wire provided by the cactus farmer.

He started to think about a motel. Didn’t need to be fancy. They would have to do this now.

They came to a car dealership with big glass windows and he stood beside her and he could feel what she was thinking, that she would try and buy a new car with the American dollars. He wished she wouldn’t. She opened the door and walked inside. The air-conditioning was very nice but that was all.

They think we’re cockroaches, she whispered as they returned to the street. Fuck them, she said, her blackened cut-up hand once more around the boy’s shoulders.

Yes, Dial, said the boy. Fuck them, Dial. Soon they could go to a motel and she would read to him. There was one on the main street. It had air-conditioning and color TV he was pretty certain.