A Marvel of Engineering

The trains had stopped running over an hour ago but a small crowd was gathered under the entryway to the station to shelter from the downpour that had opened up upon the city with little warning. Most were in various states of damp bedragglement and periodically peered out into the night for the approaching orange beacon of a taxi. There was little conversation. The crowd was split into small groups that kept their words quiet and amongst themselves. A girl in a black cocktail dress sat slumped against a wall on the station side with her head between her knees and the tangled veil of her auburn hair brushing the ground around her bare feet. A young guy in a bicep-hugging t-shirt printed with an allegedly oriental design was stroking her head and slowly studying each group in turn while her stilettos dangled from his free hand. Standing not far from these two was a young family. The father held his little girl asleep in his arms with her head on his shoulder. They seemed incongruous to the scene and both parents kept close together, offering up few clues as to where they had been and why they were still out at such an hour.

It was that time of night when desire itself becomes terminally myopic and all but those few brave souls now utterly lost to despair or euphoria or some heady mixture of the two start seeking a way to their beds. For longer than we might calculate man has used the geometry of the night sky to find his way both upon the open sea and in lands unfamiliar but the lack of stars this night would deprive few wanderers of guidance. The celestial map is a vague and fragmented thing above the city’s lights and its directions are too grand to be of any use for navigation amongst this architecture anyway.

The exceptions were two homeless men sitting each alone in a semi-permanent cocoon of accumulated small comforts, shame and security with their backs against the same sandstone wall. Their common space was given a wide enough berth by the rest of us so as to make the two seem like a pair. The one closer to the entryway and the weather that threatened with every change in the wind to sweep in and drench his neatly stacked belongings was the elder. He wore a black garbage bag poncho and an untamed beard but his eyes were bright and alert as they watched the curtains of rain billow across the pavement. The other looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties but it was difficult to gauge the features gaunt in shadow beneath the drooping hood of his jumper. The heavily laden shopping trolley parked beside him was covered by a tartan blanket that made a mystery of its contents.

Through the rain came shouts and the slap of expensive shoes on wet pavement. Several heads turned at the sound just as a group of six or seven men staggered into the almost silence of our shelter wearing grins and sopping wet suits. They milled about the entrance for a while just talking and laughing and working out who was there and who was still labouring up the hill behind them. One produced a bottle of champagne from under his jacket. He swayed a little as he fumbled with the wrapping around the top but after a few curses and more than a few taunts from his friends he finally got the wrapper free and sent the cork flying out into the night to cheers that echoed around the walls. He sucked at the foam spilling from the bottle then seemed to remember himself and quickly held it out to another of their number who was standing a little apart wearing a debuttoned suit and a wide and slightly glazed grin as though he were watching some other unseen scene unfold and found it rather beautiful. He eventually noticed the proffered bottle and there were more cheers as he put it to his lips then tipped his whole body back to drink. He came up coughing and laughing and passed the bottle off to someone else and so it went for a while. The new arrivals paid little attention to the rest of us and we for the most part feigned disinterest towards their obtrusive merriment, though I noticed the couple with the sleeping child watching them and exchanging whispers.

In the end they all left with a little less exuberance than they had arrived with but just as abruptly. I watched as one fell silent and frowned at the air in front of him for a moment then dug around in his suit pocket and tugged free his phone. After a few words he was soon busy corralling the others back out into the night. One or two took their jackets off and slung them over their heads as makeshift cover but most didn’t bother and strolled uncaring out into the downpour. Several were singing a strange new arrangement of an old song featuring the chorus and three-fifths of a verse looped together over and over almost seamlessly. Their celebration faded quickly into the dark and the drumming rain but one of their number lingered. He seemed a little younger than most of the rest and he had no tie or jacket but his clothes were neater than those worn by his companions. He’d been about to leave when he paused in front of the older homeless man sitting by the entryway. I had a good friend once who hung his work along the length of the long line between legal and otherwise and reaped the benefits in a miner’s dump truck and among other things he told me that you can tell a man from the way he walks his drunk walk. The walks themselves are many and varied and though all attempted interpretations of them is as fraught as the interpretation of dreams they are just as unaccountably reliable. Among the more common archetypes are those whose bodies sway like a ship but who put each foot deliberately forward like a fist into the face of the last person they spoke to and these are the men who sense of themselves something indefinable missing and come to believe they’ve somehow been robbed and that the world in its infinite injustice must be shielding the thief. The man who simply tilts his body forward and leaves his legs to catch up however they can is generally one whose fears and desires rarely coalesce into recognisable shapes but quietly harry him onward like a cloud of bats. The case of the young man now tottering slightly beneath the restrained attention of the homeless man at his feet was a difficult one. He had taken up a wide stance and was forced to shift his feet about from time to time to keep his balance but his upper body remained steady. He searched his pockets methodically and without fumbling.

I stood alone nearby with my back to the wall. From time to time I shifted my weight and let my spare foot rest against the sandstone behind me to ease the strain of having been standing for most of the last twelve hours. Sweat, smoke and the sweet smell of spilled alcohol all lingered in my shirt and my fingers were heavily pruned. The damp squelch my shoes made with each step suggested my toes would be too when finally unpeeled. Early in the evening I’d slipped while shifting a keg and opened up a gash on my shin that was now ridged with heavy bruising and throbbed in constant protest at the slew of inadvertent knocks that had only increased in frequency as the night wore on and coordination and inhibition both deteriorated. My head had started to unfog a little since I’d been standing and waiting and thoughts were moving slower but with more purpose. They no longer slid easily about on cerebral surfaces slick with lubrication but became caught and snagged in strange places. I braced for re-entry.

The young man had managed to produce from his pocket a ten dollar note and he handed it now to the older homeless man with a small nod that was returned in kind. He then took a couple of unsteady steps backward until he was level with the younger man sitting as yet unmoved beside his trolley. His hands were searching his pockets again and he seemed to become distressed as he dug deeper but came up with only a few silver coins. The seated figure gave no indication that he’d noticed the potential benefactor standing before him. Finally the increasingly desperate young man dragged forth a cigar still in its wrapping. He held it at arm’s length and studied it doubtfully for a moment then offered it with an apologetic shrug.

Sorry mate, he said. Looks like I’m broke.

The young man at his feet took the cigar with a muttered word that could have been thanks.

Enjoy, said the unsteady philanthropist. It’s a boy.

With that he gave a half wave and ran off after his companions.

Though there had been little conversation for as long as I’d been standing there the silence left by the young man’s departure was noticeable over the rain. The isolate groups weren’t speaking even amongst themselves. For a long time the figure beside me seemed to study the wrapped cigar in his hand from out the folds of his oversized hood. Eventually his upper body jerked as though from a sudden shrug or short burst of silent laughter and he turned to the older man sitting beside him.

I don’t suppose you might want to buy this off us, he said. I’d take a tenner for it.

The older man sat up a little straighter and dug deep into his beard to scratch his chin.

Sorry, he said eventually. I never got much of a taste for those things.

His voice was clear and of a higher register than should have been allowed by the weight of memory that invested his face.

The other nodded slowly and then began to peel the plastic wrap from the cigar. He scrunched it tightly into a ball and stuffed it into the front pocket of his jumper. After running his fingers over the length of the outer leaf he suddenly looked up and around at the people sharing the alcove and when he turned to me I saw his face in full light for the first time. His dark eyes were framed by girlish lashes and his chin thrust forward like a bulbous bow. He looked me up and down and then asked if I had a lighter. I nodded that I did and handed it over. He thanked me and brought a flame to the tip of the cigar that he held gently in his teeth while turning with a practiced hand. When he was satisfied he handed me back my lighter and rested his head against the sandstone wall to exhale a lazy cloud of pungent smoke that was soon suffused sharply through the still and waterlogged air. The stiletto-bearing young man watched on from across alcove with an expression of undisguised disapproval but the others sharing the shelter ignored the intrusion. As he smoked the hooded figure’s bearing relaxed from that of a plover nesting in a park overrun by unsupervised children to the point where he seemed almost at ease. As he took a second longer pull on the cigar the older man beside him squinted and dug into his beard again and finally spoke.

How is it? he asked.

Not bad, came the slow reply on a fresh cloud of smoke. It’s a bold leaf with hints of cherry, saffron and obscene indulgence.

At this the older man paused from scratching his chin.

How obscene? he asked.

The sort of obscene that shouldn’t be discussed in polite company. It’s that good.

Neither spoke for a moment as they both watched the smoke curl and eddy and very slowly disperse.

What say we split it and I buy you a Big Mac meal? asked the older man suddenly.

A large meal?

Medium.

With a McFlurry.

Soft serve.

Sundae.

Done.

When the lights came back on a communal but almost silent sigh of relief was released throughout the carriage. A few seconds later the motors started up again and the train moved off with a small jolt. In the nearly fifteen minutes that had passed since the fluorescent bulbs flickered out without warning or word of explanation and the whole marvel of engineering drifted silently to a stop Beth hadn’t once shifted her head from where it lay in my lap. She was stretched across the seat with each of her feet dangling a sandal in the aisle. A white noise of whispered conversations had persisted through the darkness and in the fresh light those voices emerged into audible banality and left their private truths behind.

I reckon somebody’s probably said it before, I said, speaking a little louder now. But I’ve never read it and there has to be some sort of solid link between the two. In a way maybe they’re really the same thing.

The same thing? Beth echoed. Why would somebody say that? It doesn’t make any sense.

With the lights back on she returned with a small frown to her mission of carefully threading the seven cicada shells she’d found at the station onto her necklace. Several were already broken in places and it required a delicate skill to coerce their desiccated forms onto the necklace intact.

That’s probably true, I said. But I had this thought and I haven’t been able to shake it for a while now so bear with me and I’ll just put the whole mess out there and see if it doesn’t fall to pieces.

Go nuts, she said as she fed an end of the leather cord into the hole where a cicadas mouthparts once were.

Well, I guess it’s all about dimensions. People talk about the three dimensions of space and time being the fourth dimension and when you put them all together you get space-time, which is basically the universe. Right? But then why three dimensions of space and only one of time? Well, what if time isn’t the fourth dimension at all but is actually the first? Like, time is the universe and it’s expanding into space.

How so?

Well, OK. So, the big question always seems to be how to get something out of nothing. But I don’t really see that because the opposite of something isn’t nothing. The opposite of something is its opposite, which is also a thing. Nothing is just a perfect balance between something and its opposite. So, the universe as it is would have come about when that perfect balance was disturbed in some way and the whole conservation of energy thing suggests the universe started with just as much energy as it has right now and that its expansion is its own way of returning to balance.

If you say so.

So, in the beginning the choice is between two opposite forces and whichever wins out begins expanding into the first dimension of space.

Wait, what choice? Who’s making the choice?

God, chance, whatever I guess. Anyway, one of the two opposites is chosen or wins out on its own. In our universe, we call that force or energy time and it’s what drives the universe. But its opposite is at work too. While time is expanding into space, wherever it encounters its opposite space is inhabited for a period of time and there you have a one dimensional form of matter. As the energy moves further from its origin while continuing at its inevitable pace it becomes less and less dense and the opportunities for the two forces to interact in space become fewer and fewer. Eventually, those opportunities disappear altogether and at that moment of nothingness another choice is forced. If the opposite force wins out this time the universe would begin retracting backwards into itself as anti-time takes over. If the original force wins out, then it has to continue expanding but can expand no longer in that dimension of space and so moves into the second dimension of space. Entering a new dimension of space the whole universe begins again at a singularity in the new dimension and the whole business repeats with two dimensional matter and whatnot. The cycle is repeated and thus the third dimension begins with the Big Bang. The battle between matter and anti-matter would therefore represent the choice between the two forces and dark matter and dark energy would be energy and matter that operate in only the first and second dimensions. They still act on the universe as a whole but they have only a background effect on three dimensional energy or matter because they don’t exist in the third dimension. So, coming full circle, given that the speed of light is a universal constant that can’t be exceeded it stands to reason that the speed of light is the speed at which the energy of the universe, or time, moves in whatever dimension its operating in and that light is the most elemental form of this energy. If the universe is basically energy moving in space and takes the form of space-time then energy, of which light is the most basic manifestation, and time must be two sides of the same coin. Or something like that.

I waited in almost patience silence while she carefully slid the last shell along the cord and into place and then settled the chain of remains against her breast before speaking.

So the universe might never end, she mused. Before it all falls apart it will just burst into the fourth dimension of space.

I figure it’s a fifty-fifty shot whether the universe ends or keeps going if it’s up to chance.

And if it’s not up to chance the universe will take a long hard look at itself and decide if it’s worthwhile to keep going or not?

Something like that, yeah.

Well, she said as she looked up at me with one eye closed against an errant strand of bleached hair. I can’t pick any obvious holes in it but most of the time when my dad talks it’s just background noise to me. He’ll like you though. I haven’t made up my mind yet if I like that idea or not.

I smiled and the rest of the trip passed quietly. We were soon shat back out of the city’s unmappable bowels and into a warm winter morning and the shadows of trees and shining towers slid swift and silent across Beth’s body. Under fluorescence the skin between her t-shirt and the top of her skirt had shone pale but daylight revealed in it the elusive native hue that smouldered always in her eyes and lent her lips their fatal curve. I’d never been to her house before but still I had to rouse her when we reached the station.

The walk took us back along the tracks the way we’d come. On our right was a high chain fence and then the train tracks and beyond those the highly decorated brick walls of large abandoned buildings that once churned out steel girders or light bulbs or biscuits or some other equally essential commodity. On our left stretched the cagey facades of terrace houses. The street was narrow and choked with parked cars. As we walked we talked a little and for only the second time since we’d met almost a month ago she told me of her family. She was the eldest of five children and her mother had left when she was thirteen. There’d been some vague hints concerning drugs and threats but she had never managed to extract the full story from her father. When she spoke of the younger siblings she’d effectively raised herself her voice grew from its normal duet of whisper and contralto to a full and throaty soprano and developed a curious tick whereby she almost rolled her R’s. She was halfway through telling me about her youngest brother’s growing obsession with other people’s pimples when she suddenly stopped short. I turned and was about to ask if we’d reached her house when I saw her features welded into a look of such abject horror that my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. I looked wildly about for some advancing catastrophe but the sun-dappled street was empty and held no clues as to the source of her terror and when I turned again to seek an answer in her face I saw her mouth was open in a tiny ‘o’ shape.

What if one of them asks how we met? she whispered wide eyed.

The question puzzled me for a moment and then I began to grin and then chortle gleefully while she watched on with an expression caught between genuine fear and irritated tolerance.

Why not just tell them the truth? I suggested.

Don’t be lewd, she said and the tolerance evaporated.

If you say so, I shrugged. What are you going to say then?

I don’t know yet. Shut up and let me think.

We walked on in silence while Beth frowned and studied the pavement that rolled and cracked over the blooming roots of nature-strip banksias. Neither of us had spoken by the time she finally stopped and put one hand on the peeling gate of a neat brick terrace.

Listen, she said as she turned and met my gaze. Rachel’s almost fourteen and she’s still never seen anything like a good love story. I’m not subjecting her to one that starts with her sister walking in on you having sex with her girlfriend.

She didn’t blink and I lowered my eyes under her lack of accusation.

Sorry, I said. So what’s the plan?

Her fingers toyed with the latch on the gate as she looked towards the house and chewed her bottom lip.

I don’t have one, she said.

Ok, I pondered aloud. No worries. So. We met through a mutual friend. At an intervention. For her gambling addiction. And she hasn’t been near the pokies since.

Beth’s eyes narrowed slightly.

It’s simple and it’ll make it easy to remember.

She chewed her lip a little longer then sighed and nodded and pushed open the gate.

Hey, I said and as she turned I moved quickly to plant a kiss beside her ear.

She leant into me almost imperceptibly as my lips drew back and then she was away again.

Alright, she said. Come on.

The front door had four separate locks and by the time she’d found the key for each and performed the necessary jiggling and wrenching on the last one a small crowd had been drawn by the sound and the door swung open to a wall of waiting faces.

Nice of you all to help, said Beth and one or two of the faces turned a little sheepishly before a young girl about eight or nine who had half her hair braided with bright beads spoke up.

Monty might have got a girl pregnant, she said.

We were all stood in a narrow hallway with balding carpet that smelled faintly of asparagus and mould.

What girl? Beth demanded.

Dan Parker’s little sister, said a rake-thin teenager with a shaved head who stood a good half a foot taller than anyone else there. You don’t know her. She’s finding out for sure tomorrow.

Then tell me again tomorrow. Could we, you think?

The wall of faces quietly disintegrated and dispersed through several different doorways and we headed down the hall with only the young girl and an even younger boy wearing a Broncos jersey over bare legs for an entourage. Muted arguments and laughter soon began to tumble all around and above us as though the house itself was speaking in tongues. At the end of the hall was a huge room that included the kitchen and which had been enlarged by knocking out two walls such that it now took up the whole back third of the house. Its windows commanded an uninterrupted view of the tightly enclosed concrete backyard. Despite its size the room had little surplus space but it was unobtrusively clean and the patchwork furnishings had been scavenged together with great care being paid to their aesthetic harmony. Beth slung her bag on the counter then turned and nearly tripped over the two small children who had been following almost in her skirt.

Jesus Fuck, she sighed. Where’s Rachel?

The little girl shrugged.

How long has Aiden been here for?

The little girl shrugged again.

Since today or since yesterday?

Yesterday.

Shit.

Shit’s right, came a voice like rusted hinges from the other side of the room.

Beth jumped as if she’d just been hit by a live light switch and we both swung around to see an obese old man haul himself out of an armchair where his heavily stained shirt that may once have been white but was now the colour of weak tea had camouflaged him well against the faded patterns of the upholstery.

I thought you were at a conference til Wednesday, said Beth.

I was but that syphilitic cunt Chisholm started in on me again and when I again shut his mouth for him a few people got their noses out of joint. So here I am. I guess this is the bartender? I thought you said he was tall.

Did they let you keep your fee?

The old man started across the room towards us with a sea-legged shuffle whilst ignoring the question. Despite his obvious age he had an almost full head of wiry white hair and the legs that poked out from his khaki shorts like walnut twigs were unaccountably steady under the bulk they supported.

I’ll take that as a no, said Beth. Brilliant. You know it’s Archie’s birthday next week?

Sure, sure, he said as he lurched closer. Good thing you’ve gone and got yourself a proper captain of industry type to navigate the treacherous straits of our cruel poverty. Never fear, the bartender’s here.

He stopped just out of handshake reach and cocked his head a little to the side as he studied me.

Well, I said. It’s about the most resilient industry there is. The worse things get the more people want to drink.

Is that right? So, what? Your careers advisor was a cockroach?

I grinned and raised my eyebrows.

He studied me in silence a moment longer then shuffled past us and down the hall. I turned to Beth but she was already on the phone trying to reach Aiden’s mother. The young girl had meanwhile begun to move slowly about the room with her eyes on the floor. Every now and then she would stop to pick some invisible thing from the carpet and deposit it in the cup of her left hand before straightening and moving on.

We can’t keep doing this Lea, said Beth into the phone. Til tomorrow’s OK this time but it’s not fair on him. Who’s got Karen?

The boy I took to be Aiden stood staring up at her with a finger parked immobile up one nostril. The young girl paused in her browsing to poke about in her hand as if counting her harvest and then went on as before. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I sidled up behind her and peered over her shoulder to try and see what she was collecting. She heard me and turned around and I saw her left hand held a dozen or so stiff black hairs.

Hi, I said. Who did your hair for you?

She stood looking up at me with a blank expression and said nothing.

It looks very pretty, I tried again. What are you picking those up for?

She held them up towards me so I could get a better look.

Dad let Napoleon inside before so I’m trying to get all the hair he left, she said.

As if on cue a hideous little snub-faced spaniel thing sprinted up from out of the shadows at the back of the yard and started barking at me like a dog possessed through the glass door.

Oh, I said. Are you the one that keeps this place all ship shape then?

No, she said with a look as though I’d said something truly queer. Dad likes it on his breakfast.

Oh.

She gave a little smile as she walked past me towards the kitchen and as I turned I saw Beth standing and watching our little chat but she quickly went back to wiping a bit of something from Aiden’s chin.

Here, the little girl said as she held up her hand.

Nice work, said Beth. Just leave them here. Can you take Aiden up to his room? Lea will be here in a couple of hours. Don’t let him near anything sharp.

Mhm, she said and took the boy’s tiny hand in hers and led him off down the hall.

I stood looking at the little pile of black hairs on the white countertop while Beth moved about the kitchen to no apparent purpose.

Bit of hair of the dog? I asked eventually.

What? she said. Oh, that. Mary heard him moaning about his hangover one morning and she thought we could sprinkle it on his cereal. It was really quite sweet and so I let her collect them. I only end up using them like half the time.

Somewhere in the house that same voice of rusted hinges started swearing loudly in an uninterrupted and impressively cornucopian stream that carried easily over the myriad other voices that the house seemed to breathe with. Beth and I looked at one another and I raised my eyebrows but she just shook her head slowly. The invectives were irregularly interrupted by brief semantic passages that seemed to imply somebody had stolen one of his shoes. Beth stood with her head tilted slightly back and her eyes all but closed as though pausing for a moment from some frantic work to listen to a favourite song on the radio and waiting without impatience for the chorus. I was about to ask where I could find the bathroom when the filthy spiel suddenly stopped mid-swear as if a tap had been turned off. Beth’s eyes snapped open and a small frown appeared. Without a word she headed off down the main hall.

I followed her as she made her way upstairs and through a maze tiny hallways. Snatches of unseen conversation and laughter persisted through the walls but the only person we saw was a boy of about twelve or thirteen who skipped quickly through a doorway as we approached until we almost collided with the tall youth with the shaved head who had spoken when we first entered and who could have been Beth’s brother. He rounded a corner ahead of us flanked by a pale owl-faced young man carrying a bottle of whiskey and wearing a sneer that might have passed for an unfortunately shaped smile if it wasn’t so etched onto his face from overuse. Beth danced nimbly to one side to avoid a collision and I almost tripped myself up in my attempted imitation. The pair burst into guffaws and the guest barked something that seemed to be directed at Beth but we didn’t stop.

We eventually reached a closed door that was tucked into a corner of a bizarre little alcove at the end of an otherwise dead end hall. Beth knocked but when there was no answer she pushed the door open and stepped inside. I followed her into a small room darkened by sunlight bleeding through the same heavy orange curtains that muted the shadows. Beth’s father was sitting on the single bed that dominated the middle of the room. He was holding a piece of paper barely an inch from his nose and his lips were moving rapidly but silently under the fringes of his beard.

Please don’t do that, said Beth.

Do what? asked the old man without looking up from the page.

Shut-up without being told. Every time you do I think you’ve had another heart attack. Don’t you know better than to get a girl’s hopes up like that?

Beth’s father read on silently for a few moments longer and when he finally put the paper to one side his deep-set black eyes fell on me.

How much do you know about tax law? he asked.

I know of it, I said.

He turned to Beth.

Could you please tell me what is the fucking point of letting a white fella fiddle with your girl parts if he can’t even help fix basic white fella bullshit?

Because nobody fiddles like the Devil himself, I offered.

His eyes bulged and he let out a long breath that made a very low whistle but before he could form words Beth was moving towards him.

If either you ever talk to me like that in front of the girls you’ll quickly wish you hadn’t, she said. What’s the problem?

Never you mind your pretty head about it, the old man grumbled as he finally looked from me to his daughter. I’ll take the cunts to court and before you say anything about money I’ll represent myself. See how long they keep fighting once I’ve had the floor for an hour or two.

Give it here.

She stepped forward and snatched the letter from the unmade bed. While her eyes skimmed the page I ventured a few steps further into the room and saw stood against the wall on my right a set of Ikea drawers over which was hung a strange picture. It looked like a satellite photo of Australia at night but the lights of the coastal capitals were dwarfed by some strange megalopolis burning across the continent’s dark heart.

How many letters did they send you before this one? Beth asked slowly and deliberately.

The old man muttered something unintelligible.

Don’t give me that, said Beth as her speech slowed further with soft menace. They’re after you for fourteen fucking thousand you…

They won’t get it because I don’t have it and they know it, he said as I leant in to get a closer look at the picture and the alien brightness in the desert. See something you like sunshine?

What about the house? whispered Beth more to herself than either of us.

What are all the lights in the middle of nowhere? I asked. They can’t all be from the miners.

Surely not, said the old man as he heaved himself to his feet and shouldered past Beth who was re-reading the letter again as if desperate for it to have changed. They’re bushfires.

Christ, I said. What a picture. There’s easily a thousand words there.

And the rest, he cried. The whole fucking story of this country is right there. Your people huddle together within spitting distance of where you stepped off the boat, spend all your time trying to swim back and then as soon as you can you piss off to swagger around overseas like you really did conquer a whole continent. You don’t know fuck about what this country is.

Sure, sure, I said. That’s good actually. But what about the ones that don’t huddle within spitting distance? We couldn’t have stayed here if we couldn’t farm here and there are millionaires that own properties about as deep into this place as you can go.

Oh, some of your folk can be stubborn as all fuck but even the ones who did beat something out of the land have been killing each other or themselves or heading off for the big smoke since they first started scratching around in the dirt. You’ll make a few more bucks from digging the place up for a while and then you’re stuck on a big lump of worthless rock with barely enough to feed yourselves.

Well then we’re just strangers in a strange land from birth and wherever we go I guess. Not as much as your people are these days though.

Is that a fact? he asked and shuffled closer til the forest of his beard filled my vision and I could feel his faint breath on my face. Do you know what Songlines are?

I’ve heard the word, but no.

Then fuck you you young fuck. There are songs that can carry a man alone across all those deserts.

Really? Shit. Well, that’s fine for the desert but do you have a song that can guide you through a white man’s court room? Because that’s the land you’re really living in now.

I’ll improvise. Or do you have a better idea?

Not a one, I shrugged. It seems to me a fair chunk of all our ills are the result of people trying to legislate for others who they don’t and can’t ever really understand. It’s no good looking to us. Me and my kind are just exiles driven off the plains into the foothills of the Mountains of the Moon or something. We adapted to the hills but by our mere presence we all but wiped out the ancient mountain people - that’s you – and poisoned their culture when they were the only ones that could really thrive above the snowline or live above the treeline. We’re a borderline nation of fucking hillfolk haunted by the shadow of the mountain. But at least we know the mountain a little better than they do down in all the cities of the plain. It’s a good thing to know because its shadow falls everywhere eventually. Shit, how’s that for a new anthem? Beth, you could put that to a tune couldn’t you?

What? Beth looked up at the mention of her name and our eyes met past the now grinning visage of her father but she quickly shifted her gaze to the old man.

Have you been listening to me at all? she asked. They’re coming hard and they’ll be coming for the house.

I told you I’d sort it didn’t I? he said over his shoulder. Christ, it’s like I’m talking to myself around here.

Listen here shackle-dragger, he said to me now. That’s a lovely thought but you’re much more like a cane toad. You eat anything you can fit in your mouth, if anything takes a bite of you it drops stone dead and every beautifully unique ecosystem you find you turn into nothing but cane toads.

You know I really can’t argue too hard with you there since I know of at least one town where we’ve put up a monument to the thing itself. We’re drowning in cane toads so we better build a statue of one. And why not? Here they evolved into Super Toads with stronger legs and an unstoppable migration instinct. Look it up. And we had a dog once that used to get high off licking them. I’ve heard there’s people pretty into it too. It’s some sort of trip apparently. You ever tried it?

No. And they’re killing your Super Toads by the hundreds of thousands in the Territory.

I bet they are, I said and grinned.

The old man frowned and for a moment looked like he was going to say something else but in the end he just sniffed.

Well, he said as he turned to Beth with a look as though he’d just killed a brown snake with his bare hands. If you had to pick a white fella at least you picked one who can listen when he’s told.

And I can ask my brother about the tax thing, I said to her. He’s studying law so he might know somebody who knows something.

Beth gave me a flicker of a smile but her brows still hung heavy with worry.

Law is it? her father asked as he turned back to me. Tell him to read Fitch’s recently commissioned study into the modes of survival for substratum cultures in colonial democracies.

What good is a study? I asked. All that’ll get you is facts and the facts won’t help you. The facts are fucking awful. And neither will the little gaggle of balding cunts looking at them. But right now pretty much anyone who’s having a proper thought about it is likely recording it in one way or another. Really the best thing we can do is listen to the internet. All of it. Jesus, if ever we needed a new Jesus we need a Jesus of the internet. Step up, Julian!

From downstairs we heard the front door slam and a girl’s scream mingled with several shouting male voices. Beth’s eyes widened and her lips parted and she rushed out without a backwards glance as her father and I looked at one another then followed doggedly behind. As we came to the top of the stairs we could see a similar crowd to the one that had greeted us gathered close around the front door in a state of some excitement but the crush of bodies obscured whatever it was that had drawn them there. Beth hovered for a moment on the landing with one foot poised over the top step and then stepped back slowly and took a deep breath.

Cops! she screamed at the top of her voice.

The heads at the door all whipped around at the cry and several bodies flew off through doorways or down the hall. I saw the owl-faced guest barging his way through the crowd. He knocked little Mary off her feet as he rushed towards the stairs and he was halfway up before he saw the three of us standing unmoved on the landing and paused.

What the fuck, Rachel? Beth said to a long bodied slip of a thing with wild hair who was still standing just inside the door wearing a sardonic grin and clutching a brown paper bag in her left hand.

I brought you a present, said Rachel and she tossed the bag in a wobbly arc towards Beth who caught it full on the chest.

What is it? she asked as she peered inside. She immediately recoiled with a gagging sound and dropped the bag and I quickly scooped it up. Inside was some sort of foul-smelling sludge.

It’s cane toads, said Rachel. Or it was. Me and Harry are catching them and breaking them down for fertiliser. It’s a piece of piss and there’s some decent coin in it.

You know there’s a pretty good market for their poison in Japan and China, I said. If you milk them before you mulch them you can sell that too.

She looked at me with her head cocked a little to one side.

Harry’s already made up a little machine to do it, she said. We’re just looking for an importer.

Waste of fucking time, grumbled the old man. I’m guessing you don’t have another bag hidden about your person with my Goddamn mouthwash in it do you?

You never asked me to get you any, Rachel said as her grin faltered a little.

It’s Sunday is it not? I’m pretty sure it still comes around about this time of a week. Unless of course the rotation of the planet has changed without my notice. Has it? Well?

The grin slid all the way from Rachel’s face and she looked down at the toes of her combat boots.

You never know, I said after a moment’s silence. You look like you could just about put a real wobble in the Earth’s orbit and if you did you yourself might never be able to tell. Relativity and all that.

The old man turned to me and his eyes were shining pools of ink. He spat a thick gob on the carpet at my feet.

When we need an opinion from whitey I’ll be sure to let you know, he said. This is family business and we wouldn’t want the nice barman to dirty himself now.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Beth’s brother reappear from the doorway opposite the stairs..

Aw, you’ve got me all wrong, I said to the old man. I might wear a white shirt to work most days but I am the man in motherfucking black and I am coming around.

Well, you sure as shit won’t coming around here no more, he said.

Or what?

Johnny, he barked and his upper lip curled back with savage glee.

Beth’s brother gave a curt nod and started for the stairs but the guest was halfway up already and at the implicit invitation he charged ahead with a short laugh and with the full bottle cocked back behind his shoulder. When he was three steps below me I concentrated on bracing my right foot and I knew I’d connected well when I felt a tooth burst through the skin of his lip and then snap against the knuckle of my ring finger. He crashed through the bannister and the bottle shattered as he crumpled in a heap in the hallway below. I heard several screams that seemed to blend together into a single animal howl and Beth’s brother was leaping up the stairs and taking them three at a time as her father lumbered in as fast as he could with his lips curled back into his beard to bare both rows of tombstone teeth. He was almost upon me when he stopped and his face fell slack with shock and he leant against the remains of the bannister for support. It gave way just as my right temple exploded with light.

When I checked my watch for the last time it was eleven minutes past two and the rain seemed to have settled into that particular rhythm of methodical drenching that echoes an endless two-chord ballad. I had no money for a taxi and my phone had run out of battery several hours ago and so I decided to light a last cigarette while still under cover before starting off on the long walk home. No sooner had I done so than the young Lancelot across the alcove gave a shout.

Oi! he said and pointed to the No Smoking sign just to the right of my head. Can’t you fucking read?

I turned and frowned hard at the sign for a moment then turned back to him and shrugged.

No, I said. Not since I got back from the war anyway.

His eyebrows came together and his mouth framed a few different shapes before he finally gave a slight shake of his head that was almost a twitch.

Put the fucking thing out, he said. The smell makes my girlfriend sick.

I glanced at the semi-comatose creature mumbling through her hair and had taken a breath to reply when I felt a tap on my left arm. It had come from the homeless man to whom I’d lent my lighter and he gestured for me to wait while he lifted a corner of the blanket that covered his shopping trolley and rummaged underneath it for a moment. He came out holding the remains of an old Sprite can that he’d fashioned into a cigarette holder complete with a narrow hood to keep the rain off. He offered it to me and when I tried to refuse he rolled his eyes and offered it again.

I’ve got six of them for fuck’s sake, he said. And this one’s a bit shit.

Alright, I said. Cheers.

I slid it over my cigarette and even though it was a loose fit I could keep it from slipping with just a little pressure from my fingers. I thanked him again and walked out into the rain.

Within seconds I was wet to the skin and my clothes clung like shrouds soaked in embalming fluid. The street leading down from the station was steep and empty and the streetlights showed up the myriad percussions of the rain on the slick tarmac. It was a good hour and a half walk to the apartment but the wind had dropped just enough for the chill to be kept at bay if I kept up a good pace. At the end of the street I turned left and walked for a while under the cover of closed shopfronts until I came to the main road where the buildings were set well back from the footpath. I took another left.

I’d been walking for perhaps fifteen minutes when I noticed a car parked on the opposite side of the road with its headlights on. As I got closer the car’s headlight’s flashed several times and since there were no other people or cars about I jogged across the road and approached the driver’s window as it was rolled down. Beth was sitting with her arms crossed over the steering wheel and her chin resting on her hands. The seat was titled right back as though she’d been sleeping.

How are you? she asked.

Oh, I’m cock of the fucking walk, I said over the rain. How are you?

Ok. I’ve been trying to call you for an hour. Phone dead?

Yeah. Sorry. What are you doing here?

I got a flat.

Oh. Whose car is this anyway?

A friend’s. You don’t know him but it turns out he doesn’t have a spare.

Shit.

It’s OK. Johnny has one and he said he’d drive me up tomorrow to put it on. Do you have money for a cab?

No.

Then I guess we’re walking.

She wound the window up and a few moments later the door opened and she stepped out in a low cut dress of dark purple with little fringes of lace that soon shone with clinging droplets.

Hang on, I said as she went to close the door. I took a last drag of my cigarette then stubbed it out and threw the piece of Sprite can onto the driver’s seat.

What’s that? Beth asked.

A present from a bum, I said.

She nodded slowly as she locked the door and took my arm in hers and we walked on.

How’s your Dad? I asked after a while.

It doesn’t look good, she said. The doctors say every time he pushes it his heart gets that much weaker. He just can’t help himself the silly old shit. At least if he carks it the insurance will cover the tax business.

And if he doesn’t I guess we’re all moonlighting as cane toad hunters. Should I go see him?

The melody of her laugh rippled out over the rain and back again.

He might quite like you in the end but that won’t stop him or Johnny killing you if you give them the chance.

She hesitated for a moment.

And if you do see Johnny about, just don’t look him in the eye, she said.

I won’t, I said. I’ve never been hit like that in my life. Does he box?

He did Muay Thai for a while but he had to give it up. You can’t play the violin with busted hands.

I grinned.

I still can’t see him sitting at first fiddle for an orchestra, I said.

She grinned back.

Me either. When I was twelve or so he was auditioning for a place at the Conservatorium of music. I think I called him a traitorous fuckstain of an Oreo or something like that. He got very serious and I still remember exactly what he said. He looked me in the eye and said, Elizabeth, you have to keep what you can and get what you can and keep going.

Well, I guess you can’t ask much better than that. Give him by best if you think it’s a good idea.

She looked up at me and held my arm a little tighter.

We’ll see, she said.

And tell him sorry about his mate.

She wrinkled her nose.

Fuck that, she said. He’s a leech. Johnny only keeps him around because he can talk anyone into just about anything. He’s sort of his manager I guess.

She giggled.

He won’t be talking for a while though. His jaw’s wired shut and will be for a good couple of months.

Looks like I got out alright then. Can you do dinner tomorrow night?

No, I have a psyche paper due. The night after should be fine.

What’s it on? Stats?

No, Freud.

Crazy fucking Kraut, I said and she made a sound in her throat that could have been anything.

You know, I said suddenly. You have a very curious way of completely disarming my ego, which is no mean feat because that motherfucker comes strapped and ready for war.

She didn’t reply for a long while. The rain seemed to have grown heavier and I watched it running in uneven rivulets all the gently sloping way from her hair down to her breast. We had an easy pace going and I was keeping an eye to the ground to watch for sly puddles in the dark.

Well, she said eventually. Good.