Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The (18 page)

Hayley stood her bike on the lawn. She hoisted herself on to the porch – it was really just a deck made of planks, not even nailed, curling at the ends and making warps. Her father would be disgusted, but she was half frightened, half excited, feeling she'd reached a place where rules were put aside and did not count. She looked in the door. ‘Lex?' she said.

A torn envelope lay on the sack used as a doormat. She picked it up and read ‘A. G. Clearwater', and felt her stomach give a lurch. She expected to see him come from one of the doors leading into the room. ‘Hey, anybody home?' Blowflies, bush-flies, drilled at the window panes over the sink. A bird with sharp claws slid on the iron roof. Hayley wondered if Lex was dead. The stillness in the house was like TV, before you opened doors and found a body in the shower. She crossed the living-room and went down a hall, looked in three doors – junk-room, bathroom, bedroom. The bed sheets were filthy, yellow grey, and the pillow had no case and bits of chip foam-rubber leaked out one end. She curled her lip, then giggled as she thought of Sandra Duff in there with Lex. It stopped her thinking of bodies, though she looked on the floor beyond the bed. A glass of milk with a rubber skin stood on the window sill. A folded dollar note (more money) lay beside it. It looked as if it had been jammed in the frame to stop it rattling. Hayley was tempted to keep it, but she smoothed it and put it on the dressing table, where old half-used bottles and pots, Oil of
Ulan, skin balm, female stuff, stood like a forest of stumps. She blew the dust on them but it was thick and greasy and wouldn't move.

Hayley went back to the kitchen and looked in the fridge but found only butter and cheese and half a tin of herrings. Maybe he ate goat's meat or maybe fish and chips. Men were supposed to stop looking after themselves when their wives walked out. Lex had sure done that. Socks and underpants soaked in a bucket on the sink but the water smelled bad so they'd been there a long time. She could wash them and hang them out; saw herself pegging socks on the line when he came home, but sniffing the water put her off. She sat on the porch and enjoyed the sun and watched the goats. Over the golf course the willows by Freaks' Hole made a patch of green against the foot of the hill. She couldn't see if Gary was still there. She'd better give him a bit more time, she wouldn't put it past him to ambush her as she rode home.

Lex drove up in a Land-Rover. He pulled up on the lawn beside her bike and climbed out and looked at her distantly. ‘Yeah, gidday.'

‘I thought I'd come and see you like you invited,' Hayley said.

‘You should've rung up, eh. I'm busy today.'

‘I didn't know I was coming. I'll go if you like.' She did not want to go and found herself trembling from the shock of Gary's attack. It was as if he had waited until now to leap on her. She felt cold and crushed and tears ran on her face. Lex Clearwater brought himself up close. She saw his eyes make a painful cranking on to her, and she thought, He's mad, he's loony; but wanted him to comfort her.

He put his hand on her shoulder. She slipped down from the porch and stood in front of him, leaned on him, arms folded on her chest.

‘What is it, Hayley? What's wrong?'

‘Nothing. Something happened, that's all.'

‘Where? At home?'

‘At Freaks' Hole.' She had not meant to tell anyone, but poured it out, that moment in the water when they closed around her. She felt his finger trace a mark on her throat and chest.

‘What's this?'

‘They scratched me, I guess.'

‘They sure did. You want me to go and sort them out?'

‘No, I did that.'

‘Yeah?'

‘I punched Legs in the throat.' She put up her fist with the middle knuckle jutting out. ‘I bit Tuck in the hand.' She had a sudden memory of blood in the pool. ‘And I chucked a rock at Gary. I think I might have bust his arm.'

‘Jesus then, there's no need for me.'

‘Gary shouldn't have brought them. He wanted me to take them on as well.'

‘This Gary joker's your boyfriend, eh?'

‘Not any more.'

‘You want to be careful, Hayley. A bunch of blokes like that – plenty of girls have ended up dead.'

‘I thought he liked me. I liked him.'

‘Did you used to fuck?'

‘Sort of. We were careful. I always made him wear a condom.'

‘Sounds like more than sort of.'

‘What I mean,' she shook her head, did not want to tell him, ‘he wasn't much good. He was after what he could get.'

‘Who isn't?' He took his hands away from her. ‘Want a cup of coffee? I'm having one.'

‘I don't like coffee.' She put her arms around him, hugged him hard. He smelled of sweat and goats, and of the sun.

‘Cut it out, Hayley. That's not on.' He reached behind him and broke her grip.

‘You told me to come.'

‘Not for that. How old are you? I'd end up in jail.'

‘I won't tell. You want to,' grabbed his fly, ‘I can feel.'

‘Stop playing hot pants. Shall I tell you something, I could be just as dangerous as those guys in the pool. You better stop putting yourself in situations like this. Anyway, I haven't got time. You want that drink? There's some Ovaltine left if the mice haven't got it.'

‘Ovaltine,' Hayley said bitterly.

‘Take it or leave it. You can have a glass of water if you like. You want me to put some stuff on that scratch?'

‘So I don't catch Aids, eh?'

‘Shut up, Hayley. You're not as tough as you like to think.' He went into the house. She followed him across the planks and watched from the door as he put the kettle on.

‘I'll have coffee.'

‘Thought you would. How's school? Work all over?'

‘Yeah, we're frigging around, clubs and stuff. Prize-giving practice. Not that I'll get any prizes.'

‘None for softball?' He lifted the bucket of soaking clothes to the floor and got two mugs from a cupboard; looked in them, wiped their insides with a baby's napkin worn to rags.

‘She doesn't look after you very well.'

‘Who?'

‘Miss Duff.'

‘You're out of date. Sandra doesn't come here any more.'

‘Couldn't she stand the gunge? I couldn't stand it.'

Lex laughed. ‘Get it off your chest. Here,' went to another cupboard, ‘Mercurochrome if it hasn't dried out. Put it on yourself, I'm not touching you.'

‘Wouldn't let you.' Hayley grinned at him.

They drank their coffee sitting on the porch. A breeze coming up the valley made a hissing in the scrub. She shook out her hair to dry and pulled her damp T-shirt loose from her breasts. She was glad now that Lex had said no. Sitting with him, talking, wasn't as much fun, she supposed, but it made her relaxed.

‘Where's your ute?'

‘I sold it.' Gestured at the Land-Rover. ‘She'll go more places.' He threw his coffee dregs on the lawn. ‘Want to see?'

‘Where?'

He hooked with his thumb. ‘Up the valley. Won't be back till, maybe after six.'

‘Can I ring Dad?'

She told him she was helping Mr Clearwater with his goats.

‘That's all right, Hayley. Try and be back before dark, I'll keep some tea. Hayley?'

‘What, Dad?'

‘Where did Shelley go? Did you notice?'

‘Judy's, she said.'

‘Yes, all right.'

‘What's wrong?'

‘I heard Neil Chote is back in town.'

‘She wouldn't go with him.'

‘No, I hope not. Goats, eh? Be careful of that pitching arm.'

‘I will.'

Lex had backed the Land-Rover round behind the sheds. She saw him busy in a pen with three goats. ‘Grab that one in the corner. Get his yoke off.'

‘What for?'

‘They won't need them where they're going.' He stripped a big nanny of her yoke and tossed it into the shed, where it rattled empty bottles. Hayley fought with her goat, a half-grown male, and wrestled the yoke from its head. ‘They're strong, eh?'

‘You'll find some bits of twine on the bench.'

She fetched them and Lex threw the goats one by one on their sides and tied their legs. He carried them to the Land-Rover and laid them on sacks in the back. They kicked and twisted, trying to get free, and he climbed inside and held them still, ‘Take it easy, easy now, everything's all right.' Hayley got in beside him and felt their warm sides and ran her hands on their silky hair. She felt the tender dewlaps of the small billy and looked in his deep blind-seeming eye.

‘Put those sacks on them.'

‘They're not cold.'

‘I don't want anyone to see.'

They covered the goats and climbed out and Lex closed the door.

‘Where are we taking them?'

‘Up the valley. Up the side of Corkie.'

‘Are you setting them free?'

‘Yup. There's no feed for them here. I'm only keeping half a dozen.'

‘You're not supposed to set goats free, are you?'

‘There's lots of things you're not supposed to do.'

She got in the front beside him and he drove down to the road, past the tethered goat, and turned up the valley. He told Hayley he'd released twenty-three goats in the last week, that was why he'd bought the Land-Rover. ‘You've got to keep it secret.'

‘I will.' She was delighted. ‘Where are they all?'

‘Some up on Lud Hill. Some over on the coast, back of Salty Bay. I took six way up past Coppermine yesterday and another six last week across by the Heaphy, back of Bainham. Nearly got caught by some trampers there.'

‘Won't they just get shot?'

‘Some of them will. Some will probably get caught again. I've told them what the score is. They're all willing to take their chance.'

‘You don't mean that.'

‘Sure I do.'

‘You talk to goats? They understand?'

‘Better than fourth-formers, I'll tell you that. Those three in the back, they kicked a bit, don't like all that handling and tying up, but that's just something they've got to do. They know where they're going.'

Hayley laughed uneasily. It made her nervous, Lex being loopy, though loopy was not a bad thing when you thought of some of the people who weren't.

They went onto a metalled road by the Baptist camp. It followed the course of the river, switching from side to side over one-way bridges with rails shattered where hoons in cars had hit them. The Saxton water-pipe made a curving leap across the gorge. Before, when she'd seen it, Hayley had wanted to walk across, but felt today she'd left that behind.

‘Will you try and catch them when the drought's over?'

‘Nope. They're on their own. I'll go back and see them now and then, if I can find them. I mix them bucks and does so they can breed. I guess they'll team up with wild ones though.'

‘What will you do when you've got none left?'

‘I'm keeping the ones at home. These are the last I'm turning loose.'

‘Yeah, but for money, for a job?'

‘You sound like Sandra.'

‘Is that why she's not your girlfriend now? ‘Cause you've got no money?'

‘I've got some. She left,' he grinned at her, ‘because she reckoned I was turning myself into a goat. She reckoned I'd start saying baa pretty soon.'

His eyes were like a goat's eyes, Hayley thought. The pupils were OK but the coloured part seemed blind, or saw what people weren't supposed to see.

‘I like goats better than people,' Lex said. ‘They only know what they've got to know.'

They turned into a track climbing in scrub and came out in a forest of pines. It seemed like a different level of the world. Hayley
leaned on him for company. The pines were no taller than the Land-Rover but soon the road ran into a block of older trees that hid the sky. She wanted him to say something friendly.

‘Hey, Lex.'

‘Yeah? What?'

‘You used to teach Shelley, eh?'

‘Who's Shelley?'

‘My sister. She used to run.'

‘What about her?'

‘Her boyfriend's back in town. He's been in prison. Dad's scared Shelley's gone back to him.'

‘He the one who got her to use that credit card?'

Hayley was pleased. ‘That's him. He's, like, got her hypnotized.'

‘Who is this bloke?'

‘Neil Chote. He acts tough but he's not really tough, he's kind of crazy. He'll do anything. He doesn't care.'

‘Sounds like Shelley should steer clear of him.'

‘I think she wants to but she can't. He tried to make her take some LSD. One time he burned her with his cigarette.' She wished Lex would offer to sort out Neil Chote.

‘Better stay away from him, I reckon. Up here we go. It's pretty rough so hang on tight. Don't lean on me, I can't steer.'

She moved away, offended. Below her door, the land dropped into a gorge where little fans of white water showed between boulders. The front wheel spun and pointed, angling out then back, a tire's width away from the edge. If the clay caved in they'd end up a hundred metres down, smashed on rocks; but she wasn't scared. She did not believe Lex would make mistakes; and she forgot his coldness, yelled, ‘Hey, this is great,' and put her arm outside and banged the door.

‘Beehives,' Lex said.

They stood, a city, pink and blue and white, in a clearing on his side of the road.

‘Bush honey, better than clover.'

Then it was behind and branches thrashed the Land-Rover on his side while empty air pulled them like a magnet on hers. If the track got any steeper, she thought, they'd turn over backwards and roll all the way down to Saxton, end over end.

‘How far now?'

‘'Nother twenty minutes. We've got to get round the side of Corkie, where she runs into the mineral belt. The bush opens up there. Goats have got to have a bit of space.'