Coming Rain (18 page)

She parked the Land Rover outside the shearers quarters, walked to the door, knocked,
called his name and returned to sit behind the wheel.

Lew stood on the veranda, pulling on a shirt. She told him where they were going.
Jimmy had helped her make up a picnic.

‘Your father told me I could not see you Clara,' he said. ‘I asked him if I could
and he said no, it was out of the question.'

‘What?'

‘Did he tell you why? Say anything?'

‘Nothing really. He left this morning. Took the town car. Said he'll see me when
he gets back.'

‘What shall we do?'

Clara stared at him and laughed. ‘Come on, I promised you a swim.'

‘I can't…I never learned to swim.'

‘I'll teach you then. A swim and a picnic at Daybreak. No one will know. Only Jimmy
and he's a love.'

They drove across the dirt roads for almost an hour. She would glance over at him
from time to time and smile but it was difficult to speak because of the noise.
It was just the two of them and they had to shout to be heard. The rain had washed
the land and it seemed brighter than before. Sparkling. The air clean and sharp.
Even the birds seemed to fly faster and twist as if in celebration. Lew had the almost
constant sensation of wanting to laugh as they drove. To sing, and he never sang.

She yelled that it, the world, describing with her hand an all-encompassing circle,
was this. Our land and we are the only young people in the world. That he too was
with her and the laughter was infectious and with the noise of the vehicle and the
crashing through it, unable to be heard, anything and everything seemed easier to
say.

In just over an hour they arrived at Daybreak Springs. They left the Land Rover at
the gate. There was a curving path between the rocks and trees and she held his hand
until they reached the banks of a freshwater pool. It was edged with large rocks,
kangaroo grass and paperbark melaleucas. Clara unpacked the straw bags. The towels
and a bottle of homemade ginger beer. Sandwiches in brown paper made with cold corned
beef, pink with a fringe of white fat. Piccalilli relish, pickled cucumber and
onions,
tomatoes and a square of butter. She tied string around the bottle's neck and lowered
it into the cold water.

‘We used to come here when I was a little girl,' she said. ‘It was known as Winjilla
Springs in the old days, grandfather told me, but he renamed it Daybreak. Told Dad
it was in the first light of morning when they found it. And now it's a safe place
to swim.'

She bent down, took off her boots, overbalancing slightly as she did so. Dropped
her hat on the boots. Stepped forward then onto a tongue of flat striated red stone
which led to the water's edge. Squatted to study the surface riffle and reflections
of the sky. Turned back to him, looking over a raised shoulder. ‘Come on.'

Above the pool were great slabs of grey and stippled red boulders. A small waterfall
ran between fissured dolerite rocks and fell into the pool. The sound of water falling
into water. A quandong bush clung among the rocks.

She reached out and trailed her fingers through the water, stood up and walked forward
into the pool up to her waist. The blue work shirt floated and she caught her breath.
Gasped. Arms lifted and she laughed. Held her breath, closed her eyes and dived forward.
Disappeared beneath the surface. After a moment she reappeared and opened her eyes,
wiped the water from her face and looked at him. Lay back and floated, arching her
neck, staring at the sky. Opened her legs and kicked out, swam out into deeper water.
She lay floating, drifting. Her hands beneath her back moving and she lifted her
hips up, legs rising.

‘If you fill your lungs with air,' she said, ‘they become a natural float and you
will never sink. If you are ever in doubt, just hold your breath.'

‘Hold my breath?' Repeated as a question. Smiling away like a fool and shaking his
head.

‘The trouble is when you have to breathe,' she dipped below the water, resurfaced.
‘You sink.' Laughed as if this was the most hilarious of things. They both knew it
was simply the joy of them being here.

Lew sat on the flat stone next to her hat and boots. The straw bag and picnic food
she had covered with towels. He raised his hand and nodded. Clara swivelled in the
water and swam, breaststroking out into the middle. Stopped, again floated on her
back, raised her hand and waved at him. She began to tread water; pulled down and
kicked off her jodhpurs; unbuttoned her blue shirt.

‘If you come out to me, I will show you how to kiss underwater so no one will see
us. You can close your eyes if you want Lewis. But not when you jump. Keep your eyes
open as you jump, it's more fun to see yourself falling through the air.'

Easterly winds coming over the top of them from out of the desert country.

He looked up and saw the rocks surrounding the pool. The rocks are as ancient as
stars and Clara is swimming through the impermanence of water. He frowned at the
strangeness of such thoughts, heard a faint humming and looked up. High in an old
paperbark, he saw a sugarbag beehive hanging from a hollow branch.

Suddenly knew there would never be another horse without Clara, or another dog without
her. Another held breath or held hand, without her. And she waited now, for him in
the water.

She reached down and removed her underpants. Kicking
her legs as she did so. Turned
and swam out to the middle. The roundness of her white backside bobbing. Opened her
legs and her hips as she swam, fine and light and perfect; naked she was. ‘No one
will see us Lew.'

He shook his head as he rose and began to unbutton his shirt. Took it off and lay
it on the ground. Big, capable hands. He unbuttoned his trousers. Dropped them at
his feet and stepped out of them. His body was ivory white. A barely visible patch
of chest hair spread above his sternum and across his chest like the shape of a flying
bird. He stood slightly hipshot for a moment. Lean and strong arms akimbo, wide shoulders
and thin hips, iliac crests prominent. His penis growing to erection.

Clara nodding, he could see her wide eyes, white teeth, and she began swimming towards
him. ‘Come on Lewis,' she called. ‘Just jump.' Her laughter of approval.

He ran and jumped. Suspended for a moment in the air. The naked man, arms and legs
running, falling. Building wings on the way down, becoming almost weightless.

He plunged through the surface of the water and twisted, instinctively looked up.
His arms suspended among a thousand bubbles and rifts. It was cold and free. Underwater.
He opened his eyes and could see Clara's body, her long legs kicking and the dark
triangle between them. She, diving under now, was looking for him. He felt her slippery
arms searching, her hands sliding around him. Blowing underwater bubbles from her
mouth as she reached for him and their legs and bodies came together. Clara was holding
him and kicking so they rose to the surface and as they broke through into the fresh
air, he would always believe the rocks began singing and trees nodded approval. But
of course it was the wind you fool. And the sugarbag bees. They were drawing great
breaths into their lungs and laughing at the same time. He was trying to remind her,
saying I can't swim Clara. Shaking his head and laughing at her. Don't let go. She,
recovering first, leaned forward and kissed him. Her mouth on his and as this happened
he leaned back and they dipped just below the surface. He felt her soft lips and
her tongue in his mouth and he did not care as they continued to slowly sink. Their
feet touching the clean sandy bottom and knees bent they both pushed off from the
bottom and rose, again to the surface. Their mouths still locked together, arms around
each other. His leg came up between her legs. The heel of one of her feet high on
the back of his thighs.

Breaking the surface, again for air; the sun on their faces. Her arms around his
shoulders and he held her around the waist as her legs came around him. It was as
if she was saving both their lives. They were at the edge of the pool, her shoulders
against jagged dark rocks. Keeping him afloat. She groaned and let go of him, waited,
studying his face. Pushed him away. Turned, found the edge and pulled herself out
of the water. Lew watched her and the sun coming over the turning and bending figure
of her, straightening and moving and looking down at him. Her hand held out to him.

He would always remember her like this, the hollow at her throat and her beautiful
breasts swaying down to him. Two small skin rolls in her belly, hip and thigh muscles
tightening; her wet black pubic hair shining in the sun. How pale her skin and her
feet so flat on the rocks. Her gentle voice. ‘Lewis come on.' Biting her bottom lip
and glancing away, just for a second, to her left.

They made their way, naked, through the rocks towards the cave.

He looked up to the formations surrounding the spring and the bor trees with the
long white spotted stamens called mirlen, and saw from the corner of his eye other
lean men who were not there. Bearded men imagined, watching them while standing,
resting on one leg holding thin spears as balance and then looking towards the shining
plains for meat. Pointing and taking the colours from the air around them to the
bokadje line: the horizon. These old persuaded men speaking among themselves of all
men and women. And how our overwhelming desire for each other was the desire to be
alive.

She was kneeling and lighting a candle that had been left in the entrance. Turned
to him and gestured with an extended hand towards the paintings above them. There
were small stones that had been used to grind ochre. The remains of other ancient
fires, charcoal. Animal bones. She whispered, look. And he smelled her as she raised
her arm to point. The painted figures made him hold his breath.

He kissed her moving jaw. Her finger touched the Southern Cross and Western Star.
The candlelight guttered and went out. He felt her turning to him and her arms around
him. The paintings watching them in the dark. ‘I dreamed of you,' Clara said. ‘All
my life.'

This intensity of longing for each other. There was nothing else.

CHAPTER 44

The dingoes rested from the remains of the storm and the night running and woke in
a grey light. Storm clouds to the west and yet an occasional flicker of lightning
as the front moved towards the coastal land.

She walked out to some rising ground above a flowing creek. Stood at the highest
point and watched the country from which they had come. After a while the adolescent
joined her and they waited. The bitch shook herself again as the last of the black
clouds rolled away.

They continued east, always east until they reached a ridge above a long fence. A
long wire barrier the white men patrolled and constantly repaired.

They settled, bellies into the sand, and lay side by side and watched as a line of
weitj came hurtling at the wire, running in that way they have, great shaggy coats
of feathers moving side to side and their big dangerous legs whirling, crossing the
ground in a seemingly effortless roll. The tiny, useless wings out as to fly but
now only to balance as they sped towards the fence. Long
blue-black necks and big
eyes constantly astonished at the world as they passed through it.

The leading emu hit the fence with an almost comic intensity. Bounced off it, rebounding,
yards back; another one going halfway through the wire, tearing itself to pieces.
The dingoes watched as the carnage unfolded.

The wires breaking and another of the emus entangling as the others trampled over
it and continued their frantic travel. Bodies moving side to side and up a rise and
disappearing over the other side into the eastern desert. Not looking back for an
instant, just running, seemingly unaware of the injured birds left behind them. One
of the weitj was badly hurt, entangled in the wire and another was sitting, dazed
by the collision. Yet another had deep lacerations across its breast, unable to walk.
It began calling, grunting and booming in the direction of the running mob.

The young dog leapt forward before she could stop him. Make him understand to check
and see what was making the emu run at the fence like they did. To wait. To circle
and listen, to get downwind and stay alive. She stood and growl-barked at him and
he stopped as if he had hit a wall. Putting his front feet forward and backside down,
he skidded to a halt.

An army vehicle came from the direction the emus had come. It drove down an incline
and turned onto the track alongside the rabbit-proof fence and stopped near the injured
birds.

Two men got out of the vehicle and crossed to the emus. Both carrying rifles, dressed
the same in a drab green. Hats with emu feathers in them. The dogs watched as the
soldiers aimed their rifles, and shot the three birds. Opened and closed the bolts
on their rifles, bright brass flicking out. Shot them again. One took a knife and
cut several handfuls of feathers from the dead birds.

A third man, white bearded, had emerged from the vehicle. He was looking in their
direction, the shooter with the ruined car. He began limping up the slope to where
they were lying. He too was carrying a long rifle. Behind him the soldiers were cutting
the left foot off each of the birds. The proof of bounty.

She immediately wheeled away from the hiding place and began sprinting across the
ground. The young dog followed her as best he could, bounding along on three legs.
They crossed over a small ridge, turned right and ran north, parallel and beneath
the crest until it eased down into a scrub-covered gully.

She stopped in the smoke bush and rock heather. Panting, saliva dripping from her
tongue, blinking, she lifted her nose, trying to quiet the sounds of her rasping
breath. The heaving of lungs. The young red dog was terrified; he trembled and tried
to get as close to her as he could. She put her open mouth on his open mouth to stop
them both from whining aloud. To save their lives.