Prohibited Zone (5 page)

‘Keep walking. You'll bypass the police roadblock on the highway. Make sure they don't see you. There's a gravel borrow pit about four clicks down the road. Find a rock and sit on it until I get there. Or under it, for all I care.'

She took a mouthful of her beer, finishing it. ‘Anything we should be careful about?'

‘Yeah, be careful crossing the road and don't talk to strangers.'

‘What about snakes?'

‘Don't talk to any snakes either. I'll give you an hour to get there – that should be long enough. Do you have a torch?'

‘Yes.' She stood up. She looked very thin in the moonlight, almost delicate. Yet she talked like a rugby forward.

‘You can leave your bag.'

‘No, I'll keep it. See you in an hour.'

‘Sure.'

She walked off and faded into the darkness. I drained my beer and thought about going inside for another. But I no longer felt like talking to anyone, so I just sat there some more.

4

A
ROAD TRAIN WITH TWO TRAILERS
turned into the car park, its brakes and suspension hissing and wheezing. Its headlights dimmed but the motor and sidelights stayed on. I couldn't tell what cargo it was carrying, but I recognised the prime mover. It gleamed like a skull in the moonlight and it had extravagant flames painted on the side. A large figure climbed down from the cab, whistling to itself and pulling on a jacket. I didn't recognise the tune; it wasn't much of one.

‘Having a drink with all your friends, eh, Westie?' he called, walking towards me.

‘Just my best friend.'

‘Aw, get your hand off it then.' He guffawed as he climbed the step into the beer garden. Then he stood and looked at me with his hands on his hips and his legs splayed to support his medium-size beer gut. Under his jacket he wore a blue singlet and below that he sported short shorts, short beige socks and elastic-sided boots. His head was completely shaved except for a ludicrously extravagant goatee on his chin.

‘G'day, Col,' I said. ‘Having a good run?'

‘Yeah, not bad. The hint of a tail wind and just me, the sunset and Luciano Pavarotti.'

‘Pavarotti? You're kidding, right?'

‘There's nothin' wrong with old Luciano, mate. No bastard believes me, but Wagner is perfect for the outback. No other music can match the grandeur.'

‘And no other truckie can match your bullshit.'

He threw his head back and guffawed again. It was a slightly hoarse and high-pitched sound, but wonderfully hearty.

‘It's why I like drivin' the Stuart,' he said. ‘It's pretty much straight the whole way. You turn on cruise just outside Darwin and turn it off at Port Augusta. Too easy! The rest of the time you've got to yourself.'

‘Presumably you've still got to keep your eyes on the road.'

‘Aw, sure. Occasionally.' He peered at my bottle in the gloom. ‘What are you drinkin'?'

I showed him the label of my beer.

‘Let me buy you one. In return you can listen to me latest poems.' Col spent many of his Stuart-cruising hours composing haiku. He'd even published a couple on
badhaiku.com
under the pseudonym Road Train of Thought.

‘Don't know if you can buy that with just one drink, Col.'

He went inside and returned a couple of minutes later with a Coopers for me and what looked like a scotch for himself.

‘I'm stoppin' here for a few hours,' he said. ‘Reckon I can have one stiff one.'

‘Sure you can. Anyway, it's just an antidote for all those No-Doz you've been popping.'

He guffawed and dug a crumpled piece of paper out of his hip pocket before sitting down. He had to move the trestle to accommodate his gut.

‘What do you think of this one?' he asked, looking at the paper. ‘Pink and grey galah/As pretty as a sunset/Against my windscreen.'

‘Well . . .'

‘I thought it was a nice juxtaposition.'

‘Yeah, that's what I thought, too.'

We sat in juxtaposed silence for a while, but I didn't want it to last long enough for him to spring another haiku on me.

‘Did you hear there's been a bit of trouble at the detention centre?' I asked.

‘Yeah, I heard on the two-way. Can't say I'm surprised. You lock innocent people up for years on end and eventually it's gunna turn ugly. Poor bastards. Fucked in their own countries, fucked on the way here, and fucked when they get here.'

‘Bleeding heart.'

‘Proud of it, mate.' He clinked his glass against my stubby and we tasted our drinks. ‘You know that Afghans first arrived in this area in the eighteen thirties? Camels 'n' all. They used to carry goods from Oodnadatta to Alice Springs – there was 'undreds of 'em here once. Helped build the railway and the telegraph.'

‘Aren't you a font of useless information.'

‘Here's somethin' else I bet you didn't know. The country's first mosque was built in Maree. In the middle of the South Australian desert, Westie. That was more 'n a hundred years ago. How much fucken terrorism have we had in this country all that time? They can't be that much of a worry. Nah, I feel sorry for the buggers. If I see one on the road I'll probably give 'im a lift.'

‘Did you go through a roadblock just outside town?' I asked.

‘Yeah, but what a joke. They didn't search me trailers; I could've been hiding a hundred suicide bombers and those stupid cops wouldn't've known. They told me there was another roadblock on the other side of Pimba, too, but they're about to pack it up.'

‘Is that right?' I thought about the woman – I realised I didn't know her name – and her Afghan friend stumbling around on the gibber plain in the moonlight, maybe for no reason.

‘Yeah. Apparently they're gunna set one up just this side of the Gutter instead.'

The two cops emerged from the pub, the acne-covered one giving us a little salute.

‘Where's your lady friend?' he asked.

‘She wasn't a friend,' I replied. ‘Actually, I'm not even sure she was a lady.'

‘Do you know where she went?' asked the other cop. He was heavily built and sported a moustache like Pancho Villa.

‘She said she was walking back to Woomera to find somewhere to stay.'

‘She could've stayed here.'

‘Yeah, but she likes the bright lights. City girl.'

‘Let's go offer her a lift into town,' said the acne-faced one to Pancho Villa.

‘I heard she was with the protesters today,' said Pancho to me.

‘I believe so.'

‘Did she say anything about that?'

‘Not to me.'

‘What did you talk about, then?'

‘I was telling her how much rock we're taking out of Olympic Dam these days.'

He stared at me for a few seconds. ‘That must have been fascinating for her.'

‘Yeah, but she left before I got to the really interesting stuff.'

‘Well, if she comes back, tell her we'd like to talk to her.'

‘Sure.'

The two cops swaggered off to their car, accessories jangling.

‘What are you up to, Westie?' asked Col. I was in the process of telling him when Chook, Ritten and Trent emerged from the tavern, all clutching beers, Chook also carrying a case of Southwark Draught on his shoulder. They were laughing. They spotted us and leered in our direction.

‘We're goin' spotlightin' for sum towel 'eads, said Ritten, grinning through a missing front tooth. ‘Wanna come?'

‘Don't call 'em that,' said Col. ‘Most of the Afghan blokes wear caps, anyway, not turbans.'

‘How about san' niggas? Okay if we call 'em that?'

‘Aw, come on fellas. No need to show us your ignorance.'

‘Well, lemme show you this, then,' said Ritten. He turned around, dropped his trousers and bent over. It wasn't a pretty sight, but it made his mates laugh. He pulled his trousers back up and turned to face us, buckling his belt.

‘Enjoy that?' he asked, grinning again.

‘Your arse is ugly, mate, but it's beautiful compared to your fucken face,' said Col.

Ritten laughed.

‘Don't worry, I'll make sure they don't catch anything,' said Chook to us in a voice that was meant to be low but was probably audible in Woomera.

‘No you fucken won't,' said Ritten. They went off, still laughing, and a minute later Ritten's Jackaroo burst into life. The headlights came on and then the spotters, blinding us for a few seconds. Then they swung away and headed for the highway, horn blaring in several long bursts. Two bare white arses were pressed against the back window, cheeks pulled wide apart.

‘Jesus Christ, the desert's a brutal place, isn't it?' muttered Col.

‘Is that another haiku?'

He guffawed. ‘Nah, not enough syllables. Good idea, though. I might work on it on the way to Adelaide.'

An hour and a half later Col had gone off to sleep in his truck and I was on the road. The night had turned chilly, but there was still plenty of action at Spuds, with some of the cops coming in for a drink. Dicko was one of them. It was a big night for bullshit and I was happy to leave. When I pulled onto Stuart Highway I seemed to have the road to myself again. It seemed unlikely that anyone would be following me but I decided to err on the side of caution. When I was out of sight of Spuds I doused my lights, pulled off the road and drove inland, hoping I didn't do the sump on a rock. My eyes weren't adjusted to the darkness and I couldn't see much at all. When I was about fifty metres from the highway I stopped and jumped out. I pulled the tray cover over the vehicle's rear to cover the reflectors and waited, although I wasn't sure for what. Less than a minute later a pale Land Cruiser sped southward along the highway. I wondered if it was the alleged ASIO spook and his allegedly CIA mate. A couple of minutes later a road train rumbled past in the opposite direction. Then nothing for five minutes. If I was being tailed, maybe I'd shaken them. I was pleased with myself. I restored the tray cover and drove back to the highway.

The police roadblock was gone and the borrow pit deserted when I turned into it. I switched off the engine and turned off the lights again. I overrode the interior light so that it wouldn't illuminate when I opened the door. Then I got out. The universe was milky overhead and there was very little sound. My eyes began to adjust to the dark and I could make out the shallow floor of the pit, no more than a metre below the general lie of the land. Two figures stumbled towards me; they had probably been sitting against the far wall. One of them was my new friend.

‘You took your time,' she said as she neared the car. ‘You said an hour. It's been two. It's fucking freezing out here. And there was no roadblock, by the way.'

‘Yeah, sorry about that.'

‘You don't look it.'

‘You're right. I'm not, actually.'

She made an irritated noise but I ignored it. Her companion was almost totally wrapped in what looked like a shawl, her eyes lost in the darkness within. The fingers of one hand gripped the outer edge of the shawl. I opened the passenger-side door and flipped the seat forward. I figured there was just enough space in the cargo hold behind the seat for a small adult to squeeze into, and she was small. I removed the toolkit and put it in the tray.

‘Think you can fit in there?' I said to her, miming it a bit as well. She sized it up and nodded. She climbed in and sat sideways on the floor, a small huddled figure. I noticed that the shawl was more like a cloak. I went back to the tray, grabbed the pillow from my swag and passed it to her. Then I eased the seat back into position, making sure it didn't crush her.

‘She speaks English fluently, you know,' said the bossy one.

‘Now I do.'

I handed her a small plastic bottle of water I had bought at Spuds, and another to the passenger behind the seat.

When we pulled out of the borrow pit there were no lights in either direction. No one had been past.

‘Do you have a name?' I asked the woman in the passenger seat.

‘Of course I have a fucking name.'

It was quiet for a while, except for the hum of the tyres on the road, the murmur of the engine and the silent scream of the stars.

‘Are you going to tell me your fucking name then?'

‘Are you going to ask politely?'

More of the silent screaming thing. The headlights shot out ahead, but never quite far enough, it seemed, to be completely sure there wasn't some fatal obstacle in our path. I sighed.

‘What's your name then, sweetie?'

‘Kara. Kara Peake-Jones.'

‘Thank you. What about our friend here?' I jabbed my thumb towards the back. ‘Does she have a name, too?'

‘Yes, I have a name,' came a rich Afghan accent. ‘Saira.' She said it with a guttural inflection.

‘Kara and Saira,' I said, applying the guttural inflection thing to both. ‘They almost rhyme. I like poetry.'