The Grass Castle (29 page)
Leaving the Queanbeyan house one morning after her weekly visit with Daphne, Abby sees a red Commodore parked in the street. Sitting on the bonnet, arms folded, is George, the guy who saved her when her car broke down a few weeks ago. He looks like he’s been waiting for some time. Abby’s heart kicks. She is not pleased to see him, hasn’t given him a thought since their first meeting. His sudden appearance here at Daphne’s house has a whiff of stalking about it. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks, irritated.
He tightens defensively. ‘You didn’t call me back.’
‘I didn’t need to. I had my car serviced and it’s going like a dream.’
He is patently disappointed. ‘I thought you might ring. I’ve been driving past here a couple of times a week, just in case.’
Abby feels herself bristling, and she hopes he senses it too. ‘You shouldn’t just show up like this.’
‘Why not? You didn’t mind my help the other day. A bit of gratitude wouldn’t go astray.’
‘I thanked you,’ Abby says, implying that ought to be enough. But he doesn’t seem to get it.
‘How about you buy me a cappuccino?’ he suggests. ‘You owe me for rescuing you.’
Abby is certain she doesn’t owe him anything, but she can see he’s unlikely to accept no for an answer and she doesn’t want him following her home. She supposes a cup of coffee can’t hurt, if it’s on her terms.
‘Follow me into town,’ George says. ‘I know a good café.’
She trails his Commodore through the suburb and parks behind him in the main street of Queanbeyan. He is out and opening the car door for her before she even has time to retrieve her wallet from the glove box.
‘Anything for the lady,’ he says with a slimy smile.
‘Thank you, but I can open doors for myself.’ She slips out onto the pavement and moves beyond his reach.
He makes a laboured point of holding the café door open too, and she passes inside stiff-backed without giving him the satisfaction of a response. His chivalry seems fake and overdone. He shrugs and raises his hands as if she’s wounded him. Best he gets used to rejection now, she thinks. He won’t be getting anything else from her.
‘They do good coffee here,’ he says, selecting a table and slumping into a seat.
Abby is pleased he didn’t try to pull out a chair for her; maybe he’s getting the message.
They order, then George leans back and inspects her across the table. She takes the opportunity to inspect him too. He’s swarthy and unshaven, and his hair is wavy and dark and in need of a wash. He smiles with thick red lips and raises his bushy mono-brow as he sits legs apart, loose and casual. Abby can’t help comparing him to Cameron’s stylish poise.
‘I’m not happy about you showing up at my friend’s place today,’ she says. ‘I don’t want it to happen again.’
He shrugs, offhand. ‘How else was I supposed to find you?’
‘If a girl doesn’t ring, it means she’s busy.’
‘Yeah, well I wanted to hear it from you.’
‘I have a boyfriend,’ she lies.
George frowns. ‘Why didn’t you ring him the other day when you were stuck?’
‘He was at work. When you break down in the middle of the road, you don’t make a phone call and wait for rescue. You have to deal with it straightaway. You helped, I appreciated it, and that’s it. End of story.’
‘So you’re not available then?’
‘No. Taken.’
‘No harm trying.’ He grins. ‘And here we are, having coffee. That’s more than I expected.’
‘The coffee is to sort this out. I don’t want to be stalked.’
He smirks, unfazed. ‘Sure, but since we’re here we might as well talk a bit.’
Abby shifts uncomfortably. She wants out of here.
George leans forward, muscular forearms on the table, shirt-sleeves folded back to the elbows. He’s tanned for this time of year—it looks like he’s been hanging out in a solarium. He runs a hand through his wavy mop. ‘Okay, this is me,’ he says. ‘I’m Greek. Grew up here in Queanbeyan. Own a courier business with my brother.’
‘You’re a courier?’ Abby says. ‘What’s with the Commodore? That’s your delivery van?’
‘’Course not,’ he says. ‘But I don’t want to drive round in the van all the time. That’s why I have the Commodore. It’s my day off. A man’s gotta have some fun.’
‘And being a courier is good business?’ Abby asks with disinterest.
‘Sure is.’ George sniffs and rubs his nose. ‘Super-busy. I work six days a week. Delivering parcels, books, boxes of wine, all sorts of gear, including stuff you probably wouldn’t want to know about.’ A slippery smile slashes his face.
Abby senses he’s trying to pique her interest, but she refuses to satisfy him. ‘Don’t tell me then, if I wouldn’t want to know.’
‘What about you?’ he asks. ‘What do you do for a living?’
‘I study kangaroos.’
He chuckles, obviously amused. ‘How much do you need to know about shooting? A gun licence is cheap.’ He leans back, sighs and stretches. ‘I admire people who study. Wish I’d done more of it myself. Wish I’d done medicine or dentistry. I can just see myself sitting in a chair with my arms folded giving out bedside manner then writing the bill.’
‘So it’s all about income,’ Abby observes caustically.
He grins. ‘Of course. Why else do you work?’
Their cappuccinos arrive and George stirs in three spoonfuls of sugar.
‘I like going bush too,’ he says. ‘I go shooting with a mate of mine. We hunt pigs and deer up near Tumut. Sometimes ’roos and wombats, except they’re too easy. Only shoot them if there’s nothing else around.’
‘I hope you don’t go into the national park,’ Abby says, projecting disapproval.
George laughs. ‘That’s where the best pigs are.’
Abby plasters a weak smile on her face. She can just imagine George dressed in his camouflage gear with a gun and a string of ammunition draped over his shoulder, shooting the shit out of some poor animal. Not that she minds him shooting ferals, but she knows the shooters stock the bush with piglets to keep their hobby alive. It’s a joke when they say they are contributing to feral animal control.
‘Shot a beautiful deer just the other week,’ George continues. ‘Took its head off with an axe so I could keep it for my collection. There’s all sorts of stuff out there, like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve got the best set of skulls in Australia. I’ve got a horse skull, cow skulls, sheep, kangaroos, a wombat, even a Tassie devil skull.’
‘Skulls don’t impress me,’ Abby says. ‘I see plenty of them out where I work.’
‘I’ve got other things too,’ George says. ‘A seal skull, one from a wedgetail eagle, even a crocodile skull. Ever seen one of those? They’re amazing—all this thick, hard bone with holes in it.’
‘Where did you get it?’ Abby asks.
‘A mate found it on a fishing trip in the Kimberley. It was sitting in the mud. Bit of a risk to get it, I suppose. Must have been other crocs about. But it’s one of my trophies. I was stoked when he gave it to me.’ He leans forward and lowers his voice. ‘I’ve got a human skull too.’
Abby regards him with distaste. ‘That’s not something to show off about. What is it, a model or something? From the medical school.’
‘No, it’s real,’ he says.
Abby is unsure whether to believe him or not. She tries to imagine his house with shelves of skulls, and a strange smell, stale and slightly rank from lack of fresh air and the musty stench of bone. She pictures a different skull on one of the shelves. A human skull. ‘You’re not serious, are you? Where did it come from?’
‘My mate found it in the bush. I gave him five slabs of beer so I could keep it.’ He sits back, smug.
Abby’s skin crawls. ‘You mean you haven’t handed it in? That’s probably illegal. It could be someone’s father or brother or something.’
‘Nah, it’s just a skull.’
‘How do you know?’
George ignores this and takes a sip of his coffee. He seems very self-satisfied. ‘You should come to my place and see it,’ he says. ‘I live just round the corner.’
Abby doesn’t buy his sleazy line. Nor does she want to see his damn collection, especially not the human skull. She downs her cappuccino and checks the time. ‘I have to go. Got work to do.’
He looks downcast. ‘When can I see you again?’
‘You can’t,’ she says. ‘I’m busy.’
‘That’s a shame. I thought we could be friends.’
‘Look, I’ll pay for your coffee—you seem to think I owe that to you. Then we’re even.’ She takes some money out of her wallet and stands up.
‘Well, make sure you call if you’re ever in trouble again.’ He reaches into his pocket ‘Here’s my card.’
‘You already gave me one.’
‘Have another,’ he says with a grin. ‘So you won’t forget me.’
She pays the bill and heads quickly out the door. Once she’s in the car and gone, she will delete him from her life like a file from her computer, and that’s a good feeling. She doesn’t want to see him again.
A few days later in the office at uni, one of the other students, Nathan, calls out to her: ‘Hey Abby, there’s been a guy called George ringing to catch up with you.’
Abby shuffles her papers and tries to suppress a sudden tightness in her throat. How did George track her down? Perhaps on the university website. It’s absolutely too creepy, and she wishes she’d never had that cup of coffee with him. She glances at Nathan. ‘I don’t want to speak to him.’
Nathan seems surprised. ‘He sounds keen. He’s rung here, I don’t know, about ten times. That’s pretty bloody enthusiastic if you ask me. Everyone in this room has spoken to him, and he chats away like he’s mates with us all.’
‘Don’t be deceived,’ Abby says. ‘He’s an idiot.’
Nathan shrugs as if to indicate that Abby is the weird one here. And for the first time, Abby sees that perhaps she should have made more effort to befriend her fellow students. They have all occupied this space for two years and she has failed to fit in.
Nathan places a slip of message-paper on her desk, along with a pile of other similar notes. ‘Here’s his number in case you change your mind.’
‘Thanks.’ Abby slides her hand over the notes and collects them in her hand.
‘Give the guy a chance,’ Nathan says. ‘He didn’t sound that bad.’
When Nathan leaves the office, Abby shreds the messages into little fragments and drops them in the bin like a handful of confetti.
Abby is en route to her study site when she hears an announcement on the radio about a kangaroo cull, and she turns up the volume to listen. Apparently there is a nature reserve near the city where the number of kangaroos has been increasing for some time. What’s new, she thinks—wherever there’s a suggestion of feed, kangaroos will breed, even in a drought. That’s what they’re designed to do.
She has been to the reserve in question. It’s a haunting, bare, windy place with no grass and too many kangaroos with nowhere to go. The country surrounding it is heavily grazed treeless farmland supporting cattle and sheep. The farmers dislike having kangaroos intrude onto their land from the reserve. They see kangaroos as competitors for feed, especially in this drought. Abby’s kangaroos in the mountains are equally numerous, but there’s no farmland nearby, and hardly anyone goes there, so it’s largely unnoticed. Because it’s a national park—a natural system—the kangaroos are left to do their thing. Animals die, but it isn’t close to the city, so it’s overlooked. Down on the plains, it’s a different matter. Farmers want to get rid of kangaroos, but there’s more to the issue than that. The grasslands in the reserve also provide habitat for endangered species which the government is obligated to protect.
The radio presenter is interviewing an animal rights activist called Martin Tennant. They keep referring to an article in the morning paper by the science and environment journalist—presumably Cameron. From the content of the interview it seems Cameron has taken the side of the activist, which doesn’t seem right to Abby. Cameron usually explores both sides of an argument. It would be out of character for him to align with a particular point of view, especially when he knows she supports culling to save habitat for other species—she told him that the first time they met . . . unless, of course, he’s angry with her and he’s trying to make an obscure attempt at pay back. But he doesn’t seem the vengeful type, and from his regular phone messages, it’s obvious he’s still hopeful they might get back together.
Abby has been avoiding telephones as much as possible, both her mobile and the office phone. She doesn’t want to speak to the ever-persistent George, who keeps trying to catch her at uni. And she also doesn’t want to hear the sorrowful twinge in Cameron’s voice when he asks her out and she turns him down. No to coffee. No to dinners. It’s the easiest and safest way. Sure she misses him, misses the intimacy. And he seems like a knight in shining armour compared to George. But she can’t help remembering the ownership tendrils Cameron kept looping around her wrists. Now she’s had some time away from him she feels more herself again, just getting back to normal . . . if she can ever feel normal with George lurking in the background. Still, she’s keen to make sure Cameron doesn’t snowball this kangaroo issue into some media behemoth, so she decides to give him a call. It’s the first time she’s initiated contact since they broke up—but there’s no answer. The phone switches to mailbox and the sound of his voice sets her heart knocking. She had thought she might be immune to him—not as yet, it seems. She leaves a message to let him know she’s trying to get in touch. Then she’s out of range; the walls of the valley block the signals out.