In the Winter Dark

  ‘It’s eaten the guts out,’ she said, but he saw it clearly enough. The animal was tethered.

  He touched the wound. It was a fairly clean incision. He’d been expecting a mauling gash.

  ‘There’s a hole in its head,’ she said. ‘Two holes. Awgh. Horrible.’

  ‘Teeth, you think?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Been dead a while, I’d say. You hear anything?’

  ‘No. I was asleep.’

  ‘You’re a sound sleeper.’

  ‘I was tired. That’s all. Oh, shit, look at this. Everything we had. It’s scary. I mean, what would do it?’

  It was his turn to shrug.

  ‘I thought cockies knew everything about the bush.’

  ‘Hell, I’m no farmer.’ He thought of that silhouette in the orchard.

  ‘It’s wild dogs or something. Must be. Oh, God, it’s my fault. One day alone and this happens. What do I do?’

  ‘S’pose you ring someone at the shire office.’

  ‘Haven’t got a phone.’

  Damn her, he’d have to do it himself. She was looking at him; what did she expect, middle-aged resolve?

  ‘Don’t s’pose you’ll be able to bury this lot by yourself. You got a shovel, I imagine?’

  As he dug in the gravelly earth with the sun on his back and the stink of blood and bowels rising from the awful pile with its weaving net of flies, Jaccob tasted red wine from the night before and he felt his faint headache get a hold, mounting with his anger and the exertion and the worm of worry in him. The girl looked on, biting the skin behind her fingernails in a way that made him sick. When he’d finished, an hour later, he threw the shovel down and went to his car without a word. He needed a shower. He saw her with her fists by her sides in the mirror as he swung away.

  The shower took the dirt off him, but not the rest. He had to notify somebody, but it was Sunday. No use phoning the shire. In any case, over the phone he’d sound like a fool or a drunk – or both. Maybe he could go in and see somebody.

  He made himself drive slowly on his way to town. He had no idea what to do or where to start. He wondered if perhaps he was overreacting. Someone’d lost some stock – it happened. He was just upset about losing privacy, that’s all. And that dream; he could have done without that. His empty stomach churned.

  Town was a cluster of shops and houses along the highway the Sink road eventually ran into. It was an apple town on the wane, a small, hopeless little place. Jaccob was a stranger here. Nothing was open on a Sunday except the churches, Protestant and Catholic, with their smattering of parked cars. In the park beneath the Anzac memorial by the river, some families picnicked. They looked like weekenders passing through. He saw the ugly war statue and its message LEST WE FORGET.

  He pulled up outside the Bridge & Beam pub. A fat old woman with silver hair piled back off her face was sweeping the verandah. Half-dressed people straddled windowsills on the second floor to get a bit of sun. Jaccob sat there in his car. He didn’t know anyone here, which was how he’d always wanted it, but who could he talk to? He’d met the estate agent a few times, but it was pointless talking to him. What could he say anyhow? He felt his mind bog down with it all. He felt a little faint. Things shimmered at the edge of his vision. He needed something in his stomach, that’s all. He’d taken a hiding from that red wine – and the whiskies on top.

  A car passed, covered in a homely patina of gravel dust. Local plates. Normal, regular. Nothing unusual, nothing out of kilter. The interior of Jaccob’s car warmed in the sun. He got out for some air.

  He stood awkwardly under the gaze of the hotel guests above and wiped the sweat off his face. He set out along the forlorn main street. In the windows of the shops were little notices written on cardboard from old Cornflakes packets. FARM HELP WANTED . . . PRAM FOR SALE – IN GOOD NICK . . . CLEAN METHODIST GIRL NEEDS ROOM AND FACULTIES . . . Faculties, he thought; I could do with faculties. Everything in the shop windows seemed faded and forgotten. Stale insect strips, old Coke and Bushells ads, curling paperbacks (Love Nest, Truckin’ Man), the desiccated bodies of flies and silverfish. Jaccob walked. He couldn’t sustain a proper thought. Some kids tore by on bikes. He felt bile at the back of his throat.

  Ida Stubbs came upon her neighbour puking in the street. At first she thought he was a drunk from the pub, but when he finished his quick little retch and came up for air, she saw his sun-cured face and she recognized him.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  He nodded, looked up, seemed puzzled a moment. ‘Oh. Mrs Stubbs.’

  ‘Too early for a hair o’ the dog on a Sunday.’

  He tried to smile.

  She got him back down the street to the milkbar and bought him a drink. She sat him at a formica table by the window.

  ‘Thanks. But . . . a spearmint milkshake?’

  ‘They’re out of strawberry and vanilla. They never have chocolate and the banana’s well worth avoiding. Anyway, the milk’ll put a lining on your stomach.’

  ‘My mother used to say that.’

  Ida smiled, but it stung a little. Coming out of the church with the smell of incense on her, she’d felt younger than she had for years. My mother, indeed.

  ‘I didn’t know you were a churchgoer, Mr Jaccob.’

  ‘Oh,’ he left off sucking the green milk, ‘I’m not.’

  Some blood had returned to his face. It wasn’t a bad-looking face, really, all beaten and burnt. It made him look older than he was, though he was still young enough to be her son. Sons. She’d missed not having boys.

  ‘I got married in a church,’ he said, ‘went to a funeral or two. But that’s about all the church I’ve had lately.’

  Ida laughed. ‘I think you missed my point. That was a polite country way of asking what brings you to the metropolis.’ She laughed again.

  The man looked embarrassed. This was the most they had spoken since he’d moved here. Outside, kids weaved up and down on grotesquely modified bikes. She knew some of them – the banker’s boy and the little pain those new teachers had brought with them. All townies.

  ‘Listen, would you mind if I left this stuff and just had a soda water?’

  Ida laughed. ‘Course not. Give it here – I’ll drink it.’

  She got him another drink and watched him sip meekly.

  ‘How do you get hold of someone from the shire council on a Sunday, do you think?’ he asked. ‘S’pose I should have come across and asked you and your husband before I drove in.’

  Ida looked at him. He wasn’t just embarrassed, the man was frightened. He looked crook. The council? She became careful.

  ‘On a Sunday? I’d say it was a dead loss.’ A lie so soon after confession, but she felt something out of whack here. ‘I thought you’d be after a chemist, the way you look. Is it urgent?’

  ‘I don’t . . . really know.’

  He seemed to be considering something, sizing her up.

  ‘Actually I don’t know what it is at all.’

  ‘Maybe you’d best tell me. After all these years I reckon I must know a thing or two.’

  He tried a thin smile and looked into his drink. ‘Well, the other night . . . It sounds stupid to a farmer’s wife, I imagine . . .’

  She shrugged.

  ‘One; the other night I thought I saw something in the orchard. Only a shadow, it was too dark to see, but I sort of felt, knew, sensed that it didn’t fit. Like it didn’t belong. I had the idea it was long and bigger than, you know, native animals. I just thought I imagined it, you know, man alone, new to the area, cityslicker. And then two; last night the couple across the valley, the young people, they lost ten big birds – those muscovies they’ve got – and a goat.’

  ‘Well, stock goes astray. Birds especially. You —’

  ‘When I said lost I meant killed, mutilated. Disembowelled, I guess you’d say.’

  Ida felt her chest tighten. ‘Ah.’

  He opened his hands in a gesture of uncertainty.

&nbsp
; ‘I just thought we might be in for a dog problem in the valley. Wild dogs. Maybe the shire could lay baits for us or something.’

  Ida got him up out of there before he knew what was happening, and on the street he looked flabbergasted.

  ‘What I suspect,’ he said, ‘is that we’ve got trouble on our hands.’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Mr Jaccob!’

  A slight breeze lifted dust along the street. In summer this place was like a desert and Ida hated coming in here to buy anything at all. She walked him across to the river to give herself some time to think.

  ‘What about the Agriculture Protection Board? Someone told me once —’

  ‘Look, you don’t want those twits out there.’

  ‘I just —’

  ‘You’re not a farmer, are you, Mr Jaccob?’ She found herself fiddling with the brassy little brooch on her lapel. Maurice had given it to her, the occasion slipped her mind.

  ‘No. I’m not, but I don’t see —’

  ‘What you should be able to see is that it’s a Sink matter. We’ll sort it out ourselves like neighbours should.’ Listen to you, Ida, she thought; like neighbours indeed! But she thought of that little dog and the bloody collar on the chain. Something was wrong alright, but Maurice wouldn’t want anybody tramping about in uniform on his land. The sight of an officer of any species was enough to get him sweaty. His family was like that. Of course it’s rubbed off on me too, she thought; I don’t want busy-bodies poking around my home.

  She just needed a moment to think. Her wool suit seemed tight and prickly all of a moment.

  I was still sitting on the bridge mooning when Ida came thrash-arsing around the bend, and only the sorry slack flesh that passes for my backside kept me from going into the water. The ute wallopped across the bridge and skidded to the other side of the road. She backed it up with a tearing of gravel. She threw open the passenger door.

  ‘Shit and corruption, woman, what’re you doing? You been hearing the wrong gospel, or what?’

  ‘Get in.’

  She looked dead serious. I obeyed.

  RONNIE SAW the car pull in and she picked up a scarf and went out to meet him. As she got in she heard the mournful country music and she could barely keep from grimacing.

  ‘They said seven,’ he murmured, as though to apologize for being late. ‘What’s your name, anyway?’

  ‘Ronnie.’

  ‘Jaccob. Murray Jaccob.’

  She didn’t quite shrug. She felt all splintery and nervous and her rounding belly felt suddenly obvious and awful. Going up to the neighbours’ place for dinner wasn’t her idea, that’s for sure. But anyway, here she was, being dressed, fed, nursed and chaffeured by someone she didn’t even know, who was taking her to more old strangers and it was clear he wasn’t getting a thrill out of it either.

  ‘This whole thing is really weird.’

  He didn’t reply. She wished her mouth didn’t run on ahead of her so much. Her mouth was never any use to her when she needed it. As they drove she thought about this old guy, Murray Jaccob. She still hadn’t thanked him for the other night. He had done her a favour, after all. But, shit, everything was so miserable right now she wondered if he might have done her a bigger favour by not finding her down there and letting her freeze to death. Oh, violins, Ronnie. But things were shitty, you couldn’t pretend otherwise. She felt the pull of the car twisting up the gravel drive of the Stubbses’ place where the house lights spilled out onto the grass and the silhouette of a man stood in the doorway.

  I was washed and dressed and nervous as a heifer. Their lights cut their way toward me. Jaccob’s little Toyota turned in and when the engine shut off, the only sound was the creeping up of the night. No yapping dog. Just the night. Jaccob got out first. The girl seemed to hesitate.

  Inside in the light, I saw that Jaccob wore a sports jacket with a pair of dark trousers and suede shoes. It wasn’t a bad outfit, though it made me self-conscious, not having dressed up. The girl had on a pair of jeans that looked as though they were made of PVC. She had a torn windcheater and oil in her hair. My daughters were prissy little misses when they were young, and in a way I hated their smart frocks and sensible shoes, but I guess I had more to be grateful for than I knew.

  I brought Jaccob and the girl into the living room with the fat, grey sofa. Ida came in smeared with sauce of some kind, and with cords of hair hanging steamy over her face. She saw Jaccob’s clothes and blushed.

  ‘Anyone for a drink?’ I asked.

  ‘What do you have?’ the girl asked.

  ‘What would you like?’ I cranked up a smile.

  ‘Oh, sherry’ll do.’

  ‘That’ll suit me too,’ Jaccob added, and I knew he was lying, but nervous.

  ‘Sherry.’ Sherry!

  I found some sherry in the cooking cupboard in the kitchen and as I pulled it out, Ida raised her eyebrows at me and I grinned. When I got back I noticed that the space between Jaccob and the girl on the sofa was enough to land a plane on. I wondered how the girl had gotten herself into those jeans. She was obviously pregnant. Where was the boyfriend? I looked at Jaccob. Surely not.

  No one said much. We quaffed our sherry. La-de-da.

  For dinner Ida served up potato pie, and we all managed to slum long enough to drink beer. I used to brew my own. It tasted good and it hit like a hammer. The girl, who I discovered was called Ronnie, had what people used to call an elfin face – kind of perky and well-made. All through the meal I kept thinking about where the bloke was, where her parents came from, what she was doing at the Sink anyway? She didn’t look like any farmgirl to me. She ate like she was used to some higher life. It caught Ida’s attention too, and our eyes met and Ida’s brows went up again.

  ‘So how are you finding your place, Mr Jaccob?’ she asked, as if she didn’t already know.

  Jaccob looked caught. ‘In general, you mean? It’s a beautiful old house.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ida replied, as though it really hadn’t occurred to her before. ‘Yes, it’s always been the grand place of the valley.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s a nice place to watch the fruit drop.’ I could barely keep a grip on myself when I thought of that house – that great white thing. It was like an object that wouldn’t let itself be destroyed.

  Jaccob laughed uneasily.

  I poured more beers. Everyone was drinking quickly out of discomfort.

  ‘When I was a kid,’ I said, ‘it was full of cats.’

  ‘Cats?’ The girl moved her cutlery like she was performing a brain operation.

  ‘Yeah. The woman who lived there was pretty keen on them. She had hundreds of ’em. She lived alone.’

  ‘Funny,’ Ida said, ‘how lonely people often keep cats when they’re such uncompanionable – is that the word – unfriendly sorts of animals. No loyalty. You wonder what comfort that can be.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The girl smiled. ‘They are their own masters, aren’t they?’

  ‘Clean sort of animals, though,’ Ida murmured. ‘Still, they’re not my cup of tea. You see those women on TV with Siamese cats on the backs of their chairs, and you’d swear the cats knew more than they let on. Untrustworthy. Not like a dog.’ She seemed to darken in the face a little then and there was a silence. ‘Apple pie?’

  While Ida was out of the room getting the dessert, the girl said:

  ‘Over at Bakers Bridge there’s some weirdos who have this strange thing about cats.’

  ‘Bakers Bridge is nothing but weirdos nowadays,’ I said. ‘They all come down with their dole money and sit on good farmland and let it go to waste. Bloody vermin.’

  ‘Which weirdos are these?’ Jaccob asked the girl. ‘I mean which particular brand of weirdo are they?’ He laughed. He seemed to be loosening up a little. ‘There’s orange ones and ones that think the world is gonna blow up just after the flying saucers lift them off. There’s even the old hippies, still there going grey in —’

  ‘These are serious types,’ Ronnie said
.

  ‘They’re serious about cats,’ I said, trying to catch Jaccob’s eye for a laugh. ‘What do they do, turn ’em into handbags?’

  She smiled a little.

  ‘Close. They kill ’em. For blood. Sacrifices, you know. They’re sort of witches.’

  I laughed, but no one else seemed to think it was funny.

  ‘Sick bastards,’ I said.

  Ida came in with the pie.

  We ate and didn’t talk much until the girl launched into it.

  ‘Well, let’s get to the point then.’

  There was an awkward pause.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ida, ‘why not.’

  ‘Well?’

  I ate my apple pie. Jaccob put his spoon down.

  ‘I hear you lost some stock,’ I said to the girl.

  ‘Two geese, eight muscovy ducks and a goat.’

  I kept on eating my apple pie. The log fire had begun to burn down a little.

  ‘They had their guts torn out,’ said Jaccob, ‘even the goat.’

  ‘You buried them?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said.

  ‘Pity. Would have been useful to have a look.’

  ‘And leave fresh meat lying about when something’s lurking around out there?’ She looked at me with proper contempt. ‘You must be kidding.’

  ‘Was its throat cut?’

  ‘No,’ Jaccob said. ‘Two holes in the head.’

  ‘Bullet holes?’

  ‘Looked like teeth marks to me.’ He shrugged. It annoyed me, him doing that.

  ‘What do you think it was?’

  ‘A big dog? A few of them?’ Again, he shrugged.

  ‘Any tracks?’

  He looked at the girl. She looked disgusted.

  ‘We didn’t think to look,’ he said.

  ‘If it’d been a dog,’ I said, wiping cream from my lips, ‘the birds would have been mauled and there’d be feathers everywhere. The whole place would be covered in ’em. There’d be tracks and scuffs all over. You,’ I said to the girl, ‘couldn’t have slept through it if you were dead. If it was dogs.’