Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [32]
But then I type it again, because when I stop being afraid of feeling, I do want her, curled against my back in bed, her hands across my chest.
First I ask her to cross-reference the names stolen from the 4WD hire centre with passenger lists from Sydney to Nairobi, advising to hint terrorism so the airlines immediately comply. Secondly, if a name from the hire centre matches with a passenger, I need her to return to my house. I tell her to pull up the length of string attached to a key buried beneath the rose bush.
In the kitchen, sealed in a gap behind the top tile behind the back left burner of the cooker, is a plastic freezer bag containing a credit card, driving licence, and passport. The picture is mine. The name is not. Three years ago I went undercover for Vice as a Charles Nash. I thought this man could one day be helpful, so I kept the identity live.
I instruct Anna to take out the bag, and replace the tile with some grouting from a tube and spatula kept under the sink, then FedEx the ID to Koala Rocks Youth Hostel, Queen Street, Sydney, and book Charles Nash on a flight to Nairobi.
And if a name doesn’t jump from one list to another, I ask her to book me on a flight to Heathrow. As Jim Dent.
Terra Incognita
Prodded life into the smouldering bike and crawled to and from the bank, ripping out exposed and rotten roots for kindling. Built the fire around the back wheel, making sure the flames licked against what tyre hadn’t melted into the sand. The black smoke beacon is my best chance of rescue. I’ve taken off the front wheel so I can roll it on the fire when the rear tyre has burned away. Although I could loosen the nuts with my left hand, I couldn’t even raise my elbow from my ribs when attempting to lift the wheel off. Doubt my shoulder could even take a crutch, if I decided to hobble out of here.
Am I weak to feel loneliness? A hardy explorer wouldn’t consider such abandonment a problem, just another challenge.
Took an hour of tedious and painful manoeuvring to boil water for some porridge. Spilled first pot when I tried to lift from flames with right hand, precious H2O hissed away. Swore to the sky, the grinning skeleton, at myself. I need a nurse, my mother, and have no shame in this admittance.
Or is it just the morbid thought of a last breath that makes me want to make peace with my parents?
No. I’m not planning on death just yet, so I have no need for this false longing. Because I found you, or because you found me, I could forget the past, my father, my mother, the flesh and blood that brought me into the world squealing, then abandoned me to the mercy of others. I know I should tell you more. I know I should’ve told you more, when we were lovers gently interrogating each other, finding out who we’d fallen for. You talked and I listened. You were open, free with who you were. I edited my biography, and you knew, but blamed it on my Englishness. When we meet again I promise I’ll tell all, the uncensored Cal, the triumphs and tragedies. But to talk about this now would sound like my last words. Which they are not.
Energised by coffee, and electric thoughts of you, I scrabbled to the top of the creek bank. Only 2–3 m high, but triumphant as Hillary on the peak of Everest, even though the view was more scrub and sand, spinifex and the odd dead tree. Except for a stand of gum trees around what I thought was a pale, rocky outcrop. I almost jumped on my broken leg for joy when I saw what looked to be a building. I pulled out the binoculars and focused. Yes, man-made. A tumbledown ruin without roof or rafter.
Scrabbled back to the bike and checked the map. Neither ruin nor creek marked. I’m definitely south of the Sandover Highway, but how far? For the 50 km I wound the creek bed, the bearing had only slightly wavered between NNE and NE. 20–30 km seems a fair guess.
And the tumbledown shack? 5–7 km further up the creek. I can’t waste water and energy on both as a destination. The ruin could be an old storehouse for a homestead. Maybe a track leading to an unmarked