small-town gossip? Iâm more than twice your age.
Thatâs not avoiding gossip! What if he saw us kissing on the road?
What if he saw me do this?
Stop it, she said. Stop it.
Through the trees I caught a glimpse of white. We broke from the track and stepped
over a collapsing fence of hand-cut posts. The ute sat ringed by slag heaps and the
telltale humps of open shafts.
There, Christie said. The bullets were in the glove box.
The ute had no plates and the ignition had been hotwired. A scribbled nest of leaves
and string lay on the driverâs seat. The bonnet was up, and someone had prised the
serial plate from the engine block. I looked around at the destroyed landscape and
the rusted car and Christie standing with my T-shirt fitted tight across her breasts.
I pressed myself to her.
All those bullets, I said. Great place to make a mess.
You know, old man, you donât perform and Iâll throw you down a mineshaft.
I laughed, and tried to sit Christie on the tailgate of the ute. It was just the
right height.
Quit it, she said. You have to tell Pete Iâm not your daughter.
I nodded, caressing the back of her neck. Of course. Iâll tell him first thing.
You better. What do you think happened here?
No idea.
Do you think this is one of the clearings? The ones we saw from the air?
I stepped back and looked reluctantly down the hill. Yes, I said. I rolled up my
sleeve and looked at the scar. The second one. Here.
Thatâs so weird, Christie said. I wonder what it means?
Who cares? Right now I have to get you home.
3
The next day we rose early to go for a walk before I started work. Christie wanted
to find the third clearing. The dayâs first light brushed the tops of the gums with
gold. In a terracotta birdbath beside the front path a pair of nimble honeyeaters
splashed and flapped and then were gone among the leaves.
I like it here, I said. You donât get that in Mandera.
I guess, Christie said.
What do you mean, you guess?
Itâs so quiet. Especially when youâre away at work. Itâs a bit freaky.
A bit freaky? Youâll get used to it.
Sometimes I speak to Christie as if she were a school girl.
We followed the same track as the day before. Old rain had washed deep channels through
the dirt, and here and there spines of rock surfaced from the deep. I pointed them
out to Christie.
Basalt, I said. Six million years old. Granite. Three billion years.
If we have a boy, Christie said, letâs call him Granite.
Do you think you might already be pregnant? I couldnât stop myself asking.
Jeez! she said, laughing. Is it that urgent?
I thought of the need to procreate that had seized my friends over the decades. The
women first, then the men, maddened by the desire to breed. In my work, time was
measured in millions of years. Against that slow patience of stone the need to reproduce
had always seemed like vanity. Then I met Christie, and I felt my slackened skin
beneath her hand, and I saw that the real vanity was my own. I had not thought to
have children because I had not thought that I would die.
We reached a saddle and began to descend. Down in the trees I saw the pale silver
eye of a tin roof. A small house of tawny stone lay in the third clearing, bordered
by marshy ground ripe with the prints of roos. The house had empty sockets in place
of doors and windows. Its garden had long ago drowned in a sea of gorse.
Hello, Christie called softly. Anyone home?
We stood and listened, and there was no sound. Christie walked ahead and entered
the house, calling as she went. I followed her onto a rough dirt floor and let my
eyes adjust. A stack of timber stood against one wall, keeping watch over a mouse-soiled
mattress. I wondered idly who had used that bed.
At the back I found a tiny bedroom, with a mezzanine built into the far wall. Above
the platform a stained-glass window glowed ochre and gold in the early sun.
Look at this, I called.
Christie came up
Thatâs not avoiding gossip! What if he saw us kissing on the road?
What if he saw me do this?
Stop it, she said. Stop it.
Through the trees I caught a glimpse of white. We broke from the track and stepped
over a collapsing fence of hand-cut posts. The ute sat ringed by slag heaps and the
telltale humps of open shafts.
There, Christie said. The bullets were in the glove box.
The ute had no plates and the ignition had been hotwired. A scribbled nest of leaves
and string lay on the driverâs seat. The bonnet was up, and someone had prised the
serial plate from the engine block. I looked around at the destroyed landscape and
the rusted car and Christie standing with my T-shirt fitted tight across her breasts.
I pressed myself to her.
All those bullets, I said. Great place to make a mess.
You know, old man, you donât perform and Iâll throw you down a mineshaft.
I laughed, and tried to sit Christie on the tailgate of the ute. It was just the
right height.
Quit it, she said. You have to tell Pete Iâm not your daughter.
I nodded, caressing the back of her neck. Of course. Iâll tell him first thing.
You better. What do you think happened here?
No idea.
Do you think this is one of the clearings? The ones we saw from the air?
I stepped back and looked reluctantly down the hill. Yes, I said. I rolled up my
sleeve and looked at the scar. The second one. Here.
Thatâs so weird, Christie said. I wonder what it means?
Who cares? Right now I have to get you home.
3
The next day we rose early to go for a walk before I started work. Christie wanted
to find the third clearing. The dayâs first light brushed the tops of the gums with
gold. In a terracotta birdbath beside the front path a pair of nimble honeyeaters
splashed and flapped and then were gone among the leaves.
I like it here, I said. You donât get that in Mandera.
I guess, Christie said.
What do you mean, you guess?
Itâs so quiet. Especially when youâre away at work. Itâs a bit freaky.
A bit freaky? Youâll get used to it.
Sometimes I speak to Christie as if she were a school girl.
We followed the same track as the day before. Old rain had washed deep channels through
the dirt, and here and there spines of rock surfaced from the deep. I pointed them
out to Christie.
Basalt, I said. Six million years old. Granite. Three billion years.
If we have a boy, Christie said, letâs call him Granite.
Do you think you might already be pregnant? I couldnât stop myself asking.
Jeez! she said, laughing. Is it that urgent?
I thought of the need to procreate that had seized my friends over the decades. The
women first, then the men, maddened by the desire to breed. In my work, time was
measured in millions of years. Against that slow patience of stone the need to reproduce
had always seemed like vanity. Then I met Christie, and I felt my slackened skin
beneath her hand, and I saw that the real vanity was my own. I had not thought to
have children because I had not thought that I would die.
We reached a saddle and began to descend. Down in the trees I saw the pale silver
eye of a tin roof. A small house of tawny stone lay in the third clearing, bordered
by marshy ground ripe with the prints of roos. The house had empty sockets in place
of doors and windows. Its garden had long ago drowned in a sea of gorse.
Hello, Christie called softly. Anyone home?
We stood and listened, and there was no sound. Christie walked ahead and entered
the house, calling as she went. I followed her onto a rough dirt floor and let my
eyes adjust. A stack of timber stood against one wall, keeping watch over a mouse-soiled
mattress. I wondered idly who had used that bed.
At the back I found a tiny bedroom, with a mezzanine built into the far wall. Above
the platform a stained-glass window glowed ochre and gold in the early sun.
Look at this, I called.
Christie came up
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