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because here he was at the end of it, even
though the destination obviously wasn’t anywhere at all.
    When he pulled
out of the driveway, Brian Carrick had known only that he was going
further than he could walk. He had swung the tail out, the engine
of the big Scania prime mover chuffing and gruffing at this
unexpected activity, and he was surprised to realise that he had
known which way to turn. The truck was without a trailer, and Larry
had loaned it to them because their car had a flat battery—as if to
ensure he got to work. Well he hadn’t fixed the battery and he
wasn’t going to work. One of the many things forgotten or abandoned
these days, and now he was taking off as if escaping his whole
life. Where the hell was he going?
    It was three
months since New Zealand and the volcano—his skin had healed
although it left him rather botchy, and he was sure that he was all
right. He had started back to work—light duties only—and was glad
the tedious round of rehabilitation and councillors was ended. If
it was.
    He remembered
with a sickening sensation having glimpsed Judy in the rear vision
mirror as he drove away—he had promised to take her shopping but
instead left her for dead on the driveway, clutching her handbag
and shrieking after him, but he carried on anyway. It didn’t occur
to him until he reached the shopping centre that he might have at
least been decent enough to drop her off along the way. To where?
It seemed to Brian that he knew the answer, only it wouldn’t come
to mind. He was going this way, for some distance and if he didn’t
yet know where this way led to, still he knew he was going the
right way.
    “There will be
nightmares, there will be unexpected behaviour, there will be a
certain listlessness, a lack of concern for important issues.
Often, they have a lot of trouble getting their priorities
right.”
    Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder, they called it, at least on the forms for Accident
Compensation and Sickness Benefits that he had to fill in. In fact
the government had been very good about it although now their
patience was beginning to wear thin. They had paid the return trip
to Wellington for Judy and the kids, the hospital costs there, and
the expenses involved in bringing him home. They put him in Monash
Hospital until they sorted out that difficulty with his skin, and
he seemed fine, keen to get back to work, back into his life. But
nothing like that happened.
    “He will be
very nervous. He may be troubled by claustrophobia. He will sweat a
great deal, especially in confined spaces. Loud noises will be a
great trouble to him.”
    He talked to
the counsellor about it. Mary Ashwood was a young middle-class girl
with a degree and a theory to go with it. “Maybe it isn’t because
of what you saw but what you didn’t. There you were in the middle
of a massive disaster, and you were in a cellar and then
unconscious. You didn’t experience any of it. Maybe that’s what’s
troubling you.”
    So fucking
what?
    Onward he had
thundered into the evening, leaving the freeways and sprawling
suburbs of Melbourne far behind, up the Hume and onto the Northern
Highway that would take him eventually to Bendigo and he had some
friends there—maybe it was their company he was seeking? But once
he got beyond Kilmore, the highway began to swing slowly north-west
and he grew increasingly agitated. Yes, it was all coming back to
him now, constructed from vague flashes and faint impressions, but
definitely assembling itself in his mind. He had pressed on, for
the roadmap in his brain told him there was no road that went the
way he wanted until he reached Heathcote.
    There the
highway divided, left to Bendigo, right to Echuca and he chose the
latter option and immediately grew more at ease. There was no doubt
that it was somehow more correct, and so no choice but to drive on.
Eventually, he arrived at an insignificant place called Corop and
the road divided—left to Rochester, right to Stanhope and