The Choke E-Book

Sofie Laguna

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 469

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Justine Lee was born breech, entering the world on her knees. She reads words the wrong way round. But she sees things more clearly than the adults around her think. Raised by her Pop since her parents left, Justine helps feed the chooks and makes dens down by the narrow stretch of the Murray River they call the Choke, dodging the violent games of her half-brothers.When Justine hears her dad's coming home at Christmas, she feels a mixture of excitement and dread. He's a dangerous man, and his presence will close in on Justine's young life, like the riverbanks at the Choke. She must find a way to flow onwards, breaking the cycle of violence and poverty through friendship, resilience and her own strength.Winner of the 2018 Australian Indie Fiction Award

Leseprobe

The Choke

Winner of the 2018 Indie Award — Best Novel

Shortlisted for the 2018 Australian Book Industry Award

Shortlisted for the 2018 ABA Booksellers Choice Award

Shortlisted for the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards

Shortlisted for the 2018 Australian Literary Gold Medal

Longlisted for the 2018 Voss Literary Prize

Longlisted for the 2018 Stella Award

Longlisted for the 2018 Kibble Award

Sofie Laguna’s second novel for adults, The Eye of the Sheep— shortlisted for the Stella Prize—won the 2015 Miles Franklin Literary Award and was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her first novel for adults, One Foot Wrong, published throughout Europe, the US and the UK, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Sofie’s many books for young people have been published in the US, the UK and in translation throughout Europe and Asia. She has been shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Award, and her books have been named Honour Books and Notable Books by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Sofie lives in Melbourne with her husband, illustrator Marc McBride, and their two sons.

‘Laguna builds suspense deftly and without mercy. From the moment The Choke begins, a slingshot’s elastic is precisely, steadfastly being pulled back … and the stone Laguna lets fly ricochets inside you for days afterwards.’

— Sydney Morning Herald

‘In her sagacious way, Laguna manages to show both how an upbringing inescapably defines a person and the ways in which a person can rise phoenix-like from their past to create a life of their own reckoning.’

— The Australian

‘Laguna has beautifully captured the bewilderment of childhood and the emergence of adulthood in her character of Justine. It is so unquestionably heartbreaking … This is an extraordinary read.’

— Readings Monthly

‘A book that is both gritty and utterly exquisite. The Choke is another extraordinary novel from a writer who is never afraid to go deep into the darkest recesses of human depravity and find something beautiful.’

— Compulsive Reader

‘Laguna shows all the mastery of language that garnered her a Miles Franklin Award for The Eye of the Sheep … full of richly drawn characters, with a dialogue that crackles and a narrative that draws you right in. Beauty and ugliness sit squatly side by side.’

— The Big Issue

‘Don’t for a moment imagine that, after taking out the Miles Franklin Award in 2015 for her novel The Eye of the Sheep, the best of Sofie Laguna’s work is behind her. The Choke is every bit as masterful and devastating, as well as being utterly addictive.’

— The Herald Sun

‘There is great emotional depth to Sofie Laguna’s writing, and her characters are alive in their vulnerability and beauty … Sofie Laguna is one of the most gifted writers in Australia right now. Don’t miss this.’

— Good Reading

‘Justine is vivid and unique … Laguna’s brilliance is in the immersive empathy the reader feels for her.’

— The Saturday Paper

‘Sofie Laguna is a writer who can wrench beauty even from the horror of a child caught up in the toxic world of bastardised masculinity … The Choke is emotionally intense, deeply engaging and quietly haunting.’

— Books + Publishing

The Choke

For Marc, with love and gratitude

In memory of Aileen

The Choke

Sofie Laguna

Pushkin Press

A Gallic Book

Copyright © Sofie Laguna 2017

Sofie Laguna has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

First published in Australia in 2017 by Allen & Unwin,

83 Alexander Street, Crows Nest, NSW 2065

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention

No reproduction without permission

All rights reserved

Excerpt on pp.111–12 taken from ‘Eldorado’ by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1849.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781805334446

Typeset in Garamond Pro byPalimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire

Printed in the UK by CPI

(CR0 4YY)

Sapere aude

Horace,

First Book of Letters

Contents

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Part Two

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Acknowledgement

Part One

1.

Kirk turned his slingshot over in his hand. ‘This thing is going to hurt, Justine.’

‘Really hurt,’ said Steve.

‘Don’t smile, or I’ll aim it for the hole.’

I closed my mouth. Some of the teeth were taking a long time to grow through the gum.

Kirk pulled the elastic strap tight. ‘You’ve got ten seconds. One … two … three … four … five …’

I took off through the trees as the numbers faded behind me.

I ran beside the river, sometimes looking ahead, sometimes at the currents. Soon I heard Kirk and Steve following. We kept the same distances between us, not trying to run away, not trying to catch up. We knew where the branches came low and close to our faces, where the roots crossed the path like rope and where the fallen trunks tried to block the way. Kirk, Steve and me moved through the jungle like Pop and Sandy running from the Japs. Pop never knew what the war was for. Why a river of blood? Why so many boys? What was it flowed in the veins of those bastards?

We ran and ran—they were not the enemy and I was not the prey. The river ran beside us, muddy and high, eating at the sides.

‘Coming, Justine!’ Kirk called.

One day I’d have a boat ready. A raft of branches I’d weave together with Pop’s towrope. I’d hide it at the top of The Choke, in the trees that stood underwater.

I turned and saw Kirk closer behind me now. I ran faster. I felt a sting in the back of my knee.

‘Got you!’ Kirk shouted.

I turned and Kirk held up his slingshot. I kept running. I felt another sting on my leg. I screamed, and the galahs flew up out of the branches screeching and screaming at the same time as me. I turned again, and saw Kirk pick up another stone. I stopped, my face throbbing as I scraped up a handful of rocks and dirt. I ran at Kirk. ‘No!’ I shouted. ‘No!’ All the cockatoos shrieked and blasted from the branches in sprays of white. I threw my dirt and rocks at Kirk.

Kirk cried out, dropping his slingshot, hands to his eyes. I picked up another handful of rocks, as he stood spitting dirt, wiping it from his face. Then he turned and left the river trail, running through the trees to our hideouts. Steve followed and I was close behind.

They tore at the branches of my hideout. They pulled away my bark-and-leaf walls, my towel-and-branch roof, my chimney of twigs. I threw rocks and dirt at them, then I ran to Kirk’s hideout and kicked at the top of the log. The log fell away, breaking into pieces. Kirk threw me on the ground and sat on me. I kicked and bucked, pushing up and down, twisting my head from side to side so that I saw the sky in pieces, dirt to sky dirt to sky dirt to sky.

Steve held the blade of his pocketknife to my face. ‘Better close your mouth,’ he said. I spat in his face.

‘Ugh!’ He wiped his cheek and I pulled my arm out from under Kirk, knocking the knife from Steve’s hand. Steve tried to take hold of my ankles but I kicked my legs too fast for him to get a grip. Our faces were red and hot, our breath hard and fast as we fought and struggled against each other as if it was the same war Pop and Sandy fought. If you lost what was it flowed in your veins, for what reason?

Kirk pinned my arms under his knees; I could only wriggle like a worm under the weight of his body. I pushed and grunted against him.

‘Enough,’ said Kirk and suddenly, as fast as we started, we stopped. Kirk put his hands in the air. ‘Smoko,’ he said, climbing off and sitting beside me.

Steve let go of my ankles and looked for his knife in the leaves. The knife only had one small blade, eaten with rust, but Steve said Dad gave it to him. That the knife could kill. Steve carried it with him everywhere. I sat up and we shook dirt from our hair and faces and out from under our clothes. We pulled off our shoes and tipped out the stones. I lay beside Steve, his shoulder against mine.

Kirk stood, hands in his pockets, looking up. The red gums leaned towards each other, as if they wanted to touch, the same as the banks of the river at The Choke. Kirk, Steve and me were held by the trees and their branches in the shapes of heads, faces trapped inside, pressing to see through the bark. Our three worlds joined. Our mothers were different but we all had the same name—Lee.

Kirk walked into the triangle of our hideouts, where there was a ring of stones like the one around Pop’s fire. Steve and me followed. Kirk sat and pulled a wad of White Ox and a crumpled cigarette paper from his pocket. Steve and me sat too, watching as Kirk licked the shiny edge of the paper and rolled the tobacco into a cigarette. Stray pieces of tobacco stuck out each end, like a cigarette for a scarecrow. Kirk pulled a box of matches from his pocket. The cigarette glowed orange and Kirk coughed. He blew out the smoke and it billowed around his face. ‘Fuck,’ he said, coughing into the smoke. He passed it to Steve, who closed his eyes when the smoke went down, then blew it straight into the air in a stream, as if he had always been smoking and was good at it.

I said, ‘My turn.’

‘You’re too young,’ said Kirk.

‘No, I’m not.’

‘You’re only ten.’

‘How come Steve is allowed?’

‘He’s eleven.’

‘Yeah,’ said Steve.

‘And you’re a girl.’

‘I can still smoke.’

‘No, you can’t,’ said Kirk. ‘And don’t tell Pop.’

I kicked at the dirt. But I didn’t want to smoke.

Kirk and Steve passed the cigarette between them until it was so low it burned Kirk’s fingers. ‘Ouch!’ He flicked it into the air, then stubbed it out in the dirt with his boot. I scraped more dirt over the top. ‘Cigarette cemetery,’ said Kirk.

We got up, walked down to the river and sat on the edge. We threw sticks as far as we could, then stones to sink the sticks. The Choke was where the river was at its thinnest, the banks like giant hands around a neck. After the rain the Murray couldn’t hold, and it flooded, so the trees stood underwater. They stayed living until The Choke dried out and you could see the black water stains left behind on the trunks. You could see the cod moving across the river bottom, slow enough to spear.

We each picked up a stick and aimed. Kirk said, ‘If we had Pop’s Mauser we could shoot one and bring it home.’

‘Cook it on Pop’s fire,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ said Steve and Kirk.

‘Eat it with egg,’ I said.

Kirk aimed his stick at the water. ‘Kapow,’ he said, jerking it back. ‘Sorry, fish.’

Steve raised his stick and did the same. ‘Sorry, kangaroo,’ he said. ‘Kapow.’

‘Sorry, Mr Fisherman!’ I said and shot my stick.

Kirk and Steve laughed. We threw our guns out across the water and watched them fight the surface, then sink. Kirk said, ‘How about we leave you here, Justine? We could tie you to a tree. We could winch your mouth open so an owl could make a nest.’

Steve said, ‘Yeah, how about it?’

I said, ‘Yeah, how about it?’

‘Maybe next time,’ said Kirk.

‘Yeah, maybe next time,’ I said.

Kirk looked at the sky. ‘Better get back.’ We walked to our hideouts. Kirk came over and helped pick up my biggest branches, propping them against the pole-tree. Steve threw bark across the branches and pulled the towel tight for the roof. He took his knife from his pocket and cut the living branches for my shelf and Kirk shaped the esky. From inside my hideout I saw the forest between the branches. While Kirk and Steve fixed their hideouts, I scraped up piles of rocks and dirt as ammunition.

Soon Kirk said, ‘Come on. Pop will be waiting.’ We stood and looked at our hideouts, at the ring of stones, at the trees and the sky. Then we walked slowly, away from the Murray, along the path back to Pop’s Three.

2.

Pop’s house stood at the top of three acres that he bought when he came back from the war. He got a job at the mills where he cut trees into sleepers for the railway. I’d rather cut the bastards then lay ’em, he said. When Pop was a prisoner in the war, the enemy made him lay a track between Burma and Siam for the Eastern Bullet. We were the living dead, Pop told the Isa Browns. We were ghosts. The house on Pop’s Three was pale green, stained with a line of dirt that rose up and down like a wave around the fibro. It was if the house had once stood underwater, like the trees at The Choke.

When we went through the back gate Pop was sitting at his fire, smoking. He threw a small stick into the flames. ‘Tea’s in half an hour,’ he said. He got to his feet and crossed the yard to the kitchen.

I never left Pop’s Three after Donna split. It was me that split her. I was breech, waiting inside her on my knees. I thought that was the right way to come out. Pop and Dad drove Donna to the hospital. Who comes out on their knees? Who comes into this world begging? I heard Pop ask the chooks. Poor bloody Donna. The doctor and the nurse put their hands on Donna’s stomach, trying to turn me, but I wouldn’t turn. I thought it was the right way. The breech nearly killed her. Donna stayed with Dad and me for three years, in the house in Moama, but she was sewn up so badly the stitches couldn’t hold; one by one they came apart, then when I was three years old she split for good. Pop asked Relle, Dad’s first wife, to take me. She said, Any kid but Donna’s. So I stayed with Pop.

It was Pop who found me at the bottom of the yard the night after my mother left. There was a barbecue. All the Worlleys and the Lees were there, drinking, listening to music. Saw you were gone, said Pop. When I found you at the bottom of the yard you were cold as bloody ice. Christ knows where you were going. I was looking for my mother. Was she at The Choke? Did she have a boat hiding in the trees? That was the night you met the big man, Pop would say. You remember that, Jussy? The first night you met him, when he was Ethan Edwards? Pop had taken me inside and sat beside me on the couch, holding my hand as John Wayne crossed the television on his horse, hunting down the Indian. ‘So we’ll find ’em in the end, I promise you. Just as sure as the turnin’ of the earth.’ Only thing to stop you crying was the big man, Jussy. I heard John Wayne as Ethan Edwards blasting the enemy. Pop said, You get ’em, big man, and then I slept. Every time I woke, Pop and the big man were there; Pop holding my hand while the big man cracked his whip at the Comanches.

Dad said my mother got on a train to Lismore to see her sister. He said she kicked up a stink because she didn’t want to do what a wife signed up for. When Pop asked the sister, the sister said Donna never got off the train and she didn’t blame her. If someone doesn’t want to be found, there are places they can hide; they can make a shelter in the trees, from branches, from rocks and things people don’t want. Tyres, milk crates, piles of bricks. They can use camouflage; they can hide in old cars, in skips, they can make a house from a couch or two doors. Dad said he had an idea where Donna was, a bloody good idea, but Pop said, Leave it alone, Ray. Donna is gone.

Kirk and Steve and me and Pop sat around Pop’s fire with plates of sausages and fried eggs on our knees. Corn and peas rolled to the edges. The coals in the fire glowed orange. Everything on our plates was sticky with yolk and sauce. Pop said, ‘Eat the bloody peas.’ We stole looks at each other and let the peas fall to the ground, kicking dirt over the top. Pea cemetery. Beyond the circle of light, trees moved in the wind and crickets called to each other. Pop’s fire held us together, burning with invisible flames that wrapped around us like arms.

Down at The Choke the river pushed its way between the banks. The water knew the way it wanted to go. Past our hideouts, past our ring of stones, past the red gums leaning close enough to touch—it flowed forward all the way to the sea.

3.

After I had taken the dinner plates to the sink, the telephone rang, its sound cutting the quiet. Kirk sat up straighter in his chair. Steve turned towards the house. Pop grumbled as he got to his feet. ‘Al-bloody-right,’ he said as he walked slowly back to the kitchen—Pop had to keep his gut in one straight line or he woke the bug. The telephone kept ringing. Kirk and Steve and me waited to see if it was Dad. ‘Right,’ said Pop. ‘Where are you? When do you … Yeah, son … Reckon? Yeah … Yeah … How’s she running? Check the fanbelt? You looking at three hundred mile you want to know it’s tight … Yeah, son, see you Friday.’

Kirk said, ‘It’s Dad.’

‘What day is it?’ I asked.

‘Tuesday,’ said Kirk.

Dad hadn’t been home since July and now it was nearly the Christmas concert. I had lost my two top and bottom teeth since he last saw me, and there were no new ones at the top yet. I was the last one in my class. If I showed my teeth there was a hole. I stuck my tongue in and out of the gap, feeling the sides.

Steve took out his pocketknife and pulled out the blade. He turned it in his hands before closing it and putting it back in his pocket. There was only one blade, smaller than the one Pop used to cut my fingernails. Relle said it used to be Dad’s but Dad said bullshit. Relle said, It was yours, Ray, don’t you remember? and Dad said, I’d remember a knife as useless as that.

Pop came out with a can of beer. He sat down on his chair and pulled back the ring. The can hissed as if a small snake had escaped. He said, ‘Your old man’s coming home.’

Your old man’s coming home. When Pop spoke the words I felt our worlds—Kirk’s and Steve’s and mine—shrink and separate. The mother half was different. Ray had left one for the other. Relle found Ray and Donna in the truck. Donna was in Relle’s seat, with her arm on the handle where Relle’s arm went, her feet up on the dash where Relle’s feet used to go. Relle knew what Donna and Dad had been doing before she found them, as if her eyes had stolen away, climbed through the window into the cabin, hidden behind the mirror and seen everything that happened, then went back and told the head. I was eating Weet-Bix at the kids’ table not long after I moved to Pop’s, when I heard Pop and Dad talking.

You should have been more careful, Ray.

Accidents happen.

Yeah, and now I’m stuck with your bloody accident.

The table was so low it kept me at the height of their knees. If they didn’t look down they forgot I was there.

I can take her.

Not where you go, son.

Where do you think I go?

I know where you go.

Where’s that?

Leave it alone.

Just saying, I can take her.

Drop it, Ray.

Where would he take me? Where would we go? Nobody knew exactly where Ray went or what he did.

Behind us, the back-house stood dark and locked. The flames of Pop’s fire and the lights from the kitchen didn’t reach far enough to show it, but you could see its outline. It was another sort of black. The back-house was where Ray lived when he was home. The only thing missing was a shower. Ray filled up a bucket with warm water from the tap at Pop’s sink, then he hung it over a pipe with a funnel. When Ray was away the back-house was locked, the curtains closed. If you looked in the window you saw your own reflection. After the phone call the back-house seemed to grow bigger, as if Ray was pressing out the walls from the inside, reminding us, like the heads inside the red gums.

After dinner Relle came by to pick up Kirk and Steve. ‘Ray’s on the way,’ said Pop. Relle didn’t look at me. She never had. Not once. Any kid but Donna’s. She couldn’t identify me, as if I was an accident that hadn’t happened. I felt the hole in my mouth with my tongue. Who is born on their knees? Who doesn’t know the right way out?

Relle had black hair in a ponytail and her eyes were narrow like Steve’s—she kept the edges tight. Every day she drew dark green lines around them. ‘Oh yeah?’ she said. Her eyes gleamed. ‘When’s that?’

‘Friday,’ said Pop.

‘He’s going to teach me how to shoot,’ said Kirk.

‘No, he’s not,’ said Pop.

‘He said he would.’

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘Danny’s uncle is going to show us if Dad doesn’t. When he gets back from Gympie.’

‘Bloody Gympie,’ said Pop. ‘Want a beer, Relle?’

‘No, Dean’s at home. And I’m on the early shift tomorrow.’ Relle worked at the bakery in Nullabri. She started at four thirty in the morning when it was still dark. Just before the bakery opened she painted all the tops of the donuts with the flavours. But she never ate a single donut. The donuts could sit in shining rows—pineapple, lime, chocolate, strawberry—and she didn’t care. She didn’t even need a taste.

Kirk said, ‘Damn.’ Dean was Relle’s new boyfriend.

‘We got to go, boys,’ said Relle, jangling her keys. ‘Get in the car.’

‘Can we stay here?’ said Kirk.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there’s shit to do at home. Dean wants you to help him move the rubbish from down the side.’ Kirk and Steve groaned. ‘Get a move on,’ said Relle. ‘I want to pick up dinner for Dean on the way.’ The boys got up and followed Relle through the house. They wanted to stay the night at Pop’s, closer to where Dad would be coming to, closer to where he would park his truck, closer to where he would sleep and drink and be.

After they left I went down the back and checked on the chooks. I hooked my fingers through the wire of the run, leaned in close and saw the shadows of the girls sleeping on the roosting bars. Cockyboy was keeping guard at the top. He made a small warning cluck in his throat. I breathed in and smelled them there, the Isa Browns alive behind the wire, heads turned into the warmth of their feathers.

I went back inside, sat on my bed and looked through Road and Track. I saw a white Ford F100 with the same long aerial as Dad’s, the same bull bar. I cut down one side, and along the bottom. Now I was ten I cut the edges smooth and straight. I’d been doing cut-outs since I moved to Pop’s. I had to hide the good ones; if he needed paper to light the fire he came to my room. I got off the bed and put the truck on top of the pile in my cupboard. Dad would be home on Friday. It wasn’t enough time for the teeth to break through the gums. I pushed my tongue in and out of the hole. Kirk said, You could stick Brian Chisholm’s torch in the hole and go to work in the mines. You could get paid.

Friday was three more days. There wasn’t time.

4.

The next morning the sun came in through my window, yellow and bright. My room was the only one at the front of the house; I was the eyes of Pop’s Three, and could see the end of the road. I looked in my shelf and found my school skirt and a t-shirt. I got dressed and went into the kitchen. Pop was making his tea, his dressing-gown hanging loose around him. I poured Rice Bubbles into a bowl. The radio played the news. Pop rolled himself a White Ox. ‘Bloody Vietnam. It’s 1971, for Christ’s sake, and we’re still getting them out …’ He sighed and shook his head at the radio. ‘Jesus, Lizzy …’ Lizzy was his wife; she died in Ballarat Hospital in 1952. That was nineteen years ago, but for Pop it was only yesterday.

The smoke from Pop’s cigarette and the steam from the tea curled around each other, searching for an exit. Pop took another suck, and looked at his White Ox. ‘The kindest animal,’ he said.

I said, ‘Pop, what day is it?’

He took a sip from his tea. ‘Wednesday.’

‘And tomorrow is Thursday,’ I said. ‘Then it’s Friday.’

‘Well done, Justine,’ he said. ‘I knew you went to school for a reason.’

After breakfast Pop rolled another smoke and passed me the egg basket. The Isa Browns were waiting in the run. Pop stood at the open gate as Cockyboy stepped out first, looking from side to side, his red comb wobbling. There were long claws on the backs of his legs, like hooks. ‘Hey, Cockyboy? You taking care of the ladies?’ said Pop. The girls came next. ‘Hello, ladies; morning, girls; here, chook chook chook.’ The White Ox on Pop’s lip bobbed up and down, like a tiny waving arm.

Pop passed me the old water, full of seed shells and dirt. I tipped it out and carried the dish to the tap. I filled the dish with clean water and brought it back to the run. Then I took the egg basket to the chook boxes. The eggs were warm and smooth in my hands.

‘How many?’ Pop asked me.

‘Five,’ I said.

One time a hen wouldn’t move out of the box. ‘Nesting,’ said Pop. ‘Leave her alone.’ When at last she left the box to peck for seeds I looked in her nest. There were six eggs sitting in the straw. I heard the babies tapping on the shells from inside, squeaking and chirping, as if they were calling for help. I picked up one of the eggs and cracked open the shell with my fingers, but the chicken inside wasn’t ready. I could see right through its skin to its bones. Its eyes were closed and its neck was loose. It wasn’t big enough. I pushed the chicken back in and turned the egg around so Pop wouldn’t see the hole I’d made, then I put it back into the nest. But a fly must have flown into the nest and found the hole. Five chickens hatched from the eggs and one didn’t hatch at all. When Pop turned over the last egg he found the baby chicken with a maggot in its guts. Pop’s face turned red. He said, Leave my chickens alone, Justine.

I carried the basket of eggs up to the kitchen, then I put my empty schoolbag on my back. ‘See you, Pop,’ I called, but he’d gone into the chook house. I could hear him talking as he cleaned the run. Natural! Hell! Jesus! Lizzy! Right! Pop talked to the chooks and the radio and the television and the big man, he talked to Cockyboy, to the fire and the beer cans and his White Ox. And he talked to Lizzy. Lots of the words were just sounds, spoken under his breath, so I couldn’t tell one word from another. Then a word would be spoken loud. Fault! Sandy! Know! Blood! I didn’t know where the words began, what came before and what came after. It was like trying to read; I could only guess.

I walked along the Henley Trail to the bus stop, stepping over the puddles that were there, even in summer. In Yolamundi the grass and the roads and the bush were always damp and shining with the Murray. It lay in long shallow puddles under the trees, it darkened the roads and filled the potholes. The red gums knew how to grow in the river. They didn’t care how deep it got, how wide, how fast it flowed, they dug in and held on and kept growing.

As I walked I sang carols for the concert. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know. My school shoes pinched my toes at the top of every step. Where the treetops glisten and children listen. The concert wasn’t far away now. May all your Christmases be white! Before the fall-out with the Worlleys I never walked the trail alone. I would cut across the paddock to the Worlleys’ farm, and walk along Dray Road with whichever of the Worlleys was going to school that day. There were six cousins. One was a girl called Kathy and the other five were boys and some were brothers. Kathy wasn’t a cousin; she was a sister. Kathy was small with one eye that looked far into the distance.

Jamie, the oldest Worlley, used to walk out in front as if he was Cockyboy and we were the chooks. Before the fall-out we would be together on the school bus. The cousins made a lot of noise. Jamie always sat in the middle of the back seat; he stretched out his arms on both sides and said, ‘Ah, all mine.’ Nobody knew if I was a Worlley or a Lee. We were all together.

The Worlley farm had three caravans in a circle, like a town. Geese guarded the circle, hissing and biting if a car drove in. They watched over Mother Margy’s pansies, and the wrecked cars, and the piles of planks and the calves that were born too soon. The geese had their own island in the middle of the Worlley dam. The foxes tried to swim across but the geese made a line, joining their wings one to the other, hissing and honking. There was a rusted car with no windows coming out of the dam. Uncle Ian said, That’s where you end up if you drink and smoke pot at the same time, and Dad said, As long as you had fun on the way down.

Before the fall-out, when we were friends with the Worlleys, Pop and me and Kirk and Steve went to the Worlley farm for barbecues. One day Pop found a long piece of yellow plastic at the scrap yard. He rolled it up and took it under his arm back to the Worlleys’. Pop and Uncle Ian lined bricks across the top of the plastic and laid it out so the plastic ran down the hill. ‘Turn on the bloody hose!’ Pop called out to Uncle Ian.

We were all there, waiting for the water to come from the hose: Jacky and Lachie and Kathy and Jamie and Tyler and Ee Worlley and some more of their cousins from Wodonga, and Steve and Kirk and Kirk’s mate Danny and me. Water came blasting from the hose and Pop pointed it at the plastic. The kids screamed and shouted.

Jamie Worlley went first. Shouting as he slid, both hands in the air. Then we all went down; we went down alone and we went down together, screaming and laughing as we slid. Pop and Uncle Ian stood on the sides shouting, ‘Go, you beauty, go!’ The Worlley farm was so full of Worlleys and Lees and cousins and friends it felt like the whole town was there. We belonged together.

Jamie went into the caravans and came out with bottles of shampoo and detergent. ‘Don’t tell Mum,’ he said. He squirted the bottles over the yellow plastic slide then he turned the hose on as hard as it would go. Bubbles rose up in clouds. Jamie shouted, ‘I am the bubble man! Watch me fly!’ He slid down on his stomach, his arms out wide, and the bubbles covered him and flew up around his head and into the sky. Then the rest of the cousins and the brothers and the sister and me slid through the sweet-smelling bubbles.

Back then, two years ago, Jamie was already fourteen. He took off his t-shirt and I saw muscles like water currents on his shoulders and chest. There was a long red scar down the middle of his back that was raised at the sides. When he saw me looking he said, ‘Somebody dug it.’ Then he said, ‘Nah, it was from a knife.’ Then he said, ‘The truth is it was from a dogfight.’ All the cousins wanted to touch the scar but he said, ‘Justine first.’ The cousins made a line behind me. Jamie said, ‘Go on, Justine, touch it.’ I stared at the scar. Jamie said, ‘Go on, it won’t bite.’ The scar still looked sore, as if the dogfight wasn’t long ago. He said to me, ‘Justine, you’ll be the first person to touch it.’ The scar was long and thin and red down his back. Jamie looked over his shoulder at me. He said, ‘Go on.’ He stepped back, so we were closer and I reached out and put my fingers on the scar and it did bite me! It leaped from his back and bit my fingers and I jumped away and screamed. Jamie laughed and then all the kids reached for it with their bubble hands, touching it quickly then jumping away when the scar tried to bite.

Every day that summer we went over to the Worlleys’. The uncles had beer for Pop, and Mother Margy gave Pop food. Eat, you skinny bastard, she said. Pop ate up the steaks and the chops, the potatoes and bacon and bread and corn. He took sips of beer between bites and raised his glass to the uncles and his smile opened his face so I could see inside where the Japs got him.

On the night of the fall-out we were all sitting in the middle of the Worlley caravans, by the fire. Only Ray was missing; he hadn’t been home for a long time. Pop said it would be any day now, that he was finishing up a job in the Territory and he’d be back in time for the Yolamundi muster.

‘He never makes the fucken muster,’ said Ian Worlley. ‘Ray knows better.’ When it was time for the Yolamundi muster the forest filled with cows charging in every direction, their bellowing as loud as the branches that crashed and broke around them. The men charged through the trees on their horses, rounding the cattle up to the yards where they were branded and cut and drenched. The kids hung off the fences and shouted ‘Giddup there, giddup there!’ as the cattle ran into the crush.

Uncle Ian drank from his bottle then he spread his legs apart as if there was a horse between them. ‘Remember the last one? Big bloody bulls,’ he said. ‘Must have been five hundred head, and every one of them white.’ He held out his bottle. ‘Yah, yah, get up there, you white bastards!’ He tipped back the bottle and opened his mouth. The men had been drinking from cans all day, while the kids played, but when it turned to night they drank from big bottles.

‘Jesus,’ said Belinda, shaking her head.

Uncle Ian used a pretend whip, cracking it high over the heads of the bulls. ‘Every one was white, but it made no difference, they were on the way to the same place.’ He laughed and drank. ‘The same fucken place.’ He picked up a tyre that Belinda’s baby used as a seat and threw it into the fire.

‘Jesus, Ian!’ said Belinda.

‘What did you do that for?’ asked Mother Margy.

‘I like the smoke,’ said Uncle Ian.

‘Fool,’ said Pop.

‘What did you call me?’ Uncle Ian said to Pop.

‘A fool,’ said Pop.

‘A fool?’ said Uncle Ian.

‘That’s right. A fool who owes me money.’

‘Tight bastard,’ Uncle Ian said.

‘You owe me money, Ian. I found the bloody tanks. I helped you get them into the ground. Now you have to pay me for them.’

Uncle Ian was on his feet. ‘What are you talking about?’

Mother Margy said, ‘Settle down, Ian. Have something to eat.’

‘Don’t you tell me to settle down. You’re her mother, not mine.’ He held his bottle out to Belinda.

‘Shut up, Ian,’ said Belinda.

‘You owe me money, Ian,’ said Pop.

Uncle Ian said, ‘The Japs really did a number on you, didn’t they, Bob?’

‘What do you know about the Japs?’ Pop spat.

‘I know enough.’

‘You weren’t bloody there. You know nothing. Bloody nothing!’

‘I know the Japs took your balls, old man,’ said Uncle Ian.

Pop lunged at him across the fire, his hands like a rabbit trap around Uncle Ian’s neck. Uncle Ian staggered back. He pulled Pop off him then he punched him in the face. Pop fell to the ground. Kirk and Steve tried to hit Uncle Ian in the guts. Steve screamed, ‘Get off him! Leave him alone!’ Then Lachie and Jay hit Kirk and Steve. They were on the ground, their arms and legs thrashing in the dirt. I couldn’t tell who was Worlley and who was Lee.

Belinda and Mother Margy rushed to Pop, and Margy put his head in her lap. There was blood on her skirt and hands. Belinda screamed up at Uncle Ian to fuck off.

Pop was groaning.

Belinda held the cloth to his forehead and said, ‘You’re a fucking idiot, Ian!’

Mother Margy said, ‘Kirk, take Steve and Justine and go home.’

‘What about Pop?’ said Kirk.

‘I’ll take care of your pop,’ said Mother Margy. She unhooked Pop’s keys from his belt and passed them to Kirk. ‘He’ll be home by morning.’

Pop’s keys clinked in Kirk’s pocket as we walked across the Worlley paddocks in the dark. It was cold in our faces and under our clothes. ‘Will Pop be alright?’ I asked Kirk. We had never seen anyone hit our pop before or talk to him about the Japs. Only he talked about the Japs. They belonged to him. Burma and the war in 1940 and the tracks that led to Siam belonged to him.

‘I’m going to shoot Uncle Ian,’ said Kirk.

‘Me too,’ said Steve.

We’d always been the Worlleys and the Lees; it was other people we wanted to shoot—not each other. My teeth chattered with the cold. I searched the whole sky from one end to the other as we walked but there wasn’t a single star. Only Kathy could see the stars, with her other eye.

It was even colder inside Pop’s house than outside. We turned on the lights and stood blinking at each other in the kitchen. Kirk said, ‘I’m going to get the Mauser.’

‘How?’ I asked. Pop kept the Mauser in the gun cupboard; it was always locked. He never let us near it.

Kirk dangled Pop’s keys in front of Steve and me. ‘How do you think?’

We followed Kirk to the door at the top of the stairs. The stairs only led to the gun cupboard. Pop built it when he first moved in. A bed for Mrs Mauser, he said. Kirk pulled the door to the stairs open. The stairs going down were so dark you couldn’t see the bottom. Steve took my hand and held it tight. Kirk stepped through the door and Steve and me followed. We hadn’t been down before; Pop didn’t let us. I catch you kids anywhere near the gun cupboard and there’ll be trouble. You understand?

Every step it seemed to get colder. The only thing warm was Steve’s hand in mine. We didn’t talk. We stayed close, as if hearing each other’s breath and feeling the heat from each other’s skin would keep us safe. At last we came to the bottom.

‘Fuck,’ said Kirk. I heard his hands brush the wall.

‘What?’ Steve asked.

‘The cupboard—it’s too high,’ said Kirk. ‘We can’t reach it.’

‘Hook your hands together and I can climb up,’ I whispered. ‘Then I’ll put the key in.’

‘Good idea,’ said Kirk. ‘You take the keys, Steve.’ I put my hand on his shoulder and my knee in the cup of his hands. We leaned against the wall. ‘When I count to three,’ Kirk said. ‘One … two … three.’ He pushed me up and I took hold of the narrow cupboard.

‘Pass me the keys,’ I whispered.

Steve passed the keys up to me. I had to let go of the cupboard with one hand to take them. ‘Which one is it?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. Not the big one,’ said Kirk, his voice breathy and strained from holding me. ‘Not the one for the truck.’

I felt for the smaller keys and then I felt the gun cupboard for where the lock was. I stuck in the smallest key but the lock didn’t turn. And then I dropped the keys.

‘Ouch!’ said Kirk, letting me go. I came down on top of him. Steve started laughing and then I did, and then Kirk did. Our bodies shook with laughter harder and faster than they shook with the cold. I felt my brothers against me, their bodies warm and laughing in the darkness.

When we were quiet, Kirk said, ‘Try again.’

We got up, our bodies looser and warmer. Kirk hooked his hands and I put in my knee and Steve pushed me up too, his hands under my bum. We worked together; this time we knew what we needed to do. Steve passed me the keys and I found one that wasn’t as small as the one before, with sharp edges, and I stuck it into the lock, turned it and the door of the gun cupboard opened.

‘Take the keys,’ I said to Steve, passing them down.

‘Are the guns there?’ Kirk asked.

Pop kept two brother-pistols with the Mauser. Company for Mrs Mauser, Pop told the Isa Browns. Those pistols never bloody miss. If I’d had them in my hands in Burma it would have been a different bloody story. I felt for the guns inside the cupboard. Pop never even let us open the door to the stairs. You keep clear of my guns. I catch you bastards anywhere near that cupboard and you’ll know about it. I felt something long and cold and metal.

‘Is it the Mauser?’ Kirk asked.

‘Yeah,’ I told him.

‘Get it,’ he said.

As I lifted the gun out of the cupboard, something hard clattered across the ground, raining down on Kirk and Steve.

‘Fuck,’ said Kirk. ‘Bullets.’ The Mauser was heavy in my arms as Kirk helped me down.

‘Pop’ll kill us,’ I whispered.

‘Pop’s not here,’ said Kirk. ‘You and Steve pick up the bullets. Give me the gun.’ Me and Steve got on our hands and knees and scraped up the bullets, stuffing them in our pockets. Kirk said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’

We followed Kirk upstairs into the living room. Cold came off the windows in waves. Outside the night was black. Kirk put the Mauser on the coffee table and we sat on the floor around it. None of us knew how to load it or shoot it. Pop never showed us. He didn’t want Dad showing us either. We had only ever seen it when Pop took it out to clean it. Pop hovered over it like it was a baby he didn’t want us to hold.

We touched the trigger and the black handle and the barrel. Kirk picked it up and aimed it at the window. He made the Mauser jump as if a bullet had shot out of the end. ‘Kapow. Sorry, Uncle Ian.’

‘Gotcha, Uncle Ian,’ said Steve.

We took the bullets out of our pockets and rolled them across the table. They were shiny with sharp heads to pierce the skin. The Mauser held us to it and to each other, as if it was a magnet and we were the metal. We sat a long time, leaning back on our hands when we didn’t need to touch it anymore. When we heard a noise we didn’t care, we had the Mauser, we could shoot that noise and we could shoot the bastard that made it.

It was our first night in the house without Pop. Kirk helped me pull my mattress into the boys’ room and put it between their beds. He laid the Mauser beside me, its butt on my pillow. ‘She can sleep with you,’ he said. I pulled my blankets over me and the gun. Kirk hung his hand down so he could touch it in the night.

Early in the morning, when the light was still grey, I opened my eyes and Kirk was holding the gun. ‘Putting it back,’ he whispered.

‘Don’t forget a chair.’

Mother Margy dropped Pop home in the Dodge later that morning. ‘Took him to the hospital in Echuca,’ she said, when I came out the front.

I said, ‘Are you okay, Pop?’ There was a row of black stitches on his forehead.

He said, ‘Fucken money.’

‘Forget it, Robert,’ said Margy. ‘It was the booze talking.’

‘Bullshit. It was all Ian.’

‘Give it time.’

‘Fuck time,’ said Pop.

Mother Margy got back in the Dodge, shaking her head. She drove away and Pop went inside and rolled a White Ox. ‘It’s always fucken money,’ he said, putting a match to his cigarette. His skin was puffed around his eyes, and he looked pale. There was blood crusted under the line of black stitches. ‘That’s it, Justine. You don’t go there again. Same goes for your brothers. The prick owes me.’ He sucked back on his smoke. When Pop spoke to me, it was the same as when Dad did. The words were there, but it was as if they were speaking to themselves. I was just an excuse.

That was two years ago. Now the Worlleys and the Lees were different sides of a war, like the one Pop fought in 1940. Me and Sandy against the bloody monkeys. They weren’t made of the same stuff; God knows what flowed in their veins, but it wasn’t blood. Now I walked the Henley Trail alone.

5.

I could see the forest on one side all the way to the bus stop as I walked. Down there, through the bulging red gums, was The Choke, and my hideout. Come all ye faithful, I sang. A cockatoo screeched and I raised my pistol. Crack! Down came the bird. Joyful and triumphant … Crackcrackcrack! Down came a tree and a cloud and the sun.

When I got to the rock that Pop put by the side of the trail to show me where to stop, I gave it a kick. I stuck my tongue in and out of the gap in my teeth and looked down the road. There would probably be Worlleys on the bus. Before the fall-out, all of us kids used to sit together. Now the Worlleys left me alone on the bus, as if I was invisible.

When I saw the bus coming I stepped closer to the edge of the road. The bus slowed down and drew in, mud sloshing around the wheels and splattering the sides. The Worlleys looked away when I stepped between the two rows of seats. They never knew if Dad was home; it was safer to leave me alone. They knew about Pop’s Mauser too; they’d seen him cleaning it. They’d heard him talk about the brother-pistols and how far they could shoot, how it only took one bullet.

I kept my eyes down and chose a seat at the front as the bus turned out of the Henley Trail into Yolamundi Road. The sun was warm through the glass. I heard the Worlley cousins talking and laughing at the back, but soon a lot of other kids came on at the different stops, and they were between me and the Worlleys, and I couldn’t hear them anymore. I pressed my nose to the window. Two more days and Dad would be home. I put my tongue in the gap—in out in out in out, even if it hurt.

6.

Soon the bus arrived at the school. I stepped down without looking behind me and walked up the path. Nullabri Primary School had yellow play squares, a green patch for the monkey bars at the front, and an oval at the back with bushes for a fence. Lots of kids were coming in through the gates. Dawn and Noreena leaned on the monkey bars. Noreena had long hair with a green headband to match the uniform and she was the main friend.

‘Hi, Justine,’ said Dawn.

‘Hi,’ I said.

Noreena said, ‘Did you brush your hair this morning, Justine?’

I pulled at the knots at the back of my head. ‘Yeah,’ I said. The bell rang and we walked up to Mrs Turning’s classroom.

Mrs Turning stood at the front, waiting for us to sit at our desks. I sat next to Kathy Worlley. She looked away.

‘Good morning, class,’ said Mrs Turning.

‘Good morning, Mrs Turning,’ everybody answered.

‘I hope you have all completed your homework because we are going to begin with spelling practice.’ Mrs Turning came from England; she showed us on the map with the class pointer. A great distance from here and different in every way! ‘Please take out your workbooks,’ she said.

Kathy and me took our books out from under the desk.

‘We shall begin with the A list and work our way through. Please choose a clean page to begin.’

Everybody was quiet for Mrs Turning. She had been at the school since the start. Her hair was grey and pulled back into a tight ball at the bottom of her neck. I put my pencil to the page and pressed. Mrs Turning said, ‘Spell animal, please, class. Animal.’

Kathy started to write. I pressed my pencil into the page. I saw letters backwards. S came before Q, T came before D, E came before B. When I started at Nullabri Primary my teacher was Mrs Bettsbower. When Mrs Bettsbower said, ‘Who wants to go first?’ I put up my hand. Mrs Bettsbower said, ‘Justine, can you find the word girl in the box?’ I got up from the floor and went to the box in front of the class, but I couldn’t find the word girl. Mrs Bettsbower said, ‘Justine, open your eyes.’ But my eyes were open, and I was looking. Where was it? Mrs Bettsbower said, ‘What does girl begin with, Justine? Think. Can you find the word that begins with g?’ I looked and looked but I couldn’t see a single word that began with g. I saw other words: Ma. Tac. Yob. I. Nus. But there was no girl. Mrs Bettsbower frowned. She said, ‘Sit back down, Justine.’ I felt a hot wave flush over my face as I went back to my place on the floor. I looked at my feet. Mrs Bettsbower said the word was there, in front of my eyes, but I couldn’t find it. I didn’t put up my hand after that.

It was because I was born back to front. My words were breech, like me. Every year finished and I never caught up. Anything that had a word, or numbers in a row, I had to guess. I watched other kids for clues. I stood back in the line, I noticed the way the pencil moved, I heard the start of an answer and sometimes that was enough for me to know how to finish. But not always.

I looked at Kathy’s paper. She drew the line going around, and then the straight line going up, like a back for the circle. I did the same. I waited for the next letter and I did the same line going down, then back up.

‘Justine!’ said Mrs Turning. My pencil jumped across the page. ‘Are you looking at Kathy’s page?’

I couldn’t speak. I stared at the leg of the desk.

‘Are you? Can you answer me, Justine?’

But I couldn’t.

‘Is that what you are doing? Is it?’ Mrs Turning pressed her lips tight, waiting for me to answer. ‘Do you know what looking at somebody else’s work is called, Justine? Let me tell you: it’s called cheating. Get up and go and sit beside Michael Hooper.’

I stayed where I was; I always sat next to Kathy.

‘Justine? Can you hear me, or must we have our ears checked? Move!’

I turned to look at Michael Hooper. His head rolled on his neck like a flower too heavy for its stem. His chin was wet; there was a bib around his neck. His crutches leaned against his desk. Nobody had ever sat beside him.

‘Didn’t you hear me, Justine? I said get up and sit next to Michael.’

Everyone was quiet. Nobody went near Michael. If he tried to speak he groaned.

‘Justine!’ Mrs Turning said. ‘Move!’

I got up, pushing back my chair.

‘Take your workbook and pencils with you. You can stay next to Michael for the rest of the term.’

I walked slowly to Michael’s desk. I put my workbook on the table beside him and sat down. He tried to turn his head to look at me, his eyes rolled. ‘Read to your husband,’ whispered Matt Dunning. Brian Lawson snorted.

Mrs Turning said, ‘Class! Attention, please. Spell ancestor.’

I sat on the furthest edge of the chair. I looked towards the window. Down at The Choke the banks would press in, but the water would keep flowing; it couldn’t be stopped. I heard Michael breathing as I put my pencil to the page. He was trying to write, his arms shaking, his legs jerking. I drew lines going up and down, over and over.