Poems and Other Shit

Writer's Walkabout - Short Story

There was a photo of Matt on the mantel piece at home. A little school boy, gap-toothed and freckled, grinning. I was thinking of that photo as I stood on the platform of a backward train station in rural Victoria. People here wore Akubra hats, and I half imagined to see a row of bobbing corks hanging from the rim.

I took my suitcase outside into the sweltering heat and sat on it. The road extended as far as eye could see, shimmering in the midday heat. A beat up ute pulled up beside me, and the driver leant over and manually rolled down the window.

"Ellie," he said, and I stared my brother in the face for the first time in five years. His youthfulness was gone, hidden behind five O'clock shadow.

He was almost unrecognisable in faded jeans and a once white shirt. It made his skin looking harrowingly dark, brown like the soil, thoroughly sun kissed.

There was a lot to catch up on, and we talked animatedly as Matt drove the ute along the remote rural roads. We left behind the bitumen and started along a potholed dirt track, kicking up a cloud of reddish dust in our wake. My mouth grew dry and my eyes stung. As far as eye could see was dry, barren land, dotted with eucalypts and discoloured sheep, shimmering in the afternoon sun.

The gatepost of Matt's little spread was marked with a large ram's skull, tied with yarn to the post through its hollow eye sockets. It felt more like a warning than a welcome.

Matt's little homestead was made from old red gum posts and corrugated iron. It was suffocatingly hot inside, so we sat outside under the pergola drinking VB out of a little rusty fridge. I wondered how many nights he had sat here alone, drinking beer and staring out into the hazy sun. In the distance a solitary windmill turned slowly, sounding like a squeaky door, pumping brown, bitter water into troughs for solemn sheep.

Matt had one employee, an experienced Aboriginal stockman named Charlie. He held out a weathered hand for me to shake, his old mangy dog eagerly smelling my jeans.

Matt introduced me as his kid sister come from the city, a writer who had run out of things to say.

Charlie was easily sixty, his curly black hair streaked with grey. "Gone walkabout, eh? You come to the right place." He took Matt's offer and joined us on the veranda, bringing a chair out from inside.

It felt surreal sitting with the two men, listening to them talk of dagging the sheep tomorrow and Charlie going to shoot a roo. My fellow university classmates would be sitting in offices behind laptops, milking exhausted subjects to produce articles on runway fashion, home cooking and pop culture. I had attempted it myself once, but I lacked angle and wanted something fresh.

My employee had found me amusing. "Look, I like you university graduates, I do. You've got a lot of spunk." He was the kind of man who still smoked cigars, and he took one from a box in his desk as he spoke. "But take some advice, okay? We can't all change the world, and not everybody has something to contribute. Look at John Grogan. He's not famous for his freelance articles, he's famous for his dog, his goddamn dopey dog." He said that last bit slowly, breathing our stale smoke, an epiphany he seemed to have come to much too late.

Something about the whole conversation sat heavily with me. I told Matt over the phone, and he planted a crazy notion in my head. I tried to kill it, but it grew relentlessly, until I was sure I would find no comfort until I had satisfied my curiosity.

I quit my job and unceremoniously informed my parents. Neither of them were amused. I suppose they thought they had failed us, each of us wanting something an industrial suburban life couldn't offer. I wasn't sure exactly at the time what it was I craved.

I found Matt early in the morning boiling water in an old, dingy kettle. He was yawning loudly, having stayed up late taking, and twisted his Akubra between his fingers when he saw me approach. I had my laptop in my hands, and I set it down on the table.

He smiled at me, and placed the hat on my hand before I could protest. I gently pushed it on and found it fit perfectly.

"It was the first bit of the country I brought into," Matt said. "Now it's yours."

I fingered the brim of the Akubra and smiled.