Pluto Belt

David

It began to feel uncomfortable, sitting in his car alone.

As a frumpy, middle-aged man – though no more intimidating than your average, balding soccer dad - David House felt like he was breaking an unspoken code by taking lunch inside his Nissan four-wheel-drive. 

It made no difference whether he parked out at the cricket grounds, or round the back of the Frede Arcade, or directly outside the shops on Station Street. He always noticed the cold, suspecting glances thrown at him by women – especially those younger than him. He was probably just imagining things. But then again, he could well understand the suspicion, especially of the female joggers as they made their slow, predictable laps around the field. For all they knew, he was rapt behind his tinted window, sucking chicken batter off his fingers, watching, measuring the space of time in which they'd have their backs towards him, their ears plugged with headphones. 

Even up in Plover's Point, such things were still heard about. Really, given the semi-remote location of the town, and its dense surrounds of impenetrable bushland – hikers still got lost and died every few years - it was very easy to avoid the attention of inquisitive neighbours, never mind the police. Also, while many liked to ignore it, much of the citizenry was very low income – what Kimmy, his wife, dubbed interchangeably as "westies" or "ferals" . That immortal group of people you were expected to care about, but never quite knew if you should or even could, because what if you were technically one of them? 

Those poor types that actually watched reality TV like it was their religion, hit the pokies weeknights and holidayed no further than the slummy motels on the Central Coast. Sure, these folks knew how to smack their women around. Supposedly anyway. Was it prejudiced or perfectly fair to assume they were the more likely culprits when, occasionally, a girl did not come home after working six to twelve at the Old Centennial?

In all honesty, David would admit he knew little about this particular aspect of life. Heck, his wife probably told her friends he was the lamest, most boring and predictable guy she'd known since she finally turned eighteen and her parents couldn't force her into attending Sunday mass. She hated this town – in fact, she probably hated anywhere that wasn't the leafy eastern suburbs of Sydney. David preferred no confirmation – just as he did a whole lot of things between him and his wife these days. 

For some reason, even Kimmy's friend Anise had recently moved to Rhode Island in the States – her husband had a job that actually paid to have his "ass" flown round the world to sit at different desks in different offices, nodding assent to foreign PowerPoint presentations, never having to use the same bathroom more than two nights in a row. We should have gone to America years ago, Kimmy sometimes said between sips of cheap Camille tea in the kitchen's dusty formica glow. We would have reached our potential there – meaning, in other words, he might not have lost his nerve and trapped them into living where she undoubtedly wrote off as the sticks for the rest of their lives.

For all that, Plover's Point did boast a certain attractiveness that had always struck David as vaguely "New English" – he'd hitchhiked Nova Scotia at nineteen; that was close enough to warrant an assumption, he figured. Plover's Point was perhaps similar to a Bob Ross painting – a rustling autumnal scene - politely occupied by conscientious suburbanites. Quiet, antediluvian streets. Old faux-colonial houses that had rarely been done up later than the nineteen-eighties.

It was the kind of place an outsider could only imagine in autumn or winter – something that would turn profoundly depressing if stripped of its seasonal beauty. Like a barren Christmas tree in the sweltering heat of late January. Its avenues were prim and unassuming, yet shone with signs of vibrant life; tree-lined, winds would scurry leaves about the roads, crisp and crinkly, landing over bonnets like a Kodak happy family moment. Wizened houses that would cost a fortune anywhere east of Parramatta, snug in contained gothic gardens; tall, cross-lattice bay windows lending sentimental glimpses into homely worlds of crackling fire, glowing TVs, bookshelves filled with family frames and classic novels. Add the rare but not unheard-of smattering of snow in July, and it became alluringly Dickensian – minus the slums and the villainy, of course.