Outback by Patricia Wolf

Author:Patricia Wolf [Wolf, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Embla Books
Published: 2022-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

23

BARBARA’S UNEASE, HER SENSE THAT she might never find Rita, grows stronger during the drive to Smithton. A two-hour drive in a straight line, through featureless countryside, plains of dry grasslands, the light so bright that even the sky is washed of blue. Nothing to see, literally nothing, and nowhere that might have tempted Rita and Berndt to turn off. She thinks of them driving out this way, to a job in this unremitting heat, and wonders if perhaps Grogan isn’t right. They gave up, turned round and went somewhere else after all.

Smithton only reinforces that feeling. The village, if you can call it that, is nothing more than a service station and a handful of dilapidated houses on a dirt track perpendicular to it. Everything looks run-down, verging on derelict. There are no lawns, no trees, no paved streets. One house has the rusting carcasses of a handful of cars outside it, like so many skeletons of civilisation. It reminds her of the Mad Max movie she’d streamed a few years ago and its desolate post-civilisation vibe.

She reapplies sunscreen before she gets out of the coolness of the air-conditioned car. Her skin normally tans easily, but here it’s no match for the ferocity of the sun; this morning’s short walk has burnt her arms and her face. She catches the smell of the cream as she applies it, a scent that has always reminded her of summer and beaches and good times, but which will now be forever associated with this heat, this fear, this foreign and unappealing country.

She could be on another planet, that’s how alien this is to her. The searing heat, the unbearably bright light, the endless horizon, the untamed countryside, the bush, as Walker calls it, pushing right up to the backs of the houses. And not a person in sight. No movement or sound, just a handful of flies buzzing around her face, persistent even as she waves them away.

The silence is as heavy as a blanket. Oppressive. She turns towards the service station. The door emits a squawking buzz and as she steps inside she can hear a radio blaring in a room out the back. There’s a makeshift general store to one side, its shelves dusty and virtually empty, only a few items of canned food, some biscuits, UHT milk, bottles of soft drink. A cash register sits in front of her at one end of a long glass counter under which lie a few unappetising pies; she can see a fly crawling around on one of them. There are two aluminium tables in front of the counter, stained with ring marks from cups and spots of grease. The place smells of oil fried too many times.

Barbara calls, ‘Hello?’ and a moment later a woman emerges from a back room, pushing through the curtain of colourful plastic strips that cover the door. She’s hugely overweight, wearing a sleeveless dress of faded blue, her clothing, face and hair all damp with sweat.

She shakes her head when Barbara shows her the picture of Rita and Berndt.

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