Red Dirt

It’s funny, the noises the road makes.

The growl of the tarmac made sticky by the midday Western Australian sun.

The red-dirt wind whipping off the endless Nullarbor desert, rocking my little 1973 Ford Escort, whistling through the passenger window that doesn’t quite close.

Wwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssshhhhhhiiiisssshhhiiissshhh.

Buffeting the rusty wheel arches and tugging at the steering wheel.

The front wheel catches the soft shoulder.

Buluddudduddudd.

I’ve never really noticed the way the road speaks to you before. Usually, I’ve got AC/DC pumping, but this tinpot tape deck chewed up Highway to Hell just after I left Kalgoorlie. Bon Scott strangled into a squealing mess just as he was screaming at Satan about paying his dues.

I don’t really care about the tape deck. I don’t really care about the car. I only bought it to get me to Sydney. To get away from Perth.

“A fresh start,” Dad kept saying.

Wwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssshhhhhhiiiisssshhhiiissshhh.

As far away as possible from Bec’s brothers, is what Dad meant. Before they put me in hospital. Or worse.

I touch the bruise around my eye and wince as the pain shoots through my eye socket.

The tape matters though. Bec bought it for my eighteenth birthday when the album came out last year. It’s all I’ve got left of her, other than a few photos. And loads of memories, all the way from when we were toddlers to high school to our first kiss – first real kiss – to the night I rolled my old car.

Rolling rolling rolling.

Bec screaming screaming screaming.

Until the rolling and screaming stopped.

Tears well and blur my vision. It’s like I’ve driven into the heat haze that’s been warping and obscuring the horizon for the last two hours.

I prod the bruise again as I try to blink away the tears.

Buluddudduddudd.

Concentrate!

I’ve got another 30 hours of driving ahead.

I glance at the clock and petrol gauge. 12.04 pm. Three-quarters of a tank.

“Ðon’t leave it too late to fill up,” Bec would say. “You always end up running on fumes.”

“I’ll fill up in Balladonia. No, I can make it easily to Caiguna. Probably stop there for something to eat and get some sleep,” I say to the empty passenger seat.

Bec would’ve planned it out. She would’ve bought a map and marked it up. The best route. How far one tank would get me. The best place to stop for food.

We only went on one holiday together. A road trip all the way up the coast to Ningaloo. We’d both saved up money from our summer jobs for petrol. Dad gave me a bit extra, “Just in case.” I just thought we’d chuck our sleeping bags, a tent and our surf boards in the car – my old car, from before – and hit the road, but Bec had it all planned out. Where to camp. The best places to snorkel on the reef. Everything. And we had the best time. Laughing. Swimming. Snorkelling. Fishing. Surfing. Skinny dipping. Enjoying each other’s bodies. Sleeping under the stars. Bec’s pale face glowing in the starlight.

***

Wwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssshhhhhhiiiisssshhhiiissshhh.

It’s got hot and stuffy in here. “Like the Devil’s armpit,” Dad would say.

I wind down my window to get some air through. No air-con in this bucket, of course.

Just under half a tank left.

12.04 pm.

What?! The clock has stopped working too.

I glance at my watch. The digital display’s blank

Buluddudduddudd.

“Look where you’re going!” I hear Bec again.

The same panicked tone as the night of the accident.

Or “the accident.” That’s how most people refer to it. They say it like it’s a euphemism. Like it wasn’t really an accident. “He’d been drinking,” they say. “That beautiful girl, gone,” they say.

Up ahead, there’s a car by the side of the road, blurred in the heat haze. The first car I’ve seen since Kalgoorlie. I take my foot off the accelerator and slow down, in case it’s someone who has broken down, but as I get closer I see that the car is a wreck. Red, like mine, but impossible to see what make and model it is. Someone has come off the road and flipped their car.

Rolling rolling rolling.

Bec screaming screaming screaming.

I slow to a stop, get out and hurry over to what’s left of the car. There’s glass everywhere. The smell of fuel hangs in the air despite the wind and I can hear the engine ticking as it cools. The crash must’ve only just happened.

I look around. There’s nobody here, just the road stretching off to the horizon in both directions and desert scrub as far as the eye can see. Then I notice some footprints in the red Nullarbor sand. Someone walked away from this. They must be concussed. Everyone knows you stay with your car if you have a crash, especially all the way out here with the sun so high.

I get back in my car and pull off the soft shoulder onto the tarmac.

Buluddudduddudd.

If they’ve stuck to the road, I’ll catch up with them soon enough.

If they’ve wandered off into the scrub…

I wonder what time it is. 12.04 pm the clock tells me, unhelpfully.

About a third of a tank left.

Surely I should’ve passed Balladonia by now? It can’t be far away.

Peering into the heat haze, I see a figure up ahead, walking by the side of the road. At least they didn’t wander off. I pull up behind on the soft shoulder.

Buluddudduddudd.

This guy – it’s a youngish fella, about my height, walking with a limp – must be out of it. He hasn’t heard me. I beep my horn, get out of the car and call to him.

“Hey!”

He slowly turns around and my heart thumps in my chest. His head is covered in blood, and he has an old bruise around his eye, so it’s hard to make out his features, but…

The hairs on my neck bristle as we stare at each other in silence.

A gust of hot wind blows blasts me with sand.

Wwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssshhhhhhiiiisssshhhiiissshhh.

He starts to stagger towards me, bloody face and ragged clothes.

My clothes!

What’s happening?!

I look around, hoping to see, what? Someone to help me. To explain what’s going on. I haven’t seen another soul for the last four hours or so.

I get back in my car, put it into gear and floor it.

I stare at the guy as I pull onto the road.

And it’s my face that I see staring back at me, bloody and broken.

Buluddudduddudd.

“What the fuck! Fuuuck!”

I look in the rearview mirror. There he is – there I am – staring after me. Just staring.

I’m sweating and my throat is dry. Did I just hallucinate that? Have I just imagined seeing myself? Have I just left someone – someone who, maybe, looks a bit like me – in the desert, badly injured after a car crash? Maybe I’m concussed. After the beating Bec’s brothers gave me. After Bec’s funeral.

That must be it. I begin to slow down but something stops me. There’s something wrong here. I feel it in the pit of my stomach. I’ll keep going. Get to Balladonia. There will be a service station there. A pay phone. I’ll get there and report the accident.

I put my foot down.

And keep going and going and going.

12.04 pm.

Less than a quarter of a tank.

How much further can it be?!

Up ahead, I see something by the side of the road, blurred by the heat haze.

Another car.

Red.

The same car.

My car! The car I’m driving. Battered and smashed from flipping over.

“No, no, no!”

This time I slow down but don’t stop.

Broken glass. Nobody around. Footprints.

This can’t be happening.

I put my foot down again, checking in my rearview.

It’s the same car as before. My car!

I keep going. Why haven’t I seen anyone else? It’s the desert, but surely I should’ve seen someone else coming in the other direction at some point today. Someone I could flag down.

I must be hallucinating or having a breakdown or something. I need to get somewhere with a phone. I need to call Dad.

In the heat haze, I see a figure walking beside the road.

About my height.

Limping.

No, no, no!

I floor it again.

As I pass the figure at 110, 120, 125, I don’t want to look, but I can’t help myself.

It’s him again. Me again! Bloody. Bruised.

Blinking back tears I look in the rearview once again to see the figure limping after me. Looking at me.

Wwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssshhhhhhiiiisssshhhiiissshhh.

The car veers in the wind and I struggle to straighten up.

Wwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssshhhhhhiiiisssshhhiiissshhh.

I can’t stop it. I stamp on the brakes.

Buluddudduddudd.

And the world turns upside down, right side up, upside down, right side up, upside down.

I hear a scream.

Not mine.

Bec’s.

***

When I come around, I’m lying face-down in the red dirt and broken glass, looking at my car. I must’ve been thrown clear. The little Escort is barely recognisable. My head is pulsing and the sun is high in the sky. Like it’s still noon.

I sit up, slowly, my head and vision swimming. There’s something wrong with my leg. As I stand, A sharp pain jolts through my knee into my hip and up my back.

I need help. I need to get to Balladonia. I need my dad.

I start walking, shuffling along the soft shoulder.

Got to keep going.

Got to keep going.

Keep going.

Keep.

And then I hear it.

A car on the road behind me.

Slowing down.

Pulling up on the soft shoulder.

I don’t want to look around.

Buluddudduddudd.