Arms Race by Nic Low Page A

the stitches almost fifty years ago.
    Christie frowned behind her sunglasses. I beckoned her to the window, and she leaned
across me to look. I caught her youthful scent, ripe with sweat, and I was glad I’d
asked her to come. It was a work trip, a long one. We were trying for a child.
    Do you see that? I yelled in her ear.
    She looked out at the mine’s pattern on the land, then back at my scar. Strange,
she yelled. What do you think it means?
    Nothing. Coincidence.
    How’d you get it?
    School. Going down a slide. Bolt.
    I mimed the head of the rusty bolt slicing the vein. Christie pulled a face.
    Buckle up, the pilot shouted. Here we go.
    The plane sank down among the treetops. We bumped along the landing paddock and came
to rest beside a dusty LandCruiser. The pilot opened the hatch and folded out the
steps, and the warm drone of the bush flooded in. Christie tied back her tangled
black hair. She stepped down and stretched, and my eyes grazed the smooth olive jut
of her hips where her top rode up. Behind his mirrored aviators the pilot was staring
as well. He’d been flirting all day, trying to guess: was she part Spanish or Aboriginal
or what?
    There’s no one here, Christie said. The truck’s empty.
    Sorry, darl, I should have warned you, the pilot said. They had an outbreak of the
plague round here.
    Right, Christie said, but she wasn’t really listening.
    I stepped down into the heat. We’d only left Perth an hour ago, but already the city
felt a world away. Six cows watched us from the end of the paddock. Beyond was the
olive and gold of the bush, clicking and singing to itself.
    I walked to the truck. There were keys in the ignition, and a note on the dashboard.
    It’s okay, I called. The surveyor got called into town. The truck’s ours for the
month. He’s left directions.
    From the airstrip we drove back up the valley through stands of fledgling karri gums.
Fingers of light strummed across the truck. When we got to Enmore, Christie stepped
down and looked to the scattering of empty houses, and the scrub and hills that rose
beyond.
    Christ, that’s not a village, she said. There’s not even a pub. Nothing.
    There’s the mine.
    There’s the collapsed mine.
    We’ll see. I nodded at the parched playing field beside the road. What about cricket?
    She turned and her smile was brilliant. There’s no one else to play with, mister.
It’s perfect. We’ve got nothing else to do.
    For a whole month.
    Better get started, then. The book says now’s the best time.
    I came round to her side of the truck and kissed her. She looked up at me and I placed
my hand on her stomach, then eased it down between her thighs. Her eyes half closed.
    Sometimes these things make me feel young. Sometimes they make me feel like a dirty
old man.
    It was sunset when we pulled into the steep driveway. The company had rented us the
house, a bungalow fronted by huge windows overlooking an arc of scrubby hills. There
wasn’t a neighbour in sight.
    I killed the engine, and the playful squabble of parrots sounded in the trees above.
Someone had built a rough rock cairn atop the slope to the west. Christie stepped
from the truck and climbed towards it. She stopped abruptly.
    Oh, Christ. Look at this.
    I clambered after her and drew up short. The ground cleaved open before us, dropping
sharply into the cut of the mine. Bands of silver greys and ochre stains ran down
towards the floor. The bottom lay deep in shadow, but I could make out the debris
from the collapse.
    My god, I said. I didn’t know the house would be so close.
    Christie looked from the mine back to the clearing that held our new home. Show me
your arm, she said. Show me that scar again.
    I turned my arm to the day’s last light. She placed her finger over the first puncture
mark below the line of the scar.
    It’s a map, she said. This one’s us.
    2
    At seven on Monday I pulled myself away from