around its pubs, or the bottle shops where liquor could be purchased for takeout.
Near the southernmost part of the new section he slowed, pulling over onto the neat, wide-paved shoulder. Frowning as he climbed out, he walked around the front of the car and knelt by the side of the road. He pushed with a hand and stared as a section of asphalt the size of his fist broke free and crumbled into powder.
It was like that all along the shoulder, on both sides of the roadbed: big pieces breaking free, crumbling, the neatly laid edge already being taken over by eager grasses and weeds. It made no sense. This section was less than three months old. It should be solid, impervious, yet it was coming apart as though made of sand. The asphalt that had been used had been rigorously checked prior to application. The surface was designed to hold up without maintenance for a minimum of two years.
He straightened and stared into the forest. The gum trees stood silent, their pale slick bark peeling like his workers’ skin. It was dead quiet; no birds, no insects whining in the brush. Only there; a cluster of roos, traveling noiselessly in great leaping bounds at the limits of his vision.
He blinked. There were no roos. Quinka? Didgeridoo music drifted through his brain, hypnotic and unsettling. Suddenly conscious of the age of the land around him, of his isolation, he found himself backing toward the car, his eyes trying to focus on suspected movement in the brush. He tried to think of something else, anything else, except the inescapable fact of his aloneness in a vast and inhospitable land.
It was hot, so very damn hot. The heat seemed to come not from the sun but out of the earth itself. Dust hung suspended in the air like talcum, making breathing difficult. The moan of the didgeridoo was a pounding in his temples.
A March fly landed on his arm, and he smashed it before it could bite. It spiraled indifferently to the ground, as though its death didn’t matter even to itself.
As he fumbled with the door handle of the car he stared wide-eyed at the road, brand new but crumbling, unable to resist something he could not fathom, could not analyze. It ran north through the fringes of the Outback, a feeble lifeline stretching from the cities of the south toward the hostile tropics. Stretched too thin?
Bad place for a road, he decided. The problem was simple enough. It wasn’t wanted here. The country, the land, didn’t want it. Yet as he was wont to do, man persisted in trying to defy the obvious, to bend to his will a part of nature too ancient to know it had no choice in the matter.
A growling sound made him whirl, but it was only a truck coming toward him. A dozen men rode in the open bed. As it slowed to pull over, several of them eyed him knowingly.
“Car trouble, mate?” one of them asked.
“No,” Harbison replied slowly. He gestured. “There’s something wrong with the road here. There shouldn’t be.”
Several of the crew exchanged glances. One of them smiled down at him. “Don’t worry, mate. She’ll be right. You worry too much, I think.” He squinted at the silent, suggestive gum forest through the beige-tinted heat. “Can’t worry too much out here. Gets to ya.”
“Not a good place to be standin’ about alone,” the man next to him said. “Hang about too long and a bloke’s liable to go troppo. Start seein’ things, know what I mean? This ain’t Bondi Beach.” His tone was sympathetic, understanding. “Care to join us in a beer?”
A new image filled Harbison’s brain, shoving aside the cloying, suffocating silence that pressed tight around the intruding road. A cool dark room surrounded by thick walls that shut out the oppressive heat, the dust and the flies. Shut out the hum of the didgeridoo and hallucinated roos. Kept the quinka at bay.
Better to drink than to think. Thinking was wasted in this place. Ambition was excess baggage. This country battled both, all the way. It always had. No
Near the southernmost part of the new section he slowed, pulling over onto the neat, wide-paved shoulder. Frowning as he climbed out, he walked around the front of the car and knelt by the side of the road. He pushed with a hand and stared as a section of asphalt the size of his fist broke free and crumbled into powder.
It was like that all along the shoulder, on both sides of the roadbed: big pieces breaking free, crumbling, the neatly laid edge already being taken over by eager grasses and weeds. It made no sense. This section was less than three months old. It should be solid, impervious, yet it was coming apart as though made of sand. The asphalt that had been used had been rigorously checked prior to application. The surface was designed to hold up without maintenance for a minimum of two years.
He straightened and stared into the forest. The gum trees stood silent, their pale slick bark peeling like his workers’ skin. It was dead quiet; no birds, no insects whining in the brush. Only there; a cluster of roos, traveling noiselessly in great leaping bounds at the limits of his vision.
He blinked. There were no roos. Quinka? Didgeridoo music drifted through his brain, hypnotic and unsettling. Suddenly conscious of the age of the land around him, of his isolation, he found himself backing toward the car, his eyes trying to focus on suspected movement in the brush. He tried to think of something else, anything else, except the inescapable fact of his aloneness in a vast and inhospitable land.
It was hot, so very damn hot. The heat seemed to come not from the sun but out of the earth itself. Dust hung suspended in the air like talcum, making breathing difficult. The moan of the didgeridoo was a pounding in his temples.
A March fly landed on his arm, and he smashed it before it could bite. It spiraled indifferently to the ground, as though its death didn’t matter even to itself.
As he fumbled with the door handle of the car he stared wide-eyed at the road, brand new but crumbling, unable to resist something he could not fathom, could not analyze. It ran north through the fringes of the Outback, a feeble lifeline stretching from the cities of the south toward the hostile tropics. Stretched too thin?
Bad place for a road, he decided. The problem was simple enough. It wasn’t wanted here. The country, the land, didn’t want it. Yet as he was wont to do, man persisted in trying to defy the obvious, to bend to his will a part of nature too ancient to know it had no choice in the matter.
A growling sound made him whirl, but it was only a truck coming toward him. A dozen men rode in the open bed. As it slowed to pull over, several of them eyed him knowingly.
“Car trouble, mate?” one of them asked.
“No,” Harbison replied slowly. He gestured. “There’s something wrong with the road here. There shouldn’t be.”
Several of the crew exchanged glances. One of them smiled down at him. “Don’t worry, mate. She’ll be right. You worry too much, I think.” He squinted at the silent, suggestive gum forest through the beige-tinted heat. “Can’t worry too much out here. Gets to ya.”
“Not a good place to be standin’ about alone,” the man next to him said. “Hang about too long and a bloke’s liable to go troppo. Start seein’ things, know what I mean? This ain’t Bondi Beach.” His tone was sympathetic, understanding. “Care to join us in a beer?”
A new image filled Harbison’s brain, shoving aside the cloying, suffocating silence that pressed tight around the intruding road. A cool dark room surrounded by thick walls that shut out the oppressive heat, the dust and the flies. Shut out the hum of the didgeridoo and hallucinated roos. Kept the quinka at bay.
Better to drink than to think. Thinking was wasted in this place. Ambition was excess baggage. This country battled both, all the way. It always had. No
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