Yesterday's Dust by Joy Dettman Page A

ring up Jeff. Remind him that we’ve got Bronwyn’s wedding tomorrow, and tell him that the Sydney men will have to wait until . . .’
    The rest of her words were lost to the wailing wind.

run, rabbit, run

    Saturday 9 August
    Panic came out of sleep, came for him out of the dark. It bit at his throat, constricting muscles that banded together until each one became that old familiar enemy. His throat cramped, drawing his mouth into a rictus smile. Scalp muscles gathered, squeezing his brain, chest muscles crushed his lungs. Each breath, hardfought for, was drawn in, pushed out. Fast panting breaths.
    Coward. Weak little bastard .
    Had to slow his breathing. He knew it. But rationality was dead. Couldn’t think his way outside of panic. Only those words left in the cerebral mass to haunt him, to chase him to hell and haunt him there. Words he could trace back to near birth. Repetition had pounded them deep.
    Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
    Weak little bastard .
    When all else was dust Johnny Burton would still hear his father’s words. And run from them.
    He ran now, that old inner running, that dream running, that leaden limb running. Couldn’t get away.

    Run, Johnny. Get the little ones and run for the river.
Run, Johnny, run, Johnny, run, run, run.
Here comes Daddy with his old shotgun.
He’ll get by without his Johnny pie,
Sorun, Johnny, run, Johnny, run, run, run.
    His limbs were swimming, shudder swimming in his bed, in his sweat. Hands dripping. Face, feet dripping while the damp sheet dragged, bunching, binding him, holding him down.
    Fight me, you weak bastard .
    Couldn’t fight any more. Just wanted it to end now, wanted his brain to lie down and die. Die and let him get some sleep.
    Failure. That’s what he wasand always had been. Failure. Weak little bastard. Running bastard.
    He sucked on air, panting it in, and too fast out. His mouth was dry, his lips sandpaper, his tongue a lump of dry wood in his mouth, his eyes staring at a patch of not so dark, clinging to the patch of not so dark as the tremors shook his heavy frame.
    Hold on to the lighter dark. Hold on to it and concentrate. Think white.Think light.
    Look at the curtain, blowing, billowing with the breeze, like a white ghost in the dark. A white sail to carry you into the dawn. Ride it, and breathe over panic. Watch the curtain and breathe as it breathes. In and out. Slow now. Recognise it for what it is. A curtain, not the white sail of the old ferryman’s boat come to carry you across the river to Hell. A curtain. Ellie’s cheapnylon lace.
    And outside that curtain the light was growing. Morning would come.
    I shouldn’t have slept, he thought. He knew not to fall asleep with the light off, but his head had been aching. He hadn’t been able to force his eyes to read last night. That’s what he did each night, read anything, read until his eyes rebelled and the book fell from his hand while the light glowed on.
    Light hadalways stilled panic when he awoke in the night.These last years he’d closed his door and left his light burning all night, sealing the light in with an old blanket placed against his door.
    Ellie had bought him a torch when he was four or five years old and afraid of the dark. He’d slept with that torch beneath his pillow for weeks.
    Don’t let Daddy see it or he’ll take it away, Johnny.
    ButDaddy saw it and he took it away, didn’t he?
    Weak, cowardly little bastard.
    He’d taken a box of matches from the kitchen then and he’d slept with them in his pyjama pocket until the matchbox fell apart, but he’d found another box. Slept with his matches for years – until Liza had come to fill the cot and Ben had come to share his room. Ben hadn’t been afraid of the dark. Ben had been there whenhe’d dreamed the bad dreams in the night. Ben with his funny little sighing snore. Soothing snore.
    Ben in the room across the passage now. Ellie in