smelling of soap and with his hair still damp, pulled his work boots back on and pounded out the front door. Tom watched him climb up into the truck and roar off down the road in a spray of gravel. He felt a cold flitter of fear down in his gut, even worse than the one he’d felt that afternoon – a flash of what might happen to anyone who got in Henry’s way maybe – but also the sure knowledge that this storm, as well as sweeping over Sonny, might well wheel round and break on him in turn.
‘Hey, Darcy! Darcy Steele! Goody-bloody-two-shoes! Show us your tits!’
The boys were much older than they, long-haired and pimply, and Grace Mather had been apprehensive when she’d first seen them appear, but Darcy just gave a breathy laugh and took in a lungful of air before responding.
‘Rack off, bastard arseholes!’ she shouted.
Grace nearly wet herself laughing, but it was nervous, wild laughter, more likely to end in dizziness than anything else. The boys stood by the side of the road for a while longer, one chopping at the long grass with a stick to make himself feel better, but then they walked on and disappeared down behind the Agricultural Hall.
‘They would have come for me if you hadn’t been here,’ said Darcy.
‘I didn’t stop them.’
‘Yes, you did. Pop’s your dad. That’s why they didn’t chase me. Because you’re here.’
Grace half shrugged, unconvinced. ‘Have they chased you before?’
‘Yeah. Heaps of times.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me? What did you do?’
‘I run. I’m faster than them.’
‘Have they ever caught you?’
‘Once.’
‘What happened?’
‘They wanted to see my tits, my fanny. I said they could if they showed me their dicks.’
Grace looked at her friend, her eyes wide.
‘Did they?’
‘One did. The other was too chicken. But I ran away before it was my turn. Ha!’
‘What did it look like?’ Grace whispered.
Darcy screwed up her face and grinned. ‘Remember that time we helped the nurse with all the kindie boys?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, it was like that. Like a grub. A pink grub. But …’
‘But what?’
‘Bigger … and hairy!’
Darcy laughed along with Grace. When they stopped they were racked with giggles until Darcy shouted Come on! and took off up the road. Grace followed. She seemed to be doing a lot of following lately, but even though she was older than Darcy by a few months it didn’t really bother her. Every Saturday Darcy always wanted to be doing things, never wanted to just sit and talk like they’d used to, but there was less and less to do in Angel Rock that they hadn’t already done and Darcy was becoming more and more restless. Lately Grace had been reading books and telling Darcy things that might interest her to try and keep her happy. Saturday last she’d told her all about Huck Finn and his raft and now Darcy wanted to build her own and float away down the river just like him.
They walked along to the sawmill as they’d planned and ducked through the hole in the fence. No one worked there on Saturdays any more. Tom Ferry collected sawdust for the butcher there some weekends but there was no sign of him. They wandered around through the stacks of timber looking for material, toiling in the hot morning sun for an hour until they had a pallet, various other odds and ends of wood, four empty oil drums, bits and pieces of rope and a torn scrap of red cloth that the timbermen nailed to the end of logs when they were carried on the roads.
They tramped across the open paddock between the back of the sawmill and the riverbank carrying their finds, but when they came to the pallet they found that it was far too big for the hole in the fence no matter which way they tried it.
‘Goddamn it,’ said Darcy.
They sat and looked at the pallet and wiped the sweat off their foreheads with their sleeves.
‘It’s the best bit. We can’t leave it.’
‘I could get Pop to help us,’ said Grace.
‘You can’t ask him! He’d probably arrest us!’ Darcy laughed but Grace could barely raise a grin.
‘We’ll just have to try with what we’ve got,’ said Darcy.
They walked over to the river and gazed at the pile. It didn’t look like much of a raft. Darcy tried to tie one of the drums to a plank of wood but the rope was much too short.
‘Goddamn it!’ she said again, and pushed a drum down the bank. It splashed into the dark water and then floated away. The girls looked at one another for a moment and then, piece by piece, threw all the wood and the remaining drums into the river. When everything was gone they sat down and watched the line of flotsam drift away downstream.
‘Boats might hit them,’ said Darcy, a little wistfully, after a few minutes had passed.
Grace nodded. ‘Yeah. Boats might sink. We better go before someone sees.’
‘They might go all the way out to sea.’
‘Yeah. All the way to Sydney. Come on,’ said Grace, her heart beginning to pound.
‘What do you think it’s like there?’ asked Darcy, making no move.
‘Where?’
‘Sydney.’
‘I don’t know. Lots of buildings, lots of houses, lots of people.’
Darcy nodded. ‘I’m going there one day.’
‘That’s good. Now come on!’
Darcy shrugged, but then got to her feet and slapped the grass off her dress. They walked back up to the road but still saw no one. Along from the mill they stopped by the rail platform and drank from the tap down the side of the old stationmaster’s office, wetting their brows and washing the dust off their hands and arms. In the distance a train’s horn sounded. They climbed up onto the platform and sat down on an old luggage trolley and peered southwards. Before long they caught a glimpse of the train away down the valley, ploughing through the heat haze like a ship. Darcy stood up. Grace’s stomach rumbled and she looked at her watch.
‘Think I can beat it?’ said Darcy, shading her eyes with her hand.
‘What? The train?’
‘Yeah. To the tree.’
Grace looked up the tracks to the tree – maybe a hundred yards away – then back in the direction the train was coming, then up at Darcy. Standing there in the dust, barefoot, with her fingers splayed in the curve of her waist and her hip out, with the red log flag bunched in her other hand and the sun right behind her golden head, her best friend looked like she could do anything she put her mind to, and beat any train under the sun.
‘Ah … m-maybe,’ she answered, stammering. ‘If it slows around the bend.’
‘Pah!’
Darcy crouched and waited for the train, a sly grin not shifting from her mouth. The driver sounded the horn as the train approached. It came on, huge and metallic, belching diesel smoke, glinting in the sun. Grace took two steps back from the tracks and nearly called to her friend to take care. When the train reached her Darcy sprang away, racing away alongside the tracks, laughing and lifting the flag up over her head and waving it to and fro like a banner. The passengers in the train stared at her as they passed and then some boys opened