Juice, p.1
Juice, page 1
Juice
Tim Winton
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Juice
Books by Tim Winton
Imprint
About the Book
Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place – middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash. They’re exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work . . .
Problem is, they’re not alone.
So begins a searing, propulsive journey through a life whose central challenge is not simply a matter of survival, but of how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Juice
Books by Tim Winton
Imprint
So I drive until first light and only stop when the plain turns black and there’s nothing between us and the horizon but clinkers and ash.
I pull up. Drop the sidescreen. The southern air is mercifully still this morning, and that’s the only stroke of luck we’ve had in days. I know what wind does to an old fireground. In a gale, the ash can fill your lungs in minutes. I’ve seen comrades drowning on their feet. Clambered over the windrows of their bodies.
I wrap the scarf over my nose and mouth. Hang the glasses from my neck. Crack the door. And step down. Testing the surface as gently as I can. Ankle-deep. To the shins at worst. No sound out here but the whine of our rig’s motors.
Stay there, I call.
I know she’s awake, but the child, slumped in the corner of the cab, does not move. I walk back gingerly to check the trailer. Everything is still cinched down as it should be – the maker, the water, pods and implements – although the days of hard running have left my greens in disarray. The leafier edibles are windburnt, but overall the losses seem manageable. I tap the reservoir to fill my flask. Then, with the glasses, I scan the western approaches. No plumes, no movement. We’re clear.
I try to swipe the dust from the films and panels, but it’s pointless. In a minute or so every generating surface will be furred with ash again. I just need the turbines to trickle in enough juice to get us across.
Back at the cab, I thump my boot heels on the step and climb in. She hasn’t moved, and why that should be both a relief and vexation is beyond me.
We’re okay, I tell her. We’ll make this.
She gazes out across the scorched land.
This place, I say. It was all trees once. I flew across it. When I was young.
She blinks, inscrutable.
It went on and on. Trees beneath us for hours. The smell – you just wanted to eat the air.
She maintains her silence.
Have you flown?
Nothing.
I know you’ve been at sea. Just wondered if you’d been up in a stat.
She shifts and tilts her head against the sidescreen.
It’s really something.
She offers no sign of interest. Sits back, leaves a smear of sun paste on the glass.
But just once, I say, I would’ve liked to fly for the sake of it, not because I was on my way to somewhere horrible.
The sun appears. Molten. Slumped at the edges. Liquifying before us like a burning blimp. Until it rises. Breaks free of all comparisons to become its unmistakable self. Something reassuring. And terrible.
I talk too much, I declare. And you? You never say a word. Once upon a time I never said enough. So I was told.
She gives me nothing.
I know you hear me. You follow my language.
She rubs at the glass and manages to spread more grease than she removes.
Listen, I say. Those men back there, we lost them. No one’s coming for us. This morning we need to get across this ash. It won’t be nice. But on the other side there’ll be fresh country. We’ll move and camp the way we did before. Okay? Until we find ourselves a situation. There’ll be somewhere. We’ll be alright.
The child cranks her head further away. When I take my scarf and tear a long hank from it, she turns back at the sound. I pull the rest of the fabric across my nose and mouth and bind it around the skirts of my hat. And although she flinches, she does not resist when I do the same for her. There’s still dried blood on her brow where she beat herself against the dash. Her pale blue eyes seem more luminous above the mask.
There, I say. Cuts the stink a bit anyway. One day we’ll scrub this cab out. And you won’t just be watching, believe me. So. You set? There’s water here. We’ll eat on the other side.
I lift the sidescreen and set the rig into motion. Trundling just fast enough to make way, but slow enough to avoid stirring up a blizzard of ash.
On and on we go, hour after hour, over country as black as the night sky, across a fallen heaven starred with eruptions of white ash and smears of milky soot.
The vehicle staggers and wallows but keeps on until I’m down to reserve power. And then, as the midday sun drills in through the murk, I see new colours – tan, silver, khaki, bone – and the surge of relief that goes through me is almost deranging.
At the first solid ground I let the child out to privy. She seems energized by the freedom. Though when she’s done, she baulks at being hustled back into the rig so soon. I don’t manhandle her. But I do corral her. And I speak to her sharply. Because I’m tired. And still useless at this. And I really need to put some distance between us and that fireground. So when we finally get moving, the mood in the cab is low, and I’m sorry for it, but soon I have reason to be glad because when the batts finally give out, a hard gust comes in from the south, and the whole rig shakes on its axles.
I climb down stiffly. The kid gets out. I point to the dirty pillars rising into the sky in the distance behind us.
Look, I say. We could have been in the middle of that. But we’re out and upwind, see? That’s not just a lucky escape. That’s us being smart.
I crank out the shade. Set the array.
She watches the ash clouds twist northward. As the wind stiffens, they boil against one another. Then she follows me to the trailer. Watches as I dole out some mash. Accepts the dixy and the spoon. On her haunches, with her back to the wind, she swats away the skirts of her hat and eats. Avidly.
We can’t just be lucky, I say. You and me, we have to stay sharp.
She’s already licking her mess tin clean. I take it from her, give her mine, and while she eats I unlash my swag and roll it out beside the vehicle. Then I take down the bedroll I’ve improvised for her. Unfurl it next to mine. Not so close to make her worry, but near enough to keep an eye on her.
We’re all out of push, I say. Machine and creatures alike. So let’s sleep.
She shovels the last of the mash into her mouth, licks my dixy clean and the spoon also. Gets up, sets both back on the trailer and returns to sit, cross-legged, on her swag. She gazes east, the tail of her hat stirred by the wind.
Suit yourself, I say.
And then I’m gone. Out.
Sometime in the afternoon I wake to a faint keening. And for a moment I think I’m home. With an ailing hen downstairs. The whole flock at risk of contagion. Catastrophe in my compound. And I know I should get up, go straight to the growhouse, but when I open my eyes there’s just the awning shimmying in the wind above me and I’m here, on the dirt, so far south from home. And it’s the kid. Her face smeared with tears. Weeping. For the woman, I imagine, and God knows how much else besides. I reach for her, but she cringes away, so I leave her be and yield, once more, to sleep.
When I wake again the shadows of the vehicle and its trailer are long as safety ropes. The waif kips on. I clamber up, sore and creaky, to get us underway.
Before night falls, we’re into the saltlands. Out on the hard crust, the going is smooth. I don’t even need lights. Except for the dark islands of tree stumps, everything ahead is white.
Once the batts are low, I stop, roll out the swags again and carry the kid to bed. When I wake it’s late and she’s already out, setting pebbles in a circle on the salt. I sit up and look about. The glare is brutal.
You look busy, I say.
She primps her ring of stones.
We can talk about her. If it helps.
She scoops the pebbles up. Shoves them in her dungarees. Gets to her feet.
By day’s end we’re onto higher ground scattered with saltbush and thorny mulga. In the last light I pull up, shroud the rig in camo lattice and decant a quarter-cube for washing. It’s well past time, especially for her, but I take the lead and step behind the rig to scrub down. When I return, my fresh fatigues peeled to the waist so I can air myself a little, I see the kid has assembled another halo of pebbles.
Your turn, I say. There’s clean duds on the trailer gate.
She looks up. Stares at my chest. And I feel suddenly self-conscious. Shamed, even.
They’re just scars, I say. Burns.
She gapes.
It’s different for us, I say. Her skin wasn’t like ours. This is just what happens when skin heals.
I hang the towel and cover up. Then I coil the scarf back around my neck.
You’ll feel better if you wash. Use the soap. I’m going for a walk.
She goes back to her stones as if claimed by them. But when I return she’s clean and her hair hangs damp against the shoulders of her tunic.
At last light, before we set off for the night, she catches me unawares. Just as I’m slipping the tool into the holster in the driver’s door. I’ve finished charging the thing, almost have it secreted, and suddenly she’s there. When she stiffens and steps back, it’s clear she knows what it is.
You don’t have to worry, I say. Don’t think about this thing. And don’t touch it. Ever. Okay?
She lingers a moment. Then she rounds the front of the rig and climbs up into her seat. The cab begins to smell of soap and scrubbed hemp.
Okay, I say, disquieted. Let’s make some ground.
I catch the long, appraising glance she gives me before she settles into her corner. And, despite myself, I wonder at what else she’s seen and endured. If not for the promise I made, I might have broken her neck out of kindness and pushed on alone. But here we are.
I put the rig in gear. We set off through the scrub, over pools of gravel and stands of bluebush, every frame and panel juddering.
In the middle of the night I come upon a track. Before long, I see a light in the distance. I kill the lamps and creep ahead until we’re close enough to scope the place. Just some shanties. Still, promising. But the moment we stop, I hear screams. And laughter of the kind you don’t want to be near. I give the place a wide berth, put a couple more hours behind us.
Next afternoon, another settlement comes into view. Gated compound. Battered shipping containers circled into a stockade. Inside, old hangars and mining habs are set out in rows. In the centre, a water tower. And that gets my hopes up. Until I clock the gallery midway up the tower where sentries are prowling.
We retreat to the cover of a gully to the west from where I can scope the place more thoroughly. Functioning places are rare, but this vill looks harshly governed. Safety never comes cheap.
Still, the prospect of sanctuary isn’t easy to pass up. We lie there all afternoon, wedged into a crease at the lip of the storm gully. The kid never moves. She seems to understand the gravity of the moment, the choice before us.
In whispers, I catalogue every signal of collective enterprise. The food growing. The water bore. The reservoir and piping. I count the solar arrays. The motley assemblage of wind turbines. The harnesses distributing juice from structure to structure. All promising. And yet something about the place makes me uneasy. Sentries are no bad thing, but these blokes are not looking out – their gaze is downward, internal. And it’s only when night falls and the lights come on that I see why. The white domes of the growhouses are bustling with shadows. Which should be a good sign. Folks raising food is an indication of order and co-operation. But even upright, the figures within look slumped. And I know what that means. Once you’ve seen the posture of forced labour, you never forget it.
So we withdraw once more. Blacked out entirely. And beat another careful detour.
We drive east. Keep going like this for two more days. Charging and sleeping under camo in daylight. Travelling slowly at night under the light of one beam.
Until, at the end of a faint and snaking pair of ruts, in stone country, we come into the wreckage of a prospecting camp. It looks deserted. I wheel around for a while. Sceptical, but open to the possibilities. If we’re fated to go it alone for a stretch, we could do worse than a place like this. Yet I remain vigilant. Because threaded between the mine heads and spoil heaps, the trash-filled trenches, the snarls of rusty rebar and sheet metal, there’s a maze of trails. And although I’d like to think that this far south there are still animals at large, I know it’s hardly likely.
Again, I feel a treacherous spasm of hope. Hesitate. Kill the motors and crack the door to sniff the place and listen.
Nothing. Just the lowing of the breeze across the ruins.
I tell the child to stay in the cab. Then climb down to inspect the closest sign of a track. There’s no animal scat. And no bootprints. But these trails are human.
I turn back, gesture to the kid, and she comes.
People dig stuff from the earth, I say. For trade. Or to make things with. This is a mine site. I used to look for places like this in the north. There was always something useful to score if you put the time in and had something to cart it away on. The stuff we uncovered in places like this. I couldn’t begin to tell you.
We walk to a headless shaft. Stand at the raised rim. This hole’s not rectangular like the others. It’s circular. Like a well. We crane a little. Peer down. But it’s too deep and dark to see much.
You know, I say. If it’s not full of water, we could probably live here. Down one of these.
She scrunches her face.
If I could make it safe, that is. No guarantees. But it might be worth a thought. All we need is somewhere out of the weather, something remote and secret. I think this could work.
Which just goes to show, says a voice behind me, that there’s no such thing as an original idea.
The girl starts so wildly she almost sends us both into the pit. I yank her back by the shoulder. She wheels away from the sight of the stranger and sets her face against my breastbone.
Stay where you are, says the bloke with the crossbow.
Mate, I say. You gave us a fright.
Looks that way.
He’s smaller than me. Younger. His left eye is pearly. A greying beard covers much of his face and neck. His cheeks and hands bear the same white lesions you see on everyone, but the scars on his nose and around his eyes are not the work of weather.
We’re just passing through, I tell him.
So you say.
He looks at the child.
She yours?
Yes.
You’re a bloody liar.
She’s not for trade, I say.
So that’s how you got her?
No. Hell, no.
But she’s not yours, is she.
She’s with me. We’re travelling together.
Doing what?
Doing what we can, comrade.
Don’t fucking comrade me, he says. She real?
Would she flinch if she wasn’t?
The hell should I know.
We’re just looking for somewhere safe.
You and every other reffo.
We don’t want to be a problem.
Well, you’re here now. That makes you a problem.
But three’s better than one, right?
Is it?
Of course it is.
Two more mouths to feed, the way I see it.
The crossbow, I say. Service issue.
He says nothing. I pull in a breath, preparing to move, but then I keep talking, buggering on to buy us a few more moments.
So, I ask. Were you any good? With that, I mean.
Standing here, aren’t I?
When an archer is shooting for nothing, I say, he has all his skill. If he shoots for a brass buckle, he’s already nervous. If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets.
Well, smartarse, I already see two targets.
The prize divides him. He cares. He thinks more of winning than shooting. And the need to win drains him of power.
You’re a scream.
Were they still using that when you went through?
What do you care?
We’re both schooled, comrade. We both know what’s right.
Fat lot of good that did us.
Both still here, though, aren’t we? As you say.
For the moment.
Well, after what I’ve seen, I can settle for the moment. Reckon you’re no different.
Reckon away, fella. It’s no odds to me.
Seen any other operators down this way?
Why would I tell you?
Why wouldn’t you?
You’re living in a world that’s gone.
You know that compound west of here?
I’ve seen it.
I don’t want to live like that.
Might be the only way.
If you really thought that, you wouldn’t be here. You’d have thrown your lot in with them.
