Lonely Gully: Chapter 5
Just when Lizard Blair thought things were complicated, along comes a stunning hitchhiker - and she knows something about him. Susan Kurosawa takes up our summer novel.
This is “summer reading” like nothing you’ve read before: a diverse field of writers united by their connection to Australia’s national newspaper, collaborating on a novel that will captivate you through summer.
Each author had just three days to write their chapter, with complete freedom over story and style; it’s fast, fun and very funny. Tune in over the summer to see how the story unfolds.
Today, Susan Kurosawa takes up the story.
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Lizard can feel his heart racing like a runaway train as he eyes the opened crate and the great skinned sheep. “C’mon, Furtle, what’s this all about, mate? That wool just peeled off that … that creature. Where’s my Deb? If you’ve hurt her, I’ll … ”
Lizard’s words peter out as Furtle ignores him, continuing to tap messages on his iPhone and humming an eerie tune. Lizard grabs him two-handed by the collars of his crisp khaki shirt. So crisp it could have sliced off his fingers. Crikey, Lizard mutters as he lets go and stumbles backwards. Is this really Furtle or are they printing three-dimensional humanoids now? The fact he even remembers that word humanoid surprises Lizard. Anything was possible in Hollywood or Silicon Valley but not here, not in Guyra, a hundred bloody miles from bloody nowhere.
“Wait here,” orders Furtle, or this My Favourite Martian version of Furtle, as he gets back in the HiLux, but not before putting out his hand to indicate he wants Lizard to hand over his truck keys. Lizard obliges and Furtle takes off back the way he came, plumes of ochre dust unfurling in his wake.
“Stupid bastard,” mutters Lizard as he retrieves his spare set of keys from the glovebox. Jeez, he feels unsettled. Did Furtle have tiny antennae poking out of that new slick hairdo? Lizard needs a plan. OK, so Deb’s clue on the phone about the love hearts must mean the Christmas decorations out at Randy Rachelle’s place. So that’s gotta be where she’s being held. He’s got Button’s gun and the mysterious cargo. Plenty of bargaining power for deals to be done with Tick Tock Tammy. No friggin’ idea what’s really going on, though. How could all this have anything to do with him? Off he drives.
Ten minutes later, Lizard sees a woman waving wildly from beside a Toyota Corolla pulled up on the other side of the road.
“Not a bloody damsel in distress,” he mutters. He accelerates but she’s moved to the middle of the road to flag him down. Lizard stops and sticks his head out the window.
“Hey, you’re driving fast. You must be on the lam!” Her laugh chimes high and bright like a cascade of bells. “What lamb …?” blurts out Lizard. Can she see the sheep thing from where she’s standing? “Not lamb, silly … I mean are you on the run from something?” That laugh again, a tilt of her pretty head, the sway of a thick black plait that bounces to one side.
“Look, I’m in a hurry. You out of petrol? I got a spare jerry can in the back. But you stay put right where you are. I’ll fill you up.” She giggles. Lizard wonders if she is flirting with him. Another time, perhaps, but not here, not now.
“Nope, it’s an electric car. And there’s no phone signal ... “ He cuts her short. “We don’t have those new-fangled electric things around here, love.” She looks at him hard. “I know you,” she said. “Jerome, right? Jerome Blair?”
“Lizard will do,” he says. “You look kinda familiar.”
“It’s me, Anita Kumar. My parents had the Indian restaurant in Guyra years back. Near the newsagency. Curry in a Hurry and all that. We were at school together for a while. Both of us were called brown bastards!”
Lizard remembers the terrible taunts about Mrs Kumar’s gold nose-ring and how some of the leading local arseholes had made up a rude word to rhyme with vindaloo. The family had moved away, baffled and broken. Just before they left, his mum Lynda had presented Mrs Kumar with flowers in front of the boarded-up restaurant and made a little speech in the style of a self-appointed one-woman farewell committee. Oh boy, he loves his Mum. Lynda knows all about skin colour and being shunned. “OK, Anita, what are you doing back here?”
“I’m on my way to the Hillgrove Road turn-off. Could you circle back and give me a lift, it’s not far. Otherwise I’ll be stuck here for, like, forever!” Another musical laugh. She’s so close now. He catches the scent of something musty and hypnotic, like hippie incense. Deb burns a lot of incense.
Anita is mesmerising. Dark eyes that seem to contain whole universes. A tiny henna tattoo on her right wrist. “What’s the tattoo of?” She cocks her head and looks down as if examining it for the first time. “Oh, it’s a cow. Holy in Hinduism.”
“What about sheep?” blurts Lizard. What was he saying?
Anita cocks an eyebrow and counters: “What about sheep, Lizard … Now can you take me or not?”
“I need to know why you’re going there?”
“I’m a molecular biologist and a geneticist. I’ve been asked to take over a project and I’m meeting someone.”
“What kind of project?” She doesn’t answer immediately but walks around the bonnet to the passenger door. Lizard can’t believe she hasn’t mentioned the crate in the back and the giant nude sheep sticking up like the Big Merino at Goulburn. He’d once parked right behind its giant arse. Its balls had been painted blue to raise money for testicular cancer and tourists were taking selfies and showing off.
Another flick of that glossy plait and, whoosh, she’s in, her backpack slung on the floor. “Mind the gun,” says Lizard. “It’s a service revolver that belongs to a bloke by the name of Button. He owes me a Freaky Stanley curry pie.”
She says nothing and Lizard realises how stupid he is to mention Australian curry pies that aren’t curry at all, just given the once-through with a dash of Keen’s Madras powder. She can smell the pie mush he’s smeared on the dashboard. The stink of betrayal and prejudice.
He does a U-turn. Maybe Anita could be the key to all this palaver. He could tell Furtle he hadn’t just driven off but had gone to help this old friend who needed a lift. A transfer service just like they have at posh hotels. He allows himself a small smile. “Anita, this genetic stuff. Tell me more.”
“OK, you’ve heard of Dolly?”
“Yeah, love her music.”
“Not Dolly Parton. Dolly the sheep. Genetically modified sheep grow bigger and faster and produce more wool.”
He checks the rear-vision mirror to make sure the incredible hulk’s still standing.
Anita continues. “In 1996 in Scotland, Dolly was cloned from a cell taken from the mammary gland of a six-year-old Finn Dorset sheep and an egg cell from a Scottish blackface sheep. So, the name Dolly did have something to do with mammaries, actually.” Lizard feels himself blushing.
“Dolly had six lambs, including a set of twins and triplets.”
“Anita, are you making this up? Stop playin’ me for a country bumpkin.”
“It’s not just about reproduction. It’s about breeding sheep that don’t need shearing and aren’t susceptible to flystrike and are hardier and more resistant to drought.”
“Yeah, so forget jobs for shearers.”
“It’s progress, Lizard, and let’s not overlook the creature standing behind us, which I don’t think belongs to you.”
Right on cue, Lizard spots Furtle up ahead standing by his HiLux. “Anita, can humans be cloned? C’mon, what’s really going on?”
She stays silent as Furtle approaches Lizard’s vehicle, holding the mystery device he spied earlier. He’s aiming it right at them.
Anita yelps and rolls down the passenger window. “You need to put that down right away or there’ll be consequences ...” she shouts, all headmistressy and bold. She’s amazing, thinks Lizard admiringly, as he reaches for the gun.
Anita puts her hand on his. “No, no, just stay calm and leave it to me,” she whispers. “We’re in this together now. You still remember your kung-fu moves, right?”
“Too right.”
“I had a real crush on you in school … The cricket champ and the whole Imran Khan look-alike thing. So just remember that, in case ...”
Furtle’s now pretty close to Lizard’s truck. “In case of what, Anita?”
Susan Kurosawa is the author of seven books, including Coasting, The Joys of Travel and the number one bestselling novel, Coronation Talkies, for which she is currently writing a sequel. She has been a travel columnist at The Australian for almost 30 years and thinks killing off characters that annoy you is one of the great joys of writing fiction.
COMING UP: On Friday Cameron Stewart continues the story with Chapter 6, followed by Peter Lalor.
Read every chapter in the paper, on The Australian’s app and at lonelygully.com.au
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