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then I ll never walk again. How could I? What book was that
in? Never mind the tide. The writer said that everyone was
destined to walk this earth, and was given a number of the
steps he would take before he laid himself down with
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exquisite relief and died. Do you know what? I think that
very soon I shall reach the allotted number of my steps, years
before my time.
Zombie! Freda called me a zombie. I certainly felt like one
when she kept on and on screaming into my mind. I wouldn t
have been so desperate if only she hadn t screamed. And to say
all those things in my own office, with Kendal and Mace
listening. To repeat them over and over that night we left the
Urban Committee Meeting. What the men thought I could
see in their faces.
I tried to be merciful. I wouldn t have given her strychnine
had I known its terrible effects. I could have given her cyanide
instead. Now, Clifford Maddoch! Don t forget to raise your
feet and put them down this one, that one, this one, that one.
That s it, Clifford. Inspector Bonaparte is doing this. He
doesn t forget. He doesn t forget anything.
How stupid I was to crush that little kangaroo mouse. I
could have kept it in a pocket, then sent it to a taxidermist in
Sydney and had it stuffed, and no one could ever say I hadn t
been in the real Australia, could they? Pity Mitski died.
Funny that his voice was so like my wife s. Mitski would have
composed a tune to that little kangaroo mouse. Now he s
down somewhere in Fiddler s Leap. Fiddler s Leap! Bumble-
foot Hole! Big Claypan! Curley s Hate! What curious names.
I ll make twelve more steps before I look up to see if there s
anything to see. One, two, three . . . ten, eleven, twelve.
Nothing. Nothing at all except the saltbush, and the sky. Two
things. I ll try that again. I ll make it twenty-four before I look
up. Sorry, Riddell. I wasn t laughing at you.
Ruddy squirt. Always hated the cocky jumped-up. Bashed
old Mitski, he did. Saw him doing it. Like a cock sparrer the
way he s moving. If he d been a man like me, Joe Riddell, he
wouldn t have fed poison to his missus; he d have picked her
up by the feet and cracked the backyard cement with her
head. Could always say she fell outer the upstairs winder.
Oughta had more brains meself, come to sum it up. Shootin
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that cocky for moanin about the cow was a bit raw. Nothin to
be proud of. I shoulda pushed him up into the fork of a tree
and left him with his neck in the fork. Could ve explained
how he went climbin trees lookin for bees nests.
Gord! How much more of this? Week after week walk-in
to nothin , that s what we re doin . Shoulda stayed behind
with old Havant. Woulda, too, if that slut had stayed. I d have
found out what she was made of.
Crikey! That land over there looks different to what it was
yestiday. Must be movin along it. There s a rabbit. Ain t seen a
rabbit after that one what done a bunk from them sticks and
things Mark stirred up. Eat! I d eat him fur an all. When I
get off this ruddy Plain I ll get the lend of a hundred quid off
Maddoch have to talk cobber-like and I ll buy a hundred
loaves of bread, half a side of beef, two sides of bacon, ten
dozen eggs, and I ll hole up somewhere. No more farmers for
me. No more livin with cows. Wimmen! To hell with
wimmen. Grub . . . tucker . . . food . . . that ll be all I ll ever
want. I ll eat, and eat, and eat.
The sun rises in the east, sets in the west . . . ran the mind
of Edward Jenks. Can t bluff me. Makin south, all right.
Getting closer to that land all the time. The d. knows his
onions, give him his due. More sting in him than all the rest in
the bag. Caw! Joe s all in, the big slob. Mark s wobblin like a
drunk, and Clifford couldn t run a yard if his missus turned
up.
That leaves me. Tough Ed, they called me. Well, I ain t
done so bad at that. Lotta life in the old dog, as I ll show
em an that trollop, when I get me chance. No woman puts
it over me like Cliff s missus did. Come to think it all out, that
leaves this ruddy cop what calls himself a Detective-Inspector.
Got a reputation they say. So has Mister Edward Jenks,
Esquire, A.B. Different method, that s what. Another day,
maybe two, an we arrives some place. Then we all start again
on scratch, and if ever I happen to meet that Myra Thomas on
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a dark street, well, well, what do we say, Mister Jenks and
Missus Thomas?
The nights now were mere interludes. The rest periods
ordered by Bony were without reality. Myra Thomas existed
on her dreams of power and glory. Jenks looked up now and
then, not at the Plain which was battering them into
themselves, but at the lurching figure of the female shape in
male attire. None of them even noticed the crows that came to
meet them from the coast , as though they were doves leading
them to the land and trees where they roosted o nights, safe
from wild dogs and foxes.
The following day was to be the last day of this trek, and
during the afternoon they skirted the coast, travelling from
one promontory to the next. Bony watched the sun,
maintained a check of time, and camped that night in the
shelter of a small island on which grew a few mulgas. They
had one tin of meat and two of fish, and that was the end of
the food supply.
Argument arose because three tins could not serve as plates
for six people.
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