Page 71

February 21st

It’s cooler today, clouds dimming the sun. It even looks like it might rain. When we were here before, the skies were blue and endless, at least that’s how I remember them. I pull down our rug shade to get some air, then stare across at your den. You look across too.

‘We should start to fix it up,’ I say.

‘Sure.’

You say it too easily, too quickly. You even smile, but not with your eyes. You just want to be untied so you can go looking for those drugs, find the car-key and leave me here.

‘Who do you think wrote those words on the den?’ I ask.

‘Land’s land. Anyone’s free to find it.’

‘But it’s private property,yourproperty.’

The edge of your mouth curls up. ‘You still think that? How’d you reckon I got away with not revealing anything about it in the trial? No one found this place by going through my stuff, no one found any deeds.’ You shake your head. ‘It’s not mine.’

I go very still. Did I just hear you right?

‘Not yours?’

‘I mean, I built it, but…’

‘Whose is it then?’ I say. ‘This land?’ Unsteady, I sit down by the camp bed.

You bark a laugh. ‘Officially, fuck knows. Mining land probably. Most of it’s mining land, now.Unofficially…’

Were you going to say that this land belongs to the Indigenous people, the traditional owners, that all of this place did or should belong to them? I remember how you used to align yourself with them. Do you still think you’re entitled to what was and still is theirs?

I glance over to the Separates. ‘Will miners come?’

‘How’d I know? Probably. Reckon there’s more development here now.’

Nothing, it seems, belongs to you.

My head is spinning so much I have to close my eyes, squeeze them shut. You laugh.

‘You never thought I actually owned the place, did you?’ I hear you shift on the camp bed, hear the disdain in your silence. ‘Out here, you take what you come across.’

‘Like you did with me?’ I whisper.

You laugh again, just once, and the sound is like gunshot. ‘Yeah, like you.’

You said I was the only one who ever saw you as you truly were, the only one who ever noticed you in that London park. You said I was the only one you ever truly loved. Was it all a lie? I shake my head, hard.No.The old you was different, the old you would never speak like this.

‘You’re a shit now,’ I say, opening my eyes to scowl at you.

‘Ah, well, that makes two of us.’ You don’t look away from me as you sneer, your face shiny with sweat and smugness.‘Also, I’m gonna need a piss.’

‘I’ll bring you a bucket.’

I cup my hands around a pale brown cricket I find on the bark of a mulga tree and put it in one of the empty water bottles to bring back for the fox. I wonder if I should kill it before I drop it into her box, or whether she’d wake up from just knowing there’s an insect next to her; maybe it’d be good for her to hunt.

When I lay my fingers on her fur, I feel little warmth, and when I press my fingertips to her black lips and try to open her mouth, she doesn’t flinch. She’s almost dead. I feel awful and glance across to see if you’ve noticed.

‘Bloody stupid bringing a fox out here,’ you say. ‘Even if it gets better, it’ll only kill the other animals. Why’d you think there are fences? What the hell else they trying to stop?’

Ignoring you, I pick up her box and walk around to the other side of the car. I’m crying, but I sure as hell don’t want you to see.