Page 84

Eight months earlier

GREAT NORTHERN HIGHWAY

February 23rd

I try to sleep against the rock, let it comfort me, but, before long, the rock, like the night, grows cold, and I retreat to the car. I still can’t sleep, but I can’t leave either. I never told you all the things I needed to tell you. I shut my eyes tight, but it’s no good: the images force themselves in.

Swinging the spade.

You going down.

Blood on the sand.

And then, digging, making the hole bigger. Tucking you inside. A bug in a rug of red. But was it enough? Will your body become soil nutrients?

I think of the beautiful faces you drew on the back of the piece of paper, the constellation of Pleiades. The mermaid.

You did remember me when you were inside. I’m there.

It’s still dark when I start the car again. If an animal smashes through my windscreen while I’m driving, that seems about fair. I reverse, skidding in the dirt, and immediately something clunks against the undercarriage. A rock. I’m stuck, suspended on it. As I rev harder, there’s a horrible scraping sound and the smell of burning rubber, which reminds me of the smell ofyour burning clothes and backpack. I push my foot flat, forcing away the images flooding my mind, willing the car forwards, away from these boulders that are cold now, away from this place. The ashes of your clothes, your CV, the words about the prize—I need to leave it all behind me.

The car screams, protesting, but finally judders off the rock to swerve along the track back to the highway.

I squint in the darkness: no roos or cattle on the side of the road. Nothing there. But in my mind I can see camels, far away, loping across the sand. And lights that might be mine sites, or even stars, twinkling in the distance. Final images to take with me on this black night, on this long, straight road back to you.

It feels right, doesn’t it, what I’m doing?

It has to feel right.