The Borough

by Jack Norman

“—insofar as I can tell,” Dale’s favourite phrase since he had taken up reading. In his middle age, no less. Yes. Reading—he told her—could be very meditative—especially when paired with one’s carefully selected “playlist.” That was how he kept their rumpus these days. She did what she could to unwind in his company. It was a nice place to spend time. “Or more than likely she’s off yet, stuck well into the piss, somewhere out in the long grass, and probably with a handful of other drunks we’re unlikely to hear about.”

“People do go missing, you know?”

“So they do.”

“Then please stop making fun of it. The thought of her out there frightens me so much. I refuse to cast judgement. During someone’s hour of need. You’ll invite something karmic into our lives.”

Oh yes. She should have guessed it would. “Sound funny,” that is, as Dale put it. Laughing in his new manner. Enjoyed rolling his eyes at her. “Because you’re funny! I love the way you engage with things. Don’t you know it takes belief to be superstitious like that? I only wish I had more of that in me.”

“No,” she said. “—!” Saving her breath. Because he’d only learned recently about the power of “not caring,” whether from somewhere on the internet, or accidentally in the course of things. She was now forced to drop the rope on matters she’d still rather contest. Cornered on the wrong side of the table. Thinking of how—once upon a time—she might have sighed—exasperated—or rolled her eyes—and he’d paw after her and beg “Sorry!” But now he welcomed the silence. Permanent sort of checkmate. The only way to revert their course seemed cruel. To point things out to him. Challenge his limited intellect. Ah, husband! They were part of the world order. And it was considered flippant and irresponsible to “take the nuclear option” over a little belligerence. But God and Christ! (“Take them all in vain!”) How did she ever figure of ceding all her gains and territory under the foreign onus of restraint? 

The name Roslyn Cobbo was general over every headline that September. She was the nation’s latest, routinely beloved MISSING PERSON for whom men, women, and children were to prove their dedication. Yes. Every private fishing spot had been yielded to volunteers and authorities. Children scoured the back ways under fig groves and salt creeks for a corpse or a rusted kind of cage they had dreamt up… “Ro-os-lyn!” … Over paddocks, salt pans, low tides, cliffs, quarries, farms, private property, dirt roads, back ways, “parts” of town… Indeed, there was a sense of familiarity with this procedure. Members of the Parent-Teacher Association assembled in grid search formations without the need for any instruction. The usual descriptions of her (Roslyn’s, and many of those others) light, life, joy, and smile evinced her desperate need to be found. But it was sometimes funny the way everyone seemed to understand that—for perhaps the first time—the media’s lost darling was Black—Indigenous—Aboriginal—“The full-blooded kind”—Knobbly in pictures—Deep-set about the eyes—Likely on file with services: Centrelink, Dept. of Child Safety, Dept. of Justice—The kind that caused trouble—“Local” in the worst way you could mean it—who maybe, (for nasty reasons people speculated), “Deserved it”—(Or, charitably)—“Couldn’t have been helped even if you wanted to.”

“—and yet there’s something about her name,” Dale reckoned.

“Roslyn?”

“Yes. It sounds very girlish. Makes you want to come to her rescue. Didn’t we have it on one of our lists once?”

“Rosalee, but—.”

“—handful of four or five of them, more than likely. I’ve always said it. Gone off somewhere on walkabout, meanwhile the whole town’s—… and I appreciate it’s nice the girl’s family are worried. But as far as hardly did they ever care before? How did she go missing in the first place? —is, of course, the question no one’s really asking. Even if they put it in those words. But it’s taken over by the cameras and the news who’ll breathe life into any… “corpse” so long as you’ll watch and which I doubt the family ever realised that’s what they were inviting. And then what? Weeks now is it? Doesn’t it all begin to feel futile when you consider that the statistics suggest—.”

You see, for the average woman, getting older required an increased awareness of your personal hygiene… or perhaps it was better to say: a wholistic understanding of your health. And that a healthy person—by that measure—came together in the form of “presentability.” One’s appearance was evidence of one’s health. And indicative of the time they’d spent caring for it… “insofar as” it was your responsibility… “insofar as” your body was less regenerative… more “stinky,” to put it simply, if it was left to your lifelong devices. This did not present in Dale as an area of interest. Nor did it present that way in many men. Even though it should have. Because his beard stank like an old man’s now. And his habit of passing gas beneath his clothing—layered, and baggy, the older he got—clung to him the same as his favourite hat he’d worn for years. (If she was being honest, it completed an aspect of her father which she’d forgotten). But what it meant was she was now quite agonised by the perils of small vices such as consuming her regular brand of grenache. Because that was also one of her favourite things to do. Which now seemed concentrated on the density of her breath. Swimming stupidly in her front of mind. Or stuck to her in a dozen other ways both inside and out. Everywhere she looked, young women were growing sexier; clothes that slid those alien forms they’d developed, and yet it sophisticated them? She feared of becoming “pathetic” to a modern point of view. Hm. When her sister—smart girl, a mother—laid all over the laps of that set of boys one evening, “only doing it for a lark,” calling herself a “cougar!” … it was nearly too much to bear.

“What I often remember,” she said, “was that some time around the early 2000s it became very cool for women to go with Indigenous men. Fijians and South Sea Islanders. Those—what would you call them?—“nearby” blacks you’d go to school with. (And I don’t like putting it that way). But you can see the legitimacy it conferred upon them. Don’t you think? Their children are everywhere. Speaking in the same terms you or I would use. Basically part of the conventional population.”

“Hm?” — privately: “… !”

“Only it’s for the best women don’t go for that anymore. I don’t believe it was ever very safe. Men tend to other women who are not of their own kind. Fetishise. Abuse. And so on. I believe we were led astray by a cultural fever… —er. That’s as a whole. Men and women. Don’t you remember when “club music” was kind of the thing? “Channel V” and all of that. It trickled down through everything.” 

“Can you believe this band? Listen a minute. How the music draws out slowly. At times it’s nearly like static. Did you know if it wasn’t for YouTube they’d probably be lost to time?”

“White boys in their garage.”

“What are you upset with me? you’re trying to—.”

“No.” Ah! Relief. (Stupid idiot of my own). “It’s art. You’re right.” She drank some more.

Some years before he died, Dale’s father encouraged them to purchase their home on the southern shore of the Ross Creek. Kind of a dirty arm of the Ross River that ran behind Flinders Street and out to sea. The edge of centre of things as far as traffic flowed. “Global warming will freshen the smell as it begins to swell,” he said. “There are shipping lanes in the Arctic the Russians are aiming to use by the decade.” He was close with all his sons. The kind of father-in-law who kissed you on the mouth. “You’ve got to be on the edge of change.” But over twenty years, the creek did not rise. And whether was there a structural diagnosis? she could not say—but she felt as though the house had depressed under the brackish elements. It was only now, as things grew dire across the country, they could finally sell for a profit. But then who’d buy? Lonely against the mangroves. Which god and how they’d advanced upon the yard! Long grass up the sides of the house the council never saw to. Yes—and—well—Dale got out there now and again on the ride-on, but… they were often sleeping under the weeds, weren’t they? “Grog sick.” Irate at being woken. The native call to the land which surmounted all solutions the city had ever devised for them. And say he was out there, as she said to him once, and “say you don’t see them and you run someone over?” Roslyn, just as easily, (anything was possible), or a family member, asleep, hand mangled under an obtuse rotary blade… —The funny thing’s that he was only a bricklayer—Dale’s father—but because he was a sole trader—local all his life around the “boy’s club”—he was used to people listening to his ideas. She certainly did. (Her own father died very young). When he told her to marry Dale. “For me, most of all, sweetheart.” Funny. “But for yourself! Who’ll need someone in the long-term.” By which he could not have meant anything. Ham-fisted phrase about… “—risk of yourself getting lost… —going wherever that long nose of yours leads you…” Old men dramatised by television like the rest of us. Thinking in those stupid, bulbous terms. When the truth was much plainer. She and Dale had once shared a sexual attraction. It was enough to sustain them over a period of years. He was only three years older than her, but he was working whereas she was studying, and he had what she thought of as “a lot of money.” Their lifestyles seemed very compatible, and so did their friends, so much that they came to feel they “shared” them. Much as you shared a life. Or money, or a dog. It became inevitable they should marry. And this was not something she regretted. Or dreamt much other than. No. You could not call your life a tragedy because it panned out with a little boredom towards the end.

“Listen now. Here—here. My favourite part’s when he sings: It’s the way! …. Home should be! … The way the windows frame the trees! … Oh, wow. You almost want to say his voice sounds terrible. Even accounting for the fact it’s a live show. O-o-h… but then it’s “slowcore,” remember, basically an instrumental project. So you don’t demand he can sing. It’d be missing the point. But you come to feel that it’s part of what makes this version so special.”

“Hm,” she said. “Art’s flawed.”

“Exactly!”

“I’ve heard you say that.”

“Oh, really? Well. I shouldn’t take credit for it. Truth is I read it somewhere. I can’t remember now. I need to read more non-fiction, actually. I’ve been saying that. “Art-analysis-type-work.” Or maybe art history.”

When Roslyn Cobbo’s family approached the police to report their suspicions about her absence, they confessed to feeling that the officers would not take their complaint seriously. This is because the subject, and reality, of Aboriginal itinerancy was now taught throughout state institutions of all kinds, especially police departments. Professionals including medical staff, educators, and tax accountants, now often required formal certifications before serving their community in any capacity, or evidence of personally attended modules—(it was often enough, for example, for an Indigenous client to list their formal address as: “Dean Street Park,” or literally: “long grass,” where it met a bureaucracy’s need for a fixed address; and in order to recognise—nominally—the nomadic forms of urban living which occurred under and far beyond the oversight of our systems)—which, sadly, had the unintended effect of producing a professional culture of fatalism amongst sworn officers that left many to their own, hopeless fates… But, in Roslyn’s case, it seemed the young officer who met with her grandmother and sister was readily concerned by what he heard; or, at least, the facts as they were reported aligned with the “key criteria” for lodging a missing person report—(therefore, if he was prejudiced in any way, as Roslyn’s sister once, non-committaly speculated, his more scrupulous attitude won out in favour of the ordinary process).

“Which now and that I find the most frustrating. Because they commenced the investigation!” Dale said. (Who would be quite astute for the next hour and a half, off the back of his fourth glass of wine, but was likely to deteriorate from there). (There was one occasion she called him a “sloppy drunk”—not actually meaning much by it—and it caused a long, now infamous argument about the subtle ways she attempted to undermine his credibility). “Which is only to say: the arm of the system responded perfectly once someone engaged it. Regardless of her race. So the family was mistaken to assume it wouldn’t. But and yet they keep making this point over and over like it’s somehow the fault of you or I they ever had the impression in the first place. Now it’s got to be some other kind of barrier that’s the problem, cultural instead of institutional, and of course this one’s even more nebulous! It’s like. No. You’re wrong. If there are matters going unreported because of some misguided notion you’ve picked up, then stop thinking that and go and report them right now!”

“Hm,” she was required to admit. Roslyn’s fate had seemed rather convenient for various types. The permanent marquee station which was first established in the middle of Flinders Street mall as a sort of “operational hub” for the grassroots/volunteer “Roslyn Cobbo Activist Mission” had slowly grown districts at its flanks, additional tents and stations, so that it became something like an all-inclusive women’s shelter, night market, protest camp, and political/artistic podium dedicated to an assortment of “progressive” causes. Several of these outspoken latecomers eventually came to represent the entity in a highly public fashion (though, Roslyn’s family retained final and official authority on all things specific to her). One way or another, they said, Roslyn Cobbo’s fate was emblematic of, and attributable to, an oppressive/ unjust/ indifferent/ ignorant/ inefficient system which failed its most vulnerable constituents every day in similar and different ways. “Despite the full force of the law,” (Dale was now yelling without noticing), “out there searching tirelessly for her.” And which by all accounts they were. Searching every hedge and surveillance system they could access. Retreading old interviews, suspecting family, kind of desperately, clearing everyone they spoke to of any wrongdoing… —The strongest piece of evidence was submitted during the first week of the search by a man named Harrison Midgley whose doorbell security camera captured footage of Roslyn wandering across his yard on McAlister Street, near the Oonoonba Community Centre. She presented in a seemingly ordinary mood—whether you factored that the time was 11:06 PM on a Wednesday night was any factor at all—she appeared barefoot, which mattered very little to anyone—and, on the closest zoom possible, it was remarked—because there was so little to remark upon—that she may have been “muttering to herself.” This piece of information became the subject of an impotent, online controversy after several people began to conclude she had been “raving mad” about something. “On the drink,” as every know-better knew better. Or causing problems for herself and everyone else—the neighbours—the police—the taxpayer—her four children—and those well-meaning volunteers out wasting their time and searching week after week—by gallivanting like a fool, late at night, in a dangerous part of town.

“See this is the kind of functional thinking people like you weaponise to distort the “true nature” of victims. That because they are not perfect—or even moral—they to deserve to suffer—or don’t deserve our concern—or mercy, for god’s sake! Don’t you understand the investigative work that has gone into this woman’s private life? Whole staff departments set—and probably it’s deliberate the way they seem to alternate each week—on proving and disproving her legitimacy as a victim by a revealing every facet of her life. Interviews and tell-alls. There’s nothing about her we won’t learn anymore. So what she was once admitted to the drug and alcohol service? How sterile! It came as no surprise to me, because I don’t think of people as anything more than themselves. I expect that her private moments would humiliate her. And put her beyond all redemption. Like yours would. Like mine. And don’t say—.”

“Children in the care of the state—.”

“Maybe so!”

“And that’s just fine according to all—.”

“Right and so we should just do nothing? Out there either freezing or dying of thirst. Wishing maybe someone’ll find her? Maybe injured? And your problem’s with the credibility of this whole movement she’s had nothing to do with. Thinking maybe she should die out there, while we’ve hands ready to search, volunteers, day and night, because more important’s the integrity of a few activists, or the principle that she should have thought twice before having a drink that evening, or whatever it is according to your list of rules that makes you eligible for public rescue.”

“No,” laughing. On his side of the table again. “I’m actually not. That’syour silly idea of it. Woman’s way of thinking. Because my feelings, and this conversation, are confined entirely to this house. They go no further than that door. That is the prerogative that we enjoy as husband and wife. I get to say what I want when I’m here. Right, wrong, or rude. In my public life I don’t declare a thing. It would ruin me for one thing. But do you know what? I actually donated to the family the other day. The official fundraiser what goes directly to the family. The office set up a payment for us. And no one forced me to. I figured it was “the thing to do.” So do you know I’m actually tangibly in favour of the whole thing—and her! Does anyone count that or is that not the point… is the point more about what’s in my head and heart?… because why?… why is that the point? … —is my point.” 

When they attended parties, people sometimes asked Dale: “So what do you do for work?” And he deflected the question as well as he could. Or asserted a moral maturity: “Do you know in Aboriginal cultures, they ask “Where are you from?” or “Tell me about your family?” instead.” —“Oh, yes!” (They must say). Yes, yes, yes… —“Nobody really wants to talk about work, do they?” … Only, a lot of the time, people did want to. They liked what they did for a living. Especially when they had a profession. Andthat, she knew, was the real problem. Picture: “I’m a lawyer.” Oh? “I’m an electrician by trade, but—.” Wow! … —Dale had to put his work to people in the form of a phrase. One that was always changing, edited over many years. And still nobody made it easy. “Sorry now what does that mean?” Why couldn’t they just pretend? Move the conversation along. Or try and glean something in the telling. Sadly, once they got down to it, the real answer was unimpressive.

“Well it’s mostly administrative. I won’t bore you with the details.” 

“Oh so you’re not on that project, then?”

“Dale’s actually been reading—.”

“Don’t, please, darling.”

“Oh? There we go. What’ve you been—.”

“… —but if you don’t know the author, it’s hard to make much sense of it. ”

“I’ll tell you, I saw the film.”

“Yes I was surprised it turned out so well.”

If only she’d understood sooner how much of his disposition had to do with her. And how she saw him relative to other men (whether these were strictly individuals borne in mind). Even when his mood appeared thoroughly apathetic. Or beyond any sexual appetite. (He was remarkably skilled at reading her mind. Which communicated itself through her elbows on the table and willingness to interrupt him). Actually, he had come right out and said it on a few occasions, “I need you to adjust your opinion of me,” but she struggled to observe the needs of the male ego for longer than a day. The zero-sum nature of a woman’s attraction seemed to confer a man’s status upon him. One wife was the better. Did she seem light-hearted? flirtatious? or overly opinionated? Two wives indicated the pursuit of something. Men made calculations about each other based on all this. But she thought it must be some pornographised anxiety of the era. Because when she was a girl her mother had license to call her father whatever she wanted: “Damned fool”—“Buffoon!”—“Fat”—“Old man”—“Drunken bastard.” And, as far as she remembered, it all rolled off his back, laughing with him, and out into the street. The same as all the rest of them. They’d come over, even, to spend the night if they needed, or perhaps a moment’s peace and a plate of tea if the time was right. But it was the culture now to go rushing to the window when you heard a woman arguing, to find the man out on his arse, spurred like a working ass, left and right looking fool—no one’s heart could take it! … “—and so that’s necessary to define a man? … —long days, no I don’t doubt it, solving problems, only natural they’d talk a bit of shop or bring their work home with them.” And even though they were sitting next to each other in the car, he only made eye contact with her across the rear vision mirror. Asking, basically, “do you find that attractive?” The overly forward attitude of a man with an idea of himself? “Or do you prefer me?” How to say… (she wondered)… that in life you can ask yourself the question: “Do I love my dog?” And, despite how you answer, you might find it hard to isolate the feeling. “My friends?” Or what about: “My own mother?” Of course!—only…  Does it cling to your fingers? The supposed thing of love… or is it more about a set of terms we have arbitrarily designated—… She said: “We have the word family for a reason. You are my family. That’s the beautiful thing about marriage. It binds us together for reasons that go beyond the simple whims of attraction.” Wow—Oh—Yes. He nearly drove them off the road. 

… —going way too fast—which, to be fair, was his usual habit—and peeling off the road onto their long driveway, tyres spinning out for a bit on the dirt, righting with a kind of yank when they found purchase, and going up the way home through tunnels of tussock grass that—though the headlights revealed nothing at the moment, splitting branch ways apart, light the way it spilled in all directions of darkness, glimpses of dirty or barren paddock each second they passed—certainly housed a dozen or so of the “locals.” Yes. Right as the garage door opened and they pulled the car inside, Dale said something like: “at the centre of this biome,” because it was on both their minds every time they had to drive through it in the dark. By the time Dale’s father came to regret it for them, he made every attempt to secure the property against intruders and loiterers. He installed blinding floodlights on the eastern side of the house which were so sensitive they often illuminated if you moved hastily inside—or when the one cat came by, as it did every night, as they were laying down for bed. But they had never been directly threatened like that. By any force or misbehaviour. “[People] don’t shit where they eat,” Dale said, reluctant to accept more favours. “Although it’s funny I do get nervous taking the bins out.” 

Out of any window, distant as she felt, they were alone on either side, and she could pull the grassland across the curvature of the earth. You might as well say they lived “On acreage,” and they did where they could get away with it. “Oh?” Plains, sure. In the heart of the city. Wasn’t it strange how harmlessly groups of Aboriginal people yelled at each other? Put as words in some ordinary document. And over the same things for as long as she’d noticed. Or the regular songs of birds. That they could be territorial and yet so inclined to share? The difference was navigated by a convoluted system of manners. Land, dwelling space, or a person’s “favourite spot,” came easily and went, and that was common by their nature; but grog was hard and bartered for and fairly won by a lot of luck which they were obligated to share; and each other’s men and women were most the source of violence and jealousy. Which either explained or complicated the reasons they were always pursuing each other across every line of friendship, kin, and tribal law. The women came to blows more often than the men. They fought over the younger men, who were surprisingly demure over the attention, slender by their aspect and the shape of their shoulders. And it was the men who seemed the most stricken with grief when their woman went wandering. They turned themselves inside out for the world to hear them. Wailing over many nights. She could hear it in bed even with the windows closed. And no matter how many times he was put out of bounds by the mob, he always seemed to come back, to find her from the dark, clubbing her with something, and dragging her away by the hair before they routed him again, while she resumed her place in the circle, dizzy and blowing dirt out of her nose. 

“Three kids out of California and there’s barely anything written about them,” Dale said. Gulps of wine getting away from him. “You know this is before the internet. I often wonder how did people innovate before the internet? It’s difficult for me to challenge an idea until I come across something in my algorithm. Imagine seriously you’re a kid out of California—maybe 19 years old—if that—and deciding to record some special kind of prog album—out of a scene where you don’t even know if… —Like maybe have I played you Spiderland before?”

“… —but it’s fair to speculate,” she said. “And I’m not blaming her. But why was she wandering around on her own? The articles said this morning the police have not interviewed her boyfriend, because there’s no confirming their relationship—or his location! But, of course, there’s no telling what that means. Because perhaps he’s missing, as well? Only there’s no family in his case to worry. Some of those pictures from the Bulletin look like she’s from around South Townsville. I wouldn’t be surprised if perhaps we’ve heard her one of these nights.”

“Could you imagine? Say we went out there right now and just called her name. Figuring we’ll give it a crack. She calls back: “Ye-a-ah?” as regular as ever. And we just solve it like that? Whole town out looking for her and she’s been asleep under our fence.”

“Ha!… —except I’ve seen volunteers over there in the mornings. They do outreach there now. The women from the tents in town have been visiting all the usual spots to confirm she hasn’t shown up. And the police, too. Of course, the sad thing’s that I think there’s a culture against “speaking to the police” for whatever they maybe can’t trust.”

“Again with—?”

“I’m saying it’s a bad thing. That someone probably does know more than they’re saying.”

“There’s nothing we can do.”

“That’s not true. Their biggest search yet is scheduled for this weekend. It’s going to cover the whole of Cleveland—and the bay—and even the water where they think the current might have taken her. Anyone can register to volunteer. Police are going to be leading teams through the bush. It’s just—… I find that idea of “manpower” to be so obtuse. Like when you lose your keys and you end up turning out cupboards you know you haven’t opened in years. It would feel like a waste of time to me.”

“Yes. That I agree. The answer’s right under our nose. In some way I’m not sure how. If only more people had the courage to say what we’re thinking.”

“… —fuck’s sake this music goes on and on! Can’t we turn it off?”

“That’s precisely the point! It’s common to feel that way. With prog—or lo-fi—you have to wait until it clicks.”

It wasn’t easy to forget that early days in the area were characterised by a kinetic, summery sort of optimism. The weather was not so abrasive. Warm and rigorous that even carried the rain off with a nice lick along the back of your leg. Memory, more than anything, retained its colour over the years. And it was of aqua, white, and black. The style of the property developer who cleared a hundred lots along the eastern bend of the Ross Creek as part of its vision for an “integrated living and business district” around the Little Fletcher bridge. Well and even so. The fact that it never came to fruition didn’t stop her from thinking of it fondly. Because the land about them was so clear and level at that time. And all those paths and access ways emerged out of the forest canopy, “goat tracks,” “pig tracks,” that’d have to have been fairly thrashed in their making, mudded and rutted, appeared sweet like garden lanes once shown by the light of day and kicked along with boots. Long time ago. Promised about the civilising effect men could have on a space. And how once envisioned, and given over to a  marked “potential,” a thing could never seem to uncouple from its given promise. They often walked their dogs between the civil machinery and across the shape of residential plans. Began friendships, or the seeds of, with prospective neighbours who visited in their cars. (Scrappy trees grew out of the gravel now, never quite the same way as they were). When people seemed active and open… out of the house—“for the fuck of it”—on a healthy whim… “up” for more things like that… —But it was always difficult to achieve certain outcomes in a sweltering town such as theirs; and around the time people started accessing the internet on their phones, they also lost their nerve for grandeur.

Dale’s father found it difficult to visit them in the later years. “A fine home,” he consoled at times. Hm. “Sure, yes.” Although: “stank through with the elements of mud,” as he spat a hunk of phlegm that’d troubled him all day… —Intrepid fishers drove through the mud of the creek in the afternoons. Directly behind their yard. They waved as a point of etiquette when they saw her watching from the terrace. Casting nets in the shallows that drew hundreds of tiny flitting fish. And, although she’d never caught them, those fishers, or whoever it was, almost certainly had to trespass through the back corner of their yard to drop crab pots in the mangroves by their bend of the shore. Their house—their home—“a common obstacle, or landmark, securing time and space,” Dale said. Thinking whether it could be funny, say, if running late some evening, or really any afternoon, a person might find themselves calling home to say they were: “—by that old house on the edge of the water…”

But!—and how to put it the right way? … who had the heart or the soul to take her meaning? … (when, if she was being honest, Dale probably did, more than anyone, who was sweeter by his nature than she gave him credit for)—for however “rundown” the old place maybe seemed—because the creek was shallow and muddy when she remembered it used to flow—and the banks were often cold under the shade of Little Fletcher street—(and more the taller it grew)—and litter and sea corpses gathered under the footbridge—or how the grass grew interminably under the star pickets and fence lines spotted about their yard and surrounds—well… there were occasions—late arves, especially, early eves—when she saw it differently: how when, especially during summer, the sun fell low behind the tree line, but still found its way over the earth’s floor, through the skeletal frame of the country bank stadium… Or! … (and not to split hairs)… but seeming more to recede through them… the more she thought of it, yes, because, after all, the sun was mighty, wasn’t it? Relentless the way it came on. Over, and thorough, and bearing down upon every inch of concrete as though it had weight… —so that it must necessarily release! Day’s end seemed to gasp. The weight of its work. A–h–h! The orange sludge of the sun, perhaps nauseous, fatigue by its bowels—(same as how before eating the apple, Eve’s cunt—and so, necessarily, her arsehole—whether wide as she spread it—for purposes of prayer or that frolic—and the same for modes of waste—(phlegm which could not trouble her)—was yet pure, still “of Eden,” and kindly to look upon)—ran through the river, long ways with the water, glimmering like a fish, out to sea via the mouth of the Ross. Sun birds. Gulls, crows, ibis, bent in oblong shapes across the earth, only cooler shadows in the length of their necks, never shade, river run, sun fal’n, so that each evening—“from a certain point of view”—was drawn up from out of the sea.

“It’s so funny because it doesn’t matter what the weather’s looking like: if you stand out on that terrace, the wind is blowing. But if you went directly downstairs, it might seem like the whole night was still. Shows you what you don’t always know. Right in front of you with no semblance of an answer.” 

“Yes I think that’s—.”

“Hm?”

“… —something scientific. There’s a reason for it.”

“Hm.”

On Triple M’s popular Pricey for Breakfast program, a celebrity outdoorsman described the freezing nature of the wilderness that could threaten a person’s (Roslyn Cobbo’s) chances of survival—even under tropical conditions. It seemed obvious they were under the direction not to speculate directly about Roslyn’s health, circumstances, or likelihood of survival. To the disappointment of many, he spent a lot of time talking about trees. Indeed. “You see I like to think of trees as “nature’s engineers” who are always working to develop our landscapes. They provide a defence system that stabilises the ground and regulates water  and creates a self-sustaining ecosystem that we all benefit from.” Erm. Yes… “and in a survival situation, where a person may be totally exposed to the elements, trees provide an immediate form of natural cover… so that they can “burrow” against the base of the tree, and, if it’s large enough, rotate around the trunk as required so they’re always sheltered from the wind…” Yes, well… that seemed quite obvious. The police conducted interviews and regular press conferences that reminded everyone they were “doing everything they could,” and that if anyone had any knowledge of Roslyn, they should “report it to [their] local police station immediately.” Yes, yes! Of course—. The Townsville Women’s Centre, who were rather ceaseless in their support for Roslyn, very noble, and doing the real digging tasks, getting out on the ground and far across country in search, but knowing a “cause” when they saw one,  said: “violence against women is never okay.”

… —just as they’d gotten over it, Roslyn of tremendous charisma had the habit of inserting herself. Because she couldn’t get over the idea of her, and Dale loved the sound of his own voice. “Now the thing’s that to their point. And I seriously doubt she was “raving mad” at all, at least not in the way they keep putting it. But you have to admit, whether drunk, angry, unwell, or… even a victim of harassment, where someone might have been following her, which like you said is actually likely… well but then anyone who goes missing under those circumstances could be said to be, in some way, “out of their mind,” or “away from their senses.”

Because the result of ordinary conduct was an ordinary life. The true nature of a tragedy was revealed when some strange and horrific force shattered that impression… —such as some time ago, there was a young couple out walking their baby behind the stroller, and a stolen car drove through them on the side of the road… children, or “youth offenders,” behind the wheel… when most people had called for the death penalty and the police had to explain the merits of restorative justice in community halls… —Many years ago, when they were still renting at the top of Walker Street, one of the neighbours delivered Dale to their door drunk and utterly out of his mind on an evening he’d stayed late at work. No one ever learned why he had been wandering up and down the road, yelling to himself, obscenities, and cursing someone in particular who must have upset him. It was the drunkest she would ever see him. Stinking of rum when he had always despised the taste. “It was just the sound of him out there that was beginning to worry us,” said Marc Hansen. Certainly, they wereyoung, or else why did she find it so funny? Dale hung his head over the toilet bowl for the whole night… eventually retching bile… and, for some reason, she allowed enough time to pass without properly asking: “How?” … so that, after two or three days, he could plausibly say, (and was perhaps telling the truth), that he was too drunk to remember, couldn’t say, “…—nothing was the matter,” “must have got carried away…” 

Dale slid his feet across the soft carpet. He disguised food and wine stains by drawing the shading in the right direction. “It does start to seem,” she sighed, “that no matter how you swear you’ll pay attention, or grab onto the reins, time always has that habit of getting away from you…”

“O-o! yes,” he said. “I like you like this. Hey. Perhaps you should read some non-fiction.”

“When are we going to sell this place?”

“ —Sartre’s Being and Nothingness could be the best place to start. If you can seriously believe that! … although I’ve never read it… —but I‘d like to.”

“Sell.”

“I forgot to tell you. I met with the real estate at lunch. They say they’re “confident,” but I don’t know… Fees are high, obviously. Don’t know if they’ll go for your… “Tennessee River” analogy, though. “Godly aspect to be found in the muck” or how it was you put it? To be perfectly honest I did not even bring that part up to them. Now, obviously—.”

“That’s okay. The more I think about it, the less I want to do with it. I just want to close my eyes and wake up somewhere normal. With a small yard. Stupid people on either side of us.”

“… —this fucking ice tray, man! Have to jam the cunt every time. Got to fucking—.”

Slowly installing every comfort of life upstairs. Now he waged war against that kitchenette. (Which she did not use because he was particular about where things went). But that was the worst thing about getting half of life’s luck out of life’s “luck of the draw”—you had half more than a lot of other people, and so they said you had no right to complain. Or even fight over an instinct for more. Not without a guilty conscience, anyway. (“There’s your problem”). “I see a lot of myself in Roslyn,” she said more lately as she found the opportunity. Her girlfriends observed her politely, favourite restaurant; grown women carefully vaping behind their menus so the staff would not see them. “But don’t you think so?” Roslyn Cobbo was a mother to four children. Her boys were athletic specimens. Destined for representative football. But her girl, tiny thing, they always held her during interviews, had lived with her grandmother most her life. It must be an accomplishment to keep your children under one roof. Her own were beginning to stray in all sorts of directions. And she—… knew what that could be like… before public rhetoric began to deal seriously with “domestic violence” in broader, academic terms… which, even now, did not seem rightly applicable to a high school “relationship.” The name “Dwayne” was a part of her mother’s general rhetoric on “Fijian men as romantic partners.” Far as why they were not to be trusted. Forgetting how often she evicted her from the family home, yelling at her from the front door, while she retreated as far as she could out of the porch light. “And where else did you expect me to go?” Once, when they were at the beach, he became irate when he cut his foot on a piece of glass, and he shoved her over the rocks for screaming at the sight of his blood. And it was not that he made it so clear, or presented any such bargain to her, but his temper was short, and he was openly selfish, and unless she “gave it up” per evening in exchange, she did not believe she would have had anywhere to go. His mother laid out clothes for her, though. Fresh towels. She did not have any daughters of her own. The same way as all women understand each other. In the gynaecologist’s office when she took up that picture book and flicked through the images of different women, explorers, photographers, sitting arm in arm with native women in some jungle, tits outs, khakis, enjoying the immutable spirit of sisterhood. “We’re all mothers.” Kept apart from each other’s business by different lifestyles… —Dale began shouting at the children downstairs, leaning dangerously over the banister, about keeping their music down, because it was getting over the top of his. Hm. Yes. At a certain point, you needed to learn how to live the life you were living, instead of hypothesising over “taste,” recounting the errors of failed ambitions, and what you think you know better. Dale had even said that to her. Which hurt her feelings. About a month ago. Because he was capable of condensing the truth into a blunt object. When she could least stand to hear it.  

“—and besides you drink more than I do. More hazardously that’s for sure. I actually enjoy it as a pastime. You just tank yourself. But anyway I’m not judging you. Only that you see our life through the eyes of the girl you were twenty years ago. Conceited little brat. Wishing things were different. Why do you let her determine everything we’re supposed to be?”

Perhaps it would not be so catastrophic if he did not spare her his “character assessments” for so long. Half the problem seemed to be that he bided so much of his time over them, as if maturely, that it felt too strategic during the moment he lost his patience. It really drove her wild. Beyond control. Because it revealed the fact he was watching and cataloguing her. The truth as he saw it was dull and concerned only with facts… “—which speak for themselves, if you’re paying attention.” And it only ever put her back against the cage. Yes. “Are you fight or—.” “Fight, definitely.” It was difficult to admit at the parent teacher association’s awareness council, that she was one of many women who: “… if you examined incidents such as slapping or shoving by the same criteria… were often as aggressive (or more) as men.” It seemed quite normal. And wasn’t it? She remembered the night at the bowls club when her friend had gotten so drunk that she started hitting her boyfriend in front of everyone… and because so many of the women already thought he was a pig, they started hitting him, as well, and throwing drinks at him, presumably in the hope of “driving him off” for good. A woman’s arm was so graceless when it was slung like that. Cudgel. Some old man called them harpies who saw everything from a man’s point of view. Then but the funny thing was he was back a week later, doe eyed, love eyed, making apologies across the table but occasionally stirring the pot… —victims or not didn’t men just love the attention? … —Dale, though… to his credit… only preferred seclusion once it was all said and done. He retreated quick as he could after he’d caught her wrists and wrestled with her and tired her out. She collapsed on the day bed when he took a step back, and she realised she was leaning on him for balance. Humiliating as ever. He didn’t even care if she was sorry or not. That was not something he exacted from her. “These things” happened, as far as he was concerned, and the only things he demanded were Silence and Privacy which she paid to him as a formal mode of indulgence…

That night. One month ago. By the time he’d left her, she was “empty” throughout her body, the out-of-breath sensation of adrenaline’s passing, which, in a strictly mechanical sense—i.e. undramatic—left her shaky on her legs as she occupied their terrace over the creek. She restored herself with water and wine, the alternating glow of her smart phone, and the light of the full moon. Our empty city. Feels that way, doesn’t it? and as with anything, she found herself again slowly. The creek bed was luminous that evening because the canvas of the mud—pale where the water clung to the surface, and black for as many stratas below—so readily reflected the night sky. Towards the eastern figs, small fires were obscured in the grasslands, tended by miniscule shapes of the land, and cries of habit and pain. They weren’t to be drowned away. Diluted by the mysteries of—… When suddenly there he was. Emerging out of the mangrove’s sharpest point on the bend, where you couldn’t get to unless at desperate gasps of the tide. He was perfectly visible under the moonlight. Very tall. And although he was thin, he seemed quite healthy, it was in his posture. Funny that his clothes seemed rather “fashionable” for who she could only describe as “a vagrant Indigenous man.” Meaning they hung off him in that manner photographers preferred. Disturbingly, he crept across the wet surface of the mud without any difficulty, knowing the way where it was compact, and mindful of a measured chalance. He had nearly made his way over the creek until he noticed her staring from the height of her house; and he stopped in his tracks, she thought, accidentally… —and despite the fact that there was something like eighty metres between them, they established eye-contact as ordinarily as if they’d passed in the street. “Where’s he coming from?” she wondered. Out of the mangroves like that. She wanted to call: “Dale!” just for his company. Because she was alarmed. The man’s demeanour indicated something horrible. And, worst of all, she could see that he remained frozen in place, entirely against his will, in the striking cone of her gaze, like a “deer in the headlights,” or “caught red-handed,” but at what? … (or so she asked then) … (because it now seemed obvious)… —so that she thought he might confront her in some way: call out to her, or race across the creek, climb into her yard, scale the drainpipe directly by her, and—… but he must have been “thinking” on his feet for that time being, because when he suddenly began to run, (causing her to gasp), he moved as though upon a calculated trajectory that took him north across the creek bed, falling through the surface of the mud, but stopping at nothing to drive through it, scurrying up the bank’s sheer edge, pulling on the sturdy hearts of young trees, and disappearing over the edge and into the city between chasms of shadow and night.

That night. One month ago. She did not say to Dale: “I just saw the strangest thing,” because they were not talking to each other. She had tried to take his eyes out only minutes beforehand. And so he had resolved to sleep downstairs that night. God she barely slept. And the next morning when she saw the scratches on the side of his face, she kissed them apologetically, and cried (very loudly) out of shame.

“Shh,” he said. Telling the children she was unwell. Possibly menopausal or something. Making nothing out of the whole thing, in hopes that they would go back to their lives. “Everything’s okay now.”

“How many times have I promised not to hurt you? It takes over me before I know it. And every time I feel like such a failure!”

“It’s not you. Every time you get back on the horse. It’s a state of mind. You’ll always be safe with me. To try again.”

… —and nor did she say: “I think Roslyn Cobbo was killed—or at least disposed of—in the mangroves behind our house,” because by the time the thought properly occurred to her, strange as all the facts were, it had been weeks; and she had become, (rather selfishly), obsessed with the idea that if Roslyn had survived the night, then it was her complacency/poor behaviour/all-round desire to see things back to normal which had prevented her from “putting two-and-two together” sooner. (There always came a moment in the days after a fight like that when he or she suggested eating chocolate together and watching a film. When things felt back at “ground level.” Smaller the better. One smelly patch of dirt to call their own, and a little room upstairs). During afternoons she watched as the tide came and went from under the banks and the groves climbed along the shore. And by the month it came time again for the tide to get so low as it had. Whether parts of her had gone to sea already or, perhaps, (she wished the radio would have said), a body is preserved under those conditions. “If anyone has any knowledge of Roslyn’s whereabouts, we ask that you immediately come forth and report it to your local police.” But, like the man in the creek, she was suspended by the spell of some curious gaze: hers!—and why?—what good on earth did it do her, or right did she have, to flounder over such a simple thing?—as when you suspect you might be pregnant, but refuse to take a test of any kind—repeating mirror of herself upon herself, god how violent it was to actually feel that, like a spider in one’s brain, methamphetamine, “tweaking” even when she was out to stroll, seeing herself as she saw him, behind the right side above her shoulder, “out of body experience,” her, and him, going, and going—screaming: “why don’t you do something!” 

“… —but especially with investors and all of that,” Dale slotted ice into his wine. It was something he saw a woman do on television. “Even if we go lower than we’d like. We can be out by the end of the year. The photographer is free next week, so long as we pull the trigger?”

“Don’t you think we deserve it?”

“Sure, we… pay our taxes, don’t we? … —don’t know about deserve, but… the kids want to be nearer to their friends. I know that’s for sure. They want to catch a bus from five minutes down the road instead of making it across country every time they’ve got to go somewhere.”

“Oh it’s so overwhelming! I wish I could just close my eyes and wake up somewhere else,” she said. Her character was sometimes determined, or predicted, by the clothes she wore. “Dressing up” or “dressing down” as they called it. But particularly when she wore that set of pyjamas from the bargain store, she became very stupid and small. “Don’t you hate looking ahead like this? You remember what it’s like to move. The fact that I’m so excited by the idea, but the truth’s that it’ll take a year or maybe more before all’s said and done. I can’t bear to look at us through that ordeal. At least not now. I feel cornered for some reason. Can’t I click my fingers and just be there? … —suppose that time does that for you. Like I said. Doesn’t matter what way you commit to it. This time when I was a girl and it occurred to me that one day I would be a mother, just a thought like the one a kid has, not more than a moment in a time, and I said “I’ll remember I thought this, once I’m there, and I’ll remember this moment, the one in which I’m thinking about it,” and sure enough was that I did! Carried that little idea with me for years, then one day while I was nursing Casper, it just came to me. And you think how, on the one hand, life’s sustained quite like a rope, you’re pulling on it every day… but there’s a reason they say “blink and you’ll miss it,” because you find yourself places, don’t you? Can’t keep track of everything… I want to close my eyes and be somewhere else… —Being and Time? Is that what you said? Well maybe you’re right. Maybe I should see more behind the curtain. Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal: I’ll sit down and read whatever you pick out for me, so long as you handle all the business and get us out of here. Can you believe this is where we live? I want something new. Something built last year with white walls and tiles in every room. Don’t even want to look at pictures, you pick it out for us. I guess I’m getting to an age now where a decision’s too much for me to manage. I’m under a weight. Can’t control myself. I don’t know what’s right anymore. Why’s the conversation always about morals and ethics? How did we convince ourselves of that? When maybe once you’d talk sport and I’d talk Australian Idol. On the eve that I couldn’t sleep because of it. Thinking I’d dial the number again and cast my vote because I was so invested in the outcome. I want to go back to that. —Guy Sebastian…”  

“Milky little faggot he was.”

“Dale!” She couldn’t hold back her laughter. “You have to push the envelope don’t you?”

“Only when you let me.”

“Maybe I should.”

“Sure. But don’t beat yourself up. Things matter to you. It’s a good thing.”

Loudly, enough to frighten them both, an advertisement for organic grade dog food began playing through Dale’s speakers. The music was over. When he scrambled over his sofa to reach for the computer desk, he kicked the side table over, and the red contents of his glass spilled onto the carpet. “—no!—you bastard!” In his commotion, the floodlights came on outside and illuminated the eastern side of the house. Bent backs of that tussock field, mastered by the wind, sheltered hundreds of coves, caves, like tents, like homes, all empty of souls, except for the nearest of them that reached directly over their fence. Where there, beneath the grass, was an elderly man who seemed unconscious against the rusted chain links by the earth. His face was pressed through each square. His lips were pursed through it. She could tell he was struggling to breathe. “This is too much,” Dale said. “How many times are we going to do this? Floor’s nearly ruined.” It seemed that when he complained like that he was begging for something else to go wrong. He dabbed at the carpet with a wet, wine stained rag that lived over the doorknob. Sprayed it with the cleaner foam. Swearing under his breath. She realised the man outside was urinating himself. It was leaking out of his pants and over the driveway in a long puddle that eventually met the bottom side of their garage. “—what’s the point of having nice things when we can’t ever seem to manage them?” Out on the terrace. Over the distance of night, she spotted the red and blue lights of a police car smouldering, made silent, for the purpose of diplomacy. She hadn’t heard anything, but perhaps it was getting out of hand over there. Wound up cars in a safe formation. They parked at the proper distance. Trained in the arts of outreach. She could make them out as they supplied water to anyone willing and detected the friendly tones they deployed. Thinking of the man on the ground, she began to scream as loud as she could, to bring them over to her, but when she opened her mouth she called: “She’s here!” Desperately crying louder. “She’s over here!” while the old man began to throw up in his sleep, voiding himself of the night; and a little back inside, scrubbing on his knees, (rather preoccupied), Dale looked at her upside down between his legs, and asked: “… who’s she?”

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Jack Norman lives in Hobart, Tasmania. He is the author of Sleep Capricorn (Bonfire Books, 2025), a collection of short fiction.