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Driving North contributed by Ash McLeod (January 2010)
How I had acquired a Chrysler Gallant wagon in good condition and ready to be driven north from Broome is another story for another time, but there it was, at night, glowing dull orange in the backpackers carpark of a Broome hostel. I lay back on its windscreen under those great Kimberley stars and had visions of me and gallant driving on open roads of nothingness under big blue skies and rolling into small towns when the sun was low and the earth cooling.
I gave the orange bonnet a rub and began the long walk into town, as everywhere was a long walk in Broome, but I could have walked for days and it was with this spirit I made my way past bodies of sweaty, swearing tanktopped men to the bar.
“A middie of E.B please.”
“V.B.?”
“No E.B please.”
She stood there, confused; large brown eyes, her skin smooth looking.
“Ahh Emu Bitter. Okay ok.”
I watched her tilt the glass under the tap. There were other men that watched her too. A stream of falling gold. She placed my beer on the bar and then she was serving someone else, leaning in to hear.
An English traveller named Brian recognised me from the hostel. He looked very sunburnt.
“I was in Kununurra last week picking watermelons. You ever picked watermelons?” he asked.
“No.”
“Don’t. Nightmare for your back. I got enough money for a bus fare and a bit more. Just been lying on cable beach here. Paradise mate. Absolute paradise.”
Brian had his head back tapping the last salted nuts from a packet into his mouth. Then he stared at me, rapidly chewing, his face sore looking and red.
“Are you heading north from here then?”
“Yeah I’m heading for Kununurra tomorrow.”
“You looking for a travelling partner?”
“Sure.”
“You see the girl behind the bar?”
“Yeah.”
“Gorgeous isn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“Barbara is her name, from Italy. She’s looking for a lift to Kununurra.”
I nodded slowly. We watched her getting change out of the cash register and drank our beer.
The pub was starting to fill up. Outside floodlights lit up wooden tables, small groups sat and stood, shouted and laughed. Inside people were all around, close; some played pool, some danced. A big television screen played Australian Rules Football. I watched a player running fast trying to work out who to kick it to, a face full of panic.
Barbara saw me approaching.
“Another E.B?”
“Thanks.”
She poured a glass.
“I hear you might be looking for a lift to Kununurra?” I asked her.
“You know someone who is going?”
“I am going tomorrow.”
“You go tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“You have a car?”
“Yeah.”
“What is your name?”
“Bailey.”
“I am Barbara.”
We shook hands.
“You go tomorrow?” she asked again her eyes bright and smiling.
In the morning it was hot and Barbara came walking over the car park wearing a white top and shorts. She took off her backpack and gave it to me. I found a spot for it between my guitar and sleeping bag crouched in the back of gallant. Outside she was on the phone to someone in Italian and I pretended to keep busy rearranging stuff until she finished.
“You have this car for long?”
“No, I just bought it.”
“Ahh ok.”
We talked over the roof of gallant, me by the driver’s door, her by the passengers. Her face was in the sunlight. She looked pretty.
“It goes well?”
“Yeah, it seems to.”
We got in and begun sweating. I started up gallant. We had food and water and a full tank of fuel. It was very hot. There was no air conditioning. I was conscious of her legs, there was a lot showing. We drove slowly out of Broome. A lot of her arms too, arms and legs.
“I love travelling,” she said.
I looked at her. She had turned her body towards mine so her back was against the door. Her face and long dark hair were wet from pouring water over herself. I looked back at the road.
“I love travel because it is adventure,” she continued, “and it is always new. New people and new places.”
I glanced at the temperature gauge. It was where it should be.
“We have a saying in Italy. Chi lascia la strada vecchia per la nuova sa quel che lascia, ma non sa quel che trova. It means who leaves the old street for the new one, knows what he left but not what he’ll find. That is why I love travel. You understand?”
Did I understand? Why was I travelling? I didn’t have a saying, there didn’t seem to be any significance or mystery to it. I left home with a friend on a surfing trip and when the ocean turned wild and out of control, decided to head further north. Curiosity I guess.
But with the orange gallant shining forward, with Barbara casually looking at me, with the blurring of the outside; the red dirt and the enormous blue sky, came a sharper awareness of now, and it felt good.
We came into Derby with no one on the streets, no cars, no one in their houses. I found a fuel station and wasn’t sure if it was in operation until I saw someone moving about inside. I fuelled gallant and walked in.
“Where you drivin’ from?”
“Broome.”
“Where ya headed?”
“Kununurra.”
I looked at him there behind the counter, alone, the only man I could find in Derby. He nodded his head slowly.
Outside Barbara had a map sprawled over the bonnet of gallant. She looked at me with a sense of urgency.
“We can go on the Gibb River road?”
The Gibb River road is a rogue gravel beast that runs from Derby clear to Kunnannura, over 600kms in length. Along it are some of Australia’s most beautiful gorges and a very real sense of complete isolation.
I hurried back inside to the man behind the counter. He had not moved.
“We’re thinking of heading along the Gibb River road, what do you think?”
He looked at me, then outside to Barbara and gallant, then back to me.
“What in?”
I nodded towards gallant.
“You’d have to be a mad bastard. Only for big four wheel drives the Gibb River.”
I nodded and walked out. Barbara was sitting in the car watching me closely. I got in and could feel the man looking at me from inside the fuel station.
“We can go?”
“Yeah, we can go.”
She rubbed my leg and laughed with excitement.
I started driving and it felt like I was heading into the jaws of a hungry crocodile, waiting for him to close us in, give us the death roll. We started down the Gibb River road and my hands shook on the corrugation. It was hard to keep gallant on a straight line. There was a lot of rattling going on.
Barbara was saying something but I couldn’t hear her over the noise.
“What?” I shouted
“Can you see the gorge?” she shouted, pointing at the map over her legs.
I turned to look and heard a loud bang. I had hit a very deep pothole and now there was some kind of metal sound going on. I parked up gallant and went to inspect and discovered the whole of the exhaust pipe had broken and was trailing on the gravel.
“You can fix this?”
I stared at the broken exhaust pipe, flies were buzzing madly on my face. I looked at her, she was concerned, squatting with me behind the car. I wanted to lean in and kiss her smooth cheek.
“Should be ok. I’ll try and tie it back up with some wire. I think we should camp here tonight and get going again in the morning.”
She agreed and we set about collecting wood as the mighty orange sun of the Kimberley sat low and birds of all varieties sung loud and we got our fire going and cooked baked bean jaffles and drunk green cordial and stared up at the brightest stars imaginable on the Gibb River road by the side of wounded gallant.
I put the back seat down and lay under the blankets. Barbara finished brushing her teeth and came crawling under too, facing me. It was dark. Our feet were touching. We were in the middle of no where. I leant in closer and could hear her breathing on the pillow we shared. I kissed her cheek.
“What are you doing?”
“What?”
“Why are you kissing me? I have a boyfriend.”
“Really. Where is he?”
“Italy.”
“Italy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Italy is a long way away, I mean…”
“No. Please.”
And she rolled over and I lay staring at her back for a long time waiting for morning and when it arrived it brought with it an awkwardness like no other. It was in this climate I managed to tie the exhaust back on with wire and turn gallant around and drive until we hit holy bitumen again. I could feel her anger growing, her dream of seeing gorges fading, but I drove on, didn’t turn my head, stopped only for fuel. When Barbara got tired she climbed into the back and slept, but my comfort was in the distance, in the arriving and in the leaving behind.
It was dark when we got to Kununnara and my eyes were squinting hard to stay awake. Barbara knew of a hostel; we found it easy enough and paid for a nights accommodation whereupon I told Barbara I was heading to the bar and was grossly upset to hear she was coming too.
Inside I drunk fast, beer mainly and shooters of vodka and tequila. I found a wild local girl who sensed my desperate mood and rode high on it. I bought her bourbon and drunk with her, leant on her, shouted in her ear until she got blurry and must have said something wrong as she left and slapped me hard in the face.
I walked around and introduced myself as a gallant crusader of love and pain to the faces that rose out of black, until, out of that pit of myre, there, in an opened mouthed swaying embrace to a short ape of a man, was Barbara.
I tapped ape on the shoulder and they got unstuck.
“Ape, I am gallant crusader.”
“Piss off,” said ape.
“Barbara?”
“You are very drunk.”
“Yes, I am very drunk.”
Out of there and onto the streets of Kununnara. I found gallant. I got in. I drove in crooked lines and so did a police car behind me with its siren on, but I couldn’t hear it, and it drove up alongside me and I stared at coppers face and he shouted pull over.
“You had much to drink tonight?”
“Few light beers.”
And on to prison where I curled up small on the cement and everything stopped moving. It felt good to be still. Felt like I had been moving for a long time. I had been gone from home a good while too. Maybe I wouldn’t come back. I could feel the keys to gallant in my pocket. I took them out and could see their silver colour in the dark.
(January 2010)
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