Anywhere but Here

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Otherwise known as "Why I shouldn't listen to country and blues singers anymore"

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The night air brushed cool against her face and her body gave a small involuntary shiver. She sat halfway up the hill, the grass prickly and the ground eroded dry and dusty, so that the fine grit worked its way through the creases in her fingertips, sucking any moisture that was left from them. She had not long been sitting there when the ruckus below at the town’s hall started - shouts and screams and a few flying fists with hoots of laughter and gasps of shock. Two of the boys were fighting and a girl with her blouse still unbuttoned screamed at them to stop and that it didn’t mean anything. They fought on, ones blows more angry than the other, the other merely defending himself, not really wanting to hurt his friend any more than he already had. Eventually the two were pulled apart and the first stormed off still shouting that she was a whore and a tart and he a two-timing bastard. She beat angrily against the chest of the second then, blaming him even though a few hours earlier everyone could attest to her veracious flirting and who was he to say no when she heartily grabbed his crotch. The music kicked back into gear and those left began to gossip and take bets on what the morning would bring. She merely sighed and leant back against the hill to stare back up at the stars in the sky, she didn’t really care that much, she never belonged in this town anyway.

He kicked angrily at the stones that were scattered awkwardly over the ground, it seemed even the dirt that held them together had shrunk into itself through starvation. The skin of his hands bit hard against the barbed steel, forming hard tight red dots across his palm and as his feet retouched the ground he relinquished his hold drawing a few thin red scratches that welled up with tiny droplets of blood. He scowled and rubbed his palms with his fingertips smearing the few droplets that even in the dark took on the appearance of years of rust. Once home he yelled and screamed some more, flinging drawers open and making a racket and not much sense to his parents who emerged rubbing sleep from their eyes. His mother pleads with him in disappointment to give the girl another chance that it wouldn’t have been her fault and with everything booked and planned he can’t cancel on her now. He shouts stuff the plans, he doesn’t care about hors-de-oeuvres or flowers or tulle or embossed invitations. His fingers connect with the blue velvet pile pulling the box out and opening it with a vicious snap he hurls its contents into the bin, two gold rings glinting up meekly asking for forgiveness but receiving none. He never wanted all this ridiculous fuss in the first place and he couldn’t care about the disruption it would cause, it was his life after all and he was sick of this town anyway.

The day whilst new is still groggy in its darkness, the sun still slumbering behind the mountain ranges. He finds himself back at the town hall and looks around at its now quiet state, its doors boarded up and lights switched off, even the old barn nearby where he’d found them in the hay was locked tight. He sighed at its emptiness till he noticed on the hill a flash of pale blue caught by a glint of the moon and clambering up he finds her half sleeping, counting the stars through half closed lashes. She startles though at the sudden looming face that swallows up the stars and sitting up she stares at him with curiosity. He asks her in puzzlement what she’s doing there and she just shrugs that she doesn’t feel much like going home and he in turn shares that opinion. Her parents are driving her mad as they drive themselves further into drink and bruised limbs and egos, he laughs a little wondering why anyone would want to get married in the first place. They talk on into the night till the sky lightens a little, warning that the sun is waking up. Plans and dashed hopes for futures discussed she twirls a piece of grass between her fingers and as the first ray hits them she turns and says, “Why don’t we get out of this damn town anyway”.

He meets her by the roadside beside the sign that says to Sydney. Her bags are lightly packed to match her lightened mood, his still weigh with necessity and plans for a sturdy future. Leaving for her was easy, mum and dad still passed out didn’t seem to care much. His leaving seemed much harder, burdened by the nagging old town fish wives who tutted that he was making a mistake, that his future was here. He’d been popular, she hadn’t much, he was still hungover from a farewell party whilst she’d slept well for once. They drove out of that town then in his dusty red corolla, stopping just the once to fill it up with petrol. The land beside them seemed to narrow as the kilometres piled up, from the wide expansive property’s with their scattered sheep and cattle, to the tighter greener blocks with overgrown brick houses and barking dogs and swimming pools, to the narrowest of stone houses leaning against each other with sleeping cats at their doorsteps and a solitary shrub out front, to a tiny room in a huge teetering tower block with a lonely goldfish swimming round in circles and a pot plant on the dresser. They looked out then of the window of their cramped city apartment room and hoped this town was better than the last.

He loosened the tight knot around his neck with a grimace and tossed the pinstriped piece of silk across a chair, frustrated at its daylong discomfort. She tried to soften his expression with an understanding smile as she bent to help clean the grime off his shoes, unlacing them and pulling them from his feet to place them by the door. The cities honks and beeps and constant buzzing rush seemed to take a constant toll on him, the jostling elbows etched upon his nerves. She removed her stilettos then and stretched out her fingers, cramped from a long day of typing in a small office overlooking Martin Place, the constant back and forth stream of people seemed to match the way her fingers would have to dart over all the keys, but she liked lingering in the square by the fountain eating her lunch or sipping her coffee. He still struggled, in and out of work and in and out of uncomfortable suits, his mind never being able to rest still in the constant movement of the city, he tried to escape to the park but lunchtime joggers would still manage to jostle past him or trip over his lunch. Once the dishes were cleared away they’d sit nestled together in a big comfy armchair and listen to country blues singers till they’d grow tired and fall asleep or later on as the months slipped by he’d bury his head in her hair and smell the distant scent of wheat and hay and his skin would heave close against hers and feel a little bit alive again in this town that was slowly killing him.

Heat collected in pools amongst the black bitumen and refracted infinitely off glass panes till all the buildings seemed to run slick with sweat perspiring in the sweltering summer. The letterbox clattered ominously as amongst the stark white envelopes announcing unpaid bills and fees was another smaller letter in desperate scrawled handwriting that stared resolutely up at him. Amongst the folds of pale peach paper the black lines told of the drought that was harsh that summer, of the cattle that had been slaughtered and his father lying in a crisp white bed with tubes hanging from him, the aftermath of a stroke. She nodded meekly and helped to pack their things, the space between them filling with a void. They drove in silent worry and anxiety away from the city with its greasy slickness back into the dusty rain starved landscape, back to the town that had borne them.

She slumped miserably by the stove, cradling the mess of half baked crumbs that lay flat and loose against the bottom of the tin. She wiped a few more tears away with the corner of her apron and looked at the table again with its plates of failed flopped attempts to bake anything suitable for the country fair. He returned from the fields, his hands raw and chaffed, his clothes smeared with toil, and they’d sit down to something easier to cook. He would fall asleep after dinner then with a glass of whiskey and she would dry the dishes, rubbing soap against her eyes. The town gossips still sniped constantly as her attempts to be a good housewife failed and his sweat poured out against the land yet his moisture could not penetrate it. Their skins grew taut and parched as the summer and his father slipped away and the dust and dirt brought a different sort of bitterness to their infrequent embraces. They didn’t miss the city but they hadn’t missed this town either.

She met him by the roadside after the sun had set, not sure if he would come. Her scrawled plea that she was leaving left upon the empty dinner table. He looked at her with a reluctant heaviness and asked her where she wanted to go. She sobbed collapsing in his arms, her lips cracking as she said she didn’t know. He brushed a few tears from her eyes and told her when she decided he would come to and she smiled and said it didn’t matter anymore, she’d stay if she still had him. They sat together by the roadside for awhile till the sun sagged behind the hills and they walked back into town then, vowing that soon they would be anywhere but here.