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  dust

  CHRISTINE BONGERS was born and bred in Biloela, Central Queensland. She left to attend university and has worked as a broadcast journalist in Brisbane and London, written two environmental television documentaries and run her own media consultancy. Her work was shortlisted for the 2006 Varuna Manuscript Development Awards. She completed a Master of Arts in youth writing in 2008. Dust is her first novel.

  Christine shares her life in Brisbane with husband Andrew, children Connor, Brydie, Clancy and Jake, their ageing cat Al, a platoon of water dragons, a parliament of tawny frogmouths and an embarrassment of geckos that fall at odd moments onto her kitchen bench. For more information, visit her at www.christinebongers.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Dust

  eISBN 9781742745756

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A Woolshed Press book

  Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060

  www.randomhouse.com.au

  First published by Woolshed Press in 2009

  Copyright © Christine Bongers 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.

  Woolshed Press is a trademark of Random House Australia Pty Ltd.

  All rights reserved.

  Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

  Author: Bongers, Christine

  Title: Dust / Christine Bongers

  ISBN: 978 1 74166 446 1 (pbk.)

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  Cover and internal design and photography by Katherine Barry

  Quote on p. 119 from ‘It’s Time’, copyright © the Australian Labor Party 1972. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  For Mum and Dad

  who let me be what I was meant to be,

  and do what I was meant to do.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Imprint Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Bruce Highway, Queensland

  prologue

  Jenna wrenched off her headset. ‘Are we there yet, Ma?’

  Her mother flicked a glare into the rear-view mirror. She’d been in overdrive since the call: eight hours notice of a funeral seven hours drive away. With their dad off surfing in Indo, the sixteen-year-old twins had their usual choice: Ma’s way or the highway, but either way, they were going.

  Jenna’s twin brother Jed was on iPod life-support after internet gaming until dawn. He wore the clothes he had slept in, his dyed hair hanging in dark, greasy commas over closed eyes.

  Gympie’s pretty duck ponds sailed past on their right.

  ‘Five hours to go.’ Her mother braked for the first traffic light since leaving Brisbane. ‘Anyone need a wee?’

  Jed had started snoring, so Jenna unsnapped her seatbelt and clambered over into the front as the light turned green. ‘No, I’m good.’

  The tiny knot of traffic unravelled as they sped through the northern outskirts of the town.

  ‘Want to teach me to drive while we’re away, Ma? Hardly any cars to run into out here.’

  Her mother tilted her chin, cracking her neck with impressive force. ‘We’ll see. Just let me get through this funeral first, OK?’

  Jenna frowned at the tension in her voice. ‘What’s the big deal? You said we didn’t even know the guy.’

  ‘You don’t.’ Her mother’s lips tightened as she concentrated on the white line snaking like a fire hose into the distant hills. ‘But someone might be there, OK? Someone I’ve been after for years.’

  ‘So, it’s work. Again.’ Jenna kept her voice flat to stop the accusation creeping in like a stray cat.

  Her friends thought it was cool that her mum was an investigative reporter, driven to right the wrongs of the world. But they didn’t have to put up with her single-minded pursuits, her latest crusade.

  ‘No, not this time.’ Her mother’s eyes flitted sideways, her voice softening into what could be a sigh. ‘Old ghosts, baby. Old ghosts I’ve been waiting a lifetime to put to rest.’

  The morning sun throbbed into the car through scraps of forest that loomed like beggars at the edge of the highway. It lashed her mother with flickering stripes of light and shade, but Jenna was still in the dark.

  ‘So what exactly are we going to do there?’

  Her mum’s jaw set in a grim line. ‘We’re going to dance on a grave and track down those ghosts.’

  Jambin, Central Queensland

  November 1972

  chapter 1

  ‘Sis, you’ve got Aileen Kapernicky’s germs!’

  Punk thumped me and scarpered, giggling like a kid half his age.

  I had Buckley’s of ever getting rid of the stupid germs, but we both knew I’d give it a go anyway. He was so busy looking behind him and laughing, he tripped over an irrigation pipe and came a gutsa in the stack next to the trailer.

  Yes! There is a God! I booted him while he was down.

  ‘Suck eggs, germ boy. You’re it!’

  Before he could untangle himself, I scuttled up the scaffolding of the Big Shed to safety on the wide board that ran between the ladder-like supports.

  He circled eight feet below me. My exhilaration clicked a notch higher: even the dumbest game was fun when you were winning. And gloating.

  ‘Punk, those germs are festering fast. Soon the gangrene will work its way up to your brain and your head will explode like a giant zit!’

  The frown dissolved into his trademark evil grin and I knew I was
doomed.

  ‘See this?’ He grabbed something festy off the ground. ‘This orange has got Aileen Kapernicky’s germs. If it touches you, you’re going to die a slow, horrible death, Cecilia Maria.’

  I hated being called by my full name. It was everything I wasn’t, at twelve years of age. Dad named me after saints and martyrs to give me something to live up to.

  Over my dead body.

  But that’s normally the way, he reckons.

  Too late, I saw the wizened ball of orange fungus hurtling straight at me.

  I spat dust and blinked out stars.

  With an effort I tracked the pain to my wrist, which seemed bent at an unlikely angle. The sight made me want to spew and I collapsed back into the dust.

  ‘Sis!’

  Tiny pinpricks of light haloed Punk’s face. His crazy evil grin was back.

  ‘You’ve got Aileen Kapernicky’s germs!’

  I had no answer, so I concentrated on the stars and let the darkness swallow me.

  Mum was giving our tea a vicious stir.

  ‘I’m ashamed of both of you. Playing such a nasty game.’

  I couldn’t believe it. My arm was plaster to the elbow and all she cared about was the icky Kapernickys.

  ‘And you can get that look off your face right now! You’re both old enough to know better, for heaven’s sake!’

  Punk screwed up his nose. ‘They had fat sandwiches for lunch. Hardly any meat on them at all. Just fat. And Aileen kills flies and –’

  ‘That’s enough!’ She banged the spoon on the edge of the pressure cooker. ‘Those girls have it hard enough without you two making it any worse.’

  Punk and I locked eyes. The Kapernicky girls – Aileen and Janeen – were newcomers at school, even though the year was nearly over.

  ‘Why? What happened to them?’

  Mum locked the pressure-cooker lid back into place. ‘They lost their dad – a tractor accident, I heard – when they were only little dots. Their mum’s remarried now, Morrie Kapernicky from up the road …’

  She sniffed and flashed us a steely look through her glasses.

  ‘But that’s not the point; you should know better than to pick on someone less fortunate than yourselves.’

  ‘Less fortunate than us?’ Punk acted all innocent. ‘Wouldn’t be many of them around, would there?’

  Mum wasn’t interested in debating side issues.

  ‘There will be no more Aileen Kapernicky’s germs. Do you hear me?’ She stabbed at us with the cooking spoon. ‘Not now. Not ever.’

  I don’t know if it was the threatening spoon, the beating she had given our dinner, or whether our normally inactive guilt glands were finally starting to leak something into our bloodstream, but she did manage to extract a promise from each of us.

  No more Aileen Kapernicky’s germs.

  She turned back to the stove and started mopping up the splatter. ‘And you can both tell Father all about it in Confession on Sunday.’

  Oh man! I opened my mouth to protest, but was silenced by a sharp glare from Mum and an impatient nudge from Punk. We slunk outside, the screen door banging on her final words.

  ‘And if he doesn’t give you a big enough penance, I might just ask those girls over and you can sort it out in person!’

  My feet dragged through the dust to the disused dairy where Big Hairs was rail-walking with the little boys.

  We never had anyone over. Six kids in as many years were quite enough for Mum. The neighbours occasionally took one of the boys off her hands to give her a break. But I was the only girl for miles around. Or I had been. Till now.

  I didn’t want to break my duck with an icky Kapernicky.

  Mum’s threat had transformed them. Yesterday at school they were like poop in the playground – something I didn’t fancy, but could easily avoid. Now they loomed like a dark and foreboding shadow across my future.

  Much as I hated to admit it, Confession might be the key. It might just satisfy Mum. But it was a key to a door I hated to have to go through.

  Telling Father Brophy the truth was the pits. It was like admitting we were complete dills. Still playing baby games. Being mean about people behind their backs.

  Lying was even worse. Because lying was a sin. And sin was a burden because it led straight back to Confession. And Confession was an ordeal, because owning up was definitely not one of my strong points.

  For some ungodly reason, people expected me to behave better than my five brothers. As if sinning was worse for girls than it was for boys.

  The thought made me madder than a bottled blowfly. And that was before a whack in the back of the head rattled my teeth.

  ‘WHAT?’

  Punk’s bad mad grin was back. ‘You’ve got Janeen Kapernicky’s germs!’

  My air swing met with a gust of laughter and the sight of a filthy pair of heels disappearing over the cracked lip of the gully.

  Then it struck me. Even harder than the whack. He’d found a loophole.

  Being Catholic – Baptised, Holy Communionised and Confirmed – we needed loopholes more than most.

  All our lives we’d had right and wrong drilled into us and it didn’t seem to have made much difference. We were always in trouble.

  Just ask Dad. It drove him wild.

  Anyone can make a mistake. But only a flaming idiot keeps making the same mistake over and over again. You lot want to grow up to be flaming idiots?

  No. Which is why we tried our best to make new and different mistakes most of the time.

  Just ask Mum.

  They’re as silly as a mob of wet hens when they’re all together.

  Lucky for us they never seemed to reach the end of their wick at the same time.

  But now even Mum had it in for us. Threatening us with a spoon. And Confession. And the Kapernickys. And Dad, well, he’d just love this. He was Father Brophy’s cattle dog at the best of times, rounding us up, nipping at our ankles, forcing us into the crush to get dipped in Absolution. For our own good, he reckoned.

  Damn. I hated Confession.

  But not as much as I hated the thought of having the Kapernickys over.

  I needed to find a loophole. One like Punk’s, that could slingshot me from shaky to firm ground without ever having to struggle through the quicksand of outright lying.

  And I needed to find it fast.

  ‘Earth to Sis –’

  Punk jumped down into the dairy’s soft mulch of churned dust and cow manure and waved a filthy paw in my face. It turned into a gun and shot me between the eyes.

  ‘You’re it!’

  I batted him away with my cast. His wince was a bonus but I didn’t let it distract me; I needed to run an idea past the boys, to see if it had legs.

  ‘Bugger the germs; I’ve just figured out what to do about Confession.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t go.’

  Big Hairs had a commanding position on the top rung of the dairy rails. At fourteen he’d won the race towards puberty. He was only a year older than Punk, but stood a full head taller and weighed a stone heavier.

  Punk and I were slugging it out for second-in-charge since a recent pubertal growth spurt had leap-frogged him and landed splat bang on me. He’d been punishing me ever since and sometimes I wondered if I was going to make thirteen.

  ‘You gotta go.’ Fatlump was squatting in the dust with the other two little boys. ‘Dad goes spac if he thinks you haven’t been for a few weeks.’

  Lick nodded good-naturedly. At eight, he was the baby, a year younger than Fatlump, with not much more to him than a head on a stick. One look at those spindly legs dangling out the bottom of his towelling shorts would drive Mum into a cooking frenzy most days. Not that it did much good.

  Lick was short for Liquid because he only ever ate runny things like condensed milk and honey on his sandwiches. Mum says you are what you eat. Which explains just about everything: Fatlump’s size … why Lick was a sweet kid … why Punk could be such a meathead …

&nbs
p; ‘Confession’s all right. The trick is to not do anything real bad and you won’t have anything to worry about.’

  Punk snorted. Wart was such an innocent. ‘Might work if you’re Saint Wart the Pope. Don’t know about the rest of us though.’

  Wart was ten-and-a-half, a couple of years younger than me. He and Lick were the best behaved of the lot of us, but we tried not to hold it against them.

  I boosted myself onto the top rail round the corner from them and tucked my filthy feet into the rung below.

  ‘I’ve had an idea that could work for all of us.’

  Five sets of cowpat-coloured eyes locked onto me.

  ‘You just tell your usual sins – I fought with my parents, I fought with my brothers, I used bad language – and you finish up with and I told some lies and that covers everything you said in Confession and you’re automatically absolved.’

  Out loud, it sounded a bit too easy and I squirmed for the long moment it took the boys to reach a verdict.

  Big Hairs shrugged and jumped down. ‘Worth a go. Just about what I usually do, anyway.’

  Punk landed lightly beside him as the three little boys stood and dusted themselves off. Wart didn’t look too happy, but sloped off with the rest of them before such high praise turned my head.

  We had rules despite our unruly appearance: never praise, never thank and never apologise.

  In this family, you don’t show weakness or you’ll be called a girl. And no-one wants that.

  Not even me.