The Hole

Every few years or so Tom would go out on a long trip and would be gone for about three days at a time. This never happened at any specific time of year or really any year in particular, the bloke would just get up and go for a walk and disappear into the bush for a while. It never seemed to be a large inconvenience for his wife, she seemed to just let him go off for a while as she tended to the crops a little more than usual those days. She was a good woman and she treated Tom well.

I went around to Tom’s one belter of a Wednesday, not long after his missus had told me that he’d just gone off on one of these trips for a while. The woman looked a mess, as if she hadn’t slept in days with big puffy red bags under her eyes. I asked her if she needed help with anything, but she said she was all fine and that Tom would be home soon. She had set their table two on their three-chaired suite today, so she was obviously expecting him home sometime soon.

It would have been around three a.m. when I heard the crunch of bauxite outside my bedroom window, I remember lifting my head to peer out of one of the cracks of my broken blinds and seeing Tom walking back home finally. I didn’t want to wake my missus, so I slowly rested back into my bed and decided that I would go around for a chat tomorrow and talk about Cathy, she looked a mess before and I just wanted to make sure that they were both right.

Where is Tom at, I asked Cathy when I went around their place that morning.

He’s gone out again, she replied, looking more disgruntled than the day before, despite her response being in a rather pleasant tone. It was as if nothing seemed to be bothering her, yet her body said different. She was a tough one, I admired that.

Another three days passed, and I decided to wake up early and wait for Tom outside his place, knowing he would probably be in and out again before I could get a chat in with the fella. He’s a good sort and he’s my best cobba, but something was up with him.

Hey mate, he said as he left his house. What brings you around here?

Just taking Bess out for a walk I told him. Bess was my bitch, she was a real good girl who seemed to have adopted us more than anything. I would say she was somewhere between a Jack Russel and a Dingo, a breed mix that folks just called camp dogs around there.

Well I’m just going to go out for a walk now, it’s gonna be a scorcher today and I want to get out before the sun gets too hot, he told me.

The sun was going to get really hot, in the middle of the dry season without a drop of rain in sight for quite a while, going out early like this was the only way to go outside without coming back a different colour. The natives there had it right and this place was never meant for us, their dark skin allowed them to sit in the mid-day sun all day without so much as a blemish. They may get shit in the cities from the other white fellas but out in the Territory they couldn’t have been more at home.

Where are you headed to cob? I asked.

Ah, just The Hole mate, Tom said. It’s a pretty long walk so I better get going.

Mind if I join you? I asked him, I could go for a walk now and Bess is getting a bit fat in this season because I haven’t really been walking her much.

In the early hours of that morning we set off to The Hole. Where or what that was, I didn’t ask – I figured we would get to it when we did, and I would see it then. On that wander, we spent hours in silence, as we always did. When Tom and I would work on the farm this is how it was. We would gather crops all day in the silence and that is how we liked it, Tom was a man of little words and I guess by extension, so was I. It wasn’t awkward or anything, it was just the way blokes were around here. Our wives would get together every day and talk about whatever they wanted, and we worked in the fields or in the mines; we worked so they could do that and that was how it worked there.

After work, Tom and I would go down to the local and throw a few back and that would be it. Sometimes after a few too many he would yabber on about his son and his footy team or something or other but that was a rare occurrence then and obviously never happened now. The man wasn’t drinking anymore, only in the previous weeks he had decided to quit so even that little bit of communication I sometimes got with him was shattered. Thinking about it, I hadn’t really spent much time with the guy for quite a while, not even a trip down to the local or a pint at the footy. Nothing.

Have you ever heard of Brooke Davis, he asked me suddenly.

I had never heard of Brooke Davis, whoever that was, and I told him that, but I was curious. I could have been curious about anything at that point, we had walked for a bugger of a time in utter silence by this point and despite the fact that I was used to it, work on the farm was honestly a little more interesting than long walks in this heat.

Ah, don’t worry – she’s just some author that Cathy reads, I don’t know, he told me.

And that was it for the next few hours. We were back to the silence but this time it was different, I had this idea of who exactly this author that Cathy read could be. Tom had never been a reader; I hadn’t even given it much thought, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t read. He didn’t need to, nor did I.

Could I even read?

I thought that maybe when we got home I could figure that out. My wife would read, at least I thought she did. I didn’t really know back then what she did with her time – that was her time after all.

Both of our attention landed on a joey hopping about beside us, all alone. Could have been a Kangaroo, could have been a Wallaby, for our knowledge all we could have said was that it hopped on two legs and was definitely not old enough to be without a parent. The unfortunate fact about scenes like this is that the joey all alone is not some sort of mistake. When the mother is threatened by something else, whether it be another animal or a hunter, it will throw the joey out of its pouch in order to save itself and run faster. Finding these little ones all alone without any sort of family was unfortunately a pretty common occurrence around these parts and this was very common knowledge.

I fucking hate how they could do that, Tom broke the silence, how could anything abandon their child like that. The selfish fuckers.

Hearing Tom be this passionate about anything was a shock to me, but I was inclined to agree. This part of the nature of these creatures painted them as assholes, and that’s how we knew them around there.

Tom started towards the joey, approaching it ever so slightly. The large hunk of a man, softly walking towards the little creature was a scene to behold – he was utterly failing as the bauxite crunched beneath his feet, but the attempt was admirable. He picked up the little one in his arms and cuddled it like a baby. Then he fell to his knees. An audible sob came pounding out from his mouth as tears dropped onto the little joey he was holding.

I miss him, Tom said, I miss him so fucking much.

I know you do, I replied, I know you do.

I have been coming out here for years, and no one has ever come with me before. I don’t know why this is any different but for once, I feel like I’m okay.

Let’s go home, he told me, holding the joey in his arms with no intention of putting it down.

But what about The Hole, we haven’t even made it there, I asked.

You know what? He said, all these years coming out here and I never have.