The Zero Room

Tim knew that the type of vehicle he was in was known as a "ute", and was pretty certain that the bit he was in was the "cab", and that the bit behind him was probably called the "tray". He was disappointed that the tray wan't carrying bales of hay, crates of live chickens, and a dog or two. It had a big, manly, galvanised iron box containing either tools or human body parts, several coils of nylon rope and widgety metal things that presumably added value to the nylon rope, and Tim's bags.

The cab smelt like an ashtray. Much of it was an ashtray. Bent cigarette butts sprang like mushrooms from niches all around him. It was very early in the morning; he hadn't time to shower, and he really didn't like being out in public unwashed, with greasy hair.

"Where ya from?"

"Sydney."

"Sydney," echoed his driver, who Tim assumed was the landlord of the Railway Hotel at Tailors Creek, by virtue of the fact that he was probably the husband of the woman he assumed to be the landlady. That was in fact the case, and the man's name was Ken. Tim didn't know this because he had appalling social skills and hardly ever introduced himself, nor asked anybody their name.

For a while Ken looked as though he was trying to remember where he'd previously heard the unfamiliar word "Sydney", then said finally "You want to keep your back to the wall down there."

"Ah. Yes."

They crossed the highway, heading towards the coast, and Tim was very, very glad that he hadn't attempted to walk the distance. He'd clearly misjudged the scale of his map.

"Poofs," Ken added, by way of clarification.

"Mmm. Hasn't been a problem so far, but I'll bear it in mind." Then, realising he probably sounded a little supercilious, he thought he should socially reciprocate, in the form of "You lived here long?"

"Yep. Where you want to be dropped off?"

Tim knew the answer, but pulled the map out of his satchel anyway. "Nolan Place. I think it's the house at the end."

"Doug Henshaw's place?"

The name sounded familiar. Tim ferreted around in his satchel and retrieved another bit of paper. "Yes, that's it."

"You want to watch out for him."

"Back to the wall?"

Ken frowned. "No, nothing like that."

Tim noticed that the empty space on his map, which he had presumed to be native bushland or grazing land for ruminants, was in reality anything but empty. On both sides of the road was Colorbond™ corrugated steel fencing with an occasional gap for an entry road, or perhaps driveway. Behind the fences, he could see ceramic tiled roofs, crowned with aerials and satellite dishes. It was like a series of medieval walled towns in attractive designer colours.

"Doug's alright. You just don't want to get into his bad books." Barely slowing down, Ken gave the steering wheel a sudden twist, and they crossed the road into one of these gaps in the wall a split second before meeting a car coming the other way. "He can finish you."

Tim had no idea what was meant by that, or even whther he'd heard correctly, but he was excited that they were now into territory covered by his map. Tim liked maps. From this branch off the main road into town, all the streets flowered off into gently curving crescents or cul-de-sacs which on the map looked to Tim like the gaily coloured cross-sections of the human brain you see in New Scientist magazine.

There was something about the whole landscape here that was distinctly odd, but it was still quite early in the morning, and Tim couldn't put his finger on it.

Ken pulled on the hand brake at the end of one of these asphalt fronds, near the top of a hill, on the side of which stood a house significantly more grand than it's neighbours. It was multi-story, where everything around was resolutely California Bungalow, and it had a couple of quite old, tall trees in the front yard. Tim hadn't seen anything else that could be considered more than a sapling in any of the surrounding properties. Maybe that was what was odd.

"Thanks very much," said Tim, to a slow nod from Ken, who appeared focussed on something tremendously significant in a nearby rock garden. Tim fetched his bags from the back of the ute, and through the open passenger window called "Thanks again!"

"No worries mate." With a crunch of the gears, Ken Henshaw was off for his daily run into town.

At the top of a presumably charming garden path, lined with quite possibly tasteful native shrubs and grasses, Tim set down his rucksack and bin bag and rang the doorbell. The door was answered by an elegantly-dressed woman, possibly late fifties, more likely early sixties, who executed a well-practiced smile of greeting.

"Hello. Tim Curlis. Here for the granny flat."

"Ah. We were expecting you yesterday."

"Yes, sorry about that. Transport troubles."

"Never mind. Never mind." She beamed with appeared to be genuine bonhomie and stood aside. "Come in. Leave your bags there; I'll get Douglas to sort you out."

Tim crossed the threshold tentatively. "Thank you, er..."

"Oh, forgive me. Glenda. My heavens; what a handsome young man! What a handsome young man!"

"Would all passengers wishing to alight at Tailors Creek please make your way to the rear door of Car D?"

Tim gathered up his satchel, a rather expensive rucksack (the legacy of an aborted plan to go backpacking around New Zealand), and a rather less expensive heavy-duty bin bag which he carried St. Nicholas fashion. He found he was the only passenger on this sparsely-populated train to want to get off at this stop, which worried him slightly.

He was worried further when Tailors Creek railway station turned out to be a one-carriage-long platform with a small boarded-up ticket booth bearing a sign saying that as of 1st July 1990, all tickets could be purchased from the nearest Countrylink office in Port Dalston. The signs along the platform said "Alight here for Port Dalston", but there was no bus stop or other evidence of public transport to be seen; just a deserted little carpark. Across the road was a small weatherboard shop bearing a sign advertising, in letters of decreasing size, like an optometrists' test chart, "Post Office, Sub-Newsagent, Bread, Milk, Fishing Tackle, Bait, Licenses...", and another sign on the door saying "CLOSED". To one side of that versatile establishment was one of those quaint cafés that appear to have been embroidered rather than built, also closed, and on the other - Lennon be praised! - was the Railway Hotel. It didn't look the most enticing place, but it was civilisation of a sort.

As he pushed open the door, the pub extruded a perfectly door-shaped beam of tobacco smoke that eventually flattened and thinned as it snaked into the street. Once his eyes and nose had adjusted to the smoky interior, neither organ found themselves glad of the additional clarity. The tobacco smell had temporarily masked a variety of more horrible odours. Stale sweat and stale beer were easily identifiable to the layperson, but the possible source of others were horribly mysterious. The connoisseur of offensive smells might close their eyes, flare their nostrils, purse their lips, knot their brow, and declare "Hmm. Yes. I'm picking up notes of dirty washing basket and mouldy drain, but carrying through is the unmistakeable zest of half a tin of dog food left out in the sun for three days, with a crisp, formaldehyde finish."

Nor was the decor the cliched rustic country pub interior he was expecting. Instead he guessed the furniture, fixtures, and fittings were cannibalised from half a dozen qualitatively wildly different but equally tacky suburban pubs. Formica, cane, leather, and wrought iron all jostled gaudily for attention, which had the virtue of providing a distraction from the patrons, all of whom had apparently just finished a hard day's work modelling for one of Hogarth's more scabrous cartoons.

Tim wondered why the impossibly old man rolling a cigarette at the bar was wearing his "I ♥ NY" singlet over the top of a loose, dark brown skivvy, then realised that it wasn't a skivvy; it was his skin.

At least the ruddy, cherubic landlady met expectations. He approached the bar with what he calculated to be a winning smile. "Hello. I've just got off the train, and was wondering when the next bus into town was due."

The impossibly old man chortled evilly. Or perhaps coughed.

"Only bus comes out here is the school bus," she drawled, in the Australian Film Industry approved manner. "I could call for a taxi, but at this time of night he'd want to be paid for the trip out as well."

Tim looked at his watch. It wasn't yet six o'clock. It was still broad daylight outside. "Is that legal?"

"They do it," she said severely. Then her mood brightened, "Tell you what: I could let you have one of our rooms upstairs. Just been renovated. For a nice young man like you, say thirty-five bucks. My husband's going into town in the morning; he can give you a lift. A lot cheaper than the taxi, and you can drink the difference."

Not the most subtle sales pitch, but he was less inclined to trust taxi drivers. A couple of experiences, when Tim was in need of transport but lacking the fare, had shown them to be a lot more agile than their physique would lead you to believe. To his mind this constituted a deliberately deceptive trade practice. On this occasion he had the money, but it was part of a lump sum intended to see him through the next six to twelve months, so he was keen to start as frugally as he meant to continue.

Tim had earlier thought that the distance was walkable, at least according to his well-studied photocopy of a relatively current map, but now burdened with a bulging backpack and garbage bag, in weather which despite being a good few months into the year was still, to use the meteorological jargon, "fucking hot", he decided not to risk it.

The room was perfectly serviceable, and the smell didn't seem so bad upstairs. However when he returned downstairs he found the smell didn't seem as bad there now, and was quite content with an evening meal of four or five or six beers, some chips and nuts. He made his way through a pile of newspaper, avoided eye contact and was delighted to find the compliment returned.

The Australian inclination against intellectualism fits very neatly with a taciturn nature. If you are going to bore me as much as I know I am going to bore you, and for that matter as much as I bore myself, it would be better for both of us to not converse at all.

Tim wasn't sure about the bedsheets, which had the sheen and rigidity of butchers' paper, and didn't look at all comfortable. That and the fact that he was a bit pissed convinced him to sleep on top of them, more or less fully clothed. He was glad of that when he was woken at dawn by a hammering on the door and a male voice crying "She said you wanted a lift into town!"