LONG WEEKEND
A short story of 2000 words
© David Lowe, February 1992
Douglas blew at the fire. Wet wood steamed. Smoke stung his eyes. He blew again, concentrating.
Katy sat in an armchair, legs crossed, reading a magazine. Behind her, Simon and Chris played cards and drank beer from a bottle.
Douglas blew again, crouched painfully on the floor by the fireplace. At last the fire came to life. Kindling crackled. Flames licked higher.
Pleased with himself, Douglas turned around and looked at the others, expecting praise.
Katy sat, legs crossed, reading her magazine.
Simon and Chris laughed at private jokes as they drank. Cards slapped on the table.
Douglas turned back to the fire. It had gone out again.
They had come to the house in two cars. Borrowed cars.
Simon and Chris rode in front, weaving erratically across the white stripes. Guitars recorded before they were born wailed from the stereo. Hands tapped on the roof.
Katy and Douglas followed, the girl driving. Beethoven played. He darted a glance at her.
Katy's lips were slightly parted as she concentrated on the road. Long eyelashes met as she blinked.
Douglas swallowed and turned away.
Dead trees like skeletons rushed out of the morning fog and flickered by. Douglas barely noticed them. His mind's eye wandered over the girl sitting beside him.
One eye blue, one brown. A long graceful neck. Freckles high on each cheek. Unruly black hair. A sensual mouth. Small breasts under a black shirt.
Christ, what could he say to her that would make her laugh?
The house was in a village on the edge of the coastal escarpment, a few hours away from the city via back roads. It belonged to a group of women Katy knew. She had borrowed the key for the long weekend.
It was almost the end of their final year at school - the last weekend before the start of the real world.
Suddenly the car in front lurched to avoid something on the road. It was a huge wombat, killed by a car.
Katy shuddered as they drove past.
'Don't you think we should go back?' asked Douglas.
'To that...thing on the road, you mean?' said the girl, accelerating.
'There might be a baby in the pouch.'
'It's only an animal, Douglas. Don't be ridiculous.' Katy turned up the stereo.
Douglas looked back through the rear window. He watched the shape on the road recede and disappear.
The village was a pub, a cemetery, and a few shambling houses along the creek. A cow stood in the main street.
Simon and Chris honked at the animal. It didn't move. Katy drove past the first car and around the cow before turning up a dirt side street. Chris and Simon followed.
They went past ruins festooned with blackberries, a disused post office, an old church hidden by a high overgrown hedge.
There was another corner.
'That's the house,' Katy pointed. 'Isn't it wonderful?'
Douglas looked.
Verandahs enclosed a ramshackle collection of wooden buildings. Paint peeled from the walls. Old trees leaned inquisitively over gutters and rusting water tanks. Overgrown paths wound between the buildings, and tall grass pushed up everywhere.
Katy stopped the car.
Chris and Simon parked behind them. They jumped out, crossing their arms and stamping to keep warm.
'Shit it's cold!' said Simon, lighting a cigarette with shivering hands.
'Least Dougie won't be cold tonight, eh?' said Chris with a grin.
Still inside the car, Douglas shrugged apologetically at the girl.
Katy ignored them all. She stepped out of the car and up to the door of the house.
At midday the fog was still hanging down. Inside, the fire blazed. Lunch was baked beans and burnt toast.
Chris and Simon were telling jokes around the fire. They'd moved on to their second bottle.
'How many women with PMT does it take to change a light bulb?'
'Gee I dunno, man. How many?'
Simon put on a woman's voice. 'Look just don't ask, ALRIGHT?!'
They guffawed.
Katy frowned over her magazine at them. 'Do you mind?' she said.
Douglas walked towards the door. Chris and Simon stopped laughing and looked up at their friend uncertainly. 'Where ya goin' Dougie?' asked one.
'Chop some wood.'
In his absence there was an uneasy silence.
The wood pile was wet.
Douglas found the axe in some long grass near the shed. The blade was under some old bark. He raised the handle. A snake was lying next to the axe. Red belly. Instinctively Douglas stepped back, heart racing. Slowly, the snake slithered away. Douglas put down the axe and went back inside.
He sat down.
Simon broke the silence. 'Hey man, what happened?'
'Snake. In the wood.'
'Yeah? Wild! Where'd it go?' asked Chris.
Douglas pointed. His mates ran outside, grabbing the axe on the way. He closed the door after them.
Katy went back to her magazine. Douglas sat down in the saggy sofa near the fire.
'Why did you lie to them?' she asked quietly.
'I didn't lie. There was a snake,' he protested.
'You can't help it, can you? You've always got to put on a little act for your mates.'
'There WAS a snake.'
Silence.
He had met Katy on a pottery course six months ago.
She'd been grappling with a pot on the wheel when he first saw her. The clay was too dry, and wouldn't centre properly.
Douglas showed her what to do. She smiled. Even grimed with clay, she had an undeniable poise.
He fell in love with her. Ever since that day it had been like she'd kept him on a string.
Katy went to a different school.
There was a pattern; he would see her once, briefly, and then she'd disappear for weeks, ringing him again just as he was about to give up on her.
This time hadn't been any different.
She'd called him a couple of days ago and asked him if he wanted to come. Douglas couldn't bring himself to say no. Simon and Chris, old mates from school, had pretty much invited themselves, curious about the mystery woman.
That night they heated up a quiche Katy had made the day before. Even Simon and Chris had to admit it was delicious.
Afterwards Katy said she was tired and wanted to go to sleep. Blankets and sleeping bags were carried in from the cars.
There were two rooms available. Simon and Chris waited expectantly to see what would happen.
They were disappointed.
After saying goodnight, Katy pulled the sliding doors shut and went to bed alone in the next room.
Simon and Chris opened another bottle of beer as Douglas made the fire. They heard the girl undressing next door. Soon all was silent.
'So what's the story Dougie?' they asked him at last. 'What the fuck's going on?'
He avoided their eyes. 'Don't ask me.'
Douglas pulled on his surplus army coat and went outside for a walk. He took the ghetto blaster and a Hendrix tape with him.
The clouds had broken up. Though the moon had not yet risen, stars glowed like millions of pairs of ancient eyes. There were no streetlights.
Douglas walked a long circle through the town. Finally he stood outside the house again. Sounds of drunken laughter.
Simon and Chris were rolling around in front of the fire, wearing their underpants on their heads. Douglas stepped inside.
'Hey Dougie baby! Look who we've got for you!' Chris held up a centrefold from a girlie magazine and stretched it out. Douglas walked over to snatch it out of his hand.
Katy opened her door.
She stood wrapped in a blanket, framed by candlelight, looking sexy and furious.
Simon and Chris froze.
The girl glared at Douglas. She shook her head once and closed the door again.
In the night it was cold.
The next day Katy wanted to photograph ripples in the creek. In one car, the four drove to a spot upstream.
Katy balanced herself out over the water precariously on a branch, dropping pebbles and then taking pictures of the result. Douglas offered to help. She waved him away.
Simon and Chris were trying to throw a hatchet into a tree. Douglas crossed the creek on a path of stones and sat by the water. A fish gulped at a water boatman.
Douglas sat on a rock and tried to think.
Suddenly he was drenched with water. On the opposite bank Simon and Chris laughed. Angrily, Douglas pulled the hatchet out of the water and walked back through the creek, soaking his shoes. When he reached the opposite bank he drew the hatchet over his right shoulder.
He threw it, hard.
The blade hit a tree directly between his two friends. They stared at it quivering in the wood. It was so deeply imbedded it took both of them to remove it.
Katy continued snapping away intently.
Douglas shook her tree. 'C'mon. We're going.'
'You can go. I'm not finished.'
The young men decided to go looking for the waterfall.
There was a track, but it was overgrown and hard to follow. Douglas soon lost the other two as he plunged ahead. The track grew steep.
Suddenly, a cliff. Douglas pulled himself up. The lip was slippery with moss.
He couldn't see the waterfall, but there was a sound of rushing water nearby.
Douglas returned a different way.
The girl was paddling in the shallow creek. She stood up, naked, with her back to him. He noticed a birthmark in the small of her back. Silently, Douglas stood in the undergrowth. Katy waded back to the beach and rubbed herself dry.
He stepped on a twig.
She stopped for a moment, angling her head to listen. Douglas stepped into view.
The girl saw him. Unhurriedly, she got dressed.
Douglas walked over to her and kissed her on the neck. Katy pushed him away.
'Can't I even have a swim without you groping me?' she said, gathering her things.
Douglas ached for her. He drew his hand away as she began walking back to the car.
'I'm sorry,' he began. 'I thought-'
'I know exactly what you thought,' she snapped.
When they returned to the car Douglas felt clumsy and awkward. He didn't know what to say. The girl busied herself with her camera.
Suddenly Chris and Simon stumbled out of the bush, swearing. Their legs and faces were gashed by blackberries.
'Where'd ya go man?'
That night at dinner Katy and Douglas sat at opposite ends of the table. They didn't look at each other. Chris and Simon sat in the middle, fidgeting and smiling uncertainly. In surprise, Douglas realised how like a family they were. Mum and Dad and the naughty kids.
The batteries for the ghetto blaster had gone flat.
Conversation was a series of dead ends.
Chris and Simon took their bottles outside while Douglas washed up. Katy read her magazine.
It began to grow cold as the fire ran low.
Douglas went out to chop some wood.
Chris and Simon lay on the road at the front of the house, giggling at nothing in particular. They were very drunk.
Douglas began to chop.
Wood splintered and exploded around the yard. Soon Douglas' arms throbbed with every blow as he sweated in the freezing night air. A mountain of split wood grew. Still he chopped.
When there was no wood left, Douglas laid down the axe and carried an armload inside.
Katy had gone to bed.
He began piling the wood on the fire.
At first it guttered and protested, then licked the new fuel hungrily. In the ashes a nail grew red hot.
Douglas grabbed the pile of magazines by the sagging sofa and added them to the blaze. An old crate was thrown in. A broken stool.
When nothing flammable was left in the room, Douglas went next door.
He found old cardboard boxes and photo albums.
Into the fire they went.
He snapped an old acoustic guitar across his knee and fed it to the blaze.
Whole boxes of old magazines went in, fluttering up the chimney as they burned. The fire roared like a beast released.
Smoke billowed into the room. The chimney cracked with heat.
Simon and Chris wandered in. They shielded their faces from the heat. 'Hey, whaddya doin' man?'
Douglas grabbed a half empty bottle of vodka from Simon's hand and threw it into the fire. It exploded in a ball of flame.
'Hey Dougie, tha' was good stuff. Dougie, Dougie, stop it man...'
Douglas ignored them and picked up a wooden chair. In fury he slammed it against the wall. He threw the bits into the inferno.
Fire overflowed from the fireplace, into the room. Prints on the wall curled and burst into flame. Carpet smouldered.
Douglas smiled grimly. His shoes began to melt. Laughing and crying, he fell to the floor. Flames licked towards him.
His friends dragged him from the house as fire shattered the windows and began devouring the roof.
Orange smoke stretched to the stars. Even outside, the heat was intense.
Douglas lay on the ground, spluttering. Chris and Simon watched the spectacle in awe.
Fire leapt from building to building until the whole block was ablaze.
At last, someone remembered.
'Hey, wha' about Katy?'
Douglas laughed maniacally.
There were no sirens.© David Lowe, February 1992