Chapter 10 — Mia

In Shale Valley, a grey half-circle of moon shines through a shattered window in Dr Robertson’s shack. Mia sits to one side of the window, rugged up in beanie and jacket—the Kriss in her lap—little puffs of condensation forming with each breath.

Her head droops; she jerks it back up, puts a hand on the Kriss and pulls the beanie lower. This is ludicrous. They’ve been in this shack for a whole day now, it’s well past their 11 pm rendezvous, no chopper has arrived and Red’s walked off somewhere to see if he can find a bloody mobile reception. Meanwhile, she’s supposed to be watching the road. But with one eye closed over and her good eye watering, she can barely see anyway. And what would she do, even if a whole convoy of trucks came around the bend? Spray bullets at them?

The sound of a deep breath comes from behind her. Thanks to a tranquilliser from Doc Robbo, Oksy’s out to the world on a pile of blankets. The doc had even given them clothes and backpacks. Thank God he understood—or seemed to, anyway. What about his wife? What will she make of it? Will he even tell her?

There’s a noise outside, like there’s an animal digging or scratching. Mia walks to the door and listens. It’s not actually a scratching noise; it’s the sound of someone walking with a slow, deliberate rhythm. No way Dog would be coming like this.

Holding the Kriss out of sight, Mia opens the door and looks to her left along a shiny strip of road, which runs past the shack and sweeps to the right, disappearing under the shadow of a mountain. Someone’s definitely coming her way.

A silhouette of the walker emerges from the shadows. It’s not Red and it isn’t Dog, that’s for sure. This person is lanky, hunched over and has a head of hair like a scarecrow. Why would anyone visit this late at night? Maybe they’re not visiting; maybe they’re just going for a walk.

Who knows? Phones might already be running hot about these new people in the doctor’s cottage. Or it could just be some neighbourhood watch guy.

‘If I’m not back and there’s trouble, you go to Plan B,’ Red had told her. ‘Forget about satellite cameras and thermal imaging—when you have to run you just run.’ Plan B starts with the doc’s jeep, which is up the hill behind the shack. From there they make their way over the mountain to a place called Belstone, where—phone coverage permitting a new rendezvous—they meet Michelle at the airport.

Putting the Kriss down, she pulls her beanie lower and waits. The visitor reaches the gate. A torch is turned on and shone in Mia’s eyes.

‘Excuse me in there,’ a shrill old woman’s voice says. ‘Has the doctor given you permission to stay?’

‘Yes he has,’ Mia says. ‘You can ask him if you like.’

‘The boss saw a car in the doctor’s dam when he flew over today. Is that yours?’

‘A car in the dam?’ Mia asks. ‘No idea.’

This is not good.

‘He said it was a car—or the roof of a car,’ the old woman persists.

‘I don’t know anything—about it,’ Mia says.

Her visitor keeps at her with questions about where she came from, how many of them there are and how long they plan to stay. Mia evades and lies. The questions return to the car in the dam and why these young people have no respect. It seems that Mia’s visitor is the guardian and voice of the valley.

It was Red’s idea to roll the Suzuki down into the dam. Everything had gone under except the roof. By the time they’d finished slopping mud all over it, the sun was rising and there was this embarrassment only a short walk away from the shack. Why hadn’t he just run it into a creek somewhere?

The questions shift to the maintenance of the shack. Are they looking after the yard? Have they fed the chooks? Mia pounces on the chooks question.

‘We have fed them,’ she says.

Oksy had anyway, with a milk thistle she’d found in the yard. Why hadn’t the doc warned them about this busybody caretaker?

‘Mum!’ Oksy calls out.

‘It’s okay sweetheart!’ Mia calls out. ‘We’ve got a visitor.’

‘Just pick her up and rock her back to sleep, my dear,’ the woman says. ‘I’ve had ten myself.’

Saying she will be back tomorrow to collect some eggs, the old woman turns off her torch and walks away. Mia closes the door. This will not be the end of it. The voice of the valley has found a bone to dig up: that bloody Suzuki.

Mia walks towards Oksy’s pile of bedding and stoops, patting her hands around until she finds Oksy’s tousled hair. She’s gone back to sleep. Mia kisses her on the forehead; trying not to think about the rope burns and bruises she’s seen on Oksy’s body.

‘You’re not well darling,’ Mia whispers. ‘We’ll get you to a hospital yet.’

Mia walks to a sink, pours a glass of water and cracks open blister packs of antibiotics and painkillers. Swallowing two of each with a mouthful of water, she wakes Oksy and gives her a glass of water along with one antibiotic and one painkiller. Without a word, Oksy guzzles them down and falls back onto her bed.

At the window, everything is much the same. The moon is higher, the road shines as before and the mountain casts less of a shadow. Returning to her seat, Mia finds a pillow, stuffs it behind her head, leans back, closes her one good eye and tries to listen.

Wind sighs along the valley. A lamb bleats, or it could be a kid goat. There’s a piercing shriek. Mia laughs. That was a sooty owl. Her mother would be proud of her for getting that one.

Mia’s not happy about Plan B. She’s driven rust buckets like this one in the Kimberley: you don’t take them up mountains. But Red won’t be told, he thinks the jeep can get them to the top of the mountain via a fire track. From there, according to the map, they can walk down to the M4 and Belstone airport. Plan C is even more ridiculous: Buddha and his truck, which is the longest shot of all. Red had messaged Buddha and discovered that he was nearing the Sydney end of his run from Western Australia. But that could mean a lot of waiting around. And what happens then?

Another shot at Plan A makes much more sense. The rendezvous is right across the road, no more than fifty metres from where Mia sits. A black-on-white sign nailed to a post says ‘Grey Mountain Well’. Alongside that is a stone chimneystack and the well itself: an old borehole surrounded by pepper trees—no fuss and no onlookers to worry about.

We need Plan A! Please God.

Mia sits up, sure she’s heard a vehicle. It gets louder. Through the window to her right, she can see the glow of headlights coming up the valley. The lights appear over a rise and flood the countryside. It’s a ute, trailing a long cloud of dust. Chugging past Mia’s shack, it indicates right and turns into a ploughed field, clattering across a cattle grid. Crashing and banging its way over furrows of earth, the ute circles the field, seeming to be chasing a mob of goats.

Mia laughs and walks back to her seat. It’s like she’s at home—except for the time of day, which is weird. Why on earth would someone be mustering goats at midnight?

Dogs are out. Goats tear off in all directions. A man is on foot. A bleating, barking whirlwind of animals stirs up a plume of dust that floats into the night sky and hangs like a wraith. Meanwhile, the goats are pushed into a yard in a corner of the paddock; the ute is backed up and a ramp dropped down.

Oksy yells, as if answering the racket from across the road. Mia holds her breath and waits to see if it was a waking cry. The answer comes from the darkness behind her in the form of a deep inhalation. Mia rearranges her pillow, leans back and watches that column of dust as it coils its way up, smudging the sky. This is all so comforting, even if it is a goat-stealing operation.

Mia stands up. Something’s not right. Holy shit! High up in the sky, the dust cloud is pulsing red and blue, like it’s caught the lights of a cop car or a fire truck. Now that she thinks about it, she can hear a faint wailing mingled in with the noise of the goats. That has to be a siren. Why would the police be coming like this? They wouldn’t—not if they were after her and Red. Either way, she can’t risk any incidents with cops; she needs to get out of this shack. Better safe than sorry.

Mia stands up and slings the Kriss over her shoulder, along with a backpack. Picking up Oksy—blanket and all—she hurries out through the back door, down the steps and up into a moonlit, thorny jungle of scratchy-ness. Something catches a corner of her load and she falls into bushes. Oksy screams. The prickles have found her.

Leaving the blankets, Mia lifts Oksy out. Holding hands, they scramble up a hillside that’s scrolling with red and blue: the entire valley now resounding to the whine of the siren. Pausing, Mia glances back: a vehicle with a siren on top approaches from the same direction that the ute came from.

‘Hurry Mummy!’ Oksy screams, yanking Mia’s arm.

The slope has become a maze of moving shadows. Mia stops again, catching her breath. Oksy urges her on. Tripping over tendrils of blackberry, she stumbles up the hill towards the jeep marker—a dead tree—which stands tall and stark in the glow of lights from below.

‘There it is, Mummy!’ Oksy yells, running ahead.

At the foot of the tree is the roof-less jeep—parked on a fire track—its broken grille looking like the bad teeth of some grinning practical joker. Mia places the Kriss on the dash, throws her pack in and gropes around on the floor for the key.

‘Quick!’ Oksy shouts.

‘It’s alright darling,’ Mia says. ‘Just looking for the—’

‘Look!’

Oksy points downhill. Mia looks over her shoulder. There on the valley floor, what is clearly a police car, speeds past the shack on a collision course with the ute, which is attempting to exit the farm via the cattle grid. This isn’t the script Mia had imagined.

‘Help us Lord Jesus!’ Oksy yells.

‘Shhh! Darling,’ Mia says, turning back to her key search.

‘Look Mummy! You have to look.’

Mia turns to look again. The ute fishtails through the cattle grid, sideswipes the police car and accelerates away with its goats: contraband goats for sure. The police come to a stop in a table drain.

The night returns to its cicadas and crickets, the angled lights of the cop car shining up into the bloated dust cloud. A car door opens; an officer gets out and bellows a single loud Shit! across the valley. Another constable—doubled over and laughing—climbs out the passenger side.

‘Mummy, why were they chasing the goat man?’

‘I think he was stealing goats darling.’

‘I love you,’ Oksy says, hugging her.

‘You’re my giggle girl, that’s what you are.’

‘And you’re my mummy.’

‘I am.’

‘Are we safe?’

‘Yes darling; they’ll be driving away and we’ll be back in our nest.’

With Oksy still holding her, Mia sits on the ground, says a prayer of thanksgiving and starts to giggle, unable to stop. Oksy joins in, holding onto Mia as if she’s afraid she’ll giggle herself away. Mia might find that sleep yet, right here most likely. Oksy’s almost asleep on her already, lying there in the moonlight like some black and silver doll. Mia strokes her hair, pulling out bits of blackberry and grass.

Down on the road the policemen still haven’t gotten their car out of the drain. The engine roars and backfires, tyres spin, headlights point this way and that. The revs are suddenly louder and the car skids up onto the road, motor roaring.

A voice crackles out of a two-way, one of the men laughs, a door slams and they drive away. Almost immediately the brakes are jammed on and they slow to a walking pace, driving towards the old snoop girl who’s out with her torch, waving them down. Words are exchanged, she hops into the car and they drive straight to the dam.

‘Old bitch!’ Mia hisses.

‘What’s wrong, Mummy?’ Oksy asks. ‘Are they coming?’

‘Not yet darling. Get into the jeep.’

Oksy climbs in and Mia goes back to looking for the key, sweeping her hands furiously under the seat and across the floor. She finds it embedded in a wad of dirt. Climbing into the driver’s seat, she puts the Kriss back over her shoulder and the key in the ignition.

She hesitates. What if the lights come on? She feels around for a headlight knob. No! Red told her there are no lights—too bad if there are. What about noise? Noise won’t be a problem, not with that racket going on down there.

‘Mummy,’ Oksy says, ‘they’re pulling it!’

Mia turns to look. The police have a towrope on the Suzuki, trying to drag it out with their car. It’s not moving. The old snoop sits watching on the bank, cigarette in hand.

Mia turns the ignition. It’s all starter motor: no lights, but no engine either.

‘Make them deaf, God!’ Oksy whispers.

‘We need you rust -bucket!’ Mia says. ‘And dear God, please listen to Oksy even if you won’t listen to me.’

She pumps the accelerator and turns the key again and again.

‘Mummy, the choke!’ Oksy says. ‘Remember what Daddy said about the choke?’

She pulls the choke and it roars to life, puffing smelly exhaust all over them.

‘Good girl,’ Mia says, patting the steering wheel.

She puts it in gear and they’re off into a body-shaking crawl, making their way along a just-visible fire track. Oksy tells her that the men have waded into the dam. Mia glances back, bumps into a tree and stalls. Oksy lands on her backside on the floor, stunned and whimpering.

Mia helps her up. The whimpering stops as quickly as it started. Mia turns the key, the engine kicks in and they’re off at a snail’s pace along the side of the mountain, Mia’s eyes adjusting to the dark.

A shadow rises up out of the grass and hops away. A kangaroo. Mia’s heart misses a beat. Red was the first thought that came to mind. He must be out here somewhere. He would have to have seen what was going on.

‘They’ve got it out,’ Oksy says, standing up and looking.

Mia pushes the accelerator a little harder. The jeep putters up and over a rise. Coming down the other side, they pass into a glade of big trees that blot out the moon. Unable to see where she’s going—or if she’s even on the track—Mia relies instead on the silhouette of forest against stars, the rocking of the jeep and the smooth noise of tyres on gravel. Still on the track, they round a steep uphill corner and Mia finds herself driving into pitch-blackness, treetops obliterating even the stars. Relieved to have the trees between her and the police, Mia thanks God out loud.

‘Mummy, we have to stop!’ Oksy cries. ‘We can’t leave Daddy behind!’

‘Daddy will find us!’ Mia says, raising her voice above the whining motor.

‘But he didn’t see what happened.’

‘He would have darling.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do, okay?’

‘But he’s lost, Mummy!’

‘He’s not, darling. Anyway, we can’t stop here—it’s too close.’

‘But they might get him.’

‘They won’t, honey.’

Oksy crawls across to Mia, squeezing in under her arms and curling up on her lap—her head resting against Mia’s belly, which gets tighter every day. Oksy sobs quietly. Mia keeps the revs up, shuffling the clutch and the gears.

‘Here we are, Gorgeous,’ Mia says, loudly into the night. ‘We’re on Plan B.’

‘Please, Mummy!’ Oksy sobs. ‘I want to call out for Daddy.’

Mia looks behind her. A jagged mass of trees hides them from the valley and the cops. There’s no one following, but for all she knows, Red could be calling out, trying to get her attention. She’ll have to switch the motor off.

‘Okay darling,’ Mia says, ‘let’s give it a try. Too bad if this thing never starts again.’

The machine has no handbrake. Mia reverses at an acute angle to the inner shoulder of the road. Nudging the tailgate up against a tree, she turns it off.

A breeze whistles through the forest. Branches creak. Oksy sniffles. The muffled sound of a revving car engine floats through the trees. Mia places a hand on Oksy’s shoulder. Oksy pushes it away, saying she’s scared and she wants Daddy.

Taking the Kriss off her shoulder, Mia rests it on the dash. If Dog really did win that Olympic medal he would be a good cross-country runner. Finding his prey out in the wild would be too easy. But this isn’t Dog. It’s just two cops on a routine job; they won’t be looking for her and Red. Although, they might soon.

Something rustles in the trees. She points the Kriss. What if it’s Red? She points the barrel at the sky.

What was it that Red told her about the safety catch? Was it supposed to be up for ‘off’ or down? Hell! No wonder her dad always hated safety catches. And now here she is, no idea what will happen when she pulls this trigger, if she pulls the trigger.

There’s a scrabbling noise. Twigs snap as if under slow and heavy pressure.

‘What is it, Mummy?’ Oksy asks, climbing up onto her.

‘Maybe a kangaroo, sweetheart.’

‘It might be Daddy.’

‘No, he would be calling out to us.’

‘But Mummy, what if it is him?’ she whispers. ‘Can we go and see?’

‘God no, darling! We have no way of knowing.’

‘Daddy, is that you?’ Oksy yells in a ringing voice, clear as a bell.

‘Yes sweetheart!’ Red’s voice answers from the opposite direction—uphill.

Further up the road, a white rectangular light glows like the LED of a phone: Oksy’s out and running. Mia follows, jogging in the direction of a light that’s now bouncing in time with the thudding of boots.

There’s a soft noise of collision. Oksy squeals. Mia ploughs into both of them, knocking her little family to the ground. Red laughs and kisses her, breathing hard and sweating.

They walk down to the jeep. Red says it should only take ten minutes to drive to the other side of the mountain. Mia—with interruptions from Oksy—explains what’s been going on. Red tells her he saw most of it. She did well, he tells her. She asks him her question about the safety catch.

‘Just here on the left,’ he says, placing her finger on a small lever above the trigger.

‘Yes, but which way is “shoot?”’

‘All you have to remember is “forward,”’ he says. ‘Push the safety lever forward and then, a little further along, push the firing lever forward if you want the hose.’

‘The hose?’

‘The automatic: the pray and spray.’

He unloads his pack and swaps his Glock for the Kriss. She pushes the Glock into her pocket and goes through the routine of key, choke and accelerator but it won’t start. She tries the ignition again. He tells her to pull the choke, she tells him she has. He doesn’t listen and tells her again.

She wants to scream at him. A dark flood of old unsettled scores comes over her: his smart ideas about the garden, his obsessive analyses of Green Avenue, his losing of her rare Marlene Dietrich vinyl.

She gets ignition. The rust bucket coughs, and once again they’re riding a rocking and groaning little monster. Mia doesn’t like what was just going through her head. Who cares about the vinyl? He’s talking to her, isn’t he? As Michelle had once said, ‘Enjoy it honey. At least he has a bloody opinion and he’ll fight and kill—unlike the other eighty-five per cent.’

One thing still niggles. Mia wants to know what happened with his efforts at finding mobile coverage. He hasn’t said anything, which means it failed. He’ll explain later. She should let it go. Why not just let him and Oksy enjoy their little bit of happiness? What happiness? Oksy’s ‘happy to have Daddy back happiness,’ that’s what. But he should tell Mia what happened, for God’s sake.

‘What happened with the phone call?’ Mia asks, her voice shaking with the corrugations.

‘What?’

‘The phone call—what happened?’

‘No signal,’ he says in a barely audible voice.

‘Which means we’re screwed!’

‘No it doesn’t. We just need to get to the top.’

‘And Mummy,’ Oksy interrupts. ‘We’ve got Daddy, and that’s good isn’t it?’

Conversation stops. The jeep roars its way up a steep slope. She drops back to first. She can see the silhouette of Red’s face staring straight ahead. She didn’t have to ask him about his success with the phone signal, it was unnecessary. The answer to her question was obvious and it wasn’t going to help Oksy. She’s just being a bitch.

‘I can smell rain, Daddy!’ Oksy calls out.

‘How’s the tank?’ he yells, shining his phone on the fuel needle—which is on ‘E’.

‘It was already on empty!’ Mia yells. ‘You knew that.’

‘Not totally it wasn’t.’

The motor coughs. She pumps the pedal and they follow the track to the top of a ridge. Trees thin out. The moon peeks through, revealing the track ahead as a series of pale, serpent-like twists and turns, ascending the mountain.

In an effort to save fuel, Mia puts the jeep into neutral, turns the motor off and lets it race downhill like a roller coaster. Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, she dabs at the brake pedal. Cold wind whips across her face. She almost loses her beanie. She thanks God for that beanie and tells God she’s sorry for her little bitch episode.

Red yells something. She can’t understand a word. She tells him to wait.

They reach the bottom of their run. The jeep hits maximum speed. She turns the key to ‘on’, puts the jeep in third and lets the clutch out. The motor kicks in and they drive to the top of the next rise.

‘If Buddha can meet us on the M4,’ he says, his voice jolting. ‘We could go to WA.’

‘With Oksy like this?’ she yells. ‘In the back of a truck, in summer heat?’

They clatter down the next hill, yelling to each other.

‘We could take her to a doctor on the way,’ he says.

‘But she needs a hospital now.’

‘I know.’

‘Where?’

‘Belstone?’

Mia doesn’t answer. The question mark at the end of Red’s reply is the answer. He knows and she knows that Belstone means Plan B, which is nothing to do with Buddha.

The moon stays out and they keep going up and down ridges and crests, Mia sometimes using the gears and other times just coasting. Like their mad ride in the jeep, everything hangs in the balance: the cops and Suzuki balance, the Michelle and helicopter balance, the Spiers and Dog balance. Not to mention an endless list of jail options.

‘Buddha could take us anywhere in a week!’ Red says, as they pause at the top of another crest.

‘True!’ she yells. ‘But what about the next ten years?’

His reply is drowned out by a fierce gust of wind. She puts the jeep into neutral and they sail downhill, hitting the dip at the bottom with the g-force of a whiplash. At that exact moment the moon is blotted out. The jeep slows, she eases it into second and releases the clutch, firing up the engine and blowing exhaust everywhere. Once again she’s having to ‘feel’ her way along the track.

At the top of the next rise two signs stand side-by-side, just readable by the glow of moonlit clouds. One says ‘Grey Mountain Summit & Coal Museum 0.5 km’, the other says ‘Road Works in Progress’. At the bottom of the next dip, a road crew’s camp—with shadowy mounds of earth and the chunky profiles of heavy machinery—appears to be sprawled across the track.

Fat rain drops fall. Mia’s heart sinks. That freshly worked road will soon be a quagmire.

Taking the jeep downhill as fast as she can, Mia goes up through the gears, races down past graders and boulders and back up into a winding S of earthworks. Bulldozers have had a field day: a great bite has been taken out of a fern-filled mountainside. What was just a fire track is now a road, but one that’s about to become a mud pie.

Her tilt in the jeep brings them to a high point overlooking the valley. The moon is gone, a storm erupting. They can just see their shack, but no police car.

‘Thank God they’ve gone,’ Mia yells at Red.

‘Maybe not!’ he counters, pointing at headlights lancing up into the sky behind them.

A vehicle is coming up the track.

‘Stop them, Daddy!’ Oksy screams.

Mia accelerates and they grind their way up an earth-worked slope, bolts of lightning and peals of thunder on all sides. Rain pours. The jeep stops in a wheel-spinning stalemate. They start to slide downhill.

Mia turns to Red. There’s a stab of lightning: the blinding flash captures an image of him jumping over the side of the jeep with his backpack and the Kriss. Oksy screams and clings to Mia. The sliding stops and then starts again. Red yells for Mia to forget the jeep.

Putting it into first, she turns the motor off and takes Oksy’s hand. The two of them hop out into a river of mud. Mia slips over, cursing her useless Docs.

Red is at the back of the almost-stationary jeep, leaning his shoulder against the tailgate; his clothes and pack so covered in mud he looks like a brown plastic figure.

‘We need to get rid of it!’ he yells.

Mia and Oksy slip and slide their way over to him and the three push together. The downhill slide comes to a halt. But they’ve been pushing a little off-centre, making themselves into a fulcrum. The front end slides towards a cliff and the whole jeep goes into a sideways spiral, which could get them just what they want—or not.

Mia pulls Oksy away. Red stands up and they watch as the rust bucket does a slow pirouette downhill, lightning still-framing the journey. Gathering speed, it hits a boulder, bounces off, smashes into a guidepost and hurtles over the precipice. Mia’s pack was in there with the water bottles. Red tells her not to worry, he’s got two of his own. The top isn’t all that far, he reassures her, they can make it on two bottles of water. She doesn’t even look at him. They have to make it.

Car headlights sweep the sky and disappear again. Maybe the rain has stopped them. Oksy prays it will ‘make them get smashed!’

Giving his bag to Mia, Red lifts Oksy onto his back and they crawl their way up a slope of clay between the road and the ferns. At the top of the hill of mud, they slither down into a mass of grass and ferns.

The gradient up through the ferns is steep, and they’re forced to go on hands and knees over spongy, rotting layers—one payoff being that the dripping fronds are washing the mud off. Leeches are everywhere. Mia’s sure one is making a journey up the inside of her leg.

Mia can’t keep up. She asks if they can stop for a minute. They flop down under a canopy of fronds: Oksy whimpering, Red shooshing her and rivulets of water cascading all around.

Mia slides a hand down inside her jeans, finds the leech and yanks it off. Rolling onto her back, she takes a trembling Oksy into her arms. They lie there looking up through massive ferns at shimmering clouds. Something stings Mia’s cheek. It’s another leech. She pulls it off, getting a taste of her own blood. The lightning stops and everything is a wet, empty blackness.

‘I can go again honey,’ Mia whispers.

‘Not now,’ he replies. ‘They’re almost here. Best to just keep still.’

‘I wish Michelle would come,’ Oksy says.

‘Shit! Forgot to turn the phone off!’ Red says.

He sits up, turns it off and lies on his belly with the Kriss out, facing downhill. Mia feels a leech crawl over her hand onto Oksy’s jacket. She brushes it off, turns around and rolls onto her belly to watch, Oksy joining her.

Red hisses a ‘Shhh!’ Headlights touch treetops. The police car comes over a rise and parks. Lights are killed. A powerful torch is switched on.

Two officers, their grey plastic coats glistening in the rain, struggle their way up to where the jeep exited. One of them examines the smashed post and takes photographs. The other speaks into a handheld radio. A reply comes back with a loud crackle of static and they slosh their way up towards Mia and her family, sweeping the ferns with their torch.

‘Don’t look at the light,’ Red whispers.

Oksy buries her face in Mia’s jacket. Mia holds a hand on Oksy’s head and prays. The men are less than a stone’s throw away now, voices clear and nervous as they call out to each other over the wind. The rain has dropped to a fine mist. The officer with the torch points it directly at their hiding place.

‘You can’t just shoot them!’ Mia whispers.

‘It’s them or us,’ Red whispers back. ‘A chase is un-winnable.’

‘There’s no way we can shoot an ordinary cop. These guys won’t have a clue.’

‘If they don’t yet, they will soon. They know the rego number and they have radio and internet.’

Mia feels sick.

‘Tell you what,’ he continues, ‘Why don’t you and Oksy walk out now? I’ve got the Wand, I’ll take care of the bullshit.’

‘No way,’ she says.

It’s too late for words. She prays there won’t be an explosion of gunfire that ends everything.

‘You can go now,’ he says.

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she hisses. ‘I’m not going anywhere, ever. This is us, remember! I’m yours, your mine, she’s ours and to hell with the world!’

‘That’ll do me,’ he whispers in a tone that tells her he’s smiling. ‘And don’t look at that light.’

The men are at the top of the mud heap now, their spotlight day-lighting the ferns. Mia looks away. Oksy holds Mia tight. There’s another loud crackle of radio voice.

‘Holy fuck!’ one of the cops yells.

The bright glow stops. Mia looks up. The man with the radio has his gun out. The other—who holds the now-turned-off spotlight—is shaking his head and walking away. The one with the gun follows. Struggling back over the hill of clay, they walk to their car and drive off.

‘They got the news,’ Red says. ‘Friggin’ helicopters and cowboys will be next.’

‘Leech, Mummy, leech!’ Oksy screams. ‘It’s on my tummy.’

Red covers the three of them with a poncho and flicks on a lighter. Mia helps Oksy get her jacket and top off. A fat brown leech is attached near her belly button. Lying on her back, Oksy presses her lips together and stares at Mia, holding her hand.

Opening a knife, Red slides the tip under the leech, lifts it up in a U-shape and cooks it with the flame. The leech curls up and drops off. He flicks the leech away, telling Oksy how pleased and proud he is of her.

‘New information, one-minute rumination,’ Red says, flicking the lighter off.

‘Which means?’ Mia says.

‘We stop for a minute and think.’

With the poncho still over their heads, they sit in the dark and talk—their hideout filling with breath and body heat. Mia doses herself and Oksy with more antibiotics. It’s only been an hour since the last lot but she has to do something.

Plan B might now be dead. Red is keen to explore the Buddha option. Mia argues that they need to at least wait to hear from Michelle. Oksy agrees.

The rain stops. The poncho is put away. The sky is starless and overcast.

They crawl off up the slope, Oksy worrying about leeches, Red telling ‘knock-knock’ jokes and Oksy countering with jokes of her own. Mia struggles along at the back of the line. There’s something lovely about this father–daughter game, here in hell. As much as she hates Red’s puns and dad jokes, she’ll be keeping her mouth shut.

The climb up the side of the mountain goes on forever, each of them taking toilet stops at different times. Mia’s knees hurt and her back has a nasty pain. Oksy tries to cheer her up. Red says they’ve been at it for forty-seven minutes and they should be at the top in another five.

The slope becomes almost level, the trees thin out and they walk towards a black hulk of buildings. The ground is littered with Coke bottles and milk cartons. There’s a smell of sewage. Mia’s never felt so happy at the sights and smells of human waste.

Oksy tells Mia that they’ve ‘made it!’ Mia stops. She’s out of energy completely, simply can’t take another step. Red lifts her up and carries her in his arms, explaining that Oksy’s found a picnic table with seats.

In the distance—outlined by the aura of Belstone’s town lights—Mia can see Oksy standing on the table, playing with hair that’s hanging down in thick curls. She looks so tall and womanly up there. This wasn’t how Mia imagined her daughter growing up.

Red places Mia gently on a slatted wooden seat, overlooking a cliff. Below, the lights of Belstone sprawl towards the horizon in the shape of a fallen-over Christmas tree, the tip of the ‘tree’ on the horizon. Oksy climbs down off the table and sits with Mia, squeezing her tight. An arrowed sign near the table says ‘Grey Mountain Kiosk 100 m – Grey Mountain Truck Stop 1 km’.

An airport beacon on the far side of Belstone looks like a star at the top of the tree-shaped town. The ‘tree’ itself is split in half by the snaking headlights and taillights of the M4.

Red points to a truck stop at the bottom of the cliff, which the M4 goes straight past. He explains that this is Grey Mountain Truck Stop, which might be a good place to meet Buddha if worse came to worst.

Mia can’t bring herself to think about the Buddha option. But she would like to go down there. The little gathering of shops looks so friendly and so normal: the red circle of a Mobil, the golden ‘M’ of a McDonalds and the orange and black of an El Cheapo motel. She wants that motel.

Red’s phone lights up. He swipes it.

‘We had to abort because of the weather,’ Michelle’s voice says.

‘Yeah, figured that,’ Red says.

‘Where are you?’ Michelle asks.

‘What phone are you using?’

‘A public box,’ she says.

‘What landing conditions can you do?’ he says.

‘Night is okay.’

‘Can you meet us at Belstone Airport?’

‘Our pilot says the weather’s clearing. He thinks we could be there in two-and-a-half hours. About 0430.’

‘4.30 am is good. Bring a hacker.’

Red ends the conversation and looks at Mia. She hasn’t seen that expression for a long time. There’s deep sadness in those eyes. One rendezvous has already fallen through and Red obviously doesn’t like the Belstone idea.

‘It’s 2.07 now,’ he says, looking at the phone. ‘We’re rolling a big dice, but it’s all we have.’

‘We can’t stay here,’ Mia murmurs.

‘That’s for sure,’ he says, pulling his phone apart, breaking the SIM card and throwing everything away.

‘What are you doing Daddy?’ Oksy asks, starting to cry.

‘It’s okay darling,’ Mia says. ‘Daddy has more of them.’

‘It’s to stop them tracking us darling,’ he adds.

Red hoists Mia up into a piggyback position and walks off—holding Oksy’s hand—with Mia clasped onto him like he’s a pack mule. The steady rhythm of his walking makes her sleepy, the warmth of his flexing muscles flooding her spent body with contentment. She undoes a button on his shirt and slides her hand onto warm, hairy skin.

Red stops. Just ahead of them, partially hidden by shadows, is an enormous statue of a kangaroo near an archway. The words ‘Grey Mountain Kiosk’ hang from the arch like clothes on a line. A sour smell of wet, burnt wood fills the air. The charred remains of fallen trees and curled sheets of iron obstruct the path. Beyond the kangaroo is an eerie shadow-land of tree trunks and denuded earth, looking like the remains of a recent bushfire.

Mia unhooks herself from Red. The three of them wander past pools of water, heaps of sodden ash and sticks of burnt timber standing up out of concrete slabs.

Oksy rummages through the debris, throwing glass bottles and squealing at the splatter of liquid. A breeze catches some of the spray, leaving a taste of vinegar in Mia’s mouth. A sharp gust of wind lifts up a sheet of corrugated iron and floats it just above head height, see-sawing like an autumn leaf.

The iron skims across the ruin towards Oksy. It’ll kill her. Mia runs and dives at the same time as Red. Copping his shoulder in her face, she’s knocked sideways and plunged face first into mud.

Oksy screams. Mia struggles up onto her knees, spitting ash. Red is facedown—torso under the sheet of iron—Oksy underneath him, still screaming.

‘Why did you jump on me daddy?’ she yells, dragging herself out.

Mia takes Oksy in her arms. She stops crying. There’s a deathly silence. Red hasn’t moved.

‘Jesus!’ he says, pushing the iron off, but staying where he is. ‘That bloody hurt!’

Mia takes a breath and then another. Putting Oksy down, she stumbles over to Red and helps him up out of a bog of wet cinders. He rubs his back. She asks about it. He says he’ll be alright.

Oksy is okay and so is Red, but it seems that the whole world has it in for them. How much longer is this going to go on for?

Please God, no more.

Red explains to Oksy about the flying sheet of iron. Oksy starts howling all over again, Mia comforts her, and the three of them sit there in the mud looking up at a mottled sky: wind moaning through the trees.

Mia wonders aloud if they’re in for another storm. Oksy asks God to keep the storms away and to let Michelle come. Ignoring both of them, Red puts a hand behind his ear in a listening posture and looks up at the sky. The drone of an aircraft approaches.

‘Helicopter!’ Red says.

‘Mummy!’ Oksy yells. ‘It’s Michelle!’

‘No!’ Red shouts. ‘Wrong time, wrong place. Quick, get over here!’

He runs to a collapsed roof and lifts a section for Mia and Oksy to crawl under. He follows them under and they lie there like sardines, all facing the iron.

The helicopter noise fades. Mia listens to the sound of her own laboured breaths. A sharp edge of timber presses against her face. She tries to move to a better position but she’s stuck. She asks Red to move across. He says it’s too dangerous to move. As he speaks, the roar of heavy rotor blades blots out his voice. A hail of grit and leaves is blown under the roofing.

‘Got a little hole here,’ Red says. ‘I can see it. Just above tree level. No lights. It’s got missile pods and a gun turret; bloody old Mi-24: a monster. Where the hell did they get that?’

The helicopter flies away. The wind moans and sprinkles of rain fall on the iron. Oksy whimpers. Mia holds Oksy’s hand and prays. The helicopter seems to have gone.

Oksy asks Red what an ‘Mi-24’ is. Red explains that it’s an old-style Russian helicopter, also known as a ‘flying tank’. He adds that the original wasn’t made for night work.

‘It’s like they knew we were here,’ Mia says.

‘Uh huh,’ he says. ‘And they must have fitted that thing out with night navigation. Probably even got thermal gear.’

‘What’s thermal gear, Daddy?’ Oksy asks.

‘It helps them see warm bodies at night sweetheart,’ he says, pushing the roofing up and letting everyone out. ‘Good thing we were under this.'

‘It had to be that phone call,’ Mia says, sitting down on a scorched slab.

‘Or those cops.’

‘Or them.’

The slab is cold and wet. Mia stands up again, praying silently for fresh ideas. She knows where Red will be going next.

‘Belstone’s a dead duck now,’ he says.

‘So—’ Mia says, trying to get talking before Red starts on Buddha.

‘I know these mountains,’ he says. ‘We could hide here until Buddha comes. It would take forever for them to find us.’

‘But look at us, darling. Seriously. You might be doing this in your sleep. But Oksy?’

Oksy sits down next to her. Mia puts an arm around her. Oksy’s heart beats like a hummingbird.

‘We can do it,’ Red says.

‘Sure, I can do this,’ Mia says. ‘I can die out here—but not our darling!’

‘I love you Daddy,’ Oksy chimes in.

‘So—what do you suggest?’

Holding a hand to her mouth, Mia sends up a pleading prayer to God and then says, ‘I’m thinking of something down on the highway. I know this sounds insane, but—that ugly little black and orange motel. Remember? The El Cheapo.’

‘Uh huh. Good joke.’

‘No. Seriously, honey—you’ve got ten grand in your backpack. We could stay in a motel, we could rent a bloody holiday house, or we could hire a car and get on that highway.’

‘But it’s nearly 3 am, they’ll be in bed.’

‘Not El Cheapo, they’re twenty-four hour.’

‘I prefer Buddha,’ Red says, leaning against a burnt tree trunk. ‘The devil you know is better.’

‘A hire car would be easier.’

‘Too risky.’

‘No worse than dying of exposure here honey.’

‘It’s bloody December, Mia. No one’s going to die of exposure. We can go find a cosy canyon and light a fire. We can go shopping.’

‘While she gets pneumonia,’ Mia says. ‘A hot shower and a warm bed is what she needs.’

Red looks away. There’s a long silence.

‘Okay,’ he says, ‘Just one night.’

‘So it’s on?’

‘It is. And since they’re looking for a psycho killer, you can do the talking.’

‘It’s a deal.’

Mia would throw a cartwheel if she could. Oksy jumps up and hugs Red, telling him he’s the best daddy in the world.

‘Don’t thank me, darling,’ he says. ‘It’s Mummy you should thank.’

‘Thank you Mummy and Daddy and God!’ she shouts at the night sky.

Red takes out a water bottle, offering it to Oksy. Oksy hesitates, wanting to know if this is the last. He tells her that it is, but they’ll have plenty soon. She swallows a few mouthfuls and passes it to Mia. Mia takes a sip and gives it back to Red. There would have to be no more than one good mouthful left in it.

Following the signs to the truck stop, they continue past the ruined kiosk, the wind at their backs, Red walking in front with the Kriss. As they pass through the gutted forest of burnt matchstick trees and scalded ground, it occurs to Mia that there’s no shadows, just grey blandness.

Oksy keeps a firm hold of Mia’s hand. The night is darker and warmer, the warmth carried along by a slow wind of the ‘pub veranda’ kind—a Kimberley pub for Mia—on a late afternoon in the build-up season. Silky rain begins to fall: normally Mia’s favourite for walking in.

They reach the descent to the motel; it’s 2.50 am and they’re trudging in a steady downpour. Mia lifts her face to the sky, letting the rain wash away mud and ash, which seems to be all over her. Oksy and Red follow her example.

The path is a staircase of sandstone blocks with patches of mossy overgrowth and solid wooden handrails: the rails being the only thing making it possible to walk without falling. A sign tells them they’ve reached halfway. Mia sits to catch her breath. It’s hard to believe she could soon be having a hot shower. She tells herself not to get too excited just yet.

The second half of the journey has wider stairs and an easier gradient. Mia doesn’t even need to catch her breath. They come to a sign that says ‘Welcome to Grey Mountain Truck Stop’.

The descent levels out. Another truck stop sign directs them to what looks like the ivy-covered mouth of a cave. Walking through, they find themselves in a gloomy little canyon with water pouring out of vine-covered cliffs. It’s too dark to see where all the water is going, but by the sound of a heavy flow beneath her, Mia assumes they’re on a bridge. She tightens her grip on Oksy’s hand.

‘This water might be good for one last clean up,’ Red says, turning his lighter on and walking to one of the waterspouts. ‘Come on, Miss Oksana Ludya,’ Red says, holding his hand under a stream and directing it at her.

Oksy squeals. Mia pulls the hood of Oksy’s jacket down low until it covers her face. Rotating her under the stream, she washes the mud off. Red does the same for Mia, and Mia and Oksy do him.

Satisfied with their work, they tramp over the bridge to a tall tree. The path veers left around the tree and follows a sandstone wall: every stain and streak in the rock face illuminated by a streetlight. Below the light is a bus shelter. A truck roars past the shelter, lights on high beam. They’ve reached the M4.

Red calls a stop. Pulling the hood of his jacket low over his face, he warns them that they’re about to walk out under CCTV cameras. The truck stop, Macca’s and El Cheapo will all have them.

Mia and Oksy pull their hoods well down and follow Red out under the glare of the light. Leaving them at the shelter, Mia walks with one hand closed on a bundle of cash inside her jacket and the other on her Glock, which is pushed down inside the waist of her jeans. A ‘going home’ feeling becomes stronger with every step. She finds herself humming lines from an old Led Zeppelin song her mum used to sing about rain falling.

At the motel door she pushes a white service button and waits under the glare of a fluorescent light. A dishevelled, track-suited girl in a baseball cap unlocks the door and lets her in. The office is freezing. A clock on the desk says 3.35 am.

Mia takes out two hundred-dollar notes, asks for a single room and tells the girl to keep the change. The girl hands her a key, a breakfast order form and takes the money. Ticking the biggest breakfast order, Mia gives it back and they go their separate ways.

The key has the number forty-seven on it. Mia finds the room and walks in. Red and Oksy join her thirty seconds later.

Mia takes Oksy to the bathroom. Oksy’s muddy shoes and clothes come off along with more leeches—but Oksy refuses to take her nightie off, even though Mia has lifted it up around her head in the search for leeches.

Oksy walks in under the hot stream and stands there, her eyes closed and face lifted up to the shower head—mud running out of her hair and down her nightie in dark brown lines. Mia is about to suggest that Oksy might need to take her nightie off when her train of thought stops. What about Mia herself? If she stripped off, it might encourage Oksy.

Mia clenches her teeth. This girl has had enough shit without seeing Mia’s as well. More pain is not what she needs.

But what if right now your daughter needs your shit?

The thought stays in Mia’s mind like that of some eavesdropping ghost from her subconscious. According to Sister Anastasia, this voice is the ‘Holy Ghost’.

Embarrassed, Mia gets down on the floor, unlaces her Docs and removes every item of clothing. Ever since the rape, Mia’s kept her bra on whenever Oksy was around or wore her bikini in the spa.

She walks to the shower, keeping one hand over the bite wound and another over the bruise from the table at Penrith. What are you doing Mia? The thought challenges her directly as if it were her own mother.

She lets her hands down, stands and waits for Oksy to look. Oksy turns her face out of the water and smiles, seeming not to notice anything. Relieved, Mia joins her and they wrap their arms around each other, soaking in the watery heat: Mia with her head almost in the shower rose and Oksy with her thin white shoulders and head of slicked red hair pressed against Mia’s belly.

Oksy looks up, wiping water out of clear green eyes: eyes that seem too big and too alive for her bony, older-looking face. They gaze at each other through the splashing water and the frame of Mia’s rising and falling cleavage. Oksy places a hand on Mia’s bruise and asks if it was from a leech. Mia is about to go with the leech story but that questioning inner voice seems to lean forward in its chair and watch.

‘It was done by a bad man,’ Mia says.

‘Was it the man in the shed?’ Oksy asks.

‘No darling.’

‘So—who?’

‘Tate.’

‘Oh Mummy! Father Adams said he was a good man, but I don’t like him and I don’t like those—’

Oksy hangs her head, breaking into loud sobs and clinging to Mia, her grief battering against a tower of rage inside Mia. The ‘tower’ collapses. Mia leans her back against the wall of the cubicle and slides to the floor. The pair of them sit, looking at one another, mouths trembling as if they’re about to speak. Something passes between them, something that reminds Mia of the first time she looked into her newborn Oksy’s gleaming eyes.

‘Are you okay in there?’ Red calls out.

‘Yes,’ Mia says.

‘These are getting darker Mummy,’ Oksy says, lifting her nightie and showing her groin bruises to Mia.

‘Yes honey,’ Mia says, ‘but I think they might be healing. See this one?’ She shows her breast to Oksy. ‘It was the colour of yours last week.’

Oksy examines the bite wound and then, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, she takes her nightie off, rinses it under the shower and hangs it on a rack.

Mia turns the water off; they step out and dry themselves down. While they stand there, rubbing their skin with thick white towels, Oksy recites a three-word prayer, which Mia has taught her to pray three times every night: Jesus, Mary, Joseph. Mia is about to add her own improvement to her daughter’s prayer but restrains herself. Instead, she allows Oksy’s prayer to echo in her soul.

The eavesdropping voice pushes its way forward with another thought.

What else have you got?

What do you mean?

Perhaps you could trust your daughter?

With what?

The question-asking voice seems to be looking for something in Mia that she was looking for in God—as if Mia’s some rookie god and this other is the coach. Mia cries foul. God’s supposed to be saving her family. If this really is God, what the hell does he mean by ‘trust your daughter’? What would Oksy know anyway?

Mia immediately regrets her last question. She wishes she could erase it the way someone in an ordinary conversation might add a lying postscript: ‘I didn’t mean that.’ But here and now, in her own soul, Mia has nowhere to go.

Oksy wraps herself in a towel and walks out the door. Mia follows and seats herself on the bed, deep in thought, a mysterious sadness coming over her. Oksy asks if she’s okay. Mia smiles and says she is. Oksy turns the television on and Red walks into the bathroom.

‘You know what, Mummy?’ Oksy says. ‘You are so amazing!’

‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ she says, pushing back tears.

They lie on the bed and watch the screen.

Half an hour later Red walks out in a white towel, holding the Kriss—a big smile on his face and his eyes a darker shade of green. A yellow, duct-taped Wand hangs from his neck and a V-shaped patch of ‘hot shower pink’ runs all the way from his chest to his belly button.

Mia can’t take her eyes off him. Every muscle and rib seems to stand out. There’s something tiger-ish about him: not like a zoo tiger but a wild and hungry one, menacing and deadly. If only he hadn’t stuck that Venus on such a lovely body. It’s a Venus de Milo, he likes to tell her—a copy of an ancient Greek sculpture—which is why she has no arms. ‘Now that I’m married to you, no woman is ever going to hold me except you.’ He might have been better off saying that no woman was ever going to control him: period.

She takes his warm hand in her cool one. He climbs onto the bed and sits with her. She slides a hand down his back. He winces. Looking to see what the problem is, she finds a raw welt in the middle of his back: from the sheet of iron, he explains. He tells her it’s nothing.

Mia turns the TV off. Oksy turns the lights out and stands in the almost-darkness, silently going through what Mia knows as her ‘Mary’s Son’ dance, but without the words.

‘What are you doing?’ Red asks.

‘It’s a dance-song she learned from Sister Anastasia,’ Mia says

‘I was singing the words in my heart, Daddy. Do you want to hear them?’

‘Why not?’

Oksy goes through the dance again, singing her song in a soft soprano.

Mary’s Son of old

Our world is in a mess

But your love is pure gold.

Take our hearts and make them sweet

Your open arms around us fold

And when in darkest night we meet

We’ll sing with you until the day is through.

‘That was lovely sweetheart,’ Red says.

Beaming at Red, Oksy crawls under the sheets and pushes a pillow up against Mia.

Red examines the wound on Mia’s forehead, digs a bandage and a tube of antiseptic cream out of his pack and dresses it for her, telling her she now has an ‘attitude scar’.

‘What’s an “attitude scar”, Daddy?’ Oksy asks.

‘It’s one you get from a fight, darling,’ Red says.

‘And leaves you a little uglier,’ Mia adds. ‘Which is the attitude bit.’

‘Nothing could make you ugly, Mummy,’ Oksy says.

‘Mummy makes scars beautiful,’ Red whispers, smiling the happiest smile Mia can remember.

Mia curls up on the bed, pulls a sheet over herself and Oksy, and watches Red. Turning the lights down low, he drapes Oksy’s nightie, jeans and jacket over an oil heater and takes the rest of the wet gear to the bathroom. Having completed the hanging out of their clothes, he makes himself a cup of coffee, picks up the Kriss, turns all the lights out and takes a seat between Mia and the window, opening the curtain just a fraction.

Mia watches him through heavy-lidded eyes. She wants to have that beautiful man, really have him and make another baby before something destroys him. Red looks around at her, winks and laughs.

Oksy takes a deep breath and flings one arm out over the side of the bed like it’s a loose oar. Mia kisses her on the cheek, rolls onto her side and drifts off to sleep—her dreams full of dark, waving branches.

She’s startled awake—something’s touching her face. It’s Red.

‘Are you okay, honey?’ he asks, his hand on her forehead.

She just stares at him, trying to see his face in the darkness and work out where they are and what this is all about. She sees the Kriss in his other hand. It all comes back.

‘Uh huh,’ she says. ‘I’m alright.’

‘You were calling out,’ he says. ‘Something about “the evil of my shadow-self.”’

‘Sorry honey,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘It’s just a line from a prayer.’

‘What is it with you?’ he says, sitting back down. ‘How can you still believe after all this shit?’

‘I don’t know, honey. Paddy says—’

‘Fuck Paddy—I’m sorry, but what’s this got to do with him?’

‘Janie is what it’s got to do with him,’ she says, sitting up.

‘Yeah, yeah, Janie died and he found God, right?’

‘Whatever, honey—look, I’m tired. The way he explained it to me was that after she died, something called “stage-four faith” started happening in him.’

‘Stage four? What the hell? Faith is faith, isn’t it?’

‘It wasn’t just his idea. He says that—according to those who know—faith has six stages. Most people live in stage three: the teenage, naïve version.’

Mia can’t believe they’re actually having this conversation, that instead of trying to score points he is actually asking her to explain something. Without another word, he turns in his chair to face her and listens while she explains that ‘stage four’ is like being a fish outside the tank, reflecting on the water and living with the angst of no longer being able to trust your own worldview.

Curious now, he asks more questions. She tries to explain the difference between ‘naïve realism’ and ‘critical realism’ but loses her way. She’s too tired she just wants to sleep.

‘Stage four sounds like shit,’ Red says. ‘But I guess it’s honest.’

‘I think maybe all this is moving me over into stage five,’ she says, laughing.

‘Which is?’

‘Kind of like, “I don’t care.”’

‘Don’t care about what?’

‘Honestly, honey, I can’t explain it. Paddy says it’s when you’re okay with God’s mystery, unavailability and strangeness: yet the love and joy is deeper, more intimate.’

Red looks like he’s about to ask another question. Mia yawns and tells him she loves him. He’s such a soldier, this man—and such a husband—if only he knew it. He smiles and thanks her for the philosophy lecture. She puts her head on the pillow and falls asleep.