As Far as You Can Go by Lesley Glaister Read Free Book Online Page A

but behind all that, silence is happening in a big way. Millions upon millions of square miles of bush and desert crowded out with silence.
    ‘It’s never silent,’ she says. ‘There’s always
something
. Listen.’
    There is a dry scuttle from somewhere like the rush of a frightened heart. ‘It’s never silent,’ she says again, her voicesmall. They lie together, hearts beating, breath mingling. It is too hot in the stale trapped air of the room to be so close but too silent not to be. The physical noise of a friendly being pressed up close is the only thing to drown out the silence. She shuts her eyes.
    And wakes to him shaking her.
    ‘Hey sleepy, let’s go and eat.’
    She hauls herself up, a thick furry taste in her mouth, bleary eyes, and allows him to lead her outside. It’s now properly dark. He shines a torch on the ground and they pick their way through the bushes. She feels as if she’s dreaming, the strange landscape hinting at itself through the dark, a high moon sailing. In the kitchen Larry has laid out hard-boiled eggs, bread, cheese and tomatoes with a couple of bottles of beer. The electric light is dim and there is a constant buzzing: flies, the generator perhaps, a sound that seems to Cassie as if it’s emanating from her own ears.
    ‘Well, cheers.’ Graham snaps the beer bottles open and hands one to her. The dull light emphasises the blue shadows under his eyes.
    ‘Cheers,’ Cassie says, ‘to us. To our – adventure.’ They chink their bottles and gulp cold beer.

Six
    The sun shines through the thin curtains, and Cassie lies for a few moments looking at the outlines of the unicorns. They are really here! Graham is still asleep, lashes dark against his cheeks, a little trail of drool escaping from his mouth. She climbs out of bed, careful not to jolt him awake. The walls are pale pink, an old pleated lampshade hangs from a bulbless socket. It is a lovely room, square, pleasing, though a little small and she’ll have to get rid of the cowskin rug – makes her feel queasy, stepping on it.
    She looks at the photo of Patsy. Apart from missing her this is going to be
great
, she thinks. It’s so amazing to be somewhere so
other
. You don’t realise what a rut you’ve been in till you climb out of it. She can feel in her bones that this is going to be good.
    Graham is looking at her. ‘Hi Gorgeous,’ he says.
    ‘Gorgeous yourself,’ she says. She leans over to kiss him and he tries to pull her down.
    ‘Come on, let’s go and get something to eat,’ she says, ‘I’m
starving.’
    For breakfast they eat oranges and porridge with molasses. Strange breakfast to start a new life on but Larry has made porridge for Mara and extra in case they want some too, and they feel obliged to want it. And though porridge is just aboutthe last thing Cassie could possibly have imagined wanting, she eats greedily till she’s scraping the spoon round her bowl. It fills in between her ribs, makes her feel solid, earthed after all the flight and movement of the past few days.
    She washes the dishes and Graham feeds the sloppy strips of dead porridge that float off the sides of the pan to Yella, making him stand up on his back legs like a circus dog. Larry sits at the table, flicking through some papers.
    ‘Oh, by the way, what do we do about post?’ Cassie asks him.
    Larry looks up over his reading specs. ‘Writing home already?’
    ‘Well, we need to say we got here safely.’
    ‘Put your letters in that –’ he nods towards a cigar box on the side. ‘They’ll be taken to the roadhouse, though I warn you it won’t be often. We have a mailbox there.’
    ‘That’s where our post will come to?’
    He nods.
    ‘How often?’
    ‘Tends to be a bit sporadic, I’m afraid.’
    ‘Oh. Well, long as it’s not too sporadic! I’d love to see the garden,’ she says, fishing the last spoon out of the water and drying her hands.
    ‘Of course. After you’ve met Mara.’ Larry folds his glasses into