End of the Road Read online

  That evenin I came ter the first o the supply caches that Purser Judd had tole me of. Sometimes a freight rig on its way ter Frunt End broak down along the Road, an if its cargo couldn’t be shared out tween the others in its convoy it would leav them by the roadside, burrid, with a marker ter show where they was. The idea bein that if there was dire mergencies at Frunt End, or if some delay kep the next convoy from gettin ter us, we would not have too far ter go ter get provisions. The caches was burrid in locked boxes, an the markers was subtle an secrit: a blaze on a tree-stump that lined up with a wite mark on a stone hi on the hillside, stuff like that. Purser Judd had tole me where ter look fer this one or I’d not have seen it. But still the crooked men, who lived wild in the hills an would not share in the girt an rightchus work o Roadbuildin, had found it fore I did. The ground had bin torn up, an bits o broken crates an boxes scattered here an there among the bushes. It did not look ter me as if any o those crates had had splodeys in them, but even so it was a ’minder ter me that I was far from help an in wild country.

  I gunned up the rig an drove on, an that night I did not stop, just turned the headlites on an kep goin, watchin the smooth black back o the Road rush under my wheels an listnin ter the hiss an hum o my tyres on the ash-felt.

  All thru that night I drove, till by the time dawn started comin up pink an peach color over them eastly hills I could scarce keep my eyes open an my head seemed ter grow heavier an heavier, till I longed ter put it down upon the steerin wheel in front o me an just sleep. An then I did sleep, just fer a second, an woke sudden at the rush an rattle as the rig veered right ter the side o the Road an started brushin thru the trees an bushes that stuck out their branches there.

  Then I knew I must stop an rest, fer it would not do ter wreck the rig in that lonely place. So I put on the brakes an slowed an stopped, an then turned off the engine, an silence came rushin inter the cabin, startlin at first after the engine’s roar, till I realised it weren’t really silence at all, but made up o wind in trees an the call o birdeys an the nearby laughter o a river runnin.

  Then I slept a bit, an when I woke I opened the door an stepped down out o the cab inter long wet grass. I knew that place; the ’memberins o it came crashin down on me as I went down ter where the river waited. We had camped fer a month or more just there, on that flat place where young trees was growin now. In them deep pools me an my friends had splashed an played an made our plans. It made my eyes grow teary, lookin at it, ter think how bitty an how happy I had bin in them times, before the Road started up inter the mountins.

  So I tended to the rig a bit, raking the ash out of the burners an loadin in fresh wood chippins, and afterwards I washed meself in them kind cool waters, an they flowed over me full o sweet ’memberings. And when I was dry agen I went back ter where I’d left the rig, an that was when I saw the crooked men.

  I was lucky. There was just 2 o them. Not a raidin party; just a pair who’d bin huntin or fishin mebbe, an heard my rig an come fer a look at it. They was circlin it now, an 1 stepped up an tried the door, but I had locked it; I wasn’t stupid. An also, not bein stupid, I’d brung my Da’s ol gun with me when I went ter the bathin place. As far as I could see there weren’t no guns in the hands o the crooked men nor in their belts neither, so I figured I had the edge on them.

  Get away from that rig, I tole them, or I’ll shoot the pair o you.

  Now tho we call them crooked men, you mustn’t get the idea they’re really crooked. They ant all crippled up, nor twisty faced like Steg Carrack. We calls them crooked just cos they don’t help with the buildin o the Road, or understand how Glorious is its Rightchus Strateness. In actual fact they was not bad lookin fellas, these 2 who turned ter face me, lookin all surprised ter find a girl walkin at them out o the sunlight an the tree shadows, pointin that big ol gun at them.

  Run, says 1, but the other tells him, stay. An he came forward as if ter meet me, squintin his eyes a bit against the light. Nice eyes they was too; light brown an pretty as any girl’s. An his hair fox ginger, falling over them. But this wasn’t the time ter be admirin his prettiness, so I jabbed the gun at him an says, you just stay put if you don’t want a hoal in you.

  An he grins an says, why, I don’t beleev you’d put a hoal in me, Dimpsey Tain.

  Which came as a surprise ter me just as big as if he’d pulled a gun o his own. Cos how did this wild wood wanderer get ter know my name?

  An then I looks some more at his eyes an his foxy hair, an it comes back ter me. One o them kids who used ter splash an lark with me down in them river pools had hair like that. An a grin like that too. An that same way o tippin his head ter 1 side an shadin his eyes gainst the sun with 1 hand. Carter Vaizey was his name. I’d thought he was lost far behind. Thought he’d gone back with a supply convoy ter Where We Started after a landslip killed his da.

  Seemed not, tho.

  You’re Carter Vaizey ant you, I asked, an he said yes he was.

  The other 1 I din’t know: some friend he’d made in the hills, I supposed. Ant you ashamed o yourself, I asked, turnin your back on the Road, turnin ter the paths o crookedness?

  The Road? he says, all jokin, just like I ’membered him in the before-times when we was bitty. Ant you ashamed o yourself fer wastin your life away on the buildin of it, Dimpsey Tain? You used ter be bright. Ant you stopped yet ter ask yourself what your glorious Road is fer, nor where tis goin?

  I don’t need ter stop an ask, I says. Everybody knows that! It’s goin ter Where We’re Goin.

  That’s what I used ter think, says he. An then I changed my mind, an I decided I’d sooner find my own path out than help build yours.

  So you hide in the woods an rob honest folks’ rigs, says I, spittin sideways ter show him I was not impressed. Well you picked the wrong rig ter rob this time, Carter Vaizey. Tis empty.

  It’s got you in it, he says, an his brown eyes was twinkling like the river. You’d be useful ter me Dimpsey, up in the wild camps, fer cuddlins an such.

  I tole him he had a pretty high pinion o himself if he thought I or any other girl would turn from the ways o Rightchus Strateness fer the sake o cuddlin him. Sides which, I was promised now ter Danil Judd, what would be purser when his dad gave up.

  Danil Judd? he says, an I felt meself blushin an wished I hadn’t tole him that bit.

  Anyways, he says, I don’t reckon you’re going ter use that ole murderin piece on me, Dimpsey. An he holds out his hands an starts coming towards me some more.

  An at first I thought he might be right, cos all my ’memberins o those river days was stirrin still an I kep seein him as the laughin boy he’d bin an not this robber he’d become. An then suddenly I ’membered meself an my finger clutched tight on the gun’s trigger an there was a bang that seemed ter make the whoal world glitch. Loud as a splodey goin off it was, an all the birds flung up black out o the trees like flyin splinters. Carter’s friend took fright an ran. I saw him trip on a stump an fall flat on his face, then he was up agen an runnin. The echoes boomed, comin back at us off the hills. An Carter sat there in front o me, knocked on his bum, with a poppy-flower o blood all wet an shiny on the shoulder o the old felt coat he’s wearin an a look on his face like he’s gettin ready ter cry.

  What dyou do that fer? he asks.

  Tole you I would, says I, you shoulda lissened.

  He put his hand ter the place I shot him, which was just under his sholder on the left side. Then he took it away an looked at all the shiny blood. While he was busy doin that I got another round inter the chamber, ready ter shoot him all over agen if he got up an come at me. But he just sat there an after a bit I decided he wasnt gona try nothin so I went round him ter the rig an unlocked it an got back in.

  What are you doin? he yells at me. You can’t just leave me here!

  Don’t see why not, I says.

  I’ll die, Dimpsey!

  I spect yer friends will come an find you, says I, startin up the engine. An if they doant, I’ll stop an bury y
er carcass when I come back this way, fer ol time’s sake.

  He shouted summin more, but I was movin by then. The holler o the engine drownd his words an the blue smoke o the exhaust hid his face from me an I was on the Road agen.

  I DROVE ON up that valley all thru that day an most o the next, but it din’t feel so sweet somehow lookin out the pretty places I ’membered, not after runnin inter Carter like that. And after a time I wasn’t sure if I really membered em or not anyway: I’d couldna bin scarce more ’n a babe-in-arms when the Road came thru there. The bridges it went over was lookin old an shabby now. The ash-felt o the Road itself had turned grey with the passin o the years, an cracks ran over it, an the woods an weeds was crowdin in thick an close on either side.

  Then after a while more the Road got to climbin agen, up inter them eastward hills an then wet moorland where a zillion puddles shone in the sun. I ’membered tales the old uns tole o how hard it had bin crossin the high moss, where every hole you dug filled in agen an every spadeful o hardcore you put down was swallered up by the bog. They had done it in the end tho, an here was the proof o it: me bowling along in the rig, goin strate as an arrer cross them high wet places with the sun risin ahead o me an settin behind me.

  I didnt see no more sign o crooked men after that. Didn’t see no sign o nobody. One day I come across another cache, buried by an old campsite, an this 1 had not bin robbed out, but there weren’t no splodeys in it, so I pushed on. The Road was gettin old under me; I reckened I was drivin by now on a stretch my grand-da had helped ter lay. Old an grey like elefant skin it was, an cracked where the Jack Frost had worked his fingers inter it, an potholed where the rain had got in thru them cracks. Now an then the rig ba-DUNKed thru 1 o them potholes, an now an then it went rumblin over a darker patch where some gang sent out with the convoys had made repairs, but even the repairs needed repairin.

  After a wile it started ter make me sad, seein the Road all crackled an patchworked so. It ’minded me of things I’d heard the old uns tell, of how the ash-felt of nowadays weren’t so good as ash-felt used to be in the long-back. I’d always thought that was just how old uns talk, making out everythin was better when they was kids, but rattlin over them cracks and pot holes started me to wonderin.

  Sides, it was lonely up there, an Carter Vaizey’s crooked lies was echoin in my brainpan still: where is the Road goin? What is it fer?

  An then 1 day the Road started ter drop agen an I realised I was leavin the moors behind me, an I was glad ter see the last o em. Down thru woods I went, an as the night drew in I saw lights ahead o me, laid on the darkniss there like a girt bunch o dropped sequins. Sometimes the lights was hid from me by folds an wrinklins o the land, an then theyd shine out closer an briter than before.

  I stopped fer a bit around midnight, but I dint sleep long, an set out agen soon as I woke. Come first light I was driving inter a girt camp, so big it made our camp at Frunt End look like a den children make, playin in the bushes. There was smoke hangin everywhere an the noise o work goin on sumwhere, an all the big trucks an tankers parked up. I thought at first I must o come ter Where We Started, tho I could not tell how I had got there so quick.

  I soon found my mistake tho. When I stopped the rig an climbed out an asked a woman there if this was Where We Started she just laughed at me an said Bless you, girl, course it ant. Turned out it was called Depot, this place I’d come ter. It was another girt campsite edging westwards like our own, an it was where all the ash-felt an tar an spare parts an stuff was gathered an made ready fer the convoys ter take it on ter Frunt End.

  Mardi was this woman’s name, an she seemed friendly enough once she’d stopped laughin. I showed her Foreman Skrevening’s letter asking fer more splodey an she went with me ter an office where another Foreman looked at it an whacked it with a rubber stamp an tole me I was a brave girl fer comin all that way an how they would start loadin my rig that very day with splodey, an some wood chips an provisionins fer the journey back.

  Then Mardi says come ter my hut we’ll find some grub fer you an a place ter sleep. So I follows her across the tyre-tracked mud, past parked-up rigs an jeeps an diggas, an it felt so like Frunt End it made me homesick. Even the work-noise was the same, comin from over yonder beyond the huts an motor pools an all that smoke; the growlin o the diggas an the chink an scrape o picks an shovels, an men singin. An that hot ash-felt smell hangin over everythin, same as at home.

  What is the work they do here? I asks Mardi, when we’re in her hut an she’s fixing some stew fer me. Are they repairin the Road?

  Mung other things, she says.

  Seems ter me the Road won’t never be finished, I said. By the time it gets ter Where We’re Goin the whoal lot’l need repairin.

  Now that’s not Strate talk, says Mardi. You’re tired an don’t see things clear. Eat up now, an I’ll make up a bunk fer you.

  So I slept the rest o that day away, an when I woke it was evenin. Mardi was out sumwhere an I was alone, so I went out o the hut ter get some air.

  The sun was going down behind them girt moors I’d driven over, an the line o the Road was stretchin out towards it, an all I could think on was how many generations o my kin had lived an died a-buildin o that Road, an how I hoped Where We’re Goin would turn out ter be worth it when we got there.

  The sound o the work was still goin on. It made me curious ter see what they was doin, cos with all them diggas growlin an pickaxes chipping away it sounded ter me like some pretty big repairs. So I went down tween the huts an tents an rows o vehicles an soon I came ter where they was workin.

  An I didnt understand it at first. It made no sense ter me. All them men an women hacking an hewin at the fine flat ash-felt o the Road, what our grand-das an our grand-da’s grand-das laid. Hackin an hewin at it they was, an liftin up girt chunks o the blacktop, an passin it back ter others who slung it inter big meltin vats, from which that hot ash-felt smell was comin. An shovellin up the hardcore underneath an passin that inter big waitin hoppers too.

  They wasn’t repairin the Road! They was takin it up!

  I couldn’t beleev it. I went runnin down between the work gangs, with the smoke stingin my eyes an the men callin out cheek ter me. What are you doin? I asked 1 who was busy heavin chunks o ash-felt inter the vats

  Recylin says he. This stuff’s needed fer the Roadbuildin. When we’ve recycled enough we’ll pack it all inter the trucks an it’ll be sent up ter Frunt End. Then we’ll press on, recyclin the next stretch.

  I WENT PAST him, down thru the smoke an the dust an the growlins o the diggas ter where the Road stopped. Back End, I suppose you’d call that place. Oh Carter Vaizey, I says ter meself, you was right an I was wrong. Cos where the work o the recyclin gangs had finished there was nothin left no more that you could call a Road. You could just see the scar o the roadbed, that was all, stretchin away eastward, back over the curve o the world towards Where We Started. Just a line thru the grass, an mebbe here an there there an old cuttin, or stone piers crumblin on a river bank where a bridge had stood.

  Just the ghost of a Road.

  Nuthin more.

  FADE TO GOLD

  BENJANUN SRIDUANGKAEW

  Lavie Tidhar introduced me to Benjanun’s fiction and I’m so glad he did. The story that follows is a journey into Thailand’s past and its mythology. It is also an exploration of desire and the tragedy that conformity can bring. It’s an extraordinarily rich and exotic story, beautifully told.

  THEY SAY THE afterlife is a wheel and that is true, but I am between, and so for me the way is a line. It unspools interminably into a horizon that shows the soft gold of dawn, always just a little out of reach.

  Before the war this was only packed earth and grass and dirt to me; before the war I trod this path from home to capital thinking of the sweetness of rare fruits. Now that my back is to Ayutthaya, the ground is sometimes baked salt where nothing grows and sometimes wet mud bubbling with the voices of the dead. Inside my arteries there is blood wh
ich throbs and pumps, and my belly growls at emptiness as might a bad-tempered dog. But it is difficult to be sure, after so much soldiering, that one is still alive. It is difficult to be certain this is not all a fever dream.

  It can be difficult to remember who you are, having watched Queen Suriyothai die.

  These are the common ailments of any soldier, though few will admit them.

  A BURNT VILLAGE, a burnt temple. I see such often, these days, defaced by the Phma who melted off the gold and stole every metal coin. Sometimes in their savagery they kill the monks, even though theirs and ours wear much the same saffron. The Phma have faces no different than any mother’s son, four limbs and a head each, but it strains belief that anything human could have slaughtered holy men. Do they not have luang-por like second fathers, who taught them to read and write? Are some of them not orphans taken in by a temple, to shelter beneath the steeple and the bodhi shade?

  Slaughter is what might have happened here, or else flight, for I find neither a living voice nor a body thick with flies. Toward the end everyone fled for Ayutthaya until the walls strained at the seams, until every house and hovel splintered at the edges. It should have been comforting, so many people, but when there was so much desperation all I could feel was desperation in turn, a sour and unrelenting fear that turned everything I ate – and even the king’s soldiers hadn’t much to eat – into rotten meat on the tongue, with an aftertaste of cinders.

  I take shelter where I find it, in spite of ghosts that must’ve seeped into the fissured walls and the desecrated murals. In spite of knowing that Phma soldiers have been here too, that the air bears the stink of their sweat, the reek of their filth. Being a soldier has taught me to forget delicacy.

  It has also taught me to put on sleep light as dead petals, to be shaken off and scattered at a blink. So when the mud makes sucking noises I am already awake; when the woman comes into view I have a hand around the carved wood of a hilt.