Camouflage Read Online Free PDF Page B

us what a time he had, the best years, working with cattle in the outback, before he married, only ten months, but enough to deposit slowness in his speech, a corresponding glaze in our mother’s eyes, and a green trunk full of Aboriginal weapons in the garage. I had forgotten they were there. Gordon was holding the boomerangs in his hand, authentic tribal weapons, not the tourist kind.
    â€˜You might as well put them back,’ I said. ‘They’re too dangerous.’ When I turned my sister was already skipping around to the front, Gordon at her heels.
    â€˜Listen, will you?’ I crossed the street. I grabbed my sister. ‘You’re not going to watch me, right?’ I felt her squirming. ‘Then you’d better keep your eyes open. In case someone’s coming, that’s why. These things,’ I sounded prim, ‘could kill someone.’
    Gordon was in no doubt as to the serious turn the game had taken. Boomerangs were altogether different from the grimacing masks and decorated shields from New Guinea displayed in the room Mr Gill called his ‘study’. If one caught him in the face it would have been curtains. We knew, Gordon and I, my sister too; Gordon began going through his stretch exercises. Instead of hesitating, let alone calling a halt, I was gripping the boomerang at one end.
    I gave plenty of elbow: let go.
    By the time I reached the street the boomerang was ahead of me. Gordon on their lawn was shielding his eyes. My sister had moved from the gate to be alongside. The mulga blades came swirling out of the fading light in a fury, seeking him out. Keeping his eyes on it, swerving and ducking at the last moment, he avoided being hit, just. He was impressive, I’d have to say. From then on the vicious insistent things kept coming at him, at the strangest angles, finding him in roundabout ways, where least expected, side-on without warning or from behind. While I had never underestimated his confidence, I think I underestimated his abilities in general. He had a certain course of his life marked out, even then. He would always succeed where I would not, I could see. In the end my life became something of a shambles. His would not.
    Gordon wore his father’s yellow driving-gloves and was grabbing at the boomerangs as they flew past, my sister clapping encouragement whenever he managed to pull one down. Keen eyesight, reflexes played their part, fair enough, knowing which ones to leave, sure; but as I watched I began to find his way of crouching and twisting, particularly in the region of his hips, distasteful. He displayed a fleshy alertness I found offputting, just as when he received a given object and turned it over in his hands I saw his arms were precisely the pale arms with black hairs I found unpleasant, repulsive even. I have always had trouble with such hairy arms, my sister didn’t seem to mind. Every night her job was to whistle or cough if a motorcyclist appeared or a pedestrian, such as Mr Limb, a bachelor who lived next door, deciding to stretch his legs, it’s all she had to do; otherwise I was throwing blind. But she was more interested in warning him, Gordon, crouching there on the slippery lawn; more than once letting out a cry, which may well have saved his skin. I had to cross the street and tell her to pipe down, we didn’t want the neighbours coming out. If she didn’t we’d have to stop, it would be the end. As I laid down the law she began to blink, I could see she was about to cry. Gordon nearby examined his elbow saying nothing.
    Gramophone music came from the Gills’ open windows, men and women moved in the brightly lit rooms, now and then a man leaned back laughing his head off. This flat boomerang felt longer on one side, inscribed with dots and whorls. Without thinking too much I flicked it, perhaps that was it, for as I ran with it up the drive the thing hovered like a lost helicopter blade above our chimney,