The Intruder

A modern adaptation of the 1896 story "The Tramp" by one of Australias first great female writers, Barbara Baynton.

It is 5.30pm on a warm and dusty summers evening. In the middle of the Australian outback a woman stands on the veranda of a small fibro shack, taking washing off the line with her baby boy on her back in a harness. She takes off a pair of faded denim jeans and sees a dust cloud slowly rising in the east. She can hear a roaring sound like that of a motorbike, expecting it to be the son of Warren, the owner of the cattle in the nearby yard, she returns to folding the jeans. Warren’s son, John, would come to check on the cows every second day, even in the pouring rain, although this part of the country hadn’t seen rain in a long time, riding in on his fathers’ old postie. He would ride the old bike up to the rusty Iron Gate heading into the large brown paddock and would ride around checking all the cows.

It had been a very dry season; her husband had to sell all the cattle for a very low price the previous year. That supported the family for about a month but rising bills and the steady increase in petrol prices forced him to find work elsewhere. One day when he was scanning the newspaper for any job openings he saw that a trawling company in the city was looking for a new crew member, one that would work for any number of hours, as little as one week or up to 6 months at sea. Grabbing the keys to the rusting white Ute and rushing out the back door, he told his wife that he was going into town to apply for a job and would be back later. The car started up with a cough and sped off, kicking dust up as it pulled out onto the brown corrugated road, travelling further and further east, 20kms to be precise, to the next town, leaving only dust and a lonely woman on the veranda of a fibro shack, cradling a small child in her arms.

It has been nearly six months since she saw the white Ute disappear in a cloud of dust, six months since she had any contact from her husband, besides the occasional pay check she received in the mail. Six months alone with only the baby and the old fibro shack for company along with the continual routine of the cattle farmers’ son coming to check on the stock.

As the roaring grew louder she glanced up again and spied a Harley and as the bike grew larger she realised it was not John at all but rather a rough looking biker, clad in leather and a big black helmet. As the biker rode by the helmet slowly turned towards the fibro shack. Reflected in the visor was a tall, blue eyed woman with blonde hair standing on a dilapidated veranda, pale white feet separating the veranda from a pair of blue denim jeans she was wearing a white t-shirt stretched by the weight of the baby sitting contently in a harness on mothers back came down to meet the jeans at the woman’s small hips and the small fibro shack she was standing on standing just behind her in the background with its rusting tin roof and a lone gum tree looming over the shack like a watch tower. The helmet lingered on the shack and its occupants for a moment before returning to the dusty road on which the rider was travelling. Finally as the roaring dulled to a distant buzz and the helmet, rider and bike disappeared down the road leaving the woman alone once more. She stood on the veranda in the cloud the biker left behind, trying to make sense of why anyone would be travelling down the dusty road. The only thing west of the fibro shack is a dried up river bed and the rotting skeleton of an old wooden bridge that was half destroyed by flood 20 years ago. That river was once famed by local fishermen for its trout but now it is nothing but rocks, starved of water by the thirst of the drought.

Shrugging the woman hurriedly finished her work and went inside thinking that would be the last she saw of the biker.

Further down the dusty road, down by a rotting bridge and a dry river bed a biker lays asleep underneath a gum tree. His sleep is far from peaceful though because every time he sleeps he dreams of what he did only a week ago. He dreams of a beautiful young woman with short brown hair and hazel eyes set in a face that looked like it had been sculptured by angels. He dreams of that eventful night, waiting outside her parent’s house leaning against his Harley, waiting for her to climb out her window, over the fence and shuffle stealthily across the front lawn. 

Fifteen minutes went by before her head finally appeared above the fence. She shuffled towards him as usual, but he knew something was different; she kept touching her neck and fiddling with her hair, something she never did because it took her hours to do her hair. When she reached the footpath she stopped, the biker moved over towards the footpath and the woman, he took her hand.

“What’s wrong, babe?”

“Nothing… Can we just go?” she said looking towards the house.

They got on the Harley and the biker sped off down the street around the corner and away from prying eyes. Finally pulling up 5 minutes later at an old shack out of town that was hidden by dense shrub, the Usual spot.  The only way to get to the Usual spot was down a nearly inconceivable dirt road that hid between two wattle trees on the main road.

The shack was like a second home for the couple, a place for them to get away from family, friends and the judgement of the world. The shack was in pretty good condition besides a few holes in the wall, a cracked window and a small hole in the tin roof, which years of rust had eaten away at.  Inside it was all one room, a card table and some fold up chairs in one corner, a small camp cooker underneath the cracked window and a mattress lay along the opposite wall directly under the hole in the roof. The biker and the young woman entered the shack together but only one would leave in a hurry later that night.

An hour later the couple were lying on the mattress, gazing at the night sky through the hole in the roof. The woman’s head resting gently on the biker’s chest and the biker taking an occasional swig from a bottle in a brown paper bag while playing gently with the young woman’s soft brown hair. They lay together gazing at the stars and thinking. The biker " about what the guys at the pub would think if they knew that he was involved with a 16 nearly 17 year old woman when he was 21 and why she was acting so strange tonight. The woman - about what she had been meaning to tell him all night.

Questions were bubbling up in the biker’s head but before he could ask anything the woman broke the silence and burst those bubbles. She sat up clutching the blanket to her chest. “I’m pregnant”. Shocked the biker sat up and almost spilt the contents of the bottle. Her sudden announcement had shocked him to the core.

 “What? When? Is it ...?”

“Yes, it’s yours, I’m six weeks.”

The biker shook his head in disbelief.

“But we were being careful. God… six weeks. So now what?”

“Well I want to get an abortion.”

“But we did this together. You can’t throw that away. You can’t let this intruder destroy our love.”

“But I’m not ready for a child.”

“We could raise it together. You could get on my bike and we can run away together, tonight.”

“But what about my parents?”

“They’re adults, aren’t they? They will get over it.”

“I ….. I can’t. I’m only 16 years old. I’m going to get that abortion.”

She goes to get up but he pulls her back down and he forcers her to look at him.

“If you go to the doctor now your parents will find out about you and me. They might report me to the cops.”

“I know. But I’m not ready for a baby. I haven’t even finished school.”

She goes to get up again but he pulls her down again. He is getting really scared now.

“I can’t let you do that.”

His grip tightens on her small wrist.

“Ouch, you’re hurting me. Stop.”

The biker is wild now, he can’t let her go or she will tell the cops and they might send him to gaol. He is not ready to go to gaol.

“I can’t let you tell them. People ‘disappear’ in gaol.”

His grip gets tighter despite the woman’s protests.

“Please stop. You’re scaring me. Please. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

The young woman cries.

“Ha! You promise, just as you promised you wouldn’t ever get pregnant because you were on the pill. Well look what happened there. I don’t think so.”

The woman tries biting, scratching and kicking him but he doesn’t let her go. She punches him in the groin and he loosens his grip just enough for her to get away. The biker is now blinded by rage and chases her. She heads to the door but he gets there first. She runs back to the bed and tries frantically to find her phone. She finds it and starts to stand just as the biker tackles her. The phone flies out of her hand and lands near the table as a scream escapes her mouth. Now she is pinned to the mattress with the bikers hands clamped on her neck. She struggles for breath and tries to push him off but she only manages to scratch his face, he just tightens his grip and keeps mumbling, “I can’t let you tell them.” The woman’s hands reach up in one last attempt at life, he hazel eyes silently pleading with the biker through tears, her beautiful angelic face contorted by the effort to stay alive. The biker stays firm through all of this, still muttering the same words “I can’t let you tell them.”

Eventually, the woman’s hands drop and her eyes become set. The biker releases his grip on her and stands up, he stares at the woman. Her soft brown hair a mess, her angelic face blue and her hazel eyes locked on the stars shining through the hole in the roof. A single constellation burning brightly in the middle The Southern Cross. Their unborn baby still in her womb never to see those stars.

The biker found his clothes and hurried outside. He stood at the door for a second putting his helmet on, got on his only hope, his Harley and sped off, thundering down the road.

The biker sat up, no longer on the open road but back at the dry river bed. He heard the sound of thunder in the distance and specks of rain were now falling on the dry country around him. Thinking that there was going to be a torrential down fall he mounted his Harley and rode back along the dusty road, hoping to make civilisation before the storm hit.

“Shh” The woman said softly as she gently laid her baby in his new, gleaming, white cot that she had brought after receiving her husband’s first pay check. She remembers too well waking up to a baby crying and screaming at the top of his lungs right next to her ear, because the family had never been able to afford a cot the baby would sleep in between them in their own bed. This didn’t go down well with the woman’s husband. For the first few weeks he slept on the couch wrapped up in a blanket but eventually the couch grew harder and colder to sleep on and one night he crawled back into his own bed.

The woman stood up and walked over to the small square window making to close the curtains but stopped and looked outside. The sun was setting and it was nearly dark. She could see big dark clouds tumbling in over the brown paddocks. There was going to be a big storm tonight. She shut the curtains, turned around and walked out of the room.

The woman made her way to the living room and sat down on the tattered and faded leather couch reaching for her IPod that sat on the small wooden coffee table in front of her. Her IPod one of the only things she kept from her old life in the city, her life of school, work and minimal sleep. She remembers the first time she saw her now husband, she was working at the supermarket as a “check out chick” when a tall, brown haired, hazel eyed guy, wearing a flannelette shirt, an old pair of frayed denim jeans and a dusty old Akubra hat, walked over to her wanting to know how much it was for a can of baked beans. He gave her a smile that almost knocked her out.

The woman sat there on the faded leather couch listening to her IPod, mistaking the sound of a motor bike for thunder. She didn’t hear the kitchen door creak open and the same biker from earlier that day walk in through that door. She just sat there listening to her IPod, completely oblivious to what was going on around her.

The biker walked over to the fridge and rummaged through the contents looking for anything he could eat. Finding nothing he moved on to the pantry, there he found a packet of Anzacs which he quickly devoured. As he was looking for more food the woman walked into the kitchen and froze, what she saw before her was appalling. All of the food in the fridge was scattered across the kitchen table, eggs were smashed and a milk carton was lying on its side spilling milk onto the floor like blood from a murder victim. The pantry door was wide open and food was hurtling across the room joining the contents of the fridge on the floor.

Shocked, the woman dropped the baby bottle she was holding and as it hit the kitchen floor the pantry door closed to reveal a biker covered head to toe in crumbs and various other stains. The biker turned towards the woman with a box of Weet-bix still in hand. “Please don’t call the ……”

He was cut off by the woman’s scream as she ran from the room. Her motherly instincts took over and she ran frantically to her baby boy’s room and locked the door behind her.

The biker panicked and chased after her, afraid she was going to find a phone and call the police. He ran into the living room and looked around just in time to see the woman disappear into a room and hear the door lock behind her.

The woman stood staring at the door until she heard the biker rattling the handle. Then she raced over to the baby, taking him out of the cot and clutching him to her chest in the hope that it would protect him.

The biker was desperate to get in that room and stop her from telling anyone about him, he doesn’t want to go to gaol, he doesn't want to be reminded of what he has already done. Discovering that the door was definitely locked he took a few steps back, braced himself then charged at the door.

Thud!

The biker’s weight crashed against the old wooden door. “Leave us alone. Please! Just go away.” The woman screamed at him from the other side of the room as she tried desperately to open the window.

Thud!

“I promise I won’t tell anyone. Please, just leave us alone.”

The biker stopped his siege on the door and stood panting.

“Us? Who else is in there with you?”

He said in between pants, obviously worried.

The woman replied quickly,

“It’s just me and my baby. Please, just leave us alone.”

Thud!

The biker rams the door again, harder this time. He is just about to ram the door again but is interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway.

The car door slams and the kitchen door creeks open. Standing in the doorway is a tired, sea weathered man trying to make sense of the chaos in front of him.

“Catherine?” the man shouted, fear and confusion showing in his voice.

“Paul? Paul, we’re in here.” She replied just as confused.

Crash!

The door finally gave way and fell to the floor making the woman jump in fright and the baby wail even louder than before.

The biker smiled triumphantly at the door on the ground, then turned his gaze to Catherine and her baby boy his eyes wild.

Not seeing Paul walk into the room, the biker takes a step towards Catherine and she screams thinking that this is the end. The biker goes to take another step but before he can put his foot down, Paul tackles him to the ground. They land together and immediately Paul starts wrestling with the biker. They tumble around the room until the biker elbows Paul in the eye making him let go of the biker. Seeing a chance to escape the biker scrambles to his feet and runs out the kitchen door.

 Paul clambers to his feet clutching his left eye and tries to follow the biker but stops when he hears the Harley roar and speed off. Satisfied that the biker is gone for good, Paul returns to the baby’s room to find Catherine crouching on the floor with her baby clutched to her chest. He leans over and whispers in her ear:

“It’s OK. The Intruder is gone.”

 

Author's Note

I am aware that there are many mistakes in this piece of writing. i am slowly working through it and trying to correct them. I would love to know what you think of the story and anything else you thought about the writing.

Reviews

[~Artemis~]

wow. That definitely didn't play out the way I expected it too. The pacing was good, not too rushed, and not too slow. The descriptions were great too; you gave enough to avoid confusing, but kept back enough to keep me reading. Loved it!

I'm not really sure about the ending though. On the one hand, it was very interesting, but it also felt a little inconclusive. Maybe it was just a little too weird for me.

few little writing things. There were a couple of run on sentences or maybe just too many long and complicated sentences. I also got some advice once, which basically said instead of using 10 weak words try using one strong word, and I think that might help out here a little bit.

Really though, it was fantastic! :)