Red. Red dust – Mel

Blowing carelessly and easily through the dry yet invigorating air. Old and rusty gate still hanging strong as if it were always there. Fish skeletons hang limply with brown crust leeching on, and an old cow’s head. As the car rolled in I noticed the proud, peeling old gum trees haphazardly lining the route. Toads lazily hopped out of harm’s way. I see a concrete veranda, an old unused bar and an outdoor setting that’s definitely seen some stuff. What stuff? I’m not sure but I’m ready. It’s polar opposite to home but somehow I feel familiar here and I feel ready.

“Yeah, g’day, how’re-yas?’ A twangy, quietly confident and knowing voice cut the air. That air. There was definitely something in the air. It’s new and it’s different but I know it’s for me. I jump out of the Pajero and land a little stiffly considering I’d only been sitting in the car for an hour. The journey felt like eternity though. It was because I couldn’t wait. I wasn’t sure what I couldn’t wait for; I knew when my feet hit the ground and the dust settled on my feet. It wouldn’t be long before my soles would be eternally brown and red from the earth and my heels calloused. Goodbye Doc Martens and Acne boots.

A fresh faced blonde trailed behind the man and said hello in a similar twang; strange considering I knew she was from Melbourne and had only been here for 3 or 4 weeks. She looks friendly enough. Holly and I grab our bags and dump them on the veranda. Straight onto chicken shit. The first of what was a lot of shit to come. “You’s are out back in the donga.” The man extended his hand and with a classic, cheeky, Aussie grin introduced himself as Ray. He was wearing a dark blue shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulder seam, some holey shorts, bare feet and a battered Akubra with a feather. This, as I was soon to learn, was his outfit. It was like the birth-child of Russel Coight and Inspector Gadget. Two people I love.

I throw my bags in this ‘donga’, which is the Territory version of a bungalow. As I’m running back to the house I survey my new home for the next 5 weeks. It was red, dry, barren and flat. I noticed the uninterrupted horizons and was full of excitement; I needed a shake up from my ordinary life back home. Entering the house I’m suddenly being shoved back out. “I just need to grab,” I start, “No you don’t”, Holly interrupted as she harshly pulled me away from the house. I’m sharing a room with this girl, we’ve only just met and she’s already manhandling me. Then she tells me. She relays the scene she just witnessed and I wasn’t sure. This was some real Home & Away shit. She must have heard wrong. “No”, she assures me. She truly had just witnessed and an argument between Ray, the blonde girl and Ray’s long term partner, Sarah. “Are you sure, sure?” I continue doubting her. “Ab-so-lut-ely,” she drew out the word. Ray had leaned in and kissed the blonde girl, just as Sarah walked in.

Sarah would soon become an important mentor in my life and one of the strongest women I have met, and over the next year I was about to witness one of the most difficult experiences of her life.

Shereen was the blonde girl who changed everything. Shereen was about twenty years Ray and Sarah’s junior. Shereen was an escaper. “They’re three types of people who come to the Territory,” Sarah told me. The escaper, the evangelist and the adventurer.

I wasn’t sure who I was. At the time I think I’m an adventurer, but perhaps I’m also an escaper. Can I be both? The Territory is a place to easily become lost in. It’s a strange place; you get lost, you become more grounded, you find yourself, then you get lost again. Maybe that is because I left and returned, left and returned. I know this is horrible and cheesy, but yes, like a boomerang. Perhaps I confused myself- mixing the city life and suburbia with the remote. Both harsh in a different way.

Holly and I, within the first ten minutes of our arrival had become a part of what was soon to be a web of deceit, fun, mystery and reality. Holly left after five weeks, as did I. But, back again I went, straight back into it. I watched as people’s lives were both shattered and made. It was weird, it was uncomfortable and it felt fake. I was a 24 year old watching the most intimate aspects of people’s lives and awkwardly stuck in between. Involved. But not involved. This is my story. And also Ray’s story, Sarah’s story and Shereen’s story. A small outback town’s story-because, no secret stones are left unturned. There were only two truths in this town, the sun will rise in the morning, and your neighbour, and neighbour’s neighbour will know your business, often before you do.