The Kangaroo

Amin and Zeen invited Samir and Ilham to go for a trip to Berri. They had relatives in the Riverland and all were excited at the adventure such an unprecedented trip would be.

‘Just for fun!’ they said to each other. ‘Just for a drive! What a surprise we will give everyone. Why didn’t we think of it before?’

It would be like going up to the village in the mountains. It would be all family, a real get together. Both Ilham and Zeen dressed carefully for the trip and the arrival.

They set off in high spirits in a suitable country car, a white Valiant borrowed from Uncle Mahmoud. Zeen and Ilham sat in the back; Amin and Samir in the front. Ilham wore a hat and Zeen wore the latest Candy Frost lipstick. They consulted the map carefully, surprised to find there was only one road so getting lost was impossible. Who would have thought you can just go there, on these lovely, civilised new roads, seeing the Australian countryside as you go. Zeen wound down the window and let the breeze blow her hair about. No wonder the Riverland relatives had been urging them to come up. It was so easy. Not even snipers to worry about and no roadblocks.

The heat of the day intensified and the landscape became too much to look at and comment on. At a sign from Ilham, Zeen wound the window up. Ilham pulled out the cards and dealt and they played a ragged game of tahneeb, couple against couple, made more difficult by Amin having to concentrate on the road and keep eye contact with Zeen through the rear vision mirror. They entered mallee country, noticing briefly that there were now straggly grey trees everywhere, dappled in white light; then returning to the game.

Suddenly Amin said, ‘Look, Look! Oh Lord!’ and they all looked up.

A red kangaroo was bounding down the centre of the highway towards them. It didn’t deviate off the white lines, just bounded hypnotically, its powerful toes planting regularly about every third or fourth strip. Uncle Amin slowed the car right down, waiting for the animal to sheer off to the side and bound away into the bush. It got larger and larger, and then, at the very last minute, it swerved as if suddenly magnetised, straight into the roo bar of the car. Its red form filled the windscreen and everyone screamed, leaned back and pushed their feet hard to the floor. There was a slow, almost elegant impact. The kangaroo disappeared and the car slid sideways down the road, on and on. The tahneeb cards flew around the cabin like wheeling seagulls. Everyone sat still, staring at the slowly crazing windshield as if at the movies in a particularly tense scene. The car stopped.

The sun beat down, the mallee trees shook in the breezes, a bird flew by. Everyone breathed out in unison and relaxed their taut bodies.

‘Praise be…’ Ilham began. She stopped. The car had begun to shake. It was as if something had the car in its teeth and was throttling it. The Valiant gave little irregular shudders and then sharp lopsided jerks. Ilham began to wail in a high voice just as something outside began to roar in heavy gasps. Zeen stared ahead, white as a wedding dress, her short hair rising.

The kangaroo suddenly stood up, shaking the car heavily as it rose. It stood a good two metres above the bonnet and leered through a bloody eye at them, bleeding mouth open, showing enormous yellow rat teeth. Samir, Amin, Ilham and Zeen screamed and slammed back rigid in their seats. The kangaroo raised its fists and began beating wildly at the bonnet. They could feel it kicking and tearing at the radiator.

Amin gasped. ‘The poor thing. Oh my God. I have to do something!’

Ilham shrieked, ‘Stop it from destroying the car! Quick! Quick!’

Amin bashed the driver’s door open with his shoulder and got out.

No-one could quite explain what happened next, it all happened so quickly. Amin walked up to the distressed animal, hands outstretched placatingly, although what he was going to do, no-one was quite sure. The kangaroo turned to face him, rose up high above his head and grabbed him from behind the neck with a huge black fist, sinking black claws into his nape. It wrenched his body around into a headlock, threw its head back, and with its nose pointed to the sun and roaring, began to jump about, tearing its hindlegs against the body in its embrace. Amin disappeared from sight behind the bonnet. Then, before anyone quite registered what was happening, Zeen was outside, hauling her patent leather stilettos off her feet. She rushed up to the animal, brandishing the shoes above her head and screaming. She thwacked it across the head with one heel and then the other.

Zeen and the kangaroo fought. The kangaroo dropped Amin and faced the shoes. Zeen balanced lightly on her stockinged feet and had to spring at the tall beast with her feet together, for her pencil skirt could not be rucked above her knees.

She held the shoes by the toes and beat the kangaroo to death. The car was spattered with blood, and Amin, standing by with his shirt shredded, looked on in shock. He staggered over to the driver’s door and sat down.

Zeen screamed with each blow, ‘Kill my husband? Kill him? God is GREAT!’

When she finished she crisply vomited onto the road and then climbed shakily back into the car.

‘What sort of animal was that?’ she asked, her chest heaving. Her clothes were speckled, her stockings torn and the shoes broken and bloody.

‘A kangaroo,’ Amin whispered.

There was a silence. Everyone stared ahead, the car ticking slightly in the heat.