‘I’m pregnant!’ She was lying but she had to say something. Sometimes the truth is just too hard to say and those scarce and precious words are never spent.
‘Wad you say?’
‘It’s pretty harsh country. I’m still amazed people lived out here.’
‘Blackfullas t’ink with t’ land. Dey pard of it. Mebby you, too.’
‘I’ve been thinking about what Popeye said, asking me if I thought it right that I was taken away from this. Where my heart really lies?’
‘You don’ unnerstan’ yet. C’mon, let’s go to der ’ills.’
Jeanie checked the road behind her. She thought it was all about sustainability, getting the right balance in the environment. Not making any mistakes. She pulled away onto the tar, suddenly aware of her vulnerability. Out here there were few second chances. She wondered if there was water in the back.
‘Shit, it’s pretty barren country.’ Jeanie scanned the road ahead, trying to marry her image of the outback to the vast dry stuntedness of reality. Leonora was only a few kilometres away. They were nearly ‘there’, at that place of her birth, but it was Matthew’s smoky ideals that brought them here to the middle of nowhere. ‘Dad says it gets worse as you go to Laverton and out to Warburton.’
‘I reckon …’ The car began to bump along the asphalt. ‘Darn, a bloody flat!’ Jeanie had recognised the flub-flub-flub sound for what it was.
‘Have we got a spare?’
‘I hope so,’ he said and Jeanie guessed he had never looked. She watched as Matthew got out of the car, slamming the door in irritation. The tyre hung uselessly off the rear rim, stabbed through its rubber heart by a large screw and Jeanie thought it had probably been bleeding to death since they had filled up at Menzies, a hundred kilometres south. She got out of the car, too, and soon realised that you can build up a sweat in the bush without even nodding your head. And the flies, they came from everywhere. She stood amid the luggage heaved out onto the gravel and listened as Matthew cursed a curse upon himself before gazing up towards the heavens, all perspiration and squinty eyes.
‘Can I help?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Then, conscious of his foolishness: ‘I can’t believe I didn’t check.’
Jeanie watched as the well cover rose in Matthew’s hopeful hands to gradually expose a spare tyre, nobbly-new, a little dusty and in the centre a piece of foolscap with the words written in large print: JUST IN CASE, LOVE JEANIE. They laughed, they hugged, they jigged a little jig on the hot black emptiness of the road until they found they didn’t have a wheel brace or a jack.
‘Not a lot of traffic on the road.’
The kids were being kids in the back of the car, chewing over the last of the chicken, laughing and blowing off, blaming each other, holding their noses and e-ewing at each passing piece of road kill. Auntie Peggy sat quietly in the passenger seat until a short low row of hills began to rise up, far off across the scrub to the east.
‘Nilly dere. See dem old buildin’s? Old ’omes, dey was.’ Auntie Peggy chuckled. ‘Whitefulla scratch aroun’ for a while den ’e goes like ghost. Blackfulla still ’ereabouts.’ She passed her fingers over her lips. ‘Still ’ere.’
The deserted cottages sat lonely in an aura of sad enigma. Just past them a bare wooden sign sagely pointed out the way to Barren Hills. Jeanie turned right off the tar and stopped abruptly in the track’s open, red mouth. A long, thin gizzard of loose-packed dirt angled off into the bush. Not for the first time today, Jeanie felt fear swilling around in her guts. Decisions, decisions.
‘C’mon, Mumma. Let’s go and have a look.’ Jaylene, unconcerned, anxious to move on.
‘I don’t think we have any water.’ Jeanie stared off towards the hills. Heat haze rose up in an angry vapour. ‘I’m worried about taking you kids off the road. I think it’s too risky.’
‘Dad says life’s about taking risks.’
‘I think he means life is all about weighing up the risks. There is a difference. Besides, I don’t think your father thinks much before he acts on anything.’ Jeanie turned her head towards Auntie Peggy. ‘Do you think we should go on?’
‘Up t’you. Four miles, mebby less. Water dere, eben now. ’Sides, plenny peeble come ’ere all der time, shootin’. Kangaroo, goat.’
‘C’mon, Mumma, have a little faith.’ Jaylene spoke as if she held the hem of Christ’s garment; Jeanie wasn’t sure how strong the grip was.
‘Okay, if you say so.’ Jeanie shifted the Landcruiser into gear and drove off in a cloud of diesel fumes and trepidation, and the brittleness of both heat and humanity followed her as she went.
16
This was a complex situation and Vince was out of his depth. There were more questions than answers moving about in his head, probing spaces never entered before and bringing to air thoughts that most men are reluctant to contemplate.
‘Thinkin’ about your girl, mate?’ said Matthew.
‘No … yeah.’ Vince pushed in the last of his sandwich and washed it down with a gulp of tea. ‘Thinkin’ how your life can change when you’re not even ready for it.’
‘Jeez, hang on mate, it’s early days yet.’ Matthew coughed and reached for another cigarette. The lighter flicked and flamed and the end of the cigarette glowed an angry red, as if it had an evil soul. ‘What’s your brother like, then, Vince?’ A drag, then, ‘Is he like us?’
‘What do y’mean?’
‘I mean a fair-dinkum bloke?’
‘Maybe we’re all different,’ said Vince, ‘I was brought up to think that all men and women were created equal by God. Maybe Satan created some others. Right now, I’m thinkin’ Leo’s on another team.’
‘That’s a bit harsh, mate. He may be doin’ you a favour.’
Vince spoke with venom: ‘What, by sniffin’ around my wife?’
‘Settle down, mate. I’m sure he wouldn’t be doing that.’
‘How come you’re so sure of everything?’ Vince stared out into the empty street and took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. ‘You don’t have any brothers or sisters, do you?’
‘No, an only child,’ said Matthew.
‘Leo was the golden child out of us kids. Patty, my sister, would get married and have kids. Me, well I struggled to get a look in. Leo was first and best in everything. Nonna taught me not to hate because she said it will always go through you like a poison, but when you get kicked in the guts over and over …’
‘Trust me, Vince, I’m sure it will work out okay.’ But Matthew only said it because he felt it was the right thing to say. Everything the world over will be all right because Matthew said it would. It made him realise he had never dealt with a problem before. He had always run and hidden rather than face reality, hoping the problem would pass him by or blow over like some foul, black mist. Sometimes the right thing to say was the truth; he just didn’t know how to say it or accept it.
‘Hmm,’ Vince growled and finished the last of his tea.
‘I’d better check on Dad.’
—
‘I hear strange voices!’
‘What’s that, Dad?’ Matthew drew up a footstool and sat down beside the wheelchair. They both peered out the window. Their faces almost touched. ‘Nothing there. Maybe somebody walked past.’
‘P’raps. I hear them, talking.’
‘What are they saying, these voices?’
‘I can’t make it out.’
‘Don’t let it worry you, Dad. It may be your medication making your mind play tricks.’
‘What if it’s God calling me?’
‘Do you really think that a supernatural hand is reaching out to drag your soul into the unknown?’
‘I’m getting near the end, Matthew. I sit in this wheelchair day in, day out. I’ve got to hope there’s something better, something …’ A council truck arrived opposite and a team of roadmenders hopped out to fill a hole. ‘Look at that! Three men to patch a road! What a bloody misuse of ratepayers’ money!’
&nbs
p; ‘Dad, you’ve just got to accept that things are different now. It’s not like it was; it never will be. The great wheel of progress moves ever forward. Sometimes it crushes us as it goes. That’s life.’ Matthew stood up and felt drawn to place his hand upon the frail boniness of his father’s shoulder. He didn’t. Instead, he gazed out through the film of curtain at the three men.
‘What are they waiting for, Dad?’ Matthew pointed to a small clutch of men, shovels in hand, standing as discreetly as they could under a red flowering gum. The mourners tactfully ignored them while they passed by the pit, throwing in flowers or handfuls of dirt.
‘God, Matthew! Do you have to ask bloody questions, today of all days?’
‘Grandad said you always need to ask questions. It’s the only way to learn.’
‘They’re waiting to fill in the hole once we’ve finished up here.’
‘Mum’s crying.’
‘Yeah, well, he was her father, I suppose.’ He looked across at the straggle of people walking down to the gates. ‘Men tend to be a bit more accepting, less emotional. It’s an Andrews’ thing.’
‘Grandad told me not to cry for him because he would always be with me.’
‘Gawd, there’s a horrible thought.’
‘What?’
‘Squashed by the great wheel of progress.’ The old man watched through the window. ‘Our lives are but a vapour, aren’t they?’
Matthew felt a sudden pity for his father. Outside, the council workers patted down the patch and drove off to another job.
—
‘So, what do y’reckon? She won’t answer her phone.’
‘I bet your brother is trying to sort things out for you.’ Matthew sipped his coffee. ‘He’s probably offered Sophie some options. Give it time.’
‘No, I’m sorta burning up inside. I need to see her and the little bloke.’
‘Take it from a man experienced in these things,’ though Matthew knew bugger-all about romance and marriage. ‘Nuptial bliss’ may have been the name of a mystery novel to him. ‘Wait till she rings first.’
‘I just want to know what I’ve done. What went wrong?’
‘Probably just a hormonal thing. You know, mad cow disease.’
‘You reckon?’
‘That was a joke, mate. Probably be all over by tonight, anyway.’
‘You sure?’
‘Bloody oath!’ Matthew leaned over and flicked Vince’s arm. ‘Shit, mate, let’s ditch these coffees and have a beer. We may not drown our sorrows but we can make them tread water for a while.’
Vince smiled a simple smile and kept thinking the worst.
—
Gunsmoke was on the telly. Marshal Dillon, Miss Kitty and Chester were doing it again, and again, and again. The re-runs seem to meld into a celluloid image of a bygone time, an age of illusionary chivalry, for Matt Dillon would always tip his hat to a lady, and the horses never crapped in the streets.
‘See what the world was like?’ A crooked finger poked out from Archie’s clawed hand, directed at the television screen. ‘People had regard for one another, then.’
Vince sucked down a mouthful of beer, already warming. ‘But the marshal bloke just shot two men!’
‘Sometimes, that’s what it takes.’ Archie stared at his empty plastic sipper-mug, still sitting there on his tray from lunchtime. ‘I wonder why that son of mine never poured me a beer.’ His voice was little more than a dry, flaky crackle. ‘He doesn’t like me at all. I’m nothing but a hindrance.’
‘Aw, I don’t believe that.’
‘It’s true. Would you treat your father like that? Would you?’ and he coughed a reedy cough and brought up some phlegm. ‘Gawd, I’m so dry! Get me a beer.’
‘Sorry, Mr Andrews, I thought you weren’t allowed beer?’
‘The doctor said it would do me good. I mean, does it matter? I’m a dying man, aren’t I?’
‘S’pose so.’ Vince went out to the kitchen. He saw Matthew hanging washing on the line. Matthew might be there for a while. One small cup wouldn’t hurt the old bloke. Two at the most, he thought. When he returned, he unscrewed the cup and poured the beer in over the top of the last of the tea. ‘Here you are, Mr Andrews.’
‘Thank you, ah … what was your name again?’
‘Vince, Vince Romano.’
‘And you can call me Archie.’ He smiled as best he could through cracked lips and raised his cup a little. ‘Cheers, Vince!’
‘Cheers, Archie.’
—
Archie strained and brought the straw to his lips. The cool bitterness of the beer drew out from the depths an amber swill of memories.
‘You all right, Mr Andrews?’
‘Someone walked over me grave, that’s all.’
‘What are we going to do about Dad?’ Rosalie drank her sherry from a five-ounce beer glass, somehow trying to match her perception of class to her appetite for alcohol. Archie had no such illusions and drank his beer straight from the large, brown bottle.
‘Look, girl, first and foremost, if we don’t get the rest of his money soon, we will have to sell THE WOUNDED SINNER. We just can’t do that. This house has been …’
‘… in my family for four generations. I know, Archie. Don’t go on.’ She sighed, and topped up her glass. ‘You’ve ruined us, Archie. It shouldn’t be up to me to make the hard decisions.’
‘Put him in a home. It’s our only option. Somewhere nice if you want, just not too expensive. Something the pension will cover. He’ll understand.’
‘Oh, he’ll understand, all right.’ And she sank her sherry in a gulp.
‘Then all you do is to get him to sign his house over to you. Besides, he can’t last much longer, surely.’
‘I get that feeling, sometimes.’
‘What’s that?’ said Vince.
‘People walkin’ over my grave.’ Archie looked uncomfortable.
‘Do you want another beer?’
‘No, that one made me feel … No, I’ve had enough for the moment, thanks.’ Archie’s voice came out weakly, almost sadly, and his sparse, orange brows knitted down in the shape of a ‘v’.
‘You don’t look too well, Mr Andrews. I better get Matty.’
‘No, I’m … all right. I … Do you believe in karma, Vince?’
‘What’s that?’
‘You know, what goes around, comes around.’
‘My dad always said to do the right thing first or else it will come back and bite you in the arse.’
‘It could well be true, Vince, it could well be true. Push me over to the window. I’d like to be alone for a while.’
Vince went out onto the veranda and sat under the nameplate that read THE WOUNDED SINNER. He was vexed, and wondered about many things.
—
Vince had never been a big drinker. The fifth stubby went down slowly and when its contents, and those of the others, threatened to return at speed, he realised he had had enough. So, he sat there, on the veranda in the shadow of the breeze and thought about Sophie and Luke over and over again, wondering what to do, even praying for supernatural guidance, for God knew he was a simple man. His eyes closed, sewn shut with strands of Emu Bitter, and he drifted away on the breath of the wind.
In his sleep, Vince walked under a weight of worry and a bright, fat moon. The muffled-soft heartbeats of the sea tossed themselves upon the sand of Thompson Bay like wet lemmings: always the bodies slid back into the broth, leaving only cold dampness underfoot and the scalloped lines of weed to show where they’d been. Across the ditch of dark water, the lights of Perth and its suburbs ran up and down the coast until they finally drained away into the night. A hard brush of wind pushed through the Moreton Bay figs and island pine trees that lined the esplanade, bringing with it the smell of brine, and something else, a cry. He recognised that voice and with some urgency he moved down to the water’s edge. Once more it came and he found himself compelled to follow, vocal chords pulling him on. Filled with wonder and carele
ssness, he stepped out onto the sea. It came again, that pleading voice, and he skimmed upon the oiliness of the ocean searching the dips and lips of the swells as the sounds of her voice grew stronger in his ears. Sophie was calling his name and she knew he couldn’t swim.
—
‘Leo, it’s Vince.’
‘Brother. I was just thinking about you. I …’
‘I saw you parked outside Mumma Schettino’s place.’
There was a brief silence.
‘Just trying to help, Vince.’
‘We don’t need your help. She chose me, so stay away!’ But now the doubt began to churn up in the pit of Vince’s stomach. Wedding bells and death knells: all pulled by the same rope.
‘Brother, I just …’
‘Leave us alone and we’ll work it out ourselves.’
‘Don’t be stupid, man. I’m prepared to offer you a lot of money …’
‘We don’t need your money. I make my own money!’
‘You’re full of shit. You told Sophie you’re a driver in the mines. I know you’re just a greaser, walking around all day with your little grease gun, a squirt here, a squirt there. They only kept you on because I put in a good word for you. You’re a nothing, Vince.’
‘Keep away from my family, Leo!’
‘You pathetic little man. If only you knew the truth.’ Leo hung up. Vince clipped the phone shut and wondered what Leo had meant. He felt like crap.
‘Sounded serious.’ Matthew lowered himself into the wicker chair. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing.’
‘You know, I just want a happy family. Sometimes …’
‘What?’
‘Doesn’t matter. What are we doing for dinner?’
‘Dunno. How about I ring through for pizza? Real Italian food.’
Vince didn’t laugh. He wasn’t really hungry. He wanted to say he’d had a gutful of just about everything. He wanted to say so much but those sorts of words had never been a priority in Vince’s life. All he could manage was a weak ‘Okay’.
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