Jillaroo

by Rachael Treasure

  Frankie stumbled into the surgery that morning with dark circles under her eyes and her hair brushed back and clipped crookedly at the nape of her neck. As she scanned through the appointment book her mind failed to register any of the words. Rebecca was the only concern which ran around in her head. The fear had subsided to a quiet anger towards her daughter. How often had she disrupted her work schedule? How many times had Rebecca stolen her concentration when she had important surgery to do? Frankie felt the tension in her shoulders. It was like a knife twisting in her neck.

  By midmorning, when Charlotte knocked on the tearoom door to tell her a Peter Maybury was on the phone, Frankie had barely drawn a breath.

  ‘Coffee tomorrow?’ he asked in a light chirpy voice.

  ‘Yes. Fine.’ Her answer was dull and flat. She hesitated and nearly asked Peter if she should call the police, but instead hung up quickly. She decided to head home first to check for a message on the machine.

  In the flat, the red light flashed. She pressed play on the machine and sank into the couch when she heard Rebecca’s cheery voice. ‘Hi Mum, it’s Bec. Well that’d be obvious to you, cause you’re my mum an’ all. Anyway, I’m calling from a phone box. I’m on my way north. Dags, Stubby and Moss send their love, don’t you guys?’

  Frankie smiled as she heard the chorus of dogs bark in the crackly background of the message. Bec must’ve given them the hand signal to ‘speak up’.

  ‘This time Dad and I have had a doozey of a fight! It was a humdinger. Don’t reckon I’ll be back there for a while. The ol’ bastard. He doesn’t want me there.’

  Frankie heard her daughter’s voice crack.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll phone you, Mum, when I get to wherever I’m going. Love you.’ And the line went dead.

  Frankie’s hands began to shake and her eyes stared ahead. She sat on the couch, put her quivering hand to her mouth and began to cry.

  It was all such a mess. Such a terrible mess.

  CHAPTER 3

  Bec reached for the hot spongy chips in the paper cup between her legs. The high-pitched chug of her Subaru engine was drowned out by the tinny sounding cassette which played full bore in the dusty tape player.

  Tom and Bec had fixed the player to the underside of the dash with rusted bolts just after she had got her licence, and they had laughed together when Tom bent a stubby top in half and used it as a fuse.

  John Cougar’s distorted voice screaming ‘Hurt so good’ thumped through the speakers in the doors. The white line dotted and ran past the whirring tyres and Bec sang as she chewed, checking the dogs occasionally in the rear-vision mirror. The song reminded her of Sal, her friend from boarding school. Sally had just started university at a campus a couple of hours east of the town Bec had just sped through.

  She’d be in a tiny bricked-in dorm room somewhere, hungover or pissed, perhaps with her slim limbs slung over some bloke she’d picked up from orientation-week bar night. Or she’d be stooped over a desk with her long fine nose in a book on agricultural economics, a small furrow between her tidy arching eyebrows.

  Bec smiled as she pictured her best mate. The first time she saw Sally, she had been in her school uniform, leaning against a brick wall and chewing slowly on an apple. Tall and slim, Sally had looked good even in the dull greys of their drab uniform. Bec had looked down at her own rumpled shirt and ill-fitting blazer and had begun to walk by, thinking this girl was too sophisticated to be her friend.

  ‘Want a bite?’ Sally had asked.

  ‘Not with your slobber on it,’ Bec had said and they had both laughed. It had been the start of a hilarious friendship – they were two girls who didn’t ever quite fit into the chattering group of ‘young ladies’ who went to the school. At first it was their dry sense of humour which linked them, but soon their friendship ran deep and they shared nearly every thought and concern that came with being teenage girls immersed in their confining, hypocritical, private school culture.

  To pass the time during lunch hours Sally often imitated her father, a doctor. Even after twenty-five years in Australia his Oxbridge accent was so strong and he still insisted on having proper afternoon tea each weekday.

  ‘You got a D for chemistry, my gal. Splendid!’ Sally would imitate as she gesticulated wildly and jutted out her chin. ‘That’s a vast improvement on last year, my petal!’

  Dr Carter always used words such as ‘petal’, ‘blossum’ and ‘pumpkin’ when he talked, but his most common phrase was, ‘my dear’.

  ‘More tea, my dear?’ he would say to Bec as she sat on the edge of the chintz lounge in the Carters’ weekend house. A smile would pass between the two girls as Dr Carter handed Bec a floral teacup with a gold-edged trim and offered her a HobNob biscuit.

  Dr Carter was in such contrast to her own father that Bec often caught herself staring at him, watching his every move as though he was an alien. Mrs Carter was equally fascinating as she tiptoed about the garden with her hands sheathed in flowery gardening gloves, a cane basket hanging in the crook of her arm.

  ‘Geez,’ Bec said to Sally as she watched Mrs Carter from the window. ‘She reminds me of Mrs Bucket off the ABC.’

  Sally rolled her eyes as she bit her nails.

  ‘Come on, let’s find the key to the grog cabinet and we can get stuck into Mum’s gin before she comes in,’ she said with a wink.

  Bec often spent weekends with the Carters. When Dr Carter wasn’t at his surgery, they ran a small hobby farm near the city. Rebecca always stared incredulously at the tidy fences, neat American-style barns and the potholeless gravel driveway that was lined with white agapanthas.

  ‘Crikey Sal, look how many droppers your dad’s got on that fence … and he’s used ring-lock wire! It must’ve cost him a fortune! What’s he planning on putting in the paddock? Elephants?’

  ‘Alpacas,’ Sally said dryly. Bec could sense her friend was embarrassed by her father’s yuppy style of farming.

  ‘I suppose he’s planning on an olive grove and a vineyard too,’ Bec said.

  ‘No.’ Sal folded her arms. ‘Truffles.’ She sighed.

  It was no wonder Sally had ended up at university doing an agricultural economics degree so she could become a rural financial counsellor. She had researched a zillion potential farm enterprises for her father and had done all the costings and quotes for him. But mostly it was the rugged mountains and rich river flats of Waters Meeting that had lured Sally into a career in rural business. She had loved escaping to the Saunders’ farm during the long stretch of summer holidays. And it was Bec who had taught Sally all about the type of farming that went on in the region. Sally would be devastated to hear Bec had left Waters Meeting for good.

  Bec shoved the last of her chips into her mouth, wiped her hands on her jeans and threw the paper cup onto the floor of the ute. She considered calling in to see her, but Rebecca knew if she did, Sally, with her level-headed approach to life, would talk her into turning round and going back. She decided to phone Sal later to tell her about the fight with her father. By tonight she’d be several hundred kilometres away and there would be no turning back.

  The first night on the side of the road, Bec slept restlessly in her swag. She’d unrolled it in the back of the ute, with the tailgate down and the tarp over her in case it rained. She told herself the shivers running down her body were from cold, not fear. Her dogs lay curled up in little hollows they’d dug in the dirt under the ute where Bec had tied them. She knew they would watch for her and listen in the night and she knew the sound of each bark and what each dog meant to tell her.

  In the next three days Rebecca headed north, then west, stopping only at roadhouses to get food and fuel. Sometimes she pulled up near tufty-grassed public parks or cool shaded riversides to give her dogs a run or a swim. Then early one morning, after her bank account had dwindled to fifty bucks, she pulled into a sale yard which was bustling with men and stock.

  Trucks were backing up to loading ramps and stock agents in blue shirts w
ith company logos and canvas chaps jogged up and down laneways hurrying sheep as they went. With her best yard dog, Dags, at her heels, Rebecca made her way down the rows of sheep pens until she came to the loading ramps.

  A truck driver in navy King Gee pants was lifting up big old wethers which jammed and propped at the truck’s gateway. He swore under his breath at the sheep and again called to his dog, who stood under the ramp in the shade, panting heavily. Another man, wearing a stock agent’s uniform, stood beside the truck and poked at the sheep with a short piece of black poly-pipe. The buttons on his blue shirt strained and stretched against his belly. His pants hung low on his hips and seemed to threaten to fall down altogether, if not for a leather belt which was stretched tight below his gut. His ruddy face shone with sweat even though the sun had not yet warmed up the day.

  ‘Need some help?’ Bec called as she put one hand on the top of an iron post and leapt over a mesh fence. The agent frowned at her, pushed his hat back and scratched his head. Bec knew what he was thinking. Young. Female. She ignored his narrow eyes and stern mouth.

  ‘Your dog looks a bit knocked up,’ Bec said lightly. She nodded at the truckie’s little black dog which let out little squeaky barks as it panted in a feeble attempt to move the stock from where it stood in the shade.

  ‘Mine’s fresh and he won’t bite stock ’less you tell him to.’ Bec stooped slightly to touch Dags’s ear. The potbellied agent took one look at the well-muscled black and tan kelpie and muttered, ‘If he does bite and draw blood, you’re paying for it, so I hope you’ve got some cash on you.’

  ‘Well. Actually I don’t,’ said Bec, ‘I’m flat broke, unemployed and homeless … but at least I know my dog won’t bite.’ Bec smiled a dazzling half-sarcastic smile at the man and said quietly, ‘Dags. Here. Hop up in here.’

  The dog leapt over the metal race which was clad with iron sides and landed deftly on the backs of the sheep.

  ‘Speak up there,’ called Bec, and Dags let out a deep bark, his tail wagging fast and low between his back legs. With a series of whistles Bec sent her dog up the ramp into the bottom deck of the truck. The sheep bustled out and flowed like a river in flood into the laneway.

  The truckie and the agent looked at one another and Bec was sure she saw the agent wink.

  ‘Backs all right,’ said the truckie as he nodded towards Dags who seemed to be surfing along on the backs of recently shorn wethers.

  ‘Not bad,’ said the agent. Turning to Bec he said, ‘Where’dya get ’im?’

  ‘I bred him. I’ve got a litter of pups by him on the way,’ said Bec as she nodded towards Stubby, who sat prick-eared in the back of her ute.

  ‘Be good to see how they turn out. Rodney Phelps is my name anyway,’ said the agent and held out his hand.

  ‘This here’s Darren Barnett, one of our local carriers.’

  ‘Rebecca Saunders.’ She shook hands with them both.

  ‘Where’d you blow in from?’ Darren asked as he slid the heavy door of the truck shut.

  ‘Oh, down south,’ she waved a hand vaguely. ‘I’m looking for work if you know anyone who’s got any.’

  ‘You off a farm?’ asked Rodney.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not many of the stations round here take jillaroos, but I can ask around for you, love.’ Rodney reached for a blue notebook in his top pocket, then turned his back and began to walk away.

  ‘Can I help you out some more?’ Rebecca asked quickly. ‘Before the sale starts?’ Bec tried to contain the urgency in her voice. She thought Dags’s performance would easily convince them she’d make a good stockman, but the men weren’t coming round. Darren and Rodney again looked at one another and the truckie shrugged.

  Rodney looked down at Dags. He muttered through a thin mouth, ‘The sale starts at nine. You can shift them sheep into that back pen with the tree in it.’

  Bec nodded gratefully at him and whistled Dags, who cleared the fence by a foot, and they headed off to yard the sheep.

  ‘I’ll need a count on ’em though,’ shouted Rodney after her. ‘You can count sheep, can’t you?’

  Bec turned, smiled, nodded and began to jog in the direction of the sheep. She knew, thanks to Dags, she had a chance. A chance of finding a job and a new start.

  As the sun rose higher and sweat formed on her brow, more and more buyers, sellers and ‘tyre-kickers’ trickled into the yards. Some leaned on the fences and yarned with each other. Others clanked the chains from gates and entered pens to press fat farming fingers onto the backs of the sheep. Old men with sagging skin and weeping red eyes bent over the wool sheep and opened up their fleeces with a deft touch. They peered at the whiteness, pretending to themselves and to others that they could see the neat tiny crimp in the wool’s staple. The blue-shirt clad agents milled here and there, talking purposefully on mobile phones or jotting down pen numbers.

  Soon Rodney was up on the catwalk above the pens with his pencillers beside him, clipboards in hand. He called out ‘Sale-O! Sale-O!’ and the men in the pens moved forward and crowded at the rail, forming a huddle of hats. The sheep beneath Rodney jumped and pushed away from his voice, their muzzles resting on each other’s backs, jammed in a corner. Soft yellow eyes shaded by white eyelashes watched the buyers crowd round.

  The first pen of sheep had blocky-tipped wool. The surface of their fleeces opened up in tiny cracks like dry mud around a dying puddle. Some of the sheep leapt up in the push, while others sniffed at the concrete surface beneath their hooves. Rodney yelled out the vendor terms in a string of words, as all of the men here had heard them a hundred times before. The sale soon eased into a pacy momentum with Rodney whacking his cane on metal railing, declaring, ‘Sold!’ above each pen.

  Bec moved with the flow of the men in hats and felt their eyes on her. Eyes roving over her face and over her breasts beneath the red T-shirt she wore. She pulled her hat down lower and tried to guess the price each pen would bring.

  As she looked up at the tubby form of Rodney auctioning against a backdrop of blue sky, a wry smile formed in the corner of her mouth. He had the habit of adjusting the contents of his undies before moving to the next pen and beginning the next bid. It happened each and every time. A quick flick of the hand on denim. Bec wondered if the local buyers noticed. No one seemed to care. He must’ve been around the auctioning game so long, the buyers had ceased to notice or joke about it. Rodney was good at his job, running on nervous energy. His fingers twitched by his side as he called out the bids.

  ‘What am I bid for this lovely pen of ewes? Straight off-shears and in good nick too. I’ll start at $20, $20, what am I bid? Fifteen, fifteen.’

  The spotter by his side, eyes moving back and forth over the crowd cried out, ‘Yes!’ and held his notebook in the air pointing to a buyer on the fence. A nod at the back from a man in a straw hat moved the bid along until Rodney banged his cane down at $40.

  ‘Sold! V. C. and G. Goodman, Sandhurst,’ he said to the penciller. The crowd shuffled on to the next pen, taking Bec with it.

  After the first row of stock sold, the trucks began backing up again to cart the sheep away. Bec heard their engines fire and rumble so she whistled to Dags who lay under a shady tree, dozing and snapping at flies. He bounced to attention at her whistle and they went off to the truck race in search of more work.

  When she brightly asked each truckie if they knew of any work, they all shook their heads and her heart and hopes began to sink.

  As the sale moved on, from where she worked at the loading ramps Bec noticed the voice of the auctioneer had changed. Rodney was taking a break and they were giving a younger auctioneer a turn. From up high on the loading ramp Bec looked out across the crowd. Rodney was talking to a short man and they were looking in her direction. She quickly whistled up Dags and he efficiently padded his way over the backs of the sheep. The confident dog put in a strategic bark here and there and had the sheep filing onto the rattly double-decker semi in no time.

  B
ec rolled the heavy door of the truck shut and dropped in the pins. When she turned she noticed the short man walking towards her.

  ‘Good dog you got there …’ he called to her.

  Bec looked up from under the brim of her hat to see the short silvery-haired man leaning on the fence. Like Rodney, a belt below his belly strung up pants which sagged around his legs.

  ‘Trained and bred him myself. We’re looking for work if you know anybody.’

  ‘We?’ asked the man looking around for a young man.

  Bec laughed at herself and smiled at the man. ‘We as in just me. Just me and my three dogs.’

  ‘Ah I see. Well, we don’t normally employ females. We don’t have separate quarters.’

  ‘Separate quarters? Oh don’t get me wrong. I’m used to roughing it and I was raised with two brothers, so if you think that’ll stop me doing my job properly …’

  The man held up his hands to silence her.

  ‘I’ve no doubt you’ll cope. Rodney’s had a word in my ear. It’s no wonder he’s the best agent around, he can talk me into anything. We’ve advertised for a jackeroo but haven’t found anyone suitable, so the quarters are empty for the time being. We can put you on a two-month trial. But if there’s a whiff of trouble with the men, you’ll be off the place.’

  ‘Which place would that be?’ said Bec, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

  ‘I’m Alastair Gibson. Manager of Blue Plains Station. ’Bout thirty k out. I’m not there full-time. I run it from the city, but the headstockman, Bob, and his wife Marg are good people. They’ll look out for you and sort you out with the things you’ll need to know.’

  ‘Thanks Mr Gibson. I’m Bec. Rebecca Saunders.’ She reached a dusty hand across the rail.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Rebecca. Come and see me at the bar after and I’ll fill you in on what we do.’