Jillaroo

by Rachael Treasure

  The receiver dangled off the hook and Bec frowned, wondering who it would be.

  Her ‘Hello’ was tentative.

  ‘Sis!’

  ‘Mick! What the flock are you ringing for?’ It was the first time she’d heard from him in months. She’d only ever heard news of Mick through Tom or her mum. She immediately panicked. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, you dork. I just rang to say I’m getting married.’

  ‘Married! Holy moley. I mean that’s great! To Tur … I mean, Trudy?’

  ‘Yeah! Here. She’s just here, I’ll put her on.’ Bec began to protest but Mick was gone and she could hear a sugary, ‘Hi Becky.’

  ‘Errr. Ahh. G’day. How’s it going? Nice to meet you over the phone. Um. Congratulations I guess! That’s great news.’ Bec pulled a ‘spaz’ face at herself and shoved her hand deep in the pocket of her sheep-manure stained jeans.

  ‘I insisted that Mikey rang you. He’s been putting off phoning you for ages – I can never get him out of that machinery shed. And he hates talking on the phone. You know him.’

  ‘Yep. So … have you set a date for the wedding?’

  ‘Oh. February 14. St Valentine’s day.’

  ‘Mmm. Good choice.’

  ‘You’ll come, won’t you, Rebecca? You have to come. I’d like to meet you. I think for Tom’s sake you should. He misses you … mind you, not that he’d say so to me … Anyway, we’d better fly. We’ve organised drinks at the hall tonight.’ Bec heard Trudy cup her hand over the phone as she called out, ‘Michael, come and say goodbye to your sister!’ Then her voice was back, clear and bubbly in Bec’s ear.

  ‘He’s waving.’

  Bec heard Mick’s voice in the background: ‘See ya, bucket arse.’ She heard Trudy chastise him as she put down the phone. Drinks at the hall? Not at the pub? Something was wrong, thought Bec, as she jogged back over to the jackeroos’ quarters. Mick hated being called Michael. Yet he seemed happy enough. All through their childhood he rarely spoke to Rebecca. Just bossed her, or teased her. He had always been distant. He was the eldest son – the one in line for most of the farm. So it was always Mick who was taken in the ute by their father. It was Mick who was first to drive the new tractor, or went to town with Harry with a load of hay in the truck.

  Oh well, thought Bec, it was nice of them to ring, and so long as Trudy made him happy, it was fine by her. But then Rebecca thought of Tom’s letters. She remembered him writing that Trudy didn’t really understand what it was like to be a farmer’s wife and how, no matter what the season, you lived cash-poor. Oh God, she thought, and a vision flashed in her head of an imaginary Trudy wearing a fur coat and diamonds. It had happened before – entire farms and fortunes had been whittled away by gold-digging wives. Nice homestead and garden, shame about the pastures and stock, thought Bec dryly. Why was Mick marrying her? Surely he could see? All of a sudden the thought of what lay ahead for Waters Meeting filled Rebecca with dread.

  Instead of jogging back to the quarters, she turned and ran towards the dog pens. She needed to talk to Mossy and find a little bit of comfort in her dogs. As she ran, Rebecca didn’t even notice the massive orange sky behind her as the sun sunk beautifully beneath the plains.

  CHAPTER 7

  Charlie Lewis dropped his dusty canvas bag on the floor of his bedroom and fell face first onto the bed.

  ‘Charlie?’ came his mother’s voice. ‘Is that you dear?’

  All Charlie could do was groan. The roof of his mouth felt rough and his whole body ached. He shut his eyes tightly and swallowed down the nausea. Mrs Lewis put her head around the door.

  ‘Your father’s been having a fit all morning. All weekend actually … Oh you haven’t done that to your hair … again!’ Charlie didn’t move. He lay like a dead body on the bed. Mrs Lewis sighed and bustled into the room. She proceeded to unzip his bag.

  ‘Have you got any washing?’

  ‘Leave it, Mum.’ Charlie’s gravelly voice was muffled by the mattress.

  ‘You might as well take off those disgusting clothes while I’m doing a load. You look worse than the last time when you came back from that B&S party.’

  Charlie rolled over and looked down at his clothes. All the buttons were ripped off his blue shirt and his jeans were grimy with dust and splotchy with spilled rum and coke. Splatters of tomato sauce had stained them in strange coloured blobs. God, he groaned, the sauce fight … they’d been kicked out of the pub for that. He let his head fall back on the bed.

  ‘I just don’t know what you get up to when you go to town with your friends, Charlie, but I’m certain I don’t want to know.’

  With that, Mrs Lewis began tugging at her son’s football socks, which wouldn’t have bothered him that much normally, except for the fact they were still on his feet and he was certain he’d sprained his ankle.

  ‘Alright!’ he said angrily and he sat up, batting her hands away from him. He began to peel the stinking clothes from his body, handing each item to his stern-faced mother until he stood in only a pair of blue checked boxer shorts.

  ‘I’ll radio your father and tell him you’re home.’

  ‘No, Mum. Just give me an hour or so.’

  Mrs Lewis shook her head and hurried angrily out of the room with an armful of Charlie’s filthy clothes.

  ‘Thanks Mum,’ he said as he again lay down on the bed. Mrs Lewis didn’t hear him. An instant later as he heard the pipes clunk and the washing machine begin to fill, Mrs Lewis called out, ‘And have a shower before you get on that bed again.’ Charlie pulled a face before sliding in between the cool sheets. God, he thought, his old man was going to tear strips off him. He thought back to Friday night when he had kissed his mother goodbye and nodded to his father.

  ‘I’ll be back to service the vehicles by Saturday afternoon,’ he’d said and his father had eyed him over his newspaper saying, ‘Don’t be late.’ And then Charlie had left, leaving a waft of shampoo and soap in the air. His mother had ironed his shirt to within an inch of its life, and as he drove in the ute towards the pub he’d rolled his sleeves up roughly over his tanned arms and tried to loosen the starchy collar.

  In the bed, Charlie rolled onto his stomach and groaned again. How did that happen? He’d left on Friday night, and now it was Monday morning. It was those bloody cotton blokes. They’d finished their module building and harvest work and were having a real blow-out. Charlie had got caught up in the celebrations. Friday night at the pub had rolled on into Saturday morning. He’d emerged from his swag, staggered to his ute and had been about to drive away when he’d discovered someone had taken his keys. No amount of farting on blokes’ heads or nipple-cripples could extract the information as to who the culprit was. Charlie just gave up. He sauntered in through the creaking screen door of the general store and charmed the somewhat tubby and stringy-haired Janine into microwaving him a pie and heating up the oil so he could have some chips for breakfast. By the time the keys were recovered Charlie was again too drunk to drive. At least too drunk to drive home. Instead the collection of wayward-looking lads took themselves down to the irrigation channel where they lolled against eskies and told jokes. By midafternoon, Charlie had forgotten the promises to his father and Boof had brought his windsurfer along!

  ‘Surf’s up!’ cried Charlie, standing in just his shorts. He licked his finger and held it in the air. Not a single breath of wind. He ran for his ute and revved it up onto the straight bank of the channel, then tossed Boof a rope. They were off, speeding along the bank, the ungainly surfer clinging for dear life to the windsurfer as the ute raced along the channel.

  Lying on his bed, Charlie moved his shoulder and remembered the bad stack he’d had when Boof let the rope go slack.

  ‘What an idiot,’ he said to himself.

  Stiff, sore and sunburnt, the lads had limped their way into the pub on Saturday night after Charlie’s ute had run out of fuel by the channel. In a blur of pool games and dancing by the jukebox, Charlie r
emembered buying an old alcoholic drinks all night and repeatedly telling him, ‘Madadsgunnakillme.’

  Sunday morning was spent vomiting and sleeping in his swag out the back of the pub by the cardboard boxes and crates. He remembered some ribby old dog coming up and pissing on his swag. He remembered Rog kicking him with the toe of his boot, saying his mother had phoned the hotel looking for him – again.

  In the store Janine was in no mood for the now foul-smelling Charlie, so the lads decided breakfast beers were the go. By the time the Sunday Session kicked on at the pub, Charlie had lost his boots and the boys had shaved his head again. In the pub, a band had been put on for the afternoon. Charlie cringed as he remembered dancing with a group of lads. All with their pants down around their ankles. They had drowned out the duo who chorused ‘Welcome to the Hotel California’. Instead the boys gave their best rendition of ‘Up there Cazaly’. Charlie cringed again as he remembered joining a group of tourists at their table. As he ate their chips he chatted to them about a staggering array of subjects, including illegal immigration and the merits of the new variety of Dixon’s wheat. His mates egged him on as he began to insert chips in his ears and nostrils. That’s when the sauce fight began, and that’s when Rog, the massive-gutted publican, had hurled the boys outside.

  It was Rog who, at dawn on Monday, had handed Charlie a fuel drum and pushed him in the direction of his ute.

  ‘Go home to your folks,’ Rog had said tiredly, and he’d watched Charlie stagger away.

  Charlie’s eyes flashed open as the covers of the bed were roughly pulled back.

  He felt his father’s huge hands grip into his flesh and close agonisingly on his sore shoulder.

  ‘Get out of bed.’ His father shook him a little and started to pull his son up from where he lay.

  ‘Dad!’ He could see his father’s furious eyes close to his face and smell his breath. It smelt of instant coffee.

  ‘Get dressed and get out to the machinery shed now!’

  In the shed Charlie nursed his pounding head in his hands while his father lectured him.

  ‘Your mother was worried sick. If it wasn’t for Roger at the hotel, she’d have called the police by Saturday night and told them you were at the bottom of a ditch somewhere in the wreck of your ute. She was hysterical.’

  ‘I’m sor–’

  ‘Don’t you give me that bulldust. Pull yourself together, son. Take a bit of pride in yourself! And get to work.’ He thrust a plastic container of motor oil into Charlie’s hands, got into his ute and revved away down the dusty road.

  Charlie kicked the tyre of the tractor. The words had been on the tip of his tongue … he wished he’d said it. He wished he could tell his father to get stuffed. He pictured himself standing tall in front of his large father. ‘Bugger you, Dad,’ Super-Charlie yelled. ‘You never give me any time off! Never! You and Mum treat me like I’m a little kid! Well I’m not taking it any more, Dad!’

  Charlie began shadow-boxing in the machinery shed, his boots dancing in the dust, his teeth clenched. ‘Take this … and this … and this!’ But soon his head pounded too much so he squatted next to a tyre.

  ‘Must be still pissed,’ he slurred to himself. He thought about the last time he’d been on such a huge bender. It was months ago. At that B&S ball, the time he met Rebecca Saunders.

  ‘Stunner,’ he said out loud and proceeded to lift the dipstick from the tractor.

  CHAPTER 8

  At first he seemed awkward in Frankie Saunders’s flat. He filled up too much space in the tiny living room as he wandered about with his hands clasped behind his back, stooping to peer at family pictures. He tried hard not to look at the ex-husband too long, but he wanted to seem interested in the three smiling children and the array of dogs.

  ‘What would you like to drink, Peter?’ came Frankie’s voice from the kitchen. After she uttered the words, she quickly turned her back to him to fuss at the kitchen bench. She was nervous too, and the high-pitch strain in her voice showed it.

  ‘Oh. Ahhh … Wine is fine.’

  ‘Um. Wine? Oh. Ahhh. Wine.’

  ‘If you don’t have any, water’s good.’

  ‘How about beer?’

  Frankie remembered she’d bought a sad-looking six pack of VB cans for her solitary grand final celebration in front of the television months ago. The cans were still in the back of her dwarf-like fridge, clustered together by plastic rings and taking up far too much room. She remembered she’d eaten one savaloy, watched the kickoff and gone to bed, without drinking the beer, to cry over grand finals of years gone by. Her children clustered together in her mind. Rebecca and the boys dressed in team colours, jostling with each other on the lounge room floor. Streamers framed the TV which throbbed and buzzed with a volume turned too high. She tried to remember a few of the homemade chants which didn’t quite rhyme. When she thought more about football, she couldn’t help but think of Harry and the vacant look on his face when he watched it.

  Sometimes when she looked at him propped in the chair with his feet up on an old milking stool, she would swear he was about to dribble and imagined herself cupping her hands beneath his chin. Other times she felt like slapping him hard across each cheek and shaking him while screaming, ‘Notice me!’ But she never did, she simply shut herself off and hoped someone would call with an emergency calving or a poisoned dog.

  After the marriage was over, Frankie tried to figure out what had gone wrong or, she wryly thought, what had gone right. She had always been a scientist, with a passion for her job. Frankie tried to remember when Harry had stopped talking to her. Stopped showing his love for her. But she could never pin the time down. She came to realise he had always been silent and broody. At first she had found in him an undeniable sexual power. He was a man’s man – not at all like the academics she had dated in her uni days. Her friends had often asked her why she stayed so long, and her answer had always been, ‘For the children.’ But she knew deep down that she had never really been there for the children. She lived for her work. She lived for her science, and the more it took her away from the family and that huge cold house, the more complete she felt. Nowadays she used her science and her work to fill up the gaping hole created by her guilt.

  In the kitchen she tensed her muscles a little and sighed. From where he stood in the living room, Peter looked at her kindly.

  ‘I’m not really a beer drinker, but I’ll give it a go. I usually only drink it on Australia Day or during football grand finals.’

  ‘Oh,’ laughed Frankie and she bent to move aside the wilting vegetables and drag out the six pack. She held them up to him, ‘Not exactly boutique beer. How about I share one with you?’

  It was half an hour before their dinner reservation at an Italian restaurant two blocks away. Frankie wished she had a dog or a cat, so they could focus their attention and conversation on its markings or its habits, but the flat was neat and cold. Perhaps she could talk about Henbury’s anal-gland problem, but they had almost exhausted that topic and the dog had been well in its nether regions now for months.

  ‘Have a seat,’ she said, and her hand swept towards the couch like a hostess on ‘Sale of the Century.’

  The leather couch let out a farting noise as Peter sat. He tried to shift his weight again so the noise would repeat itself and Frankie would know it wasn’t an actual fart, but the couch lay silent.

  Peter perched himself on the edge of the couch and pointed to the family photo on the television.

  ‘You have a handsome brood.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your daughter is a very attractive young lady.’

  ‘She’s a wild child. God knows what she’s up to on that sheep station.’

  ‘If she’s anything like her mother, she’ll be fine.’ Peter looked into Frankie’s eyes and he sucked in a breath as if he’d made up his mind about something.

  Oh please God, don’t let him kiss me yet, thought Frankie.

  But Peter said, ‘I kn
ow this is difficult for us both. We’ve both come through marriage break-ups, but I just wanted you to know that there’s no pressure. We’re both so nervous! Let’s just be friends and see where the friendship takes us. Okay?’ He searched her eyes for a reaction. ‘Okay?’ he urged.

  ‘Sure,’ said Frankie. ‘Here’s to friendship,’ and as she raised her glass and chinked it against his, she thought, ‘Damn!’ After all, it had been almost four years.

  In the dim light of the noisy Italian restaurant, Frankie and Peter laughed at the jovial fat-faced musician who lurked around the tables twanging on his instrument. They wrestled with dangling forkfuls of fettuccine, trying to put it in their mouths without dribbling sauce down their chins. On their second bottle of lambrusco Frankie almost mentioned that the fettuccine, in this dim light, looked remarkably like tapeworm, but she thought better of it. Peter, she thought, was very ‘city’. It wasn’t until Peter held up the fettuccine and said, ‘Does this remind you of your work?’ that she laughed louder than she had in years. Peter went on to explain he specialised in teaching sciences and his favourite subject was biology.

  ‘We have several species of worm on display in our lab. I’ll have to give you a tour one day soon.’

  ‘That would be fabulous,’ said Frankie sincerely.

  ‘Perhaps we could do a deal with your surgery to provide animal parts for experiments in our lab,’ Peter joked. All at once Frankie felt warmed by the wine and by Peter’s eyes. Oh God, she thought, he loves science! She felt a tingle run through her.

  After a raucous display from the musician and some hilarious dancing, Frankie and Peter settled back into their restaurant chairs. Soon their fingers entwined on the tabletop and the candlelight glimmered in their eyes.

  ‘How about a quiet port before we tackle the road home?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Lovely.’

  Outside the air was chilly. Peter linked his arm with Frankie’s and walked close to her on the way home. They chattered drunkenly and laughed loudly in the empty street. At the entrance to the flat Frankie decided to check the mail. The little silver postbox-key slipped and scratched on the surface as they both giggled into their hands.