Jillaroo

by Rachael Treasure

  ‘She’s beautiful. No wonder you’re teary about leaving her behind. Come on. We’ll feel better after we’ve handed in this project. Let’s be nerdy and go to the library.’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’ And Gabs helped pull Rebecca to her feet and gave her a big warm hug which made Bec cry again.

  The library was warm and, Rebecca thought, smelt of dirty socks. The librarian, known to the students as the ‘creature from the depths’, waddled past them pushing a trolley of returns. The obese librarian had provided the college boys with endless hours of entertainment speculating on her love life. Well over a hundred kilos, the boys made jokes like, ‘How do you find her fanny? Roll her in flour and see where it sticks.’

  The taunts and jokes made Rebecca angry. She liked the librarian. She had helped her order in some new dog-training books and she’d often discuss the latest bestseller she was reading.

  ‘Hi,’ Rebecca smiled at her.

  ‘Hi girls.’ And she disappeared into a cave of books.

  Gabs and Rebecca walked past the rows of heads which were bent intently over books for this afternoon’s exam, the final one for the year. Hamish looked up, waved and then made vomiting gestures to Bec.

  ‘I think he likes you,’ whispered Gabs.

  ‘Penelope-ploppy-bottom thinks that too! So don’t you start.’

  Rebecca shot Hamish a wry smile and kept walking towards the activity room where large low-slung couches lined the walls. The students laughed at its name, ‘activity room’. It was rumoured Paddy Finnighan had once bonked a horse management student in there on the couch. The rough cloth on the couches were often inspected by students, but no evidence of semen could ever be found.

  Gabs shut the door behind them. ‘I wonder which couch he did it on,’ she said.

  ‘Yirk! I’m going to sit on the floor.’

  Bec tipped notebooks, a hole punch, pens, glue and scissors from her bag and scattered them on the low table, while Gabs carefully took out the almost finished assignment. It was neatly printed out with gaps where the photographs were to be stuck. As Bec flicked through the weighty document, she felt a tingle of excitement. The assignment included the existing enterprises which, when added up, never made a profit. Then came the proposal for upgrading the property.

  ‘Sally’s done a terrific job in the loan submission to the hypothetical bank manager,’ said Gabs, staring at the text. Sal was in her final year of economics and had been doing part-time work with one of the state’s best rural financial counsellors.

  Gabs flicked over the page and inspected the colourful farm maps which showed how the paddocks could be developed to produce high-quality lucerne. The map also showed the proposed dam site, where the pivot irrigator would run, and the next page listed all the costings. Soil test and meteorological figures, which Tom had organised, proved that the conditions were ideal. He’d also developed a way in which existing plant and equipment and sheds could be converted to meet quality hay production standards.

  Gabs flicked over to the marketing section. There were local racing stables in the region, plus markets in Hong Kong and Japan. The return on capital was realistic and debt could be repaid in five years. Where the project was weakest was the short paragraph on succession planning. They would lose marks there.

  ‘It’s looking pretty good, apart from the family bit about the future ownership of the business,’ said Gabs. Rebecca ignored her quip about the family.

  ‘It bloody well should be good. We’ve worked hard enough on it.’

  ‘Let’s get sticking.’ Gabs picked up the glue stick and held it up to Bec, rolling its sticky tube in and out suggestively and swivelling her tongue around her lips.

  They selected the best of the photos and pasted them carefully on the pages.

  ‘Get your tits off the table,’ said Gabs, nodding at Rebecca, who was so intent on the task of gluing the pictures on straight she hadn’t noticed her breasts were resting on the surface of the table.

  ‘Where else am I supposed to put them, Scabs?’ She tried sitting them under the table, but it just wasn’t comfortable.

  ‘I suppose I’m just jealous,’ said Gabs, pushing up her own small breasts and trying to sit them on the table. It was at that moment that Paddy put his head around the door.

  ‘What on earth are you two up to?’

  Gabs’s cheeks flushed a bright pink.

  ‘Just trying to glue our tits to the table,’ said Bec, holding up a glue stick, completely unfazed.

  ‘You two are weirdos.’

  ‘Takes one to know one,’ Bec retorted. ‘Besides, this is the activity room and all sorts of activities go on in here. As you know, Paddy. Aren’t you supposed to be studying?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I was just having a break. Just came to see when you were heading off for Christmas. Are you both going home?’

  ‘I’m headed to the coast with the olds,’ said Gabs. ‘Leaving this arvo if I can unstick my tits.’ They all laughed.

  ‘Me? I’m headed back up to Blue Plains where I used to work. I’ve got a job there again over the summer till uni starts again.’

  ‘Not going home to your place?’ Paddy asked.

  ‘No.’

  Paddy knew from her voice not to ask any more questions. ‘Well, have a happy pissmas, girls.’

  ‘Good luck in your last exam,’ Gabs said. They watched Paddy shut the door and then Gabs threw a book at Bec. ‘What was that gluing tits to the desk bit? That rumour’s going to supersede the one about Paddy and the horsy girl on the couch!’

  ‘No it won’t! Everyone’s leaving and they’ll have forgotten about it by next year.’

  On their way out the librarian called, ‘Happy holidays and Merry Christmas,’ so that her chins wobbled.

  As Gabs and Bec walked to the assignment boxes to reverently place their Waters Meeting project in the box, Hamish ran up to them and placed his arms around their shoulders.

  ‘What’s this I hear about you girls getting your tops off, smearing glue all over your breasts and then rubbing yourself over the tabletop in the activity room?’

  ‘Bec, I’m going to kill you,’ muttered Gabs.

  CHAPTER 22

  Across the valley Harry listened to the truck engine changing down a gear as it laboured up a steep cutting on the side of the mountain. He paced up and down in the shearing shed, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck and nervously glancing out the door. His breath caught between his clenched teeth until he let it out, like the hiss of an angry cat. A gleaming red truck pulled into sight, with neat lettering painted on the side. ‘Moffet Removals.’ It drove past the shearing shed and up towards the homestead. Trudy skipped down the steps and motioned to the truck to come in the side gate of the garden and not over the grid.

  Harry looked up to the sky and again held his breath in a hopeless bid to ease the pain in his stomach. As he exhaled he looked across to the mountains. There, on the side of the ridge, he could just make out Tom riding Hank on the long-spur track. He was heading for the cattlemen’s hut. The sight of the lonely speck moving slowly across the face of the massive mountain brought tears to Harry’s eyes. He pictured the shattered look on Tom’s face this morning during the fight.

  Tom had sat in the corner of the kitchen throughout the whole raging, roaring argument. His strong compact body rigid on the chair, tears rolling down his cheeks, as Trudy spat hateful words at Harry. For months, in soft girlish whispers in the newlyweds’ bedroom, she’d fed the ammunition of jealousy and anger into Mick’s heart about the situation at Waters Meeting. Mick began to simmer and then to rage against his father. In the kitchen, Harry raged back. Veins popped up on his neck. Hot spit lay on his lips. Hard words sizzled in the air. With Trudy backing him, Mick stood taller and twice as heavy as his now-stooping father.

  ‘It’s over, Dad. We’re leaving. You’ve crapped in your own nest. We won’t take your bull any more. No more working our guts out for nothing. Trudy’s dad has lined up a house for us. Why should I p
ut up with your crap when I can get sixty grand a year working for him. That’s more than I’d get in a lifetime here.’

  Trudy moved closer to Mick and stood slightly behind him. In a cold voice she said matter-of-factly, ‘The removalists are coming at ten. We’re taking what’s rightfully ours. No question.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ spat Harry.

  ‘It bloody well will be over your dead body you stupid bastard.’ Mick scruffed Harry’s collar and shoved him backwards into the kitchen bench.

  The shock of being pushed by his own son left Harry with an open mouth and white knuckles as he grasped the bench. Trudy took Mick gently by the upper arm and led him out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the front of the house. They slammed the huge heavy front door shut and it echoed through the house like a shotgun blast.

  In the silent house, Harry moved forward across the kitchen towards Tom, who remained sitting on the chair. He bent down, his face close to Tom’s and yelled, ‘Do something, you useless bastard. Say something!’ he screamed. ‘Don’t just sit there crying like the baby that you are!’

  Harry swung his open hand into the air and hit Tom hard across the face. Tom’s bottom jaw shot out to the side and a pain ran up over his skull and down his spine. His head jerked. His face contorted with grief and shock.

  Tom stood. He moved past his father like a walking dead man, eyes empty, skin grey. He walked out of the house and to the quarters where, in a daze, he rolled his swag and filled a billy can with matches, sugar and tea. With cold shaking hands he packed his saddlebag with packets of two-minute beef noodles and a roll of toilet paper. He jogged to the shed to gather up his saddle and bridle. Hank, seeing Tom, ambled on his long chestnut legs to the gate and waited to be let into the yard. Strapping his gear to the saddle, Tom mounted Hank and rode out, down towards the river.

  In the garden shed Mick and Trudy were packing up the last of her spring bulbs. They looked up from the boxes and watched Tom cross the bridge over the river and head towards the hut track which would take him to the top of Devil’s Crag.

  From where Harry stood now, Tom and Hank could barely be seen through the gums. Up at the house the overall-clad removalist men were lugging the heavy lounge suite across the lawn. It was the floral one Trudy’s parents had bought her for a wedding present. Mick sidestepped with the brass bedheads in his outstretched arms. Trudy followed him, carrying the floral curtains from the spare room which she put neatly in the back seat of her car. Harry sank back into the shed and wouldn’t allow himself to watch as the truck and Trudy’s little red car drove past the shed and away. He slumped on a wool bale, put his head in his hands and listened to the sound of the truck driving out of the valley.

  A while later, slowly, with stiff legs and aching knees, he stood and walked up to the house. He wobbled a bit and had to steady himself against the wall. He went into the chilly dining room and bent to unlock the antique cabinet. From its musty interior he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of port. He walked into the kitchen and sat down at the head of the table. Over his shoulder there was a dusty space on the mantlepiece where the clock had been, but Harry could still hear the tick inside his head.

  He sat for a long time. Just sat. And it was dark by the time he emptied the last of the whiskey into the teacup and reached hazily for the port bottle. He wasn’t aware when he fell drunkenly from the chair and slumped to the floor, hitting his head with a loud crack on the table’s corner.

  But in the early morning light he felt the pain behind his eyes like a stabbing knife. As the world around him became clearer, he realised that the soft white skin that covered his inner thighs stung from urine which had seeped into the fabric of his work trousers during the night. He began to wretch again when he realised one side of his face was lying in a pool of vomit. The cat, which had been meowing for hours to be let out, sat with huge frightened eyes on the dresser, disgusted at itself for having to crap in the corner.

  Outside the window, on top of a dark pine, a crow sat. It called out. Harry lay and listened to its lonely horrific cry echoing out across an empty valley.

  CHAPTER 23

  ‘You can’t use hay bales for a couch, you dork!’ Rebecca put her hands on her hips and looked at Paddy as he moved the bale into the corner of the room, traipsing dirt on the already patchy, penis-pink carpet.

  ‘Well you’ve been using shopping trolleys to hang your clothes on and keep your food in, so I don’t see how hay bales will ruin the decor,’ a red-faced and sweating Paddy said as he dropped the bale and hitched up his jeans.

  ‘I should’ve known that sharing a house with you this year would be a bad move. We’re not even going to last a semester! I could barely live with you when you were a block away on campus. Besides, how prickly is that hay going to be on your tubby little arse!’

  ‘Prickly! I’ll have you know this is quality pasture hay … and my arse is not tubby.’

  ‘Well, go feed your quality hay to your stinking goats – we’ll go to St Vinnies and get a real couch for half the price if it’s such bloody good hay.’

  Both stood looking sternly at one another, their smiles barely hidden behind mock angry faces. Rebecca and Paddy turned their heads to the doorway as they heard the front door bang shut. Gabs appeared, her face flushed from the summer heat and the bustle of carting supermarket bags from her hot Datsun.

  ‘Hey, you planning to set up a feedlot in here?’ she nodded towards the bales.

  ‘That, according to Paddy, is “the couch”.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Gabs. ‘… I think.’ She stood looking at the bales and shook her head. Then she remembered the bags in her hands. ‘Hey guys! Look what I got! Chokoes were on special. You could get a whole bag for $2.’ She proudly held up the bag.

  ‘Chokoes?’ echoed Bec.

  ‘What are they?’ asked Paddy

  ‘They’re disgusting,’ said Bec, peering into the bag at the green vegetables.

  ‘Hey! But for $2! It’s a bargain!’ argued Gabs.

  ‘What’s in the other bags?’ asked Bec.

  ‘Just some mince for spag bog and some nibbles for the keg party tonight.’

  ‘Speaking of kegs, I’d better go and pick them up,’ said Paddy, reaching for his ute keys in his pocket. Gabs bustled off to the kitchen with her shopping bags.

  Rebecca stood in the room and looked at its drab grey walls. It was the only rental property the real estate agent would let them have. Ag college students were bad enough, but a student with three dogs was a definite headache. Rebecca had put on her best skirt, brushed back her mop of blonde hair into a ponytail and used her firmest voice when she’d said, ‘I can get references regarding my dogs from the AR Company, of which I have been an employee for two years.’

  The real estate lady with boofed-up hair and deep lines around her eyes had looked disdainfully back at her. Despite the heat of the day outside, the big old house had been chilly. It had chilled Rebecca even more when the real estate agent had said, ‘Of course it was a doctor’s surgery for years until it was converted into a mortuary. Hence the wide double doors.’

  ‘They mustn’t have been very good doctors,’ Rebecca had joked; but the stick-insect lady reeking of stale cigarettes and perfume had simply wafted past her to show her the kitchen. The backyard was a jungle, but it was huge and there was a saggy looking shed where her dogs could be chained.

  Because Rebecca had found the house on behalf of Paddy and Gabs, she’d earned the right to choose her bedroom. She’d picked the front room so she could enjoy the sun in the morning; and despite its tatty wallpaper, the room had lovely large windows and an old marble fireplace. Surely they hadn’t wheeled the stiffs into this room, she thought.

  Over the weekend she’d bought a second-hand double-bed mattress and placed it on the floor in the corner on bricks. She’d made a desk out of apple crates and chipboard and covered it with cloth, and at the bargain store she’d splurged on a chair. By her bed she placed candles. Sh
e’d have to buy a lamp later. Besides, she thought, candles were more romantic. She imagined meeting a newly arrived first-year student and undressing him slowly on the low bed.

  Bec looked about at the small gathering of boys at the party that evening as she and Gabs lay on their stomachs in the long green grass in the yard. No talent yet, just the same old bunch of hard-drinking yobbo boys from last year.

  ‘So, you ol’ tart,’ said Gabs, interrupting her thoughts, ‘did you get any in the holidays?’

  ‘Na,’ said Bec, ‘I was so flat out. Alastair had put on a new jackeroo, bloody gorgeous, but he was only a pup. Just eighteen.’

  ‘That’s never stopped you before.’

  Rebecca screwed up her nose and sipped on the cool froth of her beer, which was the result of Paddy’s efforts at keg-tapping.

  ‘How ’bout you?’

  ‘God, I’d do anything for a bit of action. My summer holiday was dry-as,’ said Gabs, finishing her beer and motioning for Bec’s cup. ‘Let’s see if Paddy’s finally got this keg right.’

  It was one of those long summer evenings, with sunshine that stretched on and on. The heat lingered into the darkness of the night and insects buzzed at the bare bulbs of the outdoor spotlights.

  The air was thick with excitement as the students from last year saw each other again, and the new first-years sauntered into the backyard, keen for the reputed college party action. After last year, initiation ceremonies had been banned, so keg parties had become the latest way to meet and greet the first-years.

  ‘God. Here comes another batch of “what-school-did-you-go-to?” gals,’ said Bec, nodding to the group who had just walked into the backyard. They wore Liberty-print shirts ironed neatly with the collars up, and antique jewellery hung heavily around their wrists and necks.

  ‘They’ll get over themselves by mid-semester,’ said Gabs dryly. ‘With the likes of those boys, they’ll be pulled down to earth real soon.’ Gabs and Bec looked towards the circle of boys who stood around the keg with their pants around their ankles, shooting beer directly into their mouths with the keg gun.