But standing where we are standing, the worst of it is obvious: pain is relative. No matter if ‘the one’ exists or not, that love never compares with the love for a child. For me, anyway. I’m pretty sure it is the same for Sarah. So, no matter the pain we feel for each other, it is a drop in the bucket compared to what we feel about James.
I walk with them to James’s area. Sarah is commending me on my maintenance. I point out the bulbs that will flower soon, and idiotically remark on the fertility of the soil. We are standing by a small, obsessively tended plot surrounded by a massive, derelict, unruly garden. I’m sure Lucy has no idea how to behave, but she says how special the area is, and I appreciate the comment as if she has offered a significant positive insight into our lives and not a limp platitude for the ex. And then I walk away, because I figure Sarah will want some time alone with James. Lucy stands with her for a moment and then strolls over to me, obviously drawing a similar conclusion. And we watch like embarrassed voyeurs as Sarah kneels and begins to cry full-body sobs that I have seen so many times. Just as many times she has told me to stay away from her suffering. I am torn between desperate sympathy and self-protection. That’s a rough summing up of the failure between Sarah and me.
Lucy puts a hand on my shoulder. It is the nicest thing a person could do for me, but I still have to stop my body from responding like it is under attack. Lucy seems to know this, too. For once, I remember I am not the only one who suffers. Lucy’s understanding wins me, and for all the jealousy and confusion I feel, she is a friend. She could have sat in the car, or treated me like a rival or the enemy, and she hasn’t. It is not possible for me to dislike her humanity. And so when Sarah stands again and heads towards us, drying her eyes, I offer them a drink, a meal, a coffee — anything. Sarah’s lovely face tells me that, for once, I’ve done the right thing. They decline the offer; both hug me like sisters, and are gone. It feels like a missed opportunity. We could have talked and laughed and drunk until we had got at least some of the darkness out of ourselves. They say they’ll be back, and I suppose they will.
I stroll to the chook yard with no real purpose. We used to let the chooks out in the morning and shut them in at night to protect them from the foxes. I haven’t bothered with that for a long time. The chooks get to run free, going where they want, and nesting where they want. Most of the time they seemed to end up in the chook shed after dark, and so far all eight of them have survived. I look in the nests that I haven’t checked for over a week, and find nearly fifty eggs, some of them laid on the bare dirt next to the nests, and some of them in the open ground of the yard. I put them in a bucket and take them outside. I pick up one of the clean brown eggs and weigh it in my hand. It feels like the perfect missile. I hurl it at the centre of a huge box tree nearby. The egg splatters beautifully, but slightly off mark. I try again, and improve a little bit. I keep throwing until all the eggs are gone and the tree is painted in yellow and egg shells. I feel some pleasure in that.
In the morning I am driving, on my way to Fythe Trees, and after that to track down the mailman and have a word. It is dawn, and I have only slept a couple of hours, but I am fresh enough, and sitting still is an impossibility. My money is now back in the tool box. I pass Elaine’s turn-off, and ignore it. I need time to think about Elaine, and thinking about things that upset me isn’t my strong suit.
In town I go to the only remaining bank, and deposit $20,000 in cash — half from the box, and half won on the races. The teller looks surprised and a little pleased. I know her. Yvette Hill. Her husband used to be a stockman on Ben Ruder’s place until he was smart enough to get out and get a job managing a farm nearer town. But the presence of Yvette means I am probably starting gossip that I don’t need to. If the notes turn out to be marked, I’ll say they must have come from the bookies. If not, then I’ll be able to go for broke, put my money into several accounts, and spend like a … well, like my father did. I’ll do that in a much bigger town than this one.
‘Yvette,’ I say, ‘you don’t happen to know a Dave Martin, another Dave Martin, who lives out on the eastern side of town?’
‘Of course,’ she says, and smiles at me like I am a cretin. ‘Everyone knows Marto. Lovely guy. A real hoot.’
‘Has he lived out there long?’
She shrugs, and blows her lips out. ‘Probably ten years, I’d say.’
‘Oh. Right. Thanks.’
When I step out of the bank onto the pavement, two police are waiting for me: the same two I have encountered twice in the last couple of days.
‘Mr Martin, I wonder if you would mind accompanying us to the station to answer a few questions?’ It is Murray. She is no more filled with a love of life than the last time I saw her.
I ask if it can wait. I have appointments. But they are not going to give me any leeway, because they don’t like me. So I walk with them, and wonder aloud what they might want to question me about. They don’t respond.
In a plain room in the brick police station, they give me a simple chair and start asking me about betting. Do I do it regularly? Do I put a lot of money on? Do I have a system? Am I in contact with people in the industry?
I tell them the truth, except for the bit about receiving oodles of cash in the mail. It is obvious where they’re going. They think I might be in on the fix with Kinky. It stands to reason. I’ve never been seen at the races, and suddenly I turn up and put heaps of money (which everyone knows I don’t have) on a horse with very long odds that happens to win. I’d lock me up, too. It’s circumstantial, but powerful nevertheless. They let me go, and it makes me confident that they are yet to prove the fix, because otherwise I would still be in there. When things go bad, they really go bad. And I’m still not caring that much.
On my way out, I am joined by Mrs Ruth Johnson, a friend of my mother’s back in the day, now an elderly woman who I’ve always liked because of the cheeky sense of humour she maintains in the face of the trials of old age.
‘Young Mr Martin, what would you be doing in the police station? Armed robbery again?’
‘Nope. Race fixing, but I might ask you the same question, Mrs J.’
‘I was here on official business,’ she says, raising her eyebrows and reaching out to grab my arm as we descend the few steps, ‘assessing the value of stolen porcelain …’
Mrs J is an expert in fine china, often called on (in her twilight years) by the Country Women’s Association to host assessment and valuation days as charity fundraisers. She has the air of someone who really has played the big time when it comes to fine china.
‘Well, that’s interesting.’ I cannot remove the sarcasm from my voice, but that’s okay because it’s part of the game we play.
‘It is interesting, actually. Because, you see, a box of it was found on the road, just out of town. A lot of it broken. Probably thrown out the window.’
‘Pity.’ I don’t bother to sound like I care.
‘No, it isn’t. It was complete rubbish. None of it would have been out of place on a $10 table at a garage sale. Don’t know why they bothered to call me all the way in.’ She only lives up the road, so I’m guessing it really must be rubbish.
‘Anyway, how are you holding up?’ She looks up at me, and mouths a grim grin.
‘Pretty well, thanks.’
‘Liar.’ She turns away from me to make her way up the gentle slope to her house. I would have liked to hug her. For her, and for me. ‘Don’t give up,’ she says over her shoulder, ‘You can’t. None of us can.’
‘Nice to see you, Mrs J.’
She thinks that by telling me about the porcelain she was imparting the most useless information possible. An extension of our private joke. And any other week it would have been, but today it was the opposite. If the crockery was crap, then the burglars have been duped. Did Elaine dupe them? Or was her aunt’s crockery simply not worth what she thought it was? These are pieces of
a complex puzzle I am too dim to put together.
As always, Mrs J makes me think of my mother.
I remember listening in on their conversations, smart conversations about people and politics broken up by caustic comments that they both obviously found very funny.
But my mother was a lighthearted person. ‘Take your hands out of your pockets, Dave,’ she always said, because her father had always said it to her and her brothers. People with hands in their pockets weren’t ready or willing to work. Mum did not like people who weren’t keen for work. I think her close friends, like Mrs J, were the same. If you were awake, you were moving — cooking, cleaning, ironing, gardening, looking after old people and young people, arranging flowers, sweeping, vacuuming, washing, and sometimes riding horses. If you were sitting down, you were sewing or mending something, or knitting. The only time you were still and unproductive was when you were asleep. I don’t remember her watching television for more than half an hour at a time. She usually read difficult books. There was always something to be done. And maybe she didn’t like sitting with my father while he talked about himself and his day. When I started to take notice of their relationship, in my teens, they never seemed to hug or touch each other. I thought it was because of the way they were brought up. Open affection was frowned on, and all that.
And she almost never laughed at his jokes. Not that I remember. I know from the good times with Sarah that when your wife laughs at your jokes, it’s not really about how funny you are. It’s about how much they like being with you. And it’s genuine, because they express it when they don’t really mean to. It might even be the highest form of female praise. My mother never allowed my father that praise, but I didn’t understand it at the time — I only remembered its absence years later when I felt the joy of making Sarah laugh.
I still think my parents loved each other, but there was just too much they disagreed about. Mum didn’t like the betting and the way my father spent money; and she grew out of being his domestic helper and doing what he commanded. I know she wished for independence — something she never really got. She loved the farm, but didn’t like the way it constrained her. The only way she could get a job, or meet lots of interesting people, or study to acquire a new skill was to leave the farm and her husband behind. She couldn’t do that, so she had to be content with what the farm provided. And my father couldn’t stop being his confident, overbearing self. So she couldn’t bring herself to laugh at his jokes.
I sometimes think that was why she was always so busy. Being incessantly active stopped her thinking about what she was missing out on. But in the end he didn’t let her down. Even when she didn’t know who he was, he visited her, took her out, and did as much as he could to look after her. Not that he knew anything about looking after people. But he certainly tried.
At the Fythe Trees turn-off, I pull into the table drain and stop, pretending to be making a phone call.
The Fythe Trees sign is peeling and nearly too faded to read, but the emergency services number, 696, is clean and shiny. Past it, I see a tan brick house, ugly and unloved. The garden is tiny: a messy, greenish strip that rings the house, reminiscent of so many other farm gardens where farmers are reluctant to give up profitable soil for unprofitable pursuits like quality of life. Nearby is a large open shed, and between the shed and the house there are pieces of machinery everywhere — some of them are supposed to be where they are, and others have been left where they stopped.
An old runabout is puttering between house and sheds, avoiding machinery as it goes. This bloke has no more idea about bundles of cash than I do. Maybe someone offered him a big sum to be involved, and maybe it’s just a coincidence. It prompts me to drive in to introduce myself. When I stop alongside a rusting front-end loader, a small man with sticking-out teeth walks over, wiping his hands on a dirty rag. He is bright and bouncing as he says, ‘G’day. How can I help you?’
I put my hand out and say, ‘Dave Martin.’
He smiles up his teeth. ‘Dave fucking Martin. I’ve been wanting to meet you for some time.’ He pumps my hand with the vigour of a man used to compensating for size with effort.
‘How the bloody hell have we never met?’ He stares at my face so intently, I feel like he’s expecting me to start looking like something he understands.
‘I really don’t know.’
‘So you haven’t got any of my mail?’
‘No. Never have.’
‘That is strange. We get the wrong mail all the time — perfectly addressed letters to someone five properties down the road, dropped off here. It’s like half the time they don’t bother to sort it. And yet two names and addresses very similar, and only one crossover. Bloody hell, eh?’
I shake my head in good-natured agreement.
‘How’s the season over your way?’ he asks.
‘Really good. We’ve been lucky with the rain.’
‘Get your oats in?’
‘No.’ I’m not giving him more than that.
‘I’ve got a pump for you somewhere.’
He bounds off, springs in his feet, electricity in his arms, and returns with a box.
‘There you go. Do you want a cup of tea or something?’
‘No, thanks. I’d better get going. Nice to meet you finally.’
We shake hands as I cradle the box. He knows it’s a pump, so he must have had a look inside.
‘How’s the play going?’ For some reason, I feel this could be the one question that might catch him out. The play, and the need for printed money, don’t fit into these surroundings.
Dave rolls his eyes. ‘The wife’s play? Real good, thanks. Some of the players even know some of their lines.’ He laughs like this is a favourite joke, regularly told.
I leave, thinking that nothing could be less strange or sinister. Dave is as true-blue as you get. It’s me who’s off-centre.
I pass through town without stopping. Since it is mail day, I’m pretty sure I can catch the mailman on his run, but I haven’t seen him anywhere. My timing is right, but he is not about. It must be one of those days that he hasn’t bothered to come — hangover or something. I reach my own street, Wilson Road, without seeing him, and give up on the idea. At Elaine’s turn-off I remember the way I left her, and think of how the encounter with Dave showed me how paranoid I have become. I take the turn, feeling I have some explaining to do, and suffering the guilt of knowing I left her alone when there were crockery bandits about. I tootle in her driveway, rehearsing lines of apology and explanation, and a suggestion: ‘Maybe we could get together again some time?’
Her place is peaceful and green. There are no machines running and no action anywhere. I’m beginning to feel regret at my suspicions and for maybe ruining what might have been a friendship. If I need anything in the world, it is probably friendship. In the distance, I can see cotton pickers harvesting cotton, and the trucks and tractors in attendance. But here the butcher birds are whistling a popular tune, and the light sun suggests good times are possible.
As I near the place where I have parked several times in several days, I see something white through the garden gateway on the lush lawn. It is the bright white of cockatoos feeding in a group. If there are cockatoos in the garden, Elaine probably isn’t around, and I am wasting my time. But my time isn’t valuable, so I proceed.
At the gate, I clap my hands, but no cockatoos rise from the lawn. I step into the garden, and my eyes try to adjust to a picture of a white shirt, ripped and marked, next to jeans both worn by a body lying on the grass. Bloodied hair is matted at the other end of the body. Elaine is face down, not moving. She has died because of my craziness, because I couldn’t do what any normal man would have done.
I stumble to her, kneel, and understand that I am wrong: she is breathing, and may be conscious. Her mouth is swollen, and a hank of hair has been ripped out of the back of her head. One hand is ben
t at an angle at her side. I kneel, and she moans something like, ‘No, no,’ and I know she thinks I am one of her attackers returning. I shoosh her, and she turns her head a little, and I see her eyes, unfocused but flashing with hope. ‘Dave.’
I call the ambulance and wait, talking as soothingly as I can, saying that the ambulance is coming and that everything will be all right, without having any idea what this means.
When the ambos arrive and take Elaine away, I somehow have the presence of mind to collect my bag from the corner of the room. I put it in my ute, and just then the police arrive: the same police, at the same house, with the same result. The police interview me — their suspicion has graduated to a sort of official boredom. And then Murray says, ‘Can we have a look at your bag?’
I give the calmest version of ‘uncomprehending’ that I can, under the circumstances.
She sighs. ‘We saw you put a bag in your ute.’
We walk to the ute, and Murray’s offsider roughly rips open my bag. The rifle amongst my clothes looks a hell of a lot like a murder weapon.
Murray’s offsider pulls on some plastic gloves, and takes the rifle out of the bag.
‘You’ve got a licence?’
I would be an unusual farmer if I didn’t. ‘Yes.’
‘I think we’ll hang onto this gun and your bag for a while.’
I consider asking about my pyjamas, but instead I just shrug and nod.
8
A week of insanity, and it’s over. Nobody asks me about the cash I’ve put in the bank; the police don’t bother me about race fixing or Elaine’s assaults; no one robs me or tries to bash me; no boxes arrive, with or without money. After I find her, Elaine goes to hospital for several days, and then remains for a few more under observation. The wrist is broken, but her teeth are intact. The doctor says she was hit hard several times in the face and thrown around a fair bit. They have no leads. I tell them about Buzzcut and his mates, but it doesn’t help.
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