Star Struck

by Ryn Shell

  It is terrifically hot at the moment. It has been around 108°F. It’s all right inside of course as it is air-conditioned.

  Looking out my window, I can see some of the other boys swimming. It looks quite inviting as it is nearly full tide.

  I’m definitely going home via Perth as it is still raining higher up, and the inland and far north is flooding. I’ll drive home along the coast via Albany, where I have heard it is beautiful. I wish you could be with me as I know you would like it.

  The Supervisors are happy with my work here. They keep asking me to come back on the next job which is driving a truck at the big iron crushing plant at Tom Price. I don’t think I’m going to accept, as I’d be driving between iron crushing plants and would be covered in red dust all the time. Even here, when they are testing, I get absolutely covered in dust. Me and my clothes are stained red with the stuff. I’ll need to scrub up to make myself fit to see you. Don’t worry. I should have the stain off by the time you turn twenty-one and you walk down the aisle in a beautiful bridal gown to me. With me making good money now, we might be able to get married sooner than we’d planned, if you want to. Rose, I can hardly wait to see you.

  I hear Dad coming, so I’ve got to sign off now and load his gear in the truck. Oh, Rose. I’m coming home to you—we leave to head back home tomorrow. I love you so much.

  Linton.

  3

  Next morning, Brian took the wheel. “You know that parcel of land in the Dandenong Ranges you used to visit?” Brian changed gears.

  Linton buckled up his seatbelt. His pulse raced as he looked at his father’s ridged expression. “What, Rose’s family’s land?”

  Neither man spoke for a few minutes. The truck rumbled along the rough road leading out of Dampier.

  Changing gear and accelerating, Brian wriggled deeper into the seat, then glanced across at Linton, who’d not taken his eyes off him. “Sure.” Brian’s eyes scanned the road ahead. “The land that the young girl you were messing with wanted to turn into a berry farm?”

  Linton relaxed, thinking of Rose he smiled. “We were planning to.”

  “There’s no ‘we’.” Brian took his eyes off the road for an instant to witness Linton’s reaction. “Rose and Trevor are getting married.”

  Brian swung his focus back to the road, unwilling to meet Linton’s shocked gaze. “You are to be cool about it. You’re too young to get married, and Rose needs a husband.”

  Linton’s howled, a loud cry of anguish. His hands clawed at his face striving to smother his wail.

  “Pull yourself together,” Brian snapped. A lump rose in his throat, and he turned his head to glance in the side mirror least Linton see he cried too. “It’s not that bad a mess,” he murmured. “The women back home have worked everything out. Us men don’t get a say in these things.”

  A wind gust sprang up out of nowhere and buffeted the truck so that Brian needed both hands straining to control the steering. Father and son leant forward to strain to see the road through moist eyes and the red dust.

  Neither man spoke. Brian tried to get some modern music on the radio but could only pick up the ABC.

  As dusk fell, Brian pulled into the Minilya River roadside stop. The dried up river bed, old petrol bowser and lack of facilities other than a verdigris-covered water tap and bucket did little to bolster the men’s disheartened moods.

  Brian made an effort to be cheerful. “Thank goodness it is all bitumen from here to Perth.”

  Linton didn’t answer.

  “That dust got in everywhere.” Brian stripped to his underpants near the petrol bowser. He filled the windscreen wash bucket with water and tipped it over his head. “Wash my back, son.”

  “Wash your own damn back.” Linton strode off, walking to the dry riverbed.

  The discordant noise from hundreds of galahs shrieked at him from the treetops. Linton never heard them. His thoughts were tuned into Rose.

  You are still my girl, Rose. You always were, and always will be. I’ll keep writing to you. My love. My only love.

  Linton walked back to the truck stop ready to take his turn driving.

  Brian’s plans of sleeping were scrapped. A fire, which at first was seen running parallel to them in the distance, gradually moved closer to the side of the road. Linton increased speed hoping to outrun in. It took him an hour before he saw the end of it. By that time the fire was within twenty feet from the road, the road surface was melting, and the air inside the closed truck was acrid and hot.

  “Pull over at the roadhouse ahead and let’s eat,” Brain said. “I remember from the way up, it was good food, even if rather expensive. You made good time on your leg of the drive, son. We can slow down tomorrow. It’s pretty around Carnarvon. Tomorrow we’ll do a detour to the blowhole and nip down to the beach.” He cast Linton an anxious glance. “Take a dip in the ocean.”

  “I’m not interested in stopping to swim,” Linton said.

  Brian grinned. “Heard there are girls in skimpy bikinis on the beach at Carnarvon.”

  Linton scowled and shook his head. “I just want to get home and talk to Rose.”

  “You’re not to mess things up.” Brian flung his door open and jumped to the ground.

  “I’ll fix a misunderstanding.” Linton folded his arms across his chest and gritted his teeth.

  “Rose will be happy playing house for real,” Brian yelled as he strode around the front of the truck. “Trevor gets his wish to be a sissy and grow flowers.” He flung open Linton’s door. With his brow creased he muttered, “Now, everyone’s happy.”

  “Don’t make me cry.” Linton stared into the distance with his chin tilted high. “I’m hungry—cafe is open—and I can’t go in because I’ve made a fool of myself—crying.”

  “Yes, it’s been one hell of a day.” Brian nodded his head. “Both of us are beat. You did good getting us out of that fire. It came too close for comfort.” He extended his hand and grasped Linton’s arm. “Come on, son. Both of us have watery eyes from the smoke. Let’s eat and find something strong to wash the dust from our throats.”

  4

  The gathering in the small town church turned at the sound of the organ. There was no maid of honour; no friends stood by her on this day; they were not allowed to mix with bad company. Linton’s eyes locked on Rose as she entered, a small figure in the ill-fitting ivory gown. The dimples he’d loved—gone.

  His gaze strove to drill her forehead, her lips, her throat, seeking her attention. Her response: unflinching and non-receptive. Rose, he screamed inwardly. He silently called to the hidden, happy girl he’d loved to come back and replace the hollow-cheeked teenager. This different Rose’s thickened waist and breasts had developed at the expense of a girl’s once softly curved arms and lovely face.

  The only indications that this Rose was aware of her surroundings were the slow steps she took bringing her towards the altar.

  She was close enough for Linton to smell her perfume. Tea rose—sort of outdoorsy floral and earth—nothing heavy or sophisticated—the scent spoke of youth and freedom, like the Rose he had known, the Rose he longed to see a glimpse of today. If she would only look his way, he’d reach to her and find her. Linton had posted the scent to her when she turned sixteen—same as him. It was the first thing he bought out of his first week’s wages as a truck driver’s assistant.

  The gift came with the best shot he could manage as a love letter. He’d called her his girl. She was meant to know that means a boy loves you and wants a girl to wait for him—to let him grow up a bit more before he can do stuff like getting married. He hadn’t known she was pregnant; no one had told him. Heck, he couldn’t even support himself yet, but he would have stood by her and done everything right. No one had asked him to or given him the chance.

  Linton fought for stomach control—for her. If this were what she wanted, he wouldn’t ruin it.

  “Rose,” Minister McKendrey whispered. “This is where you…”

  Linton
’s parents, a tall, blonde forty-something couple, Brian and Jean, sat at the inner front row on the groom’s family-and-friends side of the church.

  In the bride’s parents’ seating, Ray and Bess sat dressed in country tweeds, with matching pepper-and-salt hair poking out of tweed hats.

  Both sets of parents squirmed.

  The wooden seats became harder as the morning sun rose in the spring sky; an abnormally early-season heatwave had arrived. It was rendering the prepared plates of chicken and mayonnaise sandwiches suspect and souring the cream on the wedding banquet desserts.

  The Rose’s parents frowned. She was supposed to know her role. They’d drummed it into her enough. Everything that needed to be said had been said while Linton had been kept away from events of no further concern to him. Linton’s brother Trevor had proved to be a godsend. They’d solved another parental worry—what to do with a son seemingly disinterested in women. Everyone was happy with the arrangement. Well, everyone who mattered, the parents believed.

  It had all been said in the lead-up to this day. Both the bride and bridegroom understood all that was expected of them. As for the best man, Linton, he could put up with how things were to be, shut up and be grateful, and then get back to working as an apprentice to his truck driver father. The eldest son could back out from becoming his dad’s right-hand man in the trucking business. It was a role he had never been cut out for. Trevor could grow flowers now. That was his part of the bargained compromise.

  “For God sake, say I do,” Brian hissed at Rose.

  “Nice girls don’t,” came a whisper from a central aisle.

  “Shush!” Ray said.

  The sounds carried through the sparse congregation—family and a few friends who’d felt compelled to attend a wedding proving itself to be about as joyous as a funeral, and a hundred times more embarrassing for the families involved.

  Jean looked pityingly at her youngest son, Linton. She jolted when a hand touched her from behind.

  “It wasn’t his fault,” a lady in a hat encrusted with pink plastic roses whispered from behind Bess.

  “Shush!” Ray glared at the back of Linton’s head. “Lucky rascal that your dad saved you.”

  Linton opened his mouth, saw Rose’s skin turn paler than her dress, and shut it.

  The gossip began as whispers.

  “You only had to see the way she looked at him to know she would get him into trouble,” the groom’s usher muttered.

  Said by the usher on the bride’s side of the aisle at full speaking volume: “Statutory rape!”

  Shouted back by the groom’s-side usher: “Shut up and get on with it!”

  “The slut was under age,” came from the weather-beaten lips of a head just barely visible behind a plastic hat.

  Ray stood, whirled into the aisle, fists up, heading towards the groom’s friends.

  The church was in an uproar. Only Linton and Rose stood silent—she quivered on the spot where she’d stopped, a metre back from the line she’d been told to step up to beside Trevor. Linton’s eyes were unable to tear free of willing her to look at him and tell him what she wanted him to do.

  The minister manhandled Rose’s father back to his seat and swung around accusingly to address Linton. “At sixteen, you could have been hauled up on a charge of an act of indecency to a minor. That’s a criminal offence, boy,” he hissed near Linton’s ear. “You’re damn fortunate to have such good parents who have sorted things out for you.”

  McKendrey gripped Rose’s chin, lowered his face several inches from hers and snarled. “The boy could still go to jail if you don’t do what is deemed proper. Now toe the line and obey your parents. Promise to obey this fine young man.” He grasped Trevor’s shoulder and forcibly shoved him at Rose. “Be a man and put some feeling into it.”

  A murmur of approval resounded around the room from Rose’s family, along with a few disparaging comments as to Trevor’s manhood.

  As the comments settled into silence under the stern glare of Minister McKendrey, Rose and Trevor took a half step apart.

  “Nothing left to say aside from ‘I do’.” Minister McKendrey grasped Rose and Trevor’s hands and placed them together.

  A pause in the ceremony thumped by as Rose and Trevor clutched each other.

  Reading the eye dance between Rose and Trevor, Linton wanted to scream, “Break time! They want to talk,” but he continued his fool’s role and waited for someone else to say it—no one did.

  Brian drew a wad of crumpled cotton from his pants pocket and blotted his forehead. “The girl should be bloody grateful.”

  Jean coughed nervously hoping to drown out his whispered aside. She grasped Brian’s handkerchief as he was about to replace it, and dug her nails into the folds.

  Bess’s shoulders tightened. She nudged Ray. He jolted in shock as the minister prompted his girl to say her line.

  Another moment throbbed by before Rose’s barely audible voice was heard.

  “I do.”

  Bess sighed.

  Linton sweated profusely. He’d have grabbed Rose and raced her away with him, if only she had looked at him, told him that was what she wanted. He’d have fought them all for her if she’d needed her freedom protected.

  Trevor placed the ring on Rose’s finger.

  Why hadn’t she asked him for help? Her finger was still too small for a wedding band. She shouldn’t be married; she’d only just turned sixteen. It wasn’t fair. She should be climbing trees with him, going to school with him, riding bikes, frolicking, anything but marrying his brother in this stuffy church. His fault. His dad and Trevor were right about that. God, he’d let her down. Hell! Shit! Linton studied Rose with concern as he pulled his fingers roughly through his hair.

  Jean and Brian’s eyes bore into their foolhardy younger lad as if beseeching him to behave like a man and not disgrace them again.

  Fortunately, they decided, the girl had known her place. She avoided meeting Linton’s eyes and had kept her head bowed, for most of the ceremony, as was appropriate, given the girl’s disgraceful past conduct.

  Minister McKendrey led Trevor and Rose to a side table to sign the Certificate of Marriage and then pointed the way to their escape from the overheated room.

  The parents followed. The mothers embraced.

  “What a beautiful wedding,” Jean said.

  “The young couple—didn’t they just look radiant?” Bess dabbed an eye.

  Jean nodded. “Perfect.” She adjusted her hat. “I hope the lamington cakes haven’t dried out in this heat.”

  Bess tugged at the creases in her frock. “And the ants haven’t got to my sponge cake.”

  The mothers quickened their step and charged past the newly married couple heading for the church hall to supervise the wedding buffet.

  Linton stood stock-still, exactly as he’d been through the farce. He’d performed as asked. His parents had beseeched him to behave and not make a fool of any of them. Rose had not answered his attempts to contact her. Everything was settled. Too late to change things now.

  She’d been stoic, rather than relaxed—far from a happy blushing bride. Did she understand how he loved her?

  He heard her voice coming from within a congestion of guests clustered around the exit. Stepping up on to the stage by the altar, he watched her.

  “The mascara’s irritating my eyes.” Rose pushed out from them and ran out into the open, away from everyone.

  Linton fought an impulse to bolt, grab Rose’s hand and keep running with her. Instead, he shuffled uneasily out of the church by a side door. He was out of his depth, and he knew it. Tugging at his too-tight collar, he yanked off the white necktie and undid the top two buttons. He kicked at the dirt and scuffed his brightly polished leather shoe. He didn’t want to be a part of the festivities. He wanted to get back on the road. He needed to get away. He wished he could go further than his dad’s truck could take him.

  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) h
ad announced the Skylab project. They’d build a one hundred ton Skylab that would be America’s first experimental space station. That would be far enough away. One mission ended; another planned. Linton wished he could move on in his mind like that. His sweetheart, Rose, would give birth at sixteen to his child. Because he’d acted like a scared boy, he could now only ever be his own kid’s uncle. He’d be known to his child as an interstate truck driver, invited home for the family Christmases, weddings and funerals. That was all he could ever be for the ones he loved most.

  Well, he’d be a distant uncle his child could be proud of. He’d be the brother-in-law Rose would always know she could depend on. He’d not let her down again. He’d even try be a decent brother to Trevor.

  Darn it! Trevor was walking towards him. He’d been a stupid fool and cried; no hiding that from his brother; he’d probably want to hug and cry with him.

  Trevor surprised Linton with the confidence in his step and cheerfulness as he handed Linton a pint of beer. “You’ve earned it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Cheer up. Things won’t change as much as you think.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Rose, you and I, we’re always going to be great friends. Nothing has to change.”

  “I don’t understand.” Linton didn’t want to understand. It wasn’t that he disapproved of Trevor’s ways; it was just, they were Trevor’s ways and not his. He couldn’t see Rose feeling that nothing had changed.

  “Dad and I are leaving tonight.” Linton kicked hard enough to dent the toe of a fancy leather shoe.

  “Heard you two are going to do the route across the Nullarbor Plain. That will keep you away from home a lot. Bit tough on Mum—and Rose.”

  “Dad and I thought it would be easier for you and Rose. When I found out that you got asked to marry her, I wanted to bust your gut for agreeing.”