Crow Country

by Kate Constable

  Waaah! called the crow. It let itself fall from the branch, as if it might tumble to the ground. Then with one lazy flap of its wings, it rose into the crisp blue air, higher and higher. The green and yellow country rolled below, dotted with trees, snaked across with roads and creeks and fences. The crow circled once, a black mark against the blue. And then it was gone.

  As Sadie let herself into the house, Ellie straightened up from the box she was unpacking. Her long fair hair swung over her shoulders, and her green eyes flashed.

  ‘And where did you disappear to? I don’t want you running off without telling me where you’re going.’

  Sadie muttered, ‘I thought the whole reason we moved to the country was so I could be a free-range kid.’

  ‘If you want to be free-range, you have to be responsible. Anyway, I need your help. You’re thir- teen now, you’re old enough to pull your weight. You can’t expect me to do everything!’

  Sadie scowled. ‘So I’m old enough to unpack, but I’m not old enough to be consulted on major life decisions like where we’re going to live?’

  ‘Don’t make me go through this again. You know we couldn’t possibly afford a house this good in Melbourne – three bedrooms, close to the shops, right beside the lake.’

  ‘Right beside the railway line.’

  ‘Oh, there’s hardly been a train go past since we’ve been here!’

  ‘Just shows how dead this town is,’ muttered Sadie.

  ‘It’s lovely here, Sadie. I’ve got as much work as I want; I can walk to the hospital; you can walk to school. It’s a sweet little town, there’s the lake, and the birds. It’s beautiful! Just give it a chance, for God’s sake.’

  ‘You only came for holidays in the summer. You didn’t have to live here.’

  ‘Things change, Sadie,’ Ellie said sharply. ‘You have to learn to adjust. When you were born, I thought I’d never cope, but I did. When your father left, I adjusted. I couldn’t sit around sulking and moaning and spreading negativity—’

  ‘I’m not,’ Sadie growled.

  Suddenly Ellie performed one of the lightning about-faces that so charmed other people and made Sadie furious. Ellie dived for her daughter, squeezed her tight and rained kisses on her ear. Sadie struggled to free herself.

  ‘Get off, Mum!’

  ‘Let’s not fight, Shady-lady! I hate it when we fight. I know, why don’t we trot down to the oval and watch the end of the football? It’s Boort versus Wedderburn. It’s the clash of traditional rivals. Possibly.’

  ‘Okay,’ mumbled Sadie.

  As they trudged past the RSL building on their way to the ground, Sadie said, ‘Did you know there are Hazzards on that war memorial outside the pub?’

  Ellie laughed and linked her arm with Sadie’s. ‘Of course. One of them’s my grandfather.’

  ‘Serious?’

  ‘Clarry Hazzard, your great-grandfather.’

  ‘He was in the war?’

  ‘World War I. He fought in France.’

  ‘Did he get killed?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. The memorial is for everyone who went to fight, not just the ones who died. If he’d been killed, I never would have been born and neither would you. No, he came back all right. He married Gran and had four kids and ran the shop across the road from the pub.’

  ‘That little shop on the corner?’ Sadie was slightly disappointed. It would have been a much better story if he’d been killed in the war.

  ‘Hey!’ protested Ellie. ‘It was a great little shop. People used to shop in Boort from miles around, from all the properties in the district. In those days you couldn’t just jump in the car and drive to the supermarket, the local shops had to stock everything . . .’ Ellie sniffed ecstatically as they reached the oval. ‘Mmm, barbecue! I want a sausage in bread.’

  Sausage in hand, Sadie trailed Ellie around the edge of the ground, weaving between spectators until they found a clear space on the fence. A ring of cars was parked inside the fence, on the trotting track that circled the oval.

  Ellie poked Sadie in the ribs. ‘There’s a group of kids. Go and talk to them.’

  Sadie squirmed. ‘No.’

  ‘You have to make some effort if you want new friends. Chat to people. No one’s going to talk to a lump.’

  ‘I am making friends,’ Sadie muttered.

  Ellie bit into her sausage. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  Sadie turned away to stare at the footballers. A young player in a black-and-white striped jumper leapt into the air, his mop of fair hair flying, and pulled the red ball out of the sky. Cheers erupted and car horns blared around the ground.

  A middle-aged couple in black-and-white scarves clapped and whistled wildly. ‘Carn the Magpies!’ yelled the man. ‘Great mark, Lachie!’

  The woman glanced at Ellie. ‘That’s our son. It’s his first game in the seniors.’

  ‘Great mark,’ said Ellie earnestly.

  Sadie almost choked on her sausage. Ellie was showing her how to make friends; Sadie knew that her mum knew nothing about football.

  Ellie smiled at the woman. ‘Is it – it is Amanda, isn’t it? You probably don’t remember me – Ellie Hazzard.’

  The woman looked Ellie up and down. She seemed frosted from head to toe, as if she’d been dusted in powdered ice from her sculpted blonde hairdo to her chilly smile. ‘Oh, I remember you.’

  ‘In the back!’ bawled the man, oblivious to everything but the game. ‘Are you blind, umpire?’

  ‘And you remember Craig, of course,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Oh!’ Ellie juggled her sausage, suddenly flus- tered. ‘I didn’t recognise – without the hair – hello, Craig.’

  The man swung round. He was bull-necked, and shaven-headed to disguise his baldness. He gripped Ellie’s hand in his own square, red one. ‘Ellie Hazzard. Well, well, well. Heard you were back. Wondered when I’d run into you.’

  Ellie laughed uneasily and tried to tug her hand away, but Craig wouldn’t let go. She put her other arm round Sadie and pulled her close. ‘This is my daughter, Sadie. Sadie, this is an old – an old friend of mine, Craig Mortlock. And Amanda.’

  ‘We got married.’ Amanda slid a possessive arm through Craig’s and gave Ellie an icy smile.

  As if Mum would be interested in her fat old husband! thought Sadie.

  ‘That’s our Lachie out in the middle,’ said Craig. ‘Number 29. Did you see him take that mark?’

  Ellie managed to wrench her hand free at last and tucked it safely in her pocket. She and Amanda were both smiling stiff, polite smiles.

  ‘You a football fan?’ Craig asked Sadie.

  ‘Not really,’ mumbled Sadie.

  ‘We’ll have to change that,’ said Amanda. ‘The football club holds this town together. And the net- ball club, of course.’

  ‘I heard you bought Gwen Reed’s place,’ said Craig to Ellie.

  ‘I hope you didn’t pay too much?’ said Amanda.

  The three adults began to discuss real estate, and Sadie stopped listening.

  She leaned on the fence and stared at the game, not really understanding the action. She found herself watching for number 29, the tall boy with the shaggy fair hair. He was two or three years older than Sadie, younger and skinnier than most of the other players, but he hurled himself at the ball with reckless courage. Even when the older, bigger men trampled him or knocked him aside, he’d scramble up and throw himself at the ball again. Sadie gazed at him, the last bite of her sausage forgotten in her hand.

  ‘Wah?’ came a voice from behind her. ‘You want that?’

  Sadie whirled around. A crow stood nearby, watching her with its head on one side. She thought it was a different crow – it seemed smaller, and more ragged, less glossy than the first one – but it was hard to tell.

  ‘Wah?’ said the crow again, indicating the remains of the sausage.

  ‘Um, sure,’ said Sadie blankly, and tossed over the last chunk of charred meat. The crow stabbed it feroci
ously and gulped it down.

  ‘Waa-aah!’ said the crow with satisfaction, and flew off with uneven strokes, its wings rustling like taffeta.

  ‘Hey, dreamy.’ Ellie was nudging her.

  Sadie turned back to find the game had finished and the crowd was streaming away. Little kids spilled over the fence, kicking mini footballs. The air was beginning to chill as the sun slid to the horizon.

  ‘Who won?’ said Sadie.

  Ellie grimaced. ‘The Redbacks whipped us. Hey, guess what? It turns out we are traditional rivals after all. Poor old Maggies.’

  In the distance, Sadie saw Boort’s number 29 jog up to Craig and Amanda. Craig slapped him on the back and he ducked his head shyly so his hair flopped into his eyes.

  ‘That Lachie’s pretty cute,’ said Ellie. ‘He should be in a boy band.’

  ‘Mum!’

  Ellie laughed and tucked her arm through Sadie’s. ‘No law against looking.’

  ‘There were Mortlocks on the war memorial, too,’ said Sadie.

  ‘Oh, the Mortlocks own half of Boort. They’ve got a huge property called Invergarry. I suppose it belongs to Craig now.’

  Invergarry. So the dried lake belonged to them . . .

  Sadie said, ‘Did you know Craig and what’s-her-name when you were kids?’

  ‘Mm. And – later,’ said Ellie vaguely. ‘Craig asked us back to the pub, actually. But I thought we’d better not.’

  ‘How come?’ It wasn’t like Ellie to refuse an invitation.

  ‘Oh, you know . . . busy, busy, unpacking, unpacking . . .’ She released Sadie’s arm. ‘Come on, I’ll race you home.’

  Three days a week Ellie was supposed to finish her shift at the hospital in time to walk home with Sadie after school. The school and the hospital were practically next door to each other, but no matter how long Sadie dawdled, Ellie was never ready to leave when she arrived.

  On Wednesday Sadie made her way to the emer- gency department. As usual, there was no sign of her mum. The nurse on duty smiled and said, ‘I’ll let her know you’re here, love.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Sadie took a seat and tried not to stare at the only other person waiting – an Aboriginal boy Sadie had seen around at school. He was sitting on the other side of the room, flicking through a magazine. He was in Year 8, a year above her. He was new this term, too; he’d come from Mildura, up on the Murray River. Everyone knew he’d been in trouble with the police, though no one seemed to know exactly what he’d done. Someone said he’d stolen a car, someone else said he’d stabbed a kid in a playground, and someone else that he’d been caught dealing drugs. Everyone agreed he was ‘psycho’.

  Sadie stared at him from beneath her eyelashes. He had wild curly hair and smudges of shadow under his eyes, and the corners of his mouth turned down. He didn’t look like a psycho or a criminal; he looked kind of sad.

  ‘Sadie!’ Ellie swooped down on her, smiling and breathless.

  ‘You’re late,’ said Sadie coldly.

  ‘Sorry, I lost track of time; I ran into someone.’ Ellie’s eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She glanced over her shoulder at a man with pale-brown skin and a wide smile. ‘Sadie, this is an old friend of mine, David Webster. He’s a social worker; he looks after this whole area. We knew each other years ago. I can’t believe I didn’t run into him till today! I can’t believe he still lives here!’

  ‘Come and gone a bit. Haven’t been sitting on my bum by the lake the last twenty years.’ David grinned and stuck out a big, warm hand to shake Sadie’s.

  ‘How you doing, Sadie?’

  ‘All right,’ Sadie mumbled.

  ‘Perk up, sweetheart; I’m not that late!’ Ellie ruffled Sadie’s hair, and Sadie squirmed away, frowning. Ellie rolled her eyes. ‘Kids!’ She and David smiled at each other.

  ‘I’ve invited David and his nephew to dinner,’ said Ellie. She glanced around and waved to the Abori- ginal boy. ‘Hey! You must be Walter! Come and say hello; we won’t bite. I know, I’ve got a great idea – you can come home with us now while David finishes up here! You had school today, right? You can do your homework at our place, then you and Sadie can hang out together.’

  Nooo, thought Sadie in agony.

  Walter moved closer to David and almost imperceptibly shook his head. David slung an arm across Walter’s shoulders.

  ‘He’ll be right with me,’ said David easily. ‘We’ll be along in an hour or so.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ellie. ‘Okay. See you soon.’

  Sadie stumped behind Ellie back into town, in the direction of the IGA supermarket.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ said Ellie.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t crack the sads with me. David’s a lovely guy; you’ll like him.’

  Sadie glared at the pavement.

  ‘And be nice to Walter, okay? You’ve got a lot in common.’

  ‘Yeah? Has he got a crazy mother too?’

  Ellie threw her a sharp look. ‘As a matter of fact, his mother isn’t very well, so you might want to keep remarks like that to yourself.’

  ‘Okay, sorry,’ muttered Sadie.

  ‘I meant you’re both new in town, that’s all. You could help him a lot. Walter’s had a hard time. He was in some kind of trouble in Mildura, that’s why he’s moved here to live with David.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Everyone knows,’ said Sadie crushingly. It didn’t occur to her till later that she’d missed her chance to find out what, exactly, Walter’s trouble had been.

  They walked into the IGA and Ellie began searching the aisles for curry ingredients.

  ‘Not as much choice as in Melbourne,’ observed Sadie.

  Ellie frowned. ‘Now listen,’ she said, halting sud- denly in front of the rice shelf. ‘I’m going to tell you something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘David and I,’ Ellie said in a low voice, ‘well, we used to go out together.’ She glanced about, but there was no one within earshot. ‘Years ago, before I met your father. But it was – difficult.’

  ‘Because he’s black?’

  ‘Yes, partly. Mostly.’ Ellie hesitated, and dropped a packet of basmati rice into the basket. ‘It was – complicated. There was stuff going on. We were young. We just didn’t know how to make it work. But we’re older now and hopefully wiser.’

  ‘Jeez, Mum, you just met him again five minutes ago. How do you even know he wants to go out with you?’

  Ellie laughed. ‘He told me he’s single. And I picked up a certain vibe. Don’t you think there was a certain vibe?’ She punched Sadie’s shoulder. ‘Dontcha reckon? You think I’m rushing things again, don’t you?’

  Sadie frowned. Like you rushed into moving to the country. Like you rushed into breaking up with Dad. Like you rushed into asking Walter back to our place when he doesn’t even know us. But she didn’t say anything.

  Ellie got flustered when she was preparing a big meal; she didn’t cook well under pressure. So Sadie wandered down to the end of the backyard. Even though their house was fairly new, it had still accumulated a pile of junk. A dead fridge leaned tipsily against the shed, and an abandoned old ute was slowly sinking into the ground in the shadow of a low-spreading mallee gum.

  Sadie climbed into the cabin of the ute, tipped her head back and gazed up at the leaves and the darkening sky through the gap where the roof had rusted away. A pink-and-grey parrot was squawking in the branches of the tree.

  ‘Seen any crows around?’ Sadie asked the parrot.

  ‘Nope.’

  Sadie jerked upright and banged her forehead.

  Walter leaned his arms along the empty window-frame and peered in at her. ‘Your mum sent me out here,’ he said. ‘Said she’d yell when dinner’s ready. You all right?’

  Sadie gingerly touched her forehead. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘C’n I get in?’

  ‘There’s only room for one.’ Sadie showed him where the driver’s seat had been yanked out. She wrenched the door open and clambered out. ‘We can
sit under the tree if you like.’

  Walter shrugged.

  Night was beginning to creep across the paddocks beyond the railway track. Sadie hugged her knees and hoped dinner wasn’t far away. She picked up a feather from the ground and began to draw on her shoe. With a start she realised it was a crow’s feather and dropped it as if it had burnt her.

  She knew Ellie would interrogate her later. Did you talk to Walter? Did you try? Sadie never knew how to talk to people. Crows: yes. Humans: no.

  ‘So – David’s your uncle?’ she said awkwardly.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You live with him now?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What about your parents?’

  Walter shrugged, staring into the dusk. After a minute he said, ‘Mum sent me down here. Thought Uncle was the best one to look after me. We got some family round here. Auntie Lily and Auntie Vonn live here in Boort too. You know ’em?’

  Sadie shook her head.

  ‘Got some cousins in Wedderburn. Couple more aunties in Kerang.’ Walter fell silent. Then he said, ‘Things weren’t too good in Mildura.’

  Sadie didn’t know what to say. She wondered if it was true that he’d stabbed someone, but she was too scared to ask. She stared up at the sky. A single star glowed in the depths of blue. She said, ‘My dad’s out west. He’s an engineer with a mining company. He’s making heaps of money.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Walter.

  ‘He says he might move to Dubai. Or Africa.’

  ‘Long way.’

  ‘Yeah. But so’s the west. And he emails all the time.’

  ‘So you don’t need another dad,’ said Walter.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And I got my own mum. So I don’t need a new mum, either.’

  They looked at each other in the gathering dusk; it was getting hard to see. ‘Glad we got that sorted,’ said Sadie.

  Walter made a soft noise that might have been a chuckle. ‘Uncle says your real name’s Saturday. Reckon he was having a joke with me.’

  ‘No, it’s true,’ sighed Sadie. ‘But no one ever calls me Saturday. I hate it. It’s a stupid name.’