Wool Away, Boy!

by Alan Blunt

  5

  THE GIRL AND THE HONEYEATER

  In the New Year I did a run with Alex Meekin, the legendary Charleville shearing contractor. A team of thirty – including fourteen shearers – signed on at Milo, a historic station near Adavale. Johnny Flett from Newcastle was a good mate on the Ferrier press; Snowy Hales was the gun shearer, followed by Les Goodman, a Charleville champion. As was his wont, Snowy organised weekend sports. I took my gloves to the Adavale pub, where Darcy Delaney and I put on exhibition spars. Luckily for me Darcy didn’t possess the skill or power of his older brother, Kevin, who had won the Australian welterweight championship from the great Queensland fighter Tommy Burns.

  The first day there I asked the babbler, Stan – known as The Honeyeater – ‘Can I swing a tea towel for yer? I’ve got form! Mum trained us kids young.’ Cooking for thirty men with no offsider and close to pension age, Stan was glad of a hand and happily accepted, and we soon became yarning and fishing mates. Bill, a wool roller, was another of Stan’s fishing mates and also a willing helper with kitchen chores.

  Quiet and inoffensive by nature, Bill had been a quality shearer for thirty years until his failing back finally made him throw in the towel. With a home and a wife and family in Toowoomba, he could have secured a steady job with the famous Southern Cross Foundry or the Toowoomba Council, as many ageing shearers did, but like a lot of bush people he found the noisy constancy of city life depressing. Missing the camaraderie of old mates, and the natural music of the grey-green bush, he had enlisted in Alex Meekin’s team as a shedhand.

  Busy as he was, Stan found time to read and chat. A precise, religious man, he liked to season a wide general knowledge with a keen interest in sport and politics and a pithy wit. Formerly a good shearer, he was now rated a crackerjack babbler who took pride in the produce and cleanliness of his kitchen and strictly policed his rules. ‘Respectable dress in my kitchen’ meant shoes and shirts to be worn for all meals; and carnal bad language and any jokes or talk disrespectful to women would see The Honeyeater fluff his feathers and drop on the perpetrator with the fierce righteousness of a wedge-tailed eagle on a careless bunny.

  After Milo, eight shearers went to Ray station for eight days’ work. Snowy Hales pulled out at cut-out to go opal gouging and a team of six went to a couple more sheds. The team worked smoothly, but Stan was becoming a bit touchy, as babblers often do after a few months in the bush working alone seven days a week from four in the morning till nine at night. One day Bert, a jovial part-Aboriginal shearer, bowled in the door for dinner, calling, ‘Hi-ho, Cookie! What’s on the menu today, you greasy old bugger?’

  It was the kind of boisterous entry he’d often made before, especially on a Friday, when his mood was inflated by the promise of a weekend’s rest from grinding sweaty toil, the welcoming arms of his wife, and a few bets and beers on Saturday arvo – followed by Sunday with the family at the footy barracking for the Charleville team.

  The babbler usually responded in good part, but now he exploded, ‘Don’t call me greasy, you clown. A man’s job depends on his reputation. I don’t go around calling you a snagger.’

  The shearer took a pull. ‘Sorry, Cookie, just joking … I never guessed you were so touchy.’

  Flourishing a large vegetable knife like a blood-thirsty Excalibur, Stan shouted, ‘Why wouldn’t I be touchy cooking for an idiot? And don’t call me Cookie! My name’s Stan … Got it? Stan!’

  With his plate loaded, Bert joked as he scuttled to the far side of the table, ‘Make room for me, boys, so I can sit down before the babbler cuts me down.’

  The jest drew laughter, but the old hands knew better. Back on the board Les Goodman opined, ‘It won’t be long now before Stanley will be taking a month or so off at his fishing shack on the beach. Great place, Wynnum! Me and the wife have visited The Honeyeater a couple of times. That’s the life! Clubs, pubs, no hot weather … No bloody sheep! I dunno why he comes back at all. He owns the shack, an’ he’s got a quid. But he’ll be back come July, an’ he’ll say, “I’ve got to help old Alex out” – that’s always his excuse.’

  The shed cut-out on a Wednesday afternoon, and the team was to sign at a neighbouring property on the following Monday. The Charleville men headed for home and Stan went with them, intending to stay with friends. I had phoned ahead and received permission to camp in the neighbour’s shearing quarters, where I could enjoy some shooting and fishing while waiting for sign-on.

  After pressing-up the last of the clip I drove to Quilpie. Zulu was ensconced in the passenger’s seat. Now a year old, he had grown into a playful, humorous mate, a watch dog, an effective penning-up dog and a fierce hunter of roos and wild pigs. He was also a good team player and enjoyed fielding at cricket, even if he often took off with the ball. Over time he had become expert at a man’s job which nobody wanted on frosty mornings: swimming across a waterhole dragging a cord attached to a fish net.

  I ate a cafe meal of steak, eggs and chips before booking a room at a pub and going to the bar. With a beer in hand I moved to a corner where I could chat up the barmaid, if she was in the mood.

  Alice was a tall, slender, sandy-haired girl of nineteen, who had arrived from Brisbane only a week earlier. She was working the 2pm till 10pm shift and was too tired to meet up afterwards, but agreed to take a drive to see the shearing shed on Thursday morning, as long as she returned in time for work.

  It was a thirty-mile drive to the property. Zulu was banished to the back seat, and Alice lit up a cigarette. She told me that she was an office worker and she’d left Brisbane because of a broken romance. Seeing the Quilpie job advertised she had decided on the spot that a change of scenery and a new job would be good for her. ‘So here I am!’

  I pulled in at the homestead – as required by protocol – and introduced myself. As we drove on a mile to the shearers’ quarters I was confident I had good reason to feel as happy as the proverbial Larry: an attractive girl sat by my side, and I felt pleasantly optimistic that given time she might be interested in activities more amorous than wandering through a shearing shed.

  I was surprised to see Stan coming out of the kitchen to meet me. ‘G’day,’ he hailed, but when he saw the girl his welcoming smile disappeared. ‘What’s she doing here?’ he asked, ignoring the girl’s feelings.

  ‘Alice is with me,’ I said shortly, and took her hand. I escorted Alice to the shed without mentioning Stan, and wandered through the sheep yards and the shed, explaining how it all worked.

  It was a shearer’s tradition to always invite a traveller to share a meal, and though hostile towards the girl Stan still served a lunch of cold meat and salad, maintaining his silence while she and I conversed in a tense atmosphere.

  In an effort to defrost the cook’s mood, I exclaimed enthusiastically, ‘Bewdy, Stan! Fresh lettuce and tomatoes. You’re a wizard!’ To Alice I said, ‘Stan’s got a few old girlfriends around the station cooks. They all greet him with a happy smile and fresh veggies.’

  Stan snapped, ‘They’re not girlfriends. And they don’t employ a station cook here. The missus gives me veggies every year – from her garden. I’ve been coming here for four years. I’m respected. We called in here to drop the kitchen gear and some stores off on the way to town. I knew you’d be here, Alan, so I reckoned I’d stay and we could throw a line in and catch a few fish.’

  Stan’s attitude remained churlish while we ate, and when Alice offered to wash up he barked, ‘No need to get your hands dirty, girlie. I’ll do it!’ Rebuffed, she wandered off along the verandah. I began to follow, intending to apologise for my mate’s unexpected behaviour, but Stan rose and grabbed my arm. ‘You had no business bringing her out here; she’s nothing but a slut. She’s been kicked out of a brothel in Brisbane. Jimmy the publican has brought her out. He does that – brings out sluts!’

  His attack was so vehement and certain, that I surmised they must have had previous acquaintance. ‘Do you know her?’ I questioned angrily.

 
‘Never met her. But I can pick ’em. She’s diseased – look at the pimples on her face. She’s one of Jimmy the publican’s sluts. He brings ’em out all the time. They get on their backs and he makes a quid on the side.’

  ‘You dirty old bastard,’ I snarled into Stan’s face. ‘You don’t even know her. She’s a respectable girl. If anyone else spoke about a woman like that you’d chuck them out of your kitchen. You bloody old hypocrite.’

  The clatter of the girl’s shoes on the hardwood verandah and the swing of the gauze door truncated the row. ‘I want to go back to town. Please take me back to town,’ Alice pleaded between sobs, holding a handkerchief to her face. She halted a few feet away. As I looked at the distressed girl in her off-white cotton dress decorated with yellow daisies my anger evaporated, to be replaced by shame for my friend’s outburst and empathy with the girl. She was my responsibility.

  Alice ran towards the Volkswagen, while Zulu sprinted ahead and leapt through the window. Burrowing her head into a cushion against the door, Alice sobbed, impregnable to my attempts to apologise and explain. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I just dunno what came over him. He’s a mate of mine – usually a champion bloke.’

  I drove off and twenty minutes passed in miserable silence before Alice dried her eyes and sat up. Reaching over the back, she patted the dog, then lit a cigarette and said bitterly, ‘Have you got any other friends like that nice old man?’ I was relieved she was talking again, but the sharp edge of her scalpel found me struggling to find an answer.

  ‘He’s jealous, you know,’ she said. ‘That’s what’s wrong with the old man.’

  ‘Jealous? Jealous of you and me?’ Cocooned by youth’s inexperience, I believed that jealousy was sparked only by conflicting desires for men and women of the opposite sex. She gave me a knowing smile in reply.

  I said, ‘Stan’s far too old for you! Two or three times your age! That doesn’t make sense.’ Twenty years passed before I finally understood. Twenty years later, when life had impaled me on the spiteful spears of jealousy and revenge, the scene revisited me and I realised I had been as thick as a brick: Stan had resented her invasion of his man’s world. He was jealous of Alice’s claim on the attention of the young man he had taken under his wing – his fishing mate.

  We pulled up behind the pub near the staff quarters and I put an arm around her. ‘When can I see you again?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘I’m working till ten o’clock, but it’s not much use. I’ve decided to go back to Brisbane.’

  ‘Is that about today? About Stan?’

  ‘No. The old man had nothing to do with it.’

  It was my turn to be wise. I grinned and exclaimed as brightly as I could, ‘You’re going back to a boyfriend! I’ll betcha guineas to gooseberries.’

  She looked at her toes and scuffed her feet before frankly meeting my gaze. ‘Maybe, but not yet. I don’t like it here. I don’t like bar work; people are all over me. I told Jimmy the boss. I gave notice! He’s a friend of Dad’s and he’s got me a lift on a wool-truck – all the way to Brisbane.’

  We kissed fondly and, still chafing from the hurt of my row with Stan, I decided to drive on to Charleville rather than spend a tense long weekend in the bush. Returning in time for tea on Sunday, Stan greeted me abrasively. ‘If you’d had the decency to tell me you were going to Charleville, Alan, I would have gone with you. You left me stuck out here in the bush like a shag on a rock.’

  ‘Is that so?’ I replied coolly.

  The exchange was our only conversation for several days apart from chilly courtesies. Yet, we harboured an innate liking for each other. On the Thursday night Stan asked, ‘What are your plans for the weekend, Alan? The boys are going to town, and Bill and I are going to throw a line.’

  I accepted. It was an offer to let bygones be bygones; an opportunity to fill in a quiet weekend in the bush restoring friendship and energy. I would stoke up the copper early and get the washing done before taking my rifle and Zulu for a pig chase before lunch; and after idling the arvo away there would be a quiet night’s fishing with Bill and Stan.

  6

  THE SHEARING CONTRACTOR

  Bill and I went frog catching for bait on Friday night. Bill carried a sturdy green-stick waddy in one hand. He announced, ‘I’ll go ahead with the torch and watch out for snakes.’

  ‘Keep a good watch, mate,’ I advised, grinning in the darkness. ‘If a man gets bit by a big mulga snake he’s a goner.’ I tied up a disappointed Zulu, for snakebite is usually fatal to dogs, and caught up with Bill.

  As we were picking our way through lignum bushes bordering a creek I threw a stick between Bill’s legs and yelled, ‘Look out, Bill! Snake!’

  The stick snagged in Bill’s trouser cuff. Convinced he’d been fatally fanged and had only minutes to live, Bill swung his waddy and danced the quickstep while the torch beam waltzed wildly through overhead coolibah branches. Nearly speechless with laughter I managed to shout, ‘It’s only a stick, Bill. You’re alright! Take it easy, mate!’

  Bill tumbled six feet into the dry creek bed, and his yells of terror turned to gasps of pain and a shout of anger: ‘You stupid bastard, Presser!’

  With his arm around my shoulder Bill struggled from the creek and dragged a leg across half a mile of rough ground to the huts. I felt gutted: rough play was fun among fit young blokes, but I’d been careless of Bill’s age and infirmity; my thoughtless rowdiness had wrecked a workmate’s back. His only complaint, however, was: ‘Bloody sciatic nerve is pinched again, Presser. I’ll be laid up for two or three weeks.’

  Bill related the story of the backfiring joke, and in response Stan dealt me a furious tongue-lashing that I knew I deserved. Solicitously, The Honeyeater made Bill a mug of cocoa, and the stricken wool roller swallowed a couple of painkillers he carried for such emergencies. In the morning he struggled from his stretcher, and I assisted him to a chair in the sunlight. ‘Lucky you’re a tough old bugger,’ I joked half-heartedly.

  ‘Don’t feel bad, son. These things happen. But I’ll get you to run me to the hospital in Charleville.’ He squeezed a grin as he eased into the chair, and said gamely, ‘I’m as stiff as a honeymoon prick, Presser. But I’ll be right once I warm up.’

  Stan was mopping the dining-room floor when I entered nervously, looking for breakfast. ‘There’s some boiled eggs and bacon,’ he briefed me. ‘Make yourself some toast and take a feed over to Bill. And then come back and fill the fridges with kerosene. I’m going to town, too.’

  We loaded our gear into Bill’s FJ Holden sedan. Groaning, he crawled in a rear door and lay down on the seat. I took the wheel and Stan took the window, while Zulu, who waxed fat on his friendship with babblers, sat up grinning between us on the bench seat. He was soon scrambling all over Stan to look out for roos and pigs. Stan took this rough assault on his neat sports coat and trousers surprisingly well. ‘Pull over, Alan,’ he said. ‘If Zulu wants the window seat that much he can have it, and I’ll sit in the middle.’

  When we regained top gear, Stan observed, ‘It’s one of life’s great mysteries: if you blow in a dog’s face he’ll panic, but put him in a car and straight away he’ll stick his head out the window and grin and bark happiness into a fifty-mile-an-hour gale.’

  I began to relax, for The Honeyeater was returning to his habitual informative feisty character. Coming into Quilpie he said, ‘Let me off at the post office, Alan. I’ll ring Alex and tell him he’ll need a shedhand and a cook, while you fill ’er up.’

  Quilpie to Charleville was a punishing drive over a rough-as-guts dirt road, and cushioning Bill’s back as I negotiated bone-jarring potholes, grids and corrugations made the journey much slower than usual. Bill suffered without complaint, save shouting a couple of times when a spring bottomed, ‘You’re a worse bloody driver than Alex Meekin, Presser.’

  After leaving Bill at the hospital, I dropped Stan at his mate’s place and drove to Alex Meekin’s home.

  It was close to three o’c
lock when I ran up the worn front stairs of Meekin’s old Queenslander. On the verandah I slowed down at the open double door to his office.

  Alex Meekin’s good name was a byword wherever shearers yarned – from Hamilton in Victoria to Cloncurry in north-west Queensland, from Broken Hill to Goulburn and Longreach.

  I had enjoyed the run with the fabled contractor. I’d earned good money and found fair dinkum workmates; and through yarning and listening I had formed the impression that the Old Boss saw himself as a father figure; a rough-around-the-edges mentor of worthwhile young men seeking a future in the uncertainty of the shearing industry.

  During the 1956 shearers’ strike the contractor had stuck with his old hands and the Union. Chuckling gruffly, he would recall, ‘Before the fifty-six strike I was the biggest private shearing contractor in Australia. Now I’m the smallest.’ In fact, his teams still shore several hundred thousand sheep per year.

  The contractor had just paid off all but two stragglers of one of his shearing teams. I waited by the open doors and heard the young brothers in warm debate with Alex. ‘Can’t you place us together, Mr Meekin?’ George, the younger brother asked firmly.

  Alex, who was seventy-two, was sitting down behind a large old desk, occupying the only chair. Although he usually had respect for the men he employed he didn’t want them dropping into a chair to debate or argue with him at length. Speaking gruffly in the loud voice of the hard-of-hearing, he insisted, ‘As I said, George, I’ve placed you wool rolling starting Monday, but I haven’t got a possie in that team – or any other team – for a learner shearer like your brother for a fortnight. You know it’s always chancy until the end of the financial year. From July I can keep both of you going till the end of November.’

  ‘You promised to keep us together and in work,’ Frank accused. ‘And I’m not a learner! I’ve had a pen for twelve months – and I shear over a hundred a day.’