Refuge

by Richard Rossiter

  Most evenings, when his father came home, he would say little, just start cooking tea for the three of them. He didn’t seem to know what to do about Quentin’s mother, so he ignored her. And his son. On weekends, if he wasn’t working, it was different, especially if there were other kids around. There would be drinking and music and pot and he would be everyone’s friend. He didn’t seem like a father, and Quentin thought he was nicer to the other boys, and some of the girls who came with them, than he was to his son. He would ask them questions about what they were doing, take them down to his shed and show them things he was working on, his ‘inventions’, mostly messing around with electronics.

  Sometimes, if his mother hadn’t roused and his father wasn’t home, Quentin would cook a meal for himself. He enjoyed being in the kitchen and pretended he was doing something special, like a chef, and talked to himself as he worked. ‘Firstly, we dice the pork. Then the marinade, honey and teriyaki, with some slivers of ginger. We set this aside. And then …’ He was one of the few boys at school who took the cooking option, and noticed that he wasn’t teased, like the other two boys in his class. This was before people became famous for doing the same thing on TV. It was years later that he realised he possessed an edginess that worried some people. He wasn’t violent, but there was a feeling that he could be. Or perhaps they left him alone because, when pushed, he wasn’t lost for words.

  Tinny was a quiet and serious student, good at sport. English and history were his favourite subjects at school, and later at university, where he also studied philosophy. When he finished his degree, he had acquired both knowledge and sensitivity which he had not possessed beforehand. And a few friends. But he had no idea what he was going to do. He felt he was a loose arrangement of parts that could be purposefully rearranged, if he knew what to aim for. Then his father died in an accident in the harbour, crushed between a ship and the wharf when he tried to fix someone else’s mistake. Apart from the house, there was no other money, although his father had invested in some flats; he had been going to renovate them but had never got around to it. Quentin had promised to help with the painting, and he would have. His mother went further downhill and spent lengthy periods in hospital. In the end it was her liver that packed up, even though her drinking was curtailed in the retirement home, where she’d willingly moved after selling the house.

  Quentin had some money and didn’t want to stay in the city. So he headed south, where he rented an old farmhouse not too far from the coast. It was pretty basic but he loved living there; occasionally he shared with one or two others, but most of the time he lived by himself. He read every book he could get his hands on, usually from the book exchange in town. He bought a Holden station wagon and an aluminium dinghy with an outboard. From a farmer nearby he picked up a border collie, the runt of the litter that no one else wanted. ‘You can have her for nothing, Quent.’ When he ran out of money, he went up north. At first he worked on a shearing team. When he said he had a degree from university, they looked at him suspiciously. Jake in particular—‘I’ve got a degree, too, from the university of life’—and the others laughed. Quentin learned to pull his head in and another Quentin emerged, where the bits held together so long as he didn’t think too hard about it. Many years later, under difficult circumstances, there was yet another change—and this time he felt it was for real. He went to the mines for five long and dirty years; he became the life of the party, then back to the south-west. He saved every cent he earned. They called him Tinny.

  He started doing odd jobs to keep himself busy. He made a sign: Tinny Thompson, Handyman. No job too small. And propped it up on the branch of a small tree where no one would see it. He bought himself an ancient International; he was fond of this tractor. It was old enough to be his father—his grandfather, even. He went fishing and sometimes surfed on a boogie board. He learned the coast and the surrounding bush on every day of the year, became attuned to the changing light, the sounds, the movement of clouds, the strength of the wind. Above all, he fell in love with the ocean as if it was just waiting for him, its endless shifts, the colour of the water, the shape of waves, turbulence over reefs, and what the fish might or might not be up to. Sounds of calm, restlessness, major disturbance. Water so flat you could walk on it. Waves so wild the tops fell off and you couldn’t see what was land or water or sky. He talked to himself and felt, at times, ecstatic. Once every few weeks he would go to the tavern, drink too much and spout nonsense. He drove home slowly through the trees, muttering human talk and dog talk. ‘Watch out for kangaroos, Sal.’ And she’d wag her tail and peer more closely into the dark. Sometimes a girl would come home with him and stay for a night, or a week. A couple of them stayed longer, and would have been there forever if he hadn’t got bored with them, their sweet and talkative natures. He wanted someone with a harder edge, not that he knew that—at least, not in words. And then he met Prue Browne, who had simply refused to leave. ‘I can’t go home,’ she said, ‘because this is my home, with you. I am where I’m supposed to be.’ At the time, he didn’t argue.

  Thirty-four

  At four and a half Prue was too young for school, and, with no husband, no caring father, Rose needed to go back to work in the library full-time.

  Six months earlier, Dick Browne had said he’d had enough. ‘It’s the last straw,’ he said. ‘This bloody country. Talk about Mr Average. What’s the name of that comedian fellow, Edna Everage? That’s who I work with every day. And now Mrs Average has been promoted, got the senior lecturer’s job. Because she gets on all the committees, smiles at the idiots. Writes papers, boring as batshit—no one in their right mind would bother reading them.’

  Rose looked at him, exhausted. ‘Do you remember why you left England, why you came here? Remember those people in the department, the first-year courses you had to teach for too long? All your complaints?’ She told him it was all being repeated. And if he moved to another university, another department, it would happen again. Same story.

  ‘So it’s my fault—nothing to do with the dills I work with?’

  ‘Dick, I don’t know. You’re never happy, wherever you are.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’ve learned something by coming here. Twenty years behind the times, and likely to stay that way.’

  Three months later and Dick was on a plane, back to London. The past, or the future. He’d asked for leave from his job, but the university wouldn’t give it to him. So he resigned. He was going home to see his sick mother, but Rose knew he wouldn’t come back, even if Dick didn’t.

  Mrs Frawley was a godsend. A woman sent by God, thought Rose, who was occasionally moved by deep religious feelings. She said she was happy to look after Prue—in her own house, in case the phone rang; she was bored and didn’t have enough to do during the day. Twice a week Prue went with Mrs Frawley to a playgroup, which operated from a house in the next street. ‘No,’ she told the young mothers, ‘I’m not her grandmother, just a friend. The lady next door, you know. My husband died a few years ago, and my son, Anthony, well, he comes and goes. Drops his washing around. Stays to dinner when it suits him. And sometimes the night. Hovercraft—is that what they’re called? Or perhaps a boomerang, something like that.’

  There were mornings when Rose dropped her daughter at her neighbour’s and Anthony answered the door. He always smiled, as if he was very pleased to see Prue standing there. ‘Here’s the little princess, come to visit. My mother will be pleased.’ And he would take Prue’s hand and walk with her down the passageway, calling out to his mother as he went. Rose liked him. He looked a little scruffy, but that was okay. There were men who came into the library like him. They were avid readers who didn’t seem quite focused on what they were doing as they returned books and borrowed new ones. She presumed their minds were elsewhere—perhaps inside the last book they’d read, or thinking about the next one. They often came in during the middle of the day, or afternoon, so she thought it was likely they didn’t have jobs; not full-time, anyway.
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  One night, after dinner, Anthony knocked on her door. He said he had a message from his mother: she had a doctor’s appointment the following morning, but Rose needn’t worry as he would look after Prue, if that was alright with her. He had a quizzical smile on his face, and it sounded to her that he was speaking lines that were rehearsed, as if he wasn’t quite there with the words he was saying. Perhaps he’d been drinking.

  ‘Would you like to come in, for a moment?’ She was surprised by his presence at the door and the news about his mother. She knew she needed to think about what he was saying, to find out a bit more.

  ‘Sure,’ he said.

  They walked to the back room, where a wood heater was burning. She had been sitting down, reading a book and drinking a glass of wine.

  ‘Yes,’ he said to her query. ‘I’d love one.’

  He told her he would need to drop his mother at the doctor’s surgery, and pick her up. ‘It’s nothing serious, and Prue can come with us. She’ll be fine.’ He sat down in the chair nearest the fire, where Rose had been sitting. ‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’ And he asked her about work as a librarian. ‘Do you like being around books all the time?’

  ‘Yes, I love it. And the people—the public, I mean. There are some odd types on the staff, but you’d find that anywhere, I think.’

  He told her he worked as a plumber, but only when he felt like it. His favourite books were science fiction, and crime novels.

  He was nice to look at, Anthony, with his green eyes, tousled fair hair, and, she supposed, his boyishness. He hadn’t arrived at being a man, an adult one. Perhaps he never would. When he left, after a second glass of wine, she proffered her cheek to him, to say goodnight.

  The next day, when she picked up Prue, the little girl told her about playing on the swings, and how Anthony pushed so hard she went flying up into the air, very high. Mrs Frawley told her the doctor said there was nothing to worry about.

  A week later, Anthony asked her to go to the pictures with him, and she did. His mother would babysit. Later, they sat by the fire and talked and drank a glass of wine. Dick phoned, but she told him it was far too late to speak to Prue, who was just settling down after being collected from next door. He didn’t say when he would be back, and she didn’t ask.

  Thirty-five

  Rock and Skel had negotiated another visit to their mother. It was school holidays and there was little that Tinny could do to stop them. He was a divided man when it came to the future of his children. When he said, ‘Why do you want to do that? Holidays here are wonderful,’ he felt immediately embarrassed. ‘Of course you can go, but not the whole time, eh?’ They agreed on a week.

  Once again they caught the bus, stayed in Prue’s apartment and met Alex. This time Rock felt there were few awkward pauses, and when Prue had to go to work she was happy to leave them by themselves—and they were happy to wander the city without an adult. On their first night Alex had come around for dinner. It was different from the way they ate at home. Here the table was set very neatly and there was a small vase of flowers in the middle. They asked Prue whether they could help, but she said they should sit down and relax after their journey. She brought dishes to the table and served each of them in turn, beginning with Alex. She said bon appétit before they began to eat. For a while there was silence and then Alex asked about living in the country, what it was like.

  The boys looked at each other.

  ‘It’s good,’ said Rock.

  And Skel nodded.

  ‘What’s good about it, do you think?’ asked Alex.

  ‘Well,’ said Rock, ‘it’s relaxed, more than the city. You’re free to do things. You don’t have to worry so much about other people stopping you.’

  ‘It’s open,’ said Skel, spreading his arms.

  ‘Yeah, and you’re your own boss,’ added Rock.

  Alex nodded and didn’t say anything.

  Later, Prue asked them what they really liked about the country.

  Rock shrugged. ‘The bush and the coast. You sort of feel connected and you can explore and you don’t really know what’s there. It’s hard to explain.’

  ‘What do you think, Skel?’ asked Prue.

  ‘The same, and there’s other things.’

  Skel told her about a story they’d read in class. There was a little girl whose family was poor. There were lots of children and they had no father. The mother was very worried because she didn’t know how she would feed all the children and pay all the debts. There were gas bills and electricity bills and water bills. And bills from the grocery store and the butcher. If she didn’t pay them, then the family wouldn’t have any water or heating and wouldn’t be able to cook their food, if they had any. It was wintertime and the girl had quite a long walk to go to school. Her clothes were not warm and her shoes were broken, so her feet got wet and cold. On the way to school she walked under a subway, where there were signs stuck up saying Post No Bills. The little girl didn’t know what to make of this.

  One evening, as it was starting to get dark and black clouds were blowing fast through the sky, the girl’s mother was sitting at the kitchen table looking sad. The other children were making lots of noise, squabbling over whose turn it was and who was their best friend. The girl asked her mother, ‘What is the matter?’ And her mother replied that she didn’t know what she was going to do, because there was not enough food in the house to feed them. The little girl went outside and walked down to the end of their backyard and through the fence to where the neighbours kept chooks. She carefully unlatched the gate of the pen and looked around in the boxes for some eggs. She was amazed. She saw so many eggs in one of the boxes that she knew she couldn’t carry them all. She rushed back to the house to tell her mother. Her mother looked at her and said, ‘They’re not our eggs. It means the hen has gone clucky and she is sitting on the eggs so that they will hatch out into chickens. But we’re hungry, so I suppose we could take some of them and leave the rest for the hen.’ She gave the little girl a basket. The little girl ran back down the yard, but when she got to where the eggs were, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She saw a large piece of crumpled white paper. There was not a single egg for her to gather.

  ‘And that’s the end of the story,’ said Skel.

  ‘That’s a strange story,’ said Prue. ‘Especially the bit about the paper. How could you mistake paper for eggs, even white paper?’

  ‘I don’t really know. Maybe if you really want something, you can get tricked?’

  ‘I suppose. Perhaps—in the opposite way—I got tricked by Tinny’s skeleton.’

  ‘How?’ asked Rock.

  ‘I’ll tell you about it another time.’

  When they were going off to bed, Skel told his mother that they hadn’t read the story in class—that he’d made it up, made up the story, and he didn’t know why.

  Thirty-six

  After their visit to the city, there seemed to be more afternoons when Rock and Skel didn’t know what to do with themselves.

  ‘If you’re bored,’ said Tinny, ‘you can come and help me with the firebreaks.’

  He would do those around the perimeter of the block, even though the shire also wanted another break around the shed. If the breaks weren’t up to standard and a fire started near their place and burned out national park, or their neighbours, they would be in trouble. They would be sued and have to pay damages on top. So Tinny had agreed to the perimeter clearing but said they could bugger off about the shed. It would ruin the outlook and it wasn’t insured and he didn’t care if it burned down. He would clear Greta’s boundaries at the same time, even though they didn’t know where she was, or whether she would be back.

  Skel and Rock followed the ungainly tractor around as Tinny pushed ti-tree and peppermint off the overgrown breaks with a small bucket, and every now and then formed a heap at the side. Any rocks or roots that were left behind they threw to the side of the track. There was the fresh smell of leaves and dirt and the pe
rfume of anise from one of the tiny plants that grew there. It had a cluster of pink and mauve flowers. They didn’t know what it was called, but Rock thought it must have been used by the Aborigines for medicine. ‘Maybe for their cuts, or if they got a cold. I reckon it would do you some good.’

  ‘Try it,’ said Skel. ‘We could put in some ti-tree as well. They sell that oil in little bottles in the shops, even in the chemists.’

  ‘Yeah, but you don’t get the oil by boiling it. You need to crush it, with a press.’

  ‘I’ve tried it before, with ti-tree. The water goes greeny-brown, like putting tea in the pot.’

  ‘Ti-tree tea. Oh. Did you drink it?’

  Skel walked ahead.

  Later, Tinny came along with his chainsaw and chopped the knobbly ends off the peppermints, where the roots were. ‘Great for the fire,’ he said, and stacked them in the back of the ute. He cleared a space around the heaps. ‘We’ll let these dry out for a bit, and then try burning them before the fire ban cranks in.’