The Never Boys

by Scott Monk

  ‘You’re not exactly easy to talk to.’

  ‘And you’re not exactly easy to trust.’

  Flinching, he let her have her win. For now.

  ‘Okay, let’s start again,’ she said, pulling off her gloves. ‘But this time let’s get the basics right. I’m Amanda Kaesler. And you are?’

  ‘An — er, Dan — er, Dean.’

  ‘Well, what is it? Anne? Dan? Or Dean?’

  ‘Dean. Just Dean.’

  ‘Show me your hands.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Hands. You know: the two things attached to your wrists.’

  He raised them.

  ‘Not like that — like this.’ Ms Kaesler grabbed him with her soil-rough fingers and almost gave him a Chinese burn. ‘These are the softest mitts I’ve ever felt. You’ve never done a hard day’s work in your life.’

  ‘I have so.’

  ‘Washing dishes doesn’t count.’

  She let go and Dean clenched them by his side.

  ‘Wheel this back into the garage,’ she ordered. He took the gas cylinder to the coach-house, then found Ms Kaesler sitting on the tractor. He waited by the rumbling engine but she was focused on writing on the back of a service manual.

  ‘Hello?’ he yelled, convinced she’d drive away without a yes or no.

  ‘All right,’ she answered, changing gears. ‘One day’s work — no more. I need a rouseabout — an experienced one — but you’ll have to do for now.’

  ‘What time do I start?’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘What-time-do-I-start?’

  She checked her watch. ‘Thirty minutes. You’ll work four runs — each two hours long. First smoko’s at nine-thirty. Lunch’s at midday. Afternoon tea’s at three. And knock-off’s five-thirty.’

  ‘How about money? — Mon-ey!’

  She killed the engine and leaned forward, almost insulted at its mention. ‘I pay the shearers per sheep and the rousies by the hour. This year it’s thirty-eight bucks.’

  Dean quickly did the maths. Three hundred dollars!

  ‘If you don’t like the money or how this place is run — tough. If you don’t like my attitude — get off my property. If you think the work’s too hard — I’ll kick you off myself. I look after my men here and I expect them to look after me. So don’t come knocking on my door in an hour, crying that you’ve changed your mind. Do what the other rousies tell you and stay out of the shearers’ way. Understand?’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  ‘And you can cut that out straightaway. It’s Ms Kaesler or — as the men call me — the General.’

  He nodded.

  The tractor restarted and rolled forward. ‘I s’pose you haven’t had breakfast either?’ she shouted.

  His stomach growled.

  ‘First smoko’s at nine-thirty. You can eat then.’

  Chapter 2

  Hoofs scratched and skated across the apple wood slats as one of the shearers wrestled a ewe from the shed’s catching pens. Lanolin greased his thick fingers as they dug deeply into the warm wool and dragged the kicking body towards a station. He clamped the small wigged face between his knees, grabbed the clippers from their hook, then set in on his task. Metal teeth trimmed the merino’s belly, neck, sides and back, piling great blankets of fleece on his soft-soled slippers. He severed the last piece then jettisoned the ewe’s naked body through the chute behind him into the yards outside. Banging open the catching pen’s swinging doors, he shanghaied another from the flock then set the shears on it.

  Off to the right, another teenage rouseabout parachuted the fleece on a table of rolling steel rods. A second helped him raven over it, picking away stains and stripping off skirting. The woolclasser then graded it, bundled it in the corresponding basket and manned a hydraulic press when enough had piled up. A metal plate dropped down and squeezed the wool into two hundred kilo canvas bales, which were branded with the Kaesler name. Finally, a pair of handheld hooks pierced their sides and dragged them to a corner, ready to be trucked to market late the following week.

  The shearing shed was a furnace. Hundreds of breathing, bleating animals and men added to the trapped heat, already fouled by the smell of urine, fresh droppings and testosterone. Four stations operated by an equal number of singleted shearers droned loudly and hummed up the legs, hips and spine before stopping behind the eyes. Sheep pressed together and, unable to move, waited their turn under timber rafters stencilled with dead men’s names and draped with rusty bale hoops. Grey light struggled through small filthy windows while, clearly out-of-place, a basketball ring haloed a wide rolling door.

  There was no time to watch. Straightaway, Dean joined an eighteen-year-old Japanese-Australian rouseabout with an explosion of blue hair at the skirting table. Their job was simple: plucking turds from the fleece. At first he thought it was a joke. A payback from the General. But quickly he realised it wasn’t as the other boy picked at the wool. There were no gloves or tongs. Just fingers. Worse, some little black balls were still moist. Gingerly reaching to touch one, he reminded himself it was only grass and saliva. Grass and saliva. Grass and saliva —

  ‘Faster! Faster!’ the blue-haired rousie pushed.

  ‘Remove them too,’ an Aboriginal boy added, pointing to the dark patches. ‘Maggots!’

  Dean blanched.

  Just as he finished the first fleece, a second, then third were thrown across the table. As quickly as they cleaned one, another replaced it. Soon the fleece began to pile up and his inexperience slowed the production line. Another set of hands helped out until the other rousies shouldered him aside.

  A broom was thrust into his hands. ‘Clean away the locks.’ The what? ‘The locks! The locks!’ Dumbly, he swept everything in front of him — dags, belly wool and manure — until the Aboriginal rousie rescued him. Soon, he got the hang of it until he stood too close to a ewe and copped a cracking hoof to the knee. Rather than sympathy, though, the shearer gave him a gobful. ‘I warned you about my space! Now get over there!’ This invited another to give him grief. ‘Pick up those skirtings!’

  He shied away from the shearers. They ruled the shed with their sneers and jealousy. The competition was extreme. Each man raced the others to see who could clear the most sheep within the two-hour run or who had the cleanest cut. The older hands didn’t want to be shamed by a shearer three times their junior, and the latter to shout everyone the first round at the pub.

  ‘Don’t put those in there! That’s for bellies only!’

  Cheeks burning, he reached for the wool before anyone did it for him.

  When the morning’s first run finished and the generator powered down, he welcomed the quiet. His head throbbed and his feet still buzzed. Using the bottom of his T-shirt to mop sweat and lanolin from his face, he sat alone on an upturned cast-iron bath, feeling miserable and hating flies. Already he’d started rehearsing his excuses to quit.

  ‘Dearman?’ the General called, tallying shorn sheep in the counting-out pens.

  ‘Thirty-six.’

  ‘Sellick?’

  ‘Forty.’

  ‘Tonkin?’

  ‘Thirty-nine.’

  ‘Ryan?’

  The youngest shearer answered, ‘Forty-three.’

  The men whistled.

  ‘Did you shear some twice?’ the head shearer joked.

  ‘Only those you couldn’t finish, gramps.’

  The workers catcalled before breaking into laughter. One voice short, a rousie asked what had happened to the “pony boy”.

  ‘Hey, whatcha doing here?’ the young shearer named Hayden asked, finding Dean behind the shed. ‘Come and meet the guys.’

  Parked next to an empty grain bin, the General’s ute served as a table during smoko. Three plates of sandwiches were cleaned within moments of the plastic wrapping being peeled back, while ice water and cordial on tap belched in squat, plastic coolers. He wolfed down a ham, cheese and lettuce triangle, followed by turkey and salad on wholemeal. He coul
dn’t scoff them quick enough. Two days he hadn’t eaten. Now this — a banquet!

  Seagulling the scraps, he stood behind the other workers until Hayden mentioned his name. After a short introduction, the men weren’t coy in saying hello.

  ‘Mate, what’s happened to your hair?’

  ‘Did you cut it yourself or what?’

  ‘Maybe we should use the clippers on him.’

  Red-faced, Dean ran a hand over his mangled hair and winced a smile.

  ‘I reckon he’s scraped a dead cat off the highway!’

  Hayden chucked a scrunched up plastic wrapping at this last clown. ‘Ease up,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the ugliest melon in the Barossa but your missus still lets you in the front door.’

  ‘Only when it’s dark!’

  More laughter led to more jokes, but Dean was grateful. He and his hair were forgotten.

  ‘Take no notice of them,’ Hayden said, slapping him on the shoulder and scattering a hundred flies. ‘They always stir the new guy.’

  The second run was just as frantic as the first. Already behind, the rousies posted him back at the skirting table out of necessity rather than choice. Each fleece had to be cleaned in less than fifty seconds. ‘So no slacking off.’ Motors shuddered, merinos squirted and pale pink tongues bleated as blades continually carved off wool. Occasionally a shearer would stop after shovelling a ewe outside to arch his back and pop a kink. Sheep after sheep, hour after hour, day after day it was always the same. Nothing like the romantic image of station life immortalised in old Australian ballads.

  The cramped heat worsened come noon. It was a dry, heavy Mediterranean-style heat that lasted long into the night. With even the walls sweating lanolin, the men started to get light-headed and mistakes were bound to happen. The oldest shearer slipped and accidentally slashed open a wether’s neck. Warm, fatty blood ran down Dean’s arms as he held down the stunned animal and watched the old man desperately sew together the wound with needle and thread. He could still feel the animal’s spit on his cheek when he heard the bullet’s crack.

  Grass and saliva. Grass and saliva —

  Soon he realised that Hayden was the young gun of the shed. He was a fast, clean cutter and tireless. It surprised Dean that a guy his age would want to tough it out in a place like this. He was nineteen, he guessed, less than a year out of high school and probably one of those drifters who didn’t know what he wanted to do. Tall with hazel eyes, blond hair and wide lips, he had a firm jaw that had never been touched by a razor and a small hoop pierced through his left eyebrow. He wore the standard outfit of the shed: tight singlet, jeans and slippers. One look at his build marked him as an athlete. Worse, a very good one. Maybe a ruckman for a country footy team or a cyclist toned on the Barossa’s hills.

  ‘Dean!’

  Whatever, he seemed like a half-decent bloke.

  ‘Dean!’

  An elbow jabbed him. Oh yeah. That was his name.

  ‘Clear those piles!’

  Lunchtime. Thank goodness. He splashed his face in the sink as the other workers left for the homestead. It took him another five minutes to scrub the lanolin, blood and black crust from under his nails.

  The smell of freshly cooked corned beef led him to the homestead’s screen door, where he squeezed out of his boots. Chinking forks and knives echoed down the main hallway laid with jarrah floorboards and wallpapered with ribbons from the annual Adelaide Show. He passed a sitting room full of fancy furniture that looked too expensive to use and cupboards of fine crockery too good to eat off. There were also photos of prize-winning rams and the Kaeslers themselves: the General, her elderly parents and at least one daughter. He stopped to study her. Eleven years old, puppy fat and braces like a greyhound muzzle. Why pay to see a horror movie when one went to the local school?

  ‘Quick! Grab a plate,’ Hayden urged him when he shuffled into the kitchen in his socks. ‘Else you’ll be fighting the worms for scraps.’

  If morning tea was a banquet, then lunch was a feast. Cold ham, potato salad, relish, beans, corn cobs, baby carrots in a caramelised sauce, saffron rice, cheese, beetroot, cherry tomatoes, fresh loaves, mustard bread and steaming warm beef covered the table. He had never seen so much food. Hunger stifled any manners. He filled his plate as fast as he could his stomach.

  Shortly, the stitching of hands across the table slowed. Cool drinks helped wash down the meal as an electric fan blew the conversation round the kitchen.

  ‘Who was it this time?’ the head shearer asked as Hayden returned to his seat, closing his mobile phone. ‘The girl from the riverboat or the nurse?’

  ‘Who says it was a girl calling?’ he grinned. ‘It might’ve been Mum asking me to pick up milk on the way home.’

  ‘The nurse!’ they chimed as one.

  ‘Switch that thing off,’ the General said. ‘Every time it’s on, there’s some bimbo ringing you up.’

  ‘He’s programmed all their numbers into it too,’ explained the Aboriginal rousie named Adam. ‘It’s a White Pages of hot chicks.’

  ‘Hand that over!’ another rousie said, stealing the mobile away.

  That brought more laughter. Hayden snatched his phone back as one of the homestead’s landlines rang. Dean rubbed his ear as the General answered it in the lounge room.

  ‘Was that the girl from the riverboat?’

  ‘No,’ the General answered, bypassing the table for the sink. ‘It was Graeme Benson. The cops asked him to do a ring-around.’

  ‘The cops?’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  She looked out the kitchen window. ‘That fire on his property yesterday — it was more than just arson. It was a distraction to get him out of his house. Thieves ransacked the place while he was putting out the blaze.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘The Coates were hit last night too.’

  The men grew rowdy with curses and threats. One of their own had been ripped off. They all felt betrayed.

  Grabbing the last of the mustard bread, Dean kept on eating.

  The talk ebbed when the first person rose to clean the table. It split the men into groups. A few sat and talked. Others washed up. One left for the shearers’ quarters to have a nap while the smokers stepped out for cancer sticks.

  ‘Enjoying all the action?’ Hayden asked later, charming his way out of cleaning duty to flop on the lounge beside him. ‘It’s rare to see this much excitement round here.’

  The younger boy kept reading the paper, checking to see if he was in it.

  ‘So what’s your story?’ Hayden pushed.

  Disappointed, he put it down. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Have you sued your barber yet?’ Adam joked.

  A tea towel smacked into the back of his head. ‘Be polite,’ the General warned.

  ‘What brings you to Truro for a start?’ Hayden asked.

  ‘I’m backpacking.’

  ‘By yourself?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Where have you been to so far?’

  A shrug. ‘All over the place.’

  ‘North? South? East? W —’

  ‘Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Alice —’

  ‘Sounds like you’re working your way round the country.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where to next?’

  ‘Maybe Melbourne.’

  ‘I thought you were heading to Sydney,’ the General said.

  ‘Melbourne or Sydney. Either will do. I would’ve made it if my wallet hadn’t been stolen.’

  ‘Your wallet? How much was in it?’

  ‘All my savings.’

  ‘First the Bensons, now you, hey?’

  They didn’t speak much more. Hayden’s phone rang and the General snatched it away.

  Any hope of a slack afternoon was lost when the head shearer’s shouting muted even the clippers. Thankfully this time Dean wasn’t the culprit. Short of four o’clock, the Aboriginal rousie named Adam elbowed h
is mate and tapped his watch. They grinned then rushed to the main door, colliding into each other. Curling round the frame, they spied the driveway until whoever they were waiting for arrived. It must have been a girl. They were preening their hair and pushing each other out of her view. But a two-finger whistle ended the show. ‘Oi! You two! Back to work!’ The whistle also attracted the attention of the girl. The rousies waved, laughed, then duelled back at the skirting table.

  ‘See, I told you. She wants me.’

  ‘You? She smiled at me.’

  ‘Winced, mate. Winced. Like she wanted to spew.’

  Dean screwed up his face. Surely they weren’t talking about the General’s daughter.

  The last whining of the generator signalled knock-off time, much to everyone’s relief. Rousies slid down against the stalls to take a seat and shearers tweezed bloody burrs from their palms while Dean swept the far corner. After the last run was recorded, the workers picked themselves up, then left for the pub. Only the General and he remained.

  ‘I suppose you want to be paid?’ she asked, locking the shed behind them. She counted out his money: three hundred and four dollars. ‘There’s more tomorrow if you’re interested.’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘The job. It’s yours if you want it.’

  Counting the fifty-buck bills, he paused. Then, thinking better of it, he slid the wad into his boot before she could take it back again.

  ‘Hayden gave you a good report,’ the General explained. ‘I don’t believe a word of it but I still need a fourth rouseabout.’

  Always quick with the compliments, wasn’t she? But he was too tired to fight. ‘For how long?’

  ‘Six days. You can stay up in the shearers’ quarters if you like. I’ll provide you with clean sheets. Lunch is still free but you’ll have to buy and cook your own breakfast and tea.’

  At three hundred bucks a day, he rocked on his feet. Eighteen hundred dollars! A bus ticket plus a fortune. What a deal.

  In the distance, though, a siren wailed along the Sturt Highway.

  ‘I guessed as much,’ she said.

  Two semi-trailers heavied the main street of Truro, dragging the night sky behind them. Population four hundred, it was a typical highway town: a petrol and pee stop for travellers. Beer and burgers for the locals. At the furthest end, squat among the eucalypts, a country parish welcomed the same souls every Sunday morning, while further out, dusty family farms drifted with sons and daughters leaving for the city.