by Sofie Laguna
When I was in sixth class I heard Julie Rigney tell Annette Manns that getting your rags meant you could have a baby. Did the blood become the baby? But you needed a man to have a baby. That’s what made it. Everyone knew that. But you must need the blood too; it was both, put together. I only washed the rags and the underpants when Pop was out at the shop, or at Sandy’s, or at the pub; I hung them on the fence where the sun shone the brightest so they dried before he came home. If there was no sun I hid the used rags under my bed.
I saw Worlleys on the bus, sitting down the back, but they left me alone. Everybody did. No one said anything to me about my dad. He’d been in Pentridge for three years now. Even though Dad was away Pop said he was more dangerous away than on the outside. It’s who you know and your old man will know a whole new set, don’t worry about that.
My legs wobbled against the seat as the bus drove over the potholes. I pressed my nose to the glass and looked for emus through the trees. When the bus came to the high school in Echuca I saw more kids than I’d ever seen in one place before. They stood and ran and played in crowds. They had come from Nullabri and Shep and Yolamundi and Moama and Moira and Moruna and Rochy and Ridscombe, and all of them were together here, and they knew each other. I knew some of the kids from Nullabri Primary but I didn’t join them. They had grown, their bodies had changed; they weren’t the same. Everyone had full, fat bags on their backs. I didn’t know what was inside the bags. Mine was empty. Every kid was wearing black shoes. It was like a field of black birds. I looked at my feet. I wore white sneakers, one with a red star, one with a hole where the star had come off. They were turning brown with Murray mud.
The high school buildings were brick and there was an upstairs. I could see rows of windows. There were different paths to choose, different doorways, different steps. A lot of kids were with their mothers. The mothers straightened their uniforms and tried to kiss them goodbye and the kids pulled away as if they didn’t want anyone to see the mothers kissing them or smoothing their hair. No, Mum, come on, don’t, they said, pushing them back, and the mothers smiled and tried to hold them at the gates. Bye, Mum, bye, the kids said, and then they joined each other.
I walked towards the gates, my bag knocking against my back. Pop said, Learn how to bloody read. When he didn’t have his glasses I couldn’t help him read the words on the top of the newspaper. I couldn’t read out the ingredients on the cake box. I couldn’t read the date. He said, Come on, Justine, learn. Everybody knows how to bloody read. I wanted to learn how to read. I would have liked to know the order of Aunty Rita’s numbers, and if she ever did write me a letter I wanted to be able to read it. But it didn’t matter how hard I tried; words were different for me than for other people. The sounds, when I made them, were wrong. Unless Michael helped me, other kids laughed. My throat felt tight. My eyes pricked. Michael was gone.
There were words across the top of the main high school building. Erad ot wonk. Erad ot wonk. There was nothing to hold on to; I felt dizzy. I looked at the words again. Erad ot wonk. What was that? Was it a joke? I couldn’t read the sign. I could have stood there all day looking at it, trying to read it, and I still wouldn’t know what it said. If Michael was here he would have helped me. We would have been together. We would have had his crutches as weapons to hold up to the other kids. I kicked at the ground. Why was I thinking of Michael when he wasn’t here? For three years I had learned not to think of him, to keep the door closed as long as I could. Only in the last minutes before sleep did it open. Not on the first day of high school.
Erad ot wonk. It was wrong. Stupid. I turned and walked away.
40.
I went to the river near the bridge that crossed to Moama—the bridge I’d crossed with Aunty Rita three years ago. It had been that long since I’d seen her. I climbed down the bank where the grass grew long and thick. I sat down near the water and watched the paddle boats go up and down the river. I could feel the damp, cool mud through my skirt. I picked up a stick and drew in the dirt. Erad ot wonk. I changed the letters around. Erad to knwo. I didn’t understand. I changed them again. Dare ot knwo. They still didn’t make sense. I changed them again and again. I tried them in every different order. Dare to know. I snapped my stick-pencil in two and threw it into the river. Dare to know. Know what?
Birds stepped through the water, lifting their knees, sticking their beaks in for fish. I stretched my legs and sun streamed across my knees. I leaned back on my arms and listened to the sound of water and wind and birds. My breathing became slow. I was made of water like the river, leaves like the trees, feathers like the birds. I don’t know how long I sat there. Was it as long as school? I got up and walked beside the river. Soon the path became too thin and I climbed up the bank to the road that led back to Yolamundi.
John Wayne as the Lucky Texan came with me. He rode in front on Duke the Miracle Horse and I rode Silver. We let our reins hang loose in the sun and rode slow because the horses were hungry and there wasn’t lunch in the bag, or dinner until we set up camp. The Lucky Texan’s gun was slung over his shoulder; it bumped and swung as he rode, his hat low over his head. It was going to be a long ride. My stomach growled.
I heard a car coming along the road. I turned and saw a white station wagon, its body long and close to the ground, dust rising up around its wheels. When the car came close to me it slowed down, and a man leaned out. I didn’t look at him. He slowed down even more. ‘Hey, there,’ he said.
I turned around and saw Jamie Worlley. I hadn’t seen Jamie Worlley since before Dad went away. He’d joined Brian Chisholm in Goonyella to work in the Queensland mines. He’d been gone all this time, but he was here now, and instead of a boy he was a man, and he was driving a car. I kept walking, looking straight ahead. The last time I’d talked to Jamie Worlley he pushed me onto my back and lifted my skirt.
Jamie said, ‘Justine?’
I wished I had the Lucky Texan’s rifle over my shoulder.
‘Is that you, Justine?’
I walked faster.
‘Hey, Justine, are you mad at me?’
I didn’t answer.
‘Hey, Justine,’ he said, his voice softer. ‘I’m sorry about the last time I saw you. I was an idiot. Are you going home? Why don’t I give you a lift in the Valiant?’ He slapped the side of his car with his hand.
I kept walking.
‘Come on, Justine. You can’t walk all the way. It’s too hot.’
Sweat dripped down my back under my shirt. My face pounded with heat. I stopped walking and looked at him.
Jamie Worlley smiled at me and a light came from his eyes made of electricity and sun. A strap of muscle ran along the bottom of his arm. He wore a hat like John Wayne as Sheriff Chance and his teeth shone white.
‘Get in,’ he said.
I looked at the road ahead. Yolamundi was a long way. If I walked it might take until night-time.
Jamie Worlley leaned across and opened his door. ‘I meant what I said, Justine. I’m sorry about what I did the last time I saw you. I deserved the hiding your old man gave me.’
I got in the car.
‘You’ve grown,’ Jamie said as he drove.
There was a small skull hanging from some beads around the rear-vision mirror. The seats were black leather. There was a tear on Jamie’s seat covered with grey tape.
Jamie said, ‘Remember how much fun we used to have?’
My skin stuck to the leather as I lifted my legs up and down. The rag in my underpants felt hot and wet. I stole a look at the side of Jamie’s face. He looked like John Wayne in The Quiet Man. My mouth went dry. Jamie’s hands were brown on the wheel. They were a man’s hands. They were like my dad’s—they could lift anything. Dad could have pulled a tree from the ground if he wanted.
Jamie said, ‘You look like your mum, Justine. She was blonde, like you. You’re cute.’
When Jamie spoke it was as if I had no clothes on, and a feather was going up and down my skin. You look like your mum.
You’re cute. But Jamie was Stacey’s brother. He used to call her Longhorn Stacey and Yolamundi cow, but he was her brother. He knew the reason Dad was in Pentridge. Why was he talking to me?
We were close to Pop’s Three now. I didn’t want Pop to see me in Jamie’s Valiant. ‘Can you stop?’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Can you stop?’
He said, ‘It’s cute how you talk so quiet. Yeah, I can stop.’ He drove the car onto the side of the trail, then turned off the engine. We sat in the Valiant, the engine ticking in the heat. ‘You want to hang out, Justine?’
I looked straight ahead; everything I looked at through the windscreen—the trees, the sky, the birds—was covered in a layer of dust.
He said, ‘We could go for a swim if you like?’
I could see Pop’s Three from where we were parked. If Pop came out to get the letters from the box, he would see Jamie’s car.
‘Come on, Justine. Don’t worry about him. Just say yes.’
Jamie was two of me. Three of me. I was as thin as one of his legs. Why did he want to hang out with me?
‘Okay, don’t answer—just nod your head.’ He pushed my shoulder so I rocked. It took me by surprise and pushed out a smile. ‘Just nod,’ he said. ‘Come on. Like this.’ He started to nod.
I nodded.
‘Great. Why don’t I meet you at The Choke on Saturday, at lunchtime?’
Jamie was John Wayne when he wanted Mary Kate to sleep in his bed. ‘Okay,’ I said softly.
‘You’re cute when you’re shy,’ Jamie said. ‘See you Saturday.’ His smile came in volts from his teeth.
Jamie Worlley disappeared down the road.
I didn’t walk the rest of the way to the Three; I floated.
That night, just before sleep, it wasn’t Michael I saw. It wasn’t Black Beauty and his friend Joe Evans. It wasn’t the night in the tent, the blackberries and vanilla cake. It was Jamie Worlley. Pieces of The Quiet Man played like a lullaby: He was his father’s only son, his mother’s pride and joy, and dearly did his parents love their wild colonial boy.
41.
I saw Jamie again when I watched True Grit on the television with Pop. John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn tracked Chaney into Indian land. It didn’t matter what Chaney did, Rooster found him. When the movie finished I said, ‘Pop, when will it be on again?’
‘I don’t know, Justine—call the television, for Christ’s sake.’
That night, in my bed I saw Jamie walk through the sheriff ’s door, holding his gun. You owe me, Chaney. Jamie took Mattie Ross in his arms. It’s a bold one, you are, he said. I was Mattie Ross, the bold one, my dark hair thick and shining, my teeth straight, my cheeks pink. When Mattie Ross spoke, she knew the words to choose and the right order to put them in. Who knows what’s in a man’s heart? I will not bandy words with a drunkard.
The next day, my schoolbag on my back, I walked towards Pop’s rock, but I didn’t stop there. I kept going into the forest, to the river. I was Mary Kate waiting at my keepout for Thornton in The Quiet Man. He would be coming home soon. Where are my eggs? Oh, you devil, you devil! You belong to me now, Mary Kate. I straightened my walls, tidied my towel roof, and made supplies from twigs and stones. I put a cup of river water in my esky.
I walked along the path to The Choke. I heard the same crying I had heard ever since the night Dad took me to Stacey’s. I walked down to the water. I took off my shoes and socks, my t-shirt and skirt. I peeled off my underpants with the rag of blood and left them on the dirt. I looked down at myself and saw the angles of bones showing under the skin. My hair tickled my shoulders, pale yellow, like straw that had been left in the sun.
I stepped into the mud at the edge of the river. The blood from the scar between my legs trickled down my skin. I went deeper and watched as the water washed away the blood. I went deeper still so that the water was up to my neck, and then I flipped and lay on my back, looking up at the trees. I let the air out slowly and my chest sank, water flowing over me. When I breathed in again my chest rose. I half closed my eyes against the light of the sky. Sometimes I was the tree, sometimes I was Mary Kate, and sometimes I was the cockatoo on the branch. I could choose. The crying was so soft now that I could hardly hear it.
When I sat on the bank to dry, blood from my scar dripped into the spider holes in the ground. I brushed river dirt from my knees and ankles. The sun was warm on my shoulders. A kookaburra laughed above my head as I was getting dressed. Wind moved through the trees. Another kookaburra answered.
I walked almost all the way to Pop’s Three, then turned around and walked back again. I wasn’t looking for my dad anymore, waiting for his truck to come down the road and save me. I was waiting for Jamie’s white Valiant instead, its fins on either side of its long low body.
When my feet were sore from walking up and down the trail, I went home and waited for Pop to cook dinner. He made ham and egg and cheese with macaroni. I ate bowl after bowl until the pot was empty. Pop rolled a White Ox and said, ‘Jesus, Justine.’
When I went to bed that night, the scissors in my dream cut two red waves with a white line down the middle, like a road. At the top there was a tooth left behind by the dogs. It was Jamie’s scar. I dug in my fingers and pulled out the tooth, rolling it from side to side in my hand as if it was a bullet. Jamie said, Give it back, but I said, No, it’s mine.
In the morning I went out to see the chooks. I sat down on the floor of the run and threw out handfuls of seed. Pop said, Not too much of the good stuff, Justine. Costs a bloody fortune, but I did it anyway. ‘Hey, girls; hey, ladies. When is Saturday? How long till Saturday comes, hey, madams?’ I asked the Isa Browns, ‘Do you know Jamie Worlley? Do you know him, girls?’
I found my swimmers in my cupboard, stretched and worn thin. I was glad my rags were finished. How do you swim with rags? I looked for wood for Pop’s fire so I could light it myself. I dragged branches across the fence, my skin prickling and damp with the heat. It was summer, the start of the school year but not for me. Erad ot wonk. What could I do with those words?
Every day I said to Pop, What day is it today?
Wednesday…Thursday…Friday…
What day is it, Pop? What day is it?
At last his answer was Saturday.
Pop put two plates of toast with eggs on the table and we dipped the toast in the egg. Pop smoked and drank tea. I said, ‘Can I have a cup?’
‘Of what?’
‘Tea.’
‘Bloody hell, you’re growing up,’ said Pop. He put in two sugars and so much milk the tea was almost white. I took a bite of toast then a drink of tea and one went with the other as if they should never be apart. I sat beside Pop, holding my warm cup, as we breathed the kindest animal.
After breakfast, when I was hanging out Pop’s washing, Relle came over with Steve. ‘I spoke to him,’ she said.
‘What? When?’ said Pop.
Relle glanced across at me. ‘Can we go inside?’
Pop and Relle went inside, while Steve and me waited in the yard. Steve pulled at the clothesline Pop had strung from the kitchen window. ‘Where’s Kirk?’ I asked him.
He said, ‘With Jamie Worlley. He’s back in town.’
My heart sped up. ‘Jamie Worlley? What’s he doing with Jamie Worlley?’
‘They got pissed last night.’
‘What?’ I didn’t know if I had heard right. Why was Kirk with Jamie?
‘Jamie’s getting him work at the mine if he wants it. All Kirk has to do is say he’s eighteen and he can go. That’s what Jamie did and it worked. He makes a thousand dollars a week.’
My stomach felt light and sick. ‘What are they doing now?’ I asked Steve.
‘Who?’
‘Kirk and Jamie.’
‘I dunno. Hair of the dog.’
‘If Pop finds out he’ll kill him.’
‘He’ll never find out. He’ll be home soon; he has to help Mum get the trailer onto the back of the car.’
‘I could lie about my age too,’ said Steve.
Pop’s shorts flapped in the breeze around our heads.
‘What for?’
‘To go to the mine with Kirk. I could save enough to get Dad out of Pentridge.’
I knew that nobody would believe Steve was eighteen; he wasn’t like Kirk. He was small and thin, like Relle.
‘Yeah, you could,’ I said.
Steve poked at a pair of Pop’s shorts with a stick. ‘Even Jamie reckons Dad didn’t do it.’
‘Did he say Dad didn’t do it? Is that what he said?’
‘Nah. But he wouldn’t be getting pissed with Kirk if he thought Dad did it, would he?’
I didn’t know the answer. Pop and Relle came out the back. They sat down on the camp chairs and smoked. Relle said, ‘Fucken justice system. Where’s the justice? Stacey Worlley spent her life chasing him, then when she got what she wanted look what she did to him.’
Pop said, ‘Ray could have stayed away.’
‘Who would have stayed away? You tell me one guy you know would stay away from what she was offering.’
‘Not bloody Ray, that’s for sure.’
‘Not any man,’ said Relle.
They smoked and sighed and looked at the unlit fire. When would they leave so I could go to the river? At last Relle stubbed her smoke out into the grass. ‘Come on, Steve, let’s go. Got to get the trailer sorted then get to work. Those logs aren’t going to count themselves.’ Relle worked at the sawmills now, taking inventory. She said working with men and chainsaws was better than making pies with bitches.
‘See ya, Justine,’ said Steve. They walked out to the car. Relle never looked at me; not even once.
After they were gone I pulled on my swimmers—they felt loose in some places, and tight in others. I pulled my dress over my head. ‘I’m going to see Dawn,’ I called out to Pop.