Once in a while a truck which had been along Route 44 would report seeing bits of rag and broken flesh hanging on the barbed wire in the sunlight. Another seven-year-old had given her life for the Funny Farm. It was getting late at the cafe and some of the blokes had fallen asleep. It had been a long day for all of us, it was time for beddy-byes in the pub. But there was one last thing. During the whole night Nam Tran hadn’t said much. Every time I looked over at him he was nodding and smiling but he didn’t say nothing. Then right at the end he stands up, he’s pissed, but then we all are. He waves his tinnie around. ‘You know why I come Australia?’ he says.
‘Yeah, so yiz can fuck us up like we done you blokes,’ Animal shouts, his usual self, subtle as a smack to the side of the head.
The little man ignores him. ‘I come because you fight good, same Vietnamese.’ He means the Viet Cong, of course, not the South Vietnamese government mob. He looks around and I can see he wants to say more. ‘Also, you bury our dead.’ He taps his chest with his finger, ‘You show me respect.’ Then he sits down and stands up again almost immediately. ‘In North Vietnam Army we say, “Walk without footprint, cook without smoke, speak without sound, move at night like a falling leaf.”’ Then he sits down and starts to cry.
I’ve never seen a Nog soldier cry, but I reckon he’ll do me.
It’s nearly two o’clock, time to get the mob up to the pub for a good night’s kip before tomorrow arvo, when we get the debrief on Shorty’s bloody stupid idea. It’s been a long day and I’ve got to get up early and clean the joint. I only pray there are no nightmares.
CHAPTER THREE
I’m up at sparrow fart to clean up the cafe. It looks a bit like a mine has gone off inside the joint. I’d forgotten how many tinnies eleven blokes can drink in one sitting, because, of course, Bongface doesn’t drink, though he’s got through a fair few cans of Coke. They’ve, I mean we’ve, also polished off Shorty’s plonk and there’s cold chips, tomato sauce and bits of hamburger leftovers on just about every flat surface.
A broom and a mop, a bit of a wipe and a hose down where Animal’s been sick out the back and, by the time Wendy gets in around eight o’clock, the place is ship-shape and ready to trade.
Three of the old-timers are in for their regular breakfast. They eat at Smoky Joe’s and not at the pub because they’ve all had a blue with Willy McGregor some time in the past. As there is only one pub in town they’re forced to drink his grog, but they’re buggered if they’re gunna give Willy a penny more than their thirst demands. Small towns are like that, forgiveness comes real slow.
Wendy feeds Anna and gets her mum up and into her wheelchair. The old chook is already grumbling but Wendy takes no notice, she’s always cheerful around Anna and won’t let the old girl spoil the day. First she does her mother’s hair while the silly old bugger holds up a mirror and gives instructions. Struth, she’s foreman material all right, can’t help herself, she does bugger all except carp and criticise and I can hear her all the way downstairs as she has a go at Wendy. ‘Yer never get it right, do you. You want me to look old, that’s it isn’t it, old and miserable!’
I hear Wendy laugh, ‘Mum, you are old and miserable but I love you anyway.’
‘That’s what you say to me but what do you tell him, eh? Behind the door when you think nobody can hear!’
‘Been sneaking up in your wheelchair, looking through the keyhole have you, Mum?’
‘Humph! Don’t think because I’m sick I can’t hear. Nothing wrong with me ears, girlie.’
‘What do you hear then?’ I hear Wendy say, her voice still light.
‘Never you mind. Plenty!’
There’s a pause and I can imagine Wendy sighing. ‘Half your luck, Mum, there’s not a whole lot going on in our bedroom you couldn’t tell in Sunday School.’
I can feel myself getting hot around the neck. She’s right of course, I haven’t made love to her in months and when I do it ain’t exactly fireworks.
‘Nanna says I’m sick because of Daddy,’ I hear Anna shout out. ‘Is that true, Mummy?’
‘Mum! How dare you!’ I can hear Wendy’s anger. Then, ‘No, darling, it’s just something that happens sometimes in families. We’re going to make you better.’
Now there is silence upstairs and I groan, stupid old bitch has gone and upset Wendy. She’ll be real quiet when she comes down and when I ask, ‘What’s the matter?’ she’ll say, ‘Nothing, it’s just Mum.’
Then I hear Anna giggling and I know Wendy’s plaiting her hair and tickling her under the nose with the fuzzy end of the completed plait before she asks Anna what colour ribbon she wants.
The old biddy will be sitting with her back turned to them feeding her face with a bowl of Cornflakes, milk dribbling down her chin. I wish she’d hurry up and die and leave us in peace. I wouldn’t put it past her to leave her half of Smoky Joe’s to the Anglican bishop instead of her daughter! Stupid old cow.
A commercial traveller comes in for breakfast and the usual assortment of customers wander in, most of them wanting cigarettes. It’s almost nine o’clock before we can talk.
‘How’d it go?’ Wendy asks, ‘Place looks spic ‘n’ span, you must have been up bright and early?’
My head’s hurting and hammering against the side of me temples like the clappers of hell. There’s something evil about a bad hangover, it hurts more three hours after than it does when you get up. Not that I’m not used to them, I’ve had more hangovers than most people have had hot breakfasts.
‘Yeah, it was good,’ I say, not wanting to give too much away. I’m not in a fit state or even ready to explain. I know I’m gunna have to level with her sooner or later, best try and get through the morning first. Perhaps even after the meeting, stall her until tonight when I know a bit more and my head hurts a bit less. ‘Bit of a meeting this arvo at the pub, think you can manage here?’ I say.
‘Meeting? Another piss-up, you mean?’
‘No, no! No grog. It’s a fair dinkum meeting, love.’
‘What about?’
‘Look, I’ll tell you later, okay?’ I give her a look which says don’t bug me now.
She sighs, ‘Mum wanted to have her hair done at Hair to Stay.’
‘Well, she can’t.’
Wendy moves into the kitchen area and I follow her, I can see if anyone comes into the cafe. ‘You go tell her that, Thommo. She’s already made the appointment, it’s a big thing, she’s going to Mary Willow’s seventieth.’
‘Stiff shit,’ I say, then instantly try to take it back, ‘I mean, you explain it to her, she’ll only have a go at me if I do.’ But Wendy’s heard me first off and won’t stand for that kind of language. I can cuss, that’s the way I am, but not directed at her or her mum.
‘Stiff what?’ she spits, ‘Who do you think you’re talking to, Thommo?’
‘Look, it’s real important, this meeting.’ I try to keep my voice calm.
‘Oh, I see. Important how? I thought last night was a party with your mates, “a grand reunion piss-up” is how you described it.’
‘Yeah, well, it turned out to be more than that.’ I’ve gone too far, said too much. I can see Wendy’s not going to let it go.
‘Thommo, what’s going on? You in trouble? Your mates? One of them? Stay away, we’ve got enough on our plate as it is.’
‘Nah, nothin’ like that.’ I try to sound casual but I’m digging meself in deeper.
‘What then?’
‘Look, do me a favour. Leave off will ya, Wendy?’
She raises one eyebrow, she’s a school teacher, or at least she was before Anna come along and she had to help run the cafe and care for her. I know that look. ‘Secret men’s business, is it?’ she says, sarcastic.
Thank Christ, a customer walks in. I can’t get over to him fast enough. Turns out he’s not a customer, it’s some bloke wants to flog me a new kind of ice-cream, pure fruit, nothing artificial, picked at dawn from an orchard in Queensland. Normally I’d give him
the bum’s rush. Nobody in this town eats anything that’s good for them anyway, but now I treat him like a long-lost brother. I let him chat on about the crap he’s flogging. I even take a large carton and the free scoop and a box of fancy cones. The salesman’s stoked. I get the feeling sales haven’t been that great. I turn around and Wendy’s come out the kitchen and now stands behind the counter lookin’ at me with her arms folded across her chest. Not a real good sign I gotta tell ya.
‘I’m taking Mum to the hairdresser’s,’ she says, lips pulled tight.
One thing I’ve never done, about the only thing, is backhand her. Once I lost me block and took the Confederate and pushed the blade into her dressing-gown where her navel was. ‘Go on, push,’ she says real quiet, her eyes locked onto mine, ‘Kill me and we’ll both be out of our misery.’
I came so flamin’ close to pushing the blade home that I start to tremble just thinking about it. Now I see me hand is half lifted to hit her. She and the kid are everything in the world I love, and all I’ve ever given her is grief. I sigh, and my hand drops to my side. ‘Okay, we’ll lock the cafe for the afternoon.’
‘No,’ she says, ‘we need the money.’
‘Well, suit yerself, I’m going to the meeting.’
‘Right! Off you go then. Go on!’ She points to the door.
‘Right, screw yiz!’
‘Right, that’s it!’ Wendy shouts. ‘And don’t bother to come back. Go pack your things!’
I’m real close to losing me block, ‘What? You threatening me, Wendy?’
‘I’ve had enough, Thommo.’ Her eyes fill with tears. ‘I can’t take any more, mate.’ She wipes both her eyes with the side of her fist, ‘Mum and me own Smoky Joe’s, just bugger off, will ya!’
‘Shit. The meeting, it’s for Anna!’ I yell. ‘The meeting’s for Anna.’ The words are hardly out of me mouth when I realise I’ve stuffed everything. I’m gunna have to tell her about last night right off.
‘Anna?’ Wendy looks hard at me. ‘What about her?’
‘Gettin’ her better. A bone-marrow transplant.’
‘Thommo, you better be very careful what you say next,’ Wendy says quietly. Her voice is like ice.
‘Yeah, well,’ is all I can think to say.
The commercial traveller must have caught some of this, because I hear his chair scrape back. He gets up, folds his newspaper, ‘I’ll be off then,’ he says. He’s ordered coffee but I haven’t brought it yet. He comes over to the counter to pay.
Wendy waves him away, ‘That’s all right. See you next time. Thanks for coming.’
I try to grin, apologise. ‘Sorry, mate, bit of a domestic.’ He walks out, not saying anything. I guess he’s seen a few things in his time on the road.
The three old-timers have already et and gorn. They’re all fast eaters. A plate of eggs, cuppa strong tea, four sugars, dash o’ milk, a fag and they’re off to wait for the pub to open.
I go over to the commercial traveller’s table to clear the plates. He hasn’t touched the fried tomato. I must buy a thousand uneaten tomatoes every year. ‘Dead Toms’ Wendy calls them.
Wendy starts to shut up the cafe. The doors are solid plate glass, no frames, they were her old man’s pride and joy. He’d polish them every morning with a chamois kept special for the purpose. ‘Same as on Woolworths in Narrandera,’ he’d say to anyone passing by, tapping the shining glass with the knuckle of his forefinger.
He’d had ‘Smoky Joe’s Cafe’ written in grey and white imitation smoke, the smoke writing curling across the two doors. He brought the Italian signwriter up from Griffith. Told him to go for his life, it has to be perfect, spare no expense, Mario Lanza. Being a musical man that’s what he called all Eyetalians.
The stainless-steel bolts shoot home, one at a time, and it’s Wendy and me alone. Shit, what am I gunna do?
‘Now, what about Anna?’ she asks.
‘You better sit down, love,’ I say, pointing to one of the tables. Then I tell her about last night. About Shorty’s proposal. I’m expecting any moment to wear the heavy glass ashtray on the table. She don’t say nothing, she’s dead quiet, looking down, picking at one of her nails with t’other, her hands on her lap. Then, after a while, she looks up at me, a tear swells out her lashes and runs slowly down her cheek and onto her chin and drops. I don’t see it land.
She sniffs. ‘Anna’s going to die, Thommo.’
‘I know,’ I say and suddenly I’m choked. We both know it, but we’ve never said it out loud. Every time we’ve got back from Sydney where we’d take little Anna to get a new dose of chemo at the Prince of Wales Children’s Hospital in Randwick, we knew we weren’t going to find a donor. Wendy’s got no relatives to speak of and the Thompsons are just about died out in Currawong Creek. We’re on a hiding to nothing trying to find an unrelated donor. But, until now, we’ve not admitted it to each other.
I look up and there’s a couple of kids with their noses pressed against the doors lookin’ in, wonderin’ what’s goin’ on. Probably want to come in for a Paddle Pop. Anna’s never going to grow up to do that or be a little brat like them two little buggers, dirty hand prints on Cec’s precious plate-glass doors.
Then Wendy looks straight up at me, her blue eyes sharp, ‘I’m coming to your meeting this afternoon,’ she says.
‘Jesus, no. No way!’ I exclaim, surprised.
She rises. Standing, she’s the same size as me sitting down. She stabs me in the chest with her forefinger. ‘Thommo, I’m coming to that meeting or you can pack your things and bugger off. Go on, get going, on your bicycle.’
I’ve never heard Wendy swear except to say ‘bloody’, which ain’t really swearin’, and I’m dead shocked, she’s done it twice in less than five minutes. I don’t know what to say, because I can see she means every word.
‘Anna’s my child and I’m not prepared to leave her fate to a bunch of Vietnam vets who cry in their sleep!’ she yells at me.
It’s a blow well below the belt and she knows it. ‘The Dirty Dozen?’ she scoffs, ‘That’s real funny. Who are you then? Lee Marvin?’ This really hurts, I know I’m a big, ugly bugger, but first Shorty and now her with the same crack.
I don’t say nothing. I’m looking into my lap, thinking of something clever to say, my hangover is banging against me temples. I’m also trying hard not to do me block.
‘We’ll make it thirteen, The Baker’s Dozen!’ she says, sniffin’.
‘Shorty won’t buy it,’ I say. ‘The other blokes too. There’s no way, love.’
‘Stiff,’ she says and grins at my surprised look. ‘It’s up to you now, Thommo.’ She’s got me fair and square. Nothing I can do. I’m gunna have to front Shorty and the boys. Bloody good thing, I think to meself. It was a stupid idea in the first place, might as well get it over with. Good piss-up last night and now we go our separate ways. Mo’s dead, we’re all loners anyway, Vietnam saw to that.
‘Righto,’ I say to Wendy, trying to play it light. ‘Put the cat among the pigeons, eh?’
‘Why not? A little pussy never did a bunch of blokes any harm,’ she says.
I have to laugh, though I admit I’m a bit miffed, I mean, it’s me wife talkin’ dirty like this.
‘Did you really mean for me, yer know, to piss off?’ I say, trying to cover me embarrassment.
She nods her head.
‘A man oughta belt you one.’
‘Go ahead,’ she says, ‘You’ve done just about everything else.’
What can I say, it’s true.
I go and see Shorty and we walk outside the pub and stand under a jacaranda tree. He hears me out, he’s looking down at his boots, kicking the toe cap of his right foot into the fallen blossoms, exposing the soil under the purple carpet. He has his head to one side, his arms folded across his chest. Then he looks up, ‘No way, Thommo,’ he says quietly.
‘Well, you’ll have to count me out,’ I say. ‘Good piss-up last night, thank you.’
Shorty reache
s up and grabs me by the shirt front, his head doesn’t even come to the second button below me collar. ‘Look, you big dumb bastard, we’re trying to help you. Other vets too. Nam Tran says the Vietnamese kids are the same, only there’s a lot more of them than us.’
I shrug, ‘I know, mate, but Wendy is my life. Weren’t for her I’d a topped meself a long time ago. She’s given me an ultimatum, she comes in with us or she’s leavin’ me.’ I shrug, ‘Nothin’ I can do, mate.’
He scratches his head, ‘I dunno, Thommo.’ He looks me in the eye, ‘Bring a flamin’ sheila in and there’s bound to be trouble.’
Shorty has never married, ‘There’s enough Mafiosi in the world,’ he’s always joked. ‘Give a grandson to my old man and he won’t be happy until he’s made the kid into the local Godfather.’ He’d never take a bar girl in Vietnam neither. He must have pulled his pud to get some sort of relief, grog wasn’t enough. Though I got to hand it to him, he knew how to get properly pissed. ‘I don’t want to tell me Catholic bride on our honeymoon that I’ve had the clap fifteen times.’ But he’s still single and he’s got to be just about the best catch in the Riverina.
I stand there, lookin’ stupid, saying nothing, now it’s me kicking at the purple jacaranda blossom.
Eventually he sighs, ‘We’ll have to have a meeting before the meeting, it’s not up to me to say, Thommo.’ He looks up at me, squinting. ‘You’ll have to put the case to the boys, but I don’t fancy yer chances, mate.’
‘Fair enough,’ I mumble. I’m hanging me big stupid head. I can see his point, I’d a done the same meself.
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