The Place on Dalhousie

by Melina Marchetta

  ‘Then there’s no talk about me lending you money again.’

  Martha sits out on the verandah. She hasn’t had a moment’s sleep and can’t bear to deal with the breakfast trio in the kitchen. And what right does she have to take over a kitchen when she can’t even cook? But she wants Seb’s photo because it’s still sitting on the butcher’s trolley. Because she doesn’t trust memory anymore. For years it’s painted a different picture of the past. Rosie’s aggression and rage. Julia’s antagonism. And Ewan. Now it’s Martha who can’t remember the song they supposedly danced to when they were in Year Ten. Maybe there wasn’t a song in the first place. Maybe Martha’s one of those delusional people who invents hoops for those around her to jump through.

  And then Ewan’s there, parking out front, and Martha’s in destructive mode. Knows she has to put a stop to these quirky sessions because what they’re aiming for won’t stand the test of time.

  ‘I don’t think this is going to work,’ she says while they stand out on her verandah.

  He’s been talking about a couple of job offers, but she hasn’t taken in a word.

  ‘I probably should have told you this the first time we saw each other, except it’s not exactly an opening line at a funeral. But my mother and grandmother and aunts died of breast cancer and I’ve been tested, and I’m one of the mutants and, just before I met you, I worked out that I didn’t want to live with the fear every six months that they’d find a lump, so I made a decision about what I was going to do.’

  And Martha just keeps on talking and says words she’s never spoken out loud before. Double mastectomy and hysterectomy and reconstruction.

  Ewan is shaken, confused.

  ‘But you’re not sick?’

  ‘No.’

  He looks relieved.

  ‘So we’ll deal with whatever you decide to do,’ he says.

  ‘No. I’ll deal with it.’

  He looks wounded. Add vulnerability to Ewan Healy’s many traits.

  ‘I don’t want us to start something and then it be over,’ she says.

  ‘We have started something, Martha. Why would it be over?’

  And then she sees his anger, because the penny’s dropped.

  ‘You’re presuming I won’t want to be around if you go ahead with it,’ he says.

  Martha wants to deny it because she didn’t think he’d articulate it so quickly.

  ‘I’ve never even seen them,’ he says. ‘I actually told Alana that I thought maybe you were hiding something because every time we have sex, it’s in the car and most of your clothes stay on.’

  ‘You’ve spoken about not seeing my boobs with Alana?’

  ‘I talk about everything with Alana. Even Bavaria.’

  ‘I just don’t want the disappointment.’

  Now she sees fury. ‘Oh fuck you, Martha. What right do you have to predict how much of a weak prick I’m going to be?’

  And then he walks away.

  Rosie looks tired when she walks off the plane and Jimmy can’t imagine sitting for a whole flight with Toto on her lap, including a stopover in Brisbane, being fun. Some guy beside her offers to carry her bag, and she lets him, adjusting Toto in her arms. When she reaches Jimmy, he takes her face in his hands and they kiss, with Toto squirming between them, but Jimmy doesn’t want to stop, because these days, a week away seems like forever.

  They pick up the Monaro at the cops on Bolsover Street, and when she sees it, Rosie cries in a way Jimmy hasn’t seen before. It hurts to watch, but he doesn’t look away because he knows she’s going to make tough decisions in her life and he doesn’t want to be the guy who looks away every time something breaks her heart. The car breaks her heart. Because it’s the most concrete reminder of her mother. The house isn’t, because the rooms have been torn apart, walls have been knocked down and so much has changed. But the car has stayed the same.

  Toto whimpers in his arms as though he knows.

  ‘Mummy’s just sad,’ Jimmy whispers to him.

  Rosie wants to drive and they’re on the Bruce Highway heading to Brisbane. Toto’s sleeping in the back and for a while there’s silence, but it doesn’t make Jimmy feel lonely and he senses the same for her. Later, he puts on a CD that Mackee burnt for him and, while they’re listening to a song by some band he’s never heard of, about belonging to you and belonging to me, Jimmy senses that nostalgia is planted. He knows they’ll look back on this moment and remember it with great clarity, and when they see the A3 turn-off she glances at him, and they must see the same thing in each other’s eyes. Because she turns left instead of going straight and Jimmy knows they won’t be getting to Brisbane for a while. He remembers the first time he made this journey, driving the car through strange-sounding towns like Dululu. Wowan. Goovigen. Baralaba. Before he met her. Before the rest of his life happened. And it brings back memories of desperate loneliness, and the suffocation Jimmy had felt knowing he couldn’t return home for another two years because of the good behaviour bond. But today, as they pass the town sign, he can’t help feeling that it’s a home-coming of some sort. Last time he was here, Jimmy got to stay long enough to be part of a community’s healing. He can’t say that the people here were the most resilient he had met, because he grew up in Waterloo and his housing commission neighbours were a pretty hardy bunch, but in this town they had taken care of each other when they needed to, and Jimmy had travelled through communities where that didn’t happen. Where there was plenty of blame and division. The sameness of the place is a comfort to him. The wide streets with no pavements, the Queenslander houses, the gold XXXX sign on the top of the pub, the water tower dominating the skyline to the east. This was the place where Jimmy met Rosie and he hopes it hasn’t changed.

  Rosie wants to go to the hospital first, but Min’s not there.

  ‘Drinks in town,’ the nurse tells them. Jimmy and Rosie don’t recognise her and they’d ended up knowing most of the medical staff back then in some capacity, so she must be new. Jimmy thinks of drinks in town the night before the floods. How Kev got up there to warn everyone about the flood. Jimmy had been bone-tired from sandbagging and was about to head up to his room when he first saw Rosie. Thought she was so fucking gorgeous in a sad way. Spent about an hour watching her without doing anything about it, because he never thought he stood a chance. Except a voice in his head challenged that.

  Outside the hospital, he takes Toto from her. ‘Let’s walk,’ he says, because there’s something special about a town on the Dawson at sunset when the breeze is close to perfect and the sky is sort of another world.

  The only change in the pub is the carpet, but the stench of beer soaked into its foundations smells the same. Kev’s making a speech again. Because Mick the butcher, who Jimmy worked alongside during the floods, is also an amateur photographer and is having an exhibition of some sort. Min is sitting at a table with a couple of the other women, drinking a beer and eating scones that are doing the rounds. She glances up and it takes a moment to register, but then as they make their way towards her surprise turns into joy and she shakes her head in wonder, her arms held out for Toto, who holds out his own, as if he’s known her in some other life.

  ‘Have we got ourselves a flood baby here?’ Min asks him. Toto’s loving the attention after being cooped up in the car, and Min embraces the three of them as if they mean something to her and Jimmy knows he’ll spend a lifetime collecting people who make them feel that way.

  ‘I dream of you,’ she says to Rosie, almost in disbelief. ‘Ask Kev. I’ll wake up and say, “I dreamt of that Rosie again.”’

  They sit and talk for a while, surrounded by Mick’s photos. Of flood. Of drought. Of getting on with life.

  ‘People down south think you get over it as soon as the flood-water goes down, but it took us so long,’ Min says.

  ‘But at least we didn’t get it as bad as those poor bastards in the Lockyer Valley this year,’ Kev says. ‘I was hoping you weren’t down that way.’

 
‘No,’ Jimmy says. ‘Just up north when Yasi came through.’

  ‘How long are you staying?’ Min asks.

  Jimmy looks at Rosie and they both shrug.

  ‘I’m off for ten days, so we’re going to take our time getting back to Sydney,’ he says.

  ‘Miss Fricker?’ Rosie asks. ‘Is she still alive?’

  ‘That one will outlive us all, doll.’

  Jimmy tracks down Mick, who’s playing pool, and buys him a beer to toast his work.

  ‘Got a bit blue after, eh,’ Mick tells him while they’re sitting at the bar, drinking. ‘Not just because of the deaths, but …’ he shrugs. ‘It sorta gives you purpose when you’re workin’ and helpin’ out. And then everyone gets on with their lives, and it’s as if you don’t know who you are anymore.’

  Rosie approaches with Toto and Jimmy reintroduces them. ‘Do you remember Mick? He drove the truck when we came to get you from Miss Fricker’s place?’

  Mick’s eyes light up. ‘Thought I knew your face.’

  ‘You saw me for five minutes and you remember my face?’ Rosie asks. ‘I’m flattered.’

  Mick stumbles to his feet. ‘Come with me,’ he says, with an urgency they don’t understand. But they follow him to the back wall where his photos are on display. He searches and then points up high, grabs a chair to stand on and removes a photo, handing it down to Rosie. And Jimmy sees her eyes well up.

  ‘You’re lovely,’ she says to Mick. ‘Thank you.’

  And she holds out the photo. It’s of Jimmy in his jocks, carrying Joy Fricker through floodwaters. And Rosie’s right behind them, staring up at Jimmy. The look in her eyes promises the world.

  ‘This is us before you were born, Toto,’ he says, showing their son.

  Later, after Min’s taken Rosie and Toto to Miss Fricker’s, Jimmy sits out back on the verandah with Kev and Mick.

  ‘Your name came up last week when the paramedics rang me for a reference,’ Kev says.

  ‘I’m not going to take it,’ Jimmy says. ‘I can’t support them on a three-year traineeship.’

  ‘Where are you living?’ Kev asks.

  Where is Jimmy living? On a couch, or in her bed, or in a mining camp. He knows he has to get a place for the three of them, especially if Dalhousie Street gets sold at auction in early November.

  ‘In Sydney,’ he says.

  ‘Bloody expensive in Sydney, eh?’ Mick says. ‘Move up here, Jim. It’s closer to the mines and you can rent for next to nothin’.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ Kev says. ‘You’ll end up losing your kids to the big towns.’

  In the room above the pub, Toto’s sleeping beside Rosie. Jimmy watches him a while. Wonders how this golden-skinned gorgeous being could have come from him. He strips and gets into bed, gathering them both closer. She turns and faces him. ‘You smell like a brewery.’

  ‘Had to keep up with them,’ he says with a laugh. ‘Honestly, I’d end up a drunk if I lived up here.’

  She traces her finger over his mouth.

  ‘It took me a couple of months to work out Toto wasn’t Luke’s,’ she says. ‘He was so miserable, always sick. And then his smile just appeared one day and I can’t begin to explain what I felt when I recognised it. Even if I never saw you again, at least I could tell Toto good things about his dad.’

  Jimmy doesn’t know how to be a good dad. He just wants to be a decent human being.

  The light from the street lamp outside illuminates the bedside table and he sees the photo Mick took.

  ‘You want to get married?’ he whispers into her ear.

  It takes her by surprise, but only for a moment. ‘Yeah, I do.’ And then she seems to think about it more.

  ‘Let’s get married here.’ She looks down at Toto and brushes sweaty curls away from his eye. ‘Where we made something good for once in our lives.’

  Talk of a wedding gets around by the next afternoon. One of the farmers who owns a property outside town turns up at the pub and offers his paddock for a barbecue because Jimmy once helped rescue a couple of his prized cattle. Mick volunteers to take the photos and pledges the sausages, and Maeve from the newsagency wants to make the cake.

  ‘So does that mean Maeve’s invited,’ Jimmy asks Rosie, ‘because I thought maybe it’d be just us and Mick and Kev and Min?’

  ‘And Miss Fricker.’

  The members of the CWA bring them a hamper of local goodies and Rosie invites them as well. And by the time the guestlist hits thirty, Jimmy knows that sooner or later he has to tell Frankie. After their last conversation he doesn’t know whether she’ll understand, but he knows she’ll never forgive him if she finds out from someone else, so he rings her.

  ‘I’m up north,’ he says. ‘They found the Monaro.’ Of course she’d know that because he had texted Will.

  ‘We’re getting married here,’ he says, waiting for the reaction.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s where things began with Toto,’ he says. ‘And this car being up this way, and a thousand other things. It means a lot to Rosie.’

  ‘When is it? I’ll be there.’

  ‘Frankie, you’re not going to fly to Rockhampton and drive a hundred k’s west.’

  ‘Why not? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I am! Aren’t I invited?’

  ‘As if I wouldn’t invite you to my wedding.’

  ‘Then why are we having this conversation? When is it?’

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘We’re going to have to get the paperwork done in Sydney,’ he says. ‘Who knew you had to apply to get married, but the Catholic priest comes once a month and I have to get back to work in about a week, so it’s this Saturday.’

  ‘How the hell are you going to organise a wedding in five days?’

  ‘There’s not much to organise really. We’re having a sausage sizzle in a paddock.’

  ‘Give me a list of things to do.’

  He speaks to Martha next because, despite everything that’s gone on between her and Rosie, Jimmy thinks she should know.

  There’s silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘Martha, I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you’d like to come along …’

  ‘Is that what she wants?’

  ‘I know she’d want you to be there.’

  ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘She doesn’t have to.’

  In the end Jimmy can’t convince Martha that Rosie would want her there, but she agrees to pack a few things for Frankie to pick up, including Loredana’s wedding dress.

  Four days later, he drives to Quilpie airport to pick up Frankie, who’s come with an entourage. Not only are Mackee and Tara there, but Justine as well, grinning from ear to ear, with that same infectious energy she had back in school. She links her arm with his as they follow the others.

  ‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world,’ she says.

  ‘What? Me getting married?’

  ‘No, you being happy, Jimmy.’

  ‘We’ve been practising one song,’ Frankie tells him. ‘So if you’ve already got a wedding band, tell them we want ten minutes on stage.’

  ‘Sausage sizzle in a paddock. Radio on. That’s our entertainment.’

  ‘Where’s the luggage conveyer belt?’ Justine asks.

  Quilpie airport is a one-room affair. Check-in, arrivals and departures all in the same place. Jimmy points to the ute that’s just driven up, packed with luggage.

  ‘This isn’t fucking Melbourne, Justine,’ Tara says.

  Justine laughs, obviously in on the joke, while Mackee and Frankie head towards the luggage ute and start collecting what’s theirs.

  ‘By the way, I forgot to ask if it’s okay that I bring a plus one,’ Frankie calls out, dragging a suitcase off the trailer.

  ‘Me too,’ Justine says. Tara hugs Jimmy’s arm. All three girls are giddy and Jimmy’s confused.

  ‘Who are their plus ones?’ he calls out to
Mackee, because he’s not going to get anything from the girls.

  Mackee points. ‘Them.’

  Jimmy looks to see Will and Siobhan standing near the exit.

  ‘You’re getting married!’ Siobhan says, leaping onto him.

  Will looks heavily jetlagged and wants to know where the Monaro is. ‘Can’t believe you lost it for two years, Hailler.’

  ‘Stolen,’ Jimmy corrects. ‘You look like crap, mate.’

  ‘Will and I have been travelling for thirty-six hours,’ Siobhan says. ‘Thirty-six.’

  ‘We met these two at Brisvegas airport,’ Tara explained. ‘They haven’t even gone home to see their families.’

  Jimmy embraces the two. ‘You came all the way here for me?’

  ‘As if he did,’ Siobhan says. ‘He came all the way to make sure everything’s okay with Frankie.’

  ‘I told you that in confidence, Siobhan,’ Will says, irritated.

  ‘You told me that because we’ve been stuck together for thirty-six hours, Will.’ She’s got an audience in a local family who are fascinated by the arrival of very loud dramatic foreigners.

  ‘He thinks he stuffed up by taking the Stuttgart job, not reading the signs and wallowing in self-pity instead of coming back and making things right.’

  Siobhan looks at Will.

  ‘Did I leave anything out? I’ve got a good memory for reluctant male crying.’

  Will mutters something under his breath and walks away to help Frankie who’s now on the ute’s tray helping to off-load the luggage.

  Siobhan points to her cheeks, mouths the word, ‘Tears.’

  They arrive at the pub and Will goes off to organise a couple more rooms down at the motel. Mackee and Tara are still to arrive because they had to hitch a ride with a local. The girls, meanwhile, have taken over the main bar with their luggage.

  ‘What does one wear to a country wedding?’ Siobhan says, holding up two outfits.

  ‘Sausage sizzle,’ Jimmy reminds them.

  There’s the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and Siobhan looks up. ‘Oh my God, I’m going to cry,’ she says. ‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ Rosie is coming down the stairs with Toto on her hip, staring at the invasion of frills and tulle on the ground. Jimmy figures it’s her mother’s wedding dress spilling out of Frankie’s luggage. Siobhan is advancing on Rosie and Toto with arms open. ‘I just want to eat him.’