by Steve Hawke
Big Al is thoughtful as he makes his way across to the bar. He leans there, watching the crowd, but his eyes keep returning to Tich and Bella.
The Dreamers’ first set goes smoothly. Andy’s late arrival makes no difference; they can do these soft rock classics in their sleep. The older kids join the crowd dancing on the grassy area in front of the bandstand.
For the second set they sit on the grass with a bag of chips between them and a cool drink each. Jimmy breaks off singing along with Little Joe to lean over and yell into Janey’s ear, ‘Can you imagine it? Us up there doing a gig?’
Janey grins. ‘Look at Little Joe though. I reckon he’s bored.’
Jimmy gives her a sly look. ‘He told me there might be a surprise tonight.’ But when she gives him a questioning look he draws his thumb and finger across his mouth as if to say ‘my lips are sealed’.
A couple of songs later the dancers have dwindled. Little Joe lets the smattering of applause fade away, then announces, ‘Now, for something a little bit different folks.’ He looks at his brothers with a mischievous grin. Eddie and Col and Andy exchange puzzled looks.
Jimmy is already on his feet, signalling Janey and the others to get up as Little Joe continues. ‘For this next number, I’d like a couple of old timers to join us. Please put your hands together for Uncle Micky on the ukulele, and Buster Jirroo on harmonica.’
Whoops of approval break out amongst the locals in the audience, and most of them head for the dance area. Leaning against the bar, Big Al is not amused. But when he sees Tich go past with an eager smile, dragging Bella by the hand, he quickly forgets about the band.
Micky and Buster stand on either side of Little Joe as he leans into the microphone. ‘We’d like to do an old blues number that our daddy used to play for our mum. Shake Dat Thing. Here we go folks.’
The Dreamers launch into the raunchy blues number. Micky and Buster are revelling in it and Micky leans across to join Little Joe with raucous gusto on each chorus.
There is hardly room for the dancers now as the tourists start to join the locals, jiving away. The older Jirroo kids are up the front, exchanging grins with Micky and Buster as they dance. Little Joe winks at Jimmy, who gives him a thumbs up.
Tich is nearer the back with Bella, who is showing she can still shake it on the dance floor, despite her grey hair. Big Al has a smile for the punters as he edges his way past the dancers. He seems to be heading for the other side of the dancing area when he bumps into Tich, knocking her down. He nods and smiles apologetically to the nearby dancers, and makes a show of squatting down and helping her to her feet, patting her on the back, making sure she is okay.
As he is getting up he lurches and almost knocks Tich over again. He looks crossly over his shoulder, trying to see who has bumped him. He pats her once again on the back, but Tich doesn’t want to know; she is straight back into the dancing as Big Al moves off.
Shake Dat Thing comes to a rousing close. Bella lifts Tich up to watch as Micky manoeuvres himself to the front and does a flourishing bow, hogging the limelight.
Micky and Buster stay up for a slow blues number, then the gig is over. It has turned out to be a good night. Little Joe had wanted to do something that would get everybody’s minds — especially Buster’s — off worrying about Jiir, and this has given them all a buzz. Even Ally can’t help smiling as she warns him against getting Big Al offside with stunts like that. This gig at the Bay View is too good an earner for the band to take any chances.
The band is packing up when Tich’s anguished, panicked scream makes them all jerk around. She is racing across the grass with a distraught Bella stumbling behind her. She flings herself into Mary’s arms, sobbing so hard she can hardly get the words out. ‘Mimi … Mimi Bella … her diamond. It’s gone … I was wearing it Mum … I don’t know what happened.’
Tich dissolves into heaving sobs that wrack her whole body. Mary holds her tight as the rest of the Jirroos crowd in close with bewildered looks. They turn to Bella. She stands there, rooted to the spot. She looks completely gutted, well beyond crying, as if her heart has gone.
Jirroo Corner is a gloomy place as the night draws on. A search of the grounds at the Bay View was fruitless, and eventually everyone drifted home.
Bella is staring blankly at the empty pouch that normally hangs at her neck, now lying on the big backyard table. Janey sits with an arm around her shoulders. At the other end of the table Mary is cradling Tich tightly. Tich is nearly asleep, but still sobs every now and then, lifting a hand to wipe away her tears. Mary murmurs softly in her ear, ‘It’s all right darling. Nobody’s blaming you.’
The rest of the clan is scattered about the yard and the houses in small, silent groups. They have run out of words.
Big Al is in his favourite spot, leaning on the balcony railing. The Bay View is deserted. He smiles to himself as he pushes off the rail and heads into his office. He flicks on a desk lamp, settles in his chair. He reaches into his breast pocket, takes out Bella’s pendant, and places it in the circle of lamplight.
He leans back and looks at it, deep in thought, then reaches down and unlocks one of the desk drawers to take out an ancient tobacco tin. He twists off the lid, lifts a layer of tissue paper, and takes out another pearl-shell pendant and places it beside Bella’s. It too has a small diamond fixed to the shell.
Big Al slowly brings the two pendants together and draws in a sharp breath. As he thought, they fit together perfectly along one edge. They are cut from the same mother of pearl shell. His piece has been engraved too, with an incomplete pattern that is recognisable as a stylised bird. The lines below the bird fit perfectly with the design scratched into Bella’s pendant.
Big Al swivels around in his chair, trying to think. His find is a revelation, but it only deepens the mystery that has teased him all these years. He had always known that his piece of shell was only one part of the answer. His eyes come to rest again on the two pendants. It is obvious that a third piece is needed to complete the pattern that has been engraved on them.
He gets up and stands in front of a black and white photograph. In the photograph he is younger and leaner, with a full head of hair. He is on the verandah of the homestead of his first cattle station. Beside him is a weather-beaten old fellow who could be the station mechanic — work pants, dirty singlet, greasy old cowboy hat, and cigarette fixed to his lip. It is his father.
Big Al is remembering the last time they got together, a couple of years after the photo was taken. He had come down from the station when he got word that the old man’s tuberculosis was bad, and he was probably on the way out.
Big Al reckoned he had grown himself up. He and his old man had never been close, never had much to say to each other. This time though, his father had dragged him out to Eagle Beach, and they’d sat on the low cliff with the old feller wracked by coughing fits and spitting up phlegm.
His father had handed him the tobacco tin, worn to a polish from years of handling, and, in between coughing fits, had offered up the longest speech Big Al ever heard from him.
‘You heard about the Garnet Bay diamonds?’
‘Yeah.’
‘They’re mine!’
This was said with such vehemence it brought on a specially bad bout of coughing. The older Steer gathered himself together. ‘Or they were, for a little while … When I was tryin’ to claim ’em back, I came across this.’ He tapped the tobacco tin with a gnarled finger. ‘It’s a clue. I reckon there’s more clues, and I reckon they’re somewhere round here. Mebbe even the diamonds themselves. I’ve run out of time to work it out, though.’
With that, his father had dissolved into another round of coughing and refused to say more. Big Al had opened the tin to find the pendant with the bird design.
Old Steer died later that month.
Surfacing from these memories, Big Al taps Bella’s pendant against his father’s image in the photograph. ‘You didn’t tell me everything you knew, did you Dad?’
He nestles his father’s pendant back into the tin. Bella’s won’t fit in with it, so he seals it in an envelope, puts the pair into the drawer and relocks it.
Micky has taken Bella over to their house and put her to bed. Tich has finally fallen asleep, curled up between her mum and dad on their big bed. Buddy is drifting off in the hammock as Andy and Little Joe talk quietly on the back verandah.
Left to their own devices, Janey and Jimmy have finished up in the back corner of the block, at the old swings and climbing frame they use as their music place at home. They don’t feel like talking, but nor do they want to go to bed. Jimmy picks out a slow, soft tune on his guitar. Janey watches Dancer and Buster, who are sitting by a small fire that Buster has made in the hearth in the middle of the backyard.
Dancer is watching Buster absently turning the surveyor’s peg over and over in his hands. Dancer asks quietly, hesitantly, ‘Something wrong Nyami?’ Buster doesn’t move, doesn’t answer, doesn’t even seem to have heard Dancer’s question.
When Buster eventually emerges from his trance, he looks over at the house where his little sister Bella is sleeping, then looks down at the surveyor’s peg. He tosses the peg into the fire. The pair of them watch as the flames begin to catch at the wood. Finally Buster speaks.
‘There’s trouble in the land.’
The flames flare up around the peg. Its white tip singes to black.
5
JANEY’S FIRST THOUGHT on waking is to see Mimi Bella, but Ally tells her that Micky and Bella have already gone to the police station to report the loss.
She heads next door instead, and finds that the other kids are already up. As they sit round the kitchen table eating breakfast they try to reconstruct what happened the previous night. Tich is sure she had the pendant round her neck when she got up to dance. It was when it was all over and Mimi was packing up her folding chair that she asked for it back — and it wasn’t there any more. Her voice is getting shaky and the others give up their questioning.
Mary gives Tich a hug. ‘There’s no point hanging around here with long faces,’ she tells the kids. ‘You’re going to run out of holidays soon. Why don’t you go crabbing like you said. I’ll cook them up as a treat for Mimi.’
The kids’ plan, before last night’s disaster, had been to ride down to the shack and have another go at the new song, and then head over to the mudflats when the tide was low enough to hunt for crabs. But Janey reckons that first they should go and search the Bay View again; they might have better luck in daylight.
At the hotel the door that leads out to the garden bar is locked. Luckily Jimmy spots Gus, the yardman with the dangling dreadlocks. Jimmy signs for Gus to open the door and all five of them burst through into the outside area. Gus holds up his hands. ‘Hey mon, slow down. I’m not supposed to let anyone out here.’
Jimmy tells him what they are there for while the others start their search. Gus puts aside his broom to join them. The garden bar is still littered with cans and other debris, and the chairs and tables are all over the place.
They work in pairs, full of hope at first. By the time Janey and Tich have scoured the flowerbeds though, it is looking grim. Janey kicks at a pile of empty cans and asks Gus, ‘Didn’t Big Al tell you to keep a lookout for it or anything?’
‘Nothin’ Janey.’
‘Dad told him last night. He asked him to tell all the staff, so they’d know whose it was if they found it.’
Gus shrugs. ‘He too busy that mon. He always thinkin’ where he gonna make his next million dollar. He got no time to worry about your poor old mimi.’
As if on cue, a voice booms down from above. ‘What you kids doing here?’
Janey looks up, and there is Big Al, looking down from his balcony. ‘We’re looking for Mimi Bella’s necklace. Has anyone handed it in?’
‘Nup.’
‘We’ve got to find it Bi—’ she stops and corrects herself, ‘— Mr Steer. It’s a family heirloom. Bella’s daddy gave it to her. She’s so upset.’
With Big Al silhouetted above her, Janey can’t see the way his eyes narrow for a moment before he shakes his head with a show of regret. ‘The staff would’ve found it by now if it was here.’
‘But Gus hasn’t cleaned up yet,’ Janey points out.
‘He should’ve,’ Big Al growls. ‘I’ll tell him to keep a look out.’
He puts on a friendly voice to wind things up. ‘It’s tough kids, but I’ve got to tell you, your granny’s seen the last of her necklace I reckon. Most likely thing is one of the crowd’s snaffled it.’
‘Stealed it you mean?’ says Tich, who has been clinging to the idea that the pendant will turn up. If someone has stolen it, she suddenly realises, they are not going to hand it over.
‘I reckon so, littl’un. You better clear off now. I’ve got guests trying to sleep in.’
Once Big Al has disappeared, the kids plead with Gus to be allowed to keep searching, but he reckons he’s in enough trouble already. He ushers them out, promising to keep looking and to spread the word amongst the staff.
As they make their way back to their bikes, Janey tries to comfort Tich, who is sniffing back tears again. ‘He doesn’t care, that Big Al, does he Janey,’ she pouts. ‘He bumped me over while I was dancing last night.’
‘What? Big Al was dancing?’ Janey exclaims in disbelief.
‘No, he was just going to the other side, I think. I dunno.’
The kids freewheel down Kennedy Hill, and head across to Mango Jack’s, searching their pockets to see if they have enough change for an ice cream before they head home.
Jimmy almost bumps into Kim coming out of the shop. Kim is in the same class as Jimmy and Janey at school, and fancies herself as a singer. She smiles, ‘Great gig last night Jimmy. Hey, you going in the talent quest — you’re cool on guitar.’
Janey brushes past but turns in the doorway of the shop, posing as she mimes behind Kim’s back, ‘You’re so cool on guitar.’ She disappears inside, leaving Jimmy unsure whether she was mocking Kim or teasing him. He smiles at Kim, tongue-tied.
‘What talent contest?’ asks Dancer.
‘Tomorrow afternoon, at Goolarri Radio,’ she tells him. ‘The winner gets played on air! It’ll be the last bit of fun before we go back to school on Tuesday.’
Kim is about to tell them more when Michael barges out of the shop. He snaps at Kim, ‘What are you wasting your time with that mob for?’
Before Kim can say anything, Janey has reappeared. ‘Who says she’s with us! If she’s dumb enough to hang out with you Jawbone, we don’t want her round.’
Buddy has been riding in circles, watching, waiting. He swerves just enough for his bike to clip Michael on the way. Michael starts in Buddy’s direction with clenched fists but Dancer steps into his path. The pair begin to push each other and it looks as if the previous night’s hostilities are about to resume when a car horn honks.
Georgie’s car is in the parking bay. The window slides down and Georgie leans out. ‘Come on Michael, I won’t have you fighting in the street.’ He gives the Jirroo kids a stare. ‘Some of us know better than that. I saw what you did, Buddy Jirroo.’
Michael jumps into the car, raising a finger at Dancer, Buddy and Janey before the window slides up. All three raise fingers back.
Janey turns on Kim. ‘Well? Are you hanging out with that jerk? Sure looked like it when I walked in.’
Kim looks down, daunted by Janey’s aggression. She mutters, ‘That’s my business.’
‘Huh,’ Janey snorts.
As they ride home Jimmy is fired up with the idea of going in the talent quest. He reckons they could win it with their tune if they work on the ending.
‘It’s just a tune Jimmy,’ is Janey’s cool response. ‘We haven’t got any lyrics for it yet.’
But he wants to do it as an instrumental, wants to go and practise. He is excited at the thought of getting played on Goolarri.
‘Some stupid talent quest isn�
�t what music making’s about. You should know that,’ Janey tells him. ‘Anyway, I thought we agreed to keep the band idea a secret until we get our act together. You can forget about that if we go in.’
Jimmy can’t work out why Janey is being so cranky, but he knows from experience that tackling her head-on is not likely to get anywhere.
‘Okay, okay,’ he says. ‘But let’s get down to the shack hey, like we planned, and have another practice. Then we can see what everyone reckons.’
‘All right,’ Janey agrees. ‘But don’t expect me to change my mind. And I’m going home first to see if they found out anything at the cop shop.’
Then Buddy throws another spanner in. He reckons he’s not doing any drumming until after they’ve gone crabbing. Jimmy groans. But he can’t defeat Buddy’s argument: the instruments will still be there later on, but the crabs won’t if they miss the tide.
6
JANEY IS A GIRL who likes to be on top of things, and usually she feels like she is. She gradually drifts away from Tich and Jimmy, trying to work out why she is so out of sorts and snappy.
The disappearance of the pendant is bad enough. And there’s something about it that she can’t put her finger on. Then there is Jiir, and the worry of the surveyor’s pegs, which is potentially worse.
But the feeling that’s gnawing away at her is something else again. It’s got to do with what Dancer told her Buster said — There’s trouble in the land. She feels like there’s more to come. She hates not knowing what it might be; and even more, she hates the fact that she has no idea what to do about it, or even how to talk about it.
A flock of sandpipers distracts her as it wheels in low. The wading birds land in a tight group on the tidal flats. As one, they get to work feeding, probing the mud with their long beaks. She spots a heron out near the waterline as it lifts its legs high, patrolling with a beady eye. She looks a little like the heron herself, lean and graceful and very much at home as she picks her way along.