Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe

by Wayne Macauley

  Slug turned the car around and we cut across the paddocks, through the new eastern branch of the creek and the empty paddock that used to be Vito’s garden, bumping up and down over the old irrigation channels, past the now abandoned tip on our left and the rusting grader still parked on the access road to our right and finally out onto the bitumen and to the highway north. I sat in the passenger seat; Slug drove silently, his thoughts far away; in the back seat Jodie cradled Marie-Claire in her arms and watched the dark paddocks and barbed-wire fences flash past. We drove down the deserted main street into town and pulled up outside the pub. The publican—I vaguely remembered his face—was standing on the front steps, hopping from one foot to the other, ready to greet us.

  It was well after eleven and the public bar was dark and quiet as the motley group filed inside. To anyone’s eyes we must have looked a sight. Our clothes were ragged and dirty, our faces pale and thin; I hadn’t shaved or cut my hair for months. The publican—Ted—showed us all upstairs where two rooms had been prepared: one for Craig and Marie-Claire (which Marie-Claire entered, alone), the other for Jodie and me. They had obviously not been used for years, but mingling with the must was the strangely alien smell of fresh linen, scrubbed porcelain and the heavy scent of pine room freshener. There was one double bed against the wall. They’d put a few clothes in the cupboard for us—they reeked of mothballs and were completely ill-fitting. Jodie had first shower in the bathroom down the corridor; when I returned from mine she was sitting at the small table by the window dressed only in an over-sized t-shirt, her hair still wet, her skin lit by the fluorescent streetlight outside. Ted the publican knocked, and brought in a complimentary bottle of cheap champagne. He and Slug were having a drink downstairs, he said, and we were welcome to join them if we felt up to it. In the meantime, drink this, it’s on the house. The champagne glasses felt so light they could have been made of air, the clean taste and the tingle of bubbles on your tongue was like drinking mineral water straight from a mountain spring. It took less than five minutes for the sight of Jodie sitting by the window in the strange silver-violet glow of the streetlight with a champagne glass in her hand and her wet hair streaked across her shoulders and back to completely overwhelm me. The room spun for a moment and then, finally, I was holding her in my arms.

  That night, back in ur, Michael and Craig prepared to make their final stand. Unbeknown to us Michael had corralled some horses off the paddocks into a backyard in West Street; he selected the two fittest looking beasts, gave them rope bridles and reins and had them ready and waiting in the square when Craig returned from the North Wall with his supply of petrol-filled bottles. They each lashed a crate to the side of their horse, gave all the bottles rag wicks and stacked them into the crates. The plan was to break a small opening in the West Wall, ride out in a wide arc south-west and attack the advancing column from the rear. I can’t imagine what possessed Craig to agree to such a foolish scheme, and, as he related all this to me later, he was still unable to explain why he had submitted himself to it. They knocked out just enough bricks at the end of West Street for the horses to pass through and rode out a little after midnight under the cover of a moonless night. But the plan was doomed from the start: the freeway had advanced too far now to be stopped, and, by the time Michael and Craig had ridden out and crossed the creek on the western edge the bulldozers were already crashing through the South Wall. The riders circled wide in the darkness, the bottles rattling in their crates, only to find that most of the machinery was already inside ur. They managed to hurl one flaming bottle at a huge roller still parked on the south side of the creek, then Craig dropped the box of matches in the dark—they searched but couldn’t find them and beat a hasty retreat. They rode back towards the gap in the West Wall, now planning to somehow stop the column as it came down South Street to the square, but Craig’s horse lost its footing in the creek and all his bottles fell from their crate. He stood knee-deep in mud, trying to calm his struggling horse, and watched as Michael rode through the gap down West Street, hooves resounding on the bitumen. He called out to him, urging him to retreat, but Michael didn’t hear. That was enough for Craig; he finally extricated both himself and his horse from the mud and rode like a madman across the paddocks towards town.

  I was asleep, entangled in Jodie’s arms, when Slug knocked loudly on the door. I followed him downstairs; Jodie still lay sleeping; Craig was sitting at the bar next to Ted with a blanket draped over him, clutching a glass of brandy. He was covered in mud from head to toe, his beard and hair matted and stinking. I sat beside him and laid an arm over his shoulder. He gave the details of the past two hours in a halting fashion, stopping occasionally to sip the brandy, sometimes staring blankly into the glass for a minute or two while he gathered his thoughts again. He had no idea where Michael was now—kept saying: But I had to go—whether he had ridden into the square and probable death or had retreated safely somewhere, who knows where: where was there left to run? He asked after Marie-Claire and I told him she was sleeping; he turned to me, looked me in the eye, and in a soft voice said: We have to go.

  All was a flurry of activity then: Marie-Claire was woken and told to pack, Craig showered and changed, Slug offered to drive them to the airport and drank two cups of black coffee to try to sober himself up. I pulled Slug aside and in a quiet but determined voice demanded that he give Craig and Marie-Claire the money they’d need. He was too shocked to refuse. I’ll fix it all up at the airport, he said. With their bare belongings Craig and Marie-Claire were hustled out the front door of the bar down the steps into the dark and into Slug’s waiting car. Jodie came down wrapped in a blanket, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, to say a last goodbye. We watched the car drive off down the main street until its two red taillights blinked and disappeared.

  We went back up to bed; I couldn’t sleep myself and sat for a while at the table by the window. I took the old leather satchel from my suitcase and put it on the table in front of me. I gazed at it for a long time, transfixed, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it. I turned towards Jodie; she seemed to be asleep, her hair spread out like tiny rivers on the pillow. I left the satchel on the table and crept quietly downstairs.

  The bar was quiet and deserted; one dim light shone above the spirits’ shelf. I walked around and poured myself a brandy. There was the sound of a door creaking, then I saw a light come on in the Saloon Bar next door. The door opened and a stocky, thick-set man came in carrying a mop and bucket. The cleaner, I thought; is it that late already? He nodded to me silently, stood the mop in the bucket and leaned it against the wall, then began stacking the chairs on the tables. Big night, he said, without looking up. Yes, I said, and we both fell silent again. The story is that most of it’s already gone, he said. He was talking about ur. How do you know? I said. Spies, he said, then looked up and smiled. And Michael? He got away, they don’t know where—mind if I join you? I didn’t have the chance to answer; he moved across the room and sat on the stool directly opposite. I suppose the taps are off, he said: well, I’ll have a brandy too. Like an obedient barman I poured him one and placed it in his hand. Yes, there won’t be anything left by morning, he said: I’ve got a mate who drives a dozer, he was in town a little while ago to buy some takeaways for the boys. But don’t worry about Michael, he got away, and I’m sure it won’t be the last we’ll hear of him either. Smoke? I shook my head. So what happens now? the cleaner continued: your guess is as good as mine. Do I wait again, on another promise, or give up all hope of going back to my trade and stick with the mop and bucket? I didn’t know what he was talking about but was too tired and confused to ask. Of course, there’ll be another promise, he said, you can bet your boots on that, but I don’t know whether I can believe them any more. You’ve got to know when to give up hoping, that’s the art of happy living, so far as I’m concerned. Which house did you live in? At the end of North Court, I said: I moved to the corner of North Street and the square after Michael built the wall. Yes, I wo
uld have worked on them both, the cleaner said: I worked on all the houses up there. I had two labourers and an apprentice, you know; a thousand bricks a day we’d lay, just our gang alone, we’d knock over a house in less than a week. Hah! What a time that was! We thought the work’d never end—we had no reason to doubt it. This was just the start, they said; they’d bought up all the land around, when the freeway came there were going to be another two hundred houses added and once that was done, well, there was no telling where it would stop. I don’t know what happened. We were a real little community in the town here, the tradesmen waiting for the expansion of the estate; I’ve lived in that room up there, just down the corridor from yours, for almost fourteen years. Then, well, just like that! Bricklayers, tilers, plasterers, plumbers, electricians—oh yes, we were a real little community back then—up they got and off they went. Tony, they said, give up, mate, there’ll be no more work out here. They’re building a freeway out in the east, they said; that’s where you want to be. I had some good mates, among that crowd, and maybe I should have listened. But can I tell you something about me, Bram? I’m a dreamer, that’s all. No, I said, I’ll stay here, the freeway will come out this way eventually and I want to be here when it does. And bugger it, why shouldn’t I stay? I’d moved around enough already—a little work here, a little work there—and once you’ve had a taste for the kind of work the estate gave us it’s hard to give up the dream that there’s more of the same to be had. So I stayed: Ted’s looked after me, he gave me this job in exchange for a room and a little cash in hand. But it’s hard, you know: look at these hands. Are these the hands of a bricklayer? Housewife’s hands, that’s what they are, softened by too many mops and buckets. I’d have given anything to have helped you out with that wall, you know, just to feel the roughness on my skin again, but I couldn’t interfere, it wasn’t my business, and I kept well out of the way. I spoke to Alex about it once, it was at that table over there: Keep out of it, Tony, he said, don’t poke your nose in where it’s not wanted. (I’d have made it double thickness though, Flemish bond with alternating headers—but that’s neither here nor there.) And now the freeway’s arrived. Fourteen years I’ve waited and it’s finally arrived. And if it’s heading north-west to a satellite town twice the size of the estate as they say then I’ll need to be ready, won’t I?

  The door from the Saloon Bar opened and a light went on: it was Ted, in an old woollen dressing gown. So what about doing some work now, motormouth? he said: we open in a few hours’ time. Goodnight, Bram, you should get some sleep. He flicked off the light and disappeared again. Tony put his empty glass on the bar and gave me a conspiratorial wink. He’s a good boss, he said, and yes, I’ll probably be working here, emptying ashtrays and mopping floors until the day I die. But we all need our little dreams now, don’t we? He finished stacking the chairs and began rhythmically mopping the floor. All was quiet. I watched him for a while—Tony, the bricklayer-in-waiting, probably the most deluded of us all—drank another brandy then climbed the stairs to my room. As I reached out for the doorhandle I suddenly hesitated for a moment, and for a moment a most magical image passed across my mind. Tony would build a house for Jodie and me, a beautiful house, brick by brick, somewhere out there on the paddocks where the estate used to be and we would live happily ever after in it with our brood of children who would procreate down through the generations and build other houses, one by one filling all the gaps in the empty landscape until between fence and fence, neighbour and neighbour, there were no more gaps to be filled. As I entered the quiet, half-dark room and hung my shirt on the back of the chair the first thing I noticed was that the old leather satchel was no longer on the table. Then I turned to the bed and saw that Jodie was gone.

  thirteen

  There were all kinds of rumours, it became impossible to sort fiction from fact. But from the scraps of stories that came back to me I was able to build up some kind of picture of the period following the destruction. I stayed on in my room in the pub on my own and had plenty of time to work on this picture and add the extra touches it needed. A slight exaggeration here, some extra drama there; it mattered little to me now how much of it corresponded to the truth. There was nothing I could say to compete with the wild versions that circulated each night in the bar. The only ones who could tell you what really happened over the months that followed were Michael and his daughter and they, in their separate ways, are both far gone now and way beyond asking.

  Michael rode down into the square that night as the bulldozers moved up South Street, taking the houses with them. But he had not gone down there to make a final stand, as Craig had thought; even in his madness he had more sense than that. Instead he dismounted at Dave’s, tied up his horse, ran to the gate in the East Wall and ripped bits of timber and barbed wire from it. He dragged them back to Dave’s grave in the square beside the plaque and hastily built a fence around it. What meaning there was in this I couldn’t say, but it was Michael’s last act before leaving ur for good. He untied his horse, remounted and galloped off down West Street through the gap in the wall. I must have been down in the bar with Tony when Jodie sneaked out by the back door of the pub into the carpark that night for her rendezvous with Michael. Did I hear the hooves on the bitumen? Perhaps I did, I’m still not sure. They rode off together into the night.

  For over a month Michael wreaked havoc in every country town within a fifty-kilometre radius of ur; any office which was in any way connected with the government or shire council could not hope to be spared his merciless revenge. Every night, while back in their bush hideout Jodie kept the campfire burning, he rode into another town, threw bricks through windows and daubed slogans on walls. People caught sight of him, the strange figure in the old khaki jacket and rabbit-skin hat, galloping down the main street with his heels digging hard into his frail horse’s flanks. It might have been a dream—how many people told themselves on crawling back into bed that it must have been a dream?—but in the morning as they arrived at the post office to buy a stamp, the town hall to pay their rates, the local Member’s office for a chat, they were quickly shocked back into reality. Mad Michael had passed by in the night and the evidence of his wrath was clear.

  Rumours of his exploits spread, and though people began speculating wildly on the reasons for them, no-one but the cognisant few ever managed to connect the story back to the destruction of ur. And as much as you might admire Michael—and many, many did—in this sense his adventures proved to be a complete failure. He believed he was making a point, but amid the chaos, the panic and the fear, the point was completely lost. No-one had a yardstick to measure such fervour by, and certainly no-one in their wildest imagination could trace the violence back to some vague notion of a house, a family and a happy life in the former housing estate north of Melbourne. He carried a grudge, obviously, against certain government and shire instrumentalities, but who doesn’t occasionally carry a grudge of this kind, even if their method of unburdening themselves of it may be somewhat less dramatic? Or perhaps he was simply an escaped lunatic and there was no method in his madness at all? Everyone had their theories and their own particular reasons for holding them but no-one understood Michael, and this lack of understanding only rankled him all the more and drove him to deeds that even further defied the most carefully applied logic. He began attacking other people’s houses, the new brick veneers that were always cropping up on the edge of country towns. A newly married couple would arrive with their furniture and all their hopes and dreams ahead of them only to find every window smashed and slogans painted in the driveway. He raided real estate agents, housing finance companies, lawyers who handled conveyancing, furniture shops, hardware stores, anything to do with houses or housing; one night he torched a whole building supplies yard and reduced it to smoking ash. Whatever sympathy he may have enjoyed began to quickly evaporate as almost everyone in some way or other came in contact with his unbridled ire. His days were numbered and he knew it; he spun in ever-decreasing ci
rcles, eyes everywhere for the knife that would soon surely take him from behind. Jodie stood by him, administered to his needs and kept them moving from one place to another in a complex series of camping and decamping manoeuvres. But she was tired, had already become ill and began each day vomiting into the nearest bushes; her admiration for her father remained unshaken but her patience was wearing thin. How long could this madness go on?

  The only sympathisers they could still rely on were a network of farmers who, having formed a growing resentment towards suburban expansion in any shape or form and who somewhat misguidedly interpreted Michael to be a rebel farmer intent on stopping the insidious spread of housing into traditional farming districts, consequently took him on as their standard-bearer and spokesman. Michael was not to know all this, Jodie chose not to tell him, but she quickly took advantage of this network of support. They slept out in sheds and bungalows, were kept supplied with fresh milk, cream and eggs, and by using these sympathetic farms on a rotating basis were able to carry on the rebellion and survive. If the farmers invited them into their houses to dine with their families, Jodie would ensure that Michael ate his dinner quietly (thus doubling the mystique) while she thanked them all on his behalf, insisted that they would carry on the struggle against this haphazard housing expansion until the bitter end and let them know in the subtlest way possible how much her father valued their support. By this means they were able to remain on the run while forgoing only the most extravagant creature comforts. With rare exceptions they slept in warm comfortable beds, ate fresh and healthy farm produce, were able to exchange horses as required and keep one step ahead of the law. Michael chose his target, Jodie mapped out the quickest escape route to that night’s safe haven, journeyed ahead to the farm in question (leaving Michael with a detailed map) and prepared the way for his arrival. Town by town, farmhouse by farmhouse, they crisscrossed the countryside, Michael wreaking havoc while Jodie held the fort, their notoriety increasing by the day.