‘This ain’t over, Buckley!’ he bellowed, the sheer force of his outrage bringing the protesters clustering to him like iron filings to a magnet. An insistent chant began: This ain’t over. Buckley looked across at the furious mob, and at the security guard on high alert beside the door that led to the council offices. In the crowd, the dreadlocked seventy-year-old took out a Zippo lighter and idly began to roll his thumb on the sparking mechanism. The youngsters grinned and began drumming their fists on the plastic seats. Encouraged, Ken moved closer to the councillors, until only a low wooden wall and ten metres of carpet lay between him and his nemesis. Savannah, though quietly thrilled at the idea of Buckley getting his block knocked off, began reminding Ken he was on parole. Ken was deaf to her.
‘Hey, Buckley? Think we don’t know about your dodgy deals? You got no social licence for no fucken prison!’ Ken yelled. ‘This ain’t over!’ The chant swelled and echoed inside the room. The security guard urged the mayor to take a break. It would let the protest dissipate, Rawiri argued. Ken stared the mayor down, a vein throbbing violently in his temple. He raised his right fist high then drove it hard into his left palm, grinding it there as he glared. Ken was waiting for the tiniest grin of triumph, the slightest grimace of disdain, to propel him over the low wooden wall and start putting Buckley in intensive care.
The mayor snorted. With a slack hand he batted away the protest. For two hundred grand plus, Kenny bloody Salter could yell at him till he turned blue in the face. It was all water off a duck’s back to him.
‘Ah, he’s all piss and vinegar. Now. Through the chair—’ the mayor addressed council again.
Ken grunted.
‘I’m gonna sort this clown out,’ he announced, putting his hands on top of the low wall and bouncing over it with surprising agility. ‘Once and for all.’
The chant faltered as the horrified hippies realised that Ken was serious.
‘Think yer above the law, donchya Buckley?’ Ken bellowed, bunching his hands back into fists and readying to use them. ‘Well you ain’t above Bundjalung Law, pal—’ and here he glanced at Rawiri, who had last year beaten Chris into second place for the job of council security guard. ‘And you can piss the fuck off back to Aotearoa, mate.’
‘Uh! Uh! Sir! I need you to get back behind the wall immediately!’ Rawiri yelped, leaping to stretch his tattooed arms wide and shield the councillors from Ken, who was suddenly much closer. Rawiri was paid to be a large and angry man, but Ken was an even angrier man, and he wasn’t fighting for a pay packet. With the low wooden wall breached, the scales suddenly dropped from Buckley’s eyes. He remembered the brandishing of the imitation kingplate at the funeral and the crazy talk from Ken that day. And come to think of it, hadn’t his old man been a bit of a nutter, too? Told to keep his distance from the footy club after one blue too many in the stands?
Rawiri was shaping up to Ken when, without warning, Luke Chin was between them, proffering pies and sauce. ‘Here ya go, Kenny. They only had the one steak and mushy left,’ he bullshitted for the sake of distraction. ‘And I couldn’t remember if ya liked chicken mornay so I got ya a plain one for the second. I didn’t think you’d go for the mushy peas.’ Miraculously, Ken hesitated. There were pastry crumbs on Luke’s uniform collar, and tantalising pie smells from the bag Luke was thrusting under his nose. Luke edged his way around to better block Ken’s access to the mayor. Without even agreeing to accept them, Ken found himself holding a hot pie in each hand.
‘C’mon, Kenny,’ Luke urged. ‘That’s some bloody nice tucker there. And aren’t ya on parole, bud? Whaddya reckon we head outside, eh?’ He clapped Ken on the back, precisely once, then let his hand fall away.
Ken wavered. His parole only had a couple of months left to run. His bung knee hurt. Rawiri was young, and looked like he worked out.
‘It’s hard to fight the good fight from behind bars, brother,’ offered Zippo Man. ‘Let’s regroup and talk about what’s next.’
‘Yeah. Well, you’ll keep, cunt,’ Ken spat at Buckley, before walking back to the protesters, pies delicately balanced on his outstretched palms.
‘Meeting adjourned,’ Buckley said shakily, gathering up his papers and heading to the inner recesses of the building, where the faint ghost of the chant This ain’t over could still be heard.
~
‘Yer too bloody late,’ Ken accused as Kerry and Pretty Mary arrived home penniless from Bruns. ‘As usual.’ Kerry parked the XD beneath the leopard tree, instantly tense. Here we go. She scoped the scene. Black can in Ken’s hand. Chris’s car absent. There had been only three UDLs left in the fridge last night; Ken couldn’t have bought any more unless he’d had a) cashed-up visitors or b) a big win. There were no visitors’ cars in sight, and if he’d had a big win he’d be down the road gambling. Ergo, he was no more than three cans to the wind, practically sober. And if he was sober then she was definitely refusing to toe whatever bullshit line he had decided to draw today.
‘Yeah, and you’re ugly, as usual. Late for what?’
‘The DA passed,’ he told her. ‘Plus I nearly got in a fight with that big Maori prick at council. And then Luke Chin wanted to arrest me!’
‘Shit! Why didn’t ya text me?’ Kerry slammed the driver’s door – it was the only way it would close since ploughing through the weldmesh fence – and Pretty Mary startled.
‘I told ya I got no credit!’ Ken was enjoying the catastrophe now that he had Kerry to deflect the blame onto. She had sworn blind that she’d be back in time for the demo and would drag Donny along as well. ‘But, y’know. Thanks for being there, sis. Thanks for having me back, eh.’
‘Well, just to add to ya joys, Centrelink says there’s nothing owing. Something’s gone wrong with the system, looks like,’ Kerry said, deciding to ignore Ken’s sarcasm. ‘That’s why we took so long. You know, trying to get the bungoo together to save the island. So there’s no need to act like you’re some big hero and we ain’t doing nothing.’
‘Black Superman rang,’ Pretty Mary added as she stumbled past Ken into the kitchen, exhausted by the stress of Centrelink. ‘He reckons he’s found a top QC for half the price.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Ken spat. ‘He forking out for it is he?’
‘He paid for the funeral,’ Pretty Mary said bravely, ignoring how woozy her head felt. ‘He’s not made of money.’
‘Well, why bother to come up with genius fucking ideas like a QC then, if he ain’t got the bungoo?’ Ken’s eyes glittered, all his jealousy condensed into one livid question. ‘Why not bring in the army and airforce while he’s at it? Hey? Or get onto The Rock – he’ll help a brother out!’
‘How about,’ Kerry countered tightly, ‘how about we let Mum sit down and get a cuppa tea like the old lady she is, before we talk about it?’
‘I’m sick of fucking sitting down and having cups of tea. We need to act.’ Ken snatched his keys out of Kerry’s hand and flung himself into the Falcon. He swung the steering wheel hard and fired the engine. ‘If nothing changes, nothing changes. And if you’d hock your bloody bike we might actually be able to hire a QC and finally get somewhere!’ he told Kerry over the roaring engine.
‘You stink of rum. If the RBT pulls ya up you’re cactus, mate.’ I should ring the cop shop and get Luke Chin over here, Kerry thought furiously. See how ya like that, arsehole.
‘Stop it, you two,’ protested Pretty Mary. ‘Youse wanna knock orf!’
‘Funny how every bastard’s problems are suddenly over if I sell the only decent thing I ever owned,’ Kerry shouted at Ken. ‘How about you flog off a few of these useless old shitboxes?’ She gestured contemptuously at the creaking ruins that had multiplied around the leopard tree. Every time Ken won at the TAB, he was straight onto eBay for the latest two-hundred-dollar rust-bucket to bog and flog. Ya gotta spend money to make money, he’d say at least once a day, perfectly serious, gazing with terrific
pride upon his dilapidated field of dreams. Gunnagunna Motors, Kerry had hooted. But Pretty Mary supported his vision, and Chris or Donny or even Uncle Neil could regularly be found underneath a raised bonnet, listening for Ken’s instructions, bellowed from behind a missing windscreen as he revved a dodgy engine.
‘Whaddya think I’m doing with em, ya stupid bitch!’ Ken yelled back before taking off, leaving a large cloud of dust billowing behind him and chickens scattering in all directions.
‘Why dya hafta stir Pop up like that?’ Pretty Mary accused Kerry. ‘Why not just keep quiet? He don’t mean half what he says.’
Kerry stared at her mother.
‘Pop? Whaddya mean, Pop?’
‘Kenny, you know I mean Kenny. Why dya hafta stir him up for? He’ll blow a gasket one day just like ya father did.’
‘Yeah, blame me, good on ya … That prick was born with a blown gasket.’ Kerry stuck her head out the back door and hurled this comment at the driveway, before wandering over to the fridge to see if Chris had picked any susu up after his shift. She put her hand on her neck below her left ear. It was years since Ken had flogged her up, but blueing with him still made her ache. Her big brother was literally a pain in the neck. And their mother was his enabler: he doesn’t mean it, let it go. He’ll be over it in a few minutes. He was drunk, he was tired. He. He. He. Kerry was getting pretty sick of hearing about Ken at the beginning of every sentence.
‘Bub,’ said Pretty Mary unsteadily. ‘I don’t feel too good.’
‘Then lie down,’ Kerry ordered, grabbing her mother’s bony elbow and steering her towards the lounge.
‘I think I’m on me way out,’ her mother said. ‘The Lord wants me to come home.’
‘No, he bloody doesn’t,’ said Kerry as she laid Pretty Mary down with her feet up and a wet washer on her face. She wasn’t losing another one, not this soon.
‘Promise me something,’ Pretty Mary whispered, holding her head up off the maroon velveteen cushion to gaze pathetically at her daughter. ‘Find sissy, bub. And if she’s really gone, I want ya to—’
‘You. Aren’t. Dying!’ Kerry screeched. ‘And till you are, my promises ain’t worth much. You of all people should know that by now.’
There were no prizes for guessing what else Pretty Mary would ask if Kerry indulged her hypochondria: hock the Harley. Hire Black Superman’s QC. Stop the prison defiling Granny’s land. Oh, and find a cure for cancer while yer at it. Kerry opened the louvre windows another crack. From where she stood, sponging Pretty Mary’s forehead, she could see the bike gleaming beneath the clothes line. Twenty grand there for the taking. Or the selling. Turned out QCs were three grand a day, even at mates rates.
Unusually, the bike wasn’t alone beneath the Hills hoist. The orange cat had decided to perch itself comfortably on the wide leather seat, with its striped tail wrapped snug around its front paws. The cat was looking straight ahead through the handlebars as though contemplating life on the open road. Off to sunnier climes where it wouldn’t have to outwit both Elvis and the cane toads to lick the Homebrand pet food tins scattered under the house.
Still Life with Cat, Durrongo Style. And the Harley was pretty much the only thing in Durrongo that had any bloody style to it, the only part of life here that didn’t scream poverty and desperation. It was the single thing that said to Kerry each morning that she had made it out of Shitsville alive, that she didn’t belong forever in the godforsaken dump she’d fled at seventeen.
The cat turned and looked directly at her. Three grand a day? Tell em they’re dreaming.
Spot on, budigan. Time to dust off the work clothes and find that backpack. Cos dickhead’s right about one thing: if nothing changes, nothing changes.
Chapter Ten
Kerry examined herself in the mirror on the cupboard door. Hair plaited. Black jeans with runners and Ken’s oversize shirt. Perfect. She was any gender, any dark race.
Red rover, red rover, here I come over.
She stuck her head into the hall. Mum and Aunty Val had gone to town for a doctor’s appointment and the $7.95 dinner special at the razzle. Ken and Sav were next door in front of the pre-season footy commentary. Donny was glued to Warcraft. Chris was visiting his on-again-off-again girlfriend in Mullum, trying his hardest to flick the switch back to on and be a part of his daughter’s life. The coast wasn’t going to get any clearer. Kerry’s pulse quickened as she grabbed her keys and went to the top of the back steps, looking around before easing a black nylon balaclava over her head. As she went to add her bike helmet, she heard an unexpected giggle from the corner of the lounge room, and her heart sank like a stone in still water.
‘You look funny, Aunty Kerry!’ chuckled four-year-old Dr No, appearing from behind the sofa bed with Ken’s phone in his hand. Christ. What the fuck was Dr No doing here?
‘Hello, bub,’ said Kerry, trying to sound calm as she rolled the balaclava up to resemble a beanie. Her blood banged wild through her veins, hurry, hurry, no time to lose.
‘Uncle Ken told me to sit here and play Happy Clicks,’ Dr No said, glowing with independence. ‘While him and Mum go shop for smokes ’n that.’
Oh, did he now.
‘Is that a good game, bub? Is it your best one?’ Kerry sat at the kitchen table and desperately tried to distract the kid. Dr No chattered happily about the mindless game as Kerry wondered what the hell to do. The kid must have trailed after Ken and Savannah when they came home hunting durries and, rather than backtrack the hundred metres to Val’s, they had left him alone in the lounge with only Elvis standing guard. She was home, yeah, but nobody had said anything to her about keeping an eye on a four-year-old.
‘Well bub, I need to go out, so how about you run home to Poppy Neil?’ Kerry suggested brightly. ‘Or will I take you home on the bike?’
Dr No nodded.
‘I wanna helmet too,’ he asserted.
‘Not to just go next door, bub. Ere, come on! I’ll put ya in front of me and we can make out like you’re steering, hey?’
Kerry slid the balaclava off and stuffed it into her jeans pocket. She dropped Dr No home and waved to Uncle Neil, who was working on his truck in the driveway. A man of few words, he straightened up and flung a hand at her in return, acknowledging the delivery. Kerry wheeled around and headed to Patto in the fading twilight. Jim Buckley thought he could use his cunning bloody dugai ways against her without any blowback, but it was time for Jiminy Cricket to fucking think again. Karma, thy name is woman.
~
An anonymous dark figure rode past the old Baptist Hall, which was abuzz with the Blue Light Disco, Rihanna’s bass pumping from every open window. Easy does it. No need to draw any attention. Just cruising past chugga-chugga-lug like ya done a million times before. A marked cop car with its lights flashing on silent made her guts churn, but Kerry looked resolutely at the white line of the road. Sticking to the straight and narrow, officer. Nothing to see here and look la, a dozen teenage schoolgirls over thataway with crop tops and skin-tight leggings, all out for a good time. Pretty safe bet where the pigs’ll be for the next couple of hours, Kerry told herself as she neared the showground.
She pulled up in shadow near a suitable puddle. The nearest streetlight was a hundred yards away, and the moon a mere sliver. Stepped into the thicket of fragrant camphor laurels beside the showground stockyards and retrieved the balaclava, stretching the thin material between her fingers. She wavered. It would be so easy to back out. To give up and let Buckley win. Ah, don’t be such a fucking gutless wonder, she told herself as she yanked the mask on for the second time that night. For the straight world, crime was a problem or an abstraction, but for people like her, crime was the solution. Not that she called it crime; she called it reparations.
Kerry crouched down to dirty the Softail. Forgive me, she muttered, flinging handfuls of sloppy wet mud at the machine until it looked like she had bus
h-bashed her way into town across a ploughed spud paddock. When she was done, the underside of the bike was filthy, and the small rectangle of the bike’s Queensland number plate was entirely illegible. Nobody was going to get her rego number tonight. She rinsed her hands in the puddle and then stood, giving the mud a moment to dry and stick. With shaking fingers she lit the narrow joint she had stuffed into her bra that afternoon. When she’d smoked it she looked at her phone. Eight pm. The parents of the youngest Blue Light Disco kids would be picking them up in an hour. She pitched the joint stub into the puddle and pulled on her black nylon gloves. It was high time Patto found out what happened to thieving bastard politicians who picked the wrong Goorie to steal from. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, pal. Ninety seconds later, Kerry was parked three shops down from Patterson Real Estate.
She left her keys in the ignition and went to the window she’d checked out two days ago. Except woman plans and God laughs. A note had been tacked to the sliding front door since then.
Strictly No Cash. All rent from 27 February is to be paid by EFT or direct deposit. By order of Management. Have a wonderful day!
I’ll give you have a wonderful fucking day.
Kerry swore at management and at direct deposits, and at her lousy fucking timing too. She swore at the ads in the window offering prime country retreats for a million plus, and she swore at the ratty shotgun shacks of Durrongo on sale for a quarter of that. She swore about muddying her expensive bike chain for nothing at all, and then she swore that she would make Jim Buckley rue the day he stole her backpack if it was the last thing she ever did. It was daylight fucking robbery, that’s what it was. Robbery with Violence, in fact; never mind Brenden Abbott or Ned Kelly or Willie Sutton, try locking up the real criminals of the world who … Willie Sutton. Kerry caught her breath.
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