Fresh Fields

by Peter Kocan

  Alf wasn’t snappish all the time. When it was just himself and his offsiders he didn’t mind having a brief chat. Cooks and their helpers shared a code of mysteries, and even a fill-in dishwasher had a tiny share of the specialness of that. It was people outside the code—the flippant, the ignorant, the unappreciative—that Alf couldn’t abide. The youth asked him how he’d gotten started as a cook. Alf asked the youth about his family and why he wasn’t with them.

  Camp cooks were very well paid and Alf’s caravan was a beauty. It looked like a gigantic silver bullet, and he had a big-finned Pontiac car to pull it. As soon as he’d cooked his last crumb and morsel for the day, he’d go into his caravan, pull the curtains down all the way around, and not be seen or heard till morning. The youth learnt from Kurt, the dishwasher he’d filled in for, that Alf spent every night getting stupefied on vodka. He drank vodka, Kurt said, because it didn’t leave a smell on you next day. Every morning he’d look hollow-eyed and shaky, but by the time he’d got breakfast rolling he’d be okay and snapping that the only thing on the menu was Like-it-or-lump-it.

  The other caravans weren’t nearly as flash, but they looked very cosy and comfortable in the evenings when they had their lights on and you saw the blokes sitting inside them, making themselves cups of tea from electric jugs or lounging on bunks with their hands behind their heads and cigarette smoke curling lazily up.

  How the youth wished he had a caravan, with his own electric jug, his own bunk, his own tidy cupboards, and spaces for his magazines. How self-contained he’d be. He could sit on the step in the evening. That seemed one of the best things about a caravan. You could sit on the step and enjoy the fresh air and chat with passers-by, and maybe invite them in for a cuppa if you felt like company. On the other hand you could just go back inside and close the door and draw the curtains and be safe in your space with your own belongings.

  He lay on his bed in the evenings trying to ease the ache in his arm and shoulder. He realised he was lucky to have the room to himself, and that it was the next best thing to having a caravan. He could turn the light off if he felt like resting his eyes or dozing, or just wanted to listen to Keith singing the songs of the downtrodden, or he could switch it on if he wanted to look at the White Book or reread parts of Year of Decision. If he felt like it he could lift himself on his good elbow and look through the small window above his bed. He could see the campfire with the men around it and the lighted caravans further over—and Simon and Patrick there.

  Simon and Patrick had made friends with a bloke named Errol who owned the nicest of the caravans, aside from Alf’s. They spent their evenings in Errol’s van with a radio playing hit-parade songs. The radio got louder each night until it started to drown Keith out when he sang. Blokes would yell out to Errol to turn it down and he would adjust it a bit, but it would soon creep up louder again. Whenever anyone called to Errol about the radio Simon and Patrick would make impatient eye-rolling faces through the window, or to each other. It wasn’t very fair to Keith, the youth felt. Quite bad manners, really. But then he supposed Simon and Patrick and Errol had a right to do what they wanted, just as much as Keith or anyone else did. The youth didn’t know whose side he should be on. If it hadn’t been for Keith he would never have heard “Deportee” or known who Woody Guthrie was. Keith had opened up a whole new world for him. But Simon and Patrick were a new world too, and in some ways an even more interesting one. He wondered what it was like to have a relationship like theirs, to be such close friends that you can talk and giggle endlessly between yourselves, to be so in tune that you can finish one another’s sentences. He wondered what it was like to be at uni together and understand sar-tra and nee-cha and hi-digger, and to automatically know what “peons” were and how to turn the idea of “peons” into jokes and wisecracks.

  And there was something else, too, something the youth couldn’t get entirely clear to himself. Watching Simon and Patrick, he’d notice how one of them might tousle the other one’s hair, or how one might drape his arm casually around the other’s neck, or how one might rest his hand on the other’s knee when they sat side by side. This behaviour wasn’t like horseplay. It was more delicate than that. Most people probably didn’t even notice it, the youth thought, but he did. The odd thing was that whenever he became aware of those gestures or touches or glances, he felt a flutter of yearning. Sometimes the yearning made him want to get the White Book out and gaze desperately at Sweetheart. Other times it made him want to make friends with Simon and Patrick somehow, and be around them. And there were times when it was a mixture of the two. They were the oddest times. He would see some gesture of Simon or Patrick’s—a walk, a turn of the head, a lift of the hand—and he would imagine Sweetheart doing it and feel all choked and stirred and tingling. And the more he had the Tunnel of Love dream, the more his thoughts of Sweetheart had a dark and scary side that also now applied to Simon and Patrick. In the dream now he often had a sense that Simon and Patrick were in the grotto with the spider (“They aren’t with it!”) making jokes about how succulent peons were if you could get at the marrow of their bones. He knew that Diestl despised Simon and Patrick even more than he did Sweetheart. It was all very confusing. Sometimes he felt brimming with love for Sweetheart, and other times he could hardly bear to bring her to mind. Sometimes he found Simon and Patrick so fascinating he couldn’t take his eyes off them, and then the next minute he’d relish the thought of them being hoiked off the place on the toe of Denny’s boot.

  THE YOUTH’S shoulder and arm were so sore and stiff one Friday that he could hardly move them. He’d got through the previous few days of work only by controlling the hoe with his left hand a lot of the time. This put new strain on the left hand and arm and they became almost as sore as the other side. Denny noticed how awkward his movements were and asked him what was wrong. The youth replied that it was just an old football injury that he occasionally had trouble with, but that a weekend’s rest would set it right. He tried to sound cheery, as though it wasn’t any big deal, as though he’d be going like steam shortly. Denny was giving him a long estimating look and the youth could hear how much his own voice sounded the way Long John’s had. Denny didn’t push it. The youth thought that perhaps a weekend of rest really might help. On the other hand, he knew, a break from the routine might give his body a chance to seize up more. One time a man would’ve breezed along these rows like a two year old . . .

  Long John was still at the base hospital in Weegun. Alf, who had known him slightly from years before, had paid him one or two visits.

  “He’s tryin’ to keep cheerful,” Alf reported. “He says to give all the fellas his regards, and tell ’em not to do anythin’ he wouldn’t do.”

  “Well, that gives us a fair amount of leeway,” the youth answered. That was what you were supposed to answer whenever anyone said not to do anything they wouldn’t do. The youth felt they owed it to him to make the proper reply, to make it sound as though they were a bunch of pals who went out on the town every night, and were just waiting for their sick mate to return for more mad escapades.

  “So what’s actually wrong with him?” he asked.

  “There’s problems with the stump of his leg,” Alf said. “But they’re more concerned about his ticker now, accordin’ to the nurse I spoke to.”

  The youth wondered whether he should’ve paid a visit, being the former room-mate and everything. Perhaps he’d left it too late and now wouldn’t be welcome. And what would they talk about? The youth could say that the fellas all sent their regards, but after that it’d just be awkward, probably.

  THE NEXT evening he went across to where Simon and Patrick were sitting on the step of Errol’s caravan. He had rehearsed his words.

  “I was wondering if you might have something to read,” he said.

  “Read?” said Simon, as though he wasn’t sure what the word meant.

  “Yeah. I’ve finished the book I brought wi
th me, and I thought you might have something I could borrow.”

  Simon turned to Patrick. “Do we have any reading material to lend to the needy?”

  “I’ve really no idea,” said Patrick.

  “I dare say one could go and look,” said Simon.

  “I dare say one could, if one was inclined to.”

  “And is one inclined to?”

  “It might depend on the inducement offered.”

  “Yes, it might.”

  The youth kept an appreciative smile on his lips, to show how amused he was.

  “Why are you bent like the Hunchback of Notre Dame?” Patrick demanded.

  “Sore shoulder,” said the youth, trying to ignore the pain when he straightened up.

  “How sad,” said Simon.

  “How poignant,” said Patrick.

  “Just a bird with a broken wing,” said Simon in a sing-song voice.

  “They like their peons hale and hearty, you know,” said Patrick. “They’ll send you the way of old Pegleg if you don’t watch out.”

  The youth kept smiling, to show he was on their level.

  Errol came along then. He’d been at the ablutions block, showering, and was wearing a white flannel dressing-gown and carrying a plastic bag with shampoo and soap in it. His dark hair was wet and tousled.

  “Hello,” said Errol to the youth. “What a nice surprise to see you here.” He sounded very sincere and the youth felt a pang of gratitude. Errol stood with one hand on his hip and the other smoothing his wet hair. “We’d been hoping that you weren’t going to stay utterly aloof from absolutely everyone,” he said, looking straight at the youth and giving him a smile.

  The way Errol was standing, the way he smoothed his wet hair with a little fluttery motion of his fingers, made the youth think of Sweetheart. He was getting the choky feeling. Simon and Patrick were now looking at him as though they suddenly found him interesting.

  “He’s looking for something to read,” Simon told Errol. “Do you have anything for him?”

  “In the reading department, that is,” Patrick added.

  “Shoo! Shoo!” Errol said, waving them off the steps so that he could enter. “Let me see what I’ve got.” He fished about in the caravan and came up with a battered paperback.

  “Thanks,” said the youth. “I’ll return it in a couple of days.”

  “Oh, we’re leaving,” said Errol, “so keep it.”

  “How do you mean, leaving?”

  “Leaving here. Leaving the job. I’d only planned to stay three weeks anyway, and these two are fed up to their little back teeth. So it’s the Yellow Brick Road for all three of us.”

  “When are you going?”

  “Oh, in the morning sometime.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “The shame is that we didn’t get to know you sooner,” said Errol. “Such a lost opportunity.” He touched the youth very lightly on the arm. “You really shouldn’t be such a loner, you know, going about all closed up the way you do.”

  “Is that what I do?” asked the youth, hoping Errol would say more. It was fascinating to hear how you seemed to others.

  “Sweetie, you might as well carry a placard saying ‘PRIVATE PERSON—KEEP OUT.’”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. And apart from it not being the best thing for yourself, it makes it awfully frustrating for people who can see your, um, possibilities, let’s call them.”

  “Where are you heading?” the youth asked, absently. He was trying to register the idea of having possibilities.

  “Back to where one has civilised asphalt under one’s feet.”

  “And a life!” cried Simon.

  “And not a cotton plant in sight,” added Patrick. “Or a cowboy hat.”

  “Now let’s not be judgemental,” Simon said. “A cowboy hat can have its charms—not to mention leather chaps and a lasso—but just not here!”

  “It’ll be sad to see you go,” said the youth.

  “You could come with us, if you want,” said Patrick.

  “What do you think, Errol?” Simon asked.

  Errol gave the youth a long look before he spoke. “Yes, think about coming with us. If nothing else it’s a free ride back to the land of the living.”

  The youth left them and went back round the campfire to his room. There were murmurs of conversation still going on, but Keith was strumming his guitar with increasing firmness, getting focused, putting himself into a mood to sing. The youth understood that Keith sang on emotion. It was only when he got stirred up that his shyness fell away and he began to surge on the power of songs like “Deportee.” Right now his face was shadowed and flickery from the glow of the fire. It made him look like more than just a normal bloke. He looked like the spirit of Anger and Pity, preparing to speak.

  KEITH WAS in his best-ever form that night and the youth lay listening for a long time with tears on his face and his heart thumping. The songs made you feel sad and angry and brave all at once. They made you feel that you were in touch with the spirit of all the people in the world, and that you loved them all as your brothers and sisters. You loved them not because they were necessarily good or nice, but because they were all going through the same hard mill. The details might vary, but the mill was the same one in every time and place—for King Harold, and for Harry Dale the Drover, for the friends like dry leaves at Los Gatos, for Gus Gordler’s wife caught in a hail of bullets like the Bushranger a hundred years back, and for Long John lying alone a few miles away with a raw stump and a bad ticker.

  The youth drifted to sleep a long time after the campfire had been left to itself and had sunk down to embers. He had a vivid sense of blood-red roses turning dark, and a black-haired, olive-skinned girl . . . Goodbye Rosalita . . . Goodbye Rosalita . . .

  In the light of morning he had to decide what he would do.

  Half his mind told him that going with Errol and Simon and Patrick was an opportunity to get out of the old groove of his life. He could take the Yellow Brick Road with them. The thought of it made him feel tingly and excited. He knew that something was being offered, something beyond a mere lift back to the city. It was like the Pleasures of India thing that he thought about sometimes—the sense of being in an exotic street full of mysterious perfumes and alluring doorways. It was very scary though. It meant opening yourself up and being vulnerable. Who knew what might happen? But that risk was the price of the pleasure. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that nothing comes for free.

  There were practical aspects to consider, too. His arm and shoulder and back were troubling him so much that he’d be struggling to get through the remaining fortnight of the job. He had three weeks pay in his pocket now, and could afford to just up and go if he chose.

  He wondered what Diestl would advise, but knew the answer already. Do anything, as long as you fundamentally don’t care. If you start caring, you start wanting to survive for the wrong reason—you start wanting to savour life, and then the world has you where it wants you. You have surrendered then. The only good reason to survive a bit longer is to get closer to the point of striking one good blow, of hitting the enemy hardest as you go down. But now the youth was toying with hopefulness.

  “I thought you were one of my kind,” Diestl would say. “That’s why I’ve kept saving you in the Tunnel of Love. But it seems not. You want strudel instead of steel.”

  The bit about the strudel was the worst insult you could get from Diestl. The youth wasn’t completely sure what strudel was, but he knew that wanting it more than the steel of the Schmeisser, or more than the long empty road, made you the weakest of the weak. And yet “weak” wasn’t the right word. Diestl didn’t despise anyone for being weak. He knew too well how cruel the world was and how it could frighten a person to their very core. What Diestl despised was a person who wasn’t entirely weak, who
had the potential to hit back, to make the world grin on the other side of its face, but who shirks the duty. It wasn’t cowards he hated but turncoats, those who could choose steel before strudel but decide not to.

  Just before breakfast the youth went across to Errol’s van. The door was open. Errol was lounging on one of the seats with his hands behind his head and his feet up on a bench-top. At first he didn’t notice the youth looking in. He wore only a pair of shorts and the youth could see how fit and muscled he was. He looked like a lightweight boxer. For a moment the youth felt scared.

  Errol told him not to make any fuss about their departure, but to just bring his bag quietly across and stow it in the back of the car. Simon and Patrick had already put their bags in.

  “Strictly speaking,” he explained, “we signed up for the full five weeks work. If you shoot through they blacklist you for the future. I couldn’t care less, and I don’t suppose you do either, but I’d rather avoid a scene with the Great White Hat if possible.”

  The youth nodded agreement. He hadn’t known he’d be barring himself from working here again. It gave him a pang of misgiving. He’d liked it, really. It was just his line of work. It would’ve been good to know he could come back another time, even have it as a regular thing each year. But he’d made his decision. Besides, with his sore arm and shoulder . . .

  They left while breakfast was being served.