Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf

by Sonya Hartnett

  Satchel crumpled his sandwich bag and waited while Gosling gave Moke’s brow a rough patting. Finally the foreman looked at him and said, “Like I say, three more days, at the most, we’re going to be here.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Have you got a job to go to after this?”

  “No. Not yet, anyway. Something will come along.”

  Gosling laughed. “That’s what I like about you, O’Rye. You never let circumstances get the better of you. You always keep up your hopes. You must have learnt that from your mother.”

  Satchel shifted his weight, squeezing the paper in his hand. Moke had clambered to the floor below the steering-wheel and was dabbing crumbs off the dirty mat. Everyone knew about the problem of William but Gosling was one of the few who would speak out loud about it, however vaguely. Satchel didn’t like it, but he owed Gosling these liberties. Now, the foreman turned sombre and looked Satchel in the eye.

  “I’ll tell you this honestly,” he said. “Nothing’s going to be happening around here for the next six months or so. I’ve been putting a bit aside, and of course Mrs Gosling has her job in the dress shop, so all the baby Goslings will survive. But I’ve been thinking about you. It’s a long time to get through on your mother’s pay cheque. She’s only working part-time, I hear?”

  “She works night shift. It pays a bit better.”

  “Night shift.” Gosling frowned and muttered to himself. “You ever done night shift, Satchel? It hurts you. Hurts your body and your brain. Still, when you need money, there’s not much you won’t do. Not when you’ve got yourself and a house and a husband and a grown-up son to support. I know you do your best not to be a burden, and I’m not saying you are one, but those are the facts. We all have to face facts. Not many people have it easy around here. Your family doesn’t. You don’t.”

  Satchel nodded. That people knew so much about the business of his family made him feel queasy but there was nothing that wasn’t known in a tiny town, and nothing that didn’t get spread around. The foreman ducked his head to see past Satchel, wagged a finger at the men dawdling around the building. “Half those blokes are in the same boat as you, O’Rye, if that’s a consolation. They’ve tried their best all their lives, but it hasn’t got them far. This time next week they’ll be lying in bed wondering why they were born. And that’s a bad thing, to wonder why you were born. To know it’s always going to be a battle, always a bloody uphill struggle, and nothing’s going to change.”

  Satchel sniffed, and nodded again. Gosling’s eyes switched back to him and batted like butterflies.

  “I’ve got a brother-in-law living up north,” he continued. “Up where the beaches are. They’ve got coral reefs on their doorsteps there. Tom’s got work for a good carpenter, and he’ll take my word about someone who knows the trade and somebody who doesn’t. He’s got work that would keep a man busy for four or five months. Last time I was there he’d just bought a caravan, so you might get your accommodation thrown in with the deal – details like that could be decided at a later date. But it would be a nice situation, Satchel. Surf and sun and sand, and being your own boss. Getting away from here for a while. Seeing a bit of the world. Opening up your opportunities.”

  Satchel was studying the ground. “Yeah,” he said faintly, “it sounds nice.”

  “There’s nothing Tom wants done that you wouldn’t be able to do. You’re a good carpenter, better than you think. And I reckon he might even let you take Mokey, if you wanted to do that. Has Moke ever seen the beach?”

  “No.”

  “She’d love it!” cawed Gosling. “You’d love it, wouldn’t you, girl?”

  Satchel lifted his eyes. Moke was trampling on the foreman’s lap, her tongue darting all over his sweating face. “It’s a kind offer, Gosling,” he said. “I mean, it’s good of you to think of me.”

  “You were the only person I thought of, O’Rye.”

  “I’m not sure how I’d get there…”

  “We’ll have that old station wagon spruced up and she’ll make the distance, no worries.”

  Satchel smiled glumly. Gosling eased Moke away from himself and looked at Satchel. “Think about it over the next couple of weeks,” he said, “and tell me what you decide.”

  “Yeah, I will. Thanks, Gosling. I mean – thanks.”

  “Yeah, I know what thanks means. Now get back to work.”

  Satchel trudged away, Moke rushing to join him, but he hadn’t reached the shadow of the building when Gosling called him back again. The foreman was still sitting in the truck’s cabin; he had refilled his mug with coffee.

  “Listen,” he told Satchel, “I’m serious about this. Don’t you walk off and toss it out of your mind. I want you to give it some real consideration.”

  “I will, Gos.”

  “My arse, you will. I know you.” He frowned at the dashboard and shook his head despondently. “Don’t piss opportunity into the wind, Satchel. Don’t kill yourself staying here, because no one’s going to thank you for doing that. You’ve got a rough life, here.”

  Satchel felt redness rising to his cheeks, and his gaze skimmed the ground. Gosling didn’t speak for a moment; then he sighed through his teeth. “I don’t mean to hassle you,” he said. “You’re not my kid, and you’re a grown man. You know what you’re doing, I guess. But promise me you’ll think about it.”

  “I promise,” said Satchel. “I will.”

  “It’s not for ever, it’s just a few months. They’ll be all right without you for four or five months.”

  “I promise,” repeated Satchel, more firmly.

  “Good,” said Gosling. “Now get your hands out of your bloody pockets and get out of my sight.”

  Laura was taking clothes from the line when he arrived home and he went out to the yard to help her. She glanced at her son from behind a pair of his trousers. “Good day?” she asked.

  “Gosling says the building will be finished in a few days.”

  “Oh, well. That was always going to happen.”

  He unpegged a row of his father’s faded flannels and dropped them in the basket. The clothes had been on the line all day but they were still damp and would need to be arranged on the guard before the fire. Until they were washed again, they would smell sweetly smoky. “What about you?” he said. “How’s it been here?”

  “Quiet. William painted for most of the day. Joseph is taking Jesus fishing.”

  Satchel snorted; even Laura was grinning. She seemed in a cheerful mood and he asked her what had happened. “The Matron from St Jude’s rang,” she explained. “One of their nurses has retired, and she asked if I wanted to take the position.”

  St Jude’s was a geriatric home in the big town, and Satchel asked, “What did you say?”

  The breeze billowed a bedsheet into Laura’s arms and she swatted the cloth away. “I told her I’d think about it overnight. I suppose it’s sensible to take it.”

  “But – an old people’s home?”

  Laura stooped, pressing pillowcases into the basket. “I can’t stay at the hospital for the rest of my life. They’ve been cutting back the staff for a couple of years already. They won’t give me extra hours and they’re always telling me I can’t keep up with the new technology. I’ll end up sacked, if I don’t leave soon. St Jude’s is probably my wisest choice. And I wouldn’t have to do night shift there. It’s morning and afternoon work.”

  The chickens were roaming the orchard and Moke had started jogging around them, forcing them into a clutch of rolling eyes and flapping wings. Satchel called his dog away, ordering her to sit on the veranda. To his mother he said, “It would be horrible to work at a home, though. Depressing.”

  “Someone’s got to look after the poor things. And anyway, it might be good for my hands. They mightn’t use the same tablets there, and my hands will have a chance to heal.”

  “When would you start?”

  “As soon as possible, Matron said.”

  Satchel plumped the last pie
ce of clothing onto the pile and looked at his mother. “It would be good,” he said, “if your hands were fixed.”

  “Yes,” said Laura. “They’re sore today.”

  She hoisted the basket to her hip and Satchel could see that she had decided, and that she was happy, and that he should be happy too. But he winced at the thought of his mother doing the ghastly work required in a nursing home and imagined soaked mattresses, spit, and soggy, mushy food. “Have you told Dad?”

  “I’ll tell him now. May as well get it over. He’ll make his usual noise but he’ll just have to live with it. I can’t run my days around his nonsense.”

  She took the path that had been stamped through the garden and disappeared behind the veranda’s flyscreen door. Satchel watched her go, and was struck by her bravery: how small she was, but fierce. He couldn’t decide if she had always been that way, a strong, forthright woman, or if she had simply become so, through necessity. Satchel had been fifteen when William closed the service station and his memories of his mother, before that time, were blurry. He remembered her cooking and cleaning and bandaging his skinned knees, but he couldn’t recall things she must have said to him, he couldn’t remember the kind of person she had been.

  Before Satchel turned fifteen and before the service station was shut down, William had been no more or less religious than most other men his age: the family had a crucifix pinned up in the hallway but William did not, as far as Satchel knew, say prayers, and he went to church irregularly. When his father started going around insisting that God would provide, people took to saying that William O’Rye had found religion, but Satchel did not think so. Satchel thought William had dropped religion completely, and taken up something much darker.

  It was hard to decide when it must have started, because he did not suppose William woke up one morning with his entire future crystallized, as if the voice of his God had murmured in his ear that night. It was more likely it had happened slowly, that signs were there early and had been overlooked. But Satchel was forced to date everything from the day William closed the service station because that was the first day they noticed something was going wrong, and by then it was too late to fix it.

  William had drawn together the doors of the garage, fastened the lock of the office and come, as usual, into the house. “Well,” he had said, “that’s that. No more.”

  Satchel had glanced up from his homework. “No more what?”

  “No more working in the service station.”

  “Really,” Laura said dryly. “What are we going to live on, then?”

  William had answered, “God will provide.”

  They thought he was joking. But the station had stayed unlit and bolted, and William would not get out of bed. They had a spare bedroom and he took up residence in this. Day after day he stayed there, calling for his lunch and dinner, the door of the room propped open so he could see the comings and goings. One day, bolstered by his pillows, he cut up squares of paper and printed on each scrap the words GOD WILL PROVIDE. He tacked this message to furniture and walls throughout the house. He chanted his favourite verses until he’d memorized them in his head and could draw them out like a sword: Consider the ravens, who neither sow nor reap: God feedeth them. Consider the lilies, who toil not: God clotheth them. Seek not what you shall eat, nor what you shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind: the Lord knows you have need of these things. Seek ye the kingdom of God, and all things shall be added unto you… Laura tried to take him to a doctor, but William refused to go. He was not, as far as he was concerned, ill in any way. The sad truth was, he said, that everyone else was ailing, for they had no faith in God’s promise to provide for His people. No one needed to do anything: it was not necessary to earn money, and hence it was not necessary to work. God would ensure there was food on the table, would attend to the bills and might even fix the leak in the roof. So Laura took herself to the doctor, and came home with hopeless news. William needed treatment, but treatment could not be forced down his throat. He had to recognize he needed help before anything could be done. William said that Laura was the one with a sickness: she suffered from a lack of trust in her God.

  “God!” she had wailed. “God is driving us into the poorhouse!”

  “God is testing you,” William replied serenely. “Have faith, and He will provide. If God so clothe the grass, which is one day in the field and the next day in the oven, how much more will he clothe you?”

  Satchel hated to remember this terrible time, the confusion, the whispering. Laura’s friends would come over to discuss the situation and Laura would send her son from the room. He was shocked when he realized that these friends were loaning his mother money, money they could not afford to lend and she had no means to repay. He had raged, that day, into William’s bedroom. “Get out there and open the garage!” he had roared at his father. “Why are you doing this? What’s wrong with you? Open the garage!”

  Laura had come running into the room, thrown her arms around her son. She had never been a mother who often hugged or kissed her child and she was not, now, trying to comfort him. She was trying, he thought later, to contain his anger inside him, as if anger, let loose, would pull the whole house down. “Get him out of here!” William was bellowing. “Laura, get him out!”

  Satchel yanked his arms free from his mother. “I hate you,” he told William, “and I hate your shitty God. He isn’t going to give us anything. You’re going to let us die.”

  “Satchel,” Laura said desperately, “come away, Satchel, come away.” She’d hurried him into the hallway as if fearing William would strike him, though William had never done so in all Satchel’s life. She’d pushed her son into his bedroom and he’d slumped down on his bed. He had astonished both his mother and himself when he promptly burst into tears. They were tears he could not control, surging down his cheeks and splattering the floor: he felt like he would cry for years. His mother sat beside him and watched him as he sobbed. “Don’t worry about it, Satchel,” he remembered her whispering. “Don’t let yourself worry.”

  He wanted to tell her to shut up, that he wasn’t a baby and that words like those were not reassuring to him anymore. What he said was, “I want us to leave here – I want to leave him—”

  “We can’t do that. You can’t abandon people. He’s not well.”

  “But what about us? How are we going to live? Where are we going to get money?”

  Laura had sighed, smoothing away a rumple in the blankets. “The service station would probably have gone broke anyway. In a few years, the highway would have finished it off.”

  “Mum!” he gasped. “He’s gone mad! Don’t you see? It’s not just the service station – he won’t do anything! How can we survive? How can we pay the bills? What are we going to do?”

  “We’ll be all right, Satchel,” she promised. “Look at the beautiful things around you. Don’t think so much about money. It’s a poisonous thing to worry about.”

  Satchel breathed deeply, his tears slowing now. He wiped his face with his sleeve. Laura hesitated, then rested a hand on his shoulder. “He might get better,” she told him. “This might not last for ever.”

  And, in a way, William did get better. He left the seclusion of his bedroom and opened the garage, but not to sell petrol. He had sworn off touching money. But he would repair the cars and farm machinery of friends, and the price they paid for this was to hear from him a sermon on the error of their ways. Farming, though a noble occupation, was turning from the face of the God they evidently didn’t trust to care for them. And so, while William got a little better, life for Laura and Satchel grew worse. William’s catchcry was unstuck from the walls and began to flutter around the streets, and Leroy Piper was suspended from school when he clobbered cold a classmate who muttered, in passing, to Satchel, the words, “God will provide.”

  Moke saw her standing at the end of the driveway and barked to alert Satchel. He had wandered from the clothesline to the chicken coop and into the old
stables, but he came out and shielded his eyes against the glare of the setting sun. Chelsea was loitering at the side of the road, looking like she would bolt if she saw any hint of movement within the house she was watching intently. She was shy because she drove the school bus, the job that William used to do, but people were disturbed by William’s strangeness and frightened by his reputation, and Satchel knew Chelsea’s hesitation was anchored in that fear. It bothered Satchel when he saw people react this way to his father, who was never impolite, who had no mean streak in him, who was not a fighter or a drinker. But he understood, too, that there glittered in William’s eyes a cheery, jeery sort of madness, that his stiff, shuffling method of walking spoke of a mind that had lost its fluidity. People were wary of William – Satchel, sometimes, was wary of him – because William was crazy, and no one could expect him to be treated the same as everybody else.

  Moke’s barking made Chelsea snap her head in their direction, and Satchel waved to her. She scurried up the driveway and as she got closer he saw she was carrying a large softbound book, the cover of which bore scribble. “Hi,” she said, blinking fast. “I was wondering if I could talk to you?”

  “Sure.”

  “I won’t stay long – I just need a minute – I’m not disturbing you, am I? Tell me if I am, and I’ll go.”

  “I’m not doing anything.” He would have invited her into the kitchen and offered her a cup of tea but he knew Laura was talking to William in there, and that Chelsea might prefer to stay outside. He stepped backwards into the shadows of the stables and she followed him to the edge of dimness, where she sat on the barrel of chicken feed and Satchel leaned against a wall.

  “I’ve been thinking about that dog you saw,” she began. The light flashed off her glasses as she talked, and flicked the walls like lightning. “The stray one at the mountain, I mean.”

  Satchel nodded, and watched as she swiped through the book’s pages until she reached one whose corner she had folded firmly down. She placed her finger on a patch of colour amongst the writing and asked, “Did it look anything like that?”