The Audrey of the Outback Collection

by Christine Harris

  ‘Is that your answer, Audrey?’ asked Mrs Barlow. ‘It sounded more like a question.’

  ‘I’ll give you an example.’

  ‘Where did you learn that big word?’

  Mrs Barlow flicked out a pair of Price’s trousers, then folded them in half, before placing them in the basket.

  ‘From the dictionary in the lounge room.’ Audrey smiled. ‘It’s got lots of good words in it.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘It’s like this …’ Audrey stroked her mum’s arm, to help her understand. ‘Remember when I was four and I used to pick my nose? Dad told me that my finger was getting too big and it would get stuck up there. Well, now I’m older, so I’ve stopped.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’

  ‘I’m doing another change. The swagman idea didn’t work out, so I’ve thought of something else. I’m sick of being a girl. We don’t get enough words. I’m going to be a man.’

  Fifteen

  Audrey stood by her bedroom window and peered into the hand-mirror she’d borrowed from her mother. She tilted back her head, then turned it from side to side.

  ‘You coming, or what?’ Price’s voice surprised her from the doorway.

  Audrey jumped.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘Staring at yourself in the mirror?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, you were. I just saw you.’

  Audrey slapped the mirror down on her mattress. ‘I was checking something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was looking to see if I had nose hairs.’

  ‘Nose hairs?’

  ‘Don’t copy everything I say.’ Audrey flounced past him. ‘Yesterday I decided to be a man. And men have hairs sticking out of their noses. Dad does. I’ve seen Mum trimming them with scissors. She nicked his nose once and made it bleed.’

  Price followed Audrey through the tiny lounge room to the kitchen. ‘You can’t be a man,’ he said.

  ‘Toothless reckons people can be anything they want. They just have to make up their minds to it,’ she said. ‘That’s why he’s got jaws in his bag. I made up my mind to be a man.’

  She swung into her rolling lope, the way she imagined her dad and other men, like Toothless, walked. Each of her trouser legs was tucked up to make a fat cuff. Then she plucked at her braces, making them snap against her chest. She lowered her voice to make it as deep as she could. ‘Fair dinkum, Price. Let’s get this job done.’

  ‘You’re as mad as a cut snake,’ said Price.

  ‘No, I’m …’ For a second, Audrey had reverted to her usual voice. Then she remembered and lowered it again. ‘Reckon I should give you a hand.’

  ‘Reckon not.’ Price grabbed a square tin of kerosene. ‘You’d get in the way. You can watch.’

  Audrey pouted.

  ‘Even if you were a man, which you’re not, I’m the oldest.’

  ‘Fair enough, mate.’ Audrey followed her brother outside.

  She was tempted to give her bird-whistle, the signal that she wanted Stumpy. But she held back. She’d told him that she had man-things to do today and couldn’t play children’s games. He had to stay out bush till she called him back.

  Audrey strode behind Price, carefully avoiding the patch of three-cornered jacks. Although the prickles were tiny, they were hard, with sharp points. And it was difficult picking them out of the soles of her only pair of boots.

  Yesterday’s wind had blown itself out. The hessian walls on the long-drop dunny hung straight and still.

  ‘Eggs,’ shouted Douglas, from inside the chookyard. He was helping Mum.

  The chooks were letting them go again. Maybe their stomachs had finally got too big.

  ‘Price, how many eggs can a chook carry in its stomach at the same time?’ she asked.

  Her brother shrugged.

  When they reached the long-drop, Price screwed up his nose. ‘This dunny’s ripe.’

  Usually a dose of lime got rid of the smell. But not this time.

  Audrey tugged the trousers to loosen the knees so she could sit back on her heels. ‘Dad reckons you don’t have to empty your own dunny in the city. A bloke comes round at night, like a ghost, when you can’t see him. He’s got a cart they call a honey cart. If you’re rich, you can have a real flush, with water. They must have lots of water in the city if they can pour it down dunnies.’

  Price unscrewed the lid of the kerosene tin. Now there was also the smell of kerosene in the air.

  ‘If you want to be a man, you’ll have to do jobs like this one,’ said Price.

  With a firm shake of her head, Audrey said, ‘If I’m a man, I can say no. I’ll tell someone else to do it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘You’re a ning-nong.’ Price lifted the tin and splashed kero into the dark hole.

  ‘Dad doesn’t put that much in,’ said Audrey.

  Price shook more kerosene into the hole.

  ‘You’d better stop now.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing,’ said Price.

  ‘Do men always know what they’re doing?’

  Price shrugged.

  ‘Then why do you always say it?’ Audrey slowly scratched at her cheeks as though she had a beard growing there. Dad and Toothless did that. She wasn’t sure whether their beards were itchy or if they just liked scratching. There were lots of man-things she hadn’t yet worked out.

  Price gave another generous shake of the tin, replaced the lid and put it outside the dunny.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Audrey.

  ‘I know what I’m …’ Price cleared his throat. ‘It’ll be okay. Move back if you’re worried.’

  Audrey obeyed.

  Price took a matchbox from his pocket, lit a match and threw it into the open hole.

  There was an enormous whoomph, followed by a bang. A rush of heat knocked Audrey backwards.

  Sixteen

  Hot, kerosene-soaked fumes filled Audrey’s throat. There was loud crackling and hissing.

  ‘Audrey … Price!’ Their mum’s anxious voice calling from the chookyard sounded like a distant echo.

  Audrey blinked. There seemed to be a lot of blue. Her head was fuzzy, as though she wasn’t properly awake. Then the fuzziness cleared. She realised she was lying on her back. The blue was the sky.

  She looked over at Price. He, too, was on his back.

  The hessian dunny walls were ablaze. Bluish flames leapt into the air.

  Audrey’s stomach squeezed into a knot. ‘You’re not dead, are you, Price?’

  He sat up. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Lucky Stumpy is out bush for a while. He doesn’t like fire.’

  Mrs Barlow limped towards them, her face tight with worry. ‘Are you two all right?’ She sounded breathless.

  Dougie bounced along behind her as though his feet were on springs.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Audrey. ‘We’re all right.’

  She and Price had just meant to clean out the dunny hole with fire. They had almost cleaned themselves up with it. And now there was no hole at all. The sandy soil had collapsed in the explosion.

  Red-faced, Mrs Barlow flopped beside Audrey and grabbed her hand.

  Audrey felt her mother trembling.

  Douglas leapt up and down. ‘Pwetty fire.’

  ‘Lucky we cleared a good patch around the house,’ said Mrs Barlow at last.

  Price crawled across to sit beside his mother. He patted her shoulder. ‘Sorry, Mum. But you’ve been wanting proper walls and a door for a long time. Now you can have them.’

  His eyebrows and the front of his hair looked odd.

  ‘You’ve singed your hair,’ said Mrs Barlow.

  Price put his hand to his fringe and bits fell off.

  ‘Lucky he’s a man,’ said Audrey. ‘He knew what he was doing.’

  ‘Birds don’t read or write and they get on all right.’

  Seventeen

  Mrs Barlow gently eased Douglas away from the kitchen meat safe. ‘Leav
e that, Dougie. It’s lesson time now.’

  Hessian sat in a shallow tray of water at the top of the safe. The wet hessian draped down each side of a wooden frame and helped keep the meat cool, especially when a breeze blew through it. The hessian also kept flies out. And to stop ants getting in, each of the meat safe’s four legs stood in a tin of water.

  Douglas flicked his wet hands. Damp spots appeared on the hard mud floor.

  Audrey crossed one knee over the other, then smoothed down her yellow dress. It was the only one of her three dresses that had no patches on it. She thumped her elbows on the kitchen table and pushed the pencil and paper away.

  ‘What’s the matter, Audrey?’ Mrs Barlow removed her apron and hung it behind the door.

  ‘I don’t like lessons.’

  ‘You must learn to read and write properly.’

  Audrey sighed noisily. ‘Birds don’t read or write and they get on all right.’

  ‘But all they do is fly around and look for things to eat. You’d soon be bored with that.’

  From where Audrey was sitting, the kitchen window was a square of blue sky. A black crow flew across it. Its caa, caa, caa cry made Audrey feel even more restless. She imagined skimming on a warm updraft of air. Everything on the ground would look small. Even the people. The crow was free to fly wherever it wanted. It didn’t have to do chores like emptying chookyards or fixing dunny holes. Nor did it have to do lessons.

  Somewhere outside, Toothless was walking the track, feeling the wind on his face. He would be clutching his chaff bag full of sheep jaws, dreaming about yanking their teeth.

  Also out there, swaying on the back of a dusty camel, would be her dad. Audrey pictured him with his hat-brim low, shading his eyes from the sun. His pipe would be in his mouth. Not lit. He didn’t smoke any more, but he couldn’t give up the pipe. He liked the feel of it. A bit like little Douglas when he was teething. He had chewed on a stick and wouldn’t let anyone take it from him.

  Stumpy was just outside the kitchen, humming. Audrey could hear him, but she didn’t know the tune. He wanted her to know he was there. He made noises sometimes, humming or coughing to get her attention. But she couldn’t play until lessons were over.

  ‘I don’t want to be a girl learning to write,’ she protested. ‘Fair dinkum.’

  When they were younger, she and Price sometimes ran and hid in the scrub at lesson time. But they didn’t do that any more. It wasn’t fair to run away from a mother who had a gammy leg.

  ‘What do you want to be then, Audrey?’ asked Mrs Barlow.

  Frowning, Audrey thought hard. The swagman idea hadn’t worked. Swaggies had to hunt their own food, find water and look after themselves when they were sick. At night, a swaggie had to lie in the dark, listening to all the other creatures who shared the bush. Knowing that some of them bit or chewed.

  Being a man wasn’t too good either. They blew up dunnies and singed their hair. Sure, they used words that girls were not allowed to say. But a man always had to know what he was doing. Or, at least, he had to pretend that he did. Men didn’t get to play games like hide-and-seek or have cubbyhouses and pretend pirate ships.

  Suddenly she had a new idea.

  Eighteen

  Audrey looked down at the paper and pencil on the table. ‘I don’t want to be the girl having lessons. I want to be the teacher. Can I, Mum? Can I be the teacher? It’s easy. All you have to do is tell people what to do.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Her mum raised one eyebrow. ‘All right, Audrey. You might find out how hard it is for me to get you and Price to sit still.’

  She limped to the kitchen door and opened it. ‘Price,’ she called. ‘Now, please!’

  Price yelled something. His words were muffled.

  ‘Be quick,’ said Mrs Barlow. ‘Gentlemen to the left of the house, remember. Ladies to the right.’

  Audrey giggled. Since the dunny blew up, the family had to kick the bushes instead. It was a bit of a nuisance tramping out to the bushes several times a day for privacy. But Audrey didn’t mind too much. Not everyone got to explode a dunny. Audrey had already written it all down in a letter to her cousin, Jimmy, in Adelaide. He’d be so jealous.

  ‘Quick. Quick,’ said Douglas.

  ‘Can Stumpy come in for lessons too?’ Audrey asked her mum.

  ‘I don’t think so, Audrey. There aren’t enough chairs.’

  Audrey’s shoulders slumped. Then she pushed back her chair. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  She dashed through the lounge room into her bedroom and reached up to the clothing hook on the wall.

  The kitchen door squeaked open. Then Audrey heard her mum ask Price if he had washed his hands.

  Price mumbled and there was a thump. Audrey guessed that was her brother throwing himself into his chair.

  Audrey dragged her mother’s old green dress over her head. The colour suited her, but it was far too long and dragged on the ground. It was her one dress-up outfit. When Mum was finished with her clothes, she usually cut them down to make smaller clothes for Audrey or her brothers. But Mum let her keep the green dress.

  It was faded and ripped at the back. The material was so thin you could spit through it. But it still had all of its red buttons in a line down the front, and only three of them were broken.

  Audrey used to have an old hat of her mum’s too. But one day the wind had snatched it from her head and tossed it into the goat pen. Sassafras ate it.

  Now for her bead necklace. It was all colours of the rainbow, with only a few beads missing. Audrey looped it around her neck three times. Then she tied her two thick plaits together at the back with a piece of string.

  Breathless from hurrying, she held up the hem of the green dress and stumbled back into the kitchen.

  From the corner of her eye she saw Stumpy peering in through the kitchen window. She refused to look directly at him. If she did, he might make her laugh.

  Price screwed up his face. He looked like a dried plum. ‘It’s lessons, Audrey. Not playtime.’

  ‘I’m not playing. I’m the teacher,’ said Audrey. ‘You have to call me Miss Barlow.’

  Her brother threw a questioning look at their mother.

  Mrs Barlow nodded. ‘Yes, it’s true. I have some mending to do, in the lounge room.’ ‘But …’ Price began. ‘Just for today.’ Douglas scrambled onto the chair next to Price. ‘Pway teachers too.’

  Audrey stood as tall as she could. ‘There’s only one teacher. Me. But you can be a boy learning to read.’

  Douglas giggled.

  Price glared at Audrey.

  She tried to think of something to say. ‘Today we are doing alphabet letters.’

  ‘The alphabet is letters,’ grumbled Price.

  ‘That’s what I said.’ Audrey sniffed. ‘And you have to call me Miss Barlow.’

  ‘I will not,’ he said. ‘I don’t call Mum, Miss Mum, do I?’

  ‘She doesn’t want to be called Miss. I do.’ Price glared even harder.

  ‘I changed my mind,’ said Audrey. ‘Let’s do something different. Not the alphabet. Let’s do questions.’

  ‘Questions?’ said Price.

  ‘Qwestons.’ Douglas stuck his thumb firmly in his mouth.

  ‘I do the questions. You do answers. Ready?’ Clasping her hands behind her back, Audrey tried to look clever. She pushed her mouth into a pout and half-closed her eyes. ‘I want you to vestigate this—when you have a bath, why doesn’t the water get inside your skin?’

  ‘The word is investigate,’ said Price. ‘Not vestigate.’

  ‘It’s investigate if you look in something, like a book. But we only have four books and they don’t say things about baths. It’s vestigate if you don’t look in something, but you think about it.’

  Price tapped his pencil on the table. ‘I don’t want to think about it. It’s a silly question.’

  ‘No, it’s not …’ Audrey aimed a stare at Douglas. ‘Young man, don’t suck your thumb.’

  Doug
las looked behind him, searching for the person called ‘young man’.

  ‘You, Dougie. You can’t suck your thumb.’

  Douglas’s face went red. He sniffed loudly. The sniffs turned into whimpering. His thumb stayed in his mouth.

  Audrey hitched up her skirt and hurried to put her arm around Douglas’s shoulders before Mum came in to stop the lessons. ‘You can suck your thumb if you want. Don’t cry.’

  His whimpering faded, but he kept sucking his thumb.

  Mum’s voice came from the next room. ‘Dougie’s a bit young for school, Miss Barlow. Why don’t you send him in here?’

  Douglas didn’t wait for Audrey to give permission. He shot her a sulky look, slid off the chair, and took his thumb into the lounge room.

  Teaching was not as much fun as Audrey had expected. Douglas was too little. Price argued with everything she said. Being the teacher had seemed a good idea at first. But learning to read and write was a lot easier than trying to make other people do it.

  ‘My pencil broke.’ Price held it up. ‘I can’t write anything.’

  ‘I quit!’ Audrey put both hands on her hips. ‘You can grow up to be a iggorant bird, looking for food.’

  ‘The big one will be the dad.’

  Nineteen

  Audrey stepped out of her cubbyhouse. Although she had three of them, she’d chosen this one because its thick brush roof gave more shelter from the sun. The walls were also made of brush, but there was no door, just an opening. She didn’t know how to make a door, but that didn’t matter. This way, the wind could blow through more freely.

  There was a crackling sound, as if some one had stepped on dry grass. She stared through the scrub.

  ‘Did you hear something, Stumpy?’

  It was probably just birds or a kangaroo.

  The quandong stones hanging on strings from her hat jiggled back and forth. Flies still hovered around her face, but not as many. They were frightened off by the swinging stones. There was a gap where a stone was missing. Audrey hoped Price would give her one to replace it. He had a bag of them that he used for marbles. Price wasn’t too old to play marbles.