Who Sings for Lu?

by Alan Duff

  Come to your papa, my child. Papa he love you. Come bring to your momma you self to cuddle, darlink child. That was how they talked to their kids, and they came to this country poor, when some blamed poverty for domestic violence and abuse of children. Bull-shit. Come and see the ethies in action, how they mostly didn’t drink and when they did it was wine — with food and the whole family round the table. Hear them click tongues and say, You Ozzies drink too much. You no save up the money. No buy nice things for your kids. Don’t love them properly.

  Over the years they’d disappear, moved on you heard to better things. Started their own businesses. Heading up in the world.

  Yeah, up. While Lu sat around home for a couple of years, roamed the streets, no idea of what she wanted or what life was about. Made a few good boy mates here and there, though no girls she could call a real mate. Dunno why. Felt as if girls could sense she was soiled goods. Felt their judging her letting a blood relation do it, as if she was the guilty party. Guilt did walk alongside her like an unwanted pal, and it themed her dreaming at night. Every night. In dreams punished for being just an ordinary Woollo girl and exposed to the whole high school, or her street, for ‘SLEEPING WITH YOUR UNCLE!!’ the nightly chorus bellowed. In the day Lu walked around numbed, her and her only best mate, Guilt. Till she met Jay. Went from job to job, staying at home because she didn’t know the first thing about getting a flat, about normal living. And nothing changed at home like it hardly did with her life other than she had a couple of regular male buddies.

  Got a job at Malak Bros and liked it, the familiarity of regular customers, their different ways, food likes and dislikes, kinds of sauces, where each preferred to sit. A year flew by and the brothers, for all their racial bitterness, nonetheless respectful of their female staff. Lu appreciated that.

  Then in walks Rocky, right into her life like a superhero. Then, just as he is changing her life perspective, whammo. Gone. Before Rocky it was Jay who got snatched, by Miss Cake-up — so called for the make-up she plastered on. Stole Jay’s heart and with it Lu’s faint hope the one man she might welcome coming on to her was ever going to.

  So what happens? Daysh is killed — killed! All right, you hated Daysh in near every way, but she was still in your circle of mates, still a fellow woman. Jesus, eighteen and gone for ever.

  ‘Up-and-coming housing-estate mum breeding criminal children.’ This was Rocky, talking like a Vauclusian, of Daysh. But maybe only to make Lu feel better. Well, she wasn’t up-and-coming anything or anywhere. The girl was brown bread.

  Out to visit Rocky at Long Bay Prison, the jets coming and going at Sydney Airport, not far from La Perouse, once a thriving Aboriginal settlement Rocky had found out, and now they were just another broken lot on welfare. In jail he said he had a good Abo mate and didn’t give a shit if fellow whites didn’t like it.

  They went to the prison in Jay’s ancient Jap Honda Civic, felt ridiculous its tiny size, sick engine blowing clouds of smoke. Three visits, then ‘I don’t want no more visits,’ Rocky announced. He wanted to do his time without being reminded of what he was missing out on, the freedom. ‘Talking to good mates like you,’ he said to Lu. ‘You too, Jay,’ as if adding Jay on. God, that got to her. He could just as well said he loved her, the look in his eyes. And if she were doing jail time she’d want visits as often as possible.

  Now she wondered if she’d heard wrong that Jay’s voice was emotional on the mobile, when he didn’t do emotion that much. He must have been visiting Dayshana’s grave again.

  Chapter seven

  His wife liked Riley home. And liked it when he was away, just a few days, a week, no longer. He always came home brimming with news on horse business, and inevitably primed for sexual encounter, which Claire was mostly happy to provide, if not matching his passion.

  This time his talk was all of one horse, a filly he’d picked up for ‘two point two mill’ — a way of talking she’d never got used to, not in relation to money, which she and her frugally minded family had never expected to have.

  Riley’s family were business-minded but he was driven. He found her father, a safer-than-safe chartered accountant in the Lower Hunter city of Maitland, infuriatingly risk-averse. ‘His glass is always half empty. It’s a beautiful day and Clive Jennings will say, “Ah yes, but it never lasts as long as you think.”’

  Claire not of her father’s negative outlook but didn’t have a materialistic bone in her body. When Riley insisted she must be money conscious or she would not have been such a valuable asset in the broodmare and now stud business, she countered, ‘I did it for you, for the family.’

  Informed her husband — as if he didn’t know — ‘Naturally I prefer a life where paying the bills is not an issue. Who wouldn’t? I just don’t hanker after high fashion and material possessions. And, don’t forget, I love horses almost as much as you do.’

  Claire’s real heart was in her kids. Riley getting snipped had not been what she wanted: her dream was four or five children growing up running around this place, enjoying the special experience of dealing with creatures of enormous physical strength and volatile temperament. A form of educational advantage in itself; farm life but with more interesting and challenging stock.

  But Riley said he couldn’t afford the time to devote to more children, so that was it. ‘Besides,’ he joked, ‘it makes for a worry-free sex life.’ She reminded him the contraceptive pill had been doing that for Western women forty-odd years.

  Presumably he was content enough with her in that area, given they were still happily married, and anyway he worked such long hours. Hardly energy for much of that. And not as if she very often opted out with the headache excuse. Her mother had raised three daughters on the ways of the world where a man was concerned, his simple needs and how easy to satisfy them. Though Claire did wonder if her husband’s profession hadn’t been influential. For he certainly had a strong sexual appetite. Today was yet more evidence of that.

  Hardly home and sexually satisfied than Riley, with Straw, was off to meet a trainer down the road — no doubt to brag, in a casual way, of his expensive purchase. Not stopping long enough for Claire to pose her question of why he had purchased a two-million-plus horse to include just one daughter in its name. What about our other daughter, Katie?

  Wasn’t long before Claire forgot the horse: Sue Dellabarca, her self-proclaimed sex-maniac friend, turned up for a drink courtesy of the Dellabarca family winemaking business, Fig Shade. Riley would be out for several hours, and in his absence several glasses of Fig Shade started going to Claire’s head. She downed half a jug of iced water to sober up.

  How had Riley got on in New Zealand? Sue wanted to know. Claire gave her usual vague answer as Riley didn’t like even Claire’s closest friends knowing his business, private man that he was — some would say secretive.

  ‘Funny, a three-hour flight away, New Zealand, yet never had the inclination to go there,’ Sue said. ‘Dunno why. Hearing men make cracks about a nation of sheep shaggers, I guess.’ Which did evoke a laugh from Claire, probably the wine.

  Katie’s loud stereo intruded from an impossible distance, down a very lengthy stretch of passage and round a corner to the girls’ wing. Hip-hop. Gangsta rap they called it. Katie listened to it obsessively. An entirely different creature to her older sister, Anna, and not like either of her parents. Katie was wilful, sulky, volatile, even had a slightly dark side.

  ‘Sit down,’ Sue stopped Claire from going off to confront Katie. ‘We’ve all got a kid like it, or an appalling niece. Daughters. They give ninety per cent of the problems only to grow into marvellously responsible and even-tempered mothers. I was a proper bitch from age fifteen till eighteen. Let’s have another wine.’

  ‘But you’re driving, Sue.’

  ‘Stop being so Jennings-safe. I grew up with you, hon. You never did anything even mildly wrong. I live three kays down a country road: who am I going to wipe out if I’m a little bit pissed?’

  ‘Com
e on,’ Claire said, ‘let’s get you outside in the open air and maybe save a life on the road.’

  Got a look from Sue to say: don’t patronise me.

  As always, no matter how many regular visits, Sue exclaimed out on the lengthy deck, ‘Wow. Some place, eh?’

  Looking up at ancient sandstone escarpments of the Wollemi National Park. One horse was responsible for all this, 1100 hectares, not only saving the business but expanding it to paddocks lush with special grass scientifically developed for thoroughbred grazing; a large mixed broodmare and stud operation. Laneways of crushed stone and lime ensured efficiency of animal movement. Stables and barns had, at Claire’s suggestion, stonework tastefully placed to give a quality look, affecting age and maturity, and every fence railing was dark stained. Specimen trees of Riley’s choosing lined the driveway, when Claire would have preferred a single variety, and over a thousand metres of trimmed barberry hedges gave an extra finish to a well-ordered property.

  Six years earlier Raimona’s stud fees had paid for their house on this elevated site, clear of the shadow of the rocky escarpments. Grand enough to entertain the numerous clients comfortably, accommodate those who came from abroad, but nowhere was the new homestead ostentatious.

  Riley’s maternal grandfather, Sean Riley, had named the original broodmare farm Galahrity, a play on the noisy galah’s name as his way of cocking a snook at convention. It sounded Irish, he said. ‘Like my convict grandfather was.’ Back then it was 250 acres of a dreamer’s operation; now it was ten times the size. Grandfather Sean’s eyes would have boggled. Claire had three years of knowing the old boy before he dropped dead of a heart attack: she recalled a lively, cheerful optimist, even — or especially — when the chips were down. He loved Riley, helped no doubt by his carrying the family name, even if it was, as Sean put it, at the front.

  ‘No horse raised here will be at the rear,’ he had vowed. Words Riley took to heart as he strove, along with Straw Mathews, to create winners.

  The Hunter was best known for its vineyards, but Galahrity in the Widden Valley was one of several famous local horse-breeding estates, if not yet in the legendary class like Coolmore and Arrowfield in nearby Jerrys Plains. Claire had written a couple of times asking the local shire authority to reinstate the missing apostrophe. She was more pragmatic about the valley’s numerous open-cast coal mines, a blot on the landscape to some but providing jobs and adding wealth to the region. At least till the worldwide economic collapse.

  Sitting out here as friends of a lifetime, the kookaburra calling from the gums, Claire and Sue toasted each other and a good life in the Lucky Country.

  Out of nowhere, Sue said, ‘Did you hear Madeline Bradley’s husband has been bonking his secretary?’

  ‘No, I hadn’t.’ Claire taken more by surprise than she ought to be. Not as if the woman in question was a close friend, just someone you ran into at the supermarket, at the hairdresser. Besides, hardly anyone passed on gossip to Claire; they probably figured, quite rightly, she was not the type.

  ‘I’d cut Mike’s crown jewels off if he did that to me.’ Clearly the subject meant something to Sue. ‘’Specially as I don’t deserve it.’

  Claire wondering if the same response was expected from her, when she didn’t think about such things. Not about the possibility of Riley being unfaithful — though no question he was a flirt — nor such a gruesome punishment if he was.

  ‘My deal is,’ Sue said, ‘I look after his —’

  ‘Too much information, as my daughters would say, Sue.’ Claire got in before Sue could make her predictable finish.

  ‘Just saying I’m good in the sack,’ Sue said. ‘Men and their dicks, though, honey. Not connected to any part of their brain.’

  Claire suddenly aware of her close encounter with Riley a couple of hours back. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘They can allow it to dominate matters.’

  ‘Personally speaking …’

  Claire found herself shifting to get ready for Sue’s frank summary of her own sexual needs. The woman was incorrigible.

  Chapter eight

  Lu hauled Jay and his flatmate, Bronson, out of their beds. Their dingy upstairs rooms were just round the corner from her parents’ Housing Commission flat from where she’d yet to make a break as it seemed something — or someone — had her frozen on the spot, unable to move, an easy prey for an uncle called Rick. Enslave early and you got them for life, Lu had read in some newspaper, maybe about the German father who kept his own daughter locked up for twenty-four years as his sex slave, the animal.

  ‘Come on, you blokes, it’s past eleven in the morning, a lovely day out. Let’s go to the fish market.’

  Jay grumbling it was no reason to be woken from his beauty sleep. Lu thinking, As if you need any more beauty you handsome bastard you, now Daysh was gone.

  They walked up through Hyde Park to Paddy’s Markets, Jay hostile at the begging homeless drunks, Bronson showing his Samoan side, even if he was born here and one of his parents was half German, asking Jay how would he like it in the same position? Samoans, every Australian knew, a tough race, warriors like their Maori cousins, but not as vicious. You fell out with a Samoan he came for you front on. A Maori he’d come through your window three o’clock in the morning. Scary bastards.

  Jay said, ‘Rather be dead. Don’t feel sorry for them, Bron. Fuckin’ losers.’

  From Paddy’s Markets they took the tram to Pyrmont, couldn’t jump it as the conductor was always right there, and being a lazy Sunday they couldn’t be bothered walking.

  Always lots of people out on a leisurely Sunday — generated a kind of mild excitement that took them along too. Usually Lu had money to buy a bit of food, but this time she didn’t offer. It was her olds’ big-ask week where she had to pay all the rent and then some if her old lady had been gambling, as she never won since she never stopped when ahead. The price of a packet of fags between them, the three had to watch enviously people pig out on prawns, oysters in the shell glistening ‘like pussies’ Jay said, in the sunlight. Bron guffawed, Lu was hardly amused. Melted cheese on toasted chewy Persian or Dago bread, with chunks of bacon and little onion bits standing up waiting to burst in the mouth to set the other flavours off, like right off.

  ‘Shit, how much can people eat?’ Bronson, who’d said he was starving, hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime. Too pissed and food took up beer room, he said, with that kind of endearing giggle, unless you weren’t in the mood and then it was irritating.

  ‘Least we got smokes,’ he added. The small mercy of their nicotine addiction satisfied. Something in the act of smoking that made you feel like you belonged.

  Cigarettes all well and good, but hard seeing and smelling — savouring — the cooked food and the bounties of the sea.

  ‘Ah saw, you like nudder one, son?’ Jay being funny. But serious too, of an empty stomach kind, Lu judged.

  ‘Damn Chinks,’ he said. ‘Never see them broke. Some have a whole cooked crayfish — each — for lunch.’ Jay hadn’t eaten in about twenty-four hours himself. ‘One cray costs, what, thirty, forty bucks? Way they eat, though, even we’ve got better manners.’ He made a series of slurping and sucking noises to make his point. Nearby a pelican hit the water in a scooping dive for a thrown fish. People cheered. Kids laughed.

  ‘How do they afford it?’ Jay was on a roll. ‘What’s their damn secret to always having money?’ Lu thought she knew: each group was a self-contained family in its own little cocoon. Not like a gang, or random roamers like they were and, admit it, just a little bit lost. More an economic unit, a social force that stayed tight and staunch and kept its Chinese money-making secrets to itself.

  The non-Asians, a lot of them, would have a bottle of white wine and/or beers with their lunch. Asians rarely drank as far as she could see. Lots of tourists came here, with their digital cameras and lookin-garound, happy, gooey faces. The boys sneered, ‘Top up your glass, my dear? Fuck you later in our hotel room, honey? Cocktails and c
ock-tail in the hotel pool, darling.’ How they spoke in their envy. ‘Lucky shits, hope ya drown, hope ya have a heart attack middle of fuckin’. Hope a bit of prawn shell gets stuck down your throat and ya choke to death. Hope he makes you swallow his cum, ya poser bitch.’

  Trash talk like that presumably made Jay and Bronson feel better. Not so Lu. Food and wine not where her head was at and she switched off at the sex talk. You wanna run with the male dogs, then you got to put up with their bullshit.

  Even at her work where the food was free she ate little. And she didn’t envy Asians their evident financial success, hardly gave money a thought. Sure, didn’t everyone want some, the life it bought? But not as representing something material like a big house, a flash car, jewellery. Not even money in the bank. What she wanted money couldn’t buy.

  In fact a girl had no idea what touched a raw nerve for her that brought out envy, even hatred, other than the obvious that had been going on so long it felt kind of normal. Like a permanent limp. A medical condition. In her mind sometimes as, Oh, just regular use of my body by a blood relative. Except every single occasion it did something to her, a brick by brick dismantling.

  Oysters and prawns came out in open cardboard boxes and little polystyrene trays, battered fish, prawns, oysters, all with lovely hot fries. A wedge of lemon with each serving.

  ‘Just a lousy feed of fries would do, eh, guys?’ Bronson. ‘Anyone spots leftover fries, get in before the seagulls do. Whack ’em away. I ever tell you about the time I once caught one here?’

  ‘Bullshit, Bron.’ Jay.

  ‘Fair dinkum.’

  ‘First he tells a porky. Then talks like a true-blue Oz.’

  ‘I am Oz. Born here wasn’t I? What else can I be? Frigging Mongolian?’