by J. M. Green
‘Mum must have dropped you on your head. More than once. We both know the guy is working for Cesarelli, and he doesn’t want to buy the damn DVD. He wants to destroy it.’
Ben crushed his butt under his heel and put his arm around me. ‘You seem upset. Sometimes I worry about you, Stella.’
I shrugged him off. ‘Worry about yourself.’ I went to the edge of the creek and stared into the flowing stream.
A raucous bellowing drifted down from the paddocks. Lunch was the general gist. ‘I’ll feed it to the dogs in one minute,’ Delia Hardy was screeching.
When I reached the house, I was relieved to find that Kylie and the twins had left. Ted Newstead, however, having returned from mass, was sitting at the table in a brown suit and tie, reading the paper. I saw him look up at the two adult Hardy children, the criminal and the social misfit, and then wipe his moustache with a napkin. A plate of cold roast lamb sandwiches was on the table, near an industrial-sized teapot under the industrial-sized tea cosy I had knitted in high school.
‘Tell us, Ted, what’s new in the world?’
‘Lamb prices down,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘Wheat’s gone up. Come summer, property prices are going through the roof. Dams full, creeks flowing. Good for morale.’
‘Terrific,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it, Ben?’
Ben was chewing pensively. ‘What?’
I poured tea into a mug and remembered the smell of Brophy’s hair. He said he’d phone. Meanwhile, my mobile was lying in a garden somewhere in Roxburgh Street, Ascot Vale, covered in snails. If my phone sang ‘Map of Tasmania’ no one would answer. I couldn’t use the landline here, not with Delia and Ted listening.
I went outside for some fresh air, and Ben followed. ‘God, I wish I had a phone.’
He put his hand in his pocket, retrieved a phone and flipped it open. ‘Use mine.’
‘What the —? Give me that.’ I yanked the phone from his hand. Directory told me there was a P. Brophy in Footscray. Would I like to be put through? ‘Yes, please.’
‘This is Peter — and Marigold — we can’t get to the phone so leave us a message …’
‘It’s Stella. My mobile’s out of action. Just letting you know I’m visiting my mum in the country for … a day or two.’
Ben put his hand out for the phone. ‘Happy?’
I snapped it shut. ‘Thank you, yes.’
I spent the afternoon in Kylie’s room studying the Report on the quality of Mount Percy Sutton alluvial samples for Blue Lagoon Corp and Bailey Range Metals. August 2008.
It was an analysis of mineral composition, full of very dry language. The conclusions were unequivocal: the gold deposits at Mount Percy Sutton were not worth the cost of extraction. There were several pages of tables and maps and indices. I stayed in my room until I heard the first guests arrive for Tyler’s fortieth.
Ted was opening cans of Victoria Bitter. I joined my family, and miscellaneous locals and, thanks be to beer, their forgotten nicknames returned. I was bear hugged by Ledge and Ox and Froggy. The company was warm, and the vibe friendly. After a while, I resolved to go home more often. My memories of cruelty and dust and mourning were a collection of half-truths. These whackers would give you the shirt off their backs.
Kylie’s husband, Tyler, was delighted with his birthday gifts. ‘Car polish? Grouse. Good brand that.’
When Kylie married the newly arrived Baptist minister, Delia worried, often out loud, that her youngest — and a local beauty of considerable status — would be consigned to a life of preaching and pastoral care. But between Sundays, Tyler enjoyed shooting and fishing and drinking. The arrival of twins settled the matter: Tyler was ‘the best’.
‘I always use it on the Mazda,’ Ben said sincerely. ‘Duco comes up beautiful.’
Ben had bought it at the supermarket. To the best of my knowledge, he’d never used that or any other brand of car polish before.
‘Awesome. A spotlight!’ Tyler had us believe that his night could hardly be improved.
‘For spotlighting,’ said Delia Hardy.
‘Thanks, Mrs Hardy.’
We dined on casserole in the big kitchen. A pavlova, replete with a topping of tinned passionfruit pulp, coins of fresh banana, and tinned crushed pineapple, awaited in all its magnificence on the bench. We were singing ‘Happy Birthday’ and Ted, who’d had a few beverages, was conducting by waving his stubby holder at us, when the phone rang.
‘I’ll get it,’ screamed Blair.
Chad grabbed the receiver and they started wrestling, until Chad smacked Blair on the head with it.
‘Give it to me,’ Kylie said, and gave them both a shove. ‘Hello?’ A pause, her eyes travelled to me. ‘Yes, she’s here.’ She held out the phone. ‘It’s a man.’
All eyes on me now. I took the receiver. ‘Hello?’
Brophy’s voice sounded a long way off. ‘That you, Hardy? Got your message …’ He may have imbibed a drink or two himself. ‘Your mum’s in the book, too. Too easy.’
‘That’s very … resourceful of you.’
Every person in the room was listening. I made a carry-on-having-a-party gesture with my elbow.
‘Who’s having pav?’ Delia said in a loud voice.
I pressed the phone harder against my ear. ‘Sorry, what was that?’
‘Have dinner with me when you get back.’
‘Love to.’ There was no possibility of private conversation. I had no choice but to cut it short. ‘I’ll call you when I get back.’
‘Goodbye, Stella Hardy,’ he slurred.
At the end of the evening, I shoved the birdhouses aside and collapsed. Before sleep took me, Peter Brophy’s words looped in my head. It didn’t matter that somewhere in Melbourne a crazy person was hunting down a DVD in my possession, I needed to hear that voice, in person, one more time.
20
THIN CURTAINS, no blinds. Morning light kicked me in the eyeballs — no sleep-ins at the Hardy’s. No central heating either. After a sub-zero night, the lino was like a frozen lake. My bare feet were appalled.
The dip in the old mattress had rigidified my lower back. I walked like someone recently brought back to life by a jolt of electricity, staggering towards the grey-haired woman seated at the kitchen table, clothed in a robe of pink chenille. The radio was on, muttering about rams and rain gauges. On the table, an open broadsheet, a plate with a crust on it, a mug; and a coffee-plunger, half-full. According to the old kitchen clock, it was nearly eight.
‘You want some of this?’ Delia pointed to the coffee plunger. ‘Ben made it. It’s not bad,’ she admitted.
I did want some. And a Panadol with the circumference of a family-sized pizza. I found a mug in the cupboard — a relic from my childhood that would now probably fetch a large sum on eBay as a ‘vintage’ item — and filled it. I observed the enigmatic Delia from the crook of one eye. She hummed, smiling at some private joke, and turned a sheet of newspaper. That was odd. I walked around the room, pulled out a chair opposite her. I considered the course of my mother’s life: harsh childhood, abbreviated education, manual labour, sacrifice, grief and loss, the disappointing offspring. When she didn’t annoy me, when she didn’t speak, I loved her. And I admired her, too. No one could accuse Delia of not being authentic. Besides, she’d decided to carry on living. Her decision to marry Ted was starting to seem less immoral, not as mistaken. A third-age reward, if you fancy a big dag in a tweed jacket — which I didn’t, but horses for courses.
I went to her, put my arm around her fluffy shoulder, and planted a kiss on her silvery bob. Delia allowed it. I settled down at the table beside her just as the ABC News fanfare announced it was eight o’clock.
Notorious gangland figure Gaetano Cesarelli was found dead outside his Keilor Heights home this morning. Police are door-knocking the area an
d are appealing for anyone with information to come forward. Detectives are tight-lipped but it is believed the murder weapon was a kitchen knife, found near the body.
Free at last, I was free at last. It was time to go back to Melbourne. There was no reason to stay in Woolburn any longer.
Delia, unaware of the importance of this development, was still reading the paper. ‘The Highland Fling packs up soon. You going?’
Returning to Melbourne was at the very top of my list, but I had fond memories of the fling, and a quick look wouldn’t kill me. ‘Yeah, I might head down with Ben.’
‘Ben’s gone.’
Her words were lead sinkers that hit the bottom of my brain with a clang. Words of my own answered back: Stuck. Here. Hellhole. Suicide. A flicker of hope remained, perhaps I was wrong to assume the worst. ‘Gone where? The shops?’
‘Back to Melbourne, he just left.’
‘The dirty little rat!’
Delia tut-tutted. ‘Language.’
I tried to fathom the breathtaking temerity of my so-called brother. The loving, loyal younger sibling, the one who made Japanese tofu dinners and cleaned my flat, was a mirage. The real Ben was a treacherous, conniving tip rat. ‘It’s not for long, right?’ I asked. ‘He’ll be back soon. Because he is my lift. My only means of …’
Delia shrugged. She had started writing in the margin of the paper with a pencil. ‘I’m thinking of having Kylie’s fortieth here.’
‘But. But. But.’
‘I’ll do that nice pudding everyone likes.’
‘I can’t stay here.’
‘Salads. Meat on the Webber. You like that, Stella, don’t you?’
‘I’m vegetarian,’ I screamed.
That amused her. ‘Since when? Lamb casserole last night, scoffed it like it was your last meal.’
‘Melbourne things. I need. To do.’ I needed to do Peter Brophy. If I didn’t get out of here, I might kill them all, including Ted. Happened all the time on remote farms. People went crazy. ‘Mum, listen, I cannot stay another day in Woolburn.’
Delia scratched her arm and frowned, as though the itch and I were the same problem. ‘Why not?’
Outside, a deep booming rocked the foundations of the house. A large bomb had been dropped at the rear of the property.
Delia slapped down the steps in her slippers and darted around the house. I followed her. As we turned the corner, huge clouds of black smoke bulged from the far shed and billowed up where the wind caught it and sent it east. The doors had been blown off, and I could see the flames engulfing the plane. I looked at Delia, who was yelling for me to find the twins. I had the fire extinguisher but Delia ran for the garden hose.
Another explosion. A ball of orange heat rolled out the opened door and the windows, and any gap it could find, bending the iron sheets. A corrugated rectangle ripped free and flew across the paddocks. Delia came, pulling the hose, the water pressure a pitiful trickle. I ran inside and phoned emergency services.
‘What is the nature of the emergency?’
Apocalyptic. Cataclysmic. Armageddon-esque. ‘The shed’s on fire. Some flammable materials.’ From the kitchen window, I saw the twins skulk along the side of the house. I hurried out to collar them — and had put a foot on the back step when another explosion showered the yard in debris. Through the smoke, I saw Delia running with the hose, spraying spot fires. I yelled at her to move back. I put an arm out, like a midfielder trying to land a tackle, and we collided, entwined, and fell to the ground.
Flames lapped the sides of the next shed. There was a screech, and the roof shuddered and collapsed, and fire feasted on the entire structure. Delia was on her knees, covering her face in her hands. I closed my eyes. Nothing that had mattered still did — not my dismay at being stuck here, not my bitterness toward Ben — only the slow-motion horror of this moment. I heard a crisp clack, like an old Bakelite record being snapped in half. It was either a rafter in the shed breaking apart, or my heart.
Five CFA volunteers spent their Monday morning pouring water on a smouldering mess. They worked casually, seemed happy, cracked jokes. How was that possible?
I rang Ted, who was out inspecting one of his properties, and then Kylie, and made cups of tea for the fireys. The twins were later found walking on the road, halfway to the highway. They denied everything, of course.
Delia, meanwhile, had changed into a blue velour tracksuit and retreated to the plastic outdoor table and chairs on the side veranda, and was staring into space. The twins sat together, cross-legged on the pine boards, red-faced and teary. Desperate for something to do, I walked around assessing the damage. The chooks were penned and seemed unfazed. Mercifully, Delia’s car was safe. Ben had parked it on the front lawn the day before. It was a small miracle that he had not ‘borrowed’ it — preferring to use his shitbox to abandon me instead.
They arrived simultaneously, Kylie and Ted, and they walked through the house with barely a nod to me. I watched through the window now as Kylie, Mum, and the twins sat in solemn silence around the plastic table. Something prevented me from joining them, a self-preservation thing.
Light rain started to fall from dark clouds. I went back inside. Ted was doing the breakfast dishes, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow.
‘Your mother’s had a shock but she’s okay.’ He said this with a soupçon of emotional grievance, as though I needed reminding of Delia’s trauma. Ted, I realised, didn’t like me much.
‘Thanks for taking care of her,’ I said pointedly.
He stopped scouring the tines of a fork and eyeballed me. ‘You seem to find this hard to understand, but I love your mother.’
Were we naked, this conversation could not have been more awkward. ‘I guess.’ I deadpanned like a stroppy adolescent.
‘She is my wife. I’ve been taking care of her for the past twenty years.’
Twenty years. That was longer than Delia’s marriage to Russell. And my longest relationship was a couple of anxious years, more like wolves circling each other than human commitment. Did it damage my feminist credentials to admit I wanted someone, just once, to take care of me?
‘Ted, I need to get back to Melbourne.’
He shrugged. ‘So go.’
‘I can’t. No transport.’
‘There’s a bus.’
My nods were more a repeated lowering of the head.
‘You should get yourself a car, Stella.’
I almost told him: one evening five years ago, I blew one long continuous breath into the plastic tube and they disqualified me from driving for twelve months. My licence was cancelled and I never bothered to get it back again. In the city, a licence wasn’t necessary.
‘Would you mind taking me to the bus stop?’
‘Not now. Maybe in a couple of hours — I’m taking your mother to Ouyen.’ He put the last plate in the rack and went out of the room.
I looked at the clock: 11.30am. Time in this place was nasty. I gathered some provisions — an apple, a bottle of water, two butter-and-Vegemite Saladas placed butter-side together and cling-wrapped — into a bag, and put on my coat. On my way out, I grabbed a handful of dog biscuits to bribe the dogs into joining me, and marched.
In my nothing-to-do youth, dragging your feet along the unsealed road was what you did when ‘going for a walk’ was the only privacy on offer. This road was the site of my initiation into teenage society: first cigarette, first kiss, first drink and spew. Rites of passage. After a long while, I recognised a track that veered off into the bush. The dogs watched me for a while before trotting away home.
Some of the landscape was familiar. Some not. Since Ted had started selling off bits of the farm, there were new subdivisions. Where I had once ridden the motorcycle in search of flyblown sheep, there were now houses, on one-acre blocks encased in wire fences. They were
squat, thin-clad dwellings with flat-ceilings, surrounded by scrub, yards strewn with semi-functional swing-sets, and the occasional above-ground pool or trampoline — a weird transplanted suburbia.
Distant thunder made me stop. It grew louder. It was low, on the ground, a rolling rumble, not mechanical but heavy and persistent, coming closer towards me. Dust rose in the air, then they came into view: kangaroos. Thirty-five, maybe forty substantial eastern greys moving in a loose mob across my path. They scaled the fences, leaping straight through the backyards, and carried on, with smaller roos bringing up the rear.
The last joey couldn’t clear a fence. He tried and fell short. By now, the mob had moved on. Again and again he jumped, but fell back each time. I wondered if I should intervene. Then the tough little bugger tried again. This time he cleared the height and jumped away.
When the dust settled, silence returned. I lingered, revelling in that brief psychological respite, when ecstatic wonder displaces monotonous self-concern.
If I were fifteen, I’d have rushed home to tell my father. He’d act amazed or surprised, or disbelieving. In my father’s company, I would stretch out in laughter, or perhaps lean into an embrace of rock-hard arms and shoulders, and inhale his signature scent, a blend of diesel, Solvol, sporting club. That rich aroma that had soaked into every flannelette shirt that had hung in his wardrobe. So old and soft, the cloth had felt weightless in my hands as I took them from their hangers. The folding and packing had taken an entire day. And, at the end of the process, we gave those treasures to a charity shop.
I walked to the end of the track. Soon, I was in an open field, where granite rocks rose up out of the flatness, grey-white against the ochre-brown. Large as houses, they were rounded by years of wind and rain. I sat down and ate my Saladas. Only the far-off buzzing drone of a line-trimmer cut the inertia of the countryside.
Delia’s car was gone when I got home; she and Ted had gone to Ouyen. I headed to Kylie’s room, for another look at the report. There had to be something I was missing, some vital clue in the text that could explain everything. I opened the satchel and found it empty. The laptop was gone.