Cleanskin Cowgirls

by Rachael Treasure

  As the date for the formal neared, Elvis, using an old dozer he’d come by out of Machinery Deals, had lumbered out in a cloud of black diesel fumes to the shit-ponds shed. There, with the worn old blade, he had formed a perfect fire pit and, around it, laid the ground bare as a fire break for the boys’ bonfire. Gwinnie and the twins set large stones from the paddock in a circle, making it look like some ancient ritual site. Then, using the old timber, burnable scraps cleaned out of the newly restored machinery shed and a few fallen old trees, the Smiths had built a small pyre that would burn calmly and evenly for most of the night.

  The weather forecast showed the evening would be fine and still, so just on dusk, the boys had been allowed to drive themselves out in Elvis’s ute, which was packed to bursting with swags, marshmallows, chops to throw on the ploughshare barbecue and even Mr Smith’s guitar, should they want to have a strum. (Elvis lived in hope on that score when it came to his boys and music.) Also, for extra measure, a fire pump and water container had been set up on the back of the ute just in case of a stray spark. But after a flow of seasons under Smith management, and after a reasonable dose of spring rain, the roadhouse-property grasses were holding their greenness as the world turned slowly towards summer. It was only November and two and a half years of controlled-grazing one mob of sheep behind moveable electric fences and direct-drilling oats with modified machinery meant the place was not only finding its balance with moister, more fecund soils, it was also nowhere near tinder-dry like the other properties.

  ‘So what happened?’ Amos asked.

  Elsie shut down and her hand involuntarily lifted to comb her hair down over her face. It had dried on the ends in seaweedy mermaid twirls from the toilet water and sat flat like a swimming cap on her scalp. The blood on her mole had crusted blackly. Her eyes slid away to stare at the dirt beneath her blue satin flats.

  Tara twisted her mouth and wrinkled her nose. ‘Boring. It was boring,’ she said with a wave of her hand.

  ‘Boring? Not a word needed here,’ Zac said, clapping his hands. ‘You’ve come to the right place. This is gonna be our night of nights! Right? Dad’s test results came in today. He got the all-clear!’

  ‘That’s awesome!’ Tara said joyfully.

  ‘Oh, cool,’ Elsie said.

  At the grin on his face and glint in his eyes, the girls’ spirits lifted.

  ‘Here’s to the Culvert Poo Crew!’ They all stood to celebrate the news and pressed their cups together in a triumphant cluster, as if they were golden chalices belonging to victorious knights. They toasted themselves, Gwinnie and Elvis, the stars and the poo ponds. Then they all settled back and drank the homemade lemonade; Tara said it tasted of summer sunshine and Gwinnie’s love.

  ‘The shed looks good,’ Elsie said, nodding towards the now-upright structure, illuminated by the fire. It had freshly oiled boards and a new corrugated roof complete with solar panels and clear skylights.

  ‘Yeah!’ said Amos. ‘You should see inside!’

  ‘Can we?’ Elsie asked excitedly.

  Amos shook his head. ‘Dad’s got her locked up good and proper.’

  The girls glanced at the big double chain and lock that ran through the large corrugated sliding doors.

  ‘Why?’

  Amos poked at the fire with a stick. ‘Let’s just say he’s got a lot of equipment and ideas in there that he doesn’t want anyone to get their hands or peepers on.’

  ‘Like what?’ Tara asked, tilting her head. ‘What sort of equipment? What ideas? Is it legal?’ She was thinking of Dwaine’s hydro-something ‘crop’ in the roof of the abattoir house, which had a skylight like the shed. The house was forever being visited by local coneheads. She would lie awake at night, hoping Dwaine wouldn’t send them through her door, wishing she wasn’t too scared to dob them all in to Constable Gilbert.

  ‘What are you?’ Zac asked sternly. ‘The Culvert Police?’ He cast Amos a dark look.

  ‘Just asking,’ said Tara defensively, tugging at her pantyhose.

  ‘One day, when Dad’s here with the key, we’ll give you a look,’ Amos said, not taking the hint from his brother. ‘You’re both gonna love what’s in there!’

  ‘What is in there? Tell us!’ Elsie urged.

  Zac shook his head. ‘It’s nothing interesting. Just machinery and stuff. Our usual sciencey stuff. So let’s shut it, shall we, Amos?’

  ‘Keep your undies on,’ Elsie said.

  ‘Got any more lemonade?’ Tara asked, sensing the tension between the brothers.

  ‘We got more than that!’ said Amos as he leaped for the Esky.

  Beneath the sweep of the sky, time slid by and soon the kids were giggling and chatting as they flamed marshmallows and sucked the melted insides from the blackened sugary casings. Amos wrapped his tongue around the end of his gum-tree stick for every last sweet taste.

  When the packet was empty, Zac stood and went to the ute, where he carefully took out his father’s old guitar case.

  ‘Would you give us a tune, Elsie? All those lessons with Miss Beechcroft and we’ve never heard you play since that time with Dad.’

  Elsie lowered her head and blushed. ‘Don’t reckon I’ve learned a thing from her. She says I can’t master classical.’

  ‘Course you can play!’ Zac said. ‘Your mother’s always onto you about it. You haven’t missed a single lesson.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tara said. ‘Go on. Play us some toons! We won’t mind if you’re crap. We’re your friends. So even if you suck, we’ll still give you a crap-clap.’

  Elsie rolled her eyes. ‘Thanks,’ she said flatly.

  Zac kneeled before her and unclipped the case, a look of pleading on his face as he handed her the guitar. As she checked her hands for stickiness, then took it meekly from him, Amos gave a small cheer and stood to throw a few more logs on the fire so that sparks danced into the night air.

  After she’d tuned the guitar a little, Elsie began to play. She delicately plucked strings and strummed a chord sequence and the Elsie Jones they knew disappeared. The music she drew from the guitar was something otherworldly. The sound was etched with richness, depth and power. And then, adding to the music, she began to sing.

  Zac’s, Tara’s and Amos’s mouths hung open. It was the voice of an angel. A powerful angel. She looked like an angel too. Her singing brought together the darkness of the universe and the brightness of the stars and they radiated out of her. The vibration of her voice touched their skin and shivered goosebumps over their scalps, right through their bodies. She was singing Kasey Chambers’s ‘Not Pretty Enough’, and channelled through her came all the pain and longing the song evoked.

  Her friends sat staring, barely believing their friend was so transformed by music. She was bigger than herself, a part of the stars above and the earth below. As she lifted the song to its conclusion, all three of her friends were amazed by her grace, and one of them lost his heart to her.

  Zac felt love for Elsie burst open inside himself like a firework. He was filled with the beauty of her soul that travelled to him on her music.

  She faded the song into the night, opened her eyes and sat looking at them in silence. ‘What?’ she asked finally. ‘Am I that bad? Bad enough to make you cry?’

  All of them sat dumbfounded, the boys swiping away their emotion, but Tara letting her tears fall.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Zac said eventually, shaking his head. ‘You’re brilliant. Beyond brilliant! Beautiful.’

  ‘Miss Beechcroft taught you that?’ Tara asked, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘Nup. She’s still onto me to play the classics — this is bedroom guitaring. I just copy what’s on the radio. And read stuff out of your dad’s music books.’

  ‘You copy what’s on the radio?’ asked Amos.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  Elsie pulled a face and shrugged. ‘S’pose it just comes to me.’

  ‘What else from the radio do you copy?’ Amos asked.

&nb
sp; Elsie grinned and again pulled the guitar to her. With a percussion beat she tapped a rhythm, launching into the Dixie Chicks’ ‘Some Days You Gotta Dance’.

  Soon Amos was up, stomping his boots in the dirt, grabbing Tara up by the hand, twirling her about so flames were mirrored in her satin dress. Zac hovered near Elsie, clapping his hands in time, shuffling his shoulders to her beat, a smile wide on his face. Attitude flowed from her, her face contorting with soul-passion. Her little feet tapped in the dust and her head nodded in perfect time; her eyes were shut. When she finished with a roar in her throat and a twang in her voice, her friends let out a whoop.

  Before they could catch their breath, she dished them up a rocking version of ‘Proud Mary’, a long way improved from the first shaky notes she’d played at the roadhouse six months or so earlier with Elvis. She whipped them to dancing frenzy again with a melody of Beatles and Johnny Cash songs memorised from Elvis’s tatty old songbooks, a version of Garth Brooks’s ‘Wrapped Up In You’, and eased them back with a simple and powerful version of Shania Twain’s ‘She’s Not Just a Pretty Face’.

  Again Tara, Zac and Amos were carried away by the pure essence of her voice and the far reach of the lyrics. Pride shimmered through all of them and suddenly Tara recalled the ‘Poo Prophecy’. Here it was. The miracle of their friendship. The miracle of Elsie’s voice. She would never forget this night.

  When she was done, Elsie sat back, guitar on her lap, the fire slowing down to a slumber and her friends with their spirits on high and the warmth of her music making their hearts sing. Peace swamped her.

  All of them suddenly tired, Zac and Amos went for the swags in the back of the ute, undid them and rolled them out on opposite sides of the fire.

  ‘Well now the music show’s over, it’s time for a star show,’ said Zac. ‘Let’s lie here and look at the constellations.’

  ‘Look at the what?’ Tara said. ‘The constipations? At the poo ponds?’ She giggled, then snorted, sending a ripple of humour through the gang.

  ‘Your joke stinks, Tara,’ Zac said.

  ‘Yeah, it’s really on the nose,’ Amos said with a grin. It was as natural as honey flowing from a spoon, the way they came to lie down. Zac beside Elsie. Tara beside Amos. The twins so tall now their feet hung off the end of the green canvas of their well-used dust-beaten childhood swags. All four lay on their backs, the fire’s sparks singing for a moment, then gone. The boys stretching their long arms up to the dome of black above, index fingers pointing to the stars, tracing the lines of the Southern Cross, the Iron Pot, the astrological formations, then the other more obscure constellations the girls had never known of.

  They lay for a time in silence and each of them, boy and girl, and again, as natural as bees to a flower, began to hold hands. Amos and Tara. Zac and Elsie.

  ‘You look really pretty tonight,’ Zac said quietly, turning his head to Elsie so his deep brown eyes were fixed on her face.

  Elsie felt a jolt of panic. The mole. Her hand flew to cover her mouth and she rolled her head away. She never thought about the mole when she was with the boys and Tara, but now, being so near to Zac and with him saying that, her body filled with tension.

  Zac gently pulled her hand away. ‘Why do you do that? I don’t see it unless you cover it. You are a kick-arse cowgirl. Dad says so and I know so.’ At the sound of his voice, Elsie felt herself relax. This was Zac. He was like a brother, only better than that. Simon was her brother and he sucked. Zac was better than a brother. He was Zac. She felt warmth tingling in her chest.

  ‘Dad said in Grade Seven science Mr Tremble would try to teach us that the brain is where all the action is. But the brain is not the first organ in the body. It’s actually the heart.’ He rolled over, took Elsie’s small hand and laid her palm on his chest. ‘Feel it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘It’s the heart that sends electrical signals to the brain and that’s what triggers all the chemicals that guide the body. Our family’s been studying it and trying to put it into practice.’ His eyes shone in the firelight with relief and joy. ‘Dad reckons the medical treatment he had combined with knowing that he had to keep his heart and his spirit happy all helped towards his healing. And even if he hadn’t healed, he still said his heart would be happy because he loved us. But he did heal.’ Zac’s voice cracked. The strain of his dad’s battle, now won, catching up with him.

  Elsie felt tears of relief and empathy rise. ‘That’s so excellent,’ she said, reaching out to gently squeeze his shoulder.

  ‘He amazed the doctors. They’re trying to work out how it happened as they said he was done for. But Dad learned that when we are sending the best signal from our hearts to our bodies, when we are feeling joy and peace and all those good things, that healing chemistry is optimised in our bodies. If he didn’t heal his body, he intended to heal his spirit and die well anyway. So he kept teaching us that it would all turn out well either way no matter what the results showed. But he was able to optimise his healing chemistry . . . And it’s all good now.’

  ‘Optimise?’

  ‘Yes, optimise. You heal fastest when you follow things that bliss you out.’

  Zac stared into the fire, the flames of which were slowly consuming a gnarled tree limb.

  ‘Being with you blisses me out, Elsie Jones.’

  Elsie drew a sudden breath. She had heard the boys at Culvert Primary speak. They talked about cricket and footy. They talked about TV shows and PlayStation games. They talked in stilted short sentences. They never talked this way. Elsie knew Zac was smart. But that night he seemed so grown up.

  ‘You are beautiful,’ Zac said at last. ‘Mum said for me to be brave enough to give a compliment to you. So there you go.’

  Elsie felt as if she had stopped breathing. Could any boy say that of her? With her disfigurement? ‘Are you for real?’ she replied almost sarcastically.

  They lay there in silence for a time, the awkwardness of their new feelings slowly choking the old flow of the friendship that had been so easy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Zac, a little quieter and less confidently.

  Tara and Amos were lost in their own private conversation. Tara was giggling. Saying something about hearts and farts. Amos was chuckling back and poking her sides so that she squealed a little. Then for a time they all lay in silence.

  ‘Shall we get it over with then?’ Amos asked, propping himself on his elbow and looking over the last of the fire to Elsie and Zac.

  ‘What?’ asked Elsie, glancing across to Amos and Tara on the other swag, the embers lighting their faces so they both glowed.

  ‘Our first kisses.’

  ‘What?’ said Elsie almost as a shriek.

  Amos shrugged. ‘Yes. Easier with mates like you and Tara than some girls from school who might laugh at us,’ he said, tugging on Tara’s nose. ‘It’s not as if Zac and I are catch of the day. We look like a couple of rubber bands that have been stretched too much!’

  Tara batted his hand away, laughing. ‘I suppose,’ she said, wondering what it would be like to really like someone, fall in love with him. After the ugly nights with Dwaine, she didn’t want to kiss any boy. But Amos wasn’t a boy. He was Amos. He felt safe and funny, but above all kind. And he really did like her.

  ‘Well, I know no one else would kiss me,’ Amos said. ‘And we should do it before high school, don’t you reckon? Elsie? You in? You gonna give it a go with Zac?’

  Elsie turned her head and looked at Zac’s profile. ‘No one would be brave enough to kiss me, what with . . .’ Her voice trailed off and soon she could speak no words, because Elsie Jones was being kissed by Zac Smith.

  First she felt his soft hesitant lips, then tasted his sweet marshmallow tongue. He reached for her hand and held it softly as they kissed. His brother too had rolled over and was kissing Tara. Her fists tightened as congealed and pungent memories of Dwaine flashed into her mind, but then Amos snickered.

  ‘I think I dribbled,’ he said, and Tara found
herself laughing. The connection between this moment and Dwaine was suddenly banished like startled crows flapping away in the night. Again Tara recalled the Poo Prophecy. Here it was again. The miracle of their friendship, of the music. The miracle of their first kisses. She wanted to say that there would be more miracles to come at the poo ponds, but she was too busy feeling the weird zing that came from kissing Amos Smith.

  It was short-lived. Headlights. The sound of an engine rumbling over the paddocks broke the moment. The slamming of a car door.

  Stepping into the fire ring came Gwinnie Smith, her arms wrapped about herself, her eyes scanning the scene. She frowned at her sons lying on top of their swags with the girls in their arms.

  ‘Do you know your teachers, Constable Gilbert and Elsie’s parents are out looking for you girls?’ she asked, shaking her head. ‘You’d better come with me.’

  Elsie and Tara stood up, the magic of the night blasted into history, the friendship with the twins feeling fractured and intruded upon by this adult presence. It was not specifically Gwinnie the kids were worried about. It was the judgement that came from a small town. From tonight, in the small, small-minded dying town of Culvert led by Kelvin Jones and his wife, there would be no going back for Elsie, Tara, Zac and Amos.

  Part Two

  Eleven

  Four years later

  ‘It is with great pride,’ boomed Councillor-Mayor Jones on the microphone, ‘that we announce the one point two million dollars in funding for Culvert’s sewage waste system works upgrade.’ The crowd of VIPs, politicians, the goody-two-shoes committee and grey-haired Life Members of the Culvert Agricultural Show society applauded. With great swagger, the navy-suitclad councillor-mayor lolloped his large body across the small stage that had been set up in the corner of the CWA luncheon pavilion and pulled on a red tasselled cord. The small swarm of politicians who were frenzied with pre-election nerves clapped politely as a tacky artist’s impression of the treatment plant was revealed from behind velvet curtains. From her vantage point in the CWA show kitchen, Tara noted they were the same curtains that had been used to unveil the new footy clubrooms ten years back. The mayor picked up his pointer and tapped on the diagram.