‘You’re saying Culvert poo could save the world?’ asked a drunken but interested Tara.
Amos grinned. ‘Not alone, but if we can make it commonplace in the rural sector and in towns like Culvert, we would all be a bit more independent from the larger city fuel distribution hubs.’
Tara grinned. ‘So you’re taking on corrupt politicians, oil warlords, corporate car giants and conglomerate fuel companies! Woot!’
‘Not so much taking them on,’ Zac said. He had reached for Elsie’s hand, and she recalled how a tingling warmth had spread over her entire body. ‘More like showing Culvert people a better way. How they can regain their own economic power simply by using local waste for gas production for farm machinery.’
‘Remember the Poo Pond Prophecy,’ Tara said. ‘Well, it’s coming true. Another miracle on its way.’
‘Oh, we’ve got a long way to go yet,’ Zac said.
‘But it’s brilliant,’ Elsie said, taking it all in and understanding the enormity of what was being created in here by these two bright boys and their parents. ‘Especially with how the gas emissions are sequestered back into the soil quickly and cheaply using grasslands and managed grazing.’
She had squeezed Zac’s hand back. Zac had beamed at her. In that moment the world had zinged with unseen stars flashing between them.
‘I’ve been studying it in school,’ she explained. Thrilled she ‘got it’, Zac had kissed her with zealous passion.
Her eyes blurred with tears. She’d scanned the text her mother had so spitefully sent and nowhere was there any mention of the vision and potential the Smiths’ project had. They were just portrayed as weirdos stealing sewage to run their own tractors. Elsie’s heart tugged as she looked again at Zac’s photographs.
‘Stealing sewage?’ came the voice of Jake from behind as he peered over Elsie’s shoulder. ‘Wow! Friends of yours from back home? They must be some kinda guys! That’s hilarious.’
She glanced up at him. He failed to see the strain on her face. ‘Not really,’ she said softly. Normally she would light up when he was within a five-metre radius. But not today. ‘I’ll catch you about later.’ She got up and wandered slowly across to the machinery shed. Her head was spinning.
She knew she’d find Crack with Tyler and Dump on a ute service in the machinery workshop. Elsie stood in the bright sunshine, peering into the deep chasm of the shed for Crack. She spotted him in the jaws of an open-mouthed Toyota. ‘Hey, Crack?’
‘Yo!’ he called, not looking up as he busied himself with cleaning a battery terminal.
‘Mind if I take a sickie for the afternoon?’
Gordon frowned, withdrew himself from under the bonnet, wiped his hand on a rag and glanced at Elsie. Instead of telling her to ‘take a teaspoon of concrete and harden up’, he agreed, then watched her drift over to the quarters in a cloud of shock.
There, dragging open the screen door, stepping over a snoozing Marbles and kicking off her boots, Elsie took out her guitar, opened up the empty notebook she’d bought with the intention of writing to Zac regularly, and instead of a letter, began to pen her first song to him. With the air conditioner humming and drifting cool air about her tiny room, she let her voice carry the pain of seeing Zac that way in the photographs.
With time, the image of them together came to her. Them lying in their swags with a swathe of night-time sky above. Then on the bluest of days when she and Tara had rocked up before they had run away with the cleanskins. How they’d sat outside the shed in deck chairs around the deadened fire pit, laughing till their faces hurt, and then later, lying back in the jungle of grass, looking up at the clouds. She thought about what Zac had said to her. Words like welcome rain clouds gathered in her mind, bringing with them a mellow tune like a sun shower.
‘I got nothin’ to do. All day to do it.’ Elsie could hear Zac saying it to her as if it was yesterday.
‘Could save the world. I’ll get round to it.
Forget your troubles. I’m working through it.
Nothin’ to do and all day to do it.
Nothin’ to do and all day to do it, yeah yeah.’
Hot tears stung behind her eyes. The image of his burned face sizzled in her mind. She should have called him. Not just occasionally but every day. She should have written to him, longer letters expressing her inner feelings. But why would he want her writing that kind of stuff and calling constantly? A shallow, silly girl. A girl who had let a glamorous cowboy distract her.
Elsie looked about the tiny room. The stack of books by Tara’s bed. One on the railway system, one on the war in the Pacific, a book on extra-sensory perception in animals, another on house design using straw bales. Then there was the energy of the room itself, so influenced by Tara’s.
Tara had, in her term, ‘feng’d’ the room. She’d arranged bedding and cushions and hung cloth and folded colourful paper in the shape of birds and unicorns and strung them about. It was beautiful, and Tara was her own beautiful self — if anything, more relaxed and open since they’d got to Goldsborough, but Elsie had also felt her mate becoming more distant from her. She didn’t want to think about why. She knew Tara had been listening whenever she talked to Zac. Tara knew the situation with Jake and was mad that Elsie wasn’t being fully upfront with Zac. Elsie too could feel her own self drawing away from Tara. Around Tara, Elsie felt somehow . . . less, as if she wasn’t as likeable or as funny or as kind as the seemingly more mature and empathetic Tara.
‘It’s not that I’m judging,’ Tara had said, ‘but I just don’t want you to get hurt with Jake. You hardly know him. And then there’s Zac . . . He cares about you. You have to make a decision.’ Now with the accident she would become even more stern about Elsie’s flirtations with Jake.
Tara had absorbed the news, then in her new coolness with Elsie shrugged it off, saying, ‘It’s terrible, yes, but these things are part of the master plan of the universe. It’s Zac’s journey; and anyway, what’s it to do with you now? You can’t be all over Jake and then act as though this tragic thing has happened to you and your boyfriend. As long as he’s alive and not in pain once his skin heals, he’ll still have a good life. It’s just the way things go.’
Elsie had been cut by the dismissive comment. She was tied to a past she hated, and that, she decided, was Tara’s and the twins’ fault. They were no better than the rest of the people in Culvert. A feeling swelled in her that made her want to be reckless, heartless and even thoughtless towards the people of her past. She wanted the freedom to not give a shit about anyone or anything. If she rang Zac, like Tara had gently prompted, what would she say? The song was the best she could do.
‘What else do I do?’ Elsie asked Marbles, her pick hanging on her bottom lip, slouching over the guitar. She ran her bare foot over the bony back of the old dog as he sat like a giant bearskin rug between the beds.
She opened the bedside drawer, took up her lucky leather cuff and placed it on her wrist, breathed out a long breath and shut her eyes. Confused, she tried to shut Zac out, but then she began to remember his way with her. The sincerity of him. His vulnerability. She gathered up her guitar again. She was fearless when it came to her music. It was the one way she could communicate with him openly. Bit by bit a song began to shape itself, take form in the ethers and then flow into the physical, through her and from her. And even though she knew deep down she loved him, the message of her song would be . . . he was better off without her.
Twenty-nine
Tara arrived back at the ringers’ quarters after her day with bore man, Ron. She was crumpled and smeared with dust and sweat from climbing windmills and had aching arms from turning big shifters on tight water valves. As she walked towards the long dozy verandah in the dying light of the day, her whole weary body was gathered up by the most beautiful sound, emanating from her bedroom. Tyler, Jake and the rest of the crew who had knocked off after a day in the yards were also traipsing in, floppy-limbed and silent along the path. They too were stoppe
d in their tracks by the sound.
‘There’s a girl keeps calling,
but I’m gonna throw my phone away.
Cos I won’t let her daytime dramas put a dampener on my damn good day.
I got nothin’ to do, all day to do it . . .’
Tara recalled Zac saying those exact words at the shit-ponds shed when they’d first arrived, then later again as he sat on an old tip-rescued deck chair with them all in the paddock, drinking cleanskin whisky. Elsie sang on, completely unaware her team were standing in a semi-circle at the base of the verandah steps.
‘Holes in a blue-jean sky.
I stop and wonder why, oh why.’
She tapped a rhythm on the wooden frame of her guitar and began the chorus again
‘I got nothin’ to do, all day to do it.
Could save the world, I’ll get round to it.
Forget your troubles, I’m working through it.
Nothin’ to do and all day to do it,
Nothin’ to do and all day to do it . . . yes, sir.’
With a crescendo the song ended so that all that could be heard was the outback wind rushing through the verandah uprights and a far-off warble of a magpie in a heatstruck gum.
‘Wow,’ Jake said. The young ringers glanced around at each other, embarrassed by the emotion Elsie’s singing had prompted. She was beyond talented. She was otherworldly.
‘That’s not poo-boy she’s singing about, is it?’ Jake asked.
‘Shut up, Jake,’ Tara said as she stomped up the steps, knowing full well Jake was pulling a fat face behind her to amuse the rest of the ringers. She knew his type. She raised her middle finger at him behind her back as she went into the quarters and slammed the door.
‘That time of the month, is it, Tars?’ Jake called after her.
Marbles had hauled himself to his feet at the sight of Tara and was huffing like a steam train and wagging his feathery tail against Elsie’s legs in the small room. She reached for the clippings and thrust them at Tara, the large photo of Zac on top of the pile.
‘What do I do? Do I write? Do I call?’
‘I dunno. You’ve got someone else on the go up here, so maybe not.’ Even after the music’s spell, Tara was in no mood to let Elsie off so easily.
‘On the go? You mean Jake? I have not. And Zac doesn’t know that.’
Tara snorted and began to gather up her clothes and sponge bag for the shower block.
‘You’re not being fair, Tara. I need some advice here. I’m not good with boys.’
‘Oh, I would disagree,’ Tara said a little too harshly. If she was so heartbroken over Zac’s injuries, enough to take the afternoon off work, then why was there any question on how to contact him? He was a friend, wasn’t he? If Elsie felt he was more than that to her, then why tow Jake along on a string all day and all night? Elsie was changing. She was using her looks, now that the mole was gone, cashing in on pretty-girl privileges she was refusing to acknowledge.
There was a knock on the door.
‘Yeah,’ sang Tara, half expecting it to be Jake, loitering.
‘Hello, Broad Bean.’ Crack put his head around the door and grinned. He’d started by calling her Greenie, then Green Bean and now Broad Bean for obvious reasons. He was supportive of her as a worker and a mate, so she didn’t feel hurt by the description. She liked her body more and more as it showed her what it could do. In any case, the hard work meant that weight was falling away from her — the jeans she and Elsie had bought in Bourke were now having to be hitched up by her belt, which was freshly hole-punched again for a third time by Grout in the tack shed using the metal punch they used on the saddlery.
Jake had become Peg because of the open secret that every time there was any kind of social event he was out to peg some girl. Tyler had become Grout as in bathroom tiles and Elsie was EJ Moody Blues, because she would sometimes go silent and as Crack put it, ‘disappear up her own bum’. Tara, who had never encountered anyone like Crack, had begun to idolise the man.
‘You feelin’ better, Moody Blues?’ Crack asked, running his eyes over Elsie. She nodded as he turned back to Tara.
‘Good. Mrs Cloudhead is flying back tomorrow morning with Hinchie. So Boss Man wants someone to clean the house before she gets here. And you two are volunteering.’
Elsie and Tara looked at one another.
‘We are?’ Elsie asked.
‘I know, I know,’ he said, holding up his hand, ‘just because you’re women I shouldn’t ask you ahead of the boys to clean. In fact Jake is neat as a pin with his gear, and Tyler knows which end of a vacuum sucks, but they’re busy putting out stock licks tonight. And Kazza and Grindlewald are flying out tomorrow for Christmas break, so they’re busy packing.’
Elsie’s eyes narrowed. She was glad the other girls were leaving. Karen in particular had been very cold towards her. But she still couldn’t see why she and Tara should be roped into cleaning.
‘C’mon,’ Crack pleaded as he leaned his big broad shoulder against the door jamb. ‘Look, Mrs Cloudhead isn’t happy about sending their sprog off to boarding school next year. NP Co can’t afford to lose another manager, especially one like Simmo. So we’re doing our all to keep her sweet.’
Crack was referring to their station manager, Michael Simpson, who was as brilliant on cattle logistics as he was on supporting Crack with staff issues and the general running of the property.
‘OK,’ Elsie said. ‘But why do you call her Mrs Cloudhead?’
‘Her first name’s Skye,’ explained Crack, ‘and her head is always up there, out in the clouds. That’s what happens when men marry for looks.’ He glanced at Elsie. ‘Sorry, Miss Universe, I know you can’t help it,’ he said, giving her a piss-take wink. She pulled a sarcastic face back at him.
‘Cleaning is my speciality,’ Tara said, not looking forward to sharing a job like that with Elsie in her current frame of mind.
‘I got that feeling when you showed up here with your mop and bucket.’ Gordon shook his head. ‘You’re a rare one, Broad Bean. That’s a first for me. Some kids want to bring their bikes or their kites to the station, but never their buckets.’
She grinned. ‘When do we start?’
Thirty
Goldsborough homestead’s silver bullnose verandah gave it a more important tone than the less embellished buildings on the station. The dwelling was fringed by a large green lawn that fell away sheer to a winding but now-dry river. Some dark green water remained in a deep heart-shaped billabong that would soon be swallowed by the wet-season river. For now it was the favourite spot for the crew on a day off or if they had some energy left after work for a swim and a beer. By the homestead fences, trees offered shady patches around what was a plain but tidy garden, thanks to Fungus the station gardener, who, before he met Crack, had been called Fergus.
Elsie and Tara called a hello to him now, as they walked towards the house, bypassing the front door and going to the side sliding door, where a number of boots and thongs were scattered. Tara carried her old faithful cleaning mop and bucket, Marbles padding at their heels. The girls knocked once and slid the glass door open, Marbles settling on the mat for a grandpa snooze.
‘Holy crap,’ said Tara, standing in the kitchen. The garden and verandah were the best things about the house. Inside, the sickly yellow walls and plastic-fantastic kitchen, along with a thick scattering of family clutter, made the house far from welcoming.
Mrs B had filled the girls in on all the gossip about Mrs Cloudhead. With only one son, she had become increasingly unhappy on the station and started talking about moving nearer to Brisbane so as to be with Angus, instead of sending him boarding. Her husband, Michael, was at a loss. The station managers’ wives on the other properties held fundraisers for local charities, setting out white marquees complete with bows on seats and fresh flowers like a wedding. They also ran business information days for rural women and rural health forums, and hosted the company men and international colleagues with
grace and charm. Skye just did not fit the NP Co mould. And clearly she was not one for organisation, Tara thought as she looked about.
Just as Tara was about to search for the laundry and Elsie for the vacuum cleaner, they heard the door open. Before them stood Michael Simpson. They’d seen the businesslike but jovial boss out in the yards, but now here in his domestic chaos he seemed less assured. His future hinged on keeping his wife happy, and he didn’t know how to do it.
‘So can you fix it?’
Tara felt compassion for both Skye and her easygoing husband. She swept forwards, her pretty smile on her face. ‘By the time my cleanskin colleague and I are done, this place will be fit for a Vogue Living photo shoot. Trust me!’
The relief that swept across the manager’s face was tangible as he thanked them profusely, then strode to the door, equilibrium restored.
‘Now,’ Tara said. ‘This lounge is all wrong with its back to the window. The family must face the sleeping dragon hillside over there, and the river. This armchair needs to face the east and over here we need a pot plant.’ She was already dragging furniture about and tossing all the out-of-place items in her bucket. It was as if she had gone into her own zone of creativity, like Elsie with her singing. ‘Else, go rummage around in a cupboard: see if you can find me a cloth. Anything with green on it.’
‘You’re fenging, aren’t you?’
‘You bet I am,’ said Tara, taking down a painting of a barren-looking landscape and tucking it behind a cupboard where it could no longer be seen.
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