by Tim Slee
‘Pop told you all this? So what?’
‘And did you know that Coach Don has been to gaol? That’s why he got kicked off the Geelong Reserves.’
‘No way.’
‘Way. They were on an end-of-footy-season trip and he got drunk and fell asleep and wouldn’t get off the plane when they landed.’
‘They send you to gaol for that?’
‘No, they send you to gaol for hitting the man from the airline who was trying to wake you up. Sergeant Karsi witnessed for him but it didn’t help. You learn things in gaol.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like how to make petrol bombs I bet. One more thing. Dr Watson was the doctor who delivered you and me when we were born. He’s been our family doctor since before we even were a family.’ I look at her like, so, duh.
She shakes her head. ‘So what? Why are you telling me all this?’
‘Freeby jaysus,’ I say. ‘You’re the one said maybe it isn’t Dad in that coffin! I have to spell it out for you?’
‘The way your brain works, yeah, you do,’ she says.
‘The bank manager didn’t kill Dad, but he still loves Mum and would do anything for her. He felt guilty about kicking us off the farm so he shot a roo and skinned it and put it in the house so it looked like a body. Then Dr Watson faked all the paperwork to make it look like Dad died in the fire and he told Karsi it was a heart attack.’
‘Why?’
‘So Dad could start blowing up banks and supermarkets,’ I tell her, like it’s poker and I’m laying down five aces. ‘That car in Yardley, remember? I bet it was Coach Don who broke the window, but Dad threw in the petrol bomb. Now he’s secretly following along behind us, doing these other fires and everyone thinks he’s dead!’
She looks at me the way people look at zoo animals. ‘I know what I said, but that is completely mental.’ She crosses her arms.
I bang on the coffin behind me. It gives a very solid thud.
‘What if it’s not? What if it’s just a dead kangaroo in there?’
She presses her back against the back rail of the milk cart and with all her might gives the coffin a shove with her foot, and hardly moves it. ‘Or it could be dirt,’ she says. ‘Could be full of dirt and rocks.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Like your head.’
‘So funny. We have to get a look inside,’ I tell her.
The newspaper lawyer meets us in Cobden. There’s not many who stay the night with us this time, maybe five cars, including Ben and Deb, who people are still not really talking to. There’s one police car.
His name is Alasdair. With a ‘d’. He says he doesn’t work for the paper, he works for Cromwell Someone and Someone Else, which he obviously thinks people should be impressed by. He says he’s an expert in criminals and law and he’s done a lot of homework on this funeral procession thing. Geraldine is sitting beside him, but I can see she’s trying to look like she isn’t actually with him.
‘I understand you have to be in Melbourne by Sunday,’ he announces. ‘So the clock is ticking. That works in our favour. Police know this thing has a limit.’
‘Sergeant Karsi told us that much,’ Mr Alberti scoffs. ‘And he never worked for Cromwell F-nut and Sons.’
‘They can go after your horse and cart,’ Alasdair says. ‘Defect it to take it off the road and force you to put the coffin in a hearse.’
‘Just had it roadworthy certified,’ Mr Garrett said. ‘They’ll find nothing.’
‘Oh yes they will. The way this works is one morning you’ll wake up to find your tail-light has spontaneously busted itself during the night. Or they’ll pull you over, issue a notice to have the brakes checked, that’s enough to get you off the road.’
‘Let them bloody try it. I got contacts in the heavy-horse game. I can fix a tail-light in an hour, hell I can get another cart here inside a day,’ Mr Garrett says, veins in his neck sticking out now.
‘Good, that’s good for them to know. We need to get them to see the best idea is just to keep you moving because if they do, this will all be over in a few days. Least, that’s what I’ll be telling them.’
‘That’s all we want,’ Mum says. ‘To get Tom to Melbourne, with dignity, while sending a message.’
Alasdair pats her knee, which I can see Mum hates. ‘That’s what we all want,’ he says. ‘But this business with the banks and supermarkets, that’s got to stop.’
Mr Alberti goes red in the face. ‘Are you accusing us?’
‘No, no. But I spoke to the CIB in Geelong. They won’t tell me anything about their investigation, but the way they spoke, it doesn’t sound like they’re close to being able to charge anyone. There are just too many people involved in this convoy of yours and it will take them months to sort out. They’re used to taking their sweet time on arson, not working up against the clock like you’re forcing them to, with the risk of a new bank or supermarket going up in flames every time you bowl into town. They want you to make a public appeal,’ Alasdair says to Mum.
‘Make a what?’ Mum says.
‘They want you to go on the radio and TV and ask people to stop. Tell them you’re afraid someone will get hurt and you don’t want that to happen.’
‘I don’t want that to happen,’ Mum says. ‘It’s bad enough Tom killed himself, the fool. I don’t want anyone else hurt, I don’t want anyone going to gaol.’
‘The police are willing to set up a press conference for you when you get to Colac. Geelong Command will send one of their top brass, and he’ll do the hardball thing, say how they’re going to come down on these arsons like a ton of bricks, then you’ll get up and ask people to stop.’
‘I can do that,’ Mum says. She looks scared, but brave. ‘I think I can.’
Alasdair looks happy as a cat dipped in cream. ‘It would be a fantastic platform for your message,’ he says. ‘You’ll have TV and radio there, and they’ll probably broadcast live. Which leads me to this . . .’
He has a bag with him and takes out a piece of paper. ‘I know you said no contracts,’ he says, looking at Coach Don. ‘This is just a heads of agreement – some ground rules to be sure what we’re agreed on.’ He goes to hand it over to Coach Don.
‘That wasn’t the deal,’ Geraldine says to him. She tries to grab the papers off him but he holds them out of her reach.
‘This is what your bosses asked me to present,’ he says to her. ‘So can we just discuss it?’
Coach Don takes it and looks it over, then hands it to Mum. ‘We’re not signing that.’
Alasdair tries a smooth smile. ‘It just says I’ll continue to represent you in any matters civil and criminal for the duration of your trip to Melbourne. In return you assign exclusive rights to your story to the Sun and affiliates, just print and digital, mind. You retain TV and radio and any other rights. It’s what you agreed on the phone.’
‘I’ve met plenty of lawyers in my time,’ Coach Don says, ‘for better and worse, usually worse. There’s always something in the fine print, especially the fine print that isn’t printed. You’ve got our word, verbally. You can try to take that to court later if you aren’t happy or you think we’re not honouring the deal. But we’re not signing away our rights to anything.’ He looks at Mum. ‘Right, Dawn?’
‘Right,’ Mum says, chewing her lip. ‘We appreciate your help, Alasdair, Geraldine. But I also think we can probably muddle through without you.’
Alasdair looks like he wants to fight about it, but Geraldine is glaring at him and he changes his mind. ‘OK,’ he smiles, ‘well, it’s your funeral, as they say. I’ll have to check with Melbourne if they’re still willing to go ahead on the basis of a handshake deal. I’ll get back to you after I call them.’
‘You do that,’ says Mr Alberti.
Cobden
The police have us staying at the rec ground in Cobden this time. It’s not half as good as a showground, but there are change rooms where people can shower and use the toilet. We aren’t allowed to park on the oval a
nd the groundskeeper has come down and he’s patrolling like one of those dogs at a car-wrecking place to make sure no one starts doing doughnuts on his turf.
Mum and Coach Don head into town to buy some stuff for dinner. Jenny’s all wound up because she can’t get internet and no one will lend her their phone, so she can’t check her Facebook or GoFundMe pages and all she can do is ring some of her dumb girlfriends and ask them to check for her.
Three is such a dumb number. Four is so much easier. With four it doesn’t matter if two people are off doing their own thing, there’s still two who can hang out together. Like now. If Mum was in town and Jenny was obsessing with her phone I could be kicking a ball with Dad. Or we’d be setting up the barbecue, or sneak-listening to a footy or cricket game on the car radio and ducking down every time someone walked past in case they were looking for us. I look over at his coffin, thinking he’d better bloody be in there, leaving me hanging like this.
Aunty Ell is sitting by her car and waves me over. She’s got a packet of a chips and a bottle of Coke. ‘You want some?’ she asks. ‘Keep you going to dinner?’ She hands me a cup and pours some Coke and gives me the chip packet.
‘Where’s Darren?’
‘Off somewhere,’ she says. ‘We pull up, he’s off like a greyhound that boy, hates being cooped up in the car. Maybe he could ride with you in the milk cart tomorrow?’
‘I’ll ask Mum,’ I tell her.
‘He’d love that,’ she says. ‘He’s fascinated by that horse. Are you all right, love, you look a bit lost?’
I dive into the chips. ‘No, I’m all right,’ I tell her. We sit quietly for a while, just watching people set up their tables and chairs and tents. The Albertis have the best set-up, but they’re full-time professional campers, go north every year. Their kids run their dairy, and they mostly just travel around Australia in their big campervan but they haven’t got that, just their ute and a big stand-up tent. Mrs Garrett comes at the end of every day with food she’s made during the day, usually a cooked chicken or roast beef and rolls and salad. Mr and Mrs Maynard have left their son to run their petrol station, and they’ve got some really basic picnic tables and chairs on Mr Maynard’s Toyota flatbed and a little dome tent. Ben and Deb just have a little two-person tent and a couple of stools and their gas stove and they just make chicken, rice and beans and lentils and boil water for tea on it. They’re also in town getting supplies, and asked do I want anything but I told them Mum has me covered.
‘Do you think . . . nah, forget it,’ I say to Aunty Ell.
‘Think what, love?’
‘Do you think there’s any chance my dad is actually still alive?’ I don’t know what I expect. Maybe that Aunty Ell will look at me the way I looked at Jenny when she said it and tell me not to be mental. But she stretches out her legs and points at the ground next to hers. ‘Pull that chair a bit closer.’
I scootch closer. I like how she smells, like camomile tea and soap. She’s got some chip crumbs on the front of her blouse.
‘I know exactly what you’re feeling,’ she says. ‘You and your sister. My dad died when he was just forty. I was sixteen. He stepped out in front of a semitrailer going too fast through town, and that was it. I was in Melbourne at school and when they told me I didn’t believe them. I tried to make them show me his body, prove he was dead. They wouldn’t do it, said he was too badly banged up. He used to disappear all the time, he and Mum would have a fight and he’d go back to where his mob came from up near Lismore, months at a time. So I told myself they were lying to me, maybe he and Mum had a fight and Dad had left her and just gone back to Lismore. He was too angry to say a proper goodbye, he’d just taken off.’
‘But he was dead?’
‘Yeah, mate, he was. I took a bus to Lismore with my own money and went to my grandmother’s place and she told me. He wasn’t there. He was buried under a rock in Yardley cemetery, that’s where he was.’
I look across at the milk cart with the coffin on it and she sees me looking.
‘That’s where your dad is, luv,’ she says. ‘And when we get to Carlton we’re going to put him in the ground and put a rock over him and you can visit him there whenever you go to Melbourne.’
Jenny comes running over to us and she’s waving her arms like a windmill.
‘You’ve got to see this! You too, Aunty, come on!’
She’s over at Ben and Deb’s tent and they’ve let her log on to the net through Deb’s phone.
‘Sit, sit, sit!’ she says.
Deb is smiling her awesome smile and Ben is sitting legs crossed, making a pot of tea.
‘It’s pretty cool,’ Deb says. ‘I recommend you get comfortable.’
‘Is she surfing on your phone?’ Aunty Ell asks, looking a bit worried.
‘Don’t worry,’ Deb says. ‘My dad pays the bill. He’s just glad he can always get in touch, so he knows I’m all right.’
‘OK then,’ Aunty says.
‘He’d be here with us if he could,’ she says. ‘He’s seen what’s happening here and he’s with you a hundred percent.’
‘Where’s he live then?’ Aunty asks.
‘Adelaide. Works for a mining company.’
‘They’ve heard about this in Adelaide?’
‘Sit, look,’ Deb says, and gives Aunty Ell her stool. ‘Show them the news site.’
‘There’s us praying this morning! There’s you, Aunty Ell, and there’s Darren!’ Jenny says. ‘There’s the signs on our milk cart! There’s the milk cart, Danny Boy, wait, here it comes . . . There’s me and you and Coach Don in the back. Look at the convoy, it looks like about twenty cars but it wasn’t that many.’
‘I can see, Jenny,’ I tell her, ‘I’m not blind. There’s you two,’ I say to Ben and Deb and point to their ute driving past the camera as it zooms in on their sign.
‘Here’s the best bit,’ she says. On the screen with the newspaper logo is a picture of Geraldine talking into a microphone with a person in the street of Cobden. ‘You can’t hear him,’ Jenny says, ‘but this person thinks it’s terrible about what happened with the supermarket in Warrnambool and there’s people that will lose their jobs maybe because of it, but he can understand that people out here are angry. They’ve had enough and they’re at wotsit. What is it?’ she asks Deb.
‘Breaking point,’ Deb says.
‘It’s the same on the ABC, and the other newspaper is showing a video someone took from the side of the road. But they’re not all nice,’ Jenny says. ‘Look.’ She clicks on a link and there’s a news page with a headline DEATH CONVOY LEAVES BURNED BUSINESSES IN ITS WAKE.’ It shows a group of angry people waving their fists.
‘I never saw those people,’ I say, grabbing her phone to see if I recognise any of the faces.
‘It doesn’t say the picture was taken on this trip,’ Ben says. ‘Some media do that, they reuse old pictures and make it look like it happened today when it happened maybe years ago, or somewhere else.’
‘Who cares,’ Jenny says. ‘Have a look at this.’ She grabs her phone back and opens her Facebook page and shoves it in front of us.
‘No,’ I say.
‘Oh yeah,’ she says. ‘Five thousand eight hundred follows! Only four angry faces on all the posts. My video of Coach Don saying the hob-nail boots poem got five hundred likes and twenty shares!’
‘I didn’t know you videoed that.’
‘I video everything,’ she says. ‘If you had your own Facebook page you’d know that. I posted you and Darren kicking the footy with Danny Boy in the background and it got two hundred likes and ten shares!’
‘That’s good, Jenny, your mum will be proud, how you’re getting the message out,’ Aunty Ell says and Jenny beams, but she’s still busting.
‘That’s nothing,’ she says. ‘You know my GoFundMe page?’
‘No, dear,’ says Aunty Ell.
‘It’s a fundraising page. I set it up to ask people to donate towards the costs of the funeral procession and
the fight against the banks and supermarkets. I link to it from all the posts on my Facebook page.’
‘Your mum isn’t fighting the banks and supermarkets,’ Aunty Ell says. ‘She wants people to know they’re strangling us, but she isn’t fighting them.’
‘What is it then,’ Ben asks her, ‘if the banks and supermarkets are driving people broke, kicking them off farms they’ve owned for generations, forcing people to suicide and desperation, sending small towns and businesses broke and finally someone like Dawn speaks out about it? What’s that if it’s not a fight?’
‘It’s a funeral procession, love, with a difference. But it isn’t a revolution.’
‘I can change what it says,’ Jenny says. Then she looks up at Ben. ‘They were Ben’s words.’
‘I think you should ask your mum,’ Aunty Ell says. ‘Let her decide.’
‘Anyhoo,’ Jenny says. I can hear she’s frustrated. ‘Have a look.’ She points at a number in a table. ‘This is how much people have given! One thousand and something people have given an average of ten dollars each!’
‘That’s . . . Ten thousand bucks,’ I say, doing the maths. ‘Ten thousand bucks?!’
‘Yep, wait. Ten thousand four hundred and fifty,’ she says. ‘I bet when I check back later it’ll be more.’
I look at her. ‘Could we pay off some of our loan with that money? If we gave it to the bank?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says, and looks at Aunty Ell.
‘I don’t know how much you owe, pet,’ Aunty Ell says. ‘But I’d guess it’s a whole lot more than that.’
‘It’ll pay for the funeral though, right?’ Jenny says. ‘It’ll pay people’s petrol to Melbourne maybe even?’
‘Maybe it will,’ Aunty Ell says. ‘You clever girl.’
We’re expecting Mum to be over the moon but she just looks worried when she gets back from the shops with dinner and Jenny tells her about the money.
‘Where’s all the money go?’ she asks. ‘When people donate it?’
‘Into my PayPal account,’ Jenny says. ‘I had to write something so I wrote down my PayPal. It goes there.’