by Tim Slee
‘That’s a good idea,’ Ben says. ‘Doing it like that, showing it’s not some car-crash thing.’
It’s about four o’clock in the afternoon so people are still at work mostly, but there’s a group of people who look like farmers with their four-wheel drives and utes parked at the turnoff. They give us a big wave and hold their fists in the air. One has a sign, Geelong Says Welcome to Tom’s Funeral!
I figure we’re going to go to another footy oval or showground and I’m hoping, but I don’t say it out loud, that they’ll put us at Kardinia Park which would be awesome. But the police take us down High Street across the Barwon to the racetrack. Being in Deb and Ben’s ute is cool because instead of being the first to arrive, we’re one of the last, and when we get there, there’s a big crowd and almost more cops than there are people in the funeral procession.
‘Holy crap, more stormtroopers here than at a logging demo,’ Ben says.
‘There’s no banks or supermarkets in the forest,’ Deb says. ‘Got to protect the great Australian Vested Interest from the furious farmers.’
‘G’day mate,’ Deb says out her window as we drive through rows of police, all standing in the sun, looking hot and bothered. ‘G’day. Hi there. Howdy.’ Then she turns to Ben. ‘Hey, I got a great freaking idea, can you turn around? Have you got the telephone number of that reporter? Geraldine?’
‘Yeah, what?’
‘Just give it me, and see if you can get us out of here and find a shop or a petrol station. I need to buy some milk.’
I don’t know what they’re up to, but I jump out and watch for Jenny to come with the Albertis, and then we both wait for Mum by the fence. There’s people from the procession, and the people who were waiting at the highway have also come over and the cops and three camera crews and some other reporters hanging around smoking and talking into their phones or taking photos.
‘Hope Danny’s all right,’ Jenny says.
‘Yeah. What would we do if he isn’t?’
‘Mr Garrett said he could get another milk cart if he had to. Maybe he could get another horse.’
‘I wouldn’t want another horse.’
‘Me either. You reckon this place has wifi?’
‘You’re obsessed.’
‘Not everyone thinks all you need is a bit of dirt and a football and you’re happy.’
She reminds me I haven’t seen Aunty Ell’s car and Darren, but then across the racetrack I see her and about five other cars coming through a side gate. The cars pull up and me and Jenny run over.
‘Hey, you two,’ says Aunty Ell climbing out. ‘Your mum here yet?’
‘No, did you see her?’ Jenny asks.
‘I went up on ahead,’ Aunty Ell says. ‘Had to get this organised. Give us a hand, would you.’
She pushes me back toward her car where Darren is opening the boot and there’s a mess of gum-tree branches and leaves in there. She gives Jenny a box of matches and tells Darren to get a little fire going.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask Darren.
‘Welcome to country,’ he says, pulling branches out. ‘Wathaurong mob.’ He points over his shoulder at the other cars where a guy who looks like an elder with a long white beard and a black headband is getting out and some others are setting up a microphone and a milk crate and a big speaker.
‘He’s going to make a speech? What’s he going to say?’ I ask Darren.
‘You never heard one before? It’s bloody boring,’ Darren says. ‘First he says it in language, then in English, blah blah blah.’ He lifts up the branches and I grab some and we both go over in front of the microphone and dump them where we’re told.
‘Yeah, but what’s he say?’
‘Ah, like g’day grandmothers and grandfathers, aunties and uncles, parents and kiddies, we thank the creator blah blah, thanks to our ancestors, this is Wathaurong country let’s all live in peace, no fighting or something, then he’ll go grab a branch of smoking gum leaves and wave it around.’
‘Awesome.’
‘You reckon?’ He doesn’t sound convinced.
‘Is that guy going to play the didge?’
He looks where I’m looking. ‘Yeah, looks like it.’
‘Can you play one?’
‘Get out of it.’
‘There’s dancers too. Can you do Aboriginal dance?’
‘What do you reckon? Let’s get out of here before we get another job.’
We run back to the entrance, waiting for Mum to come in. Deb is back from the shops and she’s brought a shopping bag full of cartons of milk and some clear plastic cups. There are cops lined up all along the entrance where the cars are coming in and she’s going up and down the line offering them all a glass of cold milk. Geraldine is taking pictures from a distance.
Most of the cops just say no and try to look like Easter Island statues, but I can see them looking at Deb out the side of their sunglasses because she’s so pretty in her short summer dress and blonde hair and bare feet. She walks up to a group of cops standing on their own talking – they look like those special forces cops who rescue hostages – and taps one on the shoulder and offers him a glass of milk. They’re kind of taken by surprise and the one she’s tapped smiles and takes the milk and downs it in a single gulp and Deb claps and offers some to the other cops but they’ve seen Geraldine clicking away with her camera and they say no thanks.
Mr Alberti is also standing by the gates so I go over.
‘Have you seen Mum?’
‘Oh hi, squirt,’ he says. ‘Yeah, she’s in town talking to the boss cops again with the Melbourne lawyer.’
‘Have they arrested her?’ I ask, panicking.
‘No, mate, not her.’ He squats down. ‘But they’ve arrested Don. Suspicion of arson for the bank in Yardley.’
‘I knew it!’ I say, but I must sound like I’m happy about it, because Mr Alberti frowns at me.
‘Don’t be a fool. He didn’t do it,’ Mr Alberti says. ‘Police are just trying to scare us off. The Melbourne lawyer says he’ll have Don out on bail by tomorrow latest. Police are talking with your mum now. Told her they don’t want anyone making speeches. The lawyer says Mum can do what she wants on public land unless they’re going to charge her with disturbing the peace and besides, there’s a TV crew coming. There’s an argument about whether this racetrack is public or private land, so the cops think they have us snookered but he knows his stuff that Melbourne lawyer. I reckon she’ll be right. Anyway, they don’t dare stop that . . .’ He points to the people setting up the welcome to country. ‘TV channels love a good welcome to country . . .’
Coach Don arrested? I somehow thought the police were on our side, the way they were helping the funeral convoy up the highway. With Karsi talking to them when they got angry. I never thought they’d really arrest anyone. Now I’m really starting to worry for Mum. Maybe it’s better we just stop, maybe I should tell her that. Or maybe the police will stop it and I won’t need to.
‘Is Danny Boy OK?’ I ask.
‘He’ll be along any minute,’ Mr Alberti says. ‘Garrett is just a worry wart, loves that horse more than his wife, I reckon. It ain’t natural.’ He laughs and we both look up the road and now I can see the milk cart with Dad’s coffin and Danny Boy up front hoofing along like he’s giving Sunday rides at a carnival and Mr Garrett smiling, just loving it, as people by the gates all lift their fists in the air like Mum and cheer as Dad’s coffin gets led into the parking lot of the racecourse.
I don’t care what Darren says, the welcome to country is awesome. Mum and Alasdair arrive, and then a guy starts playing didgeridoo and these dancers start dancing a dance I don’t really understand but it seems they’re mimicking different animals and one is walking around, waving a smoking branch which gives this smell of eucalyptus to everything. And then the old white-haired man gets up on a platform made of plywood and milk crates and speaks in his language first and then he says welcome to Mum and all the people from the procession and point
s out we’re on Wathaurong land and he’s heard there’s been a bit of trouble on this trip, but he hopes there isn’t any trouble while they’re here, out of respect for the land and the creator and the ancestors of the Wathaurong people.
Mum is standing next to him and he calls her up. I look over at the police in case they’re going to step in and arrest her. Me and Jenny are ready to get in there between them.
‘Let ’em try,’ Jenny whispers to me. ‘They can arrest us all.’
But the cops just cross their arms and watch Mum and watch how the crowd is reacting. The sun is setting now and a few people turn on their car headlights from behind Mum, which lights up the crowd but makes it so she looks like a big black shadow about twice the size she really is.
She looks down at some notes.
‘I want to acknowledge the welcome of the Wathaurong people,’ she says, ‘on whose land we stand, and pay my respects to the local people for allowing us to have this gathering on their land and to their elders present, past and future. Words can’t say how much that welcome means to me and I know Tom, wherever he is today, would have loved it.’
‘Wherever he is today,’ I say to Jenny. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘She means heaven or hell,’ she says. ‘Suicides don’t go to heaven, remember?’
‘Believe what you want,’ I reply.
‘There has been some trouble on this trip,’ Mum continues. ‘Yes. The police want me to tell anyone who’s thinking of repeating that trouble here in Geelong that they should rethink such ideas. Burning banks and attacking supermarkets is no way to honour the memory of my husband Tom, to that I agree.’ Mum takes a big breath and straightens her back. ‘But neither do I like the way I’ve been threatened today with such things as fines, and even arrest. One of our travelling party has just been arrested. So I have a message for anyone who thinks they can break my spirit and I’ll quote a former Prime Minister on this one: I will not be bullied!’
A cheer goes up from the crowd and Mum stands there holding her paper, with her hand shaking a bit and her jaw sticking out. Coach Don isn’t there up the front this time, but Mr Garrett is, and him and Pop give Mum a thumbs-up.
Jenny and I look at each other like, who is this lady and where did our Mum go?
‘There has been some trouble on this trip,’ Mum continues. ‘Yes. But these are troubled times.’ She looks out in the crowd and sees someone and beckons with her hand. ‘And I’m grateful you came out to support us, but it doesn’t stop here. It’s just starting. I want to invite someone up here with me. Ron? That’s right, you come up here.’
‘Who’s Ron?’ Jenny asks, standing on her tiptoes and holding on to my shoulder to try and see who Mum is waving toward. A little baldy man with feathery tufts of hair over his ears, wringing a baseball cap between his hands, walks up to the ute, hands his cap to someone and climbs up next to Mum.
‘Ron told me he doesn’t want to talk in front of all you good people, said he’s not a talker. But I wanted you to meet him and he agreed to do that,’ Mum says. ‘Thank you so much, Ron. Ron lives . . . he lived . . . in Irrewillipe. Is that right?’
The man nods.
‘And today he burned his place to the ground.’
I look around and people are stunned. I thought they’d cheer, but they’re just looking at him like, No Way.
‘Let the bank have the ashes, that’s what you said, right Ron?’
He bites his lip, looking at the ground in front of him, and looks up a little bit at the faces around him and nods.
‘Thank you, Ron. I know it takes a lot of courage to stand up here, but at least now you know you’re not alone,’ Mum says and hugs him, and he hugs her back, a little awkward, then he climbs down and walks through the crowd, people patting him on the back. ‘Someone get Ron a nice strong cup of tea,’ she says, and people laugh.
‘Ron forgot his cap,’ Jenny whispers and I giggle.
Mum looks around and locks eyes with Karsi for a second, then looks away. ‘Now, I mentioned that one of our party has been arrested. He’s just an ordinary farmer, like a lot of you. He’s a farmer and a father and a football coach and he’s done nothing wrong, but this is what happens when you question the powers that be. They do this kind of thing to try to shut you up. Well, we don’t have to put up with that either!’ There are some big cheers from the crowd now. ‘So I want to finish, not with a poem this time. I want to finish with the words of another Australian who got pushed too far; you may know him, his name was Ned Kelly. He wrote some words a hundred and thirty years ago that apparently are still appropriate today, and I quote:
‘I will not put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct of that parcel of big ugly fat necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow-hipped splawfooted sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords which is better known as the Victoria Police, who some calls honest gentlemen, but I would like to know what business an honest man would have in the Police.’
She crumples up the paper and holds her fist in the air and Jenny and I laugh and a huge cheer goes up from the crowd and the police look super dark. Their officers are all talking with each other. Mum is looking at them like she’s daring them to come at her.
‘You remember that time she took on that soccer referee?’ Jenny says.
‘That time I got hacked and she ran onto the field to give the ref a mouthful and then ended up taking on the other team’s coach and all their parents too?’ I ask.
‘Yeah,’ Jenny said. ‘She’s got that same look.’
‘This could get ugly,’ Mr Alberti says. ‘You two go find Mrs Alberti, would you? Stay by her.’
‘We’re not leaving Mum!’ Jenny says.
‘Your mum’s not the one needs looking after,’ he says, pointing as the Wathaurong elder helps her down off the milk crate and reporters with cameras and microphones and a bunch of other people crowd around her.
‘They could arrest her!’ I say. ‘They already arrested Coach Don!’
‘For what? Quoting Henry Lawson and Ned Kelly? No, mate, they’ll go after other people first, like Don, Garrett and me. They know we’ve still got a hundred and fifty kilometres to Melbourne. They’ll try to pull the pin on this parade before then, that’s for sure now.’
It’s not fair how we’re parked with Mrs Alberti and she won’t let us go anywhere until things settle down, she says, because it doesn’t look to me like anything is settling down. The police are going around telling anyone who isn’t directly connected with the funeral party to go home. That gets a few people to leave but then someone starts letting the air out of people’s tyres and everyone is saying they can’t go anywhere because their tyres are flat. They think that’s really funny, but the police don’t. They bring in a tow truck but then decide it would be a dumb idea to try to tow anyone’s car, the mood the people are in. So they end up pulling back to the entrance to the racetrack just checking everyone coming in and out and filming licence plates.
About midnight a police officer with one of those loudhailer things gets up on a crate. There are about a hundred people still hanging around. ‘Can I have your attention please,’ he says. ‘We all want a peaceful night here tonight. If you’re having a drink, please don’t drive. And if you’re going into town, you’ll find police helpfully stationed outside every bank and supermarket and government office in case you get lost and need directions.’ He says it like he’s making a joke, but no one laughs. He gets down off the crate and hands the loudhailer to a man in overalls with those glowing green stripes on them.
‘George Argyle from the SES, folks. Arrangements for tonight,’ the man says. ‘The jockey club has kindly agreed to keep the toilet and changing facilities open all night for your convenience, but please clean up after yourselves. The local SES has camp beds, blankets and towels down by the toilet blocks that you can hire for a small donation if you need a bed for the night. Not much, but better than sleeping on the ground or in the back of a ute. There’s some St John’s volu
nteers at the toilet blocks too in case anyone feels unwell. That’s about it. Any questions, come find me.’
Other nights have had the feeling of a family barbecue or party about them, but not tonight. People are gathered in small groups in the headlights of their cars or on fold-up chairs around camping lights. Mum is still with reporters, like she’s been all night. If she were here, she’d be telling us it’s time to go to bed.
‘Mrs Alberti, is it all right we go to sleep now? We’re really tired,’ I say.
Jenny looks at me like, are you crazy? Who wants to go to bed now?
Mrs Alberti is busy fussing with their beds in the back of their ute, so she just looks up and says, ‘Of course, dear. I’ll tell your mum where you are. Off you go, do your teeth, mind. And remember your checks.’
‘I’m not tired!’ Jenny says, but I grab her arm really hard and haul her off.
‘We’re not going to bed,’ I tell her. I show her the key I swiped from Mr Garrett’s toolbox. The one that opens the coffin lid.
Mr Garrett is off with Danny Boy, who’s getting checked by a vet so the milk cart is basically all alone in the middle of the parked cars. There’s no one near it, which isn’t too surprising considering there’s a big black coffin sitting in the back of it with just a battery-powered lamp on top.
‘Now’s our chance,’ I say. ‘Get up there.’
‘No,’ she replies. ‘You’re mad. I’m not looking.’
‘If you’re right, then you’ll be right and I’ll be wrong and I’ll shut up. Now get up there or I’ll go tell Mum it was your idea.’
‘No, we’re going back to Mrs Alberti.’
She thinks just because she was born like five minutes before me she can be boss of me. But we’re both about the same size and weight so she only wins about half the fights. This was her idea first, she’s cornered, she knows it, and the only way to shut me up is to do what I ask. I just stand looking at her.