The Godson

by Robert G. Barrett

  Les and Peregrine caught each other’s eye and as if on cue they both started singing.

  ‘Flowers in her hair. Flowers everywhere. I love a flower girl.’

  Then they both burst out laughing.

  ‘Come on,’ said Les. ‘You’re carrying on like a bloody hippy.’

  But as he looked back Norton could just picture how the Aborigines must have started their legends and tales. The tall, black native plant did look like an elegant woman with flowers decorating her hair and the one next to it could be the warrior with his two spears guarding the valley and the little ones around them were their children. Hippies, Aborigines, no matter what. It was still a lovely sight.

  The trail rose then and they came to another clearing with a yellow mark carved into a tree with numbers on it and two arrows pointing in either direction. Les figured that must be the boundary. He also figured they’d come a good five kilometres and a glance at his watch said they’d been gone the best part of an hour. The trail leading on over the ridge was good but the one going back down towards the property narrowed into a mess of lantana; Les decided against it.

  ‘Well, Pezz,’ he said. ‘We may as well head back the way we came. I don’t fancy bashing my way through all that lantana.’

  ‘Yes, it does look rather thick.’

  Although Peregrine was puffing and sweating profusely his eyes were bright with excitement and even if he was doing it tough it was obvious he was enjoying every minute of it.

  ‘How about this time you lead the way?’ said Les.

  ‘All right then,’ replied Peregrine enthusiastically.

  Seeing it was downhill, Peregrine clapped on the pace thinking he was running the legs off Norton. Les deliberately fell behind a little but he did have to keep his finger out to keep up; for a fellow less than half his size and one that didn’t train at all, Peregrine was showing quite a bit of stamina. They double-timed past the clearings, the stumps and the blackboys, and in what seemed like no time were scrambling through the old wire gate from where Les could see the house and the property in the distance.

  ‘Don’t go straight to the house,’ said Norton. ‘Cut across that field down the bottom and we’ll get onto that other trail and see if we can find the dam.’

  ‘Righto, old boy.’

  Near the bottom they helped each other through the barbed wire fence, crossed about a hundred metres of field, went through another barbed wire fence then down a steep slope onto a sloshy trail of mud that led back the way they’d come but nowhere near as steep. They followed the trail, thick with lantana and wild tobacco plants, for about half a kilometre when out of nowhere on their right loomed a huge shed made from logs and thick wooden beams; it had to be the best part of two hundred metres long. Inside it smelt of must and decay and flocks of tiny swallows flitted amongst the spider webs that encrusted the ceiling.

  ‘I wonder what this could have been?’ said Peregrine.

  Les kicked the soil floor which was rich with fowl manure. ‘Probably an old poultry shed I’d say, going by all this shit in the soil.’

  They gave it a bit of a once-over then proceeded on their way.

  The sound of water trickling over stones into a swampy area on their left told them they were at the dam before they actually came to it. The dam was an enormous natural lagoon over three hundred metres in diameter that backed onto the start of the mountain range; in the calm stillness of the morning sun it shone like a huge, dark green mirror. Crickets and frogs startled by their presence dived into the water amongst growths of lilies spread around an old wooden pontoon running about five metres out from the muddy shore. Set in metal grills around the edges were numerous citrus trees full of fruit not quite ripe enough to eat. Before long the sounds of countless birds started up again, echoing off the surrounding hills and across the smooth calm water. Peregrine cautiously edged out onto the pontoon but soon changed his mind as it began to sink in amongst the water lilies.

  ‘I wouldn’t fancy falling in,* said Norton. ‘There could be any bloody thing in there.’

  ‘Quite right,’ agreed Peregrine, scrambling back to shore. ‘It looks jolly deep too.’

  They hung around a while longer while they listened to the birds and had a drink of water. Les cut a lemon from one of the trees and gave half to Peregrine; one bite was enough to have them grimacing and spitting juice onto the ground. They washed their mouths out and started back towards the house.

  Not far past the shed they noticed another muddy trail churned up with tyre marks leading off to the right.

  ‘May as well check this out, see where it goes,’ said Les. ‘What do you reckon?’ Peregrine nodded in agreement.

  The trail led though more scrub then into a clearing that was obviously the farm tip. Two scooped-out holes were about a quarter full of bottles, beer cans, bursting plastic garbage bags and other junk. To the side an old yellow, box-trailer was rusting silently away in the bush. There weren’t all that many flies, but enough for mid-August.

  ‘Jesus! Be nice here in the summer,’ mused Les. Through the bush he spotted another shed on another trail. ‘Let’s see what’s down there.’

  The shed was nothing more than a galvanised iron roof covering some rusty wire mesh nailed to a dozen or so poles. It was choked with weeds and scrub and was probably another holding pen for poultry. Not far away was another shed almost as big as the first one they’d found. As they approached it, a flapping sound almost as loud as a helicopter taking off in the surrounding silence filled the air. To their amazement two huge scrub turkeys flew out of the shed and over their heads in a squawking gobble of feathers and dust.

  ‘Suffering cats!’ said Peregrine. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Couple of scrub turkeys,’ smiled Les. ‘See the size of their backsides? They must be doing all right up here.’

  They stepped inside the shed and more swallows and wrens startled by both them and the fleeing scrub turkeys started chirruping around the cobwebs and rusting fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. Les gave the floor another kick.

  ‘More bloody poultry,’ he muttered.

  They gave the shed an indifferent once-over and headed back to the house.

  The trail led away from the house and around; a few metres from the shed another small trail led off to the right.

  ‘Want to have a look what’s up there?’ said Norton.

  ‘We’re here now,’ shrugged Peregrine, ‘why not?’

  This particular trail was steep and muddy and bogged them underfoot. It climbed almost half a kilometre through scrub and gum trees before opening out into a perfect circle about twenty metres across ringed with gun-barrel straight white cedars, their delicate green tops towering over fifty feet above their heads. It was oppressively hot and still in the middle of the clearing, around which was a riot of tropical plants — part of a rainforest which pushed up against the ridge above. The sides of the clearing had been packed flat and when they walked over they found dozens of logs beneath the undergrowth stapled together with stainless steel bolts to form a kind of wall.

  ‘Wonder what the bloody hell this was here for?’ queried Les.

  ‘Reminds you of a bunker or something, wouldn’t you say?’ said Peregrine.

  Norton shook his head in amazement. ‘Buggered if I know.’

  They strolled around the mysterious clearing for a while, then began walking back the way they had come.

  The trail brought them to the bottom corner of the property with the house about three hundred metres away and another two sheds between. They were about to head towards them when the sound of running water to their right made them walk in that direction. The creek running around the property split to form a tiny island of pebbles and ran into one of the prettiest little billabongs Les had ever seen in his life. It was about fifty metres across, crystal clear and the sound of the water flowing over the rocks was like music. A tiny bridge of flat-laid logs joined the island to the shore and as they approached several unsee
n animals plopped into the green coolness, leaving only a trail of bubbles to mark their presence. After the heat, sweat, flies, mud and mosquitoes of their threehour walk it was just a bit too much for Peregrine and Les. They exchanged a brief look and, fully clothed, leapt straight in after the animals.

  The water flowing down from the mountains was freezing cold but clean and refreshing. Both men let out a roar of shock when they surfaced.

  ‘Whoa! It’s a bit bloody brisk!’ spluttered Norton.

  ‘Yes. But not all that bad,’ said Peregrine, ducking under again.

  They wallowed and splashed around for a while then got out dripping water, grinning like two silly big kids.

  ‘Fair dinkum, you’re a nice dill,’ said Norton. ‘Fancy going swimming in all your clothes.’

  ‘What about your jolly self?’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m an Australian. You’d expect an Australian to do something stupid like that. Not the English, though — and especially not the Royal Family. Come on.’

  Dripping and spitting water they sloshed their way back towards the house deciding to check out the last two remaining sheds and that would be it.

  The one nearest the billabong was a concrete and wood building about the same size as an average house with a loading dock out the front; the double aluminium door was unlocked so they sloshed inside. From the smell, the number of sinks, old paper towel containers and other paraphernalia left laying around it wasn’t hard to tell what it had been used for.

  ‘This has been an old slaughterhouse,’ said Les. ‘That’s what those other sheds were. They must have had some sort of a chicken farm or something out here at one stage.’

  ‘Phew! It smells like it,’ grimaced Peregrine.

  They slopped around the abandoned slaughterhouse, leaving trails of wet footprints on the dusty concrete floor.

  ‘Well, this is all very interesting,’ said Peregrine. ‘But I think I’d prefer to be somewhere else.’

  ‘Yeah. It does nothing for me. Less for the chickens, though, I’d say.’

  They left the way they entered.

  Between the slaughterhouse and the farm was a wooden tool shed about the same size as a four-car garage. The windows were covered in dust and the door was locked but through the wire grill Les could see wooden benches, vices, shelves stacked with tins of rusty nails and screws, old fan-belts, petrol tins and other assorted junk one would expect to find in a typical tool shed on an Australian farm. It was even less interesting than the slaughterhouse and Peregrine by now was looking completely stuffed so after a cursory look they left it, walked back to the barbecue area and flopped down in two chairs with a glass of water each.

  ‘Well, that was the farm, Pezz,’ said Norton, starting to undo his boots. ‘What did you think?’

  Peregrine slumped in his chair almost too exhausted to talk, let alone move. ‘Fascinating, I have to admit. Completely different from anything back home.’

  ‘Yeah. There’s still the stables and that fenced-off area down towards the road, but bugger it. We’ll have a look at that some other day.’ Peregrine barely nodded his head in agreement and Les could understand his feelings; it wasn’t a bad hike for a slightly-built fellow who wasn’t at all used to this kind of heat and conditions. ‘I’d get out of all that wet gear if I was you,’ said Norton, starting to remove his boots and trousers.

  ‘I will in a minute, Les.’

  ‘Okay. Suit yourself.’

  Peregrine slumped back and closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them with a start when he suddenly heard Les cursing.

  ‘Fuckin’ rotten little bastards!’ he fumed. ‘Look at the cunts of fuckin’ things.’

  Peregrine stared at Norton who was frantically plucking something from his ankles which were wet and shiny with blood. He flung them on the ground where they squirmed around like two live black jelly beans.

  ‘Good heavens. What on earth are they?’

  ‘Fuckin’ leeches,’ cursed Norton, giving them each a whack with the heel of one of his boots; which seemed to make absolutely no difference at all to the two squirming little bloodsuckers. ‘That’s why I was telling you to get all your gear off.’

  ‘I haven’t got any on me,’ said Peregrine, with half a smile. ‘I’d certainly know if I did.’

  ‘You think so?’

  Norton gave the two leeches another thumping with his boot then began wringing his clothes out and draping them over the chairs in the barbecue area. Les had his back turned to Peregrine when he heard the Englishman scream; he smiled as he turned around, knowing exactly what to expect. Peregrine had his boots and trousers off and his ankles and socks were also thick with blood. There were six leeches: three on each leg.

  ‘Oh, Jesus Christ!!’ Peregrine was almost hysterical as he began tearing the leeches from his legs. Les picked the remainder off and couldn’t help but burst out laughing as Peregrine began wildly smashing at the bloodsuckers with one of his boots. Like Norton’s efforts, it seemed to make no difference to them at all. ‘Good God! How do you kill the bloody things?’ howled Peregrine, continuing to flail away with his boot. ‘They’re like creatures from outer space.’

  ‘Stay there a minute,’ chuckled Norton.

  He went up to the kitchen and returned with a container of salt, which he poured all over the leeches. It wasn’t long before they were squirming black balls, spewing up all the blood they’d sucked out.

  ‘Let’s have a look and see just what colour your blood is, Pezz,’ said Norton. He looked closely at the leeches then shook his head, very disappointed. ‘No. Red, same as mine. You sure you’re in line to the Royal Family, mate? You could be a ring-in. A lousy bloody commoner.’

  Peregrine shuddered and gingerly peeled away the rest of his clothes. When he wiped the blood from his legs there were six deep black holes, neat enough to look as though they’d been bored in with a drill.

  ‘Jolly, rotten little sods,’ he spluttered. ‘I didn’t feel a blessed thing.’

  ‘No. They got their own local anaesthetic. Clever little buggers, aren’t they?’

  Peregrine shuddered and made a gesture with his hands. ‘That’s the end of walks in the Australian bush — thank you very much.’

  Norton chuckled and gave the Englishman a reassuring pat on the shoulder. ‘You’ll be right, mate. Come on, get cleaned up and I’ve got some iodine and band-aids in my room. Then we’ll go into town.’

  They showered, changed, had a cup of coffee and about an hour later were driving into Yurriki. Peregrine was a lot brighter, but he was still definitely unimpressed by the attack of the killer leeches from outer space.

  First stop was Yurriki’s one-man butcher shop opposite the War Memorial. The butcher was about thirty and balding, with his hair combed into a smother. He had quick brown eyes and a face and paunch that said I love schooners. Bustling around behind the blocks he had a brusque, take-it-or-leave-it attitude that he probably got away with because he was the only butcher in town. Helping him in the shop was his wife. She had thick brown hair, hazel eyes and a backside that said I love pork chops and sausages. Norton ordered ten T-bones, two kilograms of sausages and a dozen cutlets. The butcher told him bluntly to come back in half an hour and he might have it ready.

  From there it was only a short stroll to the supermarket. Peregrine said he’d like to walk around and take a few photographs; that suited Les and he said he’d meet him back at the car. He also said he wished Peregrine had produced his camera earlier as he would have liked to have got some photos of him locked in combat with the killer leeches. The Englishman gave him a thin smile as he walked away.

  At the supermarket Les got enough fruit, vegetables and groceries to send an expedition up Mt. Everest; he also shouted Peregrine a pair of blue stubbies, a plain cotton shirt and some thongs. Les had an ice-block, rang Eddie, and once again had to leave a message with Lindy, picked up the meat, which was unbelievably cheap, then met Peregrine back at the station wagon.

  ‘How did
you go? You get a few photos?’

  ‘Yes. That rather large building is an old butter factory and there’s quite a lot of wild flowers and lizards and things running around out the back.’

  ‘Yeah? That’s good.’

  ‘They’re also having a fete there this weekend. I saw a poster saying “Yurriki Buttery Bazaar, Sunday 21st”. What say we come down and have a look?’

  Norton imagined what the local bazaar would be like. Wallto-wall hippies selling everything from organic wild fruit jam to crystals guaranteed to metaphysically transport you into the fourth dimension. ‘Yeah, why not?’ he shrugged. ‘Might be a bit of fun. What else did you do while I was working me guts out getting the shopping?’

  ‘Nothing much. Strolled around, looked in the shops, sent a couple of postcards.’

  ‘You sent a couple of postcards? Shit! You didn’t tell anyone where we’re staying, did you?’

  ‘Oh, Les, the cards had a photo of Mt. Warning on them, that’s all. And crumbs, I had to think of father and mother, and Stephanie. Besides, the way the mail moves out of this country, I’ll be home a week before the blessed things get there.’

  Norton thought about it, but somehow he just wasn’t happy. ‘Yeah I s’pose you’re right,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you feel like a beer?’

  ‘Yes, I do actually — after all that jolly walking this morning, a cold glass of pilsener would go down rather well.’

  Les gave Peregrine a wink as they got in the car. ‘Or as we say in Australia, mate, the first one won’t even touch the bloody sides.’

  What Peregrine didn’t tell Les on the short drive to the hotel was that he’d had quite an interesting conversation with the postmaster. It appeared he was filling in for his father who was in hospital having an operation to remove some varicose veins; he usually ran a courier service from Murwillumbah to Sydney and Brisbane. When Peregrine casually asked how long it would take for the cards to reach England, he was told that for the right price they could be couriered to Brisbane and would fly out on Saturday. Sunday was a holiday at each end, but they’d link up with the courier service in London and be at their English address by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. Peregrine certainly had no trouble finding the right price. He sent his parents and Stephanie a card each and also sent half a dozen to some of his fellow Sloane Rangers in London.