Common People

by Tony Birch

  ‘You and you. Do the same.’

  The women followed her lead, but struggled to keep pace. When she’d finished packing, Rose sealed the box with tape, placed a sticker on each side of the box, indicating the cut of meat inside, and loaded it onto a trolley. As each trolley was filled another worker pushed it out of the room to the portable freezer where it was shelved, ready for transport. Marian found packing the meat relatively easy but couldn’t lift the full box across to the trolley and needed Lydia’s help. Charlie, watching closely, walked over to the women.

  ‘You’ll need to speed it up. Mary here is leaving you two for dead.’

  Marian waited until he was far enough away before whispering to Lydia, ‘Cunt.’ She glanced over at Rose. ‘The woman is a machine. I can’t keep up with her.’

  ‘Maz,’ Lydia panted, ‘please shut it. Keep your head down and do the best you can.’

  But Marian wouldn’t shut up. ‘Look at those pants she’s wearing. You know what they’d be for?’

  Lydia strained under the weight of a box of steaks and dumped it on the trolley. ‘I said shut it. I don’t give a fuck about her pants.’

  ‘I bet she pisses in them so she doesn’t have to take a toilet break.’

  ‘She’ll hear you,’ Lydia hissed.

  ‘Hear all she likes. Probably can’t understand a word I’m saying.’

  After two hours of packing Marian had worn herself out and worked in silence. Lydia’s arms burned each time she lifted a box onto the trolley. Desperate to go to the toilet she looked around the room. Neither the foreman nor the manager were anywhere to be seen.

  ‘Marian, I need to have a piss.’

  ‘Really?’ She blew a fringe of hair out of her eyes. ‘You should ask your friend here if you can borrow her pants.’

  ‘Where’d that fella Charlie say the toilet was?’

  ‘He didn’t. It would be where we got changed, I’d reckon.’

  Lydia left the bench and ran across to the door to the changeroom. She couldn’t see a toilet and walked through a pair of saloon doors and out onto an open platform. She was hit by a terrible smell. The worker who’d been picked up last on the line was dragging a carcass from a truck. His overalls were covered in blood and mud and shit. The animal had been skinned and the ears had been cut off. The back of the truck was loaded with more carcasses.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lydia asked, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

  ‘Same as you. Working.’

  Lydia looked down at the animal. She felt sick. ‘What is it?’

  ‘This one? Probably the dog I did twenty dollars on a couple of months back.’

  ‘Why have his ears been cut off?’

  ‘Greyhounds get tattoos inside both ears soon after they’re born.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For identity purposes. Hacking them off, a dog can’t be traced back to the owner.’

  ‘A greyhound? That’s not meat.’

  ‘Soon will be. Watch this.’

  The worker picked up the carcass, straining under its weight, and dropped it into the barrel of a machine. He hit a button on the side of the machine and stood back. The crunching of bones and flesh soon reduced the carcass to mince. Unable to stop herself, Lydia fell to her knees and vomited over the edge of the platform. Resting on all fours she breathed in and out.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’

  She looked up at the manager. He had one eye on her and the other on the truckload of slaughtered dogs. The putrid air was making her feel worse.

  ‘Nothing. I was taking my toilet break.’ She got to her feet and wiped her hand across her mouth.

  ‘What’s wrong? You can’t take the smell of raw meat?’

  ‘It’s not that. I’ve had a cold is all. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be out here. There’s a women’s toilet inside.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t see it. I must have headed the wrong way.’

  The barrel started up again. Both Lydia and the manager ignored the sound of breaking bones. He escorted her back inside. ‘You enjoying the work?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s fine.’

  The manager rested a hand on her waist. ‘There’s guaranteed work here if you want it.’

  Lydia brushed his hand away, walked off and found the toilet.

  ‘You okay?’ Marian asked, when Lydia returned to the packing table. ‘You’ve turned fucking grey.’

  ‘I’m fine. Just needed some fresh air.’

  ‘Something happen back there?’

  ‘Yeah. I had a piss and washed my hands. Leave me be.’

  The sun was about to rise by the time Lydia and Marian headed for the car, one hundred and fifty dollars cash each in their pockets. They were exhausted. Lydia’s shoulders were aching and Marian’s face was smeared with animal blood. As was Barack Obama’s. Lydia saw Rose standing at the back of her car, a battered station wagon. She opened the rear door and climbed inside. Lydia and Marian stood watching as Rose reached deep into her rubber wading pants. She pulled out a variety of prime cuts of meat, sealed and labelled. They quickly filled a large esky. Rose hopped out of the wagon, unbuckled the wading pants and threw them into the back of the car. She looked at Marian and smiled a little nervously. Reaching back into the esky Rose brought out two parcels of meat. She looked at Lydia’s worn-out face. ‘This is for you,’ she offered.

  Lydia looked around the car park and stuck the parcel of meat under her T-shirt. ‘Thank you. Rose?’

  ‘Yep, it’s Rose,’ she answered in a clear accent. ‘My father chose the name from the lid of a chocolate box when we came here.’

  Rose turned to Marian and offered her the second parcel of meat.

  Although she felt a little guilty for doing so, Marian took the meat. ‘Thanks.’

  Rose looked at Barack Obama’s bloodied cheeks and smiled. ‘Your boyfriend there. He’s a mess.’

  HARMLESS

  I want to tell you a story about Harmless, which wasn’t his true name, although it was the only one I knew him by. There goes Harmless, people would say when he walked by in the street. And Harmless was just that. Harmless. He was a little strange too, but always minded his own business, circling the town on foot, talking to nobody but himself. People would sometimes offer him help, but Harmless didn’t want help, and let them know without speaking a word. He used to sleep nights in the bandstand in the middle of the park, except on cold and wet winter nights, when the police would drive by and insist he take up their offer of a bed, a blanket and a hot meal.

  One night some hard boys from the city, passing through town and out for trouble, spotted Harmless in the park walking back to his cubby. They followed him and gave him a furious belting. Afterwards, two of the boys pissed in his face while Harmless lay on the ground. They were long gone out of town before he was discovered the next morning staggering down the street with a bloodied head and black eye. Although nobody from our town had been responsible, Harmless decided he’d had enough of us and took off. For weeks nobody knew where he’d gone. Some thought he was dead. A story went around that he’d filled his pockets with rocks, thrown himself into the river and drowned.

  But Harmless wasn’t dead. After leaving the hospital the day after he was beaten up, he’d quietly walked out of town along the railway line until he reached the trestle bridge. He crossed it and followed an old track through the bush to a timber cutter’s shack that hadn’t been used in years. It was a month later before Harmless turned up again, scrawny and desperate for a feed. Mr Mercer, the boss of the only supermarket in town, saw Harmless walking by, stopped him on the street and handed him a canteen of water, a loaf of bread and a bag of fresh fruit. He went back inside the supermarket and called the police.

  The sergeant, Mick Potter, who was also coach of the football team, found Harmless sitting on a bench
outside the town hall and invited him to the station for a hot shower and cup of tea. Harmless took up the offer but wouldn’t tell Mick where he’d been and refused the sergeant’s offer of staying at the police station until a proper bed could be found for him. Harmless agreed to come into town once a week and collect a bag of groceries, toilet paper and soap from the police station. In return, he asked Mick to add a weekly newspaper to the deal. The two men shook on the agreement and even though he wore no watch, from that day on Harmless would turn up at the police station at twelve noon every Wednesday. Each time he’d double and triple back through the bush to his shack, giving the slip to anyone who might try to track him, although no one ever bothered until the day I followed him home.

  On my thirteenth birthday my grandmother took me down to the garage and bought me a second-hand bicycle. There were two on sale that morning. One was a three-speed racer that had been oiled, fitted with new tyres and a frame sprayed black by Harry Huntly, the owner of the garage. The other bike was a girl’s model, hot pink, with a new cushioned seat and streamers on the handlebars. Once I’d ridden both bikes around the garage I went for the black one. My nanna wasn’t happy with my choice.

  ‘The black one? Look at this pink bike. It’s beautiful. Harry’s done a real job with them streamers.’

  Harry was as surprised as Nan. The pink bike was twenty dollars more expensive. He was thinking I’d picked the black bike to save my grandmother money.

  ‘Look. I’ll knock the twenty off. You can have it for the same price as the black one. Thirteen, that’s a teenager’s birthday,’ he winked. ‘A special one.’

  I wouldn’t have taken the pink bike if Harry had offered it to me for free. I wore my hair short in those days, never wore pink and wasn’t interested in a bicycle that looked pretty.

  ‘It’s not the money, Nan,’ I said. ‘I like the other bike.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Please yourself then. It looks like a copper’s bike to my eyes. But it’s your birthday.’

  I was hardly off my black bike from that day on. I became a free bird, criss-crossing the miles of gravel road alongside the irrigation channels surrounding town, always on my own. As it was, most girls from school avoided me anyway. Although I didn’t mind playing alone, one day I’d asked the girl who sat next to me in Year Six, Lara Conner, why the other girls ignored me.

  ‘Well, you’re just too much of a tomboy,’ she explained, apologetically.

  I was confused. ‘Like how?’

  ‘Well, like playing in the yard rougher than the boys. And wearing boys’ shorts. And having your hair cut the way you do. If you grow your hair long, maybe you’ll fit in more.’

  I thought Lara was stupid, but was polite enough not to say so. I wasn’t going to grow my hair long just to find a friend. And I liked wearing shorts, which I knew, even back then, would stop the boys from looking up your dress at your Annie, as my nan preferred to call it.

  ‘I don’t play any rougher than the boys do.’

  ‘That’s not the point. You shouldn’t be playing rough at all.’

  It was true that I could run faster and further than most boys in school. I could also punch as hard as any of them. Most boys were afraid of me so I never got teased. And they didn’t pull my hair or pinch my arm in the line at morning assembly.

  Riding my bike one Wednesday during the winter school holidays, I saw Harmless walking along the railway line carrying his grocery bag. I rode downhill and stopped by the river and watched as he crossed the trestle bridge. Looking up, I could see him through the gaps in the wooden sleepers. Once he was on the other side, I hopped off my bike and walked it across the bridge to be sure I’d make no noise. Harmless was up ahead of me. He took to a dirt track, too narrow to fit myself and the bike. I wheeled the bike into the bush and lay it in the long grass, satisfied it was well hidden. A little further on, the track ended at a small wooden shack. Harmless opened the door and went inside. I wanted to knock and say hello, tell him I was sorry for what the city boys had done to him. But I didn’t. I understood enough about Harmless to accept he didn’t like company and might get angry with me for following him.

  I went home that night and thought about Harmless and how he got by alone. I was desperate to get inside his hut and see how he lived. A week later I again waited under the bridge for him to pass by. Once he’d crossed the bridge and headed into town I hid my bike in the same place I’d left it the week before and ran all the way to his shack. The door was bolted but not locked. I opened it and went inside. There was a mattress on the floor with two blankets folded neat as handkerchiefs on top. The room was bare except for a wooden chair, a kettle, a tin mug, a plate, two bent forks and different sized spoons. A pot-belly stove sat in one corner. I touched the steel chimney with the back of my hand. It was warm.

  The shack Harmless lived in might not have been what most people would want, but it was clean and tidy, out of the way of snoops, and as homely as any place I’d been in. He’d decorated inside, sticking photographs from old newspapers on the walls, mostly of famous people. The Queen of England’s picture was plastered up beside the door. She was sitting between a photograph of The Beatles and another of a racehorse biting into a birthday cake. I sat on the mattress and rested my head on his pillow. The wind rattled sheets of iron, followed by rain beating on the roof. I lay down and covered myself with one of the blankets. I’d often felt sad for Harmless, thinking that his life was lonely and miserable, but laying in his bed and listening to the rain I understood that he had made his own life, one he owned.

  When I woke I had no idea where I was. I sat upright, full of fear, until I looked above me and saw the Queen, tiara on her head, smiling down at me. I quickly folded the blanket and ran through the rain to my bike. I rode all the way home without once touching the seat. Nan looked at me suspiciously when I got in. I was soaked through and my cheeks were flushed red.

  ‘Where have you been, young missy?’ she asked. ‘Other than out chasing a bout of pneumonia?’

  ‘Down the river,’ I shrugged, as if I’d been up to nothing of importance.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Down the river doing what?’

  ‘Looking for frogs and tadpoles. It’s science homework.’

  She looked at me over the top of her glasses and smiled. ‘You don’t do much homework during the term, let alone the holidays. You sure?’

  ‘Sure, Nan,’ I answered, without blinking.

  She gave me a long stare before accepting she wasn’t going to get anything more out of me. ‘You wash your face and hands and set the table. Then we’ll give thanks for the meal and pretend you’re a good girl for a bit.’

  The winters in our town are the wettest in the state. We’re east of the mountains and when clouds build over the range and grow dark and heavy, they dump buckets of rain on us. The streets sometimes flood, as do the irrigation channels and creeks. Country can disappear for weeks at a time. Following one storm, Nan took me further into the bush than we’d been before and showed me a waterfall running red. She told me the land was bleeding because people treated it badly. Although I wouldn’t talk to anyone about it, in case they said my nan was crazy and I’d have to fight them, I knew every word she spoke was the truth.

  It never mattered to me how heavy the rain got, it was never bad enough to stop me riding my bike. I would often arrive home after pedalling around in the wet all day with the bike caked in mud and a streak of red running up the back of my jumper. Nan was one for rules and wouldn’t let me in the house until I’d hosed the bike down on the back grass and cleaned it. Once the bike was in order I would wheel it onto the verandah where it was safe. The house was out of bounds until I stripped down to my underwear.

  About a week after I’d snuck into Harmless’s shack, the rain thumped on our roof all night and didn’t stop until morning. I knew the river would be thundering and had to see it. After breakfast, I jumped on m
y bike and followed the river downstream until I reached the trestle bridge. I hit the brakes when I spotted Laurie Wise’s orange panel van parked underneath. Everyone knew Laurie. He came from a wild family and was always in trouble with the police. He’d sometimes drive through the main street on a Saturday night, calling out to the girls, whistling to them, trying to get them into the van. I heard my nan talking over the fence one time to our neighbour, Dotty Pearce. Laurie had been in a fight in the middle of town, and Dotty and Nan had words over him.

  ‘The boy is just plain stupid,’ Dotty said.

  ‘I wish that was all he was,’ Nan answered. ‘He’s dangerous. Laurie is going to seriously hurt someone one of these days. Being stupid is no excuse for being cruel and a bully. And that’s what he is.’

  Dotty continued her defence of Laurie. ‘How could you expect any more of him? They say his father has a metal plate in his head.’

  ‘I don’t care what sort of plate the father has in that head of his. It could be made of cardboard for all I care. Laurie behaving the way he does is his own responsibility, not that of his idiotic family.’

  I went to turn my bike around and was about to pedal uphill when I heard the van door creak open. I stopped and looked back. Laurie was getting out. He walked to the other side of the car, opened the door and swore at someone sitting in the passenger seat. He reached into the van and dragged out a girl. She fell to her knees. I could see by her long red hair the girl was Rita Collins. She lived on a farm outside town and was in the year above me but had been taken out of school by her mother only weeks after the new term started and hadn’t been seen in town since. Rita was only fourteen.

  I pushed my bike behind some blackberry on the side of the track, hid and watched. Laurie screamed at Rita to stand up. When she did I could see she had an enormous belly. But not like she was fat. Rita was pregnant. Thunder crashed above me and the rain came down again, as heavy as it had been in the night. Laurie pointed a finger at Rita and pushed her. She pushed back. And then he hit her. Not like a kid might do to another kid on a street corner. Laurie was almost a man, and she was only a girl, and he punched her so hard in the face she fell to the ground. He stood over her, swore again and told her to get up. She kept her head down and didn’t move. He put a boot against her shoulder, let it rest and said something I couldn’t hear on account of the rain. He pushed her with the heel of the boot. She fell onto her side and lay in the dirt. Laurie turned his back on her, got into the van and roared away.