Half the town is inside the room. They must have sneaked in the back during our tour. They’re sitting in rows facing a stainless-steel cutting bench where Hector stands, cleaver in one hand, rib cage of the pink and white fatty carcass of an enormous cow being massaged by the other. I’d never realized how tiny Hector is. He gives off an air of being a big man, but now I see that two and a half Hectors would fit inside that cow.
Norm waves to me from the front row. Kyleen’s sitting next to the headmaster at the back. The staff of the abattoir take up the middle row. They are wearing glaringly white smocks and hats that remind me of shower caps, and their arms are folded to show off their tattoos to best advantage.
“Oh God,” the reporter moans with pleasure, “I’ve got a great headline for this: Meat the Minister.”
The minister and the mayor get the seats directly in front of the bench. I move to the side and stand beside Mario and the reporter, who’s scribbling fast and giggling to himself.
“Heck, you ready?” Mario calls.
Hector cracks his knuckles and flexes his arms, reaches over, and flicks the switch to start the band saw at one end of the long bench. A selection of cleavers and knives hangs from hooks above him.
“We had this bench made up specially for Hector after he won the state championship,” Mario tells the reporter.
Hector steps away from the cutting bench, rolls his neck, and touches his toes twice. He moves back up to the bench and wrangles the monstrous carcass into his arms.
“Ready.”
Mario holds the stopwatch up for the audience to see. As he presses the button he shouts, “Go!”
In the next thirteen minutes and twenty-four seconds, Hector slices the carcass down the middle, leaps up on the bench and wrestles the legs off, hammers the meat with a mallet that he seems to have pulled out of his T-shirt, carves slabs of meat from every part of the carcass, zooms more sections through the band saw, and thrusts his arm up to the shoulder into parts of the cow that magically fall apart into cuts of meat. The air gets thick with minute particles of meat and bone and gristle, and all the while Hector’s grunting and shouting.
“Round!” he calls as he flings a fan-shaped selection of rump cuts to the front of the bench. “Rib eye! Brisket!”
“Done!” he screams, dropping his knife on the bench and raising his hands into the air. We turn to Mario, who’s staring at the stopwatch.
“Holy Jesus,” Mario whispers. “He’s broken his own record.”
It takes ten minutes for the applause and cheering to die down. The abattoir blokes crowd around Hector, slapping him on the back and punching him and hugging him.
“It’s not official because we didn’t have an independent timekeeper,” Mario’s telling the reporter, “but it shows you—Heck hasn’t even reached his peak. We’re going to take out the Australia-wide. Youse people don’t understand the talent we’ve got in this town.”
“Mario, you’ve been hiding this bloke away!” the mayor says. “We could get him on TV.”
“He’s got a big future. He’s only nineteen.”
We all look at Heck. I would have picked him as thirty-five.
“Outdoor work,” Mario says, shaking his head.
The mayor keeps brushing at his robe. It’s an odd mottled color. I reach over to pick a bone chip from his gold chain.
“Don’t worry, that’ll clean up. It was worth it to see Heck perform. He’s a champion.”
“The minister?” I ask.
Out in the yard Norm’s got hold of a wet cloth and he’s wiping the minister down while Nick, the charioteer, leans against the car, watching.
“Bit of a dry clean and the suit’ll be fine. There, that feels better, doesn’t it?” Norm’s talking all cheery, like he’s pacifying a child. The minister stands with his arms out. He raises his face to Norm to have it wiped. I think he’s regressed. We can’t send him back to Melbourne like this.
“School’s next!” I say. “Let’s get cleaned up before the choir.”
The driver holds open the door while Norm and I help the minister into the car. Halfway to the school he snaps back to his old self, plugs himself into the mobile, and talks gobbledegook to someone about outcomes and competencies. When he pulls out the earplug he’s got the concrete smile back, festooned with a morsel of raw steak glued to his upper lip.
“Fascinating. What an experience,” he says. “So next it’s the school?”
This would be the denial stage.
“Maybe we’ll freshen up first at the Neighbourhood House,” I suggest. We don’t want him to go frightening the children.
“Good idea,” he replies cheerfully.
In the front of the car Nick swats a fly away from the windscreen.
11
THE HEADMASTER’S TAKEN my signs off the school fence. I was happy with the misspelled one. It looked like one of the kids had made it. Now the schoolyard’s back to its usual self. Waist-high cyclone wire fence, a few bedraggled trees, adventure equipment that stopped having adventures years ago. The education department seems to have forgotten the school already. Heat rises from the asphalt in the yard, and cicadas make attempts at calls that peter out after a few strokes like a chain saw that won’t catch. I wonder if everyone arrived here before us, or if they’ve gone to the pub to celebrate Heck’s record.
The door of the school opens and the grade-three teacher bounds down the steps and pitter-patters toward us, his hands waving and his little belly bouncing. I must remember to tell Helen I think he’s gay.
“Minister, welcome to Gunapan Primary. We’ve prepared a tour for you, nothing too boring or too long. I understand you must see the same thing over and over again so we won’t keep you, but we want you to know that you won’t find a more dedicated staff or a better-run school than this. At the end of the day, what you’re getting here is value for money, Minister, value for money.”
The minister nods. He’s still a little dazed, but back at the Neighbourhood House a brisk rub with a washcloth brought him back to reality. After I’d twisted the washcloth corner into a bud and cleaned out his ears he’d asked if he could go to the toilet.
“Yes, but hurry up, we haven’t got all day,” I told him. “And don’t forget to wash your hands.”
The Basic Ed kids were coming out of the Neighbourhood House classroom and two Down syndrome boys rushed into the toilet after the minister. I knew they’d be staring at him in that unnerving intent way they have, but I could hardly follow them into the men’s toilet. Sure enough, after a few seconds I heard one boy shriek and giggle. Damien ran out of the toilet, his big flat feet slapping on the tiles and his hands flapping.
“The man farted!” he screamed, and laughed until he began to snort.
Tina, the Basic Ed teacher, came and stood beside me. She draped her arm around her giggling son, for whom the funniest thing in the world always has been, and always will be, farting. “Shut up, Damien. Who’s in the toilet?” she asked.
“The Minister for Education, Elderly Care and Gaming,” I told her.
“Oh, ha ha. Come on, kids, let’s go,” she called, and the boys tumbled off after her. A few seconds later the minister walked out.
“Ready, Mr. Degugulo?” I asked.
“Yes, thank you,” he answered in a high-pitched voice, and walked unsteadily to the car.
Now I’m following the grade-three teacher, who is ushering the minister up the steps of the school and gabbling as if he’s snorted speed.
“One hundred and twenty-three children, four teachers, and three teachers’ aides, you can’t complain about that for efficiency, Minister. Productivity up eleven percent in the last two years. All local children. We have a need, oh yes, we have a real need in the community. Where would they go, you ask? They’d have to go to a school forty kilometers away, a one-hour bus ride with all the pickups along the way, that’s two hours’ travel a day, into a school that already has seven hundred children. We run a sports program, oh no, yo
u won’t find an obesity problem in this school population . . .” He pauses, looks down, and pats his paunch. “Well, maybe the teachers could use a little work, but the children are fit and healthy and the grades they’re getting, Minister, we’re in the top twenty in the state for that even though . . .”
I drop back discreetly as he leads the minister into the headmaster’s office, where the headmaster has appeared in a clean suit and spectacles, sitting behind his desk and shuffling papers.
“Where are you?” I ask Helen on the mobile. “I’m alone here with a traumatized member of parliament and a grade-three teacher who’s taken mind-altering drugs. Did I tell you I think he’s gay?”
“Figures. I’m on my way. We had an emergency at the surgery and I had to stay an extra half-hour while the doc fixed the guy up. Some idiot from the abattoir with a bone splinter in his eye.”
I’m standing on the school steps when she pulls up.
“What do you want me to do?” she asks.
“I don’t know. We’ve had a couple of hiccups. Heck dismembered a cow and spattered the minister with gore.”
“Oh.”
“And Kyleen told him all about Norm stripping the copper wire from the old substation.”
“Oh.”
“That’s probably OK. I think that’s all wiped from his memory. But now what? I didn’t think this through, Helen. A visit to the school isn’t going to change his mind. Every school can trot out a choir.”
“I’m not so sure they all have a fire-eating team.”
“Oh, God. I thought that teacher ran off to learn the lute in Nimbin.”
“He left the gift of the grade-four circus club. They can all swallow fire. But I think it’s only a demo with three girls today.”
I close my eyes. If I believed in a compassionate God I’d pray. Please, Your Benevolence, don’t let the minister catch fire. I’m sure all that fat from the abattoir is flammable. I can see it now. We’re on track to send the minister back emotionally shattered, smeared with blood and bone, and barbecued. Of course you can keep your school, they’ll say. Gunapan’s an example to us all.
“We have to do something to convince him,” I say. “What? What?”
The strains of “I Still Call Australia Home” are drifting from the classroom window. Helen winces.
“I knew they’d never hit that high note. Well, look over there. Who might that be?” Helen nods at Nick, the driver, who is still reading the paper. He must be memorizing it.
“The charioteer. At least that’s what the minister calls him. Ministerial driver.”
“So maybe Ben-Hur will have an idea. He probably knows this minister fella better than anyone.” Helen turns away from me and pokes around in her handbag for what seems like only a moment. When she turns back, her face is fully made up and she’s dabbing at her fresh lipstick with a tissue.
Nick watches us warily as we approach the gleaming chariot. He pulls a chamois from his back pocket and erases a fingerprint smudge from the passenger door. The performance reminds me of the way dogs sniff around the grass with feigned nonchalance when another dog approaches. He’s a big man with thick upper arms and a sumo-wrestler kind of sway to his body when he walks.
“The car looks beautiful,” Helen says to him. “Must be hard work keeping it so—”
“Ladies, no need to beat about the bush. How can I help you?” Nick’s voice is deep and throaty. He flicks a mote of dust off the windscreen with the corner of his chamois before he leans back against the driver’s door and folds his arms across his chest. I can tell Helen has taken a fancy to him by the way she’s clutching my arm so tightly gangrene is setting in. He’s a good-looking bloke, all right, but I don’t think she should get her hopes up—after all, he’s leaving town in one hour and fourteen minutes. That’s even faster than your average Gunapan husband.
“Well, it’s just that . . . well, you know, the minister is here because my friend Loretta”—she gestures back at me, even though I have become nothing to her in the presence of this shining knight—“organized all these petitions and letters and everything and got the headmaster and the mayor to sign and all that to try and stop them closing Gunapan Primary School.” She pauses to take a deep breath. “And now the minister’s here and we want to get him to change his mind, but he’s had some bad experiences and we don’t know what to do.” Another breath. “And we thought that since you drive him around you must know lots about him and stuff and maybe you could, you know, give us some hints on how to—”
Nick raises his hand, which I notice is muscular also.
“I’d love to help. Especially when I’m asked for assistance by a stunning lady like yourself . . .”
I’m sure I hear Helen simper. I never knew how a simper sounded before today. She’s going to start fanning herself and talking in a Gone with the Wind accent next.
“What can you do?” I ask. “I’ve been on the case for seven months and all I’ve got is a visit.”
“Leave it to me. I’ll have a word with the big man.”
Right. While Helen continues her flirting I sigh and turn to watch the minister being herded down the steps of the school by the headmaster and the grade-three teacher, who’s still talking at an incredible speed. I want to cry. All those months writing letters and calling people and chairing meetings that hardly anyone came to. And for nothing except a chance to see Hector disassemble a cow in record time. Which actually was amazing but doesn’t help my kids.
The minister folds back into his car and reappears at his final destination, the Criterion, which used to be all green tiles and ancient toothless farmers propping up the bar, but has been renovated and is now pink and lemon with a new menu that includes confit of duck as well as some old favorites like surf and turf. The ancient toothless farmers have moved to the gambling machine room out the back.
We’re having a set lunch in the dining lounge, paid for by my fund-raising efforts with the chocolate drive back in November, but I don’t have any appetite. Helen’s in the bar with Nick. I can see her through the servery hatch, simpering and fanning herself with a beer coaster. Nick notices me watching and gives a thumbs-up. I wonder if he’s indicating his chances with Helen. He’d better get a move on. The minister’s schedule has him out of here in eleven minutes.
When the minister stands up to give a speech, which he promises will only take a few minutes, I keep poking at my chicken parma. I think about what will happen to the school grounds when the school closes. Maybe they’ll build a housing estate on the site. Couples will move in. They’ll grow vegetable gardens and paint their houses and have babies. The mothers will start a campaign. A school for Gunapan! They’ll paint signs and write letters and one day the Education Department will send a portable classroom and a teacher. Meanwhile, because it’s Gunapan, the husbands will have mysteriously disappeared.
I only notice the minister’s gone when Helen claps me on the back and sighs.
“That chauffeur! What a man. I’m in love.”
I sniff and poke a little harder at the parma sauce.
“Aren’t you excited?” she asks.
The headmaster and the mayor come back inside and order beers. It’s the middle of the day. I’ve never seen the headmaster drink, even at night.
“To Loretta!” they shout, and raise their glasses.
“And to Nick!” Helen calls out, and swigs from her wineglass.
“Who?” the headmaster says.
They’re crowded around me, laughing and talking about Heck’s show and making plans for the biggest fete in the history of the school.
“It’s not closing?” I say.
“Didn’t you hear the minister? Changing demographics, supporting the country constituency, the last meeting of the education advisory committee, blah blah blah. You did it, Loretta!”
The grade-three teacher bounds into the pub’s dining room, brandishing a letter.
“They’re not closing us down! This arrived today!”
“Old news, mate,” Mario Morelli says. “Have a beer.”
“That must be why the minister kept staring at me with this meaningful look,” the grade-three teacher says musingly. “I’d finish saying something and he’d stare as though I was supposed to add something else, and it made me prattle away as if I was on speed. He must have been expecting me to say thank you.”
Helen looks longingly through the open door at the puff of dust left by Nick’s chariot. Even though the decision must have been made weeks ago, she clearly believes Nick rode in to save us.
“What’s the catch?” I look around. I’ve lived in Gunapan for thirteen years. I know things aren’t this easy.
“Catch? What catch?” the headmaster says, stretching his mouth in an unconvincing smile. “Drink up, Loretta.”
“You’ll have to tell me sometime.”
“Let’s have a nice drink and enjoy your victory.”
Usually the headmaster enjoys the job of predicting dire consequences. Usually you can’t stop him spreading bad news like jam on toast.
Something else occurs to me. “What’s this about the development and Samantha Patterson?” I turn and ask Vaughan, the mayor. “What’s going on?”
“Samantha Patterson? She’s not involved with the development. That portfolio belongs to Chris Dunn. By all accounts the development is going to be great for this town. So don’t start on that, Loretta. Look! Here’s Hector, the other man of the moment.”
The headmaster pours champagne into my glass, and it froths over the rim like the lacy dress of a Southern belle.
“To us,” I say to Helen, raising my glass.
“To Gunapan,” she answers, and we down our drinks.
Don’t start on that, the mayor says. But I can’t help myself. Something is wrong with that development. Someone has to act. I’m the Gunna Panther.
12
“HE’S GOT A bloody cheek.” Tina’s talking on the phone when I walk into the Neighbourhood House office. She glances over her shoulder at me and smiles, then says, “OK, gotta go, talk to you soon,” and hangs up the phone.
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