The Fine Color of Rust

by Paddy O'Reilly

  “Yeah, like it did a month ago and a year ago and fifteen years ago. I’ll ask again, what’s changed? I think Councillor Samantha Patterson should answer that question.”

  She looks up. She’s married to the owner of a big farm out past Wilson Dam. Before she was elected unopposed to the shire council, she used to run the Ladies Auxiliary of the Halstead Lions Club. She’s not only the sole woman on the council, she’s the youngest councillor too. She looks the same age as me, but without the scrag factor. Her nails are polished. Her brown hair is as glossy and preened as bird feathers. I bet she paid a lot of money for that dress too. It’s a soft green jersey with satin around the neckline and half-length sleeves. I hope she gives it to the charity shop when she’s tired of it.

  “I don’t know much about this aspect of shire business,” she answers calmly. “As most people here probably know”—she looks around the room, smiling and nodding at a few people—“I was elected to council on a platform of community development.” She smiles again with the white even teeth of someone on TV. “But as I understand it, doesn’t someone have to make a complaint before an Unsightly Property Notice is issued? Perhaps Mr. Stevens might like to consider that. It could well be his neighbors.”

  I can see Norm is heating up. He’s scratching the back of his scarlet neck. The mayor leafs hurriedly through the folder and reads out loud. “‘If a complaint is received by the shire that a property is unsightly, the first step will be for a local laws officer to inspect the property. If the officer deems that it does constitute an unsightly property, a Notice to Comply will be issued.’ Yep, it sounds as if that’s what’s happened, Norm. Not a lot we can do about it. It’s a bylaw.”

  “And if I don’t comply?” Norm’s talking slowly now. You don’t see Norm angry very often. He’s a pretty relaxed kind of a bloke. This is twice in a week. First Tony, now the Unsightly Property Notice.

  The mayor runs his finger down the page.

  “Da de da de da. Here it is. ‘The Notice to Comply will outline the circumstances causing the land to be deemed unsightly, and will state the works required to be completed by a specific date. If the works are not completed by that date or alternative arrangements have not been made with the officer, a contractor may be enlisted to complete the work on behalf of the shire. Once the work is completed to the satisfaction of the shire an invoice will be sent for payment of these works.’”

  “I hope you don’t think we’re stupid, Vaughan,” Norm says. “It’s not about my yard, we all know that.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about? I hadn’t even heard about this notice until I saw the agenda. There’s no conspiracy here, Norm. Keep your hat on.”

  “Suit yourself. If you want a fight, I’m happy to oblige.” Norm swings around and strides back to his seat next to me, breathing through his nose.

  I pat him on the arm, lean toward his ear, and whisper, “Go, Norm!” before I rear back in shock. I think he’s growing spuds in that ear.

  He expels a great snort of air, then half-turns to the crowd in the gallery.

  “We’ve all been pretty bloody tolerant of the secrecy and shenanigans at this council. Well, maybe we won’t be so tolerant anymore.”

  Around us, a few people clap. Mario leans over and mutters to Norm, “Vaughan is a good mayor, Norm. We don’t want to put the boot into the good blokes.”

  “Don’t worry, Mario. If he’s done nothing wrong, he’s got nothing to fear, right?”

  It’s a side of Norm I’ve never seen. It is true, though, that Norm knows most of what goes on around Gunapan, thanks to the steady stream of customers who never buy anything, but stand around gasbagging for hours. If he wants to cause some damage, I’m sure he has the weapons.

  “What’s Samantha Patterson’s connection?” I whisper to Norm. “Has she got shares in the development?”

  “She’s too smart for that. But I’ll find out, don’t you worry.”

  The next item for discussion is the water tanks to be installed by the side of the footy clubhouse. The club president says he’s been waiting for four months and buying water to keep the ground safe for play and the club is now broke and he’ll organize a demonstration if the council doesn’t pull its finger out and put in the tanks. The councillor whose brief is shire amenities tells the president that the tanks have been bought and are waiting for installation but Kev the council plumber broke his ankle and they’ve been waiting for him to recover, and the president says, “Stuff that, mate, twenty-five plumbers in Halstead could do the job,” and the councillor says, “Leave it with me and I’ll see what can be done,” and the president says, “You’ve done bugger all till now, so why should I believe that?” and the mayor says, “Now now, everyone,” and the president storms back to his seat and the footballers in the back row drum their feet on the wooden floor and the mayor wipes his forehead and pats his stomach again.

  Finally we get to the last item, the one the crowd is here for.

  “Um, yes. The final item for tonight’s meeting. This is certainly the most unusual shire meeting we’ve had in some time,” he says with a weak laugh. “Now Trudy Walker has put forward this item. She wants to discuss satanism in Gunapan.”

  Trudy gets up and walks to the front of the room. Everyone is silent, except for Kyleen, who’s munching chips steadily. Once she’s in front of the microphone, Trudy adjusts her hair. It’s been permed into a frizzy halo and she uses both hands to pat it down.

  “We are a Christian community,” she begins.

  “I’m not a Christian,” Sammy Lee calls from the back of the left gallery. “And I think you’ll find that the Dhaliwal family aren’t either.”

  “He’s got a point,” Norm says to me. “I’ve got more faith in Best Bets than Jesus.”

  The left gallery is muttering. “Well, I don’t go to church, but . . .,” “Sister Theresa cured me in grade four . . .”

  “OK,” Trudy says, raising her hands. “OK. But we are a God-fearing community, aren’t we?”

  The Church of Goodwill gallery claps. I can hear Sammy Lee in the row behind me chatting with Mrs. Edwards. “Honestly, I speak and nobody listens. I’m the invisible ethnic minority in this place. Sammy Lee, token Chinaman, non-Christian . . .”

  “Mate,” Brian Mack says from the row behind Sammy. “You think you’ve got problems. You should try being Aboriginal here. My family’s so far out of the town’s bloody consciousness we might as well be white.”

  “Jeez, don’t wish that on us, hon,” Brian’s wife, Merle, mutters.

  “You may think we are old-fashioned fuddy-duddies, but this is no joke.” Trudy sounds so serious that everyone quiets down. “Witchcraft is not some innocent game with wands and tall hats. It’s not a kids’ book or a TV show. Real witchcraft is the work of the devil, and it can’t be played with. You might think it’s funny having a witch in the town, but you won’t think it’s funny when it gets out of hand. We need to stop this right now, before the devil sneaks into Gunapan while you’re still laughing.”

  “Yes!” the right gallery calls. “Amen!”

  “I think we ought to hear the other side of the story before we make any hasty decisions,” the mayor points out, “except I’m not sure that the person in question is actually here. I did ask the council secretary to send a letter, though.”

  We all look around like a bunch of turkeys craning their long necks.

  It seems as if the show is over until a voice comes from the back of the left gallery. It’s a high voice, nasal and thin, and it seems oddly familiar.

  “I studied hard to get this diploma and I’m not giving up because you don’t like it. Witches can work for good too,” the voice says.

  She stands up and we stare with our mouths open. It’s Leanne. Leanne grew up in Gunapan. She left a couple of years ago to study in Melbourne and hasn’t been back as far as I know. Until now.

  “Leanne?” Kyleen shouts through a mouthful of chips. “You’re the witch?”

&nbs
p; “I’d like to be addressed as Leonora. And yes, I’m now a trained witch from the Wiccan School of Herbal and Magickal Therapy in Melbourne. And I think I deserve some respect.”

  A blinding flash floods the room. My heart skips a beat as I wonder if we have been smote, then I see the cadet reporter focussing his lens on Leanne.

  “Oh my Lord,” Trudy says from the front of the room. “Leanne Bivens, what does your mother think about this?”

  Leanne’s mother stands up beside her. “I’m proud of Leanne. I mean, Leonora. What she’s got is as good as a diploma from a college. And also, she’s got rid of my shingles and I won a fifth division in Tattslotto last week and you can see her acne’s completely gone.”

  Everyone inclines toward the back of the room and peers at Leanne. She holds her head high, tilts it from side to side. Sure enough, that acne’s cleared right up.

  “This is wrong,” Trudy calls out. “Spells. Incantations. Do you think things come for free? A price will be exacted, young lady, and it will be your soul! Don’t go thinking you can seduce the women of Gunapan into a coven.”

  Norm guffaws beside me, then tries to cover the guffaw with a cough. I’m picturing the coven of hefty Gunapan women dancing naked in the moonlight beside the stinky Wilson Dam. I wonder whether we’d dance around the old car bodies or between them.

  “I suppose you pray to demons,” Trudy goes on. “I’ve read about it. You have black candles and upside-down crucifixes and goats. You’re playing with forces you don’t understand!”

  We’ll have to lock up Terror.

  Leanne steps out from the row and walks down the center aisle toward Trudy. She does seem a lot more confident than when she was serving behind the makeup counter at the chemist shop. When she was younger she used to babysit for us occasionally. We’d come home and find her curled up asleep on the couch like a baby herself. Now she’s wearing a long purple velvet dress and heavy silver jewelry that clanks as she walks. Beside me, Helen is fingering her face.

  “Do you think she can get rid of wrinkles?” Helen whispers to me.

  “I’ve got a bit of heavy-duty Spakfilla could help with that,” Norm answers, and she punches him in the arm.

  As she walks toward Trudy, Leanne raises her arm and points. Trudy steps back behind the podium as if it will protect her.

  “They told us in class people wouldn’t understand. I want you to know that not all magick is black magick. I studied white magick. I did Herbs and Spells, Incantations and Potions, Freeing Your Inner Goddess, Small Business Bookkeeping, Marketing and Promotion. And I got the highest grade in the class for Women’s Mysteries.”

  The whole room goes quiet. I think we’re all wondering about Women’s Mysteries.

  “Can you fly?” Kyleen asks.

  “No, but if I do five more units and upgrade to a degree it’s possible I’ll be able to move from one place to another by magick.”

  “Of course, in India some yogis can levitate through deep spiritual practice,” Mrs. Edwards behind me comments.

  “Yeah, well, that’s the same thing, isn’t it? See?” Leanne adds, turning to Trudy. “And anyway, I come from Gunapan and I went to the city, but at least I came back. Everyone says that the young people leave and never come back and that’s why Gunapan is in trouble. Well, here I am! Just because I’m doing something different you shouldn’t treat me this way. I’m bringing new industry to town.”

  She has a point. In the last year the only new businesses to start up in town have been her and Merv Bull. Before that, a member of the Neighbourhood House Committee opened an antiques shop in the main street. What she called antique was the same stuff most of us use at home—Laminex tables, Bakelite flour canisters, old bassinets. If we had a lot of through traffic it might have worked, but the highway only passes by close enough for us to have the four a.m. thunder of the road trains without a single visitor ever pulling off the highway and driving into town.

  Thinking about that reminds me of the development. How did they even find Gunapan to put a resort here?

  “Let us pray for guidance,” someone from the right gallery calls. The Church of Goodwillers and the Catholics get down on their knees, slowly and with much grunting and bone-cracking, to begin the Lord’s Prayer.

  “And one more thing,” Leanne says. “Religious freedom. You’d never do this to a Jewish person or a Muslim person.”

  From out of a pocket hidden in her flowing dress, she produces a stubby silver knife. Trudy gasps.

  “Trudy, get a grip,” Leanne says, waving to her mother to come to the front of the room, where Leanne begins drawing a circle on the floor with the knife.

  “Actually,” the mayor says, his chain tinkling as he steps toward Leanne, then back again. “This is shire property. It’s probably best not to mark the floor? Not that I want to interfere with your religious freedom.”

  Leanne turns to him, still pointing the knife, and the mayor clutches at his chest as if she has pierced it.

  “Oops, sorry,” Leanne says, and pockets the knife. She takes her mother’s hand and pulls her into the circle. Her mother is beaming proudly as if this is Leanne’s wedding day. She lifts her feet as she steps over the imaginary circle line, then clasps her hands together and nods at several people in the front row of the Church of Goodwill crowd.

  “Hi, Moira, lovely to see you,” Leanne’s mother says. She seems not to have noticed that Moira believes Leanne is the spawn of Satan. I can’t get the picture of Leanne behind the Revlon counter out of my mind. The white smock she always wore, and the blue satin eyeshadow.

  The door at the back of the room swings open with a creak. Five children are standing there, my two at the front. They’ve obviously heard the praying.

  “I’m bored,” Jake says to no one in particular.

  “Hi, Leanne,” Melissa says.

  “Hi, Melissa. Hi, Jake. It’s Leonora now,” Leanne answers.

  The praying fades away. Everyone’s looking at my children as they wander down to stand beside me. Jake’s dropped half his dinner on his T-shirt. And I hadn’t noticed when we left the house that Melissa’s got hold of my foundation again. She’s caked it on and it ends in a dark line at her jaw. I wonder if I look like that when I wear it.

  “Hey, Leanne, you look great. No more pimples,” Melissa says.

  “Melissa!” I say. I pull the two of them into the row beside me and wonder if anyone would notice me holding my hands over their mouths and noses. Just for a little while.

  “Can we go home now?” Jake whispers.

  “Have you heard from Dad?” Melissa asks, as she does every five minutes at home. No, I haven’t heard from her father, even though he’s staying in a hotel ten minutes from where we are now. I used to hate him. Now I despise him.

  Trudy has moved to the side of the room where her congregation is still praying.

  “What about love potions?” Maxine calls out. “Can you make them, Leanne—sorry, Leonora?”

  “Oh yeah, no worries. And amulets and charms to attract a lover. That’s easy.”

  Excitement hums in a surge of current through the left gallery, made up mainly of single mothers. The Christians don’t stand a chance. Before the mayor has an opportunity to make a pronouncement on satanic practices in the town, people are crowding around Leanne, who blushes and hands out business cards.

  “I declare the meeting closed,” the mayor shouts above the hubbub.

  Jake’s got hold of my hand and he’s trying to pull me out the door. I call goodbye over my shoulder to Norm. As I get dragged past I see the members of the right gallery look at each other.

  “All we can do is pray,” one of them says, shaking her head sadly.

  Jake, stronger than a runaway lawn mower, propels me through the corridor toward the car park. In the alcove near the front door stands a knot of people. Perhaps they came late. Helen has spotted them too. It is as though all the unmarried men of Helen’s dreams have come together to taunt her. The grade-thre
e teacher is talking earnestly with Merv Bull. Beside them, the widowed farmer from beyond Riddley’s Creek stands with his thumbs hooked through his belt loops, staring into space.

  I smile at the group as we pass. Helen tries to nod at the men, but she’s carrying her neighbor’s two-year-old on her shoulders and the sudden shift in balance makes her stagger past like a drunk.

  “At the end of the day,” the grade-three teacher says to Merv Bull, “it’s all about civil liberties, isn’t it.”

  Merv nods. “And a little bit of magic in your life never hurts either,” he says.

  I glance back when I hear him say that. He’s looking straight at me and I feel a heat in my face. He nods. My face starts to burn. Jake tugs at my hand and before I know it I’m out on the street.

  15

  THE SHIRE MEETING last night was a distraction, but the moment I put the kids to bed and tried to get some sleep myself, the night demons arrived to torment me. Perhaps Melissa is right: it is my fault that Tony hasn’t visited the kids. I am horrible. I am an ogre. He is right to have left me. And so on and so on until I sobbed myself to sleep. This morning I drifted through my chores in a dreary haze. In the afternoon I arrive at the school to pick up the kids. Helen is at the gate too. Today my life is small and pinched and the sky seems vast and filled with a relentless glare.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asks, prodding my forearm with a finger. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

  “No,” I answer.

  “I said we’ve only a two-year extension for keeping the school.”

  “I know.”

  “So are you going to do something about it?”

  “Not right now.”

  Helen stares at me. I stare back. My eyes are so tired that staring makes them water and I rub them with my fists.

  “Don’t do that—it’ll make your wrinkles worse,” Helen says.

  We peel ourselves away from the side of Helen’s car, where we have been leaning as we wait for the kids to get out of school. She’s picking up her cousin’s eight-year-old twins. Helen had her boy, Alex, when she was eighteen and now he’s doing an apprenticeship in Melbourne, so she’s one of the people we call on to help out with our kids. She says she’ll get it all back when Alex comes home with his own children, which will be fairly soon if family history is any indication.