The Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy - vol 05

by Bill Congreve (ed) (v1. 0) (epub)

  “Sure.” Niki smiled again, though Jimbo could tell some of the warmth had left her lips. “I’ll miss you.”

  “Same.” Jimbo felt the knot unravelling, but he fought to hold it back. His eyes felt hot. “Write me, eh?” He tried to return her smile, thought about hugging her again and ended up patting her upper arm awkwardly.

  “Train’s coming,” Uncle Frank said, as a slow rumbling reverberated throughout the station.

  Children yelled and screamed while the livestock snorted and grunted uneasily. Cranky McNabb, the publican of The Aussie, had donned his Stationmaster garb and paraded along the platform squawking into a microphone that crackled “Stand Clear!” through hidden speakers. Keats, Mason and a few other bruisers, also in uniform, had been employed for the day to enforce crowd control. Keats had once told Jimbo he loved the ex-police batons McNabb allowed them to use at the station. Much better than the heavy baseball bats down at the pub. Easier to smash skulls without getting too tired, Keats had said, and the bats splintered bone whereas the batons only cracked them. Civilized tools of the trade. Jimbo reckoned Keats pretended he was a cop while he held that baton - Keats had failed cop school because he’d refused to be wired.

  The flat-nosed engine appeared from the black maw of the tunnel, its gunmetal casing reflecting the sun, a metal serpentine creature pulling its carriaged body slowly behind it. And, as always, a breath of awe stole from Jimbo’s lungs, even though he’d seen this more than a hundred times. What strange City goods were to be unloaded this time? Would there be stranger faces disembarking to settle here? Of those who had previously left Shepparton, would any be returning briefly on holiday or forever as losers? The questions of childhood now lay buried in his heart beneath the knowledge his cousin would soon be climbing into the belly of this beast before it returned to the City.

  The train slid into the station, the foremost carriages laden with trade goods. Traders surged towards these and Keats and Mason moved in brandishing their batons. Towards the rear of the train were two passenger compartments, empty apart from a couple of month-trippers, but it was the last compartment most of the Shepp residents had come to welcome. It was an elaborate black carriage, painted with thick white streamers, and flowered with steel blossom - the Marriage Carriage.

  A faded red carpet was unrolled and the crowd formed lines on either side falling into a hushed anticipation. The tinted steel doors opened. A brief whiff of air-conditioned perfume stole into the hot air.

  “Can you see her?” Fitzy asked. Sweat had stuck his white shirt to the folds of fat on his back.

  “Not yet.” Jimbo peered over Dave’s shoulder who had managed to jostle his way to the edge of the carpet.

  Brian stepped from the carriage in his father’s wedding tux, squinted into the sun, and smiled. The crowd cheered. He turned, his arm outstretched behind him into the carriage interior shadows, and drew his white-veiled bride forward into the light to meet his town.

  Behind them, barely visible inside the carriage, lurked the Cartel men, uniformed and wired, their delivery safe and seen.

  Jimbo nudged Fitzy and Dave. “Same bastards what did Wazza.”

  “Keats reckons he’s scored an interview through the Mouse,” said Fitzy. “Going to the City next month for wiring.”

  “Bullshit. Keats?”

  “No shit. He’s been patching with home mods for a while down The Aussie. Reckons he’s got what it takes now to be Head-Sec at the House.”

  “Fuck me.” Jimbo shook his head in disbelief.

  As the newly weds descended onto the carpet, the crowd cheered again and showered them in plastic sparkling confetti. They walked, black tux and white lace, arm in arm, towards the horse-drawn Vauxhall where Brian’s Old Man and lady stood. His old lady beamed and dabbed at her eyes.

  Jimbo hurled his confetti at Brian’s head as he passed. “Good on ya, ya cunt!”

  The bride’s skin appeared tanned, an olive complexion perhaps, and dark black hair tumbled from beneath her veil down the bare top of her back. She was a little shorter than Brian’s six-foot, so she was definitely of good stock. The wedding dress clung to her lithe curved body as she walked sure-footed and straight with a luring sway to her hips. She’d breed well, if Brian was lucky. From beneath the veil, her full, painted lips were permanently parted in a smile over pearly teeth.

  “Money well spent,” said Dave. “Even I’d consider saving for that.”

  Fitzy laughed. “You’ve blown it all at the House, mate. You couldn’t even afford an Abo. What time’s the reception start down The Aussie?”

  “Four this arvo,” said Jimbo. He watched them climb into the back of the Vauxhall, and how the dress slid up to her thigh as she took a seat. Just like Niki’s legs, he thought, his mind in the river kicking through water following the length of calf from knee to slender ankle.

  Brian’s Old Man climbed into the driver’s seat and jerked the reins. The horses dragged the car into the main street, a flotilla of fruit cans tied to the rear bumper rattling noisily.

  “Reckon he fucked her on the way here?” asked Dave, running his hand through the sweat in his hair.

  “Be bad luck,” said Jimbo. “Brian’ll be saving it for tonight.”

  “Five bucks he did,” said Fitzy. “We should check out the Marriage Carriage. Have a bit of a sniff, eh?”

  Dave laughed. “You’ll never get in there. The Cartel boys will do you.”

  “No, they won’t. They’re busy.” Fitzy pointed across the dispersing crowd. “With your cousin.”

  Uncle Frank shook one of the Cartel men’s hands. The other Cartel man examined a piece of paper, nodded, and handed it back to Niki. Jimbo half expected the man to press his fingers against her neck. He shuddered, remembering the sting.

  “I can’t fucken believe it,” Jimbo said under his breath. “She’s working for the fucken Cartel.”

  “Nah, mate, don’t be stupid, they’ll just be her security for the train ride. She’s valuable goods now she’s got a job.” Fitzy whacked Jimbo on the arm. “Come on, let’s check out the Carriage.”

  As Dave and Fitzy ran towards the Marriage Carriage, Jimbo stared at the men in dark suits with their metal eyes. And how they touched her arm. And how she laughed and smiled. And how the train would be leaving in just over an hour. And how he’d most likely never see her again.

  Jimbo needed a drink and a fight bad. He’d get both tonight at Brian’s wedding bash.

  ~ * ~

  In the hot shadows of the lounge room, Jimbo caught the Old Man flicking through an old slide show on the screen. The Old Man tried to flick it off, but Jimbo saw the photos of himself and Niki as kids before the screen went blank.

  “Didn’t hear you come home,” the Old Man said. His voice cracked. “Musta dozed off.”

  He wiped at his face but not before Jimbo noticed the tears streaked on his cheeks.

  “Mum’s going down to Brian’s with Uncle Frank and Aunty Lana. She told me to come and get you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, just let me go and put on me tie.” The Old Man struggled out of his armchair. “Ya see her off?”

  “Nah, couldn’t be bothered waiting around. Ya got Brian’s wedding present ready?”

  “It’s in the shed. Ya mum wrapped it up already.”

  “Does it work?”

  The Old Man sneered at him. “Of course it fucken works. Not that hard to modify a baby monitor, ya stupid bastard. What do ya take me for? He’ll be able to keep dibs on her until she’s settled in.”

  “Whatever. Just hurry up, will ya, the beer’s getting warm.”

  ~ * ~

  “You’re a bit agro tonight, mate,” said Keats.

  “What of it?” The booze had begun to mince Jimbo’s brain, but that was how he wanted it. “You wanna fucken go?”

  The room was swirling with sweat and bodies. The wedding band hammered away on drums and pianos and guitars and banjos with their version of Australian Chisel’s classic ‘Working Class Man
’. Jimbo had vomited earlier and the stains still showed on the front of his shirt. The Aussie was getting leery now that Brian had gone. His bride had burst into tears and Brian’s old lady had taken her home while Brian argued and swore and punched things.

  “Just saying, mate.” Keats pushed some pills into Jimbo’s hand. “Ya look like ya gotta a lot on your mind. These are good, try one. It’ll take it all off.”

  “This City shit, is it, Keats?”

  “Latest and greatest.”

  Jimbo threw the pills onto the heaving dance floor. “Stick the City up your arse, Keats. You and ya fucken Cartel mates. We don’t need youse cunts.”

  “What’s ya problem?”

  “Go and get on that train for ya fucken City innaview. Hope ya come back bust and stinking a ya own piss.”

  “Ah, fuck you, Jimbo.” Keats turned away and headed through the crowd towards the door.

  “Come on, cunt, I’ll fucken do ya!” Jimbo thrust his fist towards where Keats’s head had been. “Ya fucken coward! Where ya going?”

  “Off to work,” said Keats. “Fuck you.”

  “Yeah? Oh, yeah?” Jimbo shouted. “At the House? Yeah? Well, I’ll burn that fucken House down, ya hear me? You and all those City sluts!”

  But Keats was out the door and gone.

  A strong hand gripped his shoulder. “Think you’ve had enough, boy.”

  Jimbo spun round, his fists swinging. “I’ll do you too, cunt!”

  A fist crashed into the side of Jimbo’s head and he went down onto the concrete floor amongst the damp cigarette butts and sticky pools of alcohol.

  “Ya’ve had enough, boy!” The Old Man launched his foot into Jimbo’s stomach. “Ya not man enough yet, boy! Ya still need some sense beaten into ya!”

  Somewhere, someone screamed, “He’s a working class maaaaaannn!” into a microphone. Drums pounded.

  Jimbo curled around the next boot to his gut, his breath gone, the anger spent in the spittle surrounding the sobs from his mouth.

  “Take it easy, Mr White.” Dave’s voice.

  The band between songs. Jimbo’s mother crying. His mother limping, his father kicking, his aunty limping, kicking, Dave’s mother limping, kicking through the water with those slender ankles ...

  “Ya can stop now, Phil.” The ashtray voice of Cranky McNabb. “I think he heard ya already.”

  “Shoulda been the other way round,” said the Old Man. “She shoulda stayed, not him. Worthless piece of shit.”

  Jimbo’s mother crying.

  Dave and Fitzy under each arm, helping him out of the steam of bodies and into the calm of a midnight summer sky burning with stars.

  “Go home, Jimbo.”

  “Sleep it off, mate.”

  Laughter.

  Jimbo crying.

  Later, after the pub had closed and the party had died, Jimbo woke on the footpath, his mouth full of congealed blood and vomit. He staggered to his feet and marched towards the House at the Paris end of High Street with the intent of burning it to the ground.

  * * * *

  * * *

  Part II: Statement of Intention

  Summer dragged on like a cigarette pressed to the palm of the hand. Fitzy left for the City to work for a trucking magnate set up through a contact of Wazza’s. Wazza, after healing at his folks’ place, up and left in Kylie one hot morning, Kylie chewing up the gravel as they roared past the cannery. Dave squandered his pay at the House working his way through the dozen women living there. Keats got wired to the House, wore dark suits, and no longer worked doors at The Aussie. And Jimbo, who Keats had beat gently unconscious in the early hours of the morning after Brian’s wedding bash, toiled overtime at the fruit cannery, saving every dollar he could, pretending he was happy with his lot.

  Jimbo sat with his back to the factory on a dying patch of grass overlooking Old Dookie Road during his lunch break. The wind blew hot, but he had chosen a spot that carried the stench of spoiling fruit downwind from where he sat.

  Jimbo removed the creased letter from his overalls. He’d read it twice since it had come on last month’s train and he lifted it to his nose, imagining he could still smell her perfume on the page.

  “Hey, Jimbo.” Brian plonked himself down, munching on a beetroot sandwich. “That from Niki? How’s she doing?”

  “Good.” Jimbo scanned the letter - her hand writing this time, not typed like the first letter. “She’s working in one of them big buildings in the City on Collins Street or something. Says being a PA is interesting and the people are fun to work with.”

  “What’s a PA?”

  “Personal Assistant. To the boss. I guess that means she’s pretty high up. Got an apartment she shares with two other women who’ve just started work at the same company.”

  “Three women in the same house?” Brian grinned. “Can ya dig it? Only in the City, Jimbo. Here in Shepp the closest thing we got to something like that is the House.”

  “Niki ain’t working for no House!” Jimbo scowled. “She’s a fucken PA!”

  “Easy mate, never said she worked for no House. Just meant it’s weird, eh? Must be lots of women in the City for that to happen, ya know, share a house and shit.”

  “Guess so. You went to the City to get ya missus. Ya must a seen heaps of women.”

  Brian shook his head and took another bite of his sandwich. “Didn’t see many of them when I was there, not like I thought I would. Saw more than I ever seen round here but. Reckon they was all hidden away in their fancy jobs and apartments. Mostly blokes everywhere, trying to get work and shit.”

  They sat in silence for a while, the only sound Brian chewing on his food, if they ignored the flies and the muted hum of the factory. Jimbo folded the letter and put it back in his overalls pocket.

  “She says the company will pay for two train tickets a year,” Jimbo said. “Wants to know if I want to go visit her on one of them. She’s gunna save the other to come home for Christmas.”

  “Yeah, train’s fucken expensive. Ya gunna go?”

  “Would you?”

  “Too many people for me, Jimbo. I hated the place. All those tall buildings squashing me down. I’d tell her to come here.” Brian frowned and picked at the dirt. “Only went there to get some permanent pussy.” He looked up and grinned at Jimbo, beetroot stuck between the gaps in his teeth. “That’s the only fucken reason to go if you arkse me.”

  Jimbo grinned back. “How’s Belle doing? She settled in yet? We haven’t really seen you two hitting the town.”

  “You know how it is, mate. Takes em a while to adjust. Dad reckons at least a year before she’ll be safe to go out. Took my mum at least that.”

  “I hear ya.” Jimbo nudged Brian with his elbow. “So how many times ya fucked her?”

  “Fucken heaps, mate. Better than all that teenage a-hole shit we used to do. The real thing.” Brian grinned again, though this time it seemed forced, like someone had shoved a finger into his arsehole and told him it would be fun.

  “Something’s wrong, Bri. What’s up?”

  “Keats been talking, has he? Fuck.” Brian sucked in a lungful of hot air. “Might as well tell you too. It’s not what I thought it’d be like. She keeps crying every other fucken night, ‘bout how she misses her home and family and shit. Thank fuck for the neighbourhood watch, dunno what I’d do without them. Thanks for the monitor too, Jimbo. It’s come in handy. Keats caught her trying to leave the house when I was at work. Who knows where the fuck she woulda run off to.”

  “No worries, mate. Knew it’d do ya good.”

  “She even fucken cries when we’re rooting, puts me off big time.” Brian shook his head again. His fingers stabbed at the dirt now. “Dad says that’s normal for a while, but it’s been almost three months of this bawling and shit!”

  “That is normal, Brian,” said Jimbo. “She’ll get used to it. Ya have to hit her?”

  “Not much. She’s pretty sweet.” Brian lowered his voice. “Can’t bring mysel
f to hit her, eh?”

  “No shit? If it’s any consolation, mate, don’t think I could either.”

  Brian tried to smile at that. “And she can’t cook that good yet. Fucken pisses me off - I paid ten grand for Belle! Woulda thought that’d be sorted.”

  “She’s sexy though. I’d do her.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Jimbo. You’re a mate.” Brian stood and brushed the grass and dirt off his overalls. “Don’t regret spending the money. Ain’t no other way to get a wife around here unless you’re born rich or lucky. I heard ya been saving up.”