by Rosalie Ham
Neralie trailed after them, but he only became concerned when the barmaid opened the back door of the car, settled into the back seat, buckled up and said, ‘I think the east side of the lake will be best. We’ll get the setting sun.’
‘Best for what?’
‘Our picnic. We’re off to Riverglen, aren’t we? Just chuck a U-ey, there’s no cars coming.’
‘You’re coming too?’
‘Is there a reason you haven’t paid your rent this month, Mr Masterson, or is it because you forgot? You can pay Elsie when you give her ninety dollars for the hamper.’
‘Ninety bucks?’
‘Bergens’ sauerkraut and German tube steak, prosciutto, quinoa salad, crusty bread, cheese and olives and apple strudel with fresh cream – everything we need for a quality day out. I’m looking forward to a day off, actually.’
‘Me too,’ said Lana. She reached over to pat Stacey’s thigh like a mother reassuring a kid about to have a flu shot.
‘You a brut man when it comes to champagne or will you be sticking to the beer?’ Then Neralie slapped her forehead with her palm. ‘What am I saying? You’re driving, you can’t have anything.’
In Stacey’s mind, the images of naked Lana on the new carpet in the vacant resort apartments at Lake Riverglen pixelated and vanished, and he wondered if the newsagent was an easier prospect after all. Then Lana smiled at him. ‘He can have a glass or two.’
As they drove away from the town, the locals dribbled into the bar and gathered together – as one – to plan events and procedures for the night of the cull.
o0o
They ate sitting on a rug on the brand-new bank and looked at the low tide along the dried clay sides of the reservoir. The bottom of the lake was barely covered, but it was alive with creatures, and even the gum seedlings waiting hopefully on the nude shoreline looked perky.
Stacey pointed to the galahs, cockatoos, corellas, white ibis, magpies, crested pigeons and even a seagull, all circling, paddling and squawking. ‘Wildlife,’ he said.
‘Invasive wildlife.’
‘It’s a start.’
‘Jasey would say it’s only successful once the ducks arrive.’
‘And herons, water hens . . . other animals.’
‘Toucans and shoebills?’
‘And turtles, platypuses,’ he said earnestly.
The barmaid stood and walked away, shaking her head, but he didn’t care what she thought; he was pissed off. What was the point of trying to do the right thing, show women a good time, spend money on them, if they undermined the purpose? He twisted the lid off the ice-cold Crownie and lay back on the rug next to Lana while Neralie squatted on the shore with her glass of champers. Lana leaned down and kissed him. ‘Next date, just us.’ His heart lifted, his faith in humanity flickered, and then his phone rang. Lana thought the noise on the phone sounded like a far-off panicked cockatoo. As he listened, his smile dropped, and then he hung up and stared at the bare concrete apartments for a while. ‘Gotta go, girls. Sorry.’
He drove as slowly as he could to the Riverglen Water Authority offices.
o0o
Glenys Dingle stood at the marble handbasin in the sparkling, private, corporate bathroom re-reading another letter from Mitchell Bishop. This letter boasted a couple of dozen signatures in support of his arguments. She dabbed at her teary eyes and applied a new layer of creamy powder to her cheeks and walked through the deserted office building calmly, her bottom unmoving in the control panties beneath her casual weekend slacks. As she passed the men waiting in the foyer, she beckoned them to follow. In her bright office she sat at her desk and narrowed her eyes at the two men settling into their chairs. A pile of printed emails and letters from locals sat between them, about solar meters that didn’t work and water that flowed through decommissioned channels at night and black market water for $150 a megalitre.
Cyril thought she might enquire as to his recovery, his facial fractures, but she just said, ‘Well?’
He felt in his pockets for something and Stacey turned in his chair to watch.
‘Let me be specific,’ Glenys said. ‘There is a situation with the supply channel, which I understand is the responsibility of Miss Esther Shugg and Messrs Callum and Mitchell Bishop, so why am I getting garrulous emails and phone calls from people I’ve never heard of but who appear to be quite closely associated with you two and that particular channel? Why can’t you appease these people, find solutions, keep them thinking they’re happy? Make them fit the plan.’
‘You see, Glenys –’
‘I have spoken to you about this vicious task force, have I not?’
‘We’ve retained the channel so we can divert water to the lake at Riverglen – your lake. We can make a lot of money by maintaining that one channel. We can use it to store water, use it as an overflow, and we can show any “inquisitive people”’ – he pointed at the ceiling – ‘where water is if they question the figures.’
She pointed to the ceiling. ‘The “inquisitive people” you refer to, Mr Horrick, otherwise known as directors, chief executive officers, and the minister, have all received the same communication I have, and those letters assert quite clearly that you want to charge Mr Bishop to maintain a decommissioned channel for your water management arrangements.’
‘As you say, it’s just a matter of a failed negotiation – for our purposes, I stress. We’ll sort it out.’
‘Why were the solar meters along the river not earthed, Mr Horrick?’
‘Faulty earth rings. A technical glitch, all quite fixable. The tender to reinstall them’s already filled.’
‘A private company,’ Stacey said, and Cyril added hastily that they’d used them before. ‘So there’s no need for you to worry.’
Her fingers drummed on the glass-topped desk, the aquamarines glittering. ‘I don’t respond well when people patronise me, Mr Horrick. Nor do I respond well to disgruntled irrigators when they’re disgruntled because someone I’m responsible for has failed, when you put us all at risk of undue scrutiny. You will make sure we are not the subject of harassment again, as I imagine you two don’t want to find yourselves jobless at this point of your careers.’
But Stacey had thought this through; he was prepared for Glenys Gravedigger Dingle. He was not going to sit there and lose his future – he’d made a choice: he would stand and fight. ‘Neither do you.’
Glenys Dingle turned her heavily made-up face to Stacey and blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You don’t want to find yourself jobless either.’
Cyril spoke a little too loudly. ‘What young Stacey means is he doesn’t want you to find yourself jobless because of us.’
‘No,’ Stacey said. ‘She’s criticising us for doing what she wants us to do and she’s meant to be representing the people. She’s meant to be looking after their interests, not her own.’
Glenys remained speechless no longer. ‘How dare you!’
‘If we lose our jobs then we’re free agents – I can say what I bloody like.’ How proud Lana would be when he described how he’d called the corruptor’s bluff. Then his guts churned with Bergens’ sauerkraut and German tube steak and he desperately needed to fart.
Glenys’s fury broke free. ‘I am the person here with the power,’ she said, her voice high and thin. ‘I have summoned you here on a Saturday for obvious reasons, but I can, at any time, choose to expose mismanagement or corruption simply by ordering an audit of you two.’ She stood up. ‘You men are so full of shit.’
Stacey felt the pressure of his large intestine and shifted in his chair. Cyril was paralysed. His face ached and his nose was clogged with dried blood and shredded cartilage.
Glenys screeched, ‘I’ve had a phone call from the chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. He accused me of sending half of the riverfront properties and the
ir thirsty livestock out to sea, so I now look incompetent, callous and careless, and next I’ll have the fucking greenies and PETA outside, chucking drowned fish at me. I’ve had to stop releasing water! Now go and meet your targets! Release water but do it using less water. And appease that bloody task force or I’ll see you all charged with theft, corruption, embezzlement and environmental vandalism and anything else I can find in your shed, Mr Horrick.’
They felt her eyes on them, like needles in their necks, as they stood and went to the door.
Cyril turned and said, ‘But we did manage to put some water in the lake.’
‘It’s almost Christmas, Mr Horrick, and I don’t see enough water for paying customers to float a matchbox yacht let alone paddle, swim or waterski.’
o0o
It was Nurse Leonie Bergen, returning from a visit to Mary-Lou Jeong and her brand-new baby, who alerted Mitch to the donkeys. ‘I see you’ve got them closer to the road, all ready for their Christmas visit.’
He’d entirely forgotten the nativity scene for the oldies.
Then Nurse Leonie said carefully, ‘They’ve been in the same spot since yesterday, possibly the day before.’
‘I’ll get them ready,’ he said. ‘Give them a bit of a brush-up and polish their hoofs.’ He went straight to them, taking lucerne hay and oats. The hay and water he’d left for them days ago had been nibbled, but the donkeys were still under the same stand of shade trees. Unease entered his unhappy heart; something was wrong. Cleopatra turned to watch him drive up and her guts pumped out a violent heehaw, her head tossing and her teeth biting at the air. The dog barked and, as the ute slowed, she jumped, landed badly and recovered, stood and barked again, but by then Mitch knew something worse than anything else was about to unfold. Mark stood by the dilapidated fence with strands of rusted wire puddling around his fetlocks. Cleo watched, her nose near her brother’s nose. Mitch heard the drone of swarming flies and caught a whiff of rotting flesh. In front of Mark the dry grass was nibbled to the ground in a wide arc as far as his mouth would reach and behind him was a compact pile of manure. He tried to step away but the wires hanging from the rotted fence post jangled and caught and his head jerked up in pain. Mitch spoke calmly to Cleo, gave her hay and stroked her neck. He wished he had an apple. The dog sat respectfully at a distance, her ears down and her two grey-flecked eyebrows close. Mitch extended lucerne to Mark, but the gelding was passive, defeated. He ran his hand down the donkey’s flanks and over his rump and gently down his back leg to the hock. Mark stamped and squealed and Cleo honked, and Mitch said, ‘I’m sorry.’ The wire was pulled tight and cut deep into Mark’s flesh, biting to the fetlock bone and exposing the cannon bone. Busy fat green flies worked in bunches along the lacerations. Mark swished his tail once, feebly, but the flies remained.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mitch said. ‘So sorry.’ Tears came and he saw himself as Mandy saw him: stupid, careless and weak. He had been distracted and now it was too late. ‘You’ll have a limp after this,’ he said. ‘And you can live in the house yard, alright? Eat all the apples and peaches.’
He went back to the ute and found the wire cutters, emptied his water flask into his hat and walked back slowly, Cleo watching his every move. He held the water under Mark’s nose but the donkey just sniffed and turned his big head away. Mitch put the hat in front of Cleo then got down on his knees and cut the wire. But when he said, ‘Walk on,’ Mark stayed. Mitch turned to Cleopatra – ‘Walk on’ – and she looked at her brother then took two steps, so Mark took a step, limping, his head shooting up in pain. He lowered his head to fresh new lucerne sprouts, ripped a few sprigs from the bale and let them spill from his big floppy mouth. He looked at Cleo and took another step, then he swayed, righted himself, but buckled sideways and crumpled like a dropped sack, the wind leaving his lungs like air from a blacksmith’s bellows and the light in his eyes dull.
Mitch called and called, patted him roughly, and finally sat with the great furry mound, weeping, apologising to Cleo. Then he phoned Isobel and told her that her donkey was dead.
‘He was old,’ Isobel said. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ and the phone went silent against his ear and he knew he had failed his sister, failed in his responsibilities to everyone: the donkeys, Neralie, Callum, even Mandy.
o0o
At Girri Girri, Digby found his wife in bed in the middle of the afternoon, crying again. ‘What now?’
‘Mark.’
‘She’s hurt the donkey?’
‘No. He just died.’ She wailed, ‘I loved him,’ and Digby said, ‘I know,’ and thought about Ralph, his long-dead lorikeet.
But Isobel hated herself. She’d made Mitch take money from the farm to pay her out when their mother died. ‘You’re entitled to it,’ Mitch had said. But she didn’t earn it, and she could have had his fences fixed. There were plenty of fine Merino sheep in the world, why did anyone need more sheep? Good farmers have good fences, but fences cost money, and there was no money in a drought, just dilapidated properties with aged, costly infrastructure, and how could Mitch reap anything when everything was broken? Of course he was going to lose the farm!
Digby patted his dear and lovely sobbing wife.
o0o
At Bishops Corner, Mitch put some baked beans in the microwave, and as he leaned and waited for the ping, he felt a warm glow coming from the AGA stove. He opened the grate door and saw that someone had been burning documents.
Mandy said, ‘Told you I’d fire up the AGA for Christmas.’
He didn’t want to think about what she’d burned; he just served Callum baked beans and toast and said nothing. Neither he nor Callum was hungry, so they stared desolately at the TV. Mandy ate her dinner and left the kitchen without turning off the light, so small black insects arrived and got stuck in the beans in the saucepan.
23.
The capitalist system destroys
Tinka sniffed her breakfast and looked at Mitch. Beans? She ate, then joined her forlorn friend in the machinery shed, watching quietly, perusing the landscape and catching the odd passing fly while Mitch attached the grader blade to the tractor. As the loud tractor approached, Cleo did not move. She remained standing with her dead brother, Tink next to her as Mitch graded a great hole. When he placed the grader at Mark’s back. Cleo sniffed him, then, ears pricked forward, watched as he gently pushed the poor lovely beast into the hole. Then Mark gradually vanished beneath waves of moist brown dirt.
Tink and Mitch left Cleo standing vigil at her brother’s grave, and Mitch spent a terrible day mending fences in the loud sunshine with only the sound of tears running down his nose and dripping into the dirt.
Mid-afternoon, Cleo started crying. At first she was just squeaking, like a rusted axle, but she worked up to terrible squawks, long, loud and angry, sounds that scraped over the green shoots and dry grass, her heehaws stricken and grief-laced, her ribs blowing in and out, and her guts jumping inside her hide. Mitch gave her carrots and apples, wheat, oats and water, but she cried through lunch.
Cal said, ‘You’ll have to phone the vet.’
‘He can’t do anything.’ It would just be a waste of money.
Cal went to the laundry and looked up at the gun safe, then limped back to his rocker and blew his nose, wiped his tears away and said, ‘Three reasons to kill: food, vermin and suffering.’
o0o
Stacey eased out his door and crept down the back stairs, but Elsie was waiting. She handed him an invoice and he looked at it briefly, said, ‘You can’t charge me that much for a picnic basket, Elsie.’
‘You ordered it, I made it.’ She put her hand out. ‘And your boss never paid his quite substantial tab on opening night.’
Stacey put the company credit card in her palm then went to collect Cyril, but his wife said he was still at the vet with one of the spaniels. ‘He has an injured paw,’ Mrs Horrick said. ‘Glenys Dingle
stood on it.’
Stacey stepped back, opening his mouth to say he’d better get cracking, but Mrs Horrick said, ‘Come in, Cyril won’t be long.’ She almost smiled.
Stacey looked at his watch, at his car, but Mrs Horrick yanked him inside, waving to the woman across the road watching from behind her rosebush.
‘That business you two are running, those meters taking up all the room in my studio?’ She was standing very close. ‘The business is in my name, but I’ve never been told anything about it, have I?’
The hairy folds on Stacey’s body started to get damp. ‘You haven’t?’
Mrs Horrick waved a letter at him. ‘This is from the State Water Authority. Paul put it in my mailbox “by mistake”. It says C. & P. Water Pty Ltd has won the tender to reinstall all the solar-powered water pumps and meters along the river.’
Cyril’s car pulled into the drive.
‘Oh, that . . . They stuffed up the meter installation, Mrs Horrick, really stuffed it up, it was a big problem, but we sorted it out.’
‘I knew nothing about being a company director, because if I had known, I’d have told you it’s illegal to win your own tender.’
Cyril arrived with the spaniel in his arms, waving the dog’s shaved, recovered paw, Hello. Behind him on the street, a van pulled up, and then another: brightly coloured vehicles that needed a run through the car wash. The woman over the road moved to her nature strip.
‘How much did the vet charge you?’
‘More than I’d anticipated.’ He kissed the dog’s ear. ‘All better, though.’
‘Did he give her pain medication and physio?’
‘Yes, dear.’
Pam snatched the dog and pointed over his shoulder. ‘Who are they?’
Thin dusty men came across the lawn. The least washed of them, a creature with earlobes you could see through to the landscape behind, stood in Pam’s petunias. ‘We didn’t get our pay.’
‘Well, the meters weren’t installed properly,’ Cyril explained.