She looked up at the top of the big mountain, then quickly away. Since hearing the chanting on the ridge Jo had had a rethink about what she’d always dismissed as pure superstition. She knew Wollumbin was strong men’s business, and to be avoided at all costs. She turned away from the peak, anxious to get going to some safer country.
Twoboy made his way back through the crowd holding two fish-burgers, and Jo took one gratefully. Biting into the juicy battered flake, Jo saw that the distant peak of the big mountain was clearly reflected in the shopwindow in front of her. There’s no getting away from the bloody mountain in this town, she thought uneasily.
‘Don’t smile, ya face’ll crack,’ Twoboy said through red-veined eyes.
Jo didn’t answer him. He’d obviously had a smoke since heading off to grab lunch. Coming to Mardi Grass first had been a mistake; they should have driven through Lismore on the way to the carnival, not postponed it until they were leaving. Now, with Twoboy thoroughly bombed, she would have to drive – and whatever mystery was drawing her to the western horizon would have to make itself known on top of the practical mental necessities of steering and navigating and not snapping at her man for getting into the yarndi that was fucking with the heads of so many blackfellas around the country. He’s an adult, Jo told herself, thirty-seven years old. You’re not his fucken mother. But it was bloody stupid not to have anticipated this and gone to Lismore first. Thank God Ellen had stayed behind in Mullum.
‘I think we should hook it soon,’ Jo proposed. ‘I gotta work out who’s dragging me to Lismore.’ Hopefully to Lismore, she thought. Hopefully not to Kyogle, or Ku Klux Casino.
Twoboy pouted.
‘The mob are having a jam ... River’s boys are there ... and Johnny Didge ... and that Gadigal cousin of Chris’s, the fella with only one arm. Wanna come check it out?’ Twoboy asked.
If only you knew, Jo thought, remembering mad twelve-hour jams in her past life.
‘Nah. Like I said, I wanna get going to Lismore.’
‘Well, I might go that way for a bit, then.’ Twoboy had tricky alliances to build and maintain with the local traditional owners, not to mention the lure of the music itself.
‘Yeah, okay, you go off and party with ya mates.’ Jo hated the way she sounded, but couldn’t seem to budge the anger that was burning in her since Comet died. ‘And I’ll go and work out this important business on me own.’
‘There’s more than one way back to the Dreamtime, darlin,’ Twoboy told her, proffering a joint. She viewed it with withering scorn.
‘Oh, what a load of crap! More than one way to the fucken psych ward, ya mean,’ Jo snapped. With Laz’s boy chronically suicidal from hydro, how could he even touch the stuff?
‘Suit yerself. I didn’t know you was such a bloody dugai,’ Twoboy said, when it became obvious that Jo wasn’t about to soften, and he sauntered away towards the musicians.
Yeah, you go smoke up some more, Jo told him sarcastically under her breath, and find some little white girls while yer at it who want a black souvenir of their trip to the bush. A thrill of alarm ran through her at the thought of Twoboy hooking up with some random stranger, a feeling she decided to drown at the pub.
Jo had finished one schooner and was debating whether to have a second or take the back road to Lismore alone, when a slim blonde woman appeared, silhouetted in the doorway of the bar. The woman, an attractive thirty-something, wore a short green dress with a denim jacket over the top, and was yelling drunken accusations at top note:
‘Are you the fucken slut dog that wants smashing? Eh? Eh!’
As a muso, Jo had witnessed this scene a thousand times in a thousand bars. Fascinated despite herself at the drama and likely violence, she looked behind her at the other drinkers. The faces there stared back and, mystified, Jo discovered that she was the object of the woman’s fury.
Denim Jacket had covered the ground between street and bar quickly, and was suddenly in Jo’s face, breathing bourbon fumes and reeking of cones. Oh pure class, sister, pure class.
Jo slid off the bar stool and stood ready to defend herself, hands dangling loose by her side. She noted with a mixture of relief and alarm that the bar attendant had quickly removed all the nearby empty glasses. But where was the bloody bouncer? Town full to busting with cops for Mardi Grass and no law and order in the actual pub. A semicircle of interested onlookers soon coalesced around the two women.
‘I said, is ya the fucken big hole that stole my man while I was in lockup?’
‘What?’ Jo reeled as several kinds of new information collided at once.
‘You binung goonj as well, ya fucken slut?’
So you’re a blackfella, thought Jo in mild surprise.
‘What man? What the fuck are ya talking about?’ Jo flung her arms up in consternation.
‘What man?’ The woman dripped with angry sarcasm, hands welded to her hips. ‘Twoboy, that what man! My man! Till I gets out and find he’s got some neeew woman, everyone reckons. Nevermind we sposed to go Laura next week!’
Jo stood facing the woman, paralysed with angry confusion. If only everything and everybody would go away. If only things could return to how they were before Comet died, before Twoboy arrived, before the divorce stole her real family away. If only life could be simple, and easy, and sane. But if only wasn’t going to stop any of this. She had to actually do something, had to act before she found herself stuck permanently in the middle of a Jerry Springer episode.
The woman had a couple of mates lurking behind her; there was no way of knowing whether they were ready to step in or not. Safest to assume they would, with the bouncer still MIA. Jo was taller than the blonde woman, and a bit heavier, but she was no pub brawler. Denim Jacket, on the other hand, looked like she was in her element.
‘What’s your name, love?’ Jo spoke as calmly as she could manage, given the surges of adrenalin pumping through her like she was hooked up to a fire hose. Don’t lose it, she told herself. Do Not Lose It. This silly bloody woman’s done nothing to you ... not yet.
‘Carly Wetherby, don’t wear it out!’ The woman was breathing from high in her chest, gulping air.
‘Well, Carly Wetherby, here’s the drill. If Twoboy wants to be your man, then you’re very bloody welcome to him. He’s out there yarn-died up somewhere, so you go fucken talk to him about it.’
Jo flung a furious hand towards the door, then narrowed her eyes at the woman. Tried to imagine what life Carly had lived to bring her to this point, stoned and fulldrunk, about to punch on in a pub with someone she’d never met. Ready to bash a stranger and wake up back in custody with a hangover and a whole lotta nothing going on. It seemed unbelievable to Jo that Twoboy could have ever been with this person, but that was a conversation for another time and place.
‘Oh, he wanna be my man, orright,’ Carly spat. ‘Don’t you worry bout that!’
Jo indicated the open door to the street and Carly paused. Beneath the jeans and t-shirt Jo was clearly a ball of muscle waiting to be triggered into action. Carly teetered.
‘I’m telling ya, he’s my man – so ya better back off real fucken quick, goddit?’ Carly snapped.
‘You got nothing to worry about there,’ Jo replied, holding her anger in with increasing difficulty, ‘you’re welcome to him, so why don’t ya just go find him?’ It occurred to her that any of the dozen wooden chairs within reach would make excellent weapons to defend herself with, if Carly decided to take things up a notch.
The cops arrived as the bouncers ran in from the back bar.
‘What’s up this time, Carly?’ the bouncer asked, provoking another angry torrent of abuse directed at Jo. The female cop seized her by the upper arms and propelled her unceremoniously into the waiting paddy wagon. The crowd outside booed; a couple of teenagers boldly kicked at the wagon, then melted back into the masses.
‘You here to make trouble too, are ya?’ the male constable snarled at Jo. She turned to him with a crinkled brow and spread her hand
s.
‘Do I look like trouble?’ she asked him, a little shrill.
‘You tell me,’ the cop glowered, looking like he was itching to unsnap his handcuffs. He glanced at the bouncer, who gave a small headshake.
‘No,’ Jo said tightly, ‘I don’t. I’m just having a quiet beer.’
‘Didn’t sound very fucking quiet to me. You wanna watch yourself, alright?’
The cop looked her up and down, threw in another long blue-eyed glare for good measure, and then sauntered back outside to where, from inside the paddy wagon, Carly was leading the crowd in song.
Jo shook her head and turned to the bar for the second beer she had intended to pass up. There was a conversation to be conducted with Twoboy about Carly Wetherby, but it wasn’t a conversation she was in any great hurry to have.
‘You okay?’ asked the nose-studded woman serving behind the bar, as she replaced the trays of empty glasses. ‘She’s a bit of a drama queen, our Carly.’
‘Oh, yeah, you know. Never a dull moment,’ Jo answered into her beer, a bit shaky on it. Not with Twoboy in my life, anyways.
‘The woman’s totally fucken womba,’ Twoboy protested as the Commodore sped towards Murwillumbah. ‘And I told you I had a psycho girfriend in Ipswich for a while.’
Jo narrowed her eyes at him and shifted the car into third, fishtailing around the corner so fast that she frightened herself.
‘You didn’t tell me she thought you were still together!’ she argued, accelerating out of the bend and spraying gravel. A family of waterhens on the verge scattered in fear of their lives.
‘It didn’t occur to me. I thought she had another six months to serve!’ Twoboy grabbed onto the handle above the door in alarm.
‘And that would have been alright, would it?’ Jo asked in disbelief. Out of sight, out of mind. How did intelligent men get off, behaving like such cretins?
Twoboy shrugged.
‘I just didn’t think it was an issue,’ he said. ‘How the fuck do I know what’s going through her tiny mind? C’mon, Jo. You can’t seriously think...’
Jo was silent as she digested Twoboy’s protests. He was right about one thing. He had definitely mentioned the crazy woman, all those weeks ago. He hadn’t said she was locked up though. Or what for – dealing yarndi.
‘What were you even doing with her?’ she asked with genuine curiosity. It seemed completely out of character.
‘Horizontal folk dancing, mainly,’ Twoboy joked, then pulled up at Jo’s expression. ‘Oh, I dunno, we hooked up at a party, and then after that she’d call me Friday nights and it was always pretty easy to go and have a drink and ... well, you know. It wasn’t anything serious.’
Not for you maybe, Casanova, reflected Jo. Cruising through life with no thought for the vulnerable women you hurt along the way.
‘How long did this go on?’
‘Three or four months. I was about to end it when she got busted. I was like, hasta la vista, baby.’ Twoboy was looking out the window and jigging his left leg.
‘So did you tell her the good news today?’ Jo asked tightly. Twoboy looked at her in suprise.
‘Yeah, of course! I lied and told her I was getting engaged, actually, so there’d be no room for confusion. Ya gotta be clear with these people.’ Twoboy took Jo’s left hand off the steering wheel and kissed it, laughing.
‘Wanna get married, my darlin?’ he twinkled through still slightly reddened eyes.
Jo snatched her hand back. Dickhead.
‘So I suppose she’s on the warpath now,’ Jo muttered, picturing Carly finding her alone on the farm and setting to work with waddies.
‘Nah,’ said Twoboy, ‘she’s just working off some prison shit, that’s all. She’ll have a new man to harass this time next week, nothing surer. I promise.’ Twoboy used his index finger to tuck Jo’s hair behind her ear, and then he left his hand resting comfortably on the back of her neck, massaging it. His voice softened as he said that Carly was irrelevant – didn’t Jo understand that? Today had been about meeting with some of the neighbouring traditional owners, yarning them up about the Native Title fight, and making sure that Uncle Oscar hadn’t managed to undermine the Jackson position since their last meeting. The smoke around the fire had cemented the neutrality of the younger lads for the time being, and Twoboy was well pleased with his day’s work.
‘I hope you’re right,’ Jo told him, ‘cos I didn’t sign up for any of this psycho bullshit. She was like that woman in the Blues Brothers.’ She barely slowed as the Commodore roared across a narrow one-lane bridge.
‘I’m sorry, babe. Maybe I did need to talk it through with her. But it’s all over now, ancient history.’ Twoboy shuffled CDs. After a minute he looked up. ‘Why we headed this way – I thought we were going home through Lismore?’
Jo explained in taut words of one syllable that her head was overflowing with the day’s dramas, and she didn’t feel at all in tune with whatever was dragging her over to the sunset side of Bundjalung country.
It would be a waste of time to detour through Lismore in this mood. Which meant the entire trip had been a day spent off the farm when she could have been building the cattle yard, or spraying those bloody camphors, or riding Comet–
Not riding Comet.
‘Hey–’ Twoboy said, smiling.
Jo grunted back without taking her gaze off the road. It was hit-a-roo and wreck-the-car time, just on dusk. And why should she smile back anyway? Twoboy was a long way from her good books, now. How very typical. Stupid-arse men with their leftover relationships and their selfishness and their inevitable need to go and get stoned when she had important things to do. Well, fuck him. Putting her priorities last, and–
‘Jo!’
‘What?’
‘Did we just have our first fight?’ Twoboy teased, poking the now-healed scar on her upper arm. ‘We did, hey? Didn’t we?’ His teeth gleamed very white in the fading light.
‘Fuck up and let me drive, or I’ll strangle you with ya own dreads.’
Twoboy gave a great bellow of laughter. Then he slid The Last Kinection inside the CD player and disappeared into the music all the way to Murwillumbah, while Jo quietly stewed behind the steering wheel.
Nine
‘But I’m nearly an hour late already!’ Ellen erupted as Jo drove up onto the footpath beside the cemetery and parked the ute.
It was Saturday afternoon. Ellen held a wrapped present and was wearing her favourite top of the moment, the one that informed the world its owner would rather be sleeping. What happens at fourteenth-birthday slumber parties these days? mused Jo. Probably not a lot of sleeping. Probably better, in fact, for a single parent not to dwell on the question too much.
‘I’ll be two minutes, tops,’ Jo promised through the open window. Did the jahjam think she wanted to spend a second longer at work than she needed to on a Saturday, for Chrissake?
Ellen muttered darkly and hunched down in the passenger seat, oppression radiating from every pore.
Jo sprinted a few steps and scissors jumped over the weldmesh fence. She grinned broadly as she landed on the balls of her feet among the outermost headstones. That was the upside to slaving over a hot farm; she was as fit as she’d been when, at twenty, she’d jammed all week and played loud sweaty gigs every weekend.
As she slid her key into the bronze lock of the storeroom, Jo heard a small animal scuttle away from her in fright. Rattus rattus, no doubt, the scourge of the new world. Old world. Basho wanted her to bait the vermin, but Basho could go jump off a cliff. It was bad enough that millions of camphors had to be sprayed to stop them taking over her and every other farm in northern New South Wales. Rodents in the storeroom were a small price to pay to know that mulanyin wasn’t hunting carcinogenic frogs in the roadside ditch; to see the parrots and fairy-wrens and butcherbirds on the farm and know that their eggs wouldn’t fracture in a mess of poisoned fragments before the chicks had a chance to hatch. Long Live the Mullum Organic Rodent, Jo ins
isted to Basho’s bafflement – although she wouldn’t have said no to an occasional visit from a deadly organic cat.
‘Two minutes is way up!’ called Ellen, drumming her left hand urgently on the outer panel of the ute door to underscore the point. Hmm. The kid’s really keen on this birthday party. Were there boys involved? Drugs? Boys and drugs? Girls and drugs?
‘Yeah, rightyo, don’t get ya flaps in a knot,’ Jo replied, retrieving her forgotten phone from beside the sink.
As she fumbled hurriedly to lock up, Greasy Hair walked slowly past the storeroom to her habitual perch. Sundays were the usual time for families to come and visit, the day when fresh flowers appeared on the graves and weeding was done by hands other than hers. On Mondays, Jo was always interested to see if any of her silent charges had had a visit. But it was Thursdays that Greasy Hair came, as though in her isolation she was unwilling to belong even to the diffuse company of mourners. She would spend an hour sitting beside the grave of Jemima Smith, and then take herself silently away again for another seven days. Unable to contain her curiosity, Jo had asked her once if Jemima was family. No, the woman said quietly, she was my best friend, and Jo hadn’t dared to ask any more questions. But now Greasy Hair had turned up on a Saturday. Jo made a mental note to check if it was Jemima’s death anniversary this week.
As Jo headed back to the ute, Greasy Hair caught her eye and lifted a mournful hand in greeting. The woman’s bearing spoke of an ongoing struggle to retain dignity: cheap K-mart sneakers with worn soles, old purple acne scarring on thin pale cheeks.
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