by JD Nixon
They’d burst into raucous and dirty laughter, hoping to ruffle me and send me scurrying back to the patrol car with red cheeks. I’d stood in front of them, arms crossed, unimpressed.
“I’m twenty-one,” boasted another, and then they’d all discovered an urgent need to share with me their individual member lengths, as if I’d had the slightest interest.
I’d listened to all their confessions with a stony and undaunted demeanour. I hadn’t been about to let them intimidate me. They were mere amateurs compared to my Bycraft nemeses.
“Thanks for sharing, boys,” I’d said, when they finished, deliberately apathetic. “But I don’t need to whip out the tape measure to know that my boyfriend beats you all hands down. I can tell by the size of your egos that you don’t measure up to him. In my experience, those who talk the most about it, have the least to offer.”
They hadn’t been happy about that. Unused to being talked back to by a woman and sensing a challenge, they’d then started throwing out remarks about my looks, my body and the fact that I was a young woman alone with a bunch of men. Their observations had grown cruder and cruder when I’d refused to react, commenting specifically on my boobs, my butt, my legs, my eyes, my lips and their speculation about my private parts and favourable judgements about my ability to please a man or even a group of men or even a group of hairy, tattooed bikie men. Even that day. Even right there, right then.
I’d made a point of yawning ostentatiously and checking my watch as they taunted me, holding out the Council order patiently towards Rusty with a steady hand. I’d stared at them, my eyes flicking from one to the other, expressionless cop face plastered on, while secretly deciding whose neck I’d like to break first and with what exact move. My fingers had itched to handle my gun, but I hadn’t been about to let them get to me that easily. After all, I’d been threatened my whole life by scarier people than them, but I’d left as soon as Rusty reluctantly snatched the order from me. No point in courting danger. I had to save myself for the Bycrafts, after all.
“Enjoy your afternoon, gentlemen,” I’d said calmly as I’d turned my back on them and sauntered down the path, seemingly uncaring. They’d continued to throw vulgar comments at me, giving me disgustingly precise and gynecological details of how I could help them enjoy their afternoon. I’d refused to give them any satisfaction by turning around, but I’d breathed a sigh of relief when I’d climbed back into the patrol car unmolested.
Despite their misgivings, the townsfolk secretly loved the bikies because they shopped locally. Riding here on their motorbikes from wherever they came, they didn’t haul loads of supplies with them, unlike many other tight-fisted visitors. So when they wanted food they went to Grimmell’s supermarket, which catered almost exclusively to the itinerant tourist population visiting Mount Big and Lake Big. Most locals shunned the market except for the occasional emergency purchase – bread, milk, toilet paper, tampons, Tim Tams. Most of us in Little Town shopped at the huge, cheaper big chain grocery store in Big Town, including me.
Abe especially loved the bikies because night after night they wandered into the little bottle shop he had attached to his pub, scaring away all the other customers, but purchasing everything even remotely alcoholic he offered for sale. By the end of their visit, even the more interesting and expensive liqueurs that he normally had a hard time shifting when the international tourists disappeared during the colder months, were snapped up. The bikies weren’t too particular about their source of alcoholic bliss, whether it was lager or shiraz or sambucca or sake. They’d drink anything.
Interestingly, one of the town’s biggest beneficiaries from the bikies was Lavinia Knowles. A self-proclaimed psychic, she ran a ‘conferral centre’ upstairs above the bakery. Her centre was in fact an ordinary small suite of rooms that had previously served as the office for the town’s only accountant, Mr Kingsley, of Kingsley, Kingsley and Son. He’d died three years ago of complete and utter old age. Well, he was ninety-nine after all, but had kept working until he drew his last breath in those very rooms. And being the son in Kingsley, Kingsley and Son, with no children of his own, his practice had shut down after his death.
His rooms were snapped up by Lavinia when she’d moved here from the city to escape what she would only coyly describe as ‘an amorous situation’. From the hints she dropped, I gathered that it involved a scandal with a married man whose wife had gone on a violent rampage when she’d found out about the affair. I surmised that the enraged wife had tried to shove Lavinia’s crystal ball somewhere painful where she’d have to contort herself into a pretzel trying to read it. Being a psychic though, you’d have thought that Lavinia would have seen that one coming and avoided the whole confrontation. But maybe that’s just the cynic in me showing.
She had turned those three ordinary rooms into something out of this world. The small, windowless chamber where she met her clients was made even more suffocatingly claustrophobic by the red walls and dark red silk throws draped from the ceiling. Oversized cushions were spread around the room on which the client was made to perch uncomfortably. Lavinia, a very large lady, sat on a throne-like chair upholstered in red velvet, wearing one of her seemingly inexhaustible supplies of muu muus. In front of her was a round table on which she practised her ‘craft’ – tossing off with the tarot, crapping on about the crystal ball, rooting about over the runes, arsing around with astrology charts, or wanking about with the Ouija board. She was a mistress of them all, according to her.
An overpowering smell of incense always choked the air, making me sneeze uncontrollably every time I was forced to visit her, ruining her atmosphere. The lighting was dim, a mix of red lava lamps and an overhead ruby-coloured light bulb. The whole intense effect of the throbbing strong red colour scheme gave me the unpleasant sensation of being enveloped in a giant blood clot whenever I stepped into the room.
For some reason, whenever the bikies brought them to town, their women flocked to Lavinia to learn their fates after greasing her palm with what she called ‘The Oracle Offertory’, and what I would call ‘A Ridiculously Exorbitant Amount of Money’. Perhaps the women’s status in the gang was so fragile and subject to luck that they gained consolation from her insincerely comforting words. Lavinia had been bugging me since I’d returned to Little Town to let her give me a reading, but I was exceptionally reluctant to know my future. I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t enhance the quality of my life to know that a Bycraft was going to brutally slaughter me in a year’s time. Although on the other hand, if I did know that, I’d probably stop worrying about my finances so much and expend a lot more effort on getting Jake into my bed as often as possible.
“You okay, Tess?” asked the Sarge, dragging me back to the present. Self-consciously, I realised that I’d been off with the fairies.
“They were . . . fairly crude last time I was here,” I admitted. “I’m not keen for a repeat performance.”
He slammed his door hard. “They better mind their mouths this time.”
We ran through the rain up the path, the lawn not exactly trim, but tidy enough not to attract any further Council attention. The house itself hadn’t changed much since my last visit. A few peeling patches had been repainted and I believe there was a new, more secure front door, but they were the only differences I could discern at first glance.
Unlike last time there was nobody lounging on the front verandah, the cold, wet weather driving everyone inside. I lifted my nose and sniffed the air around me, but couldn’t smell anything offensive, decomposing, chemical, or otherwise.
“Nothing, right?” asked the Sarge.
“Nothing,” I verified. “Got the windows closed? Shut the lab down for the day?”
“Who knows.” He banged hard on the front door. “Police!”
No response.
We looked at each other. There were a lot of people inside, we knew that. They’d surrounded our car with their bikes only a few days ago. He banged harder.
I put m
y ear to the door to listen. I could hear a lot of muffled voices, scurrying, and doors slamming, and one voice louder than the others, snapping out orders. Then there was quiet. I sprang back just in time for the door to be opened by the same gap-toothed, bald-headed man I’d met last time – the leader, Rusty. His extravagant neck tattoo of the tongue-entwined snakes was covered up today with a faux fur-trimmed jacket.
He glanced from the Sarge to me, back to the Sarge, then fixed on me.
“Pretty police lady, we meet again. Oh, you’re injured. What happened?”
“She caught a fugitive,” said the Sarge, butting in before I had a chance to speak. It never hurt to let people know that the local cops were efficient crime fighters.
“Not Red Bycraft? That was on the local Wattling Bay news!”
“Him,” the Sarge confirmed.
“Wowie! I’m impressed. Gorgeous and tough.” His unsubtle mockery immediately riled me. His eyes flicked to the Sarge. “But I see you’ve brought your reinforcements this time. Guess a pretty young girl might think she’ll have trouble with a bunch of men by herself.”
I glared at him with quarry-like stoniness.
He smiled back at me, showcasing his missing front tooth. His flung his arm dramatically towards the front yard. “The lawn is not garden magazine perfect, I’ll admit, but it’s not worth another Council order surely? It is winter, after all, Officers. Have mercy. None of us are Jamie Duries in here.” Another gappy smile. “And I’ll swear that under oath, if you like.”
“It’s not about the lawn this time, sir,” said the Sarge, his voice showing that he wasn’t in the mood for any push back.
Rusty’s eyes widened in surprise. “We had a small party on Saturday night. Did the neighbours . . .?”
“It’s not about noise, sir,” I threw in. I wasn’t the quiet junior officer type.
He frowned in fake puzzlement. “Then what, Officers?” He was the epitome of a polite model citizen with the Sarge present.
“How’s your girlfriend? The one who likes to mow?” I asked suddenly, remembering again that poor young wayward girl.
He sighed unconvincingly. “Sadly, we broke up a while ago. Irreconcilable differences. She didn’t like to . . . mow . . . as much as I thought she would.” He looked inconsolable for an unpersuasive moment before cheering up, doling out more ham than a Christmas lunch. “I have a new girlfriend now. Do you want to meet her?”
“Sure, bring her out. Consider us the town’s welcome wagon,” I said, answering the Sarge’s sharp glance with an imploring one. I knew he wanted to question then scoot, but this felt important for some reason.
Rusty was uncomfortable for a microsecond, not expecting me to take up his offer, before gathering his emotions. “You’re a friendly little piece, aren’t you?” he said to me between gritted teeth before disappearing inside.
“Tess?” hissed the Sarge. “What the –”
“I don’t know, Sarge, but I have a feeling about this. Please.”
We didn’t have a chance to speak further before Rusty returned to the door with his arm clamped possessively around a very young girl. She had long bleached blonde hair, big blue eyes, a tiny black fake leather skirt and bustier that showed too much of her bony legs and chest, and a fake leather jacket to match. She wore black tights, ankle length stiletto boots and more bling and makeup than I’d wear to a dress-as-your-favourite-hooker party, let alone at home on a rainy Monday.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” I asked kindly. She seemed scared and not quite on the same planet as the rest of us.
“Kylie,” she answered in a small voice.
“Can I see some ID please, Kylie?”
“What do you need that for?” asked Russell, more aggressively than he probably meant.
“I don’t believe the Senior Constable was talking to you, sir,” said the Sarge, asserting his presence. “Can the young lady show us some identification or is there a problem with that?”
“Of course there isn’t a problem with that. What are you fucking suggesting? That I’m some kind of kiddie fiddler?”
I stared at him disparagingly. He looked exactly like some kind of kiddie fiddler at that moment with his arm around a spaced-out, yet frightened, young girl whose age was undetermined at this stage.
“Kylie, identification please,” I repeated. “It can be anything with a photo and your date of birth. Driver’s licence, student card from a tertiary institution, Under-18 card –”
“What the fuck? She’s not under eighteen, all right? I’m not a fucking pervert. I don’t fuck kids.”
We stared at him stonily. He wasn’t swaying either of us by becoming so heated. In fact, he was only forcing our cop hackles up further the more he protested.
“How old are you, Kylie?” I asked.
“Eighteen,” she responded robotically. It was the standard answer memorised by every underage kid hitting the nation’s nightclubs and trying to appear legal. I would have said the same thing myself if Nana Fuller and Dad had let me anywhere near a nightclub when I was sixteen or seventeen.
I tried the old trick question. “What year were you born?”
She panicked, looking at Russell for guidance. He glared at her meaningfully and I had no doubt that he’d tried to drill her relentlessly about that answer.
“Kylie?” I prompted. “What year? You must remember.”
Rusty gave her an ungentle push. “She’s real bad with numbers. Get your driver’s licence, honey, and show the police officers that you’re eighteen.”
She stared at him blankly.
His kindness dried up in an instant. “Get your fucking driver’s licence, you dumb shit. It’s in your fucking purse!” She scurried away obediently and he turned to us, his bonhomie restored, shaking his head indulgently. “Girls!”
“Women, you mean? Or do you actually mean girls?” I asked provocatively, not able to help myself.
He shot me a look of poison before forcing himself to smile, showing off his missing front tooth again. “It’s just an expression, Officer. I’m sure you’ve been called a girl once or twice in your life.”
“Yeah, but I have a gun to prove otherwise, haven’t I, sir?”
We stared at each other with open hostility. I was glad the Sarge was there with me because I wasn’t sure how it would have panned out without him. I had a terrible inability to keep my mouth shut sometimes.
“Did you come to visit us about my girlfriend?” he asked finally, tearing his blazing eyes away from me to the Sarge.
“No, sir. We had a complaint about an offensive odour coming from this place on Sunday night and this morning.”
He pretended to think for a moment, then smiled at us sheepishly. “I admit it. Guilty as charged. We’ve been burning off some rubbish.” He flashed us his gappy grin yet again and held up his palms in appeasement. “I know, I know! It’s illegal to have backyard bonfires, but everybody does around here in the country. It’s the quickest way to get rid of rubbish. Tell me that you don’t yourselves, Officers.”
He was right. Everybody in Little Town did have backyard bonfires from time to time to dispose of burnable rubbish, despite it being illegal because of bushfire concerns. Dad and I ourselves had on occasion. But he’d forgotten one important detail.
“You had a backyard bonfire in the pouring rain?” I queried with scepticism. “You must have used a tanker-load of petrol to ignite it in this downpour. No wonder the neighbours complained.”
“No, Officer,” he explained with insultingly slow patience. “Of course I didn’t have it in the rain. We burnt our material under the shelter of our backyard patio. In an oil drum for extra safety. I have my mates here to think about. I’m not going to put them in any danger, and I certainly don’t want to burn down our little house here.”
“What were you burning?” asked the Sarge.
“Old films mostly. They did give off a terrible smell, I’ll admit that, and I’ll apologise for that to all the neighbou
rs. In person if you request. It won’t happen again. We managed to dispose of all our films. There won’t be any more fires.”
“Films of what?”
He smiled at the Sarge. “Just normal family films. Holidays, kids’ birthday parties, Christmas. You know the kind of stuff. Everybody has them.” His smile loosened. “Even you two, I’m sure.”
“Why were you burning them?” I asked. “They’re the kind of memories most people want to keep.”
He shot me a pitying look. “We’ve converted it all to digital, haven’t we? It’s all up on the internet now. Who needs film? It degrades too quickly and it’s a fire hazard. We decided to get rid of all our old film and only use new technologies from now on.” He glanced from the Sarge to me. “It was a one-off burning and I promise you won’t hear a peep from us for the rest of our stay. I regret the inconvenience of you having to visit.”
We weren’t ready to let it go yet.
The Sarge commented, “Sounds like you burned a lot of film.”
Rusty smiled depreciatively. “We’re a big family. We have a lot of memories.”
“What are you doing here in town, exactly?” I asked.
“Holidaying, what else? I hate the place personally – give me the city any day. But the kids and the wives seem to like it, so here we are again. It’s just so . . . wholesome.” He flashed the uneven front teeth again.
“So you’ve brought your wives and kids with you?” I asked. I hadn’t seen any women or children when they’d driven past us the other night.
He threw me an angry look, pissed off with my persistence. “No, it’s just us guys here this time. Boys’ holiday. Escape from the old ball and chain. Need a break from the nagging from the better-half now and then.” He winked at the Sarge congenially. “You know how it is, mate.”
“No, I don’t,” he replied coldly. Touchy point for him. His chosen future ball and chain was half a world away, refusing to come home.