The First Week

by Margaret Merrilees

  The questions spread out around her, growing in size and multiplying uncontrollably. All the things she didn’t know and should find out. Whole worlds that she never knew existed. Courts and lawyers and prisons and psychiatrists and government departments.

  ‘He’s angry,’ she said. That was true, he’d always been angry.

  Evie twitched another cigarette out of the packet and lit it impatiently. ‘You don’t shoot people because you’re angry.’

  But perhaps you do.

  Angry was what other people were. Bellowing about the children being late for the bus, or the tractor coupling not arriving in time, or the baler breaking down when rain was threatening. Marian knew about anger. Anger was when you scuttled. Pushed the kids out the door, picked up the phone to check the order, anything that looked busy and helpful.

  Evie seemed to be waiting. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Why did he do it? That’s what they’ll want to know. They’ll poke him and prod him and measure his brain until they find out why. There always has to be a reason. We can never just let things be.’

  Marian knew she shouldn’t have eaten so much. A pulse of sickness pushed into her throat and she swallowed hastily. Her ears were ringing, but she mustn’t faint. There was something she had to face.

  This was it. The idea that had been stalking her all week, all her life perhaps, though it was hard to remember anything clearly before this week.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ she whispered, her mouth filling with saliva.

  But Evie was tapping the ash carefully off her cigarette, and didn’t hear. ‘What’s that?’

  Marian cleared her throat. She had the sensation of her stomach dropping away, the feeling that came before you wet your pants.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ she said clearly. ‘It must be my fault.’

  ‘Why?’

  Marian’s thoughts collapsed. The idea had seemed solid, but was hollow in the middle after all. The only thing she could be sure about was that she had done wrong, fundamental wrong. She had failed.

  ‘If I’d been firmer. I was too soft on him. Mac said that and he was right, I was too weak. I let Charlie get away with things.’

  Evie moved uneasily. ‘You did all right.’

  ‘No. I didn’t teach him properly. Maybe I should have sent him to church. Mac’s mother made me promise I would, you know, before she died. Promise that I’d send my kids to church. I’ve always felt guilty about that.’

  ‘Going to church is no guarantee,’ Evie said dryly.

  ‘That reminds me. Charlie had my old Bible in his room. I meant to ask the girls about it. Maybe he’s joined some religious group.’

  ‘Lots of people have Bibles. Even you. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.’

  ‘Kids his age?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he likes the poetry.’

  ‘Poetry! Imagine what Mac would have said about poetry. What are you, some sort of poofter? That’s just it. I didn’t want Mac heavying Charlie the way he did with Brian. All that make-a-man-of-him stuff. I tried to protect Charlie.’

  The tears were starting again. ‘You know what it’s like, farm life, you’ve seen it. Pushing things around, animals, noise, machinery. The killing and the blood and the dust. It’s brutal and a struggle and it never lets up. There’s no softness, you have to make yourself hard. But I didn’t want Charlie to be like that. I thought I could save him.’

  Marian was crying uncontrollably again. Where did all the tears come from? Something inside her had broken and she would never be able to stop.

  ‘I didn’t want him to have a gun,’ she said, shaking now. ‘I didn’t want him to know about guns. I tried to interfere. And now look what’s happened.’

  She looked at Evie, hoping for help. But Evie’s face was pale, drained.

  ‘It’s that place,’ Marian said. ‘I wish I’d never seen it. I wish we’d never gone there and I’d never met Mac.’

  ‘Marian!’

  Marian stopped herself and gulped down the tears, though she couldn’t stop shaking.

  ‘Here, wipe your eyes,’ Evie said.

  Marian took the tissue and blew her nose loudly.

  Evie was frowning. ‘I thought you loved it. You said you loved the life, all that space. You said it felt like home.’

  Marian tried a shaky smile. ‘What else would I say to you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You were so … successful. Snaffling Luke and being rich and living in the city. Cocktail parties, sailing to Rottnest. I couldn’t match that. But I wasn’t going to admit how hard it was, was I? Anyway, it’s true. I do love it. It suits me. But it’s terrible too. I can’t explain it.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain terrible to me. I couldn’t get out of there quick enough. I grew up fast that six months in the pub.’

  It was Marian’s turn to stare. ‘I thought you were enjoying yourself. You knew everyone. Everyone knew you.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. The town bike.’ She laughed shortly. ‘Not Mac, by the way, if you want to know.’

  Marian was pleased, in spite of herself. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Like you said, it was no place to admit to weakness. You were tough, or you got married, or you went under. They seem like such good blokes, salt of the earth, but they’re all in it. The violence. It’s just below the surface, all the time. All it takes is a few drinks. The noise on a Saturday night! You’d think it was a war.’

  Just below the surface. Evie was right. The surface was never solid. You could never be sure. You lived all the time with uncertainty, the fear of what was underneath.

  Everyone pretended it was straightforward. A hard life, but an honest one. But it wasn’t. Nothing was what it seemed. All the blood and sweat of clearing the land, thinking the worst of it was done, satisfied with the ploughed earth. But while you smiled, the salt was already beginning its escape.

  The salt of the earth. A white stain leaking upwards. A crust at the dry edge of the dam, the low-lying parts of the paddocks. A new enemy. The land, getting its own back. ‘Like the salt,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  Marian blinked. ‘Oh. Nothing.’ What was Evie talking about? Noise. The pub. ‘What was the story with the blacks? From the Reserve. Were you allowed to serve them?’

  ‘Only through the hatch.’ Evie pushed her plate away. As though at a signal, a waiter appeared and cleared the table.

  ‘That was wrong,’ Evie went on. ‘It was years after the Referendum.’

  ‘What referendum?’

  ‘When we were kids. 1967. Don’t you remember?’

  The usual feeling of inadequacy filled Marian. ‘No’ she said baldly. No use pretending.

  ‘Oh well. I remember it because Dad was angry. For the first time I saw what an arsehole he was and that the whole of Australia disagreed with him. Well nearly.’

  Evie turned sideways on her chair and crossed her legs. ‘Anyhow, it made Aboriginal people citizens. All in together, everyone equal. They didn’t seem to have heard about it in Tolgerup though.’

  She ground her cigarette butt into the ashtray. ‘It was the way people spoke about them. To them. It was horrible. I started to get headaches all the time. I’m not a stirrer, but that got to me.’

  ‘They got handouts. Got the Reserve for free, from the government, somewhere to live.’ Marian pushed away the thought of Lee and her Granny.

  ‘Two bottles of beer we were allowed to sell them,’ Evie said. ‘And not from the fridge. Even in the middle of summer.’

  ‘Well it kept the drinking under control.’

  ‘That was the excuse. What a joke. What about all the white drunks? Including the cops. Who was keeping their drinking under control? Lurching round spewing. Bashing their wives. And then they say those blackfellas can’t hold their drink.’

  Evie scowled at her wine glass. ‘As if giving them warm beer was going to help. Once I asked how they’d get it cold. The other barmaid said they
could put it in the fridge when they got home. But there was no electricity on the Reserve. Everyone knew that.’

  Did they know it?

  They had their own problems to think about.

  ‘There was one time in particular,’ Evie said. ‘A funeral, big Aboriginal get-together. A young black guy came into the bar, well dressed, smart. City type, so he obviously knew he had the right. God. The whole place suddenly went deadly quiet. Tense. All those cockies propping up the bar.’

  Yes, Marian thought. No women in those days, of course, except the barmaid. Men in yakka pants and open-necked shirts. Red faces and hair on the back of their hands. Maybe even the moleskins from the golf club if it was a sale day.

  ‘No one said anything,’ Evie went on, shrugging her shoulders to release remembered tension. ‘I served him, but I was packing it. I tried to let him know I was on his side. He was a nice guy, polite. But I couldn’t think of a thing to say. It took about three minutes for Mick Barnes to turn up. You remember Mick?’

  Marian did. The publican. A big man with a grey crew cut, no neck and pink eyes.

  ‘I was scared of him,’ Evie said, grimacing. ‘When he drank he never exploded, just got quieter and meaner. He asked what was going on, but he didn’t waste any time on me, just went over to the young guy. What do you think you’re doing? The guy says I’m having a drink. Mick goes finish your drink and get out. But that young bloke had real guts. He didn’t hurry, just went on sipping his drink, maybe counting to a hundred.’

  Marian looked around. She shouldn’t have started this. Shouldn’t have asked.

  The waiter was working at the other end of the dining room, clearing tables. The lunch rush was over. People had gone back to their lives leaving her and Evie sitting here, with this story between them. Marian wished she had a job to go to.

  ‘Then the cop walked in,’ Evie went on. ‘That tall one, the footballer. Remember? I don’t know if anyone had rung him. Maybe it was small town ESP. The cockies move aside, still nobody saying anything. The cop makes a beeline for the young bloke, doesn’t waste any words. You’ve got an hour to get out of town, we don’t want your type here.’

  Evie moved her glass to line it up with the wine cooler and the salt shaker, as though they were the men at the bar.

  ‘Fortunately the young guy had finished his drink, so he walked out of the bar as slowly as he could manage. None of the men said anything. I remember there was a hissing sound, but I might have imagined it. Nothing happened, nothing you could see. Nobody laid a hand on him. But my God …’

  Marian needed more water, but the carafe was empty. Evie moved it into her line-up.

  ‘That’s when I knew I had to get out,’ Evie said. ‘That was it for me, the country. Give me the city any day.’

  ‘The city. You’re not going to tell me there’s less violence in the city?’

  ‘It’s different, in the city, not breathing down your neck all the time. In the country it’s right in your face. One bloke took me out to watch the shearing. Show off his muscles I guess. I felt sick.’

  ‘At the shearing?’ Marian had never thought of Evie as a wimp. What was there about shearing to make you sick? Then she thought of the bleeding nicks, the torn ears, the frightened sheep. Evie was putting into words what Marian had been thinking. ‘I suppose it can be a bit bloody.’

  ‘I feel safer here, in the city. Sure there’s violence. But you can get away from it.’

  She caught Marian’s eye. ‘Not always,’ she added, sobered.

  Uncrossing her legs she signaled for the waiter. ‘Let’s have coffee. And more water.’

  The city. Marian thought of the traffic noise and smell, the lights that never went out, the drugs, the people jostling. It wasn’t her idea of safe.

  Maybe Charlie had both, country violence and city violence. The worst of both.

  But Sam and Ros, they said they were pacifists.

  ‘That’s the real story of why I married Luke,’ Evie said. ‘He was the richest, most city suit I could find when I came back here. Always a good idea to go with the strength. You know, like chimps. Pick the alpha male.’

  ‘How come you never told me any of this?’

  ‘You were tucked up cosily with Mac by then. Country through and through. Anyhow, I didn’t see it this clearly at the time, just knew I didn’t trust anybody. Actually I was halfway round the bend, I can see that now.’

  It’s true, Marian thought. I wouldn’t have listened. I thought Mac had the answers and my job was to go along with him.

  ‘Before I left,’ Evie said, ‘the Native Welfare guy from Katanning came into the pub and I ended up telling him the whole story. The warm beer, all of it. I don’t know what I thought he’d do. He wouldn’t have been any match for Mick Barnes. Anyway that problem didn’t arise, because as it happened, he agreed with Mick. I do my job with the Abos, but I don’t have any love for the buggers. His exact words.’

  Marian stirred her coffee and wished she wasn’t hearing all this. Did Evie think she, Marian, should have done something about it? But what, exactly? In some secret part of her mind she knew that what Evie was saying was true and it wasn’t just about the blacks. There was an ugliness that always threatened but was never acknowledged. It was what made the women edgy, trying to think of ways to curb the drinking, duck the fists, slow the driving. If you wanted to survive in a small place like that you faced forward and managed not to see too much. You couldn’t afford to think who might be getting bashed up or raped. Now, in spite of herself, she imagined Lee’s Granny, on a dark night, with the town hoons doing wheelies outside the Reserve and no help from the cops.

  Was it any better when the Reserve closed and the people moved into town? Daytime was probably all right. The kids went to school together. Everyone knew each other to nod to, Mrs Tonkin who did all that work for the school fete, the guy at Elders, that old lady who always said hello. But what was it like behind all that, when they went home? Marian didn’t know.

  ‘Maybe it’s true, Evie. I know things haven’t been great for the blacks. But I had my own worries.’

  Her mouth began to fill with saliva again and she got up hurriedly. ‘Excuse me.’

  She just made it to the toilet in time. Yanking the seat up she knelt on the cold floor, eyes shut. In sweaty hideous waves she brought up all the lunch, cream sauce, prawns, wine.

  When the worst was past she flushed the toilet, banged the seat down and sat on it, mopping at her face with a handful of toilet paper. Someone came in to use the cubicle beside her. Cascading liquid, a small fart.

  Marian waited until they’d washed their hands and gone again. Crossing to the basin she rinsed her mouth out, sloshed water on her face and patted it dry. She inspected herself in the mirror. Pale, but otherwise normal.

  The water carafe had been refilled. Marian pulled it towards her.

  Evie glanced absently at her, halfway through another cigarette, still in mid-thought. ‘I wish I’d had the guts to go out to the Reserve but I was afraid I wouldn’t be welcome. I wish I’d gone and said sorry. You know, just like that. Sorry.’ She had tears in her eyes.

  That bloody word again.

  ‘You are so a stirrer,’ Marian said.

  ‘No, I’m gutless. But at least I know it.’

  ‘So I suppose you vote Labor?’ said Marian, nettled.

  ‘Nah. They’re no better. I vote Green, if you really want to know.’

  ‘You don’t!’

  But Marian wasn’t as shocked as she might have been a week before. It was another idea from the secret part of her brain. The Greens were the butt of jokes and abuse. But the heat was a give-away. They got people on a sore spot. Because you half-believed what they were saying.

  ‘What does Luke think about that?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. It’s a secret ballot, honey.’ Evie fished under the chair for her handbag. ‘How come you asked me about the pub anyway?’

  ‘I met this girl, a friend of Charlie’s. An
Abo.’

  Evie raised an eyebrow at her. ‘They’re not Abos any more, darling.’

  ‘Well, Aboriginal, or Noongar, or something. Her name’s Lee. She’s bad news.’

  ‘What sort of bad news?’ Evie was gathering her things as she spoke, and paying at the bar. Marian followed her out to the car. How could she describe Lee? Explain how uncomfortable Lee made her feel?

  ‘Well?’ Evie asked, twisting the rear-vision mirror so she could apply more lipstick.

  ‘I think she’s brainwashed Charlie, egged him on. You know, wound him up, made him angry. She organises protests and things.’

  ‘Sounds interesting.’

  She wasn’t interesting, she was trouble. Marian didn’t like it.

  ‘So what’s the connection with the pub?’ Evie asked.

  ‘Her Granny grew up on the Reserve. It got me wondering.’

  ‘I’d like to meet her.’

  No. The strength of her feeling surprised Marian.

  This was what happened with Evie. Marian would meet someone and then Evie would step in, charm them, find them fascinating. Marian would be left tagging along.

  Did that mean she wanted Lee for herself?

  She rejected the thought firmly.

  Evie grimaced at her reflection and pulled at her cheeks. ‘I haven’t thought about the pub for years.’

  ‘It’s not like it was, you know,’ Marian said. ‘It’s very quiet. Lucky if there are six customers. The guy who’s got it now, I think he’d be happy to sell it. But who to? The whole town’s changed. The school’s down to a quarter of the enrolments it used to have. The whole place is shrinking.’

  ‘How come? Where are they all?’

  ‘Sold up, given up, moved away. The farms are bigger, they’ve been combined. But they’re only run by one or two people. The machinery now, it’s huge. One man to drive it. Would have been three or four doing that work before.’

  ‘Why do you stay?’

  ‘Where would I go? I couldn’t live in the city. I’d miss it too much. The farm, I mean. I love it, walking early in the morning …’

  Marian hesitated, thinking of the mist coiling up from the dam. How could she describe it so that Evie would see the beauty of it?