by Paul Haines
'Yep. Day after ya left. Knew he'd fucken have to. Right lively bitch, that Belle.'
Jimbo drained the bourbon and Keats went to get him another. Brian, grinning like a madman, throwing himself around, covered in sweat. He fucken told me he'd never do that. Well, fuck me, things have changed.
The long dress Belle wore had hitched a little too high as she sat. Jimbo thought he could make out a bandage around Belle's ankle. And pregnant, too. That was fucken quick work.
The dance floor heaved again as the band hit the chorus, everyone screaming: 'I've had enough, now I want my share!'
#
Uncle Frank drove the horses as they pulled the Ford Commodore back to the house. The Old Man had polished it up good, and the seats had been reupholstered, leaving the car with a healthy clean leather smell. Jimbo sat in the back with one arm around Kylie and the other around his mother. Kylie hadn't spoken for the last hour but at least she'd stopped crying.
'Have a good night, Mum?'
Mel hugged him tight. 'Lovely evening, James.'
They climbed from the carriage and Jimbo swept Kylie off her feet. She clung to his neck, deadweight and trembling.
'Come by when you can, Jimmy.' Uncle Frank detached the horses from the car.
Jimbo nodded, trying not to think of Niki, as he adjusted Kylie's weight in his arms. 'I didn't get to see her, Uncle Frank.'
'Yeah, well.' Frank swung himself up onto one of the horses. 'Ya can still come by. Say gidday to your old man.'
He reined away on a clatter of hooves, before he'd barely finished speaking.
Mel held the door open as Jimbo manoeuvred himself and Kylie through. One too many bourbons to be doing this. He bumped her arm on the doorframe but she didn't say anything. 'Oops.'
The light emanating from the Old Man's room was soft, like he'd fallen asleep in front of the screen again. The air, as usual, was hot and musty.
'Hey, Dad, got someone I want you to meet!' Jimbo staggered through the kitchen towards the light, with Kylie in his arms. 'You better smile for him,' he whispered in her ear.
The Old Man, wearing his best suit, sprawled in his chair, a half-empty bottle of beer on the table next to him. On the screen shone an old photo of Niki in her school uniform, knee-high white socks with a blue skirt and matching button-up shirt. The first day of school.
'Dad, this is Kylie, ma wife.' Then in a harsh whisper, 'You better be fucken smiling.'
His mother turned on the light.
'Dad?' Christ, I'm too pissed and she's too fucken heavy. 'Stop snoring and wake up, ya old bastard.'
But his old man wasn't snoring. The glass he'd been drinking from lay upturned in his lap, the spilled beer already dry on his good trousers. He wasn't even breathing.
Next to the bottle on the table, rested a long wooden box. Jimbo knew what lay in that box. His father's heirloom knife, honed sharp and thin, passed to him from his father and his father before him. His wedding gift.
'We'll deal with this tomorrow,' said his mother. 'There's room in the deep freeze for now.'
#
Jimbo closed the lid of the deep freeze then put the wheelbarrow back in the shed. A storm of confusion wound through his insides, beating against his heart, threatening to break inside his head.
Inside, his mother sat in the lounge sipping a glass of sherry. She looked calm. 'I didn't hate him all the time.'
Jimbo felt numb, all emotion drained when his mother smiled. He didn't know what to feel, or if he should feel anything at all.
'Neither did I,' he managed to croak in a broken, small boy's voice. His eyes welled and he swallowed hard, trying to control himself.
'I've made up our bed with fresh sheets. It's your room now. Kylie's asleep.' Mel patted her knees. 'Come here, James.'
He huddled on the floor and hugged her knees. She wound her fingers through his hair, massaging gently.
'You be kind to her, James. She's been through a lot, more than you'll ever know.'
'I will, Mum.'
'Men say that with every good intention. Your father said it to me before ...'
Her fingers tensed in his hair, briefly, ever so briefly, then resumed their massaging.
'Before what, Mum?'
'Before he ... consummated our wedding night.'
'Aw, Mum, I don't wanna hear about you and Dad doing it.'
'Doing what, James? What is it that you think we were doing?'
'Ya know, sex.' But deep down, buried in that pit he called a heart, Jimbo knew that wasn't exactly true. His father's wooden box sat on the table next to his father's empty chair.
'Sex.' His mother gave a bitter laugh. 'At first I hated him for that. Men are easily controlled by sex, James. Women learn to use it as a weapon against them to survive. There are worse things than that.'
Jimbo tensed. He'd never heard his mother talk like this before, but she'd never been out of his father's oppressive shadow either.
'Losing the life you knew, the ones you love. I haven't seen my mother for almost forty years. Did you know that? These things are far worse.' She leant forward and kissed the top of his head. 'You're my son, James, I raised you. Not him. I taught you. Not him.' She leant back, taking another sip of sherry. 'Don't you turn out like him. Don't you break my heart.'
Jimbo felt his mother sobbing quietly as he hugged her knees. He realised, then, that he knew very little about her past and who she was, who she had been. And with his new wife asleep in his parents' bed, his mother's bed where his father had fucked her incessantly for years, he pushed that realisation into the recesses of that raw bottomless pit. That dark place where such realisations were never dwelled upon. And never faced.
His mother had stopped crying. 'Go to bed, James. Be kind to that girl. Don't ... don't do anything to hurt her. Treat her with love as I love you.'
He left his mother in the chair, staring at the blank screen, and went into his parents' room. In the shadows, Kylie lay curled and tight against the far edge of his mother's side of the bed. Her perfume lingered in the room, though it did little to conceal the last years of his father's decaying sweat.
They'd ask him tomorrow how it went. Keat's leering face. Dave grinning and clutching his crotch. Brian eager to compare notes. Jimbo sat in his mother's rocking chair, the same chair she had sat in all those months ago when he'd come into the room with the pillow, intent on putting them all out of their misery. The same chair she would have nursed him in as a babe.
Kylie's breath rose and fell, sometimes fluttering, sometimes ragged. Occasionally she'd cry out in her sleep, limbs flailing, before curling tight again into her protective ball.
How had it come to this? This is ma fucken wedding night! I'm supposed to be fu ... supposed to ...
But he didn't know what he was supposed to be doing, so Jimbo rocked away the dark in his mother's chair, as the numbness consumed him. Eventually, he succumbed to a dead sleep before the sun lurched from the horizon and burned another dawn.
#
They held the funeral three days later out at the cemetery on Old Dookie Hill.
Jimbo was surprised to see the turn out; maybe two hundred people had made the half-hour ride out in the morning heat. Horses had been tethered near the cemetery gates, next to the bicycle racks, and some of the younger boys were filling the troughs from the bore.
The old Ford Commodore had been used as the hearse, again with Frank at the reins. Grandpa White was complaining about the heat and the ride and the lack of bourbon in his glass. He sat with Nan, comfy in their wheelchairs in the shade of the eucalypts, Mel and Kylie at their side. Jimbo wasn't sure Grandpa knew they were burying his eldest son, or maybe he did, but just didn't give a fuck.
Aunty Joan came back from Cranky McNabb's stall with more bourbon for Grandpa and a gin for Nan. Jimbo's cousin Rhys had told him that Cam didn't pay for Joan, that they had chosen each other. The Old Man had said it was because Cam had gotten himself a half a chink, and that back then no-one in their ri
ght mind would pay for one. Cam put his arm around his wife, and she slipped her arm around his waist and hugged him. Joan didn't limp like the others. But that don't mean nothing. Chinks are more obedient, everyone knows that.
Still, watching them arm in arm, something Jimbo couldn't remember his folks doing in public for years, they sure looked happy in each other's company. Aunty Lana stood with her gangly sons.
'Thought Niki might a turned up,' said Jimbo to Rhys.
'Don't hardly hear from her these days,' said Rhys. 'Selfish bitch didn't even reply to the message Dad sent about Uncle Phil passing n that. Stopped sending money home, too. She can go n get fucked.'
'Yeah, fuck her.' Something rose from that dark pit buried in Jimbo's heart, that maybe she wasn't in the City anymore, that maybe ... like the month-tripper Keira on the train, that ... but he squashed it down again before it surfaced. Then nailed it fucken closed.
Frank, Cam, Rhys and Jimbo, the eldest men in the family not counting Grandpa, lowered the coffin into the dry earth. The rope burned Jimbo's sweaty palms, but he held on, releasing the rope one hand at a time, until the coffin rested on the grave floor.
Cranky said a few words before they filled the hole with dirt. What those words were, Jimbo didn't have a clue. He was lost in Aunty Lana's soft crying, lost that his mother wasn't. By the time they'd finished, Jimbo had managed to smear dirt across his forehead and over his sweat-soaked shirt. Galahs squawked noisily from the trees, ready to pounce on any food left unguarded.
Afterwards, Lana enveloped him in her breasts, her cheeks wet, mingling with his sweat. 'We loved your father, Jimmy. He was a good man. Sorry Niki couldn't be here. She sends her love.'
Frank looked away, studying the fallen leaves, the ants crawling through tinderbrush. Niki hadn't called. It was all over Frank's face, even if Rhys hadn't told him. The Old Man had been right about her. She was a City girl now; she wasn't coming back to Shepp in any hurry. Fucken bitch.
'Thanks, Aunty Lana.'
Fitzy hadn't shown either. One of his best mates. City wankers. Fuck them all. Fuck them all to hell.
'Jimmy!' Grandpa held up his empty glass. 'What the fuck is this?'
'Coming up, Grandpa.' Jimbo snatched the glass and marched to Cranky McNabb's stall. 'Gimme a fucken bottle,' he snarled.
#
Fragments, memories breaking apart in a swirl of alcohol ...
Doors slamming.
He remembered Uncle Frank leaving. The kitchen spun, the dangling light bulb a whirr.
'Don't, James.' His mother? Someone crying.
'Don't, please ...'
The bedroom, hot and rancid. The Old Man's sweat wafting up from the mattress, dripping from the walls.
His mother crying. Wiping Lana's tears away.
'You don't know anything about me. If you knew, you wouldn't ...'
Throwing Kylie across the bed. Screams.
He remembered someone pounding on the bedroom door yelling his name.
He ripped at her skirt, pinioning her legs with his own. She was strong.
'No ...'
He mashed at her breasts. Licked her throat.
'You don't know ...'
Jimbo shouting. Ranting. 'I don't wanna know about you! I don't need to know anything about you! Ya mine! Ya fucken mine!'
Eyes wide, bulging.
'James!'
When she started screaming he smothered her mouth with his palm.
Eyes, wide rolling. White.
He struggled with his fly, trying to free his trapped cock. She went limp beneath him.
'Niki?' Jimbo withdrew his hand from her mouth. 'Niki?'
He remembered a splintering sound as the bedroom door swung open. His mother, hammer in hand.
'I've killed her!' Jimbo rolled from her body, legs tangled and fell from the bed. He lay on his back, sobbing.
'No.' His mother near the bed. 'She's still breathing.'
'No.'
'No.'
Passed out on the bedroom floor, pants around his ankles, his cock still unused and now dormant, oozing a slow leak into his undies.
He remembered little of his first unsuccessful attempt at making love to his new wife.
#
Jimbo woke to bracing cold water thrown over his face. Light flooded the room, already hot, hard to breathe. Still on the floor.
Keats stood over him. 'Fucken lucky I was on shift last night, mate.'
Jimbo tried to sit, pulling himself up next to the bed. His head pounded, his mouth a graveyard for sandpaper. 'What happened?'
'She tried to do a runner, mate. Knew ya were too pissed to control things. Father's funeral n that, I understand. Caught her about four in the morning, running up the road just past ya driveway.' Keats whistled. 'Good set a legs on her; she can fucken move, mate. If she tells ya I felt her up when I caught her then she's a fucken liar.'
'Ya felt her up?' Jimbo grimaced as the sunlight hurt his eyes.
'Fuck no! Just if she says any shit like that, she's just causing trouble. Mate, she's ya fucken wife! I'm ya mate, fa fuck's sake! Just ask Mason, he was there.'
Jimbo struggled to his feet, the blood draining from his face as the room whited out for a second. He breathed deep, waiting for the room to return.
Keats laughed again with a wink. 'But if she wasn't your wife, mate ... she's hot.'
'Where is she now?'
'Out in the kitchen with ya mum. Had to tie her up for a while but. That's her first warning, mate. Ya told her what happens after three?'
Jimbo shook his head, looking out from the bedroom doorway. At the other end of the house, Kylie sat hunched at the kitchen table, head buried in her arms, while his mother comforted her.
'I'd think she already knows.'
'Maybe so,' said Keats. 'But it should come from the husband. From the man. Just so the record's straight.'
'Ya probably right.'
'Not just probably. It's the way it's done.' Keats handed Jimbo his father's wooden box. 'Ya fucken lucky she didn't get hold of this last night. You'd be dead by now.'
'Thanks, Keats. I'll do it tonight.'
'No, ya fucken won't.' Keats shoved Jimbo in the back, pushing him towards the kitchen. 'Ya'll do it fucken now. It's us poor cunts on watch who have to deal with this shit. We're helping you out, you fucken help us. It's the way it's done!'
Mel glared at Jimbo as he approached the table. Her eyes darted towards the box in his hand, then she whispered into Kylie's ear.
'No,' Kylie moaned.
'If you don't, it will just make it harder,' said Mel.
Jimbo sat opposite, pushing the salt and pepper shakers aside to make room for the box. Keats's presence from the bedroom doorway pressed heavily against him.
His mother glared at him again, mouthing the words, 'What did I tell you? You stupid boy!'
He buried the shame of last night, using Kylie's flight to lend him conviction.
'Kylie, I apologise for last night. With the Old Man dying n the wedding n all, I just wasn't myself. It won't happen again, I promise.'
His mother nodded, her hands kneading Kylie's shoulders.
'You got to promise me something, too. You're mine now. You tried to escape last night. But that's foolish, Kylie. What are ya gunna do? Run out into the desert with the Abos? There's nowhere to go to.' Jimbo knew the words that followed by heart. They all did. 'You're part of my life now, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. You need to love and obey me.' He removed the lid of the box. A short knife lay cushioned in a dark stained cloth.
'Look up, honey,' said Mel. 'That's a good girl.'
Kylie lifted her head, her eyes raw and aching. Bruises purpled her jaw and throat.
Jimbo took the knife, its handle worn and smooth, the blade thin and keen. The last time it had been used was before Jimbo had been born. His father had cleaned his mother's blood off the blade with the cloth in the box.
'This is your first warning, Kylie. You only have three. After
that, with this knife I thee wed. Don't make me do that.'
Kylie stared at the knife. Snot dripped from her nose, blurred with tears. Her cheeks were blotched and streaked.
'Do you understand?' said Jimbo.
Kylie nodded.
'I said, do you understand?'
Mel bent to her ear and whispered.
'I do,' Kylie rasped, her throat raw.
Jimbo placed the knife back amongst the folds of cloth and closed the lid.
#
A week later, Jimbo held Kylie down on his parent's bed. She tried to bite between her screams, so he didn't kiss her.
With her arms pinioned above her head, he pushed her legs wide. She was too dry, but he had greased his cock. When he managed to force it inside her, she stopped resisting, stopped screaming.
Jimbo kept thrusting until it was too uncomfortable, too raw, before he pulled out of his unconscious wife, thoughts of Niki reeling in his head.
Some mechanical part of him registered blood on the sheets, that he had indeed got what he had paid for.
It shouldn't be like this. It can't be like this.
He realised he was crying.
Later, when he needed to scrub himself clean, he found his mother sitting in the kitchen with the lights off. She drank sherry, staring blankly at the curtains above the sink, and said nothing.
#
Part V: Presentation of the Couple
Winter lay a cool hand over the hot brow of the land, but still the rains never came. The cannery cut shifts and a third of the workers migrated to the orchards to prepare crops for the coming spring. Jimbo was lucky enough to keep his cannery job and toiled inside the factory, adjusting the machines as they pulped the autumn fruit. The smell in winter was bearable, as the pungent rot never set in as quickly or stunk so bad.
Belle had been seen round town, no longer on her crutches, all swollen belly and smiles. Brian reckoned they were having a girl and didn't seem to be happy about it. Dave had started seeing Alice, some Abo girl from one of the camps. Jimbo had only met her a couple of times because she wasn't allowed in The Aussie, but he'd had drinks with Dave and Alice down by the crater that used to be the old lake. She could hold her piss and was pretty funny for an Abo. Her brother played in the Abo footy team, too, and was probably going to make the State Team. Niki hadn't been back, and Lana and Frank had stopped asking Jimbo if he'd heard anything from her. He didn't have to lie when he said he hadn't. Aunty Joan had fallen pregnant, surprising the hell out of everyone. Uncle Cam seemed ten foot tall, gushing and lovey. Jimbo guessed the Old Man had been wrong about that, too.