Jimmy turned to Bill now. ‘Come on. I’ve got a few traps set under the shearing shed.’ He stepped off the verandah and they headed out the front gate and through the scrub towards the shearing shed.
Jimmy stopped when he got to the old split-post shearing shed fences and leant his elbows on the strangely comforting roughness of the top rail. Bill lined up beside him. The two old friends gazed in silence into the fallow paddock in the distance, watching the lowering sun painting the ridges of the fallow lines in gold, and the furrows in chocolate brown. A meticulous lino cut – line after line and curve after curve.
‘The Mallee is gunna kill Elise if you’re not on the lookout. You know what it does to you people,’ said Jimmy, staring straight ahead. ‘You know that for a fact. Why isn’t she playing that piano and singing? And what about those drawings? She doing any art lately?’
‘She’s highly strung,’ Bill said to the distant furrows. ‘Folks around here are not the same as back home.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s having a bit of trouble settling in here.’
‘Yeah? Settling in with which folks in particular?’ asked Jimmy.
Bill just stared at the sheep yards for a while. ‘And the settling in can make her a bit nervy,’ he said.
‘Who, Bill?’
‘That Shirlene Doherty and her lot seem to be having a bit of difficulty with Elise.’
Jimmy nodded. ‘Ruby and Marjorie ran clear through the home paddick and halfway through my paddick today,’ he said. ‘I dunno where they would have got to if I hadn’t come along.’
Bill swung around at Jimmy. ‘Eh? What did you say?’
‘The girls were running into town, Bill.’
‘Why?’
‘They reckoned they’d been left behind. Didn’t realise Elise was at the house.’ Jimmy paused. ‘Kids pick things up. You know that. No different than when we were kids. Those girls know. At least Ruby does.’
‘Elise’s nerves get on top of her from time to time.’
‘I know,’ said Jimmy.
‘And then she doesn’t seem able to stop it.’
Jimmy nodded at the sheep yards.
‘It’s hard to know what to do when a woman gets a bit nervy,’ said Bill.
Jimmy nodded.
Bill and Jimmy talked for a long time out there at the sheep yards. They talked until the distant paddock sprouted a ceiling of stars that popped out shy and pale. They talked long enough for those stars to end up fearless and brilliant in the velvet night. It took a lot of talking, because figuring how to ease off the tension on highly strung nerves is hard.
‘Could you keep an eye on them for me, do you reckon, Jimmy? Elise and the girls? Drop in from time to time, like you did today?’
‘I reckon I could do that,’ he said.
‘I’m tired to me marrow bones, Jimmy,’ said Bill softly to the brilliant stars.
‘I know,’ said Jimmy.
*
‘Jimmy Waghorn came over for a visit while you were gone,’ said Elise.
‘I know,’ said Bill.
‘I played the piano. And sang. Jimmy likes my singing. And my piano.’
‘I know,’ said Bill.
‘He likes my coffee too.’
‘I know,’ said Bill.
‘Do you mind?’ she asked.
‘About what?
‘About Jimmy coming over and into the house?’
‘Mind? Jimmy coming over and him drinking your coffee and listening to you play and sing? Mind? ’Course not! Why would I?’
Elise took to dressing Ruby and Marjorie in their dresses and shoes and socks once more, after that. She brushed and combed their hair and tied up Ruby’s curls and Marjorie’s sticking-out hair in ribbons and sent them outside to play. Where the sun sprayed their faces with speckles.
She marched into the abandoned bedroom and got out her pencils and paper, her paints and brushes. And the girls spent happy times at the kitchen table with Elise and her smile. Surrounded by paper and pencils, charcoal and peace.
She marched across the hallway to the lounge room. To the piano.
They were a long way from anywhere on that farm. There was no one around to hear. No one around to see. Except for Ruby and Marjorie. And that didn’t count. Except for Jimmy and Bill and Pa, and that counted. Only Jimmy Waghorn, and the girls, and Bill, and Pa. And the crows, and the silent staring Mallee for an audience. It was good.
*
Jimmy’s hut was over the sandhill from their house. He was close. Only about a mile away. Right in the middle of the next one-square-mile paddock that was once an entire farm for the Smith family. Jimmy lived outside his hut most of the time. It didn’t matter what time Marjorie and Ruby turned up at that hut – if Jimmy was home he would be outside the back door. Sitting on an old blue wooden bench under the shade of an enormous peppercorn tree. Just in stick-poking reach of a campfire that never seemed to go out.
And he always let them sit on that bench there with him. He would never ask what were they doing there and shouldn’t they clear off home? Jimmy would just pat the bench beside him, and Ruby and Marjorie would clamber on and they would all just sit. No need to talk. The only sounds were the four legs of the girls swinging against the bench, the shuffle of Jimmy’s stick poking the fire and the soft swishing of the peppercorn leaves sweeping the dirt.
Pa caught Ruby and Marjorie halfway to the house paddock gate one day, running to Jimmy’s place. ‘Where the bloody hell do you two think you’re going?’ he said as he whoa’ed the horse to a stop, glaring down at them from the cart. ‘Gorn, get back up to the house where you belong.’
‘We’re going to Mr Waghorn’s place,’ said Ruby.
Pa’s eyes got skittish. ‘Does Jimmy know you’re coming? You can’t just turn up, ya know.’
‘We can turn up whenever we like. Jimmy said so. Didn’t he, Marjorie?’
Marjorie nodded up at the face of Pa. The stubble on Pa’s face jumped in alarm and his head tried to hide down between his shoulders. Ruby saw it. She was bold now. ‘We’ve been lots of times. Since you went off in the car and left us behind. Haven’t we, Marjorie?’
Marjorie nodded.
This time Pa’s chin tried to burrow its way into his neck. But he had nothing more to say. He shifted his gaze from the girls and spoke to the air in front of him. ‘Well, bloody go on then, and don’t be late back, the pair of you.’ He clicked his tongue to the horse, flicked the reins and headed on up the track.
Ruby and Marjorie laughed and turned to run to Jimmy Waghorn’s place.
*
A number of the farms had swaggies camped on them: men whose exact ages could not be determined. Marjorie was near the end of grade five and the end of a year that added up to quite a few Jimmy Waghorn visits when the schoolyard decided to discuss their swaggies: Jack the Rabbiter, Johnny Bantam, Darkie, Bill the Smithy. And then it was Marjorie’s turn.
‘What’s the name of your swaggie, Marjorie?’
‘Jimmy Waghorn,’ she said.
All conversation stopped. And everyone within hearing of Marjorie’s reply swung around to consider the person on whose farm Jimmy Waghorn chose to live.
‘How long has he been there?’ ventured Jesse Mitchell.
Jesse was in grade five too, but he was one of the big kids. Even though he wasn’t in grade six, he was a leader, because he was tall and tanned and good at both footy and cricket. He could also flatten anyone in a fight and often came to school on Monday morning with the bruises to prove it, though he wouldn’t say where the bruises came from. But he always looked like he could do with some more food – him and his little brothers. Marjorie thought he should eat more of Elise’s meringues.
‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘He’s always been there.’ She stared at everyone staring at her. �
��Why?’
‘No reason,’ said Jesse, now the spokesperson for the schoolyard. ‘Ya talk to him, that Jimmy Waghorn?’ he went on, looking at her out of the corners of his eyes. And Marjorie could see that all the schoolyard eyes really wanted to know the answer to that question.
Marjorie wished Ruby was there. Ruby would have done something or known why everyone was so interested in Marjorie’s answer. But she wasn’t there. Ruby was off somewhere with the other grade six kids so Marjorie had to manage on her own.
‘Yeah, we talk to him,’ she said. ‘All the time.’ Marjorie screwed up her eyes to better interpret the responses. But nobody was saying anything now and she had run out of things to say about Jimmy Waghorn. ‘Probably nearly every day,’ she finished lamely.
All of the kids, including Jesse Mitchell, stepped back from Marjorie. There was no sound from any of them, only the drumming of dozens of dusty school shoes scraping backwards in the dirt. No eyes left Marjorie’s face. And at last she saw something she recognised – fear creeping up kids’ faces and invading kids’ eyes. Just like with Pa.
‘Mum says you have to watch out for Jimmy Waghorn,’ said Jesse.
‘Why?’
‘He reckons he owns the place.’
‘Does he?’ asked Marjorie.
‘What?’
‘Own the place?’
‘I dunno,’ said Jesse. ‘How would I know?’
Marjorie surveyed the group and their collective fear churning and boiling. She took a gamble. ‘Jimmy Waghorn comes and visits us a lot. He likes Mum’s coffee. And her meringues. He has afternoon tea with Mum – coffee and meringues,’ Marjorie repeated, just for the pleasure of it. Ruby would have been proud of her.
The fear cloud broke. It was rain now: raining all over the group. Including Jesse. ‘And then Mum plays the piano and sings for Jimmy. Jimmy likes Brahms the best.’
It was a hot, dry Mallee day. Except for the raining fear. They had no idea who that Brahms character was but they were afraid. ‘They do it all the time,’ said Marjorie as she walked off to amuse herself on the monkey bars. She had those monkey bars all to herself for the rest of lunchtime.
*
Marjorie didn’t learn much more about why everyone else roundabout was scared of Jimmy Waghorn. But they were. Neither did she know how music could talk to Elise and Jimmy. But it did. They were a duet. One fragile soul, fluttering and brittle in its disconnection, slowly twisting in the hot wind, like the failing sticky tape in the hallway. One fierce soul, solid and beautiful in its ageless connection. Watching, hidden and stubborn, like the Mallee.
No one hereabouts knew how to take that duet. Except for Ruby and Marjorie.
And Bill. Bill knew as much about Jimmy as anyone could. He knew Jimmy would be good for Elise. Even so, this duet stirred things up, made an eddying of those unreliable sands, a shuffling of wind through the scrub, a sideways watching from eyes busier watching other people’s business than their own.
But no one and no thing roundabout was going to do anything about it. No one was game to talk to Bill about Jimmy. And no one was anywhere near game enough to ask Jimmy what he knew about duets.
Sometimes Jimmy would come during the day for no apparent reason. Sometimes he would just drink Elise’s coffee, sitting there at the kitchen table. Sometimes he would come during the day, knowing Elise was drifting on shifting sands. Because Jimmy knew you could be drowned by a sandhill.
Often, he came by at night. Walking across the paddock from his place. Drawn by the sound of Elise playing and singing clear out into the carrying air. ‘Come on in,’ Bill would say out the back door to his old friend. Because, somehow, he seemed to know when Jimmy was out there. And now and again Jimmy would come in. And the two of them would sit in the kitchen with a cup of hot black tea and without any talk and they would listen to the music across the hallway. But most times he wouldn’t. ‘Nah, it’s alright,’ Jimmy would say. ‘I prefer to do my listening out here in the scrub. There’s no complications out here.’
And Bill knew what he meant. So Jimmy would stay outside the house. He would stand in the dark, under a Mallee tree, claiming his own space just outside that incomprehensible fence.
And Marjorie would watch for him from her bedroom window. Sometimes Marjorie would see him standing still near the tank stand. Other times she would see him leaning against one of the Mallee trees. Sometimes she would see him squatting comfortably, Mallee bloke style, in the dirt. Every so often she saw him early and easily – before the darkness coalesced into night-time shapes. Identified by the tiny glow of a cigarette being smoked in the dark. Marjorie was happy then. She would stand as still on her side of the window as the tank stand was standing on its side of the verandah. She would listen to Elise inside the house and watch Jimmy Waghorn outside the fence.
‘Can you see him now?’ Ruby would ask out of the dark lump of her pillow and blankets when Marjorie’s shoulders stiffened.
‘Yes. He’s there.’ She would smile into the dark of the night-time. And for just a little while, Marjorie was not scared. She had Ruby beside her inside the house and Jimmy alongside her outside the fence. She would give a tiny wave to Jimmy every time she spotted him. A wave of thanks. A wave of relief. Sometimes Jimmy would give Marjorie a nod, or a Mallee man’s wave – the index finger up and down. Once.
‘Do you reckon anyone else knows that Jimmy is out there listening to Mum?’ Marjorie asked. ‘Do you reckon Mum knows?’
‘Does it matter?’ asked Ruby, knowing quite well that it did matter. ‘All that matters is that you and I know.’
And Marjorie knew Ruby was right and she was comforted by that, so she would climb back into her bed then.
Marjorie liked to think she saw Jimmy Waghorn nearly every time he visited. ‘I can see him,’ she would say to Ruby. She would turn from the window then. And Marjorie and Ruby would lie in their beds as the music soaked through the walls.
‘I wish she would play forever, Ruby,’ Marjorie would whisper across the lino.
‘At least until we fall asleep,’ Ruby would whisper back.
But Marjorie wouldn’t let herself fall asleep because then she would miss out on some of the magic. And every time, when Marjorie reckoned her mother had reached that point of magic, Marjorie would get out of bed again, and stand at the bedroom window and watch once more. Out into the darkened scrub. Watching still for Jimmy Waghorn.
Chapter 4
If you think Mallee farmers are stubborn you need to think again. You need to think about the Mallee. Life in the Mallee is a deceptive, delicate balance and proper husbandry of that balance is necessarily brutal. Those farmers, though, are a hard-wearing lot. And they need to be, because the Mallee never gives up on sending hot winds and choking dust to blast sheds; salt and drought to ruin crops; blowflies and crows to torment sheep. Marjorie always knew that. She knew too about all those Mallee stumps: lurking below the dirt, waiting for their chance.
Mallee stumps can do anything. They can break a plough or damage a tractor or smash a man. And the farmers couldn’t get rid of them. They put up a good fight in the early days, but it wasn’t enough. The men, camping out there on their hot semi-arid selections with their swags and tents and their bright buoyant optimism, attacked all that scrub with axes. And the scrub laughed while its skinny little trees grabbed those axes and ground down all that dour iron into stubs of their former selves. So the men tossed aside their dismal axes and took to scorching the scrub with fire. But that scrub just stared back at their fires and stood and sacrificed its limbs to the flames. Then it turned its back on all those men and went underground. To wait them out. So the men, getting the wrong idea about the insurrectionary tactic, were cheered, made confident by their fires and the downed limbs, and they decided it was time to plough up.
Which was what the Mallee had been waiting for. That underground Mallee attacked. Beca
use those lurking insurgent Mallee stumps had been setting traps. They broke ploughs, they smashed seeders, they upended carts. They were ruthless and relentless as they hit out at men and horses alike. So the men invented machines. Big Lizzie crawled in all her immense cast-iron might through the Mallee at about two miles an hour after that – day after grubbing day. Grinding everything in her path, grubbing out the stumps. She did her best. But she too failed. Even with all Big Lizzie’s stolid might and belching oily effort, the farmers couldn’t get rid of those stumps. If they had, they wouldn’t have had to invent a stump-jump plough, which hurdled over stumps and dodged around them and left them obstinate and hidden below the dirt.
You can talk about living in the Mallee: Marjorie did. She talked about it and lived in it. So did Elise. And it is a funny thing because Mallee can mean more than one thing. You can talk about a Mallee tree and say how it is useless for climbing and useless for shade, and pretty much useless for furniture or fences. And God-awful to chop for firewood. But once chopped, it burns like the blazes. The Mallee tree is a dissident. It does not have a trunk like other trees; and the Mallee root – also known as a lignotuber – is not a root at all. It is the trunk. Stunted, twisted and underground. Growing below the sand. Sneaky and hidden. Those stunted spindles above the ground, which people mistook for the trunks, are stems, not trunks – not that anyone knew that back then. That is how it survives. It hides.
And you can talk about the Mallee: a land and a place full of red sand and short stubby trees. Trees short of leaves and short of shade and overall stunted from the effort of precarious survival. The Mallee is quiet on the surface of things in its own arid way, and seemingly insipid in its semi-desertness. With its emaciated trees, its restless shifting sand, its spear grass, its prickles and its prickle bushes. But it watches. Waiting for a chance to get rid of you. Clear off, you lot, it says. Go back where you came from. There are too many of you here already! There is no permanent fresh water in the Mallee. The Mallee won’t allow it.
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