by Tess Evans
‘No worries.’ Stella turns back to George. ‘Scary Mary here can take your little girl.’
Scary Mary. Just how scary are you? Rory’s eyes ask before turning to George for rescue.
Mary brooks no nonsense. ‘Get your things and wait here.’ As the girl returns to the tent, George grins.
‘One in every family,’ he observes. ‘Reminds me of my sister.’
Stella’s chuckle is low and throaty. ‘Dunno what we’d do without her. She’s so responsible it really is scary.’
Happy hour begins at six and finishes with a barbecue at dusk. Park turns out to be Stella’s husband, a man even smaller and skinnier than George, with thick grey-black hair and the eyelashes of a movie star. In the course of the evening, George learns that they grow beef cattle on a property in western New South Wales.
‘Long way from here.’
‘Yeah.’ Park swipes at a mosquito. ‘I used to come here when I was a kid. Mum lives just up the road in Millingandi so we call in for Christmas and then come on down here. The kids hate the drive but love the place.’
George is too polite to ask how many children they have, but Stella tells him anyway. ‘Nine kids,’ two cars and two caravans.’
‘This is Linda,’ she says, presenting the chubby toddler playing at her feet. ‘But we call her Bubs. Last one and all that.’
‘Then,’ adds Park, ‘we had little Sam here, so we call him Ditto.’ The Parkers all find this very funny and laugh as though it’s quite new to them. Park pinches his wife’s substantial buttock. ‘Have to be careful we don’t end up with a Double-ditto.’
George had never spoken this way to his wife; had never been part of a large family, so his laughter isn’t as spontaneous as it might have been. Still. He can’t help liking these people.
Park winks. ‘She’s a good sort, our Stell.’
‘You’re a lucky man,’ George is inspired to say before his attention is taken by a delighted Rory running around with two boys and a girl about her own age – happy, Park remarks, as a pig in poo.
George almost weeps with pleasure. The easy camaraderie of the caravan park is foreign to him as well as to Rory, but Stell and Park, together with their tumbling offspring, have already broken down their defences.
After that first day, Rory is coaxed (by Scary Mary) and shamed (by Harry and Beano) to venture into the water. George hovers in the shallows, squinting into the sun as Rory becomes one with the squealing mass of children. ‘Tomorrow I’m going on the boogie board,’ she announces that night. ‘Harry’s going to show me how.’
For the first week it is sunny every day. Then out of nowhere the rain comes in a grey curtain that obliterates the horizon and sends the campers scurrying for shelter. ‘Over here, love.’ Stella’s voice confounds even the thunder that’s rolling in with the rain. ‘We need more players. Charlie ’n’ Brett are off with the Forbes kids.’
So George and Rory go to the Parker compound, as he likes to call it, to play board games and eat the doughnuts he’d dashed out and bought at the bakery. He feels awkward, proffering them to Stella; she’s such a good cook.
‘Perfect,’ she says. ‘Nothing like a jam doughnut, eh, kids?’
The Parkers fall upon the doughnuts as though it’s their last meal, pleasing George enormously. Dry and warm, he looks out at the rain, now slowed to a drizzle. A man could do a lot worse, he thinks, pushing to the back of his mind that niggling reminder that it’s all temporary. That sooner rather than later, Angie will return to claim her place as Rory’s lawful guardian.
‘Might take the tinny out tomorrow if it’s fine,’ Park says the next morning. ‘You bring a rod, George?’
‘Matter of fact I did plan on taking the young’un fishing,’ George replies. ‘But you won’t have room for us. We’ll go down to the pier.’
Park won’t hear of it. ‘My kids’ve been in the boat plenty of times. There’s room for the two of you. We’ll go before sun-up. Bloke at the pub says they’ve been catching whiting round Dinner Cove.’
They decide upon pipis for bait and the younger children set out on a pipi-seeking expedition under the watchful eye of Scary Mary. George and Park sit on the beach and enjoy the ‘youngsters’ as Park calls them, running and swooping on their finds. Rory returns with a wide grin and a bucketful of pipis. ‘I found eleven of these myself,’ she says, flourishing the bucket. ‘Harry reckons pipis are like chocolate biscuits if you’re a fish.’
George wishes that he could have taken Rory to find the pipis like his Poppy had with him, but is wise enough to see that for Rory, the best thing is being part of the Parker gang. He peers into the bucket. ‘In all my born days I’ve never seen so many pipis in one place.’
At the first buzz of the alarm the next morning, Rory is out of bed, dressing in the warm clothes Park has advised. ‘Come on, Poppy.’
In the pre-dawn chill, George helps Rory into her life jacket and the two men slide the boat into the water. The sky is pearl-grey, but by the time the boat is launched, the horizon is tinged with a salmon-coloured glow. They cross the sandbar into deeper waters. ‘Careful,’ George says as the little girl wriggles and fidgets and chatters in an excited treble. ‘You’ll scare the fish.’
The sun breaches the horizon, and smudged with pink, the colours of the sea emerge. ‘Over there,’ Park says. ‘See that darker strip?’
‘Looks like a deep gully to me.’ George is pleased to show that he knows a thing or two about fishing. He turns to Rory. ‘Fish like to hide in deep gullies.’
They show Rory how to make a trail of berley, using the stale bread she’d been saving for the purpose. George baits her hook with a pipi and the two of them drop their lines over the side. Park is happy to watch. ‘Truth is, I just like being out on the boat.’
Rory finds it hard to be both quiet and still, but against all odds, a fish attaches itself to her line. ‘Easy, there.’ George helps her to reel it in and Park scoops it into the boat with his net. A fair-sized flathead wriggles and writhes in the mesh, its scales refracting the morning light.
Rory looks at the floundering fish in horror. ‘It can’t breathe.’
The men exchange amused glances. ‘Fish can’t breathe out of the water,’ Park explains.
‘Put him back. Put him back.’ Rory’s distress verges on panic. She clutches George’s arm. ‘I don’t want him to die.’
‘She gets asthma,’ George explains to a perplexed Park. ‘She knows what it’s like. Not breathing, I mean.’
So they photograph Rory with the fish and put it back in the water, where it stops a moment before flicking away.
‘I like fishing,’ Rory tells Stella later. ‘But I don’t like hurting the fish.’
‘We only caught the one.’ George knows it’s no big deal, but can’t help thinking it would have been nice to come home with their catch. He had wanted to show Rory how to gut and clean it, like his Poppy had shown him. He had wanted them to fry it in butter and savour the special taste of freshly caught fish. ‘She’s always been a sensitive kid,’ he offers by way of explanation.
‘No harm in that.’ Stella’s tone refutes the implied apology.
‘Of course not.’ George is shamed, but can’t help wishing that Rory had taken to fishing in the way he’d imagined. He feels she’s let him down, something he hasn’t felt in a very long time.
‘I know it’s childish,’ he confides later to Park. ‘But I had my heart set on the two of us spending time together fishing.’
Park is sanguine. ‘All my kids disappoint me at times, but not in any way that matters.’ He hitches up his shorts. ‘And as far as I can see, you ’n’ young Rory got a lot more going for you than fishing.’
Of course we have. Late in life, George is beginning to understand that you can’t mould a child in your own image. And who’d want to be like me, anyway? He returns to the caravan, and in the absence of a fish fry-up, makes Rory’s favourite pancakes.
One night towards the end of the
holiday, Stella, with lazy generosity, suggests that she and the older children will see to the younger ones while George and Park head for the local pub. ‘Blokes need time at the pub,’ she says. ‘And you can get us some fish ’n’ chips on the way back.’
George demurs (he’s afraid of imposing) but Park hisses in his ear. ‘Don’t often get a leave pass, mate. Let’s get a move on before Stell changes her mind.’
George hasn’t been to a pub with anyone but Redgum for years and feels a brief pang of disloyalty to his old mate as he downs the cold lager Park brings over from the bar.
‘Cheers.’ He savours the bitter taste and the way it slides down his throat in double quick time. The day’s heat has percolated through every corner of the small town and the usual sea breeze is late. Hot and sweaty, George flaps his T-shirt for relief. ‘Another one?’
Park empties his glass in one gulp. ‘Touches the spot, eh?’
It’s no time at all before George is pronouncing his words with excessive care. It is important (he frowns in concentration) that Park understands his thoughts, the insights achieved over seventy-eight years on the planet. ‘What I’m saying, mate, is that you can’t trust any of them. From the prime min-is-ter down. They’re all in it for their own . . . their own . . . own . . .’ He waves an all-encompassing hand.
Park, George is impressed to see, is a man who recognises a profound thought when he hears one. ‘Know exactly what you mean, mate. Snouts in the trough.’
‘Exactly. Wallowing in it, the lot of them. Another beer?’
Park looks at his watch. ‘Jesus. The missus’ll kill us.’
As one, they bolt across to the fish shop. The queue is long and while they’re waiting, a phone rings close by. George frowns down at his pocket. ‘I think it’s mine,’ he says, surprised. Shirl had convinced him that he needed a mobile phone when Rory came into his care, but it rarely rings. He takes it out with two fingers, carefully, as though it might explode, and stares at it, wondering who might be ringing him here. At this time of day. ‘Dunno who it can be.’
‘You could answer it.’
It’s Bree. ‘Angie’s back early,’ she says. ‘Wants to know where you are.’
George sobers in an instant. ‘You didn’t tell her?’
‘What do you take me for? I told her you’re somewhere down the beach way but you’ll be home in a few days so . . . George. Are you still there?’
George opens and shuts his mouth like the fish they had so lately pulled from the sea. When he reaches for his voice, there is an obstruction, deep in his larynx. He clears his throat with difficulty. ‘Yeah. I’m here.’
‘Bad news?’ Park’s face swims through his field of vision.
George nods.
‘Stay put,’ Bree says. ‘I’ll be there sometime Friday.’
Fish and chips wrapped and paid for, the two men walk back to the caravan park. George has regained some of his colour but says little. What could he say? It’s all over. Bree isn’t a bad sort of woman, but when it comes to the crunch, she’s all talk – like those bloody politicians rabbiting on, promising this and that . . . His eyes slide sideways to meet Park’s puzzled stare.
‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ he lies.
George does his best to join in, but his mind is engaged elsewhere. He sees Stella raise her eyebrows at Park. What’s the matter with him? they signal, and Park indicates his perplexity with a shrug.
He needs to get away and think. The children are arguing about who has the most chips and Ditto, red-faced and tired, roars his indignation. How long before George can reasonably leave the noisy feast? His head pounds, and as he nibbles disconsolately on a fish stick, his stomach begins to churn. ‘Crook in the guts,’ he mutters and runs towards the toilet block.
‘Are you all right, mate?’ Park’s voice comes to him through the cubicle door. ‘Stell says I oughta check on you.’
Tears spring unbidden to George’s eyes. He is drowning in a wash of fear, and the kindness of his new friends unmans him. He sits, pants around his ankles, and begins to howl like a snotty-nosed kid. Like the weak sort of kid his father despised. He’s seventy-eight years old, crying like a girl. There have been two great loves in his life and he’s already lost one. Now he’s losing the other.
The door shudders beneath Park’s fists. ‘George. George. Say something.’ The handle rattles, none too gently. ‘Do you need a doctor?’
George opens the door. ‘Let me be for a bit, mate. I’ll go back to the van – talk to you when the kids are asleep. Promise.’ He could see by Park’s expression that he doesn’t look too good at all. So he adjusts his features into a less-than-convincing grin. ‘I’ll have a cuppa and you’ll see – I’ll be right as rain.’
By the time Rory and the Parker children are asleep, it’s after ten o’clock. The night is warm and mothy, and a nearly full moon washes puddles of light over the camp ground as small groups cluster and drink and speak softly to each other so as not to wake their sleeping children. Stella and Park are waiting for him, two dim shapes under the tree between their compound and his van.
‘Beer?’
‘Not at the moment, mate. Stomach’s still a bit iffy.’
‘Tea? I’ve just boiled the kettle.’ Stella disappears for a few minutes and returns with three mugs of tea. ‘So . . .’ Her voice is softened by the night. ‘Can we help?’
He doesn’t mean to tell them, but the strain is too great – there’s just no way he can deal with this alone. Voice subdued, he cups his hands around the warm mug and begins his story. Stell and Park listen without comment until he tells them how Angie had left Rory with him.
‘Leaving her own child!’ Stell and Park turn towards the tents where their own children lie sleeping, then draw together. ‘Some kids have a bugger of a life.’
George isn’t sure who’s speaking, but knows in effect that it’s both of them.
‘So for going on two years it’s just been me and Rory.’ George’s voice, without resonance, is swallowed by the dark. ‘And after all we’ve been through together, her mother is coming to take her off to West Wyalong.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Park is indignant, but George can see that Stella is conflicted. Her instincts must tell her that a child should be with its mother. Well, one part of him thought so, too. But such a mother. Stella’s large expressive face screws up in an effort to understand.
‘Drugs, you say?’
George has to be honest. ‘She was a user earlier on, I think, but she was clean by the time I met her. At least, I think she was. Dunno if she still is. Bree – that’s her girlfriend – she reckons the bloke Angie ran off with is a dealer and the new one’s been arrested for possession.’
‘That poor child.’ Stella wipes away a tear. ‘Whatever will happen to her?’
‘Dunno. She’ll probably end up with social services.’ He heaves himself up and squares his shoulders. ‘Sorry to bother you with all my problems. Her mate Bree’s coming tomorrow. She’s got some plan but I’m not holding me breath.’
The generously fleshed woman and the compact little man look almost comical, sitting there side by side, but George senses the strength that comes from shared values and the united front they present to the world. Scary Mary might be the manager of the family, but Stella and Park are its heart.
15
‘Aunty Bree! It’s Aunty Bree.’ Rory runs towards the two figures walking down behind the vans. ‘And Redgum! It’s Redgum! Come and see me on the boogie board.’ She dances round them, shouting for her new friends. ‘Harry. Mary. It’s my Aunty Bree and Redgum. He’s the scientist I told you about.’
‘In a moment, love.’ Bree kisses her on the cheek. ‘We need to talk to Poppy George first.’
‘Come in.’ George is surprised to see Redgum but glad of the opportunity to call on the big man’s uncomplicated common sense.
Despite the seriousness of the problem, George plays at host. ‘Another nice day,’ he says, switching on the kettle and fis
hing in the cupboard for some biscuits. He turns to the fridge. ‘What’s the matter with me? I’m turning into an old woman. After that long drive, you’ll want a beer.’
‘Too right.’
It’s hot in the van, so they set up under a neighbouring tree.
‘Have you spoken to Angie?’
‘Told her you might be a couple of days late. With the good weather and all.’
George is grateful for crumbs but forces himself to face reality. ‘Still set on West Wyalong, is she?’
‘Silly bitch.’
‘I guess that’s a “yes”.’ George, head bowed, hands between his knees, is remote from the holiday buzz and bustle. ‘I’ll see if we can stay another couple of days. Then I suppose it’s home to face the music.’
‘Not if we can help it.’ Redgum puts down his beer and turns to Bree. ‘We’ve got a plan, haven’t we?’
‘Redgum and me, we reckon Rory shouldn’t go back unless Angie agrees to stay with you.’
‘Easier said than done.’
Bree lowers her voice. ‘This is the plan . . .’
So far, it sounds almost feasible. George wants it to be feasible. ‘So I take Rory somewhere till it blows over one way or another? But where?’
‘We haven’t got that far yet,’ Bree has to admit.
‘Perhaps we can help.’ Stella and Park appear, it seems, from nowhere. ‘Nice to meet you,’ Stella says as George introduces them. ‘Ears like a vacuum cleaner,’ she explains to the puzzled newcomers. She addresses herself to Bree, who has assumed an air of authority. ‘They can stay at our place. No one around for miles. Except Rabbit, but he won’t be a problem. We’ll be here till school goes back – that’ll allow them another four weeks.’
‘I can’t let you . . .’
‘Of course you can. But we have to be careful in case they come looking. Let me think, now.’
Park explains. ‘Stell watches every police show on television. Mark my words – she’ll know what to do.’
