The Promise

by Tony Birch

  While Carmen’s on the short side, I didn’t think it was the best time to remind her she’s a bottle-blonde.

  When none of the staff on the floor moved to serve the couple he stood up and looked with annoyance around the room. Carmen nodded towards the table.

  ‘You going to look after them?’

  I studied the deep grain in the wood as I wiped the top of the oak bar, over and over again.

  ‘Not me. I’m busy.’

  She snapped her fingers and ordered one of the juniors to the table. I watched the couple from the corner of my eye as he loudly ordered for them both – the goulash soup. I couldn’t stomach the insult.

  ‘Did you hear that, Carmen? The soup.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Jimmy. I bet you a drink she won’t touch it. She can’t afford to. You want to keep a wafer figure like that in trim,’ she laughed, slapping her own ample arse, ‘you dine out on fresh air.’

  ‘He’s a fucking arsehole.’

  ‘Finally,’ she chuckled, ‘you’ve worked it out. All men are arseholes.’

  ‘Not all.’

  ‘Well, most.’

  ‘You’re right. Most.’

  I was clearing a table on the far side of the room when Carmen rushed over.

  ‘Fuck, Jimmy. I can’t believe my eyes. Look, it’s the poor girl.’

  She was standing in the rain, looking into the café through the side window. Her hair was soaking wet, her black dress clung to her body and her thin arms rested limply at her side. He’d turned his chair away from the window, and the blonde had her head bowed, staring into the red-checked tablecloth. The girl banged loudly at the window with her fists to get their attention. He threw his napkin on the table and called me over. When I didn’t move Carmen rested a hand on my back.

  ‘You’d better get over there.’

  ‘He can fuck himself. I’m not going.’

  ‘Please, Jimmy. The girl’s upsetting the other customers. Tell him he’s a prick, if you like. We don’t need his business. Just get over there. I’d go myself, but I’d put a fork in his throat.’

  I headed for the table and kept my eyes on the girl outside. She stopped banging and rested a hand on the glass. She looked sadly at him, pleading for some recognition.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he demanded. ‘Can we please be moved to another table? Away from this window?’

  The room was full to the brim.

  ‘I’m sorry. This table is all we have.’

  She started banging again, even louder. The blonde flicked a strand of hair from her top lip with a perfectly manicured fingernail. The man half stood, leaned across the table, kissed the blonde deeply on the lips then turned to the girl and smiled. The banging stopped. She wiped tears and raindrops from her cheeks with the sleeve of her dress. She leaned forward, turned her face to the side and rested it against the window. She took a last look at the man who had betrayed her.

  When she finally turned and walked away all that was left of the girl was a smudge of mist on the glass.

  I walked back to the bar muttering arsehole – over and over – from the corner of my mouth.

  ‘Too right,’ Carmen nodded.

  When the bowls of goulash came out of the kitchen Carmen insisted on taking them over to the table.

  ‘I think I’ll throw in a complimentary glass of wine for the two of them.’

  ‘What?’ I almost screamed.

  She grabbed a pair of tumblers from under the bar and filled them to the brim with the cheapest red we had in stock. She lifted the tray above her head and weaved between the rows of tables like a Flamenco dancer. When she reached the table she practically threw the wine and food down, spilling both across the table.

  ‘Sorry folks,’ she sneered. As she walked back to the bar Carmen gave her death stare to the waiting staff. They knew not to go near the table and clean up the mess.

  The couple didn’t speak to each other and hardly touched the food on their plates. He got up and walked across to the bar, where Carmen and I were standing behind the register. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket.

  ‘What’s the damage?’

  Carmen arched an eyebrow.

  ‘The damage?’

  ‘The bill. What’s it come to?’

  She stared at his open wallet and its array of credit cards.

  ‘No damage. This one is on us. A farewell gift.’

  He shook his head and smirked at her.

  ‘Farewell. What do you mean?’

  Carmen had picked up a clean wine glass and was polishing it with a linen towel. When he asked her the question a second time she turned to me and nodded towards the table where the blonde was sitting, uncomfortably alone.

  ‘Jimmy, let’s get rid of the mess over there.’

  The man looked at me, put his wallet in his pocket, collected the blonde and left the restaurant.

  They never came back. But the girl did. A few weeks later she walked into the restaurant, around lunchtime early in the week. She looked a lot better than the last time I had seen her. She was wearing a bright red coat and had cut her hair shorter. She looked around the room for a table. I nearly tripped over myself trying to get to her before one of the waitresses.

  ‘Hello,’ I smiled. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Alone?’ she frowned.

  ‘For lunch,’ I corrected myself. ‘Just yourself for lunch?’

  ‘Yes. Just myself.’

  There were plenty of empty tables. I looked across to the bar.

  ‘Would you like a table? Or … how about a seat at the bar?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Sure.’

  She followed me to the bar where I helped her off with her coat. Underneath she was wearing the same dress she’d had on the day she’d stumbled across her old boyfriend. It looked brighter. She sat up at the bar and rested her chin in her hands, watching as I poured her a glass of white wine.

  Carmen suddenly appeared from the cellar where she’d been checking the barrelled beer stock. She looked a little shocked on seeing the girl. We both rested against the back of the bar, watching the girl as she put her lips to the glass. Carmen leaned into me, winked and dug her elbow gently into my ribs.

  DISTANCE

  I waited until the train trailed around the bend before searching the platform. It was deserted. I picked up my duffel bag, slung it over my shoulder and headed for the nearby street. The station attendant, a sweaty kid around sixteen or maybe seventeen, was resting under the shade of a peppercorn tree alongside an empty car park. He took a drag on a cigarette and then a sip from a soft-drink can as he lazily watched me out of one eye.

  I had no idea which way to head, but didn’t want to let on that I was lost even before I had started the search. I stopped, put my bag down and looked to the left, at a solitary wheat silo casting a shadow above a derelict homestead, and a few rundown shacks alongside a dirt track wandering into some trees. To the right of me, off in the distance, I could see a service station across the street from a hotel.

  A boy wearing a turned-around baseball cap, seated on a slapped-together bicycle made of nothing more than bits of rusted metal, rode into the service station.

  A sign of life, I thought, and headed in the same direction.

  A swarm of insects – flies, bull ants and some sort of jumping crickets – retreated ahead of me into the long grass on the side of the road. I looked down at the ground. Dust lifted in the air before settling on my recently polished shoes. A truck roared by carrying a herd of scrawny cattle, kicking up more dust. The driver tooted his horn and waved at me through the dirty windscreen. I waved back, then I coughed and spat.

  At the service station the boy on the bicycle was using an air hose to remove canes of dry grass from the bike’s spokes and chain. It was not a baseball cap the boy was wearing, but a peculiar hairstyle. Wh
ile a straw fringe of hair lay across his eyes, the sides and back were jet-black.

  As I walked by he ran a hand through his hair and smiled, then shot a blast of air in my direction.

  Smartarse, I thought, without saying anything.

  I had a bone-dry throat and wanted a cold drink. I tried the front door of the shop attached to the service station. It was locked. I put my hand to the side of my face and peered through the glass. I couldn’t see anyone. I knocked on the glass. No answer. A notice taped to the inside of the door read open. So I knocked again. Still no answer.

  I was about to walk away when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around and saw a man carrying a large monkey wrench and wearing a pair of overalls covered in dark, congealed grease. He also had smudges of oil over his shaven head.

  He raised a filthy hand as if he were about to say something, when he spotted the boy playing with the air hose. He kicked the ground and waved his arms around like he was trying to scare off a mad dog.

  ‘Fuck off, Conway. You never buy nothin’ from here. None of you lot. Don’t come round here fuckin’ with my equipment. Wreckin’ it and all. Get goin’, you black cunt.’

  The boy dropped the hose and jumped on his bike. He obviously had no fear of the man. He slammed a foot down on a pedal and headed straight for the man, who only managed to jump out of the way as the boy was about to crash into him.

  ‘Read your own sign, Huntie-cunt. It says free air, you dumb fuck,’ he screamed out over his shoulder, then spat on the ground and rode off in the direction of the wheat silo.

  ‘Don’t come back here, Conway. Or I’ll kick your black arse blue.’

  He wiped his hands on his overalls and launched into a short version of his life story.

  ‘Sorry about that, mate. Ted Hunt. I’m the mechanic here. Part owner too. With Bob, the publican. The kid’s off the Abo reserve. Fucken trouble, every last one of them.’

  ‘The reserve?’

  ‘Yeah. Government-run place. Used to be, anyway. Supplied the timber cutters for the Forestry Commission. Good workers, my old man used to tell me. Hard to believe now. The Commission’s fucked itself now. Bent over and let itself get well and truly fucked up the arse by the Greenies. The reserve’s gone too. Officially. Years and years back. They were supposed to have their freedom or something. So you would reckon they’d fucken leave. Well, they haven’t budged one inch. You know what we need here? You know?’

  He stamped his foot, demanding an answer.

  ‘No. I don’t know.’

  ‘An intervention. Like they got up north. We need an inter-fucken-vention. Right here. Fix the cunts up. That would. Get them workin’ or get them out.’

  He finally stopped talking and looked me up and down.

  ‘You from the government yourself? Agriculture? Water Board? We don’t steal no water round here. Only take what comes out of the sky. Which is fuck all.’

  He glanced across the road to a dry ditch.

  ‘And from the creek, when it flows. Which it hasn’t for years.’

  He buried his hands in his pockets, waiting for an answer.

  ‘No, I’m not from the government.’

  ‘Where you from then? You break down on the highway?’

  ‘No. I came on the train.’

  ‘The train,’ he cackled. ‘Fuck me sideways, mate. Should’ve let us know you were comin’. We’d have put a brass band on, except that most of the members are dead. Or …’ he looked across the road to the pub, ‘or too pissed to blow out a candle. Fuck, no bugger has got off the train here since the breakdown last year. Big group that was too, heading for some flower show in Bendigo. Shit. A flower show? Imagine how much water we waste in this country growin’ fucken flowers? I had to feed them all out of the shop here. All I had was Coke, potato chips and stale pies.’

  He kicked the toe of his boot into the tarmac.

  ‘So, what are you doin’ here?’

  ‘I’m looking for an address,’ I explained as I put my hand in my back pocket and pulled out an envelope. It was worn and creased. I handed it to him. ‘Do you know where this place is?’

  He read the address and screwed his face up.

  ‘What are ya, mate? A goose? This is a Melbourne address. That’s where you just come from?’

  ‘Sorry.’ I snatched the envelope out of his hand and turned it over. ‘I meant this one. On the back.’

  He mouthed the address to himself, looked up at me, then back down at the envelope and read it a second time.

  ‘Sure. I know where it is. This is the Munro place.’

  ‘Munro? I’m not looking for Munro. I’m after a Mr Revell. James Revell.’

  His face lit up.

  ‘Oh, Jimmy Revell. Yeah, knew him well. A crony of my old man. Drinking mates. Used to manage the Munro grain depot, old Jimmy. Munro had a licence to print money with that grain contract.’

  ‘Used to?’

  He looked over my shoulder, towards the silo.

  ‘Yeah. Like I said. Used to. The depot. It went too. With everything else. Wheat train bypasses us for the bigger towns now. You had business with him? Jimmy?’

  I looked down at the envelope, stained with his dark fingerprints.

  ‘I’m a relative.’

  ‘Ahh,’ he gasped with surprise as he rubbed the end of his chin.

  ‘Relative? I didn’t know Jimmy had any relations. He had a girl off the reserve once, years ago. Caused a fucken scandal. And then she fucked off. Left him and the town for dead. They say she was up the spout. One of the few who got away. She went by the name of Winnie. You heard of her? Winnie? Related to her, too?’

  I felt a bead of sweat rolling down my cheek and onto my neck.

  ‘A relation?’ he prodded.

  I took the envelope from him and shoved it into my pocket.

  ‘So where’s this place? Munro’s?’

  ‘Can’t miss it,’ he smiled through a mouth of yellowed teeth. ‘The silo. Smack bang under the silo, it is.’ His expression shifted to gloom. ‘But you won’t find nothin’ there. Nothin’.’

  A wire-strung fence surrounded the property, while a metal gate hung from a single hinge. As I opened it, the gate came away from the fence post. I rested it against the post and walked along a pathway, past an old date palm, onto a collapsing front verandah. The windows of the house were smashed in, as was the front door. I began to walk into the house but stopped as I felt a weight press against my chest. I looked into a string of cobwebs hanging from the hall ceiling. Decorative paper peeled from the walls and weeds had grown through gaps in the floorboards.

  I sat on the front step of the verandah, took the envelope from my pocket and ran it between my fingers several times before taking out a letter and reading the fading words. The boy who’d had the run-in with the mechanic was back, on his bike, resting against the fence post. I stood up, folded the letter and held it in my hand as I walked towards the gate.

  He pointed to the house.

  ‘What are you doin here? This place is private property. The coppers catch you here and they’ll whip ya into the gaol. Vandals been round here. Wrecking the place. Coppers are sick of it, they reckon. The sergeant come down the high school last week and says if he catches anyone in the act he’ll crack their arse and lock them up.’

  ‘Do I look like a vandal?’

  ‘Na. You look like a priest. Or maybe a probation officer.’

  ‘Well, I’m neither,’ I laughed. ‘You know much about this place?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Are you a copper, then?’

  ‘No. I’m not a copper. I’m a teacher.’

  ‘Teacher. Copper. Same thing.’

  I ignored the jibe.

  ‘You know the man who lived in the house? James Revell?’

>   He folded his arms across his chest and stuck his hands under his armpits.

  ‘Jimmy never lived in the big house. It belonged to the Munro people. His place is over there.’ He nodded in the direction of the collection of shacks. ‘The front one was his. Behind that is the kitchen and the washhouse. For the blackfellas, when they worked here.’

  I headed across the yard towards the shack. The boy jumped off his bike and followed me. I waited until he had caught up with me.

  ‘Conway. It’s Conway, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he answered, clearly embarrassed. ‘After my old man’s favourite country and western singer, Conway Twitty. You heard of him?’

  ‘Yeah. Just. You know a lot about this place. How come?’

  ‘I know what my Nan tells me. She used to work here. Cleaning, cooking and stuff. You know Jimmy?’

  ‘No. I don’t know him. I’m a relative.’

  He looked puzzled.

  ‘You don’t know your own relative? I know every relation I’ve got, from the coast to the hills. Uncles. Aunties. Cousins. All of ’em.’

  ‘You talk a lot, Conway. That fella, back at the servo, he talked a lot. Everyone like that around here?’

  ‘Suppose so. Not much else to do. Nothing wrong with talking.’

  I reached the front shack and pushed the door open. There was barely space for the metal-framed bed. I looked down at the stained mattress. The boy tapped me on the shoulder.

  ‘You want to see his grave? He’s in the cemetery, just up the road from us. I can take ya.’

  ‘His grave? He’s dead?’

  ‘Of course he is. Died out on the road there. A few years back. He had a heart attack comin’ back from the pub. I was still in primary school. Nan took me to the funeral. She’d worked with Jimmy for a bit. She was sad for him.’

  I leaned against the side of the shack as I felt my legs weaken.