by Sarah Hay
‘If you want to,’ she said flatly, and gestured to the cardboard box on the ground. ‘It’s for the old bloke who lives in the caravan near the shed.’
Laura was trying to maintain her brightness, her enthusiasm for being on a station, a place quite different from what she’d expected. It wasn’t anything like she could remember from The Thorn Birds. There was a strange emptiness that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the landscape.
Texas The old man’s camp was about halfway between the work sheds and the cattle yards, beside a small stand of thin boabs that must have grown from a single seed. The area around the sheds was like a desert, the dirt a deep red, compacted from all the traffic that obviously passed between the two places. It was about two hundred metres away from the homestead fence and she couldn’t help but notice the contrast between the baked earth she was now walking on and the soft moist grass behind her. The green band that skirted the homestead was like a barrier, coaxed into existence by endless rotations of sprinklers.
The work sheds were part of one big structure, the roof and the walls built from corrugated iron that was either stained red by rust or the dust, the openings beneath revealing spaces cluttered with tyres and welding equipment and broken vehicles. The sound of someone hammering metal on metal came from within.
Irish’s camp was an untidy arrangement of rusty iron and spinifex thatch beside an old caravan. The box had grown quite heavy in her arms since it contained mostly cans of food. She walked in under the open-sided shelter and placed it on the table beside the outside wall of the caravan. There were boxes beneath the table and on top there were bottles and plastic containers.
‘Excuse me,’ she called, hesitating, wondering whether she should leave, but she was curious about this person who lived like a gypsy. There had been a gypsy camp on the fringe of her grandmother’s village north of London. Her grandmother kept a bike for her and her sister to ride when they visited. Before they left they had to lock it up in the conservatory in case the gypsies took it. She remembered her mother being cross with their grandmother for telling them that. There was movement in the caravan and it shook slightly with the sound of his footsteps. He appeared in the doorway, shirtless, thin tufts of grey hair growing patchily on the skin below his neckline which was much lighter in colour than his arms and neck. He looked like a man who was shrinking. He unhooked his hat from a nail in the timber post that supported the roof and sat on the edge of a camp bed. There was the faint smell of urine and something rotten mixed with smoke. On one side of the camp were the smouldering remains of a fire. It was surrounded by three small sheets of iron that must have acted like a wind break, and beside it were blackened pots sitting in the dirt. He nodded at her.
‘You’re not that woman from the homestead.’ His cloudy eyes seemed to water with the intensity of his gaze.
She smiled quickly. ‘Oh, I just arrived. From England.’
Thinking there was no trace of Ireland in the old man’s voice.
‘What’ve they done with the other one?’
‘The other one?’ she frowned. ‘Oh, you mean Susannah.
She’s up at the house. I’m just working here,’ she added, almost apologetically.
‘Sit down.’ He waved his hand. ‘You making me tired.’
She sat on an empty flour drum on the other side of the table, feeling a little like she did when visiting an elderly neighbour in a nursing home: her response to the closeness
Texas and ugliness of old age confused by pity and curiosity. He nodded towards some cuttings of a plant he had hung upside down from one of the beams.
‘Kapok. Call it snow bush too.’
He stood up slowly from the camp bed and limped out to the fire. He unhooked a tea towel hanging from a metal stake and wrapped it around the wire handle of a black can that was sitting on the edge of it, bringing it to the table. He poured dark liquid into two mugs.
‘Kapok,’ he repeated. ‘That stuff brought here by the Afghans. Them camel saddles stuffed with Kapok. Seeds fell out all the way from here to bloomin Queensland.’
He heaped five spoonfuls of sugar into his cup from the jam jar on the table and sat back on the bed.
‘I didn’t know there were Afghans in Australia in those days,’ she said and sipped the tea. It was bitter and body warm.
‘One fella had seventy-two camels. Traded with a Chinese family up at the port and then hawked his stuff down this way and over to the east.’
She hadn’t realised there were Chinese people either. She’d only heard stories about the English.
‘Old Ali Khan. That was his name. They give him a bit of land for his camels on that big place over the border. He liked to gamble that fella. Whenever the missus from the big house couldn’t find her girls, that’s where they’d be, gambling with old Ali and listening to his bloomin Indian music. One time the missus got fed up and kicked him out. Last time I heard he was heading down to Alice. All his bloomin camels, running wild.
‘Blackfella mob south of here. Fellas there called Ally, same word, you know. That old Afghan, he might a been their daddy or granddaddy, I reckon,’ he chuckled and reached for his tobacco tin which was on the bed beside him.
The rollie paper stuck to his mottled lip, he looked down at his hands as he rubbed the tobacco, grinding the soft pad of one hand into the palm of the other, the top of them covered in patches of hair springing from pink and brown scabby skin.
He rolled the tobacco into a thin line that fitted the crease of his palm, took the paper from his mouth, wound it around and licked its seal. The cicadas and the grasshoppers clicked and buzzed like some metallic beast outside. A light movement of air seemed to pass through from the east and heat radiated downwards from the roof. The match scraped the box and she smelt the sulphur then rich, harsh smoke. He stared through it, eyes moist. He paused and rolled the butt between his forefinger and thumb. He looked up.
‘Do you have any family out here?’ she asked.
‘Not that’ve come forward,’ he chuckled, then wheezed.
‘What about back in Ireland?
He squinted, looking away from her. Not speaking for a while.
‘This’s where I belong,’ he muttered.
She wanted to ask the bush man more about himself but his eyes had left her and he started to cough. He waved at her and she assumed it meant she was to leave him alone.
Later that afternoon the truck arrived with the cattle. She heard it from her room and from the veranda she watched it
Texas pass by the homestead, wheels churning the fine dirt into liquid and the last of the sunlight catching the bulldog emblem on its bonnet. The children poured eagerly from the kitchen with their mother following. The driver released the horn and it sounded like a big tug. She offered to take the boys with her down to the yards but Susannah said it was their bath time. When the dust settled a little, Laura walked to where the road train had pulled up beside the cattle ramp. She called hello to the driver and he acknowledged her with an exaggerated salute. She climbed four sets of rails to open the gate on the other side of the yard so that the animals would be able to run through into the paddock where there was a trough. The driver pulled back the gate on the truck and stood away from the opening, prodding an animal through the gap in the rails with a piece of black poly pipe. She could see a velvet nose pressed between the rails, snorting the strange air, and a wet brown eye. The cattle shuffled and squashed each other against the side of the truck. Heads angled downwards. They bellowed from deep within their throats, a noise only their mothers would recognise. One of them stepped forward, forced into the lead, others quickly following, coloured in all shades of black, brown, grey and white with loose velvety skin and large ears that flopped and flicked, backwards and forwards. They were exotic creatures, nothing like cattle she had ever seen before, except perhaps in photos of Asia. They were only half grown and their flanks were sunken and ribs rippled their skin. She noticed Irish at the yards a few metres away. Bo
th hands were holding the rail above his head and his face leant in towards the gap. The cattle had bunched up on the other side beneath the shade of a tree.
‘Them cattle no good,’ he said when she came up to stand beside him.
‘Make bad mothers. If a dingo attack a calf. That mother she gone like that.’ He drew his head back and brought his hands down from the rail to slap his palms together. He looked at her for the first time and she noticed his skin was flecked like light-coloured granite.
‘Old Billy Carsen, he had some over his place. He reckoned if you didn’t wean them real young they suck the old girl right through until she has the next calf and it starves the next calf.’
He shook his head again. ‘They’re terrible cattle.’ He spat into the yard. ‘They reckon a brahma cow will suck herself and the bulls will suck her. Or you get a cow with a calf and the young bulls following her around. That calf ’s buggered then.
‘The last fella brought in a couple of bulls,’ he continued.
‘Few years back. They lost them. In the hills. Scrubbers now with a bit of brahma in them. The only way to get them out is with a bull catcher.’
‘Really,’ she said. How did you catch a wild bull? She looked through the gaps in the rails at the animals with doe-like eyes and long lashes.
The afternoon sun cast shadows in the gullies that ran down from the hills. The windmill behind the yards groaned and a gust of wind rattled the scraggly leaves of the nearby tree and it sounded like rain. The driver climbed down the side of his
Texas truck and walked over to where they were standing. He could have been any age, wearing small black shorts, faded grey, and a sleeveless shirt revealing ropy muscular limbs.
‘A member of Johnny’s new team eh?’ He grinned and took a packet of cigarettes from the top pocket of his shirt and held them out towards her. ‘The name’s Steve. Here, have a tailor.’
His nails and hands were dirty.
She shook her head. ‘No thanks.’
His attention shifted to Irish.
‘What’s happening, old fella?’
Irish leant up against the yards, spitting before he spoke. ‘Mustering that bloody black soil country. He’d be a couple of men down I reckon after those fellas pulled out a few weeks back.’
‘Yeah I heard he got Texas and his mob working for him.’
The driver turned to face her and pushed up the greasy brim of his hat. She crossed her arms over her chest. He responded with a lazy smile.
‘Johnny and the jillaroo. Where do you hail from?’
‘London. I’m travelling around Australia,’ she said. ‘I’m just here for a few weeks to see what it’s like on a station.’ She didn’t like the way her words sounded. Then she realised what he’d said and looked away.
‘And now you know eh? Just plenty of heat and dust and flies. Ain’t that right, old man?’ He flicked the butt on the ground and stepped on it. ‘Well I better get going. Gotta get this rig out to Morrison by the morning.’
She heard the truck start up and it moved off, chugging through its gear changes. The cattle had spread out in the yards, some reaching the water. Irish shifted his weight forward and inclined his head towards her. She realised he hadn’t finished.
‘You know there’s a bit of water in that creek over there.
Catch a few fish when it starts getting hotter. They got plenty of fat on them then.’
He shuffled his feet around until he was facing the direction of his camp. He seemed to be a man who didn’t mind talking, as long as it wasn’t about himself.
III
Mealtimes were awkward, eating with strangers, although it was easier tonight since John was apparently spending the night out at the stock camp. She told Susannah what Irish had said about the cattle.
‘The owners want to turn this into a place for breeding brahmans,’ Susannah replied. She was sitting where John usually sat. ‘What these people don’t realise is that brahmans are better suited to the tropics. When you crossbreed them with shorthorn, the calves are bigger and they grow faster. They’re also tick resistant and they cope better in the heat.’
Laura reached for the salt.
Texas ‘You wouldn’t have seen them in England?’
Laura paused, her fork about to enter her mouth. She put it back on her plate.
‘No,’ she said, carefully. ‘I’ve never seen cattle like that before. But I visited a ranch in the Camargue in France. They had small black cattle. I don’t know what sort they were.’
Laura picked up her fork again. She looked across the table. Strands of hair had escaped from Susannah’s ponytail and they hung lifelessly around her face. Her eyes might have been brown or hazel. Laura wasn’t confident enough to hold her gaze for any length of time. But she noticed that Susannah rarely varied the type of clothes she wore. It was always shorts and a T-shirt. This evening her T-shirt was red and the fabric appeared soft and faded as though it had been washed too many times. She might have been in her late twenties or perhaps she was older. Narrow lines marked either side of her mouth. Laura took a deep breath.
‘I don’t think you really want me here.’
Susannah’s knife and fork clattered on her plate. She looked at Laura, her eyes startled as though caught in bright light. Laura thought she might cry but then she stared past her, towards the window.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said after a moment, her gaze returning to Laura’s. ‘I didn’t mean for you to think that. Oh god, perhaps I did. It’s just that . . .’
‘It’s okay,’ said Laura quickly. ‘I thought maybe I should leave. It’s not really what I expected anyway.’
‘Oh no. Please . . . Don’t do that.’
Susannah was frowning deeply. She pushed the hair back from her face. It was Laura’s turn to look away.
‘It’s just that . . . he thinks he can make all the decisions.’
Laura didn’t know what to say. She was embarrassed to have blundered into something so personal but it felt good for the words to have left her head.
‘You must stay until the end of the season.’
Laura realised the older woman was pleading.
She was tempted to ask why, was it for her, or was it for some other reason? The thought of leaving was attractive, but then her travels had been planned around a station experience and if she left now, what else was there to do? Susannah cleared her throat and sat straighter in her chair. She reached over for Laura’s plate.
‘You finished?’
‘Yes.’
Laura joined Susannah at the sink and together, they washed and dried the dishes. The noise the plates made when Laura set them down on the bench seemed unnaturally loud. But she wasn’t about to interrupt the silence again. Susannah stepped back.
‘I’ve got something for you. Wait here.’
A few minutes later she returned with a brown stockman’s hat.
‘If you’re going to be working outside, you really need one of these. The sun’s fierce. You don’t want it to age you.’
Later that night when the moonlight penetrated the dark corners of her room, Laura couldn’t sleep and it felt as though
Texas her bed was floating. She raised her arm to remind herself it was connected to her body, so strange she felt in this place that seemed to have no definition. She was glad of the ceiling with its grey patches above her head, shielding her from the startling space of the sky. So she would stay for the season, whatever that meant. She wondered why she hadn’t been comforted by Susannah’s attempt at friendship. Perhaps because it had appeared to be such an effort. The hat would be useful though. It was something she could take back to England. Show off to her friends. It seemed such a long time since they were all together for her send-off at the bar on the high street. Although part of that night she preferred to forget. Towards the end of it when they’d had too much to drink, Ben had leant heavily on her and mumbled in her ear that she’d changed. She wasn’t a nurse any more. But it was how they met, workin
g on the same wards, how they became friends. Then on the way home he insisted they have sex.
‘You know you want it,’ he said.
And wondering if perhaps she did without knowing it. A few glasses of red reducing her ability to remember clearly. Not sure what she’d said, if there was anything she’d done to lead him to think that. She spent the night with him out of guilt, and she couldn’t wait to get on the plane.
Another friend, Anna, who came to the airport with her, said: ‘I think he suddenly saw the real you and decided he liked what he saw.’
But who was the real Laura? Anna didn’t say.
IV
Laura reversed the ute out of the shed and drove across to the other side of the yards and pulled up alongside the hay. It was stacked in rectangular-shaped bales wrapped in two pieces of twine. Standing on top of them, she had worked out that she could lift one carefully onto the fence and then tilt it and roll it down into the tray, since they were almost too heavy for her to place on the back of the vehicle. The cattle had begun milling around the gate. If there was anything that pacified them it was feeding them hay. She’d been tailing the young cattle since they arrived a few days ago. John explained that if the weaners were let out in the bush they’d run wild and be difficult to muster later. It was her job to ride around them, get them used to a horse so they’d be quieter and easier to handle. She remembered the first day back on a horse. The men had returned from camping out in the bush to replenish their supplies of stores and horses. At breakfast John said there’d be a horse ready for her at the yards. The grey horse in the round yard looked up and its eyes followed her as she came through the gate. It was a dirty grey with eyes that wept. She carried the bridle over her shoulder, and as she entered, the horse moved away, angling its tail towards her. She walked in a tight circle, hoping to head it off, to get it to stand, but it trotted away. The gate behind her opened.
‘She behaving like a mongrel?’
The man she’d met on the journey from town walked towards the horse with his arms outstretched.
Texas ‘Hah,’ he said loudly when it looked like it was going to trot off again.
