by Sarah Hay
He reached into the back of the Toyota for the billy and filled it with water from a twenty-litre container that was lying at the end of the tray and nestled it into the small scattering of coals.
‘Where’s Texas got to?’ asked Cookie.
‘That’s what I’d like to know.’
‘Ah don’t worry. He’s probably just gone for a wander. You know. Catching up with a few people.’
The water started to boil. Cookie threw a handful of tea into it.
Texas ‘Grab a couple of mugs there in the box.’
They sat with their tea and Laura noticed around her the slow movement of people. Where there were vehicles, men leant against them or walked between them, talking in pairs or in threes, and sometimes there was a woman, kneeling, helping a child to put on its boots. The soft hazy light blanketed the flat and the air was crisp but she knew it wouldn’t last. A car being driven noisily from a distance became louder, its engine sounding as though it had something missing. It emerged from between the trees by the creek and lurched over the lumps in the track, swinging around towards them. It was a brown station wagon full of people and its tail end sunk low over its wheels and dust caught up with it when it stopped near their Toyota. Doors opened wide and Texas stepped out on the passenger side, and men and women and children spilled from the openings. His hand went up to his hat, to steady it, and he walked in a careful, measured way. She stared into the fire. His hand reached for her shoulder and she shrugged it off.
‘My woman Laura.’
He was turning back towards the group that followed and they found places around her and she looked up and they smiled. The only one she recognised was Jimmy.
‘This one here,’ said Texas, ‘he’s my cousin brother and this here, uncle and aunty and them two, they’re my kids.’
‘What? You got kids?’ She turned to him.
He sat in the dirt beside her and draped his arm across her shoulders. She saw then that his other hand held a large bottle of rum.
‘You didn’t tell me you had kids.’ She spoke softly now, but urgently, embarrassed that there were people watching. ‘What about their mother?’ she whispered. ‘Where is she?’ Glancing quickly up at the woman, Texas’s aunty, with the wide open face and hair that wisped gently around it. She stared back impassively.
‘That wife with another fella.’ Texas held the bottle up by its neck. ‘Cookie, you want some rum eh?’
Tommy emerged from the direction of his swag with a woman who was barefoot, wearing a shapeless floral dress. She sat in the dirt beside Laura, giggling, glancing around shyly.
Her name was Mary. She was Peter’s cousin. Laura watched rum being poured into pannikins. They were passed around and since there weren’t enough pannikins for everyone, they used empty beer cans cut in half to make cups. It was overproof rum and it brought the heat to her cheeks. And when that bottle was finished there was more in the car. A dry wind started and it rolled the leaves around in the dirt.
VII
Together they lay on their swag in the shade of the creek. If she lifted her head she could see over the shallow ridge of the bank to their vehicle which seemed to have been deserted. Texas stirred. Since they’d been asleep, the shade had extended across the sand, from one side of the creek to the other. The tops of
Texas the trees wavered in the breeze but it was still where they were lying. Occasionally she heard women’s voices, high-pitched, maybe shouting. They came from the other side, away from the rodeo ground. His hand reached for her leg and he rubbed it along her jeans. She smiled and placed her hand on his. He turned, facing her.
‘Pretty lucky, eh.’
He raised his head, supporting it with his palm, lying sideways. She was on her back and his face filled her vision, and the eyes that looked into hers were dark and the whites were coloured with blood.
‘Last night,’ she said, ‘Tommy wanted me to go with him.’
‘Did he?’ He seemed amused. ‘What did he say?’
‘First of all he said he wanted to go fifty-fifty or something like that, and then . . .’
Texas laughed. ‘Those words, old fellas used to say them. Maybe they want something you know, like smoke, grog, and the old fella, he say, here, you have my wife for a bit, we share.’
‘Really. No woman should put up with that,’ she said. Not knowing whether to believe him, feeling disappointed that he wasn’t angrier with Tommy.
‘That woman, she still with her husband.’
She sat up and the movement created spots before her eyes. The fuzziness caused by the rum hadn’t left her and it created a comfortable barrier between her old self and the new. Sitting, he crossed his legs.
‘I got you this thing in town.’ He brought his hand up to his chest pocket. ‘Here, look.’ He held up a gold necklace. ‘Show him to Tommy.’ Hanging from the chain was a heart-shaped pendant. He laughed quietly and dropped it into her palm.
She threaded it through her fingers. Texas looked past her.
‘There was this outlaw fella, Major, one time, long, long time ago, he had a cave in those hills over that way. That fella, he took all the women from around here. There was this big fight, big shoot-out, and one woman, she was shot in the bub, she a relation to my mother. They shot him too. Lots of fellas killed. That woman, she was meant for some other fella, you know, in the tribal way, but Major come and took her. He was from Northern Territory. This fella Kelly brought him over.
‘See all that business, it broke up the tribal way. Aboriginal people they got to marry that person with the right skin, like eagle skin or snake.’
‘What do you think?’ she asked, fastening the chain around her neck, wanting him to look at her.
And when he did, his eyes seemed distant, as though he was still thinking of something else. She remembered what he’d been saying.
‘You were talking about what it was like in the past,’ she said, wanting him to continue, feeling guilty she’d interrupted him.
But it seemed he’d finished. Perhaps he was trying to tell her something but now the moment had moved on and she wasn’t sure of the right question to ask and she didn’t see the connection between him and the people he was talking about.
He was looking at the pendant and he smiled as he fingered it against her chest.
‘You’re my woman,’ he said.
For the heir to
triumph the father
must fall
I
Susannah kept the fan spinning fast above her head while she prepared the meal. Clouds appeared that afternoon, towering sculptures of cumulus, but they never ventured further than the northern corner of the sky. The heat had changed. It was thicker and denser. She could hear the noise of unhappy cattle and, occasionally, men shouting. They had returned to clean up the home paddocks. The last load of cattle would leave tomorrow, marking the end of the season. When the shearing finished on the farm there was always a cut-out, her father providing beers for the shearers, and in later years when there were more New Zealand shearers, they often had a hangi as well. She wondered if John intended to do anything for them before he sent them off. And what would happen to Texas and Laura?
She heated the oil in a pan on the stove and fried some onion. The couple had returned with the men last night. She hadn’t seen Laura yet. They appeared to be sleeping together in Laura’s quarters and eating across the creek in the camp kitchen. Last night John repeated what the grader driver had said. That Laura was begging for it. John saw his wife’s smile and she could tell it made him angry. Susannah was smiling because she knew that neither man could cope with the idea that Laura had chosen Texas. She was no longer available to them. Not that she probably ever was.
Susannah couldn’t understand how men’s minds worked.
She wondered what they thought of her, how she compared with Laura: the mother who kept the house, who had the keys to the cool room and the medical chest but not the means to escape. She corrected herself, she did have th
e means to leave; there were vehicles, bank accounts. It was just that she was unable to believe that she could be anybody else.
There was the solid sound of boots stepping onto the veranda and a light tap at the door. Through the flywire she saw the shape of a man. She pushed it open and he stepped back, removing his hat. It was Texas.
‘Boss left his notebook up here.’
‘Has he?’ Her face reddened. ‘I’ll have a look.’
Dark curls pushed out from under the flattened hair around his head. His shirt was a deep blue with sleeves rolled to below the elbow. She handed him the notebook and saw that his wrist was narrow and wondered why she was unable to look him in the face. She stepped outside after he left and looked into the
Texas fading light. There was something about being on the veranda that made her feel like she was on a stage. How many women had stood there before her? And did any of them feel that perhaps they’d been given the wrong role? Her eyes settled on something closer, a pale pink patterned gecko that steadily traversed the wall in search of insects brought in by the light. The gecko’s large protruding eyes reminded her of a mammal embryo. Its translucent fingers and toes spread out to stick to the wall. She remembered the documentary about a kangaroo joey and how its hairless pink body clung to the fur of its mother, its mouth wedged tightly over her large nipple, sucking relentlessly while she carried the creature until it grew to a size that altered her shape completely. She didn’t resent her children. Not really. And she couldn’t imagine being without them. Perhaps she just resented other mothers for not telling her what it would be like. She became aware of the fact that she was standing looking at the wall. Hastily, she stepped off the veranda.
She looked at her image in the bathroom mirror; the reflective material was flaking off in patches and she couldn’t see all of herself. Laura’s return made her feel as though she’d never been anything other than a mother. Her thoughts were interrupted by the shrieks of her children. The boys drove boats into each other in the bath. When they were dried and dressed in their pyjamas she let them run ahead of her towards the kitchen.
‘There you are.’
Susannah turned around. Laura appeared in front of the bougainvillea having come from the direction of the laundry.
‘I’ve been looking for you.’ Laura was smiling.
‘You really should carry your torch at night. In case of snakes.’
‘I can see from the light of the laundry,’ said Laura.
Susannah followed the children. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she asked over her shoulder.
She reached the kitchen door.
‘I was thinking of something a bit stronger.’
‘Oh . . . there’s the men’s beer,’ said Susannah, facing her.
She walked back and unlocked the cool room and handed Laura a can of beer. Perhaps Laura would like to have a drink with her, while she fed the children.
‘Can I have another one for Texas?’
Susannah paused.
‘I’m not going to drink them both,’ Laura added with a grin.
She had changed. Her arms and her face were tanned by the sun and her skin was youthful enough for it to look natural and healthy. She seemed assured, more self-possessed. She looked as though she belonged.
‘The drinks come out of your wages,’ said Susannah, turning her back on her.
Susannah was cross with herself for being disappointed.
The woman was sleeping with an Aboriginal for christsake. The thought escaped before she could help it and it made her feel even guiltier, but the fact was she couldn’t imagine what Laura might see in him. She turned on the tap at the sink and looked through the louvres into the darkness. She didn’t want to think like that, she wanted to think differently, to be less shut off from other ideas and experiences.
Texas John returned when his meal had spoilt in the oven. He’d been with Gerry. She could smell the alcohol on his breath and it wasn’t the first time he’d chosen overproof rum over the food she’d cooked. He was standing under the light in the kitchen without a hat and his shirt tails were hanging over his jeans. She wondered what they’d been talking about. She caught his sodden, uncertain look. She could tell him what he wanted to hear, that he was everything he imagined himself to be, but she decided she wasn’t that generous any more.
The next day she went to find Laura. On her way to put the children down for their nap she’d seen her hanging out washing on the line. Laura was obviously getting ready to leave in the cook’s vehicle that afternoon. Susannah passed John at the table in the sleep-out, writing cheques. It reminded her she’d be alone with him soon and she needed to find something to do. At the end of the yard was a corrugated-iron tank on a stand and a creeper was tangled around its legs. Beside it was a track leading to the creek that ran behind the homestead. She stepped across the timber plank to the other side. The bank rose gradually and further up, where the ground evened out, there was another tank made of concrete. She walked around the side of it, having been there once before when no one was about. A dirty blue tarpaulin shaded the kitchen and in places where leaves had collected, she had to lower her head. Laura was sitting beside one of the trestle tables on a faded orange plastic chair. She was reading. There were other chairs randomly arranged around her. Timber cabinets sat on top of tables, and behind her was a sink made out of half an oil drum mounted on a frame. The dirt was hard like concrete and Susannah wondered if it came from termite mounds, remembering that people used this for floors and even tennis courts a long time ago.
‘Hi.’ Laura smiled warmly. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here.
I’ve just made some tea, would you like some?’
‘No, don’t worry,’ said Susannah, standing, her hand resting on the back of a chair. ‘I just came to say goodbye.’
‘Oh,’ Laura hesitated. ‘I’m staying. With Texas. I thought someone might have told you.’
Susannah held the back of the chair with both hands. She didn’t like being surprised. ‘John might have . . . but I probably wasn’t listening. I see. So what are you going to do? There’ll be no one here to cook for you.’
‘Um, sorry, I hadn’t really thought about that.’
‘Yes, well. John won’t want you eating with us. You’ll have to eat with Gerry on the veranda. And you’ll have to work. We can’t feed you for nothing.’
Returning to the homestead, Susannah sensed change; the heat was heavy with moisture and clouds threatened. She looked for her husband.
‘Why didn’t you tell me she was staying?’
He looked up from the desk. She was standing over him.
‘I’ve asked Texas to stay on and do some work round the place.’
‘What about her?’
‘She’s just his bloody woman. What can I do?’
Texas II
Each morning the sky was clear and she knew what had to be done and then clouds with dark underbellies thickened and covered the sun. It became harder to think, and her body felt like it needed to be wrung out. But it never rained. It was only the build-up. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something might happen, something might happen to one of them. The country was so colourless, unless a shaft of light fell through a gap, and then the red, the green and the yellow became bold and intense and out in the paddock the silver skin of the boab seemed to simmer. She moved the sprinklers around the yard, glancing in at Laura’s room when she passed, checking to see where they were; if they were down at the shed, finding a reason to be there and everywhere and beside the tree that screened their sleep-out, catching an image of a couple together. She was curious about their relationship and perhaps a little envious of their closeness, the way they touched each other. Then the weather lifted and the days returned to dry, hard heat and she forced herself to forget about them.
John was talking into the handset of the Flying Doctor radio. The boys were eating jam-covered crusts.
‘Roger, over.’
She looked up as he re
placed the handset.
‘I’ve got to go to Perth.’
She took their plates over to the sink.
‘There’s a plane going from the airstrip near town. It’ll just be for a few days or maybe a week. There’s a course they want me to do and then some planning meeting.’
He reached across for the bread, mug of tea in his other hand, and then, standing, leant against the bench as he ate and drank. Long legs crossed at the ankle.
‘Texas is going to do a bit of fencing. He’ll have to camp out,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘Laura can give you a hand with the kids.’
Laura was at the doorway as though summoned and Susannah wondered briefly what she was thinking.
‘Tell Texas I want to speak to him,’ he told her.
Susannah glanced through the angled glass at the profile of the stockman as he faced the direction of the hills, his rollie stub between his lips, smoke whispering from his nose.
John called through the flywire. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’
Texas acknowledged him with a slight turn of his head.
He pulled down the brim of his hat and she couldn’t see him any more.
John followed her into the bedroom. She asked him to take their best suitcase down from the top of the cupboard. She opened it flat on the bed. It smelt of somewhere else. He stood on the other side of the bed.
‘You’ll need a tie,’ she said.
‘I’m not wearing a bloody tie.’
‘Aren’t you doing a course?’
He looked towards the wardrobe and back. ‘Do you think I need a tie?’
Texas He suddenly looked like Ollie. She reached into the back of the drawer and pulled out his only tie, which was navy blue and striped thinly in red and white.
‘You’ll be all right,’ she said.
He watched her fold his clothes and place them neatly in the suitcase. When it was nearly full he left his side of the bed and came around behind her. His arms appeared across her chest and he sighed into her neck. She let her body relax into his and for a moment she watched the loose end of a spider’s web dance as though it was a living thing against the wall. He released her and fastened the suitcase.
