Wool Away, Boy!

by Alan Blunt

  I could feel my face blushing as I stammered a self-conscious, ‘Thanks’, and hurried off in search of Doug.

  My mate was sitting in the driver’s seat reading a Penguin Ellery Queen mystery novel I had stowed in the glove-box for idle hours. ‘Well, don’t stand around like a stunned plover!’ he said curtly, without looking up. ‘Get in! You’re a wee bit late – about three bloody hours late!’

  I opened the passenger-side door, and the dog leapt from the back seat to the front and smooched his mate a welcome. Smiling vacantly, I patted Zulu. My wits were absent, my senses turned inward, cherishing love’s afterglow. I looked in the back seat and mumbled, ‘Is all the gear aboard?’ and then gestured for Doug to release the bonnet so I could check the boot.

  ‘Gees!’ Doug said, exasperated. ‘Have your ears gone on holidays with your brains? You never unloaded your gear! I’ve run Zulu and filled up with juice. Now bloody well wake up and get aboard!’ Already he was revving the motor.

  We left Tambo behind, racing past the sprawling buildings and crossing the creek (top gear and cruising speed, seventy-two miles per hour) as we began the long haul to West End, Brisbane. The speedo slipped to sixty miles an hour as the Beetle mounted the long up slopes of the rolling downs, and ran out of figures at eighty on the down side.

  With the VW wound out the Laughing Kiwi said truculently, ‘If you had been at your post last night, soldier, we might have scored. Janice, the short dark one with the moppet top is a real sweetie. She was all my way – a good keen woman – but she wouldn’t start without her mate. I reckon the lanky blonde was your type: good looker but quiet – she hardly said a word over dinner, except chatted to you about books. Call yourself a fisherman – you don’t even know how to turn a nibble into a bite.’

  Over the two years we had knocked about together I never found my mate to be naive or dishonest. Much as he loved the company of the fair sex, Doug never pretended to be a sound marriage prospect. The old saying, ‘He likes the taste of honey but he won’t keep the hive’ fitted him like a favourite shoe. His line with the ladies was nothing if not straight: a few drinks and jokes to engage interest and camaraderie and, if the signals blinked amber, he’d say, ‘Darlin’, I’m here for a good time not a long time …’

  Staring down the long road, he sang a few of his favourites to wear away monotony. ‘Danny Boy’, ‘Comin’ Through the Rye’ and ‘The Lemon Tree’ infused my pleasant doze, before he called, ‘Hey! Maybe Marion is a lemon – sunny on the outside and sour on the inside. When Marion opened the door, I asked for Janice, and I’ll tell you Marion didn’t appreciate me interrupting her beauty sleep.’

  The Laughing Kiwi turned the radio up and drove hunched over the wheel, eyes glued to the lonely road, while I rested my head against the cushioned window and dozed, in wistful reverie of Marguerite.

  17

  THE MOTHER

  A few miles on Doug swerved at seventy miles an hour to miss a suicidal wallaby. Centrifugal force slung me against his shoulder and then banged my head against the window. Close shaves weren’t a rare occurrence with Doug at the wheel.

  ‘Never mind your head, bro,’ he said. ‘Taking care of Pat’s beautiful rose is the important thing.’

  I picked up the cushion and settled back, smiling. I had told him I had picked the rose I was wearing for my mother, and now I imagined Mum’s joyous hug as she received it. I recalled Marguerite asking frankly about Pat: her religious beliefs and nature, and my smile faded as I realised how similar their formative years were. There was not much room for leisure and laughter in either of their childhoods – the crucibles of World War I, family bereavements and the Great Depression for my working-class mother in Queensland, the loss of her mother and brother, and World War II for Marguerite. But there had been books and flowers; and both had learnt to treasure small joys and count their blessings.

  My mother recalled childhood visits to Brisbane. The War to End All Wars had depopulated Australia’s cities and country of eager, trusting young men. As a young girl she had seen the returnees on the streets, crippled, mangled, amputated, blinded and often reduced to begging. They were shells of the robust confident heroes who had answered the Empire’s call to enlist.

  Many years later I came across a few survivors – proud old men earning their daily bread as station hands and rouseabouts. As a fifteen-year-old I had asked, ‘Why does Andy camp away from the huts?’ Long Charlie, shearing contractor and humane bush philosopher, had explained gently: ‘He’s shell-shocked, son. He camps away out of consideration for men who need their sleep. Sometimes he has bad dreams – he screams and yells … It’s a subject he don’t like to talk about. You’ll remember that, young fella, won’t you?’

  The war’s grim shadow had been darkened for my mother by the loss of her beloved father and elder sister, and the prolonged illness of her youngest brother – both siblings prey to rheumatic fever. Mum had shared the grief and burden of her mother – raising four kids on a country railway stationmistress’s wages – before going west as a sheep-station governess to ride out the Great Depression. Enjoying station life and experience, she found the man of her life, and settled to raising seven kids on a bush battler’s earnings through the latter Depression years and World War II, and the 1950s and 1960s.

  My mother courageously travelled a hard road, often uphill against the odds – a road crowded by the out-of-work and out-of-luck battlers of her generation. Sustained by a calm nature, good humour, and ‘faith in God and her good man’, she complained little. Her favourite adages were ‘Count your blessings’ and ‘Courage is the first virtue’. Now robust in middle years, she was thankful for a rewarding life.

  I fingered delicately the petals of the rose pinned above my heart. It could only be a symbol of strong, passionate womanhood; Marguerite was so like my mother in many ways. The two women may have flowered in different cultures, but they were united in the strength of their Catholic faith, sharing a love of children, of music, of books and stories and (I smiled in pleasurable embarrassment) of me. One had loved passionately but briefly; one was bound by blood and responsibility – and life itself.

  My mother, a gifted poet, loved to tell or hear a good story. She passed on stories she enhanced with the magic of drama, wit, charm and imagination, as yarn-spinners always have, from the shamans who honed their craft around prehistoric campfires to the bull artists of backyard barbies.

  Fondly I imagined it would be fitting to gift my mother the rose and the story of Marguerite. I smiled: well, not quite all the story, for Pat’s Catholic conscience might find the sensuality of the fulfilling chapter difficult. Besides, that part was for myself, alone; to be treasured among life’s serendipitous blessings.

  With a mile-post marching by every fifty seconds and the good times of Brisbane and the Gold Coast looming in imagination, Doug’s cheerful chiacking returned. Halfway to Augathella he killed Johnny Cash to disturb me. ‘Where the bloody hell were you, anyhow? I went door knocking at seven o’clock. Lucky I didn’t run into a row – disturbing the good folk of Tambo saddling up on the wrong side of the blanket. It would have been your fault if I had copped a shiner.’

  ‘Dunno. I was pretty drunk. I must have choked somewhere,’ I replied with a small measure of truth. I turned my face into the cushion to relish a winner’s grin: Doug’s dedication to Aphrodite was relentless; and it was nearly always the Laughing Kiwi the goddess favoured.

  ‘Choked alright!’ Doug emphasised with a characteristic giggle. ‘They thought you were dead and put a rose on your chest.’

  ‘Ha! Actually, I picked it in the pub garden. I always take Mum flowers. She loves any flowers, but red roses are her favourites.’

  ‘Mine, too,’ said Doug.

  I peered up at the sky. ‘The weather looks okay. We’ll give Augathella a miss, take the dirt track by Clara Creek and rev straight through to Roma, fill ’er up, grab a burger, and ring the old folks. We’ll be home by seven o’clock.’


  ‘Gees, mate!’ Doug remonstrated in a pained voice, ‘You’re as handy as a candle on a windy night. Flowers are like women: you’ve got to kid to them, and look after them. That rose will be as withered as Adam’s fig leaf by the time we hit Roma.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. Pull over and I’ll put it in the billy with some water.’

  ‘Holy Dooley! A glorious rose presented to your mother in a bloody old black billy. Have a wee bit of respect! You just don’t listen! Like I said, flowers are like the fair sex: they have to be flattered. Mate, I’ll give you the real drum: we’ll pull into the Augathella pub and have a couple of quiet beers – and get the girls there to hunt up a fancy vase for that beautiful rose.’

  The Laughing Kiwi charmed a crystal vase out of the publican’s wife. It set me back two quid.

  With the hammer down all the way and the luck of the Irish, we rolled up the side lane of the old Queenslander at West End at seven-thirty.

  My family tumbled down the stairs to welcome their long absent son and brother. There were warm hugs and kisses with my mother and sisters, shoulder hugs with my brothers, and a handshake and shoulder clasps with my dad, whose blue eyes moistened with emotion.

  While the dog milled among people, jumping and yapping excited ‘Hellos’, I said to my younger brothers, ‘Righto, fellas! Give us a hand to get this gear upstairs.’ I turned back to get the rose to give to my mother and saw her dutifully hugging Doug. The Kiwi was embracing her with one arm and holding the vase aloft, out of Pat’s sight, with the other. Disengaging and taking a step back, he formally presented the rose with two hands – as a priest with a chalice. ‘Pat, I brought this rose all the way from Tambo – especially for you.’

  She reacted with surprised delight. ‘Doug! How thoughtful of you! My favourite rose; and presented in a lovely crystal vase. It’s beautiful!’ She hugged him again.

  Realising I’d been trumped, I swallowed an exclamation of protest. My mate had taken my rose and my moment. On the morrow I would need to buy a bouquet to replace the rose. It would cost a couple of quid, but Mum would be doubly delighted, and Doug’s puckish humour had sweetened her feelings towards him. We would soon share a laugh or two over the Kiwi’s joke.

  And Marguerite: I pictured her smiling quietly in the knowledge that her gift had completed its mission of love and laughter before it withered. Strangely, I felt she had foreseen its destiny, even as she stooped to pluck the rose.

  18

  THE CITY AND THE BUSH

  Marguerite had taught me in a few hours how wonderfully warm and enlightening love can be. I was never to see her again, but I wrote of our experience and my feelings in my journal. The Laughing Kiwi stayed with us for a couple of days in December 1961 before flying home for Christmas, and I joined my family in our usual loving, laughing celebrations.

  For some years a desire to become a writer had been niggling away at me, but I believed my fifth grade education would require a serious upgrade. I had saved enough to fund six months’ study – funds which I intended to boost with regular pay nights as a preliminary boxer at Festival Hall.

  Dad went to manage a small sheep station in the Blackall district, and Mum joined him in April, confident we would manage the household. Barry and Lyn were at work, and Carmel, Peter and Kevin at school. I bought books on maths, English and history, philosophy and layman’s psychology, and holed up in my room to study. ‘No beer and no girls – either would distract me,’ I had declared to Mum. She smiled wisely. ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’, was one of her favourite axioms.

  Being teetotal was easy, and the boxing began well, but asthma KO’ed me on my second week’s training. It was a disappointment, for I had already begun to embrace the blokey competition and camaraderie, smell of sweat and liniment and the whack of leather. I kept plugging determinedly at the books, until a lung infection laid me up. My doctor recommended hospital. The Laughing Kiwi came in from shearing around Roma. He’d won a packet on Sharply, the 1961 Sydney Cup winner, and had some ‘good oil’ for the 1962 Cup. He suggested a drive to Sydney would benefit me more than a spell in hospital, and sure enough my health improved, while his ‘good oil’ galloped for the bookies’ benefit.

  Faye, a woman I had dated briefly in Hughenden, was in Sydney. We had kept in touch by letter. She had a ‘fella’, but made up a foursome one night for dinner with Doug and me, and with Birte Hansen, a Danish workmate. Faye was now a psychiatric nurse at Gladesville Mental Hospital, and Birte was an assistant nurse. A tall, blonde and bespectacled farmer’s daughter, she had taken a two-year break from studying psychology to travel.

  Back in Brisbane, I was engaged to join Richie Jack’s team as a presser for ten shearers at Eulolo, Julia Creek, on the first Monday in July. Around 45,000 sheep would occupy five to six weeks, a task that would test me even when work fit, and I was underweight and run down. In the meantime, Dad engaged me as a station hand to help put through his shearing. I hoped that healthy outdoor work and Mum’s cooking would build me up, and that the climate would clear up my asthma. Peter and Kevin would travel with me in the V-Dub for school holidays with Mum and Dad.

  I was feeling a bit down: boxing had failed, and my sojourn of study was over. Although I had expanded my basic knowledge of maths and English and studied the books I had set myself, I realised I should have employed a tutor, for I had fallen well short of my objectives. A few days before I planned to depart, a blaring car horn drew me to the front door to see Faye and Birte, who had hitched from Sydney, tumble out of a red Mini-Morris. It was an unexpected and delightful vision.

  Next morning I picked them up from their motel, and we made a fun tour of Brisbane city and suburbs, with a few stops for refreshments. Brisbane was Birte’s first port of call hitching around Australia. Afterwards, she planned to travel to Townsville, Cairns, Darwin, Broome and down the west coast to Perth, where she was booked to board a ship to Europe in December. Hailing from a tiny frosty land, she said she ‘would appreciate a trip west of the Great Divide’, and asked for a lift to Blackall, from where she would hitch to the coast. With Birte in the front passenger seat and Peter, Kevin and Zulu in the rear, plus all our gear, the V-Dub was packed.

  Birte was gentle, studious and humorous, and inevitably we became close on the 550-mile drive. She decided she would wait three weeks for me if I’d drive her to Townsville and she could find a job in Blackall in the meantime. She picked up work as a housemaid at the Tattersalls Hotel and the Prince of Wales Hotel, while I did station chores, carted bales of wool to the railway at Yaraka on a three-ton truck, and Zulu and I mustered and penned up sheep and depopulated mobs of feral pigs. The shire paid a two-bob bounty for each pair of pig’s ears, and Arthur Symes, the owner, offered ten quid for a rogue wild boar. ‘The ferocious beast has only recently come onto my station,’ he said, ‘and he’s killed three of my stud rams and maimed seven others.’

  The tenner – over half a week’s wages – would be handy, and the challenge was irresistible. Ferocious, alright! I followed outsize tracks along a bore drain. Unseen, the cunning quarry let me rid e past, then charged from cover and hit my pony’s hind legs. Tired old Flossie hadn’t been above a trot in years, but she bolted so fast she nearly left me behind. It must have been a curious sight indeed: me trying to control Flossie, stay aboard and hang onto my rifle, while the tusker slashed at her fetlocks, and Zulu gave chase. The dog quickly lugged the tusker, and I wheeled Flossie and tied her to a tree. I ran back and shot the boar, then collared ten quid. Zulu got an extra chop.

  The shearing cut-out. Birte and I left Blackall before sunrise, motored to Mackay, and loitered along the coast to Townsville, where we idled away a few days before Birte decided she wanted to see Hughenden. ‘What a great idea!’ I agreed. We took a room at the Grand Hotel, where Birte worked as a housemaid-cum-cook. I then got work 300 miles away in Eulolo, but would drive back on weekends to be with her when she wasn’t doing the relief cooking on a Georgina River property
. She finished up there a few days before Eulolo cut-out and waited for me in Julia Creek. ‘The longest three days ever,’ she said laughing. ‘I would rather be snowed in for the winter in Norway.’ Norway, it seemed, was the butt of many Danish jokes.

  After Eulolo, I worked conveniently close to Hughenden while Birte again worked at the Grand. On a couple of weekends we camped at the beautiful Porcupine Gorge, which back then was a peaceful, secluded spot rather than the tourist destination it is today. We saw rodeos and shearing in full swing, and Birte insisted on standing front row to witness a savage bare-knuckle blue I refereed on the ‘bull ring’ at the rear of the Shamrock Hotel. ‘Gladly I saw the fight, but I do not want to see again,’ Birte declared at the end.

  We grew more caring and dependent than we had intended, but nevertheless Birte and I avoided speaking of a permanent relationship. Birte longed for the homeland and family she loved; and I had no intention of marrying soon, despite the Laughing Kiwi’s joking reference to us as ‘the married couple’, and asking me, ‘How’s the wife?’

  I was still heeding the advice of my mother: A man should wait till he’s thirty to marry, when he should have accumulated enough property to support a family, and enough wisdom to understand a woman. Or perhaps I was simply using that as an excuse. Either way, late in October Birte and I tearfully hugged farewell at Hughenden airport. She gave me her beloved copy of The Song of the Red Ruby, saying, ‘Remember, Alan, that life is always beautiful.’

  ‘But never in Norway,’ I quipped, chuckling despite my damp eyes. She waved from the Vickers Viscount aeroplane, which was heading to Melbourne. From there she would take a memorable four-day transcontinental train journey to Perth. When she finally got back to Denmark she wrote of the train journey: ‘I gladly did it, but I would not do it again.’