Fitzy watered, in the allowed hours, before nine and after four. She ducked the magpies, who skimmed her helmet prongs, and Myrtle yelped upwards at the sky. Fitzy frowned and accused Big Jim of magical thinking and went inside to have a short, timed shower.
Poor Fitzy. She was dwelling on sadness. She was stuck on the feeling of failure; on the terrible effects of drought; and her family of parched apple farmers in Stanthorpe, Queensland.
Big Jim stood uphill of the rain gauge with his hands on his hips, looking at the perfect blue sky while the magpies scuffed his head. The big man did not flinch.
‘Bugger,’ he said to the sunny day.
But whatever Big Jim said, it made no matter. The rain did not come.
The earth around our dismal herb garden dried and fossilised. The basil wilted and its leaves browned. The hydrangea slumped. The mint shrivelled. Mum moisturised with great fervour. I was restricted to washing myself in shallow baths. Backflip panted and sought refuge in the kitchen. It was the hottest spring I could remember.
As bad timing would have it, the Fishing’s The Funnest parade was scheduled to take place the weekend after Bart’s funeral. That was the date that had been nominated by Bart himself, as co-president of the Goodwood Progress Association, back in November 1991, after the great success of the last parade, and amid giddy plans to make the next one even better.
‘Next year the fish’ll be this big,’ said Bart with a laugh, holding his hands about three feet apart at the Community Hall while Mum took minutes.
Now, no one knew what to do.
The students at Goodwood Primary had been preparing for a month. The parade was administered by the Goodwood Progress Association, and generally took place at the start of school holidays, but it would surely not have existed without the school itself, and especially the teachers and members of the P&C who undertook production and costuming with great enthusiasm. The teachers had guided K–6 in costume design and paper fish colourisation. Their direction was: fantastical is fine. Grants Lake may not be the Great Barrier Reef, but there was no need to skimp on colour—especially in times as black as these. So the students, particularly the younger ones, made rainbows of fish. Spectrums of fish. Kaleidoscopes of fish. They were gaudy and wild and brilliant.
On the other side of town, Carmel Carmichael made muted preparations for the Fish Fry which customarily took place at the Bowlo after the parade, even though she keenly felt the impropriety of the whole thing, given Bart’s disappearance.
At first it was: how could they celebrate when their best fisherman was unaccounted for? And now that Bart was—grimly—accounted for, how could they celebrate at all?
But not everyone agreed. Val Sparks, for instance, thought that a good fun parade was just the thing Goodwood needed, to try and raise the incessant grief off all the hard surfaces. Goodwood, according to Val, needed to dust off the tragedy. To honour Bart’s life by celebrating what he loved. Besides, Bowral is right by the Belanglo State Forest and Bowral had still had their Tulip Time Festival on the 28th. Val had gone up there with her elder sister who loved flowers. There was carnival music and Devonshire tea. It was just lovely, and exactly what the community needed to lift its spirits after the horror in the forest.
She made the sign of the cross, from left to right.
‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled,’ she said ‘Trust in God.’
Nan, to whom this was spoken, said that while she herself did not trust in God, she did agree with Val on the subject of the parade. ‘Well, what good will come of not doing it?’ she asked in her infinite wisdom, and one would assume the relentlessly optimistic teachers at Goodwood Primary felt the same.
It wasn’t until Mrs Bart weighed in, however, that the matter was settled.
She appeared the Sunday after the funeral—just two days later—which was much sooner than anyone in town expected to see her, given her pacing, and then staring, and then official widowhood. But on Sunday she appeared at the Goodwood Grocer to buy every last bag of oats.
‘Can you believe that in all the . . . everything . . . we ran clean out of feed for the horses.’
This was technically a question, but Mrs Bart made it a statement.
Nance looked up from her obsessive reading and was so startled to see Mrs Bart in person that she fumbled with her shiny hardcover copy of Patricia Cornwell’s All That Remains and dropped the book entirely.
‘Do you need to pick that up?’ said Mrs Bart, with many bags of oats.
‘No, no, love,’ said Nance. ‘It’s just a stop for the door if it gets windy.’
Mrs Bart said nothing and stared calmly forward.
Nance, forever more, was mortified at the way she lied. But to discuss forensics in front of Mrs Bart? That would have been quite unsavoury. And to feel, as she did, utterly ashamed to have discussed forensics in front of anyone in the wake of Bart’s recovery? Well, that was just occurring to her at that instant.
‘Just a silly old book,’ she said of the brand new hardcover she’d purchased at the tidy bookstore in the Clarke Plaza.
Mrs Bart paid for the oats, out-insisting Nance’s insistence that she should not pay. Then Mrs Bart said—and cleverly, too, because if you wanted all of Goodwood to know something, you either told Coral or Nance, and given Coral didn’t run a shop and was thus harder to access, Nance was it: ‘I think the kids should have their parade. Bart would’ve wanted it. He would’ve wanted everyone to celebrate fishing.’
And so it was.
Nance attended the emergency meeting of the Goodwood Progress Association that was held that night—the emergency being what to do about the parade—and told the gathering of her encounter, minus the part where she lied about the book. A motion was passed and it was settled: Regardless of the death of Cr. Bart McDonald, and any potential perception of bad taste, the Fishing’s The Funnest parade, as assisted by the teachers and members of the Parents and Citizen’s Association of Goodwood Primary, was to be held the following Saturday, as proposed by Bart McDonald himself in 1991, and endorsed that day by his widow, Mrs Flora McDonald, Secretary of the Goodwood Branch of the Country Women’s Association, and set forth in writing by the sitting members of the Goodwood Progress Association, whose numbers where somewhat diminished, but whose intentions remained pure and good.
•
After my first conversation with Evie, I was lost in thoughts of her during much of the next week. School holidays had never passed so slowly, and Evie was sure to be spending them in Cedar Valley with her family. I hung out with George at her house; I walked around the oval with Backflip; I rummaged through the racks at Vinnies; I browsed the dusty aisles at Bookworm. I didn’t know what to make of my longing for Evie: to speak with her again; to see her; to perhaps go swimming at the clearing and sit in the tree together or drink whisky in the park by a bin fire. All I knew, in my unknowing way, was that when I thought of her face—when I conjured it, and I held it there for as long a moment as I could just behind my eyelids—a feeling of warmth washed over me, like putting my head under the water in the bath. The feeling was so lovely that I took to having more actual baths, something that annoyed Mum given the lack of rain.
‘Jean! Fill it halfway only!’ she’d yell when she heard the water running and saw Backflip slink in stealthily to sit on the bathmat.
I sat in the tub for much longer than usual and the water would grow cold before I noticed. My book would lie in a half puddle, unread on the tiles next to Backflip. I could not concentrate on reading. I just stared right through the pink tiles and the bottles of shampoo near my feet and Mum’s loofa hanging on the bath tap, and thought about Evie.
‘Jeannie, you’re taking daydreaming to a whole new level,’ said Mum, sticking her head in the bathroom door. ‘Can you get out so I can have a shower? My heart’s burning.’ She went over to the big wooden dresser that we used for a bathroom cabinet and had a shot of Mylanta, swallowing it with her face scrunched up like she was eating a lemon.
‘Does that taste gross?’ I asked.
‘Pleasant mint flavour,’ she managed to say—which was what it said on the bottle.
I didn’t really worry about Mum’s heart. I didn’t think there was anything to worry about. Mum had decided it was indigestion. And Nan said that heartburn was caused by anxiety. Of course, it wasn’t great to be so anxious, but really, you’d have to have had a heart of ice to not be affected by the unfolding tragedies of Goodwood, and the unceasing sorrow that infected us all.
•
Adding to the general feeling of discontent was the news that Carl White had returned, and was living back in the White residence with Judy, who still walked with difficulty due to the pain in her broken ribs.
Opal Jones told Denise at the library that the whole thing was shameful. How could she take him back? she asked Denise. How? The man puts her in hospital and God knows why. Beats her near death with his belt. And why? Do you think it might have something to do with what happened to Rosie? You can’t help thinking. And poor Terry. It’s hard not to want to call DOCs and get him taken out of there.
Poor Terry. He had returned, too—from Ballina—delivered by car by Aunt Alison, who spared no expense on petrol and took him the long way through Bellingen, because he liked to look at different rivers. They stopped at Thora and spent a whole afternoon trying to make a sighting of the rare Bellinger River freshwater turtle, which Terry had done a project on in Year Eight. Then, hours later, she bought him a schnitzel in Crowdy Head, where they spent the night in a motel, because Terry liked the name of the town and had always wanted to visit a lighthouse.
Unfortunately, it was only when they arrived back in Goodwood that they learnt of the return of Carl White. They pulled into the driveway of the White house and there was Carl’s car, parked darkly under the jacaranda. Opal Jones reported a kerfuffle in the front yard between Alison and Carl, and the term ‘fucking mongrel’ being used in a shrill voice. Then, after much appeasing by the embattled Judy, who quivered and held Terry to her aching breast, Alison agreed to enter the house and reluctantly stayed for a dinner of defrosted sausages and an uninteresting salad. Opal Jones did everything she could to monitor the proceedings, but there was the entire exterior of a house in the way, so she returned to reading her cookbooks next to Ken, who sat listlessly in a pastel shirt, awaiting wifely instruction.
None of us knew that every day that passed was one day closer to finding Rosie. It’s only now, looking back, that I see those days in particular, after Bart’s funeral, as a calendar in reverse. I see the squares and the numbered days. I see it all running backwards, square by square, day by day, from the day that Rosie was finally found.
34
On the morning of the parade, Mum was suffering a particularly bad case of heartburn. She’d exhausted her antacids and took to drinking warm milk in an effort to quell the pain. Backflip, who enjoyed milk herself when permitted, sat upright on the floor before her, holding out her paw every so often, in case Mum might like to shake her hand.
George and I decided to meet beforehand at the oval and when I got there she was sitting with Lucas and Ethan, and Lucas was holding a big bottle of Coke like a prize. He handed it to me as I arrived, grinning, and the brown liquid smelt suspicious. He nodded for me to try it and I did. I gulped and tasted the deep fire of whisky mixed within.
Ethan looked at me gently.
Past the oval and up along by the clearing, Kevin Fairley’s cows were grazing in the south paddock. Ethan gazed off in their direction and then back at me. I took another sip of the bottle and held it out for his spear of an arm. He took it and drank.
‘Pat made the weirdest Lego fish,’ George was saying. ‘He’s been working on it all week. It looks like an aeroplane but he says it’s a trout.’ She was shaking her head, smiling. She was very fond of Lego Pat. He was her second-favourite brother, after Vinnie. Ethan told us how his little brother, Petey, had been very serious about his contribution too. Their mum was good at craft and had been helping with his props and costume. Petey West would carry the spirit of the ocean with him down Cedar Street.
The children of Goodwood were too young to understand the weight of the troubles. Their small arms could not reach the depths of the town’s despair. The Fishing’s The Funnest parade was to continue in the face of it all. It was to be a reminder that innocence and joy still resided in darkened, keening Goodwood.
‘Unless you have a heart attack and drown, fishing is the funnest,’ said George, and took a big rebellious swig. Ethan looked horrified. Lucas laughed. George gave me a look. ‘Oh, I made one joke. It’s my first one,’ she said, beaming with the notion of being risky. ‘Come on, Jeannie,’ she said, putting her arm around my shoulder and pulling me into a partial headlock. I pushed her off and laughed. Here was the old George. The hilarious and ridiculous George who was never serious about anything. I had missed her, I thought, as the four of us sat around and made stupid jokes on lighter subjects and took turns with the bottle. I felt older, drinking whisky. I liked the feeling; and we loved parade day, George and I. We loved the colour and the Fish Fry after.
Lucas put his hand on George’s knee and she pretended not to notice, but Ethan did and he looked at me, smirking, and then he looked tender. I felt him edge closer as the level of Coke and whisky in the bottle slowly receded. He was subtle about it, much like Backflip when she knew she was supposed to be outside when the back door was open and every time you’d turn around she’d be a tiny bit closer to the soft rug in front of the heater.
Cows bellowed in the faraway paddock—their moos arrived with the breeze—and Ethan turned his head to look at them. They were tiny in the distance, like the little plastic ones from the toyshop in the Clarke Plaza.
Before long Ethan was right up next to me, with his feet touching mine. He was laughing along and pretending not to be there, much like Lucas’s hand was pretending not to be moving further and further up George’s thigh, and George was pretending not to notice. The four of us sat like that for a long time, radiating with the alcohol and pretending, as the afternoon light cast long tree-shadows on the oval. I didn’t mind either way—Ethan being close or not. His skin was warm and his game of footsies was pleasant. I remember feeling not much of anything about the afternoon.
‘It’s almost four,’ said George. She staggered slightly as she got up. Walking back across the oval, Lucas dared an arm over George’s shoulder. Ethan left his hands in his pockets but he walked so close that he bumped into me every so often as we came upon the town.
When we got to the main road, the parade was just starting, and already it was clear that Bart McDonald got his wish, albeit posthumously. It was even better than last year. The Goodwood Primary P&C had festooned the awnings of Cedar Street with blue and brown streamers and balloons, which flapped lazily in the light wind. Participating shopkeepers, which was everyone apart from Mountain Real Estate (‘Spoilsports’, said Nan) hung coloured cardboard fish in their windows and Val Sparks had made aquarium-themed bunting for her display at Vinnies. In the shining spring afternoon the cartoon colours were dazzling under an unclouded sky.
George’s parents hooted for Lego Pat, who’d made a trout of many coloured blocks, which looked much more like a plane. He held it proudly above his head as he marched. Little Petey West walked barefoot with a bamboo rod and a paper rainbow fish dangling on the end. In his other arm he swung a yellow bucket. There were twenty-three children in the parade in total—Coral counted them—and they all wore either blue or brown, to symbolise the ocean or the river.
Smithy and Nance and Val Sparks stood together, cheering and clapping. Nance’s great-niece held a crêpe-paper whale clasped in both hands; and three girls from Year Four, dressed in aqua blue dresses, ran along with green streamers that had shells stuck on them and fluttered along behind them like eels.
‘Seaweed,’ said George, with a knowing smile.
‘Seaweed,’ I said back, and we were merry and slightl
y drunk.
Paulie Roberts attended with his family. He looked noticeably troubled by the seaweed streamers. Later, he covered his eyes when Faye Haynes’s grandson, Dan, went by, draped in paper lakeweed like a marsh. Paulie’s wife, June, held him around the shoulders and Paulie grimaced.
Mack and Tracy’s son, Jasper, was the youngest participant. He was only two and Mack held his hand at the back and he walked on his squat little legs, dressed in browns for the river and dragging a soft toy platypus on a string along the road, like he was walking a little dog.
The sight of that caused the biggest Aaawwww from the crowd, which was the biggest crowd I’d seen for the parade, ever. Everyone lining the pavement clapped and whooped. Outside Bookworm, Emily Ross led a woodwind quartet, asthmatically, and they performed a medley of water-themed numbers, including ‘Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay’ and ‘Take Me To the River’. Fisherdads and fishermums waved and crouched with their cameras, aimed at their adorable children, who were gently corralled by the teachers of Goodwood Primary. Mum, Nan and Pop, Coral, Big Jim and Fitzy were there, and the locals from the Wicko, and even old limping Mal West, who eyed me and Ethan standing together and acted like he didn’t know his own son. Mrs Gwen Hughes, resplendent in a blue mirrored shawl, wore extra stones—two topaz bracelets, a shimmering sapphire necklace and huge lapis earrings—to celebrate the oceanic theme.
Everyone was there.
Everyone except Judy and Carl White, any member of the Carlstrom family, and Mrs Bart and Pearl.
Everyone except Rosie White and Bart McDonald.
‘They’re having a whale of a time,’ said Smithy, who was properly smiling for the first time since winter. ‘Look at them, happy out, leaping about the place.’ His whole face lit up like a lantern.
The people of Goodwood were, for the first time in a long while, happy.
Afterwards, at the Bowlo, Carmel Carmichael had organised three big barbeques in a row along the wall opposite the green. The smell of fish was smoky and everywhere. It was to be fried and served with white bread rolls, tartare sauce and an iceberg lettuce salad.
Goodwood Page 20
