Long Gone the Corroboree

by Tony Parsons

  Steele often wondered at his good luck in purchasing the property. And it had surely been a stroke of luck that he’d found the old cottage and its surrounding acres. Famous people were buying properties in the area and in a few more years, only a very wealthy person would be able to afford to purchase property here. It was all so perfect that Steele pondered whether it would last.

  As his garden grew and birdlife flocked in, Steele had a regular visitor in Billy Sanders. Billy taught him how to fish for perch and craybobs, and at weekends, would often have lunch with him. If Billy exhibited a particular liking for any item of food, whether it was ice-cream, biscuits or cake, Steele always made sure he bought more of it on his next trip to town. He listened as Billy played his guitar and sang of horses, girls and the bush in true country and western fashion. Billy had a good voice that had broken quickly, which despite his young age, made his rendition of adult themes almost believable. It was apparent to Steele that Billy loved music and loved to sing. Steele, who had never been a fan of country and western music, was gradually won over by Billy’s voice and lilting rendition of country themes.

  “How are things at home, Billy?” Steele asked the boy at lunch one day.

  “There’s goin’ to be trouble, Mr Clay,” Billy answered.

  “Oh, why is that Billy?”

  “Danny Evans is hangin’ around and if Dooley hears about it, and I reckon he will because he’s got brothers that tell him everything, there’ll be a big stink.”

  “Does your Mum like Danny?” Steele asked.

  “More than she likes Dooley. But Mum’s dead scared of Dooley. She told him to clear out and he gave her a hiding. I got one too, for trying to help her,” Billy said.

  “Why doesn’t your Mum go to the police? I’m not sure about its actual name but there’s an order prohibiting a man from going near a woman. If the man breaches it, he can be locked up. Your Mum could get one,” Steele said.

  “Aw, I don’t know, Mr Clay. I reckon Dooley would only laugh at it. He gets awful mad when he’s on the grog,” Billy said with a grimace.

  “He might go off his head if he hears about Danny hanging around your mum. You could get hurt too, Billy. When you go home today, you tell your mum to go to town so she can get an order taken out against Dooley. A lot of women have to get them because there are weak men who belt them and their kids.”

  “I’ll tell her, Mr Clay. But she won’t do it. We’ve had the cops come before and Mum always tells them Dooley didn’t do nothin’ to us. She’s scared of him. You haven’t seen Dooley on the grog. He’ll hit you with whatever he picks up. Plus, she’s afraid of what the family would say if she turned him in.”

  Steele felt his anger rising in him. “That’s no good, Billy. It’s time your Mum put a stop to it.”

  Steel had seen a white utility drive past on several occasions. It came and went at such odd hours that he suspected it was Danny Evans on his way to assignations with Lilly Sanders. His suspicions were confirmed when, after a scout through his timber for a fallen hollow log, he saw Lilly and a man coming naked out of the creek. It was very clear to him that Billy’s prediction of trouble at Lilly’s place was likely to come true.

  The next time Josh stopped off, Steele raised the matter with him. “I don’t know how much influence you have with your brother, but in any case, it’d be a good idea to have a word in his ear, Josh. Billy says there’ll be big trouble if Dooley Davis finds out that your brother has been seeing Lilly. And he has. I saw them together at the creek, naked, so it’s an affair right enough. Billy says that Dooley is a holy terror when he’s on the grog and he should know,” Steele said gravely.

  “Danny’s a bloody idiot, Clay. I’ll have a word with him sure enough, but I reckon Danny is too struck on Lilly to take any notice of me. You get a hot-arsed piece like Lilly and what bloke wants to give her up? She’s a disease with him and one he’s not likely to get over in a hurry. I reckon that seein’ Lilly starkers would make a lot of blokes forget everythin’ else,” Josh said.

  Steele looked into the distance and thought of the day he’d first seen Lilly naked. He thought, too, of Shelley Carruthers. He’d seen her unclothed too and she wasn’t far behind Lilly in feminine attractiveness, yet he had walked away from her. It had been partly because his declining energy had made him less of a man than Shelley was accustomed to. He used to be very tired after their lovemaking. But while Shelley was an attractive young woman, she wasn’t as overtly sensual as Lilly. Lilly oozed sexual appeal. It wasn’t something she had to work at and she didn’t need expensive clothes to heighten her appeal. Lilly was sexy in faded jeans and a plain blouse. And women like Lilly could make a man’s blood boil because of it.

  Steele thought that Danny’s ‘honeymoon’ with Lilly was likely to be short-lived. He could see a day of reckoning not far down the track. Dooley’s relations would surely appraise him of the situation and Dooley Davis, being the man he was, would react violently. Maybe Danny Evans would be sorry about his liaison with Lilly Sanders. On the other hand, he might think that what he was experiencing with Lilly was worth a hiding or two… if that was all it came to. Whatever happened, Steele was determined not to take sides. His main concern was for Billy and whether he’d be affected by the conflict. Billy was only a boy but Steele was aware that he wouldn’t stand by and see his mother assaulted and do nothing about it. His contribution might be ineffectual but he’d make it anyway.

  Steele shook his head. When he’d bought the property, how could he have known that his immediate neighbour was a woman who stirred the passions of men? No matter where he might have purchased a property, it would probably have had its drawbacks. Every Eden had its share of problems.

  Chapter Seven

  Steele’s new trees grew at a great rate through the summer and his herbs and vegetables continued to flourish and provide him with nutritious meals. He noted grubs of various descriptions and one patch of spinach was chewed a little but the many birds that called his property home helped keep the pests down to low levels. Magpies appeared to be especially beneficial and also became quite tame, warbling brazenly as he worked in his garden.

  Billy Sanders came frequently and at Steele’s suggestion, began to work at improving his grammar. “If you’re hoping to improve your singing vocals, it might help to work on your grammar. You’re dropping your ‘g’s and’h’s’ too. Maybe we could do something about that,” Steele told him.

  Steele asked him to read passages from books and worked with him to improve his confidence when speaking. And gradually Billy improved until there came a day when he didn’t drop a single ‘g’. Steele was delighted and told the boy how much progress he’d made in speech and confidence.

  “Aw, well, I reckon you wouldn’t ’ave told me if it wasn’t right, Mr Clay,” Billy said with a grin.

  “Have, Billy, not ’ave,” Steele said with a smile, tousling the boy’s hair. “We’ll have to work on your ’h’s now.”

  “Orlright, Mr Clay,” Billy said with something approaching a sigh.

  “It’s for the best, Billy,” Steele said firmly. “If you want to improve and earn worthwhile money from your performing, it will pay off to improve the way you speak and present yourself. Just think, if you were going to be an opera singer, it would take years of study and you’d probably have to learn Italian. Singing isn’t much different from any trade or profession. You’re selling yourself and your ability to put across a song. And so are a lot of other singers, both aspiring and established.”

  “I guess so,” Billy said. “What’s aspiring, Mr Clay?”

  “It means ‘hoping to be’, Billy. You’re hoping to be a country and western singer. So, that’s what you’re aspiring to be,” Steele said.

  Billy nodded enthusiastically. “That’s what I want to be, Mr Clay.”

  “I’m surprised your mum hasn’t picked you up on your speech, Billy. She speaks very nicely and doesn’t drop her ‘g’s and’h’s,” Steele said.

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nbsp; “She does go crook at me about those things but it’s easier for girls. The other fellows give ya a hard time if you speak at all posh. Mum’s always telling me that she’s going to get right down on me for speaking badly and if she didn’t have the blokes to worry about, I think she would.”

  “Does your mum mind you coming down here to me?”

  “Naw, she thinks you’re a great bloke, Mr Clay. She says that not many posh blokes have any time for the likes of us. I reckon that’s why Mum likes Danny Evans. Not that Danny is posh like you, Mr Clay, but he’s posher than us,” Billy said.

  “Just because I speak correctly doesn’t mean that I’m posh. I had teachers who insisted that I speak well. I don’t regard myself as better because of that. I’m simply a man who can write a bit.” Steele debated in his mind whether he should try and explain to Billy why Danny Evans was chasing his mother, but decided against it. The boy thought Danny was somehow better than him, and Steele doubted one conversation would change how the boy thought.

  “Mum thinks it’s sad you being here on your own,” Billy said. “She sez it’s an awful waste of a good bloke.”

  “It’s my choice to be here on my own, Billy. I’ve learnt how to cook and how to grow things. A lot of women would find it very hard, boring too, living with a writer. Writing professionally makes heavy demands on a person. Non-writers don’t always understand that. Some writers have things in their head that need to be put down on paper. It’s like a musician having a tune in their head that has to be turned into a piece of music or a song. It can be a hard passion to switch off. Besides, I’m not on my own all the time. You’re here quite often and Mr Evans calls in nearly every week,” Steele said.

  “Aw, Mum doesn’t count me,” Billy said with a grin. “She means, you should have a lady here with ya.”

  “‘You’ not ‘ya’,” Steele said and shook his head as he thought about how much time he’d need to work on Billy’s speech. “You tell your Mum not to worry about me because I’m still recuperating. I was very sick and ladies are the furthest thing from my mind. When I went to the hospital in America, I thought there was a good chance that I’d never see Australia again. You know what kept me going, Billy?”

  Billy shook his head. “Naw, I don’t, Mr Clay.”

  “It was this place. Yes, the beauty of this place and its old garden and the challenge of restoring the old cottage. That’s what kept me going. Not ladies. Not even one special lady and I knew a couple of them. You can tell that to your mum, Billy,” Steele said.

  “Are you better now, Mr Clay?”

  “I’m a lot better, Billy. And I’m getting better all the time. I think your fish might have helped. Fish are supposed to be very good for you. And maybe Jerogeree spring water has helped, too. Perhaps I should bottle and sell it,” Steele said with a smile.

  “But like I said, if you get me talking too posh, the other blokes will throw off at me, Mr Clay,” Billy said.

  “I’m not trying to get you to talk posh, Billy. I’m trying to get you to talk with more confidence because if you do, that’s the way people will treat you. You’ve made a good start, so keep going. A person can do anything with enough effort. By the way, I wrote a song for you to try,” Steele said and handed Billy a sheet of paper.

  “You wrote a song for me?” Billy asked with a look of wonder on his face.

  “Just for you, Billy. No one else has seen it. Do you think you could set it to music?”

  Billy’s eyes scanned the lines of the page while Steele watched for his reaction.

  “It’s a beauty, Mr Clay, a real beauty,” Billy said at last.

  “I’m pleased you like it. I have a copy, so perhaps you’d like to take that one home and show it to your mother. You could try it as a duet,” Steele suggested.

  “I will, Mr Clay. And thanks a lot.” Billy’s eyes shone. “I’m glad you came here. It’s real beaut being able to come and talk to you.”

  “You’ve helped me a lot too, Billy. I’d never written a song until I put that one together. I might carve out a whole new career. All I need now is to learn how to play the guitar,” Steele said with a wink.

  “I reckon you’d learn that real quick if you wanted, Mr Clay,” Billy said.

  “It would be a challenge, Billy. But right now, I’m up to my ears with work. I need to write this book to earn some more money,” Steele said. He was feeling very pleased about the song he’d given Billy. He’d written a bit of poetry, mostly when he was in his teens, but that wasn’t quite the same as writing the lyrics for a song.

  Billy came back a couple of days later and told Steele that his mother had sung his song, which she thought was a ‘real beauty’ that would be a hit at Tamworth’s Country Music Festival one day. Billy told Steele that his mother reckoned Mr Clay was ‘a helluva smart fella’ and that he was the only person who’d ever written about the old Gubbi Gubbi people along Jerogeree Creek. She’d told Billy to tell Steele that if he wanted to learn how to play the guitar, she’d be happy to teach him.

  Steele shuddered inwardly. Inviting Lilly to come and teach him to play the guitar was not an option; it was a recipe for disaster. There was no way he was going to be in the middle of a row involving Lilly, Danny Evans and Dooley Davis. No way. Not if he never learnt to play the guitar. What he did want was to hear Billy sing ‘No More Corroboree’.

  Like it or not, Billy and his mother visited him a few days later. It was getting on towards evening and Steele was sitting on his front veranda with a glass of freshly pureed vegetable juice, thinking what a great evening it was after the heat of the day. The birds had stopped calling and had settled down for the night and creatures of the night had begun to stir.

  Billy arrived in his customary shorts and shirt but Lilly had forsaken her usual skin-tight jeans for a creamy skirt and white blouse. She was wearing lipstick and eye shadow and came across as warm and seductive. Billy was carrying his guitar in its case as Steele had suggested he take it home so that Lilly and he could rehearse the song.

  Steele rose and greeted her. If she had to come, it was preferable that she came with Billy. “Evening, Lilly. Been hot, hasn’t it?”

  “Hot as hell, Mr Clay. I’ve been in the creek a lot,” she said.

  “Me, too,” Steele said and they laughed together.

  “I want to sing your song, Mr Clay. It’s a real beaut song. I’ve told Billy that he’s a very lucky boy to get a song written specially for him by a book writer,” Lilly said.

  “I’ll bring out a couple more chairs. It’s cooler out here.”

  He and Billy carried out the chairs and Steele followed up with a jug of orange juice and two more glasses.

  “Righto, sing away, Lilly,” Steele said.

  “I’ll sing it first and then Billy can sing it.”

  Steele sat and listened to Lilly Sanders sing the words he’d written, spellbound by her voice and the emotion it carried…

  I sit here and dream of the long ago,

  When my people danced along the creek below.

  I see the fires and I smell the smoke,

  Where the lilies grew and the wild duck flew,

  Where the Gubbi Gubbi came and the Gubbi Gubbi went,

  Back to the Dreamtime, so long ago.

  Time of the Rainbow Serpent,

  Who made Jerogeree, this place of corroboree.

  White fella come, black fella go.

  Gubbi Gubbi gone, no more corroboree along Jerogeree.

  All gone the corroboree.

  Steele saw tears trickling down Lilly’s face. She put down the guitar and flicked them away with a quick shake of her head.

  “That was simply lovely, Lilly. You ought to be singing fulltime and recording songs. Your voice is beautiful,” Steele told her.

  “You’re very kind, Mr Clay, but I should’ve started years ago. It’s too late for me. It’s up to Billy now,” she said.

  “It isn’t too late, Lilly. What are you… thirty? You’re only a young woman
. Your voice is great. I’ve listened to some of the women singing country and western and some of them aren’t a patch on you.”

  Lilly shook her head. “I wouldn’t be up to living that life, Mr Clay. I’m just a Gubbi Gubbi woman who didn’t get enough education. Then there’s Dooley. Billy probably told you about him. He wouldn’t let me go.”

  “I told Billy to tell you what to do about Dooley. I think you should try and record something at the very least, Lilly. I’m not up on what’s required but I could make enquiries,” Steele said.

  “No, Mr Clay. You look after Billy. I’ve got the farm and there’s…” Lilly stopped mid-sentence.

  Lilly didn’t have to finish the sentence for Steele to understand what she’d been about to say. Lilly was entangled with two men, one she liked and one she didn’t.

  “Billy, you run home and get the calf in.”

  “I put it in before we left, Mum,” Billy said.

  “Then put the spuds on. I’ll be along shortly. Go on, Billy,” she urged.

  Lilly watched her son leave and then walked into the house. “You’ve been real kind to Billy, Mr Clay. He’s lucky to have such a good friend.”

  “I’m very fond of Billy. We get along very well. And although I’m not a judge of voices, I do know a good voice when I hear it, and I think Billy has a very nice voice. If he’s taken in hand and looked after properly, he could do very well as a country and western singer. He could sing other styles, too,” Steele said.

  “I’m real pleased you think so. Billy told me what you said, about you being sick and being in hospital in America. And about you not being interested in women. I’d like to help you, Mr Clay. Pay back all you’ve done for Billy,” Lilly said. She unzipped her skirt and it was on the floor before Steele could make a move to prevent her. She was wearing nothing under the skirt and nothing under her blouse either, which was well on the way to following the skirt.