River Run

by Alexander, Nicole

  Bum-crawling his way across the corrugated iron, Robbie inched down the roof to the guttering. From above, the dark bowl of Mr Lomax’s head bobbed as he moved from pen to pen, counting out the shorn sheep and writing the numbers in the tally book next to the shearer’s name. At the number one stand, the gun-shearer’s stand, Billy Wright’s stand, Robbie squatted and waited.

  A large yard to the east opened out into another holding pad dock boarded by a line of low scrub. Movement made Robbie lift his head, supporting his chin with his hands. Someone approached on horseback. A spec at first, growing in size until three distinct figures formed. A dog barrelled in from the stubby bushes towards the riders, the animal padding alongside the horses, every so often darting left or right.

  A gate squeaked. Below, Mr Lomax stood back and counted sheep from a pen.

  ‘One for you, Mr Lomax,’ a gruff man called out over the noise of the shed.

  Robbie peered over the edge of the guttering.

  A shed-hand dragged a shorn ewe the length of the emptied yard. ‘Busted leg.’

  The Chinaman wrote in the tally book and, pocketing it, joined the man. He bent to examine the injury, the bony curve of his spine showing through a worn shirt, before the shed-hand continued dragging the sheep clear of the pens. The Chinaman ducked into the shearing shed, reappearing with a couple of splints and a length of bandage. The broken hind leg was quickly straightened and bound and the animal lifted over a fence to limp around a small yard.

  Mr Lomax resumed the emptying of the pens. Robbie hunkered back down on the roof.

  ‘Another one for you, Mr Lomax.’

  A big woolly was yanked out into the first tally pen by a shed-hand. Mr Lomax gave the sheep the briefest of looks and waited until the last shorn sheep jumped through the gate of the pen he was counting. Then he was dragging the animal away, hefting it over the fence and with the help of a shed-hand, lifting it onto the tray of a truck and quickly slitting its throat. The task was done within minutes and the Chinaman returned to resume the counting out.

  ‘Another one for you, Mr Lomax.’ Robbie recognised Billy Wright as he ducked his head out of the chute. He felt for the clods in his pocket. As the Chinaman bent to drag the big woolly away, Robbie called down to the man:

  ‘Another one for you, Mr Lomax!’

  The Chinaman looked up to the roof.

  Robbie aimed the shanghai at the shed overseer and fired, the clod hitting the Chinaman right between the eyes. The man stumbled and fell.

  ‘Yes!’ Robbie’s fist punched the air.

  ‘Robbie! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Three horses were tethered to a railing. His father was shaking his cane. ‘Get down here, now!’ he bellowed.

  Mr Goward was calling out to the Chinaman, asking if he was alright as he went to his aid. Mr Winslow pushed his hat to the back of his head as the red dog ran around to the carcass on the truck and began to chew on the dead sheep’s bloody neck. From nowhere, the blue cattle-pup appeared, stocky back legs pumping fiercely, as it jumped up repeatedly in an effort to reach the carcass as well.

  Very, very slowly, Robbie turned away. Walking along the roof, his father yelling out at every step, he verged towards the centre of the building and scrambled to the peak. His dad was still calling to him as he took a step and began to slide. The tin was burning hot on the north-western side of the structure and he skidded uncomfortably, falling on his bottom and losing control, until a skylight halted his descent. He moved cautiously to the gutter edging the building and then, carefully levering his body over the edge, hung for a few seconds before dropping to the ground.

  ‘You’re having a busy week of it, Robbie.’ Mr Goward laid a hand on his shoulder and marched him back to his father.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Margaret Winslow was perfectly at home at River Run. Maybe a little too much at home, Eleanor considered, as the woman mixed gin martinis, glass tinkling as the swizzle stick hit the sides of the jug. Condensation dripped onto the mahogany sideboard as the pitcher’s contents splashed into two glasses. Checking her reflection in the mirror, Margaret passed one of the cocktails to Georgia. Having been ensconced in a game of bridge for a good part of the afternoon, it seemed that the unlikely pair had become friendlier.

  ‘Another for you, Eleanor?’

  ‘No thanks, Mrs Winslow,’ she replied. Eleanor was yet to develop the tolerance the older set showed towards alcohol, especially in this heat.

  ‘Call me Margaret, dear. I was never one to stand on ceremony. Besides, it makes me feel quite aged continually being addressed by the younger set as Mrs.’

  Reluctantly, even Eleanor was beginning to warm a little towards their house guest. The Winslows’ visit, having been extended beyond the original weekend with the discovery that their car needed urgent repairs, had unexpectedly assisted in easing the tension created by recent events. Eleanor was grateful for the diversion the Winslows presented, particularly as it meant that her mother and uncle had to at least give the appearance of being the loving, compatible couple that people assumed.

  Margaret relaxed into a comfortable sofa, complimenting Georgia on her choice of decor. Her mother answered vaguely. Her thoughts were obviously centred on the afternoon’s events and, so far, even the socially adept Margaret Winslow found it difficult to lift Georgia’s spirits. It was after six and the women were showered and changed for the evening. Eleanor, not one for pre-dinner drinks, had made an exception this evening with the intent of informing her mother of what she’d overheard in the woolshed. That is, until she’d been told of the details of Robbie’s latest escapade.

  Eleanor sat curled in a curved-backed armchair, bare feet tucked under the hem of her skirt, a gin fizz in one hand with a desperate craving for a cigarette. Robbie’s antics were beyond normal. ‘Mum, do you think –’

  Georgia waved at her dismissively. ‘Please, Eleanor, not now.’

  Margaret Winslow poked a manicured fingernail into the contents of the martini she held. The grandfather clock ticked loudly. Maybe it was women’s intuition, or maybe it was natural to be imagining the worst after the last few days, yet Eleanor couldn’t shake the sense of impending doom that seemed to have settled in her bones. A stranger beneath their roof, shot by her own brother, who didn’t want his return to consciousness revealed. There were the words of the disgruntled shearer overheard earlier in the day and now Robbie was in trouble again. A pedestal fan clicked ominously in one corner, barely stirring the hot, thick air.

  ‘Heavens, we need a couple of those little black boys with palm fronds.’ Margaret leant back in the sofa and took a sip of her gin concoction. ‘Better. Much better.’

  ‘I asked Mrs Howell to fetch another fan but she tells me the storeroom was empty,’ Georgia replied. ‘I must get her to bring one in from the dining room.’

  The last Eleanor had seen of the spare electric fan was it being transported carefully – and at her request – in the back of the truck to the shearers’ mess.

  ‘I’m sorry you’re here, Margaret, with all this kerfuffle going on.’ Georgia hadn’t stood still for the last twenty minutes. She was at the record player again and when the needle dropped on the vinyl 45, Nat King Cole began to sing ‘Mona Lisa’.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Georgia. It’s not like Ambrose Park can’t manage without Keith for a few days. Anyway, if the car had been easily repairable we would have been out of your hair by now.’

  Georgia walked around the oblong perimeter of the room, opening the curtains now the light was dwindling. ‘Well, I for one am pleased you’ve stayed, Margaret. It’s helped having someone else to talk to, someone who understands the joys of child-rearing.’ The words dripped with sarcasm. ‘Honestly, I just can’t understand Robbie. And I know you’re right when you say that boys get up to the most dreadful of things, but what’s happened, well it’s just too much. He’s my child and I love him, but I don’t know if I even understand him anymore, let alone like him.’ At the
mantelpiece at the opposite end of the room, Georgia adjusted the framed selection of Chinese fans her grandmother had procured in the 1870s from a travelling hawker.

  ‘He’s just a kid, Mum.’ Eleanor defended her half-brother. It was clear the boy’s problems needed to be addressed, however, there was more involved with this latest drama than the antics of an uncontrollable child. ‘Robbie thought he was doing the right thing today.’

  ‘The right thing? Robbie shouldn’t even have been out of his room,’ replied Georgia. Returning to the matching sofa upholstered in flowery reds and greens, she sat at right angles to Margaret, chewing on a toothpick-impaled olive. ‘How he managed to get out that balcony door … When I think of the subdued look on your brother’s face whenever he’s been locked in that room for misbehaviour, and all the time he’s been sneaking outside as soon as my back was turned.’

  It was best to keep quiet on the subject of the balcony key, Eleanor decided. If she’d not produced the key on Saturday, Robbie would never have gone to the river in the first place.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time a shearer tried to pull a swiftie.’ Margaret fanned herself with a copy of The Australian Women’s Weekly.

  ‘No it wouldn’t.’ Colin walked in, accompanied by Keith and the overseer. All three men smelt of sheep, sweat and manure. ‘You’ll have to excuse us, ladies.’

  ‘Not at all,’ answered Georgia.

  Colin poured three measures of rum, adding ice and water, and the men congregated near the sideboard, toasting the first day of shearing. Stocky and shorter than his companions, Colin looked his age next to the other men. Keith was rather distinguished with his trim figure and flecks of grey peppering his hair, while Hugh Goward, tall and broad-shouldered, stood out with his blond hair and deeply tanned skin. It was rare to see the overseer without a hat. With or without it, he was a good-looking man. Eleanor thought of his steady hands on her body following the incident in the yards, and looked away.

  ‘I told Robbie that we’re sending him to the King’s School to board.’ Colin barely met his wife’s gaze. ‘He can leave on Sunday’s train.’

  Georgia gave a barely perceptible nod. ‘I might have another,’ she replied, holding out her glass to her husband.

  ‘Here, I’ll make myself useful,’ offered Margaret, taking the glass and heading to the sideboard. The mirror reflected a beguiling smile as she made a point of turning side-on towards Colin, as if the space between the men was narrow and needed to be squeezed through.

  ‘We were lucky there was an opening,’ considered Colin as he leant on his stick. There was a troubled tone to his voice as he sipped his drink. ‘Robbie’s in his room and I’ve told Miss Hastings that the position of governess is redundant. He can stew upstairs for the next few nights before he leaves.’

  ‘What about clothes, uniforms?’ Georgia was concerned.

  ‘I’ll send a telegram to my sister in the morning. She can purchase what’s required and have a trunk railed to Parramatta, care of the boarding master.’

  It was obvious that neither parent wanted Robbie to be sent to boarding school. They stood at opposite ends of the tastefully decorated sitting room, two custodians of a great rural heritage faced with a quandary that neither knew how to handle. Her mother was visibly upset at the thought of her son being packed off to Sydney and Uncle Colin was topping up his glass, the muscle in his jaw tightening. For the first time, Eleanor wondered how much of Georgia’s and Colin’s marriage depended on their son.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you, Colin,’ Margaret broke the momentary lull in conversation and even Eleanor turned gratefully in the direction of the sideboard and the familiar sound of Mrs Winslow’s martini-making. ‘About your leg. Last Christmas you were considering having another operation.’ Margaret sipped the gin blend through a straw to check the strength of the mix, adding a smidgeon of Noilly Prat.

  Colin’s eyes clouded. ‘An operation? Yes, sorry, Margaret, I was miles away. I can’t see the point of another quack digging around for a piece of shrapnel.’

  ‘I can see how being rendered unconscious, cut open and probed yet again would lose its appeal.’ Keith patted his wife casually on the bottom as he helped himself to the ice-bucket. ‘My father had that arm of his re-broken and reset three times and he still had a bend in it like a banana, with limited use until he died.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Colin explained, as Margaret walked past him and handed Georgia her cocktail, ‘it’s been in there since 1917. And what if the worst-case scenario, as those quacks term it, occurs? No, at sixty-one years of age I think I’ll put up with the discomfort. At some stage in the future I may well be wheelchair-bound, but I’m not hastening that sunny day.’

  ‘And I don’t want you to go through all that pain again,’ Georgia agreed.

  The overseer placed his empty glass on the sideboard. ‘I should go.’

  ‘No, Hugh,’ Colin topped up the overseer’s glass, ‘you’ve been caught up in Robbie’s antics, as we all have. Just have one more drink, eh?’

  Her stepfather’s conciliatory attitude emphasised how much Robbie’s behaviour was affecting everyone.

  ‘Of course, the lad should get points for catching them out.’ Keith lit a cigarette and offered them around. Everyone accepted, including Eleanor. Her mother appeared ready to complain but instead waited patiently as Keith busied himself, moving around the room with his lighter.

  Eleanor took a relieving drag of the menthol cigarette.

  Mr Goward skolled the rum and water. ‘Except that sometimes it’s better for the men to play their games. What’s a couple of fat ewes, after all, if the shed stays peaceful and the job gets done? Especially with everything else that’s going on at the moment.’

  ‘Well, I don’t agree with you, Hugh,’ Georgia replied, accepting a drink from Margaret. ‘We run a good shed, the men are well fed. There’s no need to be stealing from us. The men concerned should be fired.’

  ‘That would be Mr Lomax and Billy Wright,’ the overseer stated. ‘Two top men, Mrs Webber. The Chinaman’s been coming here for twenty years and you know Billy.’

  Georgia cradled the martini glass. ‘I’m sorry to hear Billy was involved.’

  ‘He’s a gun shearer,’ the overseer reminded her, ‘and he has the ear of the men.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ Georgia conceded, ‘and it’s a well-known fact through the New South Wales sheds that if there’s an accident, the men would rather have a leg set or be stitched up by Billy Wright than a doctor. But in this case, I have to wonder at Billy’s loyalty after all we’ve done for him. All the steady work provided these many years. He always knows there’s a job here for him, shearing or not. You remember me telling you the story, Colin, about how Billy came to work for us?’

  Colin nodded. ‘Alan took him under his wing, gave him a job, taught him how to shear,’ he explained to their guests.

  ‘The boys are a bit strained, what with the shooting,’ Mr Goward answered conversationally. ‘I suggest we let things rest. Let the dust settle a bit.’

  ‘My father would never have tolerated such behaviour.’ Georgia took a puff of her cigarette, too lost in thought to realise that everyone, including her husband, was waiting for her next words. ‘They should be let go.’

  ‘Mr Lomax has a cut over his eye, thanks to Robbie’s marksmanship,’ Hugh explained. ‘Billy reckons that the ration sheep were too tough to eat and Rex and Fitzy expressed similar concerns. We all understand the meat has been affected by the dry season, however, I think Billy thought that with the recent happenings, some decent meat might placate the men.’

  Georgia appeared unconvinced. ‘Are the men grumbling?’

  ‘Why don’t you come down to the shed in the morning? Have a chat to the men. Like you usually do,’ Mr Goward added politely. ‘It might calm things after this latest incident and the men would appreciate it. I’m sure they expected you there today.’

  ‘Mrs Webber’s had other things to attend to
,’ Colin stated.

  ‘Of course. It’s just’ – he swirled the glass he held as if it would provide answers, gave Colin a sidelong glance – ‘you are the Boss. They respect your opinion, Mrs Webber. Respect you, full stop.’

  ‘You’re right, of course, Hugh. But I’m sure what with everything that’s happened, they understand my absence. Besides, if I can’t rely on you and Colin to stand in at times like these, then the business is hamstrung if I’m not around. But I’ll make time to visit the shed in the next couple of days.’ Georgia moved to the mantelpiece, the green-gold Chinese fans flanking her so that she looked like a foreign queen. Flushed from the continuing heat, she dabbed at her face with a handkerchief. ‘Contact Grazco’s and tell them we need someone to replace Lomax and Billy as soon as possible. When you have word of their arrival, pay out the other two and let them go.’

  The overseer scratched his head. ‘Mrs Webber, I have to be honest with you, I don’t think that’s a real good idea.’

  Georgia adjusted the gilt-framed fans, which were hanging at a slight angle.

  ‘I heard something in the shed,’ Eleanor shared. ‘One of the men was annoyed about The Worker being torn into shreds and used as toilet paper.’

  ‘Colin?’ Georgia walked to the record-player as the strains of ‘Mona Lisa’ came to an end. She’d already played it twice.

  Her husband shrugged. ‘A bit of harmless fun.’

  ‘There’s more.’ Eleanor took a final drag of the cigarette, reluctantly stubbing it out. ‘He sort of implied that we all hated the communists and so naturally we were against people like him, against the workers. He sounded pretty angry.’ She met Hugh’s gaze.

  ‘Well, of course we hate the communists,’ replied Margaret, repeatedly dunking and sucking on the olive in her cocktail. ‘It all goes back to the blasted Russian Revolution. And look what they did over there. Shot the Tsar and his family. It’s before your time, Eleanor, but in the thirties there were various protests and fights in Sydney between the New Guard and the Old Guard, between fascists and communists and normal-thinking people.’