Before the Storm

by Di Morrissey

  ‘I sense that. We all live with demons as well as angels, you know. And everyone has a secret history of some kind.’

  Ellie gazed at the tall, sturdy woman with whom she’d only recently connected, and realised she knew virtually nothing about Meredith, apart from what Patrick had said about their friendship. It had been enough to know that she was doing a good job as the mayor and that she was honest and principled, strong and defiant too.

  Ellie could still feel the pain and anger in her chest, but the frantic sense of injustice had lessened. So she nodded, taking a sip of water.

  Meredith leaned back in her chair, her voice calm and low as she matter-of-factly began telling her story . . .

  *

  The front door slammed behind Meredith as her mother screeched, ‘You little bitch! Don’t you slam my bloody door!’

  ‘It’s my house too,’ the girl muttered under her breath as she set off down the lane. Well, who knew whose house it was? They hadn’t paid the rent in two weeks. Her mother had been screaming that Meredith was the one who had to deal with the problem with the bloody landlord.

  ‘I can’t keep fobbing ’im off! Get down to the pub and find the old goat and get some money off ’im before it all goes on the damned dogs, horses, booze, probably floozies . . . and what a damned waste that’d be.’ She’d given a nasty laugh as she shoved her daughter down the

  hall. ‘Go on, go and git ’im, Merry! Just bring back the money!’

  ‘Mum, I don’t want to go into the pub. I’m not allowed. I’m fifteen. That’s too young.’

  ‘You don’t look bloody young. Flash your boobs a bit and you c’n pass for twenty, easy. Tell ’im you need rent money, or we’ll be out on our ear.’

  ‘Why don’t you go down there and tell him?’ Meredith bit her tongue to stop herself from adding that her mother was known for flashing her boobs when it suited her to get what she wanted. Meredith had observed that much, along with too much else she wished she didn’t know about.

  She kicked a piece of gravel with the tip of her brown school shoe as she dawdled down the back lane that led onto the main street.

  Radios and a TV blared through the thin walls of the terrace houses in their inner Sydney suburb. There was little privacy in the semi-detached workers’ cottages that stood cheek by jowl in the shadow of the famous bridge.

  She could smell the sour pilsner from the beer barrels as she came to the pub on the corner, and heard music drowned out by the broadcast of a horse race and the shouts of the men in the bar who were glued to the snowy images on the TV hanging on the wall.

  She pushed the frosted glass door of the public bar open and looked for her father.

  ‘Who’re ya after, lovey?’ A man in a short-sleeved shirt, partially open to reveal a stained singlet, leered at her from red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘My dad. Fred. It’s okay.’ Head down, she tried to make herself smaller as she slid across to the men three deep around the bar and tugged at her father’s belt.

  ‘What the f– oh, it’s you, love. Bloody hell, has your mother sent you down here? Listen, you can’t come in here in your school bloody uniform!’

  ‘We need money for the rent, Dad. Mum says she’ll be going to jail if we don’t pay up. Can I have some, please?’

  ‘Is this yer girly, eh, Fred? How old are you, darlin?’

  ‘Not old enough for a dirty coot like you, Sid. Bugger off,’ her dad said.

  ‘Give the kid some dough, Freddie, you bloody had a win or two,’ said a man holding two large foaming schooners. ‘Hey, girly, put your hand in my pocket, never know what you’ll find, eh?’ He gave a raucous laugh as he thrust his hips at her.

  Her father, swaying slightly, stepped away with his beer. ‘Over here, Merry. Listen, keep your mother quiet, will ya. Here.’ He pulled out his wallet, which was stuffed with notes, several drifting to the floor as he fumbled. Meredith quickly bent down and scooped them up and held out her other hand.

  He thrust a fistful of bills into her palm and she curled her fingers over them. ‘Off you go, love. Straight home, I won’t be long.’

  As she hurried out the door, the man with the schooners was handing one of the beers to a large fellow in a navy singlet. A younger man, smoking a cigarette, was leaning against a large painted glass advertisement for Flag Ale in a wooden frame. He had one foot propped up on the wall.

  ‘Here she is with a pocketful of pounds. Don’t spend it on the way home, missy.’

  The other man ogled her. ‘Where’d she get that? Got any tips for the gee-gees? Bit young to be working, aren’t cha?’

  ‘Ah, quit it, leave the kid alone.’ The younger man dropped his cigarette and rubbed it into the ground with his boot. ‘C’mon, I’ll walk you home. You live near here, don’t cha? I’ve seen you round before. Come to get your old man?’

  Meredith quickened her steps, shaking her head, looking down as she pushed the notes deep into the pocket of her school uniform.

  ‘S’okay. I’m leaving anyway.’ He nodded at the men, who made rude grunting gestures and laughed as they returned to their beers.

  Meredith walked faster, ignoring the man who fell into step beside her.

  ‘Listen, slow down. I ain’t gonna hurt you or take the money.’ He kept pace for a bit and then asked, ‘So what’s your name?’

  When she didn’t answer and kept walking fast, still looking down, poised to run if she had to, he said, ‘I’m Reg Hunt. I’m working on the building site down near the pub, where they’re tearing down the factory. Gonna be flats there. Fancy ones, I reckon.’

  Meredith was counting the doorways, just a short block to go.

  ‘Y’know what you should do, miss? Take half that money you got from Freddie and shove it away somewhere. For yourself. You might need that one day.’

  Instead of going up the back lane to the gate into their tiny square of backyard, Meredith stayed in the relative safety of her street until she reached her house, when she turned and banged on the front door. Reg waited nearby, pulling off his hat to wipe his brow.

  ‘All right, all right,’ her mother’s voice came irritably down the hallway. A moment later she opened the door.

  ‘What’re you doing here at the front door like the bloody Queen?’ She grasped Meredith by the shoulder and shoved her inside, then saw Reg standing on the footpath watching, his hands in his shorts pockets. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Just a mate of Fred’s from the pub. Didn’t think she should be walking round the pub at this hour. Street’ll be full of drunks,’ he said.

  ‘Well, bully for you. And don’t think you can come here sniffing round my girl. She’s only fifteen. What’re you? Twenty-five? Ain’t you got better things to do?’

  ‘I got a sister like her, back in the country. Don’t lose your flaming rag, lady.’

  Meredith’s mother ignored him and slammed the door, shouting out to Meredith, ‘What do ya think you’re doing letting some bloke follow you home? And where’s the money? Did ya get it from the old bastard?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ called Meredith, who had edged into her bedroom, quickly pulling out the high-figure notes and stuffing them into her old teddy bear where a seam had given way.

  She came into the kitchen and dropped the handful of crumpled notes that remained in the fruit bowl on the table, letting them fall over a rotting banana.

  ‘Is that all? Bloody hell. Are you sure?’ Her mother’s eyes narrowed as she glared at Meredith.

  ‘Dunno. He was with some fellas, the races were on. Maybe he’ll win some more,’ Meredith said hopefully.

  Her mother grunted as she scooped up the bills and shoved them in her bra.

  *

  ‘Anyway. That’s how I met Reg, my first husband,’ said Meredith.

  Ellie leaned back, trying to hide her surprise. ‘You had a bit of a tough upbring
ing by the sound of it.’

  ‘That’s an understatement. More like I dragged myself up.’ Meredith shrugged. ‘I just wanted to get out of there. Things got really bad. The booze got out of hand, Dad started hitting Mum, then she started hitting me. I suppose she needed someone to take it out on. It was ugly. I left school and got a part-time job in the laundrette down the road. Stashed away my pay and whatever I could lift from Dad’s wallet or Mum’s cookie jar, so they didn’t notice.

  ‘Reg hung around and would come and see me at the laundrette. Took me to the movies and lunch and it started from there. It’s a familiar story, I suppose; he was the only one who treated me nicely.

  ‘One day Mum and Dad had a huge bust-up – they were screaming at each other and hitting each other, throwing things, smashing things. It got so out of hand the police came, and I knew it was time to get out. Reg didn’t have any work at the time so he decided to go back bush. We got married and I went with him. I didn’t love him, but that didn’t matter to me: he was an escape, and that was what I needed more than anything.’

  *

  For a young woman from the inner city where neighbours shared a wall, a backyard fence and knew everybody’s business, the isolation of living in a tiny fibro cottage in the country with no neighbours or even a car in sight terrified Meredith.

  Reg was working as a rouseabout and handyman on a station three hours’ drive away so he only came home at the weekends. And when he did, he’d spend most of his time sitting out the front of the house, drinking.

  Once a week Meredith took their old truck and drove into the small township forty-five minutes away. People were friendly but there seemed few young women around her age anywhere. Young wives were at home, others had unseen jobs or were studying and doing courses.

  She did become friendly with Lizzie, a woman who worked in a hamburger café and in the front bar of the town pub, the Commercial Hotel, in the evenings and on Saturdays. She was saving up to get out and travel.

  Lizzie was cheerful, practical and, in her own way, ambitious. Most Fridays she and Meredith had a late afternoon tea together between Lizzie’s shifts. While she wasn’t well educated, having left school even earlier than Meredith, Lizzie was street smart in a way that amazed Meredith.

  And then Meredith fell pregnant. At first she was thrilled, and Reg was too, but as he pointed out, it’d make little difference to his life as he’d still be away at work most of the time. ‘But a baby would give you something to do during the week,’ he said.

  Meredith found it hard enough to scrape by on the portion of his meagre pay that Reg gave her, and their home was barely basic when it came to amenities. But nonetheless she found herself touching and holding the small bulge growing in her belly with increasing delight. And for brief moments she thought of her own mother and wondered what had become of her, but quickly pushed those thoughts aside. Neither parent had reached out to her and for that she’d been grateful, but a grandchild . . . well, maybe that would change things.

  It was not to be. Meredith miscarried alone in the ugly fibro cottage, and by the time she was able to drag herself behind the wheel of the truck to drive to the nearest neighbours for help, she knew she could not stay in this life with an absent husband ten years her senior, whom she knew was drinking heavily.

  At the hospital the doctor performed a hysterectomy, and when Meredith was discharged he patted her arm, telling her, ‘These things are often for the best. Consider yourself a free young woman in many ways. Maybe one day you might like to adopt a little tot, eh?’

  After the loss of the baby, Meredith shut down emotionally. Reg barely seemed to notice – Meredith assumed he was getting his pleasures elsewhere and couldn’t bring herself to care. He soon stopped bothering to call her and came back to town less and less often. Eventually he stopped coming home at all.

  Lizzie took her in and got her a room near hers, upstairs at the back of the Commercial Hotel. Meredith learned a lot from Lizzie, whose motto was, ‘You gotta look after yourself, ’cause no one else will.’ Sometimes she’d wink at Meredith and say, ‘But, Merry, a little spoiling on the side don’t go astray, eh?’

  Meredith soon learned, through the thin walls of their rooms, that Lizzie’s idea of ‘spoiling’ was to entertain the occasional chap, and as a result, she might appear in a new dress or pair of shoes. Or she treated herself and Meredith to a night at the pictures and a Chinese dinner.

  By that time, Meredith was working at the bakery and hated it. The hours were long, and the fine flour that always clung to her made her cough. Her job was to roll out the dough and do whatever chores Blue, the baker, needed done, as well as serving in the shop. The manager of the shop was a cranky man named Hugo, who’d come to Australia from Yugoslavia with dreams of being a gold and opal prospector and who constantly whined about the fortune he was missing out on in the fossicking fields past Lightning Ridge. He never let Blue have a moment’s peace and was always criticising him for one thing or another.

  One day Blue ‘blew his stack’, as he later confessed to Meredith, and dumped a tub of sticky dough ready for the current buns straight onto the boss’s head. Blue cowered, waiting to have his block knocked off his shoulders, but instead Hugo stomped out, never to be seen again, they thought.

  Blue rang the owner of the bakery down in Sydney and convinced him that he and Merry could run the place. For a raise, of course.

  Blue declared that he may be bald and fat but he was as happy as a pig in mud with the new arrangement. ‘You gotta grab opportunities by the balls as they come past you, love. You’re smart, Meredith, but you can be smarter.’

  At Blue’s urging she went to night school, where she studied money management, public relations and a subject called ‘How to Get the Best from Your Employees’.

  ‘Wotcha doing that for, love? We don’t have any staff. You and me are doing just fine,’ said Blue.

  ‘I’m learning that we can do better. We need to put a deal to the owner so that we get a share in the profits if we rack up more sales. I’ve got some ideas,’ she told him.

  The bakery soon morphed into the Continental Café. Blue embraced the idea of baking ‘funny foreign stuff’ like croissants and fancy breads, and the shop, now with tables and chairs outside, the first in town to do so, was extended into an unused section of the grocery store next door.

  Some Italian men who had moved into town persuaded Meredith to buy a fancy Italian coffee machine and serve ‘proper coffee’: ‘The cappuccino, the latte, the espresso . . .’ one man sang in his strong accent, kissing his fingertips. ‘You won’t regret this one.’ And she didn’t.

  The isolated, nondescript country town was suddenly being featured in magazines and talked about on local radio. Meredith noticed that other people were starting up new small businesses, too, and took some pride in being one of the forerunners of this trend. She had a very comfortable bank account and was starting to feel secure for the first time in her life. But in spite of that, she sometimes felt the itch to do something more, something different.

  A few years later, Hugo called in to see them as he was passing through. He shook his head in amazement at the changes they’d wrought and congratulated them.

  ‘And how are you? Did you find any opals? Gold?’ asked Meredith with a smile.

  He shrugged. ‘We never say. I do okay.’ Then he winked at her and shoved a hand down into the deep pocket along his trouser leg and drew out a small phial. He tipped it into his hand and showed her.

  Meredith gasped at the glowing black opals with fire-red hearts and several chunky gleaming gold nuggets.

  ‘These maybe look small, but best quality.’ He gave a wide grin. ‘I do okay.’

  ‘Blue will be pleased to know that. He always felt sorry for donking you on the noggin – head,’ she clarified as he looked puzzled.

  Hugo chuckled. ‘You are one clever lady,’ he sai
d to Meredith. ‘What you are doing next?’

  ‘Good question, Hugo. I’m ready for another challenge. But you know, I’ve kind of gone off going back to the city. Much as I hated it here when I first arrived, I like this place now. I’m somebody. In business, I mean.’

  He carefully put away his little glass phial and looked at her. ‘You should go to the diggings. Good money there for someone clever like you.’

  ‘Doing what? I’m not going to mine. And I don’t think I have the energy to start a bakery again.’ She laughed. ‘What do they need out there?’

  ‘Women,’ he said bluntly. ‘The men, they want ladies. Y’know, for . . .’ He pumped his arm suggestively.

  ‘I get the picture, Hugo,’ said Meredith coolly. ‘That’s illegal, for starters.’

  Hugo shrugged. ‘No rules out there. Coppers, they run it with the owners. The boss – the madams.’ He cocked his head. ‘Big money.’

  ‘I don’t think I would find suitable work there. Wherever it is.’

  ‘Backhill. That’s the place to go. Some new mining opening up, men coming in. Bit of a rough little town. Open for business opportunities, if you ask me,’ said Hugo. ‘Someone like you, good business head. Strong. You go, in couple years you be very rich.’ He looked straight at her. ‘Finish job. Take your money, make new life.’

  ‘Well, thanks for your advice,’ Meredith said. ‘I’m pleased to see you’ve done well. Achieved your dream, Hugo.’

  He nodded and smiled, something Meredith had rarely if ever seen him do. ‘Yes, I got my dream. Trick is finding what your dream is, eh?’

  *

  Ellie leaned forward. ‘That was a pretty wild suggestion of Hugo’s. What did you think?’

  Meredith nodded. ‘I never considered it for a second. But then after the claustrophobia of my life with Reg, the years of slogging at work, the risks I took trying to build up the café, I thought, what the hell. I need a break. I’ll take a little trip . . .’

  *

  If Meredith thought she’d been living in a backwater, the drive to Backhill was a revelation. The space, the emptiness, the sheer breathtaking monotonous beauty made her feel as if she were shedding the skin of her previous life.