Lunch with a Soldier

by Derek Hansen

  Rain came in the first week in November, when it was least expected. High temperatures in October had caused deep cracks to open up in the parched land. Just when everyone was bracing for another scorching summer, two weather systems collided over the Southern Ocean, sending cold, moisture-laden clouds streaming north across a broad front right up into Queensland. The rain pelted down for four days, causing the Macquarie Marshes and Narran Lake to flood. On the fifth day, the rains stopped as abruptly as they’d begun. Graziers and growers throughout the far west stepped down from their verandas to kick the toe of a boot into the soil and speculate on whether there’d been enough of a wet to bring on the native grasses.

  Neil rang two days later with startling news. His company had promoted him into the marketing department and were sending him back to university part-time to complete a marketing degree at their expense. Billy was over the moon. He had no idea what marketing was or what a marketing degree entailed, but it was obvious that, whatever it was, Neil was good at it. He had to be or his company wouldn’t be wasting their money on him. Billy was disappointed that once again Neil wouldn’t be coming home for Christmas, but ultimately it didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter was that his dreams and hopes had been brought back from the dead. For the first time in a very long time Billy felt like smiling.

  The November rains were both a blessing and a curse. The first plants to recover were the noxious weeds and Braden and Billy had their work cut out trying to prevent their starving livestock from feeding on them. But then rain came again in January, a drizzling, soaking rain that hung around for two weeks. Braden claimed he could see the grass growing and reckoned the clovers weren’t far behind it. But the clovers brought their own set of problems. The cattle ate so much clover it fermented and formed a foam over the top of their ruminant stomachs which prevented them from belching to relieve the build-up of gas. With no paraffin oil to break up the foam and no cash to buy any, Billy and his father resorted to dosing the cattle with diesel oil and stitching a cannula through the side and into the belly of the worst affected. Once the bloat was under control, Billy grabbed the opportunity to go into town and blow off a bit of steam. He took Cheryl-Lynne with him whenever she could get away from her endless chores, because he recognised that she needed a break as much as he did. He took her because he thought it was the decent thing to do. She saw it more as the beginning of a commitment.

  Billy still came home from his trips into town or to woolshed parties deeply depressed. Kids who’d been three years behind him at school had left and found jobs in the city. But what hurt him more was the number heading off to universities. The one or two of his day had become a dozen or more and Billy couldn’t help feeling he’d been cheated again.

  When Neil rang in early April to say he’d borrowed a company car and was coming home for the weekend, Billy saw it as a progress report on his salvation. The visit gave him his first opportunity to sit down with his brother and discuss exactly what marketing was all about and when the big money would start to flow. He began to count the days until Neil came home and then the hours. He went out on the trail bike and scouted around until he’d found a place where he was certain they’d find pigs. He wanted to make sure his brother had the best possible time and enjoyed himself so much he’d be drawn back for more. Billy had a smile on his face all day Friday, knowing his brother had been given the day off and was already on the road. The last time he could remember feeling that way was when they’d been kids and either he or Neil had had a birthday.

  Neil arrived home just after 11 pm, stepping out of what appeared to be an almost brand-new Ford Falcon, dressed to the nines. He’d let his hair grow long at the back and sides, wore a white shirt with the top button undone and a loosened tie. His charcoal grey trousers were clearly the bottom half of a suit and his moccasin shoes had tiny gold buckles. Neil caught Billy’s look of astonishment and laughed.

  ‘I had a quick meeting in Newcastle on the way up,’ he said. ‘If you want to be the part, you have to dress the part.’

  They sat around the dining table, slowly sipping on cans of beer until two in the morning while Neil entertained them with his stories. He described a world which neither Billy nor his parents could really comprehend, but that didn’t stop them swelling with pride at his accomplishments.

  ‘When I took on the job with the developers I really landed with my bum in butter,’ he said. ‘They spend millions buying blocks of land with seemingly no more thought than we’d give to buying twenty or thirty steers. It was only after I’d been there a few weeks that I learned what factors influence their decisions. They got me in originally to help their accounts department crunch numbers, but I got so interested in what they were doing that within three weeks the boss had me helping to prepare proposals to put to councils. I loved it and I guess he loved my enthusiasm.’

  ‘Well done,’ said Braden.

  ‘Do you know the really amazing thing?’

  ‘No,’ said Billy. Everything he’d heard so far sounded pretty amazing.

  ‘My boss is only thirty. He left school when he was sixteen and he’s already a multi-millionaire.’

  Billy’s jaw dropped.

  ‘A multi-millionaire and he’s only thirty? And he left school at sixteen?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then why does he want you to go back to university?’

  ‘He reckons times have changed. Got tougher. He says marketing is the way things are heading and he wants me to learn all there is to know.’

  ‘I don’t understand how you can have a job and also go to university,’ said Braden.

  ‘I do eighteen hours a week at university and I make up the time after hours at work. Then I go home and, instead of getting into bed, I do my assignments. I do sixteen-hour days, Dad. It makes running this place seem like a holiday.’

  Neil talked until they were all too filled up with news to hear more. Billy kept glancing at his parents’ faces and wondered if the same look of astonishment and pride was reflected on his own.

  Billy rose early the following morning and waited impatiently while Neil slept in.

  ‘Let him have his rest,’ said Braden. ‘God knows he’s earned it.’

  Billy fidgeted and kept looking up at the sky. The sun blazed down with late summer intensity, pushing the mercury steadily higher. The sheep stopped feeding and lay down in the shade of any tree that threw a decent shadow. By ten, every living creature had gone to ground. It was after eleven before Billy and Neil headed off towards the western end of the property and the sand ridges where Billy had located the pigs. Even with the windows wound right down they sweltered.

  ‘How badly do you want to shoot a pig?’ asked Neil.

  ‘How badly do you?’ said Billy.

  ‘I can take it or leave it in this heat.’

  ‘Be lucky to get a shot at one anyway,’ said Billy. ‘They’ll all be holed up somewhere in the lignum. I was only going for your benefit. What do you want to do?’

  ‘Drive around till we find somewhere cool and drink the beer,’ said Neil. ‘Any shade up on the flat rock?’

  ‘One way to find out,’ said Billy. He turned the wheel and cut through the scrub to the top of the sand ridge where the mulga was thick and shady. Billy reversed under the trees so they had a view out over the plains. Nothing appeared to have changed since their childhood. Billy lifted the lid of the esky on the back seat and took out a couple of cans.

  ‘Remember your promise?’ said Billy.

  ‘Of course,’ said Neil. He punctured his can, put his head back and let the cold liquid pour down his throat.

  ‘Are you still good for it?’

  ‘Good as gold,’ said Neil. He gazed out over the lifeless landscape. ‘I’m going to get you out of here, Billy, though it might take a few years yet. I’m going to be a millionaire.’

  ‘Bullshit!’

  ‘No, I’m serious. Look at me. If you know what you’re doing in the property business
you can make an absolute fortune. I’ve seen the projections, Billy. In fact, I even worked on some of them. Things are going good now but they’ll really start to take off in five or six years’ time, and from there there’ll be no looking back. I’m going to make both of us rich. You’re going to have so much money you won’t know what to do with it.’

  ‘Get off!’

  ‘No, fair dinkum.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Billy took a good look at Neil and he was as serious as he’d ever seen him. ‘You’re not kidding, are you?’

  ‘No, Billy, I’m not. I know what I have to do and I know how to do it. When I’ve got a bit of a track record I’m going to start my own company. Don’t tell anyone. There’ll be room in it for you too.’

  ‘What about Mum and Dad?’

  ‘I’ll put them into one of my developments, on a beach somewhere. I’ll make sure they won’t have to lift a finger ever again.’

  ‘You reckon you’re going to do all this?’

  ‘Yeah. For sure.’

  Billy looked hard at his brother, searching for any suggestion that he was having his leg pulled, and finding none. He leaned back into his seat and tried to comprehend what life would be like in the city with more money than he knew what to do with. His brother made it sound almost like a done deed.

  ‘What’s the timetable?’ said Billy.

  ‘All going well? Between eight and ten years. Ten years max.’

  ‘Eight years?’

  ‘Yeah, all things going well. But there is a bit of a problem.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A glitch. Something that might throw a bloody big spanner in the works.’

  ‘What, for Christ’s sake?’

  Neil turned to look at Billy as though weighing him up.

  ‘What, Neil? What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’ve got a problem, little brother, but it’ll keep till dinner. Mum and Dad’ll probably want to hear about it too.’ Neil reached behind and grabbed another couple of beers. He passed one to Billy. ‘Here. Don’t say I never give you anything.’

  Neil spent the afternoon with his father, helping him work out his finances. Meanwhile Billy stripped down and cleaned out the Holden’s carburettor and fretted. He believed every word his brother had said about becoming a millionaire and tried to imagine what the problem could be. He’d pressed his brother for an explanation all the way back from the sand ridge but Neil had just smiled grimly and ignored him. By the time he’d cleaned up for dinner, Billy was convinced that whatever the problem was, his brother could figure a way around it.

  When he sat down at the table he found his mother and father in unusually good spirits. Braden had butchered a lamb for the occasion and his mother had roasted a leg slowly until the meat just fell off the bone.

  ‘Did Neil tell you how we’re all going to become millionaires?’ asked Braden.

  ‘I didn’t say you’d become millionaires,’ said Neil. ‘I said you’d just live like them.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ said Braden gleefully. ‘I can just see us sitting on a beach somewhere with nothing to do but eat, drink and grow old gracefully.’

  ‘Neil said he’s going to teach me the business and give me a job,’ said Billy.

  ‘Told me that too,’ said Braden.

  Billy and Braden made jokes about chauffeurs and cleaning ladies and trading cars in every time they needed to be filled up with petrol. Billy was so excited he failed to notice that Neil wasn’t contributing to the merriment.

  ‘So when is all this supposed to happen, Neil?’ Millie had got up to clear the table and looked expectantly at her son.

  Neil looked away momentarily, as though embarrassed.

  ‘Sit down, Mum.’

  If Neil had fired a shotgun he could not have grabbed everyone’s attention more effectively. Smiles froze on faces and became looks of concern.

  ‘I haven’t lied to you,’ said Neil. ‘Believe me, everything I’ve said can come true and sooner than you think. I could promise you right now that you could be living in your own home by the beach in eight to ten years but for the fact that something’s come up.’

  ‘What?’ said Braden.

  Billy held his breath. A change had come over Neil and it scared him. Neil pulled an envelope out of his shirt pocket and placed it on the table.

  ‘I’ve been called up.’

  ‘What?’ said Braden.

  ‘My birthday came up in the ballot, Dad. They want to conscript me into the army.’

  ‘What?’ said Braden, but everyone knew he’d heard perfectly. His face had turned ashen. Billy stopped breathing.

  ‘It’s for two years. Even if I’m lucky enough not to get sent to Vietnam, it’s still two bloody years. It doesn’t matter whether I go now or after I’ve finished university. It’s still potentially the end of my career.’

  ‘Your company will take you back, won’t they?’ said Braden.

  ‘Sure,’ said Neil bitterly. ‘But they’re not going to sit around and wait for me. They’ll get someone else in, give my opportunity to someone else.’

  ‘What about our home by the sea?’ said Braden, aghast. ‘What about us all living like millionaires?’

  ‘What can I do?’ Neil shrugged.

  ‘No!’ said Braden. He leaped to his feet, shouting, ‘No! I’m not going to stand by and see this family’s future ruined. We’re going to have to do something.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Neil. ‘Send Billy in my place?’

  Neil sat back. An appalled silence settled over the table. He lifted his cast with both hands and shifted his leg into a more comfortable position. Neither Milos nor Lucio would meet his eyes.

  ‘I could see it coming,’ said Milos eventually. ‘But I didn’t think you’d actually go through with it. I hardly know what to say. How could you do such a contemptible thing?’

  ‘I told you at the start that I took my brother’s life, though the reality is I robbed him of the chance of ever having one.’

  ‘What was Billy’s reaction?’

  ‘What do you think? He didn’t want to go but we didn’t give him much choice. Everyone turned on him, not just me. My father bluntly reminded him of the promise he’d made after we’d rescued him from the pigs. He made it pretty bloody clear Billy owed me.’

  ‘Dear God!’

  ‘I’m not proud of what I did. But was it any worse than what you did on the run with your brother? Are you going to look me in the eye and tell me you never stole food from others who were starving? Wasn’t that also contemptible? You can say what you like, Milos, but there’s no difference between us.’

  ‘No difference? You disgust me! I would have given my life to save my brother’s. He would have given his life to save mine. You used your brother to save yourself. Used him shamelessly. That is the difference, the difference between us! What you did was despicable. I could never have done that. Never!’

  ‘I kept hoping Billy would volunteer to go in your place,’ said Lucio. ‘If he’d volunteered, then what you did might possibly have been forgivable. Maybe not forgivable, but at least understandable. You deliberately contrived the whole thing by building up everyone’s hopes. You made their future contingent on your own. That was nothing short of blackmail. Why you would want to admit this to us is beyond me. Do you feel better for it? Eh?’

  ‘Never filled any of your little darlings’ heads with promises you had no intention of keeping, Lucio? Just so you could throw your leg over?’

  ‘That’s different!’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Neil. ‘I kept my promises, you didn’t.’

  ‘You disgust me.’

  ‘Do I? Look at the larger picture here, Lucio. You too, Milos. Don’t you think my parents deserved a better life after all they’d been through? Don’t you think they deserved to end their days peacefully and comfortably? Yes, I contrived things so that Billy went to Vietnam instead of me, but I kept my promises. I delivered! If I’d gone to Vietnam we’d all have ended o
ur days on the property. None of us would’ve escaped.’

  ‘And you think that justifies sacrificing Billy, no?’

  ‘Oh, you can be wise now, Milos, but back then nobody had any idea of how hard Vietnam would be or the long-term effects it would have on the soldiers who went there. I had no idea it would affect Billy as much as it did. I just figured he’d come home and work for me. I always kept a job open for him.’

  ‘You’re too generous,’ said Milos sarcastically.

  ‘Have you any idea of the expectations the family placed on me? I was the only hope of a better life for my parents and for Billy. Have you any idea of the pressures that put on me to succeed? Jesus Christ! When property crashed in the early seventies it took all my savings and all my plans with it. I was devastated and I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t tell my parents that their dream had just died. I couldn’t tell Billy he went to Vietnam for nothing. I had to start all over again. I had to borrow money so my parents could build their little home on the ridge. I think the day they moved in was the saddest day of their lives. Moving in meant no more house by the beach, no more easy retirement, no more living like millionaires. It broke my heart as well as theirs but it seemed the only option. I’d done my best, but my best just hadn’t been good enough. I realised then that I had to do even better.