The Vintage and the Gleaning

by Jeremy Chambers

  Before that, says Boss. When we were just little tackers. Up in the old country school. The little one-room school.

  You was mates was you? Wallace asks, wiping his brow with his arm.

  Oh, I don’t know about that, says Boss, folding his arms and looking up at the sky. We used to knock around a bit. Don’t know you would have called us mates though.

  Wallace finishes the vine and inspects it, picking off small shoots with his fingers.

  Well, he’s dead now, he says.

  After knockoff me and Wallace go down to The Imperial to join George Alister’s wake. Wallace leans over the bar to talk to Les.

  Where’s all the mourners? he asks Les. I thought they were supposed to be mourning here.

  Les is sitting on his stool. He belches and blows out his cheeks. He does not move from the stool.

  They were here, says Les. He is looking at the counter, waiting for Wallace to put money down.

  Don’t tell me they’ve gone already, says Wallace. How can they have gone already? George Alister dead, where’s all the mourning?

  They were here, says Les, but now they’ve gone.

  He nods his head towards the counter.

  Wallace pulls some coins out of his pocket, grumbling. He slaps them down on the bar towel. Les looks at the coins and slides off his stool with a grunt. He pours Wallace a pot and keeps his hand on the lever, looking over at me.

  On the wagon, Les, I say.

  Les snorts and shakes his head. He drags himself back up onto his stool and the stool creaks. Les sits on that stool all day long. He’s a fat little man with a fat little gut and a puffed up face and he sits there belching and when he belches his cheeks blow out. Everyone says Les looks like a toad up on that stool of his.

  Wallace drains his beer and leaves the pot on the counter. He comes back to the table and sits down.

  Bloody mourners bloody gone home, he says to me. Not very sentimental is it? Not much chop George Alister’s mates.

  You want to go into the ladies’ lounge, Smithy? Les calls over to me. I’ll get my wife to make you a nice cup of tea. We’ve got Devonshire too, if that takes your fancy. Does a nice scone, my wife.

  Piss off Les, I say.

  Les looks at someone down the bar, grinning. The man says something and Les laughs.

  Wallace looks at his watch and shows it to me.

  Gone home already, he says shaking his head. What happened to paying your respects?

  He stands up and goes into the lounge.

  Hey Les, he says coming out, was the widow here?

  What widow might that be Wallace? Les asks. He throws a grin at the man down the bar.

  Wallace stands there pushing his glasses against his face.

  George Alister’s widow, he says. Nora. Nora Alister.

  I believe she was, says Les.

  Wallace comes back to the table swearing.

  What bloody widow he think I was talking about? he says to me. Bloody George Alister’s bloody mourners, who else’s widow he think I was talking about?

  He’s just having you on, Wallace, I say.

  Wallace swears and turns in his chair.

  Well, how about Roy Thompson then? he yells over to Les. He here?

  Roy Thompson? says Les. Was Roy Thompson here? he asks down the bar. He shifts on his stool, listening, and turns to Wallace and nods.

  Wallace winks at me.

  You see him go, Les? he asks.

  Les belches, shaking his head.

  Wallace looks at me again.

  What about the widow? he asks Les. You see her go?

  I wasn’t keeping a book on it, Wallace, Les says.

  Wallace turns back in his chair and leans over the table.

  Roy’s gone, widow’s gone, he says quietly.

  He gives me a look.

  The man down the bar says something to Les and Les grins.

  Hey Smithy, he shouts. How about an apple juice? We can water it down if it’s too strong for you.

  Piss off Les, I say.

  Les is laughing. He is a fat little man with a fat little gut and he sits on that stool all day long. Even when Les is laughing he looks like a toad.

  Spit’s car isn’t at his house and his boots aren’t on the mat. Belle answers the door, holding the baby in one arm. She is red in the face and her eyes are bulging and staring. She wipes her hair back with her spare hand. She looks like she’s been screaming all day long.

  So where the bloody hell’s Spit? she asks.

  I was going to ask you the same question, Belle, I say.

  I follow her into the house.

  In the living room the television blasts away and the older boy is sitting in his highchair. He is eating chocolate muck out of a plastic container.

  Say hello to your grandpa, Belle says to him.

  The boy just looks at me and then starts banging his spoon against the container, smiling and then laughing. His face and bib and all of him is covered in chocolate.

  The carpet is stained and scattered with infants’ things. Blankets, a baby bouncer, dummies and chewing toys. The room smells of milk and talcum powder, dirty nappies.

  Belle puts the baby down on one of the blankets.

  There’s soft drink in the fridge, she says.

  I go into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of lemonade and drink it standing at the sink. Out the window the sun falls across the fence at an angle, making a line with the shade below. The older boy’s plastic tricycle is sitting overturned on the grass and the grass is long. Faint swirls of cloud move across the sky. I put the bottle back in the fridge and rinse my glass, placing it upside down on the dish rack.

  Back in the living room Belle is trying to get the baby to drink from a bottle, talking to it in baby talk. The older one is still banging his spoon on the highchair, squealing nonsense.

  Roy Thompson reckons he’s gone fishing, I say.

  Belle snorts, cooing to the baby.

  Trust Roy Thompson to know, she says.

  The baby is laughing and kicking its plump and powdered legs, pushing them together like a frog in water. It swings the bottle in one hand and the bottle rolls across the floor.

  Well, he’ll be back soon enough, I say.

  Belle snorts again.

  He’ll be back all right, she says. I know he’ll be back. That’s the least of my worries.

  She fetches the bottle and gives it back to the baby and stands up. She is wearing a singlet and tracksuit pants, bulging out of both. Her arms are large and puckered.

  He’ll be back, she says, but that’s not the problem, is it?

  No, I say. No, it’s not.

  Trust Roy Thompson to know, she says. Sleazy old bugger.

  She goes over to the older child who is still banging away with his spoon. She takes the spoon and starts trying to feed him. He smiles coyly, turning away every time she tries to put the spoon into his mouth. The muck smears all over his face. It is slick with gelatine like oil on water.

  So they going to dock him? Belle asks. Spit. They going to dock him?

  They’re not going to dock him, but they’re not going to pay him either, I say. You don’t get paid if you don’t work.

  Belle takes the boy’s jaw and tries to force it open, pushing the spoon into his mouth. It knocks against his teeth and he shakes his head, howling. The muck goes everywhere and Belle swears, wiping a spot on her singlet. It smears.

  Well what about holiday pay? she asks. What about sick leave? Suppose he got sick? They’d have to pay him then, wouldn’t they? If he got sick?

  I shake my head.

  Not if you’re on seasonal, I say. You only get paid for what you work on seasonal.

  Belle stops trying to feed the boy, who is still screaming over the noise of the television. She puts the spoon in the container and takes off his bib, sitting him on the floor against the couch. He is filthy with chocolate. The glow of the television flickers over the boy, quick with changing colours. He goes quiet, st
aring at the screen. Belle picks up the baby and puts it in the highchair. She hands him the bottle and he chucks it and she goes and picks it up and gives it back to him. Her hair hangs limp.

  So how come Spit’s on seasonal? she asks me.

  We’re all on seasonal, I say. Apart from Wallace. Wallace’s on full.

  The baby has chucked the bottle again and Belle goes and gets it. She puts both his hands on the bottle and tries to get him to take the teat in his mouth. He won’t take it. Same as the other one he won’t take it. He turns his face away, flapping his arms and letting out little angry groans.

  So how come you’re not all on full? Belle asks. You all work full time. You should be on full.

  Seasonal pays better, I say.

  The older boy is sitting propped up against the couch, looking at his hands. He looks at them like he’s never seen them before. When he sees me watching he stares at me and then he looks back at his hands and claps once. He looks up at me again with wide eyes. He seems surprised, like he’s surprised he can clap his hands. Like it’s the first time he’s ever done it. He claps again and he keeps clapping and he is smiling and laughing and the stuff on his hands goes flying all over the place. Belle leaves the room and comes back with a damp tea towel and wipes his face and hands. She picks him up and takes him out of the room and I hear a tap being turned on in the kitchen.

  The baby has chucked its bottle and I go and get it off the carpet and hand it to him and he chucks it again, holding onto the teat and swinging it. It rolls under the couch. I get down on my hands and knees and feel around for the bottle. On the television they are singing.

  I find a toy fire engine under the couch and I roll it out and keep feeling around for the bottle, lying on my side. When I get it I stand up and give it to the baby. He chucks it and I leave it.

  Belle comes back in with the older one. He is cleaned up and his clothes have been changed. She sits him against the couch again. I hand him the fire engine and he holds it close to his face, turning it around. Belle goes looking for the bottle and takes it back to the baby. Outside it is beginning to haze and glare.

  So they’re going to dock him then, she says to me.

  It’s not a matter of them docking him or not, Belle, I say. It’s about not getting paid for not working. He’s not showing up to work so he’s not getting paid.

  Belle takes the fire engine away from the boy, who is trying to chew on it. The boy starts bawling and Belle tickles him under his ribs. He cries out and pushes her hand away.

  Still, she says, the bastards never give you a chance.

  The baby chucks the bottle and it rolls across the floor.

  Going home along the railway track I see the crows in the long grass. They are bunched close together in a frantic quivering mass, squabbling and pecking at each other. Their heads go up and down.

  Other crows circle the air above the glistening mob, coming and going and cawing. They swoop down from the silos, passing low over my head, flaring out their wings and wheeling over the huddle, slowing and flapping about and landing among the crows on the ground and there is squawking and fighting and the mob goes back to its busy, jerking movement. Now and then commotion as a crow leaves in a flurry and streaks off into the air, a few others chasing it, calling angrily.

  They do not seem to notice me coming until I am close and then only glance at me before putting their heads down again, going at it even faster than before, not moving until I kick at the whole dirty lot of them. They flap up in the air and drop down behind me onto the tracks, making threatening noises.

  I squat down in the long grass to see what they were getting into. It is the rabbit I skinned for the boy yesterday. The top half is stripped to the bone, the eye pecked out, entrails left untouched and perfectly intact.

  Flies crawl among the carcass and I wave them away and look back at the birds. They are standing around with their heads tilted, each of them watching me with one flashing eye. I pick up a handful of railway stones and fling them. The crows go up in the air and come down again, same as where they were before.

  I take a large stone and get down on my knees in the ditch and start breaking the hard baked crust of yellow clay. I chuck away the stone and dig with my hands, pulling out lumps of clay and pieces of rusty-veined quartz. I scoop the clay from around a rock and pull it out and hurl it at the crows. They just sidle away and sidle back, watching me with their heads cocked. I keep working, pulling out the clay and heaping it on one side, piffing the rocks out at the birds. I dig deep, as deep as I can into clay which is hard as clay can be, and the deeper I go the harder it gets. I keep digging until my hat and shirt are soaked through with sweat and my knees are aching and I thought I had dug it deep but when I stand up and look at it, it doesn’t seem anything, it doesn’t seem much more than a hollow in the ditch. I wipe the clay from my jeans and I look at the crows.

  They aren’t looking at me anymore. They are looking at the carcass in the long grass. I walk onto the line shooing them away, but they don’t even fly up, they just hop away from me, keeping their eyes on the carcass. I go round at them from the other side and they hop back in the opposite direction, not fearing me, just moving away like I was nothing.

  I go over to the hole and look at it and I suppose it is deep enough. I go and pick up the rabbit and put it in. It fits, but it sits barely deeper than the surface of the ditch.

  Now the crows are watching me again and they are starting to fidget, coming closer, not hopping now, but walking with their necks stretched out, their heads low to the ground. When I turn around they step back, but soon they are close, surrounding me. One of them flies up towards the silos, cawing, and I hear them all cawing from the silos but the ones around me are silent, watching me, and I can tell I’ve got them worried now. I know I’ve got them worried.

  I take the lumps of clay I piled next to the hole and crumble them over the carcass and when it is covered I push down on the clay with my boot and I can feel the carcass underneath. I pack down the clay as hard as I can and put more on and pack that down and I keep packing down clay but the clay feels loose and I can still feel the give of the carcass and I think the crows would have no trouble getting through clay as soft as that.

  The crows stay silent and still, watching. They barely move when I turn to face them. I start taking handfuls of railway stones and piling them over the top, pushing them into the clay. I take handful after handful until there is a great mound of stones over the buried carcass.

  I look at the crows and they don’t seem worried anymore, they are just looking at the pile of stones. They know what I have done and now they are waiting to see whether they can get under those stones. And knowing how smart crows are, they probably will and that is why they are standing calm now, waiting. But that’s crows for you and it is still a big pile of stones and I packed them down tight and I couldn’t have done more without a shovel and a mattock and it was only a rabbit, only a little rabbit after all.

  It is dusk and the crows are scuttling shadows. I take one last look at the mound of stones and start walking home. I wipe my hands on my jeans and when I look at my hands I see that they are bleeding.

  Thursday, Spit doesn’t show.

  One of the boys drops in the heat. It is the quiet one and we hear him go down, his shovel falling against the wire, scraping against the wire as it falls and the whole line sounding and the thud of his body on the dirt.

  In the next row the other boy goes to jump the vines.

  Don’t be stupid, says Wallace. He’s not going anywhere, is he?

  We go and look at the boy.

  Anything broken? Wallace asks him.

  The boy has come to and he is trying to sit up but he can’t. His eyes are dazed. Wallace picks him up and carries him to the ute. He lays the boy on the tray and pours water over his head. The boy looks around wildly and keeps trying to raise his head but he can’t.

  You just lie there, says Wallace. It’ll pass.

  He
hands the boy the water bottle and the boy takes it and tries to drink, the water spilling everywhere, the boy finding it hard to hold the bottle to his mouth. He turns his head and vomits and the puke runs down the tray.

  He needs something stronger than that, says Roy.

  The boy closes his eyes, shivering, his face gone white.

  Take him down Poachers, says Roy. Be nice and cool in there. Get him out of this heat.

  Yeah, give him a minute, says Wallace.

  We stand watching the boy until he opens his eyes. He stares at us and closes them again. Wallace takes him by the shoulders and hauls him up, leaning him against the back of the cabin. The boy wavers, trying to steady himself.

  You still dizzy? Wallace asks him.

  The boy nods weakly and Wallace hands him the water bottle and he drinks again.

  He’s all right, says Wallace. He slides the boy down the tray and helps him stand up. The boy staggers, Wallace holding onto him. He eases the boy into the ute.

  If you’re going to throw up again do it out the window, Wallace says to him.

  The boy sits slumped against the door.

  Brandy, says Roy, as Wallace walks around to the driver’s side. That’ll set him right.

  We watch them leave and go back to our rows.

  After a while Wallace’s ute passes us on the road, then comes back.

  Told Boss, did you? asks Roy.

  Wallace nods.

  I am finishing Wallace’s row. Wallace gets his shovel and works the row with me. Roy has stopped and is standing looking out at the road, waiting for us to catch up. The other boy is still going.

  What’d Boss say? asks Roy.

  He’s worried isn’t he, says Wallace. Going up to the house later. Talk to the mother.

  Roy hawks and spits.

  Reckon he’ll come back?

  Wallace reaches into some tangled vines, mumbling.

  Roy spits again and rubs the spit into the dirt.

  I don’t reckon he’ll come back, he says.

  Wallace shrugs, pulling at the vines with both hands.

  He was a good worker, I say.

  Yeah, says Wallace, yanking hard. Good worker but he worked too hard, didn’t he? We got one of them works too hard, other one doesn’t work at all.