The Audrey of the Outback Collection

by Christine Harris

  Audrey didn’t like snakes. And she didn’t fancy the idea of sharing her bedding with something that had fangs.

  Mrs Barlow shook her head. ‘I couldn’t face being alone in the bush and having to cut a lump out of my own leg because a snake bit me.’

  Audrey’s stomach tightened. ‘I won’t be alone, exactly. Stumpy will come too.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Sometimes grown-ups said more with those sounds than they did with real words.

  ‘Have you asked Stumpy if he wants to go?’ asked her mum.

  ‘He always goes where I go.’ Audrey looked down at her half-eaten bread. She wasn’t hungry any more.

  ‘I’ll pack you supplies,’ said Mrs Barlow. ‘When the bread goes hard, you can soak it in water.’

  Many mornings, Audrey woke to the smell of freshly-baked bread. Her mum baked it in the outdoor oven Dad made from crushed ants’ nest and wire netting. There would be no fresh bread in the bush.

  And where would she find water? She knew to watch for the places where white cockatoos gathered at sunset. Her dad said cockatoos had to drink every day because they ate dry seeds. But it might take days to walk between billabongs. A long spell with no rain might dry up those billabongs, and then what would happen?

  Only a little while ago, her idea of being a swaggie had been exciting. It meant not having to do chores like cleaning out the chookyard. It meant no brothers to annoy her, no one telling her what to do. She could spit whenever she felt like it. And she could lie under a starry sky figuring out important things like, Where does the wind start? Why don’t dingoes bark? Is it better to be a sheep or a cow?

  But now Audrey realised there were other things she hadn’t thought about.

  ‘You probably need a bit of time to get used to the idea,’ she said. ‘Mothers would, I reckon. I don’t have to leave today. I could wait till tomorrow … or another day.’

  ‘It’s kind of you to think of me. Especially when you’re ready to go.’

  Audrey sat bolt upright. ‘I know. I’ll camp outside tonight, at the back of the house. You won’t need to worry because you’ll know I’m really close.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘I have lots of good ideas.’

  Mrs Barlow put down her cup of tea. ‘I was afraid you’d say that.’

  Twelve

  Audrey held her breath against the smell of the chookyard. The bucket handle hurt her hand. Chooks didn’t weigh much, but their manure did. Her mum was probably feeding them too much.

  Struggling a little, but determined to manage, Audrey carried the bucket to the vegetable patch. The red sandy soil would grow vegetables as long as there was enough water. But sand didn’t hold water very well. The stinky manure soaked up the water and held it for the vegetables.

  She opened the gate and took the bucket over to Toothless. Her mum had asked him to weed. It was hot in the afternoon sun and he had cast aside his brown jacket. He knelt beside the neat rows and curled his whole hand around the weeds to drag them out.

  He squinted as he looked up from beneath his broad hat-brim. ‘You’ve got muscles in places other kids don’t have places.’

  Audrey tried not to look too pleased. She didn’t want him to think she had tickets on herself.

  She took off her own hat and fanned her face. ‘We’re flat out like lizards drinkin’, aren’t we?’

  ‘Reckon so.’

  Audrey knelt beside him and copied the way Toothless grabbed the weeds that grew between the carrots. There were lots of ways to pull weeds. Douglas tugged on anything that looked green, including the vegetables, and usually left half of the roots behind. So he was banned from weeding until he grew older. Mum pinched weeds out with her thumb and forefinger. Price ripped them out, flicking soil everywhere. Audrey used a little of each method, depending on her mood. Today, she felt like testing the swaggie’s way. She curled her hand around the middle of a weed and pulled. It came away perfectly, roots and all.

  ‘Mum always plants radishes with the carrot seeds,’ said Audrey. ‘The radishes break the ground so the soft little carrot leaves can come up.’

  ‘That so?’

  ‘And she washes the seeds in kerosene so they won’t get eaten by birds or bugs.’ Audrey dropped her weeds onto the pile between herself and Toothless. ‘Price reckons it makes the carrots taste like kero. But I don’t.’

  Toothless grunted.

  ‘Why are carrots orange?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe God ran out of other colours. Orange might have been the only one left.’

  ‘Do you think people would eat carrots if they were brown?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Brown isn’t as pretty as orange.’

  Toothless scooped a handful of manure from the bucket and scattered it around the leafy carrot tops. Audrey guessed he had done this before. He knew not to put manure on top of the leaves or they would burn.

  ‘If you were a carrot and you wanted to hide, it would be better to be brown,’ said Audrey. ‘Then people wouldn’t see you and they wouldn’t eat you.’

  Toothless grinned.

  ‘’Course, carrots can’t choose what colour they want to be, can they?’

  ‘Guess not.’

  ‘People can choose what they want to be,’ said Audrey. ‘I want to be a swaggie. I might even meet up with my dad. Anyway, I’m going to sleep outside tonight.’

  Toothless looked at her for a long moment before he answered. ‘Sometimes people don’t choose. Things choose people.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve been on the road most of my life. It’s all I know. But sometimes …’

  Audrey waited patiently. Toothless talked a bit like Dad. He would start a sentence, look around, have a think, then finish when he was ready.

  ‘Sometimes I wish I had somewhere to belong, a family,’ Toothless said finally.

  Audrey thought about that. She had a family, but she was going away. Then she shrugged. She could come back and see them every year and tell them about her adventures.

  ‘You must have seen some exciting places,’ she said to Toothless.

  ‘Too right. And in some places, if I could’ve fitted in, I would’ve stayed. Maybe. I dunno. Most of my life I’ve been like a glove that didn’t fit anybody’s hand.’

  Audrey pushed a tiny carrot back into the sandy soil. It had come up accidentally with the weeds. She hoped Toothless hadn’t noticed.

  ‘I’ve had some bad luck,’ Toothless continued. ‘If it was raining pea soup, I’d get hit on the head by the fork. And things are tough in the city now. There’s more and more city blokes jumpin’ the rattler. Freight trains are full of them. Can’t get work in the cities.’

  Toothless pushed back his battered hat and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘At least, out here, I can always get a roo or a rabbit, and no one tells me to mind me p’s and q’s. But a family, now that would be something to make a bloke think twice about moving on. Fair dinkum.’

  Audrey sat back on her heels.

  ‘Aw. What am I saying?’ said Toothless. ‘I couldn’t sleep on a regular bed any more. Can’t stand a roof over my head. Got to have the open sky above me. And being on the road is better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick, eh?’

  ‘Can I ask you an important question?’

  Toothless nodded.

  ‘Does the sky touch the ground?’

  ‘What’s on the other side of the moon, do you think?’

  Thirteen

  Audrey lay outside on her swag. The kerosene lamps inside the house had gone out, one by one, and the sounds of her family preparing for bed had stopped. But the warm night was rich with noises.

  ‘Stumpy, did you hear that?’ Her voice was like a sigh with words.

  Wind swept across the yard. The wood in the chook shed creaked like an old man with rickety joints. It took the slightest puff to make it creak. But so far, it hadn’t fallen down. Then the hessian walls on the long-dro
p dunny fluttered. Audrey heard the goats bleating. They sounded like crying babies.

  ‘Funny thing about wind, Stumpy,’ Audrey whispered again. ‘Sometimes you hear it rushing along, shaking trees, right beside you. But you can’t feel it yourself. It’s like a ghost wind.’

  Then Audrey wished she hadn’t said the word ghost.

  It was comforting to hear her own voice, but if there was something scary out here in the dark, it might hear her and know where to find her. She wasn’t sure what that ‘something scary’ would be. If it wasn’t a ghost, it might be a bunyip. They lived near billabongs. Audrey’s family didn’t have a billabong nearby. But they did have a well. If a bunyip was thirsty, it might come to their well for water.

  Price reckoned bunyips howled awfully. If you heard one, you’d never forget it. The hairs on your arms would stand up and your stomach would squirm. Audrey told herself that bunyips weren’t real. But she couldn’t help imagining fangs, fur, and sharp claws.

  Something thumped nearby. Boinng, boinng.

  She went rigid, not daring to move. Then she realised what it was and felt silly. ‘Don’t be scared, Stumpy. It’s a roo. Big one by the sound of it. I hope it doesn’t jump on me.’

  A yellow moon was just rising. It was half in shadow, half brightly lit. Audrey liked trying to pick out the dark edge of the moon.

  ‘What’s on the other side of the moon, do you think?’

  Audrey waited for Stumpy to answer. But he was unusually quiet.

  Slipping her hands behind her head, Audrey stared up at the stars. They winked in different colours: bluish, red and white.

  She began to wish she hadn’t chosen to sleep outside. Douglas would be in their shared bedroom, sweaty and talking in his sleep. He might even be slobbering over his thumb. When he was asleep, his thumb sneaked into his mouth by itself. Price was in his lean-to, probably dreaming about moving into her room.

  Her mum might have thought about her for a while, but now she’d be asleep. ‘I wouldn’t want Mum to cry too much when we leave home, not a big flood or anything,’ Audrey confessed to Stumpy. ‘But a few tears would be all right.’

  Stumpy still did not answer. Was he already asleep, like everyone else?

  Audrey felt as alone as a country dunny.

  If she was a swaggie, like Toothless, every night would be like this. It might be weeks before she saw another person. Maybe months.

  A dingo howled. The sound seemed to come from everywhere all at once.

  Audrey sat up, her heart racing. She rolled sideways to get out from under her blanket, but her legs became tangled. She kicked the blanket away and scrambled to her feet. ‘Wake up, Stumpy.’

  She couldn’t go back inside. Not till morning. Price might laugh at her. But she could do the next best thing—move closer.

  Hurriedly, she rolled her mattress and blanket into an untidy bundle. Her own breathing, loud and fast, was making her even more nervous. Audrey was glad she had left her billy, saucepan and treasure tin inside for tonight. It made her swag lighter.

  Audrey headed for the house. Her right foot caught on something and she almost tripped. The end of the blanket was dragging. She flicked it to one side, letting it dangle in the dust beside her. The half-moon helped her walk the rest of the way without tripping.

  Audrey dropped her mattress close to the back of the house, then smoothed it out as best she could. Her mum was sleeping on the other side of the wall. Knowing she was close made Audrey feel a lot safer.

  ‘Move back, Stumpy,’ she whispered. ‘You’re crowding me.’

  She wriggled down between the blanket and the grass-filled mattress.

  ‘What did you say?’ Audrey listened to Stumpy for a moment, then nodded. ‘You’re right. Mum needs me to help her. Especially because her leg’s bad. When the flying doctor stuck her back together, I think he got some parts the wrong way round. I’ve changed my mind about being a swaggie. I’d better stay home.’

  She swiped at a mosquito near her face. Although she couldn’t see it, its whine was loud. As soon as she fell asleep it would dive and bite.

  ‘If I can’t be a swaggie, I know something else I can be,’ said Audrey. ‘I’m not telling you what it is yet. It’s a surprise.’

  Fourteen

  Mrs Barlow lowered the forked branch that held the clothes line high above the ground. Although the line was secured at each end to wooden posts, the forked branch stopped it sagging in the middle. She unpegged a sheet and dropped it into the basket.

  Audrey opened the kitchen door.

  ‘Mum! Have you got any string to tie these up?’ She clutched at the loose waistband of the trousers she was wearing.

  ‘What happened to your dress?’

  ‘Price said I could have these. They’re too small for him.’

  ‘Pwice,’ said Douglas. He sat on the ground, legs crossed, scraping at the sandy soil with a sturdy stick. Sand sprayed sideways, peppering Audrey’s feet.

  ‘What are you doing, Dougie?’

  ‘Digging a hole to wet the wabbits out.’

  Audrey giggled.

  Douglas looked surprised, as though he couldn’t see anything funny in what he was doing. Which made Audrey giggle again. Watching her little brother, and listening to his funny talk, reminded her how happy she was to be home and not on the road. If she’d left to be a swaggie, she would have missed Douglas.

  Toothless had left the previous afternoon after the chores were done. She imagined him on a dusty road, carrying his big chaff bag full of jaws, and whistling.

  ‘There’s a spare pair of braces in the big chest in my room,’ said Mrs Barlow.

  Audrey dashed back inside.

  Her mum’s dark wooden chest was at the foot of the double bed. Audrey knelt and lifted the lid, grunting with effort. The smell of wild rosemary floated out.

  The chest was full of clothes. On top was a rolled-up cloth that looked like an old nappy. Something was inside it. Curious, Audrey unwrapped it and found a familiar dented sardine tin. She and Price had used it as an engine when they played trains. Price didn’t play trains any more. He said he was too old for games. Audrey rewrapped the sardine-tin train and put it aside.

  Then she took out a neatly-folded knitted baby’s jacket. It was tiny and smelt like soap. Audrey ran her fingers over the soft wool. She wasn’t sure which of her sisters had worn the jacket. Neither of them had grown very big. Esther died when she was three days old. Pearl managed to hang on for two years, but she had been sick for most of that time.

  Audrey wondered what it would have been like if Pearl or Esther had been stronger. She would’ve had sisters to play with, to share secrets and biscuits. Though maybe not share the biscuits.

  Gently, Audrey refolded the baby’s jacket and smoothed it down.

  Her mum’s wooden chest was like Audrey’s own treasure tin under her bed. It was private. Audrey didn’t want to look any more.

  The braces were at the top, to the right. She picked them up and closed the lid.

  Fastening the two front clips of the braces to her trousers was easy, but Audrey couldn’t quite manage the back.

  Clutching the wide waistband with one hand, she headed outside again.

  Half-closing her eyes against the sun, the way her dad did, Audrey loped towards her mum at the clothes line. She swayed from one foot to the other. ‘I can’t reach the back of these braces.’

  ‘Turn around.’ Mrs Barlow’s fingers fiddled with the clips.

  The trousers were so big, Audrey could hide breakfast, lunch and tea inside the waistband. But at least they would now stay up.

  ‘What are you up to, Audrey?’

  She turned to face her mum. ‘Why do you think I’m up to something?’

  ‘You’re always up to something.’ Mrs Barlow bent forward to look Audrey in the eyes. ‘Apart from the sudden appearance of your brother’s cast-off trousers, there’s that funny walk.’

  ‘Dad walks like that.’

  ‘That�
�s because your father spends much of his life on the back of a camel.’

  Audrey nodded. ‘I might have to do that too.’

  ‘But don’t you think camels are cranky and smell funny?’

  ‘Not all camels. Just Dad’s. The one called Dribble snots on people.’

  As Audrey took a breath to continue, a fly whipped into her mouth and stuck in her throat. She coughed, once, twice, then gagged. Turning aside, she tried to suck the fly back up so she could spit it out. Her stomach heaved. Finally, she hoiked the soggy fly out and onto the ground.

  ‘Pah. Pah.’

  Although the fly was now drowning in saliva on the sandy soil, Audrey could still feel where it had tickled her tonsils.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Mrs Barlow patted Audrey’s back.

  ‘Blasted fly,’ said Audrey.

  Her mum’s hand went still. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Dad says blasted.’

  ‘You’re not Dad. You’re a little girl. Words like that are not nice coming from a girl’s mouth.’

  ‘I know other words,’ said Audrey. ‘And they’re much worserer than b …’ She saw the look on her mum’s face and stopped. ‘Much worserer than that one.’

  ‘It’s worse, not worserer.’

  ‘Sure is.’ Audrey wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, the way she’d seen Toothless do it. ‘Fair dinkum worse.’

  ‘Audrey Barlow, I’d say spit it out,’ said her mum, with a twinkle in her eyes. ‘But it appears you just did that. What’s going on?’

  ‘I started thinking. Actually, I don’t stop really, except when I’m asleep. Then I dream. Which is a kind of thinking, except I can’t make my thoughts go where I want. But sometimes when I’m asleep, I can make my dreams go where I want. But that’s really half-dreaming and half-thinking, so it doesn’t count.’

  ‘Dweams,’ said Douglas, as he continued to dig holes with a stick.