The Audrey of the Outback Collection

by Christine Harris

  Audrey shrugged. If she folded a slice of bread in half, it would slip into a pocket very nicely. Most likely, she could fit in two slices, one each side.

  The Douglas-crow noises in the bedroom stopped.

  Audrey took the billy from her mum and slipped the ladle from its hook on the wall. ‘Mum, if I got taken away from you, would you call my name every day?’

  Her mum leaned back against the table, her hand against her chest. ‘If you weren’t here, I’d think about you all the time.’

  Audrey scooped water from the bucket into the billy. Drips dotted the mud floor. The billy wouldn’t take long to boil once it was hung over the fire.

  ‘Do you think I’d know if you were calling me?’ asked Audrey.

  Mum came over and put her arms around Audrey’s shoulders and hugged her. It was a sideways hug. It was getting harder to get close to Mum front-ways. Her tummy got in the way.

  ‘I believe you would know.’

  ‘Can I ask you a question about Pearl and Esther?’ Audrey stayed with her face against her mother.

  ‘Of course you can.’ Mum’s voice seemed to come from a long way above Audrey.

  ‘Do you call their names?’

  ‘Every day.’ Mum’s voice sounded thick. ‘But inside.’

  ‘Why do you do it inside?’ Audrey kept her arms firmly around her mother’s large waist.

  ‘My granny used to say, “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry, and you cry alone.”’

  ‘But if you cry alone, then no one can help you.’ Audrey looked up then.

  Her mum’s eyes were moist and shiny.

  ‘I’m never going to get married,’ said Audrey. ‘I’m going to stay with you forever.’

  Mum patted her back.

  ‘Anyways, if I got married, I’d have to get used to a lot of beard scratching. Bloke reckons men have got animals in there. Real little ones.’

  Mum made a hiccup sound. ‘Don’t ever change, Audrey Barlow.’

  It was too late for that. Audrey couldn’t remember keeping a secret from her mum before. She wanted to tell her all about Janet, but she couldn’t. And that changed everything.

  Sixteen

  Audrey parted the hessian curtains in her bedroom, held out the potato bag and let it drop outside.

  ‘Mind that, Stumpy,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be round to get it in a minute.’

  She turned to find Douglas staring up at her, his blue eyes intense. He had his sneaky slippers on. Made of kangaroo skin, they muffled the sound of his footsteps.

  ‘Wanna come wiv you.’ He rocked back and forth on his feet.

  ‘Who said I was going anywhere?’

  Usually, she didn’t mind him tagging along. But today she had plans that could not include him. He didn’t understand secrets. If he heard something, it went from his ears to his mouth in a few seconds.

  ‘Come wiv you.’

  ‘Not this time,’ said Audrey. ‘I have to run, and your legs are short.’

  ‘Cawwie me.’

  ‘You’re too heavy. I can’t carry you. It’s a long way. I’m going to ask Bloke to come across for tea tonight. You can see her then.’

  Douglas pouted.

  Audrey hoped he wasn’t about to have a tantrum. Mum would ask her to take him along.

  ‘I’ll play a game with you when I get back.’ Audrey smiled.

  Douglas nodded. His hair was still messy from his afternoon rest, and dried jam smeared his right cheek.

  The clanging and banging of pots from the kitchen told Audrey that her mum was preparing preserved meat for tonight’s tea. It took hours to soak out the extra salt before it could be cooked.

  ‘Wanna come too,’ demanded Douglas.

  Audrey hesitated. She’d planned to drop the bag of food outside the window, walk out the back door, then sneak around to pick it up. If she waltzed past her mum with a bag over her shoulder, there’d be questions. Audrey didn’t want to tell a fib. Not telling about Janet was different to making up stories.

  Janet had eaten only one boiled egg in a couple of days. Her cardigan was thin and the nights were cold at this time of year. Audrey imagined Janet, trying to hobble a few steps, her ankle hurting, stomach rumbling, and listening for people hunting her.

  Douglas glared at Audrey.

  He didn’t fuss that often. But when he did, his face went redder than a summer sunset and he was loud. Today he was probably tired. He’d spent his rest time making bird calls rather than sleeping. When he was tired, he was extra loud.

  Audrey knelt in front of Douglas. ‘When you go for a walk, you should wear your boots. Otherwise your feet will get sore and you might tread on a three-cornered jack.’

  His pout turned into a smile. ‘Boots.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Douglas ran through the sitting room into the kitchen. ‘Mumwheresmyboots?’

  ‘What did you say, dear?’ Audrey heard her mum say. ‘Slow down.’

  Audrey hooked one leg over the window sill. She heaved her body up and over, landing in the sandy soil outside.

  ‘Sorry, Dougie,’ she whispered.

  Grabbing the bag, she lifted it and slung it over one shoulder so it rested there. ‘Let’s go,’ she told Stumpy. ‘Quick!’

  She jogged into the bush, with the bag bouncing on her back.

  A howl came from the house behind her. That was a ‘Dougie howl’ all right. It was almost as bad as a dingo’s.

  Audrey’s stomach tightened.

  ‘Yes, I know Dougie’s upset. I can hear him. And don’t look at me like that,’ she told Stumpy. ‘You know what look. The one you’re doing now. It wasn’t exactly a fib. It’s true that you need boots if you’re going to walk in the bush. And I didn’t say in words that I’d take him.’

  Douglas had thought that on his own. She’d simply let him. Yet her stomach was twisting and turning like an angry snake. Douglas had trusted her. He had run off, all smiles, to get his little boots.

  She rolled the tip of her tongue against her top lip to see if she could feel a pimple. Mrs Paterson said that people who told lies got pimples on their tongue.

  Already, keeping Janet a secret was hard. Even if Audrey didn’t speak about it, she could hear the whispers in her mind. And they wouldn’t stop.

  Seventeen

  Janet stared hungrily at Audrey’s potato bag.

  Audrey dug in her right pocket and pulled out a thick slice of bread. Folded in half, it had red plum jam squeezing out of it. ‘Sorry, it got squished.’

  She peeked at Janet’s ankle. It was still swollen. But Audrey didn’t say anything about it. Janet might get upset.

  Janet took three bites of the bread before she stopped to chew. ‘Good tucker. Better than that porridge at the mission. Got no taste.’

  The bread in Janet’s mouth distorted her words. But Audrey understood. She’d had lots of practice working out what Douglas was saying. Audrey felt a hot pang in her chest as she pictured her little brother’s blue eyes looking up at her.

  ‘Do you have porridge back home, with your family?’ asked Audrey.

  Janet shook her head vigorously and swallowed. ‘My best thing to eat is witchetty grubs. They taste real good. Mum and me and my aunties, we look for cracks in the ground, under a tree. Then we dig up a fat tree root with our sticks and break it to get the witchetty. Gotta be careful, though. Hit that root too hard and you squash the witchetty grub.’

  ‘What do they taste like?’ Audrey slid the second slice of bread from her other pocket and handed that over as well.

  ‘Eggs, I reckon. If you cook them, they crunchy outside.’

  Audrey wasn’t sure she’d like witchetty grubs. Although her dad had eaten tadpoles. Witchetty grubs couldn’t be worse than that. If Janet could eat mission porridge, then Audrey could eat a witchetty grub. Especially if you could put jam on it. Jam made things taste sweet.

  She reached inside the bag again and took out a brown-paper parcel. ‘There’s half a cooked rabbit
in here. Not much meat on it. But you could suck the bones the way Bloke does. She’s got no teeth but she leaves the bones so clean you’d think she’d scrubbed them.’

  Janet put the parcel on the ground beside her. Her mouth was still full of bread.

  ‘I brought you dried apricots, a cold baked potato, and a tin of jam.’ Audrey sighed. ‘I forgot about opening the tin, though.’

  ‘Smash it with a rock.’

  Audrey held up the red cardigan that Mrs Paterson had knitted especially for her. The sleeves were too long, but the old lady thought it was better to have things bigger than you needed. ‘You can borrow this till you leave,’ Audrey said, feeling a tug of uncertainty about lending her favourite cardigan. But Janet needed to keep warm. And the wool cardigan was thick and soft.

  ‘I brought you pencils and a book to write in. For when you’re resting your ankle,’ said Audrey. She thought it was better not to say that Janet’s ankle might not let her leave for some days. Janet had spent lots of hours out here alone and she had probably been worrying.

  ‘My cousin, Jimmy, sent the pencils and book from the city,’ Audrey said.

  ‘Me, I got forty couthins.’

  Audrey giggled. No one could have that many cousins. Janet must’ve got her numbers mixed up.

  ‘That other tin has a lid you can lift off, and it’s got water in it,’ said Audrey. ‘I’ll try to bring you some more food tomorrow. But it’s hard sneaking things out of the kitchen.’

  ‘You lucky you got that camel watchin’ out for you.’

  Audrey looked through the opening. Stumpy stood outside, eating grass.

  ‘Can you see him too?’

  ‘I know he’s out there. Same way I know my family’s calling me.’

  ‘My mum calls my two sisters, but no one else can hear. Just them. My sisters died. They’re resting out the back of our place so they don’t get lonely.’

  ‘Your mum. My mum. Same voice, I reckon. It’s loud even when they sayin’ nothing.’

  ‘Too right,’ said Audrey. ‘Think we’ll have a voice like that when we’re mums?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Janet grabbed a handful of dried apricots from their paper wrapping and slipped them, one at a time, into her mouth. She was slowing down after all that bread. ‘But if you’re a mum then you gotta have a man who’s dad. Men spit and they have to go huntin’.’

  ‘And they scratch their beards.’

  Both girls nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Even if we’re not mums when we grow up, we can be friends,’ said Audrey.

  ‘With each other?’ Janet fiddled with her next apricot. ‘Me and you?’

  ‘We’re friends now.’

  ‘I haven’t had no friend like you before.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You got a camel in your family.’

  ‘I haven’t had no friend like you before.’

  Eighteen

  Standing on top of the termite mound made Audrey feel tall. She looked down at Bloke’s neatly rolled swag lying near a circle of small rocks. Ash and sand inside the circle showed that was where Bloke had lit her camp fire.

  ‘Bloke knows what she’s doing,’ Audrey told Stumpy. ‘She covered the hot ash with sand to put out the fire.’

  Stumpy thought that was a good thing too. He was scared of fire.

  ‘I wonder where she is?’ A feeling of unease wrapped around Audrey like a shawl. Through the trees, not such a long walk away, Janet was hiding in the cubbyhouse.

  Audrey leapt off the termite mound. Her feet made a paff sound as they hit the ground. The mound was taller than Audrey. It looked like giant dollops of grainy scone-dough, but it was as hard as rock.

  One hand cupped around her mouth, she called, ‘Cooee.’

  A flock of cockatoos, their wings white against the green leaves, rose squawking from a tree.

  An answering ‘Cooee’ came from the bush to Audrey’s left.

  ‘It’s all right, Stumpy. Bloke’s gone the other way.’

  The empty potato bag clasped in her right hand, Audrey marched towards the sound of Bloke’s call. Audrey was careful where she put her feet. She didn’t want to step in a rabbit hole like Janet had. And snakes didn’t always pay attention to the seasons. Some of them went out for a wriggle any old time.

  Bloke held a small axe in one hand and a billy can in the other. She wore the same dusty trousers and laced boots as yesterday. Her brown shirt was much cleaner than the grey one, but it smelled of wood smoke. Audrey figured Bloke had eaten her breakfast on the smoky side of her camp fire. Although Audrey had heard her dad say, more than once, that camp fire smoke would find you wherever you stood.

  ‘I’m gettin’ some bush honey.’ Bloke’s eyes drifted to the empty bag in Audrey’s hand. ‘You gonna catch something in that?’

  ‘Um …’ Audrey’s thoughts fluttered like a moth around a light. ‘It’s a bag.’

  Bloke raised one eyebrow. ‘Yeah, I reckon it is too.’

  Audrey couldn’t explain the real reason she was carrying the bag and it was hard to think of another one quickly. ‘Er … I expectionate I might see something that I didn’t know would be there. That’s why I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t seen it yet.’

  Bloke stared at Audrey. ‘You like curly words, don’t you?’

  Audrey sighed. It would’ve been much easier to tell the truth.

  ‘The honey isn’t far. Come on.’ Bloke turned and began to walk.

  Audrey followed her, relieved that Bloke had stopped asking about her empty potato bag.

  Stumpy was unusually quiet. Audrey sensed he didn’t know what to do with secrets either.

  ‘The honeybag’s in that tree.’ Bloke lifted the billy can towards a tall tree with a straight trunk and thin leaves. She didn’t have any fingers free to point. ‘It’s a bloodwood tree. Good for buildin’. Termites don’t go for it so much. Wood’s too hard.’

  The beehive really did look like a bag. Bees flew into a small opening in the trunk, then some flew out again.

  ‘Did you track the bees with your bush eyes?’ Audrey did a ‘Dad’ squint.

  ‘I saw the wax on the trunk yesterday. Didn’t have time before dark to collect the honey. Had no billy or axe with me either.’

  ‘Those little bees aren’t the stingy ones, are they?’ asked Audrey.

  ‘No. Native bees are friendly. The other sort, the big ones, they sting. Somebody brought them here from another country.’

  ‘But if you came to a place that had friendly little bees with honeybags, why would you bring other ones that sting?’

  ‘That’s a good question, but I’ve got no answer. Thought I might have to chop into the trunk, but it’s already split.’ Reversing the axe, so that she was holding it by the head, Bloke poked the wooden handle into the nose of wax. ‘Aborigines know how to find these honeybags, no trouble.’

  Audrey felt her face go hot. It started at her chin and worked up to her hairline. Her cubby wasn’t too far from here and Bloke was a good walker.

  ‘This woman once showed me how she got sticky stuff from some special leaves and glued a tiny cocky’s feather onto the back of a bee,’ added Bloke. ‘Then she followed the bee to its honeybag. She could see the white feather real clear, and the feather slowed down the bee so she could keep up with it.’

  Relief flooded through Audrey, and her legs shook. Bloke was only telling a story.

  Striking quickly, Bloke poked the axe handle into the honeybag. More bees flew out. Audrey was glad the quandong stones were dangling from her hat. She didn’t want the bees bumping against her face, even if they didn’t sting.

  Honey ran down the tree trunk. Bloke dropped her axe and held the billy can against the trunk to catch it.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ said Audrey.

  ‘Sounds like you made up your mind to it already.’

  Bloke kept her eyes on the honey.

  That made it easier for Audrey to ask, ‘Have you ever told a lie?’


  ‘Why would you want to know that?’

  Audrey shrugged. ‘It just popped into my head. Ideas do that. They jump up by themselves.’ Was that a fib? She didn’t think so.

  ‘My whole life was a lie,’ said Bloke.

  ‘That’s an awfully big lie.’ Audrey stuck her hand in the pocket of her trousers. Her fingers touched sticky jam, left over from Janet’s bread. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want. And sometimes people can’t say things even when they want to.’

  ‘Funny thing is, Two-Bob, I do want to tell you.’ Bloke raised her right hand and licked honey from her forefinger. Then she went back to balancing the billy with both hands. ‘Do people just look at you and start talkin’?’

  ‘I might have to ask a question first.’

  ‘I bet you might.’ Bloke snorted. ‘There’s two kinds of people on the road. Them that are lookin’ for something, goin’ somewhere. And them that are runnin’ away.’

  Bloke stared out to the horizon. But she wasn’t looking at the trees. Audrey guessed she was thinking about the city she’d left behind. And there was something there that she didn’t like. Maybe Janet wasn’t the only one running away.

  Nineteen

  Audrey’s hand clenched around the top of the potato bag. A drumbeat of pulsing began in her ears.

  She had seen something moving above the tops of the trees.

  ‘I have to go … oh, and Mum wants you to come for tea tonight,’ Audrey told Bloke in a breathless string of words.

  ‘But …’

  ‘Sorry. I just remembered I’m s’posed to be home by now.’

  Audrey took off.

  Her heart leapt as fast as her feet. She darted around trees and jumped over low bushes. There was no time to worry about treading on snakes or lizards. She had to get home, right away.

  There was a line of cloud above the trees. For a split second Audrey thought it was smoke. But it wasn’t the grey or black smoke of a bushfire. It was the deep red of dust.

  Only a motor car or truck would make dust like that. Audrey had seen how dust billowed behind cars in Beltana.

  Janet had said the men with too many buttons were in a car, and that they’d come looking for her. And now someone was driving away from Audrey’s house!