‘You’d need this.’ The woman pulled a grubby, torn envelope from her bag and Poppy knew instantly.
Still, there was nothing she could do. Reading a letter was not going to change the fact that Poppy was contracted to bring a certain story together for World Snapshot. But rather than tell Cecilia and dash any more of the poor woman’s hopes for her son, she pulled out her camera, took a close-up picture of the letter and returned it to Cecilia’s trembling hand.
23
Eli was standing at the top of the driveway, a bucket of vegetable scraps in one hand, six impatient hens scratching and clucking at his feet, and old Shrapnel close by.
‘Was on me way to feed the chooks when I heard your car. Didn’t expect ya back so early. That project you was doin’ in Saddleton today sounded …’ Eli baulked. ‘Hells bells, girlie, what’s with the sad face?’
‘I blew it,’ Poppy said, dragging herself from the driver’s seat and falling back against the bonnet of the car. ‘Not sure I like myself very much right now, Eli.’
‘Whatchya ravin’ about?’
‘I need a drink. Several drinks.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘Best forget that idea for a couple of hours. How ’bout we talk instead.’
Poppy was about to decline, take herself inside and lose herself in a bottle when she noticed a willy-willy dancing up the dirt drive, a tiny twister of air-borne dust, like the small storm of self-loathing now whipping up her gut.
‘Did you know Johnno used to call me Poppy-ganda?’ She threw her back against the car and punched the heel of her boot repeatedly into the sidewall of her front tyre. ‘I think I truly deserve the title after today’s effort.’
‘Somethin’ not go well?’
‘It was so awful. I was so awful.’ She blinked back tears, swiping the sleeve of her shirt over one cheek, then the other. ‘Bloody dust!’
‘You? Awful? Can’t see it meself.’
‘Oh, you have no idea how awful.’ Hauling her body off the vehicle, she traipsed to the boot, flung open the hatchback, grabbed her camera bag and slammed the hatch closed again, then scuffed a spray of dirt in frustration on her way back to the driver’s door. ‘For years I’ve reported the news from overseas. Years! In the beginning, the network would say what and how they wanted a story covered and we … I … followed instructions. It was the news, the facts. It was real, and reporting the news is what I did, right?’
Eli squinted. ‘Keep talkin’. You’re tellin’ the story.’
‘Never did I stop and think about the impact on the families at home who had sons and daughters fighting overseas. Families were something I … Well, the thing is I don’t think I relate to family stuff so much and today all I did was prove I am a propaganda machine. What I’d planned was the most orchestrated, political piece of crap …’ She opened the back door, grabbed her writing pad and slammed that door as well. With anger quickly becoming her overriding emotion, she would have liked to open and slam it several more times and maybe let off some steam. ‘When did that happen? I never, never wanted to be one of those reporters sensationalising stories to satisfy their own ego or fill their pockets.
‘Today, though … Today something snapped. When I saw his parents … They were so strong, so proud. I imagined that’s what their son would’ve been too. Making a soldier’s funeral news, political or otherwise, isn’t right. Suddenly newsy news took second place to telling the truth.’
‘The truth?’ Eli quizzed.
‘That war destroys families.’ She slammed the writing pad on the car’s roof. ‘It destroyed mine.’ With nothing left to slam, Poppy rubbed the nicotine patch that was clearly not working for her today. ‘I could really do with a ciggy, Eli. Got one?’
Of course he had one. The man was a chainy, living on one rollie after another. One stubbed out, another lit. But she watched Eli pat his chest with both hands, then the side pockets in his pants.
‘Sorry, love, all out.’
‘Shit!’ The word ground out of her mouth like a growl. She was demented, a derailing train on a collision course with her conscience. ‘I want my report to be real. It’s not about bloody politics or ratings. It’s about a boy. A boy I met once. I hate myself and I hate this job. I don’t even know why I’m doing it.’ Exasperation pumped through every vein, powering her; standing still was no longer an option. She walked away from the car and back again—pacing—the urge to open and slam another door almost too strong to resist.
‘You’s just tellin’ the news like it is.’
‘Not today I wasn’t.’ Poppy shuddered at her next thought. ‘I went in there today no different to those low-life paparazzi chasing down the classic celebrity-without-makeup shot: Posh Beckham in tracky-daks, J.Lo’s cellulite, or Shane Warne’s supposed Botox binge. Who fucking cares about Warnie’s make-over? The only thing keeping me from joining those low-life in the gutter is that my images are shown on TV and not in tabloids. I’m supposed to be a serious award-winning journalist. What happened? Shit!’ A stone, catapulted by the toe of Poppy’s boot, missed a chicken by centimetres. ‘I’m talking like a crazy person, I know.’
Eli’s expression never shifted, empathetic eyes smiling back, thin grin holding an almost-dead rollie. He dropped the bucket to the ground between his feet and with a quick kick of his gumboot sent the chooks squawking and scurrying, although not too far from those scraps. Then he lifted the same foot onto the bucket and bent over, resting both forearms on his knee. He looked up at Poppy.
‘As far back as ’45 they were saying the first casualty of war is truth, so nothing new in what you’re sayin’. Only thing to do is tell your story your way.’
Poppy took a deep, purposeful breath, held it for five, then blew out one long puff of wind. ‘You know, Gypsy used to say the same.’
For the first time Poppy wondered about Eli’s connection to Gypsy. He seemed to know a lot about her, but then so had Jesamiah Huckenstead. She banished such thoughts from her mind, questions for another time.
‘And you may well ask why I didn’t tell my story my way, Eli. Well …’ she scoffed, sarcasm tinging her voice, ‘let me tell you why. Because today’s job was all me—rock-hard, hard-nosed, award-seeking, approval-obsessed Poppy-ganda. The briefing notes Max sent from WS had a bloody strong message between its carefully crafted lines: Get the reaction, get the tears, get the top spot on the program—guaranteed.’
‘So you don’t think you’s being a bit hard on yourself? You was doing what you was told by the sound of that, and you did win some award for being good at your job.’
‘Do you know what winning an award does? It lifts the bar higher. It’s as if overnight my best is no longer good enough. Everyone expects more now. Impressing peers and programmers and staying on top becomes your entire focus because, believe me, no one loves bringing down a tall poppy more than the media fraternity. If I don’t stay on top, I risk crashing back down through that bloody glass ceiling and cutting myself to smithereens in the process. I needed to show them the award wasn’t a mistake or a fluke, that I am good. Only today’s effort won’t cut it. Not what I did today.’
‘Of course you’re good, and you don’t need anyone’s approval to know that. Not even your dad’s,’ Eli added in a way that poked at her brain, again making her wonder at the man’s perceptiveness. ‘Today you was doin’ your job. There’s always more than one side to every story. Most people don’t understand war, or the soldiers who go to war, specially someone else’s war. You can’t ever understand unless you’ve been in the thick of it, fighting for your life and the life of your mates. I’m sure what you did wasn’t all bad.’
A cynical snort escaped. ‘You don’t understand, Eli. What I did today wasn’t bad—because I didn’t do anything. That’s what’s freaking me out right now. I couldn’t do my job. I wouldn’t. That mother had the right … No, she’d earned the right to grieve without me adding to her heartache. I was so torn. I’d called this story beige. I used to think a soldie
r in a uniform looked like any other soldier. How wrong could I be?’
Burning with anger, she ripped the coat from her body as if it was toxic and slammed it onto the car seat.
‘I froze, Eli. I couldn’t speak, much less ask questions. My autopilot malfunctioned big-time. How the hell I’m going to make a newsworthy report I don’t know, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to shove a camera in the woman’s face. So there are no reactions, no tears, and no visuals. Nothing that Max is expecting to see from his award-winning reporter and nothing to satisfy WS.’
‘So where does that leave you?’
‘Buggered.’
‘Come on you.’ The old man stretched out a hand, a white tissue waving in the afternoon breeze like a truce flag. ‘Can’t be that bad. Walk with me to the chook shed. I want to tell you a story now.’
She took the tissue. ‘I’m not such good company. Maybe tomorrow.’
‘Walk,’ he ordered, grabbing his bucket of scraps.
Six brown chooks—and Poppy—scurried obediently behind, coming to an abrupt halt on the far side of the house, where they were set upon by another half-dozen demanding chooks waiting by the coop.
‘War’s a bastard thing,’ Eli said, scattering half the bucket’s contents over the ground to create a chicken frenzy. Some pecked at the vegetable peelings while others scratched with big yellow claws, scattering food fragments and dirt into the air. ‘War takes its victims in a flash.’ The old man clicked his fingers in the air. ‘Some die outright. Others, like your dad, die bit by bit over the course of their lifetime, cursed with their memories and waiting for karma to rear its ugly head and pay ’em back for all the bad they’ve supposedly done. But they was just following orders over there, same as you was today.’
‘Karma?’ She stepped over several brown hens to follow Eli to the chook shed. The old man flicked the latch on the coop and Poppy ducked to follow him inside, chicken poop underfoot the furthest thing from her mind.
‘Yeah, your dad’s convinced the bad that happens in his life is karma. Blames himself for everything, including the fire.’
‘Blames himself? But I thought he blamed me.’
‘No, love, he seen the fire as pay back for what happened in Vietnam.’
She had never heard Johnno Hamilton’s story despite the number of times she’d tried to ask. When she was young and curious, her mother used to shush her if ever she ‘bothered’ her father with questions. Resentment and bloody-mindedness shushed her these days.
‘What happened?’
Eli paused, making Poppy regret her curiosity. She wasn’t a child anymore; no longer was innocence a defence for asking inappropriate questions. What right did she have to drag a stranger through something that her father had obviously not been able to share?
‘I’m sorry, Eli, I shouldn’t have asked. You can tell me to bugger off.’
‘What happened to your father happened over and over,’ he said, returning to the task of scooping chook poo into a bucket of water to make fertiliser that he called tree tea. ‘Every soldier coped different. Your dad never wanted to fight in the first place. He’d ticked NO to combat when he registered for National Service. Fat lot of good that did. They pulled his name out of a box one day and said “Happy twentieth birthday, you lucky son-of-a-gun. Your present is an all-inclusive trip to hell—and back, if you’re lucky.” Some might say unlucky,’ he added.
‘So you’ll tell me?’
Eli took a deep breath. ‘I’ll talk, you rake.’ He shoved the homemade contraption at Poppy and reached behind her, locking the gate to keep the eager chooks at bay. ‘Bad intelligence, bad communication and bad timing made it a bloody bad situation all round. There was a village not far from where your dad’s platoon had bunkered down for the night, an ammo storage facility for the local guerrillas, they was told. Command deployed your dad and another soldier to blow it up. They was also told any civilians was long gone.’ He patted the automatic feed container that hung on a long length of chain from the roof, the action over filling the tray and sprinkling a layer of excess pellets over the ground.
‘The pair did their own recce to scout out the area. Your dad had reservations about the e-vac intel. Said the place had signs of life: food, fresh water, clothes. He radioed in to recheck the status. Again, the order came back, and even to your dad an order was an order. Despite how he felt about war, John Hamilton was a good soldier. He knew his duty and he protected his mates. So ya see, your father also did what he was told, the way he was told. Keep raking,’ he said when he saw Poppy resting. ‘Him and Zipper—now don’t go askin’ how come he got that name—each had a grenade to blow up the two ammo stores. Your father launched one, and had just ordered Zipper to launch the second one when he saw them.’
‘Saw who? What? What was it?’ Poppy had forgotten how to breathe, holding on to the last lungful of oxygen as if her next was dependant on Eli’s reply. ‘Please don’t say—’
‘Three faces in the window: a mother, a toddler and an old woman, all starin’ back at Johnno from the door of the target. Too late. Boom!’ Eli smashed a fist into the palm of his hand and Poppy felt it as a punch to her gut. How she managed to fit another gasp of air in her lungs at that point she didn’t know.
‘Were they …? Did they …?’
Eli shook his head. ‘Dry brush huts. Hand grenades.’ The normally witty and spirited old man with the toothless smile grew distant, instantly reminding Poppy of Johnno’s episodes. ‘Your dad ran towards that fire but the flames flattened the hut in seconds.’
Poppy’s white-knuckled grip tightened around the handle as if the rake was the only thing holding her up. Then came the epiphany—what her father had experienced that night of the fire in Sugar Mill Road, why it took two big men to stop him rushing into the burning house while he screamed, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ He’d relived that moment.
That night, karma paid John Hamilton the ultimate visit.
Poppy’s own recollections of the fire flashed before her eyes and she swallowed a sob lodged in her throat, but had no hope of stopping the tears.
‘Why didn’t he ever tell me?’ Tears flooded her cheeks, but she refused to let Eli see, fending off his attempt to comfort her by silently attacking the scattering of straw with the rake.
‘Sorry, love,’ he said. ‘There are so many untold war stories in those who came home, and in the families of those who didn’t. Stories much too painful to tell. We all came back from that war with our own nightmares. Those three faces in the hut remained your dad’s.’
Like a machine, she raked until the last piece of straw joined the pile in one corner of the coop, then she threw the rake on top for good measure, her despair turning to frustration.
‘Well, maybe those bloody painful stories are the ones that needed telling.’ She blurted the words like they’d been choking her. ‘Maybe then the rest of us might’ve had a bloody chance of understanding.’
Eli dropped his shoulders and sighed. ‘Prob’ly so, but we was gagged in so many ways back then. Damned if we talked about it and damned if we didn’t. No fancy pansy computers to hide behind for us. You kids these days can say just about anything, get whatever it is off ya chests, have an opinion and tell the whole bleedin’ world. Even today, us vets still walk a thin line between good and evil in some folks’ eyes. Our stories remain untold. Worse still, they remain unforgotten.’
‘I guess.’ Poppy looked at old Eli and thought his face seemed porous, overwhelmed and drowning in everything he’d absorbed in his lifetime.
‘Now then …’ He tried to brighten his tone. He was staring at the very neat pile of straw in the corner. ‘I see you’ve got yourself some fine raking action there, and while I might appreciate your efforts to tidy things up, I’m not sure the residents are goin’ to be so easy to please. Gangway.’
He opened the door to the coop and a dozen possessed chickens headed for their roost and feed container, but not before a frenzied inspection
of the neatly piled straw. Within seconds, they’d scooted and scratched the mound flat, spreading it across the ground again.
Poppy’s shriek turned to laughter, then tears, until she was blubbering and laughing all at once. ‘You could’ve told me.’
‘More fun this way.’ Eli nudged her arm with his shoulder and winked. ‘Besides, you had some ventin’ to do. Nothing like a bit of physical work. Come on, love, I believe you’ve still got a story to tell.’
‘Oh shit! The report.’ She glanced at her watch and together they walked with some haste back towards the front of the house, where Eli bid her good day.
‘You gunna be okay?’
Poppy lingered on the first step and shrugged. ‘Thanks for telling me. What you said … in the coop before … I’ve got an idea about my face-to-camera piece and how I can top and tail the report. So thanks.’
‘Girlie, I swear I have no clue about what you just said, but you’re smiling, so I’m guessing it must be good.’
‘It will be good.’ Exhilarated in a way she hadn’t felt about a report since she was a cadet, Poppy was already visualising the finished product. ‘I’ll make that report so bloody good, but I have to hurry. Bugger. Laptop.’ She leapt down the steps, light of foot, almost laughing, liberated. ‘Helps if I have that.’
*
She said a cursory hello to Rocky and fed him. Nothing for herself, though. No time. First, she had to download the picture of Cecilia’s letter and enlarge the image until she could read it on her computer screen in lieu of the usual autocue. She hardly had to read the contents. She knew the letter was perfect for the piece.
Now there were two hours to record, get her rough cut and send it through to Nigel for final edits, not that there’d be much. She prayed Nigel had archived the outtakes from her Afghanistan report. Andrew Pandleton would be in those files. A quick email would put Nigel on alert. The living room, with its heavy window drapes to control the lighting, was perfect as a backdrop for her face-to-camera segment. She liked the cosiness of the room with its old-fashioned parlour furniture: the low, round coffee table, its cabriole legs ending with a claw foot, the settee with wooden arms and backboards carved with swans and the matching dark-wood cabinet with stained-glass doors and tarnished brass knobs. The room had a homeliness that Poppy could appreciate after growing up in the austere surroundings of her grandfather’s house, not to mention her own minimalist approach to furnishings these days. Everything about this house said family. And that, after all, was the theme of her report.
House for All Seasons Page 22
