by Phyllis King
‘Granddad! Granddad!’ I stormed out into the yard where he was winching the Benotti into the tractor bucket.
‘Yep?’
‘You’ve got another body in the freezer!’
‘Why don’t you just yell louder and tell all the neighbours, you stupid girl.’ He undipped the chain and Mrs B rolled into the bucket with a metallic thud.
‘You knew it was there?’
‘Yep. Now you gonna help me move Maria or what?’
I felt like saying ‘or what’ but that wouldn’t have helped matters. In silence I marched over to the tractor. ‘Okay. What do we do now?’
The grey Fergie started on the thirty-third go. By that stage I had sweat pouring between my breasts like the Niagara Falls and a half an inch thick sheen of perspiration on my upper lip.
We didn’t have a Plan B as far as I knew. If this didn’t work we were shot. Dusk had well and truly turned to night and the mosquitoes were zapping me from every direction. Even the possums were out and roaring their territorial challenges to any that would listen. The warm night air was heavy with the scent of eucalypt, dead grass and dung.
Finally, Granddad drove the Fergie out of the yard, drowning out the possums’ war cries.
‘You going to dig a grave?’ I said.
‘Nope.’
‘Dump her in the dam?’
‘Nope.’
I shuddered but said, ‘Feed her to the pigs?’
‘They don’t like frozen food.’
‘Burn her?’
‘You insane? It’s fire season. I don’t want to start a bush fire.’
I seethed. I wasn’t the nutter around here, chucking bodies in my freezer and then carting them about the countryside.
‘So what?’ I said sharply.
He turned the tractor towards the road. ‘I’m gonna drop her home. Where else?’
I sucked in a sharp breath, inhaling a couple of mosquitoes in the process. ‘You can’t drive her on the road,’ I said and started to cough up the insects.
Granddad put the brake on and scowled. ‘True. I haven’t got a road licence for the tractor. We’ll go cross-country. You can cut the fence wires.’
I made it home by two. Dirty, sweaty, bitten by a million mossies, with two big blood blisters caused by the blunt wire cutters, and totally stressed out. And I still hadn’t tackled the old man about the second body. I’d been too tired and too cranky and too exhausted to care. I showered and crashed into bed but didn’t sleep until I’d slathered my body with calamine lotion and taken a Mogodon.
Friday morning already and the phone woke me. It was Mum. Oh great.
‘How’s tricks?’ she said.
‘Yeah, yeah. All good.’ Little liar!
‘You sure?
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Apart from itching all over and a pulled muscle from lugging dead bodies.
‘I rang your Granddad last night.’
‘And?’ Uh-oh.
‘He didn’t answer.’
‘We went for a walk.’ On the tractor.
‘Really?’
‘To check the sheep.’ To dump a body.
‘Oka-a-a-ay.’
‘I gave him his stew.’ Like a dutiful granddaughter.
‘He hates stew.’
‘You said it was his favourite.’ What?
‘That was your other Granddad.’ ‘Well, he ate it.’ Darn.
‘Mmm. He can’t be feeling himself, then.’
No! He’d been feeling Mrs Benotti, I wanted to shout, and look where that got him. But I remained mute.
‘Caroline?’
‘Yes?’ I tensed, knowing that tone of voice from forever.
‘Are you SURE everything is okay?’
‘Trust me.’ I crossed my fingers.
‘That’s what your Granddad said ten minutes ago, after I finally roused him.’
Oh lordy.
‘We’re fine, Mum. Have a good time.’
I was late for school and Salvador was chatting up Jenny in the school office.
I turned tail and headed for the nearest bolthole, which happened to be the boys’ toilets, just as the assembly bell sounded. I didn’t want him to see me naked - you know, without my blonde ringlets and ruffles. The longer he didn’t make the childhood connection, the better. I lurked for as long as possible and was just about to peer around the toilet block door to make sure that Big Sal had gone, when someone tugged my sleeve.
‘Hello, Miss Cooper.’
It was Superman, sans outfit.
‘Scott.’
‘You shouldn’t be in here.’
‘Ah, yes, well... I was just, ah, checking out the plumbing.’
‘So was I.’ And the kid did up his fly and headed for the door.
‘You forgetting something, Scott?’ I called after him, my brain finally getting into teacher gear.
He sighed, retraced his steps and washed his hands.
By the time the two of us emerged from the toilets, Sal had gone.
Saturday morning saw me on the road early. I couldn’t get to the farm the night before due to a school quiz night. I’d laid off the red wine, answered more questions than usual - wrongly -and managed to leave town by dawn.
Granddad was in position by the Metter’s. He was still in his PJs and jacket. Still in his wellies from Friday night. And he was finishing off the stew for breakfast.
‘There’s some left if you’re hungry,’ he said. ‘Though I’ve eaten all the dumplings.’ But I declined. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make.
‘The other body, Granddad,’ I said. ‘It has to go.’
‘That bastard,’ he said and licked the spoon. I could have sworn it was the same spoon as yesterday.
‘Who was it?’
‘Percy Jackson.’
‘The real estate man?’
‘He wanted to buy the farm.’
‘And that wasn’t a good thing? There’s no one who wants to farm in the family.’
‘He was also after my woman.’
‘Grandma?’
He snorted. ‘No, Maria.’
Eek.
‘You didn’t kill him?’
‘Not really...’
‘Granddad?’
‘I gave him some of my homebrew.’
‘Not the millennium brew?’ Granddad had entered that vintage into the local agricultural show and the wine judges had been hospitalised for a month with ethanol poisoning. One of them still wasn’t quite right in the head.
‘I had to,’ Granddad protested. ‘It was all I had left. He wanted a toast.’
‘To what?’
‘Getting engaged to Maria. Getting his filthy hands on her land. Trying to strike a deal with me. But we fixed him.’
Oh boy.
‘So Maria knew how bad your wine was?’
‘She helped me brew it, girlie.’
Oh boy.
‘And she forced it down his throat. She wasn’t someone you argued with.’
Oh boy.
‘So what are we going to do?’
‘I’ve been thinking. If we defrost him, we can feed him to the pigs.’
I think by that stage I was losing my objectivity. A bit like the soldiers in the trenches during the first world war. I didn’t question the old man. Didn’t even flinch.
We got the Bedford with its winch and lowered the agent into the piggery, leaving him to be sun-warmed and ripe for the pigs later in the day.
Monday morning and the new kid was on the block. She resembled a younger Maria and I tried not to be prejudiced. Sal, it turned out, was a single dad and Rosa his only child.
At Monday lunch time the police sirens strobed the town. By the end of school I’d been told all the goss by Jenny, who’d heard it from her new pal Sal. He’d gone out to visit his aunt while Rosa was at school and found Maria dead in the rams’ paddock.
‘Terrible,’ I said to Jenny and wondered if the rams were as traumatised as me. ‘When did it happen?’
‘Only just
,’ said Jenny. ‘She was still quite fresh. Maybe a day or two. Though Sal said it was hard to tell with the high summer temperatures and all.’
Granddad was interviewed by Sal and played dumb. General consensus was that Maria had suffered a massive heart attack. The church was booked, the funeral organised and the CWA ladies offered to make sandwiches for the wake.
Mum rang.
‘Everything’s under control,’ I said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She countered.
‘We’re all good.’
‘Right.’
‘Except Maria Benotti died. Sudden like. Heart attack.’
‘She was as strong as an elephant,’ said Mum.
Yeah, right. Not when she was playing the tart with Granddad.
Sal came to interview Granddad again that evening and I hid in the walk-in pantry, among the rows of dusty jam jars and tins and lines of bottled fruit, some so aged it was difficult to make out the variety.
‘I’m curious,’ said Sal. ‘The fence was cut between your property and my aunts.’
‘Convenience,’ said Granddad. ‘We visited each other on occasion.’
‘There were Fergie tracks.’
‘Easier to take the tractor than walk. My legs aren’t as good as they used to be.’
‘You could’ve driven along the road.’
‘It was quicker and more private that way,’ said Granddad. ‘We were being discreet, if you know what I mean.’ From my hidey-hole I saw him waggle his porcupine brow in a suggestive way. Sal shifted in his seat. Even from the back view I could read the body language. He felt the same way as I did about the oldies doing it.
‘Okay. Let’s move on,’ he said quickly. ‘We found some blonde hairs on my aunt’s body.’
‘Interesting,’ said Granddad and yawned.
‘They were artificial hairs. Possibly from a wig.’
‘And?’ said Granddad. ‘You saying Maria wore a wig? She didn’t need to. Her hair was magnificent, boy.’
‘Okay, but I believe your granddaughter wears a blonde wig on occasions.’
I shot my head out of the pantry and waved my fist behind Salvador’s head.
Granddad’s eyes flicked towards me and then back to Sal. ‘Let’s talk about this over some wine,’ he said. ‘Unless, for course, you’re on duty.’
‘No, no. This is more of a social call. I’m curious. I think I met your granddaughter at the school but she didn’t introduce herself. I wonder why, because we knew each other as kids.’
‘She’s shy,’ said Granddad.
‘But she’s the principal,’ said Sal.
‘She’s circumspect,’ said Granddad and on his bow legs crabbed his way to the pantry where I thrust the 2000 brew into his bony hand.
Granddad matched Sal drink for drink. It took two bottles before Sal was out cold. Granddad swayed slightly as he brought in the wheelbarrow. Tough, my granddad.
‘You’ve got a cast iron stomach,’ I said, admiringly.
‘I suffered your grandma’s cooking for 65 years,’ he retorted and heaved Sally’s legs over the side of the barrow.
It took us a while but soon he was right and tight and we polished off Granddad’s new brew, which was a lot less volatile that the millennium tipple.
Much later, car headlights illuminated the yard.
‘Bugger,’ said Granddad. ‘I bet that’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses.’
But it wasn’t. It was my parents.
Mum was clutching foil takeaway cartons to her chest.
‘I’ve been worried about you both. I’ve brought some food.’
‘We’re not hungry. Take it away,’ growled Granddad.
‘But it’s beef and black bean. Your favourite.’
‘Go away. I’ve had enough fancy food.’
‘I’ll pop it in the freezer, then,’ she said.
‘No!’ we said in unison. ‘There’s no room.’
‘There’ll be enough space for a couple of small cartons,’ said Mum and headed out to the shed before we could stop her.
‘That’s torn it,’ said Granddad.
And we heard her scream.
<
Monitoring the Neighbours
Kirstin Watson
‘Well you try to change a nappy in the back seat and see if you can do it without getting poo on the window!’ I declared indignantly.
Andrew looked at me with a mixture of mild amusement and disgust. The 1970 HG Holden we drive is his pride and joy and has been lovingly restored. It is dark green with tinted windows and it looks cool: metallic paint, shiny chrome. It does take a while to warm up on a winter’s morning, but did I say it looks cool?
My name is Pearl. I am married to Andrew and we have a six-month-old daughter called Anna. At the moment I am on maternity leave from work. Initially I thought I would never get bored at home with Anna because I would be too busy worrying about something. Feeding, sleeping, rolling over, you name it, I worried about it. But, as it turns out, Anna is a natural and has this baby thing down pat.
We live above a Karaoke supplies shop in Balaclava and our front room offers an intriguing vista of the neighbourhood. It’s a bit like living in a tree house. And I love looking down at the world as it plays out below.
Being a new Mum, I have been up a lot at night. We recently moved the nappy change table from our bedroom to under the window in the lounge room. So now, while changing Anna, I can look out over Inkerman Street.
Conscious of my natural curiosity, I do try not to be a nosy parker, but the people in the house directly opposite never close their curtains. Really, they are just asking to have people peer on in. Clearly they are some sort of exhibitionists. The view is so good that not only can you see if the bed has been made, you could also read the title of the book on the bed-side table. The bed is always made and the curtains are always open.
Not long ago, we moved Anna out of our room. Actually, Anna stayed in our room and we moved out to the bedroom downstairs. Although she was pretty much directly above us, the psychological distance was vast. So, out came the baby monitor. We hadn’t used it previously since our little darling was right there with us.
The transition was seamless for Anna, a little more difficult for me and, as usual, Andrew continued to be unfazed by anything during the night. He is such a heavy sleeper that he is oblivious to Anna and my nocturnal activities, had been even when we were all in the same room.
Then one night the strangest thing happened. We had all settled down for the evening when the baby monitor beside my bed crackled into life, filling our room with the sound of a baby crying. Fuzzily, I sat up, steadied myself on the edge of the bed and took off up the stairs. When I opened her bedroom door it was clear that Anna was sound asleep, her breathing deep and even. Oh well, I thought, she’s happy now, giving her a gentle touch on the cheek and heading back downstairs to bed.
When I got back to our bedroom, I could still hear the crackly cry from the monitor. So I turned around and raced back up the stairs, listening outside Anna’s room. Nothing... I opened the door only to see my little darling sleeping peacefully. Feeling somewhat like a yoyo, I headed back down the stairs. And I’m greeted by the crying again.
Now this was getting creepy. I sat on the edge of the bed and listened... This wasn’t Anna’s cry. This was a sound I hadn’t heard (thank god!) for some time. It was the relentless bleating of a hungry newborn. The sound that makes me want to find the source and feed it, even if I’m in the middle of a public place and I don’t know the infant in question. Hormones, hey, they sure can take you on a crazy ride.
So where was this hungry baby? As I pondered this question, another voice crackled to life in my bedroom. A woman’s voice. It was difficult to make out the actual words, but the cooing and comforting sounds were unmistakable and identified her as the baby’s mother.
Okay, I thought, I have no idea where this lady and baby are, but this was getting to be a bit voyeuristic by this point.
I told myself to turn the monitor off.
