by Joy Dettman
‘Fletch’s son died young, didn’t he?’
‘Yeah. He was sixteen. From encephalitis. But his old woman blamed the blacks for putting a hex on him – pointing the bone. She drowned herself when he died.’
‘Tied three flat irons to her belt, the kids reckon,’ Bronwyn laughed and sprayed smoke.
‘It’s not funny.’
‘Not funny, but original, you’ve got to admit that much. Can’t say I blame her either. Imagine doing it with that fat old toad.’
She left the car, opened the gate, and Ben drove through. He waited as she closed it behind him, looping the circle of wire over the leaning gatepost. He’d have to get onto that fence, or get onto Bourkey. It was almost down. He loved this piece of land, always hated leaving it behind him. The town meant nothing to him.
‘What made Johnny take off?’
‘I don’t really know. I was only twelve when he left.’
‘Only twelve, my goodness? Just a child. Can you imagine me saying one day, Oh I can’t remember much about Annie. I was only ten when she left home.’
‘Of course, I remember him. I remember he dropped out of school; he was always stirring up Dad – and big enough to do it too. They used to have stand up fights at the end.’
‘This was after Annie came back from Narrawee?’
‘Yeah, but they never got on. After Annie was born, I think Johnny thought he’d turned into God. He was eight, Bron, and he used to treat Dad like dirt. If Dad started getting into Mum, Johnny would go for him. It got worse as he grew, then after John Fletcher died, Johnny sort of flipped his lid.’
‘The bone pointers did him in too.’
‘The old man didn’t notice Annie much until after she came back from Narrawee, and his Liza didn’t. He seemed to hate her when she came back. He’d belt her when he was drunk, try to make her talk. Johnny used to keep her out of his way, take her everywhere with him. That’s when he started missing school. If he went to school, he’d take Annie to Bessy, and leave her there until he got home.
‘Mum was pleased to get rid of her. Until the Narrawee thing, Johnny used to be Mum’s slave, but I suppose he started seeing her for what she was or something. She was worse than useless with Annie. Scared of her. You’d remember that.’ Bronwyn nodded. ‘I dunno what you want to know, Bron.’
‘Everything. Give me all the dirt, Ben. Why did he run? If he was so protective of Annie, how come he left her? I mean, wouldn’t you think that he would have come back for her when he got older?’
‘I always thought he’d come back.’
‘He was fifteen?’
‘Going on sixteen. All I know, Bron, is that in the weeks after John Fletcher died, the house was bedlam. Dad was blind blotto all the time, and it was like Johnny was taunting him. Then that afternoon, Dad had been getting into Annie for hours. Johnny picked up Mum’s poker, and he belted Dad over the back of the head with it. He knocked him down and hit into him with the poker while he had him down. Mum had to fight him off or he would have killed him, I think.’ The utility drew to a halt on the forest side of the bridge while a herd of sheep was driven across. Ben’s voice raised to compete with the bleating, and the dogs barking.
‘Anyway, Mum packed Johnny’s bag and told him to go. He was howling, saying, “Don’t make me leave her, Mum. Don’t make me leave her. I’ll kill him, Mum. I’ll come back and kill him.” He was screaming in the end, and Annie was screaming after him, and I went after both of them, and – .’
Ben turned his face to the window, silenced. He sucked in a deep breath, and let it out slowly before continuing his story. ‘Johnny would turn around and make his hand signs to Annie, and she’d run towards him screaming. In the end, he flagged down a truck and left Annie standing in the middle of the road. That was the last time I ever saw her howl.’
‘I’ve never seen her howl. I can remember Dad belting her and yelling, talk to me, talk to me, and she’d just scream at him or laugh.’
‘Yeah.’ Ben rubbed at his eye, then at the scar near his brow. ‘He always knew she could hear. I used to think she could too, so did Johnny. She knew exactly what was going on. When you were out in the paddocks with her, you knew she heard stuff. Like when the dog barked, she seemed to hear it, and Dad’s old car. She used to hear that.’
‘How much do you know about Narrawee?’
‘Not much. Dad’s old man left it to Sam and May, then to their kids, but they haven’t got any. I think it’s supposed to revert back to Dad, if Sam dies.’
‘So, we could eventually get it?’
‘I suppose so. I don’t know what happens if Dad dies first. May has got cousins. It might go to them.’
‘I could take to being rich, Ben. Did you know them, May and Sam? Ever meet them?’
‘Dozens of times. Dozens – when I was a kid. They used to come up here a couple of times a year. Sam’s the living image of Dad, but he had a moustache. I remember him as a real snob, and as tame as Dad was wild. Like he was under May’s thumb. Sort of crawly tame he was, but his eyes didn’t look tame. Like one of those blue-heeler dogs that cringe at your feet, but you know they’ll go for your ankles as soon as you turn your back. Patronising to Mum, he was, but she couldn’t see it. They wanted to educate Johnny, send him to a private Melbourne school. Dad wouldn’t have a bar of it. He hated Sam back then. Jealous of him, I suppose. He got stuck into him one day. Called him everything but a gentleman, and Sam just walked off and got in the car. “There but for the grace of a fool, go I ...” Dad says to May, “I could have had it all. I could have turned that old bastard against him back then, but I kept my bloody mouth shut.” Sam was beeping the horn, so May just sort of shook her head and backed away.’
‘Maybe they’ve got Johnny. Maybe they sent him to school. Mum still believes they’ve got Liza hidden away somewhere. Maybe they got both of them. Their hidden family.’
‘No way, Bron. Johnny didn’t like Sam much either.’
‘How come Liza and Annie went down there that time?’
‘Mum went into hospital to have you while Dad was off on one of his drunk trips, so she sent a telegram to Narrawee, thinking Dad was down there. She never knew where he was, never cared much either, as long as he stayed away. Anyway, May turned up. Me and Johnny were doing okay, but we couldn’t cope with Liza. Johnny used to try to pull her into line when Dad was away, but she’d save up all her tales to tell when he came home. She was a posing, spoiled-rotten brat of a kid, Bron. “I’m Miss Tiny Tot,” she used to say. Dad ruined her. She could do anything, get away with anything, when he was around. Me or Annie always copped the blame. We used to try to stay away from her, but men we’d cop it because she’d dob on us, say we wouldn’t play with her. Anyway, I’m getting carried away. I haven’t thought of her for years, you know.’
‘It’s interesting. Go on.’
‘That’s another story, Bron. May turned up that day and offered to take the girls back with her until Mum came home, and me and Johnny jumped at the chance to get rid of the brat. Annie wanted to go. Liza had been to Narrawee a dozen times, and she’d come home lording it over all of us. Annie was different back then, Bron. She was never a baby. You would have sworn she was the older one of the two girls, and May really liked her. You could see it sticking out a mile. I think Johnny just wanted Annie to have something.
‘Anyhow, the old man finally came home and Johnny copped it. He’d never just shut up and run. He was yelling at Dad that day. “Well if you’d stay home like a normal father and helped us, I wouldn’t have let them go with Aunty May.” Dad was belting hell out of him when Mr Ponsford comes down with the telegram. The two girls were missing, and so was the bloke who worked there. The gardener.’
‘Crazy. As Mum says, what has she done to deserve it?’
‘I dunno. That last baby would be eight now. Johnny’s age, the night he made Annie breathe.’
The sheep had long since cleared the bridge. Ben started his motor and drove on. They were close t
o town before they spoke again.
‘I’ll be doing the old Burton run soon, Ben. I’ve applied for two jobs in Daree. I’ve got an interview on Monday.’
‘What about the supermarket?’
‘I can’t live on twenty hours a week.’
‘Mum won’t want you to go. She’ll have no-one, Bron.’
‘Christ, Ben. She made her own bed. We don’t have to lie in it with her. Come away with me. We’ll get a flat, get a life.’
‘I can’t. He won’t make me run.’
jack’s party
Jack’s hand was feeling for the familiar bottle he’d left on the sideboard. A light might have simplified his search, but he never turned the lights on when he wandered the house in the night. He and the night had a covenant. They kept each other’s secrets.
‘Blind as a fowl-yard rat, you poor bastard,’ he muttered, as his hand found, snatched up the bottle. He’d slept like one of the dead until 3 a.m., but his bloody tooth woke him.
‘Pain. A man is dying of pain, and she’s lying there snoring, in the arms of Jesus.’
He found the Aspros. Cursing softly, he ripped the small tablets free of their wrapping, working by feel alone. Everything was wrapped up these bloody days. What was wrong with bottles? He liked bottles. As he freed each tablet, he tossed it in his mouth, crunched it, then washed it down with whisky.
He’d have to get down to Melbourne, get his tooth root-filled. He hated dentists, hated sitting in a chair while they poked their bloody fingers in his mouth and drilled him. Hated the bastards.
His lips compressed, his tongue massaging, he felt his way back to the door and to the miserly light from the moon. An odd figure, his white T-shirt his only garb, it barely covered his backside. Still, he’d discovered a new freedom since the last wild little bitch ran baying from the shack two weeks ago.
His bare feet dancing on the cold lino, Jack saluted the empty rooms with his bottle. He’d never wanted kids. He’d hoped the breed might die with him and Sam.
His face was on fire with pain, but his feet were cold. One foot, investigating its surrounds, stumbled on the mat Ellie placed near the kitchen door. He picked it up and positioned it on the floor, then he sat, knees up, enough mat left over to offer his feet protection. The wall for a back rest, he lifted the bottle to his mouth and a groan of near content escaped, as whisky settled in the warm swamp of his gut. He could feel it sending out its feelers, feel it relax his neck muscles, singing the nest of bull ants gnawing at his gum.
‘Die you little bastards, die,’ he said.
The bottle at home in his large hand, he could sense the level of whisky left. Carefully, he placed it on the floor and shook a cigarette from the packet.
‘Oh, God,’ he prayed to his weed, blowing smoke into the dark. ‘Give him a fag and a bottle, and a man’s a king. Give him a fag and a bottle, and he wouldn’t trade Chook-Shit County for Sam’s silk pyjamas or his warm bed.’ Again the bottle was lifted to his mouth.
He felt old tonight. He was fifty-four. He’d always believed old age was for others, but it was creeping up on him like a malignant bloody disease. ‘Cruel slayer of vanity,’ he said. ‘The ugly bastard is the lucky bastard. The ugly bastard who loses his teeth when he’s sixteen, and his hair at twenty, he’s the lucky bastard,’ he mused, manipulating the aching eye-tooth, considering taking to it with a pair of pliers. ‘He’s never had anything to lose, has he? But the poor bastard who’s had it all can see it dropping away with his teeth.
‘Look at her,’ he said to his friend, the bottle, pointing it towards the room where Ellie lay snoring. ‘Take her as a prime example.’ His head, lifting in sudden anger, jarred the bull ants into life. He flinched, whimpered, sucked cold air, while his tooth screamed, but the shock of cold air momentarily killed the other pain. ‘I planned to take her home to Narrawee once and flaunt my prize – bloody booby prize,’ he sneered.
‘Bloody Saint Sam. Bloody mongrel bastard. That’s my land. My house, and a man isn’t allowed to take a bottle there. It’s mine. Mine.’ His fist slammed into his chest, Ann’s sign for right of ownership, but it knocked the glowing ember from his cigarette to the mat.
‘Burn, you bastard,’ he said, sniffing in the rank stink of dusty wool, willing it to set the floor alight, to burn this hell hole down, and Ellie with it.
Sitting, sucking smoke, sipping whisky, slowly the pain wandered from his tooth to his shoulder, pressed against the upright. He straightened. His chin lifting, he stretched his jaws, stretched the sagging skin of his throat, testing for pain while his thoughts wandered back to Narrawee, to his youth, to a time when dreams had hope of substance.
He, and May, and Sam. A threesome. They’d shared a boundary fence as kids. May’s old man and his were two of a kind, money coming out of their ears. Hard old bastards, both. To my first born, John William [Jack], I leave the Ford, my double-barrel shotgun and five hundred a year to buy ammunition and petrol. The words were imprinted on his brain. His father used his will to get in the last hit below the belt, but Jack had got in a few good ones of his own.
‘I was the one who carried your bloody name, you old bastard,’ he said, but he kept his voice low, guarding his stolen hours. Chin cupped in the palm of his hand, his gaze turned towards the moon, floating free at the window. ‘If a man had enough guts sometimes, he’d shoot himself. Make the old bastard happy in hell,’ he told the moon. ‘Fifty-four. He was only sixty-six when he died. Died. Dead. Mum was forty-two. I thought she was old then.’
His bottle was feeling light. He lifted it again to his mouth, allowing the whisky to wash around his aching tooth, anaesthetise it. ‘Peace,’ he commented. ‘Some nights a man would sell his soul for peace. I wonder if there’s anything in her Jesus. I wonder if the bloody bastard is up there, guarding his pearly gates, holding up a big freeway sign. “Wrong way, Jack. Go back.” A bloody big red arrow, pointing down. Old Nick, waiting to sink his pitchfork into my bare bum. A man ought to put his pants on if he’s going to shoot himself.’
He smiled, and placed the bottle back on the sideboard. There was a sip or two left. He always left a bit in his bottle, and one smoke in his pack to greet his new day. In Mallawindy, this was his only self control. Mornings he held at bay as long as he could. Ellie’s witless, ‘Jack love! Breakfast’s ready, love,’ was like a death-knoll in his ear every day of his life. Only the knowledge of his bottle and cigarette could move him from bed in the mornings.
He hated her at the breakfast table. He hated the sight of the crepe throat, and her dried-out breasts that flapped around her waist like a pair of empty shoulder bags. Still, with the choice of four beds in the empty shack, he continued to use her bed at night – and her, when he could get her to roll over and play dead. And he still woke screaming in the night too, his face buried in the silk of her hair.
He’d loved her once, loved her hair, and her green fire eyes. Bloody loyal, baby-bearing bitch. ‘A poor bloody man’s dreams were defeated by her fertility,’ he said, but the memory of her sunshine hair teased at his loins. His old colleague in crime was awakening.
‘Go back to sleep, you rapacious bastard. Be like a blind worm seeking pay dirt in a hummock of dry grass tonight,’ he muttered. ‘A man should have been a monk, sworn off women, locked himself up in his monastery with his books and bought himself points in the hereafter. A man might have been happy with his books.’
He’d taken four Aspros. Mixed with the whisky, they were making his ears ring, and the wind, threatening all day, had finally arrived to wail around the roof. Unable to find an easy pathway through the hills and valleys, it turned, howled around the twin chimneys like the hounds of hell.
Jack straightened. His chin lifting, he sat erect. He didn’t like the wind, or the creaking doors and rattling windows. The house was surrounded by trees. Branches moaned, groaned. At times, you’d swear there were voices out there, riding the wind. Bloody spirits, haunting him.
‘Bloody old bastard,’ h
e said, hearing his father in the wind. ‘Piss off. I’m doing all right without you. Jack bloody Burton is doing all right, and no thanks to you.’
Other noises began to unite with the wind. Walls murmured, floors moved, like footsteps in the empty bedrooms. Head up, his ears strained to hear the plaintive plea on the wind. ‘Daddy! Daddy! I’m your good girl, aren’t I, Daddy?’
‘Stop haunting me,’ he moaned. ‘Piss off, all of you, or I’ll blow my bloody brains out and leave you nothing to haunt.’
His gun still lived in the corner of the kitchen. He laughed softly as he walked to it, picked it up. ‘I ought to do it. If I shoved it in my mouth, one of the first pieces of tissue to be blown to hell would be my tooth. Slight case of over-kill, but what the hell,’ he said.
Then he stubbed his toe, right on the corn. He danced, grabbed his foot, dropped his gun, and it went off. Its blast and his scream reverberated through the sleeping house.
A torch peered out from the lounge room doorway, the ghostly shape of its bearer behind it. He’d taught Ellie better than to flood the night house with electric light.
‘Jack! Jack! What in heaven’s name are you doing out here?’
‘Blowing my bloody brains out. What’s it look like? I got my toe instead.’ He’d got her crates of eggs too. They’d been piled near the door for collection on the morrow.
‘I’ve warned you to be careful with that gun.’ Her torchlight searching, Ellie sought evidence of damage and found it. ‘Oh, Jack,’ both voice and torch slid low. ‘Oh, Jack! Look what you’ve done to my eggs, love.’
But Jack was looking at her. She was draped from neck to ankle in a washed-out rag of a nightgown; her hair plaited loose for sleep, fell long across her shoulder. In the shadowed kitchen, and to a man with failing vision, she could have been sixteen, her gown the white of her bridal night.
‘What he can’t possess, man will ever crave, and on the outside of a half a pint of whisky, he is prone to self delusion. Come here, Beauty,’ he said.
