by JD Nixon
“There you go again, being modest. You’re an outstanding local community cop, but I’ve been thinking that you should definitely consider leaving Little Town at some point to build up some experience in the city. It would be good for you – help you develop professionally. Take you out of your comfort zone. Maybe when I return to the city in a few years, I could take you back with me?”
I turned to him with a thousand-megawatt smile. “What a great idea, Sarge. Thanks for thinking well enough of me to offer.”
At that, his eyebrows knitted together and his eyes changed colour to that darker stormy blue. I barely noticed though as I watched the school bus from Big Town pull up at the bus stop, releasing its load of pushy and rowdy teenagers, a fair few of them Bycrafts. We were on a direct collision course with them.
I nudged him and nodded towards the bus. “Sarge, trouble at twelve o’clock.”
Romi spotted us immediately as she stepped off the bus and forgetting her heartbreak from this morning, ran up to us, giving me a quick hug and looking up at the Sarge adoringly. Her best friend Tina was in tow, and was also instantly captivated by him. Again, unfortunately for them, he was too busy eyeing off the Bycraft teens to notice them. He never seemed to pay much attention to other women and wasn’t one of those guys who compulsively checked out every female body he came across. His fiancee was a lucky woman, I thought. He must be deeply in love with her.
The Bycraft juniors came sauntering past us, casting me derisive and amused glances, muttering to and elbowing each other and laughing rudely, obviously at my expense. I didn’t really care what they said because they were just kids, and hey, stick and stones et cetera. But the Sarge was on full alert, hostility bristling from him, not prepared to put up with any rubbish from them today. It wasn’t him who went into battle for me though.
“Don’t you dare laugh at Tessie like that, you bunch of ignorant bogans!” Romi screamed at them unexpectedly, her fists clenched, looking as though she was prepared to launch herself on to them at any second.
“Go fuck yourself, pub slut!” yelled back Larissa, laughing, and then they all spent the next minute taunting her, which made her even angrier.
“You kids watch your language!” bellowed the Sarge, taking a few steps towards them. They shut up but their attitude remained aggressive and unpredictable. Unbelievably, Romi took a step forward herself.
I placed a calm, restraining hand on her arm. “It’s all right, sweetie. Don’t worry about them. They don’t bother me at all.” She looked up at me uncertainly, not quite believing me, but I smiled to reinforce my lack of interest in what the Bycraft teens said to me. “And I don’t want you ever getting involved between the Bycrafts and me. I’m serious, Romi. Understand? It’s my business, it’s adult business, and it’s police business. Nothing you can help with. Okay? Promise me.”
She nodded, her lovely blue eyes large and moistly emotional as she looked up at me. “Okay,” she said quietly.
I patted her arm and kissed her forehead. “You better run off home now. Abe’s got Toni setting the tables this afternoon, so he might need your help as well. And Tina, isn’t that your dad over there waiting for you? He’s looking a bit impatient. Better get over there quick smart. You know what he’s like when he’s kept waiting too long.”
The two girls obediently departed, heading off in different directions, the Bycraft teens further down the street in the direction of their houses, jostling and teasing each other, not causing any further trouble for us either. I released a breath and turned to the Sarge, wondering why he wasn’t moving – we were free to keep walking once more.
“Why do you let me patronise you, Tess?” he asked, a barely hidden undercurrent of some strong feeling in his voice. Anger?
“What do you mean?” I asked, eyes wide in surprise.
“Before, when I suggested you go to the city for a while for some experience? You’ve already done city time, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
He sighed impatiently. “Then why not tell me that I’m being a patronising arse again?”
I shrugged and turned away, walking down the street. He grabbed me roughly by the arm to turn me around again. Angrily, I jerked my arm away from his, my temper flaring.
“I didn’t feel like explaining myself. People will think what they want about me. I can’t stop that. You met me and immediately assumed, probably because I’m younger and female and from the country, that I was some kind of clueless sleepy yokel cop with grass behind my ears and sheep shit on my boots, and that’s your prerogative. But you don’t know the first thing about me, and I don’t think I should have to justify myself to you because of that.”
“How can I ever know anything about you if you don’t tell me anything?” he shouted and strode off away from me in temper. I wasn’t sure if he was angry with himself or me, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to run after him soothing his ruffled feathers. If he couldn’t take a bit of plain honest speaking, he had no business being a sergeant or a cop. And as for me not telling him anything, all I had to say to him was pot meet kettle.
Instead of worrying about him, I detoured over to the cafe/bakery where the owner, Fran, was out the front. She was sitting on a bench, taking a smoko, dragging blissfully and deeply on a cigarette, and probably gawking at all the drama with the Bycraft teens and between the Sarge and me.
“Don’t go anywhere, Tess,” she demanded, crushing her cigarette out and tactfully not staring at my ruined face. She ducked into the bakery and returned with a paper bag that she pressed into my hands. “I want you and Trev to test this new flavour of focaccia for me. It’s olive and chorizo with a topping of caramelised chilli-onion jam and a sprinkle of smoked paprika.”
“Yummo!” I said enthusiastically. “But I don’t think you need to test that on anyone, Frannie. It sounds like a sure winner.”
She pushed it on me and I knew she didn’t really want the flavour tested. She was showing her appreciation to me, and while I guess that technically it could be considered as a bribe, I often had small gifts such as this given to me by the townsfolk. Someone would forever be at the station dropping off a watermelon or some strawberries or an extra cake they’d just made. It would have been unforgivably rude of me to refuse such small acts of kindness, so I closed my eyes to the ethical considerations of the situation and accepted each gift with profuse thanks. My own dad and Nana Fuller had often done the same for the local cops, so it wasn’t anything new in town. I also occasionally accepted a free meal from Abe or from the lovely couple from Guangdong who ran the Chinese takeaway.
“I need you to tell me if it’s too spicy for the normal palate,” Fran insisted, keeping up the charade. She didn’t like to admit that she gave me gifts, but I’d been asked to ‘test’ some things more than once over the couple of years I’d been back in town. When I’d pointed out that inconvenient fact to her, she’d always insisted, rather unconvincingly, that she’d fiddled with the recipe a bit and that particular product needed to be retested.
I thanked her again and took my time strolling over to where the Sarge was waiting for me, leaning against one of the beautiful, almost century-old fig trees planted down Timber Street in memory of every local boy killed serving his country in World War I. There were eleven of the trees originally, although the town had lost one in a ferocious storm during the 1950s and one had to be chopped down by the Council last year as it had become dangerously unsound with disease. That had been a very unpopular decision and we’d almost had a riot when the arborists arrived from Big Town to do the deed. I’d had to call in extra help from the Big Town cops and four locals had been arrested for public disorder, most of them from the nearby hippy commune. I’d been rather unpopular myself in town for a while after that little incident, but everyone eventually forgave and forgot, the court-imposed fines were paid and life went on as usual. Nobody went to jail over it and, sadly, the tree was chopped down.
“Bribery and corruption in Li
ttle Town, Senior Constable?” he asked me, focused on the paper bag I was clasping, an eyebrow raised, a faint ironic smile on his face. He was obviously struggling to overcome his bad mood. “Or are you going to tell me that you’re about to swim across a raging flood-swollen river to hand-deliver it to a widow with ten starving children as another act of the pious small-town police work for which you are renowned throughout the state?”
I laughed, relieved he was teasing, not angry. “No, I’m not that saintly! Dad and I are going to eat this with dinner, and if you’re nice to me I’ll share some with you too. It’s guaranteed to be delicious.” Frannie had never made anything that wasn’t. We were spoiled with her living in Little Town, because I thought her food would knock the socks off city folk. He raised his eyebrow again. “People want to give me things, Sarge. As long as they’re fairly insignificant and perishable I accept, otherwise I’d offend the townsfolk. And that’s not a good idea in a small town. You’ll be offered the odd thing now and then too.”
He didn’t respond, but instead turned to pat the trunk of the tree. “These trees are simply beautiful. Gracious, elderly ladies.”
“Oh Sarge, that’s so lovely. That’s exactly what they are,” I agreed, impressed again by his turn of phrase. “That one you’re leaning against was planted in memory of Dad’s great-uncle, Arthur Fuller, who died at Gallipoli. That one across the road is for Dad’s grandfather’s cousin, Bertie Fuller, killed at Fromelles. That one next to it is for Walter Greville, Miss G’s uncle, also killed at Fromelles. And that particularly lovely one on the corner there, with its own small park around it, is for Jake’s relative, Cyril Bycraft, killed at Pozieres.”
A stab of bitter sadness jolted through me when I pointed out that specific tree, because it had been behind it that I had found the body of Marcelle, Abe’s murdered wife, that terrible cold winter evening that I could never forget. I pushed that distressing thought aside and continued with fake cheerfulness. “Cyril was a real hero. Before he was killed, he managed to save three other men by himself, including Dad’s grandfather, John Fuller.”
He couldn’t hide his surprise. I smiled. “I know. It’s unexpected, isn’t it, that a Bycraft could ever do something heroic? But it’s well known in Little Town that every couple of generations or so, the Bycraft family throws up someone who is not like the other Bycrafts. Everyone thinks that my Jakey is this generation’s ‘Changeling Bycraft’ as we call them. I think they’re right because God knows there hasn’t been one for an age. Not since Cyril, in fact.”
“Jake’s a hero too, like Cyril?” he asked, mockingly sceptical.
“Yes, he is,” I said simply but proudly, determined not to become riled by his scorn. “He would never tell you himself, but he has an award from the Minister for Police, Corrective and Court Services for outstanding bravery in the course of his duty.”
That particular minister was an attractive older woman with designer suits and $300 haircuts. Her portfolio covered the police and the prison and court systems, including the state’s public prosecutors. But because of that cynical expression from him, I didn’t bother to explain to the Sarge how Jake had risked his own life to save the lives of two other prison officers during a violent riot in the maximum-security prison he’d worked at in the city before he was transferred back to Little Town and the more cushy job at the low-security prison. The Sarge was probably imagining Jake receiving the award for rescuing some prisoner from drowning in the prison’s luxurious swimming pool or from getting a paper cut in its library or from slicing themselves on a knife during one of their frequent gourmet cooking classes. And I took offence at that on Jake’s behalf. He was a real hero.
“Oh, an award from that Minister? You don’t come by one of those easily,” he snapped unpleasantly and stalked off in the direction of the patrol car without another word. I stared after him in surprise for a moment, not sure what I’d said that had made him act so rudely.
After a tense and silent trip, we returned to the station. There was a cornucopia of fresh produce on the verandah waiting for us, a show of united support for the town’s police force after the brutal attack by the Bycrafts yesterday. I was touched by it. There were berries, fresh greens, root vegetables, stonefruit, melons, muffins, biscuits, homemade chocolates and fresh cheese. The Sarge flicked me a cold look and stalked into the station, conspicuously stepping over and around the produce. I quietly picked it up and transported it inside, giving the gifts the respect they deserved, putting what needed to be refrigerated into the station’s tiny bar fridge.
“Sarge?” He was so unfriendly at that moment that I didn’t want to, but my conscience forced me to approach him hesitantly to tell him that Des and my normal practice had been to share everything, even though in reality Des had done little to deserve any gratuities. He was aggressively plugging in and unplugging the cables in the back of Abe’s computer, turning it on and off, an irritable frown creasing his forehead and pulling his mouth downwards.
“What?” he snapped, without even looking at me. I almost suggested then that he shove a sweet potato somewhere that would prove exceptionally painful for him, but managed to restrain myself. But I couldn’t contain my indignation over his disparaging dismissal of the gifts from the good people who lived in this town. My blood boiled. I confronted him passionately.
“You think these are bribes, but they’re not. They’re a simple ‘thank you’ for what we do for this town. If you don’t accept, the townsfolk will start thinking that you’re just here for another reason. Like getting some country time up so you can go for a senior sergeant position back in the city.” I paused significantly. “You don’t want the townsfolk thinking that about you, otherwise they’ll question all your motives. If you show them you are one hundred per cent behind the town and them, they’ll be one hundred per cent behind you. And I can’t tell you how important that can be sometimes.”
He cut me an icy stare, face rock-hard. “Thank you very much for your extremely unsubtle message, Fuller,” he sniped, turning his back on me, his attention on fiddling with the computer again, trying to coax it back to life.
I didn’t think that I deserved such a level of hostility from him. Perhaps I’d hit a raw nerve with the senior sergeant jibe.
“I’m going home,” I decided, grabbing my keys.
He spun around. “You’ll leave when I tell you to, Fuller. You’ve got a desk to sort out,” he said frostily. “I want that desk cleared before you go home.”
I was infuriated by that imperious order, because we both knew very well that it would take me hours, if not days, to do that. I thought I should be given a bit of consideration and leeway because of my injuries. I went over to my desk and staring at him angrily the whole time, shovelled up an armful of paper and flung it straight into my little bin, without even looking at it. Then I went back and did another armful, then another. The last few papers I swept off carelessly with the back of my arm until my desk was completely clear, but my bin was flowing over, papers toppling and spilling over each other, covering the surrounding floor in an avalanche of documents.
“There! My desk is cleared! Happy?” I shouted at him and grabbed my keys and as much of the produce as I could carry in my two hands and one backpack. Ignoring his strident demands that I come back and clean up the mess I’d made, I drove off, spraying up gravel in my haste to depart.
I blared the radio all the way home. But it wasn’t any good for releasing my anger because it was livestock hour. There was much deathly dull discussion of cattle prices and only two old soft pop songs from the sixties played to break up a monotonous interview with a stud breeder who spoke with the slow consistency of refrigerated honey. I wanted frantic modern music to sing along with at the top of my voice, but the Land Rover didn’t even have a cassette player, let alone a CD or MP3 player. I screamed out loud in frustration.
Back home, Dad was loving, welcoming, kind and wonderful and all the nice things I needed to feel better again.
/> “Bad day, love?” he asked sympathetically as I leaned down to kiss him on the forehead.
“I hate that stupid man!” I said vehemently, flinging my cap carelessly across the room like a frisbee, ripping my hair free from its bun, fluffing it out into a hideous mess and flopping down on the lounge, boots still on.
Dad leaned over to stroke my hair gently back to normality. “Problems with Finn?”
I sat up, indignant again. “He became ridiculously angry because the townsfolk left me some produce. I mean, how’s he going to survive here with that attitude? I tried to tell him that it’s just country kindness, but he was so rude to me. I’m never speaking to him again,” I declared decisively.
The phone rang. Dad, on his way to the kitchen with all the produce I’d brought in and dumped in the doorway, wheeled over to it and answered. His eyes flicked to me, and he held his hand over the mouthpiece to tell me in an exaggerated whisper that it was the Sarge on the phone for me.
“Dad! Tell him I’m not home,” I instructed through gritted teeth. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
Dad told the Sarge I wasn’t home, then put his hand over the mouthpiece again. “He said he could hear you saying that.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I snatched the phone from his hand. “What do you want?” I snapped tersely into the receiver.
“I want to say I’m sorry.”
That threw me. I grappled for a moment with my incredible anger. “I need to shoot a few things before I can talk to you. I’ll call you back. Home or the station?”
“The station,” he said, startled. “For another hour or so. I want to try to get this computer working again.”
I hung up without a farewell and stalked out to the backyard, pulling out my Glock. I first detoured to the bottom drawer of the kitchen cabinet to grab some of my own personal ammunition. I had a reasonable shooting gallery set up in the backyard for my own personal practice, trying to mimic the length, if not the conditions, of the professional ones in the city as much as possible. I bought targets and ammunition online for half-price. I wasn’t entirely sure that was even legal, but hey, they were half-price and I loved to shoot, but it was an expensive hobby.
