Yesterday's Dust

by Joy Dettman

  ‘No. I know your face – but it was younger when I saw it last.’

  ‘I’ve been at the solicitors. I looked younger before I paid my bill.’

  She laughed then, a high girlish laugh, and she spilt her drink and she laughed while the barman mopped his bar, while he poured another drink, until she drank again and had to kill the laugh.

  ‘I needed that,’ she said. ‘I just buried my mother. I needed that. What’s your name?’

  ‘Bill Dooley.’ One more use wouldn’t wear out the name.

  ‘I didn’t need that!’ And she laughed again. He moved her glass out of danger. ‘Sorry. Sorry, Bill, but I don’t like your name.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Everything. Have you got a dog? If you’ve got a dog, then we’re finished.’

  ‘What’s wrong with dogs?’

  ‘They wouldn’t let me buy a vodka and tonic. Like the dogs of hell, they guarded that hotel door to stop me from walking through it. They used to sniff my skirt and eye me as I walked past. “This is it, lady,” they’d say. “Get used to it”.’

  He nodded, emptied his glass, pushed it back, and she emptied her own.

  ‘My shout,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I started walking one day, just stepping, one foot in front of the other until one of Hell’s Angels stopped.’ Her hand dived into her bag and withdrew a purse. ‘Six hours on the back of a Harley and I couldn’t walk for a week.’

  ‘Due to the Harley, or the bloke riding it?’

  ‘Bad joke, Bill.’ Her finger pointed, made the point as she tossed her hair back. ‘I’m not into smut humour. But for the record, it was the bike. He was only nineteen and he liked my hair.’

  ‘I like your hair.’

  ‘Mutton dressed as lamb. He got a fright when he saw my face. Marlon. Hell’s little angel on his motorbike. He saved my life that day, but he smelt bad.’ She opened her purse and removed a note, placed it on the bar. ‘Ever noticed, Bill, how money makes you free? Are you free?’

  ‘Free as a bird.’

  ‘My mother set me free. Did I tell you?’ He nodded. ‘I had to come home for the funeral and to sell her house, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve come home. I’m a stranger in a strange land.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Live?’ she said. ‘Live suggests that you’ve got a life, got a home, Bill. I’ve lived everywhere. I had to keep moving, always moving. With him first. Then to get away from him.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘Him.’ She flashed a hand, the wide scar of a missing ring still visible. ‘I tossed it in with Mum. I got pregnant and she made me marry him, but now her solicitor is getting me a divorce. That’s sort of poetic justice, isn’t it? Anyway, I promised myself I’d drink six vodka and tonics today, and I’m doing it.’

  ‘You’re doing it, lady. What’s the current count?’ He pointed to her full glass.

  ‘Five. If I count the one I spilt. You know, there was this old black guy who used to sit with his dogs outside that hotel. His name was Bill too – or Billy.’

  ‘King Billy?’ he said.

  She stared at him, her head to one side. ‘How do you know King Billy?’

  ‘I stepped over his dogs a few times too many.’ He bit his tongue, emptied his glass and his feet wanted to move him away.

  ‘Mallawindy?’ she said, her hand reaching, not wanting him to move away.

  ‘Mallawindy,’ he replied. ‘Old Granny Bourke, a trout pickled in stout.’

  ‘Bill Dooley and all of his little Dooleys.’

  ‘Your accent isn’t Mallawindy.’

  ‘Norman was the schoolteacher.’

  He considered the door, realising he’d given away too much. But outside, the world was lonely. He took out his wallet and found a card, glanced at it before placing it on the bar beside her drink, pleased for once to wear his brother’s name.

  Samuel and May Burton, Narrawee.

  She focused on the small print, then turned to him. ‘And where is your May tonight, Samuel Burton of Narrawee?’

  ‘She died.’

  ‘I don’t like funerals.’

  ‘Death stinks,’ he said, and he touched the golden hair, because he wanted to. She looked at him as he lifted a strand of gold, and he allowed the curl to fall.

  ‘Amy.’ She offered her hand. ‘Amy O’Rouke. Can I buy you dinner?’

  ‘I’ve got to go home and feed the chooks,’ he said, but he liked the hand.

  ‘Do you sell fresh eggs at your back door, Samuel?’

  ‘That’s for next year.’ As he placed his glass down and turned to go, she reached for his arm.

  ‘I’m lonely,’ she said. ‘And I don’t want to go back to that house. Surely . . . surely the only two people in the whole world who have been to hell and lived to tell the tale ought to have something in common?’

  ‘It’s not hell,’ he said. ‘It’s just a malignant growth on hell’s sunburnt bum.’

  She laughed, and slid from the bar stool. Stood. Tall as Ellie. Slim as May. And she wanted his company.

  Three beers gave him a lift. Six stopped the lift dead. He’d had his three. But he liked her laugh. Liked the sharp-featured face, and the colour of her dress. He looked out to the street. Day was ending and the Toorak flat would be empty tonight. He didn’t want to go home either.

  ‘I’m not going to beg, Samuel,’ she said. ‘But it’s a long time since a man sat beside me at a bar and made me laugh.’

  ‘I like your hair, Amy O’Rouke. Tonight it looks like a shower of sunlight in a dark and lonely world.’

  funny face

  Wednesday 24 December

  A busy day this one, Ellie up to her ears in flour and eggs, baking trays clattering, the smell of her labour pervading every room. Johnny had made his escape early to the old place – not so old any more. The new kitchen was in, the walls lined and painted. He’d bought a new kitchen setting and cut up the old one for firewood.

  No more schoolroom until late January, no more painting and no more fences to build, but he could read. He’d picked up Dune from the old bookshelves and last night become immersed in it, for the third or the fourth time, then left it face down on the couch in Ben’s lounge room. It was close to five when he crossed over the bridge and crept in the back door to retrieve the novel.

  In the front paddock Ann and her boys were playing football with Ben. For an instant, John considered joining them. Only for an instant. He passed by the kitchen and walked down to the lounge room. Today a plastic car crib had claimed his space on the couch, and from it Bethany hiccupped a greeting.

  The book in hand he stepped closer to the overloaded basket – not much larger than the baskets he’d once filled with eggs then transported on his bike to the grocer to exchange for sugar and tea.

  He squatted, at a distance, studying the tiny singlet and napkin-clad mite. Her bare feet were long, familiar, and occupied in kicking at the end of her cage, wanting out.

  ‘You’ll have the spine of a banana,’ he said softly. She hiccupped her agreement and lifted her arms to him.

  Four months old, she near filled the container, but she wasn’t complaining. Too much to see, strange furnishings and a colourful window where green glass in the three top panes turned the sky a shade it should never have been. She hiccupped again and this time an overflow of milk accompanied it. As he moved forward, reaching for the ever-present towelling bib, she offered him her silly little open-mouthed smile.

  ‘Funny face,’ he said, wiping milk from her chin and beneath her chin. She considered it a fine game and chuckled. He smiled. ‘You’re supposed to be sleeping, not laughing, and I’m not supposed to be in here,’ he said, but she waved his words away, and one dark eye winked at him.

  ‘Okay. I won’t say a word about it – if you don’t.’ He gave her a finger to hold, and her strength surprised him. ‘No biting. I can see your new tooth. Your mummy used to have one just like that.’

  For minutes they played. U
ntil he heard Ann return to the house, then he stood and again picked up his book.

  ‘We’re off now, Mum,’ Ann called as she passed by the kitchen door.

  ‘You are coming back with Bronwyn, aren’t you?’

  ‘Nick might drive down with her, Mum.’

  ‘It would be nice if you could be there too, Annie,’ Ellie said, and her old egg-beater got in amongst the yolks again and Ann stepped down to the lounge room.

  ‘She spat up,’ John said.

  ‘That’s her favourite after-dinner trick.’

  ‘Her bib and singlet copped most of it.’ He was standing back, but watching the dark-eyed mite who now gave her smile to her mother.

  ‘Sicky old thing. When are you going to grow out of it?’ Ann said, searching the baby bag that for six years had been grafted to her shoulder. She found a clean singlet and bib, a packet of baby wipes, a small sheet and a plastic bag. Johnny smiled, wondering what else she could draw from that bag. Ah, a disposable napkin. He watched her as efficiently she stripped the baby limbs, did a quick freshen up with baby wipes, then eased a white singlet over the head.

  ‘She’s got your curls,’ he said, turning the book over and over in his hand.

  ‘God help her.’ Then she was up. ‘Want to hold her for me while I change the sheet?’

  ‘I’m . . . out of practice.’

  ‘She’s unbreakable.’

  He glanced at the book, easier than looking at Ann, glanced at the tiny one with the fine black halo. ‘Not too certain that I am,’ he said.

  ‘It’s you or the floor. She’d prefer you.’

  Uncertain of how the transfer had been made, he found himself holding Bethany, and too quickly he turned away, walked to the window while small hands decided his nose looked like an interesting toy.

  Ellie’s tame magpie warbling at the back door. Baking trays clattering. Distant voices of the boys. And Ben’s voice. ‘Kick it, Tristan. Kick it to Matthew. Good boy!’

  Ben. He knew who he was, knew where he was going. Always had.

  Where am I going? John thought. What do I have to take me there? A worn paperback novel.

  And he already knew how it was going to end. And after this one he’d probably read Dune Messiah and he knew how that one ended too. Where was this tiny mite heading? Way, way off, into the great unknown.

  With one finger he touched the soft baby knee. Such long legs. Long feet. So familiar.

  The car crib fitted with a clean sheet, the soiled items stuffed and tied into a plastic bag, Ann stood on, staring at her brother’s shoulders. Broad as her father’s. And at his neck, shaped like her father’s. Had she ever seen a baby in her father’s arms?

  Linda. On the morning she had died, he’d held her, his large hand patting her back. She could remember that day. Remember the loss, the empty stroller, the tears. And her father. He’d leaned over the cot and felt Linda’s limbs, felt her brow, then he’d picked her up, wiped the vomit from her face.

  He’d probably held the infant Liza. Ann could only remember her as the spoilt tale-telling brat. Whingeing Liza, her father wrapped around her little finger. Always waiting at the gate for him to come home, always running to him. ‘Daddy. Daddy. Benjie and Annie won’t let me play wiff them.’

  It came out of the blue and she didn’t know why. ‘Did he ever hold me when I was little, Johnny? Ever?’ No need for a name. Her brother understood. He shook his head, but didn’t turn to face her.

  ‘You held me, so it didn’t matter if he did or not. One of my first memories is of you carrying me around.’ No reply expected. None given. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so bloody sorry that I mucked it up for us, Johnny.’

  He turned then, fast, and Ann saw his eyes were wet. She reached out a hand, touched his shoulder, and the tear escaped to trickle down the side of his nose. Bethany swiped at it.

  ‘I told you I wasn’t unbreakable,’ he said, kissing the tiny fingers intent on exploring his mouth.

  ‘We’ve been broken for a long, long time. She’s a part of the healing.’

  ‘Where have I been?’ he said. ‘What have I been doing?’

  ‘Getting better.’

  ‘Have I, Annie?’

  For a long minute she packed her baby bag, then slung it over her shoulder and lifted the crib to the floor. ‘We’re like sick cats, you and me. We don’t like anyone to see us when we’re sick, so we crawl away into the bush to heal ourselves. Just one more day to go and we can crawl out again into the sunshine. It will be over. That’s the way we have to think of it. That’s the way it has to be. For Bethany, and for the boys. We are the past, Johnny. We don’t matter, but they do.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to tell myself that since dawn – trying to rub him out of my head. I can’t do it. I think I want to. I think I’m ready to move on, but I keep seeing his face, laughing at all of us. He won. We let him win, Annie, and tonight he’ll be having his own celebration.’

  ‘Shush. She’ll hear you.’

  ‘And that’s our major problem. It will always be “Shush, she’ll hear you”. We’ll carry it with us until our dying day.’

  ‘All he has won is a lonely old age and dirt and grass and a lot of bulls spreading a lot of manure.’

  ‘In my mind he won’t grow old. He’s still in there snarling, “Have a go, you cowardly little bastard”.’ John tapped his brow with a knuckle. ‘In there, he’s still laughing.’

  ‘I saw him at May’s funeral and he wasn’t laughing.’ She pinned her hair back, stepped away. ‘Maybe he didn’t ever want us, but he’s lost us now. He’s lost May. If he has won anything, then as far as I can tell it’s just a heap of bullshit and a cold stone mansion on a lonely hill – ’ She fell silent then as Ellie entered with a plate of bite-sized egg and bacon pies.

  ‘You’ve been thinking about Sam too, loves. I know he said he wouldn’t come but I’ve just got the feeling that he’ll change his mind.’

  ‘He won’t, Mum,’ Ann said.

  ‘No. You’re probably right.’ She offered the plate. ‘These ones got a bit burnt at the edges. Want to test them for me?’ Ann took the plate and Ellie claimed Bethany. ‘My word, she reminds me of you. That hair and those black eyes, watching everything, just like you used to. Her mouth is different, though. It’s more like Liza’s mouth.’

  ‘David’s actually.’ Ann spoke with her mouth full of flaky, melt-in-the-mouth pastry, as only Ellie could make pastry.

  ‘Definitely David’s,’ Johnny said, and Ellie exchanged the baby for the plate.

  ‘Did Bronwyn say what time Nick would be finishing work tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum.’

  ‘She shouldn’t be driving by herself. When is her baby due?’

  ‘Soon.’ It was already a week overdue.

  The conversation ended as a herd of little boys entered from the back verandah. Ann strapped Bethany into her crib and John picked it up, carried it out to the van then stood watching as it and the boys were loaded in and strapped down.

  ‘It’s twenty to six. David said he’d be home early tonight.’

  ‘Daddy dot a pwise,’ Tristan said.

  ‘A surprise, Tristan, and Daddy said don’t tell Mummy.’

  Ann turned to her boys. ‘I bet it’s a big fat chocolate cream cake.’ There were three shakes of three small heads, and she laughed and turned back to John. ‘Poor David. He’s starved for cream cakes.’

  ‘It’s your birthday. I forgot. Happy thirty-seventh.’

  ‘I’d forget it too, if I could.’

  ‘A pity that we can’t control time, Annie. Turn it back. Go back and undo old mistakes.’

  She shook her head. ‘I used to think so, but I wouldn’t be brave enough to live it again. I don’t want any single one of my days back, Johnny. I want what I’ve got now. This little tribe.’ She opened the driver’s side door, then turned again to her brother. ‘Except . . . except I want you to become a part of my tribe again. More than anything else, I want that.’
/>   ‘Sick cats. I like that analogy,’ he said. ‘Remember Bessy’s old grey Persian, Smokey – the one that was bitten by a snake?’ She nodded. ‘Remember how it went missing for weeks, and they thought it was dead?’

  ‘And it dragged itself back home one morning, and spent the rest of its life depositing dead snakes on Bessy’s front doorstep.’

  ‘Revenge is sweet.’ John smiled, looked at the sun still high in the western sky. ‘The sun will eventually go down on today, love, and it will probably rise again in the morning.’

  ‘I’ll give you fifty-to-one odds on it,’ she said, and she slid behind the wheel, found her sunglasses and put them on before turning to face him. ‘Come up tomorrow. Have Christmas dinner with us.’

  ‘I . . . I could.’

  ‘Could isn’t good enough.’

  ‘How about might? No promises.’

  ‘Might, I’ll accept. I never did like promises. They can get you into a whole heap of trouble. See you tomorrow, then. Around one.’

  And she drove away while he watched her out of sight.

  no more jack

  Christmas Eve and lonely. All day Jack had driven. Hadn’t known where he was going and hadn’t cared. He’d eaten morning tea at a bakery in Yea, turned towards Seymour and taken the Hume Freeway north. Same old freeway. Same old trees. Same old hills. He’d hit Albury near twelve, and he’d seen the same old signpost shimmering in the heat haze, pointing vaguely off into the distance: DAREE.

  So he’d made the left-hand turn, and followed the road. Same old dry grass. Same old paddocks. Same narrow road but bigger potholes. He had passed straight through Mallawindy, gone up to Warran and found that white house in Mahoneys Lane.

  Six o’clock and the sun beating hard against the white bricks. Her Narrawee. She’d loved it too – couldn’t have the original, so she’d built her own. Not so big, but the front door looked much the same. He was going to get out of the car and walk to that door, knock on that bloody door.

  What would she do if he did? And what was he going to say to her if she let him in? Nothing he could say, so he parked out front and stared until his eyes watered.