Sweet One

by Peter Docker

  Macca wouldn’t have slept in, says Izzy.

  He probably never went to bed, says Queenie.

  Izzy goes in to take the call. Queenie hands a cuppatea to Uncle Wadi, who sits on a milk crate and rolls a smoke.

  Moments later, Izzy is back.

  What now? asks Queenie.

  We’re on, says Izzy.

  Queenie jumps up. The little girl has returned. She skips over to the Landie, retrieves a couple of shopping bags, and skips back to Izzy.

  How’d you go?

  Good enough, says Queenie.

  She jumps out, and throws the bottle of brunette rinse to Izzy, who catches it with one hand. Izzy regards the bottle.

  You coming over to the dark side, girl, says Queenie.

  What else you got?

  Queenie looks down at the offending plastic shopping bag in her hand.

  Nothin.

  Come on, what you got?

  Nothin.

  And Queenie tries to hide the bag. Izzy goes after her and they quickly get into a mad wrestle for the bag, finally falling on the ground, with Izzy triumphantly gaining control of the bag. She fishes inside with her hand.

  What are these?

  She emerges with two ‘chicken fillet’ bra inserts.

  Nothin.

  Are you saying I’ve got wee tits?

  Wee?

  Small.

  It’s just that, Mel, you know, it’s what she’s known for.

  Izzy grabs the plastic and saline inserts, and puts one into her bra, then the other. She looks down at her enhanced chest.

  Oh, my God. I’ll need a bigger bra.

  No, that’s good, how they stick out, very Mel!

  Oh my god. How does that poor woman sleep at night?

  On her back.

  And they both fall over from laughing so hard. Behind them they can hear Uncle Wadi laughing. Queenie sits up.

  Uncle Wadi! Go inside! Women’s business.

  Uncle Wadi gets up with his fag, laughs, and shuffles his way into his old shed. Queenie goes and gets a bucket of water. Izzy sits over the bucket, wets her hair, and starts to apply the brunette rinse. When it is in, she sits up.

  Give me your jeans and shirt.

  Izzy carefully gets out of her jeans and shirt, and sits back down on the stump in her knickers and bra. Queenie takes out a big pair of scissors.

  Hey, what are you doing?

  Renovations.

  Izzy sighs.

  You’re enjoying this a bit too much.

  We want him to talk to you, don’t we?

  Yeah.

  Well, the man’s in jail.

  Queenie cuts the arms off the shirt with two big snips, and then applies herself to the jeans.

  I got those in Chapel Street, protests Izzy.

  I need you to look Perth, not Melbourne.

  And if this doesn’t work, I can make some extra money being a slutty barmaid.

  Skimpy.

  Eh?

  Skimpy barmaid.

  You say ‘skimpy’, I say ‘skanky’ – let’s call the whole thing off.

  Izzy climbs back into her cut-off shirt and shorts.

  You sure they’re short enough?

  Now you’re getting it girl.

  I feel naked.

  You look all Perth classy.

  That’s what worries me.

  Izzy bends over the bucket and washes out the brunette rinse.

  You got a mirror?

  You’re good.

  Izzy goes over to the Landie and swivels the side mirror so she can see herself. She does her best Al Pacino: ‘Every time I try to get out – they pull me back in.’

  ‘Let me take you down...’

  To slutty town.

  They climb into the Landie.

  Where first? asks Queenie.

  Munartch mia mia, replies Izzy.

  Queenie starts the Landie with a laugh.

  It takes them about twenty minutes to drive into Baal and park right outside the police station. There are TRG cops in their black overalls and bristling with weapons all over the place.

  We right? asks Queenie.

  Hide in plain sight. They aren’t looking for us.

  You sure you not a blackfulla?

  The best place to hide an icepick is in a truckload of icepicks.

  They don’t know who they’re looking for, says Queenie.

  Queenie jams a New York Yankees cap onto her head, covering her bandanna. Izzy gives her a nod.

  They got camera in here. Don’t need them to see my face.

  Izzy smiles. She is good. Queenie gets out and walks into the station and straight up to the front counter, carefully keeping the angle of her head right so that the camera will never be able to read her face. There is a young cop there with a new crew cut. Queenie can still see the new skin on his neck and near his ears where the sun has not touched for a good while.

  Yep?

  Senior Constable Dillon has some papers for me, says Queenie.

  Name?

  Katie Smith.

  The young cop turns and goes through some security doors. A minute later Dillon comes out, with the young cop just behind. Dillon is older. His eyes are hardened. His mouth is always trying to smile. Trying and failing.

  You Katie Smith?

  I’m not Mata Hari.

  Here is the paperwork for your grandmother.

  Dillon puts an envelope on the counter. Queenie grabs it, nods to Dillon, and leaves.

  What was that about? asks the young cop.

  You don’t wanna know, constable.

  I don’t know how they live how they do, says the young cop.

  Dillon turns to him, and his hard eyes are unwavering.

  The question is not ‘how’ but ‘why’, constable, he says.

  Dillon goes back out to the rear, leaving the young constable to run his hand across his recent crew cut to remind him of how good it feels, how tough he must look.

  Queenie climbs back into the Landie.

  Who is that Dillon? Never seen him before, says Queenie.

  He’s a friend.

  He’s a munartch.

  I’m a white woman.

  Queenie drives in silence. Izzy opens the envelope and takes out the licence, which has a photo of her with blackened hair and in Mel’s name.

  Tribal Rambo

  The guard slides the little window back and takes Izzy in. He struggles to get his eyes up from the front of her shirt, unbuttoned to reveal the pressing mounds of white flesh trying desperately to escape the too-small confines of the bra.

  Yep?

  Visit with Peter Aransen.

  Name?

  Melissa Hardigan.

  ID?

  Izzy pulls out the false licence and hands it over.

  Visited a prisoner before?

  Not here.

  No touching, no passing of any items, no mobile phone use.

  Done.

  The prison guard steps out of the booth holding a digi-cam. He aims it at her and hits RECORD.

  You his wife?

  Fiancée.

  State your name and date of birth.

  Melissa Hardigan. Twenty-third of October, nineteen eighty-five.

  He runs the camera down her body and back up again. Something for the Christmas reel. The guard switches off the digi-cam.

  Here is a key. Handbag and all personal items to be placed in the locker. Then take a seat, he says.

  Can I take notes?

  Notes?

  Pen and paper.

  What for?

  You know, diary, she says, giving him a warm smile.

  The guard looks at her breasts and grunts his approval. Does that mean it’s OK if my tits take notes?

  Thanks, says Izzy.

  She turns and goes back to a line of lockers on the wall. She goes to the locker that corresponds to her key, and places her handbag inside, taking out her pen and notepad. She imagines trying to grip her pen and write with her cleavage. Been in t
his town too long.

  Izzy turns and goes down the wooden steps to a grassed area behind big walls containing green plastic tables and chairs. She sits and faces the steel and concrete prison complex that squats on the country like an oversized tick, sucking out the lifeblood. She briefly wonders if the steel and the razor wire are made from the same iron ore gouged from the earth all around. She knows that nickel goes into bullets. Josh told her that, that night in Kandahar. He showed her the slug that had been dug out of his leg the year before. She writes all these thoughts down in her pad. She hears the loudspeaker call out behind the wire fences topped with razor wire:

  Aransen, P. Visit! Aransen, P. Visit!

  Looking at the razor wire, she keeps thinking that it must be a hell of a way to take a shave. She takes out a menthol cigarette and lights up. On the wall above the visit area is a guard tower. The guard up there puts down the phone, picks up a rifle, and stands in the doorway to the guard room, looking down on Izzy. There is the sound of an electronic lock being opened, and out steps Smokey. His hair is cropped short and he wears a beard, all of which is almost red. He is not a big man but moves with a confidence that makes him appear taller. It is his eyes that draw you in. The greyness of them is like the pre-dawn light boosted by a dozen megawatts. He strides across the space in his green prison garb, his grey eyes fixed on Izzy. She scrambles to her feet.

  Who are you? he demands.

  Smokey, I...

  My friends call me Smokey.

  Queenie told me you might smash me if I called you Peter.

  Upon this rock I shall build my lurch, he says.

  He sits down at the green plastic table.

  The plastic furniture is coordinated with the prison uniforms; now that’s class.

  This all you got, menthols?

  He takes one out, and lights it. The guard who processed Izzy watches him closely from over in the little booth.

  Stops people botting, Izzy says.

  Not in here.

  He draws on the cigarette, and watches her.

  Mel all right?

  I don’t know.

  What do you know?

  Someone is assassinating everyone who had any culpability in regard to that Old Man getting killed in the prison van. Someone trained. Someone who took out a chopper.

  Thought it was only the guards?

  Supervisor found dead yesterday.

  How?

  Locked in a freezer at the pet meat store.

  Smokey looks away. If Izzy was expecting a reaction, she is disappointed.

  Before that, Sergeant Bill Furphy was bludgeoned to death in his Gold Coast home. You had charges pending re an incident in Afghanistan, which is classified – so you were brought home, where you immediately faced disciplinary action for an incident at Perth Airport involving four WA police officers. Then civilian charges were brought against you for conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, and you were found guilty.

  Rightio!

  You asked me what I do know. I think someone you served with in SAS is now rampaging through the outback on a revenge killing spree.

  Queenie tell you all this?

  What do you reckon?

  Smokey laughs. Shakes his head. Queenie wouldn’t tell anyone jack shit.

  What do you want to know?

  What is the connection to Big Bill?

  None.

  Are you saying it wasn’t him?

  I’m not saying that. Just saying there is no connection.

  He sucks the last of the menthol ciggie down and butts it out.

  That was shit.

  He lights another one. He blows out the smoke, and watches the cloud intensely, as if reading the words there.

  We made a promise to ourselves. One night when we thought we were never coming home. We knew we were never coming home. A promise is a promise. We both spoke to Queenie the night before on the email. That Psalm Island shit really upset her. Fucked us up too. We couldn’t get it out of our heads. Funny how combat makes you think about justice. And cowardice.

  A battlefield promise? For justice?

  Smokey’s eyes come back onto Izzy. Izzy writes on her pad.

  What’s that? Shorthand?

  She nods.

  What did you write?

  Justice. Battle. Promise.

  Are you a poet?

  Journalist.

  What’s the point of you?

  I tell stories.

  What about the news?

  I care about stories. True stories.

  Smokey almost smiles at her as he exhales smoke, but his eyes give nothing away. His eyes are like a grey parapet, with the real Smokey crouched behind them holding a loaded weapon.

  So why have they transferred you to low security?

  This is medium.

  Smokey glances up to the guard tower above the visit area. The guard stands staring down at them with the barrel of his rifle resting on the guardrail, clearly pointed straight at them.

  I asked to come here, Smokey says.

  And?

  It suited them, too. They said I was upsetting the equilibrium in maximum. I had a difference of opinion with a certain gentleman in the showers. Must’ve been one of their stooges. He’ll walk again, eventually.

  Why here?

  Look around.

  Izzy looks around at the other green tables. At all the tables there are Aboriginal men in the shapeless green prison uniform being visited by their families. Women and kids are dressed in their Sunday best with hair tied back and skin scrubbed shiny clean to visit with husbands and fathers and sons.

  You feel at home amongst the Aborigines?

  What?

  You feel at home amongst the Aborigines?

  Sorry. Bit deaf. Comes and goes. Bombs going off next to me, you know how it is, Smokey says leaning forward.

  You feel AT HOME amongst the ABORIGINES?

  Smokey sits back and laughs. Izzy glances around to notice that the conversations at the other tables have all stopped, and a couple of dozen brown eyes are turned in her direction. Izzy colours.

  I grew up near here, Smokey says.

  Where?

  Widgiemooltha.

  Where does Mort fit in?

  You know Mort?

  I’ve come across him once or twice.

  Mort is in it up to his neck.

  In what?

  Smokey finishes the second smoke. He lights another.

  Is that why you’re called Smokey?

  He gave me the name.

  Mort?

  Ngwarla. Sweet One.

  Izzy lights up a menthol too. Smokey eyes her notepad and biro. Izzy sees his eye movement. She is thinking about the stories passed down from her great-grandfather of how they hunted Turkish snipers at Gallipoli. Once their own sniper was sent out, they would draw the Turkish shooter into firing using a homemade head and shoulders dummy mounted on a broomstick. Firing would give away his position, and our sniper would target him. It was all about getting the roll of the shoulders of the dummy right, imitating an Aussie digger hurrying along the trenches.

  You know about the Jerilderie Letter? Izzy asks.

  ...Big, ugly, fat-necked, wombat-headed, big-bellied, magpie-legged, narrow-hipped, splay-footed sons of Irish bailiffs, he recites.

  ...Or English landlords which is better known as officers of Justice or Victorian Police ... Izzy joins in.

  Smokey nods. In his eyes she sees him looking over the grey parapet.

  I’ll dictate you a letter. Like Ned’s to Joe, it’s a story, he says.

  Ned went on to hang.

  Better to die like a man than live like a coward.

  Touché.

  It’s a story with so much depth, so many layers, that it has grown into something else.

  Tjukurrpa.

  Smokey gives Izzy a sharp look.

  What’s your name?

  Melissa Hardigan.

  Your real name?

  Izzy Langford.

 
Be careful, Izzy Langford. There is stuff that we can never know. Never understand.

  Izzy smokes, and picks up her pen. Smokey leans forward, his eyes fixed on her. She doesn’t look up from her shorthand, but she can feel Smokey standing on the grey parapet, weapon in hand.

  The earth was new. Great equations of chemistry and physics, accelerated by the presence of powerful creator beings from another dimension, came together to make this country. To sing it up out of the chaos of nothingness. The chemistry and physics on a scale beyond our comprehension finally die down, and the creator beings, powerful spirits whose origin and composition is also beyond us, wait. They wait and they wait. Until finally, after four hundred million years, the country throws up the people. The people recognise the country and its indivisibleness from its phenomenal spiritual life. The people are the country. The creator spirits are the ancestors of the people. The people live on country, singing and dancing their Law, constantly recreating the glue between the different aspects like spirit beings, country, skyworld, and maintaining the secret doorways between these aspects, or worlds. The people are joyous. The Law is strong. The country is prosperous. They have many children and laugh and sing. This goes on forever and ever. Even when the great ice sheets cover the earth, the people remember their country and the Law. They survive everything. And then, two hundred years ago – we show up. No country, no real Law, swamped in grog, full of greed, and armed to the fucking back teeth. We came here looking for something. Something we lost along the way. But when we found what we were looking for, we were so angry with ourselves that we attacked and destroyed the very thing that we came seeking. It makes no diff. In two hundred years we have done our best to besmirch them, belittle them, butcher them, and back them into a corner every which way but loose.

  Can you still use besmirch? asks Izzy, daring to look up.

  Ned would’ve.

  Smokey laughs, short, hard, and dry.

  You know, some of the tribal fighters, they fight us in the morning, and fight the Taliban at night. That made sense to us in a way.

  What do you mean us? SAS?

  You think I have to be black to understand my brother’s pain?

  I don’t know.

  Izzy looks back to the page. Her glance down triggers his mouth like a roadside bomb. She starts to write.

  Historians will tell you we came here to start a penal colony, to claim more land for the empire. That’s just the surface. Why did we really come here? We came here looking for them. Because we need them. We are finished. Our culture, our ways, our path can only lead to one place – self-destruction. But when we found the people living with the country in the right way, the good way – it was too confronting. We didn’t realise how far from humanity, from ourselves, we had strayed. So we said they weren’t here, and set about killing them all to make our lie true. But it didn’t work. The more we destroy them the more we need them. We can feel it deep in our souls, this need. And where we are now – this secret oppression – oppression will always breed resistance. This is something I know more than a little about. And now a resistance fighter has been thrown up – to shine a light. Under this light, many things will be seen. He and I, we can’t be destroyed. We are already nothing. How can nothing be destroyed? Nothing cannot be destroyed – but it can change into something else. This is how the universe was made: from nothing. And this other something will be very dangerous to those who have preferred lies over truth. This is not revenge. Action – reaction. Reciprocity is a fundamental process of existence. We are being reminded. You getting all this? Signed, Love from Ned, having a great time, wish you were here.