Paycheque

by Fiona McCallum

  Claire realised just as the big green sign whizzed past that she’d missed the turn-off to Tanunda. Oh well, she’d take the longer way, via Williamstown. She hadn’t been that way for years and it was, after all, the season for change. Claire turned up the radio and began singing along to an ABBA song, hair flying about in the wind through the partially open window.

  She was almost past when she noticed the sign with ‘PACKERS PTY LTD ABATTOIR’ in large plain black letters. She’d completely forgotten it was on this road. Claire checked her rear vision mirror and pulled onto the gravel edge of the road. With the car idling, she frowned and began tapping nervously on the steering wheel. She turned off the key and wound her window down for more air.

  The only sounds were squawking crows and the occasional whoosh of a passing car. When a gust of wind brought the faint aroma of death through her window, Claire wrinkled her nose and almost gagged – the unmistakeable sourness of fresh draining blood.

  She started the car again. It’s a business just like any other, she told herself, putting the car in gear. She eased forward slowly along the gravel, but didn’t pull out onto the bitumen, even though the road was clear.

  Claire felt weird, like she was on autopilot. She was fully aware of everything around her, but without telling herself to do it, she’d flipped her indicator on, checked her mirrors and was doing a u-turn. She crossed the cattle grid next to the looming sign feeling numb – not sad, hopeful, anxious or even nervous – just a weird sort of numbness.

  Around her were a series of small paddocks. Each had a set of high steel yards in the corner closest to the wide white rubble driveway. One paddock held sheep, another held black cattle that Claire decided must be Angus, and in a third, large sleek pink pigs snuffled about. The furthest held about a dozen horses of varying sizes and colours: some shiny and full of life and others with sunken backs and starry coats – obviously at the end of long lives.

  Claire looked at the sheep, cattle and pigs. She felt nothing – could imagine them sliced up on black trays wrapped in cling film stacked on supermarket shelves. Looking back at the horses, she tried to think of their meat packed in cans for pet food, hooves boiled down for glue. Tears pricked at her eyes. A couple of horses looked up from their grazing, clearly unaware of the fate that awaited them behind the big corrugated iron door less than two hundred metres away. She sighed deeply. It was part of the cycle. She’d heard it said so many times.

  She imagined Paycheque in the paddock in front of her, then closed her eyes and shook her head, not wanting to think about him like these horses, munching their way unawares down the raceway and into the shed. Worse was the thought that he would have put up a fight. He would never have gone willingly into the steel crush that was like the racing barriers but so much darker, more terrifying. He might even have been injured, in agony when the powerful bolt that was supposed to mean instant death connected with his head.

  Jesus, why had she come? Why was she putting herself through this? She opened her eyes and looked back at the horses. Four chestnuts, two greys, an appaloosa, a buckskin and four bays stared back at her. The darkest of the bays reminded her of Paycheque – a small but well-proportioned thoroughbred.

  Startled by a tap on her window, Claire turned to find a lad in faded blue overalls and cap. Beside him was a ute with a few bales of hay on the back. Claire wound down her window and attempted a smile.

  ‘Something I can help you with?’

  She took in his deep brown eyes and kind features. The lad seemed friendly, not at all the brusque, insensitive type she imagined one would have to be to work in an abattoir.

  ‘Um, no, not really,’ she said.

  ‘Well I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.’ He sounded genuinely apologetic. ‘The boss doesn’t like people hanging around.’

  ‘Okay, I understand,’ Claire said, and looked back to the horses.

  ‘Nice looking some of them – shame to end up here,’ he said, dragging one of the bales off the back of the ute and dropping it on the ground.

  ‘Yeah,’ Claire said wistfully. ‘Why the hay if they’re…?’

  The lad shuffled awkwardly. We’ve had a breakdown inside – waiting for parts to come from overseas. Just didn’t want them being hungry, you know, for their last…’

  Claire looked away, not wanting to think about it.

  ‘My dad runs a feed lot – flogged a couple of bales. I’ll been in heaps of shit if he finds out.’

  ‘I won’t tell him. It’s nice of you to think of the horses.’

  The lad shrugged and checked his watch. ‘Shit, smoko’s nearly over. I’ve gotta get this out before I get the sack. Hey, wouldn’t give me a hand to throw it over the fence, would you?’

  ‘Sure, no worries.’ Claire got out of the car.

  Side by side they threw hay. Claire was silent while the lad commented on each of the horses that came over. Claire tried to pretend she was feeding ordinary animals – not horses on death row. As she tossed hay, the lad’s cheery comments were a dull murmur somewhere in her head.

  ‘This one’s my favourite,’ he said. ‘Come on, you big guts.’

  She looked up, already smiling at his affection. The furthest horse, the dark bay she’d been admiring earlier, wandered over. He looked nice and healthy so she figured he must have had some kind of accident to be here. He certainly didn’t look lame. Maybe he had a nasty streak or was too dangerous to ride.

  When the horse turned its back to the others to protect his pile of hay, Claire noticed a brand in the soft flesh above his near foreleg. She squinted, trying to decipher the scar. Not all horses were branded – this one must have meant something to someone once. What had gone wrong for him?

  On closer inspection, it didn’t look unlike Jack’s brand. How many people put letters inside a triangle? Probably heaps. Jack McIntyre used a scaled-down version of his grandfather’s sheep brand. Claire found herself wondering if there was a tiny white star under the thick forelock. But she was being ridiculous – Paycheque was long gone.

  When the horse pawed the ground for a few beats with one front hoof and then changed to the other, Claire began to feel faint. She must be seeing things. She looked away, convinced she was conjuring images with her guilt.

  ‘Funny, isn’t he?’ the lad said next to her. ‘Does it all the time when he eats.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s like the puddling some cats do if they are taken away from their mother too early.’ She stared at the bay. In all her years spent around horses the only one she’d seen regularly do it like this was Paycheque. But it couldn’t be.

  ‘Hey mate, what’s your story?’ she called to the horse.

  The horse looked up, twisting his head as if contemplating the question. His forelock shifted to reveal a small white star with a jagged scar underneath. Paycheque had one similar from when he’d fallen and got caught under the bottom rail of the cattle crush as a youngster. It was the reason he was so afraid of racing barriers and why Jack had been so careful with him.

  Claire’s legs felt weak and she grabbed the nearest stable thing – the arm of the lad next to her.

  ‘Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I think I have,’ Claire murmured, and let herself be helped to the side step of the Land Cruiser to sit down. She put her head between her knees. Had she seen what she thought she’d seen? Had it been coincidence or had she imagined the whole thing?

  ‘You know that horse, don’t you?’ the lad said, becoming excited. ‘I thought he was too good to be here – branded and all.’

  Claire nodded. ‘I think so,’ she said, having trouble breathing.

  ‘Hey, don’t get upset.’ The lad had his arm around her shoulder. It felt nice. It had been so long since she’d had comfort from anyone other than Bernadette. ‘You’ve found him. That’s good, right?’

  Claire nodded. And slowly it dawned on her that he was right. She’d done it, she’d actually found Paycheque. The relief was s
o overwhelming she began to hyperventilate.

  ‘You have to breathe – in and out slowly,’ the lad coaxed.

  Claire tried to focus on controlling her breathing, and after a few moments noticed another pair of human legs standing in front of her. She looked up and took in an older man in an orange safety vest and khakis.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here?’

  ‘I was just feeding the horses during…’

  ‘Well your smoko’s over now. Get back to work. May as well bring this lot with you – part’s arrived, we’ll be ready for them in an hour.’

  Claire’s breath caught. She looked at the lad through sodden lashes.

  ‘She wants that bay there – right, miss?’ he said, pointing at the horse.

  Claire nodded, unable to speak.

  ‘Well she can’t have him.’

  Her head snapped up, her eyes wide in question.

  ‘Why not?’ the lad asked on her behalf.

  ‘I paid good money for him. He’s mine now. Not my fault if some horsey chick’s got the guilts and changed her mind.’

  ‘But…’ Claire stammered.

  ‘You chicks are all the same. It’s just a bloody horse that’s about to be dog food. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an abattoir to run.’

  ‘I’ll pay you double what you paid,’ Claire blurted.

  Claire signed the cheque for six hundred and fifty dollars and handed it over. The man was almost salivating at the thought of such easy money. She knew she should have bargained and got the price down a bit – she really couldn’t afford to be throwing away good money. And Bernie was going to love the irony of her last paycheque being used to buy a horse of the same name. A strange mix of relief and dread swept through Claire.

  The lad with the hay offered her a doubled over piece of twine, and she led the bewildered horse to the holding yard in the corner of the small paddock. She felt ridiculous dressed in a white linen shirt and dressy three-quarter pants, up on tiptoes so as not to ruin her two-hundred-dollar kitten heels, stepping between the piles of horse poo. She’d wanted to look nice for Jack. If only she’d waited until after lunch to get changed.

  The smirk across the face of the bloke with the cheque in his hand suggested he now thought she was one of those totally un-horsey women with too much money, on a crusade because the shops were shut and there was nothing better to do. That horse would end up on her less than one-quarter-acre block for sure – that was if she managed to find someone to transport it at such short notice. He shook his head and wandered off.

  Claire waited in her car until the other horses had disappeared into the shed, and then another couple of minutes. Part of her wanted to make sure the rest of the horses had gone. Another wasn’t really ready to face the contents of the can of worms she was about to open. She savoured the peace before peeling back the lid.

  Chapter Ten

  Speeding along the highway, Claire’s head was awash with all she had to do and the short time she had in which to do it. She had to get to the farm, swap the car for the ute – fingers crossed she could get it started – hook on the float, and get back to the abattoir. All in an hour and a half – that’s when the nice lad finished his shift.

  Her hands were tight on the wheel, knuckles white, palms aching. Her eyes darted across to the clock on the radio every few seconds. The needle was nudging 100, but the trip still seemed to be taking forever. Damn the speed limit, she cursed. There were hardly any cars on the road. She’d probably get away with speeding. But she continued to check the speedo at regular intervals and ease her accelerator foot.

  Two tail-gating Commodores rushed past in a roar of V8 aggression and testosterone.

  ‘Bloody idiots!’ The vehicles were now taking up both lanes ahead of her. Her heart was racing a little. She took a deep breath and sighed, trying to steady the hammering in her eardrums.

  Claire was tempted to pick up her own speed – the cops would be too busy with those two if they were out and about. But deep down she knew it wasn’t worth it; cops weren’t the real problem, death was.

  She shook her head at the splotches of colour already disappearing around a bend a few hundred metres ahead. She really hoped they wouldn’t crash – though they deserved to. Nothing too major; just ding up their precious toys and scare a lesson into them.

  She really didn’t have time to stop. Bernie would be wondering where the hell she was. What would Jack think about her not being at the hospital yet? And the nurses – Jesus, they’d think she was the worst daughter in the world. She really should have rung when they had decided to wait until after lunch.

  Claire didn’t trust the bloke she’d given the cheque to. There’d been no receipt, no paperwork at all to say she now owned the horse. And he’d insisted the cheque be written out to cash. There was probably nothing to stop him selling the horse to someone else who came along. He certainly hadn’t seemed that hung up on morals. If she was late, he’d probably have no qualms about processing the horse anyway. And once Paycheque was gone there’d be no proof, nothing she could do about it. Panic gripped Claire. She had to hurry up.

  A few kilometres on, Claire came around a sweeping bend and noticed a large object on the road up ahead. As she got closer she frowned, easing back her speed and trying to decipher what she was really seeing. She was almost at a stop when she realised what was blocking one side of the road. Two cars – one red, one white – fused into a mass of colour against a large gum tree like a child’s roughly formed lump of plasticine.

  Claire turned the engine off and put her hazard lights on while she tried to figure out where the doors were – where she’d go to attempt to offer some kind of assistance.

  She took a deep breath and walked towards the wreckage on jelly legs. A big part of her already wished she hadn’t stopped, had continued on her way. But you couldn’t, could you? It just wouldn’t be right. She stood close enough to the cars to feel their heat, smell the toxic odour of scorched plastic and paint. The stench of burnt rubber hung in the air. Claire coughed and pulled a tissue from her pocket to protect her nose and mouth. The radiators were hissing. Twisted metal groaned and sighed as it settled into its new form. Crows and galahs squawked and flapped away overhead, oblivious.

  Claire wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t touch anything – it looked too bad for anyone to have made it. She wasn’t sure she could cope with blood and guts and death. Somewhere in the depths of the wreckage she heard the faint electronic tone of a mobile phone. Snapping to attention she raced back to her car. Everything was a blur around her – in slow motion – as she grabbed her own mobile from her handbag. Shit, what was the mobile emergency number? She was about to dial triple zero when she realised there were no bars indicating reception.

  ‘Damn it,’ she cursed. She must be in a dead spot. Maybe if she climbed on top of her car she’d get a signal. Just as she was taking off her shoes, another vehicle came around the bend. She leapt on to the road and started waving her arms, the sharp bitumen cutting into the delicate skin of her bare feet.

  An older style four-wheel drive stopped on the edge of the road behind her car. Claire hoped the middle-aged couple inside were locals.

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ she said through their open window. ‘Do you have a mobile? I can’t get a signal with mine.’

  They both got out of the vehicle.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said the bloke, looking ahead at the pile of wreckage. ‘Is anyone alive?’

  ‘I… I don’t know. I just arrived,’ Claire said.

  ‘Shit!’ he said, and bolted up the road towards the carnage.

  The woman punched numbers into a mobile phone and then calmly told whoever answered that there had been an accident. She proceeded to give precise directions and local road names.

  Claire felt helpless, left out, and almost miffed because she’d seen it first and here they were taking over.

  Short of anything better to do, she made her way to the mangled cars. The ma
n was circling the wreckage, calling to the occupants, trying to pull on what must be handles on doors but didn’t look like anything to her.

  Claire realised she could smell fuel. Then she noticed a darker patch of gravel. The bitumen was stained and glistening. She remembered hearing somewhere how the battery had to be disconnected to stop sparks igniting spilt fuel. Claire stared at the fused cars, walked around looking for the front ends. She frowned, trying to decipher the mess. Then suddenly, as if she’d adjusted the focus on a camera, the bonnet of the red car became apparent. She walked over, aware of the other Good Samaritan leaning into one window and talking, urging the victim to hold on, telling him that help was on its way. The bonnet was folded back in three, the engine still hissing steam.

  Claire didn’t want to put her hand in but knew she didn’t have a choice. The battery was lying there with fluid of some sort dripping onto it. The car’s wiring had already had the plastic coating scorched off. Any second the unprotected wires could short. For all she knew, the scorching had already worked its way through the dashboard and into the cabin. She pulled at the terminals with her only protection: the small wad of tissues she’d been using to shield her nose. They were both stuck fast – she needed a screwdriver. There wasn’t one in her own car and she couldn’t disturb the man who seemed to be getting some response from someone in the car.

  Claire was relieved to hear a siren and, when she looked up, see a white CFS truck and police car pulling over, and uniformed people jumping out and running towards her. They pushed past, literally shoving her aside in their haste. Claire didn’t mind at all – she was just glad to be off the hook.