The First Week

by Margaret Merrilees

  Charlie finished it off. ‘No rain today, I hope. I’m playing golf.’

  None of them laughed.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My stuff, at Ros and Sam’s place. Could you ask them to get rid of it?’

  Marian was startled. ‘All of it?’

  ‘Well I can’t use it, can I? I’m going to be in here for a while you know.’

  She tried not to flinch at his tone.

  ‘They could sell my stuff to pay the rent I owe. They’ll have to get another tenant for the room.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘Could you just keep the books? For the moment?’

  The books were the only things she’d seen that were worth anything. She’d have to talk to the girls. Pay the rent.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Nah,’ he said subsiding into listlessness. Marian had seen that lethargy before and put it down to puberty. But he was past puberty now. She wanted to take him by the shoulders and make him sit up. Shout at him. What have you done with Charlie? The sweet-faced little boy. The kind Charlie.

  Perhaps his letter would explain.

  ‘Well let me know, eh? If you need anything else?’

  She’d had enough. She stood up and waited. Charlie turned to Brian and held out his hand. After a fraction of a moment, Brian shook it.

  ‘You should shoot the kookaburras,’ Charlie said. Brian backed away a step and stood, puzzled, hand still half-lifted.

  Marian watched Charlie, afraid that he was going to leave the photo on the table. But at the last moment he picked it up.

  She moved forward, wanting to hug him. But he had already fallen in alongside a guard who took him to the door in the opposite wall. Back to wherever it was. A cell.

  Marian and Brian followed their guard back through the locked doors to the car park.

  Apart from directions, don’t take the Kenwick Link, they drove in silence to Armadale and then turned off into the hills.

  Brian was making a small grunting noise under his breath and tapping his fingers on the wheel.

  ‘Are you okay? Do you want a break?’

  ‘Nah. Just thinking.’

  For a few moments he drove in silence, then burst out. ‘Is he insane? Or what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He makes me so mad.’ Brian’s face was red and he gripped the wheel hard.

  ‘Hey. How about pulling over for a while.’

  Wrenching the wheel he stopped the car across a driveway.

  ‘I hate him,’ he shouted. ‘He’s a … sneak.’

  It was so childish that she wanted to laugh.

  ‘We’re stuck with this forever,’ Brian said. ‘We’re not going to be able to blow our noses without having to say sorry. It’s us that will cop it. Not bloody Charlie. He’ll do his time, thousands of dollars spent on feeding him and looking after him. But what about us?’

  ‘They might hang him.’

  Brian jerked around, surprised out of his anger. ‘No. They don’t do that.’

  Of course he was too young to take hanging seriously. He was born well after Cooke. All the different murders, the fear that over-ran the city and spread even into the country. People calling children in from the yard, moving summertime beds back inside the house, locking doors that had always stood open. The relief when the murderer was hanged.

  Did Charlie know that story? Was he afraid it would happen to him?

  Marian was trembling, a shaking that came from her belly, as though an animal had taken possession of her body.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘I’m cold,’ she said, teeth chattering. ‘I’ll put my coat on.’

  She got out of the car and stood leaning against the door. Brian brought her coat and draped it around her shoulders. The kindness almost undid her. I will not cry. I will not cry. She shut her eyes and waited for the shaking to subside.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  With an effort she opened her eyes. ‘Yes. That’s better. Let’s get going.’

  Brian went back to the driver’s side and they pulled their doors shut.

  ‘Is the heater working?’ he asked. ‘I should have put it on before.’

  ‘Yeah. I didn’t use it on the way up though. It made me too sleepy.’

  ‘I won’t go to sleep. And we could stop for a hot drink soon anyway. Is North Bannister okay?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Marian lay back and listened to the drone of the engine, the wheels on the bitumen. Trees flashed past. Bush, pines, bush, pines. She shut her eyes.

  The dolphins were still chasing the fish in the toilet. Why don’t you do something, she said to the whales. Swimming around like that, not caring.

  The coffee was hot and Marian got back into the car feeling more alive.

  ‘What was that about kookaburras?’ she asked.

  ‘God knows,’ Brian said bitterly.

  ‘I thought it must be football.’

  ‘What would Charlie know about football? Birds, he means. He’s got it in for kookaburras now.’

  ‘Because they’re not native?’ Marian tried to think with Charlie’s mind. ‘The Landcare woman said they kill smaller birds and hopping mice and things.’

  Brian just grunted.

  They drove without speaking.

  A little way after Arthur River Marian broke the silence.

  ‘Do you remember Mick Barnes?’

  ‘At the pub?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yeah. I was at school with one of his boys. Jim. They moved to Albany.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘I see Jim occasionally. Good bloke. His old man dropped dead in the front bar one night.’ Brian shook his head. ‘What made you think of him?’

  ‘I heard a bit about the pub the other day. You know Evie?’

  ‘Aunty Evie? Sure.’

  ‘She was the barmaid for a while when Mick had the pub. Before you were born. Ancient history.’

  The forest gave way to dry rolling farmland.

  ‘Brian?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not helping with the mulesing anymore.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I can’t stand it. There must be a better way.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I’m not saying don’t do it. Just that I won’t help with it.’

  ‘Mum, okay. I’m not making you. All right?’

  He scowled sideways at her and they lapsed into silence again.

  There was another holiday she remembered, her and the boys, without Mac. Marian had been fed up, so she packed the kids into the car and went to her mother’s. Drove away from the harsh dry country, back to the valleys and hills of her childhood.

  The boys spent their time in the river doing bombies and as she watched them from under a tree, Marian felt the muscles in her neck softening. She dug out her old bathers, perished and sagging, and squeezed them on. With the boys cheering, she swung herself out on a rope to drop into the river.

  The water closed over her head and she moved her arms to push upwards, breaking the surface with her face, hair streaming behind her. She laughed with the sheer pleasure of it and duck-dived.

  But something was wrong. The taste of the water on her lips was wrong.

  The water was brackish, salt where no salt should be.

  The boys called out to her and she splashed over to them, dazed.

  For them, this was enough. This was a river. They saw nothing wrong, would never know that a river should smell of reeds and mud and fresh sweet water.

  They were the salt generation.

  Later she asked her mother about it.

  Oh yes. Has to be treated now, or mixed with water from somewhere else. I’m not sure what they ended up doing.

  Marian thought about the land near the south-east boundary, where it fell away. Their side of the fence from the Native Title claim. It was a mess. The few remaining trees had died, become grey ghosts. That was good pasture when they first clea
red the paddock, the year she and Mac married.

  Impossible to say exactly when it had died. It was a slow receding, year by year. Like her father’s hair. The bald salty old skull gradually emerged, scabbed and flaking. The grass died, the trees died.

  Maybe the lucerne would work. And Brian had planted oil mallees across the slope to stop it getting any worse. Marian couldn’t see any money in oil though and there was some hold-up with the processing plant. It wasn’t straightforward. And with everyone doing it there’d soon be a glut. The world couldn’t need all that much eucalyptus oil.

  What if she got stuck into the bottom part, the real problem area? Planted salt-resistant wattles, and bigger trees around the edge, contained the damage, soaked up the ground water.

  Could she get any help? Volunteers?

  The Noongar group that had the claim in, they could be interested in doing something.

  Lee might have contacts. Maybe Aunty Rene would know someone. Didn’t she work with young men? Well here was plenty of work for young men.

  But they’d have to be paid, she couldn’t ask them to do it for nothing. Expect them to help fix the bloody mess.

  Dear Lee, you’re right. There’s not much we haven’t fucked up. We took your land and we’ve damn near destroyed it. We need you. Please come and help before it’s too late.

  Some sort of action, that was the thing, they needed to do something positive. Now, while their lives were turned inside out. Cut across all the old habits. The old thinking.

  ‘How do you feel about farming, Brian?’

  Brian blinked. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Have you ever thought about doing something else? Is it what you really want to do?’

  ‘God, Mum. That’s a big question.’

  ‘After your father died …’ Marian hesitated. They’d never talked about this before, never talked about anything, if it came to that, except farm business. ‘I always felt a bit guilty. Maybe you would have liked to stay at school?’

  ‘You needed help,’ he said flatly.

  Oh hell. It was true. She’d mucked up his life too.

  Marian cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry. I should have paid someone. Not just depended on you.’ But they wouldn’t have been able to afford it. There were bad years, prices down, and she was trying to learn everything at once.

  She persevered. ‘But if you had a chance now, what would you do?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘It’s funny you ask,’ he said slowly. ‘I was going to talk to you about it. I’ve been mulling it over. Then this business with Charlie blew up.’

  ‘Mulling what over?’ Marian asked, jolted. A week ago she wouldn’t have dreamed that he had any ideas beyond the farm.

  Did she want to hear this? But she had to know now.

  ‘It’s Tom.’

  ‘Tom?’ she asked, mind blank.

  ‘God, Mum. Michelle’s Dad. Anyhow, he’s asked me if I want to go into the business. You know. Learn it before he retires. Take over.’

  Marian was stunned.

  She had thought the last week was as bad as it could get. But that was only the beginning, she realised now, seeing vistas of trees toppling, walls crumbling, For Sale signs flapping. Everyone else would move on without her. It was a cold trickle of loneliness.

  He was going. She’d lost them both.

  What had she thought, when she asked him? Hoped he would say I love farming, Mum, and I’ll never leave you?

  She tried to concentrate on the practical issues. The machinery part of it would suit him.

  Brian splayed his fingers out on the steering wheel, stretched them, then gripped the wheel again more tightly.

  ‘It’s a solid company,’ he said.

  Marian recognised the pleading note in his voice. This was something he really wanted.

  ‘What about the business side, the paperwork?’ she asked, staring straight ahead, unwilling to look at him. ‘Accounts and all that?’

  ‘How different can it be from running a farm? I’ll learn. I used to like that stuff at school.’

  ‘What does Michelle think?’ No need to ask. Michelle had never taken to farm life.

  ‘She wants me to do it. She’d like to move back to town.’

  Move. Marian suppressed panic. ‘Move to Albany?’

  ‘Yes. But I hadn’t got that far. Not without talking to you, seeing what you want to do.’

  They’d obviously talked it through, he and Michelle. A wave of bitterness rose in Marian.

  ‘It would make things easier now to be in Albany,’ Brian went on. ‘For the kids especially. It’s a big town, more anonymous.’

  It took Marian a moment to realise what he meant. Now. Now that they were a murderer’s family.

  ‘We could take Michelle’s name,’ he said, staring straight ahead.

  The ringing in her ears was so loud that she could hear nothing except the thud of her own heart. He was disowning them. Her and Charlie.

  Brian was back to the question of the job. ‘It would mean a fair bit of driving if we stayed at the farm. Might be all right at first. I’d be on the road anyway.’

  Marian gazed out the window, eyes hot, trying to focus on the paddocks, counting telegraph poles.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m trying to take it in.’

  ‘I know it’s not a good time to tell you.’

  ‘No. It’s not.’ She dragged out a hanky and blew her nose.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Oh well. When will it ever be a good time? Charlie’s thrown us in the deep end. We just have to keep swimming.’

  Brian spoke after a long silence filled only with the noise of the car.

  ‘Would you think of retiring?’ he asked. ‘Selling up?’

  Admitting defeat.

  Maybe she needed more than just a programme for young men to do landcare. Maybe it was time to sell the whole place back to the Noongars. But how could you demand money for something you’d fucked up? We took the land, we ripped the guts out of it. Now we want to sell it back to you.

  ‘We should give the farm back. For nothing.’

  Brian swerved violently and swore. ‘What do you mean? Who to?’

  ‘To the Aboriginal people. The Noongar Corporation I suppose.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Mum. You can’t give land away.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s not that simple … you can’t …’

  ‘We took it in the first place. Why not just give it back?’

  ‘Free? You’re barking. What about the money we owe the bank?’

  ‘But we did, didn’t we? Take the land.’

  ‘We did not. We didn’t take anything. Grandpa’s family paid good money for it. Not to mention the hard work.’

  ‘All right, all right. Don’t panic. I’m only saying we should do something.’

  ‘You start trying to help those people and you’ll never hear the end of it. A dry sponge, that’s what they are.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Brian.’

  But it was exactly what she’d thought herself before she met Lee.

  ‘You can’t turn back the bloody clock, you know,’ Brian said. ‘Okay, maybe it wasn’t always fair, but you can’t change that now. They don’t even want the land.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘They’re not farmers. It would all go to rack and ruin.’

  ‘You don’t know that, Brian. And anyhow, what we call rack and ruin might be a lot better for the land. Give it a chance to recover, regrow, reabsorb the salt.’

  Brian grunted.

  ‘Well you’re the one that got the revegetation going.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’ He pushed back into the seat to stretch his shoulders, arms straight on the steering wheel.

  ‘I think about Grandpa sometimes,’ he said. ‘And Dad too. How they sweated over the clearing. I can remember that last stretch, down by the creek.’

  Two
small figures, dancing round the burning windrows in unholy glee.

  ‘Yes. You loved the fires.’

  ‘And now we’re replanting it all. They must be turning in their graves, Dad and Grandpa. And it might be too late anyway.’

  ‘Don’t say that. It can’t be too late.’

  The road unrolled in front of them, kilometre after kilometre. Marian shut her eyes and concentrated on the hum.

  ‘Those Aboriginal organisations do buy properties sometimes, it’s true,’ Brian said. He’d obviously been thinking. ‘I’ve heard of it. Could be a proposition. They probably get bloody grants,’ he added.

  Suddenly it was all too much for Marian. Sell the farm and go away? Where to?

  ‘I don’t know. It’s all a bit too soon for me. I can’t think straight.’

  She saw the droop in his face. ‘It’s okay, Brian. I don’t want to stand in your way. Give me a few weeks, all right?’

  ‘Yeah, of course. Nothing will happen until next year anyway. I told Tom that already.’

  ‘Can we talk about it again? With Michelle too,’ she added, swallowing her pride.

  Jeb was at Michelle and Brian’s house. Once he would have followed her car the extra kilometre, barking joyfully. But his racing days were over. Marian moved over into the driver’s seat while Brian helped the dog clamber in beside her.

  ‘Come over soon,’ Michelle said. ‘Any time.’

  She and Brian stood side by side while Marian drove off.

  The house was cold and unlived in. Marian turned on the kitchen light and dropped her bag on a chair. Someone had finished washing the china. It was stacked on the bench with a clean tea towel draped over it. Michelle. Bless her.

  The mail was piled neatly in the middle of the table. Mostly bills, circulars. Pushed to one side was an envelope marked Department of Corrective Services. The address was scrawled in Charlie’s childish writing.

  Marian sat down, breathless.

  Jeb pushed his head onto her knee.

  ‘I have to read it, old boy. Whatever it says, I have to live with it.’

  A cup of tea would be good. But she couldn’t make herself get up again. She leaned on the table with the letter in her hand.

  Get on with it.

  Wriggling her finger under the flap she pulled out the letter. A single sheet. She turned it over. Nothing on the back. No date, no greeting on the front.

  They sweep down through the clouds. They belong to the night and the high places. They watch from the hidden folds of time.