Rural Dreams Read online

  RURAL DREAMS

  RURAL DREAMS

  Margaret Hickey

  First published 2020 by MidnightSun Publishing Pty Ltd

  PO Box 3647, Rundle Mall, SA 5000, Australia.

  www.midnightsunpublishing.com

  Copyright © Margaret Hickey 2020

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers (including, but not restricted to, Google and Amazon), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of MidnightSun Publishing.

  Cover design by Kim Lock

  Internal design by Zena Shapter

  Typeset in Garamond.

  Printed and bound in Australia by Ovato. The papers used by MidnightSun in the manufacture of this book are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable plantation forests.

  CONTENTS

  SATURDAY MORNING

  GLORY DAYS

  RESCUE

  SOLITARY

  FOWLER’S BAY

  COACH

  TWITCHER

  OVERCOAT JOE

  A BIT OF SCRAPBOOKING

  DESOLATE

  RUSTIK

  THE PRECIPICE

  THE RENOVATION

  THE WANDERER

  MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

  RETURN

  THE ROMANTICS

  BINKY

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  To Elizabeth, Andrew and Simon Hickey.

  Siblings are annoying, but also cool.

  SATURDAY MORNING

  It’s never easy to get up on a Saturday morning, but it’s harder still when it’s early morning, minus one degree outside and you’ve got a new girlfriend snuggled up in bed. She looks like a little bird, he thinks; thin and brown and mouth pursed like she’s about to speak.

  He lies for a moment hands behind head, staring at the window, trying to make out the first feeble rays of light. They’re not there yet. Not at this time of year. He closes his eyes for a second, feels sleep race towards him. It would be so easy to stay, easy to turn on his side, curl up beside Jess and put his hand up her top; feel her warm skin and quiet breathing. Nothing more than a phone call would do it. Gastro – food poisoning, the usual code for can’t be stuffed.

  He fumbles about the room trying not to wake her and when he farts, it’s in the bathroom. Early days yet. He’s quietly cursing whatever it is he’s doing, even as he pulls on his jeans and t-shirt. It’s cold here – but where he’s going it’s colder still and he locates his beanie. Last week he forgot it and the wind nearly blew his brains out.

  The house is asleep and the blokes he shares with won’t be up till almost midday. They got home with Jess late last night from band practice and they drank and sang till early in the morning. Not so long ago in fact. They thought he was mad for not joining them. But while he likes a drink, he’s not musical and besides, there’s always the morning to think of.

  The kitchen is a pigsty, but he doesn’t mind. Not really. He finds a bowl in the sink and gives it a rinse, finds a clean teaspoon. There’s not much by the way of food in the cupboard, but he fits six Weet-Bix in the bowl and piles on the sugar. If this was his family home there would be the smell of his father’s bread baking and a warm afterglow from the wood fire. Not here. He jumps up and down a bit, gives the milk a cursory sniff and eats as quietly and quickly as he can.

  He looks around. It’s alright for a share house, he’s been in worse. Next year, once he finishes engineering, he’ll be off overseas backpacking. Maybe with Jess. London, Europe, Asia, however long the money lasts. He knows it’s kind of boring, but mostly he’d like to go to Ireland; see the cliffs there, drive down those little roads. Jess would like to go to Shanghai but he’s not so sure.

  He brushes his teeth and takes a jug of hot water outside, pours it over the windscreen. The ice crackles and melts. In the distance, he hears a siren – the rise and fall of it a desolate wail. The city early morning is dense and dark, it’s still a time for headlights and lonely skyscrapers, for taxi drivers bringing home the dejected, the rejected and the newly arrived.

  He chucks his bag in the back of the old Holden and revs the engine. It’s noisy and right outside the bedroom window. The blind whips open and Jess’ face appears, as he half hoped it would. Her little bird features are ruffled, and her brown hair sticks to the side of her flushed face. She looks bleary with warmth and sleep and wine. She puts on a sad face and waves to him. He puts on a sad face and waves back. In response she shrugs and pulls the blind down fast. He backs out of the driveway and turns into the street.

  He’s been with her for three months, but he doesn’t fully get her. She’s his first real girlfriend and he thinks he might love her but he’s not sure. He feels proud of her sharp intelligence and the way people are drawn to her, but the endless talking exhausts him. Jess likes causes and heavy discussions deep into the night. She claims that he is her rock and that she needs him, but sometimes when she says that, when her teeth are stained from red wine like she’s just bitten the head off a possum, he feels slightly afraid. For the most part they are good together, they don’t fight and he finds the sex deeply satisfying. He probably does love her.

  But she can’t understand this, this need of his to leave early Saturday mornings every week from May till September. It wrecks their Friday nights, she says, hinders their weekend plans and prevents him from attending events important to her and their friends.

  Take today for instance. His roommates, friends since O Week first year, have been invited to play a gig at a pub in Fitzroy. That’s a paid gig. Offers like that don’t come around very often. Not for bands like Werribee don’t stink no more.

  A crowd is important at events like this. They would need to invite ALL their friends. Someone drew up a list. Someone else poured drinks. Would they invite their parents? No, because they’ll bring the mood down. Yes – because they’ll be the most likely to shout drinks and then the management will be pleased. Parents, tick. More discussion. And more. There was a slight change in the kitchen air when he said he couldn’t come. A not altogether pleasant one. He protested; it wouldn’t mean much if he wasn’t there – besides helping with the moving of equipment and driving the truck he wasn’t at all integral to their success and the band members all came from Melbourne. They’d have school friends, family members, neighbours and everyone turn up. Still, it stung – the change in the kitchen air, the way they’d all looked at each other as if they’d already discussed his absence.

  ‘Simon can drive the truck,’ he said. There may have been a hint of derision in his voice – why, after all, did only one of them have a licence? He’d been driving for as long as he could remember; four wheelers, utes, tractors. Driving manual along dirt roads, along fence lines and around empty dams.

  ‘Yeah, but Simon’s at his sister’s wedding and he’s the usher.’ The accusation lay thick in the air. Being an usher was a real excuse for not turning up to a mate’s first gig. Travelling three hours to play a game of footy was not.

  He changes gear, listens to the engine make the necessary adjustments, settles into his seat and wonders if they have got that one right. It’s a drive he makes every Saturday during the season and each time he wonders why the hell he does it.

  He’s on the highway now, just out of the city. The sky is orange pink, a poorly concealed promise and the kilometres ticking over – just over two and a half hours to go. Like eve
ry week his parents will be at the game today, watching him from behind goal and afterward he’ll go over to them to hear a quiet and fair assessment. Last year, he still brought his washing home for his mother to do but he’s stopped that now. Any noble intentions of not taking advantage of her subsides, however, when her cooking is involved and he doesn’t say no when she piles up his car with sausage rolls and relish for him and his housemates. He loves those sausage rolls, could do with one right now.

  Why does he do it? He slows down to drive through a sleepy town while he thinks. There’s the old coach of course: tight footy shorts no matter what the weather and a whiteboard with movements so calculated they’d rival the Desert Fox. He demands loyalty. And every quarter time speech without fail it’s the same drill, an old man’s plea: ‘This game could be it boys! A new golden age for the club, for the town even! Three quarters to go boys – believe in yourselves, we can do this.’

  No one believes the coach about the game or the town. Just look at the place dying and all the closures. Just look at the state of the town hall, the numbers in the primary school. Fact is, his home-town is an old dog waiting to be shot and the team won’t last another two seasons. There’s only so many times you can hyphenate the name of a football club and merge with old rivals.

  But no one ever takes the coach to task. It’s Super Boot Dowsley for Christ sake, saviour of the 1973 grand final, father of two draft nominees and one boy whose white cross he’ll drive past just before Derrinallum. The coach is a legend of the town and a member of the club for 45 years. You can’t knock him.

  He changes gears and slows down, pulling onto the side of the road for a piss. He says hello to the sheep, making out their soft shapes in the dark and they bleat softly, half awake. He gets in the car again. Starts up. Passes two towns just waking up and one that never will. But it’s not just Super Boot that brings him back to play each week, he thinks as the world rolls on by. It’s more than that, though it’s hard to think what it might actually be with the blue commodore tailgating him and the signs up ahead telling him to slow down, have a rest, take a break.

  Kate Brunt will be at the game today, playing netball in Division one. It’s soothing to think of her brown arms and strong thighs as she darts along the court. He finds himself doing that in lectures sometimes. Thinking about her and the way she moves. She’s goal keeper. In grade five he scratched their initials on the back of the scoreboard and they’re still there for everyone to see.

  He thinks of his team mates; blokes he went to primary school with, for whom he’s been in fights on account of, for and with. They’ve got names like Carbo and Stitcher and Disco and they go out with girls in the netball team. He sometimes tells his house mates about these blokes and feels a sting of regret as he does. In telling his stories, he’s feeding into their assumptions about people who choose to live in country towns. He’s giving them what they want, making them feel superior about their commerce degrees and pissy houses in the ‘burbs. But despite what his house mates think, the boys on his team are not stupid. Half of them have been to uni and returned, smart as anyone he sits in tutorials with, but it doesn’t stop them from yelling ‘Dazzle ‘em with Shakespeare’ every time he marks the ball.

  The highway must be clogged with young blokes like him. Driving home on Saturday mornings to play for teams with names like Jeparit-Rainbow, Manangatang-Tooleybuc and Tempe-Goyer-Patche. Young blokes on the highway just like him, leaving the city behind. They’re all driving, hundreds and hundreds of kilometres, full of regret and wonderment at the pull that keeps them returning week after week. At the push that takes them back.

  He’ll never be a star player, never win the Best and Fairest. But he’s steady, he knows that. He’s a strong kick and while he can’t turn up to training, he’ll be one of the first ones on the ground today warming up. He’s barely missed a game in three years.

  His team, the Seagulls, gets flogged by 10 goals every game and not a victory in sight. It’s making its last squawk, his team, and he’ll be there each week to usher in every dying loss in the mud, every slipped mark, every out of bounds on the full.

  His elbow is out the window now, and there’s a good song on the radio and he’s hit the shire boundaries. And there it comes, that big ball of a sun, that big ball of orange rising up over the horizon. It jolts him every time. Rays light up the stone fences, hit the trees and illuminate the paddocks. The old gums shimmer green and grey in the early morning light and the world appears golden quiet. It’s like it is every Saturday, a new era.

  They might have a chance today.

  He’s home.

  GLORY DAYS

  He wakes, heart beating fast and a vision of glory. In his dreams he’s flying fast, over low hills, far above the trees and into the stars. He can see lights on the horizon and he’s almost there, it’s not a moment away and when he wakes he doesn’t mind too much because he’s sure he’s had a glimpse of what’s to come.

  Already he can already see it: the crowded streets, the smell of perfume and the giant high-rises lit up at night like lighthouses. It’s the prospect of work, of money, of friends and of the night. No more discussions about rain and cows, it will be all about novels and films and experience. Because that’s what I can’t get here he thinks: life experience. He’s yearning for it. He’s drowning here in a crusty dam and he must get out.

  One more day till he finds out his ATAR score. It’s mid-afternoon and he’s in his bedroom, legs dangling over the end of a single bed. A blow fly buzzes over his head, making long, slow arcs about the room. He’s spent a lot of time in this room since the end of Year 12, sleeping mainly and sometimes thinking.

  The fly dips in low near him, then heads across to the window where it rests a moment on the sill. The term ATAR sounds like something from another planet and he imagines himself in a brave new world, a hero of sorts, fighting for the common man. His ATAR will determine what planet he’ll exist on and he’s pretty sure that it will be a good one. Anything under 90 and he’ll be gutted. ATAR, he says aloud. Then he makes his voice low and says it in a Darth Vader voice, ATAR.

  His mother calls him and he farts loudly in response. She’s at the door in a moment, telling him to go and get his father because it’s time to go to Grandma’s.

  He grunts in assent.

  ‘Ten minutes Rob,’ she says. ‘Get up now darl.’

  His mother doesn’t look too bad for 47, but the way she talks; it’s like she’s a character in some moron sitcom! He lets out a long drawn-out sigh. It’s a wonder how he came to be born in this family he thinks, and not for the first time. When, at school interviews, his politics teacher told his parents that his essay on the Russian Revolution was the best he’d ever seen, they stared at him open mouthed. ‘And to think,’ his father marvelled, ‘he’s never been further than Mildura.’

  Later that night he’d tried to explain to them about his essay, how he’d argued that the intelligentsia inspired social democracy and bolshevism in Europe. But his parents just kept eating their sausages, laughing at how they must have been a pack of posers to call themselves intelligentsia.

  Rob gives his shoes a sniff and puts them on. He’ll be glad to leave this room. It’s too small for him and there’s a smell in it he’ll be pleased to be rid of.

  Outside the heat hits him smack in the face. It’s a northerly blast with Wimmera dirt for shrapnel and he covers his face with his hands. The air clings to him and his thighs chafe with every step. A small willy-willy rises up out of nowhere and angles its way toward him. He half thinks about racing into the midst of it as he used to when he was a kid, but it dies down quickly and all is still again. Well there goes my excitement for the day, he thinks, and then he says ATAR again in his Vader voice.

  All about him the land is dying. That’s the thing about farms, he thinks, you’re constantly reminded of death and never life. Calves drown in troughs, sheep get their limbs caught in barbed wire and they die, bloodied and covered in flies. Ew
es bleat while foetuses hang out of them and foxes hover on the fence lines. Even his old man, face wrinkled like a sultana, looks half gone. He finds his father near the shed, up to his neck in some sort of animal shit, deliberating.

  ‘Dad!’ he shouts over the low din of the animals, ‘Grandma’s thing.’

  His father raises his thumb in understanding, gives his lower back a rub and goes back to whatever it is he’s doing. All the farmers around here are old, he thinks. It’s like some sort of virus hits when people turn 18 and the young have to leave. He turns back toward the house.

  The bird boxes supposed to attract the rare turquoise parrot are lined up hopefully beneath the sagging gums near the empty dam. No bird has even bothered to shit on them. They’re tired sentinels from another era but his mother remains positive. Once spring comes, she says every year. She’s always on about stuff like that. Always in the garden; planting, mulching, pruning, weeding. Native grasses and whatnot. His parents are mad for it. Nature! What good is it? He thinks. Leave that stuff to David Attenborough and all the other old fogies, he’s out of here. He goes back inside, returns to his room, lies down and waits.

  ~~~

  They arrive at his Grandma’s to find that there’s already a paddock half-filled with cars from the district. When he opens the door to get out, slowly and with great effort, his father gives him a look.

  ‘Wearing strides on a day like this!’ he says. ‘You’ll be hot Rob.’

  This is a conversation they have had before.

  ‘They’re not strides,’ he reminds his father. ‘They’re stovepipes.’ Stovepipes are like jeans, but they’re tight. Really tight.

  ‘Stick that in your stovepipe and smoke it,’ his mother says to his father and they both grin. That grin. He’s not a fan. Sometimes it’s hard to catch what it means, but not today. He’s seen them wink too, though that one is harder to detect. At the parent teacher interview for instance, after his father said, ‘And to think, he’s never been further than Mildura!’ there may have been a wink directed at his mother. But maybe not.