Rural Dreams Page 12

  We go to the kebab shop and drink Czech beers while we wait for our orders. A man with a sallow face slumps along past us, his hoodie low over his face. A whiff of stale Jack Daniels follows him and I wave the away the smell as I read the back of his top, ‘Prague pub crawl – the best night you’ll never remember.’

  Rob is watching him too. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing Daniel didn’t make it here.’

  I give him a look, but he carries on regardless.

  ‘He wouldn’t have liked it. Too many people.’ When I speak, I’m angry and my words come out slow and deliberate, ‘Dan wanted to come to these places forever. He was always going over maps of Europe, don’t you remember?’

  ‘Yeah, but can you imagine him here? Going over that bridge with those crowds?

  He’d want to jump off!’

  ‘Be pretty hard in a wheelchair.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  I do know what he means. Dan had never been around crowds like this, not even in Melbourne, I hadn’t till I came here. But, he would have loved all this architecture, all the stories and history. He’d have loved that.

  ‘Well,’ Rob paused, feeling bad. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I might go on the Prague pub crawl.’

  ‘Not tonight – I mean, after Prague?’

  ‘Vienna, then Dubrovnik, then home.’

  Rob goes quiet. ‘You make it sound like a chore,’ he says.

  As a kid, Rob hated our town and left for Uni first chance he could. But his studies in ag science means he’s always coming back home, working on some new farming technique for his parents. He’s been really helpful for mum and dad too.

  I go quiet. We both quietly sit in the Prague kebab shop drinking our Czech beers. I think about Daniel in the wheelchair, sitting in the kitchen looking out the window at the paddocks. He was always the farmer, not me. And the world map above his single bed – with the red dots over all the places he wanted to go – Paris, Bruges, Dubrovnik, Prague, Vienna, London, Rome.

  Later on, the X-rays would remind me of that map, the dots marked out by the surgeon each a new place the cancer had spread. The liver, the spleen, the lungs, the pituitary glands, it was like that game of Operation we played when we were kids.

  I finish my beer and buy another one for us. Rob’s looking at some painting, I’m looking out the window. I’m thinking of the scramble my parents made to try to mitigate the symptoms; first – the painting of the house to counter rising damp, the paring back of pesticide use on the farm and the battles with the owners of the nearby pine plantations to halt their twice-yearly helicopter sprays which for years had drifted onto our farm. While it might have explained the lack of blackberries on our farm, the doctors couldn’t completely exclude the spraying as a possible cause of Dan’s illness.

  At one stage during the treatment, my parents would have paid thousands to fly to Prague to listen to people like Wolf. People who espoused crazy diets, who promised miracle cures if only you listened to them and heeded their word and their wallets. And all the time there’s Dan, his wheelchair positioned by the kitchen window looking out at the farm.

  It was strange, as my parents sought new ways of farming to try to halt Dan’s illness, the land yielded unexpected results. The paddocks became alive with native grasses, plenty of feed for the stock. In the wind, they looked like an orchestra or an audience bowed by a magnificent show.

  I think about my father’s big farmer arms carrying his emaciated twenty-year old son from chair to bed. Those big arms with the farmer’s tan and the haggard skin of a white Australian’s life outdoors and his son’s, sallow and dry, like flaking paint on a dilapidated house. It wasn’t right seeing that, and it wasn’t right seeing dad heaving with dry sobs by the tractor later on. The big golden brown of the paddocks and that grey green of the bush, there’s not a selfie stick in sight.

  I’m only here because of Daniel. Finishing off what he couldn’t start. But it’s not me that should be here, it’s him. He’s the one who read all the history books – who knew about the plagues and the wars and the uprisings and the genocides. He’s the one who knew what writer lived where and what film is set in what city. I don’t know all that and I don’t care.

  I’ve nearly missed a whole netball season for this, I think. Someone else will have taken on Goal Attack and if it’s that Kate Brunt then my goal record could be in serious jeopardy. I don’t give a shit about art.

  If the truth be told, what I’d most like to be doing right now is trudging over the paddocks with Daniel, towels wrapped around bare shoulders, making our way to the dam like we used to when we were kids. Once there, we’d swim out to the old pontoon and dive bomb off it all afternoon. Sometimes the neighbours’ kids would join us, but most often it would be just me and Dan, whiling away the hot afternoons.

  Maybe Wolf, for all his adventures – longs most of all to huddle up in the warmth of his mother’s bungalow in Dusseldorf.

  I finish my second beer and grab another. I’m thinking of the farm now and how it’s never looked better. Dan would have loved it. I can’t find any trace of my brother in the Northern Hemisphere. All these places I’m chasing him and he’s not here, he’s not here. Maybe in their grief, mum and dad have created a place where we can finally see him.

  Rob is saying how quick the time is going and that there’s only two weeks to go before we fly out. By all accounts, I should be saddened by this. I swig my beer. One more city done and dusted, I think. I look out the window and watch all the people hurry past, a selfie stick or two holding up the crowds. I mouth a silent prayer into my drink – forgive me Dan, I know I’m a crap traveller – but I hate Europe and there’s only fourteen more sleeps till I’m home.

  MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

  I’ll tell you me first fucken mistake, callin’ him Brayden.

  If I had of called him Hugo, or William or fucken Theodore, this stuff wouldn’t have been half as hard.

  No, all my choices there were up shit creek: Braydon, Brandon, Jayden and Jaxon, Brodie, Bhodie, Brenton and Brogan – these were all me faves.

  Can’t smoke here you say? Pity. No probs, I’ll just finish this one and maybe the last in my pack. Giving up after that. Giving Up the Fags for Good.

  I had a friend down Corio way, called her twin boys Benson and Hedges. Nice names you know? Original.

  But oh, the press went fucken mad.

  ‘Don’t you worry love,’ I said to Tahleesha, their mum, ‘by the time those kids are 10 there’ll be no Benson and Hedges. Smoking’ll be pretty much illegal by then and the boys’ll have no probs.’ ‘No’, I said. ‘It would have been more fucken offensive if you had have called the boys Plain and Packaging.’

  Honestly mate, if you didn’t laugh you’d fucken cry.

  Yep, I can see that just by looking around here; youse lot know yer bible, that’s for sure – there’s yer Benjamins, your Nathanials, yer Daniels and yer Samuels.

  That’s what I should have done, got out the old bible and picked the first boy’s name.

  Adam he’d be then wouldn’t he? Yeah, back in the day I was a Catholic. I know me ascensions and me fucken assumptions.

  Oh, I can tell you, there’s been many a time I’ve drooled as a teenager over Songs of Solomon, if ya know what I mean. Those kinky fucken bastards…

  Well you know what? Maybe Adam would have suited him. He does like naked bodies judgin’ by what’s in his third drawer.

  There goes a Joseph. Jesus, you lot do like them names. Oh, and don’t mind me language, I might not always mind my ps and qs but I never say the C word. No, the last thing I want to do is offend anyone. You won’t hear a C.H.R.I.S.T from me.

  Oh, I know he’s been in the shit before. He can be a right little shit, Brayden can. Fart gas on the music teacher’s recorder, socks down his pants during his oral performance, singing God Save Gina Rinehart during the assembly.

  ‘Brayden Jacobs, how surprising,’ the House Master’d say. ‘Haven’t
you learnt that at this school we have standards? We’re not in regional Victoria now. Hand me the detention form Reginald.’

  Yep, youse teachers deserve all you get I tell you. I think most of youse are fucken brilliant. Yez can have yer 20 weeks holiday a year and yer bloody student free days. I wouldn’t do it, no fucken way. Get me in front of a group of teenagers and I’m struck down stupid. It’s all this ‘Yeah like, ok’ and ‘like it’s so random’ and ‘like, whatever’ and ‘literally’ then there’s ya One Directions and ya No Directions and Katies Perrys – no Brian Ferrys, or Mariah Careys.

  Look, despite all the shit – actually a city sewer of shit that he put you lot through – Brayden does love this school now.

  Oh, he was fucken brilliant in that Shakespeare play you put on last year wasn’t he? What was it? Yeah, Merchant of Venice. Shylock he played, and when he did that speech, you know, ‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’ I swear I bawled myself stupid.

  Yeah, Brayden was brilliant. Shakespeare too.

  Course I didn’t understand what the fuck it was all about, but I went all five nights, sat right in the front row. Proud as fucken punch.

  Oh, when he first moved down he was as unhappy as a greenie in Chadstone.

  ‘Mum,’ he’d say on the phone. ‘They don’t get me here and what’s a chai latte?’

  ‘Brayden,’ I’d say. ‘It’s some green shit they drink to make them feel as if they’re on the same level as poor Indians, don’t you worry about that. You worry about your geography and yer civics and yer fuckin language studies.’

  ‘Mum,’ he’d say. ‘Take me back to Long Gully. The scholarship’s not worth it.’

  ‘Brayden love,’ I’d say, me heart breaking, ‘It’s more like fucken bong gully now. Not good for a young man like yourself. And besides, you’re the first in the family to finish school in the last two hundred years.’

  I know that because I looked it up on ancestry dot com. Cost me 200 bucks to find out that scintillatin’ piece of shit.

  I’d visit Brayden here at the school when I could of course. Get me discount on the train down to Melbourne and take him out for lunch. Sizzlers and that. Good times. We really missed each other.

  Then after a few years, he didn’t want me around so much. You know what teenagers are like. He got used to all those boys named Theodore and William. Started staying at their place on weekends, talking about their mothers named Cynthia and Annabel.

  ‘Mum,’ he’d say, ‘Cynthia and Annabel don’t wear thongs down the street, they don’t smoke and they don’t rave on about Chrisco’s new Christmas hamper.’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Do Cynthia and Annabel work two jobs to pay for their son’s winter uniform and don’t they know that this year’s Chrisco’s Christmas hamper includes not one but two tinned hams plus a yearly subscription to That’s Life?’

  Oh look, it hurt when he rejected me. Cut me right to the bone. I’d sit in my little unit listening to the neighbours’ brawl and I’d pine for my only boy.

  They wanted me to give him up when he was born you know.

  Said a single mother aged 17 wasn’t fit to bring up a child. Said I was corrupted. Well, I hated their words and I loved my boy so I put him in a little bundle of towels and carried him out of St. Mary’s Hospital and into the world. Lived in caravans, in units, in women’s shelters till he was old enough for school and I could get work as a cleaner.

  It was always just the two of us through the tough times and plenty more happy ones.

  I remember the first time he acknowledged he was a bit different from the other kids at Eaglehawk High.

  I was sitting with a cuppa and an Iced VoVo looking at me new budda fountain – that’s the football player, not the fat religious bloke, – when he walks out of his bedroom, stands straight in front of me, looks in me eye and announces that he’s coming out.

  ‘Where from?’ I go.

  ‘Mum,’ he goes, ‘I’m gay.’

  ‘Darlin’,’ I go, ‘I’ve known you were gay since your 12th birthday. It’s not every kid that requests an Elton John themed ball for his party.’

  My oath! I was up till 3:00am making all the kids in his class tiaras.

  Not one boy turned up to that party. I guess there’s not many that like playing pin the tail on Ellen DeGeneres.

  Still, he and I had a good time.

  I tiarad up with some girls and sang ‘Crocodile Rock’ till me voice box ached. ‘La, La la la la lahhh, la la la lahhh’! – Oh yeah, I can carry a tune. Don’t get me started! Should hear me do ‘Leavin’ on a Jet Plane’.

  No, when Brayden told me he was gay I just gave him a big hug. A very long hug.

  Cos after all I wouldn’t care if he was half cockerspaniel. I just want him to be a good person.

  That’s all that fucken matters don’t you think?

  What’s in a name? Brayden says to me last night, rehearsing for his next play.

  What’s in a name I think, and I wonder if he ever falls in love with an Edward or a Richard will there be as much hoo haa as there was in Verona.

  If the truth be told I worry about him at times.

  It’s hard work being a gay Brayden. That rich little bugger Romeo had it all when you think about it. Yeah, maybe Adam would’ve been a better choice.

  It seems a long time ago now, but when the shit hit the fan earlier in the year, when some kid named Hamilton Crawley wrote faggot on Brayden’s blazer – and when I rang the mother, Cynthia, she called my language offensive!

  It’s hard for a mother to watch I can tell you. Your sixteen-year-old son asking if he can get steroid treatment to make him look and sound more manly.

  So anyway, I lost it. Got in me Torana and I burned down the highway right into these school gates here. I marched up to the bloke’s office and asked him what he meant by giving the boy what done it two lunchtime detentions and banning them both from the school formal.

  ‘Well,’ he said, looking at me like I’m the cat’s turd, ‘while we don’t condone bullying, Brayden does not help the situation with his daily actions,’ – and now, what was it? –‘because his lifestyle preferences are at odds with the school’s hundred year old traditions and all its values and because his questionable morals made a mockery of the church and school and that, coupled with his disordered upbringing means that Brayden has been, at times, unfit to represent the school.’

  I leaned right into him.

  ‘You,’ I said, ‘You mind your fucken language.’

  Brayden went to the social. Wore a bright yellow suit. Looked so handsome it hurt.

  Look at him out there, piss fartin’ around. He’s happier now you know.

  Says it’s drama and his mother what’s got him through. Drama and his mother.

  Wonder if Shakespeare’s mum was as proud of her boy as I am of mine?

  I doubt it actually. I don’t recall William ever received a theatre scholarship to Melbourne College of the Immaculate Boys.

  Hath not a Jew eyes? Brayden sez. What’s in a name? He sez.

  Nah, be blown with callin’ him Adam. Be blown with that shit.

  After this ceremony, after Brayden gives his speech for being drama captain, we’ll go down St. Kilda beach, just the two of us. We’ll have some fish’n’chips, I’ll drink a bundy and Brayden’ll have his coke.

  Later, I’ll sit back and watch my beautiful boy while he swims like a dolphin and I’ll look at all those around him.

  The Jaydens and the Haydens, the Christobelles and the Annabells, the Jack Daniels and the Daniel Jacks... I’ll watch Brayden and the lot of ‘em in the warm evening sky and I’ll think – what a fucken wonderful world this is.

  RETURN

  We come wheeling up the road, dust flying as the old car takes the turn. To any local onlookers we’re as happy as Larry; we’re pigs in mud; we’re a pack of galahs. We’re singing and shouting, trying to remember the old club song. We make it for three quarter time and the old bloke in the ticket shed waves us through wit
h a wrinkled thumb. ‘Carn the Imps,’ he croaks, fag dangling on lower lip and teeth like corrugated iron. By a stroke of luck, we find a park on the boundary line, right near our goals. We jump out and the smaller kids scramble to swing on the fading rails and bang their hands on the old billboards. One of them collides into an older woman and her thermos of tea is spilt on her rug. I run over to apologise, kneeling in the warm wet grass and dabbing at her blanket with my sleeve. ‘It’s ok love,’ she bends in to look at me, ‘we can’t blame ourselves for what the kids get up to.’ I back away smiling, trying to recall the face.

  The crowd roars and I squeeze in between the kids, lean over and search the players. I’m like a sniper, eyes trained to detect my target. It doesn’t take me long. He’s there, on the half forward flank, bright and shiny as Bondi beach.

  The ball comes toward him and he’s running backward with long, slow strides, calculating the falling arc – arms held up like a worshipper. I hold my breath and grip the rail hard, the flaking paint like peeling skin beneath my hands. There’s a thudding of feet as the opposition crowd in. It’s a dangerous, dangerous game and I don’t like it, I don’t like it and I’m watching and I’m willing as he leaps high, knee on a rival’s back, to grab the ball. The crowd sighs and cheers as he handballs to another player who kicks just as the siren blows. The crowd is going mad, busting to get over the rails to hear the coach spitting and swearing in his three-quarter morale booster, but I’m not saying a thing. Across the oval I’ve seen Jack’s father, Hugh. His son may have kicked the goal that’s put the Imperials in front, but we don’t smile. We don’t cheer. We stare at each other for a moment, a long moment. It’s like there’s a heavy rope joining us together across the field. It’s binding us, but we don’t want to reel the other in.

  I look down at my hands. On the peeling paint someone has scratched the words ‘I woz ere’.

  ‘Teamwork!’ Our coach is shouting, ‘Protect your space!’