Rural Dreams Read online

  That night, at my request, we go to the pub. There’s only so many childhood photos of Terry I can take. I hobble along the asphalt in my new wedges and link my arm in Terry’s.

  ‘Having a good time?’ I ask.

  ‘I’d like to be on the road by nine,’ he says.

  The Commercial is pumping. It’s one of those oldtime pubs, built in the heyday when wheat was king and sons stuck around. We make our way through the front door, feet sticking to a carpet that’s seen better days. We bypass the ladies’ lounge and move straight to the bar. Terry recognises a tall man leaning on the wall, black and white photos behind him like he’s about to give a talk.

  ‘Carbo Wilson!’ Terry says and walks over to shake the man’s hand. I’m introduced to Carbo Wilson and the two men are soon in a discussion about the state of the local oval. I look around the room and drink my beer in quick gulps. The bar is full of men in checked shirts and women drinking vodka cruisers. There’s a band starting up, two men and a girl with a country style twang. A group of men play pool under a print of dogs playing pool and an older lady sells me a raffle ticket for a prize I don’t want to win. Terry buys Carbo and me another beer.

  I feel myself relaxing. A glass smashes somewhere in the pub and someone yells, ‘Taxi!’ Pubs are the same everywhere, I think fondly. I like pubs. A pub is where I met Terry. My husband is still talking about the 1990 Grand Final where his town beat the slightly bigger town in what the other man claimed was an epic match. Ten goals down at half time and their ruckman, Oysters Dean, off with a hammy. I zone out and drift to the bar where someone else tells me about the 1990 Grand Final. I say, ‘How’s about that comeback?’ and they beam.

  After a few drinks I meet Oysters Dean and I fall upon him like a hero. ‘How’s your hammy!’ I yell and he’s handsome as you like. His hammy is better but now he’s got a crook shoulder from where he fell off the four-wheeler. I get another beer and look around for my husband. He’s still there at the doorway, talking to a different man – bending down and nodding.

  I wave to him to come over, but he signals to me that he’s talking and I nod. Terry’s not exactly your most outgoing kind of guy. Someone asks me who I am and where I’m from and soon I’m telling a story to a small crowd, because if it’s one thing I know how to do well, it’s tell a tale. Soon they’re laughing about the time I bowled Terry out for a duck at the office Christmas party and how he got the office dress up day mixed up last year and came to work in a toga.

  I meet another farmer named Sven who lived in Ireland for a year. His real name is Steve. Sven was too old to play in that 1990 game and, instant allies, we stagger to the DJ to request Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days’. The band does a semi-passable rendition of the song and Sven and I dance and sing along. Afterward, I meet someone named Jake who is good looking in a kind of cocky, boy band way.

  ‘Terry’s done well for himself,’ Jake says to me.

  ‘I’ve done well for myself,’ I say. But I know it’s true.

  Jake takes a long swig of beer and steps a little closer, ‘that right?’

  ‘Yep,’ I take a step back.

  ‘Terry ever tell you about the egg war?’ he asks.

  ‘The egg war?’ I ask. ‘No, never heard of it.’

  ‘It was epic, every kid in town was involved. Terry would remember it.’

  ‘Would he now,’ I say, and I yell, ‘Terry! Come over here.’

  But Terry’s deep in conversation with the same old man and doesn’t look around. I lean in close to Jake and he talks, ‘What we’d do see, is get heaps of eggs from the chooks and go around pelting them like mad allaround town and at each other. We had a van we’d stay in and then at the last moment we’d open the door and pelt them as hard as we could.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, ‘I bet Terry would have loved that,’ although on that note, I’m not too sure.

  ‘Well,’ Jake says with a sideways smile, ‘I don’t know about that. It was Terry we were egging see. A few times when he’d duck into the house we’d throw it right after him. We figured his parents probably wouldn’t even notice a thing.’ The music stops for a second and Sven wheels away. I make my lips into a thin smile, ‘That wasn’t very nice,’ I say.

  ‘Aww, we were only kids.’

  ‘Arsehole kids.’

  He’s not smiling anymore and he looks over the top of my head and around the bar.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ he says. ‘Stuck up fucking moles like you wouldn’t understand what fun was if it smacked you in the arse.’

  He walks off and I want to say something clever but I can’t think of anything. I just stand there like a village idiot. Jake saunters over to a group of men and they begin laughing. Oysters Dean pretends to throw something my way and to my shame, I flinch. More laughter. I feel the beer churn and I want to get out of there. The band starts up again and a drunken couple stumble into me, pushing me to one side. I spin around, looking for Terry but he’s gone and I make my way to the door, arms in front like I’m blindfolded. Sven’s face appears, pink and doughy. I push past him. People part to make way for me, figures a blur. The doors of The Commercial burst open.

  Outside, the stars fall and the sky leans low. It’s as if someone has engineered the whole set of a sky to droop just as I walked out. I lean over my knees and breathe deeply for one – two – three – four, then I straighten and gaze again, into the starry night.

  I’m a couple of minutes into my walk home when I hear a low ‘hey’ and I make out the figure of Terry, standing underneath a tree. He says he’s been waiting for me and wants to show me something.

  ‘I’m never drinking again,’ I say.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I might spew.’

  Terry waits while I rest my head on the trunk of his tree. Stars wobble bright.

  ‘And plus,’ I add. ‘I hate your friends.’

  ‘They’re not my friends.’

  ‘They’re mean.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve told you that.’ It’s true, he has.

  Part of me wants him to go back into the pub and challenge Jake to a duel, but it’s quiet here and the slight warm breeze makes this starry night a thing of beauty. I’m grateful for Terry’s cool hand and sober voice as he leads me across a dusty park and over a low fence. We’re in the scrub now, small bushes and warm dirt. I am led up a small incline and once up the top, the Mallee and the small town spread out before us. There’s only a faint moon, but I can make out the pub, the pool and the shop. Houses are dark square blobs. There’s no lights on where Terry’s house must be.

  Terry points out an old building at the bottom of the hill on the opposite side to town. I can make out an old shed, falling down, with stumpy trees all about it. I ask what it is.

  ‘It’s just a shed, part of Overcoat Joe’s land. You can see it all from here, look beyond it.’

  Stretching in a rectangle, kilometres long, the dark behind the shed is more dense and compact. It takes me a moment to realise that it’s vegetation. While all around it, as far as the eye can see is sparse land, paddocks mown, cropped and spare, Overcoat Joe’s land is thick with trees, shrubs and grasses. It’s as if the whole of the Mallee has crammed into this rectangle and thrived. I ask him if Overcoat Joe still lives in that house we saw.

  ‘He died a year ago, that was his brother I was talking to at the pub.’ Terry pauses and then begins talking again. I sit down and filter fine sand through my fingers. I listen.

  ‘Joe was known as the town weirdo – kept his yard a shamble, didn’t tidy up the scrub, had weird ideas about farming and the land etcetera, etcetera. Truth is, he was probably pretty smart. He was pasture cropping years before it was fashionable – never touched pesticides or used big time machinery. Grasses waist high. Animals all together in the one paddock, lambs staying with their mothers for months. Knew the names of the plants, knew the stories of this area, all the really old ones. Read a lot. Never married, never had children. Just kept to himself, him and his animals on this farm
. That overcoat – he wore it every day, all day. That didn’t help with the teasing. His brother told me that when they found him dead in his paddocks he was wearing it. Turns out it was made of Gore-Tex. Probably the best type of outfit for this climate.’ Terry spreads his arms expansively over and above the dark rectangle. ‘People were cruel here – graffiti on Joe’s shed, smashing windows, calling him names. After a little boy went missing one afternoon, you can just imagine what people thought. Turns out the kid was at his friend’s house eating ice-cream, but it didn’t matter. The accusations stuck. Adults, kids, the whole community – people stayed away from him.’

  Terry points to the old shed visible down the hill. ‘That’s where Overcoat Joe kept his pigeons. He bred them, let them fly about everywhere, fed them and so on. I used to come here sometimes after school and watch him train them. Once I asked him if I could have one and he said yes, but only if I didn’t keep it in a cage. He gave me a baby one and I named it Peter.’

  ‘Sorry, but kind of a crap name for a bird.’

  ‘Yeah, well Peter escaped a few days after I got him home. Probably went back to Joe’s.’

  We sit in the quiet night, breathing in the warm air and feeling the dirt beneath us. After a while Terry helps me up and we walk home slowly, arms linked, feeling the night caress. The houses in the town are shut up and silent and the streets are wide and bare. I take my shoes off and Terry piggybacks me over the stony front yard of his parents’ house.

  In the morning I’ll have a hangover and the air conditioning won’t help. We’ll leave after breakfast and on the drive home I’ll look out the window at the shorn paddocks rolling by and I’ll think of Overcoat Joe and all the nature crammed into his block like it had fled there. I’ll think about that pigeon, flying away from Terry’s house, above the town and toward a place which recognised the odd, the injured and the introduced. I imagine the man in the dark coat, eyes to the sky, watching the bird return to his land.

  It’ll be hot outside when we stop for a break, but I’ll wrap my cardigan around me and for a long time I’ll stand there, remembering Overcoat Joe.

  A BIT OF SCRAPBOOKING

  Oh god, don’t look at me! I haven’t put my face on and I’m having a bad hair day. It’s just a frizz frizzy mess and these tips are not what I wanted. The regrowth! Craig says I look like an endangered tiger, well I say, take me out the back and shoot me right now I look that bad. Honestly! Normally I don’t do anything without a bit of lippy.

  Oh well, I’ve been caught out haven’t I? Can’t do much about it now! Pink trakkies and the hair a mess.

  Still, it’s not as though I’m doing anything today. Just looking at this card and catching up on my scrapbooking.

  The family albums are such a mess! I’ve been putting this one together again, just putting some ribbons and lace around the baby shots, nothing fancy. My daughter in law is going to give me a bit of lace from her bridal veil to stick into the wedding shots. That one should be nice. Very nice. Look at this photo! My beautiful boys, all grown up now. It’s important to have these keepsakes.

  I know everything’s on computer now, but I do love my scrapbooking – gives me a chance to look at the photos of my grandsons, cheeky little mites they are.

  My eldest son Craig lives just around the corner, in Sunset drive – you know the one by Sunbeam canal nearest Sunrise court? Just beautiful.

  Course it always is up here. In Surfers Paradise.

  Craig runs a jet ski business. Very successful. Loads of Japanese tourists and now the Chinese of course. They can’t get enough of the jet skis! It is funny to see them scooting around. I suppose they don’t really get much of that in Nagasaki. Poor things.

  We’ve been up here for yonks. Came up here for a holiday and never looked back. The two boys spent their childhoods surfing, swimming and just playing. It is a paradise, really it is.

  So, Craig is up here still with the jet skis, he has two boys, Blake and Hunter. Just gorgeous little things. Blake – the nine year old – has his own jet ski now. Don’t the Japs just love him when he goes past with his blonde hair! They probably don’t get to see much of that in Nagasaki, poor things.

  Then I’ve got my second son, Daniel.

  He’s moved to Melbourne.

  Don’t ask me why, I can’t understand it myself. He finishes school, gets a place in Bond University studying accounting and he says to me, ‘I’m off down south.’

  ‘What for?’ I said to him. ‘Are you a hump back whale?’

  ‘No,’ He says. ‘I just want a bit of culture.’

  Well, I’ve never understood that. We’ve got culture all around us up here.

  Take Jupiter’s Casino – it’s full of all sorts! You’ve got your Sheiks, your Maoris, your South Australians. And you can buy your sushi, your ravioli and your chicken schnitzel in every dining establishment. Every kweezeen you like.

  But oh no, he didn’t understand! Off down south, quicker than you could say migration. ‘Honestly!’ I said. ‘Every single victorian is on their way up here! You’ll be crushed by their pasty bodies as they rush to get away.’

  But no, he was off down the highway, passing all the Jaycos and Camper trailers and those big four-wheel vehicles that the Southerners like to drive.

  I missed him, but I thought, ‘If I know my Daniel he’ll be back. One winter and the cold water freezing his you-know-whats and he’ll be back up here to Paradise.’

  But he wasn’t. He’s been down there for three years now.

  And you know what’s even scarier? He’s met someone.

  A Melbournian.

  Alice is her name, spelt A.L.I.C.E.

  Just plain, you know, her parents didn’t even try to fancy it up! That’s Melbournians. They like plain. Like her clothes. Her clothes! Honestly, she wears that much black I think I’m in a coal mine when I’m near her. When she’s around I have to stumble in the dark to find my Tia Maria before I can say yoohoo. And even then it’s only her white face that lights up the place. Because she is oh so pale.

  I said she could do with a bit of colour in her clothes – you know a little yellow Capri pant or a bright Ken Done jumper, but she said it wasn’t her. Said the only colour she liked was when Gustav Klimt used it. Well I said I’m sorry for him then, to have such a strange name and sorry for her for being so easily led.

  I gave her some fake tan voucher, mid to dark – but she never used it. Said it would make her feel like Kerri-Anne Kennerley. Well, all the better I thought! We could do with a bit of song and dance around here!

  My Daniel loves Alice, I know he does – and look her father is the loveliest poof you’d ever meet so of course I’m happy for my son but oh sweet Mary! The things she comes out with!

  I went down to stay with them a couple of months ago. Froze the bejesus out of me but it was lovely to see Daniel. They took me out for lunch to Victoria Street. Now there’s an eye opener; I just couldn’t believe how many Asians there were!

  ‘Good god!’ I said. ‘It’s like we’re living in Ho Chi Min City!’

  Well, Alice just blew her top. That little pale face of hers went as red as a commie flag I can tell you. She went on and on about how I was so intolerant of race and other cultures and how ignorant I was and how Daniel is lucky to be free from the narrow-mindedness of the Queensland populace.

  I must admit, I was totally gobsmacked. In my Pandora bracelet I could see the reflection of her angry face and I wondered if there was a charm I could buy for furious Victorians.

  When she finished I was just so confused.

  ‘But there are a lot of Asians love,’ I said.

  Well she was off again, but all I could think was, ‘How do we get them all to move up to Surfers? Because I’m sure they’d prefer the weather up there and I just know they’d love Craig’s jet skis. I mean, why do they all move to Melbourne? We need people like them up North. It’s the English backpackers who do my head in! Why don’t they move South?’

  When Alice
was finished, I asked for the bill and wrote my address on it for the little waitress. Pang her name was. She was so nice to us and just by the look of her I know she needed a holiday. Well, I wouldn’t mind it if she came and used the spare room in our house. She’d be very welcome.

  It’s been quiet since Kevin died, but I do get to see Craig and the kids as much as possible.

  But Alice, well I can’t do a thing right around her. I see one of those Muslim women wearing a black sheet over her head and I say, ‘That poor lady can’t feel the sun on her face. Wouldn’t it be awful?’ and then Alice is at me again, telling me I’m racist, that I don’t respect other cultures and on and on. When my brother called me an ‘old bird’ she told him he was sexist and oh, it’s just so tiring always trying to think of the right thing to say around her.

  But I can’t be cross at her for too long because she was bought up to be angry. That’s what they’re like in Melbourne. Poor things. Huddling around their soy lattes and pretending to like the opera.

  Her dog Maxie died the other week. She was devastated, poor thing. I got my friend Bernice to paint a portrait of the pup and sent it down to her, along with one of my Roberta Flack CDs.

  I think she liked the gesture.

  Alice is not into scrapbooking, that’s for sure. I’ve showed her my albums but she didn’t seem very interested. Stencil work and fabric applications are not really up her alley I suppose. No, Alice is not really a crafty person, never even tried Hobbytex as a kid, but you know, each to their own.

  Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to have a daughter to go shopping in Mermaid Waters with, to get our tips done together and get a bit of scrapbooking done.

  But I don’t wonder about it for long. I’ve got two boys who will stand by me.

  They’ve both been really good about the news. Daniel flew up just last month for the radiation and Craig has popped in every day. They’re good boys.