Yesterday's Dust (38 page)

Wednesday 24 December

A busy day this one, Ellie up to her ears in flour and eggs, baking trays clattering, the smell of her labour pervading every room. Johnny had made his escape early to the old place – not so old any more. The new kitchen was in, the walls lined and painted. He'd bought a new kitchen setting and cut up the old one for firewood.

No more schoolroom until late January, no more painting and no more fences to build, but he could read. He'd picked up
Dune
from the old bookshelves and last night become immersed in it, for the third or the fourth time, then left it face down on the couch in Ben's lounge room. It was close to five when he crossed over the bridge and crept in the back door to retrieve the novel.

In the front
paddock Ann and her boys were playing football with Ben. For an instant, John considered joining them. Only for an instant. He passed by the kitchen and walked down to the lounge room. Today a plastic car crib had claimed his space on the couch, and from it Bethany hiccupped a greeting.

The book in hand he stepped closer to the overloaded basket – not much larger than the baskets he'd once filled
with eggs then transported on his bike to the grocer to exchange for sugar and tea.

He squatted, at a distance, studying the tiny singlet and napkin-clad mite. Her bare feet were long, familiar, and occupied in kicking at the end of her cage, wanting out.

‘You'll have the spine of a banana,' he said softly. She hiccupped her agreement and lifted her arms to him.

Four months old, she near filled
the container, but she wasn't complaining. Too much to see, strange furnishings and a colourful window where green glass in the three top panes turned the sky a shade it should never have been. She hiccupped again and this time an overflow of milk accompanied it. As he moved forward, reaching for the ever-present towelling bib, she offered him her silly little open-mouthed smile.

‘Funny face,'
he said, wiping milk from her chin and beneath her chin. She considered it a fine game and chuckled. He smiled. ‘You're supposed to be sleeping, not laughing, and I'm not supposed to be in here,' he said, but she waved his words away, and one dark eye winked at him.

‘Okay. I won't say a word about it – if you don't.' He gave her a finger to hold, and her strength surprised him. ‘No biting. I
can see your new tooth. Your mummy used to have one just like that.'

For minutes they played. Until he heard Ann return to the house, then he stood and again picked up his book.

‘We're off now, Mum,' Ann called as she passed by the kitchen door.

‘You are coming back with Bronwyn, aren't you?'

‘Nick might drive down with her, Mum.'

‘It would be nice if you could be there too, Annie,' Ellie
said, and her old egg-beater got in amongst the yolks again and Ann stepped down to the lounge room.

‘She spat up,' John said.

‘That's her favourite after-dinner trick.'

‘Her bib and singlet copped most of it.' He was standing back, but watching the dark-eyed mite who now gave her smile to her mother.

‘Sicky old thing. When are you going to grow out of it?' Ann said, searching the baby bag
that for six years had been grafted to her shoulder. She found a clean singlet and bib, a packet of baby wipes,
a small sheet and a plastic bag. Johnny smiled, wondering what else she could draw from that bag. Ah, a disposable napkin. He watched her as efficiently she stripped the baby limbs, did a quick freshen up with baby wipes, then eased a white singlet over the head.

‘She's got your curls,'
he said, turning the book over and over in his hand.

‘God help her.' Then she was up. ‘Want to hold her for me while I change the sheet?'

‘I'm . . . out of practice.'

‘She's unbreakable.'

He glanced at the book, easier than looking at Ann, glanced at the tiny one with the fine black halo. ‘Not too certain that I am,' he said.

‘It's you or the floor. She'd prefer you.'

Uncertain of how the
transfer had been made, he found himself holding Bethany, and too quickly he turned away, walked to the window while small hands decided his nose looked like an interesting toy.

Ellie's tame magpie warbling at the back door. Baking trays clattering. Distant voices of the boys. And Ben's voice. ‘Kick it, Tristan. Kick it to Matthew. Good boy!'

Ben. He knew who he was, knew where he was going.
Always had.

Where am I going? John thought. What do I have to take me there? A worn paperback novel.

And he already knew how it was going to end. And after this one he'd probably read
Dune Messiah
and he knew how that one ended too. Where was this tiny mite heading? Way, way off, into the great unknown.

With one finger he touched the soft baby knee. Such long legs. Long feet. So familiar.

The car crib fitted with a clean sheet, the soiled items stuffed and tied into a plastic bag, Ann stood on, staring at her brother's shoulders. Broad as her father's. And at his neck, shaped like her
father's. Had she ever seen a baby in her father's arms?

Linda. On the morning she had died, he'd held her, his large hand patting her back. She could remember that day. Remember the loss, the empty
stroller, the tears. And her father. He'd leaned over the cot and felt Linda's limbs, felt her brow, then he'd picked her up, wiped the vomit from her face.

He'd probably held the infant Liza. Ann could only remember her as the spoilt tale-telling brat. Whingeing Liza, her father wrapped around her little finger. Always waiting at the gate for him to come home, always running to him. ‘Daddy.
Daddy. Benjie and Annie won't let me play wiff them.'

It came out of the blue and she didn't know why. ‘Did he ever hold me when I was little, Johnny? Ever?' No need for a name. Her brother understood. He shook his head, but didn't turn to face her.

‘You held me, so it didn't matter if he did or not. One of my first memories is of you carrying me around.' No reply expected. None given. ‘I'm
so sorry. I'm so bloody sorry that I mucked it up for us, Johnny.'

He turned then, fast, and Ann saw his eyes were wet. She reached out a hand, touched his shoulder, and the tear escaped to trickle down the side of his nose. Bethany swiped at it.

‘I told you I wasn't unbreakable,' he said, kissing the tiny fingers intent on exploring his mouth.

‘We've been broken for a long, long time. She's
a part of the healing.'

‘Where have I been?' he said. ‘What have I been doing?'

‘Getting better.'

‘Have I, Annie?'

For a long minute she packed her baby bag, then slung it over her shoulder and lifted the crib to the floor. ‘We're like sick cats, you and me. We don't like anyone to see us when we're sick, so we crawl away into the bush to heal ourselves. Just one more day to go and we can
crawl out again into the sunshine. It will be over. That's the way we have to think of it. That's the way it has to be. For
Bethany, and for the boys. We are the past, Johnny. We don't matter, but they do.'

‘I've been trying to tell myself that since dawn – trying to rub him out of my head. I can't do it. I think I want to. I think I'm ready to move on, but I keep seeing his face, laughing at
all of us. He won. We let him win, Annie, and tonight he'll be having his own celebration.'

‘Shush. She'll hear you.'

‘And that's our major problem. It will always be “Shush, she'll hear you”. We'll carry it with us until our dying day.'

‘All he has won is a lonely old age and dirt and grass and a lot of bulls spreading a lot of manure.'

‘In my mind he won't grow old. He's still in there snarling,
“Have a go, you cowardly little bastard”.' John tapped his brow with a knuckle. ‘In there, he's still laughing.'

‘I saw him at May's funeral and he wasn't laughing.' She pinned her hair back, stepped away. ‘Maybe he didn't ever want us, but he's lost us now. He's lost May. If he has won anything, then as far as I can tell it's just a heap of bullshit and a cold stone mansion on a lonely hill
– ' She fell silent then as Ellie entered with a plate of bite-sized egg and bacon pies.

‘You've been thinking about Sam too, loves. I know he said he wouldn't come but I've just got the feeling that he'll change his mind.'

‘He won't, Mum,' Ann said.

‘No. You're probably right.' She offered the plate. ‘These ones got a bit burnt at the edges. Want to test them for me?' Ann took the plate and
Ellie claimed Bethany. ‘My word, she reminds me of you. That hair and those black eyes, watching everything, just like you used to. Her mouth is different, though. It's more like Liza's mouth.'

‘David's actually.' Ann spoke with her mouth full of flaky, melt-in-the-mouth pastry, as only Ellie could make pastry.

‘Definitely David's,' Johnny said, and Ellie exchanged the baby for the plate.

‘Did Bronwyn say what time Nick would be finishing work
tonight?'

‘I don't know, Mum.'

‘She shouldn't be driving by herself. When is her baby due?'

‘Soon.' It was already a week overdue.

The conversation ended as a herd of little boys entered from the back verandah. Ann strapped Bethany into her crib and John picked it up, carried it out to the van then stood watching as it and the boys were
loaded in and strapped down.

‘It's twenty to six. David said he'd be home early tonight.'

‘Daddy dot a pwise,' Tristan said.

‘A surprise, Tristan, and Daddy said don't tell Mummy.'

Ann turned to her boys. ‘I bet it's a big fat chocolate cream cake.' There were three shakes of three small heads, and she laughed and turned back to John. ‘Poor David. He's starved for cream cakes.'

‘It's your
birthday. I forgot. Happy thirty-seventh.'

‘I'd forget it too, if I could.'

‘A pity that we can't control time, Annie. Turn it back. Go back and undo old mistakes.'

She shook her head. ‘I used to think so, but I wouldn't be brave enough to live it again. I don't want any single one of my days back, Johnny. I want what I've got now. This little tribe.' She opened the driver's side door, then
turned again to her brother. ‘Except . . . except I want you to become a part of my tribe again. More than anything else, I want that.'

‘Sick cats. I like that analogy,' he said. ‘Remember Bessy's old grey Persian, Smokey – the one that was bitten by a snake?' She nodded. ‘Remember how it went missing for weeks, and they thought it was dead?'

‘And it dragged itself back home one morning, and
spent the rest of its life depositing dead snakes on Bessy's front doorstep.'

‘Revenge is sweet.' John smiled, looked at the sun still high in the western sky. ‘The sun will eventually go down on today, love, and it will probably rise again in the morning.'

‘I'll give you fifty-to-one odds on it,' she said, and she slid behind the wheel, found her sunglasses and put them on before turning to
face him. ‘Come up tomorrow. Have Christmas dinner with us.'

‘I . . . I could.'

‘Could isn't good enough.'

‘How about might? No promises.'

‘Might, I'll accept. I never did like promises. They can get you into a whole heap of trouble. See you tomorrow, then. Around one.'

And she drove away while he watched her out of sight.

Christmas Eve and lonely. All day Jack had driven. Hadn't known where he was going and hadn't cared. He'd eaten morning tea at a bakery in Yea, turned towards Seymour and taken the Hume Freeway north. Same old freeway. Same old trees. Same old hills. He'd hit Albury near twelve, and he'd seen the same old signpost shimmering in the heat haze,
pointing vaguely off into the distance:
DAREE
.

So he'd made the left-hand turn, and followed the road. Same old dry grass. Same old paddocks. Same narrow road but bigger potholes. He had passed straight through Mallawindy, gone up to Warran and found that white house in Mahoneys Lane.

Six o'clock and the sun beating hard against the white bricks. Her Narrawee. She'd loved it too – couldn't have
the original, so she'd built her own. Not so big, but the front door looked much the same. He was going to get out of the car and walk to that door, knock on that bloody door.

What would she do if he did? And what was he going to say to her if she let him in? Nothing he could say, so he parked out front and stared until his eyes watered.

No child playing in the yard. Probably down in Mallawindy,
waiting for the party to begin. He waited in his car for half an hour, chain-smoking, until a Commodore drove into the garage.

Minures later a Toyota Land Cruiser turned up the drive and parked beside the Commodore. He heard the children's voices, her
voice.

‘Daddy beat us home tonight.'

‘He might cook some of his spaghetti, Mummy.'

‘Cross our fingers, eh, Ben?'

‘I not like bisteddy.'

‘You
do so love Daddy's pisgetti, Tristan. Stop always being a bad guy or Santa Claus won't bring you any presents.'

‘You tell him, Matthew.'

‘I not like Sana Cause. He not a bad guy.'

Jack saw her for a moment as she reached for the tall garage door. Jeans and shirt, long wild hair framing that face. Kids all over her.

Then the garage door closed and she was gone.

Maybe she'd seen him, recognised
him when she'd driven up, locked her kids away from him. Maybe she hadn't. She'd spoken to him the morning May had died. She'd spoken to him at the funeral.

But he couldn't knock on her door so he lit another cigarette and drove away, bought a bottle of Diet Coke and a ham and salad roll, ready to go, and he ate it by the river, just smelling the water and watching it flow.

It used to be green
once. You could sit by this river and watch schools of tiny fish swarming at the bank. And birds, birds by the thousands – the iridescent blue of kingfishers, darting, ducking for their food. And snakes, they'd been thick along this river, kookaburras watching them, and laughing from the trees. He'd sat beside this river one afternoon watching a kookaburra belting a snake's brains out on the limb
of a tree, and he'd watched it until the two foot of snake had gone down that throat.

No kookaburras laughing tonight. No snakes either. No frogs croaking. It was all over, the reed-choked river was mud and snags, dying, and all the birds had flown.

The sun sinking low, he turned his car for home. Nowhere else to go. He'd drive through tonight, or book into a motel when he got sick of driving.
What did it matter? Tomorrow Jack Burton would
be as dead as that bloody river.

But he turned down the cemetery road at Mallawindy, and he wandered there until he found the grave. No new headstone with his name on it.

‘She probably gave my five thousand to the bloody church; they'll stick my name on a pew and I'll have every bastard in town sitting on me,' he said.

Liza. Linda. Patrick. Who
were they? Just names from another time. He read the names, spoke the names, trying to give them meaning. Seven kids he'd given life. Seven. The strong had survived his brand of fatherhood. The weak slept here.

‘Shit,' he said. ‘Shit.' And he walked away, not knowing why he'd come to this godforsaken place. He hated cemeteries. Hated the black hole, and the dirt that filled the hole.

Nothing
here for him. No one here. Just a barren garden, growing grey stone, but tonight he wandered the garden, wandered until he found Rella Eva's grave, old Dave in with her.

‘Sleep well, Rell. Sorry about that bloody train,' he said, squinting at his watch. Less than four hours to midnight. Jack had less than four hours to live.

Hot airless night. Hell's furnace doors were hanging on their hinges.
Mosquitoes buzzed in his ears, bit, and he returned to his car, turned on the air-conditioning, slapping at insects, mashing two on his windscreen as he drove on down to the bridge, and over the bridge, and on to the old place he'd named Chookshit Country. No light showing there, but there was a glow from Malcolm Fletcher's house. He drove past it, turned, then drove back, parking his car on the
verge of the road, far enough away from Malcolm's door, and he walked into a stand of trees and to the fence.

New. All new, the wires stretched tight. Didn't feel like castrating himself on wire, so he followed the fence to the gate, then wended his way across the paddocks to the river where he stood looking at the sagging footbridge that spanned the muddy water.

Bessy's ramshackle house sprawled
to the east of the makeshift
bridge, the old mud brick house was to the west. He was almost centred between those four houses – a dangerous place to be. Bessy would know him in the dark. And Fletcher; Jack wouldn't trust him as far as he could kick him.

He looked over his shoulder, knowing that he had to go back, get in his car and go home, but his eyes were drawn towards the mud brick house.
No light burning there.

They'd all be up at the hotel partying, celebrating his death, working out how they were going to spend their $250,000 blood money.

He laughed softly, considered spoiling their plans yet, but across the river Bessy's dogs barked and Jack stilled his laughter. No light burning in her house either. He was safe enough down this end of town tonight. The whole bloody lot of
them would be up at the pub. He walked to the footbridge, tentatively placing one foot on it, testing, testing. He took a slow and easy step, then two more, glancing behind him, before him.

Halfway across he kicked a protruding nail, stumbled. ‘Shit,' he said, regaining his balance, muddy water barely moving below. Slowly then, he felt his way, slow stepping to that last board, then he was off
at a run and down the dirt ramp to Bessy's land, his eyes searching for her, or her bull – one as dangerous as the other.

No movement. Dogs still muttering, rattling their chains.

‘Bloody maniac,' he said. ‘What are you doing coming up here?' Still he continued on, keeping close to the river and the slim cover of trees, creeping closer to the mud brick house. Until that last fence.

Wire not
strung so tight here. Fences not so new. The wires whispered as he forced them down, stepped over. And he was in the orchard paddock.

Apricots on these trees. He could smell them. And peaches ripe and pink. He remembered those early peaches, and he reached for one and bit into it.

Sweet taste of Ellie.

Standing amid the trees he sucked on the peach, sucked it down to the stone, wiping the
juice from his hands on the seat of his jeans, and smelling, just smelling the fruit and the land and the cows.

Smell of fecundity.

Smell of Ellie.

And he saw her, or thought it was her. Someone in the back yard, on their knees. Praying? Ellie had usually done it beside her bed – praying he wouldn't touch her.

Her back was to him, her hands busy in the earth. Two careful steps and he was behind
the old fig tree, spread wider in his absence. He pushed in against the foliage, lifting a branch to create a spy hole. For minutes he stood watching the figure. It wasn't until he released the branch to swat a mosquito that she turned to face the tree.

He couldn't run. She'd see him if he moved. He looked over his shoulder towards Bessy's house, then pushed deeper into the fig tree.

‘Ellie,
love. Where are you? We're going to have to get a move on.'

‘I thought I heard something. Shush, Bob.'

It was her, but she'd done something to her hair. Bob? And who was bloody Bob? The back verandah light came on and bloody Bob was standing in the doorway, and he looked bloody familiar. Jack stopped breathing, let the mosquitoes feast.

‘Are you ready, love? Everyone will be waiting for you.'

Ellie wiped her earthy hands against each other, wiped her earthy knees. ‘I'm all ready. I've just got to get my good shoes on, that's all.'

‘What are you up to out there in the dark?'

‘It wasn't dark until you put the light on,' she said. ‘There's snails all over my strawberries. Benjie watered before he left and they're out in their thousands.'

‘Have you got any snail bait?'

‘Yes. It's in
the laundry cupboard. And bring out a torch, Bob.' Head to one side then, she peered at the fig tree. A step forward, and
a second step, faster steps to the fence.

Only a wire fence and the fig tree between them. Nothing between them. Jack waited while the mosquito drank its fill from his ear, waited motionless until Ellie stepped back to friend Bob, taking the torch, lighting the earth while
he sprinkled snail bait.

Then the bastard stood up and put his bloody hand on her shoulder and Jack mashed the mosquito and ground it into his ear.

‘Listen.' Ellie's torch light swung towards the peach tree; it searched there, slowly roving backwards, back, back to the fig tree. ‘Do you think there's someone out there pinching my peaches?'

‘Probably possums. They won't take more than they can
eat, love.'

Mosquito buzzing in his ear, Jack cowered from the light. Bloody stupid bastard. He shouldn't have come here. Bloody stupid bastard of a man he was.

The torch turned off, Ellie walked back to the verandah. ‘It's such a funny old night, Bob. It's so still and sort of . . . sort of eerie.'

‘I don't know about eerie, but it's bloody hot.'

‘It's . . . it's like it's waiting for something.
Like it knows something that we don't know.' Then the verandah light was off, and the night was dark.

‘You'll feel better about it all in the morning, love. Come on. Get your shoes on and let's go. I'm as dry as a wooden god.'

‘Did you see where Johnny went?'

Jack didn't hear the reply. The door closed on it, and he ran, ran for the river, heart thumping, legs pumping, over the fence, and down
the slope to the water's edge, where he leaned against the roots of a tree, sucking air, his hand on his heart.

Poetic justice if he dropped dead, had a heart attack on her property while she was having her party to celebrate his death. What the hell was he doing here? Nothing here for him and never had been. Always wanting what he didn't have.

Always.

He'd sat with her in this place when she
was sixteen, and her
old man had caught him kissing her. Ordered him off the land.

Stay away from her, boy. She's not for you. Go home to your people and make something of your life
.

But he'd wanted Ellie, and he'd got what he wanted, and when he found out it wasn't what he'd wanted after all, he'd punished her for his mistake – bruised her, abused her, burned the footbridge that had given her
too easy access to her father.

Mummy's boy Benjie had rebuilt it. No black Burton in him. Pure bloody Vevers and Hamstead, that one. He hadn't wanted more. Hadn't gone off looking for more.

Jack stood and walked along the riverbank, not wanting to face that footbridge again. He tripped over logs and stepped in cow shit, slipped in it, and bloody near slipped into the river. Not enough water
in it to drown him. Maybe he might choke on mud.

Time heals, they all said to him. Time heals. But old man time had to know what he was supposed to be healing before he could heal it, didn't he?

‘Time, that knits the ravelled sleeve of care – or was it sleep that did the knitting?' Jack stood and brushed leaves and soil from the seat of his jeans. ‘I used to know it. Used to know a lot of things.'
He walked off, quietly quoting and misquoting the words he'd made his own at nineteen. ‘Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast.'

‘Bloody boyfriend Bob. Bob who?'

Ellie was the only woman who hadn't wanted him. May had wanted him. Half the women in Mallawindy had wanted him, and he'd taken his pick, just to nark the one who didn't want him.

Amy O'Rouke
had wanted him, or hadn't wanted to be alone. Thought she'd paid for him too, with a bloody beautiful feed of fish and chips. He should have taken her up on her offer, or her coffee. But he hadn't.

‘Later,' he'd said.

‘Do you think we have a later, Samuel Burton?'

‘Of all the bars in Melbourne, you had to walk into mine. It's
got to mean something.' They'd had a few laughs, but he'd wanted
to get away. May's death was still too close. His own death imminent.