The Fine Colour of Rust
The lemon icy pole sure adds a distinctive tang to Johnny Walker. I top up the glass with water and take another sip, shards of melting ice sticking to my lips as I type in Gunapan. We’re part of a geological survey. The Department of Lands has posted a topographical map of the region. Gunapan is an Aboriginal place name. Well, der, I think, tossing back more of the tasty lemon whisky and adding a touch more water. The next hit is an online diary of a backpacker from Llanfairfechan in Wales who stayed for a night in a room above the Gunapan pub. One night is plenty enough in this place, she writes. I had very bad dreams.
Jake calls out in his sleep. He does this – occasionally shrieks in the night – but it means nothing. Bush pig, I think, refilling my glass and pulling a strawberry icy pole from the freezer. It’s weeks since I’ve been tempted to drop the kids at the orphanage and drive to Melbourne to take up my new life of glamour with a hairless odourless body. The little bush pigs have been behaving quite well. Now I realize that was the calm. Something’s coming, but I don’t know what.
I lean back and sip my drink – Johnny and a strawberry icy pole, it’s a Gunapan cocktail – and click away until I’m looking at the guest login for online dating in Victoria. I hesitate on that page a while.
‘It’s not only weirdos,’ Helen told me once. ‘Some blokes look quite handsome. Although that does seem to be mainly the shorter ones. Anyway, you don’t have to do anything. It’s soft-core girl porn.’
I select Rural south west and Male and Over six feet and Doesn’t matter about children. Then Go. The screen comes up with five photos on the first page and a big list of other hits. One hundred and forty-two single men in rural south-west Victoria? This deserves a green icy pole and another shot of Johnny.
I read about Jim, who likes long walks on the beach and romantic dinners. Jim lives in Shepparton in central Victoria, many hours’ drive from the beach. Giuseppe has two grown children and likes working out. Mel loves movies and romantic dinners and golf, and would like to share his wonderful life with a special lady. Joe’s looking for a happy busty lady with no issues. Good luck, Joe.
As I scroll down the list I start finding these people funnier and funnier. Matthew’s spent a lot of time working on his spirituality and he’d like to meet a woman with the same interests so they can grow together. Like a fungus, I think. Shelby would like a petite Asian lady with large breasts who’s open-minded and looking for a good time. Hey Shelby, most of the men in this town pay good money for that. I open up my password-protected email and send Helen a message. Looking for a handsome wealthy man with no issues and a Beamer. Must love slumming it, buying expensive presents for the lady in his life, and have no objections to feral children.
I slump back into the kitchen chair, which is a few inches too short for the computer table. My neck hurts. The screen in front of me has ads all over it. Casinos, jobs, real estate. Maybe I should look for a new house to rent, one that doesn’t heat up to 400 degrees. Thinking about real estate reminds me of the hole in the bush on the Bolton Road.
I type Gunapan development into the search bar. You get thousands and thousands of answers in these searches and none of them are what you want. The council minutes are online. That should send me off to sleep. The local supermarket’s car park resurfacing process is described in glorious detail. I cannot understand why these things would be on the internet. I find the council’s forms for applying for a building permit. I try another search, this time on Gunapan bush. Then I type in more place names from the local region combined with development and then I try bush clearing and then something else and by this time I’m pretty tired of it but I click through to one more page and that’s where I find the article.
It doesn’t have Gunapan in the title, or even in the article, which is from a newspaper in Western Australia, and which is talking about a resort development to take place on twelve hectares outside Halstead. Outside Halstead? The map in the article shows where the development will take place and I can see that it’s the old bush reserve in Gunapan, but our town isn’t mentioned. Only a few lines about how the development may help to revive the depressed small community nearby. Depressed! The only depressed person here is Brenda, and even she picks up during the Gunapan Fair.
The company building the resort is a Western Australian developer with successful resorts in Queensland, WA and the Territory, as well as significant investment in plantation forestry and logging. I want to print this page out but the printer’s still in Melissa’s room.
‘Mum?’
The cry comes from down the hall. Jake’s awake.
‘Mummy.’
He only calls me Mummy when he’s frightened. I clean up the browser and close it down, then hurry to Jake’s room, taking deep breaths to expel the smell of Johnny from my mouth. Jake’s nightlight is on, a rotating globe with fish painted on the outside and a static seascape behind. The mechanical rotation of the outer plastic globe makes a reassuring grinding sound once each cycle like the slow purr of a contented cat.
‘What is it, Jakie?’ I whisper from the doorway.
‘I’m not a bush pig,’ he whispers.
‘Of course you’re not,’ I say firmly. I sit down beside him on the bed and rest my hand on his hot, sweaty chest. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘They said so.’
‘Who said so?’ Anger starts to rise inside me. I remember I started thinking about bush pigs after Melissa and Jake began joking about them. ‘Where did this come from, anyway?’
He doesn’t answer. His steady breathing makes my hand rise and fall as he drifts back to sleep.
Next morning I’m waiting for them at the breakfast table with a pile of bacon on a plate and the spatula jutting from my hand. Melissa and Jake both sit down at the table without speaking, without looking at the bacon. I dish the crispy strips onto buttered toast, slop on scrambled eggs from the frying pan and hand them a plate each.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask. ‘What’s this bush pig business?’
‘Nothing.’ Melissa has her stubborn face on.
Jake’s eyes begin to redden. The circles under his eyes are even darker today. The heat went on and on all night until even the bugs got exhausted and stopped making noise at about four in the morning. There was an occasional crack as the tin roof shucked off the heat of the day and the house settled and sighed. Not only did no one sleep properly, I’m also feeling the effects of my romantic night with Johnny Walker, and I’m in no mood to be messed with.
‘I don’t want silence or sulking or tantrums. Tell me what it’s about. Who called you a bush pig, Jake?’
Silence. My throbbing head. Jake and Melissa stare at their plates. The crispy bacon is wilting, the eggs are getting cold, the toast is going soggy. The urge to shout is rising in me and I want to smother it – I must not become a shrieking single mother.
‘So…’ I lighten my tone of voice. My back is still to the children. ‘I’m not cross. I want to know, that’s all.’
‘I had a project on bush pigs,’ Melissa says.
‘Then why would Jake be upset?’ I turn around to face them, my expression a mask of control and calm.
‘I called him a bush pig.’ Melissa shoves a blackened curl of bacon into her mouth as if that will stop me asking her questions.
‘Is that it, Jake? Did your sister call you a bush pig?’
Melissa’s staring so hard at Jake he’ll start sending off smoke in a minute. He crosses his hands over his lap.
‘I need to go to the toilet,’ he says. Little liar.
‘It’s true! It is, Mum. I did call him a bush pig. I’m sorry.’
Something smells here. I’m sure she’s lying. But she’s as stubborn as her father. I turn to Jake.
‘Lies come back to bite you on the bum. You know that, don’t you, Jake?’
‘I want to go to school now,’ he says for the first and probably last time in his life. ‘Did you put a banana in my lunch?’
The boy is obsessive. I take the banana out of his lunch box and open Melissa’s.
‘I’m not having it!’ she yelps.
‘What is it with bananas and this family?’ I say. ‘They’re good nutritious food and they’re cheap.’
‘They stink!’ Jake and Melissa say together.
By the time I’ve finished the washing-up, Melissa and Jake are ready to head off. I drop them at school and drive on to the Neighbourhood House, sweating in the hot morning sun.
At ten thirty my sister Tammy calls to let me know Mum’s in hospital in Melbourne.
7
‘What’s that noise?’ Jake has an unerring knack for asking awkward questions.
He leans down and peers under the seat between his legs, sits up and cranes his neck, looking around the corridor. I reach over and poke him to be quiet.
‘Mum, your bra is creaking again,’ Melissa whispers crossly.
‘Sshh,’ I tell her.
‘It’s creepy, Mum. You should throw it out.’
‘I’m sure you’d be very happy to have me arriving at school to pick you up with my breasts flopping around.’
‘Oh, disgusting.’ Melissa looks as if she’s about to faint.
‘You’ll have these troubles soon enough, my girl.’
‘No, I won’t, because I’m never buying underwear at the two-dollar shop.’
I was sure I’d never told anyone about buying that bra at the two-dollar shop. It seemed such a bargain until the creaking started. Even with that, I thought it was a waste to throw it away.
‘You can go in now, she’s decent,’ the nurse calls from the doorway of Mum’s room.
Jake runs in first, calling out, ‘Hi Nanna!’ Melissa and I follow more slowly. Jake stops as soon as he gets in the doorway and sees his nanna tiny and yellowish in the big hospital bed. He backs up and presses against me. Melissa stands rigid at our side. Their nanna’s bed is one of four in the room. Two are empty. An ancient man with a liver-spotted head is snoring in the one diagonally opposite.
‘Hi Mum. How are you feeling?’
She turns her gaunt sallow face to me and frowns. ‘Did you bring me a Milk Tray?’
I produce the box of chocolates with a flourish from my handbag and pass it to Melissa. ‘Give these to your grandmother, sweetie.’
‘My name is Melissa,’ my gracious daughter answers.
‘Give me the chocolates, girl,’ my even more gracious mother says. ‘I’ve been waiting for them since eleven o’clock.’
‘Are you sure you can eat those, with your liver?’
My mother reaches for the nurse alarm button.
‘OK,’ I say, taking the box from Melissa and tossing it on to the bed. ‘So how are you feeling?’
I send Jake to the vending machine next to the ward for a packet of chips while Mum tells me about my sisters, Tammy and Patsy. Tammy visited yesterday with her three immaculate children. Tammy brought a hand-knitted bedjacket, five novels, a basket of fruit and best wishes from her husband Rob, who is smarter than Einstein and a better businessman than Bill Gates – apparently Bill could learn a thing or two from Rob about point-of-sale software. One of the children had written a poem for her nanna.
‘Melissa, do you want to read your cousin’s poem?’ I ask sweetly.
Melissa smirks into the magazine she’s picked up.
My other sister, Patsy, visited with her friend. Mum thinks that Patsy’s friend would look so much nicer if she lost some weight and started wearing more feminine clothing. And took care of that facial hair, for God’s sake. Then she might be able to get a man.
‘Speaking of which, have you heard from thingo?’ she asks.
‘Nope,’ I say. ‘So when do you get out of here?’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘We’re in a motel.’
‘It’s horrible,’ Melissa says. ‘The bedspreads smell of cigarettes. And they’re baby-shit yellow.’
‘Melissa!’ I protest, but she gives me the as-if-you’ve-never-said-it-yourself look.
‘You could always stay with Tammy. They have a six-bedroom house.’
They do have plenty of room at the house and we did try staying once, but Tammy and I discovered that these days we can only tolerate two hours of each other’s company before sisterly love turns sour. It became clear that she thinks her wealthy lifestyle exemplifies cultured good taste and mine has degenerated into hillbilly destitution, while I think Tammy is living a nouveau riche nightmare while I represent a dignified insufficiency.
Tammy’s husband rarely comes home because he’s so busy being successful. When he does arrive he’s late, and Tammy’s favourite nickname for him is ‘my late husband’. ‘Allow me to introduce “my late husband”,’ she announces to startled guests. Her husband smiles distantly and gives her a shoulder squeeze like she’s an athlete. Last time the kids and I came down we ate luncheon – not the meat but the meal – at their place on the Sunday. Jake swallowed a mouthful of the smoked trout and dill pasta and before it even reached his stomach he had puked it back into the plate. It looked much the same as before he had chewed it, but the sight of the regurgitation had Tammy’s delicate children heaving and shrieking. ‘Haven’t they ever seen anyone chunder before?’ Melissa remarked scornfully on the way home.
My mother turns her attention to Melissa. ‘And you, young lady, are you doing well at school?’
Melissa looks at her grandmother with an arched eyebrow.
‘Yes, Grandmother,’ she answers.
‘I won’t have any granddaughter of mine being a dunce.’
Melissa turns her head and gives me a dead stare. I can’t believe she’s only eleven.
‘All right,’ I intervene briskly, ‘let’s talk about you, Mum. How are you feeling? When do you get out?’
‘I’m yellow, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘Can I get a packet of chips too?’ Melissa says, so I give her some money and tell her to find Jake while she’s at it.
‘Good.’ My mother pushes herself upright in the bed as soon as Melissa has left the ward. ‘Now the children are gone we can talk. I’m going to sell up and move to Queensland, the Gold Coast. Albert’s bought a house on the canals with a swimming pool and a sauna. My liver’s packing up. I don’t know how I got this hepatitis thing, but I can only guess it was from your father all those years ago. That lying cheat. Apparently it’s contagious. You and the kids had the test like I told you?’
‘Yes, we’re fine. Who’s Albert?’ I am incredulous.
‘He’s from the bingo. He’s no great catch, I admit that, but who else is offering me a house in the sunshine?’
‘Not the one with the five Chihuahuas? The one you used to make jokes about?’
‘Having those dogs doesn’t actually mean he’s homosexual. He’s quite virile for an older gentleman.’
‘Oh, Mum, enough detail. And why can’t you say this in front of the kids?’
‘You need to tell them in your own time. I know they’ll be upset I’m leaving, but when they get older they’ll understand.’
‘I’ll break it to them gently.’ I don’t want to point out that we only come down to Melbourne at Christmas and her birthday anyway.
‘Tammy and Patsy’ll miss you,’ I say. ‘And the junior poets.’
My mother almost smiles before she says, ‘I love Tammy’s children dearly, you know that, Loretta.’
‘I know.’
‘Anyway, when I sell, I’m giving you a few thousand dollars. Don’t tell Tammy or Patsy. You need it, they don’t.’
From down the corridor comes a long howl, followed by grievous sobbing.
‘They torture people in here, you know,’ Mum says. ‘The nights are hell. The screaming and moaning, it’s like being inside a horror film.’
I have a bad feeling that I recognize that howl. But rather than spoil the moment, I think about the good things.
‘A few thousand dollars?’ I say.
‘Depending on the price I get for the flat. You’ll get something, anyway. Five or six thousand maybe.’
A holiday for one – or two? – in Bali, I think. Or an air conditioner. Or both! A proper haircut and blonde tips! A bra that doesn’t creak! Champagne and sloppy French cheese and pâté! Silk knickers!
‘I expect you’ll want to spend it on the kids, but keep a couple of dollars for yourself, won’t you. You could use a bit of smartening up. Any men on the horizon?’
‘Actually,’ I say, ‘there’s a rather good-looking mechanic who definitely has eyes for me. He keeps himself quite clean, too.’
‘As opposed to that grubby old junk man you hang around with?’
‘Yes, as opposed to Norm, who has his own special standard of hygiene.’
‘And has this bloke asked you out?’
‘Not yet.’ Needless to say, he hasn’t recognized yet that he has eyes for me. I wonder if I am talking about Merv Bull? Have I developed a crush? Am I becoming Helen?
From down the corridor, the howling and sobbing is growing louder. I can’t avoid it now.
‘You need to look for your mother,’ I can hear a woman telling Jake. ‘Open your eyes, dear.’
‘Loretta, you should give up that political hocus-pocus you’ve got yourself into. Put your energy into finding a partner and a father for those children.’
‘The Save Our School Committee is precisely for “those children”. Anyway, we’ve had a win. The minister for education’s coming to Gunapan in a few weeks. We’ve got a chance to change his mind about closing the school.’
‘Is he married?’
Jake’s sobbing, very close now, startles awake the man in the bed across from Mum. He raises his spotty head and shouts, ‘You buggers! You buggers! Get out of it, you buggers!’
‘Shut up,’ my mother calls over at him and he stops immediately.
‘Nutcase,’ she says to me. ‘Every time he wakes up he thinks the Germans are coming for him.’ Mum lets her head drop back on to the pillow and stares at the ceiling. ‘The Gold Coast. I can’t wait.’
‘So when do you go?’
‘Mummeeeeeeee,’ Jake screams as he runs into the room and flings his round little body on to my lap. He buries his face in my shirt, covering me in snot and tears. Melissa strolls in behind him eating a chocolate bar.
‘The lady says she’s going to clean up Jake’s chips.’
With Jake in my arms I stagger out to the corridor and call out thanks to his rescuer, a woman in a blue cleaner’s uniform who is hurrying back towards the lift.
‘What were you doing on the second floor, Jakie?’
‘Idroppedmychipsntheysaidicouldn’teatthemoffthefloorn dicouldn’tfindyooooooo.’ His sobbing is slowing now. ‘So, so so Itriedtofindyouand, hic, Icouldn’tfindyouandIwent, hm, downthestairsand, ugh, theladysawmeand…’
‘Ssh, ssh.’ I squeeze him tightly to me.
‘I’m tired now,’ my mother says from the bed. ‘Thanks for visiting, darlings.’
On the way back to the motel I ask the kids what they’d buy if they had a thousand dollars.
‘A motel!’ Jake screams.
‘What would you buy, Liss?’ I can see her in the rear-view mirror. She looks out through the window for a while, down at her hands, back out through the window.
‘I dunno.’
‘Go on, a thousand dollars. What would you get?’
She sighs a great heaving sigh and writes something on the car window with her fingertip.
‘Some proper clothes. From a proper shop so I’m not the world’s biggest dag.’
‘Don’t be silly, you look beautiful. You could wear a sack and you’d look beautiful.’
We pull into the motel car park to pick up our bags from reception and have a toilet break before the long drive back to Gunapan. Once we’re on the highway I drive for an hour, and when it gets dark we stop at a roadhouse. We order the lamb stew with chips and milkshakes and sit down at a table beside a man who resembles a side of beef and who appears to be eating a side of beef. At the far end of the roadhouse café is another family. They seem to be trying to stay away from everyone else, like that family at the waterhole.
‘Who are those people we saw up on the hill at the waterhole the other day?’ I ask Melissa, who’s leafing through an ancient women’s magazine she found on the table. She shrugs. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen them before,’ I go on talking to myself.
‘Can I watch TV when we get home tonight?’ Jake asks.
‘No.’
‘Miss Claffy had an engagement ring on yesterday,’ Melissa says. The magazine is open at the page of a starlet wearing an engagement ring that could sink the Titanic. The food arrives at the table. I can tell immediately that I’ve made a mistake ordering the stew. I thought it would be healthier than hamburgers.
‘Is this lamb?’ Jake asks.
‘I think it was lamb a few years ago,’ I tell him through a mouthful of gristle. Grinding this meat down to a consistency I can swallow is a full-body workout.
‘Can we have pizza tomorrow night?’
‘The ring had a diamond on it. Miss Claffy said diamond can cut a hole in glass.’
‘You must have seen those kids at school. Isn’t one of them in a class with you?’
‘I don’t want anchovies on my pizza tomorrow. I want double cheese.’
‘Someone should welcome them. You kids have no idea how hard it is for a new family in a small town.’
‘Why don’t you have an engagement ring, Mum?’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t Dad give you an engagement ring?’
‘I don’t want olives either. I hate olives.’
‘We didn’t really have an engagement. We just got married.’
‘Miss Claffy said her fiancé asked her to marry him in a restaurant and everyone heard and they all clapped.’
‘We had a lovely wedding though. I can show you the pictures.’
‘We’ve seen them,’ they both say quickly.
Melissa and Jake have pushed aside their stew. They dip their chips in the stew sauce and suck on their milkshakes. I wish I’d ordered myself a milkshake. The side of beef beside us finishes his meal, burps ferociously and sways his bulk out to the car park where his rig is waiting for him like a tame T-Rex. Jake wants to go out and have a better look, but I hold him back.
‘Is Nanna going to die?’ Melissa asks.
‘Oh, Lissie girl, of course she’s not. It’s worse. She’s moving to the Gold Coast.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. With her new boyfriend.’
‘She’s an old lady! She can’t have a boyfriend.’
‘And what about your poor mother? Am I too old to have a boyfriend?’
‘You’re married.’ Melissa’s disapproving frown would qualify her instantly as a headmistress. ‘To Dad,’ she adds, in case I’d forgotten.
8
My sister Patsy has only been in the house for five minutes and she is already enthusiastically embracing the joys of country life.
‘When are you going to leave this dump and come back to Melbourne?’ she says.
She’s parked her brand-new Peugeot on the street in front of the house, and I think nervously of Les, the farmer further down the road. On a hot day Les sometimes drives the tractor straight off the field and heads to the pub. His Kelpie sits beside him on the wheel hub, barking madly at cars overtaking them. Late at night, Les will steer the tractor back home down the road, singing and laughing and nattering to himself, the dog still barking. No one worries because the worst that can happen is him driving the tractor off the road somewhere and him and the dog sleeping in a field. But no one ever parks on this road at night.
‘So Patsy, let’s move that beautiful car of yours into the driveway and swap with mine. Wouldn’t want anyone to steal it!’
‘You’ve got no reason to stay here,’ Patsy goes on. ‘That bastard’s not coming back and the kids are young enough to move schools. Mum’s gone to the Gold Coast, so she won’t bother you. Come back to the real world.’
I have thought about going back to Melbourne. A part of me believes that being in Melbourne would magically make me more sophisticated and capable. My hair, cut by a hairdresser to the stars, would curve flatteringly around my face and my kids’ teeth would straighten out of their own accord.
‘Can’t take the kids away from the clean country air,’ I tell Patsy. When Tony and I first moved to the country for a better-paid driving job he’d been offered, we shifted from an outer western suburb, treeless, grey and smelling of diesel, the only place we could afford a flat. Everyone there was miserable and angry and even our neighbours tried to rip us off. For the same money as that poky flat we rented a three-bedroom house with a yard in Gunapan, only forty minutes’ drive from his work in Halstead, and still had enough money for dinner out once a week. Now I’m a single mother with two kids, I could never survive back in the city. I’ve developed a vision of a life where I, deserted mother scrag, can’t get a job in the city, don’t know anyone, spiral down the poverty gurgler until I become an over-the-counter pill junkie watching Judge Judy in my rented house in a suburb so far from the centre of Melbourne it has its own moon. I can’t feed the kids because I’ve spent all our money on an Abserciser off the telly and the chemist keeps asking me has my cold cleared up yet.