Elianne (36 page)

He glared at Cowboy Boots. ‘Why don’t you go and get fucked, you moll.’

Pretending offence Cowboy Boots appealed to her man. ‘Geoff . . .?’ She saw herself as a rebel with a cause and made a habit of confronting returned soldiers. This one had taken the bait, hook, line and sinker. ‘Geoff, are you going to let him get away with that?’

Neil glared at Che, now obviously Geoff. ‘Of course he’s going to let me get away with it, aren’t you, Geoffrey?’ he sneered. ‘Because Geoffrey hasn’t got the guts to do anything else, have you, Geoffrey.’

‘Don’t bet on it, soldier boy!’ Incensed by the slur upon his masculinity, Che smashed his beer glass on a table and waved it about threateningly. ‘Think killing innocent civilians is fun, do you, psycho,’ he jeered. ‘Do you, eh? Do you?’

‘Yeah, gives you a kick killing civilians, does it man,’ Weasel taunted, egged on by the boldness of his leader.

Something snapped in Neil. ‘You bet it does,’ he said dangerously, ‘and from where I’m standing, you look like civilians.’ It happened in an instant. He grasped the wrist that held the broken beer glass and punched Che hard in the temple, knocking him unconscious. Then he grabbed a fistful of Weasel’s hair and slammed his face into the brick wall.

‘Hey, there’s no call for violence, man.’ The third hippy quailed at the sight. ‘We’re only trying to make a point here . . .’ But he didn’t get any further. Neil’s fist slammed into his jaw and he reeled backwards, crashing into a table and chairs and falling to the floor stunned.

The two hippy girls were by now screaming. Cowboy Boots dropped to her knees to tend Che’s unconscious form while her friend wailed like a banshee.

Bev the young barmaid was frantically dialling the police when Bernie Hall, the middle-aged publican, came galloping down from upstairs to discover the cause of the commotion.

Neil remained motionless, appalled by what he’d done.

‘What the hell’s going on here?’ Bernie demanded, taking it all in. Young Durham over there by the door, he’d heard he’d just got back from Vietnam, the hippies on the floor bleeding like stuck pigs, what the hell had gone on?

He looked to Bill and Maurie seated at the far end of the bar and received meaningful glances from both that indicated the hippies and clearly said it’s not the kid’s fault, it’s the out-of-towners.

‘I’ve rung the police,’ Bev told her boss as she hung up the receiver, ‘they’re on their way.’

‘Good girl,’ Bernie said. Bev had done the right thing, obeying instructions – ‘Any trouble, you ring the cops,’ he’d told her – but she was a new girl to Bundy and couldn’t be expected to understand that this situation was a little different. She didn’t know who Neil was. She didn’t know the Durham family. In this instance Bernie would have preferred to have been informed before the cops were called.

He crossed to where young Durham stood. The lad seemed a little stunned by what had happened. ‘I suggest you go home,’ he said, very quietly so the others couldn’t hear. ‘Go home, for your own good, son.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Neil snapped out of his semi-dazed state. ‘I’m really sorry, Bernie . . .’

‘Go home, son,’ Bernie repeated firmly, but gently. ‘Go on home.’

Neil nodded and as he stepped out into the street Bernie glanced at the hippy, who’d regained consciousness and who, with his girlfriend’s help, was struggling to his feet and into the nearest chair. Then he crossed to Bill and Maurie to get a quiet report on what had actually happened.

Outside, Neil started walking in the direction of the bridge, keeping a lookout for the Holden that would be driving towards him on the other side of the street. He was overcome with guilt: how could he have allowed that to happen? He’d seriously risked his re-enlistment should word get out. And of even greater importance he’d risked damaging the reputation of his regiment. He’d been lectured on social protocols by senior officers so many times. He’d disgraced himself and felt thoroughly ashamed.

After collecting Paola at Elianne, Alan had headed for Queens Park as usual, Paola squirming down low in the seat as she always did during the drive through the estate, although it was more difficult to conceal herself in the Holden than it had been in the Land Rover.

When they’d parked and walked to their favourite spot high on the riverbanks, she’d taken a small gift-wrapped box from the pocket of her cardigan.

‘Happy birthday, Alan,’ she said handing it to him.

He unwrapped it and opened the box to reveal a shiny silver medallion with a magnet on the back.

‘It’s for your dashboard,’ she explained, ‘that’s Saint Christopher. He’s the patron saint of travellers.’

Alan knew exactly what it was. A number of his friends had similar such medallions, some even had miniature magnetised statues in their cars, Saint Christopher having become a form of talisman and dashboard accessory among young drivers. Paola, however, was unaware of this fact.

‘I don’t mean it to be anything religious,’ she hastily added. ‘I know you’re not a Catholic and that Saint Christopher has no special meaning for you, but he’ll look after you on your travels . . .’ Visited by a sudden doubt, she petered off lamely, fearing he might have interpreted the gesture as some clumsy attempt to convert him. ‘You know, during those long drives to Brisbane and back . . .’ Her voice tailed away altogether and she looked down at the medallion wishing now that she hadn’t bought it.

‘Of course he’ll look after me,’ Alan assured her, ‘this is the perfect present, Paola, I love it.’ He gathered her in his arms and she responded to his kiss. ‘And I love you,’ he said as they parted. ‘I love you more than ever. You do know that, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do.’ She believed him, she could read the depth of his love in his eyes, but it didn’t stop the insecurity that gnawed away at her.

Alan sensed a difference in Paola since he’d told her about his sexual encounter in Brisbane. He’d blurted out the truth two days previously, the moment they’d met down at the pumping station upon his return to Elianne. He’d been longing to purge himself of his guilt.

‘I had sex two months ago,’ he’d said as they strolled along the track beside the river.

Her response had been unexpectedly enigmatic. She hadn’t stopped walking. She hadn’t even looked at him.

‘An affair,’ she’d queried, ‘or a one-night stand?’

The term and its worldliness had sounded odd coming from Paola, and he’d found the remoteness of her tone worrying.

‘A one-night stand of course,’ he said. ‘Well a one-afternoon stand actually,’ he corrected himself and taking her hand he brought her to a halt, forcing her to look at him. ‘I’m sorry, Paola, truly sorry. It meant nothing, I can promise you, and it will never happen again I swear. I love you. I will always love you and no one but you.’

She’d not resisted his kiss, but her reaction to it had been altogether different. She’d been withdrawn, guarded even. She’s angry, he thought, angry and hurt, which given the circumstances he found quite justifiable.

‘Please don’t be angry,’ he said, ‘and please forgive me, Paola, I promise it will never –’

‘I’m not angry,’ she’d interrupted coolly, looking out across the river, ‘and I forgive you.’

Once again he turned her to him, forcing her to meet his eyes. ‘We said that we’d never have secrets from each other, remember? Was it wrong of me to tell you?’

‘No, Alan, no it wasn’t wrong. I respect your honesty.’ She’d smiled and added with a worldly shrug that once again seemed a little out of character, ‘Besides it’s only natural, isn’t it? Men are supposed to experience sex before marriage.’

Alan had been left confused. He couldn’t have lived with the secret of his infidelity, which he considered a betrayal on his part, but he sensed that his admission had subtly changed things. He wasn’t sure how and he didn’t really know why. To him the situation seemed quite simple, but obviously to Paola it was not.

Paola was not in the least confused. Paola lived in fear. The unreasonable wave of doubt that had just now overcome her as she’d given him the Saint Christopher medallion was symptomatic of a deep-seated insecurity. She could not rid herself of the sickening sensation upon hearing those three simple words
I had sex
. . . Endless connotations had tumbled through her mind at the time, all her worst fears appearing to have come to fruition. Of course you’ve had sex, she’d thought, and of course you will again, you’re a healthy young man with a healthy young man’s appetite. What will happen when you fall in love with one of these girls you sleep with . . .? Such thoughts had continued to torment her for the past two days.

Now, as they held each other close, Alan was again aware of the difference in Paola. She was not as uninhibited as she had been. When they kissed, he no longer had to call a halt to their passion. Was this a deliberate act on her part? Was she perhaps punishing him for his indiscretion?

‘It will never happen again, Paola, I swear,’ he said. ‘I’ll sleep with no one until the day we marry.’ He made the declaration with all solemnity. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’

She didn’t. ‘I believe you mean what you say.’

‘You don’t trust me, is that it?’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think you do.’

His smile was intended to reassure her, and she smiled in return.

‘I know that I love you. That’s enough.’

‘You’ll be eighteen in five months,’ he said, ‘and we’ll deliver the ultimatum at Christmas just as we planned: we’ll get engaged with or without their permission. You know what that means,’ he continued eagerly, ‘it means there’ll be no more sneaking around like this. It means we’ll go to the pictures and we’ll go dancing at the Palais and at the Surf Club at Bargara – we’ll be a courting couple.’

His enthusiasm was so disarming that she laughed in spite of herself. ‘We will,’ she said with a positivity she didn’t possess, ‘we most certainly will.’ She was helpless. There was nothing she could do but wait and see what happened. The mere thought of losing him terrified her.

They left the park and Alan drove back to the pub to collect Neil, but to his surprise, he discovered him walking along the street.

The brothers gave each other a wave of acknowledgement and when Alan had circled and pulled the car into the kerbside he suggested Paola hop in the back.

‘When we get home to Elianne, stay down low,’ he instructed, ‘and Neil and I’ll make a show of lairing around.’

Paola obligingly hopped in the back. ‘Hello, Neil,’ she said, but Neil simply gave her a nod as he climbed into the front passenger seat.

The car took off and Alan glanced at his brother, sensing something was wrong. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

Neil sat quietly nursing his bruised knuckles. ‘Nothing,’ he said dismissively, ‘bit of a blue, that’s all,’ and Alan knew better than to enquire any further.

Back at the pub, the cops had arrived, fifty-year-old Sergeant Buchanan and young Constable Riley.

‘Been a blue, I take it,’ Clive Buchanan said, glancing at the weasel hippie with the busted nose.

Bernie Hall nodded. ‘Yep,’ he knew the sergeant well, ‘the bloke who did it shot through though, don’t know who he was.’

‘He was a baby killer, that’s who he was,’ Cowboy Boots burst out aggressively.

Clive turned to her with an icy stare. ‘A baby killer,’ he said, ‘by that I take it you mean a returned soldier?’ How he detested bolshie little pseudo-activist bitches like this. He could tell at a glance she was no more than white trash.

‘That’s right.’ Cowboy Boots was undeterred by the copper’s obvious displeasure. ‘And they knew him what’s more,’ she said pointing an accusing finger at Bill and Maurie. ‘They knew him all right, those old bastards. “Good to see you home from Vietnam,” that’s what they said.’ She included Bernie in her accusation. ‘They all knew him, all three of those bastards, they’re lying if they say they don’t –’

‘Well, well, are they now? Constable, would you be so kind as to take down these young people’s details, while I get to the bottom of this.’

Leaving young Sam Riley in charge of the hippies, Clive joined the three men at the bar.

‘This bloke wouldn’t have been from Elianne by any chance?’ he asked quietly.

‘No way, Sergeant, no way,’ Bill Farraday said, ‘he was a blow-in from the south. Murwillumbah, I think, from memory.’

‘Yeah,’ Maurie nodded, ‘definitely a Southerner from over the border, Mittagong, I thought he said, or was it Merimbula?’

‘Merimbula?’ Clive Buchanan raised an incredulous eyebrow. Mittagong he could accept, just, but Merimbula? Merimbula was practically in Victoria. ‘Don’t try too hard, Maurie.’

The four laughed at the joke, Clive the loudest of the lot, and then he turned back to the hippies.

‘When you’ve finished taking down those details, Constable,’ he instructed, ‘you might like to point our young friends in the direction of the hospital.’ He looked at the bolshie troublemaking bitch as if he actually cared. ‘Your boyfriends really should be seen by a doctor, specially that one with the busted nose.’

‘Aren’t you going to find the bastard and charge him?’

‘Well, that’d mean you’d all have to come down to the station and make statements,’ he said pointedly, ‘and that’d mean I’d have to search your Kombi van,’ he took another brief pause, ‘because I don’t like the smell in here.’ He looked Che in the eye, ‘if you get my drift.’ He’d probably find more than dope in the van, he thought. Stolen goods wouldn’t surprise him. These weren’t your harmless, layabout hippies. This lot was scum, out to cause trouble.

‘No worries, Sergeant,’ Che quickly responded, ‘it was all just a bit of a misunderstanding.’ He grabbed Cowboy Boots by the arm. ‘We’ll get going if it’s all right with you.’

‘Nothing would suit me better,’ Clive Buchanan winked, ‘and it’d be a real smart move on your part.’

The following day, just as Neil had predicted, he and Alan were put to work by their father. Alan’s one-week holiday and Neil’s recent return from Vietnam were no excuse for idleness during the crushing season, when all hands were needed.

The weather forecast was ideal for the burning that was planned that evening, the most important factor being the wind, which was expected to be consistent, and in the late afternoon Neil and Alan joined Luigi Fiorelli and the several field workers who were preparing the portion of block 31 that was to be ignited. The plantation was divided into large numbered blocks separated by six-metre-wide grassy ‘headlands’ or carriage ways. The thousand tonnes to be burned that evening, an area of approximately ten hectares, constituted roughly half of block 31 and preparation called for the forcing of a path through the cane to form a separate block and create a firebreak.