Crow Country (2 page)

I
n a daze, Sadie stumbled back across the lake bed, her shoes heavy with mud. A slender lizard flicked across her path, and she stopped dead, heart racing, in case it spoke to her.
Get a grip!
she told herself fiercely.
You're imagining things to stop yourself dying of boredom. You dreamed it, that's all.

Or else she was going insane. That was always a possibility. She knew what Ellie would say if she told her she'd had a conversation with a bird. Her mother would be phoning a psychiatrist before Sadie had even finished speaking. That is, if she actually listened to her in the first place. More likely she would just say,
mm, that's nice, darling
, and then launch into some fascinating story of her own . . . something about how they'd rearranged the fridge at work, or some crazy patient . . .

The sun slanted into Sadie's eyes, and she realised with a start that it was late in the afternoon. How long had she been at the old lake? She hurried along the deserted track back toward the town – past the pale paddocks that rolled away on either side, blank as empty pages in the weak winter sunlight; across the wide, silent train tracks and the abandoned rail- way station; past the shabby weatherboard houses scattered beside the road; up the hill along the main street; toward the Railway Hotel and the grey stone soldier on the war memorial.

Sadie had stormed out of the house in the middle of an argument with her mother. When she got back, Ellie would probably yell at her.
Don't you walk out on me when I'm talking to you . . .
That was the problem; Ellie always talked, she never listened.

Sadie was in no hurry to go home. She lingered beneath the war memorial, reading the inscriptions for the first time. Her own surname leapt out at her.

C. Hazzard, L. Hazzard, W. Hazzard.

Sadie's mum and dad had never married, and Sadie had Ellie's surname. She was glad about that, not just because Dad had left them but because Hazzard was a much more interesting name than Brown. Ellie said there had been Hazzards in Boort forever, and there was the proof, carved into the stone of the memorial.

She circled the pedestal.
A. Mortlock, E. Mortlock, G. Mortlock, T. Mortlock.
More Mortlocks than Hazzards. That was annoying.
A. Murchison, J. Raven, R. Tick, P. Williams.

There were a lot of names for a tiny place like Boort. Maybe more people had lived here in the olden days when the trains still stopped at the station. Maybe it hadn't always been a dump.

When Ellie announced to Sadie that they were moving to the country, she'd promised trees and creeks and freedom. But instead Sadie had found parched yellow paddocks and empty roads. The mindless screeching of birds, the throb of frogs in the lake. The ominous silence of icy winter nights nudging against the black glass. Endless TV ads for country golf clubs and sheep lice medicine. Personal rubbish tips behind every house, piled with rusting cars and abandoned washing machines and broken prams. The kids at the high school staring at her and ignoring her, thinking she was a snob because she came from the city.

Ellie had found a nursing job at the local hos- pital.
I can walk to work every day! We'll be able to spend more time together!
But so far Ellie had poured all her energy into trying to make friends with the locals; she didn't have any time left over for Sadie. They might as well have stayed in Melbourne. At least in Melbourne, Sadie had had her own friends to hang out with.

Their so-called new house wasn't that new; at least, it was new compared with most of the decrepit old houses in town. It had belonged to an old lady. It creaked and smelled. Sadie was convinced the old lady had actually died inside it, but Ellie refused to say.

They'd moved in a month before, but to Sadie, it still wasn't home.
Home
was the cream brick house near the sea, where she'd lived all her life. Boort didn't feel like home. Sadie couldn't imagine that it ever would.

They were still camping in the new house, fishing dishes out of boxes and rummaging in suitcases for their socks. Ellie was too busy with her new job to unpack properly, or fix up the house. Sadie's bed- room had hideous flowery old-lady wallpaper.

‘Plenty of time to paint later,' Ellie said cheerfully.

Every morning, Sadie woke to that wallpaper, and the light seeping in through an unfamiliar window, and the loss of home punched her in the stomach afresh.

Sadie swallowed the lump in her throat and looked around. The main street was deserted. The distant blare of car horns drifted from the direction of the oval next to the school. There must be a game on; that would be where everyone was.

Sadie paused. She could go and watch the football. There would be kids there from school; someone might say hello.

Ellie would love it if she made some friends in Boort. But Ellie had dragged Sadie to live in the middle of nowhere without consulting her, and Sadie was determined to punish her mother by being as miserable as possible.

Sadie turned her back on the road to the oval.

She'd have to go back to the house; there was nothing else to do.

Perched high in a gum tree, the crow watched as Sadie trailed slowly along the road that ran around the edge of Little Lake. It tilted its head down to look at the roof of the brown brick house, set well back from the water. It saw the girl climb the front steps, lift her hand to the door, and hesitate. It heard a high, cross voice call from inside, ‘Sadie? Where have you been?' The girl lifted her chin, pushed open the door, and disappeared inside.

The crow saw the other houses strewn along the shores of the Little Lake and nestled in the shadow of the hill that rose above the town. It saw the jagged grooves of creek beds, gouged into the earth as if scored by a giant stick, and the smooth puddle of the Little Lake, reflecting the blue bowl of the sky. It saw the gnarled fingers of the low, spreading mallee gums beside the lake, the grey and green of ancient scrubland.

New marks had overwritten the oldest signs. The landscape was criss-crossed with roads, railway tracks, electricity towers, boundary fences. When the settlers came, they cleared the land. The remaining trees clustered close to the water, lonely scribbles spelling out their own tale of survival. Houses sprouted like mushroom colonies. New stories were scratched across the land.

But the crow could read the old signs, the old stories. They might be hidden, but they had not vanished. Crow was hidden, too, but he was not gone. Crow was awake. Now it would begin. Crow had a story for the human girl-child. Crow had work for her to do.

Waaah!
called the crow. It let itself fall from the branch, as if it might tumble to the ground. Then with one lazy flap of its wings, it rose into the crisp blue air, higher and higher. The green and yellow country rolled below, dotted with trees, snaked across with roads and creeks and fences. The crow circled once, a black mark against the blue. And then it was gone.

A
s Sadie let herself into the house, Ellie straightened up from the box she was unpacking. Her long fair hair swung over her shoulders, and her green eyes flashed.

‘And where did you disappear to? I don't want you running off without telling me where you're going.'

Sadie muttered, ‘I thought the whole reason we moved to the country was so I could be a free-range kid.'

‘If you want to be free-range, you have to be responsible. Anyway, I need your help. You're thir- teen now, you're old enough to pull your weight. You can't expect me to do everything!'

Sadie scowled. ‘So I'm old enough to unpack, but I'm not old enough to be consulted on major life decisions like where we're going to live?'

‘Don't make me go through this
again
. You know we couldn't possibly afford a house this good in Melbourne – three bedrooms, close to the shops, right beside the lake.'

‘Right beside the railway line.'

‘Oh, there's hardly been a train go past since we've been here!'

‘Just shows how dead this town is,' muttered Sadie.

‘It's
lovely
here, Sadie. I've got as much work as I want; I can walk to the hospital; you can walk to school. It's a sweet little town, there's the lake, and the birds. It's beautiful! Just give it a chance, for God's sake.'

‘You only came for holidays in the summer. You didn't have to
live
here.'

‘Things change, Sadie,' Ellie said sharply. ‘You have to learn to adjust. When you were born, I thought I'd never cope, but I did. When your father left, I adjusted. I couldn't sit around sulking and moaning and spreading negativity—'

‘I'm
not
,' Sadie growled.

Suddenly Ellie performed one of the lightning about-faces that so charmed other people and made Sadie furious. Ellie dived for her daughter, squeezed her tight and rained kisses on her ear. Sadie struggled to free herself.

‘Get
off
, Mum!'

‘Let's not fight, Shady-lady! I
hate
it when we fight. I know, why don't we trot down to the oval and watch the end of the football? It's Boort versus Wedderburn. It's the clash of traditional rivals. Possibly.'

‘Okay,' mumbled Sadie.

As they trudged past the RSL building on their way to the ground, Sadie said, ‘Did you know there are Hazzards on that war memorial outside the pub?'

Ellie laughed and linked her arm with Sadie's. ‘Of course. One of them's my grandfather.'

‘
Serious?
'

‘Clarry Hazzard, your great-grandfather.'

‘He was in the war?'

‘World War I. He fought in France.'

‘Did he get killed?'

‘No, he didn't. The memorial is for everyone who went to fight, not just the ones who died. If he'd been killed, I never would have been born and neither would you. No, he came back all right. He married Gran and had four kids and ran the shop across the road from the pub.'

‘That little shop on the corner?' Sadie was slightly disappointed. It would have been a much better story if he'd been killed in the war.

‘Hey!' protested Ellie. ‘It was a great little shop. People used to shop in Boort from miles around, from all the properties in the district. In those days you couldn't just jump in the car and drive to the supermarket, the local shops had to stock everything . . .' Ellie sniffed ecstatically as they reached the oval. ‘Mmm, barbecue! I want a sausage in bread.'

Sausage in hand, Sadie trailed Ellie around the edge of the ground, weaving between spectators until they found a clear space on the fence. A ring of cars was parked inside the fence, on the trotting track that circled the oval.

Ellie poked Sadie in the ribs. ‘There's a group of kids. Go and talk to them.'

Sadie squirmed. ‘No.'

‘You have to make some effort if you want new friends. Chat to people. No one's going to talk to a lump.'

‘I am making friends,' Sadie muttered.

Ellie bit into her sausage. ‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah!'

Sadie turned away to stare at the footballers. A young player in a black-and-white striped jumper leapt into the air, his mop of fair hair flying, and pulled the red ball out of the sky. Cheers erupted and car horns blared around the ground.

A middle-aged couple in black-and-white scarves clapped and whistled wildly. ‘Carn the Magpies!' yelled the man. ‘Great mark, Lachie!'

The woman glanced at Ellie. ‘That's our son. It's his first game in the seniors.'

‘Great
mark,' said Ellie earnestly.

Sadie almost choked on her sausage. Ellie was showing her how to make friends; Sadie knew that her mum knew nothing about football.

Ellie smiled at the woman. ‘Is it – it is Amanda, isn't it? You probably don't remember me – Ellie Hazzard.'

The woman looked Ellie up and down. She seemed frosted from head to toe, as if she'd been dusted in powdered ice from her sculpted blonde hairdo to her chilly smile. ‘Oh, I remember you.'

‘In the
back
!' bawled the man, oblivious to everything but the game. ‘Are you
blind
, umpire?'

‘And you remember Craig, of course,' said Amanda.

‘Oh!' Ellie juggled her sausage, suddenly flus- tered. ‘I didn't recognise – without the hair – hello, Craig.'

The man swung round. He was bull-necked, and shaven-headed to disguise his baldness. He gripped Ellie's hand in his own square, red one. ‘Ellie Hazzard. Well, well, well. Heard you were back. Wondered when I'd run into you.'

Ellie laughed uneasily and tried to tug her hand away, but Craig wouldn't let go. She put her other arm round Sadie and pulled her close. ‘This is my daughter, Sadie. Sadie, this is an old – an old friend of mine, Craig Mortlock. And Amanda.'

‘We got married.' Amanda slid a possessive arm through Craig's and gave Ellie an icy smile.

As if Mum would be interested in her fat old husband!
thought Sadie.

‘That's our Lachie out in the middle,' said Craig. ‘Number 29. Did you see him take that mark?'

Ellie managed to wrench her hand free at last and tucked it safely in her pocket. She and Amanda were both smiling stiff, polite smiles.

‘You a football fan?' Craig asked Sadie.

‘Not really,' mumbled Sadie.

‘We'll have to change that,' said Amanda. ‘The football club holds this town together. And the net- ball club, of course.'

‘I heard you bought Gwen Reed's place,' said Craig to Ellie.

‘I hope you didn't pay too much?' said Amanda.

The three adults began to discuss real estate, and Sadie stopped listening.

She leaned on the fence and stared at the game, not really understanding the action. She found herself watching for number 29, the tall boy with the shaggy fair hair. He was two or three years older than Sadie, younger and skinnier than most of the other players, but he hurled himself at the ball with reckless courage. Even when the older, bigger men trampled him or knocked him aside, he'd scramble up and throw himself at the ball again. Sadie gazed at him, the last bite of her sausage forgotten in her hand.

‘
Wah?
' came a voice from behind her. ‘You want that?'

Sadie whirled around. A crow stood nearby, watching her with its head on one side. She thought it was a different crow – it seemed smaller, and more ragged, less glossy than the first one – but it was hard to tell.

‘
Wah?
' said the crow again, indicating the remains of the sausage.

‘Um, sure,' said Sadie blankly, and tossed over the last chunk of charred meat. The crow stabbed it ferociously and gulped it down.

‘Waa-aah!
' said the crow with satisfaction, and flew off with uneven strokes, its wings rustling like taffeta.

‘Hey, dreamy.' Ellie was nudging her.

Sadie turned back to find the game had finished and the crowd was streaming away. Little kids spilled over the fence, kicking mini footballs. The air was beginning to chill as the sun slid to the horizon.

‘Who won?' said Sadie.

Ellie grimaced. ‘The Redbacks whipped us. Hey, guess what? It turns out we are traditional rivals after all. Poor old Maggies.'

In the distance, Sadie saw Boort's number 29 jog up to Craig and Amanda. Craig slapped him on the back and he ducked his head shyly so his hair flopped into his eyes.

‘That Lachie's pretty cute,' said Ellie. ‘He should be in a boy band.'

‘
Mum!
'

Ellie laughed and tucked her arm through Sadie's. ‘No law against looking.'

‘There were Mortlocks on the war memorial, too,' said Sadie.

‘Oh, the Mortlocks own half of Boort. They've got a huge property called Invergarry. I suppose it belongs to Craig now.'

Invergarry
. So the dried lake belonged to them . . .

Sadie said, ‘Did you know Craig and what's-her-name when you were kids?'

‘Mm. And – later,' said Ellie vaguely. ‘Craig asked us back to the pub, actually. But I thought we'd better not.'

‘How come?' It wasn't like Ellie to refuse an invitation.

‘Oh, you know . . . busy, busy, unpacking, unpacking . . .' She released Sadie's arm. ‘Come on, I'll race you home.'