Mullumbimby (8 page)

Twoboy glanced at Jo, his eyes soft.

‘You still miss her, eh?'

‘Every day. Her. And what she had to teach.'

Twoboy drew close, and they both stood silently, looking at the waves and listening to the night. Jo could feel the heat of the man's body close by her side. Something odd was happening to her breathing, and her legs wouldn't stop trembling. Jo was intensely aware of the narrowness of the space between them, and the distinct possibility of that space vanishing at any moment.

‘Come and have a dorrie from up the top.' Twoboy urged. ‘From the deck.'

There was nothing to be seen from the surf lookout that couldn't be seen from the shore, Jo knew. What was waiting up there was privacy, a wooden space three metres square that was invisible to the birthday party and to anyone else walking or jalum bira on the beach. Which was, of course, the entire point.

I'm sober, Jo told herself with a glance at her barely touched stubby, completely stone-cold sober. So why is my arm burning coals where he brushed me; why is it so hard to walk? Why is it impossible to think of anything except grabbing Twoboy, unbuttoning that shirt, tracing with my fingers and mouth some new pathways all over his fine dark body. Why is it that stepping up the gritty wooden steps onto the platform, with the man first grasping my right hand to help me up and then lifting that hand to his mouth, turning that same hand over and kissing it on the palm, and then pulling me into him, holding my face between his hands and leaning down to – oh! – kiss
me – turning me yes (oh yes I will) into Molly Bloom, oh yes – why is it...

And yet this question and all the questions Jo had ever had became lost, suddenly, in a sweet medley of hands and lips and tongues and bellies pressed against each other in the darker imprint of the night, and a very clear and overwhelming urgency to be at Therese's house, on a bed, closer and closer and ever closer to this man, Twoboy, to be held inside his embrace, touching his face, his chest, his jun, his mouth, his everything, yes everything, oh, this is what's been missing all this long long lonely time, this long lonely two years of untouching, this, oh yes. This. This. This.

Jo sat in a cane chair, soaking up the brilliant deep blue of the Bruns river and the way its shining health made her feel strong inside. She knew that if she got up and stood on the footbridge just beyond the park, she would likely see a family of stingrays hovering in the shallow current, sheltered by the little cluster of mangroves growing there. If she sat on the concrete steps below the footbridge and dangled her jinung in the current, tiny translucent prawns would come out hungrily from among the rocks. They would eventually surround her feet in an omnivorous cloud, nipping at her toes and forcing her to retreat.

Just this side of the jahjam's playground, a flock of ibis waited to harass anyone foolish enough to reveal their paper parcels of fish and chips.
Mura-kurahr,
Jo thought automatically, straight after she thought
ibis:
Big Nose. There was a time the ugly critters were on the local menu. A rare hungry time, it must have been, those months when the jalum and tailor weren't thick in the water, and the wallabies and geeyahn unusually scarce.

Jo turned back to the cafe. The weekend papers had already been snapped up by other, earlier, birds, so she amused herself by playing But Really I Am A Millionaire. Perusing the menu: I can order anything I bloody well want. The world's biggest cappuccino, as big as my head. Or I can have the
Monster Brekkie
with eggs, toast, baked beans, mushrooms. Not in the mood for minya? The vego option, then,
no problemo. And if I happen to fancy a smoked salmon omelette for breakfast, then I have simply to ask. Nothing to it. I don't even have to wear shoes to this cafe if I don't choose to, since the entire town, nay, the whole bloody shire, knows that the streets I walk on are showered with gold dust. I'm like Steinbeck, rich enough to dress that bad. I'm Bob Marley, I'm Oprah, I'm Obama in drag, baby.

Jo smoothed her imaginary raw silk dress with freshly manicured nails. But no – and here she put a thoughtful millionaire's finger to her bottom lip – no, perhaps I'll exercise restraint. I'll just have a coffee, for now. I don't want to be too bloated when I have my full body massage later this morning at the Jade Tortoise, after all, and there is that reception in Newrybar that my private charity is throwing tonight–

‘Yufla got ten dollar?' croaked Uncle Humbug, looming large on the other side of the laminated menu. Jo startled back into the real world onetime.

‘Holy crap! You scared the living bejesus outta me, Uncle!' Jo said, catching her breath and grinning at his ambit claim. Uncle's wild hair and sparse teeth drew close; the pungent reek of his tobacco and campfire-infused wardrobe reached her. Combined with his brown skin, woolly locks and madly unconventional wardrobe, it advertised his status to anyone within a hundred yards: Keeper of the Park. Wild Man. Snake Spirit Brother. And most of all, Law unto Mybloodyself and Mind Ya Own Bloody Business Ya Dugai Wankers. ‘Ya wanna drain me for smoke price, do ya?'

‘Not after smoke price. I got juhm, but I'se proper hungry, my girl.' The skinny old man had been out of hospital for several days. ‘And I hear you a big landowner round these parts, now,' he added pointedly, observing that Jo was going to put up something of a fight.

Uncle thumped the footpath with his carved eucalyptus walking stick to add emphasis to his plight. Jo winced. By sitting in full view at the Dolphin Cafe with tourist prices on the menu, she may as well have hung a sign around her neck saying, ‘Payday today, all local blackfellas welcome, roll up, roll up!' The dugai at nearby tables were
paying close attention to their little tableau. And in truth, Uncle Humbug was a sight to behold. Above his white-stubbled cheeks and crafty brown eyes, a snakeskin headband decorated his frayed straw cowboy hat. Said hat was crammed firmly on top of Humbug's red, black and yellow land rights beanie, which never left his skull, winter or summer. The old man wore his favourite black tracksuit pants, ripped at the left knee to display a hairy brown patella. A large blue flannelette shirt hung off his bony frame, reaching almost to his thighs, and Humbug's pipe-cleaner legs disappeared into a pair of brand-new Nike runners that Jo had noticed sitting trustingly on a local veranda just a day or two before.

This mob'll be snapping photos soon, Jo predicted, looking out the corner of her eye at the fascinated tourists. They'll be lining up to have their picture taken with an Authentic Aboriginal Elder.

‘You wanna eat that kubbil of yours,' she proposed facetiously, glaring at the old man, ‘plenty minya there sitting under the bridge.' Humbug drew himself up to his full five feet ten inches, and glared back. Slim was his brother.
You don't eat family. What do I look like – a fucken savage?

‘I'se terrible ungry, my girl,' he repeated, turning up the dial on the pathos. ‘I dunno the last time I hadda decent feed.' Jo could just about hear the tourist binung zeroing in. They'd be crying in a minute. Howling for poor old Uncle Humbug. Fuck me.

Jo sighed an entirely Aboriginal sigh.

‘Siddown, Uncle,' she capitulated, ‘but I only got–' and here she scrabbled in her purse – ‘seven dollar fitty. And if I don't get coffee soon someone's gonna die, so you want toast or what?'

What Humbug really wanted was lashings of ham, bacon and eggs sluiced down with a gallon of hot sweet tea, followed by a free ride to Byron Bay, but if absolutely necessary (a fact he wasn't yet ready to concede), he was prepared to settle for Jo's toast. The young backpacker waitress arrived to take the order and, though she'd developed a surprised expression, she made no fuss about the apparition that had appeared beside Jo. Uncle Humbug looked at the girl and his bloodshot eyes lit up.

‘Us mob proper starving, girlie!' he declaimed loudly. The waitress looked to Jo for help interpreting this cryptic announcement, but Jo was discovering in the
Echo
classifieds how to have her aura cleansed. The tourists at the neighbouring tables had now abandoned their knives and forks and were paying rapt attention to Humbug's performance. A forty-something woman was giving out an air of irrepressible concern from behind her Dolce and Gabbana sunnies.

‘I'm sorry?' The waitress was German. Six months out of high school on the other side of the world, and here she was with Humbug to contend with. Resolute, Jo shook the
Echo
out with a firm crack and hid inside it. A local poetry competition had been announced, she read on page fifteen.

‘Goorie too hungry,' Humbug explained as though to a moron, rubbing his stomach, ‘got no minya, no tucker back at camp.' The girl stood, gesturing helplessly that she didn't understand her role in this conversation at all. The sentiment radiating from the tourists was palpable.

‘Vould you like to order, sir?' she began again, louder this time, and with an optimistic Teutonic pencil poised over her pad.
Sir,
thought Jo, biting down hard on her bottom lip, nice touch.

‘Sree fried eggs. With toes, and bacon,' Uncle Humbug instructed even more loudly, ‘and a carbadee and–' Jo slammed the
Echo
down hard on the table.

‘Uncle!' she hissed loudly. ‘I haven't got enough bungoo! What you
doing?'
Humbug's eyes flicked at Dolce and Gabbana so fast Jo wasn't sure at first that she'd seen anything at all. Then she sat back heavily in her seat.

‘You know, mah girl,' Uncle informed the entire cafe via the waitress, one index finger raised and describing a slow trajectory from the river to Chincogan, ‘I bin really lovin this Country. This Bundjalung Country e blong me proper way...'

Jo swore violently under her breath. Less than five minutes ago she'd been Oprah living her best life. Now she was rapidly sinking into
unmanageable cafe debt and still hadn't had her caffeine fix. Then she heaved a pragmatic sigh. A smart woman knew when she was beat.

‘I'm really sorry,' she explained to the waitress, ‘but my uncle can't read, you see. The menu doesn't mean anything to him, and he doesn't really understand whitefella money. Cancel what he said. We've only got enough for–' here Jo conspicuously tipped every last cent of bungoo onto the tabletop and raked through the coins at a glacial pace – ‘toast and jam, and maybe
one
coffee.' She peered at Humbug as though the
one
had been for his benefit.

‘I'm sorry, my uncle,' she hammed it up with a stage whisper, ‘I'm hungry too, but we just haven't got enough.'

‘Just wanna good ol carbadee ... and a decent feed ... on my own true country...' A faint, saintlike expression fixed on Humbug's face as he gazed about him at the tourists. And then, suddenly developing the ability to speak standard English, ‘Hello! Good morning to you, ladies.'

‘Oh! Oh, please,' Dolce and Gabbana was undone. ‘I couldn't help overhearing – would you – I don't mean to be rude, but I'd like to buy your, ah, uncle some breakfast, and if – would you like...?'

Jo smiled and thanked the woman graciously, wondering if there were any circumstances in which she might possibly stump up enough for a contract killing on Humbug, who had shoved his straw hat backwards on his head (what, you Brad Pitt now?), and was launching into his favourite saga, The Manifest Failings of White Society, Part One.

Pretty soon, Humbug would be on his way to the Byron Bay Cash Converters where a longed-for yidaki with his name on it was waiting for his breathless new lady friend to discover.

In the park across the road, the ibis were muttering to each other in Bundjalung, green with envy for Humbug's accomplishments.

‘You on proper Goorie time, eh?' Jo said mildly to Twoboy as he pulled a chair up, late and bare-chested from the surf, in front of Humbug's
plate still sitting there with Humbug's egg smears and Humbug's bacon rinds on it. Twoboy saw but made no comment on the plate. Instead, his face drawn down with worry, he told her: Laz's boy, the one who had had his stomach pumped out twice last year, had been missing for a day and a night after breaking up with his girlfriend. This morning his parents had found him tossing a rope over a tree at Zillmere – just in time, thank God, after the twenty-four hours from hell.

Twoboy had been on the phone to Brisbane for most of the last hour.

‘Daw, poor things. Laz okay?' Jo asked in a very different voice. ‘And Rhonda?'

‘They got him home.' Twoboy rubbed his salty face with his palms. ‘Got him home in one piece.'

Jo nodded. It was the mantra all grassroots parents knew. Keep the child alive and hope remains. Overdose, car accident, feuds, expelled from school, trouble with police, juvey, ripping family off, knives, drugs, gangs. Just keep the child alive long enough to come out the other side. Keep fighting every hour, every day. Refuse to let go. Get help from anywhere. Try everything. Anything. Just keep the jahjam breathing and hope remains.

‘I dunno. He's very athletic, that kid, but he's real angry, always has been,' Twoboy said to the table in a weary voice that Jo hadn't heard before.

Jo put her hand on his arm.

‘Gunaan gunaan ... but he's home safe with family now, eh. How was the surf?' she asked softly. Cos
ya gotta acc-en-tu-ate the positive,
or we'd all be in intensive care – Twoboy himself said it all the time.

He brightened a fraction.

‘Yeah, five-foot swells – storm coming in from Vanuatu. It was pumpin, but after the first few I could feel something wasn't right, so I came back in. All the boys thought I was womba. But you can't tell whitefellas anything, eh?' They shared a wry look: Goories knew what they knew – the rational approach was all very well but
sometimes you just knew shit without any rhyme or reason. You just
knew.

‘So ya going up home then?' Jo asked, realising that the day they'd planned – surf, cafe, markets – was history.

‘Yeah, I'll head up dreckly. We got the fucking Tribunal tomorrow too, on top of all this – Laz and Mum were at the State Library with Kylie and Rhonda when the news came ... Anyway, I could leave my board and stuff at your place, instead of in Mullum – that's okay isn't it?' He smiled nervously. A raucous night in the sack at Therese's, and now leaving his gear at her place. That amounted to a marriage proposal in some people's books.

‘Sure.' Jo knew that Twoboy would want to hit the highway. There was no time to waste driving up to the room he'd rented in Mullum to dump his shit.

Then his mobile rang with the sounds of The Herd, and he glanced at the number.

‘Laz again,' he said. ‘Sorry, darlin, I better cruise. Call ya later, eh.' He stood and kissed Jo quick and deep, his wet dreads falling across them both, leaving saltwater drips sliding golden down her neck into her cleavage. Then he was gone across the street, cradling the phone to his ear as he shifted the board one-handed from the back seat of the Commode into the Hilux.

‘Oh,' said the waitress, appearing with a jug of iced water, two glasses, and an application of fresh lipstick, ‘he's gone.' She looked mournfully across the road.

‘Yep,' Jo said as she folded the
Echo
and stood up.

‘He's very good-looking...'

Jo mentally rolled her eyes. Yes, yes he is. Thanks for that update, luv.

‘He's gay,' she lied suddenly, ‘as camp as a row of tents!'

The waitress deflated like a stuck balloon.

‘Gay?'

‘He lives with his boyfriend.'

The waitress pouted.

‘They're getting married in Hawaii next year,' Jo added maliciously, as she went inside to pay for her second coffee.

One afternoon later that week, an odd noise took Jo's attention away from the spuds and carrots that Ellen had flatly refused to peel for dinner.

‘Check this out' Jo called to her insubordinate daughter, who was on the laptop in the lounge, erupting every few minutes with complaints about the glacial slowness of their connection. Every time it rained the phone line went bung; the initial thrill of having any internet at all had worn off after the first week. Ellen was threatening long and loud to set up a site called ‘I Hate Telstra dot com'.