Paper Daisies (23 page)

Ben

‘
W
hat a sad little shitter is this End of the Earth,' Cos says as we sight what I take for the main street.

And continue to ignore him. The light is dimming, the sun well behind the ridge that sits over the town, but it dims nothing of the place: a dogleg of pubs and faded shop awnings advertising their wares along with their inventive approaches to architecture. There would not be a square in any joint here but by accident, I'll bet. The whole town is an accident, of the rushes, now half-forgotten, and more than half the shops appear permanently closed, boarded up, just as several huts on the rather less colourful dogleg in looked abandoned and half-scavenged of their tin and timbers, bark roofs long gone. The yard we are passing now is bounded by wire-strung pickets lurching drunkenly in want of a nail, and all that stands in the yard is a brick chimney – all that's left of whoever once dwelt there. Extraordinary to think that, not so long ago, no further back in human history than the year I was born, this would have been one of the richest places on earth, teeming with optimism, but there's not a street lamp to be seen as testament to it today.

‘You just let me know when I'm supposed to be glad I almost died for the privilege of being here, won't you.' Cos is sniffing the air, discerning that the stale manure pervading beneath the wood smoke is both equine and otherwise. Not too much indoor plumbing around this place, by the strength of it.

I laugh, and finally respond: ‘You did not nearly die. Though I'm sure in a town like this arrangements could be made …'

Cos stares at me, and he does look half-dead. I should congratulate him for making it to our destination, but he's not dead enough yet to stop whingeing: ‘And I suppose you're happy to be here, are you?'

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.' Apart from wanting to explore what I can of the terrain tomorrow, there's something about the impermanence of these sorts of mining towns that cheers me: nothing Man could ever do can last forever. We're as ephemeral as gold strikes themselves; the bald and slaggy hilltops all around us will recover one day, too.

‘Must you be so vomitously happy about it, though? You did almost kill me, you know. In fact, this is the worst thing you've ever done to me. You do know that, don't you.'

‘
I've
done this to you?' For the hundredth time I remind him: ‘You didn't have to come.'

‘Oh, yes I did,' he mutters.

And I return to ignoring him, leave him to grumble around all his weird anxieties. He was never in any danger; our horses are too well trained and dauntless – they were never going to startle in the gorge or bolt when those tearaways came down on us. But I am probably a bit annoyingly cheerful, it's true, and weirdly so. Or perhaps settled is the better word. Saner than I have felt for some time, perhaps; possibly ever. Berylda Jones might despise me, or she might think nothing of me – that would represent little deviation from my general experience with women – but I came to realise on my solitary walk along the Turon that it's quite beside the point what she thinks of me.

In the first instance, I have discovered what I am fairly certain is a new species of native daisy, and that is something to be very cheerful about, no matter what she or Cos or anyone else might think of it, or what name I give to it. Whatever it is, it will entirely justify my absence from the university this time, too. Professor Jepson will be nicely pleased when he is informed of both the discovery and my intention to return to Melbourne directly after my explorations at Manildra – I'll be back within the month – the sooner to get a paper out on the find and then get back to the work that the whole faculty would much prefer I apply myself to: collaborating with the Board of Agriculture on the development of that science as a university degree course. While maintaining whatever influence I might exert on the classification of so-called ‘native weeds', and all in good time before lectures resume. So Dubois can despise me all he likes, and to no effect.

In the second instance, and of more serious consideration than anything else, Berylda Jones is in some jeopardy. I don't know what it is, but on my walk I listened and relistened to our conversation, and there is something there. Something wrong. As much as she made her lack of affection for her uncle clear, I am sure she withheld as much as she revealed about him. About this conflict between them, the conflict in her. She is determined that she and her sister will be independent of her uncle; why? Odious as he is, why eschew the comforts and connections that man might afford her? Then there is the sister's painting, of the river sprite tethered into the tree, it comes back and back to me, haunting indeed, as does the image of the bruise blooming across the back of Berylda's hand. There is a picture to be made of these pieces, a picture yet obscured. A most unhappy one, I am sure.

And in the third and simplest instance, Berylda Jones has suffered a terrible amount of misfortune and grief in her young life. Little wonder she frowns. It is arrogance to imagine she frowns specifically at me. She does not know it yet, but she is alone no longer: I will help her in any way I can. I will be her friend.

‘Whoa, ahead,' Buckley calls from behind us, catching up as we have slowed, and I see the awning of our final resting place:
WHEELER'S FAMILY HOTEL
emblazoned in carnival lettering propped along the length of the rusting tin roof that's nevertheless bordered with a wooden frieze of blue ocean waves. The building itself is painted yellow – an eye-watering yellow even in this light. This is an establishment one could not fail to notice, or wonder at its displacement from the seaside amusement pier it surely belongs to. What a fantastic wreck of a thing it is.

‘Well, blow me down,' says Cos, livening a fraction. ‘It's the tart shop at the End of the Earth.'

‘And you'd know, wouldn't you.' I laugh as the buggy overtakes us, and the sister, Greta, wonders almost in my ear: ‘Where have all the people gone?'

I don't hear Buckley's reply to her, but I look up this crooked street again: little sign of life but for the puffing chimneys and a bored dog wandering from side to side, sniffing the dirt – no, actually, that's a goat. Eerie, as though the Wild West Rodeo has just left town, taking every cowboy with it. But then, it is New Year's Day, isn't it – perhaps the miners who live here are sleeping off last night and couldn't be bothered with Federation either. More than past it now myself. I yawn, and as I do I hear the creak of boards outside the pub. I look around, back to the verandah, and find myself looking right into the round, ruddy face of a man stepping up on a ladder, to light the lamp under the awning.

‘Good evening, travellers!' He smiles from ear to ear at me and Cos. ‘What can I do for you, gentlemen?' he asks with a hearty bark that's barely left the Cornish coast, and I do believe this might well be a tart shop.

Before I can answer and Cos can stop coughing with misfired laughter, the man peers up the verandah, at Buckley hopping out of the buggy, and his grin widens with recognition. ‘Roo? Is that you? Roo! Well, if it isn't Roo Buckley!' he bellows. ‘And what can I do for you, my fine friend, my cobber, my old boot?' He's wiping his hands on a short apron and extending one to him.

‘Did I hear you say Roo Buckley?' A woman appears at the double doors to the saloon with a broomstick, round like the man, she could be his sister but that she has a thick European accent of some kind.

‘Olga!' Buckley calls her, grinning too. ‘Mick,' he calls the man, and he clasps him round the shoulder as he shakes his hand. ‘Still here!'

‘Yup,' the man replies with a wink. ‘Still here. Wouldn't get rid of us with a packet of Pitt's.' Rat poison, I presume.

The proprietress gives Cos and I a big smile and a nod each, before peering at the buggy and seeing the ladies there. ‘Oh! Look! Who is this?' She grabs Buckley by the arm. ‘Is this the Jones girls? No!'

‘Aye,' Buckley says. ‘We come up for a little drive. Yous got room for us for the night? Two'd be good – one for the fellers here as well. I'll sleep out back of the kitchen, if that's all right.'

An uncertain glance is exchanged between the Mr and Mrs, before the man says: ‘Yup – well, sure! Make yourselves at home!'

A flash of what appears to be dismay in the woman's eyes, before she lunges at the sisters now alighting onto the verandah too, at the same time screeching instructions through a window: ‘Katie, get the water on!' and over the roof, ‘Come, Tommy, for the horses!' and back to the sisters, ‘Come in, come in, oh, if it isn't the Misses Joneses, goodness to me, well haven't you two grown – ooooh so very beautiful, beautiful! So long it has been but I would know you anywhere, your poor beautiful girls.' She presses her hands around their faces as though they are small children arrived for her maternal pleasure – which is now pouring forth in an unstoppable stream: ‘Beautiful! Come in, come in! What a beautiful surprise!'

Berylda laughs as she's swept along, but the frown is bemused, surprised herself by the reception perhaps, and I wonder if she doesn't quite recognise this woman making a fuss of her. Arm in arm with her sister, or more probably holding each other up at the end of this long day, Greta sighs: ‘Oh Ryl, but I don't know that it's possible to be as worn out as I am. So suddenly –
whoosh
– I've had it now we're here.'

‘Your horses? Misters?' A boy has appeared for Jack and Rebel, a sleepy-looking kid with his shirt hanging out, and when my feet hit the dirt they don't feel altogether there: whoa, that was a long ride indeed. When Cos steps up to the verandah ahead of me, I'm not sure that it's the boards that creak or his knees.

‘Who?' I am being introduced by Buckley to Mrs Wheeler, and Mrs Wheeler is hard of hearing: ‘Oh? Mr Wilbarrow and Mr What? Come in, come in.'

We all stamp in through the saloon doors, down a hall, and inside the place is empty; seeming emptier as the lamps are lit. A typical country inn, this is, more accommodation house than pub: one big dining room in the centre, with couches ranged around, and a bar, four or five rooms all leading off it, and a fireplace either end to make sure it's an oven no matter the season. It is sad that it should be so deserted; my sympathies as contradictory, for those who live here and the forest that waits for them to leave, as the bright checked tablecloths in this empty room. Still, for all this emptiness, it does feel like we've interrupted something.

‘Here, here, gentlemen, you can be in this room here.' Mrs Wheeler is just about shoving us through a door just round from the entrance hall, at the front of the place. ‘It is good, yes? To your liking, sirs?'

‘Yes. Marvellous,' I reply before looking at it, and when I see it, it is rather marvellous: a small room but quite lavishly furnished, two iron bedsteads with a night stand in between, all grandmotherly frills and flounces and flocked and heavily florid wallpaper – impeccably kept Continental tart shop? With a bed length I'm accustomed to: at least eighteen inches short of comfort.

‘Yeah bonzer.' Cos collapses on the nearest bed, but Mrs Wheeler doesn't notice; she has gone back to her hurried cooing and clucking: ‘Oooh, Misses Joneses – come, come with me, over here, here …' Closing the door behind us.

I hear one of the girls outside, crossing the dining room: ‘Oh Ryl, oh dear.' Greta. ‘I think I'm going to need to lie down for a little while and wait for my head to stop travelling …'

That's a good way of putting it. Cos has his own: he writhes and groans on the bed, stretching and moaning. ‘I think my back is broken. Drink, Wilb, get me a drink. Don't care what it is, just plenty of it. Or I'll never speak to you again.'

I don't ask him to promise. I'm sure he is actually in a good deal of pain. My own arse isn't altogether pleased with me either, and I leave to find us both a bit of something soothing. Across the dining room, Mrs Wheeler is bustling along, opening and slamming doors, and issuing a muffled squawk into one marked
PRIVATE
, on the far side of the hearth, diagonally opposite, and slamming that, too. I stare at that door blankly for a moment, before I remember why I am standing in this dining room: that's right – drink.

The little countertop of the bar is just to my left, practically in front of me, and Buckley is already there, in discussion with the publican, over the taps.

‘Couple of them McEgan boys, it were, and one of the Schwartzes,' Wheeler is saying, filling a glass. ‘They've been causing trouble with union talk for a while now. If the unions get a hold in here, this place is gone – the companies'll just up sticks.'

Buckley shrugs. ‘Man's got to eat, hasn't he? Couldn't feed himself on them wages let alone a family. Someone's got to stand up.'

‘Rock and hard one, ain't it, Roo. What do you do? Government fellers come up every so often, have a look, promise things'll get better, then buzz off again. It's a crying shame. And it's tearing the place apart. Fellers flogging the snot out of each other fighting for shifts, and young'uns leaving faster than them McEgans did this arvo.'

That makes my feet move towards the bar, and I can't help interrupting: ‘You discussing what happened on the Track this afternoon? That chase?'

The publican looks to Buckley, who gives a nod of assent before I'm told: ‘Yup. Some lads here had a bit much fun last night, had a go at blowing up the shed at Carney's battery – one of the company crushers, up on Bald Hill. Just a bit of a laugh gone wrong, it were.'

‘Oh, right.' Don't let on about the dispute behind it then, and fair enough. These chaps don't know who I am, and wouldn't care a fig if they did know, but they know I'm not one of them. It's the same dispute everywhere anyway, in every mine, stock run and crop field: How exactly can you make money without indentured slavery these days? I ask: ‘Did they do any damage?'