The First Week (14 page)

‘Two bottles of beer we were allowed to sell them,' Evie said. ‘And not from the fridge. Even in the middle of summer.'

‘Well it kept the drinking under control.'

‘That was the excuse. What a joke. What about all the white drunks? Including the cops. Who was keeping their drinking under control? Lurching round spewing. Bashing their wives. And then they say
those blackfellas can't hold their drink
.'

Evie scowled at her wine glass. ‘As if giving them warm beer was going to help. Once I asked how they'd get it cold. The other barmaid said they could put it in the fridge when they got home. But there was no electricity on the Reserve. Everyone knew that.'

Did they know it?

They had their own problems to think about.

‘There was one time in particular,' Evie said. ‘A funeral, big Aboriginal get-together. A young black guy came into the bar, well dressed, smart. City type, so he obviously knew he had the right. God. The whole place suddenly went deadly quiet. Tense. All those cockies propping up the bar.'

Yes, Marian thought. No women in those days, of course, except the barmaid. Men in yakka pants and open-necked shirts. Red faces and hair on the back of their hands. Maybe even the moleskins from the golf club if it was a sale day.

‘No one said anything,' Evie went on, shrugging her shoulders to release remembered tension. ‘I served him, but I was packing it. I tried to let him know I was on his side. He was a nice guy, polite. But I couldn't think of a thing to say. It took about three minutes for Mick Barnes to turn up. You remember Mick?'

Marian did. The publican. A big man with a grey crew cut, no neck and pink eyes.

‘I was scared of him,' Evie said, grimacing. ‘When he drank he never exploded, just got quieter and meaner. He asked what was going on, but he didn't waste any time on me, just went over to the young guy.
What do you think you're doing?
The guy says
I'm having a drink
. Mick goes
finish your drink and get out
. But that young bloke had real guts. He didn't hurry, just went on sipping his drink, maybe counting to a hundred.'

Marian looked around. She shouldn't have started this. Shouldn't have asked.

The waiter was working at the other end of the dining room, clearing tables. The lunch rush was over. People had gone back to their lives leaving her and Evie sitting here, with this story between them. Marian wished she had a job to go to.

‘Then the cop walked in,' Evie went on. ‘That tall one, the footballer. Remember? I don't know if anyone had rung him. Maybe it was small town
ESP
. The cockies move aside, still nobody saying anything. The cop makes a beeline for the young bloke, doesn't waste any words.
You've got an hour to get out of town, we don't want your type here.
'

Evie moved her glass to line it up with the wine cooler and the salt shaker, as though they were the men at the bar.

‘Fortunately the young guy had finished his drink, so he walked out of the bar as slowly as he could manage. None of the men said anything. I remember there was a hissing sound, but I might have imagined it. Nothing happened, nothing you could see. Nobody laid a hand on him. But my God …'

Marian needed more water, but the carafe was empty. Evie moved it into her line-up.

‘That's when I knew I had to get out,' Evie said. ‘That was it for me, the country. Give me the city any day.'

‘The city. You're not going to tell me there's less violence in the city?'

‘It's different, in the city, not breathing down your neck all the time. In the country it's right in your face. One bloke took me out to watch the shearing. Show off his muscles I guess. I felt sick.'

‘At the shearing?' Marian had never thought of Evie as a wimp. What was there about shearing to make you sick? Then she thought of the bleeding nicks, the torn ears, the frightened sheep. Evie was putting into words what Marian had been thinking. ‘I suppose it can be a bit bloody.'

‘I feel safer here, in the city. Sure there's violence. But you can get away from it.'

She caught Marian's eye. ‘Not always,' she added, sobered.

Uncrossing her legs she signaled for the waiter. ‘Let's have coffee. And more water.'

The city. Marian thought of the traffic noise and smell, the lights that never went out, the drugs, the people jostling. It wasn't her idea of safe.

Maybe Charlie had both, country violence and city violence. The worst of both.

But Sam and Ros, they said they were pacifists.

‘That's the real story of why I married Luke,' Evie said. ‘He was the richest, most
city
suit I could find when I came back here. Always a good idea to go with the strength. You know, like chimps. Pick the alpha male.'

‘How come you never told me any of this?'

‘You were tucked up cosily with Mac by then. Country through and through. Anyhow, I didn't see it this clearly at the time, just knew I didn't trust anybody. Actually I was halfway round the bend, I can see that now.'

It's true, Marian thought. I wouldn't have listened. I thought Mac had the answers and my job was to go along with him.

‘Before I left,' Evie said, ‘the Native Welfare guy from Katanning came into the pub and I ended up telling him the whole story. The warm beer, all of it. I don't know what I thought he'd do. He wouldn't have been any match for Mick Barnes. Anyway that problem didn't arise, because as it happened, he agreed with Mick.
I do my job with the Abos, but I don't have any love for the buggers.
His exact words.'

Marian stirred her coffee and wished she wasn't hearing all this. Did Evie think she, Marian, should have done something about it? But what, exactly? In some secret part of her mind she knew that what Evie was saying was true and it wasn't just about the blacks. There was an ugliness that always threatened but was never acknowledged. It was what made the women edgy, trying to think of ways to curb the drinking, duck the fists, slow the driving. If you wanted to survive in a small place like that you faced forward and managed not to see too much. You couldn't afford to think who might be getting bashed up or raped. Now, in spite of herself, she imagined Lee's Granny, on a dark night, with the town hoons doing wheelies outside the Reserve and no help from the cops.

Was it any better when the Reserve closed and the people moved into town? Daytime was probably all right. The kids went to school together. Everyone knew each other to nod to, Mrs Tonkin who did all that work for the school fete, the guy at Elders, that old lady who always said hello. But what was it like behind all that, when they went home? Marian didn't know.

‘Maybe it's true, Evie. I know things haven't been great for the blacks. But I had my own worries.'

Her mouth began to fill with saliva again and she got up hurriedly. ‘Excuse me.'

She just made it to the toilet in time. Yanking the seat up she knelt on the cold floor, eyes shut. In sweaty hideous waves she brought up all the lunch, cream sauce, prawns, wine.

When the worst was past she flushed the toilet, banged the seat down and sat on it, mopping at her face with a handful of toilet paper. Someone came in to use the cubicle beside her. Cascading liquid, a small fart.

Marian waited until they'd washed their hands and gone again. Crossing to the basin she rinsed her mouth out, sloshed water on her face and patted it dry. She inspected herself in the mirror. Pale, but otherwise normal.

The water carafe had been refilled. Marian pulled it towards her.

Evie glanced absently at her, halfway through another cigarette, still in mid-thought. ‘I wish I'd had the guts to go out to the Reserve but I was afraid I wouldn't be welcome. I wish I'd gone and said sorry. You know, just like that. Sorry.' She had tears in her eyes.

That bloody word again.

‘You are so a stirrer,' Marian said.

‘No, I'm gutless. But at least I know it.'

‘So I suppose you vote Labor?' said Marian, nettled.

‘Nah. They're no better. I vote Green, if you really want to know.'

‘You don't!'

But Marian wasn't as shocked as she might have been a week before. It was another idea from the secret part of her brain. The Greens were the butt of jokes and abuse. But the heat was a give-away. They got people on a sore spot. Because you half-believed what they were saying.

‘What does Luke think about that?'

‘He doesn't know. It's a secret ballot, honey.' Evie fished under the chair for her handbag. ‘How come you asked me about the pub anyway?'

‘I met this girl, a friend of Charlie's. An Abo.'

Evie raised an eyebrow at her. ‘They're not Abos any more, darling.'

‘Well, Aboriginal, or Noongar, or something. Her name's Lee. She's bad news.'

‘What sort of bad news?' Evie was gathering her things as she spoke, and paying at the bar. Marian followed her out to the car. How could she describe Lee? Explain how uncomfortable Lee made her feel?

‘Well?' Evie asked, twisting the rear-vision mirror so she could apply more lipstick.

‘I think she's brainwashed Charlie, egged him on. You know, wound him up, made him angry. She organises protests and things.'

‘Sounds interesting.'

She wasn't interesting, she was trouble. Marian didn't like it.

‘So what's the connection with the pub?' Evie asked.

‘Her Granny grew up on the Reserve. It got me wondering.'

‘I'd like to meet her.'

No.
The strength of her feeling surprised Marian.

This was what happened with Evie. Marian would meet someone and then Evie would step in, charm them, find them fascinating. Marian would be left tagging along.

Did that mean she wanted Lee for herself?

She rejected the thought firmly.

Evie grimaced at her reflection and pulled at her cheeks. ‘I haven't thought about the pub for years.'

‘It's not like it was, you know,' Marian said. ‘It's very quiet. Lucky if there are six customers. The guy who's got it now, I think he'd be happy to sell it. But who to? The whole town's changed. The school's down to a quarter of the enrolments it used to have. The whole place is shrinking.'

‘How come? Where are they all?'

‘Sold up, given up, moved away. The farms are bigger, they've been combined. But they're only run by one or two people. The machinery now, it's huge. One man to drive it. Would have been three or four doing that work before.'

‘Why do you stay?'

‘Where would I go? I couldn't live in the city. I'd miss it too much. The farm, I mean. I love it, walking early in the morning …'

Marian hesitated, thinking of the mist coiling up from the dam. How could she describe it so that Evie would see the beauty of it?

But Evie was looking at her watch and starting the engine, not paying attention.

‘I'll drive you to your car,' she said.

Marian struggled to suppress panic.
Don't leave me.

‘Where did you say it was? I'll have to make tracks after that. But for goodness sake, keep in touch. I'll see you tomorrow, eh? You'd better take my mobile. It's in my bag there.'

‘Oh no. I couldn't.'

‘Don't be daft. You need to be able to contact people.'

‘But what about you?'

‘I've got another one. This is an old one. I threw it in because I forgot to charge the new one.'

The Astra was still sitting in the station car park. No one had broken into it or slashed the tyres. The key fitted smoothly into the lock as it had always done, as though only a few days had passed, rather than ten years.

Well it was only a few days.

There was a strange smell though. Marian wound down the window to wave goodbye to Evie. She put the key in the ignition and was about to turn it when she realised that the smell was coming from the paper bag on the dashboard.

The egg and bacon sandwich.

She opened the bag, and then wished she hadn't. A new wave of nausea caught the back of her throat. Opening the door she dropped the bag onto the bitumen.

A woman in the next car frowned and began to roll her window down. Marian smiled weakly, got out, picked up the bag and took it over to the bin at the entrance to the station. She walked back and sat in the car with the door open until her stomach settled.

For once the ignition caught first time and she eased the car cautiously out into the stream of traffic. Peak-hour was building up, worse luck. As she came to the
Kenwick Link
sign the lights changed to green and the car behind her beeped. Marian was in the wrong lane to go ahead. She took the turn onto the
Link
.

This couldn't be right. The road was taking her south again, away from the city.

Huge signs announced a massive freeway. Fremantle one way, airport the other. But Marian didn't want either. Anyway it was too late to turn so she drove straight through. Sweat dampened her hairline and she squinted ahead, trying to read the signs before she got to them. The old highway. Thank goodness. Turn left.

But if she kept turning left she'd go round in a circle. Yes, sure enough, the intersection was familiar and here was the station car park again. She'd done a complete loop. Sci-fi sensations flickered in her mind and she gripped the wheel hard, battling for logic. Straight ahead. Stay off the
Kenwick Link
.

Sweating heavily now, she moved into the middle lane. If she stuck to the old highway, no turning off, she must end up in the city.

After what seemed like hours she saw tower blocks on the horizon, and signs for the Causeway. But her relief was short-lived. The traffic here was bumper to bumper. Riverside Drive. Avoid the city-centre altogether, she thought, and found herself driving along between the river and the playing fields where she'd been walking the day before.