The Sunburnt Country (4 page)

‘Hey, Dan. I was at the shop when I saw the truck go past. Thought you might be ready for that hand. I brought reinforcements,’ said Zac. ‘This is Rick Merrit: butcher’s son and handy when it comes to moving stuff.’

Daniel shook hands with Rick, who was about six feet tall and stood eye to eye with Dan. Rick was solid like a man, but still had the face of a teenager. ‘Thanks for coming,’ Dan said.

Rick shrugged it off. ‘Let’s get cracking, shall we? I’ve still gotta go and pick up the roast for Mum.’

With four blokes it only took half an hour to unload the bed, couch, TV, fridge, a small cupboard and a dining table and a few boxes.

‘Man, you travel light,’ said Zac, after they’d positioned the couch.

‘Well, I’m not here for long,’ Dan said frankly. ‘They’re taking applications for the permanent manager’s position soon, so I’m just here to fill in and check everything’s in order in the meantime. With the last guy pulling the pin, it made things a little hard.’ Dan had bought most of these belongings new rather than dealing with shifting his own furniture from his house in Perth. He figured he’d just give it away when he got back to the city. He wasn’t here to make a home. He was here to work.

‘So you got any kids? A girlfriend?’ asked Zac, collapsing onto the couch for a rest.

‘No and no.’ Dan signed off with the delivery guy, then, turning back to Zac, said, ‘I’m too busy to get involved with anyone. You?’ He thought he should ask, the guy did just help him out.

Zac rolled his eyes. ‘Nah. Not many to chose from out here.’

Rick snorted as he rested against the couch near Zac. ‘I’ve got one, must just be you, hey, Zaccy. You’re wearing the wrong deodorant.’

Zac punched Rick in the arm. ‘Jesus, you’ve got a smart mouth for a nineteen-year-old.’ He stood up next to Dan, resting his hands on his hips. ‘Well, we’re gonna be at the pub again tonight for a pool session. You should drop by for a game. Besides, it’s your shout,’ said Zac.

‘Yeah, mate, the more the merrier.’ Rick held out his hand and Dan shook it. Rick was big and shy, but Dan could see that with more time the kid would open up. He didn’t know many teenagers who’d stop what they were doing to help a stranger.

‘Um, I guess. I had Jean Symonds drop by and invite me for dinner . . .’

Zac waved his hands like he was trying to stop a truck. ‘Nah, nah. You don’t want to go doing that, mate. Jean’s a nice bird but she’ll burn your ears off after an hour, and her hubby, Symmo, has a model tractor collection and he loves showing people every single one . . . in detail,’ Zac emphasised.

Rick was shaking his head, waving his hand across his throat in a slicing motion. ‘Nooo, mate. You don’t wanna go through that, trust us.’ His eyes were wide as though reliving a nightmare.

‘Ookay. The pub it is,’ Dan said slowly. Both guys smiled, happy with Dan’s choice. ‘Well, thanks for your help. You too, Rick. I wish I could offer you a beer but . . .’ He gestured to the empty fridge they’d just lugged in.

‘It’s cool,’ Rick replied, hitching up his low-hanging denim shorts. ‘The pub has plenty, you can thank us there.’ He smirked before following Zac back to his ute

Dan shut the front door of his new house and cranked up the air-con. The place was silent again – just what he was used to. He leaned against the door, wondering just how many other locals he was going to mix with tonight and how many of them would have files he’d have to sift through on Monday morning.

He hoped none of them. He’d never socialised with his clients before and he didn’t want to start now. Besides, it was his dad’s wise advice that was freely given when he’d followed John into banking. He was the son of John Tyler, Sovereign Bank’s managing director. He had to get results.

MONDAY
morning Jonny woke to loud banging on her bedroom door.

‘If you want any breakfast, you’d better get up now, sweet pea, or your brothers are gonna scoff the lot.’

‘I’m coming. Save me some, please.’ She rubbed the sleep from her eyes before throwing back the rugs and sitting up. After Friday’s all-nighter with Ryan watching the first three
Star Wars
movies, she was catching up on some much-needed sleep. Every time she’d started to get some shut-eye during the movies, Ryan had poked her in the ribs, telling her she was missing the best bits. Needless to say, Sunday morning she’d slept in till eight and this morning was no better – six-thirty. In a household that rose at five, six thirty was a solid sleep-in.

Not wanting to miss breakfast, Jonny didn’t bother to get dressed. Instead she just straightened her worn shearing singlet and adjusted her boxer shorts. She picked up a hair tie from her pine bedside table and gathered her hair in a knot. The carpet was warm underfoot as she shuffled out of her room. Trailing her finger along the rammed-earth walls, she headed to the kitchen, following the smell of cooking. She loved her parents’ house. It had been built when she was eighteen, back when all three boys were still on the farm and they’d had the manpower to make the rammed-earth house themselves. There was something warm and natural about having dirt walls and it sure beat the tin shack at the back of the workshop where she slept some nights.

‘Ah, here’s the sleepyhead,’ said her dad, from his seat at the huge oak table. Jonny went and kissed the top of his bald head; she didn’t like kissing his cheeks because of his snowy-white beard.

Her mum, Sandra, brought Jonny a plate and cutlery. Sandra was the shortest in the family, she wore her blonde hair in a bob and always wore some novelty apron when she was in the kitchen. Today was a
Doctor Who
dalek with the word
Exterminate
written across the top. It had been a Christmas gift two years earlier.

‘Thanks, Ma.’ Jonny sat down opposite her dad, next to Zac and her second-oldest brother, Jonathan. Her eldest brother, Edward, ate with his own family at their parents’ old house. He had to help get his wife and kids off to school. His wife, Monique, taught Years Six and Seven. She’d gone back to teaching the moment the kids had reached school age. Edward relied a lot on Monique’s steady income, especially when the farm struggled to pay a living wage.

All of the men had plates of half-eaten sausages, eggs, bacon and baked beans. Jonny wasted no time in piling her own stoneware plate with what they’d left behind. Sandra sat down, not eating but just enjoying the company of her family.

‘So, I like the new chook pen. It actually looks like it’ll stay up,’ Jonny teased. ‘You must have done most of the work, JB.’

Zac scoffed. ‘Him?’ he said, pointing to Jonathan. ‘He’s forgotten how to build anything. He’s a shift worker. All he wanted to do was sleep.’

Jonathan flung a bean at Zac.

‘Jonathan Baxter, you will not throw food in my house unless you want to spend the morning washing the floors,’ Sandra warned, but the twinkle of love in her eye gave her away.

‘Yes, Mum.’ Jonathan threw Zac a look that said
I’ll get you later
before returning to his breakfast.

‘Thanks for the help yesterday, sweetheart,’ Jonny’s dad said to her, setting down his cutlery and wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his work shirt.

‘Any time, Dad. She’s good as new.’ The loader had been easy to fix, and something she knew her dad could have done if he’d wanted to. Jonny liked to think it was his way of getting her back on the farm so he could spend the day with her.

‘I hear the new bank manager’s in town,’ said Sandra. ‘Jean’s been calling everyone. Easy on the eyes, I hear,’ she added with a pointed look at Jonny.

‘God, Mum. As if I’d ever look at a wanker banker. I don’t want a stuck-up city snob,’ she said through her mouthful of sausage, before mumbling an apology in response to her mother’s disapproving look.

‘It’s not nice to judge, Jonelle. Greg was a good guy.’ Her mum was always trying to make her see the other side.

Her dad cleared his throat. ‘Poor Greg. No one could blame him for leaving after all these years. Bloody hard to be the one to ask your friends for payments all the time. The bloody drought, it hurts everyone. Even working at the bank would have been difficult, so I don’t blame him for moving on and wanting a better life. Greg didn’t have the ties to the land and Bundara like we do. He wasn’t the bad guy and neither is this new bloke.’

‘Yeah, well, if he’s from the city, I already don’t like him. I’m just saying,’ Jonny said, licking the sauce from her fork.

‘Nah,’ Zac said. ‘I’ve already met him. Actually spent a bit of time with him over the weekend. We got on all right. I don’t mind him to be honest.’

‘You could befriend anyone, Zaccy. You’d be best mates with the devil if he’d shout you a beer,’ JB sniggered.

‘How long till you fly out again?’ teased Zac. They all knew when he was flying – tomorrow.

‘Don’t remind me, Zac,’ Sandra said. ‘I can hardly bear it every time Jonathan flies off to that bloody mine.’ She bit her lip and Jonathan rose from his chair to put his large hands on his mum’s shoulders. At thirty he was a catch and Jonny often wondered why he hadn’t snagged a girl from the mines yet. But then again, maybe he had and was keeping her to himself. That would be just like JB. He was quiet and private, not like the rest of them. He was just like Grandpa Baxter.

JB bent down and kissed Sandra’s cheek. ‘It won’t be for long, Mum, and I’ll be back. I can’t stay away from your cooking. Thanks for brekky. I’d better go pack.’

They all watched JB head to his room, his steps heavy on the timber-look lino. None of them ever liked him leaving, but he’d taken a job on the mines over a year ago because the farm simply couldn’t continue to support them all, and seeing as JB was the truck driver in the family, he knew he’d get a job easier than anyone else. Ted couldn’t leave his family, and Zac was in charge of the sheep stud, so it left JB with no choice but to leave. He just did what he had to do for the family, and he never failed to spend most of his wage on repayments for the farm machinery. Most of his other mates used their generous salaries on things like jet skis, boats and other expensive toys. But JB never complained. ‘It won’t be for much longer,’ he always said. They all knew a good year was due . . . it had to be. None of them could keep this battle going forever.

When Jonny pulled up outside her workshop, Renae was already there waiting for her, and so was Carlo’s Ford Territory. She parked her white Land Cruiser ute beside the shed. Once upon a time it had been Coot’s ute but he’d given it to Jonny when she’d bought the workshop. ‘Scarcely worth a brass razoo,’ he’d said. It was old but the Landies were strong. The bashed-about tray was never empty, carrying around Jonny’s second set of tools, a compressor, a battery and all sorts of spare parts in the metal cabinet she’d purposely built for the tray. She didn’t need a sign advertising her business on the side of the ute – everyone in town knew who it belonged to. Jonny couldn’t part with the ute any more than she could part with the workshop.

Coot had known he was getting sick, had kept it from her even when he asked if she’d be interested in buying his workshop. She could remember the moment like it was yesterday. They’d been sitting out the front on some tyres, Coot with a rollie hanging out his mouth, his blue work overalls on and a greasy rag hanging out his pocket. ‘So, interested in buying the workshop from me, Jonny?’ he’d asked. Just like that, as if he’d just asked her about the weather. She’d been speechless, of course. Then minutes later she rattled out all these questions. ‘How come? Why do you wanna sell it? What are you gonna do? Are you okay?’ The last question had come out because she knew how much this workshop meant to Coot and she figured he mustn’t be all right if he was thinking of selling it. Little did she know how right she was.

Coot had looked across to the bush beside his workshop as he weighed his words. ‘You know how I’ve always dreamed of travelling through the outback, on them bush tracks and what not? Well, I’ve been thinking . . . I ain’t gettin’ any younger and you don’t need me in here any more,’ he’d gestured to the workshop. ‘Don’t give me that look, girlie. I know half the time I’m just gettin’ in ya way.’ Coot had never got in her way. Sure, she was always a bit faster but Coot was oldschool, he liked to take his time and stop for a fag break.

Coot had reached over and taken her hand. ‘Will you take on me shop, Jonny? I know you would look after her and I’d shut her down before I let anyone else run her. I wouldn’t be asking for much, just enough to buy a decent ute and see me on my way.’ He’d squeezed her hand, his ancient tobacco-stained fingers warm and strong. ‘What do ya say?’

Jonny had gazed up at his eighty-year-old face, his prickly whiskers covering the age spots and dirt-encrusted wrinkles. She loved this man fiercely and loyally. She’d seen the hopefulness in his rusty golden eyes and knew she’d never knock back any request from him. Coot never asked for anything for himself, not once since she’d known him. For him to want to sell his workshop to her and follow his dreams just showed how passionate he was, and how hard he’d thought this through. ‘You know I’d love to take on your workshop, Coot,’ she said. ‘It would be an honour and a privilege. She means as much to me as she does to you,’ she added.

Coot had glanced away then, his Adam’s apple rising and falling as he swallowed hard. He’d never been one to get all emotional. That was women’s business, he’d always said. ‘I’d much rather be here with you, but if you are finally doing something for you, then I won’t hold you back.’

Coot had sniffed, cleared his throat and stood up. ‘I’ll get the paperwork sorted out then.’

When he finally turned to face her, Jonny had thrown herself into his arms, burying her head into his dirty work overalls scented with smoke and grease.

For a long time after he’d left Bundara, she used to open one of his old tobacco pouches and just smell it; sometimes she’d even light up a rollie and leave it burning out the front in a pot like incense.
À la
Coot.

So Coot had left, he’d taken the money from the sale and spent the next thirteen months travelling the outback, following old bush tracks and having a whale of a time until his sickness caught up with him.

News of his death came by way of a letter from a nurse called Libby at a hospital in Alice Springs. She wrote that Coot had talked about Jonny a lot, how she felt Jonny deserved to hear the truth about Coot’s last days on earth and just how much the silly old bugger had won her heart over with his country charm.

This letter was how Jonny had learned about his cancer, how he had travelled until he was too sick, not bothering with treatments and the like. That was Coot, didn’t want to be jabbed and poked by the people in white coats. Tears had streamed down her face as she’d read through the thick letter, pages and pages of neat printing. Libby had relayed everything Coot had mentioned while in hospital, some of his travels and most importantly the stories of Jonny. She explained about his stomach cancer and how it had taken him quickly in the end. ‘He fought it until he was ready and not until he’d seen all he could.’ The only regret he had, she explained, was that he couldn’t see Jonny and her great big smile one last time before he went. And to tell her how much he loved her and to hold her in his arms once again. Oh, how she had cursed the old bugger, screaming it to the sky, for hiding the truth from her, but he wasn’t one for a spectacle. And in the end Coot went out on his terms and in his own way.

Jonny still had all of his postcards on her fridge out the back. Some only said,
Missing you,
Tiger
or
Had a beer here
. But to get words out of Coot that weren’t written on an invoice was something special. He was more the yarn-telling kind, and in a way she was jealous of Libby and all the stories she got to hear.

Jonny swallowed the lump that always rose when she thought of Coot. She missed that silly old bugger, even though it had been nearly two years since she’d scattered his ashes. Libby had seen to it that Coot was cremated, as he had requested. He had wanted to be cremated in Alice Springs, so as not to bother anyone, and then Libby was to send the ashes to Jonny because she’d know what to do with him. His ashes had arrived a week after the letter.

Jonny had scattered Coot’s ashes over the thing he’d loved most after her, his workshop. She’d watched his ashes float through every crevice, every gap and crack in the tin or on the cement floor. It was if he had guided the grey haze of his remains as it bear-hugged the workshop. She liked to think parts of him still remained with her, always.

Shaking off her memories, Jonny slid open the large workshop door on her way to the front office area. Renae sat at the desk, her head in the latest
Woman’s Day
magazine. She knew where the key was kept and probably so did half the town. Renae, with her perfect nails and hair, looked so out of place among the walls filled with different-sized belts, fuel filters, tubes and batteries. The cement floor was thick with dust, and Coot’s collection of old signs overflowed into the office, taking up whatever space he’d been able to reach.

‘Hey, Nae. You’re here early.’

Renae lay the magazine down on the paper-covered desk, next to the computer, which was jammed into the corner. ‘So? How was your weekend? In particular, how was Friday night? I tried to call you a few times, you know.’ Renae was trying to look ticked off but she was no good at being angry.

‘Yeah, sorry about that. Was out at the farm helping Dad. You know how crap the signal is out there.’

Jonny grabbed her trusty blue overalls and busied herself with putting them on while Renae tried eyeballing her, searching for details.

‘Okay, okay. You’re killing me here.’

‘Nae, there’s nothing to tell. There never will be. We just don’t see each other like that. But we did have a great time, stayed up all night watching
Star Wars
.’ She shrugged and let out a sigh that would have blown the dust from the desk. ‘But he’s not all right, Nae. I’m worried. He was trying to pretend life was grand and he’s not letting me in like he used to.’