Ironbark (15 page)

Of course, Granddad will probably tell me to get stuffed. On the one hand, he tends to mind his own business. Then again, he can suddenly turn moral on me, like with buying me smokes and grog. Difficult to know which way he's going to turn. As it happens, it's no worries. He doesn't say a word, but gets his pouch and goes through the routine. It looks easy. Lay the paper out, get a decent bunch of tobacco, tease it along the fold, roll it between fingers and thumb, tuck one side of the paper over and roll it up. Quick lick along the gummy strip and there ya have it. A pretty cool rollie. It certainly doesn't look like rocket science, so I give it a whirl.

I go through the steps he tells me, but I can't get it to work right. There's loose tobacco falling out all over the place and then I can't tuck the paper in nice and tight. It takes ten minutes and at the end I've got this sad, drooping apology for a smoke. It's as wrinkled as Granddad and twice as bent. Unsmokeable. Absolutely unsmokeable. Even Granddad smiles at it. Well, I say smile, but it's nothing quite as dramatic as that. There's this general rearrangement of wrinkles around his mouth and he quickly smothers it, but I reckon I know a smile when I nearly see one. It occurs to me it's the first time I've seen him smile since I got here.

Are we talking serious bonding, or what?

I give it another few tries before I get one that even looks like a candidate for sticking in your mouth. It's still bent over like crazy, but I'm kinda proud of it. Granddad gives this little nod as we look at the sad, twisted thing and I take this as approval, so I light up. He then takes the pouch off me and rolls this perfect cylinder in about two seconds. He does it with one hand, the posing dropkick.

I nearly cough my lungs up and send them flying over the fence, the tobacco is that strong.

‘Jeez, Gramps,' I say when I can get enough air into me. ‘What is it with this stuff? I mean, I know smoking kills, but why are you in such a rush?'

‘Those things you smoke are full of chemicals. This is pure tobacco.'

‘Yeah,' I reply. ‘I feel positively healthy smoking this. Maybe I can get them on prescription.'

We smoke another. I wouldn't like to bet too much on it, but I think the second is slightly better than the first. It should be. It takes me fifteen minutes to roll it. And this time my lungs don't feel like they're being kneaded in concentrated sulphuric acid.

I get three fires going afterwards. One in the front room, the stove in the kitchen and the one in my bedroom. It's kinda fun. I roll up newspaper and then put kindling on top, a decent-sized log on top of that and set fire to the paper. They all take. Three out of three. I'm getting the hang of this frontier business. Give me a couple of weeks and I'll be putting out bushfires, skinning wallabies with my teeth and getting curiously interested in line-dancing.

The meal goes pretty well. I find fresh herbs growing in Granddad's vegie plot and mix them up with grated potatoes. There are green beans as well and I wash and top and tail them. I'll sauté them in garlic butter right at the end. Granddad is of the let's-boil-'em-to-buggery school when it comes to vegetables, and he needs educating. I fold an egg and some milk into the potato mix, shape them into small patties and fry them on the stove top. I'm getting to like this stove top. The only problem is there's no way to regulate the heat. It's all the one temperature – like the core of Venus. So I've got to be careful, otherwise everything burns. While the potato's cooking, I beat the living daylights out of a couple of steaks and stick a pan on with butter, milk, onions, herbs and a few other things that are a sauce-maker's trade secret. I turn the potato patties like a maniac and then, just when they're nicely browned, flip them onto a metal cooling tray on the stove. I reckon that'll help them cook through.

The steaks are good quality, better than anything I'd get in Melbourne, I have to admit. Granddad likes them coated in five centimetres of carbon, but I want them medium rare, so a knife slides through them and there's blood on the plate. In the coupla minutes they're sizzling, I drop the beans in a pan on the stove and toss them around, stirring the sauce and turning the steaks. It's a bit mad at that stage, and I could do with an extra pair of hands, but it all comes together. I slide the food onto plates, hide the barbecue sauce where Granddad will never find it, and serve him his tucker.

It's funny. Granddad looks pleased with the steaks, like he's being reacquainted with an old friend, but he's not sure about the rest of the meal. He does some prodding with his fork before he starts to eat. I reckon it's good, though. The beans are just right – there's nothing to beat vegetables that were picked thirty minutes before you eat them. They're beautifully crunchy. The potatoes aren't bad either, but they could have done with more seasoning. I make a mental note. The steaks are perfect and the sauce to die for.

‘So whattya reckon, Gramps?' I say.

‘About what?'

‘The food, man. Good or what?'

‘The beans were raw, but the rest wasn't bad.'

‘Listen, the way you cook your vegies, you'd be better off throwing away the semi-solid stuff and drinking the water you cooked 'em in. It'd be more nutritious, I tell ya.' I'm pleased, though. ‘The rest wasn't bad' is about as high as praise is going to go.

I wash up, then slip over to my room to write my journal. I'm tired of squinting by the light of a torch and there's still a little daylight left, so sooner is better than later. Anyway, I fancy a couple of beers tonight and I won't be able to face this whole self-analysis thing afterwards, that's for sure. It's a good idea to get it over with.

One part of the court case was a crack-up.

A psychologist argued my ‘dysfunction' was largely
because of my relationship with Dad. She spread out all
our dirty linen in court. That since Mum died I'd been
brought up by someone who didn't give a rat's. How Dad,
a high-flying businessman, had no time for me. A long
list of expensive childminders since I was two. Conclusion?
Dad, long on cashflow, short on parenting skills.

And Dad sat there, looking like he was sucking on a
lemon. People stared at him. Like he had a big arrow
over his head and they were playing spot-the-anal-sphincter.
Best thing, though, he was paying through
the nose. I laughed – right there in open court. Probably
didn't give a great impression.

But how good is that? To spend a thousand bucks,
whatever it was, and have someone testify you're a bag
of crap?

It was weird listening to someone talking about me
as if I wasn't there. Hear my life analysed, taken
apart. Spin, all of it. Here's the maths. Subtract a
mother, add an incompetent father, take away the
number you first thought of. Answer equals a kid with
anger management problems.

I know squat about psychology. If it was cookery
it'd be a dodgy recipe. I had no choices in life? My IED
was hard-wired? I don't think so. But then again, no
one asked me what I thought.

Dad got the court judgement he wanted.

One expert witness said the lack of a female role
model was having an effect on my other relationships.

What was that all about?

Apparently, I see myself as the centre of the universe.
Everything revolves around me. Dad encourages
this by giving me material things. Probably some truth
in that last bit. I am selfish. I have had the best
teacher. I just don't see the connection with other
relationships. Not really.

I asked Kris afterwards. She said the comments
were spot on.

Then again, I think she was angry with me. She
sometimes gets angry with me. It's often difficult to tell,
though. She does it with looks. Or disappointed silences.

At least I've got that in my favour. Trust me.

There's never any doubt when I'm angry.

By the time I've finished, it's dark and Granddad has a cold stubby waiting for me. He's lit the citronella candles and I draw my chair close to the open door. The temperature dips along with the sun, but the warmth from the fire and the wood stove takes the edge off the chill. We drink, and sit in silence, listening to the scuffling of wallabies.

I don't know. Maybe it's all that writing and thinking about relationships and women and stuff, but I decide to give the thorny topic of Gran another go.

‘Granddad?' I say.

He grunts.

‘You know that bizzo with Gran and how she roams the forest and all while you talk to her?'

He grunts.

‘Is it like – how can I put it – regular ghost behaviour? You know, her drifting around in white with pointy wings. I mean, do you actually see her? Does she drop in for steak and a cold one, that kinda thing?'

I know I'm being too light-hearted, but how
do
you talk about stuff like this? I can't even begin to take it seriously. That's probably hard on Granddad, I know, and it's a fair bet he'll get grumpy with me.

He slowly rolls a couple of smokes, passes one to me and takes a long swig on his Boag's. He stares into the nearest candle flame. There's enough light to see the glistening wetness of his eyes, and the shadows playing over his wrinkles make him appear someone else entirely. It's like the map of his face has been re-drawn. When he talks it's as if there has been no pause at all.

‘I don't see her,' he says. ‘That's not what I mean. But she is out there, watching over me, and I do talk to her.'

I'm a little relieved. I'd hate to run over her out there on the motorbike. Plus it's good to know Granddad is in possession of at least some of his marbles. I think the conversation is on a firmer footing.

‘So how does it work, then?' I ask. ‘I mean, you just sense her, is that it? A feeling you get?'

Granddad turns his wet eyes on me.

‘You seriously interested?' he asks. ‘You're not going to turn all of this into a joke?'

‘Dude!' I say. ‘I
am
interested, I swear. I love the paranormal. I'm serious, man.'

‘Don't believe in ghosts,' he says, wiping beer drool from the corner of his mouth. ‘Not in the way some people believe in 'em. But I do believe we make a mark on things around us, that the more intense the feelings the deeper that mark is. Take Port Arthur down south, the old convict place. People swear it's haunted. And maybe it is, but not by ghosts as such. I reckon the buildings are soaked with pain and suffering and we pick up on that.'

My jaw must be close to the floorboards. This is the longest speech I've heard from Granddad and it turns out he's just warming up.

‘When your gran died, well . . . I kept her here.' He touches his chest. ‘But she was a strong woman and she hated being cooped up.' He laughs. ‘I guess there's not enough space for her inside me. So, yeah. I reckon if there's something powerful enough inside you, it can get out and you can sense it around you. And that's what I mean about Gran being an angel. Not with wings, not a physical thing. But her love. That's what I mean. Her love is still here. And it looks after me.'

I don't know what to say. It's kinda beautiful, all that. Veering dangerously towards the mushy – probably off the edge and up to its axles in it, frankly – but still beautiful. I open my mouth to tell him so, but before I get a chance he lifts his wrinkly old backside off the chair and lets go a real cracker. Like ripping a sheet. If it wasn't so unexpected I'd be impressed. Stinks like hell, too. I'm wafting my hands around, trying to clear a space. Potent stuff. I swear I can hear wallabies toppling over outside the fence.

‘Get out and walk,' says Granddad.

‘Jeez, Gramps,' I say. ‘You weren't kidding about powerful things getting out. And I sure as hell can sense it around me.'

He doesn't comment, but he does get us a couple more coldies.

‘You've discovered a rogue glacier back there in the bush, haven't you?' I say. ‘And drilled beer-sized holes in the icefloe.'

He doesn't comment on that either.

We sit in silence, occupying our own heads. And it's cool. It's all cool.

Still, I can't help thinking it's a good thing I won't be responsible for washing Granddad's underdaks in the morning. I mean, he
was
talking about intense things making their mark.

I carve a fourth line on the bedpost and I like the glow from the fire and the sense of routine. The jailhouse symbolism has kinda lost its meaning, but it's a fun thing to do. I still want to get back to Melbourne. Don't get me wrong. It's where Kris is. It's where my life is. But stuck in the bush with a deranged old dude has lost some of its terrors.

Granddad
is
a mad old geezer. But there's all this stuff under the surface with him and it's kinda fascinating to dig into it. I like him. And I don't think I'm reading too much into it when I say I think he likes me too.