Lonesome Howl (2 page)

to fight back.

Mum was deaf to all that.

When Grandma couldn't leave her bed,

a week before she died,

I sat beside her.

She asked me to draw back the curtains

and open the window,

so she could see up the hill

to Grandpa's grave.

I stayed with her for hours

on the faded old lounge chair,

ready to help if she needed water

or her pills.

It was safe there.

One morning, Grandma heard Dad shouting.

She reached for my hand,

squeezing tight each time his voice

stormed through the walls.

She said, ‘Lucy, some people die

long before they're in the ground.'

Lucy's will

I don't believe in omens

or signs and stuff like that.

But every morning,

before I get out of bed,

I lean over to look at Beaumont Hill

rising above our farm

like a wild animal about to pounce.

If there's a dark cloud behind the hill

I stay in bed for five more minutes,

waiting to see if the wind blows it past.

I close my eyes

and picture the cloud

moving away from our farm

with the westerly.

If I open my eyes too soon

I know that cloud will stay there all day.

It doesn't mean bad luck.

He'll be in a crappy mood,

cloud or no cloud.

Nothing can change that.

I close my eyes and focus

on the darkness drifting away.

By force of will

I want to move the cloud.

That would be some trick,

if I could do it.

The witness

Ranting, yelling, stomping

around their bedroom.

Sometimes she answers back

and I hear his voice change:

deeper, menacing.

It's the quiet that scares me.

I pull the blankets tight

and hide in my dark cocoon

waiting for another explosion.

I should help Mum, somehow,

be on her side.

But she does nothing to stop it.

‘Just keep out of his way, Lucy.'

As if it's our fault;

as if we made him like this.

She takes it without a whimper,

too scared to move.

And when he starts on me

in the daylight,

she just looks away

and I'm thinking,

She's just glad it's not her.

I'm not sure what hurts more,

his ugly words,

his backhanders,

or watching Mum seeing it all

and doing nothing.

Floating

I got the idea

when I helped Superman

get down off the roof.

When I want to escape,

I climb the wooden ladder

onto the shed roof

and lie back on the iron,

looking at the high clouds floating by.

I can hear the farm below me:

the dogs growling,

the click of each peg

as Mum hangs the washing,

Dad coughing, sniffing,

lighting another smoke;

Peter talking to anyone who'll listen,

or when that doesn't work,

talking to himself.

I know they can't see me,

they don't even miss me.

I close my eyes

and imagine the clouds, feather-soft,

holding me high above everything.

My body tingles.

I'm alone, if only for a while.

I stay here until the sun fades

behind Beaumont Hill,

when Mum calls me to help with dinner.

I stand and stretch my arms

open to the valley.

On a good day I can almost fool myself

that I belong here.

Preparing dinner

Mum washes the potatoes in the sink,

scrubbing the dirt loose with a plastic brush.

I peel them, ready for the boiling water,

and stare out the window at him

sitting on the seat,

his head tilting forward as he dozes.

‘Just stay out of his way.'

Mum's so caught up in her work

she doesn't know she's said it aloud.

‘What?'

‘Nothing, I was just . . .'

‘You were talking about him, weren't you?'

She turns away from the sink,

drying her hands on her apron,

getting the cutlery from the drawer.

‘What if he comes after me, Mum?

How do I get out of his way then?'

‘Lucy . . .'

‘It's a bit hard to escape

when he‘s blocking the doorway,

don't you reckon?'

She sets the table with nervous hands,

taking extra care with each knife and fork;

anything to avoid answering me.

She shakes her head.

‘I don't want to fight, Lucy.'

Bloody hell.

I chuck the peeler in the sink

and storm past her.

‘Neither do I, Mum.'

TWO
Jake

Jake

I'm Jake.

Jake Jackson.

I'm fifteen years old.

I live in an old timber house

a stone's throw from Wolli Creek.

Mum and Dad and me have lived here forever.

My Great-grandpa Ellis wandered into this area

with a few prize Merinos and two dogs

and the story goes

that he met Miss Lizzy Beacher

in town one day

when he was asking directions to the barber.

‘I wanted a neat trim haircut

and I ended up with a wife.

Best advice I ever got!'

They had lots of kids

and all of them worked on this farm

just like we do now,

and we always will.

The farmhouse

When I was ten years old

Dad and me built the verandah

around this old place that's stood here

for a hundred years

and we used hardwood from the forest

just like Great-grandpa did.

Dad and me worked for weeks,

coating the floorboards in oil,

breathing in the strong smell

mixing with the timber.

Before I stained the last board,

in the far corner by the drainpipe,

Dad got a long sharp nail

and said,

‘Scrape our names,

yours and mine,

deep in the grain, with the date.

Your kids, Jake,

my grandkids,

will know what we've built was for them.'

Daybreak

Every morning I'm up at daybreak.

I go out to the verandah,

pull my boots on

and walk down to the chook shed.

The frost hard grass crackles under my feet.

I unlock the gate to the shed

and walk across the dusty floor,

messy with straw and wild grass stalks,

to collect the eggs, still warm,

from the raised nests along the wall.

The hens scatter,

clucking and fussing in the dirt.

Once I saw a two-metre red-belly black snake

curled in the corner of the shed,

near the water trough.

I backed out quickly and ran to tell Dad.

He reached for the shovel

we always keep on the verandah.

We buried the snake behind the shed.

I made a little white cross with a bad rhyme:

Here lies a snake, black and red,

came looking for eggs, now he's dead
.

Bread

Sometimes, late in the afternoon,

Mum and I cook in the kitchen.

When I was young she taught me

how to knead the dough for bread.

I love rolling the firm ball in my hands,

sprinkling the flour,

adding the rainwater,

kneading on the big wooden table.

I stack the small-cut logs in the firebox

to make it good and hot,

ready for the loaves.

We got an electric stove years ago

but Mum never cooks bread in that.

‘No smoke, no flavour,' she says.

Three times a week

we fire up the Early Kooka

to make bread.

And just before dinner

she tears bits off a still-warm loaf,

steaming in her hands.

I get the crust,

smothered in butter

melting in the soft flesh.

The wolf story

Ever since I can remember,

my dad has talked about the wolf.

From the age of five

I'd sit beside him on the back step.

We'd look across the paddocks of sheep

into the forest shimmering in the afternoon heat,

watching,

the two of us sure the wolf would come

if we sat here long enough.

As night fell,

I'd ask him to tell me,

once more,

about when he saw the wolf.

If the wolf wouldn't show

at least we could talk about him.

In the gathering dark

I'd hang on every word,

listening to Dad's deep voice

tell me

the wolf story.

The wolf at Wolli Creek

‘I was twenty years old

when I saw the wolf at Wolli Creek.

I was fishing for trout at Mercer Bend

where the water runs deep and brown,

with bubbles rising to the surface.

I heard a branch snap upstream.

His head was large and noble.

His ears, bigger than any dog's,

pricked, waiting for a sound.

I stood shock still as he came down to the creek,

not taking his eyes from me.

As he approached, the forest hushed.

The tips of his fur were lighter in colour

and it gave him a ghostly appearance.

His paws sank deep into the wet sand as he drank,

his long tongue lapping the water.'

‘What next, Dad? What happened?'

‘We stared at each other, eye to eye.

It seemed so long, Jake,

but it was probably only a few seconds.

Then he turned and ran into the bushes.

I never saw him again.

But I think of him out there,

maybe with a mate, and a litter.

Wolves don't live in Australia,

so they say.'

Jake's shed

Dad and I built the chook shed

when I was twelve.

We worked for two days

sawing the heavy posts,

coating them with sump oil.

Dad taught me how to set them level.

I loved hammering the wire,

bending the nails to hold each end tight,

bashing away without a care.

It didn't seem like work at all.

Even though it was made of scrap iron

and chicken wire,

we knew it'd stand forever

because of the effort we put in;

the care we took to get everything right.

Mum painted the chook shed door

a rich green,

as a background,

and with her fine art brushes

she drew our old farmhouse

with smoke rising from the chimney,

hens and chickens pecking in the grass.

‘To make them feel at home,' she said.

And if you look really closely,

in the corner of the painting,

peeking from behind the house,

you can see a wolf:

a grey wolf.

When Mum finished,

she winked at me.

‘For your father, Jake.'

THREE
Holidays

Jake: the school bus

I walk up the bumpy winding driveway,

jump our wooden double gate

and wait for the bus.

It's late, as usual.

The clouds roll in over the hills,

cockatoos screech in the dead trees

and the wind blows cold through my jacket.

I chuck a few rocks

at the
Eggs for Sale
sign

I made ages ago.

We've had two buyers in three years.

Nobody drives down this road except us,

the Hardings

and the school bus.

It rattles down the road

and squeaks to a stop

with the front door already open.

I hop on,

say hello to Peter and Lucy in the front seat

and sit behind them.

Every morning it's the same –

before the bus moves

Peter turns and starts talking.

‘Today is the last day of school.

Next week I'm gonna ride me bike every day

and maybe Dad'll loan me his gun

and I'll go shooting.

You wanna come?

We can get a wild pig,

or maybe a fox.

Whaddya reckon, Jake?'

On and on until the bus pulls into school.

Lucy: the Trobriands

I read a book a week.

I don't care what sort of book.

As long as old Mrs Bains lets me loan it,

I'll read it.

Today I finished a book

about these islands in the South Pacific,

with palm trees and coconuts

and sandy beaches and canoes

and all the heavenly things you'd expect.

But on this island they have a celebration:

a Yam Festival.

It goes for two months,

and all the islanders have sex with each other,

whether they're married or not.

And the young women form gangs

and they rape the men.

No kidding.

Five of them hold him down,

and one jumps on top.

The writer didn't say what the men think of this,

other than they're all a bit scared

to walk alone during the festival.

Now I'm reading this in the library

and I start laughing out loud

about these big strong island men

afraid to walk along a beach or through the forest

because a bunch of young girls like me

might jump out and rape them.

At the end of the festival,

they all go back to being married couples

and the young women

return to working in the village,

waiting for a husband.