The Boys from Binjiwunyawunya (15 page)

‘Mate. They only fornicate on special, ceremonial occasions. Two or three times a year at the most.'

‘Fair dinkum?' Bailey, the sort of bloke who loved nothing better than a bit of business and would screw just about anything he could get his hands on, was somewhat taken aback by this. He continued to stare at Les and then a deep, lecherous chuckle began to rumble out of his throat. ‘I'll tell you what,' he laughed. ‘I'd like to be around when they go off. I reckon it'd be like a twenty-one gun salute.'

‘You're not wrong there,' laughed Norton, giving Bailey a slap on the shoulder. ‘When they're finished it looks like a Mr Whippy van's just been overturned in the tent.'

Bailey threw back his head and roared laughing. ‘Anyway George,' he said, returning Les's friendly slap on the shoulder, ‘I'd better get going too. I'll get the girl to leave the sheets and that outside the door. Okay?'

‘That'll be great thanks Ross.'

Bailey paused for a moment. ‘Listen George. If you ah... want a couple of flagons of plonk for 'em or something. Just go down and see the girl in the bottle shop. On the house,' he added with a wink.

‘No, that's all right' smiled Les. ‘Hey, there is something you could get us though.'

‘Sure. What is it?'

‘Could you get us an electric kettle and a teapot?'

‘Sure, no worries. I'll leave it outside the room with the sheets. I'll get some cups and all that too.'

‘Good on you. Well, I'll see you later Ross.'

‘Yeah. See you after, George.' Hoping to Christ the boys' tea hadn't turned too cold by now, Les took the stairs up to room 9 three at a time.

Across the road in the AWEC office, Percy Kilby could have been a lot happier than he was, considering Rocket Johnny had got up at Dapto and paid almost 8–1 on the TAB. However, winning $1,600 didn't quite seem to compensate for the rotten night's sleep he'd just had. Fortunately his stomach felt a lot better but he was headachy and weak and his eyes were puffed and grainy from lack of sleep. Unable to sleep, he'd been in the office since just after seven, hoping
to catch up on some bookwork. But all he'd done since he got there was sip on a mug of coffee and stare moodily at his desk. Frank, on the other hand, had not long waiked in with the morning paper under his arm and was quite jubilant.

‘Three dollars seventy-five for the win Perce,' he grinned. ‘I told you that pot licker of Ronnie's was a goer.'

‘Yeah. Terrific Frank,' muttered his boss irritably.

Frank smiled across from where he was seated on his boss's desk, reading the sports section. ‘Bad luck you're still crook Perce. I wouldn't mind backin' up at the Tai-Ping for another lash at those muddies.'

‘I'm not all that crook, Frank. I'm just bloody tired. I had a cunt of a night's sleep.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah.' Kilby sighed and ran a hand across his eyes. ‘All I did all night was dream.'

‘Nightmares eh?'

‘Ohh just bloody weird. I kept dreaming these three old black blokes were after me.'

‘Black blokes?'

‘Yeah. Real full-bloods. All done up in feathers and bones through their noses. Like something out of a thousand years ago. They kept chasing me with spears — all over some desert somewhere.' Kilby buried his face in his hands. ‘Buggered if I could get to sleep. Every time I'd doze off I'd keep seeing these old blokes with these weird blue eyes.' Kilby shook his head tiredly. ‘Fair dinkum, Frank, it was that real at times it scared the shit out of me.'

Frank moved his gaze from the paper across to his boss. ‘I reckon you ought to see a doctor Perce.'

Kilby was about to say something when an abrupt ‘shave and a haircut — two bits' rapped on the door and in walked Mick Rodgers.

‘Hello boys,' he grinned, cheerfully rubbing his hands together. ‘What's doing?'

‘Ah, Mr Rodgers,' smiled Frank, looking up from his newspaper.

‘What's doing?' said Kilby morosely. ‘Eight and a half grand's what's doing. You got it with you?'

‘Right here in my kick,' replied Jolly, the grin still plastered across his face. He pulled a fairly bulky envelope wrapped in a plastic bag out of his back pocket and dropped it on the desk. ‘There you are. You want to count it?'

Kilby stared at it for a moment. ‘Count it will you Frank. I'm too bloody tired.'

Luckily the money was in neat bundles of hundreds and fifties so Frank was able to count it fairly quickly without breaking into a sweat or giving himself a migraine in the process.

‘Yeah. It's all there Perce,' he said, pushing the money across the desk.

‘Good.' Even though it was quite an amount of cash, Kilby dropped it in the top drawer uninterestedly. ‘Okay. You may as well give him a hand to load them up. I'd help you but I'm too rooted to move.'

‘Yeah. I was just going to say you don't look too good on it Perce,' said Jolly. ‘What's up?'

‘I think I'm getting the flu,' replied Kilby shortly. He let out a sigh and dropped his face back into his hands.

‘It's a proper bastard, isn't it,' nodded Jolly. ‘There's a lot of it going around too.'

Frank produced two small wooden wedges, jammed them under the office doors, and they started loading up the panel van. Between them — even taking their time and stopping for a bit of a perv on any girls walking to the station — they had them all loaded up in less than half an hour. Jolly slammed the rear doors of the van and then lit a cigarette, offering one to Frank which he declined.

‘You want to come inside for a cup of coffee before you go?'

‘No. I'll piss off thanks Frank. The sooner I get these unloaded back at Bondi, the sooner I can get down the beach.' ‘Fair enough.' Frank watched Jolly puff away at his cigarette for a few seconds. ‘I don't suppose you'd get over Redfern way very often?'

‘Not very often,' replied Jolly. He took another huge drag on his cigarette and leant back against the side of the van. ‘It's funny though. I just bumped into a bloke I know from down the beach.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah. One of Price Galese's bouncers from up the Kelly Club.'

At the mention of Galese's name, Frank's ears pricked up and some of the tiny wooden cogs in his bony head started ticking over.

‘Did you say one of Price Galese's boys?'

‘Yeah. Les Norton. Big red-headed bloke.'

At that brief description Frank's ears pricked up a little more. ‘What's he look like again... this Les Norton?'

Jolly described Norton again, only this time throwing in Les's bushy eyebrows and his Queensland drawl. Now the cogs in Frank's half punch-drunk brain were whirring into overdrive. Les Norton began to sound very suspiciously like a certain chartered accountant who had called into the AWEC office the day before.

‘What'd this mate of yours say he was doing in Redfern?' he asked evenly.

‘Nothing,' shrugged Jolly. He flicked the cigarette butt out into Lawson Street. ‘Just said he stopped by to get some fruit. That's all. Seemed a bit funny though, seeing him here at eight in the morning.'

‘Mmhh.'

‘Anyway Frank,' said Jolly, jangling the car keys out of his pocket. ‘I'm gonna get crackin'. I'll see you later.'

‘Yeah,' replied Frank slowly. ‘I'll see you later Mick.'

Once he was back inside and had removed the wedges from under the doors, Frank couldn't tell his boss fast enough what Jolly had just said to him out the front. Kilby listened, but his tiredness and illness still had him uninterested.

‘Yeah, there might be something in what you say, Frank,' he muttered, his head still resting on his hands. ‘It's more than likely just a coincidence though.'

‘Fair enough,' replied Frank, ‘but if I happen to spot that big red-headed prick still hanging around I'm going to front him.'

‘Yeah, do that Frank.' Suddenly Kilby winced and clutched at his stomach again.

‘What's up?' asked Frank.

‘Ohh shit. I'm starting to get those pains in the gut again.'

Back in room 9 at the Thames Tavern, Tjalkalieri and the boys had resumed chanting. Earlier, they'd complained about the tea being half cold — naturally — and Mumbi had bitten into a partly-rotten apple. The muesli bars were okay, though. Norton assured them they could stop complaining about the tea from now on as he was getting a kettle and a teapot, and he'd buy a dozen packets of Kinkara as soon as it arrived. Yarrawulla told him he could shove his Kinkara up his big red arse; they wanted Twinings English Breakfast or Prince of Wales. Norton told them that he'd hire a Sherpa guide and bring the tea down from Tibet if that would make them
happy. The boys said they'd think on it. Tjalkalieri had got into the chanting now; after putting a bone through his nose and painting a design on his chest and back, something like a pair of black braces and waistband surrounded by tiny red and white circles. A number of red and white circles were painted across his forehead also. Mumbi was seated on the lounge next to Norton, casually peeling an orange as they watched the other two do their stuff.

‘How come you're not doing any chanting Mumbles?' asked Norton, watching avidly as Tjalkalieri skillfully manipulated the bone and chord.

‘Flexitime,' replied Mumbi, spitting several pips into his hand.

‘What?'

‘I'm on flexitime. I don't start till about ten-thirty.' ‘You're kidding aren't you? What do you think this is? The public bloody service?'

Mumbi shrugged his shoulders. ‘That's the way we work, bloodnut. If you don't like it — stiff shit.' He took another bite of his orange and spat some more pips into his hand. Norton shifted his gaze from the balcony to the floor and shook his head.

The boys chanted and danced non-stop till twelve-thirty sharp; then they abruptly knocked off for lunch. They'd taken it in turns to have an hour off at a time, but always making certain there were two men constantly chanting. Les was there to watch them most of the time, except when he had to go out and get the sandwiches, and ended up spending almost an hour scouring Redfern in an effort to find a place that sold Twinings Prince of Wales tea. Consequently he wasn't in all that good a mood when he got back to room 9 and made a brew, using the kettle and teapot that had been left outside the door with the sheets. But the boys were quite happy for a change, giving the tea a resounding thumbs up. They even said the chicken and salad sandwiches were okay too, though they would have preferred wholemeal bread to plain brown. Les prostrated himself on the floor and begged forgiveness, swearing on his mother's dying oath that it would never happen again.

‘Okay,' Les said, slapping his hands together and checking his watch after they'd all finished eating. ‘One o'clock, back to work. Come on.'

‘Hey, don't go putting the bustle on Les,' said Mumbi, draining his cup.

‘I'm not putting the bustle on Mumbles. But you're being paid to work you know. Not to sit around drinking tea all day.' He gave them all a thin smile as they stared up at him impassively from the lounge. ‘Of course I wouldn't dream of trying to break down any of your conditions. I'm even going to make afternoon tea for you later on. In fact what time would you chaps care to have your afternoon tea?' he added sweetly.

‘Three o'clock on the dot,' replied Tjalkalieri quickly. ‘And we knock off at quarter to five sharp.'

‘Quarter to five? You're supposed to work till bloody five.'

‘Fifteen minutes washing up time,' said Yarrawulla.

‘Fifteen minutes to have a bloody wash? You're kidding.'

‘How long do you think it takes to wash all this blood and shit off?' said Mumbi.

‘Shouldn't take you quarter of a bloody hour.'

‘Hey,' said Tjalkalieri. ‘You just make sure you've got the soap and towels waiting in the amenities room at quarter to five, mate. Or the management might find it's got a rather large industrial dispute on its hands — and we haven't even discussed site allowance yet!'

Norton shook his head once more and started picking up the cups and saucers and tidying the mess. ‘The unions are fucking this country,' he said. ‘You know that don't you.'

Meanwhile, over at the AWEC office Percy Kilby was getting sicker and sicker as the day grew longer.

His headache, bad enough as it was to begin with, got worse. He felt weak as a kitten, his eyes were watering, his temperature was up, and his nose was running like a tap. He would have gone home to bed but he felt that crook he was too tired to move. At ten he told Frank that if anybody called he wasn't in. At eleven he got Frank to put a sign on the door saying the office was closed for the day. Frank suggested he drive him home, but apart from being too tired to move Kilby said he'd had a gigantic argument with his wife on Wednesday and had belted her one. The thought of being in the house all afternoon, in his condition and with her nagging at him, was just too ghastly even to contemplate. He'd end up choking her. The odd part about it all, though, was despite his illness he was still hungry. At twelve he sent Frank over to get him three meat pies and half of litre of chocolate milk. Sitting in the office, Frank couldn't believe it as he watched his sick and suffering boss sneezing his head
off and trying to blow the sinuses clean out of his nose while he wolfed down the pies with sauce.

‘Perce. You're going to have to see a doctor, mate. This is getting ridiculous.'

‘Yeah I know,' mumbled Kilby between gulps of pie and gravy. ‘But I just got to get something into my stomach. I'm bloody starving.'

Frank shook his head. ‘It just doesn't seem right mate. You're as sick as a dog and you're still stuffing all that rubbish into yourself. What do you reckon?'

‘What do I reckon?' Kilby finished the last pie and wiped the sauce from his mouth. ‘I reckon you can go over and get me some chips. Plenty of 'em. With vinegar too. And a large bar of fruit-and-nut chocolate. And hurry Frank — cause I'm still bloody hungry.'