Yesterday's Dust (37 page)

He didn't have any eggs. He'd gone in there for eggs and forgotten to buy bloody eggs, hadn't he?

Fat and butter spitting at him and nothing to fry, he howled again for his eggs and for Barbara Dean. She'd never spoken to him before. But he'd never spoken to her either. Whenever he'd seen her, he, Sam, had put his head down and crossed to the other side of the street.

‘Jesus Christ, a man's going mad.'

He tossed one slab of steak into the spitting pan and fried it charred and medium raw, but he hid the char and the blood between two slices of buttered bread, and it tasted all right too, with a dollop of tomato sauce.

‘Jesus Christ.'

The solicitor phoned him at three. He had a $100,000 investment come due. They wanted to see him, but he didn't want to see
them. He walked the house, walked until he tripped over one of May's old studbooks he'd tossed onto the floor. He sat and he read it, then searched out her farm journals, trying to fill his mind with words. He picked up a local newspaper, turning pages, and he thought of Chef-Marlet's Number 10, and he thought of Mack Curtin and he turned another page.

Pullets for sale. Ready to lay.

The ad
ripped out, he took it with him to the kitchen, where he propped it between the salt and pepper shakers with Ellie's letter,
his mind with Ellie and her fresh eggs.

That night he rang the number and ordered six chooks. It wasn't until he put the phone down that he remembered chooks had to be fed. He'd have an excuse to stay home now. He had to feed the bloody chooks. That had always been Ellie's
excuse. Couldn't do anything. Couldn't go anywhere with him.

‘I can't, love. I have to milk the cows, feed the chooks, get the eggs. I can't. It's a lovely dress, Jack, but I've got nowhere to wear it,' he said in nasal tones, his vowels flat. ‘You know I can't wear earrings. They pinch my ears, love.'

‘Couldn't, or bloody wouldn't. Couldn't or wouldn't.'

‘Just let them loose,' Jack said to
the chook farmer who delivered the pullets in a metal crate. Mallawindy chooks had roamed free. They'd always come home for their dinner.

‘You'll lose them, mate. You need some sort of a run. Look, I'll leave the crate with you for a few days while you knock up a bit of a pen.'

The chooks were not laying, and were looking sick in their cramped quarters before Jack bought a roll of chicken wire
and took up a hammer to build them a lean-to against the garden fence. He mashed his still fragile thumb and pitched the hammer to buggery; he was dancing, howling, when old Harry, May's gardener, came riding into the yard with his pup.

Harry took the wrist of the dancer, looked at the thumb. ‘I vonce vorking in clinic. Ve vash him, tie him up. Ya.'

Past fighting, past arguing, Jack allowed
him to wash the wound, bandage it and later, when Harry started ripping down the lean-to, Jack made no complaint.

‘Ve no put him in missus garden. Ve making him good birdhouse, behind tree. Ya. Make him for shade. Tomorrow. Ya. I vonce making birdhouse for my president.'

Seventy-odd, a bearded eccentric, his land of origin and native tongue obscure, he worked slowly, but he worked and got the
chook palace built, and while four of the pullets were still alive.

Jack wrote him a cheque.
SJBurton
, the J hard, large, and black.

Old Harry took it but stood on in the doorway, the pup at his feet. They watched Jack search for the least dirty mugs, rinse them, and make coffee. They watched him glance at the pup, add a dash of milk to one of May's best bowls then place it before the dog,
watched him pat its head.

‘What's his name?'

‘Is Blooty-dok.'

‘I can see it's a bloody dog. What do you call him?'

‘Blooty-dok, come.' The dog left his milk and came.

Harry drank his coffee, washed his mug and looked around the kitchen. ‘I see him plenty time in clinic. In my country after vaw. Man's head he go vhoooosh vith grief.'

‘You go vhoooosh too. You've got your cheque. Go to buggery.'

Harry was moving newspapers from a chair. He sat on it. ‘Ve talk. Ya?'

‘I don't want to talk.'

‘You grass is up-you-bum-to.'

Jack drank coffee, shook his head. ‘I like it up to my bum. Piss off.'

‘Is late for to piss off. Bike is notting light. Ve eat some dinner. Ya. Ve talk more. Ya.'

‘I haven't got any dinner. Take your bloody dog and go, I said.'

The dog lifted its ears and walked to
Jack, sniffed his shoe, then sat on it. Harry laughed and Jack patted Blooty-dok's head.

‘I vonce cooking for six hunret man. Ve have beer. Ya. Then Harry cook.'

Harry had the beer, and in Jack's pantry he found an onion and a tin of ham. He found rice and frozen peas and a tin of tomatoes, and all three ate well in the kitchen. That night Harry and Blooty-dok bunked down in the cellar, and
at dawn the ride-on mower was mowing, the pup barking, and when they still wouldn't go to
buggery, Jack did.

The Toorak flat hadn't been robbed; these days, that was a plus. May had always been relieved to open the door and find the place as they'd left it. It was clean too. He walked a while there, looking at the old furniture that belonged in Narrawee.

Maybe he'd move the best of it back. Maybe he'd have old Samuel's bones exhumed, have them
cremated and scatter the ashes over his beloved Narrawee.

‘Nar
ra
wee,' he said. ‘Why not?' He was standing before the portrait of Samuel. A proud old bugger, posed in his best suit, seated on his throne. Grey beard, grey hair. Jack lifted it down and carried it out to his car, placing it carefully in the large boot. It had hung in the entrance hall at Narrawee when he was a boy, and it would hang
there again. He'd take that portrait home today and he'd look into taking the old man's bones home too.

The garage locked, he walked up Toorak Road, bought a clean shirt, then caught a tram to the city.

For more than sixty years Narrawee had dealt with the same company of solicitors and accountants. John the Bastard had worked for this group prior to inheriting the property, so he'd given them
his business. The faces and names had altered through the years, but May had seen no good reason to take the Narrawee business elsewhere.

No May at his side when he rode the lift up. No May to prove he was his twin brother. No hair. But he had Sam's scars. He'd carry
them to his grave.

A big firm, it took up most of the second floor, and he saw a girl shaking the hand of one of the solicitors,
saw her hair. Slim as Ellie had been back then, hair like Ellie's too, gold by the bloody yard. He sat staring at the hair, willing her to turn around. She didn't.

He watched that hair to the lift, then it was gone.

No one commented on his hair, or lack of it. Handshakes for him in the office. Offered condolences. And papers to sign.

SJBurton. SJBurton. SJBurton.

And if the S grew smaller
and the J and B larger, darker, no one in this office questioned it. He had been Sam in this place for thirty years. If he had a head for anything, it was for the business world. Had John the Bastard not been a solicitor, Jack may have taken law at university. Instead he'd taken medicine, and dropped out after that first dead body. He hated dead bodies. Hated death. And been dogged by it. He'd found
his mother dead that winter morning. And the little one, Linda.

He shook the other dead from his mind, and listened again to the solicitor.

Since 1960 both Sam and May's names had been on the Narrawee title, but Hargraves Park had belonged to May. It would be Jack's for his lifetime, then it would go to Bronwyn. Narrawee would go to Ann.

‘Jack's trust funds. They go to the widow?'

‘The fund
set up by your father was for your brother's lifetime. It ceases on his death; however, the second fund, from the estate of George Hamstead, goes to the deceased's wife, then to the children of the deceased. The money already paid into the accounts from the first fund, plus interest, will go to your brother's wife.'

Ellie and her bloody friend would be rolling in his money.

But he had Narrawee.
He had thousands in shares. He had a brand-new Ford, insurance supplied. What else did he need?

A cook.

Old Harry could cook. Cooked for six hundred men, and he'd
proved last night that he'd spoken no lie. That meal tossed together in minutes had been fit for a bloody king. Maybe he should let the old bugger hang around, mow his lawns, feed his chooks – and him.

They'd shared two bottles of
beer, and they'd talked. The old bastard wasn't dumb; they'd talked for two hours.

This morning the cellar had smelt different. Smelt of old bloke sweat and tobacco. And dog stink. The stink of life. Just a room. For the first time in thirty years it had been just another room. The ghosts had cleared out.

‘What?' Jack's mind was jarred back to the moment and to the solicitor.

‘So what do you
think? Are you interested in renting the flat, Sam?'

‘No.'

‘It's in a prime position. Good area.'

‘I don't know. I'll probably sell it.' Then with a handshake they parted.

He was walking the city streets, not wanting to go back to the flat, when he saw that hair again – Ellie's hair – disappearing into a bar down the bottom end of Collins Street. He walked by it, one hand brushing his scalp.
Then he turned, and walked through the door.

She was seated, her back turned to him, her hair bright beneath the spotlights over the bar – like a shower of sunshine, the hair cascaded free to her waist. He watched her hand lift, tilt the glass, empty it, push it back towards the barman.

‘Vodka and tonic.'

Jack studied a shoulder, bare except for a slim lemon-coloured strap. His eyes followed
the strap down. Slim legs crossed, a slim ankle in its light sandal, swinging. Liza might have looked like this. She might have been sitting at a bar too. Greedy little bugger. And he'd fed her greed.

He watched the second drink follow the first. This was a woman with a mission. He wanted a whisky but ordered a beer, and he
looked around for a table, an ashtray. No ashtrays on the tables, but
big ones on the bar. A cigarette lit, he sipped his cold beer, felt it wander its way down; and he felt at home, at peace. The stools taken, he leaned, sipping, smoking, watching the coot who sat beside that golden hair. Then the coot moved away and Jack took his beer and sat on the vacated bar stool.

She didn't turn her head. He waited until she pushed her glass back for a refill before he ordered
a second beer.

‘Carlton Draft, and a vodka and tonic for the lady.'

A long time since he'd bought a drink for a lady. Maybe he could find someone to talk to. Fill an hour. She turned to face him when the barman placed the drink before her, and she wasn't as young as her hair.

‘I'm not for sale,' she said.

‘I was buying the drink.'

She flipped her hair from her face. Lines around the eyes,
her jaw not so firm. With the dim bar light and heavy make-up she looked forty-odd, which probably meant she was fifty.

‘You look familiar,' she said.

‘That line was old when I was a boy.'

‘No. I know your face – but it was younger when I saw it last.'

‘I've been at the solicitors. I looked younger before I paid my bill.'

She laughed then, a high girlish laugh, and she spilt her drink and
she laughed while the barman mopped his bar, while he poured another drink, until she drank again and had to kill the laugh.

‘I needed that,' she said. ‘I just buried my mother. I needed that. What's your name?'

‘Bill Dooley.' One more use wouldn't wear out the name.

‘I didn't need that!' And she laughed again. He moved her glass out of danger. ‘Sorry. Sorry, Bill, but I don't like your name.'

‘What's wrong with it?'

‘Everything. Have you got a dog? If you've got a dog, then we're finished.'

‘What's wrong with dogs?'

‘They wouldn't let me buy a vodka and tonic. Like the dogs of hell, they guarded that hotel door to stop me from walking through it. They used to sniff my skirt and eye me as I walked past. “This is it, lady,” they'd say. “Get used to it”.'

He nodded, emptied his glass,
pushed it back, and she emptied her own.

‘My shout,' she said. ‘Anyway, I started walking one day, just stepping, one foot in front of the other until one of Hell's Angels stopped.' Her hand dived into her bag and withdrew a purse. ‘Six hours on the back of a Harley and I couldn't walk for a week.'

‘Due to the Harley, or the bloke riding it?'

‘Bad joke, Bill.' Her finger pointed, made the point
as she tossed her hair back. ‘I'm not into smut humour. But for the record, it was the bike. He was only nineteen and he liked my hair.'

‘I like your hair.'

‘Mutton dressed as lamb. He got a fright when he saw my face. Marlon. Hell's little angel on his motorbike. He saved my life that day, but he smelt bad.' She opened her purse and removed a note, placed it on the bar. ‘Ever noticed, Bill,
how money makes you free? Are you free?'

‘Free as a bird.'

‘My mother set me free. Did I tell you?' He nodded. ‘I had to come home for the funeral and to sell her house, but it doesn't feel like I've come home. I'm a stranger in a strange land.'

‘Where do you live?'

‘Live?' she said. ‘Live suggests that you've got a life, got a home, Bill. I've lived everywhere. I had to keep moving, always
moving. With him first. Then to get away from him.'

‘Who from?'

‘Him.' She flashed a hand, the wide scar of a missing ring still visible. ‘I tossed it in with Mum. I got pregnant and she made me marry him, but now her solicitor is getting me a divorce. That's sort of poetic justice, isn't it? Anyway, I promised myself I'd drink six
vodka and tonics today, and I'm doing it.'

‘You're doing it,
lady. What's the current count?' He pointed to her full glass.

‘Five. If I count the one I spilt. You know, there was this old black guy who used to sit with his dogs outside that hotel. His name was Bill too – or Billy.'

‘King Billy?' he said.

She stared at him, her head to one side. ‘How do you know King Billy?'

‘I stepped over his dogs a few times too many.' He bit his tongue, emptied his
glass and his feet wanted to move him away.

‘Mallawindy?' she said, her hand reaching, not wanting him to move away.

‘Mallawindy,' he replied. ‘Old Granny Bourke, a trout pickled in stout.'

‘Bill Dooley and all of his little Dooleys.'

‘Your accent isn't Mallawindy.'

‘Norman was the schoolteacher.'

He considered the door, realising he'd given away too much. But outside, the world was lonely.
He took out his wallet and found a card, glanced at it before placing it on the bar beside her drink, pleased for once to wear his brother's name.

Samuel and May Burton, Narrawee
.

She focused on the small print, then turned to him. ‘And where is your May tonight, Samuel Burton of Narrawee?'

‘She died.'

‘I don't like funerals.'

‘Death stinks,' he said, and he touched the golden hair, because
he wanted to. She looked at him as he lifted a strand of gold, and he allowed the curl to fall.

‘Amy.' She offered her hand. ‘Amy O'Rouke. Can I buy you dinner?'

‘I've got to go home and feed the chooks,' he said, but he liked the hand.

‘Do you sell fresh eggs at your back door, Samuel?'

‘That's for next year.' As he placed his glass down and turned to go, she reached for his arm.

‘I'm lonely,'
she said. ‘And I don't want to go back to that house. Surely . . . surely the only two people in the whole world who have been to hell and lived to tell the tale ought to have something in common?'

‘It's not hell,' he said. ‘It's just a malignant growth on hell's sunburnt bum.'

She laughed, and slid from the bar stool. Stood. Tall as Ellie. Slim as May. And she wanted his company.

Three beers
gave him a lift. Six stopped the lift dead. He'd had his three. But he liked her laugh. Liked the sharp-featured face, and the colour of her dress. He looked out to the street. Day was ending and the Toorak flat would be empty tonight. He didn't want to go home either.

‘I'm not going to beg, Samuel,' she said. ‘But it's a long time since a man sat beside me at a bar and made me laugh.'

‘I like
your hair, Amy O'Rouke. Tonight it looks like a shower of sunlight in a dark and lonely world.'