Black Angels???Red Blood (10 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Tim dropped his bag by the side of the road and waited for the mail truck. It was good to be back. Who could live in that poxy place and maintain a semblance of sanity. He'd walk the whole way if he didn't get a lift. So much had happened in a fortnight, he thought, and shook his head and looked down the road to home.

Aunty May had made Shane and Tim accompany her to the dump for a scrounge. Parts of the dump were alight and Tim had found a cash register that tinged as they fiddled with it. They decided to leave it and keep searching the dump for other articles.

“The whitefellas don't throw out as much junk as they used to,” Shane said.

“Naah, not since the recession,” Tim agreed.

Aunty May had a small collection of toys, some of which were slightly damaged. She always checked the dump. Being on welfare with six kids, everything she could make use of was taken. Shane was her eldest boy and he was about the same age as Tim. Aunty May's house was full of old junk collected over the years and her raids on local tips were
famous. She patched everything up and handed them to the local kids at Christmas.

“Well, I'm gonna take these home,” Aunty May said, picking up another bag of goodies besides the toys in her arms. “All this other stuff is too burnt.”

“We'll walk you back to the house,” Shane offered. They crossed the road on the edge of town. The ground was littered with millions of pieces of broken glass, the result of many broken beer bottles. They lived at the east end of town by the river. The community was small and almost matched the number of white residents. Tim liked the balance because the Mroodies were depended upon for their custom uptown.

It was a well-known fact that the Mroodies hunted kangaroos and caught fish for their meat and bought their vegies and fruit from the local shop. The businesses uptown would go broke if the Mroodies became totally independent. This meant the local white business people treated the local Mroodies with respect. When there had been some trouble with a couple of businesses, the Mroodies boycotted them and ran cars to Bourke, forcing the business people to compromise.

The neighbouring towns had much bigger populations and the Mroodies in those towns weren't as lucky. Stories came in continually about the way in which they were treated. These stories bothered Tim as he visited these places often to do business. Shane sometimes went with him, particularly if there was a death or trouble.

After Tim and Shane had seen Aunty May to her place, they went fishing, looking for that elusive forty pounder Tim had seen a few days earlier.

“I know he's in here,” Tim assured Shane.

They had four cod lines and a couple of throw-outs to catch yellow-belly if they failed to catch the big one. They set the lines and lay back on the bank to watch. Tim pulled out a joint. “This is my last one.”

“I've got Cassie to bring some back from Sydney,” Shane replied. “She'll be back in a few days.”

Cassandra was Shane's younger sister. She travelled frequently but only for a week or two and then returned home for a month or so. Tim could understand why Cassie travelled as there was nothing here that would attract a pretty young woman. She was related to all the eligible men in town, including Tim. Tim and Cassandra had slept together once a couple of years ago out of sheer frustration at the lack of suitable beaus for them both. They never did it again and kept it a closely guarded secret. Tim knew that he and Cassie could have married if they'd wanted to, as four generations had passed and it was quite common among Mroodies to do that. Tim had been raised by Aunty May for a couple of years after his parents had died and she considered him a part of the family and that was the major consideration stopping their relationship.

Tim saw the throw-out line go taut and he and Shane looked at each other and Tim motioned to Shane to do the honours. “I hope it's not a bony bream. They're greedy bastards,” Shane hexed. He hooked the fish and reeled it in. A hint of dismay crossed Shane's face as he realised it was a bony bream. He unhooked it and threw it back in, and reset the line. They settled back again and relaxed.

They packed and left just before dark with two sizeable yellow-bellies. The big cod would wait until another day. Shane went home while Tim went to Alby and Sherry's place to share his fish. Alby was working as a jackaroo on a
nearby property and made it home occasionally. Finding work was good for Alby and he'd steadied his drinking a lot. Sherry and the kids were much happier now their home environment had changed. Tim knew Alby was doing it tough and he often went over to help in various ways.

Alby looked a lot brighter and his eyes were clear of the effects alcohol. “G'day, Tim. That's a fat yellow-belly.”

“Got the oven ready, Alby?” Tim asked.

“Sherry's got a roast on but I'm sure there's plenty of room for that. Nice feed of yellow-belly sounds alright.”

They entered the kitchen where Sherry was preparing food and Tim said g'day.

“I'll gut that for ya,” said Alby. “There's plenty of room for this, hey Sherry?”

“There's heaps,” she responded.

Tim hardly ever heard Alby call Sherry by her name when he was on the grog and he felt a few tugs on the heart strings for Alby and his family. The kids were watching TV in the lounge, another acquisition since Alby's sobriety. Sherry made a pot of tea and they sat around talking while the food cooked.

One of the topics that came up was the face on Mars. The kids were very interested.

“Up there on Mars under a certain light you can see all these different faces—Aborigine face, Chinese face, white face and all the different people of the Earth—and when they went in for a close-up, the face is a city, and in the middle of the face is a five-sided pyramid,” Tim eagerly explained.

The kids reacted excitedly and then they laughed at each other, some in disbelief. They started talking about other stories Tim had told them about the stars. Billy wanted to hear the story about the planet beyond the big star on the
edge of the universe again and Tim obliged. By this time the three of them were all trying to sit on Tim's lap, until Sherry scolded them. The youngest one, Thomas, didn't relent and made himself comfortable while Tim told the story.

Sherry pulled the roast, fish and vegies out of the oven and told Jane to set the table. Their attention was now focused on food.

Afterwards, Tim said from a full stomach. “That was great, Sherry, thanks a lot.” Alby agreed as he pulled a packet of cigarettes out and offered Tim one. Sherry cleared the table and made another pot of tea while hunting the kids off to get ready for bed. Tim finished his tea and cigarette and bid Alby and Sherry goodnight.

Tim's shack was humble. Two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom. The kitchen doubled as a lounge room with the television and radio. Without television and radio, life out west could get very boring. He had a shaded area out the front of his shack with a few chairs and he sat there wiling away the hours when he had nothing to do.

The town had fewer than a hundred people, one shop, one pub, a doctor and a few very small businesses, which Tim gathered had been set up to barter rather than as full-on businesses. He traded his best hunting and fishing knife for the radio. The man Tim traded with repaired second-hand radios and televisions. After the radio started producing a scratchy sound, he got his television from Bourke. After he got his television, the radio worked great and the television was scratchy. He thought the man who traded him the radio was having a go at him.

The nights out west were great for watching the stars. Tim had knocked a huge hole in his bedroom wall to watch the stars, and sometimes in hot weather he took his bed
outside to get an all-over view and count the falling stars. Sometimes he invited people over for tea just to sit outside afterwards to talk and look at the stars.

The weekend was slow and on Monday morning Tim got up and had his usual cereal breakfast with powdered milk, a cup of tea and a cigarette. Sometimes he boiled the copper for a shower but today he just washed. He then went for a walk into the bush to check his dope plants. He knew that some people uptown knew that he smoked pot, via some loose lips, and he took extra precautions when he went to water them, bringing back a fish or bush tucker as an alibi. This time Tim came back with a duck. It put up a bit of a struggle and had scratched him on his left arm below the elbow. He caught it in amongst the reeds while a stack of them were feeding. He plucked and gutted it, then washed and went for a walk uptown. It was mid-morning, Tim guessed. He never wore a watch or had a clock but his knowledge of the bush included telling the time. He passed a couple of women who were on the other side of the road'. Elaine and Marion were born and bred locals who could have passed for full bloods except for an Irishman their great-grandmother had fallen for. They were in their late thirties and had eight kids between them. They also used to look after Tim when he was small. He gave them a bright smile and a wave while making a mental note to drop in for a cup of tea with them.

Mrs Bowrie was serving behind the counter as usual. Tim had started school with her sons, but they no longer lived in the town. They chatted for a while and Tim selected his groceries, getting a few extra tinned goodies to go with the duck. The noticeboard advertised a dance coming up in two weeks. These were usually reserved for the cockies but a smattering of Mroodies, including Tim, sometimes went.
Tim only went along to have a look at the cockies' daughters. At least in this day and age they were allowed in, much to the dismay of most of the men. Tim and Shane had been taught to dance by Aunty May and even the mothers sometimes made their husbands jealous by dancing with them.

If Shane didn't have enough money to go with Tim to the dance, Tim would give it to him. He hated going to dances by himself. He walked back down the street and noticed a couple of regulars in the pub. He also noticed that the publican's daughter, Caroline, was working. He wondered when she had got back. He did a quick mental check of his budget, and with a spring in his step headed to his shack to deposit the groceries before going to visit Aunty May and Shane.

Aunty May's ten-year-old son, Steven, greeted him. “Hello, Tim.”

“Hello, Steven. Where's Mum?”

“She's fishing with Ruby.” Ruby was Aunty May's daughter.

Shane came out and said hello.

“There's a dance coming up in a fortnight. Wanna come?” Tim asked.

“A cockies' do?” Shane enquired. “Sure, I'll come along.”

They talked for a while and Tim told Shane that Caroline was back in town, adding, “I'm going up for a few beers and a game of pool tonight.”

“I'm coming too,” Shane answered quickly.

They were both interested in Caroline and she knew this and played up to it. As far as Tim knew, there was no one in town who had been successful with her. “I'm gonna go back to the shack and fix a few things. I'll see ya later.” Tim picked himself up and went across the well-worn pathway between his shack and Aunty May's. The track petered out
halfway and turned into a vacant piece of land. There used to be a house there until the family moved and it was demolished. Everyoneincluding Tim, scavenged what they could. The tin that provided the shade out the front of his house came from there.