Coming Rain (8 page)

Lew picked up the safe and took it out onto the veranda. Gathered some water from
the tank and poured it into the flat galvanised tray on top of the safe. He soaked
strips of cotton and laid these down the sides over the hessian-covered wire mesh.
Carried the Coolgardie safe to the shaded south corner of the veranda, and stood
it where it would have best access to any breeze.

He found the woodpile and began to split the larger blocks. The steady rise and fall
of the axe; the clean snap of the blade and the split. How, he often thought, he
was the only one ever to have seen the pattern of the wood. The axe rose and fell,
chips flew, and the smell of the dormant resin came up from the split eucalyptus.
His shoulders worked and he felt the ache and pressure across his back from the spinal
connective muscles. He had once spent eleven and six on a copy of
Gray's Anatomy
from a secondhand bookshop in Claremont. The fine line drawings fascinated but the
names meant nothing.
Splenius capitas
;
lumbodorsal fascia.
Words that excluded, and
he became content with you are just a shearer, you idiot, what do you expect? Keep
going, Painter had laughed at him, saying don't worry mate, it'll be all right in
the morning.

After about twenty minutes he stopped. Sweat was running freely and there was enough
firewood for now. He gathered up an armful and carried it towards the cookhouse.

The smell of frying onions and meat as Lew came in. He took the wood to the stove,
bent and stacked the split blocks neatly in the wall recess. Checked the stove, added
another two lengths and closed the firebox.

Painter replaced the lid of the camp oven and lifted it to the top of the stove.
‘That's just the go son, fry the tail meat and onions first. Bring it to the boil
and about an hour, we'll be right. Don't forget plenty of salt.' He bent and checked
the fire in the wood stove. ‘Two hours better.' Crossed back to the water tank and
filled a kettle, placed it next to the camp oven on the stovetop. Lew handed him
a tin. Tea written on the side in paint.

Someone with an accent called out hey roo in there, a gentle knocking on the kitchen
door as it swung open. A small man with baggy blue shorts, a white singlet, cropped
black hair and a big smile stepped into the room. He was carrying a bloodstained
flour sack, a wire basket of eggs and a cut-down wooden box containing loaves of
bread and jars of peaches, red peeled plums in water. Light of the Age Water White
American Kerosene stencilled in blue letters on the side of the box.

He started laughing. ‘Gidday,' he said to Painter, ‘mate.'

They both stared at him. After a minute, Painter nodded. ‘You must be Jimmy.'

‘Yeah mate. Jimmy Wong.' Laughed as if everything he heard was hilarious. ‘I come
from Malaya, Perak State. Jungle Jim, Ipoh, you know it? To Broome. Then Uncle Chung
he goes home to family in Ipoh and I come here.'

They continued to look at him. Painter seemed to be frozen, his hands still.

‘Mr John sent me over with this supplies.' He laughed yet again. ‘You know Ipoh?
Mining town. Tin. Big dredges.'

‘Jesus,' Lew said, his hands in the flour sack. Brought out one hand full of kidneys,
a lamb's liver in the other.

‘You know Ipoh?' Jimmy repeated, stared at Painter, a smile frozen on his face.

‘No. I don't know Ipoh,' Painter said. ‘No.' He had not taken his eyes off Jimmy.

Jimmy laughed. ‘Good good.'

‘Go on keep laughing,' Painter said and pointed at him. ‘Like you got no fuckin'
brains. Ask me if I know Ipoh again, go on you chink cunt.'

‘Hold on now mate,' Lew said and stepped forward. ‘Cut it out.'

Jimmy stopped laughing, stared at the bread and box of fruit preserves for a few
moments. His chin lifted. ‘I won't ask again OK?'

Painter nodded. ‘Good. Well we cleared that up then.' A smile lifted his top lip.
He waited a moment, put his knuckles flat on the table and bowed his head. ‘Here
we all are then.
Never mind eh Jimmy? You can't help it.' He held his broken nose
between his fingers and sniffed. Felt about between his eyes. Put a thumb against
what was left of his left nostril and blew green snot out onto the floor.

‘Sorry about that.'

Jimmy looked at the floor. His face contorted. Then he looked up at Lew and waved
his hand in a farewell or denial gesture.

Painter was grim faced. He winked. ‘I'm getting on a bit.'

‘I go now. Dinner for Mr John, Miss Clara. See you.'

Lew raised a hand and stepped forward. ‘Righto Jimmy,' he said. ‘Thanks mate.' Look
at me not at him. Pointed an index finger to the side of his head.

Jimmy turned away quickly. ‘OK, OK. I bring you more tomorrow. Cook. Okey dokey.'

They were quiet as they heard his feet on the outside veranda and the rattle of a
bicycle.

Lew stepped to the kitchen window and watched as Jimmy rode up the looping gravel
track that led to the trees surrounding the homestead. He could see the terracotta
tiles of the roof. Long trails of wisteria vines and two redbrick chimneys. Jimmy
was standing up and leaning forward as he pedalled. His white singlet and baggy blue
shorts, Bombay bloomers. Brown sandals on his feet.

‘This bread is still warm,' Painter said. ‘There's butter too.' He was standing with
his back to Lew at the table, holding a loaf. ‘Fresh-made butter this bloke.'

Lew turned from the window. ‘How come you had a go at Jimmy there mate?'

Painter was spreading the butter on a slice with the same butchers knife he had cut
the bread with. Concentrating on his task. Ate the buttered bread. ‘Dunno.'

‘Painter,' Lew said.

‘He is a fuckin' Celestial son.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Chinese.'

‘Yeah?'

‘That's enough,' Painter said. ‘Laughs instead of saying what he thinks.'

‘Jesus cut it out mate. That's not our go.'

Painter was quiet for a bit as he continued to eat the bread. Because he had no teeth,
he had to tear the crusts off. ‘When I was a kid, son.'

‘What?'

‘When I was a kid in North Perth, I did some runnin' for Baldy Reid, bread delivery
bloke. He had the Loftus and Walcott streets run.'

Lew, staring at him.

Painter continued to speak. ‘Horse and cart. Paddy was the name of the horse and
old Baldy'd be talking to the housewives with his white shirtsleeves rolled up. It
was morning missus hello good morning. There I was running about like a blue arse
fly, dodging the number 38 tram coming down Loftus Street while he was talking to
the wives with his folded arms, calling out orders to me from the side of he's mouth…one
of white and half of brown and how's the baby Mrs Jones? Big smile he had. Not too
many teeth.'

‘Like you.'

Painter's laughter.

‘I reckon Mr Reid was doin' a bit of boxing out the ring with some of those old girls
too, no doubt about it. Used to touch his arm, some of 'em. Leave it on there for
a bit, y'know, and they would laugh with their mouths open like they was getting
something for nothing.'

Painter imitated the housewives' laugh. ‘Oh,
ha ha ha
Mr Reid you such a funny man.
Haa haaa ha
. You make me laugh.' He bent and touched his hands on his knees. ‘Some
of them, they would do just that, bend over and put their hands on their knees as
they laughed, just like they were bowing to him. Laughter is always the first betrayal.
Y'know? Balance the books with their cunts, not the first.'

Lew was shaking his head at Painter. This old man's story.

‘Yep,' Painter said. ‘One of white and half of brown and how's the baby Mrs Jones,
and no fuckin' worries Mr Reid. Good on him. They sweet for an afternoon with Baldy
Reid, a cup of tea and a slice of butter cake. Settlin' the outstandings, if you
know what I mean? Only fuckin' outstanding thing about him was in his pants. Do what
you can eh?'

Lew nodded.

‘Well. That's Jimmy there. Doing what he has to, to get by. Making bread, laughing
his head off whenever he says hello. Or his mother got hit by a fuckin' tram. No
difference. He laughs and hates like a snake who he laughs for.'

‘Righto then.'

‘Righto?'

‘Don't go on about it. There's no changin' your mind.'

‘Y'know, I sometimes wanted those women to just stop
laughing at old Baldy like he
was some sort of a good bloke. He wasn't, I can tell you. Dear old Paddy, the horse
right? That bastard Reid used to knock him about too.'

‘That's got nothing to do with it,' Lew said. ‘Treatin' Jimmy like that.'

‘Everything to do with it son,' Painter said and stared at Lew. ‘I didn't want to
believe in Jesus for the same reason. End up in China, laughing your cunt out.'

‘Get away now. That makes no sense at all.'

Half an hour later they gathered their shearing gear and walked down a side track
towards the woolshed. They wanted to prepare their stands and sharpen their cutters
for the start of the next day's work. Towels over their shoulders. They had left
the tail soup cooking.

Cirrus in the western sky like a red thrown fleece, scattered clouds and blue sky
rising beyond them.

‘Footsteps to heaven,' Painter said. ‘That sunset there. Fine tomorrow, you good
for a start before light, mate. Four?'

Lew, walking beside him. A bandolier of combs over his shoulder and carrying a Gladstone
bag that held crepe bandages, liniment and plasters. Spare wristbands, a bottle of
aspirin, a box of matches and a tin of Dr Pat's tobacco. He didn't smoke but he always
kept a spare tin in case Painter ran out and they couldn't buy any more for while.
Told Painter he was a cranky old bastard without any smoke. There was also a tourniquet,
a bottle of antiseptic and Condy's crystals. Eyewash and a pot of Vicks. Emu oil.
Goanna oil, a sterilised needle and suture thread. An arm sling and a pair of scissors.

‘I'm good for four.'

At the front of the shed three enormous white gums. Here before Captain Cook, Drysdale
had told Painter. Bark was peeling off them in long, pale shreds and hanging down
like scalded skin or a half-shorn fleece. If they could talk, Drysdale had once said
to him. Painter had thought him a little touched to say that. If the fuckin' trees
could talk.

The first thing that struck them as they entered the closed shearing shed was the
smell, a heavy nitric smell of sheep wool and dung and urine. The startled clatter
of feet as the penned sheep shied away from them.

‘Leave the door open will you son?' Painter looked over a catching-pen door. ‘Don't
look too bad,' he said. ‘Two-tooth wether and ewe hoggets.'

‘Merino? Clean?'

‘Merino cross. Pretty clean.'

Lew found the Villiers motor which powered the sharpening grinder. He checked the
fuel level and primed the motor. Pulled the cord to start the engine. The metal discs
onto which the emery paper was attached started spinning, slowly at first, then more
and more quickly, settling into a steady hum. Painter stepped forward, said thank
you.

Lew walked to the shearing board and looked down the empty length of it. Sat on an
old wool classer's high chair with flat wooden arms on which to write. A pen groove
and an ink well. Ink spatters from a thousand tally books. Fading light coming in
from the windows. Long white spider webs in the overhead drive wheels and porthole
doors closed. The stained board worn into smooth hollows from the passage of countless
sheep and countless shearers. Something like a barefoot boy was running a clacking
stick along a corrugated-iron shed. He had seen large teams of shearers and roustabouts
posing for photographs outside a hundred woolsheds. He had sat among them. Soldiers
and miners too.

Only their two catching pens had been filled. All along the rest of the shed, the
immensity of an abandoned space; the other pens, other stands, empty now and for
a long time.

Lew stood and looked at the board as imagined angels flew: like white cockatoos passing
porthole windows and Your Cheatin' Heart playing on a radio. Heard the constant slap
and bang of catching-pen doors being opened and closed. This work, bright and real,
of noise and high metal on metal come to be surrounding the swaying lines of shearers
in their vests, wet with sweat; long padded trousers held up with the wide leather
belts that flared on the back as support. Bowyangs below their knees and moccasins
made from leather or wool-bale sacking and brown bale twine on their turning feet.
They were ever stepping and pivoting into their work with impossibly long arms, and
backs that straighten to finish and rise to step forward again and again and again.

‘Tween dog and wolf,' Painter, standing behind him. ‘You been looking down there
for a while now son.'

‘I was thinking about the old gangs Painter. The ten-stand sheds. Those men. Twelve,
sixteen stands.'

‘Something to see when they going. Been in enough over the years. Errowanbang in
New South Wales had forty stands. Near Orange.'

‘Forty shearers?'

‘So I was told. Blades but.'

‘In the same shed, all those men shearing at the same time? Forty of them?'

‘That's the story son.'

CHAPTER 14

Seeking the cover of scrub land, fringes and hollows, she ran. Mouth wide open, tongue
wet and balanced, her body adjusting to the earth as she passed through the country,
she was what she had become, a pregnant dingo bitch running.

When she reached open land or a space of cleared unfamiliar ground she stopped at
the fringe. Lay down and lifted her nose. Listened, waited. Listened again to the
wind and any birds other than the crows. She detested them, the dog crows, their
bold derision. They would scavenge her kills and yet perversely taunt. Once, she
had caught an old one by a leg, too slow to lift off, and she had relished the slaughter.
Ate its head off down to the breast, like a fox would. That was her disrespect.