Gatherers and Hunters (6 page)

She turned to her companion. ‘Dragana, do you notice that young man over there, the one in the cowboy waistcoat, it's like a bolero. Yes, that's the one.'

But Dragana glanced and turned back without a nod. ‘They're all Macedonians,' she said. ‘We call them cowboys.'

‘I thought they were Italian.'

Dragana gave her a level look. ‘How long, Rachel, since you were last overseas? No, I do not mean that American trip, which was when we first met, in L.A. Didn't you once tell me you had been for a week in Istanbul?'

‘Twenty five years ago. I tremble to think what has been done to that beautiful old city.'

‘You would not want to go back. I almost do not want to go back to Belgrade. My husband is a Croat you know. This last time, from the start, had its small upsets but you cannot allow such things to prevent your plans. Look at that girl near the end. No, not so obviously. You see? Nowhere in Italy would you see bones like that, except among refugees. Oh, perhaps up in Trieste, but that is hardly Italy. We had our honeymoon in Trieste. The wind blew constantly, from every angle.'

Rachel was thinking of Istanbul, though, and of how she deliberately missed her plane that time. She had not found love, but there had been her brief intoxication, as she was later to call it, with proper irony. Benno had been born in Brisbane. For sixteen years he had absorbed her utterly, that was true enough. She stole another look at the young man, but turned her attention to the crepe in front of her. She had allowed it to get cold.

When Benno had decamped it had been a relief. Simply that. Benno knew every art of blackmail and he used each one. She had not initiated any panic search. It was almost as if she, herself, was the one who absconded. Two can play at games, she had said to herself, then or sometime later. She took a position in Melbourne. She did not pick up the pieces, she allowed them to drop away into whatever nooks and corners. It was always refreshing to start with a clean slate and she had done precisely that.

Dragana hailed the waiter. ‘Now. We are ready for coffee. Ah, is there a place nearby where it would be possible to have a Turkish coffee? No, I am not serious. You see, in the end, I am always a creature of compromise.' She took two sips of her tiny cup and looked up at Rachel. ‘So. You have organised your whole life? Commendably?'

‘Commendably.' Rachel smiled at the expression. ‘Yes. I think I have organised my life commendably. I've had a lot of practice, as it were. But do you know, I can't get that young man at that table out of my sight. Do you know what it is? He reminds me of my son. Of how my son might be, at that age.'

‘Really? I did not know you had a son, but why not? Where is he now?' Even Dragana could not hide the implication and the suggestion. She angled and fished but could not get Rachel to say more. ‘Well, you are a close one. I like that. Come. I must write up my notes. The next conference is in Toronto. You must make the effort to get there. It is ­commendable also to expose oneself to chances and risks I think. Like in Belgrade in March. Oh, we took our risks all right. But when it happens, sometimes life does overtake. Then it is commendable to make a quick exit.'

She gathered her things and raised her hand to her captive waiter. ‘My husband speaks of children, but there is no time. I do not want to raise a child in Belgrade.' She shrugged.

Rachel reached into her purse. She could not avoid the feeling that Dragana was being patronising. But she had learned to settle for that.

As she walked to her car, alone, she was thinking, again, of the brash young man with his black hair and his too willing smile. Those sturdy shoulders. Slowly she imagined him stripping off his clothes, it was like a scene from some forgotten movie or an imagined, or unimagined, past. The setting was a hot hotel in Istanbul. She could afford to be indulgent.

As a boy Benno had been charming, and wilful, and imperious. He had gauged her weakness for the strong, black coffee and when he wanted something he would brew it for her – pungent, fragrant. She would not have it any other way. But that was before he became unmanageable and could smell his freedom. Well, she too had lit out. One must never become dependent. She had organised her life, yes, commendably. Children, after all, are only a loan.

This was the first time in many years she had seen somebody who so strongly conjured up his image, or his possibility. Yes, she thought. The old Gypsy fortune teller had been right. There was still a dryness in her mouth. But a mother is allowed only such a tiny sip out of the coffee cup, and all the rest, at the bottom, is the grit of bitter grounds.

Pristina

Because my grandfather said the water here was still in a ­pristine state, that's why. He called his property Pristina and the little settlement that sprang up round the crossroads naturally took the same name. Grandpa owned all that land originally. Or at least he leased it; same thing.

Well, the Wayfarer's Inn was the first, where the Sportsman's Motel is now. Their pub on the main street, well that's recent. Relatively. They're still Irish, been here almost as long as us. But they did work hard, give them that. The lot of 'em and the womenfolk most of all. Drank the profits, but. Though Mickey, he's my age, you wouldn't believe what a tough little bugger he was. He was the backbone of the district soccer team, before the grog of course. Yairs, we had some good times back then, if you think of it.

Then there was the Post Office store. I tell you what, people today just take everything for granted but when that store opened – it was before my time, and yours – we knew Pristina was on the map. My old man got married the same year – 1923 – and he said all his birthdays had come at once, that's what he said. He got the property too, very same year. Grandpa had his first stroke; Dad always said it was the excitement, but whatever, Dad was running the place from then on. No one would believe the old man would hang on another forty years. Now who could believe that? Yairs, I remember his room out in the back shed. Well, corrugated iron outside. Outside, mind you, but Dad had it lined. He did it himself, he told me, with knotty native pine. It still smelled strong when I was a kid, that pine, but it was snug as a big bug in there and I remember old Grandpa writing on his little pad to say he didn't mind the dark. His eyes, you see. And he listened to the radio, all the time he listened: Parliament, the races, the news; he followed the news.

Yairs, I remember him well, the old codger, though it was hard to think of him as he was in the old photos: that stiff white collar and tie. And the gloves. Do you know he had gloves in those old photos? Well, times change.

But the pub and the Post Office store, they were only the start. With the second pub, right in the centre, we knew we were there. The government took back some of Dad's land, the scrappy stuff out towards the Magic Mountain. Well we always called it the Magic Mountain, it's only on maps you see the official name: Cable Top. Well, it's true, all those new people call it Cable Top nowadays but they don't count. Not really.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm telling you how things were. How things got settled and established, how this place got its name and its character. It's real character, not this later rot.

The Verralls too, don't forget the Verralls, though there's none of them left in the district, but they were big in the ­district, oh for ages. And the Weatherheads of course, Mum was a Weatherhead. They were great farmers, the Weatherheads, they introduced the irrigation and the new crops – peanuts, for instance, and then in the war, the Second World War, they took up the government plan for cotton. For a few years there they made a fortune on cotton. And the cannery, it was their cannery – until it was bought out by Yates, that is. Yes, Grandpa Weatherhead was a genius in his way. I think it was him brought out the first reffos, after the war.

When the cotton was big he used a lot of Italian POWs to do the hard yakka. Cheap as dirt they were, he said, and grateful for anything. That was what gave him the idea later, when he opened the cannery and put in the irrigation and began growing miles, simply miles, of carrots and beetroot and all those beans. For canning. He organised a whole tribe of reffo Balts: Yugoslavs, or Croats or Albanians, no they weren't Greeks, and they had their own religion so they certainly were not Reds. No way. They were escaping all that.

And work! Grandpa Weatherhead had a real nose for these things, and you should have seen the way they worked for him. They would have tilled the fields with their bare hands, give 'em half the chance.

And he treated them well. They were their own slaves, not his. He gave them holidays on their religious feasts, that sort of thing. Enough to keep 'em happy, he said, but not enough to give 'em ideas.

That is true, yes it is. Pristina had the first kebab house in Australia. More a backdoor business to start off, that flat bread. And they kept goats and sheep, almost from day one. I remember we kids – well, I was in my teens then – we used to sneak down and cadge some of those flat bread rolls with meat in them. Tell the truth, I think that was what gave some of them the idea in the first place. Before you knew it, they had taken over the little bakery that was shut down when the new sliced bread came in, it was right near the pub, and before you could say Jack Robinson they were out and away.

I always said it was the Kebab House and not the new branch of the Bank of New South Wales that gave the place its little economic boost in the late fifties early sixties. Aha, we thought we were made in those days.

Well, it was the commercial travellers, see. You think on it: you get sick of pea and pies in the pub, or some dry white bread with ham and sweaty cheese, and those blokes weren't the ones to stop for a steak and eggs in the Greek cafe and they couldn't afford to linger over too many beers, not in those years when the competition was really hotting up. No, the Kebab House struck gold.

We didn't get Chinese or Pizza Huts, or even Kentucky Fried, oh that was decades later.

Well of course they did spread out, but Grandpa Weatherhead always said that was the sign of his success; they didn't move on after the first few years, into the city or the easy fleshpots or the mixing pots down south.

They kept their own community, that's what he said. And he was right. Most of the original lot he brought over stuck together, and didn't they work hard! I think they ended up bringing just about their whole village over, in time. Yes, they spoke their own lingo among themselves, and that was a problem as you say, you know how country people suspect others of talking behind their back, and in a foreign language that didn't go down well.

But the kids went to the local school – in fact, because of the increase in numbers we got a second teacher and then a third and it became quite a centre. And then when young Ibrahim showed us all from the outset what a soccer champ he was, or had the potential to be, that was a real turning point, I think.

Well, the Irish clans all got onside with them and before you knew it it was soccer, soccer all the way. I used to play League myself when I was a kid but by the early 1960s League was dead in this town. We were soccer all the way. It was a real cultural revolution.

Broke down barriers, I think you'd say. Strange, it was only the family that ran the Greek Cafe who stayed standoffish. Oh, unhygienic, all that sort of stuff. Even had the city health inspector round one time, complained of flies and vermin in the Kebab House, but everyone knew they were business rivals. The nice ending of that story, though, is that the Kebab House was the first to install one of those blue-light electric zappers in their shop. While the Greeks and the people in the pub were still using those sticky flypaper things, you remember those? Well, everybody forgets.

So, that was a sign of how they were going money-wise. They kept a low profile, though, those years. I think it was the first generation thing. They knew their origins and their village or their farming backgrounds.

It was in the next generation, really, back in the seventies, when I think you can pinpoint the beginnings of all the trouble.

Young Ibrahim was the first. I think we all thought he'd go national, or even international, with his soccer success. People were just beginning to pay money to get stars on their team, but no. Ibrahim married the girl he had grown up with and he settled right in town. In the village, I mean. I think he was the first to actually buy a piece of land. Even the Kebab House was done on a lease; yes, we owned all that side of the street.

Two things I think we didn't expect. First, that when they bought the O'Reilly farmlet just over the Willowtree Bridge, we assumed they would move into the little cottage there, it was big enough for starters. Second, after they ripped that pretty little place down, and all the garden beds old Doss O'Reilly spent her lifetime pruning and patting and planting, lo and behold, they put up this ugly fortress thing, like a prison compound – it's still there, people take it for granted now, but when it first went up it caused a near riot, I can tell you.

I think that was the first time anyone really got the sense we had been invaded.

No, I'm not putting it too bluntly, that's what people think. That's what we really think here, those of us who remember the old days.

You've seen the other farms too, no doubt. The compounds. The place is full of them, they're everywhere. Miles around. All built the same way: big fences around the house and the house yard, eight feet high some of them, what's that in the fancy new measurement? And the buildings themselves, some of 'em have bars on the windows have you noticed that? They say it's to keep the girls in, they're very heavy on keeping their women under lock and key, a bit like the Italians up in Innisfail, though of course you've heard stories too, I bet you have, isn't that true? It's all a front, but they're not joking I'll tell you that. There have been a few nasty incidents over the years, over the past few years.

Well that's true, in more recent times it has gone over the odds, but we'll get to that. What I was telling you was how it all sort of grew on us, almost so we didn't notice. Woke up one morning, and there they were, trying to run the place, acting as if they owned it.

When young Ibrahim went on the local Shire Council I think we all gave a bit of a cheer and that's the truth. Good to see a local make good. Good to see the lad show some civic spirit also, he was a hard worker, that one. And at that time nobody could have foreseen that I'd be the last of our line, and of the Weatherheads too, I'm the very last one.

My kids, when they went to the University down in the capital, well I knew the professions were the way to the future, the drought years and the flood years come in cycles but they come all right and both my sons said they were jack of that. Don't blame them, really.

And of course the three girls never intended to stay up here, out of it all; their mother made sure of that and they knew perfectly well Roger and Tim would inherit the place. If they wanted it. Only Nessie ever grumbled and whinged about her share and it's true, I had a soft spot for her and I guess I had led her to expect some part, after all she was the only one came back willingly on holidays, right from boarding school, and seemed genuinely interested in things. She was mad on horses, that one.

But she was the one who nagged me into the irrigation, while I was still dithering about the cost. Best investment I ever made. Her mother always said she was more a Weatherhead than the Weatherheads but she was my secret favourite.

Oh, the boys did all right for themselves, all of that. But I'll still remember the way they mooched around the homestead those last holidays, couldn't get them out into the sun even, the pair of them.

Tim's high in one of those accountancy agglomerates now, I suppose you know that. Spends half his life in Singapore, hope he finds it fun, I didn't the one time I was there. Yes, Roger's the one with the dental practice on the Gold Coast, oh rolling in it.

So I was telling you about Ismael Ibrahim in that dirty big compound of his. That's what I called it, a compound. And if you'd've seen his wife when she was young you wouldn't believe how pretty she was. Petite, you know, and those big black eyes. Well, after fourteen kids, yes that's what I said, after fourteen of them, one each year like the Irish used to do, well who'd recognise her now. Hard as nails she is, she was the one that beat me down – not him – over the block of shops in the side street; she fair wore me down, and I still don't know how she knew before I did about Caffertys Coaches and their planned interstate comfort stop right in the village centre. Beat me down forty per cent on my asking price
AND
I thought I'd got a bargain, they'd all been empty since the newsagent shot through owing me rent on the corner one, and that would have been two years before. Well, will you look at them now!

No, I don't hold that against them. Not really. And after all, the other block of mine on the main street has done very well out of the Caffertys Coaches and their stopover. Real money spinner, matter of fact. And my god, she is a hard worker, though the whole tribe are out there like a pack of demons, day and night almost.

1970 I think it was, but a lot can happen in the space of a decade or so.

I think it was only when Tim came up here with his kids two years ago that it dawned on me just how the village has changed.

‘Will you look at that!' he said. ‘Eighty percent of the shops have got foreign names, some even in Arabic. Eighty percent.' He counted them. ‘And there's even a mosque. In Pristina, a mosque for Christ's sake.'

I think he was more indignant because it sort of crept up on us all, but he came to it fresh and it was all there.

‘The mosque's not really in town' I said, ‘It's on their property. And that screen of hawthorn hides it off from the rest of town, really; we don't notice it.'

‘Wasn't that part of the Weatherhead dairy, that lot?' Tim said. ‘How did they get hold of any Weatherhead property? What have you been doing, Dad?'

So I had to explain to him about the bad year after the cannery closed down and the rust got in the wheat and the bloody bank said they'd foreclose. They don't understand these things, and they don't want to either, no use burdening them with your worries. So the long and short of it was I had to tell him about selling off nearly half the Weatherhead lands. They were in Mary's name but it's all the same in the end isn't it.

Oh, the Albanian cooperative I think it was called, it was all drawn up legal and it got me out of a hole I can tell you, don't you worry.