Freedom Ride (3 page)

“Found a job for the holidays, Robbie?” asked Dad. He was lighting an after-dinner cigarette. “This is the best time of your life to learn how to …”

Dad’s voice trailed away like the smoke from his cigarette. I knew this speech off by heart. “… best time of your life to learn how to manage money, open a savings account …” Blah, blah, bloody blah.

He was a bank manager, so he was obsessed with money and savings and budgets, which was fair enough, but I couldn’t care less about any of it. I watched the smoke twist and curl and swirl to the ceiling.

“Robert.” Nan’s bark snapped me back to the table. “Listen to your father.”

Dad tapped his cigarette over the ashtray.

“Sorry, I just …” I looked out the window to the backyard. “You know, a good gust of wind and that big branch will drop.”

Nan rolled her eyes at Dad. Translated, the look said, the boy is as dense as red gum.

Dad’s green eyes stared into mine. “Ted Sherman from Walgaree Stock Agents said he could use a hand at the yards.”

I tried not to shudder. Herding sheep and cattle into dusty pens that stank of fear and shit was not my idea of a job. Torture yes, job no. I stared at the cinders that used to be chops on my plate. “Not really my kind of thing.”

Dad sucked hard on his cigarette.

Nan slathered butter onto a slice of bread. “Actually, Robert, I’ve organised a job for you.”

“What?”

Nan stopped, knife poised over the bread.

I swallowed. “I mean, thanks, Nan, but if it’s all right, I’d like to find my own job.”

Nan scoffed. “Hell will freeze over first, my boy.”

The words “I’m not your boy” danced in bold red letters through my mind.

She pushed the butterdish towards Dad. “I’ve arranged for you to mow lawns and do gardening for the card girls. Starting tomorrow at Mrs Fielding’s.”

Gardening for those twittering, squawking women was an even worse prospect than shoving sheep and cattle into putrid yards.

Before I could protest, Nan had changed the subject. “Oh, Frank, did you hear Arthur Gregory’s boy is back in Walgaree?”

“Barry and his mother came into the bank today to sign papers. He’s taking over the caravan park. Scruffy no-hoper. She’d be well-advised to sell rather than put him in charge.”

I felt as though I was bound tight with rubber bands. I wanted to push against the binding, to break free. But I couldn’t. With their attack on Barry Gregory fading into the background, I took the plates to the sink.

Thelma Fielding stood on her front path, hands on her hips, watching me sweat and grunt. Her rotary mower looked older than her and Nan combined.

Her cockatoo screech was easy to hear over the whirr of the blades. “And you can cut back that shrub when you’re done.”

Nan’s parting words as I left for Bat Face Fielding’s had been, “Mind you do it graciously.”

I gritted my teeth. “No problem.”

“The shears are in the shed.”

So too was the world’s entire population of huntsmen spiders. At least it looked that way when I went in there for the mower. I forced a smile. “No worries, Mrs Fielding.”

The telephone rang inside her house. “I’ll be back,” she screeched, before waddling down the cement path.

I leaned against the mower handles, relieved for the break from her ear-piercing orders.

“Oi, Bower.” Ian Wright’s gravel-in-the-washing-machine voice.

I gritted my teeth and shoved the mower forwards, the whirring blades creating a dust storm that swallowed my feet.

“Off to the river.” Still on his bike, he rested one foot on the pedal and the other on the footpath.

When I still didn’t answer he added, “Meeting the others there, mate.”

The river would run dry before he was my mate.

“Marian Cavendish is going.” He did his high-pitched, seedy giggle. “Heard her tell Sally Marshall she had new swimmers. One of those two-piece jobs. You’d like to see that, wouldn’t ya?”

For the first time, I was glad to be mowing in the heat. The blush spreading down my throat merged with my already red and sweaty skin.

He couldn’t know I liked Wobbly’s daughter, Marian Cavendish. Because the only way he’d know was if Keith had told, and Keith had sworn on his mother’s wedding ring, which she’d left on the kitchen windowsill, that he’d never tell anyone. Not even Billy.

“I’ll check her out and tell you exactly how she looked, mate.”

His leer made my stomach clench. “Bugger off, will ya?” I tried to be menacing, but only managed to sound out of breath.

Wright pushed off the fence with another burst of creepy giggling. “I’ll say hi to Marian for you, Bower.”

“Hope you drown, you stupid mongrel,” I muttered, watching him pedal away.

“His father’s a mongrel, too.”

I leaped back from the mower as though electricity had surged through the handles.

The man from the milk bar stood on the footpath. “You’re Frank Bower’s boy, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Barry Gregory.” He reached out to shake my hand. “Your nan is Dawn, right? With the mulberry tree?”

“That’s her.”

Barry grinned. “When I was young, me and my mate Gaz used to steal the mulberries, or at least try to. Your nan was a mean shot with a broom.” He pointed to a gap in his front row of teeth.

“Fair dinkum? Nan did that?”

“Yep. One time Gaz copped three stitches to the eyebrow. She’s tough.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t I know it.”

He nodded at the mower. “Do you like mowing?”

“It’s kind of soothing.” I glanced at Bat Face Fielding’s front windows. The curtains fluttered. “Not a fan of being watched all the time, though.”

Barry’s laugh made me feel lighter. “You’re on holidays, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Would you consider mowing for me at the caravan park?” He pointed at Bat Face’s ancient mower. “With a powered mower.”

“Today?”

“Tomorrow. If you’re interested.”

Nan hadn’t said if she’d arranged another job. “I guess so. Sure.”

“You know where to go?”

“Walgaree Caravan Park.”

“See you tomorrow, then.” He waved as he strolled towards the river and the caravan park.

The lightness in my stomach drifted away like smoke.

Last night Nan and Dad had talked about Barry Gregory as though he was the devil in disguise. In fact, not even in disguise. Would they let me work for him?

Barry had reached the corner when Bat Face Fielding flapped out the front door, more flustered chook than cockatoo. “What did Barry Gregory want?”

“Nothing.”

“That was a lot of talk about nothing.” She folded her arms.

I swallowed a sigh. “He said I was doing a good job.”

Bat Face Fielding frowned. “A slow job.” No wonder she and Nan were friends. “Well, get on with you. I want this finished before dark.”

When she didn’t move, I clenched my teeth and pushed the mower forwards.

Bone and sinew bobbed in a tomato sea on the plate in front of me. I grimaced. Of all Nan’s concoctions, this was the worst. Meat – chops, I think – and a can of tomatoes cooked until the meat was tougher than the soles of my school shoes. Thank goodness for the mashed potato island. Nan did good mashed potato.

She pulled her chair up to the table. “Frank, grace.”

Dad bowed his head and mumbled a string of words. “Blessuso Lord and these Thy gift swhich we receive from Thy bounty through Christour Lord Amen.”

“Amen,” echoed Nan. “How was work, Frank?”

“Alby Duncan dropped in today.” Dad held his cutlery over the plate. “There are plans to let Abos into Walgaree High next year.”

Nan shook her head. “He must be mistaken.”

“Alby’s on the school board. He’d know. Some government initiative to get them out of Mission schools into the state system.”

Nan clutched her chest. “In all my days …”

“Four for starters, as a trial.”

Nan fidgeted in her seat. “This really isn’t a dinner conversation. Tell me, Robert, how was Thelma today?”

And Bat Face
was
a dinner conversation?

I stared at the tomato sea splashed against the edge of my plate. “Good.”

Which was a complete lie. When Nan said she had organised a job for me, I expected to be paid with actual money. Bat Face Fielding, after making me mow and rake the lawns, trim the edges, prune the shrub out the front, clean up the leaves and branches, sweep the paths and wash all the outside windows, paid me with a jar of pickles. Pickles!

“Did you work hard?” asked Nan.

“Yes, Nan.”

“And cheerfully?”

“Yes, Nan.”

“And you refused payment.”

I dropped my fork onto the mound of mashed potatoes.

Dad stopped sawing the meat.

“Well? Did you?”

“As it turns out, she offered me pickles. I didn’t take them.”

Nan gave a smug nod. “As you shouldn’t have. Thelma’s pickles are sour.”

“Hold on, Mum,” said Dad. “You told the boy it was a job.”

If I’d been holding my fork, I’d have dropped it again.

“And a job means being paid,” he continued, tapping his knife on the edge of the plate for emphasis. “And I know for a fact Mrs Fielding can well afford to pay.”

“Close your mouth, Robert,” snapped Nan. “Frank, Thelma Fielding is my friend. How can I take money from her?”

“It’s not you she’s paying.”

“And it’s not you who had to face spiders as big as this plate,” I muttered.

Nan gasped.

Dad shot me a warning look.

I picked up my fork and drew the tines through the potato while Dad and Nan discussed the morals or otherwise of paying me.

“Robert! Stop playing with your food!”

I jumped when Nan yelled.

She picked up her plate and stomped to the sink. “I have a headache. Robert, clean up the kitchen. And I won’t be paying.” She thundered down the hall, slamming her bedroom door behind her.

“Hope that branch falls,” said Dad.

I bit the inside of my lip to stop myself from laughing. Once the feeling had gone, I cleared my throat. “Dad.” I drew out the word. “You know Barry Gregory, the guy from the caravan park?”

“Arthur Gregory’s son. Good sort, Arthur. Fought in Tobruk.” Because, to Dad, whether or not you had fought during the war was a measure of character.

“Well, he asked if I could help him at the caravan park.”

Dad’s eyes narrowed.

“He’s paying me. Money,” I lied. I hadn’t asked and Barry hadn’t mentioned money.

Dad pushed his plate away from him and reached for the cigarette packet on the kitchen bench.

“If I work hard, it may turn into a regular job – you know, a holiday job.”

Dad held a lit match to the end of his cigarette and sucked in. The tip flared red. He blew smoke across the table. “A job like that will teach you a thing or two.”

I stood and reached for his plate, my belly light with relief. A holiday job, even if it turned out to be only one day a week, was way better than being stuck in this house with Nan for six weeks. I didn’t care if Barry paid or not.

“Where are you going?” snapped Nan.

I swear she’d been lurking in the laundry, waiting to jump out at me. “I have a job.”

“What job?” She folded her arms.

“Barry Gregory asked me to mow for him.”

“Is that what he was talking to you about at Thel’s?”

I swear nothing happened in Walgaree – no, make that the district – without Nan knowing. “Yes.”

“I’m not sure that’s a suitable place for you to work.” She pressed her lips together. “Why wasn’t I consulted?”

I tried to make my eyes wide and innocent. “Dad and I talked about it last night. When you had a headache. He thought working at the park would be good for me.”

She shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “Well then, don’t be late.” She shooed me out the back door.

Barry Gregory was bent over a mower outside what I guessed was the office when I arrived at the Walgaree Caravan Park. He looked up as my tyres crunched on the gravel driveway.

“You’re early.” He wiped the back of his hand against his cheek, leaving a greasy smudge.

I glanced at my watch. Eight forty. “Sorry, Mr Gregory, I–”

He cut me off with a deep laugh. “Call me Barry. And being early is a good thing.” He strolled towards me, hand outstretched. “Welcome to our place, Robbie.”

I remembered the time Nan had made Dad teach me how to shake hands, like a man. Firm grip. No wet-fish grip. Look into their eyes. According to Nan and Dad, a handshake reflected your character.

My palm was sweaty, but I didn’t want to wipe it on my shorts. With a grimace I shook his hand with my sweaty one. His grip was firm, but not too firm, and his hand warm.

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Barry’s eyes twinkled. “You can leave your bike down the side.” He nodded at a path beside the office. The office was the house’s verandah, just closed in. Like the rest of the house, the weatherboards were painted white and the windows were large. From where I stood, I could see a huge book open on the counter beside a black telephone and pencils.

I wheeled my bike after Barry.