Mallawindy (15 page)

When the road was dark again, she mounted
the bike and rode on.

Maybe she'd make it. Dawn was only hours away now, but Daree was not too far ahead.

She knew what he wanted, what they all wanted. Slowly she slid the zip open, shrugging off her skirt and stepping away from it. The buttons on her prim blouse, slowly, tantalisingly undone, it slipped from her rounded shoulders, and as her heavy breasts sprang free of their restriction. She smiled knowingly, backing away as he reached eagerly for his prize.

Mack was sweating with desire as he approached her, his mouth open, sucking air deep into aching lungs.

She laughed at him, allowing her hands to slide seductively from her firm ripe breasts, down to her hips, stripping her hips and buttocks of their sheer covering, before kicking the flimsy panties to his feet.

‘Come to Mommy, baby boy,' she crooned. ‘Come to Mommy.' Her dark triangle tantalised with knowledge of the silken place it hid, her nipples were pink crumpled petals of a dusty rose. His mouth sought the twin flowers, and Mack sucked.

THE END

Malcolm Fletcher closed the novel with a snap then used it to flatten two flies making love on his kitchen table. Lust was bar
ely a memory, but the novel had stirred places that hadn't been stirred for years! He stood, took too-fast breaths, eased his trousers around
the crutch, and eyed the cover picture as Eve might have eyed an overripe apple in the garden of Eden.

An earthy beauty bared her left breast there, the name of the author emblazoned across it.
Coll M Chef-Marlet,
the letters read. The letters could as easily have spelt Malcolm Fletcher!

He mouthed the name. ‘You black-hearted old sinner, Chef-Marlet,' he said.

In the Burton house, near hidden by overgrown shrubs, Bronwyn Burton had her nose buried in one of the hottest passages of an identical copy of the novel. She closed the book as Ben walked into the kitchen.

‘You shouldn't be wasting your money on that smut, Bron.'

‘Everybody is reading it.' Weak-kneed with second-hand desire, Bronwyn stood, tossing her long hair back; it was a sleek, rich brown. She was almost eighteen, old enough to read what she liked. And she liked Chef-Marlet – as did half of Australia. ‘Anyhow, where's your patriotism? At least he's Australian.'

Ben picked up the book, looked at the photograph of a moon-faced youthful author. ‘He looks as if he should be writing obscure history, not this smut,' he said. He tossed the book back to the table and watched his sister light a cigarette. She held it as her father held a cigarette, and her mouth, when she sucked on the weed, was shaped like her father's. The final mixture of Burton and Vevers, Bronwyn had her mother's green eyes and her father's nose, her mother's build and her father's temper.

‘You shouldn't be wasting money on cigarettes, either,' he said.

‘I don't. You know me, Ben. Money well spent is never wasted.'

Ben saved two-thirds of his wage each week. He didn't understand this sister. She'd developed young, and had half the town louts chasing her since she turned thirteen. She was average height, and not a lot like Annie, except her hands. Every time he looked at Bron's hands, he thought of Annie's.

He had his mother's hands, or his grandfather's, as Ellie always
said. He had his grandfather's build too, five foot six when he stopped growing. He'd expected to make five-ten at least. Ben still lived at home when Jack was out of town, but he was in residence at the moment, so Ben slept on a camp stretcher in a junk room behind Bert Norris's shop. He hadn't spoken to his father since the night Annie left, and he'd sworn to Ellie that he never would again.

On that New Year's Eve, Ellie had lost the last of her fight, her baby, and her womb. She'd lost a lot of blood too. It was months before she was back to her old self. Jack had remained sober for twelve months after. He'd even taken a job with the stock agent. Two years passed before Jack got back to his old self, but he rarely hit Ellie, or so she said, and when he did, it was usually brought on by outside influences, Ellie stressed. If people didn't stir him up, everything was fine. They had a good relationship. Both Ben and Bronwyn stayed out of his way now.

It was almost six. Jack always ate at six. Ben helped himself to some boiled pumpkin and potatoes and a bit of stew. He helped himself to a few eggs for breakfast, a couple of slices of bread and a thick wedge of cake. He was packing it carefully into his Esky as Ellie came from the shower, hair brush in hand.

‘Got your dinner, love?'

‘Yes thanks, Mum.'

Head down, Ellie stood before the stove, brushing the yard of wet silk. Ben watched her for minutes, then his gaze wandered the room, resting a moment on the portrait of Liza, almost forgotten, as Linda Alice had been forgotten, as Annie would never be forgotten.

They'd found her bike near Daree, but no-one had sighted her there. She'd disappeared as completely as Johnny.

Never much good at putting his thoughts into words, always nervous and shy in his youth, Ben attempted to get through life unnoticed. Annie was the one he'd spoken his dreams to. Far easier to sign a dream than to give it voice. Her leaving created a gap in his life that eight years, eighty years, would do little to fill.

‘Sunshine shower, fall from sky,' he signed the words. He could still do it.

‘That's what Annie used to call Mum's hair,' Bronwyn said.

‘What love?' Ellie tossed back the wet mane and began
plaiting it.

‘Nothing, Mum. I'd better get going, I suppose, before my dinner gets cold. Anything you need from the shops tomorrow?'

‘Just the bread, love. Oh, and you can get me some baking powder, and a couple of light globes. And get onto Jim Bourke about that fence too. We can claim it on our tax, and you really haven't got the time.'

Bronwyn walked with her brother to his ute. He still had the old HR, but he'd had the rust cut out a couple of years back, and a new paint job, so it still looked good, and got him as far as he wanted to go, which wasn't far. ‘You can give me a lift up the town, Ben.'

‘You don't want to go hanging around there all night.'

‘I don't want to go hanging around here all night, either. He likes her hair when it's been shampooed. The old bed springs will be rattling tonight.'

‘Bron!' Ben slid into the ute, swung the passenger door open.

‘Do you think much about Annie these days, Ben?'

‘She'll come back one day.'

‘Like you always reckoned Johnny would. How old would he be now?'

‘Thirty-one. Three years older than me. He was eight when Annie was born.'

‘I don't even remember him. I must have been at least two when he left. What was he like? Who was he like?'

‘You've seen photos. He was the image of Dad.'

‘Like as in, wild? Quiet?'

‘Oh, he wasn't anything like him in ways.' Ben scratched at the scar at his hairline. ‘Mum wanted him to be a priest.'

‘That would have made Jack happy.'

‘It did. He called him Jesus. They hated each other.' Ben started the motor, backed the ute around and headed slowly up the track. ‘Johnny and old Fletch's son were good mates. They were together the day they found the bones down Dead Man's Lane.'

‘Fletch's son died young, didn't he?'

‘Yeah. He was sixteen. From encephalitis. But his old woman blamed the blacks for putting a hex on him – pointing the bone. She drowned herself when he died.'

‘Tied three flat irons to her belt, the kids reckon,' Bronwyn laughed and sprayed smoke.

‘It's not funny.'

‘Not funny, but original, you've got to admit that much. Can't say I blame her either. Imagine doing it with that fat old toad.'

She left the car, opened the gate, and Ben drove through. He waited as she closed it behind him, looping the circle of wire over the leaning gatepost. He'd have to get onto that fence, or get onto Bourkey. It was almost down. He loved this piece of land, always hated leaving it behind him. The town meant nothing to him.

‘What made Johnny take off?'

‘I don't really know. I was only twelve when he left.'

‘Only twelve, my goodness? Just a child. Can you imagine me saying one day, Oh I can't remember much about Annie. I was only ten when she left home.'

‘Of course, I remember him. I remember he dropped out of school; he was always stirring up Dad – and big enough to do it too. They used to have stand up fights at the end.'

‘This was after Annie came back from Narrawee?'

‘Yeah, but they never got on. After Annie was born, I think Johnny thought he'd turned into God. He was eight, Bron, and he used to treat Dad like dirt. If Dad started getting into Mum, Johnny would go for him. It got worse as he grew, then after John Fletcher died, Johnny sort of flipped his lid.'

‘The bone pointers did him in too.'

‘The old man didn't notice Annie much until after she came
back from Narrawee, and his Liza didn't. He seemed to hate her when she came back. He'd belt her when he was drunk, try to make her talk. Johnny used to keep her out of his way, take her everywhere with him. That's when he started missing school. If he went to school, he'd take Annie to Bessy, and leave her there until he got home.

‘Mum was pleased to get rid of her. Until the Narrawee thing, Johnny used to be Mum's slave, but I suppose he started seeing her for what she was or something. She was worse than useless with Annie. Scared of her. You'd remember that.' Bronwyn nodded. ‘I dunno what you want to know, Bron.'

‘Everything. Give me all the dirt, Ben. Why did he run? If he was so protective of Annie, how come he left her? I mean, wouldn't you think that he would have come back for her when he got older?'

‘I always thought he'd come back.'

‘He was fifteen?'

‘Going on sixteen. All I know, Bron, is that in the weeks after John Fletcher died, the house was bedlam. Dad was blind blotto all the time, and it was like Johnny was taunting him. Then that afternoon, Dad had been getting into Annie for hours. Johnny picked up Mum's poker, and he belted Dad over the back of the head with it. He knocked him down and hit into him with the poker while he had him down. Mum had to fight him off or he would have killed him, I think.' The utility drew to a halt on the forest side of the bridge while a herd of sheep was driven across. Ben's voice raised to compete with the bleating, and the dogs barking.

‘Anyway, Mum packed Johnny's bag and told him to go. He was howling, saying, “Don't make me leave her, Mum. Don't make me leave her. I'll kill him, Mum. I'll come back and kill him.” He was screaming in the end, and Annie was screaming after him, and I went after both of them, and – .'

Ben turned his face to the window, silenced. He sucked in a deep breath, and let it out slowly before continuing his story.
‘Johnny would turn around and make his hand signs to Annie, and she'd run towards him screaming. In the end, he fl
agged down a truck and left Annie standing in the middle of the road. That was the last time I ever saw her howl.'

‘I've never seen her howl. I can remember Dad belting her and yelling, talk to me, talk to me, and she'd just scream at him or laugh.'

‘Yeah.' Ben rubbed at his eye, then at the scar near his brow. ‘He always knew she could hear. I used to think she could too, so did Johnny. She knew exactly what was going on. When you were out in the paddocks with her, you knew she heard stuff. Like when the dog barked, she seemed to hear it, and Dad's old car. She used to hear that.'

‘How much do you know about Narrawee?'

‘Not much. Dad's old man left it to Sam and May, then to their kids, but they haven't got any. I think it's supposed to revert back to Dad, if Sam dies.'

‘So, we could eventually get it?'

‘I suppose so. I don't know what happens if Dad dies first. May has got cousins. It might go to them.'

‘I could take to being rich, Ben. Did you know them, May and Sam? Ever meet them?'

‘Dozens of times. Dozens – when I was a kid. They used to come up here a couple of times a year. Sam's the living image of Dad, but he had a moustache. I remember him as a real snob, and as tame as Dad was wild. Like he was under May's thumb. Sort of crawly tame he was, but his eyes didn't look tame. Like one of those blue-heeler dogs that cringe at your feet, but you know they'll go for your ankles as soon as you turn your back. Patronising to Mum, he was, but she couldn't see it. They wanted to educate Johnny, send him to a private Melbourne school. Dad wouldn't have a bar of it. He hated Sam back then. Jealous of him, I suppose. He got stuck into him one day. Called him everything but a gentleman, and Sam just walked off and got in the car. “There but for
the grace of a fool, go I ...” Dad says to May, “I could have had it all. I could have turned that old bastard against him back then, b
ut I kept my bloody mouth shut.” Sam was beeping the horn, so May just sort of shook her head and backed away.'