Shearers' Motel (19 page)

It didn't happen that way. He put the sun over his left shoulder (where it felt wrong), and tacked along the line of his shadow. The self that betrayed him was also his rescuer. (He wished it could always be this way.) He pushed aside a thorny bush. The sandhill where the emus disappeared stared him in the face. He turned his head. There was the same old piece of fenceline. He cupped an ear, catching the steady throb of the compressor-engine at the woolshed. An easy walk and he was back there.

 

On the banks of the Darling, it was impossible to get lost. But when he looked over the grey bands of trees towards Gumbank shed — where the shed should have been — he heard nothing. The steady chug of the engine came from almost behind him. The river had twisted him round.
Angling an ear, he located the sound exactly, and then, stepping clear of the trees, caught glimpses of tin roofs across the bare open spaces beyond the river. He set a course back to the shearers' quarters in a straight line. Minutes from the riverbank, he rose onto an old flood terrace, then another. Red earth-lines along the horizon to the east. A paddock of harsh herbage. Lignum in the hollows. The river barely existing any more — just a strip of trees slipping lower behind with every step. A walk of fifty minutes out, along the meanders, became thirteen back in a straight line. Dull pewter of galvanised roofs and he was soon into the shower, then back in the kitchen, turning the roast, stirring the soup, the evening full of chores till eight o'clock.

 

He sat at the mess-table making notes for tomorrow's cooking. ‘Jobs for Tuesday: Anzac biscuits, pizza bread, cook roast leg for cold, cook pig, cook shoulder for mincing.' He noted down a tip for future reference: short-bread biscuits made with custard powder, flour, and rendered mutton fat. He munched one himself. The vanilla in the custard powder counteracted the dripping flavour. Rock music filled the laneway from outdoor speakers. Whine of the grinding wheel came from the overseer's bedroom. Growl of dogs under the floorboards. Remembrance of Sadie with an ache of emotion.

Harold came in, unpacked his briefcase to do the night's bookwork. ‘What a racket out there!' Arnie ambled in, made a cup of tea, slouched at the table smoking through his missing front teeth, sighing, picking tobacco from his tongue. Cookie looked up from recipe books. Asked Arnie his Maori name. It was a mile long. Learned that as far back as Arnie's family knew, there was no European in his ancestry.

Without a change of pace or facial expression (as he thought) he switched from making food notes to writing an impression of his surroundings. ‘Arnie and Harold in the mess-room.' Thought he was getting away with something. Had been lost from work today. Was lost from it
again, trying to fix an impression of things that were always changing, lives that were changing at random, apparently, while a pattern of life hovered above their existence and drew them on to the next hope, the next shed.

Harold raised his eyes to the ceiling and soliloquised: ‘It must be good being a writer — knowing things. Working in this job has taken me all the way back to school. I'm learning how to bank. My wife's learning how to bank. I'm learning how to fill out diaries. I'm learning how to write records. I'm learning how to do a filing system. It's amazing, the things that you've got to know to live. Just the basics, and if you can get the basics right — I know that from playing my sport — everything just keeps flowing. Oh, gee, it's been hard work, though. Hard work.'

There were more ways than one of being lost. He had learned that in this work.

Imagine living in a garbage can — call it a back-yard flat. Imagine coming out clinking bottles and spitting blackened lettuce leaves when there's a knock at the door — call it a lid. Imagine having flies and vegetable gnats buzzing around — imagine being a young derro wearing a torn T-shirt, stained jeans, a pair of shoes from the op shop with splits down the sides and the stink of something inside. Woolly furry rat's nest smell, the feet of mother's baby — all ten wonderful toes slithering in slime. Imagine living in this shithouse with broken glass, boot-holes in fibro, mattresses with cigarette burns and stinking of piss. You'd do anything, go anywhere to get away from there. Imagine being thrown away at some previous time, but ending up there, always at the same place, downwind of the dump, ‘Tip View flats' jokers called it — with bread wrappers and supermarket bags stuck on the fences, clogging the windows, headaches all the time from the fires always burning, dogs and cats sneaking around, covered in sores. Night-time explosions of bursting glass to keep you awake. The town with backstreets you
wouldn't shit in. It would be as if you were made of plastic if you lived there. As if you were trash. As if you would explode yourself one of these nights.

Imagine spending your life hanging around railway stations and bus stations: ‘Ay mate, spare us a dollar? I'm really ‘ungry.' Or, ‘I've just come down from da bush, and me car run out of petrol, can you give us a dollar?' Imagine no one caring if you never washed. Imagine having cock-cheese in your hair, pus in your ear-holes, blood in your nostrils. Imagine being so filthy no one wanted you — the natural state, kids running away from you, a hairy spider coming round the corner. Imagine no one ever showing you the way. Imagine not belonging to anyone, having nowhere to go.

Imagine being young derro.

 

Now imagine this for a change: in the doorway stands a skinny smiling old guy in a blue shirt and tie, moleskin trousers, elastic sided riding boots and burnt-looking eyeballs. The true Aussie farmer. This one must have gone bust to be running after shit for pay. He's a shearing contractor. He's come to find someone, lifting the lid on the garbage, so to speak. And he says he wants you. He says,
You'll do
. It's work in a shearing shed picking up wool.
The owner is a trusted client. Gotta do the right thing by him
. He stares you right in the face, young derro, and smiles. ‘What's this got to do with a bloke?'
Let's have a beer and discuss it
. Young derro has no power left in his liver, can't touch the stuff no more, only drinks Fanta and plays pool with the Abos, he likes their society.
Let's go round in the saloon bar, away from them coons
, the bloke says.

Young derro is the wrong person. He knows this for a cert from the first knock on the door. Who would ever come for him? The skinny old guy is looking for Bob, the flatmate, who's living at Cunnamulla putting in road culverts and sleeping under a caravan like a dog. But Bob ain't here. The CES offers two jobs to the one bloke.

Tell you what, says young derro, looking hard into his
can of Fanta, anyone can do it. I seen it done back home in Kiwi. Just glorified garbage collection, eh, plucking them scraps of wool from the floor.

More or less
, nods the old guy, draining his beer, jingling his car keys now that he sees young derro on the hook.
Let's hit the road
.

Young derro is driven south at high speed. Quite a ride. They go through Cunnamulla in a blur. ‘They your feet or something, mate? You oughter do something about em.' Hundreds of kilometres they burn, whomping the gravel, stopping on the hour every hour for a smoke so as not to smell-up the insides of the car. ‘The name's Alastair,' the old bloke puts out a hand. Young derro gives him the dirty palm — ‘I'm Wade.' Young derro observes the fittings with the eye of a connoisseur. Digital radio, cruise control, substantial two-way. Roo-bars courtesy Mr Bullbar. No doubt about it, there is a degree of buttering a guy up. He could get used to it.

‘How come you guys like Kiwis?' He relaxes.

‘What do you mean, Wade?'

‘Like you're heavily into employing Kiwis, that's what I hear.'

‘You've got that wrong, Wade,' the guy says with a tired smile, glancing sideways at young derro, trying to decide if he's worth giving the usual line on this, whether he's got the brains to listen. ‘We're not heavily involved in employing New Zealanders, or black fellas, or Australians or anything. We're heavily involved in employing anybody who can get to work in a workmanlike manner for us. It don't matter whether they're black, white, brindle, New Zealand, Japanese, Chinese or what they are. If you want to work, and you're a good tradesman, and you don't cause us no trouble, we want you to work for us. We don't discriminate against anyone. The only one we do discriminate against is the one that don't want to work.'

‘Fair shit?' says young derro. Jesus. Why did he ask. If he had wanted a sermon he would have gone to the pastor, who wouldn't have laid it on thick like this fella, no
way, he would have just given him his soup and his stew and his plate of bread and said, ‘Have a nice day, brother.'

Into the sulks goes young derro. Sitting hunched up against the door, the bloke sending him looks,
What's the trouble sonny, can't hack the possibilities?

What would you know, ya grazier down on ya luck. Just remembering private thoughts, I am.

They stop by the roadside.

Jesus. Hurts to piss. Out in the open here in this flat fucking country is like standing up close against a bonfire. The heat burns your eyeballs up, smites your cock, it's so bright you have to squint to look anywhere. Not that there's anything to look at. Them trees are just weeds. Eat em, sheep, chew wood or die because grass won't grow here, thinks young derro — flicking his butt away into the dirty sand and making the old bloke Alastair do a dance on top of it, screaming,
Don't you Kiwis know nothin?

Way past the New South border they stop at the Fords Bridge pub asking for directions to the shed and Alastair sinks a beer while young derro chalks a cue, sucks a Fanta, lines em up, sends em down one after the other till he gets the call again: ‘Let's go'.

Young derro eats a pie that's still frozen in the middle, and he's still hungry. Alastair says the cook they've got at the shed is a good one. It won't be long now. ‘I've been in sheds where you haven't been able to eat,' he says. ‘You live on bread and butter, it's the only safe thing. We picked up a cook one time. We'd come over for lunch and the bloody chops would be sitting in the fat, the potatoes would still be in the fat, it would be half cold. The only dessert was a bread and butter custard. The cook must have made the custard and turned it out of one pot into the other and turned it upside down. The shearers told me to go and chip him for being flaming dirty, and we had to have our meals hot at lunchtime — he'd cook at about nine o'clock and let it sit on top of the stove. He had to clean himself up, and he had to agree to get us hot meals. And he had to get onto another sweet other than bread and butter custard, we were sick of it. So I went over and
told him. So we came over for lunch. Yes, the meal's hot but it's all burnt up. The bread and butter custard, instead of having the bread at the top, it was in the bottom. So they got their change.'

Big deal, thinks young derro.

 

They arrive at the place after lunch. The cook is doing the washing-up.

‘Oy, Cookie, could you rustle up a little something for the lad here?' says Alastair.

Young derro eyes the cook. Dunno what he thinks. Looks like he never lets up — one of them tightarses. Give im a scowl. Cold meat, boiled eggs, pickles, beetroot, lettuce, tomato, and what's this, would you believe it, fresh crusty baked rolls like something hot from a bakery, with all their insides steaming and pulling apart like string. Sucker brings it to the table like a waiter. Could be worse.

‘Ay, Cookie,' snarls young derro, ‘not bad shit.'

Show em you're aware.

He eyes young derro: sees someone who fell from a Honda into thorn bushes, got scratched and torn, clothes falling off in shreds, T-shirt a relic, filthy jeans, shoes loose, flip-flop, wispy whiskers passing for a man's beard, collapsed flat carry bag under the table holding something, hard to say what, just the impression of something, a dirty sweater and a box-shaped personal treasure that could be anything. It rattles when young derro picks it up. It's a chess set.

Alastair looks at his watch. That's enough grub. Labour's fuelled up. Get the ball rolling, Alastair, and be back in home by midnight. ‘Ready for work, Wade?'

Young derro licks his knife and belches and reckons he might be.

 

The guys see young derro coming into the shed with Alastair who introduces him around. ‘Fellows, this is Wade.'

What the guys see, glancing out from under their
armpits as they shear, glancing over their shoulders, glancing behind their backs, is nothing surprising — hairy young fucker looking for a punch, recently done time but would never say so except they've seen it all before, they've come this route before, they've heard the iron gate slam shut behind them before, they've clutched their belongings in the cold air, in the heat, they've hidden in garbage cans, so to speak, and been collected on street corners and pubs, bundled into cars, vans, trucks, and been driven to Christ knows where and dumped like stray animals in the bush. Cookie, too — he's had his taste of it. Don't think he knows what you know, Wade, just by standing on the sidelines and writing it down. The team knows there's no heaven this side of the grave for the likes of them, six men working a rhythm along the board, creaming the bellies off, despatching the fleece, avoiding the hocks if they can, swivelling up to the switch-off cord, beating for the catching pens for their next sheep like heavy swimmers launching themselves from a low tumble-turn, competitors in a race that never ends: the main event, the work event.

Best for young derro to stay clear of these guys if he doesn't want trouble. Don't get in their way. That's practical. Give them a clear path, get the wool off the floor before they kick it somewhere impossible, like down the chute, or under your boots, into your face, back on a sheep, because they don't give a fuck about wool as such. Understand? Or about you, young derro.

There is a woman at the other end of the shed at the wool-sorting table.
What is this
, thinks young derro,
some kinda women's joint
? Nice-looking piece in T-shirt and shorts, tall, plenty of brown leg and bouncy white socks like a teenager, dark hair tied back in a ponytail with a red ribbon. She comes up and smiles at him. ‘Wade? Nice to meet you. I'm the classer. Done this kind of work before?'

No answer to that. Young derro snarls his hello, wipes his nose with the flat of his hand, doesn't admit to anything. Gives her the big cold eye. Young derro doesn't
like working with women, never has, couldn't say why. Specially wouldn't take orders from one.

Things move fast here. Young derro gets a broom thrust in his hands and the classer calls out to him to follow Rosie, to watch what Rosie does and copy her, and adds, ‘Hop to it, Wade'.

‘Hop to y'self,' looking around half-blind, slowing a bloke up, all this women-blah.

Noisy shouting excitable sort of place this is, shearers hard at it, sweat flying off, pounding back and forth dragging their sheep out, women trying to show they can keep up, competitive bitches, machinery making a din, too bloody hard if you ask young derro, there would have to be easier ways of making a dollar. ‘Get in there, mate,' pleads a soft female voice behind his ear-hole, and he gets a gentle shove in the small of the back. ‘Watch it!' So this is Rosie — a woman in her twenties, tight black curly hair, soft dark eyes, jeans, joggers, T-shirt and bouncy tits. Likes her — soft as they come — and he smiles at her, he can't help it, jaw hanging open a bit, spittle running down and discoloured teeth on show.

 

Early evening. Tea postponed for an hour because it's too hot for anyone to eat. Hot with dogs flat on the dirt, their tongues flopping out, flies buzzing around, long shadows across the red sand, everything baking. The smell of roast meat coming from the cookhouse, hot and greasy. Young derro sits on an old car tyre and scrapes cartridge cases from the dirt with his toes. Roo shooters must have used this place once — they must have let off a million rounds here, the stupid arseholes. Young derro hasn't chosen a room yet. He doesn't want one. The guys tell him to get in the shower or they'll drag him in but fucked if he will have a shower. He will sleep out here in the dirt with the dogs. The cook sleeps out here, his truck parked under the stars away from the quarters, where he can't hear the racket at night. The guys sleep out here themselves, they've dragged their beds from their rooms to the bottom of the steps, it's so hot. Who needs a fucking room? They're like
stinking boxes anyway, two beds to each, windows you can't even open, dark as pits. What if he woke in the night screaming?

Young derro watches the guys go in and out of the tin wash-house. The shower water is practically boiling from the polypipe delivering it from the dam up at the windmill, because the pipe lies out in the open, on the ground. They all complain.

When the guys come out there's a friendly call: ‘Ay, girls'. Then the women go in, it's their turn, all clutching their shampoos and body soaps and creams and combs and perfumes. The showers are all so quietly organised it's like some kind of family affair. Young derro hawks and spits. The atmosphere sickens him.

Young derro doesn't know what to do. He's trapped. This is one place you can't walk away from unless you make the choice to die out there on the sandy roads all branching out from each other like crazy, without any signposts, all looking the same. Never-never land they call it and he knows what they mean. Young derro hangs his head between his knees and stares at an ant clambering across grains of sand. Swathes of matted hair cover his face. The sound of laughter reaches him. The guys are passing each other ice-cold stubbies. Young derro has learnt that he's a rousie now. A change has happened, a door has opened and he's invited out to face the shit. And of course he has to fight his way out, move forward through life defending himself from what's trailing behind, all that other shit, all them garbage containers thrown at him that he's climbed into, hidden in, curled up and weeping.