The Vintage and the Gleaning (11 page)

It's all right to have a few drinks after knockoff, I say. And there's no real harm getting pissed Friday nights, even Sundays. But I spent half me life pissed.

Good on you, says the boy, toasting me again.

No, I say. You don't understand. When I was drinking it used to be I had to drink myself sober. Mornings I had to drink to get sober, you understand?

What'd you mean? says the boy. You mean you couldn't get drunk.

If I drunk enough I'd get drunk, I say. But you're not getting my point. Here, I say, pushing the dim sims closer to the boy.

The boy takes a dim sim and eats it. He licks his fingers and looks at the bowl.

Go on, I say.

He takes another one.

Well it's been my ruin, hasn't it, I say. I been drunk half me life and now I can't hardly remember nothing. All them years, hardly nothing. Can't hardly remember me own life. Because I drank it all away, you understand. And it's ruined me inside too, done my health in. Doctors say the only way to keep me alive now is to put me in hospital, feed me from a tube. And it's the grog done it.

Half your life, says the boy thoughtfully, slurring his words. He grins, struggling to look at me, his eyes rolling.

He takes the dim sim and holds it above him, dropping it into his mouth.

Yeah, I say. Half me life drinking, other half working. Because you only worked the season. You did a station, hit a town, and then it was on to the next station. But outside of the season you didn't work. No need to. The pay was good, providing you was a hard worker, good enough for back then, anyway. Enough to provide for your family, buy a house, all that. So outside of the season there was nothing to do but go down pub. I used to be down pub from the time it opened to the time it shut. Get pissed every day, go home, have me tea, go to bed. Never spent time with me wife. Never saw me kid grow up. And now I look back at me life and I wasted it, didn't I? You only got one chance in life and I already used mine up. And I stuffed it. Stuffed it good and proper.

The boy nods, wolfing down dim sims.

I mean, when you're young you work, you get pissed, you go with women, you do this and that, but you never think about the consequences. Everything's moving, everything's going along and you don't stop to think. But it goes fast. It goes so fast you barely notice it. Notice it going. And then it's over. It's over before you even know it. All of it. One day it all just stops. Because it's stopped now. For me it has, anyway. Everything's stopped.

I rest my elbow on the bar towel and it is wet. I look at the damp patch on my sleeve.

Nowadays I'm doing all the thinking I should have done when I was young, I say. When I could have done things right. But all I got now is memories and regrets. And there's not a thing in the world I can do about it. That's it. That's me life. Gone. Can't change a thing. Can't go back. Can't put it right. You understand what I'm saying?

The boy's eyelids are half-closed and his head is beginning to nod. His hair has fallen over his face and into his beer.

Yeah, he slurs, you gotta look before you leap.

But that wasn't what I meant. That wasn't what I meant at all.

I look down the bar at the men. One of them is smoking a large-bowled billiard pipe, clenched between his teeth as he talks, striking matches in brief bursts of flame before they disappear into the bowl. He puffs at it hard and smoke rises in jets and then disperses. He is talking to Bob Martin, who busted his kneecap when a jack slipped from under his truck. He is not the only cripple in the pub. There are men with metal claws for hands, plastic forearms, hobbling about on prosthetic legs. They most of them got injured on the job and paid out and some of them not so old either. Bob Martin grows orchids now.

I look at the boy slumped over his beer.

I reckon you've had enough, I say to him.

Me? says the boy. He raises his head and brushes his hair back. He takes a drink. Nah, he says. I'm only just getting started.

I see John Langtree coming towards us, heavy on his feet, his big gut shaking from side to side as he lumbers along. He stoops and sticks his face up close to the boy's, his face like a slab of meat, his gut pushing against both barstools.

Who's your girlfriend, Smithy? he yells, spitting the words right into the boy's face.

Lay off it, John, I say.

Oi! he yells, staring the boy in the eye. He pokes the boy in the chest and the boy's eyes open up wide.

You think you can take him on? he shouts, pointing at me.

The boy is blinking as though he has been suddenly woken up. He grins nervously and looks around at me.

You think you can take him on? John Langtree shouts again, wheeling his huge, quivering body to turn to me, shaking his finger at my face.

That old man! he shouts. He look like a weak old man to you? You think you can take him on, do you? Ay? Young bloke like you? You think you got muscle?

John Langtree stands up and his gut flops below his belt. He puts a hand on my shoulder. He's got big hands and arms, his bloated face bursting scarlet across the cheeks. He's a big man all round and he is not a good man, drunk or sober.

That's an old shearer, that is, he says, slapping me on the shoulder. There's nothing tougher than an old shearer. You think you can take him on? Bullshit!

He takes his hand off my shoulder and pushes the boy hard in the forehead with one finger. The boy's head reels back and he grabs hold of the rail.

You think boxers is tough? roars John Langtree, holding his finger up to the boy's face. You think wrastlers is tough? He drains his beer and slams it down on the bar towel. Pissweak!

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

There's nothing tougher than an old shearer, he says.

He dumps himself against the bar, his elbow hitting the counter. He leans over the boy.

You think you can take him on? he growls. Yeah? He stays there bent over, steadying himself against the rail, his angry face with its firework cheeks right up to the boy's. He moves his head about, glaring at the boy.

Just let him be, John, I say.

John Langtree keeps staring. The boy grins. John Langtree mumbles and stands up. I am not looking at him but the boy is. I look straight ahead.

John Langtree stands there with his finger pointing nowhere and there is a long silence. He drops his arm and looks into space, muttering and swearing and then he turns, pitching against the bar, next to me.

You was gun shearer, wasn't you, Smithy? he says.

I can feel his hot sour breath on the side of my face but I do not turn around.

That's right, I say.

He takes his hand off the bar and rests it on my shoulder again.

You was ringer, wasn't you? he says.

That's right, I say.

John Langtree stays there with his hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off and he mumbles and looks around for his pot.

He leans towards me against the bar, the wood squeaking against his bare arm, his face close to mine.

How long was you ringer? John Langtree asks me.

I went shearing forty-seven years and then I quit, I say.

John Langtree looks at me. He drops his elbow onto the counter and his body thumps against the wood.

Yeah, but how long was you ringer? he asks.

That's when I quit, I say. When I wasn't ringer no more.

John Langtree stays there, his eyes searching my face. I look in the other direction. He belches and wipes his mouth with his arm, looking over at the boy, swearing under his breath. He reaches across the bar from behind me and tries to grab the boy's hair. He misses and grunts and slides along the bar until his body presses into me, hot, damp and stinking. I stand up and John Langtree slips forward into the barstool, its feet scraping across the tiles. He blinks and reaches out and snatches at the boy's hair, pulling the hair and the boy's head with it, twisting it to the side. The boy makes a sound of pain and his hands flail. His stool starts to topple. I put out my boot and steady the stool and I look at John Langtree.

John Langtree gives the boy's hair a yank and the boy is in pain again, holding his hand to the tight strands in John Langtree's fist.

What's this? John Langtree scowls. What the bloody hell you call this?

Even with the hard grip tearing at his hair and his face forced downwards, the boy is grinning.

It's just the fashion, John, I say.

John Langtree gives it one last yank and lets go. The boy straightens his neck and takes his hair in his hand and looks it over, drawing out thin blond strands and running his hand over his scalp. He brushes it back, still grinning. He takes a drink from his pot.

John Langtree pushes himself up from the barstool, swearing as it slides under him. He heaves his chest to the railing with a grunt, rolls of pink flesh naked through the back of his drenched singlet. Finding his footing, he staggers over to me.

What's say we do him like the old days, he says to me in a low voice. Take him down the sheds. Give him a run over with the clippers.

I walk past him and sit back on the barstool.

John Langtree turns, looking for the boy. He goes over and grabs a full fist of the boy's hair, jerking the boy's head back and looking him in the eye. John Langtree's face is raw and mean.

That's what we would have done in the old days, he yells. Take you down the shearing sheds give you a haircut.

He's just a boy, John, I say. For Christ's sake just bloody well leave it will you.

John Langtree mumbles and lets go of the boy's hair. He stands there looking at us and I do not look at him and he leaves.

You'd be well advised to stay away from that bloke, I tell the boy.

Nah, he was all right, says the boy, grinning. Just joking around.

No, I say. He's been inside. Stay away from him.

The boy brushes his hair back again, running his fingers through it. He is sweating. He rubs his eyes with his palms and looks at me, more sober than he was, but his eyes still tired and full of drink. He reaches for his pot.

So were you a shearer, Smithy? he asks me, drinking.

Of course I was, I say. Wasn't I just telling you about it? About the season?

Oh, he says lazily, I thought you meant season like grape picking season or something.

No, nothing like that, I say. I never went out on the vines till I got old. I been a shearer all my life. Forty-seven years. I was gun shearer at your age and I was ringer not much older.

The boy fixes his sleepy eyes on me.

I wasn't much older than you at all, first time I made ringer, I say. I remember it, remember the station. Saltbush country. Ever been to Saltbush country?

The boy shakes his head.

There's nothing hotter than a shearing shed in Saltbush country, I say. And that's not just my opinion. Everyone used to say that, back in the old days. Common knowledge. Hotter than hell, Saltbush shed. You been in a shearing shed before? Working shed?

The boy shakes his head again, his head drooping and his hair brushing the counter.

Well, you got to be there to know what it's like, I say. Stinks. Stinks of men and stinks of sheep. You get a mob of dirty, sweating sheep. Nothing like the stink of that. Lanolin. You know what lanolin is? I ask the boy.

The boy shakes his head.

It gets all over you, I say. When you're hauling sheep all day. Lanolin, daggy fleece, sheep shit. Iodine, ammonia, diesel. That was how we run the plants in the old days. Diesel. Nothing like the stink of a shearing shed.

It is Mick-the-Pom's birthday and Wallace and Tony Malone are trying to wrestle him down but Mick-the-Pom keeps dodging them. They are all three of them big men and they belt up and down the pub and around the pool tables. Wallace and Tony Malone lope low to the ground as they go for the tackle, Mick-the-Pom swears as he runs, glancing behind him as he goes. Les watches them, looking nervous.

I remember the station, I say. Remember the day itself. Saltbush country. Hot, stinking shed. But I was young then. And I was strong and I knew it too. And proud of it, that's for sure. I had me pride, back then. Plenty of it. You know how it is, when you're young. Everything ahead of you. Arrogant. I was proud and I was arrogant. I was as young as you are now.

I go to take a drink but realise I don't have one.

I suppose you have to make the most of it while you can, I say.

Wallace and Tony Malone have Mick-the-Pom trapped against the side of one of the pool tables. Mick-the-Pom feints this way and that, but the two men stay steady. They rush him and the three of them sprawl against the pool table. The pool table tips up onto two legs and the balls clatter together and spill over the side, rolling across the floor. The players complain. Les's eyes pop.

So I'd tallied one ton by the afternoon, I say to the boy. And I've got the others watching me, the old men saying you'll never last boy, working like that, and they're shaking their heads, but it only spurred me on. And I'm hauling sheep like buggery and I'm aching all over, but it didn't feel so bad. Felt good far as I was concerned. Dripping in sweat and I'm shearing quick, but I'm shearing steady too, barely a nick. Shear them, chuck them down the chute, haul them up. One after another I keep going. So that's shearing for you. When you're serious about it. When you got pride in it. And I just keep on going. Every muscle in me body aching, but I just keep going. And so I made ringer that day.

Wallace and Tony Malone and Mick-the-Pom scuffle underneath the pool table and it lifts up and down and nearly topples with the players trying to hold it steady. Mick-the-Pom breaks free and runs past the bar and out into the beer garden. The other two charge after him. Stools and chairs overturn and then they come hurtling back in and pass us, thundering like horses at the track. Wallace tackles Mick-the-Pom and all three of them hit the floor and Tony Malone sits on Mick-the-Pom's chest. Wallace gets up, picking his glasses off the floor and putting them back on. He takes a jug of beer from the counter and pours it slowly over Mick-the-Pom's head. Men laugh and cheer. Tony Malone holds out his hand to Mick-the-Pom and pulls him to his feet.