The country around the town looked to be well watered and green for the time of year. I’d crossed a couple of creeks and one sizeable river-the Narriyellan. I’d tried to look the town up in the couple of atlases and guides I had but they were well out of date and it didn’t rate much of a mention. The district was described as given over to ‘mixed farming’, which meant nothing to an urbanite like me. After Nyngan I’d got an impression of big properties with good fences and irrigation systems and that was about it.
It was March and late in the afternoon but still hot. I parked the 4 WD in the shade of a couple of ghost gums in company with two utes, a tractor, a light truck and a few dust coated cars and went into the pub. The bar was dim and cool the way a bar should be and the few drinkers present were in groups of two and three drinking and talking quietly. Jacko had never been much of a drinker and I didn’t expect to see him there at this time of day. I ordered a beer and asked the barman where I could find him.
He pulled the beer before responding. ‘Mate of yours?’
I fished for money and nodded.
‘Army and that?’
I sipped the cold beer and felt it clean my throat. ‘Long time back.’
‘You’d be Cliff Hardy then.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Ted, Ted Firth.’
We shook and I drank some more beer. A couple of the other men looked across but no one moved. Firth pulled another beer and pushed it towards me. ‘Jacko said you’d be in. He’s shouted you the first two.’
I noticed that he hadn’t touched the note I’d put on the bar. I sank the first beer and started on the second. ‘I know I’ll be driving out to his place. Is the copper around?’
Firth looked surprised. ‘You want him?’
I lifted the glass. ‘I was thinking about being over the limit. I haven’t eaten since morning.’
He laughed. ‘You don’t have to worry about that out here, mate. With Vic Bruce, it’s live and let live. He’ll be in for his three schooners later. Look, I can get the missus to make you a sandwich.’
When I was younger I could drive five hundred miles and go to a party. Not any more. I put my bum on a stool and let out a sigh. ‘That’ll be great. Then I’ll pay for another beer and buy you one.’
‘You’re on.’
He went off and came back inside ten minutes with a beef and pickle sandwich that would’ve choked a horse. Somehow I got it down, helped by the third middy. I checked my watch.
‘I’ve got to get some money,’ I said. ‘I’ll just slip down to the bank.’
Firth shook his head as he collected my glass. ‘Bank’s closed, mate. That’s what this is all about.’
I sank back on the stool. ‘I don’t know what this is. You’d better fill me in.’
‘Naw. Better let Jacko do that.’
‘Well, I still need money for petrol. I suppose it’s a fair run out to his place?’
‘Not really. Fifty k’s is all.’
‘And I wanted to take him some grog, so…’
‘Jacko doesn’t drink.’
‘Since when?’
He leaned closer. ‘Since his missus died. Sounds like you and Jacko haven’t been in close touch.’
‘It’s been a while.’
‘Yeah, well, Shirl was killed when Jacko rolled his ute. He’d had a few. Wasn’t pissed, mind, but Shirl was a popular local girl and there was a bit of feeling for a while. From her family and that. Anyway, Jacko swore off the grog. Doesn’t have any on the place.’
‘Okay. Just as well you told me. But I still need some money.’
‘You’ve got a problem. Now for a while I was cashing blokes’ cheques but I had to stop.’
‘You got dudded?’
‘No. No way. No one around here’d do that to me. My accountant made me stop. He reckoned it was a service and I’d have to charge a GST. Fucked if I was goin’ to do that. The books are hard enough to keep as it is. This bloody globalisation’s fucking us slowly if you ask me.’
‘So how do people get money?’
‘They drive to Cobar, mate. And with petrol the price it is… More globalisation, see?’
‘Yeah. Well, I can probably make fifty k’s if you can just point me the way.’
‘No need. Jacko’s boy Kevin’s been hanging around waiting for you since yesterday. He’s over at the table there. He’ll be pissed but he should still know the way home.’
‘Jacko must’ve described me to him. Why didn’t he come over and say hello?’
‘He’s a funny bugger, Kevin. You’d better haul him out while he can still walk.’
I approached the table where three young men were drinking beer from long necks, smoking and playing cards. I suppose I’d seen photographs of Jacko’s son but not since he was an adolescent. Still, it was impossible to mistake him. In his early twenties, he had his father’s thick dark hair, heavy features and stringy athletic build. He was broad-shouldered and snake-hipped in T-shirt, jeans and boots. He saw me coming but ignored me. Took a swig from his bottle.
‘Kevin Brown?’ I said.
The look he gave me was an insult in itself-a combination of boredom and contempt. ‘Yeah. You must be the great Cliff Hardy.’
‘I’m Hardy, don’t know about the great. Ted over there says you’ll show me the way to your dad’s place.’
‘Yeah. When I’m ready.’
He was slurring his words and the hand laying down his cards and fumbling for a cigarette was far from steady.
‘Could we make it soon, d’you reckon? I’ve had a long drive and I’m a bit whacked.’
One of his mates slung back his chair and got to his feet, all 190 plus centimetres of him. He was very big, very belligerent and very drunk. He wore a singlet and shorts and had plenty of muscle on him along with a good deal of beer fat. ‘Didn’t you hear him, mate? He said when he’s fuckin’ good and ready.’
‘I think he’s ready now. And you should sit down before you fall over.’
He stepped around the table and from the way he balanced himself, drunk as he was, I could tell he’d done some ring fighting. He threw a looping left that almost reached me and it was plain as day that his next punch was a right uppercut coming from around his knees. I moved to the left and let him throw it and, while his balance was all right for coming forward, it was no good for sideways, which was where he tried to move when he saw his punch would miss. He swayed with neither hand doing anything useful, and it was child’s play to poke a straight right into his belly and land a left hook to his thick neck. He was big so I put something into it. He pawed the air, gasped for breath and went down hard.
I gestured to Kevin Brown. ‘Let’s go, Kevin.’
He got up and gathered his cigarettes as if hypnotised. I pointed to one of his friends. ‘Better make sure your mate doesn’t swallow his tongue.’
I waved to the barman and shepherded Kevin outside. He went like a lamb and climbed into the Pajero without a word. I started it up. ‘Which way?’
He pointed and we were off. After a kilometre or so, by which time we were on a dirt road heading west into the sun, he said, ‘Jimmy’s never been beaten in a street fight or a tent fight.’
I grunted. ‘They were probably pissed like him.’
‘You’d had a few.’
‘If I’d had as much as Jimmy he’d probably have beaten me. As it was, he was too slow.’
He sniffed and pulled out his cigarettes. Lit up. ‘Tough guy,’ he said.
I had nothing to say to that and we drove on in silence while he smoked and I squinted into the lowering sun. The fuel gauge was low but I reckoned there was enough if Ted Firth’s estimate of the distance was right.
‘About fifty k’s is it, Kevin?’
‘About that. Shit, I meant to buy some grog. All that carry-on stopped me.’
‘I heard your dad doesn’t allow alcohol on the place.’
‘What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Unless you tell him.’
‘Grow up. That’s between you and him. I was sorry to hear about your mother.’
‘Why? Did you ever meet her?’
‘Once. A long time ago.’
He sighed. ‘That’s how it is with you blokes. Everything’s a long time ago.’
‘Not everything. Your dad’s got some kind of problem in the here and now. Want to tell me about it?’