‘That sucks.’
‘You mind going down to the Courthouse right now and saying that to the magistrate?’
‘What about the little boy, Gavin, who’s his guardian?’
‘Well, you know, I’m not sure. I think it was my mum and dad. I think they got some sort of court order about it. No-one seems to care much about Gavin, I mean no government department. No-one’s asked about him since my parents died. His school just acts like I’m suddenly his mum and dad rolled into one.’
‘So it sounds like this lawyer guy might now be Gavin’s guardian as well as yours?’
‘Maybe. Sheez. God, that’s terrible. This gets worse every minute.’
‘But can’t you do something about it? Come on, Ellie. You’re a fighter. That’s the way to be. I did boxing before the war. When you get knocked into the ropes you bounce off them and come back twice as hard and twice as fast. You use the ropes to work for you instead of against you.’
‘You did boxing? Real boxing?’
‘Sure. I mean mainly with the bag, but some practice rounds too, with real people.’
This girl was full of surprises.
‘Can’t you appeal?’ she was asking. ‘Or go to the papers? Or get some dirt on this guy? Tell them he dragged you behind the filing cabinets and felt your boobs? Why don’t you fire-bomb his office?’
‘Bronte!’ I thought for a minute. ‘There is one thing. Mrs Yannos said she thinks he and Mr Rodd are brothers-in-law. Mr Rodd’s a farmer who lives near us. He’s a real bastard, and Mrs Yannos reckons he wants to buy my place. So if Sayle — that’s the lawyer — has complete control he could sell to Rodd at a cheap price and get me out of his hair.’
‘Well, that’s got to be illegal, surely?’
‘I don’t know. You’d think so.’
I kept thinking how generous she was to care about my problems after what she’d been through. We finished our coffees and walked back to school. By the time we reached the gates there wasn’t much school left for the day. I sighed. Another day for Ms Maxwell to mark off on her calendar as a backward step in Ellie’s education.
CHAPTER 19
The conversation with Bronte gave me some heart but by that night I was really down about it again. The situation seemed hopeless. There were too many forces on too many fronts to battle against. It was all very well for Bronte to say ‘Fight’, but I’d never had enemies like these before.
I needed someone else to talk to so I rang Lee. He wasn’t always the first person I called when I was up to my neck in mud, but in my life there were Lee-times and Fi-times and sometimes even Homer-times, and this felt like a Lee-time.
His little sister, Pang, answered. I’d only met Lee’s sisters and brothers a couple of times but I’d talked to Pang a lot on the phone, and she was my favourite. She was nine, and as bubbly as Lee was still, as noisy as he was silent, as funny as he was grave.
‘Hi, Pang,’ I said, ‘how’s life? Is Lee being good to you?’
‘No, he’s being horrible. He’s always yelling at us and he picks on me and he’s the worst cook in the world.’
‘Why, what’d he give you for tea tonight?’
‘Tonight. We had burnt newspaper and bits of old carpet, and… um…’ Pang was obviously looking around the room for inspiration. ‘And then we had the budgie for dessert.’
‘You did? What’s that I can hear singing in the background?’
‘He was reincarnated.’
I could hear Lee saying, ‘C’mon, Pang, is that Ellie? Give me the phone,’ so I said a quick goodbye as she handed it over.
But when Lee came on I suddenly dried up. It had been an effort to be light and chatty with Pang. Now I couldn’t keep making the effort. I heard Lee gradually getting more concerned. ‘Ellie, are you OK?… Hello, Ellie… Ellie, what’s wrong?’
Finally I whispered, ‘I think I’m going to lose the farm.’
‘What do you mean? Why? Are you broke?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Was today the court case?’
‘Yep.’
‘Oh sorry. I would have rung. I thought it was next week.’
‘Well it wasn’t.’
‘And you lost?’
There was another long silence. I said, ‘Why is the world so awful?’
‘Is it?’
‘Everyone’s so greedy. Everyone only looks after themselves. They’re just out for all they can get.’
‘Are they?’
‘Well, take Mr Sayle for instance.’
‘Take Robyn Mathers.’
‘Take Mr Rodd.’
‘Take Mr and Mrs Yannos.’
‘Take the women in the prison ward, when I was shot. During the war.’
‘Take Mrs Xannides.’
‘Who’s she?’
‘The lady in the next apartment. She comes in and looks after the kids when I’m going to be late home.’
‘I still think I’m right though. What about Hitler?’
‘What about Nelson Mandela?’
‘Stalin.’
‘Martin Luther King.’
‘Pol Pot.’
‘I’ll see your Pol Pot with Mother Theresa and raise you a Pastor Neimoller.’
‘Who?’
‘He was in a concentration camp in World War II and he volunteered to take the place of a guy who was about to be shot, because the other guy had a wife and kids.’
‘God is there anything you don’t know?’
He ignored that and ripped off another string of names, most of which I’d never heard of: ‘Ralph Nader. Gandhi. John Lennon. Paul Robeson. Marie Curie. Bob Brown. Lassie.’
‘Oh I don’t know, Jack the Ripper. Stop being so annoying.’
He laughed, and I did too.
I rang Mrs Yannos and got loads of sympathy but when I started asking about any relationship between Mr Sayle and Mr Rodd I got nowhere. She just went all vague again. So I took a bit of a risk and rang Mrs Sanderson. I was really working the phone that night. I guess it was my way of fighting back, a little bit at least.
Mrs Sanderson was new to Wirrawee but she already knew ten times more about the district than I did. We talked about rainfall, cattle prices, and government rules and regulations, which had all become compulsory topics around here. After a while I got onto the subject of Mr Rodd’s life and times, and just asked her straight out: ‘Is his brother-in-law Mr Sayle, the lawyer in town?’
‘Well, not exactly. No, there’s no real relationship there. Mr Sayle’s wife has a sister and she lived with Mr Rodd for a while. But that broke up pretty fast. I think it only lasted a couple of months.’
‘That seems to happen a lot to Mr Rodd.’
‘Yes, he’s not my favourite person.’
I was exhausted after talking to her. I don’t know why shopping, sitting in class and talking on the phone are all so tiring, but they are, especially shopping. Still, I wasn’t ready to give up yet. My last call was to Fi’s mum. I
