‘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?’
He didn’t answer or if he did I couldn’t hear him because a plane passed over low down but rising, heading east.
‘I’d have flown up if I’d known there was a service,’ I said.
‘There isn’t. The planes run supplies and equipment and manpower to the big properties and freight out the produce. It’s the only way to do business out here in woop-woop.’
Globalisation, I thought. ‘And what do you do out here in woop-woop, Kevin?’
‘Bugger-all. I was in the bank but it closed down.’
I was beginning to get an idea of the shape of things. Kevin lit another cigarette and blew the smoke out with a beer-laden breath. He was still fit-looking but wouldn’t be for long if he went on the way he was going. His fingers were heavily nicotine-stained. ‘I understand you used to be a pretty good footballer.’
He snorted his derision. ‘Yeah, back when the town wasn’t just geriatrics and women. It’s time to go, man.’
‘What keeps you here then?’
He didn’t answer. He smoked his cigarette down to the filter, butted it and went to sleep, or pretended to. I drove on hoping the road would take me all the way to Jacko’s place. After a few kilometres I passed the entrance to one of the big properties Kevin had referred to. The gate was an impressive wrought iron structure set in solid brick pillars with a high cyclone fence running away for a hundred metres on either side. The sign over the gate read Western Holdings Pty Ltd and carried a website address. A flagpole with a blue and yellow flag hanging limply in the still air sprouted just inside. The road leading from the gate was tarred, with garden beds on both sides. In the far distance the fading sunlight bounced off gleaming roofs.
The road climbed suddenly and from the crest I got a good view of the Western Holdings property. It seemed to go on forever and to be very orderly with dams and irrigation channels and sheds at regular intervals. I saw cows and big paddocks with crops I couldn’t identify and several pieces of heavy machinery. Whatever they produced there was on a large scale and capital intensive.
I opened my mouth to ask Kevin about it but he let out a snore. My eyes flicked to the fuel gauge, which was hovering just above empty. I deliberately steered into a pothole and let the Pajero bounce. Kevin jerked awake and swore.
‘What the fuck…’
‘We’re almost out of fuel. How much further is it?’
He peered through the dusty windshield. ‘Have you passed the Yank place?’
‘If you mean Western Holdings, yes.’
‘That’s what I mean. Five thousand fucking acres making money hand over fist. Dad’s crummy little dirt patch is about two k’s off. When you cross a scummy little creek you’re almost there.’
‘You don’t like the farm?’
‘I used to, when it was a farm. I loved it.’
The gauge read empty. To take my mind off it I said, ‘Tell me about it, Kevin.’
But his eyes were riveted on the gauge. ‘Dad’ll tell you all about it. And he’ll tell you about his insane idea to save the fucking world.’
I couldn’t help making unfavourable comparisons between Jacko’s farm and the Western Holdings outfit. Jacko’s fences needed repair, his main track needed grading and his sheds were sway-backed. The farmhouse
