The Unexpected

11

The Unexpected

    Christmas was nearly in sight. Surprisingly, RightSmart hadn’t banished Harriet from their books forever and a day in the wake of the abortive Canberra venture, but were still doing their best to find temping jobs for her. Coralie was very glad to take her back, so she did get work during late November and the earlier part of December. The three months with Global Project Management had produced a decent reference, but no actual jobs with other up-and-coming project managers and this was because, as Iain Ross’s colleague, Drew Rowbotham, incautiously admitted to her, the project management firms didn’t pass on anything to their rivals, it was a real cut-throat business. Harriet hadn’t got that impression at all from the nice if admittedly super-managing Sally and the unassuming Jim, so she’d just looked numbly at him, but Steve had received the report with a hefty snort and “I just bet they don’t!” So there you were. Well, there Harriet certainly was, in a short-term job entering asset data into a large mining company’s asset management database. Only fifteen hours a week for three weeks, but it was better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick.

    Trisha, who’d been working for years in records management in a large government department, asked her hopefully what it entailed—it might be more interesting, maybe she could change over to that!—but came to the conclusion that it sounded as bad as records management, which was about as dull as you could get without actually standing in a factory pulling a lever. Harriet didn’t see the actual mining stuff, in fact she never had to enter stuff about large hunks of mining machinery at all. It was all invoices and dispatch slips and she just had to enter the bare details of what they said, plus a code indicating the department that the thingo had gone to. Mostly computers, though the bosses had had a spate of chair- and desk-counting—possibly what had prompted the firm to take on more data input staff, as the Drinkwaters had registered somewhat weakly.

    How did they know which was which? Trisha had croaked feebly. Harriet had replied: “The dispatch people do labels, permanent ones. They sent emails round saying that all departments had to check the labels on their furniture and then some of the Admin staff went round and checked them all against the lists. See, the computer generates the number automatically, and one label goes on the thingo and the other one on the copy of the dispatch slip that comes to me.” Trisha had appeared satisfied with this, nodding and saying: “I see: so no-one can rip off the odd chair or stuff,” but Steve had immediately retorted: “Except the blokes in dispatch, presumably!”

    This was possibly true, as they all conceded, having thought it over, but no-one put their hand up to alert the large mining corporation to this gap in their internal security system, and Harriet went off happily to work there. The people, on interrogation, were “very nice—ordinary, but nice.” Did they have a proper tea room? Trisha asked avidly. No, was the not unexpected answer—most firms didn’t, these days, and Trisha’s and Steve’s government departments certainly didn’t. One inadequate kitchen area per floor where you could make tea or coffee and you weren’t allowed to linger there, Harriet explained. Same as the ruddy Public Service, then, was the conclusion. Trisha then found out there was a staff club, they kept running raffles and stuff—“you know, thingos with the races,” according to her sister—and urged her to join, but Harriet replied flatly: “That’s for the permanent staff.” Trisha persisted, but to no avail.

    “Look,” sighed Steve, “it sounds as if the place is full of Painwright clones anyway: give it up, darl’, she isn’t gonna meet Mr Right there. –Or even Mr Wrong that might give ’er a bit of fun,” he added incautiously.

    Trisha first shouted at him and then burst into tears, but the experienced Steve, though he sighed, just put his arm round her, apologised abjectly, and waited it out. It was her age. They’d just have to live through it.

    On the whole Kyla’s job situation was easier to take, though at the time, of course, it didn’t feel like it. While her aunt was in Canberra she had enlivened proceedings by landing a job with a very up-market downtown Sydney law firm and getting sacked from it on her third day. Not for anything exciting like slapping a partner’s face for putting his hand in an unfortunate place—no. Though even her male parent had a feeling it might have been preferable. No, merely for knocking over a giant flower arrangement on the reception desk—florist-provided at humungous expense, natch—all over the extremely smooth receptionist, ruining a very smart pastel suit and into the bargain causing the young woman in question to threaten that it was her or “that girl”. Kyla burst into tears but the flint hearts in the downtown Sydney towers were unimpressed, so that was that. Trisha then thought she’d found her a nice job as office assistant in Mum’s old suburb but realised just in time that it was with Harriet’s Mr Morrison—help!

    So Kyla was forcibly signed on at RightSmart and relentlessly sent to a week-long high-pressure “advanced keyboard skills” course. Data input—right. She didn’t turn out much better than Harriet at it, but she did get a piece of paper, and RightSmart was able to offer her a bit of variation on the waiting and cleaning jobs that, as her father had noted bitterly, she could stop moaning about because it was all she was QUALIFIED for! She was now with Emco’s, one of RightSmart’s longstanding clients, and was apparently happy there. It was only twenty-five hours a week, but better than a poke in the eye with— Yeah.

    Steve’s Aunty Daphne, the intensely ladylike Mrs Phillips, the one you’d never, ever have guessed in your wildest dreams was his Uncle Ben’s sister, was agitating for them to come to her for Christmas this year. They hadn’t seen her for ages, true, and, also true, she did live in Queensland, but... There didn’t seem to be any way of getting out of it, really. Trisha didn’t have any rival rellies to offer except Uncle Don and Aunty Mary Harrison, but they couldn’t say they’d planned to spend it with them, because they were going down to Trisha’s cousin Bella in Tazzie this year—huge excitement, there was a new grandchild. Admittedly Bella’s third, and also admittedly Uncle Don and Aunty Mary had seen millions of photos of it, via both email and mobile phone, and even viewed it via Skype, which was about all they used their computer for, apart from the emailed pics of all the grandkids which of course were slackening off these days as all the rellies got on the Skype bandwaggon. Nevertheless this wasn’t, as all parties quite understood, the same as being there in person. And if they lied about it and said they were gonna spend it with them, Aunty Daphne was more than capable of ringing Aunty Mary and checking. More than.

    They were just on the point of biting on the bullet and accepting when the phone extension in the kitchen rang. Before work, in fact they’d only just sat down to the mugs of instant and the singed toast—Jimbo fiddling with the bloody toaster yet again.

    Steve got as far as: “Yeah gidday, Aunty Daphne, we were just gonna ri—” Then he turned a funny colour, staggered, groped blindly for the wall to prop himself up, and croaked: “Eh?”

    “What’s wrong?” hissed Trisha sharply.

    The gulping Steve tried to smile and failed. Trisha shot to his side and glued her ear to the receiver. Meanwhile Harriet and Jimbo—Kyla was still immured in the bathroom—looked at each other numbly.

    “What?” gasped Trisha.

    Steve released the wall and put his arm round her. “Yeah. –Um, yeah, Aunty Daphne. Think you better put Uncle Phil on, eh? –Yeah. ...No, but put ’im on anyway. –Gidday, Phil,” he said in relief. “Yeah, she said. ...What I thought. –Yeah, I bet he did! Well, always said ’e would, eh?” Here the phone quacked for quite a long time, and Harriet and Jimbo looked both hopefully and fearfully at Trisha, but she just looked numb. Finally Steve said: “He what? Are you sure, mate? –Um, no, wasn’t implying that, ya nana! …Are ya? Yeah, good on ya, Phil. ...No, ’course we’ll come up, least we can do, eh? ...Aw, a Brizzie firm, eh? Well, better than bloody Pauline’s bloody Muffin-Face from them downtown towers, at any rate! –No, well, nothink local round Big Rock Bay, is there? –How much? Jesus! And he was living in that dump? –Yeah, soon as we can. Um, well, there’s five of us—think we better drive up. Okay, see ya.” He hung up. “SHIT!” he said violently.

    Trisha wiped a tear away with the back of her hand. “Yeah. Come and sit down, darling.”

    “What’s happened?” croaked Harriet as Steve and Trisha both sat down and Steve automatically groped for his coffee.

    “Ben’s dead,” said Steve flatly.

    “Uncle Ben?” quavered Jimbo.

    “Yeah.”

    There was a short silence. Harriet and Trisha both tried not to cry in front of Jimbo.

    Finally Harriet managed to say: “How—how did it happen, Steve?”

    Trisha looked anxiously at him. Steve made a face. “Well, they found ’im out in the bush, love. The bugger rung up ’is flaming Brizzie solicitor before ’e went and done it, wouldja believe?”

    Trisha bit her lip. “Steve, he never told the solicitor he was going to, it might of been an accident.”

    “Accident my arse! –Look,” he said heatedly to his dumbfounded audience: “first the doc tells ’im he’s got terminal cancer of the pancreas—never let on to any of ’is family, of course—then ’e rings up the solicitor, tells ’im that and wants to make sure his will’s okay—what none of us never knew the bugger had even made, let alone having anything to leave but that ruddy shack of his!—and then ’e goes bush. Tells Laverne at the pub he might not be back for a while, if ya please. Next thing they know, ’is Abo mates have found the body.”

    “Y—um, we still don’t know it was suicide,” said Trisha into the silence.

    “Trisha, he told Phil and me that if he ever heard he’d got something fatal he’d shoot ’imself, for Pete’s sake! And that moron Greg, not that he’d remember!”

    Greg Drinkwater was Steve’s oldest brother, and he wasn't the brightest of the bright, true. “Um, Steve, he wouldn’t forget a thing like that... No, well, I suppose if he said it... But what did the police say?”

    “Love,” he said heavily, “we’re not living in the flamin’ 19th century. They said what they always say: presumed accident, and let it go—okay?”

    “Mm.”

    “Now don’t bawl, he’d had a good life,” said Steve heavily.

    “Who had?” said a small voice from the doorway, and they all jumped.

    “Uncle Ben. Shot ’imself, apparently,” replied Steve.

    Kyla gasped, and burst into violent tears.

    That did it, and Harriet and Trisha also broke down, followed in short order by the gulping Jimbo.

    Steve was sniffling himself. “Look, stop it,” he said finally, having given Trisha his handkerchief to no avail. “Come and sit down, Kyla, love, and we’ll all have—uh, whaddabout Milo, eh? Comforting.”

    The snuffling Kyla sat down and Steve distributed paper towels in lieu of hankies to the rest of them, then having to mop his own eyes. But he got valiantly on with making the Milo and decided unilaterally on some bacon. Trisha didn’t veto this—a Bad Sign, thought Steve, grimacing to himself.

    However, once they’d all got some well-sugared third-strength Milo down them—the innocent Jimbo noticing dazedly: “Ooh! It tastes better than usual!”—and had embarked on the bacon with lots of fresh toast, they all felt a lot better. And Steve was able to repeat firmly: “He had a bloody good life. Did what he liked, when ’e liked. Saw the world, too.”

    “Mm,” agreed Trisha, dredging up a smile. “Of course. And he was—well, these days, of course people often live past eighty— But never mind, he wasn’t young!” she concluded valiantly.

    “Nah, he was pretty old,” conceded Jimbo. “Not as old as Grandma, eh? But pretty old.”

    “That’s right,” she said firmly. “And he scarcely had a day’s illness in his life, had he, Steve?”

    “Nah, that’s right. Had a good run for ’is money,” said Steve with a sigh, taking the last rasher, unopposed. He ate it hungrily and then said: “And at least he’s left the lot to Harrie!”

    “Really? Hurray!” cried Kyla shrilly, clapping her hands, while Harriet just sat there with her mouth open.

    “Yeah, hurray!” Jimbo echoed hoarsely. “Now ya won't have to worry about anythink, Aunty Harrie! You can just live in his house!”

    “Um, Jimbo, I’d still have to pay the rates—and—and buy groceries and everything,” said Harriet dazedly. “I’d still have to work, and I don’t think there is any work at Big Rock Bay.”

    Trisha and Steve exchanged glances. He cleared his throat loudly. “No, ya wouldn’t, love. See, that’s the thing. He’s left you the lot!”

    Harriet smiled weakly. “Steve, if you mean the wine he was hiding in that secret cellar of his—”

    “Jesus, not really? The ole bastard!” he said admiringly. “Nah, not that. Well, that as well, of course. Know how to find it, do ya?”

    “Um, yes. I don’t know that I can work that lever thingo, though.”

    “Never mind: sort it out for ya!” he declared breezily. “Nah, the thing is—and we might as well toast it, while I think of it, why not? No point going in to work today.”

    “No,” agreed Kyla gratefully, sneakily blowing her nose again. “What shall I tell them, though, Dad?”

    “Tell them there's been a death in the family—on second thoughts, don’t worry, love, I will!” He went over to his wine cupboard.

    “Steve, at this hour?” said Trisha faintly.

    “Balls. We need it! –Aw. Blow. –Hang on, I’ll get that sherry muck you bunged in that so-called chiffonier!” He dashed out.

    In his absence there was another silence. Trisha looked blankly at the dirty plates, not as if she was about to leap up and clear them away. Harriet just looked dazed. Kyla blew her nose again. Jimbo was wondering uneasily if not going to work meant not going to school. He sneaked a look at his watch and winced. He’d missed the bus.

    Steve returned with the bottle and five glasses. “Don’t argue,” he said before Trisha could speak. “He’s part of the family, too.”

    “Ooh, tha-anks, Dad!” gasped the amazed Jimbo.

    “Don’t thank me before you’ve tasted it, mate, it’s that stuff yer mum’s Aunty Mary give us—was that last Chrissie?” he wondered. “Yeah, it was. Year before, too. Why does she keep doing it?”

    “Because you keep drinking it, Steve,” said Trisha heavily. “All right, just for once.”

    Steve was ignoring her and pouring anyway. “All right, everyone! To good ole Uncle Ben, the stubborn ole bugger that ’e was, and Harrie’s good fortune! Cheers!”

    Maybe it wasn’t quite correct to say “Cheers” when a person was dead, but they all echoed it obediently, and drank.

    After Jimbo was over the choking fit and Kyla had staggered over to the sink and got him and herself glasses of water, Trisha was finally able to say feebly: “Steve, you haven’t actually told her.”

    Steve had poured himself a second while the fuss was going on and was feeling much brighter. “Eh? Shit, haven’t— Shit nor, I have!” He laughed. “When I say he’s left you the lot, Harrie, love, the bugger had a great wodge of shares in BHP.—BHP Billiton, whaddever they call themselves these days.—Must of bought ’em yonks back, when ’e was working for the buggers: that woulda been when ’e was about twenty-twoish, I think. I can’t remember it, but Mum and Aunty Daphne have harped on it enough. Anyway, forget what he might of said about the pension: didn’t need it, ’is income was around seventy thousand!”

    “His income? No, didn’t your Uncle Phil mean that’s what the shares are worth, Steve?” objected Trisha.

    “No, definitely not! Ring ’im back if ya like, but I’m right. Said the dividends were worth over seventy thousand a year at today’s prices.”

    “Um, ye-es. Oh—dividends,” said Trisha very weakly indeed. “Yes.”

    “But Steve, I’m positive Ben said he was on the pension,” croaked Harriet shakily.

    “Might of, yeah, Evidently he did live off its equivalent: Uncle Phil reckons ’e told the lawyers in Brizzie what have got the share certificates in their safe just to send ’im that much, so they did. –Um, you kids won’t know, but it’s what they call a nominee account: the big law firms handle millions for their clients like that, ya see. They manage all the money, but they can’t touch it, by law. Charge through the nose for the service, of course.”

    After a stunned moment Harriet said uncertainly: “But he could have been doing some good with an income like that. For—for years, Steve!”

    Steve shrugged. “Yeah. Didn’t care about doing good, Harrie: he was like that, ya know.”

    She swallowed . “Actually, I think you’re right.”

    “Yeah. Have another belt,” he said kindly, pouring.

    Harriet drank it dazedly.

    “So now you’re an heiress, Aunty Harrie!” beamed Kyla. “He might not of done good, like, not to charities and them, but you can’t say his heart wasn’t in the right place—eh, Mum? I mean, he gimme my necklace and everything! ’Tis a bit Out, now, but never mind, I’m gonna keep on wearing it, in his memory!” she decided valiantly.

    “Yeah,” agreed Steve faintly, since everyone else seemed to be bereft of speech. “You do that, love.”

    Another silence then fell.

    Finally Jimbo said hoarsely: “Do I have to go to school, Dad?” and everyone jumped ten feet where they sat.

    “No, ’course not, ole mate,” said Steve kindly, getting up. “Might as well get out of your school uniform, okay? I’ll ring the ruddy school now. And Emco’s, yes,” he said as Kyla opened her mouth. “Go on, go and get into your jeans or something, Kyla, love.” The kids went out, looking brighter, and he said to his sister-in-law: “You due for work today, Harrie?”

    Harriet jumped. “What? Um, what is today?”

    “Wednesday. We’ll go straight on up for the funeral—well, leave tomorrow, don't fancy driving today. –Are you?” he demanded.

    “Yes. I—I could ring them, Steve.”

    “Rats. Go and sort out what you wanna bring with you. And remember it’s the rainy season up there, for Pete’s sake pack a raincoat and an umbrella.”

    “I sort of thought the funeral was in Brisbane?” said Trisha weakly.

    “Yeah, she said. Aw—ya missed that bit. Yeah, Aunty Daphne’s taken over. Thinks she has,” he amended drily. “Good ole Phil’s actually making the arrangements. Well, dare say Ben would rather of had it up at Big Rock Bay with only a few locals and them Abo mates of his there, but he never specified that, see, and she’s got the bit between ’er teeth.”

    “I think he’d of said it doesn’t matter a damn what happens to you when you’re dead,” said Harriet on a defiant note.

    Steve could just hear the bugger saying it, too! He eyed her tolerantly. “Yeah. Go on, go and sort out ya stuff. And pack enough clothes for a while, we might as well go on up to his place and sort it out while we’re at it.”

    Harriet paused in the doorway in horror. “But what about my jobs? I can’t just let people down!”

    Trisha got up, looking determined. “It’s different when there’s been a death, Harrie. People will understand. –Go on, Steve, you make the calls, I’ll just get rid of these few dishes.”

    Harriet looked at them weakly. Trisha was bustling about clearing the table and Steve was consulting the list of important numbers on the wall behind the phone. “Um, all right, then,” she said very weakly indeed. She went out.

    Abruptly Trisha stopped clearing the table and sat down. “My God!”

    Steve put the phone down. He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

    “Steve, what—what next?” she quavered. “Will she—will she want to live up there, or—or what?”

    Steve had been working out just what his uncle’s estate must be worth, if the capital brought in a cool seventy thou’ a year—there were some other shares but the Big Australian ones were the main ones. It’d be over a mill’, easy, given the fluctuations on the share market and the fact that they weren’t all gonna earn as much as five percent every year. Probably well over two mill’, come to think of it, because every year what the blighter hadn’t spent would of been added to the capital. Evidently the lawyers hadn’t given Uncle Phil a definite figure—no, well, they wouldn’t, typical! It hadda be official, didn’t it? But realistically, even if Harrie spent about twenty-five thousand of the capital a year for the next forty years, she wouldn't go broke. And if she sold some of the shares—well, have to choose her moment, BHP was pretty solid but it was the middle of a global recession, after all—but if she did she’d be able to buy a decent place to live in in Sydney, that was for sure. But given her, would she want to?

    “Uh, better wait and see,” he said weakly. “Um, and we better watch her, darl’: not let her make any hasty decisions.”

    Trisha gulped. “No. They keep running these awful charity ads on TV—every Christmas it’s the same. Not that you begrudge them, exactly, but heck! Ordinary people can’t afford to give to all these blimmin’ appeals! And remember the Christmas there was that awful tsunami?”

    “Uh—yeah. Boxing Day 2004. What about it?”

    She sighed. “Harriet had come up to Mum’s, of course. You remember: Dad wanted to give ten dollars to the appeal—well, one of them, would’ve been the first one that got going, I s’pose—but Mum wouldn’t let him. Harrie was saving up for her trip, but luckily she’d just put most of the money in a term deposit account, so she couldn’t touch it. So she went to Cash Converters and sold that pretty little gold watch Granny left her—not Mum’s mum, of course, she was as bad as her, but dear old Granny Harrison, she left me that lovely amethyst brooch—you know. She wouldn’t let on what she got for it so I s’pose they rooked her,”—Steve nodded feelingly—“but whatever it was, she gave it all to the tsunami appeal.”

    “Aw. Yeah.”

    They looked at each other limply.

    “Right, that does it!” Steve decided. “We’ll apply for funeral leave, whaddever they call it, compassionate, is it? And too bad if they won’t give it to us, we’ll take leave without pay—well, there’ll be no accommodation costs,” he reminded her—“and tack it onto the Christmas holidays! And if the Department doesn’t like it they can take a running jump! ’Cos I’m not letting her out of my sight until she’s decided on something sensible!”

    Help, when’d that be? Doomsday? thought Trisha, not saying it. “Yeah, great, darl’.” She watched as Steve, looking militant, picked up the phone again. “It’s always the blimmin’ unexpected thing that jumps up and hits you, isn’t it?” she said with a sigh.

    “Only in life,” agreed Steve grimly, dialling.

    “It’s just the same,” said Kyla numbly, looking round her late Great-Uncle Ben’s kitchen.

    “That ruddy boat in the lounge-room is, that’s for sure,” noted her father sourly. “Uh—no, well, no reason why it should of changed, Kyla,” he added on a weak note.

    “No,” she agreed in a choked voice.

    Steve swallowed a sigh. The kids had been really stunned by the funeral—well, not it so much, they had more or less known what to expect, after their grandparents’—but the ruddy reception afterwards. Uh—wake. But that was the point: there hadn’t been anything mournful about it, at all! Well, poor old George’s had been relatively cheerful, with his old mates swapping yarns, but Pauline’s had been very quiet, given that she’d managed to alienate most people she knew. But every bloody rellie on the Rivers side had turned up for Uncle Ben’s, plus half of their rellies, plus most of Aunty Daphne’s and Uncle Phil’s mates, plus several Big Rock Bay personalities. True, they’d been spared the combination of the local Aborigines and the ladylike Aunty Daphne. But they hadn’t needed it: the decibel level had reached danger point, the thing had gone on for hours and hours, relays of beer had kept appearing—that was Uncle Phil’s mates plus Steve’s cousin Danno plus a joker called Hughie that owned a dump near Big Rock Bay—but by then Aunty Daphne, who’d followed up the genteel sweet sherry or two with a succession of Bundy and Cokes, had been well away, hadn’t noticed a thing. Two of Steve’s younger brother Kenny’s little kids had wanted to know where the bouncy castle was—that sort of do, yeah. Nothing about it had had anything much to do with Ben, of course. But then on the other hand Steve strongly doubted he’d of objected—in fact, he’d have been in there with fresh relays of beer, too right. So in a way it had been fitting. But Kyla and Jimbo were too young to grasp that, or to realise that lots of wakes were like that—whether it was simply relaxation of tension once the actual funeral was over, or reaction, or what, Steve didn’t know—but they were.

    This had been followed up next day by the big row over the will. It wasn’t that (a) Aunty Daphne, (b) Aunty Maeve (not a blood relation, Ben’s luckless brother Owen’s wife, probably one of the reasons why Ben had never married), and (c) Steve’s cousin Yvonne (Aunty Daphne’s eldest, and a real pain in the arse: her hubby had dumped her after eighteen years of marriage and taken off for WA, never to be heard from again, and ya couldn’t blame him)—it wasn’t that any of them had expected anything from Ben, but they did think that it should have come to his relations. And blah, blah, blah... Poor old Uncle Phil had disappeared to his shed, to be followed in short order by Uncle Owen and Yvonne’s eldest, Pete, that she’d tried to make back her up. By the time Steve, his brother Greg—his ruddy wife had now got in on the act, too—and their cousins Danno, Dave and Jase had joined him the shed was rather full, so when that joker, Hughie, turned up again they decided unanimously that the races’d be thing, and went. A huge mistake, yes, especially since they’d let Jimbo and his young cousins Rod and Mike tag along. But it had been worth it—well, nearly. Not financially as such—no, though Hughie had won a packet. But it had been a bloody good day out, as Hughie had noted, shouting them all Black Labels on the strength of it, and adding: “Here’s to good ole Ben, wherever ’e is! And perdition to all flamin’ women!”

    “Um, what room’s mine, Dad?” asked Kyla.

    Steve jumped. “Uh—well, same as before, I s’pose, Kyla, love. Know anybody that wants a half-built boat?”

    She smiled weakly. “No. How on earth are we gonna get it out of here?”

    “Dunno. Dismantle ’er? Um, if I can get hold of that joker Hughie, he’d gimme a hand.”

    She looked in a hunted way at the doorway. “Mum doesn’t like him!” she hissed.

    No normal woman would actually like Hughie, Steve was bloody sure. True, Harriet liked him, but that proved it, didn’t it? “No, but I think she’d see the point that he’s got a bit of muscle. Mind you, that joker Scott from Big Rock Bay Motel’d probably give us hand, only they’re probably a bit busy.”

    “The weather’s pretty awful, though,” said Kayla dubiously, eyeing the streaming grey murk outside. Very, very warm murk—that didn’t help.

    “Doesn’t seem to stop ’em, love. The calendar—make that the ruddy Government—says everyone has to take their long holidays now, so up they come to Queensland regardless. Well, dare say it won’t rain all summer. And we may not get a cyclone. When was the last shocker?” he asked himself. “Uh—Larry. March 2006, I think. Thereabouts. Wrecked the harvest up here. Bananas are still sky-high, your mum was saying. ’Tisn’t the farmers, it’s the bloody supermarkets,” he noted by the by.

    “They have come down, though, Dad. They were over sixteen dollars a kilo at one stage.”

    Steve winced. “Yeah. Look, why not put the jug on, eh? Cup of coffee!”

    “There won’t be any,” she warned.

    “But— Aw, no, cripes, I’d forgotten; never drank instant, did ’e? Well, see if there’s some real coffee, sweetheart. I think your mother got some milk.” He gave the esky he’d just lugged in a look of dislike. His plan had been, to load it up with beer. Hah, hah.

    “Um... Yes, there is,” Kyla discovered. “He was quite neat, really, wasn’t he?”

    Hadn’t they already agreed that, in the wake of the necklace? Oh! Literally, she meant. “Yeah, well, ’e was efficient, in ’is way,” Steve allowed. “That stint in the Navy would of helped, too. Ship-shape, ya see.”

    “Especially—in the—lounge-room!” she choked, going into a paroxysm of laughter.

    Steve gulped, and also broke down in howls of laughter. He grabbed at the bench and shook helplessly.

    “Well!” said a cross voice from the doorway. “You two are very merry and bright, I must say!”

    Steve straightened groggily, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “She said— No, it’ll set me off again!” he gasped. “Well, better than the other thing, Trisha. What’s up now?”

    “There’s two Aboriginals on the front lawn!” she hissed.

    Oops. “Be ’is mates. Probably just want a free beer—well, and to hear if the funeral went off okay,” he conceded.

    “Steve, if you give out beer you’ll never get rid of them!” she hissed.

    “Lay off, Trisha. They are human, after all. And hadn’t of been for them—well, them or their mates, same diff’—we’d probably never of found the body.” He checked the fridge but it was dry. “Bugger. I told you you should of let me—”

    “All right! That shed of his is probably full of beer!” she snapped.

    “You’re not wrong. Unless ’e drank all of it, too, before ’e— I’m going!” Steve went.

    “Where’s your aunt?” said Trisha grimly to her daughter.

    “Um, she said something about mangoes, Mum,” she quavered.

    “Mangoes!”

    “Um, maybe she meant the ones up on the point. Um, trees, Mum,” she ended limply.

    “Well, if she comes back bawling surrounded by wild Aborigines, serve her right,” concluded Trisha sourly. “—Are you making real coffee?”

    “Dad told me to,” replied Kyla meekly.

    “Caffeine? At this hour?”

    “There isn’t any instant,” she quavered.

    Trisha took a very deep breath.

    “I could make you a nice cup of tea,” Kyla offered uneasily.

    “It’s too hot for tea!” she snapped.

    It was only about 32 Celsius. “Um, not hot, as such. Humid.”

    Trisha ignored her. She investigated the esky. “I’m sure this milk’s on the turn,” she muttered. “And the marg is practically liquid!”

    Certain people had pointed out she should have used more chiller bags. Kyla said nothing.

    “Is there anything in that fridge?” she demanded acidly.

    “No,” Kyla admitted miserably. “I think he must of turned it off, it doesn’t feel very cold.”

    “Of course it’d be off, you idiot, the power was off!”

    “No, um, as well, maybe?”

    “What?” Crossly Trisha investigated. It was turned off, all right. She took another very deep breath, and turned it on.

    “Ooh!” gasped Kyla, as the motor gave a terrific rumble.

    “As old as the Ark,” noted Trisha sourly. “Well, I’ll put them in, but this thing’s not gonna do them any good for at least an hour, is it?”

    “Um, Dad reckons that those old ones are better than the modern ones,” she ventured.

    “Rubbish! It’s just one of the stupid sayings he’s picked up from his father and his uncles, they all trot that one out, have you got cloth ears?”

    Desperately Kyla offered: “Mum, why don’t you have a lie-down? I can get the tea.”

    “Of what?”

    “The ham, and there’s some tins of stuff.”

    Trisha had just got the ham out of the esky. She sniffed it suspiciously. “It wouldn't surprise me if it had gone off, too!”

    Not too, the milk couldn’t of actually gone off or she wouldn’t of put it in the fridge. Kyla just stopped herself in time from saying so. “I think it’ll be all right, it is salted, isn’t it? Um, it won’t matter if we don’t have a balanced meal, just for once. Um, Uncle Ben didn’t bother about balanced meals, did he? It could sort of be, um, in his memory...”

    “Rubbish! The man was a better cook than me and you and your ruddy aunt combined! And didn’t mind rubbing it in!”

    Kyla took a very deep breath. For the first time in her life she suddenly felt she was twenty years older than her mother and ten times more sensible. “Mum, I think Aunty Harrie’s coping with it the best way she can. If that means going off to his mango trees, I think we ought to just leave her to it. I think she did love him, really.”

    Trisha bit her lip. “Mm.”

    “Go on, go and lie down. Why not have a nice cool shower, too?”

    “I might. Well, all right,” she conceded. She went over to the door. “But just mind you use the wholemeal bread!” This was evidently a parting shot, and she disappeared.

    Kyla sagged. “Heck,” she mouthed. She investigated Uncle Ben’s cupboards. Tins and tins of baked beans. Ugh, and tinned spaghetti. Well, um, ham and baked beans on toast? She inspected the esky. Shit, less than half of the wholemeal loaf left. The white one that Mum had only bought because the servo halfway to Big Rock Bay hadn’t had any wholemeal was untouched. Well, logically, could it make any difference whether they ate it now or for breakfast tomorrow morning? But discretion proved to be the better part of valour, and making a face at the white and muttering: “You’ll have to wait,” she got the wholemeal out.

    Up on the point Harriet sat under a mango tree, hugging her knees and gazing gloomily at the sea.

    “Gidday,” said a voice from behind her.

    She jumped, and looked round. She gasped. A wild-haired Aborigine! After a moment it dawned that he was wearing a perfectly ordinary crumpled cotton shirt and very crumpled shorts with silly pockets on the thighs, just like the ones Jimbo had on today.

    “Hullo,” she croaked.

    “You the lady he left it to, then?”

    “Um, yes,” said Harriet faintly. “How—how did you know?”

    “Heard it down the pub. Everybody knows. You’ve had the funeral, then?”

    “Yes. Down in Brisbane.”

    “Yeah, I know.”

    Harriet had now remembered that Aborigines—or were you supposed to call them Aboriginals, these days? It seemed even ruder, to her.—Anyway, they didn’t use a dead person’s name or look at their photo, did they? Because SBS was always having these warnings whenever they had a dokko about the rotten living conditions in the Outback or the Lost Generations, or the persecution of the Aborigines by the White settlers—and even the ABC was getting in on the act these days, too, come to think of it. So it must be politically correct. Only how could you talk about a person without mentioning his name? Though this man certainly hadn’t. Oh, help!

    “Um, I’m Harriet,” she said, licking her lips. “Harriet Harrison.”

    “Gidday, Harriet, I’m George.” He added something in what must be his own language, it would be his—not his surname, probably, no, his skin name. She couldn’t have pronounced it to save her life.

    “Hullo, George, it’s nice to meet you,” she said weakly. “So—so you were a friend of his?”

    He came and squatted beside her. “Yeah.”

    They gazed at the sea in silence. Harriet couldn’t think of anything to say, so she didn’t say anything; and she had a feeling that George didn’t want to talk. Well, he certainly wasn’t talking, so—

    After quite some time George said: “Ya know the silly ole bugger had a so-called secret cellar, do ya? Thought none of us knew about it.”

    She jumped. “Yes!” she gasped.

    “Might be some grog in there that’s worth a packet,” he said kindly.

    “Yes; thank you. Oh!” she realized, going very pink. “Would you like some?”

    “Nah. Not into wine.”

    More gazing at the sea.

    “Need a hand getting rid of that boat ’e stuck in ’is lounge-room?” offered George.

    “Well, um, yes, I suppose so,” said Harriet limply. “Thanks, George.”

    “No worries. Andy and Tommo, they’ll give us a hand, too.”

    “Thank you,” she said, wondering when that would be—she had an idea that the Aboriginal sense of time didn’t mesh with the Caucasian one.

    “You come by yourself?”

    “No,” said Harriet very faintly indeed, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. “My sister and brother-in-law and their kids are here, too.”

    “Good-oh, then Andy and Tommo will of found them. Could do it now, if ya like.”

    “Um—oh! The boat? If—if it’s not too much bother?” said Harriet weakly.

    George stood up—easily, in one fluid motion, she registered with one part of her mind. “Nah, it’s no bother, Harriet.” He held out his hand to her.

    Weakly Harriet took it and let herself be heaved to her clumsy Caucasian feet by a wild Aborigine. His hand was warm and dry: hers must feel absolutely revolting to him, she was sweating terribly in the humidity.

    “Sorry, my hands are awfully sweaty!” she blurted as he turned for the house.

    “Eh?”

    “My hand’s all sticky, it’s the humidity.” said Harriet weakly. He was looking blank, so she croaked: “I mean, it—it must have felt revolting, yours is nice and dry.”

    George scratched his head. “Never had anyone say that to me before.”

    “No,” said Harriet miserably, now not knowing what she was saying.

    “He said you were okay,” he suddenly said out of the blue.

    “Ben? Did he?” she gasped.

    “Uh-huh.”

    “Ooh, sorry, I shouldn’t’ve said his name!” she gasped.

    “Never heard anyone say that before, neither,” said George mildly. “That’s okay, you’re not an Ab’ri’ne.”

    “No,” said Harriet limply, registering in spite of herself the way he ran the syllables of the word together: it sounded almost as if he was speaking his own language. “But it was rude. I should’ve thought.”

    “He wouldn’t of minded. –You got a lot of mangoes this year, eh?”

    “Mm, loads, goodness knows what I’ll do with them. It seems an awful pity just to let them go to waste. Would you like to take some home, George?” she said shyly.

    “Wouldn’t mind, thanks, Harriet, but it’s a fair way.”

    “Heck, you didn’t walk, did you?” she gasped.

    “Might of.” He waited, while she went very red and looked at him desperately. “Nah, sorry, Harriet, pulling your leg. We come in the ute.”

    Harriet swallowed. “I see. Sorry. I was—was making assumptions, I suppose.”

    “That’s okay. Thing is, I wouldn’t mind some mangoes but it’s a fair drive back.”

    “Mm, you don’t want them to go off before you get them home,” she agreed seriously. She brightened. “I know! You can take the esky!”

    “That’d be good. You got any chiller bags?”

    “A few, Trisha wouldn’t let Steve put in as many as he wanted. Um, but they won’t be cold by now,” she realised in dismay.

    “Bung ’em in the freezing compartment of the fridge overnight, then we can grab ’em in the morning,” decided George comfortably.

    “That’s a good idea! –And if you’d like some beer, I’m pretty sure there’ll be some in the shed, you could pop some of that in the esky, too!”

    “Righto, thanks,” he agreed.

    They continued on down the hill in silence.

    “Um, I’m afraid the house is full, with all of us,” realised Harriet in dismay as they emerged from the scrub. “And Jimbo—that’s my nephew—he’s got the stretcher, there aren’t any spare beds at all. Um, well, there’s B—his sleeping-bag, but it might be too hot in this weather. And even if we manage to get the boat out, there’s no carpet in the lounge-room, I’m afraid. But there’s a sofa—well, maybe if one of you took that and one took the sleeping-bag? And I tell you what, we could fold up some dunas, that’d make a third bed!”

    “Nah, that’s okay. We can kip in the ute.”

    “No, it’s been drizzling all day, George, you mustn’t, you’d risk getting pneumonia!”

    George didn’t say anything about his ancestors having lived here for sixty thousand years, give or take, he just said on a tolerant note: “Okay, Harriet, thanks.”

    “Good! Um, I think I ought to warn you,” she added uneasily as they passed the shed, “that Trisha, my sister, is in a very bad mood. It’s the humidity, on top of the strain of Steve’s awful rellies, I think. Well, especially his Aunty Daphne, actually.”

    “That the lady that makes you take your boots off before you come in the house?”

    “Yes,” said Harriet with a sigh. “It’s not just the houseproud thing, she’s very hard to take.”

    “I geddit,” he said comfortably.

    Andy turned out to be a cheery man about George’s age, which was, Harriet thought, probably about the same as hers, but he was quite fat where George was very slim. Tommo was much younger and very shy: he couldn’t look any of them in the face and hardly uttered a word. They duly pitched in to get the boat out, though Steve hadn’t actually envisaged doing it right away. It did entail taking a large section of wall down, as Harriet had feared, but George and Andy seemed to know the trick of it, explaining the bolts or whatever they were to Steve. So after a certain amount of swearing on all parts, and a certain amount of shouting at Jimbo to Get out of the fucking WAY! and the consumption of quantities of warmish beer, it was all done. And the workers tottered into the kitchen to consume baked beans on toast with ham, and vast amounts of tinned spaghetti. Jimbo joining in eagerly, though he hadn’t done much hard yacker. Well, perhaps it was partly a desire to align himself with the male peer group, and partly just the giant appetite natural to his age. The workers washed this feast down with more warmish beer but Harriet, Kyla and the protesting Jimbo had glasses of water.

    Trisha had a cup of tea, but not with the hoi polloi: she had a tray in bed, Steve having got her to admit that she had got her period, that it had hit hard again, and that all right, she did feel like tea in bed. Just a bit; and no baked beans. This last posed a bit of problem, of course, so Kyla fell back on Vegemite on toast to supplement the ham—white toast, since both she and her aunt felt that wholemeal toast was pretty much guaranteed to give a person who was feeling rotten with her period the runs. Once the boat was out Steve discovered a bottle of brandy in a sideboard that they hadn’t been able to get at before, so she had a slug of that in her mug of tea. He took it in to her himself and stood over her while she drank it.

    By this time it was of course pitch dark—they’d arrived pretty late and they were so far north that there was no twilight. As there was no TV they put the radio on for a bit, but everybody was yawning their heads off, so they packed it in and went to bed. Jimbo in the enclosed part of the side verandah, Steve and Trisha in the front bedroom, and Harriet and Kyla in the small bedroom. And George, Andy and Tommo in the lounge-room.

    Funnily enough Harriet and the Drinkwaters awoke next morning to find they hadn’t all been murdered in their beds—no.

    “It was silly to be scared of them,” admitted Harriet in a small voice as the ute vanished round the bend in the track, laden with not only the esky full of mangoes and beer, but several more cartons of beer and the now dismantled boat. Well, better than having a lawn full of boat, or even full of timber, wasn’t it?

    “Yeah, well, you’d never met any Aborigines before,” said Steve mildly.

    “Mm. George is nice, isn’t he?” she said enthusiastically

    Laughing up ’is sleeve at her the entire time, would have been Steve’s bet, but he just nodded tolerantly and agreed mildly: “Sure.”

Next chapter:

https://trialsofharrietharrison.blogspot.com/2023/09/visitors.html