The Shiralee Page 6

  ‘Make it good, Christy,’ he said. ‘Don’t miss the first time. Because there won’t be a second.’

  The words set Christy back, and the expression on his face changed as though he were momentarily unsure of himself against this man. He circled. Macauley watched him tensely. He knew Christy would keep circling, inching closer, till he got him into position. Then he’d rush, bottle out-thrust, grip his antagonist, and twist the jagged glass in his face. It could go on for thirty minutes like this, stalking, circling, waiting for an opening, as though he himself were equally armed.

  Macauley had no intention of waiting that long.

  ‘You’re a gutless wonder, Christy,’ he gibed. ‘What’s holding you back? Even with that, you’re still a dingo. Will I put one arm behind me?’

  Some in the crowd laughed. Fury leapt on to Christy’s face. Macauley took the initiative. He was ready for the rush. He knew what his strategy would be. Its success depended on perfect timing, split-second action. If he made a slip his face would be prettied up for life. He realised that.

  He took a few steps towards Christy, and Christy fell for the feint. He lunged forward. Macauley stood on the spot. He was perfectly still. His eyes were on the frightful weapon. He saw it to within a foot of his face; then precisely at the right moment he flicked his head to one side and the weapon arm slid over his shoulder.

  Christy came with it to jerk up short, as Macauley’s right hand clutched his throat, the steely fingers digging in and squeezing. In the same instant Macauley gripped Christy’s sleeve with his left hand and held it rigidly away from him, partly across his right arm. He didn’t know how long he could keep it there, but he had to keep it there, and the only instrument he had to shorten the time was Christy’s throat. His hold was like the jaws of a trap.

  For a moment Christy was bewildered by the suddenness of the turn that left him victoryless and at a disadvantage. Then he struggled. He tried to jerk his arm free. He swung over his left. He brought up his knees, seeking to disable Macauley. All the time he was staggering backwards, sideways, coughing and choking, dragging the inflexible hand with him. He tried once more for Macauley’s groin, but Macauley fended the blows with the side of his thigh.

  Then Christy had to drop the bottle. He wrenched his right arm free and fastened his left and right hand on the arm that was squeezing the life out of him, desperately striving to drag it away. But once Macauley knew the danger of the bottle was past he unclenched his fingers and Christy fell away. He clawed at his throat. Everybody in the crowd saw the marks there. They were marks that might have been made by an iron gauntlet.

  Macauley went in with his shoulder out. The shirt was tight on his back. The blow struck Christy on the temple and spun him round. But he was tough. He rushed in like a bull, his face distorted with hate and ferocity. Macauley sidestepped, slammed a right into his belly, and let him pitch grunting on to the ground. He staggered up, and the pleasure was all Macauley’s. Methodically he chopped his man to pieces. He picked him off, sapping his power, paralysing his muscles, driving him about and around like a frenzied bullock in a corral. He shambled blindly.

  But Macauley had no mercy.

  ‘Here I am, Christy. Can’t you see me? Look. Here.’

  And his huge hands, half closed, would thump on Christy’s ribs, his jaw, his chin, hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to knock him out.

  ‘No more,’ Christy gasped. ‘No more.’

  ‘No more?’ echoed Macauley. ‘I haven’t started yet. There’s a lot more. I’ve got to get you down. I’ve got to get the boot in yet. I’ve got to fillet your ugly phiz for you with your own broken bottle.’

  ‘No! No! No more!’

  Jim Muldoon left the crowd and put an arm round Macauley’s shoulder. ‘Come on, Mac, he’s finished. You’ll kill him. Turn it in.’

  Macauley brushed him aside. Then he looked round at Muldoon’s white face and pleading eyes.

  ‘All right, Jim,’ he said. ‘But this is for you.’

  And with that he moved over to Frank Christy, lifted the helpless man’s chin and drove a right uppercut underneath it. Christy’s feet left the ground and he fell with a thud on his back and lay still.

  For almost a minute the crowd stood stunned. Then their ranks buckled and men swarmed. They carried Christy and the still semi-conscious O’Neill into the yard of the pub. Some gathered around Macauley gaping in admiration, congratulating him, telling him Christy had been looking for that for a long time.

  ‘Come on, Mac,’ Muldoon urged, taking Macauley’s arm, ‘we’d better get out of here.’

  ‘I’m going after that job,’ Macauley said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’d think I’d let that bastard have it? Coming at me with a bottle. Putting the bounce into me.’

  Muldoon wasn’t going to argue: the battle smoke was still in Macauley’s nostrils.

  ‘All right, but have a clean-up first. You’re blood from head to hocks. Not here. I know a place.’

  ‘It’ll be too late.’

  ‘It won’t be too late. Get in.’

  He dumped Macauley’s swag in the back, and Macauley got in beside Buster. Her face swollen with crying. She was whining like a fan.

  ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ he snapped.

  He didn’t get an answer, but she stopped whimpering. She looked up at him. ‘Look, you’re all bleedy.’

  ‘What’s a bit of blood?’

  He picked up the animal off her knee; dandled it. ‘You know what she calls this, Jim?’

  Muldoon half smiled. ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘Gooby,’ Macauley said, and he laughed uproariously as though he had just seen the joke.

  Muldoon knew a friend of his father. They spruced up there. Macauley put on a clean shirt from his swag. They were only there half an hour. The old people wanted them to have some dinner, but Macauley declined. He was anxious to get away. They gave Buster a biscuit and a glass of milk.

  Going back in the truck Muldoon grinned with admiration. ‘Just thinking of the way you toppled O’Neill. The way you threw those punches. All in a flash. I’ve only seen one thing quicker, and that’s a cat.’

  ‘It wasn’t all that good,’ Macauley shrugged. ‘I didn’t give O’Neill a chance to show what he could do. The other bastard, Christy – he’s just a big mug.’

  ‘You certainly can use ’em all right, Mac.’

  ‘I’ve had my share of hidings,’ Macauley said.

  The truck drew into the kerb and Macauley shot out quickly and into O’Hara’s office. Dickson, the man with the pear-shaped face and short-cropped sharp hair who had taken his name that morning, looked at him with an expression of surprised scrutiny as though the man before him was incapable of earning the reputation that had preceded his appearance.

  ‘Where’s O’Hara? Is he back yet?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dickson answered. ‘But I don’t think — ’

  At that moment O’Hara walked in from the adjoining office. He was a thickset man with a bay window coming along nicely, and a round fat face red and glossy as a wax apple. His plastered black hair was tinged with grey at the sides. He wore a well-kept navy-blue suit. He sat in the chair vacated by Dickson, who moved over to the window and leant on a filing cabinet, still scrutinising.

  ‘So you’re Macauley?’ O’Hara said, looking up with a faint fixed shrewd smile. ‘They tell me you’ve been livening the town up a bit.’

  ‘What about this job at the burr camp?’ Macauley said, impatiently getting down to business. ‘I’d like a start.’

  ‘Sorry,’ O’Hara said. ‘You’re a bit late. I’ve got a man.’

  ‘A bit late?’ Macauley said. ‘What mullarky is this?’ he demanded. ‘I come all the way from Millie for this job. I had my name down first thing this morning. Christy was after me.’

  The smile stayed fixed on O’Hara’s face. ‘I didn’t say anything about Christy,’ he said easily, blunting Macauley’s impetuosity. Macaul
ey stared at him, and O’Hara went on, ‘I picked up a man at Collarenebri. He’s down at the pub now. He’ll be on his way to the job this afternoon.’

  Macauley was still doubtful. ‘But they said when you left Millie you were heading straight back here.’

  ‘That’s right,’ O’Hara said. ‘But I changed my mind. That’s why I didn’t get back here till just an hour ago.’ He opened a tin of cigarettes and held it out. Macauley shook his head and drew the makings out of his pocket.

  O’Hara lit the cigarette and looked at the burning match in his. ‘I couldn’t have given you the job, anyway, Macauley.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’d have been just asking for more trouble and it would have been signing your death warrant.’

  ‘Ah, break it down,’ Macauley said.

  ‘Listen to me,’ O’Hara said, beginning to get nettled by Macauley’s truculent forthrightness. ‘They’re twenty-five men out there. At least fifteen of them are Christy’s mates. They’d be on to you like a pack of mad dogs. Even if it didn’t matter to you, getting your brains bashed out, it matters to me. I don’t want any more trouble. I’ve had enough of it.’ He took a hard drag on the cigarette, and the smoke spiralled out of his nostrils as he went on with vehemence. ‘Listen, you’ve knocked about. You know there are bad types of men everywhere. They get into sheds and camps all over the place, but only in ones and twos. And you know what happens. They get sat on straight away. They soon get shown their place. The good fellers won’t take any shenanigan from them, and either they toe the line or take the consequences. But, look, out there is the worst mob of bastards ever collected on one job. You wouldn’t credit it. There’s not one amongst them worth a razoo. When the job’s finished they can go to hell. They’ll never get a look-in with me again. I’d sack the whole bloody lot now if the shearing wasn’t on and it was easier to get men.’

  ‘Well, that seems to sew it up,’ Macauley said.

  He was ready to go, and O’Hara should have left it at that. But he was a family man, with traditional steadfast ideas about married life and parenthood. And he was curious as well. But he put it this way, ‘If it’ll make you feel any better I’ll tell you this. Even if you hadn’t touched Christy and I hadn’t engaged another man; even if I wanted a burr cook right now, I still wouldn’t have given you the job.’

  Macauley looked at him questioningly.

  ‘You have a little girl,’ O’Hara said, with an air of virtuous contempt. ‘A mere baby. I would no more think of letting her go out there than I would one of my own children. Not only because of the trouble there’d be, but it’s no place for a child. The life you lead is no life for a child. What sort of man are you even to entertain the idea of trucking her with you to a job like that?’

  ‘It’s like your bloody ignorance to ask,’ Macauley flashed. He put his hands on the desk and leant forward. He said succinctly, ‘You stay in your own backyard, O’Hara. Your mind’s not big enough for anything outside it, and it’s not going to grow any more. When you can run your own business efficiently then maybe you’ll have reason to tell me how to run mine.’

  He walked out. The earth had gone dull. A light wind was blowing from the north, flapping and banging the canvas blind half unfurled between the verandah posts.

  ‘No go?’ said Muldoon, reading his face.

  ‘No go,’ Macauley said, and Muldoon, curious as he was, could see that Macauley was in no temper to be asked the why and wherefore. He would find out later, he thought.

  ‘Looks like we might get a drop of rain out of this,’ he remarked casually, for something to say against the silence of Macauley’s cold fury.

  Then as he glanced up and down the street his attitude changed, and he said quickly, ‘Look out, here comes a dirty big blue thing. Get in the truck. Quick!’

  Macauley looked up sharply. ‘It’s too late,’ he said. ‘He’s seen us.’

  The sergeant of police lumbered towards them, pressing the ground as he walked as though one of his missions in life was to flatten the earth. He was chesty and neckless, with jowls like a bulldog.

  ‘You Macauley?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘I can run you in.’

  ‘God, what for?’ Macauley said, astonished.

  ‘You know what for. Offensive behaviour and a few others in the book.’

  Macauley affected a look of mystification. Then his face suddenly brightened. ‘Oh, you mean the little — Why, sergeant, it was nothing. Just a little falling out among friends. You know how it is?’

  ‘I know how it is, all right,’ said the sergeant. ‘You intend to prefer charges?’

  ‘Charges?’

  ‘Didn’t Christy attack you with a broken bottle?’

  ‘Not that I noticed, sergeant.’ Macauley let him know how he stood about the matter.

  ‘You’ve got an hour to get out of town.’

  ‘But my friends …’ Macauley began with pretended concern, wondering if he alone was to be penalised.

  ‘Don’t worry, they’ll be taken good care of,’ the sergeant assured him. He held up one podgy finger. ‘An hour.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Macauley said.

  They watched him dawdle off, his hands behind his back, his trouser whipping about his legs like tattered sails.

  ‘He’s all right,’ Macauley said.

  ‘What’ll you do now, Mac?’

  ‘Get on my way.’

  ‘You’d better come out home with me,’ Muldoon offered. ‘For a few days.’

  Macauley patted him on the shoulder. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’ve got your troubles, Jim. And I wouldn’t be much help to you with them. So long.’

  They shook hands, and Muldoon had a lonely, sad look on his boyish face.

  ‘I’m hungry, dad.’ Buster said.

  Muldoon forced a grin as though to ease his departure. ‘Well, I better go and see about the funeral.’ He pulled the self-starter and the engine jerked into life and gobbled painfully.

  Macauley took a few steps forward and placed a hand on Muldoon’s arm. ‘I forgot to mention, Jim: only for you taking care of that dunhead in the early part it might have been a different story.’

  Muldoon made a disclamatory gesture with his hand, but there was great pleasure on his face, and that was the look Macauley remembered as the truck drove away.

  ‘Where’s Jim going?’ Buster asked, scratching one leg with the other. ‘He’s a good Jim,’ she added.

  Macauley looked down the long dull stretch of road running south. He looked at the windy sky and the hastening cloud. There was nothing else for it. The clock was on him.

  He pulled back the gauze doors and went into the baker’s shop. There was the smell of new bread and clean bags. He tinkled the little hand-bell on the counter. A girl in a white smock came from the back of the shop. It was the girl he had seen cross the road early that morning. He felt a lift in his spirits. Her smile was friendly, but disinterested. It went with the job more than it went with her personality.

  ‘Can you fix me up for a coupla pies and a loaf of bread?’ he said.

  ‘Certainly.’ She had a soft voice. She turned and bent over a bin. He ran his eye over her figure, round the coastline and up and down the hinterland. He saw the silken shapely legs up to the thighs, and caught the glimpse of lace on her petticoat. They teased the hunger in him. They cajoled his imagination. She turned again, and he fed on her soft, smooth, shapely arms as she rolled up the bread.

  In a minute she set the pies down in front of him with the same ready smile. Her eyes were shiny like a dark syrup. Her lips were soft and voluptuous. Her hair was jet and curly. Macauley stared at her with a bold deliberate impassivity, as though she were a figurine on a shelf. She flushed a little and averted her eyes; otherwise her poise seemed unaffected, though he noticed her fluster as she took the money and placed it in the till.

  ‘Wonder if I could get this filled too?’ He dumped the empty waterbag on the counter.

 
Her glance was more interested this time, more part of her personality than a part of the job. It was unsure, but wanted to be probing. She nodded and took the bag. She returned, wiping it with a cloth.

  ‘I’m sorry. It spilled over.’

  Macauley kept his eyes on her as he untied the tuckerbag. She seemed glad to find a diversion in Buster. She said impulsively, ‘Would the little girl like some cakes? They’re a wee bit stale, but quite nice. If you don’t mind taking them.’

  That’s what he liked. That type. They didn’t thrust it at you as though you were a down-and-out in need of their charity. They thought of your self-respect. They gave you the benefit of having some.

  ‘Not at all.’

  He watched her selecting the cakes from the window, appraising the curves of her hips and buttocks, the tight swell of her breasts as he reached into the corners.

  She came back. ‘There you are, dear.’

  Buster took the bag, instantly opened it, and peered in. She closed it and looked up shyly, hugging the parcel, thrilled with pleasure, but controlling it, just in case to express it before the girl would have made her feel self-consciously foolish.

  ‘Well, we’ll be pushing off,’ Macauley said.

  ‘Going far?’ the girl asked, failing to disguise her more intimate tone of voice.

  ‘Moree.’

  ‘All that way – heavens!’

  ‘Be there in a few days.’

  ‘How’re you travelling?’

  ‘Shanks,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Walking.’

  She didn’t seem interested in the answers; only in the intrigue of flirtation, the delaying facility of conversation. She looked at him again, meeting his eyes. In hers there was an argument of wavering. She seemed to be daring them to remain fixed against the inflexibility of his brazen-browed gaze. Finally, she lost and looked quickly away. ‘It’s going to rain, too.’

  ‘Might.’

  ‘I can feel it in my bones. They always ache when it’s going to rain.’

  ‘My bones ache, too,’ Macauley said. ‘But it’s not with rain.’