FIVE

I’d had Buzz for a month or so when we had another phone call, which wasn’t from Aunty Ve. Sissy picked up the phone. She’d stopped puking up by then and had started eating everything in sight. She was getting real fat—not as fat as Aunty Ve, but still pretty big. We’d eaten dinner and were clearing the table when Sissy handed the phone to Mum and said, “It’s for you,” before sulking back into her room. She still hardly spoke to anyone.

The phone call was from a Pommie wanting to find out about the house-girl job. I reckon Mum was as surprised as the rest of us because she seemed to fall over her words as she tried to answer the Pommie’s questions. “We’re in the desert, two hundred miles from Alice Springs,” she said. “No, no . . . you’d have your own room in a building on the station. You’d be in the same building as our govvie, Bobbie—the girl who teaches the children . . . that’s right, three children. Emily’s seven, Danny’s thirteen, and Sissy’s fourteen.” She didn’t tell her Sissy was pregnant.

When Mum hung up the phone, she looked at Dad, who said, “So?” Mum reckoned the Pommie sounded OK and that she could start work at Timber Creek in a week, if someone could give her a lift to the station from Alice. I felt sick. I hoped every ute on the station would break down so no one could go and get her. Emily’s eyes were wide and I could tell she was excited. “What’s she called?” Emily shouted. Mum told her the Pommie was called Liz, and Dad laughed. He said we should call her Her Royal Highness—like the Queen.

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A week later, the Pommie house girl arrived. Bobbie brought her back from Alice after she’d been to town to see a bunch of other govvies she was mates with. We all heard Bobbie’s ute pull into the yard, so we went out to meet them. The door of the ute opened and the Pommie climbed out. I couldn’t believe it when I saw her.

I knew straightaway she’d be useless. She was small and skinny, for a start. Her legs were thinner than the calves’ and her arms were like Emily’s. When we saw her we all knew she wouldn’t be able to lift the salt meat out of the brine, or hook the side of a killer to the cool-room ceiling—so what was the point? I dunno why Mum and Dad didn’t fire her there and then. Even Dad said he’d be surprised if the Pommie could carry a bucket of calves’ milk. I don’t think Mum had asked how big she was when she phoned up about the job. I guess she was just glad someone phoned.

The Pommie looked around her and smiled a little as she glanced at each of us and then at the buildings and the yard. She looked confused, I guess. A bit like she’d just been beamed onto the moon, or something.

Her hair was the same color as the spinifex, before it rained. And she smiled a lot; I dunno what at. She didn’t wear normal clothes and her skin was whiter than ours. The fellas were sat outside the old demountable caravan where they lived, drinking beer. As they watched the Pommie, they pretended not to, like the dogs did when they waited under the table, hoping for a scrap of food.

Mum tried to shake the Pommie’s hand—she was acting real weird. Emily jumped up and down and ran round and round the Pommie, getting in the way. She was behaving like it was Christmas. She kept trying to hold the Pommie’s hand and to help her with her bags while Bobbie was showing her to the room she’d be sleeping in. If I was Bobbie, I’d have told Emily to rack off. The Pommie’s room was in the same building as Bobbie’s. Dad had spent most of the last week fixing it up. It had a bed and a rail for her clothes. He’d even found some carpet for the floor. When they got in there, though, I don’t think the Pommie was too pleased with her new roommate. Emily had left her favorite poddy calf, Charlotte, in there. She reckoned the Pommie could have Charlotte if she wanted her. The Pommie smiled but I could tell she wasn’t too keen. I reckon the amount of shit Charlotte had left all over the floor was what made her mind up. I was killing myself laughing. Emily was in big trouble, especially after Dad had worked so hard to fix the room up. Bobbie told Emily to take the bloody calf back to its bloody pen. It took Bobbie and Mum almost an hour to get the room sorted out. The dumb Pommie kept saying, “Please don’t worry about it—really, it’s fine.” I dunno why she said that—we all knew it wasn’t.

After Dad met the Pommie, he laughed and said she talked like the bloody Queen. She sounded slow—like she was thick, as well as posh. Each word took ages to come out, like when Aunty Veronica played records on the wrong speed to make us laugh. We hoped the Pommie worked faster than she talked.

The day the Pommie arrived was a Sunday and our neighbors, the Crofts, were coming over for a barbecue. Mum reckoned it would be nice to get everyone together to say g’day to the new Pommie house girl and make her feel welcome. Mum and Sissy had been busy in the kitchen all day, and Bobbie was helping the Pommie unpack her things. Emily wasn’t allowed out of her room because of what she’d done with Charlotte. Me and the fellas were hanging around the cool room—that’s where the home brew was kept. The grog always smelled bad, like something was off. I didn’t like it, but Dad reckoned I would one day.

Dad and the fellas had talked about the clean skins that needed castrating. Lloyd said we should get the Pommie to help us. Dad laughed at that. He said, “Christ, Lloyd! I reckon you’re the one who needs castrating; your brain’s in your bollocks.” We all laughed and Lloyd looked at the ground. I said the Pommie couldn’t even castrate a kitten. Dad said I was right about that.

Mum came over with the Pommie. She said I had to show Liz how to feed the poddies, the pigs, and Buzz. I started to complain—I mean, why did I have to do it? Why couldn’t fat Sissy show her round? Dad gave me a look though, so I knew I’d better just shut up and do it. Emily had been allowed out of her room by then, so she was there too—hanging off us like an itchy scab.

The Pommie didn’t even know what a poddy was, so I had to explain it was a pet calf—one that had been orphaned, and then hand reared. She’d never even touched a calf before, so she reckoned I was an expert. I didn’t get it—why would we want such a total drongo working for us? Everything took ages because there was a lot to explain. I had to start right at the beginning, with things like how to unhitch the gate and close it again so none of the poddies escaped; how to mix up their milk; how to distract them with the hose so you could get the calf feeder hooked onto the fence without spilling any milk; and how to make sure they all got a fair share.

When we got to Buzz, the Pommie’s eyes nearly burst out of her head. She said he was handsome, but I could tell she was scared, and so could he. He nearly kicked her, but I pushed him away. I was showing her how to hold the teat onto the bottle while he suckled the milk, when he started to have a piss. It splashed up off the ground and sprayed the Pommie’s bare feet. She only had thongs on and so she screeched like a bloody galah. All the poddies scattered like crows after a gunshot, and Buzz ran off round the pen, bucking and kicking like a rodeo bull. I said to her, “What d’you expect? You can’t get him to sit on a dunny each time.”

She said, “His pee was really hot,” like it was a secret. That made me laugh. What a drongo. She hadn’t a clue.

I didn’t bother telling her about how I wanted to break him in so I could ride him. I thought I might even race him. Dad said the Arabs did that in Africa. I wanted to take Buzz there and bring the cup back to Australia, but Dad said it would cost too much.

The Pommie liked Mo’s piglets. I guess they were smaller, so she wasn’t as scared of them—but they’d got fat enough for bacon. I told her how Mo had had three sisters: Eany, Meany, and Miny, but we’d eaten them. That’s when the Pommie told me she was vegetarian. I was shocked. Dad always said it was unnatural. She asked me if there was anything I didn’t like—pumpkin, eurgh. She said that was how she felt about meat. I reckoned that was why she was so thin.

Emily had got bored by then and had gone back to the house, but the Pommie wanted to go to see Buzz again. There was no way I was going to let her anywhere near him on her own—she’d probably leave a gate open or something. When we got there I showed her how to put a rope on him and walk him round the yards. He wasn’t as feral as when I’d first got him, so Dad reckoned I was making progress. When Buzz and me walked together, it was like we were partners. Sometimes he’d test me, and I’d have to get a stick and flog him, but that didn’t happen often.

The Pommie had a camera and she kept taking pictures of me and Buzz, like we were something special. She asked if she could hold the rope. I didn’t want her to, but I wasn’t sure what to say, so I let her. She put her hand on Buzz’s cheek. She held it there and stroked him, real gently, just with her thumb. His eyes closed a bit and he made this low, growling sound, like he was purring. I told her to pack it in, I didn’t want Buzz going soft on me.

Later, when the Crofts arrived, Mary and Ron went inside with old Dick, it was too hot outside for him. Penny wasn’t with them, she’d gone into Alice to see her mum. While they all went inside, Greg came to sit with us fellas in the shady bit behind the cool room. When Greg sat down, he took off his hat, like he’d arrived at church. He said he was perishing after the drive over, so the fellas gave him a beer. After Greg tipped the bottle back and swallowed half of it in one go, he burped and the warm smell of rotten sugar wafted over. That was when Elliot asked Greg if he’d come to take a look at the Pommie house girl. They all laughed.

They carried on drinking the grog and telling stories about mustering. After a while we got interrupted when the Pommie showed up. Mum had asked her to get something from the cool room for the barbie. Everyone went quiet, like we’d been talking about her. Elliot’s chair made a hard, scraping sound against the ground when he got up to let her past. None of the fellas looked at her when she smiled. Eventually Elliot said, “This is Greg Croft, he lives next door.” The Pommie laughed and said she’d been speaking to Dick, who’d told her Gold River was fifty miles away. She said that in England, fifty miles wasn’t next door—it was a holiday. Greg smiled and said if she wanted to take a holiday to Gold River, she’d be very welcome to stay with him. The others laughed, and the Pommie went red. Greg watched the Pommie walk back to the house, like the Blackfellas did when they were hunting kangaroo and they’d spotted a big red.