Chapter 29

Charlie the truck driver became an instant celebrity in our home and my surprise arrival made barely a ripple. The fridge made more of an impact. However, I found that highly amusing as I looked at my mum fussing over him. She quickly whacked some more vegies and steak as dinner was usually after dark anyway. Our timing was perfect she said to Charlie. Tom and Dad had inspected the truck, lifted the bonnet, turned the engine over and then proudly wheeled the fridge in on a trolley having manhandled it down. With great fanfare they unplugged the old round edged fridge and put the modern rectangular monolith in the space the old one had vacated. It didn’t quite fit but Tom raced up to the shed and grabbed a hammer and a saw and between he and Dad within ten minutes there was a fridge in place and a much thinner cupboard underneath. They stood back and marvelled at their ingenuity until Mum ripped into them to clean the sawdust off her floor and put the contents of the old fridge into the new one. Charlie looked on with as much amusement as I as he sipped the tea mum had poured for him. I had to pour my own.

Charlie spent the night but refused the guest bedroom and opted to sleep in the shearers’ bunkhouse. He said he would feel more at home there. Mum and Dad had as I predicted scoffed at the idea of him heading into Croydon to sleep at the pub. Mum was an evangelistic teetotaller and Dad, well, he toed the line in the house, but eyed the old fridge off as possibly being a better beer fridge than the one he had in the machinery shed which he kept under a tarp lest Mum find it. I felt like an outsider as I watched the scene inside my old home. I wasn’t made to feel that way but I stood back and observed the three most important people in my life, their mannerisms, the way they spoke and even just the way they had changed since I had moved out of home. I guess I had changed a lot too. Almost twenty, physically fully developed and now had muscles on muscles it seemed when I looked at pictures of a much scrawnier me in my old bedroom.

Life was good and so was breakfast the next morning. It was served early and in large quantities. Our family never stood on ceremony and we all wolfed it down. Charlie it seemed fitted it in well with us and also made sure none of it got cold before it hit his lips. He was up bright and early despite talking about the old days with Dad the night before. After breakfast Mum bundled up a huge basket full of food for him to take back. He at first refused but soon found that no-one refuses Mum anything. She said he could share it with his friend in Conjuboy if he felt he had been given too much. That was the winning argument and he placed it carefully on the seat that I had vacated the night before. I realised as he left the unlikelihood of ever seeing him again and how quickly people can pass in and out of other people’s lives. That got me thinking of Jean and a few tears formed and I grabbed my handkerchief that I always carried and pretended to blow my nose.

“Are you coming down with a cold?” Mum asked. I thought of the steaming menthol eucalyptus mix and shook my head.

“Just some dust up my nose that the truck stirred up,” I lied.

Mum glared at me suspiciously and my ability to bluff must have improved because she didn’t say anything except, “Could do with some rain to settle it down. By the way thanks for the fridge.”

That was it. Mum wasn’t the gushy type. She had said thank you and that was enough for me. I would have to wait a lot longer, perhaps when the next ice age hit hell, before she would admit she was wrong for whacking me over the head, but that was Mum and it was good to be home.

Tom was on school holidays. I was on leave but we weren’t allowed to do nothing and from sun up to sundown we were kept busy. Mum said something about the devil and idle hands but it was Dad that we wanted to help. He wasn’t looking as fit and healthy as he had last time I was home but he never complained and was certainly going to show us ‘young uns’ what he could do and had always done. I’m not sure whether Tom had noticed the change in Dad. He saw him every day and so probably never noticed any difference but I did. Dad noticed on a couple of occasions me staring at him and grunted, “What?” to which I replied, “Nothin.” He may have been aware that I had noticed something because for a while he successfully avoided us being alone and having time to talk. That opportunity didn’t come for a few days until Jean and Eloise’s mum came all the way from Karumba for a visit. Of course, she brought only Eloise and it was probably on the insistence of Eloise that she came at all.

Of course, they didn’t arrive unannounced. That would have been rude according to the social graces in the country. One didn’t visit even the neighbours without an advanced warning unless it was an emergency. Tom may have thought it was an emergency as he hadn’t seen Eloise for a week. Eloise and her mother gave the appropriate oohs and ahs over the new fridge and sat down for a late morning tea. Tom kept hanging around the door to the kitchen and Eloise seemed very fidgety until Mum told Tom to go away and to take Eloise with him as she and Eloise’s mother had women’s talk to do. Eloise bolted from the table and raced outside. She and Tom headed to the machinery shed and then they were gone in a cloud of dust, Tom over revving the engine of the bike to make it sound more powerful and manly and Eloise with her dress rucked up sitting behind him, laughing fit to burst.

That left Dad and I alone. “Looks like just you and me Dad,” I said, “Unless you want to go inside and chat with the ladies.”

If looks could kill the local florist shop wouldn’t have enough wreaths on hand. Dad grunted and walked up to the machinery shed. I followed him. I was desperate to talk to him.

“Dad, in Canberra I came across something,” I began. Dad was immediately on the alert possibly concerned that I had found out something about his war service. “I’m now in the JIO, that’s the Joint Intelligence Organisation for the whole defence force.” Dad chuckled. I didn’t know whether it was because he didn’t see how I had the intelligence to be in it or whether the army had any intelligence at all. He said nothing but waited for me to continue.

“I work for a Colonel Atkinson and it is my job to listen to taped conversations. I could understand if those were conversations were from other countries but what the defence force is doing is listening in on politicians, public servants and political advisors. I know that the colonel is working with at least one other colonel and a major but I don’t know if they are just doing what they are told or they are the ones doing something that their bosses don’t know.”

Dad rubbed the stubble on his chin and it was a while before he responded. “These are all army people I presume. You’re in the army and it’s your job to follow orders and do as you are told. So, what’s the problem?”

“Nothing except that it is wrong. We aren’t there to spy on people who live in Australia. We are supposed to defend and protect Australians. It is just wrong!”

Dad rose to his full height and walked over to a back part of the shed. He tugged on a tarp and it fell to the ground. Mum’s old fridge was there humming away. He opened it and pulled out two cans of Four X and came back and sat down on an old barrel. He handed a can to me and smiled, “The ladies will be nattering away for ages so we won’t get caught. Great idea the fridge, son. My old beer fridge here died a week before you came back and I was wondering what I was going to do. Cheers!” We tapped cans and guzzled away in a companionable silence. “The more things change the more they stay the same. Now give me a full version of what has been happening.”

We’d had three cans each before I had finished relating what was going on. All the while Dad just listened, nodded his head and asked a couple of probing questions. He didn’t get a chance to comment after as the sound of a motorbike racing through the paddocks came closer and closer. Dad bundled the cans away and handed me a Mintie. Tom roared into the yard doing doughnuts and send a willy willy of fine dust in the air. He and Eloise got off the bike and it was only then that they noticed Dad and me. Dad had a glowering look on his face but Tom spotted the empty cans and waggled his finger at Dad.

“You two had better get some of that dust off you before you go back to the house and it may pay to straighten up your clothing as well. Tom your shirt buttons are askew and Eloise perhaps the zip on your dress at the back needs to go all the way to the top.” Dad was a practical man.

We headed down to the house where two mothers were still gasbagging away. However, they were preparing lunch as they did and were so heavily involved in local political matters or gossip as we called it, they wouldn’t have noticed any out of place clothing or beery breath. Finally, around five, Eloise and her mum hopped in their car and headed off back to Karumba. Both Eloise and Tom looked heartbroken but I think only Dad and I noticed. Eloise’s mother amid all the goodbyes quietly pulled me to one side and said that she still hadn’t heard anything from Jean. She was worried but not overly so as she had raised her two daughters to be strong and independent women. I thanked her and asked if she heard anything could she please call me and I would travel anywhere to find her daughter. She looked at me suddenly understanding, and then tears began to well in her eyes. She promised me she would. She said that she was sure she’d see me again before I went back and nodded towards her daughter who was holding hands with my brother. She smiled and said she’d definitely see me again. She wished me a good Christmas and was hoping to be able to tell me that Jean would be back and come to my twentieth birthday. I said that would be the best Christmas and birthday gift I could get. She got out her hanky and was blowing her nose as they drove down the driveway.

Mum rounded on me, “What did you say to her? What did you do to upset her?”

“Upset her, Mum? We just wished each other a merry Christmas. Geez Mum, she probably just got dust up her nose. I shouldn’t have brought a fridge home. I should have brought some bloody Canberra rain.”

This time I didn’t hang around for the clip over the ear.