‘Charlie!’
A hare scurried. Katie took off after it. Mick called her back, made her sit, slipped her a dog biscuit. They walked on beneath the stringybarks, sun belting down, cicadas drilling their ears.
‘Charl-eee!’
His shouts barely audible above the metallic roar, Mick peered into thickets and clumps of brambles. No glossy black and brown dog came bounding out to greet him. He checked his watch, twenty-five past. You fucking little mongrel.
‘CHARL-EEE!’
2
They took the dusty back road at the sign that said Boory Williams Dam 8 miles. Ten minutes later Hal watched his dad check the rear-view mirror and grin at himself as they approached the turn-off to Picnic Grounds. True, John Humphries looked good in his seersucker shirt, dark hair shiny with pomade. Imposing, even. He caught Hal watching him from the back seat and winked. Then he glanced sideways at Mum, eyes scouring her light blue dress, and shook his sleek head.
Hal was thinking how nice she looked in that dress, her wavy brown hair up in a scarf. Beautiful in a subtle way that she never thought about. You never saw her preening in the mirror, fussing with makeup. She didn’t need to. She and Dad were a nice-looking couple when they went out, and they looked good together. Even now, with no smiles or warm glances between them, the way it had been since Dad brought them all to Moorabool. The land of milk and honey, he’d said. God’s own country. Mum said nothing, just looked at him with a pained expression.
She was watching Dad as he belted out ‘The Scottish Soldier’ in a forlorn Scottish accent. Hal didn’t mind his dad’s singing, by and large. At least it meant no smoking for the time it took Dad to run through his medley of golden oldies. And to be honest, Hal loved being in the car. It was a gleaming new bronze and white Studebaker GT Hawk, and Hal loved it: its crisp smelling white leather seats and futuristic lines. The way people gaped at it when they went cruising past—an American two-door sports coupe? What in God’s name was it doing way out here in the boondocks? That’s what he hoped they were saying, and not ‘ratbags’ or ‘wankers’.
But by the fourth chorus of that daft song Mum looked like her smile ached, and she asked if they could have the radio on instead. ‘Scottish Soldier’ stopped. Dad glowered into the mirror.
‘What, we can’t even have a bit of fun for a change?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Can’t it be fun with the radio on—for a change?’
He snapped it on, shuffling stations for the crappiest tune he could find. They sat there, mute, while a polka oom-pahpahed into their eardrums until she jabbed the off button.
Dad resumed belting out ‘Scottish Soldier’, waving his boys along, victory grin on his face.
‘He travelled farrrr a-wee, to pleeces farrrr a-wee…’
The last time they’d seen Doug Slocombe was when Dad brought him around to their home in Sydney one night, way back in January. The men were well primed when they stumbled in late for dinner, Doug full of apologies. Over Mum’s apple and rhubarb crumble he had regaled them with tales of his travels out west with the new wing of the company. He was going places in Moorabool, he reckoned. It had really shot up since he lived there as a kid.
Hal knew the town held bittersweet memories for Doug: his parents had been killed in a car crash with a ute full of drunken teenagers. Doug once told Dad that he and his sister Evelyn had been trundled off to separate foster homes—Ev had grown up somewhere in Melbourne, Doug in a dozen houses in Sydney, none of them home, until lucky thirteen on the Central Coast. He’d grown up there with a decent older couple, both passed on now. Yet his old hometown had pulled Doug back, so when the opportunity came up to work there with Prime West, he’d grabbed it with both hands.
‘You can take the boy out of Moorabool, but you can’t take Moorabool outa the man,’ he’d said, after another beer or two. Besides, hick town no longer, it was a regional centre now; it would be the pumping heart of New England one day, he reckoned. Maybe Johnny should think about moving there too… get out of the rat-race, into the wide-open spaces? Get some real country air into your lungs? Doug raised an eyebrow at his mate and Dad coughed and went quiet for a while. Suspiciously quiet. Hal thought he actually saw the idea take root in Dad’s mind. And, from the way she just gritted her teeth and quietly seethed, he knew that Mum had seen it too.
Nearly a whole year later, Dad had just been made Doug’s supervisor and they joked about how recently it had been the other way around. Dad joked at any rate, and Doug grinned along. He could find something funny in most things, Doug, even when it was at his expense.
Now, as they approached Picnic Ground 1, Hal spotted Doug, with his trademark curtain of blond hair hanging over his tanned forehead, standing at the crease of the cricket pitch, bat poised, as a scrawny bloke in a green terry-towelling hat trundled down the pitch and bowled a bouncer at him. Doug smacked the ball over the head of the acne-faced teenage boy standing behind the stumps. The other two fielders—Hal presumed they were sixth-formers—were a big solid redheaded boy with an owlish expression and a dark-haired lad with brooding matinee idol looks. James Dean glared at the redhead.
‘Your turn, Teddy. Go and get it.’
Teddy lumbered reluctantly after the ball, which had stopped just short of the boundary rail, as Black-hair yelled, ‘Move your fat arse, Teddy!’ Doug and his batting partner were still running and calling out, ‘One and…two and… three and…’
Catching sight of the Humphries clan, Doug stopped and waved his bat at them.
Hal gave a shy wave back, then Evan yelled, ‘Doug!’ He dodged around the astonished Terry-Towelling-Hat Man and charged up to him. Doug dropped his bat, took Evan’s arms and whirled him around in circles before setting him down and groaning about how heavy he was getting now he’s what, thirteen, fourteen?
Evan laughed. ‘No, Hal’s twelve, I’m only eight!’
‘Eight! Pull the other one.’ He turned to Mr Terry-Towel-ling, ‘I’m declaring, Stew. Fifty-three not out.’
‘You can’t declare yet!’ Stew stood, hands on outraged hips, but Doug was already offering the bat to the red-haired boy.
‘I’m no good, give it to Blacky,’ the redhead muttered as Blacky sauntered up, grabbed the bat from Doug and took his place at the crease like he was God’s gift to cricket.
Doug walked over with Evan to Hal and his mum just as Dad sauntered up, swinging the esky. Dad raised his pack of Lucky Strike by way of greeting.
‘Douglas.’
‘John.’ Doug took a cig, parked it jauntily behind his ear and turned to Hal’s mum with a mock bow. Hal saw her face light up.
‘Here she is, Queen of the Clan. How’s our little village treating you, Corrie?’
‘Fine, Doug, I’m…We’re getting used to it.’
‘It’ll grow on you. Johnny loves the place. Hey, mate?’
Dad held his hands up high to show how much he did.
‘And look at Hal. Crikey, a young man already. You got a girl yet?’
‘No,’ Hal said, ears burning. ‘Have you?’ It came out as an embarrassing squeak, though it was hugely funny to Doug.
‘Touché. Cheeky bugger!’ He thumped Hal’s shoulder.