Hal noticed Mum darting nervous looks over her shoulder towards Picnic Ground 2, where two clusters of forty or fifty people were arranged under the shade trees: men one end, women the other. Several dozen kids of all ages were playing handball or French cricket, or generally running amok.
‘Don’t worry about the natives. They’re merely curious, they won’t eat you,’ Doug told her. ‘Not unless the steak runs out.’
‘Darn. We brought sausages,’ she shrugged. For some reason Doug roared laughing.
‘Corrie? Socks up, boys, we’re going.’ Dad started moving off.
Doug swung the esky up on his broad shoulders and followed, Evan trotting alongside.
‘Can we call you Uncle Doug?’
Evan, shut your mouth, you ninny.
‘You can call me anything you like,’ Doug winked. ‘Just don’t call me late for dinner.’
Hal’s nitwit of a brother just about wet himself over that.
Hurrying across the field they caught up to a younger couple who seemed to be arguing in low voices. She was a pretty Aboriginal woman in a yellow dress and he was a tough-looking suntanned man with a Roman nose (‘roamin’ all over his face,’ Dad would say). Blue and green tattoos on the wiry forearms that stuck out below his rolled-up shirt sleeves. Trying to hide them under a long-sleeved shirt in this baking heat. Sailor, Hal thought. No, boxer.
‘That’s right, leave me with those cats all day,’ she was whingeing, ‘while you go off with the big boys. Go on—have ya fun!’
‘Jen, Jen…this mob aren’t like that.’ An oddly gentle voice, Hal thought, coming from that rough head.
‘They’re not like that to you—Champ.’ She saw them coming and looked awkwardly away.
Hal’s dad sailed over regardless. ‘Kev, how are you mate? Hello, Jenna.’
‘Hello, Mr Humphries.’ Kev smiled at him. Even Jenna was beaming, as if nothing was amiss.
‘Mate, we’re not in the office. It’s John. Right?’
‘Sure. All right, John.’ He grinned, displaying a row of straight white teeth with one missing.
Dad introduced Kev as his new rep, a mover and a shaker, then he introduced the ladies to each other. Mum shook hands with Jenna and wished them a Merry Christmas, adding, ‘Not much like a white Christmas here, is it?’
‘Oh yes it is.’ Jenna eyed the throng under the trees. ‘It’s a proper white Christmas out here. Believe you me.’
Mum laughed then, and a big grin flashed across Jenna’s face, wiping the anger away and leaving it beautiful. ‘Well, I don’t know a soul here, we can keep each other company.’
Jenna raised a wary eyebrow at Mum.
‘What? Friendliest bunch you’d ever come across, aren’t they, Kev?’
‘S’what I’ve been trying to tell her, Mr—John.’ Kev tore open his slab of beer and extracted two cans. ‘Cleansing ale, gents?’
‘Too right.’ The three men cracked the cans and said cheers.
All at once it dawned on Hal that Kev’s suntan was just his normal colour. He must be part-Aboriginal himself, even though his skin was lighter than Jenna’s.
‘Hal? Give Mrs Rickson a hand with that,’ Dad said.
She waved him off. ‘It’s OK, Hal. I’m right.’
Hal was already reaching for the esky. ‘No, I can do it.’
‘Why thank you, young man.’ Smiling at Hal, she glanced at Kev. ‘Proper gentleman.’
Kev rolled his eyes mock sadly. He walked off with the two women and Evan just behind him. Hal hung back for Dad and Doug, who were whispering over their beers. About Kev and Jenna, it seemed. Dad suddenly noticed Hal lurking. He pointed his cigarette at Jenna’s esky and Hal slunk away with it.
Under the full force of the one o’clock sun, the treeless ridge behind the derelict caravan was a blast furnace. Mick Goodenough, feeling like his service shoes had been filled with pea and ham soup, was getting fed up with this wild-goose chase. Charlie was probably back at the house by now, clawing at the front door, having the last laugh. Funny boy.
Mick was thinking he’d give it five more minutes when Katie’s ears stiffened. She lunged forward and started barking. He let her gallop all the way down the ridge to the grassy flat in her frenzy to reach a rusty 44-gallon drum lying on its side in the gravel. Katie poked her snout into it, snarling, as Mick hurried over and clipped her lead on. When he pulled her away he saw the blood—so much blood. Smelled it too, and his stomach turned. Katy let out a furious tirade, then bolted for the willow tree and the mound beneath it.
He left her tied to a branch, yowling and whimpering, as he squatted by the mound, flinging sticks and foliage aside to uncover the ripening carcass.
‘Oh no, no no,’ he groaned, his hands caressing the matted fur on the dog’s head. It was spiked with crusted blood, Charlie’s mouth frozen in a grimace.
Mick saw the ragged slash under Charlie’s throat and felt his breath hissing between his teeth. Then he spotted the glint of metal on the left side of Charlie’s jaw where the blood was black and congealed. The inch-long barb of a fishing hook protruding from the jowl, six inches of tracer line dangling off it.
Some lovely person had gone fishing for his dog. Used a steel tracer like he was out to catch mackerel. Killing him slowly wasn’t enough, he’d maimed him into the bargain. Charlie, the friendliest little German shepherd you’d ever meet.
‘Charlie,’ he murmured into the blood-encrusted ear. ‘What have they done to you?’
3
Under a red and white banner stretched between trees—Prime Foods Xmas Picnic 1966—Hal sat hunched alongside Mum and Jenna, watching Evan play chasings with a bunch of littlies. Next to the barbecues there was a marquee where kids hovered over tables laden with food and soft drinks, while a skinny man in a Santa suit and beard tried to shoo them away. Them and the flies. Other than joining the cricketers—bloody cricket—or the littlies, Hal could think of nothing that would stop him going mad with boredom.
‘What d’you think?’ Corrie said to Jenna as they watched the minor ladies paying court to a large dark-haired woman with a braying laugh. Jenna smiled awkwardly and remained seated on her blanket. When the woman spotted Corrie, she raised her wide-brimmed hat to reveal a hairdo like a black helmet and sailed past Jenna. Wiping her hand on the back of her dress, she presented it to Corrie.
‘Hello, I’m Dianne Curio,’ she said, sounding like the Duchess of Kent’s country cousin. ‘Mrs Humphries, I expect?’ ‘Corrie. Lovely to meet you at last, Dianne. John has nothing but good things to say about you and Mr Curio.’
‘You too, it goes without saying!’ Her teeth parted and another bray escaped.
‘Dianne, you know Jenna Rickson?’ Corrie turned to Jenna, who’d retreated to the furthest corner of her blanket.
‘Of course.’ She flicked a glance Jenna’s way. ‘How are you dear?’
‘Good, Mrs Curio.’
‘Well, come and meet the girls, Corrie!’
Corrie looked back as Mrs Curio seized her arm and steered her into the perfumed crush, leaving Jenna kneeling on the blanket next to Hal.