vintage moth-eaten tweed overcoat.
‘You need to stop now, Charlie,’ Georgie warned.
‘It’s my hobby, Rusty,’ he said. ‘You can’t take an old chap’s only vice away from him.’
‘Take up chain-smoking instead. It helps,’ she said, and lit one to prove it.
‘You need to do something about that empty house, Mr White,’ Mrs Fulton said. ‘Another one of your windows got broken last night, and we heard kids running around in your own backyard.’
‘I’m getting around to it,’ he said.
‘You need to clean up behind your shop, Mr White,’ the bank manager said. ‘You’ve got a mouse plague out there and they’re getting into the bank.’
‘They won’t eat much,’ Charlie said.
‘I need to know what you’re planning to do about your vacant house today, Mr White,’ Hooper’s tenant said. ‘Bill Roberts just offered me his place for six months.’
Everyone knew why. Lila Roberts, a Sydney tart, wed to Billy Roberts, had taken off towards Sydney with a juvenile. Her husband was moving to the west, placing a continent between them. Their house was a dump. It didn’t deserve Hooper’s tenant. Charlie deserved him.
He offered him a ten-year lease on Jeany’s house, then gave it to him rent-free for six months, on the understanding that he’d do what he could next door with both house and garden.
Went home then for the last time, just to see what Jeany thought about what he’d done. At times he swore he heard her at night, saw her shadow in the passageway.
‘What do you reckon, Jeany love? Did I do the right thing? They’ll look after her for us.’
She wasn’t talking tonight.
He had a habit of nodding off when he sat still. He nodded off on Jeany’s couch, and woke to her singing, her voice as clear as it had been thirty years ago.
‘Charlie is my darlin’, me darlin’, me darling . . .’
She wouldn’t be calling him her darling if she hadn’t liked what he’d done. Wouldn’t call him darling if she ever found out what he’d done in Willama when her daughter had him locked up in the old fogies’ home. Some things wives need to know and some they don’t.
‘ I dream of Jeany with the light brown hair , floating like an angel on the hot summer air ,’ he sang.
J IM H OOPER
H e’d lost her son and lost her again. Lost them both a long time ago.
He’d hung on over there for her and Jimmy. Every morning when he’d opened his eyes to another day, he would lie there gathering the threads of who he was, who he’d been, then weave them into some life form that might make it through to nightfall. He’d survived those little yellow bastards for Jenny and his boy.
They’d carried him out of that camp, the bones and ulcers of him. They’d brought him back. The first faces he’d known had been his father’s, Lorna’s and weeping Maggie’s. He’d wanted Jenny and Jimmy, had asked for them.
‘She didn’t wait for you, son. She wed Henry King’s stuttering lout,’ Vern’d said.
That was when he’d run out of threads to hang on to. That was the day he’d tossed in the towel.
He lay on his caravan bed on a Saturday morning in April, searching for guts enough to get up off his back, to get his leg strapped on. No work today. No reason to get off his back, so he lay there, turning the pages of his life, flipping by most of them since the war. They were blank anyway.
Forty-six had gone missing. In ’47 they’d brought Jimmy to his hospital ward and he’d shaken his son’s hand, and learnt that his father and sisters planned to raise him. Powerless, useless, but aware that he had to stop them getting their hands on his wide-eyed boy, he’d worked out how that night. He’d written his last will and testament, stating that he wanted his son raised by Jenny, wanted his trust fund transferred to her and Jimmy. He’d woken two of his ward mates to sign as witnesses and make it into a legal document. Left it folded on his pillow and went to the bathroom
‘You need to stop now, Charlie,’ Georgie warned.
‘It’s my hobby, Rusty,’ he said. ‘You can’t take an old chap’s only vice away from him.’
‘Take up chain-smoking instead. It helps,’ she said, and lit one to prove it.
‘You need to do something about that empty house, Mr White,’ Mrs Fulton said. ‘Another one of your windows got broken last night, and we heard kids running around in your own backyard.’
‘I’m getting around to it,’ he said.
‘You need to clean up behind your shop, Mr White,’ the bank manager said. ‘You’ve got a mouse plague out there and they’re getting into the bank.’
‘They won’t eat much,’ Charlie said.
‘I need to know what you’re planning to do about your vacant house today, Mr White,’ Hooper’s tenant said. ‘Bill Roberts just offered me his place for six months.’
Everyone knew why. Lila Roberts, a Sydney tart, wed to Billy Roberts, had taken off towards Sydney with a juvenile. Her husband was moving to the west, placing a continent between them. Their house was a dump. It didn’t deserve Hooper’s tenant. Charlie deserved him.
He offered him a ten-year lease on Jeany’s house, then gave it to him rent-free for six months, on the understanding that he’d do what he could next door with both house and garden.
Went home then for the last time, just to see what Jeany thought about what he’d done. At times he swore he heard her at night, saw her shadow in the passageway.
‘What do you reckon, Jeany love? Did I do the right thing? They’ll look after her for us.’
She wasn’t talking tonight.
He had a habit of nodding off when he sat still. He nodded off on Jeany’s couch, and woke to her singing, her voice as clear as it had been thirty years ago.
‘Charlie is my darlin’, me darlin’, me darling . . .’
She wouldn’t be calling him her darling if she hadn’t liked what he’d done. Wouldn’t call him darling if she ever found out what he’d done in Willama when her daughter had him locked up in the old fogies’ home. Some things wives need to know and some they don’t.
‘ I dream of Jeany with the light brown hair , floating like an angel on the hot summer air ,’ he sang.
J IM H OOPER
H e’d lost her son and lost her again. Lost them both a long time ago.
He’d hung on over there for her and Jimmy. Every morning when he’d opened his eyes to another day, he would lie there gathering the threads of who he was, who he’d been, then weave them into some life form that might make it through to nightfall. He’d survived those little yellow bastards for Jenny and his boy.
They’d carried him out of that camp, the bones and ulcers of him. They’d brought him back. The first faces he’d known had been his father’s, Lorna’s and weeping Maggie’s. He’d wanted Jenny and Jimmy, had asked for them.
‘She didn’t wait for you, son. She wed Henry King’s stuttering lout,’ Vern’d said.
That was when he’d run out of threads to hang on to. That was the day he’d tossed in the towel.
He lay on his caravan bed on a Saturday morning in April, searching for guts enough to get up off his back, to get his leg strapped on. No work today. No reason to get off his back, so he lay there, turning the pages of his life, flipping by most of them since the war. They were blank anyway.
Forty-six had gone missing. In ’47 they’d brought Jimmy to his hospital ward and he’d shaken his son’s hand, and learnt that his father and sisters planned to raise him. Powerless, useless, but aware that he had to stop them getting their hands on his wide-eyed boy, he’d worked out how that night. He’d written his last will and testament, stating that he wanted his son raised by Jenny, wanted his trust fund transferred to her and Jimmy. He’d woken two of his ward mates to sign as witnesses and make it into a legal document. Left it folded on his pillow and went to the bathroom
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