Five for a Rainy Sunday

By Christopher Slatter

A tale of the Australian outback, a war fought entirely at the will of sponsors, a fractured fairy tale and more. Five short stories to while away a rainy Sunday

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Slatter
• Release date: Dec 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301871988

Christopher Slatter

I have been a professional writer since I was 17 years old. I have been an advertising copywriter, film director, teacher of screenwriting and a television producer. I have worked for some of the world's largest advertising agencies in Australia and the UK before attending the London Film School for two years. A career as a director of television commercials and short films followed before returning to Australia to take up the post of creative director of a small agency in Melbourne. Following an invitation to direct a series for Australian television, I returned to the screen. Then in 1990 I went back to university, studying geology, horticulture, environmental science and plant genetics. I am also a writer of science fiction with several published stories. I hold dual British and Australian citizenship. I have two (very large) children which are the joy of my life

Book preview

Five for a Rainy Sunday

5 short stories by

Christopher Slatter

Copyright Christopher Slatter 2012

http://www.onemightypen.com

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Table of Contents

Con the Bastard and his Gang

Lucky

Trade Wars

Jack

Last Train To Brighton

Con the Bastard and his Gang

‘Struth, who'd be a shearer!

For the previous month I had broken my back along with the others in Con the Bastard's shearing gang in the wool shed at Boonoke. It was a huge property, one of Rupert Murdoch's indulgences and it ran over two hundred thousand Merinos. It was so big they once lost a flock of two thousand sheep and had to take the plane up to find them. Even then it took two hours of aerial surveying to locate them and then call the drovers in. The mustering and holding yards were each big enough to house the Royal Easter Show and when we pulled up in Gummy Smith's old truck that first day the air was so full of dust the drovers had tied handkerchiefs over their mouths. They whistled and yipped at the dogs, driving them almost insane with excitement. The dogs were running along the fence rails and over the sheep's backs with their tongues lolling out. It was better than a circus.

There were twenty of us in the shearing gang. I'm the ringer, the gang's gun shearer. I'd worked with most of them before in previous seasons, so it was easy to fall into a routine. You need a routine when you're shearing because it's the only thing that keeps you sane. It's a pig of a life, spending ten hours a day crouched over sheep with sweat in your eyes and your back so cricked you think you'll never straighten up. But like the great Banjo Paterson said, it's better than being an office worker and, to tell the truth, not one of us would swap the life for anything.

We'd just finished two weeks shearing at Hightrees and had driven all night to make it on schedule in Deniliquin. None of us had had any sleep when we pulled up at Boonoke, but that didn't stop Con going straight in to see Bill Stokes, the manager. Stokes came out of his office with Con fussing along behind him as we stamped our feet by the truck.

Goo'day, fellers, how’re you doing? he smiled. Ready for it? Bill Stokes inclined his head towards the sea of sheep in the yards.

Before we could reply Con had stepped in, We're ready, Mr Stokes. We'll start right away.

Okay, stow your gear and be in the woolshed in… Bill Stokes pulled out the old fashioned watch he kept on the end of a chain in his waistcoat pocket. He flicked open the lid and considered it for a moment, …in an hour, no, make that an hour-and-a-half. He'd noticed that we all looked a bit knackered and knew that we'd use the time to snatch some sleep. He was good like that, old Stokes.

We grabbed our carryalls and nearly ran to the shearers’ huts, so desperate were we to put our heads down. Boonoke was an old property, nearly as old as Wanganella the property nearby where George Peppin had bred the original Australian Merinos in the 1800's. The woolshed was a museum piece and the silky oak floors and walls gleamed like they'd been freshly oiled. It was the lanolin in the wool, the same stuff that makes shearers' hands softer than a woman's. The shearers' line was quite comfortable, neat little huts with two beds apiece and lined ceilings so you only cooked a little bit instead of baking like you did on other properties.

I bunked in with Portmanteau Jack because I knew I'd always be right for a drink from the huge portable bar he took shearing. The other blokes paired off and soon there was silence. As I fell asleep I wondered who had been landed with Gross Maurie and how long this unfortunate would put up with his nocturnal farting and belching. I'd had the misfortune to bunk in with him myself a couple of seasons before and had taken my mattress into the woolshed after the first night.

He was called Gross Maurie for his generosity with his bodily gasses and also to differentiate him from Maurie the Thumb, another member of the gang. We're a weird mob, that's for sure.

It felt like I'd no sooner closed my eyes when Con's alarm clock went off. It was a huge monstrosity with two gleaming brass bells. Con would sit it in a steel washbasin and when it went off you could hear it a mile away. There were always plans afoot to steal it and throw it in a dam, but Con guarded it like it was the Crown Jewels and wouldn't let anyone else within a yard of it. We all grabbed our hand pieces and ran for the woolshed because we knew that Con liked to judge things very finely, sometimes leaving us only a couple of minutes to get to work.

The woolshed at Boonoke is two-storeyed. The shearing is done on the upper deck which is set out in the shape of the letter T. The sheep are driven up a ramp from the holding yards below and held in pens. There's a pen for each shearer, with a swinging gate along the horizontal gallery. The classing table and the bins are situated in the vertical portion of the T.

Shearing is brutal work. You never get a break because your pen is always full and no sooner have you separated a sheep from its fleece and called the rouseabout to throw it on the classing table when you feel the beady eye of Con upon you. Con's the classer as well as the team leader and he's always making outrageous claims to property managers about how many sheep his gang can shear in a day. He's a devil when he gets on the grog.

After we’d been shearing for the best part of a month and settled into a routine word got about that Con had a bet on with the manager. We despatched the rouseabout to see what he could extract from the manager's secretary. She was on the wistful side of thirty with the hips and eyes of an experienced woman and the rouseabout was a young man and not bad looking if you ignored his missing front tooth.

He came back about midnight and tapped softly on my door. Jack and I were enjoying a tot of Slivovitz from genuine crystal liqueur glasses and discussing the woeful state of Balkans politics. When the rouseabout walked in and sat on the edge of my bed you could tell from the grin on his face he'd done more than just talk to her.

Now my boy, said Portmanteau Jack, selecting another glass from his portable bar and giving it a polish with the tail of his shirt, Compose yourself and tell us what you've learned. Jack always took on airs when he'd been drinking.

The rouseabout took his time, sipping the fiery liquid and rolling it around his mouth. She likes shearers, he said at last. She says we've got the softest hands. We went into the wool store and lay down on the fleeces. Then she made me take her clothes off and stroke her.

What, all over? said Jack. The rouseabout nodded. A sigh escaped from Jack's lips and I could see his eyes start to glaze over with memories of his own erotic escapades. Or perhaps he was considering having the secretary over himself for a nip or three.

The conversation was in danger of taking the wrong fork in the road. We don't want to know about that! I said hastily. Jack looked up as if he was going to disagree. No, I said before he could speak, Tell us about the bet, Rouseabout.

The rouseabout looked almost as disappointed as Jack that he wasn't going to have the opportunity of relating the details of his conquest. I began to feel like