The House With A Thousand Stairs

By Garrick Jones

Warrambool.

In Gamilaraay, the language of the Kamilaroi peoples of north-western New South Wales, it's the word for The Milky Way. It's also the name of Peter Dixon's homestead and sheep station, situated in the lee of the Liverpool Ranges.

In 1947, Peter returns from war, his parents and younger brother dead, the property de-stocked and his older brother, Ron, having emptied out the family bank account and nowhere to be found.

The House With a Thousand Stairs is the story of a young man, scarred both on the inside and the outside, trying to re-establish what once was a prosperous and thriving sheep station with the help of his neighbours and his childhood friend, Frank Hunter, the local Indigenous policeman.

Enveloped by the world of Indigenous spirituality, the Kamilaroi system of animal guides and totems, Peter and Frank discover the true nature of their predestined friendship, one defined by the stars, the ancestral spirits, and Baiame, the Creator God and Sky Father of The Dreaming.

Maliyan bandaarr, maliyan biliirr.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Mar 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781922368362

Garrick Jones

Garrick JonesFrom the outback to the opera. After a thirty year career as a professional opera singer, performing in opera houses and in concert halls all over the world, Garrick Jones took up a position as lecturer in music at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music in Australia.Brought up between the bush and the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, he now lives in the tropics in peaceful retirement.

Book preview

MALIYAN BANDAAR, MALIYAN BILIIRR

GARRICK JONES

This is an IndieMosh book

brought to you by MoshPit Publishing

an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd

PO BOX 147

Hazelbrook NSW 2779

https://www.indiemosh.com.au/

Copyright 2020 © Garrick Jones

All rights reserved

Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author and publisher.

Disclaimer

This story is entirely a work of fiction.

No character in this story is taken from real life. Any resemblance to any person or persons living or dead is accidental and unintentional.

The author, their agents and publishers cannot be held responsible for any claim otherwise and take no responsibility for any such coincidence.

The author acknowledges the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this nation.

I would like to pay my respects to the Kamilaroi people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which this story takes place, and to honour their rich culture, their language and beliefs, which are woven throughout this story.

I would especially like to thank Michael Cochrane, Administration Manager of the Walhallow Aboriginal Corporation Clinical Services, who kindly read the first draft of this story to make sure I had neither trespassed into areas of cultural sensitivity, nor had unintentionally offended any person, living or deceased, or had caused offense to any spiritual belief or custom by the use of Language.

Maarubaa nginda, M.J.!.

GLOSSARY

Aunty, Uncle

Terms of respect for elders.

Bagala

Leopardwood Tree (Flindersia maculosa)

Baiame

Creator God or Sky Father. (also Baayami)

Bambul

Native Orange Tree (Capparis mitchellii)

Bandaarr

Grey Kangaroo.

Baraan

Boomerang.

Bibil

Box Gum tree.

Bilaar

Spear, warrior.

Biliirr

Black Cockatoo.

Buguthagutha

Mopoke. (Ninox novaeseelandiae). Also Bulul and Yithiyan.

Buurra

Or Bora. A special place, or ceremony, where boys are initiated into manhood.

Dharramulan

Dharramulan is the one-legged son of Baiame

Dhulu

Message stick.

Galamaay

Brother. More general term, may be or either older or younger.

Gamilaraay

The language spoken by the peoples of the Kamilaroi Nation.

Gandjibal

Policeman (loan word from English constable).

Garriya

The Rainbow Serpent. He has the head of a crocodile and the body of a snake.

Gawarrgay

The Coal Sack, a dark emu-shaped patch in the night sky, near the Southern Cross. The Spirit Emu.

Giwiirr

Aboriginal man.

Gulubaa

Coolibah Tree (Eucalyptus microtheca).

Gunidjarr

Aunt, mother's sisters, sometimes mother. Respectful term.

Maliyan

Eagle Hawk (Aquila audax) .

Mayan

Water hole.

Murrgu

Swamp Oak, Belah Tree (Casuarina cristata)

Muuri

Lightning.

Nhungga

Kurrajong Tree (Brachychiton populneus)

Thagaan

Brother. Specifically older brother.

Thiinyaay

Ironbark Tree

Thulumaay

Thunder.

Wanda

White man. European man.

Warrambool

The Milky Way, also water overflow of a creek or river.

Waayamaa

Old man.

Walgan

Husband's mother (mother-in-law). Aunt.

Wireenun

Shaman. Men who concerned themselves with curing illness and communicating with their dream spirits.

Wirringan

Doctor, wise man. Tribal elder.

Yaraay

The sun.

Yarraaman

Horse.

Yuruun

Road, scar.

Part One

Coming Home

1. THE HOUSE

How many steps are there, sweetheart?

A hundred, Mummy.

No, Petey, she replied. Count them for Mummy.

One, two, three, four … a hundred, um … a thousing?

She laughed. No, my darling, not a hundred, or a thousand. There are just six!

Where’s Daddy?

Inside. Do you want to go see him?

Yes please, Mummy.

Come on, then, she said, standing at the foot of the stairs, holding out her hand. He took it, and one by one they climbed the six stairs to the front veranda of Warrambool, the single-storied, sprawling house after which the property, Warrambool Station, was named.

Let’s count them together, my love. Her voice was as bright as the sun in the cloudless sky.

One. Two. Three. Four … Five?

Yes, Peter, five comes after four, and what comes next? The top step is number …?

Thousing!

She picked him up in her arms, laughing as she twirled him around, her long blonde hair catching the sunlight.

He remembered it as if it was yesterday. Could that day on the stairs with his mother have been twenty-six years ago, when he was barely three years old?

She, his father, and his baby brother Mitchell now all dead, his older brother Ronald disappeared, and now just him and Warrambool Station all that was left of their life as a family.

Never forget, my angel, his mother had said that night as she’d tucked him into bed. Even though we live in a house with six steps up to the veranda, it would be the same if it did have a thousand. We’d still have to start at the bottom and move up one step at a time.

One step at a time. He’d never forgotten those words. Neither had he forgotten that everything has a start, and the beginning is the first of many steps to get where you want to go, be it six, or a thousand.

*****

He sat on the veranda at the left-hand side of the wide front door, his back against the weatherboard wall, his arse planted on a small area of floorboards he’d cleared by brushing the red dust away with his hat.

Idly rubbing the toe of his boot around in the muck, he wondered how such a beautiful, well-kept house had fallen into such a state of neglect after only seven years of lying empty. His parents had left the house in 1940 to drive Mitchell into town to the hospital with a suspected ruptured appendix. It was a trip that should have taken an hour at the most, despite the torrential rain. The hospital staff and the doctor had waited twice that length of time before they’d thought to telephone the local police station.

A few hours later, they’d been laying out bodies. His mother had been the last to go. She’d survived for two days before succumbing to her injuries. According to the letter he’d received from Harry Turner, the family solicitor, she’d told the police from her hospital bed his father had swerved in the rain to miss a cow and her calf who’d escaped their flooded paddock and who were standing in the middle of the road, right at the entrance to Samson Creek. She’d said the car had fallen down the side of the bridge, landing upside down and then had rolled onto the driver’s side. She was the only one who’d survived because of the way the car had tipped over, trapping her, but leaving her head above the water level.

I had only been five months after he’d gone when it had happened, and it was another two before news had reached him. The subbie, who hadn’t been much older than him, had called him into his tent and handed him the letter, which the lieutenant had already read. Sorry, old chap, he’d said and had then sat with Pete with his arm around his shoulder while he’d bawled his eyes out.

He’d had nightmares for weeks, imagining his mother injured and trapped in the car, water swirling around her, unable to do anything, knowing her husband and her youngest child were dead at her side.

He hadn’t heard a word from his older brother, who’d been working in a protected industry in the city at the time. He’d had a follow-up letter from the solicitor, telling him Ron had come back to the bush, packed up the house, sold off the stock and most of the farm machinery, and had then cleared out the homestead’s property account when he’d got back to Sydney with a cheque he’d written to himself, predating it to before their parents had died. Their dad had always left three or four signed blank cheques in the book for Mum for just in case.

Jesus, Ron, Peter had said out loud, after reading the letter a second time, back in his tent. You selfish, selfish bastard.

Who’s Ron? his mate, Morrie Brown, had asked.

He used to be my brother.

He die or something?

No, but he fucking-well will once I get home, Peter had growled.

Weeds grew up to the level of the floorboards of the veranda from flowerbeds that had been his mum’s pride and joy. Despite the low annual rainfall in the area, the Gagilgali creek ran behind the homestead, snaking its way round the house in a future oxbow lake formation. The Aboriginal name for the creek meant something like bad water. The local mob had called it such to discourage white squatters marking out their selections back in the last century. No one but the elders remembered its original name before white man invasion. Peter had always supposed it was a sacred name, only muttered between those who had permission to say it—they’d always been evasive whenever he’d asked.

The creek was connected by a system of galvanised iron pipes to two huge tanks that supplied water to the house, the gardens, the orchard, and the veggie garden, and which were topped up in dry weather by a windmill connected to a bore. Probably all now empty and the pipes blocked, he thought. He’d noticed the pump was gone. It had always been housed in its own open-sided wooden box underneath the tank stands. The gearbox of the windmill looked broken from down below, but until he could climb up and see what’s what, he wouldn’t know for sure. The chain holding the swivel gear hadn’t been attached, so the blades were still able to turn into the wind, otherwise the whole kit and caboodle would have been shreds of metal on the ground around the base of the tower.

More shit to shovel, he said to himself as he stared out over the expanse of brown- and straw-coloured grass that had been his mother’s labour of love—her perfect green lawn in the outback. On either side of the gate to the house yard, two huge peppercorn trees waved in the slight breeze. Bundles of pale pink berries in clusters peeped out between the finely cut, dark-green leaves of the trees. Even though he sat thirty feet away, he knew he could close his eyes and remember the distinctive smell of the peppercorns’ crushed leaves and feel the hardness of the small, dark-brown seeds that lay within their crisp, brittle, pink shells, which came away like paper when rubbed between his hands.

He noticed a cloud of red dust off in the distance, at the top of the hill. A car had crested the rise. The main road stopped at the creek behind the house, only crossable in a drought, so Peter knew it had to be coming his way, unless it turned onto the old stock track at the foot of the range and then headed over to Parliament Park, the adjoining property to his own.

Cicadas started their rhythm thrumming. It made him smile. He’d forgotten that sound. It wasn’t hot enough for them to synchronise their beats just yet. He looked at his watch—half past ten—too early. Maybe around lunchtime when it got up into the eighties they’d start their synchronised thrumming.

He’d wandered around the home yard and the nearby sheds before he’d come to sit in the shade on the veranda. Everything was locked up. That’s what he hoped the car would be bringing—keys to the house, the sheds, and the garage. The large storage shed, which his father had used as a hay barn for many years, was packed to the rafters with boxes and objects covered in tarpaulins. He’d peered through the crack between its two huge doors but hadn’t been able to see much. It was stacked solid to within a few feet of the walls. The garage was the same—although through a small rust hole in the galvanised iron walls, he’d seen two vehicles high off the ground covered in canvas. His dad’s Bentley and the farm truck up on blocks most likely. At least his brother hadn’t flogged those.

He took his makings pouch from his pocket and rolled a smoke, lit it, and then stood, dusting off the red dirt from the seat of his pants. With one hand, he hoisted himself up onto the veranda rail, holding onto one of the roof support posts with the other, and then peered out over the home paddock. The car was definitely coming this way, no more than ten minutes off. Enough time to wander through the veggie patch and the orchard once more before he headed up to the gate while he thought about priorities.

The first of one thousand stairs—which should it be?

Somewhere to sleep while he did things? There was the old kitchen, as his family had called it, separated from the homestead by a breezeway. It was the way back then in the days of his grandfather. They’d been afraid of fire, so the cooking areas were always well separated from the main house. There was a cot in one of its two rooms and a small fuel stove in the other—he’d camp out there until he got the main house back into shape.

After his grandparents had died, his dad and mum had moved into it from their old residence, Alexandria. It was a two-bedroom cottage near the creek in the northern paddock. He’d have stayed down there, rather than in the old kitchen, except the year before he’d left to join the army, it had been partially destroyed by a grass fire.

Second thing on his list of things to do was to get the water flowing. You couldn’t do anything without water. No, he decided, scratching the bark of a sad-looking apricot—it was green under the skin, it’d come good with a decent drink—connecting water to the house could wait until he’d fixed the truck. He needed to get in and out of town. Although it was only an hour by car, he couldn’t depend on other people to deliver everything for him.

So, the first job was to clean out the old kitchen, after that he’d sort out the cars and then water—he could bathe in the creek and bring water up to the house in buckets until the other things were organised.

The main gate to the homestead from the road was one of those broad, tubular steel affairs, with crosshatched wire stringing. As a kid, he and his mate Frank used to sit on it and swing it open and closed endlessly, only stopping when his father yelled out to tell them to stop. Frank—what had ever become of his best friend Frank, who he hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years? He ran his hand over the topmost rail and smiled. Some of those memories had kept him going during the war.

He climbed up onto the gate and sat there waiting, swinging his legs, and then waved lazily when the car finally came into view. The keys had arrived, and with them, Sparrow, his dad’s old army mate from the first Great Stoush. His real name was Gerald Williams, but everyone called him Sparrow, because that’s what he looked like—skinny and short, as if a slight breeze would blow him over and roll him to the other side of the road.

He didn’t move when the car pulled up. A tall, thickset lad, probably about eighteen or nineteen, got out of the passenger seat, grunted at Peter, and then unfastened and swung the gate open with Peter still sitting on it.

Those yours? the boy grunted, nodding at Peter’s luggage.

Unless there’s some other bastard lurking in the bushes, yes, they’re mine, Peter said, pretending to look around as if there might be someone else hiding nearby. Taking the piss … he’d never lost his sardonic wryness, not even in the toughest situations.

The boy grunted again and then picked up Peter’s two large suitcases, which had been dumped at the gate by the stock agent who didn’t want to risk his tyres over the cattle grate, and threw them in the tray of Sparrow’s ute.

That one too? the boy asked, pointing to a tea chest, which was so heavy it had taken both Peter and the agent all of their strength to lift it from his truck and put on the ground.

Let me give you a hand, Peter said, grabbing the top rail of the gate, ready to jump down.

Save your strength, the boy replied and then hoisted the chest into his arms and deposited it next to the suitcases in the back of the ute before getting back into the front seat next to Sparrow, who’d been watching, lazily drumming his fingers on the steering wheel with a look of dry amusement hovering at the corners of his eyes.

Close the gate, Sparrow called out of the window of his ute as he drove past Peter, down to the house.

Peter smirked. Same old, same old. He leaped down from the gate and then closed it, rolled another smoke before taking his time to saunter down to the house where Sparrow and his young mate were waiting, seated on the third of a thousand stairs.

Heard you was back, Sparrow said.

No you didn’t, you lying bastard. I saw you watching me when I got off the train. You were yakking with the Elders Smith man outside the post office when I came out of the station.

Sparrow snorted. Maybe I seen you, maybe I didn’t.

Who’s this?

Who do you think it is, Pete?

If I had any bloody idea, I wouldn’t waste my breath asking. He stared at the lad. Pale straw-coloured hair, ginger stubble, and a bit of the same colour hair poking out of the top of his shirt. Sky-blue eyes.

Well, stone the crows! Is this Eric? Your boy all grown up?

Gidday, Mr. Dixon, the boy said. Thought you probably didn’t remember me.

Sorry, mate. How long’s it been? You could only have been eight or nine when I last saw you. Big bastard, aren’t you, Eric, Peter said, smiling, yet a little sad at the same time.

So much had changed since he’d walked down the front stairs to get into the farm truck to be driven to the railway station by his dad. Eight years ago, was it? And here was little Eric, who used to turn up out of nowhere, run ragged around the house, and end up in the kitchen with Peter’s mother feeding him something she’d put together out of the pantry.

How was it? Sparrow asked.

What, the trip from Sydney?

No, you dag, the war?

How was yours?

That good, huh? Sparrow replied.

Worse. That was the end of the conversation as far as Peter was concerned.

Who locked up the sheds, Sparrow?

Me and the boy.

Why?

Because that arsehole of a brother of yours wanted to sell everything, that’s why.

I haven’t heard from him, Peter said.

Since when?

Since I walked out this door behind you on the third of November, 1939.

Jesus! Sparrow said softly under his breath. Showed up here less than a week after your parents died with two of his pals and packed up the house. Three days later this couple turned up from Sydney—business looking man and his pretty wife. That’s why he stored all the furniture in the shed. Made it look like the house was empty. Tried to get them to buy the property and then slugged your solicitor, Harry Turner, in the face when he wouldn’t give him the deeds.

How fucking dare he! Peter said.

He’d never been fond of his brother. They were like inhabitants from two different planets. But selling the house from under his feet? In his father’s will, Peter and his brother Mitchell were to inherit Warrambool Station, and if either of the two of them died first, the house and the property went to the other. The sheep station was his, not his brother’s. Ron had cashed in his inheritance when he’d turned twenty-one, three years before Peter had joined up for the war. Told his parents he wanted to start a business in the big smoke, so they’d paid him out. He’d signed a contract renouncing any further claim on the estate, but along with Peter and Mitchell continued to receive a percentage of the wool cheque.

The house is mine, Sparrow, Peter said angrily. Same with the land, all twenty thousand acres of it. I’ve got nothing in the world except Warrambool Station. How bloody-well dare he try to take it away from me.

Anyway, me and Blue came out here and changed the locks on the house, chained up the garage and the shed. We all thought he’d come back, even though Sergeant Thompson had put a warrant out for him for clearing out your father’s bank account and for punching Harry Turner in the nose.

Blue? Is that what you call your son? Couldn’t you have thought of a better moniker for Eric?

That was my idea, the boy said. Got sick and tired of being called ‘Eric the Red’ at school.

Peter laughed. Morley still around, Sparrow? He wanted to visit the cop shop soon, to try to find out from Sergeant Thompson how he could trace his brother. As far as Peter was concerned, Ron had stolen from him. Brother or no brother, he wanted his money back. By law, the money in the station business account should have been his too.

Yeah, Morley’s still around, but he’s got an offsider now, someone from the past who dragged his ragged arse back into town right after the war.

Who? Anyone I know?

Sparrow smiled. Let’s open your front door and see what the damage is, young fella.

There was something about the look in Sparrow’s eye that made Peter wonder why the hell he’d changed the conversation so abruptly.

The new copper?

Here’s the key, Sparrow said and then, as Peter put it in the lock to open the door, Old mate of yours, I believe.

Who?

Frank Hunter. You remember him … skinny kid. His mother was Florrie, the Aboriginal woman shacked up with Arthur Hunter over at Parliament Park, and who your mother took such a shining to. She and her little fella were here more than they were over with Arthur from what I remember.

He was my best mate, Sparrow. I’ve never stopped thinking of Frank. Disappeared way back. Florence took him away with her people because his father was trying to send him off to some boarding school for white boys.

Old man Hunter died right after you went away to war. Parliament Park should be Frank’s you know. You was the first person he asked after when he came to work here.

Really? I loved his mum. Florence used to teach us kids Gamilaraay. ‘Language’ she called it. She was such a bonzer woman—always lots of hugs against her huge bosom. Although she was really dark, Frank was pale, took a lot after his father. But, he’s a policeman now? Who’d have thought it?

Isn’t that why you fought a war, Pete? Black, white, yellow, brown, they’re all pink and purple on the inside.

Peter nodded. He and Sparrow had seen men torn into pieces, their innards spread across the ground. We’re all the same when we’re dead, he thought. It’s only the living who pass judgement on the shade of the covering over our bones and guts.

*****

He’d never understood why a house in the bush had shutters on all the French doors that led out of every room onto the wide veranda surrounding it. It’s not as if they had cyclones this side of the ranges, or tornados, or any weather worthy of external protection.

However, he was glad of it when he eventually got into the house. Apart from a thick layer of dust everywhere, the house was in perfect condition. Only a few spider webs in the corners of the high ceilings and small piles of soot in the fireplaces.

You looked after all this? Peter asked.

Yeah. After Ron appeared out of the blue and then pissed off again just as quickly, I had this feeling in my gut you’d survive and come home. Put caps on the chimneys to stop the birds nesting and bolts on the insides of the shutters, so no one could force them open.

How did you know I’d come home?

Mary Hudson, over at Pebble Downs, told me.

Peter grunted. He’d been brought up accepting the local Aboriginals simply knew things.

Even after the telegram? I knew it got sent. I was only grateful Mum and Dad were already dead. I can’t imagine how much Mum would have worried.

We had plenty of them whatchamacallits … MIAs. You was the only one what came home though. Thanks for letting me and the missus know, Pete. Mrs. Sparrow was beside herself those three months until we heard from you.

Got lost—you know what it’s like. Guns, shells, smoke, bombs … lost my mates and lost my way.

Hard getting back to base, then? I seen that a lot in my time too.

Not half.

You’re the last to come home, Peter. My nephew, Dick, got back in September of forty-five. I won’t ask why you waited two years to return. I’m sure there’s a good reason, and it’s none of my business.

Couldn’t let go the army life, Sparrow. Despite the shit we went through, I had nothing else. I couldn’t bring myself to come back here to the property—all my family dead. I hope you won’t be cranky with me, but I’ve been back in Sydney for about six months while I tried to decide what to do. I signed on for an extended stay at the end of the war. A year in demobbing and a few tribunals and a court martial or two to testify at in Japan before they shipped me home to clean up the walking wounded here—

Don’t need to know, mate. No one likes to talk about that rubbish, Sparrow said, clamping his hand on Peter’s shoulder. Vicious bastards those Nips, Pete. Glad there’s no bits missing.

Peter thanked him with a nod. No one talked about that shit if they could help it. Only those who’d spent their time sitting in mess tents, or had been laid up with the clap, bragged about other men’s deeds and claimed them as their own.

Anyway, Sparrow, thanks for looking out for everything. I suppose I could have come home to nothing, if you hadn’t locked it all up.

Bullet through your brother’s hat helped him on the way.

You shot at him?

He came looking for me before he took off. Knocked on the back door and scared the bejezus out of Mrs. S. Wanted to know if I could put him up for the night because he knew the cops was looking for him. I told him to piss off and if he ever came back up country I’d see him upside down in a ravine somewhere out of town. Took a swing at me, so I kicked him in the balls and put a bullet through his hat.

Despite the seriousness of it, Peter laughed. Did he run?

Of course he did, Pete. ‘No one will ever know where you were, Ron,’ I called out after him in the dark. ‘Only have to throw your body into the pigsty for their dinner—they don’t mind a bit of long pork’.

Whereas Peter didn’t get on with Ron when they were kids, Sparrow hated him. Ron had molested his niece at a weekend picnic, and although he’d sworn he hadn’t touched the girl, everyone in the area knew he had an eye for the young ones. Ron was a coward, always had been. Full of braggadocio—piss and wind, as Sparrow used to say—all hot air and no action.

Let’s not talk of my brother, mate. I’ll find him in my own time and I’ll make him pay. He’s left me with two-hundred quid—that’s all I saved from my wages—and a bit of a war pension. How the hell am I going to cope with all this?

With the help of your mates, you dingbat. We don’t take to strangers, but family is family, even if none of us is related. Now, Mrs. S. has—

The phone rang.

I thought the G.P.O. told me it would be two months—

Just go answer it, Sparrow said.

Hello? Peter said into the receiver.

Hello, Mr. Dixon, it’s Eric here … hang on a second.

Hello? a woman’s voice said. Is that you, Peter? It’s Mavis Barton, at the telephone exchange. Welcome home.

Hello, Mrs. Barton. This is a huge surprise. I wasn’t expecting the phone for—

Eric’s connected the line on the pole outside your house. I told him to do it and be damned with the rules. It was disconnected not long after your parents … I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—

It’s okay, Mrs. Barton. Thank you for your kind thoughts.

"Okay, Peter? Such an odd word to hear from an Aussie boy. Too much time with those American lads."

Something like that.

I’ve put you down on the mail run again. Twice a week out your way. Would you like a loaf of bread with it? The baker’s stopped his runs now, and your mother used to do her own baking … that is, unless you’ve come back from the war with skills in the kitchen we don’t know about?

No, Mrs. Barton, still hopeless.

Well, we’ll sort you out, don’t worry. I have to go now, but you’ll have free calls until the official connection by the G.P.O. And, yes, I’ll look forward to seeing you on Thursday. Goodbye.

Thursday? Peter said, staring at the telephone receiver.

Sparrow was pootling around in the old kitchen when Peter found him, poking at the stove. He had all the top burner plates removed and was scraping soot from their bottoms.

Warrambool Station’s back on the map, Sparrow said, carefully replacing the plates with the cast iron stove handle. Lots of returned men humping the bluey again. The shearer’s quarters are on the list if anyone comes by, unless you’d rather not?

Nah, she’ll be right, Peter said. I’ll check them out a bit later and see what’s in there. There used to be an old stove, like this one, and some camp stretchers and a tap. Times are tough again? I thought the country was all get up and go.

Lot of men running away. You and I both know that. Some blokes, they never can stop trying to escape—even if it is only memories. A day’s work for a bed and a hot meal. Think you can manage if any call past?

Yeah, of course. Say, Sparrow, what’s on Thursday?

Ah! Mrs. S. said to tell you, you’re to put on your best clobber and turn up at the C.W.A. hall in town at half past twelve on the dot.

What for?

Well, you’re the last of our boys to come home and they want to say hello.

And?

And so we can plan a working party to help you get back on your feet. The ladies will clean and show you how to manage the day-to-day stuff of looking after a house, and us blokes will tidy up outside. We boys will carry the furniture back in the house and fix the fences. Someone’s got to get the pipes down to the creek cleaned out and the electric pump working. It’s what we do, Pete. We might all live tens of miles apart, but we look after our own.

Jeez, Sparrow, I don’t know what to say.

Nothing. There’s nothing to say. Now come on up to the windmill and give Eric a hand. We’ll see if the gearbox is stuffed, or if it merely needs oiling. We’ll prime her up and see if we can’t get some water into your tanks. When I go back to town, I’ll order five ton of coke from Tamworth. They’ll drop it off at the railway siding later in the week and I’ll pick it up in my truck and bring it over. You’ll be able to get your big Aga going. Think of it! Hot water!

Peter put his arms around his dad’s best mate and hugged him, his head over his shoulder, trying not to cry. No blokes shed tears … unless it was for a fallen comrade, and he’d done his fair share of that.

Thanks, Sparrow, he whispered.

Any time, lad. Now get up there and lend Eric a hand. After that, we’ll have a look-see at the generator—I hid it away on the tray of the truck in the garage. There’s a ten-gallon drum of petrol in the back of my ute that’ll keep you going until you can pick up a forty-four in town later on. Shouldn’t take long to get some power down to the house. But, I wouldn’t turn on any lights in the main house until we can get someone up in the ceiling to check the cables. Blasted mice have been terrible since the drought. At least you can start charging up your battery rack in the meantime, and the ceiling lights in the old kitchen should be safe to turn on. The power line goes straight into the wall.

Are you sure? Don’t want to bugger the generator if there’s a short.

You think I didn’t call past a few days ago and have a look?

But how did you know—? Peter stopped mid-sentence as Sparrow tapped the side of his nose with one finger. Bush telegraph. He’d only decided to come back a week ago and the only person who’d known was the family solicitor. Nothing was private in small outback towns—he’d forgotten how much people cared for their own.

You all right, young fella?

Peter sighed before replying. Was just thinking something.

Yes, Pete?

"How am I going to get into town