Best Australian Yarn: Meckering by Julie Raffaele

The dirt road twists around stands of gum trees, morning light slivering across the mottled bark. A flock of galahs explodes skyward. She inhales at the metallic shrieking. One bird remains on the road edge; soft, rosy feathers matted by violence, head at a melancholic angle. The birds descend to forage again, in staccato twists and rolls, through the sunlit dust of the passing ute. She remembers coming to this place from far away. ‘You’re resourceful’, her mother pats her hand on the Holden’s window edge, ’soon you’ll be making puree of prickly pear and weaving grasses into cocktail gowns,’ and promises to visit. She waves gaily behind, then studies her new husband shyly, with a reticence borne of quiet desire. The freshly shaven curve of his neck, the dependable plateau of his chest beneath his cotton shirt. His dark eyes, corners crinkling. Blushing, she bathes in his richly-timbred chuckling. Wanting to please and integrate, she joyfully devours her lessons; firing the twenty-two at beer cans perched on the rocks, learning when the ute needs extra persuasion to make it to town, milking the nanny goat, ‘doing without.’ Sometimes she walks for miles through the crackling wild oats, to a granite outcrop overlooking their farm. The earth smells like warm fruitcake slashed by the tractor in vast yellow slices. Her eyes trace the Transcontinental railway line to the silos gleaming against Meckering’s turquoise sky. At the edge of the salt-pan, she awkwardly lowers her pregnant body to explore stubborn grasses piercing the crystalline crust. A black caterpillar train hastily perambulates by, nose to end, fur bristling as the rolling wave travels the length of one plump body to the next. Once sophisticated curls become windy strands, her frocks pale in the baking sun. Her mother compliments her as they hug on the railway platform – but with another parting, she descends into a loneliness so barren not even the joyful gurgles of a new baby can rouse her. She applies red lipstick as a veneer of happiness when dragged from bed to socialise. She smokes with the comforting detachment of depression. On the flickering television above the bar, a Chinook blazes orange, smeared like a moth across the steaming rice fields of Kham Duc. She grows irritated with people’s innocent apathy, and retreats, a slave to the baby’s demands. Her husband is mindful of the chasm opening in her psyche. She is secretly grateful, but perversely self-absorbed, exhausted from night feeds and increasing disagreements. She can’t curl into him anymore, she intuits fault and betrayal, and runs to her granite outcrop in the moonlight, sobbing desolately. After a feed of runny eggs and toast, the publican commences chores before the keg truck arrives. It’s time to make things ship shape – before the big November nag race quickly gallops into harvest, then Christmas and New Year and before you know it, Autumn is slapping you coldly across the face like an angry wife after your night on the tiles. Descending the carpeted stairs in shorts and thongs, he winds the grandfather clock, giving the glass a quick polish. He ritually taps the barometer before opening wide the front door of the pub to banish the smell of stale beer. Keys spin around his thick, capable fingers and within seconds the pavement grate is unlocked, swung open and the chute readied for rolling kegs to the basement. Unusually quiet today. He spies the shopkeeper crossing the street briskly. She greets him while unlocking the store. A road train growls between them, vibrating the asphalt. After lights, the ‘shop open’ sign is twisted, and newspapers bundled in, the shopkeeper takes a packet of Granitas from the overloaded top shelf. She flicks on the kettle, then flits cricket-like to her counter by the window. The publican will soon open the upstairs doors to air those ancient rooms. A few locals mill about, a green truck pulls into the servo. It may be a holiday, but milk, bread and the morning newspaper are essentials. Canned goods to extend salads for guests; judgments and scandals shared - after catching up on the Perth gossip. She reverently turns to the social pages. The cleaning caddy swings wide as the publican grips the banister to steady a twisting sensation of vertigo. Vibrations travel up his legs and photographs on the hotel wall chatter. He pauses, relieved it wasn’t a heart attack. ‘Another wobble there, love.’ ‘Damn rattling is going to make my sponges drop!’ His wife crows from the kitchen, where she peels potatoes for the Queen’s birthday roast. The landing is now coated in thick detritus disturbed by the tremor. He sighs, and begins dusting. There’s a crisp, rustling cascade of biscuit packets as the shopkeeper braces herself. Spilled wheaten circles spin across the jarrah floorboards. Instinct draws her to the doorway and the publican emerges on to the balcony. ‘You right?’ He calls, concerned. She looks up into the sunlight. ‘Tell Anne to put the kettle on, I’ve a load of broken biscuits that need seeing to.’ He waves jovially, ‘You won’t have to ask twice!’ ‘Get along.’ The farmer whistles as he alights, the truck’s ancient hydraulics wheezing. The ginger cattle dog leaps from the tray, scoots under the iron gate and flashes to the far end of the paddock. The sheep watch furtively as he swings the gate open, then pauses to rest a boot and roll a smoke. He checks the sky, judges the time about eleven, and starts thinking about a cup of coffee. He opens a leathery pouch and sprinkles the tobacco along the length of tissue, then deftly rolls the cigarette, licks and rests it between pursed lips. He pats his pockets. A phlegmatic cackle escapes as the dog dodges a ewe’s kick. His match fizzles. He strikes another, dips away from the easterly to light up. The dog trots along the boundary fence, and crouches down. Her confused whine worries him. He looks up. The sheep stand motionless, having drawn into two perfectly symmetrical groups, woolly daisy-shaped patterns, with heads silently touching in the centre. He tips his battered hat in disbelief. ‘Bloody hell.’ He studies the match burning straight and true, confused. Then a surging gust ignites sparkles of orange, and his hat whirls away, skipping across the paddock. A roar fills his ears. The farmer circles, arms extending into a fragile aeroplane, his rickety knees bending. He embraces the dog as she comes to him, tail curled. ‘It’ll be right, girl. It’s only a cockeyed bob.’ But from the north to the south it emerges, a rolling, hoisting wave, the grass rising and separating like brush bristles drawn beneath a gnarled thumb – a second, then a third. He sways with the earth, and hugs the dog tightly. The father extends his hand out the window of the green truck and the policeman shakes it warmly, asking, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ The father raises an eyebrow, drawls like a movie star, ‘I’m watching a tin star with a…drunk pinned on it.’ The bemused officer’s face becomes serious. ‘Did you feel that?’ ‘Spilled diesel down me duco.’ He motions to his gangly son, who rolls his eyes then heads inside to chalk it up. The officer begins to perfunctorily recount the events of eleven days ago, at 11.03am when the ground turned to jelly and his legs buckled up; subsequent shakes at 11.18am and 11.55am confirming his suspicions... Droning on, the father imagines his wife, her stomach puffed out, imitating the policeman to the delight of his guffawing son. ‘Constable shiny buttons’ swaggers around the kitchen like a cowboy in that flick they saw at the Piccadilly when she was beautiful and healthy. Now the bile rises in his throat when he sees her laying on the daybed, her body ravaged with evil, stinking illness. When his son slouches back into the passenger seat, he coughs to dispel the demons. The policeman hoists up his belt, asks kindly, ‘Well, where are you headed?’ The father sits calmly as John Wayne places a hand on his shoulder, and a breeze blows through the town, rendering everything silent and timeless. He smiles at his officious mate and winks, ‘To see a girl.’ In the rear vision mirror, the cop goes inside to chew the fat. His son shifts uncomfortably. ‘Dad?’ Then lowers his gaze, juvenile tears forming. ‘What are we going to do?’ He stops the truck and reaches for him. An incredible boom launches the truck then unceremoniously dumps it down. The father propels his body across the youth, who stares ahead in horror. The general store creaks sickeningly, the bricks separating as the whole facing collapses, crushing a parked sedan. The shopkeeper emerges and stumbles across the rubble, her arms extended and face white as death. He thrusts his son from the truck, then extracts himself. Terrified, they watch the road rise in awkward waves – one, then two, groaning easterly across the bitumen. Metallic popping and creaking punctures the air as the nearby water tank sways. He staggers with buoyant knees, grabs his son and heads for the clear ground of the hotel car park. The publican swings a tray of glasses on the bar and taps the register. He flicks through the day’s petty cash. The clock shows almost eleven. A brisk shattering of glass from the kitchen and muffled curse from his wife reminds him about the abandoned cleaning caddy. ‘Hang on, love.’ He bounds up the stairs, entering the last room to retrieve the caddy. The door to the balcony weirdly swings open in a smooth arc. He curiously looks outside while reaching for the doorknob. Swallows normally perched raucously in the beams, are instead weaving like drunken sailors in an eerily silent clutch across the boards… Then the door slam explodes around him, ripping through the walls of the building, shattering, twisting, splintering, falling. He clings to his anchoring doorknob, the left side of his body swinging like a crippled ship’s boom, then crashes to a rib-compressing stop against the doorframe. Tumbling bricks smash into the debris far below and dust swirls. He squints through the gaping hole where the back wall of the pub was, into the ambient light of a smoky sky. ‘Run like a rabbit!’ the shopkeeper’s beloved father once warned, when they encountered a big yellow-bellied brown snake in a dry paddock. His skin flushed pale, she clung to his sweaty hand, shocked by his emasculation. He spat out the harsh command again, ‘Run like a rabbit!’ And so she does, as on that day, with her father drawing her forward through the whipping grass at a speed where her legs lifted from the ground, through broken biscuits and shattering jam jars, tins and shelves laying heavy blows upon her fragile body. When the entire plaster and masonry wall peels and crashes to the footpath, she’s momentarily disorientated. A silent scream percolates to the back of her teeth, bounces against the base of her skull and sears down her oesophagus without ever escaping her lips. Leaping the concrete step through the skeletal door frame, she stumbles through bricks and metal, spins to see the store in its death throes, collapsing inwards. Her father grasps her hand again; they are not free of the snake. It darts across the hot Meckering street like a zig-zagging viper, splitting the rotten, caustic core and spitting dust two metres high through the opening and closing pulses of earth. At the car park she whirls around, panting with terror, but nothing pursues her. Her skin burns faintly and she retches against the carbide fumes. The father studies the road ahead, knowing she is alone. He imagines the walls falling into the tepid cup of tea placed lovingly beside her, smashing the floral china and splashing tea across the coverlet, just as the Bank’s walls became dominoes as they escaped Meckering. ‘Dad! She’ll be okay.’ His son’s face is calm. He decelerates, yet the engine roars to life. The truck flies into the clouds and then lands with a bone-splintering crunch. They are thrown forward, bounced violently back, spun around and stilled. Behind them the escarpment of the fault line splits the road, rising two metres in a jagged, naked wall of earth. Unable to sleep, she does laundry. Her husband would leave the house quietly as he did every morning after a disagreement, until they’d cautiously reunite over morning tea, pretending nothing had happened. With few visitors they had learned that civility softened the isolation of conflict. The back step is cool and moist. Pink light transforms to orange, then pale yellow as the sun prepares to rise. With a primal sensation of unease, she walks toward the Hills hoist. She tilts her head, wondering about the lack of bird chorus. The radio plays as she checks the oven, enjoying the coconut scent and the warm air on her face. The baby pounds his chubby fists on the high chair tray. She smiles, then reaches for the whistling kettle from the stovetop. She glimpses her husband through the kitchen window, twisting his cap in his hands, striding toward the ramshackle gate beyond the laden clothesline. The nappies whip around as the line spins violently. She instinctively flings the kettle away from the baby as she is thrown forward, managing an awkward, twisting roll embracing the entire chair. Her back slaps the linoleum and the chair empties her lungs. She envelops the baby, drawing up her knees and retreating under the table. Crockery is flung from the kitchenette and nausea overwhelms her. Her husband is surfing a wave of concrete slabs toward the screen door. Rigid with fear, she watches him dropping repeatedly to his knees while scrambling over each disintegrating wave, still striving for the door. She senses the front bedroom collapsing and mortar dust blasting into the hallway. Next, the inner wall is sacrificed. She feels the pure vibration of her baby’s screams against her neck, and tucks him deeper under her chin. She observes her husband’s driven, selfless progress against the mighty earth. Her physical body contracts each time he is thrown, but a liquid flush of emotion warms and calms her. She knows he will reach her, just as he plucked her to safety from the busy street, maintained vigilance while she birthed their son and returned each night to her darkness and frustration. The radio power point explodes with sharp, whiskered sparks. He shields his face and breaches the kitchen. Bricks and splinters rain down around him. She watches his broad body approaching, his steady gaze and lips as they emit some urgent, reassuring phrase. His wide hand extended, reaching, toward her. 14 October 1968 at 10.59am an earthquake split the West Australian wheatbelt town of Meckering. The vertical displacement was up to 2 metres and the ground rupturing nearly 40km long. These are imaginings around that event.

Best Australian Yarn: Meckering by Julie Raffaele

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