Second story in the K City Sagas
There were four of us, all hostel boys, employed over Easter to pick Bairstow’s beans: me, Chookie Fowles, Lawrie Stoker, and Stafford Slipper. Bairstow’s farm was five miles from K City on the stony plain we call Cactus Land. We rode there on our bikes after church on Good Friday. The directions weren’t clear, and we went to the neighbour’s house by mistake. A girl with sad eyes and plaits down to her waist answered the door. She waved her hands at us and signalled urgently, “Go away!” A man’s voice shouted “Rachael! Get away from the door!” and she twitched as though she’d been stung by a wasp. The man pushed her aside and shouted at us: Didn’t we see the sign? Only church members were allowed on the property. Two other men holding sharp-looking farm tools appeared behind him and watched us walk back down the drive. We found the sign lying on the ground beside the gate: Temple of the Revelation — No Trespassers or Hawkers. There were seven bullet holes in it.
Bairstow’s farmhouse was further up the hill, overlooking rows of bean bushes. Our accommodation was a worker’s hut with six double bunks, straw-filled mattresses and a wash house attached to a rainwater tank. The diesel pump on the bore was for watering the beans. “Don’t drink it,” Mr Bairstow warned. He told us that he usually employed a dozen ‘Kanakas’ who arrived at New Year and picked whatever vegetables and fruit were available. This year there had been trouble with immigration, so he was forced to recruit unskilled, underage labourers like us — a hardship he was happy to complain about at every opportunity. He was even more irritated when we didn’t report for work till mid-afternoon.
“That’s a bloody day wasted. No use starting now—beans have got to be picked in the morning while they’re crisp,” he grumbled. “You can grab brooms and mops and clean up the bunkhouse. While you’re at it, fill your mattresses with clean straw and leave them in the sun for a couple of hours.”
“Why?” asked Stafford.
“Fleas don’t like sunlight,” Bairstow laughed.
We did as he said and swept up the chicken (and goat, possum, crow and mystery) shit. When we noticed the fleas that attached themselves to our ankles, we mopped the floor and hung the mattresses over the fence in the sun.
When Chookie looked under the mattress on his bunk he said, “Hey, those Kanakas must have had women with them.”
“How do you know?”
He held up a pink plastic hairbrush and a Mills and Boon classic titled “Freedom to Love” with an illustration of a dishevelled woman gazing lustfully at a hunky guy with his shirt unbuttoned to the waist.
Stafford snatched the book. “Bags I get first read.”
But Lawrie discovered something much more exciting under his mattress. Chookie identified it as a .204 Ruger hunting rifle. “Steel-tipped .204 bullets will bring down a dingo at 200 yards,” he informed us.
Stafford grabbed the rifle and pointed it at each of us in turn. “Pow! Pow! Pow! You’re dead!” he shouted gleefully. Then he aimed it at the window and pulled the trigger. There was a loud “Crack!” and the window sprouted a neat hole.
“You fucking idiot, Stafford. You could have shot us.”
“How was I to know it was loaded? What kind of idiot leaves a loaded gun under the mattress?”
“This kind of idiot.” Mr Bairstow had appeared silently in the doorway. He took the rifle from Stafford and examined the hole in the window. “Good shot,” he nodded. “Where did you find it?”
Lawrie pointed to his bunk. “It was under the mattress.”
“Are you sure none of you have been up to the house?” Bairstow asked accusingly. We shook our heads in unison, our mouths hanging open like the laughing clowns at the sideshow.
“I keep this rifle by the dining room window in case I spot ‘roos or rabbits in the beans, or one of them God-botherers from next door stealing eggs.” He looked at us hard, one at a time. “If I catch any of you boys stealing, I’ll kick you up the backside so hard your arsehole will knock your teeth out on the way through. This time, maybe I believe you. I thought the missus must have took it.” He turned to Stafford, “A word of advice for city boys: never point a gun at anyone unless you mean to pull the trigger.”
“Too right,” Stafford nodded, “Understood.”
“When you’ve settled in, come up to the house for supper.” He worked the bolt, and the empty shell clattered onto the bunkhouse floor. “One thing more—make sure you get to bed early. You’ll be head-down bum-up at sunrise.”
That night as we lay in our bunks, Stafford asked: “Why do they call this Cactus Land? There’s no cactuses here, just rocks.”
I answered, “Do you remember that poem we studied in first term, The Hollow Men?”
“Can’t say I do,” said Stafford “What’s poetry got to do with beans?”
“This is the dead land/This is the cactus land/ Here the stone images are raised…”
Lawrie joined in, “We are the hollow men/We are the stuffed men/Leaning together/ Headpiece filled with straw…”
“Shut up, or I’ll come over there and stuff your rucksacks down your throats!” said Stafford. “I’m going to sleep.”
Just as we were dropping off, Chookie added, “Cactus fuctus,”
#
Picking string beans is backbreaking work. The bean bush is no more than knee height and you must either bend over or carry a stool from bush to bush so you can sit down while you pick. Mr Bairstow gave us each a bean-cutter improvised from a kitchen knife with the blade ground down into a beak or hook, but most of the cutters were so blunt it was easier to pull the stems rather than cut them.
“Don’t pick a bean unless it’s six inches long — that’s a hand span — leave the little ones for the next round. Any with white spots or broken, leave on the ground.”
He allocated us each a row and gave out hessian bags to be filled and weighed at the end of the day. The pay was 2/6d per bushel. “A Kanacka can pick 20 bushels a day,” Mr Bairstow informed us.
“My backbone is worth more than half a crown,” Lawrie complained after the first hour’s picking. I tried squatting instead of bending, but it was just as hard on the knees. Stafford tried to break the world bean picking record, but after two hours he had to put his head under the tap and sit in the shade. Chookie’s polio leg made it hell for him, but he never complained and ended up picking more than all of us.
In mid-afternoon I reached the end of a row and straightened up to look around and get my bearings. The sun was dazzling, but I made out a figure standing in the shade of the tree across the fence, watching me. It was the girl with sad eyes from the neighbour’s house, and I had the feeling she’d been watching for some time. I walked to the fence and looked more closely at her: she was about our age, her face was a mass of freckles, she was very thin, and dressed in a faded cotton smock that could have been a nun’s uniform.
“Hi,” I said, “Hot day.”
She asked urgently. “Are you boys working for Mr Bairstow?”
“Harvesting his bean crop,” I replied. “Have you come to help?”
“How long will you be here?”
“We go home Monday afternoon. School starts on Tuesday.”
“Are you living in the bunkhouse?”
“Just moved in this afternoon.” The girl looked disappointed, “Is that a problem?”
She shook her head, then said, “It’s just that… I stay there sometimes.” She pointed to the house, “when it gets overcrowded, like this Easter weekend, there are….” She waved her hand vaguely.
“We found a hairbrush and a book. Are they yours?” She nodded. “Do you want me to bring them up to the house?”
She shook her head vigorously. “The unbaptised are forbidden in the temple.”
Stafford, who could scent a female presence from a mile away, abandoned his bean bag mid-row and hurried to join us.
“There’s plenty of room in the bunkhouse. You can share my bunk any time,” and he winked suggestively.
The girl twitched, as she had at the door, and looked at Stafford with an expression of horror. Then she shook her head vigorously, turned and hurried back to the house on the hill.
“What a dog,” said Stafford, pulling a face.
Chookie and Lawrie arrived to see what was going on. “The mystery of the pink hairbrush is solved,” I told them. “She’s been staying in the bunkhouse. I reckon Bairsow doesn’t know.”
“Why’d she run off?”
“Stafford invited her to share his bunk.”
Lawrie turned to Stafford, “Didn’t you say she was ugly?”
“Nothing wrong with ugly women. You don’t look at the mantlepiece when you’re stoking the fire,” said Stafford and he winked again. Lawrie and I groaned at another example of Stafford’s crass misogyny. Chookie made retching noises.
Lawrie watched the girl disappear into the house, and said, “She reminds me of that religious nut in Year 3, Hannah Moon. She’s not allowed to cut her hair or play sport or eat with other people. They’re Plymouth Brothers or something.”
“My mother used to be a Jehovah’s Witness,” put in Chookie, who always had a story ready to make himself the centre of the action, “But they expelled her when she married my father. They’re not allowed to hang out with heathens like us. Maybe she was hoping Staff would help her escape.”
“How would I do that?” Stafford asked seriously. (He was always slow to catch on to Chookie’s straight-faced disingenuousness.)
“You could marry her. Then they’d have to expel her because you’re a heathen. What do you reckon? If she comes sniffing around the bunkhouse tonight, you should propose.”
Stafford finally caught on. “Fuck you, Chookie Fowles!” He turned on his heels and marched back to his bean bush.
That night at dinner I asked Mr Bairstow. “Those people next door—are they Jehovah’s Witnesses or something?”
“Sanctimonious Callithumpians if you ask me,” he said. “They used to sneak over at night to steal eggs, but since I showed them the rifle, they’ve behaved themselves. Just ignore them. They’re harmless unless they start preaching.”
Mrs Bairstow added, “I used to think they were Eye-talians — all the wine they drink, and the singing. ‘Till that girl and an older woman knocked on the door and asked if they could talk to me about Jesus.”
Bairstow came down to the bunkhouse later and said he and his wife had to drive to K City for some kind of emergency and we we’d be in charge of the farm for as long as it took. He pointed to the vehicles that were arriving and door slamming next door. “Looks like the tribe is gathering for Easter happy clappy. If they get on the booze, you might be in for a noisy night.”
“What if they come over the fence?” asked Stafford. “Should we get the rifle?”
“Don’t you dare bloody touch it,” said Bairstow. “Just lock yourselves in and keep your heads down. I’d rather lose a few eggs than one of you lunatics shoots someone.”
After the Bairstows drove away, we sat outside sharing a bottle of beer that Chookie had conjured up and observed the goings-on next door. The “Callithumpians” had built a roaring bonfire and were gathered around it in a circle singing hymns, accompanied by a piano accordion and a tambourine. I fell asleep in the banana chair and when I woke, the religious tone of the ceremony next door had changed — it was more raucous, almost menacing.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Most of the women have gone. There’s only men and they are drinking rum,” said Chookie.
“How do you know?”
“My dad used to drink rum. It made him sound like that.”
“Can you see the girl?”
“She was pouring drinks a while ago. Seems to have gone too.”
“What if we go over there? Maybe they’ll offer us a drink,” suggested Stafford.
“More likely they’ll try to baptise you,” said Chookie. “Total immersion. Can you swim Staff?”
“Can’t hurt to look,” I said. “What if we just go to the fence?”
“If they see us, I could say I was returning the hairbrush,” said Lawrie.
We didn’t have a torch and there was only a fingernail of moon, but we made our way through the bean field as far as the fence. From there we could see more clearly what was happening and pick up the occasional word. About a dozen men, mostly middle-aged and dressed in suits, were seated in a circle around the fire, passing bottles between them.
“Can you see the girl?” Lawrie whispered.
“Maybe she’s back at the bunk house looking for Stafford,” said Chookie.
“Shut up you bloody cripple,” Stafford hissed, “Look”
A man came out of the back door, doing up his trousers as though he’d just been to the dunny.
“Who’s next?” the man asked.
“Step forward young Abraham!” ordered a voice.
A thin young man got to his feet unsteadily, and the men began slow clapping and whistling. A voice struck up, reciting what sounded like a prayer, “O Lord… Abraham… accept the sacrifice of Jezebel…” The young man named Abraham mounted the steps and disappeared inside the house.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
“Fucking hell,” said Stafford, “It’s a train. Let’s get out of here, quick.” He turned and began making his way back through the bean rows. We left the hairbrush on the fence post and followed him back to the bunkhouse, closed the doors and windows lit as many mosquito coils as we could find and took refuge under the blankets.
“What’s a train?” Lawrie asked.
“You don’t want to know.” Stafford sounded almost emotional. “Just go to sleep.”
It must have been around midnight when Lawrie’s voice said, “I can hear someone moving around outside.”
“I’ve got the pitchfork beside my bed,” answered Chookie.
“Do you think it’s the Callithumpians?”
“Bairstow said to let them have the eggs.”
“Bet it’s that girl. She’s got the hots for Stafford.”
“Pull your head in,” Stafford shouted. “It’s not a joke anymore!”
The next thing I remember was being woken by a volley of gun shots. One bullet smashed a hole in the wall above Chookie’s bunk and the window glass shattered. We rolled out of bed onto the floor and kept our heads down. The gunshots were followed by a pandemonium of screaming, shouting, revving motors and spinning tyres from next door. By the time we worked up the courage to peek over the windowsill, the bonfire next door had burned down to glowing coals, casting a shimmering orange pallor on the house and the underside of the tree. There was no sign of the men and most of the cars had gone.
“Someone should put that bonfire out before it burns down the house,” said Chookie, his voice shaking.
“Fuck them. Who cares?” said Stafford and went back to bed. “I’m out of here first thing tomorrow.”
Easter morning brought the first chills of winter, and we were shivering as we washed at the tank and trooped up to the house for breakfast. Mrs Bairstow wasn’t back but she had left a basket on the kitchen table with bread, eggs and margarine. We blew the fire in the stove back to life, put on the kettle, fried the eggs and toasted the bread.
As we sat down to breakfast, Chookie held up a slice of burned toast and exclaimed in mock amazement, “A miracle! The charcoal on my toast is a portrait of Saint Stafford Slipper.”
“I’ve had about enough of you, Chookie.”
“What should we do?”
“Finish the paddock, collect our pay and ride home. I’m sick of this place.”
I estimated I’d picked 12 bushels so far which, at 2/6d a bushel was £1:5s. If we worked hard, we estimated we could finish the paddock by lunchtime. We’d been at work for about an hour, when I looked up and saw Lawrie standing still as a statue, staring at something.
“Are you OK, Stokes?” I shouted.
Lawrie looked across at me, shook his head and pointed to something at his feet. I left my bag and knife and walked across to him. Protruding from under a bean bush, were a woman’s naked legs and torso. A rifle barrel was poking out of another bean bush, as though it had been thrown there. I pulled it out.
“Those shots last night.”
Chookie came up from the other direction to sticky-beak. I could tell he was thinking up a smart remark about Stafford when he stopped dead as though he’d run into a glass door. He knelt down and tentatively poked the body with his finger.
“She’s dead,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“I know dead when I see it.”
“Who is she?”
Lawrie pointed to the pink hairbrush on the ground beside her leg.
“Is it that girl?”
Chookie lifted the edge of the bush and peered underneath, then he vomited up his breakfast.
“Half her head’s blown off.”
Stafford had joined us, and we all stared at the corpse in horror. He held out his hand for the rifle, “Show us.” I passed it to him, and he examined it. “It’s Bairsow’s. I remember the carving on the stock.”
“Do you think Mr Bairstow…”
“Don’t be a fucking idiot, Robot. Bairstow’s been away all night. Somebody broke in and took it — probably one of those men we saw at the fire.”
“Bairstows have a telephone. We’d better call the police.”
“No fucking way!” said Stafford. “If I get in trouble with the cops again, I’m expelled.”
“Much as it pains me to admit it, you’re right, Staff,” said Chookie. “If the cops find us here, we’re going to be prime suspects.”
“How’s that?”
“Means, motive and opportunity.” He pointed to Stafford holding the rifle: “That’s the means.”
“What’s the motive?”
“Stafford wanted to get in the girl’s pants, and she knocked him back.”
“Shut up Chookie. The way you keep going on, I reckon you’re the one with the hots for her.”
“Third, opportunity. We knew where the gun was, and we were here all night. That’s what the cops will think.”
“Maybe she shot herself,” suggested Lawrie.
“How can you shoot yourself with a rifle?”
“You use your toe,” said Chookie. “That’s how my dad did it.”
Stafford was holding the rifle in two fingers as though it was a dead rat. “Even if she did, our fingerprints are all over this thing.”
“What’ll we do with it?”
Chookie looked around melodramatically (it occurred to me that he was enjoying this), “What do we do? We wipe the prints off the rifle and put it back in the house. Then we vamoose.”
“How?”
“We get on our bikes and ride home down the back road in case we pass Bairstow coming home.”
“What about our money?” said Stafford.
“Make your choice: a couple of quid or the noose.” said Chookie. “In any case, I’ve seen you loading your sack with rocks, and when Bairstow finds out he won’t pay any of us, anyway”
Stafford led the way back to the farmhouse, where he polished the fingerprints off rifle with a tea towel and carefully placed it by the kitchen window in view of the hen house. Then we collected up our stuff and made the bunkhouse look as though nobody had been there for months. We wheeled our bikes out the front gate and took the fire trail down the mountain. There was no movement from next door and as far as we could tell, nobody saw us. Lawrie rode to his cousin’s house and arrived in time for Easter lunch, Stafford joined a pick-up touch rugby game on the high school oval, Chookie and I stopped half-way down the mountain at Yowie Cave, before drifting back to the hostel in time for dinner.
I couldn’t sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw the girl’s naked body, lifeless and 2-dimensional, laid out like a piece of pale cloth the stony ground, and in my ears the insistent whispering of the breeze through the bean bushes, “As wind in dry grass/Or rats’ feet over broken glass.”
I was weeping for the girl and from a feeling of total helplessness. I buried my head under the pillow so no-one would hear.
I gradually became conscious of a rhythmic creaking and bumping from Chookie’s bed next to mine. He was rocking back and forth and mumbling to himself.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper.
[T.S.Eliot, The Hollow Men, 1925]
Ian Hart 2023