John Marsden - Incurable

Only stupid little stuff, and we do it all the time, but that’s the point. As well as doing that, she’d probably swatted at a fly, taken a piece of chewy out of her pocket and put it in her mouth, adjusted her hair, flicked a look out the windows to see what was going on, and so on. I just think it’s seriously impressive that humans can do all that, and maybe we can do it more than cows.

So anyway, the night after we got back from the Battle at the Coconut Tree, I was sitting in the office doing accounts.

It was quite a change of pace and I found it hard to concentrate. So much had happened, not just the night before, but even during the day. Jeremy, Gavin and I went and got the utes and found the Yamaha. Homer had homed, so to speak. He was no doubt in the middle of a very very long explanation to his parents as to how he had managed to lose a motorbike. I had no idea what he would tell them. Knowing how shrewd Mr and Mrs Yannos were, I guessed they would have a fair idea of some of the stuff Homer was up to, but that didn’t necessarily make them happy to contribute an expensive motorbike to the cause. I could imagine Homer’s conversation with them might last for a few days.

For that matter I had lost the Polaris. As much as I felt for Mr and Mrs Yannos, the loss of the Polaris was a disaster for me. In many ways it was the most useful vehicle on the farm, and not only because it was quick and convenient. The other motorbikes were quick and convenient too. But being a quad meant that I could tow stuff in the little red trailer, and tow it easily. All you had to do was lift it onto the tow bar, pull up the sealing bit and drop it down again, and you were ready to roll with a load of kindling, a couple of bales of hay, some bags of chook food or whatever.

Of course that would apply to any quad bike, but having a Polaris was a bit of a bonus. They are so powerful. Dad’s policy was always to buy the best, even if it meant more money, and the Polaris was bloody expensive, but it could go anywhere, and it could tow big weights. It even towed me when I was younger. I loved riding in the trailer, hanging on to both sides while Dad bounced me over every bump he could find. Its only disadvantage was that it was heavy to steer in four-wheel drive, and the big wide wheels chopped up the lawns.

To replace it, the way prices of vehicles were going, I figured would cost fifteen thousand dollars minimum, although I was only guessing. They could have gone up to twenty thousand dollars since the war ended. I definitely didn’t have that kind of money, but I definitely needed a quad bike.

So there I was, going through the accounts yet again, worried sick about losing the Polaris, trying to shut out the noises of Lee and Pang, Gavin, Jess and Jeremy, who were meant to be getting a meal ready but sounded like they were banging on saucepans with every implement they could find, like toddlers with wooden spoons, and at the same time wondering why there was no noise from Bronte, who I hadn’t seen all afternoon.

I guessed she was asleep, but looking for any excuse to get away from the books, I thought I’d go and check on her.

I didn’t know who’d slept in which bed, but I found Bronte in the little spare room up the far end of the veranda, the one that no-one ever used. I opened the door. It was dim in there, with the curtains drawn, but I felt her presence, and also felt that she was awake. I’m not saying I was psychic, I think it was just that I didn’t hear her breathing the way people do when they’re asleep.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

There was no answer, so I went over to the bed. She was awake all right, lying on her back gazing at the ceiling. But as my eyes adjusted to the dim light I could see the tear trails on her cheeks.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ she said, and then added, ‘God, that’s a terrible answer, isn’t it?’

‘I guess it’s the reflex answer,’ I said.

To be totally honest I wasn’t very much into the idea of having this conversation. Not only was I wrecked in every possible way from the stuff that had happened the night before, but I think since my parents were killed I needed all my emotional energy for myself, with any surplus going to Gavin. And believe me, there wasn’t much surplus. But I liked Bronte a lot, and the same as anyone, I hate to see people upset, and after all, she was in my house and there was no-one else around to do this.

Anyway, she didn’t say anything for quite a long time, just continued to lie there looking at the ceiling. Then, like a robot, she said, ‘I sat and listened to their description of the helicopter flying into the powerlines…’

Suddenly I remembered, and realised.

‘… and how it exploded, and I listened to the way they celebrated it and were so relieved and excited…’

‘Yes, I know now,’ I said. It had been such a short time since our conversation about her little brother getting killed when a helicopter hit powerlines, but so much had happened in the meantime that it had gone from my mind. Afterwards though I did wonder whether my noticing the powerlines and realising I could trap the helicopter in them might have come from my unconscious memory of that conversation.

She continued to lie there. I took her hand. Even now that I understood why she was so upset, I still didn’t have the energy or intelligence or imagination to think of a whole lot of comforting and inspiring things to say. After about ten minutes she said, ‘Well, back to duty,’ and started getting up. I still couldn’t think of anything. ‘War is hell’? ‘I wish I could bring him back for you’? ‘You must feel awful’? It was vaguely like a time when I was about six and we were shopping in Stratton and my mother had bought all the stuff we needed, all the boring stuff, and I’d been nagging her in every shop for something for me: sweets, toys, dolls, ice-creams, anything. Finally, to shut me up, she said, ‘You can have whatever money’s left over in my purse after I get the ammo.’ We went into the gun shop, and she bought fifty or a hundred rounds or whatever, and paid for it, and then gave me the purse. I was quivering with excitement, because I thought her purse always contained quite a lot of money. I opened it and found fifteen cents.

With Bronte, I wanted to open my own purse and give her everything inside it, but it was empty. I’d spent it. I stood back and let her leave the room, then followed her down the veranda, watching her back, feeling guilty and ashamed and inadequate.

Anyway, it was hard to concentrate on invoices and bank statements and cheque butts while all that was running so powerfully through my mind. But I wondered if it might be possible to buy a second-hand quaddy. I never thought that at my young age I’d already be sitting around with my friends saying, ‘Ah yes, I can remember in the good old days, when you could buy a Paddle Pop for…’ But we were having those conversations all the time. Prices had inflated to levels that were insane, but you didn’t get much choice: you either paid them or starved. The good news was that the price of cattle was going up just as fast, if not faster. To be honest we had overvalued our stock when we used them as security to get loans from the bank, but already it looked like our overvaluations weren’t so over.

After tea I went back to the office and sat at the desk staring at the big sheet of paper where I’d done my calculations. Mr Yannos had been at me to do a budget and I thought I’d better get on with it, but it was difficult because every day came something I hadn’t thought of or hadn’t expected. Like the quaddy. But there was always something. One day the pump would break down, the next I’d have to get a drum of Roundup, then a falling branch wiped out the TV aerial and cracked a few tiles. Luckily the aerial saved the roof from worse damage.