Evie Wyld - After the Fire, A Still Small Voice

Mail arrived in a chopper with a restock of lima beans. Flood shouted ‘Fuck!’ into an opened tin. Cray had a letter that made him stroke the stubble on his chin hard with his hand and walk away, looking up into the tops of the trees. There was a letter for Leon, another postcard that had been sealed in an envelope. The address on the back was the shop and there was a thin bit of tracing paper inside from Mrs Shannon: ‘All good here. Take care.’ The postcard was not of a beach and there was no smarmy cartoon character on the front. It was a black and white photograph, old — maybe forty years old — so that it was faded and difficult to tell what it was of. The most he could make out was that it was a picture of some gum trees, receding into darkness where the bush got thick.

One day you will come here and you will know how the fish swim at the surface of the water, so you can see them all the time, and how the big white cockatoos bunch in one tree and shriek the mornings in. These are the things that we see now, my love my love my love.

Leon folded the little picture in two.

‘You got some mail?’ asked Rod in a hopeful sort of a way. He hadn’t been able to keep the disappointment off his face when there’d been nothing for him. But Leon couldn’t help that.

‘Not really, mate. Just a bill.’ Rod nodded in a way that Leon could see he was hurt, so he took a picture of him and that made the kid smile again.

The bugger of it was that he didn’t even like the ugly things. Frank’d brushed past the little table that held the sugar figures to get at a hornet that had billowed in and he’d misjudged it so that his hip had cracked against the corner of the table. The bell jar leant over and fell on the floor, where it smashed.

‘Cunt!’ he’d bellowed at the hornet, who drifted out through the door in a leisurely fashion. The dim glints of glass splinters were everywhere. The figurine of his grandfather lay on its side, split from the hand of his bride. His grandmother still held on to the hand, which had broken below the cuff of his wedding jacket. Rubbing the ache in his hip, Frank tried to stand his grandfather up again, but the base of his feet had flaked away and there was no balance left. The sugar was grey on the cut. Where the colouring had faded he could make out thumbprints, which made him stand still for a moment. He picked up the models of his parents and saw the thumbprints there too. Now that he’d seen them he couldn’t throw them away, and he laid all four of them down on their backs. After a second’s thought he gingerly high-stepped over to the sink and found a dry J-cloth, which he covered them over with, before putting on his boots and sweeping up the glass with a newspaper.

On the way to work Frank drove past the Blue Wren coffee shop. There was a fat, egg-like woman sweeping out the front. He imagined Joyce Mackelly in black and white, her thumb stuck out to the small traffic. Imagined her picture swept away by the breeze of his truck’s wheels as he passed by, knocking up a dust.

They spent the day loading disposable lighters and telegraph poles, and Frank’s palms became dry and calloused from pushing at the poles and landing them in the right place. The thick gloves he wore made his hands sweat like buggery. It was a long job, because half of the usual ship’s crew were off and the stand-in hatch man just said ‘whateveryareckon’ when anyone asked for his help.

Afterwards they arranged themselves in the pub, dried out and leathered from the sun, and Stuart talked loudly about trapping foxes, while everyone nodded gravely. Frank felt a fug behind his eyes that would turn into a headache. Pokey sat at the bar alone, his eyes on the television showing a documentary about female jockeys. Frank watched out of the corner of his eye until there was only a thumb’s depth left in the glass, before getting up and ordering one for both of them. Pokey nodded once in his direction, slid his empty across to him and took hold of the new glass. His attention went straight back to the television. Frank cleared his throat and smiled, but Pokey didn’t look at him and Frank went back to his seat. ‘He’s heaps,’ he said to Bob and Bob rocked back in his chair.

‘Yeah, he’s a real funny man. Gruff as two bulldogs fucking.’ He leant forward again, talking quietly. ‘That’s how come we plan to murder the bastard.’

‘Huh,’ said Frank, not sure where this was going.

Stuart rubbed his hands together and produced a notepad. ‘Righto,’ he said. ‘It’s that time again, folks.’ He put on a crappy American accent that set Frank’s teeth on edge. ‘It’s Pokey Lotto time, come on down.’

‘What’s this?’ asked Frank, looking behind him at Pokey, who was easily in hearing distance. He watched him take a long slurp of his drink then set it down quietly, the skin of his face glowing blue from the television screen.

‘This is a long-kept tradition, Franko,’ said Stuart, a smile that Frank did not like hardening up his face. ‘See, why do you think we call Pokey Pokey?’

Frank shrugged. ‘His second name’s Poke?’

‘Because he keeps a bar-room fruit machine in his kitchen. That’s right. He uses it like a giant money box — keeps a jar of dollars in the fridge and puts ’em in, all his wages pretty much, they’re all in there.’

Linus joined in. ‘Few blokes tried to take that machine one night. Pokey got at ’em with a harpoon — right in the arse!’

Whether or not this was true, it seemed to tickle Linus so much that his laughter turned into a coughing fit and he grinned, tears of choke reddening his eyes.

‘So,’ Stuart continued, ‘what Pokey Lotto is, is a kind of syndicate. Each bloke thinks up a bit of a plot, right? A sort of robbery, murder-type scenario, about how to get to the money.’

‘Except,’ Bob came in, ‘the idea of the money seems to have flown out the window.’ He raised his eyebrows at Frank. ‘Now, we just plot the best way to murder the bugger!’ They all laughed including Frank, who felt his jaw ache from the strain of it.

‘I resent that, Bob,’ said Stuart.

‘An’ I do too,’ said Linus. ‘Now. Screwdriver in the eye — fastest way to the brain — won’t know what fucker’s on him.’ Linus passed five dollars to Stuart who folded it carefully and put it in the envelope before writing down on his pad, ‘Linus — Screwdriver in eye.’

‘Make it an accident,’ said Bob, ‘late one night at the marina — tap him between the shoulder blades with a forklift. Drop a cargo on top.’

Each competitor handed over five dollars.

‘The end of the month we all vote, an’ the winner gets the envelope,’ explained Stuart. ‘Got any ideas on you, Frank?’

He felt all eyes on him. He looked at the suggestions on Stuart’s notepad that included past games. The last winner, circled in red said, ‘Alex — contamination of water tank with crapping.’

‘Snake in the coin jar. Death adder.’

Stuart grimaced, impressed.

It would have been good to be at home with no one else there.

‘That’s nice, Frank — good to get back to the original form once in a while.’

A tall aboriginal man walked to the bar and everyone looked up. It was time to go, but Frank’s body felt sluggish, like it might not have anything to do with him any more. The man put an arm round Pokey’s shoulder and they shook hands. Stuart banged his glass on the table. It reverberated in Frank’s head, made his teeth clench.

‘Just what we don’t fuckin’ need,’ growled Stuart. Everyone ignored him apart from Linus, who laughed loudly, like he’d been told a joke. The man at the bar looked over, the white of one eye was bright red. He chewed something slowly and watched as Stuart stood up, holding his hands in fists by his sides. They looked at each other for a few long seconds but then Stuart sat down again and took a gulp from his beer. A hardness was getting into Frank’s back, had wound its way up behind his ears, and his arms twitched of their own accord. He wished Stuart would piss off. Frank drained his drink. He wanted another but if he stood up something bad would happen. The rest of the bar was looking and it made his face itch. The aboriginal went back to talking with Pokey. They both laughed and glanced at Stuart.