Hey Brother

  Jarrah Dundler lives in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales with his partner and two children. Hey Brother, shortlisted for the The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award, is his first novel.

  First published in 2018

  Copyright © Jarrah Dundler 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76063 112 3

  eISBN 978 1 76063 665 4

  Set by Bookhouse, Sydney

  Cover design: Christabella Designs

  Cover images: © Karina Vegas / Arcangel and © Adrian Sherratt / Alamy Stock Photo

  For Maddog and Tuppy

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  Acknowledgements

  1

  I had just turned fourteen when my big brother Shaun went off to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan.

  The war’d only been raging for a year, but already our boys and the rest of the team were kicking arse. Shaun’d been keen to head from the get-go, back when the dust from the Twin Towers was still settling. He was bummed when his squadron wasn’t the first of the special forces crew chosen to fly off. Gutted when they weren’t the second. So, when they were third-time lucky he was over the moon. So was I—over the moon and proud as.

  Mum was too. But on the day Shaun left she was sad as well. Sad as anything. I didn’t have a clue what my dad—Old Greggy Boy—was feeling. He didn’t even come up from his caravan by the creek to say goodbye. Guess it wasn’t a huge surprise, given Dad and Shaun still weren’t talking after the big blue they had years back. So, it ended up being just me and Mum farewelling him from out the front of our farmhouse, which sat on a hill smack bang in the middle of a couple of hundred acres of prime farmland that hadn’t been farmed in years.

  It was just past the middle of winter and the sky was as clear and sharp as glass. The air smelt like dry grass and chimney smoke. Tiny brown birds with silver rings round their eyes that’d come our way to escape the colder winter down south darted between the bottlebrushes. They chirped and chirped and chirped as they jetted round. Apart from Shaun’s boots crunching along the driveway as he marched towards me, those birds were the only things making a sound on that morning.

  When he reached me he placed his hand on my shoulder. I looked up; while I was a bit tall for my age I still had half a foot to go till I reached Shaun.

  ‘Tryst.’

  ‘Yep?’

  He looked up the hillside to the shed. Mum and Dad had converted it into a room for Shaun when he was about my age. Now he used it as a place for him and his girlfriend, Amy, to stay when he was home on leave.

  ‘Take care of my stuff.’

  ‘Yeah! For sure.’

  Shaun glanced over to Mum who was slouched on the front steps, staring at the top of our dirt driveway, which wound its way a few hundred metres down the hill.

  He fixed me with his gold and green speared eyes. ‘And take care of Mum, too.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Good.’ He nodded. ‘And Tryst…’

  ‘Yep?’

  The corner of his left cheek curled into a lopsided grin. ‘You think you could try and keep out of trouble?’

  ‘Ah, piss off!’ I slapped his hand off my shoulder.

  Shaun’s grin grew and he smiled at me in a way that made me feel like I was as tall as him already.

  He ruffled my hair, winked. ‘See ya, Little Man.’

  ‘See ya,’ I said. ‘Good luck.’

  Done with me, he headed across the front yard towards Mum. On the way he stopped and sat on the edge of the verandah next to Kel, the last of Pop’s old kelpies. As Shaun patted her head, Kel lifted her tail and—whack, whack—slapped it down twice on the timber. A pretty good effort given her state. She was about as old and worn as that hessian sack she slept on.

  Shaun slid off the verandah and continued on to Mum. When he reached the bottom of the steps she finally lifted her gaze, locking eyes with him and standing slowly, then—whoosh—she launched herself down to the bottom step, grabbed Shaun’s head and squeezed it so hard it was like she was trying to pop it like a balloon.

  After half a minute or so, Shaun managed to wriggle free. Then he pecked her on the cheek, turned and dashed over to his bright blue Commodore SS. He leapt in—varroooooom—fired her up and tore off down the driveway and onto Findle Creek Road, Pantera’s ‘Cowboys from Hell’ blasting from his stereo. Horn meep meep meeeeping. Dust billowing in his wake. Arm waving wildly out the window till he rounded the first bend and was out of sight.

  I leant against the verandah post, watching the cloud of dust trickle to the ground, listening to the growl of the V8 engine rise and fall as Shaun wove through the valley. Once all the dust’d settled, and once the Commodore’s engine was a faint whir, I moved my eyes from the road to the crisp paddocks, to the rolling hills, dotted with the occasional gum and a cluster of black boys, to the dark green ranges beyond, and up to that glassy sky that Shaun’d be jetting through tomorrow morning on his very first deployment.

  Shit yeah! I raised my fist in the air, held it there for a few seconds and as I was lowering it, way off in the distance, somewhere at the start of the valley, I thought I heard a faint meep.

  Smiling, I looked over to Mum.

  She was still standing, too. She wasn’t smiling, though. And she didn’t have her fist in the air either, instead her hand clutched the step’s railing.

  Meep.

  One last honk. Fainter than the last but I was sure of it this time ’cause Mum flinched and her head turned slightly to the right. Then she released the railing, cupped her hand over her mouth and sat down. When her arse hit that step those tears that’d been banking up for days finally fell.

  And, jeez, how they poured. Like rain from a summer storm cloud.

  Those first two months were the roughest.

  For those first few days Mum moped about getting all teary every hour or so, carrying on like she’d forgot what Shaun’d been training for all these years. Rustling up a care package and posting it to Shaun cheered her up a bit and for the couple of weeks after that she came good. But after a few more weeks went by and we didn’t receive anything in return from him, she started to get antsy. More antsy after we bumped into Amy at the shops in Small Town and she told Mum that she hadn’t heard from Shaun yet either. Then she got me to ferret round the dark depths of the laundry cupboard and fish out the old portable radio. She tuned it to the station that just played news all day, but th
ose reporters were staying pretty tight-lipped about our boys and only us fed dribs and drabs on the Yanks and the rest of the team. After a few weeks of that, she spun into one of her yo-yo phases that she got into from time to time.

  Up and down she went. Up down. Up down. Fluttering round the house one day doing a million things at once—dusting, sweeping, cooking—and crashing the next, not getting out of bed all day. I had a hunch, a bad hunch, about what was coming next. What always came when she couldn’t cope with something big that’d just happened. What’d come after Pop’d died and left us the farm. What’d come when she lost her job at the bakery.

  The bottle. When she hit it, she hit it hard. Almost as hard as her brother, my Uncle Trevor. So I wasn’t the least bit surprised one afternoon after getting home from school, kicking my shoes off, and walking down the hallway saying Hooroo, Mum, to find her sprawled on the lounge, snoring, a dozen empty cans of scotch and dry on the coffee table along with an ashtray full of durry butts (even though she’d sworn off them because that’s what’d got Pop in the end). For the few weeks that followed I tried—like I told Shaun I would. Made her cups of tea—milk and two, just how she liked it. Helped out with the housework. Went with her on the weekly shop to make sure she didn’t forget the food with her grog. But after a month or so, after a few too many of my own cooked meals (cheese on toast, two-minute noodles, tins of Rex’s Texas Chilli) I was jack of it.

  I didn’t even bother asking Dad for help. Like Dad and Shaun, Dad and Mum weren’t on speaking terms. And since Shaun’s deployment, he hadn’t been up to the house once. At the mere mention of his name Mum’s eyes would blaze. Those gold and green spears, like Shaun’s, sharpening, preparing for war. Getting Old Greggy Boy involved would do more harm than good. I figured it’d only be some news, news from the front—a letter from Shaun, a call to say he was on his way home—that’d get her off the lounge. That, or some kind of miracle.

  Then, a few months after Shaun’d left, a miracle came. And it came in the form of a fish.

  2

  It may sound like bullshit, but it’s true. I caught the fish that saved my mum’s life.

  It was just past the middle of spring but already hot and humid like summer might be coming early. Those noisy birds that had been round when Shaun left had flown south again, but we’d still had no word on when Shaun’d be doing the same. Mum was at her worst. I was fed up of wasting my weekends watching her lying about, so I decided to go down the creek for a spot of fishing.

  I headed into the kitchen and gave my best mate Ricky a call to see if he was keen. The phone rang out. Typical. I could just picture the two of them—Ricky sprawled out on the floor watching TV, his old man nursing a beer on the ratty old couch out on the verandah, yelling to each other, arguing over who should get off their arse and answer the phone.

  ‘Lazy buggers,’ I said as I entered the lounge room, shaking my head at the sight of Mum. She was in her usual spot, lying in her usual way—on the couch on her back, a white bed sheet pulled up to her neck and tucked under her chin. Empty cans of scotch and dry littered the coffee table. Above her the motor of the old ceiling fan whirred loudly and the blades went whoop, whoop, whoop as they chopped the thick air. A noise came from under the sheet, too: the radio that Mum’d taken to cradling like a newborn baby while she slept.

  It was still tuned to one of the stations where they don’t play any music, just talk and talk and talk all day. The World Today presenter, the old fella with the smooth deep voice, was talking about an election in some far-flung country. Not Afghanistan, though. If he started talking about Afghanistan, or the war, his words would startle Mum awake like an alarm clock. That’s why she kept the volume up almost full bore.

  ‘Mum!’ I poked her arm. ‘I’m going down the creek for a fish.’

  She groaned and rolled onto her side.

  ‘Mum.’ I poked harder. ‘C’mon.’

  Mum’d cracked the shits the other week when I ducked off down the creek after school for a swim without telling her. Told me she freaked out when she woke up and called for me and I wasn’t there. Said I needed to tell her anytime I was planning to head off somewhere. I wasn’t too excited about waking her, but I didn’t want to get a revving when I got back on the off-chance she woke up while I was gone.

  Better do it gently. I reached down and tickled her foot. That got her!

  She groaned, sat up, propped a cushion behind her back. She pushed a clump of matted auburn hair off her cheek and opened her eyes.

  Jeez, she looked rotten! Skin pale, clammy. The whites of her eyes streaked with squiggly red lines. She yawned. Pwoar—smelt rotten, too. The stink of booze wafting off her furry tongue sent me rearing back like some boxer’d smacked me right on the nose.

  ‘Mum! I’m going fishing, alright?’

  Mum fumbled with the radio under the sheet, turning the volume down. ‘Yeah…Sure…Fine…Go on then.’

  ‘Got any messages for Dad?’

  She closed her eyes and I thought she’d nodded off again,

  but she was just thinking. ‘Nah…Nothing today.’

  ‘No word from Shaun yet?’

  I just kind of blurted it out. Mum’s eyes popped open. Her jaw clenched, and I knew I shouldn’t have asked.

  ‘Bloody hell, Trysten. You know I’d have told ya if I’d heard from Shaun.’

  ‘Yeah, alright. Just thought I’d double-check.’

  She could get real testy on that subject. I always updated Dad whenever I went down to the creek. Despite all the blueing he and Shaun’d done I figured he’d want to know if we’d heard from him. While he never asked about him, I knew Shaun was on his mind. Dad had his own radio that was tuned in almost as much as Mum’s.

  Mum rubbed her temples with her thumb and forefinger before she went on, slower, calmer. ‘Just tell yer father that I haven’t received a letter, but reckon we’ll get something soon.’

  ‘Yep, righto. I’m off then!’

  I fetched my reel, found an old bucket under the laundry sink, went out front, sat on the top step and pulled on my boots.

  Kel watched me from her hessian-sack bed, flicking her tail from side to side.

  ‘Sorry, old girl. Goin’ down the creek. Bit far for you, I reckon.’

  She yowled, tilted her head to the side.

  ‘Ah, c’mon! The only time you get off this verandah is to waddle down those steps for a shit.’ I pointed to a fresh one, only a few metres away. ‘And they’re getting bloody closer by the day!’

  Giving up, Kel moaned sadly, closed her cloudy eyes and went back to dreaming her old-dog dreams. Before scooting down the steps I walked over and gave her a quick pat on the head and a scratch on the belly. ‘Poor old girl.’

  As I walked round the side of the house and dashed down the backyard to the top of the bushy slope, the blare of Mum’s radio followed me. She’d turned it up again, full bore. Going back to sleep, too. Which I guessed was a good thing—judging from the state of her she needed every wink she could get.

  Swinging my bucket and carrying a long, sharpened stick over my shoulder I marched down the slope. Along the way I stopped and dug some small holes with my stick and searched for bait. I plucked out worms and witchetty grubs and cockroach-looking things and tossed them into the bucket.

  I halted at the bottom of the slope where the trees thinned out and looked across to the grassy flats that spread ten or so acres along the winding creek line. Once upon a time a dozen head of beef cattle would’ve been trundling along those flats, munching grass and mooing and shitting and pissing and not much else at all. Another few dozen head’d be trundling along on the other side of the creek. No sign of ’em now, though. The flats were Dad’s home now.

  After about seven years of running beef cattle Dad decided it wasn’t for him so he hatched a plan. Subdivide. Sell three of our five hundred acres to our neighbour, Jim Davis, who already owned almost a thousand acres all the way up the valley and beyond to the National Park border.
We could live off the money for a bit, Dad reckoned. Plus he’d do something with the couple of hundred acres we had left. Cultivate it. Grow some crops. Chillies, corn, pumpkins, bananas. Stuff we could sell at the markets. Maybe even get a nursery going! A few months after selling, after he’d had a bit of a break, he used Pop’s old ute, a mustard coloured Landy, to ferry tray-loads of gear down to the flats. Pots, planter trays, bags of potting mix, star pickets, rolls of wire, bundles of shade cloth, sheets of metal, and posts. Not long after, he towed our old caravan down to use as a base while he worked.

  I looked over to the middle of the flats, to Dad’s base; the caravan and the piles of stuff that surrounded it. So far, after almost two years, most of the gear Dad had dragged down still lay about unused. All he’d done so far was build a shonky looking greenhouse about the size of a cubby, plant a dozen banana plants and a patch of measly tomatoes, and propagate a few trays of native grass. Hadn’t made a cent out of any of it, but. And it drove Mum spare. After a big row they had a few months before Shaun went off to war, Dad spent a couple of days rummaging underneath the house, going through all his boxes and containers of stuff—all the bits and bobs he’d collected over the years—and gathering blankets, cushions, old books, camping chairs, tarps, tent poles, gas lanterns from round the house and loading it all into the Landy. Then before he drove off, round the back of the hill, he told Mum the caravan wasn’t going to be his base anymore, it was going to be his home.

  I couldn’t spot him, but smoke was curling out of his fire pit on the far side of the annex. He’d be round there somewhere. Probably just sitting in his chair by the fire staring up at the trees as if somewhere among their leaves and branches the answers to the mysteries of life were hidden.

  At the other end of the flats was the ancient gum that loomed like a giant over the rest of the trees, its lower limbs stretching over the fishing hole. I made a beeline for it. It had been over a week since I’d been down to the caravan, which meant Dad would chew my ear off if I gave him the chance. I’d fish first, and catch Old Greggy on the way back up.