Daisy was calling him before he’d crossed the cattle grid. ‘The mobile coffee van’s blown a tyre on the way down from Bangadoon.’
‘Of course it has.’
‘Yep, and Maureen—that’s Angelo’s new wife, she’s the driver and barista—can’t find a jack.’
‘Don’t they have roadside assist insurance?’
‘Maybe you didn’t hear me before. They’re fromBangadoon. Those two would think insurance was a capitalist trap, and they could weave a new tyre before they could change one.’
Right. ‘Can you call Hogey?’
‘Hogey’s got the trailer attached to the towball of his ute, with a heifer in it for the cow poo lotto. He can’t unload Irene yet because the back gate to the pub garden’s still closed.’
‘Irene’s the heifer I take it, not Hogey’s latest girlfriend.’
Daisy’s eyeroll had no trouble travelling through the phone line. ‘Joey! Focus! There’s a whacking great chain and padlock preventing me from opening the pub gate. What’ll we do?’
‘You might need to get Wombat out of bed.’
‘Genius idea, why didn’t I think of that? Oh wait, that’s right, I did … at least I would have, if the pub wasn’t locked up tight. He’s not answering the door or his phone.’
He looked at his watch. ‘Five fifty-eight. Wombat said we could have access from six. Maybe he’s set his alarm; you are a few minutes early.’
‘I’m upfreakishlyearly and I’ve not had breakfast. This is not a good combo, Joey. Just saying.’
He pulled out of the farm’s drive and dithered. Turn left, rescue the coffee van, then spend the whole morning playing catch up to ensure they were ready by the time the muster officially began at ten am … turn right and give the people of Clarence the Bush Poetry Muster they deserved.
It was a no-brainer—time to ask the community for help. He was a recluse no more.
‘You still there, big brother?’
‘Merv O’Connor’s not on duty until eight. I’ll call him and see if he can take a car jack out to the coffee van.’
‘Merv?Are you sure? He’s a drama teacher. He ownscats.’
He chuckled. ‘Now, now. Considering you’re the mother of a budding political vigilante, you should learn to not be so judgy.’
‘If I had a cinnamon roll in my hand, maybe I’d be a nicer person.’ He snorted. ‘I’ll see you in ten minutes.’
It was twelve minutes, because the bakery was open when he detoured via Lillypilly Street. Six bucks for a cinnamon roll and a takeaway latte was a small price to pay to turn his sister into the promised nicer person. They had a long day ahead.
By two o’clock everything was a blur and he was acknowledging how naive he’d been to imagine he’d be getting a breather. If it wasn’t a blown fuse, it was a sugar crisis at the fairy floss machine, or a lack of two-dollar coins at the plant stall, or a bloke in a battered sheepskin vest wanting to talk about the time he’d come second in a bull-riding competition in Normanton then drunk his winnings before sundown and it was the best darn day of his life because the bar girl pouring his rum had agreed to marry him.
And his mother had run this muster every year for over a decade!
He was working the crowd and selling raffle tickets near the door to the performance tent when he heard a deep grizzled voice within—the Bush Poet Laureate Frank Featherstone from Tamworth, he presumed—announce the newbie section of the adult performance poetry. ‘Anyone is welcome to come forward,’ said the voice. ‘Young and old, tall and short; we want to hear a rhyme, we want to hear a consistent meter, and we want someheart.’
Laughter was pouring out from the marquee as he made his way alongside its back edge to avoid the main thoroughfare.
A voice—a female voice—cut through the laughter.
The mighty Clarence River snakes through this old town of mine
Where blokes are tough as back-road dust and utes are bloody fine
And when it rains, by crikey, mate, our creeks rise flooding fast
You’ll see a cow or too, maybe a fence post swirling past