Patty gave a gay and totally fake laugh. ‘Oh, you,’ she said. ‘We’re a little pressed for time is all; people have to go to work and it’s already past eight o’clock. If Hogey gets up to help you with your pump, everyone will get out of their chairs and it’ll be like herding cats getting them back down. Go walk along the river or something.’
Or something.
His mother would rather he do ‘or something’ than stick around. ‘If you need some help, Mum, just ask. I can help with any jobs or whatever. Only’—he winced a little at the idea—‘maybe don’t give me any poetry to read.’
She gave his hand a pat then chuffed him over the sleeping kelpie and out the door with the skill of a nightclub bouncer expelling a drunk banker. He manhandled the pump off the tray of his ute while she waited there, barring the door, and lowered it to the ground, front and centre, so Hogey would trip over it if he tried to leave.
She waited until he was in the driver’s seat before she turned to go back inside. To wave him off? To make sure he left?
‘Mum,’ he called.
‘Yes, my lamb?’
‘Let Hogey know he’ll have my undying devotion if he can have a look at my pump today, will you?’
‘Will do, Joey.’
He left them to it. There was more than one way to shag a spider, as Hogey himself would say. So his mum and Daisy were being cagey about something … he had no shortage of siblings to go to for info, and one conveniently lived close by, over the pub he worked in. It was time the Miles family remembered who the big brother was around here.
He slammed the door of the ute behind him and headed for the pub’s steps, dodging some fruit bat goop that had hit a brick on the path. The warmth of the sunny winter morning had brought out a softer shade of the old pub, and it had a somewhat mellowing effect on his temper.
Someone inside was humming in a scratchy baritone. ‘Wombat? That you, mate?’
His brother Will was on a stool at the bar, reading a newspaper, a mug beside him sending a curl of steam into the air.
‘Joey, hi. Hang on a sec.’
He waited while his brother opened the pub’s front door and propped it behind a scarred brass firedog, then followed Will into the snug front bar.
‘You want a coffee? Kettle just boiled.’
‘Sure.’
‘Take a seat and I’ll grab you a mug.’
While he waited, Joey picked upThe Sydney Morning Herald. It had grease stains on the front page and smelled faintly of spilled beer. Hospital supply shortages and a politician’s connection to a casino development filled the front page and he turned it over. Tourism still not recovered in the Pacific Islands, cracks in the basement of another high-rise development in North Sydney … he kept going, looking for the weather page. His weather app had showed a disappointingly sunny forecast for the next few days. With one of his pumps out of action, he’d love to read a second opinion, one promising a rain cloud parking on top of Northern New South Wales.
Horse racing, real estate, crosswords, personal adverts for in-out calls—whatever they were! How far did a newbie farmer have to plough through a major newspaper to get some relevant info?
He flicked another page and stopped: the financial pages had been his daily bread and butter once. His eyes dropped to the alphabetised stocks section. There it was—the Clean Tomorrow Fund—trading away at a piss-poor stock price of ninety-eight cents a unit.
He slammed the paper shut and rubbed his chest. Yeah. So his pride hadn’t recovered from the blow, fancy that.
A coffee mug thunked down on the counter beside him. ‘Milk, no sugar, right?’ his brother said.
‘Any way it comes,’ Joey said, taking a sip.
‘What brings you into town?’
‘One of the irrigation pumps shat itself last night. I’m hoping Hogey can fix it, because those trees that rule my life now are thirsty little buggers.’
‘You need a hand with a hose, let me know.’
‘Not with a hose … but there is something I wanted your help with,’ he said.
Will looked at his watch. ‘Can we talk and eat? I’m on duty in an hour and I need some breakfast. How about a steak sanger?’
‘Sounds perfect.’