Desert Country

Chapter 2: The Boss

Chapter 2: The Boss

Brandon climbed out of the plane.

The intense heat hit him like a slap in the face. It almost took his breath away. Further along the baked earth of the crude runway a heat haze was shimmering.

“You must be Brandon.”

The man moving towards him looked to be in his late thirties. He was reasonably attractive, apart from a slight overbite, and had dark hair, clipped at the sides and much longer on top so his fringe flopped down over one corner of his forehead. He was wearing shorts and a short-sleeved, collared business shirt. His deeply tanned arms and legs were hairy.

“Yes,” replied Brandon.

“Mark Petersen.”

Brandon smiled as he wiped away the sweat that had already formed on his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Mark. It sure is hot out here.”

Mark laughed. “You’d better get used to it.”

Brandon smiled weakly.

Meanwhile, Pete had unloaded Brandon’s cases, one of which contained clothes and the other a jumbled collection of toiletries, shoes, books and stationery.

Mark took both cases and headed towards a large, white four-wheel drive that was parked at the entrance to the runway.

“Have fun,” said Pete as he disappeared around the other side of his plane.

Brandon couldn’t tell whether the pilot was trying to be funny or not.

“See you later,” he called back. “And thanks.”

Brandon turned, wiped his forehead again and trudged down the clay track to the car.

“You’re a bit different to what we were expecting,” said Mark as he turned the key in the ignition.

Brandon bristled. What the hell does that mean? Sure, he wasn’t as athletically built as Mark. In fact, he was downright skinny. He was as shapeless as a ruler. He wore his hair gelled into place (a slight quiff at the front), and kept his sideburns neatly shaped—each tapering to a point. He was wearing the latest 80's fashion (baggy trousers and a primitive print collared shirt), but then again so was everyone else he knew in the city.

Unable to think of an appropriate response, he remained silent.

Such was the size of Gunnanilla, it only took four minutes for them to arrive at what was clearly the school.

“We’ve got the pre-primary and Years One to Three over there in that demountable,” Mark explained, pointing with his whole hand. “That building across the quadrangle is where the laundry and toilets are, but you can use the one in our house because it bloody stinks in there. The Abos are worse than animals.”

Brandon had gone to school with Aboriginal people, but they’d been urban Aborigines of mixed blood. Here, on the edge of the desert, he was going to meet full-blooded Aborigines; something he’d been looking forward to. It came as something of a shock to hear them spoken about in such a derogatory way.

“Over here is where we teach the rest of them—Years Four to Seven and a couple of high school students. Hopeless, both of them.”

Brandon followed Mark up the three wooden steps to the main building.

“That’s the office in there.” He pointed to a small annex before sliding the door to the classroom open.

Immediately every eye was upon Brandon. A sea of dark faces, punctuated here and there by a brilliant white smile.

“Everybody, this is Mr Lewis, our new teacher. I hope you’ll all show him what good students you are.”

A tall, thin woman came out of the adjoining office. She had blue eyes, a long, narrow nose with a small hook in it and rubicund cheeks. She wore her blonde hair short. Her lips were thin, but her smile was friendly.

“Hello, Brandon. I’m Trina,” she said.

“Pleased to meet you, Trina.”

As they shook hands, Brandon noticed Trina’s eyes go to his neatly styled hair, though her smile didn’t waver. He wondered what she was thinking; whether she agreed with her husband that he wasn’t ‘what they’d been expecting’.

“So Mr Lewis…” Even after three months practical experience while at university, it felt strange, so official, to hear himself addressed in such a formal manner. “…which class would you like?”

Brandon had already made up his mind he didn’t want to work in the main building, not under the constant supervision of the school principal. However, he wanted to make a good impression. He was, after all, under probation and would be for the next two years.

“I’ll take whichever one is free,” he replied.

Mark closed his eyes for a second or two. The faintest crease appeared between his eyebrows. “You can have any of them. Which one would you feel most comfortable teaching?”

“The junior primary,” Brandon said. “Years One to Three.”

“And the pre-schoolers,” added Trina.

Shit! He’d forgotten about them. “And the pre-schoolers,” he repeated, hearing a crack in his voice.

“I’ll keep an eye on this lot,” said Mark, addressing his wife. “You take him over to meet Jenny.”

Jenny, Brandon was informed, was the wife of the local police officer. In the flesh, she was a solidly built woman with large hips. She was short in stature and had permed hair, which gave her a little added height. She came through the door of the classroom wearing a broad smile, which seemed more genuine than the smiles he’d got from both Mark and Trina.

“How are you?” she said, shaking his hand with a firm grip.

“Brandon’s opted for my old class,” said Trina.

Jenny nodded, making her curls bounce. “Right,” she said. “I’ll take him in. Introduce him to the little darlings.”

Brandon caught Trina rolling her eyes and couldn’t decide whether he’d done a good thing in taking the principal’s wife’s class, or a bad thing.

Once again, the second he stepped into the room, every eye was upon him.

“Boys and girls, this is Mr Lewis, your new teacher. Everyone say good morning.”

“Good morning, Mitta Lewis,” chorused the children.

A little girl, with fairer skin than the other pupils and sun-bleached hair, came up and took hold of his hand. Looking up at him she asked, “What your first name?”

Brandon looked at Jenny for a clue as to whether or not he should tell them. Seeing no evidence it was against the rules, Brandon replied.

“My name’s Brandon. What’s yours?”

Suddenly the class erupted. “Nabaru! Nabaru!”

A boy with a head that looked too big to be supported by such a thin, scrawny body came rushing up to him and took his other hand.

“Your name nabaru, Mitta. Nabaru!”

Brandon looked to Jenny for an explanation.

“Nabaru means something like…:” She began shaking her head slowly as though the motion would shuffle a definition onto her tongue. “…forbidden. Someone from the tribe must have been named Brandon…”

“Ahhh! Miss! Nabaru! Nabaru!”

Jenny nudged the boy with the big head gently back in the direction of his chair.

“That’s Daniel. Or Doonga. Anyway, when someone dies, their name becomes nabaru and they aren’t supposed to say it.

“Ever?” asked Brandon.

Jenny shrugged. “Dunno. Anyway, I’ll let you get on with it. What would you like me to do?”

Brandon looked around the room, his mind racing. “I’m not sure. What do you normally do?”

“Trina gets me to look after the pre-schoolers. I can take them out for a game if you want to get settled here.”

Brandon smiled. “Thanks. That’d be great.”

He turned and walked to the front of the class.

“Hello, everyone. Can somebody tell me what you’ve been doing?”

A tall girl with hair like straw that stuck out at odd angles leapt to her feet. “We been doing maths, Mitta, but we don’t wanna do it. It’s yukky!”

“Mis-ter,” said Brandon correcting her.

The girl, suddenly self-conscious, dropped back into her chair.

“I suppose the first thing I should do is learn your names,” said Brandon, ploughing on. “As you know, my name is…” He picked up some chalk and began writing on the blackboard as he spoke. “…Mi-ster Lew-is. Now, how about each of you stand up and tell me your name and something about yourself?”

The tall girl with straw hair, having overcome her bout of shyness, shot to her feet. “My name Leanne. I hate maths.”

Brandon smiled. “I gathered that,” he replied. “It is yukky, but it’s important so we should learn a little bit of it.”

Leanne beamed, no doubt elated to have a teacher who sympathised with her.

“And what’s your name?” he asked the girl sitting next to her.

“Diana,” said a pretty, chubby-cheeked girl who almost folded in on herself with shyness as she replied.

Brandon smiled and nodded.

“I’m Raylene,” said the pale-skinned, fair-haired girl opposite Diana as she stood up.

“Yes, we met before. How are you?”

The direct question obviously hadn’t been anticipated and suddenly the girl’s bravado evaporated and she sank back into her seat.

There were more students, thirty in total; thirty names to learn and thirty little responsibilities.

That afternoon, as the hands of the classroom clock hit three-fifteen, Mark appeared at the door.

“How did it go?” he asked as the children were putting their chairs on the desks, out of the way, for the benefit of the school cleaner.

“Good,” said Brandon.

Mark kept his eye on the children.

“They’ll go over to the toilet block now and take off their uniforms and put their camp clothes back on.”

It hadn’t occurred to Brandon that the children didn’t own their uniforms.

“We keep their uniforms so they don’t get lost or dirty. Fancy, your aide who didn’t bother coming in to work today, probably drunk, washes them once a week.”

Brandon nodded.

“All the kids have to shower every morning and get changed into their uniform,” Mark continued. “If any of them stink, more than usual, I mean, send them out to shower again.”

After the children had fled the classroom, Mark went through some of the procedures.

“Trina has started the term programmes, but you’ll have to finish them. Don’t break your arse, but the sooner you can get them in to me to check, the better. She’s also done the lesson plan for the week.”

Brandon could see the forthcoming weekend evaporating before his eyes.

“So if you’re all right, let’s head to the pub for a drink. I’ll introduce you around.”

Brandon felt his stomach lurch. His tendency to self-consciousness had already reared its ugly head, now, it seemed, it was going to be tested to its limit. However, he also knew how small country towns worked; he’d grown up in one. A person had to fit in, be sociable, make an effort.

“Sounds good,” he replied, not altogether convincingly. “A quick one, though. Better get started on some of these programmes.”

Despite the local pub being a three-minute walk from the school, Mark drove. They pulled up at the side of the pub, where there was an area for parking.

“I’ll introduce you to Bruno. He’s the owner of the pub. He’ll show you to your room and you can put these away.”

He hefted the two bags from the back of his four-wheel drive and carried them into the bleakest looking beer garden Brandon had ever seen. The space was no more than a concrete veranda with a couple of long tables and some faded orange, plastic chairs.

“Here let me take one,” said Brandon as they entered the dimly lit pub.

“Nah, I’ve got them now,” Mark replied.

Bruno was Austrian. He was tall, broad-shouldered and sported a sizeable beer gut. He had a thick five-o’clock shadow and drooping eyelids that made him look half-asleep.

“A city boy,” he said after Mark had introduced them. “Get your bags. I will show you to your room.”

He spoke very carefully, as though he were making sure every word was pronounced as correctly as possible, and if Brandon hadn’t been so tired, he would have found it amusing.

He was led down a short hallway, past the kitchen and out onto a grassed area. To his right there were three rows of five portable tin rooms called dongers. To his left was a pair of larger, portable rooms and directly in front of him, across the lawn and bordered by a row of daisy bushes, were three units on concrete bases.

Bruno took him to the middle unit.

It was no more than a large bedroom, with a double bed positioned beneath an old-style air conditioner, which jutted out of the wall, a wooden desk with an orange laminate top and to his right, a narrow en suite bathroom. To his disgust, the bedspread was also orange. He abhorred orange and there was way too much of it in this small space that was to be his home for the bulk of the forthcoming year. He also noticed that tucked beneath the desk was a small bar fridge. He opened it expectantly, but found it empty.

“For beer,” said Bruno nodding at the fridge. He handed Brandon the key. “Sometimes the bloody hot water system goes out. If it does, come and get me. If I’m not around, there are some public showers behind your room.”

Brandon poked his head into the bathroom, which was grey and basic. To the right there was a shower with a pale grey plastic curtain. In front of him there was a wash basin and a mirror with tiny black spots on it, and to his left was the toilet. For no particular reason, he went over and lifted the lid, and discovered a frog doing breaststroke across the surface of the water.

“Hey, there’s a frog in here,” he called out.

“Yeah, they like the water. Just flush it down.”

Brandon was horrified. He could no more do that than kill it, which, he imagined, would amount to the same thing. Instead, he left it where it was. If it knew how to get into the toilet bowl, it could find its way out, and if it was still there when he had to do his business, he would scoop it out and find somewhere safer to put it.

“You ready?” asked Bruno, walking onto the veranda.

Brandon hurried out.

“Listen, your rent covers breakfast and dinner. Dinner is from six to eight. You can eat in the dining room or take your meal back to your room,” Bruno explained. “Friday is fish and chip night.”

Brandon accompanied Bruno into the pub, where Mark was finishing the last of a pint and chatting to the voluptuous barmaid.

“This is Katy,” said Mark, introducing them.

Katy was pretty, nothing exceptional, just pretty. Her hair was a mass of dark blond curls and when she smiled her chubby cheeks became twin mounds of cherry red.

“Finally, someone civilised,” she said as she towel dried a pint glass and placed it on the counter. “Katy,” she said, thrusting a hand at Brandon.

Brandon shook it.

“Where did you study?” she asked.

“Claremont,” Brandon replied.

Katy shrieked. “OMG! Get out of here! I’m from Claremont. I grew up there.”

Brandon could tell. Claremont was one of the posh areas of the city. Most of the people he’d encountered there spoke with a kind of faux plum in their mouths, and Katy was no exception.

“What would you like to drink? It’s on the house. A beer?”

Brandon examined the row of spirit bottles. “No, I don’t like beer. A bourbon and Coke, thanks.”

“You don’t like beer?” asked Mark, wrapping his fingers around a fresh glass of the amber fluid.

Brandon felt himself tense. “No,” he said defensively, knowing it was considered by some that an Aussie man who didn’t like beer was not a man at all.

“Got a girlfriend back in Perth?” asked Mark.

Brandon swallowed hard. “No, we broke up before I came up here.” Which was kind of true, apart from the fact it wasn’t a girl, but a man five years older than him.

Little white lies came easily to Brandon. He’d grown up in the country. He knew what small minds could do to a person’s mental state if they discovered something about you they didn’t like.

“Now, you’re not going to tell me you don’t like footie,” said Mark.

At last, the holy trilogy—beer, girls and football; the three badges of Aussie manhood.

“It’s alright,” he said, remembering the time, as a small boy, his mother had sent him into the change rooms after a football match to retrieve his father. All the naked, hairy men showering and smacking each other playfully on the bums with rolled up towels had rendered him motionless. He’d certainly enjoyed that aspect of football.

Mark looked at him for an uncomfortable moment then took a sip of his beer.

Brandon took a great gulp of bourbon and Coke, and then another. He could feel the alcohol warming his cheeks.

“Not quite sure about you,” Mark said, returning his attention to Brandon.

Brandon swallowed a third mouthful of bourbon and Coke and wondered why the hell he hadn’t turned the damned teaching job down.

Fortunately, right at the moment Brandon was wishing he’d wake up to discover this was all a bad dream, a trucker walked in, wearing a blue singlet, blue shorts, beaten up work boots and hair that looked like it was on the verge of becoming dreadlocks.

“Katy,” he shouted from the door. “Beer me up, you sexy thing.”

Katy rolled her eyes at Brandon and proceeded to pour the man a beer. As the rugged truck-driver, brown and wrinkled from too much time in the sun, sat down, she handed it to him.

“Hey Katy,” he said.

“Yes, Derek,” she replied.

“You like jewellery?”

A broad smile bloomed on Katy’s face. “Oh, I love it. Can’t you tell?” she said holding her bejewelled fingers out.

“Then come over here and I’ll give you a pearly necklace.”

Brandon nearly choked on his bourbon. A little bit came out of his nose.

Katy looked horrified and became flustered. “I can’t believe you said that to me.” She flicked the man with her tea towel, while everyone rocked with laughter. “Oh, you’re such a pig!”