The next big thing, p.13
The Next Big Thing, page 13
Ella wanted to confront him. To show up unannounced and bang on his front door demanding an explanation. But how much of that feeling was wanting to see him? How much of it was wanting something to be mad about, instead of this unshifting sadness.
She was stuck in an endless week. One life over, the next refusing to begin. She knew she would miss the town, that she should savour every minute she still had in Norman, but it wasn’t the same. Not without him.
Ella’s eyes drifted to the next table, where the newly unemployed former council secretary Daisy Peach was engrossed in conversation with Mrs Langham. Ella didn’t want to eavesdrop but if she couldn’t help it, then it wasn’t her fault. At least that was the justification she gave herself that allowed her to blame the laws of physics and not her own desperate desire to disappear into someone else’s drama for a few minutes.
‘He thinks we should take it. He said it’s nearly twice the value of the land. Says we’d be mad to sit on it,’ Mrs Langham said, leaning over her scone, the purple frames of her glasses sparkling in the light. She nervously clutched the turquoise pendant on her necklace. ‘I don’t know what to tell him.’
‘What would that mean for—’ Ms Peach’s voice shook. She couldn’t bear to even ask the question. She thumbed the turquoise stone on her pinkie ring.
Ella leaned closer so she wouldn’t miss a beat. Ms Peach’s voice had dropped to a low whisper.
‘It’s the Marshall Group, isn’t it?’
Mrs Langham didn’t answer. Ella’s mind was racing. What was this group and why were they interested in buying up property in a dying town? Then, something clicked. Rona had mentioned signing a non-disclosure agreement. Ella had dismissed it as a short-lived lie to quiet Norm, but what if she had been telling the truth? It would explain a lot. She had to talk about it with Norm. Then, she remembered, of course she couldn’t. The same old sadness came strolling back.
Ms Peach slammed her fist on the table and Ella jumped involuntarily. At the worst possible time, Mr Baylis approached Ella’s table.
‘And how are you doing, little miss?’ he asked.
She gave a strained smile. ‘All good, thank you.’
Mr Baylis walked around the table and leaned on the empty seat. ‘Where is your little friend today?’
Another thump rang out from the other table. Cutlery clattered. Ella was in a tight spot. She couldn’t ask Mr Baylis to leave so that she may eavesdrop on his other customers better. The strain on her face must have shown because all of a sudden he was pulling back a chair, fluffing out his apron and sitting down with a groan and a loud crack from his knees.
‘I know that look,’ he said kindly. ‘Do not worry about him. You are too sweet a young woman to worry about that boy.’
‘Oh, uh, no, I—’ Ella began.
‘It’s okay.’ He leaned forward on one elbow, raising his hand to his grey moustache to whisper, ‘I never really liked him anyway.’
Despite herself, Ella giggled.
‘Forget him. Tell me about you. What is it that you wish to do?’
‘No, it’s silly.’
‘Everything worth a damn is silly,’ he said.
Ella took a sip of her peppermint tea, forgetting about the drama unfolding between Daisy Peach and Bettsy Langham.
‘I want to study the stars.’
Mr Baylis furrowed his brow. ‘You and I have different senses of humour, I think.’
‘It’s a little silly. Stargazing makes you feel so small but so important because there’s this big grand thing going on out there, further away than we can imagine, more complicated than we could ever understand, but we get to witness it. We’ve been witnessing it for a long, long time, too. The same constellations I see at night lit the way for my great-great-great-grandmother.’
Mr Baylis smiled more broadly than ever and pointed a thick finger right at Ella. ‘You are a lot like your mother.’
This took the oxygen right out of her lungs.
‘You knew her?’ she asked.
‘Knew her!’ Mr Baylis waved a hand dismissively. ‘She sat right where you are, every day. She and Mrs Baylis loved talking about how the plants were growing, and every little thing going on in the town. They’re probably still doing it right now.’ He looked up to the sky and just for a moment, his expression turned impossibly sad, the weight of the years hanging on his forehead. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone again, replaced by the big, broad smile Ella knew so well. ‘Of course, she was a painter, your mother.’
Ella was stunned. ‘Really? No. Really!?’
Mr Baylis pointed over Ella’s shoulder towards the old weather-beaten shed. ‘That is you, no?’
Ella turned her body and stared at the mural of the young girl dancing by the riverbed. The world seemed to hold still around her, her heartbeat slowing to a crawl. She had never paid it much mind. It had blended into the background of her world, never remarked upon. Yet, there it was, there she was, painted by her mother’s hand.
It made her sad to think she hadn’t recognised herself. There were so few photos in the home. No baby pictures. It must have been because her mother was in them all. This woman Ella hardly knew yet missed so dearly. Ella so rarely felt seen. But there it was, hiding in plain sight. Proof that she was real and loved and once filled with joy.
There was only one other person in her whole life who had ever made her feel like she was truly special, and he had walked out of her life.
‘You wait here,’ Mr Baylis said, leaping from his chair with a sudden vigour. ‘You wait.’
He hopped back inside, bouncing from foot to foot with youthful energy. Ella sat transfixed by the mural and her mind slowly turned back to Norm. Norm, whose mother was out there somewhere. Every little morsel of her mother’s life was like gold for Ella. How could Norm know there was not just a story but a real person out there somewhere, and sit still?
Ella heard a clatter behind her. Ms Peach stood suddenly and raced past her table. Ella couldn’t be sure, but she thought that she’d seen tears in her eyes. Before she could dwell on it, Mr Baylis had returned, holding in his arms a painting of him and his wife, some thirty years younger, standing arm-in-arm surrounded by white roses. It was by no means a masterpiece of the form, but what it lacked in technical prowess it more than made up for in heart. Ella studied the painting carefully. Warmth radiated from it. She couldn’t help but smile. And there, in the bottom right, scrawled ever so delicately in white paint, was her mother’s signature.
‘This was a gift she gave us,’ Mr Baylis said. ‘We had a photo, a beautiful photo from our wedding day. It used to sit by the register in a little silver frame. But when the flood hit, and the banks overflowed, it was ruined. The whole store was, of course, but it was the photo that broke Maria’s heart. Then, a few weeks later when we reopened the store, your dear mother brought us this. She had painted it from memory. We cried. We all cried.’
Even now, as he recounted the memory, Mr Baylis pulled out a large white handkerchief and blew into it. ‘She was a wonderful, wonderful woman, your mother.’
Ella sniffed. And then sniffed again. What was that smell?
‘Oh, god. The muffins!’
7.
Well, I love utes. How good are utes? And how good would a Big Ute be? That’s what I’d say.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, 9 December 2021
One of the candles promised tranquillity, another promised wisdom, a third promoted positive vibes, a fourth would instil self-love, the fifth captured the smell of the Amalfi coast, and the sixth just said ‘Sandalwood’ in Arial font. They combined to give the distinctly not calming sensation of being trapped in a fire hazard. There were no smoke detectors, either. A code violation, Billy supposed, but it would be out of keeping for a psychic to need one.
Michelle laid out another card in front of Billy. It showed an oddly peaceful blond boy, suspended upside down, his legs crossed and his arms seemingly lashed to a post.
‘The hanged man,’ she said.
‘Is that good?’ Billy asked.
Michelle’s brow furrowed in a way that concerned Billy.
He had never put too much stock in the occult, but he’d still rather good news to bad.
‘It’s not necessarily bad. It could just mean you need a new perspective on things, or there will be a greater sacrifice required.’
‘Oh, terrific,’ Billy said, loosening his tie and wiping the sweat off his brow. His shirt was already sticking to his body and the thick, incense-filled air was doing little to help his claustrophobia. He tapped his fingers on the table twice in quick succession. ‘Hit me.’
Michelle pursed her lips and drew another card.
‘The Devil,’ she announced, causing Billy to throw his hands up in dismay. Michelle quickly drew another card. ‘Alright, alright, here.’
With a flourish she placed the card on the table. Billy caught a glimpse of a cartoon drawing of the grim reaper before Michelle swept the cards aways with one hand and placed them all into a small wooden box.
‘Let’s forget the cards, shall we?’ she said. ‘We still have a lot of work to do. I’ve heard that the Batchen girl is moving away. Word is she got a spot at the university.’
Billy made no effort to hide his disinterest. ‘I’ll be sure to send a letter of congratulations,’ he said, dipping his finger in the candle wax and watching it congeal over his finger. He slowly picked away at it, leaving shreds of wax on the table. The process fascinated him, like acquiring and shedding a second skin. He reached back into the candle and coated his finger again. Michelle grabbed his wrist and the wax dripped down, freezing in mid-air like a purple stalactite. ‘Listen. The Batchen girl is leaving.’
8.
Ella sat cross-legged in front of her mother’s mural and tried to place herself within it. She was too young to form an actual memory. Even if she could, it would be of the things that delight a child, the blur of the riverbank as she twirled and twirled, a butterfly she chased, the sounds of the rushing stream. She would not have known then to linger on what was important, the flash of a smile, the smell of her mother’s hugs. Maybe this particular day never existed, or maybe it was a hundred days melded into one. She imagined her mother, in the shade of the river red gum, not much older than Ella now, wearing paint-flecked overalls, washing her brushes in a bucket.
Ella had spent the last hour on top of Vodafone Hill. With a flick of the wrist, she would twirl her phone into the sky, twisting in the wind, slowly rising, then crashing back to Earth, each time carrying with it a new piece of devastating news. She had learned the Marshall Group was a predatory arm of a major energy conglomerate, famous for sucking the last drops of mineral wealth from country towns and moving on to their next victim.
From the top of Vodafone Hill, she could see the borders of Norman, surrounded in all directions by dead land. She found no beauty in the view. It was all too fragile.
Then there was the house at the very edge of town. Norm hadn’t been seen for days. He had shut himself off from the world. He would want to know about the Marshall Group, surely. He needed to know the town was under threat. Maybe they could put everything else aside and focus on saving Norman for one more day. And then … and then what?
A slow rumbling interrupted Ella’s train of thought. Was it a car? She put a palm to the ground, wondering if she could feel some far-off vibration. She felt the brush of wind on her cheeks and tried to remember the last time she’d felt a breeze on the main street of Norman. The small stones by her side rolled down the riverbank and into the dry bed underneath.
She turned and rose to her feet, her brain refusing to process the spectre on the horizon. At first, Ella thought of fire, and felt her heart jump into her throat, but this was something different. It did not have the smell of fire, nor the darkness of the smoke. Rather, the colours of the cloud evoked inappropriately delightful words in her mind like ‘tangerine’ and ‘persimmon’. What it did have was the same impossible scale, as if the whole world had been engulfed. It looked like a crashing wave, threatening to swallow the world before it. As if to make good on the threat, within a few seconds, Vodafone Hill was completely enveloped. The sky took on an unnatural orange-tinted darkness. The wind began to pick up the small stones in the streets, whipping them at her ankles.
She turned towards the riverbed, and for a moment considered crawling under the upturned troopy.
She was about to take off down the riverbank when she heard a crash. The door of Maffezzoni’s Metals warehouse had been flung open, and in the gulf stood Ella’s salvation. Rocko stood in the doorway, his calloused hand cupped against his yellowed beard as he called out to Ella.
‘Girly, get in, quick!’
She didn’t need to be told twice. She put her head down and ran for the open door.
Ella couldn’t remember a time when the old metalworks warehouse had looked open and inviting. The plyboard reinforcing the broken glass shopfront and the occasional dull orange light inside had been a perfect starting point for primary school ghost stories.
From inside, the building was remarkably unremarkable. Perhaps this had once been the foyer to greet customers, but it had been a long, long time since anyone had stepped through that door. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, its shade caked in dust, the light low enough that everything appeared in black and white. She could see the words Maffezzoni’s Metals painted in delicate cursive on the window, long since hidden from the street by chipboard.
‘You’re Mr Maffezzoni?’ Ella asked.
‘Aye, what’s it to you?’ Rocko said. ‘You’re not that little prick from the council that’s been hassling me, are you? I told you, I’m not paying the rates because you lot don’t empty my bins. I burn everything in a barrel at the back of the shop. That’s legal. You don’t own the sky.’
The boards rattled and the light flickered. The dust cloud had arrived. ‘Might as well settle in,’ Rocko said. She followed him along a cramped, dank hallway which opened out to a spacious workshop. Decommissioned workstations with cobweb-covered machinery hinted at a productive past that Ella could not remember.
In a flash, Rocko disappeared deep into the bowels of the building. With anyone else, Ella might feel nervous, but Rocko was a weirdo, not a creep. An important distinction. Also, if needed, she could snap him like a twig.
A halogen light hummed and Ella tried to imagine Rocko working diligently at one of these stations. An impossible thought. Something caught her eye, a sharp spike poking out from underneath a dusty tarp near her feet. Ella slowly pulled it back, revealing a large metal sculpture, a razorback pig, five feet long at least and three feet wide. Its skeletal structure made it seem oddly delicate, yet the thick-legged stance and bent head projected pure strength. Ella swore she could practically see the steam snorted out of its nostrils. It was powerful, beautiful and above all, absolutely and undoubtedly a pig.
Echoes of footsteps suddenly reverberated around the room. Rocko had returned with two cans of Melbourne Bitter.
‘I see you’ve spotted Sarah,’ he said. ‘Don’t get any ideas. She’s not for sale. Come round, I’ll show you the rest.’
They walked together, weaving through equipment in the warehouse. Rocko lifted a heavy door and they walked through an enclosed greenhouse set-up, along a short gravel path towards a large corrugated-iron shed, the door wrapped in a thick chain and secured by padlock.
Rocko dropped the lock to the ground, unwrapped the chain and opened the hanging door with great exertion, the hinge unleashing a godawful cry as the bottom corner dragged into the gravel. They stepped inside and Rocko pulled on a cord above his head. Dull lights blinked on in three stages, reaching deeper and deeper into the recesses of the shed. Ella stood in awe with a dash of fear.
Before her stood an unfathomable menagerie of metallic creatures, like a zoo where the exhibitions had been forged from the bars themselves. They were skeletal frames, yet somehow felt delicate and tender. The tapir dug at the ground with its snout, the meerkat’s ever-so-small paws rubbed its ears, the kangaroo standing proud, chest out, weight on its iron tail, ready to leap into the unknown. These creatures were at once impossible, harsh and unearthly while still being vibrant and alive.
Ella turned to look Rocko up and down, trying to comprehend how this man, who seemed as if he had been unfrozen from a slab of Antarctic ice, could be capable of such intricate work. Suddenly, she was struck by a brilliant idea.
‘Rocko, I reckon I have a job for you. A big one.’
9.
I have been a neighbour of the prawn for eight months. It certainly draws a lot of people to the area, especially around my fence outside … It does throw out a lot of light, as well. Those eyes, as you see, the eyes on the prawn, they’re a beady-looking thing. It can be a real horror story if you tend to think of it that way. I’m actually frantically growing trees out there now.
Kevin Santin, interviewed by ABC News, 9 September 1991
Botany Street was dressed up like a carnival. Trestle tables out the front of storefronts were overflowing with fresh fruit, honeycomb, homemade candles, pottery, garden sculptures and for some reason an ice sculpture, a protest fist, melting in the sunshine. The water ran from the base of the sculpture off the table and formed a puddle at Sandy’s feet.
Shelby laughed, and the sound rang on and on. She was riding on Tony’s shoulders, and young, so very young. It was not real. It couldn’t be real. But was Sandy caught in a dream or a nightmare?
It was the town as it used to be, her friends as they used to be. Jen and Mick, hand in hand, skipping through the streets. Shelby guiding Tony from above, like he was a racehorse. Together, they retrieved a frangipani, and passed it down to Sandy.
She watched on with dread. She was torn over whether to warn them or let them live on in this perfect bliss. Mick turned to smile at Sandy. It was a smile she hadn’t seen before. He didn’t look at her like that. Not back then. His hand loosened and Jen’s slipped away.
