Life Before Read online

  Pam had just come back from school for the summer holidays when she’d first met Mick. She’d finished form five and it had been decided somehow or other that she wouldn’t be returning the following year. She wasn’t highly academic and she had no desire to teach or nurse, the default positions for girls in those days. Her mother suggested she could work in the office at Northam Farm Supplies, then owned by her uncle; the subtext being until she married. They’d had high hopes of a pairing with John van der Bandt, son of the town’s only legal practitioner (before her cousin Hugh graduated from law school) and a boy she’d had a lukewarm affection for in her early teens. But, as fate would have it, she’d only been in the office two days when Mick Green walked in the door and any thoughts of a more advantageous union were dashed.

  The situation had seemed so dire to her parents that they talked about sending her back to school to do sixth form. She wasn’t really the rebellious type, but she did have a streak of stubbornness and that ‘bugger you’ trait which ran in a strong vein through the Temple family. The same one that kept them on the land all these years, through wars, depressions, drought and various family dramas. The thought of being separated from Mick was too much. Once her parents had voiced their concerns, she upped the ante. She and Mick were barely apart. At nineteen she was engaged. By twenty she was married. People who didn’t know Pam well (which almost certainly included her parents at this point) might have believed the couple were doomed to failure, but Pam knew from the start that there was something special about Mick Green. He might have been brought up in the wrong religion and he might not have much money, but Pam knew that he would always adore her, that he would be a wonderful father and that he would work hard for his family.

  ‘Till death us do part,’ Mick had whispered mischievously (but without a hint of irony) as they lay down on the bed on their wedding night. Since then, he had never wavered. For him, Pam was and always would be the centre of his universe. And, despite some moments of frustration, he hers. While they had their disagreements, they always talked, worked things through, in their own way at least. Miraculously, nothing of any real consequence had come between them in more than twenty years.

  Mick was standing over the mower, pulling the cord, wrenching at it, attempting to muster the force to bring the damned thing to life. Pam watched him from the kitchen window with a twitchy smile. She wanted to go out and tell him to give it a rest. He’d probably flooded the motor, or maybe the sparkplug needed cleaning. But she wasn’t game to get in his way when he was obsessed. After another violent jerk the engine burst into fitful rhythm and she saw him bend down and make a quick adjustment.

  She picked up a tea towel and dried off the last of the dishes from the draining board. Somewhere behind her a door opened. One of the kids was up, her guess was Scott. He didn’t often sleep in. He’d got up with the larks since he was a baby, and even after a late night he didn’t tend to stay in bed long. He emerged as she put the last of the breakfast dishes away, a long stringy swipe of tanned skin and tousled blond hair. She sometimes wondered where it came from, this perpetual summer look. Mick had a touch of olive but it was a darker, muddier version. Scott was gold. Her golden child.

  ‘Morning.’ He walked to where she stood, threw his arms around her from behind.

  ‘Oh god. What were you doing last night?’ She pulled away, mock grimaced. ‘You smell like a brewery.’

  ‘Just a couple of coldies, Ma. You know me.’

  ‘I do, that’s the problem. I hope you weren’t driving.’

  He grinned and turned to the fridge. ‘What’s to eat?’

  ‘Did you eat last night?’

  ‘Yeah, we got burgers on the way back.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘When we got burgers? Dunno, about two-thirty. Didn’t you hear me come in?’

  ‘No. Thank god.’

  She used to lie awake waiting for him. Friday and Saturday nights were lost to her, she’d wake and drift. Sometimes it was close to five when he’d get in the door. Occasionally he’d stay at a mate’s, but she insisted he ring her if he did, if he was able to call. She just needed to know he was okay. She and Mick had a philosophy (built on late-night conversations, cobbled together in small exchanges) that allowed certain freedoms. They had to learn and grow, even if it had meant sleepless nights for her. Although not usually both of them, as Mick seemed to be immune from this kind of worry. Now Scott was eighteen and they couldn’t stop him if they wanted to. He was old enough to drive himself, join the army, vote, get married. Old enough to do whatever he bloody well liked.

  ‘I’ll make you some bacon and eggs.’

  ‘You are the best, Mum. You know that, don’t you?’

  She gave a little snort. The mower broke into full throttle and the noise filled the kitchen. She leaned across the sink and pulled the window closed.

  ‘Isn’t Dad working today?’ Scott asked as he took some milk out of the fridge, poured a large glass, carried it to the table.

  ‘Not at the shop.’ She raised her eyebrows. It was a longstanding joke in the family that Mick Green could not keep still. If she’d ever wondered about where Scott got his energy from she only had to look as far as his father. In so many ways they were nothing alike, but in terms of their energy and their constant urge to be doing, to be engaged, they were cut from the same cloth.

  Mick used his energy to keep order, but Scott couldn’t be accused of tidiness. His room was a sea of clothes, the clean and the dirty (frequently greasy and stinking) fraternised on the floor and lounged over the bed. Periodically Pam would go in and sort the them out, or just wash the lot if she was short on patience. When he was a kid he built models—aeroplanes, trains, cars, engines. There’d be small bits across the table, on the floor under the dining room chairs, along with half-built Lego castles and fortresses, little people loitering in the most unexpected of places. As he grew, so did the scale on which he worked. On his grandfather’s farm he rode motorbikes and drove the truck along the quieter local roads. He turned his hand to fixing them when they broke down. He pestered them for a bike of his own, even though he was only fifteen. This thing with vehicles, with engines, was puzzling to Mick. He was handy, adept at all kinds of household repairs, but he’d always been a middling mechanic. Pam’s father, although host to a shed full of mechanical delights (truck, ute, tractor, quadbike, motorbike) was not much better himself. He’d always had hired help to do most of his work. Yet there was Scott, somehow able to perform miracles with machines, to train his frantic energies to perfect intricacy.

  Pam had waited for Scott to declare he was going to leave school and do something practical with motors, but he never once mentioned such an idea. Pam wasn’t sure if this was simply because he knew they expected him to stay at school or if he actually liked it. He was bright enough, that was certain, but he didn’t work hard and his marks were mediocre. She knew he liked the social life at least. A lot had changed since she was at school. Kids were expected to stay on longer if they had even an ounce of aptitude.

  Simon, three years older than Scott, was at university studying accounting. He’d been a scholar from the start. At four he could be found buried in the depths of a beanbag with a book, while Scott buzzed around him, barely able to walk but already starting to run, tripping, bouncing up, raiding cupboards, pulling books and ornaments from shelves. Pam liked the fact that she had three children, loved to see their differences, and their similarities. She felt an utter contentment that was hard to fathom when Loren arrived. Pam had had the name waiting through three pregnancies and finally she’d come, her beautiful baby girl, a tiny carbon copy, everyone said, of her. Pam had loved to dress her up when she was little, but as Loren grew she took a dislike to all things pink and frothy and, in complete thrall to Scott, began running wild, climbing trees, riding bikes and generally colluding with him on almost everything. It wasn’t what Pam had expected, but then Pam was a little older by then, heading for thirty, and she’
d come to realise that much of life wasn’t what you expected. Much of it was mundane and ornery and capricious. You just had to be grateful for what you had, especially when in truth you had nothing whatsoever to complain about. Which she didn’t. Three beautiful children. She really didn’t.

  The mower spluttered and died again and for a moment there was only the sizzle of splattering fat in the pan.

  ‘What’s happening today?’ she asked.

  ‘Homework.’ His sniff indicated that he wasn’t giving it high priority.

  She had her back to him, affecting nonchalance. ‘You given any thought about what you’ll do next year?’

  Somewhere out of sight Mick was swearing, odd words filtering through the closed window.

  ‘I was thinking engineering.’

  She turned and looked at him. ‘Engineering?’

  He shrugged. ‘Makes sense, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But don’t you need good marks?’ (Was that too tactless?)

  ‘I might do it. Anyway, I can go to TAFE. My marks’ll be okay for that.’

  She piled the eggs and bacon on top of four slices of toast and slid them across the table. He started on the food as though it was a job to get through, his knife and fork poised, his elbows high.

  She didn’t like to push the kids, make them feel like they were being scrutinised. Simon had just found his own way, worked out where he wanted to be, but with Scott she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t that he lacked passion and drive, but he had no focus, no sense of danger or trepidation. No foresight she would have thought either. But suddenly he’s telling her he’s thinking of engineering and she feels like there’s been a radical shift. Growing up, just like growing, can happen in strange little bursts.

  In a couple of minutes he’d polished off everything on the plate. She took it from him, ran some hot water into the sink.

  ‘Thanks, Ma. I’m going to have a shower,’ he said.

  ‘Put your clothes out to wash. I haven’t seen any for a while.’

  The mower was still quiet but there were voices outside—Mick talking to someone. She slid open the back door and walked onto the deck, hearing Mick’s joking tones, then the kick of the lawnmower again.

  ‘You beauty!’ he exclaimed as it burst into life.

  Rounding the corner of the house, she saw Troy standing next to her husband, patting him on the shoulder as if he’d done something amazing. She wanted to laugh. Of course. Troy would have fiddled with the motor for a second or two, got it working and still managed to make Mick feel as though he’d done it.

  Troy looked up. ‘Mrs Gee,’ he said. Only he would call her that and not make her feel like an old bag.

  She smiled, not bothering to shout over the mower, and turned back into the house. He followed, closing the door behind him, pushing the sound of the mower out.

  ‘Scott’s just hopped in the shower. He won’t be long. Do you want a drink or anything?’

  ‘Nah, I’m right. Thanks.’ Troy sat on a kitchen chair as she put the kettle on. She could see him out of the corner of her eye picking at his fingernails. A nervous tick. He wasn’t the sort of kid who seemed nervous. He had a confidence to him that belied his seventeen years, that made him seem more responsible than some. But she knew this to be mostly a facade. She’d seen him drunk more than once after a party, staggering home, held up by Scott. She’d heard—and overheard—the stories that Scott and Loren told about him, his sometimes daredevil antics. According to Scott, Troy’s family, his dad particularly, was pretty strict with him. There were nights she found out later when he had supposedly stayed at their place or another friend’s but instead had done god knows what. Crashed at a party house. Driven to Wangaratta or Shepparton. Scott had shrugged as though the list could be endless. She’d given Scott her version of a lecture and said she didn’t want to be held responsible by another parent for their child’s wellbeing, or, more precisely, safety. Scott had nodded, looked vaguely contrite. She was sure it would happen again.

  ‘You have plans for tonight?’ she asked him.

  ‘Yeah, there’s a party down at Nipper’s.’

  ‘Someone from school?’

  ‘Nah. A guy who works out at the abattoir. I mean, yeah, he used to go to school, left a couple of years ago.’

  ‘I know that guy. The one with the purple seventies Monaro. Classic.’ Loren walked through the living room and into the kitchen. She was already dressed. The weather was warm, a prolonged summer, and she had on cut-off jeans and a t-shirt. Her hair, long, golden brown, tousled from sleep, fell over her shoulders in a way that suggested a sensuality that Pam had not quite seen in her daughter before and made her take a quiet breath.

  Troy turned towards Loren’s voice, grinned again. ‘Morning.’

  She opened the fridge door, leaning forward so that she appeared all legs, and took out a tub of yoghurt. ‘I might come along.’

  ‘Might you?’ said Pam half sarcastically.

  ‘Well, if Scott and Troy are okay with it. They can look after me.’

  ‘Scott and Troy, I do believe, are not capable of looking after anyone.’

  Loren laughed. ‘You’re right. I can look after them.’

  ‘Still, those places down on the Flat. A bit rough, aren’t they?’

  ‘I know those guys from school. Some of them are all right. Anyway, it’s the boys who fight. The boys are more likely to get into trouble.’

  ‘Great,’ said Pam, pouring the boiling water into a cup with a tea bag. ‘Put my mind at rest.’

  There were always parties on. Pam didn’t remember as much activity in her youth. But then she had been at boarding school for the bulk of her teenage years and her family had lived out of town, out of the loop of action when she was home. At sixteen, seventeen, she was far too young, her mother often reminded her, to be out gallivanting. Perhaps it had always been like this. Her friend Cathy, who was six years her junior, said she was always at some party or other. There was constantly something going on down on the Flat. There had probably been parties at Nipper’s place for thirty years for all she knew. That was their entertainment. She was sure there was a lot of alcohol, and even a bit of pot, but that’s what young people did these days. The excesses concerned her, and the driving, of course. But what could she do bar lock them up? They were teenagers. Invincible. On the law of averages they would make it through.

  ‘Do you want tea, sweetheart?’ she asked Loren.

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’

  Pam turned back to Troy. ‘How’s your mum?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s okay. Better, I think. Cooking again, which is good.’ He laughed.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’ Loren asked.

  Troy shrugged. ‘Dunno. Ladies’ problems.’ He lowered his head and dark curls fell across his eyes.

  Loren looked to Pam who screwed her face up in a way that was meant to indicate she’d tell her later. Of course, there wouldn’t be a later because Loren would have forgotten by the time they got to talk again (what do teenagers care about the middle-aged?) and, really, Troy’s parents weren’t anything to her. She hardly knew them. In reality, Pam herself hardly knew them either. Just a few conversations here and there, snippets picked up from Troy on his visits. Enough to form an impression, but not a relationship.

  Scott emerged from the bathroom.

  ‘You ready?’ Troy greeted him.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ Pam asked as Scott pulled on his socks.

  ‘Going down to the workshop,’ Scott told her, referring to the huge shed at the back of Troy’s place.

  ‘Don’t know if Scott told you, Mrs Gee. Dad got this old Ford that we’re going to start doing up.’

  ‘I remember. So will you be back for dinner?’

  ‘Might get something to eat in town before the party. Dunno.’

  ‘You’ve got to come back to pick me up,’ said Lori.

  ‘Yeah, okay. I’ll give you a call later.’ Scott was heading to the door, pulling it open, Troy right beh
ind. Troy turned and grinned a goodbye, but Scott’s head was already somewhere else. He didn’t look back as he pushed past the flywire door and let it bang behind him.

  After lunch, Pam changed into footless tights and a baggy t-shirt and drove down the hill to town. Except for the supermarket, which stayed open until six on a Saturday, the shops had all shut and Main Street was largely devoid of cars and people. She drove into in a dusty open area behind the town hall and parked next to a dirty dark blue Holden.

  ‘I’m tempted to write “clean me” on this poor old bomb of yours,’ she said as she got out, addressing the occupant, a woman in her mid-thirties with an unlikely shade of blond hair and a significant amount of eye make-up.

  Cathy climbed out of the car and opened the back door to claim a rolled up piece of foam. ‘Well, I don’t have boys to clean my car like you do,’ she said over her shoulder

  ‘Boys? I think you’re getting me mixed up with someone else. I clean my own car. Mostly. And what is that you’ve got?’

  ‘My mat. Didn’t you bring one?’

  ‘Bugger. I forgot. I knew there was something. Not that I have one. I would have brought a towel.’

  Cathy sighed. ‘Don’t worry, there’ll be spares. A towel would be useless. Scrunched up in a minute.’

  Pam followed Cathy around the side of the solid old sandstone building that was their civic hub, through the open back door and along a short hallway. Inside, three women stood talking, their voices high and sharp, bouncing around the bare, timber-floored space. Pam had spent many hours here over the years. Community meetings, toddlers’ groups when the kids were small, rehearsals for the annual gala. She knew it well (might even have thought of it as part of her natural domain) but felt a pang of anxiety as she stepped through the doorway this time, not quite sure of what to expect. Right now it felt like foreign territory.