Locust Summer by David Allan-Petale

Author:David Allan-Petale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

23

By six o’clock dark clouds had blown in, stepping low across the district. ‘Looks like rain’ was the refrain, and sure enough it bucketed down just as Sterlo turned his ute onto the highway with Dad safe and dry in the front cab’s passenger seat while Mum and I got soaked in the back tray.

‘Good thing I wore my best dress,’ Mum shouted, holding on to her hat in the soaking slipstream. ‘Just be thankful you’ve got so much of the crop in.’ She pointed to a passing property where men were scrambling to cover their grain bunker with tarpaulins, dragging the blue sheets behind them as they climbed up and over piles of wheat darkening with moisture.

‘This is just a quick storm anyway,’ she said, shifting her finger to the clouds. ‘They’re moving too fast and too low to hang around.’ Thunder rumbled clear above the throttle of the ute. ‘It’s a heat storm. Just the earth blowing off a bit of steam.’

After five minutes on the highway we drove clear of the rain and rolled through the town with the itching smells of wet grass and ozone from lightning strikes somewhere. The wet on our clothes and hair quickly dried to damp in the rushing air.

The Terminus was blacked out. The rest of the town too. People ambled around the streets as if there was a great pause. As we parked up, I looked to Dad to give the signal, to tell us to back the ute up to the rear of the pub, start the portable generator bolted to the tray and connect it to the mains. Sterlo’s ute didn’t have one. The old man’s mind didn’t have the signal. He sat facing the pub, waiting for someone to get him out.

‘I’ll grab us a table,’ Mum said as we climbed down from the tray, her hands fidgeting with her handbag, then wringing out her hat and hair. Two men stood smoking near the door, watching our arrival. They didn’t smile. Didn’t move. Just stared as if expecting us to do something for them.

‘Not that you need to book,’ Mum continued, her voice becoming babble under their gaze. ‘They always have room. He was a regular, wasn’t he? It’s not exactly busy.’

‘It’s fine,’ Sterlo said, taking her by the elbow. ‘I’ve booked. We’ve a booth at the back. There’ll be a sign on it. Why don’t you go inside?’

She nodded to the smokers, who parted to let her through. Once she was inside the darkened pub, Sterlo opened Dad’s door and gestured for him to get out, which he did in one smooth motion, no need for the hands we offered to him. For a fleeting moment he looked himself again, straightening his belt and re-tucking his shirt, looking up at the pub and the smoking strangers, smiling like they were all his oldest friends.

‘Righto boys,’ he said to Sterlo, imitating his catch phrase. ‘Let’s see if they’ll serve us.’ He glared at the starers. ‘Unless these bastards have a problem.

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