Shoot Through by J.M. Green

Author:J.M. Green
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC050000, FIC031010, FIC000000, FIC062000, FIC022000
Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Published: 2019-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

19

WE TURNED off the highway onto the Stawell-Warracknabeal Road. We passed through Minyip, then Warracknabeal, and drove for another two hours. Loretta leaned forward and pointed to a bump on the horizon.

‘What’s that?’

‘Mount Woolburn,’ I said. ‘We’re nearly there.’

Since we’d left Great Western, I’d been preparing my speech to my mother. It involved appeals to her better nature; it had to be in there somewhere. I presumed this on account of her Catholicism. However, I had yet to witness true acts of Christian kindness on her part. Sure, she pitched in when neighbours needed help. It was in her rural DNA. To people in crisis who were considered different, who lived outside her circle, to them she was harsh. Those individuals only had themselves to blame for their plight. What next? Allow people fleeing persecution into the country? Not on your nelly. This black-and-white world view formed the foundation of Delia’s thinking. And it meant that Loretta would be a fifty-fifty call.

Delia might decide Loretta was family, and, provided she conformed utterly to Hardy family rules, she would be welcome to stay. Those rules included hard work, never talking about uncomfortable facts (like the plight of people fleeing persecution) or vegetarianism. Never talking politics; the National Party were just terrific thank you very much, if you ignore the sleaze, the rorts, and the hostility to vital river protection agreements. It included a directive to dress in a manner becoming of a 1950’s woman. To know one’s place. To know that capitalism, with a pinch of protectionism and a soupçon of agrarian socialism, was an unquestionable good. Delia was not to be challenged on any decision. She knew best, and everyone else was a fool or a nitwit. Or, after a few beers, a bloody ratbag troublemaker.

Alternatively, Delia might consider Loretta to be not one of us. She was not your clean-cut, tennis-playing, horse-riding, sponge-baking, quilt-(or other authorised craft)-making supporter of men. She was a young, unmarried, pregnant daughter of an itinerant worker. She spoke her mind. She certainly didn’t follow any of the rules I had laid down. And she had a free-range Alaskan Malamute. Only cattle dogs and Shih tzus were acceptable dog breeds.

There were problems aplenty with either judgement. I tried to brace for every possible outcome.

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