The Shepherd's Hut by Tim Winton

Author:Tim Winton [Winton, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781760142001
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2018-03-11T14:00:00+00:00

I never did know what to make of Fintan MacGillis. In the end you could say I knew what kind of man he was and maybe that was the important thing. He was Irish, he told me that straight up. But I never found out what it was he done to get himself put there by the lake, what kind of person he was before. Not really. He let things slip, but he never give me the whole beginning and middle. Like he said, I showed up at the end and that was plenty enough for both of us. It’s only now I get what he meant. He was one of them geezers been out on his own so long he talks to himself all day, tells himself what he’s about to do, what he should do, what he’s forgotten to get done. He talked so fucking much it was like a junkpile he chucked at you. You had to sort through all these bent up words to figure which was bullshit and which was true. What I mean is he made a lot of noise but sometimes he didn’t say much. With that accent of his and the way he said things fancy and musical, it was like camouflage and you knew deep down he’d been doing this all his life, hiding in clear sight.

He had a boozer’s face but as far as I could see there was nothing to drink out here but rainwater and billy tea. He had skinny legs with ropey blue veins winding up them and his top teeth were plastic and they moved enough to make you seasick. His specs was always on crooked too, one hinge busted and the arm wired on rough as a pig’s tit. And it was clear he was half deaf. Anytime you said something he cocked his head like a kelpie.

That first day we sat out there all morning, it felt like. When the damper was gone he tickled up the fire again and went back to poking and prodding questions at me like he could stoke me just as easy. But I was careful. I didn’t want him knowing anything in case others come through and put the hard word on him. I figured I’d be back down at the diggings for a few weeks.

He said his place was an old shepherd’s hut from the days when they ran sheep on this country. I asked him who owned the land and he said he didn’t know, but I reckoned he knew once and things had changed. People are always talking about the damn Chinese buying up land but it could have been anybody. Whoever owned it now, they were in no hurry to do anything with it. There was no stock, no machines, no people. Just him and me and a few wild goats.

I asked him did he have a phone or VHF and he laughed at me. Said he saw I had a phone. I said there was no signal.

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