A BLUE CHRISTMAS
In July ChloeTzang created an event "In a Sunburned Country" and invited writers to write a story based in Australia timed to coincide with the Melbourne Cup, which is about as important to Aussies as New Year's Eve is to Scots, St Patrick's Day ... etc etc.
This is my rather irreverent but affectionate offering in my attempt at narrating as a character just one step up the evolutionary ladder from ocker (no, he's a bonza bloke really, he wouldn't be seen dead in a cork hat). I was going to put it in Romance, but I think it grew so large, it has ended up in Novels. I must say, I had a great time writing this over the last three months.
Anyway, thanks to all those taking part, if you enjoyed this story, please check out the other offerings. If you didn't enjoy this, or ran out of steam before the end, do check out the others as there's bound to be one right up your sticky tarred Highway.
Many thanks to Australian author Julz Duxbury (author of "Dark Dimensions" and "Consequences", published by KCEditions) for her invaluable assistance regarding the extraordinary language of "Strine".
Prologue
IT WAS THREE hours into Christmas Day but the young man's grim face displayed none of the seasonal spirit of goodwill to all men. He stormed through the Royal Darwin Maternity delivery suite's doors, ignoring the desperate high-pitched wail of "Wait, Mark, please wait," in his wake.
As Mark stomped down the corridor, following the green exit signs, he discarded one by one, the face mask, the latex gloves and the hospital gown protecting his formal crisp white shirt, black silk cummerbund and trousers. He threw each one violently to the floor, barely breaking his determined stride towards the exit.
He did lean on the wall momentarily while he removed the transparent galoshes covering his shiny patent leather shoes. The loose ends of a bow tie around his neck, which had been untied some hours earlier, hung down as he bent over. This must have reminded him of the mad rush to the maternity section of the hospital from his father-in-law George Stone's formal Christmas Eve dinner. It was during the serving of the main course that Maggie's waters broke.
He turned the final corner in the corridor and continued wordlessly as he strode determinedly through the open area which served as a waiting room on his way out, his desperate clutching for breath demonstrated his need for fresh air and the roads leading south, leading away from Darwin.
Here, Maggie's closest relatives had hung on during her long hours of labour and waited for news.
Selena, George's latest girlfriend, thirty years The Darwin Sentinel newspaper owner-editor's junior, was the first to react to Mark's stern countenance with concern, "Is everything alright with the baby, Mark?"
His father-in-law George laughed with an undisguised sneer in his voice, and held nothing back in expressing his thoughts, "Leave him be, Sel, It's Mark being the usual wuss who's about to lose his Chrissie Eve dinner. Let him go outside and chunder, before he return to tell us what my Margaret's had."
"Wasn't she being prepared for a Caesarian, as the labour had gone on so long?" heavily pregnant Jenny, Selena's daughter from a previous marriage, asked in a whisper. Mark idly registered Jenny's husband Jack stretched out asleep on a sofa by the wall.
"No," Selena answered, "there's not been time for a Caesarian, and they don't do any operations on the sixth floor anyway. She must've restarted birthing while the surgeons were examining her."
Well, George was right. Mark, did lose his dinner, just before he reached his faithful ute, parked crookedly where he had left it in a hurry. He drove home, although was it still his home? It was Maggie's home now. Mark packed up what little of his gear he cared anything about, plus his cameras, and drove down to Melbourne and Aunt Milly, his only living relative.
He hadn't returned to Darwin in the five years since, but now, on Christmas Eve 2018, he was parked at a truck stop just south of Port Augusta, South Australia.
Chapter 1. TRUCKPARK
I'M JUST YOUR average bloke. You know, regular height and weight, reasonably fit through regular running, not particularly sporty, but no couch potato either. My hair was once a reddish blond when I was a nipper, but it turned darker to light mousy brown in my youth and was now receding early. Well, I thought at 38 I was showing a little more beach along my hair shoreline than I did twenty years earlier. I was alone and lonely, yes, and I was certainly left bitter by my experiences. So I tended towards behaving business-like rather than sociable in my people dealings. No chit-chat about the weather or sport, just 'what do you want delivered?', 'where, when, and how much you are prepared to pay?'. I was on my own and I had got used to it. No, more than that I actually preferred my own company. I didn't have to put in the effort to converse, entertain or even care about anyone else. Lonely? Yes, I was, without a single living relative, true, but I felt safe in my cocoon of indifference, I couldn't get hurt again that way. Loneliness gave me too much time to think though, yeah, but I guess that happens to a lot of average blokes who've been messed about by above average sheilas.
Well, for the last year or so, with my company smoothly ticking over, I had a lot of time on my hands, time for reflection, time to think and self assess my past and my future. I made my decisions. They were signed, sealed and despatched. I had jacked in my lot and the freedom beckoned like a moth to the light.
Now I have a single, simple set task to physically occupy myself for the next few days. There was no turning back, just get this one little delivery job out of the way with no dramas and then I was done with the logistics business and done with my life in Straya, for the next couple of years at least.
It was the day before Christmas and, as I was the only qualified driver in the haulage company with no family to visit or be visited by, I was the one who volunteered, working the business's only available truck delivering throughout the festivities of Chrissie and Boxing Day. I had six days to carry 60 tonnes of newsprint from the mill at Maryvale NSW to The Darwin Sentinel way up in the Northern Territory. This was my second day out and I was comfortably well ahead of schedule. I was hoping to take time out en route to take some photos.
Boy, was it hot, I thought, as soon as I climbed out of my cool cab and stepped down onto the hot tar surface of the truck park. Even in the shade of the eucalyptus trees lining one side of the parking area, it was still over 35 in the shade. But this was definitely the best pozzy in the yard by a long stride. It was lucky for me that, being Christmas Eve, and after five in the arvo, the restaurant and servo was already closed up for the holidays and I was the only road train parked up here. Couldn't have planned it more perfectly. Not even a rusty ute had parked in the place, just an untidy pile of old tyres by the gutter near the entrance. Even the dunnies were chained up and padlocked. Anyway, my expectations had not been too high of getting a hot meal at any time during the festivities, so I came prepared to dine comfortably alone.
It was a nice evening to cook outside, so I checked out the truck stop's barbie area. The first barbie I gave a Captain Cook at seemed fine and I lit my bag of coals under the grill. I don't smoke, so I don't normally carry a lighter, but the one stored with the rig's bags of charcoal was almost empty. I made a mental note to get a couple of replacements at the next truck stop or servo, one for the truck and another for my back pack. From the fridge I broke out a 300g ribeye steak and put it on a plate to warm up until the barbie grill was hot to trot. I took a couple of frozen snags out of a pack to toss on the barbie when I was good and ready for them. I had a couple of prepared salads in the fridge but thought I'd leave them in the cool as long as poss before unwrapping the one of my choice. I had plenty of time, and poured myself an ice cold tinny of VB and sat down on a bench table near the barbie, in the shade provided by the trees. I picked up where I left off in the current pulp crime thriller book I was reading. I wouldn't drive for at least another eight hours, so I could afford the luxury of necking a single frosted coldie with my early supper. I was out of the habit of driving all day and I felt stiff and stuffed.
Hey, I know that Australian regulations under BFM are pretty relaxed, dangerously so in my humble. As a legally licensed road train driver, I'm allowed to drive 14 hours a day, with a 15 minute break in between two seven-hour sessions, followed by a rest break of seven hours; but my company rule is that we only drive for five or six hours, have a one- to two-hour break and then drive a further five or six hours, depending on convenient truck stops, but driving no more than 12 hours on the road in any 24 hours. Driving alone on long distances in the desert, your mind gets bored and tired, mirages can play tricks on you and it's easy to lose your concentration along the way. My rules worked for my company, we hadn't lost a driver or a single load in all the five years I was running the business, and we had increased our big truck stable from twelve to twenty-one trucks, although not all were road trains, like me Uncle's trusty B-double that I was driving, with its spartan but adequate sleeper cab.
It was a beautiful evening and I got out my old camera and shot a few nice landscapes with the Flinders mountain range in the northwest lit up in a warm glow as sunset approached. Looking up the road to the north I saw a dust cloud, so it looked a possibility that I was going to have company in the next few minutes or so. I checked the coals, they were white hot already, so I put the steak on for three minutes each side, added the snags for the last three minutes with a couple or three half turns to crisp them up and had it all plated and was back inside my sleeper cab with the door closed tight against the dust, the lazy afternoon flies and the early evening onset of mozzies. I was safely inside by the time my unwanted neighbours for the night showed up like a modern wagon train.
I peered out of the window from my driving seat as five identical toppo Winnebagoes rolled up, followed by a choking cloud of desert dust. They had consecutive regos, I noticed, so they were more likely owned by a corporation, pulling in some serious crust, than an individual. These imported Winnoes don't come cheap.
Still, the steak was perfect, pink in the middle just like I preferred it, and I'd decided on one of the Caesar salads to go with it. Yeah, great tucker after a long day in the road-rider saddle. I'd already finished my beer before tucking into the bonza tucker and opted to wash it down with another coldie, this time an orange fizzy drink. I never overdo the grog when driving, never. Outside, the Winnoes did a turn around the area before heading back towards my spot, which was clearly the best pozzy in the park. The leading Winno stopped by my driver's door and a tall, heavy set bloke with a face like a robber's dog stepped out and walked up to me. He saw me through the window sitting way up above him and nodded to me, then he knocked on the door. Behind him, a number of young people got out of the higgledy piggledy parked Winnebagoes to stretch their legs, others started dragging out beer coolers, cardboard vintages, noisy bloody boom boxes and worst of all, disco lights.
One, who looked like he knew what he was doing, purposefully carried several bags of coals over to the barbies, lifted the grill I had used and started piling on more coals, to save lighting them I guessed. No worries for me, I'd done with cooking my tucker for the night.
