Volcano Street Read Online Free

chickenfeed, jars of pickled monkeys’ balls, old copies of The Bulletin and nothing you wanted ever in stock! Blokes laughed at Willard Hartley Puce. Said he was a dreamer. How could a one-horse town like Crater Lakes support a hardware emporium good as any on Collins Street, Melbourne? Pall Mall, London? Chomps-a-bloody-Lee-saze? But Willard Hartley Puce didn’t just see Crater Lakes as it was. He saw what it would become.’
    Tears filled Auntie Noreen’s eyes. Skip and Marlo struggled not to laugh, but their aunt was oblivious, assuaging her passion in fervent application to her plate. The finesse with which she wielded her fork was extraordinary; so too was the hummingbird speed with which each mouthful vanished.
    She was refilling her plate when she admonished Skip, ‘Eat up now, Helen love – try some of the cake.’
    ‘I’m Skip.’ There was an edge in Skip’s voice.
    ‘Skip! No sort of name for a girl.’
    ‘It’s my sort of name.’ Skip recalled bright afternoons on Caper’s boat, with Glenelg Beach far off, sunlight flashing on the water like scattered coins, fish thudding to the sloshing deck, and Caper, wanting her to see the latest, calling her in his Yank voice, ‘Skipper … Skip!’ That had been his name for her, and she had loved him for it; he had given her a captain’s cap and let her reel in lines. She gave him orders. ‘Make these lubbers walk the plank!’ she cried, jabbing a finger at seasick Marlo, at blissful stoned Karen Jane, and Caper saluted: ‘Aye, aye, Skip.’
    In the road, a large vehicle heaved to a halt. Through the scrim, Skip saw to her alarm a chassis with ridged silver lines below a sea-blue stripe. Painted above the stripe was a leaping greyhound.
    Auntie Noreen was saying, ‘I’m sure yous girls are going to love it here. Fresh country air, that’s what yous need.’ She inhaled theatrically, her ample chest swelling; Skip, who was breathing shallowly due tothe occasional waft from the shit pit, studied her in wonder. ‘Look at yous,’ their aunt went on cheerily. ‘One of you’s pale as a ghost and the other a little starved sparrow …’ She arched towards the window. ‘Eh, what’s that bastard doing poking round here again?’
    The screen door banged. There was a commotion in the hall, masculine laughter and the tramp of heavy boots. ‘Good to see you, mate!’ and ‘Yair, couple of cold ones’ were two of the phrases the girls heard before Auntie Noreen rolled back her head and cawed, ‘Bugger, there goes me shit pit!’
    A grey shaggy head appeared around the door.
    ‘You, you old bludger!’ Auntie Noreen cried. ‘Didn’t I tell you never to darken me doors again?’
    The joke was met with a flash of yellow dentures and a wink for Marlo. ‘See yous settling in all right, love. Said yous would, eh?’ The grin alighted on Auntie Noreen, whose mountainous body wobbled with pleasure. ‘Saw that one casting spells on young Pav back at me coach stop, I did. He’ll be looking forward to seeing her in the shop tomorrow.’ He addressed Marlo again. ‘Be gentle with him, love. He’s a country boy, not used to your big-city ways!’
    Guffawing, Sandy Campbell vanished towards the kitchen. ‘Dougie, you bastard,’ he yelled, ‘where’s me beer?’
    ‘He’s a friend of yours – the coach driver?’ Skip said to her aunt.
    ‘Friend! Me old cobber Raelene, God rest her soul, was married to that bugger twenty-odd years. Things she told me, you wouldn’t believe! Stops out all hours, rolls home drunk, slaps her round the chops, then expects her to take it up the …’ But Auntie Noreen realised, perhaps, that she had gone too far. ‘Oh, it’s dreadful, the things we women endure! He’s a charmer, but any girlie who trusts him has only herself to blame. Don’t think he hasn’t come sniffing round me in his time,’ she added, with an air of horror. ‘I’m a married woman, I tells him. Dougie’s your best mate. You reckon that one