Coming Rain Read Online Free Page A

a bit silly in the head.’
    Lew nodded at the swag on the ground. ‘Get fucked.’
    Painter’s laughter as he turned away. His mouth open, imitating Lew, repeating what
he said, ‘Get fucked.’ Scratched the side of his face, still with the fork, and touched
what was left of his nose. ‘Young Mr McCleod. You growin’ up son. Yes you are.’ Laughed
for a while longer.
    A small camp oven hanging from a hook and chain on an iron tripod. The lid just tilted
up on the rim to let the steam escape. On a nearby fold-out table, two enamel plates.
Flour in one and a blood-stained white cloth covering something on the other. Flies
circling. Painter waved his hands over the plates. ‘I am cooking this underground
mutton here. You are welcome to it son.’
    Lew had closed the truck door and sat on the running board, put one ankle on his
knee. Took off his right boot and sock. Crossed his leg, removed his other boot and
sock, put both feet on the ground and rubbed them into the sand. ‘How many you get?’
    Painter, kneeling next to the fire, held up three fingers as he took a flat black-iron
pan and placed it into the fire on an iron cob. Spooned in some mutton dripping and
watched as it began to melt and slide. Lifted the muslin cloth and picked up a back
quarter of the rabbit, laid it in the flour and then into the hot pan. He did this
with three more pieces and waved his hand above the cooking. The sound of the rabbit
frying in the pan. A small wind blew across the river. The riverside bulrushes and
cumbungi rustling.
    ‘Smells good mate.’
    Painter took a black kettle from the side of the fire and dropped in a handful of
loose tea. Wiped the fork on his pants and used it to stir the tea-leaves into the
hot water. Put the kettle to one side in the sand. Nodded towards the swag. ‘Might
as well unroll that, son. Go on now.’
    Lew had his elbows on his knees. He nodded and watched his bare feet in the dust.
    Maureen said that her husband Peter had been in Libya with the Australian 6th Division.
He was a hero, she said, and a corporal. He’s still there, she said, buttoning her
dress, leaning down to put on a shoe. Two fingers in the heel, hopped on one foot
and held Peter’s old workbench for balance. The Shell Oil calendar on the wall.
    I married quite young, she said. A row of spanners above the bench. She couldn’t
bring herself to take down the sign over the garage. He had loved the East Fremantle
Football Club, she said. The mighty Sharks. His brother was one of those lifesavers
at Cottesloe. Didn’t know it was your brother-in-law, he told her. That’s why they
were so bloody angry at us. It was you Maureen. It was you, I thought it was us being
there. That too, she said.
    ‘She knew what to do, Painter,’ he said to his feet.
    Painter cleared his throat and used the fork to turn the frying rabbit. He nodded
and turned the other three pieces. ‘That’s good.’
    ‘What’s good?’
    ‘That’s good son cause you don’t.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Everybody remembers their first, mate.’ He had placed the fried rabbit onto a plate.
‘Most of us clumsy as a fool.’ He lifted the lid from the camp oven. ‘All back legs
and tail.’
    Painter let the rabbit pieces slide into the camp oven. Used the fork to move them.
‘And make a flat-out bloody idiot of ourselves,’ he said. ‘The flour will thicken
it. Quite a few even run away. Easier, see.’
    ‘What you think?’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘About her? Me?’
    ‘She’s heartbroken son. Nothing to do with you. Can’t help it.’ Painter took a rabbit
shoulder and laid one side in the flour. Turned it over, white side up.
    ‘Heartbroken?’ Lew rubbed his hand over his face. ‘She didn’t want to see me again,
forgot my name,’ he said. ‘Told me she was thirty-seven and called me Peter O’Reilly.
Jesus, I think he was her dead husband, then she said I was not him, Jesus fuckin’
wept. Then did it with me…I can’t think of anything else