Pam Bailey

 

PAM BAILEY

  

Old Age isn’t a gradual process. It doesn’t set itself on you hour by hour, or even day by day. It arrives suddenly. And in big pieces. Something like an earthquake. It sort of builds up quietly without you noticing it, and then WHAM! – one day the ground under your feet lets go and you get a lump all at once.

That’s what Mozza believes.

Not that he’s ever really thought about it much.

Not till a few days ago when he was topping up his ute at Bailey’s Roadhouse, and Pam Bailey was chatting to him about the footy while he served himself from the pump.

It was his usual Monday morning, on the way to the tip, because Monday was the best day to check out the town rubbish dump as most of the locals chucked stuff out on the weekend, but it was always about Wednesday before the Council bloke came with the dozer and buried it. Mozza hadn’t had to buy a piece of timber or a lump of steel or a nut and bolt for as long as he could remember. He always reckoned it was ridiculous what people threw away.

Pam Bailey was a bit of a funny kid to most people, but Mozza got on well with her, and other than the girl’s mum, he was about the only person who called her Pam. Even her dad and her three brothers called her “Thumper”, or just “Thump” mostly.

Pam was a little on the – sort of - masculine side. Well, not masculine really, kind of - not feminine - if taken at a glance. She’d helped her parents and one brother run their truck stop out on the highway ever since she was fifteen, wore overalls a lot, was damn handy with a spanner. She was also unstoppable in the country tennis association and was known to raise bruises with her serve, although she told Mozza once she only played tennis because the bastards wouldn’t let her on the footy team. She was only half joking.

It wasn’t as if Pam was all that big or anything, she was just - athletic. She worked out with her brother’s weights, so her breasts were all chest and her shoulders were - shoulders! And she kept her hair cropped spiky and she wore one plain gold ring in her left ear as a kind of token gesture to her gender, but that only tended to emphasise her air of uni-sexness if anything, Mozza thought.

Mozza might’ve been one of the few people who could be called a close friend of Pam Bailey, but it’d be hard to place their relationship, their fifty-odd year age difference tending to put him in the Old Uncle or even Grandfather bracket at best. It was probably just a matter of two fairly hard cases finding some mutual support in each other’s company. He was a tough old widower with a bad hip and an independent attitude and she had a defensive perimeter that most people wrongly interpreted as aggressiveness. And they both preferred uncomplicated people who never spoke a word of bullshit.

So, it was probably more that they simply had an instinctive understanding of the other, and trusted each other with anything that particularly needed saying. They chatted often over a Friday night beer, and Mozza’s Monday morning fill up.

The new police sergeant pulled into the driveway, parked the pickup van at an untidy angle, nodded a regulation “G’morning” to both of them and brisked inside to see the girl’s dad.

“Met him yet Pam?”

She made a hint of a smile.

“Yeah, beat him six-love six-one at a friendly up at the Wungarri church do last Sunday. Plays like a bloody girl!”

They both had a good laugh at the Sergeant’s expense, who turned at the door and fastened both of them for a second with an official frown. He was out of word-shot but had a fair guess at the conversation.

“And he doesn’t have a sense of humour either.”

“Wonder how long it’ll take us to break this one in?”

New station sergeants fresh from the city were always something of a trial till they got the hang of a country town. Then when it was time to move on most of them hated being transferred.

They went on talking for a while, Mozza relating a story or two about a few sergeants from the Sixties, tough old buggers that had to BE law and order. And Mozza thought he preferred them - you always knew exactly where you stood, they’d shout you a beer or punch you in the head, depending on which you needed most at the time, straight-forward stuff, hard and fair.

A snappy looking ute rolled up to a pump opposite them, with “Kultaby Krash” zapped all over its side in showy metallic duco. A chunky young buck stepped out, and right before Mozza’s eyes a hint of colour rose in Pam’s cheeks and her whole easy manner seemed to suddenly come to pieces and start falling over itself. She stuffed her wiper cloth into her overalls pocket, but then didn’t know what to do with her hands, then changed her stance three times in five seconds, and totally lost the thread of their conversation.

Mozza wasn’t the most observant person in the world but he was onto this one, as Pam’s underlying femininity started doing its best to break loose, but with no idea how. Which just made Mozza feel self-conscious, also didn’t quite know where to put his feet.

The young panel-beater had only been in town a week or two, but Mozza’d had a few beers with him one night and had helped him break the ice with some of the locals. He was an open-faced kid, full of bounce and goodwill and a ready laugh. But not overly bright.

“G’day Mozza.”

“G’day Doug.”

Mozza wasn’t sure if Pam had met him or not and hesitated a second, waiting for a cue from one of them, but Doug beat him to it. He absently nodded at Pam. In her overalls. Hair short and spiky. Grease smudge on her cheek.

“G’day mate – how’s it goin’?”

Pam looked completely stung. She pulled herself up, and stiffly, her eyes going watery and her face setting hard.

“G’day”, she snapped, and grabbed the twenty dollars out of Mozza’s hand and stomped off, as the young guy went on filling up and dah-dah-dah-ing to his radio mumbling in the background, every now and then orchestrating little movements to the beat and totally oblivious to the finer points of the world at large.

Mozza simply wanted to be somewhere else. Sometimes the whole human drama left him flat footed and just a touch pissed off. And when it did all he wanted to do was get away on his own and as fast as possible.

He dragged his crook hip into his ute, swung out and around the pump, and KRUMP! - took off the front corner of the sergeant’s paddy wagon with his roo bar. Bits of busted plastic and bent metal and things fell about and stood up at odd angles.

Pam and her dad and the sergeant were suddenly alongside as Mozza and his bad leg hauled themselves out and contemplated the damage, at a loss for something reasonable to offer.

“Geez - sorry ‘bout that mate - didn’t realise you was so far - I just pulled around...”

The sergeant was obviously less than happy and seemed to take an inordinate interest in the way Mozza had to do his unique little sidestep twostep to get out. But all that did was make Mozza defensive.

“Well the bloody thing was hanging out in the drive a mile! - where’d they teach you to park?!” Possibly not the smartest thing in the world to say at that point, but the sergeant still managed to go on silently weighing up the pieces of the situation - the paperwork, the PR, the van off the road, take official action or not...

“Got your driver’s licence on you...”, but keeping to the neutral ground somewhere between “...mate?” and “...sir?”.

Doug sauntered over, wiped his hands, and with the faintest hint of a smile whipped a business card out of his top pocket and poked it between the copper’s clenched fingers.

“Happy to give you a quote Sarge.”

The Sergeant’s mouth pulled up tight as he stuffed the card ungraciously back in the kid’s pocket.

“Buzz off sport and let me get on with this will you!” and he started taking details from Mozza’s licence.

For a few days after that Mozza felt a little – disconcerted - as if his confidence in something important had been shaken. Not just because he’d bent the copper’s van, but that he’d simply had an accident. He wasn’t the sort of bloke who ran into things. But he hadn’t heard any more about it and he’d started to put it out of his mind.

The station constable was at Mozza’s back door, and the feeling was back.

“G’day Tony.”

“How are y’ Mozza.”

“Yeah, good mate. What can we do for y’? Wanna cup of tea? Just made a fresh one.”

“Nah, can’t stop thanks. Ah - why not. Okay.”

He followed Mozza in and sat down at the kitchen table and waited while the old man poured an extra cup and had settled back to his own.

“Mozza, the Sarge wants you in for a – um - driving test.”

“What?”

Mozza was looking at him like he hadn’t heard him right, cup frozen at his lip.

“Sorry mate. I told him you probably hadn’t had an accident or a ticket for a million years but your little bingle down the roadhouse and – well, you know these new blokes...”

“A driving test?”

He set his tea back down and the teaspoon rattled in the saucer.

“A bloody DRIVING TEST?! I haven’t had a prang in fifty bloody years! I’ve driven everything from a Mini Minor to a bloody Cat D400 Dumper and never even run over anyone’s bloody foot! Now some pumped-up copper parks his van everywhere and I bend it a bit and he wants ME to take a drivin’ test!!”

“HEY! - listen, Mozza - you ARE seventy-five after all, and you know you have trouble with your crook leg. One day you won’t get the brake fast enough and you’ll run into someone. I know you’re careful and all that but you’re lucky you haven’t been stuck with this before now. Wouldn’t be so bad if you drove an automatic...”

“An orta-bloody-MATIC! - that’d be like walking with a stick! I’ll give it ALL away before I do that!”

The constable shook his head a little and sipped his tea. He somehow knew this wasn’t going to be easy. He had a lot of respect for the crusty old fella, and his own grandad and Mozza had walked a lot of hard miles together one time or another. But he knew what had to be done. He put on his best counselling face.

“What can I tell y’ mate - that you’re thirty and you can still run like a rabbit? I’m sorry - the Sarge is a bit of a pain in the arse and yes, if you hadn’t bent the van it probably would’ve been at least another week before he checked you out anyway. It’s not official, but he can do it that way if he chooses, all right? Do me and yourself a favour and do a run-around for him in an automatic - you’ll bolt it in and the Sergeant won’t look like a dill. You can use the wife’s Mazda.”

They both finished their tea in silence and the constable got up to leave.

“Okay Mozza? Thanks for the tea – but tomorrow morning at ten, right?”

The old man was staring hard at the middle of the table as if some answer might be there.

“Uh - oh, yeah – okay Tony - okay - I’ll sleep on it.”

Tony thought about saying some more, but decided against it and let himself out.

The cat ducked in the door as he left, rubbed itself on two of the table legs and then sat on the hearth in front of the wood stove. The old grey tom fixed Mozza with a hey a spot of milk would be nice sort of look. Mozza shifted his stare to the cat, and felt a small weariness, like inevitability, creeping up his legs.

“How come you can still run like a rabbit and I can’t, you bagga bones?” he asked softly. “You must be about a bloody hundred.”

The cat looked aside a fraction as if to say well for starters I never fell off a TV mast when I was sixty. Mozza nodded and poured it some milk, sat back down and watched it drink.

It was about right then that it came to Mozza, the thing about Old Age. How it comes in lumps. One day you’re a driver like anyone else and the next day you’re too old to be let loose in anything but a lady’s automatic. One day some bits of you are just like they always were and then suddenly WHACK! – bad luck and circumstance points out that a whole heap of years have gone by while you were looking somewhere else.

He packed up the cups and went over to the pub.

Pam Bailey was at the bar, nursing a schooner and studying herself in the yellowing “Yalumba Fine Wines” mirror on the wall behind the glasses rack. The place was all but empty save for an old guy over in the corner on his own, three farmers down the other end discussing fence posts and the publican tidying up something under the counter.

Mozza eased his wiry frame onto the stool alongside Pam, got his bad leg comfortable, exchanged a couple of mumbles and a nod with the publican and got a beer out of Pam’s change. He downed the first half and then sat silent. He caught her eye in the mirror.

“You got the miseries too uh?”

“Yeah - probably.”

“Yeah – ain’t it a bastard...”, and he filled her in on the aftermath of his little scrape on her driveway, but getting scratchy all over again as he talked.

She gave his prickliness some room to move, a prickliness laced with a touch of something else, she thought - self-pity maybe – self-pity that didn’t sit well on the old man.

They finished their beers in silence. Mozza got the next round and that was half down too before he spoke again.

“So - what’s YOUR problem...?”

She didn’t say anything straight off, but started studying the froth inside her glass, looking for the words.

“Ah – nuthin’...”

“Other than the young bloke from the crash repair - eh?”

God, it was like he’d knocked open a pressure valve. The pain tumbled out.

“Yeah well HE can get fucked too”, and she sculled the rest of the glass and set it down on the bar with a bump, holding it tightly between her thumb and fingertips like it was something dangerous. Mozza could see the tremor in her wrist, could just about hear her jaw grinding.

“That bad eh?”

They sat in silence some more as Pam took several slow deep breaths, sniffed once, and rubbed at her face with the palm of her hand. The world had caught her with her guard down. She instinctively hit back.

“Hey Wal, we’re dying of bloody thirst down here!”

It was louder than it needed to be and just a fraction belligerent. The three farmers paused in mid-sentence and looked down the bar and the old fella in the corner’s drink froze half-way. The publican drew two more beers, took the twenty dollar note from the bar in front of her, returned the change to the same spot. Everything around them picked up where it left off.

Mozza and the girl sipped a while, both now staring into the depths of the mirror, each looking for what was needed, for themselves and for the other. Pam finally spoke first.

“You know how I got nicknamed Thumper?”

“Mmm - no, can’t say I ever heard.”

“It was in grade seven. The sports master - Mr Dunn - good teacher - he put me in one of the cricket teams, reckoned that sport was for everyone - everybody should be able to have a go at anything. Good bloke. Anyway, the two Garrett kids - remember Lennie and Rob? - not sure where they are now - they were pretty much the ring-leaders of everything in primary school, top sports players but both thick as porridge - and mean little bastards with it.

“Well, I knew how to bat - Sunday afternoon out the back with dad and me brothers y’know? - and I wasn’t bad either, but the kids at school didn’t know that. All the boys, even some of the girls, thought the idea of a bird playing competition was really stupid - but the Garretts especially gave me a bad time, talking up big about how they were gunna bodyline me off the field on a stretcher - break this sappy sheilah’s ribs and all that crap – and fair enough, they were the star bowlers and they had most of the kids fairly petrified. A lot of it was bluff but the little buggers knew how to make a ball rise off the old composite pitch at school. Take y’ bloody head off!

“Anyway, I belted both of them all over the oval that day. They threw everything at me except the umpire. Really humiliated the pair of little turds. Only got out in the end showing off trying to go for a big six. Made about fifty-something. Top score for a primary school match.

“Well, lunch time the next day those two – WITH three of their mates - they caught me behind the wood-shed, said they were gunna find out if I was really a girl or not, kept sayin’ I was probably a boy in a dress. Shit like that. They made a circle round me and God I was scared, but I wasn’t going to show them little bastards that, so I just kept sayin’ you touch me you slimy pricks an’ I’ll thump hell out of you! – kept sayin’ it over and over - and they all started goin’ – ‘Thum-per! Thum-per!’ - y’know - like the mob of feral dogs they were.

“Then - both of the Garrett boys grabbed me and rode me down and it was really on. Geez did I fight. But the other three jumped in and they all held me down...”, and she was looking into her glass still, tears from the remembering fresh again in her eyes, the shame, the frustration, the anger.

“...and they pulled off my pants and made jokes and all had a bit of a fiddle...”, she finished quickly, and took a deep breath.

“And the name stuck.”

Pam went quiet again, took a sip of her beer. Mozza knew there was nothing right to say at that moment, and waited.

“It took me about six months, but one by one I squared up with that lot. I caught each of ‘em on their own and thumped the absolute bejesus outa them.”

Only then did she smile, just a little, relishing the memory.

“Yep, one by one.”

Quietly and simply an understanding came to Pam Bailey, about herself, about living.

“But – I don’t think I ever really stopped. Thumping blokes, y’know? - can’t help meself.”

Mozza thought about that, and cast around for something, something that’d sound a bit like words of wisdom.

“Maybe it’s time to give it away Pam - let go - get on with being – y’know - the rest of yourself...”

“Yeah. It’d sure raise a big laugh in this town, but...”, and a certain tenderness crept into her voice, “...I’d - like to have a good man, bunch of kids, all that...”, and she managed a rueful smile, knew that it was safe with Mozza, so added - “...but seems like all the local blokes - I’ve either beat ‘em up or abused ‘em one time or another - to them I’m just Thumper Bailey. I’ll need to run into someone, from out...”, and she raised one shoulder.

“Like Mike the panel-beater?”

“Yeah - someone like him.”

“Well - why don’t you give him a chance? Chuck them overalls away and - and - let your hair grow - get into a dress a bit more often - all that stuff. You got good legs you know.”

She made out to guffaw and coloured up again with self-consciousness, and just a touch of pleasure. She nudged him in the ribs.

“Geez MOSS-tyn! - you old perve!”

He hated being called Mostyn. Only Pam ever got away with it.

“Ah - you know what I bloody mean.”

“Yeah - I know. Yet - funny - somehow it feels like - admitting defeat...”, and she mulled it over a little longer, then pushed one elbow into his ribs, “...a bit like driving an automatic, eh?”

             They both had a tired sort of a chuckle and finished their beers.

>>>>>>>>