WIVES

PAUL HAINES

PART I: GREETINGS

The red needle on the speedometer crept towards the victory target. If it gets to forty kilometres, I'll ask her. Jimbo peddled faster down Old Dookie Road, away from the stench of the fruit cannery on the outskirts of town.

He swerved through a potholed section of bitumen, avoiding the larger weeds that kept the road together. The needle dipped below thirty-five. He pushed his muscles harder, relishing the slow burn. The pedals took a life of their own, spinning faster and faster, whirling his legs along with them. Come on, forty, forty, forty, and Niki is mine. He imagined her saying yes then kissing him, with the tongue, like they had done when they were kids playing Wives in the tree hut. A long, slow wet kiss. Not like the reserved peck on the cheek, followed by the quick embrace appropriate for cousins in their late teens. Jimbo would hold her tight, her breasts squashing against his chest, until she pulled away. She always pulled away. He longed to see how those breasts looked now Niki was a woman.

Sweat slicked his bare back in the early evening sun. Though the summer's burn was not so fierce this year, the breeze from the speed he was travelling barely cooled his skin. Once, his Old Man would've beaten him for riding bare back, but the Old Man was too weak to administer much of a hiding these days. Cancer had tamed that bastard.

Jimbo pumped the pedals harder. The spokes whined as the needle approached thirty-nine. Forty and you ask her to marry you. Forty, forty.

A klaxon blared behind him. The sound tore up Jimbo's spine. The front bicycle wheel wobbled. A vintage truck roared past, engulfing him in dust and gravel. Someone shouted from the cab window. Jimbo eased on the back brakes, fighting to bring the bike under control. The front wheel hit a chunk of cracked cement, twisted sideways and locked. The bike jack-knifed and spun. Jimbo hugged the handlebars, staring at the receding truck through the dissipating cloud of dust. Turn of the century, maybe sixty years old, I reckon. Nnnghhhnn ...

The bike crunched into the road. The handlebars bucked, whacking Jimbo in the jaw. He bounced upwards, spun head over tit, and crashed back on to the side of the bike frame. It scraped to a halt with a screech of bruised metal.

He lay there as the dust settled, his chest heaving, waiting for his mind to climb back into his skull. In the distance the klaxon blared again.

That's fucken Wazza's truck! What's that cunt doin' back in town for Christmas?

~ * ~

It took forty minutes to drag the broken bicycle the last five kilometres into town. Jimbo's back initially stung with sweat, until the sun cooked the scabs shut. He'd been lucky not to break anything.

By the time he got home, the sun had almost called it a day, though it still seemed reluctant to leave the horizon. Jimbo was going to be late for the pub. He dumped the bicycle in the shed against the wheel blocks supporting the Old Man's prize Ford Commodore. The bastard would never get round to restoring that piece of shit, especially not now. As soon as the Old Man carked it, Jimbo was going to sell the car to one of them collectors in the City.

He snuck round to the back door, edging past the homebrew kit he was supposed to clean out this weekend. He didn't want to get in a row with the Old Man about the bike getting bust up. Be no good heading down to The Aussie late for happy hour with that buzzing round my brain.

The flyscreen door was locked.

"James? Is that you?" his mother called from the lounge.

"Fuck," he said under his breath. Payday was supposed to be a good day. Not this. "Yeah, Mum. It's okay, I'll come round the front."

"No, no, no, I'm up anyway. I was about to get your father another beer."

Jimbo listened to her slippers shuffling on the kitchen lino as she limped to the back door. She fumbled at the latch. Her mouth dropped open when she saw him.

"James! What happened to you?"

"Ssshhh." He nodded in the direction of the lounge before giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Came off the bike's all. I'm okay."

She winced as he walked inside. "Oh, ya poor thing. Let me help ya clean this up."

"A shower will be fine, Mum. I'm catching up with Fitzy and Dave down The Aussie." He slipped a twenty from his pay and pressed it into his mother's hand. "Get ya self something nice, eh?"

"Thanks, love." She limped over to the fridge. "Can I fix ya something to eat before ya go out?"

"Mel! Where's me beer?" the Old Man grunted from the lounge.

"No thanks, Mum, I'm running late as it is."

"Hey!" the Old Man called again. "Is that you, boy?"

"Yeah." Jimbo peeled a fifty from his pay and put it next to the breadboard on the kitchen bench. "Ya money's in here. I'm catching up with a few of the boys down the pub. I'm late."

"Get ya lazy arse in here, boy. I got something to tell ya."

Jimbo grabbed a beer from the fridge and went into the lounge. Even though the blinds were shut, the room felt stifling. The brick house was designed to keep the heat in during winter. In the summer you could cook meat on the walls. An old fan rocked from side to side as it blew hot air around the room. The Old Man sat in his rocker watching old TV files on the screen. It bathed him in enough light so the skin cancer crusting his nose and cheeks cast shadows on the rest of his face.

Jimbo tossed the beer at him. "What?"

The Old Man caught the beer then paused his show. He was watching that old show about four women living in a city called New York and the lovers they kept having every week. Lovers, not husbands. Why the Old Man wasted his final years watching crap like that, Jimbo didn't know.

The Old Man cast an eye over Jimbo's scrapes. "Yer late." With a grunt, he opened his beer. "Doin' a bit a overtime, eh?"

"Someone's gotta pay the bills."

"Yep." The Old Man raised the bottle to his mouth and gulped. Beer trickled through the cracks in the corner of his mouth, down his chin, and onto his bare gut. His grey chest hair glistened in the glow of the screen. "Aaahhh. That's what sons are for, boyo. Don't ya forget it. Daughters are no good cos they just fuck off, eh? End up giving their money to the wrong family. Like ya cousin."

"What?" said Jimbo.

His mother shuffled beside him and gently squeezed his elbow.

The Old Man took another swig. "Nicole's scored some fancy job in the City. Bet ya horses ya won't be seeing her again. She'll meet some high-flyer, get married and that'll be the end of it, if you arkse me." He pointed a scabbed finger at the screen and chuckled. "Just like those bitches, eh Melinda?"

It felt like a knife to the gut. Not Niki. Any of the other girls could leave for the City, but not Niki. Jimbo stared at his mother, looking for a lie in the lines of her face, but found only sympathy in her faded blue eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he said to her.

"I'm sorry, James. I didn't want to spoil your night," she said softly.

"She was never going to be yours, boyo," said the Old Man. "Ya Uncle Frank hates my guts. Reckons I fucked that slut he married and we know that ain't true, don't we, Mel?" The Old Man glared at his wife, challenging her. "And anyways, Nicole's too good-lookin' and far too fucken smart for the likes a you."

The Old Man chuckled again, his finger picking at the crust of a scab on his nose, and resumed watching the file.

~ * ~

The Aussie was packed. Sweat beaded on the inside of the windows, cigarette smoke choked the air, bodies jostled and pressed against each other in the battle for the bar, and the drum and guitar band shook the walls with a cover of the old Noll and Barnes classic 'Dancing in the Streets'. There were even girls on the dance floor.

Jimbo stood at the front of the queue of blokes outside. Keats and Mason, this evening's bouncers, were armed with baseball bats and wore lightweight body armour.

"Hey, Keats," said Jimbo. "How many girls here, ya reckon?"

Keats screwed up his face and tapped the end of the bat into the broken pavement. "I dunno. Thirty?"

Jimbo nodded. "Pretty good odds tonight, eh? About one in ten."

"I reckon." Keats scratched at the raw scar splitting the stubble on his head. "Ya cuz's in tonight, mate."

"I know. S'posed to be meeting up with her. Ya gunna let me in?"

"We're full, mate. Gotta wait for some cunt to get thrown out. Shouldn't take long but. Some outta-towners in tonight. Lotsa cash for the ladies. They'll piss off the local boys for sure."

"How long's the wait?"

"Maybe an hour. Maybe more." Keats looked up from the cracked pavement and gave Jimbo a slight nod.

"How much?" Jimbo asked.

Keats grinned, his mouth full of gapped stubby teeth. "A tenner or a blowie." He struck the baseball bat against the cement. "Up to you."

A fucken tenner? When did the price go up so much? Jimbo fingered the thin roll of notes in his pocket. "Sure. When do you want it?"

"Still recovering from the last one. Heh, good ole Gaz, love his work. Meet you in the bogs about nine. You can do me then."

"No worries, mate." Jimbo strode into the crowd festering inside the pub. At least Keats never took long to come.

* * * *

Fitzy slammed down a shot of tequila, grimaced and wiped his fat lips with the back of his hand. "Ya missed her, Jimbo. She left maybe an hour and a half ago."

"Shit." Jimbo stared at his empty glass. Booze burned in his belly, its heat not yet reaching his brain. A bicycle wheel on a twisted bike frame spun crookedly in the base of the glass.

They'd scored a cubicle near the toilets. Crammed around a chipped laminated table, they sat on cracked leather seats that gushed springs and stuffing. Beer glistened on the table surface under the fluoro lights and ash overflowed from the upturned tray. Jimbo drew an arrow through it.

"Wanted to tell ya herself 'bout the job." Dave wiped the last dregs of his shot from his scraggly red beard.

"Hey boys!" a voice boomed in Jimbo's ear. A tray holding a fresh bottle of homemade tequila plonked onto the table. "Let's get pissed!"

Six-foot-three of gangly legs and beer gut grinned at them from a heavily stubbled face. A few strands of shiny black hair had snuck from beneath the red trucker's cap on his head. The broken nose bridging the twinkling blue eyes were easily identifiable though.

"Fucken hell! Wazza Wilson, you old cunt." Jimbo rose from his chair and clapped his arms around him. "Ya ran me off the road this arvo. Haven't seen ya in years. What the hell are ya doing back in Shepp?"

"It's Christmas, boys. Thought I'd pop in on the folks on my run to Mildura. Deliver the cash to me Old Man in person." Wazza eased himself into the cubicle and began pouring shots. "That Keats is a big ugly looking bastard these days. Had the nerve to ask for a blowjob to get in here. That cunt needs to get himself a woman."

"Not that easy, Waz," said Jimbo.

"There's a bit a pussy in here." Waz swigged from the bottle and indicated the dance floor. "Fucken hell. Look at Sledge!"

Sledge, a heavy set guy rumoured to have got and kept his job because no one could beat him in a fight - fist or knife - sat at the bar flashing cash and booze around while a girl perched on each knee. He was also the foreman down at the Cannery and most of the boys weren't likely to go him for fear of losing their jobs.

"Yeah, half of the pussy comes from the House. Too expensive for us young blokes."

"Shepp's got a House now? A formal House?" Waz asked.

"Yeah, the Cartel moved in a couple a years ago. Shut down the brothels real quick."

"How much a go?" asked Waz.

"Two hundred." Dave had a smirk on his face.

"That's not too bad."

"It's over two week's wages!" said Jimbo. "We can't fucken afford that, Waz. Maybe you can with ya City job an all that. We sure as fuck can't!"

Dave laughed. "What ya saving for, Jimbo?"

Jimbo gave him the finger. "You'll never get married, cunt."

"And you'll never get laid, she-virgin!"

"Hole's a hole, mate. I want more than that. I want a wife."

"Don't we all," said Dave. "There ain't enough to go around and I don't wanna die saving for one and never had no pussy."

"You still a she-virgin, Jimbo?" asked Waz.

Jimbo nodded. "So is Fitzy. More than half of us still are, Waz. Like I said, it ain't that easy."

Waz laughed. "You bunch a sad cunts. Why don't you come to the City? Heaps of women there, probably fifty-fifty."

"Fifty-fifty?" Jimbo shook his head. "That sounds like bullshit to me."

"No bullshit." Waz slapped his gut. "I've slept with four different women, even had a girlfriend for a few months."

"For free?" Fitzy's soft brown eyes widened in disbelief.

"Ya gotta pay for them when ya go out and stuff, but, yeah, pretty much for free. Cheaper than going to a House anyways."

"Why didn't you marry her?" asked Jimbo.

Waz leant over the table, trying to be conspiratorial above the music. The band was covering an old The New Eagles song called 'Oops, I did it Again.'

"You boys might think I'm hotshit being the only truck driver an all to make it from Shepp, but there's a whole lot of people with better paying jobs in the City. The women can pick and choose, boys. It's not natural, but that's the City for ya."

"Fuck the City, man." Jimbo gulped a mouthful of tequila, enjoying the sear in his throat. "We might live in the country but we ain't hicks. What the fuck are we going to do in the City? We can't drive like you."

"Yeah," said Dave. "Who the fuck can afford to run a motor out here? It's bicycle or horse, Wazza."

"I can drive." Fitzy tapped his pudgy fingers on the table.

"Whatever," Jimbo said. "It's fucken expensive there and almost as hard to get a job as it is to get a woman."

"I can drive," said Fitzy.

"A lot of guys come back from the City broke and broken," said Jimbo. "I seen it. You were just lucky, Waz."

Waz leant back into the cracked leather and wiped the sweat from his broken nose. "Lucky." He poured the last drops of tequila into the empty glasses on the table. "Someone's gotta be lucky, Jimbo."

"Not me, Wazza. Too risky going to the City. I'll do it the way me Old Man did." Jimbo looked around the table, challenging them all to a dispute. "Like all our fathers did."

"I can drive, Waz," said Fitzy. "Maybe you could put in a word for me."

Wazza removed his red truckers cap and ran his hand through his greased black hair to wipe back the sweat. "Sure, Fitzy, I'll put in a word. You gotta get the next bottle though, but no more of that shitty Shepp brew. Something from the City, something potent! Later on I got a real good surprise for you sad sorry fucks."

~ * ~

Jimbo grabbed the full shot glass from the cigarette-burned cistern, and used the contents to rinse his mouth, before spitting into the toilet bowl. Might have been a good thing Niki ain't here tonight. Wouldn't want to try to kiss her tasting like Keats. The knife twisted into his guts again. Why did she have to go to the City? I hate that fucken place.

Keats was cleaning himself off in the basin when Jimbo emerged from the toilet cubicle. "Brian's coming back on the train with his bride on Tuesdee. Ya going down?"

"Yeah." The reek of ammonia and stale piss clung to the walls. Jimbo cupped his hands under a dripping tap and splashed his face with the cool water. "You?"

"For sure. Can't wait to see what she looks like." Keats zipped his jeans up. "I'm on the first week's watch too."

"Really? How'd you score that?"

"Working nights over the silly season, eh? Leaves the days free so I can help keep an eye on her when Brian's at work." Keats strapped body armour around his groin. "You work with him, don't ya?"

"Yeah. Do you know how much he paid?"

"Standard price, mate. Ten grand. Rumour is it'll be going up but."

Jimbo stared at his reflection in the smeared mirror. His eyes were already bloodshot and he looked pale despite his tan. "How'd that prick save ten grand working at the cannery? I've been there as long as him and I've only saved four."

"Ya could always get an Abo. About half the price out near the desert fences. Reckon they got just as many girls as boys. Heard you can just take 'em if ya want 'em too. Get ya self a free wife."

"You fucken kidding me, Keats? What the hell I want a black for a wife?" Jimbo slicked water through his thinning blonde hair. "Yeah, nah, need ten grand. I'll be thirty-two by then."

"No one in their twenties round here has that sort a cash, mate." Keats laughed as he left the toilets. "And Brian didn't either. Came into a bit a inheritance, the lucky cunt."

~ * ~

The four of them, Jimbo, Wazza, Fitzy and Dave, staggered out of The Aussie, arm in arm, into the balmy night shouting old footy songs. The girls had gone home long ago with their Cartel escorts. Fists were just starting to be thrown inside the pub.

"Ready for that surprise, boys?" asked Wazza. "Yeah? Cool, let's go see Kylie."

"Kylie'. Jimbo's brain swum with booze. The stars bright above blurred. "Who's Kylie?"

"His truck," said Fitzy. "Can I have a drive, Wazza?"

"Don't be fucken stupid." Wazza staggered towards St Georges Road near the railway crossing. "Ya can have a go though."

"A go?"

"Yeah, of the surprise." Wazza laughed. "You boys are gunna shit your pants."

Kylie was parked at the back of the abandoned Red Rooster parking lot. Jimbo couldn't make out much of the vintage hulk in the starlight, but Fitzy was already at the cab, running his hands over the insect-coated grill and the Mack badge. He got to his knees and looked under the truck.

"She's a twenty-four wheeler," Fitzy cooed. "Come on, Wazza, let me sit in the cab."

"Surprise is round the back, boys." Wazza led them round to the doors of the trailer. "Gunna have to charge ya fifty bucks a head though. And if any a youse cunts breathe a word about to this to anyone ..."

"Fifty bucks?" said Jimbo. "To look in the back a ya truck? Fuck off!"

Wazza unlocked the doors and threw back the bolts. "It's a quarter a the price, boys. Just for youse."

He pulled open the doors and dropped the ramp as cool air smothered their bodies. Cartons of cigarettes were packed into the trailer between bags of fertilizer and hard plastic cases of medical supplies.

"Gimme a hand with these." Waz walked up the ramp towards the cigarettes.

Dave scratched at his beard, shaking his head. "We grow our own, Waz. Don't want that City shit. Ya gotta be mad to think we'll pay fifty bucks for that."

"Yeah, fuck that, Waz," said Jimbo. "For that sort of cash you better be selling petrol or something."

Wazza pulled down several cartons and slid them down the ramp. "The surprise is hidden at the back. Give us a hand, boys."

Reluctantly, Jimbo and Dave pulled down cartons. Fitzy was still rubbing himself over the bonnet of the truck. They quickly cleared a space which led to a small open area that stank of fear, piss and stale sex.

A naked woman lay bound on a thin stained mattress. Her mouth was taped and her brown eyes stared wildly between bedraggled shoulder-length hair. She tried to wriggle into the far corner of the trailer, squealing as she did so.

"Holy fucken hell!" Jimbo's jaw dropped. Apart from the porno files in his Old Man's archive, this was the first time he'd seen a woman naked. His eyes were drawn to her small breasts, the nipples erect in the air-cooled interior. He wondered if Niki's looked like these. "Where'd you get her?"

Dave stood gawping, tugging at his beard. "Is this ya wife, Wazza? I didn't know you got married."

"Nah, mate, picked her up on the highway just outside the City borders." Wazza chuckled to himself. "She's a Runner."

"A Runner?" Dave scrounged together several ten dollar notes from his pockets.

"From the Houses. Usually steal a whole lot of cash from the House and do a runner. Trying to get back to their hometowns, I s'pose. Most of them don't get past the border, but this one did. Must a fucked her way out." Wazza chuckled again and scratched at his beer gut. "Told her I'd help her out."

"Ya gunna keep her?" asked Jimbo. He counted through his change but he only had fifteen dollars left. Fuck. Maybe Dave can lend me some cash.

"If the Cartels found out I had one of their women I'd be a dead man. After I've swapped cargo at Mildura, I'm gunna drop her back at the City and pick up the one-and-a-half grand reward." He licked his lips. "But I'd be stupid not to have a little fun myself, eh?"

"Fucken oath." Dave handed over a bundle of dirty notes, a wide dopey grin splitting his beard. "So how's it work?"

"You can untie her legs but don't take the tape off her mouth - she bites." Wazza looked at Jimbo. "Ten minutes each. And only one at a time - we're not animals."

Outside, Fitzy started yelling. "Hey, guys, there's headlights coming!"

Wazza stuffed the bills into his jeans pocket. The booze behind his face lifted. "What?" He ran to the trailer doors.

"It's a car!" Fitzy called. "Can you believe it? A fucken car!"

"Get outta the truck." Wazza waved his arms frantically. "Hurry the fuck up. Anyone got a car still running in Shepp?"

"Nah, the mayor's got one, but the headlights are busted out. Don't think he's got no gas either. Beet crops failed last year cos a the drought." Jimbo clambered down the ramp as it started to retract into the truck.

Dave lingered, staring at the woman.

"Move it, cunt!" Wazza's voice cracked as he yelled. "Stall them, Fitzy!"

Dave leapt from the trailer. Wazza and Jimbo slammed the doors shut. Wazza slid the bolts in as headlights lit up the rear of the trailer and the cartons spread over the ground. A diesel engine throbbed behind the glare, the only noise in a night now fallen still.

Doors clicked open and two figures emerged to stand silhouetted in the lights.

"You boys ready to do these cunts?" Wazza whispered.

Jimbo and Dave both nodded, the booze kicking embers into flames. Jimbo didn't need much more encouragement, the busted bike, Niki and now these fags interrupting his chance to fuck a woman.

"We're looking for Warren Wilson." The voice was male and toneless. It seemed to come from behind the headlight, from the car itself.

Jimbo strode forward, fists clenched. "Which one of youse cunts want to kno -"

A flash burnt the night, echoing on the back of his eyeballs. Jimbo struck the concrete. Muscles cramped and his arms and legs spasmed. He bit down on his tongue. Blood filled his mouth and he choked. Ozone soaked into his nostrils. Can't ... fucken ... breathe ... out...

"He's the one you want," screamed Dave, pointing at Wazza. "We got nothing to do with this."

Wazza swung a fist at Dave. "Shaddup, ya cunt."

Bolts of electricity arced through the air. Wazza and Dave hit the ground, limbs jerking and twisting. Men in dark suits walked towards the trailer. One of them bent towards Jimbo. His eyes were sheened metal, his scalp shaved. The man placed his fingers on Jimbo's throat. Something bit into his skin.

"Unregistered." The man moved to Wazza and repeated the procedure. "This one is Warren Wilson." His voice was clipped.

"Castrate him," said the toneless voice from the car.

The man turned Wazza onto his back then knelt on his chest.

The other man opened the doors of the trailer. "She's in here." He climbed up into the truck and disappeared from sight.

The headlights glinted off a sharp blade that appeared in the kneeling man's hand. A high-pitched keening fluted from Wazza's throat. The knife sliced through the groin of the jeans.

Jimbo's body ceased spasming and he sucked the night air into his lungs. Fuck no fuck no fuck no ... can't... move ...

Wazza's eyes bulged around his broken nose. A tear streaked through the grime and down his stubble.

"Please ..." Wazza managed to plead. "No ..."

The man ripped away the flap of jeans. The knife flashed again. Wazza screamed and blood spurted into the air. The man stood, dropped something wet and fleshy to the ground, then wiped his knife on Wazza's chest.

The other emerged from the back of the trailer with the woman over his shoulder. They got back into the car, the engine growled, and they drove off into the darkness.

Fitzy scrambled out of the shadows, his face a damp rag of tears. He knelt next to Wazza. A dark pool had formed beneath him.

"Where's ya keys?" Fitzy groped through Wazza's blood-soaked pockets. "Shit, he's passed out."

Jimbo managed to pull himself off the ground. The muscles in his body screamed as needles lanced every pore.

"We gotta get him to the doctor." Fitzy pulled out a handful of stained bills and a thick ring of keys. "You two get him into the cab. I'll drive."

"Fuck," said Jimbo. "So much for Christmas."

~ * ~

The Shepparton crowd gathered expectantly under the bright heat of the midday sun for the monthly City train, the first for the new year. Shepp was considered the end of the Valley line, in more ways than one, and traders from the remote dusty towns out in the desert bowl had poured into town on their own trains - camels. The camels, horses and carts filled the old parking lot with neighs, grunts, whinnies and dung. Flies buzzed incessantly, a constant drone above the excited murmurings of the crowd. Several of the younger teenagers had braved the hot shining steel tracks and put their ears to it trying to gauge the train's distance while others placed bets on its arrival.

"Odds are three to two it's within one minute of estimated arrival," said Dave, as he and Fitzy sauntered back from the bookmaker. "That's good odds."

"And four to one, Brian's new wife is an Asian." Fitzy wiped the sweat beading on his forehead with a pudgy hand. "Them's crazy odds, no way Bri woulda spent all that cash on a slaphead. Ya not putting on a bet, Jimbo?"

For Jimbo, the usual excitement of the oncoming train had been replaced by a tense knot in his stomach. "Nah, boys. I'm saving up."

He glanced over to where Niki stood with the rest of his extended family; her father - his Uncle Frank, a younger stronger version of Jimbo's Old Man, though his skin showed signs of the cancer speckle and his gut had started to sag; Frank's wife Lana, her eye-liner smeared with tears, a strained lip-stick smile on her face as she hugged her massive breasts against her daughter - Jimbo used to fantasize about being lost between those two melons when he, and Lana, had been much younger - Lana was slowly churning into fat in her middle years; sickly Uncle Cam with his pale skin and thinning black hair stood with his arm around barren Aunty Joan, his Aussie-Chino wife - Jimbo remembered the Old Man flying into a rage when he learned his baby brother had married an Asian, reckoned they couldn't have kids because white man's sperm didn't mix with yellow chinky eggs; Grandpa and Nan White, huddled in the shade in their wheelchairs, probably still reeking of whiskey and cigarettes; his mother, Melinda, frail and stooped in her pale blue blouse, one hand patting Lana reassuringly on the shoulder, the other hand squeezing Niki's elbow; Jimbo's cousins Derek, Barney, Scottie, Jack and Rhys, all gangly tough and awkward in their late teens.

And Niki, beautiful Niki, tall and slender, her blonde hair cut shoulder length, tight blue denim hugging her hips, kissing cheeks and hugging and laughing and crying ...

And then she was kissing him on the cheek, her lips warm and soft against his skin.

"Glad you came to see me off," Niki said. "Oops." She rubbed the lipstick off his cheek with her finger and smiled.

"Yeah, well, you know. Brian's on the Marriage Carriage. Came down to see him too, not just you. The Old Man sends his regards." Jimbo nodded his head towards Uncle Frank. "You know ..."

"Of course." Niki nodded slowly, her eyes searching his. "James, you can come and visit me, you know?"

Jimbo shrugged, the knot in his stomach twisting into his bowels. He wanted to grab her by the hand, carry her from the station and down to the muddy banks of the Murray River where they'd played as kids, beg her not to go, to stay and marry him, raise a son, and everything else he dreamed about late at night in his sticky sheets. But all he could manage was, "Don't much like the City. You'll come back for holidays, eh?" He wanted to squeeze her neck hard with his calloused hands, choke the City out and make her beg to stay.

"Sure." Niki smiled again, though Jimbo could tell some of the warmth had left her lips. "I'll miss you."

"Same." Jimbo felt the knot unravelling, but he fought to hold it back. His eyes felt hot. "Write me, eh?" He tried to return her smile, thought about hugging her again and ended up patting her upper arm awkwardly.

"Train's coming," Uncle Frank said, as a slow rumbling reverberated throughout the station.

Children yelled and screamed while the livestock snorted and grunted uneasily. Cranky McNabb, the publican of The Aussie, had donned his Stationmaster garb and paraded along the platform squawking into a microphone that crackled "Stand Clear!" through hidden speakers. Keats, Mason and a few other bruisers, also in uniform, had been employed for the day to enforce crowd control. Keats had once told Jimbo he loved the ex-police batons McNabb allowed them to use at the station. Much better than the heavy baseball bats down at the pub. Easier to smash skulls without getting too tired, Keats had said, and the bats splintered bone whereas the batons only cracked them. Civilized tools of the trade. Jimbo reckoned Keats pretended he was a cop while he held that baton - Keats had failed cop school because he'd refused to be wired.

The flat-nosed engine appeared from the black maw of the tunnel, its gunmetal casing reflecting the sun, a metal serpentine creature pulling its carriaged body slowly behind it. And, as always, a breath of awe stole from Jimbo's lungs, even though he'd seen this more than a hundred times. What strange City goods were to be unloaded this time? Would there be stranger faces disembarking to settle here? Of those who had previously left Shepparton, would any be returning briefly on holiday or forever as losers? The questions of childhood now lay buried in his heart beneath the knowledge his cousin would soon be climbing into the belly of this beast before it returned to the City.

The train slid into the station, the foremost carriages laden with trade goods. Traders surged towards these and Keats and Mason moved in brandishing their batons. Towards the rear of the train were two passenger compartments, empty apart from a couple of month-trippers, but it was the last compartment most of the Shepp residents had come to welcome. It was an elaborate black carriage, painted with thick white streamers, and flowered with steel blossom - the Marriage Carriage.

A faded red carpet was unrolled and the crowd formed lines on either side falling into a hushed anticipation. The tinted steel doors opened. A brief whiff of air-conditioned perfume stole into the hot air.

"Can you see her?" Fitzy asked. Sweat had stuck his white shirt to the folds of fat on his back.

"Not yet." Jimbo peered over Dave's shoulder who had managed to jostle his way to the edge of the carpet.

Brian stepped from the carriage in his father's wedding tux, squinted into the sun, and smiled. The crowd cheered. He turned, his arm outstretched behind him into the carriage interior shadows, and drew his white-veiled bride forward into the light to meet his town.

Behind them, barely visible inside the carriage, lurked the Cartel men, uniformed and wired, their delivery safe and seen.

Jimbo nudged Fitzy and Dave. "Same bastards what did Wazza."

"Keats reckons he's scored an interview through the Mouse," said Fitzy. "Going to the City next month for wiring."

"Bullshit. Keats?"

"No shit. He's been patching with home mods for a while down The Aussie. Reckons he's got what it takes now to be Head-Sec at the House."

"Fuck me." Jimbo shook his head in disbelief.

As the newly weds descended onto the carpet, the crowd cheered again and showered them in plastic sparkling confetti. They walked, black tux and white lace, arm in arm, towards the horse-drawn Vauxhall where Brian's Old Man and lady stood. His old lady beamed and dabbed at her eyes.

Jimbo hurled his confetti at Brian's head as he passed. "Good on ya, ya cunt!"

The bride's skin appeared tanned, an olive complexion perhaps, and dark black hair tumbled from beneath her veil down the bare top of her back. She was a little shorter than Brian's six-foot, so she was definitely of good stock. The wedding dress clung to her lithe curved body as she walked sure-footed and straight with a luring sway to her hips. She'd breed well, if Brian was lucky. From beneath the veil, her full, painted lips were permanently parted in a smile over pearly teeth.

"Money well spent," said Dave. "Even I'd consider saving for that."

Fitzy laughed. "You've blown it all at the House, mate. You couldn't even afford an Abo. What time's the reception start down The Aussie?"

"Four this arvo," said Jimbo. He watched them climb into the back of the Vauxhall, and how the dress slid up to her thigh as she took a seat. Just like Niki's legs, he thought, his mind in the river kicking through water following the length of calf from knee to slender ankle.

Brian's Old Man climbed into the driver's seat and jerked the reins. The horses dragged the car into the main street, a flotilla of fruit cans tied to the rear bumper rattling noisily.

"Reckon he fucked her on the way here?" asked Dave, running his hand through the sweat in his hair.

"Be bad luck," said Jimbo. "Brian'll be saving it for tonight."

"Five bucks he did," said Fitzy. "We should check out the Marriage Carriage. Have a bit of a sniff, eh?"

Dave laughed. "You'll never get in there. The Cartel boys will do you."

"No, they won't. They're busy." Fitzy pointed across the dispersing crowd. "With your cousin."

Uncle Frank shook one of the Cartel men's hands. The other Cartel man examined a piece of paper, nodded, and handed it back to Niki. Jimbo half expected the man to press his fingers against her neck. He shuddered, remembering the sting.

"I can't fucken believe it," Jimbo said under his breath. "She's working for the fucken Cartel."

"Nah, mate, don't be stupid, they'll just be her security for the train ride. She's valuable goods now she's got a job." Fitzy whacked Jimbo on the arm. "Come on, let's check out the Carriage."

As Dave and Fitzy ran towards the Marriage Carriage, Jimbo stared at the men in dark suits with their metal eyes. And how they touched her arm. And how she laughed and smiled. And how the train would be leaving in just over an hour. And how he'd most likely never see her again.

Jimbo needed a drink and a fight bad. He'd get both tonight at Brian's wedding bash.

~ * ~

In the hot shadows of the lounge room, Jimbo caught the Old Man flicking through an old slide show on the screen. The Old Man tried to flick it off, but Jimbo saw the photos of himself and Niki as kids before the screen went blank.

"Didn't hear you come home," the Old Man said. His voice cracked. "Musta dozed off."

He wiped at his face but not before Jimbo noticed the tears streaked on his cheeks.

"Mum's going down to Brian's with Uncle Frank and Aunty Lana. She told me to come and get you."

"Yeah, yeah, just let me go and put on me tie." The Old Man struggled out of his armchair. "Ya see her off?"

"Nah, couldn't be bothered waiting around. Ya got Brian's wedding present ready?"

"It's in the shed. Ya mum wrapped it up already."

"Does it work?"

The Old Man sneered at him. "Of course it fucken works. Not that hard to modify a baby monitor, ya stupid bastard. What do ya take me for? He'll be able to keep dibs on her until she's settled in."

"Whatever. Just hurry up, will ya, the beer's getting warm."

~ * ~

"You're a bit agro tonight, mate," said Keats.

"What of it?" The booze had begun to mince Jimbo's brain, but that was how he wanted it. "You wanna fucken go?"

The room was swirling with sweat and bodies. The wedding band hammered away on drums and pianos and guitars and banjos with their version of Australian Chisel's classic 'Working Class Man'. Jimbo had vomited earlier and the stains still showed on the front of his shirt. The Aussie was getting leery now that Brian had gone. His bride had burst into tears and Brian's old lady had taken her home while Brian argued and swore and punched things.

"Just saying, mate." Keats pushed some pills into Jimbo's hand. "Ya look like ya gotta a lot on your mind. These are good, try one. It'll take it all off."

"This City shit, is it, Keats?"

"Latest and greatest."

Jimbo threw the pills onto the heaving dance floor. "Stick the City up your arse, Keats. You and ya fucken Cartel mates. We don't need youse cunts."

"What's ya problem?"

"Go and get on that train for ya fucken City innaview. Hope ya come back bust and stinking a ya own piss."

"Ah, fuck you, Jimbo." Keats turned away and headed through the crowd towards the door.

"Come on, cunt, I'll fucken do ya!" Jimbo thrust his fist towards where Keats's head had been. "Ya fucken coward! Where ya going?"

"Off to work," said Keats. "Fuck you."

"Yeah? Oh, yeah?" Jimbo shouted. "At the House? Yeah? Well, I'll burn that fucken House down, ya hear me? You and all those City sluts!"

But Keats was out the door and gone.

A strong hand gripped his shoulder. "Think you've had enough, boy."

Jimbo spun round, his fists swinging. "I'll do you too, cunt!"

A fist crashed into the side of Jimbo's head and he went down onto the concrete floor amongst the damp cigarette butts and sticky pools of alcohol.

"Ya've had enough, boy!" The Old Man launched his foot into Jimbo's stomach. "Ya not man enough yet, boy! Ya still need some sense beaten into ya!"

Somewhere, someone screamed, "He's a working class maaaaaannn!" into a microphone. Drums pounded.

Jimbo curled around the next boot to his gut, his breath gone, the anger spent in the spittle surrounding the sobs from his mouth.

"Take it easy, Mr White." Dave's voice.

The band between songs. Jimbo's mother crying. His mother limping, his father kicking, his aunty limping, kicking, Dave's mother limping, kicking through the water with those slender ankles ...

"Ya can stop now, Phil." The ashtray voice of Cranky McNabb. "I think he heard ya already."

"Shoulda been the other way round," said the Old Man. "She shoulda stayed, not him. Worthless piece of shit."

Jimbo's mother crying.

Dave and Fitzy under each arm, helping him out of the steam of bodies and into the calm of a midnight summer sky burning with stars.

"Go home, Jimbo."

"Sleep it off, mate."

Laughter.

Jimbo crying.

Later, after the pub had closed and the party had died, Jimbo woke on the footpath, his mouth full of congealed blood and vomit. He staggered to his feet and marched towards the House at the Paris end of High Street with the intent of burning it to the ground.

* * * *

PART II: STATEMENT OF INTENTION

Summer dragged on like a cigarette pressed to the palm of the hand. Fitzy left for the City to work for a trucking magnate set up through a contact of Wazza's. Wazza, after healing at his folks' place, up and left in Kylie one hot morning, Kylie chewing up the gravel as they roared past the cannery. Dave squandered his pay at the House working his way through the dozen women living there. Keats got wired to the House, wore dark suits, and no longer worked doors at The Aussie. And Jimbo, who Keats had beat gently unconscious in the early hours of the morning after Brian's wedding bash, toiled overtime at the fruit cannery, saving every dollar he could, pretending he was happy with his lot.

Jimbo sat with his back to the factory on a dying patch of grass overlooking Old Dookie Road during his lunch break. The wind blew hot, but he had chosen a spot that carried the stench of spoiling fruit downwind from where he sat.

Jimbo removed the creased letter from his overalls. He'd read it twice since it had come on last month's train and he lifted it to his nose, imagining he could still smell her perfume on the page.

"Hey, Jimbo." Brian plonked himself down, munching on a beetroot sandwich. "That from Niki? How's she doing?"

"Good." Jimbo scanned the letter - her hand writing this time, not typed like the first letter. "She's working in one of them big buildings in the City on Collins Street or something. Says being a PA is interesting and the people are fun to work with."

"What's a PA?"

"Personal Assistant. To the boss. I guess that means she's pretty high up. Got an apartment she shares with two other women who've just started work at the same company."

"Three women in the same house?" Brian grinned. "Can ya dig it? Only in the City, Jimbo. Here in Shepp the closest thing we got to something like that is the House."

"Niki ain't working for no House!" Jimbo scowled. "She's a fucken PA!"

"Easy mate, never said she worked for no House. Just meant it's weird, eh? Must be lots of women in the City for that to happen, ya know, share a house and shit."

"Guess so. You went to the City to get ya missus. Ya must a seen heaps of women."

Brian shook his head and took another bite of his sandwich. "Didn't see many of them when I was there, not like I thought I would. Saw more than I ever seen round here but. Reckon they was all hidden away in their fancy jobs and apartments. Mostly blokes everywhere, trying to get work and shit."

They sat in silence for a while, the only sound Brian chewing on his food, if they ignored the flies and the muted hum of the factory. Jimbo folded the letter and put it back in his overalls pocket.

"She says the company will pay for two train tickets a year," Jimbo said. "Wants to know if I want to go visit her on one of them. She's gunna save the other to come home for Christmas."

"Yeah, train's fucken expensive. Ya gunna go?"

"Would you?"

"Too many people for me, Jimbo. I hated the place. All those tall buildings squashing me down. I'd tell her to come here." Brian frowned and picked at the dirt. "Only went there to get some permanent pussy." He looked up and grinned at Jimbo, beetroot stuck between the gaps in his teeth. "That's the only fucken reason to go if you arkse me."

Jimbo grinned back. "How's Belle doing? She settled in yet? We haven't really seen you two hitting the town."

"You know how it is, mate. Takes em a while to adjust. Dad reckons at least a year before she'll be safe to go out. Took my mum at least that."

"I hear ya." Jimbo nudged Brian with his elbow. "So how many times ya fucked her?"

"Fucken heaps, mate. Better than all that teenage a-hole shit we used to do. The real thing." Brian grinned again, though this time it seemed forced, like someone had shoved a finger into his arsehole and told him it would be fun.

"Something's wrong, Bri. What's up?"

"Keats been talking, has he? Fuck." Brian sucked in a lungful of hot air. "Might as well tell you too. It's not what I thought it'd be like. She keeps crying every other fucken night, 'bout how she misses her home and family and shit. Thank fuck for the neighbourhood watch, dunno what I'd do without them. Thanks for the monitor too, Jimbo. It's come in handy. Keats caught her trying to leave the house when I was at work. Who knows where the fuck she woulda run off to."

"No worries, mate. Knew it'd do ya good."

"She even fucken cries when we're rooting, puts me off big time." Brian shook his head again. His fingers stabbed at the dirt now. "Dad says that's normal for a while, but it's been almost three months of this bawling and shit!"

"That is normal, Brian," said Jimbo. "She'll get used to it. Ya have to hit her?"

"Not much. She's pretty sweet." Brian lowered his voice. "Can't bring myself to hit her, eh?"

"No shit? If it's any consolation, mate, don't think I could either."

Brian tried to smile at that. "And she can't cook that good yet. Fucken pisses me off - I paid ten grand for Belle! Woulda thought that'd be sorted."

"She's sexy though. I'd do her."

"Yeah, thanks, Jimbo. You're a mate." Brian stood and brushed the grass and dirt off his overalls. "Don't regret spending the money. Ain't no other way to get a wife around here unless you're born rich or lucky. I heard ya been saving up."

He held out a hand and pulled Jimbo to his feet. On the way back to the factory, Brian pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to Jimbo.

"For when you've got enough ping, mate," said Brian. "They're good, they're the best."

~ * ~

Jimbo lay in bed that night listening to the Old Man snoring from the bedroom at the other end of the hallway. He wondered if the Old Man had beaten Mum when they'd first got married, and how long it took before Mum had decided she was happy enough to want to stay. Or stopped trying to leave.

He stared at the card Brian had given him. White card, red writing. Bridal Services. No slogan, no address. Just a phone number. A City phone number.

He thought about taking Niki up on her offer of a train trip to the city. Kill two birds with one stone. See her, find a wife. He imagined going to her apartment and knocking on the door. Taking her in his arms when she answered it, carrying her inside and undressing her ...

He grabbed hold of his stiffening cock and began to stroke, trying to imagine his tongue licking her breasts. The Old Man gave a ratcheting croak and the rasping snore took on a louder pitch. Jimbo tried to hold her face in his mind but the snoring tore her away from him. Anyway, he couldn't take a train ticket off her - they cost too much.

Bridal Services.

"For when you've got enough ping," Brian had said.

That smarmy prick and his inheritance, that was how he got his fucken wife! Enough fucken ping, the cunt!

Jimbo thought about pressing a pillow over the Old Man's face. It would be so easy, the fat old cancerous cunt snoring away, the stink of stale beer pouring from his gob.

Jimbo worked at his cock again, but it was no good. The snoring beat its way through the walls, pounding into his ears.

Fucken fat old cunt.

He climbed out of bed and crept down the hallway towards his parents' door. The room stank of body-processed alcohol. He could barely make out the lump in the bed in darkness. He stole closer, pillow in hand, listening to the rising falling buzzsaw that was his father. He stood over the Old Man and raised the pillow.

"Don't do it, James," his mother said softly from the chair by the window.

Jimbo stared at her and, after an eternity of seconds, went back to his bed. He lay there sleeplessly dreaming of things that would never come to pass.

~ * ~

Jimbo sat with the Old Man in the waiting room down at the Surgery. It was the first time either of them had been here since the new doctor had arrived in town, a filthy fucken A-rab from the City no less. Not that there weren't any A-rabs here in Shepp, but they mostly lived on the south side of town in the old council estates, run-down shit holes full of pestilence and ugly women dressed in black sheets. But this cunt, this Doctor Ed Khalid, was getting his dirty fingers high up in the town, and that pissed off the Old Man something big. Jimbo didn't really give a fuck, he didn't much like A-rabs or Asians and as long as they kept to themselves it was no skin off his nose.

It was the skin on his Old Man that was the problem though. It was getting worse. Big red sores weeping through the bandages Jimbo's mum changed daily. The smell of decay had settled into the walls of their house. The cancer had been festering a while now, maybe longer than the two years since Khalid had set up practise, but Mum was worried it was worsening. She also held high hopes that a City doctor, even an A-rab, might have new technology, some new ways, that old alkie Foley hadn't. Jimbo shuddered, remembering Foley's whiskey-soaked breath in his ear as he forced a gnarled finger up Jimbo's arsehole when he was twelve.

"There's a lot a shit up there," Foley had said to Jimbo's mother. "Turning to concrete." He'd sent them home with a bottle of Swedish Bitters and some suppositories, and after two days Jimbo had shit himself stupid.

Jimbo had avoided doctors ever since, and he sure as hell didn't want this Ed Khalid sticking his A-rab fingers anywhere near his arsehole. Ed. Fucken MohammEd, more like.

The Old Man had been quiet since they got here, long sleeves drawn down over his bandaged arms, the brim of his hat pulled low trying to disguise the rot in his nose. A sour stench clung to his body.

They waited.

A fat kid on the seat opposite stared sullenly at them, his hair a sump of grease, acne holding his cheeks together. Jimbo didn't know him, and it struck him as funny. It wasn't so long ago that he knew almost everybody in town. He guessed things had been getting away from him recently, what with work and shit. The kid stared and Jimbo fought a sudden urge to get up and smack the kid in the mouth.

The door to the doctor's room opened and a nurse stood there staring at a list of patient names. Her eyes were sunk into a pouchful of bags and dark roots crawled through the platinum highlights in her dry, brittle hair.

"Mr White," she said, her voice worn with heavy cigarette use.

The Old Man heaved himself to his feet, and they made their way into Doctor Ed Khalid's private sanctum.

Khalid took Jimbo by surprise - he didn't appear to be that many years older than Jimbo himself, his skin tanned, dark hair cut short, and blue eyes shining from a strong boned face. The room seemed clean, and it looked like there was a working computer on the desk. Locked cabinets stood in the corner of the room, some fancy looking machinery Jimbo didn't have a clue about. Khalid's A-rab origins were evident though. There was a faded prayer rug in one corner, and up on the wall a large photo of a white building surrounded by a swirling mass of people.

Khalid smiled and offered them a seat. "How can I help you today, Mr White?"

No A-rab accent at all, he sounded much like any of them. The cunt's probably putting it on. Altered his face to fit in.

The Old Man said nothing for a second, then rolled up his sleeves and put his arms upon Khalid's desk. Khalid kept his face straight, helped the Old Man onto the examination bed and carefully removed the bandages, exposing the sores beneath.

"How long have you had these?" Khalid asked.

"A while. Dunno. Maybe two, maybe three years. Maybe longer. Getting worse, it's gunna fucken kill me, I know that much. We all know skin cancer when we see it."

Khalid nodded, examined the sores again. "This is fairly advanced. You should have come to see me sooner. There are things we can do."

The Old Man grunted, a short hoot of derisive laughter. "Look, I don't give a fuck. I'm here because it's bothering me missus. I don't want to put her under anymore pressure than she already is. It's gunna kill me, plain and simple, like it does a quarter of this fucken town."

"There are options available, Mr White. Still. Have you considered seeing a specialist in the City -"

"Fuck the City."

Jimbo sat back, watching the Old Man bristle. Looks like the old bastard's gunna plant one on the A-rab's nut. Gotta give it to the A-rab though, he's playing it cool.

"There's not much I can do from here." Khalid cleaned the sores with a swab the nurse had prepared. "You know how it is. Trains are limited, supplies even more so. I have colleagues in the City -"

"I'm not wasting any money on that shit. It'd ruin me family." The Old Man stared around the room, avoiding Jimbo, his eyes fixing on the photo of the arch. "I can't afford that sort of thing. Painkillers. Medical marijuana. You can do that, can't you?"

Khalid nodded, handing the swabs back to the nurse, then applying fresh bandages to the Old Man's arms. "Sure. It's no different to what you can already get though, and it's not like there's a problem getting hold of any."

"Yeah," said the Old Man, "but if you prescribe it, it's free."

Khalid laughed, and began to write out a script.

"You been there?" The Old Man pointed at the photo on the wall. "You A-rabs all gotta go there once in yer life, don't ya?"

Khalid looked up at the photo, his face distant. "No. My great-grandfather did though, back before the Breakdown. I don't know of anyone in my generation who's been."

"Then I guess I'll be seeing you in hell then, eh, doc?" The Old Man grinned, his teeth a slowly rotting mess between lips already blessed with the onset of cancerous blooms.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Khalid pushed the script across his desk, towards the Old Man's hands. "Much like your Bible, Mr White, we update our Koran when needs be."

"Fuck the Bible."

"Yes, I totally agree." Khalid stood, and the nurse ushered Jimbo and the Old Man towards the door. "And remember, if there is anything you need, don't hesitate to come and see me." He planted his blue eyes on Jimbo's. "Anything."

As they were leaving the Surgery, Jimbo patted his pockets. "Ah, fuck, I've left me wallet in there." He pointed to the horse and cart that Uncle Frank had lent them for the day. "You go on, I'll be with ya in a sec."

Jimbo walked back inside, past the receptionist and the glaring eyes in the waiting room and pushed open the door to the rooms. The fat kid had his shirt off, lying on the bed, while Khalid leant over him, a stethoscope pressed to the chest.

The nurse began to bluster, "You can't -"

"It's okay, Deanna," Khalid said, straightening.

"If he doesn't get treatment in the City, how long's he got?"

"Six months. Maybe more, maybe less."

Jimbo nodded and left the rooms, snarling at the receptionist as she tried to say something and stalked out into the hot day. The Old Man slumped in the cart, his hat pulled low, his shoulders sagging. Jimbo walked slowly, watching those shoulders, now beaten and slumped, remembering their thick muscle and the beatings doled out regularly over the years.

Six months, eh? Six more fucken months. If we're lucky, even less.

~ * ~

After the bushfires had burned off summer, and the leaves dropped dead from the trees, the temperature dipped beneath thirty degrees Celsius for the first time in months. Cranky McNabb reckoned rain would come with the end of autumn, and though the town hoped with him that it would, nobody was placing bets.

When Niki's letters stopped arriving, Jimbo's first instinct was to burn the ones he had received. Instead, he hid them inside his old footy guernsey, deciding to bury his heart with good memories rather than burning his heart with none. He'd never bothered to reply to her, though if he delved deep enough inside him he knew he couldn't bring himself to reply - scared he'd say too much, or worse, not enough.

"Nicole's doing well at work," his mother would say over breakfast. "Promotion. More money. Responsibility. She'll be home come Christmas."

Jimbo would nod disinterestedly, building a wall around where Niki had been, while making a space for his wife, a good wife, the one he would buy with his savings.

When the Old Man took a turn for the worse and the skin cancer bit deep enough to infect the blood, his mother stopped talking about Niki. Jimbo would come home and press a portion of his pay into the cancerous old hands, and think about how Brian got Belle.

And, late at night, when the booze seeped through the cracks and bought Jimbo's heart floating towards the surface, he'd unfold his old guernsey and read through Niki's letters. And, if the room didn't spin, sometimes he'd find himself crying and not know why.

~ * ~

A good crowd had turned up at the Oval for the pre-season footy game between Shepp City and the Aboriginals who'd come in from the Edge for fruit picking money. Last year the Abos had won by two goals, but the cops had kept the fighting to a minimum, which had been disappointing. They'd segregated the crowd again this year, with the townsfolk in the makeshift western stand, fenced off from the Abos camped on the eastern slope. Still, there was always a chance for a fight after the game around the bottleshop - Cranky wouldn't let the Abos into The Aussie.

"Gunna be a corker, this one." Dave handed Jimbo a plastic cup of coolish beer. "Cockatoo Collins III is playing. Keats has ten bucks on him scoring the first goal for the Abos, and fifteen bucks on him being the first to be taken out."

"Just got a fiver on the game," said Jimbo. "Abos'll win. Hate to say it, but they're better 'n us at this game."

"Fuck off!" Dave gulped down a mouthful of bitter. "Next you'll be saying ya won't bash 'em. Shit, next thing you'll be bringing one home for a wife!"

"Too right, mate," said Jimbo, before punching Dave on the arm. "Heard they were good in the sack, eh?"

Dave laughed. "They are, mate, they are! I'm telling ya, ya missing out."

A cry went up from the crowd, as Shepp City cleared the ball, with Plugger punting the ball to Bulldog who took a clean mark thirty metres from the goal.

"Piece of piss from here," said Dave.

"Yeah," said Jimbo. He wasn't watching the game though. Frank was moving through the crowd towards him.

"How's it going, Jimmy?" Frank tried to smile.

"Yeah, good, Uncle Frank. You?"

Frank stared out over the field, as Bulldog lined up the goal and prepared to kick. "Big game today. Thought Phil would be down to watch."

"Too crook to come."

The crowd "awwwed" in disappointment as Bulldog missed the goal, the field umpire signalling with one hand only a point had been scored. The Abos shouted from the far side of the field, jeering and laughing.

Frank nodded slowly. "Yeah, ya mum said he was bad." Frank turned to face Jimbo for the first time during the conversation, his hard face as stern and cracked as the dry fields he ploughed. "Wasn't always like this between me and ya father. Used to be real close when we was kids." Frank stared back at the field. "Used to idolize the bastard when I was young. He'd keep the older kids off me at school until I could win me own. Yeah, ma brother was tough back then."

"He's not so tough now." Jimbo downed his beer. "You want one, Uncle Frank?"

"Yeah," said Frank, distractedly.

As Jimbo left to go to the drinks caravan, Frank put his hand on Jimbo's arm.

"You haven't heard from Nicole lately, have you, Jimmy?"

"Nah, not for a while."

"Right." Frank looked like he was about to say something more, then stared back at the game.

When Jimbo came back with the beers, Cockatoo had scored two goals for the Abos, Plugger had been knocked unconscious, Dave was screaming obscenities, and Frank had disappeared.

~ * ~

Towards the end, Jimbo would dread the rattling call from his father's throat, summoning him to the shadowed lounge where the Old Man had had his deathbed set up. He wished the bastard would hurry up and get all this shit over with. Jimbo would be able to save more money for his bride if the Old Man no longer had his hand out.

The big screen was on, cycling through family photographs, where Jimbo had yet to grow hair and sported fat nappies, his father had a fit and strong footballer's body, with skin tanned deep while working the fields, and his mother - younger, beautiful - wore a smile for her newborn instead of the blank face she wore for her husband.

Now, his mother sat in the armchair, her face expressionless. The Old Man lay in his bed, the skin on his face pulled tight and yellow across his skull. The weight had eaten itself from his belly. He reached out a papyrus hand and clasped Jimbo's arm, the cancerous heat of his father's skin burning into his own.

"I know what ya trying to do," the Old Man croaked.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And I know ya wanna do it ya own way, and that's the way a real man would do it. I understand, son. I appreciate that."

"Right." Jimbo didn't have a fucken clue what the old bastard was on about. He wished the Old Man would let go of his arm though - the sickly heat felt infectious. Jimbo noticed his mother was smiling. Smiling like in the photos cycling on the screen. Smiling with a mother's love for her son.

"I don't have much time left." The Old Man paused, searching Jimbo's eyes, waiting for something.

Jimbo said nothing.

"I want a wedding before I die."

"What?"

The Old Man hacked a phlegmy laugh. "That got a reaction." He coughed again; brown drool leaked from the corner of his mouth. "I wanna see me only son get married. God knows there's fuck all weddings these days, what with the cost of them'n all."

"You bullshitting me? Unless you're gunna last another five to ten years coughing your guts up on that bed, it ain't gunna happen. I ain't got the cash."

"James," his mother said softly from the chair. "Listen."

"Yeah, I know that, Jimmy," said the Old Man. "You ain't exactly breaking the bank with your job at the factory. And I know ya think I've been a cunt to ya for taking ya money each pay. But I done it all for you."

Jimbo wanted to tell him to get to the point and stop wasting everyone's time, but deep down he knew this was unusual for his father - something here was about to break.

"Mel? Hand it to me, thanks love."

Jimbo's mother pressed something small into the Old Man's free hand.

The papyrus hand scrabbled at Jimbo's arm, attempting to pull him closer. Jimbo reluctantly relented and leant in to the warm sour odour of sweat surrounding his father.

"Me and ya Mum want ya to have this." The Old Man closed Jimbo's hand around a small hard square of plastic. Inscribed on the card was a black square with a yellow triangle inside it.

"Is this a bank card?" asked Jimbo.

"Yep." The Old Man tried to smile. "Every dollar you paid us, to me and to ya mum - I knew about that, she's not stupid enough to keep secrets from me - every cent is in that account. With interest. It's yours."

"Is this what I think it's for?" Jimbo looked towards his mother for reassurance, forgetting she had betrayed his confidence.

"You can get married now, James." Mel smiled for all of them, tears brimming in her eyes. "You can afford to get yourself a bride."

"This is fucken great! I can't believe it!"

"There's one condition," said the Old Man.

Here it comes, thought Jimbo. I fucken knew it.

The Old Man grinned. "She's gotta be white."

Jimbo started laughing. "No fucken worries about that. I won't be the one to taint our gene pool!"

It was the first time in years they had laughed together as a family.

~ * ~

It felt weird going round to Uncle Frank and Aunty Lana's place now that Niki no longer lived there. Jimbo hadn't been here for almost a year. Nothing much had changed. The weatherboard house still needed painting and weeds struggled through the cracked dirt. He remembered swimming in the pool out back and noticing Niki had nipples and breasts beneath her swimsuit. It had unsettled him, but he couldn't take his eyes away from them, those hard buttons jutting from unfamiliar bumps of flesh. That seemed forever ago now.

Aunty Lana greeted Jimbo at the door, kissing him on the cheek and hugging him tight, smothering him in perfume and breasts. He was conscious of those heavy breasts pushing against his chest, knowing that when he was younger he had wondered if Niki would grow to have these treasures.

They sat out on the back verandah, overlooking the pool. Uncle Frank had never filled it in when the water laws changed back in '43, hanging onto the idea that the weather patterns would shift back in favour for the Lucky Country. The Old Man had called him a fucken idiot, though not to his face. In that instance, the Old Man had been right. The water table had shrunk even further over the last ten years, and a good portion of Frank's backyard was now an empty concrete hole that possums sometimes got trapped in.

Lana poured Jimbo and Frank a cold homebrew, one of the darker colours. It tasted better than Jimbo remembered. Lana sat back and sipped on a white wine. One a those fancy Savlon Blanks by the looks, thought Jimbo.

"Have you spoken to Nicole lately?" Lana asked.

Jimbo sipped at his beer then shook his head. "Uncle Frank asked me that a few weeks back at the footy. How's she going?"

"Well, according to her emails, things are fine. Very busy. They seem very impersonal though."

"Said she won't be back for bloody Christmas." Frank placed his glass with a little too much force on the table. He stared at the empty pool. "Too busy, she reckons."

"Yeah, well that's the City for ya," said Jimbo.

"It's not just that, Jimmy," said Lana. "We haven't spoken to her for several months now. We've called but she's either out or - I don't know. Maybe her flatmates aren't passing on messages."

"She's not seeing someone, is she?" Frank's eyes bored into Jimbo's until Jimbo stared at the brown froth in his glass.

"Why would she tell me?"

"You two are as close as brother and ... well, close as cousins can be."

Not as close as I want us to be, Uncle Frank. "She hasn't said nothing to me."

Lana smiled and patted Jimbo's hand. "Can you do us a favour, please, Jimmy? Can you pop in and see if she's okay when you go to the City next week? Maybe give her something we'd like you to take her, nothing big, just a little home-cooking and bits and pieces."

"Selfish little bitch," Frank muttered under his breath.

"Frank," said Lana, sharply.

"Yeah, no worries, Aunty Lana. I was thinking of looking her up anyway."

They sat in silence, Lana staring at Jimbo with a sad smile on her painted lips, Frank staring at the empty pool, and Jimbo wondering what the fuck he was doing here.

Eventually Lana broke with, "How's your father doing, Jimmy? Sorry we haven't been around to visit lately, you know how it is."

Frank grunted something about more beer and Lana left the table to refresh the drinks.

* * * *

PART III: EXCHANGE OF VOWS AND RINGS

The carriage was mainly empty; besides Dave and Jimbo there were a couple of month-trippers - a man and a woman - and half a dozen traders on the way to the City. Jimbo didn't recognize the month-trippers - they had boarded at Murchison, a god-forsaken dust bowl that Jimbo had only previously heard about but never visited. She looked part Asian too. One of the traders was an Abo that Jimbo recognized from footy. How the hell could that black cunt afford a ticket? thought Jimbo. There must be a bit a cash floating around the Abo camps. Might have to go on a recce when I get back.

Dave handed another beer to Jimbo from the cool-pak underneath the seat. The vinyl covering on the seat was cracked and someone had carved Keep Australia pure - kill them all! into it.

"This'll be ma last beer. Want a clear head for when we get to the City," said Jimbo.

"Yeah, no worries, mate," said Dave. "Shoulda brung something harder, maybe some Bundy or something."

Jimbo knew what Dave meant. The excitement of the train journey was slowly and surely being usurped by a worming terror with every clack of the tracks. He could have done with the rum to ease his nerves, but dreaded disembarking into an alien, crowded place with a blurred head.

Dave stared at his reflection in the darkened windows. "Didn't realize most of the trip is underground. How much longer we got to go?"

'"Bout an hour. Two more stops to make. One in Nagambie, the other in Seymour. It's a straight run from there."

"You nervous?" asked Dave.

"Nah."

"Me neither." Dave rocked back and forward in his seat, looking around the carriage. "The track between Nagambie and Seymour is above ground, right? Least there'll be something to look at."

"Yeah." Jimbo swallowed a mouthful of beer. And hopefully something to take my mind off all this shit.

He took the card from his pocket and ran his fingers over the embossed red writing.

Bridal Services.

He'd made the phone call in the privacy of the Old Man's study.

The voice on the other end of the line spoke in a flat monotone. "You have reached Bridal Services. You are being monitored. Your call number is A6YTR7200. Transferring you now."

Sweat had formed on Jimbo's palms. The telephone had become slick under his fingers. His cock uncoiled from its slumber.

The monotone voice had started again. "If you are enquiring about bridal purchases please say "Bridal Purchase". If you want to make an account enquiry or set up a new account please say -"

"Bridal Purchase," Jimbo had said.

The line clicked and whirred. A pleasant female voice had said, "Hello, my name is Operator 635SD. I will be your Transaction Manager. You will need to provide the following information before we begin."

The clacks from the tracks began to slow. The train decelerated as it emerged from the tunnel and approached Nagambie Station.

Jimbo put the card back in his pocket.

"We got about half an hour before we leave again," said Dave. "Ya want to get off and have a look around?"

"Nah, I can see plenty from here."

"Suit yaself. I'm gunna go have a squiz."

Out on the platform, three Cartel men stood sentinel while a young woman kissed her family then gathered her bags. Dave wandered among the crowd but stalled at the exit, unable to pass the guards. So much for sightseeing, thought Jimbo. The woman and her entourage of Cartel men boarded the first-class carriage, the one ahead of the carriage Jimbo sat in. The doors connecting the carriages were locked however - Dave had tried to get in shortly after they had left Shepp - and curtains had been drawn over the windows.

Dave plonked himself back in the seat as the train shuddered and began to creep slowly out of Nagambie Station. "See that woman getting on the train? Looks like she's scored a City job too. Fuck, man, that place is sucking all the women out of the country, I tell ya."

"Fuck the City. And fuck those women."

"What about Niki?"

"That's different."

Dave started to laugh but Jimbo glared him down. "Take it easy, man. You're so fucken uptight about her."

"No I'm not."

"For fuck's sake, Jimbo, we're going to the City to get ya a bride. With the cash ya got saved you'll get the pick of the litter. Niki will be nothing more than a memory of ya hand on ya cock, mate."

Eucalypts flashed by the window as the train picked up speed. Huge strips of bark dangled from their trunks. Jimbo imagined he could see koalas clambering amongst the branches and chewing on the leaves. The Old Man claimed to have seen one on his trip to the City way back when. In this part of the country though, koalas were but a memory now. Like Niki. Dave was right.

"She might be picking us up at Central Station," Jimbo said.

"Cool. She bringing her girlfriends?" Dave put his hand on his crotch and grinned.

Jimbo laughed. "Yeah, you hope! Why'd she want them to meet a loser like you?"

"They might be lonely country girls homesick for a bit a country boy." Dave shook his crotch vigorously. "And whaddaya mean she might pick us up? She gunna be there or not?"

"Didn't speak to her or nothing. Left a message on the phone at her apartment. She lives with a Zoe and a Michelle. They all said their names on the recording. Sounded too sexy for you, eh?"

"Yeah, well I hope she's there. Tell ya the truth, Jimbo, I'm not looking forward to getting out at the station. Central's sposed to be huge, bigger'n the entire mall. I'm almost shitting my pants as much as you."

"That easy to tell, eh? Thanks for being ma best man, Dave. Couldn't have done this without ya."

"No worries, mate. Ya didn't have much choice as ya got fuck all friends, ya ugly cunt."

"Speaking of ugly cunts, you manage to get hold of Fitzy?"

"Nah. Haven't heard from that fat bastard for months. Didn't have a job last I heard though."

The blur of eucalypts began to materialize back into individual trees and the clack of the tracks slowed. The train eventually ground to a halt. Outside, low scrub and the occasional thicket of eucalypts stretched over rolling hills the colour of rust.

"Why have we stopped?" asked Dave.

Several passengers started opening windows. The Abo from footy had climbed halfway out of his. "There's something on the tracks ahead. Hey, one a those Cartel fellas is getting out."

The Cartel man strode through the dust towards the front of the train. The sun bounced from his scalp. He held a gun in his hand.

"What's happening?" asked Jimbo, his face pressed against the window.

An explosion thundered through the earth, rocking the train. The Cartel man whirled around, looking for the source of the sound. His head snapped back and his legs folded underneath him. He collapsed into the dirt, a plume of smoke rising from the back of his head.

The Abo scrambled back in through the window. "He's fucken dead!"

Gunshots echoed from the first class carriage. Screams. The doors beeped and whooshed open.

Dave tried to scramble beneath the seat, pulling his cool-pak around his head. And like a bushfire fanned on the breeze, panic swirled through the carriage.

Two men wearing square steel buckets for masks boarded the train. One brandished a shotgun, the other a long narrow rifle Jimbo didn't recognize.

"Sit down and shut up!" said the man with the shotgun. "Put ya fucken hands on ya heads!"

The passengers dropped to the seats. Jimbo pressed his hands flat to the top of his scalp. Dave's face was white as he cowered beneath the seat.

"There's another one down the back," said Rifle.

Shotgun strode down the aisle towards the month-trippers. A lion symbol was stamped into the back of his helmet, beaten from old Holden car parts. "You!" He motioned towards the woman. "Get up!"

She clung to her partner. "No, please -"

"Why are you doing this?" Her partner held her tight and swivelled her away from Shotgun. "You can't -"

Shotgun smashed his weapon into the man's face. His head rocked back, cracking against the seat rail. He slumped sideways in the seat. The woman screamed, trying to pull his body closer.

"Get the fuck up, bitch!" Shotgun reached out, grabbed a fistful of her long black hair and yanked her off the seat.

"Careful of the goods," said Rifle.

She flailed at Shotgun's face, but her fingers raked against the bushranger mask. Shotgun kneed her in the stomach. The sound of her breath exhaling echoed in the silence of the carriage. Jimbo needed to piss something bad. Dave had started to weep.

Shotgun dragged her down the aisle as she hitched for breath. Her shoes knocked on the seat legs - whack whack whack - as she was hauled towards the door.

"I wouldn't none of youse cunts do nothing for the next half hour," said Rifle. "Stay in ya fucken seats and ya'll be fine. Stick ya head out the window and I'll burn a fucken hole in it." He pointed the rifle at the Abo. "Specially you, bruddah. Keep ya fucken black nut in!"

The Abo nodded and swallowed hard.

As Rifle stepped from the train, he said, "Thank you for travelling with RuralRail. We hope you've had an enjoyable trip and look forward to seeing you again."

Laughter. More screams.

"We gotta help her," said the Abo.

Jimbo said nothing, his hands still firmly glued to the top of his skull. Sweat leaked between the palm of hands and his scalp, beading through his hair. His knees trembled. Dave stared up at him, his eyes wide and wet.

"We gotta fucken help her!" The Abo stood and moved towards the door.

"Sit down," said one of the Traders. "You'll get us killed."

Somewhere nearby they heard the revving of engines.

The Abo leapt from the train. "That's motorbikes!"

Jesus, they've got petrol, Jimbo thought. These boys are serious.

The remaining month-tripper groaned from the back of the carriage. The cameras tucked up in the corner of the carriage whirred and swivelled. The loudspeakers crackled.

"Everyone remain calm and in your seats. We will be resuming normal services shortly. Remember, please stay seated for your safety. We will be travelling express to Central and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

"You gotta be fucken kidding me." Jimbo looked around at the others in the carriage. Their faces were ashen and silent.

The doors began to beep.

The train shuddered.

The Abo climbed in through the door, sweat coating his face. There were bloodstains on his shirt. "They killed all the Cartel and took the woman that was wiffem too. They was the only passengers in first class."

The doors whooshed closed and the beeping stopped. The Abo sat back down with the Traders. He held something metallic and bloody, showing it off.

"This should be worth heaps," the Abo said to his colleagues. "One of their heads was split open and I saw it there, all shiny and shit. Was easier to get out than I thought."

As the tracks clack clack clacked, the month tripper cried, "Keira, where's Keira?"

It was just a woman, Jimbo thought, and an Asian at that. He wondered how long he could stand it before he cracked. That money-flush cunt doesn't know how lucky he is. We could have been killed, for Christ's sake!

~ * ~

The last hour of the train journey was underground and express, and for most of that Month Tripper had been silent. The train hissed into the station - a massive domed structure with manufactured clouds floating across its ceiling. The platform they alighted at held no crowds, and consequently no Niki, but there were escorts - a dozen of them clad in light blue uniform carrying shock sticks and wearing razor goggles wrapped around shiny scalps. Police. And amongst them, several black-suited Cartel men milled, scanning passengers.

An empty voice droned from hidden speakers, "All passengers proceed to the rear of Platform Thirteen. You will be processed accordingly. Thank you for your cooperation."

Bodies were stretchered from the train, as the police herded the living across the platform towards a set of steel doors emblazoned with a red No Entry sign.

Once inside the doors, they were corralled into a waiting room and told to sit on hard plastic chairs.

"I don't like this," said Jimbo.

"This'll be just routine. Stuff about the train robbery." Though Dave's voice remained calm, his eyes bulged in their sockets.

Several police moved systematically through the room collecting DNA samples. Jimbo flinched when cold fingers were pressed to his throat and stung his flesh. Dave did his best to remain still, but those bulging eyes watered when the fingers bit.

Eventually the two of them were ushered into an interview room. They were seated at a desk. A police woman sat opposite. Her face was hard, her eyes arctic blue and her nose sharp. Veins bulged beneath the skin of her scalp. A Cartel man stood near the desk, arms folded, his eyes hidden beneath dark glasses.

"First time to the City, boys," said the woman. Her voice sounded as friendly as rusting car bodies. "Neither of you are registered, but both of you are cross-referenced with one Warren Wilson."

A holographic screen buzzed into existence on the desktop. Jimbo saw his image floating amongst details of blood type, age, genetic disorders and a mass of equations he didn't understand.

"I need your names and places of residence. One at a time and speak clearly into the machine."

When Jimbo and Dave had declared who they were, the holographic blinked out. The woman stared dolefully at them. "Purpose of visit?"

Christ, I hope the women here aren't all like this bitch. I'd rather do Keats. "I'm here to find a wife," said Jimbo.

The Cartel man smirked but the police officer's expression didn't change. "Your kind make me sick. If you get in trouble here, don't come looking for help," she said. "Records verify. You may leave now."

"What?" said Dave. "Is that it? You keep us waiting around for a couple of hours and then don't even ask about the train?"

"We don't need to ask you anything more. We have everything we need," she said. "Enjoy your stay in the City."

~ * ~

Outside the station, with its crumbling facade of pale orange stone blocks and a fractured clock tower no longer marking time, the shock of the City tumbled and thundered over them. Towering buildings of angular steel and polished glass jutted into the sky blocking out the sun, advertising holograms dancing across their smooth windowed exteriors; beneath a nearby bridge, a river thick with mud slugged by, its oily surface broken by barges and peppered with rubbish, while a thick weed with dark glossgreen leaves and a white leathery bloom wove along the riverbank, its choking tendrils slowly claiming what little was left of the water that the mud didn't already own; the streets were packed with people moving frantically between bikes and electric cars and trams, amongst them heavily-armed blue uniforms stationed on street corners. The honk of horns and tinkling bells was incessant, piercing the hubbub of the murmuring voiceless masses. The smell of ozone, and the hint of petroleum lingered on the air, while the waft of sewage from the river drifted on the occasional breeze. Nearby, a street hawker fried gristled slivers of meat in a spicy red sauce.

Around the station milled dozens of people, mainly men, wielding fishing rods, buckets and mops, wearing tool-belts sporting archaic hand-held drills and hammers, carrying anything that signified their available line of work. Their faces wore a mix of dejection and hope. One man, his face creased with grime, thrust his mop at Jimbo's head.

"Git ta the back a the line, cunt. You fuckers fresh off the train ain't got no chance a jumpin' queue." He thrust the mop inches away from Jimbo's face. "Better yet, why dontcha jus fuck off back to where yas come from - no work here for youse cunts!"

Dave grabbed Jimbo's arm, and they backed away. A horn blasted in their ears accompanied with a sharp squeal of brakes.

"Get out a the way, dickheads!"

They pushed through the crowds, making their way to the relative refuge the bridge provided. Here, the glossgreen weed had crept up the pylons and wound along the rusting rails. The stink of the river was strong, which was probably why it wasn't so crowded.

"What now?" asked Dave.

"We've got about three hours until my appointment." Jimbo pulled a map out of his backpack and carefully unfolded it. On it he had circled three things and had highlighted the streets connecting them. He pointed at the circled station and then drew his finger along one of the lines to the next circle. "This is where we'll need to be. It should only take us half an hour to walk."

Dave stared at the crowded street as people swarmed across the massive intersection outside the station. "You reckon?"

"Maybe an hour, I dunno." Jimbo pointed to the other circle on the map. "We could swing by here first. It's near where we need to go. Maybe twenty minutes out of our way."

"Won't Niki be working?"

"Yeah, but she lives in the same building she works in."

Dave grinned. "You know I'll be keen."

"Her flatmates won't be interested in you."

Dave shook his crotch. "Ya wanna make a bet?"

They both laughed, but Jimbo felt his good humour leach away as they made their way through the crowded streets while looming buildings pressed down from above.

~ * ~

The foyer of the Mederos building was huge and spacious compared to the crush of streets outside. The walls were draped in massive oil paintings; sculptures of bronze and clay and hologram punctuated the room; lush foliage gave the interior an exotic feel that leant the fresh smell of leaf and earth to the air, while irrigation tubes fed moisture into the plant beds. Beneath a soft electronic meditation scheme piped from hidden speakers, a muted hum buzzed through the room, no doubt the machinery powering the building.

"That one's a palm tree," said Dave. "Like they got up Far North."

"That water must cost a fortune."

Near the far wall, beneath a painting of a sunburnt landscape with a solitary black-armoured rider, was a large reception area guarding a squad of elevators. Operating the desk were half a dozen men and women, while several Cartel men stood guard, making sure the visitor queues were processed in an orderly manner.

"Can I help you, sir?" asked a female receptionist. Her hair was blond and cut short, her nose was fine and bridged sparkling green eyes all of which were delicately framed by high cheekbones. A plug was connected directly to her neck and a console on the counter. A badge on her shirt stated: Hi, I'm Mandy.

Jimbo was stunned by her beauty, hoping that his wife-to-be would be as beautiful as this woman. Without the wiring of course, and maybe longer hair.

"I'd like to see Nicole White," said Jimbo. "She works for Mederos."

Mandy blinked. "I'm afraid Nicole's not in the office at the moment."

"Do ya know when she'll be back? I'm her cousin Jim White, from back home. I'm visiting the City. Got some home cooking for her. From her mum n that."

Mandy blinked again. "Hello, Jim. I'm sorry, but Nicole is not due in the office today. Would you like to leave a message?"

"I already left a message that I'd be arriving today. Ya don't know if she went down to the station to get me, do ya?"

She smiled, though there was little warmth in it. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't have access to that information."

"Could ya try her apartment for me? I've got the number here." Jimbo showed Mandy the address Aunty Lana had given him.

"Certainly." Mandy blinked. "I'm sorry, sir. No-one is currently home. Would you like to leave a message?"

"I left one yesterday. Shit. You don't know where she is?"

Mandy shook her head and smiled. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"What about her flatmates? Maybe they know when she'll be back. She lives with Zoe Lane and Michelle Hanna. They work with her at Mederos too."

"Certainly." Mandy blinked several times. "I'm sorry, sir, it appears that Zoe and Michelle are not in today."

"What?" Jimbo looked at Dave in frustration. Dave shook his head, his brow furrowed. "Is this for real? They're all away? No-one at work and no-one at home? Is this because you think I'm a sort of country fucken bumpkin, is it? We're not allowed in or something?"

Mandy, smile intact, nodded at one of the Cartel men. He moved abruptly towards them, while another of the Cartel turned to watch.

"Is there a problem?" he asked.

Mandy's eyes twinkled as she stared at Jimbo.

"No problem." Dave grabbed Jimbo and pulled him back from the counter. "Come on, man, let's go. We'll come back later, after work's finished. Somebody will be home."

As they exited the building, Jimbo saw Mandy talking to the Cartel man. The man nodded and turned away, his silver eyes reflecting the fluorescent lights tucked up in the ceiling. She resumed her activities at reception.

"City wankers," said Jimbo. "Fucken hate them."

~ * ~

"You sure this is the place?" asked Dave.

The narrow alley, jutting off the busy main street in the heart of Chinatown, appeared deserted, its high brick walls smeared in graffiti, the broken bitumen littered with junk. Jimbo consulted his map as people swarmed around them. He looked down the deserted alley again, unsure.

"It's gotta be."

They stepped out from the street and into the alley, following its twists and turns through dank shadows. A non-descript barred door appeared on their right, with the words Bridal Services carved into a steel plaque above the door. A camera lens sat recessed into the crumbling cement wall.

"This looks dodgy," said Dave. "Brian didn't say nothing about this."

"Yeah, well, he didn't say nothing about his inheritance either, did he?" Jimbo pressed the button beneath the camera. "He did say these guys were the best though."

A speaker crackled and spat. "Name?"

"James White. I have an appointment."

A heavy rumbling proceeded and the barred door rose revealing a dimly lit corridor with an elevator at the end. Inside the elevator there was only one button. Jimbo pressed it. The elevator shuddered into life and began to descend.

Dave adjusted his carry-bag, shifting the weight from one shoulder to the other. "I got a bad feeling about this."

Jimbo stared at the card in his hand. The bright red words. The cold white background. He swallowed down his nervousness. "Nah, mate, this is how it's done."

The elevator ground to a halt.

Dave and Jimbo looked at each other. "Ya bring ya knife? Just in case."

"Course I fucken did," said Jimbo. "I'm not stupid." The doors whined open.

They stepped out into a softly lit foyer where two young women dressed in black greeted them with warm lipstick smiles.

Dave laughed softly, a sigh of relief.

"Please leave your bags here, Mr White," said one of the women. Her voice was silk and her blue eyes sparkled as she talked. She took Jimbo gently by the arm. "Please, come with me. Mr Santos will be with you shortly."

"In the meantime, can we get you a drink?" said the other woman, guiding Dave.

The women led them to a set of low couches around a coffee table, where the two men took a seat. Jimbo tried to keep the grin off his face, but failed when he looked at Dave, who was grinning like a horse put to stud.

"This is alright," said Dave, as the women went to fetch a couple of Bundy and colas. "It's a bit like the House in Shepp. Except there's normally a few other blokes here."

Jimbo looked around the empty room. The walls were painted dark red, but were bare of prints or paintings. The carpet was lush underfoot, and tall potted plants positioned around the room somehow survived the muted lighting. Security cameras were mounted in each corner of the room.

One of the women returned, carrying a tray of drinks and a bowl of ice. She placed it on the table, bending low, the tight stretch of her skirt curving firmly against her body. Jimbo breathed deep, sucking in her perfume. I'd be happy with someone like her.

Dave grinned and picked up his drink. "This is alright!" He eyed the woman as she left the room. "Ya not staying?" he called after her.

She turned and smiled. "Mr Santos will be with you shortly."

"Bugger," said Dave quietly. "Wonder if ya can sample the goods?"

Jimbo laughed, finally away from the throng of the crowd and the press of looming buildings and packed streets, and felt the nervousness drift away. He sank back into the couch and swallowed a mouthful of rum. "Yeah, this is alright."

"Does that mean ya've changed ya mind?"

"About waitin?"

"Yeah. Come explore the City with me. Ya got one month, mate, one month."

"Dunno, Dave. Don't much like what I've seen so far."

"At least take a couple a days to have a look see." Dave took another gulp, crushing the ice between his teeth. "Fucken waste to come all this way and not see any of it. Find some a that free pussy Wazza was spoutin about."

"I'm not here to see this fucken shit hole. Can't afford to be here anyways. My money's spent, mate."

"So ya gunna spend the rest of the month in hibernation?" Dave shook his head, his chin bulging as he bit back frustration. "You and ya fucken wife. I paid for half a me own train ticket and I'm ya best fucken man, ya cunt! Fuck ya, I'll see it on me own."

"Don't be like that. I didn't say I wasn't going to see any of it! Fuck. I'll spend the first couple of days with ya, but then I'm takin up the hibernation. I already paid for it."

"Would ya?"

"Consider yaself lucky, ya ugly cunt." Jimbo cracked a smile. "And anyway, if the train was daily instead of monthly, I'd be outta here tomorrow fucken mornin and ya'd be comin with me."

"Gentlemen," said a deep voice from the other end of the room. A small, thin man in a dark suit stood with his arms raised in welcome. Black shoulder-length hair dripped from his scalp, in stark contrast against his pale skin. "Sorry to keep you waiting. I'm Mr Santos. Please, follow me."

They entered a small brightly-lit office where Santos gestured them into chairs around an empty desk. Santos hovered his hand over a pad on the desk and a holographic screen appeared.

"Let's get down to business, shall we?" Santos's lips curled upwards in an attempt at a smile. "I'm sure you're very keen to meet your new bride."

"Yes, I -"

"Good." Santos's hand fluttered and a small hologram of a woman appeared and began to slowly revolve. "This one is Kim. Young, attractive."

Jimbo leaned forward, studying the image. "Is she a bit Asian?"

"A small percentage, yes. Very fashionable these days. Would you like to see her naked?" Santos's hand hovered.

"Can you do that?" said Dave.

Jimbo glared at Dave. "For fuck's sake, Dave. This could be me wife ya talking about."

"Is that a no?" said Santos.

"Don't want no Asian," said Jimbo. "I'm paying good money. I want a proper Australian."

Santos tilted his head and sighed. "I'm not going to bullshit you, James. It's very hard to get what I think you're after. A purebred, yes? Unfortunately supply has changed a little over the last year and prices have increased."

"Whaddya mean? I got ten grand!"

Santos smiled. "James, you'd need at least twenty for a purebred. The women here on offer are of excellent quality. Guaranteed. Trust me, you won't be unhappy with your purchase at your current limit. Naturally, if you'd like to reassess at a later date, if your financial situation has improved, I'm sure we can do business." He clasped his hands. "But who's to say prices will remain the same."

Jimbo looked at Davo, who shrugged. "Never fucken heard about this."

"Property prices," Santos smiled again. "Who can ever tell? We have four women available at your current price range and I have three interested buyers." The hologram blurred and cycled through to stop on a blonde woman. "This is as close as we can get with current stock. Sixty percent pure. The rest of the gene pool guaranteed European."

"Only four women?"

"Your deposit has guaranteed you a wife, James. And you're here first. You simply need to choose."

"But that's not many to choose from."

Santos smiled sympathetically. "If you'd prefer to come back in a few months time. I can't guarantee anything by then, of course. It's difficult to acquire new stock." He laughed, a small phlegmy gurgle. "As I'm sure you gentleman understand." His eyes went cold. "Or you wouldn't be here."

Jimbo studied the hologram again. "Sixty percent, eh? What are the other women?"

"Dominant Arabian and Asian gene pools. Beautiful women. Lithe. Exotic. Extremely adept."

"Can you zoom in on this one's face?"

Dave laughed. "You don't look at the mantelpiece when you're stoking the fire, Jimbo!"

"Yes ya fucken do! It's her face ya look at while ya fuck her!"

"I agree." Santos zoomed in. "There is nothing more pleasurable than the look on a woman's face as she orgasms. This is Helena."

She had brown eyes and a small sharp nose. The cheekbones were high and the jaw firm. Not quite up to Niki's standards, but comparable to Brian's wife. Sixty percent was pretty good, especially if the rest was European. You couldn't really tell the wogs apart from the Aussies these days, anyway.

"The most Australian one, this one?"

Santos nodded.

Jimbo look at Dave. "Leave the room for a bit, mate."

"What for?"

"Just do it, will ya?"

"What... oh, right. Come on, man, I won't look."

"Just for a bit. Now fuck off."

When Dave had left the room, Jimbo said to Santos, "Show me her body."

~ * ~

"This is it, man, this is the Mall!" Dave grinned and folded the map away.

Jimbo nodded, staring up at the buildings dwarfing the crowded strip. A few slivers of sunlight managed to break through the shadows, and a muscled busker took advantage of the natural spotlight juggling a whirl of blades while he stripped off his clothing.

"Fuck the hibernation, Jimbo, this is gunna be shit hot!" Dave pressed into the throng, trying to get closer to the juggler. "Look at this cunt! He's gunna cut himself bad."

The noise of the street rose in Jimbo's ear, confusing him. Somewhere the clanging of a bell signalled a tram trying to push through the crowd as it made its way up the mall. Jimbo had always thought the smell of the cannery spoiling in the heat of summer had been bad, but the mall pressed its body hard into his nostrils, a body of dirty sweat and sweet decay and sun-cooked piss and stale, fumed air. Somebody pushed past him, causing him to totter and reach out to steady himself on someone else. That someone else turned and glared while hissing a "don't touch me." Jimbo could just make out Dave's head - and frantically pushed his way towards him. It's just like The Aussie on a Christmas or New Year's Eve, like on Cup Day, like on any fucken Friday night when the wind blows too hot. This is nothing. This is nothing. Jimbo wished he was back in the seclusion of the Bridal Services' complex, back with their baggage, back with the chance to wait out the month in the hibernation chambers. One fucken sleep, and I'd be back on that train. With ma wife. One sleep.

Dave turned, laughing, eyes sparkling. He waved his hand for Jimbo to come closer. "Ya should see the size of this guy's cock!"

The noise of the surrounding crowd grew, catcalls and piercing whistles. People began to clap, at first slowly, increasing to a fast staccato of flesh slapped on flesh.

Jimbo pushed his way next to Dave who was clapping and laughing. The juggler stood naked except for white socks and black shoes. Sweat glistened on his skin as the blades whirled faster and faster. Scars crisscrossed his chest. The juggler thrust his hips in time to the clapping of the crowd, his dick flapping back and forth with the movement. Coins tossed from the crowd jangled at his feet.

"How does this end?" Jimbo shouted into Dave's ear.

The juggler grinned from ear to ear, his eyes studying the blades spinning around him through the air. Faster and faster. Sweat. Thrust. Crowd. Roar.

An apple flew from the midst of the crowd, smacking against the juggler's head. The blades tumbled down, slicing, glittering in the shaft of sunlight. Somebody laughed. Screamed. The crowd surged around them. The clanging of the tram bell, loud and sharp. Fists swung, the apple-thrower going down. The juggler launched himself into the crowd, screaming obscenities, struggling towards the apple-thrower. A siren wailed, a bright hot noise stabbing through the mall.

"Let's get the fuck out of here." Jimbo grabbed Dave by the arm and dragged him towards the edge of the mob.

Dave, breathless, eyes shining, followed. "Fuck the hibernation, Jimbo! This is great!"

~ * ~

Jimbo opened his daypack and retrieved the cake tin Aunty Lana had given him.

"What am I gunna do with this?"

"Don't arkse me," said Dave.

They sat on the concrete steps outside the old Victorian parliament. Bars caged broken windows, and a slab of steel covered the doors. Sprayed on the door were the words: Stop live exports! Someone had written Stop the flesh trade first next to it. From their vantage point, Bourke Street stretched west, the throng weaving around the heavy trams that crisscrossed at the intersections.

"Ya gunna open it?" asked Dave.

Jimbo fingered the tin, its touch bringing back memories of sneaking out of bed and creeping into Aunty Lana's pantry with Niki. Anzac biscuits, caramel squares, banana cake, back when the bananas used to grow up north.

"She ain't here, Jimbo. Ya gunna leave it with those cunts at her work? No fucken way she'd get it, man."

"Nah, man, I promised." Jimbo opened the tin. The smell of baked golden syrup Anzacs wafted out.

"They smell good!" A tall, skinny guy with caved in cheeks and a mass of corkscrew hair sat nearby. A ragged daypack rested at the feet of his boots - Mutinies, just like mine, Jimbo thought - and he wore a chambray shirt with faded jeans. "You boys been here long?"

Jimbo closed the biscuit tin. "Maybe twenty minutes. What's it to you?"

The skinny guy laughed. "Nah, that's not what I meant. How long have you been in The City? I been here two weeks now. Looking for work. And lemme tell ya, I'm having a cunt of a time finding anything that's paying."

Jimbo and Dave both smiled.

"Ya not from here either?" said Dave.

"Fuck no! Just here to earn some cash. Send it home to the folks. They're getting on now, and there's fuck all work back home. That's out east past Gippsland way. What line a work you guys in? I'm a chippie. Well, not got a trade or nothing, but I know how to do it all. Me old man was a chippie until he fucked his back. What did ya say you guys were? Hey, my name's Bop." He reached out a hand. "Nice to meet some others a bit more like me, ya know what I mean?"

They all shook hands and made introductions.

This cunt's alright. He's jus like us.

"We're not looking for work, Bop," Dave said. "Up here doing a bit a shopping."

Bop's eyebrows arched. "Really?"

Dave tapped the side of his nose and winked. "Ooh yeah! Bigtime." He elbowed Jimbo in the ribs. "Eh, Jimbo?"

"I got no fucken idea what yer talking about, boys." Bop ran his fingers through the corkscrews in his hair. "What, drugs? Biotech or something?"

Dave elbowed Jimbo again. Jimbo swatted back. "Fuck off, Dave." Then to Bop, "Here to get me a wife. Top shelf."

Bop shook his head. "Ya fucken kidding me? You got enough cash for a wife?" He picked at the scuffed leather on his boots. "Man, I guess it's a hell of a lot better up in Shepp than out my way."

"Not for all of us," said Dave.

"That's cos ya spent all yer money on fucken whores!" said Jimbo.

Dave and Bop exchanged nods, both grinning like idiots. "Nothing finer."

"Too right. Now speaking a pussy." Bop indicated two women, a little older than Jimbo, sitting nearby on the steps below. "Ya wasting ya money on a wife. Those two have been checking us out. Hey, ladies!"

One, a blonde, with a low cut top and a short skirt smiled and leant forward, her cleavage spilling flesh. The other, a short dark woman with long black hair and tights pointed at the biscuits. "Could we have one?"

"Sure." Dave slapped the concrete beside him. "Pull up a seat."

The blonde reached into the tin and pulled out a biscuit. "My mum used to make these when I was little."

Jimbo yanked his eyes from her tits. There was regrowth in her hair. Her legs were long. "My aunty made 'em."

She flashed him a smile, then sat at the steps next to his feet. "I'm Charlie, that's Sara." She nibbled on the biscuit, her brown eyes widening. "Yum!"

Sara leant on Dave's shoulder as she grabbed a biscuit, then sat. "First time in town?"

Dave laughed. "That obvious?"

"Where you guys from?" asked Charlie.

"Shepp." Jimbo offered Dave a biscuit, and then bit into his own. He hardly tasted it. Charlie stared into his eyes, smiling. He fumbled the tin closed, then back into the pack. "He's from out Gippsland."

"Country boys, eh?" Charlie winked at Bop. "You know what they say about country boys, Sara?"

Sara giggled and put an arm around Dave's shoulders. "I've heard."

"What do they say?" said Dave.

"Hey, tell you what. You guys fancy buying us a drink we'll tell you."

"Sure," said Jimbo. "Where ya wanna go?"

Charlie rested a hand on his knee, all slender fingers and black nail polish, and nodded towards Bourke Street. "Somewhere a bit quieter than that. I know a place where we can talk, get to know each other. Maybe have some fun."

She stood, offering Jimbo her hand. He took it, relishing the touch of warm skin on skin, surprised by her strength as she pulled him to his feet.

"This way." Sara led the way down the steps, dragging Dave after her. Dave grinned at Jimbo, then trotted after her.

"Hey! What about me?" Bop grabbed his pack, almost spilling its contents in his haste.

"I'm sure we can arrange something." Charlie winked at him then squeezed Jimbo's hand. "Come on, country boys." She sneezed. "Sorry. Hayfever season. Driving me nuts. Nothing a good drink won't fix though."

Maybe the city ain't so bad after all. Just like what Wazza said. You gotta buy 'em drinks n shit, but you ain't paying for the pussy. For the first time that day, Jimbo smiled, really smiled.

~ * ~

The gutters stanks of rotting cabbage and there were too many slopes, but there were less people in the backstreets of Chinatown. And with Charlie holding his hand Jimbo could handle that.

"I dunno about this part of town," said Bop. And then quietly at Jimbo, "Ya better not be carrying all that cash for ya wife purchase."

"Shut up, man!" Jimbo drew a line across his throat, then nodded his head towards the girls. "They don't need to know about that."

"But ya money -"

"I'm not that fucken stupid."

"Almost there," said Sara.

"Ya remember which way we came, Jimbo?" Dave asked.

"Maybe." Jimbo hadn't a clue, he'd got lost shortly after the red ducks strung up in the shop window about a block back.

"Yeah, maybe," Bop agreed, shaking his head.

"We'll stick you in a cab," said Sara.

Charlie giggled. "But only if you're unlucky." She squeezed his hand again. "You might not need a cab."

They ascended a narrow staircase, the wooden boards groaning under their weight, as they climbed several flights, to emerge in a large, low lit room. Colourful cushions littered the floor around low tables, and a balcony overlooked the cityscape. A couple of surly guys at the bar glanced up as they entered, then resumed chatting with the muscled bartender.

The girls led them to a table on the balcony and Sara waved at the bartender. Dogs ran between bicycles below, and a roost of chickens squawked from a balcony above.

"What do you guys want to drink?" Sara asked.

"I thought we were buying." Dave chuckled, getting out his wallet, as he sat down next to her.

Sara lifted his hand to her lips. "You're too kind."

"Nah, look, I'll get the first round in." Bop said. "Whaddya want?"

The girls ordered cocktails, while the boys ordered beer. Bop went up to the bar, leant on his elbows and was soon in discussions with one of the surly guys. He came back and sat down next to Charlie, who sat opposite Jimbo.

"How cool is that?" said Bop, after the drinks were placed on the table. "Don't have to pay until we're finished. We got a tab already and they don't even know us."

Jimbo nodded, taking a swig of the cold draught. It hit the back of his throat like he hoped he'd be hitting the back of Charlie's throat later on. Wet and fast. Her nose maybe has a bit a wog in it, but she's fucken built for action. His cock stirred in his jeans. And once we get rid of this Bop cunt, I won't have to fight any blokes off.

"So what brings you boys to town?" Charlie kicked off her heels, and put her legs up on the seat next to Jimbo. Her thigh disappeared into the hem of white knickers. Her toenails were painted black too. A thick glossy black that caught the afternoon sun. Bop's eyebrows arched and he looked away embarrassed, as if he couldn't believe this was happening.

"Jimbo's getting a wife," said Dave. "I'm his best man."

Jimbo glared at Dave. "Nah, I'm fucken not."

Charlie glance at Sara, then teased Jimbo with her foot. "It's okay, you're not married yet. We can still have a bit of fun."

"I was just bullshittin." Dave swallowed a mouthful of beer and grimaced. "We're month-trippers, just checkin the City out n that. Bop here's looking for work."

Bop nodded, puffing up his chest for a second, but the women didn't seem to notice.

Charlie eased her leg over Jimbo's, and slid her toes towards his balls. "You boys must be loaded to buy a wife."

Jimbo inched his bum towards her foot. His cock throbbed as it stiffened. She could see it, he was sure. "Nah, just month-trippers."

"Even so," Charlie kneaded his cock beneath his jeans with her toes, "that costs a bit of money. You boys rich country boys?" She licked the salt from the rim of her glass. "You going to treat us like ladies?"

"Sure," said Jimbo between breaths. Who'd've thought it was this fucken easy! Wazza, the old cunt, no wonder he loved it here. Probably why Fitzy had dropped off the radar too.

Sara stood, Dave's hand sliding down her thigh, and grabbed her bag. "Back in a minute."

"Hey, where ya going?" asked Dave.

She leant over, whispered in his ear, then kissed him on the cheek.

"Oh, sorry. See you in a sec." Dave grinned, then downed the rest of his pint.

Charlie waved towards the bar, her foot resting against Jimbo's balls, and more drinks appeared. She sneezed again. Her sole pushed briefly against his cock. "Bloody hayfever," she said.

"So whatta you girls do for a crust?" Dave asked.

Charlie smiled. "Marketing. Advertising. That sort of thing."

Jimbo pressed her foot to his groin, slowly massaging her toes with one hand, as he drank with the other.

"Wow. Good pay?"

"Some days, Dave." Charlie never took her eyes away from Jimbo's. She winked, her painted lashes falling and rising. "And today's payday."

Still holding her foot, Jimbo unzipped his fly. She dove her toes briefly in, then pulled away. "Better check on Sara." She slipped on her heels and headed towards the toilets.

"How fucken good is this? We're gunna get laid!"

"I dunno, man." Bop stared at the froth in his glass. "Looks like you two are in, but I'm feeling like I'm gunna end up fucking ma own hand."

They laughed, nestling back into their chairs, soaking up the afternoon as they dragged on their pints. Except for Bop, who perched on the edge of his seat, tearing up a beermat and casting glances towards the guys at the bar.

Jimbo punched Dave hard on the upper arm.

"Ow, what's that for?"

"Fucken telling them I'm gunna buy a wife! For one, it tells them, I dunno, that I'm not in for some action or something, and two, that we got a lot of money to spend. And month-trippers don't help the second one much either."

They sat in silence, sipping beer.

"What's taking them so long?"

"That's chicks," said Bop.

Jimbo stared towards the bar. The three men were watching them. The barman came over and put a piece of paper on the table. He sat down heavily opposite Jimbo, where Charlie had been sitting.

"Thank you, gentlemen." His voice sounded like thick rope soaked in sheep dip until it had swollen too large for his throat.

Dave picked up the paper. "What's this? Five thousand dollars? I think you've made a mistake, mate."

"That's the bill, gentlemen. I suggest you pay."

The two men at the bar heaved themselves off their seats and sauntered towards the toilets. "Back in a sec, Turk."

"We're with a couple of ladies, mate," said Jimbo. "When they come back, I'm sure we can sort this out."

Turk stretched and rotated his neck, vertebrae cracked. "You can pay now or we can make you pay now, country boys."

"Ya fucken having us on!" Dave laughed, looking from side to side at Jimbo and Bop for support. Bop shifted towards the edge of the seat away from them.

Turk stroked Dave's face. "I don't think so."

Dave, his cheeks flushed, stared sullenly at Jimbo, then at the cocktail glasses.

"We know you have money," said Turk. "I don't think we're being too greedy here." He stroked his chin. "What's the going rate on the market these days for a wife, Cartel approved or not. Let's say not. Ten grand? We could take it all, but you're my first customers for the week, and you'll bring me luck. Five grand, gentlemen."

"How does 'get fucked' sound?" Jimbo eased open his pack, his fingers sliding in until they hit the hard plastic sheath.

"It sounds like this." Turk pulled a handgun from his within his jacket and pointed the muzzle inches from Jimbo's forehead. "Leave the bag alone, unless it's cash you'll be paying." He grinned. Each incisor gleamed gold.

There was a scream from the toilets. Jimbo and Dave looked up in alarm. Turk didn't budge. Bop seemed all but invisible. If there's gonna be a fight, I don't think we can rely on this one.

The men emerged from the toilets, dragging the girls by the hair. They forced them into the seat opposite the boys. Turk, still pointing the gun in Jimbo's face, put his free arm around Charlie's shoulders. She shuddered.

"You like this one, yes?" Turk pressed the gun to the side of her head. "I suggest you pay the bill."

One of the heavies put a hand-held terminal on the table in front of Jimbo.

"We accept all forms of payment. Cash, card, electronic."

"I don't have that sort of mon -"

"Let's cut the bullshit, shall we? You're in the market for a wife. We know this."

Jimbo looked at Bop, sitting there, edging away. That stupid cunt told them up at the bar! He stared back into Turk's hazel-swirled eyes. "You wouldn't fucken dare."

"I don't need to." Turk removed the gun from Charlie's head, and raised both his hands in the air in front of him.

Charlie leapt from the couch and sprinted towards the back exit near the toilets. She moved fast, but not as fast as one of the heavies who now brandished a pistol. A shot followed that shattered their eardrums. Charlie hit the floor, sprawling, face down. A plume of smoke drifted up from a hole in the back of her clothing.

"Just another slut." The heavy repositioned himself behind the couch, gun on display and blocked any further exit. "Plenty more where that came from."

"Oh Jesus," Dave whispered into his hands.

Jimbo sat very still, his heart hammering in his chest.

Turk reached out one long arm. The barrel of the gun pressed against Sara's temple. She shut her eyes.

"Let's settle the bill."

"Please, Jimbo. Don't let him kill me."

It felt like every spring thunderstorm Jimbo had ever seen now breaking inside him, rushing up to burst his chest. His face felt flushed and he struggled to think. My first day in the City and I'm getting fucked over. Somewhere, deep in his marrow, anger began to build, knitting his bones and holding him together. They'd just killed someone and for what? Money? It's five grand! Five fucken grand!

"Please, Jimbo." Sara tried to swallow a sob.

"It ain't worth getting killed," said Bop.

Dave's eyes bulged like a dying roo. "Fer fuck's sake, Jimbo."

No! No! No! No!

"Okay." Jimbo picked up the terminal. It felt as light as rain and as magic-like. "How do I work this?"

Turk grinned again, and leant forward.

Then a sneeze came from the back of the room. Turk and Bop exchanged a furtive glance.

"Sorry," said Charlie.

Adrenalin surged through Jimbo's veins. Everything so clear, so slow, so instant. That look between Bop and the Turk. These cunts are all in on this. These aren't no Cartel, just thugs, like the cunts who come in from the orchards down The Aussie looking for a go. He swallowed hard. I can take these wogs. I'll give em a fucken go. His hand was already moving ...

Turk's face reddened, the set of his jaw evolving into a brick. "You stupid fucking bitch!"

... and the terminal smashed into that brick, driving Turk's head backwards, bouncing it off the top of the couch.

"Dave!" Jimbo yelled, his other hand already pulling the hunting knife from the sheath in the bag.

The sound of smashing glass, then a scream. Bop stumbled away from the couch, his face a wet mess of bloodied flesh. One of the heavies ducked as the broken pint glass hurled towards his head. Sara clawed at Dave as he grabbed his pack.

"Give us ya fucken money!" she screamed.

Dave punched her in the nose, the bone cracking under his fist. She screamed again, this time in pain, as blood spurted over the table. One of the heavies ran back to the bar, the other clambering over the couch to drag Dave down.

Jimbo had the knife against Turk's throat. One of the heavies made to move. Jimbo pressed the blade into the skin, drawing a bead of blood.

"One step closer, cunt, and ya mate gets it."

Turk said, "Easy, boys."

One of the heavies laughed. Turk smirked.

"What's so fucken funny, cunt?" Jimbo applied pressure to the blade.

"Think you're going to get down those stairs in one piece, country boy?"

Jimbo thrust the tip of the knife so it pierced the skin beneath Turk's chin. "What makes you think you will?"

Jimbo forced Turk off the couch. They backed slowly towards the front door. Dave grabbed the packs, watching for any sudden movement by the heavies. Bop crouched on his knees, sobbing, blood dripping through the fingers he clasped to his face. Sara nursed her broken nose, her eyes swimming with hate. The guy behind the bar moved slowly, something large and heavy held in his hands.

"Tell the cunt behind the bar to stay there!"

Dave threw back the bolts on the door and pushed it open. They backed out onto the staircase that led down to the street.

"Jimbo!" Charlie's voice.

Jimbo paused in the doorway, the knife biting into Turk's throat. She stood near the bar. "I just wanted to say sorry."

He saw too late something in her hand.

Turk threw his head back, the tip of the blade slicing his chin open, and dropped to his knees. Charlie fired. An electric discharge sizzled the air. A mess of wires bit into Jimbo's hand, a shock racing up his arm into his skull. The knife dropped from twitching fingers. He convulsed and tumbled down the stairs. The world turned, thumping him with every year it had spun him on its orbit, bruising bones for every birthday he'd ever woken to.

And then the world stopped spinning.

He lay, limbs twisted with Dave, at the bottom of the stairs. Up above the sun burnt blue through a thin grey haze and he was alive and breathing.

"Dave?"

"Jimbo? Fuck."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"She fucken tasered me!"

Dave struggled to get up. His teeth were chipped and blood rouged his lips. "Can ya get up? Ya gotta get up quick!"

"I can't move. She tasered me. That slut fucken tasered me!"

"Come on, Jimbo!" Dave tried to pull Jimbo up from the footpath. It was spattered with bright red droplets.

Jimbo managed to raise his hand against the sky. The skin on the back of his hand had peeled back in thick strips, like raw bacon, where the wires had torn from his flesh as he fell.

The blue sky was torn away. The last thing Jimbo heard, as his head was yanked up by the hair, was Dave pleading not to kill them. Turk grinned, one tooth gold and shining with spit, blood smeared across his throat. A fist smashed into Jimbo's jaw.

~ * ~

Jimbo poised his finger above the doorbell to Niki's apartment. Go on, do it. If she answers within ten seconds, tell her you love her. As he pressed it a horn sounded somewhere distant and fuzzy. The door opened immediately. Niki stood there in a black lace nightie, her hair ruffled and tumbling past her shoulders, her eyes a little puffy from sleep. She smiled.

"Jimmy! So good to see you. Come in."

He walked into her apartment and she closed the door behind him. The room was a dank windowless square. On the floor pushed up against the far wall lay a stained mattress.

"What do you think?" she said, still standing behind him. Her voice sounded stretched.

Droplets of blood spattered the wall near the mattress. Jimbo's head ached. It felt like his jaw was trying to squeeze out his teeth.

"You can fuck me if you want." Niki's voice was all wrong.

Slowly, Jimbo turned, his body moving through glue. Fitzy leaned against the door dressed in Niki's nightie. Makeup smeared his face. He pulled the nightie down over one full breast, the nipple large and pink. Coarse black hair sprouted from the circumference of the areola.

"What are you doing here?" Jimbo's mouth filled with blood. "Where's Niki?"

"I dunno man, but we're gunna be all right." Fitzy slipped his arms beneath Jimbo's armpits and hugged him tight. He still had Niki's long, lean legs.

Jimbo screamed.

"It's okay, man, I'm here, I'm here." Dave's face blurred into view. One eye had swollen shut and his nose dripped a thin bloody mucous.

Dave dragged Jimbo down an alley. Jimbo struggled to his feet, spitting out a mouthful of gunk. His head pounded. He ran his tongue round his mouth, cleaning out thickened saliva. A tooth was missing.

"We're almost there." Dave pointed into the distance, down into murk and shadow. "That way, I think."

"What?" Jimbo swayed, trying to get his bearings.

"Bridal Services is that way. Maybe a block. We can get fixed up, go into hibernation."

"Where the fuck is Niki?" Jimbo shoved Dave away.

"I dunno, man. Come on, what are you doing?

"I need to find Niki. Where's our stuff? I gotta give her something. I gotta tell her something."

"Niki's not here. We lost our daypacks. Come on, Jimbo, you're fucked up." Dave reached out for Jimbo's arm. Jimbo swatted it away.

"What the fuck happened?"

Dave grimaced, eyes watering. He snorted snot and swallowed. "Come on, Jimbo. Let's go."

"The girls. We gotta help the girls! Where's Niki?"

"Jimbo, listen to me, man, you're not making any sense. Those girls fucked us over. Bop too. The chinks helped us outta there. Bad blood between those fuckers."

"Ya fucken wrong. She wanted me. She was rubbing ma cock! I gotta find her. She loves me."

"Niki ain't here."

"What the fuck would you know about anything, Dave?" Jimbo thrust Dave up against the alley wall, squeezing the shirt collar around his neck. "You ain't never been in love. Not like me. Not like Niki." And what had happened all came back to him, crushing his anger, taking a little more of his soul with it.

"Sure, Jimbo, sure." Tears streaked Dave's cheeks. A bubble of bloodied snot burst from his nose. "I believe ya, man. I know ya love her. We all do."

Jimbo released Dave. "I gotta find her, Dave. I gotta save her from all this shit."

Dave sank to his haunches, slumped against a wall in a piss-soaked alley, as the night swallowed Jimbo whole.

~ * ~

Floodlights lit up the Mederos building, chasing shadows out into the street. The doors opened and Jimbo strode into the lush interior, the air-con and smell of leaf fuelling his courage.

A different woman sat at reception. Two Cartel men stood nearby. Jimbo headed towards the elevators, trying to keep his battered face down. The receptionist looked up. The Cartel men began to move.

Jimbo broke into a trot, then sprinted towards the elevator banks. He stabbed the up button with his finger. One of the Cartel men, smooth head and metal eyes, rounded the corner.

"Hey! Stop!"

The elevator chimed softly and a door slid open.

Jimbo ducked inside, pressed close then floor sixty-four. The doors shut, just as the Cartel arrived. Jimbo laughed.

"Fuck ya's all. Can't stop a man on a mission."

The elevator didn't move.

He pressed the floor button again. Nothing. A key slot on the access panel. Shit.

The elevator chimed and the doors opened.

Two Cartel men: one resting a hand on a holstered gun, the other a hand outstretched.

"Come on, mate. Looks like you've been hurt enough today. Time to go home."

"Ya don't understand. I'm here to see my cousin. She lives -"

"We know, mate."

A guiding hand on Jimbo's elbow. Gently led from the elevator.

"I've come all this way." Jimbo's voice hitched. Somewhere deep inside, all the pain was rising. "I need to see her."

They led him out into the foyer. One of them signalled to the receptionist and she nodded.

"She's not here, Jimbo," said one of the Cartel. "You need to go home. We'll get you a cab."

"But I love her." Jimbo sobbed. Tears fell from his eyes. An electric buggy detached from the rank outside the Mederos building and pulled up alongside them as they exited. They eased him into the back seat.

"He's staying at Bridal Services in Chinatown." The Cartel man pressed a bill into the driver's hand.

"But how do you know -" said Jimbo.

"Here's some advice, mate. She doesn't want to see you." Metal eyes reflected floodlights, a dull grey that sank into Jimbo's core. "Nicole White has moved on. You need to too."

"No, no ... I need to see her."

"I know how you feel, mate, I do, but if you come back here again, we will hurt you."

The buggy door closed, and the cab jerked off with a hum.

"So, where you from?" said the driver.

Eyes with Asiatic folds regarded Jimbo from the rear-view mirror.

Jimbo didn't answer, instead wiping his damp cheeks with the back of his hand. Nosey fucken chink.

* * * *

PART IV: PRONOUNCEMENT OF MARRIAGE

The tracks rumbled beneath the Marriage Carriage. They passed a tumble of roo corpses festering in the sun, the hot fetid air reaching in through the windows. Jimbo shoved the window shut. He wondered if the bushrangers were watching.

Dave cracked open another beer from the chiller, laughing and offering it the four Cartel men who sat guarding the carriage. Froth had spilt on Dave's suit.

"There's champers in here, if she wants some," said Dave.

Jimbo nursed his warm beer, too nervous to drink, struggling to find things to say to the woman who sat opposite him. High cheekbones, firm jaw. Kylie. That was her name. Same as Wazza's truck. Her wedding dress curved around full breasts down the slight of her waist. The veil had been pushed back over her long brown hair. She wouldn't need to wear it until they disembarked in Shepp.

"You want one, Kylie?"

"Sure," she said, her voice light. Her brown eyes seemed glazed. Red lipstick had smeared one of her front teeth, otherwise her teeth were white and straight, and Jimbo was happy about that.

"You'll need to limit her alcohol," said one of the Cartel.

"Why?"

"Don't want any mishaps on the journey home, Mr White." The Cartel man smiled. "Then she can have as much as she likes."

"That's okay," said Kylie.

Jimbo nodded and studied his beer, sneaking glimpses of her calves, the way the dress stretched tight over her thighs. He wished Dave wasn't here with him, that the Cartel men were elsewhere. Just him and this stranger, the new Kylie White, so he could tell her about himself, reassure her that he would treat her right, that they would love each other, raise kids and grow old together. And she would tell him about herself and how she was looking forward to being with him, looking forward to living in Shepp, giving him sons. But he couldn't say these things with the others here in the carriage.

"You look beautiful," he said instead.

"Thanks." She smiled too much. "It's so warm."

"Is it?" The red lipstick smear cheapened her. Jimbo reminded himself to wipe it off before they stepped out into the crowd.

Awkward silence enveloped the carriage again. The clacking of tracks. Dave slurping on his beer.

Why doesn't she fucken talk? Jimbo looked out the window, watching the cracked earth and burnt eucalypts roll by. "You'll like ma mum, she's real nice."

Kylie's glazed brown eyes stared through him. Her head rocked with the rhythm of the train. Smiling to herself.

"Sure," her voice distant, lost in syrup. "That's okay."

Jimbo looked to Dave for support. Dave raised his eyebrows, shrugged then raised his beer. Jimbo returned the salute and took a swig of warm flat lager. He stole a glance at her hands folded in her lap. A little too big, those hands. She's no Niki. Still, she'll do.

~ * ~

As the train pulled into Shepp Station, one of the Cartel men placed his finger on Kylie's forearm. She flinched. A droplet of blood oozed to the surface of her skin. The Cartel man wiped it away, leaving a shiny patch.

"Blood levels are okay," he said to the other Cartel. He produced a vial and sprayed something into her nostrils.

Kylie sat up straight. Her lips parted in a huge smile. The Cartel man wiped the lipstick from her teeth. She stood. The Cartel man adjusted her dress and pulled the veil down over her face. Another Cartel man offered her a bouquet of flowers. Dave grabbed the champagne from the chiller and gave it a shake before he unwound the stopper, keeping pressure on the cork as he did so.

The steel doors ground open. Hot air swarmed into the carriage. Sweat dripped from Jimbo's armpits, trickling down his sides. His neck felt damp, sticky, the suit too tight, suddenly constricting.

Kylie held out her arm, and he took it. Dave stepped into the light and the crowd roared. The cork popped and champagne spurted into the air and Dave strode out, laughing, spraying the bottle over the people lining the edge of the red carpet.

Jimbo stretched a smile across his face, his gut churning, and stepped out with his new wife on his arm.

~ * ~

The band belted out the old classic 'What About Me?' and the dance floor heaved. Sweat had already formed on the ceiling of The Aussie and it wouldn't be long before it started to rain.

"I thought the old man would have at least made it down to the do, Mum."

Mel hugged her son and kissed him on the cheek, her own flushed with cheap red wine. "He's not well, James, and today, well, today is your day, not his."

"Still -"

"He'll be up waiting when we get home." Mel squeezed his arm. "Look, Kylie's back from the ladies. Now I'll get a chance to have a real chat with her."

Jimbo took another slug of bourbon, watching his mother limp over to the bridal table as Kylie sat next to Aunty Lana, her face pale.

Keats sauntered up, jabbing his fist playfully into Jimbo's ribs. His head was shaved clean and shiny, the scar bulging like a dead vein across the scalp. "Hey, Jimbo! Good party, mate."

"Hey, Keats."

"Tidy, mate. Thumbs up from the boys." Keats tipped his bottle towards the bridal table. "She having a bit of cry like Brian's missus did?"

"Yeah, I think so. She's just a bit overwhelmed is all."

"Probably coming down."

"Eh?"

"Yeah." Keats nodded. "She's been on a high all day. Hey, have you heard?"

"What, you scored a job with the Cartel now?"

Keats laughed, and drained his stubbie. "Soon, Jimbo, soon. But yeah nah, Brian's missus is up the duff."

Jimbo followed Keats' unsteady arm. Against the far wall sat Belle with a couple of the other ladies. She wasn't saying much, but the other two's mouths were flapping like flags in a storm.

"She don't look it."

"Early days, mate, she'll start to show. Who'd have thought, eh?"

On the dance floor, Brian jumped and jostled with the other guys, throwing his head back and forth to the beat. Keats laughed again. "She won't be doing any a that anymore either."

Jimbo stared at Keats, then Brian. He turned towards Belle, sitting on the chair. "No! He did her?"

"Yep. Day after ya left. Knew he'd fucken have to. Right lively bitch, that Belle."

Jimbo drained the bourbon and Keats went to get him another. Brian, grinning like a madman, throwing himself around, covered in sweat. He fucken told me he'd never do that. Well, fuck me, things have changed.

The long dress Belle wore had hitched a little too high as she sat. Jimbo thought he could make out a bandage around Belle's ankle. And pregnant too. That was fucken quick work.

The dance floor heaved again as the band hit the chorus, everyone screaming: "I've had enough, now I want my share!"

~ * ~

Uncle Frank drove the horses as they pulled the Ford Commodore back to the house. The old man had polished it up good, and the seats had been reupholstered, leaving the car with a healthy clean leather smell. Jimbo sat in the back with one arm around Kylie and the other around his mother. Kylie hadn't spoken for the last hour but at least she'd stopped crying.

"Have a good night, Mum?"

Mel hugged him tight. "Lovely evening, James."

They climbed from the carriage and Jimbo swept Kylie off her feet. She clung to his neck, deadweight and trembling.

"Come by when you can, Jimmy." Uncle Frank detached the horses from the car.

Jimbo nodded, trying not to think of Niki, as he adjusted Kylie's weight in his arms. "I didn't get to see her, Uncle Frank."

"Yeah, well." Frank swung himself up onto one of the horses. "Ya can still come by. Say gidday to your old man."

He reined away on a clatter of hooves, before he'd barely finished speaking.

Mel held the door open as Jimbo manoeuvred himself and Kylie through. One too many bourbons to be doing this. He bumped her arm on the doorframe but she didn't say anything. "Oops."

The light emanating from the old man's room was soft, like he'd fallen asleep in front of the screen again. The air, as usual, was hot and musty.

"Hey, Dad, got someone I want you to meet!" Jimbo staggered through the kitchen towards the light, with Kylie in his arms. "You better smile for him," he whispered in her ear.

The Old Man, wearing his best suit, sprawled in his chair, a half-empty bottle of beer on the table next to him. On the screen shone an old photo of Niki in her school uniform, knee-high white socks with a blue skirt and matching button-up shirt. The first day of school.

"Dad, this is Kylie, ma wife." Then in a harsh whisper, "You better be fucken smiling."

His mother turned on the light.

"Dad?" Christ, I'm too pissed and she's too fucken heavy. "Stop snoring and wake up, ya old bastard."

But his old man wasn't snoring. The glass he'd been drinking from lay upturned in his lap, the spilled beer already dry on his good trousers. He wasn't even breathing.

Next to the bottle on the table, rested a long wooden box. Jimbo knew what lay in that box. His father's heirloom knife, honed sharp and thin, passed to him from his father and his father before him. His wedding gift.

"We'll deal with this tomorrow," said his mother. "There's room in the deep freeze for now."

~ * ~

Jimbo closed the lid of the deep freeze then put the wheelbarrow back in the shed. A storm of confusion wound through his insides, beating against his heart, threatening to break inside his head.

Inside, his mother sat in the lounge sipping a glass of sherry. She looked calm. "I didn't hate him all the time."

Jimbo felt numb, all emotion drained when his mother smiled. He didn't know what to feel, or if he should feel anything at all.

"Neither did I," he managed to croak in a broken, small boy's voice. His eyes welled and he swallowed hard, trying to control himself.

"I've made up our bed with fresh sheets. It's your room now. Kylie's asleep." Mel patted her knees. "Come here, James."

He huddled on the floor and hugged her knees. She wound her fingers through his hair, massaging gently.

"You be kind to her, James. She's been through a lot, more than you'll ever know."

"I will, Mum."

"Men say that with every good intention. Your father said it to me before ..."

Her fingers tensed in his hair, briefly, ever so briefly, then resumed their massaging.

"Before what, Mum?"

"Before he ... consummated our wedding night."

"Aw, Mum, I don't wanna hear about you and Dad doing it."

"Doing what, James? What is it that you think we were doing?"

"Ya know, sex." But deep down, buried in that pit he called a heart, Jimbo knew that wasn't exactly true. His father's wooden box sat on the table next to his father's empty chair.

"Sex." His mother gave a bitter laugh. "At first I hated him for that. Men are easily controlled by sex, James. Women learn to use it as a weapon against them to survive. There are worse things than that."

Jimbo tensed. He'd never heard his mother talk like this before, but she'd never been out of his father's oppressive shadow either.

"Losing the life you knew, the ones you love. I haven't seen my mother for almost forty years. Did you know that? These things are far worse." She leant forward and kissed the top of his head. "You're my son, James, I raised you. Not him. I taught you. Not him." She leant back, taking another sip of sherry. "Don't you turn out like him. Don't you break my heart."

Jimbo felt his mother sobbing quietly as he hugged her knees. He realized, then, that he knew very little about her past and who she was, who she had been. And with his new wife asleep in his parents' bed, his mother's bed where his father had fucked her incessantly for years, he pushed that realization into the recesses of that raw bottomless pit. That dark place where such realizations were never dwelled upon. And never faced.

His mother had stopped crying. "Go to bed, James. Be kind to that girl. Don't... don't do anything to hurt her. Treat her with love as I love you."

He left his mother in the chair, staring at the blank screen, and went into his parents' room. In the shadows, Kylie lay curled and tight against the far edge of his mother's side of the bed. Her perfume lingered in the room, though it did little to conceal the last years of his father's decaying sweat.

They'd ask him tomorrow how it went. Keat's leering face. Dave grinning and clutching his crotch. Brian eager to compare notes. Jimbo sat in his mother's rocking chair, the same chair she had sat in all those month's ago when he'd come into the room with the pillow, intent on putting them all out of their misery. The same chair she would have nursed him in as a babe.

Kylie's breath rose and fell, sometimes fluttering, sometimes ragged. Occasionally she'd cry out in her sleep, limbs flailing, before curling tight again into her protective ball.

How had it come to this? This is ma fucken wedding night! I'm supposed to be fu ... supposed to ...

But he didn't know what he was supposed to be doing, so Jimbo rocked away the dark in his mother's chair, as the numbness consumed him. Eventually, he succumbed to a dead sleep before the sun lurched from the horizon and burned another dawn.

~ * ~

They held the funeral three days later out at the cemetery on Old Dookie Hill.

Jimbo was surprised to see the turn out; maybe two hundred people had made the half-hour ride out in the morning heat. Horses had been tethered near the cemetery gates, next to the bicycle racks, and some of the younger boys were filling the troughs from the bore.

The old Ford Commodore had been used as the hearse, again with Frank at the reins. Grandpa White was complaining about the heat and the ride and the lack of bourbon in his glass. He sat with Nan, comfy in their wheelchairs in the shade of the eucalypts, Mel and Kylie at their side. Jimbo wasn't sure Grandpa knew they were burying his eldest son, or maybe he did, but just didn't give a fuck.

Aunty Joan came back from Cranky McNabb's stall with more bourbon for Grandpa and a gin for Nan. Jimbo's cousin Rhys had told him that Cam didn't pay for Joan, that they had chosen each other. The Old Man had said it was because Cam had gotten himself a half a chink, and that back then no-one in their right mind would pay for one. Cam put his arm around his wife, and she slipped her arm around his waist and hugged him. Joan didn't limp, like the others. But that don't mean nothing. Chinks are more obedient, everyone knows that.

Still, watching them arm in arm, something Jimbo couldn't remember his folks doing in public for years, they sure looked happy in each other's company. Aunty Lana stood with her gangly sons.

"Thought Niki might a turned up," said Jimbo to Rhys.

"Don't hardly hear from her these days," said Rhys. "Selfish bitch didn't even reply to the message Dad sent about Uncle Phil passing n that. Stopped sending money home too. She can go n get fucked."

"Yeah, fuck her." Something rose from that dark pit buried in Jimbo's heart, that maybe she wasn't in the City anymore, that maybe ... like the month-tripper Keira on the train, that ... but he squashed it down again before it surfaced. Then nailed it fucken closed.

Frank, Cam, Rhys and Jimbo, the eldest men in the family not counting Grandpa, lowered the coffin into the dry earth. The rope burned Jimbo's sweaty palms, but he held on, releasing the rope one hand at a time, until the coffin rested on the grave floor.

Cranky said a few words before they filled the hole with dirt. What those words were, Jimbo didn't have a clue. He was lost in Aunty Lana's soft crying, lost that his mother wasn't. By the time they'd finished, Jimbo had managed to smear dirt across his forehead and over his sweat-soaked shirt. Galahs squawked noisily from the trees, ready to pounce on any food left unguarded.

Afterwards, Lana enveloped him in her breasts, her cheeks wet, mingling with his sweat. "We loved your father, Jimmy. He was a good man. Sorry Niki couldn't be here. She sends her love."

Frank looked away, studying the fallen leaves, the ants crawling through tinderbrush. Niki hadn't called. It was all over Frank's face, even if Rhys hadn't told him. The Old Man had been right about her. She was a City girl now; she wasn't coming back to Shepp in any hurry. Fucken bitch.

"Thanks, Aunty Lana."

Fitzy hadn't shown either. One of his best mates. City wankers. Fuck them all. Fuck them all to hell.

"Jimmy!" Grandpa held up his empty glass. "What the fuck is this?"

"Coming up, Grandpa." Jimbo snatched the glass and marched to Cranky McNabb's stall. "Gimme a fucken bottle," he snarled.

~ * ~

Fragments, memories breaking apart in a swirl of alcohol ...

Doors slamming.

He remembered Uncle Frank leaving. The kitchen spun, the dangling light bulb a whir.

"Don't, James." His mother? Someone crying.

"Don't, please ..."

The bedroom, hot and rancid. The Old Man's sweat wafting up from the mattress, dripping from the walls.

His mother crying. Wiping Lana's tears away.

"You don't know anything about me. If you knew, you wouldn't -"

Throwing Kylie across the bed. Screams.

He remembered someone pounding on the bedroom door yelling his name.

He ripped at her skirt, pinioning her legs with his own. She was strong.

"No ..."

He mashed at her breasts. Licked her throat.

"You don't know ..."

Jimbo shouting. Ranting. "I don't wanna know about you! I don't need to know anything about you! Ya mine! Ya fucken mine!"

Eyes wide, bulging.

"James!"

When she started screaming he smothered her mouth with his palm.

Eyes, wide rolling. White.

He struggled with his fly, trying to free his trapped cock. She went limp beneath him.

"Niki?" Jimbo withdrew his hand from her mouth. "Niki?"

He remembered a splintering sound as the bedroom door swung open. His mother, hammer in hand.

"I've killed her!" Jimbo rolled from her body, legs tangled, and fell from the bed. He lay on his back, sobbing.

"No." His mother near the bed. "She's still breathing."

"No."

"No."

Passed out on the bedroom floor, pants around his ankles, his cock still unused and now dormant, oozing a slow leak into his undies.

He remembered little of his first unsuccessful attempt at making love to his new wife.

~ * ~

Jimbo woke to bracing cold water thrown over his face. Light flooded the room, already hot, hard to breathe. Still on the floor.

Keats stood over him. "Fucken lucky I was on shift last night, mate."

Jimbo tried to sit, pulling himself up next to the bed. His head pounded, his mouth a graveyard for sandpaper. "What happened?"

"She tried to do a runner, mate. Knew ya were too pissed to control things. Father's funeral n that, I understand. Caught her about four in the morning, running up the road just past ya driveway." Keats whistled. "Good set a legs on her; she can fucken move, mate. If she tells ya I felt her up when I caught her then she's a fucken liar."

"Ya felt her up?" Jimbo grimaced as the sunlight hurt his eyes.

"Fuck no! Just if she says any shit like that, she's just causing trouble. Mate, she's ya fucken wife! I'm ya mate, fa fuck's sake! Just ask Mason, he was there."

Jimbo struggled to his feet, the blood draining from his face as the room whited out for a second. He breathed deep, waiting for the room to return.

Keats laughed again with a wink. "But if she wasn't your wife, mate ... she's hot."

"Where is she now?"

"Out in the kitchen with ya mum. Had to tie her up for a while but. That's her first warning, mate. Ya told her what happens after three?"

Jimbo shook his head, looking out from the bedroom doorway. At the other end of the house, Kylie sat hunched at the kitchen table, head buried in her arms, while his mother comforted her.

"I'd think she already knows."

"Maybe so," said Keats. "But it should come from the husband. From the man. Just so the record's straight."

"Ya probably right."

"Not just probably. It's the way it's done." Keats handed Jimbo his father's wooden box. "Ya fucken lucky she didn't get hold of this last night. You'd be dead by now."

"Thanks, Keats. I'll do it tonight."

"No, ya fucken won't." Keats shoved Jimbo in the back, pushing him towards the kitchen. "Ya'll do it fucken now. It's us poor cunts on watch who have to deal with this shit. We're helping you out, you fucken help us. It's the way it's done!"

Mel glared at Jimbo as he approached the table. Her eyes darted towards the box in his hand, then she whispered into Kylie's ear.

"No," Kylie moaned.

"If you don't, it will just make it harder," said Mel.

Jimbo sat opposite, pushing the salt and pepper shakers aside to make room for the box. Keat's presence from the bedroom doorway pressed heavily against him.

His mother glared at him again, mouthing the words, "What did I tell you? You stupid boy!"

He buried the shame of last night, using Kylie's flight to lend him conviction.

"Kylie, I apologize for last night. With the Old Man dying n the wedding n all, I just wasn't myself. It won't happen again, I promise."

His mother nodded, her hands kneading Kylie's shoulders.

"You got to promise me something too. You're mine now. You tried to escape last night. But that's foolish, Kylie. What are ya gunna do? Run out into the desert with the Abos? There's nowhere to go to." Jimbo knew the words that followed by heart. They all did. "You're part of my life now, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. You need to love and obey me." He removed the lid of the box. A short knife lay cushioned in a dark stained cloth.

"Look up, honey," said Mel. "That's a good girl."

Kylie lifted her head, her eyes raw and aching. Bruises purpled her jaw and throat.

Jimbo took the knife, its handle worn and smooth, the blade thin and keen. The last time it had been used was before Jimbo had been born. His father had cleaned his mother's blood off the blade with the cloth in the box.

"This is your first warning, Kylie. You only have three. After that, with this knife I thee wed. Don't make me do that."

Kylie stared at the knife. Snot dripped from her nose, blurred with tears. Her cheeks were blotched and streaked.

"Do you understand?" said Jimbo.

Kylie nodded.

"I said, do you understand?"

Mel bent to her ear and whispered.

"I do," Kylie rasped, her throat raw.

Jimbo placed the knife back amongst the folds of cloth and closed the lid.

~ * ~

A week later, Jimbo held Kylie down on his parent's bed. She tried to bite between her screams, so he didn't kiss her.

With her arms pinioned above her head, he pushed her legs wide. She was too dry, but he had greased his cock. When he managed to force it inside her, she stopped resisting, stopped screaming.

Jimbo kept thrusting until it was too uncomfortable, too raw, before he pulled out of his unconscious wife, thoughts of Niki reeling in his head.

Some mechanical part of him registered blood on the sheets, that he had indeed got what he had paid for.

It shouldn't be like this. It can't be like this.

He realized he was crying.

Later, when he needed to scrub himself clean, he found his mother sitting in the kitchen with the lights off. She drank sherry, staring blankly at the curtains above the sink and said nothing.

* * * *

PART V: PRESENTATION OF THE COUPLE

Winter lay a cool hand over the hot brow of the land, but still the rains never came. The cannery cut shifts and a third of the workers migrated to the orchards to prepare crops for the coming spring. Jimbo was lucky enough to keep his cannery job and toiled inside the factory, adjusting the machines as they pulped the autumn fruit. The smell in winter was bearable, as the pungent rot never set in as quickly or stunk so bad.

Belle had been seen round town, no longer on her crutches, all swollen belly and smiles. Brian reckoned they were having a girl and didn't seem to be happy about it. Dave had started seeing Alice, some Abo girl from one of the camps. Jimbo had only met her a couple of times because she wasn't allowed in The Aussie, but he'd had drinks with Dave and Alice down by the crater that used to be the old lake. She could hold her piss and was pretty funny for an Abo. Her brother played in the Abo footy team too and was probably going to make the State Team. Niki hadn't been back, and Lana and Frank had stopped asking Jimbo if he'd heard anything from her. He didn't have to lie when he said he hadn't. Aunty Joan had fallen pregnant, surprising the hell out of everyone. Uncle Cam seemed ten foot tall, gushing and lovey. Jimbo guessed the Old Man had been wrong about that too.

Jimbo and Kylie's love making was getting better - she no longer resisted and had stopped biting, even though she kept trying to run away - but looking at the mantelpiece wasn't much fun when she kept passing out. She was a pretty girl and he wanted to see the look in those dark trembling eyes when he came. She didn't talk much, but his mother assured him Kylie was coming out of her shell. At least those two seemed to be getting on okay.

The siren sounded for smoko, and Jimbo joined Brian outside for a cigarette and a sausage roll. The winter sun warmed Jimbo's face, the cool breeze carrying the stink of fruit away.

Brian lit the cigarette and sucked in a mouthful of tobacco laced with pot. "Heard Dave caught Kylie down by the lake. That's the third time."

"Yeah." Jimbo smeared sauce over the warm pastry, wiping his fingers on his overalls. "Thought the Abos might help."

"Have you cut her yet?" Brian passed Jimbo the smoke.

"Nah, I'm hoping she doesn't do another runner."

Brian shook his head. "That's three warnings, mate. Ya gotta cut her. Rules are rules, mate, and she's broken them."

"Yeah, but -"

"No fucken buts, Jimbo."

Jimbo blew smoke at Brian's face. "When did you get so fucken hard?"

Brian stared back, his face impassive. "I did what had to be done. The watch is over, mate. Now ya need to do what has to be done or she's gunna get away on ya."

"Yeah, I know, I been putting it off." Jimbo took another deep drag, staring into the sky. Clouds hovered near the horizon. "It's not what I thought it'd be."

"It gets better." Brian smiled, wry and thin. He took a bite of Jimbo's sausage roll, chewing back the sawdust and gristle. "Ya gotta give her something to make her wanna stay."

Jimbo swapped the cigarette for the sausage roll. "Like what?"

"Belle's pretty fucken happy these days. It's the best way to keep them here."

Jimbo nodded, understanding. "Yeah, she's getting big. When's she due?"

"Couple a months. Scary." Brian ground the cigarette underneath the heel of his boot. "Aw, fuck, Wazza Wilson was down the pub last night. Driving some fancy new truck called an eVolvo. Said it was AI or something, and it pretty much drove itself."

"Yeah? No cunt told me he was in town."

"Reckon's he seen Fitzy. You ain't gunna fucken believe it."

"Fitzy got himself married too?"

"Fuck no, listen to this. He's turned into some poofter, working cock in the City. Can ya fucken believe it? Always thought there was something strange about that cunt."

"Nah, no way." Not Fitzy, gentle, flabby Fitzy, big brown eyes. "He got a job drivin trucks. Wazza set it up."

Brian shook his head, in big deliberate arcs. "Fell through. Wears a dress an all. Guess there just ain't enough pussy to go round, even in the wonderfuckenfull City, eh?"

Jimbo's mouth sagged. No fucken way. And to think that cunt was ma mate. "So ya think all those times we were a-holing and shit, he was really into it?"

"Stranger things have happened." Brian motioned towards the rest of the sausage roll. "Ya gunna eat that or let it go cold?"

~ * ~

Sledge, the foreman, called a general meeting for the shopfloor late afternoon just before clock out. They gathered in the canteen, one hundred and fifty sweaty tired bodies pressed in and wondering what the fuck was going on.

Sledge held a piece of paper aloft and called for quiet. Someone in the crowd made a joke about Sledge not being able to read and a few people laughed, but the steel on Sledge's face silenced most of the room. Sledge didn't just look angry, he looked like worms were eating away at his gut and he'd soon be shitting snakes.

"Shit," said Brian. "This ain't good."

"What?" Jimbo stared around the room. A dark mood had descended upon the crowd, all heat and blood and dirt. The last of the laughter dried up and Jimbo was left with a slick of reflux at the back of his throat. "What dya mean, Bri?"

Sledge cleared his throat with a hack of phlegm. "Okay, this ain't easy to say. Things ain't too good at the moment, what with the drought kicking on, and fruit production in the orchards this year has hit an all time low. We've all seen the roos coming in too, taking what the drought hasn't. It's been a tough year, folks, and I'm sorry to say it's gunna get even tougher."

Ugly murmurs trembled through the crowd. "Ya just cut the fucken shifts a couple a weeks ago, Sledge!"

"Our jobs are sposed to be safe, ya cunts."

"Ya can't cut any more or the machines won't run."

"Unfortunately," said Sledge, "the machines won't be running. Not full time anyway. We're shutting down another third of the plant, and only running what's left at half-capacity. We don't have the fruit, people."

People started yelling. Brian punched Jimbo lightly in the arm. "Ten bucks says it's me who loses out here."

Jimbo tried to laugh. "Yeah, sure, yer on."

"People! People!" Sledge waved the piece of paper above his head. "This here is a list of names. If your name is read out, report to the paymaster. You will be paid out a week's pay in advance and any owing. When the drought breaks or the fruit comes back, your names are first up for hiring. We do want you back, never forget that. This factory built this town, and this town built this factory. We are one, people, one!"

That sounded like patriotic bullshit to Jimbo, but when Sledge read out his own name first, it stunned him and the crowd into submission. Sledge sacked too?

A third of the staff went home that day with extra cash in their pocket and an indefinite holiday. Jimbo spent Brian's ten bucks on homemade whiskey at Sledge's place, let the anger simmer and brew, slurred to Sledge what a good cunt he was taking a fall with workers, thought about going home to fuck his wife and tell her the bad news, and instead woke up with the sun beating down on his face in Sledge's backyard as the day cranked its furnace and roared into the deep blue sky. Sledge lay passed out on a threadbare sofa up against the fence in the shade. His collie, Sue, lifted her head from Sledge's lap, appraising Jimbo for a second before returning to her slumber. Flies buzzed at the mucus crusting Sledge's chin and his head twitched, then fell still. There were some fights that fists and knives could never hope to win.

~ * ~

The night was cool enough not to warrant the fan humming in the bedroom, and Jimbo took advantage of the still air to light several candles he had placed there.

Kylie lay on the bed naked except for a g-string, her back to him. He admired the length of her thighs, the colour soft in the candlelight, as he greased his cock.

"I know what ya want, Kylie," he whispered.

She said nothing, and better, she wasn't sobbing or crying. Jimbo wiped the Vaseline off his hands onto the sheet and knelt on the bed next to her. He reached out and stroked the curve of her hip, where the bone jutted out and curved softly over firm flesh, until his fingers circled the hollow where her bum met her thighs. Even better, she didn't shudder or tremble under his touch, though Jimbo didn't mind the trembling.

"I know how to make it better."

He pulled her thigh over towards him, forcing her gently onto her back. He slipped his fingers inside the front of her g-string, pushing through the short hair and working his finger into the dry groove beneath. She said nothing, her eyes staring at the ceiling, avoiding his face. He pulled her g-string off, slowly at first, sliding it down her thighs, but when she didn't help him he dragged them down, tearing them past her ankles and tossing the garment onto the floor behind him.

"It's what every woman wants. You want it. I know ya do."

Jimbo spat on his fingers and rubbed them around her snatch, becoming impatient. He thrust a finger inside her, and she tensed, a small whine locked in the pit of her throat. He kept shoving his fingers until her muscles relaxed, and her breathing resumed normally, searching for the signs that might precede her fainting - the hitched breathing, the bulging of the eyes before they rolled white - and Jimbo was getting better at this all the time. And when he judged she was good and ready ...

"We're gunna have a baby."

... he drove his cock awkwardly inside her, struggling to get in, but he pushed as he always did and she would yield as she always would but this time, oh, this time -

Kylie screamed and bucked, taking Jimbo unawares. Shit, she hasn't screamed for weeks, what the fuck? Jimbo fell awkwardly, clutching the edge of the bed. Kylie lashed out with her foot, catching Jimbo under the rib cage and sending him sprawling to the floor. Pain flared, but it was dwarfed by the anger and humiliation he felt. How dare she? How dare she fucken raise a hand against me? He clambered to his feet, as she launched herself screaming at his face, her hands clawed and tearing at the air. One swiped his cheek, deep, and blood splashed against his shoulder. He caught her other hand with his, and began to crush her wrist, then he kneed her in the stomach to bring her down.

Kylie collapsed with a whoosh. Jimbo dragged her up by the hair and threw her to the bed. She tried to sob, but couldn't inhale properly. He pushed her down onto the mattress, mashing her nose and lips with his palm. Using his knees, he repositioned himself between her thighs.

"Don't you fucken hit me, bitch!" He slapped her face. Blood sprayed from her lips.

"No, Jimmy, no," she managed to stammer, before he brought his hand across her face again.

"And don't you ever fucken say no to me!"

"You don't understand, you don't unn unner unn ..." Pink froth leaked at the edges of her mouth. The eyes bulged, her back arched and she spasmed.

Jimbo shoved his cock inside her and rode the waves of her fit. As she passed out he came, then rolled off and went to sleep.

~ * ~

The following morning, from the privacy of the kitchen window, Jimbo watched his wife and his mother out on the beaten dirt Mum liked to call a garden. Kylie sank to her knees, her face covered by her hands. Mel knelt quickly beside her, wrapping her arms around Kylie's trembling shoulders, her mouth working at soothing sounds.

Anger bubbled like acid inside Jimbo's gut, the rage not quite succeeding to mask the inevitable feeling of wrongness that was trying to work its way out of his subconscious into his waking mind.

He couldn't make out her words, simply a torrent of broken sobs punctuated by guttural noises. Her trembling turned to shuddering, and Kylie fell backwards onto the patchwork grass, her flailing limbs churning the dust into a thin brown cloud that rose up around them like a veil.

Jimbo unclenched his fists and looked away. Ten fucken grand. And what have I got? Damaged goods. The bitch is an epileptic. Damaged fucken goods!

He rummaged in the vegetable bin in the fridge, pulled out a beer and popped the top. Jimbo swallowed a mouthful of cool froth and stared around the room, wondering what he was going to do. No job, no money, and when the boys found out he'd been sidled with a dud, he'd be laughed out of town. It was bad enough he hadn't cut her when he should have, he was already copping shit for that.

The wooden box on the mantelpiece drew his eyes. And soon his fingers followed, rubbing the smooth surface of the box, unadorned teak, over one hundred years old. From father to son.

I wanted you to be special, not like the others, not like those hobbled, meek fucken cows the rest of them end up with.

He lifted his fingers from the box, briefly picking at the scabs on his cheek.

I wanted you to be like ... to be ... and the subconscious broke through and swamped him ... Niki.

Jimbo stood there unable to breathe, staring at his father's wooden box - his wooden box, his heirloom - and knew that he'd been fucked, that he was fucked, that Niki was gone for good, and he'd spend the rest of his life saddled with this broken bitch he'd wasted his father's miserable inheritance on.

~ * ~

Jimbo spent the day perched on the crumbling banks of Broken River, polishing off a bottle of Cranky's homestyle whiskey while admiring the thick stagnant pools of mud that not so long ago were at least waterholes. Most of the tributaries into the Goulburn River were drying up quicker than cum on a whore's chin.

Used to be able to get yellow-belly and carp outta here, even cod. What's this world coming to?

He threw the empty bottle down into the mud, then splashed it with some yellow dehydrating piss, clambered onto his bike and pedalled away from town.

Maybe go up to the North-South Pipe, smash some more fucken holes in it. City cunts. Stealing our water, stealing our lives, stealing our fucken women.

A whiskey haze had settled in, and a slow sweat dripped into Jimbo's eyes while thoughts of Brian and his fat pregnant cow whore Belle whirled around in his head; of frothing, twitching Kylie; and Mel, his mother, retreating from him, hiding away in her own house; Brian, fucken Brian and that card, that number to ring; of Dave and his Abo fucken ways; Wazza's truck; Keats hooking up with The Cartel; Brian fucken set me up; and Niki, oh, Niki ...

... then Jimbo discarding the bike in the driveway. Staggering to the front door - the lights are all off, not that late, why's the - stumbling inside onto his knees. Dry retching into the threadbare carpet.

Padded footsteps, a sudden rush.

"You don't know anything about me!" Kylie's voice, high-pitched and stretched.

Jimbo lifted his head and half-raised an arm against the cricket bat swinging towards his face. It smashed into his arm, a flare of pain shooting through his nerves, whiting out, hold on, hold it, don't fucken lose -

Jimbo sprawled backwards, breath caught in his throat, unable to scream as the pain roared in his arm.

"Babies! Babies!" Kylie held the bat aloft, high over her shoulder. "You know nothing!"

"Don't ya fucken dare -" Jimbo managed to shout, before the bat crashed down on his head.

Then nothing more ...

~ * ~

A flurry of torchlight ahead on the banks of the Goulburn River broke the deepening dusk. The horses slowed, reined in by Dave, who sat on the roof of the ute. Jimbo and Keats sat inside the cab. Keats hadn't said much, and Jimbo knew he was more than angry. Keats's half-breed dogs, part dingo and pit bull, whined and slavered out in the back, their claws skittering over the rusting corrugated tray. The smell of drying mud and rotted vegetation rose from the river with the light breeze that ushered in the night.

"Shit," Keats hissed between his teeth. "She's going upriver. You got the knife?"

Jimbo nodded, patted the thin leather scabbard on his belt.

The ute ground to a halt and they leapt from the cab. Several of the boys had turned up - Brian, Sledge, Mason and cousin Rhys - wearing daypacks and with torches strapped to foreheads, scenting blood as much as the dogs Keats was rounding up with the leash.

"Found ya bike up on the side of the river," said Brian. Torchlight flashed over the nearby ground, settling on the bike frame. The front wheel lay twisted. Brian knelt and sniffed the seat. "Engine's still warm."

The boys chuckled.

"Cut the shit." The dogs strained at the leash, and Keats pulled back hard. "How long ago?"

"Maybe half an hour. Reckon she's making for the Abo camps. She gets there, she's gone, Jimbo. Ya know how they feel about this sort a thing."

"If we know where she's headed, then we can cut her off."

"Already sorted. Brownie's gone ahead to the camp, gunna work his way back down the river."

Keats shook his head. "Dave, you get on well with the Abos. Get over there before Brownie fucks it up."

The dogs snarled and whined, slowly pulling Keats down towards the water.

"Once Jimbo and I are in the water, I want the rest of you to follow. Hang back about fifty metres or so in case we miss her and she tries to double back. Keep ya torches off, so she doesn't twig. Sledge and Mason, you take the left bank. Brian, you and Rhys take the right."

Jimbo strapped the torch to his forehead and turned it on. "You not wearing one, Keats?"

Keats laughed. "Nah, this should be fun. Haven't had a real good test for ma ultras since I had them put in. Ya got those knickers?"

Jimbo handed Keats a pair of Kylie's knickers, the black laces ones she liked to wear when they were about to make love. "The water ain't gunna be a problem?"

"These are my fucken dogs." Keats rubbed the knickers in the dogs' noses, then unclipped the leashes. The dogs bounded into the shallows, then raced upstream. "Come on, let's move."

The water was cool on their ankles as Keats and Jimbo waded in. Soon they were in up to their knees, a thick layer of mud squelching over their feet, making it hard to move quickly. Up ahead, the dogs splashed through the shallows near the left bank, growling and yelping. Jimbo surveyed the river banks as they moved, casting the torchlight over the bushes, looking for clues in the mud. He couldn't make out much. Behind him, the rest of the boys followed, but he couldn't see them either.

"What are ultras, Keats?"

Keats tapped his temple near the corner of his eyes. "Had it wired up recently. I'm using infrared at the moment."

"But ya don't have metal eyes."

"Jesus, Jimbo. The older boys wear them like a badge of honour. Nobody in the last five years has had that done - they're fucken ugly. There's a whole bunch of spectrums I can use. Ultraviolet's good for following blood trails. She wasn't bleeding, was she?"

"I dunno, don't think so."

"The Cartel's where it's at, Jimbo. I tell ya."

"The fucken Cartel. How come they got all the good technology? How come the government doesn't invest any of that out here? Just the fucken Cartel. City cunts."

"The government? Who do ya think keeps the train running? Keeps your phone working? The Cartel is the government, mate."

"Bullshit."

"They're in charge now, no bullshit. The Cartel are bringing the rural areas back into the fold, building them up again."

"Using us, Keats, that's all. Taking what they want, taking over the town."

"Shepp was fucken dying under the last government! Yer standing on the wrong side of the fence now, Jimbo, and the longer ya stand there, the sooner yer gunna find yaself hung out to dry. Just like the Abos were when we were in charge. Ya gotta move with the times, mate, stick with the winners. If ya don't yer gunna be stagnating just like this fucken river."

They slogged up that stagnating river for the next twenty minutes in silence. What Keats had said nagged at Jimbo, eating away at his inner core, at who he was. Keats is so fucken sure of himself these days, so fucken confident. And me? What the fuck happened to me? How did this happen? And it nagged at him, because deep down he feared what Keats said was true. The Cartel weren't coming, they were here, and soon the City, and the things he despised about it, would follow.

"We got some action up ahead!" Keats pointed towards the riverbank, but it was now too dark for Jimbo to see anything and his torchlight faded over the water. "The dogs are up on the bank. Come on, move it!"

They waded towards the riverbank, sloshing out of the cool dank water towards the thick weed that clung above the waterline. The dogs growled menacingly nearby, though Jimbo still couldn't see them. They clambered up the bank, Keats leading the way, pushing through the low scrub, as the ground slowly levelled. Torchlight revealed the crossbreeds pacing the base of a crooked gum tree, their backs bristling. Sharp teeth shone with slaver, the red of their eyes reflected back in the light, casting the animals with demonic demeanour.

"Good boys, good boys." Keats gathered them, reattached the leash and wound part of the lead around his wrist in an attempt to help restrain them.

Jimbo peered upwards into the branches, but couldn't see her. "How far up?"

"About halfway. Ya gunna have to go up and get her. Be careful but, she falls she could break her neck."

"Boys!" Jimbo hollered into the darkness behind them. "We've got her. Gunna need ya steady hands real quick!"

Within minutes the rest of the crew arrived at the base of the tree. Kylie had ignored Jimbo's attempts at talking her down, so Mason, on his first hunt, volunteered to climb up and get her down. Brian took a leash with a metal cuff from his pack and handed it to Mason.

"We've got thirty metres of lead, should be plenty. When you get to her, clip -"

"I know, I know. Clip it to her ankle."

"Let us know when yer done it, then give her a push, we'll take the weight."

Mason scrambled up the base of the trunk, pulling himself up through the lower branches.

"And Mason!" yelled Jimbo. "Be careful. She kicks hard."

Sledge and Brian fed the leash through their hands, while Rhys opened his pack and removed the first aid kit. Jimbo unsheathed the knife. He didn't want to do this. Up above, the sounds of a struggle, Kylie yelling and Mason grunting, no doubt a foot lashing out at a head. He really didn't want to do this. The adrenalin surged through his body. A rabble of butterflies hatched in his stomach, making him feel sick.

"You ready?" Keats had tied the dogs to a nearby tree, and then taken up the slack on the leash with the others.

Mason yelled, the boys braced themselves, then Kylie screamed and the leash snapped taut. It took almost five minutes to lower her. Whenever she managed to cling to a branch, Mason was there, a foot ready to stamp her free. By the time they got her to the ground, the butterflies had burst into a flock of sharp-beaked magpies, tearing at his insides. He couldn't look at her. She screamed as the boys pinioned her face-down on the ground. The dogs strained at their leash nearby, barking furiously. His heart hammered in his eardrums like the machinery in the cannery and sweat trickled cold from his armpits down his sides.

Keats held her right leg firm, presenting the ankle, its thick cord of tendon stretched tight. Rhys stuffed a thick, tooth-marked leather cord into Kylie's mouth and told her to bite down. She tried to spit it out and he forced it back in.

"Do it!" Keats snarled, not unlike his dogs.

Jimbo knelt down and carefully, almost gently, took her ankle in his hand. He felt the tension there, the bound energy willing itself but unable to kick. Keats held the leg vice tight. Veins rippled across the surface of his scalp with the exertion.

The knife rested on her tendon, like a bow on a violin, and Jimbo readied himself to play a terrible song. When he cut her, the snap of the tendon cracked like a gunshot through the night, the dogs suddenly whining. Blood sprayed hot and stinging into his eyes. And then Kylie's scream, a howling pitch of despair and pain that rose like a white heat in their ears, and as Jimbo wiped her blood from his face, her body fell slack and silent.

"Let her bleed clean." Keats released her leg, then clapped Jimbo on the shoulder. "You did well, mate. That was a good cut."

A match flared, then the aroma of strong tobacco cut through the stink of the river and the acrid smell of fresh blood. Brian passed over the cigar, and as Jimbo savoured the taste of the first puff, Rhys began to dress the wound.

~ * ~

A mob of eastern grey kangaroos lounged in the shadows Mount Major cast over the flatlands in the early afternoon sun. Even though winter was drawing to an end, enough heat remained in the day to draw a light sweat to the surface of the skin. The air hung still and resonated with cicadas buzzing in the scrub while kookaburras cackled hidden in the eucalypts that clung to this side of the hill that called itself a mountain. Cockatoos fought noisily in the tree Jimbo and Brian had taken shelter beneath, the boys enjoying both the shade and the noisy cover the birds provided while they scoped out the mob below.

"There's maybe two hundred of them down there." Brian, his stomach to the ground, peered through the scope of his .308 Winchester. "Some big bucks too."

Jimbo nodded, rubbing his fingers over the smooth wooden handle of his grandfather's .303. That scope looks new. Where the fuck is he getting the cash for his toys?

"We could probably knock off one or two right now." Brian adjusted his weight, wriggling into a better position. His finger hovered over the trigger. "What ya reckon?"

"I reckon we wait for Dave and Keats to get back," said Jimbo, staring into the back of Brian's skull, a damp plastering of black hair. He imagined Belle's fingers running through it, moaning in ecstasy, her belly swollen, almost ready to drop. "When's she due?"

"Huh?" Brian looked at him quizzically. "Belle?"

"Yeah." Jimbo cast his eye out over the mob, avoiding Brian's gaze.

"Couple a weeks." Brian nuzzled back into his rifle, eye to the scope, making minor adjustments. "How you an Kylie going? Been trying for a while now."

"Yeah. Not so good."

"She still in a chair or she on crutches now?"

"Almost don't need the crutches," said Jimbo. Below him, Dave and Keats clambered up the hill after returning the horses to town. The ute had been unhitched and parked down in a copse of splintered eucalypts, an attempt to at least provide a cooler environment for the meat the boys would be storing after each kill. Dave appeared to be labouring, his rifle slung over his shoulder, but Keats bounded upwards, effortlessly, a long thin bag strung across his back. He'd promised the boys a surprise this weekend.

"Belle didn't want to do it after the hobbling, maybe for a month or so. Heh. But she got back into it after that with gusto." Brian swung his barrel across the plains, eyeing up potential targets. "Lot of joeys down there. Did ya know the jills are always pregnant until they give birth?"

Jimbo didn't know just how much bullshit Brian was spouting these days. Belle loving to fuck. Falling pregnant just like that. Saving up enough of his own cash to buy a wife. New scope for the rifle. "Yeah, Kylie can't get enough, want's it all the time."

Brian laughed. "Yeah, they fucken love it. Hey. That one there. See him. Ya can tell by the balls on that buck he's the boss. Maybe ya should get tested. I did."

"What? Nothing fucken wrong with me."

"Take it easy, man. I'm just saying. There could be problems, not necessarily with you. Maybe ya missus. Ya never know."

"You went to see that A-rab?"

"Khalid knows his shit, Jimbo. Jizzed into a jar, no problems there. With the boys swimming around in ma balls I mean, little weird beating off in his room, him and Belle watching and that."

"She should've been beating ya off."

"Nah, she couldn't. She was lying on this bench, while this plastic circle thing full of computer chips and lights scanned her body up and down. She was looking at me though, and laughing. Turned out there was nothing wrong with her neither - Khalid brought up all these pictures of her internals and explained it all, but it didn't mean too much to us - and, ya know, with both our minds at ease knowing there was no problems, she just fell pregnant easy shortly after that."

"I dunno. There's nothing fucken wrong with me."

Brian rested the barrel on his forearm and stared at Jimbo, his eyes squinting, searching for something. "I never fucken said there was. What's wrong with you, man? Ever since ya dad died and ya got hitched, you've been acting like an uptight cunt. Maybe she's been fucken you up the arse, is that the problem? Ya missus's dick bigger than yours?"

"Fuck you." Jimbo's fist clenched the stock of his rifle. "Ya think ya got it all, don't ya, ya cunt? Money, pretty missus, baby, job. Fuck you!"

Cockatoos screeched in the tree above, and several took to wing, a fluttering of circling squawking white feathers.

Brian's face reddened and for a second Jimbo thought it was going to be on, but Brian closed his eyes, and exhaled, his breath hissing out between clenched teeth. "Jesus fucken Christ, Jimbo. I never said it was you. Yer me mate." He opened his eyes, stared into Jimbo's, the anger dissipated from his face, gone in the space of a breath. Jimbo wished he could do that, drop the anger in an instant, but he couldn't and it bristled still. "I was just saying maybe ya should get checked out. Both of yers. The whole a Shepp knows she gets the fits, mate, it's no secret."

"You sold me a dud, ya cunt. Fucken ripped me off."

"What? Me? I didn't sell ya nothing." Brian got to his knees, placing his rifle on the ground. "I helped ya out. Gave ya a number. Got ya a wife."

"Yer getting commissions, ain't ya, Brian? You've cut some sort a deal, that's how ya bought Belle, the new horses, got yerself that new scope there. I know how it works. Every bride they sell up here in Shepp, ya get a cut, don't ya?"

"Put the gun down," said Brian, slowly rising to his feet.

"Ya not denying it?"

"Of course I'm fucken denying it! Just put that gun down."

"Will you two keep it quiet." Keats pulled the bag off, lowering it gently onto the dirt. "You'll scare off that mob. They'll be another k away before we've fired a shot."

Jimbo glared at Brian, dropped back to his knees, cradling his gun. For all his wired-up ways, Keats hadn't noticed the heat between them. Dave still clambered up, maybe fifty metres away.

Keats, with a widening grin, crouched next to his bag, his thick fingers on the zip. "Wait'll you boys see what I've got here. Should we wait for Dave? All that black pussy been sucking the white man's life out of him. How fucken unfit is he, these days?"

Jimbo tried to laugh, to shake some of the anger steaming inside his skin. Rage and guns never mixed well, he knew that, but right now he wanted to kill something. And those roos were looking a little too far away.

"Fuck him. Open it up, Keats," said Brian. "Show us what ya got."

Keats removed a slick black automatic assault rifle from the bag. He tossed it lightly in one hand, his grin wider than a slut's fanny.

"Where'd ya get that?"

"The Cartel, boys. They got everything you'll ever need. Got it on loan for the weekend." Keats tossed the rifle towards Jimbo, who caught it easily and swung the barrel around in an arc, ending up with the muzzle pointed squarely at Brian.

"It's plastic," said Jimbo.

"Easy to carry," said Keats. "Chinese too. Best quality you can get. Hey, here he is!"

Dave wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow, his chest heaving. He took a drag from his water bottle. "Where'd you get that?"

Jimbo handed him the rifle. "Keats 'loaned' it from The Cartel."

"Fair dinkum," said Keats. "On one condition though. The Cartel gets half the meat."

"Get fucked!"

Keats laughed, taking the rifle from Dave. "This thing will mow that mob to pieces. We'll do all right out of the cull. So, are we ready, boys?"

They descended in single file, Dave leading the way, followed by Keats, then Brian. Jimbo watched them, the flies smothering their backs in the slow heat, their legs moving carefully, shuffling slowly down towards the mob below. He hefted the rifle, quickly lining up the barrel and the crosshairs on the back of Brian's head. Fuck you, Bri. Bang! Yer dead. Then he headed after them.

On a low ridge, all except Keats took their positions, lining up prospective bucks lounging in the mob about sixty metres away. Keats crept down to the grasslands below, edging closer to gain maximum impact.

"Don't fucken shoot me," he'd said, as he left.

They all laughed. Jimbo stared at Brian as they did so, but Brian busied himself with his scope. Accidents happen all the time out here, mate.

Jimbo lay flat on his stomach, positioned the .303, sighting the buck he'd chosen, targeting its head. He wasn't the biggest of the mob, but the tail was huge and should make good cooking. The Abos hadn't been wrong about that.

The day fell silent, the parrots in the trees hushed, like an expectant audience as the curtain rises. It seemed, for a second, that even the flies had ceased their incessant buzzing.

"What's the bet?" said Jimbo.

"Twenty dollars each from the losers to the winner, plus an additional dollar for every roo the winner has over whoever comes second," said Brian.

"Yer on."

"On the count of three," whispered Dave. "One ... two ... three."

The shots fired almost simultaneously. The mob leapt in unison, a chaotic mess of marsupials leaping left and right. Jimbo watched his buck leap, blood spraying from the back of its skull and hit the dirt dead.

"Fuck." Brian quickly followed his first shot with another, but his roo was gone, leaping through the confusion as the mob tried to gather cohesion.

And then a long burst of machine-gun fire as Keats opened up, spraying bullets through flesh, fur and bone. Between sprays, Keats's laughter echoed up off the side of the mountain, a hysterical cackle of mania, before another harsh burst of gunfire tore the mob apart again. Jacks, jills and joeys tumbled broken and bleeding, until Keats stood alone amongst the corpses holding the gun aloft and howling, while the mob bounded off to regroup in the distance.

Dave stood up, eyes wide, removing the cartridge from his rifle. "This changes things a bit. He just nailed over a dozen of the bastards. At this rate we'll have the ute full before sundown."

"Whaddya think?" Keats yelled up at them.

The cockatoos roared their applause.

"Takes the sport out of it, I reckon," said Brian, studying the end of his scope, as if something there was amiss, spoiling his aim.

"Dunno about you boys," said Jimbo, "but I need the meat and the money." He shouldered his rifle and headed down towards Keats. "And anything killed with that gun doesn't count towards the bet."

Later, as Jimbo worked his knife through the roo's belly, opening it up and spilling the steaming guts onto the parched earth, Keats approached.

He kicked his leg at the swarm of flies buzzing over the intestines. The flies parted and reformed, as if Keats had never been.

"What's going on, Jimbo?"

"Nothing." Jimbo didn't look up, his hand working inside the carcass to remove any further offal.

"Really? I'm scared to let ya have a go of this gun, mow down some roos. Looked like ya was gunna murder Brian up there on the ridge. Scared yer try and mow us down instead."

Jimbo thrust the knife into the side of the roo and wiped his hands on the fur before standing up to face Keats. "I'm okay, man." For a second he thought he would cry, but it passed, and he held himself together.

"No ya not. If there's one thing I'm good at, Jimbo, it's reading people. Part of me job. And what I'm reading right now is definitely not okay."

"Nothing's wrong. I said I'm okay."

"Is it work, mate? I can always hook you up with something -"

"I don't want anything to do with the fucken Cartel, Keats, you know that."

Keats gave him a glance, nodding his head, then turned away. "Suit yerself. Stay happy in that bucket a misery yer wallowing in, keep rooting that white-eyed, frothy-mouth bitch of yours."

"You fucken cunt!" Jimbo launched himself at Keats's back, but Keats turned easily on his heels, deflecting the swinging fist and chopping at Jimbo's throat in the same fluid movement.

Jimbo fell amongst the guts, now crawling with flies. It was hot and wet against his forearms, the flies a furry, tickling blanket of legs against his skin. He scrambled out of the blood and muck, unable to breathe properly, his chest heaving. Keats stood above him, unmoving. In Jimbo's peripheral, he saw Dave pulling at Brian's arm, them moving away. Keeping distant.

"Fuck ... Keats ... ya ..." Jimbo managed to gasp, trying to stand, to suck in the hot air, to swallow the thick spit in his mouth.

Keats pulled him to his feet with one hand, the other held back in a fist, ready to pummel Jimbo's face.

"Ya lucky yer ma mate," said Keats. "Otherwise I'd beat the fucken shit outta ya right now, knock all ya fucken teeth out and smash ya kneecaps off." He brought the fist within an inch of Jimbo's nose. Jimbo didn't flinch. "I'm ya fucken mate, Jimbo, we all are. We wanna help."

Jimbo said nothing, his throat slowly easing from the punch. Though something else was building in the hollow, something hard and aching.

Keats dropped his fist and let go. His hard-man eyes softened, almost pleading. "For fuck's sake, mate, let us help ya. Anything ya need, I can get it. Ya know I can, I'm connected big time now. I know ya fucken hate the Cartel, but I'm not them. It's me. Keats, ya old mate Keats. Anything, anything at all." He pulled the knife from the roo and handed it hilt-first to Jimbo. "Anything."

The feeling in Jimbo's throat rose like gorge, an all-encompassing pressure, sore and swollen, ready to burst like blood from the brain. But there was no way in hell he would cry in front of these men. Never.

"Thanks, Keats," he said quietly, then went back to gutting the roo.

~ * ~

The following evening they headed back to town. Brian and Dave had biked on ahead, while Keats and Jimbo sat on the roof of the ute, the tray laden with meat and hides. They'd bagged almost fifty roos and would have to do a return trip to pick up the rest of the cull. Keats held the reins, the both of them watching the horses' flanks ripple with muscle.

"Having problems getting pregnant," Jimbo said.

"Most people do. Not many kids around these days, full stop."

"Most people get one."

"Used to, Jimbo, not so much anymore."

"What about Bri? Him and Belle had no problems."

Keats laughed. "That's what he likes people to think."

"Eh?"

"What you see ain't necessarily what's going on, Jimbo. Like that caper the factory pulled with Sledge pretending to get laid off with all you guys when the cunt was just taking some long service leave."

"Ya saying Brian had help?"

"Fucken oath he did! That's Khalid's baby, just as much as it is their's."

"What? That A-rab fucked Belle?"

"He's a doctor! Artificial insemination, ya dumb cunt. Just like the farmers do with their livestock."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and if that don't work, there's other ways."

"Whaddya mean?"

"You wanna baby? I can get ya one. Same sort a deal as getting a wife."

They sat in silence for the next few minutes, the only sounds the steady clopping of hooves and the grind of wheels on the road.

"That hasn't worked out so good for me," said Jimbo. "And I don't have the cash."

"Depends what ya want. Arrangements can be made. This ain't Brian yer dealing with. The Cartel is looking at establishing itself in the rural areas. It's looking for blokes who know the lay of the land to make it work. I'm one of those blokes. You're one of those blokes. Anything you want."

Jimbo sat there, his head brimming with complicated possibilities he refused to consider. Soon, Keats started yakking about the perks of working in the local whorehouse, and while Jimbo pretended to listen, he thought about making an appointment, about letting his wife out of the house for the first time since he'd cut her tendon, about getting his - their - life back on track.

* * * *

PART VI: RECESSIONAL

Khalid had given Jimbo a specimen jar to fill and sent him out to the toilets with a couple of beaten up and beaten over magazines. Jimbo didn't like leaving Kylie alone in the room with the A-rab, not that he worried about him doing anything, more that he didn't know what was going on, what was being said. He didn't need her spilling her guts to the doctor and then having him spread it through the A-rab community. But what could he do? Nothing. And anyway, Kylie usually frothed up and lost it whenever the personal questions came out. After a year of marriage he still knew nothing about her past, and quite frankly, Jimbo didn't give a fuck. He flicked through the magazine until he found a non-Asian lesbian spread, and then began to work his cock for the next half hour.

When he came back into the room, Kylie lay on the bench underneath a sheet; the plastic ring that encircled the bench hummed and sparkled down near her feet, then switched off. It looked like Kylie had passed out. Several holographic overlays of her body hung suspended in the air against a white wall. Khalid moved a sensing-pen over a tablet near his computer, shifting and sorting the overlays. Screeds of data and chemical compounds flitted next to the schematics. Jimbo's jaw dropped.

"Where'd ya get this stuff? It's like in the movies."

Khalid indicated for the nurse to take Jimbo's specimen and continued examining the data. "Standard stuff, Mr White. In fact, it's close to obsolete which is why the government allowed me to use it here."

He motioned for Jimbo to take a seat. Kylie groaned on the bench, her legs twitching momentarily, before falling still again.

"From what I understand," said Khalid, "Kylie was not a willing participant in your marriage."

Jimbo bristled. Fucken A-rab cunt! Who the hell does he think he is? He tried to keep it from his voice. "I paid for her, fair and square. It's the way we do things around here. You A-rabs do the same thing."

"It's not quite the same, we have family consent. Your customs are a little more, how shall we say, extreme than ours."

"What are you saying, doc?" Jimbo felt the anger rising in his throat and fought to contain it. He consciously unclenched his fists.

"Look, Mr White, I don't care either way, I'm not judging you, just trying to establish the facts. I don't think you're going to like what I've found here."

The blood drained from Jimbo's face, though at the same time a piece of him rejoiced. It's not me, it's her. "Yeah, well, you know then, don't you. Bought and paid for. City job, Cartel approved and all that. So what the fuck have you found?"

Khalid brought an overlay to the fore, a detailed internal scan of Kylie's skull. "This, for one." He zoomed in an area and highlighted it. A small rectangle, tiny, no bigger than his the nail on Jimbo's little finger.

"She's been wired." Jimbo's voice sounded too high in his own ears, the voice of a child alone at a birthday party, excluded from the games.

"Certain organizations use them to facilitate communication, enhance certain skill sets, you probab -"

"The Cartel."

"Not just the Cartel. It can also be used to suppress or supplant memories in their hosts. Bio and wetware tech is taught in high schools in the City, Mr White. Kids can play with it on their pets. And someone has done an even worse job on your wife than an eight-year-old child on their favourite kitten."

Jimbo sat stunned. A bubble of white froth dissolved slowly in the corner of Kylie's mouth. "She's not an epileptic."

"Not at all." Khalid added another overlay to the schematic, highlighting a tangle of synapses weaving through the lobes in the brain. "You can clearly see here that the synaptic circuit is thin and branches off to the right. See how it appears to spark then fades, dies out if you like?"

Jimbo couldn't, but nodded.

Khalid continued. "I recorded this activity when I asked her about her past. She couldn't answer me and went into a seizure."

"Yeah." Jimbo suddenly knew where this was going. "It's a kill-switch. That chip is causing all this shit to happen. That's why she can't have babies. You could take the chip out, then you -"

Khalid shook his head, his face grim. "That's not why." The head schematics were replaced by an overlay of Kylie's reproductive organs. "She has no ovaries. No fallopian tubes. Kylie has female genitalia, she has what you might call a 'fuck-hole', Mr White, but not much more."

"How ... how can ..."

"I also performed DNA testing and blood analysis. This is where it gets disturbing." He indicated the screeds of data and formulae. "Are you ready for this, Mr White?"

Jimbo felt sick. He glanced at Kylie again, prone on the bench. "She's not gunna die, is she?"

"No, but she probably wants to." Khalid indicated a rash of numbers. "Two distinct sets of DNA were found."

"What? That can't happen, can it?"

"Organ transplants, Mr White. Kylie's genitals have a different set of DNA to the rest of her body. What there is of her reproductive system is not her own."

Bile rose in Jimbo's throat. His head felt light, held on by a string, ready to float away and pop.

"Blood analysis shows the presence of rejection drugs to verify this. I don't suppose you're giving her these, Mr White? No? I didn't think so. I suspect we'll find slow-release isotopes somewhere in her body administering the drug. Are you okay?"

Jimbo tried to nod. Kylie groaned again, her eyes fluttering. Soon she'd wake. "I'm fine," he croaked. The bile had risen to the base of his throat, hot and acidic. A thin sheen of sweat had broken on his forehead.

"But that's not all the blood shows." Khalid kept his face solemn, but his eyes shone. "Traces of testosterone blockers were also found, and large doses of the estrone form of estrogen. Do you know what estrone does, Mr White? No? It slows the growth of body hair, softens skin, tends to make one feel more gentle, graceful. Even feminine."

"Yer fucken lying ..."

Sobs came from the bench where Kylie lay, awake now and listening. Tears pooled in her eyes, ready to drop.

Another head schematic appeared, focusing on the throat. "There is considerable scar tissue around the larynx." Highlights flared on the hologram. "You can see it here and here, but the work is surprisingly neat. Unlike the wiring of the brain."

"Yer fucken lying, A-rab ..." Jimbo swallowed hard on the bile.

"There are other anatomical tests I can perform if you need further proof, Mr White. Due to poor selective breeding decisions over the last century, women are in rather short supply and the demand is great. I suspect we might find it interesting to test the age of Kylie's genitals. I'm quite sure it will be much, much older than you and I would expect in a woman of Kylie's age."

"I'll fucken kill ya for this." Jimbo tried to rise but his legs felt like jelly and, like everything else, betrayed him. Instead, he threw up into his lap and began to cry.

"Help me," Kylie managed to gasp. "Please."

"What impact does the bias towards having only male children in a one-child society have on this world, Mr White? Inshallah, my friend, inshallah." A white towel landed in Jimbo's lap. "Now clean yourself up. Act like a man. I need to help your wife."

~ * ~

Dark clouds rolled in from the west to fill the sky and the temperature dropped to below twenty. The town felt the water in the air, desperate to escape and pour down on the earth below. Wooden buildings ached, their joints on the verge of swelling, timber groaning in anticipation of the storm. The air, shall we say, was pregnant with possibility, and Jimbo, not usually one for omens, decided the rain gods were in his favour.

There would be no better time to take his wife through the plan for the coming months, and if the prospect of rain did not alleviate the pain in the heart of his household, then he was doomed.

At first, his mother took it worse than Kylie did. Mel stood there, her face drawn and aghast, staring at the five different sized cushions laid out on the kitchen table. Next to each cushion, a sign labelled with a number and a month name. Kylie sat there, resting her ankle, a nonplussed look plastered over her face. Her fingers roamed incessantly over the thin line of scab gracing the side of her skull where the chip had been removed.

"James. No." Mel's voice sounded like dust working through a cracked windpipe. She shook her head slowly from side to side. "This is not the way, not at all."

"It's the only way, Mum."

She stared at him with hollowed out eyes. Time had fallen hard on her since the Old Man had died. She looked ancient, a crone. "You have to stop this, James. Can't you see what this is doing to you? To us?" Her bone-thin arms trembled, a long wavering stick of a finger pointing towards his face.

"This is what we are going to do. No one will know."

"Where is my son?" Spittle flew from her mouth, spattering his face. "What have you done with my son?"

And then Kylie recognized the significance of the cushions, the progression of the months, the pregnancy. She leapt from the seat, screaming, flailing with her arms to knock the cushions away. Her hobbled ankle buckled and she fell awkwardly, clawing at the table for support. The table upended, spilling the cushions across the peeling linoleum floor and still Kylie screamed.

"Shut up!" Jimbo pushed the table away.

Kylie dragged herself onto all fours, her head held low, hair hanging loose and bedraggled. She began to keen, a broken high-pitched sound like a piece of machinery about to burn itself out. She - it - repulsed him. Whenever he looked at her he wanted to tear her apart. Ten fucken grand! He needed to kill that horrible sound, put the boot in.

"Get away from her, James!" Mel grabbed him by the arm, pulling him off balance. "You've done enough damage."

Jimbo backhanded her, hard across the face. Mel's head rocked back, a whoosh of dead air expulsed from her lungs.

"You get out of this house now." Mel's voice was stone. Her eyes watered. A red welt rose over her cheek.

Kylie crawled from the kitchen into the lounge, the keening hitching on and off in her throat. Blood seeped at the bandages wrapped around her ankle.

Jimbo stared down his mother. "No." He raised his hand again and Mel backed away.

"Then we're leaving."

"Ya not fucken going anywhere. Neither of yers. Go into the lounge and shut that freak up. I've got a phone call to make."

"You can't stop us!"

"The Freak can't even walk, Mum. Whatya gunna do? Carry the fucken thing?"

He righted the table, took the phone from the bench, and pulled up a chair. Mel hissed her exasperation, then followed Kylie into the lounge.

The phone felt heavy in his hand, worse this time round. Everything had gone wrong, but this time, this one time, it might just work out. He began to dial the number Keats had given him, every digit burned into his memory. He'd been able to think of nothing else for the past fortnight, events, circumstances unfolding, hatching in his mind late at night when the night owls prowled.

He was so caught up in his actions he almost didn't hear her until it was too late.

"I couldn't do this before!" Kylie, behind him, her voice hysterical.

Jimbo swivelled in the chair. His father's knife shining in the kitchen light, gripped tight in her hand, arced down, slicing his arm from shoulder to elbow. Blood sprayed across the room. He screamed, the pain shooting white behind his eyes.

She raised the knife high above her head. "But I can do anything I want now!"

As she brought it down, Jimbo lashed out with his foot, kicking her in the side of the knee with a crunch. Kylie collapsed, the knife striking sparks on the metal rim of the table. She hit the floor, the knife spinning harmlessly from her hand. As she tried to get to her knees, Jimbo kicked her in the stomach, sending her sprawling onto her back. She looked up at him, hate burning in her eyes. He kicked her again and she doubled over, wheezing, unable to breathe.

"That's right, bitch. You can do whatever you want." He lifted his foot over her bloodied ankle, ready to smash it.

"Get away from her, James, or I'll shoot." Mel stood in the doorway. She pointed the .303 rifle at his chest. "Don't think I won't."

"You wouldn't." Jimbo stepped away from Kylie, towards his mother. The wrinkles in her face appeared set in concrete, and the look in her eyes gave him doubt.

"You wanna bet, James?" She motioned him away with barrel, as she tried to get closer to Kylie. "You okay, hon? Can you get up?"

"Yeah, I wanna make bet!" He charged her. Mel swung the barrel towards his head and pulled the trigger. The chamber sounded an empty click. Jimbo hit her in the chest with a footy tackle. They crashed into the wall. Mel dropped the gun, holding her hands up to shield her head as Jimbo brought his fist down into her face. Her jaw cracked and her eyes rolled back into her head as she passed out.

Kylie was trying to crawl from the kitchen, dragging herself through the blood and the cushions. Her breathing was ragged. Jimbo smashed his foot down onto her ankle. Her scream was brief, then she collapsed unconscious.

He stood there for a second, his chest heaving. Blood had soaked his shirt and dripped in a steady stream down his arm, falling from his fingertips to the lino. He picked up the rifle and the knife, and put them next to the phone on the table. Then he wrapped an old tea towel showing a faded giant pineapple around his triceps, pulling it tight to staunch the flow of blood. He picked up the phone and stared at the dial.

Outside a breeze had picked up, shaking the leaves in the trees and rattling the shutters on the windows. The slow rumble of distant thunder broke the relative silence. It was going to rain.

He dialled the number Keats had given him and waited. Kylie was already starting to stir. She's a tough bitch, I'll give her that. Childbirth can be a killer though.

The phone answered on the seventh ring. A woman's voice.

"Uh ... I ... want to adopt a ..." Jimbo stammered. That voice, he knew that voice. The world tilted on its axis, sending mountains tumbling towards him.

"Hello? Who is this?" said the woman.

Jimbo sat in silence, watching Kylie roll onto her stomach.

"Hello? I'm going to hang up if -"

"No, I'm here." He hadn't heard that voice for so long. It had sung to him in his dreams instead. Cities crumbled in his head, landscapes built on teetering dreams suddenly blackened and burned, the ash swept up into hot, confusing winds. And everything became so cold and suddenly clear. "Niki?"

The phone went quiet, except for the buzz of the line. Then, "Jimmy? Is this you?"

His chest ached, so tight it felt like the skin would split. Tears spilled from his eyes. "Niki, Niki. I thought you'd been kidnapped, married off ... maybe dead. I thought -"

"Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"There's so much I need to tell you, Niki, so much I need to say." The barriers were collapsing inside him, the hard-man walls crumbling down. He couldn't stop now, he had to let it out. "I need to tell you how I feel. I need -"

"Jimmy? My supervisor is taking over this call. Can you hear me? My supervisor -"

"- that I -"

The line clicked and another voice came on, still female, but huskier. "Hello, my name is Ju. I'll be -"

"- love you."

"- taking over this call," Ju continued. "I believe you're wanting to adopt a baby. With whom am I speaking?"

Jimbo sat there, the phone pressed to his ear, listening to his breath echo in the receiver. His mother slumped against the wall, blood still leaking from her nose. Kylie had managed to make it to the doorway, and was using it to help pull herself through into the lounge. The smell of ozone drifted in through the open window, as another peal of thunder shook the sky.

"It's White. James White. I want to adopt a baby boy."

After he had made the arrangements, he called Dave and told him they needed a doctor, but to keep Khalid out of it. He grabbed a beer from the fridge, stepped over his mother's prone legs and followed the trail of blood through the lounge to the front door. Kylie couldn't reach the door handle and lay on her stomach sobbing. He opened the door, stepped over her and walked out onto his verandah. Lightning forked the sky over on the horizon and the clouds swum overhead, pushed and harried by the winds. He sat down in the Old Man's recliner, popped the top of the beer and took a swig. Jimbo grimaced, took another gulp, let it cool the burn in his gut. He felt light-headed. He hoped Dave got here soon, maybe he'd lost a little too much blood.

He put his feet up, let his eyes close for a second, just a second, and waited for the rains.

* * * *

Paul Haines was born in 1970 in Thames, New Zealand. He was raised in South Auckland, studied at Otago University and moved to Australia in 1996. He published his first short story in 2001 and has since won the Aurealis, Ditmar, Sir Julius Vogel and the Chronos Awards for his writing. He is the author of the collections Doorways For The Dispossessed (2006), Slice of Life (2009) and The Last Days of Kali Yuga (2010).

"Wives" made the honour-list for the James Tiptree Junior award, the Locus Recommended Reading List, has been nominated for the Ditmar, Australian Shadows and Sir Julius Vogel, and won the Aurealis award. The story was inspired by a recent trip to China.

Paul now lives in Melbourne with his wife and daughter. Lately he has been battling cancer.