Whitefella’s Christmas

The Minister for No Fun knew that things probably would go awry. Catastrophes small and large had been sine qua non on the land and strangely seemed to have followed her into her newly fledged city life like a hungry dog.

Disaster wasn’t what she was thinking of however today,more persistence in the face of it as she wrote season’s greetings on cards to friends and family inviting a select few to Christmas lunch.

Dear Aunt Mollie and Uncle Ted ,

Hope 2019 is better and brings rain.A mouse plague has just gone through and destroyed the seed crop we planted in the spring .The local butcher has closed down (ran off with the publicans wife).We’ve gone back to butchering and hanging our own.We’ll be down at Mollymook for Xmas until Australia Day. Drop in.We’d love to see you .

Love Annette’s girls.

All living family members and friends old and new were on the Christmas mailing list but not all got an invite to Christmas lunch at the family beach house on the coast at Mollymook.Jim from Sydney did. The Minister and he had been going out now back in Melbourne for a year or more and the honeymoon wasn’t yet over. Lib (‘good old bottled sunshine’ )always welcomed an invite and had long ago adopted the strategy of never refusing one because who knows what door serendipity would open next. Yippee!What a surprise! It was a bit of an ask, 900 km for roast chook and pudding but being a publican’s daughter imbued with the Protestant work ethic she knew nothing good ever came without effort. The Minister could almost see and hear her childish delight. It put a slight grimace on her otherwise wary countenance. Sometimes she wondered why she even bothered. But Lib had been very good to her dogs Teddy and Minnie and kindness to animals had to count for something.

And then there was her sister who would be a plus one because who knows what recent specimen she might have dragged out of one of those trendy inner city pubs that she now frequents ,the ones favored by dope smokers perennial government grant applicants and more than likely (unless blessed by family inheritance )dole dependant. The other two sisters with their husbands and kids and two wards of the state whom both the Minister for No Fun and her sister Mona were mentoring which seemed to allay their maternal instincts for the time being (they both having never married or had children )would make up the rest of the party. Oh and Hanky that enigmatic loudmouth but strangely interesting political hack each of the girls had met through Kev McC independently mainly at Lina’s wine bar in Albert Park and also at the Cricketer’s arms and Lamarro’s the more up market pub turned swanky bistro which Kev frequented when he was sure that it was someone else’s shout.

And why why invite a virtual stranger and an odd one at that into the warmth of the inner family circle of Christmas?Because there was something of the stray dog about him despite his sharp tailored suit fake bravado and booming oppressive opinionated voice.

As if he was an orphan an automaton ,a cyborg or some strange hybrid. And so for all the wrong reasons the girls felt sorry for him. Let us not unreasonably assume he was the first guest outside the family to arrive on Christmas Eve. Of course he was. The plan was for the traditional Australian Christmas lunch. Roasted meats baked vegetables and pudding with custard and cream in deference to their English heritage and Pavlova prawns fresh berries and stone fruits the produce of their particularly Australian colonial present. There was enough room in the house to accommodate the Minister ,her sister +1 in double beds ,two families and Lib on a stretcher on the enclosed porch. Hanky would be offered a tent in the backyard with access to all house facilities. He might’ve protested at this being beneath his dignity but the thought of driving 800 k,s back home

soon would have eased his wounded pride. Kev if he blew in which he was likely to do if the hospitality elsewhere ran thin could bunk in with Hanky in the tent.

Kev is a Dubliner born within spitting distance of the Liffey and he has in him that peculiarly Irish melancholia which emerges after a few drinks and causes him to lapse into sad reminiscences of the dear departed and the no longer present and on this occasion that poor baby Jesus whose birthday was the occasion of all this kerfuffle .It’s an Irish thing ,a strange entanglement of brain and brew that extends back into the mists of Celtic time.

Christmas Eve was a veritable hubbub of activity checking off of lists ,arrivals ,allocation of rooms ,the odd child mishap (one got his thumb caught in a mouse trap )the preparation of food and the seasoning of meats in readiness for the oven in the morning .Mona had nominated herself to make the pav using her dear departed mother’s faded recipe plucked out of the family bible.The secret was to get it to rise and stay risen without burning. Would this avowed feminist succeed at the culinary challenge when her skills extended little beyond a breakfast of scrambled eggs and a post coital cigarette?We shall see.

The fuses blown and replaced because all the lights and all the appliances including the air-conditioner were drawing the maximum power ,the last minute panic over missing ingredients ,a double check if there was enough beer and wine and enough ice in the bath to keep it cold etc. etc. lead finally to a moment of good enough and just too tired to do anymore that called for a Christmas Eve toast.

And just as they were about to raise their glasses in a scene glowing with the warmth of family closeness and shared effort and the promise of Christmas cheer who should suddenly swing into the drive at number three Bayview Parade Mollymook, his headlights on full beam shining in through the bay windows momentarily transfixing them all like stunned rabbits but Hanky the outsider. He looked bedraggled after nine hours on the road and the Minister didn’t have the heart to make him pitch a tent in the backyard.

So ,she offered him Libby,s spot on the porch without quite realizing that possession being the greater part of the law she would have difficulty wresting the offer back when the time came. Poor Lib,she would be forced to pitch the tent on Christmas morning in blazing heat while attempting to maintain the conviviality of the season only to have a cool change sweep the tent away in the middle of the night in a summer down pour and drench her to the bone. Did she keep her chin up?Yep she did grinning and bearing it.She would bide her time in regard to the unchivalrous interloper Hanky whom she didn’t like anyway whom she understood had a thing going with Leonie although how much of the relationship was based around bullshit and booze it was difficult to say.

Probably all of it in her opinion. She had arrived mid morning having driven through the night and after the tent was hastily assembled the Minister asked Lib if she might like to give Mona a hand in the kitchen .

”She’s had a bit of a disaster with Mum’s pav”It looked like a miniature Mt Etna smoke included.

By lunchtime Libby had the kitchen all in order. The meat cooked and now resting and a new pav meringue hastily whipped up was rising and holding up a treat. Inside Hanky and the Minister’s brothers -in -law we’re having a beer and seeking to find some common ground. But every subject broached seemed to go nowhere and every question was countered with another question until the in-laws thought that they might never get off first base until they hit upon politics…

Liberal country party politics and they were away .

Hanky had worked as a speech writer for both sides of politics but his real interest was spin, disarming deceptive and deadly.On this occasion the political lines had already been drawn with the Minister ,her somewhat sex crazed sister and their two wards of the state representing the left sympathisers the tree hugging greenies the battlers,the welfare recipients the disenfranchised and any other disadvantaged group you could think of.

Dinner was served around mid day. Libby had assumed or had been forced to take over the role of maître d’ ,chief cook and as it turned out bottlewasher as well. She fussed and bothered making sure everything and everyone was attended to just right and by the time it came for her to sit down and enjoy the meal it was at best room temperature her appetite had flagged, no one seemed particularly mindful of the gargantuan effort she had just made to

pull it all together and so she was left with no other option than to congratulate herself with a mental pat on the back that had become all too common of late now that she was single and her daughters had left home.

The Minister a little tipsy by now was about to provoke a series of debates with the now quite drunk and ever more belligerent Hanky. She had in mind a couple of current hot potatoes that were sure to stick in his craw.

“So Hanky what about Australia Day, should it be a celebration of our nation or a day of mourning, you know. What about invasion day or dispossession day?

Whaddya reckon mate ?

The irony was bristling with hostility.

She just wanted him to enunciate his prejudice one more time in the hope that he might hear his own folly and feel some shame but no chance of that.His views were rusted on and impregnable.

‘Well “said Hanky ,”I can’t tell you how many millions or even billions of dollars successive governments have thrown at this and it hasn’t made one bit of difference”.

“Alright ,if they want to hang onto their culture and go back to wearing lap laps and eating witchety grubs,fine.

But if they want to be part of us they will need to get off the grog (ha! The Minister thought this was a bit rich coming from Hanky who was now gulping the dinner wine as if there was no tomorrow)

and get a job like everyone else though who,d employ em I don’t know .

Or fuck off back to Arnhem Land”.

You get the drift.

One of the Minister’s brothers -in-law objected to the use of the F word in front of the children.

Hanky appeared to capitulate but only briefly.

“You mean to say they’ve never heard a swear word before”,he blurted out

topping up his glass and managing to spill some onto the tablecloth in the process,

“What fn school do they go to….. some posh fancy fucking Sydney grammar school I s,pose off the proceeds of the land your forebears stole from the blackfellas “.

He let out a triumphant and self satisfied although involuntary Huh!Hanky was getting more involuntary by the minute.

Suddenly the tone of the Christmas lunch had turned feral,home truths were about to be aired and who knows what deeper veins of discord Hanky might open up unwittingly.

The Minister for No Fun was at pains to shut it down and calm the waters.

She and Jim took the brother -in -law aside and begged him to let it go.

“Let it go ,don’t buy into it ,he’s spoiling for a fight “they said “and if he wont “Jim declared quietly “I,ll fucking flatten the little cunt”.He was quite a big fella and more than capable of delivering on this promise.

By 5 o,clock the kids were completely ratty their mothers out the back trying to keep them protected from the sun and each other’s spitefulness.

Libby was still busy in the kitchen monitoring the distribution of courses and the cleaning up.They were at the relaxed end of the day.

Coffee tea biscuits and cheese on a self serve basis.

By now the heat of the day and the conversation was easing. A cool change was on its way the skyline out to sea darkened and just as the Minister was thinking of broaching the subject of MeToo and the defamation laws,Kev MCC breezed in appearing

as if he had been teleported to the door and at the eleventh hour to take advantage of the lull in proceedings.He has a knack for this sort of timing, arriving late to the table when all hands had been more or less declared.

“How’d ya be all ?”said Kev grinning mischievously and shaking his head over something that seemed to be preoccupying him perhaps from his previous engagement but soon dissipated when Mona got up to greet him

“Cold beer Kev ?oh and happy Christmas .”She proceeded to kiss both his cheeks in the European style and then planted a third kiss smack on the lips .

“Don’t mind if I do “Kev replied chuckling to himself .

Sizing things up quickly he was thinking that here there might be some easy pickings .

“And some water for Billy the bastard if you please”

“Here Billy here Biiilllyyy good boy “as Kev’s Doberman barged in slobbering and straining this way and that on his leash.

“Kev ,”Mona did the introductions ,”this is Jose my new squeeze he’s from Barcelona “

,knowing that the poor bugger grinning all the while like the cat who just got the milk would have no idea what a squeeze was.

Kev attempted an impersonation of Manuel from Faulty Towers in an attempt to ingratiate himself but it went over the Spaniards head like a lead balloon although Kev found it very amusing.

He recovered well enough and after proposing a toast to the ghosts of Christmases past which was a little obscure in its meaning ,not that anyone cared at this juncture ,he began to engage Jose on his travels in Europe.Kev is a skilled conversationalist and one can observe him here seeking to distract his opponent after his initial blunder gaining time to devise his next gambit.

He proceded to expound on the machinations of King Henry VIII and the Spanish Armada which during one of Spain’s fracas with England had been wrecked of the west coast of Ireland.

Kev told Jose with every bit of sincerity that he could muster what was really a bald faced lie that he was a direct descendant of one of those shipwrecked sailors;

Raphael of Córdoba no less.

Poor Jose didn’t know what to make of all this so he stuck to what he knew that he was sleeping with Mona (his new squeeze )and being a hot blooded Spaniard with a touch of the moor’s cunning that was all he needed to know.Kev’s attempt to draw the cultural battle lines and insinuate himself preposterously into the fray went nowhere.

All the while through the hustle and bustle the ebb and flow of proceedings Jim sat largely silent but observing everything enjoying the Christmas fare.

At one point he got up and went into the lounge to check the cricket scores on the TV.

That’s when they realised that several bushfires had broken out around the Scone district and the thought struck the Minister for No Fun and her family like a shot of primordial fear through their hindbrains that the farms might be at risk.

The news had hardly landed when The Ministers mobile beeped.

It was an sms from the CFA .

‘Fire Alert’

She had been a member all her adult life and was currently voluntary area coordinator for the Scone area.

Everyone seemed to look at each other and back again as quiet panic set in.

The Minister was quick to come up with a plan .The season of goodwill had evaporated.

The two farming families would pack up and head back immediately.

The Minister grabbed her CFA jacket and hard hat out of the ute to flag that her intentions were urgent and asked Mona what she was going to do.

“I think I might just hang for a bit and see what unfolds “she said a little feebly.By this stage the Spaniard was sitting on her lap.

Unfold …the Minister thought to herself … I know what’s going to bloody unfold here.

“No you don’t “,she commanded her younger sister.

“You and the bf can take the girls to Newcastle ,put them on the train to Sydney and get up to the farm as fast as you can”.

The Minister meant business.

Mona looked disappointed.She’d been building sexual tension all day whispering sweet nothings into the Spaniard’s ear and giving Kev the eye whose interest had been sparked by her tonguing him surreptitiously on his arrival.

“Come on let’s go Jim”.

That left Kev and Hanky.

Hanky was nowhere to be found.Later Kev found him passed out by the side of Libby’s tent.

Kev backed out of the driveway taking his leave as he had arrived still preoccupied but now with his next destination ,Spiros’ holiday place at Lake Mulwalla.

When the Minister for No Fun got to Bindi there was indeed a bushfire advancing from the southern corner and another grassfire heading in the opposite direction.Three CFA trucks were in attendance but they didn’t seem worried.The incident had been downgraded to a watch and act.

A group of aboriginals were milling around, one holding a firestick .

“Happy Xmas Missus “they giggled eyes downcast as the Minister approached .She surveyed the scene.

“Cultural burning eh Jackie ?”,she addressed her comments to the elder whom she had known since she was a girl.

“Yes missus just cleaning up the land a bit like old times you know”.The Minister wasn’t happy with events as they had turned out but was quietly resigned to it nontheless.

Just then she noticed a strange shimmering like a mirage at the leading edge of the grassfire approaching.It was a plague of mice scurrying to escape but headed for the firefront in the opposite direction.

Suddenly a jumbuck leapt out of the smoky haze its woolly coat charred and smouldering.

It took the Minister by surprise. “Jesus Jacky !” She was tempted to berate the black man for all his misdemeanours ,lighting a fire on a total fire ban day ,endangering life and livestock and property (not to mention disrupting her Christmas lunch) but she held back sensing no reconciliation of their differing points of view on this Christmas day.

The ewe fell at their feet.

The Minister could only see a fleece of 10 micron superfine merino wool that had just gone up in smoke.A flock of black cockatoos wheeled and screeched overhead.

Jacky on the other hand just grinned and slinging the burnt carcass onto his shoulders

said “no problem missus we,ll chuck it on the fire for lunch,no point leavin it for the crows eh?

Happy Xmas missus”.

Back at Mollymook Mona and Jose had returned after dropping off their charges at the railway station.All the mess and paraphernalia of Christmas day had been cleaned up and cleared away thanks to “good ol’ bottled sunshine “ Lib, not that any one gave her a second thought.Kev was half way to his next port of call having broken down on the Newell and having had to bum a ride with a shearer via Wilcannia which was a bit out of his way.And Hanky and all trace of his attendance had disappeared,but he was sure to materialise again like the Terminator back in town at one or other of his familiar haunts.

The cricket was playing still on the TV as the Minister came through the door looking a little hot and bothered from her ordeal.Jim settled in to watch it with a beer. Mona gave the Minister a slightly guilty self indulgent but enquiring look as if to say so what happened.

The Minister just flopped on the couch next to Jim ,grabbed the beer out of his hand, skulled it and before bursting into tears blurted out two words just two words now that she was amongst family and it was clear to all that Christmas had turned into a complete fiasco,

“Bloody Blackfellas”

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