Read Online How I Became the Mr. Big of People Smuggling by Martin Chambers - Free Book Online

he?’
    â€˜Maybe wouldn’t have to. There’d have to be some of you left after Margaret finished with you.’
    â€˜Margaret?’
    â€˜Yeah. Last thing she’d want is to have you complicating it all. She’s as tough as Palmenter.’
    And that was it. I didn’t know him well enough back then to ask him more.
    The night after that particular muster we had a barbecue in the machinery shed. Spanner parked the grader and vans outside and wheeled out some portable barbecues and tubs of ice. A tinny stereo played both kinds of music and the muster crew and the truck drivers lined up in a sort of circle drinking and carrying on. I can’t remember if the chopper crew were there; I thought they were but they never came to any of the parties after that so perhaps I’m wrong. I’m sure Palmenter didn’t come, he must have stayed inside the homestead. It was dismal at first. There were about twenty of us blokes and a couple of wives of the muster crew who were later arguing with the men. It is important when you run a party to either have enough girls for everyone, or just none, no wives. They complicate things.
    One of the muster crew had a guitar and thankfully he played better than the stereo so things started to warm up. Cookie carried out some steaks and set them on the bench, we began cooking them and drinking and because we had something to do it was soon all right. And then the girls arrived.
    There were six of them. I hadn’t seen the girls when they arrived at the station but here they were. They walked acrosscarrying plates of salad and stuff, being led by Margaret like a mother duck with her ducklings. Suddenly it went silent, everyone stopped talking or carrying on and watched them. Lucy was one of them. They walked across from the homestead with all eyes on them and an expectant hush, an expectant and almost evil hush, like before you slaughter one of the beasts for meat and despite all the bravado and derring-do just before the bullet, or just after, everyone stops, goes quiet. Big blokes and all, they all feel it but none say it. Then the guitar began again and I swear it was just like at the bus stop when the St Mary’s bus pulled up, us all showing off and skylarking, talking louder than we needed to and all the time half looking at those girls.
    I’d had a few beers and I didn’t usually drink so much. A beer or two with Spanner in the late afternoon was all. I was a bit tipsy. Spanner had said not to go there so I was trying to ignore the girls and all the machismo, raised voices. Some of the guys were dancing, I remember people coming and going, I had a few more beers and went out to where the machinery had been parked to make room for the party. I climbed up and lay on the flat bonnet of the grader, by myself with the machinery and the vast sky and the endless black distance. I watched the stars. The air was so dry and the stars so brilliant and I was thinking that this was not me. I did not belong here. It was so beautiful, it was good fun, everyone was having a good time but I didn’t belong. Suddenly I was homesick. I began to cry. I was at a party but I was alone, and instead of enjoying myself I was thinking of home where I had left without saying goodbye. I had not talked to Mum and Dad or had a letter from them and I wondered did I even belong back there. Were they that angry with me?
    â€˜Why are you sad?’
    Through my quiet tears I saw that someone had come out and was standing near the grader.
    It was Lucy.
    I didn’t answer right away. I dried my eyes and thought about it for a long time.
    â€˜It’s just so beautiful and it makes me feel so lonely.’
    She climbed up next to me.
    â€˜Well, you don’t have to be by yourself. My name is Lucy.’ Shelay back beside me. ‘You are right, it makes us alone to look at the stars that there are so many and yet all of them are alone too, but it is so beautiful.