Not far from Ballarat, along the highway between Caralulup and Lamplough, on a road riddled with cracks and bumps, down a main street spanning the width of three road trains, in the finger-smudged window of a “Rare Books” shop, was a sign:
“Glouds’ bookshops are open all year long.”
The boast hung right above a yellowing scrap of paper that detailed the adhered-to business hours in Baskerville Old Face: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: Closed. Along the street, more signs were fixed to the storefronts with sticky tape or coloured blu tak; similar statements in similar fonts, and in varying degrees of shabbiness:
“We open on weekends.”
“No business Mon-Thurs.”
“Out – come back Sunday.”
Glouds was the name of the town, and it was widely acclaimed for its rich colonial history, as “an outstanding example of positive preservation”; meticulous, down to the smallest detail. Though barely significant enough to rate a mention in the Gold Rush history books, the town had been the site of a small Gold Miner’s strike in 1858, and the locals held onto this tiny piece of heritage with fierce pride. Shop after shop dripped with painstaking historical accuracy. A blacksmith, of course, with a working forge. A saddlery, oh yes, for the absent horses, for the boots that were never bought by the residents, who scuttled into Ballarat every few months to sheepishly shop at K-mart. A creek, naturally, rumoured to run rivers of gold and shroud the souls of expired prospectors, about whom any local could recite a few well-chosen verses of bush poetry. In this sort of colonial tribute there might have been the danger of an overstated touristy feel, but for the noticeable lack of tourists. The grey nomads, the nose-pierced backpackers, the honeymooners, the hipsters; they hadn’t found Glouds yet, it seemed.
But the Gloudsians were content with their little portion of history as it was; they had no need to share, no need to profit, no need to capitalise on the vintage, the quaint, the cute niceties about their town. They lived, for the most part, without drama, without trouble, without spats or grudges or debts or terror. Each did his or her job – see that was Di who ran the cafe, that was Bill who lopped the branches when they grew too far off the nature strip, that was Owen who was the Mayor and also bottled his own pears, and see over there, that was Jimbo, the town bum who carried plastics bags of tin cans and nails and most days got a free cuppa from Di – and it worked. It was the type of community, the type of family that was rarely seen; the kind of bucolic paradise that one imagines when dreaming of a simpler time.
That morning, the curling sign in the bookshop (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: Closed,) had peeled from the glass in one corner. A small pothole had appeared in the intersection near the Post Office, causing the few cars that traversed the main street to thwump ever so slightly. And a notice had appeared in the local paper. It was hiding in the classifieds, peeking from under the Public Announcements and nestled between an MTS Scrap Metal advert and a phone number for free solar power quotes. It simply read:
LEVEL 10 WATER RESTRICTIONS NOW IN PLACE
Information Night in the Town Hall on Thursday
to discuss our options.
***
“How’re you going Bill?”
“Oh not bad, for an old bloke.”
The man named Bill leant uneasily on the counter. Despite his still-abundant head of silver hair, he had a look about him, the look of a man who, whether through hardship or grief or merely years of physical labour, had aged young. Something melancholy about the eyes. He was tall, and carried an Akubra and a knobbly walking stick; the hat and cane of a true gentleman. He smiled at the woman who was now busy at the coffee machine, her face obscured by milky steam.
“Business going alright, Di?”
A guffaw erupted from the cloud of vapour, and a laughing face emerged.
“Not at all! God knows why I do this whole ‘buy four get the fifth one free’ nonsense, everyone’ll be getting their cuppa for nothing and I’ll be broke! It’s killing my till. Hold up love, sorry, the machine’s chucking a spaz again.”
The woman grabbed a dusty cloth and started scrubbing furiously at the boiling milk that had splattered every inch of the counter. She was plump and lined and had a sternness to her that could be perceived as a touch of the aggressive. But all who knew Di knew that this prickliness was just a shield. She always had time, despite her constant insistence that “she was run off her feet and heading to an early grave because of this thrice accursed cafe business!” If she liked you, she had your back. If not, she’d be at your back.
Luckily she liked most people.
“There you go, love.”
Bill took his chipped mug and gazed absently around the cafe. Di was faithful in keeping the place looking its best, circa 1858. “It’s all authentic, even the cobwebs have been there since the Gold Rush!” Di would always joke, wiping down the decorative barrels in the corner or stretching on tiptoe to dust the rusty horseshoe above the door. Some of the illusion was broken by the garish Streets ice-cream freezer in the corner and the radio blaring Classic Rock FM all day. But the place was warm, full of light, and always welcoming.
“Hold onto the word of God.”
The voice had come from the table by the window where an elderly woman sat, her shoes not quite touching the ground. Di looked up from the counter, Bill glanced over his coffee.
“You alright there, Joan?”
Joan nodded, her veiny legs swinging. She had tissue paper hands that looked ready to rip at the smallest graze; so thin that her tiny knuckles stuck right through, pale and stark. She had tufts of white hair and a bony body under a formless cardigan. But her eyes sparkled, chatoyant; gems in sagging skin. A newspaper sat neatly folded on the table. She had it opened at the weather report.
Everyone jumped as the cafe door swung wide open and a huge man with a bowling ball belly lolloped in, bellowing in a loud tenor.
“Made the front page again! I’ll be on it again next week too, I can guarantee that!”
Di rolled her eyes.
“All hail Glouds’ celebrity!” she cried with a mock bow. “You’re on the front page every bloody week, Owen, it’s not so impressive anymore.”
Owen beamed, his eyes disappearing beneath his round schoolboy cheeks.
“Just doing my mayoral duties, Di! You alright Bill? Joanie?”
Bill smiled and raised his mug in a salute. Joan tugged at a strand of hair and grinned with all her teeth, her soft little voice almost singing:
“And don’t forget to take the children to the train, they can’t be late, it leaves at eleven sharp, make sure they have their school uniforms ironed.”
Owen’s face softened.
“Of course, Joan.”
He pulled at his collar and accepted the takeaway cup from Di.
“And everyone make sure you’re at the Town Hall on Thursday. Exciting meeting happening!”
Brian looked up from the table.
“I saw something about that in the paper. It’s about the water, right? Because my water troughs haven’t been-”
“Yes, well, plenty of time to chat on Thursday, must dash, busy busy busy!” Still beaming, Owen bounced out of the cafe. Di shook her head.
“Honest to God, I’ve got about 20 odd papers around with his bloody face on it. I’ll take it home for me birds to poop on,” she grumbled, ambling over to the sink.
Bill watched as Di’s meaty hand twisted the cold faucet. Water trickled into the sink, hot, dusty brown, beading like sweat on the stainless steel. Di twisted the tap again. Nothing. A singsong voice was heard from the corner next to the window.
“I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.”
***
Ruth Gilmour is an emerging Australian author and playwright from Gunnedah, NSW. She graduated with a Bachelor of Dramatic Art in 2013, and was tutored in scriptwriting under the celebrated Australian playwright, Donna Abela. Writing credits for theatre include The Drunk Diaries (Excelsia Theatre) and Cradle Me (Excelsia Theatre). Most recently, Ruth’s stories have been published in the 2017 Newcastle Short Story Anthology, Stringybark Story’s A Nice Boy and Hunter Writers Centre’s Grieve Volume 5. Her poetry has appeared in the Words of Wyndham Anthology. Ruth is currently writing and performing in shows for Babble Productions, a theatre company run by herself and her husband.