Chapter 1

Songwriter: Ewan MacColl written for Peggy Seeger, London, England, 1957.
Hit song for Roberta Flack, 1972

♫The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and the stars
were gifts you gave
to the dark and the endless skies

The first time ever I kissed your mouth
I felt the earth move in my hands
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That is then at my command
My love

The first time ever I lay with you
I felt your heart so close to mine
And I knew our joy would fill the earth
And last til the end of time
My love

The first time ever I saw your face
Your face
Your face
Your face♫

Graham

This pub is always crowded on a Friday night. I remember one Christmas Eve I got in here, it was a Friday night, (in my circle that would be pronounced, "tits Frydi night," their education can be somewhat lacking) and two thirds of the packed crowd were bloody women making it impossible to move. I hate trying to have a quiet drink with a gaggle of drunken women! They're not civilised!

Today's Friday and we finished work about three. The five of us are working on a demolition job in Rutherford, part of the old knitting factory. We all work for Eziemploy Day Labour, a fairly long-term company compared to most of its ilk, which have a tendency to be fly-by-night. We all pile into my current model black V8 Holden ute * and head straight to our normal watering hole in Maitland. Four of us, Chris, Billy and Mitchy and I, went to school together, but Midge is a University student earning spending money to go on to his final year and make repayments on an expensive purchase he had made a short while ago. There's certainly nothing Uni-student-like about the rest of us. We were never given that opportunity, all our families short on dosh, if we've got any family left at all, that is.

*It's been pointed out to me that none of the poorly educated amongst you'll know what a ute is so, presuming you know how to use the modern invention of a computer and the internet, go here –

http://www.holden.com.au/cars/ute/range/holden-ute

(and may the good lord have mercy on your souls). It's known as the ultimate hoon car, designed for overpaid twenty your old males without obligations to show off in, until they write it off completely, a status symbol par excellence for the immature.

mthommotoo

Chris, Billy and Mitchy have some family, the few Billy and Chris have are on the dole though Chris's mum works casual at the Night and Day Pub in Cessnock, thirty minutes from here (which most of us call 'Nicknock' to the in-bred's disgust). Billy's dad was hit by a truck while he was leaving Mitchy's place fifteen years ago, late at night. It killed him cold. They never found the truck or the driver. Mitchy's mum finished the job she herself started on and drank herself to death in the next six months after that. We all saw that coming. They were both always smashed, as was Mitchy's old man - their main drinking mate, but he just held it better. Nobody knows why the bloke was there so late at night. Maybe looking for her old man who was supposedly deep in the west of the state at the time; most likely not, though. We were only kids then, ten, almost eleven, but we were not all that innocent even then. We grew up very fast, what with the adults we had as parents.

I'm Graham, Graham Guilford. Everyone calls me the Shortarse, as I'm not. Even my teachers at school, from primary up, called me that. I'm twenty-five, the same as the rest of my mates; except for Midge, he's something like twenty. I'm sort of largish, but I try to not make a thing of it. My old lady shot through with Chris' old man when we were sixteen, which I guess makes us sort of related. About as distantly related as you can get, by our estimation. We haven't heard from either of them since.

Dad hung himself soon after. Everyone knew about them screwing each other, except Dad and Chris' mum. She handled it well, where Dad fell to pieces. I think she knew, but was ignoring it hoping it would just go away. It did and it didn't. Dad just didn't have a clue. Dad couldn't understand why I wouldn't talk to her or have anything to do with the bitch for the previous two years before she split. I was neither subtle nor silent about it, but he was in complete denial.

By eight o'clock Midge Hannigan is well on the road to becoming paralytic. At some time or other we all get that need, but he's having girl problems. That bitch fiancée of his dropped him during the week. She rubbed his nose in it by putting their diamond engagement ring out on E-Bay. That went down a treat, as that's how he found out the cow had dropped him. Harry, the site clerk for the job we're on, found it when he should've been working. The bitch even used her own name. That auction, or whatever they call it, is finishing tomorrow night.

We're watching him tonight as he could do something really rash, and getting drunk is probably the best way for him to handle it. I'm off the turps, as me and my pseudo half-brother are going to her place to get the ring back tonight. Neither Midge nor she knows that yet. She'll learn it the hard way. Billy and Mitchy are ours and Midge's alibi, as they are going to be at my place to attest I'm there after we leave the pub. It's all Billy's idea as he's our self-accredited ideas man, and, personally, I think the cops will see right through the story, but this is what mates do for each other, and the kid is in need.

The reason why me is because I can handle myself and I don't like women much. They don't like me much, either; as I been told often enough. It seems I frighten them with my size, and I won't kowtow to them (I won't treat them like a lady. I don't know many ladies ... though I knew one at school, she eventually became a lady of the night. At least she was honest with why she was screwing you, and, in the long run, she would cost a bloke less. She just made her hobby into a full time profession). 'Princesses' give me the shits. I'd a few girlfriends during high school because girls like football heroes, but they fucked around and tried to use me; thinking the big bloke was a fool. I wasn't, and I'm not. After Mum I lost all faith. I don't trust the bitches, much, anymore.

I sat on one beer all night and my mates drank steadily, just pacing themselves, and we ate a substantial counter-meal. Except Midge, of course, as all he's 'pacing' on is how quickly he can get smashed. We don't blame him, or try to match him one on one, we just look after him. That's what mates do, you see.

About nine we pile into my ute then crowd into my place carrying a carton of piss each, while I carry Midge over my spare shoulder with a carton of piss dangling from my spare hand. I plonk him onto the bed I slept in when I was a kid (after Dad's death I moved to his bedroom). All these blokes have slept in the spare bedroom at one time or another. Once I'm not in it there's room for three or more, easy. Even as a kid I needed a double bed, until I turned ten or eleven and had a growth spurt.

We've two pedal bikes waiting in the backyard that faces onto the rear dunny cart lane. That unlit, and rarely used lane, is slowly disappearing as the neighbouring yards all expand to fill the wasted space. It'll probably end up the width of a footpath then seal over like a mending wound, as long as the city council doesn't get wind of it.

The target house is in Lorn, the next suburb, which is just over the Hunter River Bridge. She lives there with her parents and little brother. We just can't let them see us. Well, that's the plan, anyway.

It takes us most of half an hour to ride the bikes there, because we keep off the road and don't use the dinky little handlebar light. The road is good in my car, but using the bike you can see and feel every little hole and ridge; even if it's a distinctly shorter distance with all the one-way streets you don't have to wend around like a maze. Maitland is one of the country's older towns, now small city, and the roads were designed with horse and foot traffic in mind.

When we return, instead of riding back to where we began I'm taking the bikes back to a house three doors up from mine which has been vacant for a month during major renovations. I've worked a few wet days off casually there as a carpenter, and have my own way in. That house's rear safety fences are half way across the back lane, so I can see the first of the rot setting in. None of his neighbours have said a word to council, but we've all had-a-chat and it won't last long after that house is complete.

The house lights are on, the place is lit up like a Christmas tree and there's shouting coming from inside. We don't have to creep onto the veranda, I think we could have marched a twenty one piece marching band up there and no one would've noticed.

I peek through the open front vertical blinds, and suddenly the plan changes. Yeah, there's a girl about Midge's style; a dyed blonde with too much make-up. Without the make-up she'd have been plain as the wall I'm leaning against. A woman, who looks simply like an older version of the girl proving the girl won't mature to have a distinguished appearance either, is holding the kid, the kid's face in her shoulder - crying. Mum has a look on her dial which, if aimed at me, would've made me duck for cover.

Beside them, shouting and him holding a diamond ring between his bony fingers, is our boss from the last job we all worked on ... or rather, the foreman. He's a fair man, and an honest man. He was a mate we all drank with at the pub whilst working together on the job we finished four months ago; still do, on the occasions our timings match up. We worked together for six months on a particularly nasty, uncomfortable smelly job at the local sewerage works relining a vat. We hadn't known Michael (Midge) Hannigan then.

I point at Chris and we agree, wordlessly, it'll have to be Chris who knocks. If I did it I'd give one of the women a heart attack when the door's answered. It'll have to be me who talks though, as Chris'll stand on his own tongue at the slightest pressure. Handling pressure is not one of Chris' strong points, even if he's good as my backup man in a fight. I haven't had many fights, and the very few I'd been forced to have were extremely short and to the point. Chris knocks and he'd be lucky to be heard over the shouting. Through the window Adam Richie stops his racket and walks to the door, sharply yanking it open.