Chapter 21

I laughed.

With tears flowing down my cheeks, I laughed.

Uncontrollably, and teary cheeked, salty drops dripping off my chin, I laughed.

After a few minutes, Jim turned to Jenny and said, “What’s going on?”

“I think it’s hysteria ... do something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know ... something.”

The nanny/wet nurse stepped into the room and slapped the shit outta me.

“OW!”

Once more with feeling...

“OW!” Rubbing my wet and inflamed cheeks, I said, “What did you do that for?”

Jim and Jenny both said, “Well, that was something. It worked.”

Jim said, “Good job. What’s your name?”

“Because I was born under a sycamore tree, the People call me Myndee.”

“Ah,” said Jenny, “Acer pseudoplatanus. Invasive species. Imported from England but not native to the Isles. Ancestry is central Asia. First discovered in England in 1500. Brought as seed to Sydney, Australia by an unknown convict in 1789. Thrives in wetlands.” She looked up. “Sorry, hobby of mine.”

“Invasive species?” Myndee said. “I’m tagged after a Foreign Tree?”

“Looks like,” Jenny said.

I was still rubbing my sore jaw ... I might even be nursing a grudge. “Son of a gun, you struck a mighty blow...” or something along that line. I was fairly frazzled. The past month had been difficult, to say the least.

Myndee said, “Sorry Boss. Yer ankle biter is washed, nappie changed, dirty in the bin in the dunny. She’s sucking the dummy, fresh jumper. Me kit is in the boot. Kip in the ankle biters room? Soon as I freshen, I’ll rustle up some tucker and we’ll bog in.”

Jim took one look at my face, “And you thought my accent was outrageous.”

“What did she say?” I asked.

Myndee said, “Sorry, Boss. You’re a Yank?”

I nodded.

In a very Television Newscaster accent she said, “The baby is changed, washed, sleeping with a pacifier and dressed in a clean outfit. I tossed the diaper in the wetbasket in the bathroom. My clothes are in the boot ... you yanks call it the trunk. I need to know the sleeping arrangements ... do I have my own room or do I sleep in the nursery? As soon as I have a wash I’ll find the kitchen and cook. What?”

We were past astounded ... and looked it.

“I’ve been living on the street and you gotta fit in. When mum died I had her insurance and the house ... taxman took the house and “Friends” took my money ... I was raped and miscarried in my eighth month. You looked like good people and I needed to find a place.”

Another failure of the system.

She was near tears and Jenny folded her in her arms. A bit of shuddering and whispering. Jenny motioned us outside.

Jim and I fetched her sacks and bags from the trunk. We took our time.

“What do ya think, Jim?”

“You put her out on the street and I’ll never speak to you again,” he said.

“Fancy her, do you?”

That got the thousand yard stare.

“Where’s my truck?”

“In my garage.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t very well leave eighteen million on the street, now, could I?”

“It’s still in the truck?”

“You had other things on your mind.”

“I did, didn’t I.” Not a question ... a simple statement of fact. My mind had been elsewhere.

I was still pretty much of a mess.

As a hobby, on public lands or private with the landholders WRITTEN permission, Seventy thousand a year is tax free. However, any attempt to amortize the equipment bought takes it out of the hobby classification and places the miner in the industrial class ... then it’s taxable. That was gleaned from days of researching alluvial fossicking (prospecting as a hobby) and the AU tax code.