I wear Chloe’s pink gumboots when shovelling wombat shit at Daryl Cunningham’s place. It’s cube-shaped, their shit. Stops it rolling away. They use it to communicate with other wombats, mark their territory. Daryl had me out the back marking his territory the other day. I never want to see another fence post. Thought I’d need a chiropractor. Started thinking Billy Kerslake got it easy. Poor bastard went overboard. Got a job on a trawler, never seen again. We still think Ray had something to do with it.

This place has a million ways of killing you. I could hit my head on a tree stump tomorrow. It happens. Just ask Daryl. That was how he lost his father. Search party found him wrapped around a stump, the way a kid might wrap themselves around a parent’s leg on their first day of school. Daryl was never the same after that, but now he has a farm, and an employee — me.

If only he’d shut up about my gumboots.

*

“You need work,” says Chloe, rubbing her belly.

That’s how this job came about. She’s preggers. First pay went towards a ring. Must do everything right. I would’ve asked her dad for permission — had it all planned out. Just the two of us one Saturday arvo, kicking back, coldies in hand, watching the footy.

“You’re a good lad,” he’d say. “Kick the damn thing!”

“Cheers,” I’d say, swigging my beer. “Can I ask you something?”

“Chloe did good to find you,” he’d grin.

It would’ve gone smoothly and our team would’ve won. Instead, he lies in Bunji Cemetery beside an old gum that looks more precarious by the second. Heart attack. Ambos too far away. They talked about creating a District Hospital once, but funding went elsewhere. Next town over wanted a new tourism experience — some tree-top shit, with flying foxes. You better have aspirin, CPR-trained missus and some good luck if you don’t plan on croaking it here.

So, Chloe’s dad left her, just a different way to mine. I knew Dad’s fists better than the rest of him. By the time I was ten, he’d shot through. For the best. You can understand why this whole situation makes me nervous.

“Be the dad you always wanted,” says Mum, bless her.

It’s a lot though. A lot of pressure.

But we’re good fighters here. You learn it in school playgrounds. You learn it in hallways of homes torn apart. You learn it outside Bunji Bar and Bistro, waiting on a dad who never emerges.

Here, a victory belt looks like raising a happy, healthy kid and that’s all I can hope for.

*

“Where can I meet Joe Bourke?” they ask, thinking he’s the town mayor, a person on the up, someone to know. I point them in the direction of Daryl’s. I don’t mention Joe is a large wombat.

Before you reach the ocean, you pass ramshackle houses, and beyond these lie bushland and forest, rolling green fields and farmland. Daryl Cunningham lives at the edge of the forest, where trees disappear for grazing. Half-in, half-out of something, just like he has been all his life.

“What’s with the sign?” I ask. “No emus allowed?”

He grunts, walks away, like I touched a sensitive topic. “You wouldn’t understand, mate.”

There’s plenty I don’t understand, especially when it comes to Daryl and the unspoken stories of this town. They simmer away beneath the surface, occasionally spilling over at events like the Best and Fairest. They say you can still find traces of Maureen’s pavlova on the function room walls at Bunji Bar and Bistro. Scotty Jarman copped a bottle to the head; he says he must retire due to concussion. Claims it has nothing to do with his daily weed habit or being a lousy back pocket who rarely gets a game.

Last year’s Best and Fairest was also the final time I saw Billy. There were rumours he had found packages washed ashore along the coast and started dealing. Not the kind of thing that would get past Ray. You don’t invade his patch and live to tell the tale.

Billy was swaying against the bar, slurring his words. “I know about your old man.”

I don’t know what he meant by that. Chloe says not to worry about it, just to focus on our future, instead of the past, as it can’t be changed. I think she’s reading books on Buddhism from the District Library, the same one that displayed Missing Persons posters of Billy Kerslake, before his mum tore them down.

“Billy would never be seen dead in a place like this,” she says. She’s probably self-conscious about her ninth-grade education, like many around here.

“Just do your best,” says Mum.

So, this is what I do and Chloe says she’s proud of me and that is good enough.

*

You can hear ocean waves rolling ashore from our bedroom. I hope this lulls our new addition into blissful sleep. We still haven’t thought of a name, chose not to learn the gender during the last scan.

“What will be, will be,” smiles Chloe. She’s been into those hippie books again.

“Found us a cradle,” I say. “Bargain. Just needs a lick of paint.”

She holds my face in her hands, kisses my lips. “Initiative,” she beams. “Where has all this come from?”

“Must be shovelling all that wombat shit,” I laugh.

I drive to the edge of town, park the wagon outside a weatherboard shack with a rusted iron roof. Sounds of Cold Chisel echo through an open window. Old bikes litter the pathway to the veranda; a torn couch sits by the front door.

“Darl!” a woman calls from inside. “Bloke here about the cradle!”

A man opens a flyscreen, places the cradle at my feet. He stands there in blue Stubbies and a white singlet, scratching his three-day growth.

“Feels sturdy enough,” I say, handing over forty bucks.

“Thanks, cobber,” he replies. “You Tommy’s kid by any chance? Bloody hell, ya look like him!”

I feel the blood drain from my face; the ghost of my old man and all he was is following my first steps into fatherhood.

“Yeah,” I admit. “I’m Tommy’s kid.”

“Thought so,” he says. “Remember seeing ya waiting outside the Bar. We felt bad, so would bring ya over a glass of sars.”

“Probably why I can’t stand it now,” I sigh.

“Ask Daryl about him, mate,” he says. “They did a stretch together back in the day. He knows something.”

I make room for the cradle beside tins of paint. I try to imagine a newborn in it, own flesh and blood staring back at me. I open the driver’s door, grip the wheel, stare ahead at white caps over the ocean. Tears roll down my face.

*

I hear it was tourists looking for Joe Bourke that found a disturbance. Scotty Jarman says cadaver dogs can locate a body ten feet underground. I’m not sure how he knows this but guess it’s lucky he was discovered two feet down. Medallion around his neck identified him. Engraved with two names — his and some other woman’s.

Mum was good to be rid of him. I have to ask though. “Did you have anything to do with this?”

She rolls her eyes, looks at me like she did when I mentioned enrolling in TAFE. “What do you think?”

“I wouldn’t blame you, Mum.”

“Prick wasn’t worth the hassle.” She flicks ash on the ground. “Not even worth diggin’ a hole for.”

Chloe is asking about the funeral, says it might provide closure.

“I can help,” she says. “I organised most of Dad’s.”

It’s good she has experience with this, though I wish she didn’t. She deserves to cruise through life without knowing this kind of heartache.

“At least yours was a good man,” I say. “He deserved a nice send-off.”

She rubs my shoulders, tells me it will be okay, says we have good things to look forward to. She sticks her belly out when she says this, shimmies, bursts into laughter. Don’t know what I would do without her. “Want to go for a counter meal? It’s Parma Night.”

“Sounds good,” I say.

I watch Keno numbers flash across a screen, scrunch up my ticket, return to Chloe and reality.

“That was lovely,” she says.

“Agreed,” I say, looking towards the bar. A man falls from a stool, is helped to his feet by mates.

“God,” sighs Chloe. “It’s only seven-thirty.”

“You’re gonna kill me if I say where our cradle came from.”

She stares at the drunk man, then back at me, eyes wide. Kicks my shin under the table.

“Oh no,” I groan. “He’s coming over.”

“Did ya hear, mate?” he slurs. “Daryl got bail.”

“What?”

“They released him,” he says. “He’s back on the farm.”

“Let’s go,” says Chloe, rising to her feet.

“What ya gonna do about it?” the man grins. “Pay him a visit?”

*

“Old gum had to go,” says Curly, proud of his job on council. “Can you imagine if someone got killed in a cemetery?”

I force a smile, hold Chloe’s hand, stare across at her dad’s grave, then back to the hole at my feet.

“Thanks for coming,” the celebrant says to the small crowd. I don’t hear the rest.

Just chuck me in the ground, he used to say. Don’t make a fuss.

Now we stand here, doing exactly that — but unlike most people, he’s being put in the ground for the second time. He was always different.

“Must be soon,” people say to Chloe, before turning to me with sympathetic faces. “Are you ready to be a dad?”

Instead of telling them to piss off, I smile, nod, and say lame things like, “Is anyone ever ready?” Then we all chuckle awkwardly and attention shifts to the other dad everyone is talking about.

“Real shame,” they say. “Never thought he abandoned you.”

I admire Chloe’s patience. She will be a good mum. She continues making small talk, while my gaze wanders the cemetery; I’m thinking of lives beneath headstones, wondering if they were good parents.

A man stands at the edge of the cemetery, where graves stop and pine trees begin. Half-in, half-out, just like he’s always been.

*

A four-wheeler grinds to a halt, kelpie leaping from the tray. “I’ve been expecting you,” says Daryl.

“They told me you didn’t do it,” I say, heart racing. “But know who did.”

“Does it matter?” he says. “End result is the same.”

A black crow lands on a fence post, one of those erected during my first days. We watch it. Two men, with two fathers, both dead in the same patch of bush.

“I have a right to know,” I say. “For years I thought he just walked out.”

“He did, mate,” Daryl says, kicking the dirt. “His priorities were never with you lot.”

Chloe was right; I should never have driven out to Daryl’s farm. But the urge to know the truth overrides common sense.

“You don’t snitch in our line of work,” he says.

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” I say, looking him in the eye. That catches Daryl off-guard; he steps backwards, then looks at my gumboots and laughs.

“Your old man never left that life behind,” he says. “He always thought he was some tough gangster, rolling with Ray and that crew. He refused to grow up, even when you came along; it was them who finally cracked it, let him have it.”

“But you knew he was here,” I press. “You knew all along.”

“Didn’t know where exactly,” he explains, gazing across the bushland. “But sometimes you owe a favour. I didn’t ask questions when Ray turned up one day, tarp in the back of a Land Rover.”

I walk towards the wagon. I’ve heard enough. I turn the ignition and Daryl leans over the driver’s door.

“I think he wanted to love you, mate,” he says.

*

I borrow Curly’s Skyline, the one with a new intercooler, but it’s still not fast enough. We pull over near Boorie Lookout and a cloud of rocks flies up. Curly hasn’t mentioned the crack in the windshield yet. Perhaps he’s too concerned with the mess on the seats. I placed a beach towel over them though. Can’t say I didn’t try.

“Congrats, brother,” he says, shaking my hand. “You’re one of us now.”

I’m relieved he doesn’t mention the seats, instead welcoming me to an unspoken club. He got me a gig on the council road crew — fewer potholes between here and the hospital now.

Chloe did great. I knew she would. It wasn’t ideal but life rarely is. You learn to roll with the punches. Promise I haven’t been into those hippie books. This stuff just changes you, does something to how one sees the world.

“Never thought I’d see you in church,” laughs Mum, when we arrive at the baptism.

“Must do everything right,” I tell her. “About time someone did.”

Daryl doesn’t attend. He’s back inside, doing time for perverting the course of justice. Had to sell his farm. Tourism developers snapped it up. Rumour says it will be a wildlife sanctuary — has enough wombats already.

Billy Kerslake’s mother did the catering for us. She’s turned over a new leaf. She put up posters of Billy in the library again, says the place isn’t so bad, after she discovered their Women’s Weekly cookbooks. Now her pavs give Maureen’s a run for their money.

“Do you have a date?” asks Mum, eager for our wedding. She’s given up the smokes, says she wants to be around to see her grandchild grow up.

“Once we’re settled,” I assure her. “You’ll be first invited.”

Chloe and I walk the beach each day. I push the pram while she collects seashells. “Think I might attend a craft course,” she says. “With the mums from post-natal class.”

She never ceases to amaze me.

We walk into the dunes and continue up the pathway to the Point that overlooks the patch of coastline we call Bunji. We sit together on the bench, the one dedicated to a man named Tommy who once loved a son but didn’t know how. We hold our baby girl, smile in awe at this creation, the love we share, an unwritten future ahead.

“Thank you,” I say to Chloe.

“What for?” she laughs.