Preface

It was three-deep at the bar. Friday, a scorcher of a day and the loggers were in town slaking their thirst. The generator out the back was taking the strain but what with having to open the fridges every few seconds, Gloria wondered if it would cope. The teachers from the local primary school were in, as was the Postmaster. The farmers had come into town for the chook raffle, and while the men got pissed, their wives were seated in the lounge drinking lemon squash. Gloria looked around for her husband. He was off shift and should have been helping her behind the bar, but he was nowhere to be found. She had young Jim from the general store in, re-filling the fridge and pulling beers, and Beryl, a farmer’s wife and as hardworking as they come, in the kitchen, cooking the meals. Gloria had never known it so busy. They’d taken over the hotel twenty years before in 1931, after the first owner dropped down dead of a heart attack while he was pulling a dark ale. Back then, Gloria’s husband, Frank, had been young and fit, and Gloria able, and they’d bought the pub with the proceeds from the sale of her recently deceased father’s farm. The day they moved in the trouble started. Gloria never could figure out why. First it was the put downs, then came the ridicule. It wasn’t long before he was knocking her about. He seemed to think she was his to do with whatever he liked. Being a mean-spirited, woman-hating man, that translated into the sorts of acts a man would have done jail time for if he’d done it to someone other than his wife. The night before had been the worst she’d ever known. Her body was bruised head to toe. It hurt to inhale, and she was sure he’d cracked a rib. She had to stand behind the bar serving her beery eyed regulars as she explained away her fat lip and the cut above her eye. Gloria was no mouse. She was a big-boned bushie’s daughter, as deft with a chain saw as she was with an iron or a whisk. It wasn’t fear that brewed in her. It was anger. With every full glass she passed across the bar, that anger deepened. Six o’clock shaded into seven and then eight. By nine the meals were over, Beryl had gone home, and the clientele had thinned. At ten she had the lounge all wiped down and straightened out, and the last of the drinkers had staggered outside. She paid Jim out of the till and let him go, closing the saloon door behind him on the best night’s trade she’d ever known. She went behind the bar to clean up, thinking the night’s takings would cover the doctor’s bill and then some. She was drying a tray of pots when Frank appeared. From his swagger, she could tell he’d been drinking somewhere else. ‘Get me a beer,’ he snarled. She didn’t answer. Instead, she walked away. He growled at her. She felt his growl as though it were a goblin clinging to her back. She kept walking, rage pulsating in every cell of her. She went into the lounge and on through to the kitchen. Frank was close behind her. She turned. There was nothing in his eyes but hate. He took a step forward and she took a step back, sidling by the long kitchen table. There was no escaping what he was about to do to her. Soon, he’d have her cornered. Seeing no way out of the kitchen, she let him approach. Three more paces and behind her was the stove. Beside the stove was a drawer. In the drawer, were the knives. There was no time to open that drawer. He’d be on her in an instant. Panic stirred, familiar, like toast. Then in her side vision she saw Beryl hadn’t finished clearing up. The cleaver was still on the bench. Gloria glanced out the window. Frank followed her gaze. Her hand gripped the cleaver. She brought the weapon down on his head, right between the eyes. She heard a c***k. The flesh burst open; blood sprayed in her face. She flinched, disgusted. He reeled and fell back hard against the table. In an upsurge of power, she brought the cleaver down again, her aim sharp, her motion fierce. Beryl had sharpened the blade. It took two more blows to kill him. Another twenty to hack him in half.