Part 4
Welcome
to Windy Mountain, population 3003 or 3004
Sunday
WINDY
MOUNTAIN had always been called Windy Mountain; nobody knew why.
It was
windy all right. "Bloody windy,'' according to Sergeant Birtwistle.
But there
wasn't a mountain within cooee; just a lot of rolling hills.
Some of it
was rugged bushland; the rest had been cleared long ago to make way
for farms and orchards.
When Les
Happles first came to town, signs at either end of the High Street
posted the town's populations.
The
northern sign, near the For Sale sign on the fence outside the
Northan apple orchard, read 3003. The southern sign read 3004.
They had
been the same for as long as anyone could remember.
Nobody
bothered to change the signs when Les Happles arrived.
A few
babies had been born since but townsfolk figured things were just
about even with the deaths of three senior citizens and Billy Jacobs,
a locally born conservationist who founded a commune at the old
Murphy farmhouse in Blackstump Road.
Billy had
entered greenie folklore when he was squashed to death by a bulldozer
at a local protest site.
They had
even renamed the Murphy commune in his honour.
It was now
widely known as the Billy Jacobs Memorial Commune.
Windy
Mountain probably didn't look much to tourists who drove through,
invariably lost, in their fancy campervans with pop-up roofs and
portable flushamatic toilets.
But to the
old fruit-growers, who came to town once a week in their rattling old
utes, Windy Mountain was the big smoke.
Dressed in
their best overalls, and smoking tailor-made cigarettes as a treat,
they could find just about any service they needed in the High Street.
Why it was
called the High Street, nobody knew. It wasn't particularly high; nor
was it especially low.
It could
just as easily have been called THE Street and it wouldn't have
confused anyone seeing as there were no other streets in the middle
of Windy Mountain.
The High
Street was a wide thoroughfare lined with trees and old-fashioned buildings.
These
included Manny Hjort's butchery, Jimmy McMartin's bakery, Hoo-Chung
Loo's green-grocery, several churches, a general store which doubled
as a newsagency, a service station with two petrol bowsers that had
been installed in 1938 and had never been updated, two banks and the
Windy Mountain District Hospital.
There were
also two stock and crop stores, the Windy Mountain Recreation Ground
which was home to the Windy Mountain Tigers, The Applecart hotel and
the Windy Mountain Magistrate's Court and Council Chambers building
which was the domain of the pompous, unscrupulous, scheming,
money-hungry, bow-legged, right-wing, megalomaniacal Mayor,
Councillor Jim Northan.
Councillor
Northan's great great great grandfather, Colonel Nigel Northan, had
founded Windy Mountain in 1841 using Irish Catholic convict labour to
carve through virgin bush and establish the town.
Since
then, a Northan man had nearly always been mayor; the position was a
birthright. And all of them hated Irishmen; that was genetic.
Councillor
Northan and his family lived in the oldest, grandest house in town.
The house had 21 rooms, a swimming pool and a palatial garden hidden
behind a carefully manicured two-metre high hedge.
Councillor
Northan controlled half the town's mortgages one way or another.
One of his
best-known businesses was the town's most historic landmark, the
Northan apple orchard, which had been on the market for some time.
Councillor
Northan now planned to raze the orchard to make way for a wind-sock
factory, but he hadn't told anyone yet.
The
orchard had been established by Colonel Nigel Northan soon after he
founded the township.
Many
generations of Windy Mountain folk had toiled in the orchard since
but the surname on the deed remained the same, passed down from one
Northan to the next.
When
Councillor Jim Northan had inherited it, the orchard had been a
thriving export business. But the bottom fell out of the market in
the early 1980s because the biggest buyers, the Japanese, only wanted new-fangled
varieties.
Consequently,
the orchard no longer turned a profit.
The only
thing that keep it almost solvent now was strong local support,
chiefly from Hoo-Chung Loo's green-grocery which waxed the apples and
sold them for 25 cents each across the counter, Jimmy McMartin's
bakery which baked the apples in its famous apple pies and The
Applecart which used the apples as the base for its illegally brewed
double-strength apple cider.
According
to local legend, the ghost of Colonel Nigel Northan was said to roam
the orchard at night wielding his cat'o'nine tails, the same mode of
punishment he dished out to disobedient Irish convicts all those
years ago.
Privately,
Councillor Jim Northan claimed he didn't believe the stories.
In public,
though, he played the ghost legend up for all it was worth.
Fear of
Colonel Northan's cruel spirit provided perfect security because even
the most fearless vandals and thieves were too afraid to go near the
place at night.
Now,
however, the ghost of Colonel Nigel Northan was having the reverse effect.
As soon as
the orchard stopped turning a regular profit, Councillor Northan,
caring nothing about family heritage, had put it on the market.
But no one
had even dared to make an offer. Everyone, it seemed, was afraid of ghosts.
Councillor
Northan hated the thought of one of his assets lying idle.
That's why
he came up with the wind-sock factory idea.
He wasn't
vaguely interested in what the townsfolk might think about it.
He didn't
care about the alleged ghost of great great great grandpa Northan.
He was
even less interested in apple pies or apple cider.
He was
only interested in making money.
Next to
The Applecart, on the northern side, was the police station.
On the
storey above the police station was Tiger Kowaski's Dancing School
which was a front for the Windy Mountain brothel.
Tiger
Kowaski, the Windy Mountain Tigers football coach and chief sponsor,
was the driving force behind the Dancing School and its seedy sideline.
But the
establishment was actually owned, secretly and innocently, by
Councillor Northan.
Tiger
Kowaski never told Councillor Northan that it was a brothel and it
never occurred to Councillor Northan that it was anything but a
Dancing School.
He was in
good company though. Sergeant Birtwistle didn't know it was a brothel
and neither did the editor of The Pick Of The Crop newspaper, Mr
D.O.B. Leggs, whose offices were right next door to the
establishment, on the southern side.
In fact,
Councillor Northan, Sergeant Birtwistle and Mr Leggs were the only
three members of the Windy Mountain Rotary Club who didn't hold Gold
Passes to the Dancing School.
A Pick of
the Crop reporter named Norman J. Hit was on a mission from the
editor the day Les Happles came to town.
It was
April 1 and they walked straight past each other on the High Street
without exchanging as much as a glance.
Norman had
his mind on the direction and velocity of the wind as Les walked by
carrying a small bundle of clothes in a knapsack, a Saint Christopher
medal his mother had given him and a pocket chess set.
He walked
past the butchery, the bakery, the green-grocery, the banks, the
stock and crop stores, The Applecart, the police station and Tiger
Kowaski's Dancing School, The Pick Of The Crop offices and the Windy
Mountain Recreation Ground.
A lost
family of tourists stopped their campervan to ask Les Happles for
directions but all he could do was shrug his shoulders and send them
on their way.
He had
come from Launceston, an hour away, in search of a commune which had
advertised for a new member in the miscellaneous column of a
newspaper there, The Examiner.
He
followed the directions to the Billy Jacobs Memorial Commune but when
he found that he didn't fit the criteria he was re-directed to the
farmhouse next door, the old Cameron farmhouse, which was a commune
in the loosest sense of the word.
There Les
shared a room with a bikie named Foetus who had lost his gang; or
rather, they had lost him three years before when they rode through
Windy Mountain.
"They'll
come back for me - it's part of The Thunderbirds' pledge,'' Foetus
always said.
The father
figure of the commune was Bruce Routley, the enigmatic captain and
star of the Windy Mountain Tigers football team.
Bruce was
a former medical student and jack of all trades who now made his
living by searching for the Tasmanian Tiger.
He was
paid to do so by an eccentric American billionaire named Tim Noah
jnr, who had made his fortune by selling souvenirs and novelties.
Noah also
provided Bruce with a profitable sideline in bushrangers' by-products.
The fourth
member of the commune was Barbie Dougall, an artist who also worked
part time at Tiger Kowaski's Dancing School.
Her doctor
had given her two weeks off work after she had suffered a Repetitive
Strain Injury to her right wrist.
