Balladonia - Robert Halsey

Vikko had been happy working as a bouncer at the Oasis nightclub somewhere in Perth.I don’t know where exactly. I don’t know Vikko for that matter, but Jose did. I can’t recall just how he talked me into getting Vikko out of Perth as quick as because there had been an altercation with someone who turned out to be a member of the Devil’s Angels, and you don’t mess with them and still expect to live. So here we were in my beat-up 60’s-something VW groaning and coughing our way out of Western Australia but keeping a watch for black-jacketed motorcyclists bearing down on us.

Cyclone Vance had sputtered out a few days ago. Passing through Widgiemooltha we drove through the last lashings of its waning fury. The sky was still grey and the roads still waterlogged in places.

“…the police released the name of the man towing six wheelie bins behind his gopher on the Kwinna Highway. He had been singing lewd songs and…”
I turned off the radio.Vikko and Jose remonstrated. They laughed like hell at the thought of the idiot who must surely have been drunk. Why did regional radio carry crazy stories like that? I wondered.

The scrub land looked a sorry sight, more greyish than green. It had just missed the rains that had flooded the country further north. From the top of the slag pile which had become a lookout point we had seen the inland sea that Vance had formed. The usual salt pans had all become one large inland sea. The grey slagheap had rivulets running down its steep slopes. It had formed incrementally over the years from the gold mine for which Norseman had become famous. The sky was a darker grey and very threatening. A strong wind ruffled the bushes and skinny trees along the way. An afforestation attempt was being made to return trees where the miners had cut them down to feed their boilers for the production of gold. The saplings rose like an army of spears , young and slender.

A combi van had pulled up off the highway and an old couple were enjoying a cup of tea or coffee. They waved slowly. Jose called back something, I’m not sure what, but it was lost on the wind. He is an inveterate caller out of inanities. I have this problem with him.

And then there was Balladonia. It looked sad and stranded like a forgotten attempt to arrest the emptiness of the outback but all it did was to emphasize the immensity of the undertaking. It looked a derelict gesture…just a weather-beaten and sun-baked café and its service station, with the rusty boiler a proud but sad symbol of a something civilization had thrown out in despair. The shingle, “Balladonia Roadhouse”, was sand-blasted and fading in a patchy sort of way. Who’d care in this God-forsaken hole? There it stood remorselessly devoured by salt and sun. Three twenty-wheeled juggernauts were drawn up whilst the crew enjoyed the meagre hospitality of denimed and bearded and rather scruffy angels of the lonely travellers. We ambled up to the bar and ordered a round of the amber “oh-be-joyfuls”, aka Carlton Mid-strengths. It went down beautifully. It’s the stuff that slakes thirsts and envigorates life. The exhausted drivers were not inclined for conversation as Vikko and Jose soon found out. After a couple of rounds we hit the dusty, red world again. There was a way to go yet. Vikko had someone meeting him at Cocklebiddy. There our good turn would end. Hopefully. Jose was financing the getaway, but some of the expenses would have been met by the enigmatic Vikko. So ?What the hell!