GRIFF McDOUGAL | Christmas | Contact
Arriving in town in their Land Rover Defender at around eleven on the morning of December 21st were Jeremy Prendergast and his wife, Clover. Both poms.
Mr. Prendergast had parked the vehicle at the meter just up the road from The Lord Betoota Hotel.
With Christmas rapidly approaching, the proprietor of The Betoota had just completed the installation and decoration of the Christmas tree out the front.
Locals had categorized the size of this tree as ‘a fucking whopper.’ Not to be confused with the smaller size of ‘fuckking yuuuge’.
The tree decorations consisted of several dozen painted cans of FourX. Atop the tree hung the traditional star. I say ‘hung’ because this star was constructed from scraps of old iron that had been welded together then painted yellow to create an object so heavy that the top of the tree was already, to use the local units of measurement, drooping by a dozen dingo dicks.
That morning the hotel’s doors had yet to open for the day. It’s the kind of unfortunate news that could upset the average tourist, especially the Australian grey nomads from the city who harbour a burning desire to steal toilet paper from whatever public bathroom they are let into.
However, it seems these pommie tourists just wanted a feed.
Tabled outside, as he is almost every day, was 64-year-old Wilson ‘Wally’ Gamble. He passes his time by reading the online news, occasionally raising his head to check the parking meter. The Betoota Advocate fact checkers can confirm that the Betoota Parking Enforcement Officer has never issued to himself a Parking Infringement Notice as reported recently by the team from a commercial-channel news program.
Wally’s choice of employment does not bely a sharp intellect. In that respect he is no exception to the rest of the male population of the state: that of having a capacity to express an opinion on almost any subject regardless of how little they might know about it.
However, Wally does have a keen eye for quality journalism with a particular appreciation for the in-depth research, impressive grasp of grammar, expansive vocabulary and light-hearted perspective that only the resin-jewellery darlings of the ABC can deliver.
Meanwhile, back at the Land Rover Defender, Clover Prendergast, wearing pink shorts and white T-shirt, emerged from the passenger seat while Jeremy Prendergast, a thirty-something, solidly-built person wearing tartan trousers and black singlet bearing the proclamation, ‘I love Luton’ (you would have thought he’d want to keep that one to himself), stretched his legs on the other side. Donald Nutcliff (also know as ‘Doughnut’), who works on his father’s dairy farm, later described Clover to me as having, “an enormous pair of udders.”
Clover approached Wally. “’Scuse me, do you know where we might get some food?”
“Sure darlin’. You want Francesca’s Café. It’s five minutes up the road. They do the best pies this side of Larrimah. Ask for the Sweeny Todd Special.”
No one could have anticipated the consequences of Wally’s little joke.
My stepbrother’s cousin’s mother’s nephew is married to Officer Logan’s half-sister’s uncle’s daughter-in-law’s niece. That’s how things happen out here. I got to have a sticky-beak at Officer Logan’s Incident Report Sheet:
11:15am Ms. Prendergast entered Francesca’s Café. There she requested two Sweeny Todd Specials and a portion of chips with tomato sauce. Francesca Gaggets shouted down the corridor, “Larry, we got another one.”
11:16am Larry Oliver, carrying a garden trowel, appeared on the scene. Ms. Gaggets repeated Ms. Prendergast’s food order to Mr. Oliver. Mr. Oliver then addressed Ms. Prendergast with the words, “Where are you from, England? Why don’t you bugger off back there you [insert adjectives that could get you arrested east of the Great Dividing range] thing.”
11:17am Ms. Prendergast exited the café with the comment, “What the fuck?”
11:18am Mr. Prendergast entered the café while Ms. Prendergast remained in their vehicle. Mr. Prendergast approached Mr. Oliver, punched Mr. Oliver on the nose and departed the scene.
11:50am Police attended the scene of the disturbance.
12:39pm A team from the RFDS transported Mr. Oliver to Darwin Hospital.
2:45pm Mr. Prendergast was arrested at the Betoota Hotel and escorted to Betoota Police Station.
Jeremy Prendergast was to be provided with free overnight accommodation.
The station fridge contained one tin of John West sardines. This belonged to Inspector Kraig Carton, but the inspector had other things on his plate to worry about than a missing can of fish; he had been placed on compulsory leave pending an investigation into the tasering of a 3-year-old boy who had pointed a plastic water pistol at the neighbour’s cat.
Also in the station fridge was a half loaf of white bread. Sardine sandwiches it is.
Back at The Betoota, Clover Prendergast was sitting alone. On a day when almost every single and several not-so-single guy within 50 kilometers will be coming to town to see if they could temporarily or permanently impress some girl. Or get drunk instead.
Having no option but to book overnight accommodation at The Betoota, Clover had adequate opportunity to sample the variety of beverages on offer at the venue. The generosity of the visiting local gentry meant that Clover’s expenses from 3:30pm onwards were what could only be described as ‘astonishingly minimal’.
At around ten o’ clock in the evening a request is conveyed to Clover’s ear. It was from twenty-one-year-old Don Nutcliff who, as we know, spends his working life sticking suction tubes on the dangly bits of cows. These are the only mamaries he’s ever seen outside of a magasine.
With the confidence one might expect from someone whose FourX-bottle-count has reached a number beyond his mathematical grasp, Don pushes his way through the mob and shouts “Shuzyanorks”.
Accompanied by a reasonable quantity of cheering, Clover, big smile on her face, not only lifts herself out of her seat and obliges Don by pulling her T-shirt over her head, but walks in not-quite-a-straight-line to the bar, climbs up and removes another item of clothing.
While a forest of mobile phones pops up to take a snap or two of the artistic poses offered by Clover, the hotel proprietor grabs the T-shirt from the floor recognizing that it would make a perfect first-prize in his Christmas raffle.
AT TIME OF PRESS:
Did they take a wrong turn at Birdsville? Were they here to fossick for Betoota opal?
While we might never know what caused Jeremy and Clover Prendergast to be travelling this way, their visit has been written into local folklore.
Future visitors to the Betoota Hotel might enquire about the identity of the nude female in the six-foot by three-foot framed photograph captioned ‘Cloe’ that hangs above the brick fireplace.
If they were to stay long enough they might discover the connection between a pair of pink shorts and the handcuffs that secure them to one of the steel struts in the ceiling.
They might spot the postcard picturing Luton Airport, blue-tacked to the wall near the billiards table. Should their curiosity be piqued then they would read on the reverse side of the card:
‘Betoota Hotel. Thank you all for a wonderful time. Love from Clover XXXX.’
MORE TO COME.
