The Lawson Boys: Alex

The Lawson
Boys: Alex

By Angela
Verdenius

(The Lawson
Boys book 1)

Smashwords
Edition

Copyright 2012
Angela Verdenius

Cover image
courtesy of Les3photo8 &
dreamstime.com

Cover by
Joleene Naylor

Smashwords
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I found that
some overseas readers were having difficulty with the Australian
slang, so I thought a list of the slang I’ve used will help while
reading the following story. If I’ve forgotten any, I do apologise!
Also, you’ll find some of our Aussie words have different spelling
to the US.

* please note
that sizes in the US and Australia differ, so when reading of a set
dress size, check the conversion on-line if you want!

Cheers,

Angela

Australian
Terms/Slang

Got
his/her/their goat
– annoyed him/her/them

Dander
–
temper.

Moosh
-
slang for face/mouth

Torch
-
flashlight

Mobile
phone
- cell phone.

Bloke/s
- men

Iced
coffee/chocolate
- a milk drink flavoured with chocolate or
coffee.

RAC
-
Royal Automobile Club of Western Australia. Covers insurance,
holidays, loans, etc.

Tim Tams
- a brand of Arnott’s Biscuits. Yummy!

Chemist -
pharmacy

Buggered
- many Aussie use it as a slang word for ‘broken’ (it’s buggered),
‘tired (I’m buggered), and ‘no way’ (I’m buggered if I’m going to
do that). Just some examples.

Bloody
-
a swear word ‘no bloody good’, in place of ‘no damned good’

Tucker
-
food

TLC
-
Tender Loving Care

Biccies
- biscuits. The same as cookies.

Boofhead
- idiot, simpleton, etc. It’s an insult, though sometimes we use it
as a term of affection. It depends on how it is said and meant.

Sheila
-
female.

Hoon/s
-
person/people who indulge in antisocial behaviour. Great
explanation in Wikipedia

Primapore
- sticky patch with a pad in it. A medical
dressing.

Panadol
- paracetamol.

Milo
-
chocolate malt drink. Can have it hot or cold. Yummy!

Budgie
smugglers
- men’s bathers, small, brief and tight-fitting.

Tea
-
some people call the evening meal dinner. In my family, we’ve
always called it tea, as in breaky, dinner and tea, or breaky,
lunch and tea.

Donger
-
penis

Yamaha &
Suzuki
- ‘brands’ of motorcycles.

English
Blazer
– really yummy men’s after shave!

Pub
-
hotel.

If someone’s
tickled pink, they’re
- delighted

Giggle-box
- TV, television

Lug
-
face

Shag
-
sex

Pedal
Pushers
- three quarter pants/knickerbockers

You
wally
- silly,

Beaut
-
beautiful, awesome, great, wonderful

Crash
cart
- resuscitation trolley in a hospital or medical setting -
used for life threatening situations such as cardiac arrest.

Ute -
small truck

Dill
-
silly, idiot

Snaggers
- sausages

Soft
drink
- soda, fizzy drink

Barbie
-
BBQ

PCYC
-
Police and Citizens Youth Club

Milo
- a
kind of chocolaty drink you can have hot or cold. Yummy!

Vegemite
- most Aussies find this spread yummy, many non-Aussies find it too
salty. Here’s the hint - if you ever have Vegemite, use it spread
thinly, never thickly!

Chips
-
in Australia we have cold crunchy chips from a packet, or hot chips
known in some countries as French Fries.

Whopper
- a lie

Lolly
-
sweetie, candy

Servo
-
service station

Nooky
-
sex

Driving
- In Australia, you cannot get a driver’s licence to drive a car
until you are 17 years old. You get your Learner’s Permit (which
requires you to drive only in the company of a qualified driver),
then at 18 you can go for your Probationary licence (you can drive
on your own but at restricted speed limits), and then finally you
are a fully qualified driver.

One

Driving along
the highway towards the small town, Alex sighed in contentment as
the cool breeze blew in the open window and past his face. Outside
were trees, bushes, wild flowers and farms.

No desert, no
flying dirt, no burning heat through his uniform as he returned
fire on the Taliban. No wondering who was friend or foe, especially
when an Afghanistan soldier they’d been training had turned on his
unit and killed three Australian soldiers before the unit had
managed to bring him down. Shit, he’d thought the man had been an
all right bloke, he’d seemed to really want the war to end, and
then damn if he hadn’t turned on the very men he’d befriended and
killed some of them.

Yeah, some R
& R back home in Australia was just what Alex needed. Getting
away from war for awhile, enjoying well-earned time with friends
and family.

And fixing a
problem that was long overdue to be fixed.

The looming
sign stated that the town of Whicha was less than ten kilometres
away.

His problem
lived in Whicha.

Coming to stay
with his old friend was good for R & R, helping Paul with his
carpentry business, relaxing, not having to watch his back, but he
had an ulterior motive for visiting Paul, and that ulterior motive
was his problem.

Taking a deep
breath, Alex slowed down to the designated speed sign he passed and
watched as new buildings appeared, interspersed with older designs.
It had been some years since he’d last been here and the small town
had grown a little. Not a lot, he was pleased to see, but a little.
You just couldn’t stop progress.

Larger plots of
land gave way to smaller blocks before he entered the township
itself. It was old, some of the original colonial buildings still
standing and being lived in or used as shops. Quaint was the word
his sister would have used to describe Whicha. Small, quaint, and
probably everyone was related to each other in some way. That last
was debatable…in a small way.

Smiling, Alex
pulled up at a service station to refuel the Jeep before pushing
onward, passing a small supermarket, a couple of clothes stores,
some other small businesses, the local pub, and finally the
café.

Parking outside
the café, he gazed thoughtfully at the curtained frontage.
According to Paul’s emails, she still worked at the café part-time.
He wondered if she was working today. The door remained shut, but
suddenly a section of the curtain was pushed back by a toddler
sitting near the window, and he saw
her
standing directly in
front of the table beside the window, her pad and pen in hand while
she spoke to the woman with the toddler.

Harly Bentley.
He’d know her anywhere, even though it had been years since he’d
seen her. Thick black hair twisted up into a careless bun on top of
her head, her skin creamy, eyelashes so thick and black, and a
mouth that even now, all these years later, he could remember their
softness.

Her
over-generous curves were poured into a pale blue uniform dress
with a frilly apron tied around her waist, and her manner was
no-nonsense, he could just about feel it from the way she pointed
at the menu while speaking to the woman.

Jotting down
the woman’s answers, Harly glanced at the toddler and the woman
turned and took the curtain from his little fist. But right before
the curtain fluttered back into place, Harly looked up and directly
at him, and he was struck by her eyes, pale grey, so startling
between those thick, black eyelashes. She frowned slightly, a
puzzled expression on her face, and then the curtain cut her from
view.

Releasing a
breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, Alex relaxed back in the
seat and loosened his hold on the steering wheel.

Harly Bentley
was his problem.

Should he go
inside and face her? No, that wouldn’t be good, there’d be nowhere
to talk, to get the truth from her. Maybe he should go and drop his
gear off at Paul’s before ambushing her as she was leaving. Running
his fingertips lightly along the steering wheel, he debated the
wisdom of either move before finally putting the gearstick in
reverse and backing back out onto the quiet road.

Ambushes were
best planned.

Paul’s
carpentry business was easily found in a back street and from his
directions it wasn’t hard to find. Parking in the customer area, he
got out and walked across to the workshop, following the sounds of
voices and radio music, which was a little on the loud side.

Stopping at the
garage door which was rolled back to show three cars in various
stages of repairs, he glanced around until he found Paul.

Shaking his
hand and swearing a blue streak, Paul hadn’t really changed, just
gotten a little older. No longer the gawky teenager, he had filled
out and matured, but he was still the same accident-prone bloke, it
would seem.

“Bloody useless
piece of-” he began, only to stop when he caught sight of Alex in
the opening, and a big grin crossed his face. “Alex!”

“Hey,” Alex
replied. “I got here.”

“Good to see
you, man!” Crossing the oil-stained floor, Paul looked as though he
wanted to hug Alex, but being a man’s man, he punched him in the
shoulder instead. “God, it’s been ages!”

Alex punched
him back. “A few years.”

Paul looked him
up and down before giving in to his emotions and throwing his arms
around Alex to give him a brief hug followed by lots of back
slapping to reinstate his manhood. “Shit.”

“Oh, that’s
lovely.” Alex grinned back at him. “Know how you’re feeling, man.”
And gave him another shoulder punch.

Beaming widely,
Paul slung an arm around his shoulders and turned to the two
watching men. “Jack, Will, this is Alex, my best friend.”

“The soldier,
huh?” Will came forward, extending his grimy hand. “Paul’s
mentioned you.”

“Likewise,”
Alex replied, though Paul had only referred to his workers as the
men, sprinkled with occasional names as he’d described some idiot
thing they’d done.

Jack shook his
hand as well. “Reckon you’re needing some time off after the shit
happening over there.”

“Yeah.” Not
wanting to talk about the war, Alex glanced around the huge work
shed with a frown. “I thought you were into carpentry, Paul?”

“I was. Am.”
Paul wiped his hands on an equally oil-stained rag. “I bought this
business a couple of months ago. I’m no mechanic, but Jack and Will
here are the best. I mainly do my carpentry, but when it’s quiet I
come over and give the blokes a hand.”

“And a finger,”
Jack replied dourly.

“Yeah.” Holding
up a finger that was looking a little swollen at the tip, Paul
waggled it in the air. “Bloody tools here are greasy.”

“That’s because
they’re used in a lot of oil and grease situations,” Will replied.
“It’s not like your carpentry gear, full of sawdust. Mechanics is a
real man’s work.”

“Excuses.”

Alex’s eyebrows
rose. “So when did you get time to study mechanics?”

“Oh, here and
there.” At Jack’s snort, Paul added, “Oh, fine. I mainly help them
by being their gopher when it’s busy, but…” He glared at his
workers. “I do know a bit about engines!”

“I’ll give you
that,” Jack said.

“Thank you,
Aunty Jack.” Paul glanced at his watch. “I didn’t realise this was
morning tea break.”

“It wasn’t, but
might as well be now,” Will retorted cheerfully, heading to a
doorway in the far wall. “Coming?”

“Nah.” Paul
started unbuttoning his overalls. “I’m going to take Alex home and
get him settled, go for a drink. General perks of being the
boss.”

Jack rolled his
eyes and now Alex saw the similarity. Jack and Will were related in
some way to Paul. Small town.