Somewhere around the Corner

by Jackie French

  ‘Get stuck into it,’ he said. ‘One word’s as good as ten, bog in, Amen.’

  Elaine giggled. Young Jim raised an eyebrow at her. ‘If Ma hears you saying that instead of proper grace she’ll have your hide,’ he told her.

  Elaine sniffed. ‘You think I’d repeat that at home? I’ve got more sense than some people I could name. Who was it told Ma that—’

  ‘No squabbling at the table, kiddies,’ ordered Gully Jack. ‘You’d give a bloke indigestion.’

  ‘Who’s a kiddie?’ demanded Young Jim.

  ‘Well, don’t blasted act like one,’ Gully Jack advised him. He bit into his bread, getting half of it in his mouth with one bite. Barbara watched amazed as he finished it in two gulps more and began to hack the loaf again. Gully Jack saw her stare.

  ‘Hey, what’s the matter? Get your teeth into it. That’s good tucker. The flies’ll finish it before you do.’

  Barbara took a cautious bite. It was good, much better than she expected. The bread was tasty, even if a bit stale, and the meat was tender. Even the chutney tasted okay.

  ‘Go on, line your belly,’ Gully Jack told her. ‘Plenty more where that came from.’ He reached for the teapot and poured himself a cup, deep black, with tea leaves floating on top.

  ‘Anyone else for a cuppa?’ he asked.

  ‘Isn’t it cold?’ asked Barbara.

  Gully Jack shrugged. ‘Who’s got time to boil the billy every time you want a cup of tea? If I did that I’d spend my life watching the stove. Not to mention chopping wood. Nah, this’ll do me fine. Made it last night and drank it for breakfast and it’s just as good now. Long as it’s sweet and wet.’

  ‘You going to be playing the fiddle at the dance this Friday?’ asked Elaine.

  ‘’Course I’ll be fiddling,’ said Gully Jack through another mouthful of bread and meat. ‘How’d you lot dance if I didn’t?’

  ‘Mrs Reynolds plays the piano. We could ask her.’

  ‘Old Ma Reynolds plays like an arthritic chook,’ declared Gully Jack. ‘Plunk, plonk, plonk. As long as they give me my whisky I’ll keep on playing.’ He turned to Barbara and explained. ‘That’s all I need—whisky once a week to help me digestion, and three good meals a day. Grow my own vegies, though the weeds are getting into them a bit, and kill a sheep now and then. Killed one yesterday so, if you kids remind me, I’ll give you a forequarter to take up to your Ma.’ Gully Jack glanced at the slab of meat on his table, congealed in its fat and cindered around the edges. ‘I bet she’ll cook it real good, too. You kids are lucky with a cook like your Ma. I wish I had someone like that to cook for me.’

  He stretched his big arms up towards the ceiling, yawned and rubbed his whiskers. ‘I’ve got enough gold dust in the jar under the floorboards to buy my bread and cocky’s joy. I’ve got a roof over my head and last week’s newspaper in my dunny. And one day I’ll find that gold. What more does a bloke need?’

  Gully Jack wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up. The fire was in his eyes. His hands twitched, as though they couldn’t wait to grasp the stones again.

  ‘You’d never think he owned half the gully, would you?’ said Elaine, as they walked back up the hill with the meat he’d given them swinging in an old flour sack. She stroked the bunch of hydrangeas ‘for your Ma’ that Gully Jack had grabbed on the way out the door and thrust into Elaine’s hands. ‘I reckon Gully Jack’s the only man in the valley who’d pick a bunch of flowers.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll really find gold?’ asked Barbara.

  Elaine laughed. ‘Gully Jack? Nah. He’s got bats in his belfry, that’s all. He’s built gullies all along the creek and not one of them has struck gold. His dad was just the same, silly as a two-bob watch, and his uncle too. All this,’ she gestured at the tangle of wattles and thornbush on either side, ‘they just let it go, for years. It used to be a dairy farm as good as Dulcie’s, but you’d never know it now.’

  ‘Who is Dulcie?’ asked Barbara.

  ‘Dulcie? Everyone knows Dulcie. How about we dump this lot and I’ll take you down to meet her.’

  ‘Oh no, you don’t,’ ordered Young Jim. ‘You’ll stay put and give Ma a hand with the littl’uns. It’s too late to take Bubba traipsing all the way down there. She’s still bushed from yesterday. You let her rest.’

  ‘What about you then?’ demanded Elaine.

  ‘I promised I’d get some firewood,’ Young Jim reminded her. ‘And Ma will need more water.’

  ‘I could get the water,’ offered Barbara shyly.

  ‘Good-oh. I want to go and see if there’s anything in my rabbit snares. We’ll see Dulcie tomorrow anyway. It’s Thursday, remember.’

  ‘What’s so special about Thursdays?’ inquired Barbara.

  Elaine stared at her. ‘It’s the day you get the dole rations. I thought everyone knew that.’

  Barbara was silent. Elaine shrugged. Young Jim hesitated.

  ‘You’ll be right,’ he said finally. ‘You’ll remember soon enough.’

  The three of them clambered up the path, past the shanties beneath the trees, to the billow of white smoke that meant home.

  chapter nine

  A Story from Around the Corner

  Fog was sifting up the valley with the dusk, soft white streaks above the edges of the creek. The light was thick with dew and shadow. Barbara sat by the creek with the empty kero tin beside her and watched the dark smooth water-creases slipping towards the sea.

  Was it real? Could she just slip back without warning? How firmly was she held in this world around the corner?

  She had to see. She had to be sure.

  Barbara shut her eyes. She tried to imagine the corner. She tried to see her feet walking towards it. She tried to see around its sharpness to the other side.

  The world stayed still and sure. She could still feel the night breeze tickling along her skin. There were no voices calling her, no terror pushing her feet.

  A bird began a song like a heartbeat somewhere overhead. The air smelt of gum leaves and cooling rocks and water. Barbara opened her eyes.

  The world was sweet and cool. Barbara felt a smile spread until it seemed to stretch her toes. She was still in the gully. Somewhere above her Ma was cooking dinner and the O’Reillys were waiting, with love and laughter, around the shanty that was home. Barbara stood up and slowly filled the kero tin with water, then began the climb back. The last of the sunlight shone bright red through the branches and turned the tree trunks into fire.

  ‘Tell me a story, Bubba.’

  The fire flickered in the growing dark, licking like a small red animal at the thick dry branches Young Jim had dragged up the hill. Barbara looked down at the little girl in surprise.

  ‘I’m not much good at stories,’ she admitted.

  ‘Yes you are.’ Thellie climbed determinedly onto her knee and wriggled to get comfortable. Her bones felt sharp and light. ‘Tell me a story like you told Young Jim. You know, about round the corner.’

  Barbara looked at the small girl’s trusting face, then glanced around. No-one else seemed to be listening. Ma was crocheting long strips of rag into a rug by the light of the newly lit lantern. Young Jim sat next to her, carving a bit of driftwood with his pocket-knife. Dad and Elaine had taken the other little ones down to the creek to wash the plates with sand and ashes in the last of the light. They still weren’t back.

  ‘Tell me what it’s like round the corner,’ Thellie urged again, folding her thin arms around Barbara’s waist. It felt funny to have a kid on your lap, thought Barbara, but nice.

  ‘All right,’ she said slowly. She thought for a while. ‘I don’t know where to start,’ she said finally.

  Thellie wriggled impatiently. ‘Tell me where people live,’ she ordered. ‘Have they got palaces and white horses and crowns and songs and jewelled slippers?’

  Barbara smiled. ‘No, nothing like that.’ She tried to think of something that would impress a small girl. ‘We’ve got aeroplanes.’

>   ‘I’ve seen a hairyplane,’ said Thellie scornfully. ‘Last time we were up in town, there was one buzzed round the showground. You could see the pilot and everything. That’s not from round the corner.’

  ‘Not little planes. These are big planes.’

  ‘How big?’

  ‘Bigger than…bigger than six houses. Big enough for hundreds of people.’

  Thellie wriggled once again, satisfied. ‘Did you ever go in one?’

  ‘Once, when I was younger. I went up to Surfers Paradise for a holiday. That’s at the beach.’

  ‘Did you stay in a palace?’

  ‘Well, sort of. We stayed in a really tall building, twenty storeys high, higher than…than…the gum trees, nearly as high as that ridge. There was a swimming pool right on the top so you could look out over the ocean and all the other buildings, and see the people like tiny beetles on the sand.’

  Thellie giggled. ‘Go on.’

  Barbara racked her brains. ‘And we’ve got machines that show you stories, just like you’re really there.’

  ‘Like the talking pictures.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, except nearly everyone’s got one. It’s called television—we say TV, for short. Some TVs are so small you can put them in your pocket and carry them around and look at them whenever you like. We’ve all got phones too, so you can ring anyone up when you feel like it.’

  ‘Everyone?’ asked Thellie.

  ‘Nearly everyone. Young Jim could’ve rung you up to say he was coming home. And there’s machines that do all your adding up for you, called calculators. You can fit them in your pocket, too, and there’s computers; they…’ She couldn’t think how to describe computers. ‘They sort of think for you, and you can play games with them and they tell you if you’ve lost.’

  Thellie wriggled, bored with the computers. Barbara racked her brains. ‘There’s…there’s rocket ships.’

  ‘What’s a rocket ship?’ demanded Thellie, scratching a mosquito bite on her ankle.

  ‘Rocket ships take you to the moon.’

  Thellie giggled, ‘Did you ever go to the moon? Did you eat green cheese?’

  ‘Green cheese?’

  ‘Yes. The moon’s made of green cheese.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. I’ve never been there, but other people have, oh, ages ago, before I was born. They said it’s all dust that you sink into, and the gravity’s so low you can jump as high as a gum tree without even trying and float down no matter how big you are. And there’s no air on the moon so you have to wear this big suit to protect you.’

  Suddenly, Barbara noticed the faces of Ma and Young Jim staring from the lamp light, Dad and Elaine and the little ones in the shadows, all listening to her words.

  ‘Go on,’ said Dad quietly. ‘Tell us some more.’

  ‘I, um, what do you want to know?’

  ‘In this world around the corner,’ said Dad softly, ‘do all men have jobs? Are there susso camps in this fine world of yours?’

  ‘There’s unemployment,’ said Barbara, trying to think. ‘But it’s not like this, not so many people out of work. I don’t think there’s any susso camps. Not that I’ve heard of anyway.’

  ‘And everyone’s got houses, proper houses, not shacks like this, and those TV things you mentioned?’

  Barbara nodded. ‘Mostly.’

  ‘And are there doctors if you need them, and the kiddies go to school, all of them, not stuck away forgotten in a place like this, with no future in front of them, nothing for them, nothing…’

  ‘Dad!’ Ma grabbed his shoulders. ‘Don’t you scare the girl. I won’t have you speaking like that, you hear me? You’ve done your best for us. At least we’ve got a roof over our heads and full bellies. There’s plenty worse off than us.’

  Dad shook her off, still looking at Barbara. ‘It’s a poor comedown you’re at then, isn’t it? Down here with the likes of us. I don’t know what Young Jim said he was taking you to, but I reckon you didn’t count on this.’

  Dad waved his bony hand at the flickering lantern, the clay-daubed shack, the makeshift chairs and table. His scar flickered pink and red. ‘I reckon you wish you were back in your nice soft bed with school tomorrow and—’

  ‘Dad, don’t! Leave her alone!’ It was Young Jim’s voice, somewhere in the dimness, but it didn’t matter, her voice seemed to come all by itself. Thellie slid down her legs as she rose.

  ‘It wasn’t like that! It wasn’t!’ She was shaking. It seemed like her voice wasn’t hers. She didn’t want to…it couldn’t be her. ‘It was horrible. Horrible. I was living with Aunt Ellie, but she wasn’t my aunt, not really, it was just a foster home, then she got sick and I had to go back to Mum. Mum said she was off the drugs, she promised she was, she promised. But the first morning I found the syringe in the bathroom and I asked her, “Are you on smack again, are you?”, and she just laughed, and her friend laughed too. He was a new friend and he was horrible. He said things to me, horrible things. I was scared and I ran, but I didn’t know where to go. I slept that night in a used clothes bin for St Vinnie’s, but there were rats, then I found these kids, they were older than me, but they said they were on the streets too and I could stay with them and they were going to this demonstration. I didn’t know what it was about, but…’

  She couldn’t say anything more. She didn’t have to. Dad’s arm was around her shoulder and Ma was on the other side. Young Jim was patting her back and Elaine and the little ones were crying. Dad was muttering something that sounded like, ‘I’m sorry Bubba love, I’m sorry,’ and Ma was telling her that it was all right, everything was fine, and then Elaine trod on someone’s foot.

  ‘It’s like a blooming football scrum,’ complained Young Jim. Then Barbara laughed and everyone else started giggling. Dad gave her a final hug, then stepped back and looked at her, his face in shadow with the lantern light behind him.

  ‘But you went around that corner of yours, and came here,’ he finished for her.

  ‘And a good thing too,’ said Ma. ‘If I had my way I’d hang people who scare kids up with the washing and watch them wave in the breeze.’

  Barbara sat down again, her knees suddenly shaky. Thellie clambered onto her lap again and wound her arms around her neck. She held the small girl tightly.

  ‘It’s better here,’ Barbara said finally. ‘I’m not scared. I know it’s just a shack, but it’s like you’ve everything here you need.’

  Dad began to laugh, the bitterness creeping back into his voice. ‘A dirt floor and dole rations once a week, with weevils in the flour and bush rats at the soap.’ The laugh broke off.

  ‘We do all right,’ said Ma quietly. ‘We manage.’

  Dad looked at her queerly. ‘It’s you who manage,’ he said softly. ‘Me, I’m good for nothing now.’

  ‘And I won’t hear you talk like that,’ Ma went on, with a touch of desperation. ‘You’ve done your best for us, you break your back for us. This place isn’t so bad. When I think of the poor souls in those other camps, places like Happy Valley, with everyone bickering and sniping and cockroaches big as mice and rats as big as footballs and all the kids with the runs, I know that at least we’ve got neighbours we can depend on here in the gully. We’ll see it through.’

  Ma bent down, picked up her crocheting from the leaves and bark where it had fallen and piled it on the table. ‘Come on,’ she said softly. ‘It’s time you lot were all in bed. Bubba too. You’ll feel better in the morning, love. You’ll have forgotten all about it after a good night’s sleep.’ It was as though she was trying to convince herself. It was dark inside the shack. The lantern gave too little light to penetrate the cracks. Barbara could hear the steady breathing of the little ones, Elaine sort of muttering in her sleep, Young Jim’s quiet snore.

  Ma and Dad were speaking in low voices outside.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ It was Dad’s voice.

  There was a pause. Barbara could almost see Ma’s fingers leaping with the crochet hook, as though i
t helped her think.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said finally. ‘It sounded so real. I’d say it’s the truth. Or what she thinks is the truth anyway.’

  ‘You don’t think it was a bump on the head, like Young Jim said?’

  ‘She couldn’t have made all that up,’ said Ma. ‘Not in so much detail. It seemed so real.’

  ‘A world around the corner,’ said Dad slowly. ‘Imagine it! What a world I’d take you to then. What sort of world would you have love, if you could choose?’

  There was a silence.

  Then Barbara heard Ma’s quiet voice. ‘I don’t think I’ve got the energy left to dream,’ she was saying. ‘I just try to be thankful for what we’ve got and make the best of it. I think maybe I’m frightened to dream, in case I can’t keep smiling when I wake up.’

  There was another silence.

  ‘I’m sorry love. For bringing you here. For failing you all.’ There was a stifled sob. Someone moved quickly.

  ‘Ah, I’m sorry, love,’ said Dad’s voice again. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry.’

  ‘Can’t you see?’ Ma’s voice was different. Not the calm strong voice Barbara had heard before. ‘I can stand anything, but not you like this. You haven’t failed us. It’s not your fault. It’s not! Can’t you see?’

  There was a longer silence. The first rays of moonlight sifted through the cracks in the wall, bright as torchlight, golden as Gully Jack’s dreams. Then Dad’s voice, very quiet. ‘Somewhere around the corner,’ he said. ‘I wonder.’

  chapter ten

  Dulcie of the Dairy Farm

  On Wednesdays, the single men came down the valley to get their dole rations. On Thursdays, the family men came; by themselves if they had to come a long way or with their wives and children, the kids with bare feet and the women with tired eyes. It was a long walk from Poverty Gully down to the main arm of the valley where Sergeant Ryan presided at the police station, handing out the tickets that allowed you to get your dole rations at Nicholson’s store—so much tea, flour and sugar, golden syrup, soap and matches and a bit of cheese.