Somewhere around the Corner

by Jackie French

  ‘Urk. Nasty slimy things,’ protested Elaine. ‘We’ll get mud all over us.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have to touch them. You can just play Lady Muck and watch us catch them. You coming, kids?’

  ‘No, they’re not,’ said Ma firmly. ‘You lot can go if you want. At least you can wash yourselves after. I’m not cleaning this lot again before tonight. You can take your lunch with you. Two slices each and mind you don’t cut them too wide, that bread’s got to last till tomorrow lunch because I’m not making any scones till then, and will someone please eat that tomato jam—it’s going to go to waste if you don’t.’

  ‘We’ll eat it Ma,’ said Young Jim soothingly. ‘You going to come, Elaine, or not?’

  ‘I suppose.’ Elaine uncurled herself and stretched. ‘But I’m not touching any eels, mind. And I’m not carrying them either.’

  Young Jim hunted around for string and bits of meat from the night before.

  ‘That’s how you catch eels,’ he explained to Barbara, as they started down the track. ‘They grab hold of the meat and won’t let go. Then you just haul them onto the bank.’

  ‘That’s when the real fun starts,’ agreed Elaine. ‘These great slimy things wriggling all over the place trying to get back into the water and biting if you get anywhere near them.’

  ‘Garn, they aren’t that bad,’ protested Young Jim.

  ‘They’re worse,’ said Elaine decidedly, pushing a branch out of her way. The track was filled with midday shadows; short and fat, thick with gum leaf scent and dancing sunlight and the faint tang of smoke from hot dry wood.

  ‘I reckon everyone in the gully’s having a wash,’ said Young Jim. ‘I bet shirts and skirts are hanging on every bush.’ He kicked at a rock. ‘Makes you mad, doesn’t it? I mean, I bet up in Sydney there are rich people with marble bathrooms and gold taps and…and everything. Down here people like Ma and the Hendersons don’t even have a bath they can fit their knees in.’

  ‘I liked bathing in the sunlight,’ said Barbara dreamily. ‘It was like having someone pour warm smoke down your back. I bet my skin’s gold if I could see.’

  Young Jim pulled back the neck of her blouse and peered down her back. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘still the same colour. Pink and lots of freckles.’

  Barbara tried to kick him. He dodged, laughing. ‘Nah,’ he went on seriously. ‘That’s not the point anyway. I mean, I don’t mind having a bath under the gum trees. Cripes, I reckon it’s better than a marble bathroom any day. I mean rich people can bathe in the sun or bathe inside. We don’t get to choose.’

  ‘I’d choose sunlight any day,’ said Barbara.

  Elaine snorted. ‘That’s all very well when it’s sunny,’ she informed them. ‘How about in winter and your knees freeze because you can’t fit them in the tub?’

  ‘See, that’s what I mean,’ said Young Jim.

  ‘Well, you go and get your soapbox and tell everyone then,’ said Elaine tranquilly. ‘Not us. We’ve heard it all before.’ She thrust her hands through her wet hair again, untangling the rat’s tails as it dried in the sun.

  The eel pool was down near the main road, where the creek slowed down to a more sedate pace after bubbling down the gully.

  ‘Hey,’ announced Young Jim. ‘That’s the police car. Wonder why it’s parked down here?’

  ‘Maybe there’s trouble up the gully,’ said Elaine.

  Young Jim shook his head. ‘We’d have heard some commotion or other on the way down the track. You can’t miss someone as big as Sergeant Ryan. No, look, here are his footprints in the sand, too. He’s gone down the creek, not up towards the gully.’

  ‘How do you know they’re his footprints?’ demanded Elaine. ‘They could be the Williams boys’, or Gully Jack’s, or Dad’s.’

  ‘’Cause no-one else round here wears boots, chookbrain. Not boots like his.’

  ‘Maybe he’s tracking bandits,’ said Elaine eagerly. ‘They’ve just stolen a thousand pounds and they’re hiding in the valley.’

  ‘Who’d they steal a thousand pounds from?’ argued Young Jim. ‘No-one here’s got sixpence to spend on their tombstones. I bet there isn’t even a thousand pennies in the whole valley.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe they stole it from Sydney and brought it down here,’ suggested Barbara.

  Elaine beamed at her. ‘That’s it. It was a daring bank robbery.’

  ‘I think you’ve both got rats in your attic,’ said Young Jim frankly. ‘I bet he’s just gone picking mushrooms or something.’

  Elaine giggled. ‘What would Sergeant Ryan want with mushrooms? He doesn’t even cook.’

  ‘Well I don’t know,’ said Young Jim, exasperated. ‘How about we follow him upstream and see?’

  Elaine shrugged. ‘It’s all right with me. I didn’t want to go eeling anyway.’

  ‘Bubba?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Better take your shoes off,’ advised Young Jim. ‘You’ll ruin them if you slip in the water. Here, give them to me. I’ll stick them in my pocket’

  ‘It’s okay. I can carry them.’

  ‘You don’t have a pocket. Here, hand them over,’ ordered Young Jim. He bent down and looked at the boot prints again. ‘Come on, everyone. Follow me.’

  They walked slowly up the edge of the creek. The soil felt strange on Barbara’s bare feet, worn hard and flat from floods, scattered with casuarina needles and sewn into a patchwork by eroded tree roots. The dragons stared at them, drowsy on their rocks, or leapt startled into the clear water and lay watchful on the bottom of the pools.

  ‘We should check the opposite bank,’ whispered Elaine. ‘Maybe he followed the gangsters into the scrub.’

  ‘Look, you silly fruit-bat,’ said Young Jim. ‘His footprints are just in front of us. Why are you whispering, anyway?’

  ‘In case the gangsters hear us.’

  ‘You and your bally gangsters. You’ve got gangsters on the brain. I bet Sergeant Ryan’s never followed a gangster in his life. Chook thieves and drunk and disorderlies are more his line—look, there he is now.’

  Sergeant Ryan was sitting on a rock that some forgotten flood had wedged in the exposed roots of a giant casuarina. He held a pencil that moved slowly and erratically over the book on his knee. He seemed oblivious to the approaching children.

  ‘He can’t hear us over the creek,’ said Young Jim. ‘Hey, Sergeant Ryan!’

  Sergeant Ryan started. He closed the book quickly and put the pencil in his pocket. He stood.

  ‘Afternoon,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You kiddies going for a walk?’

  ‘We were going eeling,’ said Elaine. ‘But then we saw the car. We wondered what was up.’

  Sergeant Ryan looked embarrassed.

  ‘It’s my afternoon off,’ he told them, as though that explained what he was doing sitting up the creek.

  Elaine looked at the book in his hand.

  ‘What’s that, Sergeant Ryan?’

  Young Jim kicked her ankle.

  ‘Don’t be rude,’ he hissed.

  ‘Well, he doesn’t have to tell me if he doesn’t want to,’ argued Elaine.

  Sergeant Ryan looked even more embarrassed. He fumbled with the book as though he wished he had a pocket big enough to hide it in.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he told them, trying to sound firm.

  Elaine’s eyes opened wide. ‘I know what it is! It’s a sketchbook. Mrs Henderson’s got one from when she used to teach drawing at the school. I didn’t know you sketched, Sergeant Ryan!’ She plucked the book from Sergeant Ryan’s grasp before he knew what had hit him.

  ‘Hey, don’t snatch,’ objected Young Jim. ‘Don’t you have any respect for your elders? Ma’d have your hide if she saw what you just did.’

  Elaine stuck her tongue out. ‘Sez you. I just want to have a look. I can have a look, can’t I, Sergeant Ryan?’

  Sergeant Ryan looked at her helplessly. ‘They’re not much good,’ he protested.

 
‘I bet they are! Hey Bubba, have a look at this!’

  Sergeant Ryan sighed.

  Young Jim tried not to laugh. ‘Ma says you need two brooms and a cage of tigers to keep Elaine from doing what she wants to,’ he said.

  ‘Too right,’ said Sergeant Ryan. ‘Look, kids, take a dekko if you really want,’ he said. ‘But you’ve got to promise me you won’t go telling anyone, will you?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Not even Dulcie?’

  ‘Especially not Dulcie.’ Sergeant Ryan shook his head. ‘What do you think the blokes in the valley’d say if they knew their Sergeant drew pictures for a hobby? They’d laugh their heads off.’

  Young Jim looked at him with sudden comprehension. ‘You’re right there,’ he agreed.

  Barbara looked over Elaine’s shoulder at the sketchbook. The sketches were all in pencil. Most were views of the valley: the single tree on the hill above Dulcie’s front paddock; a pool in the creek below the casuarinas. There was a sketch of the pub, and the post office and telephone exchange. There was a sketch of a strange house too, with a bull-nosed verandah, neat gardens and a picket fence. Barbara looked up. ‘Where’s this one?’ she asked.

  Young Jim peered over her shoulder. ‘It looks like Dulcie’s,’ he said. ‘But Dulcie’s hasn’t got a verandah—and the garden’s not like this at all.’ He looked up with sudden comprehension. ‘It’s like the one above Dulcie’s mantelpiece!’ he exclaimed. ‘The one she thought Gully Jack did! But it was you, wasn’t it?’

  Sergeant Ryan looked embarrassed. ‘It wasn’t much,’ he muttered.

  ‘Hey, that’s Dulcie with a baby—and this one’s of you and Dulcie dancing.’ Young Jim stared at Sergeant Ryan. ‘But you’ve never been to any of the dances!’

  Sergeant Ryan was silent.

  ‘They’re your dreams, aren’t they?’ said Young Jim quietly. Sergeant Ryan looked uncomfortable. ‘Cripes, we’ve all got dreams. Dreams are things so close to you you think you’d die sometimes if anyone knew what they were.’

  ‘What’re your dreams then?’ asked Elaine curiously.

  ‘None of your beeswax,’ said Young Jim shortly. He handed the book back to Sergeant Ryan. He hesitated. ‘Sergeant Ryan, why don’t you go to the dances? They’re really beaut, and the food’s just great, all sorts of cakes and pies and sandwiches and things. Dulcie would love it if you went.’

  ‘I can’t dance,’ said Sergeant Ryan simply.

  Young Jim stared at him. ‘Everyone can dance,’ he protested. ‘Didn’t your parents ever teach you?’

  Sergeant Ryan shook his head. ‘My Ma died,’ he explained. ‘And my Pa was more interested in the pub than teaching me to dance. There weren’t any dances out our way anyway when I was young. Later,’ he shrugged, ‘I reckon I was too embarrassed to say I didn’t know how.’

  ‘Stone the blooming crows,’ whistled Elaine. ‘A sergeant who can’t dance! Hey, it sounds like a song: The Dancing Sergeant.’

  Sergeant Ryan’s face went red.

  ‘I can’t dance either,’ Barbara admitted softly.

  Young Jim stared at her. ‘You can’t dance either! Cripes!’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Well, you know what then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ll have to bally well show you, won’t we then?’

  ‘None of that language, boy,’ said Sergeant Ryan. But his eyes were full of hope.

  chapter thirteen

  Sergeant Ryan Dances

  It was like he’d fallen into the creek and come out in another world, where all the rules were different. It was like a dream had swept down with the breeze and carried him along. What was he doing here by the creek, wondered Sergeant Ryan—on a grassy flat, kept short by roos and wallabies, watched by kookaburras and blooming water dragons, dancing with a mob of kids?

  ‘Come on, lift your boots,’ ordered Elaine. ‘One, two, three, one, two, three—hey, he’s nearly got it, hasn’t he?’

  Young Jim twirled Barbara around a log of driftwood topped with wombat droppings. ‘You’re doing great! Let’s try the polka again. You remember how it goes Bubba—to the right, no follow me, you great galah—and lift your feet, dad dah dah dah dah, careful, don’t trip over that rock, dah dah dah da dah, dah dah—dahdah, dumde dumde, that’s the way!’

  ‘My feet keep getting tangled!’

  ‘Then lift them up, you nitwit. That’s the way.’

  ‘Watch out for the tree root, Sergeant Ryan, now back again and turn around.’

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘I said watch out for the tree root. It’s all right, Sergeant Ryan, there won’t be any tree roots in the hall tonight. Come on, try it again.’

  The sun was leaning on the casuarinas when they’d finished, puffing and giggling.

  ‘Think you can manage now?’ demanded Elaine, standing back with her hands on her hips.

  ‘I think I can manage anything after that,’ said Sergeant Ryan.

  ‘You’d better,’ Elaine warned him. ‘Or I’ll have to come down to the police station and show you again.’

  ‘Cripes,’ said Young Jim suddenly. ‘We forgot all about lunch. Where’s the swag, I’m starved! And Ma is expecting those eels for tea.’

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Sergeant Ryan. ‘I may not be much of a dancer, but I do know about eels. And there’s a big slab of fruit cake back in the car. Old Ma Hourigan at the pub makes a good fruit cake.’

  ‘You’re a real beaut dancer,’ said Elaine. She grinned. ‘I’m a bonzer teacher.’

  They rock-hopped back down the edge of the creek to the eel pond. Sergeant Ryan glanced at Young Jim, intent on placing his feet on the slippery rocks.

  ‘You know—what you were saying about dreams and all that—well, if there’s anything I can ever do to give you a hand. I mean, I know it’s hard for a kid like you.’

  Young Jim looked at him for a moment. His eyes were a brighter blue, as though he was considering. Then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I reckon my dream’s—well, just a dream. But thank you anyway.’ They walked in silence for a minute. ‘You’ll be coming to the dance then, tonight?’

  Sergeant Ryan grinned, ‘What’d you say if I said no?’

  ‘I’d say we’d come down the valley and drag you up here,’ said Elaine frankly. ‘I didn’t get trodden on by your great boots for nothing.’

  ‘I reckon that’d be against the law,’ said Young Jim. ‘That’d be assaulting an officer, wouldn’t it Sergeant Ryan?’

  Sergeant Ryan nodded. ‘Too right,’ he agreed. ‘I’d hate to see you land in gaol, missy. I reckon I’ll just have to turn up to keep you safe.’ Dinner was early that night, the sun still hovering above the ridge and the shadows spreading long and thick from the trees. It was roast mutton, the forequarter Gully Jack had given them the day before, baked in their home-made oven set at the edge of the clearing—a kero tin packed in a bed of clay and ants’ nest, with a rough firebox on either side. The firebox was two big holes dug into the clay with holes at the top for the smoke.

  Ma had decided to keep the eels for the next night. They sat in a kero tin of salty water around the back of the shanty, gutted and twisted, ‘Looking just like meat,’ as Barbara said wonderingly, not like the savage snake-like things they’d fished out of the creek.

  The girls had stayed by the fire ever since they’d got home, feeding it with more twigs and bits of bark to keep it hot and the dinner cooking evenly. The meat smelt wonderful. There was even gravy, made in the camp oven from the dripping and browned flour and water, and potatoes in their jackets cooked in the ashes, and boiled pumpkin and swedes and beans, as much as anyone could eat.

  ‘No point leaving it for the bandicoots,’ said Dad, passing his plate over for a second helping. ‘You know love, I reckon you’re the best cook in New South Wales. I bet you could cook a drover’s dog and make it taste like chicken.’

  ‘That’s what Gully Jack says,’ said Elaine. ‘He says he wished he had someone like Ma to cook for him.�
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  ‘Then he’d better marry Dulcie before they both turn grey,’ said Ma. ‘Thellie and Joey, if you don’t eat your pumpkin there won’t be any pudding. It’s treacle dumplings, but there won’t be a single crumb for anyone who doesn’t eat their vegies.’

  The sun collapsed behind the ridges like someone had burst it and let all the air out. The shadows spread across the hills. Young Jim covered the fire with old ashes to keep the coals burning for the morning and to stop sparks spreading, and plucked his good shirt from the thornbush. It was dry now and smelt faintly of creek and gum leaves. Ma checked that everyone had brushed their teeth, with twigs dipped into a cup of salt and rubbed in firmly until their gums were red and their teeth as shiny as bits of quartz in the sunlight.

  ‘Hey Ma, could you cut my hair?’

  ‘Not now.’ Ma’s head was in the box where she kept her good clothes, wrapped in brown paper and mothballs. ‘There isn’t time.’

  ‘But Ma, it’s shaggy as a balding budgie.’

  ‘You should have thought of it earlier.’

  Dad was shaving with the last of the hot water left over from tea, squinting into the tiny mirror balanced on a tree branch. He scraped off a week’s worth of whiskers.

  ‘Struth, I wish I’d done this earlier, the light’ll be gone in a minute.’

  ‘Ma, Joey took my underpants.’

  ‘No they’re not, they’re mine!’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘If you two don’t shut up I’ll spiflicate the both of you.’ Elaine was trying to plait her hair. ‘Has anyone seen my good ribbon?’

  ‘You just watch your language my girl.’

  ‘It’s there in front of you, dopey!’

  ‘No it’s not.’

  ‘It’s right there. Struth, if it was a dog it’d bite you!’

  ‘Can someone spread tomato jam on those pikelets I made for supper?’

  ‘Oh Ma, not tomato jam, no-one’ll eat it. How about the apple jelly?’

  ‘Ma, I have to go to the toilet!’

  ‘Well, off you go then.’

  ‘It’s getting dark. I’m scared.’

  ‘I’ll take you then.’ Barbara took Thellie’s sticky hand. ‘You’ve been licking the treacle tin, haven’t you?’