He Called Me Son (The Blountmere Street Series Book 1)

by Barbara Arnold

  ‘Spent his winnings at The Travellers,’ Murray nodded towards the door Fergus had retreated through.

  ‘Winnings? On the gee gees?’ Joe had his spoon raised ready for when Murray placed his bowl in front of him.

  ‘Too right.’

  ‘You won?’

  ‘Too right.’

  ‘Did you win a lot? A fortune?’

  ‘Enough.’ Murray delved into his pocket. He pulled out a wad of notes. ‘That reminds me, we put a bob each way for you young blokes on Lucky Scoundrel.’ He began peeling from the bundle of notes.

  ‘D’you mean you put a bet on for us, and we won, as well as you?’ I asked. I hadn’t ever won anything.

  ‘Too right.’

  ‘But we never gave you any money.’ The last time I could remember holding money in my hand, was when Mum gave me sixpence for Saturday Picture Club out of what Fred and Lori left us.

  ‘Our shout. We each put in a bit for the two of you.’

  ‘And we’ve won thirty bob each?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Blimey, we’re blinkin’ rich.’

  ‘Steady on, Ginger.’ Murray replaced the wad in his pocket, and began spooning porridge on top of the boil-up.

  Joe stared at the money in his hand. ‘One day I’ll be stinkin’ rich. And I’ll tell you something; now I’ve got a bit, I won’t ever be without cash again’

  That evening, when Fergus’ hangover had worn off, he suddenly asked me ‘Have you thought any more about writing to those neighbours of yours?’ He flipped over a dog-eared page of Beautiful Ireland, as the wind forced itself between the wooden slats of our quarters and rustled the calendars on the walls.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘If you write a letter, I’ll post it for you. The last one you wrote probably got lost on the ship. To be sure, that’s what happened.’ But Fergus’s eyes never left his book. ‘Anyhows, be that as it may, if you start a letter now, you’ll have a couple of weeks to work on it.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ What reason did I have to write? I wasn’t likely to get back to England no matter how many wins we had on the horses. And, if Paula Dibble did decide to answer, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear how Mum died, and what had happened to Angela. I didn’t want to know how things had changed in Blountmere Street. My dreams were all I had left.

  ‘And those other friends, the ones who live in New Zealand. What about them? They might have a telephone number. If you give me their names and address, I’ll try and find out. Now where’s the harm in that?’

  ‘No point. They didn’t turn up to collect me off the ship, and that’s that.’ I resented Fergus’ nosiness.

  ‘Have you thought they might not know you’re here?’

  ‘The orphanage said they’d get in touch with them, and the orphanage always did what they said they would. They said they’d punish you if you wet the bed and they did. They said you were going to be sent to New Zealand, and you were.’

  ‘Why don’t you give me these people’s names and address.’ I could tell Fergus was trying to make up for losing my last letter but it was too late.

  ‘They’re called Fred and Lori.’ I didn’t want to say their names out loud. My voice was little more than a whisper.

  ‘Fred and Lori who?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Of course it matters.’

  ‘Stannard.’

  ‘Stannard?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ Why didn’t Fergus stop asking questions. He wasn’t always on at Joe to write to his folk.

  ‘Where do they live?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘The North or The South Island?

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘So you didn’t give the orphanage their address?’

  ‘Didn’t have one. The matron tore up their letter, and I couldn’t remember their address in New Zealand.’

  Fergus’ face took on the sort of softness it did when he read poetry out loud.

  ‘By all the saints, how could the orphanage contact them without an address?’

  ‘New Zealand’s not that big. There can’t be many Stannards living here.’

  Fergus sighed. ‘You said they have a son in New Zealand. What’s his name?’

  ‘Ronald, but Fred said he didn’t have the same surname as him, because he’d taken Fred’s first wife’s name.’

  ‘It doesn’t make things easy, to be sure, but let’s have a go, anyway, shall we?’

  ‘Do what you want.’ I didn’t care. Fergus could please himself. This time I wouldn’t spend every waking opportunity with my eyes fixed on the distant road, expecting Fred and Lori to come round the bend and down the hill. It was a mug’s game. I wasn’t playing it any more.

  Paul Downston galloped his horse, Flinders, in the paddock next to the pigsty. It was early for Downston’s son to be out. During his school holidays, when he was back on the farm, he wasn’t usually around until much later. If I could, I avoided him. He was as much a bully as his father. More so. Even Downston didn’t treat the animals with the cruelty his son did. I could see the horse was tiring. Its breath created a white column in front of it, yet the boy kept applying his whip to the animal’s rump, urging it to go faster. I walked back into the sty, my insides feeling as if they were being squeezed through the Missus’ mangle. Just as I couldn’t do anything to change my own life, I could do nothing to help Flinders. We were both captives.

  Paul Downston tugged at the rein and turned Flinders towards the pigsty. My stomach experienced another turn in the mangle. As they approached, I noticed blood pumping from one of Flinder’s flanks. I shivered. Like me, Flinders was at the mercy of a brute.

  ‘Come here you, pommie bastard,’ Paul Downston commanded me, as he reached the sty. He dismounted from Flinders, with another vicious crack of his whip to the mare’s hind quarters. Flinders whinied. I hated hearing her pain.

  ‘You slept in my bedroom while I was away, and ran it alive with fleas, you dirty orphan.’ He accused. ‘Now say, “Sorry, sir”.’

  I didn’t answer, and went inside the pigsty. I took a piece of rag from a hook, returned and began dabbing at the wheals on Flinder’s back.

  ‘Don’t try and be clever with me.’ Paul Downston snatched the cloth. Flinders snorted in pain.

  ‘When I say something to you, you’re to answer, “Yes, sir”.’

  The only weapon I had against Paul Downston was silence. I wouldn’t apologise or say “sir”.

  ‘Say, “Yes, sir”!’ Paul Downston commanded. His lips, which were narrow like his old man’s, straightened and merged into one. ‘Now say, “Yes, sir”!’

  Still I refused to answer, and Flinders whinnied as if she was on my side.

  ‘Are you going to say it, or am I going to have to knock it out of you?’

  Silence.

  ‘Say it!’ He had hold of my jersey.

  Silence.

  The punch, when it came, caught me on the side of my mouth, causing blood to spurt from my lip and two teeth to become loosened.

  ‘Say, “Yes, sir”!’ Paul Downston shook with rage, while he flexed and unflexed his fists.

  At once my mouth swelled. I wouldn’t be able to pronounce the words, even if I’d decided to.

  I turned and began to walk towards the men’s quarters. I readied myself for the next blow. This time, I wouldn’t take it. This time, I’d turn and hit him so hard, he wouldn’t get up. This time, I’d kill him.

  ‘Call me, “sir”!’ His voice was shaking. ‘Call me, “sir”!’

  But the blow I was expecting never came. Instead, I heard him mount Flinders and gallop away.

  Back in the hut, Murray examined his pliers and wiped them on a piece of newspaper. ‘Those two teeth are going to have to come out.’ He practised at positioning the pliers. ‘Open your mouth wide, boy, so I can get these inside it,’ he instructed.

  ‘He can’t. His mouth’s too swollen,’ Joe answered for me.

 
‘Open it as far as it’ll go. Nothing to worry about. A couple of good yanks and they’ll both be out.’

  ‘Good job they’re at the back, Tone. Nobody’ll be able to see they’re missing.’ Joe tried to assure me, but every inch of me was quivering.

  It took more than a couple of “good yanks” to extract the two incisors and Murray had built up a sweat before he dropped them both with a tinkle into a bowl.

  ‘Holy Mother of God,’ Fergus said, as he wiped perspiration from his own upper lip.

  ‘I’ll give him “yes sir”. I’ll get him back for this, Tone. I promise you that. Paul Downston’ll wish he’d never set eyes on us when I’ve finished with him. I’ll bide my time, but I’ll get him.’ Joe held a blood-soaked cloth to my mouth. My whole head throbbed, and I barely heard him.

  That night, I hardly slept, even when the shaking had subsided. It wasn’t only because of the pain in my mouth, but because of my concern for Flinders. What if Paul Downston had killed her? She didn’t deserve to die. She was a soft and trusting creature. She needed to be caressed and loved. I didn’t know much about horses, but I knew she would have willingly done whatever Downston had wanted, without having to be whipped. The thought of being loved and caressed caused fresh longings to flare inside me.

  The next morning with my face swollen the size of a full moon I visited Flinders in the stables before the first light appeared over the mountains. I knew Paul Downston wouldn’t be about at that hour. Nevertheless, my actions were stealthy as I tiptoed into the stables, calling softly. To my relief, the mare made a snuffling sound, and scraped a hoof on the ground. ‘It’s all right, girl. It’s only me,’ I told her. With the orphanage torch, the one Joe had given me, I shone it along Flinders’ back. Then, from my other pocket, I took the tin of ointment Candlewax had left. I scooped a liberal amount of the pungent grease into my hand. I rubbed it along the whip wounds, praying that it would heal as Candlewax said it would. Flinders whinnied and I said, ‘Shush, girl, shush. We don’t want anyone to hear, do we?’ The horse nuzzled me. ‘I’ll be back,’ I promised. When he’s not around I’ll come and put some more ointment on you, to make you better. You can rely on me.’ Flinders rubbed her face against mine. Perhaps, like me, she felt a little less powerless.

  ‘For the love of the Blessed Virgin, can’t a man get any peace round here!’ Fergus licked his pencil stub and frowned at the piece of writing paper in front of him.

  ‘I was only saying I’ve got to cover my lemon tree, in case a late frost gets hold of it,’ Joe said.

  ‘Then, for all the saints’ sakes, say it quieter.’

  Joe poked out his tongue at Fergus’ back and mumbled something about people getting the hump.

  It had been the fourth night running that Fergus had laboured over what appeared to be a letter, before screwing it into a ball and tossing it into the fire.

  ‘To be sure, you’d do well to be writing a letter yourself instead of watching me like a tawny owl.’ He scowled at me.

  ‘Fergus is finding it really difficult to write to whoever it is,’ I observed to Joe as we draped a piece of sacking over his lemon tree.

  ‘It doesn’t mean he has to take it out on us. Anyway, I don’t know why people find writing letters so difficult.’

  ‘That’s because you never write any.’

  ‘I would if I wanted to.’

  I tucked a corner of the sacking under a branch. There were people I wanted to write to; people like the Gang and the Dibbles. People who had left a chasm in my life much, much wider than the gap in my teeth that my tongue was forever probing. It was their reply, or lack of one, that worried me.

  The next night, Fergus barely touched his dinner as he sat hunched on his bed, staring at a blank sheet of paper. He scrawled on it before he crossed out what he had written, cursed and began again.

  Joe looked across at Fergus and raised his eyebrows, before saying, ‘I think I’ll have a couple of bob each way on Den’s Dance.’ He folded The Betting News.

  Studying form had become Joe’s preferred evening reading.

  ‘What about you, Tone?’

  ‘If you think it’s going to win, why don’t you put more money on it?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you, I’m never going to be without a bit of cash again. A couple of bob will do.’

  ‘I suppose you want me to put it on for you?’ Murray scraped Fergus’s half-eaten dinner into a tin for the dogs.

  ‘Yeah … please.’ Joe gave Murray his most persuasive grin.

  ‘And for me, too.’

  ‘Beggar me, if the pair of you aren’t worse than me and my brothers when we were your age,’ Murray replied.

  ‘Are you not going to be writing a letter, then?’ Fergus asked me, as if from a long way off.

  ‘Another time,’ I replied.

  Murray said Paul Downston had gone to the Boss’s brother on the Coast. I didn’t care where he’d gone, as long as he was away from the farm and I could visit the stables more freely. Downston himself had no interest in horses. I took the sugar lumps Murray and Fergus had pinched from The Travellers. The mare licked my hand clean, then she nuzzled my neck. I examined Flinders’ back, where the whip had cut into her. Thanks to Candlewax’s ointment, it was pretty well healed. I wished I could say the same about my mouth. From time to time my gum still ached, especially at night when the pain woke me.

  I took a brush and began grooming her in long, loving strokes along her back until her coat was glossy. All the time, I crooned, ‘Lovely girl. Good girl, Flinders.’ When I finished, I fondled the animal’s head and Flinders brought it up and nuzzled her nose against me, from my chin up to my forehead and back down. In the process, she spread the sudden tears of longing for Mum and Angela that had begun to flow.

  ‘Keep touching me, Flinders,’ I sobbed. ‘Keep touching me’

  ‘Well, come on. Tell us how we did.’ Joe was at Murray’s heels as the dogs usually were on Murray’s return from the township.

  ‘How we did with what, Ginger?’

  ‘You know what?’

  ‘My word, I don’t.’

  ‘The gee gees!’

  ‘The gee gees?’

  ‘Den’s Dance!’

  ‘Now let me see.’ Murray turned away and put his hand into the inside of his jacket. ‘He won, too right he did. Twenty to one.’ He held up a handful of pound notes.

  ‘I told you he would, didn’t I? I told you studying form was what you had to do. We’re going to be millionaires, Tone. Blinkin’ millionaires.’

  ‘What good will that do you, to be sure?’ Fergus entered the hut, disheveled and stinking of booze. He reeled across the floor, and took the lid off the stove. Then he poked the letter he had finally written the night before into the flames. ‘You had the right idea, Tony. By all the saints and the Virgin herself, letters are best kept in the head.’

  He slumped on his bed with his hat pushed over his face, leaving only his mouth clear, and muttered, ‘Not in the phone book those folks of yours, Fred and whoever … not there.’ His mouth slackened and he let out a sob before entering oblivion.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The air resounded with bleats, whistles and barks, as the dogs herded sheep into the woolshed.

  Behind the shed, gorse flowers turned the hills gold while the mountains, almost free of snow, retreated to a hazy far off place. Summer was upon us, and the sun had leached moisture from the ground, leaving the grass struggling and a yellowish brown.

  I licked perspiration from my lips, as I dragged another fleece to the wool table. My skin was slippery with lanolin, and my mission shirt had split under the arms. Yet no matter how fast I worked, I couldn’t keep up with the two shearers.

  ‘Shift yourself, boy. No slacking,’ Downston yelled across the yard.

  By the side of the holding pen, Paul Downston observed the activity, sitting astride Flinders, while Joe goaded the shorn sheep back into a paddock. His face had become one orange freckle, and his hair stuck to it
in dagger shapes.

  It was midday - feed time - when the shearers stretched and retreated to the rear of the shed, where they ducked their heads under the tap and drank deeply. It was uncanny how they knew the time. Fergus and Murray were the same, even Joe was getting the knack. The only reason I was interested in knowing the time was so that I could compare it to the time in England. As if by so doing, I could halt its relentless onwards march.

  Recently, however, I’d had difficulty remembering details of my life in Blountmere Street, and some of my mind pictures had become fuzzy. It was like looking through windows that needed cleaning. I worried that some of my memories may have slipped into a place beyond recall without my realizing it.

  Having quenched their thirst, the shearers sat propped against the woolshed. Their muscular bodies glistened. For the most part, they were uncommunicative. They were content to do their job, eat their fill and at the end of a day’s work, drink well beyond their fill.

  Usually, the Missus or Elsie brought bread, cold mutton and tomatoes, together with jugs of homemade lemonade for the shearers’ lunchtime feed. Today, though, I recognised the Downston girl coming towards us, carrying the tucker basket.

  ‘Looks as if the Missus has sent the girl with the kai. We’re the lucky ones,’ one of the shearers, with more hair on his body than his head, drawled. He barely raised his eyes, yet appeared to see everything. With the same lack of effort, his mate studied the girl as she progressed towards us, a gold and orange figure.

  Feigning disinterest, the shearers watched through half-closed eyes as she set out the food. Her hair curled around her face and when she pushed it away from her eyes, it revealed Lori’s English skin. It wasn’t blotchy and lumpy like her mother’s. But, then, nothing about her was like her mother. They might as well have belonged to two different species.

  ‘G’day. Wanna hand?’ slurred one of the shearers, who was negligently propped on one elbow.