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

by Barbara Arnold

  Panic surged through me. Had the American called for help, or cried, or thought of his family, or prayed? Perhaps he lived in an American-type Blountmere Street and he kept a picture of it in front of him all the time he was trying to make his way out. He might not have been far from the road. If he’d kept going, he would have made it.

  Wearily, I raised my hands above my head and attempted a stretch, before I slowly began a descent. I wedged myself against anything that felt solid to stop plummeting forward and used my diminishing strength to keep my balance. Down and down - slithering and clutching.

  When the ground flattened, I hardly recognised that it had. The blisters on my feet throbbed and I sat on a flat stone and removed my shoes. Murray’s socks were streaked with blood. Just the same, I folded them as carefully as before, tucked them inside my shoes and tied the laces together. I would be better off without them. It wasn’t as if I always wore shoes on the farm.

  Automatically, I stood up, hung my shoes over my shoulder and began walking again. I must keep going. If the American hadn’t given up, he might be back in his American Blountmere Street, instead of ending up a pile of bones and clothes hidden in the New Zealand bush. It was a waste of his journey.

  Although it was almost hidden by the overgrowth, the sun reached its flaring pinnacle, causing noonday lethargy. The bush rested.

  Somewhere I thought I heard the sound of water, a far away hum. Gaylene said that farther along from where we’d sat on our ironing board rock, the river threaded its way for miles. ‘The river! Lead me to the river where I can drink from it! Bathe my feet in! Splash in it! Dance in it! Be reborn by it!’ I prayed to Mum’s God.

  Succumbing to the midday drowsiness all around me, I laid on a pile of leaves, heaping more for a pillow. The river or the road. I slept.

  When I came to, the birdsong was gentler, not so exuberant, winding down, getting ready to set with the sun.

  Bloody patches of leaves stuck to my feet and I tried to peel them off.

  When I’d taken as many of them from my feet as I could, I once again started walking, listening beyond the birdsong for the mellow sound of the water I thought I’d heard before I fell asleep. But I couldn’t attune my ears to it.

  On and on I went in search of the water sounds.

  There it was! Not water, but a clearing in the bush! I staggered headlong towards it. My spirits soared and I looked up to the sky and freedom. I couldn’t be far now. I called out in excitement. ‘I’ve found it! I’m here!’ Even as the words left me, I realized it was the same plantation of cabbage trees I’d passed hours before.

  Lying face down, I abandoned myself to sobs that parted the stillness. I was going to die here in this place. Not in a bed like Mum probably had. Not even in the familiarity of the playground next to the lizzie, like Dobsie. Not screwed up with pain or with broken contorted limbs, just a heap of bones that had fallen asleep and never woken up, covered with my despised mission clothes. In the end, they would outlast me. I would go with no-one to pull a red blanket over my face, or say a prayer over me. I would go alone and with no one who really loved me. I would simply fade away into the forest, while the birds chorused unheeding above me.

  I was crawling now. My shoes and socks lay discarded somewhere. Above me, the ragged edges of sky became tinged with twilight.

  As if I had wept the last of the moisture left in me, my thirst superseded everything. My shredded feet and bloody arms were a mere blur of pain by comparison. Obsessive thoughts of water tormented me. Buckets! Lakes! Oceans! Cool and refreshing on my lips, trickling down my throat.

  “I said you were crackers, didn’t I. Bleedin’ crackers! Crackers! Crackers!” Joe’s red hair and freckles burnt under my eyelids. “Nobody’ll look after you if you don’t look after yourself. Crackers!” I cupped my hands to catch the globules that dropped from Joe’s watering can, but they evaporated before they reached my fingers. I scratched at the ground for the last of the fallen moisture, but the earth was arid under my finger-nails.

  I let my eyelids droop and relinquished myself to the bush. I had been abandoned for the last time.

  The man was no more than a black outline in the early morning light as he bent over me. He seemed familiar and I raised my hand to touch his face.

  ‘She’ll be right, boy,’ the man said.

  I closed my eyes and waited. I had never imagined the touch of death to be whiskery and warm. Crackers!

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘I’ve never seen Murray and Fergus like that before,’ Joe told me when we were both back in the quarters. ‘You should have heard them, demanding to know what the Boss had done with you. The old sod blustered that he was giving you a couple of nights in the bush you wouldn’t forget. It wouldn’t do you any harm, he said. Just the same, he looked as if he had the wind-up, when Murray said the authorities would have him if anything happened to you. Fergus said it was a damn fool thing to do. The Blessed Virgin must be weeping over you, alone out there, he told the Boss.

  ‘Like I said, it must have frightened Downston good and proper, ‘cos even though he stormed around swearing he didn’t know what all the fuss was about, he threw Murray the keys to the truck. He said he’d taken you to Pikes Elbow. If you’d got any sense you’d stay put there. He started going on about you interfering with his daughter. He ranted about you having to be taught a lesson, but Murray was already outside the hut, and running to the truck. I followed him. There was no way I was going to let him go without me,’ Joe grinned.

  ‘Even though Murray’s a bushman, I thought we were going to get ourselves lost. But Murray knew what he was doing, all right. When we found the collar to your shirt, I knew we’d find you, if only you’d hang on, and not go conking out on us.’ Joe gave a wobbly laugh.

  Joe said when they got me back to the men’s quarters, I slept for sixteen hours straight off. Even so, when I tried to get up my legs gave way. They looked like a pair of corkscrews and my feet were torn to shreds, Joe told me. I hardly felt the pain.

  That evening the Missus brought the boil-up over herself. She’d mixed a bit of chicken with it.

  Murray touched his hat and said ‘Good on ya, Missus,’ but she ignored him and walked across to my bunk. Without saying anything, she took a posh looking tin from the pocket of her overall. She unscrewed the lid, pushed me gently back, and began to rub honeysuckle-perfumed cream into my feet. Her hands were surprisingly soft and every now and then she put the tin to her nose and inhaled. I think it must have been expensive stuff. Just the same, it stung and caused me to suck in my breath. She touched my shoulder fleetingly and as silently as she had come, she left.

  ‘My, but she’s been a hot one today.’ Downston appeared over the ridge as the four of us sat outside later that evening. He was carrying a chipped china jug and two glasses.

  ‘I reckon she’s still got a bit of summer left,’ he said in an oily way.

  ‘Too right, Boss,’ Murray replied.

  ‘Just having a stroll round the place to make sure everything’s all right.’ Downston explained casually. He acted as if he hadn’t seen me.

  ‘To be sure ‘tis a good night for a saunter.’ Fergus joined the conversation.

  ‘Brought you a drop of something to wet the back of your throats, seeing as it’s hot as a bloody furnace. Liquid gold, it is.’

  ‘Good on ya, Boss.’ Murray took hold of the jug and glasses, leaving Downston empty-handed and awkward. ‘Too right she’s a hot one,’ he repeated and cleared his throat. ‘Well, best be off then. There’s still a bit to check on. Hooray.’

  We watched as Downston stumbled over the ridge and retreated into the distance. Murray moved his hat back and scratched his head. ‘The Boss is scared we’re going to rap on him to the authorities, too right he is. That’s what all this is about.’

  ‘Why don’t we snitch on him? Tony could be dead now if we hadn’t found him.’ Joe lowered his voice as if he was trying not to let me hear.

  ‘No point, b
oy. It would only be our word against his,’ Murray replied. ‘And what would they do? My guess is they’d take the pair of you’s away to a place where we couldn’t keep an eye on you.’

  ‘To be sure we’ve talked it over. But for everyone’s sake it’s best left. He won’t do it again. Not with us around!’

  ‘Too right, he won’t.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about with us around,’ Joe mimicked, when Murray and Fergus had returned to the hut. ‘Anything for a quiet life, those two.’

  I kept my mouth shut. What was the point in making a fuss? Who was going to listen to what I had to say? No one ever had.

  I hadn’t seen Gaylene since being lost in the bush. Murray said they’d probably sent her to Downston’s brother until it was time for her to return to school. Often, before I fell asleep I recalled the feel of her skin and the rise of her breasts, although I had difficulty picturing her face.

  In the same way, a net had fallen over Blountmere Street that blurred details, obscured scenes and refused to lift even when with deep concentration I tried to raise it.

  The torpor deepened. My thoughts and actions became sluggish and without purpose. Despair that I had neither the inclination, nor the energy to throw off settled on me. No reading of poetry by Fergus or cajoling by Murray could penetrate it. I was oblivious to Joe’s endless chatter. Living or dying became indecipherable as choices.

  As if each day some unknown finger pressed a button connected to my body, I went about my work and routines without thinking or caring what I was doing until the finger pressed again and released me to the relief of sleep.

  Careless autumn sunshine gave place to the warning barbs of winter. Somewhere deep in a recess in my head, it reminded me of the bombsite. I think it was the only reason I noticed it.

  ‘The sun’s ripenened the tomatoes I’ve got hidden all over the place.’ Joe caressed the ones he’d just picked. ‘With winter coming, I want to use them all up, so Murray and me are going to make some chutney. Want to help?’ Joe asked as we sat outside the men’s quarters.

  ‘Nope.’

  Joe threw a tomato into the air and caught it. ‘I’m real sorry about what the Boss did to you. And about your Mum dying and everything. But not everyone’s done the dirty on you. I haven’t, for one, nor have Murray and Fergus. And we won’t always have to stay here. Why d’you think we’re saving our money? One day we’ll show Downston and the Missus a thing or two.’

  ‘Blast Downston ! Blast him! Blast you all!’ I grabbed the tomatoes Joe had been holding and hurled them like red grenades to the ground. Then I bent down, grabbed a handful of stones, and aimed them at the long drop. ‘I hate everyone and everything about this place.’ My words were interspersed with sobs, but I didn’t care. ‘You’re a fool. We’ll never get away. We’ll die here. You’ll die here next to your precious tomatoes.’

  ‘Steady on boy. Can’t a man have a wash in peace?’ Murray emerged from the hut in his greying vest, tufts of hair sprouting from under his arms.

  ‘Go to hell!’ I fled across the paddock and headed for the bush. Before I got there, my chest was heaving and my breathing was becoming painful. My legs still weren’t as strong as they had been. They buckled and I sank to the ground. Through my tears, I saw the far away river and beyond it the bush. That was where I belonged, away from everyone and everything; away from a poetry-reciting Irishmen and a lily-livered Kiwi; away from Joe and his tomatoes. I belonged with Mum and Dobsie. There was nothing for me here except a life of misery. There was no escape. I levered myself to my feet and slowly began walking to the river. I would take myself into the bush. This time they wouldn’t find me. It was better to wither there now than to die an old man at Downstons.

  I walked on and on, until I came to the ironing board rock Gaylene and I had sat on. Once I had crossed the river, I would be on the edge of the bush where I could take myself off into oblivion. I jumped on to the rock and stood contemplating the never-ending jungle in front of me. I trembled at its density and I urged myself to build up the courage to enter it again, to prepare myself for its loneliness. ‘I’m coming to you, Mum,’ I whispered, but my legs had become part of the rock. ‘I want to be with you,’ I called louder this time into the emptiness. ‘Let me be with you. Please let me be with you.’ But my legs stayed where they were.

  I don’t know how long I remained rooted to the rock. I called for Mum, and told Dobsie how sorry I was, as I pleaded with them to come and get me. But they didn’t come, and I couldn’t do it without them. I couldn’t enter that place again. I couldn’t let it take me. This time my legs moved and I walked away.

  The rabbiters had been at Downston’s for a couple of days now, and shots resounded all around.

  ‘It’s funny how you get used to the noise,’ Joe observed, as he and Murray chopped onions ready for their chutney. ‘But they’re strange blokes, those rabbiters. Keep themselves to themselves and never say a word.’

  ‘That’s because the poor beggars are deaf. Too much gunshot in their ears,’ Murray replied. ‘Anyways, you just watch it. I’ve known more than one bloke who’s been shot by the rabbiters unawares.’

  Joe shuddered. ‘We’re best in here then. Sure you don’t want to help with this chutney?’ He called across to me, as I sprawled on my bunk. I didn’t answer. I’d told him once. I wasn’t going to waste my breath telling him again.

  ‘Please yourself.’

  A shot rang out and Murray said, ‘Another bunny to add to their stash. Deaf or not, those guns earn ‘em a good living. Never let ‘em out of their sight. Even take ‘em to the dunny.’

  I rolled from my bunk and left the hut. With the rabbiters hard at it, now was the time to take a look in their huts. I knew what Murray had just said, but maybe by chance just this once, they’d left a spare gun lying around. I ran to the pigsty. I stayed there while gunshot echoed in the distance. Then I chased across a paddock to the rabbiters’ huts.

  I pushed open the door to the first one. It was dark and reeked of sweat and boil-up. I sidled through the door and waited for my eyes to adjust to the murkiness. The hut was only big enough for one bunk. It was covered with the usual sacking. A tin bowl, knife and fork and a mug were grouped together in one corner, while in another was an empty tin box with the lid open. There didn’t seem to be much else there. I groped under the bed, but all I retrieved was a handful of leaves and a couple of dead mice.

  I crept out of the hut into the next one. It was more or less the same, even to the dead mice under the bed. Outside I flattened myself against a hut, and sidestepped around the wooden boards, but there were no guns propped anywhere. Murray was right. The rabbiters were pretty careful with them.

  When I returned, our quarters were thick with the smell of chutney, and the table was covered with jars full of the muddy red concoction.

  ‘This’ll spice up the boil up.’ Murray wiped the outside of a jar on his trousers. ‘It should last us at least a year, I reckon.’

  A year! I wouldn’t be eating the stuff for a year. I didn’t intend staying around that long.

  I left our quarters as quickly as I had entered them and ran towards the sound of the shots.

  Across a paddock, I could see the rabbiters advancing. Their guns were at shoulder height and ready to fire. Their rabbiters’ eyes were fixed on their target. They were unaware of my presence nearby as I slithered through the undergrowth on my stomach. Then I saw the two rabbits they had lined up, sitting stock still as if they could sense danger. They were so near, I could have touched them. I watched as the rabbiters took aim. Then as a bullet left a gun, I threw myself in front of the rabbits. The shot passed me with a high pitched whistle. I fell and the rabbiters ran towards me. I saw their lips moving, but the shot had deafened me. They patted me all over, then stood me to my feet and shook me a little. Their relief showed on their faces. I began to cry. The rabbiters had missed me. I was still alive.

  It must have scared the rabbiters good and proper, and as soon as
they’d made sure I was all right, they scarpered back to their huts. I don’t think they told anyone what I’d done. At least no one said anything to me.

  My confusion increased. I supposed I was relieved the rabbiters hadn’t killed me, but my despondency remained and turned into a sense of futility. In my anger, I wanted to lash out at anything or anyone close to me. More than anything, I burned with hatred towards Downston.

  ‘You!’ Downston stomped into the hut, and advanced towards me. His one eyebrow had lowered. I turned on my bunk, experiencing an impulse to tread on his ugly face like I had Joe’s tomatoes, to grind my heel into it, to leave it a bloody pulp.

  ‘What d’you want?’ I asked in the belligerent way I spoke to everyone.

  ‘Stand up when I’m talking to you!’ Downston ordered. Reluctantly, I rolled from my bunk and came to my feet.

  ‘Did you rub chutney over the homestead windows and the Missus’ washing?’

  ‘What if I did? What’re you going to do about it?’ All at once, I realized I was a head taller than Downston and my shoulders were several inches wider.

  ‘What’re you going to do about it?’ I repeated. ‘Take me back into the bush? Report me to the authorities?’

  A pulse ticked in the side of Downston’s face. I moved nearer to him and grabbed his arms. Impulsively, I began to shake him, my fury at last let fully loose. Downston struggled to free himself but I tightened my grip and intensified the shaking. Downston’s face was a crimson blur in front of me. I was unheeding of the choking noises he was making and of his pitiful protests. I shook him for the orphanage, for the authorities who had taken us away. I shook him for Mum and Angela. I shook him for Gaylene.

  I pushed my knee into his groin and he yelped. Spurred on, I moved my hands to his throat. I felt his shrivelled skin like a lizard’s and his Adam’s apple moving up and down under my fingers. I circled his neck with my hands and twisted until he began to make deep spluttering noises. Saliva dripped from his mouth on to my hands.