The Indigo Sky

by Alison Booth

  He hoped they wouldn’t argue about him once Daddy got his letter.

  Smothering a yawn – his unhappiness was making it hard to sleep at nights – he slowly read through his composition. It was a bit short, so he added a sticky date pudding at the very end, with custard. There was no reason why the hero couldn’t have two desserts in a story even if he wouldn’t be allowed to in real life.

  At this point he glanced at the clock on the wall of the prep room. There was enough time to check again what he’d written to his father. He pulled the letter out of the back of the exercise book, in which he’d tucked it for safety.

  Dear Daddy,

  I hate it here. I am very very unhappy. The other boys use me as a skate goat and I want to come home. Please take me out of boarding school. You can send me to the local school. I will learn more there than here and be happier.

  Can’t wait to come home.

  Your loving son,

  Philip

  For a moment he wondered if he should address it to both his parents. It would be easy to add Mummy to the letter. Yet she’d always said that it was his father’s idea that he should go to Stambroke so he was the one to convince. Once more Philip read the letter. Something about it seemed wrong. He couldn’t work out what it was. Eventually he opened the pocket dictionary that he kept in his book bag and flicked through it to the letter S. Skate goat. There was no such thing. He turned back several pages. Finally he found what he was looking for. Scapegoat: one blamed or punished for the sins of others. Carefully, he corrected the word in his letter, and read it once more before sealing it in an envelope.

  Now that he had all the words right, his father would surely take notice of his request and let him come home.

  Chapter 7

  Why he should feel slightly nervous as he approached the gates to Stambroke College, George Cadwallader couldn’t understand. He had nothing to be ashamed of. He was every bit as good as these rich people with their confidence and expensive cars that lined each side of the road leading to the school and filled the car park. Money didn’t mark your worth, it was kindness and compassion that did that.

  Looking down at the school grounds, he could see groups of people scattered across the lawn in front of the Assembly Hall, the men in dark suits and the women in bright dresses, with boys in college uniform weaving between them. At the top of the sandstone steps descending to the lawn, he paused for a moment, in order to brush an imaginary speck of dust off his lapel and to see if he could detect a whiff of camphor. When he’d lifted his suit out of the case the night before, he’d thought it smelled faintly of mothballs, but all he could identify now was the scent of newly mown grass and the frangipani blossoms of the trees flanking the steps.

  Putting his hesitation down to shyness, he wished that Eileen had travelled to Sydney with him. Everything was much easier when there were two of them instead of one. He adjusted the new blue-and-red-striped tie that he’d bought in Burford the week before, and began to limp down the stairs. At the bottom he paused again, his attention caught by the beauty of the scene in front of him. The kaleidoscopic colours of the moving figures on the lawn. The Moreton Bay fig trees with their buttressed trunks bordering the edge of the lawn, and beyond that, the glittering blue of the harbour across which a ferry made its way, leaving a wake that appeared almost solid.

  And not one familiar face in this sea of strangers.

  At this point masters began to marshall the boys into the Assembly Hall. Soon after, the guests were rather less coercively encouraged to move by anxious-looking prefects. George found himself towards the front of the queue and was able to choose a seat reasonably close to the stage. It was impossible to pick out his son from all these blazered boys but he’d see Jim soon enough when it was his turn to go up onto the platform. Once all the parents had seated themselves, the school orchestra began to play. That was when George recognised Philip Chapman at the piano, a small boy compared to all the others in the orchestra. He’d done something funny to his hair; George couldn’t help smiling at the sight of the ragged crew cut. Lads were always the same when they got away from their parents, they all wanted to change their hairstyle.

  Now the boys in the audience stood up. Their parents rather tentatively followed suit, with the hesitation of infrequent members of a church congregation who could only imperfectly recall the rituals. As the music swelled, the procession of black-robed teachers began to advance at a ponderous pace down the central aisle of the hall and up the stairs onto the stage. There they took their places in a serried display behind the headmaster. At his signal, everyone seated themselves again, accompanied by the orchestra and a rumbling of chairs.

  The headmaster began a speech about the school’s achievements over the past year and its plans for the future. In spite of his best intentions, George found his attention wandering. There was a row of large wooden boards hanging above the trophy cabinets. These boards, which he hadn’t noticed on previous visits, chronologically detailed in gold lettering past heads, past prefects, past athletes, past duxes of the school. In his mind he was already seeing, on the list of duxes of the school, 1962 James Cadwallader.

  He mustn’t get his hopes up though, or put any pressure on his son. While Jim was good at everything and could choose any career he wanted, he didn’t yet have a vocation. That’s why he was doing so many subjects this year, but he’d have to cut out some next year, the school insisted on specialisation for the Leaving Certificate. George still dreamt sometimes that his son would do science and eventually astronomy but Jim had expressed no preference for anything yet. All he’d decided was that he’d go to university but it was almost as if he didn’t care what he’d study there.

  Now, after a fanfare from the orchestra, a federal politician was ushered onto the stage. From the Liberal Party, naturally, you’d hardly expect that a Labor Party politician would be chosen by an institution representing the establishment. George felt a twinge of disappointment nonetheless. You’d think they’d pick a guest speaker divorced from politics, he thought. Especially just days before the federal election. A judge or a scientist or an admiral, rather than this parliamentarian. Admittedly the man was an Old Boy, so presumably he’d been selected as a role model, though the speech was a self-serving outline of the man’s career and achievements. Boys, if you strive hard you too can represent your fellow Australians, you too can be like me. In his irritation George began to fidget with the program and found that he’d dog-eared the corners when his intention had been to keep the booklet pristine.

  Eventually, after the man droned to a conclusion, the headmaster took over the microphone. Next he would call up the lines of boys whose hands the Member of Parliament was to press. Every boy was to receive a certificate of varying degrees of merit, with the older boys last, so there was a considerable time to elapse before it was Jim’s turn. George already knew that Jim wouldn’t be given every prize for his year, although he’d topped every subject. This spirit of egalitarianism was to be applauded, George told himself. It was petty to want everyone to know that the boys getting those other prizes had only come second. Anyway three prizes were to go Jim’s way: first in form, science and history. And as well there was that other award that had been bestowed on Jim a few weeks ago by the Law Society for his essay on human rights. That had been in a competition right across the state, and his was chosen as the best.

  As Jim ascended the steps, George felt as if his heart would burst. Tears filled his eyes when his son shook hands with the politician and accepted the prizes. That’s my boy, he might have said to the women sitting on either side of him had he not felt too choked with emotion. Instead, he blew his nose very hard. Whoever would have thought that the butcher’s son from Jingera would get this far? That he was also going to be made a prefect next year was the icing on the cake.

  Afterwards George wandered around the lawn, several times trying unsucce
ssfully to engage people in conversation. Eventually he joined the queue for tea. He didn’t immediately recognise the woman in front of him, distracted as he was by her hat. It was a yellow thing with a large black feather pointing backwards, which threatened his nostrils every time she moved. When she turned, he realised who she was: Mrs Chapman of Woodlands, mother of the boy playing the piano.

  ‘Mr Cadwallader,’ she exclaimed at once. Her hair was almost as red as her lipstick. ‘How lovely to see you here. You must be so proud of Jim winning all those prizes! And he’s grown into such a good-looking boy, he must have all the girls running after him!’

  In the face of this effusion, George had no idea what was expected of him. To play safe, he simply grinned and nodded and fiddled with his program.

  Perhaps she didn’t expect any answer, for she continued almost at once, ‘Philip plays the piano. You would have seen him in the orchestra. He played on his own in the school concert but we couldn’t go. Poor Jack is kept so busy with the bulls and the rams and whatnots that we don’t get to Sydney much, although I do sometimes sneak away. He barely misses me at all, do you, darling?’ Here she plucked up the sleeve of her red-faced, white-haired husband. Like George, he made no response apart from smiling and nodding.

  The headmaster, sweeping by, caught sight of Mrs Chapman. Approaching with a speed that was almost undignified, he took Mrs Chapman’s hand and bent so low over it that he might have been about to kiss it.

  ‘Very good to see you here, Mrs Chapman,’ he said. ‘Very good. The sun always shines more brightly when you grace us with your presence.’

  ‘How sweet of you to say so, Dr Barker. That’s quite the nicest compliment I’ve had all day.’

  It was another language, George thought, embarrassed for them both. At that point he noticed Philip Chapman standing behind his father. So distracted were the Chapman parents by the headmaster they seemed to have forgotten about him. ‘Hello, Philip,’ George said, smiling. ‘Didn’t see you standing there.’

  ‘H-hello, Mr C-C-C . . .’ The boy gave up on the name as a lost cause and began another tack. ‘J-J-Jim has d-d-done really w-w-w . . .’

  ‘Well,’ George finished. ‘Done well. You’ve done well too, Philip. Really well.’

  ‘Only at the p-p-piano.’ There was a long pause while he struggled to get the next words out. ‘D-duffer at everything else.’

  Philip’s parents, having now been served tea, nodded goodbye before drifting across the lawn, accompanied by the headmaster who seemed intent on keeping them in his party. Trailing several paces behind, Philip chewed at a sticky bun.

  After collecting tea and a rock cake, George looked around. No sign of Jim anywhere. He would wait in the dense shade of one of the Moreton Bay fig trees until he could see his son and then he’d emerge. His elation had now quite worn off, replaced by loneliness and a sense of inadequacy. He never felt alienated like this in Jingera, where he knew almost everyone and it was easy to strike up a conversation with those he didn’t. But here his simple manner wasn’t welcome. He appeared shabby, he knew. His suit, although still serviceable, was old. It was his only suit; he’d bought it for his wedding in 1945. It still fitted him, or at least did now that Eileen had let out the waistband. Double-breasted suits were no longer in fashion, but that wouldn’t explain why, apart from the Chapmans, the few people he’d tried to talk to had basically brushed him off. They’d sized up who he was, or probably who he wasn’t, and hadn’t bothered to offer more than a perfunctory yes or no to his conversational gambits. He was a fish out of water in this crowd, no doubt about that. But he wasn’t going to let that upset him. The sight of Jim receiving those prizes would become one of his most precious memories.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ Jim said. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Why are you hiding over here?’ Under his arm were the three books he’d received as prizes.

  ‘I’m not hiding,’ George said. ‘Just observing.’

  They shook hands, slightly awkwardly, with George balancing the half-eaten rock cake on the saucer. Once upon a time they would have hugged one another but not anymore, not now that Jim was taller than he was. He must have grown an inch or more since the start of term and his shoulders seemed to have broadened.

  ‘Why don’t you talk to some of the other parents instead of skulking around on the sidelines?’

  George was too pleased to see Jim to let what amounted to an accusation bother him. However there was a slight pause before Jim added, ‘Sorry, Dad. Thanks for coming. Here, have a squiz at my prizes. I’ll hold your cup of tea.’ After they’d made the exchange, he added, ‘Why didn’t Andy come?’

  ‘He’s at school, obviously, that’s why.’

  ‘He came last year. I thought he’d be here this year too.’

  ‘Your mother was able to come last time and that’s why we brought Andy.’ He realised at once how tactless that sounded, and added, ‘He can’t really afford to miss too much school. Your mother didn’t come this year because of all the travelling. Riding about in trains and buses disagrees with her. She’ll be coming next year though.’

  ‘And Andy.’

  ‘Yes, if he wants to. Seeing it’s your last year.’

  ‘Of course he’ll want to come.’

  Perhaps he should have offered to bring Andy, George thought as he inspected the three books. He ran his hand over the cover of the top book. It was beautifully bound in leather, with the school crest and title of the prize engraved in gold lettering on the cover and spine. He’d just started to flick through the book, about the history of science, when they were joined by a tall boy with wavy ginger hair and a freckled complexion. It was a moment before George recognised Jim’s friend Eric Hall. Though they’d encountered one another a couple of times before, Eric had been transformed in the interim from a boy into a handsome youth. A bit of a ladies’ man was how Jim had described him last holidays. Quite how you could be a ladies’ man when you were boarding at an all-boys’ school in term-time, and living on a property on the Walgett plains in the holidays, was beyond George’s understanding.

  ‘Good to see you again, Mr Cadwallader. Thanks for inviting me to stay in the holidays. I’m really looking forward to it.’

  ‘It’s a modest town,’ George said, although actually he meant their house. ‘Not like this part of the world.’

  Eric said at once, ‘I hate Sydney. Too many people and not enough space.’

  ‘My sentiments entirely,’ said George, warming to the young man’s charm. ‘There’s nothing like visiting it, though, to make you appreciate what you’ve got at home.’

  ‘I can’t wait till the holidays start,’ Eric said. ‘Nearly two months of freedom.’

  ‘Neither can I,’ said Jim. ‘I can’t wait to get home.’

  At this, George’s initial feeling of alienation from his son quite vanished.

  Dad’s late, Jim Cadwallader thought. Fifteen minutes before their train was due to depart and there was still no sign of him under the clock on the concourse where they’d arranged to meet. It wasn’t as if he had to come far, the guesthouse he’d stayed in was closer to Railway Square than Stambroke College was.

  Jim and some of the other boarders had been conducted by coach to Central Station. They were at first unusually subdued. Their day had started far too early and their sleep the night before too late. End-of-term celebrations had gone on until all hours, with the juniors ragging and the seniors disporting themselves like juniors, and only the prefects maintaining any sense of decorum. Now the boys, blazered and boatered, stood about in small groups that peeled off one by one as trains and platforms were announced.

  There was still no sign of Jim’s father. To fill in time, Jim inspected the indicator boards. Trains going out west, over the Blue Mountains and on to Dubbo and Broken Hill. Trains heading south to Goulburn and Canberra and Albury. Trains headi
ng north to Newcastle and Coffs Harbour and beyond. Only one train south to Bomaderry.

  There was something exciting about being at a railway terminus. Maybe it was the announcements over the loudspeaker, the signs saying Country and Interstate Trains, and the bustle of people hurrying on and off the platforms. He loved the great arch of the barrel vaulting above the concourse, the corrugated iron sheets curving over the elegant metal trusses. Sunlight flooded through the transparent panels at the top, illuminating the groups of boys and giving their farewells added significance.