By the Currawong's Call

by Welton B. Marsland

  ***

  Matthew stood at the side of the bed next morning, holding a cup of tea and gazing at Jonah’s sleep-smoothed features in the pre-dawn grey. After such a disturbed—and disturbing—night, Matthew was loath to wake him and start him on his day. It had to be done, regardless. They couldn’t risk morning fully breaking and Jonah being discovered in Matthew’s residence, let alone in Matthew’s bed.

  Reverently, he stroked Jonah’s hair back from his forehead, then moved his hand to Jonah’s shoulder and shook him gently.

  ‘Jonah. Jonah, I’m afraid you need to wake up.’

  Jonah’s eyes blinked open slowly, then focused on Matthew. ‘Shit!’ he spluttered and sat bolt upright. ‘What bloody time is it? I shouldn’t still be here!’

  ‘It’s alright,’ Matthew told him. ‘The sun isn’t up yet. You’ve got time.’ He held out the cup of tea in offering.

  ‘Ya shouldn’t have let me fall asleep,’ said Jonah, but accepted the cup.

  ‘It seemed you needed it. After the night you had.’

  Jonah took a sip of tea. ‘Thanks. I really should push off though.’ He sipped again, flicking a look up at Matthew. ‘Sorry. That there wasn’t … you know.’

  ‘Wasn’t what?’

  ‘Anything. I mean, we didn’t do anything.’

  Matthew smiled softly as he took the meaning. ‘You were in no fit state.’

  Jonah took a few gulps of tea and handed the cup back to Matthew. ‘Fucking Bert Alson,’ he swore, standing from the bed and reaching for his helmet in one movement. ‘Busy day ahead, thanks to that bastard.’

  With his helmet on, Jonah walked through the cottage towards the back door. Matthew trailed after him, observing how his normally straight shoulders were hunched and his footfalls had a distinct shuffle to them.

  ‘Jonah.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t carry all this too long. Harry’s death is on Bert and Bert only. You mustn’t carry that guilt.’

  ‘Are you … ministering to me?’ There was a ghost of a tired smile.

  ‘I’m just saying, Jonah, that you saved Nelly and her unborn child. Her other children, too, most likely. You didn’t fail here. You should walk tall.’

  Jonah put his hand on the doorknob and turned it, but paused, casting a look back over his shoulder. ‘Can I ask a favour?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s of a priestly nature.’

  ‘Well suited to asking it of me, then.’

  ‘Could you maybe drop in on Nelly today? See how she and the kids are doing?’

  Matthew nodded. ‘I’d planned on making that a priority anyhow. I’ll ask Missus Sutherland to stop by, too.’

  Jonah accepted the assurance with a nod and opened the door a crack. Then, impulsively, he swiftly turned and kissed Matthew on the mouth. He tried following up with a smile, but it was a tight, feeble effort. His eyes were back on the door already.

  ‘Jonah?’

  Tired blue gaze slid back to Matthew.

  ‘God bless you,’ Matthew told him, with all the solemnity of his vocation.

  If Matthew wasn’t mistaken, Jonah actually looked disarmed by the gesture. ‘Should you really be giving your boss’ blessings away to nasty sinners?’

  ‘I am quite sure,’ Matthew replied, ‘that nasty sinners don’t save the lives of children and defenceless women.’

  ‘Well. Apparently, this sinner does.’ Jonah’s gaze tracked down to Matthew’s mouth, as though he was thinking about kissing him again. A short trill of currawong song rang out from near the laundry. With fresh resolve, Jonah gave Matthew a curt nod of thanks instead of another kiss, then finally opened the door properly and left.

  Matthew was comforted somewhat to see Jonah straighten his shoulders as he walked away into the dawn.

  ***

  The dog at the Alson house was distressed and disinclined to let Matthew approach until Nelly called him off and invited Matthew in, apologising for the dog’s protectiveness. A young boy of about three or four followed closely to Nelly everywhere she went, clutching at her skirts but not saying a word. Nelly looked like she’d caught no sleep the night before, dusky smudges beneath her eyes almost as dark as the bruises on her throat.

  They made small talk while Matthew fixed them a pot of tea. He had never liked these moments. The harder conversation to follow would be easier to deal with. He’d had training, he was good at pastoral care. But the formalities beforehand, the talking about the weather and skirting by the elephant in the room felt so staged and hollow, he had little stomach for it.

  ‘So, Sergeant Parks continues to be the hero of the town,’ Nelly announced over her teacup, as easy as passing comment on the pattern of the tablecloth. Perhaps she had as little liking for small talk as Matthew did.

  ‘So I hear, Missus Alson. He, he is a good policeman.’

  ‘I always did think so,’ she replied. It seemed a curious choice of words, but Matthew ignored it.

  ‘Is there any assistance the church may give?’ he offered. ‘Perhaps, the cost of Harry’s burial?’

  ‘This house’ll have to go,’ Nelly said, ignoring his question. ‘Move us into something smaller now. Pull Kitty out of school and find her some work …’ She paused and made a brittle noise into her tea. ‘She never stops talking about him. The sergeant. Kitty thinks the sun rises and sets on him.’ She shook her head. ‘Young girls and their fancies. Can’t see the world for what it is.’

  ‘And what is that?’ Matthew asked gently.

  Nelly’s eyes narrowed and she rested her teacup on top of her heavily pregnant belly. ‘That most men, a majority of men, carry secrets. Things they won’t let us see until it’s set to hurt us.’

  Nelly and her children had been on the receiving end of male violence only hours before. There was no surprise to Matthew that she would express sentiments of such nature.

  ‘She’ll soon learn though,’ Nelly continued. ‘We all do, sooner or later. It’ll break her heart, but she’ll be the better for it. Stronger.’

  This conversation wasn’t going quite how Matthew had expected it might. There was a question that was burning at him to be asked now, though all of his good senses told him he should not. But then, since when had he resisted temptation where the man in question was concerned?

  ‘Do you … do you think Sergeant Parks unworthy of Kitty’s admiration?’ He tried his best to keep his voice even, to not betray his now raging curiosity.

  Nelly snatched at her teacup as it wobbled, disturbed by her baby’s kicking. ‘Oh, look,’ she said, ‘it’s not that so much. Clearly, he’s good at his job and all.’ She glared at the rug for a moment. ‘And yes, he was here for us last night.’ Her free hand fluttered a little way towards her throat before she stopped herself. ‘He saved me.’ Her voice cracked and she coughed lightly. ‘But that’s what I’m getting at, don’t you see? Who would’ve thought he’d have it in him? A man like that? They’re usually so … Well! Aren’t they?’

  Matthew blinked in confusion. ‘I’m not sure I follow, Missus Alson. Who are they?’ Americans? he wondered.

  Nelly fixed him with a steady look. ‘You know who I mean. Men like that.’

  ‘Like?’ Chills suddenly zigzagged up and down his spine. ‘Oh. Oh!’

  ‘I’m sorry for bringing up such a thing in front of a man of God, Vicar.’

  ‘No, no, no need for apologies!’ He mentally scrambled to calm himself, to not give into panic. ‘I was unaware anyone thought—’

  ‘It’s just a little chatter,’ Nelly told him. ‘Katy Hart making small talk in the butcher’s the other day. She’s fond of tantalising, that one. Likes to hint at what she knows. Never gives the full account of things, though, always keeping something back. Hinting there’s someone Parks is having it away with, but she won’t say who, will she? No. Wants to have chins wagging, but with only her in the know. It’s probably not anything you need to concern yourself with, Vicar, seeing as the sergeant does seem dis
creet. And besides, my Bert’s gone and given the town heaps more to natter about now. I won’t be able to hold my head up for months …’

  Small talk, Matthew thought. Yet more reason to dislike the concept. It took him a moment to think who the Katy Hart was that Nelly referred to, but of course—George’s wife.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Nelly said suddenly, setting her cup on the table as a trickling sound could be heard. ‘I was supposed to have another week, at least.’

  All of Matthew’s worries concerning Jonah and idle chatter dissolved in an instant when he realised what was happening. Nelly’s waters had just broken. Matthew tamped down his personal panic, channelled it into calm action where it was needed.

  ‘Can any of the children go for help?’ he asked first. He’d rather not have to leave her to fetch assistance himself, but the traumatised toddler with a fistful of Nelly’s skirts was not a viable messenger either.

  ‘Esther’s probably elbow deep in the vegie patch,’ Nelly said of her nine-year-old. ‘She can go get Vi.’

  Matthew grabbed up the nearest towels he could see, dish towels but better than nothing, and handed them to Nelly. Then he strode through the house to the vegetable garden. The dog barked at him again, but his tail was wagging.

  ***

  Matthew sat at his kitchen table, no lamp or candle burning, just the light from the fire, when Jonah quietly stepped through the rectory’s back door. Even though he had a full service to give in the morning, Matthew had sipped his way through almost a quarter of a bottle of scotch. He was dreading this encounter.

  ‘We must stop,’ were the first words out of his mouth when Jonah arrived.

  ‘We what now?’ That dazzling smile, even in such dim light … Matthew could well imagine punching it.

  ‘I helped deliver a baby today,’ Matthew murmured.

  Jonah hung his helmet on the door knob, as he’d done on now-countless occasions. So at home. So comfortable. ‘I heard.’ He smiled some more. Maybe even looked a little proud.

  ‘You might want to have a word with George.’

  ‘Oh?’ Jonah snapped open the top two buttons of his tunic. ‘About what?’

  Matthew sighed. ‘His wife. It seems Missus Hart isn’t as discreet as a copper’s wife should probably be.’

  Jonah put his hands on his hips. ‘What do you know about copper’s wives?’

  ‘That they shouldn’t repeat things they’ve heard from their husbands in the butcher’s shop, for starters.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Matthew looked up at him glumly. ‘You.’

  Jonah pulled the other chair out from the table and sat down heavily. ‘What’ve ya heard?’

  ‘Just that, apparently, there’s some chatter about town. That you are part of some not to be named they.’ Matthew crossed his arms, slumped in his seat. ‘“A man like that”, Nelly said. “They’re usually so you know”.’ He slumped further. ‘She even apologised to me, for bringing up such a topic to a man of God. Imagine!’

  Silently, Jonah reached for the bottle of scotch. He didn’t bother getting up to hunt out a glass, just put it to his delectable mouth and necked straight from the bottle.

  ‘We must stop, Jonah!’ Matthew said again.

  ‘Didn’t I tell ya once, that’s the biggest mistake most folk who get caught make?’

  Matthew threw up his hands in frustration. ‘Then what? We just wait for word to spread? For everyone to know? For us to be found in each other’s arms? In each other’s mouths?’

  ‘Yer not ashamed of this,’ Jonah growled at him. ‘Not ashamed of me. So don’t put on actin’ like ya are!’

  ‘My own shame, yours, it doesn’t matter, Jonah! What we think or feel doesn’t matter because they, them out there, THEY DON’T CARE. We’ll be ruined. Lose our jobs, our liberty, maybe even our lives like that poor sod you knew in Ballarat AND THEY WON’T CARE. Nothing else we do will matter, not you saving a woman’s life or me helping bring her new son into the world, it doesn’t matter, because all we will be to them is a couple of buggers. Anything and everything else we are will be overshadowed by that one fact. And they won’t fucking care.’

  Jonah could only look at him, stunned. Belatedly, Matthew realised he’d just said “fuck”. Jonah had never heard him use such language before. Matthew himself couldn’t even recall the last time he had said a thing like that out loud.

  There was a scraping sound then, as Jonah pushed his chair back and stood again. ‘Weeks ago now,’ he said, voice quiet, ‘I told ya we both needed to be certain the other one was worth the risk, worth risking everything for. If you don’t think I am anymore …’ He took a couple of steps towards the door.

  ‘Jonah.’ Matthew’s eyes prickled. He chose to blame it on the fire. ‘I’m scared.’

  Jonah fixed him with a sad look. ‘And you think I’m not?’ He drifted back towards the table, towards Matthew. ‘For most of my life, all I wanted was this job, wearin’ this uniform.’

  ‘No longer?’

  ‘I still want it. It’s just …’ Jonah leaned his hands on the back of the chair. ‘It’s not all I want any more. Or more like, it’s not what I want most.’

  Matthew looked at Jonah’s hands on the chair back, then down to his own hands, clasped loosely on the tabletop. ‘You can’t mean me.’

  ‘Who says I can’t? Some gossip in line at a butcher’s shop?’

  ‘A cavalier attitude will only get us so far, Jonah.’

  ‘Yeah? How far could it get us, I wonder? It could maybe get us as far as Melbourne, couldn’t it? For a start, at least.’

  Chapter 7

  Matthew circled the notice in the most recent diocese bulletin, then circled it again for good measure. There was to be a presentation and workshop on missions to central Africa at the start of June, to be held in the chapter house of Melbourne’s St Paul’s Cathedral. He’d telegraphed already and was booked in to participate. Already, too, he had produced a notice to pin up in the narthex of All Souls, alerting his Dinbratten congregation to his days of intended absence and cancellation of services on that given week.

  There was no lie here. He would honour his booking and participate in proceedings. His interest in missionary work, however, was not exactly robust. Still. Let people think as they might.

  Telegrams, also, had been exchanged between himself and a bishop of his acquaintance in the city. While in Melbourne for the missionary talk, Matthew would also meet with this bishop and discuss … precisely what, he wasn’t sure yet. His vocation, perhaps. His future.

  He had presided over the burial of little Harry Alson that morning, and his mood was dark and self-absorbed. He’d exchanged a handful of words with Jonah at the end of the service, the trooper just one among dozens at the graveside, and had found his mood every bit as gloom-laden as Matthew’s own. The two of them had shaken hands as people began to peel away from the horror of the deep, tiny hole, and they’d gone about their day.

  ***

  Matthew had said they should stop. Jonah had said doing so would be a mistake. On compromise, they stopped getting into bed together.

  To outside observers, their public friendship continued. They drank together in the Vic on Friday evening. On Saturdays, they stood together at the bush-end of the footy ground to watch the Rats play. Each night, Jonah still left his cottage and walked a turn of the town, just as he’d always done, making sure all was well before turning in for the night. A couple of nights a week, as had been happening since the end of March, that walk would bring Jonah to the rectory.

  On those nights, Jonah and Matthew would sit by the fire and talk and plan. A package addressed to them both from Benedict Ling turned their talk to argument momentarily in the last days of May, but once settled, their plans continued. Little did Matthew suspect at the time, Jonah’s plans were even bolder, and certainly more golden, than his own.

  Amid all of this, they steadfastly kept their hands to themselves. It was maddening, but Matthew was adamant, as much to p
rove to himself he was capable of such restraint as anything else. On the third such night, Matthew slammed Jonah into the wall and kissed him so hard they knocked a framed cross-stitch of the Lord’s Prayer to the floor. On the fourth visit, Jonah gently pushed a sleeve of Matthew’s cassock to the elbow and put his mouth on the delicate flesh of Matthew’s inner wrist. The resultant kiss-bruise, a treasure that rubbed rawly against his cassock all through the following day, would not fully fade until the morning Matthew left for his Melbourne trip.

  The coach ride and the train were both as long and bone-shaking as Matthew recalled from the reverse journey back in August. It was a Tuesday this time, so the trip was more solitary than the previous. Aside from the driver, Matthew was alone on the coach. Likewise, when he met the train, there was only one other person in his compartment. The journey and its lack of conversation made Matthew even more inward-looking than his recent weeks had been, and he spent the majority of his travel staring at the greens and greys of the passing countryside. His time absent the city had given him a new appreciation of undulations, he found, the secrets and surprises of hills and valleys pleasing his eye far more than the openness of stretching plains.

  Half-heartedly, he prayed. But he wasn’t entirely sure what it was he prayed for, and he had little enthusiasm for bothering God with uncertainties.

  ***

  He was jiggered, when Melbourne herself loomed, to find his breath catch lightly in the back of his throat. He’d never given much thought to notions of city pride or patriotism, yet here was his chest swelling with some form of love for the jutting giants of solid architecture and the straight roads of forward planning. She was wearing her winter mantle of dour shades and Matthew allowed a fond smile. He had quite forgotten his townsfolks’ propensity for sombre tones.

  Practically trotting from the station, he was happier than any man should be to find bluestone cobbles beneath his feet once more. Yet happier again was he to board a tram—he had actually missed them!—and rattle several blocks across the city centre.