A Prayer for Blue Delaney

by Kirsty Murray

  Barefooted, his body aching from Brother Dennis’s thrashing, he took the road that wound up the hillside away from Bindoon. The moon shone bright on the Stations of the Cross. At the fifth Station he squatted down beside the picture of Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross for Christ and traced the raised figures with his fingertips. He felt as if he was dragging a cross right now, a cross heavy with grief and pain and loss. He fought back tears with every step past the carvings marking his retreat from Bindoon: Veronica wiping Jesus’ face, Jesus falling, speaking to the women of Jerusalem, falling again, stripped of his clothes, crucified, and then his death and his body being taken down from the cross. At last, Colm turned onto the long moonlit road that led to Perth and Fremantle.

  He walked all night until his feet were sore and when dawn came he turned off the road and lay down in the long yellow grass where dappled sunlight shone through the gums. He woke in the early afternoon. His feet were swollen and he wondered how he would make it all the way to Fremantle on foot. Maybe he should try to hitch a ride? But then if someone picked him up, they might turn right around and take him back. Back to Brother Dennis. He started humming loudly at the thought, but there was no song loud enough to drown out his fears of the man. He began thinking what he’d do when he got to Fremantle. He would find a big ship and stow away in its hold. He hated the darkness. Lying still in the dark was like waiting for something to hurt him, but if hiding alone in the hold of an ocean liner was the only way to get back to his mother, then he was prepared to do it. Having a plan gave him the strength to keep moving.

  For the rest of the afternoon he limped along the dusty roadside, diving into the grass whenever a truck or car came in view. His ears became attuned to the soft rumble of approaching vehicles but he was caught unawares when a bike skidded to a halt beside him. There was nowhere to hide. He eyed the cyclist warily.

  ‘Hello there,’ said the rider, a young brown-eyed man in a flannel shirt.

  Colm scuffed the red dirt with his toe and didn’t reply.

  ‘You one of those kids from Boys’ Town? Those shorts and shirt are a dead giveaway, mate. Orphan gear. What you doing wandering so far from home?’

  Colm looked up then and stared hard into the man’s face. ‘I’m going home. To my mum,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Fair enough,’ said the man. ‘Well, you’ve a long way to go. Jump on. I’ll take you as far as Bullsbrook East. You’ve got a helluva walk to Perth. Is that where your mum is?’

  ‘Fremantle, I have to get to Fremantle,’ said Colm, easing himself onto the crossbar of the bicycle.

  The young man dropped Colm off at the intersection of the highway and a dusty track that led to his family’s farm.

  ‘Now don’t you try walking all the way to Fremantle,’ he advised. ‘You’ve got more than fifty miles to go and you can’t do that without shoes. Early tomorrow morning, there’ll be farmers taking fruit down to the Fremantle markets. You hitch a ride with one of them.’

  He waved off Colm’s thanks and pedalled away.

  In the mid-afternoon, the heat was so intense that all he could do was lie in the shade of a gum tree with his arms over his eyes and wait. That night he walked for hours in the darkness. Anything was better than lying alone in the black countryside. In the early dawn, a truck came rumbling down the road. Colm stood behind a wide gum tree and watched it pass. It hit a bump and something flew out of the back. When the truck was far from view, Colm discovered the something was a peach, bruised but good enough to eat. The juice seared his throat but quenched his thirst.

  It was two days and another long night of walking before he found the courage to hitch a ride with the morning fruit trucks. There was no room in the cab with the driver and his mate, so they let Colm climb up in the back with crates of pale apricots. They weren’t quite ripe, but Colm didn’t care. He sucked the sour juice as he lay amidst the boxes. Soon he’d be in Fremantle, soon he’d be on his way home to his mother.

  9

  Acts of faith

  Colm felt weak with hunger but he trudged on, determined to follow his plan. He walked along the docks, staring up at the huge freighters and ocean liners. One of those ships had to be going back to England. But how was he going to get on board? Most of them were moored some distance from the docks. Even if he could swim out to them, it would be impossible to scale their steep grey sides. His head ached. He pressed his fists against his temples, trying to organise his thoughts.

  An old man was sitting on the edge of the dock with a fishing line cast into the blue harbour and his dog lying sleepily beside him. He took a swig from a long-necked bottle and then poured some water into a dish for the dog. Colm licked his lips as he watched the old dog lapping up the water, drops splattering onto the concrete dock and evaporating in the heat.

  The glare of the sun on the sea made Colm’s head pound. He sat down under a sculpture, a tall bronze figure of a man gazing over the docks, and put his head in his hands.

  Something cold and wet nuzzled against his feet, and he recoiled. The fisherman’s dog sat in front of him, staring with serious brown eyes. Tentatively, Colm patted the dog on its head, expecting it to walk away. But the dog had other ideas. As if the pat signalled something, it dropped its head and began licking Colm’s bare feet. Colm drew them away but the dog persisted, licking the dust and dried blood. The softness of the dog’s tongue against his swollen feet was strangely soothing. He wriggled his toes and the dog licked those as well. Even though it hurt his chest to laugh, Colm giggled, and the dog flopped down beside him as though they were old familiar friends. Colm ran one hand along its dusky red coat. It looked like a working dog, the sort of dog farmers kept to round up sheep and cattle. Its tail swung lazily back and forth on the concrete as he raked his fingers through its wiry fur.

  After a while, Colm lay back against the base of the sculpture again, enjoying the closeness of the animal. A shadow cut the glare and he opened his eyes to see the old fisherman standing in front of him.

  ‘She bothering you?’ the man asked, nodding at the dog.

  Colm shook his head.

  ‘Funny, that. She doesn’t usually take to strangers. One-man dog, my Rusty. She must have felt sorry for you. You look done in, mate.’

  He pulled a glass bottle of orange drink out of his leather bag and offered it to Colm. It was warm and fizzy and made Colm’s head tingle.

  ‘You can keep it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Colm.

  The man picked up his bucket and leather bag and then snapped his fingers at his dog. ‘C’mon, Rusty,’ he said. ‘Time to hit the frog and toad.’

  The dog opened one eye and didn’t move.

  ‘Rusty,’ said the man again, more firmly.

  Reluctantly, the old dog got to its feet and stretched. Then it pressed its head into Colm’s chest, as if to say goodbye. The old man looked at Colm sharply.

  ‘You been feeding her?’ he asked, a trace of annoyance in his voice.

  Colm shook his head again. ‘But she licked my toes.’

  ‘Licked your toes?’ repeated the man, astonished. He tipped his hat back and shook his head. ‘Damn dog. Getting old, she is. Reckon she’s getting confused about. . . well, about strangers.’

  Colm scratched Rusty behind the ear. He wished the man would go away and leave the dog behind, but instead, the old man sat down beside Colm.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ he asked. He glanced up at the sculpture towering above them. ‘You know who that is we’re shading under? Charles Yelverton O‘Connor, that’s who. See his name there? He was a great man. A great man, a great Irishman, a great Australian. Poor bugger.’

  Colm turned around and touched where the name O‘Connor was engraved into the stone. Tommy was Irish. Did the old man mean all Irishmen were poor buggers? But if they made a statue of him, he must have done something that mattered, thought Colm.

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Have a look around you, mate,’ said the old man with a sweep
ing gesture. ‘He built the whole bloody harbour. And more - got water to the goldfields, though he never lived to see it. He had vision, this bloke. But people didn’t have faith in him. You can kill a man if you don’t have faith in him.’ His words took him away to another place, and for a moment he seemed to forget Colm was there, but then he looked up with sharp blue eyes and said, ‘Here, why aren’t you in school? You wagging?’

  Colm got to his feet, wincing.

  ‘I’m going home. Home to England.’

  ‘You’re not thinking of stowing away on one of these here ships?’

  Colm didn’t answer. He didn’t want to tell his story. He felt the man was laughing at him.

  ‘It’s not a joke,’ he said crossly.

  The man put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I wasn’t laughing. A long time ago, I stood on a dock, just like you, looking for a boat to stow away on. I remember, I was hungry, walking up and down that dock. I was heading south, though not to the land of Poms, like you. You shouldn’t be wanting to go back to England. It’s a hole. Boy like you can have a future here.’

  Colm thought of the boys at Bindoon, and of Tommy who had no future. He pictured Tommy lying on the table outside the dining room.

  ‘Here, you all right?’ asked the old man.

  Colm felt transparent, as if the man could see straight through him.

  ‘I’ve got some biscuits and a thermos of sweet tea. You reckon you can stop a while before you find that ship? Have a bit of tucker to get you fired up?’

  Colm nodded. The man pulled out his thermos and a slightly crumbly biscuit wrapped in greaseproof paper. Colm had never thought a biscuit could taste so good, and the tea was clean and sharp. They sat silently staring over the flat blue water at the ocean liners sailing in and out of the harbour.

  ‘So what’s your name?’ asked the man.

  Colm started patting the dog again, pretending that he hadn’t heard.

  The old man looked at him with amusement. ‘Well, I’m Bill Dare and this here faithless hound is my old mate, Rusty.’ He scratched the kelpie between the ears. ‘You can call me Bill.’

  Colm kept his gaze fixed on the long shadows that stretched across the water.

  ‘Look, Sonny Jim, I know stowing away on a ship sounds like a big adventure, but I think it’s about time you thought about getting yourself home.’

  ‘Don’t have a home. Only the boys’ home. Never going back there. Never.’

  Bill rested his hand on Colm’s shoulder. Colm flinched.

  ‘Easy there, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ said Bill.

  Colm stood up, unsteady on his feet, and took a few steps. He bent to pat the old kelpie, to say goodbye, but Rusty had other ideas. As soon as Colm stopped, she started licking his feet again.

  ‘Sweet Jesus,’ said Bill, his voice rasping. ‘Your feet. . .’ He picked up his bucket and leather bag in one hand and then gestured to Colm to follow him. ‘Come on. You don’t want to run any further on them. Rusty knows her business. You come along with us.’

  Colm put his hands over his face and tried to hum something, anything, that would make his mind clear.

  ‘Oi, little mate,’ said Bill, his voice smooth and persuasive. ‘I’m no dobber. I won’t turn you in. Come on back to my place and I’ll give you a safe port of call. Just until you get back on your feet. If you hang about here on the docks, someone will catch you and take you back to that boys’ home for sure. You don’t want that.’

  Colm dropped one hand and then the other. Rusty and Bill watched him, waiting for his answer. Slowly, he nodded.

  They walked through the streets of Fremantle. Colm kept his eyes on the ground, afraid to look up in case he saw a policeman and gave himself away. They passed by a prison with high sandstone walls and a ring of barbed wire around the top. Colm thought of Bindoon. He hadn’t had to climb over high walls and barbed wire to escape, but it had been no less a prison.

  The walk to Bill’s home seemed to take an age. Finally, they came to a door set in a long sandstone wall. The old man took an old-fashioned key out of his pocket, and unlocked the big black door. It creaked open to reveal an overgrown courtyard shaded by tall palms. On the other side, through two more thick black doors, was the entrance to an old stone building. They passed down a narrow hallway which smelt of damp and into a long room with barred windows set high in the wall. There was a muddle of boxes and bits and pieces around the big open fireplace, and a pair of steel-framed single beds against one wall.

  ‘Is this a prison?’ asked Colm, warily.

  ‘I suppose it was a bit of a prison once. Used to be a nut-house, Fremantle Asylum for the Insane. But there’s only me rattling around in it these days.’

  For a moment, Colm felt a flurry of panic. He didn’t know this man and now they were locked inside an insane asylum together. Bill laughed at the alarm on Colm’s face.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not crazy. I’m the caretaker here. There’s no more crazy people here any more. You sit yourself down. We need to put something on those feet of yours.’

  Colm sat on an upturned box in the middle of the room while Bill gently washed his feet. The medicine stung the cuts and grazes but it was a good sort of pain, a pain that meant things were going to get better. When he’d finished, the old man took out a length of clean white gauze and wrapped it around Colm’s feet. He warmed up a tin of rice cream, tipped it into an enamel bowl and pushed it towards Colm.

  ‘Eat up,’ he said. ‘Reckon you need something like this to stick to your ribs.’

  Colm thought he’d never tasted anything so delicious in all his life. It was warm and sweet and it made him want to cry.

  Then he lay down beside Rusty on one of the narrow bunks. Afternoon sunlight splashed through the high windows, but Colm was asleep in a moment, his body curled around the old kelpie, his thoughts slipping into gentle dreams.

  10

  Haunting messengers

  When Colm woke, a soft pink glow was seeping in through the windows.

  ‘Morning, sonny,’ said the old man.

  ‘Morning?’ echoed Colm.

  ‘You’ve been asleep fifteen hours, near enough. Must have needed it.’

  Bill sat on the edge of the other bunk, lacing his shoes, and then he slipped on a blue jacket. Rusty watched him, wagging her tail with excitement.

  ‘We’re going down to catch the morning tide, see if we can bring us something tasty home.’

  Colm struggled to sit up but as his feet met the floor he felt a wave of nausea wash over him.

  ‘No, you’re not coming with us, mate. You were real sick during the night, calling out in your sleep and feverish. Reckon, you’re still running a bit of a temperature there. You take it easy. When I come back, we’ll have a yarn about what’s to become of you.’

  Colm felt his chest grow tight. Was Bill planning to hand him over to the authorities? He was uncomfortably aware that he was at the mercy of this old man. He listened to Bill’s footsteps fading down the passage. There was a sadness in the silence of the old asylum that seeped into Colm’s bones and made his ears ring.

  He climbed out of bed and winced as his feet met the bare wooden floorboards. A wave of dizziness took hold of him and he had to steady himself against the wall. If he could see the sky, he thought, then perhaps it wouldn’t feel so scary inside the old asylum.

  The stairs were battered, crumbling with dry rot, and he had to tread carefully. From a small window at the top, he could see Bill and Rusty ambling down the road towards Fremantle. Suddenly he had a sense that he was falling - that if he just leant a little further forward he would fall straight through the glass and into the street below. He shut his eyes and the vertigo gripped him even more tightly. Inside his head, he could hear a voice, as if someone was calling him, looking for him. His legs gave way and as he fell, he heard a woman crying, then the sound of breaking glass.

  Colm was vaguely aware of firm hands at his elbows, guiding him back down the
stairs and into the caretaker’s rooms.

  ‘What were you doing, mate?’ said Bill. ‘How long were you lying there? You can’t go wandering around the place like that.’

  ‘I heard someone, she was looking for me. A woman calling me,’ he said in a small voice.

  ‘That must have been Ethel. She was an inmate in here - mad with grief after someone abducted her girl. She jumped out one of the first-floor windows. Reckon it was that window I found you lying under. Some folk reckon she’s wandering the passageways, floating in the stairwells, searching for her daughter. Poor old thing.’

  Colm shuddered. He’d never thought about that before, that a mother might go mad with grief at the loss of her child. Thoughts of his own mother whirled in his mind and he curled up on his side, wishing he could stop feeling sick.

  ‘Ethel’s the least of your worries around here, though. Lucky you didn’t bump into Moondyne Joe. Mad old bushranger that died here in 1900. Now, let’s get you out of that outfit of yours. I should have sorted some jim-jams for you last night. Been a long time since I’ve had a kid around.’

  When Bill lifted Colm’s shirt, his face grew pale.

  ‘Here, what’s all this?’ He held Colm by the shoulders and inspected his back.

  Colm didn’t answer. He could still hear the cries of the grieving woman echoing in his mind. He felt light-headed and far away from his body. For a moment it was almost as if he was floating near the ceiling, looking down at himself lying curled up on the grey blanket. He saw Bill staring at his back where Brother Dennis’s strap had cut deep. It felt as though the wounds were oozing pus, as if his skin was melting from his bones. Then he passed out.

  When Colm woke again, there was a gold patch of late-afternoon sunlight lying on the floor. Bill sat next to the bed and a man in black stood over Colm. Colm felt his throat constrict with fear.