That Boy, Jack

by Janeen Brian

  “Only if I can sing you my special rhyme,” she bargained.

  “Is it short?”

  “Do you want to guess what it is?”

  “No, just say it and then go to sleep.”

  “All right.” She began in a happy singsong tone.

  “Annie Mack dressed in black, silver buttons down her back. She drinks coffee, she drinks tea. She likes sitting on an elephant’s knee.”

  Dorrie laughed and her rag-curls jumped about her shoulders.

  “I love saying that,” she said.

  “Mmm. Goodnight, Dorrie,” I said.

  The night was deathly still. In the far distance came the thump, thump, thump of the mine machinery. It was as if it was thumping a message. Your mate is leaving, it thumped. He’s coming to work with us, it thumped.

  But what about me?

  Would I go too?

  Should I go?

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Gilbert and I had it all planned to go together, like blood brothers. Now, two days before my twelfth birthday, I had to make a choice.

  On the way home from school the next day, I found a wonderful snakeskin half-hidden beneath a bush, but Gilbert wasn’t with me to share the excitement. Miss Goldsworthy had obviously known he wasn’t returning to school because she hadn’t said his name during rollcall. It was as if he was dead.

  I’d played with Samuel and Henry and the other kids, but felt something was missing. I was sure that if I went to the picky-shed, that feeling would disappear because Gilbert and I would be together again.

  But did I want to leave school? I liked learning. I liked being in the classroom with my friends and Miss Goldsworthy. And I liked playing games at the breaks too.

  I didn’t even know what the picky-shed looked like or what you did in there. And I’d never been down a mine. My head felt muddled. What should I do?

  Back home, I spied two lumps beneath a cloth on the bench. While Mam was stirring the large black pot on the stove, I lifted one corner of the cloth and peeked. It was a saffron cake. My favourite.

  Mam turned around and caught me. She cuffed me lightly on the back of my head. “Leave that alone,” she said. “That be for the birthday boy tomorrow.”

  Dorrie laughed. “I know who she means, Jack.”

  I rubbed my stomach, and Mam smiled. “Did you have a good day today, me handsome? Is Miss Goldsworthy teaching you about Cornwall yet?”

  By answering the second question, I neatly dodged the first. “No,” I said. Then I had a thought. “Will Da be home for tea?”

  “No. Not till after eleven. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. Is that other cake for us too?”

  “It be for the Oates. You can take it after you do your chores.” Using a kitchen cloth, Mam opened the metal bar door of the grate and poked in another clump of wood. “The wood bucket’s empty now.”

  “All right. Hey, Mam?”

  She turned with an expectant look on her face.

  “Catch!” I flung the snakeskin towards her. She screamed, flapped her hands and danced up and down on the spot for a couple of seconds. When Dorrie saw what’d caused the commotion, she looked at me and we both doubled over with laughter.

  “Oh, you two be worse than piskies,” Mam cried, putting a hand to her heart. “You give me a fright with that thing.” A second later she smiled. “Now get rid of it before it finds its way into the pot!”

  I chuckled.

  “That was funny, wasn’t it, Jack?” Dorrie giggled as Mam went to her bedroom to check on Arthur. My sister liked the thought of us being conspirators.

  “Yeah.” I nodded, and then went to milk Gertie and chop wood.

  I was warm by the time I’d finished my chores, although the cold afternoon wind chilled the tips of my ears.

  “I’m going now, Mam,” I called from the back door. “I’ve got the cake.”

  “Remind Mrs Oates about the washing, Jack. Tell her not to be too proud and to send it home with you.”

  I raised my eyebrows. And how would I carry it? A billycart, of course. Whenever it got finished!

  I took the long way around King Mountain because I still hadn’t worked out what to say to Gilbert about starting at the mines. I had to stall him. But what exactly had he said to Captain Trelawney? I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of a man I hadn’t even met.

  It was Mrs Oates who opened the door. She seemed to fill the whole doorway with her belly and her large, tired face.

  “Your mother be too kind,” she said, taking the cake. “Thank’ee, Jack.”

  “Have you got any …” I felt myself blushing, “any washing you want Mam to do? She said she would.”

  “Oh no. That be too much trouble. Lucy’s managing. With some of her sisters helping. Oh, here’s Gilbert. Thank your mam again.”

  “I will.”

  Gilbert walked outside. And punched me on the shoulder.

  “Here’s yours.” I punched him back. We were the same as usual. Nothing could ever split us. We were mates.

  “Is your da getting better?” I kicked a pebble in the direction of the gate and deliberately followed it. I didn’t want to go inside again.

  “He has to go to hospital.”

  “Hospital!” I’d never known anyone who had gone to hospital. “That’s bad.”

  Gilbert nodded and said nothing else.

  I picked up a stone with my left hand and pitched it as far as I could. “Have you seen the picky-shed yet?”

  “Yeah. You go up a lot of steps. You can’t miss it. Do you want to meet me there on Monday or wait outside the mines?”

  I gasped. “I haven’t even asked. I don’t know …”

  “What do you mean? I thought it was all sorted,” he said.

  My chest rose in and out. “It’s all right for you,” I began but I stopped myself just in time. It wasn’t my father who was injured or having to go to hospital. My father still had a job and we only had a small family.

  “It’s not all sorted. Not yet,” I said, pretending to be interested in a couple of cockatoos that screeched overhead.

  Gilbert looked at me sideways. His voice was dark. “The captain said it’s not easy getting a job at the table any more. Not like when he used to take boys of eight and nine. There’re lots of new miners and families arriving from the copper mines at Burra and Kadina, saying it’s better mining here. So you gotta tell your parents. Soon as you get home, right?”

  A lump rose in my throat.

  I pulled out the parched snakeskin I’d shoved down my shirt. “Brought you something,” I said.

  “Aw, thanks, Jack. It’s a beauty. Isn’t it your birthday soon?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Oh, here’s a present then.” He punched me twelve times on the arm. “One for each year. Happy birthday!”

  As I said, there was no one like Gilbert.

  Chapter 8

  The decision was made. I was going to leave school and start work with Gilbert.

  So why was I walking around, head down, biting my fingernails and muttering to myself? Especially on a Saturday, and especially on my birthday.

  I had to tell Mam and Da soon. Time was fast running out.

  First thing that morning was present-giving. There was the cake and a new hand-stitched marble bag from Mam, a picture of Gertie from Dorrie and a shiny coin from Da. He’d left it on the kitchen table before leaving for work.

  At least he’d only be working half of Saturday, thanks to Captain Rodda. Not like in Cornwall where the miners only ever had Sunday off.

  As soon as Da came home from work, I’d tell them both together. Then it would be over and done with.

  “Is it that bad being twelve?” said Mam, shaking out her good lacy cloth and spreading it over the small cedar table in the parlour, the one we called the “best” room.

  “No,” I replied, puzzled. “Why?”

  “You seem all tossed about. You’ll bang into yourself going backwards if you’re not careful.
Anything wrong?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “Good, then you can be fetching me the serviettes, I mean the napkins, from the cupboard over there while I set the china.”

  Mam’s special wedding china. I didn’t want a fancy tea party for my birthday!

  “Mrs Ellery be coming at two for afternoon tea,” said Mam, as if reading my mind. “She gives us so many medicines and mixtures. She’s a good kind lady and I wanted to thank her.”

  My heart jumped and then began to race. When was I going to talk to Mam and Da then? Tomorrow was Sunday. All church and prayers. It was looking hopeless.

  “Still fidgety?” said Mam, humming as she smoothed her second-to-best dress. It was the lilac colour of dusk and though it’d been mended here and there, you couldn’t tell. “We need more paper torn. And you’ll have to take care of Arthur if he gets fretful.”

  “Where’s Dorrie?” I groaned, feeling overloaded with jobs.

  “These be your chores today, me handsome. Dorrie can bring in the water.”

  And can she milk Gertie and chop the wood? I said in my head.

  I grabbed the old newspapers, making sure I’d read them, and went up to the bench to tear them into squares. After I’d done a batch, I skewered them onto a hook in the dunny for the usual purpose. Then I went on tearing.

  Perhaps I could talk to Da alone. Soon as he got home. And then, later, he could tell Mam. That would have to do.

  “Here’s your brother,” said Mam, struggling outside with Arthur in one arm and the tin tub and cushions in the other.

  “Do I have to?”

  “I’ll put him here, out of the way.” There were two spots of pink on Mam’s cheeks. I guessed she was excited about having a visitor.

  I glanced at Arthur. Mam wasn’t the only one with colour in her cheeks, although she wasn’t dribbling, like Arthur. Mam set the tub near the rosemary bushes. She’d told me that rosemary was for remembrance and the bushes helped her remember my other brother and sisters: William, Charlotte and Amy. They died a long time ago.

  I kept wondering when Da would be home. Arthur was fed up with the wooden pegs I’d given him to play with and was crying his eyes out. I tried to stop him by pulling funny faces, but he kept on. At last, Da trudged up from around the side of the house, grimy but cheery. And whistling.

  “Jack,” he called. “Arthur, what be the matter?”

  “How were the knockers today, Da?” I called back.

  He grinned as I hoped he would. “They give us no bother, thank’ee, lad. I even have some free candle stubs to bring home.”

  He washed his face and hands in the washbowl on the iron stand outside the back door. “I’ll look forward to a proper bath tonight,” he said, scratching his neck. “Now what’s the matter with young’un?”

  “Don’t know,” I said. “Babies always cry.” I held my finger out. Arthur not only grabbed it, but bit down on it.

  “Ow!” I yelped, which set Arthur howling again. That really hurt. I ran my other forefinger lightly along his gums. “Da!” I cried. “Arthur’s got a tooth. His first. And on my birthday!”

  After I told Da about Mrs Ellery’s visit, he decided to have his pipe first and then pay his dues to our neighbour in the parlour.

  Arthur’s head was beginning to nod. I picked him up and rocked him. As soon as he was asleep, I tiptoed inside. Just as I turned in towards Mam and Da’s room, I heard the tinkle of cups and saucers and sneaked a look through the doorway into the parlour.

  I didn’t see Mam or Mrs Ellery, but I saw Dorrie.

  Her fingers were sliding towards a ginger biscuit on a gold-edged plate. When she caught me looking, her hand shot back like a lizard’s tongue. Grinning, I continued to stare for a little longer, so she knew I knew what she was up to.

  Still chuckling at catching my sister red-handed, I laid Arthur down in his sleeping drawer. It was a big deep one, padded with soft blankets. It sat halfway out in the large chest of drawers in my parents’ room. As well as the chest of drawers, there was a double bed and a washstand, so there was no space for a cot. Luckily, Arthur didn’t stir.

  I got outside as fast as I could.

  Chapter 9

  By the time I stepped into the yard, clouds were whisking across the sky and the stiff breeze blew dust off King Mountain.

  Da stood with a hoe in his hand, as still as a statue, staring at a square of dirt. Two furrows had been turned over.

  “Hoping for a better crop of tatties,” he said. Then a cough seized him and he used the hoe to lean on while the spasm racked his chest.

  “You want some water, Da?”

  He waved his hand. “I be all right,” he said hoarsely. “ ’Tis the dust from the tailings.”

  I stood by the plot of soil and chewed the side of my mouth. Then I drew a deep breath and blurted, “Gilbert said his da has to go to hospital.”

  My father widened his eyes. “That bad, eh? I think we should be doing a collection at the mines for poor John Oates.”

  That comment was just what I needed.

  “Yes. And Gilbert’s left school, Da, to earn money. He’s got a job at the picky-table. He starts on Monday and he reckons the captain there knows you.”

  Da took that in, stroked hisk beard and said, “Captain Trelawney?”

  “Yes. You saved his brother. He was on fire in the mines.”

  Da’s dark brown eyes glanced upwards. “So I did, lad, but that be backalong.”

  “Well, the captain said he’d take me too. Because he owes you a favour.”

  “He doesn’t owe me,” said Da, shaking his head. “You just do what you can do.”

  I rushed in, so he wouldn’t miss the point. “Anyway. I can start too. On Monday.”

  Da stared at me. “Take you? You mean into the mines? The picky-shed?” He frowned and my mouth threatened to dry up. “This all be a bit sudden, lad. What do your mam say?”

  “She doesn’t kn … I haven’t told … Could you tell her, Da?”

  He lowered his brows. “I think we need to sit over here, lad.”

  I followed him to the bench and explained everything again.

  “What about school?” he said finally. “What about your learning?”

  “I’m all right, Da. I’ve done a fair bit.”

  “Well, as long as you want to be a miner.”

  “I do, Da.”

  “It’s a chance, I suppose. But are you sure? You don’t want to be changing your mind, you know, ’specially if the captain’s saying it be hard to get a place at the table nowadays.”

  “No. I’ll stick to it, Da. Will you tell Mam?”

  “Ah,” murmured my father. “That’s where it might be tricky, lad. Your mam be keen on your learning as much as you can–”

  “But I have done. I got more schooling than you, Da. That’s what you and Mam wanted for me, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I think your mother wanted you to keep learning. Like be a teacher or something.”

  “Gilbert and I were always going to be miners like you and Mr Oates, Da.”

  “Oh, aye.”

  “So is it all right?” My breathing was short and fast.

  Leaning back, my father let out a long sigh.

  “We’ll talk to your mam at dinner,” he said at last.

  I wanted to hug my father, but we didn’t do that kind of thing, so I said, “Thanks, Da.”

  It was settled then.

  Dinner smelled delicious. Wafts of rich, meaty aromas steamed from the black pot on the stove. It was a tatie-rattle stew.

  “Where is it?” Mam repeated aloud while peering on shelves and in cupboards. She’d changed back into her grey work dress and a few stray hairs had slipped from her bun and now hung at the side of her face. “Thomas, have you seen a plate? One of our best, with the gold rim.”

  “No, Cordelia,” said Da, folding the newspaper and laying it to one side of the table.

  “I’ll help you look, Mam,” I said.

  Th
e three of us searched but the plate was nowhere to be found.

  Then I had a flashback. “Where’s Dorrie?” I said.

  Mam turned to look at me. “Yes, where is she?”

  Dorrie too, it seemed, had disappeared.

  Outside, dark clouds covered the sky and only a few tiny stars glistened.

  The plate was now forgotten.

  “Dorrie!” We all began to call.

  “Light the lantern, Thomas.” Mam’s voice was level, but there was urgency to it.

  “Wait,” I said. “Mam, were there any ginger biscuits left on the plate?”

  “Yes, one. Why?”

  She was about to bustle outside with the lantern, but I ducked into their room with a lamp and eased back the curtain that hung across the corner.

  Nestled on the floor like a cat, among long dresses and good pants, was Dorrie. Fast asleep. Biscuit crumbs on her lips.

  After that, it didn’t take long to find out what’d happened. Amid tears, Dorrie finally showed us where she’d buried the broken bits of plate. In Da’s potato furrows.

  I’d never seen Mam cry before, but she cried then.

  “My mam gave me those plates, Dorrie,” she sobbed. “They had Cornish primroses on them.”

  My birthday had turned sour.

  Dinner was a late, quiet affair with no time to have our Saturday bath. And Da warned me not to mention the mines to Mam.

  “Not tonight, lad,” he said.

  Chapter 10

  It was barely light when I heard the tin tub being set in front of the stove.

  “Jack! Dorrie!” It was Da.

  A bath?

  Grudgingly, I got up and waited my turn to get in, after Mam, Dorrie and Arthur. Then it was Da’s turn. It was my job to tip the bathwater onto the garden. I gritted my teeth when I saw the furrows. If it hadn’t been for Dorrie and the broken plate, Mam would know everything by now.

  Though she was still upset, Mam looked beautiful strolling to church in her best green satin dress and bonnet.

  It was a good walk to the Moonta Mines Methodist Church, so I had time to think and plan. But when I saw Mrs Oates and Gilbert, I was surprised at first, wondering who’d be looking after Mr Oates. Then I figured he would be in hospital and Lucy would be home with the little ones.