That Boy, Jack

by Janeen Brian

  The thought of upside down skirts, petticoats and bloomers flashed through my head. My face burned scarlet.

  “Come in.” Smiling, she opened the door wider. At the same time, Mrs Ellery appeared.

  “Ah, Jack. Look at these buns, Elsie. Mrs Pollock be a grand cook. This is Jack Pollock from the cottage way over there.” She pointed. “And this is Elsie Polkinghorne, from Burra. My great-niece.”

  I nodded, keeping my head low.

  “Something be the matter with your neck, Jack?” said Mrs Ellery.

  “No, no. Nothing.”

  “All right. Now, I know you be a picky boy, Jack, but Elsie is needing to go to school soon. No rush. Soon as the family settles down. I be thinking she could go to Miss Goldsworthy’s. Or maybe the new government school when it opens? What do you think?”

  Cautiously, I raised my head. I was fairly sure by now that the girl hadn’t recognised me.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Mrs Ellery. It was good at Miss Goldsworthy’s. Though the new school looks bigger.” I shrugged.

  “So you don’t go to school any more, Jack?” The girl tilted her head.

  “No.”

  “Do you like being a picky boy?”

  My stomach flipped. I couldn’t say what I wanted, what was on the tip of my tongue. That being a picky boy can lead to being a miner and maybe that’s not what I wanted. “It’s all right. It’s good getting a wage.” I felt Mrs Ellery’s sharp eyes boring into mine. “I better go now. Bye, Mrs Ellery. Er … bye.” I still couldn’t say her name.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Elsie and turned to go inside.

  I nodded and raced home.

  Da was seated on the bench, boots on the ground, cutting his toenails.

  I sat down alongside him. Had I worked out clearly enough in my head what I was going to say?

  “They be thinking of making a statue of Captain Rodda, Jack. Wouldn’t that be a fine thing?”

  “Yes.” I rubbed my hands on the material of my britches.

  Da glanced across.

  “You be needing new britches soon, lad. You’re growing too big for them. Hand them on down to little Arthur, eh?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been saving for a new pair though.”

  “A new pair?” He looked quizzical. “Oh, well, I s’pose your mam gives you some of your wages.”

  “Yes, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Da.”

  “Your wages? Nothing’ll happen to them, lad. Captain Rodda do see to that!”

  I stood up. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  “What are all those scratches on your arms and legs?”

  I gave a hasty glance, eyeing those that I could see easily. I was still stalling. I thought of the mine shaft. The mine. The picky-table. Gilbert leaving. In those few flash seconds, I thought of everything that I’d hoped to talk about. And that I’d say it all slowly and carefully.

  Instead, it gushed out.

  “Da, I don’t want to be a picky boy.”

  Then, because I didn’t know if the words had come out right, I paused. A rushing sound filled my ears. Da sat gawping at me as if he hadn’t heard right. “I don’t want to be a miner,” I went on. “I thought I did, Da … but I don’t. I want to go back to school.”

  Da’s hands reached for the edge of the bench. Then he stood up slowly. I froze. I thought he was going to hit me.

  His eyes flickered brown, with glints like gold. “Oh no, son,” he said in measured tones. “You don’t get out of it that easy. You had a fair chance. More than a fair chance and we made a man’s promise – you and me, and me to Captain Trelawney. I won’t be having that thrown back in my face and nor will you be leaving the mines. That’s that.”

  He strode off. I sank onto the bench and put my head in my hands.

  Should I remind Da of his little mate, Charlie, and his terror of the underground? Should I talk of Gilbert leaving and how I’d realised I could no longer stick to the pact we’d made at six years of age? Should I tell him that not only had I lost my best friend but that I’d discovered something as well? That the dream of being a picky boy and mining was always Gilbert’s dream more than mine. And that it took his da’s accident and the family leaving to make me understand that.

  But without Da’s consent to leave, I was stuck. Trapped. My guts felt as hollow as the old burnt out gum beyond our back gate. I didn’t even think I could write and tell Gilbert about it.

  Chapter 20

  It seemed as if nothing had changed.

  I tracked back and forth to the picky-shed, pitched stones, checked for letters that never came and wore second-hand britches, which Mam had stitched by lamplight. Da and I also collected stones for the new room but our silences grew longer each day. I dragged myself from job to job, feeling as if the sun had disappeared forever.

  One night, Mam looked up from the patchwork rug she was sewing and glanced at me.

  “Jack, would you do me a favour?”

  I thought she was going to ask for a drink of water or something like that. She was getting bigger and didn’t move about as quickly any more.

  “What, Mam?”

  “It be a long time since I’ve heard a story and I so love to hear a story. Why don’t you read to us from that big book Miss Goldsworthy gave you?”

  “Gulliver’s Travels?” Why would I want to read a story when I felt everything else about my life was miserable? But I couldn’t refuse Mam, so I fetched the book and sat down. Mam rested the rug on her knees, but Da went on whittling a bit of wood. I read for about half an hour and then asked if I could stop.

  To my astonishment, I noticed that the wooden wombat that Da had been carving was lying half-finished on the table. Perhaps Da had stopped to listen.

  It set up a pattern for the next few nights until I finished the book. I was sad when it ended because it was my only book, but I didn’t expect what occurred next.

  It was a Saturday afternoon. I’d hoped that Samuel and Henry might come over but they didn’t, so I was helping Da build the new room. Da had built the frame for the walls with timber and then woven branches across them. He’d made a mixture using mud, small stones and straw, and we were ramming it between the branches to set. Once the walls were hard, Da was going to coat them with plaster and I’d brush the plaster with whitewash.

  Da wanted a break, so we sat in the shade. I was sipping a mug of water when he said, “Jack, there’s something I want to say.”

  There was nothing much I wanted to hear from him, so I kept drinking.

  “I want you to come down the mine with me.”

  The water slopped from the mug.

  “Why? Why, Da?”

  “Because, lad. That’s why. Because I’m not a man to give in easily. And because you’re my son and I’ll not be going to my grave knowing I didn’t do the best for you. I want you to be sure of what you’re doing.”

  Dragging me down a mine wasn’t doing the best for me!

  “What if I refuse?” My voice trembled. I’d never spoken to my father like that before.

  Da raised his hand and any moment I expected to feel the sting on my face.

  But he lowered his hand, and instead brought his face close to mine. “We both be going down that mine, Jack.”

  We hardly spoke. In the cage I turned aside. When he lit my candle, I looked away. And I took the pick he offered without a murmur.

  For an hour we worked together. Once I caught a sideways glance from Da, but I just gritted my teeth and drew the pick down as hard as I could. It was only as I paused to take a breath that it happened.

  I felt the dark and the shadows and then the familiar shuddering began.

  I made fists with my hands, willing for the trembling to stop. For the fear to go away. I raised my pick and swallowed hard. All of a sudden, lights flickered behind my eyes. My feet felt heavy, but my head was spinning. I blacked out.

  The next thing I knew I was in the skip. My father had hold of me, a lo
ok of grave concern on his face.

  “You all right, lad?”

  “Yeah, Da.”

  “We’ll get you home. I’ll make up the time on another shift.”

  In the kitchen, Da sat me down, took a rag from a hook and wiped both his face and mine. After handing me a mug of water, he sat down too.

  “Right, lad,” he said. “Here’s how I see things. I don’t say it’s right to go back on your word, but I saw how it was for you tonight. I saw you’re not a quitter for the sake of quitting. And it ’minded me of little Charlie, all those long years ago. Luckily, you came off better than that poor little beggar. But there’s something else.”

  I leaned in further, my arms on the table. I desperately wanted to lay my head on them, but I blinked back my tiredness and looked at Da.

  “It be about that book that you read. I enjoyed the story and I could see that what your mam said was right. You be a good student. I don’t say I know what real learning is, lad. I know my letters and numbers, enough for newspapers and the like, but it seems to me that you have the knack for proper learning. So I’ll have a talk to Captain Trelawney. And I’ll talk to your mam too, though I know she’ll be as happy as a lark. What I be saying, lad, is that you can go back to Miss Goldsworthy’s.”

  I sat there dumbstruck, unable to take in what I’d just heard. Finally, I found my voice.

  “Thanks, Da,” I said.

  Chapter 21

  Dorrie badgered me all the next morning.

  “Tell Miss Goldsworthy that I’m coming to school after the big holidays and that I know my alphabet. And tell her that my name is Dorrie Pollock.”

  “Sure, sure,” I muttered, grabbing the crib-bag and a pile of schoolbooks. Thank goodness the new room was almost finished.

  In no time, I was walking beneath the Tree, daring myself to glance up. Nothing but a wonderful canopy of grey-green, sickle-shaped leaves.

  I couldn’t wait to see the kids’ faces when I turned up. I ran the last part of the way, excitement bubbling up. But I stopped short at the gate. No one was outside. I was sure I wasn’t late. What could’ve happened? Where was everyone?

  The main door was shut too, but then that wasn’t unusual. Still, I knocked, like Lucy had on that day so long ago, when she’d come to tell Gilbert the terrible news.

  When the door opened, it wasn’t Miss Goldsworthy, but a lady with a face as round as a melon.

  “Hello, dear. What can I do for you?”

  I was stuck for words. She must’ve glanced at my books because she went on. “Were you a pupil of Miss Goldsworthy’s?”

  I nodded. “Is she in there?”

  “No, dear. She be married now. Mrs Taylor, her name is. Married sooner than expected because her parents needed to sail back to England. And no, she’s not teaching any more. Married ladies can’t teach, you know. It’s against the law. She’s away on a trip with her husband. I come to clean for her.”

  “Then where are the …?” I gestured, dumbfounded, towards the cottage and the yard. “Where’s the …?

  “The school? It be down that way. Three houses along. Mr Skinner’s the schoolmaster. He was going to start at the big guv’ment school next year, but came earlier to take over Miss … Mrs Taylor’s. So it all worked out well.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Thank you.” Bewildered, I headed towards the new school and knocked.

  This time Samuel opened the door and his jaw almost dropped to his knees.

  “Come in, Jack,” he whispered, eyes shining. He darted a look over his shoulder. “His name’s Mr Skinner, but you have to say, ‘sir’.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  I followed Samuel into a small, overcrowded room, where the desks were pressed tight against the walls. There was hardly any room to breathe, let alone move. The ceiling was lower than ours at home and there were cracks in the whitewashed walls. One small window let in a feeble amount of light and the floorboards creaked as the schoolmaster strode towards me.

  I handed him the note from Da to say I was returning to school.

  After he’d read it, and flicked it back and forth with his long, thin fingers, he said, “It says here you’ve been a picky boy, Pollock. So you went to school, left and came back again? Perhaps you’ve just been playing truant.” His eyes searched mine, but I shook my head.

  “No. No, sir.”

  “Very well,” he said, pushing his wire-framed glasses further back on the bridge of his nose. “I’ll add you to the roll. Sit over there and take out your arithmetic book. Page sixteen. Long division. Do the first five sums.”

  Relieved that I’d collected all the books from home, I sat down in a desk. Its shape and smell was strangely unfamiliar. So was the silence. Not at all like the picky-shed.

  I gave a quick glance around the room. It was bare with only thin, faded curtains at the window. Elizabeth sneaked a look at me and waved. Then she quickly turned back to Minnie Luxton with her finger across her lips. Minnie grinned and her tongue shot in and out like a happy lizard.

  Near me was a big rough boy who seemed to have outgrown his desk. As he slumped across his work, he caught me staring and made a rude gesture.

  A moment later, Mr Skinner inspected the boy’s work.

  “What’s this rubbish, Ryan? It’s long division, not a guessing game. Do it again and this time use the few brains you have.” With that, he ripped the page from the book and strode back to the front of the room.

  I froze.

  Nothing in all the six years I’d spent at Miss Goldsworthy’s school had prepared me for what I’d just seen. It sent a shiver up my spine and I vowed to watch myself.

  “Who’s Ryan?” I asked the boys at recess.

  “Him? His name’s Willie Ryan,” said Henry, drawing a circle in the ground for a game of marbles. “Him and his da live in a tent way off.”

  “A tent?”

  “Yeah. They don’t have a cottage. I think they move around a bit.”

  “Where’s he come from?”

  “No one knows,” said Samuel. “We don’t play with him much. He’s mean.”

  Henry jiggled his marble bag. “Forget him. Tell us why you’ve come back.”

  I told them. They didn’t even know that Gilbert had left for Adelaide.

  Henry flicked the first marble: a shiny white one with red swirls. It clicked against another in the centre. It was a tiny sound compared to the clatter of ore being tossed into boxes.

  Here I was, back at school after leaving and becoming a picky boy. I felt as if I’d just trudged around in a big circle.

  Chapter 22

  It was hard leaving the fresh air and sunshine and stepping back into the classroom.

  The first lesson after recess was writing practice. I opened my copy book to the next clean page. At the top was a saying: Revere your conscience as your king. It was printed in perfect flowing writing. Beneath it were dotted lines where we had to copy the saying exactly.

  I dipped my pen in the inkwell and began. I was about to start on my third repetition when I heard footsteps. I carried on, taking no notice.

  Without warning, came a hiss, several swishes, and a burning in my knuckles. The pen fell from my fingers. I looked up.

  Mr Skinner towered above, a cane in his hand.

  “Pollock, you are using your left hand.”

  “Yes. Yes, sir,” I stammered. What was wrong? It’d never been a problem before.

  “Writing with your left hand is sinful, you heathen boy. It is evil and I will not tolerate it. You will write with the hand God intended you to use. Your right hand. Understand?”

  I nodded, speechless, sliding my painful hand off the desk and onto my lap. I was unable to think clearly, and I certainly didn’t expect what happened next.

  Mr Skinner took a length of thick cord from the cupboard and grabbed my left hand at the wrist. He pulled my arm behind me and bound my wrist to the rear of the seat.

  I was tied up, like Gertie to her pen.

&nb
sp; Utter silence filled the room.

  Mr Skinner then stuck the pen between the fingers of my right hand and said, “That is the hand you will use. Now begin again.”

  He strode to his desk and began to read a book.

  From nearby came a snigger. I knew without looking that it was Willie Ryan. But at that moment he was the least of my worries. How was I going to write? I’d never written with my right hand. I couldn’t hold the pen. It wobbled between my fingers. My right hand was helpful as a hand, but it wasn’t the one I used.

  It was even difficult to turn the page to start again. The next saying was Yield not to pleasure. No chance of that, I thought wryly.

  I stared at the page until I didn’t dare stall any longer. I took a deep breath and dipped my pen. Even as I did so, I knew I had no clue as to how to place the pen on the page to form letters. When I did, the nib scratched and snagged, and blobs of ink splattered across the page.

  Another snigger. This time I turned, teeth clenched, eyes hot. “Something wrong?”

  “Clicky left-hander!” Willie hissed gleefully. “Clicky left-hander.”

  I wasn’t a quitter. But I would have gladly quit school right at that moment. What I wrote on the next five lines looked as if a drunken spider had straggled across the page. I blotted the work, full of disgust and dismay.

  Luckily, there was no more writing that day. The schoolmaster remained at his desk reading while we chanted the capitals of countries of the world and read from class books that Elizabeth handed out.

  Samuel and Henry hovered close by at home time.

  “Did it hurt?” asked Henry.

  “Yeah. The caning and my shoulder.”

  “Willie Ryan’s had the cane,” said Samuel. “We haven’t.”

  No one had been caned at Miss Goldsworthy’s.

  I stretched and flexed the fingers of my left hand, then my right. The horror of knowing I would have to write with it again tomorrow ruined the pleasure of returning to school.

  “Clicky left-hander,” chortled Willie Ryan as he sloped past.

  “Don’t,” Henry warned as he saw my fist curl.

  “It’ll be all right tomorrow,” said Samuel, kindly.