by Ron Elliott
‘They still say it now when he sells a cow.’
The man licked along the edge of the paper, and rolled the cigarette. ‘Me, I always found him hard, but—just plain hard.’ The man laughed, and David did too for a moment, before he checked for his grandfather.
The man lit his cigarette, then jiggled some coins in his pocket. He suddenly moved down the pitch making David step back. But he moved past and grabbed up the horse halter, moving it off the pitch. He took some pennies from his pocket and started placing them on the pitch about a yard in front of the wickets. His clothes were loose on him, like they didn’t quite fit. He stepped and bent and weaved, placing the coins. He had a limp.
‘The name of the game, David Donald, is to land the ball on the coin and thereby knock the penny off the pitch. Every penny off the pitch is yours.’
‘There’s sixpence there!’
‘Looks like you’re going to be a rich man. If you’re any good.’
The man flicked the brim of his hat and winked.
‘How did you know my name?’
‘Well I listened to your wireless commentary for a start. But also Donald is your father’s surname ... and mine.’
David held his breath, standing in the middle of the pitch, in the middle of the lamplight in the dark.
‘I’m your father’s brother. Michael James Thurstan Donald at your service.’
David blinked. He didn’t even know his father had a brother.
‘Well there’s no James Thurstan in the middle. I just made that up. I suppose you should call me Uncle Mike.’
The man smiled again and tipped the brim of his fedora.
No one had ever said anything about an uncle.
The man nodded as though he could see into David’s head. ‘No one’s mentioned me, eh,’ said the man, gathering up more cricket balls. ‘I’m one of the black sheep kind of brothers, and as I recollect, your grandfather never did like me too much, so the feathers might fly a bit tonight, or perhaps some wool, me being a black sheep. Wool flying doesn’t quite have the same feel to it as feathers. Not quite so much stuff floating in the air, or squawking either, come to think of it. Think quick, live grenade!’
At that, David’s Uncle Mike tossed up one of the cricket balls. David woke from all the news and all the words with a cricket ball nearly on him. He grabbed his hands at it, but only succeeded in knocking it away.
‘Not much good at the return catches then, are you Davey?’ Then he laughed. It was a big open laugh, laughing at David.
David grabbed up the ball, and hugged it to his chest.
Uncle Mike kept laughing.
Only David didn’t mind this man laughing because he wasn’t laughing meanly. It was like he was joining in. Joining in at David’s surprise and panic and confusion and enjoying it with him. It made David laugh too. A little bit embarrassed at first, but then they laughed together.
The laughter brought Grandad.
‘Look, Grandad,’ said David, ‘It’s my Uncle Mike.’
His grandfather stood still, his face hard, his eyes harder still.
David stopped laughing.
‘Gidday George,’ said his uncle, looking sly.
David looked from his grandfather to his uncle and back. They weren’t friends, he knew straight away.
‘I thought it was time. Time I came and had a talk to you about the boy.’
David’s grandfather looked a little afraid, then angry, then nothing. David had seen the second two looks on his grandfather, but never the first.
CHAPTER FOUR
David woke again. It was still night, with just a little light coming from the kitchen lamp. Someone was at his wardrobe.
The men had talked late. David had strained to hear but couldn’t make much of the urgent murmur. He could half remember waking to shouts. ‘You have no right. No right at all.’ His grandfather. He was sure he’d heard his uncle yell too. ‘A promise to a dying man.’
David watched the person stealing his clothes. He turned and saw David watching. He smiled his electric smile and David saw it was his Uncle Mike taking clothes from the cupboard and putting them in a bag.
‘Gidday Davey. We’re going on a trip.’
David got out of bed dragging half his blankets with him. He pulled his pants on as he went into the kitchen. His grandfather was sitting at the kitchen table still in the clothes of the day before.
‘What trip?’
His grandfather turned with dark, sleepless eyes.
‘What’s wrong?’ David asked.
‘Nothing’s wrong at all,’ said his uncle, coming from behind carrying the bag of clothes. ‘David, how would you like to go down to Perth and bowl for the Western Australian team?’
David couldn’t think of anything for a moment. He had trouble focusing on what was said.
‘Sure hope you don’t freeze like that in front of a batsman, matey. You know that’s what rabbits and roos do on the road when a motor car comes along at night. It’s the headlamps. They’re halfway across the road and they look up and see this light. They’re so confused that such a thing as the sun or moon could be coming at them, they just sit there. Mighty easy way to get rabbit for dinner. Come on, lad. We got a train to catch.’
David looked back to his grandfather. ‘What trip?’
‘I’ll take your rig,’ his uncle said, ‘if that’s all right. Leave it for you at the station.’
David watched his grandfather who sat at the table looking at an empty tea mug. He’d never seen him like this; like he was soft, empty of his woodiness.
The back door opened and Uncle Michael stood looking at the grey light of pre-dawn. ‘Will you look at that? Not a cloud in the sky. It’s gunna be a hot one. Any particular horse you’d rather I took, George?’
His grandfather shrugged. His uncle did too as he went out towards the sheds.
‘Grandad, what’s happening?’
David watched his grandfather suck in the air in one long, strong breath until he filled and became himself, full of tree once again. ‘Just as your uncle said. You’re going down to Perth so you can improve your cricket.’
‘But ... now?’
David and his grandfather had talked of Perth, and of eventually going down there to the city to play for a team. When David was older, and a better bowler, it would be time to try out for Western Districts or Fremantle and show what he could do. That’s what his grandfather had done when he was a young man.
‘I’m not ready.’
His grandfather got up from the table but stayed a moment holding it, before he took another big breath and went over to the stove to prod the embers. ‘Maybe. And maybe not. I think your technique is very strong. No, it is better than very strong. You are the best spin bowler I have ever seen. Technically. But I don’t know whether your game is strong. It’s what’s between the ears that makes the bowler.’ He turned from the fire and looked at David. ‘You’ve got a very young head on young shoulders even for twelve, so that’s why you might not be ready. On the other hand, there is only one way to get experience and that is to get it.’
‘Grandad, I don’t know him.’
‘He knows his way around the city and he knows the game. He knows cricket people so they’ll take a look. It’s about time you bowled to real batsmen.’
‘Can’t you come?’
‘Course I can’t come. I have to look after the farm.’
‘But I help you. What about the animals? Who will turn the taps on the pump by the river? The eggs. Who’ll get the eggs?’ David was panting, and he had to blink a sting in his eyes.
‘Don’t you cry, boy.’ It was an order, his grandfather’s voice all hard again. ‘You think you can stay here forever?’
David gulped, but he couldn’t stop the first gasp coming up, loud and pained. He was going to cry and he knew it, so he ran.
Outside the sun was coming up. His uncle was hitching up the rig. David ran out past the other shed, Jess chasing him and barking. David
growled at her, but she kept at him as he tried to outrun her. When she nipped his leg he stopped, not far from the dam.
‘Ow, you bloody dog.’
Jess crouched, her ears down and tail still, confused that the game had turned out wrong.
He pulled up his pants leg and saw that she’d drawn blood. ‘You bloody dog. I’ll fix you.’ David grabbed up a lump of quartz ready to throw, but she got all excited again thinking he had something for her to catch and she danced back and forward and then turned around ready for the throw. She was not afraid of the rock because he’d never thrown anything at her. He wanted to pat her and didn’t care if he spoiled her because he was going. It would serve his grandfather right to have a spoiled dog.
David took a piss, watching it steam and burrow into the dry ground. Jess inched forward until she could smell where he’d been. He went down to the dam, and looked at the water. It was black.
‘You gunna go for a swim?’ His uncle limped down towards him.
David didn’t say anything. He kept looking into the dam.
‘It’s all a bit sudden, eh?’ he said gently. ‘It’s always sudden, when it’s time to grow up. Well, so they say. Wouldn’t know myself. I seem to be growing down rather than up. So they say. Bloody opinionated they are, aren’t they?’ David’s uncle sniffed at the air or the day, looking out over the farm.
David realised he was watching him out of the corner of his eye. He seemed to find everything so much fun, even the air.
‘See, here’s the thing, David. I saw you bowl last night. I think you are good enough to bowl for Australia. Right now. I mean even if there were any other bowlers not on death’s door.’
David looked up at him. He couldn’t help it.
‘Insane, yes? Of course it is. Won’t happen. Can’t. You have no idea how good a bowler you are. The control. I saw it straight away. And your grandfather knows it.’
David started to shake his head.
‘He knows it and he knows it’s time. So I’ve convinced him to let us try to make it happen. Now.’
David looked at his uncle closely. He needed a shave, and some sleep, but his smile was still such a dazzling thing, David had trouble looking away.
But he did. He looked away and said, ‘I don’t want to.’
‘I think my brother would have wanted you to do that. I think it would have made him the proudest man in the world.’
David felt like he was up a tree; as though the branch he’d just grabbed had snapped and he was about to come away.
‘See David, here’s the other thing. Your grandad can’t afford you. The farm can’t afford you.’
The branch gave way. Snap. David was falling.
‘But that’s okay. If we get you bowling down in Perth, then I think I know a way we can make enough money for you to send some to him, to help him on the farm. Would you like that?’
What David would have liked was to be asleep again and to wake up not in this day. But he wasn’t falling now. He checked the sun. It was higher and shining on all the ground. He sniffed the air too and found the faint stirrings of sheep dung and earth mixing with something else he couldn’t quite place. Yes. The fetid water of the dam had a musty smell that the sun stirred up.
‘My mother drowned here.’
‘Here?’ His uncle blew a long, slow sigh until there surely couldn’t be any air left in him. He took a step forward and skidded slightly on the dusty incline.
David watched his uncle searching about in the dam as though he might see her floating there. He took another step forward as though to dive and retrieve her. ‘Well I’m here now, all right,’ he said into the water before turning straight away and scrambling up the slope and limping back towards the house.
Grandad was waiting for them by the wagon. David got up on the seat and sat silently. His uncle climbed up beside and grabbed the reins.
His grandfather said, ‘If anything happens to him, I will find you and I will kill you.’
‘Fair enough, George. But what if what happens is fame and fortune and wonderful things for everyone? Any room for that in your perspicacity?’
‘Not so’s I’ve seen.’
David made himself not look at either man or at the farm. He watched a bag of bread get pushed by his grandfather’s long fingers into the well by his feet. Then came a Gladstone bag.
‘Bowl well, boy.’
David made himself hold still. He didn’t even nod, but just looked at the bags in the footwell. His uncle shook the reins and the horse stepped. They were going. He watched his knees swaying in time to the horse’s steps until he knew they were off the farm and onto the main road, and that’s when he finally let himself look around at the paddocks and other farms on the way to Dungarin.
‘How will Grandad get the rig back?’ asked David, after a mile or so.
‘Come in on a horse, I expect, and lead it home.’
‘How did you get out to the farm last night?’
‘Maybe I borrowed a horse.’
David looked at the man but couldn’t tell if he was lying or not until he winked. ‘What if everyone just took any horse or bicycle they fancied and took it wherever they had to go?’
‘That would be stealing.’
‘Aye. But what if everyone did it, so’s there were horses everywhere, cos someone else took them there too. If everyone just picked up a bicycle or horse wherever they found it and went wherever they wanted to go, and they left it there. Plenty enough then to go around. And the next fellow to come along could take it too.’
David thought on that a little. ‘But then it would be no one’s to look after.’
‘Or everyone’s. In a place called Russia, they’re doing that. Letting everyone own everything. Sharing it all out, so everyone is as free as bird, instead of getting weighted down with all their things.’
David nodded and thought some more. Finally he said, ‘I guess that’s what heaven’s like too.’
‘Maybe,’ said his uncle in a way that David suspected meant the opposite. Leastways, his uncle had no more to say and David was thankful to ride in quiet.
They were in town early, but there were a few carts and some flat-bed trucks waiting on account of the train, which would deliver newspapers and some fresh goods, and take away some items for fixing down in Northam or over in Geraldton.
David tried to look for Nell in the blacksmith’s when he put the horse in, but she wasn’t around. His Uncle Michael made him hurry, saying they were late, but they had to wait a good half-hour in a corner of the station. David wanted to wait out front so he could tell someone he was going.
‘You ever been to Northam?’ his uncle asked.
David shook his head. ‘I went to Geraldton once with the school and saw the ocean.’
‘Pretty big eh?’
‘Oh, I reckon Geraldton’s not too big. Lot of shops.’
‘I was thinking of the ocean,’ said his uncle with one of his smiles that was laughing at you.
David didn’t smile back.
‘Did you like the smell of that seaweed?’
‘No sir.’
‘Pretty pongy stuff that.’
‘Too right.’ David laughed.
And his uncle started laughing too. He put his head back, and he opened his mouth and his lungs and he laughed loudly for all he was worth. He laughed so much, there were little tears coming out of his eyes.
It made David stop laughing as it didn’t feel right.
When the train came, David put his bag next to him on the seat.
His uncle said, ‘Righteo, old bean. See you on the other side then, what?’ in an English accent. Then he left him alone.
David couldn’t decide about what had just happened to him or what it meant. It seemed too big to be grasped. He supposed it was because he was just too dimwitted to be able to understand. He began to wonder if he was a black sheep too, like his uncle. He wondered if he was the black sheep of Dungarin.
He thought about his grandfather
and how he’d allowed him to go with his uncle so easily. He started to consider whether he was a black sheep, not just in the town, but back on the farm with his grandfather too. He did not know how or in what ways his grandfather had feelings for him because he had never said. But he realised now he had counted on it. He assumed it was there under his feet even if no special time was taken to point that out. David thought about this and was suddenly unsure if it was true.
Then David stopped thinking and just looked. He mostly looked at the country he didn’t recognise going past the train. It was not yet harvest time but most paddocks had poor crops. A willy-willy sprang up and danced down a hill kicking up the dust before disappearing suddenly midair. There were dead trees on each hill, and white fallen ones too that made you squint at their brightness. Swagmen and rouseabouts and itinerants watched or waved from roads and bridges looking hot and tired and not much good for the work they begged. A mob of Abos looked up from a river and were gone. There were rocks that were sometimes piled and sometimes scattered. The rocks got bigger and more interesting as the train moved into the hills.
There were more trees too, bigger gums and others that David didn’t know. Soon the trees got so thick you couldn’t see the farms any more.
Some ladies sat in the carriage, dressed up and knitting as they talked in murmurs that David couldn’t make out over the noise of the train. A man in a suit read a book the whole way, his hat sitting on the seat next to him. David guessed they must travel on trains so much that they didn’t care what was outside, nor about the coal smoke and grease smells coming into the carriage.
David got up and went back to another carriage. He stood in the doorway where he could see his uncle playing cards with two rouseabouts and a man in a suit. There was money piled on the fold-down table between them. David watched his uncle drink from a hipflask and offer it round. He told jokes and laughed. David noticed his eyes lose their laughter each time he looked at his cards. It was like a blink of seriousness before turning his smiles back on, like an electric light. He laid down his cards and scooped some pennies, making more jokes. Then he looked at David, and he winked, before going back to shuffling the cards and talking and talking. He talked all the time while he laughed and played the cards. There was just that blink every now and then when he didn’t.
