Spinner

by Ron Elliott

  David tried to bowl a slow off break so that it would evade the bat, but spin in towards Mr Baker. There wasn’t enough room in the hall, and the ball hit the wall on the full. It evaded Jack’s swinging bat, hit the other wall and ricocheted into Mr Baker’s hands.

  ‘Hey, no fair,’ yelled Jack.

  There was laughter and cheering.

  Jack Tanner stood glowering at David, who swallowed and made himself step forward towards the big man.

  Mr Richardson said, ‘You’ve been out four times in four balls, Two Bob. Give Ned his fifty pounds and let’s get into the Poms.’

  Mr Tanner glared at David for a moment, then shrugged, and said, ‘Yeah, fair enough,’ and went to give Mr Hall his money without another word to David.

  Mr Hall, however, said loudly, ‘I owe you a seriously large pot of lemonade, Ol’ Man.’

  David felt a wave of warmth. He smiled.

  Mr Richardson patted him on the shoulder.

  Mr Johnson did too. ‘Fine bowling, Billy.’

  Ten Ton finally found him in the change rooms, while he was putting on his bowling shoes. ‘How you going, little man?’

  David felt good. Looking at his hand and turning it, he felt strong too.

  He said, ‘Ten Ton, I feel ... perfect.’

  Jess barked and David opened his eyes. The newspaper had dropped out of his hands and onto the floor. His grandfather was sleeping, propped up, half sitting on the pillows. There was noise in the kitchen and David went out to find Nell stirring the soup.

  ‘This isn’t much of a soup,’ she said not looking at him.

  ‘Wasn’t much here to put in.’

  ‘I’ve brought some bacon and peas from that Mr Biggins,’ she said indicating a package on the table. She flicked her hair back as she looked into the soup again. Her fringe was a bit long, and David realised she always did that, flicking her whole head back so the hair flared back up onto her head for the barest time before it tumbled down and straight forward into her eyes again.

  ‘How’s your grandad?’

  ‘Sleeping.’

  David came to the table and started to pull open the package. He saw two horses out in the yard, one of them his grandad’s.

  ‘I brought one of them back, so you can get around and go to the dance tonight.’

  ‘I’m not going.’

  ‘Give me that.’ She came and took the package from him. She opened the paper carefully and put it aside, then got the cutting board and started cutting up bacon into bits.

  ‘I don’t want to leave Grandad.’

  She nodded. Seemed satisfied. ‘Peggy Pringle will be disappointed.’

  ‘Peggy. Why?’

  ‘She was going to dance with you.’

  ‘She hates me.’

  ‘Not now you’re famous.’

  ‘I’m not famous.’

  Nell stopped cutting. ‘David, of course you’re famous. You’re in all the papers and all the radio and there’s people all over the country giving money to pay off the farm. They’re having a Relief kind of thing and the Prime Minister of Australia might even have something for all the farmers too. The David Donald Drought something or other.’

  David looked back to the bedroom. He wasn’t sure how his grandad would take that. He wouldn’t want the charity.

  ‘There’s a news reporter in town too, asking all kinds of questions about you and you growing up and your family and the farm too.’

  ‘That’s O’Toole. He hates me.’

  ‘Lot of people hate you all of a sudden.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said David sitting down at the table. ‘Well Peggy always hated me. But how come you do?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How come you’re mad at me?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘How come you weren’t at the station?’

  ‘School. Remember. That’s a place we unfamous folk have to go.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t think of that. Did you get my cable?’

  ‘Yes. Otherwise how could I reply?’ She did smile then, but turned and went to the stove and scraped the bacon into the soup. ‘Well, are you gunna tell me what it was like or what?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He wanted to more than anything. So while she shelled peas, he told her.

  ‘Nell, it was nothing like the paper. It was nothing like anything. It was like ... just practice. Instead of Grandad saying spin it further, spin it less, make it jump, it was Mr Richardson and Mr Johnson and Mr Hall whispering what to do. Sometimes Mr Richardson, like when Mr Longford played my first ball to him so carefully, he said, “David, I’m going to take those fieldsmen from long mid-on and long mid-off to try to get him to drive. What you think?” And I knew why and what I should do, and I just nodded. It was like I could see what I would do, so doing it was no different. But then Mr Tanner came in and said to Mr Richardson and me that he thought Mr Longford wouldn’t go for it straight away nor maybe at all unless I scared him into it, and so why don’t I let him think he’s getting set up for that drive, but try to get him with the same ball as the first innings while he was thinking about Mr Richardson leaving all that juicy space out there straight up the wicket. Least ways, that is what he would think, in this situation, if he was facing. And Mr Richardson said that’s a plan. He always says that. And that’s what I did and we all thought Mr Longford would go for it the next ball. But he got a bit of an edge to get that scratchy run. He moved his bat so fast.’

  ‘Wow, David, you sure got a lot more words now you’re famous.’

  ‘I’m just telling it,’ he said, but then he said, ‘You are right though. When you’re famous they take you to this special place, in Canberra, and you do these famous people classes.’

  Nell looked like she might be half believing him, and he put all his effort into keeping his face serious and his eyes not blinking but couldn’t do it for long.

  ‘No,’ he said, laughing, and she looked like she might go sulky again, so he used one of his uncle’s tricks which was to say something else straight away. ‘There was a train crash in the middle of the desert and we had to have Christmas out there, and I couldn’t get into the team, and my uncle kept betting people what I’d do, and we won all this money, and there were these wharf workers who I let hit me every time. In Melbourne there is this nice lady named Mrs O’Locklan and she’s got this picture of a boy with a horse. Nell, she told me about my dad.’

  Nell stopped shelling the peas and looked up. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘She was a nurse. My dad was throwing a grenade out of the trench to save people and it blew up.’

  ‘Stupid war.’

  ‘Yeah. Oh and all the cricketers have nicknames.’

  ‘Yeah? What?’ Nell came around the table and sat in Grandad’s chair, while David explained.

  ‘There’s Ten Ton cos he’s so big, and Two Bob is Jack Tanner cos he’s always dressed up like he’s going out and what a tanner is too. Richo—’

  ‘Is Richardson.’

  ‘Yeah, easy. Chalkie? That’s Mr Johnson. He’s a teacher, but he’s having a rough trot right now. Beardie is Bardsley, but I’m not sure why that’s his nickname. He’s young. Um, Mopsey is Maud. He didn’t used to like me much.’

  ‘Another one!’ She leaned her face forward and made her eyes pop and drawing out the last word and somehow smiling at the same time.

  David went quiet. Nell had freckles. Not a lot, but just a couple on her cheeks. David said, ‘Your freckles are like little bits of jewels under your eyes.’

  It was like he’d slapped her. She blinked and went red a moment, and then she punched him in the arm.

  ‘Ow,’ he said, and meant it. She had punched him really hard.

  She looked at him, and he wasn’t sure whether she was going to punch him again, but she looked to the soup and went over and put the peas in there.

  ‘Who else doesn’t like you?’ she said finally.

  ‘Um, well Mr McLeod didn’t but maybe does now, and Mr Hall only started liking me in the hallway th
e morning of the last Test, I reckon. I don’t think Mr Tanner does, or will ... but I think that’s on account of my uncle. Mr O’Toole, there’s another one. Oh, there was this gangster named Blackie Cutmore, in Melbourne. He didn’t like me at all.’

  She was looking at him again.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I was hated just as much before I got famous, but I just never noticed.’

  ‘Well I don’t hate you.’

  ‘I know. You’re...’ He’d been going to say she was his mate, but that wasn’t quite right. She had been, but something had changed. He blushed now, and it seemed to please Nell that he did, maybe that they were even.

  Nell washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen while David told her more stories about what they’d been up to on his trip. He kept a little back, mostly to do with his Uncle Mike, because he didn’t want to worry her. At dusk, she had to go, so she could ride home before dark, but she went to the bedroom door one more time and looked at David’s grandfather.

  Outside, by her horse, she said, ‘He’s gunna die, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yep.’

  She suddenly kissed him on his cheek, and he couldn’t move. He was like a tree stump there in the yard, while she got up on the horse and said, ‘See ya, David Donald.’

  He couldn’t say anything, just watch her ride off at a gallop.

  After a while, when he finally worked out that the speck off towards the road must be a tree and not Nell riding, he went in and lit the kerosene lamp in the kitchen.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘It’s me. David.’

  ‘Oh.’

  David went into the bedroom and lit that lamp too.

  His grandad lay back down on the bed, pale in the yellow light of the lamp. His eyes were closed again, and he breathed shallowly, like panting.

  ‘I made some soup, Grandad.’

  ‘It hurts.’ The old man still wouldn’t open his eyes.

  David got the brandy bottle again and poured a half a cup. ‘I got the brandy.’

  He wouldn’t lift his head and when David tried to pour a sip into the corner of his mouth, he coughed and choked some. The convulsion of the coughing must have twisted his body in the cancer part because he whimpered.

  ‘It’s all right. It’s all right,’ David whispered, patting his grandfather’s shoulder.

  David got a singlet out of the bureau and dipped it in the cup of brandy and let one of the shoulder straps of that hang and drip the brandy into the old man’s mouth. He sipped that way, from the makeshift brandy teat, until he settled. His skin still had a tinge of brown tan, but his cheeks were gone, fallen away under the flaking skin. David ran his fingers gently across the hair at his temple, brushing back.

  The old man smiled and said, ‘Mary.’

  ‘It’s David, Grandad.’

  ‘David,’ he said and nodded a little.

  David stroked his skin some more. It had become as soft as a dog’s tummy. ‘Did you think I was ... my mum?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you wanna talk about her?’

  His grandad grimaced, and David fed him some more brandy drips into his mouth. As the old man settled, David saw the newspaper where he’d left it by the chair, and decided to read aloud, just for something to fill the night. ‘I’ll read you a bit, Grandad. From the paper. They talk about you. You wanna hear that?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, without opening his eyes.

  David had intended to read the section concerning the great George Baker being gravely ill, but decided it sounded too sad. Instead he found a column he hadn’t read on the aeroplane that had George Baker mentioned down the bottom. He folded the paper yet again and angled it towards the lamp and tackled the reading with patience.

  ‘What Makes Donald So Very ... spec. Splec. Special. What Makes David Donald So Very Special. This one is by Mr O’Toole. Physically Donald is of average height and weight for a normal, thin twelve year old. However, his fingers are extra-ornery long. Twice as long as normal. This means he has an extra-ornery ability to grip the ball all over. His right wrist is thick and powerful. His shoulder and elbow agile. This enables him to extract huge amounts of spin, but also bounce.’

  David grew bored with it, the listing of it all, the picking it apart. He looked outside at the darkness.

  ‘Would you tell me something about my mother, Grandad?’

  The old man’s eyes were closed although he seemed to be listening.

  ‘What was she doing in the dam? What was she doing there to get drowned?’

  Bright light suddenly swept the room.

  ‘Huh,’ yelped David, dropping the paper and standing. He was sure the ghost of his mother was about to leap in at him from the dark. But it was a car.

  David met Mr Biggins at the front door.

  ‘Hello David,’ said the neat man seriously. ‘How is he?’

  David shrugged, but stepped back to let Mr Biggins in.

  He took off his hat and edged into the kitchen, turning it around the brim.

  ‘I still can’t go to the dance, Mr Biggins.’

  ‘Oh, no. No need son. That finished an hour ago.’ He checked his fob watch and said, ‘It’s after midnight.’

  David smelt the soup for the first time and knew how hungry he was. ‘Do you want some soup?’

  ‘No thank you. Go ahead. I just wanted to make sure it was all right here. The fifth Test starts soon, and...’ He shook himself and sat down at the table, slipping his homburg onto his knee. ‘But don’t worry about that. We have had some success in raising money for the farm.’

  David ladled some soup into a bowl and came back to the table. Two moths were thwocking into the kerosene lamp glass then chasing each other off before they did it again.

  ‘What if we set you up in a nice house in Sydney, David?’

  ‘A house?’

  ‘We could work out something, with school and what not ... housekeeper, eventually a trade.’

  ‘But I want to live here.’

  ‘These people, the town ... I met many of them at the dance.’ Mr Biggins seemed to be having difficulty choosing his words, sorting through them and throwing some out like overripe grapes in a bunch. ‘Without your grandfather, is this really...’

  ‘Yes, sir. This is where I want to live.’

  Mr Biggins sighed, then nodded just once. ‘Very well.’ He looked around the kitchen as though taking inventory, and said, ‘There aren’t any ledgers or receipts or important papers are there? A desk where your grandfather does his business work?’

  ‘No, sir. We’re a farm. We don’t do business.’

  Mr Biggins gave a little smile, but then turned serious again. ‘The bank manager is making it difficult for me to access records you see, so it’s more difficult to assess the ... problem.’

  Then David remembered the biscuit tin his grandfather had mentioned hidden under the rain tank. David looked at him, not sure whether to trust the fixer that the Australian Cricket Board had sent. ‘I’ll just ask Grandad if it’s okay.’

  ‘So there is a file?’

  ‘I’ll just ask Grandad.’

  David went into his grandfather’s room, but the old man wasn’t breathing any more.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  They flew out early from Adelaide on their way to Sydney. David was getting used to the sudden surge of speed as the plane hurtled along the flat landing field before it took off. He was even starting to get used to the drop in his stomach as it lifted up into the air. He wasn’t used to the flying though: not the up in the air like a bird-ness of that. One thousand yards above the earth was not a place he wished to be.

  They’d flown from Geraldton to Perth and from Perth to Adelaide, landing in different towns every four hours or so. They’d slept the night in a place called Forrest which seemed to be just an airfield with a small hostel next to it. Mr Biggins had organised it all on behalf of the Australian Cricket Board so that David could reach Sydney in time to play the fifth Test. Mr Biggins had organised
everything, including the funeral and the farm and even the leaving behind of the reporter O’Toole. Yet, coming out of Adelaide, David was glad of the cotton wool used to block out the sound of the airplane engines. He did not want Mr Biggins to be able to talk to him any more.

  They had held a funeral for Grandad on the farm the day after he’d died. David had insisted on burying his grandfather on his own land. Mr Bonner, the minister from the church, and Old Jack from the pub, of all people, came out early in the morning and showed David what to do with tidying up his grandad’s face, closing his mouth and dressing him in his best clothes.

  ‘Yer best duds are for your wedding and for yer funeral,’ said Old Jack seriously.

  ‘And a few visits to church in between maybe, Jack,’ said the minister.

  Old Jack ducked his head a few times like he was dodging blows.

  ‘Grandad didn’t go to church, Mr Bonner,’ explained David.

  Mr Bonner looked David square in the face, like a man. ‘He didn’t lately, David, but he used to. Then, during the war, some things happened, which I guess you know, and George fell out with God and stopped speaking with him, least ways in public. Well, I reckon God never took the same approach to that argument that George had running, otherwise he wouldn’t have made you, would he?’ Mr Bonner set about adjusting the dead man’s collar. ‘I’m hoping you’ll forgive God on your grandfather’s behalf.’

  David nodded even as he tried to contemplate God and his grandfather arguing. He reckoned they were probably pretty well matched. He tried to conjure some light with this piece of information about his grandad, and to shine it on the man he knew, but nothing would come. George Baker never spoke of God. He was a fair man, but not a particularly friendly or forgiving one. Then David considered the war. People talked of before the war and during the war and after the war. Things and people changed. Out of the swirling empty mist of his mind came the idea of his father, smiling over a cup of tea, just before the grenade landed.

  Mrs Doolan and two other old ladies had also come, and they cleaned the kitchen and set out food and made big pots of tea. They kept trying to pat him so he took refuge in the bedroom with Jess and his grandfather, waving off the flies.