“You want to think you’re punching old Moloney.”
The second bell saved him from my questions.
It was not long after this that Johnno began cleaning his shoes and wearing a tie. But worst of all he made himself conspicuous by using hair oil on his newly grown hair. My suspicions were aroused again; but he would tell nothing—except that Eileen had said she should have a brother she could look at without feeling ashamed.
I was even more suspicious when I went to his place one Saturday afternoon. Old man Johnston was working at his tool-bench amongst a mess of bicycle parts. The bench itself was black with years of grease and his own hands were not much better. I avoided him and knocked at the back door. Eileen came out, smartly dressed, smelling sickly sweet.
“Why, it’s Charlie!” she said, twirling her strands of beads and putting her head to one side.
I ignored this. “Is Fred home?”
“I thought he was going to your place,” she said, opening her eyes wide.
“He’s not there,” I answered. “At least, he wasn’t when I came away.”
“Do have a look again. If he’s not there, I don’t know where he could be.”
I caught her smiling slightly. I exclaimed, “Oh, you know where he is, all right! He’s never been the same since he went to the dance with you.”
She laughed in a high-pitched way. “Run along, Charlie boy, and have a look.”
I glared at her, but before I could say anything she had walked inside, singing “Charmaine” and swinging her hips.
I went home in a temper. Johnno was nowhere to be seen. At the side of the house Ian was climbing the pepper-tree.
“You never take me anywhere,” he said in a whining voice. “You always promise, but you never take me.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“I’ll tell Dad you said ‘shut up’.”
“I don’t care. Have you seen Fred Johnston?”
“I’m not going to tell you.”
“If you don’t I’ll pull you out of that tree.”
He climbed higher and supposed himself to be out of reach. “If you try, I’ll spit on you.”
I ran over to the tree and, leaping up, grabbed his foot. He came down on top of me, knocking me to the ground at the same time, screaming, “Charlie’s broken me back,” and writhing realistically.
My father rushed to the veranda rail with one of his study books in his hand. “What in the name of heaven have you done now?”
“He fell out of the tree,” I panted.
“He pulled me by my foot till I fell—”
“Stand up, both of you.”
Ian struggled to his feet, his hand on his back. “Shut up and I’ll take you yabbying,” I hissed.
“What was that?” demanded my father.
“I told him I was sorry.”
“And so you should be. Clear out—I don’t care where—just clear out!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As I walked away from the house I found myself blaming Johnno for my boredom. It came into my mind to do something without him, something he would be sorry to miss. The trouble was I had no idea what it could be. I still had no worthwhile ideas by the time I had reached the Mechanics’ Hall. A number of people were about the hall, passing in and out, while others stood in groups outside. I remembered then that it was polling day.
I leant for a time against the sandy bank outside the hall—the spot where Johnno and I had waited for the Riley to come back on the night of the dance.
In their own slow way, polling days were interesting. All the peculiar people we didn’t see for months at a time came out like insects from under lifted stones. There were those like the Misses Ferguson who never stopped chewing aspirin while they were among other people and always spoke from behind a handkerchief soaked in eucalyptus. And there was Mrs Rolls, an extremely proud woman who hardly ever came out because she was so ashamed of her husband’s drinking. She had made him live in a tent in his own backyard for nearly ten years. She had once been a strong temperance worker, a singer of songs like—
“Lips that touch wine
Shall never touch mine”
and had married Charlie, so I had heard my father say, with the idea of reforming him.
At the Mechanics’ door Mr Turnbull was handing out How to Vote cards for the party which I knew stood for authority and respectability and such other proper things. Stinger Wray’s father was handing out cards for the working man and “social justice”.
Mr Turnbull wore a heavy overcoat and a bowler hat and he cleared his throat a lot and looked down importantly from a great height. Mr Wray was hatless and wore a reversible rubber raincoat. His boots were dirty and from his face you could tell that he believed life had done him great wrongs.
It might have made the day a bit interesting if they had argued, but I was disappointed to see that they seemed on quite friendly terms. Most people took a card from each of them, as if they were going to vote for both sides. It was all peaceful and dull and the afternoon was dull and cold.
I sat there for about ten minutes and was moving to go away when down past the Church of England came Mr Matthias, rucksack on his back, fly-veil round his hat—though there were no flies because it was winter—beard thrust out, book under one arm, mackintosh tightly buttoned, big loose knot to his tie, steel-rimmed glasses through which he didn’t see well. He walked quickly, muttering to himself, slashing at the roadside grass with his heavy stick.
I hadn’t seen him since Grandfather’s funeral; in fact he was hardly seen now about the town at all. The idea that he was a Bolshevik had spread further since a day some weeks earlier when he had got into a political argument in the main street with Mr Glossop of the Palais Theatre. Mr Glossop had called him an anarchist and a few other things. His landlady, Mrs Prendergast, turned him out soon after this. She told my mother that she refused to share her roof with an anti-Christ. It didn’t matter how my mother tried to explain to her and protect the old man, he was put out and that was that.
I believe we might have taken him into Grandfather’s old room, but overnight he disappeared. It was said he was living in a hut in the bush about four miles east of the town. Someone—Squid I think—had spread the story that Bolsheviks had been seen carrying a big wireless transmitter through the bush and that Mr Matthias had daily conversations with Russia.
As he came to the hall the two men at the door held How to Vote cards out to him. He took them and tore them to pieces and threw them to the wind.
“Do you know what I think of compulsory voting?” he shouted.
Mr Turnbull said solemnly, “Every man is entitled to his view in this democratic land—”
“All I intend doing is rendering my card invalid.”
“Think of your responsibilities,” cried Mr Wray.
“Think,” bellowed Mr Matthias. “All you think of is grievances.”
Mr Wray turned his back angrily, but Mr Turnbull laid his hand on the old man’s arm. “Now, Matthias—”
“Mr Matthias.”
“Very well, very well.” Mr Turnbull drew himself up, raising his chin so that he looked down on Mr Matthias. “I can tell you I’m proud of my right to vote; proud to be a citizen of that Empire on which the sun never—”
“Bosh!” declared Mr Matthias, striding into the hall.
What went on there I couldn’t see, but there was the sound of raised voices and presently Mr Matthias came out with his stick over his shoulder as if he had demolished the place. He went down the road, his head thrust forward short-sightedly, his stick cutting at the grass again.
I knew then what I would do: I would follow him.
It was not a pleasant thing to do, to follow Mr Matthias when he had been such a friend of my grandfather’s. I don’t know what could have induced me to do it. Perhaps it was t
he mystery of where he lived and the talk about the transmitter. And, of course, it was an opportunity to do something unusual independently of Johnno. Just the same, I should not have done it.
Up past old Moloney’s he went and across the school ground, then over the fence and into the bush, taking the track to the Lone Pine. I hesitated near the school fence—it was late afternoon and the bush looked oddly forbidding—but then I went on quickly.
The light was weak, and underfoot the sand made no sound. I walked on, looking ahead for him, my skin tingling for no reason at all. Not till I was near the Spy Tree did I see him, fifty yards on, stick still swinging and back bent. Beyond this point I hardly knew the bush. A faint track led into it, marked by a tobacco tin jammed in the fork of a wattle. Among the trees I crept closer to him till I could hear him muttering. He put his stick over his shoulder, as if he had left the country of his enemies behind. Now he began walking slowly through thicker growth. The path along this part was marked sometimes by broken branches, sometimes by little piles of twigs, once by an old shirt-tail tied to a bush. Each of these signs he looked for, then went on. The track climbed to a high, open ridge. Stooped there I looked back and saw the Lone Pine two miles or more away, and, well ahead, the water of Western Port.
Mr Matthias was out of sight, going downhill, walking faster. The afternoon was all but over by this, and I began to see I would be late home. I came on him suddenly again, near a Cootamundra in full blossom where once there must have been a house. Only the Cootamundra and some fruit-trees were left, and part of a stone wall.
After about a mile we came to the hut, a rough erection of vertical boards with a corrugated-iron roof and sheets of corrugated iron arranged as a chimney. It was in a clearing, but on three sides the bush was close up to it. A small window looked the way we had come, and next to it was a door with some words painted across it. He unlatched the door and disappeared inside.
I felt sorry for him then, and foolish; after all, he was only Mr Matthias, my Grandfather’s friend. But I walked round the clearing, just inside the cover of trees.
At one place were the beginnings of a vegetable garden and, near it, a small spring. While I stood there smoke began to rise from the chimney. The daylight was going quickly now, and I realized I would have to run most of the way home. I began moving carefully away when suddenly the earth snatched at me and I felt as if an axe had cut off my foot. I heard myself yelling and saw my foot in a rabbit trap. At the same time there was a shout from inside. I stamped on the spring and jumped clear and began running, hardly knowing which way I was going.
Behind me Mr Matthias yelled, “I know who you are. Get back to your police station,” and much more in the same vein.
His shouting slowly died behind me while I pounded through undergrowth in semi-darkness, my foot feeling like a piece of meat. I ran until I could scarcely breathe.
How long it had been dark I had no idea. Now and then I saw stars through the criss-cross of branches, but on the ground I could see nothing. I tried to run again, but stumbled through a creek and fell on to the opposite bank. I realized then that I was well off the track. Around me was thick darkness which seemed to throb with my throbbing foot. Ahead the ground rose steadily, and when I went on I could make out Lone Pine against the sky. The panic that had made me run had gone, and I could only hobble slowly towards the lights of the town. Even from there it took me an hour to get to “Thermopylae”.
“Your father’s at Fred Johnston’s place looking for you,” said my mother coldly. “Where have you been?”
“I got caught in a rabbit trap,” I said, leaning against the wall.
“That’s something new, anyway. Where did this happen?”
‘In the bush—I stepped right in it. I can hardly walk.”
At that point my father came pounding in at the back door, his face set angrily.
“What is it this time?” he blazed.
My mother said, “He caught his foot—”
“He can tell me, can’t he?”
I tried to open my mouth. What would have happened I don’t know. At that moment Ian burst into the room crying, “Gyp’s a Labrador all right—look what he’s brung me!”
He held up one of Mrs Peters’ Plymouth Rocks, one of those Squid had hypnotized.
“It’s dying,” exclaimed my mother in dismay.
Gyp pushed the back door open and stood grinning with satisfaction, knocking the wall rhythmically with his tail.
“Tie that mongrel up,” said my father, hanging on to himself.
My mother plunged into the medicine cupboard and brought out a bottle of brandy. “We’ll never hear the end of this.”
She poured a spoonful and tried to drop it into the hen’s beak, but the hen had its eyes fixed on eternity and wasn’t going to turn back even for brandy.
Ian came in again from tying Gyp up. “He’s a retriever, all right; he didn’t even wet its feathers.”
“Be quiet!” said my father. “The hen’s dead. Did Mrs Peters see it?”
Ian looked grave. “I don’t reckon she did. It squawked, but Gyp brung it quickly—right to my feet—”
“Did she come out?”
“No; she was inside washing up—I could see her through the window.”
“Listen now; I don’t want anything said about this to anyone, understand?” We nodded seriously. “We’ll get rid of that mongrel.” Ian began to weep silently. “Charlie, you get out there and dig a hole, a deep one, and do it quickly, bad foot or no bad foot.”
“He didn’t know he was wrong—” began Ian.
“Quiet! Dig it on the side away from Peters’.”
I hobbled outside and, even with my injured foot, dug to the length of the shovel. The rest was like the burial of Sir John Moore. When I went inside, my foot had turned blue and the marks of the trap’s jaws showed as little red prints above my toes.
“Lie on the floor,” said my mother. She poured the usual iodine on it while I writhed about, biting my lip.
“I don’t know how I’ll get to school tomorrow,” I moaned.
“Well, we haven’t a car, have we? Nor even a jinker?”
“You may care for a camel,” my father put in sarcastically.
“All right,” said my mother, deciding on peace. “Let’s hear no more about it. We can expect Mrs Peters in at any moment, and what are we going to say?”
But Mrs Peters didn’t come, and by next day it was even decided we could keep Gyp.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As it turned out, I was home for a week with orders to stay in bed, but to keep up school work and complete homework.
“I’ll have Birdie Peters bring your books home.”
Squid enjoyed this. He came in with every book out of my desk and a few notes I had wanted no one to see. The look of the pile and its schoolroom smell spoilt the peacefulness of the room.
“What’s up with you?” asked Squid, looking concerned.
“Caught my foot in a rabbit trap,” I said.
He nodded seriously. “Toes gawn?”
“No,” I said, bringing my foot out of the covers.
He stood back from it doubtfully. “Jus’ broke ’em?”
I shook my head. “Cuts and bruises, that’s all.”
“Been injected?”
“No,” I said, feeling I had missed out on something.
He looked glum at this. “Trouble is lockjaw. Didn’t no one tell you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Starts in y’ face. Y’ teeth jam shut; after a bit y’ head bends back till y’ end up practically in a circle. Bloke mum knew in Adelaide got buried in a round coffin after lockjaw.”
“Not me,” I said uneasily.
I began unwinding the bandage as if lockjaw were nothing. The foot looked impressive—black round the toes with a
row of scabs across it, the whole thing shading off to blues and greens, and on top of all this the iodine. It smelt rather peculiar too. I looked up and saw Squid hanging over the end of the bed, his face going the same green as my ankle.
“What’s up?”
He rolled his eyes and disappeared onto the floor with a crash.
My mother came in quickly. “Whatever have you done? Birdie’s nice enough to come and see you and all you do is bully him.” She stooped over him gently.
“I only showed him my foot.”
When she heard this she sat him on the floor and put his head between his knees.
“Ian, bring the smelling-salts—quickly.”
On the floor Squid was making noises like a puppy.
“Quickly!”
When Ian came in Gyp was close behind him, eager to join the game on the floor.
“Get that dog out.”
Gyp saved further argument by licking Squid’s face and bringing him round.
“It’s me stummick,” I heard him say weakly.
My mother half lifted him outside. “The air will help you.”
“There now,” I heard from the veranda. “Lean against that for a while.”
That was the last I saw of Squid for some time. He was good enough to send in a message though that anyone not knowing how to do simultaneous equations by the following Monday was “in for it”.
Johnno came next day. My mother said afterwards how nice it was to see a boy beginning to take pride in his appearance. “His trousers pressed and his boots cleaned. What did he do to his hair though?”
I could hardly talk about him. All the time he was in the house he avoided my eyes and spoke only of school.
“We’ve got a new teacher—Miss Beckenstall.”
“Some name!” I said.
“She’s good,” said Johnno.
“Old?”
“About twenty-three, they reckon. Moloney doesn’t take us for anything now; he’s with the sixth grade.”
A feeling of peace came over me.
“She’s given me two ‘excellents’ for compositions. Moloney would hardly give me ten out of twenty. She’s a wake-up to Squid, too—keeps him in if he’s late.”
All the Green Year Page 9
