All the Green Year

by Don Charlwood

“Big Simmons came along and got mad.”

  “And the girl?”

  “She ran away.”

  “Hm.” He was silent, as if trying to think again of things he should tell me. From downstairs my grandmother called, “George, it’s time you were leaving.”

  He answered her, then said, “When you get home we must have a talk.” He sounded more cheerful. “I’m glad you’ve told me about it, anyway. What do you think now?” he asked frankly. “Will it help to see Gouvane?”

  “It might get me into worse trouble with Simmons,” I said.

  “It might do that, too,” he agreed. “All the same, I don’t want to see him get away with it.” He got up off the bed. “Well, my boy, I must be off. Don’t worry about it now anyway.”

  During the night I dreamt I was on the grassy patch at Coles Bay again, Big Simmons’s arm locked round my head, his fingers in my eyes. I woke bathed in sweat, startled by the blackness behind the bandage. Outside I could hear the milkman dipping milk into my grandmother’s billy, then the sound of his horse moving to the next house. My eyes were throbbing, the throbbing speeded by my heart . . . .

  A clock somewhere chimed seven. The sound of feet increased below the window and trams became more frequent; paper-boys called in morning voices. From downstairs I could smell bacon and eggs cooking. After a time I heard my grandmother coming upstairs with dishes clinking on a tray.

  “And how did the Wild Colonial Boy sleep last night?” There was a touch of disapproval in her voice.

  “Very well, thank you,” I lied.

  “Sit up now and I’ll help you with your breakfast.”

  The bandage remained on for three days. By then I had learnt all the outside sounds, from the soft footfalls of the Chinese vegetable man trotting with his pole over shoulder, to the trundle of brewery wagons down Victoria Parade.

  Each day my grandmother took me by tram to the hospital. Because it was easiest to step on and off the dummy, we rode at the front, the swish of air on our faces and the sound of the gripman’s levers behind us. I daresay we looked an odd pair: the erect, dignified old lady leading a shambling, blindfolded boy whose worn clothes were much too small for him.

  When the bandage came off my grandmother said to me, “I think now you will be able to make the journey alone. It will be a pleasant walk for you.”

  I went to a mirror for the first time and found myself scarcely recognizable. My eyes were black and the eyeballs themselves were red; my hair had been combed forward in a peculiar Edwardian sort of way by my grandmother. Even though my reflection was blurred I saw, too, that I should commence shaving. Either I had forgotten how advanced my beard was or it had appeared in a matter of days. While I looked at myself my grandmother came into the room. She said, as if reading my thoughts, “I think you should perhaps use this—it was your grandfather’s.”

  She handed me a cut-throat razor.

  Two evenings later I was allowed to go alone into the city. I walked past St Pat’s and down Bourke Street and through to Little Collins Street, past cobblers’ and barbers’, and hotels and chemists’, each place with people at work or waiting there, each person seen a moment then gone, seen then gone. Past horses tossing nosebags while lorries were loaded, in and out of lighted arcades where there were tearooms and bookstalls. Unlike home, everyone was a stranger. There were men with lathered faces seen through barbers’ windows, women trying on hats, men with raucous voices selling fruit, men and women brushing past hurrying to trams and trains. Lights were going on for late shopping.

  I had turned into a long arcade when I saw a man and a woman looking into a jeweller’s window at trays of engagement rings. The woman held the man’s arm and with her other hand was pointing. Their heads were close together as they talked.

  As I passed, the woman turned to the man exclaiming, “But really, darling—”

  At the same moment I saw her face. It was Miss Beckenstall. I paused in mid-step, then walked on, my heart bumping. I hadn’t seen the man’s face, but I hated him and I hated Miss Beckenstall for having deceived me.

  I glanced back down the arcade and saw them coming my way, noticing nothing but each other. They crossed the road, then stepped into a tram. I saw her for a moment in the golden interior. The gripman threw the lever and she was gone. Underground the cable hummed sadly to itself.

  Before I went home a letter came from Eileen Johnston. “Dear Charlie, How all this happened I don’t know and Fred won’t tell me. All I know is he went to Simmons’s place on his own on Sunday and came back with his clothes torn and his cheek cut. I tried to clean him up before Dad saw him, but I hadn’t got finished when the police came. There was a fearful row with Dad and Sergeant Gouvane and Fred all locked in Dad’s room. Your name was yelled a few times. I’m sure Fred went after Ron Simmons for fighting you, but both the Simmons set on him.

  “I’m sorry about your eyes, but why did Fred have to pick a fight? Dad’s got him home today. He says he can start work next week at ‘Digger’ Hayes’, which is terrible . . . .” Digger Hayes was the blacksmith.

  On the first day back at school I saw Johnno sitting in his usual place. He looked older and more than usually troubled, and there were dark stitches on his cheekbone. Miss Beckenstall began to write on the board. She took up the duster in her other hand and I saw that she was wearing an engagement ring. I knew then that all women— Miss Beckenstall, Eileen Johnston, Kitty Bailey, the whole lot of them—were full of deceit.

  Johnno said at lunch-time, “Miss Beckenstall saw the old man.”

  “What did she tell him?”

  “I don’t know—I had to go outside. Anyhow, he’s let me come back, but I’m working on Saturday mornings from now until the end of the year.”

  Almost without thinking we climbed over the bottom fence and walked into the bush towards Lone Pine. There on its hill it looked like an old friend who would never let us down.

  “How are your eyes?”

  “Just about right,” I said. “They go blurry sometimes, but the doctor says they’ll get better.”

  Johnno smiled to himself. “You made a mess of Big Simmons’s nose.”

  I felt pleased. “It was the only time I hit him.”

  “You went to his place on purpose?” I asked him then.

  He didn’t explain his motives; he told the story briefly. “I hung about near the house and when Big came out I called him over. I saw his nose then—all taped up. He called to Little Simmons and Little yelled, ‘I’ll hold the bastard and you give it to him.’ But with his nose the way it was Big wasn’t game to come close till his brother could grab me, so I made sure I wasn’t grabbed. That’s about all.”

  “And Gouvane?”

  “He came just after I’d knocked Little down and Big was coming in with a picket.”

  We had reached the tree by now. Our hands went to the usual branches and we climbed slowly. All the coast opened below us and the Dandenongs far off to the north. When we sat on the board Johnno said, “I’m done with girls. I’ll never get married.”

  “Neither will I,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  When I look back, much of 1929 seems to have been taken up with outlandish happenings. Perhaps, though, my memory tends to exaggerate, or perhaps we turned small events into drama; I don’t know. In actual fact there were long weeks at school when nothing much happened at all and then, after Johnno had been sent to the blacksmith’s, there were dreary week-ends when I hardly knew what to do with myself. There was no let-up during these week-ends for Johnno. When Digger Hayes closed down at twelve o’clock on Saturdays, Johnno would have to start work at home, chopping wood or even scrubbing floors. I kept away from Navy Bike Repairs in case I caused him further trouble.

  A few of us, though, would go to the smithy on Saturday mornings. Some went to commiserate with Johnno; others because they liked
an excuse to be there.

  It was a long, dark cave of a place where three men at a time worked on horses, stooping over their hoofs, cursing them, pulling out old nails and hammering in new ones. Half-finished spring-carts and jinkers stood at one end. Digger Hayes himself often worked on these, plus two or three other men, one of whom painted names and decorations on bakers’ and butchers’ carts. At the end was the grimiest office in the town—cobwebbed windows, papers stuck on nails, horseshoes holding down piles of accounts, swallows’ nests in the rafters. About the whole place was a smell of singed hoofs and horse-dung and the coke fire. At first I envied Johnno working there, but as the weather became warmer I began to feel sorry for him and had little idea what to do without him.

  One Saturday morning late in October I dropped in to see him at about ten o’clock. He was swinging a sledgehammer, beating a length of red-hot iron while Digger Hayes held it this way and that and came in himself with a smaller hammer, beating with quick, short strokes, ringing his hammer on the anvil.

  “All right, young Reeve, on to the bloody bellows.”

  Digger was a man to obey. As I pulled the bellows I saw Windy Gale come in and Fat Benson and one or two others.

  “Right, Windy-bloody-Gale, pick up a few horseshoes.”

  Then Squid came, but he remained far enough back to avoid work. Sick of pulling the bellows, I changed with Fat and went over to where Squid leant at the door.

  “G’ day,” he said. He looked at me from the corner of his eye and I knew that he had some idea in mind and that I must be on my guard.

  After a few preliminaries he said, “Seen a good flick last night—about a bullfight.” I showed no interest, but he pressed on. “This mat’dor bloke gets booed by the crowd, because they reckon he’s windy. Even the senorita he’s engaged to won’t talk to him. So what does he do? There’s a huge bull called Satan that no one ever has fought—bull ’bout as long as from here t’ Johnno.” This was about twenty feet. “So Satan’s brought to the city an’ everythink’s ready f’ the mat’dor bloke t’ fight it. Then the senorita gets scared stiff an’ runs t’ his place an’ flings herself at his feet and asks him not t’ fight this bull, says she’ll marry him straight off. Anyhow, he won’t listen, so all she can do is give him the cross she wears next to her heart. Next thing it’s the bull-ring—people everywhere, trumpets blowing. Into the ring comes blokes in tight pants and fancy jackets, all carrying darts, then blokes carrying spears and riding horses. Anyhow, in comes the bull, tossing his head, pawing the ground.” Squid rubbed his feet realistically on the smithy floor. “One of the blokes with a dart throws it, then the game’s on—darts everywhere an’ spears an’ the bull getting hostile, rushing round, knocking blokes down. Then in comes the mat’dor bloke with a sword. Up in the mob the senorita is busting out crying, covering her face with her fan.” He paused at this stage.

  “What happened next?”

  “It’s continued next week.”

  “Hell!” I exclaimed disgustedly.

  “Anyhow,” said Squid, “it give me an idea.”

  This was it. I had been caught enough by Squid’s ideas; I didn’t answer. Behind us in the smithy Johnno was swinging the hammer still and Fat was pulling the bellows. Horses stamped and whinnied.

  “What I reckoned was we could have our own bullfight.”

  “I can tell you one feller who won’t be there.”

  “Windy would,” said Squid. “So would Fat ’n’ a couple of others.”

  “You’ve got everything except a bull,” I said ­scornfully.

  “We got that, too.”

  “Where?”

  “Up in the pound,” he said guardedly. “Donnelly’s big Hereford.”

  “It’s older than old Donnelly himself.”

  “It’d be good to practise with, anyhow.”

  I said again, “Not for me—not even if you hypnotize it.”

  Squid turned away. “I could hypnotize it easy enough if I wanted to.”

  “Who’s the matador?”

  “Well, I’d reckoned you might want to be—not to kill the bull, I don’t mean; if you just touch him on the neck you win—”

  “What if he wins?”

  “Anyone could get away from Donnelly’s bull.”

  “You try it then!”

  “I’m a pixador—with a spear.”

  “And a horse?”

  “Well, there’s a chance maybe I can borrer one.”

  “A camel may be better,” I said.

  Squid looked hurt at this.

  “Okay,” he said wearily. “Okay. If you don’t want t’ come I’ll find another mat’dor. If Johnno wasn’t working I know he’d be in it.”

  So we left it at that and I went back into the smithy and helped paint a spring-cart—which was not much of a job, but something to do.

  By the time lunch was over I began thinking almost involuntarily of the bullfight; in fact, by three o’clock I found my legs moving towards the pound even before I realized I was going there.

  The pound was on the eastern edge of the town. You passed the main shops, then the timber-yards, then the hay and corn store, then a house on its own belonging to old Charlie Rolls and Mrs Rolls. Charlie Rolls lived on some sort of pension and spent most of his time at the Pier Hotel either inside or leaning by the door, depending on whether or not he had money. He was a sorry-looking man: turned-down walrus moustache, turned-down old hat, mournful eyes. His wife was a grim-looking woman. As I have said before, she had long ago kicked Charlie out of the house. His tent was in the backyard, on the edge of a few acres of unfenced bush. When he was drunk, all he wanted to do was sing to people, or tell them how he and Melba had filled the Melbourne Town Hall.

  The pound was in a hollow a few hundred yards beyond the patch of bush. It was a pleasant green paddock with a tea-tree hedge on all except one side. This one side had a high four-bar fence, one of the first fences built in the town. Usually a horse or two was inside, or perhaps a cow, but I had never before seen a bull there.

  My idea was to watch; I had no intention of letting Squid know I had come. I cut through Rolls’ bush and came up to the pound behind one of the hedges.

  As I approached I could hear voices clearly—Squid’s and Windy Gale’s and Fat Benson’s and one or two others. The bottom of the hedge was very thick, but hollowed in places where boys had made hiding holes. I pushed into one of these and saw, only a few feet away, Donnelly’s bull. It had its head down and was munching the grass, snorting peacefully. It was an ugly bull—reddish-looking eyes, a white face; matted, curly hair round its head. Its horns curved outwards to sharp points and the ring in its nose was worn from years of dragging on the grass.

  Outside the post-and-rail fence Squid was organi­zing things. He was on an old horse with a drooping head; every rib of it was showing. Whose it was I had no idea. No saddle was on it, but from somewhere Squid had borrowed a bridle. He sat up like Napoleon directing his troops.

  “Right now, the banderliras get first go. Got y’ darts ready?”

  They had made darts from lengths of swamp tea-tree about eighteen inches long—the sort of darts thrown with a string caught in a notch and wound round a finger.

  Two banderilleros looked doubtfully at the rear of the bull.

  Windy was one. He had a high, piping voice. “When d’ you go in?” he asked Squid.

  “Me? Well, this horse here belongs t’ someone else an’ I promised not t’ get it excited, so I reckon it’d be best if I stuck the spear in from about here.”

  “Outside of the fence?”

  “Well—maybe not.”

  There was a doubtful silence after this.

  “If outside’s good enough f’ the pixador, it ought t’ be good enough f’ the banderliras,” said Fat’s mournful voice.

  “In the flick—” began Squid
.

  “Yeah, but those blokes in the flicks,” continued Fat, “they have other blokes t’ do the tough things for ’m. Y’d never get Ramon Navarrer sticking—”

  “I’ll do it,” broke in Windy contemptuously. “I reckoned I’d fight a bull, an’ by hell that’s what I’ll do!”

  He swaggered up to the fence and climbed on to it. It moved under him a little with age. He carried a piece of red flannelette with him and a handful of darts. The unsuspecting bull still munched and snorted contentedly, releasing an odour of chewed grass.

  “C’mon, y’ big yeller bastard,” challenged Windy from the fence.

  The bull didn’t seem to care much about birth or courage.

  “Needs t’ see the red cloth, I’d reckon,” said Squid.

  Windy waved the cloth from the fence. The bull looked over its shoulder, but returned to the grass.

  “How can y’ have a bullfight if y’ve got a bull that won’t fight?” asked Windy.

  “In the flick,” said Squid, “the blokes with the darts sort of pranced round where the bull could see ’em, then they let him have it in the neck.”

  Windy looked down doubtfully from the top rail of the fence.

  “‘Course,” added Squid, “it’d take a bit o’ guts with the savage bulls they got over there.”

  Windy apparently thought his reputation was at stake. He slid silently to the bull’s side of the fence and stood there challengingly with his handful of darts. Even so, he looked as if he could hardly believe he was really there.

  “Good on yer, Windy,” breathed someone, “you’ll do us.”

  Windy hitched up his pants and advanced cautiously. The bull, having finished a patch of capeweed, turned the other way and faced his challenger. Windy took a few steps back and glanced round to measure the height of the fence with his eye. The bull didn’t stop eating. Windy began breathing again.

  Outside on his charger the picador said casually, “I dunno—this bull ain’t hardly worth fighting. Even a Spanish bloke couldn’t get him in’rested.”

  Windy accepted this as a further challenge. He walked boldly towards the bull, at the same time preparing his first dart. He looped the knotted end of the cord round the shaft and wound the rest round his forefinger. As I leant forward to watch him, a twig snapped loudly against my arm. I held my breath, but no one noticed. All the attention now was on Windy. The rest of the band sat bravely on the fence.