My heart sank. Johnno caught my eye from several paces away. “We won’t be guilty of taking it, anyway,” said his glance.
“A fiver. Who’ll offer me a fiver for this good-as-new HMV table gramophone—twelve-inch plush-covered turntable, gooseneck tone arm; the latest thing in gramophones and a dozen records thrown in.”
No one spoke. Mr Bolter looked astonished. “Four poun’ ten?”
Some of the men began to drift away. Most of them were after furniture, or implements; a gramophone was a luxury.
“Four quid am I bid? Just four quid to start off this glorious instrument?”
Most of the men weren’t even looking his way. He lowered the hammer slowly. “Ladies and gents, I beg you now, be serious; think what you’d be getting—an HMV luxury-model gramophone.” No one spoke. “Where’s your culture, ladies and gents?” he asked despairingly.
In the doorway behind him I saw Mrs McQueen and Shadder, Mrs McQueen holding her apron between her hands. Mr Bolter leant forward and with eyes nearly closed said, “Am I bid five bob, then? A dollar for this—”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well!” He put his hands on his hips and looked at me. “Five bob from young Charlie Reeve here; five bob from a boy who knows his culture. Five bob I’m bid. Any advance on five bob? Five bob for the cultural mechanism in highly finished cedar. Who’ll offer me seven and six?”
He was speaking rapidly, his left arm raised, his cheeks quivering. “Five bob it is, five bob . . . . Seven and six—thank you, madam.” I glanced to where he was looking but no woman was there. “Seven and six, seven and six for the musical glories of Beethoven and Mo-zart, seven and six is all I’m asking—”
“Ten shillings,” I said.
“Young Reeve again and the offer is ten bob; just a half-note for this technically perfect de luxe model gramophone, ten bob from young Reeve—”
Beyond him I saw Mrs McQueen again and Shadder, both watching closely. It must have seemed impossible that their one luxury was to go for ten shillings. I glanced towards Johnno. He was kicking the turf with his toe, looking down at the ground unhappily.
“A pound,” I said.
Mr Bolter stopped short and drew a breath. “Now just a minute, young feller! Yours was the ten bob bid. You understand that?”
“Yes,” I said.
I heard some laughs from the crowd.
“You want to make it a pound?”
“Yes,” I repeated self-consciously.
He drew himself up. “Have you got a pound?”
I went to take it from my pocket, forgetting it was pinned there with a safety pin. The crowd laughed while I undid the pin and held the note up.
“A quid it is, by God. Very well, I’ll make it a pound. Here’s a boy who really appreciates the glories of Melba and Crusoe. One pound, ladies and gentlemen, any advance—”
“Twenty-five bob,” said Johnno, coming over to me.
“What!” I exclaimed.
Mr Bolter was about to race on, but he hesitated. Johnno said to me, “I bid for you.”
“I’ve only got a pound.”
“Here.” He thrust five shillings into my hand.
“Just what goes on here, lads? No funny business, now. We’ve hardly got an hour left before dark and a lot to do. What’s it to be now and who’s it from?”
“Twenty-five bob,” hissed Johnno, jabbing me with his arm.
“Twenty-five,” I repeated aloud.
“Twenty-five bob it is,” declared Mr Bolter, narrowing his eyes. “Twenty-five bob and don’t say I didn’t warn you. Twenty-five bob and it’s going, twenty-five bob, any advance on twenty-five bob? Going at twenty-five bob. Going, going—” He crashed the hammer down, then pointed the handle towards me. “Twenty-five bob to get from young Reeve there, Harold. What his father will say next time I’m up at the council chambers I don’t know.”
I handed Harold the twenty-five shillings and bewilderedly took the gramophone on my hip. Johnno picked up the records.
“And now, ladies and gents, the poultry and contents of one shed situate at rear of residence.”
The crowd moved away, leaving Johnno and me standing there. A few people grinned amusedly as they passed. When they had gone I said, “What did you do that for?”
“Same reason as you called a pound,” he said.
“But I don’t know when we can pay you back.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I got it for overtime from Mr Hayes.”
We stood about undecidedly. The auctioneer’s voice was continuing at the back of the house. Nearer at hand a few men were loading furniture on a lorry. The sun was shining horizontally on the front of the house and the surrounding apple-blossom. Mrs McQueen and Shadder had gone inside.
“Do we have to wait?” asked Johnno.
“No,” I said, “Let’s go.”
The main result of the auction as far as Johnno and I were concerned was still over a month away. In the meantime the gramophone became something of a novelty. For weeks after the sale we had boys dropping in after school to listen to records.
One result of this was that Squid became envious. Late one afternoon while I was out he asked if he could play a few records on his own. Next day “Gundagai” stuck on “. . . once more”. Peter Dawson would come up to the words at full gallop,
“And the pals of my childhood
Once more—”
“Once more,” he’d say again, “once more, once more, once more—”
“He dug it with a pocket knife!” claimed Ian accusingly.
“Nonsense!” cried my mother.
It was no good; Squid could do no wrong at our place.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It was now the beginning of November. At the end of the month we were to sit for the Merit. The prospect hung over all we did and was hardly out of our conversation. Every time old Moloney passed me he glanced at me as if I had already failed. Only Miss Beckenstall was encouraging. “Concentrate and you’ll do it,” she said. “Refuse to be diverted for a moment.”
My father kept me studying each night—geography, geometry, grammar . . . . Most of the evenings ended the same way: “Good God, boy, why don’t you pay attention? How do you expect to get a job if you dream? I tell you, we’re coming into the hardest times we’ve known. If you don’t apply yourself . . . .” And so on.
I was sleeping on the veranda again now. After these homework sessions it was always a relief to go out there and hear the sea washing on the beach and see the red light flashing at the end of the pier. Life as pictured by adults was hell.
On Saturday afternoons there was some let-up. Johnno and I were allowed then to take Grandfather McDonald’s boat about a mile out to the reef, mainly because we often caught flathead there. The boatshed reminded me always of Grandfather’s death and of Gyp barking in the fog. It was deserted and lonely, the sea sounding in it as if in a shell. It smelt of oil and salt and dried bait. The boat’s motor had not been run for months, as petrol was always considered a luxury, so wherever we went we rowed. As the exams drew nearer we took books out with us, but except for things we really enjoyed—the death of Burke and Wills, the spearing of Kennedy and so on—we did little. Gyp usually came with us, taking up a position in the bows like a figurehead.
Usually we came back from the reef late in the afternoon and anchored over the wreck of the Isis. She was down about twelve feet, dark-looking and dead. Johnno would pull himself down to her on the anchor chain, his body gleaming under the water like a great white fish. Sometimes I followed him uneasily. With singing ears we moved along the hull, holding to whatever offered, shut in by green walls of sea. Sand had already covered part of the bows, and whitebait darted in shoals from the cabin. Seaweed waved back and forth even when there was scarcely a wave above us. It was hard to believe as
we shot into sunlight that the underwater world existed. We would hold on at the stern, dazzled by the sun, the water perfectly calm all round us.
It was during these days before the Merit that Armistice Day came. Squid was generally the star of the occasion, but this year there was another star. I was late for the special assembly and didn’t hear the guest announced; in fact, I had to join our line by dodging behind trees. He was a tall, gangling man with a thatch of grey hair but a boyish face.
“I want to say,” he said, “how proud I am to be in the land of those who so bravely and determinedly supported us in the world war of 1917–18.”
But there was something peculiar about his voice. He had actually said, “Ah wanna say . . . .”
Fat Benson leant over and whispered, “He’s American.”
A shock of disappointment hit me. All through the two minutes’ silence my mental pictures of the war were upset by the thought that probably even Tom Mix spoke this same way.
As “one bereaved by the war” and “one who had recently shown he was by no means lacking the courage of his father”, Squid was able to meet the American. At lunch-time he told us in a twanging voice that the visitor was installing “the biggest Wurlitzer organ in the Southern Hemisphere” at some picture theatre in the city. “Sure sounds a mighty instrument,” he added.
Squid was riding high these days. Only Miss Beckenstall doubted him. She might well have doubted him—as I happened to find out.
A couple of days before the exams, I left my geography book at school. When my father came home he said, “Back you go and get it before you sit down for tea.”
When I got there the cleaners were working at the infants’ end of the school; the rest of the place was deserted. Outside, every blade of grass and every post and step and wall and tree-trunk was tired and kicked-looking. Our room still held the odours and worries of the past day. I was walking up the sloping floor to the back when I heard a voice above me say, “G’day.”
I swung round. Standing near the top of a long ladder was Squid, looking down like some sort of bird. The ladder was leaning against the wall over the blackboard, beside the picture of Sappho.
“Getting me pen,” he explained.
It had been stuck in the ceiling for weeks, not far above Sappho’s head.
“Thought you’d bought another.”
“Did too, but in the exam a feller might need an extra one.” He reached up and pulled it out. “Reckon you might give us a lift with the ladder?”
We carried it out and put it back behind the shelter-shed. There was something queer about Squid as we walked back; something more than usually secretive.
“I’ve got to get my geography book,” I said. “I’ll catch up.”
He didn’t answer, but walked slowly towards the gate, studying his pen concernedly.
Back in the empty room I picked up my book. Passing Squid’s desk I stopped and looked again at Sappho. In the dust on her glass something was written. I moved my head this way and that till I saw clearly: Area O π R2; Circum. O π D. I sat in Squid’s desk. It was all clear from there:
—line after line of it.
Squid was away next day. Mrs Peters said it was his old stomach trouble. “Been working so hard at algebra and all that . . . .”
He thought things out well, did Squid, as became apparent later. It was no good just having a plan; you also had to have a second plan in case the first failed. In the meantime I had never seen him more confident.
The fearful day came. We knew then the atmosphere of a jail when a man is about to be hanged. There was bravado from a few of the boys, but Johnno and I hardly spoke and Squid kept to himself. He’d got out of bed for the exam and really shouldn’t have come. His breakfast was repeating on him and he had spots in front of his eyes.
We had been having windy, unsettled weather, but the day of the Merit was perfectly calm—as if to contrast with our feelings.
Sitting at my desk I looked at the picture of Sappho. From there I could read nothing. Squid was leaning back, looking vaguely around the walls. I realized he’d been doing this a lot lately, no doubt as part of his preparation.
Miss Beckenstall, with a sheaf of the dreaded arithmetic papers in her hand, was just saying good morning when Moloney came in and whispered something to her, his cropped nicotined moustache against her ear.
“Now?”
“At once,” he said.
“Boys and girls, we are to change rooms with grade six, as Mr Moloney wishes to write their geography examination on their blackboard.”
I looked at Squid. His mouth had fallen open and his face had turned to wax.
Moloney took over. “Bring pens, pencils and rulers only.”
There was the sound of these items being gathered up. Squid was motionless, staring into space.
“Birdwood Peters,” said Miss Beckenstall sharply.
He came to himself and gathered his belongings. He stared a moment at Sappho, perhaps trying to memorize every formula on her face.
“Class, stand,” commanded Moloney. “Row one—to the other room, quick march. Row two, follow on.”
We were going through the other door when I saw Squid clutch his stomach with his free hand. He spun on his feet like a shot Indian and collapsed on the floor. There were shrieks from the girls and envious looks from the boys.
“Give him air!” shouted Moloney. “Everyone sit down. Miss Beckenstall—water.”
While all this was going on Squid was moaning quietly, his mouth open, his freckles clear on his pale face.
“He’s dying,” whispered Mary Hogan. “He’s dying, he’s dying; I know he’s—”
“Ah, shut up!” hissed Stinger from behind her. “It’s only his gut.”
Miss Beckenstall returned with water. Moloney, who was supporting Squid’s head, held out his hand for the cup. Somehow their two hands collided and Squid got the lot in the face. He jerked to life, but had the presence of mind to sink back again, muttering feebly. Miss Beckenstall smiled grimly.
Old Moloney carried him outside. After, so we heard, he was taken home lying on the seat of one of Jonas’s cabs, Moloney going with him. While we did our first examination, Miss Beckenstall copied Moloney’s geography questions on the blackboard for grade six.
Squid was back a couple of days later. By then he was fit to do the exam, even though he was still suffering from heartburn and dizzy spells. He did it alone in our room. By that time, with Johnno’s help to bunk me up, I had run a broom over Sappho’s face. I daresay Squid had managed to find out all about the paper by then, though, for he passed; in fact he passed everything.
To the surprise of everyone but Miss Beckenstall Johnno and I both got through our Merit. Our respective fathers gave us sixpence to go downstairs at the pictures, and altogether life at home changed for both of us. But this was only the calm before the storm.
At the end of the year, when everything was becoming relaxed and there was a holiday feeling in the air, Miss Beckenstall set us a composition subject: “An Occasion I Shall Always Remember”. I daresay she gave it only to fill in time. We finished it before lunch, then Johnno and I went off to climb Lone Pine.
The old tree already seemed like something belonging to the past. We were, after all, almost third form high-school students, and climbing trees was slightly beneath us. But in some way the tree meant a good deal to us. For years it had been a place of escape, and perhaps we knew even then that we would always associate it with our periods of freedom.
Sitting on the board at the top Johnno said to me from the other side of the trunk, “I called my composition, ‘The Auction’.”
“About McQueens’?”
“Sort of. I didn’t give any name, though.”
We could see the McQueens’ house from the tree, far off to the south-east, a small white shape.
I said, “What did you say about it?”
I couldn’t see his face, only his hand holding the trunk.
“I wrote just the way it hit me: you know, the blossom and the people gathered round and Mrs McQueen looking sad—all that sort of thing. Miss Beckenstall has been saying to let myself go about something, so that’s what I did.”
It turned out to be a disastrous composition.
Miss Beckenstall, who was soon to get married, was away that afternoon and old Moloney decided to correct the composition himself. While we filled in time working out problems, he sat at the table making red ink comments on each page. Every now and then he’d say something like “Good work, Birdie” or “How do you spell ‘divine’, Janet Baker?” or “Try to, Wray, ‘try to’. ‘Try and’ is a contradiction in terms.”
When he came to Johnno’s he said after a bit, “What might this be, Johnston?” He made several jabs at it with his pen.
I glanced back at Johnno. He flushed slightly, but went on with his work.
“Do you hear me, Johnston?”
“It was a sort of experiment, sir,” said Johnno slowly.
Moloney made a snorting sound. “Really, your attempts to portray this house and these people are peculiar, to say the least. Whoever heard of a ‘blossomed tree’ or—”
“No sir,” said Johnno faintly.
“What d’ you mean ‘no sir’?”
“I—don’t know,” admitted Johnno.
“Well, think before you speak,” replied Moloney, “and before you write, too.” He went on correcting for some time, his grunts and jabs becoming more frequent. Finally he stood up holding Johnno’s composition in his hands. “I believe I should read this—this—extraordinary effusion.”
He was standing beside my desk with it.
“No sir,” gasped Johnno.
“I beg your pardon?”
Johnno simply shook his head while everyone looked at him.
“You add insolence to incompetence, Johnston.”
In a ridiculing voice, Moloney began reading aloud: “‘I can see it still: the auctioneer on the spring-cart shouting to the crowd, all the private things: the beds and saucepans and chairs and mirrors on the grass. The crowd laughing. The two alone at the door’—no verbs, you’ll observe. Our friend Johnston needs no verbs, or sense either. ‘It seemed wrong then that the sun was shining on the blossomed trees . . . .’”
All the Green Year Page 14
