by Rohan Wilson
Why don’t you open an account? Collect the interest?
No. I want gold.
You understand that two hundred pound in gold is much more than a man ought safely to carry.
Toosey looked away. He muttered to himself, some profanity. He looked back. I aint bothered by a bit of work, he said.
I don’t mean that. I mean what if you’re robbed?
They’ve tried that already. But here I am.
The teller drummed his fingers. All right, he said. All right. If you mean to insist on it.
I insist, Toosey said, and replaced his hat.
It was agreed as a figure of a hundred and eighty-four lately minted Melbourne gold sovereigns. The teller counted the pieces into a cotton sack that he handed across to Toosey and Toosey knotted the cloth and rolled it into his swag. When he heaved it to his shoulder the coins rang inside the canvas like a string of muffled bells.
He was turning to leave when the teller leaned close to the barrier glass and said, Must have been a decent bit of work you did.
Toosey’s face blackened. What?
That’s a lot of money for a labourer.
Toosey took a long breath. He looked around. He settled his swag and stepped away from the counter. Several men were queued at booths and they watched Toosey coming past but looked promptly away when he caught their eyes. He was about ready to break someone’s nose.
Outside the sun lay like a pour of hot pig-iron, giving off a sharpish heat while the air yet felt cool. He cut along St John Street attended by the sound of coins to where blocks of light and dark lay cast between the rows of stores and the street was full of people. As he walked here among the many boutiques and dried-goods emporiums, his demeanour changed. He held his eyes forward, locked shut his jaw, tugged his hat. He soon built to an awful temper. He had in mind a picture of Trent Stewart holding his bloodied mouth. He walked the town streets, his thoughts at work, his forehead furrowed, but he could not go after Stewart yet. There was something needed doing. Before they could reckon things out, he had to leave the gold somewhere.
Along a short way was an overhead sign showing a silver painted sphere and bearing the title Star of the North Hotel etched into the inch-thick wood. He stood below this sign glancing between it and the hotel, a weatherboard block resting on a base of freestone dressed with cement, ornamented by iron balustrading running under the window boxes. The effect was to garb what was otherwise a mongrel sort of place with some pretence of hospitality. He was mulling over the prospect of going back to that goat-faced teller to make a deposit and glancing up and down the street, scratching his balls through his threadbare pants. He tucked his bundle under one arm and climbed the stairs.
At the reception desk the automatic smile of the clerk fell as Toosey crossed the lobby with a billytin making a hollow toll, grim in his bloodied clothes and his bruising. The clerk lifted his hands in protest.
Sir, he said and his voice was strained, we have a dress policy. Toosey looked around at the frieze-patterned wallpaper that was faded and torn. The wainscotting scarred with the marks of dragged trunks.
I must ask you to leave.
He removed his hat and slapped it. Bits of grass seed fell in a light rain to the floor. He placed the hat on the counter. The clerk cleared his throat.
You have a strongbox in here, I suppose, Toosey said.
Sir, I—
Toosey dropped his bundle, making a whump that filled the grand cavern of the lobby.
Sir, I’ll call for the constable if you do not remove yourself.
Toosey began to fish through his swag for the coins.
Sir?
I aint walkin to another hotel and I aint goin back to the bank, he said. He sat a new sovereign on the desk. Just need the use of your strongbox a while, he said.
I’m sorry, sir. No.
Eh?
It’s for guests only.
Toosey gazed hard into his face. Then give me a room.
The clerk levelled the guestbook on the counter and adjusted the pencils beside it so that each was spaced apart, set straight, finding some kind of peace in this ritual. When he was done he looked up at Toosey with a weak smile. Sir, he said and he cleared his throat. Sir, I think you have the wrong impression of the Star of the North. We are a well-reputed hotel, thus the requirement that you be neatly attired in order to take a room.
Toosey snorted. His jaw below the tufts of his whiskers worked back and forth. He looked about the lobby. This arsehole town, was all he said. He reached into his swag and produced another of the coins. It flashed like a struck match in the light of the window.
Two? the clerk said.
Two. For you to overlook your policy.
There was a small silver bell upon the counter that the desk clerk lifted and shook. We best ask Mr Chung, he said.
Good, Toosey said. Call him out.
All was quiet. The clerk watched the door in the panelling behind him. He rang the bell again.
Maybe he’ll find me a bleedin room.
The clerk was ringing the bell furiously.
After a moment the panelling swung back and a tall and slender man with slick dark hair appeared. He closed the door and stood and crossed his hands at his waist. He was plainly oriental. His eyes flicked to every part of Toosey. His face remained calm but his nostrils flared slightly at what he saw. He smiled and bowed. Ah, he said. Welcome to Star.
Toosey looked at the clerk and he looked at the oriental. He frowned. Is this a wind-up? he said.
No, sir.
I am not the sort of man you wind up.
This is the owner. This is Mr Chung.
The oriental was so tall he looked down on Toosey.
Toosey slowly replaced his hat. He levelled it, set it right. To hell with you, he said. Scruffing his swag, he turned and started towards the doors.
Oh, Chung said. Oh you a mean bastard, huh?
Toosey looked around. That’s right. One as prefers his own kind.
What your name?
He stopped. He crossed his arms.
Your name?
Johnson.
Let me tell you, Mr Johnsons. I am mean bastard too. Oh yes. You like that?
Toosey was laughing openly.
We mean bastard. We see each other.
You see me, do you?
The oriental eyed Toosey’s battered hat and canvas roll, and his smile began to broaden. I am from Guangzhou. We say stand straight and do not fear crooked shadow. I stand straight, Mr Johnsons. Do you?
Straight as a rod.
Chung smiled and bowed, as if his point was thusly made.
I’m offering two gold vickies, Toosey said. Two. For the right to lodge somethin in your strongbox.
Oh lot of money.
I can as easy take it elsewhere.
No, Mr Johnsons. No no. We help you.
Will you now.
You want my strongbox. You have valuable thing. Yes?
Toosey reached inside his bundle, fished around, and pulled the money sack. Chung’s narrow eyes grew round.
Ah, he said.
Two is fair. Two for the use of your strongbox. That’s the simplest two vickies you’ll ever receive.
Chung was staring at the sack. How much? he said.
A hundred and eighty five.
Oh.
I’ll be back for it. Might be anytime, might be midnight when I come. Might be tomorrow. But when I come, you be ready to give it to me. Right?
This very safe hotel. We keep money safe.
There is no need to concern yourself, the clerk said. Mr Chung is here day and night.
Oh yes. We take care of money.
Toosey inclined his head slightly. Whenever I come. No question.
Yes, sir.
Oh yes.
I want a receipt for it. The whole amount.
When he dropped the money sack on the counter the sound of all the coins seemed to call them to attention. The clerk stiffened. Toosey stood drummin
g his fingers as the clerk scribbled out a note and handed it over. He filled in the guest register and pushed it across to Toosey and Toosey wrote Chauncey Johnson in ill-formed letters and signed it the same. He laid his sovereigns in the crease of the book and pushed it back. Chung, standing dead still, could be heard to breathe. He spread his gloved hands.
Welcome to Star Hotel, he said.
He approached the bushman around the desk and smiled. Without warning he picked up Toosey’s old bundle. Toosey caught it by the rope.
Unhand that.
I take you to room, Chung said.
Room be blowed. I only want the safe.
No no. I take you room. Good room.
He had the bundle under his arm and was motioning for Toosey to follow. A huge flared staircase filled the centre of the lobby and Chung mounted the first step and began to climb.
Give us that here, Toosey said. He crossed the lobby and ascended after Chung.
Nice room. This way.
The landing was lit with dim oil lamps placed in sconces and Chung led him to the end of the hall and, looking back, smiling at Toosey, he pointed to a tall pine door that was inlaid elaborately with blackwood to make an eight-pointed compass or star. There was a delay as Chung slipped on his glasses and fed a key into the lock. He glanced up at Toosey.
Just a moment, he said.
The key knocked in the latchworks. Inside was an enormous posted bed buttressed either side by stout-looking bureaus, the timber marble dark and waxed to a high shine, and over the floor a square of Asian carpet. Chung dropped the swag and moved off to draw the curtains while Toosey walked a turn around the room, picking up ornaments and replacing them. He opened the door to the bathroom and peered inside to where a great claw-footed tub was stationed above a spread of cream tiles grouted in black. He frowned and backed out and glancing around his attention was taken with the sideboard upon which stood, like something a child would drink, a row of tiny whiskeys and rums. Chung was crossing the room to leave, but Toosey clicked his fingers.
See here, he said and clicked.
Yes?
There’s someone else. A boy. I might bring him here later.
You need company, eh?
What?
I know nice girl, Chung said. White girl.
Toosey just stared at him.
Chung was smiling, his eyes jovially narrow. You like I send company?
No, said Toosey and waved him off.
Very clean girl. Very nice fanny.
No.
The oriental nodded and bowed. Toosey was picking through the miniscule bottles of whiskey, bottles of gin, when he saw Chung still lingering by the door, still grinning.
I know nice boy. White boy, yellow boy.
Away with you.
Chung backed out of the door, bowing, displaying the part in his hair. Toosey reached out and smacked the door closed.
The window onto the street was glazed with an oily grime. He stood, watching the folk drift below like phantasms, rippling and stretching in the streaked glass. Watching for someone, he realised, as he leaned on the frame. He polished a clean spot in the glass to better see. He wouldn’t breathe easy this time. That mad Irish mongrel would come, there wasn’t a doubt in the world.
Find the boy. Get off the island. He sat on the bed and ground at his eye with the heel of his palm. It was two weeks since the letter, and who knew how long before it. The lad, alone all that time, street-living, a gentle-hearted little thing hardly ready for it. Toosey walked again to the window and looked out, pondering what pitiful few choices remained to him. But all he could think about was his boy and the deviant Trent Stewart with his wattle-grub cock hanging through his fly.
He left the room and went downstairs.
Outside, the heat had brewed into a thicker sort of thing that dried the throat. He crossed through streets where barefooted children called out wax matches at a penny a box, mopping himself on his sleeve as he went. At the crossing with Tamar Street he stopped and looked over the row of cheap-john shops and corn stores towards the river, slick and brown like the outfall of a sewer, and beyond that to the low-rooved homes of Invermay. He felt again for the knife inside his coat, resettled it, and set out.
SOUTH OF LAUNCESTON
BY NOON THE RECHABITE PARADE WAS swarming over the farming town of Perth. The chief ruler, wearing his bicorn like a rooster strutting, called a halt and marshalled his followers into ranks, arranging soprano and baritone apart. Satisfied, he led them into a hymn that carried on the hot baked wind. The citizenry of the town lined the main thoroughfare. They were a beggarly lot that wore straw hats and sad linen smocks. They stood in silence watching the marchers sing. The women each with a herd of children. The menfolk, glaring, sunburnt from labouring in fields and gardens. There were three separate public houses along the main road and noon drinkers emerged blinking and naked-headed into the sun only to be set upon by recruiters waving paper questionnaires for a place in the order.
Fitheal Flynn and his daughter observed all this from a distance.
I ought to have shot a few of them, he said.
Caislin quietly stared. What a lovely song, she said.
Tis the sound of inducement.
They were quiet a while and then she said, Wouldn’t it be wonderful to join a choir?
Ah, and you will, my love. You will.
Flynn shuffled off along the road for Launceston and left Caislin gazing at the odd festivities, standing alone, and soon, lifting her voice, she began to sing along. Flynn was climbing the long hill ahead and her song played above the farmland and the road, catching at the strings of his heart. He looked back at that singular figure, covered, dressed as a man, and a great despair rose in his chest. What had he made of such a precious soul? What sort of beast?
The highway was in heavy use. It had been corduroyed in places with split logs and outside of Breadalbane they passed a team of fourteen paired steers hauling a eucalypt slab of such a weight that it cracked the thinner of these boles. The bullocky called good afternoon to them with a waving hat, a gesture that Flynn returned. All day they passed travellers coming along, a woman bent under a load of kindling, leaves in the morass of her silver hair, itinerant men walking the road for work, boys in bare feet, boys as thin as beggars. By late afternoon they were crossing the Kerry Lodge bridge on a steep river gully. Caislin ran her hand over the parapet walls where indentured men had placed a coping of broken stone, men like her own father. Clear water trickling, the sound of the river. Her hand following the wall. The winding highway led through the valley wheat tracts and the market gardens of Youngtown and they passed fields and lone farmhouses and they passed the tall white houses of the well-to-do. Elsewhere clutches of huts nestled like hogs asleep in a mud wallow. The paddocks feathered with button grass.
Do you remember the toffee Ma cooked up?
Through the eyeholes two dark wet jewels staring at him. Flynn looked away to the wooded slopes of the valley. She loved to see you eat, he said.
It got stuck till I couldn’t chew.
That’s how she liked it, he said. Thick like.
I could never eat it.
And she would laugh. Watching your fingers in your teeth.
They walked half a mile in silence. Some of them toffees I tossed in the grass, you know, she said after a while.
Oh did you?
They made my jaw hurt. I hated them.
Flynn put his age-speckled hand on her arm. Never mind.
Do you think she’d be mad?
No.
I shouldn’t have done it.
Well, and by God, girl she is gazing down from up there in fits of laughter. Not one ounce of love did she hold back from you. Not for any reason. Forget something as silly as that.
A scrap collector came leading his belled and tasselled horse by the bridle. He stared at the hooded girl. Standing in the centre of the road, leaning on his staff, Flynn watched him go by.
It’s ones like him
you ought to watch out for, he said.
Should I pray to her? Caislin said.
Over what?
Tell her where I put them toffees.
He took her by the hand then and led her along, a sombre lump in his throat. He could not answer.
What they needed was shelter. Off the road in the backways, among the painted board cottages, there remained homes earlier generations had abandoned, huts of wattlestick caulked with clay, rude barns fabricated from logs. They picked along the outer parts of a hill where the road was dry, scanning the hovels dormant in the fields for one they could use. Many appeared to have collapsed in disrepair but smoke ran from the chimneys nonetheless. Occupied by what downcast creatures, who could say.
Did they make you build things? she said. She was trailing along behind her father some yards, one hand tucked under the rolled blanket roped on her shoulder.
Who, my love?
The soldiers. The wardens.
At first Flynn said nothing. He gazed across the hills as if in thought. I built a blessed lot of road, he said at length. It was hungry work and we were always hungry.
What was you in the Port for?
You know why.
Hittin some bugger.
Aye.
Did you hurt him?
A long silence. The tapping of Flynn’s staff on the road. Not as much as I should have liked, he said.
They walked another quarter mile before Caislin said quietly, What was he in there for?
Who? he said, but he already knew full well.
That man, she said. Toosey.
Flynn stopped. He looked back at her. Girl, don’t be wasting thoughts on him.
Is he a killer?
They hang killers.
Then what? she said.
Then it doesn’t matter, does it?
So tell me then. If it don’t matter.
Aye, he said and pointed his stick at her, that’s your mother’s canniness you have.
I want to know what sort of man he is, she said.
