by Rohan Wilson
Right, she said. Move.
Bunyip grabbed her by the elbow and pulled.
Oi.
Tell me that aint her.
We need to follow him.
Janey, he said and he was shaking her arm. Look. I reckon it’s her.
Eh?
There lying sprawled on a plot of lawn by the caretaker’s home the lone figure of a woman. She was face down, the black shroud of her hair spread about. From out of her skirts stuck two long white legs shod with little boots and the long white drawers of her underwear plain to see. Like a castaway washed ashore from a shipwreck. Baked dry in the belting sun.
For pity’s sake, Hall said.
It’s her. Aint it?
They crossed the smoke-blown street to where she lay. Hall knelt in the grass and shook her by the shoulder.
Ma.
In one hand she still held a bottle. Hall knocked it away.
Ma, she said again.
Her mother lifted her head, looking about as if seeing the place for the first time. Her eyes wandered as she studied her daughter.
Janey, love.
What you doin down there?
Her head fell again. She closed her eyes. Let me lay a while, she said.
Like buggery. Look at you.
They had themselves one arm each. With a grunt they lifted her clear to her feet and held her there while she found her balance. Hair was plastered to the sides of her face where she’d lost all the pins for it. Dress was crusted with mud. She dried her mouth on her arm. Janey, she said. Love. I’ve found you.
You’re in a proper state.
Her mother said, What have you got for me?
She began to lead her mother away.
What have you got?
Forget that, Hall said. We’re goin home.
Who’s this? She was looking at Bunyip.
John Berry, marm, he said.
You know him, Hall said. He comes around. Now move. We’re goin.
Her mother snatched her arm away and stood swaying before Bunyip, straightening her matted hair, pushing it from her face. Henry’s boy, she said.
That’s me, marm. I’m him as give you them caramels, remember?
She tried to fix her unfocused eyes upon him.
Hall took her mother by the arm. That’s enough, she said.
They kept house in Invermay and Hall meant to see her there, but it was a miserable state she was in, as unsteady as an infant, and they had nearly to carry her. They weaved through groups of men, who were leering at her mother and making lewd finger gestures. There was nothing else for it. She had to see her home. The men would be on her like tomcats. They walked and her mother tottered between them.
Along the road as it rolled away to the bridge the stores were shuttered and the rows of warehouses at the riverfront stood silent. The unrigged river ships hauled on their ropes with the outgoing tide. The chimney spire of the gasworks rose colossal on the plum-skin sky. It was to these things Jane Hall looked, for to look elsewhere, to look at the packs of men that operated or the black breath of fires raking the dusk, was to be made sick with fear.
What’ve you got for your dear ma?
Nothin, she said.
Be honest.
A half-crown is all I got, just a half, Hall said and she reached into her pocket and pulled the coin. Her mother held out a damp palm.
Buggerin hell, she said and gave over the coin.
What a good girl. Always somethin for me. A right good girl.
A good girl wouldn’t give it to you.
Hall led her by the elbow. Down through smoke and broken glass and mobs of men and women. Her mother was heavier than ever as her shoes dragged and her head slumped. At Tamar Street where the low wooden bridge spanned the river she lifted her head and said, A good girl, my Janey.
Hall huffed and looked away.
They crossed the bridge with the boards shifting wherever they stepped and the nails squeaking, and crossed into the narrow alleys of homes in Invermay. They kept a place here, her and her mother, a house of unpainted scantling with paneless windows papered over. Her mother was dead asleep by the time they carried her to it. They carried her to the door and lay her down and the long bovine snores issuing from inside her chest seemed to rattle her every part. They fished out her key and flung back the door.
Get her legs, Bunyip said.
Right.
They swung her inside and laid her among the scraps of stained and thinly worn rug covering the hallway floor.
That’ll do, Hall said.
Bunyip crouched beside her mother, smoothing back the curtain of her hair. She is a picture, he said.
Yeah and what good has it ever done her?
He stood up. I would marry her and keep her well. My oath I would.
Hall punched him hard in the arm. Shut your trap, she said. What? I would.
You’re a child, John Berry. What’s she want with you, for cryin out loud?
Sixteen aint a child.
You’re as thick as manure you are.
Kiss this, he said and showed her his finger.
• • •
Along the wide carriageway crowds of people milled. They gathered on the corners at public bars, packs of larrikins, swindlers on the roam, and here and there little groups of the respectable shaking their heads at the shameless upheaval. They walked, Hall and Bunyip, as far as the Royal Oak and there they stopped. In the street there numbered near a thousand, a great vengeful mass ranging in the laneways and roads like secret cults abroad for the end of days and some had torches burning for light in the slow falling evening and many handing around quarts of indian rum or other things as they spoke in one enormous noise. Hall and Bunyip stood so close their shoulders touched. They walked the edge of the crowd with their eyes flicking everywhere.
It had a murderous feeling. The glow of the fires. The dark and, above, the grey pebble moon. Hall stood for a long while watching. People filled the sloping street like a thicket. They were singing and drinking. They raised an effigy on a broom handle. A battle standard for an army of paupers. A ragged army risen up to eat the hearts of the rich. Perhaps she should have joined them, for the sake of her father dead these months at the fault of the railways, for the sake of her mother driven crazed with grief after it. But she had not the shamelessness. She knew the owners of these stores, these hotels and taprooms. What relief was there in spreading misery? Beside her Bunyip frowned at it all.
You ever see that many people? she said.
Don’t go breakin your head about it, he said. We’ll keep smart.
The mob advanced to the junction at Wellington Street and turned towards the river and Hall and Bunyip followed.
I don’t feel well, she said.
They won’t hurt us none. Just stay close.
A murmur passed through the larrikin crowd and soon they moved in their numbers and settled on the road beneath a line of sister buildings of plain colonial style that walled the street and the last of these was caged by wrought-iron spikes and boarded over in the windows. It was the police house and the rioters hove up before it in a squall of smoke and song. They brought the effigy to ground and put torches to his clothes and like a treasonist of old he was quartered and his wooden head mounted atop the ironwork and doused with whiskey and set alight. Larrikins began to scale the pickets. Refuse was thrown. Flaming bottles.
They will tear down that place, Bunyip said.
Hall swept her eyes across the fringe of crowd in the fire-lit dark. Aint that Oran Brown there?
He narrowed his eyes. Where?
Down there.
They began to call together. Brownie! Brownie!
Oran Brown was standing away from the body of people with his head hung low and his arms dangling and when he heard that cry he looked around himself with some alarm. He saw them waving. He came trotting over. Even in the darkness Hall could see that he was blacked about the cheeks and had blood on his shirt and neck.
What t
he hell, she said.
Oran licked his fat lip. Yeah, he said.
Who was it?
Some fancied-up Melbourners.
You look a fright.
Feel all right though. Went to Rabbit’s just now for a nip. It worked wonderful.
What did you take from them?
Oran shrugged. Nothin. I had me fingers on a few coins is all. That’s the shame of it.
And Toosey? she said.
Who?
Him. With the long hair.
Oran looked at her and looked at Bunyip. Why’s everyone want to know about that old bushman for?
He helped you, Hall said.
This caused Oran to blink a few times, as if caught out. Well he came up, he said. Here’s me gettin a hearty bastin from the Melbourners. He came and says leave him be, boys.
Why?
Oran blinked. They was goin to kill me, I suppose.
Only it seems a drastic thing, don’t it? Seeing off them two chaps for a pissin little city kid like you.
He lowered his head.
Out with it, she said. Did he want somethin? Did he ask you somethin?
Oran looked over at Bunyip. You’re right about her, he said.
Aint I just.
Hall crossed her arms. She turned and stared out across the crowd.
They was goin to kill me, he said.
I saw him talkin to you. Didn’t he say nothin?
How come if you saw them Melbourners you never helped me?
He has you there, Bunyip said.
She watched at the crowd rattling the police-house gates. The two boys waiting for her answer. Me ma was in the horrors, she said at length. We was carryin her. Tell him, Johnny.
Drunker than a sailor, he said, and still lovely as ever
Like you’ve never been the worse for liquor, Johnny Berry.
Here Oran pulled from his pocket a folded jack-knife, the handle of varnished burl, and snapped the blade into place. He did ask one thing, he said. Wanted to know if I knew his son.
What son?
He’s out for his son, Oran said. Lookin for him.
In her innermost deeps a knot began to form. What? she said.
Oran held up the knife. Will Toosey, he said. Will give me this knife when I showed him Stewart’s rooms. He’s been dossing on the street since his ma died. Fairly a beauty, aint she.
Hall dropped her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. It unfolded for her in a neat series now. Toosey has a son, a vagrant boy like Oran. A boy with no mother. She squeezed her eyes closed. Toosey talked to the city children because he was after his son. Someone worth more to him than his own life it seemed. And she meant to put herself between this bushman and his boy. There crossed upon the plain rag of her mind in black and heavy letters the upshot of it all: this was a mighty cartload of trouble.
Lifted it with little Nobby, he said and wiped the blade.
She kept her eyes shut. Paying down Rabbit’s debt was the name of it, but to see a man, a father, swing for her debt was a hard-hearted thing.
Did you tell him? she said and looked up. Bout his son. Bout you knowin him.
I told him.
And what?
What?
Didn’t he say nothin?
Ask him yourself, Oran said. He’s right there.
She looked around sharply. Eh?
The only light was the light of fire in the road, a bonfire lit from fence pales. She studied all that darkness. The rioters clustered before the police house and in the freer road behind was a lone shifting figure barely more than a shape. His gait as he turned and started away was an upright stride like a fellow unafraid of a fight, shoulders squared inside his coat. He seemed to be seeking someone, for his head swivelled as he stalked about and Hall knew for a cold fact who he was after.
Bleedin fuck, she said.
Toosey began to track out through the ranks of people and into the wide road, straight of back and looking around. The townsfolk fell about like tomfools. They danced. They tossed bottles and stones. Toosey among them, a guarded man, sober of bearing and wary of where he was. It made him all the more menacing. This was not some twit from the backblocks; it was a man who knew how to carry himself. Just like her own father had. There came the clout of an even darker thought then that caused Hall to close her eyes. It could be that Toosey was no murderer at all. She was playing the foxhound for this Irishman, unwise to his motives and unwise to even the smallest facts of the matter. How could she be sure? What was her proof? This Irish meant him harm and there was no doubting it. But did he even deserve it?
By the time she opened her eyes she had settled on a different course. You’re right, she said to Bunyip. You’re right, and I’m a nelly. Better a bare foot than no foot at all. There’s neater ways to get a quid than this.
Bunyip was frowning at her.
What? she said.
Where’s Oran off to?
Eh?
She turned around. Oran Brown was strolling away, thumbs hooked in the band of his pants.
Oi! she said. Brownie!
He kept walking.
Where’s he goin? she said.
Bunyip wiped his nose. How should I know?
Toosey was lingering at the thin edge of the police-house crowd and they watched Oran Brown alter course and start towards him.
What’s his game? she said.
Christ, you don’t think he would—
Oh the little prick.
She bolted after the boy with her crook left leg swinging outward and her plain stubbled dome bobbing in that queer gallop. In a few yards she caught a grip of his collar. Whoah there, she said. Where you goin?
He pushed her away. Somethin I have to tell him.
The bushman?
Yeah.
She scruffed hold of his hair and hauled his head down.
Ow, bloody hell, he said.
She looked into his face. Reckon I won’t do nothin, is that what?
Oran pried at her fingers.
Is that what?
No.
Then where you goin?
He helped me. I ought to help him back.
By gabbin on your mates, she said and twisted his hair.
Ow, Jesus, he said. It’s not you. There’s another fellow as well.
What fellow?
A queer old Irishman.
Hall let him go so suddenly that he stumbled to his hands and knees. You know about him too? she said.
Spoke to him not an hour ago, Oran said. He’s come for your bushman.
She looked across to where Toosey drifted in the firelit dark. His attention was directed towards the stragglers lurching about in liquor and singing tavern chants, clinging to one another, strangers and lovers alike. No, it was the children. Some slept in the road or on the doorstones of townhouses, the derelicts, whole squadrons of them, slinking about to rifle through the pockets of the unconscious for pennies and tokens. It was to these children that Toosey had directed his attention. So when at that moment there came looming from out of the otherworld of the crowd a tattered fellow holding above his head a long and heavy staff, Jane Hall was the only soul to see it. Sharp tendrils of fear unfurled in her midriff. She raised her hand to call, to warn him. But there was no time and there would be no warning. The Irishman was upon him.
The first blow caught Toosey across the shoulder and sent him sprawling. Tied to the staff was a cloth bundle and meat and pastry came bursting out in wads that skittered across the road and rained down. Fitheal Flynn swung that stick overhead. He struck Toosey and buckled him flat. A circle widened around the pair as folk pushed back in fear and Toosey stared up at the Irishman as if he could not quite conceive of what he saw. He scuttled rearward from the club that came fizzing past again.
Give em room, someone was saying, let em have at it.
Hall limped closer. In those moments Toosey had reached into his coat and produced his blade. A long dull thing the colour of rot. He held it in his fist as if it
was nothing, staring at Flynn. He rolled to his knees on the dirt and like a dog grinned up at him. Flynn gestured with the point of his staff.
Get up, he said.
Toosey rocked onto his heels.
Get up.
It’s a rum old business this, Toosey said.
Flynn was dark of eye and darker still of intent. He pulled the remnant cloth off his stick. Make ready for it, he said.
Proper little scrapper you are, Toosey said and he stood. Proper little battler.
Proper as a judge.
They locked eyes across a few yards of road.
They will kill each other, someone said.
Hall began to scan the ground, seeking out a rock or a bottle or a stick to pelt at the Irishman and drive him off. Toosey, however, would not be drawn into a brawl. He broke off and pushed out through the ring of men. Flynn shouldered his staff. He went after him. Hall watched first one then the second vanish into the black beyond the ring of firelight and she kicked the dirt with her stiff leg and said, Of all the bleedin—
Then she followed them into the night.
RABBIT’S TAPROOM
IN THE EARLY EVENING FITHEAL FLYNN left his daughter quartered in a roadside camp, feeling heavy-souled for it, thick of head, and with evening falling he crossed down out of the scrub towards the southerly part of the city. He moved through the rows of low-rooved hovels at Kings Meadows and further down through fields of maize and cabbage and potato that studded the black padddocks, framed by wild hills beyond, and as he passed people in the road he stopped and begged pardon and asked after a place to eat. The sun had descended past the hills and these folk looked at him in the dimness, shook their heads, and could only apologise. He walked further into town.
On dark, Flynn saw a man leading a mare fully eighteen hands in height by the underhalter and he paused to make an enquiry of him. The fellow presented a strange lopsided leer, beckoned him closer, and in a voice like the rattling of corn husks directed him to a taproom known to serve late hours. Flynn thanked him. He headed for the place as told.
It was a wooden shack, this place that might have been convict built. At one end a chimney gave forth a gruelly smoke out between the cracks in the stonework. A sign hung that showed a black rabbit perched on its rear. He stepped onto the sagging verandah, wiped the dust off a window, and peered through. A terrific carousal was going on inside. There were men and women shrieking through a drunken song without melody. He stepped back, looked up and down the street, and for a moment scratched his armpit and considered walking away. But there was his daughter hungry and alone and he removed his hat with more thoughts of her and entered.
