The Complete Stories of Alan Marshall

by Alan Marshall

  There were some big dances at the hall, but the biggest and best of the lot was the Catholic Ball held once a year. It was the biggest night in Turalla. Every Catholic from twenty miles came—and a lot of people that weren’t Catholics. There were blokes with big black beards, and bullockies with their shirt sleeves rolled up, and kids of all sorts. There were horses and buggies and gigs parked in the yard round the hall and two dunnies had been specially cleaned out for the occasion. The dunny for the Ladies was in one corner of the yard and the other for the Men was in the opposite corner.

  You soon got to know all the kids in the district. Joe and I knew them all. We knew the big kids from the bush and the tough, wiry little buggers from out beyond Emu Creek. We knew two or three kids from the plains out by Darlington and some from Purnim; some of these kids would just as soon have a fight as a feed. They always stuck together; hit one you hit the lot.

  There was a family from Beech Forest way, a place called Sorenson’s Gully, called Wilson; they always came to the Ball. I’d gone with Peter McLeod down into this bush country behind a six-horse team a year ago. We camped down there a couple of days in one of the Wilsons’ sheds. There were three kids in the family, one girl and two boys. I got to know them when I was down in the bush with Peter and I used to see them in Balunga sometimes when they came in on sale day. I knew the eldest kid as Blue, but I think his name was Sammy. They called him Blue because of his hair which was the colour of a brick and was straight and long. He was seventeen years old and looked like a man. He had never been to school when he was young because there were no schools to go to in the bush. But when the school started he went to it because he wanted to know how to measure a ton of wood and learn the tables up to ten and perhaps learn to read a bit. His old man arranged with the woman schoolteacher down there, Miss Pearce her name was, to give him lessons on his own, so he sat at a desk away from the other kids—I’d been to his school and saw where he sat.

  Blue’s other brother—Snowy—was a real funny bugger. He made us laugh. They reckon the teacher down at Sorenson’s Gully liked him a lot. Well, you wouldn’t be able to help it.

  They had a mate called Jim Smith. He was a lively bloke who was always in on anything and could fight like a threshing machine. He was a thoughtful bugger who watched you kindly. They reckoned he was a good back-stop if someone hauled off and swung a punch at you.

  On the night of the Catholic Ball the darkness around the Mechanics’ Institute became pierced with shafts of light from windows and open doorways. There were no hidden dangers in the darkness that remained behind the hall or that was spilt between the buggies and gigs and horses that moved through it or stood motionless while the shadows of men moved between them. There were sharp commands—‘Hold up there; Whoa-back; Get over.’

  The shadow of one man held a bottle towards another and said, ‘Here, have a swig before you go in.’

  Every sound was exciting and full of life. Life was darting round the hall like night birds in flight. The sound of fiddles being tuned came through the open doorways. The laughter of girls fluttered like moths across the beams of light. Men laughed. They sat in the porch and pulled off their heavy boots which fell with a thump to the floor. They took newspaper-wrapped pumps from their coat pockets. They were made of patent leather and had soles as thin as the board in a cigarette packet. They slipped them on to feet unused to them, then stood up and flexed their legs and danced a few steps to get the feel of them. They stacked their boots in rows along the wall.

  Children chased each other between the buggies and gigs or stood in the hall and gazed at the girls sitting on the forms that followed the walls around the hall. Some of the kids would take a run towards the centre of the hall then slide on the candle grease, standing erect and balancing with outstretched hands. Some of them went right across the hall. I couldn’t do this. What a bastard! Joe reckoned they were showing off, but if I hadn’t been there he’d have done it. He was a good bloke, Joe.

  When Big Dave Fraser came in he hunted the whole bloody lot off the floor. He was the MC and don’t you forget it.

  ‘You kids get to hell out of here’, he said, and we got.

  Joe and me had joined up with the Wilson kids who’d come down from the bush with Jim Smith. Jim told me they’d brought enough black wattle seeds with them to plant the whole of the Western Plain. Black wattle seeds were not easy to get round Turalla where the black wattle had all been cut out by farmers clearing their land, but they were common enough where the Wilsons came from.

  It’s a funny thing about black wattle seeds. They were in a pod like peas and if crushed before they were fully ripened they gave off a stink that would make you sick. Joe reckoned it smelt as if everyone in the school had farted at once—that’s when we used to crush them under our heels at school. Jim reckoned their seeds were good. They’d soaked them in hot water for an hour before they left home.

  We had a sort of meeting outside and planned what we were going to do. The idea was for each one of us to put a handful under his heel when the people were dancing a circular waltz. People go dreamy when they’re dancing a circular waltz and we reckoned we’d be less likely to be noticed then. We decided to crush them about half past eleven when things were really going.

  Joe used to dream about dancing a waltz with the girl who rode a white horse at Kerry Bros Circus. She stood on one leg on its rump and went up and down to its canter. While she was doing this she looked upwards like an angel. That’s why Joe reckoned no one notices anything while dancing the circular waltz.

  The hall was a large one. There was a door at each side and one at the end. These were the doors through which we had to escape after we’d crushed the seeds. There were six lots of us round the hall and we were all to crush the seeds under our heels at a sign from Blue who was at the end.

  But you know how it is when you’re at a big dance.

  On the stage Buck McKinnon was on the piano; there were two blokes playing fiddles and a hell of a good bloke on the concertina. It got like as if you were drunk on music. What with the concertina and the fiddles and Buck on the piano, I got all excited. I couldn’t stop watching them. I was dancing with them out there where the bright girls turned and spun in a flutter of organdie, muslin and taffeta. It was beautiful.

  This was Big Dave Fraser’s night. He was the MC and was big and powerful and could swing a girl off her feet in the Lancers. He could swing a punch too and there was no messing about when he gave orders. He knew every dance—the Valetta, the Valsevienne, the Schottische, the Two Step. And what a great voice he had for whooping in the sets.

  He started them off with a progressive Barn Dance. This mixed them up. Everybody was dancing. The music floated out into the soft night where every shadow was kind. There was only happiness in all the world.

  I heard Big Dave Fraser’s voice from the centre of the floor: ‘Secure your partners for the first set.’

  Then: ‘Two more couples this way please.’

  Joe and I stood at the door to watch them. We loved the sets—the stamping men, the wild yells as they swung the girls, then:

  ‘Salute partners’, and they were away. For some reason or other both Joe and I loved the ‘Salute partners’—the tribute before the capture.

  Big Dave danced in the sets and called as he danced.

  The men moved with swaying shoulders, with exaggerated turns and curves. They held the girls as if challenging attempts to rob them of their prize.

  We could hear Big Dave’s voice above the whoops and stamping feet: ‘First and second couples half right and left set.

  ‘Turn partners.

  ‘Ladies chain.

  ‘Promenade.’

  The music danced and romped with the people, tying them together with cords of silver from the fiddles while the piano thumped out the rhythm.

  Joe and I were entranced.

  But it was the Lancers we were waiting for. This was the greatest set of all we thought.

 
The concertina player swept into a lilting melody. He smiled as he played. Big Dave’s great voice laced the yells and the yah-hoos with his triumphant—‘Salute partners and salute corners.’

  A good dance band and a good MC made the dancers dance to the beat of the music. He gave his calls at the end of the bar and called as he danced.

  ‘First lady and opposite gent turn in the centre.

  ‘Change ends.’

  The music was six-eight time and the stamping of the pumps and the yells while swinging—‘Hoo-ee-ee.’

  Then Big Dave made the calls we were waiting for.

  ‘All ladies to centre and return.

  ‘All gents to the centre and form a circle.

  ‘Ladies join hands and form a circle over gents and swing.’

  As the circle of powerful men revolved, the girls, in their brightest frocks, tottered round nervously then were lifted off their feet as the circle gained speed. It resembled the ‘Ocean Wave’ one saw at country shows.

  The girls undulated in the circle high above the floor; the men, leaning back to take their weight, turned with them.

  The girls in all the bright colours then fashionable were like lovely flowers thrown into the air by the men. They floated there.

  ‘Yah hoo. Hoo-ee-ee.’

  What could be lovelier than this! O beautiful, beautiful! I wanted to cry.

  Then we heard a soft whistle from Blue Wilson across the hall and we came back to our resolve to produce such a stink that would be remembered as long as the Catholic Ball. We went round to him and received our seeds. Time had gone quicker than we thought.

  We took our places round the hall clutching the black wattle seeds in our pocket.

  When the waltz was in full swing Blue gave the signal and half a dozen of us ground our heels down on the little heap of seeds beneath them.

  The effect was as if a momentary paralysis of thought had seized all those in the hall.

  First of all every bugger started to stare at each other. Then a couple left the dance and made for the seats along the wall. The bloke unloaded his girl there then made for the door.

  It made everyone think he was the bloke that had shit himself. Then the men all started getting shod of their partners. They dumped them against the wall then fled outside.

  The women along the wall started edging away from each other. They didn’t look exactly unfriendly but they didn’t look too bloody friendly either.

  Outside the men collected. Joe and I stood looking. Joe always reckons you can tell what I am thinking by looking at my face.

  ‘Look innocent you silly bugger’, he hissed at me. I looked innocent.

  Big Dave Fraser stood over near the road fence taking a swig from a bottle of whisky.

  ‘What do you think, Dave?’ young Tom Fields asked him.

  Dave lowered his bottle for a moment. There’s no doubt someone’ shit himself going round’, he said. ‘There’s no bloody fart living that could be as big or last as long as that bastard in there.’

  ‘Do you think those bloody kids spilt anything on the floor?’ young Tom Fields asked Dave.

  That was the last thing Joe and I heard. Like well-trained dingo pups we slipped off into the dark and made for home.

  ‘Well’, Joe said as we hurried through the dark. ‘We had plenty of fun tonight didn’t we?’ But he didn’t sound as if he meant it.

  ‘I just don’t know’, I said.

  I felt empty and sad.