by Paul Collins
‘But you have not seen them here,’ the boy said. ‘Have you?’
There was a silence while the father thought. ‘No, I have not seen them here,’ he admitted. ‘And that's because I have better things to do at sundown. Better things to do than read a book. I have the horses to secure in the shed. Your mother has the hens to feed. It's only you who has the time to sit and read – to sit and watch birds – when we are working.’
‘But that will stop,’ said the mother. ‘As I say, this is a new land. And you need to make a new life. It is not the ha'penny that you stole to give to this library man that I care about. It is the fact that there's no time for books here. No time for watching birds. Neither at sun-up nor sundown. So there will be no more of it. Like it or not, your books will go. And that tree.’
‘And with it the birds,’ the father declared getting up. ‘I will do it as soon as I can,’ and he walked off towards the tool shed.
‘And don't you forget, neither,’ the woman yelled after him. ‘We don't want them cockatoos eating that field of wheat,’ and wiping her hands on her apron, she went into their cabin.
So the boy sat alone, wondering what he had done.
At dusk, since his parents had not taken his book, nor stopped him from sitting on the porch to read, the boy looked towards the west, waiting for the cockatoos. And presently, they came. Just one or two, at first, then dozens, then hundreds. Around and around the tree they circled. Around and around.
Go away, thought the boy. For your own good, go away.
But the birds were not about to go away. They had been returning to this tree – night after night – for a hundred years before the boy arrived. Nor did they care for the boy's parents’ field of wheat. They had found plenty to eat in the bush before the colonists came. It was the tree they returned for. Tall and broad, its branches were their home, the hollows in its trunk their nesting places. The homes of their offspring. For like the colonists – the human intruders they chose to ignore – the cockatoos had futures, too.
Not that the colonists cared.
‘Fly away!’ cried the boy, throwing his book aside and running into the field. ‘Fly away!’
But the cockatoos ignored him, too. Why should they be worried about what some human child told them?
When the boy reached the tree, and stood beneath it – a thing that he had never done before – he looked up at the chattering birds. They were truly beautiful. Their feathers so white. Their crests so yellow. Their grey beaks stripping and tearing at the bark, the cracking and clacking as they kissed and canoodled, so powerful yet so gentle. And their great black eyes, all hooded and wrinkled, so ancient, so wise.
So the boy's lonely heart went out to them.
And so he loved them.
And so he left them in peace.
But not his mother, who was determined not to forget.
The following afternoon, as the sun began to dip towards the west, the mother appeared in the yard, her hands cupped to her chapped lips, calling, ‘Hey! Hey! Where are you? You said you would cut that tree down!’
From the shed the man's voice answered, ‘I know. I know. Give me a chance here.’ And within minutes, to the boy's horror, he appeared with a farm hand – a yokel with little brain – bearing a cross-cut saw between them. ‘Have some faith in your husband, woman. I said that I'd do it and I will. I didn't forget.’
As he spoke, the first of the cockatoos appeared, lazily circling the gum in the wheat field.
‘There they are now,’ the woman yelled at her husband. ‘See? Go on now and get it done.’
So the husband and the yokel went into the field and taking off their shirts, began to saw.
But still the birds returned. Circling and circling, a great flock of them. Returning home.
The gum was very old, its branches wide, its trunk thick as a man's body. It was not easy to fell. But the men worked at it, sawing backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, their sweat mingling with the fallen twigs, the fallen bark, the fallen flowers, until at last, the tree cried out. Until at last, the tree groaned in agony, in the slow creeping pain of death, and began to shudder, then sway, then with a sigh that rent the sky, that shook the earth, it fell slowly into the field, its mighty limbs crashing beneath it.
Until, in death, it lay silent and still.
But the birds were neither.
Not the circling cockatoos.
Around and around they flew, crying out in confusion. Screaming in anger. Their tree was gone. Their home.
Hour after hour they cried. Hour after hour they circled. Not that the man watched. Not that his wife cared. They paid the yokel for his good work and went into the darkening cabin to eat mutton.
But seated outside, on the porch, the boy both saw and heard. Because the night was moon-lit and the cockatoos white, he saw them circling the empty space where their tree had stood a hundred long years. More than a hundred years. Worse, he saw the birds fall from the sky in exhaustion. He saw their silver bodies plummet to the ground, worn out with searching. Worn out with returning to what could never be. To a place no longer there. To a time lost forever.
So the next day, when the travelling library man came to collect his book, the boy went with him.
Like the cockatoos, he would never return.
Illustrated by Mitch Vane
Sir Donald BADMAN is one of Australia's baddest men. As a boy he didn't eat vegetables, he licked his plate, he ran across the road without looking, he played with matches in his bed, he put his finger into electrical sockets and he threw carrots at his grandmother … he played on the roof and licked knives and got drunk and stole an ice-cream van and with the music blaring he drove it at high speeds and didn't even stop to sell ice-creams … he never had showers, threw soap into the rubbish bin, never brushed his teeth, never wiped his bottom, never flushed the toilet, argued with policemen, talked with his mouth full, shaved his dog and painted it pink, broke windows, swung on clotheslines, broke the heads off his sister's dolls, made prank phone calls, stole a skywriting plane and wrote rude words across the sky, laughed during funerals, painted the television screen black, flew kites in lightning storms, swung back and forwards on his chair at the dinner table, flicked peas at his mother, didn't know the words to the national anthem and instead of singing ‘Australians all let us rejoice, because we are young and free,’ sang, ‘Australians all let us relieve ourselves, because we are full of wee … our bladders full, our legs are crossed, we badly need to pee …’ he never said his pleases or thank yous and always pushed to the front of any queue, ran around with scissors, always cut towards himself with big knives and didn't listen to the safety instructions on airplanes. He was a bad boy and he grew up to be a very bad man – the baddest man Australia has ever known.
The kitchen is small, the chequered lino on the floor is worn and the chairs don't match. An old fridge chugs away in the corner. The window is open but there is no breeze.
Daryl and Sharon are sitting at the kitchen table, eating cornflakes.
‘Did you check out the size of her suitcase?’ says Daryl to his twin sister.
‘I sure did. How long do you reckon she's staying this time?’ says Sharon.
‘Too long,’ says Daryl.
‘That's for sure,’ says Sharon, just as the subject of their conversation, Aunt Bette, enters the room.
She's wearing a light-blue dressing gown and fluffy slippers. In her right hand she carries a red plastic fly swatter.
‘Deary me, this heat really is intolerable,’ she says, fanning her face with the fly swatter. ‘It really is.’
Daryl looks up from his cornflakes and over at Sharon. She raises her eyebrows slightly. As Aunt Bette fills the kettle with water and puts it on the stove the twins’ mother enters the room.
‘Morning, all,’ she says.
‘Morning, Gwen,’ says Aunt Bette. ‘This heat!’ She fans herself more vigorously with the fly swatter. ‘I really don't know how you tolera
te it here.’
‘We're all used to it, I suppose,’ says Gwen, smiling at the twins.
‘Now that Graham is with the Lord,’ starts Aunt Bette.
The children immediately look up. It's been more than two years since their father disappeared, his fishing boat overturned in a storm. The body was never found but everybody assumes he was drowned. Everybody that is, except the twins.
Aunt Bette continues.
‘I don't know why you stay on here. You'd be better off moving back to the city, Gwen. Better for the children, too. Heaven knows what sort of education they're getting in this place.’
‘I don't think the city life's for us,’ says Gwen. ‘Besides we couldn't afford to live there. This place may not be much but at least it's ours.’
By this time Daryl is standing at the sink, squirting detergent onto his plate. He swirls it around with a sponge and rinses it under the tap.
‘I don't think that's adequate, do you, Daryl?’ says Aunt Bette.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you really think that dish is clean?’ she says, shaking her head, double-clicking her tongue.
‘It's what I always do,’ says Daryl, looking over at his mother for support.
It is the kettle, though, that saves him. Its whistling distracts Aunt Bette and Daryl is able to escape.
‘Gotta go, meeting Ben down the jetty, going snorkelling,’ he says as he pushes the screen door open. As he does a fly enters the room, its soft buzz barely audible.
Aunt Bette spins around.
‘Is that a fly?’ she demands.
She slowly surveys the room, her eyes travelling up and down the walls.
‘There it is,’ she says softly, as if the fly might be alarmed by anything louder than a whisper.
She takes a step forward and brings the fly swatter back over her shoulder. Aunt Bette was a formidable tennis player in her day and it shows.
Thwack!
‘Gotcha!’ she says, as the fly drops to the floor.
Taking the broom she sweeps its corpse along the floor, opening the door and flicking it outside.
‘Filthy blighter,’ she says.
She looks at her watch.
‘Deary me, almost that time of the day,’ she says. ‘I'd better get a wriggle on.’
She fills the teapot with the hot water from the kettle.
‘Come out and join me today,’ she says to Gwen. ‘John's talking about land rights today. And I reckon that's something you should concern yourself with. The Abos around here seem to be getting full of themselves, lately.’
When she says this she looks straight at Sharon. Sharon knows why, too. It's because Lizzy, her best friend, is one of those ‘Abos’.
‘They're Aborigines, not Abos,’ Sharon wants to say, but she remembers what her mum said before Aunt Bette had arrived.
‘Please kids, no arguments. I know she's not very easy but she is your father's sister.’
‘I'd love to,’ says Gwen. ‘I really would but I've got a pile of washing to do.’
Sharon smiles – her mother is such a bad fibber. There's hardly any washing to be done.
On a tray she takes from the cupboard, Aunt Bette puts her portable radio, the pot of tea, an empty cup and saucer, a jug of milk, a bowl of sugar, a teaspoon, a packet of Ginger Snap biscuits and the fly swatter. Taking the tray outside she positions a cane chair in the shade of the rainwater tank, amongst the pink and white geraniums potted in old Milo tins. Then she turns the radio on.
The theme music starts.
‘On fifty-eight stations right around Australia,’ says the announcer. ‘This is the show that everybody's talking about.’
Aunt Bette pours her first cup of tea, stirs in two sugars, takes a Ginger Snap in one hand and the fly swatter in the other.
More music and then comes John's voice, smooth and deep.
‘Morning, listeners,’ he says.
Aunt Bette relaxes, smiling to herself.
‘Morning, John,’ she says, automatically.
‘Today,’ he says, ‘I want your opinions on the land rights debate. Is the Aboriginal industry taking this country for a ride or do these people have a legitimate claim on these lands?’
For the rest of the morning Aunt Bette sits there sipping tea, nibbling biscuits, dispatching any flies that dare invade her territory, listening to the John Jones show, not missing a word.
Late afternoon, and the sun has begun to cool itself in the sea. The clouds swirling above the horizon are shot through with red and purple and the cicadas have just started chirping.
As Daryl walks up the drive, whistling, carrying his snorkelling gear, he can hear the sound of a tennis ball thumping against the side of the house followed by the words, ‘I hate her guts’.
‘What are you doing, trying to knock the air out off the thing?’ he says when he sees his sister, determined look on her face, tennis racquet in her hand.
Sharon turns around, but doesn't reply to her brother.
‘What did Aunt Bette do?’ asks Daryl.
‘How did you know it was her?’ Sharon asks.
Daryl smiles – it has to be her.
‘She said something to Lizzy today.’
‘What?’
‘I'm not sure what it was. I was in my bedroom getting some stuff and Lizzy was waiting in the kitchen. And when I came out both of them were in there and Lizzy was almost crying. She was really upset. I could tell. But when I asked her, she said it was nothing. But then she said she just remembered she had to go home. And we were going to spend the whole day together. I hate her guts. I really do.’
Daryl has never seen his sister so worked up. She is always so calm. Like their mum says – she's got her father's temperament.
Sharon tosses the ball up and hits it with all her might. The ball pings against the wall, flies back over her head, over the wooden fence, and into the neighbour's yard.
‘What are youse kids trying to do?’ comes a joking voice from the other side. ‘Knock some sense into this old head of mine?’
‘Sorry, Darcy,’ says Sharon.
The ball comes looping back over the fence.
Sharon catches it easily, in one hand.
‘What ya up to, Darcy?’ yells Daryl.
‘Just bottlin’ up some gents,’ comes the reply. ‘You wanna come over? Have a yack?’
‘Sure,’ says Daryl.
‘You coming?’ he says to his sister.
‘Yeah, why not,’ she says.
Darcy is a little bloke, jockey size. He's sitting on an upturned fishing crate, a newspaper spread across his lap, a pile of squirming maggots in the middle. Darcy has a feather in one hand and is using it to flick the maggots, one at a time, into an empty Vegemite jar.
‘Forty-nine, fifty,’ he says.
He fills the jar with bran, and screws on the lid.
Darcy breeds maggots, except he never calls them that. He uses the polite term – gents. Gents are Darcy's passion. According to him there's no better fishing bait. He sells them to the campers – fifty for a dollar. They're famous, Darcy's gents – guaranteed to catch a feed of fish, or money back.
‘Gidday,’ says Darcy. ‘Pull up a pew.’
Sharon and Daryl each take a fishing crate and sit down as Darcy picks up an empty jar.
‘Seen you got a visitor over there. I heard the radio blaring all morning. That's your dad's sister, ain't it? I did meet her last time she was over but I forget her name. Bloody memory's shot.’
‘Bette,’ says Daryl.
‘That's right,’ says Darcy. ‘Bette.’
Darcy looks over at Sharon who is picking at her fingernails.
‘What's wrong with you tonight, Princess?’ says Darcy. ‘Not your usual cheery self.’
‘It's nothing,’ says Sharon.
‘It's Aunt Bette,’ says Daryl.
Daryl tells Darcy the whole story. At the end Darcy shakes his head.
‘Is that right?’ he says. ‘Is that rig
ht?’
He takes his feather and starts sweeping the gents into the jar.
‘Don't worry, Princess,’ says Darcy. ‘She'll eat humble pie one day. Mark me words. She'll eat humble pie one day.’
‘What's humble pie?’ Daryl is about to ask when a voice comes from the other side of the fence.
‘Daryl, Sharon, are you over there?’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘It's dinner time. Come on.’
‘We're coming.’
‘See ya ‘round, Darcy.’
‘Like a rissole,’ says Darcy, which is what he always says.
‘Mum,’ says Daryl during dinner. ‘What sort of pie is humble pie.’
‘It's not a real pie. It's a figure of speech,’ says Aunt Bette.
‘What does it mean?’
‘Well, when somebody eats humble pie it means they get their comeuppance.’
‘You mean they get what they truly deserve?’ asks Sharon, the first time she's spoken during dinner.
‘Yes, I suppose you could say that,’ says Aunt Bette.
‘Thanks, Auntie,’ says Sharon sweetly.
Daryl looks over at his sister. There's a strange look on her face. Little sparks are jumping about in her eyes.
‘You've got to help me,’ she says to Daryl the next day.
‘Help you with what?’
‘Help me make a humble pie.’
‘You heard Aunt Bette, it's not a real pie.’
‘Yes, it is.’
Then she explains it to him, her recipe for humble pie.
‘But what about Mum?’ asks Daryl.
‘She's not allowed to eat sweets. You know that.’
‘What about us?’
‘Just pretend, you don't have to actually swallow it.’
‘I dunno,’ says Daryl.
‘Come on. Please,’ says Sharon. ‘You hate her as much as I do.’
‘I dunno.’
‘Think of what she did to Lizzy. It could be Clem or Wayne, one of your Nunga friends.’
Daryl thinks about this for a while.
‘All right. But it was your idea, okay?’
