Heritage

by Judy Nunn

  Al the Frenchie was indeed more cunning than most of his contemporaries. He’d been practising his trade in the Snowies for a number of years and he was yet to be caught. His visits were fleeting; he stayed for only several nights and was gone by the time the word had got around. He considered himself a valuable commodity on the Snowy: the workers needed to be serviced, and he was there to provide the women to do it. Shit, he thought, the hookers were hopeless on their own; they were slags, with no sense of business. But the Snowy was also a source of fascination to Al. All those Europeans working themselves into an early grave, he thought, earning a good quid it was true, more than they would in their home countries, but to what end? Accidents were rife, they lived for a quick visit into town every third payday weekend, and there was always a queue a hundred yards long outside his caravan. Shit, he thought, who’d want a life like that? Australia, the land of opportunity. Well, it was. For those who knew how to take advantage, and he did. In Al the Frenchie’s view, there were those who earned their money the hard way, and there were those who profited from their labour.

  As Al watched the copper drive off, it irked him to think that he’d come all the way out to this arse-end of the world just for a one night stand. What the hell, he thought, there were other ways to make money. It was payday, Flash Jack Finnigan was at Spring Hill and there’d be big dough around tonight. He’d stay for the game, he decided. There’d be other strange faces turning up at the camp – Jack had a regular following, and all sorts fronted for play wherever the Irishman went. He wouldn’t call attention to himself, he’d watch from the sidelines, he decided, and who knew, perhaps he’d come out the winner in the end. Workers were renowned for being careless with their cash and Al’s fingers were nimble. They always had been. Ever since the good old days in Berlin.

  ‘Come in spinner,’ the boxer called.

  Behind the corrugated iron hut that was the wet canteen, dozens of men were gathered around the ring of steel cable staked to the ground. Two men stood on the flattened surface in the centre and, as the boxer stepped back and the spinner raised the wooden kip in his hand, the crowd fell silent.

  With a deft flick of the wrist, the pennies resting on the kip were sent spinning high into the air and, as they landed, the boxer stepped forward. The coins were resting heads and tails up.

  ‘No throw,’ he announced, to the spinner’s annoyance – it had been the third ‘no throw’ in succession. The boxer called in a new spinner, as the rules demanded after three ‘no throws’, and the kip changed hands. The babble of men’s voices resumed, until the next cry. ‘Come in spinner.’ And, for a brief moment, silence once again reigned.

  Flash Jack stood among the crowd, to all intents and purposes just another punter, but his presence was forcing the stakes higher. Men pooled their bets, knowing that Jack would meet their wager, and the common aim was to beat the Irishman. Jack never controlled the two-up games – that was another understood regulation by which gambling was tolerated. Two-up was run by one of the workers, to protect the men from professional gambling sharks who might use weighted coins or manipulate the game in some way to their advantage. Jack abided by all the rules.

  ‘Heads!’ the boxer called.

  ‘Lucky by name, Lucky by nature, eh?’ Flash Jack Finnigan called across the ring, as he doled his money out to the runner.

  Lucky returned a smile, accepting his winnings from the runner. If he’d had a quid for every time someone had said that, he thought … But he had to admit, these days he agreed with them, life was good. And tonight he was certainly having a run of luck. Not that it would have bothered him overly if he weren’t. He’d lost and won heavily on two-up in the past.

  Lucky had never been a gambling man in his younger days, and he still didn’t consider himself one. But like the others, he earned big money and, like all those with no family commitments, there was little to spend it on. What else was there to do with one’s time, locked out here in the company of men? Besides, he enjoyed the simplicity of two-up. He played it with equal simplicity: he chose to bet heads or tails and then he stuck with it. The game usually favoured one or the other. Tonight it was heads – fourteen out of the last twenty throws had been heads – and he was doing well, a hundred and sixty quid to be exact, close to two months’ wages. He’d stick it out for another ten throws, he decided. Then he’d call it quits, since he was on the morning shift.

  Jack Finnigan continued to back the spinner, who always tossed for tails; he was sure that the run on heads had to end. And Lucky bet a further twenty quid, again on heads, a number of the men pooling their fivers and tenners to join him. Lucky was on a winning streak, they’d decided, and Jack Finnigan, who was meeting the wagers and backing tails, was the loser. It was a good game for many tonight.

  Al the Frenchie stood quietly at the back of the crowd. He didn’t bet – he never did, he considered betting a mug’s game – but he watched the play closely. The man with the bung eye was clutching close to two hundred quid in his hand, and he was one of those careless with money, Al could tell.

  Out of the nine following throws, five landed heads. Lucky was still well and truly a winner, but his simplistic rule of play wouldn’t do him any favours if the next toss came up tails. It was his last bet for the night and he wanted to be adventurous, so he put a hundred quid on heads.

  It was a lot to place on one throw and Lucky’s supporters voiced their approval loudly, pooling their own bets and looking to Jack Finnigan. There were smaller side bets going on, but the big money was all resting on the Irishman. Three hundred quid in all. Would he match it? Of course Jack did.

  ‘Tails,’ he said, nodding to them and flashing his easy smile. What the hell, losing at two-up kept him onside with the men. Antz’d be picking up a fortune in the wet canteen where a manila game was currently in progress, and he’d shortly be joining him to set up a pontoon table.

  ‘Come in spinner,’ the boxer called.

  Silence again, as the pennies spun dizzyingly, seeming to halt in mid-air before starting their downward spiral. Then they landed, one with a gentle thud, the other rolling several feet before coming to rest.

  ‘Heads,’ the boxer announced. The men who’d been following Lucky’s lead roared.

  The Irishman shook his head good-naturedly as he counted out the notes. ‘You’re breaking the bank, Lucky,’ he called, and the men gave another cheer – that’d be the day.

  Al the Frenchie watched the runner cross to the man with the bung eye first before doling out the rest of the winnings to the other punters. He watched while bung eye gave Jack a wave and made his farewells. Several tried to persuade him to stay, but bung eye said he was on the early shift, and his mates slapped him on the back before turning their eyes to the next toss of the pennies.

  Al edged around behind the crowd. Bung eye was stuffing about three hundred quid into his pockets as he walked off. Not a bad night’s takings, Al thought – the girls would have scored around the same with one night’s work in the van. If he could pull it off, it’d make his trip to Spring Hill worthwhile. He watched bung eye walk up the slope away from the mess hut and the wet canteen, towards the lines of huts and barracks. He didn’t follow him, but walked off towards the bushes at the edge of the settlement where he could observe bung eye’s progress without being observed himself. He had no intention of mugging the man; apart from the backhanders he dished out to the girls when they needed it, Al avoided violence like the plague. But it wouldn’t do any harm to find out exactly where bung eye was headed.

  He kept to the bushes, dodging among them, following the man’s progress. He watched as bung eye walked along the road past the lines of barracks towards the row of snow huts. A single cabin, he thought. Promising. Then he watched as bung eye kept walking past each of the huts before disappearing into the one at the very end. Al couldn’t believe his luck. Things were looking distinctly possible.

  Al the Frenchie’s presumption that he’d go unnoticed at the game h
ad proved erroneous from the outset. Certainly there’d been men other than Spring Hill residents present, at least a dozen or more workers from other camps, and Al had been careful to hang back at the rear of the crowd, but word had been passed down the line nonetheless. One of the men who’d visited the caravan the previous night had recognised him and sent out a warning that the pimp was at the game, and Al had become aware of the odd muttered remark, the nudge of an elbow, a pair of eyes darting in his direction. They wouldn’t rat on him, he knew it, they wouldn’t want the girls to be sent packing, but he’d quickly abandoned any thoughts of pick-pocketing. Pity. It would have been so easy. The men were slack with their money and their wallets, he’d even seen one man’s pay packet sticking halfway out the back of his hip pocket. Unscrupulous as some were with company property, there was no thieving in the camps. The workers trusted each other. Al had done a quick rethink and stayed put, a mere observer of the action.

  Now, as he watched bung eye close his cabin door, Al decided to come back in the morning. He’d heard him say he was on the early shift, and if the coast looked clear when the workers had gone, it’d be relatively simple; he’d done it before, the men rarely locked their doors.

  He returned to his caravan. The copper would have been and gone now, realising the van wasn’t open for business. The bastard would be back tomorrow to move him on, but Al would be long gone by then.

  Early the following morning, the two-up ring was deserted, but inside the wet canteen, dense with cigarette smoke and the smell of stale beer, the card games continued; the heavy-duty punters were there for the long haul. Jack and Antz had worked throughout the night, and would no doubt work throughout the following night too. As the day wore on, they would take it in turns to grab half an hour’s kip in the back of Jack’s Mercedes – it was all they needed. Jack and Antz could deal cards for twenty-four hours straight with no more than a catnap in between. They’d trained themselves to do so. The official ruling that gambling was permitted only on pay night was regularly overlooked and the card games could go on for several days, the keenest of the punters paying others to work their shifts. Jack and Antz needed all the staying power they could muster.

  ‘Franta, he tell me you win big last night,’ Pietro said when Lucky had completed a head count of his work team. The men were milling around the trucks not far from the mess hut, about to head off to the work site, a good half-hour’s drive from the settlement.

  ‘I did.’ Lucky climbed into the truck’s cabin. ‘Want to ride in comfort? First in first served.’ Lucky always drove the lead truck, and it was always his catchphrase when he offered the passenger seat. Pietro piled in beside him while others of the team clambered into the open back. ‘You coming to Dodds tomorrow? I’ll be shouting the bar.’

  ‘I will be there, yes,’ Pietro said. ‘I take Violetta to Dodds for dinner and dancing.’

  ‘Good. Then we’ll meet up for a couple of beers beforehand.’

  There was a signalling tap from behind and Lucky checked in his rear vision mirror to see that the men were all safely seated before pulling out into the street, the several other trucks following in convoy.

  ‘So how was your night, Pietro?’

  ‘Is very good. Vesna, she cook me dinner, after we practise our English. Vesna, she is very good cook, I think.’

  Lucky smiled to himself. Pietro would have to be the only man on the Snowy who chose English practice in preference to a Flash Jack Finnigan gambling night. But then Pietro never gambled. He never had. He didn’t know how to.

  Nine hours later, the trucks returned and the men piled out, tired, grubby, but in excellent humour. It was a Friday and Jack Finnigan was in Spring Hill.

  ‘Will you be coming to the game tonight, Lucky?’ Franta the Czech asked as they walked up towards the barracks.

  ‘I think I’d be pushing it, two nights in a row,’ Lucky smiled, ‘but I’ll see you for a beer in an hour or so.’

  He walked past the barracks and the row of snow huts to his cabin, intending to collect his towel and fresh clothes and head straight for the ablution block. He’d get there early so he wouldn’t have to queue for a shower.

  He knew he’d been robbed as soon as he opened the door – the thief hadn’t been subtle. But whoever it was had been quick and efficient, he realised, in and out of the hut within a matter of seconds, it appeared. The top drawer of the lowboy sat upside down on the floor, its contents tipped out beside it. Nothing else had been touched; the thief had immediately found what he was after. Lucky knelt and sifted through the mess of papers and toiletries that lay scattered about. His wallet was there, but the hundred pounds he’d put in it wasn’t, and neither was the envelope in which he’d put the rest of the money, intending to bank it.

  In the five years he’d been working on the Snowy, Lucky had never known of a worker’s room being burgled. Men’s possessions were safe in the work camps; they trusted each other. It was only when they went into town that they needed to be wary.

  He was angry, but he was also bemused. The thief was a stranger, he thought, a stranger who’d been at the game, and knew he’d won big. But the strangers who’d been gathered about the ring, pooling their bets along with the locals, had been men from other work camps, and they’d arrived together. He even knew a couple of them, he’d shared a beer with them in Cooma. They wouldn’t stoop to such an act.

  Lucky had been so intent on the game that he hadn’t heard the whispers about the pimp, and the only other strangers he could think of were Jack Finnigan and his offsider. It wouldn’t be Jack, he knew that. Whether or not Jack was the soul of propriety he made himself out to be was perhaps a dubious point, but Jack Finnigan would certainly not risk soiling his reputation. The dealer maybe? The Latvian called Antz? Doubtful, but who could say?

  As he sat on the floor, replacing his possessions in the drawer, Lucky cursed the man who had robbed him. Not so much for the money – easy come, easy go, he thought – but for the arousal of his suspicions, for the betrayal of trust which existed in this unique society of men in the wilderness.

  He picked up the envelopes that were strewn about, and his pad of airmail writing paper. He’d forgotten it was there – he hadn’t written a letter for three years, not since his father had died. And he’d stopped corresponding with his old friend Efraim Meisell when he’d first come to the Snowies. He’d severed all ties with the past, even with the man who’d saved his life, he thought guiltily, as he placed the writing pad in the drawer. Then he saw the photograph, sitting on the floor. He’d forgotten that was there too. He picked it up. Ruth, radiant, captured laughing and exasperated by Mannie’s patience. He studied the photograph for quite a while before slipping it into his wallet. There were some ties with the past that would never be severed, he thought.

  Lucky stood and slid the drawer back into the lowboy. He’d shower and then join the others. He’d have to borrow some money to see himself through till next payday. The thief had cleaned him out – the bastard.

  ‘You’re a bastard, Al, that’s what you are. A low, thieving bastard.’

  Al cowered against the dresser in the corner, eyes darting towards the French windows that led to the balcony, but dismissing escape as an option. It was dark outside and even if he made it onto the balcony he’d probably break a leg jumping to the street one floor below.

  The shock of his hotel door being kicked open and the appearance of the enraged Irishman had terrified Al, and his mind was racing. What the hell was Jack Finnigan doing in town? He was supposed to be in Spring Hill. How had the Irishman known where to find him? How did he even know his name? The men at camp must have told him, but why would Jack leave his game in full swing? Why would a few hundred quid nicked from a punter be of any importance to Flash Jack Finnigan?

  Shit, Al thought, if only he’d left town earlier. But Friday was a top night for local trade, and he’d sent the girls off to do the rounds of the barracks at Cooma East. He’d been so sure he was safe. Nobody co
uld prove he’d nicked bung eye’s money, and even if they suspected him, the workers from Spring Hill didn’t come into town until Saturday. He’d intended to be well away by dawn. Shit, shit, shit, he thought, if only he’d left earlier.

  He tried to dredge up an air of nonchalance. The one option open to him was to bluff it out, and he relinquished his hold on the dresser, squaring his shoulders and running a casual hand through his hair.

  ‘That was quite an entrance, Jack. You gave me a fright, I have to admit.’ He painted a smile on his face, but his pulse was racing – there was murder in the Irishman’s eyes. ‘I don’t believe we’ve actually met, although of course I know who you are. Everyone knows Flash Jack Finnigan.’ The ingratiating laugh came out more of a strangled giggle. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. The name’s Alain.’ He offered his hand. ‘Alain Duval.’ And he stepped forward straight into Jack’s fist.

  Jesus, what had happened? He was flat on his back, a ringing in his ears, one front tooth missing, several others loosened, and he was looking up at the powerful thighs of Flash Jack Finnigan standing over him.

  ‘Save your smarmy shite, you low thieving bastard, just give me the money.’

  Al sat up and scuffled on his backside into the corner by the dresser, blood dripping from his chin.

  ‘What money, Jack? I don’t know what you’re talking about, I swear it …’