Bright Side of my Condition ePub

by Randall, Charlotte

  ‘Oh, yer will be,’ Toper say with relief. ‘I only associate with the very worst.’

  It take a long while, we got our rock quotas to break and leisure aint at the top of Fovo’s mind, but whenever the four of us get a chance to plan what happen when we get to Sydney town, the where and how of it start a argument that go on and on. In short there were land or sea, but at length there were many directions and many ways of travelling. Slangam know the countryside best and were able to relate a lot of stories concerning thirsts and deserts and dingos, and all the stories end in meatless skeletons stretched out under a bleaching sun. He say whenever a bolter bring himself in desperateness back to the cove, he look like a revenant, he look like he leave his flesh and liquids behind him.

  But Toper have a different story to tell about a river in the north, very large and a long way away, which have the far reaches of China on the other side of it, and he say this part of China is jes like Japon with tea and sages and willows, but also without the samurai on the beaches, so Chinkee maidens and opium’s available to all. He tell of many Chinese Travellers, that’s what the guards call them, that nearly make it to the river before they get recaptured, and if only yer can find some water and a bush turkey and don’t let the blinding sun beat upon yer brains, there aint no need to lose yer wits and fail. He say he can even get a compass, but when he bring us the promised object it turn out a circle on a piece of bark, and even though it do have the cardinal points it lack the essential needle.

  ‘How fucken Irish,’ Gargantua boom and the rest of us jump, perhaps we were thinking we’re all in this together, all equal, but now there’s a Irish amongst us.

  ‘Where yer think we should go then?’ Toper ask blushing crimson.

  ‘The way we come of course. Across the sea.’

  Escape across the sea give me a fright, the one trip I already done were enough for a whole lifetime.

  ‘Yer won’t be in the hold,’ Fatty scorn when I speak out my fears. ‘Yer won’t be a transport.’

  ‘And it won’t be so far,’ Slangam add.

  ‘Won’t it? Where wud we be going?’

  ‘Where the boat’s going, fathead.’

  ‘And where’s that?’

  ‘Fovo Strait,’ Slangam pronounce.

  ‘Fovo?’ Toper exclaim. ‘They named a strait after Fovo?’

  ‘Where’s this Fovo Strait?’ I ask. ‘Aint it too close to the Major?’

  ‘Still in New South Wales,’ say Slangam. ‘But across a fierce sea south of Van Diemen’s. It aint a place Fovo’s likely to go. The sealers is always going down there. We have to look for a sealer ship.’

  ‘No sealer ship’s gonna come in here,’ Toper object.

  ‘That’s right,’ Slangam agree. ‘So we still have to get to Sydney Cove first.’

  Sadly there aint no arguing against this fact. Sealers don’t pay social calls to the most nasty jail on Earth. We start to talk about a crime that get our Irish whipped and deported.

  ‘Me?’ he blink.

  ‘Yair, that’s what yer here for. Dint yer boss tell yer? And we get sent as yer accomplices. Yer jes have to shout out our names when Mincemeat flog yer.’

  To me the whole plan seem pretty stupid. Even if Toper survive the lash and the Water Pit, how do we escape our leg irons and the gibbet? We get to Sydney town jes to dance on air.

  ‘Well, we worry about that when we get there,’ Slangam say when I tell them what I think. ‘First we have to escape Norfolk.’

  ‘I don’t want no whipping from Mincemeat,’ Toper say timid.

  This seem pretty reasonable to me.

  ‘Maybe we can jes escape on one of them supply ships that come in?’ he ask hopeful.

  Me and Fatty gape at him. We peg him as the cretin, now he come up with the bleeding obvious.

  He carry on bolder, ‘Yair, then the gibbet don’t wait at the end. We can hide out and wait for the sealer.’

  Slangam frown deep. ‘I already think of that plan. But it’s a lot more hard to sneak onto a ship than get chained on one. We wud have to swim.’

  ‘Swim?’ A big horror boil over me.

  ‘Yair. What do yer think? They aint gonna send a rowboat out to fetch us.’

  ‘I can’t swim.’

  ‘Me neither,’ chime in Toper and Gargantua.

  That begin our swimming lessons. Slangam teach us in the dry air. At night we lie on the floor and kick our legs and wave our arms while he walk about in his boots and kick us for excess merriment. It do seem a lot of fun until a precious free hour come and he take us down to the beach. Now we have to do the kicking and waving in the booming sea water. Slangam arm himself with a long stick to poke us in the shallows, but as soon as we’re off our feet the sucking suck us out and the rollers roll us in. Round and round we go till fear grip us and we strike out with arms and legs all which way, and like many a time before and after, sheer fear teach us what ample instruction never do. We come in dripping and coughing onto the shore and lie heaving out our salty guts on the sand. Slangam beam like he done a circus trick.

  Maybe I wud of got better at swimming if ever I had another practice, but some escape plot, not ours, were uncovered and we find ourselves in leg irons for one of Fovo’s group punishings. So no practice come between our first swim and the day when our lookout, a very thin boy we pay with pork, run to us and say he seen a ship coming in. Soon as we can we sneak to the beach.

  It turn out the ship’s bringing criminals to Norfolk and taking back criminals to be tried, as well as flax for the whore weavers at Parramatta, and some comestibles is going both ways, but with all the commotion and the toing and froing with goods and crooks and fresh quinny for the marines, a rowboat find itself empty upon the shore. In the blink of a eye the four of us is in it and rowing like devils out to the anchored ship. It were a big risk and all of us expect to meet a musket soon as we get up on the deck.

  But them Fates have a different plan for the four of us. Aint those hags already got a southern isle in mind, and don’t the vision cause them to twitch and wink, they hardly able to contain their selves that us poor fools think we’re getting a big piece of luck, and it turn out every marine that aint a horizontal drunk is gone whoring on the land. We slip into the empty holds that are lying open to receive the criminals and press ourselves into the darkest corners. Nothing happen till morning, when suddenly our comrades is being forced in at the end of muskets. They don’t get a surprise to see us because no one seem to know who’s meant to be there and who aint. On the journey we even get some food, it were slopped out in our borrow bowls by a marine that have a hangover so big he don’t care who get gave what.

  At the end of our voyage, Fatty say he have a plan and jes foller his lead. That were a big worry, but no other plan come in our heads. We shuffle off the ship with them poor sods in leg irons and soon we stand in front of a guard. Fatty look him straight in the eye. The guard curl his lip and eye him back.

  ‘Look at my feet,’ Gargantua say haughty. ‘I aint got no irons on.’

  The guard drop his eyes and they pop at what he see.

  Then Gargantua give his proper name and the guard scan his list. Soon he look up perplexed.

  ‘That’s right,’ Gargantua declare loud. ‘My sentence is done and I been freed. But of course no one think to write it down. It’s the same for my three friends here.’ He introduce the three of us by name, the guard check the list and his perplex grow monstrous. He huff and puff then rush off to his superiors.

  When the superior is standing before us with the privilege of condemning, Gargantua say smooth, ‘Yer have a note for every transport except us, and the crime he’s to be tried for. No doubt that paperwork were prepared before the party began.’

  ‘Party?’ scowl the superior.

  ‘When the marines and officers come ashore.’

  ‘Major Fovo held a party?’

  ‘Yair, of sorts.’

  ‘Make yerself plain, man, I aint got all day.’


  ‘Why do Major Fovo and his officers not write everything down? Why do they not check their lists? Because they were too busy copulating the lady transports. That’s right. And why do the marines not check us and remedy the error? Because they were copulating too, and drunk as bitches to boot.’

  The superior turn bright red and don’t know how to comport himself. He order some guards to take us to a lock-up, but it aint part of the jail proper and it give us the message that we jes become a very special problem.

  From there on we were forgotten. We never find out what it were that divert the course of justice, but no meal come and no water, and then the dark come and the cold.

  ‘Let’s go,’ say Slangam.

  ‘Eh?’ The rest of us blink like newborns.

  ‘This aint the jail. Yer think it wud have proper strengthening? I don’t. And I don’t think it’s got a guard outside neither.’

  ‘Maybe they hope their problems jes run away,’ say I.

  ‘I wud,’ say Gargantua. ‘Who wud want a magistrate to hear that us four get free while Fovo were fucking a lady transport?’

  Slangam throw himself at the door, one time, two times, and it give way in a big cascade of splinters. We step outside under the full moon and the bright stars. Then Slangam lead the way, he go half running half creeping through the dark and into the thin bush, and even if the night silence were cut by the barks of a thousand mad dogs, no one stir. Maybe them Fates pour a sleeping potion upon the whole world, they drug everyone to a stupor, they have their plan for us and they aint ever gonna let go of it.

  The sun come up, the settlement come to life, and we watch the morning activity from a distance. There aint none of that running about that declare some convicts go missing, there aint no assembling of musketeers and frothing at the mouth. No, it seem like if the soldiers brung us our breakfasts and find us gone they jes have some nigger tobacca and say, yair, thank God they gone off to China, it aint a problem for us no more, them felons soon come crawling back or a dingo will eat out their brains.

  ‘We need to find a lad that can look out for a ship,’ Slangam decide.

  ‘Oh yair,’ scorn Fatty. ‘We jes go up to some stray bastard and ask about sailings and he don’t run screaming to his Mama …’

  Slangam cuff him and say, ‘We make it worth his while. Aint the convict women at Parramatta hungry as us at Norfolk? And if the woman is hungry, aint the bastards hungry too? If he aint the kind of urchin what can see his own advantage, we cut his throat.’

  Now this alarm me. I’m a lazy cheat and a stealer, but I aint no child murderer. Every man got a line he don’t cross. ‘Look here, yer think this town and them sluts is raising brats that run and tell? I don’t.’

  ‘I don’t neither,’ Toper agree.

  ‘Alright,’ Fatty sniff. ‘What we going to offer this young paragon?’

  ‘I aint got nothing,’ gloom Toper.

  ‘Me neither,’ say I.

  ‘Meat,’ Slangam say bright.

  Meat don’t seem like a good idea. What boy want to carry a bleeding haunch to his Mama? If it were a warm loaf he can have a bite on the way, if a cake he can pick out the peel or raisins, not that we got either of them things here.

  ‘I cud steal something a boy really like,’ I offer.

  They all look at me.

  ‘Yair,’ say I, and feel like I swell in size. ‘A boy wud surely like some paper money that he can hide from his Mama and not a piece of dripping meat. That’s the charm of money, it stand for everything yer want.’

  Slangam grunt and look irritated.

  ‘I dunno,’ Fatty say after a think, ‘maybe yer get us all catched and sent back to Norfolk.’

  ‘I’m a better thief than that.’

  ‘Is that right? Is that how yer end up the guest of His Majesty?’

  I cud of said, well, I’m about as good at thieving as you are at Art, but I dint know then how Fatty see himself. Slangam ask if anyone got a better idea and when there’s silence everyone agree it’s best for me to steal some paper coin. When we find a boy we can hide ourselves proper and not have to look down on the doings of the cove or keep a lookout for a ship.

  Now I wait for the cover of night, the cover that come down on all that military rectitude in Sydney town and turn it to squalor. I do admit to anxiousness. I were a good thief it’s true, but not at any time did I thieve from a place that were pertected by a garrison.

  I sneak off in the pitch black. At every moment I expect a bayonet thrust in my buttocks to stay my progress, but a angel pertect me. This angel hover over me to make sure everything run smooth as silk, not because she think I were owed silk but so everyone get the chance to meet their devils. Yair, it’s hard to believe there’s a angel that oversee such workings, but how else do each man get what he deserve? Do anyone really believe God sit up in Heaven tweaking five hundred million stories so they dovetail at the exact right spots? Nah, He send off his army of angels to do the work.

  So off I go to the Parramatta Palace, which is where the gin whores live, and where the felons that come to woo them sleep off their own intoxification. Yair, I say woo because it aint true that every man is jes there for a stray fuck, some men that get plenty of drunk and dismal quinny is looking for a bit of warmness and continuance. I don’t like to steal from no convict that work twelve hours a day in a road gang and saved up his pilfered coin over many months, but lucky for me there’s also plenty of soldiers that love to get their breeches down.

  Soon as I arrive I take a few tankards myself, I aint sure at this particular time that my life’s got very far to go, maybe one of them crones were already getting her scissors out. Then I find a soldier that’s out cold on top of his female purchase. He still have his breeches around his crocadilly boots and his spotty arse sticking up in the open air, he don’t even feel me fiddling in the coat he dint lower his self to take off, and I loose him of enough paper coin to bribe a whole plague of bastards.

  ‘That were easy,’ think I as I start to creep off.

  ‘I seen what yer done,’ a voice come at me out of the dark. Then the voice come forward and I see it were in the throat of the most beautiful girl. She wear tatters, but the perfection of one of God’s chosen creatures glow all over her. She aint real, think I, she’s the pertecting angel. But then a light come, from what source I know not, and her skin shrivel with a pox and her long golden hair crawl.

  I shudder and bolt.

  ‘It were the most horrible thing,’ say I as I pass round my notes to be admired. ‘A angel watch me, and when she talk to me she turn into a hag right before my very eyes.’

  ‘Yair, say Slangam, ‘that exact thing happen to me with jes about every woman I ever met.’

  It were a long way to Parramatta and back, and I only get a short sleep before dawn come in. All my dreams were of food, roasted fowls and egg custards, beef pies and stewfruits. I can’t believe my eyes when I wake up to a empty bowl – no, not even a bowl, jes cupped hands with a bit of sour water and some soaked grasses that Toper swear by the nourishment of. We look like sheeps as we sit there chewing.

  After breakfast we draw straws, actually some dry Australia grass, concerning who have to take the risk to find the boy. Lucky it aint me. Slangam win the straw and go off to search.

  ‘What we gonna do if Slangam get catched?’ Toper ask soon as Slangam sneak off.

  ‘We aint gonna rescue him,’ Fatty say quick.

  ‘Jes wait till it happen,’ say I. ‘No need to sweat over what don’t happen.’

  But Toper aint that kind of man. He’s a born sweater. What if this, what if that, never mind some of them things contradict each other and it aint even possible for both to happen. He’s the exact man who worry himself sick over growing old and dying young.

  I sleep all through the hot morning. Every time I wake up to turn over I see Toper squinting his eyes into the distance and wringing his hands. Fatty sit and recite poems. It do seem queer to me, because at that time I dint know t
hat’s what they were and I think he do some strange kind of praying. When the sun get high in the sky and my stomick say it’s time for dinner, Slangam return. We crowd in to listen about his doings.

  ‘I seen a boy playing with a boomerang,’ he begin.

  ‘Were he a savage?’ I ask.

  ‘No. One of them little Irish bastards.’

  Toper flinch.

  ‘I creep out on him and he don’t turn a hair, jes tell me he’s practising to throw that useless thing, he’s gonna catch a kangaroo with it. I tell him he have a better chance with a musket, long as he get his beast between the eyes and don’t blow the steaks to bits. He say yair but I aint got no musket. Whereupon I show him the paper coin and say maybe he can buy a musket if he do me a special favour. He say nah, he don’t suck no convict willy, he himself don’t mind but his Mama tell him he go straight to Hell. Don’t want it sucked, say I, jes want yer to watch for a sealer ship. When one come in the cove yer have to run to us and tell us of it. He say alright and I give him the coin.’

  ‘And now he collect another reward from the guards for telling them where we hide,’ Fatty say.

  ‘I warn him we aint men that put up with that kind of thing.’

  ‘He must of been a real Irish then if he think we still around to scalp him after the guards get hold of us.’

  ‘Well, it’s too fucken late now. Anyway, dint we agree we aint got a choice?’

  Slangam sit down a distance off and take a knife to his long grimy fingernails. There aint no point asking where he get that knife and why he don’t get one for each of us. He sure look like he aint in the mood for more talk.

  When Slangam finish his nails we go further into the bush. This occasion a argument about how the boy find us, but Slangam say he already talk to the boy about this, we jes have to go to the right spot.

  As I said, there were some sour water, it were in a pond not far away, but there were nothing that look like food and none of us fancied another meal of dry grass. After a day or two a big hunger come upon us. We slaver and talk a lot about the bush turkeys, how we can find and catch one. But it turn out we don’t need to. On the third afternoon we were jes sitting there when some black fellas come out of the undergrowth. They were all hung about with bones and feathers and get such a fright to see us they drop one of them big bustard birds as they hasten off.