Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘How many?’ he asks.

  ‘Three,’ the dark lad calls.

  ‘You okay, son?’

  ‘Yeah, lucky punch.’ He’s too proud to admit he was hit fair dinkum. They box on but now Jimmy Black is simply trying to stay out of Bozo’s way.

  With about twenty seconds to go, Bozo has his opponent on the corner ropes. The Aboriginal lad drops both his hands to cover up another left hook he thinks is coming, but it’s a feint, Bozo steps in and hits him with a short right that catches Black on the point of the chin. The punch doesn’t travel more than ten inches but it’s got Bozo’s whole body behind it and Jimmy Black tries to grab the ropes but his arms never get there and he bounces off the ropes and hits the canvas, bum first, with a thump and then falls backwards, his head bouncing against the bottom rope of the ring before hitting the deck.

  It’s not the first knock-out of Bozo’s career, but it’s his most convincing, the referee counts Jimmy Black out without him getting back onto his feet.

  ‘Jesus!’ Kevin Flanagan exclaims. ‘Jesus Christ, if I hadn’t seen it for myself I’d never have believed it! What’s a fourteen-year-old doing with that kind of punching power in his right hand!’

  ‘Comes from lifting garbage cans,’ Big Jack says, laughing. He can’t believe what happened.

  The next morning Kevin Flanagan pays a visit to his sister up top. Without realising what a small country town is like, he talks to an orderly who happened to have been at the fight the previous night. Flanagan, wanting to do the right thing by a local boy, praises Bozo’s win to the hilt and mentions that he is the best youngster he’s seen in a while and is almost good enough to go against Rod Barnes the Australian featherweight amateur champion and Olympic triallist. Before you can say ‘Jack Robinson!’, the Owens & Murray Gazette is onto the story.

  BOZO MALONEY

  LOCAL BOY TO FIGHT

  OLYMPIC PROSPECT!

  The piece goes on to question whether Bozo will be chosen to fight in the Olympics if he beats Rod Barnes. Big Jack Donovan is astonished and pays a visit to Toby Forbes and tells him he ought to arrest him for criminal neglect of truth in journalism and demands a retraction, explaining that Bozo isn’t old enough to be considered for the Olympics and that the Amateur Boxing Union would never allow such a fight to take place.

  ‘After Friday night, a lot of people would like to see it happen,’Toby Forbes counters. ‘Who is young Maloney going to fight then? He’s beaten everyone else in his age group. Knocked out a welterweight last Friday.’

  ‘Dunno,’ says Big Jack, ‘we’ll just have to wait and see.’ That night he puts a call through to Kevin Flanagan.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  You know how us Maloneys never seem to do things the easy way? I mean, we take the spoon out of the sink and all that, but then the tap handle falls off or something. You take Sarah’s baby for instance, safe and sound inside her tummy for nine months. Except, of course, for when she took the stuff Mrs Rika Ray gave her, but in the end that didn’t do her any harm and turned out good. Nancy says she’s had a dead-easy pregnancy inside her and a rotten one outside. As for the birth arrangements, the Carlton terrace isn’t more than a few minutes by car from the Women’s Hospital in Grattan Street and everything has been done to make sure nothing goes wrong.

  Morrie has earned enough to put new tyres on the Austin 7 so it’s now safe to drive in Melbourne. Bozo’s been down on the train to tune the old bomb and it’s in the best possible working order, oil changed, every grease nipple examined and greased, spark plugs checked, carburettor and petrol pump cleaned, radiator hose inspected for leaks. Morrie runs the engine every morning for five minutes to make sure it will start when the time comes.

  Everything’s perfect for a quick, trouble-free getaway. If Sarah’s labour pains start when Morrie’s at work, then Sophie simply has to go to the telephone box on the corner and phone him. With all that has gone on over the past few weeks from the brouhaha at the university, everyone at the Age knows about Sarah’s pregnancy and she’s now become like their own daughter. They’ve even got a newspaper delivery van on standby in one of the loading bays (Management think it’s got a cracked crankshaft) so Morrie can be taken home the moment he gets Sophie’s phone call. What’s more, if the Austin 7 doesn’t start, then the newspaper van’s the back-up. They’ve even got four sixpences in an envelope drawing-pinned to the inside of the front door to use on the corner telephone.

  Then there’s the Italian family next door, Maria and her husband Costa are ready to do anything in an emergency. If the Queen was going to have a baby, there couldn’t be much more back-up. Operation Sarah is on maximum alert.

  In the last weeks of her pregnancy Morrie and Sarah drive to university in the Austin 7, so if the labour pains start during a lecture he can get her home to collect her things or if it’s an emergency take her straight to the hospital, which is within walking distance. So you can see all the spoons are polished and put safely in the kitchen drawer, there isn’t a one of them anywhere near the sink.

  Meanwhile, Sarah is proving to be very popular with the male students. She’s playing it smart because even though she knows the answers to most of the questions, she always lets a bloke go first and only answers if the lecturer or professor asks her directly. At first some of the professors pick on her because after all the publicity she’s not exactly flavour of the month. For instance, when a real hard question comes up for discussion they direct it at Sarah. But they soon find out it isn’t the best ploy because she usually knows the answer. They don’t much like this, but they learn to respect her. The young med students soon become protective of Sarah and also, funny enough, of Morrie, whom they call ‘Professor Fizz’. The baby is accepted as part of the faculty and there is a great deal of discussion about the sex and one of the more enterprising students is running a book with half the takings going to buying needed baby things when it’s born.

  Morrie is always willing to help anyone with an explanation of things medical. Even in his crook English, Sarah says he is a wonderful teacher who can make complex things simple to understand. Morrie really loves being a student and gets high distinctions for every paper because the lecturers can’t mark him down, even if they wanted to as he can argue back and then they have to prove him wrong.

  Sarah’s nine months has come and no baby. Everyone’s on tenterhooks. It’s nine months and one week, May 21, and Nancy’s that worried she’s driving the Diamond T into things on the garbage run. Mrs Rika Ray, unable to stand the pressure any longer, arrives at the front door of the Carlton terrace pushing an old rusty pram she’s found somewhere.

  In the pram are blankets and a pillow and one of those thin mattresses rolled up, so the load is bigger than the pram and is tied down with string. It turns out later that under the blankets and pillow is a spare frock and some women’s things. She also brings two towels as well as jars of herbs and bunches of fresh herbs and a big bag of vegies from her garden, all her bits and pieces. One of the pram wheels is wobbling like mad and it looks like Mrs Rika Ray’s just made it from Spencer Street station before it falls off.

  From her hut at Silver Creek to Wangaratta is about thirty-five miles and she’s taken two days to walk to the railway station at Wang, camping out in the bush for the first night and sitting all the next night on the train platform so she can catch the 9.31 a.m. train to Spencer Street Station. I don’t know how she got onto the train with the pram but there she is, large as life, standing at the front door.

  Sarah opens the door. She and Morrie have been to a morning lecture and have the afternoon off. Sarah’s having a bit of a rest because her back is hurting when she hears the knock at the door. Morrie’s out somewhere and Sophie won’t answer the door on her own. Sarah drags herself up wearily, she’s just been drifting off. It’s just a few minutes to two o’clock on the old Wesclock that rests on the fruit crate beside her army cot. She g
oes to the door with her hand planted firmly in the small of her back, not too happy, to find Mrs Rika Ray standing at the door. ‘Mrs Rika Ray!’ Sarah exclaims, surprised.

  The old lady looks at her. ‘One pound, seventeen shillings and sixpence. In India we are going to Calcutta to Lahore, one thousand miles, same price, three days in train!’ Her hand shoots out and feels Sarah’s tummy under her nightdress, her head to one side like she’s listening for something. ‘Thank God, not yet it is sliding out.’

  Sarah looks surprised, it must be fairly obvious to anyone that her baby hasn’t arrived, her tummy’s sticking out halfway to the front gate.

  ‘I am looking at your stars and I must be here by your side for the baby coming. It is Indian thing, Indian stars, not like Australian stars with shitty Southern Cross. Indian stars when they are telling me they are never wrong! I must obey or all the hell and the high water it breaks loose and I am responsible. The gods have spoken and Vishnu Himself is pointing holy finger at me. I am telling myself, “Mrs Rika Ray, don’t delay, take blankets and get going, woman.” So that is why I am coming to help Sarah for the sliding out and the cutting off and the tying the bellybutton perfect like a little rosebud.’

  ‘But, Mrs Rika Ray, it’s all arranged, I’m to go to the hospital, it’s only five minutes away.’

  ‘No, no, no, my dear, that is what you are saying and Morrie is saying and all arrangements are saying, but not the stars, they are not saying this. No, no, no, Indian stars saying, “Mrs Rika Ray, you must stay, sleep by Sarah’s bed, waters are breaking and nobody there!”’ She points to the pram standing in the pathway behind her. ‘Look, my dear, I am bringing self-sufficiency and we are making a tonic also and fresh herbs for when labour pain are coming.’

  Sophie comes down the hallway, she’s heard friendly voices so she wants to know what all the fuss is about. When she sees Mrs Rika Ray, she’s delighted. The two of them have got on like a house on fire ever since Mrs Rika Ray cured a bunch of nasty warts on her fingers and on the back of her right hand by rubbing them with a piece of raw steak and then burying the meat under a rock in the backyard when it was full moon. Honest, I do not tell a lie, that’s what she’s done and the warts, which Morrie had been trying to cure for years, disappeared in a week, never to return again.

  I’ve got to say, Morrie was more than a little bit miffed, but Sophie said he’d had his chance and she’d had hers and Mrs Rika Ray had won. So, no point him being angry that God works in mysterious ways. I’m not sure that’s how she put it exactly, that’s what Nancy claimed she said, but it was all in Polish and Morrie looked pretty cross and shook his head and said, ‘Znachor!’ Which, when I asked him later, he said was the word for ‘witch’ in Polish, only it was worse than a witch and he didn’t yet have enough English to explain.

  ‘Witchdoctor?’ I suggested.

  But he didn’t seem to like that one bit. ‘That one, she is not a doctor! How can she be a doctor? A witch is not a doctor, Znachor, it is word for witch medicine!’ But, all in all, Morrie quite likes Mrs Rika Ray and says there’s maybe a place in medicine for herbs but not for pieces of meat under rocks.

  I don’t think he was too happy when he comes in to find Mrs Rika Ray has arrived, but by this time the three women are in the kitchen yakking and having breakfast and Mrs Rika Ray’s already got some sort of herbal concoction bubbling away on the gas stove.

  Nine months, and the second week overdue is almost over and things are getting pretty tight, although Nancy says predicting a baby’s arrival can be two weeks out, but not much more. Sarah calls Nancy every evening. They’ve got this arrangement, Sarah gets to the corner telephone booth at six-thirty sharp every night and Nancy phones her on the number of the corner telephone booth. They know that Dotty Ryan is on duty at the Yankalillee telephone exchange and that she’s bound to listen in, but that’s sort of okay, she’s on our side and so won’t spread any malicious rumours. Nevertheless, compliments of Dotty, on a daily basis, the whole of Yankalillee knows the state of play with Sarah’s baby.

  They’ve even got a book going at the Shamrock, five bob in, nearest on the day and the hour of birth plus the right sex takes all, the winner to drink out the total pot, except for a fifteen per cent fee to Mickey O’Hearn the publican, who is acting as the bookmaker. The word’s got around town and blokes who drink at some of the other pubs are dropping into the Shamrock to place a bet and have a beer and Mick’s doing a roaring trade.

  Of course, nobody has expected Sarah’s baby to be late. Men think when you say a date that’s when it’s going to happen and so most of them have kissed their dosh goodbye. Now they’re all having a second go and the pot is getting really huge.

  Tommy’s back from the bush and on the wagon again, but he reckons if he wins it he’ll be obliged to do his duty and stay drunk for three months. When he says this, Nancy sniffs, ‘Just make sure you’re sober by the time the christening comes around, I don’t want Father Crosby having another go at me, bad enough no father, but no grandfather as well! Crikey, the sanctimonious old bugger will be putting me down for extra time in purgatory!’

  Anyway, Nancy makes her daily phone call to Sarah and during their conversation Sarah, without thinking, mentions Mrs Rika Ray has arrived on the scene. Well, does Nancy ever go spare! It’s not that she doesn’t like Mrs Rika Ray. Ever since the ‘bottoms-wiping certificate’ episode she’s quite admired her, though she’s still a bit crook over the abortion attempt, even if a lot of good came out of it in the end.

  Deep down, well, maybe not so deep down, Nancy’s still a good Catholic. Collapsed or not, she still believes that getting rid of a baby is the worst sin out. Once when it came up and Sarah pointed out that it was her who approached Mrs Rika Ray in the first place and that it was Mrs Rika Ray who told her she didn’t think it would work and didn’t want to do it, Nancy said that didn’t change nothing.

  ‘Mum, don’t you see?’ Sarah says, ‘I begged her! I went down on bended knees! It was my fault, my responsibility, she didn’t charge us a penny, so it isn’t like she’s an abortionist or anything like that.’

  ‘Don’t you say that wicked word in front of me, my girl!’ Nancy snaps. ‘What if you’d gone sooner? What then, hey? You’d have blood on your hands and you’d have committed a mortal sin and would have burned in hell everlasting with the angels holding your precious dead baby up for you to see when you looked up from the flames and appealed to heaven for God’s mercy!’ I think she must have got that last bit from the nuns when they taught her at school.

  Back to the telephone call. ‘What’s she bloody doing there?’Nancy asks Sarah on the phone, cranky as all get-out.

  Sarah realises too late that she’s said the wrong thing. She doesn’t tell Nancy about the Indian stars or the pram or the concoction she’s taking every day. ‘Mum, she’s just visiting for a few days!’

  ‘Visiting my arse! She’s interfering. What’s she know about having babies? Has she ever had a baby? I’ve had the five of yiz brats and I’m stuck back here with the garbage with my very own daughter about to give birth and me nowhere to be seen and she’s there getting under everyone’s feet!’

  ‘Mum, it’s not like that at all!’

  ‘What do you mean she’s on a visit? For heaven’s sake, you don’t go on holiday to someone’s place when they’re about to have a baby. She’s up to something, I’m tellin’ you, girl! She’s up to no good, that one, her with her herbs and magic potions. Don’t you take nothing she gives you, you hear, Sarah? Nothing! Them herbs nearly killed you last time. You tell Morrie to call me, he’s the man in the house, he’s got to send her on her bicycle!’

  Sarah doesn’t tell her it isn’t a bicycle, it’s a pram. ‘Mum, Sophie’s got a whole lot of piecework from this frock factory in Flinders Lane and she’s happy to have Mrs Rika Ray help out, she can use a sewing machine real well and she cooks and cleans and even bakes.’

/>   ‘Cooks? What sort of food? That curry stuff Indians eat, and rice? Don’t you go eating nothing she cooks.’

  ‘Mum, it’s just Australian food with some nice things, you know, flavours added.’

  ‘What do you mean flavours added? Poison most likely! Your baby needs plain food, meat and potatoes and maybe a bit of pumpkin and peas. Think about your baby, you don’t want them herbs coming through your breast milk!’

  ‘Mum, it’s nothing like that. I haven’t even got any breast milk yet, I only start to lactate a couple of days after the birth.’

  ‘Don’t you start telling me about babies and breast milk, my girl! You just keep squeezing those breasts of yours, keep them nice and supple, rub your nipples, with that stuff, what’s it called? Lanolin. You don’t know how lucky you are, in my day we had to rub them with sheep’s fat. You’ve got to stop the nipples cracking. I’ve had five, the four of you and little Colleen. I should bloody know. Nothing wrong with you lot, sucked me dry the every one of yiz, surprised you left anything for little Colleen. Don’t think you know everything just because you’re gunna be a doctor. I never had a cracked nipple, not even once.’

  ‘Mum, I’m not trying to tell you anything. We’re fine, honest. Everyone’s fine, really! You don’t have to worry about Mrs Rika Ray, Sophie’s glad to have her and she’s not going to do anything bad. Morrie’s got it all worked out, we’re five minutes from the Women’s, Bozo’s fixed the Austin up a treat, we’ve got back-up with Maria and Costa, the Italians next door, if it’s needed and the van from Morrie’s work if the Austin 7 won’t start. The Women’s is supposed to be the best maternity hospital in the southern hemisphere, nothing’s going to go wrong.’ ‘So, where’s she sleeping then?’