The Torch

by Peter Twohig

  ‘G’day, Reverend Mother,’ said Granddad, not just doffing his brown fedora but removing it altogether. ‘Are they your lovely roses over at the convent gate?’

  ‘They are indeed. Are you a rose lover yourself?’

  ‘Well, Mother Sylvester’ — one of Granddad’s two rules of conversation: use their name — ‘my dear departed wife, Mrs Taggerty, was, may she rest in peace, and Our Blessed Lord has left me with the pleasant duty of tending them.’ That was Granddad’s other rule: mention something you have in common.

  ‘Mr Taggerty, I was just about to have some tea and biscuits. Would you care to join me? Taggerty — you wouldn’t happen to be Archie Taggerty the boxer, would you?’

  ‘I would. Do you come from a sporting family yourself, Mother?’

  ‘I do indeed. My late mother was the Thornbury Housey Champion five years running — not that she approved of gambling, mind you — and both my brothers played for Collingwood.’

  ‘What a team from Heaven, Mother. They should have named them the Angels.’

  And so on, till you felt like throwing up on something white and lacy.

  By the time they got around to Tom and me, who were left standing there like two stale bottles of beer, it was all over bar the changing hands of money, to cover the cost of the convent’s mangle (which, I have to tell you, was not as sturdy as it looked).

  Granddad might have been a bit of a chicken when it came to women, but it didn’t matter much, because he had more charm than Errol Flynn and David Niven put together.

  I was always welcome at Aunty Queenie’s, and had even created an escape plan that ended up at her house, in case one of my adventures went horribly wrong, which did tend to happen. I had not had to use this plan, though I had come within a whisker of it last year, when I was being chased by a very angry bloke (I gave him the slip, as Larry Kent would have done). But the last time I had seen Aunty Queenie, she had been very worried about me, and had told me to come to her if things ever got really crook.

  That settled it. I was off to South Melbourne. And besides, the longer I hung around here, the more hot water I would get into.

  Mr Sanderson was still looking at me: it was one of those looks. But he knew that even if he gave me the Chinese Water Torture to get information about Flame Boy, it would just be a waste of water. Finally, he slapped his thigh.

  ‘Who’s for a walk in the park? Lottie?’

  I almost fell over — I had never heard Mrs S’s first name before, but I could see they hadn’t thought of that. Now I had the complete set: Russell and Lottie.

  ‘Count me out,’ I said. ‘I’m off to check the traps.’ I had no idea what that meant, but it was something I’d heard Rex say when he came visiting from the other side of the black stump, and it sounded cool.

  ‘Your loss,’ said Mr S, as they went in to get their hats.

  I waited until the Sandersons had gone for their walk in the park across the road, then got on the blower.

  15 Noddy goes to town

  ‘Hello, Queenie Brennan speaking.’

  ‘H’llo, Aunty Queenie. If Granddad’s there, don’t give me away.’

  ‘Oh hello, love. Don’t worry, he’s not here. Just getting on with me knitting. What can I do for you?’

  ‘You know how you told me I could always come over and see you?’

  ‘Ye-e-s. What have you done now?’

  ‘Not much, just the usual. It’s just that … um —’

  ‘Yes, I heard: lost your house and were forced to live out in the cold, cold snow.’

  Sounded like Aunty Queenie had been having the odd snifter of Gilbey’s, which was her poison.

  ‘Um, something like that. Anyway, I just wanted to visit for a little while, to get your advice ’n’ stuff.’

  ‘Oh God, if only I had a quid for every bloke who’s told me that. Wait a minute — I have!’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Oh nothing. Come over, love. I could do with a bit of cheering up meself. I don’t suppose this visit has anything to do with two Johnnies who just came making enquiries at my fabulous residence?’

  I swallowed, as my mouth had suddenly gone dry, and probably yellow inside. How could the police be one jump ahead of me? Was I that notorious? It was that bloody helmet! God had probably nodded off for a while, then woken up and spotted the absence of the helmet on top of the fire engine. After all, being up high, he would have a bird’s-eye view of these things.

  ‘No. Just a visit.’

  ‘Then come on over!’

  So, after first stashing the helmet in a place no one would go in a month of Sundays — the old stable down the back — I grabbed a tram to the city.

  Aunty Queenie had a mansion in Dorcas Street, my favourite street, as it was also the home of HSV7, the best television channel in Melbourne. Her house was full of amazing stuff: huge rugs from India, pot plants from all over the place, all of them bigger than me, and pictures of strange things – ladies wearing nighties, soldiers with huge moustaches, and kids looking like angels without wings and halos (the kind of kids who wouldn’t last five minutes in my neighbourhood unless their big brothers were bodgies). Apart from having everything that opens and shuts, or switches off and on, a bit like Mrs Morgan’s place, it had three storeys, which made it the tallest house in the street. Half the things inside the house were red, like Charlie Wing’s casino, and the other half were made of wood, which reminded me of the inside of a castle, or the State Theatre in town.

  The house also had a bar in the living room, like a little pub, with every kind of grog you could think of, from bottom shelf, a fridge full of beer, to top shelf, a row of bottles of coloured grog. Aunty Betty, who liked to wash her Dubonnet down with a glass of liqueur, would have been as happy as a budgie. Out the back were a couple of rubbish bins that were always chockers with empty gin bottles, and every time I saw them I thought it was a shame they were going to get thrown out, they were so beautiful, being frosted, like Christmas decorations. These bottles had been emptied by Aunty Queenie herself, who lived by the rule: a full Gilbey’s bottle is a bad Gilbey’s bottle. She thought the same of full Bex bottles too.

  This was the place as I remembered it from my last visit, when I was with Granddad. I rang the bell, which is something I didn’t usually get a chance to do, as most of the houses in Richmond either had knockers or nothing, and waited. Aunty Queenie, who was what Larry Kent would have called a dame, always looked a million bucks, and on the smell scale got about a seven — I would have given her an eight except she smoked. She opened the door, hauled me in like a gummy shark, and hugged me, all in one complete movement, like Margot Fonteyn rounding up a couple of swans. The hugs were bad enough — a bloke could smother — but what was worse was that Aunty Queenie was always wearing lots of sharp glass jewellery with pins and things, and you had to be careful not to get a nasty wound. She also kissed.

  Once the hard part — getting through the door — was over, I headed for the comfiest chair I could find, and it was not an easy choice. Aunty Queenie asked me if I’d like a cool drink of something, and I said okay. After a few minutes, the Blayney life was no longer chockers with potholes, but as smooth as Nat King Cole, and I was beginning to wonder if Aunty Queenie had ever thought of adopting me, or making me a real nephew. But then I thought Granddad might have something to say about that, this place being his secret hideout that no one on earth knew about, except me and Tom — I mean, me.

  ‘So, my lad, what kind of trouble are you in?’

  ‘What makes you think I’m in trouble?’

  ‘Listen, my boy, I know you and your granddad well enough to know when you’ve been up to no good. What was it: B&E? The old “finders keepers”? Car theft? Murder?’

  Actually, it hadn’t been any of these, though I made a mental note to check the cars around the place later to see if any of them had been left unlocked, and also to get Barney to show me how to drive, maybe in his new second-hand Ford Consul.

 
‘Nope. None of them. I did find a fireman’s helmet recently, one that no one wanted.’

  I had told her this as a test, to see if she would chuck a wobbly, like Mum would. If she did, it was: thanks for the Coke and I’ll see you in the soup.

  ‘Come on, you didn’t come round here to sell me a hot fireman’s helmet.’

  She was dead right about that: I had no intention of selling that helmet, not even for twenty quid.

  ‘A friend of mine — really just a kid I know — is in strife, and is wanted by an assortment of blokes —’

  ‘Coppers —’

  ‘Yeah, and others as well.’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘Special rozzers, plainclothesmen and stuff.’

  ‘How do you know these blokes were coppers?’

  ‘They were digging up his house, or rather the spot where his house was before he burnt it down.’

  ‘We’re talking about the kid they call the Torch, aren’t we?’

  Her eyes were glistening and she leant forward in her chair. All I could see was her chest, which she never really covered up, as Granddad said she was susceptible to heatstroke. Tom would have been as happy as Larry to see the look on her dial.

  ‘Yeah, ’cept he’s not the first person to be called the Torch.’ A part of me was still fighting against his new super-identity.

  ‘That’s right. The original Torch was his old man.’

  ‘How’d you know that?’

  The trouble with being a kid is that you’re always the last to know. I swear I’d be the last to know if I had a flamin’ toothache.

  ‘Little bird told me. Also, you know those two blokes I told you about on the phone? They knew. Wanted to know if I’d heard anything on the grapevine. I hadn’t, of course. They also wanted to know if I knew where Archie was. I said Archie who?’

  ‘I better find him and give him the tip.’

  ‘Archie knows what day it is. It’s you I’m worried about. If I know anything about the Gestapo, and I do, these blokes are outside as we speak and planning to follow you when you leave, so if I were you I wouldn’t lead them to your granddad. Or to that mad mate of yours.’

  ‘He’s not my mate.’

  ‘Wasn’t he living at your place when it went up in flames?’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s only because my mum knew his mum … from the war, I think.’

  ‘Listen, stay away from him. His old man got himself into a hell of a lot of trouble; every cop in Melbourne will be after him. Now, I suppose you’ll have to go home eventually, but just don’t go looking for Archie. If he wants the coppers to find him, they will.’

  ‘He hasn’t been around for the last few days.’

  ‘He’s taking care of business, that’s all. Is Jean worried?’

  I tried to remember the last time I had seen Mum worry about Granddad. Nothing happened.

  ‘Nuh.’

  ‘There you go, then.’

  ‘I don’t have to go home. I can stay with the Sandersons.’

  ‘Yes, Archie told me about them. He said you know what they are. Just be careful. They’d sell their own mothers, that lot.’

  ‘No, Aunty Queenie, they wouldn’t. They’re like you.’

  ‘God love you, dear. Now I’ve heard everything. Just mind what you tell them.’

  She went to the front window and peeked out into the street, then came back.

  ‘Must be a hundred and twenty inside that black car of theirs. What d’ya say we make ’em sweat for a few hours, eh?’

  Aunty Queenie had a distinctly evil side to her. She patted the couch, and I moved over beside her with my cold drink. She turned the TV on, and we kicked off our shoes, put our feet up and watched Noddy get into strife with Mr Plod.

  Aunty Queenie gave me a nudge.

  ‘Fancy another Coke, Noddy?’

  When I finally left, it wasn’t by the front door but through a gate in the back fence, one that opened into a tiny lane too small to get a car down but wide enough for me to get back to St Kilda Road. Aunty Queenie’s place was the perfect hideout.

  I spent the trip home and the rest of the night thinking about what had happened to Tom, and how it had just about driven me crazy, despite me working out how to flick a switch in my head and turn myself into him so that he would come back to life for a while. In the end, though, even that hadn’t really worked, and I had to let him go. I could do the voice, but I couldn’t do the Tom thing. The only good that came out of letting him go to Heaven (where I hoped he was giving God the shits like a beauty) was that I felt different than I had ever felt before. I felt like a me, instead of an us. It came and went, but when it came, I didn’t feel guilty for a while.

  The problem was, I didn’t know if I was missing him properly, or if I was missing him not enough or too much. It didn’t help that no one else seemed to miss him at all, except Granddad of course. Granddad was always in our corner. The only thing I had to keep me from going nuts was my mission: to stop all those bastards out there catching Flame Boy and frying his brain. Tom would have wanted that.

  It was Barney who made up my mind what to do. I didn’t take Aunty Queenie’s advice, but went home to Granddad’s place. I was worried about Mum, though I hated to admit it, as I was pretty sure she wasn’t too worried about me. She didn’t care, really, whether I lived at the Sandersons’, or at Granddad’s, with her, or nicked off and joined the Navy, which had crossed my mind, as I’d heard that the tucker was pretty good and I liked the uniform.

  I found Barney at home, bending Mum’s ear about Granddad’s whereabouts. Where Granddad went on these occasions was a bit of a mystery, but I had a feeling that certain people could track him down if the urge took them, especially Aunty Queenie. It’s just that she was one of those people who knew what was what. That’s why she was my emergency person, like Guran, the Phantom’s boyhood friend, who lived deep in the jungle.

  ‘Hello there, young feller. What’ve you been up to — no good?’

  I had to be careful what I said, because Mum was there, and while I didn’t mind discussing my adventures with Barn, who knew most of my secrets, and had taught me a few of his own, like what to do if you’re pinched by the coppers, which hadn’t exactly happened to me yet, though I’d come close once or twice (and though I would never tell him so, his advice wouldn’t have helped me at all).

  ‘You know me, Barn: the Pope’s thinking of making me a saint next week.’

  I got that one off Spider Webb’s old man one night when he was legless, just before he was sent on a holiday for being in possession of something that fell out of the back of a van. Spider’s dad had a million of them.

  Barney laughed one of his chesty cackles, and Mum gave me one of those looks.

  ‘Don’t encourage him: I’m trying to get rid of him.’

  ‘Yeah, okay. But before you shoot through, Barn, I need a bit of advice.’

  I looked at Mum. She looked at us, the same way she’d look at one of those envelopes that has a window in the front.

  Barn tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘Bloke’s stuff, is it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Say no more. You’ve come to the right place. I was just leaving, so let’s talk about it out on the verandah. Hooroo, Jean.’

  Outside, we sat on the seat that had been Nanna Taggerty’s special bench.

  ‘So, young Blayney, someone owe you a quid and won’t cough up? Barney’s your man.’

  ‘No, Barn.’

  ‘Someone been moving in on your girlfriend behind your back?’

  ‘No, not that.’

  ‘You have got a girlfriend, haven’t ya?’

  ‘Course I have.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief. So, what is it?’

  ‘I miss Tom.’

  ‘Ah, hell. Tom. I miss him too, you know. Remember that time he went to the fancy dress ball dressed as one of the nuns? I wish I had a photo of that.’

  ‘Mum has. The nuns didn’t laugh, except for S
ister Bernadette, the one who left. Sister Malachi told him he was going to Hell. Father Hagen gave him a special prize, for bravery.’

  ‘That Tom. You wouldn’t get me in nun’s clothes for all the money in the DLP campaign fund.’

  ‘Barn, why do we hate the DLP — I keep forgetting?’

  ‘Never you mind about them rat bastards. You just concentrate on missing Tom. Nothing wrong with that. Here, why don’t you go over to Parkville and visit him, you know, where he’s buried. They never did take you, did they?’

  ‘Nah. They left me at Mrs Carruthers’ that day. She was half stung, to make matters worse.’

  ‘Now, now. Ladies don’t get half stung.’

  ‘What do they get?’

  ‘Rotten flamin’ drunk!’

  He laughed until he started turning blue, so I slapped him on the back a few times, the way I did with Granddad every now and then.

  ‘Ta. Ya saved me life.’ He got up and started rolling a smoke. ‘Don’t forget: Parkville cemetery. I think you’ll be a new man.’

  16 Confession

  Barney gave me a pretty good idea how to find the Parkville cemetery, and it turned out to be not far from the Carlton footy ground, which I’d been to on many a Saturday, with Dad, to watch the Blues get done like a dinner by the Mighty Bloods. First thing in the morning, I grabbed a bit of change from my secret stash and caught a tram to the city. There I asked a clippie with hairy legs where to catch the tram to Parkville. Half an hour later the tram was trundling past the Royal Dental Hospital.

  I shivered when I saw that place, because the last time I had been there, I had been held down while some Nazi torturers filled my teeth with more fillings than a pie shop. The whole dental hospital trip had been carefully planned by the nuns for weeks. Just before the big day, they gave us prison-grey forms to take home for our parents to fill in. The forms gave the school permission to torture us in any way they liked. Mum filled in the forms — I could swear she didn’t read them — during a cuppa and a fag and handed them back to Tom and me as we left for school on the day of the torture.