The Torch

by Peter Twohig

  We hadn’t even started on the toast and Vegemite when the phone rang. As expected, it was Charles. Matthew would have only known his number.

  ‘Hello, Sanderson residence. Jack Sterling speaking.’ I always got a big kick out of saying that: everybody knew it was my secret name.

  ‘Hi, Jack, guess what!’ said Charles, who loved playing the Secret Game.

  ‘Okay, let’s see: there’s been another flamin’ conflagration.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Your mum was on TV last night.’

  ‘Um, I don’t think so. She would have come home with cakes ’n’ stuff.’

  ‘Well, I give up.’

  ‘Matthew Foster just came over and he had a Declaration of War stuck under his door from the Destroyers and they said they were going to bash us up and smash our bikes and he was practically crying because he had to run past Leo Thompson’s house to show me.’

  ‘I think the Commandos will have to swing into action, Sergeant.’

  ‘Well, I’m not swinging into action.’

  ‘Then there’s only one thing to do: break up the Commandos.’

  ‘I s’pose you’re right, um, Jack.’

  ‘Get the others; we’ll have an emergency meeting right now. Can you get Foster?’

  ‘He’s in the lounge. He’s scared to go home.’

  ‘Wonderful, Charlie, wonderful. Just don’t tell him about the Olympians. Tell the others to keep their traps shut. The penalty is worse than death.’

  ‘What’s worse than death?

  ‘Matthew Bloody Foster joining the Olympians.’

  ‘Ye-e-ah.’

  I didn’t ride my bike over to Charles’s place as I wanted to savour the looking-forward-to part of the Destroyers Caper. I wanted time to imagine Tom being part of it, and laughing his head off all the way through the last meeting of the Commandos because he knew what was going on. And Johnno Johnson saying, ‘This isn’t funny, Blayney.’ And Tom saying, ‘Wanna bet?’ And Johnno seeing what he meant, because we had a spare club up our sleeve, and MBF didn’t know. And Tom and I looking at each other in the special way we had when we were putting one over some drongo. I loved remembering that look, and I was suddenly glad I had dreamt up the Destroyers Caper, just so I could remember it.

  But then I started crying, and I thought: Bugger it! But I didn’t stop crying, because there was no one around, and anyway, it was holy crying, like when you look up at the monstrance above the altar during Benediction and see the Light of God coming from it and you think it’s the most wonderful thing in the world, and any tick of the clock you might fly right up to it like an angel — but you don’t — and you cry hot tears, and your chest jerks, and the other altar boys think you’re a girl and tell Father: ‘Hey Father, Blayney was crying.’ And Father says: ‘He’s allowed to cry,’ without even looking at me, because he knows me, from all the confessions.

  So here I am, walking, crying and feeling as though Tom is with me like the ghost in Myer’s window in town, telling me it’s okay being dead, because you get free ice-cream, and me not knowing whether to laugh and cry at the same time (which can kill you) or just keep on crying, when I suddenly realise I’m right outside the house of Leo Thompson, Captain of the Destroyers.

  The first thing that happened was that I experienced a shock as if I’d just been hit in the guts by a grenade, because I had forgotten for a split second that the Declaration of War was a fake, though I remembered just in time to stop having a heart attack.

  The next thing that happened was that I straight away got another shock that was ten times worse, because what I saw was Josephine Thompson, the most beautiful girl in Australia, bar none, wheeling her bike out the front door. I couldn’t move. It was like when the gangsters put you into a pair of concrete galoshes just before they throw you off the pier. I stared at her, and she smiled at me, and wheeled her bike — a shiny green bike, the most beautiful bike I had ever seen — the seven feet or so to the front gate. I was hoping she wouldn’t ask me who I was, because I couldn’t remember. But I had forgotten that I was crying and suddenly made a big sob. Naturally, I could have killed myself.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You’re one of the Blayney twins.’

  It was news to me.

  She opened the gate and I stepped aside. She stepped through with the bike and smiled.

  ‘If you’re looking for Leo, he’s not home.’

  I wondered who Leo was.

  She rode off down Balmain Street. She was wearing shorts.

  The meeting was a bit of a blur, though I gather it went as planned. Charles moved that we break up the club to avoid war, and we all agreed. I said I would tell Leo. Afterwards, James invited me to go to the Prahran Swimming Pool with him and his mum. I said okay, and went home to the Sandersons’ to get my swimming stuff. On the way home I stopped outside Josephine’s house, to see if she would spot me and come out if she was home again, but she didn’t. I would have prayed to God to make her come out, but I forgot he even existed. I don’t even know how I got back to Kipling Street, because I had turned into a living zombie. Lucky I didn’t walk under a tram, I reckon.

  That turned out to be the best day at the baths I had ever had, better than the day Tom and I put a Polly Waffle in the water at the Richmond Baths. Better than the day the peanut machine busted and you didn’t have to put any money into it. Better than the day Peanut Hobson was thrown out for accidentally on purpose going into the ladies’ dressing room (though I didn’t believe him when he told me what he saw).

  When I showed up at James’s place in Chapel Street, I discovered that the cast of characters for the day was to include Mrs Palmer and two new girls. One I knew instantly was James’s sister, Veronica, for two reasons, both due to my sharp training as a superspy: she looked a lot like James, and also I’d seen her photo around James’s house. I don’t know why I’d never met her before, and I’d never given the matter any thought, but I suppose I would have assumed that she was off playing hoppy or swap cards somewhere. Veronica was very happy to see me, and I thought at first that it might have been because her mum had told her what an idiot I was, something that mothers take lessons in. But it turned out she was just a happy person, like James, and as I settled in, I got used to her smiling at everything I said, and sometimes laughing her head off, especially when I said something that was not funny. In the end I had to face the fact that she knew all about me, probably from Wonder Woman, who I realised would not want her daughter to get too attached to a kid like me. The other girl, who I noticed James could not take his eyes off, was called Barbara. She in turn paid no attention to James at all, so I thought he was barking up the wrong tree. I know all about girls.

  When we got to the pool James and I instantly peeled off our shorts and shirts and dived in. For a little while, the only major decisions to be made involved when to piss in the pool (because it tends to be yellow at first) and when to attempt my backflip off the edge (because it never works). But then the girl three-fifths of the expedition turned up at the edge, already wet (girls have showers before going in), looking down at us as if we were trained Pomeranians, and laughing.

  I noticed that James was looking at Barbara as if he was a Labrador and she was a bone. I made a mental note to pull James’s leg about this as often as possible — it’s the Code of the Kids. But looking back, I didn’t do any better. Not only was Veronica a knockout, but Wonder Woman, who was dressed in shiny blue bathers, like the evening sky, looked twice as good as she ever had — I gave them both nine on my scale of Beautiful Girls and Ladies. It was like magic: I could see what Wonder Woman must have looked like when she was eleven, and beside her, what Veronica was going to look like when she was old. Coming on top of everything else that had happened to me that day, I’m surprised I didn’t drown on the spot. To make matters worse, when they asked us to come with them and have a drink, neither of us could. The girls promptly shot through to the kiosk, but
WW said she’d bring our drinks to us in the pool. That’s why they call her Wonder Woman.

  20 From Russia with love

  By the time I got back to the Sandersons’ house I was in a daze. Basically, my brain hadn’t really been firing on all cylinders since I set off on Part B of The Destroyers Caper at the start of the day. It had only been firing on the cylinder that makes you walk and swim and say yes to stuff, like Eskimo Pies, and look dumb in front of beautiful girls, which has never been hard for me at all. Funny, I had never noticed a lot of the bits of girls before, and now I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I was glad they didn’t know about the bits of boys. That wouldn’t work at all. Mr and Mrs S were dead keen to find out how the day had gone in the hope that I’d slip up and give them valuable intelligence about Flame Boy — I know how their minds work — but I’d rather be dead.

  Once we’d settled on the front porch in the shade of a big tree, the interrogation began. It’s not as straightforward as being interrogated by the Gestapo, you know. With them, the procedure is: they torture you, you blab, then they shoot you. Simple. With the Sandersons it’s far more tricky, and always starts with the lady’s half of the tag team.

  ‘How did your swim go?’

  I stuck a straw into a bottle of Passiona.

  ‘Ten out of ten.’

  ‘Did the Commandos swallow that war declaration?’

  I got a fright in my feet when she asked that because I thought that if she knew about that she might also know what I’d been thinking about some of the other people I’d met that day — girls and stuff. I felt my face go red, and I hoped Mrs S would think it was because of her question.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You left your drafts in the library.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Well, the declaration did the trick. The Commandos voted to break up the club.’

  ‘So why did you go to all that trouble? You’ve never mentioned that other club, the Destroyers, before.’

  I sucked on the Passiona and hit an extra fizzy bit.

  ‘It’s because we were sick of Matthew Foster.’

  Suddenly, Mr S came to life. ‘Ah, the boy with the spaniels. Hence the Olympians’ rule about dogs.’

  ‘Tom would have done it.’ I said that to shut them up. But what I really wanted to say was: ‘It was only the Cleverest Bloody Spy Caper of All Time, that’s all!’

  But Mr S stunned me with his next contribution, which was pure mind-reading. He looked over his glasses.

  ‘Clever.’

  ‘And what does your friend Charles think of all this — he was the head of the club, wasn’t he?’

  I hadn’t thought of that. I felt sick in the stomach.

  ‘’Scuse me. I have to make a phone call.’

  I called Charles.

  ‘Did you tell Leo Thompson we broke up?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, it’s all taken care of. Um, Charles?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The Olympians need a Chief Spy, you know, to organise the men for meetings and stuff. Would you like the job?’

  ‘Would I what!’

  ‘Cool. Congratulations, Chief Spy Dixon.’

  ‘Gee, thanks … um, what do I call you?’

  ‘Special Agent Blayney.’

  ‘Ye-e-ah.’

  Next, I thought I’d check in with Mum, see what kind of Saturday she was having without the young troublemaker hanging around.

  ‘G’day, Mum, what’s new?’

  ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’

  ‘At the baths with James.’

  ‘I see. At the baths with James. You were supposed to get your St Dom’s uniform today. I changed shifts so we could do it. You’re just a selfish bastard, like your father.’

  Mum’d had a few too many sherbets and wasn’t seeing things too clearly. I’d seen it before, of course. In the morning she’d remember none of it. Still, she was right. I had clean forgotten, and I felt bad.

  ‘Okay, Mum. I’ll come home. We can get the uniform on Monday.’

  She was crying. This was a regular event now that she was pregnant, and Dad had shot through, and our house had burnt down. Girls can be very touchy about these things. (I once saw Miss Schaeffer, who was a beautiful, though skinny, teacher at St Felix’s, cry when her fountain pen exploded all over her dress. I could have told her not to worry, that down at Sax’s you can get a new fountain pen for seven and six.)

  Jesus, I thought, you’ll have me crying any tick of the clock.

  ‘It’s okay, Mum, it’s only a uniform. How about I come home and get some fish and chips on the way; then you won’t have to cook dinner?’

  That was me at my sneaky best, as I’d say and do anything to avoid eating Mum’s cooking, which was like an evil scientist’s experiment gone wrong, where The Blob emerges from the oven and devours the family, and can’t even be stopped by the whole US Army using bazookas.

  ‘You haven’t got any money.’

  Yes!

  ‘Barney gave me some to go to Parkville, and there was lots left over.’

  There was silence at the other end. You either loved Barney or you hated him.

  ‘I’ll be there in a tick.’

  I hung up and went back to the Sandersons, who had overheard the call.

  ‘Sorry. Can’t stay tonight. Having fish and chips with Mum.’

  ‘Is your mother all right?’ asked Mrs S.

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Is the worst thing that can happen to you that doesn’t involve getting your leg bitten off by a shark all right? Was it all right to tell them about Mum’s problem, and let them know that she was going to turn into a giant blob? No, it wasn’t. But they were going to find out eventually. Better hear it from someone who didn’t actually hate Mum.

  ‘I don’t know. She’s pregnant.’

  Mr Sanderson was stirring his tea just then, and didn’t miss a beat. He had nerves of steel, that bloke, and would have made a good nun if he hadn’t been born a man. Mrs S was slicing something that I wasn’t going to get to eat, after all, and stopped slicing and put the knife down slowly.

  ‘Poor dear,’ was all she said.

  Then the whole conversation with Mum hit me again, only this time I wasn’t ready, as I had been on the phone. I suddenly wished she hadn’t called me a bastard. It was just that Peanut Hobson had reminded me only the other day that a bastard was a kid without a father, like Jerry Wallace after his old man’s crane hit the overhead wires, so even though I realised Mum hadn’t meant it that way, and Peanut was talking about someone else, it was true. And if Tom was still here, he’d be a fatherless bastard too. I was thinking too hard and I felt my brain go all yucky, like fairy floss only brownish green. I sat down quickly and put my face on the verandah table, to cool it. It was that old feeling in my head, like the wires were loose. I always got it before a seizure. I knew I looked dumb, but it was all I could do.

  ‘Come on, dear. I think you should have a lie down,’ said Mrs S. They took me inside to the sofa, and put the fan on, and I lay still, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did; it was a false alarm. Still, I didn’t move for about half an hour, because moving is what causes it, and worrying, and other stuff that hasn’t got a name. Mrs S just stayed with me and held my hand. It was like having my hand eaten by a dumpling.

  I wondered if I had fainted instead. I think I hadn’t passed out, but you never know. I’d seen a few people faint, and they always pulled up okay. There was Uncle Maury: he fainted when he saw Dad kill a chook for dinner. There was Aunty Is (who isn’t an aunty, but insists that I call her one): she fainted when she had to move from her house to the house next door to hers (it’s a long story). And there was that kid who fainted at the pictures from eating too many lollies — it was Audie Murphy in To Hell and Back, which wouldn’t have helped — a problem a lot of kids wouldn’t mind having.

  Finally, I thought it would be safe to speak.

  ‘I thought I … maybe I just fainted.’

  ‘
No, dear, nothing happened at all. You’ve just had a lot on your mind, that’s all. I think you should stay here and rest, where it’s cool.’

  ‘Are you sure I didn’t, um, you know …?’

  ‘Yes, dear, I’m sure. But I’m going to call your mother and tell her you’re not well. You can stay here.’

  ‘But Mum was upset.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, I’ll have a little chat with her. You just relax and Mr Sanderson will organise a cuppa and some cake for you, while I call your mum. In the morning we’ll drive you home.’

  It’s funny how a little thing like feeling crook can come along and change your whole life. It was like that with Audie Murphy. There he was, down on the farm, growing spuds and shooting squirrels, when suddenly, World War II started, and he was in the Army killing Jerries like there was no tomorrow and getting more medals than General Eisenhower. Granddad was the same. One day he was sitting around wondering who to dong next — this is when he was a youngster — and the next he was in jail for something he probably didn’t do, according to Blarney Barney. Then, five minutes later, he’s the Bantamweight Champion of Australia, and laughing all over his face.

  I didn’t go home that night, but stayed at the Sandersons’, which was pretty much my secret home, and they fed me twice as much ice-cream as usual — I made a mental note to get crook more often. Later, they let me watch Father Knows Best on TV, though it was the scary episode, the one where the Devil turns up and keeps setting fire to things. It was the strangest thing. But that was as much entertainment as they thought the young man of mystery could stand in one day, seeing as how I had almost passed out, and frightened the life out of them. So I was sent to bed.

  Normally, I would have put up an argument against being treated like a twelve-year-old, but there was something going on, something that had nothing to do with me and my brain, which had never really got used to being born with the rest of me as it was.

  And I was curious. Normally, the Sandersons gave me the run of the house, and let me stay up until I was knackered, they having no first-hand experience of kids, but living in a kind of fairy-tale world where kids are terrific and can’t possibly get up to no good. This was one of the first things I noticed about them when they moved into the neighbourhood only the year before. Mr Sanderson was a special copper, that was true, but when he was at home he wore tartan slippers of a kind that no bloke in Richmond would be caught dead in unless he was six foot eight and two axe-handles across the shoulders.