The Torch

by Peter Twohig

  Consequences. Where do I begin? In Brother Timothy’s office. Brother Timothy was the principal, and a man whom, I had heard, was normally very hard to get to see. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when only five minutes later I found myself sitting in his office, wondering to what I owed this good fortune. And then again, not.

  You would think that the Reverend Brother would want to be the first to shake my hand for doing the work that all the brothers, lay teachers, priests and parents put together could not do. If so, you’d be wrong.

  Brother Timothy breezed in and sat down, as I stood up and waited.

  ‘I hope you’re happy. You have broken the O’Brien boy’s nose.’

  ‘I —’

  ‘Silence!’

  He got it.

  ‘His father and his grandfather went to this school. His oldest brother is training to be a De La Salle brother. He has cousins in convents.’

  There was a long pause while he gave me the evil eye, the same evil eye I had been given by a murderer, a fat copper who used to live near our house before it mysteriously burnt down, other assorted police, firemen, nuns who had been trained by the Gestapo, and my mother. You could say that he was wasting a perfectly good evil eye that he could have used on one of the school’s real troublemakers. Also, I was wondering about the cousins in the convents — I still am.

  He waved a bit of paper, which I recognised.

  ‘I have here a letter from Mother Sylvester, at St Felix’s. She describes you as a troublemaker with a mental problem. After what just happened I can only agree. What am I to do with you? If I expel you, you will end up at the high school, or worse, the technical school, and you will probably end up in prison, like half the members of your family.’

  I thought that was a bit rough: dragging in my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my dad, two — no, three — uncles, oh, yeah, and Uncle Seamus, who’d been put in the cells a few times. And a few people who might as well have been uncles, like Barney. The men in my family were good at getting by, that was all, and besides, they came from Richmond, where it was well known that there was a lot of prejudice in the local police force, and no brains and no balls, to boot. I could tell you their stories, but it would be like the tale of Ned Kelly, who my great-grandmother from Benalla fed and clothed, and would have you crying, as it always did with Uncle Seamus. Anyway, Brother Timothy was wrong: it was definitely less than half.

  I remained silent.

  ‘I have another note from a Doctor Dunnett, saying that you suffer from epilepsy, and that you should not be distressed. What piffle! Let me tell you something, Mister Blayney: you may be able to pull that old schoolboy routine on some feeble-minded doctor, but you will not pull it on your teachers. You might have the protection of His Grace, the Archbishop, today, but His Grace is an old man, and will not be with us much longer. And the moment he dies, I shall ensure that you are the first to know. Now, what have you to say?’

  ‘O’Brien was a bully, Brother.’

  He collapsed a bit at the shoulders.

  ‘Yes, he was.’

  I was now more famous than Ned Kelly and Squizzy Taylor put together, and it was predicted by a number of kids who saw me around and about that I would end up in jail, or in a loony bin (though this loony bin thing had been going on since I started having fits, which had by now been witnessed by all and sundry, from shop assistants to clippies, and which should have killed me a dozen times over). But there were a few kids who were six lengths in front of me when it came to being locked up, and that O’Brien kid was one, though Granddad said he would probably end up being a copper.

  Flame Boy was another. He was heading for the loony bin in leaps and bounds, though he had not been seen since the Great Fires of Richmond. Even Tony Capra said his family had stopped making cut lunches for him, and he personally thought that Flame Boy might have gone to New Zealand, though I doubted it, as I knew that New Zealand was in, well, New Zealand.

  Brother Timothy had intended to scare me, and he had succeeded. I spent the rest of the day hoping like hell that the Archbishop would not do anything stressful and would remember to have a Bex and a good lie down every day after lunch. But I realised I couldn’t go on like this.

  Straight after school I went to the only place I fitted in.

  Mrs Radion was cooking when I walked into the back yard, my usual way of going into their place, and I could smell something sweet through the back flyscreen door. She called to me without looking up.

  ‘Raffi, dear, come in here and taste this.’

  It was a long time since anyone had called me dear, if you don’t count Mrs S, who called me dear every time she opened her mouth. So I wasn’t in a hurry to spoil the moment.

  I opened the door and walked in and saw Mrs Radion still stirring. She was the same size and height as Mum, and had her hair done the same way, a bit long at the back. It was even the same colour, kind of blonde, but slightly reddish, if you looked closely. When she turned around and saw me, she got either a surprise or a fright, or something they haven’t invented a word for yet, but which makes you jump. I thought she was going to tell me I ought to know better than to walk in without knocking, but the fact was that in our part of the world, that wasn’t really counted as a bad thing, especially if you were a kid.

  ‘I suppose I better get used to that. Raffi’s not here. He’s gone down to the shop. I was just going to give him a lick of this, but you’ll do.’

  I had a lick of the spoon, and it turned out to be a spicy cake mixture. When you’re twelve you know these things.

  ‘It’s pretty good.’

  ‘It’s a cinnamon roll, or it will be soon.’

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that Mum wouldn’t have even got to the turn out of the straight with a cinnamon-roll mixture, but would have fallen at the first hurdle, the part where you have to find the ingredients. I decided to keep my mouth shut. Mum knew who Mrs Radion was, and it was possible that they knew each other from the war, or that she had even been in the same Jap concentration camp as Aunty Daffy. I didn’t want Mrs Radion revealing information to the enemy. Loose lips sink ships. Or something.

  ‘So how have you been holding up without Tom?’

  I knew that I was supposed to say something like: Couldn’t be better, Mrs R. When there’s just one of you, you don’t have to share everything all the time. People expect that. But Mrs R was different. I knew that there was just one of her too, and that she might expect something new.

  ‘Not very well. I’ve been having seizures. And sometimes I miss him a lot. And every now and then, I suddenly think he’s right there, but he isn’t. I even talk to him.’

  I suddenly remembered the Who’s on First routine we did, and smiled to myself.

  ‘Doctor Dunnett says I’m nutso and need to have my brain electrocuted, but Mum won’t let him. And Mother Sylvester sent a letter to Brother Ignatius telling him that I’m just pretending to be crook.’

  I paused, wondering if that would do, but having more in reserve, just in case. You never know how much girls and ladies want to know: a lot, a fair amount, or everything since the day you were born. I thought I’d start with a lot, and see if she told me to pull myself together, like the sarge said to the soldier who couldn’t stand it any longer. I was busting for a cry, it was such a pitiful bloody story — good, but pitiful.

  ‘Bastards. Pull up a chair. Raffi won’t be long.’

  She got down a big tin and opened it. It was a bikky tin. I grabbed a chocolate cream, the last one. I felt bad about that, but then, I did get there first.

  She wiped her hands on her apron, sat down at the table across from me, and watched me take a bite of the bikky. I wondered if the chocky ones were for Raffi.

  ‘Did Raffi tell you that he has epilepsy too?’

  Suddenly, I couldn’t taste the bikky. I didn’t know that other people could get it.

  ‘Do you think he caught it from me?’

  She looked at me softly, li
ke Mrs Sanderson does, just before she grabbed me in her Hug of Death, which was like getting sucked into … The Blob! I think it was only the table between us that saved me. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: thank God for laminex.

  ‘No, he was probably born with it, though I think it’s time I stopped saying “probably”. So, did your seizures begin with the loss of Tom?’

  I didn’t want Mrs Radion to have to talk about Tom as if he had gone missing and would probably turn up down the back of the couch cushions.

  ‘Yes, when he died, practically straight away.’

  ‘I’m glad we talked about it. When Raffi comes home perhaps we could sit down and have a bikky and talk about it together, the three of us. I think Raffi would like that. What do you say?’

  I wasn’t sure about this talking about it stuff. The only people I had ever talked about stuff with were Granddad and Barney, and sometimes the odd uncle (and I mean odd) and, of course, Aunty Queenie, who liked nothing better than a good natter, and Mrs Morgan when she wasn’t watching TV, and, sometimes, Nanna, though she was definitely a lot more interested in listening than she was in talking. That’s where the trail petered out.

  ‘Okay.’

  When Raffi walked in he was happy to see me, and took in his stride that I had a spoon full of cake mixture in my hand: kids are born with the First Come Best Dressed rule built in.

  He also took it in his stride when his mother suggested we sit down and talk about the problem we both had. I didn’t have any understanding of it at all, as no one had ever explained it to me, but Mrs Radion had a reason for doing what she did — because adults always do — even though I was none the wiser at the end of our talk. The only thing I understood was that Mrs Radion didn’t consider it an enormous inconvenience, like most of the people I knew. And she didn’t think we were pulling her leg, or that we should have our brains toasted.

  At the end of our talk, she sat there looking at us, the way she had when she first saw us together. Adults have their own looks. Granddad’s look said: Yes, but can he be trusted? Mum’s look said: If I hear that one more time I’ll scream. Mrs Sanderson’s look said: I think what you need is another piece of cake. Charles’s look said: Wow, that’s fantabulous! I could see this was going to be the Mrs Radion look — I just hadn’t worked out what it said.

  37 The Genie of the Incinerator

  Friday after school, who should be waiting for me in the street dividing St Dom’s and Vaucluse schools but Aunty Lucky and Mona, sitting in a dark-blue MGA with the top down. Mona was practically straining her face trying to look like a lady, but Aunty Lucky was waving to me and smiling her head off, reminding me a lot of Piper Laurie in Johnny Dark, except Lucky was Italian and her car was a different colour. I can tell you right now that the last thing she looked like was somebody’s aunty. I smiled and gave them my Movie Smile — Tony Curtis would have done it.

  Johnno Johnson said: ‘Wow, look at that car!’

  Luigi Esposito said: ‘Hey, isn’t that Mona De Coney?’

  Charles Dixon yanked at my sleeve and said: ‘Just ignore them.’ He might as well have told me to ignore an out-of-control, jet-propelled merry-go-round.

  ‘See ya in the nuddy, buddy,’ I said to one and all, and crossed the road.

  Mona hopped out and I hopped in and then Mona hopped in on top of me. It was the first time a girl had sat on me, if you don’t count the dental nurse the time the kids at St Felix’s had to go to the dental hospital, and I both liked it and didn’t like it, if you know what I mean. Mona put her arm around my neck — that was for the benefit of her friends — making it look as if she had a choice, while I looked at my friends across the road — I gave them my Edd Byrnes look, from 77 Sunset Strip (I made a mental note to get a comb). They were frozen in time.

  ‘Who’s for a malted milk?’ asked Aunty Lucky, and took off, after revving the motor a few times to terrify the kids walking on the road. Off we went down to Chapel Street, to a place called Coco’s, and made ourselves at home. Mona was attached to my left arm like a human padlock, and remained that way for the duration, all of which seemed to be okay with the Aunty Lucky half of the contingent. I gathered this place was familiar to Mona, who gazed around as if she was thinking that there was too much red and green, and that a touch of pink was called for.

  ‘So, Mr Blayney’ — Aunty Lucky was always calling me that — ‘I hear you’re a bit of a hero, been saving people from burning cars and such, and teaching bullies a thing or two about the perils of tangling with a Taggerty. Well done, I say.’

  ‘Actually, it was Father Jackman who saved that bloke.’ I was glad to get it off my chest. But Aunty Lucky only laughed, which made Mona turn her grip on me into a new sort of wrestling hold that didn’t have a name yet. ‘That’s not what we heard, is it, Mona? No, we did not. Mona, why don’t you ask Mr Coco if he has any tiramisu? Let’s celebrate. Perhaps Mr Blayney would like some too.’ When Mona had headed off to the goodies counter, Aunty Lucky took a cigarette out of a black-and-white chequered cigarette case and lit it, without taking her eyes off me.

  ‘I hope your friend — Keith Kavanagh, isn’t it? — is all right out there. The city is no place for a child who’s alone and frightened.’

  I wanted to tell her that if anyone should be frightened it was the population of Melbourne and environs, including Geelong, which was considering an electric train service, and at a pinch, Bacchus Marsh, but thought better of it.

  ‘We’re looking for him — his friends. We’re trying to help him. But I already know one thing that might help you —’

  I paused the way Nanna does when she’s spinning some visitor a yarn, and trying to sound dramatic.

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘He hasn’t got that briefcase you’re looking for. Someone nicked … stole … it from him, from the place where he’d hidden it. He told me. He was very upset,’ I added, for effect.

  Lucky blew the smoke up in the air, the same way Wonder Woman did with her B&H, and looked at me, with one of those expressions grown-ups give envelopes that have ‘OHMS’ on the front. She butted her smoke, and I noticed that it, too, was a B&H! Could there be two Wonder Women? No, surely not. Would God do that to me? Well, yes, he would, was the answer to that question. University tests have shown that God has a sick mind.

  Just when I was beginning to wonder if Aunty Lucky was going to inject me with truth serum, which the Spirit has a deathly fear of, Mona reappeared and sat down with a little bounce, as I’d noticed certain kinds of girls — those who are not skinny — do. She immediately reapplied the arm lock for which she would no doubt one day be famous.

  ‘Mr Coco said he’d bring the tiramisu to us.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Aunty Lucky. ‘So, Mr Blayney, Mona tells me you are a fan of MGs. Mine has a 1.6 litre motor and can do ninety-eight.’

  ‘Wow! My dad’s Triumph won’t go that fast.’

  ‘Really, Mr Blayney? I thought the TR3 was made of sterner stuff.’

  I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then, I didn’t care. I just thought that I was the luckiest kid in Richmond.

  Tiramisu turned out to be the greatest thing since the shirt pocket, and I gave it a nine on the smell scale, even though it was not a smell but a taste. When Aunty Lucky had finished her coffee, she dropped me off in front of the Sandersons’ house, because I had told her that there was going to be an Olympians’ meeting that afternoon. Mona didn’t give me a kiss goodbye, but I could tell that she had given the matter serious thought.

  Mrs Sanderson was sitting on the front porch.

  ‘No wonder the boys are talking — they’re inside.’

  The Olympians weren’t worried that I was a tiny bit late, as Mrs S had been feeding them sambos and lemonade, which gave them an opportunity to discuss sports cars, about which they knew a lot, and girls, about which they knew next to nothing. Silence fell when I appeared. I was getting used to it.

  The Bully-Fixing Techniq
ue was to be the first item. I was sure the boys would appreciate it very much, as they had all come across one at some stage, though the one they saw the most of outside school was Daryl Parker, who lived down our end of Brighton Street, and was always chasing kids — girls as well — and giving them a smack in the ear when he caught them. He still had to get his comeuppance, and Johnno Johnson and his mate Lettuce Gettis (whom we were considering for admission to the Olympians, as he had one ear missing and was therefore very mysterious, and who had turned up with Johnno Johnson) were keen to get back at him because they hated him, and because he had smacked both of their sisters in the head (though, to be fair, they were probably giving him a lot of lip at the time). So our meeting was to cover the business of ironing out kids who were crumpled in the head, and also to meet Lettuce, and, of course, to discuss Flame Boy.

  I lost no time getting to Item One and showing the other Olympians how to bash up bullies. They soon got the hang of it, all except Charles, who was long on intention but short on ferocity. Some kids just aren’t cut out for bashing up bullies.

  As for Lettuce Gettis, the Olympians were keen to snap him up before some other club did, there being a demand for mysterious kids (as long as their fathers did not test baked beans or anything). The thing is, South Richmond was chockers with secret clubs. Apart from the Destroyers over in Balmain Street, there were the Mad Dogs, over in Mary Street, the Sabres, over in Gordon Street, the River Rats, over in Durham Street, and the Sea Lions, over in Amsterdam Street. (And, of course, the Cobras from Yorkshire Street, though Raffi and I had to keep quiet about them, as you know.) There were also a few others that were so secret no one knew who they were. That’s what I heard. So Lettuce came to the meeting to see if he liked us, and so that we could see if he really had one ear.