by Gee, Maurice
I’ll start with Grandma. She was out collecting cow dung that morning. Although she was old, she had sharp eyes. She saw Dawn far away, walking in the paddock. Then she saw Leo climb the fence and run up the hill the other way. It made her suspicious. Why had they been meeting? They were much too young to be in love. Then she saw me. I climbed the fence and walked along looking at something in my hand. She saw it gleam.
Grandma climbed high up the hill, where few people went. From there she could see the creek as well as the river. The launch roof showed in the mangroves and soon she saw someone moving there. She could not tell who it was but she could guess.
Grandma went home. She emptied her barrow (no matter what happened, her garden came first), then put on her motorcycling gear and rode to our place. Only Mum was home.
Mum, sitting at the kitchen table writing another poem:
Run run, poor black man,
Where can you hide?
Cruel men with guns
Close in on every side.
‘Listen,’ she said as Grandma walked in; and she read it, all sixty lines. Grandma listened politely.
‘Yes, Ber, very good,’ she lied. ‘But you don’t have to ask where he can hide. He’s found a place.’
‘Where?’
‘That old launch of Joan Stewart’s.’
‘Ah. I wondered.’
‘So you knew?’
‘I knew he was somewhere in Kettle Creek.’
‘And Rex is helping him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Dawn Stewart and Leo Yukich?’
‘Yes, I knew they were in it.’
‘Don’t you think it’s too big a responsibility for them?’
‘I suppose it is.’
‘Well, come on then.’
‘Where?’
‘Let’s go and see him, Ber. Let’s find out what it’s all about.’
By that time I was at the barbershop. I saw them go by, Mum in the sidecar, hair in her gypsy scarf, and Grandma with wild hair and goggled eyes. I thought nothing of it; I supposed they were going to Grandma’s place, and I turned inside to see what job Dad had for me next. They rode on and left the motorbike parked at the side of the road and walked down the gully to the mangrove swamp.
Jack was waist-deep in water. He was scooping buckets of mud from round the launch’s keel, making sure it would free itself easily that night – and he didn’t like the feel of the hull down there. He tried it with his fingers, pushing into crevasses of rot. They didn’t go right through; but would the rotten places hold when the launch got out into the waves?
He looked up and saw two grave faces watching him.
‘Ladies,’ he said calmly. ‘Climb on board. Easy does it though, she’s likely to sink.’
He hauled himself out of the water and handed them on to the launch, one by one. They sat on the deck and he told them all that had happened and what he planned to do.
‘I guess now I’m running I got to keep running. Guess I’ll hide a while. But I got to come out in the end. Then…’
He did not go on but Mum and Grandma knew what he meant. How can a black man hide in a country where most people are white and the rest are brown?
‘We can give you the names of some people who might help,’ Mum said.
‘No,’ Jack said. Then, more softly, ‘No, ma’am. I’m not getting anyone in trouble. Already I got Rex and Dawn in trouble.’
‘It’s doing Rex good,’ Mum said.
‘Maybe.’ He looked at Grandma. ‘You do something for me?’
‘If I can.’
‘Dawn’s grandmammy don’t seem too well. Not her fault. Part my fault. But I think Dawn needs someone lookin’ out for her.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Grandma said. ‘I’ll call in when you’ve gone. I’ll watch her.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
‘When will you go?’ Mum asked.
‘Tonight.’
‘Watch the bar.’
‘It’s high tide. Dawn made me a map.’
‘How far can you get?’
‘Don’t know. Not far. I thought I had two cans of petrol but one’s no good, got condensation.’
Mum and Grandma looked at each other. They were like that at times, almost telepathic. Both had the same idea at once.
Dawn was in more trouble. When she came up to the farm after leaving Jack she hosed out the cowshed, which hadn’t been done after morning milking. In fact they’d barely got the shed work done that morning – sent cows out half milked – and Mrs Stewart had topped up the urns until water ran over their rims. And out on delivery they’d missed a couple of streets – Mrs Stewart said she couldn’t care less – and came back with one of the urns quarter full. It was sitting on the tray of the truck. Dawn wondered if she should empty it. Instead she looked at the dogs, patted them and fondled them. They were all right again after their wine party, but they needed exercise and she wanted to let them off their chains.
She went inside. Mrs Stewart was sitting at the table.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Hosing the shed. Can I let the dogs off?’
‘No.’
‘Grandma –’
‘I want them here, not running round. In case those boys come back.’
‘They won’t come.’
‘If it’s not them it’ll be someone else. They’re never going to leave us alone.’
‘Grandma, get some sleep. You didn’t go to bed at all last night. I’ll do the jobs.’
Instead of replying Mrs Stewart gave Dawn a long, bitter look. She reached into her pocket and drew out a photograph. Dawn knew it at once – Joan Mclnnes and her tennis partner.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘Mrs Crombie,’ Dawn said.
‘Why?’
‘She showed it to me. She said I could have it.’ She tried to explain. ‘You were smiling.’
Mrs Stewart looked at the photo. Perhaps she saw the smile and it enraged her. ‘She had no right.’ She stood up violently. ‘I won’t have people inter –’ she tore the photo in two ‘– fering.’ Tore it again. Then she ran to the stove, took the poker, lifted the top and dropped the scraps of photo in the embers. She clanged down the top.
‘They ignore me for twenty years and now they in-ter-fere.’ With each syllable she banged the poker on the stove. Flames flared inside as the photo caught.
It may have been the flames, or perhaps her violence itself, that alarmed her. She looked at Dawn with fright in her eyes.
‘Oh Dawn, help me.’
Dawn went to her.
‘Dawn, we’ve got to get out of this place.’
‘Where to?’
‘I can’t stay here any longer. We’ve got to get away.’
She went to the door and threw it open as though she meant to leave that very minute.
A car was at the gate. A man was walking up the drive.
He, poor fellow, was Mr Simpson, dairy inspector. He was only doing his job, as he insisted later on. There was something nervous in his approach. He knew Mrs Stewart’s temper from earlier visits; and, in fact, had called at the police station in town to try and persuade Bob Davies to go with him to the farm. But Davies had other fish to fry.
‘Just be polite,’ he advised Simpson. ‘She’s only a woman.’
So Simpson tried being polite.
‘Ken Simpson, Mrs Stewart. Department of Ag. We’ve met before. Lovely morning.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Oh, just a little look in your shed. Nothing serious.’
‘You’re supposed to give me notice before you come round here.’
‘Well, war time, Mrs Stewart. You know how it is.’
‘No, I don’t. Get off my farm.’
‘Now, now – ’
‘Don’t you “now now” me. Go on, clear out, before I set my dogs on you.’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Stewart, but I’ve got a job to do. We’ve had a complaint –’
‘Com
plaint?’
‘About your milk. I have to investigate.’
‘Who complained?’ Mrs Stewart came down the steps into the yard. Dawn followed her.
‘Grandma.’
Simpson smiled at her, trying to make things easy. ‘Hello, girlie.’ It didn’t work.
‘Don’t you dare talk to my grand-daughter.’ She stepped up to him, forcing him back.
‘Hey!’ Simpson said.
‘Get off my farm. Off! Off!’
She had gone quite crazy, Simpson said. She looked as if she had red-hot marbles instead of eyes.
‘Very well,’ he said, ‘but I’ll be back. And I’ll bring the police. I have a legal right to look in your shed.’ He went past the truck and saw the urn. He tapped it with his fingers and heard liquid inside. ‘Is there milk in there? Out in the sun? I’m going to take a sample of that.’
Mrs Stewart ran to his side. ‘Sample?’ She leaped on the tray of the truck. ‘I’ll give you samples.’ She lifted the urn easily and swamped him with a great thick stream of milk. (Or, as Miss Betts said, water and milk.) And Dawn confessed to Grandma that if it hadn’t been so horrible she would have laughed at Simpson standing there with his hair soaked down and milk dripping off his nose and chin. He slapped his chest and a fat squirt of liquid jumped like a frog from his jacket pocket.
Meanwhile – (there are lots of ‘meanwhiles’ in this part of the story) – Jack was in the water again, feeling the launch hull and not liking what he found; Mum and Grandma were setting off on their petrol-stealing expedition; Dad was in the shop taking bets and tuning the radio for the Ellerslie races, already deep in Saturday, his favourite day; I was standing by to act as runner; and Bob Davies was getting ready to fry his other fish, which was Dad.
I didn’t like my Saturday job. I had to keep it secret from Mum and that made me guilty. And it seemed a shameful thing to be making money from bets when the war was on.
‘Smile or your face will stay that way,’ Dad said.
George Perry came sliding in. ‘Time for a bet in the first, Alf?’
‘Sure. Wait in the back.’ There were already half a dozen men out there, playing snooker. I heard them laughing and calling friendly insults at each other, and thought of Jack alone on the launch. I kept on feeling a sinking in my stomach. How could he hope to hide for the rest of the war? Alone all the time? No one to talk to? With MPs hunting him? I wanted to go back to the launch and say I would go with him.
Dad told me half a dozen names. ‘Okay, Destry, ride.’ He saw my reluctance and pushed me at the door. ‘An extra bob if you’re back in ten minutes.’ He gave me a wink. ‘Eyes front when you pass the cop-shop.’ It was one of those times when I didn’t like my father very much.
I rode up the street, turned down a side street, knocked at a door. Dad was crafty. His customers had numbers, no names were written down. So, ‘No. 26,’ I wrote on a piece of paper, ‘5/- each way on Tom Thumb. No. 33,10/-place on Queen Mab’ – or whatever the names were. I heard Grandma’s motorbike and saw it flash across the intersection, but thought nothing of it.
Riding back to the shop, I passed the police station. Eyes front, as I had been taught. But at the last moment I turned my head. A constable I’d never seen was standing in the door. It worried me. Were they going to search for Jack again?
I handed my list of bets to Dad. He sat throned in the revolving chair, with his ledger on his knee, and started transcribing. ‘That’s a donkey,’ he snickered, writing the first bet.
I looked in the poolroom, watched the men. Balls clicked and sped and thumped into the pockets.
‘Corker shot!’
‘You tinny bugger.’
It wasn’t fair that Jack had to be alone. And these men here, smoking and playing snooker, while he had to fight in the war and maybe get killed. Just for a moment I knew that I would run away if Japanese with bayonets came through the jungle after me.
I turned to Dad. ‘There’s a new policeman at the station.’
He looked up. After his fright with the sugar Dad was more alert. A new policeman might mean danger to him. He closed his ledger, stepped out of the chair, went to the door. He put his head out and looked up the street. In front of the station Davies and the constable were getting in Davies’ car. It started, made a U-turn, and headed down the street towards the shop.
I had never seen Dad move so fast. ‘C’m’ere.’ He grabbed my shirt and stuffed the ledger in. He stuffed in the sheet of bets, then darted at the waste-paper basket and grabbed bits of paper from there. Into my shirt they went. Then he shoved me in the chair. He opened a cupboard, took a sheet, flipped it open, had it round my neck and tucked in before I was settled properly. Back to the cupboard. A fresh apron. Over his head, a bow at the back. Dad seized his comb and clippers. And when the car stopped and Davies and the constable – Forbes was his name – came striding in, there I was sheeted in the chair and Dad humming a tune and clipping away, cutting a neat track in my hair. A lucky thing for him it needed cutting.
He grinned at them. ‘Sorry, gents, shop’s closed Saturdays. Just doing a free one for my boy.’
Davies flashed a piece of paper at him. ‘I’ve got a warrant to search these premises.’ He jerked this thumb at Forbes. ‘In the back. No one leaves.’ Forbes went into the poolroom.
‘Search?’ Dad said. His face was hurt. ‘You’re searching me? What are you looking for, a whisky still?’
‘Shut up, Alf.’ Davies snapped his fingers at me. ‘Skedaddle, son.’
‘He’s not finished.’
‘Finish him later. Go on, buzz off.’
Dad untucked the sheet. I saw his eyes go flick to make sure no paper was sticking out of my shirt.
‘I’m amazed,’ he said to Davies.
‘Sure you are.’
I got out of the chair. It seemed to me the ledger in my shirt made me look as fat as Billy Bunter. I put my hand on it and went to the door a little bent over.
‘Stomach ache,’ I mumbled at Davies.
‘Too much Yankee candy. Greedy, these kids,’ Dad said.
I reached my bike, wheeled it away, then jumped on and pedalled up the street, expecting Davies’ voice to call me back. Then I wondered where to go. Not home. When they found nothing in the shop they might search there. So I went down a side street and got on the road to Grandma and Grandpa’s place. They could look after the ledger. It was all I could think of to do.
As I turned into the river road a car went by, heading for town. The driver looked very odd, I thought. His hair was plastered on his skull as though he’d used a whole pot of Brylcreem.
At the shop Dad was having fun. He sat in the chair and watched Davies search.
‘I know, it’s that runaway Yank.’
Davies opened a drawer.
‘He’s not in there.’
‘Shut up.’ A race commentary started on the radio. Davies switched it off nastily. He finished his search.
‘Right, we’ll start out the back. You first.’
‘Pleasure. But you’re barking up the wrong tree, Bob.’
They went into the poolroom. The players had stopped their games and were leaning on the tables watching Forbes rummage in the seats along the wall.
‘There’s a safe in here,’ he said to Davies.
Davies smiled. At last! Dad smiled too. ‘Watch out for wetas.’
Forbes jerked back.
‘Great big jaws.’ Dad mimed them biting, then said to the men, ‘Carry on, gents, we’re just spring-cleaning.’
‘Key, Alf,’ Davies said in a gritty voice.
Dad fished it out of his watch pocket and handed it over. Davies, taking his time, prolonging his anticipation, opened the safe. The only thing inside was a pre-war racebook, a souvenir of one of Dad’s big wins. Davies snatched it up and riffled through the pages. ‘What else do you keep in here? What’s usually here?’
‘Bars of gold. The family jewels,’ Dad said.
Forbes had gone to stand b
y the back door, blocking George, who looked as if he meant to slide away. He looked out the window.
‘Hey,’ he said, and beckoned Davies. ‘There’s two sheilas siphoning petrol out there.’
Davies went past the tables and looked out. He gave a nasty grin at Dad.
‘You’ve got burglars.’
Mum and Grandma were siphoning from the hearse. They looked up, unconcerned, as Davies and Dad and all the rest spilled out of the poolroom – though Mum confessed to me her heart went flip.
‘What are you ladies up to?’ Davies said.
‘Ber! Mum!’ Dad cried.
Grandma smiled at them. ‘I needed some petrol –’
‘– so I’m giving her some,’ Mum completed it. She held up her finger at Dad. ‘Be quiet, Alf, it’s in the family.’ Then to Davies: ‘What’s going on, Bob?’
‘I’ve got a warrant to search here, Mrs Pascoe.’
‘What for?’ Mum frowned at Dad. ‘I hope Rex is not involved in this.’
Dad tried to shush her. He didn’t want Davies remembering me. And perhaps Davies would have worked it out, but he had no time. Footsteps sounded in the poolroom. A man came out and darted at Davies. His hair was stuck on his forehead in a shark’s tooth pattern. His shoes made a squishing sound. He smelled of milk.
Davies couldn’t believe it. ‘What happened to you?’
‘You come…You come with me.’ He was so angry he could scarcely speak. ‘There’s someone I want you to arrest.’
Chapter 18
Jack goes to sea
I was riding on the long stretch of road by Stewarts’ farm when I looked back and saw Davies’ car turn the corner. Naturally I thought he was chasing me. I put my head down and rode as fast as I could. The ledger weighed like lead in my shirt.
I passed the farm gate and started up the hill, losing speed, and knew Davies would catch me before I reached the top. It never crossed my mind to give myself up. I thought if Dad was arrested he’d go to prison, and I couldn’t bear that. So halfway up I stopped and threw my bike down at the side of the road and ran into the bracken. If I could get into the gully I had a good chance of getting away. Or maybe I could hide the ledger there and walk out whistling with an empty shirt. But as I climbed the fence into the farm I heard the car stop. I perched on the top wire, looking back, and saw Davies and Simpson get out of the car.
