The Battlers

by Kylie Tennant

  Sometimes, when he felt a little lonely, he thought it was the boys he was missing. Actually, it was his three pests, the busker, Phippsy, and, most of all, the Stray. The van didn’t seem the same somehow, after the first thrill of exultation and freedom wore off. This took about a week, by which time he was well on his way. He missed the Stray’s childish tempers, and her no less childish pleasures, her enormous lies that no one believed, her real generosity and hard work. She was a battler, Snow admitted; impudent, hardy, cool, and she could take a ‘knock-back’ as though it didn’t matter, and come up to meet the next blow, with perhaps a curse, but at least come up and meet it. She wasn’t a whiner. She was a good mate and a good toiler, and he wished her luck, whether she stayed at the dairy or went back to Sydney. He wondered some nights, sitting by his fire alone, just what the Stray was doing now. Probably getting drunk in some Sydney bar-parlour and swearing herself into a fury.

  The Stray lasted all of a week at the dairy after Snow left. She was suffering from shock, and it was the sort of shock that numbed her mind and made her incapable of thought or decisive action. She went through the housework and cooking and washing in a daze. But on Sunday afternoon the warmth and kindness of the air tempted her. She would go up to the camps and see if there were any news of Snow. Someone might have come through the way he had gone and seen Snow’s turnout.

  The afternoon was a glass bowl in which the scent of the briar rose boiled like some invisible, intoxicating liquor, simmering in heady gusts, that overpowered the roads, the fields, the ditches, in an unreal brilliance. The trees shone, the sky shone, everything glowed and shimmered with a marvellous beauty. Even the garbage-tip, with its dirty piles of old tins and refuse, seemed less of an eyesore, and the beaten-out kerosene-tin humpies of the dark people’s camp merged their rust with the dead-brown earth, the chequered lights and shadows of the thin scrub, as though they had a magic and might vanish altogether. Everywhere there were clumps of briar that had been shabby and leafless, but were now gay in their new green. Their frail petals delicately stained with rose, light as a breath, drifted freely over heaps of rubbish or the close-bitten grass, more freely than they might have done in a garden. The briar is always on the point of being declared noxious, a ruin of fields, a home for pests, the refuge of rabbits and small birds, its thorns sheltering other lives than its own. The briar that travels the roads and leaps the ditches to prowl in a farmer’s field and spread itself under his very nose uncaring, is the battler’s flower, and its smell is the best in the world, if you except bacon cooking over a fire of black cypress boughs.

  The familiar stretch of ground was almost tentless. Dick Tyrell and Thirty-Bob were gone; the Apostle had gone. There was a family she did not know camped where the Apostle’s little truck had rested.

  Farther along the bank prowled a curious figure, searching around the blackened patches of bygone camp-fires, a figure well known on the tracks, stooped half-double, as though an invisible swag always pressed on his shoulders, with a long grey beard and long grey hair, and very dirty, long black fingernails.

  The Stray had encountered George the Bower-bird before, and feared him not a little, although he bore the reputation of being perfectly harmless. He was mad, a ‘Hatter,’ always chattering and mumbling to himself; and he had the habit of searching camps for discarded trifles or bits of rubbish. He would eat stale bread-crusts with great content; and old boots or clothes that the travellers threw away he gathered up as though they were priceless treasures.

  ‘How goes it, George?’ the Stray greeted him affably. She was always very polite to frightening people.

  George chattered and mumbled. ‘Burning good clothes,’ he said excitedly, shaking out a piece of mouldy cloth from the ashes. ‘That’s Sharkey Wilks’s mob for yer. Sooner burn good clothes than let anyone else get ’em. Arr.’ He shook his head angrily. ‘Ought to be burnt up themselves.’ He came very close to the Stray, so close that she could smell the noisome odour of his rags. ‘Burn them all up,’ he muttered, glaring at her. ‘You see. Put a match under them.’

  ‘You do, George,’ the Stray advised, shivering. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘All them farmers’ — he took a box of matches out of his pocket, and shook them at her — ‘they ought to have their stacks burnt. If I had my rights, I’d be richer than any of ’em. Burn them up. That’s what I say. Don’t let a man sleep in their shed.’

  ‘I’ve gotta be going.’ The Stray looked round for an excuse to escape. It was funny, she thought, how she seemed always to be meeting mad people. There was the Apostle, and poor Charley, and this horrible old Bower-bird. ‘Mrs Little’s wanting me,’ she said. ‘So long.’

  And indeed the Stray’s appearance had caused quite a stir in the dark people’s camp. Mrs Little, carrying a new baby, hurried up the river-bank, beckoning her excitedly.

  ‘Hey, Missus Grimshaw,’ she called. ‘Come over ’ere a minute.’

  The Stray went. Mrs Little was plainly trying to be friendly.

  ‘Your little boy come ’ere, missus, asking for ’is Dad. Said ’is father was in ’orspital kicked by a horse.’

  The Stray regarded her suspiciously. Maybe this was some new trick on the part of the Littles.

  ‘My kid come here?’ she demanded.

  ‘Yeah. ’E slept here last night. I couldn’t see a little feller like that stay out in the cold when his father had gone. He went up the ’orspital last night and they didn’t know nothing. I told ’im you’d know where his Daddy was, and sent him out to the Markses. Just now, it was. You must of passed ’im on the road.’ The woman was full of excitement and curiosity. ‘It’s such a shame to see a little feller travellin’ along by himself. The Welfare people ’ull be on to him like a shot. It’s a wonder the p’lice haven’t got him before this.’ The other women murmured agreement, their dark faces shining with sympathy and interest. ‘Jimmy Grimshaw, ’e says his name is. ’E come all the way from Blimdagery.’

  ‘I better go after him,’ the Stray said hurriedly. ‘Thanks for looking after the kid.’

  ‘I couldn’t do no less,’ the woman answered loudly. ‘I’m not one to hunt kids.’ This was a dig at the absent Mrs Tyrell. ‘I wouldn’t see a kid left. Or anyone else for that matter, poor little beggar!’

  Mrs Little had a shrewd suspicion that Dancy was no more Mrs Grimshaw than she was. Jimmy’s declaration that his mother was back in Blimdagery had been a sweet morsel of scandal. But Mrs Little had saved the Stray’s face. She could have blurted it all out and shamed the woman who had sympathised with her enemies, but she had called her ‘Missus Grimshaw.’ She had not shown that she knew different. Mrs Little, when her temper was not roused, or her husband drunk, had a notable kindness. Besides, the Littles were making ready to take to the road, and it does not pay to have too many enemies. Perhaps her friendliness to the Stray might a little mollify the Tyrells, though she doubted it. No Little would be safe on the same reserve with a Tyrell now.

  Dancy hurried back the way she came. This new development had taken her completely by surprise. What was Snow’s kid doing here? Poor little beggar! he must have come all the way from Blimdagery by himself. Of course he would get lifts, but even so it was a long way for a boy of eleven. The Stray knew all about Jimmy. He was one of Snow’s favourite subjects of conversation. What was his mother thinking to let him go? Of course she would have put the police on his trail. It was a wonder, as Mrs Little said, that they had not got him before this. Molly might have been afraid to start the police after the kid for fear they sent him to a home; but no, she would not think like that. It was only people like the Stray who hated and feared ‘homes’ and the whole process of justice and regeneration, who would sooner die than call in the police.

  There was no sign of Jimmy on the road; but, then, she would not know him if she saw him, and she had not noticed whom she passed on her way to the reserve. Hold on a minute! There had been a boy, a gingery-headed one with freckles, lurking about in a paddock,
who, she thought, was bird-nesting.

  Dancy was hot and moist when she panted up the incline from the dairy gate to the garden gate. Her mind was still in a puzzle. There was no sign of Jimmy sitting on the edge of the verandah, as she had half hoped. He might have been scared and gone away. If he saw Mrs Marks, he would be. Dancy hurried into the kitchen to find Charley, who was, as usual, crouched beside the stove.

  ‘Seen anything of a little boy asking for me,’ she panted — ‘a little boy called Jimmy?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Grimshaw,’ Charley whispered. ‘I told him not to wait, Mrs Grimshaw. You wouldn’t be back, I said.’ He eyed her craftily. ‘I said you didn’t want to see him.’

  ‘Oh, Charley!’ the Stray exclaimed desperately. ‘What’d you do that for?’

  ‘He said you weren’t his mother,’ the idiot replied. ‘You don’t want to see him. He wouldn’t grow up to direct a railway.’

  But the Stray had darted to the door. She was standing on the verandah, her hand shading her eyes from the afternoon sunlight, when Mrs Marks came out from the dining-room. She was dressed in her best black, and there was a malicious glitter in her pale eyes. Her whole attitude had changed. From a whining hypochondriac she had become suddenly malignant and ominously powerful.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Dancy!’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. A child came here asking for you.’ Dancy could see at once that some secret triumph was exciting her. ‘I thought: the best thing is to ring the police at once, and then I thought: No, I’ll take him in myself. He’s run away from his home. I gave him some cake, and he told me …’

  ‘Where is he?’ Dancy demanded.

  ‘I’ve got him shut in the shed,’ Mrs Marks answered, still very pleased with herself.

  The Stray flared. ‘You got my kid shut in the shed,’ she stormed furiously. ‘Who the hell told you you could shut up my kid in any shed? Talk about p’lice! My kid comes out to see me, and you shut ’im in a shed! I’ll have the p’lice on you, see if I don’t.’

  The woman retreated a little before the menace in Dancy’s tone. ‘That’s no way to speak to me. You ain’t his mother at all, my lady. She’s back in Blimdagery. You ain’t even the wife of the man you come here with. If you ask me, you’d better watch out, talking to me like that. I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, and you can take yourself out of my house as soon as you like.’

  The Stray swallowed with an effort at control. ‘I’ll tell you how it is,’ she explained. ‘Jimmy don’t want people to know all his business, so he tells them I’m back home. He thinks that makes it all right, see?’

  Mrs Marks was unconvinced. ‘You ain’t got no wedding ring,’ she said with great virtue.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you I pawned it when me and me old man was hard up?’

  ‘You told me that all right. But the whole thing’s just a tale. You try and explain it to the police. Why, I wouldn’t sleep safe in my bed with a lot of cut-throats always driving up to the house and asking for a woman as ain’t married at all. And then one night I wake up and find me bed’s been stolen from under me.’

  The Stray thought deeply. Her first inspiration to strangle Mrs Marks had been discarded as lacking in subtlety. Mrs Marks had Jimmy locked in a shed, and was obviously very pleased at the thought of all the things a virtuous woman could visit on one who had no legal or economic status.

  ‘You got it all wrong, Mrs Marks,’ Dancy said patiently. ‘All I want is to take Jimmy with me and go off after me old man. ’S a matter of fact, now the kid’s come, the sooner I leave the better.’

  ‘I always knew you’d leave me in the lurch just at a busy time.’

  ‘Well,’ Dancy bargained, ‘seein’ I’m leaving sudden like this I won’t be wanting me last week’s wages.’ She saw the glitter of avarice in the woman’s eyes. ‘If you start callin’ in the p’lice for my kid — an’ I can prove he’s mine — you’ll only get yourself in a mess, and I’ll sue you, sure as I stand here, for contamination of character. But I can see you ain’t got no place for me and the kiddie, so I’ll go to me husbing.’ The woman still hesitated. Dancy, she knew, had always had more strength than she. The assurance of her manner took all the starch out of Mrs Marks. ‘Gimme that key,’ Dancy demanded. ‘Locking my boy in a shed, indeed. I’m going this very night.’

  Mrs Marks very slowly and reluctantly produced the key from her handbag. ‘It’s a pity my husband isn’t home,’ she observed. ‘He’d deal with you.’ But the thought of saving Dancy’s wages was too much for her. ‘I’ll come with you to see that nothing’s missing.’

  ‘You stay right here,’ Dancy declared. ‘He’s my kid and I want to talk to him a bit. Nobody ain’t going to take any of them rusty old bits of harness. They ain’t worth it.’

  She sped over to the shed and let herself in. A small, ginger-headed boy made a sudden break for the door from behind a pile of old machinery.

  ‘Jimmy.’ The Stray caught at him, and he struggled to free himself. ‘It’s all right, love. I’ve come to get you away. We’ll go and find your Dad this very minute.’

  ‘You lemme go.’ Jimmy still struggled. ‘You lemme out of here.’

  ‘Listen, Jimmy, not so loud. Old fish-face ’ull hear you. She wants to put the p’lice on you. We got to get out of here.’

  The urgency of the Stray’s tone stilled the boy. He looked at her searchingly. ‘Where’s me Dad?’ he demanded. ‘He wrote to me from hospital, and now they say he ain’t there.’

  ‘He’s gone off to Crookwell, Jimmy.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Well, I don’t exactly know from here, but I guess we’ll find it. And listen, Jimmy, for cripes sake pretend I’m your muvver. This old devil’s set on gettin’ the p’lice. Gawd knows why, but if you pretend I’m your muvver, she won’t dare. Understand?’

  Jimmy nodded. He had a sharp, decided manner, that was much more his mother’s than Snow’s. ‘All right. What’s your name?’

  ‘Dancy. But you better call me Mum. Come on now. And don’t forget. We’re goin’ after your Dad, and I’m your muvver.’

  They emerged to find Mrs Marks approaching the shed with a renewed intention to interfere. ‘Don’t you go away without signing the time-book,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t want you getting away from here, and then saying I didn’t pay you.’ She drew herself up virtuously: ‘I won’t have you saying things like that about me.’

  The Stray almost exploded. ‘Get out of me way,’ she said rudely. ‘Jimmy, you come and help Mummy pack.’

  ‘Right-o, Mum,’ Jimmy responded woodenly.

  ‘So she is your mother now,’ Mrs Marks commented sarcastically, diverted from her intention of smacking the Stray’s face. ‘You know what happens to boys who tell lies.’

  Jimmy made no answer. He followed Dancy to her lean-to, while she gathered her few garments into a gunnysack and put on the shabby old coat she had been given by the Methodist minister’s wife. She thanked heaven silently for the four pounds fifteen shillings she had from the sale of the horse and turnout. Mrs Marks didn’t know anything about that, didn’t know what a secret source of comfort and strength it was to the Stray.

  ‘Come on, Jimmy,’ she said, flinging in the last of her rags. ‘Mummy’s ready.’

  Mrs Marks had been standing offensively near, inspecting everything that went into the sack. ‘Good riddance,’ she exclaimed, every line of her outraged. ‘Speaking to me as I have never been spoken to in my life. Lying and thieving and …’

  ‘Look here, missus, you get out of my way before I regrets it. I want to say good-bye to Charley.’ This Dancy did, with Jimmy tagging after her, and Mrs Marks bringing up the rear.

  ‘Don’t forget.’ Charley nodded at her mysteriously. ‘You know.’ He was referring to the piece of paper, the ‘cheque for a thousand pounds,’ that he had given her.

  ‘I’ll remember, Charley,’ the Stray promised. ‘You’re a kind boy.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, Mrs Grims
haw,’ Charley said, reaching for his cap. ‘I’ll be going down to the station now, and I’ll walk with you.’

  ‘Don’t show your face inside my gate again,’ Mrs Marks shouted to Dancy as the trio reached the garden gate. ‘You and your nameless brat.’

  The Stray took no notice. They walked fast, Charley because he wanted to be in time to wave the train out, Jimmy and the Stray to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Mrs Marks, still standing on the verandah like a black figure of hate.

  ‘Where’d you leave your things?’ the Stray asked. She knew Jimmy would have some little bundle.

  ‘With Mrs Little.’ Jimmy was limping because he had a nail in his shoe; and the Stray was pleased for his sake when they reached the reserve.

  ‘Well, good-bye again, Charley,’ she said. ‘You’ve been very good to me.’

  ‘I’ve got to hurry, Mrs Grimshaw,’ he said rapidly. ‘Don’t forget. If you ever want money, just get in touch with me.’ He shambled away, and Dancy watched him go a little sadly. Poor Charley!

  ‘He ain’t a bad sort,’ she said to Jimmy. ‘The best of them mongrel-faced Markses, anyway. Her and her ten bob a week!’

  Mrs Little had obviously been waiting for them. ‘You found him!’ she called before the Stray could speak. ‘That’s good.’ She was all smiles.

  ‘We got to be getting on, missus,’ the Stray said hurriedly. ‘I want to catch up wiv me old man.’

  ‘You can stay here the night,’ the woman advised. ‘’Tain’t much, but it’s better than bein’ out in the open.’

  ‘We ought to go now.’ The Stray glanced nervously over her shoulder. It would be just like Mrs Marks to phone the police and say there was a runaway boy about.

  The beautiful afternoon was dying in a mist of rose, delicate wisps of cloud feathering the sky with the colours of a galah’s wings; but to Mrs Little it meant only that it would soon be dark.

  ‘Ain’t you got no nap?’ she asked. ‘Here, wait on a minute.’ She hurried inside her dilapidated tin humpy, and presently reappeared with Jimmy’s little bundle, an old dirty blanket, and a sugar-bag full, as they found later, of such necessities as tea, sugar, bread, a tiny bit of butter, and half a tin of treacle. There was even some raw bacon and matches with an old knife. She held also a little billy-can. ‘Here,’ she said, thrusting the bundles at them. ‘Good luck.’