by Alan Collins
Toni was about to speak, then thought better of it. Mrs Piper sat down and patted the seat beside her. ‘‘Can you trust this other fellow?’’
Joshua nodded. Andy said, ‘‘I reckon he’s some sort of Israeli secret agent. At any rate I’ll swear he had a gun in his pocket.’’
‘‘I don’t want to know about those things, Andy. I’m a pacifist. Guns and war have no place in my life.’’
Joshua saw Andy and Toni exchange glances.
Toni said: ‘‘But Nana, we’ve got a gun in this house. You know that.’’
Mrs Piper replied, ‘‘Toni darling, I may be old but I’m not stupid. If you live in the country you usually own a gun and ours is only a .22 rabbit gun anyway.’’
Andy laughed. ‘‘And it helps keep the young lairs away from Toni!’’
The girl blushed and replied sharply to her father. ‘‘Do shut up, Dad, or Joshua will think I’m the last virgin in Bathurst.’’ A look from her grandmother was enough to tell her that she had gone that one step too far. She tucked her skirt round her knees but looked up under her eyelashes at a startled Joshua.
Mrs Piper assumed command by her mere presence. First she asked with genuine warmth, ‘‘How is my friend Shu-lamit?’’
Joshua told her the old lady (she seemed ancient compared with Ethel Piper) was in good health. He added: ‘‘And Dad sends his …’’ but Mrs Piper cut him off.
‘‘Now we’ll talk about you, Joshua.’’ Her voice softened. ‘‘Andy and me, we’ve been talking about nothing else since Shulamit told us. I meant to ask you if you could grow a moustache. Not a beard — it seems as though every political lefty has a beard. Anyhow, let’s get started with the ‘mo’. That ought to help disguise you.’’ She studied Joshua’s face, then declared, ‘‘The lad hasn’t got a Jewish nose but then what would I know about that. I wouldn’t know a Jew if I tripped over one.’’ She appeared lost in thought for a moment, then said almost to herself: ‘‘What a shame we never had a picture of his real parents.’’
Andy, to fill the momentary awkwardness, told Joshua what he did for a living; how he used to be a plumber but enjoyed tinkering with this and that. Bathurst’s townies and the surrounding graziers kept him busy in his rambling tin shed out on Havannah Street, near the railway yards. When the petrol-heads powered into town for the Mt Panorama motor races, Andy was, as he put it, ‘‘as busy as a one-armed paper hanger! They all think they’re Jack Brabham and they end up with bits hangin’ off their cars and come to me to patch ’em up!’’
Toni giggled. ‘‘That’s what you think, Dad. They come to see me,’’ she teased.
‘‘Those that get too fresh have a rough ride back to Sydney,’’ Andy laughed. ‘‘And out comes the rabbit gun.’’
Mrs Piper let this banter continue for a bit longer, perhaps to put Joshua at his ease, then cut it short. ‘‘We reckon we can pass you off as Andy’s cousin’s son from Sydney — from Bondi actually, so if you do get cornered you know the background. See, not every young bloke got caught up in the birthday lottery call-up so it could be fair dinkum.’’
Andy chipped in: ‘‘Yeah. Handy Andy’s tinkerin’ business is booming so I can take on a helpin’ hand.’’ He looked at Joshua’s hands. ‘‘I reckon Toni’s got tougher paws than you, old son. Still, a bit o’ time dismantlin’ old car bodies will fix that up.’’
Ethel Piper took command again. ‘‘Andy and Toni are living with me while my … my daughter-in-law is away at …’’ she left the sentence floating. ‘‘There is room for you Joshua, out the back.’’ Her voice trembled slightly. ‘‘It used to be Peg’s room.’’
Joshua glanced quickly at Toni, who pretended to be concentrating on Bazza’s ears but shot quizzical glances at her grandmother. Mrs Piper went on: ‘‘We may have to change your name or at least shorten it, Joshua. Would you mind if, outside this house of course, you were known as Joe? And we thought maybe, if the need arose, your surname could be King. After all, a Kaiser was a sort of king, wasn’t he?’’
Toni burst out laughing. ‘‘You have to be kidding, Nana. That would make his name ‘joking’ — Joe King — joking oh ho, ha ha. What’s your name, sport? My name is Joe King — Ah, you’re joking, of course!’’ And she fell about, shrieking with laughter.
Ethel Piper said sharply, ‘‘That’s enough, Toni. If you don’t take this whole matter seriously, Joshua could end up in gaol.’’
Andy was smart. He warned his daughter that any slip-up and Joshua would be sent back to Sydney to take his chances. Toni quietened down and even Bazza looked serious. Her grandmother continued:
‘‘All right, tomorrow’s Monday. Joshua will leave in the morning and go to work with Andy. When Toni and I go down town to the shops we’ll start dropping the word here and there that Joe King, Andy’s nephew from Sydney, is spending a little time with us.’’ She glared around the room. ‘‘Let me tell you this is not a game we’re playing, and I wish to God we didn’t have to do it. We’re in it up to our armpits now as law-breakers …’’ She broke off. ‘‘Right oh, all of you, off to bed and sleep with your mouths shut!’’
NINE
It was a crisp cold country morning and his feet were sticking out from under the eiderdown. It had been pulled off him, he suspected, by Bazza, who now sat with wagging tail awaiting Joshua’s next move. The handsome Border Collie cocked his head on one side and whined softly. Joshua snuggled deeper into the eiderdown. Bazza gave two staccato barks. The bedroom door opened and Toni stood there, hands on hips. ‘‘I thought I’d find you here, Bazza. Now nick off,’’ she told the dog with mock severity. She pointed to the door and the dog slouched out.
Joshua caught his breath. He thought he had never seen anything so wildly beautiful as Toni standing there in a cheap cotton nightdress that came to her knees. Her face was still suffused with the pink of awakening; her long hair spilled around her shoulders. To control his feelings he stared fixedly at the floor. At that moment, Toni raised her arms over her head in a stretch and a yawn and the nightie rode up above her knees. Joshua gulped at the artless grace of the girl, her unconscious pleasure in the beauty of her body.
‘‘Was Bazza bothering you?’’ she asked. What she really meant was, ‘‘Don’t you think I’m really something, Mr Joe King!’’ She turned slowly toward the door. He found himself peeking at her breasts outlined clearly against the fleecy cotton.
‘‘No … I mean he wasn’t bothering me,’’ he mumbled. She laughed at his confusion, then decided to stir Joshua in a different way.
‘‘Grandma’s got breakfast ready, Joe. Bacon ’n eggs. Is that right? No, of course it isn’t. What a dill I am. Jewish people don’t eat bacon, do they? No objection to a couple of hen fruit though, have we, Joe?’’ Toni paused at the door and called down the passage: ‘‘Hold the bacon, Nana.’’
Joshua heard the response — ‘‘You just watch your tongue, young lady, and don’t be such a jolly know-all. I know better than to serve Joshua bacon. In fact I know a lot about Jewish things. What do you think Shulamit and I talk about on the phone?’’
From the doorway, Toni grinned at Joshua, blew him a kiss and told him to get up. ‘‘And don’t waste water — you’re in the country now.’’
He jumped up but she was gone. He looked through the window. The rolling purple hills were certainly not the graceful crescent of Bondi Beach and yet they beckoned to him.
As well as being in command of the inhabitants of her house, Ethel Piper was also in command of the warm kitchen, heated by the wood-fed Aga stove. Obviously meaning to carry through what they had decided the night before, she addressed him as Joe. Joshua started for a moment then shrugged. Well, I too have to pay a price, he told himself. Not the least would be taking orders all day from Andy, who was sitting at the other end of the scrubbed pine table reading a motor magazine. Mrs Piper put a dish of scrambled eggs and toast in front of Joshua, asked him how he liked his tea and left the two of them to eat in silence.
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br /> Joshua could see the remains of another breakfast; Toni had been and gone. He had a vision of her which he knew to be straight out of a film, running through the paddocks with Bazza streaming along beside her.
‘‘You’d better get a move on, old son.’’ Andy wiped his mouth and called out as he left: ‘‘Last shed on the left at the bottom of Havannah Street — just near the railway siding.’’
Mrs Piper handed Joshua a paper bag. ‘‘Toni made these. You’d better take your lunch with you, Joe. Andy has a pub lunch but it wouldn’t do for you to be seen in a place where all the gossip in this town starts.’’
She gave him directions while she cleared the table. Joshua thanked her then asked as casually as he knew how where Toni was.
‘‘Oh, just around,’’ Mrs Piper replied. She sounded exasperated with the topic of Toni.
Joshua began his new existence that morning as a storeman for Andy Piper’s Mister Fixit business. His instructions from Andy were few and forceful. ‘‘Stay out of sight in the back part of the shed. Out in the yard you’ll see some early Holdens. Just unbolt as many bits as you can from ’em and stack ’em on shelves. Did you bring your tucker? Eat it in me office but don’t answer the phone. OK, get your finger out, Joe King. See ya later.’’
Alone with his thoughts, Joshua sat in the driving seat of one of the wrecks and felt utterly miserable. He was a prey to doubts about his determination to see this whole thing through, to be a man on the run. It was all very well for Laura to parade all over Sydney with her satchel full of protest leaflets, but here he was in a tin shed in a country town surrounded by piles of rusting car bodies. Maybe he would have been better off in the army. After all, it wasn’t for life — if you lived, that is. But then there was Jacob’s bitter opposition to killing. And his real parents, both dead: one in a concentration camp grave in Poland, the other at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
Although Joshua knew they were only words, at this moment he would not have minded hearing Laura spout a few of her slogans. For that matter, it would be good to be able right now to hold Laura close. Joshua tried to conjure up the eucalyptus smell of her hair. It didn’t work; the odour of musty car upholstery was too strong. In disgust and despair he got out and vented his frustration by beating the old car body with a heavy shifting spanner. ‘‘Shit, shit, shit!’’ he yelled. He threw the spanner on the ground and sat down on an oil drum holding his head in his hands.
He was alone in the desolation of the junk yard. Magpies strutted importantly near his feet. Joshua recognised the same impudence in them as that of the seagulls that scavenged on Bondi Beach, feeding on the detritus from passing ships. He also felt a strange longing for the familiar clank of the printing presses, which in turn led him to give his first serious thought to Jacob. Joshua was ashamed that he had not phoned his father or Mrs Rothfield, although he felt certain that Ethel Piper and Shulamit Rothfield had been burning up the wires. Really, there wasn’t much to tell Jacob. Ilan had said he would report his safe arrival in Bathurst. Apart from that and the fact that his ‘‘boss’s’’ daughter was … well, better leave that one alone or Laura would abandon whatever her current protest was and come storming into Bathurst!
Perhaps it was all this deep thought that made Joshua hungry. He remembered Andy’s one sympathetic gesture to him — that he could eat his lunch in the office. He stood up and walked dispiritedly up the yard.
Toni was in the office, the electric jug poised over the coffee cups.
‘‘Dad’s in the pub, Joe, having a counter lunch.’’
‘‘What are you doing here?’’
‘‘Well, mister draft dodger, what does it look like? Now, milk and sugar?’’ He nodded and she attended to both cups. ‘‘Sorry about that crack,’’ she said. ‘‘I just thought you’d like company.’’ She studied her fingernails artfully. ‘‘Of course I could have sent Bazza. Would you have preferred that?’’ She opened Joshua’s packet of sandwiches, peered inside them and laughed. ‘‘Just checking to see that I didn’t give you a ham sandwich. Mind if I share one?’’
She was wearing tight-fitting jeans and desert boots. A sleeveless blouse gave her a carefree appearance accentuated by her hair, now barely constrained by a green ribbon. She bit into the sandwich with no pretence at manners, asking Joshua with her mouth full whether he could nick off for the afternoon. ‘‘After all, Dad’s not paying you a proper wage, is he?’’
She was seated on the corner of Andy’s battered desk, forcing Joshua to look up at her, which he tried not to do. That way, she might not see how much he was blushing.
He swallowed hard and said, ‘‘Maybe.’’
‘‘Maybe yes or maybe no?’’
‘‘Well, yes, but … but how come you have the time off?’’ She swung her legs. ‘‘Really, Joshua Kaiser or Joe King, what do you think? Grandma’s got her little flower shop in Piper Street — no it isn’t named after us — and Dad runs this bits ’n pieces and fixit show and …’’
‘‘What about your mother?’’ Joshua asked nervously.
‘‘Oh, off getting an education, wouldn’t you know. She only comes home when … anyhow, I’m the chief cook and bottle-washer round our place so if you’ve got any complaints, tell ’em to me.’’
‘‘Don’t you work?’’
Toni exploded. ‘‘Don’t I work?’’ she shouted. ‘‘You blokes are the bloody limit. Who do you think makes the meals, cleans and washes, feeds the chooks — I even milked a cow before it went dry.’’
Even while Toni was hauling Joshua to his feet, the thought hit him hard: his ‘‘mother’’ Pnina, then Laura and now this new female in his life — they were all determined, strong-willed women who left him feeling quite inadequate to cope with their mood swings. He found himself following her out of the office and into the street.
‘‘Hop in, Joe, and I’ll take you for a burn.’’ She leaned proprietorially against a battered ex-army jeep. Joshua, stunned, didn’t move. Toni, with a gallant gesture, bowed him into the jeep. ‘‘Tour for the Abercrombie Caves leaves in one minute. Have you got your ticket, sir?’’
Joshua took a step nearer the jeep. He walked around it. On its flat khaki bonnet was crudely painted ‘‘Toni’s Truck’’. The girl was growing impatient: she climbed into the driving seat, honked the horn and switched on the engine. Joshua looked up and down the empty noonday street and with attempted bravado swung himself into the seat alongside Toni. She looked at him and then her mouth curled in a combined smile and sneer. ‘‘For heaven’s sake, you took Nana seriously. You are growing a moustache. Curl the mo, Joe. What’s it going to be, a walrus or playboy one? Will it tickle when we kiss?’’
Joshua felt his lip. It was definitely bristly. Not bad for a day. He was quite proud of it. How could this girl be such a smart-arse and still look so bloody marvellous? Would it tickle her when they … no, he couldn’t get involved with her. She was only a kid, wasn’t she? Still, a kiss wouldn’t be bad … .
A blast of Beatle music drowned out both his thoughts and the rackety motor as Toni switched on the radio. She let in the clutch and the jeep kangaroo-hopped before stalling. She restarted the engine and for the first time showed a spark of humility. ‘‘Sorry, Joe. Only got my provisional last week. Mind you, I’ve been driving a lot. Dad put the jeep in the paddock and let me burn around.’’
‘‘Want me to drive?’’
Toni shook her head and this time let the clutch out slowly; the little jeep moved off with Joshua strangely moved by the sight of her small hands on the huge bare steel steering wheel. Even above the radio and the engine, Joshua could hear yelling. He looked back to see Andy waving furiously and then watched his arms dropping in defeat as he went back inside the shed. Gaining confidence, Toni speeded up and the jeep flew from bump to bump on the corrugated back road.
Scraggy sheep dotted the paddocks; now and then Joshua saw sleek beef cattle lying in the shade of peppercorn trees, their huge flanks spread flat on the g
round. To his shame, he realised he had never been in true pasture country, in fact never before crossed the Great Dividing Range, only peered at its jagged profile from the Katoomba lookouts. The windscreen of the jeep was flat on the bonnet, the warm wind of the Western Plains pressed their clothes close to their bodies. Joshua had never felt so exhilarated. It was heightened every time he sneaked a sidelong glance at Toni whose willowy young body bent and swayed with every contour of the road.
His delicious pleasure was interrupted by Toni telling him sharply to slide down on the floor and throwing her wind-jacket over him. He obeyed but called up to her for the reason.
‘‘We’re coming to Georges Plains. It’s only a little spot but sometimes the local copper waits just out of town to catch the mug speedsters.’’
Joshua felt the jeep slow down, heard Toni call ‘‘G’day’’ and then a minute later her foot nudged him to come out of hiding. The countryside had started to change. The horizon-reaching pastures had given way to foothills scarred with eroded watercourses. Toni was now changing gear frequently, occasionally missing the cog meshes but not at all concerned. The crowns of the giant gums on the valley floor way below reached up to the road. As they descended deeper into the valley, the sun could only penetrate in thin shafts of light. The jeep and its two occupants seemed insignificant, a tiny mechanical bug scuttling down to a sombre deep that closed behind them like a following sea.
A road sign, peppered with bullet holes, clung to the hillside. It announced the Abercrombie Caves, one mile ahead. Toni’s face was streaked with dust and sweat. Tiny globules glistened on her bare arms. Joshua was entranced with her, captivated by her bold self-assurance and longing for the jeep to stop so that he could take her in his arms. He found himself moving towards her as the jeep finally bottomed out on the valley floor. After two attempts, Toni backed it into a clearing and cut the motor.