I wondered if snakes regarded breathing or heart palpitations as movement. I was careful not to move a muscle, but I couldn’t stop my racing heart or my nervous panting. I watched as the creature slithered around me, leaving a smoothly grooved trail to mark the path it travelled.
If Mum were here, she would shoot it. She often shot snakes that came too close to the house. Lucky she was a good shot, because she always took aim and then closed her eyes when she pulled the trigger. Hated seeing anything die. Always said “poor creature” after, but she was concerned for our safety. Both Mum and Dad disapproved of shooting anything unless it was to eat or for protection.
Occasionally young blokes on shooting expeditions drove near our house or over the paddocks of the station --- shooting kangaroos or rabbits mostly. Sometimes ducks. Dad never objected to them killing for skins and meat, but if they left dead or wounded ducks or animals behind he would chase them and yell swear words at them.
“Live an’ let live, son,” Dad said. “There’s an order t’ the universe. Every livin’ thing exists for a reason. We’re meant to hunt for our tucker, and sometimes we gotta kill for safety, but killin’ for sport’s disgustin’.”
He’d say it was OK to kill this snake, though. It was threatening my safety. Only problem was, I had nothing to kill it with. I didn’t have a rifle with me, and anyway, this creature would inject its deadly poison before I could raise a gun, take accurate aim and shoot to kill. There wasn’t a strong stick within reach. If there had been, stretching for it was movement that would invite attack.
Dad often slid a stick under a snake’s belly, lifted it up, and tossed it away from him so that it slithered off in another direction. Not brown snakes, they were deadly. He’d do that with a tree snake. He’d whack a brown snake with a stick and break its back. I wasn’t sure I could hit hard enough and in the right spot to kill a snake. If it survived an attack with a stick, it would certainly be angry and strike.
I guess it was only minutes that I stood there paralysed with fear, but it felt like an eternity. Eventually, the snake quietly slithered off to the side of the road and disappeared in a clump of long, grey grass. I stood still for a few moments longer, scared that movement would alarm the creature and cause it to return and attack. Finally, I plucked up courage to move slightly. I picked up my bag, stopped, looked around me, and listened for any hissing sound or rustling in the grasses. When I heard nothing, I took a few more tentative steps.
My progress for the next few hundred yards was painfully slow. I kept stopping to look carefully around me and listen for any hint of the reptile’s presence. When I finally relaxed a little and convinced myself the snake had found another interest, I hastened to the inviting shade of a gum tree near the side of the road and sat down to rest. The strain of standing perfectly still and the terror of the moment had left me exhausted.
Sitting there, under scant shade, a savage sun beating down on me and powdery dust irritating my nostrils and making my mouth dry, I was aware of the fierce, stabbing pains of hunger. I could smell the fresh–baked bread --- a warm, soft, comforting aroma. My mouth watered and my nostrils twitched.
A little pick at the crust surely won’t hurt?
I reached into the bag, extracted the wrapped loaf and carefully pulled away the tissue. The loaf broke neatly at the crease in the middle and the deliciously soft crumbs tickled my fingers. I set one half carefully aside and began to pick at the half in my hands. There was a loud crunch as I bit into the delicious crusty shell, and then my tongue found the silky–soft white middle.
When I finally rose to continue my walk, snakes no longer occupied my thoughts. My mouth was dry, my palms were wet and my bag was a little lighter. A light breeze had wrapped the tissue paper around the tree trunk, pressing it hard against the bark. One half of the loaf was little more than a crusty shell.
I tried desperately to conceive a plan to persuade old Mr Comino to exchange the small amount of change for a half loaf of bread, which cost nearly twice as much as I had in my pocket. I knew he wouldn’t. I toyed with the idea of going back to look for cordial bottles, but it might take several days to find enough to pay for a half loaf. I walked the rest of the way home very slowly, with a heavy heart.
“What happened to the bread?” Mum asked when I handed her the bag and change. I stood in our kitchen staring hard at my feet and didn’t answer.
“Answer your mother,” Dad said. He spoke softly, but I could feel his glare.
“I ate it,” I whispered. “I was really hungry and I just started picking little bits off the crust, and before I knew it there was a huge hole in the middle.
“But I can go back and buy some more,” I added, hopefully.
“If we had enough money to buy more,” Mum said. “But we don’t.”
The thought occurred to me that we would if she hadn’t insisted I buy cigarettes, but I didn’t dare say it. I learnt early in life to always be polite and respectful to my parents, and never answer back. Anyway, Dad was already unbuckling his belt, so I settled for pleading “But I was really, really hungry”.
It didn’t help, and nor did relating my encounter with the snake, which I’m sure neither parent quite believed. I copped a flogging and a stern lecture about stealing being wrong no matter what the circumstances. I’m sure Dad pinched a thing or two when the chips were down, but he was big on the importance of honesty. He had no tolerance for thieves or liars.
#
There was a little shed at the back of the shack where Dad stored his tools and stacked wood to keep it dry for use in wet weather. He often took me down there and let me watch him clean his rifle and sharpen knives. He showed me how to split chips, start a fire and make a frame to hang a billy. He taught me how to make billy tea. He taught me to shoot a rifle, too, and he let me practise shooting tins off the old chopping block. One day, he brought a pocketknife home for me and taught me how to whittle. We made little wooden dolls for Jenny. Mine were queer–looking things, all bloodstained from nicking my fingers, but I loved copying anything Dad did.
I wasn’t allowed in the shed when Dad was away, except to fetch wood for the stove. Every day, when he packed his tools away, he’d warn me never to touch anything when he wasn’t around. But the first time he went droving again after his back healed, temptation exceeded fear of punishment. I was fascinated by the way he flicked his file like a knife after sharpening the axe. It would strike a mark in the timber beam above the shed door. The day after he went away, I climbed up on a wooden block to reach that file. I stepped back, took careful aim and threw with all my might. It missed of course. Flew right through the open doorway and glided neatly into the middle of a stinging nettle bush. I tried all day to figure a way to retrieve it, but to no avail.
In the afternoon, I filled the wood box by the stove, and then I took the bucket to fetch water from the dam and filled the tub outside the door ready for the evening wash–up. I helped Mum fetch the washing off the line. When Mum started the ironing, I fetched water in a jug for her to sprinkle on the pillowcases to damp them down. Then I helped her fold the underwear and shake the red dust from the towels. When she started peeling vegetables for dinner, I climbed on to the stool by the stove to watch her.
“When will Dad be back?” I asked her.
“Not sure. Four days. A week maybe.”
I breathed a little sigh of relief. Time to find a way to fetch the file, maybe?
I felt her watching me closely and I squirmed a little.
“What did you do, Paul?”
I studied my feet in silence for a minute. How come she always knew?
“Come on, son. Out with it. I should have known there was a reason you were being so helpful today. What have you been up to?”
I gave her a pleading look, hoping desperately that being helpful would earn her favour.
“I threw Dad’s file and it landed in the prickle bush.” I said. “Can you help me get it out, Mum? Please!”
She re
garded me thoughtfully for a minute, then shook her head. “Sorry, son. He’s warned you often enough not to touch his things.”
I slid off the stool and went outside to stare in desperation at that bush. I tried prodding at it with a stick, fishing for the file, but the nettles stung my hands and arms.
Mum made rabbit stew for dinner that night, and it tasted wonderful. After I helped her wash up, I sat on the stool watching the shadows from the kerosene lamp dancing on the hessian window coverings and thinking up stories to explain the file’s disappearance. I pictured my father glaring at me as he unbuckled his belt. The only thing I was afraid of back then was the faint hissing sound that belt made as he slid it free of its keepers. It was a sound that made me cringe even when I knew I wasn’t about to cop a flogging.
I often spent long, hot afternoons lying on my belly in patchy grass under a gum tree near the gate, listening to birdcalls and drawing pictures in the dirt with a stick. Dad’s dog, Rusty, would lie there with me, his head resting on my back, panting hot breath over me. Rusty always went with Dad when he went droving. When Dad came back, he’d come bounding in ahead of him to find me lying there. He’d lick me all over and lie with me to wait for Dad to reach the gate. Then Dad would swing me up into the saddle in front of him to ride back to the shack.
I was lying there the day Dad came back from that trip, but for once I wasn’t pleased to see Rusty. He sensed it and whined, but Dad didn’t seem to notice. He pulled me up in front of him with a soft chuckle.
“And what have you been up to eh, Towser? I hope you were good for your mother while I was gone. I missed my little mate. One of these days, when you’re a little older, I’ll take you with me.”
I knew I should confess what I’d done, and I was only postponing the inevitable by staying silent, but I was in no hurry to spoil the pleasant mood. He would find out soon enough. When we dismounted, I watched him remove the saddle and I helped him wash his horse down and give it feed and water. Then I followed him into the house and sat beside him while he drank his tea, and he told me stories. He told great yarns --- exciting tales, but not always factual, I suspect --- about the early explorers and how the country was discovered and settled. I’d often go down to the riverbank and pretend to be one of those explorers, coming back, exhausted, from a long trek --- no food or water left, the only survivor from my party.
I sat there listening to him that afternoon, watching Mum roll pastry for a pigeon pie, trying to act as if nothing was wrong. I kept up the act after dinner when he sat outside under the eucalyptus trees and strummed an old guitar. He did that often, and I loved to listen. Sometimes Mum would sing. Dad would talk about his boyhood and his courting days, and months on the trail droving. Never talked about the war though. That subject was taboo. Mum mentioned it to me now and then, but she always told me never to speak of it to Dad. She said he had a real bad time and he often had dreadful nightmares and woke in a cold sweat.
Dad went down to the woodshed that evening, but the axe didn’t need sharpening and I guess he didn’t bother looking for the file. It was late the next afternoon when he came looking for me, black–faced, and beckoned me to follow him. He led me to the shed door and pointed at the beam.
“Where’s my file?”
For a brief moment, I considered lying, but I knew that would only make things worse. Lower lip quivering, I pointed at the bush. He pondered the situation for a moment, looking first at me and then at the bush, and then at me again. Then he grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, lifted me high in the air, and dropped me right into the middle of those nettles. I grabbed that file and scrambled out of there that fast you couldn’t blink, but it stung like hell for hours afterward.
The next day he came home with a pocket full of darts and started giving me lessons in the art of throwing. Taught me well, too! I got to be damn good at it. Used to play in the pubs all the time when I was in the army. Used to win a few quid. In different circumstances --- free to travel the circuits --- I could’ve played competition and made a motza, I reckon.
#
Despite the discomforts of that shack, I loved living there. I loved the bush. Except on school days, I was feral and free. When Dad was at home, I followed him around the paddocks and watched him working. When he was away, I played on the riverbank by day and lay in the grass after dark, finding pictures in the stars and dreaming of one day taking a swag and going droving with my dad, camping out at night and making billy tea and damper and sleeping in the open.
From the time I started school I hated the unwelcome restriction of my freedom, and I hated that the kids tormented me because we were poor. In my second year, it occurred to me that I needn’t go, but I could roam the riverbank instead, seeking shelter from the rain and the authorities by hiding in the bushes under the bridge.
The river became my haven. I spent countless hours roaming the grassy banks --- crackling twigs tickling the soles of my feet --- pretending to be an explorer or fisherman. I lay in the sun on the soft, warm sand. Dangling willows on the banks dared me to climb and swing on their outspread limbs. On hot days, I stripped naked and dropped from the branches into the murky waters.
Dad found out about me wagging and punished me severely. For a whole week I wasn’t allowed out to play or to go with him to the shed, or to sit outside in the evenings listening to his songs and stories. The punishment was enough to persuade me, for a while, to suffer long, boring days in a stuffy classroom, chanting times tables.
I wagged again and went down to the river one day in the spring before my eighth birthday. I was walking to school when one of the town kids came up behind me and hit me on the head with a heavy, wooden pencil case. I darted off to the riverbank to escape his bullying. Once there, I figured I might as well stay. Dad’s explorer stories were fresh in my mind, and I felt inclined to retreat to my world of make–believe.
I marched up over the hills and across the endless flat expanse, keeping the setting sun always to my right to hold my course firmly south. The soles of my feet burnt. My pack weighed heavier by the minute. My throat burnt, and my belly rumbled. My supplies had dwindled to almost nothing. A pale moon peeped from behind a cloud to mock me. My heart pounded, and a giddy sensation overtook me. Despite the heat, I shivered.
I pushed on into blackness, summoning the last of my courage, concentrating intently on placing one foot after the other and staying erect. If I could reach the river, I could follow it almost all the way back to the camp. There would be water, and maybe fish. There might be some edible growth near the river.
My sides were grazed from numerous falls against rough–barked tree trunks. Pack straps cut into my shoulders. Weakness overcame me. And then, from a distance, came the glorious, rushing river song. On and on towards it, summoning the last reserves of my strength, until, in the blackness, I caught the reflection of a twinkling star, and then the soft shadows of the willows and the glorious sensation of sinking into sand. I fell face down on the soft bed, lips parted to feel the clear, cool water on my tongue. Gulping, splashing, gurgling, caressing aching limbs with soothing slaps of wetness. Tiny rivulets traced through body hollows, cooling and reviving. I crawled up the bank to drop in a sodden heap on the sand and sleep.
In a moment, bored with this pretence, I leapt to my feet, snatched a bough from the willow and ran to a steeper outcrop of bank to cast a line. The bough whistled as the line whizzed through the air and cut the water. I dragged the bait expertly across the stream, and into a quiet, sheltered bay below. Almost immediately I felt the jerk and gently eased the line in. Again and again the line whistled through still air, and I reeled in my imaginary catch. At last, tired again, I wriggled up the bank to nestle against the wide willow trunk and rest.
A sharp, demanding voice cut the stillness. “What are you doing here, boy? Come here at once!”
My heart sank. I sprang to my feet and tried to run, but the sand swallowed my feet. My chaser was barely three yards behind, puffing loudly. I tri
pped and fell. A firm hand gripped my upper arm, dragged me up the bank and propelled me into the back of a black sedan.
The man took me home, and I saw the look of contempt as we approached the shack. My stomach churned, and my head throbbed as I watched my captor stride towards the woodshed. I trembled, fearing my father’s wrath and that dreaded strap.
They talked a while in hushed tones. I stared at my feet, waiting silently for that savage grip on my upper arm, the angry roar, the whistle of leather as a deft hand raised the belt, the flicking sound as it turned in the air and began its descent, and the fierce, burning sting as it cut across my upper legs.
There was no beating. The colour drained from my mother’s face and her hands began to shake. She covered her face with her apron, pretending to wipe perspiration from her brow, but I knew it hid tears. My father raged sure enough, but not at me. He raged at the man. He screamed and swore, and the man trembled, face ruddy and eyes bulging.
In the end, it was clear the man won. My father slumped forward, leaning heavily on his axe, gasping. Mum ran into the house sobbing. My triumphant captor grunted, stuck out his chin, bid them good day, and departed in a cloud of dust.
#
Mum laid out my best clothes, scrubbed my face, slicked my hair, and twisted Jenny’s locks into neat plaits, tied with frayed ribbons. Dad polished our worn shoes, sweating profusely as he spat, brushed and rubbed until he could see his reflection. Mum kissed us and hugged us tightly, and her tears wet my hair.
The black car came again. The fat man sat behind the wheel, silently staring straight ahead. He waited with pursed lips, white knuckles gripping the steering wheel as if, released, it threatened to take flight. Mum collapsed on the old stump Dad used to split the firewood as Dad lifted Jenny in his arms and seated her carefully in the back of the sedan. He shoved me gently, pointing to the far rear door, and he climbed into the front passenger seat.
The Pencil Case Page 2