Matthew made an educated guess at what had driven the family. ‘Gold, was it?’
Parks nodded. ‘Yeah. Pa fancied himself a prospector. Between you and me though—’ he smiled, ‘—he wasn’t very good at it.’
‘Good enough to bring his family out to join him,’ Matthew encouraged, hoping to hear more.
Parks scoffed into the remainder of his ale. ‘Nah. He happened to be good at cards.’
‘Oh.’
‘So my family established itself in Australia on the proceeds of gambling. And I’m likely the only member of the Victorian Constabulary who didn’t wanna see Kelly stretched like a snake on a fence. Still think I’m a bit of a hero, Father?’
Matthew’s words tumbled out of his mouth without him even giving them thought. ‘If even half of Albie’s story is true, Sergeant, you are absolutely a hero.’
Parks was wearing his unreadable expression once more. ‘Pardon my asking, Father. But are you accustomed to ale this strong?’
‘Why, the Abbotsford Brewery does this stout—’ Matthew spluttered, then stopped abruptly. Hm. Maybe the trooper had a point. He cleared his throat and mentally sobered himself by several degrees. ‘I believe another pint will give me the best indication,’ he declared. ‘Allow me, Sergeant.’ He rose from the table to fetch them another round while Parks chuckled behind him.
***
The following morning, head surprisingly clear, Matthew joined the whole town, it seemed, in lining the main street and cheering the Dinbratten Rats as they left for nearby Munt and their date with destiny in the district football championship. The majority of the town followed the team for the game and Dinbratten became a ghost town for several hours. The quietude was more than made up for that evening when the Rats stormed back triumphant with the championship pennant flying above them.
***
The footy club and those who most closely followed the team drank almost exclusively at The Commercial Hotel. In the wake of the championship win, Dinbratten’s entire population, so Matthew could see, was somehow crushed into the not-exactly-palatial-on-a-good-day surrounds of the Commercial’s bar and lounge areas. Those who couldn’t fit had taken the party to the garden out the back and, out front, across the verandah and onto the actual street itself.
Celebrations were in full swing when Matthew squeezed in at the door, the air close, band playing, everyone drunk. The beer was flowing so freely that a lot of the players had a drink in each hand, one for drinking out of and one to pour over themselves and their mates. It was a warm late September so the beer-sodden populace wouldn’t get too uncomfortable.
The district football association pennant—the esteemed Championship Flag making everyone so delirious—was flying proudly above the bar, hoisted on a broomstick as a makeshift flagpole.
The band was playing at full clatter, currently romping through the Dinbratten footy club song. Matthew wondered wryly just how many dozens of times the group of musicians had already been pressed upon to play that tune to the still boisterous, appreciative crowd.
Various members of the team itself all looked to be in various states of knackered. The win had been hard-fought, by the looks of it, and they were all wearing the evidence, many blue-and-yellow guernseys stained with blood and grass and mud. There were injuries too, of course, bruises and cuts, black eyes, bandaged bits and pieces, but despite all the aches and pains, all the exhaustion, each and every one of them was clearly ecstatic, running on camaraderie and excited energy.
At the bar, standing right by the countertop’s drawbridge stood Jonah Parks. The sergeant was laughing with the man beside him, a glass of beer in one hand, but Matthew felt he could tell at a glance that the policeman was nowhere near as intoxicated as everyone else. Maybe because Matthew himself was stone cold sober, he could spot sobriety amid a celebration like this from a mile off.
As Matthew began the struggle of getting himself to the bar, Parks glanced up and across the crowd, catching Matthew’s eye almost immediately. The sergeant grinned and jerked his head in a gesture part way between a nod of recognition and an invitation over.
‘Here,’ Parks said as soon as Matthew reached him, handing over a shot glass filled with golden fluid.
‘Oh, I don’t think I should—’
‘Help me out here, Father,’ Parks interrupted him, speaking softly so that his words only reached Matthew. ‘I’m walking a fine line here. Gotta be seen to be celebrating, do me bit as a good bloke and all that, so I can’t refuse any of the drinks I’m getting bought. But I gotta stay on me game too, just in case any of this goes south. So—’ again he pushed the shot glass towards Matthew, ‘finish that one for me, will ya?’
Of course Matthew would help the man out. Shot glass dispensed with, he proceeded to help him out with a pot of beer as well.
‘Less than twenty-four hours, Sergeant, and I’m drinking in both of the town’s public houses with you.’
‘I’m one hell of an influence.’ Parks handed him another shot glass.
It didn’t take very long for the possible “going south” that Parks had feared to become a reality. Matthew didn’t know what started it. One inebriated patron bumping into another in the crowded room, no doubt. Nothing that should have become a full-on fight. But fuelled up as everyone was, the fisticuffs got out of hand ridiculously quickly. Drunk people flailing wild fists, without precision or care or any particular finesse.
Matthew watched Parks size up the situation in just a fraction of a second. He assessed the youths involved, their levels of intoxication, their differing intents and their propensities for actual harm. From watching Parks, Matthew found he was also able to take a good stock of the situation. There didn’t seem to be much to the altercation itself, mere hijinks, really. But the next threat became almost immediately apparent as one of the tussling youths accidentally swung his fist into the back of the head of someone else entirely.
Retaliation for the errant swing would mean these fisticuffs were about to ramp up into a fully blown melee.
Parks was in among it all almost as quickly as it had started, physically placing himself into the very path of harm’s way as the burly gent who’d been inadvertently knocked let loose with a mighty counter-hit. Parks, purposely positioned, took the full force of the man’s counter strike, a meaty fist colliding solidly with the left side of Parks’ face.
A few nearby punters, having seen the policeman take the blow—or perhaps even having heard the sickening smack of fist into face—made audible gasps. Even Matthew couldn’t help a sharp inhalation of shock as knuckles connected with Parks’ high cheekbone.
Without even thinking about it, Matthew was ditching his drink on the bar top and propelling himself through the thick throng of bodies, in much the same way as Parks had done just scant moments before. Not that there actually seemed to be any continuing violence now—Parks taking the hit appeared to have extinguished the fighting as quickly as it started. The sergeant fell heavily into Matthew’s shoulder as the force of the blow pitched him into Matthew’s space.
Blood was already springing to the cut along Parks’ eyebrow. Instinctively, Matthew threw one hand onto the bleeding, his other hand catching and holding Parks’ thrown-back form.
‘Son of a bitch!’ Parks spat, head falling back onto Matthew’s shoulder.
‘Sergeant!’ Matthew said urgently. ‘Sergeant, are you alright?’
Parks was already flailing a hand at his face. ‘Fucking. Shit.’ He lurched forward in the circle of Matthew’s arms, then rallied and straightened himself, planted his feet firmly on the floor and stood up to his full height. ‘What arsehole did that?’
Humorously, the entire assembled crowd seemed to shrink back from Parks’ question.
To his credit, the man who had actually landed the blow stood his ground, his head only slightly bowed, and presented himself to Parks’ retribution. ‘So sorry, Sarg,’ he said, voice calm, though laced with a nervous edge. ‘Accident, I swear! Didn’t kno
w you were even there!’
Matthew actually admired the man for managing to sound so calm and collected, in the face of just having clocked the heroic lawman of the town square in the eye.
Parks shrugged himself out of Matthew’s grasp. Manfully, he even found the wherewithal to spit a small mouthful of bloodied saliva onto the floor, before turning his glare onto the man who had just hit him. ‘Richardson.’ Parks’ voice was low and dangerous. ‘What the hell?’
‘Shit, I’m so sorry!’ Richardson reiterated. ‘You were just suddenly there! I was meaning to hit this little shit—’ He jabbed his thumb into the space recently vacated by one of the younger footy players. ‘He hit me, Sarg! I wasn’t planning on hitting you, for God’s sake!’
Parks’ left eye socket was already beginning to swell; Matthew marvelled at it happening even as he watched. Surely only mere seconds had passed?
‘Please, Sarg,’ Richardson was suddenly pleading. ‘Please don’t, don’t—’
‘Don’t what?’ Parks asked, voice and gaze equally flinty.
Matthew only then realised that the entire hotel had gone still. The band weren’t playing. Everyone else seemed to have stopped talking and carousing.
‘Jonah.’ Matthew was a little surprised to hear his own voice ringing out in the sudden hush, though his volume was surely moderated and calm.
He settled a hand onto Parks’ shoulder as the policeman turned his head to look at him. Matthew made sure to hold back any outward expression or utterance of alarm or disgust at the quickly altered state of Parks’ face.
‘We should get a cold compress on that sooner rather than later, Sergeant,’ Matthew said quietly but firmly. To his great surprise, Parks gave him half a nod almost immediately. Matthew had expected to have to cajole for a little while, at least.
Richardson awkwardly put a hand forward, as though going to touch Parks on the arm, perhaps, but then immediately thinking better of it and leaving himself hovering instead. ‘Do ya need a hand, Sarg?’ he asked, clearly embarrassed and contrite.
‘Absobloodylutely not!’ Parks informed the man testily, only to contrarily allow Matthew to give him a hand leaving the premises. The musicians in the corner very tentatively struck up a tune behind them.
As Matthew and Parks made their progress through the murmuring crowd, Matthew wondered whether Parks was allowing his assistance because he actually needed it, or to put Richardson even further on the back foot. No sooner had they left the hotel and got far enough away from the Commercial that even those partying in the street could no longer see them for the bend in the road, Parks roughly shrugged Matthew’s hand from his shoulder and strode along easily on his own. So there was Matthew’s answer, then.
‘Sloppy, Jonah,’ Parks was muttering to himself as the two of them clattered into the police station. ‘Bloody sloppy.’
‘Are you going to press charges against Mister Richardson?’ Matthew asked, taking it upon himself to turn up the wick on the dolly lamp on the counter while Parks swore at another, larger lamp.
‘Nah,’ came the answer.
‘No?’ Matthew turned to look at Parks. ‘But he did hit you. Surely that’s an offence? Hitting an officer of the law?’
‘Well, yeah. Technically.’ Parks took a bottle of amber liquid out of a wooden cabinet and hefted himself up to sit on the edge of the counter. He gripped the bottle’s cork between his teeth and pulled it out neatly, proceeding to spit the cork on the floor and take a long pull from the bottle’s neck.
Matthew watched the sleek line of his throat a moment as it moved with his drinking. ‘Technically be damned,’ he found the brass to mutter.
Parks lowered the bottle slowly and smirked at Matthew, one blue eye gleaming. ‘A lucky punch, Father! That’s all it was! Poor bastard’s shitting himself that I’m gonna do something to him now.’ He held the bottle out towards Matthew. ‘What good would it do anyone if I charged him? And over an accident, no less? Nah, I’ll save the paperwork for some fucker who actually deserves it.’
Matthew declined the offer of the bottle and instead stepped around the counter, heading out to the station’s smaller back room. There, he found a washstand and soaked a face washer in the cold water from the ewer. When he returned to the main room, Parks was poking one finger gingerly around his left cheek and eye, hissing as he poked a little too hard.
‘Leave that,’ Matthew ordered him, feeling bold enough to swat the man’s hand away from his face. ‘Here.’ He held the cold cloth close to Parks’ left eye until Parks took it from him and pressed it over his injury, lightly at first, then with more pressure as he found the coolness welcome on the abused flesh.
‘I’m going to have to iodine this, at the very least.’
Parks gave him a mild glare. ‘You gonna fight me on that, Father?’
Matthew decided to be defiant. ‘If I have to. I was boxing champion of my seminary. If you must know.’ He couldn’t sustain his faux bluster for long though. ‘This really needs tending to, Jonah.’
The tone of his voice must have got through, for Parks relented, shoulders slumping slightly. ‘There’s a medicine chest. Over there on the wall. Should be a bottle of iodine in there somewhere. If George’s been keeping it properly stocked.’
There was indeed iodine. Matthew took it back to Parks whilst digging into his cassock pockets for a clean handkerchief. When he found one, he wadded it and tipped out some iodine. He stepped close between Parks’ legs where he sat on the counter and put his free hand to Parks’ chin, holding his head steady. Parks hissed at the first touch of iodine to the cuts.
‘You should be more careful.’ Matthew dabbed carefully at Parks’ face.
‘You should mind yer business.’
Matthew paused in his dabbing to give Parks a withering look. Parks seemed to try staring him down with his good eye but quickly gave up the attempt. Instead, he knocked one knee against Matthew’s leg. ‘Go on, then,’ he said.
Matthew refreshed the iodine on the handkerchief and reapplied it to Parks’ face. ‘Do you get into fights often, Sergeant?’
‘Only when there’s something at stake.’
‘And what was at stake tonight?’
‘The whole bloody town would’ve ended up in a brawl if I hadn’t put a stop to it.’
Matthew quirked an eyebrow at him. ‘Put a stop to it? You got king-hit and didn’t even arrest anyone!’
Parks’ good eye rolled in exasperation. ‘That’s how I stopped it!’
Matthew considered the reasoning, huffing out a tiny laugh. ‘Well, that’s a new one on me. Putting a fight down by deliberately getting yourself injured.’ He stopped applying iodine and stared intently at Parks’ face, reviewing the damage. ‘Just as well you’re as well-lliked as you are, I suppose. Could’ve all gone differently if you weren’t.’
Parks shook Matthew’s steadying hand from his chin. ‘You had my back.’
‘Oh, did I, indeed?’ Matthew grinned.
‘No one likes hitting a man of God,’ Parks pointed out reasonably.
‘So I was to be your shield if things went wrong?’
‘It’s good to be useful, Father.’ Parks went to give him a wink, but his hurt face didn’t seem to want to let him. He sighed instead and lifted the bottle of drink again.
Matthew stepped away, recapping the iodine bottle. ‘Whereabouts is your house, may I ask? Seeing as you’re not using your police residence?’
‘I’ve got a mudbrickie about ten yards down the track behind the baker’s. Why?’
‘I’ll see you home safely if you like.’
‘No need. Think I’ll go visiting.’
Matthew frowned a little, watching Parks slide down off the counter to stand beside him. ‘Visiting? At this time of the evening?’
Parks’ lopsided smile eased into being. ‘Always feel like getting me dick wet after a spot of biffo.’
Matthew felt his face flush. ‘Oh.’
Parks set his bottle on the counter wh
ile he took his duty band off and stuffed it in one of his pockets. Then he took up the bottle again and held it out towards Matthew. ‘Welcome to join me. If ya wanna.’ His smile ticked up even higher and the contents of the bottle sloshed quietly. ‘Milly’s the accommodating type.’
‘I—’
‘My treat, Father.’
That extra titbit of information made Matthew’s blush deepen. ‘Do you mean Milly Fielding?’ He had met her, briefly, at Evensong.
‘Of course.’
‘I didn’t realise she … I mean. She struck me as such a pious woman.’
Parks’ smile turned fond. ‘A person’s job don’t dictate their spiritual health, I reckon.’
‘No, I, I don’t suppose it does.’ Because Parks was still holding the bottle out towards him, Matthew took it and drank down a stinging draught.
‘Haven’t gone and caused you offence now, have I?’
Matthew lowered the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his other hand. ‘No, no, of course not.’ He forced himself to make eye contact.
‘Who would you say my friends are in Dinbratten?’
Matthew was momentarily stumped by the apparent change of subject, and it took him a second or two to dredge up a name. ‘Um. George, I suppose? Or Albie at the pub?’
‘I’m a trooper,’ Parks said, as though that fact had been somehow forgotten. ‘My presence tends to make people uncomfortable. Like they’re immediately looking for what the trouble or the danger is as soon as I walk in a room. I think I make them feel a bit guilty, even if they’ve never done a bad thing in their whole life. And I can’t help thinking,’ his voice dropped slightly, ‘that a man in your line of work must have it something similar.’
For a moment, Matthew couldn’t think what to say in response. He’d never before encountered such an attempt at solidarity. ‘I think I understand you, Sergeant,’ he said evenly. He glanced down at the bottle in his hand and smiled. ‘Though I must say, I’ve never had anyone offer me a gift of, well, sex before.’
‘Eh.’ Parks took the bottle back. ‘People see the cassock and the collar and they forget there’s a man underneath ‘em, I s’pose.’
By the Currawong's Call Page 4