Chapter 3
Matthew knocked lightly on the wooden door of Jonah Parks’ tiny mudbrick bungalow. He removed his hat and held it in front of himself, waiting to see if Jonah was even home. He was deliberating whether to knock a second time when the door swung open.
‘I’m sorry to arrive unannounced, Sergeant,’ Matthew blurted out.
Jonah leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and gave Matthew an even look. ‘That’s alright. Father.’ If Matthew wasn’t mistaken, the emphasis Jonah put on his formal title carried all manner of comment.
Glancing beyond Jonah, Matthew could see the table of the one-room dwelling was scattered with assorted pieces of revolver and gun cleaning accessories. Evidently, he’d disturbed Jonah in the midst of performing routine maintenance on his sidearm. Matthew cleared his throat softly. ‘May I …’ He turned his head and cast a look back over his own shoulder, chiding himself for feeling so nervous and exposed. ‘May I come in for a moment?’
Jonah regarded him silently, then stood up straighter, stopped leaning on the doorframe, and waved Matthew in. He closed the door behind them and crossed back to the table in the room’s centre. On his way to his own seat, Jonah kicked the other chair out from the table a short way.
‘Take a pew. If you want.’
Matthew continued standing for the time being, racked by uncertainty both of himself and of the situation. ‘I won’t keep you long,’ he tried to assure his host. ‘Sergeant. But I, I feel I owe you an apology.’
Jonah picked up whatever gun part it was he’d been disturbed in cleaning and resumed his business. ‘Apology for what?’ he asked casually.
Matthew had expected the trooper wasn’t going to make this easy for him. ‘You know very well what.’
Jonah glanced up. ‘Do I just?’
‘Well … well, yes.’ Matthew sighed in resignation. ‘Are you going to force me to say it? Very well. I’ve come to apologise for the liberty I took yesterday.’ The only response he received was an eyebrow arching at him. Matthew steeled himself. ‘I’m apologising for kissing you. There. Is that better?’
The smile that moved Jonah’s beard was quick and sharp. ‘Better to get it out, don’t ya think?’
‘Frankly—’ Matthew exhaled heavily, ‘—that’s probably the very worst thing to do.’
Jonah paused in his gun cleaning to peer down the reverse of the barrel, then looked up at Matthew. ‘You owe me nothing, Father.’
Matthew’s eyes widened with surprise. Finally, he dropped down into the chair Jonah had offered earlier. ‘And just how do you reckon that, then?’
‘There’s nothing to apologise for.’
‘But I kissed you!’ Matthew spluttered.
Jonah just shrugged. ‘So?’
‘So?’ Matthew felt his voice get louder and promptly lowered his volume. ‘So, I took advantage of you!’
Briefly, Jonah looked genuinely affronted. ‘You never. You thanked a friend for helping you save your church. I don’t see that’s anything to go about apologising for.’
Such a nonchalant reaction was pretty much the last thing Matthew had expected, and it momentarily knocked the wind completely out of his sails. He took a steadying breath though, calmed himself, and tried a different tack. ‘It was a stressful situation,’ he said reasonably. ‘The fire. The moment of relief took me by surprise, made me act on an impulse I should never have acted on if I’d been thinking.’
‘Liar.’ Jonah spoke the word so quietly, Matthew could almost believe he’d only imagined it.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Oh, you were thinking, alright,’ Jonah informed him. ‘And you most certainly weren’t acting on impulse.’
Matthew wanted to sound indignant, but his voice didn’t quite join in. ‘How could you possibly—?’
‘You had the wherewithal to order me into your sacristy first,’ said Jonah. ‘If you’d been acting purely on impulse, you’d’ve grabbed me the moment the impulse took you. But you didn’t. Which means, ya thought about doing it outside, decided on a better environment, then got me into the sacristy and acted upon it.’ He gave Matthew a shrewd look. ‘Your actions lead me to deduce it likely wasn’t the first time you’d thought about doing it, neither.’
Matthew was mortified. That Jonah could not only look at the situation with such a dispassionate eye, but that he was so correct in all of his assumptions as well. With a great effort, Matthew managed to swallow and take an almost-steady breath. ‘It would do me well to remember, I suppose, that I’m speaking to a police sergeant.’
Jonah laughed softly at that, an amused breath huffing out over his broken apart revolver. Matthew watched him work a short while, noting his slender fingers, a scrape across his right knuckles.
‘Are you …?’ Matthew paused and tried again, forcing the words out. ‘Are you going to arrest me?’
For this, Jonah gave a proper laugh. A little grim and dry, perhaps, but a proper laugh nonetheless. ‘Do ya even know what that’d involve? What that’d mean for you? For your life?’ He indulged Matthew with the merest of looks. ‘Nah. I don’t think I’ll bother arresting you today, Father.’
‘But surely the law requires—?’
‘And the benefit to my community would be what, exactly?’ Jonah demanded to know. ‘Who the fuck would it help?’
Matthew chose to take the questions as rhetoric.
‘Please forgive me, Jonah,’ Matthew said after a short silence. ‘I’ve no excuse for my appalling behaviour.’
Blue eyes glanced over at him before returning to his work. ‘I didn’t mind.’
‘You what?’
‘I said,’ Jonah reiterated slowly, ‘that I didn’t mind. The kiss, that is.’
Matthew could only frown, completely flummoxed. ‘How on Earth could you not mi …?’
Jonah fixed him with a long look and Matthew’s sentence trailed off, unfinished, as a deeper truth began to dawn on him.
‘But …’ Matthew started, hardly able to accept where this conversation was taking him. ‘But you’re a lawman!’
Jonah laughed again, his amusement clearly genuine now, and shot back, ‘And you’re a priest!’
They both fell silent until Jonah put down his bits of gun once again and pushed his chair back. Standing, he crossed to the fireplace to retrieve a bottle of whisky and two small glasses that sat with it on the mantel.
‘Looks like ya could do with a drink,’ he said, bringing the bottle and glasses to the table. He splashed a couple of fingers of scotch into each glass, then took one for himself, pushed the other towards Matthew and returned to his chair. He took a sip of the drink and watched Matthew not reaching yet for his. ‘How’s the gully look today?’
Surprised by the change of topic but nonetheless grateful for it, Matthew took up the glass of scotch and relaxed slightly into his seat. ‘It’s sad to look at. It looks like hell.’
Jonah smiled grimly and said, ‘I would’ve thought yesterday had the greater resemblance to that.’ Matthew gave a small nod at the correction. Jonah considered him over the top of his glass, his expression softened. ‘Have ya ever seen the bush after a fire’s gone through?’
Matthew shook his head. ‘No. Never.’
‘It’ll surprise you,’ Jonah told him. ‘I guarantee it. Albie’s people understood it better than us, but just you wait and see, Matthew. This land springs back like nothing I’ve ever seen. The life’s gonna be poking outta all that black and death before ya even know it.’
Matthew felt barely concealed fondness, hearing Jonah speak of the land with such obvious love. ‘It’s hard to remember you’re an American when you talk about the bush like that.’
Jonah shrugged and drank a little more whisky. ‘I’ve spent longer in the bush than you have, Mister Australian-Born!’
Matthew chuckled softly into his drink. ‘Do you miss it?’
‘The US? Sometimes. At least … I think I do. Who’s to know for sure though, eh? Maybe it’s just
childhood I get the whimsy for? Being able to see the ocean? Or the dog we used to have?’ He shrugged again and picked up the whisky bottle to splash more into their glasses.
Watching him pour, Matthew started feeling uneasy again. ‘Maybe, I should perhaps … be heading home.’
Jonah merely finished refreshing their glasses and set the bottle down again. ‘Quit being so spooked.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Spooked,’ Jonah said again. ‘You can relax. Nothing bad’s gonna happen.’
‘Something bad already did,’ Matthew said glumly.
‘Is that an honest opinion? Or are ya just parroting what you think ya should be?’
‘I do not “parrot”—’
‘You know what I mean,’ Jonah interrupted. ‘It was a kiss, Matthew! It’s not the end of the world! How can a kiss be such a bad thing?’
Matthew tried for his sternest look. ‘You know why.’
‘Try me.’
The challenge made Matthew squirm a little, but he gathered himself. ‘The Church is quite plain on the matter. As is the law of the land.’
Jonah scoffed. ‘Don’t have to tell me about the law of the land. Lemme tell you something. I know a crime when I see one. Know a criminal when I see one, too. People who commit crimes are out to hurt others. Sometimes directly by causing actual bodily harm. Sometimes by depriving them of property or their freedom or their peace. But it’s always about harm, Matthew. Now then.’ He leaned back in his chair as his gaze bore into Matthew’s. ‘What harm did we do in your sacristy yesterday? Who did we hurt?’
Matthew had to admit, the seasoned trooper had just laid down quite a good argument. But still. ‘The Church would argue,’ he said evenly, ‘that we hurt the society in which we live.’
‘And you believe that?’
‘The Church—’
‘Fuck the Church, I wanna hear what you believe!’
Matthew was shocked to hear his friend make such a spitting comment in regard to the establishment of which Matthew was a sworn minister. ‘You forget who you address, Sergeant.’
‘Do I?’ Jonah challenged him. ‘So you’re a blind servant then, are ya? No thought of yer own? No opinion that sways from that which comes down from on high?’
‘I don’t have to sit here and listen—’
‘I’ll ask ya again, who did we hurt, Matthew?’
‘We … I mean we …’ Matthew’s shoulders slumped. His pulse was pounding like he had a headache coming on.
Across the table, Jonah watched him with a vaguely sad expression. Sad, or pitying. When it was obvious Matthew could not come up with one decent counter-argument, Jonah leaned an elbow on the tabletop, slumping somewhat, and uttered one final word on the matter.
‘Exactly.’
Matthew took up his glass and knocked back its entire contents in one go. He returned the glass to the table then stood and moved away from his chair, setting his hat on his head as he did so. ‘I really should go. I have this week’s sermon still to finish.’
He was aware of Jonah watching him as he crossed to the door. The scrape of a chair and the solid strike of boot heels on packed earth were the only warnings he got that Jonah had stood abruptly and strode after him. Jonah grabbed for Matthew before he could open the door but Matthew quickly twisted out of his reach. Unperturbed, Jonah grabbed what he could—Matthew’s left hand, as it happened—and yanked it towards himself.
It was a kiss to his palm that Jonah delivered. Matthew froze, could do nothing more than look down on the strong lines of Jonah’s nape as he felt the tickle of the man’s beard and the shocking softness of his mouth.
When Jonah raised his head again and let go of Matthew’s hand, they looked boldly at one another. There could be violence. Violence might even be expected, in some circles, if a man had done such a thing to another, surely? Instead, Matthew groped blindly behind him for the door handle and opened it, holding Jonah’s silent gaze until he was completely out the door.
Striding away from the mudbrick cottage, it took him several steps to realise he had closed his left hand, as though holding something there. When he relaxed it, the afternoon breeze made him starkly aware of wetness clinging still to his palm. A lascivious reminder of Jonah’s tongue that would stay with him long after his hand had dried.
There could be nothing else for it but to throw himself as deep into his work as possible. He would have to avoid the Victoria Hotel on Fridays. He would absent himself from playing cricket. He would serve and he would minister and nothing else. Life beyond the collar and the cassock had to be put down.
***
Lent could not come quick enough. Keeping his head buried in work and his calling, Matthew was so eager for the penitent weeks to start, he embarked on a rigorous daily devotional well in advance of Ash Wednesday. He was determined to work through his sins and took mighty comfort in the penance, periods of fasting and lengthy prayer sessions helping to keep Jonah Parks at bay—at least in Matthew’s internal world.
***
A harvest festival was a tradition Matthew had never been called upon before to preside over, but again, the distraction was a blessing and he threw himself into the planning of Dinbratten’s 1892 offering. It was selfish of him to be so grateful for his work’s distraction. His duties should have found him joyous in the carrying out, purely on their own merits, without them being of personal gain. That selfish gratitude was but another sin to offer up.
Because Australian apple harvest—starting as autumn brought the land relief from the trials of summer—got under way in March, Dinbratten had always chosen the middle of that month to celebrate. The timing pleased Matthew greatly, especially when the exact Saturday chosen happened to coincide with the Feast of Joseph of Nazareth, one of Matthew’s personal favourite holy days. Celebrating harvest on the day the Church celebrated the achievements and goodness of a mere mortal man felt cohesive and right, made Matthew’s pen find effortless words upon paper as he prepared short homilies and prayers for the festivities.
The King family’s orchard hosted the whole town, give or take, for a full day’s thanksgiving and merriment, including novelty races, jam judging, feasting and dancing. Matthew was required to bless, in order, a tree, a bullock, a chicken and a plough, in charming little ceremonies that represented blessings for all the town’s agricultural enterprise for the following year. It put him in mind of his childhood priest in Fitzroy—a conservative theologian, he would not have approved of such “pagan” rites.
Jonah Parks arrived early with his friend Albie, and the two of them did most of the day’s heavy lifting, raising marquees and carrying tables and hay bales and the like. Matthew did his level best to avoid him, even going to such lengths as to let himself be tied to Miss Daly for a three-legged race.
It was a lovely day. Dinbratten certainly was a town that knew how to throw a party. All would have been well, had Matthew not made the mistake of asking Mr King, later in the evening, what they used the plough for, on the orchard.
‘We don’t,’ was the laconic reply. ‘Borrowed this bugger from next door for the shindig.’
Mr Trentham, overhearing this, seemed to lose all colour from his face. ‘Next door?’ he exclaimed. ‘You don’t mean the Staffords down the road, do you?’
‘Next property over,’ King clarified. ‘Yeah. That’s the Staffords. They grow spuds. You know all that, Trentham.’
‘And that’s their plough?’ Trentham pointed at the machine in question. ‘That’s Stafford’s plough?’
King frowned at him. Matthew wanted to. ‘Yeah,’ said King. ‘What of it?’
A small crowd of curious onlookers leaned in.
‘Well!’ Trentham’s eyes were wide. ‘Don’t you realise? What we’ve just done? What we’ve just made our vicar do?’
Matthew blinked. Had he done something wrong?
No one else seemed to have an answer for Trentham, so he barrelled on. ‘The Staffords are Methodists! Worse than that—they’r
e Mow Coppists!’ His eyes were almost out of his head by this point as he turned to Matthew. ‘Dear God, Reverend Ottenshaw! You’ve blessed a Methodist plough!’
The urge to laugh was almost beyond Matthew’s capacity to control. He gnawed a little on his bottom lip and tapped a bent finger against the top one to hide his mouth. Several possible responses to Trentham’s despair presented themselves, but he rejected them all as inappropriate to varying degrees. Mr Trentham was one of All Souls’ most ardent worshippers, after all, Matthew didn’t want to offend the man, no matter how much of a prat he could apparently be. Whatever Matthew’s next words, he knew they had to be carefully selected and spoken.
‘Don’t be an arse, Trentham.’
Everyone looked to Albie, who had spoken up from among the onlookers with the perfect response. Trentham turned on him immediately.
‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that! You, you … darkie.’
Albie smiled, but there was nothing amused about it. He took a couple of menacing steps closer to where Trentham was standing.
‘Mister Trentham!’ Matthew admonished. ‘That was uncalled for!’
‘He called me worse first!’
Dear Lord, it was like dealing with school children.
‘I really don’t think he did, Mister Trentham,’ Matthew said, calm but firm. ‘I think you should apologise. And then we can all just forget all this silliness and get on with our party.’
Albie smiled a little harder at Trentham. ‘You heard the man.’
Trentham took a step backwards and smacked bang into Jonah, who had come to stand behind him without anyone—except Matthew—noticing. ‘Do what the vicar tells ya, Mick, you dumb shit.’
Matthew could actually hear Trentham gulp from where he was. Trentham withered, and who could blame him? Matthew again fought the urge to laugh and, meeting Jonah’s gaze for the briefest of moments, he could tell Jonah was waging a similar battle. At least Jonah had a beard to hide it behind.
By the Currawong's Call Page 7