By the Currawong's Call

by Welton B. Marsland

  Jonah put his free hand to Matthew’s hip, but wasn’t seeking control, just held him, the pads of his fingers skittering against the smooth flesh. He stilled for some time then, kissing at Matthew’s throat and waiting, Matthew eventually realised, for Matthew’s encouragement before proceeding. Matthew moved his left hand down to Jonah’s thigh and gripped at the muscle.

  ‘Jonah—’

  The fingers curled on his hip tightened, and Matthew jolted forward as Jonah surged against him.

  How grateful he was now, Matthew thought, that Jonah had never been celibate. He was thankful Jonah knew what he was doing, knew how to give as much pleasure as he took. Matthew grabbed harder at Jonah’s thigh and pressed back, an action that made Jonah moan softly.

  ‘Can I get on top of ya?’ Whispered at his ear, delivered with a lascivious suck on his earlobe.

  No sooner had Matthew murmured his Yes, than Jonah’s strength was brought to bear, urging him to roll onto his front. Connection was never broken, Jonah right there with him, following him over and covering him, hips barely pausing in their movement. Matthew pressed his elbows and forearms onto the mattress, bracing himself into the increased force of Jonah’s thrusts.

  He could lose himself in this, he thought. He could cease to exist beyond the walls of their room, beyond the edges of their bed, because here was where he was alive. Blanketed by Jonah’s body, bracketed by his lean limbs, speared open by him again and again …

  ‘Oh dear Lord!’ Matthew let his head hang heavily as his entire form relaxed into sensuality. Was he turning to liquid? Might he fall through Jonah’s fingers if this pleasure reduced him any further?

  Jonah put his chest fully to Matthew’s back, clearly no longer caring about the sting of his tattoo, and wrapped his arms around Matthew’s shoulders. He covered Matthew’s hands with his own, entwining digits and tensing his biceps. Each time he thrust forward now, he pulled Matthew sharply into it.

  No, Matthew could not fall through Jonah’s fingers, no matter what toll this pleasure took on him. Because Jonah held him fast, held him how he’d never been, and he would never allow Matthew to fall.

  ‘Holy. Shit.’ Jonah pushed deep and stilled, latched teeth to the back of Matthew’s neck, shuddering.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ Jonah said a moment later, as higher brain function returned to him. He let go Matthew’s hands and pushed his upper body up off Matthew’s back. ‘Fuck,’ he said again, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Matthew didn’t know what the apology was for, and frankly, he didn’t care. His mind and body were still abuzz with what Jonah had just been doing to him. He pressed his face into the pillow and grinned to himself in a pleasure haze.

  Jonah withdrew carefully and sat back on his heels. ‘Sorry,’ he said again, and pushed at Matthew’s hip. Matthew let Jonah put him how he pleased, not knowing Jonah’s intent but trusting him implicitly. As soon as Matthew was on his side once more, Jonah bent over him, even though the angle must have been uncomfortable, and swallowed Matthew’s cock into his throat.

  Is that what he’d been apologising for? Taking his own fulfilment before Matthew found his? This was a glorious apology, if that were the case.

  It took but a moment, Matthew muffling his cry with the pillow, Jonah gulping him down quite expertly, especially considering just months earlier he’d never attempted such a thing.

  We are a wonder together, Matthew thought. An absolute wonder.

  Jonah let Matthew’s prick slide from his mouth and knelt up again, hands braced on his thighs. Matthew looked at him, the rest of his body too sated to move yet. Jonah leaned over the bedside and groped until he found a towel they’d used previously and left there. Silently, he cleaned them both, actions quick and efficient. He worked mainly by touch and instinct, the room having darkened almost to evening.

  Towel thrown back to the floor, Jonah clambered off the bed and left Matthew lying there while he lit a gas lamp and found his tobacco and accoutrements.

  Matthew rolled onto his back and stretched out, enjoying the dull ache of a body well used and well satisfied. He plumped the pillow, bunching it beneath his head so he could better look at Jonah standing naked by the window.

  He was lighting his smoke, the dancing flame of his match giving away the fact his hand shook minutely. Jonah was a handsome man, at the height of his strength and power, but at that moment, that minuscule tremble of fingers elevated him beyond even his regular beauty. His muscles were shaking with exertion, he’d fucked Matthew so hard his body still shook with the force of it. Sweat slicked his shoulders and his thighs. His cock seemed to still be semi-hard. The match flame illuminated the angles of his face. He was a God of myth, inhaling fire and sighing out incense.

  ‘There’s something I gotta tell ya,’ he suddenly said, gaze pinning Matthew to the bed as surely as his body had just done. ‘It’s not something I ever told anyone before.’

  Matthew stayed silent. Watched Jonah take another shaking drag into his lungs and breathe it out again.

  ‘I fell for ya, Matthew.’

  Matthew still couldn’t say anything.

  ‘Ya hear me?’ Another inhale of smoke, not so shaky this time. He was regaining control of himself. ‘God help me, but I’ve gone and fallen in bloody love with ya. Dunno when it happened. Around Easter, maybe. Maybe bit later. But I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. Look, are you gonna say anything?’

  This was Jonah smitten and unfettered. This was Jonah in love.

  ‘God help us both,’ Matthew finally found the voice to say. ‘For I’m sure I’ve done the same.’

  ***

  They hadn’t eaten since the requisite pies at the footy, so a late dinner tempted them into dressing and finding sustenance. They didn’t have very far to go, Myrtle Holland hailing them from the hotel’s bar as she saw them on their way out, and enticing them back with those magic words, ‘Kitchen’s still open.’

  The little bar was busy, it being Saturday night and with no tables free, Matthew and Jonah perched on high wooden stools at the short end of the polished bar. The room was bathed in greens and reds, given depth by large mirrors on the walls, and heaved with music from a piano, a fiddle and a banjo player who sang. Matthew hadn’t suspected, over the preceding few days, that Miss Holland’s establishment was so popular at night.

  They ordered two simple meals and listened to the musicians. Matthew scratched absently at the left side of his chest, his healing tattoo reminding him of its presence. What a big day they’d had, he mused, full of declarations in one form and another. He watched Jonah order them drinks and wondered briefly at how far they’d come in the time they had known each other.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ he said over the music, leaning in. ‘About the bushfire?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘The whole town was threatened, yes? Or at least everyone living near the gully.’

  Jonah nodded.

  ‘So why come to me? Others might have needed your help, surely?’

  Jonah’s expression turned a little indulgent. ‘Everyone else lives with that threat every bloody summer,’ he said. ‘But you? Matthew, you’d not been in town five minutes! No one to tell ya what to do or help ya out. How could I go anywhere else, knowing you was there all on yer pat with no one but yer boss upstairs to turn to?’ He shook his head, raised his glass. ‘Besides—’ he took a long drink, ‘—I liked ya.’

  Matthew laughed quietly and returned to the music. His mind wandered back to that February day, watching the fire front storming the gully, the kangaroos skidding as they cleared the fence, mighty blue gums flaring up like torches. If Jonah hadn’t been there, the fire wouldn’t have stopped after taking the fence and some shade trees—it would have charged on unheeded, taking All Souls and maybe even the rectory on its way. There was some irony to be found there, he considered. That Dinbratten’s police sergeant had saved the town its church in the physical, but was now robbing it of its vicar and therefore its metaphysical churc
h.

  Their food arrived just as Matthew had that particular revelatory moment. Oh. He had apparently made up his mind regarding Jonah’s proposal.

  ‘So,’ he ventured when they neared meal’s end. He pressed the last of his peas into his remaining mashed potato and took a deep breath. ‘I suppose we should discuss our futures. Our future.’

  Jonah tilted his head. ‘Sure ya wanna do that now? Here?’

  ‘We’re both intelligent blokes,’ Matthew said, repeating what Jonah had said in the Elms on Thursday night. ‘I’m sure we can manage it.’

  Jonah gave him a slow look and set his cutlery on his plate. ‘Alright, then. What’s yer decision?’

  Matthew finished a mouthful of potato and likewise set down knife and fork. ‘Your plan is terrifying,’ he said first. Then, after dabbing his mouth with a napkin, ‘And I say Yes to it.’

  ‘Fuckin’ hell,’ Jonah murmured. ‘I could be knocked clear off this perch right now.’

  ‘You must have suspected I’d say yes.’

  ‘I was hopeful.’ Jonah put their finished plates together and moved them aside. ‘Not the same thing.’

  ‘You thought I wouldn’t find the courage?’

  ‘You got plenty of courage,’ Jonah countered. ‘Never doubted that. I doubted …’ He glanced about. The people nearest them were engaged in conversation or song. ‘I doubted being sufficient to tempt you from yer calling.’

  ‘Well, doubt it no longer,’ Matthew said and waved for another round. He waited while their plates and empty glasses were removed. ‘How do we put your plan into action, then?’

  ‘There’s a ship bound for San Francisco, leaves Melbourne Tuesday morning—’

  ‘So very soon?’

  Jonah gave the barmaid a smile when she delivered their new drinks, then let it drop as she turned away. ‘You’d have us wait around?’

  ‘Not really. But what of our belongings? Our personal items, still in Ratty? We’d have to send for them somehow.’

  Jonah swivelled on his seat so he could be right-angle to the bar, facing Matthew. ‘It just takes a telegram to Fi and Anne at the shop. They’ll pack up what we want and send it on to us.’

  Matthew wiped his thumb through condensation on his beer glass. ‘They know, don’t they? You told them of your plan?’

  ‘Told ya, I was hopeful.’

  ‘Clearly.’ Matthew took a swig of ale. ‘So they know about me? About us?’

  ‘Sorry I went behind yer back,’ said Jonah. ‘But, yeah. I told ‘em. Remember, they’re same as us. They won’t betray us. I’ve been keeping their secret for years, now they get a chance to return the favour.’

  Matthew nodded, accepting, and drank quietly for a moment. ‘There are some items I wish I’d thought to bring with me on this trip, however. Items I’d like to be travelling with. You know, just little sentimental things.’

  ‘Funny you should say that. I er, I packed some for yer before I left Ratty. They’re in my duffel upstairs.’

  Unbelievable. ‘You really did have all this planned, didn’t you? But how on Earth did you know—?’

  ‘When that woman and her horse were in town. You stayed the night in my mudbrickie while she had yer bed?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I asked ya to lock the church and grab yer sentimentals so she couldn’t nick ‘em. They sat in a box on my table all night.’

  ‘I recall you looking inside that box precisely once, Jonah. And you were drunk! How could you remember what they even were?’

  Jonah merely levelled him a look.

  ‘You memorised them?’

  ‘Well. Yeah.’ Jonah’s tone of voice suggested that was entirely obvious.

  ‘Remarkable. You should be a detective, rather than a country copper.’

  Jonah hefted his beer. ‘Don’t think I haven’t considered it.’

  ‘I didn’t lock the church that night, by the way.’ Matthew had no idea why he suddenly felt the need of making that confession. ‘My tiny act of defiance.’

  Jonah laughed at that. ‘Yer allowed to defy me if ya want. I’m not yer better, Matthew, I hold no sway over you.’

  ‘Don’t you, indeed?’ Matthew held his gaze until he could see Jonah took his meaning. Of course Jonah “held sway” over him. He’d held such from the moment Matthew ordered him into the sacristy after the fire. Though, in truth, he held sway over Jonah, too. Either one of them could bring the other down if he wished. They had the power to ruin one another, completely and utterly.

  Instead, they were deciding on the exact opposite of ruination. They were going to build something together. A life, if nothing else.

  Matthew turned in his seat, replicating Jonah’s right-angle-to-the-bar position. ‘What’s the name of this ship, then?’

  Chapter 9

  Matthew didn’t know why he felt so compelled to attend the train station on Monday morning. The day dawned in sweetness, urgent hands and kisses and his prick in Jonah’s mouth once again, but the approaching time for what would have been the beginning of their journey home to Dinbratten had greyed his mood.

  Jonah protested at first, telling Matthew not to upset himself with such a venture. But he’d put on a new suit and walked the length of the city by Matthew’s side regardless.

  There was a worker’s march in Swanston Street, flags and banners snapping in the wind. A tram on Elizabeth Street angrily banged its bell at a beer cart. A young woman pasted female suffragist posters on the imposing brick wall of the mint. (‘You’d be in for it if a copper was about, luv,’ Jonah told her cheekily as they passed.)

  Spencer Street Station was bustling when they arrived, the train that would have been theirs already belching smoke as its boiler readied. Matthew bought an apple juice and he and Jonah leaned on a railing out of everyone else’s way to watch the departure. Jonah turned his back to the train, rolling a cigarette, stealing glances at Matthew.

  ‘Not scared, are you?’ Matthew asked after several such glances.

  ‘Scared of what?’

  ‘That I’m suddenly going to change my mind about everything? Jump on the train and leave?’

  ‘Nah,’ Jonah scoffed and lit his smoke.

  The train whistle sounded and platform bustle intensified.

  ‘Here’s the point of no return, I suppose,’ said Matthew, half to himself. ‘Quite literally. This is the point at which we are not returning.’ He looked to his side. Jonah was slouched on the railing, his entire posture loose and casual, but his expression was hard, eyes narrowed against his cigarette smoke or perhaps the view of the train they should be on.

  The whistle blared again and the locomotive blew off some steam.

  ‘Poor Kitty Alson,’ Matthew said over the noise.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘She was in love with you, Jonah. Had you not noticed?’

  Jonah stopped slouching and stood up straight. ‘She’s a good lass. She’ll get over it. Queenie probably won’t, but.’

  Shunting noises, and the train jerked forward into shaking movement.

  ‘Our names are going to be mud, aren’t they?’

  ‘The vicar and the police sergeant running off together?’ Jonah asked. ‘Fuck yeah, our names’ll be mud. Worse, even. Probably be expunged from all reckoning. Never to be uttered again.’ He glared at the train. ‘Might even scratch my name off the cricket honour roll in the hall.’ He took a harsh drag on his smoke. ‘It’s not like I ever thought I’d be there forever. It’s always in the back of yer mind that you can be reposted at any time. But I always thought at least me time there might mean something. Make a difference. Be remembered. Eight years’ service I’ve given that town, and I’m pretty sure I’ll cease to exist.’ He dropped his cigarette end to the ground and flattened it beneath a boot heel. ‘Took a bullet for that fucking town.’

  Matthew inched a little closer, just enough to brush shoulders. ‘I’m with you,’ he said solemnly, as stark a declaration as he could give Jonah right then.

  J
onah watched the train pull out of the station, then turned his head towards Matthew. ‘I’m with you, too.’ Slowly, one corner of his mouth eased up into a smaller, sadder version of the lopsided smile Matthew so adored.

  Matthew coughed lightly into his hand. ‘So. Are we officially AWOL now?’

  Jonah gave a small shake of his head. ‘No one will know until later. When the coach goes through without setting anyone down. Just think of the conversations at the kitchen tables tonight!’

  ‘I’m trying not to.’ Matthew shuddered.

  In tandem, they turned and strolled towards the street. ‘What shall we spend today doing?’ Matthew asked as they dodged some pigeons and a lone seagull milling around the station entrance.

  ‘I have an inclination …’

  ‘Yes?’

  Jonah flipped up the collar of his coat as they crossed Spencer Street and turned left at random. ‘An inclination towards buying some bottles of beer, heading back to the digs, and spending the day in flagrante.’

  Matthew laughed at the suggestion. ‘Is that the first time I’ve heard you utter Latin? I do believe it is.’

  Jonah spared him a sideways glance. ‘Yours isn’t the only job that bumps noses with Latin on occasion, I’ll have you know.’

  Matthew laughed again, feeling freer with every stride they took, every step further away from the country-bound train powering in the opposite direction. ‘Quite right. My apologies.’ He cast a look Jonah’s way and saw him smiling. ‘May I ask an indulgence,’ Matthew added, ‘before we act upon your inclination? It involves finding a church.’

  ‘Ya gonna make an honest woman of me at last?’

  Matthew gave him a friendly shove for that, as they turned into La Trobe Street and could no longer even hear the trains coming and going at the station.

  ***

  ‘What is it, exactly, that ya want me to do in here?’ Jonah stood just inside the door of the unassuming stone church, wearing an uncertain expression.

  Matthew made sure the door didn’t bang loudly behind him as he followed Jonah in and removed his hat. ‘While I’m well aware it’s not part of your regular life,’ he said in a low voice, ‘it would mean a lot to me if you’d join me in a short prayer.’