We could only sympathise, not commiserate, because we had no ants. We had cockroaches, moths, spiders, mice, and even rats, but no ants. You would think, given all that, Mrs Banks might regard herself as the lucky one, but this was not the case. When my mother said we had no ants, she looked suspicious, as though my mother must indulge in some kind of black magic to get rid of them, waving sprigs of rosemary over ant nests under a crescent moon. How extraordinary it was, that our household was antless, said Mrs Banks, darkly, how marvellously my mother controlled nature. This last remark was accompanied by a light malicious laugh.
‘It’s a beautiful day for it!’ my father intervened, meaning the national holiday.
‘Ha!’ said Mrs Banks, looking sourly about her. ‘We are born, we grow, we spawn and we die. That sums it up.’
Well, you could hardly call that a patriotic statement. And in any case, I thought indignantly from my fruit box, it might sum it up for her, but I, as a child, naturally had more epic ambitions. I would build great monuments, I would discover lost rivers, I would save hundreds, even thousands of people from the jaws of certain death …
There was not much meat, as it had all been burnt, but there were plenty of potatoes. I helped myself to about a dozen, one after the other. I ate them solemnly – their insides were very white and soft.
‘The Bible was written by Shakespeare anyway,’ said Mrs Banks aggressively, knowing my father was a pious man.
‘But … er …’ My father was at a loss. Possibly this was a point of view he had not previously encountered. ‘The … er … Bible … predates Shakespeare, you know, Mrs Banks. Some parts by, er … thousands of years.’
‘Oh, I think you’ll find that’s not the case,’ replied Mrs Banks, briskly. ‘Shakespeare wrote the lot. A number of scholars have proved it. It was in the newspaper.’
I began to feel dizzy, and became aware of a wrenching in my stomach.
‘When I was a child,’ said Mrs Banks, staring at me with distaste, ‘I once ate a raw potato.’
My mother looked apprehensive.
‘Why?’ asked my brother Mark eventually.
‘In the spirit of scientific inquiry.’ Mrs Banks showed us her gleaming teeth. ‘Now, what do the French call potatoes?’
‘Pommes de terre,’ said my brother Matthew at once, because he was the cleverest. ‘Apples of the earth.’
‘Exactly!’ Mrs Banks unexpectedly stood up. She was a full-chested woman with a long neck. When standing, she towered. ‘But I can tell you the French are wrong. Quite wrong.’
It was then that I fainted. I fell mysteriously from my fruit box onto the floor.
They carried me out onto the veranda and laid me on a stretcher. My mother summoned the doctor. In those days, a long time ago, doctors came to people’s houses, in cars. This doctor was an old, old man, who shouldn’t have been driving at all, let alone practising medicine, but at least he came.
The doctor pulled out his instruments one by one, my terror growing. He had a long grey beard and I thought he was Jehovah. He sat down on the stretcher, tugged on his tremendous beard and put a trembling elderly hand across my forehead. His eyes were both so bright and so dark I nearly fainted again when I looked into them, as though I had seen the eclipse of the sun.
‘Ah,’ the doctor pronounced at last, reaching into his coat pocket for his pipe, which he then put in his mouth. ‘Give me a cough.’
I obliged. He chewed on his pipe.
‘And another.’
I did. He looked down into my throat and peered into the caverns of my ears. At last he stood up and drew my parents aside, uttering a dreadful whisper:
‘This child has been poisoned.’
Then more loudly:
‘Keep this child quiet and away from others!’
I saw my parents exchange glances. It was like a warning passed down from God himself: ‘KEEP THIS CHILD QUIET AND AWAY FROM OTHERS.’
He left quickly by the back gate, lighting his pipe. He bore great armfuls of parsley from the garden, pressed upon him by my grateful mother.
That night I lay dying on the veranda, poisoned like a Roman emperor. I lay there alone. My family, not realising I was dying but thinking I had a stomach upset, had strolled down to the local oval, where the civic-minded were setting off Catherine wheels and drinking beer.
I stared up at the stars, and at what I dutifully supposed must be the Southern Cross. How fitting to die beneath such a sign on such a day as this! I thought. But however hard I gazed, the great mass of indistinct lights seemed to form no shape of any kind, let alone a cross, and held little consolation. I turned my face to the wall and decided that I was not interested in the universe. It must have been the potatoes, I thought sadly, that have poisoned me. The potato is a relative of deadly nightshade. I had learnt this in Natural Science.
The cracking of fireworks and smell of smoke that rose up from the oval to my lonely veranda made me forget my own death for a moment and instead think of battlefields and soldiers, and even of the late Mr Banks, who had died for his country. My sense of history has never been strong, and that night the edges were perhaps especially blurred. I took it into my head that the late Mr Banks was in fact the famous botanist Sir Joseph Banks. I pictured Governor Phillip in his red coat as he ventured from boat to beach on that far-off twenty-sixth, scanning the new world nervously. There, coming up behind him was Mr Banks – a moustachioed young man in khaki uniform with a bayonet, possibly used to spear a rare hibiscus …
Through the night air a brass band began to play the national anthem, so then naturally I thought of funerals, funerals in their hundreds, and their thousands and even hundreds of thousands. I thought of the Titanic going down, and Captain Cook and the Endeavour and of Vikings on burning boats heading for Valhalla. Boats, boats – there were altogether too many boats in the world, I decided. Why didn’t people just stay at home? I decided I would never get on a boat, not for anything.
Another crack of burning fire lit the night air. I raised myself on my elbows, and gave my head a vigorous shake. Was I feeling better? Perhaps I wasn’t going to die, at least, not yet, and not from a poisoned potato. Everyone has a purpose in the world, I reminded myself sternly, although at that moment I could not imagine exactly what mine was.
No, I would not die today. As the smoke and shattering flames burst above me, I saw the years of my life suddenly laid out in the night sky. I saw them stretching off into the extraordinary distance, constantly moving forward, like a long line of diligent, determined ants. And here I was, perched on the rim of a vast and incorrigible world, whatever it might turn out to be. All I had to do was wait, and then tumble headlong into it.
Sea Scene
A seagull practises pothooks
On the slate of the sky.
The sea is a grey meadow
With white waves like flocks of sheep.
A steamer is going for a stroll
Puffing away at a pipe.
A steamer is going for a stroll
And giving a whistle from time to time.
Poetry
I want to seek my poetry in pain and hardship.
I want to write a poem irrevocable once written.
A house without beams or pillars
But that stays firmly upright,
Each line supporting the other, each word
Echoing through its neighbour.
I want a poem that never comes to an end at its end.
I want to find my poetry in pain and hardship.
I Know That Intense Emotion
I love tense ice.
I love that intense emotion.
I saw it blazing like a rainbow.
I love that flower that is not a flower.
I feel deep sympathy with what it holds in its depths.
I share its sword-sharp passion.
Confined to the desert of my narrow existence
I am always pining. That is why
I love tense ice.
/> I love that intense emotion.
Saturday
So there was a fence, a high one, too, easily three metres, and made of strong cyclone wire. ‘Told you,’ Andy said behind him. ‘Nobody can get out.’
‘They can’t get in either,’ Lan said, pointing out the window of the mini-bus to the open paddocks on the other side of the road. ‘Maybe that’s why they built the fence.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Andy said. ‘And that’s why there are guards with walkie-talkies. To stop the cows getting in.’
Lan grinned. He loved winding Andy up. Andy was always so sure he was right about everything. He studied the fence as they drew closer. You could probably scale it if you were determined, he decided. He couldn’t see any sentry posts manned by armed guards, so it wasn’t a prison camp like the ones in movies. No Alsatians straining on the leash, either. And inside, instead of barracks, there were houses which looked remarkably like the houses he and his friends lived in, and grass and gumtrees and clothes lines. In one backyard a woman in a headscarf was unpegging some sheets while a toddler attempted to navigate a red-and-yellow plastic tricycle along a pathway. Lan’s little sister Lien had one just like it.
There were men in blue shirts at the front gate, and beyond that a boom gate like the ones for private car parks. Their driver opened the door of the mini-bus and spoke to one of the guards, who consulted a clipboard then stuck his head inside and scrutinised every face.
‘We probably all look like asylum seekers to him,’ Andy muttered into Lan’s ear. ‘Except Mr Thistleton, of course.’
The guard stepped back and waved them through as the barrier was raised.
‘Doesn’t look like I thought it would,’ said Izram, who was sitting next to Lan.
‘Is not like the place we stay when we arrive Australia,’ Tomas observed. ‘Better, nicer.’
‘My dad reckons they’ve got swimming pools,’ Akram said.
Lan couldn’t see any swimming pools. But up ahead, on a grassed area, he saw a tent and trestle tables, a crowd of adults and children, and more men in blue shirts. Eleven boys of different sizes and colours were lined up under a banner that said, ‘Welcome to Braeburn.’ They wore shorts and a variety of blue T-shirts.
‘Well, lads, there’s your opposition,’ said Mr Thistleton jovially.
‘Reckon they speak any English?’ Hiroki asked, as they filed off the bus.
Four weeks ago
‘So how would you describe your team?’ the man from the Good Neighbour Council asked. ‘Just so I get an idea.’
Lan shifted the telephone to his other ear and hesitated. Was he asking about their ethnic backgrounds, or about their skills? This was the coach of a potential opposition team; could he afford to be completely open and honest?
He could say: ‘Some of us had never played cricket at all a year ago. We’ve got a couple of opening batsmen who aren’t too bad, but Tomas Nunez and Satto Basalama are weak links. Andy Chen’s our opening bowler and he’s pretty fast, and I’m a leg-spinner and getting better all the time, but Hiroki Yoshida doesn’t always see too well and Phon Phimo loses his nerve. Only Andy and David Ho can reach the stump from the boundary and Izram Hussein’s a better wicketkeeper than a batsman.’
What he did say was: ‘Um, I guess we’re all pretty different. Our coach, Spinner, calls us battlers. But we’ve got some good players. We always try to win, and we play fair.’ He added, ‘We like to have a good time, too. Spinner keeps reminding us that cricket oughta be fun.’
The Good Neighbour laughed. ‘Glad to hear it. A few of these youngsters have played cricket before, in Sri Lanka or on Christmas Island, but most are newcomers to the game. What with one thing and another, they’ve had a pretty tough time of it getting here, so if this match gets the green light I hope you’ll cut them some slack, son.’
What did he mean, cut them some slacks? Was he referring to uniforms?
‘My mother made our cricket whites,’ Lan said hesitantly.
‘Is that right?’ said the Good Neighbour. ‘Well, these kids haven’t got anything like that.’
‘Maybe we can just wear shorts and T-shirts.’
‘Good-o. We’ve got plenty of those.’
So that was all right then. Lan didn’t fancy asking his hardworking mother if she’d mind sewing eleven cricket uniforms.
Saturday
The Good Neighbour introduced the Braeburn team by their first names. He didn’t say which countries they came from but, like the Nips, they looked a mixed bunch. Mr Kabiri, a detainee father who apparently knew something about cricket, was one umpire and Mr Thistleton would be the other.
Lan wondered when Mr Thistleton had last umpired a cricket match. Did he know the rules?
Mr Thistleton assured him he did, or at least enough to umpire this match. ‘I don’t expect we’ll be worrying about the likes of the “front foot no ball” rule, do you?’
‘I guess not,’ Lan said, having no idea what that was.
‘Some of these boys don’t look strong enough to lift a cricket bat,’ Ms Trad observed with a little frown.
Lan thought they didn’t look very happy either. But after everything they’d been through, he could understand that.
Ms Trad patted him on the arm. ‘Good luck, Lan. I will go and watch from the side. There are a lot of people here to cheer for Braeburn and not many for the Nips, so I will try to clap very loudly when you score.’
Lan grinned. Ms Trad was like his mother, clueless about cricket.
Several of the players spoke some English, and the captain, a thin boy with a gap-toothed grin, was one of them. His name was Agi.
‘Your team is called Nips?’ he asked Lan as they tossed a coin.
Lan explained about the name of their school.
‘We all go to different schools,’ Agi said. ‘So we will call ourselves Apods.’
‘Good name,’ Lan said.
Agi won the toss and elected to bat. Lan was disappointed – the first duty of a captain was to win the toss – but it probably didn’t matter much in a limited-over match. He set his field. The Apods’ opening batsman stood at the crease. Andy marked out his run-up for the first ball.
‘Play!’ called Mr Thistleton.
Andy dismissed the first two batsmen in the first over.
Three weeks ago
Mr Drummond, the principal of North Illaba Primary School, frowned at the piece of paper in his hand and then frowned even more sternly at the boy standing in front of his desk.
‘What is it about your team, Lan, that seems to attract these government-funded invitations?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘What are they called again – your cricket team?’
‘Nips, sir. NIPS XI. The initials stand for North Illaba Primary –’
‘Yes, yes, I remember.’ It was the cultural diversity issue again. He consulted the paper in his hand. Positive community interaction … ‘Well, a bus will be provided, as will lunch; parents are welcome to attend, but names must be submitted in advance. I’m sending Mr Thistleton to represent the school and keep an eye on things. Oh, and Ms Trad. She’s keen to go, for some reason.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Lan knew his parents, and the parents of most of the other players in the team, would be working as usual; they couldn’t take most of the day off to go trekking into the countryside to watch a cricket match.
‘You do realise who you’ll be playing?’
‘Refugees, sir. Those in the detention centre.’
‘Apparently it’s not a detention centre. It’s an APOD, an Alternative Place of Detention. I’m not sure I appreciate the difference. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll give the unfortunate youngsters there a good game and uphold the finest traditions of Australian sportsmanship.’
‘Yes, sir. We always do, sir.’
‘This is not about winning, Lan.’ Mr Drummond looked at him sternly. ‘Don’t lose your moral compass. Close the door on your way out.’
Lan made his way back to his classroom, his mind turning over. Was Mr Drummond saying that he didn’t mind if the Nips didn’t win, or that he thought they couldn’t? And what was a moral compass?
Saturday
Clearly, Andy was thrilled. He threw up his arms in triumph at each of the quick dismissals and accepted pats on the back from his team-mates who ran in to congratulate him. Lan was one of them, but he noticed that not many of the spectators looked thrilled. Even as he clapped politely, the Good Neighbour, the man who had arranged the match, had an expression on his face that said all too clearly Have I Made a Big Mistake? Next to him, Ms Trad was biting her thumb.
Mr Thistleton beckoned him over. ‘Not a good start, Lan.’
‘Not for them, no,’ Lan agreed. For the Nips, it was the best possible start, a captain’s dream start.
‘If they chalked up some runs it would boost their confidence.’
Well, of course it would; Lan knew that. But it was hardly his job to help boost the confidence of the other side. What sort of captain would he be if he did that?
Agi, the third batsman, stepped up to the crease with a look of fierce determination on his face. Lan, who was the next to bowl, walked back for his run-up. He launched into his run and then, a split second before the ball left his hand, a sudden clamour coming from off-side made him lose concentration. His delivery was short and wide, and Agi smashed it for six.
From behind the wicket, Izram threw him a puzzled look as the spectators whistled and applauded and Agi, grinning broadly, raised his bat.
Annoyed with himself, Lan searched for the source of the commotion. On the edge of the field, a group was enthusiastically banging cooking pots together.
He congratulated Agi and trudged back to deliver the second ball.
‘Good show,’ said Mr Thistleton.
‘Yeah, he’s a good hitter,’ Lan said. He just wished his first delivery hadn’t been the one to make that clear.
Agi played some copybook cover drives until he was finally caught out thanks to a great save by Sal Catano. His innings had boosted his team’s run score into double figures, but their luck didn’t hold. A succession of boys trooped onto the field and almost as quickly exited. By lunchtime, which was called early, the Apods were all out for fifty-five.
Things a Map Won't Show You Page 6