Next Thursday we were walking home from training when the Arksmobile came flying past.
‘Nukkin ya, Blacky,’ yelled Dumby as he leant out over the side.
‘Nukkin ya, Dumby,’ I yelled, almost involuntarily.
‘Nukkin ya?’ said Pickles. ‘Geez, you’re talking like one of them now.’
‘So what,’ I said.
‘Well I s’pose he is a mate of yours and all,’ said Pickles.
‘Matter of fact, he is,’ I said.
6
I walked into the kitchen. The whole tribe was there, sitting around the kitchen table, waiting for dinner to be served. Except for the old man, of course. As usual, he was down the pub. He only sat down to eat with us when the pub was closed – Sundays and Christmas Day.
Mum was at the stove, wooden spoon in her hand, stirring the contents of a large pot. She was wearing a checked apron.
‘How was the training?’ she said.
‘All right I s’pose.’
‘You don’t sound too convinced.’
My mum loved the footy. She came to every match, and there wasn’t much she didn’t know about the game, especially tactics. I’m sure she would’ve been a better coach than Arks. I’d thought of suggesting it to him, that Mum could be appointed tactical adviser. Send somebody over at the end of each quarter to get her thoughts. Or maybe they could use walkie-talkies. But I knew Arks wouldn’t have a bar of it. Everybody thought that to be a great coach you had to have been a great player. And a bloke, of course. They weren’t going to listen to somebody’s roly-poly mum, even if she was a tactical genius. No way.
‘I don’t know what Arks, I mean Mr Robertson, expects of me.’
‘That you do your best. That’s all anybody expects. Do your best and he’ll be as happy as Larry.’
This was one of my mum’s sayings – as happy as Larry. She said it all the time. But I didn’t understand it. Who was Larry? Why was he happy? And how happy was he actually? Now, if she said as happy as a pig in mud, then that was a different thing. I’d been out to Porky Fraser’s pigsties, I’d seen a pig in mud, I’d seen the smile on that pig’s face. I could tell that it was an extremely happy pig. But Larry?
I sat down. The chair wobbled. It was the one with the wonky leg. Last to sit down always got it.
‘Good evening, erstwhile siblings,’ I said.
‘Sibling’ was one of my favourite words. I discovered it last year, when I’d helped Mum fill in the census form. Now I used it all the time. ‘Erstwhile’ I got at the doctor’s surgery. It was in a Reader’s Digest – ‘Increase Your Word Power’.
Nobody answered. The erstwhile siblings were all a bit fed-up with my increased word power.
The table had been neatly set. I knew Sharon had done it, because she did everything neatly. Her hair was always combed, her room, or her part of the room, was always tidy. I felt sorry for her, a neat person like her in a great big messy family like ours.
The tablecloth (plastic, with pictures of sailing boats) hung evenly over the table’s edges. The plates and cutlery were neatly laid out. Salt and pepper shakers, a plate piled high with sliced white bread, and a plastic tub of marg in the middle.
It was neat, but none of the stuff matched. A few plates were from the same set, the rest were completely different. Same with the knives, the forks and the spoons. I never really paid much attention to this until I went to Adelaide for a footy carnival and stayed with this posh family called the Simcocks. In their house everything matched. It was incredible. After that I couldn’t help noticing.
‘I seen you up the oval, Gary,’ said Kevin. ‘Trying to kick the footy.’
‘Saw, not seen,’ said Mum from the stove. ‘I saw you up the oval.’
Mum was really tough on stuff like that. She’d pounce on it like a cat on a mouse.
‘But Dad talks like that,’ said Kevin.
He was right there. The old man’d say things like, ‘We seen him down the pub’ or ‘I done it yesterday’.
‘I don’t care how your father talks,’ said Mum, ‘I don’t want you talking like that.’
Mum always spoke properly, and she hardly ever swore. Actually she sounded quite posh, especially when she was on the phone, or when somebody like Mrs Ashburner came to visit. Pickles reckoned my mum had a touch of the Mary Poppins about her.
‘Okay,’ said Kevin. ‘I saw you up the oval trying to kick the footy.’
But there’s no way I wanted to talk about me up the oval trying to kick the footy. I tried a diversionary tactic.
‘We’ll be watching “Gilligan’s Island” tonight, then,’ I said.
‘No way! Gilligan sucks,’ said Jenny.
‘ “The Brady Bunch” sucks even more,’ said Kevin.
It worked. It always did. My family’s favourite argument – ‘Gilligan’s Island’ versus ‘The Brady Bunch’.
‘Brady Bunch makes me wanna vomit,’ said Claire.
‘Gilligan makes me vomit,’ said Jenny.
‘Me too. How long’s he been stuck on that stupid island, anyway?’ said Best Team-man.
‘Doesn’t matter. Brady Bunch are total losers,’ said Sharon.
‘The skipper’s a moron,’ said Kevin.
‘Marsha’s a moll,’ said Chris.
It always amazed me how my own siblings could argue so much about such a thing. The three little ones were just little kids, they didn’t know any better. But the others had no excuse. It was so obvious, anybody with half a brain could see that there was no comparison. ‘Gilligan’s Island’ was the best thing on telly and ‘The Brady Bunch’ was just too stupid for words.
‘Okay then, let’s vote.’
‘Yeah, let’s vote.’
Us Blacks had a special way of voting. None of this one person, one vote nonsense. Whoever came up with that obviously didn’t have their thinking cap on straight. We added up ages.
‘All those for “The Brady Bunch”,’ said Best Team-man.
The Brady Bunchers put their hands up.
‘My fifteen plus Jenny’s twelve equals twenty-seven, plus ten for Kev equals thirty-seven, plus six for Greggy equals forty-three. Forty-three for “The Brady Bunch”,’ announced Best Team-man triumphantly.
It didn’t look good. One of the dastardly Brady Bunchers must have bribed Greggy because usually he voted for Gilligan. It didn’t take too much, a Tim-Tam would do the trick.
‘All those for “Gilligan’s Island”.’
The Gilligan’s Islanders put their hands up. I added up the ages.
‘My fourteen plus thirteen for Shaz equals twenty-eight, plus Chris’s eight equals thirty-six, plus Claire’s eight equals forty-four. Forty-four for “Gilligan’s Island” “Gilligan’s Island” wins!’
‘You cheated!’ yelled Best Team-man. ‘Fourteen plus thirteen’s twenty-seven, not twenty-eight. And Claire’s seven, not eight. That makes forty-two. We win.’
‘Just testing,’ I said.
Even though we’d lost I still reckoned our system was great. I’ve got nothing against little kids, but let’s face it, they don’t know much, do they? That’s why they’re always pestering you with crazy questions. The older you get, the more you know. And because you know more, you should have more say, your voting power should be greater. I was going to write to the Prime Minister to tell him about the Black system of voting, but it was so obvious, I’m sure he already knew all about it.
‘Dinner’s ready,’ said Mum.
She served it out – chops, mashed spud and peas. Then she made herself a cup of Nescafé (black, one sugar), lit a ciggie, and sat down on a stool to do the crossword.
‘What’s for sweets, Mum?’ said Claire when we’d finished.
‘Bread and butter pudding.’
The siblings groaned. Not one of us liked bread and butter pudding. And that’s why Mum made it all the time. She knew that if she served it up on Monday it’d still be there on Friday. Then we’d start eating it (reluctantly), because we knew t
here wouldn’t be any other sweets, not until we polished off that horrible bread and butter pudding.
It was still only Thursday. Nobody wanted any sweets.
‘No takers?’ said Mum. ‘Let’s get these dishes done then.’
It didn’t take long to do the dishes, it never did, not with the eight of us. By the time we’d finished, ‘Gilligan’s Island’ was just about to start. Except tonight the Brady Bunchers had won. I went to my bedroom instead.
Except it wasn’t really my bedroom, it was our bedroom, because all us boys were in one room. All the girls in the other.
There were three double bunks. Kevin and I shared one of them. I was on the top. Greggy and Chris shared another. Best Team-man had one to himself, on account of his socks. He had the smelliest feet in the Southern Hemisphere. Even Pickles was jealous of Team-man’s feet. It was strange – we had the same mother, the same father, we ate the same food, we lived in the same house, we slept in the same bedroom and we used the same soap, yet my feet didn’t smell at all. Honest. Obviously Team-man inherited the stinky feet gene. Not from our parents, though. The old man had weird feet, but they didn’t stink. Neither did Mum’s.
But that’s genetics for you. Some nasty little gene, like the stinky feet gene, hiding out in its chromosome, generation after generation, waiting for the right opportunity, for the right victim. Then watch out, here it comes.
‘Hi everybody, I’m the stinky feet gene.’
So you really couldn’t blame Team-man. Still, none of us were keen on sleeping in the same room as him, let alone the same bunk.
The room was a mess. Even when it was tidy it was a mess. But tonight it wasn’t even a tidy mess. There was stuff strewn all over the floor – undies, footy shorts, footy socks, school jumpers, snorkelling gear, magazines, bike parts.
I made my way to my bunk, and lay down. Focus on your opponent, Arks had said. Think about his strengths. His weaknesses. I closed my eyes and started zooming in on the Thumper. His weaknesses? He didn’t have any! Except maybe that he wasn’t too bright. But on the footy field that’s not really a weakness, more like a strength. His strengths? It was too scary. I opened my eyes.
Right above me was the scar. When we first moved to the Port we lived in a caravan. Of course there weren’t so many siblings then, only three or maybe four. Then the old man bought a house at a government auction. Got it for a song, he said. Great, except we were in the Port and the house was on the other side of the peninsula. So what does the old man do? He cuts the house in half, puts each half on the back of a truck and carts them over to the Port. Then he sticks the two halves back together. Hey presto – a house! You could still see where he cut it though – ‘the scar’, we called it.
The door opened.
‘What ya doing?’ said Team-man.
‘Focusing on my opponent. Strengths and weaknesses.’
‘You’re gunna get murdered.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘Well, you are.’
‘If I get murdered we’ll lose. Game’s won and lost in the ruck.’
‘Probably.’
‘Great team-man you are, Team-man.’
‘I told you not to call me that, Bucky.’
‘Are you staying here, or what?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I’m going then.’
‘Good riddance.’
7
Best Team-man’s real name is Timothy. Timothy James Black. But almost everybody called him Best Team-man, or Team-man or BT. I was proud of Best Team-man (the nickname, not the person). It’d been a great success.
Team-man was our back-pocket player. He was shorter than me, but bigger and stronger. Just the right build for a footballer, especially a back-pocket player. He had plenty of pace, he could kick with both feet, and he was a pretty good mark.
At training he starred. Kicking drills, marking drills, handballing drills, circle work – he made it all look so easy. This kid’s got it all, you’d think if you saw him. Destined for greater things. Play for his state one day, he will. Bet me bottom dollar on that. Well, you’d lose that bottom dollar, Team-man was never going to play for the state. Because on the day, during the match, something happened. Rather, something didn’t happen. He didn’t get the ball. He didn’t get anywhere near the ball. Best Team-man just never seemed to be in the right place at the right time.
It was hard to understand but it had something to do with what Arks called ‘reading the game’.
‘Youse have gotta read the game,’ he’d say.
It sounded stupid. How can you read a game of footy? It’s not a newspaper or a book. But I sort of knew what Arks meant. It was like a sixth sense, an instinct. Somebody like Dumby Red had it in buckets. He was always in the right place. It was like the ball followed him around. But when it came to reading the game, Team-man was completely dyslexic.
And it’s not as if he didn’t try. He did, more than anybody else. He was absolutely dedicated. He’d do anything for the team. He was like one of those lemmings who jump off cliffs so the other lemmings will have enough food to eat. Best Team-man would jump off a cliff, too. All Arks needed to do was arks.
‘Gather ’round now, lads. I need one of youse to jump off that extremely large cliff over there.’
Before you knew it Team-man would be tumbling through the air about to join the mashed lemmings on the jagged rocks below.
Team-man was a hopeless player, but because he trained so hard and was so dedicated, he always won the Best Team-man trophy at the end of the year. Our lounge room was full of them. Everywhere you looked – Best Team-man trophies. Little silver men looking back at you. There were four just on top of the telly.
I reckon a family is a lot like a team. Perhaps it’s the original team. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that given his lemming-like qualities, Team-man would be just about the best sibling you could have? Do anything for you, for the family. Good theory, but wrong.
Last summer we rowed right out to the reef, halfway to the island, in the old man’s dinghy. We weren’t supposed to take it that far, but it was the best place to go spear-fishing.
Team-man found two crays under a ledge. It was tricky catching crayfish. You could spear them, but you weren’t supposed to, it was against the law. So the idea was to grab them with your hands and yank them out of their cubby-holes. These two crays were down pretty deep. When you’re down that deep you have to equal-ise, pinch your nostrils, or pressure will build up in your ears.
I was using the spear, prodding the crays, trying to persuade them to move out of their hole, while Best Team-man was on the other side of the ledge, ready to grab one as it scuttled out. Finally one of the crays moved forward, but Team-man wasn’t there to catch it. He’d gone. What an idiot!
I looked up. He was floating on the surface, arms out-stretched, face down. When I got closer I could see blood trickling from his left ear. I dragged him into the dinghy, and rowed like a maniac back to the shore.
We passed the jetty. Darcy was fishing in his usual spot, right at the end.
‘Tim’s got the bends!’ I yelled out to him.
Darcy got his car and we got Best Team-man to Doc Matthews. He didn’t have the bends of course. He’d busted his eardrum, that’s all.
Later the old man asked us why we went out to the reef, when we weren’t supposed to. He was pretty ropable (not unusual). Best Team-man said it was my idea, all my idea. My idea! The lying bastard. After I’d saved his miserable life.
Of course the old man believed Team-man, he always did.
Now is that the behaviour of a true lemming?
8
I walked outside. It was a clear night. No moon, and lots of stars in the sky.
What had Malcolm Prestwidge told me? That some of those stars were already dead, they no longer existed, they’d burnt themselves out. But we still saw them because they were so far away and it took ages for the light to reach us. I looked up at the Milky Way. It was hard to believe, but t
hat Malcolm Prestwidge was as brainy as anything, and there wasn’t much he didn’t know about the universe.
I could see Darcy, our neighbour, sitting on his verandah.
‘Gidday, Darcy,’ I yelled. ‘What ya up to?’
‘Bottling up some gents, young’un. Why don’t ya come over and give me a hand?’
‘I’m on me way.’
Old Darcy was a little bloke, jockey size, with a big nose, like a beak. He always wore the same clothes, no matter what the weather – long khaki trousers, a long-sleeved khaki shirt buttoned at the wrists, and sandshoes. We thought he was mad, dressed like that in the middle of summer when we spent all day with just our bathers on.
‘The A-rabs,’ Darcy would say, ‘have been in the desert for centuries, and you don’t see them running about half-naked.’
And sometimes, when I lay in bed, flat on my stomach, my back raw and aching from sunburn, I’d think that perhaps old Darcy wasn’t so mad after all.
He always wore an old army hat with a seagull feather stuck in the band. There were hooks and swivels and lures and little coils of fishing gut as well. He was a walking tackle shop, old Darcy.
Every day, without fail, Darcy would be up the jetty, in his favourite spot – right at the end, sitting on his tackle box, a rod in his hands. He had a boat, a little runabout, and sometimes you’d see him in it, turning the motor over, pumping out the bilge. But that was it, I’d never seen it leave the moorings, and Darcy always seemed to be in a big hurry to get back onto the jetty.
‘Pull up a seat,’ said Darcy.
There weren’t any seats, except for the old cane chair Darcy was sitting in, just a jumble of wooden fishing crates. His house was full of stuff he’d found washed up on the rocks – weird twisted pieces of wood, glass buoys, scraps of net, shells, whales’ teeth, old bottles. I turned a crate on its side and sat down.
Darcy had a newspaper spread across his lap. In the middle of it, just below a photo of the Prime Minister, was a pile of squirming maggots.
‘Whatta ya reckon young’un, nice lookin’ batch of gents?’ said Darcy.
Deadly Unna? Page 3