Deadly Unna?

by Phillip Gwynne

  ‘Gee, Greg,’ said Mike, ‘that’s a tough one.’

  But I knew Mike would still give Greg some good advice. Mike always gave good advice. So did Carol (the mum). Even Alice (the maid) gave good advice. That’s why I hated ‘The Brady Bunch’ so much. It was so unlike real life. My life anyway. Grown-ups didn’t solve problems, they made them.

  ‘I know it is, Pop,’ said Greg, ‘but I was kind of hoping you could help me.’

  Then there was an ad break. It gave Mike plenty of time to come up with just the right advice.

  ‘All I can say,’ he said, putting his arm around his son’s shoulder, ‘is to do what your heart tells you, Greg.’

  ‘Do what my heart tells me, Pop?’

  ‘That’s right, Greg, do what your heart tells you.’

  Greg looked a little perplexed. I couldn’t blame him. What sort of advice was that?

  ‘This program really sucks,’ I said.

  ‘Well you don’t have to watch it,’ said a Brady Buncher.

  ‘Yeah, piss off,’ said another.

  I took the Brady Buncher’s advice, and pissed right off, down to Bum Rock. I sat there for ages, watching the sun sink behind the island.

  ‘Where you been?’ asked Shaz when I got back.

  ‘Bum Rock.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Black Rock.’

  ‘Oh. What were you doing?’

  ‘Not much. Just thinking about something.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About something Mike said on “The Brady Bunch”.’

  She looked at me in disbelief.

  ‘But we despise “The Brady Bunch”,’ she said.

  ‘I know we do, but still, I can’t get it out of my head.’

  ‘So what did Mike say?’

  ‘Do what your heart tells you to do.’

  Shaz look worried. I can’t blame her. If I defected to the Brady Bunchers, took my fourteen votes, then Gilligan, the Professor and Mary-Anne would never appear on our telly again.

  ‘Well, my heart’s telling me it needs an ice-cream,’ said Shaz. ‘You wanna come down the shop and get one?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said.

  Shaz looked even more worried.

  ‘My shout,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve got something to do,’ I said, and I walked away.

  ‘A double-header,’ she yelled after me.

  It was quiet in the bedroom, there was nobody there. I lay on my bunk and stared at the scar. And I listened. I listened very carefully.

  And when I finished listening I got my footy bag out of the cupboard. There was a crusty old sock inside. I tossed it under Team-man’s bunk. Then I got my best pants out, the ones I used to wear to church, before I decided I was an agnostic. I found my white school shirt, and good school shoes. I put them all inside the bag. There was only one thing missing – a tie. I’d never been to a funeral before but I knew you were supposed to wear one.

  I couldn’t find my school tie anywhere. I didn’t want to ask Mum, she’d get suspicious. But I remembered having once seen the old man with a tie on. I think it was to go to Rocker’s wedding.

  The old man was still in the shed. The outboard was almost back together again. Mum was sitting at the kitchen table, slouched forward, her head resting on her arm.

  ‘Mum,’ I said.

  She didn’t answer. She was sleeping.

  I opened their bedroom door and slid in through the gap. I closed the door softly behind me. Then I opened the wardrobe. Considering he only ever wore overalls, the old man had a lot of clothes. But the tie wasn’t hard to find. Even in the gloom it stood out. For a start it was purple. Bright purple. And it was wide, the widest tie I’d ever seen. I shoved it in my pocket and sneaked back out of the room.

  I was ready.

  More or less.

  34

  I woke early. There was still night in the room, lingering in the corners. The siblings were all asleep. I climbed down from my bunk. I’d slept with my clothes on, so all I had to do was grab my footy bag and climb out through the window. The sun was just coming up over the chook house. I walked carefully down the drive, past the window of my parents’ bedroom. The gravel was sharp, but my feet were pretty tough. Then when I got to the road I started walking quickly, towards the Point, until the road narrowed, the bitumen became dirt, and the house was well out of sight. Then I got my breakfast out – a squishy banana and two Weetbix – and sat by the side of the road to eat it.

  In front of me the sea was calm, moving slowly in and out, like it was breathing, sleeping against the rocky foreshore. I was feeling happy. The happiest I’d felt in a long time. Colour was seeping back into my world. It wasn’t so grey any more. And somehow it didn’t seem right. I was going to my mate Dumby’s funeral after all. And when I got home my old man was going to spiflicate me. Still, you can’t argue with how you feel, and I was feeling happy.

  I tossed the peel onto the rocks and started walking, following the coast. After maybe an hour and a half I’d reached the sandhills. Here the road skirted around to the right.

  I looked at my watch – there was plenty of time. I was already about halfway to the Point. I didn’t want to get to the funeral early. Maybe somebody would tell me to go away.

  ‘Hey, you whitefella. Piss off. This here’s blackfellas’ business, unna.’

  There were huge piles of seaweed on the shore. I’m not sure why it collected there, something to do with the winds and the tides I suppose. I lay down. The seaweed felt springy, like a mattress. It was dry, but it still had a rich rotting smell. Close to shore a couple of shags were swimming about, their s-bend necks sticking out of the water. There were just a few streaky white clouds high in the sky; it was going to be a scorcher. Maybe people in the Port would even start talking about the weather again.

  I started thinking about Dumby.

  Deadly, unna? He was always saying that. All the Nungas did, but Dumby more than any of them.

  ‘Good pie, Dumby?’

  ‘Deadly, unna?’

  ‘Did ya see Carlton on the replay?’

  ‘Deadly, unna?’

  And now Dumby was dead. Unna?

  Claire told me that at Sunday School one of the kids had asked Mrs Ashburner if the boys who broke into the pub would go to heaven. She didn’t like the question, Claire said. You could tell. But finally she said, ‘It’s for the good Lord to decide.’

  Nice side-step, Mrs Ashburner.

  And what would the good Lord decide? I wondered. What had Dumby done? He’d broken into the pub. Maybe he did have a gun like the cops said. He wasn’t going to shoot anybody though. Not Dumby.

  I had another question for Mrs Ashburner. What about Victor McRae? Would he go to heaven? He’d killed two people, after all. What about ‘thou shalt not kill’ and all that stuff?

  But I knew what she’d say. The good Lord would have to decide on that one, too.

  The sun was high overhead now. It was time to get changed. The pants and shirt were fine, not too creased at all. The shoes were a bit scruffy though. I gave them a bit of the old spit and polish. Then the tie – I hung it loosely around my neck. One of the shags drifted in for a closer look.

  ‘Whatta ya reckon, shag?’ I said.

  It shook its sorry head.

  Maybe the shag was right. Against the white of the shirt, the tie looked even more purple. And wide. Geez it was wide – it looked like a bib. But then again, it was a funeral. And blokes wear ties to funerals. It’s the done thing.

  ‘Okay, shag, let’s toss. Heads I wear the tie. Tails I don’t.’

  I tossed the coin. It spun through the air. And came down – heads.

  ‘Best out of three,’ I said.

  I tossed again. Heads again. I had no choice. As I knotted the tie the shag swam off in disgust. Then I put my old clothes inside the footy bag and stuck it under a rock. I walked back up to the sandhills.

  I’d never liked it there. The way the sand was alw
ays moving, shifting about, like it couldn’t make up its mind. Not only that, it was infested with snakes. Crawling with them. I’d never actually seen one, but I knew they were there, staring at me as I hurried along the track. Their little black tongues flicking. It was a relief to get to the other side.

  This was where Dazza and I had got to that day. Before we got scared shitless. There was a barbed-wire fence, with a sign on it. THE POINT ABORIGINAL RESERVE – NO ENTRY WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION it said. It was riddled with bullet holes.

  I climbed through the bottom strands, making sure the tie didn’t get caught. I’d let Cathy down, the old man was going to spiflicate me, and now I was breaking the law. I knew it – I should never have listened to Mike Brady.

  The land here was dry and dead flat, no trees, just saltbushes and rocky outcrops. I could see the Point clearly now, in the distance, the houses glinting in the sun. The town itself wasn’t actually on the point, it was inland a bit. It seemed a really dud place to stick a town, away from the sea, in the middle of nowhere like that.

  The track joined up with the main road and continued into town. I didn’t take it though. There were a few cars heading along the road, plumes of dust trailing behind them, and I didn’t want to be seen until the very last minute. Instead I cut across the bush.

  There was lots of rubbish around – broken bottles, an old mattress, plastic bags snagged on the bushes. And up ahead was the burnt-out shell of a car. It was on its back, like a dead cockroach. In the front bar they said the Nungas didn’t put oil or water in their cars. When the warning lights on the dash started flashing, they just kept on driving, until the engine blew up. Then they’d set fire to it. The government always bought them another one, they said in the front bar. No worries.

  This car hadn’t been there long. There were scorch marks on the ground. And it had that smell, like when you throw something plastic in the incinerator. I wasn’t great with cars, Dazza was the expert, but it looked a bit like a Valiant. Maybe it was the car the cops were looking for. But I wouldn’t tell them about it. No way.

  I reached the edge of town. There were a few scraggy chooks scratching around, but I couldn’t see any people. I kept walking.

  The Point was not a big chance in the Tidy Towns competition, I can assure you of that. Not even in Section B. The streets weren’t sealed and there were hardly any trees. Most of the houses were fibro, but there were a few brick ones as well.

  I kept thinking. But that’s not right, something’s wrong.

  Then I realised what it was. The houses all had doors and windows. And according to the front bar the first thing Nungas do when they move into a new house is rip the doors off their hinges and smash all the windows.

  So that was the image I had in my head. No doors. No windows. Well, not any more.

  Up ahead I saw a couple of boys kicking a plastic footy around. They were wearing shorts, but no shoes or shirts.

  ‘Gidday,’ I said.

  They looked up, astonished, and took off. I picked up the footy. They stopped at the end of the street and turned around. I kicked the footy towards them (not a bad dob either). They took off again.

  Maybe they thought I was some sort of white ghost. Maybe it was the tie.

  I turned into another street. There were more kids, maybe ten or more, including the footballers, spread across the road. A couple were on bikes. They were all looking at me. Intently.

  I took a step towards them. They scuttled back like crabs, laughing.

  ‘Can you tell me where the funeral is?’ I said, loudly.

  They started talking amongst themselves. I could hear Dumby’s name mentioned.

  ‘It’s that way, unna,’ said a girl in a red t-shirt that came to her knees, pointing.

  ‘Is it a long way?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, long way,’ she said.

  I set off. The kids followed, keeping their distance.

  I passed the primary school. There was a huge mural painted on the side of the wall. Kangaroos and boomerangs and stuff like that. Next door to the school was a large stone building. One of the walls was crumbling and half the roof was caved in, but it looked familiar somehow. Of course! It was our Institute. Exactly the same building, even the stone was the same colour. The two buildings must’ve been built around the same time. It made me realise – I knew nothing about the history of the Point. The Port’s history, all that stuff about the windjammers, had been rammed down our throats. But they told us nothing about the Point.

  Then I came to a t-junction. I hadn’t seen a cemetery yet, and I was on the other side of town. I turned around. The girl in the red t-shirt pointed to the left, towards the coast. Obviously the cemetery was out of town. If it was a long way I’d miss the funeral. I started walking quickly. The kids didn’t follow.

  What a prize dickhead I was. I’d come all that way, and I was going to miss the funeral. I was going to get spiflicated, and all for nothing. And it was getting hot. I wiped my forehead with the tie. My shoes were hurting. I’d probably grown two sizes since the end of school.

  Then I heard the sound of a car coming from behind. I thought about sticking my thumb out. Hitchhiking to a funeral is probably not the done thing, I told myself. I moved to the side of the road. A Torana whizzed past, sending up a spurt of gravel. I could see a couple of black faces looking at me through the rear window. Then the brake lights came on, the wheels locked up and the car slid to a stop. It backed up quickly, the engine whirring, until it was level with me. The front window wound down.

  ‘Blacky, what the hell ya doing out here?’

  It was Clarence. The first time I’d seen her since that day up the jetty. She looked different. Her face was thinner. She looked tired.

  ‘I was going to Dumby’s funeral,’ I said.

  ‘That’s a deadly tie you got there, Blacky,’ she said.

  She smiled, and I felt better. Then she turned around to say something to the other people in the car. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but it sounded like an argument.

  Eventually she opened the door.

  ‘You better hop in then, brudda,’ she said. ‘Travel with us, Nunga-style.’

  I squeezed in. The car was packed. Even more packed than our car on a Sunday drive. Everybody was young. And they were all dressed up. I noticed, with relief, that the boys were wearing ties. Perhaps not as vibrant as mine, but still ties.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  There were a couple of grumbled replies, but nobody seemed that excited to see me.

  ‘You know Lovely?’ said Clarence, inclining her head towards the driver.

  I didn’t actually, but I knew his reputation. He’d played footy for the Port a few years ago. He was good too, as good as Dumby. Then he disappeared. ‘Gone walkabout,’ said Arks. Somebody, I think it was Pickles, said he’d got into strife, ended up in some sort of reform school.

  ‘Gidday,’ I said.

  Lovely didn’t say anything. He slammed the gears into first and dropped the clutch. We sped down the road.

  My left hand gripped the door handle, the knuckles turning white.

  Christ, I thought, why doesn’t somebody tell him to slow down a bit?

  Lovely turned to look at me.

  ‘Whatta reckon, brudda?’ he said, not smiling, his face hard.

  ‘About what?’ I said.

  ‘About the fuckin’ price of tommy ruffs?’ he said ‘Whatta ya think?’

  I was scared. I could feel the anger in his voice, the car was sliding from one side of the road to the other.

  ‘Leave ’im alone,’ said Clarence. ‘He’s okay, he’s paying his respects that’s all. Leave ’im alone.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ said Lovely.

  ‘There it is,’ said somebody from the back.

  Up ahead I could see a group of cars. Lovely took his foot off the accelerator. I relaxed my grip on the handle.

  We were almost at the end of the point. It was sandy out here, not rocky. The skeleton of a bo
at lay on the beach, half buried.

  ‘It’s over here,’ said Clarence, as we got out of the car.

  The cemetery was surrounded by an old iron fence, with a gate at one end. The paths inside were covered with shell grit, like we used to give to our chooks to make their eggshells strong. I could see a pile of sand on the other side. Dumby’s grave, I thought. Imagine being lowered into that, deep into the ground, then covered in six foot of sand.

  I followed Clarence to where a crowd of people were standing beneath a gum tree. Some of them were talking, softly, almost whispering. A gentle breeze was rustling the leaves in the tree. And in the distance was the sound of seagulls squawking. I could see Tommy and Sid and a few other people I knew from the footy, but I was the only Goonya there. Nobody said anything to me. I was starting to feel conspicuous, self-conscious. Maybe Mum was right after all, it was their business, Nungas’ business. Nothing to do with me.

  Then I noticed the coffin, resting on a trestle table. It was open, people filing past. I hadn’t expected that.

  ‘Come on,’ said Clarence.

  We joined the queue. I wasn’t going to look, though. No way. I’d never seen a dead person before, let alone a dead friend.

  But when it was my turn, I opened my eyes. I couldn’t help myself. The first thing I noticed was the inside of the coffin. It was purple, like my tie. That made me feel better, somehow. Then I looked at Dumby. He was wearing a suit, even a tie, and black shoes, not his basketball boots. His hair was wrong. They’d combed it all wrong. Dumby never combed his hair like that. Typical, I thought, just because you’re dead they think they can do what they like.

  I ran the back of my finger along the side of the coffin. It felt smooth, cool.

  Then something weird happened. The sounds in the background – the seagulls, the rustle of the leaves, the other people’s voices – disappeared; they dissolved into silence. And I seemed to get swallowed up by this feeling, I don’t know how to describe it – peace, I suppose. I stopped being angry because of Dumby’s hair, I stopped feeling conspicuous because I was the only Goonya there. Instead this feeling of peace surrounded me.