Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The

by Gee, Maurice

  He says, ‘The moon will be coming up in a minute.’ She looks along the spiny back of the hills to Imrie and Corkie and sees a white radiance over their twin hump.

  ‘Can we look at it?’

  ‘We’d have to get binoculars. This is not a moon telescope.’ He starts to dismount it from its legs. ‘Hey, Mrs Sangster, I was wondering, are there courses I could do in, you know, physics and maths and astronomy?’

  ‘I’m sure there are.’

  ‘I can, like, read all the books and remember them, but most of the time I don’t know what it means. I never got to physics at school.’

  ‘You could go back.’

  ‘No. Are there correspondence courses? I’d ask Mum but I thought you’d know.’

  ‘I’m sure we could get you correspondence courses. Would you like me to find out?’

  ‘That’d be great.’

  ‘I think you’ll learn like a fizz-bomb, Duncan.’ She is elated. He wants to know meanings and she sees her part in it. She believes that he is out of danger now and will be a great man one day.

  He puts his gear in the box and snaps it shut. ‘See.’ Imrie has a molten tip. ‘Up she comes.’

  They watch the moon take shape and break free, and it’s too heavy, Norma thinks, to stay in the sky, it should crash down and burn through the Earth like a cannonball. Except of course – but she knows all that. Openness, susceptibility – that is the better way tonight; although the boy beside her is a fact.

  ‘The moon’s too close. I don’t want to go there,’ Duncan says.

  ‘Well, you never will.’ He’ll work in little rooms, with instruments and figures – but travel out of course, travel far.

  They walk down through the trees, climb and slide, and hear and see the party again. The house gleams like mother of pearl and the golf course spreads out from the foot of the hill, smooth pale slopes and pits of shadow. The cars on the drive are vertebrae – are rounded slickly shining butter-pats.

  Duncan puts his case down by the gate. He darts away and comes back grinning. ‘She’s gone. All there is is a flat place in the grass.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll come back to the party. Duncan, there’s my bag in your mother’s room. It’s a cloth one with a red silk scarf tied round the handle.’

  ‘Sure,’ he says, and runs up the drive and through the garage. She leans on the gate and waits for him. Like waiting for your boyfriend, she remembers, but not with any sadness or longing. The night has made a gift and she’s satisfied.

  He brings her bag. She knots her scarf round her neck. ‘Goodnight Duncan. Thanks for showing me.’ She kisses him on his undamaged cheek and walks down the drive.

  ‘Hey, Mrs Sangster. Happy New Year.’

  ‘Happy New Year, Duncan. Same to you.’

  Her car is parked by the bridge. She gets in and sits a while with the window open, listening to the water and the far-off chirp and chatter and the crack of gum leaves in the night. Here, she thinks, here or anywhere is good enough. I don’t really have to want too hard.

  People are serving themselves at the bar. The barman has stripped to his grundies and is horsing with Miranda in the pool.

  ‘He’s a student too, surprise, surprise,’ Belinda says.

  ‘Hey Duncan, come on in,’ Miranda yells.

  He sees the barman discover him and the guy is pretty good, just a flicker.

  ‘You do anything bad to my sister, I’ll come and get you one foggy night.’ He shows his teeth.

  ‘Duncan,’ Mandy screeches, ‘you little bastard, I’ll get you for that.’

  Miranda is pleased with him. Mandy likes me, I never knew.

  A woman with rings on her fingers, big fat rings, solo-waltzes by, humming ‘Greensleeves’, and takes off her shoes and dress and tights and climbs into the pool in her knickers and bra. She swims like a learner to the middle and stands bouncing gently on her toes. ‘Come on, sausage, come on out,’ pleads a man in a Hawaiian shirt, but she turns from him, dog-paddles away, still humming her tune. Duncan thinks it won’t be long before more people go in, with no togs on probably. It would only take a push with his little finger to tip the man; who’s so anxious about his wife he doesn’t notice half his drink slop in, though the ice goes plop. How long will it take before it melts? Duncan goes to the bar and gets some cubes and drops them in the pool one by one.

  ‘Give me, Dunc,’ Miranda cries. She grabs one and tries to stuff it in the barman’s grundies. Duncan has never seen her like this. She must have had too much to drink. Someone should get her out of the pool. He looks for his mother, but sees her trooping with her friends into the weaving-room. That’s the end of her for a couple of hours.

  A men’s platoon led by his father comes out of the garage. Tom has his golf clubs on his shoulder – it looks crazy in the middle of the night – and Rock Edison is carrying the bucket of balls. They go past the pool and round the side of the house and through the door in the brick wall to the flat bit of paddock Tom keeps mown – his Scotchman’s tee. Some mornings before breakfast he spends half an hour out there shooting at the seventh green in the bend of the river. The whack of his club wakes everyone up; and when he’s finished Belinda goes down with the bucket to find the balls. Five dollars if she comes back with every one, which she usually does. Tom doesn’t often miss the green. One morning he scored a hole in one and made Josie drink a glass of whisky to celebrate.

  Duncan hoists himself on the wall. The barman is out of the pool pulling on his black trousers and white shirt. Mandy has scratched him under the jaw. None of her boyfriends get very far with her, she won’t be touched. The teacher in the Trade Aid dress is wrapping a towel round her, so that’s all right. The men look like burglars in the moonlight; or murderers, with their golf clubs flashing in their hands.

  ‘What do you use here, Tom?’ Morris Martin asks.

  ‘Me? A four iron. Some of you jokers are going to need the driver.’ Tom laughs.

  ‘I think you should be handicapped for local knowledge, Tom,’ Rock Edison says.

  ‘I think you should start from further back.’ Don Compton.

  Duncan knows who most of them are. They come out in twos and threes, talking business. They’re in a deal – Tom is a partner and the architect as well – to build a retirement village out by Darwood. It’s going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to get in, but it’s value for money, Tom says: croquet greens and bowling greens and a cinema and shops and a hairdresser and health club and an indoor swimming pool, all private. There’ll be a security fence round it all. It’s a concentration camp for the afflu-old, Josie says.

  ‘Who’s holding kitty?’

  ‘Me.’ Tony Hillman.

  ‘I’ll put an extra hundred in. That’s my handicap.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘How much in kitty?’

  ‘Nine hundred now.’

  ‘Everybody choose a different ball. Tony, how about making a note of them?’

  ‘Hot Dot, that’s no good, I want a Dunlop.’

  All of them are rich, but Duncan sees how eager they are to win.

  ‘Do we putt as well?’

  ‘No. It’s the closest to the pin.’

  ‘There isn’t a pin.’

  ‘Yes there is. See that piece of stick with a cloth tied on. You can just see it. I put it in as soon as it got dark.’

  ‘You planned this, you cunning bugger.’

  They’ve got no hope. His father will win.

  ‘Do we draw for positions?’

  ‘Nah, let’s do it alphabetically.’ That will make Tom at the end.

  Duncan climbs down and runs along the inside of the wall. At the front of the house he climbs again and drops into the paddock. The dry grass is up to his hips and makes a hissing noise as he slides into a grove of silver dollar gums. Dead leaves snap under his feet but they’re arguing so loudly on the tee no one can hear. He climbs a barbed-wire fence and ducks along a row of young macrocarpas, tree to tree. The house lig
hts edge out from behind the gums. Women stand with their backs to the windows in the lounge. As he runs on rough inside the macrocarpas the men on the tee come into view. He keeps the trees as a barrier and gets to the willows on the river bank. The course stretches away, so white in the moonlight it seems coated with frost. Over the road and river the south-facing hills are dark. There’s no light in Lex Clearwater’s house (the reason: Lex has not paid his bill and his electricity is cut off. It doesn’t bother him. Lex doesn’t need electricity any more) and no lights in the clubhouse. The men up the hill are like hunchbacks and cripples. They seem to slide leftwards all the time, pushed by the moon. All except Tom. He stands up straight and bounces the light off his face.

  Someone hits. Duncan doesn’t see the ball but hears it crash in the gum trees. That was Mr Compton and he’s done his hundred dollars. The next one, Rock Edison, takes a long time and the others start heckling him in a way that would be cheating in a proper match. Sound comes clearly in the night, as though things that block it in the daytime are removed. Each bit is round and smooth and seems to chime in a hollow place inside itself. Something ragged though begins to sound from the other way. It’s like a yard-broom sweeping; then it turns to water. Ducks, he thinks.

  Rock Edison’s ball lands between the pine trees and the green. Duncan hears him swear, as clear as a morepork. More splashing comes and he eases into the willows and sees a woman walking in the river, holding her skirt bunched in front of her. He thinks at first it’s the crazy woman, then recognizes Stella from her throat and jaw. He lets her come up close enough to touch.

  ‘Gidday, Stell.’

  ‘Jesus.’ She drops her sandals in the water. He hooks them with his foot and picks them up.

  ‘Didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Watching.’ A ball hits the willow trees beyond them. ‘That was Mr Geldard.’

  Stella climbs out and crouches on the mat of willow-hair. ‘I’ll kill you if you scare me like that again.’

  ‘Sorry, Stell.’

  She’s quiet for a moment, peering up the hill. ‘Are you sure they can’t see you?’

  ‘Not if we stay in the trees. Mr Hillman’s next.’

  ‘I’ll bet you’ve got the same idea as me.’

  ‘What’s that, Stell?’

  ‘Don’t play dumb. You’re going to shift Dad’s ball.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘I’m going to put someone else’s closer to the hole.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Anyone’s. As long as I can find one.’

  They hear the whack of the club from up the hill and wait for a time that seems too long. Then they hear a thud. A ball jumps halfway across the green and runs over the lip on the other side.

  ‘That one will do. I like Mr Hillman,’ Stella says.

  ‘I thought you’d want Dad to win.’

  He hears a little sound in her stomach, some liquid squeaking through a place that’s bent because she’s squatting. It surprises Duncan that Stella should make a noise like that. Her insides should be clean as clean and work like a Rolls-Royce engine.

  ‘You like him don’t you, Stell?’ Mandy can do his operations and Stella can bail him out is just about Tom’s favourite joke.

  She doesn’t answer. Wipes her nose on the back of her hand – another thing he’s never seen her do. ‘Can they see balls on the green from up there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I just don’t think he should always win.’

  ‘He won’t tonight.’ Another ball lands short of the green. ‘That was Mr Martin. Munday comes next. Then Pelham. Then Dad. Why don’t you like him, Stell?’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘I thought you all did except Mum and me.’

  ‘I’ll be away from here next year. Thank God for that.’

  ‘Next year’s in,’ peers at his watch, ‘sixteen minutes. If we weren’t on daylight saving we’d have an hour to go.’ He thinks about that and sees how clock-time doesn’t mean a thing.

  Mr Munday’s ball lands in the river.

  Mr Pelham’s ball takes a very long time and hits the front of the green and backspins out of sight.

  ‘I’ll be sorry when you go, Stell.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be. I treat you like dirt.’

  ‘No you don’t. Like dog shit.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can joke about it.’

  ‘Here comes Dad.’

  They see him waggle his club. They see his forearms shine.

  ‘All the rest of them are second rate,’ Stella says. Her voice sounds as if she’s got bits of glass in her mouth. Duncan wants to put his finger in and find out. He’s alarmed at the way his mind is working tonight. It brings him and other people close. It presses them together so he can feel their lungs and hearts inside. He slides his finger between his cheek and gums. Warm and slippery; and that’s how Stella is. With hard bits inside her that can break. He touches his teeth. It’s like touching his father.

  ‘Eee,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you like Mum?’

  ‘Mum’s all right.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s not bad.’

  ‘She’s doing the best she can for herself. Don’t you worry, Dunc. Mandy and I are going to look after you.’

  ‘I can look after myself. I’m going to do some correspondence courses next year. Twelve minutes.’

  He feels sorry for Stella. She’s like one of those dolls with a joint in their necks. She can only do eyes front and when you want to make her look at something else you’ve got to twist her head, you hear the click. He looks at her profile in the moonlight and sees how pretty she is and wonders why she doesn’t have any boyfriends.

  Tom Round swings his club. There’s a delay in the sound reaching them. Duncan thinks if he could measure it he could work out the distance between his father and him, down to centimetres. Tom stands with his arms wrapped round his neck, hugging himself. He’s like an illustration in a golf book, the Golden Bear or the White Shark, and his club-head at his shoulder glitters like an eye inspecting him.

  Thud goes the ball and they find it by hearing first, then sight. It bounces past the hole, not very far, and stops as though the green is magnetized. It must have a lot of backspin on. Duncan admires his father for being able to do that. The men up the hill are talking in loud voices. They troop off the tee with a gloss of moonlight on their foreheads.

  ‘When they’re in the gums,’ Duncan says. He hears them crashing and laughing. Tom Round does his Tarzan yell.

  ‘Now,’ Stella whispers, and gives him a push on his behind.

  Duncan runs round the edge of the green. Mr Hillman’s ball should lie on the fairway, but it’s not there. He tracks this way and that. ‘I can’t find it.’ It must have rolled and rolled and gone into the rushes in the dry patch of swamp. The men are out of the gums, the first ones are climbing the fence.

  ‘Why didn’t someone tell me it’s barbed wire?’ Don Compton yells.

  Duncan finds the ball and grabs it. Sees Stella running on the green. She’s stealing their father’s ball and she’s just in time. He rolls Mr Hillman’s and it vanishes over the lip. There’s enough speed to take it near the hole. He retreats into the river, not bothering to take his sneakers off, and wades in the shadows to their hiding place. Stella has climbed down from the willow mat. She stands in water up to her knees. They look past the roots at eye level and see the men in a herd between the macrocarpas and the green. Tom is leading.

  ‘Only one on the green. You’re a bunch of no-hopers.’

  Stella squats. The back of her skirt dips in the water. ‘Stell?’ She rests her forehead on the spongy mat.

  ‘Are you scared of him, Stell?’

  ‘Yes.’ She hisses the word. He can’t tell whether she’s angry or frightened. ‘Get down. The moon’s on your face.’

  He squats beside her, feeling w
ater cold on his bum.

  ‘Here’s one at the front. Pro-Flite. Who’s that?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Hard cheese, Jeff.’

  Their feet go scuff and thud. One of them belches. One of them laughs.

  ‘Ten feet. I’d hole that putt. Not bad for night-time, eh?’

  Duncan risks a look. Their shadows angle on the green, making even stripes as though they’re ruled. The ball makes a foot-long shadow too. Tom stands with legs apart and hips stuck out – the way he stands, Duncan thinks, peeing in a hedge. He likes the ball and doesn’t pick it up. Rock Edison, creaking, bends and scoops. He holds the ball close against his eye. ‘Top-Flite?’ he says, looking at Tom.

  ‘That’s me.’ Tony Hillman.

  ‘Let me see.’ Tom grabs it, reads. ‘Jesus then, mine must be in the hole.’ He’s at the flag in three strides and pulls it out. Looks inside. Squats and puts his hand in. Geldard laughs. He thinks Tom is joking. The others don’t laugh.

  ‘I should have put a mousetrap in,’ Duncan whispers. He feels Stella trembling and bends his head down and looks at her face. Her eyes are tightly closed. She looks as if she’s going to be sick. He pulls her hand out of the willow-hair and she holds him with a tightness that makes his finger bones roll on each other.

  ‘Hard cheese, Tom,’ Morris Martin says.

  ‘Some of you bastards have done a switch.’

  ‘Aw, come on!’

  ‘We’ll have another.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Not for me.’

  ‘I’m not climbing down that paddock again for anyone.’

  They walk off the green, leaving Tom alone. He looks around. He turns in a circle. He knows his ball was on. Tom Round knows.

  ‘Is he coming?’ Her eyes are closed.

  ‘No. It’s all right.’

  Tom tries to break his home-made pin but the hard tea-tree resists. He turns and seems to look at Duncan and Stella; takes a step and throws the pin like a spear. It hisses through the willow tops and flies across the river, where its sharpened end fixes in the bank and its flag torn off a shirt dangles in the water. He shakes his head, making his hair flick round his eyes, then smooths it and turns, a baffled circle; gives a yell. He walks off the green after his friends. They go into the macrocarpa trees and climb the fence. A shrieking wire makes Stella jerk.