Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The

by Gee, Maurice

  ‘It’s a two-way thing. If they choose not to obey the rules –’

  ‘Oh Mr Whiting, do be quiet.’ How she enjoyed saying that. And look at him now, purpling up and getting ready to Jehovah her. Finding oneself so much disliked, that was exhilarating too. ‘I’m talking about our conduct now.’

  ‘Did you say – did you tell me –’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Norma, I think you ought to know,’ Frances Alexander said, ‘you won’t have all your staff on your side, dear. I’m not saying we went behind your back, but you were away and Mrs Muir was here.’

  ‘Ah, Mrs Muir.’

  ‘She agrees.’

  ‘Yes, she would.’

  ‘You’ve nothing against Mrs Muir?’

  ‘The time for Phyllis to have her say is twenty years past. She’s still in the hat and gloves era, Frances.’

  Maule clicked his teeth. ‘We’re getting off the subject. When you telephoned last night you said you’d take some action I wouldn’t like. What was that?’

  They had come to it, and Norma found it hard to say. She did not want to put it out there, where it might be turned into a fact.

  ‘If the Board votes to go ahead with this I’ll resign. And I’ll do it with maximum publicity.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Oh the papers and the radio. I’ll say what I’ve just said about telling lies – yes, Mr Whiting – and rewriting history. And what we owe the girls we teach. I will not continue in a school that thinks it can flush someone away down the drain.’

  She heard them breathing, Whiting wheezing. Frances Alexander creaked her chair.

  At last Maule said, ‘We wouldn’t want to lose you, Mrs Sangster.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘But I don’t appreciate the threat.’

  ‘I want you to know what I’ll do. It’s no threat. It simply follows.’

  He kept his unblinking gaze on her – and was there some pity coming in? He sighed at last and dabbed with middle fingers, one, two, fresh dampness from the corners of his mouth.

  Why pity? And why – yes, it was – complacency? Had something happened she had failed to see?

  ‘Mrs Alexander?’ he said.

  ‘Well, Norma puts it far too strongly, I feel. But I see her point. I don’t want to lose her, certainly.’

  ‘Mr Whiting?’

  ‘I’d let her go. If it was left to me I’d show her the door.’

  ‘You’re outvoted, Claude. Though I don’t have to tell you –’ a smile at Norma – ‘there isn’t any voting going on. This is just a gathering of interested parties. The Birtles girl. We can be persuaded, I think.’

  Does he know about me and Ken?

  But if he knew he’d want her out today, with none of this manœuvring. Shelley’s crime would shrink to nothing at all.

  ‘I think we should call it a day,’ Frances Alexander said. ‘I think this little kerfuffle –’ she grinned at Norma – ‘can be hosed away.’

  ‘No,’ Whiting cried.

  Maule controlled him with a finger-dab. ‘It’s all done, Mr Whiting. It’s decided. Although the proposal had some merit, I believe. Now – there was that other matter you wanted to raise?’

  ‘Yes,’ Whiting said. ‘But it’s linked, you see. The whole thing starts in her attitude.’

  ‘Come on, speeches another time. Norma isn’t on trial,’ Frances Alexander said.

  ‘She is with me.’

  ‘Mr Whiting,’ Maule said, ‘I haven’t much time.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Whiting mopped his face. ‘Immoral poems in the school. How about that?’

  Maule looked at Norma with a small lift of his brows. ‘You know about this, Mrs Sangster? You don’t mind discussing it now?’ Then, too much the ascetic for triumphs, he looked out the window and dabbed his lips.

  He’s let me put myself in a corner. Now comes the trade-off, now the deal. He doesn’t want Shelley Birtles, he wants Sandra Duff.

  ‘Ken, can we talk?’

  ‘Yes, they’re watching TV. It’s OK.’

  ‘I talked with Mr Maule and some of the others. They’re not going ahead. You can stop worrying.’

  ‘Are you sure? What’d they say?’

  ‘Oh, they were going to do it all right. But I stopped them. It’s all over.’

  ‘How? How’d you stop them?’

  ‘Does it matter? I did, that’s all.’

  ‘Come on, Norma.’

  ‘I told them I’d resign.’

  ‘Would you have? Resigned? Over Shelley?’

  ‘Yes, I would.’ But you can’t make the same threat twice in a day. And anyway I wouldn’t have done it for Sandra. But I would have made a fuss. So Maule’s got rid of her without all that; and he’s kept me, oh he still wants me, because I’m good. And Shelley he never cared about.

  She felt sick that he had known her and used her so well.

  ‘So, it’s all over. Goodbye, Ken.’

  ‘Hey, wait a minute Norma. Norma, thanks.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘I think it would have flipped her, that’s all.’

  ‘Yes, it would. I hope it will be all right now. For all of you.’

  ‘Yeah, it will. Hey Norma, I meant to say, Shelley got your mother’s letter OK. But she’s, I don’t know, she’s not up to writing back right now. She will one day. But she says thanks. Will you tell your mother?’

  ‘Yes.’ She wished he would stop putting things on her. ‘I’ll pass it on.’

  ‘OK, thanks. For everything. I mean it.’

  ‘Thank you too.’ She put down the phone. Repeated thank you too for the rhyme. So that was that. She was very tired, a wearing day, wearing fortnight, already it was an exhausting year. She really hadn’t been set up by her nice affair. Well, reconsider that – she knew she would dispute that later on. And find some meaning in it if meaning was in it to find. And store away a memory or two. Not now. Not today. Today she had been knocked down and trampled on.

  She put a record on and found herself a drink and sat down in her chair and stroked her cat.

  Nice cat. Nice little devil, you are.

  18

  The Rounds have been on holiday. Tom and Josie own a share in a little house in Oyster Bay. It’s a time-share arrangement and they own two prime weeks in January. Josie and Duncan travel up by launch and Tom brings the girls in his boat, with food and drink, books and clothing, for two weeks. Tom does not stay over. He has things to do in town.

  Oyster Bay is private land surrounded by the park. There are twenty or thirty baches and cottages, with bottled gas fridges and battery TV sets. Some have generators and are just like home. The Rounds’ little house has everything.

  The coastal track, a three-day walk, goes through Oyster Bay. Huts for the walkers are south over the inlet behind the bay and north at Pear Tree Bay. In summer-time the backpackers come, Danes and Swedes and Germans and Australians and North Americans and a few British and one or two French. Most of them are young. They’re girls and boys in fairly equal numbers. From Oyster Bay you can see them approaching on the track round the inlet or waiting on the south side for the tide to drop so they can walk across and save two kilometres. The daring ones come at half-tide, with their packs resting on their heads. They look like a line of coolies approaching but turn into blond Europeans, sunburned Aussies. They sit on the grass in their shorts to dry out. Some of the girls don’t bother with tops.

  Belinda tries her German. ‘Guten morgen.’ She learns ‘God dag’ and ‘Hej’ and ‘Tack så mycket.’ Stella and Mandy ask them in for a can of beer, and ask the ones they like to stay for a meal. Some nights two or three climb into their sleeping bags on the living-room floor or put up pup-tents on the lawn. The Round girls enjoy their holidays at Oyster Bay.

  There are things to complain about, of course. The cruising yachts anchor in Boulder Bay, around from the entrance to the inlet. At night the sound of parties comes across the sea. ‘It’s like living i
n the suburbs,’ Stella complains. And the speedboats from Saxton make the air hideous with their racket all day long. Apart from that they’re pleased with Oyster Bay.

  Josie likes it in small doses. Sun and sea she likes but mosquitoes and cramped rooms and cooking in what she calls ‘primitive conditions’, and sand in the food, and having to be mingy with the water, and no air conditioning in the night, sleeping in your sweat, and the stink of the chemical toilet, and thump of the generator driving her mad – ‘Well, I’m past all that, I’m somewhere else.’ Danes snoring on the living-room floor. ‘That’s for Mandy and Stell. I’m in my civilized forties now.’ She wants to be in Saxton, in her studio, at her work.

  Duncan wants to go home too. He’s read all his books. He has walked north and south, half a day each, and met uneasy grins on the track with a grin of his own; has swum in the evening and sat on the hill behind the bay, looking at the stars, and now he wants his telescope again and lots more books.

  ‘If you do go, Mum, can I go too?’

  They stay for ten days, then Tom speeds them back to Saxton in his boat. Mandy and Stella and Belinda stay on at Oyster Bay.

  The first thing Duncan does is telephone Mrs Sangster. He wants to make sure she hasn’t forgotten his correspondence courses. There’s no reply and Duncan worries. ‘She’s probably on holiday. She won’t forget. Norma’s very good with things like that,’ Josie says.

  The following night Tom is home before they go to bed. ‘I saw Norma on the beach at Pear Tree Bay. All on her lonesome, munching her sammies. That lady really needs a man.’

  ‘You see,’ Josie tells Duncan.

  So Duncan reads and sits up late in the fire-break. But he’s standing still, he feels, and he wants to start moving again. Filling himself up with stuff is OK, but there’s a different sort of knowing and he has to find out what it is.

  On Sunday Josie says, ‘Try to get them back early, Tom. Belinda’s got Golden Hills tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t know why she needs to wipe old ladies’ bums. You’d think my kids could do better than that.’

  ‘She doesn’t wipe, whatever. And it’s good for her anyway. Will you please get them back in time for tea.’

  She cooks for the whole family; corn patties for Belinda, the only vegetarian left, and chicken for everyone else. At six o’clock, and seven, and eight, they have not come. Josie fumes. ‘That bastard,’ she says, under her breath.

  At ten past eight the phone rings.

  ‘We’re at Big Shelley, Mum. Can you pick us up?’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘We came by launch. I’ll tell you later. Hurry, eh?’

  Josie drives out across the plains and round through Darwood to Big Shelley, saying, ‘This is the end, Tom, you bastard,’ at the start, but being fairly calm by the time she gets there. Par for the course, she might have known.

  They pack most of their gear in the boot and Mandy and Belinda take the rest on their knees. Stella gets in the front with Josie.

  ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘Don’t they have pies in the shop?’

  ‘I don’t eat pies.’

  ‘They weren’t bad,’ Mandy says.

  Josie drives. ‘What happened to your father?’

  ‘Later, Mum.’

  ‘Don’t later Mum me. Tell me what happened.’

  ‘He was drunk. So we came by launch.’

  Mandy and Belinda are quiet in the back. Too quiet, Josie thinks.

  ‘How drunk was he, Mandy?’

  ‘Drunk enough. We just thought it would be better.’

  ‘Stella thought.’ Drunk in charge of a boat was no crime. She’d kill Tom if he took the children in the car that way, but you couldn’t get into much trouble in a boat. ‘And here I am driving thirty miles. And dinner ruined.’

  ‘Poor you.’

  ‘Now listen, Stella –’ But Stella turns away and puts her hands over her ears and leans on the door.

  ‘Oh shut up, Mum,’ Mandy says; and taps her shoulder kindly, shut up.

  There’s more to this, Josie thinks. Something else happened.

  This is what happened – and best to stand a good way off from it.

  Tom drove away early with his scuba gear in the boat. Today he was teaching Sandra to dive. There was no need to pick the girls up before mid-afternoon. He stopped at Sandra’s flat and put his head in at the door. ‘Ready?’ he yelled. She came into the room in her dressing-gown.

  ‘Jesus, Sandra.’

  ‘Sorry. Can’t come.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve got my period. So bugger off.’ (Tom likes her directness and bad language, he takes it as a kind of sexual play.)

  ‘That won’t stop you diving. Why the hell can’t you take the pill?’

  ‘I’m not screwing up my chemistry for you or any man. Now clear out Tom, I’m in a bad temper.’ Her period always makes her like this. She likes it because it’s something men can never have, but hates the inconvenience.

  Tom clears out. He goes out through the Cut, across the bow of a Russian trawler, and sets off up the bay towards the point, where the best scuba-diving grounds lie. He doesn’t mind diving on his own – likes turning and nosing in that element, and likes the sense of wholeness in his body, has knowledge of himself, skin and bone and blood and fingertips, and comes upon fantastic shapes and marvellous architectures … but cannot find his way to that today. He wonders where Norma Sangster is in Sutherland Bay. If he knew he’d go and get her. He’s sorry now he let Stephanie go. Sandra is a scruffy little bitch and needs a good belt on the ear. He sits in his boat and lets it drift and sips whisky from his leather flask. Inshore from him two boys in a yellow boat, same model as his, are getting their gear on, helped by a girl with long blond hair.

  Tom closes his eyes. ‘Long blond hair.’ It’s a ceremonial phrase. He says it again – an incantation. He feels close to some vision of beauty. When he opens his eyes the diving flag is up and the boys are gone. She’s sitting on the side with her feet in the water. She’s topless now, with her bikini pants tied on her hip in a neat little bow. Tom thinks he’s never seen anything more lovely. He feels uplifted and inclines his head, saluting her.

  ‘Stop perving, you old prick,’ she yells at him.

  He feels as if she’s clawed him on the face. He feels as if she’s tipped some filthy bucket over him. There are tears in his eyes as he drives away. But Tom believes in himself and Tom’s a doer, and half a kilometre up the coast he sweeps around and runs at her with his throttle wide. He waits for the moment she will see him; makes her fall into the cockpit, open-mouthed. He shows his teeth and drives his bow at her like a knife. There’s a chance he’ll hit one of the divers surfacing, but they’ve only been down a minute or two. He takes the chance and sweeps by a boat-length away, turning sharp and throwing a wave that has her tumbling back again and clawing at the rail.

  ‘Take that, you bitch,’ Tom says, and keeps his throttle open, roars away.

  He speeds down the coast, bay after bay, yellow bites, and goes through the opening in the bar at Kirby Creek and up the river a little way, and up a side-creek. He has another drink, and is hungry now, but Sandra was bringing the lunch. He gets the snorkel and face mask, kid’s gear really, from under the seat, and does a bit of crabbing along the sand, in and out of tree roots, looking at the little silver fish. He won’t admit he’s hiding. Tom Round does not hide.

  Later on he putters down the coast, leaning back in his seat and steering with his foot. He’s a little drunk and feels very big and very wise, he knows there’s no one like him anywhere. He sips again from his flask and looks at the coast and thinks, My place. He’s seen a lot of beaches but these are the most beautiful in the world, with sand so yellow it hurts, and the sea swelling up and swamping them – fucking them, he thinks, the sea fucks the beaches, and that he thinks is beautiful; and the bush green and solid at the back, climbing up and up, ledge after ledge. I’d like to build houses here, Tom think
s, one house in each bay, in the bush, and nothing else. Each one mine. I’d come and live in them one by one.

  Oyster Bay is ugly, it insults him: crappy shacks and lean-tos and fatties on the beach. I’d get rid of people, Tom declares. Then he sees Belinda walking there; and God, she’s beautiful. I made that, he thinks.

  He’ll get her out of here. He’ll take her in his boat to the beaches up the coast.

  Tom noses the boat on to the sand and jumps out and gives it a heave to hold it safe. He runs after Belinda, who has gone into the track through the lupins.

  ‘Belinda.’

  She turns and grins at him. ‘Hey Dad, you’re early. We’re not ready yet.’

  ‘Come in the boat. I’ll teach you to dive.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Sure, why not? Get a bit of food from the house. I haven’t had lunch.’

  ‘Can Stell and Mandy come?’

  ‘Who needs them? Just you and me.’ God, he thinks, she’s lovely, look at her. He wants to pick her up and carry her to the boat and drive away.

  ‘Will yukky meat sausages do? And bread? It’s stale.’

  ‘Whatever you’ve got. Hurry love, before the others come.’

  She grins and runs – flashing calves, white soles of her feet – and he turns and stretches at the sky, feels all his joints click and muscles enlarge. When he turns Mandy and Stella stand with shoulders touching in the lupins. Their eyes are pointing at him, sticking in, and it hurts.

  ‘She’s not going, Dad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re drunk, Dad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re not going to do it to her too.’

  ‘Mandy? What’s she talking about, Mandy?’

  ‘Go and look after Belinda. I’ll do this,’ Stella says.

  Mandy looks at him. She opens her mouth to speak but cannot speak. She runs away.

  Mandy knows Stella is right. She has seen him like this once before, with his eyes bulging and his throat mottled pink and red. She stops herself running and tries to walk, but bangs into things as she goes through the house. Belinda is at the fridge. She looks round guiltily.