Hammers Over the Anvil

by Alan Marshall

  ‘No fear, it didn’t’, said Joe. ‘Judy said to Vin, “Don’t tell me you’re going to deny it?”’

  ‘“I am”, said Vin, and he punched the table. “I deny it.”’

  ‘“Then it must have been Jack Roberts, the butcher”, said Judy, and then Scott said, “Well, I’ll go to buggery!” and started packing up the papers on the table.’

  ‘Is that all he told you?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes’, said Joe.

  ‘What does Duke reckon is going to happen now then?’

  ‘Well, according to Duke, Judy has nailed the bloke with the least weight and has backed a winner. Duke reckons Jack Roberts will marry her because he’s been finding it very hard to get a girl over the last six months owing to him coughing a lot.’

  ‘I feel sorry in a way’, I said. ‘All the blokes that used to take Judy out at different times – they’ll miss her I reckon.’

  SNARLY BURNS

  Snarly Burns was not a big man, but when you were lying in the long grass and looked up at him he reached the sky. His boots crushed the grass beside your face so that the bruised and broken stems emerged from beneath them, no longer upright and flexible in the sun, but wounded into pity like soldiers.

  Through the side of my eyes I could see these boots, the hard toe-pieces curved into mud-stained domes, peering at me through a barricade of disordered stems. They watched, but they had no eyes; they listened, but they had no ears. If they moved and stood upon me I would crush like the grass.

  Fear writhed in me. It gripped me in coils that arrested the beating in me and for a moment I lay without movement.

  It vanished and I grabbed my crutches and was on my feet before he had finished shouting. I leant against the fence, my heart sounding like that of a horse after a gallop.

  I shouldn’t have been in his paddock. He didn’t like it.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he shouted at me, though my hearing had become acute and I could have heard a whisper.

  ‘I was just lying down, Mr Burns. I wanted to look at the sky.’

  He looked at me, then up at the sky. He walked away and left me, solitary as a heron.

  FRECKLES JACK

  ‘Listen’, I said to Joe. ‘Do you ever wonder if you’re soft?’

  ‘No’, said Joe. ‘Never.’

  ‘Well, tell me this. Why is it that Plugger Ryan, Dickie Forbes and Freckles Jack are all soft? They are all nice blokes. You couldn’t get better blokes. Why do people keep saying they’re soft?’

  ‘Yes, it’s funny isn’t it’, said Joe. ‘There’s no way of stopping people saying it.’

  ‘Once they give you the name of being “soft”, that’s the end of it’, then I added, ‘You know Mr Smith?’

  ‘The crippled Mr Smith?’

  ‘Yes, him. Well, when he was telling me a story once, I said to him – I was talking about the bloke in the story – I said to him, “If I’d been that bloke I’d never have done that. I would have been different”, and then he said to me, “Ah! my boy! You must remember that in country towns once you are different you are soft.” That’s what he said. I’ve never forgotten it.’

  ‘How long ago did he say that?’

  ‘About a fortnight ago.’

  ‘I wonder what he meant. Take Plugger. He’s a nice bloke. What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘He’s always picking flowers’, I said.

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it, but I’m just saying a bloke that goes looking in the bush for flowers and lets blokes see him doing it, he’s soft – or that’s what they reckon.’

  ‘What about Dickie Forbes?’

  ‘I don’t know about him. He won’t join in games much, but he watches. I’m damned if I know why they call him soft. He likes horses. Then there’s Freckles Jack …’

  ‘Well, he’s soft because he undoes his pants and pulls out his thing.’

  ‘Look, everybody has to do that, haven’t they? Black fellows have it out all the while and no one says they are soft.’

  ‘Yes, but Freckles lets girls see it.’

  ‘Well, so does a black fellow’, I argued.

  ‘It’s like this’, explained Joe. ‘It’s all right if anyone sees it by mistake, but once you show it to someone you’re in bad trouble. It’s something grown-ups keep telling you. The only grown-up I’ve ever known who had brains was old Mrs Bilson and she’s dead, poor bugger! But she was never interested in whether anyone looked for flowers or pricks or anything.’

  On our way home from school one night, Freckles Jack was standing behind a stump pissing away with a mob of kids round him looking at his prick. Joe and I had seen it lots of times, but we pulled up to show we weren’t stuck-up or anything.

  There were some girls there and the way they were going on you’d think someone was handing out Christmas presents.

  ‘He’s filthy’, June Brick kept saying. ‘He’s a filthy brute.’

  June Brick had lice in her hair. When you were sitting behind her in school you could see them crawling in and out of the hair close to her head.

  All the girls kept saying that Freckles was a dirty bugger, but none of them went away. There was a little kid called Sally Hogan who pushed her way to the front, had a look, then came out and said, ‘I’m going to tell Mum.’

  I tell you, we broke up pretty smart after that. That certainly put the kibosh on it. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a tell-tale-tit and you can bet your life it’s always a girl. She hangs round snooping, then darts in to tell the teacher. She’s usually a teacher’s pet. No one’s safe when they are around. No matter what excuse they make for putting your weights up, they can never be trusted.

  Joe and I made for home. I was a bit frightened; I don’t know why. Joe said he felt the same. ‘I don’t know’, Joe said. ‘What in the hell are we walking quick for? Like as if we want to get away from Freckles Jack. If you wanted someone to talk to, someone who knew a bit about everything, you wouldn’t go past Freckles Jack, would you?’

  ‘No’, I said. ‘He’s a laughing, happy sort of bloke. He can act the clown real good and he can sing funny songs and play the mouth organ. No, I wouldn’t go past Freckles Jack. I’ll never know why they reckon he’s soft.’

  The next day there was hell to play. Every kid that saw Freckles Jack was lined up at school. Mothers and fathers were all over the place. Freckles Jack was kept at home. First the teacher questioned us, then Mrs Hogan, then Mr Thomas, then Mrs Brick, then the parsons and priests came into it. It frightened hell out of Joe and me. We just couldn’t understand why grown-up people suddenly looked at Freckles Jack as if he was a savage dog.

  Joe was moving about like a nervous horse and I could hear my heart beating. I was frightened. Mr Thomas, an Elder of the church, came to the school to question a lot of Protestant kids. The teacher called out my name and pushed me into a room with him.

  ‘Sit down’, he said and he made me sit on a chair. I tell you I felt like as if that room was full of danger.

  ‘I want to question you about the conduct of Freckles Jack’, he said, then went on, ‘Did he try and persuade you to touch it?’ His mouth seemed to keep opening and shutting like a trap when he said this. I could see his teeth. Everything seemed strange to me. I wanted to get outside and crawl under bushes or something. I wanted to get away. But I answered him.

  ‘No, he didn’t’, I said. My voice was trembling. ‘He was just showing us; he’s a nice bloke.’

  ‘He’s filthy’, snarled Mr Thomas. ‘Did he make any girl hold it?’

  I thought he must be mad. ‘Freckles Jack was just skiting about himself. It was more interesting to the girls than to Joe and me, but then again if one of the girls did it Joe and me would be more interested.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that. Do you hear me. Never talk like that. You avoid that boy. Do you hear me. Never play with that boy. Keep away from him.’

  It showed me how really bad
you become when you grow up, grown up like Mr Thomas. We’d have to talk to Freckles Jack when we met him. He had a mongrel dog called Stunner. He loved that dog. We couldn’t just walk past him if he was with the dog. You’d have to talk to them.

  Mr Thomas asked me a lot more things, but I was getting more and more frightened. I was shaking, and he told me to go.

  Father Finnigan was a bit better with Joe.

  ‘Now tell me, boy. Was he putting his hand on the girls now? Did he pull up their clothes with his eyes full of desire?’

  Joe told me he didn’t know what he meant. But he said no, because he was sure he had committed no sin. But, by hell, Joe reckoned Freckles Jack had sinned in some way. All Father Finnigan said was, ‘Avoid him, me boy.’

  For Joe and me life changed from that day. We looked with suspicion at people and we couldn’t do a piss in front of each other because we knew that if anyone saw us looking at the other’s prick that was the end of him.

  Joe said, ‘No more swimming in the river now with no clothes on. I wish this had never happened.’

  ‘So do I’, I said.

  But it was Freckles Jack who suffered the most. Every kid would like to have spoken to him when he came back to school, but everyone was afraid. Joe and I used to sneak chances to talk to him when we got a chance. We patted his dog and asked him how it was going. He seemed to hold himself back a bit, but one day he said, ‘You see, I thought I was being smart. No one ever looked at me or took any notice of me. I think they thought I was soft or something. Then one day I was having a leak in front of Miss Armitage’s and a kid came up – it was lousy Fred from Garvoc – and he said, “You’re game pissing here, aren’t you?” and I thought, by hell, I am game; and then I started pissing in front of the girls and that was the end of me. You can’t do that.’

  ‘No’, I said. ‘You can’t do that.’

  MISS McALISTER

  Splinter Robertson was a groom and he worked for Miss McAlister. Mr McAlister owned Barji Station where he bred Polwarths and Miss McAlister was his daughter. She knew more about Polwarths than anyone else in Australia but, as Splinter said, ‘Who gives a bugger for Polwarths anyway?’

  Splinter was as sharp and thin as they come. He was always looking for a place to sit down or a post to lean against. He had good hands and sat well on a horse but he wasn’t much chop on a bike. Every Sunday morning he rode his bicycle four miles from his home out on the Mortlake road so as to be ready to meet Miss McAlister at the Turalla church when she came trotting up in her hooded Abbot buggy. She drove two white ponies, a perfectly matched pair that father said would cost a lot of money.

  Miss McAlister was well bred, of course, but she had to take the knock from Mrs Carruthers who had a pedigree as long as your arm and came to church in a car driven by a chauffeur. If you lined Splinter up beside the chauffeur you would have to give the chauffeur the verdict.

  Splinter sat under a gum-tree while Miss McAlister was in church. He’d sit there flicking pieces of gravel on to the roadway and sometimes Joe and I would sit beside him with our legs spread out on the grass. Splinter could talk if you got him going. Like he’d say, ‘Foxes are bad lately. The boss shot four last week.’ Then we’d talk about foxes till church came out and Miss McAlister started nodding and talking to different women round the church porch.

  Splinter would jump up and bring the ponies out of the churchyard. He’d lead them up beside the pole and Joe and I would pull the reins through the hames and buckle them into the bits.

  We’d clear out then. We didn’t like to be seen hanging around when Miss McAlister came out. She was thin, plain and severe and the less you had to do with her the better.

  During the winter rains she still drove to church. She didn’t give a bugger for the weather. She met the hot north winds of summer just the same. Her face was like the prow of a Viking ship and it drove into the wind or rain like as if God was using them to try her out.

  She didn’t come out of it too good. Her skin was like harness leather and she was no oil painting as far as looks were concerned. Splinter reckoned that her youngest sister had all the looks her parents could muster up for them both. She was a laughing, round-faced, happy girl. She didn’t come to church for some reason. Splinter didn’t know why. She rode a lot round the station. She rode good horses but you never noticed them. You could only look at her.

  She’d been away for a long time being educated in Melbourne and her friends were mainly Melbourne people. She often rode through Turalla on a blood horse with a long striding gait. It seemed tough in the mouth and pulled a lot. I didn’t think much of it but I liked looking at her.

  I used to dream about her a bit. I would dream we were wrecked on a desert island, or somewhere like that. Joe did too. It’s a funny thing, but those girls you would like to talk to most you never meet and they are always too old. You only meet the ones who are not interesting.

  The Miss McAlister who came to church was called Maggie. She looked after things, I think. She’d go round the sheep and could repair a fence if she had to. She had an aged mare she kept round the station homestead, a flea-bitten grey with a Roman nose and a hollow back. I think she had been a good hack once and Miss McAlister wanted a foal out of her. She wanted to get a heavy delivery-type for cart work and had put the mare to a number of stallions in the district but she had always missed somehow.

  Peter McLeod had a Clydesdale stallion called Nero (‘He’s only got to look at a mare to put her in foal’) standing that season at his farm.

  One day Miss McAlister was driving past the pub and she saw Peter giving a fill of tobacco to old Daddy Patterson who used to bot tobacco from anyone he could buttonhole while they were passing.

  She called out to Peter: ‘Mr McLeod! Excuse me, could you spare a minute, Mr McLeod?’

  ‘Peter hated squatters, but he didn’t mind squatters’ daughters. He said to me once, ‘They might have the station brand on them and come out of a good paddock, but they’re all ordinary station hacks at heart.’

  He went over to her buggy, but he started raising his hat too soon and had to take it off again and hold it till he got to where he could put his hand on the wheel.

  She looked down on him and said, ‘I understand you have a draught stallion, Mr McLeod.’

  ‘I have. Yes, I have. That’s right. I have.’ Peter couldn’t have agreed more.

  ‘Will he be available to serve one of my mares? She is probably barren, but I want to make sure.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll fix her all right! Don’t worry about her! Bring her along. She’s aged, is she?’

  ‘I think she’s rising nine’, said Miss McAlister, ‘although it could be ten. Her teeth are sound enough. She’s been a wonderful hack; I want to retain her breeding.’

  Peter assured her that it would not only be retained but improved; then informed her that his fee was five guineas. They shook hands on it and Miss McAlister promised to deliver the mare in a few days.

  Peter was pretty hard up and the more mares he got the better it was for him. I used to hope he would get a lot. Nero was a great horse. He had an arched neck, a short back, a rounded, powerful rump and four well-feathered, white legs he lifted like a Zulu dancer out of Rider Haggard. He pranced on his leading rein and snorted as he tossed his head.

  ‘No mare would knock him back’, Joe reckoned.

  Dad told me it depended on the stallion. ‘Some mares don’t attract them’, he said, and then went on to tell me – ‘It’s a beautiful sight to see a Clydesdale stallion serve a mare. There’s power and strength there – and pride, too. Of a kind’, he added. ‘Pride can be bad, but not a stallion’s pride. He thumps the ground as he comes in with short eager steps. He shortens his stride for the final rush and rear. Then he covers her. It’s love of its kind. Yes, that’s what it is when you come to think of it. Well, you’re not missing it. You’re seeing the beginning of life.’

  Splinter Robertson brought the mare down from Barji. Grace McAlister wa
s with him. That was the name of the pretty Miss McAlister – ‘Grace’. She had marvellous laughing eyes. She got Joe and me in.

  Grace drove and Splinter led the mare. She was going to the store while Splinter walked the mare up to Peter’s.

  Joe and I hung around the store corner where we hoped she would get us to sit in the buggy and hold the horse. Blokes would give us a penny to do this, but we would have done it for her for nothing.

  When she pulled up we offered to look after the horse and she handed me the reins. We climbed up and sat in the buggy together.

  ‘There’s no doubt about an Abbot buggy’, said Joe, feeling the leather seat. ‘Even the socket for the whip handle is made of hide.’

  ‘Hey! Feel this apron!’ I said. ‘It’s all leather, and look, it’s lined with blue felt.’

  We pretended we were rich and Joe said to me in a voice he thought resembled that of Miss McAlister, ‘What a fine little boy you are holding my horse like as if you were a great driver. Here is a bob for you.’

  ‘A bob is a lot of money for holding a horse’, I said. ‘Don’t say a “bob”, make it thruppence; that’s as high as she’ll go.’

  When Grace came out, she climbed into the buggy and sat on the driver’s side which meant I was jammed in the middle.

  ‘Don’t feel you have to go straight away’, she said. ‘I’m going to wait under the gum-tree near the church till Mr Robertson comes back. You can stop and talk to me if you wish.’

  We said we would like to, so she drove up under the old red gum and pulled up in the shade.

  The hood was halfway up. Squatters used to drive like that sometimes. The top was lowered till it pointed upwards and became a backdrop for those sitting on the seat.

  It’s hard to talk in a buggy when you are sitting in the centre. All you can think of is how you are squeezed between two people like as if you were meat in the sandwich.

  ‘I ride a great big horse and I call her “Treasure” ’, she said by way of starting us off.