"Did Poppie die peacefully?" Doug asked softly. I kicked him under the table.
"Owwh."
"Come on you two. Yes, he did, love. In his sleep, mercifully. No pain. Ya know, I'm so fortunate for the rich and full life I've had with yer Poppie that, well I wouldn't say 'bum' for sixpence." We looked at her in shock. "It's an old sayin'. Don't dob me in to yer Dad for sayin' 'bum'. It just slipped out. So, now you're both here, and I haven't got Poppie to help me, I'll need ya to do some chores – besides makin' yer beds, puttin' yer toys away and keepin' yer room tidy. Will ya do that for me?"
"Anything," I gushed, trying to redeem myself as we both wolfed down our breakfast.
"Bags chopping the wood!" Doug cried.
"No, I think we'll leave that for yer dad. What I do need a hand with, is waterin' the front and back gardens and the veggie patch, feedin' the chooks and collectin' the eggs. Oh, and cuttin' up the newspaper into squares and puttin' it on the nail in the toilet. Ya think you can manage all that between ya?" We nodded in agreement. I waited a few moments.
"Can Doug and I go outside now?" I asked. We were both itching to re-explore our territory.
"Not in them pyjamas."
We nearly knocked each other over as we dashed up the hall, trying to beat the other to be the first dressed and out the door. A few minutes later and we were belting past the kitchen, now fully clothed. With her back to us Nan called out,
"Now go back and put some shoes on. What if ya tread on a snake or a red-back bites ya on the toes?"
"I told you, she has got eyes in the back of her head, like Dad says," I whispered, or so I thought.
"You two'd have to get up pretty early to put one over on me. Shoes on and I'll call ya when lunch is ready. Remember, stay inside the yard."
Fully shod, we were out through the front screen door and up the jacaranda tree in seconds, straddling its branches. From there we could see up and down the street. The further up you went, you could see over the roofs of the houses across the road, and beyond. Mr Symonds lived directly opposite. He was sitting on his wraparound verandah with the timber blinds pulled up.
"G'day Mister Symonds!" Doug yelled.
"Mister Symonds!" I echoed.
Mr Symonds and his wife were the owners of the town's tearooms and were about Dad's age but childless. I overheard Nan and Gwen Grady talking about their situation once.
"I'm not one to gossip, but he looks to me like he'd probably only have one or two trout in the stream, if ya know what I mean. And they're obviously doing the backstroke," was Mrs Grady's charitable observation.
"Gwen! All I know is they've been tryin', but the Good Lord doesn't hear their prayers."
Mrs Symonds would still be inside baking the scones for the Devonshire teas that day. Everyone knew the exact time they were due home from the tearooms and sometimes, if there were any leftover cakes or scones, she'd bring them home. And then all we kids would swamp her before she even got to the front gate. With begging hands outstretched, we'd wait for her to remove a tea towel over the tray to reveal our booty. Then we'd cheer and take a piece each. If it was lamingtons, sometimes we'd get two, gorging a mouthful in turn out of each of our hands.
Mr Symonds looked around to see where the voice was coming from.
"Up here Mister Symonds. It's Doug."
"An' me, Pat."
He stood and moved to the top of his steps, followed by his old blind dog Honey, a dingo blue heeler cross. We both slid down the tree and continued our conversation hanging over our picket fence.
"Nan needs us to water the plants and collect eggs now that Poppie has gone to Heaven," I informed him.
"Dad's going to do his doctoring from town and we're going to go to Sacred Heart," followed Doug.
"So ya dad said. Well, won't that be good?"
"Is Mrs Symonds doing some baking?" I asked, hoping that it might include some vanilla slices or cream buns as well.
"She sure is." Mr Symonds smiled, picked Honey up and headed for inside. "Ready Esme?" he called, as the screen door banged shut behind him and we climbed back up the tree.
Over beyond the Symonds house and the wide paddock with its long grass, that ran behind his and all the other houses on his side of the street, was the creek. It snaked around most of the township, serving as a natural barrier during the mice plagues. Now it was flowing way below normal levels, but still deep enough for swimming and fishing.
Beyond the creek were the wheat silos, dotted over the harvest landscape and jutting into the sky. We turned over onto our backs on the thick, almost horizontal centre branches. I watched the leaves quiver as the smallest puffs of warm wind feathered through the tree top. And all around you could hear the she-oaks in the paddocks and especially along the creek bank in whirring conversation with each other.
Minutes passed in silence. Then more minutes, as I turned back over onto my stomach and looked further up the road to the Elliott's mulberry tree in the front yard. Like our jacaranda, theirs was the only mulberry tree in town. We'd had Nan's mulberry jam made from them on holidays, but we longed to taste the fruit straight from the tree. There wasn't any yet.
I looked over my left shoulder. Raymond's house, next to Nan and Poppie's on the southern side, wasn't like ours; it was still wooden, but not mounted on big stumps. It only had a few steps to their lattice enclosed verandah. It was painted white as well, like most of the weatherboard houses in town, 'cept Raymond's had blue trimmings as opposed to our green. From our side verandah you could look down into their backyard and also his parents' bedroom.
One summer night when we were on the verandah sleep-out, we saw Mr Smith's bare backside as he got changed for bed. We turned the torch off and put our hands over our mouths so that he couldn't hear us laughing in the stillness of the night.
That nocturnal secret we kept to ourselves because Doug and I were supposed to be asleep, 'cept we weren't. We'd taken Poppie's torch out of the kitchen and were reading comics by its light instead. Raymond was a year older than us with wavy golden hair that always looked liked it needed a good comb and tortoiseshell framed glasses that were forever slipping down to the tip of his nose.
He had the respect of all of our gang because he was the only one of us who could suck in enough air to say their whole name, in his case Raymond Archibald Charles Barrington Smith, on the one released burp. Best I could do was Patrick Michael of my name and up to 'H' of the alphabet. He was also part of the street cricket team along with Barry and some other kids nearby. Over the Christmas/New Year break we'd join them and have our own Test match, which went for days. Raymond's sister Sandra was in sixth class but a hopeless catcher. She was even more hopeless than I was which made me feel better. As we lay in the tree, I reminded Doug of the sight through Mr Smith's window.
"Boomp ba boomp ba boomp ba boomp," I laughed, imitating with my hands how Mr Smith's bum wobbled when he walked.
"Boomp ba boomp ba boomp ba boomp," Doug repeated then we both went into a fit of the giggles. As the humour died away, we sighed and rested there with nothing to do again 'cept listen to the faint sound of a piano coming from the Walshe house next door. The occasional passing vehicle or horse stirred up small clouds of reddish brown dust that had settled in a film on the old bitumen road. They hung in the air for a second then drifted back down onto the road.
These periods of being in the doldrums we would grow to accept as part of the everyday. Just as surely as holidays turned into school days, we would begin to fall into the slower rhythms of country life and the dictates of the seasons, but it would take time.
"Let's check out the chooks!" Doug suggested. We raced down the tree then around the side past the shed to the large chook run. With his longer legs, Doug came first, as usual.
Poppie kept half a dozen layers at a time in the twenty by thirty foot pen. It was made of strong double thickness chicken wire secured on iron posts to keep the foxes out. As well as benches, there were boxes filled with straw for sleeping an
d laying. He said he felt funny giving the chooks names.
"But everyone's got to have a name," I once insisted. With some misgivings he gave in, naming the chooks after movie stars of the day. There were only five chooks that day; Shirley, Rita, Lana, Betty and Lauren. We lost Greta last Christmas. Poppie told us he had to mend a hole at the edge of the wire fence where she either got out and ran away, or one of the foxes got in and carried her off to eat. It made Doug and me sad whenever this happened, but Poppie always got a new one before we came the next year.
There was one problem for us in agreeing to help Nan with the chooks. The feeding was okay. We could stand at the gate and just throw the chook pellets in on the ground and aim the hose at the water trough. Collecting the eggs was another thing. I was packing it.
"I'll feed them if you like and you collect the eggs," I offered.
"You collect the eggs and I'll do the feeding," Doug countered.
"Toss you," and I dragged out my lucky 1936 halfpenny that I always kept on me.
"Heads I collect 'em, tails you do," directed Doug. I tossed it high into the air with a little flick of my thumb.
Tails.
"Best out of three?" I pleaded, but Doug wouldn't be in it.
I loosened the catch on the pen gate. Lauren came running over so I shooed her away and made my way to the benches – easy. I waved my hands about and made as much noise as possible and Shirley, Lana and Rita took flight. I moved slowly toward the boxes. Doug was encouraging me to go faster.
"You're scared," he taunted.
"Am not." So I acted like I wasn't. I peered inside the first box; no Betty, no eggs. The second box was empty as well. I edged my way to the third box, my heart beating in my ears. I turned my head away and stuck my hand in. Betty pecked me hard and I ran screaming to the safety of the gate then outside as chooks squawked and took to the air in all directions. Doug was on the ground laughing as I slammed and bolted the gate shut. I was fuming.
"You're supposed to throw some feed on the ground to distract them, like Poppie showed us!"
"I forgot," he smirked. I was rubbing my finger where she had attacked me, when Nan stuck her head out of the kitchen window.
"You two, leave them chooks alone. I got today's eggs and fed 'em." This only made Doug laugh more, so I punched him on the arm then ran to the safety of the house steps before he could get to his feet.
"Whippy taken one, two, three, safe," I declared. It was a lesson learnt. From then on we'd feed them before we even entered the pen. Eventually the chooks were ready and waiting for us and egg gathering would soon become second nature – the hens our pets.
"Stand still or I'll nail yer bleedin' feet to the floor," Nan threatened as we wriggled about while she tried to hold us in turn with one hand while dragging a wet comb through our hair with the other. We were that eager, we were up and dressed for our first day at our new school even before breakfast. "Never seen anyone as keen to get some schoolin' as you two," she added. Dad was already at the table fully dressed in his suit and tie for the surgery as we took our seats in our old school uniforms, complete with freshly polished shoes. Nan had declared the uniforms would have to do until she could get into town later that week to buy new ones in the school's colours.
"Well boys, excited?" Dad asked. We nodded enthusiastically. Not about the schooling, though I liked it better than Doug, but because all our holiday mates were there.
Nan waved goodbye from the top of the front steps as we strode on either side of Dad up Main Street, with our brown leather satchels on our backs.
Next door, Miss Bridget, one of the Walshe sisters, was cutting back a lantana bush that was strangling her roses. Her younger sister Miss Kitty had rarely been seen only talked about, or heard playing the piano when her sister was out working. They were both spinsters in their sixties. Barry had told us that his dad told him that no one ever saw Miss Kitty, especially of a day, because she was a vampire. She only came out at night to suck the blood of cats, after sticking her long fangs in their necks. That's why cats slept all day.
"'Cause they're too weak to do anything else," Barry maintained. And the ones that disappeared altogether, Miss Kitty sold to the new Chinese restaurant, "but only after she's sucked 'em dry of every last drop of blood and skinned 'em alive," he concluded.
"Good morning Miss Bridget," Dad greeted, tipping his hat. We hid behind his back, our heads peering out from either side.
"Mornin', Harry. Off to your new school, boys?" We froze, supposing she was a vampire as well. After all, she was Miss Kitty's sister.
"What, cat got your tongue?" she cooed, leaning over her fence to get a better look. We both recoiled, handfuls of Dad's pants twisting in our fingers. Dad slapped our hands to loosen our grip.
"No, just bad mannered is all. I apologise for their behaviour. What's gotten into you two today?" Dad asked. We had no words to explain. A smile came over Miss Bridget's face.
"They look so cute with those satchels on their backs, I could just eat them all up," she gushed. Doug and I shielded our faces completely behind Dad's back, fearful she might follow through with her menu selection.
"Say hello to Miss Kitty for us," Dad concluded, before giving us one of his disappointed looks, as we continued up the street.
"Bye boys," she called out as she waved, with a pair of sharp secateurs in her hand. I swallowed and exchanged a knowing glance with Doug, who was just as afraid. Barry was right, I thought.
Other neighbours were going to their gates and saying goodbye to their children before letting them walk to school. We felt like babies accompanied by Dad, when all the other kids our age and younger were allowed to go to school by themselves. Mrs Figgins was saying goodbye to Barry as we passed. Doug and I ran up to him and slapped him on the back. He was shorter than us with black spiky hair and large full lips that looked like someone had hit him in the mouth with a hot frypan. He'd lost a front tooth since we saw him last. We were all so pleased to be together again.
While Mrs Figgins told Dad how thrilled she was at having a doctor in the town again, in breathless whispers we filled Barry in on our brush with death at the hands of Miss Bridget. Then the three of us raced through questions and answers, catching up on everything we'd done since we saw each other last Christmas holidays.
Once Dad finished passing the time of day with Barry's mum, we bombarded him with relentless arguments as to why we couldn't walk to school together, just the three of us boys, as Barry's mum lets him walk to school alone, and Barry could show us around and after all, it was just up the road, and he could get to his practice earlier. He finally gave in to our whining pleas by the time he'd shown us across the Casuarina Street crossing. We were already on our way as he called out.
"And watch yourselves crossing the tracks. Look both ways. And come home together, all of you, straight after school. Alright?" Doug and I waved back as Dad turned toward home to get the car and drive to the surgery. It was only a ten minute walk from home, but Dad needed the car in case he had a home visit or got an urgent call-out.
We went past Poppie's motor shop on the opposite side of the road, now owned by the Girotti family from Sydney, but originally from Calabria. They were at the start of a younger wave of residents moving into our town and its surrounds. Usually immigrants, but also some city folk, or people from other nearby smaller towns who could see the post war growth potential.
Chapter Three
Inside the school gates, we stood out with our navy shorts and blue shirts against their grey uniforms. The children gathered around us like thirsty dogs around a summer puddle – all yapping at once, saying "g'day" and wanting to know all about us.
"What are youse doin' here?" one of the older boys from fifth class demanded. He was tall and solid for his age, the size of a small man, with Brylcreemed hair and a split lip.
"That's Steve Wood," Barry mumbled through the corner of his mouth.
"I've seen him 'round on holidays," Doug whispered back.
<
br /> "You know Doug and his brother Pat, from Sydney."
"We don't like city people," Steve declared, pushing his finger into Doug's chest. "Y've got tickets on yerselves. Think yer smarter."
We didn't have a chance of a reply, before he pushed Doug backwards. A mate of Steve's had got down behind Doug on all fours and Doug went crashing over him. Laughter broke out everywhere. I was trying to help him up, when he pulled his arm away and launched himself at Steve. Even though he was physically outmatched, that didn't stop Doug. He kicked him in the shins. It soon progressed into an all-out wrestle on the ground between the two of them.
"Fight, fight, fight," was chanted around the crowd of eager onlookers. I was trying to pull Doug away, while he was fully intent on finishing his opponent off. Punches were flying but few finding their mark. Steve managed to land one on the right side of Doug's nose, after Doug had ripped the pocket from Steve's shirt.
At this stage, the girls had joined ringside and there were cheers of encouragement from the rest of the boys. A good few were on Doug's side, I might add. I yelled at Barry to help me pull them apart. Raymond arrived at school at that precise moment and raced to grab Steve's arm. As we were scrambling about, the crowd mysteriously went quiet and parted as swiftly as Moses had parted the Red Sea. Storming toward us was this tall, slender nun, with strange rimless, blue-lensed spectacles. She went straight over to Steve.
"Get my cane and wait for me outside the classroom. And wash that grease out of your hair while you're at it," she directed with cool control.
"He started it," Steve spat out. She gave him an icy stare. He sauntered off, but only after giving Doug a hateful sideways glance. She then focused her attention on Doug and me. I swallowed hard and felt sure she must've heard me it was so loud.
Season of Hate Page 2