Spinner

by Ron Elliott

  ‘Well, I hope so. A little bit of wrong, so at least there’s the extra fun of the spit in your eye. Davey boy, you’ve just won a Test playing for Australia. It doesn’t have to be all sackcloth and ashes. That’s your grandad. A stony-hearted Scottish Calvinist to the last. All hard work and misery until we die and go to heaven.’

  ‘Don’t.’ David would not let his uncle say bad things about his grandfather, even if it seemed to be nonsense.

  ‘Right you are.’

  ‘Can we send him some?’ David said pointing to the money. ‘Send him some for the farm.’

  ‘Sure. We said we would didn’t we? We’ll cable some in the morning. Now, how about you take a second to enjoy it all?’

  ‘But I do. Playing.’

  ‘Hmm. Can we eat? Or is that too self-indulgent too?’

  They sat in the restaurant of the hotel and all the people came, to prod and grab and gawk and say mean things to him. Once they were convinced he was David Donald, they’d focus on his hands.

  ‘Cor blimey, did you see his fingers?’

  ‘Make bloody good sausages, those.’

  ‘Like a frangipani.’

  David started to put his hands on his lap below the level of the table.

  Michael drank their drinks and insulted them back on David’s behalf. ‘Yeah, well you get to the table pretty fast by the look of you, love.’

  ‘Have you had a gander in the mirror lately?’

  ‘What do you call those things, matey? Witchety grubs?’

  The food was good. David steered away from the seafood, settling on steak. But he wasn’t getting much eaten, as he’d have to stop when someone came up.

  Some of the English team was staying in the same hotel, and they nodded to David. David explained, ‘That was Proctor and Tudor. Proctor was the one who didn’t nod hello.’

  Bill Baker came up to the table too, on his way back in. ‘Ah, ya made it, Old Man.’ David was glad to see him.

  ‘Mr Baker, this is my uncle, Michael.’

  Michael stood, swaying a little, and put out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Baker. How’re the knees holding up?’

  Baker shook his uncle’s hand. ‘As well as an old wicketkeeper can expect. Especially keeping up to a spin bowler.’ Baker looked back to David, adding, ‘You look after that hand, all right?’ He shot a look at Michael.

  ‘As I live and breathe—it’s David Donald. Australian spin sensation.’ The newspaperman, O’Toole, was coming towards their table.

  ‘Leave it be, O’Toole,’ said Mr Baker.

  ‘How’s that cheek, Mr Baker, healing all right then?’ asked O’Toole, somehow making the question sound like an insult.

  ‘Leave him alone.’ Uncle Mike stood up again, using the table for support.

  ‘Now then, Michael. You got your money’s worth, and I’ve turned my opinion around, if you read the papers.’

  ‘What, did I miss an apology?’

  ‘Between the lines. Sure.’

  ‘Ah, see, my mistake was reading the words, not the white part between.’

  ‘Ha, that’s a good one,’ laughed Baker, looking at Michael differently.

  ‘I’m sorry, David, for what I wrote. Look, can we start over?’ O’Toole spread his arms wide, smiling around the table, before looking back to David again. ‘You are the youngest player to play for Australia by a good four years. That is a record that will never be beaten.’

  David noticed that O’Toole’s hands had come closer together, as if he were holding some invisible thing out towards him.

  ‘Not only that, but your bowling figures were outstanding ... on debut. Two for twenty-four, then five for thirty-two in the second innings!’ O’Toole kept stepping forward as he spoke. ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘Can I have your autograph?’ It was a man in a brown suit and a wide tie with a griffin pattern.

  ‘I dunno,’ David said to O’Toole.

  ‘You don’t know?’ said the man in brown.

  ‘I can’t, sir. My hand.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your hand?’ O’Toole peered.

  So did the man in the suit.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ said Michael.

  ‘Nothin’ wrong with his hand. Small bruise,’ said Baker quickly.

  ‘Just an autograph?’ said the man. He was getting angry, like others who David couldn’t sign for.

  ‘That’s enough questions, O’Toole,’ said Michael.

  ‘Look mate, he can’t right now. Right?’ said Baker to the man in brown.

  ‘Too bloody good for me, eh?’

  ‘I’m asking you,’ warned Baker darkly.

  ‘Is your grandad proud?’ asked O’Toole leaning over the table at David.

  ‘I dunno. He hasn’t cabled.’

  Michael grabbed O’Toole’s shoulder, but O’Toole shrugged him off.

  ‘You told me he trained you up for all this. And you don’t know how he feels.’

  Michael pushed O’Toole in the side of the face. O’Toole staggered, but turned. Michael swayed.

  ‘Steady as she goes there lads,’ said Mr Baker, one hand up towards them.

  ‘You’re getting personal, and I said no.’

  ‘I haven’t even begun, mate. What about the story of how you bet on his play? How about I dig into your freebies around Adelaide? What about the rumour concerning Ashleigh Hobbs’ hurt hand?’

  Michael swung to punch O’Toole but the newsman grabbed his arm and they both crashed down onto the table, smashing glasses and crockery.

  A lady gave a little cry. A man yelled, ‘Oi!’

  Michael and O’Toole wrestled on the table for a moment longer, mashing food into their coats and spilling glass and cutlery to the floor.

  David remained sitting. It was like he couldn’t move or take his eyes off the men who finally rolled onto the floor, up-ending the table with them.

  O’Toole managed to get on top, and from there headbutted Michael. Men ran in, grabbing O’Toole, then Michael. The brown-suited man was one. Bill Baker was another. Mashed potato and gravy were stuck to the back of O’Toole’s jacket.

  David saw Bartholomew Livingston, the chairman of selectors, and the ACB treasurer Steven Biggins over near the lifts, where they stood watching with dark faces.

  ‘Wait til I’m sober,’ yelled Michael. His head was bleeding.

  ‘Wait til I care enough to really fight,’ said O’Toole, blood coming from his nose.

  Michael shrugged the men off, even though some were saying, ‘Are you all right, sir?’

  A man in a red jacket came forward, pointing at O’Toole. ‘You are not a guest. Out!’

  ‘I’m getting out, ya pack of hyenas,’ said Michael. He turned and lurched between tables towards the front doors of the hotel and out onto Spencer Street.

  O’Toole was straightening his clothes. ‘Gentlemen, please. I simply asked a few innocent questions. I was attacked. We have a right to know.’

  David didn’t stay. He ran around the broken things, and out-of-focus shapes of people to get outside so he could find his uncle.

  Uncle Mike was already down the street, pushing past a group waiting to cross to the train station. When Michael went into a pub David stopped and looked back to their hotel. He considered whether he should wait in their room. To do that he would have to pass Mr Baker and Mr Livingston and Mr Biggins. Mr O’Toole was there too. All would need to be dealt with in some way he guessed. Some kind of trouble had been created, and David didn’t know what to say about that. Back in Dungarin, when a man got out of line and was warned to stop, if he didn’t the other fellow would give him a clip. Depending on the men, that might be the end of it, or there might be a fight. It wasn’t pleasant, but what Uncle Mike had done seemed all fair and square as far as David could see. In fact, now he thought on it, O’Toole’s trick of headbutting the pinned man seemed the thing that wasn’t right. David felt certain that this matter wasn’t over with, and the men would want to do something about Mich
ael and maybe about David. He’d also have to pass through the strangers too. All the faces that knew he was the cricketing boy, and been part of the trouble. Maybe he could sneak around the back. He wasn’t sure whether these big city hotels had backs. They seemed to be all front.

  Out here, on Spencer Street, they didn’t know him. A man held his hat down, grabbed the hand of a lady and they set out across the road to a tram that had stopped. Others went there too, the motor cars stopping to let them go. David was just a boy without a coat, standing in the street.

  Uncle Mike was coming out of the pub with a bottle of brandy. David went to him. The wound on his forehead had been cleaned up a little. The blood had stopped flowing.

  ‘Gidday, Uncle Mike.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came after you.’

  Michael seemed to consider that for a moment, weighing up its worth. Then he shrugged and said, ‘Bloody O’Toole. He got me a beauty.’

  ‘Is he going to make trouble?’

  ‘I expect. It’s his nature and his occupation.’ His uncle took a swig from the brandy. ‘But what are we going to do about that? What can we do? They all own you now.’

  Michael started walking away from their hotel, but with a purposeful stride.

  David caught up. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘See Helen.’

  ‘Who’s Helen?’

  ‘Helen.’ He smiled, then looked sad, then smiled again. ‘We went there. When we got here.’

  ‘She wasn’t home.’

  ‘At work. At the hospital. She’s a nurse.’

  David nodded. ‘Maybe she can fix your head.’

  Michael started laughing without humour. Finally he said, ‘Naw. She already tried.’

  David looked up and realised he couldn’t see any stars, even though it was night. There was a kind of mist up there. He sniffed the gritty smell of petrol and wood and coal and gas and whatever they burned all day in the city. David missed the farm sky.

  Michael stopped at every street intersection to take another swallow of brandy. He had been through happy to merry to rude and angry already in the restaurant, and David was not keen to see him return to the half-sleep he’d seen on the train from Perth. Apart from anything else David didn’t think it would help them find their way to the nurse’s house. He thought he might distract him a little as he did on the train trip with questions he would like the answers to.

  ‘Do you like cricket, Uncle Mike?’

  ‘What? What you think? Course I do. Stupid bloody question.’

  ‘What do you like about cricket?’

  ‘It’s a sublime game from another era. A game that lasts days and days. That men dedicate their lives to. I like it because of its tricks. Its lies and its contradictions. That it seems so slow, but can change in an instant. I love all the games within the game. The little stories within the grander one.’

  Michael led David along the city street, waving his brandy bottle as he spoke.

  ‘A batsman nearly nicks the ball. Next delivery he just keeps it out. He looks terrible. He’s having a bad day. That cricket ball seems the size of a pea. It’s coming at him so fast, he’s only seeing it as it’s on him. He adjusts. He tries to move his feet. Survives the next delivery. He gets his head down. Tries to grit it out and last just one more ball. And the other team see that. A player moved here. Another there. Crowding in. But wait, what if he lashes out in desperation? Another player there. Let’s not let him get off strike. Let’s keep the pressure on, till it builds up inside his own head, and that pea gets smaller and smaller, faster and faster.’

  Michael swayed as he talked, sometimes stopping to play an imaginary shot with his brandy bottle or to point in the field. The shops they walked past now were long closed. A tram buzzed and clacked, empty but for the driver.

  ‘But then maybe this fellow, he lasts a few balls. Gets up the other end. Faces another bowler who isn’t bowling so fast, so well. The pea starts looking like a cricket ball, and he gets a couple of runs off. Just a couple. He’s patient. So is the fielding team. And the crowd. They know. They’re watching to see each tiny little manoeuvre. They know this story, how it might go. How they hope it might. But still at any moment it can change again. He sees the ball like a pumpkin and hits it to the boundary. What! The fieldsman has run. He dives full length. A catch, just inside the boundary. It’s over. Ha.’

  ‘Ha,’ repeated David in a kind of wonder of recognition, his head reeling from the way his uncle could make him see with all his words.

  They had left the brightly lit parts of the city and were walking past business. Lots of the businesses had posters covering their windows. As they went, more of the buildings seemed empty.

  ‘Oh, and I like its fairness. Its justness. Its hypocrisy. Its unassailable good name.’

  David stepped away. Something ugly had slipped into his uncle’s tone. He thought he could hear voices somewhere. A crowd, like near a cricket ground. It was late and dark here and he couldn’t see anyone.

  ‘I bet ya didn’t know that cricket became the national sport of England by the end of the eighteenth century. And guess what? Betting was part of it. Rich bastards began forming their own “select elevens.” In 1707 ... um. Something happened in 1707. Forget that. How about this one? You ever hear about the Sydney riot of 1879? I bet your grandad never told you about that. Moore Park, Sydney. English team versus NSW. Crowd invaded the ground, after a dodgy umpiring decision. Beat up the players. Now don’t tell me they didn’t care.’

  His uncle was standing under a gas lamp, half reaching towards the post, but not quite holding it. ‘Mind you, rumour has it that the invasion of the pitch was a put-up job by gamblers in the pavilion. See, now you know that. I never knew that, when I was young and believed in—all the pip-pip, rah-rah bulldust.’

  Just when David thought his uncle might smash the bottle to the ground in disgust at all the cheating, he drank, then used the bottle to point at David. ‘But there’s rules in cricket, and two men who uphold them. As do both teams. A whole series of self-regulating interlocked layers of fairness and appreciation.’ He started to come across the deserted road. ‘Like some perfect centre of a cyclone, where it’s calm. I like that too, David Donald, son of Earnest. There’s something about cricket and the whole idea of cricket that I find peaceful. Maybe even good. It’s like some fairy story really, isn’t it? Just so smashing and wonderful—and impossible.’

  ‘Why are you so angry, Uncle Mike?’ David hadn’t really planned to ask. It simply popped out.

  ‘Angry?’ His uncle shook his head a moment as though he’d received a punch. He blinked then smiled. ‘I’m not angry. I’m deliriously happy.’ The smile turned mean. ‘Maybe I’m trying to teach you something, boy. Something about cricket and the great world. Maybe you remind me too much of a stupid, happy cow chewing grass unaware of the approaching butcher’s wagon. Maybe I’m trying to drip some worldy sense into you.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ said David. He turned and walked down a side street, towards a lighter area down the end, where the voices were coming from.

  It was not his fault that he didn’t know things. It didn’t make him stupid, even though others thought that. He knew it didn’t make him happy. That was not something it occurred to him to be. Or not be. But he was not a stupid cow. David stopped. He had the urge to go back up the street where his uncle was following and to hit him. It was an urge so sudden and so strong it made him pant. Then he remembered O’Toole headbutting his uncle and he smiled.

  He heard the sound of a bat hitting a cricket ball.

  He went away from his uncle and towards the sound.

  At the end of the street men were playing cricket.

  There were some bright lights, up high, behind a fence. There were ships back there. Some policemen stood the other side of a fence, with a fire in a drum. But in front of David were men with dark eyes and unshaven faces. There were big men with big shoulders.
Italian-looking men. There were skinny men too. Some stood around big drums of fire, warming their hands, even though the night was not so cold.

  But in the street, there were more men, and they were gathered round a man with a bat, using a fire drum for a wicket, while someone bowled a battered ball. The man hit the ball and it spun through legs as he ran. There was a groan shared by some. And men grabbed for the ball. Someone threw. They missed the drum. Another groan.

  Michael came up behind him. ‘Ah. Workers of the world, unite.’

  ‘They’re playing tip and run. In the middle of the road. In the middle of the night.’

  ‘They’re locked out of the docks.’

  Michael pointed, and David saw the chains across the gates. Noticed that one of the policemen held a rifle.

  Michael raised his voice as he spoke across the road, like he was a teacher reading to a class. ‘And the fire of war shall not keep a man warm. The fires of war are cold, and leave all the men just so.’

  Some of the men turned from where they were standing.

  ‘Time for a bit of revolution, I reckon.’ Michael raised his voice again, so other men began to turn towards them, standing across the street. ‘Here’s one, from a fellow named Lenin: “The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies is an organisation of the workers.”’

  At the word ‘workers,’ a couple of men cheered in a tired kind of way, but this turned more men from watching the cricket game.

  Michael called out, ‘“The embryo of a workers’ government—”’

  ‘Up the workers,’ someone called back. More shouts.

  Michael took his turn. ‘“The representative of the interests of the entire mass of the poor section of the population—”’

  ‘Hear, hear.’ Men were nodding, edging towards them. The cricket game had stopped.

  ‘“I.e. of nine-tenths of the population, which is striving for peace—”’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘“Bread—”’

  Big calls.