by Ron Elliott
‘Are you all right?’ David said, feeling fearful for the first time.
‘Why are you here boy?’
‘You’re sick.’
‘Why aren’t you with the team?’
‘Grandad?’
‘Why aren’t you with him?’
‘But Grandad, you’re sick.’
‘Get out.’
‘Grandad?’
‘Get out of this room now. I don’t want you here.’
David stood, and turned to go, but turned back nearly as fast. He didn’t look at his grandad, but he sat back down. He wasn’t afraid. Finally he said, ‘I reckon if you’re too sick to kick me out of this room, Grandad, then I’ll just stay sitting awhile.’
‘Are you disobeying me?’
‘Yes, sir, respectfully, I reckon I am.’
He tried to glare at David, tried to get that steel in his eye that David was afraid of, but couldn’t manage it, and realising he couldn’t, he closed his eyes. David thought he was about to sleep, but he said, ‘She never disobeyed me a single day in her life, and then when she met him, she never obeyed me again. Off to dances, off to wed, off to England in the middle of the bloody war. Off forever.’ Then the corners of his mouth turned up into a gossamer of a smile as he seemed to recall other things, and he lay there smiling again. David couldn’t recall so many smiles in a year being on his grandfather’s lips.
David waited until he was sure his grandfather was asleep before he went out to the men at the car.
‘I’m going to stay here, Mr Biggins,’ he explained as he got his bag.
‘Are you going to be all right out here?’
‘It’s my home, sir.’
‘But your grandad?’
‘He’s got cancer David,’ said Mr Pringle.
David looked to Mr Biggins.
‘He’s had a doctor apparently. Is there someone?’
‘We look after our own out here, Mr Biggins,’ said Mr Pringle.
David said, ‘Nell’d be good. Nell Parker, the blacksmith’s daughter. But...’ David shrugged. There was no one else.
‘You will be at the dance,’ said Mr Pringle.
David didn’t want to go. He couldn’t. Not leave Grandad now he’d made it back.
Mr Biggins patted his shoulder and said, ‘No, no. We’ll take care of all that.’
‘It’s in his honour!’ insisted Pringle.
‘I will find Nell Parker and bring back some groceries,’ said Mr Biggins as though he had decided on what he’d have for dinner. He pushed his homburg tightly onto his head and went to sit in the passenger seat of the car.
‘A lot of trouble for this. And no guest of honour.’ Mr Pringle only looked at David a moment before turning to go.
David went back in without waiting for the car to leave. Jess lay in the kitchen with her head in the bedroom door. His grandfather lay sleeping on his side on the bed. David found a jug of water under a fly net in the kitchen. He poured a cup and took it into the bedroom and put it there on the night stand.
He went outside to the rain tank next to the house. It was empty; the clump of mint that had grown under it was just black stalks. The chooks had water and he chased off some mice and topped up their barley and pollard. He looked in their nesting, but only found one egg. He went to check on the horses, but the barn was empty. His grandfather might have sold them he reckoned, but might have agisted them somewhere too. There was a bore out the back of the stables and, in that yard, water was still in a trough. Four pretty scrawny sheep fought for the shade under the eave off the shed. David got a hay bale and broke it open on the top fence rail, letting half fall into the yard. They came for it straight away.
He went over to the shed. The tank had a trickle and he filled an earthen bottle. There were little wrigglers in it. He’d have to boil it up. David lit the fire in the stove and put the water on to boil. Then he went out and got some firewood and checked the vegie garden. He got some spuds and a couple of scrawny carrots. The parsley looked good. He could make a soup later.
Jess whined at his grandad’s door, but the old man did not stir. David watched the way he breathed, taking two good slow breaths and then holding for some seconds before taking the next two breaths. David did not know what cancer was, but had seen enough death on the farm to know it was in his grandfather.
He found his hat on its peg by the door. It had a new band. He turned it, letting the sunlight catch the mesh of dugite snakeskin that his grandad must have skinned and cured and sewn into the new band. He ran his finger along the oiliness of the band. It was a mighty flash snakeskin hatband.
David went out on the farm. He went to the dam, only it wasn’t a dam any more. The mud at the bottom was hard cracked clay, its sides wind blown smooth. When there had been water, who was to say what may or may not have been hidden beneath. Now it was obvious. There was nothing hidden. His mother wasn’t here. It was just a big gravel hole with no magic.
David pulled his hat down a little, feeling the hug of the new band tight around his head. He looked at the dam again and he conjured up the water in which his mother had drowned. He imagined it there, full and black. He saw how it turned golden as the sun went down. He stood with his eyes open and dreamed of the midgies dancing as the light faded. Then it was just an empty hole in the clay again under a biting sun, but he laughed out loud that he could pull off this trick of just thinking of other times and making them so.
Jess found him and they went off together to the river, where David found all the pipes and taps lying hot on the dead land. Tic-tics screamed all around. The earth was hot dust and the brightness of the sun made him squint even when looking down, until he got into the trees of the river line and found some shade. The pump was still there, but the river was a dry trench of sand. You could dig in the river bed at some spots and probably find water and drink it through your hat if you needed to, but there would be no crops this year.
On the way back to the house he came upon his practice wicket by the shed. He looked over the metal wickets towards the bowler’s end. He went up to that end and picked a ball from the bucket and spun it, no wrist, just his fingers. They felt good. He noticed the lantern that he’d practised by was already covered in spider web, even though he’d only been gone a little while. David couldn’t recall how long he’d been gone. Then he realised he couldn’t recall the boy who’d practised here on this cement wicket, either. It was not just a different time, but a different person, only to be guessed at, like all the other people he found in the world.
He took the ball inside and put it on the kitchen table while he chopped the vegetables. There was some iffy chicken meat in the meat safe, and he put some of that in the pot too, giving the carcass to Jess. His grandfather coughed and he went in to him.
‘Chicken soup,’ said the old man, wriggling himself up a little on his bed.
‘I guess,’ said David.
‘You guess? Did you close your eyes while making it?’
‘No, sir. I put some chicken in it, so I’m hoping that’s what it tastes like when it’s finished, is all.’
His grandad nodded.
‘Be ready in a bit. There’s some water.’
David pointed to the bed stand, but his grandad had trouble getting up to it, so he grabbed him under the shoulders and lifted. It was easy. There was nothing to him any more. He was not much heavier than Jess. He settled him half-sitting on the couple of pillows.
‘Under the bed is some brandy.’
David got the bottle which was half full and went and got another cup and poured in a good couple of nips, and held it up to his grandfather’s mouth.
He gulped at it, like his Uncle Mike. Like Mrs O’Locklan.
His grandad caught him looking, and said, ‘I got cancer.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Eats up your insides. Like rust.’
‘Oh.’
‘Hurts too.’ He didn’t look at David while he said this, but into himself where the ache mus
t have been. ‘Like you never tasted, this one.’ His eyes snapped back up, looking a little clearer than they had before.
‘You need to get back to the team.’
‘I will, sir. With an aeroplane, you can go across the whole country in a day or so.’
His grandfather looked at him dubiously.
David shrugged. ‘I don’t know about all that, but it’s true. Weeks by train and a day and a night by flying, sir. If the old crate doesn’t end in the drink.’
His grandad thought on that a moment.
David asked, ‘Did you hear about the cricket?’
‘Yeah. Little Nell came out and told us. Brought some stuff. And that teacher of yours.’
‘Mr Wallace?’
‘Yeah. Funny bloke. What did he do to you?’
‘Um, nothing. He’s good.’
‘Kept apologising for not understanding your greatness. Silly bugger.’ He was quiet again.
David thought about this. It felt good. Mr Wallace thinking he was great.
‘Broke some records, huh?’ said the man.
‘Yes sir. They’re talking about you too about that.’
‘Room for improvement?’
‘Yes sir. I’ll have to come up with some new things, I reckon. And I’ll have to come up with some new ideas about Mr Longford. He got that run, and I never got him out in the second innings. They’ll play me different now. I brought the paper. Can I read it to you?’
‘You been practising your reading?’
‘Trying, sir.’
David went and stirred the soup and got a chair from the kitchen and put it near the bedroom window where the afternoon light was best. Then he got the paper from his bag. It was creased and screwed up now, and some of the print had smudged from his handling of it.
‘I never could figure why you can’t read, son.’
‘No, sir. Letters keep turning around, Mrs O’Locklan reckons. She’s a lady I met in Melbourne. You’d like her, sir.’
‘I mean, you’re not stupid.’
‘No, sir. I hope not. Not just some dumb cow that’s for sure.’
‘You’re not, but David, you got to bloody think. Use your noggin.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’
‘Your uncle, is he looking after you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ David lied. Then he wondered if it were a lie, because he didn’t know the real answer to the question. He knew it would take too long to explain all that, while he was still trying to understand it himself. He thought about the night his uncle had come and about his leaving.
‘Did you know you were sick when Uncle Mike came and took me away?’
He didn’t speak straight away. In fact, David assumed he’d gone to sleep when he finally said, ‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’ David settled some in his chair while he turned his grandfather’s answer over and over and held it against some of the things that had happened to him. This new fact was like a lantern he could shine on that morning and now see things that had been dark and misunderstood.
David sighed, relieved. ‘Did Uncle Mike know you were sick?’
‘No. The king still sick?’
‘Sir?’ David looked up, and his grandfather indicated the newspaper.
‘The king, he better, worse or dead?’
‘Um, getting better, sir.’
‘You making his team look stupid won’t improve his mood.’
David felt alarmed that he should cause the king concern, but then realised his grandfather was joking. He looked at him a while wondering how many jokes he might have been making all this time without David knowing. Had his uncle or someone taught him jokes while he was away? Or was his grandfather loosening his too-tight grip on what he had set against the world?
David looked down at the paper. During the game he had not thought of the king. Or his grandad, or his uncle or even his father. The crowd had not existed. He couldn’t even particularly recall his team mates. There was only each batsman and the field set around them. He remembered voices. Tanner’s and Mr Richardson suggesting strengths and weaknesses. But it wasn’t like that either. It was more like a clock with its back off, or an arithmetic problem at school that you just suddenly see all of it at once laid out in the air. That morning, he imagined the ball he’d bowl and he saw what the batsman would do. And mostly, that’s exactly how it happened. He was surprised sometimes. When that ball moved so far from the offbreak, or when Windsor didn’t step forward to loft him and dominate, but went back ... and out.
The three balls to Longford in the second innings had been the best. Like a dance. Mr Longford had countered and David then too, and Mr Longford again to score the run. David clapped Mr Longford, but realised he was the only one at the whole ground who seemed to be doing so. Those three balls were a thing in themselves. But the rest was somehow simple and clear and done. Nothing else had existed except those batsmen and the field placements and bowling the ball, like on top of a hill looking at forever.
Early on the morning of the fourth Test, Mr Richardson had asked David to prove whether his hand had healed. In the hall outside the change rooms of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, with Mr Johnson facing and Mr Baker keeping, and the rest of the team bobbing heads out of doorways, David had been able to really let the ball sing. In fact the first two were in line with Mr Baker’s knees but spun off to hit the wall before passing Mr Johnson. That’s when they first heard the whirring sound. Mr Baker called it fizz—like your homemade ginger beer going off. Mr Johnson said it reminded him of the electric wires in Sydney when it rains on them.
‘That happens when I get some really good spin going,’ explained David. ‘When I give it a rip.’
‘Meaning of course that you haven’t been on song until now, like, eh lad?’ said Mr Jackson’s voice from a room somewhere. There were guffaws.
‘What you think?’ Mr Richardson asked.
Mr Baker said, ‘He’s got a new nut and he’s turning it on ice, Cap.’
‘I couldn’t touch it, John,’ said Mr Johnson looking only at the captain.
‘Show ’em your googly, Little Man,’ called Ten Ton.
Mr Richardson took the ball and bent down to David, pushing it into his hands. ‘Show me your googly.’
David bowled and Mr Johnson, ready as he was, still had trouble with it. ‘Now do a leg break,’ said Mr Johnson, tossing the ball back to Mr Richardson.
David did. The leg break turned away, but bounced higher than the googly, forcing a catch to Mr Baker.
Mr Johnson laughed.
Maud McLeod called out, ‘Yeah, well that don’t prove much, an’ all.’
‘Get knotted, Mopsey,’ said Mr Johnson.
‘How ’bout the one that stands up?’ It was Mr Calligan.
Mr Johnson nodded.
David bowled a loopy, and Mr Johnson only just kept it down. Mr Johnson said, ‘You can make that ball hit the bat faster, can’t you David?’
‘Yes sir, with the shooter. Hard off the lino though.’
‘Hard off the lino though.’ It was Ned Hall, guffawing.
David could hear Maud laughing with him. ‘Bit hard with an egg, Cap’n, but I’ll see if I can make it go round his ears. Oh, I can.’
They all had the giggles.
Mr Richardson got David’s attention and asked him to bowl some more.
He made the ball hit the bat harder and shoot forward, then bowled another topspinner that climbed higher. Then he put in his skidder, which didn’t really grip on the linoleum but still kept low.
‘So what about Bishop?’ asked Ten Ton.
‘I don’t know,’ said David, ‘he won’t stay still so I don’t know how I’m going to set him up.’
‘I do,’ said Mr Richardson. ‘David, if you can do exactly the kind of ball you want, then we should be able to let you know what we think might do the trick.’
‘I got some ideas about Dwyer on that,’ said Legal.
‘Yep,’ said Chalkie.
Mr Tanner came out of a
nother doorway. ‘What about the charge?’
‘Easy,’ said David.
Hall and McLeod started laughing again. Even Mr Johnson and Mr Richardson were grinning.
‘Easy,’ said David again, not smiling.
Mr Tanner took the bat from Mr Johnson and spat on his hands. ‘See that window.’ Tanner pointed to the window at the far end of the hall. ‘Fifty pounds that it goes in a couple of balls.’
‘You’re on,’ said Ken Hall stepping out of the dressing room.
‘I’m out of here,’ said Morgan as he and others cleared the hall behind David, like it was on fire.
Mr Richardson stayed standing just in front of David. ‘You understand, Jack, that if you injure David in any way, I will have to kill you.’
‘Yeah, I’ll bloody kill ya too after he’s finished,’ yelled Ten Ton.
‘Sounds fair,’ said Tanner.
Mr Hall stayed too, a little up the hall.
As David reached the top of his run-up, Mr Hall whispered, ‘He’s not going to charge.’ David thought about Two Bob, and knew it was true. He bowled him a topspinner, and Jack Tanner was forced to fend it off and onto a wall.
‘Bloody Mopsey an’ Beardie woulda caught that. You’re out.’
‘No they wouldn’t. There’s a wall in the way,’ said Tanner.
At the top of David’s mark Mr Hall whispered, ‘Swotting it.’
And sure enough, Mr Tanner stepped down the wicket. Only David had a nicely singing ball bounce in front and spin away, catching the edge of the bat and smashing through the ceiling.
There was more laughter.
‘Window in what country?’ yelled Maud.
‘That one’s coming off the moon,’ said Hall.
Baker replied, ‘And into my gloves I reckon.’
‘The charge,’ whispered Mr Hall, tossing David a new ball.
David sent it at Jack’s feet as he jumped down the hall.
‘How’s that?’ said Mr Baker catching the ball.
Mr Tanner insisted on another and David whispered to Mr Hall, ‘He’s going to charge again, isn’t he?’
‘I think you’ve made him mad, Billy Boy.’