Here we go, Cool Cat. Into that dirty dangerous Chinatown, full of Chinamen with knives and opium dens and pretty ladies peeping from windows. Full of all the sins in the world. Lose your life or lose your virginity. Look out, Cooley!
The moonlight caught the girl and bathed her in its pale light so she seemed a part of the moon itself, a moon lady. Skin and dress so white, like the moon’s rays. Hair as flaxen as the moon itself.
Kathy Sumpter.
‘Hullo, Reggie.’
Cooley’s mouth fell open but no words came out. Only the other day, he had been dreaming of her—the prettiest girl in town, he thought.
One of the stubbies slipped from his precarious grip and tinkled against the rocks.
‘You brought some grog, did you, Reggie? That’s good. I could do with a drink. It’s so muggy for this time of the year, don’t you think?’ she said as she swayed towards him like a hula dancer. Her long red-tipped fingers slyly undid her top button, so Cooley’s eyes gravitated there and stared in wonder, anticipating what would happen next. She stood right near him now and looked up at him with her large blue eyes. That cruel Cupid, the moon, made them into shadows, even more beautiful in Cooley’s mind. The fire from there could be seen only as a grey light amid swirling darkness. The others were only a faint murmur of voices.
‘Cat got your tongue, Cools?’ Kathy Sumpter smiled. ‘Come and have a talk with me.’
‘I brought some beer,’ Cooley stuttered.
‘Good on you. Let’s go and find some quiet place where we can have a yak and a drink. How’s that for an idea?’ she said, placing a pale hand on his dark arm.
Her eyes were a metallic blue, surrounded by long lashes. Wicked and mysterious, they batted and winked in the moonlight, pulling his soul out of his body so it danced with the sparks in her eyes, a whirling, wild, exciting dance of dervishes.
They set off along the railway line and she slipped a hand into his. Her fingers made patterns on his palm and her teeth glinted in a wicked grin. Drunk though he was, Cooley thought he had never seen a prettier hand, and so pale in his brown claw. He held her tighter.
‘I’ve never been so drunk before,’ Cooley murmured, for something to say.
‘You’re not so drunk, Reggie. You should see my old man on Saturday nights. Geeze, he’s a real card with all his jokes and things. That’s when he’s not in jail, anyway.’
Cooley thought of his own father and how he would be sleeping off a Friday session, even then. He thought of tomorrow and what it would bring. Then the dark trees staring down at him and the silver moon with all her attendant stars, and the busy coiling clouds all whispered, like summer rain, for him to stay and become someone for once. A drifting ghostly white owl swooped down and called out eerily, ‘Good hunting, brother.’
‘Why are you so quiet? We aren’t strangers, are we, Reggie?’ Kathy prompted.
‘I got nothin’ to say.’
‘I’ve seen you staring at me in class, Cools. Do you like me?’
He stared at her while his mind tried to urge his tongue to reply.
Come on, Cool Cat. Robert Redford here. Burt Reynolds, too. Come on, boy. If them fellahs can do it on the big white screen, you can do it right here in this dark bush. Sweep her up on your horse. Listen to that orchestra play the love music.
‘You’re pretty,’ he breathed, at last.
‘Come along here, Reg. There’s a nice clump of she-oaks just down off the line. We can sit and have a talk, know what I mean?’
‘I reckon it’s goin’ to rain soon,’ Cooley said, hesitating. ‘It’s real cloudy, but. Look! I can’t even see the Southern Cross.’
‘That’s because the Southern Cross is in the south, not in the east, amazing though it may sound.’
They both laughed at Cooley’s mistake and it seemed natural they should fold into each other’s arms, still laughing.
‘I’m never going to get lost with you out here, Reg. We’d never find our way home.’
‘That wouldn’t be so bad, ya know,’ Cooley murmured, staring into her eyes.
Her soft lips engulfed his and he remembered all that he had read in the paperbacks and cheap ‘love’ magazines he had periodically bought furtively from the Herron River co-op and kept hidden under his mattress.
But still, when they broke apart at long last, Kathy’s sly Siamese cat eyes gazed up at him and she giggled softly.
‘Why, Reg Cooley. I don’t believe you’ve ever been with a girl before in your life!’
‘Well,’ he began shyly.
‘Come with me, Cool Cat! I’ll bet you’ve got a hot dog there, too, for my oven,’ she grinned, giggling happily as she led him into the she-oaks.
She was a true mistress of her trade, sculpturing him gently; chipping off a little shyness here, a little there, with soft words and well placed hands. Then he was all hers, even though she let him think it was the other way around.
He peeled away her white dress (which was all she wore, for in truth she had arranged this night with sly cackling Morry a week before) and looked down at her naked body, so pale and white, like a frangipani petal lying on the ground. Like the frangipani flowers his mother had sometimes entwined in her black bushy hair. Her lips smiled languidly up at him and her shadowed eyes promised all kinds of sins.
Then he too was naked and beside her on the soft, crackling pine-like needles of the she-oaks. The soft evening breeze whipped across his thin brown body and Kathy Sumpter’s plump breasts that he had seen pushing out her school uniform, and her hips and thighs that had rolled in sensuous rhythm so often before his eyes.
Tonight they belonged to him.
His first woman.
He was clumsy and he needed help from a more expert Kathy. He didn’t feel as he thought he should afterwards. He was too nervous really to enjoy the experience. But he was no longer a virgin.
When it was over, they lay in the scuffed-up needles. A great shyness overcame Cooley and he sat up suddenly, reaching for his clothes.
‘Where’s the hurry, Cool Cat?’ came Kathy’s soft voice from the shadows. But she held no mysteries now.
‘Better go now. I’ve got to feed up the animals of ole Packer tomorrow; today, I mean,’ Cooley muttered.
A hand rested on his knee so he stopped still, like a kangaroo sniffing the air for danger.
‘Did you like it, Cools? Did you like tonight?’
‘It was orright,’ he whispered.
‘You want to come out more often. You can have more fun with me than with Packer’s animals, eh?’
He turned and smiled down at her shyly.
‘You stay here for a while longer, Cool Cat. There’s still some beer left.’
‘No, I’ve gotta go, see. Be dawn d’rectly. Dad’s goin’ to go off ’is ’ead when he sees me.’
‘Suit yourself, Cools,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I might see you another time,’ she called softly after his departing figure.
He set off along what used to be the railway track towards the town. The man-made mound wound above the tangle and confusion of the bush below. He had only the moon for company.
It didn’t matter tonight what the town thought of Kathy Sumpter, what the boys would do when they found out, how they would mock him. Tonight was his night and now was his Dreaming.
He knew that on Monday in the honeysuckle hideout, the two cousins would rip and tear his brief Dreamtime apart with laughter as loud as a bubbling creek, washing away all the dreams and leaving only the truth; two black crows on a dying sheep’s back. Instinct told him that Morry had arranged tonight not so much out of friendship for him as out of a mischievous desire to get amusement from him. He was right. Morry had sidled up to Kathy one day at school and grinned into her ear, ‘See ya after, ’ot-lips.’
‘Yeah? What about Moira Bunyol or Judy Crow?’
‘No, I wanna arrange somethin’ for me cobber, ya know. Somethin’ nice, see?’
‘Who’s your cobber? Lindsay Pep
per? Because I wouldn’t go with him in a blue fit! I reckon he’s got the pox.’
‘Well, ’oo gave it to ’im?’
‘Not me, sport. Might have been you, eh’. You never can tell, can you, stud?’
He had grinned at the white arm draped around his shoulder and at the hip burning into his side. He had stared into the big eyes that questioned him.
‘No, ’oo we talkin’ about ’ere is Reg Cooley.’
‘Reg Cooley?’ she had cried and started away.
‘What’s wrong with Cools? He’s the same colour as me and Norris, any rate. Go on, ya might even like it. I tell ya what, sis. I reckon ’e never been near a girl in ’is life.’
‘Do you really think he’s a virgin?’
‘Well,’ Morry had smiled, ‘unless ya count kangaroos and sheep and cows and chooks and, ya know? ’E spends every day on that farm and never comes anywhere. Come on, mama, do yaself a favour,’ and he had hooted with wild joy. She had joined in, after a moments thought, and agreed.
He was little more than another of Kathy Sumpter’s long list of conquests. Even as he wound his solitary way homewards, Kathy was probably heading for the fading warmth of the Herron River mob’s fire to snatch another piece of joy in her young life. Was that love you felt, Cooley? I don’t think so, mate.
III
He arrived home in the grey dawn when the two roosters were arguing whether it was a good day or not. He sat outside the rickety picket fence that surrounded what was Mrs Cooley’s idea of a garden and opened one of the two stubbie bottles that resided in his tom brown coat pocket. He rolled himself a cigarette, not caring about his father’s anger just then, and thought of the night again.
How’d that song go, Cooley? ‘The loveliest night of the year’. That was about right.
He was still there when Nat Cooley came out of the front door. Cooley heard the heavy workboots scuff down the cracked path and heard his dad hawk noisily to get rid of the night’s phlegm.
The boots stopped at the gate.
‘Yer up early, aren’t yer?’
He didn’t look up but stared straight ahead with wary eyes, smoke dribbling from his thin nostrils.
‘Yer’ve caught th’ best part of the day, for once,’ his father said non-committally, trying again.
‘Yeah,’ Cooley said sullenly, and stood up, grinding his cigarette out with a dusty boot. He slouched off, half-expecting to be followed by angry words. This time he’d argue back, maybe even fight; he didn’t know. All he knew was that he didn’t want anyone to spoil his thoughts, especially the man who called himself ‘father’ yet ignored and disliked his dark-skinned sons. But Nat just hawked again and clumped away over to the tractor, scratching his baggy behind and mumbling to himself.
Cooley made his way into the kitchen and past the kids who were screaming over something, even at that hour. He barely gave harassed Mrs Cooley a glance; even when she cried, ‘Did you see Dad? He was a bit upset the way you carried on last night. Oh, shit! Now look what you’ve done, you little bitch! Go and play outside with Sammy, or something.’
Cooley wafted past her like a bird a thousand feet up in the air and, grabbing three pieces of toast and someone’s fried egg and bacon, he disappeared into his room for a good sleep.
After that first party Cooley often went down with the other boys, although he never drank so much again. He didn’t see Kathy Sumpter again, either. In class she seemed to ignore him, or she would suddenly turn and grin at him, eating him with huge eyes. Then Morry and Shaughn would giggle soundlessly and Cooley would feel like disappearing into the cracked jarrah floor. The other boys began to guess what had happened because it was impossible to keep a secret in this small blob of civilisation. They would stare at him with knowing eyes and smirking faces. Anonymous wolf-whistles followed him everywhere. If he was ever late for morning assembly, skilful planning made sure he had to stand beside or behind Kathy Sumpter, who stood quietly and glanced at him wickedly, while Cooley squirmed and looked everywhere but at her.
Afternoons were spent in the old abandoned railway shed or the tunnel that cut through the rocky brown hill, with the Quinns and Garpeys, Peppers and Peters and Bunyols. Sometimes Dan Crow would come along, too. He had left school one day and had never come again. His father didn’t care and the youth looked after him whenever he was around. But Dan Crow was a wanderer and no one knew where he would be next; interstate, up in Thursday Island, in prison. He was everywhere. Right then, he was working as a storeman for Wilson’s in Maidstone. The mob played cards and drank beer, keeping a sleepy eye out for the police. They told dirty jokes and laughed over something that had happened at the camp, in town or at school. They spoke about football and shearing and boxing and girls. That was their world.
These were the times Cooley felt like a man and not a dirty, skulking half-caste. He would laugh with the rest, joke with the rest, smoke with the rest, drink with the rest. Big Cooley.
Then came the picking for the first eighteen and more trouble for Cooley. He was picked for centre because he had a long, straight kick and a high mark that made up for his lack of height and strength. But the white boys were jealous, especially Ken Packer, who would otherwise have got the position.
One night, Cooley was up in the feed shed, having a quick cigarette before he got to work. He softly sang a Hank Williams song, ’Long Gone Lonesome Blues’, and thought of the evening ahead with Earl Reeves’ country and western night on the radio— his favourite programme of the week.
The two Packer boys walked in. He had never liked them because they were always flash and full of importance. They always spoke in a plummy accent and were full of spiteful little tricks and they were everything he would never be. But he hated them mainly because there wasn’t a thing he could do about them. They were the boss’s sons and the boss loved them and believed them— no matter how far-fetched their stories seemed. How many times had Cooley got into serious trouble over Ken’s and Lou’s lies?
Lou shut and locked the door then turned and leered at him. Cooley still sat on the bag of oats and carefully took in a drag, then slowly expelled the blue smoke through his nose. There was a dangerous silence in the shed—even the rats were still. Then Ken, leaning nonchalantly against his father’s wall, said, ‘You’re feeling too sick to play Jingalup on Saturday, aren’t you, Reg?’
Cooley looked surprised and a puzzled frown creased his lean brown face.
‘Nuh. I’m okey-doke to play. Got a bit of a cold, but that’s nothin’.’
Lou moved forward.
‘You’re not all right to play, Reg, mate. You had a little accident, see. Tonight while you were feeding up. Lucky for you me and Ken came and found you. You could have died, eh, Ken?’ Then he turned to his brother. ‘What’ll we give him, Kenno? A broken arm?’
‘No, a broken leg takes longer to heal,’ said Ken, moving forward also.
Then Cooley saw what they were up to and rage whipped his body like a north-west typhoon. So they would take away the one good thing he could do, would they? They would break his body like a stick they had no further use for? Let them try!
He butted out his smoke and leaped up the mountain of bagged food. The two boys mistook his action for cowardice and charged after him. Lou reached the top first, then gave a strangled yell as a boot in the jaw sent him falling down, to land with a thud on the brick floor, where he lay motionless.
Young Ken hesitated and Cooley sprang upon him with all the hatred of eleven years of persecution. They rolled over and over to the bottom where Ken sprang up and kicked Cooley on the side of the head. Cooley went reeling, then fell over again, hit in the eye. He staggered up and ducked Packer’s wild punch. He kicked the white boy in the shin and as Ken let out a cry and hopped on one foot, Cooley’s fist smashed home again and again and Ken Packer was dropped like yesterday’s lunch.
For a while Cooley lay against the wall, then stumbled out.
’Bugger the bloody animals. Bugger Packer too, sa
me time,’ he grunted.
He had a shower over in the old shearer’s quarters. It didn’t help get rid of his black eye, but its soft, wet fingers got rid of the rage that flamed inside him. He felt dull and his head rang from Ken’s foot and fist. Calm again, he thought he should go back and see if the brothers were as hurt as he was.
‘No, fuck ’em,’ he snarled. ‘Fuck the whole lot of white bastards,’ he said.
You wait, Cooley. You ought to be Bruce Lee. You’re too too good for those Packer boys. Even old Packer himself you could flog with your kung fu, boy! Cooley smiled and dreamed and dried his bony body.
But out of the dark shearer’s quarters, out of the darkness of the night and into the light and facing the eyes of the family who disliked him as much as he did them, he was just shuffling Cooley the coon again.
Everyone stared at him, Mum Cooley with a cold, expressionless gaze as though her stepson wasn’t there. For all the care she took of him, he might as well not have been. Cooley often wished for the dark face and soft brown eyes and long bushy black hair, soft against his skin, of his real mother. But tonight Cooley was the man. Hadn’t he taken on two blokes and flattened them alone? Just wait till Ben heard about this. Cooley the big bloke—Lionel Rose was nothing to him.
‘Why you late, you little bugger? I bet you been smoking again. And what happened to your bloody eye?’ growled his father.
He shuffled his feet and licked his lips and thought: Can’t tell Dad, else he’d belt me for laying into the boss’s sons. Who’s going to believe me against them white blokes?
So he looked up and lied, ‘Oh, I never seen this pole when I was feedin’ up.’
He was too upset to listen to Earl Reeve but there was a good movie on TV; lots of murders and some beaut car chases. Cooley tried to dream about being the big gangster, shooting every single Packer there was. But, every now and then, he would glance fearfully at the phone as he thought of Packer ringing up and saying, ‘Your damn son killed my two boys.’
Going Home Page 20