All the Green Year

by Don Charlwood

  But I had never been casual with girls, not even in school.

  She had stopped and was standing less than twenty yards off, the rifle under her arm. She looked about fourteen, a fairish girl with one sun-bleached plait. She was looking straight at me with a puzzled expression, her manner not showing any concern at all.

  I said, “G’day.”

  “Oh, hullo,” she answered, standing still. She was barefooted and wearing a faded cotton dress. “Are you on holidays here?”

  “Sort of,” I said.

  Johnno tapped my ankle. “Don’t tell her anything.”

  “Shut up!” I said, turning my head away.

  “Pardon?” said the girl, moving nearer.

  “A sort of a holiday,” I repeated. “Only a day or two.”

  “You must be a friend of the Edwards?”

  “My mother is,” I said uncomfortably.

  Johnno touched my ankle again. I kicked him and muttered something.

  “Pardon?” said the girl again, coming nearer.

  “Nothing,” I said dumbly. We stared awhile at each other. She had wide-open disconcerting eyes.

  “Are your mother and father down?”

  “Tell her yes,” whispered Johnno.

  “They’re coming tonight.”

  “How did you get down then?”

  I heard Johnno moan. I waved my hand vaguely. “We got a ride—”

  “You have friends with you then?”

  “My brother’s down,” I said, quickly, “but he’s in swimming.”

  She was about ten yards off now, the rifle in the crook of her bare arm, the wind blowing her plait about. She said, “It’s a very dangerous beach here, you know.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but he’s a good swimmer.”

  At my feet Johnno hissed desperately, “Stop talking.”

  “Who was that?” asked the girl, listening suddenly.

  “No one,” I answered. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  She looked at me closely. I noticed her expression change as if a realization had hit her. She said slowly, “Are you one of the boys?”

  “What boys?”

  “The two who ran away and took a boat—it came over the wireless. I forget their names. What’s your name?”

  “Smith,” whispered Johnno.

  “Smith,” I faltered.

  She looked grave. “That’s not true, of course. That’s what everyone says when they don’t want to give their real name. What is your name?”

  “I’ve told you,” I said unsteadily.

  “Well, I don’t believe you. Anyhow,” she went on, “I wouldn’t tell anyone even if I did know. I think running away would be terrific.”

  We stared at each other again in a dumb battle which lasted minutes on end. She swung the rifle carelessly from side to side. On the floor Johnno said hoarsely, “Has she gone?”

  The girl had come farther forward. “That’s the other boy!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

  “No,” I said weakly.

  She came still nearer. I stepped quickly off the veranda to try to divert her.

  “Now you’ll make up some story to the police—” I began.

  “Of course I won’t. Where are you running away to?”

  I opened my mouth to say I wasn’t running away but just then the colour left her face and I felt she was going to collapse. Following her gaze I saw Johnno looking over the veranda rail, only his head showing, a head so knocked about that it looked like something guillotined a few days before.

  “It’s no good, Charlie.” The voice sounded not much better than a guillotined head could be expected to sound.

  The girl came over and stood close to me. “Who is it?”

  “Johnno,” I said wearily. “We were washed through the Rip. We haven’t had any food and Johnno has hardly any clothes.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Right enough.”

  “How did he get so hurt?”

  “On the rocks,” croaked Johnno.

  She came closer and peered at the head. Her colour was coming back quickly.

  “Terrific,” she murmured.

  Johnno rolled his eyes towards me like a dog.

  “He needs more clothes,” I said.

  “I’ll come back with some,” she answered firmly. “Stand up while I see how big you are.”

  The head shook determinedly.

  “He’s six feet two,” I told her.

  “Terrific,” said the girl again.

  We waited uneasily for her decision. “I’ll come back after tea. I’ll knock at the door and say the password—”

  “What password?”

  “We must decide one.”

  Johnno looked at me despairingly.

  “We might be out,” I said quickly. “Yes, we’d be safer in the bush. But we’ll come back after dark. Leave the things under the tank-stand, then we’ll know where to find them.”

  She looked disappointed. “But I wouldn’t see you.”

  “Well—the police might follow you.”

  After a bit she said reluctantly, “Oh, all right then.”

  We stood watching her go away the way she had come. She turned and waved once. I waved back, but Johnno didn’t move.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  When the girl had disappeared from sight Johnno sat on the veranda steps, his head in his hands. “That’s done it.”

  “Well, what would you have said?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “You just can’t trust them, though. We’d better clear out, or she’ll get some mad idea like wanting to come with us.”

  I went inside and took four blankets and we walked into the scrub on the side of the dunes. From there we could see part of the house and the tank-stand and anyone approaching. The waves had grown much louder and dusk was coming early. We wrapped ourselves up and lay on our stomachs watching the house carefully. Lying that way seemed to ease our hunger. We lay there about two hours in gloomy light, scarcely speaking.

  The moon was already up when we saw the girl coming back carrying a bundle. She came slowly towards the tank-stand and stooped there. Then she straightened up and gazed around.

  “Her old man’ll come,” whispered Johnno. “Sure to. If it was Eileen, my old man would be moving in now with a bike chain.”

  But he was wrong; no one came. The girl turned round and began walking back, stopping every so often to look towards the house. Before long she disappeared into the shadows.

  “A pretty good kid, after all,” I said, standing up.

  “Sit down,” whispered Johnno. “It’s a trap.”

  I sank back again and we kept watching. We watched for an hour or more, then went singly to the house, keeping in the shadows.

  In the bundle were half a dozen scones, a leg of mutton only half finished, some roast potatoes, still warm, and a jar of milk. They were wrapped in a pair of trousers and a sweater.

  “There’s a note in it.”

  We held the piece of paper to the moon. “Can’t read it,” said Johnno, tilting it this way and that.

  He handed it to me, but I could do no better.

  “Might be a warning.”

  “Keep it till morning,” I said.

  We went back into the scrub and ate like jungle animals at a carcass. Then Johnno dressed himself. Except for his hair and his face and the fact that he had nothing on his feet, he looked reasonably civilized.

  “We can’t walk far without boots.”

  “Why?”

  “People would notice us—”

  “At night they wouldn’t.”

  I hadn’t thought of walking at night.

  “By tomorrow morning we could cover about twenty miles.”

  I supposed so,
but without any keenness. All I wanted was sleep, yet here was Johnno who hadn’t slept at all, wanting to walk twenty miles barefoot.

  “Where would twenty miles put us, anyway? It would only take us nearer home.”

  “We could go towards the Western Port side and make for the railway.”

  Against this idea I could think of no real argument. I said feebly, “Let’s have a night’s sleep, anyhow.”

  Johnno frowned. “If we wait around here he’ll find us before—”

  “Who will?”

  “My old man.”

  “Ah, to hell with your old man,” I said bitterly.

  “But—”

  “All right then,” I said wearily. “You lead the way—I bet you don’t even know which way to head.”

  But I was wrong. He had studied the map at the house more fully than I had known.

  “We go along the beach to the next point, then inland from there by a road. That takes us to another road that goes to Shoreham—”

  I turned away from him. I still had the mutton bone in my hand, all bare and white after our gnawing. I dug a hole and buried it. I was hardly better than a dog, I thought, and certainly worse off than the Prodigal Son. Somehow I couldn’t imagine Johnno’s father killing any fatted calf. My own father—yes, I could imagine him.

  We walked over the top of the dunes into a fresh wind and the roar of waves. The sea glittered and moved in the moonlight, but sometimes clouds darkened it and all the expanse of beach darkened too. Then the clouds would race away again as if hurrying to report our whereabouts.

  Beside me Johnno said, “It’ll be better walking near the water.”

  Down there the roar was louder so that we seemed back again in the battle of the past night. Only Gyp was missing. If I saw Ian again, I thought, what could I tell him?

  Between us and the rocky headland the moon shone on wet sand. Waves ran over it, white and aggressive, then fell back with gasping sounds. Before us, away beyond the headland, the Cape Schanck light flashed brightly.

  “We should walk fast,” urged Johnno above the noise.

  “I am walking fast,” I said irritably. I wanted only to lie down.

  Cape Schanck dropped out of sight behind the headland. Just then a cloud passed over the moon and the brightness drained out of the night. I shivered and took longer strides to keep up with Johnno. He was still a pace or two in front of me when I saw him stop. When I caught up he said, “There are lights ahead coming over the dunes.”

  We stood close together watching them.

  “We’d better go back to the tea-tree.”

  We scrambled up the beach and lay on the crest of a dune. From there we could see five or six lights bobbing in single file and behind them the lights of a car.

  “They’re at the end of the road we have to take,” said Johnno.

  “Someone has found the boat, then.”

  “The girl probably told her father about us.”

  “No,” I said. “No—she’d only have got herself into trouble.”

  We began pushing through the tea-tree, with the idea of passing behind the searchers and going up the road. The moon came out again, brightening the whole beach and on it a group of men at the water’s edge. They stood there looking. After a few minutes they turned and went back to the cars.

  “They’re going away,” said Johnno.

  But they didn’t go away. When we came closer we could see a dinghy on a trailer and this they began unloading. The wind blew from them to us, but their voices reached us indistinctly.

  “Charlie, we’d better beat it,” said Johnno. But he made no attempt to move.

  “They’re going to row to where the boat hit the rocks,” I said.

  “They’ll get caught,” said Johnno anxiously.

  We moved through heavy shadows till we were scarcely twenty yards from them, then we dropped on our hands and knees and crawled through the scrub. The men now were very close. We wormed towards them on our stomachs as they began carrying the dinghy to the beach. In front of them a man and a woman carried hurricane lamps.

  I caught Johnno’s arm. “That’s Eileen and your dad.”

  I heard him moan. But then he whispered, “I can’t go back, Charlie.”

  Old man Johnston was bowed and shrunken-looking; he shambled along in a hopeless sort of way.

  As we watched, the wind brought someone’s voice to us, “. . . in by the flat rock . . . .”

  Johnno looked away. “I can’t do this to him. Could we shout that we’re okay, then run for it?”

  “I dare say,” I said unhappily.

  “Hell, Charlie, I didn’t mean it to work out this way!”

  The group was down at the water now. On the road I heard a car door slam and there, standing together, were my mother and father, my father half holding my mother up.

  I almost leapt out. Johnno hung on to my arm suddenly.

  “It’s no good,” I said, “I’ve got to speak to them.”

  “Give me just two minutes, Charlie—just one minute—”

  “You’ve got to come with me.”

  “No,” he said, “I can’t. Tell my old man I left you. Tell him—tell him—”

  He got to his knees.

  “It’s no good,” I said again. “You’ve nowhere to go.”

  But he had turned round and was beginning to crawl through the tea-tree.

  At the water’s edge there was a shot and sudden brilliant light. The silhouettes of the men showed up against the bright sea. Out farther were the rocks with waves running over them and there, still held fast, the smashed boat. Over everything hung the dazzling flare. I looked quickly back and saw my mother leaning against my father still. Then it was dark again.

  “Johnno,” I said, “I’m going out.”

  But Johnno was gone.

  “Johnno!” I repeated.

  I looked into the bush after him, but now it was black. Above the noise of waves I could catch no sound of him. I felt the courage run suddenly out of me, but I stood up slowly and walked out of the bush as if it had all been a dream.

  I was close to them before my mother and father saw me. We stared at each other, then I said, “We’re all right.”

  My father lifted his hand, then let it fall again. He said nothing.

  “Fred?” asked my mother.

  “He’s safe,” I said.

  At that she collapsed. I stood fixed to the spot while my father struggled to get her into the car. In a voice unlike his own he said, “Tell Mr Johnston.”

  I began running to the water’s edge, calling out something as I ran. They had the dinghy now a little way out to sea. I saw Mr Johnston and Eileen standing together like two pieces of stone.

  “He’s safe!” I shouted.

  Eileen swung round and grasped me by both arms. “Where is he?”

  Her father scarcely seemed to have heard me. He had the same shrunken, distant look about him.

  “He left me,” I said.

  “When?”

  At that I forgot all our caution, “A few minutes ago.”

  “We must tell the police,” said Eileen quickly.

  “No,” said her father, arousing himself. “No. He’s alive and that’s all that matters. He’ll come back if he wants to come back.”

  That was the end of it all. On the drive home no one talked about it; in fact, no one talked about anything. I looked at first into the roadside scrub thinking I might see Johnno, but before long we were well beyond his range and by ten o’clock we were home, all staring at each other, not speaking, not believing it had happened.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  That was the end of Johnno’s days in Kananook, the end too of 1929. In January we were to move out of “Thermopylae”. Always I was to link it with Johnno and the death of Grandfa
ther McDonald and all the other happenings of the year.

  With Johnno gone and Gyp dead and a cloud of disgrace over me, the holidays were not worth having. Only one happening brightened them.

  One night I was alone at the end of the pier, sitting there dangling my legs over the edge. It was warm and the sea was calm, but I was thinking of the day Johnno and I had got our Bronze Medallions and of the storm and the wreck during the next night. It all seemed years ago. I began thinking how good it would be if Johnno could turn up when, at that moment, someone did drop down beside me and say, “Ah there, Charlie.”

  I looked and it was Squid. “I was thinking of Johnno,” I said disappointedly.

  He didn’t answer. When I looked at him again I could have sworn he’d been crying.

  “What’s up?” I asked, not really caring much.

  He lay on his back looking at the stars, still not answering.

  “I don’t see what you’ve got to be gloomy about,” I said bitterly. “You’re not in trouble; you won the Most Improved Pupil again; old Moloney loves you—”

  “Don’t say that,” he exclaimed, his voice quavery.

  “Why?”

  “Because—well—” He turned on his side and looked away from me. “They’ve just told me—him and my mother—they’re getting married—”

  I suppose I should have expected it, but I hadn’t. I swung round to him. “They’re what?”

  “It’s true,” he jerked out. “Before Christmas—all living together—”

  It was too much; I burst out laughing. I hadn’t laughed for a long time and I couldn’t stop. I lay on my back while he begged and blubbered beside me. After, I felt ashamed; even Squid didn’t deserve Moloney for a father.

  A fortnight after this they were married as he had said. I wanted to write about it to Johnno, but I didn’t know where he was; no one knew where he was.

  Somehow I hardly had Johnno out of my mind in those last days of the year. On New Year’s Eve I decided to walk across the school ground to Lone Pine. But it was no good. The school looked shrunken and wasn’t important any more; even Lone Pine wasn’t the same. Perhaps if Johnno had come back it might have been the way it was before; without him it was nothing.

  IMPROBABLE as it may seem, All the Green Year arose from a heated argument around our Templestowe dining-room table in the days when The Beatles came to Melbourne. Seated with me were my wife, our three daughters—one too young to be much interested in The Beatles, the other two both teenagers—and my elderly father-in-law. I sat at one end of the table, my wife on my right and at the far end her aged father, who was very deaf and involved in his own ruminations. (It was he who became the narrator’s grandfather, Captain McDonald, in All the Green Year.)