Fergus McPhail

by David McRobbie

  There’s a smell. Yep, you guessed it. I’m standing in it.

  At home, Mum is preoccupied with the stuff we brought down in the truck. Senga hates her cluttered bedroom and Jennifer is already saving up to go back to Queensland, business class this time. Then Dad comes in but his face is long.

  ‘How did you go with your roots, Dad?’ I ask.

  ‘All gone, Fergus,’ he tells me. ‘I found the old water fountain though, choked with weeds and nettles. My big brother used to lift me up to get a drink, only he’d squirt me in the face. Never failed to squirt me and I kept letting him lift me up for a drink, forever hoping that this would be the time he wouldn’t do it. But he always did.’ Dad sighs. ‘Oh, the optimism of youth. Mind you, who’d want to drink from that fountain now?’

  ‘I met some kids, Dad,’ I tell him.

  ‘That’s the spirit, son.’ Then Dad sniffs the air suspiciously. ‘Phooh-ar! You been at the baked beans, lad?’

  The Best of Intentions

  Now it’s Mum’s turn to make unfortunate noises only, in her case, it comes from being sick in the morning. Because my bedroom is near the bathroom, I’m the first to know about it. When I mention to Jennifer at breakfast the up-chucking sounds I overheard, she reacts negatively, some would say explosively.

  ‘It’s just the change of air!’ she snaps then sulks behind a wardrobe that jostles for space in our dining room, alongside a spare dresser, several chairs and an umbrella stand.

  ‘But I breathe the same air.’ I pursue the issue with calm, male logic. ‘So how come I’m not sick?’ I love being sagacious. As much as I love putting Jennifer right.

  ‘Women breathe more deeply,’ she tells me without coming out of her hiding place. I have the answer for that.

  ‘You’re not sick in the morning, are you, eh? Eh?’ I’ve got her there.

  ‘Oh, what would you know about it anyway?’ Jennifer fires back.

  ‘Kids, kids,’ Mum comes wearily into the room and squeezes between the wall and a large easy chair to find a place at the table. ‘Enough! I had a bad night.’

  ‘And I’m having a bad morning.’ Jennifer gets up. ‘Now that I know what I know.’ She sniffs mysteriously out of the room with her nose in the air.

  ‘What’s up with her?’ I ask.

  ‘Leave it, Fergus,’ Mum says. She has no interest in a cup of tea, even though I kindly offer to make a fresh pot. ‘No, I’ll just sit here for a while, but you go on with your -’ Mum can’t get the words out.

  ‘Baked beans on toast,’ I say. ‘And peanut butter garnish with -’

  ‘Whatever.’ She waves a limp hand. Senga enters wordlessly and sits. By the determined set of my older sister’s jaw, I know she has made a decision about something. I eat silendy. Mum sits staring at a spot on the tablecloth. Senga finally speaks.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me?’

  ‘Ask you what?’ I say.

  ‘Not you,’ she snaps. ‘Mum.’

  ‘All right,’ Mum relents. ‘How did you get on?’

  ‘I got it.’ Senga is triumphant. ‘I’m going to be a model.’ Mum seems resigned to it.

  ‘I thought you’d finish school first.’

  ‘No way. This is an opportunity. Plus it’s my ambition.’ Dad enters with a tape measure in his hand and an exercise book full of calculations and sketches.

  ‘You know what?’ he begins. ‘This place hasn’t got smaller. There’s just a lot more furniture than we’re used to -’

  ‘Too much furniture,’ Mum adds darkly, looking at the overflow that Dad and me stored in the dining room for the time being. ‘We’ll have a garage sale.’

  ‘You jest,’ Dad says. ‘This is good stuff. Thirty more years some of it’ll be antique. We’re not selling a stick until it’s aged.’ Mum does a little wilt. She’s not in a fighting mood.

  As I explained, Great Aunt Bronwyn already had loads of furniture in the house so with our stuff added to the throng, it was hard to move around without blundering into something. Also difficult to see each other at the dining table, a bit like eating alone except for the conversation.

  ‘Senga’s going to be a model,’ Mum changes the subject.

  ‘Full time,’ Senga adds from behind the sideboard.

  ‘What kind of model?’ Dad is instantly suspicious. ‘I’m not having you -’

  ‘It’s all above board,’ Senga says too quickly. But the defensive way she speaks tells us there’s more. Dad is on her case in a flash.

  ‘Out with it, my girl!’

  ‘It’s for Mr Snippy, the hairdresser in the shopping mall. I’m to model hair styles.’

  ‘I see,’ Dad says.

  ‘M-mm.’ Mum nods slowly.

  ‘Paid work then?’ Dad goes on. ‘That’s good. So you can chip in for your keep.’

  ‘You mean - money?’ Senga turns pale.

  ‘Don’t mean baked beans,’ Dad comes back.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Mum gets up and leaves the room. So it’s not the change of air. Mum’s sickness in the morning has got something to do with food. I have a vague sort of idea what Mum’s problem might be, but with my new high school starting in a couple of days I push other people’s worries to the back of my mind. It’s a male McPhail thing.

  If school now means nothing to Senga, it looms large for me. But I am a man with new-fashioned resolve and decide that I will keep a low profile. There will be no more pushing myself forward, no more trying to do good deeds and aspiring to better the lot of my fellow students. To the teachers, Fergus McPhail will not roar like a lion. He’ll be a mouse and squeak when he’s squoken to.

  Mum has the same idea which she raises when we have a private moment as she covers my books with plastic film.

  ‘Now, Fergus,’ Mum begins. ‘At this new school tomorrow, why don’t you find your feet before you start asserting yourself, organising people?’

  ‘Mum, I’m older now,’ I assure her. My mother’s doubtful sniff means she doesn’t think I’ve got any wiser. ‘I’ll be so reserved they’ll have to lever me out of my shell.’

  ‘That’ll be the day.’ Mum has little faith. ‘But no more campaigns, okay? Strikes, petitions, sit-ins, crusades and go-slows. Leave them to the experts, right?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘And chaining yourself to the school motor mower. No more of that, right?’

  ‘That was an accident, Mum. I lost the key.’ Mothers. They do go on. But where would we be without them, eh?

  In the early morning heat, I set off to school with a bulging bag of new plastic-wrapped text-books. Jennifer is still in primary school which is in a different location but already she hates the place and is not going to smile at anyone. She never smiled in Brisbane so why should she start doing it here? Senga is still in bed, Dad is out the back with a hammer and saw, counting his nails while they’re still attached to his fingers. Joke. I mean rusty nails in a glass jar. Mum is not having any breakfast.

  Once clear of our front gate, I lurch a few paces with my load of books before seeing Rodney in his expensive uniform, heading off to his private school, St Superiors. He gives me a lordly sneer.

  ‘You? Form a band? Huh!’

  ‘Bummer drummer,’ I tell him. I plod on and around the first corner I run into Mitch.

  ‘How’s the lifesaver?’ he greets me. Nice to hear a friendly word.

  ‘Hey, look, Mitch -’ I begin but he still has it fixed in his head that rescuing him from Big One and Big Two was nothing less than a giant-killer routine. He brushes aside my modest reluctance.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for you I’d be dead meat! I’d be mince! I’d be gravy!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  ‘Look, let me carry your books, Fergus. Least I can do.’ Before I can stop him, Mitch grabs the bag of books from my shoulder. They crash to the ground and he grunts but manages to heft them. Then he totters ahead of me, carrying his own books as well as mine.

  This is embarrassing! I go after him but he moves
at a rapid lurching stagger. My protests are feeble. There’s nothing else for it but to follow.

  Then it’s ‘uh-oh’ time. Mitch pelts around a corner. I follow and there he is with Sophie and Angela who have stopped him in his tracks. When they see me the claws come out and they both hurl daggers of scorn in my direction.

  ‘It’s the King of the Garbage!’ Angela starts off while I catch up with wheezing Mitch to take my bag of books from him. But Sophie weighs in.

  ‘So what is it this time?’ she snaps. ‘Juvenile exploitation?’

  ‘What exploitation?’ I say.

  ‘Making a little kid carry your books,’ Angela adds. ‘Looks like exploitation to me.’

  ‘Tell them, Mitch,’ I plead but Mitch is short of breath and can’t say the words. Worse than that, he whips out an asthma puffer and draws on it urgently. Oh, great!

  ‘And you were chasing him to make him go faster.’ Sophie shakes her head.

  ‘We should tell the United Nations,’ Angela goes on.

  ‘This is ridiculous -’ I say.

  ‘No, it’s cruel!’ Sophie fires back. They, fuss around Mitch, making soothing noises. There, there. Stuff like that. Then along comes Lambert. Reinforcements, I think but the reality is different.

  ‘What’s up, Angela?’ he asks, looking at Angela with adoration in his eyes. But it’s Sophie who answers.

  ‘This character,’ she has disdain in her voice, ‘this character’s only been forcing Mitch to lug his books to school for him.’

  ‘This character has a name,’ I tell her stiffly.

  ‘What? Slave-driver?’ Angela says. ‘Litter-loving slave-driver?’

  One look at Lambert tells me all I need to know. He will support Angela come what may. If she reckons I’m guilty then Lambert’ll be the one to lock the cell door and throw away the key. Bummer!

  ‘Next time, carry your own books!’ Sophie snaps then she and Angela walk off.

  ‘Well, how about that?’ I say. ‘Condemned without a fair trial!’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have done it,’ Lambert tells me. ‘That’s all I say.’ He looks soulfully at the departing Angela. By this time Mitch has got his breath back.

  ‘You handled that well, Fergus,’ he wheezes, then makes to pick up my load of books, but this time I’m not having any of it. Once bitten and all that! Knowing my luck I’d trot round the next corner and run slap into a United Nations peace-keeping force, complete with blue helmets and one rifle, no bullets between the lot of them. No way!

  We walk on to school. My books hang heavy on my shoulder. Other students are walking with us and I notice that no one wears a uniform here so kids range from scruffy to well-turned-out.

  ‘So you fancy Angela?’ I ask Lambert. He blushes scarlet.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I tell him. ‘Just making conversation.’ Another fact filed away. If lovesick Lambert has the terminal Hottentots for Angela, it leaves the way clear for me and the feisty one - Sophie. Never mind. I like a challenge and this one should be a piece of cake. Just get her alone then say, ‘Look, Soph -’ Better change that to Sophie. I’ll use Soph when we know each other a bit more. ‘Look, Sophie,’ I’ll say, ‘about that magazine that blew away and about Mitch carrying my bag of books. They were both gigantic misunderstandings.’

  The rest should be easy.

  It turns out that Angela and Sophie are in my class, year ten. Or maybe it should be I’m in their class, since I’m the newcomer. Anyway, the girls sit together over on the far side of the room near the window while I’m stuck with Lambert and a couple of drooby-looking guys who bite their nails. It’s funny how moist and sensitive kids always seem to cling together. Maybe it’s for protection. Lambert keeps casting glances in Angela’s direction but she doesn’t break off her conversation with Sophie. I feel sorry for Lambert. I’d hate to have it that bad.

  But I look at Sophie and think, she’s reasonably good-looking. Pretty neat in fact. She laughs at something another girl says and I wish she’d do that for one of my jokes. So far with me, she only ever scowls or sneers but the laughing Sophie is something else. She’s got nice even white teeth and long brown hair that sort of tosses endearingly when she moves her head and she has this way of talking with her eyes and hands at the same time, fanning out her long fingers.

  Lambert breaks in on my hopeful thoughts.

  ‘I reckon you fancy Sophie. You’ve been staring at her.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I hiss. ‘She hates me. You heard her. Twice you heard her.’

  ‘Yeah, you got a few fences to mend there,’ Lambert agrees. He gazes at Angela and sighs. Yep, old Lambert’s got it bad.

  School days, school days, dear old golden rule days. What can I say about my new place of learning? Tick one.

  See one educational establishment you’ve seen them all.

  It’s only for a few years.

  Could do with a lick of paint.

  The teacher’s not bad-looking but a bit old for me. Her name’s Ms Sampson but we only have her first up every morning after which she disappears into the huddle of buildings that make up this school then we face a variety of teachers for different subjects.

  But the good news is, as we move from room to room, the seating arrangements change. I stick with old Lambert, because he’s my new mate, so chooses where we sit. The drooby kids join us for protection, seeing me as a fellow droob, but I’m working on that. Naturally, Lambert tries to sit close to Angela. Which brings me near Sophie. How’s that for astute?

  I just wish Sophie’d need her pencil sharpened or suchlike, or drop a ruler so some thoughtful guy like me could scoop it up and return it to her - but we already tried that with the fly-away magazine and got nowhere. I listen to the young, bespectacled bald guy, Mr Boddie, who is our English teacher, going on about what a year of bright prospect we have in front of us. He writes ‘limitless possibilities’ on the lower half of the blackboard because he can’t reach the top part unless he stands on a box, an act few teachers can pull off yet still command respect. With Mr Boddie’s stirring words of encouragement, I start to nut out a campaign that’s going to have Sophie look at me in a new light.

  Point one, I write in my exercise book, then there’s a diversion.

  ‘Get your greasy eyes off her!’ a voice hisses. It comes from behind. I turn. He’s taller than me, one of those handsome sorts who’s automatically popular without actually doing anything. Blond and tanned, he’ll leave school to become a tennis ace or something, travel internationally, endorse products, make millions, have fun with hordes of fashion models, age gracefully then become an icon. I toy with the idea of asking for his autograph before the rush but instead engage him in whispered dialogue.

  ‘My eyes off who?’

  ‘Sophie. That’s three times you’ve ripped her kit off.’

  ‘Has somebody got naked?’ says one of the drooby kids. He looks around with hope shining in his eyes.

  ‘I was gazing out the window,’ I snarl to the guy behind me, keeping my voice sotto. Ripped her kit off? The very idea! We’re not even friends yet!

  ‘A likely story,’ this bronzed god sneers. But you’ve guessed it. I’m the one to cop the blame.

  ‘That new boy-what’s his name?’ Mr Boddie looks at the roll book then at me, sunlight glancing off his glasses. ‘Fergus McPhail.’ Hundreds of kids swivel their eyes in my direction.

  ‘Fergus?’ one boy says.

  ‘McPhail?’ another chimes in. ‘Sounds like a loser.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say defensively. ‘Fergus McPhail.’ I jut my jaw and wonder if this is a good time to tell them about my great-grandfather, Enoch McPhail, who in the Great War single-handedly took three German prisoners who were sick of fighting anyway, and whose Black Watch sporran has been passed down to me. It’s a fearsome object, with tassels. Then a wonderful thing happens. Sophie speaks.

  ‘Come on, we’ve all got to have a name!’

  ‘It�
�s not the name,’ Mr Boddie goes on. ‘It’s his ceaseless chattering. Stop it, McPhail. Right?’ He looks hard at me. I nod and sulk while the room settles down again. But Sophie spoke up for me. I sneak a glance in her direction but she’s busy inspecting her fingernails.

  ‘That’s four times now,’ the tennis ace whispers from behind my back.

  Who is this guy? I write in Lambert's exercise book and draw an arrow pointing backwards.

  Richmond.

  What’s his story?

  The usual. He was born superior.

  You mean up himself?

  Shh. He’ll hear you.

  He can’t hear what we write.

  I wouldn’t put it past him.

  As the hot morning wears on, we do so much writing about Richmond in the seat behind, Lambert needs a new exercise book. I give him one of my plastic-wrapped ones with lilac flowers on it. For the rest of the day I try to find the opportunity to say thanks to Sophie for sticking up for me but there’s no chance. To prise her away from Angela, you’d want a fur-lined crowbar.

  After school, Lambert and I catch up with Mitch, who’s in year eight. Since they live near Ryan Road, we walk home together. Now that we’re more at ease with each other, Lambert opens up.

  ‘Okay, so I like her,’ he confesses. ‘I mean, I just like her, that’s all. I can’t help it. It’s natural, right? At a certain time in a boy’s life, he stops thinking about computer games and bikes and stuff and starts looking at girls. Then he gets ideas, and fantasies and -’

  ‘That’s cool, Lambert.’ I stop him there because he is starting to flush red, his freckles standing out like early onset chickenpox.

  ‘Yeah. So I like her.’ We walk on a few metres. ‘Angela,’ he breathes her name and we walk on a bit more. ‘What rhymes with Angela?’

  ‘Bangladesh?’ I offer. Lambert gives me a sour look.

  ‘Okay, I don’t know what happens now. What’s my next move?’

  ‘You need a strategy,’ Mitch tells him. Lambert and I scoff at this youth telling us how to make our mark with women. Mitch ignores our amusement. ‘What I mean is, relationships don’t just happen - you got to give them a nudge along. They get made to happen.’