When she came up the stairs he was back sitting in the cane chair by the front door. She bent and kissed him on the cheek. He thought she looked very tired.
“Where’s Flynn?”
“Asleep.”
“Good . . . listen. I have to go back to work in an hour or so. And I have to work tomorrow. When Henry comes home could you get his tea?”
Tom looked down at his toes and frowned at them. His mother put her hand on his head and stroked his hair.
“I know. I’m sorry. But I have to go. We need the money. You know we do.”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“Good boy. I bought some sausages. Just do some potatoes and some peas with them. Make sure Flynn eats his peas.”
“Yep.”
“All right. I’m going to have a shower now and change my clothes.” She kissed him on the forehead. “You’re a good boy, Tom. What would I do without you.”
He looked up at her. Sometimes just the smell of her was enough to make him feel better, but when she smiled the way she sometimes did—a little sad, yet laced with mischief—it made him remember how it was when it had just been the two of them; before Henry, and before Flynn. He liked to think she remembered those times too, at least once in a while.
He followed her inside the house and went and sat down beside his little brother. He listened as his mother moved around the house and watched as the fan lifted Flynn’s fine yellow hair and set it down again. After a while his mother came back and put her hand on his shoulder.
“All right, Tom, bye now. Be good. Henry shouldn’t be long.” Before she had finished the sentence there was a knock at the door, loud enough to wake Flynn.
“Bloody hell,” his mother muttered.
“What?” said Flynn, half opening his eyes.
Tom glanced at him. When he turned back to his mother she was already halfway up the hall.
“Yes? Hello?” he heard her say.
Flynn, sleepy-eyed, slipped off the couch and headed for the door. Tom followed him. There was a man standing on their verandah. Flynn stopped in his tracks and stared at him and Tom did the same. The man had thick, grey whiskers and long matted hair to his shoulders. His hands were large and brown, the nails yellow, a black semi-circle of dirt at their ragged ends. Even though the afternoon was still very warm he wore a woollen jumper with slack, gaping holes, and a filthy tweed coat over that. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and he looked down at them with eyes dark as stones.
“Any spare food, missus?” he said. “I could eat a horse if one were spare.”
Flynn giggled. The man looked down at him and Flynn stopped.
“I may have something,” said Ellie Gunn, walking back towards the kitchen. Tom and his brother stayed where they were. The man looked from side to side as if watching out for something and then he looked down at them again.
“What’s yer name then?” he asked Flynn, in a voice rough as ironbark.
“Flynn,” said Flynn. “What’s yours?”
“Ah . . . Billy,” said the man, as if he didn’t have need of it very often. He nodded, said the name again, but softly this time: “ Billy.”
Tom’s mother returned with something wrapped in foil and something in a brown paper bag. He could smell what was in the foil—cold chicken—and his mouth began to water.
“This is all I’ve got handy, I’m afraid,” said his mother, passing the man the food.
“Bless you, missus,” he said, taking it. He nodded to her, nodded to the boys, then turned and walked down the path and through the gate, closing it carefully behind him.
“What was he, Mum?” asked Flynn, after he’d walked away.
“A tramp. A swaggie. That’s what he was.” She picked up her son and swung him back and forth. “You be a good boy for your brother now and I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“All right.”
Tom watched her walk out to the car and climb in, then reverse back out into the road. She just sat there for a few moments then, looking forward. Tom peered up the road but he couldn’t see the swaggie. His mother looked their way after a while and waved, then put the car into gear and moved off. Tom waved goodbye and walked out to the gate to watch her go. The car rolled away down the long straight then disappeared round the bend. He walked out onto the road and looked both ways but there was no sign of the tramp. He ran around to the side of the house and stopped at the corner and leant into the cool boards. There he was, walking diagonally across the cow paddock next to the house. As Tom watched, the man threw a chicken bone over his shoulder, and a few strides later he looked back towards the house. Tom ducked back and waited for what seemed like whole minutes before edging along the boards again and peeking around the corner. Too late. The man had gone. Up into the trees maybe.
He walked down into the back yard and watched the trees a little longer and then he turned and went inside. Flynn was back on the couch with his thumb in his mouth, his eyes already closing. Tom went and sat down in the cane chair out front. He put his chin in his hand and before he knew it he was dreaming of his mother putting out washing on a long, long line.
When Tom woke the sunset was reflected in the eastern sky before him and a great cloud of birds was wheeling around over the river. Henry Gunn was walking up the path with the chainsaw resting on his shoulder, his clothes and boots coated with sawdust, his forehead pale where his hat kept the sun off. As he passed through the door he ruffled his stepson’s hair. Along the inside of his forearm Tom saw the long jagged scar where a chainsaw had kicked out of a tree once and caught him. The scars where the stitches had been were nearly an inch wide and looked as though someone had laced up the skin like a boot. Henry stopped just inside the doorway and asked him where his mother was. Tom told him and Henry scowled and headed for the bathroom.
Tom made tea while Henry washed away the stink and dirt of his day’s work. When the food was ready Tom piled up their three plates with sausages, mashed potatoes, peas. Henry came in and sat down and started to eat. He never made them say grace like their mother did. Tom and Flynn followed suit and tucked in. In between mouthfuls Henry said: “I need you for the snigging tomorrow, Tom. They’re closing off the coupe where I got all those good logs last week and Bloody John broke his arm today.”
Tom’s heart sank. Ordinarily he would have been interested in the details of a broken arm but not on a Friday, not when Henry wanted him to work on a Saturday.
“What about Flynn?” he spluttered, his mouth full.
“What about him?”
“Mum’s got to work tomorrow.”
“Ah. Mrs. Clark’ll have to look after ’im.”
Tom waited a few moments. “No, Mrs. Clark can’t. She’s got to go to Laurence tomorrow.”
Henry threw his fork down on the table. “Blast!” he shouted. Flynn jumped.
“I’ll look after him,” said Tom. “He could help me bag the sawdust.”
“No, you’re helping me.”
Tom could feel his whole Saturday slipping away. “But what about Mr. Riley?”
“He can wait a day for his bloody sawdust can’t he!”
“But—”
“Christ Jesus, Tom, no more! I can’t afford to pay some bastard, and I need to get those bloody logs out!”
Tom didn’t say any more and they continued to eat in silence. He couldn’t think of any more cards to play, not without his mother there. Flynn started to giggle and spit mashed potato down the front of his shirt.
“Flynn!” shouted Tom. “What are you doing?”
“He can come too,” said Henry, chewing and staring at Flynn. “He’ll be all right in the cab.”
Tom looked from his stepfather to Flynn and back again, but he bit his lip and said no more. When they had eaten and the table was cleared Henry fetched the chainsaw from the front verandah and sat it on the table under the light. He fitted the sharpening jig to the arm and proceeded to put the edge back onto each tooth in the chain. Flynn settled on the couch in front of
the television and put his thumb in his mouth as before.
“Make sure Flynn has his bath before he goes to bed,” Henry muttered, his mind on what he was doing.
“Yep.”
As Tom washed the dishes he fumed and thought of Sonny Steele again. Another question began to form in his mind but this one had a much more dangerous shape than the one he’d asked Sonny. When he finished the dishes he turned round and watched Henry sharpen the blades for a while. Every so often Henry’s hand would slow down and his chin would dip and his eyelids droop and then he would catch himself and shake his head and continue. Tom felt a little light-headed, but then he took a deep breath, held it for three, asked his question straight after.
“Henry?”
“Mmmm?”
“What’s a whore?”
Henry didn’t answer immediately but looked up at him sharply with his full attention, the chainsaw, the file in his hand forgotten.
“Where’d you hear that?”
Tom gulped. He couldn’t lie to Henry when his eyes were like that, his voice so low and blunt.
“Sonny.”
“Steele? What—he call you that or something?” Henry’s forehead rippled into deep furrows. Tom could see a few spots where he hadn’t rinsed the soap off properly.
“No.”
“Then why’d he say it?”
Tom didn’t answer.
“Answer me, or so help me!”
“I don’t know why he said it!”
“Repeat to me—exactly—what the little cunt said. Exactly.”
Tom tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He felt a bit dizzy, and reckless, as if he were about to unleash something as furious and unstoppable as a storm from the tip of his tongue.
“Mum,” he whispered. “He said: your mother’s a whore. That’s what he said.”
He braced himself for a belting when Henry leapt up, but it didn’t come. The big man’s thighs caught the edge of the table and lifted it up and the chainsaw and the tools went banging and clattering to the floor. Henry didn’t even seem to notice. The storm Tom had unleashed, still smelling of soap and with his hair still damp, pulled his work boots back on and pounded out the front door. Tom watched him climb up into the truck and roar off down the road in a spray of gravel. He felt a cold flitter of fear down in his gut, even worse than the one he’d felt that afternoon—a flash of what might happen to anyone who got in Henry’s way maybe—but also the sure knowledge that this storm, as well as sweeping over Sonny, might well wheel round and break on him in turn.
2
Hey, Darcy! Darcy Steele! Goody-bloody-two-shoes! Show us your tits!”
The boys were much older than they, long-haired and pimply, and Grace Mather had been apprehensive when she’d first seen them appear, but Darcy just gave a breathy laugh and took in a lungful of air before responding.
“Rack off, bastard arseholes!” she shouted.
Grace nearly wet herself laughing, but it was nervous, wild laughter, more likely to end in dizziness than anything else. The boys stood by the side of the road for a while longer, one chopping at the long grass with a stick to make himself feel better, but then they walked on and disappeared down behind the Agricultural Hall.
“They would have come for me if you hadn’t been here,” said Darcy.
“I didn’t stop them.”
“Yes, you did. Pop’s your dad. That’s why they didn’t chase me. Because you’re here.”
Grace half shrugged, unconvinced. “Have they chased you before?”
“Yeah. Heaps of times.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? What did you do?”
“I run. I’m faster than them.”
“Have they ever caught you?”
“Once.”
“What happened?”
“They wanted to see my tits, my fanny. I said they could if they showed me their dicks.”
Grace looked at her friend, her eyes wide.
“Did they?”
“One did. The other was too chicken. But I ran away before it was my turn. Ha!”
“What did it look like?” Grace whispered.
Darcy screwed up her face and grinned. “Remember that time we helped the nurse with all the kindie boys?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it was like that. Like a grub. A pink grub. But . . .”
“But what?”
“Bigger . . . and hairy!”
Darcy laughed along with Grace. When they stopped they were racked with giggles until Darcy shouted Come on! and took off up the road. Grace followed. She seemed to be doing a lot of following lately, but even though she was older than Darcy by a few months it didn’t really bother her. Every Saturday Darcy always wanted to be doing things, never wanted to just sit and talk like they’d used to, but there was less and less to do in Angel Rock that they hadn’t already done and Darcy was becoming more and more restless. Lately Grace had been reading books and telling Darcy things that might interest her to try and keep her happy. Saturday last she’d told her all about Huck Finn and his raft and now Darcy wanted to build her own and float away down the river just like him.
They walked along to the sawmill as they’d planned and ducked through the hole in the fence. No one worked there on Saturdays any more. Tom Ferry collected sawdust for the butcher there some weekends but there was no sign of him. They wandered around through the stacks of timber looking for material, toiling in the hot morning sun for an hour until they had a pallet, various other odds and ends of wood, four empty oil drums, bits and pieces of rope and a torn scrap of red cloth that the timbermen nailed to the end of logs when they were carried on the roads.
They tramped across the open paddock between the back of the sawmill and the riverbank carrying their finds, but when they came to the pallet they found that it was far too big for the hole in the fence no matter which way they tried it.
“Goddamn it,” said Darcy.
They sat and looked at the pallet and wiped the sweat off their foreheads with their sleeves.
“It’s the best bit. We can’t leave it.”
“I could get Pop to help us,” said Grace.
“You can’t ask him! He’d probably arrest us!” Darcy laughed but Grace could barely raise a grin.
“We’ll just have to try with what we’ve got,” said Darcy.
They walked over to the river and gazed at the pile. It didn’t look like much of a raft. Darcy tried to tie one of the drums to a plank of wood but the rope was much too short.
“Goddamn it!” she said again, and pushed a drum down the bank. It splashed into the dark water and then floated away. The girls looked at one another for a moment and then, piece by piece, threw all the wood and the remaining drums into the river. When everything was gone they sat down and watched the line of flotsam drift away downstream.
“Boats might hit them,” said Darcy, a little wistfully, after a few minutes had passed.
Grace nodded. “Yeah. Boats might sink. We better go before someone sees.”
“They might go all the way out to sea.”
“Yeah. All the way to Sydney. Come on,” said Grace, her heart beginning to pound.
“What do you think it’s like there?” asked Darcy, making no move.
“Where?”
“Sydney.”
“I don’t know. Lots of buildings, lots of houses, lots of people.”
Darcy nodded. “I’m going there one day.”
“That’s good. Now come on!”
Darcy shrugged, but then got to her feet and slapped the grass off her dress. They walked back up to the road but still saw no one. Along from the mill they stopped by the rail platform and drank from the tap down the side of the old stationmaster’s office, wetting their brows and washing the dust off their hands and arms. In the distance a train’s horn sounded. They climbed up onto the platform and sat down on an old luggage trolley and peered southwards. Before long they caught a glimpse of the train away down the valley, ploughing thro
ugh the heat haze like a ship. Darcy stood up. Grace’s stomach rumbled and she looked at her watch.
“Think I can beat it?” said Darcy, shading her eyes with her hand.
“What? The train?”
“Yeah. To the tree.”
Grace looked up the tracks to the tree—maybe a hundred yards away—then back in the direction the train was coming, then up at Darcy. Standing there in the dust, barefoot, with her fingers splayed in the curve of her waist and her hip out, with the red log flag bunched in her other hand and the sun right behind her golden head, her best friend looked like she could do anything she put her mind to, and beat any train under the sun.
“Ah . . . m-maybe,” she answered, stammering. “If it slows around the bend.”
“Pah!”
Darcy crouched and waited for the train, a sly grin not shifting from her mouth. The driver sounded the horn as the train approached. It came on, huge and metallic, belching diesel smoke, glinting in the sun. Grace took two steps back from the tracks and nearly called to her friend to take care. When the train reached her Darcy sprang away, racing away alongside the tracks, laughing and lifting the flag up over her head and waving it to and fro like a banner. The passengers in the train stared at her as they passed and then some boys opened a door to yell and whoop. As they did Darcy reached the tree and collapsed, laughing, in a heap on the grass, ruby-cheeked and with her hair clinging to her damp face and neck. Grace, catching her up, flopped down on her back beside her, breathing hard, the solid blue sky overhead brimming with little points of light that spun before her eyes. They lay there, giggling, until Darcy slapped Grace on the thigh.
Angel Rock Page 2