“No. He’ll grow up.”
Pop nodded. “I was thinking Tom might like him. Might help take his mind off things. The butcher could keep him in offcuts. What do you think?”
Grace shrugged. “He might.”
“Would you mind taking him down there?”
She looked up. “Why me?”
“Because I asked you to. Because I’ve got other things to be going on with.”
She frowned and sighed but after a while she grudgingly agreed.
“Good girl. I’ll see you later. If Tom doesn’t want the pup just bring him back. I’m sure I can find someone who’ll have him. Tell him if he wants him, he should spit in his mouth, be his dog forever then.”
“Yuck,” said Grace.
“Oh, and ask him if he wants to go to the circus tonight. Tell him it’d be my shout.”
“All right.”
She picked the dog up off the floor and tucked him into the crook of her arm, then opened the back door and walked down the path. She dawdled down through town, out along the road to Tom’s, quite enjoying the warmth of the pup against her skin, the beat of his little heart. When she came to the house she went up to the open front door and knocked but, even after half a minute had passed, there was still no answer. She knocked again, harder, then called down the hall.
“Anyone home?”
A door to her right creaked open and Tom’s mother peered round it at her. Her hair was flat against her head, her face was very pale, and her eyes were underscored with dark rings.
“Yes? Who is it?” she breathed.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Gunn. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Ellie Gunn pulled her dressing gown around her and stepped out into the hall. She squinted at Grace and looked her up and down.
“I’m, ah, looking for Tom.”
“What’s your name, honey?”
“Grace. Grace Mather.”
“Pop’s girl?”
“Yes.”
“Of course. I thought I knew you.” She reached out and began to stroke the side of Grace’s head with the back of her hand.
“Are you a friend of Tom’s?”
“Ah, yes.”
“He’s a good boy. He’ll be handsome too. His father was a beautiful man. A bastard, but handsome.”
“Oh . . . really.”
“Yes. Listen. Men will want to put their things in a pretty girl like you. Don’t let them. Babies will . . . break your heart.” Tears began to roll down her cheeks and she stepped back inside her room.
“I don’t know where Tom is,” she said, her voice a bare whisper, just before she closed the door on the world again. “Maybe he’s . . . maybe he’s out back.”
Grace blinked, collected herself, then walked through the house and down the back steps. She couldn’t see Tom anywhere and was about to go home when she heard her name being called. She finally spotted him in the frangipani tree. He was climbing down.
“Hello,” he said, when he was back on the ground.
“Hi.”
“What’ve you got there?”
“A puppy. Pop wants to know if you’d like him.”
Tom didn’t answer. Grace handed him the pup. Tom’s eyes fixed on him as if he were some kind of puzzle to be solved.
“Pop says you don’t have to take him if you don’t want to.” Tom looked at her, then looked back at the dog.
“He says if you do, you should spit in his mouth.”
Tom’s forehead creased. “Why?”
“I don’t know. He said he’ll be yours forever if you do.”
“Oh. Right.”
“So . . . you want him?”
Tom nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good. He drinks milk, but you could try him with meat and stuff. Pop says you could get scraps off the butcher.”
She turned and started off, but when she was at the corner of the house she stopped.
“Oh, yeah. Pop wants to know if you want to go to the circus. He said he’ll pay if you don’t have any money.”
“I’m going. Mr. Newman gave me a ticket for bringing the sawdust.”
“Oh. All right, then.”
“Are you going?”
“I don’t know yet. I . . . don’t think so.”
“There’re lions over there, you know. You should see them.”
Grace nodded, waited for another moment, but Tom didn’t say anything else. He was engrossed in the pup once more and she felt a tug of jealousy that she’d had to hand him over. She turned and began the walk home.
Tom watched her go. He watched her bare feet on the road and then he noticed the scars on her left calf, a series of long jagged lines, cream-coloured against the slightly darker skin around them. Everyone in town knew that a dog had bitten her when she was little and now she was scared to death of them, but Tom suddenly didn’t want to know what everyone else did. He wanted to know more. He wanted to say something to Grace about Darcy Steele but he didn’t know what and he didn’t know how. As she disappeared up the road he thought to himself that the scars just made her other calf seem all the more perfect.
“Say thanks to Mr. . . . say thanks to your dad,” he called after her. “Say thanks very much.”
She half-turned, giving him the barest glance.
“I will.”
He walked into town not long after she had left. Across the river the circus was gearing up for its performance. He quickened his pace, the new puppy in his arms. He went down Gibbs Street until he reached Coop’s Universal and then he stopped. The grass coming up through the cracks in the path was very high and he remembered, a little horrified, the deal he’d made with Mrs. Coop to come and pull it up. He saw too that one of the shop’s front windows was broken and had been boarded up. He went inside. Mrs. Coop was bustling around with a mop and bucket.
“Hello, Mrs. Coop,” he said.
“Hello!” she replied, looking up. “Who’s that then?”
“Thomas Ferry.”
“Thomas Ferry. Thomas Ferry.” She held her hand up to her forehead as if trying to remember a message for him she’d been entrusted with.
“Tom!”
“Here’s that money I owe you,” he said, as recognition dawned on her face. “With a bit of interest.” He handed her a twenty-cent piece. “Sorry I forgot.”
“I’m sure you don’t owe me any money, Thomas, but your father, that’s another story!”
“Oh well, put this towards what he owes.” He set the coin on the counter beside the till and it was then that he noticed the smell. In the cold case were two rancid hams covered in grey mould. The refrigerator that held all the milk and soft drinks was silent. He put his hand to the glass—it was warm.
“What’s the matter with the fridges?”
“Buggers cut me power off! I don’t know what happened to the bill. Should be back on soon, I’m hoping.”
“Oh,” said Tom.
She slumped down on her stool and looked set to cry.
“Here, I’ll help you, Mrs. Coop. Can you hold him for me?”
Mrs. Coop took the pup and, still sniffing, held him up to get a better look.
“What’s his name, then?”
“He hasn’t got one yet. I only just got him.”
He managed to remove the hams without too much fuss by covering them with newspaper and lifting them out. He took them outside and threw them in the bin.
“What happened to the window?”
“Someone threw a stone through it a couple of weeks ago. Vandals, Sergeant Mather says. I’ll give him bloody vandals . . .”
Tom helped her finish mopping the floor and then he went outside and pulled up all the grass he could and put it in the bin with the meat. When he finished he went back inside and looked around at the shop’s dusty stock.
“Do you have any tins of dog food, Mrs. Coop?”
“There, up by your head, Tom. Feller came and bought up a lot last week, but there’s a few left. Take as many as you need.”
“I only need one or two. I’ve got money.”
“No. You take as many as you want. Not much call for the stuff anyhow. And you’re such a good boy . . . and your little . . .”
She began to look like she would cry again. The pup coped with the sea swell of her heaving bosom as best he could. Tom went over and patted the flowery expanse of her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Tom,” she said. “Silly old lady, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
He sat and talked with her for another quarter-hour or so. They talked about Angel Rock, Mr. Coop, the world—not what was wrong with it but just how it was—and then Mrs. Coop was quiet for a time. Finally she looked up at Tom and smiled.
“You know, Tom,” she said, “I think I’ve had enough of this grocery business.”
“You have?”
“Yes. Too right. Starting now I think I’ll start selling something else.”
“Yeah? What?”
“Well, you know I’ve sat here for thirty-five years doing my sewing between customers. Doilies mainly. I’ve got mountains of them out back. I’ll sell them, and other things as well.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“It is, isn’t it?” she said, blinking. “People’ll always need a good doily. What’s a cake without a doily, what’s a plate of sandwiches?”
“Nothing,” said Tom, shaking his head slowly, his voice grave. “They’ll come from all over Australia to buy ’em.”
“They might! They just bloody might!”
“You could call it Angel Rock Doilies.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Or Heavenly Doilies. Yes, that’s the shot.”
Tom thought she was going to hug him, but then, maybe, she forgot she was going to, her mind racing, and just patted him on the back instead. The puppy began to whine and he asked her if he could borrow a can-opener and a bowl. She heaved herself up off her seat without a word and went out back to her residence, returning after a while with both the items he’d asked for.
“Thank you,” said Tom. He opened the tin, emptied a little of the food into the bowl, put it on the floor, then set the dog down before it.
“He’s eating it!” Tom said, suddenly and unaccountably happy for the first time in what seemed like years.
“My word, he is! And he sounds like he needs a name as well.”
Tom nodded. “Any ideas?”
“Oh no. I’m not a one for making things up. You’ll think of something, I’ve no doubt.”
Tom nodded, but when the time had rolled around for him to be on his way he’d come up with nothing that seemed to fit. He said goodbye to Mrs. Coop and made his way down to the ferry. It was tea time but the thought of going home with the dog when Henry was there made him feel a little sick. He sat and waited for the ferry to arrive and decided he’d eat later, after the circus, then go home and try to hide the pup out in the yard somewhere.
When the ferry came he clambered aboard, along with a good number of other townsfolk going over to try their hand at the circus’s sideshow stalls. A few of the adults greeted him but some of the younger children just stared at him with wide eyes. He was the first off the ferry when it touched the far ramp, jumping down before the gates were opened, the ferrymaster’s growling rebuke sliding off his back. He didn’t go straight into the collection of tents and marquees in the middle of the showground but skirted round the darkening edges to where the lion cage was. He’d nearly reached it when he came across three boys sitting along a fence smoking cigarettes. He stopped in his tracks. One boy he’d never seen before. The second he knew but was much older than him. The third was Leonard. When Leonard saw him he whispered something to the boys and then slipped down from the fence rail and hurried off through the caravans and trailers.
“You Tom Ferry?” asked the one he knew.
“Yes.”
“You’re the one that lost your little brother, right?”
“I didn’t lose him.”
The boy shrugged, as if Tom was just splitting hairs.
“What’s your dog’s name?”
Tom looked down at the pup and a name came to him out of the blue, easy as an amen.
“Ham,” he said.
“Ham?”
“Yep. Ham.”
“What’s that mean, then? You can eat him if necessary?” The boy’s friend laughed and he turned to him and nodded his head.
“No. He’s named after a flying chimpanzee.”
“A flyin’ monkey?” Both boys looked at him as if he had lost his marbles.
“Yep. All the way into space.”
“Ah yeah? Jesus aitch. Wasn’t that a dog?”
“A dog went another time.”
“So why didn’t you call a dog after a dog’s name? That bugger there”—he pointed, his face serious—“ain’t a friggin’ monkey.”
Tom shrugged. “I didn’t like the dog’s name. It was Russian.” He put the pup down on the grass but he didn’t seem to want to stray too far.
“Ahhh.” The boy nodded. “Russian. A commie dog. I wouldn’t name nothin’ after a commie dog neither.”
“Got a bit of kelpie in it,” said the other boy.
“Yep. Kelpie,” said the first. Tom remembered his name then. Charlie Perry. He’d seen him once or twice working with one of the timber gangs.
“And somethin’ bigger than a kelpie. Kangaroo dog,” Charlie continued.
“A lab. Look at how solid he is.”
“Maybe it’s all three, with a bit of dingo for brains.”
“Yes,” said the other boy, nodding gravely.
“I’m joking, numbskull.”
“I knew you were.”
“You better watch out, matey,” said Charlie. “Cockies’ll shoot that mongrel soon as they clap eyes on him.”
“I don’t think they will.”
Charlie took a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it.
“Suit yourself,” he said.
“I will.”
The three of them watched as the puppy chewed at the frayed hem of Charlie’s jeans, trying them out for taste and texture. Before too long Leonard reappeared. Sonny was with him. They stopped by a circus truck about two dozen yards away and stared at him. Sonny sucked at the cigarette he was smoking and then threw it to the ground before him. Tom picked up Ham.
“See you later, then,” he said to Charlie and the other boy.
“Yeah, see ya.”
Tom set off towards the brighter centre of the showground, where the big top stood, where strings of lights were strung between poles. He didn’t spare Sonny and Leonard another glance. He made his way through the growing crowd of people to the cage of lions. A tarpaulin had been strung just in front of the cage to shield them but Tom had no trouble slipping in behind it. He sat down on the grass in the half-light and crossed his legs. He held Ham in his lap, the smell of the lions like a solid thing in the air before him. A mechanic’s lamp fastened to the side bars illuminated the floor and walls of the cage. Tom was surprised to see how shallow it really was. All three lions were pacing back and forth but if they saw Tom they made no sign that they had, apart from a barely discernible pause, a sweep of their eyes in his direction. He saw the flare of their nostrils as they sensed the pup, saw them take in deep draughts of the air beyond the bars, measure him, then turn away, finally, all questions having been answered.
He watched them intently for nearly ten minutes. They rubbed the tops of their heads against each other’s shoulders and scratched themselves against a length of wood bolted to the bars at one end of the cage. They yawned and showed their great teeth and sometimes one would loll out a thick pink tongue and lick another’s face. To Tom it looked as though they were comforting each other, raising each other’s spirits, and he watched, mesmerised.
“I wish you were here to see this, Flynn, boy,” he whispered.
One of the lions suddenly made a deep coughing sound and Tom felt Ham quiver in response to it. Tom looked down at him. His ears
had pricked and he was staring intently up at the cage with his dark eyes. Tom didn’t think it was fear that gripped him, but something else, something between animals that he could never be privy to. He watched him for a little longer and then he turned the pup over onto his back, opened his mouth, dropped a ball of spit into it from his own. The pup grimaced and licked his chops.
“You’re stuck with me now, boy,” Tom said softly.
“There used to be creatures like these about in this country, you know, long time ago.” Tom, a little startled, turned and looked around for the source of the words. They seemed to have come from a man squatting in the gloom just off to his right. Tom was sure he hadn’t been there when he’d come in. He wore a white shirt with the long sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a black tie. A jacket was slung over his forearm. A hat with a low, wide brim cast a deep shadow across his face. Tom could really only see the bottom of his jaw and the light from the lion’s cage glinting on his eyes.
“Ah, you think?” asked Tom, remembering himself.
“Oh, yes.” The man nodded. “Their spirits are still about, if you have the eyes to see them. They’ll come if you call, if you’ve got the right voice.”
Tom looked at the man, not sure whether he was being serious or pulling his leg.
“I don’t know whether I’d want one to come,” he said. “Not really.”
“You know, in their own country,” the man continued, ignoring Tom, “these big cats know where they are by feeling the currents of underground rivers. They feel them through their paws, feel them in their bones, smell them.”
Tom stared. “Yeah?”
The man nodded slowly. Tom saw the white of his teeth as he smiled.
“In Africa, boys your age kill these, cut out their hearts and eat them. For courage. For courage!”
The man laughed, but there were too many humourless notes in the sound and Tom felt uneasy.
“Boys your age!” said the man again, laughing all the more.
Tom looked down at the grass.
“You want to see their tricks? What the tamer’s taught them?”
Tom was about to answer when another voice, much louder, cut in.
“You’re not stirring them up, are you, son?”
Tom looked up and saw one of the burly circus workers standing just inside the canvas.
Angel Rock Page 15