Taking Tom Murray Home

by Tim Slee

  Darren is looking at his mobile. ‘There’s a mob going to be at Fed Square,’ he says. He’s got his phone in one hand, a cricket ball in the other.

  ‘How many?’ Jenny asks.

  ‘Could be ten, could be a hundred,’ he shrugs. ‘Who knows. I just got a message from a kid I met here last year and my mum has been on her phone the last two days telling people to come with flags and everything.’

  ‘Awesome,’ Jenny says.

  ‘Really? Could look a bit weird, only five turn up.’

  ‘Still awesome they’d even bother, for someone they don’t even know,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah, well, my mum, she had this thing for your dad . . .’

  We both look at Darren like, what?

  ‘No, not a thing thing,’ he says. ‘Come on, no. Yuk. No, there was this time my olds had this party and it got a bit out of control. This guy started busting up stuff, in the kitchen like, you know . . .’

  Jenny and me both look at each because, no, we don’t.

  ‘. . . throwing plates and glasses. Dad was trying to calm them down but they weren’t listening to him. Mum and me were hiding in her room until it blew out, but these people kept going, so Mum called your dad. He came over and helped Dad shut it down. Things like that, is what I mean.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jenny says. ‘Parties, eh.’

  And I look at her like, oh, so you’ve been to a party like that? But she just shrugs.

  ‘Yeah. So, you want to play Droppit until we go?’ Darren is looking at me. ‘Your hand’s OK now, yeah? Just try not to catch it with your face this time.’

  ‘Ha ha, not funny,’ I say. And we go down the road aways to a place we can throw the ball. Leave Jenny there just watching.

  Tough.

  Let her go cry about it.

  It’s lunchtime by the time they work out how to hitch the milk cart to Trevor’s tractor and get all the right connections for the tail-lights and stuff. We’re not allowed to ride in the milk cart when it’s being towed, so for the trip up to Fed Square we sit up in the cab of the tractor with Trevor.

  ‘What will they do with Danny Boy?’ I ask him. Last we saw was Mr Garrett and some police standing waiting and waving quietly to cars as the funeral convoy pulled away behind the tractor.

  ‘The horse? That was his name?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  It’s not as noisy in the cabin as you’d think, and it has a fantastic radio you can connect your mobile phone to and play music and really cool leather seats.

  ‘Well, they . . . he’s a big horse, right? So they can’t just get a few guys and carry him. They’ll have to get something like an earth mover – a bobcat, you know?’ He sucks on a tooth, I can see he’s trying to think how he would do it. ‘Or maybe better, you get a heavy hauler with a little crane on the back, you can make a sling, lift him onto the trailer with that, but you need to be, you know, discreet, driving a dead horse around.’

  ‘They’d put him in a semi?’ I hadn’t thought about that. I thought it would be a horse box. But that would be stupid, lying him upside down in a horse box, legs in the air.

  ‘Yeah, could be a flatbed, but I’m thinking more like an open top, so they can lower him in, and people driving by, they can’t see him in there. More respectful like that,’ he decides. ‘For everyone.’

  ‘And do they bury horses? In a cemetery?’ I ask. ‘Could they bury him next to Dad if we wanted?’

  ‘What? No, they . . . No.’

  Jenny looks at me with her eyebrows raised like, just stop asking questions, then sighs and looks out the window.

  It takes most of the afternoon to get through St Kilda to the city centre because the police have us driving in just one lane and the convoy stretches back about a mile and is growing all the time. Jenny and I start counting, and we stop at about fifty cars because the rest get caught at a red light and we lose sight of them. People out shopping stop and watch and I’m wondering do they even know or do they think it’s just a normal funeral for like, a big Greek family or something, because the police made us take down the banners on the sides and back of the milk cart but all the cars have their headlights on.

  Mum asked Alasdair if they could make us do that and he said we’d won the big fight, so there was no point starting small ones.

  Trevor lets us switch around the radio to hear if we’re on the news and there’s plenty on the radio news and traffic news about Danny Boy and the funeral and telling people to avoid the city centre if they don’t want delays because the ‘biggest funeral cortege the city has seen in years is arriving in town’. We hit a talk channel where the two people on the air are arguing about whether this funeral procession is bigger than the one for Gough Whitlam, and then they start arguing about who’s to blame for the outbreak of fires and the riot in Sydney; is it Mum, or is it the banks, or is it the politicians for not doing anything about the problems of ordinary folks or is it . . . blah blah. Looking out on Punt Road though at people going in and out of the shops and fast food places, you wouldn’t hardly know there was anything happening different to any normal Saturday.

  But at least some people know, because as we pass a service station there’s a family there on the pavement and their kids are holding up signs saying #BURN! They wave at us like it’s Moomba or something. And then when we turn the corner onto Brunton Avenue by the MCG Jenny says, ‘Lookit!’ and there are people standing there in the parklands and some are holding signs and some are just waving or holding fists in the air like Mum did.

  MELBOURNE WITH THE COCKIES!

  NO FARMS, NO LIFE!

  #BURN MOFO #BURN

  WELFARE RELIEF OR #BURN!

  ‘People look angry,’ I say. ‘Are they angry at us for blocking traffic?’

  Trevor smiles. ‘No, mate. They’re angry at a lot of things, but not us.’

  ‘They’re angry about everything,’ Jenny says. ‘You should see the messages people leave on my GoFundMe page. I had to delete some in case they shut my page down.’

  ‘It’s not just one thing, right?’ Trevor says. ‘Like, why I’m here. I’m not a farmer, turns out I’m not much of a businessman either. But I’m bloody fed up with useless politicians and banks and drought and bloody power shortages and rivers running dry and . . .’ He’s thumping his steering wheel and he looks at me and must see something in my face. ‘Hey, sorry . . . it’s not like it’s all bad. Things will probably come good again, right? Just . . . not everyone is an optimist like me.’

  Jenny has tuned out and is waving back to some kids who look like a scout troop waving their troop flags, and then we turn onto Flinders Street and it looks like it’s thousands of people there, but the news reports are saying a few hundred.

  ‘Hey, we’re on the wrong side of the road!’ I suddenly realise.

  ‘It’s OK, we’re just following the police car,’ Trevor says.

  ‘But maybe it’s a trick,’ I say. ‘They want us to commit a crime so they can arrest us.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Trevor says.

  ‘Yeah, they could have arrested everyone back where Danny died,’ Jenny says. ‘They’re not going to do it now in front of all these people.’

  ‘They just want to get us into the Square in the fastest way,’ Trevor says. ‘See, there’s another cop car up there ahead, turning the traffic away.’

  I lean over to Jenny and whisper, ‘They could get you for lying to a policeman, about Danny Boy.’

  ‘I saw what I saw,’ she says, not caring if Trevor hears. ‘And besides, if I lied, which I’m not saying I did, but if I lied, I lied to a lawyer. Everyone does that. I bet it’s not even a crime.’

  And then we’re there and the sun is shining off the crazy buildings like it’s trying to blind everyone.

  At Fed Square, it’s what Mum calls bedlam. The police make us take the tractor and milk cart and drive it onto Swanston Street and park in front of all the flags so that all the other cars can come in behind us. The convoy goes all the way back
around the corner on Flinders Street and people just pull up behind each other, turn off their engines and leave their cars right there.

  A cop bangs on the door of the tractor cabin and Trevor opens his door.

  ‘OK, you’re good here, you can shut down your engine,’ the cop says.

  ‘It has to run down on automatic,’ Trevor says. ‘Give me a minute.’ And he closes the door. He stands up and looks through the cabin’s back window. ‘This is no good,’ he says. ‘You’re a TV crew, you want a picture of the milk cart with the arts centre in the background. You can hardly see it parked over here.’

  People are starting to gather around the milk cart, looking in on the coffin. One lady leans in and touches it, like she’s trying to see if it’s real. Trevor opens his window, ‘Hey! Be careful, I have to turn around.’ He sits down and puts the tractor in gear. ‘Belt up, don’t want you falling over,’ he says, and Jenny and I reach around for seat belts.

  Really slow and careful he turns the tractor left to where the police have dropped the security bollards so that they can get their cars in, and he drives up over the footpath and it feels like we might tip, even though the gutter there is only about ten centimetres, but then we’re up and past the parked police cars and the milk cart is bumping over the footpath too, and people are waving hats and flags and cheering as Trevor takes the milk cart and Dad’s coffin all the way to the bottom of the steps leading up to the Square. A couple of police look like they think they should stop him, or do something, but in the end they stand scratching their heads or they put their hands on their hips and just watch.

  When he gets to the bottom of the steps Trevor stops the tractor and shuts down the engine. ‘End of the line!’ he calls out happily. ‘Mission accomplished.’ And he holds out his hand for a big high five so we land him a couple and jump out to look for Mum.

  Which isn’t easy, I tell you. We see a bunch of people getting out of cars. They’re pulling flags and banners out of the boots and taking selfies. More are coming down from the Koorie Heritage Trust building. Aunty Ell sees us and comes over. ‘Well, here’s double trouble,’ she says. ‘Hey, you. Where’s your mum?’ She looks around.

  ‘We thought maybe she was with you,’ Jenny says.

  ‘No, hon, haven’t seen her, I been too busy saying hi to people,’ she says. ‘Not a bad turnout, eh?’

  ‘All these people knew Dad?’ I ask.

  Aunty Ell smiles. ‘Bless you, bub, no. These people are here for what your dad represents.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Fighting spirit. Someone has to fight for the people who have no voice.’ She looks north to where the Parliament is. ‘No one over there’s going to do it.’

  ‘You want to get something to eat?’ Darren asks. ‘There’s a 7-Eleven here somewhere.’

  ‘Yeah, I . . . No, we have to find Mum,’ I say.

  ‘OK, later, eh?’

  ‘Later,’ Jenny says.

  We take a few steps and I grab Jenny’s arm. ‘You want to split up? I’ll go up and down the convoy, you go to the top of the steps and see if you can see her from there. I’ll meet you back here in ten.’

  She looks at me like I suddenly grew a brain. ‘That might actually work. OK. Race you!’ And she dives into the crowd. I see people starting to put white crosses on the ground, leaning them against the steps.

  I have this idea Mum would be talking to the police, or other grown-ups we know, but I run all the way down the convoy and around the corner and I see Mr Alberti and Mrs Garrett but they haven’t seen Mum. I’m starting to worry by the time I get to the back of the convoy where the crowd thins out.

  Maybe she really has been arrested this time. I wonder if it’s because Trevor drove the milk cart right in front of the Square. I wonder if maybe she’s in the Parliament, talking to some politicians – there was some talk maybe she’d have a meeting with the governor even. I run all the way back to the milk cart and am still standing there looking around when Jenny runs up. I can see straight away she hasn’t found her either.

  ‘We have to try again,’ she says, panting.

  ‘No, wait,’ I say, getting my breath. ‘I know where she is.’

  ‘So, let’s go,’ she says.

  ‘No, I mean, I didn’t see her, but I bet I know where she is . . .’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘She’s with Dad’ I say.

  ‘At the milk cart?’ she asks, frowning. ‘No, I went by there. There was just –’

  ‘No, idiot. With Dad,’ I say. ‘If he’s still alive, then he’ll be here in town somewhere. He’d have to be!’

  ‘Here?’ she asks. She looks at me like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about and then she catches up. ‘No, Jack, that . . . would be crazy. He’d be arrested in a heartbeat.’

  ‘Maybe. But close, right? He’d want to see this!’

  She puts her hands to her ears. ‘Shut up! Just stop, all right?’

  ‘Hey hey,’ says this voice and I turn around and there’s Mum. Just Mum. ‘You two, arguing all the time. I thought twins were supposed to –’

  ‘Mum!’ I yell. ‘I thought you’d been . . .’

  ‘Now now,’ she says. ‘Don’t get het up just because of all this hullabaloo.’ She pulls me and Jenny closer. ‘The police want us to get this done quickly, before things get out of hand.’ She looks around at people laying crosses on the steps, Aunty Ell’s mob carrying didges and a bunch of what Mr Garrett would call ferals banging on some bongos. ‘Not that they aren’t already.’

  We go down by the milk cart and when people see Mum they start forming a circle, expecting something. Aunty Ell is there too, and the bank man from Yardley, Gary, he’s up on the milk cart next to the coffin, setting up a big speaker and a microphone. Someone hands up a power cord and he plugs it in and then gives Mum a signal. He must have driven up today.

  Coach Don is there and Mr Alberti and Mrs Alberti and Mr Garrett and Mrs Garrett and Mr and Mrs Turnbolt who must have come up from Yardley for the day because I didn’t see them in the procession after the first day, and the Maynards and all their kids and Aunty Ell with Darren. Plus there’s about three camera crews there and maybe ten reporters with microphones which they start handing up to the bank man on the milk cart too, so he can fix them with tape to the microphone stand. Geraldine is just one of the mob now, but she’s standing with Karsi and she gives me a big smile and a wink and I give her a little wave back.

  Jen starts on one side counting the crowd and I start on the other. There’s too many people so I count them in clumps of ten. I decide there’s three thousand two hundred and fifty and she says five. And it’s all types. There’s country people, you can see them a mile off, but there’s also city people in suits and skirts and a mum with a whole soccer team of kids and some political party handing out pamphlets, and cops, but not as many as you’d think, and at the edges a lot of people who were just walking past and have stopped to see what’s going on.

  ‘I never thought it would be like this,’ Jenny says, holding my arm. ‘When we left home I really never thought anyone would care. It just felt stupid back then, but now it’s . . .’

  ‘I know,’ I tell her. ‘Me either.’

  ‘Time, Dawn,’ Coach Don says. Someone has pulled some hay bales off the back of the milk cart so Mum can use them like steps, and she gives Coach Don’s hand a squeeze and takes a big deep breath and she steps up onto the milk cart and has to steady herself on Dad’s coffin, but then she turns around and faces the microphones and people go quiet.

  Mum looks around at all the faces. ‘I can’t . . .’ she starts, and then she chokes up a bit, but she takes another breath. ‘I can’t thank you all enough for coming out here and showing you care. I know most of you didn’t know Tom, don’t know who he was . . . and we have to keep this short. Tom’s mother was from the Widjabul people of the Bundjalung nation up by Lismore. Some of her people are here today and they wanted to make a musical tribute.’ She looks down
at Aunty Ell and gives her a big smile and looks down at a little piece of paper she has in her hand, ‘And these are the boys from the Wathaurong Boys’ Didge Group. When you’re ready, Aunty.’

  People back away a bit to give the didge players some room. There are seven of them, boys and men, and behind them stand seven girls. The men and boys start with a low hum on their instruments and then one of them bends his head and starts playing a higher tone. After a few seconds the others join in, and the sound gives me goosebumps. The girls have clapsticks and play in time to the rise and fall of the didgeridoos. Then the girls take the beat alone and hold it before the boys join back in and it’s like the buildings around us are leaning in, like the whole city is listening. Then the group leader gives his didge five or six big growls and the others follow and it’s done.

  People clap and the didge players stand up with the girls and smile shy smiles and then they pick up their stools and their instruments and they walk out to the back of the crowd.

  Mum wipes some tears from her cheeks. ‘Well, that was beautiful, thank you. I know Tom loved that music and I’m sure wherever he is, he’s smiling right now.’ She takes the paper up again and looks at it. ‘Like I was saying, I know most of you here never knew Tom and you came here for a lot of different reasons. You came to support the farmers who are breaking under the weight of drought and debt,’ there are cheers from a lot of people in the crowd, ‘or you’re here because you’re buckling under the weight of your mortgage or you have no job and the bank is breathing down your neck and you think there’s no one in the world who cares . . .’ More cheers, this time from people who look like city people. ‘Or you’re here because you’re worried about the planet, about how the climate is changing around you and the government in its big fancy house down there is doing nothing about it.’ Now there are boos, and I see Ben and Deb standing over the other side of the crowd, fists in the air with a group of people who look thin and serious like Ben, and some farmers too.