Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘No, it hasn’t!’ I shot back.

  ‘Beg yours?’

  ‘Redwood in California, we learned about it in class, they’re the tallest trees in the world.’

  ‘You’re right and then again you’re wrong,’ Tommy said, his voice still even. ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘Californian Redwood is the tallest tree in the world, but it’s a softwood.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, looking at Tommy to make sure he wasn’t making it up.

  ‘Redwood, Sequoia sempervirens, grows to three hundred and thirty feet.’

  ‘Shit, hey?’ I was dumbstruck, Tommy knew a Latin name for a tree twice. It was all I could think to say.

  Tommy laughed, ‘Wouldn’t be too impressed if I were you, mate. I got it from this woodwork book in the carpentry shop up on the hill.’

  He’d returned to sit on the rock and commenced to dig again. I could see the sand was starting to come up wet. I wasn’t completely ignorant, I knew you could dig for water, but the sand on top was dry as a powder keg and looked anything but promising. ‘Should get a drink out of this soon enough,’ Tommy said, without looking up.

  For want of something to say, I said, ‘How tall can our trees grow, the hardwood?’

  ‘Three hundred feet, just a few feet short of them giant redwoods, there’s a tree in Tasmania that’s even a bit taller. It’s that old, Captain Cook would have seen it sticking out of the forest canopy when he sailed by.’

  ‘Captain Cook never sailed by Tasmania.’ Crocodile Brown was suddenly coming in very useful for once in his life.

  ‘Yes, he bloody did, he bloody discovered Australia,’ Tommy said, certain he was right. ‘But he never saw Tasmania.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Didn’t cross Bass Strait. Abel Tasman was the first to see Tasmania. He was a Dutch sea captain. He could’ve seen that tree, he sailed past Tasmania even before Captain Cook discovered Australia and he named it after the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, Van Diemen.

  He even named Australia first up, called it New Holland.’

  The certainty in my voice made Tommy hesitate. ‘This Demon bloke, he do something wrong, how come it’s now Tasmania?’

  ‘Nah, we called it that later, it was called Van Diemen’s Land first up.’

  ‘So why didn’t the Dutch claim Australia, when they called it New Holland, you know, for themselves. Stands to reason they would, wouldn’t they?’ ‘Dunno, they didn’t want it I suppose. They were looking for something else and weren’t all that interested.’ I was impressed by my own erudition.

  ‘You’re a pretty smart young fella, ain’t ya?’ Tommy said.

  ‘Maybe you could learn something about eucalyptus trees, heh?’

  ‘It’s a native of Australia,’ I said, getting carried away again.

  ‘Yeah, and what else?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, f’instance, how many varieties are there?’ He had me, I should’ve known I’d come a cropper sooner or later, I’d probably been having a snooze when we were told that in class. I took a stab at it, ‘One hundred and ten,’ I guessed.

  ‘Not even close, mate!’ It was his turn to be smug.

  ‘How many then?’

  ‘Just over six hundred! That’s how many.’

  ‘Know them all, do you?’ It was an attempt to regain my former position as the authority on Australian history.

  Tommy chuckled, ‘No way! Lucky if I know seventy, just the varieties around here and Mount Buffalo, maybe some like Snow Gum and Buffalo Sallee up high on the Snowy Mountains.’

  ‘That’s a lot,’ I said, deciding to come off my high horse. History wasn’t my best subject anyway. Besides, Tommy could have said, yes he knew the lot and I’d never have known any better. I mean, I was aware there was more than one kind of gum tree, you could see that just by looking, but seventy was a whole heap. I found that, despite myself, I was becoming interested. Even if I only learned about twenty names from Tommy, with a couple of them Latin ones thrown in, Crocodile Brown might have to take me seriously for a change.

  ‘Have you ever seen a really big one?’ I think he could tell from my voice that I wasn’t as snotty as before.

  ‘There’s a big old man Alpine Ash, Eucalyptus delegatensis, in a deep ravine I know about. Not many people know of its existence.’

  ‘Where’s that? Can we go and see it?’ Tommy laughed, ‘That’s your prize if you pass.’ ‘Saturdays and after Christmas?’

  ‘No, if you learn something in the process. I doubt there’s five people in the world know of its existence. Maybe just me. Trunk is more than ten feet across and damn near two or three hundred feet tall, been there at least three hundred and fifty years, maybe more.’

  He waited for my response. ‘And you’ll show it to me, take me there if I learn stuff?’ He must have heard it in my voice, I was suddenly dead keen.

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘Play your cards right, it could just happen.’

  ‘Did you find it yourself? Discover it, like?’

  ‘Nah, Mr Baloney showed it to me when I was about your age, and his father told him before that. It’s been known to our family probably eighty years.’

  I was impressed. I was maybe going to learn a secret nobody knew except a Maloney. ‘You sure it’s only you knows about the tree?’ I asked.

  ‘Can’t be sure about nothing in this world, mate. Pretty certain there’s not too many who know about the Alpine Ash, bloody hard to get to that ravine, wouldn’t know it was there unless you flew over it or stumbled upon it by mistake. It’s hard-yakka country, everywhere else the timber-getters have long since cut down the big ones. Be another six generations before we see anything like it again in this region.’He leaned back, ‘There you go then.’ He pointed to the hole in the sand which had now filled with fresh, clear water, ‘Take a drink, never know where the next one’s coming from, eh? Time for a gasper and then we’re off, plenty to do before sunset.’ It was the longest statement I’d ever heard Tommy make.

  He took out the makings and rolled a cigarette. Licking the glue edge of the fag paper, he handed it to me. ‘No thanks, not now,’ I said, trying to sound casual, like as if I smoked but didn’t feel like one at the moment. ‘You don’t use ’em then?’ he asked. ‘I did at your age.’ No use lying. ‘Nah, tried it, didn’t like it much.’ ‘Good thing,’ he said. ‘Wait until you’re a bit older, hey.’ He lit his fag which was rolled thin as a lemonade straw, you can tell if a bloke’s been in prison by the way he rolls his cigarettes. Tobacco’s precious inside so a fag is rolled as thin as possible so the makings will last longer. Tommy inhaled deeply then exhaled and pointed at the water with his cigarette. ‘Go for your life, Mole.’

  I got up from where I was seated and went down on my knees and scooped water into my mouth. It tasted clean and fresh like a precious gift we’d discovered and, like the secret old man Alpine Ash, something that nobody else but us Maloneys had found.

  I forget much of what happened that day. Tommy was over-anxious and rambled on much too fast, firing information at me until I was bleary-eyed and weak-brained. Firebreaks and the nature of undergrowth, bark varieties and their potential for combustion, the names of trees, wind directions, curvature of a hill and how it affects fire, you’d have had to be a genius to remember it all. Tommy, not accustomed to teaching anybody let alone a kid of twelve, was firing with both barrels and he’d blown my mind to little bits long before the day ended.

  We got home about seven o’clock, an hour after Sarah normally gave us our tea. I hadn’t eaten anything all day except a few blackberries as I had flat refused to eat the fat white grubs Tommy’d found under the bark of a dead eucalyptus tree. I think its name was Mountain Swamp Gum, but I can’t be sure, I was that tired.

  To my joy and with me starving to death, Sarah had waited for us to
return. ‘It’s your birthday, couldn’t start without you, could we?’ Then, when nobody was taking notice, she drew me aside. ‘You won’t tell anyone about this morning, will you, Mole?’

  I’d had so much happen to me since then I’d forgotten about her being sick that morning. Besides, Maloneys never snitched on each other. ‘No, of course not,’ I replied.

  ‘Good,’ she said, ‘it must have been the fish.’ I was with her on that one, the fish with white sauce was worse than offal.

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘That’s a dumb rule God came up with for Fridays.’

  ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘We’ve got a special treat for your birthday.’

  ‘I haven’t eaten all day except for some blackberries,’ I said, feeling sorry for myself.’

  ‘Great, then you’ll have a good appetite. How was your day with Tommy?’

  ‘Shithouse!’ It came out, just the one word, like an explosion.

  I was not yet ready to admit that there’d been some stuff that I’d quite liked. Anyway, it was true, mostly I hated it and hadn’t really warmed much to Tommy neither. There was too much he’d done to us for him to win me over just by naming a few trees in Latin and pretending everything was all right. It bloody wasn’t and I knew sooner or later, sooner probably, he’d go off half-cocked again or go on a bender. Leopards don’t change their spots.

  ‘Talk to Nancy,’ Sarah said, ‘tell her.’

  ‘Wha’ for? It was her betrayed me.’

  ‘It’s important knowing about fires,’ Sarah offered.

  ‘Like, it’s our family tradition.’

  ‘Yeah, why pick on me? Why not Bozo or Mike? All that fire stuff, it’s all bullshit!’

  She smiled and tilted her head, ‘Poor Mole, you’re tired.’

  ‘Yeah, sick and tired of this whole bloody family pickin’ on me.’

  ‘Afraid it’s the only one we’ve got. We’ve got to stick together through thick and thin, Mole.’

  ‘So I’m the poor bastard that has to go out with the thin bloke. It’s not bloody fair!’

  Sarah laughed. ‘Thick and thin, big and small, Nancy and Tommy! Hey, that’s very funny, Mole.’

  ‘Yeah, hysterical,’ I grunted. But I secretly thought it was quite clever myself. I mean, considering how buggered I was.

  Just then Nancy came into the kitchen and said she’d make the gravy and for me to go wash my hands and face, that I looked like a ragamuffin. She didn’t even ask about my day. Bloody traitor.

  We had steak that night, Nancy must have got it at the abattoir yesterday. A huge juicy steak and roast potatoes and gravy and pumpkin and peas and orange cordial. I didn’t have to eat the pumpkin.

  When we’d all finished, there was stewed fruit and custard for sweets. Sarah said to wait on. As soon as she returned from the kitchen she shouted, ‘Close your eyes, Mole!’ Then, moments later, ‘Okay, you can open them.’ There in front of me was a cake with twelve lighted can dles round the rim. It was made with this pink icing and, across the middle in blue icing in running writing, was ‘Mole Maloney 12’.

  ‘Blow! Make a wish!’ everyone shouted at once and then when I’d blown all the candles out in one go, they sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’! We’d done the same for little Colleen on her birthday, but never for us other kids. But I have to admit, it was very nice.

  The wish I made when I blew out the candles should have been to be released from my Tommy sentence, but I must have been brain-damaged from all the stuff he’d been going on about all day and, instead, I wished I’d soon be shown the big old-man Alpine Ash. Only I wished it was somebody else showed me, like my grandpa come to life again, not Tommy.

  Then Nancy cut the cake and we were all having a slice when Tommy, with this mouth full of cake, says to Sarah, ‘How you feeling, girl?’

  It was completely unexpected, like. Usually him and Sarah didn’t say much to each other.

  ‘Fine,’ Sarah replied, surprised. She must have forgotten that Tommy was with me in the kitchen that morning.

  ‘You seemed pretty crook this morning, vomiting in the sink.’ Normally Tommy didn’t give a bugger about us family. Besides, he’d done a fair bit of vomiting in his time and probably wouldn’t have taken it seriously anyway. Maybe what had happened between him and me during the day had given him some encouragement and he was, like, you know, practising fatherhood or something?

  Sarah went a beetroot-red colour, she could blush like a sunset. ‘I’m better now,’ she said in a small, tight voice.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you were sick?’ Nancy said suspiciously.

  ‘It was nothing,’ Sarah said, ‘I think it was the fish last night.’

  ‘Fish? It was smoked haddock. Nobody else was sick.’ She looked around the table, ‘Anyone else sick?’ she asked.

  We knew something was coming and none of us said anything. Tommy coughed twice. Even little Colleen sensed something was up and stopped chewing cake. ‘Vomiting, were you? First thing in the morning?’ She seemed to be thinking for a moment, ‘Hmm, I see.’ Nancy’s lips were pulled tight, ‘You’re not pregnant are you, Sarah?’

  Sarah began to sob. She sat with both her hands in her lap and her head bowed and sobbed.

  Mike and Bozo and me stayed silent, Tommy too. You could hear Sarah breathing, taking in great gulps of air. There was nothing we could do for her, us kids who had to stick together through thick and thin were helpless when we were needed. Then Mike sort of cleared his throat and said, ‘Yeah, me too. I was a bit nauseous this morning.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ Nancy snapped.

  And then there was just Sarah sobbing.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  With Sarah pregnant, things were not the same with us. Sarah still carried on, but she wasn’t her old self. In so many ways she ran things around the place that Nancy couldn’t have taken over if she’d wanted to, but you could see Sarah didn’t have her heart in it.

  Nancy still wore the pants, of course, but Sarah ran our lives and made us feel worthwhile. Now she was up the duff and none of us felt good any longer. There’d always been laughter around the place and now there wasn’t. Nancy took to adding another bottle of milk stout to her morning ritual which didn’t do her temper any good and she picked on Sarah all the time until she got her crying. It was the worst thing that could happen to a Maloney and especially to Sarah, who’d always had a lot of pride. ‘Dignity,’ Mike called it. ‘Sarah has dignity.’ Mike said that Nancy’s smocking was ratshit and he and Sarah had to do it all over again when she wasn’t looking.

  Then there was the fear grabbing hold of all of us. The dread of what people were going to say, the deep-down fear of the Protestants. ‘Bloody Catholics, what do you expect? Those Maloneys, always been the lowest of the low.’ When a convent girl got pregnant they’d usually say things like ‘They’re like a dog off a chain once they leave the convent, they’ll go with any Tom, Dick or Harry.’

  That was one good thing, at least they couldn’t say that about Sarah, who never went to the convent in the first place. Other things you’d hear people say were, ‘That girl’s nothing but a harlot, those slacks are so tight around her backside you’d have to peel them off with a paint scraper, she wants locking up before she gets knocked up.’ But that wasn’t Sarah neither. Sarah was the vice-prefect, dux of the school, and polite to everyone she met. People liked Sarah right off, you could see it in their eyes.

  Our eldest sister did everything for us, she even cut our hair and she never had time to hang out at the Greek’s, the Parthenon cafe, to meet boys, like some of the other girls did. It doesn’t matter much what Sarah wasn’t. They’d soon enough forget all that, there’s nothing like present trouble to wipe out past glory.

  Mike said, ‘Take a look at us, will ya? We’ve got Tommy, we’re the garbage collectors and we’re Micks
to boot, we don’t have a snowball’s hope in hell!’ Then he turned to Bozo and me, his teeth clenched and eyes closed tight, ‘One day I’m going to come back to this bloody shit-heap of a town and show them they were wrong about us!’

  It just wasn’t fair! Sarah was the one who always made sure we were proud of ourselves and now this had happened to her. We were lucky that she’d finished her exams so she really didn’t have to go back to school if she didn’t want to. Although, as vice-prefect, she still had things to do, like go through the routine with next year’s head prefect and give a short speech at the final-year assembly. But that was something Murray Templeton, the head prefect, would have to do alone this year.

  After three days the headmaster called Mike into his office and asked him if there was anything wrong with Sarah, she was supposed to come in and see him earlier in the week. Mike said she wasn’t well. ‘What’s the matter with her?’ Frank Morris asked, ‘She hasn’t taken a day off from school in three years.’ Mike said he didn’t know exactly, a cold or something, better call Nancy.

  Nancy told him Sarah was worn out from the exams and needed a rest. He didn’t seem too pleased with this answer and said, ‘We’ve all been under a strain, Mrs Maloney. The school expects its vice-prefect to see out the year.’ Nancy stayed firm, knowing he couldn’t make Sarah come in now she’d done her exams. Later she called him a ‘pompous old bugger!’and added that she couldn’t care less what Frank Morris thought, Sarah wasn’t going back to that place. ‘Next thing the teachers will be saying she’s looking a bit puffy round the ankles and then won’t the tongues start wagging.’

  It was only a matter of time, though. Nancy knew it, we all knew it, you couldn’t keep anything secret for long in Yankalillee. The town’s stickybeaks could sniff trouble a mile off and they’d soon be landing like crows on a dead cow. Hmm, what have we got here? And, soon enough, another reputation bites the dust.