Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Mike done it!’ I blurt out, not thinking, because I’ve just been thinking about Mike not getting any glory. It just come out. A silent thought that’s come out said out loud when you didn’t want it to. Shit! Shit! SHIT!

  Mike has blushed. He’s going to bloody kill me. Nancy will slaughter me when she hears! I’m scared to look at my brother, knowing how I’ve just gone and humiliated him.

  ‘Well, I never! Why, that’s simply marvellous, Michael, you did that exquisite embroidery? How wonderfully talented you are.’

  Mike looks down at his shoes and I can see he doesn’t know what to say. They are the words he’s always wanted to hear but knew he couldn’t ever and now she’s said them.

  ‘It’s a secret. You mustn’t tell anyone,’ I quickly say to Mrs Barrington-Stone. ‘He’s a boy, see!’ It’s much too late an attempt to make up to Mike for what I’ve said and he gives me a look that’s not real hopeful for my future welfare.

  ‘You are a talented boy, Michael,’ Mrs Barrington-Stone exclaims. ‘Of course, I read about your mother and sister winning at the Royal Melbourne Show. I was very excited for them and said so at the Country Women’s Association regional conference in Shepparton in November. I told them it was good for Yankalillee and good for country people to know that we still have some of the British Empire’s great craftswomen living in the Australian bush. And now the sorcerer’s apprentice has become the master himself!’

  The truth is, that Mrs Barrington-Stone is so nice and doesn’t seem to care a bit about Mike being a boy who does embroidery and soon there’s talk tumbling out of us like we’ve been friends for years. She fetches the christening robe and Mike explains the various bits to her and, without thinking, says, ‘I’ve used all twelve wicked witches’britches stitches on it.’

  ‘Wicked witches’ britches stitches?’ she claps her hands together and throws her head back and laughs. ‘How jolly, but you’ll have to explain.’

  Mike explains that there’s twelve major stitches in embroidery and that’s what we call them. ‘That’s lovely, but why?’ she asks again.

  ‘So we can remember them all. It’s an old rhyme we do,’

  I say.

  ‘A rhyme, will you say it for me?’ she asks.

  So I do. Going real fast, which is showing off, but that’s truly how you’re supposed to do it.

  ‘Wicked witches wear pretty britches

  Made from silk with fancy stitches

  Bullion, back stitch, crafty fishbone

  Scattered from the knee to hipbone

  With knots colonial all tight tied

  Enough to send you glassy-eyed

  Back stitch, hem stitch, lazy daisy

  Stitches meant to send you crazy

  Stem stitch, straight, fluffy feather

  All those stitches worked together.

  Cretan, pistil, chain for hitches

  Stitches for wicked witches’ britches.’

  ‘Well done, Mole,’ she says and claps her hands. ‘If my very life depended on it I couldn’t recite that. My, what fun. You really are a very clever family.’

  ‘Only Sarah is and Mike with embroidery,’ I say, which is the dead-set truth, because Tommy ain’t except for eucalyptus trees and the bush and Nancy ain’t ’cept for smocking and Bozo and me sure ain’t going to turn out to be brainy by some fluke of nature.

  Mrs Barrington-Stone appears to be thinking for a moment. Then she says, looking serious, ‘Am I right in supposing that Sarah and Dora Templeton’s boy had a contretemps? And that he’s been sent to Duntroon to get away from the mess?’

  She says ‘mess’ instead of ‘scandal’ and she doesn’t mention the word ‘pregnant’ but you know she knows Sarah is up the duff. Now everyone knows from the bottom to the very top of Yankalillee and there’s not much use denying it. There is silence between Mike and me, because we don’t know what to say to her.

  Mrs Barrington-Stone sighs deeply, ‘Well, it isn’t the first time, and I dare say it won’t be the last, where a more fortunate family has left a young lady in the lurch who comes from a family that is not in a position to fight back.’ Then she asks straight out, ‘What will Sarah do? You’re Catholics, aren’t you? I believe there’s no question of a marriage with the Templeton boy. It’s all so silly, but Dora Templeton wears being an Anglican like a badge of privilege. You see, her great-grandfather’s brother was the Archdeacon of Salisbury Cathedral and she really is a terrible bigot and an awful snob. You’d think he’d been the Archbishop of Canterbury the way she carries on about it!’

  ‘Father Crosby says we’ve go to put it up for adoption. Sarah’s got to go to the nuns’ hospital in Melbourne to have it and when it’s born she can hold it once and then they give it away to somebody she’ll never know. But Sarah won’t do it,’ I say.

  Mike gives me a dirty look, as if to tell me to shut my trap, that already I’ve said much too much and that Mrs Barrington-Stone may be nice and friendly but she’s still a Protestant. But I don’t seem to be able to help myself, she’s better than Sarah or Nancy at getting things out of you and I don’t seem to be able to resist her questions. What’s more, just telling stuff to someone who isn’t a Maloney seems to take a big weight off my mind, like it did that first time when we went to see Mrs Rika Ray.

  ‘A strong gal, who knows her own mind, good for her,’ Mrs Barrington-Stone now says.

  ‘My sister wanted to be a doctor, now she can’t,’ Mike says, hoping to change the subject away from the bloody Templetons and the Protestants.

  ‘A doctor? She’s going to do Medicine?’

  ‘Was,’ Mike corrects. Which isn’t strictly true, because she hasn’t been accepted, the letter hasn’t arrived yet.

  ‘A clever girl, is she?’ Mrs Barrington-Stone asks, looking straight at Mike.

  ‘She’s dux of the school and got a ninety per cent average in all subjects in her matric trials,’ Mike boasts on behalf of our sister. ‘She also has a Commonwealth Scholarship to go to the university.’ But then he adds, telling the exact truth, ‘but we haven’t yet heard if she can get into Medicine.’ He looks at Mrs Barrington-Stone, ‘Doesn’t matter much now either way, because she’s not going to give her child up to the nuns.’ Mike shakes his head, ‘No way she’ll do that!’

  I don’t know why he’s gone crook on me, giving me a filthy look and all. Mike’s spilling the beans about Sarah wanting to be a doctor. I must say I’m surprised at him and me. Maloneys don’t talk much about things to anyone outside the family. Leastways Mike, who’s a real zip-lip. We may have once been Irish, but it’s not our way to tell our troubles to strangers. It’s true, we’ll whinge and argue among ourselves, but we’ll always keep our traps shut with others present. Morrie says it’s family keeping stumm and if you’re a Jew it’s something you learn to do very early in life.

  Now, all of a sudden, Mike and me are talking our heads off to someone we wouldn’t know from a bar of soap and who’s also a Protestant. What’s more, we’re telling her all our troubles. It’s like we’re old friends and Mrs Barrington-Stone is like if Morrie and Sophie have just dropped in for tea and Morrie is telling us what the staff get up to in the loony bin on the hill, pinching the happy pills for themselves and being pretty heavy-handed to the inmates. But what can you do? Mrs Barrington-Stone hasn’t put a single air and grace on in front of us since we arrived and it seems perfectly natural for us to be chatting away to her.

  ‘It’s such a waste, such a tragic waste!’ she sighs. ‘But I don’t suppose it’s practical for Sarah to nurse and care for a new baby while she’s attending lectures and studying at the university. Medicine is a very demanding discipline, even for a man.’

  ‘Oh, that won’t happen,’ Mike says, ‘Sophie Suckfizzle is going to get the baby, she’ll look after it, share it with Sarah, be its other mum.’

  ‘Sophie S–?’


  ‘Suckfizzle,’ I repeat, because when you say it the first time people are never sure they’ve heard it correctly just like we warned Morrie would happen.

  So the next thing is we’re telling Mrs Barrington-Stone all about Morrie and Sophie and how the original plans were for Sarah to live with them in Melbourne and for her and Morrie to study together while Sophie looked after the baby. And how now that’s not going to happen, because Sarah will be seven months pregnant when her university course starts. How Sophie desperately wants Sarah’s baby but now Sarah doesn’t know how she’ll feel without her baby and having to stay home in Yankalillee.

  ‘Can’t she wait a year, then go to university? Nurse the baby?’ Mrs Barrington-Stone asks. ‘I mean, now that she has someone, this Sophie Suckfizzle, who will care for her child, and in a year the child will be weaned and much easier to manage.’

  Mrs Barrington-Stone appears to be thinking for some time before she looks up. ‘Well, there’s no point in jumping the gun, is there? If Sarah is accepted in Medicine, I’d like to know immediately.’ Suddenly her voice is all business. ‘If the university won’t accept a brilliant young gal because she’s seven months pregnant then there is something terribly wrong with the system. After all, the Templeton lad, whom I’ve always thought a rather dull boy, wasn’t rejected by Duntroon because he made your sister pregnant, was he? It’s iniquitous, but then he’s a man, isn’t he? It’s high time women made a stand. I’m national president of the Country Women’s Association and state president of the Anglican Women’s Guild, and, I dare say, James and I know one or two people connected to the university as well, and Claudina’s husband is from an old legal family. The Bush, the Church, the upper end of Collins Street and the Law should make a fairly formidable combination and I shouldn’t be surprised if we were able to bring some influence to bear on the stuffiest academic committee or board or whatever. If we can’t pull a few strings for Sarah then I don’t deserve to be in the CWA job!’

  Mike and me are a bit stunned by all of this. I mean, we’re the Maloneys, the town’s garbage collectors, and the Barrington-Stones are practically royalty.

  ‘Come on then, you two, finish the biscuits and I’ll drive you home. Can’t be having you walking all that way back, now can we?’

  We tell her it’s okay and we don’t mind walking, but she insists. ‘It’s getting late and, besides, I’d like to meet the brave young gal in question and say hello again to her mother. We women have to stick together, you men have had things your own way for far too long.’

  She can see from my face that I’m not too sure about her coming home with us. Nancy and Sarah will know we’ve been gossiping. I glance over at Mike and I can tell he’s thinking the same. They’ll think we’ve brought an outsider into our personal Maloney business and, if she’s anything like Mrs Rika Ray, it can only lead to a lot of trouble we don’t need right now. Then it will be Mike’s and my fault, with Mole the guilty party both times.

  Mrs Barrington-Stone smiles, ‘Besides I have to pay Nancy for your marvellous work, Michael. Don’t worry, boys, I won’t dob you in.’ ‘Dob’ is not her kind of word, but she’s used it exactly right, because she’s read our thoughts. If she and Sarah ever get together, I can tell you now, I’d hate to go up against them two for a start!

  CHAPTER NINE

  I mentioned that Bozo may be going to the Olympic boxing trials, but Bobby Devlin, the ex-boxer who is allowed out of the prison to coach the young blokes in the Yankalillee Police Boys Boxing Club run by Big Jack Donovan, got it wrong as usual. Big Jack said the Amateur Boxing Union stipulated that any boxer allowed to attend the Olympic trials must be seventeen years of age so Bozo will have to wait for the Olympics after the one in Melbourne. I don’t know how Bobby Devlin could think a boy of fourteen could box in the Games. Nancy says it goes to show what boxing does to a person’s brains.

  Bozo isn’t too disappointed, he knows he’s young but could be right for the next Olympics. Mike points out that he’ll get a trip to Italy, where the next Games is being held. ‘Bloody sight better than a trip to Melbourne,’ he points out, ‘you’ll be going to Ancient Rome.’

  There’s just one thing worrying Bozo; he’s the only really class boxer among the Yankalillee bunch and he is too good for any of his under-seventeen opponents in the featherweight division. So how is he going to get the kind of experienced coaching he’s going to need if he’s to try out for the Olympics after this one?

  It’s not that he thinks he’s a certainty for the Olympics in Rome, Bozo isn’t like that, it’s just that Bobby Devlin can’t teach him any more and Big Jack is no boxing coach. Bozo is smart enough to know he’s got heaps to learn about the boxing game.

  So it’s terrific news when the boxing instructor of the Russell Street police gymnasium in Melbourne calls Big Jack and tells him that they’re having a weekend of boxing in Melbourne to check out the Olympic training facilities. It seems the Russell Street police gymnasium is one of the five training venues to be used for the Olympic Games and it will be the first time Bozo will experience professional facilities and a bigtime atmosphere.

  The idea is for the Victorian boxers who may be invited to the trials to be examined over this special weekend by experts under the direction of the Victorian branch of the Amateur Boxing Union of Australia. Sort of like an Olympic trial before the actual trials to sort out the good local boxers. The police sergeant in charge asks Jack if he has any youngsters whom he’d like to attend.

  Big Jack tells him about Bozo but admits he’s only fourteen but has beaten everyone he’s met that’s older than him, even sixteen-year-olds. The police sergeant is an old mate of Big Jack’s and says Bozo should come along anyway and spar, that if he’s that good the experts will probably want to take a look at him for the future. As it’s not the official trials or anything, Big Jack thinks it will be ideal for Bozo.

  The thing is, though he isn’t that big, Bozo’s pretty strong for his age. Picking up and emptying garbage bins has given him a set of shoulders and arms and strong legs most seventeen-year-olds would envy. Also, Bozo’s got a pretty mature head on his shoulders. You’d think, talking to him, he was at least sixteen. Anyway, Big Jack gets this official invitation in a letter and he happens to see Tommy in the street the same morning so he tells him the news and gives him the letter to bring home.

  Tommy can barely contain his excitement as he rushes home to break the good news, glad for once to be the bringer of happy tidings. ‘Good on ya, Bozo, proud of you, son,’ he says, slapping Bozo on the back. I think Tommy thinks that because it’s like connected to the Olympic trials Bozo has practically been selected. For once he feels like a proper dad and what’s more he’s sober when he breaks the news to Bozo. Tommy’s fallen off the wagon a few times but he’s joined AA, which stands for Alcoholics Anonymous, and he’s come along a treat considering it’s him.

  Bozo hasn’t got the same confidence in Tommy as I’ve got since going bush with him. He warns him that he doesn’t know how Nancy will cop the news.

  ‘Leave it to me, son,’ Tommy winks. ‘She’ll be right, mate.’ He puts his hand on Bozo’s shoulder. ‘Let me have a quiet word to your mother.’

  Nancy is ropeable when he tells her. ‘No way! Bozo’s too young, he’s only just fourteen,’ she reminds him, because he probably doesn’t know how old any of us are.

  ‘Yeah, well that’s his age, but he’s sensible, he’s more than that in his head,’ Tommy protests.

  ‘Until someone knocks his brains out!’ Nancy shouts.

  ‘What would you know about sensible! The boy is too young and that’s all there is to it.’ Bozo comes out of the kitchen as they’re talking and Nancy calls out, ‘Bozo, you hear me now, you’re not bloody going!’

  ‘Jesus! I’m the boy’s father, don’t I have a say in this?’ Tommy yells.

  ‘No, you bloody don’t! What have you done to deserve a say
? Go on, tell me! What have you ever done that gives you the right to be a parent?’

  ‘Well, he’s my bloody son, my flesh and blood!’ In his anger at Nancy’s outburst, Tommy becomes a bit confused on this issue of parentage.

  ‘No, he bloody ain’t! That’s another reason why your opinion isn’t asked for.’

  ‘I bought him them gloves for Christmas,’ Tommy protests, trying to recover from this mistake.

  ‘And nobody’s asked you where you got the money for them and the rest of your Father Christmas act, have they? Dare say it wouldn’t take a lot of cross-examination to find out. You stay out of Bozo’s life, Tommy Maloney, and just for the record, let me remind you again, he is my son and I decide what happens to him!’ Even for Nancy this is pretty rough and Tommy is practically pole-axed with humiliation.

  Bozo is also pretty upset by her decision and it doesn’t help when Sarah agrees with Nancy that he’s too young to go. Sarah’s his last hope, see, she’s the only one who can change Nancy’s mind. She’ll go up against her if she has to and she’s been known to win.

  I’m on Bozo’s side, of course. He may be young but when things are really bad for us and it’s even worse than an offal week or even an offal month, it’s Bozo fixing things and selling them that often bails us out. He may be fourteen but he pulls his weight around the place and then some and I reckon he deserves to be treated better and should be allowed to go. I tell them of course, Nancy and Sarah. Sarah ruffles my hair and grins and says she’s glad I’m sticking up for my brother, it’s what she’d expect from me. Nancy tells me my head’s still soft, like she always does.

  ‘Bozo’s taken the spoon out of the sink,’ I argue. ‘He’s fought everyone he can and beat them and hasn’t been hurt, only fair he should be given a go at boxers who think they can beat him. Women don’t know about these things,’ I point out, ‘only blokes. It shouldn’t be women deciding!’But it’s like talking to a brick wall, the two of them convinced they know better. Sometimes it’s like having two mothers when one is already enough to have to put up with.