Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  Nancy says to Sarah to find out if Dot and Betty have daughters or sons who are going to have a baby. You can bet your prize booties and bib there’s a brown-paper parcel coming their way.

  We’ve decided to leave for Yankalillee straight after breakfast as Bozo is dead concerned something bad might happen to the Diamond T. We have to allow time to repair it on the road, so that we can get it back to John Crowe to change the tyres on the Fargo before work.

  ‘Can’t get lucky twice,’Bozo warns. ‘Somethin’s gotta go wrong.’

  Nancy has come to her senses and sees she’s not needed and will only be in Sarah’s way. Mrs Rika Ray says she’ll come home with us and insists on giving Nancy ten shillings towards the petrol. Nancy feels honour has been restored. Having been up till very late Saturday night sewing, Nancy says she’s too buggered to drive through Melbourne until we come to the highway where Bozo was going to take over. So Bozo takes over right off from Station Street. We’re all shitting ourselves in case we’re stopped by a cop and Bozo’s asked for his driving licence.

  But it’s a magic weekend. Bozo says that after the sewing machines, we’re bulletproof. First Sarah’s baby, then the fight, then getting Sophie out of trouble and, believe it or not, the Diamond T holds out and we don’t see a cop the whole way and get back to Yankalillee at four o’clock in the afternoon.

  We unload the double bed and the Singer, and Bozo gets to John Crowe’s place just as it’s getting dark. They drive to the shire workshops, do the deed with the tyres, and Bozo’s home by six with the Diamond T back to its old miserable self. All I can say is the Maloney luck has definitely turned. Nancy says that when a baby is born in a family, God smiles and grants you forty-eight hours’ grace. I think that must be something else she was told by the nuns. But it turns out to be true, nothing’s gone wrong since Sarah’s baby was born.

  Only thing is, Mike’s not his usual self. Coming home in the back of the Diamond T, he, like Nancy, is tired from being up so late Saturday night. He’s stretched out on the double-bed mattress at the back of the truck and I can see he’s worried about something because there’s no quips or sarcastic remarks coming from him. Something’s happened but he doesn’t say. Maybe because Mrs Rika Ray is in the back with us. We drop her off at Silver Creek and Nancy has a bit of a howl as she hugs poor old Mrs Rika Ray and nearly smothers her to death in the process. I reckon they’re gunna be mates forever now that she’s got the baby safely out of Sarah.

  Then at tea, Nancy, who’s slept all the way back and is now awake, says there’s a family discussion on. We haven’t had too many of these since Sarah left, because it was her who usually got Nancy to hold one if there was anything the family needed to discuss. Mostly it was stuff Nancy had decided on and Sarah felt wasn’t the best decision, so she’d persuade Nancy to have a family discussion. The discussions were good, because we all got to have a say and made up our minds sort of together. Well, sometimes, anyway. Unfortunately Nancy could put the kybosh on anything if she wants to, with an overriding vote. But sometimes she’s fair.

  Tommy is home again and because it’s Sunday and the pubs are closed, he can’t wet the baby’s head neither, so it’s also good to have him in on the discussion.

  ‘We’ve got two things to discuss tonight,’ Nancy says, as she’s cutting up this strudel cake Sophie’s made for us. Mike’s sitting next to her and he’s pouring out our tea into mugs and still looking worried. ‘First one’s Mike,’ Nancy announces. ‘You all know he wants to pack in school and go and work in Melbourne, learn to design frocks.’

  ‘Ladies’ dresses, Mum! Frocks are not designed, they’re just sewn.’

  ‘Dresses then. As you know I’m not too happy about this, there’s been enough stupid Maloneys and Mike should finish school. We didn’t make the sacrifices we done so that he could go treadle a sewing machine in a stinking factory.’

  ‘But, Mum, that’s what I’ve been doing all my life, that and embroidery!’ Mike protests.

  ‘That’s just it! We done that so you could get an education!’ Nancy looks around at us, ‘Isn’t that right?’ We all know her too well and we look down at our plates and don’t show any expression. ‘Pass your plate, Mole, and tell your mother, what do you think?’

  She’s starting with the youngest, Colleen is too young to get a say, and with me starting off the defence it means she’s going to be tough. When I’m asked first, it’s because Sarah says Nancy wants to polish up her argument against the motion. You see, Nancy doesn’t listen and then comes in at the end, she argues back with everyone on the spot. She’s picked me first so she can sort of limber up. It’s like Bozo warming up on the punching bag. I’m on Mike’s side, of course, because brothers have to be.

  ‘They can’t teach him nothing that’s gunna help him design dresses here in Yankalillee,’ I say, passing her my plate.

  ‘That’s not a good enough reason! Learning’s not about what you learn about, it’s about learning to learn.’ ‘How’s that?’ I ask, not understanding.

  ‘It’s called being educated, so you’ll go on learning all your life, learning how to learn, that’s the difference between us and people who are clever. Mike hasn’t learned how to learn yet, but Sarah has.’

  Sometimes, if you listen hard, Nancy says things that make you think she’s not as dumb as she looks.

  ‘A person won’t learn if they’re not interested in learning stuff,’ I say, trying to defend my point of view. ‘Mike’s only interested in dresses, so why can’t he be educated about dresses?’

  ‘Become a stupid dressmaker, you mean? You’re right, he could become that!’ Nancy can be really bitchy if she wants. I can see exactly where she’s heading, she’s not going to let Mike go to Melbourne.

  She puts a piece of apple strudel on the plate and passes it back to me. ‘Thank you, Mole,’ she says. That’s another sign. When she’s being polite, you know she’s not going to take any notice of what you’ve said. I look at Mike and shrug. I want him to know I’ve done my best to help him.

  ‘Bozo, pass your plate. And what have you to say?’ Bozo doesn’t muck around. ‘You let Sarah be a doctor, so why can’t Mike be a frock, er, dress designer? Doctors only think about cutting people up and dress designers only think about cutting material up, what’s the diff? Why’s one more educated than the other? It takes six years to become a doctor, Mike says it will take him longer, much longer, to become a dress designer.’

  Nancy scoops up a piece of strudel onto the knife she’s using. The strudel is balanced on the blade of the knife, her thumb holding it safe so it doesn’t fall off. Now she holds it in the air. ‘Sarah’s going to be a doctor, she’s going to a university. Mike might be a dress designer if he’s very lucky, he’s not going to school any more!’ She says it slowly so each word is pronounced clear, it’s her way of trying to put Bozo in his place, act like he’s dumb when it comes to such things. ‘Sophie says it will be hard for a goy to get anywhere in the garment trade and he’ll have to start as a sweeper in a sweatshop. I don’t want my boy sweeping the floor for a Jew! Sophie says if he’s lucky he’ll learn the steam-presser, that’s real clever, I don’t think! I didn’t bring any son of mine up to sweep floors or iron ladies’ frocks!’ Then she declares, ‘We love Morrie and Sophie, but not all Jews are like them. Jews hate Catholics because they know we know they killed our Lord!’

  ‘No, Mum, it’s the other way around!’ Mike protests.

  ‘It’s the Catholics who hate the Jews! But that’s not how I feel, I just want to learn and they’re the best at it.’

  ‘Mike ain’t dumb, now,’ Bozo says, ‘He won’t be dumb later. Even if he sweeps floors when he starts out. It’s better than collecting people’s garbage, ain’t it? Sarah’s got to start by cutting up frogs, she told me so herself. Isn’t that the same as Mike starting as a sweeper? What would you rather do, sweep a floor or cut up a frog?’Then he adds
, ‘Do you know any Catholics in the garment trade who will take him on?’ He doesn’t say nothing about Jews being Christkillers. I bet there were plenty of Catholics in charge at the concentration camps. Bozo’s doing all he can for Mike, but we know Nancy, she’ll close it down any moment now, not even ask Tommy for his opinion because he might agree with her. She wants to be boss of the wash, show us how tough she is. She’ll ask us to vote, then she’ll use the overriding vote and that’ll be Mike, well and truly down the gurgler.

  But Tommy comes in suddenly. ‘Designing frocks is for nancy boys, poofters! I’m not having no son of mine doing that!’

  Oh shit, here we go. I look over at Bozo, who lifts one eyebrow. We both look to see how Nancy’s going to handle this! Mike’s whole body has gone rigid.

  Nancy slides Bozo’s cake onto the plate and hands it to him. ‘Whose son did you say he is?’ she says real quiet, deadly as a king-brown, you can practically see the forked tongue hissing in and out of her mouth.

  ‘Ah, fuck yiz!’ Tommy says and gets up, sending his chair back three feet before storming out of the room. ‘He’s a fucking fairy, ain’t he?’ he shouts from the kitchen door.

  Jesus! I can’t believe it! Game, set and match. Nancy’s going to let Mike leave school, Tommy’s just seen to that fair and square.

  Nancy puts it to the vote and Bozo and me vote for Mike leaving and Nancy says that’s okay, she’s talked to Sarah, who’s also voted for Mike. She doesn’t even mention Tommy’s conniption but she says she doesn’t agree with us. However she’s not going to use her overriding vote, Mike can go to Melbourne but only if he can find a job in the rag trade first and he’ll have to stay with Sarah, Morrie and Sophie. ‘Tommy can go down by train and build a sleep-out on the back porch,’ she says, cool as a cucumber, as though what’s just happened hasn’t happened.

  Nancy also said at the beginning that there were two things to discuss, but after what’s happened with Tommy doing his block, whatever the second thing was, it doesn’t come up.

  It’s the first time since the night Nancy went ape at the table when she heard of Sarah’s pregnancy and had a go at Mike for sticking up for her, that Mike’s been lost for words. He should be happy as Larry about the decision, but what Tommy’s said has knocked him for a six and he gets up without even having a piece of Sophie’s strudel. Then he says, ‘Thanks, Mum, I won’t let you down,’ and he goes to our bedroom.

  He’s asleep, or maybe pretending, when we come in a little while later. It’s garbage in the morning and it’s been a bloody long day, I kid you not.

  That night Tommy comes into our bedroom after we’re all asleep, only I’m not, and I hear him say ‘Wake up, will ya, Mike!’ in a loud whisper and then he grabs a hold of Mike’s shoulder and shakes it. ‘Mike, wake up!’

  Mike wakes up suddenly and shoots up out of his blanket, ‘What?’ Then, ‘Oh, it’s you!’

  Tommy whispers, but I can hear every word. ‘Mike, I’m sorry I said what I said, but it was the only way I could think to make sure she’d let you leave school to go to Melbourne to do them frock drawings.’ Then he sort of hesitates before he goes on. ‘Son, I don’t care what you are, I loves yer. I dunno if you’re a fairy and it don’t matter if you are. There’s plenty of turd burglars in the clink and some of them are good blokes. Just because you may be a poofter without even knowing it doesn’t mean you can’t be a good man.’

  That’s Tommy all right, he does the right thing and then he immediately screws things up again.

  But I reckon Mike understands Tommy means no harm, because he reaches out and touches him on his crook shoulder. ‘Thanks, Dad. Thanks for the help,’ he says and then turns towards the wall. When Tommy leaves a little while later, I can hear Mike sobbing.

  BOOK TWO

  1961–1964

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Templeton Maloney is five years old. Well, it’s actually Lucy Templeton Maloney, the ‘Lucy’ is named after Mrs Barrington-Stone and the ‘Templeton’ for revenge. That was the second item in the family discussion all those years ago when Mike got permission to stop school and go to work in Melbourne. Nancy wanted to discuss naming Sarah’s baby ‘Templeton’ so that nobody in Yankalillee would ever forget what had happened. Only it didn’t happen at that meeting because of what Tommy said about Mike and so she went ahead with it anyway, using her overriding vote even though there hadn’t been a vote in the first place. She must have known she’d never have got it agreed to by the family.

  Father Crosby bloody nearly dropped the baby at the christening when he asked her name and Nancy, who was standing next to Sarah at the font, said, ‘Lucy Templeton Maloney’. Naturally he was dead against it. He could hardly speak, but because there were three christenings on that Sunday and St Stephen’s was chocka with everyone’s relatives and friends, he couldn’t make a fuss and was forced to go along with the baptism. But that didn’t stop him coming around on his bike to give Nancy the usual lecture. This time it was all about hate, how it was sinful to hate someone even if they were Protestants and Anglicans. ‘Revenge to me; I will repay, saith the Lord,’he thundered at Nancy, his fat jowls wobbling. It seems as though ordinary Catholics, even collapsed ones, aren’t supposed to seek revenge. ‘Revenge,’ said Father Crosby, ‘is the Church’s prerogative!’

  ‘And what will the Church do?’ Nancy asks him tartly.

  ‘We will commend your case to God Himself, if He sees fit to visit shame and humiliation on Mr and Mrs Templeton, then in His infinite wisdom He may decide to shower them with brimstone and ashes. Metaphorically speaking, of course.’

  ‘Can’t hang around for God to make up His mind, Father, haven’t seen too many cases of brimstone and ashes falling out of the sky around Yankalillee.’

  ‘I’ve warned you several times before about blasphemy, Nancy Maloney! If you want to find yourself on the path to damnation, you are going the right way about it!’

  Nancy flips her lid when she hears this. ‘You seem to notify everyone else around here about the sins of the Maloneys, might as well tell the Pope too. And while you’re doing all this notifying, Father, could you kindly notify Dora Templeton that Templeton Maloney is here to remind her every day of her miserable life that she’s done the wrong thing by us Maloneys. She thinks she’s so high and mighty and can just ride roughshod over us because we collect their rubbish! We collect her gin bottles as well, you tell her that! You hear me, Father, I’ll not forgive that drunken bitch as long as I live and Sarah’s daughter’s going to remind her and her fat husband what a lily-livered, gutless little bastard her son turned out to be!’

  Father Crosby clenches his teeth and raises his fist as though he is preparing to strike Nancy. Better not try, he’ll be no match for her, she’ll slaughterate him and then we’d have the blood of the Church on our hands. But instead he storms out. ‘I’ll pray for you, you wicked, wicked woman!’ he yells, his fist still in the air. ‘Revenge to me; I will repay, saith the Lord!’ he shouts out again as he’s going through the front door. I reckon he’d fortified himself with the altar wine before coming, because, even for him, saying stuff like that is a bit over the top and his bicycle is wobbling all over the street as he takes his departure. Nancy’s going to cause him to have a heart attack one of these days. I must say, she’s my mum and all that, but she can be a pretty nasty piece of work when she’s been crossed.

  If you ask me, even with revenge taken into consideration, Templeton is a pretty weird name for a girl. I guess Sarah must have agreed to it, thinking all the while her little girl would be called Lucy anyway. She’d give Nancy her revenge wish and hide the name of Templeton except for the birth certificate. But it hasn’t turned out that way, people just call the baby ‘Templeton’ from day one. You can look like a Lucy, I suppose, but you can’t look like a Templeton, so it’s hard to work out how that’s happened. But it has. I don’t suppose Templeton is an easy name to forget whe
n it belongs to a little girl. But that’s the funny thing, at first Sarah tries hard to call her Lucy and when the girl was real small she got away with it, but Nancy’s always called her granddaughter Templeton and at two years of age the child insisted on being called Templeton. Like it was her destiny or something. When people ask Sarah her little girl’s name and she says ‘Templeton’ because she’s long since given up, they look blankly at her or they go ‘Huh?’ or ‘Beg yours?’ or ‘Pardon?’ But when they see the child next time, they call her Templeton right off, natural as anything.

  Even though Nancy did it out of sheer revenge, naming Sarah’s daughter ‘Templeton’turned out to have a good side to it as well. The people in our street and the Micks in town see the point and they admire Sarah for not being a victim like most of the other girls who got up the duff and ended up having their babies. It also showed Sarah wasn’t ashamed. Of course, they don’t know it was Nancy’s idea. When Sarah comes up from Melbourne on occasional weekends or during the university holidays, she doesn’t creep around as though she’s committed some sort of mortal sin and has to live with the shame forever after. She’s the same Sarah as always, friendly and modest and proud to show her little daughter off, and the townsfolk, except for a few diehards or friends of the Templetons, admire her and are pretty proud of what she’s achieved, bringing up her daughter and taking a medical degree at the same time. They say things like ‘That young girl has real character’ or ‘She’s a credit to Yankalillee’. ‘They may be from the wrong side of the tracks and Micks, but I tell ya what, wouldn’t mind if she was my daughter.’

  In fact, with Bozo winning a bronze medal at the Rome Olympics, there’s some in town who think of us Maloneys as a family of high achievers and Bozo as the ultimate hero. There are people who before wouldn’t have even crossed the street to say gidday to Nancy who now give her the big hello and want to know about the family. But Nancy’s not impressed. When the Women’s Auxiliary invite her to work at a stall for the Easter fete, she comes right out and says, ‘No thank you very much, I wouldn’t work in anything that would have somebody like me in their organisation.’ It’s supposed to be funny, but they know what she’s saying, they’ve ignored her for the past thirty years and now it’s too late. ‘They can go to buggery!’ she tells us, ‘I know who our friends are and they’ll see me out nicely.’