Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Well, you’re a better mechanic than me, mate. This heap o’ rusty nuts ’n’ bolts should’ve been retired to the scrapyard about the time we swapped them tyres around. Shit, that must’ve been three years ago if it was a day!’

  We leave the Diamond T and John Crowe lets Nancy drive the ute. He also helps shovel the rubbish into the back from the Diamond T and, making a few extra trips, he helps us finish up with the morning’s run. Bozo and me are an hour late for school and we both get detention which is small potatoes compared to the trouble us Maloneys are in with the garbage run.

  But John Crowe’s ahead of us and he arranges for us to use a council truck, sort of unofficial like. This is done after consultation with Macca McKenzie, the depot foreman, and involves rabbit meat for his greyhounds, a little scam I’ll explain later. The shire-council trucks are parked overnight at the depot, so we ‘borrow’ one and have it back by seven-thirty in the morning.

  This is temporary of course and as luck would have it we’re only three weeks off the end of the contract with the shire council. Tommy’s first contract was for five years initially, with an option to renew it every year providing the council is happy. So far the yearly renewal has been more or less automatic, nobody’s ever come along with a better bid and it’s pretty obvious for all to see, there ain’t much of a living in it anyway.

  Well, the contract comes up for renewal and we put in our offer, which is lower than ever because we ask the council to supply the garbage truck. It’s all over red rover, Philip Templeton pounces, no truck no contract, simple as that.

  We’re out of business and he puts the contract out to tender. We’re in deep shit, the tender stipulates that the contractor has to supply his own vehicle, only I think it’s called ‘infrastructure’ in the tender. There’s no bank manager in the world is going to loan a Maloney money even if we put the house up as guarantee. It would take a junior bank teller who failed arithmetic at school about two minutes to see we can’t pay the loan back in several thousand years.

  John Crowe comes to see us and he makes us a proposition. He’ll sell his ute and buy a truck, he reckons he’s good for a small loan from the bank and his wife has inherited a couple of hundred quid, so why doesn’t he tender and we work for him for the same take-home pay as we’re making now? We’ll carry on just like before, only now we’ve got no overheads.

  ‘You’re no worse off, better in fact because there’s no maintenance expenses, I’ll even supply the gumboots and shovels and whatever.’ Compliments of Macca McKenzie no doubt.

  Bozo feels duty-bound to tell him that there won’t be all that much left over for him.

  ‘That’s okay, I’ll keep working at the shire council so I’ve got my regular pay packet comin’. Trish and me will see this business as an investment in case we ever need it. Another thing, how much you reckon it costs you to maintain the Diamond T?’

  It’s a good question because the old truck these last years has been eating up the money we earn and we’ve been on mince and offal that long I’ve practically forgotten what a steak tastes like. ‘About half what we make,’ Bozo says.

  ‘There’s my cut right there,’ Mr Crowe says. ‘It ain’t going to cost us a brass razoo to keep the new truck in good nick, I’ll just do it myself in the council workshops after hours.’

  We tell him we need to think about it and we’ll give him an answer on the Monday. It just so happens Sarah and Mike are up from Melbourne, it’s uni holidays for her and there’s a Jewish holiday on the Friday so Flinders Lane, where Mike works for Mr Stan, is closed until the Monday. He’s come up on the train with Sarah and Templeton for the weekend. So, seeing we’re all at home, Nancy calls a family conference which includes Tommy, who is both sober and out of gaol. She puts John Crowe’s offer to us, even though we know all about it anyway.

  We haven’t had a family conference since the time Tommy called Mike a poofter and I can only hope this isn’t going to be a repeat performance. Before we start, Sarah says, ‘As it’s a decision which involves some of our futures, Mum ought not to have the overriding vote.’

  It’s pretty cheeky and we all wait to see what will happen. Nancy doesn’t give up her power lightly and she reckons she’s still our mum and warns that she always will be. To our surprise, she agrees that whatever the majority decision is, then that’s what we’ll do. Miracles will never cease.

  It’s Sarah who goes first, which is a good sign.

  ‘Well, of course, it’s easy for me to say because I’m not directly involved,’she begins, ‘but it might be a good idea to take the pressure off a bit and simply work for wages. We won’t be any worse off and for the next couple of years anyway with the two boys still at school, I guess it will keep the wolf from the door. Nancy’s lost Mike so she can’t get through the same volume of layette work and I’m not home to do the cooking, washing and ironing, which cuts her earning time down even further.’

  I feel like saying it doesn’t cut down Nancy’s work all that much further because Nancy is a crook cook and our meals are bloody terrible. In this department we miss Sarah a lot. As for the washing and ironing, Bozo and me take turns boiling the copper out the back for the whole family and have to iron our own clothes for school as well as little Colleen’s. Nancy just wears her yellow-daisy dresses, which are made of rayon and don’t need ironing. It’s a far cry from the old days and the hole in our lives that came when Sarah left us hadn’t mended much.

  ‘Tommy’s pension doesn’t go very far,’ Sarah continues and then shrugs, ‘so I guess, without the Diamond T, we don’t have much of an alternative.’

  What she’s really saying is that ever since his last stint up the hill Tommy’s on and off the wagon like a yoyo so his TPI pension can’t be relied on and, whether we like it or not, we are more or less forced to work for John Crowe. There doesn’t seem much more to add, Sarah’s said about all there is to say.

  Mike chips in, ‘I’m working as a waiter two nights a week and weekends, I can probably manage to send home a pound a week.’

  ‘You give that to Sarah,’ Nancy says, ‘to get shoes and the things we can’t make for Templeton.’

  ‘Mum, we’re fine, Mike pays rent and between the four of us we’re doing fine. Really.’

  ‘Well, I disagree with you all!’ Bozo says out of the blue.

  ‘When you work for someone else, there’s a boss and there’s always trouble. We’ve always worked for ourselves and we’ve always managed until now.’ We all look at him surprised. ‘So where are we going to get a truck?’ I ask before anyone else can get in and ask the same question.

  ‘Partnership,’ Bozo says. ‘John Crowe and us Maloneys.’ There’s a stunned silence, then Mike asks, ‘Do you think he’ll buy it?’

  ‘Can’t see why not, he knows bugger-all about garbage collecting.’

  ‘It’s not exactly rocket science,’ Mike says, using one of his favourite expressions.

  ‘That’s what we think because we’ve been doing it all these years. Not too many families are willing to get up at three o’clock in the morning, summer and winter, to collect other people’s rubbish. There’s a lot more to collecting garbage than people think. Have you ever seen anyone try to lift a bin and toss the contents into the back of a truck a hundred and fifty times every morning?’

  ‘No, because nobody’s stupid enough to want to do it except us,’ Mike says.

  ‘Maybe yes, but that’s part of my point. It’s a dirty job and there’s not too many people willing to do it. That’s one of the aces we hold.’

  You could’ve fooled me, one moment we’re on the bones of our arses and the next we’re holding aces?

  Nancy now pipes in, ‘Nothing wrong with collecting rubbish, it’s honest work.’ She looks at Bozo. ‘So go on, how’s this partnership of yours going to work?’

  ‘John Crowe’s a decent bloke, he’s also pretty streetsm
art,’ he looks over at Tommy, ‘that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but he doesn’t know how to run a business and he doesn’t know, in particular, how to run our business.’

  ‘We’ve got a business all of a sudden?’ I ask. ‘Don’t we just collect other people’s rubbish?’ ‘That’s just it, Mole,’ Bozo says. ‘I reckon there’s a real quid to be made out of the stuff people throw away. Rubbish is the one thing that’s always going to be there. It’s like funerals, there’s always going to be dead people and there’s always going to be rubbish and it can be made into a good business.’

  Sarah laughs. ‘I believe you, thousands wouldn’t.’ She’s right, if it wasn’t Bozo saying all this we’d all be laughing our heads off. He’s always made a bob out of what other people throw out, so you can’t say he’s talking through his hat. Calling what we do a business gives it sort of a respectability we never thought we had and we all perk up a bit knowing we’re a business. Or could be one. Bozo goes on, ‘What I reckon we should do is this, we should own fifty-one per cent and John Crowe forty-nine per cent.’

  ‘What!’ we all shout together. ‘He’ll never go for that!’

  ‘Why not? We run the business side and do the daily grind and he does the engineering side.’

  Sarah laughs. ‘You mean he keeps the truck on the road?’

  We all laugh except Bozo. ‘That’s what it is now, just truck maintenance, but it won’t always be like that, you wait and see.’

  ‘He’ll want the biggest share,’ Mike says. ‘He’s supplying the truck, putting his own money in, we’re putting in bugger-all!’

  ‘Bugger-all? That’s our whole problem, we think what we do is worthless. Just because a Maloney does it, it can’t need brains or skill or be worth anything. But that’s wrong, we put in both the muscle and brains and that ain’t bugger-all! They’re the main ingredients in business, labour is always the highest cost and experienced management is how profits are made. We’ve got both and John Crowe needs both.’ Nancy shakes her head. ‘In my experience the blood, sweat and tears is what everyone takes for granted. Them that work from the chin up always take advantage of them that work from the shoulders down!’

  ‘Yeah, if we work for Mr Crowe or even are the minor partners, that’s exactly what will happen,’ Bozo says. ‘But if we own the majority of the business, it’s not the same thing. With a good reliable truck we’ll do more than just collect the rubbish in the mornin’.’

  ‘What?’ Nancy looks shocked. ‘I can’t do more than I’m doing now. I’m getting old and tired. What do you mean we’ll do more?’

  ‘Think about it, Mum! I’ve got only this year to go at school, what then, hey? Mole’s got two more. I don’t reckon we, him and me, are the university types. I know I’m not. Mole can decide for himself later. I want to go into business, and garbage ain’t such a bad place to start. We’ve been doing it practically all our lives and as far as I can work it out the whole world is one big garbage tip. Now, think, what’s garbage as a business?’ He looks around the table questioningly.

  ‘A dirty business?’ Mike suggests, smiling.

  Bozo takes no notice, he’s too earnest even to smile back. ‘Garbage is an early-morning business! The rubbish is always collected in the early morning and the truck stays idle during the day. That’s what’s called slack time in business. Now if we can utilise this time, put the truck to work, then we maximise our effort and increase our profit. Did you know that a truck will last twice as long if the engine never cools down?’

  Nancy has a lot of faith in Bozo, he’s got us out of more money scrapes over the years than you can count on your fingers and toes. She says, ‘Son, I don’t know how much longer I can get up at three o’clock in the morning to drive the truck, I’m getting more aches and pains than you’ll find in the Sisters of Charity hospice. I’m about ready for some slack time meself.’

  ‘Just do early mornings one more year, Mum, and, you’ll see, things will be different. But not if we work for wages and not if we’re junior partners,’ he warns. Bozo must have thought a lot about it because he’s not the type to promise what he can’t deliver. Next year is the Olympic Games in Rome and if he makes the boxing team it’s going to be his biggest year yet. But typical of old Bozo, he has his eyes on the long term as well. It must be his American blood from the Marine boxer Bozonik or whatever he was called, anyway the bloke who’s supposed to be his dad, because he sure doesn’t get his spoon-out-of-the-sink-ability from the Maloney side.

  Bozo finally persuades us to have a shot at his partnership proposition. We all agree that he should be the spokesman for our side. John Crowe already respects him and maybe he can pull off the deal, though in my heart I don’t much like his chances.

  We ask John Crowe to tea with his wife, Trish, on Saturday night so we can all be there. Sarah cooks a roast leg of lamb with mint sauce, roast potatoes, pumpkin and also some green stuff in a dish that’s spinach, I think. Sarah says it’s something Mrs Rika Ray has shown her how to cook, it’s got peanuts ground into it and nutmeg and a dash of something called sesame-seed oil, it’s the first vegetable I’ve ever known which you can smell before you eat it and it looks like stuff Bozo’s mutts cough up after they’ve been chewing on a bit of green grass.

  Mike has paid for the leg of lamb out of his waiter money. He reckons on a good waitering night he can make seven or eight bob in tips. He’s being paid peanuts in Flinders Lane because he’s learning stuff. When you learn you don’t earn, when you know you get dough. The waiter’s job only pays five bob a shift but with tips it’s keeping him alive and sometimes there’s stuff over at the restaurant in St Kilda that he brings home to Sophie and Morrie. We’re having lamb because Mike and Sarah want it especially. Sophie’s a good cook but she and Morrie have never got accustomed to the smell of lamb and so they don’t ever have it in Carlton, not even lamb chops, so this is a special treat for Mike and Sarah. For us too, of course, a juicy leg o’ lamb doesn’t come your way every day, in fact, just about never.

  To our surprise John Crowe agrees right off to the partnership. He even says he’s glad we brought it up and he likes the idea of himself being in charge of the engineering side and leaving Bozo to do the business. He admits that he’s been in business for himself twice and come a cropper, once when he tried to open a motor-repair shop on his own and once with a partner in breeding turkey chicks. ‘Can’t do them books and that bank rec stuff. I’m only good with me hands, always been like that, book learning’s not my bag.’ He laughs. ‘Bloody failed arithmetic every time at school, couldn’t do spelling neither.’

  I admit, I was expecting him to say that Bozo’s still a kid at school, what would he know about business? But he’s done no such thing, John Crowe’s treating my brother like Bozo’s the boss right off.

  There a bit of a silence follows and we all look into our plates and wait for Bozo to tell him about what we want in the partnership.

  ‘Ah, we’d like the, er, partnership to be forty-nine, fiftyone, our way,’ Bozo says, then adds quickly, ‘We’re running the business and doing the hard yakka, we think it’s worth an extra two per cent.’

  There’s silence as we wait for John Crowe to say something. ‘Now wait on. You mean you want control?’he says at last.

  ‘Yeah, well sort of.’

  John Crowe comes right back, ‘No way, Bozo.’ He doesn’t seem offended, or angry, just acts like he’s made up his mind. ‘Fifty–fifty, couldn’t be fairer than that now. Had a partnership the way you say once and got ripped off, lost all me dough and couldn’t do nothing about it, me partner completely knackered me! Me and Trish had the clothes we were standing in, bastard took the rest. Then I got two years for grievous bodily harm, premeditated assault the judge said, and for once he was right, I should’ve killed the bastard!’

  There’s silence from Bozo, silence from all of us. What’s there to say? It’s clear Bozo’s not goin
g to get his way, John Crowe’s been burnt before and he’s not stupid.

  John Crowe comes back again. ‘I’m buying the truck and maintaining it, doing the engineering, without the truck you’ve got no business.’ Fair enough, I think.

  But Bozo comes back, ‘You’re right, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. Without a truck there’s no business and without workers none as well,’ Bozo replies. ‘The two per cent isn’t extra profit, we’ll split that. It’s in case, you know, there’s a disagreement.’

  ‘I know what it’s for! There was a disagreement the last time and I ended up with bugger-all except two years up the hill.’He looks around at all of us. ‘I don’t see the point of not going fifty–fifty. I already said I won’t interfere in the business side. Look, mate, what we’ve got here is a bloody good arrangement, there’ll be big savings on truck repairs and maintenance because I can do them. You said yourself the Diamond T was costing you half your take-home, didn’t ya? Well, that’s my fifty per cent of the profits took care of already. So what’s the problem with a fifty–fifty split, you ain’t working any harder for your dough and I ain’t interfering?’

  John Crowe’s got a point. I don’t reckon there’ll be too many bills for spare parts, thanks to the unknowing generosity of the shire-council workshop and also I reckon the truck we buy is going to have a world record for petrol economy, compliments of the very same source.

  John Crowe and me are pretty good mates by now, he’s taught me how to shoot and Mrs Barrington-Stone’s husband, Peter, has given me this old .22 rifle and we’ve been out a lot of times with Tommy. John Crowe’s a pretty good bushie himself, though he doesn’t know as much as Tommy. Still and all he likes Tommy and it’s nice they’re mates and he treats me real good. John Crowe’s been known to have a few but he’s not a drunk by a long shot, so having him as a fifty–fifty partner seems to me to be a pretty good arrangement. Ever since we’ve been ‘borrowing’ a council truck after working hours, he takes half a dozen of the rabbits we’ve shot. ‘They’re for Macca at the depot,’ he says, ‘keep him sweet, like.’ I guess there’ll be a few more rabbits needed if the partnership ever gets going.