Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  Bozo came to me afterwards and asked if I’d take him some day to see the tree and I said I would. I’m sure Tommy wouldn’t have minded. Mike, of course, wasn’t interested, but said afterwards that he felt a bastard saying all those things about Tommy. I’m glad he did. I mean, I’m glad he said the things he did because when it got really bad with Tommy, Mike’s remarks about him were said for all of us. At the time, it really was what we felt and Mike could make it sound funny so we’d grin and bear it once more.

  I don’t want to go into what happened after Tommy shot himself. I left him at the entrance to the tunnel and walked to the police station at Porepunkah and reported it to the policeman there and asked him to phone Big Jack Donovan. Big Jack raced over in the police car and him and the local cop went up the spur with me, back to Tommy. In Tommy’s shirt pocket they found the notepad he’d used to write me the note and in it he’d written:

  Affydavit

  I Tommy Maloney of me own free will have took me own life. I took me boys rifle and left the camp we was at. I have died at me own hand by shooting meself. I have had enuff. I am very sorry for what I done to the family and they will be well rid of me. That’s all.

  Yours truly,

  Tommy Maloney

  Funny that, Tommy read so many books and remembered all the Latin names for trees and plants but he couldn’t write properly. When I thought about it, I’d never seen him write anything in my whole life, not even a note. Vera ‘Big Mouth Saggy Tits’ Forbes got hold of the suicide note at the coroner’s inquest and printed it on the front page of the Gazette. She said a few other things about Tommy, the worst being this: ‘Tommy Maloney was a wellknown character around town for reasons well known to most Yankalillee citizens where for years he has been associated with the town’s garbage!’

  Nancy said Saggy Tits might think she’s clever, but ambiguity like that was just not on, that she was going after the slaggy bitch. I wouldn’t want to be Vera the fearless reporter coming down King Street with Nancy approaching from the opposite direction. Nancy would bump her shoulder so hard, Vera’s saggy tits would fly up like a helicopter’s blades and wrap around her neck and strangle her to death.

  But, what really upset Nancy was her printing Tommy’s suicide note, showing all the bad spelling and grammar. ‘The garbage crack is fair enough, Tommy was no angel and maybe in some eyes he was town trash, but showing him up like that with the note, that’s going too bloody far!’she screamed.

  I reckon Vera ‘Big Mouth Saggy Tits’ Forbes is right up there with Philip with one ‘l’ Templeton as public enemies one and two. In Nancy’s terms that’s ‘Watch out, Mrs Forbes, you may be a Protestant but you’re in a whole heap of trouble with the Catholic bitch!’

  Nineteen sixty-one was a big year, not just because of Tommy’s death, but lots of things happened to our family. The first was that after the funeral Mike announced that he was off to London. Nancy just can’t understand this, he’s been designing clothes in Melbourne and selling them and making good money, even sending some home. What’s more the Suckfizzle kids’ label is growing in leaps and bounds and Sophie’s turning out to be an astute businesswoman. With Mike designing the children’s clothes from layette to teenybopper and Sophie supervising the factories making them, it’s early times yet, but everyone can see they’ve got a big future. They don’t owe any money to the bank and most of the factories will give them three months’ credit because they realise Suckfizzle’s got a future worth investing in. Nancy wants to know why, with so much going for him, Mike wants to throw it all away and go to London.

  ‘Mum, I’m just another dressmaker here. Until I have London or Paris experience they’ll never take me seriously.’

  ‘But the young people are buying your clothes, they’re taking you seriously?’

  ‘That’s not enough. I’ve got to show the fashion industry I know what I’m doing. That I’m not just a flash in the pan.’ He looks earnestly at Nancy. ‘Mum, they think I’m just a country bumpkin, the boy from the bush trying to show off by making a few silly dresses for the goofy teenagers dancing to Johnny O’Keefe on ‘Six O’Clock Rock’. Besides, there really are lots of things I need to learn that I can’t learn here.’

  Nancy hates to lose her children, but Mike’s been away from home almost as long as Sarah and she’s now more used to not having him around. The first year he left for Melbourne she almost went into mourning. She missed all those afternoons they’d sit and do the layettes together, he was the closest to her, more than the rest of us, even Sarah. They’d yak on for hours like a couple of old hens.

  Anyway, Mike’s been independent for the last five years, so there’s not much she can do. The money he sent home each week was important but now we don’t need it so much, so even that’s okay.

  Mike has saved enough for his fare on the P & O ship and has enough to live on for a month when he gets to London. He’s the first Maloney for a hundred and fifty years to leave Australia’s shores without a rifle in his hand and army boots on his feet. He’s going abroad to fight the rest of the world with a sketchbook. It’s the big time or oblivion, that’s always been Mike’s way.

  Then the next big thing that happens is Sarah becomes a doctor on Saturday, 16th December 1961. I forgot to say that Morrie had become a doctor for the second time the year before, winning the university medal for the most outstanding results. He gave it back and said it should be given to a first-time student. They took it back but they said he was going against the traditions of the university. Morrie then politely pointed out that he had been forced to do his medical examinations all over again. ‘Now you give me this medal for what? I tell you for what I get this medal. It is for being za best student, for learning what you are teaching! Pffft! That is not right. You have given me this medal for teaching me what I already know before I come to the university. To take this David Grant Scholarship Medal for 1960, this is not fair dinkum. I want you should give it to a student who is learning something from you!’ Then he said there were one or two things in the curriculum that he believed should be changed as they were no longer relevant to modern medicine. He offered to help, but his offer wasn’t taken up, although they did give the medal to another student.

  We all went down from Yankalillee to Sarah’s graduation ceremony. Nancy, Bozo, little Colleen and me, Mrs Barrington-Stone, Big Jack Donovan and Mrs Rika Ray.

  Morrie, Sophie and Templeton, of course, were in Melbourne. The Age sent a photographer and a reporter and there was a picture of Sarah on the front page of the paper, wearing her cap and gown, with Templeton, who is five, standing next to her. The caption under the photograph says: Dr Sarah Maloney and five-year-old daughter, Templeton. The controversial 1956 first-year medical student graduates with top honours. See Page 3 for full story.

  The story, which fills nearly half a page, reminds people of what happened back all those years ago and calls it a total vindication of her fight to be admitted as a pregnant student and that the whole thing is a triumph for commonsense and for women everywhere. Sarah says she doesn’t think very much has changed and if someone pregnant turned up next year, she doubts the Professorial Board would be any different from the last time.

  To tell you the truth, the ceremony was really a bit boring. All these professors marched into Wilson Hall wearing these long gowns and sat up on the platform. Then Sir Arthur Dean, who’s the chancellor, called us all to stand up and sing the National Anthem. Then after God had saved the Queen, we all sit down, and blocks of students in alphabetical order are called out to stand in line. They’d read out a name and a student would go to the podium and have their hands shook by the chancellor, who gave them their degree, which is rolled up and tied with a ribbon.

  Then Sarah gets called back and it’s announced that she’s won the university medal for 1961, the medal Morrie gave up the year before. Morrie is so proud he bursts into tears. Nancy and Sophie are also crying buc
kets and so is Mrs Barrington-Stone, they’re blubbing away, saying ‘Oh dear’ and blowing their noses and looking at each other and then bursting out all over again, Morrie going at it with the best of them.

  When it’s over, the professors march out, only in the reverse order to the way they came in. We all have to stand and watch them do this. That was it. I was expecting bands and singing and stuff like that. When the professors have all left the hall, we go over to Union House to have afternoon tea. If you ask my opinion it was a worse ceremony than prizegiving at the end of the year at school, because they didn’t even have an end-of-year concert like we do.

  But, of course, we were very happy. Mrs Rika Ray, who had a new gold sari specially made and was wearing her red boxing-gloves earrings, said, ‘My goodness, our Doctor Sarah is getting the biggest bottoms-wiping certificate in the whole world and a medal also she is getting so we are very, very happy!’

  Then she goes all teary and walks over and gives Templeton a big hug and practically kisses her to death and we all know why that is. If the abortion had worked, she and Templeton wouldn’t have been there and she’d be Nancy’s mortal enemy. Now Templeton and her are a part of our lives and we love them both heaps and so do Bozo’s Bitzers which are now more hers than his.

  Mrs Rika Ray has become Bozo’s operations manager in John Crowe Transport and she’s tough as nails and the two temporary drivers who drive for Bozo call her ‘The Old Crow’ because she really cracks the whip and they can’t get away with anything.

  She’s also the company bookkeeper and Bozo says they’re beginning to have a real business. She’s got the bank’s trust and they’ll give her an overdraft, which he doubts they’d do for him if she wasn’t there. Even though the bank won’t lend money to a woman without her husband’s approval, they think very highly of her.

  Bozo tells how Mrs Rika Ray’s got the bank to eat out of her hand. She’d been at John Crowe Transport about six months when they suddenly found themselves in financial difficulties. What’s happened is this, a contract they’d been promised has fallen through and Bozo has already paid cash for a second-hand truck they were going to need to do the work involved. Mrs Rika Ray goes through the books and says, if they’re super careful and don’t try to expand too fast, they can scrape through for another six months. What this means, Bozo says, is that they won’t have a brass razoo to invest in infrastructure if something big comes along.

  ‘What’s that mean, infrastructure and something big comes along?’ I ask him.

  ‘Well, say some company needs transport for the goods they sell and don’t want to own a fleet of trucks, so they put out a tender, just like the council did for the garbage collection. Then it’s up to us to put in a price for doing the job,’ Bozo says, ‘You don’t just get the job because you put in the cheapest price. You also have to prove to them that you’ve got the organisation and the trucks to do the job. That’s called your infrastructure. Well, we don’t have the infrastructure if a big chance comes along because we’ve got no investment capital and no chance of borrowing from the bank.’

  So they’re existing on the smell of an oily rag and things are pretty shaky back at the ranch. Then Mrs Rika Ray comes in one morning and says, ‘Bozo, we are asking the bank they must jolly well lend us five hundred pounds pronto, we are giving them collateral all the trucks, they will not refuse, you will see, it is guaranteed in the cards, which I am throwing every day now for one week only.’

  Bozo panics. The Diamond T and the old Fargo truck John Crowe bought from the shire council and the VW van and the new second-hand truck are all they’ve got and worth altogether, at the most, about eight hundred pounds. If they can’t repay the loan and have to sell them to repay the bank, they’ll probably get six hundred, maybe six hundred and fifty tops for a quick sale. They’ll be broke and out of business.

  ‘But you said we could hang on for six months and hope things will get better? We’re doing okay really, there’s money coming in and we’re paying our petrol bills at the garage. It’s just that contract falling through has mucked things up a bit,’ Bozo protests.

  ‘Bozo, I am looking at the tarot cards, once I am looking, twice I am looking and then I am looking again and again until I am going blue in the face, every time the same, they are saying we are getting very very lucky, very very soon!’

  ‘Or we’ll be going very very broke, very very soon, Mrs Rika Ray,’ Bozo says reluctantly.

  Bozo does business by the business book and Mrs Rika Ray does business by the tarot cards and the two don’t really mix that well. Only so far she’s been right in almost everything they’ve done. It was her said she didn’t trust the people who pulled out of the contract and maybe they should wait before they bought the extra truck. That was also the tarot cards told her that, so it’s not as though they’re all the one way.

  They go along to the bank manager and Mrs Rika Ray is very persuasive and the bank has the trucks valued on the second-hand market and there’s a bit to spare on the conservative evaluation they get, so they know their money is safe as a house.

  Anyway, Bozo is still a bit of a hero around the place because of his Olympic medal. Mrs Barrington-Stone has given Bozo a reference, which is another of Mrs Rika Ray’s ideas. So the bank manager, Mr Fred Mullins, who is new in town, asks a few more questions around the place. Again they get lucky with the people he asks, like Big Jack Donovan and Mr Sullivan and then, oops!, Magistrate ‘Oliver Twist’Withers. Much to Bozo’s surprise, he says the Maloney family are extremely hardworking and trustworthy and he gives Bozo the big thumbs up.

  It just goes to show you shouldn’t always condemn people just because they’re not the same as you. Well, they get the loan which Mr Mullins says must be repaid in six months or the bank will foreclose on them. ‘There’ll be no excuses acceptable,’ he warns.

  ‘This is your first loan and if you’re late in your repayments, I can assure you, it will be your last,’ he says to Bozo. He also gives them a bit of a lecture about how he’s taking a big chance on them, which he shouldn’t really be doing as they have no history of borrowing blah-blah-blah and so on and so forth.

  Mrs Rika Ray takes the cheque and has Bozo drive her into Albury where she puts the whole kaboodle into a three-monthly interest-bearing deposit with the Bank of New South Wales. That’s the whole thing, see. They don’t touch the five hundred pounds but struggle along to make ends meet like she’d originally said they could.

  Then three months later they phone up and ask the original bank manager, Mr Mullins, if they can have an appointment. He says yes, then there’s a pause on the phone and Bozo hears him clear his throat, ‘I hope you are not going to disappoint me and ask for more money, Mr Maloney. I have taken a chance on you and it’s my reputation that’s at stake. I just want you to know that I meant what I said.’

  Bozo then says, no, it’s nothing like that, they don’t need a new loan and want to see him about another matter.

  They arrive at the bank for the appointment and, to cut a long story short, Bozo hands Mr Mullins the five hundred pounds in cash plus the interest on the loan for three months, which isn’t a lot more than the interest they’ve earned from the Bank of New South Wales anyway. Then they thank Mr Mullins for his help.

  The bank manager is that chuffed that he’s been paid back three months early he offers them another loan. Mrs Rika Ray says, ‘We are thanking you very, very much, Mr Mullins, but we are not needing it. We are very, very grateful to you for helping us. Now, we are thanking God and the little fishes, because we are doing quite well also.’

  Six months later they get this chance of landing a big contract with a new supermarket chain that’s starting up in country centres and they need a local transport company to do the grocery cartage for all of north-eastern Victoria for them. Bozo puts in a tender and he’s told he’s won the contract, but has to have three dedicated trucks to handle the work. Of c
ourse, they’ve got Buckley’s.

  Mrs Rika Ray then says the tarot cards are saying good things again. So off the two of them trot to the bank manager and show him the confirmation from the supermarket chain and they ask for a thousand-pound loan. ‘Certainly,’ says Mr Mullins, ‘you have an excellent record for early repayments with us, will a thousand pounds be sufficient?’

  Now that’s how smart Mrs Rika Ray turned out to be. Bozo says he couldn’t run the business without her. Like I said, she’s also taken over the Bitzers which are now Bitzers One to Twelve. Even though Bitzers Three and Five have since died, she’s topped them up and called the two new doggies by the old numbers and added the others, and now she’s got herself a complete dog circus with a whole lot of new tricks she’s taught them to do. Whenever there’s a charity fete or something going on, they’re the star performers, jumping through fiery hoops, boxing each other. They wear these tiny little red boxing gloves on their front paws and jump up on their hind legs and people bet which dog will fall over onto his back first, which is counted as a knockout. If the fight goes on too long, Mrs Rika Ray says a word and one of the dogs falls onto his back and is knocked out. The dog boxing alone makes a small fortune.

  By the way, Bozo still has to drink nasty green herbal stuff which she brings to work in the mornings. She still lives in the hut and bathes in the stream but it’s got an annexe built onto it for the dogs who are not allowed into her humpy. Once a prisoner from the gaol escaped, hid all day and went bush at night. He saw this humpy in the moonlight, but he never got within spitting distance before the dogs got him. Next morning, after giving the prisoner breakfast, Mrs Rika Ray marches him all the way into town, up the hill to the prison and delivers him to the front door. He’s got about a hundred bites from the ankles to the knees and she’s treated them with herbs so they won’t get infected. Mr Sullivan thanks her and calls the doctor to give the prisoner a tetanus injection.