‘Cal means long ago,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t been in the works for years and years.’
‘Three men died there,’ Dad told Cal. ‘They knew of the dangers, but it didn’t stop them having accidents. If it could happen to them, men knowing what might happen if they weren’t careful, it could happen to you. So keep away. Or you know what I’ll do to you.’
I knew what he would do to Cal. He would chase him with his whip.
My father’s whip was long and black. He’d won it at poker many years before from a drunken stockman. He kept it on a nail above the copper in the wash-house, and he could certainly get to it quickly when he was in the mood to use it, his missing leg didn’t slow him, not then or when he was chasing me, whizzing along behind me with his crutch flashing and his whip cracking, and me thinking it was fair to let him catch me twice, since I had two good legs and could have got clean away if I tried, but no more than two flicks because it was very cutty and there was blood on my legs whenever he caught me. I would let him get his two flicks in and then I’d be off, up into the hills or across the swamp to the river-bank where I had plenty of hiding-places, usually the swamp because the single-plank bridge was too awkward for his crutch. He had to stay behind and watch me go, cracking the whip and shouting, making me feel sorry for him.
I liked Dad. Cal liked him too. We had good fun when our mother was away. We didn’t mind if she took her time about coming back.
‘Want me to go to the store, Dad?’ I asked-as soon as he’d made Cal promise to keep away from the works. ‘I can go to the store after I’ve done the weeding. No trouble.’
‘Not today thanks, Harry,’ he said. ‘That reminds me, though. I must put in an order for the paint, must do it on the way to work.’
‘Expect you’ll let Cal and me help to paint the house?’ I said. ‘Get it done quicker if you do.’
‘We’ll have plenty of time,’ he said. ‘But you boys can help, all right. I’ll do the high bits, you two can do some of the low bits.’
‘Expect we’ll have it done by the time she gets home?’ I said, in case he had a hint, or a warning, of when she’d be back.
‘That’s the general idea,’ he said. He looked into his cup, seemed to frown. ‘But she won’t be back for a while yet. Not according to her letter. She’d be coming with your cousin if she was in a hurry to get back. She wouldn’t let Caroline make the trip alone.’
Cal and I scowled at each other. We had forgotten about our cousin. Dad laughed. ‘She’s an interesting girl. Your mother says so.’
‘She’s old,’ I said. ‘You said she was too old to play with.’
‘Well, rather too old for childish games,’ he said. ‘But I dare say she’ll be grateful if you boys show her some of the sights of the district. You can be her guides.’
‘As long as she’s not coming here to boss us,’ I said.
‘She’s coming for a holiday,’ he said. ‘City girls often come to places like Calliope Bay for holidays.’
‘The same as country teachers like Mr Dalloway have holidays in the city, eh?’ I said.
It was Dad’s turn to scowl. ‘Who said Dalloway’s gone to the city?’
‘I forget,’ I said. ‘No, that’s right! I made it up.’
‘Take care, Harry,’ he said. ‘Nobody likes liars.’
‘I think he might have said he was going to the city,’ I said. ‘One day at school.’ I reflected while my father watched me. ‘But I’m not sure. Sorry, Dad.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you’re not to misbehave when Caroline’s here. I want you boys to make her welcome. Show her that country people are hospitable.’
‘Yes, Dad,’ I said. ‘Trust us.’
‘I wonder,’ he said. But he was smiling as he hopped to his crutch, against the wall near the stove. ‘Don’t leave the dishes too long,’ he said, hopping to the door. ‘They bring the flies.’
‘I’ll do them right after I get dressed,’ I said.
He studied our pyjamas. ‘About time they went into the wash,’ he said. ‘Remind me about them next Monday.’
‘I’ll get some driftwood for the copper, Dad,’ I said. ‘After the weeding.’
‘No hurry,’ he said. ‘Later in the week will do.’
Cal and I went to the back steps to watch him get on to his bike. It was always interesting to see him take off. He had to work fast with his leg, pushing himself away from the tank-stand, jabbing down quickly on the pedal, stopping the wobble just in time, then speeding up the side-path.
Back in the kitchen, I threw the pot of raspberry jam at Cal. ‘Catch!’ I yelled.
He missed. The pot exploded on the wall. Jam splashed everywhere.
‘Dad!’ yelled Cal, running up the passage to the front door. ‘Hey, Dad!’
‘You’re too late,’ I said. ‘He’ll be nearly at the river by now.’
It never took Dad long to reach the river, I thought as I cleaned up the glass and jam. He covered that half-mile stretch of road as quickly as any person with two good legs. The only time he slowed was when he got into the roadside metal. Then he had to use the crutch to keep his balance, poking the metal with it until he was clear. Once I had seen him doing that after a skid, and I thought it was great how he stopped himself from toppling into the ditch. He was a great rider.
Cal came back. He said: ‘That jampot nearly cut me.’
‘It slipped,’ I told him. ‘And if you don’t wash the dishes, another one might slip.’
I was only kidding. He was too short to wash up. I did that. He did the wiping.
After we had done the dishes, we took off our pyjamas and had a run with nothing on. We ran up and down the passage and in and out of the rooms, and some of the time he chased me and some of the time I chased him. When I caught him I gave him two smacks on the behind and, to be fair, I let him catch me a couple of times. Mostly we stayed inside when we had this sort of fun, but some days I’d chase him outside and then scare him by shutting the door, and he’d bang on the door and keep looking around in case somebody came down the side-path or Mrs Prosser next door happened to look out of her bathroom window; she could see our back porch from her bathroom. One day, during one of these games, I went to the dunny which was beside the wash-house, and I suddenly thought I would be trapped if anybody called, I’d have to stay in there until the caller left, and what if the caller realised I was in there and decided to wait until I was finished? I got so excited I couldn’t do anything for a while, not until I’d made myself think of the river on a cold day. When I did leave the dunny, the coast was clear. Lucky for me, I thought.
‘Righto, boy, now we’ll do some weeding,’ I said after Cal had got in his second lot of smacks. ‘Ten minutes in the garden. Before the sun’s too hot.’
‘Why don’t we pick passion-fruit?’ asked Cal. ‘Dad said I could help.’
‘I give the orders,’ I said.
But we did pick passion-fruit, because that seemed like more fun to me too. I stood on the shed roof and tossed the passion-fruit to Cal, and he caught most of them, the only ones he missed were the ones I aimed at his head, he ducked those.
Up on the shed roof, I could see along the backyards, all five of them. Of course there were once a lot more backyards, they used to go nearly half-way to the river. Nowadays, with the works closed, there were only five houses left in Calliope Bay, the others had been pulled down. Every backyard was very much like the next—vegetable garden, shed, passion-fruit vine—except for the Kelly backyard. The Kelly backyard was full of rusty truck and car parts. This was because Mr Kelly, a short gingery man, was a carrier. He owned a Reo lorry and kept it in his backyard, which was where he had let other trucks and cars go to rust. Another reason for the mess was that Dibs Kelly’s big brother, Buster, fixed motor-bikes there. Buster Kelly owned an Indian, and everybody said it was a tremendous roaring thing. Buster sure made that Indian go.
‘No, it wasn’t the only reason I called,’ I told Mrs Kelly later
in the morning. ‘Of course, if Buster does turn up and offer me a ride, I won’t say no. I rather like speeding along on the back of his Indian. How about you, Mrs Kelly?’
‘On that roaring thing?’ said Mrs Kelly, who was plucking a fowl. ‘Not for me, thanks!’
‘It’s quite safe,’ I told her. ‘Personally, I trust Buster.’
Mrs Kelly, who was large and purple-cheeked, gave me one of her knowing looks. She said: ‘It’s not me you must convince, young man. Wasn’t it your mother who said you were not to ride on Buster’s bike? Or was it somebody else’s mother?’
‘My mother did say that,’ I said. ‘But it was ages ago. I don’t suppose she’d mind now.’
‘Buster wouldn’t want to go against her wishes,’ Mrs Kelly said. ‘We can’t be sure what they are until she gets back. And she’s only been gone a week, so she won’t be thinking of coming back yet.’
‘She won’t mind,’ I said. ‘Especially when she sees how we’ve fixed things while she’s away. We’re not just having fun, Mrs Kelly.’
Mrs Kelly finished plucking the fowl, dangled it. ‘Do you miss your mother, Harry?’
‘Not much,’ I said. I watched her wipe the bench. ‘We’re having a visitor, you know,’ I said. ‘Our cousin Caroline. She’s coming from the city.’
‘So I heard,’ said Mrs Kelly. ‘How long will she stay?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Hope she doesn’t stay too long. By the way, Mrs Kelly, when will Buster be back?’
‘Not till the week-end,’ she said. ‘You’re out of luck today.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ve got plenty to do.’
‘Harry?’ Cal said from the doorway.
‘I have to look after him,’ I told Mrs Kelly. ‘He misses his Mummy.’
‘I don’t!’ Cal shouted.
‘He pretends he doesn’t,’ I told Mrs Kelly.
‘When people first came to Calliope Bay,’ she said, ‘what troubled them most was loneliness. I don’t mean the people in the very old days, the first one or two who farmed in the district before there was any sort of settlement. I mean those who came to build the works, then those who came because there were jobs for them at the works, then those who moved in when others moved out, then of course those who came to help pull down the works. All these people were very lonely for a time. They seemed so far, far away from everything. No part of the country, of the world even, seems so faraway as this. And when people are faraway and lonely they often behave curiously, this is well-known. The teacher, many years ago, who tied a child to a tree in the school grounds would not have done so in any other place. Or, nowadays, the way Mrs Prosser hides is because she lives in such a faraway place. She is lonely, so she holds back. Even the rest of us, popping into one another’s homes and chatting, can see and hear only so much. I know I hold back when I go visiting, I know the others do too. Now, I asked your mother if she was looking forward to her holiday in the city. She said she was. “Are you sure, Janet?” I asked. Then she said she didn’t like leaving you boys, she said she would be thinking all the time she was away that she should have taken you with her, she would not be able to truly enjoy her holiday for thinking of you. On and on in this fashion. Was it the truth? Or, once she had made the two dozen bottles of ginger beer, did she give another thought to those who would drink it when she was gone? This is not for me to say. I can only suggest that escaping from loneliness is not always a matter of going from one place to another. How many bottles are left, Harry?’
‘Eighteen,’ I said.
‘Seventeen and a half,’ Cal said from the doorway.
‘I counted them last night,’ I said.
‘I opened one a while ago,’ he said.
‘You’ll catch it,’ I said. ‘You heard Dad say we were drinking it too fast. Have you been out to the wash-house lately? Seen what’s hanging above the copper?’
‘I was thirsty,’ Cal said. ‘What’s the use of ginger beer if I’m not allowed to drink it on hot days?’
‘It’s your funeral, boy,’ I said.
‘Would anybody here fancy a piecey?’ asked Mrs Kelly.
‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ I said. I followed her to the pantry, hoped she would put some of her great plum jam on the pieces of bread. ‘I was interested in what you were saying about loneliness,’ I told her. ‘It reminded me of something Mr Dalloway said last term. He said we live on the edge of the world. Us here in Calliope Bay. Like, it’s a wonder we don’t fall off, we live so close to the edge. Do you agree with that?’
‘Up to a point,’ she said, putting plum jam on the pieces. ‘What prompted him to say that? What time of the day was it when he said that?’
‘The afternoon,’ I said. ‘During geography.’
‘He said it as a joke, did he?’ she asked, handing me a piece then walking to the door to give Cal his piece.
‘He seemed serious,’ I said. I bit into the bread.
‘Mr Dalloway, I notice, hurries away from the edge the moment the holidays come,’ she said. ‘Takes no risks, it seems.’
‘I think he’s gone to the city,’ I said. ‘I like this plum jam, Mrs Kelly.’
‘So do I,’ Cal said.
‘I prefer plum to raspberry,’ I said. ‘Or maybe it depends on how it’s made. My mother’s raspberry jam is runny.’
‘That occasionally happens, no matter who the cook is,’ said Mrs Kelly. ‘Care for another piecey, boys?’
‘No more, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll be giving this kid his lunch soon. By the way, would you like some passion-fruit? We picked a lot this morning. Plenty to spare.’
She shook her head. ‘We have so many of our own. I must tell Dibs to pick them before the shed collapses.’
‘Do you reckon he’ll be long?’ I asked. ‘We thought we’d have a game before we do the weeding.’
‘He usually dawdles when he goes to the store,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell him you boys were asking about him.’
‘Tell him we’ll be near the works,’ I said. ‘Near the works, not in the works. We got something we want to show him.’
‘Very well, boys,’ said Mrs Kelly. ‘Now I must change my dress before Mr Wiggins arrives.’
I go on to my time at the works in the late afternoon of that day. This, of course, was after Dibs Kelly had fallen over the cliff. And that part on the cliff-top was, of course, after I had shown him what Cal and I had found in a killing-room at the works. I was up on the top floor of the works, looking through one of the holes where chutes had once started from. I was trying to see Cal.
‘Cal!’ I called, and ‘Cal-Cal-Cal’ went the echo through the works. ‘Are you ready?’
I saw him then, down through the holes on the other floors, waiting down there near the end of the one chute the men had not destroyed.
He waved.
‘Keep clear!’ I called.
I sent down eight of the bricks I had taken from the only wall left up there. I didn’t know why the men had let that wall stay, after pulling down the other three walls and the roof, but I was glad they had because the bricks in it were useful for things like creek dams and cave fireplaces. Earlier that summer we had found a new cave in the hill up from the wharf, and we were using a good few bricks in it.
Sometimes I followed the bricks down the chute. Not this time, though. It was best to wear sandshoes to help with the braking, and I wasn’t wearing sandshoes this time. Actually, I was only up there just now because I met Cal on my way back from the cliff-top and he looked sad about missing the fun Dibs and I had been having, so I agreed when he said it would be a good idea to get some more bricks for the cave, I said we could leave the bricks beside the furnace-house and take them to the cave tomorrow.
The risky part in getting down was between the top floor and the one below. The stairs between these floors had gone, you had to use footholds in the wall. This was easy enough, but it was exciting to pretend it was very dangerous, and I used to walk around the top floor
several times, sort of preparing myself for the trip, breathing in deeply, frowning.
Doing this now, I happened to see the butcher’s white van parked in the river. When the river was low there were two main streams at the crossing, a strip of shingle separating the streams. Cars and trucks simply sped through the streams and across the shingle when the river was like this, but it obviously hadn’t worked out right for Mr Wiggins today, because his van had stopped in the near-side stream, and there were signs he was in trouble.
One of the signs was that Mr Wiggins was squatting on a mud-guard, looking at the engine. The water was half-way up the van’s wheels; he couldn’t have stopped there on purpose.
‘Hey, Harry!’ cried Cal, popping up through the chute hole. ‘I climbed it again!’
‘Mr Wiggins is in trouble,’ I said.
Cal came across to look.
‘It’s the shallow part where he is,’ I said. ‘The other part’s where trucks usually get stuck, eh? Remember when Mr Kelly got stuck and the water was in the cab by the time they hauled the Reo out? It’s lucky for Mr Wiggins he didn’t get stuck in that part—’
‘Somebody’s with him,’ Cal said.
‘That’s Mrs Kelly,’ I said. I could see her on the runningboard; she was staring at the river.
‘Mr Wiggins is taking off his boots,’ Cal said. ‘Must be going to swim for it.’
‘He can walk to the shingle from there,’ I said.
We watched him jump into the water, then back towards Mrs Kelly.
‘She’s too heavy for him to carry,’ Cal said. ‘He’ll sink, she’ll fall in.’
But Mr Wiggins, for all his staggering, got to the shingle with Mrs Kelly on his back. He must be very strong, I thought. Then I remembered that he had been here at the works in the old days, one of the powerful fellows who killed animals with sledgehammers.
‘Now he’s going to push the van,’ I said.
‘What happened to Dibs?’ asked Cal.
‘See?’ I said. ‘That’s why he unloaded Mrs Kelly. He knew he couldn’t push it with her aboard.’
‘Where’s Dibs?’ asked Cal.
‘Search me,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t look as if Mr Wiggins can move the van.’
Sydney Bridge Upside Down Page 2