The Torch

by Peter Twohig

  I did a quick turn into Tannery Lane, then ducked through a hole in the wall and took a look around. The old tannery had been abandoned because of the stink, according to Dad. The same tannery had originally been in what was now the Channel Nine studio in Bendigo Street, which I thought was very strange. But I knew that the tannery had probably moved to a less desirable part of Richmond (though I couldn’t imagine where), or maybe anywhere at all in Hawthorn, across the river, and that one day the stink would get it moved up to Collingwood, where no one would notice.

  There was filthy machinery in there, and rusty trapdoors and steel steps. I went down them all, as quiet as a wowser with a hangover, and looked into every corner and cupboard, using my torch every now and then but really not needing it, because sunlight found its way in from all kinds of places, including through holes in some of the machines and tanks. I explored the basement first. It was the most mysterious part of the factory, and the one I was most familiar with, as I had often walked through it on my way to the lumberyard, the tram yard, and the railway line, all of which could be reached through the far end, as Flame Boy had apparently discovered for himself.

  I found lots of kid footprints that weren’t mine, so I knew at least that I was on the right track. I went up to the ground floor. There was nothing really different up there, nor on the floor above that. It was on the top floor that I struck pay-dirt. The top floor was where the offices had been and, unlike the lower floors, it had remained water-free and more or less clean. Here I found Flame Boy’s hideout, which consisted of an old derro’s mattress and some victuals. I half expected to see him there, as he had left the Cobras meeting before me, probably, I reckoned, to stash the briefcase, and also to avoid interrogation by me. On the mattress was a note. It said:

  the brif case is not her

  I looked up, half expecting to see Flame Boy preparing to throw a lighted torch at me. But there wasn’t a sound, except for the Sandringham train going past outside, heading for South Yarra, my favourite station.

  I believed him because of the note. It showed that he was one jump ahead of me: that he knew I was looking for him. It was also, I realised, a test. Would I dob him in? No. Today, the answer was no, though I had changed my mind a few times already. I shoved my hand into my explorer’s bag and got out my pencil. I put the note on top of an old table that was in the office and wrote a new message.

  If you light one more fire I will dob you in.

  I really wanted to add a bit telling him that I could take him to his dad in exchange for the briefcase, but I knew that if the rozzers tracked him down — and it had been easy enough for me to do it — then I did not want to spend the rest of my life in a home, for being an accessory after the fact. I had to make Flame Boy trust me. It wasn’t any easier knowing he was a Cobra, as he seemed to be a kind of hairy mascot with the official power to cause pain, which I assumed was the essential nature of the Snakebite. I would have to work outside the club.

  I went back to the Sandersons’ and while they were watching the cricket made a couple of sandwiches, one with peanut butter and one with Vegemite, and got a couple of chocolate crackles and a banana and filled my army canteen with water. Then I was off. I had a story ready in case they cornered me in the kitchen and started interrogating me, like a captured saboteur, but they didn’t. The cricket must have reached an exciting bit — let’s face it, you wouldn’t want to miss that for quids. It would be like The Blob suddenly turning up and eating the MCG — again, not a bad idea.

  When I got back to Flame Boy’s hideout my note had been moved, but he was not around. Still, I had the feeling that he was watching me. I left his outlaw victuals, but I didn’t stay and I didn’t call out to him. I had nothing to say, really. And it was just possible that the coppers were waiting for him. I hoped they weren’t, but I felt guilty, because I knew that it was a selfish hope.

  31 The tender trap

  It had been a busy week, one that had its high and its low points. Also, I had discovered a few things: things I hadn’t known about drains, secret clubs, best friends who knew more than they were letting on, and girls.

  On Monday after school, the Olympians had a meeting, which was mostly taken up with trying to figure out where the next fire was going to break out and who would be the best girl in Richmond to kiss — I didn’t mention Mona De Coney (and I noticed that Raffi didn’t mention Sidewinder’s sister, Tina). It was a strange meeting, because only the day before I had discovered that Raffi had been withholding vital information about the whereabouts of Flame Boy, and I now had to keep my mouth shut, because we were both Cobras and it was Cobra Law. We discussed the missing firebug, as usual, but I did not mention my discovery at the old tannery, as I felt that dealing with Flame Boy in person was my secret mission and mine alone. Raffi gave me the old knowing glance when ‘the Torch’ as we called him was discussed, but that was all. It felt good to have the secret bond with Raffi, and I could tell that he felt the same. However, Douggie Quirk who, in spite of being Johnno Johnson’s best friend, was as switched on as a wireless, noticed this and piped up.

  ‘Hello! Got a little secret, have we?’

  I was stuck for words, and Raffi, who had the gift of the gab, said, as smooth as Nestlé’s milk: ‘Yes. If you must know, me and Blayney are in love.’

  All the kids killed themselves laughing at this, which was a pretty standard kind of joke. Only Charles didn’t laugh, but went red in the face and smiled politely, as he is your polite type of kid.

  Afterwards, James Palmer asked me if I’d like to go to lunch and the pictures with him and his mum on Saturday. I was thrilled to bits, for two reasons. First, I love the pictures, and the one we were going to see was Journey to the Center of the Earth, which I had read as a Classics comic, and knew was going to be good value. And second, I needed a break from the pressure-cooker life of the superhero. Frankly, waiting for the next disaster that had a connection to me was starting to get me down.

  Now it was Friday afternoon, and I was thinking about Mona, as usual, and how badly the previous Sunday’s Mass had gone. I had seen her a few times after school, when all the Vaucluse girls came pouring out of their school, which was right next door to ours. The first time, one of her friends told her I was there, but she ignored me, and the second time, she looked at me, then kept on talking. I reckoned I had done my dash. All I knew was that eventually I was going to have to go over to her place and see if we were still sweethearts, though I wasn’t looking forward to it. Barney was always saying that a bloke has to strike while the iron is hot, but the iron did not feel hot; it felt a bit chilly.

  Sometimes it’s good to be ignorant. I made that up: I have no idea if it’s true. But after I said it to myself a few times it began to sound wise. So I decided that it was probably the wisest thing I was going to hear that day — and I needed wise advice like mulligan stew needs mulligan.

  I remembered something else Barney once told me.

  ‘If you ever get caught with your pants down, Blayney m’boy, the best course of action is to throw yourself on the mercy of the Court in the hope of a suspended sentence,’ he said.

  ‘Does that ever work?’

  ‘Not usually. But a lot of briefs swear by it. Also, I’ve known some first-class villains who are only running round free because they pleaded guilty.’

  ‘But you actually committed all those crimes, didn’t you, Barney? I mean, didn’t you have to pay?’

  ‘Whoa, whoa there, young feller! Strike me pink! You obviously have no appreciation of the Victorian legal system. Y’see, in our fair state a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty.’

  ‘Whaddaya mean?’

  ‘Proven guilty. Obviously, you can’t just take a bloke’s word that he committed some misdemeanour: house breaking, receiving, what have you. So even if he swears blind that he did it, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Quod erat demonstrandum. Amen.’

  He blessed himself, solemnly.

  ‘
Geez, Barn, I didn’t know you could speak Latin.’

  ‘I don’t like to show off. Modesty is the curse of the Irish.’

  He spat on the ground, elegantly.

  I dropped my bag off at home then went straight out again. One amazingly quick tram trip later followed by a walk down Alexandra Avenue and up River Street that I thought would take much longer, and I was in front of Mona’s house. I wondered if it was going to be the Battle of the Superheroes, even though Mona had no superpowers. I mean, she had powers, but they weren’t super. Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true, either. In fact, as I stood at her gate in the stinking hot sun and thought about it, I could see that she would probably turn out to be a Wonder Woman type of superhero herself one day. She was already halfway there when she was wearing her netball uniform. And she did have that way of grabbing me when she kissed me that left dents in my chest and flattened my lips.

  I was just wondering whether Superman’s lips ever got flattened when Lois Lane kissed him, when I became aware that someone was on the other side of the screen door, breathing like Betty Cuthbert after a big win. I thought I had better let her go first, as I didn’t want to run out of ammo straight away. She said nothing, just huffed. I deserved it. Just as I was beginning to formulate a fiendish apology that was calculated to erase her memory of recent events and make her believe I was a cross between Errol Flynn and Elvis Presley, I heard my name being called from behind me.

  It was Lucky Martello, over at her front door. I took a closer look at the gloomy interior of Mona’s house, and the face of her half-wit Dalmatian, Dotty, appeared. Of course. I straightened up and turned around and saw that Mona was across the road with Lucky. She was waving — not Mona, Lucky. Mona was looking distant, as if she was thinking of her favourite film star (she had a scrap book with Pat Boone’s fizzog on the front). I should have run away. That’s what Sidewinder would have done. The cobra does not tangle with the mongoose — I saw it on Disneyland. In this case it was two mongooses against one cobra. All that I had were my super wits, and I would need them.

  I waved and smiled as I approached (not my Big Hello smile; I didn’t want them to think they had me in their evil snare). Lucky let me in and took me to the living room, with Mona leading the way. Mona was wearing a very short skirt and a short-sleeved shirt that stuck out in the front even more that her other shirts, so that I wondered if some bits of her had grown in the last few hours.

  ‘It’s lucky you came over, really,’ said Lucky. ‘I was just having a throw-out of my old comics. You can take them off my hands.’ She disappeared into another room.

  ‘I heard you like reading books as well,’ she called. ‘I might have a few.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I called back, while looking at Mona, cautiously.

  Mona sat across from me with her arms folded and her legs crossed, which meant that her skirt didn’t cover her legs at all. She grabbed the edge of her skirt and pulled it down a fraction of an inch with a giant tug, and let it bounce back up again. It’s a thing girls do when they’re upset. I even saw Aunty Queenie do it once when Granddad said something nice about Lorna the Clippie, except she hitched her skirt up, which was quite puzzling. It’s moments like this that you want the old Cobra gang with you, to give advice and generally help you feel that you don’t have to worry, as at the first sign of attack they will jump in and apply the Deadly Snakebite.

  On the other hand, I just wanted to be alone with Mona for a few minutes, to talk, so it was good that Lucky had to find those old comics. Not that there was much talking happening. But years of watching Dad trying to talk his way out of stuff — like the time he went to the footy when Mum was crook and forgot to come back with her medicine; or the time he went to the RSL and got plastered and ran over Constable Wideberg’s foot and had to spend the night in jail when he was supposed to take Mum to see A Night to Remember (bet he never forgot that); or the time he spent all day fixing Mrs McGuire’s washing machine, when it turned out it wasn’t even busted — had taught me a few things.

  Plus, I had all the combined advice of Dad, Granddad, Blarney Barney and Uncle Seamus. Right now, that advice was telling me to turn to the page headed: What to do when the missus/little lady/sweetheart is hopping mad. Advice: As little as possible. So I sat there, looking like I’d had the Paralysis Ray turned on me by a visitor from another planet, and waited.

  ‘What’s wrong, cat got your tongue?’

  Wow, that was easier than I had expected! Mona was talking to me again.

  ‘N—’

  ‘Oh I see, I’m not good enough to talk to.’

  ‘Y—’

  ‘Perhaps you’d rather be talking to Josephine Thompson.’

  That was a tough ball to field, but I think I knew what to say, in the circumstances.

  ‘N—’

  ‘’Cos she doesn’t even know who you are.’

  ‘W—?’

  ‘She thought you were another boy.’

  I was tempted to ask who. Oh, what the hell.

  ‘Wh—?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt! I suppose you think you can still be my boyfriend.’

  Without doing anything at all I had been promoted from sweetheart to boyfriend!

  ‘N—’

  ‘Well, you can’t. There are other boys who like me a lot more than you do.’

  ‘Wh—?’

  ‘Rolly Duffy for one.’

  Rolly Duffy … Rolly Duffy … nope, sorry.

  ‘Wh—?’

  ‘Stop interrupting!’

  There was a silence, like when the church choir finally gives up, but the sound is still bouncing around in your scone.

  ‘Ah, here we are. I knew I put them somewhere.’

  Lucky reappeared, smiling her million-dollar smile, as if she understood. I could tell at a glance that they were in cahoots, and I understood why they had called that movie The Tender Trap.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs … Aunt … Lucky. These are terrific. Um, best I be off.’

  Lucky remained in the lounge room while Mona hurried ahead, opened the front door, and pushed me out onto the porch. I had never been so glad to see River Street — or any other street, for that matter — and was just about to escape, when Mona jerked me back and spun me around to face her, then gave me a pash, only not like the others, not like a giant squid crushing a nuclear submarine, but more gentle.

  I don’t know how I found my way home: sense of smell is my guess. The first half of the ordeal — that’s what it was — had come in a short half head behind the time I had to explain to Mother Sylvester why I turned on the fire hose during school vaccinations; while the second half taught me something about girls I was willing to bet Barney didn’t know: that they weren’t so bad, really. Which just goes to show that kissing can probably cause brain damage.

  32 The Darrods Caper

  I have mentioned Uncle Seamus’s advice regarding the female of the species not only because it seemed to work (by some mysterious mechanism I couldn’t put my finger on, like the inside of a Sunbeam Mixmaster) but because when I arrived back at Granddad’s place, there was Uncle Seamus himself, sitting in the living room. It was as if an Uncle Seamus drought was being followed by an Uncle Seamus flood.

  ‘Hello, again, young Romeo. What news o’ the Rialto?’

  ‘She kissed me.’

  ‘I heard that,’ said Mum, appearing with the tea things on a tray and plonking them down on a table. ‘Who kissed you?’

  I was stuck for an answer. Whatever I said, it was going to lead to more embarrassing questions.

  ‘Now, now, Jean, it’s his first, so let’s let him enjoy his blissful moment.’

  ‘It only takes a blissful moment, as you well know, Seamus.’

  ‘Alas, poor Seamus, she knows him.’

  But I was glad to have an opportunity to share something intimate with Mum, in the hope that she might take it as a peace sign, like with the Indians, because it felt like she had been at war with me since Tom died. And bes
ides, she might tell all the other mothers she knew how wonderful I was, and they might tell their daughters, and so on. I was just thinking about the effect on Mona that Josephine Thompson’s looking at me had had. On the whole, I could only see good coming of it.

  ‘It’s all right, Uncle Seamus. It was Mona De Coney, Mum.’

  ‘Hello!’ shouted Aunty Daffy, appearing suddenly from the stairs, like a red ghost. ‘Did I come down at a bad time?’ She winked at me. ‘Or a good one?’

  Uncle Seamus stood up with a stunned look on his fizzog, and bowed as if Our Lady of Lourdes had just floated in.

  There were introductions. He kissed Aunty Daphne’s hand. Mum was not surprised. I was surprised to find that I was not surprised either. Aunty Daphne sat with Uncle Seamus. I could tell that she had instantly forgotten her name, rank and serial number. It was the Seamus Effect, which everyone in the family knew about, and which they will one day be teaching in history classes.

  Mum continued as if nothing had happened, which was a bit like ignoring Christmas.

  ‘Now, did I hear you say you kissed Francesca De Coney’s daughter?’

  ‘No, Mum: she kissed me.’ I had pinned my hopes on the subtle difference.

  Mum gave Uncle Seamus and Aunty Daffy one of those looks that said: Have you seen that De Coney girl? Bang goes the family reputation. But she got no change out of them; they were looking at each other like a couple of toddlers in a playpen.