‘Oooh. I felt a raindrop. Run now.’
The rain came down. Lila’s umbrella stuck and wouldn’t open.
They ran for the train and got on, drenched.
Lila was still wiping and dabbing at them all as the train rattled across the bridge over the river with the jellyfish, but this time he closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at that sad hotel, all damp and lonely by the river with the darkness coming on.
What was in the box? Boxes like that had something to do with that hotel. This he knew without being told. And that sad hotel had something to do with him.
He said to Winnie Grindel, ‘You know what?’
‘What?’
‘Tomorrow morning we’re going down to see the piano boat.’
‘What’s a pianner boat?’
‘It’s the biggest boat in the world.’
‘It is not.’
‘It is. It’s bigger than your house.’
‘You’re a fibber.’
‘Am not.’
They were sitting in Winnie’s pepper tree. She was Tarzan and he was Jane, because he was smaller.
It was funny about Winnie; he didn’t like her much and yet he did. She was ugly and freckled and had long stringy hair tied up in rags to try to make it curl and she was bossy. But she knew a lot of things. Like where babies come from. They came, Winnie had told him in a whisper, out of your mother’s navel. He had found it unwise to correct Winnie because then she had a habit of twisting his arm and making him say, ‘Hell and spit,’ but he knew she was wrong about babies. Babies were made at hospitals like bread at the baker’s. Dear One had bought him at a hospital (Lila had pointed it out to him once, saying, ‘That’s The Laurels, where Dear One got you’).
Even so, Winnie knew a lot of things. She had shown him a picture of God. God had a black beard and a moustache and his name was Mr Marx. Winnie’s father was always saying that if people listened to Mr Marx there would be no depression or the dole. He had asked Lila about Mr Marx and she had laughed and said, ‘No, pet. What Winnie means is that Mr Marx is a god to some people.’ Winnie didn’t have to go to Sunday school and she had brought a note to school saying that she didn’t have to sing ‘Rule Britannia’ on Empire Day and salute the flag.
Winnie was looking at him and her small eyes seemed to have crept closer to each other the way they did when she was afraid he might know something she didn’t. She had caught a fat locust and was holding it in her hand, opening her hand every now and then so that the locust wriggled and waved its legs frantically in the air. Just when it thought it could escape, Winnie closed her fist on it.
She said, ‘Why is it called a pianner boat?’
He said, ‘I don’t know. That’s what they call it.’
‘Why are you going to see it?’
‘Because Vanessa’s coming on it.’
‘Who’s Vanessa?’
‘My aunt,’ he said. ‘She’s coming all the way from England.’
‘Is she a Pommy?’
He wasn’t allowed to use that word. Lila always said, ‘Don’t say Pommy, PS, say Englishman.’
He said, ‘No, I think she’s Assyrian.’
‘What was she doing in England?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘That’s where the King is.’
‘I know.’
Winnie said darkly, ‘But they’re going to kill him soon.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s got dimonds and jewles and rides around all day in a carriage.’
‘A baby carriage?’
‘No, stupid. A gold carriage, and he lives in a palace while the poor people have to sleep in the park and they don’t even have bread to eat so they’re going to shoot him and give all the dimonds and jewles to the poor people.’
‘Who said?’
‘It was in the paper.’ It was always in the paper, according to Winnie.
She shook her fist in the air to make the locust squawk and making her eyes into narrow little slits she said in an important voice:
‘I know a secret.’
‘What?’
‘What’ll you give me for it?’
Greedy Gertie. She was always snatching things from him, eating half his play lunch in exchange for secrets, and most of the time the secrets turned out to be dull things that didn’t interest him like ‘Lorna Palmer’s going to have a baby sister.’ She said, ‘Gimme your rainbow ball, you haven’t sucked much of it.’ A rainbow ball cost a penny and if you didn’t suck too fast you could make it last more than an hour while it changed colours all the way down to the end.
He said, ‘But I haven’t got down to the orange bit yet.’
‘Come on! I’ll give it back when I get to the licorice.’
He knew he was caught, like the locust, so he handed over the rainbow ball, sticky and fluffy from his pocket.
‘What’s the secret?’
Winnie sucked on the rainbow ball, wriggled her feet, shook up the locust and kept him waiting.
Then, her mouth full, she said, ‘Bor oing umwhere ess a iv.’
‘What?’
She took the ball out of her mouth and said, ‘You’re going somewhere else to live.’
He stared at her and heard a funny buzzing sound in his head, felt a bit shivery as if a cold drop of rain had fallen on him.
‘Am not.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘Who said?’
‘Your aunty told my mum.’
‘She did not.’
‘She did.’
‘Did not.’
‘Did. They’re comin’ in a big car to take you away for good.’
‘They are not. Who’s they?’
‘Whoever they are, they’re awful. Your aunty said.’
‘Fibber. Fibber.’
Winnie popped the rainbow ball back in her mouth, pulled a face at him, jumped down from the tree and started kicking up the dry dust of the yard with her bare feet while she chanted in a singsong voice:
‘PS is going aw-ay-ay. PS is going aw-ay-ay.’
Seeing a flash of something that looked like blue fire, he flew from the tree, found himself twice as tall with rage and fright, hit Winnie hard in the face with his fist. Right in her silly mouth.
She dropped like a stone in the dust and set up a wail.
‘Mumma. PS hit me.’
He ran, ran wildly for the hole in the paling fence, scrambled through it, feeling no legs under him, feeling the way it was the minute before being sick, ran across his own yard while close behind, reaching out long arms for him, were Vanessa and Logan; burst into the kitchen to find Lila bending over the sink.
‘I’m not going away.’
‘PS, what—’
‘I’m not. I’m not.’
Flung himself on her, holding tight to her waist, filling up and spilling over into tears and sobs while she gathered him up to her and safe on to her lap.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ But her voice sounded as though she already knew.
He gasped it all out. That Winnie said her mum said you said someone was coming in a car to take him away to live somewhere else. But he would not go, ever. He would take a gun and kill them if they tried. He would hide where they would never find him for a million years—
Lila said, her chest going up and down too fast, her heart beating as wildly as his, next to his face, ‘Now, nonsense. Nobody said such a thing and Winnie has got it all wrong. She was teasing you,’ and Lila gave an imitation of laughing and said, ‘Oh, what a silly joke and I’m surprised at a big boy of six being such a baby.’
He said angrily, ‘Are you trying to escape?’
Lila was shocked, he could tell, that he remembered. One evening, about a year ago, he had wakened up and called to them, called and called until he knew he was in an empty house and they were gone. They had come back and found him screaming. Heavens above, they’d only gone up the street, they said, only a few doors up the street to take some jelly to
Miss Gulf’s sick sister. He said, ‘I thought you escaped,’ and Lila said, ‘Now, you know George and I would never escape.’ ‘We can’t escape, dear old boy,’ George said, and kissed him.
Now Lila was rocking him the same as she had that night and she was saying that Winnie was teasing, only teasing. Nobody was coming in a car and it was silly, just as silly as when he’d been scared by the funny man in the circus. ‘But you were a baby then. Remember how we told you the funny man was just dressed up and wearing a rubber nose and that really he was just like George and went home in the tram to have his tea with his wife and children, just like us?’
Yes, he remembered but—
‘Well, it’s just as silly being scared about this, PS.’
‘I won’t go anywhere with Vanessa,’ he said, and Lila was quiet as if she was thinking about this, so he said, ‘And I won’t go anywhere near that hotel.’
‘What hotel? What are you talking about?’
‘You know,’ he said, warning her that he would make no end of trouble for them all, scream the world down, fight and spit and kick everything to pieces. Stamp on Dear One’s picture, which would be the wickedest thing in the world.
Lila, nestling him, said, ‘Now I’m going to tell you about a gorgeous surprise.’
He didn’t want it. ‘I don’t want it.’
‘You will when you hear it.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘All right then, I won’t tell you.’
‘What is it?’
‘Well, you know about holidays.’
‘What sort of holidays?’
‘Well, for instance, like the holidays you’re having now from school …’
She was saying it very carefully, thinking out the words. ‘Well, now, if you’re good, if you’re very, very good, you might go for a little holiday.’
‘With you and George?’
‘Noooooo, not exactly. Although we’ll take you there and bring you home after.’
‘But where?’
‘Across the harbour.’
‘Near here?’
‘So near, so very near that you could look out the window and we could look out our window and wave to each other and say, “Goodnight, PS. Are you having a nice holiday?”’
‘Who’d I be with?’
‘Er—Cousin Ettie, and—’
Who’s she?’
‘Goodness, gracious me, Cousin Ettie’s the most lovely, laughing, kind lady in the whole world. Oh, and the lovely presents she gives, you just won’t believe it. Why, she’s so nice, she’s almost as nice as your Aunt Vanessa.’
‘I won’t go anywhere with her.’
‘Now, PS.’
‘I’ll kill her.’
‘PS, stop that. Now stop it. Do you want to hurt poor Vanessa’s feelings when she’s come all this way on the piano boat just to see you and bring you surprises and when she’s written such lovely letters saying, “Please, Lila, couldn’t I borrow PS just for a little—”
‘I don’t belong to her.’
‘I said borrow, PS.’
‘I belong to you and George.’
‘Yes, of course, and that’s why Vanessa had to write and ask us. Like George has to ask Mr Grindel if he can borrow Mr Grindel’s lawnmower. Now, did you ever hear the lawnmower cry and say it wouldn’t come?’
That was a joke so he laughed a little at it, at the thought of the lawnmower crying, and Lila said:
‘Remember once when George and I had to go to Wollongong on the train and you went to stay the night with Vere?’
He nodded into Lila’s chest.
‘Remember what fun that was? Packing your suitcase with your ’jamas and toothbrush and Mrs Tiggywinkle to read in bed? Well, it will be just like that, only you’ll be going to spend the night with Vanessa.’
‘But I don’t know her.’
‘But you will, silly. You’re going to meet her tomorrow and oh, you are probably going to like her so much that when you go to visit her you won’t want to come home.’
Then, smelling the rabbit burning in the oven, Lila jumped up, rushed to the stove and snatching the first thing that came to hand, found she was trying to spoon gravy over the sizzling rabbit with the dish mop. They burst out laughing at this, forgot Vanessa and any trouble there was in the world, roared and held their sides. In fact, Lila laughed so hard that tears were running down her cheeks and she had to run into her bedroom and shut the door.
They got up very early. Even though it was midsummer, the sun was not even up when George came into his bedroom, tickled him and said, ‘Come on now, PS. Rise and shine now, because the piano boat gets in very early.’ He had never before washed and dressed by the electric light and after George had helped him with buttons, combed his hair on the wrong side and let him correct it himself with a jagged parting, when they had gone into the kitchen it was still barely light outside and Mrs Grindel’s rooster was only then beginning to crow at the day.
It was even stranger having breakfast with the kitchen light on and Lila serving them all fried eggs which none of them wanted. When breakfast was over and the dishes washed and put away, they still had an hour to wait before the seven o’clock ferryboat. Of course Lila had got them up too early. Much too early, George said, yawning and complaining that she was always too early for everything and reminding her that she’d even got to their wedding before he had. But Lila said, well, you never know, the boats don’t run as often on Saturdays and suppose the tram broke down or we got to the wrong pier? Something would be bound to go wrong, it always did, and wouldn’t it be awful if Vanessa and Cousin Ettie found no one waiting for them?
Lila wandered around wearing her Sunday hat, finding things to do, dusting and tidying drawers and looking into the linen closet until (with a scream) she remembered that the kitchen clock was slow and of course now they were late and flying around the house locking windows and doors, colliding with each other, remembering they had not gone to the bathroom; rushed out of the house as though it were on fire and then had to run all the way to the tram.
On the ferry, which they had practically to themselves, George read the Labor Daily and Lila talked through it to him. She said, ‘I can remember when they sailed for England, that Mater couldn’t come to see them off because she was already beginning to have the b-l-a-d-d-e-r trouble and Sinden was so late that they were already taking the gangplank away when she came running on to the pier. She’d brought a little farewell gift for Ness; it was a little rose-coloured silk bag to keep bottles of lotion and things in and she was so funny because she was determined the ship mustn’t sail without it and Vanessa was calling out, “Post it to me!” and there was a sailor looking out of a porthole and he called out to Sinden that he’d take it and one of the wharf labourers lifted her up so she could reach the sailor’s hand. I had to close my eyes, I was sure she’d fall in and be crushed between the ship and the wharf, but she didn’t and when she finally managed to reach the sailor’s hand, everyone on the pier cheered.’
Lila went on and on. She seemed to be wound up, seemed excited and gay as if they were all going to a picnic. She kept taking out her purse mirror and looking at her face in a surprised way as though she had never seen it before; kept tugging at her hat, pushing pieces of hair this and that way, asking George, ‘Am I all right? Is my hat on straight?’
‘You are gorgeous,’ said George without looking.
She was still talking when the Wooloomooloo tram turned a corner into a street of piers and George said, ‘Look, there she is,’ and turning their heads they saw the tops of two huge black-and-yellow funnels.
Now it would happen. In a very few minutes he would see Vanessa and he began to feel a little bit sick, felt creepycrawlies in his stomach and the same feeling as when, waking in the pitch dark of night, there are sounds of ghosts.
At the entrance to the wharf he hung back a moment, pretending his shoelace was undone, but Lila tugged him forward, saying, ‘Faster, PS,’ and they went into the cool
shadow of a huge tin shed and out into the sunlight to gaze up at a silent, grey ship which sailors were painting and Lila said, ‘That’s not it.’
George said, ‘All right, don’t get so excited.’
‘But they may get off before we get on.’
They hurried back across the dark shed, he and Lila running ahead almost as if they wanted to meet Vanessa, and George said, ‘It won’t fly away, you know.’
Then, blinking the sunlight away, they stood and looked up at the piano boat, rising up into the sky, black and as tall as the tower on the General Post Office. Every inch of its white railings was crowded with people only as big as dots and some of them were waving to people down on the wharf while others just stared down silently. Green water gushed out of holes in the side of the ship and he asked why. ‘Why is all that water coming out, Lila?’
‘I don’t know, pet. Now look up and see if you can find Vanessa and Cousin Ettie.’
‘But I don’t know them.’ Why was she so stupid?
A woman near them jumped up and down and screamed, ‘There she is. There’s Jean. Coo-ee, Jean.’ Another woman held up a baby and one of the dots waved and blew kisses to it. Someone said, ‘Would youse mind not standing on my bloody foot?’
They picked their way along the wharf with Lila saying, ‘George, don’t lose us now,’ and suddenly there was his Aunt Agnes wearing her funny pointed hat and carrying a grass fan shaped like a meat axe.
Agnes said, ‘Well, PS, I don’t often see you, do I?’ She kissed him. Her face was as perspiry as blancmange and she held some carnations. ‘Smell,’ she said.
Lila said, ‘Have you seen them?’
Agnes said, ‘They won’t let us on yet.’
‘But have you caught sight of them?’
‘Ettie was up there just for a minute, a little while ago.’
‘Where?’ Lila was peering up, working her mouth.
‘Up there, next to that woman in the red hat on the lower deck.’
‘Seen Ness?’
‘No.’
They stood together, hands across their eyes, while the heat, rising, shimmered around them and the big ship seemed to shake in the brightness of so much white paint and glaring sun. Pieces of brass caught fire and dazzled their eyes. They would all be blind before they could see Vanessa.
Careful, He Might Hear You Page 5