A Prayer for Blue Delaney (8 page)
When Colm and Rusty finally pushed open the big doors of the Asylum, Bill was waiting for them, his expression thunderous.
After he had heard Colm’s story, Bill sat down and put his head in his hands.
‘Well you’ve buggered things good and proper,’ he said. ‘Everyone in Fremantle knows Rusty’s my dog. If the coppers come knocking, we’ll know why.’
Colm knelt down beside Rusty and put his arm around her. ‘They won’t take her away, will they? She was only trying to help me.’
‘Right. Biting a copper. That’s a big help. They’ll probably take the pair of you away, lock you up and shoot her.’
Colm felt the blood drain away from his head. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered.
Bill shook his head and sighed.
‘No, it’s not your fault. It’s not right keeping you cooped up like this,’ he said, as if talking to himself. ‘Rattling around with the ghosts. But I can’t let you loose in Fremantle, especially now. Sooner or later the police or the Welfare will come knocking on the door, and it will be back to Bindoon for you.’
‘I’ll run away again.’
‘To what? It’s not like the old days when there was always work about for boys. Little tacker like you, you can’t get a job or do anything much except wait to grow up.’
‘I’ll stow away and go back to England. Like you did, but the other way around.’
‘Times have changed, mate. You’d never make it out of the port.’
Colm scowled. ‘I have to get back to England. I have to get back to my mother. She’s waiting for me.’
Bill leant forward and looked Colm straight in the eye. ‘Listen, cobber, I know it’s hard. But you’ve got to face it, mate. How long since you saw your ma? You reckon if she was alive, she’d give up on you? Do you know what happened to her?’
‘She said she was coming back, but then . . .’ Colm mumbled.
‘Did she ever visit you? How long since you’ve seen her? Do you even remember her face?’
The questions were like punches to the stomach for Colm. He stood up and swept everything from the table. Tea and biscuits went flying to all corners of the room. He took hold of the edge of the table and gave it a mighty push, overturning it onto Bill’s lap.
‘I remember everything,’ he shouted, and ran from the room.
In the old dining hall, he flung open the lid of the piano and started bashing out a tuneless song, while tears poured down his face.
‘I can remember,’ he muttered to himself as the notes became more frenzied and his fingers stumbled on the keys. He remembered that his mother played the violin. He remembered that she’d stand by the window while thin city sunlight filtered through the glass and made her red hair shine. He could remember all sorts of little things about her - her favourite blue coat, the way she’d bring him a bun when she collected him from Mrs Fogarty’s on Friday evening after her long day at work. He remembered the tiny room they shared in the boarding house and looking into the cracks to see if there was any treasure under the floor. But he couldn’t remember her face. He racked his brain, trying to make a picture. He could see everything, everything about her - the shape of her body, the way she moved, the touch of her hand - but he couldn’t make out her face. If he couldn’t see her face, there could only be one reason. He pounded his fists down on the keys of the piano and then slammed the lid.
Next morning, Colm woke to find Bill packing pots and pans into a small wooden crate. Colm rubbed his eyes and looked around the room. It had always looked bare, but now there was almost nothing left of Bill’s possessions. Even Rusty’s bowl was missing.
‘Time to hit the frog and toad,’ said Bill.
Colm’s stomach lurched. ‘You’re leaving home,’ he said, more as a statement than a question.
The old man laughed. ‘This old nut-house? A home? No, it was only a place to bunk down for a season. Home is where the heart is and my heart feels easy on the open road. Been here too long already. Besides, after the trouble you stirred up yesterday, it’s time we moved on. You up for an adventure?’
Colm bent down and patted Rusty. He didn’t know how to answer. Why was Bill so kind to him, especially after last night? Rusty lowered her head and started licking Colm’s feet.
‘If Rusty wants me to come,’ said Colm, ‘I’ll come.’
‘She’s not the one driving the ute,’ said Bill, drily.
Colm bit his lip. ‘Last night, I’m sorry for last night. It was ‘cause . . . I’ve been waiting and thinking about. . . you know . . . for a long time . . . and when you said . . .’
‘Never mind,’ said Bill, with a wave of his hand. ‘You go and say your goodbyes to Ethel and the other ghosts. I’ve still got some packing up to do.’
All morning, Colm sat at the piano, furiously playing every last tune he knew and then making up others. He wasn’t sorry to be leaving the ghosts behind, but leaving the piano was like parting from an old friend.
‘C’mon then,’ said Bill, putting his head around the door. ‘Tin Annie’s waiting.’
‘Who’s she?’
Bill led Colm around to the side of the Asylum. Parked out in the street was an old ute. It was pale blue, except where the paint had been scraped off in one close shave or another.
‘Meet Tin Annie,’ Bill announced. ‘They used to call these old Fords Tin Lizzies. I’ve never fancied anyone called Lizzie, but there was a girl in a blue dress that I was sweet on when I was a young fella. Annie. She was unpredictable, always surprising, but a real goer. Old Tin Annie’s like that too. Wouldn’t call her reliable, but when she goes, she’s a cracker of a car.’
Colm climbed into the front seat. Rusty jumped up beside him and immediately sat on his lap.
‘You’re in her seat,’ said Bill.
Colm smiled and wrapped his arms around her. ‘It’s our seat now.’
They drove out of Fremantle and onto the Great Eastern Highway. The hills of Perth gave way to scrub and then flat open country. Rusty kept climbing onto Colm’s lap and sticking her head out the window, hanging her tongue out in the warm breeze. Colm put his hand into the wind and felt the gritty air pass through his fingers.
As evening fell, Bill turned off the road onto a grading track and bumped to a stop.
‘C’mon, mate. Time to catch some tucker.’
When Colm climbed out of Tin Annie he found Bill loading a rifle. In less than a minute, he’d scanned the landscape and then fitted the gun to his shoulder. The first shot made Colm’s insides hurt. It was as if it went straight through him. Twenty feet from where they stood, a rabbit skittered in the dirt. Bill turned and smiled. ‘There you go. You nip over there and pick it up.’
The dead rabbit was warm and limp in Colm’s hands. He cradled the animal close against his chest.
‘Give us that,’ said Bill, frowning. ‘You shouldn’t carry it like that. You’ve got blood all over your shirt now. Haven’t you ever been hunting?’
Colm shook his head.
Bill laid the rabbit down beside him and put a hand on Colm’s shoulder. ‘Your turn. You take a potshot at them. This time of night, they’re everywhere. Easy to bring ‘em down.’
Colm put his hands behind his back.
‘C’mon. Every boy wants to have a go with a gun.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Colm.
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll show you how to shoot. There’s a little kickback in the shoulder, but you’ll get the hang of it.’
Colm shook his head again and took a step away.
‘Have it your way,’ Bill said, raising the gun and firing into the scrub. This time he sent Rusty to collect the rabbit.
Colm couldn’t watch as Bill skinned the rabbits. He climbed back into the cab of Tin Annie and sat looking out at the landscape through the dusty windscreen. What was he doing out here? He lay down on the seat and shut his eyes, wishing that when he opened them he’d be somewhere else, in a bed in a house, some place where he didn’t have to feel so wretched and alone.
The car door creaked loudly as Bill wrenched it open. ‘Get out here and make yourself useful.’
While Colm gathered some more sticks for the fire, Bill stewed the rabbits in a billy. They ate in silence. It was as if both of them were suddenly wondering how they had wound up together.
After tea, Bill hauled two swags out of the back of the ute and unrolled them beside the camp fire.
‘Aren’t you going to pitch a tent?’ asked Colm.
‘A tent? Why would we be wanting a tent?’
Colm didn’t reply. He wished they were at least in a grove or under a tree. The landscape seemed so wide, so vast, with no end to it. Being out in this huge open space made his skin prickle. The night sky was ablaze with stars, as though they were wrapped around the whole world. He whistled softly for Rusty to come and lie beside him, but she was nestled down firmly next to her master and didn’t respond. Colm stood up and tiptoed over to the old ute. He wound up the windows and settled down on the worn blanket that covered rips in the upholstery.
Next morning, Colm woke to the smell of damper and sweet tea. Bill laughed at him as he climbed out of the ute.
‘Didn’t fancy sleeping on the ground, eh? You frightened of snakes or something? A real Irishman.’
‘Irishmen aren’t afraid of snakes,’ said Colm.
‘There’s no snakes in Ireland to be afraid of,’ said Bill, shaking his head and pouring tea from the billy into a tin cup. ‘Saint Patrick drove them out, you should know that, if you’re Irish, that is.’
Colm folded his arms across his chest. He wanted to say of course he was Irish, but he didn’t really know if he had been born in Ireland or England.
‘You don’t know about being Irish, either,’ said Colm.
Bill laughed. ‘I know a bit. I was born there.’
Then he stood up, tin cup in hand, and recited.
‘I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.’
‘Are those all Irish men? What did they do?’
‘They died for the sake of a terrible beauty.’
‘Something can’t be terrible and beautiful at the same time,’ said Colm.
‘Ireland can,’ replied Bill. He handed Colm a tin plate with a big slice of damper and a can of golden syrup. ‘Here you go, wrap your chops around that lot.’
Colm wanted to refuse, but he was hungry and it smelt too delicious. He took the plate, puzzling over the words of the poem, the tangle of names and ideas.
‘And speaking of "can’t" - you can’t go on being afraid of everything,’ said Bill, as Colm licked syrup from his fingers.
‘I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to sleep outside and I don’t like guns,’ said Colm.
He fed the rest of his damper to Rusty and stared out into the scrub, waiting for Bill to argue with him. But the old man was in no hurry to say anything. He began rolling his supply of cigarettes for the day. As he finished each one, he carefully folded down the end of the cigarette and put it into his tobacco tin.
‘I was a couple of years older than you when my mam died. I thought the ground was going to swallow me up, but it didn’t. That was nigh on sixty years ago.’
‘Is that why you feel sorry for me? Because you were an orphan too? You don’t have to help me. I’m not like you,’ said Colm.
‘No, I don’t doubt that,’ said Bill wryly. He lit up one of his cigarettes and coughed as he inhaled.
‘I want to tell you a little story, Sonny Jim. About the Great War. Maybe your grandads fought in that war. We called it "the war to end all wars".’ He took another puff of his cigarette and shook his head. ‘I was in France, fighting in the trenches. Bloody terrible place, it was. We’d have these skirmishes, fighting for a little piece of ground, and when enough of us had been slaughtered they raised the white flag and the stretcher-bearers would go scurrying out to collect their own. So there I was, holding up the other end of a stretcher and piling bodies onto it, and I stumbled over this corpse. The other digger, he wanted to pick the corpse up, and I said, “What’s the point? The poor bugger’s past saving.” But the other bloke insisted. Reckoned he could see a spark of life in the fella. The white flag was down and we had to clear off. So I hauled this muddy, bleeding soldier onto my back, ‘cause the stretcher was full, and we dragged our load back into the trenches.’
‘Was he dead?’ asked Colm.
‘Well, that’s the thing. The other fella had been right. The corpse wasn’t a corpse at all, for all the blood and guts smeared on him. Turned out the entrails was mostly from the bloke beside him who’d been blown up. But it wasn’t just the miracle that this fella was alive. When I washed the blood and the mud off him, I found it was my old best mate, Clancy Lytton. I’d been going to walk away from him and leave him for dead. And then he sat up on the stretcher like bloody Lazarus, rising from the grave, and he said, “Billy Dare, you saved my life!”’
Colm frowned.
‘The thing is, when you help someone out, you don’t know if something good is going to come of it, or if it’s just your duty. But you have to do what you think is right. You have to help that stranger. Might be you’re helping an angel, like happens in the Bible stories. Or that stranger might turn out to be your best mate.’
‘I’m not an angel,’ said Colm.
‘Ain’t that the truth. But when Rusty found you on the docks and started making a fuss of you, well, I reckon she was trying to show me something. She’s a wise old hound, that one. Perhaps we should pay attention to what she was trying to tell us.’
Bill got to his feet and kicked apart the campfire until the coals were scattered.
‘You don’t have to sleep outside, you don’t have to learn to shoot and you don’t have to agree with me. But if we’re going to be travelling companions for a while, you’re gonna have to pull your weight and you’re gonna have to leave me to my own way of seeing things. That’s what mates do. What do you reckon?’
No one had ever asked Colm what he thought before. He’d always been told what he should think and how he should behave. For a moment he didn’t know how to answer, but then Rusty licked his hands again, in search of the last traces of golden syrup.
‘I think Rusty’s wise too. So I suppose that means you and I should be mates.’