Fog a Dox (8 page)

‘You carried him on the track. You told Nurse Foran. Nora Foran.'

‘Yes, but it's an awful long way and …'

‘But you carried him and he's big. I'm little, skin
and bone, they say.'

‘But …'

‘I'll ask my mum. She'll let me. She doesn't know what else to do.'

THE RIVER

It was a strange sort of parade: the narrow track beneath the flowering wattles and geebungs; the dox and dogs trotting beside them; Albert with his arm in a sling; Dave carrying Maria on his back; and Mrs Coniliopoulos crying at the rear.

They arrived at Albert's house and Dave bustled about putting a plank between two stumps so that everyone could sit down. Albert only had two chairs.

The billy was on and the two men, not used to
having visitors, awkwardly offered tea.

Dave remembered Maria and tested all his knowledge of the beverage preferences of ten-year-old girls.

‘I'm sorry, Maria, there's no lemonade.'

‘That's all right,' she said, ‘I want tea anyway, out of that billy.'

‘There's no milk either,' Albert added.

‘Black tea, I want black bush tea, like you.'

So they all sat around drinking black tea and eating a box of cakes Nora Foran had given them, leftovers from yesterday's hospital meals.

A bird skittered at their feet.

‘What's that?' Maria asked.

‘It's a scrub wren,' Albert replied, ‘a white-browed scrub wren. He's really friendly. Comes into the hut to eat the crumbs. He's actually a girl.'

‘How do you know that?' Maria sounded sceptical. She thought
she
was the one who knew everything about animals.

‘It's got a grey face, the boys are darker, almost black. She's probably feeding babies. Crumble up some cake and drop it, she'd love that.'

The little bird skipped about Maria's feet until a yellow robin flitted into the clearing, clipped its feet onto the side of a wattle tree and glared at the scrub wren. Any cake being given out was his cake too. But really the robin wasn't so keen on cake. He only turned up to see if Albert was splitting firewood or turning over his vegetable garden. Both those jobs produced grubs and the robin loved grubs. The fatter the better.

Maria asked about each of the birds that visited: the comical family of choughs that she'd seen out her window, and now here they were again, metres from her chair and she could hear the little mewing, that conversation of happy families. She couldn't believe how beautiful the king parrots were when you could see them close up. And the whip bird. The currawong that called out barricello all day. The red-browed firetail, which Albert called towerer in his grandfather's language. He told her that he thought the firetail's red beak was like a piece of red enamel, like nail polish. Maria loved them all, never having been so close to wild birds before.

She was amazed that they weren't scared of Fog or Brim or Queenie Bess. Especially Fog, a fox, an animal designed to kill birds. But Fog sat on Maria's lap and let himself be patted until the coat around his neck shone like gold. He licked her face in appreciation and she shrieked with delight.

Her mother just shrieked. ‘That fox will make her sick!'

‘I love it here,' Maria declared, ‘with all my friends.'

Mrs Coniliopoulos burst into tears again. Dave turned to her and was about to say shush but remembered his manners in time. It was just that Dave hated too much noise.

‘Tell you what,' said Albert, ‘what about we go fishing next week when my arm's a bit better? We can use Tiger's boat.'

‘The doctor said …' Mrs Coniliopoulos began.

‘Mum, let me go,
please
. I'm sick of being stuck in that room.'

‘But you might get tired and …'

‘Well, I'll go to sleep. Please, Mum, I've never been fishing.'

She wasn't a naughty or persistent girl and she didn't usually argue much with her mother but she loved the forest and now the thought of the river was too much. Mrs Coniliopoulos really would do anything for her daughter as long as it was for the best. But how did you know what was best when she was so ill?

Albert gently convinced Mrs Coniliopoulos that they could make the day not too strenuous and Maria could always rest at Tiger's if she needed to. Somehow Albert managed to mention Tiger's horses. Maria had heard of the heroic performance of those beasts and her eyes shone with such expectation that Mrs Conillipoulos' misgivings crumbled in the face of her daughter's enthusiasm.

Maria was a town girl. For the last eight months she had been locked up with nature shows and books, which had filled her with enormous volumes of information but no experience. She wanted to touch the animals, spy out the wild beasts, catch the elusive fish and smell the wild, wild wilderness of Tiger's river.

Maria couldn't believe Tiger's farm; there were kids and animals everywhere. The kids seemed to compete in offering Maria different fruits and cakes form Lily Carter's kitchen. She accepted all the gifts but couldn't face eating them. All the medication she was on had stolen her appetite.

‘What's wrong with ya, anyway?' Possum Carter, the second youngest, demanded. ‘Dad says yer real crook.'

‘I've got leukaemia.'

‘Are ya gunna die?'

‘Shh, you, Possum,' his older sister Alice scolded.

‘Maria is on a new medication and the doctor's are very hopeful there will be an improvement,' Mrs Coniliopoulos intervened.

The look Maria gave Possum and Alice left them feeling that Maria didn't share her mother's confidence, if, indeed, that's what her mother believed.

‘They said I was too sick to go out in the bush, but I've never been fishing and Albert promised.'

‘Here's some scrubbies for ya then,' Possum declared.

Maria looked sceptically at the yoghurt container full of squirming worms.

‘They're scrub worms, terrific bait for perch and bass.'

Tiger came over leading three horses.

‘Here are the three heroes you wanted to see, Maria, aren't they beauties?' He lifted Maria into the saddle of old Sparkle and his heart clenched with sorrow. The kid weighed almost nothing. ‘I'd put you on the superhero, Fair Go, but he can be skittish at times. Behaved himself when it was important, but most of the time he still thinks he's racing in the Melbourne Cup.'

‘Did he win the Melbourne Cup?' Maria gasped.

‘In his dreams,' Tiger scoffed, ‘old Fair Go here never won a race in his life. Led quite a few of them but then got a bit too interested in the fillies behind him. Had a bit of trouble that way meself.' Tiger winked at his wife, who blushed and dug him in the ribs.

‘Horses don't dream, do they?' Maria questioned. She could be a bit of a know-all sometimes, but when you know a lot it's
sometimes hard not to show it off.

‘I think Fair Go dreams, Maria. When he took charge of getting Albert to hospital he dreamt he was a good, reliable horse. Mind you, he's woken up since. Ate an entire crop of peas yesterday and then came sookin' to me because he had a bellyache. But he's got brownie points now, reckons he can get away with anything.'

Albert and Dave weren't going to get far without a cup of tea so they sat around a big wooden table under the peppercorn tree. Tiger had found the table at the tip and patched it up. Lily brought out a batch of scones and johnnycakes and Tiger declared that all the ingredients were produced on the farm.

‘What about the flour, Dad?' Alice asked.

‘And the salt?' Possum questioned through an entire scone with jam and cream so that his words sounded like ‘Vodda boud va thol?' No-one understood him so no-one replied. They were used to Possum.

‘Yeah, Dad, and the tea leaves in the tea?' Col asked and winked at Maria, who realised there
were others at the table who liked to air their knowledge.

‘Look, you mob,' Tiger began, clearly thinking on his feet to combat the sharp questioning of his children, ‘I'm not talking about condiments. Condiments aren't food. They're … like … like extras to the food. I'm talking about the milk an' butter, the jam an' honey an' almonds an' stuff, the things we grow here.'

‘Pass the condiments, will you, please, Mum?' Colin asked and everyone laughed at his cheek, even Tiger. Dave laughed too despite the fact that he'd had the sharper edge of Colin's tongue before.

Colin was awkward in front of Dave for the same reason and took the opportunity, while the rest of the company continued analysing the ingredients of every item on the table, to speak to Dave for the first time that day.

‘Dad said you carried Uncle Albert all the way from the mountain.'

‘Yes,' Dave replied without meeting the boy's eyes. He'd already told him this before but this was Colin's awkward way of apologising.

‘That's a lot of Ks to carry someone.'

‘It's just a walking track. Can't get a car in there. There was no time to wait around … and … he's me mate.'

Mate, thought Colin, a mate of me uncle's, mate enough to carry ninety kilograms eleven kilometres in the dark. That's a decent sort of mate.

‘Come on, you lot,' Tiger declared, glad to be free of his interrogation. ‘We've gotta get Maria down to the river to catch some fish.'

Maria was lifted on to Sparkle again and Dave held the reins to reassure Mrs Coniliopoulos. They couldn't trust the hero Fair Go, not after a bellyful of peas.

Down by the river Albert showed Maria how to thread worms on a hook and how to cast from the hand reel. Fog sat beside Maria but his restless eyes roved about the riverbank and the camp that Dave had set up to make Mrs Coniliopoulos comfortable.

Brim leant against Albert after he sat down beside Maria and became as absorbed as the humans were by the slow, intricate life of the
river: the parrots and pardalotes in the trees; the dragonflies shimmering above the water; and the rainbow birds dashing across the river in their blaze of colour.

Maria had read about them before, all of them, but seeing them was different. Seeing how they behaved told her more about the nature of birds and animals than seeing them in brilliant full colour on a page. Albert told her about each of the birds and had a story, often several, to indicate what moved the bird's soul. Albert didn't use the word soul. He'd say things like: ‘Now this little fella, watch how carefully it looks after the younguns.' ‘See that swan there, always puts herself between us and the cygnets, giddi, we call the babies.'

He told her of the stingless bush bee that was being pushed out of its country by the European bees with their relentless search for new territory. Albert had the knowledge and experience to complement her encyclopedic collection of facts.

Maria pointed out an old kangaroo resting under the shade of a river gum and Albert explained how thin he was, his ribs and breastbone
showing through his hide.

‘That ol' fella, see, he's been king of the mob in his day but one of the young bucks took him on and now this poor ol' man is kicked out, on his own. Oh he'll mooch along like this for a year or two an' then one frosty morning we'll find him dead.' And Albert would have choked off that last word if he'd been quick enough.

‘Like Brim,' Maria said, ‘when she gets really old.'

‘No, no, not like Brim, she'll always have a mate to the end. She's not gunna die cold and alone.' Gees, I'm thick as a brick, I've gone and used the D word again.

When Brim heard her name she squirmed into Albert's side, looking up at him in adoration, showing the tip of her tongue between her lips. Fog wasn't going to be outdone and reached down and licked Maria's hand twice in little dabbing foxy licks. Doxes weren't demonstrative like dogs, they were wild creatures and set themselves slightly apart. Even Fog, with all his loyalty, spent most of his time avoiding the gaze of people and staring
over the river with an aloof stillness. He'd glance back at Albert every minute or so to check on him and had chosen to sit beside Maria because he sensed that's what Albert wanted. But for all that, he was a dox not a dog.