Somewhere around the Corner (10 page)

BOOK: Somewhere around the Corner
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The dancers fell silent as Sergeant Ryan walked slowly into the hall, as though they wondered why he had come, for pleasure or on official business. Sergeant Ryan looked self-conscious and uncomfortable. It was the first time Barbara had seen him out of his uniform. His hair was slicked back so tight it seemed to be made of leather and his face shone bright. He looked nervously around the room.

‘I knew he’d come,’ said Young Jim, satisfied. ‘He’d never hear the last of it from Elaine if he hadn’t.’

Sergeant Ryan caught Dulcie’s eye among the teacups. He threw his shoulders back and marched across the hall as if he was on parade, as though unaware that every eye was on him.

Dulcie put down the teapot she’d been filling. She smiled slowly, like someone finding a Christmas present where they had least expected it, hidden behind the tree. She put her hand out to Sergeant Ryan, and he reached over the trestles and took it.

Barbara glanced at Gully Jack. He was frowning. He held his fiddle against his waist, as though wondering whether to put it down.

‘Hey, where’s the flaming music?’ The yell came from somewhere at the front of the hall.

Gully Jack lifted his fiddle to his chin as Sergeant Ryan led Dulcie into the centre of the hall. She placed her hand on his shoulder. Gully Jack took a deep gulp from his teacup before he lifted up his bow.

‘Bluurrk! What the…’ Gully Jack spat the brown liquid frantically all over the floor, and glared around the room. ‘This is flamin’ tea! Where’s me flamin’ whisky?’

‘Shhh,’ said someone, glancing towards Sergeant Ryan, who looked carefully out the door as though he couldn’t hear.

‘Where’s me whisky?’ demanded Gully Jack again, glaring at Dulcie and Sergeant Ryan and the hall in general. ‘It’s Friday flamin’ night and I don’t play without me flamin’ whisky.’

‘There isn’t any flamin’ whisky!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because Johnny Halloran broke his leg when the cart turned over coming back from town and Doc gave it to him to stop the pain while he set it, that’s why.’

The hall was silent. Gully Jack gazed around the room at the crowd of dancers. At the men in creek-washed shirts, at the women in their Friday night dresses, at the wide-eyed kids in bare feet or tattered sandshoes.

Gully Jack took another gulp from the teacup. ‘S’pose a bloke could get used to tea on Friday nights,’ he said, and lifted up his bow.

The music filled the night.

It was a night like none that Barbara had experienced before. The hall shook as feet pounded to the music. It was as if the world was fast, but slow, at the same time. Up the hall and down again, and galloping all around, swung from partner to partner in the barn dance until she lost count, tripping over Sergeant Ryan’s boots till he laughed at her and swirled her off her feet.

Susso or cocky, it didn’t matter, not tonight. Men with untrimmed whiskers tangling in their shirt buttons and sweat running down their faces, with laughing women who had forgotten the tin
shantytown across the creek, the damper they would make for breakfast, the bread they had to measure so it would last, and kids with more bounce than skill. The music talked to them all, always the music. The magic thread of Gully Jack’s fiddle timed the beat of feet and clap of hands. It soared over the children’s giggles, and the shrieks of the possums up in the ceiling, their quiet evening gone.

‘See, I said it’d be fun,’ Young Jim panted. ‘And there’s still the best bit to come. You wait till you taste supper. Dulcie organises that.’

Barbara looked down to the hearth at the back of the hall. Dulcie was there again, checking a big kero tin of boiling water. She lifted it off the heat and threw some tea leaves in and began to ladle out cup after cup—chipped cups of a dozen colours, collected from every household in the valley that had any to spare.

‘Hey, come on!’ Young Jim grabbed Barbara’s hand. ‘The best tucker’ll be gone before we get there!’

Supper was cold mutton and chutney on thick white bread, plus pikelets, pumpkin fritters, fairy cakes with soft fresh cream, apple teacake fragrant with nutmeg, sponge cake with plum jam and cream, and trifle with jam and fresh sliced peaches and more cream. Dulcie gathered a cup of tea and plate of cake. She said
something softly to Sergeant Ryan, then headed down to where Gully Jack still sat with his fiddle. He nodded to her, wiping the sweat from his neck and took the hot fresh tea. He seemed about to speak.

‘Hey Jack, how’s that channel doing, you getting near the seam yet?’ Old Man Lee’s hands were wrapped around a buttered scone.

Gully Jack’s eyes lit up. ‘Getting closer.’ He put down his cup of tea. ‘I reckon I’ve got it this time. Another month or two and she’ll be there. You know what I think? I reckon…’

Dulcie stood ignored with the plate of cake in her hand. Her face was half-sad, half-tolerant. She put the plate down by Gully Jack’s elbow and walked back down the hall towards Sergeant Ryan.

Sergeant Ryan was waiting for her. He handed her a fresh cup of tea with a fairy cake on the saucer, and led her out to the cool air of the verandah till the music began again.

‘May I have the pleasure?’ Barbara looked up. It was Mr Henderson, smiling down at her, his big teeth yellow in the lamplight. Barbara shook her head nervously. ‘It’s a waltz, isn’t it? I don’t think I know how to waltz well enough.’

It was different dancing with Young Jim—he didn’t care how many mistakes she made. She looked
around. Young Jim was still outside, telling a mob of boys from down the valley about the demonstration and the Unemployed Workers’ Movement, the opening of the Harbour Bridge and how he’d seen Jack Lang once up in Sydney.

Mr Henderson grinned. He had a nice grin. His big teeth stuck out again, long and shiny in the lamplight. ‘Every girl needs to learn to waltz. Just follow my feet. One two three and one two three and one two three.’

Suddenly it was easy. Around and around the room they flashed. The possums shrieked up in the roof as the floor shook with the dancing, one two three, one two three. Gully Jack’s eyes gleamed brighter than the lanterns as his elbow flashed and he dreamed of his gullies. One two three, one two three.

The moon was sinking behind the ridges as they walked back home, up the narrow path between the thornbushes. Over on the track she could hear the sound of cartwheels, the clop of horses and the burp of someone’s car. Ma was walking arm-in-arm with Dad and she was singing, too softly to hear the words, gentle as the mumble of the creek. The little ones straggled behind, holding on to skirts and arms so as not to lose each other in the shadows.

‘Tired?’

Barbara smiled at Young Jim. He was carrying Harry piggyback again. Harry drooped, dozing on his shoulder. ‘No. My head’s still dancing. One two three, one two three.’

‘Yeah, I saw you dancing with old Henderson. Who’d have thought he could dance like that? But it was fun, wasn’t it?’

Barbara nodded. ‘The best fun I think I’ve had in my entire life.’

Young Jim grinned. She could just see the flash of his teeth in the moonlight. ‘Till next week anyway. There’s another dance then, don’t forget.’ He yawned deeply, stretching so hard his shirt ripped at the back. ‘Crikey! Well, it lasted for the dance anyway. Maybe Ma can patch it up tomorrow. Come on, let’s get home. I’m really whacked.’

An owl began to call, very far away, then the noise faded in the bubble of the creek. Like her old life, thought Barbara sleepily, fading all the time, until all that was left were the O’Reillys and the smell of night and leaves and strands of bark and the shack that was home.

chapter fourteen
Saturday

Everyone slept late the Saturday after the dance. The tin roof cracked as the hot sun struck it, the cicadas yelled in the trees and the flies buzzed around the ashes of the fire as though they could still smell the food that had been cooked on it.

Dad rose first, stretching, and kindled the fire with bits of twig and bark until the billy’s steam mingled with the smoke. The little ones tumbled out still bleary-eyed and yawning, with Elaine and Young Jim and Barbara slowly coming after them.

Dad handed Elaine a cup of tea. ‘You take that into your Ma. She’s properly worn out.’

‘Too much dancing,’ yawned Elaine.

‘Too much looking after you lot,’ said Dad. ‘Don’t you be nagging at her to get up and make breakfast either.’

‘You making breakfast then, Dad?’ asked Elaine unbelievingly. ‘What’re you going to make, snake legs on biscuits?’

‘None of your lip, my girl. It’ll be fried bread in last night’s dripping, and there’s tomato jam in the box. The King of England would be glad of a breakfast like that, may his socks rot on his feet. But what would he need a good breakfast for with a soft life like his?’

The bread browned and crisped in the old black pan and the dripping spat and spluttered in the heat, bringing back the memories of last night’s roast, as it melted into the scents of warm rock and gum trees.

Barbara spread the tomato jam thickly for the little ones, and bit into her bread. It was hot and hard and tasted meaty. Slowly the fire died down to a bed of coals that winked red and black in their grey surrounds. The billy rested at the edges.

‘How did you enjoy the dance, Bubba?’ asked Dad, toasting another bit of bread on a long green stick. ‘Young Jim here look after you all right?’

‘It was the first dance I’ve ever been to,’ said Barbara. ‘At least the first dance like that. Is there really a dance every week?’

‘Too right,’ said Dad. ‘You’ve got to have some fun in life, even in a place like this. Not that this is such a
bad place. If things were different you could make a good life here. Ah well, if I put my dreams in one hand and spat in the other I know which one’d be full first.’

Elaine giggled. ‘You could try walking round Barbara’s corner,’ she suggested. ‘You know what I’d have if I could walk round the corner?’

‘What?’ asked Young Jim seriously from over by the fire.

‘I’d have a great big room with a thousand books in it, all mine and no-one else’s, with clean white pages that no-one else’s fingers had ever touched. I’d have carpet so thick on the floor you could roll in it.’

Thellie giggled.

‘And no brats to wash, either,’ added Elaine, giving Thellie’s hair a tweak. ‘You come here, brat, and I’ll clean your face for you. You could grow potatoes in it. What would you have, Jim?’

Young Jim ran his hands through his pale hair. ‘Dunno,’ he said shortly. ‘What’s the use of dreaming?’

‘Oh, go on,’ said Elaine. ‘Just imagine we could walk round the corner. Where would you go?’

Young Jim glanced at her. He seemed to come to a decision. ‘I’d be changing the world,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s what I’d be doing. I’d be out there fighting with Jack Lang and all the rest of them. I’d be finding
out why some people have so much and others don’t have blankets on their beds. But I’d need an education for that. I’d need to know about things.’

‘Garn. All you need’s your soapbox,’ said Elaine. ‘Then you could climb up on it and yack away all you want to.’

Young Jim opened his mouth to argue.

‘I’d have a hairyplane,’ Thellie interrupted, bouncing up and down.

‘You mean an aeroplane, you silly bandicoot,’ said Elaine.

‘That’s what I said, a big one just like Bubba had, and I’d have lots of ice-creams.’

‘I’d have four thousand sausages,’ said Joey.

‘You’d be sick!’

‘No, I wouldn’t. I’d have chops for breakfast every morning, too.’

The hessian doorflap opened and Ma came out slowly, tying back her hair and straightening her dress.

‘What would you have, Ma?’ demanded Elaine.

‘What do you mean?’ Ma’s voice was still sleepy.

‘We’re pretending we could all go round corners like Bubba did. I want a whole room of books and Jim wants to change the world—or at least make speeches to everyone in it—and Thellie wants aeroplanes.’

‘I’d have a house.’ Ma spoke dreamily, as though she didn’t know what she was saying. ‘A house with a real roof on it and a kitchen with a stove, and a school for all of you…a good school so you could get a decent education…’ She saw Dad’s face and broke off. ‘And if wishes were fishes we’d all be rich. All I really want’s a cuppa. Is there water in the billy, love? That bread smells good.’

Dad poured her a cup of tea without speaking. Elaine glanced at his hard-set face, at Ma’s careful lack of expression.

‘Come on,’ she said to Barbara. ‘Let’s take the dishes and the littl’uns down the creek, and get the lot of them clean. You coming, Jim?’

Young Jim nodded without speaking. They walked down the track in silence.

chapter fifteen
Dad and Mr Henderson

Dad watched them as they disappeared down the track. His kids—his wonderful strong kids—stuck here in the bush without a chance, without a future, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Maybe it was the letdown from the dance, maybe it was Bubba’s stories, making you think the world might be different one day, just around the corner. Dad didn’t know. All he knew was he couldn’t settle, couldn’t sit still, couldn’t stand to see Ma’s face, so resolutely cheerful. He was too restless even to go and water the tomatoes, though they needed it. The poor things would be wilting in this sun, the lettuces too.

Ma looked up. She was crocheting one of her rugs again, bright strips of rag that would be a hearthrug, or a kitchen mat when Johnny Halloran sold it in town. But Johnny Halloran had broken his leg, Dad
remembered. There’d be no more trips to town for weeks maybe.

‘Settle down,’ suggested Ma, trying to sound normal. ‘Why don’t you put the billy on. We’ll have a cuppa on our ownsome before the mob comes back to annoy us.’

Dad shook his head, but he stirred up the fire anyway. He scooped a billy of water out of the kero tin in the shade. The billy sizzled in the hot ashes. Elaine’s voice rose from down by the creek, calling the little ones to order. A child laughed, and called something back.

‘Listen to them.’ Dad’s voice was harsh.

Ma looked up from her stitching. ‘They’re healthy. They’re happy. They’ve got a roof over their heads and full bellies. There are others a lot worse off.’

‘They should be at school. They should be making something of themselves.’

‘Things’ll get better.’ Ma’s voice was as comforting as she could make it, with just a hint of fear below.

‘Yeah, the good times are just around the corner.’ Dad smiled grimly. ‘That’s what the newspapers say, isn’t it.’ That’s what Bubba said happened to her. She’d just stepped somewhere around the corner. He knew what would be around the corner if he had his way—a better world—one that had a future for his
kids. A school, teachers; he could see it so clearly he could almost taste it.

Teachers…

The shadows seemed to shiver slightly. Dad looked up, startled. The sun must have come out from behind a cloud, but there weren’t any clouds today.

Ma was looking at him strangely. ‘What is it?’

Dad brought his fist down so hard the table rattled on its stones. ‘Struth, I’ve been flaming blind! Blind as a bat in the midday flaming sun! We’ve got a flaming teacher!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Old Henderson! He’s a teacher isn’t he? I bet his wife could teach as well.’

‘But—’

‘But nothing.’ Dad surged to his feet.

‘Where are you going?’ Ma started to run after him.

‘I’m going to start a flaming school. That’s where I’m going.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘If I’m late for lunch you lot start without me. Tell the kids I’ve gone for a little walk—just a stroll around the flaming corner!’

BOOK: Somewhere around the Corner
11.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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