Somewhere around the Corner (8 page)

‘Here,’ she said to Young Jim, ‘you start spreading these out to cool, and then you can start buttering that lot over there. And mind you don’t stint the jam either. It’s last year’s apple jelly and it’ll go off if I don’t use it soon.’

‘What can I do?’ asked Barbara.

‘You can start eating scones, that’s what you can do,’ ordered Dulcie. ‘Look at you, so thin your smile’d fall off you if it wasn’t glued on. There, that’s better. I like to see a smile. You get that lot inside you.’

‘What about Jim?’ asked Barbara.

‘He knows he doesn’t have to ask. Look at him now.’ Young Jim grinned through a mouthful of scone.

‘But you make sure you get those buttered just the same.’ Dulcie scooped more flour into her old brown mixing bowl and poured in buttermilk and began to mix the dough. ‘I want to get six more trays done by lunchtime.’

‘D’you need any wood split, Dulcie?’ asked Young Jim, finishing off his scone.

Dulcie shook her head. ‘Johnny Bill split some for me yesterday, but thanks all the same. Maybe next
week you can split me a big pile. But if you do, I’m paying you for it, mind.’

‘No,’ said Young Jim. ‘I’m not taking your money, Dulcie. Ma would skin me alive, and she’d be right too.’

‘Then I’ll pay you in eggs,’ said Dulcie mildly. ‘No-one said anything about money, did they?’

The flies buzzed drowsily at the window. The hot air shivered above the metal stove.

Barbara finished her second scone and began to dab at the jam smears on her plate. She glanced up at Dulcie. Dulcie was watching her curiously, like a sparrow hoping for crumbs. She didn’t say anything, but Barbara could feel her curiosity, thick as the scone dough sticking between her fingers.

It seemed mean not to tell her, when she was so generous and so badly wanted to know.

‘I’ll tell you where I came from if you like,’ said Barbara slowly. ‘I’ve told the O’Reillys. I think they sort of believe me. But you’ll think it’s crazy.’

‘Try me,’ said Dulcie, patting at the dough. ‘I’d believe anything, I would. If you told me butter was green I’d probably believe you. I mean it’s made from grass, isn’t it? The grass feeds the cows and the cows make the butter.’ She smiled delightedly at Barbara’s laugh.

‘There, I knew you could laugh if you wanted to. You tell me where you came from and I promise I’ll believe you.’

‘Bubba,’ said Young Jim warningly.

Barbara looked at him and shrugged.

‘I think I’m from the future,’ she said hesitantly. She glanced at Dulcie. Dulcie’s hands had risen from the scone dough. They rested, all white and sticky, on the bowl, but she didn’t say anything.

Barbara went on: ‘It happened so suddenly. It’s still so hard to realise it happened at all. I was scared. And this old guy told me if you’re frightened you just go around the corner, so I did. I don’t know how to explain it. I was scared and I just imagined around the corner and then I was somewhere else, but still in Sydney, and it was an unemployed workers demonstration and Jim was there and he dragged me away.’

Dulcie found her voice.

‘From the demonstration?’ she asked.

‘Yes. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I came with Jim.’

Dulcie dropped her hands back into the bowl. She began to roll the dough out, patting it into scone shapes and flouring them before she dropped them on the tray.

‘And what about your home?’

‘I don’t have a home,’ said Barbara.

‘But your parents! Won’t they be worried?’

‘No,’ said Barbara.

‘Are you an orphan then? Heavens girl, everyone has a home somewhere.’

‘I don’t,’ said Barbara.

‘Yes, you do. Your home’s with us.’ Young Jim’s voice was firm.

Barbara’s smile was tentative. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Maybe I do have a home.’

Dulcie looked at them, half shaken, half reassured. She reached into the cool safe to pour them mugs of buttermilk. When people are in trouble, feed them up, was Dulcie’s motto, and she supposed the girl was in trouble; or maybe she was out of it, maybe she was free and home, after all.

Somewhere around the corner. She could think of a lot of people who’d like a new world around the corner. ‘This going around the corner bit. Can anyone do it, do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Barbara shyly. ‘The old guy that told me, he said it hadn’t worked for him. Maybe you have to be really scared, like I was, and there were hands, too, like someone was helping me around. But the old man said he’d known someone who’d done it, just like me.’

‘It’s a good thing to think of, though,’ said Dulcie dreamily. ‘A new world just around the corner, a good world, where things are better than this.’ She shrugged and began pinching out the scones. ‘But I don’t suppose there is, at least not for most of us. We’ve just got to be content with what we’ve got.’

Young Jim ate another scone absently.

‘I think…there’s another world,’ he said, slowly. ‘Sometimes I can see it, just like Bubba’s—it’s so close, just like she said, almost like it’s round the corner. But I reckon I can’t just fly there or whatever she did. I reckon I’ve got to work for it. You’ve got to change this world to get to the new one.’

There were yells from the back gate and the young kids burst in with the eggs, then Elaine came in hefting a giant box of apples and the kitchen was filled with crumbs and shouts and laughter again—even Bubba was laughing—and they all ran out again to see the calf, though they’d be back at lunchtime, thought Dulcie, for soup with their Dad, when he came back with the rations from the store.

Dulcie put some apples in a basket and took it out to the verandah. Anyone could help themselves to them, there were apples enough to spare. She looked over to the kids again, at Bubba with her short and shining hair, at Young Jim hovering at her side.

Somewhere around the corner…Dulcie’s eyes were far away. Where would she go, she wondered suddenly, if she could travel around the corner. She had all she loved right here—the farm, the valley, the cows. Gully Jack’s face flashed by her eyes, a dreaming face, laughing as he lifted small gold specks up to the sun.

A child’s laughter broke through her dream. That’s what she’d have, she realised, if she could travel around a corner. Kids of her own, to feed and cuddle and look after, but there was no way Gully Jack could fit into that dream. He was happy with his house falling down around his ears, with his gullies and obsessions. You needed a solid man if you wanted kids, a dependable man like Ted Ryan…Theophilous Arnold Ryan…if only he had dreams as well. How could you live with a man who had no dreams? What would your kids be like if their father had no dreams?

Dulcie watched the O’Reilly children out the window as she split more scones and dabbed on the butter. Good rich butter it was too, though a bit too white to sell well. You didn’t get the colour here, from the summer pasture.

The valley was so far from a good market anyway. That girl, Bubba, was stretching out her fingers to
stroke the calf, like she’d never touched a cow before, and the other kids were around her, egging her on, encouraging her, protecting her. She’d be all right now, Dulcie told herself, whatever she’d been through. The O’Reillys would look after her. Dulcie glanced out the window again.

She just wished she could be sure.

Nicholson’s store smelt of prunes and sacks of bran and the broken biscuits he kept by the counter and sold at so much for a penny; it smelt of the cheese, hot and sweating, that sat under the glass on the counter where Mr Nicholson presided in his starched white apron, taking the dole tickets with a face as bitter as his own molasses and handing out rations in exchange. It was only sussos in the store on Thursday. The valley people got their groceries on other days. Nicholson looked like he’d be happy to sweep the sussos out with the worn broom he kept behind the door, but he took their tickets anyway, for the money he got when he sent them in.

Young Jim glanced in at the queue in front of the counter. They were gully people, familiar faces, embarrassed men or harassed women, and men who looked belligerent or defiant, as though daring old
Nicholson to say a word. Strangers in the valley were often single men, just passing through, hoping for work or filling up their lives with travel if they couldn’t. They would have got their rations the day before.

‘No sign of Dad yet,’ said Young Jim. ‘He must still be up at the police station.’ He sidled in the front door of the shop and edged along the sacks of oats.

‘Where are you going?’ whispered Barbara. Mr Nicholson looked too intimidating to speak out aloud.

Young Jim gestured towards the far end of the counter, where a pile of newspapers was hidden from Mr Nicholson behind the tins of biscuits. ‘I want to have a dekko at the paper, that’s all. See if there’s anything in it about the demonstration. Hey, imagine if we’d got our photo in the paper!’

Barbara followed him. Thellie and Joey looked bored and ran out into the sunlight again. They sat on the verandah wriggling their feet in the dust and watching the people pass.

‘Hey, look here!’ said Young Jim.

‘Is it something about the demonstration?’

‘Nah, I suppose it was too small for them to bother, evictions are two a penny nowadays. No, listen to this, it’s a letter. It’s real good.’ He began to read:

‘Dear Sir,

Optimism and sturdy independence are the chief characteristics of the Australian race. Australians are not easily daunted—a fact proven countless times in peace and war throughout the British Empire—and their spirit of independence goes almost beyond a virtue. Many men made provision for a rainy day, but the economic storm which has seized the world in its grip has exhausted all that they have saved. The decent man finds idleness irksome. At a meeting of the Advisory Council
—’

‘He’s on his soapbox again.’ Elaine came up behind them. ‘Who wants to hear that stuff? Turn the page over so I can read the serial. Go on, be a sport, it’s getting exciting—there was this girl, see, her name’s Isabel, and she met this man but it turns out he was on leave and had to go back to East Africa and—’

Young Jim snorted. ‘Soppy stuff. Hey, look at this, it’s about an exploding cow.’

Barbara looked over his shoulder. The paper looked strange, with small print and narrow columns, headed
Political
,
Telegraph
and
Pastoral News.
The ads were the brightest spots in the paper; old-fashioned looking drawings with big headlines:

Why Keep Hens and Buy Eggs? You won’t have to if Karswood’s part of their diet. Karswood’s blood enriching tonic…

On a motor cycle at 76—there’s life in the old dog yet, with Kruschen’s salts. Kruschen’s for constipation…

I got from 1 egg to 8 eggs a day with Karswood blood enriching tonic…

Wood’s great Peppermint cure for Colds and Influenza…

His boss knows best! All over the British Empire they take Kruschen’s for constipation!

Carg and Mostyn, buyers for wattle bark and rabbit skins…

Kruschen’s keeps constipation at bay…

Young Jim was still reading.

‘“
While a cow belonging to a farmer at Harold’s Creek was contentedly chewing her cud the other day, she suddenly exploded with a roar and fragments of her head were found all over the district.
”’

‘Hey, how come nothing like this ever happens to us?’ complained Young Jim.

‘’Cause we don’t have a cow, silly,’ Elaine informed him.

‘Nah to you too.

“Evidently the unfortunate animal had been grazing near a box of detonators.”’

A hand came down suddenly across the counter. It was white and hairy with a faint smell of old cheese. It grabbed the paper out of Young Jim’s hand and pushed him roughly away.

‘What do you lot think you’re doing, eh? Blooming susso kids. This isn’t a penny library. If you want to read the paper you can pay for it.’

Barbara looked up at the shopkeeper’s face. Why was he so angry? He looked back at her, his small eyes green in his red face. ‘What are you staring at, missy? I don’t want your sort cluttering up my shop. Those papers are tuppence each. If you haven’t got money to spend you can get on out of it.’

Young Jim stepped in front of her. ‘We have got money to spend,’ he said coolly. He drew Sergeant Ryan’s sixpence out of his pocket. ‘I’d like five musk sticks and five cobbers, and let’s see, how much are the gobstoppers?’ he asked Mr Nicholson politely. ‘If you don’t mind, we really are in a hurry.’

Elaine giggled. ‘Come on, let’s leave him to it,’ she whispered. She drew a deep breath as they emerged out on the verandah. ‘Old Nicholson’s store always seems stuffy. Don’t know why. Other shops smell so good. Must be him, I suppose, or maybe he’s got mice.’

Young Jim came out after them, holding a small white paper bag. He handed each of them a tall pink stick and a pale green lolly, as big as a small hen’s egg, thought Barbara. She looked at hers doubtfully.

‘What is it?’

‘A gobstopper. Don’t you know gobstoppers? They’ll last all day if you suck slowly. They turn different colours too. Just remember to take it out and stick it in your pocket when you go to Dulcie’s for lunch.’ Elaine popped hers in her mouth. ‘Droubble is yo cand dalk broberly wid dem in yer mouf.’

Young Jim laughed. ‘I’ll keep mine for later,’ he said. ‘I’m going up to see how Dad’s doing at the station and maybe thank Sergeant Ryan again. You coming?’

Elaine shook her head. ‘I’ll dake Dellie and Doey down do loog ad de gows adain,’ she said. ‘Dee oo.’ She took Thellie’s and Joey’s hands and they wandered back up the road towards the dairy farm. Barbara and Young Jim began to walk past the pub and the butcher’s, towards the police station.

‘Does it take long to get a dole ticket?’ asked Barbara.

Young Jim shrugged. ‘Can take hours. It’s not so bad now—most of the blokes who came here at the start have moved on again. It’s a real cow for Sergeant Ryan to get through everyone. It takes him most of
Wednesday and Thursday every week. Sergeant Ryan’s real good about it though. Some coppers search you to make sure you haven’t got any money on you before they give you your ticket. Sergeant Ryan wouldn’t do a thing like that. He
can
be tough—you don’t find any smart alecs trying to get the dole twice here.’ He shook his head. ‘It makes me so mad when stuck-up whingers like old Nicholson complain about the dole. What would old Nicholson know about going hungry, or losing your job?’

‘Soapbox,’ suggested Barbara.

Young Jim chuckled. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I know I go on a bit. You just shut me up, Bubba. Hey, what did you think of Dulcie? She’s a bit of all right, isn’t she? She’d do anything for anyone, Dulcie would.’

‘I liked her,’ said Barbara slowly.

She wondered if she should mention the touch of sadness, the hint of loneliness in Dulcie’s eyes. Was that why she helped other people, to lessen the loneliness inside? She shook her head. If Dulcie was lonely it was none of her business.

Young Jim took a deep breath. ‘Smells good, doesn’t it,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe there’s air anywhere in the world like the valley—cow pats and dry grass and trees and all. You don’t know what you’re smelling half the time in Sydney, and when you do you don’t like it.’

They walked in silence for a while, the road dusty beneath their feet, the cattle curious on either side. The valley houses seemed perched among the paddocks, not crowded together like a town at all. Perhaps there’d been more houses once, thought Barbara, before the gold ran out. The road curved and narrowed into a bridge made of thick unpainted timber above a trickle of a creek choked with weed and watercress. A boy about her age dangled his legs off one side of the bridge. A bit of string like a fishing line dropped from his fingers into the thin snake of water.

The boy stared at them. He looked vaguely familiar.

‘Pretend you don’t see him,’ muttered Young Jim out of the corner of his mouth.’

‘Why?’ whispered Barbara, but it was too late. They were on the bridge. Young Jim took Barbara’s arm and hurried her along it. The boy didn’t speak till they were off the bridge and onto the road again. Then they heard his voice behind them.

Hallelujah I’m a bum,

Hallelujah bum again,

Hallelujah give us a handout,

To revive us again.

Barbara turned. The boy was gazing down at his fishing line, as though the song had nothing to do
with Jim and Barbara at all. ‘Who is he?’

‘Nicholson’s son, of course.’ Young Jim’s voice was grim. ‘The lousy so-and-so knows I can’t deck him one.’

‘Why not?’

‘’Cause he’s had scarlet fever and strained his heart. That’s why he’s not up in town at school. Come on, don’t pay any attention. He’ll stop soon if we pretend we can’t hear.’

‘What’s scarlet fever?’

Young Jim stared at her. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t get sick in your world? Scarlet fever’s…well…you’re sick, that’s all, and you get a red rash. Kids can die of scarlet fever.’

‘Can’t they give them antibiotics or immunise them or something?’

‘Immu—who?’ Young Jim shook his head. ‘Here, have another musk stick. Maybe it’s lack of food.’

Barbara chewed the musk stick. It was as though the boy’s song had made the strangeness of this world come alive again, as though only the comfort of the O’ Reilly’s, and Dulcie of course, and Gully Jack, was holding it back. ‘Jim?’

‘Mmmm.’

Jim was watching a falcon swoop into a nearby paddock. ‘Hey, did you see that, Bubba?’

‘Are you sure your parents won’t change their minds? About me staying with you all I mean. They’ve got so many kids of their own already.’

‘Of course they won’t change their minds.’ Jim’s voice was scornful. ‘They never changed their minds with me, did they?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Ma and Dad aren’t my real parents—I mean, they are now, but they weren’t then. My parents were killed in a fire when I was just a nipper, about two I think. I can’t really remember. Dad and Ma lived next door. They adopted me. They didn’t have any kids of their own then, they’d just got married, and they looked after Sam and Edith for years. Their Ma died and their father worked with Dad. They lived with us till he got married again. Ma cried for days after Sam and Edith left. I think Ma would look after the world if she could. Just like Dulcie.’

‘Like you, a bit,’ said Barbara.

‘Like me? Cripes, I don’t want to look after the world, I want to change it. I mean, it’s just not right the way it is, is it? I mean—’

Barbara laughed. ‘Soapbox,’ she said again.

‘Soapbox yourself.’ Young Jim grabbed her hand. ‘Come on, there’s Dad. Let’s run! The sooner we get to Dulcie’s the sooner we get lunch. I’m starved!’