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Authors: Roger McDonald

1915 (3 page)

BOOK: 1915
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“What was biting old Foxy?” asked Billy as they left for town. Walter shrugged, then tapped his forehead: but felt cowardly for doing so.

Billy found his mates in the back bar wedged tight among a show crowd that had long since abandoned the show.

“Who's the young 'un?” asked the elder Reid. He extended a forge-hammered hand. “Blacky and Ned,” explained Billy as one and then the other took delight in crushing Walter's fingers. Blacky was aged thirty, with a face of intense black stubble and caterpillar-like eyebrows. His younger brother was also black-haired, but somehow the shade was unremarkable.

“Drink up,” said Blacky. He raised his glass in a toast to nothing in particular and tipped back his head.

After the third beer Walter felt that he understood a great many things. The back bar with its cream-painted walls and its grey kangaroo dog asleep in the corner under a Beck's Beer placard (“With horse in check, They called for Beck's …”), this seemed the pleasantest place in the world.

Soon after five Blacky drained his beer. “I'll see you fellows back here in half an hour.”

“Have one for me,” sniggered Ned.

“Where's he going?” asked Walter, surprised that anyone would want to let this pleasant occasion slide. Blacky jammed a wide hat on his head and winked at the barmaid.

“Off for some horizontal refreshment,” said Ned as his brother shouldered his way out.

“We'll smoke out Eddie and then head for home,” Billy nodded to Walter. “I don't want to be blamed by your dad.”

“Still a nipper, eh?” said Ned, dragging a damp belch from his hidden chest. Walter pumped his hand in the rediscovered glow of the last beer. “Very pleased to have met you,” he gushed, “you and your brother. Two of the nicest blokes I've ever met.”

“We're all right, I s'pose,” Ned responded. With a barely nodded “Good-on-you, mate,” to Billy he switched to another group of drinkers.

Walter stood in the grass at the rear of the hotel, his head tipped back. Looking at the stars he thought: Yes, the universe is one complete whole, and I'm part of it. He sniffed dust in the frosty air and laughed companionably to himself as pleasant thoughts spread through the cold night. Friends! That was one thought. And women! He remembered the barmaid's eyes.

“What do you think of the Reids?” he called to Billy.

“What did you think of 'em?” They were passing the gloomy stand of pines near the racecourse where a swagman had recently been murdered.

“They're all right.”

“Ned?”

“I liked his brother better.”

“Blacky won't take nonsense from no-one.” A light flickered far back in the pines, though each pretended not to notice. “He's showed me a thing or two.”

“About where he went tonight?”

“The brothel?”

“Yes,” Walter shaped the word for himself, “the brothel.”

“Nah,” but that was a lie.

Road and railway ran together, and a goods train drew alongside, chuffing and clattering, making the horses restless. At the rise above the creek they looked back on the faint lights of town: a column of smoke at the railway yards suddenly lit by sparks, a lantern faint as a star on a hillside. Then the road took another turn and they were in their own country. Walter climbed down several times to relieve himself, the reins looped over his arm. Once Peapod took off into the darkness without him, and Billy galloped away to fetch her back. Overhead the stars seemed thicker than anywhere.

They parted at the ten-mile.

“See you sometime,” said Billy. “I've got to go down to Forbes next week for sheep.”

“November at the latest, eh?” Walter thrust out a hand. They shook. It seemed the thing to do, now they were men.

 

Parkes was Billy's town, but he liked going to Forbes. When he reached the Eugowra road and entered the big river gums of the Lachlan he knew he was on foreign soil. Forbes hung together, it was solid, with its numerous hotels saluting each other across corners. Billy's place by contrast was barely a town at all, more a collection of small settlements with shops and hotels grown up somewhere in the middle. Away from home Billy was a complete stranger, anonymous as a stray dog, and like a stray dog on the lookout for pleasure.

He left his horse at the stockyards, and with Yabbie
at his heels walked the rest of the way into town. He carried a change of clothes and a razor rolled in a swag. Ambling along he broke a switch from a peppercorn tree and flicked it from side to side. “Nineteen's enough,” he had said on his birthday a few days before. “It'll do me.” He walked on, whistling, with Yabbie dashing left and right.

When he saw the Albion he paused to admire its size — three stories of brick and iron veranda, with blunt but royal-looking flagpoles surmounting a row of towers. He noticed a girl standing on the upper veranda. She was dressed for hotel work but not so plainly as to be mistaken for a maid, for she wore red beads and a short-sleeved blouse with a lace collar. Her face was hidden, turned half-in to the building. Black hair dropped in a long pigtail.

The day ended as Billy entered the hotel, a brown and shining darkness swallowing everything. Yabbie slithered on the polished linoleum of the hall while Billy scrutinized a row of hunting prints, disbelieving the horses' long necks. Out the back a yardman showed him a corner for Yabbie. Near the back door he found a lavatory, and there he sat with the door of his booth wide open, thinking of the girl, wondering what her face was like, imagining himself reaching from behind and making her squeal with surprise.

“Here long?” A man joined Billy at the handbasin. He spoke indistinctly, as if talking to himself. “Henry Kroner,” he said, extending a hand. His eyes were the milky red of diced carrots in rabbit poison.

“You must have a drink, no?” Now he stood blocking the way.

“I s'pose so. When I've seen about my room.”

“At the bar,” said the old foreigner, “you can do it there.”

The private bar was empty except for the barman and two stock agents from Weaver & Co who sat at a table at the far end. One raised a finger to his red nose in recognition of Billy.

“The young gentleman wants a room, Mr Reilly. And I want another beer.”

Reilly extended a hairy hand: “Heinrich will tell you I can throw an eighteen gallon keg farther than you can spit.”

Billy said: “I'm not troublesome.”

The hotelkeeper reached behind the bar and rang a small handbell which dribbled its sound away into the depths of the building. “You'll have your room in a flash. What's your poison?”

“Beer.”

Reilly hesitated for a second before reaching for a pint mug. “It's on the house.”

Billy drank it down in half a dozen thumping gulps.

“You're a big drinker.”

“Thirsty.”

“You're not from round here, are you?”

Reilly stood with folded arms, his black hair dusted with silver. Dark circles under his eyes gave him a wise look.

“My dad is Hugh Mackenzie.”

The hotelkeeper lifted the empty mug and slapped a piece of damp towelling along the bar. “The Hugh Mackenzie I know isn't a drinking man.”

“No,” said Billy. “Dad ain't.” And they both laughed.

Henry Kroner had shifted to the near corner of the bar where he sat half-smiling with two fingers just touching the base of his glass.

“Why do you call him Hen-rick,” whispered Billy.


Heinrich
,” said Reilly. “That's his proper name. He likes to be called Henry so I take the mickey out of him.”

“A Dutchman?”

“One of the Kaiser's crowd.”

“Ah,” said Billy. Then: “Who's the Kaiser?”

“He's the boss cocky of Germany.”

The girl from the veranda poked her head through the servery.

“Is Dad there?”

“Dad?” Her dark eyes startled him.

“You're the one for the room. Come on!”

“My daughter,” explained Reilly, pointing to the door. “She won't wait around.”

The girl was standing in the foyer with her arms embracing his swag. His hat dangled from a free finger.

“My name's Frances. What's yours?”

Billy was reminded of a face that peered invitingly from the family's
Arabian Nights
. Even the shawl fitted.

“William,” he said clumsily, “Billy. Billy Mackenzie.”

“Billy big-ears,” said the girl, and giggled.

On the first landing she stopped and chatted about the “turmoil” of life in Forbes and how this was an oddly quiet night. “We get everyone here, all the best quality.” Billy kept close behind as she climbed the remaining stairs, noting how fully-shaped she was, sweeping her bottom from side to side like a woman. She was fifteen, probably sixteen, with smooth white skin against the lace of her collar and the smell of scented soap drifting around.

An elderly couple passed them, the woman steadying one heavy-booted foot in the air before
planting it with a crash on the stair. Her white haired husband guided her. “Good evening your honour, and Mrs Ward,” said Frances, arching over the bannister to let them pass. But as soon as their backs were turned she poked out her tongue.

The upstairs corridor was gloomy and deserted. Frances led the way to the end door and fumbled with the key. The chance of putting his arms right round her presented itself now, but instead Billy found himself merely running the palm of his hand under her shawl and up her bare arm.

Nothing happened.

She stood there, not looking at him, her fingers on the iron key and the swag still clutched tightly. So he closed his fingers around the lace on her upper arm because there was nowhere else to go, sensing the chill of her response but needing all of a sudden to resolve something that stretched a long way past the rush of his desire.

“You must never mistake good will for anything else,” she muttered, and with that the door swung open and she almost fell inside — throwing the swag on the bed and turning up the lamp, unclipping the outside double doors.

“That's it. Dinner's on till seven-thirty.”

Billy moved to the centre of the room while Frances, smiling, backed onto the veranda.

“You get a splendid view of the town from up here.” Just enough light remained to pick out phantom shapes. A corrugated iron stable peered from the lane, its rickety yards formed by uneven logs. The post office opposite was a substantial white-painted stone building.

Yabbie howled from the yard and Frances shivered:
“It's getting cold.”

Then a shape stirred in the post office's recessed doorway. A woman. She seemed to be keeping watch on the front door of the hotel, and as she shifted position Billy saw that she wore a yellow dress and held something dark over one arm, a coat or a blanket. A dark woman, an Aborigine.

“Who's that down there?”

“Where?”

Before he could point her out Frances darted away through his room and down the corridor.

For a while, before he washed and changed for dinner, the odour of Frances's scented soap lingered in the room. Before going downstairs he kicked the wall angrily and then sat on the bed for a minute and laughed. Thinking about things might have helped someone else, but not Billy. If he acted, and the result went against him, he could only act again.

 

“You're good at this waitering caper,” said Billy at dinner.

“Waitressing,” Frances corrected, and primly set his things down. “It's just for the holidays. Next week I'll be back at St. Catherine's.”

“I didn't know you were Catholics,” said Billy with relief. He felt less stupid. Small wonder she had confused him. He could never fathom a Catholic.

“I'm not.” Without explaining she went on: “There's a choice of vegetable soup or liver and bacon to start, but you can have both if you want to.”

“Both.”

A male voice at his shoulder made him jump: “How
do you like the food?” The silverware tinkled as Mr Reilly bumped the table with his stomach. “Nothing for me, dear,” he called to Frances. “And how do you like our Franny?” he asked. “A happy girl.”

Billy smelt whisky.

“Her mother insists on the city.” He leaned forward, revealing tufts of unshaven beard in the dents of his face. “The bush doesn't agree with her — too hot in summer, too cold in winter.” Mr Reilly lifted a piece of meat from Billy's plate and dropped it whole into his mouth. “Franny's going to have looks. I'll need to be on my guard against fellows like you,” and he reached across to rap a finger on Billy's chest. “You're not a Catholic, are you?”

Billy made a noise with his mouth full.

“That's a good thing, a Catholic Mackenzie.”

“I never said I was.”

But Reilly was on his feet, swaying.

“I may not see you in the morning.” They shook hands. “Tell your father you ate with Pat Reilly, eh?” He straightened chairs across the room as he left, shouldering aside the glass doors with a thump.

Frances was at his elbow tidying up. “You mustn't mind Dad.”

“He reckons I'm a danger,” he grinned.

“What to?”

“Ar,” he looked up from a preoccupation with the sugar bowl, “to you.”

“Dad's awfully good at running this hotel though you'd never think so sometimes. But he doesn't know the first thing about what a girl thinks, or why she thinks what she thinks. Do you?”

Billy played with the sugar bowl until she lifted it out of his hands.

“No-one's a danger to me,” she concluded with kindness. “Do you understand?”

 

Then she spoke to him in a dream. The situation was exactly the same — dining room, Frances's black hair spilling down towards the waist of her starched pinny — and the words were the same too, except that Arnie Scott's widow was sitting at the table as well. When Frances asked, “Do you understand?” Mrs Scott said, “Of course he understands, my dear. I've been wife and mother to Arnie Scott and he knows it. Now don't you think you've been silly enough?” With that Billy felt intensely relieved. In the shifting planes of his dream he found himself tilted out of the dining room and poised on the crest of a wave, he
was
the wave, swaying backwards and forwards, ready to swoop down and run foaming along a human beach which suddenly was the naked body of Frances.

BOOK: 1915
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