Bridge of Triangles (4 page)

Every aspect of life in the tent was hard. The wood was always wet. The wind blew. The fly came away one night and the canvas leaked. One day Jack picked up a couple of primuses. And a radio. It was a large brown bakelite affair which needed a twelve-volt battery, and was only turned on for the news. The primuses at first were a disappointment. They kept blowing out in the wind. Sissy would not use them inside the tent. Jack made a box from rivetted sheet metal to shelter the pump-up fires from the wind. Sissy was uneasy.

“I'm not usin' them. The heat'll get trapped inside and the bloody kero will explode. I'm not using that contraption.”

The man had worked silently, not even telling the woman what it was he was making. He was always like that—as if he was the only one who knew what was good for everyone else.

“They'll be alright. Here give me a billy of water.”

“But I don't want hot water, I want to cook. Anyway what are you tryin' to do—blow us all up? Get back youse kids.”

Jack successfully brought the billy of water to the boil. “See, that's alright isn't it? And it didn't blow up.”

“Jack lifted his contraption off the primus and put his hand to the side of the tank. It's a bit hot but that's alright. Kero can't explode just because it gets a bit hot. There has to be a spark.”

“Well there's more than a spark there—what do you call that bloody flame, eh?”

“But the flame can't get to the kero can it. Use your sense woman.” jack was getting angry.

“Use your sense you mean. How the hell does the kero get to the flame, hey? Answer me that. Out a little hole, hey? And the flame can go through that little hole no trouble. Next thing me and the kids are all dead.”

Suddenly Jack picked up the metal frame and threw it away. It landed with a metallic crumple on the roots of the twisted gum tree.

“Let the bloody wind blow it out for all I care.” And the man walked off towards the river.

The two younger kids went over to the frame. “Can we play with it then?”

Sissy was confused and sorry. “No, leave the thing alone.”

She comforted herself with the idea that he brought out the worst in her. “Why couldn't he tell me what he was doing? Why can't he ever listen to me? That's what I'd like to know.”

Did the white man ever know himself what he was doing?

Later, when she had peeled some potatoes and tried to cook them the primus kept blowing out. Sissy looked around and went over to the tree and picked up the box Jack had made with his hands. She easily pushed the thin sheet metal back into shape. She carefully placed the box over the primuses. With greatly exaggerated precision she lowered the billy over the flame.

“Stand back youse kids—this thing's liable to explode.”

“I don't think so mum,” said Joe, “Dad's right I think.”

“Just stand back and don't argue. That's the trouble with youse kids—are and cause trouble all the time. Now get back away from this.”

“What's explode mean Mummy?”

“Kill ya—what do ya think it means? Just about everything in the world is dangerous and don't forget it.”

Sissy put the billy full of peeled potatoes above the sheltered flame.

“Stand back youse kids—stand back.”

The family stood back and every now and then Sissy went up and looked into the billy. Eventually she said, “Well bugger me, at least they're starting to boil.”

The man said nothing when he returned. The potatoes were mashed with powdered milk and eaten with devon and bread.

The winter dragged on. Sissy enrolled the two older kids in the school over near the garage. They went off each morning with their apricot jam sandwiches and ragged clothes. They came home with drawings and french knitting and shared these wonders with the younger ones.

Neither Jack nor Sissy were ever able to manage money. The miserable unemployment benefit that Jack picked up at the post office every fortnight lasted four or five days. He did the odd job at the garage. They ate lots of bread and jam. One morning only Chris and his father were at the campsite. The boy heard the man mumbling in the tent. “Where the bloody hell has she put the things? Man can never find anything.”

The family's few clothes were in a battered cardboard suitcase at one end of the tent. A couple of Sissy's dresses hung on a rope between the tent post and the tree.

“Socks, where the hell are my socks?” Jack was preparing to go over to the garage.

“Christ, these have got bloody holes in them. And they haven't been washed for a month. Man's got a good mind to piss off by myself.”

His voice was close to breaking. The boy heard his father. He walked to the tent flap and looked in. His father's shoulders were heaving—his back was to the boy.

“Daddy,” the boy said.

The man did not turn around.

The child was encouraged—at least he wasn't shouting.

“Daddy,” the boy whispered again.

The man half turned.

“Go away son, go away.” He sounded different, washed out and helpless. “Go away, your father's alright.”

Confused, the boy backed off.

It wasn't for years and years that the boy understood how much love was locked up inside the man—how much pain he'd buried. How his humanity would not, could not ever
express itself. How afraid the man was of seeming weak—after all, wasn't he responsible for people who needed help? He never accepted the trappings of the old lady Leeton's Christianity but he sure as hell picked up her sense of being right. After all, wasn't he white?

Sissy came across the grass. “Gee it's windy. Where's your father?”

Jack was still sitting on the mattress in the tent staring at the stiff socks he held in his rough hands.

“Hadn't you better get going?” the woman said.

The man did not answer.

“Aren't you doing any work today?”

The man was silent.

“What's the bloody matter with you?”

The man raised his face. It was gaunt and tear stained.

“I can't find any decent socks.”

“Is that anything to cry about? Well bugger me, a pair of bloody socks.”

The man looked at the woman and said not a word.

He knew somewhere he was not crying for a pair of socks.

Kookaburras laughed down on the river bank.

As spring arrived so too did Sissy's brother Mick. He pulled up in his wagon quite close to the Leeton's tent.

“Mum said you'd be here. Good spot.”

Shirl and the two boys were with him. Sissy was delighted. The Leeton kids had not met Mick and his family before and it was years since Sissy had seen Mick. He usually spent his time travelling around in his wagon doing a bit of tomato picking here, a spot of fruit picking there. Mick was a big man with dark wavy hair, large white teeth and and friendly open face. He was the only male in Sissy's family Jack had any time for. He and Mick had been in New Guinea together. Even so he was not happy that Mick looked like staying.

The first thing Mick did after he unharnessed the horse and hobbled it out on the river flat was set about cutting gum branches for a shelter. Expert with an axe he and Shirl and the boys soon had a springy green pile a little way off from the Leeton's tent.

“You've never seen a house like mine before,” he promised the kids with a twinkling eye and slow smile.

In the spring all that time ago, as the broad river flowed and the light breeze picked up the scent of newly cut branches and the tent flap moved lazily as the canvas dried out in the sun, Mick built his family a shelter. Four straight branches, fairly stout, were stripped back and fashioned into posts. Forks were left at the top. The posts were sharpened at the base and driven into the ground. They became self-supporting when long, straight branches were placed between the forks, making the framework for a box shaped room. Rope was attached to each forked upright and, tent fashion, the whole structure was pulled tight when the ropes were secured to angled short, thick sticks driven into the earth. Mick had everything he needed in the wagon—twine and wire and pliers. More poles were laid across the top and then bushes were placed on top of them. Heavier
logs were used to weight the whole roof down. By the time Shirl had spread a canvas sheet on the ground and thrown a few army blankets about the family had a home.

The Leeton children were wide eyed and wanted their father to make one for them too. Jack grunted and muttered something about not living like a tribe of blacks.

Shirl unloaded a few tea chests from the wagon. The kids' astonishment and delight grew as various boxes and flour drums were lined up under the shelter.

The two families settled down together and Mick and Sissy soon got into the habit of spending a day or two at a time in the town pubs. Their favourite was the Empire. Jack would leave the kids in the care of Shirl and comb the bars looking for Sissy.

“Don't youse kids worry 'bout your mum. You're alright with your old aunty you know.” She had a curious smile—full of sadness and resignation. Many of her babies had died but she stuck with Mick even though the welfare eventually took the living kids.

TB finally caught up with her frail body. Mick spent his last few years pedalling round the countryside on a bicycle, a bottle of sherry buried deep inside his coat pocket.

“Don't you worry 'bout your mum.” Shirl would smile and her toothless gums would show. All the kids loved her. She could make crepe paper roses of yellow and red and surprising blue to sell down at the Empire. She let the kids wind green paper round the thin wire stems.

The boy especially grew to love and rely on his aunty. When the others kids were asleep in the tent or the wagon and only Shirl was there to keep watch, he would creep out with his stained face and let her cuddle him. Shirl smoked a pipe and she would take it from her lips and say, “Come on sugar—can't you sleep? Well you just come over here to your old aunty.” And she would rock him to sleep in her arms.

Way back then Spring arrived, Mick arrived and the floods arrived.

Sissy and Mick were off at one of their sessions in the Empire. Jack was doing some casual work at some place or other. The sky was low and roaring, yellow and sinister. Shirl was looking after the six kids. Joe and little Mary had not been to school since their mother had taken off with Mick.

The wind whipped through the long polished grass and the children sensed the electric tension in the air. It was quite dark at about three in the afternoon. Shirl's toothless mouth was tight. Her deep set eyes kept scanning the sky and her forehead crinkled. Every now and then she would wander off to look at the river. The wind ironed her red cardigan flat against her slight body. The cardigan was but-toned up to her chin with tight little plastic rosebuds. Shirl fancied the river was rising. Bobbing sticks and leaves went swirling past. She pushed a stick into the mud. Chris pushed another little twig alongside the worried woman's marker. “Good boy. We'll test this old river.”

Mick's horse stood cropping the grass and the hobbles' clink was blown into the wind as the animal moved a step or two at a time. The rushing wind made its coat shiver—cold, muddy brown.

Shirl was a placid woman. Calm and wise she went again to check the marker. The boy's had gone or was covered. Her own was now showing just the tip, and even as she looked it disappeared. She climbed the bank and said quietly to Joe, “We'll go to the Old Granny's. The river's up a bit.”

Joe shouted to the kids. “Righto youse kids—we're going to the Old Granny's.”

“What's wrong?” the younger kids wanted to know. And Shirl did not say anything.

As if to confirm the general feeling that something was wrong there was a hideous crackling of electricity like a rag
being ripped and a roar of thunder that made everyone stand quite still.

“Jesus,” said Joe.

Shirl and the kids set off, whipped by the wind across the flat. The Old Granny would know what to do.

By the time the party could see the shack great drops of icy rain were beginning to splash onto their skin. The old woman and Paula were around the back between the house and the river. Shirl and the children found them there.

The boy saw the Old Granny with her face set like a rock against the wind. She was encouraging the activities of Paula. The wind pulled at the great woman's clothes but her bulk seemed immoveable.

Without looking at the new arrivals the old woman said, “Youse come. Well reckon youse should go straight back to tent and wait for Jack. Flood's comin' but not yet. Reckon you go back and Jack will pack up, leave river. We goin' Pine Hill I reckon. That's right Paula, give it a good shake.”

Paula was shaking the wire of the chicken coop. She was laughing. “Come on youse chooks—run away and save yaselfs. Get outa there.”

The hens jerked sporadically about the scratched earth making urgent noises. Their small black eyes glistened and their white feathers were brilliant in the strange electric light pushed down by the heavy clouds. One hen suddenly found the opening and flapped out into its freedom. There was an instant following and the rest jammed and bustled in the doorway. As they rushed out there was an explosive separation of the birds. They fanned out in all directions and the coop was empty.

“Where they goin' Old Granny?” asked the boy.

The trees along the river were making a huge rushing noise. The grey wooden walls of the old shack were washed clean by the wind and the galvanised nails were polished cold.

“They probably gonna die!” shrieked Paula, “If they don't learn to fly real quick.” And she laughed her enormous laugh.

The boy saw the retreating white feathers lifted up from behind and blown against the grain. Soon the hens disappeared, small and white and separate.

The Old Granny gave them a cup of hot tea and then bustled them outside into the wind. The air was exploding.

“Gee, there's gonna be a flood, everyone in town says.” It was Sissy smiling and leaning on Mick. Brother and sister stumbled up to the veranda, cigarettes drooping from their mouths. Sissy looked windblown and drunk. “I thought you'd be over here. Good old Shirl, eh?”

Shirl looked at the floorboards.

“You look after them kids.” The Old Granny spat the words at her daughter. “Paula and me goin' to Pine Hill. Reckon you and that Jack go to showgrounds.”

“Wherever he is. Not at the tent.” Sissy was smiling and her words were slurred.

“Sis and me just went there,” said Mick and he drank the last from a sherry bottle' he'd taken from his pocket.

“We was just going back,” said Shirl quietly. “The Old Granny says the floods won't come yet.”

“I can see that, I can see that.” Sissy's mood was swinging as the grog did its tricks. “Hey—what 'bout a drink for ya little sister?”

“Sorry Sis, all gone.” And Mick threw the bottle into the oleander bushes at the end of the veranda.

“You old meanie. Anyway there's gonna be a flood you know. I gotta get these kids back to their father and pack up the tent. There's gonna be a flood.”

“Well git goin' then,” said the Old Granny.

In time Sissy and Mick and the kids with Shirl made their bedraggled way back to the camp. It seemed the wind
separated each one of them from the other. As the group came up to the tent they could see Jack doing something.

“What ya doin' my old Man? Tightenin' the ropes? Well ya can just bloody untighten them 'cos we're not staying here to get drowned.”

Chris felt frightened and eyed his father.

Sissy continued beligerent as the grog wore off. “There's gonna be a flood and I for one am pissin' off. And the kids are too.”

Jack continued with his task of securing the tent pegs. He did not speak.

Sissy continued to build up like the storm all about, waving her arms wildly.

“What about you Shirl—you not staying here are ya?”

Shirt's eyes were downcast. The ribbing on her thin red cardigan ran between her flat breasts and the wind flattened her hair. She was silent. It was Mick who spoke.

“What ya reckon Jack? Reckon that river'll come up over the bank tonight?”

Jack spoke for the first time. “There's not gonna be a bloody flood—a bit of a downpour and everyone's runnin' round like a chook with its head cut off.”

Mick had a bit of time for his brother-in-law but he said, “Gee mate—I don't know.”

“Please yourself,” and Jack started to hammer the pegs in again.

The grass cut the wind and the tight ropes shuddered in the air.

Chris felt fearful. Every hit his father gave to the pegs increased the tension in the air. His father was a solid wall of defiance.

“I reckon we'll pack up the wagon Jack,” said Mick all of a sudden.

Jack kept securing the tent against the universe.

“Well piss off then!” Sissy threw the words at her brother like a stone. “Leave us here to drown—go to buggery.”

“You could come too...” Mick looked sideways at his brother-in-law.

“We'll be right, we'll be right.”

So Mick and Shirl began piling stuff into the wagon. It did not take long. Mick harnessed up the horse and it looked impatient to be gone with the wind tearing at its mane and rattling the harness. Their two boys were lifted up inside the wagon. Mick and Shirl climbed up. They sat there foolishly hunched as the wind cut across them, Shirt's red cardigan was cold and thin.

Sissy would not look at them. Instead she walked off and sat on a flour drum with her back to the others.

Mick clicked his tongue a couple of times and the wagon jerked and then rolled away over the wet grass. The Leetons were alone with the river and the wind.