Four Fires (13 page)

The certainty in my voice made Tommy hesitate. 'This

bloke, he do something wrong, how come it's now Tasmania?'

'Nab, we called it that later, it was called Van Diemen's Land

'So why didn't the Dutch claim Australia, when they called New Holland, you know, for themselves. Stands to reason the wouldn't they?'

'Dunno, they didn't want it I suppose. They were looking

something else and weren't all that interested.' I was impressed own erudition.

'You're a pretty smart young fella, ain't ya?' Tommy said.

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you could learn something about eucalyptus trees, hell?'

'It's a native of Australia,' I said, getting carried away again.

'Yeah, and what else?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, f'instance, how many varieties are there?'

He had me, I should've known I'd come a cropper sooner or I'd probably been having a snooze when we were told that in class. I took a stab at it, 'One hundred and ten,' I guessed.

'Not even close, mate!' It was his turn to be smug.

'How many then?'

'Just over six hundred! That's how many.'

'Know them all, do you?' It was an attempt to regain my former position as the authority on Australian history.

Tommy chuckled, 'No way! Lucky if I know seventy, just the varieties around here and Mount Buffalo, maybe some like Snow Gum and Buffalo Sallee up high on the Snowy Mountains.'

'That's a lot,' I said, deciding to come off my high horse. History wasn't my best subject anyway. Besides, Tommy could have said, yes he knew the lot and I'd never have known any better. I mean, I was aware there was more than one kind of gum tree, you could see that just by looking, but seventy was a whole heap. I found that, despite myself, I was becoming interested. Even if I only learned about twenty names from Tommy, with a couple of them Latin ones thrown in, Crocodile Brown might have to take me seriously for a change.

'Have you ever seen a really big one?' I think he could tell from my voice that I wasn't as snotty as before.

'There's a big old man Alpine Ash, Eucalyptus delegatensis, in a deep ravine I know about. Not many people know of its existence.'

'Where's that? Can we go and see it?'

Tommy laughed, 'That's your prize if you pass.'

'Saturdays and after Christmas?'

'No, if you learn something in the process. I doubt there's five people in the world know of its existence. Maybe just me. Trunk is
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more than ten feet across and damn near two or three hundred feet tall, been there at least three hundred and fifty years; maybe more.'

He waited for my response. 'And you'll show it to me, take me there if I learn stuff?.' He must have heard it in my voice, I was suddenly dead keen.

'We'll see,' he said. 'Play your cards right, it could just happen.'

'Did you find it yourself?. Discover it, like?'

'Nah, Mr Baloney showed it to me when I was about your age, and his father told him before that. It's been known to our family probably eighty years.'

I was impressed. I was maybe going to learn a secret nobody knew except a Maloney. 'You sure it's only you knows about the tree?' I asked.

'Can't be sure about nothing in this world, mate. Pretty certain there's not too many who know about the Alpine Ash, bloody hard to get to that ravine, wouldn't know it was there unless you flew over it or stumbled upon it by mistake. It's hard-yakka country, everywhere else the timber-getters have long since cut down the big ones. Be another six generations before we see anything like it again in this region.' He leaned back, 'There you go then.' He pointed to the hole in the sand which had now filled with fresh, cleat water, 'Take a drink, never know where the next one's coming from, eh? Time for a gasper and then we're off, plenty to do before sunset.' It was the longest statement I'd ever heard Tommy make.

He took out the makings and rolled a cigarette. Licking the glue edge of the fag paper, he handed it to me. 'No thanks, not now,' I said,.

trying to sound casual, like as if I smoked but didn't feel like one at the moment.

'You don't use 'em then?' he asked. 'I did at your age.'

No use lying. 'Nah, tried it, didn't like it much.'

'Good thing,' he said. 'Wait until you're a bit older, hey.' He lit fag which was rolled thin as a lemonade straw, you can tell if a been in prison by the way he rolls his cigarettes. Tobacco's 1

inside so a fag is rolled as thin as possible so the makings will longer. Tommy inhaled deeply then exhaled and pointed at the water with his cigarette. 'Go for your life, Mole.'

I got up from where I was seated and went down on my knees and scooped water into my mouth. It tasted clean and fresh like a precious gift we'd discovered and, like the secret old man Alpine Ash, that nobody else but us Maloneys had found.

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I forget much of what happened that day. Tommy was overanxious and rambled on much too fast, firing information at me until I was bleary eyed and weak-brained. Firebreaks and the nature of undergrowth, bark!

varieties and their potential for combustion, the names of trees, wind directions, curvature of a hill and how it affects fire, you'd have had to a genius to remember it all. Tommy, not accustomed to teaching anybody let alone a kid of twelve, was firing with both barrels and he'd blown my mind to little bits long before the day ended.

We got home about seven o'clock, an hour after Sarah normally gave us our tea. I hadn't eaten anything all day except a few blackberries as I had flat refused to eat the fat white grubs Tommy'd found under the bark of a dead eucalyptus tree. I think its name was Mountain Swamp Gum, but I can't be sure, I was that tired.

To my joy and with me starving to death, Sarah had waited for us to return. 'It's your birthday, couldn't start without you, could we?'

Then, when nobody was taking notice, she drew me aside. 'You won't tell anyone about this morning, will you, Mole?'

I'd had so much happen to me since then I'd forgotten about her being sick that morning.

Besides, Maloneys never snitched on each

other. 'No, of course not,' I replied.

'Good,' she said, 'it must have been the fish.' I was with her on that one, the fish with white sauce was worse than offal.

'Yeah, I know what you mean,' I said. 'That's a dumb rule God came up with for Fridays.'

'Are you hungry?' she asked. 'We've got a special treat for your birthday.'

'I haven't eaten all day except for some blackberries,' I said, feeling sorry for myself.'

'Great, then you'll have a good appetite. How was your day with Tommy.)'

'Shithouse!' It came out, just the one word, like an explosion.

I was not yet ready to admit that there'd been some stuff that I'd quite liked. Anyway, it was true, mostly I hated it and hadn't really warmed much to Tommy neither. There was too much he'd done to us for him to win me over just by naming a few trees in Latin and pretending everything was all right. It bloody wasn't and I knew sooner or later, sooner probably, he'd go off half-cocked again or go on a bender. Leopards don't change their spots.

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'Talk to Nancy,' Sarah said, 'tell her.'

'Wha' for? It was her betrayed me.'

'It's important knowing about fires,' Sarah offered. 'Like, it's our family tradition.'

'Yeah, why pick on me.) Why not Bozo or Mike? All that fire stuff, it's all bullshit!'

She smiled and tilted her head, 'Poor Mole, you're tired.'

'Yeah, sick and tired of this whole bloody family pickin' on me.'

'Afraid it's the only one we've got. We've got to stick together through thick and thin, Mole.'

'So I'm the poor bastard that has to go out with the thin bloke. It's not bloody fair!'

Sarah laughed. 'Thick and thin, big and small, Nancy and Tommy!

Hey, that's very funny, Mole.'

'Yeah, hysterical,' I grunted. But I secretly thought it was quite clever myself. I mean, considering how buggered I was.

Just then Nancy came into the kitchen and said she'd make the gravy and for me to go wash my hands and face, that I looked like a ragamuffin. She didn't even ask about my day. Bloody traitor.

We had steak that night, Nancy must have got it at the abattoir yesterday. A huge juicy steak and roast potatoes and gravy and pumpkin and peas and orange cordial. I didn't have to eat the pumpkin.

When we'd all finished, there was stewed fruit and custard for sweets. Sarah said to wait on. As soon as she returned from the kitchen she shouted, 'Close your eyes, Mole!' Then, moments later, 'Okay, you can open them.'

There in front of me was a cake with twelve lighted candles round the rim. It was made with this pink icing and, across the middle in blue icing in running writing, was 'Mole Maloney 12'.

'Blow! Make a wish!' everyone shouted at once and then when I'd blown all the candles out in one go, they sang 'Happy Birthday' and 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow'! We'd done the same for little Colleen on her birthday, but never for us other kids. But I have to admit, it was very nice.

The wish I made when I blew out the candles should have been to be released from my Tommy sentence, but I must have been brain damaged from all the stuff he'd been going on about all day and, instead, I wished I'd soon be shown the big old-man Alpine Ash. Only I
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wished it was somebody else showed me, like my grandpa come to life again, not Tommy.

Then Nancy cut the cake and we were all having a slice when Tommy, with this mouth full of cake, says to Sarah, 'How you feeling, girl?'

It was completely unexpected, like. Usually him and Sarah didn't say much to each other.

'Fine,' Sarah replied, surprised. She must have forgotten that Tommy was with me in the kitchen that morning.

'You seemed pretty crook this morning, vomiting in the sink.'

Normally Tommy didn't give a bugger about us family. Besides, he'd done a fair bit of vomiting in his time and probably wouldn't have taken it seriously anyway. Maybe what had happened between him and me during the day had given him some encouragement and he was, like, you know, practising fatherhood or something?

Sarah went a beetroot-red colour, she could blush like a surset.

Tm better now,' she said in a small, tight voice.

'You didn't tell me you were sick?' Nancy said suspiciously.

'It was nothing,' Sarah said, 'I think it was the fish last night.'

'Fish? It was smoked haddock. Nobody else was sick.' She looked around the table, 'Anyone else sick?' she asked. We knew something was coming and none of us said anything. Tommy coughed twice. Even little Colleen sensed something was up and stopped chewing cake.

'Vomiting, were you? First thing in the morning?' She seemed to be thinking for a moment, 'Hmm, I see.' Nancy's lips were pulled tight,

'You're not pregnant are you, Sarah?'

Sarah began to sob. She sat with both her hands in her lap and her head bowed and sobbed.

Mike and Bozo and me stayed silent, Tommy too. You could hear Sarah breathing, taking in great gulps of air. There was nothing we could do for her, us kids who had to stick together through thick and thin were helpless when we were needed. Then Mike sort of cleared his throat and said, 'Yeah, me too. I was a bit nauseous this morning.'

'Bullshit!' Nancy snapped.

And then there was just Sarah sobbing.

CHAPTER FOUR

With Sarah pregnant, things were not the same with us. Sarah still
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carried on, but she wasn't her old self. In so many ways she ran thin around the place that Nancy couldn't have taken over if she'd wanted to, but you could see Sarah didn't have her heart in it.

Nancy still wore the pants, of course, but Sarah ran our lives an made us feel worthwhile. Now she was up the duff and none of us felt good any longer. There'd always been laughter around the place and'

now there wasn't. Nancy took to adding another bottle of milk stout to, her morning ritual which didn't do her temper any good and she picked

on Sarah all the time until she got her crying. It was the worst thing that could happen to a Maloney and especially to Sarah, who'd always had a lot of pride. 'Dignity,' Mike called it. 'Sarah has dignity.' Mike said that Nancy's smocking was ratshit and he and Sarah had to do it all over again when she wasn't looking.

Then there was the fear grabbing hold of all of us. The dread of what people were going to say, the deep-down fear of the Protestants.

'Bloody Catholics, what do you expect? Those Maloneys, always been the lowest of the low.' When a convent girl got pregnant they'd usually say things like 'They're like a dog off a chain once they leave the convent, they'll go with any Tom, Dick or Harry.'

That was one good thing, at least they couldn't say that about Sarah, who never went to the convent in the first place. Other things you'd hear people say were, 'That girl's nothing but a harlot, those slacks are so tight around her backside you'd have to peel them off with a paint scraper, she wants locking up before she gets knocked up.' But that wasn't Sarah neither. Sarah was the vice-prefect, dux of the school, and polite to everyone she met. People liked Sarah right off, you could see it in their eyes.

Our eldest sister did everything for us, she even cut our hair and she never had time to hang out at the Greek's, the Parthenon care, to meet boys, like some of the other girls did. It doesn't matter much what Sarah wasn't. They'd soon enough forget all that, there's nothing like present trouble to wipe out past glory.

Mike said, 'Take a look at us, will ya? We've got Tommy, we're the garbage collectors and we're Micks to boot, we don't have a snowball's hope in hell!' Then he turned to Bozo and me, his teeth clenched and eyes closed tight, 'One day I'm going to come back to this bloody shit heap of a town and show them they were wrong about us!'

It just wasn't fair! Sarah was the one who always made sure we were proud of ourselves and now this had happened to her. We were lucky that she'd finished her exams so she really didn't have to go back to school if she didn't want to. Although, as vice-prefect, she still had things to do, like go through the routine with next year's head prefect and give a short speech at the final-year assembly. But that was
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something Murray Templeton, the head prefect, would have to do. alone this year.

After three days the headmaster called Mike into his office and asked him if there was anything wrong with Sarah, she was supposed to come in and see him earlier in the week. Mike said she wasn't well.

'What's the matter with her?' Frank Morris asked, 'She hasn't taken a day off from school in three years.' Mike said he didn't know exactly, a cold or something, better call Nancy.

Nancy told him Sarah was worn out from the exams and needed a rest. He didn't seem too pleased with this answer and said, 'We've all been under a strain, Mrs Maloney. The school expects its vice-prefect to see out the year.' Nancy stayed firm, knowing he couldn't make Sarah come in now she'd done her exams. Later she called him a

'pompous old bugger!' and added that she couldn't care less what Frank Morris thought, Sarah wasn't going back to that place. 'Next thing the teachers will be saying she's looking a bit puffy round the ankles and then won't the tongues start wagging.'

It was only a matter of time, though. Nancy knew it, we all "knew it, you couldn't keep anything secret for long in Yankalillee. The town's stickybeaks could sniff trouble a mile off and they'd soon be landing like crows on a dead cow. Hmm, what have we got here? And; soon enough, another reputation bites the dust.

Not that Nancy was doing all that well with her own attempts at damage control. She'd gone ape-shit the first night when Tommy dobbed Sarah in. It wasn't the mum we knew, an entirely new Nancy came out and there's still a fair bit of this new person hanging around the place.

I mean, fair enough, you could understand her being pissed off at what had happened. But it was a bit hypocritical when you think about it. What had Sarah done that Nancy hadn't done herself?. Who was she to blame Sarah? All of us, except Colleen, had been born out of wedlock. She and Sarah were almost the same age when she was up the duff the first time. It was a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black. But that didn't stop Nancy going spare.

That night around the table with all of us munching away on.

birthday cake and Sarah admitting the deed by bursting into tears, Nancy came wading in, a great dreadnought with all guns blazing.

'You've ruined your life, girl!' she screamed at Sarah. 'You've destroyed your chances and you've destroyed us! For once in our lives we looked like we might crawl out from under the miserable rock the Maloneys have been hiding under for-bloody-ever! All our dreams! All our hard work, and you open your legs to the first Protestant boy who touches you on the tits! How could you do this to us?'

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'Hey, wait on, Mum,' Mike says. 'That's not fair!'

Nancy turns furiously to Mike. 'You! Shut the fuck up!' she screams. 'You should talk, God only knows where you'll end up!'

Mike is shocked and humiliated and looks down at the uneaten piece of cake on his plate. Nancy's never spoken like that before, not even ever used that word before in our presence, turning on both her kids like they're dirt. It's as if she's someone else who's gone right off her scone.

But Nancy doesn't care. 'Just once!' she yells and then looks up at the ceiling appealing to God, 'just for once things seemed to be going right and now this! What is it?' she says to God. 'What is it that I've done! Didn't go to bloody Mass! The Eucharist, is that it? Eat yer body and drink yer blood! Can't you leave us alone? Pick on someone else for a change!' Boy, did she give God a big serve, I expected lightning to come down and fry us all on the spot.

She looks around and her eyes are strange, wild, popping out her head, like she doesn't even see us and is in some sort of blind panic.

All of a sudden she brings her hands up to cover her face and she starts to wail. She's wailing and Sarah's sobbing. Little Colleen's watching all this going on around her, not understanding, her green eyes big as saucers and on the verge of tears, her bottom lip trembling. Then she too starts to cry. Colleen's crying, Nancy's wailing and Sarah's sobbing.

You've never seen so much misery in the one room at the same time.

Mike looks at Bozo and me and goes over and puts his arm around Sarah and nods, indicating we must do the same to Nancy and Colleen. Tommy's looking down at the oilcloth that's stretched tight over the table and drawing-pinned to the underside. He's taken out a drawing-pin and is using it to pick the dirt out of his nails, not looking up even once.

Bozo goes to Colleen and picks her up and sits down in her chair.

Putting her on his lap, he pulls her head into his chest, stroking her soft blonde hair. I go behind Nancy's chair and put both my arms around her neck. Her whole body is shaking, like she's got the trembles, then her shoulders start to heave like an earthquake's about to happen. She goes silent and you can't hear any sound coming out, just the trembling and heaving, then it comes out again, rushing up like a volcano, angry and unstoppable. Nancy starts to roar this time, making an angry sound we've never heard come out of her before, like a wild animal that's been wounded and is dying and is going to have one last shot at getting to its tormentor.

'Mum! Mum!' I shout out as I hug her tight. But her great arm flings back and catches me to the side of the neck and I'm sent flying, splat into the wall behind.

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Now she turns on Sarah again. 'You little

bitch! You randy little bitch! You filthy harlot!' she screams and her hand comes up and with a fresh roar of anger she starts to rise, she's going to hit Sarah, she'll kill her, but before she's properly out of her chair she seems to freeze in midair, then drops like a stone, crashing to the floor.

'Christ, she's had a heart attack,' Tommy shouts out. He hasn't done nothing until now, just sat there like a stunned mullet cleaning his nails. Him who started everything in the first place.

Nancy is lying like a great hippo spread-eagled on the floor, not moving. Her yellow-daisy dress has pulled right up around her navel and the elastic of her pink crepe de chine bloomers is cutting into her tree-trunk thighs just above her knees and again across her enormous stomach. Tommy rushes over and jumps astride her and starts right off giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Suddenly Nancy opens one eye. 'Get off a me, you great pillock!'

she yells out and her arm sweeps across and it's Tommy's turn to go flying under the table. Then she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand like she's just ate something really nasty.

It must have been her blood pressure. When she got up tot suddenly from the chair, she must have momentarily blacked out. We all rush over, even Sarah, who pulls Nancy's dress back down knees. Then we start to pull her to her feet, which ain't easy, her flat like that on her back. Getting her into the Diamond T is a piece cake compared to this effort.

Tommy's bleeding above the eyebrow where he's caught it against: the edge of the table leg and he doesn't look too happy.

get Nancy back into her chair, she's huffing and puffing, her breasts rising and falling like a blacksmith's bellows. She's red in the face and sweating like a pig. I think that now maybe she really is going to have a heart attack, because she's gulping for air and wheezing: something terrible. Mike has grabbed Friday's Gazette and he's fanning'

it furiously in front of her face and Bozo's rushed into the kitchen to get'

her a drink of water and a Bex.

Nobody notices as Sarah leaves the room. Later, when things have calmed down around Nancy a bit, we realise she's gone. Sarah's not to be found in the house and we go outside looking for her, then down Bell Street, but she's nowhere to be seen.

There's a place I know near the lake she likes to go sometimes, so that's where I head off on my own.

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I find her sitting looking out into the lake. 'Sarah,' I say, 'that you?'

Of course I know it's her, but I'm not sure I'm welcome.

'Hello, Mole,' she calls softly.

'You all right?' It's another silly question.

'Yeah.' She gives a bitter little laugh, 'Good as can be expected.'

'You want to be alone?'

'No, come sit with me.'

I sit next to her and we don't say anything, her and me looking out into the lake, which isn't a real lake but open-cut diggings made during the gold rushes with the local creek diverted into it later to make the lake. It's a near full moon with just a hit of the side missing so it's easy to see things. A couple of ducks glide past and go quack, quack You can also see some of the lights from the houses up on the hill reflected in the water and there's the sound of the wind through the bulrushes. The frogs are croaking away, going at it hell for leather in a frog chorus before suddenly stopping for no reason, then it's on again for one and all. Frogs do that and nobody knows why. Maybe they're singing a song, only we don't know it because our ears think it's all the same tune. But it isn't and they're taking a smoko before they start the next number.

We're sitting on almost the exact spot where Bozo caught the redfin that tasted of mud, when we swore we'd never eat fresh fish again and we haven't. Maybe if Bozo had caught another fish that tasted like that last one, Sarah might have got away with her excuse because we all wanted to vomit after eating that first one.

Sarah's arm comes around my shoulders and she pulls me close in and ruffles my hair, 'I've really fucked up, haven't I, Mole?'

I can't tell her, that's the truth and then some. 'They say he's been signed up to play for Richmond, is it true?' It's all I can think to say.

'They've made an approach, but he's going to Duntroon.'

'Duntroon, what's that when it's wearing baby booties?' (Maloney expression.)

'The Royal Military College in Canberra. Murray wants to be a cadet officer and then go into the permanent army.'

'What?' I can't believe my ears. A chance to play for Richmond and he gives it up to be a soldier. I'm beginning to think Murray Templeton must be a bit of a deadhead.

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'His grandfather was a lieutenant general in the first world war, he wants to follow in his footsteps, it's a family tradition.' Sarah pauses a moment, then gives a bitter little laugh, 'Like me following in Nancy's footsteps, that seems to be our family tradition.'

It doesn't seem appropriate to mention that bushfires are our tradition as well. 'Are you going to have a baby, Sarah?' I'm full of dumb questions. Of course she is, but I can't think of another way to put it.

'Looks like it, unless I have a miscarriage.'

'Miscarriage?' It's not a word I've heard before.

'Lose it, something goes wrong and you lose your baby,' Sarah explains. 'But with the Maloney luck that's not going to happen to me.'

She turns and looks at me, her mouth pulled down at one corner and sort of wobbling, like she's trying not to cry again. 'Forgot to take the spoon out of the sink, Mole.'

I'm twelve years old that very day and I know she must mean she didn't use a franger. Or Murray Templeton didn't. Perhaps she meant that she shouldn't have done it in the first place. Which we all know is true, but too late thinking about that now.