Four Fires (14 page)

I'd never seen a franger, but Bozo has. He said that this guy brought one to boxing, pinched it from the barber shop where they sell them. He was having his hair cut and Billy Tucker the barber went to answer the phone out the back and there was this drawer half open and he could see these red packets in it. He thought it was chewing gum and so he pinched one. Then he found out later it was a franger.

Bozo said they all got fats on in the shower out back of the police station and took turns to try it on. 'It's that strong, but it fits real smooth and tight,' he told me. Then later they filled it with water and he said it took more than a gallon of water and didn't break. You could also blow it up like a balloon. Bozo said how he'd heard of these bank robbers in America using them. Only they call them frenchies over there, we do sometimes too. I tried to imagine Tommy with one pulled over his head, but I couldn't. If it fits so tight, like Bozo said, how come they could breathe? So that bit about the bank robbers was probably bullshit. Bozo said, 'Its real name is Ansell Contraceptive, because on FOUR FIRES tot

the outside of the pack it said "Ansell Contraceptives- for your zconcerned pleasure"!'

So, you see, I knew what a franger was all right. It was just that I couldn't imagine Sarah doing 'it' with one. You know, like a parent would. Matter of fact, before tonight I couldn't have imagined her doing it anyway. Now my commonsense told me that if she was going to use a franger, like she meant when she said she didn't take the spoon
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out the sink, that would mean she was doing it all the time with

'Murray Templeton. I'm positive now that's not true. What's happened to give her a baby was a definite one-off mistake. Them two not using a franger when they did it is positive proof it only happened the once.

Stands to reason, don't it? Think about it. Bozo said this bloke at boxing said you had to be asked. The barber would say while he was cutting a grown-up's hair, 'Do you need any home supplies, sir?' which is the secret code for a packet of frangers. Murray Templeton couldn't just walk into Billy Tucker's barber shop and say, 'Hello, Mr Tucker, packet of frangers,' right out in the open, him being a schoolboy and all. it was a spur of the moment thing for sure. They probably didn't even know that every time you don't use a franger you get a baby.

I also wondered a bit how you could lose a baby when it's inside you. I'd heard of people losing one before. Nancy would say of some women she knew 'She's lost her baby, poor thing.' Until now I hadn't really thought about it, other than that it was something women occasionally did, lost babies. What's more, I also never thought it was something that was lucky when it happened, that is, until now with Sarah saying, with our Maloney luck, meaning bad luck, she wouldn't lose hers.

There was a long silence then between Sarah and me. Silence can build up and after a while the air around gets tighter so you think any moment it's going to tear, rip apart, right above your head. Then goodness knows what would happen. That's when you have to say something to stop it happening. 'What are you going to do?' I say to Sarah.

Like all my questions to her tonight, it's the wrong one again, because she drops her head and starts to sniff. But then she looks up over the lake and takes her hanky that's already sopping wet from all her tears and nose-snuffling and blows her nose. 'I don't know, Mole,'

she says in a real small voice.

We're silent ['or a long time again and I'm throwing these pebbles in the lake, plop, plop, plop, when she says, 'I could go to the nuns'

hospital in Melbourne and have it. You're allowed to hold it the once and then they take it away for adoption.' I can see she can't yet call it a baby. What's in her stomach is still an 'it'.

We're both thinking the same thing, her with a big tummy

what people will say if Sarah stays in Yankalillee. 'Them Ma]on been here since Ned Kelly was a lad, but they're still Bog Irish!'

they'll say, 'Not young Templeton's fault, boys will be boys, she's a re little cock-teaser that one. Makes out she's so ladylike but you can see she was planning to get her hooks into him all along.'

We can't send Sarah away neither, there's nowhere to go, no relatives or anyone that we've kept
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up with. Who'd want one

Tommy's kids anyway?

'Will you marry him?' I now say, because that's the next

needs to be asked.

Sarah turns and puts her arm around me again and pulls me into her and gives this little whimper, 'Oh, Mole, I love him so much.

They're High Church of England and we're Catholics and Murray's going to Duntroon, his parents will never allow it!'

I can see right off we Maloneys are up shit creek without a paddle.

But I already knew that. And it was me who thought she only had a sore tummy this morning and I was the one who was having his whole life ruined! Me feeling sorry for myself when it's really her who's in the shit! Sarah's now sobbing quietly, but it's nice with my head against her chest.

I must have fallen asleep because next thing I know she's saying to me, 'Wake up, Mole, it's time to go home and face the music again. It's

been a long day for you, you're on your last legs, mate.' She gives me a kiss on the forehead, which normally I wouldn't allow. 'You poor old sausage, it hasn't been much of a birthday, has it?'

Well, matters go from bad to worse in our family. Monday morning, after we've done the garbage rounds, Tommy's off to wait for the pub to open. Monday, come six-thirty, he staggers home and collapses at the

front door and has to be dragged in and put to bed. He's back on the grog in a big way. Tuesday morning at three I go to wake him, he gets up and comes out, but he's still so pissed from the night before he's about as useless as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest. He's falling over bins and tripping and calling out and swearing and we're getting behind on the job cleaning up the mess he's making. He's got this half jack of brandy and he's taking swigs from it and failing on his arse.

Funny how they never seem to break the bottle. Tommy is normally a McWilliams sweet-sherry man, which is bad enough, but now it's Tolleys brandy and that's a real bad sign. We try to put him in.the Diamond T cabin with Nancy but he won't have a bar of it and in her present mood she's not that keen to accommodate him neither.

So we have to leave him by the side of the road to sober up, which is real bad for our image. We know what will happen, he'll go wandering off, shouting and swearing and staggering all over the place until half the bloody town will have looked out their windows and seen him before breakfast.

But then, as we're trying to figure out what to do, he takes out his donger and starts to piss in someone's empty garbage bin. His trousers fall down below his "knees and he's waving the half-jack above his head,
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trying to keep his balance. Then he commits a mortal sin and takes a kick at Bitzer Four and sends the little mutt flying and himself on his arse, with the piss-stream spraying every which way.

'flight, that's bloody it!' Bozo shouts.

'Mary, Mother of God!' Mike says, spitting to one side in disgust.

So we gag Tommy and tie his hands and ankles with a bit of rope and toss him on top of the garbage. In about two minutes he's fast asleep.

'Never seen him looking more at home,' Mike grunts. Nancy doesn't even look through the back window of the Diamond T while all

this is going on.

We know Tommy's pattern of old. Once he starts on the grog he's on a bender that could last a week or all the way to Christmas. One good thing though, no bush-whacking of a Saturday for old Mole. Fuck the Yellow Box and the bees making honey, fuck all the other eucalyptus trees as well, I'm a free man.

Nancy's not herself neither, instead of shouting out and calling directions she hardly speaks at all. Though, all is not lost, she still makes sure we get Oliver Twist shouting down at us from his bedroom window, but she doesn't laugh or shout 'Half-past three and all's well,'

as usual as we drive away.

It's three nights later when Nancy asks Sarah if she's told Murray Templeton she's pregnant. You'd think it would have been one of the first questions asked, which goes to show how bad things were, how we've lost all our commonsense.

Sarah says she has.

'When?' Nancy wants to know.

'When I first started getting sick in the morning,' Sarah answers.

'When was that?'

'A week ago, three days before Mole saw me in the kitchen.'

'And?'

'He said he'd speak to his parents.'

'And that was a week ago and he hasn't been back

'He hasn't been to school either,' Mike interjects, I heard someone say he was supposed to play in the parents and teachers versus the
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school's first eleven cricket match but didn't turn up.

'I see. Seen him since then, Sarah?'

Sarah bows her head, she's ashamed. 'No,' she says.

'You sure?' Nancy is suspicious.

'No, Mum!' Sarah looks her straight in the eye. You can tell she's telling the truth. More than any of us, she's the one who never tells a lie.

'Why the rotten little shit!' Nancy shouts out. And we all know immediately that the old Nancy is back. Someone's done something to one of us kids and they're going to have to pay. 'We'll soon see about that!' she says, scraping back her chair.

One thing that hasn't changed with us since the bad news is that we're still all included in what's happening. Maloneys do things together. Except for little Colleen, who's gone off to bed and is too young to be a part of it. And Tommy, who hasn't come home and is probably sitting down by the lake with the other town no-hopers getting himself paralytic on sweet sherry. We're sitting at the table after dinner where this conversation is taking place. Nancy now gets up and goes to the phone and dials the exchange,

'Mum, don't do that!' Mike yells out. 'They listen in, you know that!'

But Nancy takes no notice. 'Philip Templeton,' she snaps to the girl at the telephone exchange. We all groan and bring our hands up to our faces, just the tone of her voice is sufficient to put the exchange on red alert. 'Mr Templeton?' a slight pause then, 'This is Nancy Maloney, Sarah's mother. We're coming over right now!' Murray Templeton's father must have said something like it wasn't convenient, because Nancy snaps, 'That's just too had, you've had a week to contact us, you can expect us in fifteen minutes[' She slams down the phone. 'Flight then, everyone into the Diamond T.'

'Oh, Mum!' Sarah howls.

'You shut up!' Nancy says. I've had enough. Who do they think they are?'

'What about Colleen?' Bozo says.

'Wrap her in a blanket and bring her along, -they might as well see bow the other half lives.'

We're in our clothes for around the house and barefoot, even
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Sarah.

'We'll need to change,' Mike says.

'No time for that, now,' Nancy snaps, 'We'll go as we are, they can jolly well take us as they find us.'

Sarah's already run into her and Nancy's bedroom, her eyes full of panic. Because of the heat, she's wearing an old pair of shorts and a sort of bra thing that's the top from her bathers. It's going to be tough on her having to face the parents.

It seems like only moments later when she emerges. She's carrying Colleen who is still asleep and wrapped in a blanket. Sarah's done a lightning change and she's wearing pedal pushers and tennis shoes with a clean white T-shirt. From where I am, I can see her from the hack, her waist is slim as ever and, from looking every time I see her, I know there still isn't any bulge in front to show what's happened.

She's even had time to put a brush through her hair. Sarah looks about fourteen years old.

We heave-ho Nancy up into the Diamond T. Sarah and Colleen climb in after her and the rest of us stay in the back, including Bozo's mutts. Bozo doesn't go anywhere without Bitzers One to Five. 'They're our family too,' he always says. 'They guard the Diamond T.'

'Who's going to be stupid enough to steal it?' Mike wanted to know.

It doesn't take long to get to the Templetons' house which is up the side of the hill a bit further along the same street from Oliver Twist.

His and their house are the only ones in Yankalillee that are double storey. Once I remarked on how lucky they were to have a big house and everything. Nancy said not to, that being envious of someone else, wanting to be like them, was to be a second-best person and not the first-best person you can be by yourself. There's also something we know about the Templetons, us being the town garbage collectors but Nancy says we don't talk about what's in people's garbage because it humiliates us more than them. Now after what they've done I don't care, so I'll tell it. There's always two or three Gilbey's gin bottles in their garbage, which tells something about Mrs Dora Templeton she wouldn't want anybody to know.

You'd think they'd bury the bottles in the backyard or something, though, being them, they'd probably explain it away by saying they have a lot of visitors. Not so easy to do if you think about it for a moment. Men don't drink gin and all them white-glove set mostly drink dry sherry or sometimes brandy and dry, but often it's only lemon squash. Two bottles of gin for entertainment purposes would last a year under those conditions. If you ask me, the Gilbey's gin bottles are a dead give away. After all, we know pissedness (a Maloney word) when we see it. If I'm not mistaken, Dora Templeton drinks like a fish.

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We're all pretty nervous going up to the front door, though Nancy is in front and we're all sort of protected by her massive body. She's still wearing a pair of worn green-felt slippers and, of course, her yellow daisy dress. She raps on the door. They've got this brass lion's head with a ring through its mouth and Nancy goes rap, rap, rap against the door hard as she can, then rap, rap, rap again and when there's no response, mainly because she doesn't wait long enough for anyone to have time to come, she shouts out, 'Open up!' and goes rap, rap, rap again, so you know she's nervous as hell.