Four Fires (49 page)

Nancy will work off some of her past sins, shorten her time in purgatory, is the other subtle suggestion from Yankalillee's own Friar Tuck. Anyway, Nancy buys the deal, I mean what else can she do, even her, a collapsed Catholic, doesn't want the priest from Yankalillee to look like a dag surplice-wise. Besides, with Mike gone, we can't really afford to drop our standards because all these years people think it's Nancy's work that's winning ribbons. Mind you, Nancy's no slouch herself when she really wants to try.

Well, Father Crosby as usual leaves his Malvern Star resting against the front fence. Tommy comes home with the problem that he owes the SP bookie ten quid he's lost that afternoon betting on the St Leger, one of the big local greyhound races. He sees this beaut bike and in his addled mind thinks, That'd be worth a fiver at least.'

Well, to cut a long story short, he rides it all the way to Wangaratta, and tries to sell it to Joe Turkey. Only problem is that it's got Property of the Catholic Church stamped on the frame in three places. Joe, of course, doesn't know that Tommy is Bozo's old man, and while bicycle theft isn't exactly front-page news, stealing from the Church is not on. Joe Turkey, who's a good Catholic, dobs Tommy in to the Wangaratta police.

Nancy swears she'll never forgive Father Crosby, who, when the case came up, refused to withdraw charges.

'I cannot in all conscience go against the law of the land, Nancy Maloney. The Scriptures teach us, "Render thereto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's.'"

'So, Tommy took a little ride on your bicycle, you got it back, didn't yer? No harm done!' Nancy yells.

'Nancy Maloney, I am the Church in Yankalillee! God's servant and representative in this benighted parish. We've got a prison up the hill, as you are well aware through bitter personal experience! Every Thursday I hear confession and distribute Holy Communion in the prison chapel. The lads inside are always contrite, but I've never heard a single one of them confess to the crime they've been convicted and sentenced for. They're all innocent, the lot of them. What comes through the confession grille is a general admission of guilt and the wish to be forgiven in the eyes of the Lord, if you know what I mean? Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. But the sins they've committed are always due to special circumstances. If it wasn't for a drunken father and a mother with TB and too many hungry mouths to feed and not enough money, they'd all, every one of them, have grown up pure as the driven snow to become doctors and lawyers and upstanding citizens. It's the cruel hand that society has dealt them that put them inside. Nothing to do with them or their bad characters.'

'I reckon they're half-right about that, Father, but what's that got to do with Tommy borrowing your bicycle for a few hours?

'Theft! He stole it. Borrowing requires permission, stealing doesn't.'

'So he'd had a drop to drink, so he forgot to ask. These things happen, the Church got its property back and there's no harm done.

Page 254

'All the harm in the world, Nancy Maloney. Moral harm! Stealing from the Church is the same as stealing from God Himself. God has His hand stretched out in His infinite compassion and your husband, Tommy Maloney, has gone and bit it!'

I suddenly see the hand of God stretched out to Tommy and him taking a great chomp at His fingers and people looking up and saying, 'Look, it's raining blood!'

'Bloody hell! Here we go again!' Nancy's eyes shoot up to the ceiling and she lets out a monumental sigh. 'Father, he was pissed, stonkered, he didn't know it was your bicycle, he didn't know he was stealing from the Church, he was just being a perfectly common thief as usual!'

'Now that's just it, Nancy Maloney! That's my point. How would it be if the lads doing time up the hill, common thieves and scoundrels themselves, heard that Tommy Maloney, a known recidivist, was let off by their own priest who hears their confession? Good Catholic boys hearing that about one of their own! How do you think they'd feel, eh? Them innocent in their own minds and incarcerated and him, guilty as sin before God and man, free as a bird. No, no, not at all, I can't do it! What Tommy Maloney's done is like stealing from the Blessed Virgin Herself, we'll not be forgiving that with a wave of the hand and fifty Hail Marys!'

'What about the Lord Jesus Christ forgiving the thief on the cross when he was crucified?' Nancy now quotes the words of our Lord. Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise", isn't that what Jesus said, Father?'

Sometimes Nancy can leave you flabbergasted about what she comes out with. I reckon, if she'd had half a chance, she might have got somewhere in life. No wonder she's determined we've got to have an education.

Extreme circumstances call for extreme unction,' Father Crosby says. 'Tommy isn't on Golgotha, now is he? He hasn't been nailed to the cross with four dirty big nails, now has he?'

Three, Father, one through each hand and just the one for his feet which were crossed, the fourth one is the one you've used to nail Tommy!'

Nancy Maloney, I've warned you before about blasphemy! The Bishop simply wouldn't approve a recommendation of clemency. A bicycle is valuable property and it's on his diocesan audit. As God's representatives on earth His Holiness the Pope, the Cardinal himself, the Bishop and myself are the Holy Roman Church and we must see him punished and only then can he confess and be forgiven for sins committed.'

'Ha! Revenge to me; I will repay, saith the Lord! Didn't I hear you say that when it came to Dora Templeton? What was it you were going to do? That's right, pray. And in His infinite wisdom maybe the Lord would send a bit of fire and brimstone hailing down. Well, there's been bugger-all happen to the bitch that's nasty! But Tommy nicks your bike for a few hours and there's no praying for fire and brimstone, no leaving it to the Lord to decide. Instead a charge of grievous bodily harm for biting God's fingers and straight to gaol you go, Tommy Maloney!'

'Blasphemy! Blasphemy!' Father Crosby cries.

Mind you, all this is said after Father Crosby has received his fancy new surplice which Nancy does for him in less than a week. It's delivered to the priest's home before the Wangaratta cops come around to nab Tommy. I don't mean they waited deliberate, nothing like that, but stealing a bloody bicycle, even from a priest, isn't exactly urgent police business.

What's really suspicious, though, was that Wangaratta didn't inform Big Jack Donovan before they made the arrest. That's bad form. Tommy's a local crim and Big Jack should have a say, that's how the cops work in the country.

Nancy says it's not that hard to smell a rat, a nasty little Father Crosby conspiracy somewhere along the line. Big Jack came around to apologise to us, he knows how difficult things are, but there's nothing he could do about it because Tommy was arrested and held overnight in Wangaratta and went before the stipendiary magistrate, the one and only Oliver Twist, the very next morning and got six months for petty theft.

Page 255

It's this last term in prison that seems to really do it for Tommy. It's not a big sentence, but I think he's had about enough. He comes out not the same man that went in. His spirit seems broken. When we go to get him, we've hired a taxi special, so he doesn't have to get into the Diamond T which is on its last legs. Tommy comes out the gate and he's sort of crumpled and small, nothing cocky left in him. You can see his crook shoulder and his one eye and crooked jaw and caved-in cheekbone where the Jap guard smashed him with a rifle butt, something which you hardly even noticed before. I don't know how we know, but it isn't Tommy who walks out the gate, it's someone who's given up. It's not something you can explain but just something you know inside of you. Nancy takes one look and starts to cry. These days the only time Tommy perks up a bit is when we go bush.

The next thing to know is how Philip Templeton tried to get rid of us in the rubbish-collection business. Even though he'd been elected shire president twice in a row, he'd not been game to take a shot at us before. This was because Peter Barrington-Stone had been on the shire council representing the graziers. He wouldn't have had the guts to take on Mrs Barrington-Stone. When someone else took Mr Barrington-Stone's place on the council, Philip Templeton's free to have a go at us.

It wasn't going to be easy because Bozo looked as though he might get selected for the Rome Olympics and Sarah was the pride and joy of Yankalillee and has nearly finished Medicine.

But Mr Templeton is patient and waits for his opportunity and, sure enough, given that we're the Maloney family, it comes along dished up to him on a platter with sauce.

One morning in February 1959, halfway through the garbage run, the axle on the Diamond T

breaks. As luck would have it, we're only two blocks from John Crowe's house and I go round and tap on the bedroom door. His wife Trish wakes him up and he comes out and I explain what's happened, thinking maybe he'll get the Diamond T going with Bozo's help, him being an expert mechanic.

But he does more than that, he comes out in the ute and looks at the broken axle. By this time the gearbox and differential, which I mentioned earlier, are ratshit and now there's the axle. The tyres are in their usual state except for one back one that's still half-good.

John Crowe crawls under the old truck and comes out a few moments later. 'Forget it, axle's snapped.' He opens the bonnet and gets Nancy to start the engine. 'Holy shit!' he exclaims when he hears

the whine of the diff and the clapping of the tappets. Then Bozo tells him how it can't get out of second gear. 'I can't believe it's still going, mate, it's a bloody miracle/ He turns to Bozo. 'You keep this old lady on the road, Bozo?'

Bozo pretends he doesn't know whether he means Nancy or the Diamond T. 'Which one?' he says, laughing up at Nancy. 'Yeah, best I can,' he finally answers.

'Well, you're a better mechanic than me, mate. This heap o' rusty nuts 'n' bolts should've been retired to the scrapyard about the time we swapped them tyres around. Shit, that must've been three years ago if it was a day!'

We leave the Diamond T and John Crowe lets Nancy drive the ute. He also helps shovel the rubbish into the back from the Diamond T and, making a few extra trips, he helps us finish up with the morning's run. Bozo and me are an hour late for school and we both get detention which is small potatoes compared to the trouble us Maloneys are in with the garbage run.

But John Crowe's ahead of us and he arranges for us to use a council truck, sort of unofficial like.

This is done after consultation with Macca McKenzie, the depot foreman, and involves rabbit meat for his greyhounds, a little scam I'll explain later. The shire-council trucks are parked overnight at the depot, so we 'borrow' one and have it back by seven-thirty in the morning.

This is temporary of course and as luck would have it we're only three weeks off the end of the contract with the shire council. Tommy's first contract was for five years initially, with an option
Page 256

to renew it every year providing the council is happy. So far the yearly renewal has been more or less automatic, nobody's ever come along with a better bid and it's pretty obvious for all to see, there ain't much of a living in it anyway.

Well, the contract comes up for renewal and we put in our offer, which is lower than ever because we ask the council to supply the garbage truck. It's all over red rover, Philip Templeton pounces, no truck no contract, simple as that. We're out of business and he puts the contract out to tender. We're in deep shit, the tender stipulates that the contractor has to supply his own vehicle, only I think it's called 'infrastructure' in the tender. There's no bank manager in the world is

going to loan a Maloney money even if we put the house up as guarantee. It would take a junior bank teller who failed arithmetic at

school about two minutes to see we can't pay the loan back in several thousand years.

John Crowe comes to see us and he makes us a proposition. He'll sell his ute and buy a truck, he reckons he's good for a small loan from the bank and his wife has inherited a couple of hundred quid, so why doesn't he tender and we work for him for the same take-home pay as we're making now? We'll carry on just like before, only now we've got no overheads.

You're no worse off, better in fact because there's no maintenance expenses, I'll even supply the gumboots and shovels and whatever.' Compliments of Macca McKenzie no doubt.

Bozo feels duty-bound to tell him that there won't be all that much left over for him.

'That's okay, I'll keep working at the shire council so I've got my regular pay packet comin'. Trish and me will see this business as an investment in case we ever need it. Another thing, how much you reckon it costs you to maintain the Diamond T?'

It's a good question because the old truck these last years has been eating up the money we earn and we've been on mince and offal that long I've practically forgotten what a steak tastes like.

'About half what we make,' Bozo says.

'There's my cut right there,' Mr Crowe says. 'It ain't going to cost us a brass razoo to keep the new truck in good nick, I'll just do it myself in the council workshops after hours.'

We tell him we need to think about it and we'll give him an answer on the Monday. It just so happens Sarah and Mike are up from Melbourne, it's uni holidays for her and there's a Jewish holiday on the Friday so Flinders Lane, where Mike works for Mr Stan, is closed until the Monday. He's come up on the train with Sarah and Templeton for the weekend. So, seeing we're all at home, Nancy calls a family conference which includes Tommy, who is both sober and out of gaol. She puts John Crowe's offer to us, even though we know all about it anyway.

We haven't had a family conference since the time Tommy called Mike a poofter and I can only hope this isn't going to be a repeat

performance. Before we start, Sarah says, 'As it's a decision which involves some of our futures, Mum ought not to have the overriding vote.'