Season of Hate (17 page)

"So, Dad's got a new girlfriend. He doesn't wear his wedding ring anymore either," I offered as evidence to support my claim.

"So?"

Dad stuck his head around the door.

"What are you two still talking about? Lights out and go to sleep, school tomorrow."

"Yes, Dad," we said together. I fell asleep thinking about what Doug had said after meeting our mother. The bit about starting to like someone and then them being taken from you. I wondered whether Dad might marry Susan. What would it be like with her as our mother, as if it was already a certainty.

All the boys at school, and even the girls, were keen on seeing
The Searchers
. Almost everyone liked John Wayne and even if you didn't, there was usually an Indian fight that was exciting enough all on its own. I remembered my offer to Miss Kitty. She hesitated, but agreed to come, declaring it would be her first picture in over forty years. I also asked Johnny to join us.

"I don't know whether that was a wise thing to do," was Dad's initial response to Johnny's coming.

"But why?" I asked.

"There's no reason why he shouldn't, I just don't want to stir up any more resentment towards him. He's been through enough."

"It's only a picture," Doug tried to reason.

"A picture," I reaffirmed. Dad had a second think.

"You're right, boys. And he's got just as much right to see it as anyone else."

When the Saturday rolled around we all walked into town – Susan, Miss Kitty, Doug, Johnny, me and Dad. Miss Bridget was staying the weekend at the Patterson's cattle farm, helping to sew new curtains.

We passed the Wood's place as a frazzled Mrs Wood, wearing a simple cotton shift, belted her rugs on the clothes line. We waved at her. She smiled and waved back. Steve and his Dad weren't about, at least not in the yard. Wearing her makeup, Miss Kitty got little attention from the crowd, but people were looking at us and started to whisper to each other as we approached the School of Arts. Dad deliberately put his arm around Johnny's shoulder to make him feel safer. Susan had got our tickets along with packets of Smith's chips for the three of us boys and a box of coconut quivers for the adults.

It was always exciting waiting around outside for them to open up the green velvet curtains that separated the foyer from the hall itself, for us to enter. We met up with Barry, Shen and Snotty as well as other mates from school. Just before it was time to go in, the Symonds arrived after closing the tearooms. The Smiths with Raymond and his sister, and Ned Spooner from the paper joined our group as well.

"It doesn't look like there'll be any trouble," Dad speculated, looking around, "But thank you all for coming and giving support."

"This your first picture, Johnny?" asked Mrs Smith. Johnny nodded.

"I'd like to get a photo out the front here for this week's
Echo
if I could," suggested Mr Spooner. This is a first. A black person actually inside the School of Arts and not forced to peer through the back window."

"You happy with a photo Johnny?" Dad enquired. Johnny's Cheshire cat smile said 'yes'.

"Okay folks, those that want to be in it stand 'round the young fella," directed Mr Spooner.

He took a couple of shots just in case one didn't turn out. As he was taking them, I could see Steve out of the corner of my eye. He was with his mates and was all worked up over Johnny's presence. I pulled the leg of Dad's trousers to get him to look in Steve's direction.

"Don't worry mate, I've got him in my sights, and I'll handle his father if he turns up and causes any trouble." I was almost hoping he would show up just to see Dad flatten him again. But any hope of that happening disappeared when Sergeant Farrar and Penny came up the street and joined us.

"Itth tho exthiting," lisped Penny through her new dental mouthguard as she smiled at me.

"Looks like you didn't need my backup, Harry. Got a posse of your own I see," commented Sergeant Farrar.

"Thanks for coming," Dad and Mr Symonds replied together.

"I'll make sure I'm seen so's no one gets any funny ideas. Looks like some have already changed their minds," remarked Sergeant Farrar, indicating a couple of parents who had been waiting in line for tickets, but on seeing Johnny, were pulling their disappointed kids by the arm to go back home. "So's not to get too many noses outta joint Harry, how's about you all sit up the front. Easier to keep an eye out if there's any trouble."

Dad agreed as he could see Johnny getting uncomfortable at being looked at by everyone. It suited all of us kids just fine, as the front rows were the best anyway.

"See you inside," stated Sergeant Farrar as he and Penny went and got their tickets and eats.

Sergeant Farrar was right. People stopped their whispers and just got on with enjoying going to the pictures. But just to be sure, he sat down right behind Steve and his mates. They quietened down considerably. So much so, they could have been sitting in church. Penny joined us and pushed her way in, so that she was sitting right between me and Doug. Johnny was on my other side. Dad, Susan, Miss Kitty and the Symonds sat directly behind us, five rows back. Three young black kids stood on crates outside the opened back window and watched the show for free.

The picture was something else. We'd been expecting a western and weren't disappointed. As soon as we saw John Wayne all the boys cheered. It didn't seem such a strange story to us then – that of a Civil War veteran tracking down his niece who had been kidnapped and raised by Indians to such an extent that she thinks she's one of them. To a ten year old boy, what more could you want? It was a western, it had John Wayne and Indians.

Johnny just sat there, his eyes the size of two bob pieces but facially emotionless. At one stage, when we cheered at Indians 'bitin' the dust', I looked at Johnny and he had this frightened look on his face. At times he even covered his eyes. I returned to watching the picture, but my mind was now distracted slightly by Johnny's reactions. Then all of a sudden he bolted for the exit. Dad quickly followed. While the other kids around us were still intently watching the picture unaware even of Johnny's leaving, my attention remained split between wanting to know what had happened to him and what was about to happen next on the screen.

When the excitement became almost unbearable, when our hearts were beating hard in our chests, Penny grabbed my hand. I wanted to pull it away, but didn't know whether I should or not. She eventually loosened her tight grip, but still held onto my hand. She must've been really scared I thought at the time. Once the lights came up though, she pulled her hand away quickly and acted like nothing had happened. 'Cept she kept on looking at me with this stupid grin on her face, as we all forwarded out of the hall.

Johnny was standing next to Dad out the front of the building eating an ice cream cone.

"What happened, Johnny?" I asked.

"All that violence was too much, wasn't it son?" Dad answered for Johnny. "To him it was real. But I explained, didn't I son? What's on the screen is just pretending. No one really gets killed. Still, my fault. I should have known better."

"Like to come again, but maybe something not so violent, eh Johnny?" enquired Mrs Symonds. Johnny gave one of his toothy smiles.

"Biddy heard there are two comedies on in a few weeks. The Three Stooges and a Bud Abbott and Lou Costello one. You'll like them better, I think," offered Miss Kitty.

When we all started to leave, I saw Steve and his mates head over in the direction of the Exchange Hotel and pointed him out to Dad.

"Great atmosphere to bring up kids. Playing on the footpath while their fathers get drunk inside," Ned Spooner commented sadly to Dad.

"At least there wasn't any incident here, which is a step forward. As for Bob Wood, if he wasn't in the pub getting a skinful, he'd be causing problems somewheres else," replied Sergeant Farrar.

No takeaway that night. Nan made bacon and corn fritters using leftover boiled bacon from another night, with boiled vegies. They were great, all smothered in tomato sauce. After that it was serials on the wireless. Dad went over the road after tea and sat with Susan on her front verandah, sharing a bottle of beer. Whatever was said between them, he wasn't too happy when he got home within half an hour.

"You'll lose her if ya not careful," was Nan's only comment as Dad passed her in the kitchen on his return.

The Searchers
became one of our games for weeks as we'd fire our toy guns and pretend to scalp each other with our rubber knives. The lot of us climbed and swung on the rope ladder or scrambled over the wooden platform in the jacaranda tree. Doug was John Wayne as usual and I was Jeffrey Hunter. Our mates were the other white men or Indians. Penny played the Natalie Wood part of the white girl the Indians kidnapped. Raymond had a bow and arrow set so he played Scar the Comanche chief. We used flour and water mixed up into a paste as war paint.

"Come on, you can be an Indian too, if ya'd like. It's only a game," I called out to Johnny a second time, after he just stood there on his verandah, watching us play. He didn't want to join in and never did. He just shook his head and I noticed for the first time a serious adult expression on his face. I felt it must have been something more than just the picture. I wondered as I looked at him whether the relatives that Johnny no longer had were also attacked like he was and maybe killed like the settlers in the picture or the Indians that John Wayne's character, Ethan, tracked down.

All our hooting and hollering and agonised screams of death were too much for Nan.

"Right that's enough of all that noise. You'll drive me to me grave you lot, with all that shoutin' and scalpin' nonsense," she called out to us through the front flyscreen door. We were banned from playing it anywhere within her earshot.

Many years later
The Searchers
was shown on television and through adult eyes I saw my boyhood hero John Wayne's character once again, but in the true light – playing Ethan Edwards, the veteran Civil War racist that he was. As I grew older I became more familiar with Aboriginal beliefs and customs through Johnny and his mates. I came to understand for instance that in many ways they have a deeper relationship to the cycle of birth, life, death and grieving through rituals that is much more complex than Western culture – and taken more seriously than our boyhood games.

Christmas brought a passing shower and crushing humidity. It was our second Christmas lunch without Poppie. Like he'd done the year before, Dad ordered a turkey from Kells' Butchery, rather than the usual chicken we'd always had the years before. And for the second year in a row, miraculously, none of the chooks ran away or got taken by foxes as used to happen around Christmas Day, when Poppie was alive.

At the time, Nan told us this was due to Doug and my efforts at looking after them. That made us feel special. However talking later with Raymond at our usual Christmas/New Year's Test match of cricket, we were wised up. He told us how this year he saw for the first time his dad kill one of their chooks for Christmas lunch.

He said he snuck under the house and watched as his mum held the chook down on the wooden chopping block and his dad swung the axe. He actually saw the headless chook running around their backyard and both his parents chasing after it. His dad dived for it and missed, hitting the dirt with a thud. His mum managed to trap it up against a fence. Raymond said it was the funniest sight he'd ever seen.

"Poppie must have done the same with our chooks every year as well," I stated to Dad.

"What about him telling us they got out or foxes took 'em," added Doug.

"He only said that so as not to upset you both."

"He lied to us," Doug interjected.

"Lied. And a lie's a lie, no matter what shade. That's what you told us," I pointed out. Dad squirmed a bit.

"Yes, that's true son but … See on a farm, where Poppie grew up, chickens and cows and sheep are killed to provide food for humans to eat. That's what God put them there for. Poppie knew that you two not growing up on a farm, might get upset at seeing – "

"I just thought he must've got one from Kells' each Christmas," I said. "And believed that they did get out or that foxes did take one each year."

"He lied," Doug restated.

"Yes, alright, he lied."

As I got older I came to understand Poppie's reluctance to name the chooks was based on the fact that it was easier to kill and digest them if they were nameless. Looking back, I'm grateful that we never in the preparations for Christmas lunch witnessed the slaughter and plucking of our pets. It was all carried out while we were off somewhere playing. Dad's swapping to turkeys from Kells' kept the mortality rate of our pets down. Every Christmas, now years later, when I think of that and Poppie, it always makes me smile inside and sends me back to happy memories of the day itself.

This Christmas was also our first year without a visit from Santa. Dad decided that at ten years of age, it was time to tell us the truth, and we sort of felt he knew we knew anyway.

We both got Malvern Star bikes. On Christmas morning, we rode them all around on the wet roads, until our leg muscles burnt with pain and our shirts were soaked with sweat from the high humidity.

Dad also gave us a new toy gun each complete with holsters and a bow with rubber-tipped arrows of our own to add to our armoury. Normally against weapons even if toys, he gave in to our pestering but only after he received a lecture from Nan on them being harmless fun that even he enjoyed as a child and wouldn't lead to us becoming crazed killers later in life.

Johnny came over after lunch and joined us for the slicing of the fruit cake Nan had made. Mr and Mrs Symonds had given Johnny a small chestnut gelding with a white blaze and riding gear including a leather saddle and bridle. When I asked Johnny its name, he pointed to Dad sitting on the verandah reading.

"Dad?" I queried. "That's a strange …" Johnny shook his head.

"Harry, ya drongo," Doug guessed. Johnny shook his head more violently then acted like he was Dad, carrying his doctor's bag, and then imitating him using his stethoscope.

"Doctor," I finally came up with and Johnny nodded with a toothy grin. Doug thought it was hilarious but I made no comment because I knew it meant a lot to Johnny to name it after Dad.

When Doctor was first brought into the Symonds' paddock, Honey started yapping and snapped about at his heels, but settled down in time. Johnny and Mr Symonds built a large wooden stall with a corrugated iron roof to house the horse of a night.

As time went by, if ever Honey went missing, she could usually be found sleeping with or near Doctor in his stall. It was like Honey had adopted him, or vice versa.

Sometimes Johnny would put Doug or me on Doctor's back, and lead us around the yard.

Once Johnny got more confident in riding, he was allowed to take Doctor into the scrub for exercise. Soon he went riding all about the area, making sure he kept well away from trouble. Some weekends, he'd have the Symonds's permission to 'go bush', and he and Doctor would be gone until Monday morning.

The kangaroos that had moved closer and closer to town during the drier months and used to lie in the long dry grass, took off whenever Doctor got too close to them. 'Cept some of the males especially the Big Reds who continued to lie on their sides, scratching their bellies, not showing any sign of fear or panic. Some of them were heavier and taller than a good sized man.

Poppie once told Doug and me that when a travelling boxing troupe passed through the area he saw a boxing match where a Big Red took on a local man – courage born after one too many beers and at the urging on of his mates. He said people came from everywhere to see it. They put boxing gloves on the Big Red so that he couldn't do any harm with his paws, then taunted him a bit with a cattle prod before his opponent lined up to see if he could win the purse. The man had to be careful, because even with gloves, a Big Red was so powerful, it could disembowel a person with its hind legs.

"Who won, Poppie?" I asked for both Doug and me.

"No one. After all that tauntin' with the prod, the 'roo started gettin' too aggressive. Went wild and headed for the crowd of onlookers. So they shot him."

The holidays were galloping to a close. In an act of desperation, not wanting the dying days of our freedom to end, Barry, Raymond, Shen, Doug, Snotty and I decided to build a raft like Huckleberry Finn. We were going to ditch school and sail all the way to the Spanish Main in the Caribbean and dig for pirate treasure. We all promised to keep the raft and its location secret and took an oath, that "If I reveal our hideout, may I die a horrible death – my body covered in pussy boils with maggots eating my eyeballs." Once you took the oath someone had to spit in your hand and you had to eat it.

For hours we sat around drawing up plans for the raft in the soil with a stick. What started out as a good idea soon fizzled when we realised the amount of materials, tools and work necessary to build such a craft to carry all of us. Instead, we played pirates on the creek bank. A large eucalyptus tree's branches hung out over the water, giving us the means to march whoever were the mutineers for that day's game out over it, as if 'walking the plank'; before they dived or were pushed into the water. We wrung so much fun and life out of the remainder of those days that we fell like dead men into bed each and every night.