The True Story of Spit MacPhee (9 page)

Spit was at the other end of the boiler, his shirt was off and he was now barefoot like Sadie. He dropped the jug he was using and, saying ‘I’m off, Sade,’ he ran out through the ashes and down to the river where he dived in. By the time Jack Tree and Sergeant Collins reached the bank he was halfway across the river, and because there was a current he was carried downstream.

‘Come back, you little dingo,’ Sergeant Collins shouted.

But Spit was well on his way to Pental Island, and when he scrambled up the bank on the other side he stood there for a moment to get his breath.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Sergeant Collins called out to him.

‘You’re not going to get me,’ Spit shouted back.

‘Listen, Spit. If you want to see your grandfather you’d better swim back here. You’re not going to see him if you don’t come back right now.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Spit said.

‘That’s the way it is, so get back here.’

‘Are you going to lock me up afterwards?’

‘What would I do that for? I’m not going to hurt you, so come back here and I’ll take you up to the hospital to see your grandfather.’

‘Don’t do it, Spit. They’re tricking you,’ Sadie called out.

‘Sadie!’ Mr Tree said, and for the first time in his life he smacked his only daughter across the legs. ‘Put your shoes on and get back home,’ he told her. ‘What are you doing down here anyway?’

‘I was helping Spit,’ Sadie said defiantly and ran off to collect her sandals and retreat up the slope.

‘Come on, Spit,’ Sergeant Collins called again. ‘Your grandfather wants to see you.’

Spit hesitated, then he began to walk upstream. ‘All right,’ he said boldly. ‘But that’s all I’m going to do. I’m going up to see my grandfather. That’s all I’m doing.’

‘Then come on, I haven’t got all day.’

Spit chose his spot and plunged into the river, and when he reached the near bank he was exactly at the steps.

‘Have you got another pair of pants?’ Sergeant Collins said.

‘No. Everything was burnt.’

‘He’s got a shirt somewhere,’ Mr Tree said, ‘so put it on and let’s go.’

Spit picked up his shirt from the gate and walked up the slope between Mr Tree and Sergeant Collins, who kept a vigilant eye on him because he expected Spit to run off again at any moment.

‘We’ll have to do something about you, Spit,’ Sergeant Collins said to him. ‘You’re becoming a bit of a stray.’

‘Leave it till later, Joe,’ Mr Tree said quickly.

‘But I’ve got that damned Betty Arbuckle on my back already,’ Sergeant Collins said under his breath to Jack Tree.

Spit was put in the back seat of Jack Tree’s Dodge tourer (though only after Jack had covered it with a piece of canvas from under the front seat) and he watched the town pass by, crouched forward and gripping the side support of the hood. He knew that he was more or less a captive now, and that what happened next would depend on his grandfather. He knew, too, that there was no point asking either one of these men how his grandfather was, because nobody would ever know that except Spit himself. They were always wrong about his grandfather.

When they reached the low, cottage hospital and were walking up the path under the shady trellis of sultana grapevines, Sergeant Collins said, ‘Now behave in there, Spit, and for heaven’s sake talk quietly. Don’t do any of your shouting. It’s a hospital.’

‘I know,’ Spit said. ‘I know what to do.’

In the dark, aseptic place Spit rubbed one foot on the other while he waited for Sergeant Collins and Mr Tree to come back. They had been taken away by Sister Campbell with whispers and quick, sharp looks at Spit. In fact Spit had the impression that Sister Campbell was annoyed with Jack Tree. She said to him, ‘Not the boy, surely.’ And Jack had said something in reply that Spit didn’t hear. In a few moments she came back and told him to ‘come along’.

‘You’re all wet,’ she said to him, looking at his trousers.

‘I was in the river,’ he said.

‘Haven’t you got another pair?’

‘They were all burnt,’ Spit said.

‘It just isn’t right,’ Sister Campbell muttered, not at Spit but at the world that surrounded him. ‘I’m sure we’ve got some trousers here that will fit you.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ Spit said, and when Sister Campbell opened the door of a rather cool, dark room with wooden Venetian blinds, he couldn’t see anything for a moment. Then he saw dimly his grandfather, lying on a bed.

‘Open the blinds,’ Jack Tree said to the sister.

‘It’s not right, Mr Tree,’ Sister Campbell said.

‘Yes it is. He’s got to see his grandfather sooner or later.’

Sister Campbell pulled a cord and the slats of the green Venetian blinds opened. In the light of day Spit saw what was left of his grandfather. He had almost forgotten his last view of him on the Trees’ verandah. Now, in a confirmation he didn’t want of his grandfather’s disintegration, Spit saw that he was strapped by the wrists to the iron bedstead. And though the wild look in his eyes had returned, the rest of his face no longer had anything alive in it. It was worn out, wasted, gone. Even when his grandfather had suffered one of his attacks before, when he couldn’t see or hear anything and would finally collapse in agony, Spit had always seen a man alive under the agonised and troubled shell. But looking at his grandfather now, he knew that in this dislocated and distorted face, and in the violent, uncontrollable jerks and twists of his body and the tortured mouth, there was nothing that he could depend on to rescue him.

‘You said he wanted to see me,’ Spit shouted accusingly to Sergeant Collins. ‘He can’t talk when he’s like this.’

‘He kept talking about his cairgie. That’s you isn’t it?’

‘He didn’t want to see me at all,’ Spit said. ‘He never does like this. What did you do with his cap?’

Spit had never seen his grandfather without his skull cap, and now that his head was bare he saw why that cap had always been in place. Instead of hair, Fyfe MacPhee had a dark raw stain on his crown and two deep scars in a simple cross – from the top of his scalp almost to the neck, and the other way almost from ear to ear. It was another destructive dimension to his grandfather that left Spit with very little hope for either his grandfather or himself.

‘You just tricked me,’ he shouted at Sergeant Collins.

‘Listen, Spit. It was the only way.’

‘We wanted you to see him, for your own sake,’ Jack Tree told him. ‘And here’s Dr Stevens. He’ll tell you what’s up with him.’

Dr Stevens dropped a hand on Spit’s shoulder and said to Jack Tree, ‘I’m not sure if it’s right to tell him, Jack.’

‘We won’t be able to do anything with him, or for him, if you don’t tell him the truth,’ Jack Tree replied.

‘All right,’ Dr Stevens said reluctantly, and told Spit to come with him.

Spit had to run to keep up with Dr Stevens who was six feet four inches, and when they reached the little surgery of the hospital Dr Stevens closed the door and told Spit to sit down.

‘No thanks. I’ll stand up,’ Spit said.

‘I know how you feel, son, but everybody’s trying to do their best for you.’

‘I don’t want them to do anything,’ Spit said.

‘I’m sure you don’t. But you’re going to need help now.’

‘No, I’m not. I can look after myself.’

‘All right. All right. But I’ve got to tell you about your grandfather. Do you know what he’s got under those scars?’

‘No. He always keeps his cap on.’

‘He didn’t tell you how he got them?’

‘No. He never told me anything about it. Not about things like that.’

‘Well, we don’t know either. But under those scars he’s got a silver plate in his head. Sometime or other he was badly hurt, and they put in the silver plate to protect his … his … his brain box, if that makes it simpler for you. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes …’

‘But as he got older, and his skin and muscles and nerve structure shrank a little, or lost their tension, that silver plate has been pressing harder and harder on the soft stuff in his head, where all his sense and his feeling comes from. It must have been hell for him, and he must have known he could do nothing about it. In fact it was so painful that I wonder he managed to survive this long.’

‘Can’t you fix it?’ Spit asked.

Dr Stevens hesitated, wondering what to say, how much to tell the boy. He was a kind man who was always hurt by this aspect of his profession. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s done real damage this time, and all we can do is see that he doesn’t suffer any more excruciating pain. Although even that is doubtful. He’s in terrible pain now.’

Spit’s voice rose. ‘Why did you tie his hands to the bed. What did you do a thing like that for?’

‘Because he can’t control himself and he could hurt himself.’

‘Can’t he come home? Can’t I look after him?’

Again Dr Stevens hesitated. ‘Not this time,’ he said, reluctant, and saying what he had to say word by word. ‘I’m afraid, Spit, that he’ll never come home again. That’s what I’ve got to tell you, old son. He’s not mad, you and I know that. But his brain now is being destroyed, and he will never be normal again, not even for five minutes. They wanted me to tell you this so that they can fix you up with a place to live, and someone to look after you.’

‘You mean they all want me to leave the boiler?’

‘That’s right. There’s nothing left of it anyway, is there?’

‘You’re not going to let me see my grandfather any more?’ Spit said.

‘You can see him any time you like. But we’ll have to do something about him, Spit. We can’t keep him here.’

‘But he’s all right,’ Spit insisted again. ‘And he won’t hurt you.’

‘He’s too sick,’ Dr Stevens said with a shake of his head.

Spit was sure now that they were aiming him away from his grandfather. ‘You want to take him away,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’

‘We’ll have to, Spit. He needs a different kind of hospital now. They can look after him better in Melbourne than we can here.’

‘Melbourne …’

‘That seems to be the only way,’ Dr Stevens said with a sigh. ‘In the meantime you’ll have to move in with someone.’

‘They can’t make me, can they?’ Spit said, and this time he was appealing to Dr Stevens to join his resistance movement and confirm his right to be left alone.

‘I’m afraid they can,’ Dr Stevens said. ‘That’s the trouble, old son.’

Dr Stevens was known in St Helen not only for his long-legged lankiness but for his belief in raw foods and for his refusal to eat fish or meat or even eggs. Which explained his slow and careful way of speaking and his well-known patience with dogs and children and sick women and with his Nash motor car. ‘I’m sorry for you, Spit,’ he went on, ‘but we can’t let you run around loose.’

‘Who’s going to run around loose? I can fix up the boiler.’

Dr Stevens smiled. He was a mildly sad man, so that what he said was mostly in sorrow rather than a threat. ‘They just won’t let you do that, so come on and we’ll see what Sergeant Collins and Jack Tree plan to do with you.’

When they went outside Sergeant Collins and Jack Tree were waiting under the vines in the shade, and Spit knew that these two men had already decided what to do with him.

‘We’re taking you over to Mrs Arbuckle,’ Sergeant Collins told Spit. ‘She’ll be able to look after you for the time being.’

‘I’m not going to Mrs Arbuckle’s,’ Spit said.

‘Oh, yes you are,’ Sergeant Collins told him. ‘If you don’t do as you’re told, young feller, I’ll lock you up.’

‘You can lock me up any day,’ Spit said.

‘Mrs Arbuckle’s all right, Spit,’ Mr Tree said. ‘She’s a bit of a crank, but she’ll be as good as a mother to you.’

‘Not me,’ Spit said firmly. ‘I’m not going to stay there.’

‘Listen, son, you don’t want to end up tomorrow in that home in Bendigo do you?’ Mr Tree said to him. ‘Because that’s what’ll happen if you don’t do as you’re told. You don’t want to be taken away, do you?’

Spit was biting his top lip, knowing that he had no way out.

‘Why don’t you make the best of it,’ Mr Tree told him. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘I’ll only do it,’ Spit said, loud and desperate, ‘if you don’t take my grandfather away.’

They all looked at Dr Stevens. He hesitated, as he almost always did. ‘All right, Spit. We won’t take him away. We’ll do what we can for him – for a little while anyway.’

‘What if you trick me again?’ Spit said.

‘Nobody’s going to trick you again, Spit,’ Dr Stevens said. ‘I can promise you that.’

There was nothing more to say because the adults were now embarrassed, and Spit was trying to hold himself together. They were halfway to the gate, Spit and Jack Tree and Sergeant Collins, when Sister Campbell ran out of the hospital and called after Spit and told him to come back.

‘What for?’ he said.

‘I found a pair of trousers for you,’ she told him.

‘Mine are all right now,’ he said, staying where he was.

Sister Campbell joined them and she felt his pants. They were still damp but dry in places. ‘You don’t want them?’ she said, holding up a pair of very short pants.

Spit shook his head but Sister Campbell rolled them up and gave them to him anyway. ‘You might need them when school starts,’ she said.

Spit was not in a thanking mood, but he put the trousers under his arm and climbed into the back seat of the Dodge.

He was still holding himself together when they left him at Mrs Betty Arbuckle’s clean, bare and untainted house, with a final word from Sergeant Collins to behave himself. ‘And remember,’ the Sergeant said, ‘if you try to run away, or refuse to do as Betty tells you, we’ll pack you off to Bendigo on the next train. It’s for your own good, Spit, so for God’s sake do as she tells you, otherwise I can’t help you any more.’

Betty Arbuckle greeted him at the door as if she had been expecting him, as if the anticipation of years had finally been justified and rewarded.

‘What’s your real name, Spit dear?’ she said to him.

‘Angus,’ Spit said. ‘Why?’

‘Because you have to have a proper name now.’

Instinctively, Spit saw this sudden need for a proper name as a threat to what he had always had been in St Helen – no more nor less than Spit MacPhee. He knew he was staring a Boys Home in the face.