Tourmaline (8 page)

‘That’s his drinking arm, Horse,’ Kestrel said. ‘See if you can break it.’

‘Come on, Byrnie,’ Jack Speed said, ‘he’ll have you in a minute.’

Byrne grunted in denial. He was right. Horse’s elbow suddenly skidded in a pool of liquor, and he went staggering away, to land, after some complicated manoeuvres designed to preserve his balance, on the floor. Byrne gripped the bar and stood panting.

‘I won,’ he claimed.

‘Like hell you did,’ Horse growled from the floor. ‘That wasn’t a fair contest.’

‘Replay,’ ordered Rock, the universal umpire.

‘Here,’ said Horse, ‘on the floor. Can’t fall then.’ He rolled over on his stomach and put his arm up. So Byrne lay down, facing him, and the battle resumed. But as they were no longer in anyone’s way, no one troubled to watch it.

In any case, it didn’t last long, owing to another diversion. For Kestrel, who was talking to Rock, suddenly looked up from his forefinger tracing wet patterns on the bar, and fixed his pale grey eyes on the doorway. And there, politely hesitating, was the diviner.

They looked at one another for awhile. No one but Kestrel had seen him. They just stood there, learning each other’s faces.

Then: ‘Come in,’ Kestrel called to him; and everyone turned about.

‘It’s him,’ said Rock, as if to make quite sure that the diviner knew they had been talking about him. ‘Come over.’ He made a place for him at the bar.

‘It’s Mike,’ Byrne shouted, scrambling up from the floor. ‘Thought you were crook.’

‘I’m okay,’ said the diviner. But his voice was subdued and weary. He stood beside Rock, one elbow on the bar, and looked at Kestrel. ‘I came to say thanks,’ he said.

‘Don’t thank me,’ Kestrel said, offhand. ‘I haven’t done a thing.’

‘I hear you were going to take me on, only Mary grabbed me.’ It was strange what a tone of humility, of shame, almost, his voice acquired whenever he spoke of the manner of his coming to Tourmaline. ‘It was a nice thought.’

‘I’m full of them,’ Kestrel said. ‘Like, have a drink.’

‘I’ll buy him a drink,’ Byrne offered.

‘You’ve made a friend in the village idiot,’ Kestrel said. ‘Listen to him.’

‘It’s on me,’ Rock said.

‘It’s on the house,’ said Kestrel, bleakly, and poured a rum. I don’t think anything else is drunk in Tourmaline. ‘Get that down you. Better stuff than water.’

‘Tourmaline water, anyway,’ said the diviner, drinking with sober caution.

‘Things are gunna change,’ Horse called up happily from the floor, where he had made himself comfortable, apparently, and meant to stay. ‘There’s gunna be water in tankfuls.’

‘Get me to the river Jordan,’ said Kestrel, softly. ‘You’ve made a lot of converts here.’

The diviner looked at him, and looked away again, uneasily. He was bewildered by this hostility, for which he could find no reason. It was hard for him, accepted everywhere as an unlucky invalid, the gallant victim of country not many would care to face, to understand that Kestrel actually mistrusted him. So he drank rather quickly, and the hand holding the thick glass trembled just a little. This Kestrel noticed, puzzled.

‘When are you going to start work?’ Rock asked, with carefully concealed hopefulness. ‘Not right now, I dare say.’

‘I don’t know,’ said the diviner, sounding confused. ‘I don’t know about going out in the bush—in the sun—now. And Byrnie’s got to make me a rod yet.’

‘I would have made it today,’ Byrne reproached him, ‘only you wouldn’t let me in to ask you about it.’

The diviner painfully smiled. ‘My head was bad,’ he said.

‘Get me a drink, Byrnie,’ Horse called out. ‘Let’s drink to the water.’

‘Yair,’ said Rock, raising his glass, ‘to the water.’

‘To the water,’ said Jack.

‘To the water,’ repeated the diviner; with a certain diffidence.

‘Good luck,’ said Kestrel, smiling crookedly. But as he had no glass he couldn’t drink to it.

‘Where’s my bloody drink, Byrnie?’

‘Hang on,’ Byrne shouted. He lay down on the floor again, facing Horse. ‘To the water,’ they yelled in unison. Then they went back to their arm-bending contest, grunting and straining.

‘Your wife’s been pretty kind to me,’ the diviner said, constrainedly.

‘She’s a good girl,’ Kestrel agreed, with an expressionless face.

‘She’s a lot like Mary and Tom.’

‘Yair,’ said Kestrel. ‘I can’t cure her of it.’

After that the diviner looked so extremely uncomfortable that even Kestrel was moved in the direction of sympathy, and went on: ‘Don’t get me wrong. I like Tom. I like Mary; but we have different ideas about most things.’

‘Ah, yair,’ murmured the diviner, twisting his glass about on the bar. ‘Bound to.’

A shout of triumph came up from the floor, where Byrne had conquered Horse.

‘Where you going to live?’ Jack asked the diviner. ‘At Tom’s?’

‘Don’t think so,’ the diviner said. ‘Couldn’t do that to them. I’ll move in somewhere.’

‘Plenty of empty houses,’ Kestrel said. ‘Something Tourmaline has got.’

‘You’re welcome at the mine,’ Jack offered. ‘I live up there. She’s a good solid shack, got a bore with a drop of water in it.’

‘Going to be water everywhere soon,’ Horse remarked from the floor, where he was resting after his labours.

‘I don’t know yet,’ said the diviner, answering Jack. ‘But thanks for the offer. I can’t,’ he said, and hesitated, and went on with a nervous laugh, ‘can’t get used to Tourmaline, to the——You’re bloody good people,’ he concluded, in a rush.

‘Have another drink,’ Kestrel invited, rather crushingly ignoring this testimonial.

‘No, you can’t——’ he protested, fumbling in his pocket. ‘Let me shout. I’ve got some cash here.’ And he dragged out his money, which most people already knew by sight, and put it on the bar. I don’t think he realized at that time how thoroughly the town was acquainted with his person and property.

‘He’s a good bloke,’ Byrne sang out. ‘Good on you, Mike.’ He staggered to his feet, swaying, and grabbed the diviner by the shoulder. The diviner winced.

‘Get your gorilla’s hands off the customers,’ Kestrel said, without looking up from the bottle he was uncorking. ‘Time we chucked you out, anyway.’

‘Try it,’ Byrne challenged, feeling tough after his tussle with Horse. He examined the diviner’s arm as it rested on the bar. ‘Good wrists you got,’ he said. ‘Want to take me on?

‘At what?’ asked the diviner.

‘Arm-bending,’ Byrne said, with his elbow firmly planted and his arm up, ready.

‘Ah, no,’ the diviner said. ‘I’m drinking.’

‘Go to buggery, will you,’ said Kestrel. But Byrne ignored him.

‘Come on,’ he invited. ‘What are you waiting for?’

So the diviner reluctantly put his arm up, and they grappled. There was a short straining silence; then a bit of a yelp from Byrne, and it was over.

‘Satisfied?’ Kestrel enquired. But he did not look pleased.

Byrne nursed his wrist. ‘My elbow slipped,’ he claimed. ‘Replay.’

‘It was okay,’ Rock pronounced. ‘Nick off, Byrnie.’

‘Replay,’ Byrne shouted. He was getting noisier. ‘On the floor, Mike. Try it again.’

‘To hell with that,’ said the diviner. ‘You may be drunk, but I’m not.’

‘Horse,’ Kestrel called, ‘pull the silly bastard over and shut him up.’ So Horse fastened his mallee-root hands on Byrne’s ankle and dragged him down. And comparative peace followed while they wrestled.

‘He’s your cousin,’ the diviner said, ‘so he tells me.’

‘It could happen to anyone,’ said Kestrel.

‘He seems to think a lot of you.’

‘He thinks a lot of everyone,’ Kestrel said. ‘Like one of those dogs that’ll follow any old gin home.’

‘Ah, Kes, for Christ’s sake,’ Rock said. ‘You’re spitting away like a mother-cat. Come off it.’

He grinned then, with his bent mouth, and looked quite amiable for a moment. ‘Okay, Rocky, as you say.’

‘Byrnie’s all right,’ said Jack.

‘Sure,’ said Kestrel. ‘Byrnie’s a good bloke, in his own language.’ He wiped down the bar with a grey rag, and thought about something amusing.

‘I’d better go,’ said the diviner, putting down his glass.

‘Ah, not yet,’ Rock said. But the diviner was determined, and began to move back; only Byrne, who had finished dealing with Horse, reached out and grabbed him by the leg. And he went down like a thrown ram, sprawled over Horse’s chest.

‘Ah Christ,’ said Kestrel, leaning over the bar to look, but grinning all the same. ‘Can’t anyone take this halfwit off my hands?’

‘Replay,’ Byrne shouted. ‘Come on.’

Hard as he tried, the diviner couldn’t disguise the fact that he was angry. His blue eyes were electric with it. He looked at Byrne, who was waiting with his arm up, and laughing, like a very innocent devil. Then he crawled off Horse and lay down on his belly, facing his attacker.

‘Ignore the silly bastard,’ said Rock; who had seen the diviner’s face, and was afraid that he meant to hurt Byrne—to break his wrist, perhaps.

‘It’s all right,’ the diviner said, very quiet and tense. He put up his arm, and they engaged.

Meanwhile Rock stood over them, hawk-eyed.

It was, I’ve heard, the longest and most tedious encounter that ever took place in that bar; and it was watched in silence, lasting a quarter of an hour. The earnestness of the diviner infected them; infected Byrne, too, who began to resist as if he were fighting for his life. They grunted, they sweated; they moved through an angle of a hundred and eighty degrees in their efforts to find the most rewarding position. And for minutes at a time they stared into each other’s faces with a peculiar, though apparently meaningless, fixity. In their view, evidently, it had become a Homeric struggle. Even the spectators were not quite bored by it.

At last Byrne began to weaken. Very slowly his arm was forced downward. Then it hurt him, and he bit his lip. The diviner watched him intently.

‘Give in, Byrnie,’ Rock said.

‘Yair,’ Byrne whispered. ‘Okay, give in. Give in, give in.’ His voice suddenly rose to a yelp. ‘I give in. Mike. Mike.’

Then Rock prodded the diviner in the ribs with the toe of his boot. And he, almost reluctantly, it seemed, let Byrne go and stood up, brushing his dusty trousers.

‘You don’t want to hurt him, do you?’ Rock said, as if he were not too sure.

‘No,’ said the diviner, panting a little. ‘No. You all right, Byrnie?’ And suddenly he was recognizable again, he was prepossessing.

‘I’m okay,’ Byrne muttered. He staggered to his feet, rubbing his wrist, then reached for a glass on the bar and emptied it. ‘I’m drunk,’ he complained. It was obvious enough.

‘Have another drink,’ Kestrel said to the diviner. ‘The house owes you something.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘thanks,’ standing awkward and confused, in a general air of anticlimax. ‘I was going then.’

‘Don’t go,’ Byrne said, turning back to him. ‘You don’t want to go yet.’

‘Yes, I do,’ said the diviner patiently.

‘I’ll wrestle you,’ Byrne was so kind as to offer.

‘No, thanks,’ said the diviner; and did begin to go away. But this time Byrne leaped on him.

It was soon over; a brief struggle, followed by a startling thunk. And there was the diviner alone, in the middle of the room, looking annoyed; and there was Byrne on the floor, with his head against the brass footrail of the bar, and the blood welling from a gash above one satanic eyebrow. Everyone was surprised.

‘Oh hell,’ said the diviner. ‘I’m sorry.’ He knelt beside Byrne and lifted his wounded head.

Byrne was alternately laughing and moaning. ‘What’d you do that for?’ he wanted to know. ‘Mike, what’d you do that for? Mike.’

‘Why did you jump on me?’ the diviner countered. ‘I’m sorry. But you shouldn’t have done it.’

‘You hurt me,’ Byrne accused him, in self-pity. ‘What’d you want to hurt me for, Mike?’ He groaned.

‘For the love of Jesus,’ Kestrel prayed, ‘someone put him to bed. Rocky, Jack, deal with him, will you.’

Byrne sat up and squinted around, with an air of martyrdom. ‘Mike can do it,’ he said. ‘Mike’s the bugger that hurt me.’

‘You had it coming,’ Kestrel said. ‘By God you did.’ He looked angry.

‘I’ll see him off,’ said the diviner, dragging him to his feet and propping him against the bar. ‘What about his head? He’s bleeding.’

‘We can fix it here,’ Kestrel said. He opened a cupboard and took out a bottle of iodine and some prehistoric sticking plaster, which he gave to the diviner. ‘Don’t think you’re the first bloke that ever did his block with Byrnie in this bar.’

‘But I didn’t——’ the diviner started to say, before thinking better of it. Instead he opened the bottle, and stood poised with it.

‘Put your head back, drongo,’ Kestrel said to Byrne. ‘And shut your flicking eyes. You should know the drill by now.’

The diviner poured some of the stuff on Byrne’s upturned face, and watched with remote interest as a thin line of it flowed down the gaunt and cratered cheek. Then he cut a piece of plaster with his knife and strapped up the wound. Then he said: ‘Got a handkerchief? Wipe your eye before you open it.’

Byrne did so. When he stood away from the bar, he lurched. The crack on the head had finished him off, apparently.

‘Put me to bed,’ he requested, indistinctly. ‘Mike——’

‘Okay,’ said the charitable diviner, looking at Kestrel. ‘Which way?’

Kestrel took a lamp from under the bar and lit it, and gave it to him with a nod towards the far door. ‘Along the veranda,’ he said. ‘Last room.’

So the diviner hauled Byrne’s arm over his shoulder, took the lamp in his free hand and said: ‘Good night.’

‘Goo’ night,’ said Byrne, amiably.

Locked together, they staggered away.

As they clumped down the veranda Byrne asked in an injured tone: ‘What d’you want to hurt me for, Mike? What for?’

‘All right, all right,’ said the diviner. ‘We’ve all heard you. Is this the room?’

It was. The diviner set down the lamp on a hard kitchen chair and hoisted Byrne on to the bed; where he lay unmoving, with his black eyes fixed on the diviner’s face.

‘Are you right now?’ the diviner asked him.

He thought about it, and said: ‘Got to take my boots off. Deborah goes crook.’ So the diviner performed that small service.