But here’s my deal,
the pact I made with myself–
I’ll give it a burl
and do every inch of Butcher’s homework
if only I can leave town when I’m fifteen,
in six months time,
after the exams,
after I get the certificate.
I’m going to wave it in their faces and say,
‘See ya.
See ya for ever.’
Mayor Paley
I tell them exactly what they want to hear
and I’ll try to make it happen, truly.
Everyone in town should have a job.
We’re sitting on a pile of coal here.
So I promise what I can
and now it just depends on money
and the State Government.
Most of these people don’t realise
it isn’t the town that’s building the things I promise.
It’s the State.
I’ll do my best to swing it, I will.
A man of my stature has influence.
And friends.
Trust me.
It’ll take a few trips to the city, mind you,
and I’ll have to spend some town money
entertaining those business folk
so they’re sure we’re worth helping,
way out here.
But I know a few people;
associates of my father.
Good citizens.
Rich people in the city.
I will never cease working for my town.
‘Will and purpose.’
Mr Wright spoke the truth.
Albert Holding
Fatty Paley was a sneaky kid in baggy trousers,
with a limp,
and a father who owned the general store.
And Fatty grows into,
expands into,
the mayor of this town,
while the rest of us are fighting the war.
Driving trucks is fighting a war.
Fatty charms the ladies
with his boarding school education
and his prissy sincere voice.
He greases the palms of certain people
who backed him as mayor
while the rest of us were thousands of miles away.
Fatty gets fatter and richer than his old man
and he has a sign above his store,
his crummy little general store,
that reads ‘Paley’s Emporium’,
because Fatty’s too proud to own just a shop.
And he had the hide to stand on the platform
when our train came in,
holding out his arms,
hugging,
yeah, hugging,
every man who came home from the war.
It made my flesh creep.
Eddie
I’m not much good at maths
and
I’m not much good at grammar
and
I’m not much good at geography
and
I’m not much good at anything,
says Mr Butcher
with his hair slicked-back so tight
it draws the blood from his face.
His thick black-rimmed glasses
sit useless on his nose
as he stands at the chalkboard
tapping his long ruler,
talking to the class,
pointing at a map of the world
and trying to convince us
our country is the biggest island
in the whole world.
I believe him,
it’s just the idea of an island,
you know,
surrounded by water,
when it looks to me that map shows
nearly every country is surrounded by water.
So I put up my hand and say,
‘Africa looks bigger than Australia, Sir.’
Mr Butcher removes his glasses,
rolls his eyes and slowly shakes his head.
‘Yes, Eddie Holding.
But Africa is a continent,
not a country.
Didn’t I mention that?’
He says it like he did mention that,
but I can’t remember,
and judging by the look on everyone else’s face,
they can’t remember either.
Continent.
Country.
So Mr Butcher explains the difference
and I can tell he’s mad at me
because I picked him up on something.
After he’s finished he’s says his usual,
‘There, Eddie.
You’re not much good at geography.
I see Larry smirking,
and hear the giggles from behind me,
so I stand up,
wave my arm just like Mr Butcher
and say,
‘And you’re not much good at teaching, Sir.’
Then I walk out of the classroom
and head to Jamison River to go swimming.
I’m very good at swimming.
I reckon the river
and the sunny day
are worth the punishment I’m in for
on Monday morning.
Larry
My stupid brother can’t keep his mouth shut.
Yeah, Butcher never told us about continents.
In all the years pointing at that boring map.
I know he never told us because, unlike Eddie,
I remember everything I’m taught
and I studied it in the library,
tracing my finger over the world atlas,
imagining how long it’ll take me
to travel the distance from here to all those places.
Eddie will get six cuts on Monday
and we’ll all be given a lecture
with Butcher’s voice like powerlines in winter,
whining in the wind.
You’re never sure if they’ll snap over your head.
He’ll go on about manners,
proper behaviour,
respect for your elders,
and I’ll be thinking,
just get on with it, Butcher,
and whip my stupid brother a few times
with your nasty little cane.
Let’s start algebra
because I still don’t understand it all
and I’ve only got six months more
and yes, you are a hopeless teacher,
but you’re the only teacher we got,
so get on with it.
Eddie
Sally Holmes runs through the willows
and stands beside me, looking down at the river.
‘As soon as the bell went
I was out of there like a shot.’
She kicks off her shoes
flings her socks after them,
not taking her eyes off the clear water
and the rope dangling from the river gum tree.
‘Do you think I can grab it, first go?’
Sally orders me to look away
and I hear the rustle of her dress
as she pulls it over her shoulders.
She’s wearing dark blue swimmers
and I feel my face go blush red
as I try my best not to look at her.
‘I’ll go first, if you want, Sally.
It’s going to be freezing.’
She has wavy hair like flowing cream
and she’s as tall as me,
with long legs and a narrow waist.
I love Sally,
but I don’t tell anyone that,
especially not Sally.
I’m her friend,
and I listen to her wild laughter
as she runs from the bank
and leaps towards the rope,
both hands grabbing the very end
as she swi
ngs far out to midstream and hangs there,
looking back at me,
‘Too late, Eddie!’
She falls with a scream,
hits the water in a curled-up ball,
comes up laughing and hooting,
racing back to shore to do it all again.
She pushes her hair back
and flicks her wet hands,
spraying cold drops all over me.
‘Come on, jump in.
It’s not too chilly.’
I hold the rope for her
because if there’s one thing I like
more than swimming,
it’s watching beautiful Sally Holmes
laughing and rope-swinging.
Just me and her in the afternoon
at Jamison River.
Sally
All the wowsers and bullet-heads
in school say Eddie is slow.
They call him names behind his back.
‘Pudding brain’ and ‘Clod-boy’.
They say it quietly,
because whether he is or not
doesn’t matter so much,
they know that if he ever heard them
there’d be trouble—
trouble in the form of big Eddie
and his oversized fists.
They’re all wrong anyway.
I know Eddie better than they do.
He’d never hurt anyone,
not unless they meant him harm.
We swim down at the waterhole,
even in winter when there’s no one else around.
One day I’m going to dive deep enough
to touch the bottom,
way out in the middle of the river.
Eddie calls this place, Sally’s Spot, in my honour.
He holds the rope for me,
hands me my towel.
He’s a gentleman,
he’s my friend.
Eddie
I found the necklace beside the train tracks
and knew that someone rich
and spoilt,
or angry,
had thrown it from the train window.
It shone in the grass
and I rushed across the line to pick it up
and polish its shiny-metal smoothness.
I opened the heart-shaped locket.
The inscription read
‘To my Beloved’.
That’s all.
No signature.
Maybe he was embarrassed to sign his name.
Or he didn’t mean it,
didn’t have the guts to commit.
Perhaps that’s why it got tossed by a girl
who couldn’t stand to wear it around her neck
and be reminded of his lies.
When I got home
I hid it in my drawer,
stuffed in the oldest pair of socks.
For safe keeping.
For Sally.
Sally
I don’t know what came over me.
When Eddie held the rope
as I walked towards him,
dripping wet and trembling from the cold water,
well,
when he handed me the rope
and smiled in his relaxed way,
I leaned forward and kissed him.
On the lips.
I closed my eyes
and I’m sure he closed his.
We stood there together
with our lips touching
for a few seconds
and I stopped shaking.
I gripped the rope tightly
as I drifted back from Eddie
and flung myself
as far into the river
as the swing would take me,
and just before I dropped
I looked back towards the bank.
Eddie was gone.
Eddie
Sally has a tiny gap between her two front teeth.
I get lost in her smile.
That’s what I was looking at
when she walked up to me
all wet and shivering,
and I wasn’t ready for what she did.
Bloody hell.
Would I ever be ready?
At school, when it comes to Friday games,
like tug-of-war,
I’m the first picked
and the other side always asks for an extra player.
When deliveries come in from the city
they get me to unload the truck
and I toss the boxes into the storeroom.
Sometimes I lift three at a time
just to see how much I can carry.
I tell the driver this is better than school work.
Nobody in school is stronger than me.
But when Sally Holmes kissed me,
I never felt so weak in all my life.
Eddie
I do the washing up for Mum
same as every night,
because Larry says he has to study.
Aren’t we in the same class?
Don’t we do the same homework?
Larry sneers when I say this.
‘My homework is nothing like yours.’
I know what he means
but I don’t argue
because someone’s got to do the dishes
for Mum,
who’s done all the cooking.
Tonight I wash real slow
because I’m looking out the window
down to Jamison River
and I’m thinking of Sally Holmes
with her red lips wet,
brushing mine,
and I figure
it’s worth it
in my little life
to stand here
dreaming.
Larry
Yeah, my brother
hangs around with Sally,
but I reckon
she’s just taking pity on him,
on account of her too-good ways.
I don’t care.
She ain’t that pretty.
Give me Colleen O’Connor any day.
She’s as attractive as any movie star, I reckon.
That’s why every morning
I go to the library
and sit at the same desk as Colleen.
She don’t say much
but I don’t care
because I work on reading my book
and looking at her white blouse
and imagining what’s underneath.
I’m getting so good at it
sometimes
when the bell rings
I can’t move for a few minutes
until it’s safe to stand,
if you know what I mean.
I watch Colleen walk out of the library,
her fine legs and ankles,
and I sit here
getting the courage
to ask her out,
one day,
when I think the time is right.
Me and Colleen.
Eddie
In the backyard of our old house, before the war,
Dad built us a cubby
out of cast-off fence posts and rusty nails.
Me and Larry would play in it most of the weekend,
pretending to be cowboy scouts
waiting for the Indians to attack.
Dad carved us guns out of pine wood
and coloured the barrels with charcoal,
drilling a hole where the trigger should be.
He taught us how to twirl the six-gun.
Me and Larry would face off across the grass
until Dad called ‘shoot’.
We’d both fling ourselves to the ground
pointing the guns at each other,
yelling, ‘bang, bang, bang’
until Dad would wink at one of us to play dead.
He did it in turn so Larry and me
each got to blow imaginary smoke from our barrels
a
nd be a western hero
while Dad carried off the body of our brother
to the far corner of the yard
where the compost heap steamed.
Dad called it Tombstone Hill.
That was when we were young.
Before Dad signed up for the war.
Long before the war.
TWO
Coal town
Mr Butcher
I have ambitions
for teaching in the city.
At a Grammar school,
where everyone,
I mean everyone,
addresses you as ‘Sir’.
Where they have servants
preparing lunch for staff,
served in a dining room lined with pictures
of the school history.
They have linen on the tables,
leather chairs,
and the only sound you hear
is the clink of fine bone china.
A school where you can dedicate your life
and become a History Master.
And the students sit up straight
in spotless, pressed uniforms,
listening.
And they all have plans.
Solicitors.
Doctors.
Managers.
A school where they play rugby,
serve tea and scones
on the sidelines every Saturday,
with the parents asking after ‘young Harold’
and whether his homework
is up to standard.
As if it isn’t anything but perfect.
Mr Butcher.
Master Butcher.
Sir.
Mr Butcher
I stroll to school down Main Street,
listening to the groaning freight train
pulling the night-shift coal load to the coast.
I nod to Calder, the butcher,
and Old Man Wilson
who runs the hardware.
He spends most of his day
sitting in his office,
looking down on the store
as he sips his tea
and watches each customer,
tipping his hat to the ladies,
but rarely getting up from his
expensive swivel chair,
letting his son do the work.
I say ‘Good morning’ to Mr Carter,
editor of The Guardian,
who keeps an eagle eye
on Main Street early morning,
as if the news is just waiting to happen
outside his shopfront.
Mrs Kain sits on her bentwood chair
at the front of Sunset Café,
having her first tea of the day.