‘We were talking about you, Harry,’ Dibs said when I was out into the sunshine. ‘We wondered if you’d conked it. Like, with all that smoke in there.’
They were sitting on the grass, Cal and Dibs and Bruce. They were looking at me. Was there something special about the way they were looking at me?
‘One of these days we’ll have to put in some air-holes,’ I said, sitting on the grass not far from Dibs, looking at the opposite hill, the one above the works, as I spoke. ‘By the way,’ I said, still not looking at them, ‘what did you kids do with the pistol?’
‘Pistol?’ asked Bruce.
‘I don’t think
you
know about it, Bruce,’ I said. ‘But Dibs does. And so does Cal.’ I looked at Dibs. ‘What happened to it?’
‘You mean
you
didn’t take it?’ Dibs asked. He glanced at Cal. Then he told me: ‘We thought you’d taken it and hidden it somewhere else, Harry. Hey, who did take it then?’
‘Search me,’ Cal said, staring at me as if he still thought I’d taken it.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked Dibs. ‘How long’s it been gone.’
‘It was there a couple of weeks ago,’ Dibs said. ‘Then I checked a week ago and it had gone. And I didn’t tell you
because I thought you knew. Honestly, Harry, I thought you’d hidden it somewhere else.’
‘I’d like to know who took it,’ I said. ‘That was supposed to be a secret hiding-place.’ I believed Dibs and Cal, they were not pretending, I could always tell when they were pretending.
‘Was it a real pistol?’ asked Bruce. ‘Could it shoot?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But you better not tell anybody. We might get into trouble. If you hear of anybody having a pistol, though, you can tell me. It will probably be our pistol.’
We seemed to be friendlier after that. It was as if the mysterious disappearance of the pistol had turned Dibs and Cal against me. Now they knew that I was as puzzled as they were; they believed me.
‘Anyway,’ I said to Dibs, ‘did you ever ask Buster about the ammo?’
‘Yes, I did,’ said Dibs. ‘He only laughed. He said he’d be a nut to give ammo to kids.’
I frowned. ‘So Buster knows about the pistol. I wonder if he took it? Do you think he’d take it, Dibs?’
‘No,’ said Dibs. ‘Buster wouldn’t take it.’
‘That’s what I reckon,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know who else would, either.’
We thought about it, but couldn’t find an answer.
Then Bruce said he was going home, and Dibs and Cal got up to follow him, and I knew I would have to go with them, I couldn’t stay out of the way any longer.
I did not hurry, though. I hobbled, as if my leg were too stiff for me to hurry.
Somehow I guessed what would happen when Bruce
reached the turn in the track and saw the works and the houses. He would stop and stare.
And that was what he did, sure enough.
But it was Dibs who called back: ‘Hurry up, Harry! Something’s going on at the works! Looks like everybody’s there!’
I stopped. Then I took a deep breath and hobbled on.
A
GAIN
I am walking in the moonlight along the road that takes you from the railway line, from Sydney Bridge Upside Down’s turnaround spot, to the river and over the river and on across the countryside, up hills and around bends and through gullies, all the way to Bonnie Brae, and further still if you are escaping, if you are trying to get as far as you can from the edge of the world. The soles of my feet are tough, they make crunchy sounds in the metal. I listen to these sounds, then I stop and try to hear other sounds. I can hear the sea. I can hear the swamp frogs. I can hear trees stirring in the little breeze on the hill above me. I look up at the hill and I see the shapes of the trees as they tremble and now I see another shape up there and this one is still and doesn’t move at all while I watch, and when I look away and take two steps in the metal I hear Mrs Knowles’ cat miaowing from the first house, so I look back at the shape on the hill and it is the same as before, it is Sydney Bridge Upside Down waiting there
(You can say this as well, dear Caroline. You can say that my first teacher, Miss Piggy-face, threw black-balls at me. She was in an awful temper. She said I had made muddy marks on the floor. She said I had crumbled chalk. She said I had scribbled on the desk-top. She said I had hidden Susan Prosser’s rubber. She said I had picked my nose and stuck the snot on Jimmy Ling’s shiny schoolbag. She said I had stolen Billy Vigars’ ruler and busted it. She said I had made a rude noise with my mouth when she was writing words on the board and a rude noise and a smell with my bum when she was writing sums on the board. She said I had thumped Dibs Kelly on his ringworm scab when he wasn’t looking. She said I had thrown my sandwich crusts at the girls at playtime and grabbed other boys’ sandwiches at lunchtime. She said I had stolen one of the apples other children, the good children, had brought her. She said I hadn’t cleaned my teeth or fingernails and hadn’t combed my hair and hadn’t washed my ankles or knees or elbows or neck. She said my shirt was always hanging out. She said I tugged out other boys’ shirts and undid the girls’ hairbows. She said I pinched the girls and punched the boys when we were leaving the classroom. She said I had taken the cork from the red-ink bottle on her desk and used it to stamp a trail across her pretty Niagara Falls calendar. She said I wasted all the paper in the dunny at the end of the playground. She said I was always putting up my hand to leave the room when I couldn’t possibly be in any discomfort. She said I chewed the ends of my pencils to shreds. She said I spat. She said I was a little monster. She said she didn’t believe I really was only six, she said most kids
didn’t behave like monsters until they were older, like in Standard Three or Four. You are driving me to distraction, she said. That’s why I threw the lollies at you, she said. She threw another one. That’s the last, she said. Now listen all you other children, now you know why there won’t be any black-balls for prizes at the end of the week, she said. Blame Harry Baird, she said. Blame Harry Baird) waiting up there on the hill for me, the way Sam Phelps waits on the road outside our house, staring at our front door, staring at the curtains while I stare back at him, waiting for me to go up the side-path to the front so that he can stare at me and watch me staring back at him, not speaking, not moving, just staring. I can escape by going down the yard and across the swamp to the river-bank, but I keep thinking of him waiting back there on the road, and it is no fun for me to go to the river-bank now, it is no fun to be with anybody. Now there is the horse too. Sam Phelps watches me in the day, his horse watches me in the night. Or is Sam Phelps along there now? Is that his shape by the roadside, near the spot where Mr Wiggins used to park his van? He knows I am away from the house, he is waiting for me to get back. He knows I sometimes go to the cave to be sure of not being spoken to or seen, and that is why Sydney Bridge Upside Down is waiting up there, it’s to stop me from getting to the cave. If I run hard along the road I can be past him before he realises what I’m doing, I can be down the side-path and into the house before he can trap me with his stare. But when I try to run I cannot lift my feet, I am planted in the metal, it’s like there are enormous weights on my feet and splints or bars keeping my legs stiff and
straight, as if I’m a statue and forced to stay as still as Sam Phelps and the horse. I hear Mrs Knowles’ cat miaowing again. I hear the swamp frogs. I hear the waves breaking against the wharf piles and across the rocks, I hear the surf swishing and sighing along the beach. I want the moon to go so that I won’t see the shapes waiting for me. I look up at the sky and I see clouds among the stars, and the clouds are moving towards the moon, and I know that when they reach the moon I can go quickly back along the road, I can get away from Sam Phelps. I wait. If I go back I can run behind the works and get across the paddocks and then cut through the swamp to home, and Sam Phelps won’t know where I am, he won’t know that I am lying in bed beside Cal, awake but safe. I wait. The clouds reach the moon. Now I try to lift my feet, and it is all right, I can walk away in the dark. Does he hear the metal crunching? I won’t look back, I won’t stop. Should I start running? It may be too soon to run. They could still catch me if they wanted to. I can run as soon as I’m past the works and in the darkness of the paddocks, too far away to be seen. Now that I am so near the works, though, I remember what happened there and my right leg seems to stiffen at the memory. The memory of how I fell as I ran down the stairs, tripping as a groan echoed in the works. Now the clouds have moved past the moon, and I am near enough to the works to see the moonlight patch by the door, near enough to hear the groans of dying animals. I drop to the grass and I look up at the hill, and I am certain the shape is moving, it is moving very slowly towards the track (Say as well, dear Caroline, that I learned to whistle after Miss Piggy-face
had gone. Say that Mr Dalloway, the new teacher, found me one rainy day in the coat-room and wanted to know what I was doing, why was I being so furtive? I said I was sniffing the coats, sir. How improbable, he said. You’ll have to think of a better excuse than that, Baird. I was, though. School had many smells, and the smell of damp coats and sou’westers and gumboots was one that I liked sniffing. It was the same when Mr Dalloway caught me looking into Jimmy Ling’s schoolbag. Why was I interfering with another boy’s property? I was only sniffing the lunch smell, I told him. I liked sniffing the smell of all sorts of sandwiches and guessing what the other kids had brought today, if they were tomato sandwiches or banana or jam or golden syrup or cheese. But Mr Dalloway did not believe me. You can’t tell me you’re in Ling’s bag for the sake of the smell, he said. I’ve been warned about you, my lad. Well, I knew who had warned him, but I could see he was not nearly as angry as Miss Piggy-face would have been if she’d caught me there, I could see he almost believed me or, if he didn’t, was not the sort of teacher to make a big fuss about it. So I didn’t duck when he walked towards me, as I would have if he’d been Miss Piggy-face; I simply put Jimmy Ling’s bag back under the desk and looked straight at Mr Dalloway as though I had done no harm. He kept me in after school to write
I must not pry in other children’s bags
a hundred times, but it was not as bad as the things Miss Piggy-face used to do to me, like throwing black-balls and shouting. Another time, when I was in a higher class, Mr Dalloway said I could be milk monitor, he said responsibility might bring out a bit of whatever good there was in me; he did
not make a fuss when he discovered I’d told the smaller kids the day’s ration was two bottles instead of the usual one so that there was not enough milk for the older kids; he made no fuss, but I was never milk monitor again. I rather liked Mr Dalloway then. His punishments were never very tough and there came a term when they stopped altogether. This, funnily enough, was after he had met my mother to complain about something nasty I’d done—it must have been the time I set fire to the school wood-heap. He met my mother and after that I could get away with anything. Mr Dalloway didn’t seem to care what I did, all he said was that he hoped I wouldn’t do again whatever it was that I had done. Which was probably pretty smart of him, because eventually I got sick of bopping other kids and all that, there wasn’t much fun in it if there was no risk in it. I was no longer the worst-behaved kid at school. I was not the best-behaved, either; but I did stop caring when other kids thought of interesting ways of misbehaving, like chalking rude words on the blackboard when Mr Dalloway was out of the room. Sometimes I wondered what my mother had told him about me) and I begin crawling through the grass towards the furnace-house where there are shadows, pausing every few inches to look along the road and up the hill. I cannot see Sam Phelps. I cannot see Sydney Bridge Upside Down. But I know they are there. The furnace-house is a good hiding-place. If I drop through the hole in the top, nobody can get at me. But I’ll be seen on the top, because there is moonlight on the top; they’ll know where I have gone, even if they won’t be able to get at me. And Sam Phelps will stand guard outside the
furnace-house, and Sydney Bridge Upside Down will be with him. I’ll be trapped in there, worse than when I’m trapped in the bedroom at home, and it won’t be any good yelling; when you’re in the furnace-house you can’t be heard. When I yell at home, deep in the night, Cal wakes up, then wakes me, and he tells me to stop having nightmares, he says it happens every night and he can’t sleep properly because I yell so much. He tells Dad about me and Dad says it’s not surprising I have nightmares, it has been an upsetting time in the bay lately, what with another accident at the works and the Bonnie Brae policeman asking questions and people giving themselves headaches trying to think why Chick Wiggins should go into the works, it will be a good thing when they pull down the rest of the ruins, which isn’t far off now, as soon as they find the men for the job down will come the ruins, and though the bay won’t seem the same when that happens it must be done, all these accidents are giving the district a bad name. I tell Dad my nightmares are not about the works; at least, the only one I remember, I say, was about Mr Norman the teacher, about the homework I should have done and Mr Norman’s anger when he found I hadn’t done it. Even so, said Dad, it had been a disturbing time and I might be affected in ways I was not myself aware of, deep-down ways that only showed themselves in nightmares. According to Mr Kelly, he said, even a grown-up like Mrs Kelly had the shivers when she thought of poor Chick Wiggins falling to his death, a man cut off in his prime, a good butcher even if his flirty ways did gave him a bad reputation. If Mrs Kelly, who was used to people dying, could
be troubled by Mr Wiggins’ death, it was no wonder youngsters were upset. I remember Dad’s words as I hide by the furnace-house. Is Sam Phelps troubled by Mr Wiggins’ death? Who else might be troubled by his death? Not Caroline, at any rate. Caroline never talks about Mr Wiggins, I am sure she has completely forgotten him. The one she talks about now, the one she looks forward to being with, is Buster Kelly. And this, I am sure, is partly because I am seldom at home; when I am not at school I am up in the cave or alone by the river, alone on the beach, alone in the trees near the swamp. Should I run for the swamp now? When I peep from behind the furnace-house I cannot see Sam Phelps or Sydney Bridge Upside Down, but this doesn’t mean they are not there somewhere, waiting for me. It’s safest to crawl on through the grass until I reach the trees, then I can race along the river-bank to where the swamp begins, I can cross the swamp and be home. First, though, I must get from the works yard to the paddock, quickly and without being seen. I can imagine Sam Phelps along there on the road, staring, waiting, or doing now what his horse is doing—coming to find me. They are moving towards me out there in the dark, Sam Phelps from the road, Sydney Bridge Upside Down from the hill. If I wait they’ll have time to find me; if I run I can be in the paddock and crawling through the grass before they see me. I must run. I run from the furnace-house and throw myself into the paddock, and I lie still, I listen. The swamp frogs are louder, the sea is louder. Away from the shelter of the works, the breeze is stronger and I can hear the grass moving. There are many more clouds among the stars, and
I watch them rolling towards the moon and I am sure that this time the moon will be hidden longer, I’ll have a good chance to get right across the paddock to the trees. So I wait for the clouds to help me. I wait. Can I hear hooves? Can I hear boots crunching on metal? If he is coming for me, who will wait back outside the house? Mrs Kelly maybe. She watches me too. Not in the same way as Sam Phelps, not with those long and knowing stares. Mrs Kelly just gives me quick and sharp looks whenever I go by. She says Hello, but she does not seem ready to chat to me, as she used to long ago. And of course she never gives me a piecey, she prefers Bruce Norman to me, he gets bread and plum jam now. I don’t care. Mrs Kelly needn’t think I care about her plum jam, I can get by without it, without her too. I can get by without anybody. Would anybody help me now, for instance? Nobody would help me. I lie here in the grass, listening to the hooves and the boots, and nobody will help me (Put this down as well, dear Caroline. Say that Dad was wrong when he said I didn’t really remember that pongy voyage in the
Emma Cranwell.
Say it was more than hearing him tell of it in later years that made me remember it. I remembered every bit of it myself, every moment on the leaning deck in the black night on the wild seas. I remembered him throwing away my pyjamas, I remembered the pong that surrounded us as he led me back to the cabin, I remembered how he washed me and how the water splashed. I remembered, even though I was sick and weak and scared, what he said as he washed me. He said: ‘Why didn’t she come? Why does she do it?’ He was talking to something out in the awful night, and his voice
was as angry as the waves that crashed on the port-hole. I remembered his words, but I did not speak to him about them ever. When we were home again, just Dad and me, I would pretend that the night he threw away my pyjamas had been a kind of jolly adventure and that I did not mind looking back upon it and grinning with him when he said how my mother would be annoyed because I had lost my new pyjamas. It was good with him and me at home on our own; I liked following him around and helping him, he let me do some hammering and showed me how to use the big saw, and he let me scatter seeds. I did not care if she or Cal never came home, and I wished he would feel the same. I knew he didn’t, because there were nights when he put his elbows on the table and put his hands round his cheeks, and stared at nothing and did not speak for several minutes. I knew he was thinking of her at these times, I knew he was worried. Then he would cheer up and we would go along to see Mr and Mrs Kelly, and he and Mr Kelly would have some beer and I’d be allowed to play with Dibs until we got too noisy and Dibs was sent off to bed, then I sat in a corner and listened to the grown-ups and pretended I was too interested in the Kelly kids’ fairytale books and comics to hear what was being said. What they said was usually about how people were behaving to one another; it was amazing, seeing there were so few people in this part of the world, how much could be said about them. Men were always in trouble with their wives about something or other, wives always had something to be unhappy about, husbands were always good fellows in some ways, not in others, somebody was always courting