Dash and Dingo (9 page)

“Haroo!” Baz cried out.

“Haroo to you!” Dingo echoed.

Henry watched, bemused as they executed some secret ritual comprised of a peculiar handshake and a stiff little dance that stirred the dust at their feet.

“And this must be Dash,” Baz said, extending his hand to Henry.

“Er, Baz?”

“That’s the name,
cousin
.” Baz couldn’t have known the whole story of what Henry’s sudden claim to family involvement, but he took it all in his stride. “Throw your bag in the back, and let’s hit the road.” Baz turned and climbed in, opening the passenger door and sliding through to the driver’s seat.

Henry hung back for a moment but felt Dingo’s hands, warm on his upper arms as he was propelled toward the truck.

“Short for Barry,” Dingo explained. “Come on, then. You take the hump.”

Henry wondered how the hell one got from Barry to Baz; he also wondered what a hump was and then found out as Dingo climbed in beside him and he was pressed between two sandy-haired, muscled Chambers men, both of whom instantly spread their legs wide, encroaching into his territory and snapping his own legs together by force.

Dingo draped one arm out the window and the other over Henry’s shoulders. “So you don’t impede Baz’s driving. He needs all the help he can get.”

Henry jumped when Dingo hit the side of the truck with his open palm.

“Hit it, Baz!”

“Righto!” Baz said and put the truck in gear.

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England’s influence was obvious in the names of the suburbs they passed through. Ascot Vale, Essendon, Brunswick… Henry wouldn’t have been surprised if they had also come across Westminster and Bath. The suburbs seemed familiar and yet alien at the same time. It was like a parallel universe of his homeland, except it had been baked in an oven and left out in the sun to bleach.

Dingo and Baz chatted amiably between themselves, catching up on everything Dingo had missed in the six weeks he had been away from home.

Henry tried to listen in but was distracted by all the new sights that passed in front of him. Dingo’s arm was still hanging casually behind his neck, and Henry unconsciously leaned into it, using it as a headrest. When he became aware of what he was doing, Henry wished that Dingo would stroke the hot skin of his neck.

One suburb had bled into another, but this one seemed to be different.

The houses weren’t as uniform; they had more character and the architecture was varied. The people he could see out and about on the streets weren’t so consistently Anglo-Saxon either, Mediterranean hues of skin marched along with Orthodox Jews, and Henry craned his neck to watch them pass with interest.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Carlton,” Dingo replied, grinning at the obvious delight Henry was displaying. “Also known as home sweet home.”

“Yeah.” Baz snorted. “For slackers who still live with their folks.”

Dingo whacked the back of his head. “I’m hardly ever at home long enough to justify getting my own place.” He leaned in to Henry. “And this coming from a guy who only moved out last year.”

“Yeah, because I got married.”

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“Oh?” Dingo teased. “Not because you were wanting to be footloose and fancy-free?”

“You’ll get hitched one day too,” Baz replied laconically.

Dingo’s face darkened momentarily. “That ain’t gonna happen.”

Baz laughed. “There’s no woman who can tie him down, Dash. He’s just too much man for a woman to handle.” He yelped when Dingo cuffed him around the ear, and they almost swerved off the road.

“Watch it, you dick!” Dingo scowled. “Keep your eyes on the road.”

Baz only laughed like a loon again, amused by himself.

Henry swallowed heavily, glad they were still alive and not killed by the oncoming traffic. But Baz’s words still stung. “Really?” He risked looking back at Dingo, who still held the remnants of a scowl upon his face.

“They all love him, though,” Baz continued.

“Can it,” Dingo growled.

Henry still didn’t know Dingo well enough to second-guess his moods, but the man looked dangerous at the moment. Baz blithely ignored it, secure in the history of sibling camaraderie and conflict.

“He hates it when we discuss his personal life.”

“Look, there’s the Melbourne Cemetery,” Dingo said desperately, to take the spotlight off himself.

Immediately interested, Henry peered past Baz’s profile to peer at the large city of the dead on his right. He gave a slight whistle. “It’s enormous.”

“That’s what my wife said, and she should know,” Baz said, amusing himself.

Double entendres obviously run in the family
, Henry thought as he heard Dingo snickering on his left.

“Biggest cemetery in Melbourne,” Dingo said, turning on the voice of the tour-guide once he had composed himself. “Used to be closer in to the city, but they moved the headstones farther out to start a new one up here.”

“Moved the
headstones
?” Henry asked pointedly.

“Yep, the bodies are still there,” Dingo said cheerily.

“Doesn’t anybody care?”

Baz snorted. “They’re dead, aren’t they? How can they complain?”

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Henry was horrified. “But it’s a basic tenet of our society to respect the dead. Leaving the bodies behind but pretending to show respect by moving the headstones is just morally bankrupt.”

“You’re dealing with a historian here, Baz,” Dingo said, as if that explained everything.

Which apparently it did, to Baz. “Ah.”

“I suppose being a plunderer, you quickly lose respect for the dead,”

Henry said snottily.

“Who’s a plunderer?” Baz demanded.

“Dash,” Dingo warned, and Henry couldn’t help but heed the tone.

“Is he calling our dad a plunderer?” Baz asked, his voice rising.

“I think he was actually insulting me,” Dingo drawled.

“Oh,” Baz relaxed behind the wheel again. “That’s okay, then.”

Henry turned to Dingo. “I wasn’t—”

“I’m not a plunderer,” Dingo said softly.

“Oh, you two are going to work perfectly together.” Baz laughed. “A regular Burke and Wills.”

Dingo groaned, and Henry felt confused all over again as he still hadn’t recovered from the shame he felt at apparently insulting the man.

“Who?” Henry asked.

“Australian explorers,” Baz explained. “They died trying to map the north.”

“Oh,” Henry said, crestfallen. “That’s not exactly a cheery analogy.”

“
Comrades in great achievement, and comrades in death
,” Dingo mused.

“Pardon?” Henry asked.

“That’s what’s written on their tomb.” Dingo grinned.

“You’re just as bad as your brother,” Henry murmured unhappily.

“That’s what they say,” Baz said, shifting slightly in his seat. “Almost home.”

Henry felt Dingo sit up, more alert. There was a genuine smile on his face; he was happy to be home and see his family again. Henry wondered if

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there had ever been a period in his life when he had worn the same expression in respect to his own homestead. As bad as boarding school had been, the prospect of returning home in the hols had never seemed that much more attractive.

“I still can’t believe Dingo found somebody as crazy as himself to tag along on this expedition,” Baz muttered.

“You don’t understand, Baz,” Dingo said tiredly and simply, a reaction to an oft-repeated argument.

“Nah, I guess I don’t. That’s why Dad’s so glad you’ve taken on after him.”

“Your father knows about the thylacine?” Henry asked Dingo,

dumbfounded.

“Knows about it?” Baz exclaimed. “He’s a bloody expert! What, you didn’t tell him, Jack?”

Dingo glowered at the use of his real name. “I thought Dad would be the best to talk about it.”

Baz directed the car to pull up outside a two-story Victorian terrace house. It didn’t look as stately as some of the others on Faraday Street, but it looked comfortable and lived-in. Henry liked it immediately, his mood in no way dampened by the bickering of the brothers he was sandwiched between.

“So your new friend doesn’t know that our grandfather was one of the biggest bounty hunters of the thylacine in his day?” Baz asked, incredulous.

Henry was too shocked to speak; all he could do was turn to Dingo with wide eyes and an open mouth.

“Thanks, Barry,” Dingo said dryly.

“Well,” Baz said, clearly uncomfortable. “I’ll meet you blokes inside. It looks like you need to have a chat.”

“Thanks, Barry,” Dingo repeated in the same tone of voice.

Baz gave both of the other men a quick look and then hightailed it into the safety of his parents’ house.

“Dash—” Dingo began.

“That’s not my name,” Henry reminded him, feeling childish but still resisting the nickname as if it gave Dingo some right to claim him. For this moment, anyway. He was too angry.

“Henry, then,” Dingo said, and it sounded strange coming from him.

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“Why didn’t you tell me?” Henry asked plaintively.

“Because it’s got nothing to do with me,” Dingo said, frowning.

“Of course it has something to do with you!” Henry interjected. “Your grandfather contributed to the massacre of the thylacines!”

“And that’s why my father and I are trying to save them now,” Dingo said, staring at his feet, still unable to look Henry in the eyes.

“That’s commendable, but you still should have told me. Why didn’t you?”

“I thought, well, I thought that maybe you wouldn’t have come if you knew.”

Henry sighed.

“Would you have?” Dingo asked.

Henry paused to consider.

“See?”

Henry took a deep breath. “If I hadn’t gotten to know you, maybe not.

Perhaps I wouldn’t have trusted you. But I heard how you spoke about the thylacine. You can’t fake that.”

“But maybe if I’d told you straight away, you wouldn’t have given me the chance to show you how I cared about Tassie,” Dingo pointed out.

Henry opened his mouth to object but remembered his first reactions toward Dingo’s abrupt appearance in his life and closed it.

“There you go,” Dingo said sadly.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Henry shrugged. “But we’re here now, aren’t we?”

“You’ll find out the whole, sorry tale soon enough.”

“But it won’t change the fact that we’re the new Burke and Wills,”

Henry said, trying to get a smile out of him. “Hopefully without the death part, though.”

Dingo rewarded him with a smile. “Yeah.”

There was a sharp rap at Dingo’s window, and both men jumped. Dingo rolled it down, and an older man stuck his head in and peered at them.

“So, have you two kissed and made up yet?” he demanded.

“Dash,” Dingo said. “This is my old man.”

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It turned out that “old man” and “old lady” were genuine terms of affection by Australian youths for their parents, even though it sounded slightly disrespectful to Henry. He was instantly accepted as a member of the family, such was the Chamberses’ effusive welcome. Maybe he could take up that disguise of long-lost cousin without being unmasked as a fraud after all.

Henry was interested to see that Dingo and his brother Baz took after their dad, with his sandy hair and square jaw, but while he and Baz shared hazel eyes, Dingo had his mother’s clear blue ones.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Chambers,” Henry said, shaking their hands stiffly.

Apparently Dingo’s dad was as tactile as his son. Henry was crushed against his chest and fought for air as the older man bellowed, “None of that Mr. stuff, call me Hank, mate.”

“Uh, okay… Hank,” Henry replied, confused even further, the name sounding foreign on his tongue. He was then passed on to Dingo’s mother as if it were a do-si-do at a local town hall.

“And you may call me Helen.” The beaming woman seemed to share Dingo’s wide grin as well. She was tall, with long grey hair and a beautiful, if wrinkled, face.

It seemed
really
disrespectful to address an older woman and maternal figure informally by her first name, but Henry quickly decided that when he was in Rome he should do as the Romans did and nodded.

It was at this point that Henry discovered Dingo’s father also shared his name; Mrs. Chambers called him Henry while asking if he wanted a cup of tea. Henry looked at Dingo, wondering what else had been kept from him, although the coincidence of a shared name was in no way as huge as the revelation attached to Dingo’s grandfather.

Baz said his goodbyes, saying that he had to get home to the “little lady,” obviously his wife, Henry decided. Baz looked disappointed, however, to be missing out on the family welcome upon the return of his little brother and his new friend.

“Come over for dinner tomorrow night,” his mother suggested. “And bring Margot.”

Baz agreed eagerly. “Margot will want to say hello to Dingo. And meet Dash.”

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“Not the family reunion,” Dingo groaned.