Four Fires (12 page)

warning, my grandpa would let go a rip-snorter! A real tearing sound that could last five seconds with a stuttering cluster of encores to follow.

'Oh, my gawd, the hippobottomus is following us again!' he'd exclaim, turning to glance backwards and then waving his one hand furiously in front of his nose, 'Bugger's gorn again, but you can smell where he's been!' He'd point at the ground below his bum, 'He was right there before he escaped, did you see him, Mole?'

*

first-known Maloney word

I'd shake my head. 'What's a hippo-bottom-us look like, Grandpa?'

I'd ask, the game begun for the hundredth time.

'Smelly creature, big round bum like your grandmother's,' he'd confide, 'Don't want to meet him face to face, could blow a little fellow like you right off the mountain.'

Sometimes he'd let one go at the table during tea. 'You disgusting old bugger!' Grandmother Charlotte would yell out, taken by surprise by the burst of thunder down under and completely forgetting her airs and graces. She'd push back her chair, often knocking it over in the process, backing away, almost stumbling, to stand in the kitchen doorway, her hand fanning the air furiously in front of her nose. 'Bog Irish!' she'd scream, 'Don't know any better, filthy creatures the lot of you. You're disgusting!'

My grandpa would wink at me. 'Just expressing my opinion of the English, my dear,' he'd say to a fuming Grandmother Charlotte.

'In front of the child too!' she'd continue, then stop to catch her breath and in the process she'd remember she was an English Catholic and from good stock. Drawing herself up to her full height and crossing her arms over her ample breasts, Grandmother Charlotte would arch her eyebrow and regain her snooty voice. Looking imperiously down at the both of us, she'd announce, 'But then he is a Maloney, isn't he? You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Poor stock doesn't breed out.'

She would turn on her heel and storm into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and sulk in front of the stove.

Boy! That hippobottomus could sure get her into a state, knock her right off the mountain.

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I can't say I was all that chuffed at Tommy's rude awakening on my twelfth birthday. As I mentioned, nobody made too much of a fuss over birthdays, but at least you got to sleep in, which was always your birthday treat. Besides, it was going to be one of those really stinking hot days in December and it was a good five miles onto the hilly, tree

covered slopes he and I were headed for.

Tommy was now pretty fit from no grog while in gaol and nearly a month at running behind the truck carrying a full garbage bin so we set off at a fair pace. We seemed to be taking nothing with us except for a small hand axe and a pocket knife he always carried on his belt in a small leather pouch. I was feeling sorry for myself. It was my bloody birthday and I wouldn't even get breakfast or dinner.

'What are we going to eat?' I asked him.

'Bush tucker, mate. If we're lucky. Depends what we find. Ever tasted a witchetty grub?'

'Yuk!'

'Delicious, mate, there's other things too, but it's not easy. You've got to work to get a feed in the bush. Might find a possum's den with babies, ever eaten baby possum?'

I didn't say anything. If he was trying to be funny I didn't want to join in. Who did he think he was? Instead I watched his back as we started to climb. Already there was a damp patch of sweat showing between his shoulders and the sun hadn't come up yet. He was like a mountain goat, jumping from rock to rock, nimble on his feet.

Tommy always was a skinny, wiry sort of bloke despite the beer he drank. 'A potbelly on a slender frame' was how Nancy described him.

The-pot would flatten when he was a guest of Her Majesty up on the hill and he certainly didn't carry any excess baggage now. Nevertheless he was far from being like he'd be after he came back from a long stay in the bush when he was all skin and bone. While I wasn't exactly fat myself, what Tommy looked like was not how I wanted to end up in life. If we were going to depend on him for a feed in the bush, I didn't much like my chances. What's more, if he'd been eating baby possums they hadn't put any flesh on his bones, that's for sure. I could see it was going to be a long hungry day and we'd be bloody lucky to get home in time for tea. Sarah always had our tea ready at six o'clock and I couldn't remember her ever waiting back until later.

And then there was the other thing, just being with Tommy alone all day. Even when he were home, we kids didn't mix much with him.

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He hadn't played a big part in our lives. We were sort of permanently at arm's length. If he sat on the back verandah we'd avoid it, if he was in the front room we wouldn't go in. At the table the conversation circled around but he was seldom included or seemed inclined to want to be a part of it. If he decided to talk, we'd all fall silent. It wasn't deliberate,

.it was just how it was. When we were out of a morning collecting the garbage, we were too busy to talk much and so that worked out okay.

Tommy wasn't what you'd call a father figure and he knew it. We were polite to him and all that, but I'd be lying if I said we respected him. He must have known this, because he didn't try to win us over or fit in when he was sober. When he was on a binge, he only came home to sleep and then not always. Nancy would try to include him in conversations but I guess all the years he'd spent in gaol locked up in a cell didn't exactly turn him into a good conversationalist. What do you say to a bunch of kids you haven't seen growing up?

Now here I was alone with him in the bush, a boy on his birthday with a dad he didn't like or trust. It was pretty scary.

We walked for about an hour before the sun came up, him in front and me following ten paces behind. Each step you could feel the tension building up between us. Then we stopped and rested beside a dry creek bed among the trees.

'Bad year,' Tommy said, 'you can usually find drinking water in this creek.' He looked about him and then pointed to a gum tree that didn't look that different from the others around. It had a smooth dark and light-grey bark, I'd seen hundreds like it. 'Know what that one's named?'

'It's a gum tree, eucalyptus,' I said, giving the correct name to show him I wasn't stupid.

He stared at me, 'I know it's a fuckin' eucalyptus, what's it bloody called?'

His sharp tone of voice took me by surprise. I'd answered best I could and he'd roused on me. I was suddenly shaking inside. But Maloneys don't cry, don't show they're scared. Nancy said that even when you're shaking in your boots, you look people in the eye. It was dumb advice. If you looked a teacher in the eye, he thought you were giving cheek or being defiant and you got the strap. I shrugged, looking down at my feet, not answering.

'Yellow Box! It's a Bloody Yellow Box! Common as dirt!' Tommy shouted it out.

This time I looked up at him, trying to look defiant. How was I supposed to know it was called Yellow Box? 'I don't give a luck,' I said,
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swallowing hard.

I waited for him to hit me, get it over with. If I'd used that word in front of Nancy, she would have made me wash my mouth out with

.Velvet soap. But I didn't care. I'd have a go if he hit me, even if he ended up beating the daylights out of me. He only had one good arm and I'd work on his blind-eye side and I reckon I could've taken him.

Instead, Tommy started to laugh.

'Righto, that's a good place to start. You don't give a luck and I don't give a shit what you feel. What do you say to that, hey, boy?'

'Let's go home then.'

Tommy shook his head. 'It's not that easy, Mole. You see, I promised Mr Baloney I'd teach you and I'm going to keep that promise.

If you won't be bloody taught,' he paused and looked around, 'well, son, that's up to you, we're going out bush every Saturday anyway.'

you can't make me,'I said defiantly.

'No, that's true, but your mother can and she's agreed.'

'Nancy! Mum?' I suddenly felt terribly betrayed. Nancy had shopped me. I couldn't believe my ears.

'You're lying, she wouldn't do that.'

'It's true, Mole. Do you think I could haul you out of bed at sparrow fart without her knowing, her saying it was ridgydidge?'

'I don't suppose you both could have asked me?'

He grinned, 'Nah, what good would that have done, eh?'

'Tom... er...'I stopped, I'd never called him Tommy face to face.

'Tommy will do fine,' he said. 'No point calling me "Dad" if I ain't earned it. And I ain't. Like me calling you "son", when you don't feel I like you're my boy. I tried it on a moment back, didn't work, did it.'? So

let's not pretend, eh, Mole? Tommy 'n' Mole will do until we both decide otherwise, what say you?'

Confused, I forgot what I was going to say in the first place. So I just shrugged, 'Okay by me.'

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'Good! That's settled then.' He seemed to think for a while then said, 'Can I tell you something, Mole?'

'Suppose,' I said, still not trusting the bugger one inch, thinking any minute he's going to go off half-cocked again like with the Yellow

Box. How was I suppose to know, anyway?

'When you were knee high to a grasshopper and you used to go with your grandpa, he was that proud of you. He used to say he liked the lot of yiz kids, but you were special, you had the gift of calling a fire.'

'How would he know! I was only seven. I don't remember putting out any fires.'

Tommy chose to ignore my sarcasm. 'He said you had a feel for the bush, knew where to look. Naturally curious and remembered everything he told you.'

'All small kids do that. Colleen does it. Small kids' heads are still empty, plenty of room for them to remember stuff you tell them.' I looked directly at him and shrugged. 'I don't remember nothing now, so my grandpa was wrong, wasn't he?'

'Maybe. But let's find out, eh?'

His change of tone was confusing me. I didn't want to be friends with him. This was a different Tommy, not even the one we knew when he was sober. But also, deep down, I wanted him to be my dad. It was very confusing. I guess he had to learn how to treat me as well as me him. 'What if it doesn't work? If I've forgot everything, which I have.

What then?' I said.

'Yeah, okay.' He seemed to be thinking. 'Gimme every Saturday up till Christmas and then half the Christmas holidays, then you can decide.'

'Ha! Come Christmas, you'll be on the grog again!' I couldn't help it, it just slipped out without my thinking.

He was sitting on a rock directly opposite me with a small twig in his hand, using it to dig in the sand at his feet. Now he looked up slowly and our eyes locked. Looking into his one good eye, I held his gaze defiantly and he held his. It went on and on until my head began to spin and I could see nothing but a blur in front of me. Then, at last, Tommy looked away. 'You could be right, Mole,' he said softly. 'But if
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you'll give it a go, I'll give it a go. What do you say, mate?'

I was trapped, the bastard had trapped me fair and square. What could I say.'? 'Okay,' I mumbled.

'Let's begin with Yellow Box then,' he said, this time his tone was like easygoing.

I looked up at the tree, 'Why is it called Yellow Box? I don't see any yellow.'

'It's the bark, sort of yellow colour.' He rose from the rock and walked over to the tree and broke a small piece of bark from the stem.

He brought it over and handed it to me. The bark was a sort of brown yellow. 'More brown,' I said, 'wouldn't call that yellow.'

'There you go then, botanists have strange ways of classification.

Good tree though, good for firewood, excellent burner which is a problem come bushfire time. It's called Eucalyptus melliodora which means 'honey-scented'. Makes the best honey, bees love it because it flowers right through summer, always plenty of tucker for them. Nice tree, yellow blossoms, maybe that's why it's called Yellow Box, eh?'

I didn't answer, though I could have said lots of gums have yellow blossoms. Even I knew that much.

'Eucalyptus is a hardwood,' he went on, ignoring my truculence.

'There's two types of wood, see, softwood and hardwood, Australia's got the tallest hardwood trees in the world.'

'No, it hasn't!' I shot back.

'Beg yours?'

'Redwood in California, we learned about it in class, they're the tallest trees in the world.'

'You're right and then again you're wrong,' Tommy said, his voice still even.

'What's that mean?'

'Californian Redwood is the tallest tree in the world, but it's a softwood.'

'Oh,' I said, looking at Tommy to make sure he wasn't making it up.

'Redwood, Sequoia , grows to three hundred and

thirty feet.'

'Shit, hey?' I was dumbstruck, Tommy knew a Latin name for a
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tree twice. It was all I could think to say.

Tommy laughed, 'Wouldn't be too impressed if I were you, mate. I got it from this woodwork book in the carpentry shop up on the hill.'

He'd returned to sit on the rock and commenced to dig again. I could see the sand was starting to come up wet. I wasn't completely

ignorant, I knew you could dig for water, but the sand on top was dry as a powder keg and looked anything but promising. 'Should get a drink out of this soon enough,' Tommy said, without looking up.

For want of something to say, I said, 'How tall can our trees grow, the hardwood?'

'Three hundred feet, just a few feet short of them giant redwoods, there's a tree in Tasmania that's even a bit taller. It's that old, Captain Cook would have seen it sticking out of the forest canopy when he sailed by.'

'Captain Cook never sailed by Tasmania.' Crocodile Brown was suddenly coming in very useful for once in his life.

'Yes, he bloody did, he bloody discovered Australia,' Tommy said, certain he was right.

'But he never saw Tasmania.'

'How come?'

'Didn't cross Bass Strait. Abel Tasman was the first to see Tasmania.

He was a Dutch sea captain. He could've seen that tree, he sailed past Tasmania even before Captain Cook discovered Australia and named it after the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, Diemen. He even named Australia first up, called it New Holland.'