Matthew Flinders' Cat (16 page)

‘About Greek men?’

‘Yeah, she says stuff when she’s pissed, but everyone knows it’s true anyway.’

‘No, Ryan, it isn’t! That’s a generalisation!’

‘It is so!’ Ryan protested. ‘Me mum says when men come and ask the girls at the Cross, you know . . . “How much for a short time?”, they tells them how much, then they always says, “I don’t do no Greek.” ’ He grinned up at Billy. ‘It means they don’t do it up the bum, because that’s what the Greek blokes want.’

Billy didn’t know what to say next. He’d long since become accustomed to the fact that street language was pretty direct, but he’d never been confronted by a young kid, not yet a teenager, who’d lost his innocence to the extent of Ryan’s matter-of-fact knowledge and acceptance of how things were in his world.

However, Billy could clearly see that a paradox existed. In fact, Ryan hadn’t lost his innocence at all. As evidence of this, there was the boy’s willingness, no indeed his persistence and eagerness, to become involved in the adventures of a long-dead cat reincarnated in Billy’s dreamtime. This showed both a lively imagination and a childlike belief system still very much intact.

Billy had been robbed on several occasions by street kids, though admittedly they’d been two or three years older than Ryan. Only once had he been hurt, when he’d told a gang of three ferals truthfully that he had no money. It was the day before pension day and he didn’t have sufficient money to drink his usual scotch and he’d spent the last of it on a carton of Chateau de Cardboard moselle. They must have been comparatively new to the street not to know that the day before the alcoholics received their disability pension they weren’t worth robbing. Anyway, they hadn’t believed him and he’d accepted the kicking he’d got as part of his environment, the kids were its natural predators involved in a constant battle for survival.

Ryan, it seemed, had his grandmother to give him love, a sense of belonging and hope in the future, which was what these children lacked. Even though Ryan’s mother appeared to have problems managing her life, she gave him money and there was nothing to suggest from what Ryan had told him that she didn’t care about him when she was sober.

‘What’s a generalisation?’ Ryan asked.

‘Well, in this instance, it’s when you say something that includes everyone, when it may only apply to a small number of people.’ Ryan looked puzzled and so Billy explained further, ‘Well, for instance, some very few men, of
any
nationality, might do what you said the Greek men do, a tiny minority, and so you can’t simply include everyone of that nationality in your statement, that’s what is meant by a
generalisation
.’

‘Like saying all Abos are alkies?’

‘Exactly! Well done.’

Ryan ignored the compliment. ‘Well, then that’s a whole heap of bull, because they are!’

They had reached Billy’s usual bench at the water’s edge on the eastern side of Circular Quay and directly opposite the Museum of Contemporary Art. Billy sat down. Ryan remained standing, facing him while balanced on his skateboard, knees slightly bent, trundling it a bit to the right and back to the left.

‘Ryan, there you go again, it simply isn’t true, son!’

‘Oh yeah? You ever seen one what wasn’t already drunk? And it don’t matter what time it is neither.’

Billy had to admit to himself that in the Kings Cross–Darlinghurst area in which Ryan had grown up, the possibility of seeing a sober Aborigine at any time was fairly remote.

‘Well, as a matter of fact, I have, only yesterday.’ Ryan glanced down at his watch. ‘Hey, you ain’t had yer coffee and I’m hungry. I’ll go get it.’ He stepped down from the skateboard. ‘Wanna finger bun?’ Billy nodded. He couldn’t believe he was actually hungry and didn’t have to will himself to eat. His breakfast usually consisted of six teaspoons of sugar in his coffee. Like most alcoholics he craved sugar. ‘Pink or white?’ Ryan asked and, seeing Billy didn’t understand, said, ‘The icing! Pink or white?’

‘White, but six sugars with my coffee.’ Billy dug into his trouser pocket for change. ‘Here, allow me.’

‘I got plenty.’ Ryan grinned, ‘That fat Greek bastard I’m not allowed to make no
generalisations
about gimme my fifty dollars back, remember?’

Billy couldn’t help himself and burst into laughter. Ryan looked at him, giggling himself. ‘I ain’t seen you laughing like that before, Billy,’ he said, then added, ‘Me nana says it’s laughter what makes the world go round.’ Then, leaving his skateboard in Billy’s care, he turned and ran off towards the Circular Quay concourse.

Ryan was still wearing the same dirty clothes he’d been in the first morning they’d met and Billy thought that, like himself, he could probably use a good scrub and a change of clothes. He wondered how he might go about telling Ryan to take a shower but decided he couldn’t and shouldn’t, it was none of his business anyway. Moments later, he found himself thinking about what it might take to rescue a young mind so clearly intelligent from becoming dulled to mediocrity. With a sudden jolt he brought himself back to reality and remonstrated inwardly, ‘Stop it, Billy! Don’t get involved, remember Charlie!’

Billy didn’t want to admit that the boy had the sharp end of the screwdriver firmly wedged between the lip and the lid of the can of worms that represented his past and that he’d long since sealed, never to be opened again. He forced himself instead to think of Con’s reaction to the sight of Ryan in his presence. Billy wondered how he might put things right with the Greek cafe owner.

Though he couldn’t condone it, he understood Con’s reaction. A derelict and a young boy obviously off the streets, it wasn’t a difficult conclusion to come to. Even though the sex drive in an alcoholic is usually severely diminished and very few are sexually active, Billy realised most people would be unaware of this.

Nevertheless, it was a sad world when an old man and a young boy couldn’t be seen in each other’s presence without people believing something evil was taking place. Since time out of mind it had been incumbent on the old hunter, unable to run fast enough to go out on the hunt, to tutor the young boys in the tribe in the knowledge they would require to survive in the jungle. It was the essential begetting of wisdom and the duty of an elder to pass on the lore of the tribe in order to guarantee its survival.

Nowadays people only saw dirt, the malevolent hand of the paedophile on a young shoulder, rather than the pride of an old man in his grandson or the respect and affinity the older generation has for the young. He must be careful never to touch Ryan, not even in the smallest gesture of affection. Billy now reinforced within his inner self the often declared knowledge that he couldn’t love and that he’d consciously cut himself off from all affection.

He mustn’t allow a ragamuffin in need of clean clothes and a good bath to creep into his heart where there was no space for him to breathe and grow.

Ryan returned with the paper bag containing the buns gripped in his teeth, a Coke in one hand and the coffee in the other. He handed the coffee to Billy, placed the Coke on his skateboard, took the packet from his mouth and removed the finger bun with the white icing, ‘I brought the sugar, how come yesterday you said you didn’t take no sugar?’

‘Well, it would have been difficult going back. You were very brave going into that coffee shop.’

‘Nah, my nana says Cesco’s just a bag o’ wind, all bluff and no tornado.’

Billy laughed. ‘You mean his bark is bigger than his bite?’

‘She says me grandpa said when he was in Italy he were just a preliminary boxer, a Joe Palooka. It means he was no good,’ Ryan explained.

‘Well, I think you were pretty brave going in and getting a coffee for me, lad.’

‘No worries,’ Ryan replied. He took a bite from his finger bun and as he chewed he examined Billy slowly from head to toe. His mouth still half full, he said, ‘You don’t eat much, do yiz? Yiz skinny as a pencil, yer could use a bit o’ fattenin’ up.’ Ryan grinned. ‘That’s what me nana always says about me, “Ryan, yer could use a bit o’ fattenin’ up, yiz skinny as a pencil.” ’

Billy washed down a small piece of bun with a sip of coffee. ‘Now, about generalised statements and Aborigines always being drunk,’ he said, changing the subject.

‘How long is this gunna take?’ Ryan asked, looking directly at Billy, ‘You said you’d tell me about Trim?’

‘How much time have we got?’

‘You could give me a note,’ Ryan said slyly.

‘No, Ryan, school’s important, I thought we agreed.’

‘Yeah, well, okay. But can I choose, then?’ He took a bite out of his bun.

‘Of course, and I know it’s Trim.’ Billy smiled.

‘You’ve been very patient, lad.’ Ryan nodded, acknowledging his patience. ‘Well, we can’t allow the subject of generalised statements and Aboriginal drunks to go away, we’ll have to discuss it at another time.’

‘Cool. Now can we start?’

‘Well, there’s something you have to know first.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Trim lived at a different time, almost two hundred years ago, when our language was very different.’

‘Different? You mean people talked weird, like thees and thous, what you sometimes hear in them old movies on TV?’

‘Yes, but not weird for them, it’s just that English is a living language, it changes with each generation. For instance, Matthew Flinders wrote when he was talking about Trim as a kitten:
“
The signs of superior intelligence which marked his infancy procured for him an education beyond what is usually bestowed upon the individuals of his tribe; and being brought up amongst sailors, his manner acquired a peculiarity of cast which rendered them as different from those of other cats, as the actions of a fearless seaman are from those of a lounging, shame-faced ploughboy”
.’
Billy had learned the passage while a schoolboy playing the role of Matthew Flinders in a play at Sydney Grammar.

‘Cool,’ Ryan said, ‘Trim was different from other cats because he was on a ship.’

Billy looked at Ryan, surprised at his well-summarised translation. ‘Well done!’

Ryan shrugged, ‘I seen lots of them old movies on TV with me nana.’

‘Well, that’s just it, Trim didn’t speak quite the way we do and there may be one or two things, expressions for instance, I use which are unfamiliar to you. Just ask me if you don’t understand a word.’ Billy waited, then said, ‘That all right with you, Ryan?’

‘Sure, cool.’

He wished he could ask Ryan to use some other expression as his constant rejoinder, but he refrained from saying so. In fact, he was quite looking forward to adopting some of the language of Trim’s time. Billy was aware that his own syntax and grammar, conditioned as it was by his background and education and honed by his profession, must sometimes seem as contrived to Ryan as the words he’d just quoted by Matthew Flinders. He hoped telling the story with a bit of early nineteenth-century argot might prove a stimulus for them both, it had been some time since he’d been allowed to use his mind.

Ryan seated himself on his skateboard at Billy’s feet, his legs crossed. ‘Righto,’ he said, nodding for Billy to begin, then added, ‘Can I ask questions, not just about words and stuff?’

‘Of course.’

‘During or after?’

‘Let’s see how we go, eh?’

Billy cleared his throat, then taking a sip of coffee, began to speak. ‘It was a time when people and, it must be supposed, their cats spoke in a much more formal manner. Trim was a gentleman and so would have been particular about his language, being polite at all times and when not so, his sharp tongue would be concealed behind carefully chosen words. Although Trim was always referred to as Master Trim by the ship’s crew, I shall simply call him Trim.’

‘Yeah, that’s how they talked,’ Ryan confirmed.

‘I’ve seen them old movies,
The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities
. I liked them two, others also, some were okay.’

‘Very well then, shall I continue?’ Ryan nodded.

‘Trim was born in 1797 in no place, well not precisely no place, no country, he came into this world meowing and blind in the middle of the ocean on board the
Reliance
while it sailed the Southern Indian Ocean. Captain Matthew Flinders, who most fondly believed he was Trim’s owner, which I suppose he was although cats do not see things quite like that, would often remark that being born in that longitude made Trim an Indian, a pukka sahib cat. Though Trim would have made a better African than Indian, he was black as the ace of spades with white tips to each of his paws, a white star blaze on his chest and another smallish snowy dab under his chin.’

Ryan interrupted suddenly. ‘What’s a pukka sahib and why was he blind?’

‘It’s an Indian expression for a gentleman and all cats are born blind.’

‘How do you know someone’s a gentleman?’ Ryan asked.

‘He has nice manners and is considerate.’ Ryan nodded, ‘It’s nice how you tell how Trim looked, with them white paws and stuff. You make that bit up?’

Billy pretended to look indignant. ‘No, of course not, that’s how he is described by Matthew Flinders himself.

‘Trim always regarded himself as a sailor, plain and simple, a ship’s cat first, then, because he was reared on an English ship, as an Englishman. Of course, at that time there was no such place as Australia.’