Nine Days (2 page)

Now I wish I’d given my hands more than just a quick one-two under the tap before I left the Hustings’. I can see a bit of something under my thumb nail that may or may not
have derived from Charlie. Connie’s not blind.

She picks up my hands and turns them over and then she looks at Francis. ‘Perfect,’ she says, and she kisses the top of my head. Then she gets another two rashers out of the icebox.

‘Better check his hands too, Connie,’ I say. ‘On account of his head looks identical to his backside which causes all manner of confusion when he’s on the dunny.’

This may not be the smartest thing to say considering our heads are near impossible to tell apart but anyway as soon as the words are out I hear a noise behind me and I know it’s Ma. And sure enough there she is, in her black dress and white apron for going to work.

‘What did you just say to Francis?’ she says.

‘It’s all right, Ma,’ says Francis. ‘I’m used to it. I strive to be the bigger man.’

Ma narrows her eyes at me. ‘We’re halfway up the hill young man and you talk like we’re still in the gutter. You’ll keep until I get home. Don’t think you’re too big for the wooden spoon.’ She sees Connie about to pop the rashers in. ‘That bacon is for Francis and Mrs Keith.’

‘Kip’s been working since four,’ says Connie.

‘Francis needs meat in the morning, for his brain. Kip’s lucky to be getting bread and dripping with his standard of behaviour.’

Connie puts the rashers back and gets the dripping from the icebox.

‘Mrs Keith will have washing,’ Ma says. ‘And don’t forget the tablecloths. And the iron is dirty. Clean it before you start. And iron both sides so the embroidery stands out.’

‘I always do, don’t I?’ says Connie.

‘And get Kip to cut some more wood. It’s freezing in here,’ says Francis. ‘If he can fit it in around his other responsibilities of course.’

‘Righto,’ I say.

‘I’d hate to overburden you,’ he says. ‘Only do as much as you can manage.’

I finish my bread and dripping and take the plate over.

‘Don’t want you working yourself into a state of nervous collapse,’ Francis says.

‘Shouldn’t you be going?’ says Connie.

‘I’ve got ten minutes yet,’ says Francis. ‘Kid gloves, Connie, kid gloves. Don’t let Kip’s menial constitution fool you. He’s a delicate flower at heart.’

‘You’re a good boy, thinking of your brother,’ says Ma. ‘Shame that knife only cuts one way. Shame not all boys appreciate a good education. Gladys told me she saw St Kevin’s boys with their ties off in Bridge Road on Friday.’

‘Disgraceful,’ says Francis. ‘I’ll tell Brother Cusack.’

‘I bet you will,’ I say.

‘Don’t you take that tone, Christopher Luke Westaway,’ Ma says. ‘Francis is shouldering his responsibility, keeping his scholarship. Then he’ll get another to the university to study the law as discussed. As it is we’ve had to take in Mrs Keith and I spend all day on hands and knees cleaning for other people when we ought to have a girl ourselves. Your sister giving up her art school. Your father, spinning like a top.’

‘Don’t worry, Ma,’ says Francis. ‘Aren’t I the smart one?’

‘That’s my good boy,’ says Ma.

‘Anyway it’s selection for the first eleven tomorrow. This year I’m a cert,’ Francis says.

‘Bradman must be shivering in his boots,’ says Connie. She’s prodding Francis’s bacon with a wooden spoon. I can hear it sizzling and it smells like heaven. ‘Cricket seems awful frivolous for someone destined for university.’

‘That’s a common misconception. One thing I’ve learned is this: all the best people play cricket. Being in the first eleven is an advantage for a fellow starting out in the world.’ Francis picks up his knife and fork and throws his tie over his shoulder, ready to leap on the bacon as soon as it hits the plate.

‘If the world stays as it is,’ says Ma. ‘That Mr Hitler. Heaven knows what he’s capable of. Last time it was boys not much older than you that were going. Forging their mother’s name and so forth. I’d sooner hide you in the ceiling space. I want you safe in school, not running around waiting for the call-up.’

‘Don’t be silly, Ma,’ says Francis. ‘The damn commos, they’re the ones we ought keep an eye on. Them godless Ruskis. Jerry learned his lesson the last time. It’ll come to nothing, everyone says.’

‘That’s how they speak at the university, is it?’ says Ma. ‘Language, Francis. How many times?’

Connie wipes her hands on her apron. ‘Who’s everyone?’

‘Everyone
everyone,’ says Francis. ‘Brother Marlow, Brother Rahill.’

Connie throws her head back and gives a little laugh. ‘Oh I see,
everyone.
All the experts fresh from County Cork. Real men of the world.’

‘Shows what you know. It’s in the
Argus.
Mr Chamberlain, he’ll have those continental types toeing the line quick smart. Even Mr Menzies says so.’

I don’t know about Mr Chamberlain because gone are the days when I waited for Dad to come home so I could read his
Argus
and I’ve got nothing to say about Ruskis or damned commos or anything else. That’s not my life, that’s Francis’s. All I know is every working boy in Richmond is waiting and watching. Half afraid war’ll happen, half afraid it won’t.

‘Ma,’ I say. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you. Mr Husting’s going to have me in the shop any day now, I can tell. He’ll get me a tie and an apron and teach me all about antiques.’ Which isn’t really a fib because I know he’s going to. Didn’t he just give me a shilling?

‘It’s not antiques,’ says Francis. ‘It’s a junk shop, even Ma says.’

‘It’s not,’ I say. ‘It’s house furnishers, china dealers and carting contractors. It says so on the front door.’

‘Oh she’d love that, wouldn’t she?’ says Ma. ‘Her ladyship Ada Husting. Wouldn’t she love to have you inside to order around all day? Lord it over us now we’ve had a few turns of bad luck. What have I done? I’ve offended in the eyes of the Lord. There’s no other explanation for how I’ve had to suffer.’

Attention jockeys, stewards and trainers: we’re off and racing. Once the Suffering of my mother begins there’s no stopping it. We all know to be quiet and not catch her eye. Even breathing can get you into strife. I sit still and keep my head down and chew. Connie puts the plate of bacon in front of Francis and turns her back and puts the kettle on the hob to
start the dishes. Out of the corner of my eye I see Francis pick up a fat rasher, chomp it and roll his eyes, while Ma wipes her face on her apron and goes on and on.

One of the jobs decreed as not too testing for we of the menial constitution is the fetching of the shopping. In the afternoon I go to the butcher’s in Bridge Road for Connie. She gives me a list and without even looking I know it’ll say a neck of mutton and more bacon for Francis and Mrs Keith. Perhaps some sausages. Ma won’t stand for Connie giving me money so it all goes on the tick.

I like the butcher’s. Butchering would be a good job. What does a butcher need with school? He needs to know good meat when he sees it, he needs to be strong and he needs to add up sums in pencil on the edge of the paper. Even I could manage that. You get a long blue-striped apron and a scabbard. It would be hard, some days: lifting the carcasses, sharpening the knives, scrubbing the tiles and the mincer and cleaning the windows, sweeping up the bloodied sawdust and laying down fresh. I like the colours here: the blue and white of the tiles, the red of the blood. Maybe I could start as a delivery boy. Maybe I could get a bicycle and carry meat and ham and loose eggs wrapped in paper inside string bags.

‘Away with the pixies again?’ The butcher raises an eyebrow.

‘Righto.’ I take the meat in its white paper and open the door and the bell tinkles like it’s laughing at me.

It’s late already. It’s safest to be home before the tech school bell so I walk down Bridge Road and thread through the skint blokes standing on the footpath in front of the pub for the smell of the beer, and their smokes remind me of Dad and some give me a nod and a
how’s the family Kip
and everyone’s talking about the war that’s coming that’s a plot against the working man and I say hello and nod right back like working men do and I’m about to turn into Church Street to head home and I hear her before I see her, voice like the butcher’s bell but sweeter. Of all the people to meet while carrying a bundle of stuffed pig innards. Why is she roaming around at this time of the afternoon? I throw myself into the door well of the draper’s then crane my head around the corner and I catch a glimpse of shiny black shoes and thick black stockings and I know it’s her. She’s talking to someone at the top of the lane and how am I supposed to get home now? If I walk back the other way around the block I’ll be late but if I walk on she’ll see me and then what will I do?

So I wait and wait and after a while I can’t hear her laughter anymore. I sneak my head out and she’s not there and thank God for that so I walk into the lane and then all at once someone speaks and I jump out of my skin and drop the meat on the cobbles.

‘Hello,’ she says.

‘Cripes.’ I place my hand flat on my chest. ‘A man wouldn’t want a dicky ticker.’ I pick up the meat and there’s a bit of dirt on the paper but no one’s going to notice. Extra tenderising, free service.

‘You’re Francis’s brother, aren’t you? I’m Annabel Crouch.’

I tell her I’m pleased to meet her and I manage not to laugh.
I’m Annabel Crouch,
she says, as if I haven’t noticed her in church every Sunday since her and her father moved here. As if every boy for miles around that finds himself saying rosaries for unclean thoughts doesn’t know who Annabel Crouch is.

‘I know Francis from dance class.’

Dancing is something I never tried. Connie learned for a while, when she was still at school. Dad would put the wireless up loud and they’d go into the backyard because inside was too small for two people to turn and she’d teach him. Over to the vegie patch, down to the dunny, across to the tree and twirl. A pair of galahs, Ma said. The thought of Francis twirling is not at all attractive.

I tuck the meat under one arm. ‘I imagine Francis would be quite a sight on the dancefloor.’

‘He says it’s an essential social skill for the modern young man. You look just like him. Only different. You’re not at St Kevin’s anymore, are you?’

‘Me and school. I’d had enough, well and truly.’

‘Shame. Heard you got the prize for English Composition. And Art, wasn’t it?’

‘Those days are well behind me. Being bossed around by brothers and prefects. I’m my own boss now. In a manner of speaking.’

‘Francis is a very good dancer. He’s good at all sporty things. And so thoughtful. He’d have been in the first eleven last year, except they wanted him to help with the coaching. To give the other kids a go. But you must know that already.’

I think of Francis at dance classes. New shoes, piano in
the corner, arm around Annabel Crouch. Tea and biscuits. ‘Indeed. Nothing you can say about Francis is news to me.’

‘And the way he knows all the serials from the radio,’ she says. ‘If you ask real nice, he does The Shadow so’s you can hardly tell his version from the real thing. Must be good to have a brother.’

‘Yep.’ I move the parcel to the other arm. ‘I can barely sleep for happiness.’

This talking to pretty girls business: who’d of thought it’d be so easy? Here I am, sausages and all, chatting away to Annabel Crouch like she’s Connie. I stretch out one arm and lean against the wall, all casual, like I’m in a film. Things are looking sweet.

And then. Disaster. Annabel Crouch smiles. All at once something happens to my arm and my eyes and stomach and my Adam’s apple. Her smile’s got a direct line to her eyes and her heart. All at once I can’t swallow so good. How did I swallow before, without thinking about it? My arm, the one leaning on the fence, is frozen with embarrassment. It doesn’t know what it’s doing stuck out at such an angle. I don’t look like a film star, leaning here. I look like a one-armed man trying to keep a wall from collapsing without anyone noticing. Why am I trying to hold up a wall? Her lips, her teeth. Annabel Crouch probably gives away a hundred smiles a day, no charge, but this particular one is all for me. I can see behind her ear where the hair is pulled tight into her ponytail, the long white line where her skin joins her scalp, tiny soft yellow curls escaping. It’s like a picture: the white of her skin, the yellow, the red brick of the building behind her. The way
the sun bounces around the road, off the walls. I blink for a second, quick. To fix it in place.

‘Are you walking back to Rowena Parade?’ she says.

I nod. The arm on the wall, it doesn’t feel like moving.

‘Now?’

My stomach gives a flip. If I say yes, does that mean she’ll want to walk with me? How will I manage not swallowing for the next five blocks? I’ll drown in my own spit. And what if my legs forget how to be, like my arm has? I shake my head.

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Never mind.’

Then she waves, and she’s gone before I can say anything clever that Annabel Crouch would remember in five minutes’ time. I lean over, hands on my knees, and it takes me another five minutes to stop breathing in a pant.