In Lonnie's Shadow (5 page)

OAK STAVE

Item No. 4321

From a broken barrel. Adapted as a spoke for a cart wheel.

Ever since Lonnie was knee high he had loved the smells and sounds and colours of Cumberland Place. Next door to Auntie Tilly lived Moon, the Syrian hawker who worked at the Eastern Market selling sweets and spun sugar on a stick. The whole street knew when he was cooking in the backyard copper, the syrupy scent perfuming the air as it drifted over the rooftops. Two doors down were Mamma and Poppa Benetti. Alongside their clutch of sons and daughters, they raised a succession of potted tomatoes and green vegetables in all shapes and sizes, sharing the pickings with the many aunties and cousins who came to visit and stayed on. Here the Benettis crammed noisily and happily into a double- storey terrace painted a vivid maroon and royal blue. If fate had made Lonnie an orphan he would have singled out this lively and emotional Italian family, with their larger-than-life smiles, as his next of kin. It was not surprising when the Benettis’ eldest son, Carlo, quickly became his best mate.

The Benettis owned two horse-drawn wagons. One was run by Poppa, the other entrusted to Carlo, who had been tinkering with it since he was twelve. For what better thing could a father do than promote his eldest son. Let him move up from barrow boy to his first man job as an owner-driver. Let him stay close, happy with his lot, working hard. No son of his would ever need to run away to the goldfields in the west, steal off to the bush as an overlander, or be lost to the clippers as a deckhand.

These days Carlo’s main trade was fruit and vegetables in the wintertime and green ice-cream in the summer. Poppa had brought over from Italy the delights of ice-cream making, set up a small ice works in the back of the house and fitted out the barrows so they could be packed with salt. But Carlo had already set his sights on a factory of his own. Bigger and with the latest patent machinery. No more cranking by hand. His ices would be tangy fruit rainbows that no other ice-cream maker could match.

Three of the littlies now ran the barrows, their signs announcing ‘Benetti and Sons, Fresh Produce’. The bright colours, which matched the lavish house front, brightened up the lane no end. At the end of the workday the place was so cluttered that Lonnie or any other passing pedestrian had to turn sideways to squeeze past.

Lonnie found Carlo’s wagon parked in the usual place with the wheel off.

Carlo grinned. ‘’Bout time you arrived to give me a hand, mate.’ He passed over a mallet, picking up where he’d left off, attaching a spoke he’d made from an oak stave cadged from the barrel maker.

Francesco and Antonio, miniature doubles of their elder brother, with hair and eyes dark as pitch and skin the rich colour of olive oil, were perched up on the front seat pretending to drive. There was no horse to guide; Bella being rested in the stableyard around the corner.

The boys were two of the littlies, a name Lonnie had given to Carlo’s brothers and sisters, born one after the other in quick order. Carlo and Lonnie often spent their early friendship plotting ways of avoiding the interruptions of Maria, Sophia, Antonio, Giuseppe, Francesco, Pasquale, Bruno, and Mario Benetti, who took it in turns to get under their feet, bringing countless messages from Mamma, then hanging around and pestering them relentlessly, only to disappear when the older boys hoodwinked them with hoaxes and impossible-to-keep promises. If that didn’t work, Lonnie and Carlo would set the littlies up on sentinel duty while they made their escape. As a last resort, a good fright would always send them mewling to Mamma like a litter of puppies.

‘Hope ya don’t mind,’ Lonnie said, ‘I’ve booked ya for tonight.’

‘Doing what?’

Lonnie motioned towards the two littlies.

‘Frank, Tony, get lost.’ Carlo clicked his fingers at the pair who these days were more easily dispatched.

When they were out of earshot, Lonnie explained.

‘Tilly’s in deep. The bailiffs are after her.’

‘What’re we gonna do?’

‘A moonlight.’

‘Where to?’

‘Blackburn. All’s fine, mate. I only need a bit of muscle from you to help load up. I’m calling in a favour from another mate to do the driving.’

Without hesitation, Carlo agreed. ‘No worries. Tilly’s a good soul. I just gotta finish this wheel first.’ He beamed fondly. ‘Word’s around you been in a bit of mischief. Gonna show me the scars?’

Lonnie displayed the gashes on his arm and indicated the lump on his head. ‘Can’t keep anything a secret around here for long.’ Still, he was grateful for a bit of sympathy at last.

‘Nasty. But I’m glad you did what you did. Someone’s gotta do something about those mongrels. So, any news to top that?’

‘Pearl’s onto a race fix.’ Lonnie retold the story.

‘Lightning’s just about unbeatable. Someone knows something we don’t. What I wanna know is which horses are running against him.’

‘How do you expect to find that out? If it’s illegal, they’re not gonna publish the info in the Argus.’

‘Bookie Win will be running a book.’

Carlo stood back for a few seconds admiring his wheel-fixing skills. ‘Well, mate, I reckon we should pay him a visit. I’m done here.’ He offered Lonnie a note of caution. ‘D’ya reckon you should take Pearl’s word? She twitters on a bit. You know as well as me what happens when she starts on one of her schemes. Spells trouble with a capital P.’ He counted them off on his fingers, ‘Punch-ups, pranks, pain, past experience …’ He rubbed his behind. ‘Never harmless, mate. I’ll remember that blooming goldfish till the day I die. My arse was so sore I couldn’t sit down for a week.’

Lonnie realised too late he had stepped right into a retelling of what had become known to them all as the Blooming Goldfish story. Carlo could never quite forgive Pearl for the times he’d been given a hiding over one of her hare-brained schemes. All the aggravation came about when Pearl convinced Carlo they should get one of the goldfish on offer from the rag-and-bone man, who was trading fish for rags or scrap metal.

‘Only I got nothing to trade.’

Those appealing puppy eyes of Pearl’s, the undoing of many a lad, fired up. ‘Bet you have Carlo. Things your mamma won’t miss. Or are you gonna be a scaredy-dare?’

Before Carlo had cottoned on about life, the threat to his manhood always seemed to work in Pearl’s favour. Having been so cunningly and willingly in this case, tricked, he could only find an old woollen coat of his poppa’s. One with torn elbows and frayed cuffs that smelt of olives and tobacco. A coat the littlies loved to bury their heads in.

‘Poppa never wears it anymore,’ Carlo said uncertainly, for didn’t Mamma always get round to cutting old clothes down a size or two and passing them on?

Pearl grabbed the coat, ordered him to find a jam jar, bounded outside and swapped Poppa’s jacket for a goldfish before Carlo had a chance to change his mind.

He had to admit he admired the trade. That is until Poppa Benetti came across them. ‘What’s that you gotta there?’

‘A goldfish we’ve just traded,’ Pearl said. ‘Isn’t it a beauty?’

‘So you make a trade?’ Poppa Benetti was amiable enough at first, noting his eldest son’s business prowess. ‘What you trade?’

Pearl burst in. ‘Only an old brown coat.’

Carlo gave her a swift kick in the shin to shut her up. She shot him a glare. The exchange didn’t go unnoticed by his poppa who eyed them suspiciously.

‘From where you getta the coat?’

‘We swapped the old one you never wear anymore.’ Carlo knew Pearl’s loose tongue had landed him

in trouble big time. He gave her another kick. ‘We need to find a bigger jar, Poppa, this one’s too small.’ Mr Benetti was no fool. ‘Never mind look for big jar, swappa the fish back for my coat.’

‘But you never wear it, Poppa.’

‘Now!’

Carlo dragged Pearl off, the order sounding alarm bells in his ears. But Pearl was set on keeping the goldfish. ‘Let’s pretend we dropped it and it died. Can’t swap it back then, can we?’ Pearl had already made up her mind. All they had to do was stay out of sight for a short while, then return with their story. Surely Poppa would understand how this unfortunate accident had left them with no chance of retrieving the coat.

Her entreaties gave Carlo no choice but to let Pearl take home the fish and lie to his poppa. Pearl hadn’t reckoned on Carlo finishing up with a belt across his rear end; Poppa explaining he wasn’t thrashing his son over the loss of the coat, but over the lie. Unfortunately for Carlo, Poppa had watched the rag-and-bone man leave in one direction, while Pearl went the opposite way carefully carrying the fish.

Poppa Benetti was not a hard man. But he was a good Catholic and just to prove it, he tied saintly leather scapulars around each family member’s neck at birth as a badge of their devotion, made them recite the rosary together every evening – ten Hail Marys being the solution to all life’s problems – and would not tolerate, above all things, falsehoods or heathens. The exception was their Syrian neighbour, Moon, who he conceded was kind-hearted by nature and thus was excused; although Mamma prayed late into the night that Moon would one day convert. Faith, like prayer and punishment, was a potent tonic.

So Carlo received a hiding. Within a week, as a kind of divine retribution, conclusively proving Poppa Benetti’s point, the goldfish died.

Carlo could have cited a dozen more mad notions with a capital P as to why he vowed never to be caught up with Pearl’s schemes again. Like the time she persuaded them to stow away on a ship heading to Williamstown, but in the nick of time they overheard the bosun say the ship was heading out over the Tasman and on to the old country. But he rested his case on the Blooming Goldfish story, finishing off with, ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Lonnie had no comeback. He could only laugh.

‘’Bout time you let bygones be bygones, mate.’

COINS AND A TOKEN

Item Nos. 647, 648, 649 & 650

Various coins. A shilling, a threepenny piece, a Chinese coin most likely used as a gaming chip, and a token halfpenny from Professor Holloways’ ointments and pill company, dated 1860.

After a speedy detour to set up Auntie Tilly’s moonlight flit with their driver mate, the two lads were soon strolling through the back lanes towards Bookie Win’s. The narrow stretch in Little Bourke Street, known as Chinatown, was crammed with furniture marts that were stacked to the ceiling with assorted bamboo baskets and wholesale grocers selling dried bird carcasses, pungent spices and incense. Behind these facades, hidden in a maze of rooms, were the private clubhouses, temples and homes of the local Chinese people.

The boys stopped briefly at a shopfront loaded with crates of swollen, spiky fruit. They picked out a penn’orth, peeled them down to the size of a grape and enjoyed the burst of milky liquid from each bite.

‘Can’t resist ’em, mate,’ Lonnie said appreciatively. At the doorway of a cabinetmaker’s they grinned down at some young children who were crouched like small Buddhas on the front step and yammering ten to the dozen in their singsong language. They passed through the joinery with all its dark lacquered furniture, down a back hallway lined with paper

lanterns and into Bookie Win’s betting shop.

Like most of the locals, his family had come out to the gold diggings. More lately they’d been running an enterprising business of wholesale and supply, with gambling on the side. Bookie’s real name of Li Ha Win had been put out of use by this current trade.

Lonnie tipped his cap at a group of men who were drawing cards and flourishing counters. These men, dressed in long blue smocks and wearing hats like upturned bowls over their pigtails, didn’t seem to be feeling the pinch of hard times. As they jigged their heads back in friendly greeting, they continued piling up the ante, throwing threepences, sixpences and even shillings into the centre of the table.

Bookie Win bowed. ‘You want make bet today, Lonnee?’

‘Only information, Bookie.’ He lowered his voice.

‘In private, if you don’t mind.’

Bookie led them to a secluded room where the tables were shut down for the day. ‘Business slow,’ he said with a shrug.

As Lonnie expected, Bookie was well aware of the illegal race.

‘How you find out?’ he asked. After all, it was supposed to be a secret. The fewer in, the easier to safeguard them all. ‘Don’t want make trouble.’

Lonnie reassured him. ‘Nor do we, mate.’

Bookie knew the boys well enough to take them at their word. He listened intently as Lonnie broke the rumour about the jockey on the favourite, Lightning, deliberately set to lose the race.

As the bookmaker for the event, Bookie showed great concern. Depending on the amount of money wagered, he could lose heavily. There were too many signs the Melbourne slump would not turn around for a long time. Look at his betting shop, affected already. Further problems could spell the end of his business. ‘Maybe we help each other,’ he suggested.

Bookie told them what he knew. No jockey had yet been named to ride Lightning and money had been mysteriously staked on another horse in the race: Trident. ‘Put on by Crick men. You hear anything from Golden Acre?’

Lonnie shook his head. He tried to make sense of the facts so far. The Cricks were running two of their horses in the race, both Lightning and Trident. If Lightning was the favourite, why wasn’t Thomas Crick down to ride him the way he always did? He had definitely heard Pearl right when she told him Lightning was going to lose. Now here was Bookie telling him Trident was being backed to win. He bet his life the Cricks were behind this fix.

‘At least we know which horse to back,’ Carlo said.

‘My money’s on Trident.’

‘But it isn’t right,’ said Lonnie. ‘What about all those not in the know?’

It seemed clear enough to Carlo. ‘They lose their money. Simple as that.’

‘Nah, it ain’t fair.’ Lonnie thought back to his conversation with Auntie Tilly. Fairness had nothing to do with it.

As they left Chinatown, Lonnie knew he would have to do some more investigation at Golden Acres. Chances were he could pick up some clues, although he already had a good idea what the Cricks were up to.

The day just kept getting busier for Lonnie. His head was throbbing, the night was quickly folding in, he’d promised to meet Pearl at the oyster bar and he still had to honour his promise to Auntie Tilly. He reached into his pocket where the watch lay waiting. Lordy, here was more unfinished business, undoubtedly the most unsettling of all.