Season of Hate (15 page)

The rain that began to fall that early October would keep up, on and off, through to the New Year and made the town look fresh and clean. Buds began to appear among the lacy green foliage of the jacaranda. By late October it would be a mass of purple once again. The creek was now full and the whole town and surrounds were green with spring and the colour of flowers. Magpies, sulphur crested cockatoos, kookaburras and other birds, filled the trees and sang their thanks for the spring rain as well.

Gone was the thin powdering of dust that seemed to get in everywhere and settle over everything. For once there was the absence of shop owners with millet brooms in hand, daily sweeping away the dust from their wooden verandahs. No one complained about the wet, because in no time we all knew we'd be back to dry hot days with no sign of rain at all on the horizon. With the rise in the creek water level, after school and weekends most kids, us included, would pick a favourite spot along the creek and just muck about or go swimming in the nuddy with your mates.

Dad didn't have tea with us one particular Saturday night. He got himself all spruced up in one of his suits while we were eating.

"Where are you going?" I asked as I ate my mashed sweet potato.

"Out."

"But where?" Doug asked.

"Just out."

"But where's out?" I pushed further.

"What is this, the thoid degree?" Dad sounded like an American gangster in the pictures, acting upset, but really just mucking around. "If you must know, I'm going to the dance in town."

"Who with?" Doug and I asked together.

"Listen you two, just eat yer tea and leave yer father be," instructed Nan.

Dad smiled and poked his tongue out at us when Nan wasn't looking, then proceeded to polish up his good shoes. We found out soon enough, because half an hour later, Susan knocked at the door. She was wearing a Schiaparelli-pink dress all stuck out with rope petticoats, black high heels and matching handbag. She looked like a princess, with her hair piled up on her head in a French roll. All done up she looked so different to the Susan Dad drove to work. Doug and I just looked at her with our mouths open.

"You two catchin' flies again?" Nan directed at Doug and me. Susan smiled.

"Oh hi," Doug said in passing, feigning disinterest.

"Look at you. Pretty as a picture in that dress," Nan gushed.

"Beautiful," I added. Doug felt so too, I knew, but he wasn't about to reveal his emotions.

"You certainly are," smiled Dad.

"This old thing? Bought it ages ago for a dance at the Sydney Trocadero."

"Well it's lovely. Really suits you that colour. Now you two head off, I'll see these two villains get to bed at the right time," offered Nan. Dad got his car keys and was about to leave.

"It's such a lovely night, let's walk," Susan suggested. Doug and I waved them off from the verandah.

"Dad's got a girlfriend, ewwh," I whispered to Doug.

"Ewwh, yerself," he mimicked before hitting me hard on the arm and running inside, leaving the screen door to slam. I ran after him and was close enough to give him a kick up the bum when Nan yelled out.

"You two aren't too old for me ta get out the wooden spoon to in a minute. And stop bangin' that bleedin' door." We both laughed, but not so that she could hear us, because we knew by now it was an empty threat. We wrestled in our room instead. The rule was, if your shoulders got pinned to the floor you were 'held'. The winner was the one who successfully held the other to a count of three, two times out of three. We got to one each, and then Doug won the last. He pinned my shoulders to the ground with his knees as he sat on my chest. Then he leaned forward and held my head on either side with his hands so that I couldn't move. While in this position, he worked up this big gob and let it just ooze out of his mouth. I closed my mouth and eyes as tight as I could as it stretched to its limit before splattering on my face. I was mad, but didn't let on. I just wiped my face on my shirt and plotted my revenge.

I waited until he was asleep then crept to the side of his bed, pulled down the back of my pyjama pants and dropped a big smelly fart before jumping back into my bed, looking like I was asleep, but with my eyes all squinted up to see. It was loud and foul smelling enough to wake Doug up. He sat up all groggy and half asleep, then collapsed back onto his pillow. I kept my hand pressed over my mouth to muffle a laugh.

I was still awake when Dad got home from the dance and wandered into his room.

"What are you doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep." I sat on the bed while he got changed. "Did you have tea at Shen's?"

"No, we went to La Roma and had pizza and spaghetti instead."

"Is she a good dancer?"

"Very good. And a lovely person as well."

"You gonna marry her?"

"Hey hold on matey, we've only just had dinner and a dance – that's all."

"You like her better than our mother?" Dad finished putting on his pyjamas then sat on the bed next to me, placing an arm around my shoulder.

"Susan is very different to your mother. There was a time when your mother and I first met, well, we were very much in love. We got married, and had you two boys, out of that love. But sometimes, people don't always stay in love. And that's why they get a divorce."

"They're not wedlocked any more. Can they marry someone else?"

"Legally, yes. If they wish."

"I'll always love you and Nan."

"And I'll always love you," he said in his soft reassuring voice.

"Dad, can I sleep in your bed tonight?" For a second, it looked like he was going to tell me I was too old for that and to go back to my own bed.

"Sure, hop in." He turned out the bedside lamp and I snuggled up to him.

"Doug won't let me get in with him anymore."

"Well, I guess he doesn't need a cuddle as much as me these days." We lay there for a few minutes as I got up the courage to ask what was on my mind.

"How did you and ...?" The word 'Mum' wouldn't leave my lips.

"Your mother?"

"How did you meet? At a dance like Nan and Poppie?"

"No." He took a deep breath. A moment passed. "Well, I'd just got back from the War …" I could feel he was finding it hard to talk about these things, but I wanted to know. He paused again to compose himself then continued.

"I wasn't in good shape I guess. Not for years. Not injured or anything, but some of the things you see in battle never really leave you and –"

"Like your friend Girra dying."

"Yes. And other things. Anyway when I got back to Sydney, I just felt I couldn't come back to Poppie's motor shop. So I decided to take up a scholarship I'd won before and go to university. Your mother worked as a barmaid at the pub nearby. We hit it off and one thing led to another and we got married. Then after a year, you two came along."

"Does everybody have to get married, 'cause Doug says he's never going to, and never going to have children, neither?" Dad stayed quiet for a while.

"Well, it's a long ways off yet. He might change his mind."

"Miss Kitty and Miss Bridget aren't married."

"Not everyone gets married. Not everyone meets someone they want to marry."

"If Miss Kitty didn't have that mark on her face, do you think she might have got married and had kids?"

"Even with that mark, Miss Kitty is beautiful – on the inside as well. People tend to only see the outside and make a judgement, never taking the time to learn how the person really is – on the inside. If people had've done that with Miss Kitty, she would most certainly have met someone and married, I'm sure."

"I like her, she's nice." I paused in thought. "Why didn't Miss Bridget get married then?"

"Aren't you full of questions. Well, from what I understand, she was engaged once, but her fiancé died in a farm accident. Some people never get over the loss of a loved one."

"Nan still misses Poppie. She told me."

"She'll never forget Poppie, just like all of us. But don't worry, your Nan's strong. She believes in just getting on with it. And she's right. Now, you still want to stay here with me tonight, or feel you could go back to your own bed?"

"I'd like to stay here in the big bed."

"Alright, but get some sleep. Goodnight, son."

"Goodnight Dad. I love you."

"I love you too, mate." He kissed my forehead. I fell easily asleep tucked under his arm.

I seemed to spend more and more time with Johnny. It became so I'd rarely see Doug after school or most of the weekend. He was usually off riding his bike by himself or else playing games with Barry. He started to withdraw into himself. I'd only really see him around mealtimes.

Johnny would take me, and sometimes Snotty and Raymond or Shen, off into the bush and show us all these things only an Aborigine would know. Things like which berries and parts of plants you could eat, how to start a fire and eating ants and witchetty grubs he'd dig up from under the ground. The grubs were like large white caterpillars with yellowy heads. Johnny rolled them in the hot ashes of the fire to cook them. About three quarters of an inch thick and three inches long, they tasted like eggs and at other times like fish or mussels – once you got the nerve to chew them. Snotty spewed his up, but Raymond and I managed to keep ours down. I'd never seen let alone tasted anything like it before.

"Imagine the mess they'd make if a heap of 'em got loose in Nan's veggie patch," I wondered.

"Nah. They live underground. They mustn't like the taste of vegies either, like me," Snotty said with a grin followed by a wipe of his snotty nose on his bear arm.

When we went with Johnny, we'd all wait until we were out of sight then take off our shoes and socks and hide them somewhere, only to put them back on when we were going back home. It felt great, the dried grass crackling under our feet and the warmth of the red earth between our toes.

He even showed us how to catch and cook fish, using a spear. The creek was flowing enough to have fish in it, and on different days we took turns to try and spear a fish. Johnny could do it in one go, but us boys took ages to catch even the smallest ones. Then we'd cook them on a fire. Johnny showed us how to start one using a stick you spin between your hands while its point rested on a piece of wood. The friction would start a smoulder, which when dried leaves and bark from the paper bark tree were placed on top, turned to smoke then flame. Raymond reckoned it'd be quicker using the lenses in his glasses and the rays of the sun but the rest of us liked the traditional way.

I felt like a real Aboriginal bushman, cooking the fish I caught, on a stick, in the flames of a fire I helped make. Doug couldn't do that. I tried to tell him about our adventures, especially the eating of the witchetty grub and making the fire. He wasn't that interested, so I just left it.

Another time, while Doug was off somewhere with Barry I got Nan's permission to go with Johnny all day. He told us he was going to show us something exciting. He led Raymond, Snotty, Shen and me off along the creek bank where we met up with a couple of his Aboriginal mates tending a fire over an open pit. Beside them was a dead kangaroo with a single spear hole in its neck. We all stripped down to our shorts and went barefoot like Johnny and his mob and sat there spellbound as Johnny helped with the methodical ritual of preparing the animal for eating.

First the fur was singed off in the flames. When the carcass started to swell, the kangaroo was then gutted. They did this by cutting a hole in the skin on the gut, taking all the innards out then cutting the abdomen open and cleaning it with water from the creek. The sight of all the insides being pulled out made me a bit squeamish at first, but it passed.

Then Johnny got a hard stick and used it like a big skewer to stitch the skin together. The tail and feet were then removed and placed with the kangaroo carcass onto the hot coals in the pit. More coals were placed on top and the whole thing covered over with soil.

While the kangaroo cooked we all just mucked around in the creek before ripping off some bark from the paperbark trees and taking it back to the fire. Johnny and his mates uncovered and removed the cooked kangaroo with sticks. Using the paperbark as mats Johnny proceeded to cut the animal up. Snotty and Raymond couldn't even bear to watch. Shen was alright with it though.

Once dissected, we all chose a cut and started eating. It was underdone to my liking but still tasted great, like really strong flavoured mutton or venison. We washed it all down with a cup of strong black tea and flat flour and water johnnycakes cooked in the ashes of the fire. After we'd eaten his mates started practising their dancing for a big ceremony that was coming up for them. They danced around imitating various animals, stirring up the dust as they stomped about. Us boys were enthralled and clapped along to the beat of their feet on the ground. The remainder of the kangaroo was wrapped up and taken back by Johnny's mates to feed the rest of their mob.

All dressed again and on our way home, the four of us told Johnny that the day was the biggest adventure we had ever been on. He looked pretty chuffed with himself. Dad and Nan were impressed as well. Nan said she'd often had kangaroo tail soup when they had the farm. Doug listened but didn't seem to care one way or the other.

In bed that night waiting for sleep, I decided I'd had enough of Doug and his moods. I got up and went over to him. I asked him straight out,

"Doug, what's up? You never want to hang 'round with Johnny and me. Why?"

"What's the use? Ya start to like someone and then they're taken from ya. An' yer left to get over it."

"Johnny's not like our mother. He's here to stay," I offered, touching him gently on the back with my hand. Doug turned, punched me in the abdomen then got up and went over to the window and out, to seek solace on our platform in the jacaranda tree.

"Shut up! She's nothin' to me," he yelled as he went.

"Just let him be for the time being," Dad said, sticking his head around the door. He must have heard us talking as he passed our open door.

Doug, in time, resumed a type of friendship with Johnny and would come away with us every now and then, but there was always an emotional distance between them. It would apply to the girls he would meet later on as well. Things would be going well between them until they wanted a serious commitment. Doug would never again risk his heart to another. Sad, but that was Doug and Doug's decision.

In the playground that Monday morning before school Steve overheard me telling some mates the news of our adventures with Johnny. He yelled out to me, just to impress his mates.

"We'd all be better off if he hadda carked it. One less boong." Then he laughed.

What he said was disgusting and cruel. I started towards him. My blood was on the rise. I could feel my face going red with rage. We stood there toe to toe. My legs were shaking as I waited for him to start it and throw the first punch, so that I could block it then fire off a punch myself. I wasn't any prize fighter, but by now, I thought I could get in a solid punch or two. I stared as menacingly as I could into his face.

He was sporting the remains of a black eye. I remembered Nan saying about the apple not falling far from the tree and thinking that Steve was just like his dad, all angry and ugly inside – and that was sad really. His dad could've given him that black eye I speculated. I wondered what it must be like for Steve and his mum, living with his dad.

Something happened as I looked him in the eye. My hatred toward him vanished. Somehow I felt … sorry for Steve.

A self-conscious almost wavering look came over his face. He must've sensed what I was thinking. Then not wanting to show any sign of weakness in front of his gang, quickly changed his expression back to a scowl before stepping out of my face and calling to his mates.

"Come on, let's go," and he just walked away. I turned to find Doug and Snotty were right behind me, to back me up. Doug placed his hand on my shoulder as if to say, 'Good on ya' and that we were still mates – mates, twins, but different. And that was okay too.