Spinner (2 page)

They were all in on the joke except Eddie, who could not figure out what was going on. There was clearly some trick.

Bob set his field. It was most unorthodox for a game of tip and run. There was a wicketkeeper, and fly, two slips, two leg glances, two silly mid-ons and two silly mid-offs. David was the only fieldsman more than two paces in front of the batsman.

David stood, spinning the ball from his right hand into his left. He'd then put it back in his right hand and do it again.

Bob finally looked at David properly, eye to eye and really looking. ‘You happy with that field?'

David nodded.

Eddie looked at David and then around. ‘I'm gunna clobber you blokes.'

Jimmy said, ‘No, you gunna get out.'

Bob said, ‘I'll tell you what, Eddie, if you can hit David over the fence, you don't have to buy a beer all night.'

‘You're on.'

Eddie took guard, and David walked in to bowl. The ball didn't come out of David's hand very fast. It seemed to float. But just as Eddie took his two steps down the wicket to smash the delivery to the boundary, the ball dipped in the air, and when it hit the rough flax weave of the pitch, it spun left. It didn't spin a lot but just enough to evade the swinging bat. Eddie staggered forward then twisted to look back at the wicketkeeper who held the cricket ball. He smiled at Eddie then pushed the ball into the wickets.

‘You're out, stumped,' yelled Fred gleefully.

‘Time for the pub,' said Bob Pringle already heading
towards the horses.

‘It was a lucky ball,' exclaimed Eddie. He looked up at David. ‘Give me another.'

David nodded eagerly. ‘All right.'

‘Rack off, Donald. You got your bowl,' said Jimmy, gathering up the stumps and heading after the others.

Eddie ruffled David's head. ‘Lucky ball kid, but Bob couldn't try that trick twice.'

‘It wasn't a lucky ball,' said David.

Eddie had already gone.

‘It was the right ball at the right time to the right batsman. And it went how I wanted it to, so it wasn't luck,' said David to the empty pitch.

‘It was great, David. You got him,' said Nell, coming up. ‘You got that fellow out.'

It was like David woke from the dream of bowling to the older youth. The sky was darkening and it was ten miles to home.

‘I better go.'

David headed for his bike, and replayed the ball as he rode home. He had some difficulty steering because of the bent handlebar. He thought he could have got Eddie out with a completely different ball. That one had beaten Eddie in flight, but had spun away, just enough for the stumping. David could have spun it less, he thought, and drawn the edge of the bat, but you could never be sure if a batsman would be good enough to get a nick, and as for catching, David knew the youths of Dungarin were not very good fieldsmen.

There were a lot of parts to the leaving of a day. There was late afternoon, when the sun finally stopped burning. Then
there was the golden time. And then sunset, as it went down and sometimes turned the sky into pinks and purples all mixed with light and shade. Then came dusk. Even dusk had parts to it. When the sun first went down, there still seemed to be light, all around on the things of the ground, just dimmer than the day. Things would start to look grey. Then, after that, everything on earth would go dark, with the land, and the buildings and trees and windmills all black. But the sky stayed lit for quite some time. And it would still be warm for a while. After that, finally, after all the parts of the sun going, it was night and the sky went dark too. Just after that the world would snap into its black coldness and you'd give a shiver. Then the stars came out, and they covered the sky with their dots of light, like a grapevine over a trellis bursting with fruit everywhere you looked until you felt it was close enough to pluck one, and pop the star into your mouth.

The ground was grey but the sky still light when David got home. Jess barked at his approach until he hushed her.

‘Grandad,' he yelled, ‘they let me bowl, and I got this fellow, Eddie, from the city. One ball and I took his wicket. Out stumped.' David stopped.

His grandad was looking at the bike handlebars. ‘How long have you been gone.'

It was a statement not a question. David tried to remember, and he tried to remember whether there was an actual time that had been agreed on for his return.

‘What happened to your bike?'

‘Um, I ... a horse,' said David, ‘oh, and I've got the cricket score. Terrible news Grandad.'

‘Where's the new shaft bolt?'

‘Shaft bolt?' David grabbed for his pocket, feeling the old bent bolt, safe but not new.

The old man stood looking at him.

‘I'm sorry, Grandad. I forgot.' He brightened. ‘I'll get it tomorrow, before school.'

‘No.' Grandad was shaking his head. ‘You said you'd get it. Get it now.' He turned and walked back inside. The back door led right into the kitchen. David could smell dinner. It smelled cooked. ‘But Westralian will be shut.' The door closed.

David looked around. The farm was dark now but the sky still grey. It was time to have his dinner, then to practise his bowling by the tool shed. ‘But Mr Pringle will have gone home.'

He got back onto his wobbly bike and cycled towards town. The back of his head hurt and he was hungry but soon he stopped thinking about that and started to think again about how he'd bowled out Eddie from the city. Stumped.

The Westralian Farmers was closed. David rattled on the window by the front door, but knew it was useless. He looked across the street where he could hear a piano at the Railway Hotel and some laughter. David stood outside Westralian Farmers trying to work out what to do. Mr Pringle would not be in the hotel so late on a Sunday. Only the youths from the oval would be there. And Old Jack. Old Jack was always there.

David went on to the other end of town to Mr Pringle's house. The Pringles had mowed grass and roses and a carriageway that had been covered in gravel and turned into a neat track for their motor car. David went around to the back door and knocked. Nothing happened, so he knocked again more loudly.

Mrs Doolan opened the door. Mrs Doolan did some cooking for the Pringles, and looked like she did some eating too. ‘David Donald, what is it? What's wrong?'

‘Can I see Mr Pringle please?'

‘Is your grandfather all right? Has there been an accident?'

‘No. He's good. I'm here to buy a bolt for our plough trace.' David pulled the bent bolt from his pocket and held it forward into the light of the kitchen.

Mrs Doolan's face changed. ‘At half past seven on a
Sunday evening?'

‘Yes,' said David. He supposed the time must be half past seven.

Mrs Doolan shook her head patiently, which meant she was having trouble being patient with him. She lowered her voice. ‘David, you can't go bothering people this late in their homes. Go to the store tomorrow, before school.'

‘That's what I said to Grandad, Mrs Doolan, but he said now.' David went on quickly so he could explain that it wasn't as odd as it sounded, and not his grandfather's fault, but very fairly thought out. ‘I should have got it this afternoon, but I forgot, so I have to get it now, because Grandad's making me responsible, instead of a dreamer, which, in the end, is mostly dangerous.'

David thought over what he'd just said, and was pretty happy with it as an accurate summary of his grandfather's view, but when he looked at Mrs Doolan, she was shaking her head. Nonetheless, she did go in to the Pringles.

David saw her wiping her hands on her apron as she opened the other door of the kitchen. He could see in, past the hall and into the dining room. The Pringles were eating dinner. It smelled like roast chicken. And pumpkin. He could see two of the Pringle children sitting at the table, but not anyone else. They looked to where Mrs Doolan had gone, then suddenly turned and looked towards David, who looked at his boots, which were dusty.

Mrs Doolan returned to the back door. ‘Just as I thought, David. It's much better if you go to the store tomorrow before school. These people are having their dinner, child.'

David shook his head.

‘How would it be if Mr Pringle had to open up his store at all hours whenever people felt like it? He's the bank
manager. He's the mayor. The poor man would get no sleep at all. Now you can stop being so selfish and go home and explain to your grandfather that Mr Pringle said no. All right? And, look, here's an apple for you. To eat on the way home.' Mrs Doolan took an apple from the sink and gave it to David. She closed the back door.

David spun the apple up in a nice arc in the air and caught it in his left hand. He tossed it over to his right and repeated the process. It smelled good. He ate the apple, first in big bites, but in the end, nibbling along the core and around the pips. When he finished, only pips were left. He knocked on the back door of the Pringle house.

When Mrs Doolan opened the door, he offered her the pips. ‘Thank you, Mrs Doolan, for the apple. I know it's not fair on Mr Pringle and I'll say sorry, but I have to get the bolt.'

Mrs Doolan took the pips. Her lips went tight, as though she were sucking at a sore tooth. She didn't say anything this time but just went to the other door and opened it and went through to the dining room again. This time Diane Pringle, who was David's age, looked straight at him before he could look away. She looked with hatred.

Mrs Pringle came to the back door. David didn't like Mrs Pringle. She always sounded too nice. She often gave David barley sugar when he was in the shop, for no reason and no charge. She always smelled of flowers and honey. He'd get tongue-tied around her, and never be able to answer her questions, which were about how he was doing at school or what he'd had for lunch. Mrs Pringle was always so very nice and all the other Pringles were so very mean.

But that wasn't why David didn't like to talk to Mrs Pringle. It was the look he'd catch, just at the edges of her
niceness. She looked sad. Seeing David made Mrs Pringle feel sad, and seeing Mrs Pringle made David feel sad, in spite of all the barley sugar. Mrs Pringle had been a friend of David's mother.

‘Good evening, Mrs Pringle,' said David.

‘Hello, David. This horse thingie. If we go down to the store, will you know what it looks like?'

‘Yes, Mrs Pringle.' David stood, aghast, as he watched Mrs Pringle get a shawl and light a lantern and take a big key from a hook by the back door. The whole while, he moved from foot to foot, and all he could manage to say, in all that time was, ‘You.'

‘And why not me?' said Mrs Pringle. ‘I think I can unlock a door. And the rest of my family seem too worn out by their luxurious Sunday to manage it. What do you think?'

David didn't know what to think. He thought she shouldn't. He thought she spoke in a funny way, that wasn't poetry or anything like that, but that had a little music to it.

‘Come on then,' she said, as she led the way around to the front of the house, the lamp lighting up a circle of roses, then the front fence, as David grabbed up his bike and wheeled it after her, not saying a word, and hoping that she wouldn't say anything either. But she did. As they walked down the main street of Dungarin, with the lamplight moving out ahead of them like a tide, Mrs Pringle told a story.

‘I'm from Carlton. Carlton is part of the city of Melbourne which makes even Perth seem small. So when I first came to Dungarin, as the young bride of the oldest son of a gentleman farmer named Mr Reginald Edward Pringle, I was all at sea. Well, all at sea, but all at desert really, and I didn't know how I would cope, as I knew nothing about
farming, and nothing about country folk, and I had very little I could share in the way of my interests or the interests of others. Then I met your mother.'

Mrs Pringle looked at David to see if he was listening. Of course he was. He was holding his breath he was listening so hard. He was caught between wanting to hear with all his heart and not wanting to hear another word. But he was locked in the light of the lamp. It was beyond his power to leave the centre of the circle of light that was held by Mrs Pringle.

‘And, in spite of her growing up on your farm we found common ground. She'd been down to Perth with your grandfather, you see, on his cricket duties, and became quite the belle. There are a lot of dinners and dances and social occasions surrounding cricket, apparently.'

‘That's where she met my father.'

‘Yes,' said Mrs Pringle flatly as though David were spoiling something. Then she smiled again, continuing with her remembering. ‘Mary loved to dance. She loved music and she loved dancing, and so did I. And she loved to laugh.'

Mrs Pringle went quiet for some moments as she smiled. ‘You know, she was a good listener, I think. I had stories from things in Melbourne and parties and anecdotes, as one does, and she, your mother, would drink them in, and laugh in exactly all the right places. She was a joy to talk to you know.'

David nodded. He didn't know, because he could not remember her in any real way. He'd been too young.

They'd reached the store. Mrs Pringle handed David the lamp and unlocked the door.

David's mother was not an actual memory because she'd died when he was three. His mother was a scatter of ideas,
and left over objects and some photographs. She was stories, like the one Mrs Pringle was telling; stories about incidents, like the ones Grandad told, although all of his were of his daughter as a child. So David's concept of his own dead mother was more about someone his own age, like a ghost sister, rather than a mother.

Mrs Pringle pushed open the door of the store, took back the lantern and stepped in. The light made lumps turn into tools, and grain sacks, and hardware, with long shadows reaching greedily as she swept the light around the store.

She stood silent, lost in thought, so David took the bolt from his pocket and went to where hostelry items were kept. There were smaller boxes kept on a shelf there and David held up the bolt, as he went from box to box until he found the matching size.

Mrs Pringle started talking again. ‘Even after she met your father, we were still friends. Even after he went away. After you were born. David ... I ... I never knew that she...'

‘I've got it,' said David, edging towards the door. He didn't want any more. Not too much all at once. Mrs Pringle had a tear dribbling down her cheek. It was shiny in the lantern light.

‘I wanted to tell you ... I wanted to explain...'

‘Please don't, Mrs Pringle.'

‘What?' Mrs Pringle looked at him where he retreated to the door.

‘Please don't explain. It's making you sad. And I'm not. They were gone before I can remember, so I guess I don't know any better.'

Mrs Pringle looked at him deeply, and it made David look down at the bolt in his hand. ‘The bolt was a ha'penny.'

‘What?'

‘The bolt, when you write it down on our account. It was a ha'penny.'

‘Good night, David.'

‘Good night, Mrs Pringle.'

David backed out fast. He put the new bolt in his shirt pocket and grabbed up his bike and cycled away from her as fast as he could. When he looked back over his shoulder she was still in the store.

Mrs Pringle made him feel like fainting, he decided. Like fainting, but you don't fall over, but you feel like it, and you can only just breathe, and you've nearly got a headache, but you haven't fallen all the way over yet.

People never seemed to be able to leave David alone. Some had to practise patience on him. Others teased. Some just looked away. He used to think it was because he was an orphan. They were wondering about his bad luck. Then he started to think it was because he was such a dreamer, and didn't seem to understand lots of things that were obvious to others. But this talk with Mrs Pringle had him convinced he was going to die. He was going to die of consumption like a returned soldier, and everyone knew it except David, and only Mrs Pringle wanted to tell him the bad news.

A mile out of town, David had to get off the bike and wheel it because it was so dark he couldn't see the road.