Four Fires (90 page)

'Two blokes come out of a tent and come down to the water.

They're both six-footers and healthy as sin. One's a sergeant and the other a lance corporal, don't know why I remember that. The first words the sergeant says are, "Christ, look what the cat brought in!" Then him and his mate and the first bloke we saw are running, they're splashing up
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to their waists in the water, coming for me, pulling the canoe into shore. The sergeant lifts me out like I'm a small child, later I find I weigh sixty-eight pounds, and I'm shaking like a leaf from malaria.

'The lance corporal who is splashing through the water beside me is saying, "She's right, mate.

It's all over. You're going home." I can't make no sound, but there's tears running out me eyes, the good one and the bad. The big bloke carrying me keeps saying, "The bastards, the dirty, fucking bastards! Look what they've done to you, digger!" I can't believe it, he's crying. He's crying over me, Tommy Maloney.'

Don't know about them, but I'm crying again as well. I must have let a sob go or something because he looks up, Ah, mate, it was all a long, long time ago.' He looks up into the giant Ash.

'In the history of this tree it ain't nothing, things go on.'The white bark of the Alpine Ash can be seen clearly, even in the dark of night. 'There's not many like it,'Tommy says, trying to change the subject and calm me down. 'Most Alpine Ash have got the tough fibrous black-gum bark we seen on the spur, not too many like this old fella, white, smooth all the way up to the top.'

But then he goes on. 'They do the best they can for me at the camp, but they've only got a medical orderly and he gives me morphine for the pain, quinine for me malaria, pills for the dysentery and fixes the sling and dresses me eye. Funny that, first meal they bring a plate of food, best tucker I've seen since leavin' home. I smell it and I throw up. Just the smell is too rich for me stomach. Some weak tea and them plain digestive biscuits, it's all I can take, with a bit of banana and tapioca, which they get from a nearby village.

After two days they take me out to sea and a seaplane flies me out to a Yank aircraft carrier that's anchored off the coast. They've got a hospital on board and I'm took good care of, like I'm a hero, the Yank sailors saluting me and calling me "Sir!" When they reckon I'm strong enough, they fly me to the Philippines and eventually to Darwin and, later, home to the repatriation hospital.'Tommy stops briefly. 'Of the

1793 Australians who remained at the workers' paradise all but six of us are dead, the six of us that escaped. Counting the Brits, there's 1381 died at Sandakan and 1047 on the death marches, at Ranau and on the rice-carrying track to Paginatan.'

Tommy looks over at me, 'That's it, mate, that's the story of me war. It's near dawn, Mole, forget them possums, we'll find something later, reckon we should both kip down a bit, maybe sleep until well after sunup, eh?'

I nod, then I say, 'Thanks, Dad. Thank you for telling me.'

Tommy's silent a moment. 'Yer know, Mole, it's you done me the favour. I've never told nobody the story, except a bit as testimony at the War Crimes. I've never told nothing about how me mates died. Couldn't face it. Couldn't face the shame of it.'

'There's no shame, Dad. You did the right thing for yer mates. I hope I'd have done the same.'

Tommy doesn't reply. Just digs down into his sleeping bag and pulls the zip up, lies down and turns away from me. 'Sleep well, Mole, no point in hurrying home, mate. Few hours won't make no difference, yer mum's gunna go ape-shit anyway.'

I get up and put the last of the wood on the fire and get back into my sleeping bag. It's always cold that time of the morning, an hour or so before dawn. My head is spinning, but I'm also exhausted, glad there'll be a bit of a sleep-in. Eventually I fall asleep crying for my old man, who isn't really my dad but is and always will be. I'm proud to be a Maloney, proud to be a part of Tommy.

I wake up suddenly, like you do in the bush. The sun is high, though I can't see it properly through the trees, I know it's late, maybe ten o'clock. I lie there a moment, stretching in me sleeping bag, working my arms out, yawning. I think, should I make Tommy the last of the tea, there's no tucker to give him? I turn to where Tommy is, but he ain't there. His kitbag is there and I can see the groundsheet strapped to the bottom, the sleeping bag will be packed inside its cover. My rifle is also gone. He's gone to find some breakfast, I think. Tommy's much better
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than me at tracking possums, he'll find where they have their lair. Only needs to look up into a tree trunk or hollow log and knows they're there.

I climb out of me sleeping bag. The fire is dead but the ashes are still warm, a tiny wisp of smoke curls up. I'll make another fire so when he gets back we can have a brew. I've decided to use the last of the tea and cook whatever he's brought for breakfast.

I walk towards the big tree to start gathering wood. Then I see that into its smooth white bark Tommy has carved a list of names. It's been done careful, the names cut real deep, past the bark into the wood fibre, each about six inches high so they'll stay put and scar over permanent. He must have waited until I was asleep and somehow taken the torch or waited for first light and done the names. There's eight in all.

blades rigby troppo smith froggy marsh curly francis

dunno watt

richie murray

albert cleary

wally crease

1942-1945

R.I.P.

Tommy has remembered the names of his mates and carved them into the roots of heaven.

I laugh, pleased as punch. Tommy's got over something very important in his mind. I feel a bit proud that I've been a part of it.

think he'll be back at any moment so I can tell him how happy I am.

I build up the fire meanwhile, boil the billy. I'm expecting to hear a shot when he gets a ringtail.

Or maybe he'll just find the possums asleep in a hole in the hollow of a tree, they're pretty dozy in the day,

678 bryce courtenay

and he'll grab a couple and wring their necks, save the bullet. He won't want a ranger coming after us. Mount Buffalo is a national park, we're not supposed to use firearms except for rabbits and foxes, even then

you need permission.

I fetch water from the creek and put the billy on. I'm dead proud of Tommy carving those names in the tree. Normally I'd think it was wrong, but not this time. This time it's right. It's a Maloney thing that's had to be done. I wonder to myself if it will be a part of him getting better.

If things will be different when we get back home, now he's got all the shit off his liver. All that stuff he's been living with, the terrible

guilt he's felt and told no one.

I wait another hour, it must be near eleven o'clock and Tommy ain't back. That don't make sense, he'd have wanted to get going by now, he'd never leave it this late. Something's happened.

He's fallen or something, knocked himself out. Maybe tried to climb up a tree with his crook shoulder, he can do it too, I've seen him lots of times. It's not a long gorge we're in and I start to look. But I soon see that the undergrowth hasn't been disturbed, twigs ain't broken, the daisy musk bushes and blanket leaf haven't been pushed aside. Then I go towards the way we came in.

I soon see Tommy's gone out this way, I even pick up his tracks one place. I follow until I'm out of the gorge and I can see where he's started to climb back up the mountain.

So I go back to the camp site and put out the fire and I'm ready to leave and go over to get Tommy's knapsack. I can't understand why he's left it behind. It doesn't make sense. Him taking the rifle and leaving without me don't make sense either.

Then, sticking out of the top of the knapsack, I see this piece of paper. It's from one of those small spiral notepads people keep in their shirt pockets, I can see the paper even before I open it, the torn, ragged holes on one edge. I open the note and in pencil Tommy's written:
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Dear Mole,

I have gone under the wire, mate.

Look after the Maloney tree.

I am sorry what I done to you all.

I love you kids and Nancy. Tommy Maloney (Cpl.) 2/19th Btn, 8th Div. AlF

I think my heart is going to stop. Then that it's going to jump out of my chest. I think, I ain't heard a shot, even a .22 you'd hear it all over the mountain. I've seen his footsteps out, I can catch him. Tommy's had no sleep, he doesn't climb fast with his bad shoulder, steady but not fast. It's a four, five-hour climb to the top and through the waterfall and the tunnel out onto the spur. I know what he's done, he wants to get clear of the tree, keep the Maloney secret. I convince myself I can

catch him.

Now I've got a plan, I'm a bit more calm. 'I haven't heard a shot, I haven't heard a shot, I haven't heard a shot,' I keep repeating in my head. Tommy's still on the mountain, still not dead. I put on my knapsack and start moving out. Then I begin to think more calmly, 'under the wire' that's the term the POWs used for escape. Maybe he's just going away, leaving us to get on with our lives.

He thinks he's created enough misery, it's time he got out of the way and let us grow up respectable.

I feel tremendous relief as I convince myself that's what it is. I'll find him, catch up, tell him we don't want him to go. Tell him he's as much a part of our family as anyone, it doesn't matter no more what he is, now we know why, the others will understand, even Mike.

I reckon I get up the mountain to the waterfall in about three and a half hours. If Tommy started an hour before me, even an hour and a half, then I can't be that far behind him. The spray from the fall splashes over me and then I wade through the pool and get down onto my hands and knees and enter the narrow tunnel. Soon it's pitch black and I can't hurry. I have to feel my way every few inches. I smash my knuckles and I think I've broke one finger and cut me head open again.

In the dark you can't tell time, I must have been in the tunnel half an hour. With Tommy and the torch it took an hour. I ain't going any faster than we did before. Maybe not even as fast. There's the sound of the water running over rock in my ears and there's my own breathing, nothing else.

Then a shot. It's faint, like it's far away, but maybe it isn't, sound travels outwards. Maybe not even a shot, a rock tumbling down the mountain.

There's nothing I can do. So I just keep going, but my heart is pumping, beating in my chest so hard I can't hardly breathe. Then I see a small dot of light and soon it grows larger and at last I squeeze into the little chamber at the entrance to the tunnel and I knock straight into Tommy. He falls face-down and all I can see is the back of his head which looks normal. I have to push at him to get past. Tommy! Tommy, you all right?' I'm crouched beside him, the little stream is damming up, blocked by his shoulder, then it starts to run over his shoulder. I roll him over.

He's put the barrel to his crook eye and pulled the trigger. He's done it first thing he's out and safely away from the Maloney tree.

chapter twenty-five

Nancy is just not the same since Tommy's death. Not quite her old self. That's the funny thing, you'd have thought with all the trouble he caused in her life, in ours as well, that she'd be better off with him gone. But now it seems she really loved him, little Tommy was loved by great big Nancy, which is something we'd never have guessed. But on the other hand she never turned him away. Bell Street was always his home, come what may. We always thought it was because she'd cheated on him during the war that she felt maybe guilty. That wasn't it at all, Tommy was her first love and stayed that way.

The other funny thing was that she even seemed to miss being looked down on by those who
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would see Tommy drunk in the streets or with the other alkies down by Lake Sambell or working in a prison work party. 'With you lot all grown up except for little Colleen and Tommy gone there's nothing to hang on to,' she said shortly after the funeral She must have temporarily forgotten about Father Crosby because he was still there large as life.

The news of Tommy's suicide brought him riding down to Bell Street pedalling his Malvern Star fast as his fat gut could carry him. And what a stoush that turned out to be. Him shaking his head, getting even redder in the face. 'Nancy Maloney, your husband has committed a mortal sin taking his own life, the Church cannot condone his behaviour!'

Then Father Crosby says in a not unkindly voice, 'Nancy Maloney, I'll tell you what I can do. I shall conduct a nice little Requiem Mass.' He looks happy with this decision, but adds, 'Mind, there'll be no body of the deceased present and we'll not be mentioning his name and we'll not be saying anything about how he came to lose his life.' He folds his hands across his belly, pleased with himself. 'Now that's the very best I can do, my girl.'

When she looks up, Nancy's eyes are fiery, the weepies gone. 'Let me understand you clearly, Father. You'll have a Requiem Mass for somebody who isn't there, who you can't name and are unable to mention how whoever it is has come about needing to have the Requiem Mass in the first place?'

'Well, yes, something like that. It's the best effort I can make, Nancy Maloney.'

'Well, you can go to buggery, Father!' Nancy yells, 'You and the Church, you're a bunch of bloody hypocrites! You're as bad as the Protestants!'

'Now that's blasphemy comparing the Holy Church to that lot of misbegotten heathens! You'll not be saying that, Nancy Maloney, or we'll be thinking excommunication!'

'I'll be saying a lot worse if you don't bugger off!' Nancy yells at him.

I reckon for a collapsed Catholic we've just seen the final collapse between Nancy and the Church. Father Crosby gets back on his bicycle and, even from the back as he's wobbling to gain traction, you can see he's real huffy. Nancy's finally gone too far.

Tommy's funeral was quite big, but, of course, he couldn't be buried on the Catholic side of the cemetery and in the family plot Tommy bought with Mr Baloney's inheritance. Nancy simply couldn't bring herself to bury him on the Protestant side so she managed to get Big Jack Donovan to find a compromise with the shire council.

The Chinese part of the cemetery still has the two old Chinese porcelain burning towers standing. There has always been a wide gap between the Catholic gravestones and the Chinese section, a good twenty yards or so. The Chinese came to the goldfields in the mid-nineteenth century and helped to build the town, but as the last family left in 1885, there wasn't going to be any problems here. So Tommy is buried in no man's land, between his own kind and the infidels. Nancy says, Td rather Tommy was mistaken for a Chinaman than a Protestant and at least he won't have to put up with Mr Baloney and Grandmother Charlotte's constant quarrelling all the dark hours through.'

By big funeral, I don't mean, like huge, not like John Crowe's and Whacka Morrissey's after the big fire, but a bigger one than we'd expected for a nobody in the town like Tommy. Nancy said it was the suicide caused that, all the stickybeaks came to take a ghoulish delight in a Maloney tragedy. 'Don't know what the nosyparkers expected to see, one coffin's much the same as the next. He wasn't the Pope put out on display!' she said.

But the twin aunties were on display, brought out of the loony bin for the funeral. I'm not sure they knew what was happening but they liked the flowers a lot. Nancy said, That'll show people the Maloneys aren't through with being themselves in this town.'Though after the last episode, when Auntie Gwen escaped and walked down King Street in the nuddy saying her rosary, I was a bit nervous having them around. It turned out they were nice as pie and at the wake afterwards
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they sat out the back of the pub and drank four lemonades and ate three chops each. Both exactly the same, they even had tomato sauce spilt on the same place on the front of the floral summer dresses Nancy made for the occasion.

Nancy's still pretty bitter, because Catholic families have a right to keep suicides quiet and not even to tell the priest. 'They all come to gawk because of what that slag Vera Forbes wrote in the Gazette. But that isn't quite fair, among the mourners are a good few ex-crims and most came up to us afterwards and said Tommy was a good bloke, never ratted on anyone and kept his nose clean.

John Sullivan, the prison governor, attended and he came up and said it was always a pleasure having Tommy up the hill, that he was a model prisoner. Big Jack Donovan offered his commiserations and said that, underneath, Tommy was a good bloke and meant no harm and of all the petty crims he'd met, 'Believe me, Nancy, there's been a few and Tommy Maloney was the most likeable of them all and never whinged or made excuses for himself.'

Affidavit

I Tommy Maloney of me own free will have took me own life. I took me boys rifle and left the camp we was at. I have died at me own hand by shooting meself. I have had enuff. I am very sorry for what I done to the family and they will be well rid of me. That's all.

Yours truly, Tommy Maloney

Funny that, Tommy read so many books and remembered all the Latin names for trees and plants but he couldn't write properly. When I thought about it, I'd never seen him write anything in my whole life, not even a note. Vera 'Big Mouth Saggy Tits' Forbes got hold of the suicide note at the coroner's inquest and printed it on the front page of the Gazette. She said a few other things about Tommy, the worst being this: 'Tommy Maloney was a well-known character around town for reasons well known to most Yankalillee citizens where for years he has been associated with the town's garbage!'

Nancy said Saggy Tits might think she's clever, but ambiguity like that was just not on, that she was going after the slaggy bitch. I wouldn't want to be Vera the fearless reporter coming down King Street with Nancy approaching from the opposite direction. Nancy would bump her shoulder so hard, Vera's saggy tits would fly up like a helicopter's blades and wrap around her neck and strangle her to death.

But, what really upset Nancy was her printing Tommy's suicide note, showing all the bad spelling and grammar. 'The garbage crack is fair enough, Tommy was no angel and maybe in some eyes he was town trash, but showing him up like that with the note, that's going too bloody far!' she screamed.

I reckon Vera 'Big Mouth Saggy Tits' Forbes is right up there with Philip with one Templeton as public enemies one and two. In Nancy's terms that's 'Watch out, Mrs Forbes, you may be a Protestant but you're in a whole heap of trouble with the Catholic bitch!'

Nineteen sixty-one was a big year, not just because of Tommy's death, but lots of things happened to our family. The first was that after the funeral Mike announced that he was off to London. Nancy just can't understand this, he's been designing clothes in Melbourne and selling them and making good money, even sending some home.

What's more the Suckfizzle kids' label is growing in leaps and bounds and Sophie's turning out to be an astute businesswoman. With Mike designing the children's clothes from layette to teenybopper and Sophie supervising the factories making them, it's early times yet, but everyone can see they've got a big future. They don't owe any money to the bank and most of the factories will give them three months' credit because they realise Suckfizzle's got a future worth investing in. Nancy wants to know why, with so much going for him, Mike wants to throw it all away and go to London.

'Mum, I'm just another dressmaker here. Until I have London or Paris experience they'll never
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take me seriously.'

'But the young people are buying your clothes, they're taking you seriously?'

'That's not enough. I've got to show the fashion industry I know what I'm doing. That I'm not just a flash in the pan.' He looks earnestly at Nancy. 'Mum, they think I'm just a country bumpkin, the boy from the bush trying to show off by making a few silly dresses for the goofy teenagers dancing to Johnny O'Keefe on 'Six O'Clock Rock'. Besides, there really are lots of things I need to learn that I can't learn here.'

Nancy hates to lose her children, but Mike's been away from home almost as long as Sarah and she's now more used to not having him around. The first year he left for Melbourne she almost went into mourning. She missed all those afternoons they'd sit and do the layettes together, he was the closest to her, more than the rest of us, even Sarah. They'd yak on for hours like a couple of old hens.

Anyway, Mike's been independent for the last five years, so there's not much she can do. The money he sent home each week was important but now we don't need it so much, so even that's okay.

Mike has saved enough for his fare on the P & O ship and has enough to live on for a month when he gets to London. He's the first Maloney for a hundred and fifty years to leave Australia's shores without a rifle in his hand and army boots on his feet. He's going abroad to fight the rest of the world with a sketchbook. It's the big time or oblivion, that's always been Mike's way.

Then the next big thing that happens is Sarah becomes a doctor on Saturday, 16th December 1961. I forgot to say that Morrie had become a doctor for the second time the year before, winning the university medal for the most outstanding results. He gave it back and said it should be given to a first-time student. They took it back but they said he was going against the traditions of the university. Morrie then politely pointed out that he had been forced to do his medical examinations all over again. 'Now you give me this medal for what? I tell you for what I get this medal. It is for being za best student, for learning what you are teaching! Pffftl That is not right. You have given me this medal for teaching me what I already know before I come to the university. To take this David Grant Scholarship Medal for 1960, this is not fair dinkum. I want you should give it to a student who is learning something from you!'Then he said there were one or two things in the curriculum that he believed should be changed as they were no longer relevant to modern medicine. He offered to help, but his offer wasn't taken up, although they did give the medal to another student.

We all went down from Yankalillee to Sarah's graduation ceremony. Nancy Bozo, little Colleen and me, Mrs Barrington-Stone, Big Jack Donovan and Mrs Rika Ray.

Morrie, Sophie and Templeton, of course, were in Melbourne. The Age sent a photographer and a reporter and there was a picture of Sarah on the front page of the paper, wearing her cap and gown, with Templeton, who is five, standing next to her. The caption under the photograph says: Dr Sarah Maloney and five-year-old daughter, Templeton. The controversial 1956 first-year medical student graduates with top honours. See Page 3 for full story.

The story, which fills nearly half a page, reminds people of what happened back all those years ago and calls it a total vindication of her fight to be admitted as a pregnant student and that the whole thing is a triumph for commonsense and for women everywhere. Sarah says she doesn't think very much has changed and if someone pregnant turned up next year, she doubts the Professorial Board would be any different from the last time.

To tell you the truth, the ceremony was really a bit boring. All these professors marched into Wilson Hall wearing these long gowns and sat

up on the platform. Then Sir Arthur Dean, who's the chancellor, called us all to stand up and sing the National Anthem. Then after God had saved the Queen, we all sit down, and blocks of students in alphabetical order are called out to stand in line. They'd read out a name and a
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student would go to the podium and have their hands shook by the chancellor, who gave them their degree, which is rolled up and tied with a ribbon.

Then Sarah gets called back and it's announced that she's won the university medal for 1961, the medal Morrie gave up the year before. Morrie is so proud he bursts into tears. Nancy and Sophie are also crying buckets and so is Mrs Barrington-Stone, they're blubbing away, saying 'Oh dear' and blowing their noses and looking at each other and then bursting out all over again, Morrie going at it with the best of them.

When it's over, the professors march out, only in the reverse order to the way they came in. We all have to stand and watch them do this. That was it. I was expecting bands and singing and stuff like that. When the professors have all left the hall, we go over to Union House to have afternoon tea. If you ask my opinion it was a worse ceremony than prizegiving at the end of the year at school, because they didn't even have an end-of-year concert like we do.

But, of course, we were very happy. Mrs Rika Ray, who had a new gold sari specially made and was wearing her red boxing-gloves earrings, said, 'My goodness, our Doctor Sarah is getting the biggest bottoms-wiping certificate in the whole world and a medal also she is getting so we are very, very happy!'

Then she goes all teary and walks over and gives Templeton a big hug and practically kisses her to death and we all know why that is. If the abortion had worked, she and Templeton wouldn't have been there and she'd be Nancy's mortal enemy. Now Templeton and her are a part of our lives and we love them both heaps and so do Bozo's Bitzers which are now more hers than his.