Freedom Ride (20 page)

Mrs Gregory listened and tutted.

Barry sat stony-faced.

“Hell. I left the library book outside.”

“Someone will pick it up,” said Barry.

Mrs Gregory took a large tin from the cupboard above the stove and a bowl from beneath the sink. She turned on the hot water tap. While she waited for the water to warm up, she uncapped the Dettol and placed a brown bottle on the bench.

“Not Mercurochrome,” I groaned.

She shot me a look over her shoulder. “Mercurochrome or infection that rots your face off. Your choice.”

I sighed.

“Exactly.” She turned back to the sink and began breaking off pieces of cotton wool. “I won’t use much, Robbie.”

Mrs Gregory dabbed and cleaned, stepping back every few moments to inspect my face. “No need for a doctor.”

“Thank you.” I went to stand, but she glared.

“You aren’t going anywhere, young man. You will stay until I decide you’re well enough to leave.”

“I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

Barry chuckled. “Save your breath, Robbie. She’s decided.”

Mrs Gregory settled me in the easy chair in the corner of the kitchen, where, judging by the basket beside it, she knitted and mended. The only time she let me move was when I had to go to the toilet, which turned out to be quite often as she kept pouring me glasses of water and cups of tea. She also fed me the best melting moments and slices of apple teacake I’d tasted.

While I sat there like the king, dressed in an old T-shirt of Barry’s, Mrs Gregory washed my school shirt and mended the tear in the collar and under the arm. Barry worked outside.

Just after five I convinced them I was well enough to go home.

“Barry will drive you home. Explain to your grandmother,” said Mrs Gregory.

I shook my head and wished I hadn’t. The throbbing grew stronger. “I’ll be fine, honestly. I’ll tell her I fell off my bike, or that it happened while I was playing British Bulldog. She thinks I’m the clumsiest person alive. She’ll believe me.”

Mrs Gregory folded her arms and raised one eyebrow. “Hmmm.”

I shrugged. “Honestly, it’ll be okay.”

“What about those boys at school?” asked Barry.

“I don’t know.”

“You want my advice? Let it be,” said Barry. “That Wright boy is no different from his father. Only not as rat cunning.”

By the time I made it home, Dad had taken up his position at the end of the table. Nan was banging and thumping in the laundry. Something sizzled and popped in the oven. It didn’t smell like a roast. I sent up a string of silent prayers that it wasn’t the evil tomato and chop thing. On the kitchen bench, the radio rumbled.

“Hello, Dad,” I said, taking a glass from the cupboard.

Dad grunted from behind the paper.

Nan walked into the room holding a full washing basket. She placed it on the table and looked me up and down. “You can help me fold the sheets.”

“Sure, Nan.”

She scowled. “What happened to your face?”

“British Bulldog.”

Nan tutted. “Honestly, Robert, why must you engage in such rough activities?” She thrust a sheet at me. I took the corners and stepped back. “I hope you didn’t rip your shirt. I am heartily sick of mending your clothing.” She shook the sheet. The corners flew from my grip.

Dad lowered the paper. “Are you all right, Robbie?”

“Bit of a headache.”

“Perhaps I should phone Mr Foran,” said Nan. “Express my feelings about this British Bulldog game.”

“I’m sure the principal has bigger issues than British Bulldog, Nan.”

“Did you hit your head?” asked Dad, taking a drag of his cigarette.

I rubbed the side of my head. “Actually, I banged it pretty hard.” Since when was Dad concerned about me?

He tapped ash from the end of his cigarette. “If that headache isn’t better tomorrow, no school.”

Relief surged through me. I wouldn’t have to face Wright.

“That’s rash, Frank,” said Nan, holding the folded sheet to her chest.

“We’ll see how he is tomorrow,” said Dad. He lifted the paper again and groaned. “Those bloody students leave Sydney on Friday morning and will arrive in Walgaree Saturday. And they’re staying two nights,” said Dad. He shook his head.

“Two? A drive past the Crossing or the Tip and the trip is done if you ask me.”

I reached into the basket for a towel and folded it. It smelled of soap and sunshine and a hint of eucalyptus from the gum tree. It was easier to concentrate on the towel than what would happen when people discovered the students were staying at Barry’s.

Thursday, I told Dad my headache was still there and he let me stay home. The trade-off was I had to spend the day in bed. Even though it was hot, a breeze through the open window stopped me from melting away. And I finally finished
Catch-22
, though for the life of me I couldn’t work out what it all meant.

Friday, I stayed inside the library at recess and near the encyclopedias at lunch. I doubted Wright knew the reference area of the library existed.

After school, I went straight to the caravan park.

Barry looked up from the pile of paperwork spread across his desk and smiled. “Good timing, Robbie!” He placed the pen down and reached under the desk. “Your face looks better.”

I twisted my lips. “Feels better too. What about you? That eye isn’t as swollen.”

“I’m fine,” said Barry. He placed a pile of letters on the desk. “Would you mind posting these for me? I need to sort through these accounts before Mum and I see the accountant next week.”

“Everything okay?”

“Just a little tight with the cancelled bookings. It’ll be right.” He pushed his hair back from his bruised eye, which was now golden and purple. The eyelid was less puffy, but still closed. “You don’t mind going to the post office?”

“Not at all. Here to help.” I scooped up the letters. “Be back in ten minutes.”

“Oh,” said Barry, rummaging in the cash drawer. His lopsided grin spread across his face. “They all need stamps.” He held out a ten-shilling note. “Man, I’m lucky to have you around. Place has gone to the pack since you went back to school.”

The sky was bleak and the air steamy. It felt as though the world was stretched too tight and would rip apart at any moment.

I parked my bike in the lane and made my way to the post office stairs. Snippets of conversation from ladies clutching children to their hips and handbags to their ribs hit me like machine-gun fire.

“… stole a crate of grog from behind the pub. Thieving, black mongrels …”

“… demanded to be served. In the pub! In all my days …”

“… these students are just going to make them worse …”

Before I walked up the steps, I looked up and down the street. I swear there were fewer Aborigines around. Usually there’d be women holding packages, teenagers on the bench outside the general store, talking and laughing, and kids weaving between adults, hair wild and smiles wide. Not now. Not since Dwayne died.

The only Aborigines I’d seen so far were two men about Barry’s age, on the pub corner. There was no lightness or laughter in their stances or expressions.

Inside the post office, the air was still but cooler.

At the ancient wooden counter the postmaster, Mr Tayleur, served a schoolboy. Further along, Miss Smith, who looked older than the bench she stood behind, handed a woman with two children a bundle of letters. Miss Williams, Senior Constable Morphett’s fiancée, chatted with an older man.

I stood in the middle of the room, ready to fill the first vacant spot.

The schoolboy scooped up stamps and scampered out the door.

“Robbie, what can I do for you?” boomed Mr Tayleur. He had two volumes, loud and louder.

“Twelve stamps please.”

He pulled open the drawer, and counted stamps before ripping them from the sheet. “That reminds me,” he said, pushing the stamps across the counter. “There’s another of those packages for your father. I meant to drop it at the bank, but it’s been hectic today. Haven’t had a chance to eat.” He patted his solid paunch and waddled through the swing door.

While I waited, I pressed the stamps onto the damp sponge and stuck them to Barry’s mail.

Mr Tayleur returned, holding a package about the size of a biscuit tin, wrapped in brown paper and string. “There you go.” He placed the package beside the stack of now-stamped envelopes on the counter. “Tell your father I’ll see him at the RSL tonight.”

“I will.” I picked up the letters and the parcel. “Thanks, Mr Tayleur.”

On the post office verandah, I mailed the letters then headed towards Dad’s work. As I was about to cross the road, Mrs Dixon strutted into the bank. Dad could wait until later.

I tucked the package under my arm and rode back to the caravan park.

I left the parcel in Barry’s office and went to help him mend a broken bench in one of the on-site vans. According to Barry, the students would arrive in the afternoon, which gave us most of tomorrow to do the final bits and pieces.

“I’ll be here by ten,” I said, lugging an extra bin to the grassed area where Barry decided the tents would be pitched.

“Micky may be back tomorrow.”

My heart bumped like a moth against a window. Between Wright, the weirdness at home and the general fug that had enveloped me in the last couple of days, I hadn’t thought much about Micky.

“Robbie, I’m not sure how much you know about these things, but when Micky comes back, don’t mention Dwayne by name.”

“I won’t say anything stupid, or–”

“That’s not what I mean. It’s a custom, a cultural thing. Aboriginal people don’t say the names of their dead. They worry it will keep the person’s spirit trapped on earth.”

“Right.” I nodded, digesting this. Didn’t seem any stranger than a man dying then coming back to life three days later. Anyway, Nan was kind of the same. Once someone was dead, they weren’t spoken about again. Like Mum.

“Barry, about Dwayne. Do they know how …?”

Barry sighed. “Nothing new. Just that he was hit when he was leaving the Crossing.” Hands on his hips, he looked around the grassed area. “Reckon that will about do us for today.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Barry walked me to the office. When we reached my bike, he stopped. “The package for your dad.” He rushed back inside and collected it.

“See you tomorrow,” I said, taking it from him.

I rode home, wondering how I’d forgotten the parcel. But I knew. My mind was too crowded with Micky and Dwayne and Dad and his car and how the pieces didn’t slot together. Because I needed them not to fit.

It wasn’t until I arrived home and parked my bike that I paid any attention to Dad’s parcel. In the stifling garage I studied the thick brown paper and white string. I read the return address printed on the back.

SD Worthington

73 Riverside Road

Inverell

Inverell.

The town where Dad met Mum.

The town where I was born.

The town where Mum died.

Who would be sending Dad parcels from Inverell? As far as I knew, he didn’t keep in touch with anyone from there. And what had Mr Tayleur said? “Another of those packages.” Dad never received packages. I’d know if he did. He’d bring them home after work, or at the very least, leave them on the passenger seat of his car, like he did with most of the things.

I traced the word “Inverell”. My fingers tingled. I pulled my hand away as though the writing stung like nettles.

I knew I should take it inside for Dad. But I didn’t, couldn’t. I carried it to the bench at the back of the garage and tossed a green tarp over it.