Spinner (31 page)

‘So what about Bishop?' asked Ten Ton.

‘I don't know,' said David, ‘he won't stay still so I don't know how I'm going to set him up.'

‘I do,' said Mr Richardson. ‘David, if you can do exactly the kind of ball you want, then we should be able to let you know what we think might do the trick.'

‘I got some ideas about Dwyer on that,' said Legal.

‘Yep,' said Chalkie.

Mr Tanner came out of another doorway. ‘What about the charge?'

‘Easy,' said David.

Hall and McLeod started laughing again. Even Mr Johnson and Mr Richardson were grinning.

‘Easy,' said David again, not smiling.

Mr Tanner took the bat from Mr Johnson and spat on his hands. ‘See that window.' Tanner pointed to the window at the far end of the hall. ‘Fifty pounds that it goes in a couple of balls.'

‘You're on,' said Ken Hall stepping out of the dressing room.

‘I'm out of here,' said Morgan as he and others cleared the hall behind David, like it was on fire.

Mr Richardson stayed standing just in front of David. ‘You understand, Jack, that if you injure David in any way, I will have to kill you.'

‘Yeah, I'll bloody kill ya too after he's finished,' yelled Ten Ton.

‘Sounds fair,' said Tanner.

Mr Hall stayed too, a little up the hall.

As David reached the top of his run-up, Mr Hall whispered, ‘He's not going to charge.' David thought about
Two Bob, and knew it was true. He bowled him a topspinner, and Jack Tanner was forced to fend it off and onto a wall.

‘Bloody Mopsey an' Beardie woulda caught that. You're out.'

‘No they wouldn't. There's a wall in the way,' said Tanner.

At the top of David's mark Mr Hall whispered, ‘Swotting it.'

And sure enough, Mr Tanner stepped down the wicket. Only David had a nicely singing ball bounce in front and spin away, catching the edge of the bat and smashing through the ceiling.

There was more laughter.

‘Window in what country?' yelled Maud.

‘That one's coming off the moon,' said Hall.

Baker replied, ‘And into my gloves I reckon.'

‘The charge,' whispered Mr Hall, tossing David a new ball.

David sent it at Jack's feet as he jumped down the hall.

‘How's that?' said Mr Baker catching the ball.

Mr Tanner insisted on another and David whispered to Mr Hall, ‘He's going to charge again, isn't he?'

‘I think you've made him mad, Billy Boy.'

David tried to bowl a slow off break so that it would evade the bat, but spin in towards Mr Baker. There wasn't enough room in the hall, and the ball hit the wall on the full. It evaded Jack's swinging bat, hit the other wall and ricocheted into Mr Baker's hands.

‘Hey, no fair,' yelled Jack.

There was laughter and cheering.

Jack Tanner stood glowering at David, who swallowed and made himself step forward towards the big man.

Mr Richardson said, ‘You've been out four times in four balls, Two Bob. Give Ned his fifty pounds and let's get into the Poms.'

Mr Tanner glared at David for a moment, then shrugged, and said, ‘Yeah, fair enough,' and went to give Mr Hall his money without another word to David.

Mr Hall, however, said loudly, ‘I owe you a seriously large pot of lemonade, Ol' Man.'

David felt a wave of warmth. He smiled.

Mr Richardson patted him on the shoulder.

Mr Johnson did too. ‘Fine bowling, Billy.'

Ten Ton finally found him in the change rooms, while he was putting on his bowling shoes. ‘How you going, little man?'

David felt good. Looking at his hand and turning it, he felt strong too.

He said, ‘Ten Ton, I feel ... perfect.'

Jess barked and David opened his eyes. The newspaper had dropped out of his hands and onto the floor. His grandfather was sleeping, propped up, half sitting on the pillows. There was noise in the kitchen and David went out to find Nell stirring the soup.

‘This isn't much of a soup,' she said not looking at him.

‘Wasn't much here to put in.'

‘I've brought some bacon and peas from that Mr Biggins,' she said indicating a package on the table. She flicked her hair back as she looked into the soup again. Her fringe was a bit long, and David realised she always did that, flicking her whole head back so the hair flared back up onto her head for the barest time before it tumbled down and straight forward into her eyes again.

‘How's your grandad?'

‘Sleeping.'

David came to the table and started to pull open the package. He saw two horses out in the yard, one of them his grandad's.

‘I brought one of them back, so you can get around and go to the dance tonight.'

‘I'm not going.'

‘Give me that.' She came and took the package from him. She opened the paper carefully and put it aside, then got the cutting board and started cutting up bacon into bits.

‘I don't want to leave Grandad.'

She nodded. Seemed satisfied. ‘Peggy Pringle will be disappointed.'

‘Peggy. Why?'

‘She was going to dance with you.'

‘She hates me.'

‘Not now you're famous.'

‘I'm not famous.'

Nell stopped cutting. ‘David, of course you're famous. You're in all the papers and all the radio and there's people all over the country giving money to pay off the farm. They're having a Relief kind of thing and the Prime Minister of Australia might even have something for all the farmers too. The David Donald Drought something or other.'

David looked back to the bedroom. He wasn't sure how his grandad would take that. He wouldn't want the charity.

‘There's a news reporter in town too, asking all kinds of questions about you and you growing up and your family and the farm too.'

‘That's O'Toole. He hates me.'

‘Lot of people hate you all of a sudden.'

‘Yeah,' said David sitting down at the table. ‘Well Peggy always hated me. But how come you do?'

‘What?'

‘How come you're mad at me?'

‘I'm not.'

‘How come you weren't at the station?'

‘School. Remember. That's a place we unfamous folk have to go.'

‘Oh, I didn't think of that. Did you get my cable?'

‘Yes. Otherwise how could I reply?' She did smile then, but turned and went to the stove and scraped the bacon into the soup. ‘Well, are you gunna tell me what it was like or what?'

‘Yeah.' He wanted to more than anything. So while she shelled peas, he told her.

‘Nell, it was nothing like the paper. It was nothing like anything. It was like ... just practice. Instead of Grandad saying spin it further, spin it less, make it jump, it was Mr Richardson and Mr Johnson and Mr Hall whispering what to do. Sometimes Mr Richardson, like when Mr Longford played my first ball to him so carefully, he said, “David, I'm going to take those fieldsmen from long mid-on and long mid-off to try to get him to drive. What you think?” And I knew why and what I should do, and I just nodded. It was like I could see what I would do, so doing it was no different. But then Mr Tanner came in and said to Mr Richardson and me that he thought Mr Longford wouldn't go for it straight away nor maybe at all unless I scared him into it, and so why don't I let him think he's getting set up for that drive, but try to get him with the same ball as the first innings while he was thinking about Mr Richardson leaving all that juicy space out there straight up the wicket.
Least ways, that is what he would think, in this situation, if he was facing. And Mr Richardson said that's a plan. He always says that. And that's what I did and we all thought Mr Longford would go for it the next ball. But he got a bit of an edge to get that scratchy run. He moved his bat so fast.'

‘Wow, David, you sure got a lot more words now you're famous.'

‘I'm just telling it,' he said, but then he said, ‘You are right though. When you're famous they take you to this special place, in Canberra, and you do these famous people classes.'

Nell looked like she might be half believing him, and he put all his effort into keeping his face serious and his eyes not blinking but couldn't do it for long.

‘No,' he said, laughing, and she looked like she might go sulky again, so he used one of his uncle's tricks which was to say something else straight away. ‘There was a train crash in the middle of the desert and we had to have Christmas out there, and I couldn't get into the team, and my uncle kept betting people what I'd do, and we won all this money, and there were these wharf workers who I let hit me every time. In Melbourne there is this nice lady named Mrs O'Locklan and she's got this picture of a boy with a horse. Nell, she told me about my dad.'

Nell stopped shelling the peas and looked up. ‘Yeah?'

‘She was a nurse. My dad was throwing a grenade out of the trench to save people and it blew up.'

‘Stupid war.'

‘Yeah. Oh and all the cricketers have nicknames.'

‘Yeah? What?' Nell came around the table and sat in Grandad's chair, while David explained.

‘There's Ten Ton cos he's so big, and Two Bob is Jack
Tanner cos he's always dressed up like he's going out and what a tanner is too. Richo—'

‘Is Richardson.'

‘Yeah, easy. Chalkie? That's Mr Johnson. He's a teacher, but he's having a rough trot right now. Beardie is Bardsley, but I'm not sure why that's his nickname. He's young. Um, Mopsey is Maud. He didn't used to like me much.'

‘Another one!' She leaned her face forward and made her eyes pop and drawing out the last word and somehow smiling at the same time.

David went quiet. Nell had freckles. Not a lot, but just a couple on her cheeks. David said, ‘Your freckles are like little bits of jewels under your eyes.'

It was like he'd slapped her. She blinked and went red a moment, and then she punched him in the arm.

‘Ow,' he said, and meant it. She had punched him really hard.

She looked at him, and he wasn't sure whether she was going to punch him again, but she looked to the soup and went over and put the peas in there.

‘Who else doesn't like you?' she said finally.

‘Um, well Mr McLeod didn't but maybe does now, and Mr Hall only started liking me in the hallway the morning of the last Test, I reckon. I don't think Mr Tanner does, or will ... but I think that's on account of my uncle. Mr O'Toole, there's another one. Oh, there was this gangster named Blackie Cutmore, in Melbourne. He didn't like me at all.'

She was looking at him again.

‘I'm pretty sure I was hated just as much before I got famous, but I just never noticed.'

‘Well I don't hate you.'

‘I know. You're...' He'd been going to say she was his mate,
but that wasn't quite right. She had been, but something had changed. He blushed now, and it seemed to please Nell that he did, maybe that they were even.

Nell washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen while David told her more stories about what they'd been up to on his trip. He kept a little back, mostly to do with his Uncle Mike, because he didn't want to worry her. At dusk, she had to go, so she could ride home before dark, but she went to the bedroom door one more time and looked at David's grandfather.

Outside, by her horse, she said, ‘He's gunna die, isn't he?'

‘Yep.'

She suddenly kissed him on his cheek, and he couldn't move. He was like a tree stump there in the yard, while she got up on the horse and said, ‘See ya, David Donald.'

He couldn't say anything, just watch her ride off at a gallop.

After a while, when he finally worked out that the speck off towards the road must be a tree and not Nell riding, he went in and lit the kerosene lamp in the kitchen.

‘Who's that?'

‘It's me. David.'

‘Oh.'

David went into the bedroom and lit that lamp too.

His grandad lay back down on the bed, pale in the yellow light of the lamp. His eyes were closed again, and he breathed shallowly, like panting.

‘I made some soup, Grandad.'

‘It hurts.' The old man still wouldn't open his eyes.

David got the brandy bottle again and poured a half a cup. ‘I got the brandy.'

He wouldn't lift his head and when David tried to pour
a sip into the corner of his mouth, he coughed and choked some. The convulsion of the coughing must have twisted his body in the cancer part because he whimpered.

‘It's all right. It's all right,' David whispered, patting his grandfather's shoulder.

David got a singlet out of the bureau and dipped it in the cup of brandy and let one of the shoulder straps of that hang and drip the brandy into the old man's mouth. He sipped that way, from the makeshift brandy teat, until he settled. His skin still had a tinge of brown tan, but his cheeks were gone, fallen away under the flaking skin. David ran his fingers gently across the hair at his temple, brushing back.

The old man smiled and said, ‘Mary.'

‘It's David, Grandad.'

‘David,' he said and nodded a little.

David stroked his skin some more. It had become as soft as a dog's tummy. ‘Did you think I was ... my mum?'

‘No.'

‘Do you wanna talk about her?'

His grandad grimaced, and David fed him some more brandy drips into his mouth. As the old man settled, David saw the newspaper where he'd left it by the chair, and decided to read aloud, just for something to fill the night. ‘I'll read you a bit, Grandad. From the paper. They talk about you. You wanna hear that?'

‘Yes,' he said, without opening his eyes.

David had intended to read the section concerning the great George Baker being gravely ill, but decided it sounded too sad. Instead he found a column he hadn't read on the aeroplane that had George Baker mentioned down the bottom. He folded the paper yet again and angled it towards the lamp and tackled the reading with patience.