Sydney Bridge Upside Down (11 page)

‘You’ve hurt other children,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the way you play. You enjoy hurting others.’

‘Like Dibs, you mean?’ I said.

‘Even your own brother,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen you throwing passion-fruit at him.’

‘Only in fun,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t care.’

‘I’ve heard him crying,’ she said.

‘All kids cry,’ I said. ‘The Kelly kids cry and it’s nothing to do with me when they cry. I don’t make them cry. So I don’t know what you’re talking about. Honestly, I don’t.’

‘Ha ha,’ she said.

I was more irritated when she said it now than I had been last time. She seemed to be trying to make me hit her, to make me get into trouble. Maybe she figured I’d get into more trouble by hitting her today than if it were a day when Dad was not home. She might even hope he would chase me with the whip. This would be bound to please her.

Well, I knew a way of hurting her without hitting her. Boy, could I make her unhappy!

The trouble was I might make her so angry there would be no chance at all of stopping her from writing to my mother. I still might have a chance of doing that if I stayed friendly, let her go on thinking she was clever.

‘What you probably don’t understand, Susan,’ I said, ‘is that kids in families often fight one another. It doesn’t mean they hate one another. Like, Cal gets on my nerves sometimes because he touches things in my drawer and messes them up. My cigarette cards, for instance. He knows it’s a rare collection and I don’t like other people messing it up. Not unless I give them permission—’

‘What
are
you talking about?’ Susan asked. ‘I don’t want to hear about your silly cigarette cards.’

‘I’m explaining why I might bop Cal,’ I said. ‘If he doesn’t ask me if he can have a look, I might bop him.
But it doesn’t mean I hate him.’

‘No, only one of your nasty habits,’ she said.

What was the use? ‘You don’t have brothers or sisters,’ I said. ‘You don’t know how kids in families—’

‘Oh dear!’ said Susan Prosser. ‘The excuses! You’ll tell me next that Dibs Kelly is your brother.’

‘Eh?’ I said.

‘You hit him too. Is
he
your brother?’

I knew then she really wasn’t interested in why I sometimes bopped kids, all she was interested in was my unhappiness. She wouldn’t leave the fence until she was sure I was unhappy. And I couldn’t leave the fence until I made her see I was not unhappy. Of course, if Dad or Cal or Caroline came into the yard and spoke to me I’d have an excuse to leave. But there was no sign of them.

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I don’t hit other kids very often. I don’t get into much trouble at school. Some kids get the strap more than I do.’

‘Yes, I’ve noticed you’re rather smart at escaping punishment,’ she said. ‘I sometimes wondered why Mr Dalloway let you off for things he punished other children for doing. He must have had a reason.’

‘Search me,’ I said. ‘I’m not his pet.’

Susan Prosser looked into the distance. ‘It might have been because he didn’t want to upset your mother,’ she said. ‘She might not have had such a high opinion of him if he punished her sons. I suppose that could have been the reason.’

‘Search me,’ I said.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I’m glad I took our budgie’s advice.
It really was time I wrote a letter.’ She drew back from the fence. ‘I thought it would be difficult to write. But it turned out to be easy. I enjoyed writing it.’

‘Is that the one you said you’d write?’

‘Oh, did I mention it before?’

‘You said you were going to write to my mother.’ I noticed how she kept back from the fence, maybe scared I would grab her.

‘Did I?’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten.’ She moved further back. ‘Yes, I did write, I thought it would be nice for her to hear from Calliope Bay.’ Suddenly she was waving a letter. ‘Here it is,’ she said. ‘This will let your mother know what’s been happening.’ She was smiling; I mean, her mouth was shaped into a smile.

‘What have you said in it?’

‘Oh, this and that. Only what’s been happening in the neighbourhood.’

I took a deep breath. Then I smiled at Susan Prosser. I told her: ‘My mother will be pleased to hear from you, Susan. She thinks you’re very clever. She likes you.’

‘I like her too,’ she said. ‘Your mother has always been kind to me. That was why I was only too happy to fetch cigarettes from the store for her when you and your brother were away having fun.’

‘She often said how good you were,’ I said.

Susan Prosser was using the letter like a fan. ‘Your mother always offered me a drink of ginger beer when I called on her,’ she said. ‘Before she went on holiday she said I was welcome to call at your place for a ginger beer whenever I felt like it. She said she
was making enough for everybody.’

‘Hey, she didn’t tell us!’ I said. ‘She didn’t say you could have some—’

‘So
you
say,’ Susan Prosser said quickly. ‘I know how much notice to take of you. Oh, I can imagine who got my share. I can imagine why she needed it too. People become very thirsty when they run around a lot.’

‘Honestly, my mother didn’t say you could have some,’ I said. I sure was surprised it was the ginger beer that had made Susan Prosser so unfriendly. Heck, why hadn’t she said she wanted some? She could have had as many bottles as she wanted—as long as she didn’t send that letter. Now it was too late. The ginger beer had all gone.

‘Not that I mention ginger beer in this,’ she said, waving the letter. ‘I wouldn’t be so petty. It was not important. It was no more than I expected from you.’

‘Honestly, I didn’t know,’ I said.

She shook her head. ‘So you say. And your father didn’t know? And your brother didn’t know?’

‘None of us knew,’ I said.

‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘As I say, it was not important.’

She turned, still waving the letter like a fan.

‘By the way, Susan,’ I said, making my voice very friendly.

She paused to look at me. ‘Yes?’

‘I’ll post it for you if you like,’ I said.

‘Ha ha,’ she said.

‘Save you a trip to the store,’ I said.

‘I don’t intend going to the store,’ she said. ‘Mr Wiggins
will be calling tomorrow. He can take it to the post-box for me. I certainly wouldn’t let
you
take it. I’m not that silly.’ She made her voice sarcastic. ‘Honestly I’m not.’

She went inside, and she waved the letter all the way.

I go now to the following afternoon, to the time in Caroline’s bedroom.

To cheer me up, Caroline said she would read another bit of her autobiography. This, she said, was about a later incident in her childhood, about a girl called Penny who was so poor she had to wear a grey Army jersey as a dress. Caroline explained that Penny was quite short, which was why the jersey fitted her, and very cheerful, which was why she did not complain about being poor. Apparently her parents did not mind when she went for walks in the city at night, her parents being rather rowdy and always having parties where there was much drinking and games it was best for a little girl not to see. There came a night, said Caroline, when Penny met a stranger during one of her walks in the city. This stranger had a black beard and a black cloak and wore dark glasses. ‘Now I’ll read on,’ said Caroline.

This is what she read: ‘I say, said the stranger when Penny passed the doorway where he stood, you are too young to be wandering in the city at this hour, do your father and mother mumble mumble mumble? Not if I carry my dolly, said Penny. What difference, asked the stranger, does your dolly make? My dolly’s a police-lady, said Penny. Telling me this later, Penny suggested that I might wish to walk in the city with her one night. I said I did not have a police-lady dolly. Penny confided that perhaps her own
police-lady dolly did not really make a difference. At least, she said, it had not appeared to make a difference when she met the stranger in the black cloak, for he attempted to put her in his car without further ado. She said the stranger had a big black car. He assured her it was warm in the car and they could sit in it and chat. During the chat, Penny mentioned the lights she enjoyed looking at when she was in the city at night. The stranger remarked that lights were mumble mumble and added that he could show her a chandelier. The chandelier was in a big house, he said. If Penny and her dolly were agreeable, he said, he would take them to see the chandelier and also mumble mumble mumble in the big house. Now, while Penny was telling me this I had a suspicion. Did you say he had a black beard and a black cloak and wore dark glasses, I asked her. Yes, said Penny. That sounds very like my Uncle Pember, I said. Fancy that, said Penny. So this was how I discovered that Uncle Pember sometimes waited in doorways and talked to interesting people who passed by. Penny was interesting because she was very cheerful. One of the things I always remember about Penny is her jersey. Another is her cheerfulness. When Uncle Pember held her up to touch the chandelier she laughed and laughed. She said he was tickling her with his beard. It’s funny you should say that, I said when she told me about it. It’s funny because I can remember when Uncle Pember’s beard tickled me, I said. Later in the story of my life I will tell of Uncle Pember’s amazing secret and what became of him. For the time being, I end with this memory of my friend Penny—’

Caroline closed the exercise book and kissed my ear. ‘So
wasn’t that a coincidence, Harry? Who should my friend meet in the city but my own Uncle Pember!’

‘That was very surprising,’ I said quietly. I felt awful again, I could not pretend she had cheered me up.

‘Harry!’ she cried. ‘You didn’t listen!’

‘I listened,’ I said. ‘I heard what you said about your Uncle Pember and your friend Penny.’ I sniffed because I had also heard her say that her uncle had an amazing secret. It was when she said that I felt bad again, and I knew she could do nothing to cheer me up, she might as well stop trying.

She whispered in my ear. ‘If you like, I’ll chase you down the passage.’ She took hold of my shirt.

‘Don’t,’ I said.

She tried to hold me, but I pushed her hand away and rolled off the bed. I shouted: ‘I don’t want to!’

‘Go then,’ she said, turning her back to me. ‘Go and play with Dibs and Cal.’

‘I don’t want to,’ I said. ‘I want to stay with you.’ I moved to the bed. ‘I’m feeling sad, Caroline. I don’t want to—’ I had to stop because there was the gulpy feeling in my throat again and I knew I was about to howl.

I sat on the bed, and presently she turned and put her arm around me, and I lay there beside her and neither of us spoke. And all that happened was that she raised her black sweater and let me rest my damp cheek on her breasts.

Now I go to the works the night before. This, of course, was Sunday night. The moon was shining.

I had followed Susan Prosser there because ever since our chat about the letter at the fence in the morning I had
been thinking of the way I knew of hurting her without hitting her. She had made me unhappy. Well, I knew how to make her unhappy.

I was watching her from behind the furnace-house. Would she jump from the steps and run if I spoke? Or would she be curious about my being there and listen to what I had to tell her?

She was in the moonlight, I was in the shadows. If I stepped out suddenly without speaking she might be frightened. Or she might simply be angry.

I would have to be careful, I thought.

‘Why are you hiding there?’ she asked.

I went stiff. I said nothing. She could not see me.

‘I can’t imagine what you expect to discover by hiding there,’ she said. ‘I’m talking to you, Harry Baird. Or do you imagine I don’t know you’re there?’

I stepped from behind the furnace-house and walked towards the works steps. I said cheerfully: ‘Hello, Susan.’

‘Every time I come here,’ she said, ‘you follow me. Why? I’m rather interested to know why anybody does such a peculiar thing.’ She had not moved from the steps, she was looking up calmly at me.

‘Not always,’ I said, my voice shaky.

‘Not always what?’ she said. ‘And why are you frightened? You’re not frightened of me, are you?’

‘I mean, I haven’t always followed you,’ I said, my voice no longer shaky. I sat on the steps, not too near her. ‘Dibs was the one who noticed you went for walks at night. I don’t know how many walks you had before he noticed.’ She would know from my voice that I was not frightened.

‘You’ve followed me often enough,’ she said. ‘Don’t put the blame on Dibs Kelly. I wish you wouldn’t mention
him.
’

I knew this was my chance to do what I had come to do. I would make her unhappy.

I spoke carefully: ‘I know why you don’t want Dibs to be mentioned. It’s because he piddles from his veranda, eh?’

‘Is it?’ she said.

‘I’m surprised you care about Dibs doing that,’ I said, noticing a pile of bricks nearby in the moonlight.

‘Yes, I imagine you think it’s normal behaviour,’ she said. She had one hand stuck awkwardly in the pocket of her cardigan. ‘Like wanting to read other people’s letters no doubt.’

She must have the letter in that pocket, I thought. I looked at the pile of bricks. Those bricks, I thought, should have been taken to the cave.

‘Oh, I don’t want to read your letter,’ I said. I laughed. ‘It’s Dibs I’ve been thinking about, Susan. I mean, other people have been seen piddling. He’s not the only one. I remember Dad telling me about a girl he saw once—’

Susan stood up.

‘He saw her right next door,’ I said, standing up too. ‘Gosh, he was surprised! She was doing it behind the bush. Can you imagine that, Susan?’

She watched me.

‘Very surprising,’ I said. ‘Nearly as surprising as when the same girl was seen going for a drive with Mr Wiggins. I wonder what she did with Mr Wiggins?’

‘I suppose you mean the time he took me to the dentist at Bonnie Brae,’ she said. She didn’t sound unhappy yet.

‘So it
was
you behind the bush that time?’ I said. ‘So that’s who Dad was telling my mother about! I was wondering about that.’

‘Why do you tell lies?’ she asked, sounding quite calm.

‘He did see you,’ I said.