The Story of Danny Dunn (40 page)

Billy had already spent a year at the Queen Victoria Hospital burns unit after he'd been dragged from the wreck of his burning bomber. But before the long and gruelling series of operations could be completed, he'd elected to return to Australia. Now, with his burns healed, the authorities would not consider plastic surgery for what they regarded as purely cosmetic purposes, nor were they prepared to send him back to England. He could breathe and mumble, which, as far as officialdom was concerned, made him fit to be released into society.

Billy returned from the pub-sponsored trip eighteen months later after multiple skin grafts, with eyelids that now effectively closed, a mouth capable of forming recognisable words and a new nose formed from his own tissue. Almost miraculously, or so it seemed to the Balmain locals, the doctors had grown skin for the nose while it was still attached to Billy's shoulder, then cut it away once the blood supply was established in the new site. Like Danny, Billy was never going to be pretty, but he could now appear in public among adults, although he still often frightened small children.

However, after returning to a second hero's welcome, instead of showing his gratitude to those who'd put their hard-earned pennies into paying for his fare, he'd become a hopeless, difficult and often violent drunk. His father, Sky's, dreams of seeing Billy settle down, get his crane-driver's ticket like his old man, then eventually marry one of the many spare sheilas left spinsters after the war and perhaps even start a family were dashed, and Sky became more silent and morose with each passing year.

People had taken to referring to Billy privately as an ungrateful bastard and a bludger, and after a while very little community sympathy was left for the miscreant. Over the years since his return from England the people of Balmain had written him off as a drunken derelict to be avoided or left on the footpath to shout gibberish. Danny knew they couldn't possibly be expected to understand that the destruction of Billy's face, which they'd willingly paid to repair, was nothing compared to the wreckage inside. Like many of the men who'd been permanently broken by the war, to Billy grog seemed the only reliable anaesthetic – a cheap way to temporarily block out the pain, alienation and isolation he felt.

Only a handful of people attended Billy's funeral: some of his old ex-servicemen pals; a few water-polo teammates; his father, now a widower; and Billy's two older sisters. Balmain had a long tradition of looking after its own, but if they felt they'd been let down they found it hard to forgive. Danny remembered the young lad who, almost twenty years earlier, had shouted back at him as he left the bar, ‘
So long, mate. Don't hang around too long . . . you'll miss all the fucking fun
', then headed off to Canada for his training.
He knew it was futile trying to explain to people that Billy had suffered from hidden demons which they would hopefully never have to confront themselves.

After the funeral Danny attended the wake Brenda held for Billy in the saloon bar of the Hero. Sky Scraper waited until Danny was alone before approaching him. ‘Mate, I owe you a beer and an apology,' he said. ‘What I said back then when Billy was off to Canada was fucking out of order.' He gave Danny a straight look, and Danny noticed that he was as dry-eyed as he'd been at the funeral service (as good Balmain boys were expected to be). He recognised all the signs of a man only just hanging on, and without a thought he pulled the unresisting old bloke to his chest. ‘Mate, how could we possibly have known how . . . how it would be,' Danny said softly. He then held Sky while he sobbed and sobbed, at last, for his beloved, brutally damaged, lost son.

Each morning Danny would stand in stockinged feet in front of the bathroom mirror adjusting his tie knot carefully until it was perfect, with the required dimple centre top and just below the knot of one of the very fine Macclesfield silk ties he'd select to wear each day. His obsession with clothes had begun after he'd returned from the Japanese prison camp, and by the mid 1950s had settled into a fortifying routine. For three and a half years he'd had no choice but to wear a torn pair of khaki shorts, his battered slouch hat, and dilapidated boots without socks or sandals made from old truck tyres. That was about it, except for church parades and burials, when the prisoners wore their tattered shirts to respectfully acknowledge a far from merciful God. That was until His servant, the Reverend John Ayliffe, who'd refused to leave the men and go to a separate prison camp for officers, died of starvation and assorted tropical afflictions, whereupon God's special days lost their meaning. Danny held the Reverend John Ayliffe to be one of those rare people who, like Paul Jones, the little Welsh medic, felt only compassion for their fellow man.

Each weekday as soon as he was dressed Danny would wake the twins and get them dressed, give them breakfast and then drop them off at preschool. It was his way of spending time with the kids, although he longed for the day when they'd be old enough, and he had a skiff safe enough, for Helen to agree to their accompanying him on the harbour. Helen's job as a lecturer and the work for her dissertation often kept her up late, and Danny knew how much she enjoyed those extra hours of sleep each morning.

In 1956, the year of the Melbourne Olympic Games, several things of importance happened in Danny and Helen's life. They began to talk about joining the Labor Party; they finally had enough for the deposit on a modest house; and Landsman, Dunn & Partners showed their first decent profit. Danny was getting regular work from clients who were prepared to pay top fees for his services; the only problem was that he was also doing a lot of pro bono work for battered wives and kids. Franz would sometimes chide him for this, but he'd simply answer, ‘Being a lawyer isn't only about money, mate.'

‘It isn't?' Franz would counter in a voice of mock surprise. He, too, was doing well on the commercial side.

Danny had managed to persuade Helen that they should buy a television set to watch the games with the bonus he and Franz had paid themselves. The twins had turned five
and were old enough for Danny to put his secret plan for them into action. His ambition was to turn them into competitive swimmers, which for Danny meant champion swimmers. He was aware that champions were built not just from talent, but also through habit and repetition; anything extra, such as natural talent of the kind he was once supposed to have possessed, was a bonus. The work nevertheless had to be done. He had already decided that he would pattern their training on that of the young Balmain swimmer Dawn Fraser, who was winning races in every national swimming carnival she entered and was being spoken of as a potential gold medallist at the Olympic Games. He'd already spoken to Harry Gallagher, her coach, who'd agreed to brief Danny on a training schedule once the girls turned eight.

Danny wanted the twins to think of early-morning wake-up calls as natural, almost instinctive. At five they were still too young to begin early-morning swimming training, so he decided he needed a bigger and safer skiff to take them with him onto the harbour every morning.

He'd gone to see Wee Georgie to ask him to make a skiff that could accommodate the twins, and possibly even Helen occasionally, but one that was still light enough for him to row on his own.

‘Yeah, I could do that, son,' Wee Georgie agreed.

‘How much would it cost then?' Danny asked.

‘Mate, if I make it, it's gunna cost yer two hundred quid, maybe more. Can't do it no cheaper.'

‘So, okay, what sort of skiff are you suggesting?'

Wee Georgie appeared to be thinking, but Danny knew he was extremely knowledgeable and wouldn't need to think for long. He also knew he was building a state-of-the-art eighteen-footer, which he was calling, rather grandly,
Britannica
.
Wee Georgie was simply searching for the single most persuasive argument for the boat he had in mind. He was no bullshitter; he'd deliver a verbal coup de grâce that settled any possible argument, or he'd keep quiet. ‘The provedores used to use them to row out to the sailing ships in the olden days,' he said finally.

Danny didn't quite get the connection. ‘You'll need to explain, Wee Georgie.'

‘Skiff, seventeen-footer, light, for one or two rowers; one sits on the front thwart, t'other in the middle; go out in any weather; real sturdy, and yer gotta be pretty bloody stupid to capsize her in a hurry; high stem back, narrow raked transom, lapstrake construction,' he paused, finishing with a smile, ‘and beautiful.'

‘But you just said in the olden days.'

‘Whitehall skiff – nah, modern as termorra. Been around since Noah was a baby but yer can't improve on perfect.'

‘So, can you build me one?' Danny asked again.

‘Better'n that, Danny, mate . . . I got one out the back.'

‘Yeah? In good nick?'

‘Never been on the water. I built it for a bloke in the city who had this accident, fell off his roof and broke his shoulder – bloody lucky that was all he broke. Now he doesn't want it no more but he's asked for his deposit back – fifty bloody quid! I told him no way, I done the work, I'm entitled.'

‘You said two hundred quid, but you've already got fifty,' Danny protested, as any self-respecting Balmain boy might.

Wee Georgie grinned, having anticipated the comeback. ‘Split you the difference. It's yours for one seventy-five.'

‘Let me see it first,' Danny said.

Wee Georgie padded in his slippers over to a dark corner of his boatshed and switched on a naked globe hanging from the ceiling.

It was love at first sight. The beautiful little Whitehall skiff was exactly what Danny wanted.

‘Nice! Pretty,' he said.

‘If a boat looks good it will probably go well. This one's got good directional stability – glide – between strokes.'

‘They always come varnished like that?' Danny said, deliberately stalling.

‘Nah, mate, that's a Wee Georgie special. I should charge ya extra. Most boat builders just paint 'em; varnish, that's class, that is. I guarantee ya won't see nothing like it on the harbour.'

Danny had to have the skiff but he knew the game; some restraint was needed. ‘Hmm, tell you what. If you paint – not stencil, I mean hand paint like I know you can – the name on the back, you've got a deal, Wee Georgie.'

‘Yeah, okay, Danny, special script, copperplate Gothic, like I'm gunna use on
Britannica
.' He tapped the side of the skiff. ‘What's her name?'

‘
Calabash
.'

‘Eh?' Wee Georgie's eyes screwed up and his small button nose practically disappeared into the centre of his head. ‘What's a calabash?'

Danny thought for a moment. ‘It's sort of a pumpkin with a long snout, you know, a kind of marrow.'

Wee Georgie looked distinctly put out. ‘Yer gunna name my beautiful skiff after a fuckin' pumpkin?' he snorted.

‘It comes from a song my twin daughters sing,' Danny explained, while not explaining.

‘
Calabash
?' Wee Georgie growled, tasting the word then spitting it out. ‘Jesus! I put a lot of work into that there skiff.' He looked directly at Danny. ‘Where you gunna berth her?'

‘Well, I thought like before . . . ?'

‘Ten bob!' Wee Georgie shot back. ‘It's bigger'n the last one.'

‘Seven and six?'

‘Righto then.'

‘When do you want the money?' Danny asked, not sure where he was going to get the one hundred and seventy-five pounds from. He'd expected the skiff would take several months to build, as Wee Georgie worked alone and was a master boat builder and didn't do things in a hurry; it would take possibly six months, even a year. That would have given him the time to find the money. According to Franz, the six hundred quid they'd each paid for an Admiral TV had pretty well cleaned them out for the month, and Helen wouldn't let him borrow from the deposit put aside for a house.

They'd moved to a two-bedroom flat soon after the twins were born, but it was rapidly proving too small. The girls needed a garden to play in, and Danny thought he might have found just the house, but they still had to find the last of the money to send Helen to Egypt for three months on a dig. She'd been invited to excavate at Saqqara with a British team under the direction of redoubtable archaeologist Walter B. Emery, a Liverpudlian, and Danny wasn't going to deny her such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She was doing her dissertation for her doctorate through University College London, and an Emery dig would be a huge plus for her submission. She was due to leave in three weeks, and while Franz had said there should be no problem with funds, they had yet to find the final payment. It was a bad time to be buying a boat.

Danny knew Helen too well to mention the skiff; while she would argue that he already had a boat, once she knew he really wanted it, she'd offer to forego her trip so that he could have it. Helen had needed a lot of persuading to agree to the television set. She didn't see the Olympics as a big enough incentive to spend money that could supplement the meagre deposit they'd saved for a house. Danny, on the other hand, had seen the TV as an important part of his secret plans for the twins: they could watch the swimming at the Games and be inspired. She'd assumed that it was for his own pleasure (perhaps correctly, he admitted to himself), and so she'd finally given in. Now, as recompense for her generosity, there was no way on earth he was going to stop her going to Egypt.