Angel Rock

‘Why do you do this, Sonny?’ he spat, panting.

Sonny stared at him for a moment and then looked up and down the street. The time limit on his fun was fast running out. There were adults about who might spot him at any moment. He looked down at Tom again. He seemed to be giving the question serious consideration, but then he flipped Tom over onto his stomach and held his head down in the grass and gravel. He pushed harder and harder and when grit had worked its way into Tom’s eyes and nose, and tears were running down his face Sonny leant in close so his smooth, clammy face – lips edged in sticky red, teeth holed by brown decay – filled Tom’s field of vision like a noxious moon.

‘Because your father’s a drunk and your mother’s a rotten whore!’ he hissed, his face contorting.

Tom blinked, frozen for a moment by the malice in Sonny’s eyes, but then a car came rolling down the street and in a second Sonny and Leonard were up and away. Tom sat up and rubbed the gravel off his cheek and out of his hair. The old farmer driving by slowed his car to better see him there on the verge, then waved slowly when he saw he was none the worse for wear, just the victim of schoolboy rough-and-tumble. Tom nodded at him and the farmer lifted his finger off the steering wheel and straightened his head. When he’d passed, Tom looked down the road at the backs of Sonny and Leonard. Every so often Sonny would turn and glare at him and spit onto the road.

He brushed the dust and grass off his clothes and walked home along the river, looking across at the water as he always did, just in case something interesting was floating by. When he reached his house after fifteen minutes or so he bent by the tap in the front yard and washed his face and rinsed out his mouth and spat a lot. He ran cold water over the places where Leonard had pinched him. Chicken bastard! he fumed, under his breath.

He went inside and set the pack of cigarettes on their end on the kitchen table. They were a little crushed but he knew that a bent cigarette was a smokeable cigarette so he didn’t worry about it too much – and at least Sonny hadn’t found them. He went and sat down in front of the television and had only been watching it for a few minutes when Mrs Clark from next door came over with Flynn.

‘Hello, Mrs Clark. Hey, Flynn.’

‘Hey,’ said Flynn.

‘Tom,’ said Mrs Clark. ‘Flynn’s been a good boy today. Haven’t you, Flynn?’

Flynn nodded. He was only four and not due to start school until the new year. After Mrs Clark left he promptly fell asleep on the couch with his mouth open. Tom set the fan in front of him and turned it on and then he went into their room and pulled his Junior Dictionary from the bookcase and went and sat out on the verandah in one of the busted cane chairs and opened up the book on his lap. He didn’t have a clue what whore really meant but the fact that Sonny had said it meant it couldn’t be anything good, and was probably some sort of disease or something, maybe something that killed you. He looked up the word in the dictionary, but, as he wasn’t sure how to spell it, struggled. There was hoar, which was to do with frost, and there was horology, but that was the art or science of making timepieces or of measuring time. Under the silent w’s there was only whole, which meant a whole lot of things, and who’re, a contraction of who are, which seemed close, but he was fairly certain Sonny had not meant his mother was a who are because that didn’t make sense. He put the dictionary down, locked his hands behind his head like Henry sometimes did and looked out across the river. The long reeds by the bank dipped in the breeze but apart from that nothing much else was moving. He sat and looked and his eyelids were just beginning to droop when he heard a car coming up the road from town. It was the Holden, with his mother at the wheel. He bent and picked up the dictionary and took it back to his room, a feeling of guilt flowing through him like it was one of the magazines Henry kept in the shed.

When she came up the stairs he was back sitting in the cane chair by the front door. She bent and kissed him on the cheek. He thought she looked very tired.

‘Where’s Flynn?’

‘Asleep.’

‘Good … listen. I have to go back to work in an hour or so. And I have to work tomorrow. When Henry comes home could you get his tea?’

Tom looked down at his toes and frowned at them. His mother put her hand on his head and stroked his hair.

‘I know. I’m sorry. But I have to go. We need the money. You know we do.’

He nodded. ‘Yep.’

‘Good boy. I bought some sausages. Just do some potatoes and some peas with them. Make sure Flynn eats his peas.’

‘Yep.’

‘All right. I’m going to have a shower now and change my clothes.’ She kissed him on the forehead. ‘You’re a good boy, Tom. What would I do without you.’

He looked up at her. Sometimes just the smell of her was enough to make him feel better, but when she smiled the way she sometimes did – a little sad, yet laced with mischief – it made him remember how it was when it had just been the two of them; before Henry, and before Flynn. He liked to think she remembered those times too, at least once in a while.

He followed her inside the house and went and sat down beside his little brother. He listened as his mother moved around the house and watched as the fan lifted Flynn’s fine yellow hair and set it down again. After a while his mother came back and put her hand on his shoulder.

‘All right, Tom, bye now. Be good. Henry shouldn’t be long.’ Before she had finished the sentence there was a knock at the door, loud enough to wake Flynn.

‘Bloody hell,’ his mother muttered.

‘What?’ said Flynn, half opening his eyes.

Tom glanced at him. When he turned back to his mother she was already halfway up the hall.

‘Yes? Hello?’ he heard her say.

Flynn, sleepy-eyed, slipped off the couch and headed for the door. Tom followed him. There was a man standing on their verandah. Flynn stopped in his tracks and stared at him and Tom did the same. The man had thick, grey whiskers and long matted hair to his shoulders. His hands were large and brown, the nails yellow, a black semicircle of dirt at their ragged ends. Even though the afternoon was still very warm he wore a woollen jumper with slack, gaping holes, and a filthy tweed coat over that. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and he looked down at them with eyes dark as stones.

‘Any spare food, missus?’ he said. ‘I could eat a horse if one were spare.’

Flynn giggled. The man looked down at him and Flynn stopped.

‘I may have something,’ said Ellie Gunn, walking back towards the kitchen. Tom and his brother stayed where they were. The man looked from side to side as if watching out for something and then he looked down at them again.

‘What’s yer name then?’ he asked Flynn, in a voice rough as ironbark.

‘Flynn,’ said Flynn. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Ah … Billy,’ said the man, as if he didn’t have need of it very often. He nodded, said the name again, but softly this time: ‘Billy.’

Tom’s mother returned with something wrapped in foil and something in a brown paper bag. He could smell what was in the foil – cold chicken – and his mouth began to water.

‘This is all I’ve got handy, I’m afraid,’ said his mother, passing the man the food.

‘Bless you, missus,’ he said, taking it. He nodded to her, nodded to the boys, then turned and walked down the path and through the gate, closing it carefully behind him.

‘What was he, Mum?’ asked Flynn, after he’d walked away.

‘A tramp. A swaggie. That’s what he was.’ She picked up her son and swung him back and forth. ‘You be a good boy for your brother now and I’ll be here when you wake up.’

‘All right.’

Tom watched her walk out to the car and climb in, then reverse back out into the road. She just sat there for a few moments then, looking forward. Tom peered up the road but he couldn’t see the swaggie. His mother looked their way after a while and waved, then put the car into gear and moved off. Tom waved goodbye and walked out to the gate to watch her go. The car rolled away down the long straight then disappeared round the bend. He walked out onto the road and looked both ways but there was no sign of the tramp. He ran around to the side of the house and stopped at the corner and leant into the cool boards. There he was, walking diagonally across the cow paddock next to the house. As Tom watched, the man threw a chicken bone over his shoulder, and a few strides later he looked back towards the house. Tom ducked back and waited for what seemed like whole minutes before edging along the boards again and peeking around the corner. Too late. The man had gone. Up into the trees maybe.

He walked down into the back yard and watched the trees a little longer and then he turned and went inside. Flynn was back on the couch with his thumb in his mouth, his eyes already closing. Tom went and sat down in the cane chair out front. He put his chin in his hand and before he knew it he was dreaming of his mother putting out washing on a long, long line.

When Tom woke the sunset was reflected in the eastern sky before him and a great cloud of birds was wheeling around over the river. Henry Gunn was walking up the path with the chainsaw resting on his shoulder, his clothes and boots coated with sawdust, his forehead pale where his hat kept the sun off. As he passed through the door he ruffled his stepson’s hair. Along the inside of his forearm Tom saw the long jagged scar where a chainsaw had kicked out of a tree once and caught him. The scars where the stitches had been were nearly an inch wide and looked as though someone had laced up the skin like a boot. Henry stopped just inside the doorway and asked him where his mother was. Tom told him and Henry scowled and headed for the bathroom.

Tom made tea while Henry washed away the stink and dirt of his day’s work. When the food was ready Tom piled up their three plates with sausages, mashed potatoes, peas. Henry came in and sat down and started to eat. He never made them say grace like their mother did. Tom and Flynn followed suit and tucked in. In between mouthfuls Henry said: ‘I need you for the snigging tomorrow, Tom. They’re closing off the coupe where I got all those good logs last week and Bloody John broke his arm today.’

Tom’s heart sank. Ordinarily he would have been interested in the details of a broken arm but not on a Friday, not when Henry wanted him to work on a Saturday.

‘What about Flynn?’ he spluttered, his mouth full.

‘What about him?’

‘Mum’s got to work tomorrow.’

‘Ah. Mrs Clark’ll have to look after ’im.’

Tom waited a few moments. ‘No, Mrs Clark can’t. She’s got to go to Laurence tomorrow.’