Angel Rock

‘Wait there,’ ordered Henry. Tom, surprised, watched the truck disappear down the track, Flynn’s face a pale oval in the window, to where they’d taken the other logs, to where the jinker would pick them up later. He wondered whether Wait there was Henry’s way of saying he’d done a good job and he should have a break, or that he was completely useless. He sat down under a tree to wait, suddenly feeling a little lonely.

Henry had been gone a long time the night before. Tom had given up waiting for him. He’d gone and lain on his bed, listening to the world outside the house, but had fallen asleep, and only later been woken by the sound of the truck returning, Henry’s steady footsteps through the house, all the energy drained away, all the fury. Whatever had happened, whatever he’d said or done at the Steeles’, he didn’t say. Then, outside in the night, a real storm had brewed, just the faint sound of thunder at first, slowly moving closer, becoming louder, until the house was shuddering, until he’d worried about his mother having to come home through it. The lightning had flashed through the window and then the rain, great sheets of it, had come crashing down on the roof for half an hour, maybe three-quarters, and then it had gone, waltzing away down the valley, leaving the drains gurgling and the air cool and clean. He’d heard the floorboards creak as Henry walked out to the verandah. He’d pictured him standing out there on the step in his singlet, watching the storm go, maybe smoking one of the bent Marlboros. In the last flickers of light through the window he’d seen Flynn in his bed across the room, his mouth a dark O in his face, oblivious to it all.

There’d been no black eyes in the morning light, no grazes on Henry’s knuckles which hadn’t been there before, but there had been silence and an understanding on Tom’s part that he should not mention anything to do with the night before, especially not in front of his mother, whom he hadn’t even heard come home. Tom hadn’t even dreamt of it.

When Henry returned he jumped down from the truck and proceeded to build a little fire of twigs and bark to boil the billy on. A breeze picked up and blew the firesmoke away through the trees. When the tea was made he opened a tin of biscuits and passed two each to Tom and Flynn. Tom went and sat with his back against the cool trunk of a young bluegum and watched Flynn mess about chasing big red bull ants with a stick. He daydreamed about taking off his shoes and putting his feet in cool creek water. Henry had made both of them wear their school shoes to stop splinters. Tom hardly ever wore his except on special occasions and they were black and shiny and stiff and made his feet feel clumsy and heavy. They hurt his heels but it was worse for Flynn – he’d never worn his. Henry said that that was all the more reason Flynn should wear them in before he started school. Tom tried to tell him that hardly anyone wore shoes there but Henry hadn’t seemed to hear him.

‘Be careful with those bloody things, Flynn,’ Tom said when Henry went behind a tree to piss. ‘Don’t get bit!’

‘I won’t,’ said Flynn, spitting crumbs.

Henry set the transistor radio on the ground when he came back and they listened to a few songs and then the pips sounded and the news came on. The newsreader read out something about birth dates for the conscription. Tom listened and, to his alarm, heard his own – the same day and month, but a different year.

‘That’s my birthday!’

‘What?’

‘He just said my birthday!’

‘You’re too young.’

‘For what?’

‘To fight.’

‘What if I was old enough?’

Henry shrugged. ‘You’d have to go,’ he said.

‘What if I didn’t want to go?’

Henry looked at him as though he were surprised he could speak. ‘You’d have to.’

‘But what if I have to go one day? What if the war’s still going when I’m old enough?’

‘Well … you’d have to go. If I had anything to say about it. If your country needs you, you have to go.’

Henry flicked away the leafy tea at the bottom of his cup and then looked at Tom as though one or two more questions might be all right. Tom was about to ask another question when Henry suddenly looked up and shouted at Flynn to be careful. Tom looked over at his brother. He didn’t seem in any immediate danger.

‘Come on,’ said Henry, gruffly, after a silence.

When they returned to work Henry felled some more trees that had caught his eye, that he couldn’t bear to leave. All Tom had to do was keep out of the way and paint the end of the log with Henry’s mark and clear the branches from around the log as Henry lopped them so the truck could get in. They kept working until lunch time and then Henry drove them down to where other gangs were having their lunch in a large cleared area where the forest had been stripped back to the bare earth and the smouldering stumps of felled trees sent light-blue smoke into the air. The men squatted near the fires cooking meat, making tea, and smoking. Tom liked being around the timbermen and listening to their filthy speech and their eerie tales of headless convicts and moans and cries in the bush in the dead of night. They smelt of tobacco, grease and tree sap and sometimes told stories of themselves or other men and their battles with giant trees, the breaking of arms, legs, necks and backs. They spoke of women as though they were trees and trees as though they were women until Tom couldn’t tell one smooth limb from another, and they nearly always had grazes on their arms and legs and nearly always gaps in their grins or bright white false teeth. The older men wore braces over their work shirts or singlets and took no cheek from the youngsters.

He wandered around for a while in the cold ashes and charred earth. ‘The surface is fine and powdery,’ he whispered to himself. ‘I can see footprints of my boots … in the fine sandy particles.’

Henry called his name after a while and directed him to a fire and told him to watch out for Flynn and fry up some eggs. Henry strode over to the largest group of men – a Commission gang – and squatted amongst them. He plucked a cigarette from his pocket and straightened it out with his fingers and then lit it.

Tom got the pan, eggs and bread from the truck and set to work. It was hot in the sun after the shade of the trees and the sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes and as he wiped it away with his forearm he grew more irritated. He saw Flynn wandering around the uprooted bole of a huge tree.

‘Go and sit in the shade!’ Tom shouted to him.

Flynn came over, trailing a stick through the dust. Tom could tell he was irritable as well. They’d both had to get up before the sun for the early start.

‘Watch me cook,’ he said, but this did not seem to excite Flynn much. Tom looked at his brother. He felt sorry for him and then that turned into a fierce surge of protectiveness that rolled up from his gut and swamped everything else.

‘Maybe tomorrow we can go fishing,’ he said, his voice sounding weak and strangled, as though Sonny was pinning him down again.

Flynn’s face lit up. ‘Yeah? Can we?’

‘Yep.’

‘Where?’

‘In the river. Where else, knucklehead?’

‘Will Dad let us?’

‘He’ll be asleep in the morning. We’ll go then. We’ll leave him a bloody note!’

Flynn giggled and seemed to cheer up a little and soon he was singing to himself and crawling around in the dirt under the truck to see what he could find.

The last time Henry had taken them fishing it had rained. It’s not too heavy, not really rain at all, he’d said. Tom had followed him into the paddock, through the barbed wire, his legs wet from the long, water-loaded grass, his mother behind them in the car with Flynn becoming smaller and smaller. He remembered that his mother had smoked a cigarette that day. The car was a black Holden Special and the smoke had curled out through the chromed window frame. Henry had a wicker fishing creel that hung at his waist from two old leather belts that he’d stitched together with oiled string. In their back yard at home Tom remembered Flynn, only two or three, standing in the basket and holding on to its greasy rim. Tom had carried the short bamboo pole Henry had made for him, an old Alvey reel attached to the bamboo with wire and window putty, and on his head he’d worn a battered old oilskin hat that had leaked cold rain down the back of his neck. He’d looked back before they’d reached the dark curve of trees at the far end of the paddock and seen his mother following at last, her head bowed, her bare feet white against the grass, she and Flynn just small dark shapes against the expanse of grass and trees, connected at the hands, arms like rigging between them, his mother helping Flynn, who’d still been mastering walking, over the rough ground. Flynn had had no hat at all and his thin hair when they’d caught up had been flat against his scalp and his little shirt wet. The river when they’d reached it had been dark, fast-flowing and overhung with willow. He remembered the sound of the water rippling through tree roots and black rocks. Henry had sworn that it was a special spot, shown to him by his own father, but they had not caught anything that day, and they had never been back.

After five minutes or so the eggs were nearly cooked. He looked over to where Henry was sitting. He was still talking. Tom called to him but he made no move. He peered at the eggs through the smoke that was suddenly wafting towards him. It got into his eyes and made them water and sting. He lifted the pan and saw that the eggs were exactly how Henry liked them; any longer and they would go hard and rubbery, the way he hated them. He looked around for Flynn but couldn’t see him. He swore under his breath – Bloody shit – and put the pan in the shade of the truck and then he walked over to Henry and tapped him on the shoulder, acutely aware of the clunky black shoes on his feet. Henry looked at him from the corner of his eye but made no move to come. Tom fidgeted and swore some more but this time silently and to himself. One or two of the other men looked up at him and then back to Henry, who was listening intently to an old-timer going on and on about something. Tom’s ears grew hot with frustration and embarrassment. Finally he turned away, shouting The bloody eggs are ready! just before he did. When he glanced back some of the men were grinning at him, turning their heads from him to Henry like dogs waiting for a stick to be thrown. He walked back to the truck, the sun burning his already hot neck. He heard Henry’s boots crunching through the dirt behind him, and then the soft padding sound they made through the ash.

‘Where’s Flynn?’ he demanded, when he’d caught up.

Tom jumped. He looked around but couldn’t see him. He looked under the truck but Flynn wasn’t there either. Just then they both heard a little boy’s moan coming from the far side of the truck. It was Flynn. He’d taken off his shoes and he was holding his arm with his other hand. His feet and arms were both covered in the crumbly dirt of the clearing. Henry reached him and took hold of his arm and brushed away the dirt. He asked him what the matter was but Flynn could only cry, his tears leaving trails down his dusty cheeks.

‘He’s burnt his arm,’ said Henry. ‘He’s gone too near one of these fires and tripped over into some ashes or something. Bloody hell, Tom! I told you to fucking look after him!’

Tom, stunned, opened his mouth to defend himself, but, before he could, Henry shot out his arm and caught him across the ear and the side of the head with his open palm. His ear rang for a moment and then he heard Flynn’s crying rise and rise until it was a high-pitched squeal. He saw Henry almost throw Flynn up into the truck and then he heard an order to fetch the pan. The blood was right up in his ears and his cheek was on fire under his hand. He heard laughing and he turned. The men – all the men – were watching. Some were laughing, their shoulders and bellies shaking. They were all looking at him, laughing at him. He picked up the pan and threw the eggs into the fire and then walked to the truck with his head down. Flynn was still bawling. His anger at all of them grew. His brother was burnt. That was nothing to laugh at – there was nothing funny about it. He felt like throwing the pan at their stupid faces, but, instead, he climbed up into the cab, tossed the pan on the floor, and slammed shut the door.

They roared off down the track. Henry said nothing else to him but swore a few more times under his breath. Flynn held his arm and cried big breathy sobs and looked miserable. Tom put his arm round his shoulders – but more for his own comfort than Flynn’s. They drove to the nearest town, a little place called Jack’s Mountain that had a general store, a post office, a hotel, a few dishevelled-looking houses. Henry found a tap at the side of the hotel and stuck Flynn’s arm under it. Flynn watched transfixed as his arm emerged from the dust and the damage could be seen. There were two long red marks, one above the other, beginning to puff out in blisters. Tom couldn’t look at Henry.

‘It’s not too bad,’ Henry declared. ‘Keep his arm under there a while longer.’ He put his hand on Flynn’s head.

‘You’ll be right, tiger,’ he said. ‘You’ll live.’ He turned and stomped up the hotel stairs and disappeared inside. Tom waited with Flynn at the tap. When Flynn became impatient he pulled his arm out from under the water but soon afterwards the pain would return and he would put his arm back under again. A dog came and sniffed them both and a kid on a bike rode past and nearly steered into a post looking at them.

‘Look at him, Flynn. Nearly crashed into the post,’ said Tom. Flynn giggled.

The wife of the publican came out to look at Flynn’s arm. She tut-tutted and then took him inside. When he came out he had a bright white bandage on his arm and a glass of Coke with a straw in it. She had a glass for Tom as well and a plate of sandwiches. They climbed up into the truck and sat amidst the curled and sun-yellowed racing guides, the dried and miniaturised orange peel, the crushed red Marlboro packets, the smell of sawdust and hot oil. They ate their sandwiches, washed them down with their Cokes, burped. Tom began to think the day might finally be looking up.

Soon Flynn was sound asleep, his mouth open and his head back against the wine-red seat, the band of burnt, freckled skin across his nose and cheeks vivid against the smooth white skin of his neck. Tom sat and listened. He could hear the hotel noises: shouting, laughing, tinny music. The sounds seemed strangely comforting. A breeze filtering down through the trees fanned him through the open window. He put his head back and fell asleep beside his brother and soon he was dreaming. He dreamt he fell off the deck of a great ship and sank down through the sea, the sun disappearing, miles and miles of black elbow-room opening up all around.

Henry woke them by thudding on the door of the truck, right where Tom’s head rested. He looked up, his thoughts in a muddle, but not so much that he couldn’t see that Henry was good and drunk. He looked out the window at the street. It was much later in the day. Where before there had only been their one truck in the street there were now half a dozen. It seemed work was over for the timbermen for the week. They sat out on the verandah of the hotel, leant against the doorposts and spat into the dust. The boy on the bike was back, but keeping his distance on the other side of the street.

‘Mr McKinnon’s going to take you home,’ said Henry. ‘I’m stayin’ on for a bit longer.’ He turned and went back into the hotel after mumbling something about waiting by the truck. Tom rubbed his face, shook Flynn, then climbed down from the truck’s cab. Flynn followed at his own pace, muttering to himself.