| 'Christopher' | 
| |
| by Myra Howerd, July 1996 | ||
| Copywrite held by Claudia Klaus, P.O. Box 5102, Mackay M.C., QLD 4741, Australia |
The first story of a trilogy
| 'Christopher' |
| |
| by Myra Howerd, July 1996 | ||
| Copywrite held by Claudia Klaus, P.O. Box 5102, Mackay M.C., QLD 4741, Australia |
Christopher Pemberton was bored. Lately this had become a distressingly common condition which he usually alleviated by finding something... anything... to read, or by wandering around the precincts of the station or farm or whatever place it was that he and Eric were currently working, then finding someone to help out or just to talk to.
Today there wasn't even any faint possibility of anyone to talk with.
Today they were between places again, riding the big interstate coach first south down from the thirsty back country of New South Wales then connecting with the main route that eventually became the Barrier Highway to Broken Hill. Perhaps there they'd have the chance of a lift south-eastwards, down the Darling. It depended on what Eric intended.
Christopher didn't like these endless dry plains, he preferred the soft and friendly greens of Victoria, and the part he liked most was the high country. High country was horse country. The best country.
It wasn't that he objected to the travelling, he always enjoyed new places and new people. He preferred hitching or just plain walking to travelling in the bus where there was nothing except the boring reality of the flat landscape dragging past the windows. True, it wasn't all flat, but it might as well have been compared to what he was used to.
He was quite a good looking boy... 'handsome' was the embarrassing description he once overheard one of the cockies' wives describing him on the phone... but he didn't think so himself. Wide set brown eyes looked out on the world from a face of unusual symmetry, marred only by the nose which was slightly too small and had the hint of a cheeky upward tilt. The fine drawn features had a permanently cheery expression that seldom failed to melt the hearts of farming wives and boarding house dowagers, a benefit he was never slow to utilise.
At thirteen, nearly fourteen years old he was already familiar with most of the forgotten corners of his nominally home state of Victoria as well as a goodly part of New South Wales and South Australia as well. He and Old Eric were wanderers, itinerants, free souls who roamed from station to station, from job to job. The boy had never known or desired any other kind of life.
Not that it really mattered. It was enough that they were travelling again, kicking the red dust of one place off their boots and absorbing the taste and texture of somewhere new. The colours never really changed, they were always reds and greens and blues. He knew it was the same all the way to the Indian Ocean, thousands of kilometers away.
Idly the boy wondered if he'd ever get to see that side of the country. Once he wouldn't have cared, but now he was old enough to have a hunger growing in him, hunger for an intangible 'something' he could never put wholly into words.
Earlier his heart had leapt when Eric had bought the tickets for the journey west. That had been something new, something out of the usual pattern of their travels and therefore exciting. They didn't usually swing that far west, and for one dizzy moment Christopher had dreamed they might be going all the way.
To Western Australia. Home.
Now as he sat in the sticky stuffiness of the coach he re-examined the events that had led up to this odd variation in their route. Eric was unsettled, upset about something, that was the first definite fact, the first certainty. The boy remembered very well when the subject had arisen.
They'd been sitting round the fire swilling sweet, dark billy tea when Eric had announced the plan, his voice seemingly casual, uncaring.
'Reckon we'll head a bit further out west this time, boy. Nullaroo way, fer a start. Got to see a fella over that way about some money he owes me from some time back.'
Nullaroo. Christopher hadn't heard of the place before and swiftly said so, sensing a story to be told.
'Arrr, it's over on the main road to Adelaide. Bloody small place, not too much there,' he'd explained gruffly. 'This bloke's a cockie out that way, usta be a good mate of mine but then he went an' got married. Never been the same since.'
He shook his head sadly at the thought.
'Reckon we'll make a detour out that way first, young fella.'
Christopher remembered staring over the fire at the stocky, grey-haired figure and suddenly realised he was old. Really old. There were nearly as many white hairs now as grey and he was beginning to look shrunken, somehow. Or was it his own perceptions? The boy was nearly as tall as the man, growing fast, and already it was he who did most of the heavier work. Neither of them had ever commented on it, it had just come to happen as a very natural sort of thing, one of the myriad adjustments that had been necessary over the years.
He remembered the coughing spasms that sometimes wracked the other in the cold mornings, and how he was becoming much more relaxed about letting his swag be carried for him. All the little things added up to a picture the boy didn't really want to think about.
Doggedly his mind returned to worry over this decision to head so far away from their normal haunts, looking for reasons, for any evidence to point to why the old man had chosen to step out of the pattern of years. He though back carefully, re-living the previous few days and searching them for any hint of an alternative reason for this detour, but nothing had surfaced. Nothing solid.
Was it really money? Was that the real reason they were going west? He knew that wouldn't have been any trouble normally, for they had money from the last job, quite a bit of money. Christopher had half of it in his own swag, so he knew exactly how much there was. Enough.
Of course it cost money to take the bus, and they felt out of place in the plush air conditioned surroundings, with their faded, stained old jeans and their bedrolls tied to their old canvas swags, each with its own fire-blackened billy dangling behind.
Christopher always thought that was a bit silly, carrying two of everything, but when he'd said so to Eric the old man had bristled at once.
'Silly, is it? Would you still be callin' it silly if you were sitting on the side of the bloody road two hundred bloody miles away from me? Use yer brains, boy!'
The bus driver hadn't complained, however. He'd merely accepted their money and in return handed them small blue cards that stated baldly that a fare of forty-five dollars had been paid for each of them.
That was another worrying sign. Eric normally became indignant and loudly argumentative when Christopher's fare was anything but half price, the usual children's rate. On this occasion he hadn't even raised an eyebrow. True, Christopher was tall and straight, more a youth than a child, but it had become a tradition for Eric to raise such a ruckus that the drivers invariably gave in rather than put up with the loud altercations very publicly held on the side of the road or at some dismal country pickup point they were anxious to get away from.
Yes, that had been uncharacteristic. No, it couldn't be money.
At last his mind settled on a particular incident, an occasion some nights previous when Eric had also acted out of character.
They'd been setting up their camp for the night on the Dreyfus property, and Christopher had been collecting dry wood for the fire. Usually he collected the bigger branches from under the old gums, kneeing them into useable size while Eric selected twigs and dry brush to start the fire with.
On this occasion the old man had grabbed a big branch to drag it over to their fireplace and had simply fallen to the ground without so much as a cry. Christopher hadn't even realised it had happened until he'd got back to their gear and found the old man missing. He'd been puzzled and went out to look, finding Eric some minutes later sitting quietly on the ground as he massaged the side of his neck. In the half light his usually ruddy features had been pale and he looked frail, suddenly aged.
The boy's heart had seemed to miss a beat then, but Eric had clambered to his feet without apparent difficulty, gesturing at the offending branch.
'You bring 'er in, boy. I'll get the bloody fire started.'
He'd turned then and walked back to the campsite without further comment, and Christopher had followed silently, recognising that some vital factor in the equation of their existence had changed, but unsure of exactly what it was.
Now as he thought more about it he recognised that from that time on things had been subtly different, with Eric somehow gentler, more reflective, taking pleasure in just sitting and looking at things instead of bustling around in his more usual impatient manner.
There had been no repeats but the boy worried over it like a dog with a bone, especially since there wasn't anything else to do or think of. Was it the reason they were going west? Finally his patience ran out and he hesitantly broached the subject with the old man. There were few other passengers and these murmured in their own high, soft, cocoon-like seats or dozed as the drab landscape slid past. The boy and the old man were able to converse freely.
"Why are we going west to Nullaroo, Eric?" he finally asked directly. Eric was quiet for a while, looking out the window where the bus was being chased by militant black crows.
"I told you before," he said at last, "I got to get some money a cockie owes me there."
"But why now?" the boy persisted. "That must have been years ago, 'cos I don't ever remember coming over this way before. We always cut straight through to Corregan."
"Yeah. Well, this year it's different, innit, we're goin' to Nullaroo." He seemed tired and over the next half hour the boy worried at him like a housedog amongst the sheep until the old man finally snapped at him.
"Look, boy, it's like this. I've bin doin' some figuring and I reckon it's high time for you to be in contact with your folks again. You're thirteen now an' you need more schooling than I can give yer."
For the first time he looked directly at Christopher and put his wrinkled hand on the boy's own. Christopher's heart leapt. It could only mean one thing. Eric was going to get in contact with his mother, for he had no other kin that he knew of except for Eric's brother in Perth, Christopher's grandfather.
His mother!
He'd always dreamed of meeting her and always sought more details from the old man, extracting each grain of information and storing it lovingly in a special place in his memory where it was used to construct elaborate fantasies about his past and the reasons for her having left him in Melbourne so long ago.
"You mean you'll contact my mother?" It burst out of him, his eyes gleaming with excitement. Eric had looked sadly at him for a moment before shaking his head.
"Maybe, maybe not, boy. I've told you before, I don't rightly know where she lives now. I think she's married and living somewhere in Perth, but I never did get any details. It wasn't important before, yersee."
Not important? It was the most important thing in the world!
"But now you think I'm old enough, is that it?" Eric had sighed.
"That's part of it, true enough. Christopher, you can't go on living like this forever, you know. I've bin a selfish old man, trying to hold on to you and to the old ways, but it's wrong. What I have in mind now is actually goin' over there for a while. I reckon we ought to be able to get work there, same as in Victoria or South Australia. While we're there I'll be lookin' up me brother Bert. He'll know where your mother is now."
This silenced the boy, at least for a while. He was stunned. He would see his mother! His own personal, most private dream was to come true! His youthful enthusiasms ignored all the 'if's' and maybe's in Eric's statements and happily concentrated on the dreamstuff instead. After all these years of wandering it was finally going to happen!
It took a long dreamtime before his naturally enquiring mind managed to throw the obvious question before him. Why hadn't they gone before? The brightness became overshadowed by a a dully glowing anger as he thought about it. They could have gone years ago. They should have!
Slowly he came to realise that it might have something to do with the very things he'd just been worrying about, the little incidents and changes he'd noticed over the past few weeks. Suspicious now, the Dreyfus camp incident suddenly assumed a much darker meaning.
"Eric, are you feeling crook?" he finally asked. The old man's hesitation had told him much more than the words that followed.
"Not exactly, Christopher. I'm getting old, that's all. I just got to thinkin' an' realised that it's time to do something about your future, like I said before." Unspoken was the inference that if he died Christopher would be on his own. Completely.
"Something's happened, hasn't it?" the boy persisted. "Is it your cough, or maybe your heart?"
"Could be. Happens when yer gettin' old, boy."
There was a long silence while this was digested. Christopher tried to imagine what it would be like without his friend and mentor and failed utterly. It was inconceivable. It just couldn't happen. Once he'd had nightmares about just this possibility, not long after he'd read the classic 'Oliver Twist'. That was when he'd first discovered that reading wasn't all joy, that it built shadows in the mind, along with the bright, new ideas. He recognised then that he was in a similarly vulnerable position, that but for this one old man he too would be in an orphanage. The ensuing nightmares had sent him into great periods of depression when he cried himself to sleep, hating his mother, the whole world, and most of all himself.
Eventually Eric had extracted the story from him and then produced something Christopher had never seen before. His birth certificate.
'Boy, you ain't an orphan, you know that bloody well, but this here's the proof of it. See, here's your mother's name... Judith Marilyn Pemberton ...here, take it an' look after it an' let's not be havin' any more of this orphans business, yer hear?'
He'd passed the yellowed, much folded piece of paper to the surprised boy who stared at it for a long time before storing it carefully away in the battered old tobacco tin that served as his personal wallet. It also held the one other priceless possession, a photograph of his young mother.
Now as the bus droned on Christopher wished he could get it down for another look. Going home! Beside him Eric dozed as the bus tore through the endless boredom of the outback and steadily devoured the kilometers. The boy found himself nodding off in the heat as well, for the air conditioning had broken down shortly after Naseby, and after a brief and futile attempt to fix it the driver had simply climbed back in and driven on.
That had been several hours ago now, he guessed, and idly wondered how much further they had to go. It didn't matter, so he returned to grappling with his future once again.
At the time the birth certificate had seemed the most precious thing in the whole world, but after a while he'd realised that nothing had really changed. Just the possession of it was a certain kind of security, and simply having it had stopped the nightmares.
Now he was a little older and able to take a longer, more adult view of what might be ahead. Was there any real possibility of Eric becoming sick? He had no idea. What would he do if the old man died? It seemed a remote possibility, but something he would have to seriously consider.
He wondered if Eric had any more surprises stowed away somewhere in the depths of his swag. He knew of at least two letters received in the last few months and had glimpsed the postmark on one of them.
SHENTON PARK WA 6008.
It meant little to a boy brought up in the back country of the eastern states, but he committed it to memory anyway. Perhaps these letters had been yet another influence on Eric, another small grain to tip the scales in favour of going west...
It must have been about three when he woke up, annoyed with himself and the still fierce heat. Outside the bus the same scrub slid past the same dusty windows but now that the sun was a little lower he didn't have to squint quite as much to see out.
Inside the bus nothing had changed either. Most of the passengers were lolling in their seats like Eric, somehow managing to sleep in spite of the heat and the dust and the swaying of the big vehicle.
Where did the dust come from? The question popped unbidden into his mind, as he remembered that this road was sealed. Another of life's mysteries.
Although he'd never been this way before the country was much the same as that area of New South Wales they'd just come from. He didn't like it much, too dry. He preferred the rolling green sheep country up against the mountains and on the Victorian border.
He thought back to the Dreyfus property they'd left. Old man Dreyfus was another mate of Eric's from the years before and they'd met up with him down south and had accepted his invitation to shoot roos on the station. It turned out that Dreyfus had the licence and the guns, but he was past doing the hard physical work of the job.
He usually relied on his son but this particular year they'd had an argument, a real blue, and the younger man had told his father he was shifting out. Of course Dreyfus hadn't believed him, and by the time he realised that this time he'd gone too far it was too late to hire anyone else and he was in danger of losing his quota.
It had fallen on Christopher to do most of the heavy work. Old Dreyfus would drive them out in his old ute and leave them to it, coming out later to pick up the skins. He was only interested in skins, reckoning that it wasn't worth the expense and hassle of putting in a freezer for the meat, so all Eric and Christopher had to do was shoot and skin, then pile everything up at convenient collection points for the ute.
The boy had enjoyed that. They'd got up early, usually before dawn, then when the ute had pulled away from the bore they'd selected, the two shooters would settle back and pick off the big reds before they came too close to the water. That way they didn't disturb the next victims too much or have to heave the carcasses away from the water source.
As he mused Christopher felt the bus slow and looked out again to see they were entering the outskirts of a small country town. Even as he came fully awake the speaker system coughed into life and the weary voice of the driver announced another comfort stop, this time in the metropolis of Nullaroo.
Nullaroo! They'd arrived.
Outside there was the usual scattering of older weatherboard housing, and an occasional newer brick one, the inevitable service station, a council depot and then suddenly a short main street with battered shops and a big sandstone edifice that proudly proclaimed its construction date to be nineteen-oh-eight.
Wearily he exercised the muscles of his back and tried to remember where he'd put the bags. In the rack? No, they'd been too bulky, he'd put them on a spare set of seats directly in front of their own. Time to wake Eric.
The old man still lay in much the same position he'd started with, his mouth now open a little, giving him an innocent, childlike appearance. It was a talent of his, an ability to fall asleep anywhere, anytime, in any position. Indeed, he looked small, his face a round and wrinkled mask. Christopher was almost sorry he had to wake him but the bus was grinding to a halt and the other passengers were beginning to stir.
With his left hand he reached across to grasp Eric's shoulder.
"Eric? Wake up, we're here."
Nothing happened. Eric kept the same vacant, mildly happy expression and slept on, undisturbed by the gentle shake or by the jerk as the bus finally hissed to a stop.
Christopher shook a little harder.
"Eric! Wake up!"
Still the old man didn't respond and the boy felt the first stirrings of alarm. He must be sick or something... Unwilling to touch the peaceful face Christopher reached down to the dry, horny hands. They were cold to the touch and suddenly a terrible fear exploded in the youth.
Frantic now he turned in the seat and used his right hand to shake the ancient shoulder more vigorously.
"Please... Eric..."
This time the more drastic movement disturbed the head which suddenly lolled forward like a doll's, and Christopher knew terror. He stifled a gasp and felt for the pulse in the wrist the way Eric himself had taught him so many years ago.
Nothing.
Something broke in Christopher then, and he felt a sob rise up from some deep place within himself. It couldn't be true! Behind him he heard and felt the movement of the other passengers as they filed past and out the door, out to stand in the town they called Nullaroo, completely unaware that one of their number had made a very different journey and wouldn't be needing a bus any more.
Eric Pemberton was dead!
His body was an empty husk, still flaccid and flexible, like a cleverly jointed puppet, now jumbled forward untidily against the back of the next seat.
Christopher sat, stunned and barely comprehending the enormity of what had happened, his thoughts a kaleidoscope of memories, fear and indecision.
Eric was dead!
What was to become of him now? They'd send him away for sure, to an orphanage where he'd be beaten and not get enough to eat and never never never see his mother again! Inside his own private hell yawned wide, waiting, and the world seemed to lean inwards, to want him to slide down and in, away to a world of drab grey walls and no future.
Suddenly it was too much. He sobbed and tore himself away from the dead man, standing at last in the aisle. Tears filled his eyes and he turned to stumble blindly out and down, out of the coffin-like bus and past the remaining few passengers still standing at the door. As the sobs tore from him he began to run, faster and faster, away from the bus and what it carried, away from the black pit that still yawned for him.
The startled passengers watched him go and didn't understand. Nor did the pedestrians in the still sun-hot street. All of them were shaken from their comfortable normalcy by the intensity of emotion glimpsed on the young boy's face, a terrible mixture of terror and grief.
Behind him the driver hesitated, then climbed back into the bus to find what had frightened his young passenger and soon found the old man. At first he too thought Eric might be sleeping or sick, but it didn't take long for him to realise the truth and then his face paled. He ran to the door and shouted, his voice urgent, demanding.
"Quickly, get an ambulance! You, yes you, help me here. You... go in that shop there and call an ambulance. Quickly, now!"
In the uproar that followed the boy was forgotten, at least at first. A small crowd gathered to watch the old man being carefully lifted out and placed in the back of the station wagon owned by the undertaker who was also the ambulance officer. Silently a blanket was laid over the old face, reducing the wrinkled, shrunken old body to just another lumpy load.
Soon the audience observed the arrival of the police van and heard once again the story of the running boy. The policeman took notes.
"Where did he go?" he asked in general and several hands pointed down the road, their owners gabbling their version of events or asking questions.
Where did they come from? Was the old man really dead? Really?
The boy had killed the man and stolen his money...
There hadn't been any boy, it had been a girl...
...long black hair... no, fair hair, a girl I tell you...
The driver added to the woes of the besieged policeman by reminding him that he had to get on his way as soon as possible. How long would it be before they could go, please...? He was becoming thoroughly fed up and didn't hesitate to tell the policeman so.
"How much longer do I have to hang around this bloody dump?" he was snarling before long, with a regularity and volume that finally sapped the officer's patience, exactly as intended.
"You'll stay just as long as I say!" the policeman roared, but under the howls of protest from the passengers he was forced to relent.
"I suppose there's no real reason to keep you," he finally conceded. "Leave the old fella's gear with me and the phone number of your Adelaide office, and you can go."
"What about the boy's stuff? Do I leave that with you too?"
"Might as well. Funny, him running off like that. He didn't owe for the fare, did he?"
"Nah, mate, they paid OK, no worries about that. Reckon he just got a fright and lit out. Might have done the same mesself if it had been me," the driver conceded, happier now that he was allowed to depart. Quickly he entered the bus and recovered the bedrolls and bags, dumping them on the sun-sticky tar of the street edge.
He didn't notice the slight figure of a girl step closer as he did so.
"C'mon, everyone aboard. Excitement's over, all aboard!" he called and the passengers filed in like obedient sheep, their faces showing varying degrees of resignation or boredom as they faced another six hours on the road. The small burst of excitement was already fading.
The policeman meanwhile checked his notes, adding to them here and there to remind himself what the more cryptic comments were supposed to mean and waiting for the bus to fill and leave. Slowly the crowd drifted away, back to their shop doors or over to the single pub. When the bus finally ground off the officer was left alone with a battered collection of swags and a single, brown-haired girl who coughed discreetly to catch his attention as he went to put the notebook away.