The Promise Seed Page 2

  There I was, surrounded by strangers.

  Would’ve been nice to get a visit from Mum. I was still her son. Despite everything that had happened.

  The next thing I recall is being collected in a car that was so shiny I could see my own face right there on the blue paintwork. We’d never had a car, so I was pretty excited to hear that it was me being collected and driven somewhere. We drove for what seemed like a long time, although it was probably only an hour or so. I had the window down and I kept sticking my face out so as to feel the wind whooshing past, so fast it made my eyes water. I was happy to be leaving those scones behind, I can tell you.

  Simple pleasures, hey. No computer games or Play Boxes or X Machines or whatever the heck the kids have today so they’re amused every spare moment. A simple ride down the highway in a blue car with the wind in my face, and I was happy. Despite Emily. Despite everything.

  I didn’t know where we were going, but I think I expected to see Mum or Aunty Kath or someone familiar at the end of it.

  When we arrived, it was this massive grey building with lots of windows. Next to one wall was a great big weeping willow moaning gently in the wind. And the whole lot was enclosed with a fence: I’d never seen one that high. I wonder now whether it was to keep the inside people in, or the outside people out. In any event, there was nobody I knew, only an empty sitting room where I was told to sit, and wait, which I did. I wouldn’t have minded seeing even the woman with the doughy face. But I waited an awful long time, and no-one came, not for me.

  Unfamiliar faces streamed past, some kind, some mean-looking, and some strange and bewildered.

  I had a lot of time that day to sit and think about what had happened. In retrospect, I can see that my six-year-old self had a lot of trouble connecting the dots. I only understood that I was in a mess of trouble.

  That building doesn’t exist anymore. I went down there once, in the seventies, and the whole place was gone: the buildings, the fence, even the willow tree. Half of it was made up of what they call spec houses, a whole lot of boxes with cream walls and red roofs and the exact same letterbox outside each one. The other half used to be a playing field, where we threw a ball around and had running races and rode our rusty bicycles; that was gone too. There was a little shopping centre there, three or four shops grouped together, selling stuff to the people living in the spec houses, I suppose.

  I wondered whether they ever thought about the foundations of the Darling Downs Home for Wayward Boys, right there under their feet.

  But at the time I arrived that spring of ’44, that building felt as solid as rock and about as interesting. It was to be my home for the next eight years.

  I shared a room with two other Wayward Boys. James was three years older than me and knew a heck of a lot for a nine-year-old. He was thin as a rake, and wiry, but he had some muscles in those puny arms. He gave a Chinese burn that left a red mark ’til the next day. James had what I suppose they’d now call Attention Deficit Disorder or Hyperactivity or some such. Back then he was just plain naughty. He’d been to four different schools and none of them could hold him. He’d kick the teachers and punch the other students and in the end his parents gave up and shoved him into the Home. James didn’t seem to care; he continued kicking and punching all the boys that were smaller than him.

  Derek was my other roommate. Poor Derek was a touch slow. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. He couldn’t even say the alphabet all the way through, and he was only a few months younger than James. He was real shy too, wouldn’t ever look you in the eye, if he spoke to you at all. Nice enough kid though. Funny thing, James took a shine to Derek. I guess they’d been together a couple of years before I came along, and he pretty much took Derek under his wing and watched out for him. Any of those other kids picked on Derek or made fun of him for the way he talked, James would be on them quicker than you could blink. As time went on, people knew to keep clear of the two of them. So when I arrived, and Mr McCready put me in the same room, I think the older boys thought I wouldn’t be long for this world, being locked in there with James every night. But I survived. James didn’t go out of his way for me like he did with Derek, but he did tolerate me, most of the time. Never missed an opportunity for a hard pinch or a swift kick up the backside, though.

  I see that kid next door, mooching around on his own, tormenting the bush turkeys and playing games of make-believe with himself, and I find myself thinking he’s lonely. But then I recall my youth, which was quite the opposite – never a moment to yourself, never a possession you didn’t have to share or a dessert that wasn’t fought over, always having to get a handle on a dozen different personalities and negotiate the friendship groups that formed and disbanded and re-formed like swarms of blowflies over a rotting carcass. And again I think to myself, he doesn’t know how lucky he is. Him and all the kids around here. They haven’t got a clue.

  …

  I was the youngest kid there when I arrived at the Home, and one of the oldest when I left.

  There were some miserable years in between. Some nights I’d lie in my narrow bed in that close room, listening to the other boys breathing, and I’d weep with the uncertainty and unfairness of it all. The days stretched out in infinite monotony. Dull lessons by teachers so strict and nasty they made your hair stand on end just to look at them. The ceaseless routine of chores. Not so many when I was younger, although a six-year-old can still be made to sweep a floor. By the time I was nine or ten I was scrubbing pots and chopping wood. That’s what I blame for my arthritis, all that time swinging an axe in the biting wind. I got so I had blisters on my blisters, my hands were that chapped and sore. I’ve still got the scar too. A pink jagged line in the webbing between my thumb and first finger on my left hand. I was steadying a chunk of wood and forgot to let go when I brought the axe down. Sixteen stitches. Never did that again.

  It wasn’t all bad though. I guess even in a place as dismal as the Home you’ve got to have a few bright moments, especially if you’re there as long as I was. One of my best friends was a boy named Archi. His full name was Archimedes – can you imagine any parent inflicting that on a little baby? Archi arrived a year or two after me and we were almost exactly the same age, give or take a week. Birthdays weren’t much celebrated in the Home, but you did get a day off your chores, and they served a sponge cake with sticky icing after dinner. So Archi and I got to have cake twice in the one week, which was pretty good. Archi had spiky ginger hair and so many freckles it seemed like he was one big freckle with bits of skin poking through. He was funny too. Always thinking up silly riddles and practical jokes. Most of the other boys liked Archi OK, but it was me he stuck around the most. Joined at the hip, Mr McCready used to say. We were good friends for quite a few years.

  One morning, Archi didn’t come down for breakfast and when I went up to his room, his bed was stripped, the bare mattress with bits of ticking showing through in tufts, and all his stuff was cleaned off his desk. Even the mouse skeleton was gone, the one I’d given him for his tenth birthday, so I knew something was up. His roommate, a loudmouth kid with bad breath who used to wet his bed a lot, I forget his name, he was useless. Said he didn’t know nothing in this adenoidal whine that annoyed the heck out of me. I tried to ask Mr McCready but all I was told was that young men should mind their own business.

  I never saw Archi again.

  I heard a rumour that he got sick, but someone else told me that some relation finally came to claim him. So that’s what I choose to believe. I like to imagine Archi growing up somewhere in a nice house with a family who cared about him. He would’ve liked that.

  I wonder where Archi is now. Him and James and Derek and the rest, they’d all be old men now, if they’re still alive at all. Makes you think, doesn’t it.

  Another good memory I have of the Home is the surroundings. The building itself was grey and depressing – I think it must have had rising damp
, ’cause it was always so cold and clammy. And there was the accumulated smell of hundreds of meals of boiled cabbage and fatty pork. But once we were allowed outside, it was like being in another world. The air was fresh and sweet. I’d take great gulps of it, like I was thirsty for oxygen. In winter the sky was a fragile blue dome. Sometimes massive clouds would congregate, shifting slowly above us, before sending down icy drizzles. In summer the blue was brighter, it had more depth – an oil painting rather than the thin watercolour of winter. When those first days of spring came, the tips of the tree buds were tinged with pink or pale mauve, and the snowdrops had given way to colourful wildflowers and blossoms from the fruiting trees. It all seemed so alive, bursting with possibility, and made you forget, even for a little while, about the grey building and the cabbage and the chores.

  It’s a funny thing, but sometimes I miss those spring days. I do. Whatever else you say about the Home, I lived there longer than I’d lived in that house with Mum, the house that was cold and still even before Emily died.

  The Home. For most of my childhood, the place was home.

  4

  It was a long walk from school. The boy reached his yard and pushed past the rusty vine-covered gate. Wedged firmly at an odd angle, it was not quite closed but not quite open enough to be welcoming either. He stopped when he saw the motorcycle, leaning as if it belonged there. He briefly considered leaving, but he hadn’t eaten since the night before – a gnawing emptiness growled in his stomach – and he remembered he had less than a dollar in his pocket.

  Besides, this was his house.

  He went around the back and ascended the stairs on quiet cat feet, pausing to peer inside. From her bedroom he heard a rhythmic thud thud thud as the bed hit the wall. He stepped inside and foraged in the kitchen for something to eat, closing cupboard doors with a muffled click. He found a muesli bar and a packet of potato chips and put them in his school bag for lunch the next day. Half a pizza sat in a box on the table. He brushed away the flies, folded a whole slice and stuffed it into his mouth. The idiot had left a full pack of smokes too. The boy pocketed them. He would sell them to the older kids down by the creek after school. He guzzled from an open can of Coke, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and retreated to his room.

  The thudding reverberated through his bedroom wall and he tried not to imagine what was causing the sound. Finally it stopped, and the house was at rest. His mother’s boyfriends never hung around unless they were too drunk or stoned to leave; he crossed his fingers and hoped to hear the roar of the motorcycle. But instead he heard the toilet running and someone moving around the lounge room, and then raised voices, a man’s grunt, and his mother’s nasal tone. Suddenly his bedroom door was open and a man he had seen only once or twice before was glaring at him, intent.

  Get out of here! You’re not allowed in here!

  Where’re my fucking smokes, you little shit?

  I haven’t touched your smokes. Get out. Leave me alone.

  I’m not going anywhere until you give me back my smokes.

  The man walked through the doorway and glared about. He reached for a music poster taped to the wall and, in one slow deliberate stroke, tore half of it away and dropped it to the floor.

  You bastard. Get out! Mum!

  Oh, go on, cry for Mummy, little boy.

  He swept his arm over the top of the dressing table, scattering books and Lego in all directions. The boy slid backwards on the bed under the man’s piercing scrutiny.

  Where … are … my … smokes?

  He lunged, catching the boy’s wrist. The boy twisted his body on the bed, trying to wriggle free.

  Where … are … my … smokes?

  This time he punctuated each word with a sharp slap. The boy’s cheek stung and his ear rang.

  He looked up and saw his mother standing in the doorway. Her eyes were blank windows. She chewed on a fingernail and glanced behind her as if she might have somewhere else to be.

  The boy jolted forward, and the unexpected movement put the man off balance. His grip loosened and the boy slipped away from under him, onto the floor, and past his mother out the door. He didn’t stop running until he reached the fence. He could hear the man’s curses. He scrambled over the palings and into next door’s yard, towards the shed. A couple of chickens scattered, noisily announcing his intrusion. The boy found a niche between the side of the shed and the ageing scribbly gum, flattened himself into the space, and slid onto his haunches, breathing hard.

  The hens were still running around in crazy circles, squawking indignantly. He could see the man outside his own back door, and his mother too. The man was still cursing loudly. His mother said nothing.

  He tilted his head at the sound of footsteps. The old guy was walking towards him.

  Hey you! Bugger off! What are you doing, scaring my chickens!

  The boy put his finger to his lips and pleaded with his eyes. The old man glared back at him in astonishment. His gaze shifted over to the shouting in the next yard, and the hairy, bare-chested man swigging from a stubbie. He stared from the man to the boy, and back to the man.

  Hey! Old man! You seen a kid just now? Little bugger run off with me stuff. You see which way he went?

  He motioned to the woman. He’s gonna get a fucking belting.

  The old man took a tottering pace forward.

  No, he said in a firm and even tone. I haven’t seen anyone.

  He stared defiantly at the man, and then reached for the henhouse door.

  Don’t come all piss and vinegar on me, ya hairy galoot, he muttered. He waited as the man and the woman completed their desultory search of their own yard and then went back into the house.

  The old man turned back to the folds of the tree. But the boy was gone.

  5

  I got three letters from Mum while I was at the Home. The first one was right after I arrived. Being only six, I don’t think I could’ve read it. I suppose someone read it to me but I don’t remember. The second one came around the time of my eighth birthday. I was reading pretty well by then. In it she said she was sorry she’d missed my seventh birthday and she hoped I’d have a happy day on my eighth. She enclosed a card with little cartoon chicks on it. It was babyish and I threw it away so the other boys wouldn’t tease me. I didn’t hear from her again until I got another letter when I was about eleven. Mum sounded real happy. She said she’d gone to Adelaide, which I knew was way down in the south of Australia, and that she had a new husband named Barry. He worked on the railroads and that’s why they’d moved away. In hindsight, it does seem kinda funny that she just blurted it out like that after so long, like she was telling an acquaintance she’d bought a new hat. But then I suppose there was so much going on in my life that simply happened to me – I must’ve accepted it as merely one more thing. Mum’s silences were nothing new. I still have that letter somewhere.

  In between letters one and two, the war ended. I was seven at the time. Mr McCready had his transistor radio on all day and into the night, and we were allowed to crowd around him and listen as long as we didn’t make any noise. We heard important people making important announcements, and snippets of recordings of soldiers cheering. A few of the teachers sat with their ears glued too, and classes were all but suspended for a day or two. To my young mind it seemed like cause for celebration, but some of the teachers got right emotional. Mr Elms, the maths master, had a brother who had died over in Europe some months before, and when peace was announced he went to pieces, blubbering like a baby and ranting about the senseless waste of life. I suppose that while the war raged, people put on a good face and kept up that fighting attitude, support for our men and all that, but when the end came, it was like that little Dutch boy taking his finger out of the plugged-up dyke … all those emotions finally came rushing through, the dam walls broke, and oceans of misery and sorrow about drowned us all.

  He was given e
xtended sick leave, Mr Elms. But he never came back.

  After the war, life at the Home went on much as usual, with a few adventures along the way. One year there was a big flood. It started raining one weekend and that rain didn’t let up for three whole weeks. The ground got all soggy. Nothing would dry properly. Mould started appearing everywhere – it blossomed on our bedroom walls and grew on our shoes. And little mushrooms sprouted in a big circle around the front of the building. The little kids thought it was a fairy ring. The older boys picked them and boiled them up to eat, thinking they’d get a buzz, but all they got was real sick. One kid even had to go to hospital. And in the midst of it all, that rain kept on coming. Our outside activities were cancelled and we played endless games of chess and draughts in the main hall. Then one night, one of the younger boys who stayed in the downstairs part, he got up to go to the bathroom and stepped out of bed right into a big pool of water. He woke us all up with his screaming. The whole building was flooded all through the downstairs. It was like a slow-flowing river, carrying shoes and papers and hats. We spent weeks afterwards trying to dry out the swollen pages of our books.

  Another time we had a fire in the toilets and the whole building had to be evacuated. Big Johnno lit it. He was an unfortunate wretch, Big Johnno. He was only twelve but he had size-eleven feet carrying around a huge lump of a body, and he wasn’t too smart either. The whole reason he was at the Home was for starting fires, so I suppose it was no surprise that he eventually lit one there too. In winter, when Mr McCready stoked up the fireplace in the main hall, Big Johnno would sit there for hours, staring into the flames. I asked him once what he was staring at. He said he saw all sorts of things in those flames, animals and people and whole cities sometimes, all dancing around in the blazing colours. Then he leant over real close to me and cast his eyes around conspiratorially, to make sure no-one else was listening.