Copyright Tom Fisher 2011
Crusader eBooks, Smashwords Edition
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Published by Crusader eBooks, Perth, Western Australia
Front cover image: Lilith Tempting Adam and Eve, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris
Back cover image: Boy and Bath, Troy Caperton, detail
Cover Design by Tom Fisher
The right of Thomas John Fisher to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
Typeset by the author in Times New Roman.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Author: Fisher, Tom, 1951-
Title: Educating Nicolas [electronic resource] / Tom Fisher.
ISBN: 9780987253026 (ebook)
Dewey Number:A823.4
Acknowledgements
This novel is personally reflective in many ways, but it is also based on many years of teaching in rural Australia. It is inspired in large part by George Orwell's Why I Write, in some part by Kenneth Cook's Wake in Fright and Xavier Herbert's Poor Fellow My Country.
Style and content, on the other hand, is indebted to a good range of realistic, critical, subversive and coming-of-age cinema including, by date, Peter Brook 1963, Lord of the Flies; Leonardo Favio 1965, Crónica de un niño solo; Louis Malle 1971, Le soufflé au Coeur, and 1975, Black Moon; Nicolas Roeg 1971, Walkabout; Bernardo Bertolucci 1976, Novecento; David Hamilton 1980, Tendres cousines; Hector Babenco 1981, Pixote: a Lei do Mais Fraco; Bertrand Arthuys 1984, Tom et Lola; Fredi M. Murer 1985, Höhenfeuer; Jacques Doillon 1989, La fille de quinze ans; Goran Paskaljevic 1992, Tango argentino; Hugh Hudson 1999, My Life So Far; Christophe Ruggia 2002, Les Diables; Paula van der Oest 2002, Moonlight; Tony Gatlif 2002, Swing; Aisling Walsh 2003, Song For A Raggy Boy; Isild Le Besco 2003, Demi-tarif; René Féret 2003, L'enfant du pays; Michael Cuesta 2005, 12 and Holding; Iván Noel 2008, En tu ausencia; and not least Tim McCanlies 2009, Alabama Moon, among others too numerous to mention.
I do hope you also get a chance to view these remarkable films.
I am not grateful for the loneliness I endured here, for the alienation, the contempt, the mediocrity, and the narrow, right-wing provincialism, that always hides a brutality at its heart.
Dorothy Hewett (1923 – 2002)
Chapter One
The wind was starting to whip up branches as the trees swayed violently and leaves flew. It came upon them suddenly, from over the crest of the hill without warning. Nicolas had never seen anything like it. He kicked himself for not noticing the charged air sooner. The stink of ozone was everywhere, not that it made much difference, he thought later.
Wally called across to him as the cold damp air descended and with it a great wall of dark grey sky flickering with menace beyond the bright clear blue of minutes before, and the first great spatters of rain bombarded the parched dry soil, oddly raising dust among the raindrops which swirled and mixed with steam from the still hot ground.
Nicolas stopped to stare in wonder. The light was electric. The thing was weird, like phosphorescent lights at night, and fairies dancing. His hair stood on end.
Wally called again and he started across, but right then a great thundering crack split the air and he fell over backwards. It seemed like the heavens above had clapped suddenly and he was standing there in the middle, like a great monastery gong had struck inside his head. His ears rung and his head hurt. Slowly he turned onto all fours before struggling drunkenly to his feet. The big old Morton Bay Fig was down, split right down the middle with parts on fire and the rest smoldering. Wally was no longer to be seen.
Chapter Two
Nicolas was vague, they said, a dreamer. He didn't think that himself; it was just that he'd got off at the wrong station, or maybe the wrong planet. On the occasion he thought about it, it occurred to him that he may have missed the boat. Without people like Wally he couldn't imagine how he might have coped.
A school psychologist asked him once, during one of his many visits, what was the earliest memory he had of his childhood.
"You really want to know that?" he'd asked, but the old bloke sat gazing at him until he tired of waiting and shrugged.
"If you want to know my earliest memory, it was my brother getting pecked by a chook." he said finally.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Yes, I was in my stroller on the back veranda, and he went to have a pee down the back yard. He was standing there pissing on the lawn, under the lemon tree, and this chook came up and pecked his dick. Maybe it thought it was a worm or something. Anyway, it made him jump, I was watching, and he started to cry. He came all the way back up to the house with his dick hanging out. It had this drop of blood on the end, bright red; I remember, he walked past me and went inside to show Mum."
"That's my earliest memory," he added after a moment or two.
The psychologist sat staring at him. Eventually he shook his head and sighed resignedly before learning forward to make a note in his little book.
It was like that all the time. It had nothing to do with him. He just happened to have been there, but it was as if he caused things to happen; that it was his fault.
They never wanted to know really interesting things either, like those helicopter trees in the park; the way their seeds flew off, spinning away in the breeze in their tiny battalions, off on some mission, or how scorpions mated. He chuckled at the thought, but the psychologist just sat staring thoughtfully awhile before packing up for the day.
His mother used to say his problem was that he was just too good-looking to be real; what that angry bitch called A Beautiful Boy, as if it were her business, with his classic good looks, dark eyes, rose-petal lips and fine dark curly hair draping in ringlets about his ears. Things got worse after he started passing exams without studying, and then qualified to join Mensa, and they all realized he was incredibly bright as well; just not normal.
His own idea was that when they moved down to Barkhan Crossing from Wallaga when he was four, they wouldn't let him go to school with the other kids. That wasn't his fault either, nothing to do with him really, just something. Children weren't allowed to start school until they turned five. There were only eleven months between him and his older brother but that didn't matter because he was still four, and wouldn't turn five until the end of October.
The twins were two years behind and went to kindergarten, but he was too old to go with them. He had to wait almost until November. Off they all went to school every day while he stayed home. Being new to town they didn't know anybody much, only some of Jack's family, so there he was. Mum was busy all the time, and whenever he complained it was boring she went crook. It wasn't her fault. That headmistress had her rules. That was the end of it.
After that his early childhood memories were of ants, mostly, and birds and insects. He spent hours every day on his backside, or on his knees, watching ants scurry back and forth. There was a big nest near the chook yard that used to raid the kitchen scraps thrown over the fence for the chooks to peck and scratch around. One of the chooks went clucky and Jack built a coop for it while Mum made a nest and set some eggs. Every day after the others left for school Nicolas went and sat next to the clucky chook, watching it sitting there on its clutch of eggs. He watched the chooks, and the ants, and the house sparrows, and as the fruit trees came into blossom he watched the petals fall and the hard green fruit form on the branches, which grew into ripe sweet peaches and apricots.
The trouble with the clucky chook was it kept getting up off its nest, worried, fretting and fidgeting about something. He saw a mouse, and when he lifted the nest to see where it went there was a tiny mouse nest there underneath the eggs, in the warmth from the chook's body, with the tiniest naked pink baby mice squirming helplessly in a little ball of fur and straw there in a hole in the ground. It was awesome. He was gob-smacked. It was the most amazing thing to see, and when the mouse came back it fretted and fussed too so he put it all carefully back together and left them in peace. When he went to bed that night he dreamed about the tiny pink baby mice and the mouse mother there under the clucky chook with her eggs.
Next weekend the kids from next door came over and were playing with his older brother and the twins near the chooks nest, there in the coop. He made the mistake of showing them the baby mice underneath, thinking they'd like to see the tiny squirming bundle of new life as much as he did. They kicked it to pieces, and all the mice babies were squashed and red and bloody splattered on the ground and the mouse mother went hysterical. He was terribly upset about that. It just wasn't fair. It was his yard; his secret, and now all the mice were dead and the warm little nest wrecked, and the chook was cranky so they put her back in the yard with the others.
Next day the ants were out cleaning up the mess, tidying things up, sorting things out, putting the world back in order, and he began to appreciate them even more after that.
Next week Mum went up to the school to see if he could start. He was lonely and upset at home by himself, she said, it would be better if he was at school with the other children, but the spare undernourished head mistress said no he must wait until he turned five, not a day sooner. Those were the rules. It would be another four months, but he didn't tell his Mum he was glad now he didn't have to go to school. He didn't want to play with the other kids after that. He started hiding things, his little secrets, and his treasures, and wouldn't tell anyone where they were. He wouldn't tell anyone after that what was happening in his back yard. He kept it all to himself.
His great aunty Emily told him later, when he was older, that ants were actually fairies. In Cornwall, she said, when fairies die they come back to life as something smaller. Every time they die they get smaller, and smaller and smaller, until they become ants.
Aunty Emily was born in 1877. Her family were on the first boat full of farmers from Devon and Cornwall, and Ireland she said, brought out by Governor Bourke to replace the convicts. She was a retired school teacher and had been to India, and Europe. She knew things. She was important, and he believed her, but still he said nothing. The school teacher thing worried him.
Chapter Three
The Dad they had when they were little wasn't his real Dad; his or Grant's Dad. That was Frank. He was a good mechanic and still lived up at Barkhan Crossing. The twin's Dad, Jack; Simon and Eric's Dad, was their Dad. He was a painter and decorator, and sign writer and not too bad an artist either. He used to win prizes at the show, and got extra money coming in by doing portraits. He did the most amazing landscapes too but he never showed them to anyone, just kept them in the shed.
Mum was pretty independent, in her own thoughts anyway, and since the war women were starting to assert themselves. "We went all the way through the war without men," she used to argue, "and the drought. They were off overseas, the good-for-nothing lot of them, while we ran the farms and kept the home fires burning, and we still clothed and fed them. We had to make do, so we can do without them now." She was fierce about it. Don't ever start her on the Depression. Anyone tried to reason with her, or argue the point; she'd turf him out and go get herself another bloke to warm her bed, and keep the money coming in. Sperm donors, she called them. Any kids and it was their responsibility. They had to pay for their maintenance and upbringing.
Not long after the twins started school she won a vacant block of land in a ballot, which she sold and used the money as down-payment on another block with a house. She paid the house off with Frank's maintenance, and later when he lost his job she took in a boarder. That was so Jack wouldn't have any claim on it later. His job was to keep food on the table.
Nicolas said to her once, when he was a bit older, that she had four sons. With Frank, then Jack, and the boarder, that was seven of us, all blokes, but it was men she hated not women. It didn't make any sense. He shouldn't have said anything. She came flying around the end of the kitchen table and landed him one right in the ear.
"Cheeky bastard! Spailpeen!" she screamed. "You'll be the death of me, you will, you little bastard. Another mistake like you, mate, Lord only knows where we'd be. You can go to hell."
Yeah, she was like that. It made him think back to the time the chook pecked Grant's dick. He had got up out of his stroller and toddled inside to see what was happening. Mum had his brother's pants down, there in the kitchen, and was on her knees swabbing it with Dettol, or something. It was red and swollen, but instead of crying his eyes had lost focus and he was staring dreamily out the window.
"What are you looking at?" She demanded to know, but he just stood there speechless so she picked him up and strapped him into the stroller on the back veranda, and went back to tending Grant's wound.
He copped it from Grant as well. He was the clever one, and went to school. He'd started school before anyone else, so of course he was smarter. He was a good boy. He worked hard and the teachers were pleased with him. And he was the eldest. By the time Nicolas started, not at the beginning of the year with the other children but right at the end when they were all ready to stop for Christmas, his was a lost cause. Mother was fed up with his whining, and because he made her so unhappy his older brother got the idea into his head that he must be a really bad little boy. Eventually she stopped complaining and got Grant to whack him instead.
Once he started school it was all right, for a while. They started him in the kindergarten class with a pretty young teacher called Miss Martin. He took Miss Martin a bunch of flowers, red and black Sturt's Desert Peas from Mum's front garden, but she didn't get them. One of the other kids in line knocked them out of his hand and stomped on them, saying only sheilas like flowers. What was he, a sheila? He didn't know. There was no time to think about it because next day they moved him up a class.
The new class was Transition. It had another Miss Martin, but everyone called her Miss 1A Martin while the other was called Miss Kindergarten Martin. That was another of those weird things that stuck in his mind. In Transition they made big wobbly spiders out of papier machè, with pipe cleaners rubbed in charcoal for legs, and they made hanging Christmas decorations out of coloured paper that swayed back and forth in the breeze. Miss 1A Martin let Nicolas use the scissors because he was so neat and tidy, and didn't cut himself.
On the way home he was dive-bombed by a magpie. It left a cut on his head and he had blood down the back of his shirt, so a lady on that street took him in to clean it up, and gave him some cake and a glass of milk before driving him home in her car. He got a smack for being late, and didn't get his chance to announce that he was a big boy now and allowed to use the scissors.
Another thing that happened that year was Jack and a couple of his mates laid a cement path up the side of Mum's house. When he got home from school he walked on it by mistake. He didn't know. His shoes sank into the wet mud and left his footsteps behind, so before he went inside he took them off as he'd been told so as not to walk mud into the house. Well, he got a hiding for that too, for making a mess of the newly laid cement.
The good thing that Christmas was that Nanna and Aunty Emily came down. Mum wasn't very happy about it. She and Nanna didn't get along very well so with her being there it was a bit tense. Aunty Emily for her part had done the Grand Tour. That was before the Great War, and before cars, when the family still had money; when they were getting a pound a pound for their wool and the army needed horses, but things were different now.
"Your mother missed out," Aunty Emily explained one day. "Be patient with her."
Meg had been the youngest in her family, and a girl she explained. Her five older brothers broke up the family properties when they came back from the war, after their father died, and went off and bought their own farms closer in, on the irrigation. When she left school there was nothing left for her. Aunty Emily was old and wise and Nicolas believed her. He still didn't quite trust her but he believed her, and held his tongue.
Chapter Four
Now that he had grown up a little, and absorbed a few of life's realities, the next few years slipped by without too much going wrong. The big problem he had was coming first in his class all the time without doing any homework. It just wasn't right. Grant was a plodder; he worked hard, made an effort, whereas Nicolas was always a flibbertigibbet, and a queer; he must have been cheating. He said to him once, after Simon was killed and they were getting pissed together at his wake and he'd had a few too many, that he hated him for it, for being such a smart-arse and causing all the friction in the family, so he and Eric never got a look in. That was why Simon was dead, with nothing to show for it.
"You could be rich, Nicolas, and make a name for yourself, with your ability. What the fuck are you on about? Why don't you do anything about it?"
He wanted to job him, and started yelling and ranting until Frank came over and broke it up, told him to piss off, they were sick of his bullshit.
But that was later. At the time, if anyone had asked him how he did it, he wouldn't have been able to answer. He simply didn't know. He wasn't that interested in school, it was all bullshit. All that trouble over nothing, being marched around and lectured to, and smacked with rulers, when he would rather have been left alone with his ants, in his own back yard, and draw pictures, and write little stories. He wanted to buy a camera but Mum wouldn't let him. She took his money off him and told him not to be so stupid. He'd get no pocket money if he was going to waste it like that. So he did what he was told. He was told to sit for exams like the other kids, and that's what he did. What happened after that was unpredictable, none of his business. They came out and said he came first, so, well, that's what happened.
About that time Jack started getting on the grog. He never drank in the pub with the blokes; he was an artist and didn't fit in there anyway. He'd bring home a whole carton of beer and take it down to the shed where he sucked bottle after bottle while he was painting. He drank it warm. Nicolas had been in the habit of going to sit with him and watch him paint, talking quietly about colour and especially light, except then he started to rave, and his boozy breath stank.
Mum put up with it for a while but then she kicked him out and he took the twins with him. They went to live with his mother away over the other side of town. His Dad was killed in the war and she was on a war pension, so Jack reckoned she was better off getting the money to support the twins than Mum. Some of the other women backed her up. Mum couldn't do much about it, except fume.
Jack leaving had a big effect on Nicolas. He was home by himself with Mum and Grant, and the boarder, and as it turned out Mum wasn't too well liked around town. That was part of the problem. The other part was some of the other kids trying to be popular with him at school when they couldn't figure out why he shunned them. They were getting good marks too, and seemed to think he was one of them for some reason, except he wasn't thinking about school much; it was something he was being made to do, something interrupting the happy times he had away along the river by himself.
The teacher they had that year, in 5th Class, thought he was a spoiled brat and caned him a lot; made him stand in the school foyer by himself until he learned to be civil. An exhibition, he said. The teacher they'd had the year before caned him for not doing his homework, but this time it was far more personal and he began to withdraw into himself. She was a serious bitch.
When he was home he was quiet and subdued, not taking much interest in anything, and that was when Mum started belting him. For not doing his chores, she said. Any time she had a bad report from school she'd lay into him as well, with the wooden spoon. Grant shunned him, locking his door so he could do his homework in peace, he said, so Nicolas used to get away and go for long walks by himself, mostly along the river but sometimes he'd take his bike and ride for miles just to be out of there.
The only good thing around that time was Frank had started a new job, running his own motor repair business and doing quite well at it, so Mum was getting maintenance from him again. She didn't say anything to him about Jack leaving, which was probably better.
Chapter Five
It was Nicolas' next year that was memorable. Like the day he met Wally it stayed with him forever, that year. It was not supposed to have happened, but it did. It started with a problem for the school, being that the headmaster's son was in the 6A class, among the bright kids he normally taught.
The bloke decided it didn't look good, teaching his own son. It looked like he was playing favourites. To resolve the dilemma he swapped classes with his deputy headmaster, Mr. Hill, who normally took the 6B class. Nicolas being so bright and getting first in most exams, and second in the rest, regardless of his inability to get along with anybody, was also in the A stream and got the new teacher as well.
The good thing about it was the new teacher didn't care what sort of kid he was, or anyway reputed to be; only that he could solve arithmetic, and write. He could do all his learning and figuring just by glancing at the blackboard. It sort of went like this:
"Nicolas," he'd say.
"Yes, sir."
"Solve this equation for me."
"That? Eight."
"Not out loud, Mr. Clever Dick."
Turning to the rest of the class he'd say, "The rest of you, I want to see your working out."
After a short while he'd say, "Stop now. Who has the answer? Raise your hand . . . not you Nicolas."
One of the other bright kids would give the answer, "Eight. Cross multiply and divide, and A equals 1,760 divided by 220, which equals eight."
"Are we agreed?" the teacher would ask.
"Yes, sir."
"All right then. Nicolas, what have you got?"
"You don't have to do the long division." he'd explain. "You can do it a lot quicker than that."
"Oh?" he'd be asked.
"Well, we already know there are 1,760 yards in a mile, and 220 yards in a furlong. It's easy, eight furlongs in a mile."
The teacher would gaze at him and ask, "You have no intention to fritter away your hard-earned savings at the races, do you?"
"No sir. I don't have any savings, sir."
"Tell me, why do you not feel we should be working the equation out formally?"
"What? I don't know. How would I know?"
He'd stopped, gazing out the window awhile. Finally he'd turn back thoughtfully, and say, "I can't figure out why we need to be working things out all the time; that we already know. It's like going around in circles."
"To discipline your mind, isn't it?"
"Why? My mind's all right. What are you talking about?"
The class would be watching him by this time, making him feel stupid, and he'd slide back into his seat trying to be invisible.
"Do you understand why we are at school, Nicolas?"
"No sir. It's just something we have to do, or get a hiding."
When it came time for the class to start preparing for the school's annual drama night, Mr. Hill arrived one day with a big pile of school plays sent out by the Education Department. He sat at his desk leafing through them, then plainly at odds with officialdom shook his head and announced that this year 6A would write its own play. He glanced quickly at Nicolas, who glanced back, for the first time with a glimmer of interest.
Nicolas didn't say much at the start. He knew he could make things. If they were going to do their own play maybe he could help with the stage set, or something. Jack had left some stuff in the shed, and he'd spent enough time down there with him to have a few ideas. If he could get past Grant and Mum he'd have a chance.
But it wasn't his family who ended up being the problem. First they had to write the play. He hadn't thought of that initially, until Mr. Hill called the class together to come up with a few ideas. The plot they came up with was stupid. He couldn't believe it. After the first session he sat at the back with his nose in a book. For two weeks they ignored him. One day Mr. Hill came over and asked him what the matter was, but he just looked at him, then glanced at the other kids and went back to his book. After class he made him stay back for a talk.
"What's the matter, son?"
"Nothing."
The teacher sat watching him awhile, and then sighed. He shook his head. "All right, look, just for now, let's pretend I'm not your teacher, eh? Let's pretend, well, . . . . no, let's just pretend."
"Pretend what?"
"Pretend we are out of here. Where would you be if you weren't here right now?"
"Home. Getting yelled at."
"Really? Where else might you be?"
"Down the river by myself. I go swimming, or just walk around, or ride my bike."
"Would you now? Could you write that down for me? What you'd be doing?"
"What for?"
"Just as a favour, all right? Don't tell anyone about it, and I won't say anything either."
On his way home Nicolas thought and thought about it. Mr. Hill wasn't so bad, not like the others, but he was still a teacher. What was he to do?
The issue was decided for him, more or less, once he got home and Grant was there calling to their mother that he was home finally. Instead of waiting for her to start yelling he slipped past the house and went down to the shed to be by himself. He knew what Mr. Hill was getting at. The new play was awful. It was hopeless. There was a cupboard there with some of Jack's old stuff, so he took a black drawing pencil and some blank sheets and started writing. It was nearly dark when Grant arrived to tell him his dinner was on the table, and getting cold.
Next day when the teacher came into class there was a neat folder on his desk, which he slipped quietly under some books before starting his lessons. Next week he started feeding bits of plot to the class, and some of the characters. Within a fortnight they had a story about this boy who got lost, and following an ant trail found his way to a fairy kingdom. The fairies did not normally allow humans to live with them, because in general they were so nasty and killed things, but this boy was the exception. The trouble was his parents and brother missed him so much, but the only way they could rescue him was by being nice, by having good manners, and by asking instead of demanding. You couldn't get anything from the fairies by yelling at them. You had to be nice, and say please and thank you.
From then until the end of the year the whole class busied itself getting the script typed up on a real typewriter, and making fairy costumes and ant costumes, and tree costumes and small bush animal costumes, and children and grown-up costumes. They finally persuaded Nicolas, on the teacher's prompting, to play the lead role. He seemed such a natural for the part, almost as if it had been written for him.
As chance had it, about the same time the local newspaper ran an essay competition for primary school pupils and he entered and won. The essay was not at all about fairies, or ants, or anything like that. It was about children being punished twice; getting the cane at school, for something or other, then getting a hiding when they got home for being in trouble at school. He didn't think it was right or fair, and he said so. Maybe grownups should talk to each other a lot more, and sort it out. A lot of the other kids liked him after that. As the play night drew near they started coming over to help make costumes in the back shed. Jack had left some florescent paint in tins in the cupboard, and they used it to paint ribs and spots on the fairy's wings so when they started coming onstage, out of the dark shadows, they would glow. The effect was brilliant.
Their play won. It didn't just win, it stole the show. Nicolas was awarded Best Actor, and his next in line Best Supporting Actor. The class won Best Play, Best Script, Best Set Design, and Best Costumes.
Next day at school Eric came up behind him and started telling him not to get too big for his boots. Nothing changed as far as he was concerned. Nicolas made the mistake, just at that moment, of being pleased with himself. He had this silly idea in his head that he'd achieved something. He told his younger brother to take a running jump at himself, and leave him be.
That started Eric yelling, of course, which attracted a crowd and along with it Richard, the headmaster's son, who also happened to be a prefect. The crowd with the prefect trying to maintain some semblance of order drew the attention of a teacher on playground duty who grabbed Nicolas by his shirt collar and pulled him out of the melee kicking and yelling.
That was enough. The teacher got a sharp kick to the groin, which made him let go, and once free Nicolas made a beeline for his bike and mounting up rode off. He rode and he rode. The next town was Berriwal, almost exactly thirty eight miles away by road, and he reached the post office there at around ten o'clock that night. He knocked on the door of the telephone exchange, which was the only building with lights still burning, and told them he had run away and could they ring his family and tell them where he was.
Jack drove over to pick him up. The girls on the exchange bought him fish and chips and an ice cream, he was so hungry, and he had just finished eating when his lift arrived. When they arrived back in Barkhan Crossing Jack simply dropped him off home, before going on home himself without saying anything. Grant didn't say anything either. He was already in bed asleep. Neither did his mother, who sat at the kitchen table glaring at him as he went through to his own room. Nicolas had a bath and went to bed.
Next day at school he was dragged sullen and beaten before the headmaster, and after a long boring lecture given six cuts, three to each hand, which hurt like hell.
Chapter Six
More trouble began for Nicolas when he started High School. It seemed to him much later there was some sort of correspondence between the two headmasters. Of course they were in regular contact, but at that age it was something that had not yet occurred to him. His first day thus found him standing outside in the corridor waiting, and waiting and waiting. He waited forever, it seemed. After nearly an hour the big, balding old man poked his head out the door.
"Come in, Brick," he said.
Nicolas continued standing there.
The headmaster was plainly looking at him.
"Me, sir? No, it's Brook. Sir."
The other glanced up and down, then abruptly cocked his head and bade him follow. Inside the office he sat wearily at his big old mahogany desk and shuffled through a folio of papers while Nicolas stood waiting.
"B, r, u, i, c," the headmaster recited eventually. "County Kerry. I dare to venture Clare and Galway. Your family is Irish. The word is Gaelic, and pronounced Brick," he looked up, "the same sound on the tongue, boy, as in 'building'."
Nicolas stared at him a moment, astonished.
"No sir, excuse me, it's Australian; Australian as you and me."
He stopped, confused a moment. "It doesn't matter, it's Brook, like 'bruise', not 'building'. You can say it the way you want, except most people who get it wrong say 'Break'. I never heard of 'Brick' before. That's just silly."
"You argue with me, child! You defy convention; make your betters out to be stupid! That's the way it's going to be?"
"No sir, but it is my name. I can pronounce it anyway I like." He found himself genuinely confused. "Why would I want to argue about that? I mean, what are you talking about? Who are my betters, anyway? What does that mean?"
The headmaster leaned forward slightly to write something before glancing up once more, and leaned back in his chair.
"I read your essay, Brick," he began slowly, "think you're clever, do you?"
Nicolas froze, and stood listening intently while the other went on, "My considered view is that you are a brat, and I cannot abide brats. I read your report. You are lazy and a time waster. You think you can set yourself up as a ringleader, in my school, don't you? You think you can make a name for yourself, among the hooligan elements, instead of applying yourself to your studies; a boy with your obvious talent and potential. Well, young fellow my lad, let me tell you, it's not going to happen. I will break you, boy, do you hear? We will avert this tragedy, avert it; nip it in the bud. Have you got that? You are here to work, and you will work."
He watched Nicolas' face as he spoke, watching for a reaction, but none came. He leaned forward again and wrote something further, then abruptly closed the file and got up from his chair. Stepping over to the corner he selected some canes from an umbrella stand and turning back to his desk laid them out.
"Which do you prefer, Brick?"
"Brook, sir."
"All right, as you will."
The headmaster picked up a long thin whippy cane and flexed it before bringing it down whistling past Nicolas' ear. He didn't flinch.
"This one is a stinger, boy. You won't like it. Not one little bit."
He picked up another, only slightly thicker. He flicked the tip over his shoulder and it made a light humming sound, harmonious, not at all hard on the hearing.
"This one I call Cassius. It sounds pretty, doesn't it? But mark my words, it hurts, boy. You won't like it either. Not one iota."
Placing the cane back on his desk he picked up another, heavier cane and flicked the tip past his ear again. It made an unpleasant drone, like an angry bee, and Nicolas involuntarily jerked his head away.
"Ah!" The headmaster nodded to himself, eyes not leaving Nicolas' face. "We arrive at an understanding. All right then, back to your class."
In a daze Nicolas wandered back to his class, or tried to. In Primary they had the one room all the time, but here the class moved around depending on their subject and he had to sit and consult his timetable to discover where he was supposed to be. Even then he had to go back to the headmaster's office for a map so he could locate his classroom in the maze of buildings. It was little use. He felt sick. For the rest of the day he sat stunned, and the moment the bell rang he simply stood and left without saying anything to anybody.
Chapter Seven
On the way home an old truck slowed and pulled up beside him, so he stopped his bike to see who it was. It was Jack's Uncle Wally. He knew him because he had a market garden and often used to bring in potatoes and vegetables when Jack was living with them with the twins, before he got on the grog.
"Put yer bike in the back, son," he called across. "I'll give yer a lift home."
Nicolas obeyed, but before he drove off Wally glanced across, looking him up and down.
"Drivin' past 'n saw yer leave school. Yer didn't look too happy, did ya. Thought I'd better catch up wiv ya." He paused a moment. "Y'all right are yer, son?"
"Not really," Nicolas said slowly.
"What 'appened?"
"Ah, that bloody headmaster, he's just a bastard, that's all. What are they, stupid people they are, prison bloody guards or something, bloody concentration camp?"
The old fellow looked away and sighed, then started the truck again and drove off.
"Tell yer what," he said eventually. "Why don't yer come up 'n see me Sat'dy. I'll give yer a job, eh? You c'n dwive me twacta for me, eh? You'll be right, bit a money in yer pocket, 'n them cunts c'n get fucked."
Nicolas looked sharply up at him. "Really?"
"Yeah, it'll be right. Been gunna call in to see yer, but never got 'wound to it. We know what's goin' on, evwybody does, wiv yer Muvva 'n that. Been a bit too busy meself, that's all, 'n yer a good lad, I c'n see that, just doin' it tough."
Wally paused, glancing across thoughtfully. "Jack read yer letter to me, yer know, the one yer had in the paper. Thought it was spot on, meself."
He stared out the window, lost in thought, then sadly shook his head and said nothing more until they got home. Once Nicolas had his bike down off the back of the truck the old bloke simply said, "See yer Sat'dy, all right?"
Nicolas nodded and the truck drove off. After he put his bike in the shed he fed the chooks then split a good pile of wood for the kitchen stove, and for good measure filled up the bin at the side of the house though it would not be used until winter set in. It was all right, good. The steady swing of the axe and the muscle rhythm of his body working relaxed him and took his mind off the day. The job done he returned to the chook yard where he cleaned their water troughs and collected the eggs.
When Saturday came he rode off early after breakfast, worrying that old Wally might have forgotten him and gone out. The place was five miles away and it took him half an hour to get there. The old bloke was as good as his word, however, and was waiting for him there at the house. He must have been keeping an eye out for him and came out onto the front veranda to meet him as he rode up. He chuckled to see the boy arrive bright-eyed and breathless from his long ride.
The old place was huge, rambling, overgrown with creepers covering half the front of the house, with remnants of lawn uncut and old rose bushes straggling to form almost a hedge amongst the kikuyu leaving worn foot-beaten tracks in and out. A few sheep wandered about, keeping things more or less in trim. Inside it was dim; cool with an old, dry, musty, lived-in smell like the place hadn't been aired in fifty years, but not uncomfortably so. It felt like it had been lived in, that old house. Along one side against the setting sun was a tall shady bamboo grove, equally unkempt.
Two small boys came out onto the veranda, neither wearing pants but the older of the two with a grubby t-shirt, quickly followed by a remarkably handsome woman who shepherded them both back inside while Wally came down the steps to greet his visitor. Taking him by the arm he led him around the back of the house along a rough track toward a row of large sheds.
There was nobody else around. Nicolas thought the place must be busy, it was so big, but no sound of work or machinery disturbed the quiet. As they drew closer Nicolas noticed cobwebs and dust settled everywhere, like a film of neglect and disuse over what looked at first glance like busy packing sheds. He stopped, confused.
"Where is everybody?" he wanted to know.
"Give 'em all the sack, eh," Wally drawled. "We 'ad ta close evwyfing down, 'n put it under quawanteen. Suspected bloody infestation of some fing or uvver, so they weckon. Doesn't matter, just can't sell me vegies for a while, that's all."
Nicolas stared at him before turning on his heel to gaze about, frowning.
"You said you wanted me to drive your tractor, and earn some pocket money. I rode my bike all the way out here."
"What? No, you'll be wight. We're gunna have a folk festival. You're just the lad. You can wite letters, and put on plays, just what we want, eh. Jen's gunna sort the music, get a few people in, and Bob's yer uncle!"
"Come on, ye c'n get started stwaight away," Wally went on happily. "Ye c'n dwive a Fergie, can't ya? Good little twacta."
Without another word he stepped across to the first shed, Nicolas at heel, and together they went inside. There was a little grey tractor with a good flat-bed trailer, but Nicolas demurred, less confused now than astonished at the suddenness of events.
"Maybe we should go back to the house and talk about it a bit. Don't you think so?"
Wally stopped. "Yeah, righto, 'ave a nice cuppa tea, eh?"
With that he turned straight around and strode back toward the house.
Back in the big main house Wally led Nicolas through a large glass-covered observatory converted from what once must have been a back veranda, along a short passage and into the big old homestead kitchen. The lady was there with the two boys, bathing them in a tin tub on the floor, and a girl about his age was helping her with them; plainly her daughter they looked so alike, except a little gawky in her early adolescence. She would be a fine looking woman like her mother with long dark hair, high cheekbones and flashing dark eyes. He'd seen her at school, but he being so shy hadn't anything much to do with her, or anyone much. He was always in trouble, and she glanced up shyly as he came through the door.
Wally went over to the stove and put the kettle on, and pulling a chair out from the dining table for Nicolas to sit busied himself with cups and saucers. That done he turned and said affably, "Yer know evwyone I s'pose?"
"No, I don't, not really."
"That's me daughter Jennie," he said first, "wiv the boys, Kennie and Owen. And that's me grand-daughter Emma. This is Nicolas. 'E's gonna be 'elpin' us wiv the festival; dwivin' the twacta, and whateva else 'e can do. Gunna be good, eh?"
Jennie glanced up at her Dad, smiling affectionately, then across the table to Nicolas.
"We've heard a lot about you, Nicolas. It's very nice to meet you finally."
Emma glanced away, her face crimson, then back slightly before bending to scold the boys. She took a towel and grabbing the little one by both arms lifted him up out of the tub and onto a towel on the floor, and kneeling head down out of sight began drying him.
Jennie smiled again, refusing to be distracted, but glanced curiously at her daughter before continuing.