Davey Darling, page 7
I knew the pub car park well; I’d already spent more than a few hours there myself, waiting for the Old Man to come out. Sitting in the Morrie with comics and the smell of insecticide.He always had to stop off for a quick one after spraying. The quick one became a jug, and then another. Sometimes it would be well dark before he came out.
I ran across the road and down the length of the green iron fence around the car park and came screaming into the entrance almost to fall on the Morrie and Bryce Darling’s Golden Holden in among the fifty-odd cars standing baking in the Canterbury heat.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see movement of another kind and knew it was Appleby who had tracked me there. I could see him with the bar in his hands and so I took my chances and ran to the windows looking for the Old Man. He would deal to this prick.
I ran around to the side and found him huddled over a table near the back. He was with Bryce bloody Darling too and they were hunched in tight with their elbows up like they were trying to keep a fence around what they were saying, like they wanted to stop any of their conversation leaking beyond the table.
I ducked down and squatted against the wall. It all came back to me again. Seeing them in the shed and then the puffing up of his chest at the door and the stern march over to the copper. It made me gag thinking about it. There was the Old Man too. He’d been at the burns unit seeing Davey and helping him along and then a couple of days later he was boozing it up again with the bugger that boiled his head.
I had to just forget for now. If I saw Bryce or had to speak to him I’d just pretend I wasn’t scared even though the sight of him filled me with the heebies.
I banged on the window nearest them. They kept on talking. I banged again. Bryce glanced up and saw me and he triggered the Old Man by lowering his eyes and pointing outside.
He turned around with this unsure look on his face as if to say, Do I know you? and then pointing in the direction of the bar’s swing door he mouthed, ‘This had better be bloody good.’
He stormed through the bar and I ran around the path to meet him and then I saw Appleby coming straight towards me. From about six feet away he let go with a hoik that sprayed my face with his spit.
‘You fuckin little prick,’ he muttered.
I wanted to hurl now because the taste of his spit was going right through me, staining and tainting me – and me a rough-as-guts Ardsley as well. I felt completely mucked on. He grabbed me and I pulled my arm up to wipe his shit off my face.
‘I should kill you.’
He was leaning right into my face with his breath, the breath of a steak that has sat in the fridge for a week.
‘Let go of me,’ I squirmed. I looked up at his pock-marked face and the greasy black hair that hung around his neck. They were all greaseballs, the Applebys. I so wanted to thump him but knew that all I could hope for was to land a good crack on his shins. Then I saw the Old Man coming towards us with the swivel of a few jugs in his guts. I kicked. The bastard easily dodged my lame foot.
He stood back, unaware the Old Man was nearly on top of him.
‘Wanna fuckin try it on do ya? Come on,’ he said shaking me.
I didn’t want to try it on at all if he really wanted to know but I wasn’t about to tell Appleby anything. He breathed heavy and hard and drilled into my head with his eyes.
I pushed away and didn’t get anywhere. Just when Appleby thought he had me under control, the Old Man struck and twisted Appleby’s arm behind his back in the immobilising hold the cops used. Bet he wondered what was going on. Appleby wasn’t so flash now and the Old Man spun the smelly creep around and adopted his big authority pose in front of him. He waved me around behind him with one sweep of his giant mitt.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ he enquired of Terence Appleby.
‘Just get your hands off me, eh,’ said Appleby, pushing out of the hold of the Old Man. ‘We weren’t doing anything, were we Dave?’
Both of them squinted over me, fixing me. Looking for the answer. Their answer. I would lose either way. If I said that Appleby wanted to do me in then the Old Man would deal to him for now and send him off with his tail between his legs and Appleby would just do me over later.
If I said he didn’t, then I’d get a reprieve on a beating but he would still do me later. If I told the Old Man he was threatening me then he’d send Appleby on his way and I’d be screwed again because it would look like I needed the Old Man around to protect me. I’d be a sitting duck target until I could flatten him on my own. And even then he’d still want to kill me. Appleby had me.
‘Yeah, Dad, nothing much, eh. Just been chasing each other down the culvert.’
The Old Man looked at me. His eyes grew closer together in the pillows of his forehead. It was a look he had when he knew I was lying.
‘Oh yeah. Well, why is he grabbing you by the arm and making to thump you?’
‘Well,’ I said stumbling for an explanation, ‘he won the race down to the road and for that he gets to thump me one.’
‘What?’ said the Old Man looking at us both like we were from another planet. ‘What sort of bloody game is that? Come on Davey, I wasn’t born yesterday.’
‘No, he’s right there, Mr Ardsley,’ said Appleby rubbing his arm above the elbow. ‘That’s how we play it.’
‘Well, it’s the bloody last of it I can tell you,’ said the Old Man. ‘Especially you togged up like you are. What are you doing running around in your suit?’
Yep, the Old Man always had this knack of making me feel small when I least expected it. As he waited for me to serve him up an answer, Appleby was quietly slinking away, rubbing his arm and baring his lips like he seemed quite keen on eating me, biting off my fingers, my hands, my toes and finally my dick.
‘I just felt like it,’ I said.
The Old Man rolled his eyes skyward.
‘You’ve never felt like it before, so why now?’
‘I don’t know, Dad, I just wanted to,’ I pleaded. ‘Look, he’s getting away.’
Appleby had managed to slope off around the corner and disappear through the rows of cars.
‘So what?’ asked the Old Man. ‘If he wasn’t bothering you, why should I worry?’
‘I don’t know,’ I offered meekly.
‘Oh yes you bloody well do,’ he said poking me in the chest, ‘But I don’t want to hear about it now. Just sorting out a start date for the new job with Bryce.’
I wasn’t surprised by this and nor was I by the emerging fact that the Old Man could do what he did this morning when he left and not even mention it. Everything just carried on as normal. It was like he was allowed to do it. And you couldn’t question that with him. But I thought I’d give it a go anyway.
‘Is that Timaru?’
‘Yeah,’ said the Old Man, looking like he was reeling from a seagull crapping on his shoulder. ‘Know what, son, be a damn sight better than this place. What do you reckon? Fishing, whitebait, the MacKenzie Country on your doorstep. Ah, it’s beautiful in there …’
We walked back out to the car park. He was really well loosened up again.
‘Yeah, Dad, it sounds good. When do you think we could be going?’
‘Next week.’
He was becoming a walking joke.
‘What about the plate you smashed in the sink? Mum’s pretty upset.’
‘Really? Hmmm,’ said the Old Man scratching his guts. ‘Get along home and don’t tell your mother you saw me down here or you’ll feel the rough side of my hand.’
‘OK, all right. Jesus,’ I said and just bloody walked off on him. He didn’t call after me so I kept going. I watched him slope back into the bar, his heavy waist waving up and down as he walked. I headed off in the direction of the quarry.
nine
SHIT, I WAS going to be popular when I got home. If I ever made it back there. And I still had bloody Appleby to contend with. The more I kicked and scuffed my shoes in the quarry gravel, the more I thought about how stupid I’d been, expecting Appleby to be grateful for me sparing him a beating. As if the Old Man would give him one anyway. Well, yeah. He would’ve … yep. But he didn’t. Appleby would just do me later. I was dead.
And God knows what sort of state Mum’d be in by now. She was probably on her ninth cup of tea and twentieth fag as she dealt with the fact that one minute her son was there and ready to go to town and the next minute he wasn’t.
It must have looked like I’d been snatched. Most likely by a gang of bikers hurtling through town looking for young accomplices like she’d seen in the paper.
‘They take them away for initiation.’
‘What?’ I asked. ‘To be made to have sex with a goat?’
‘Don’t be disgusting,’ shouted Mum. ‘I don’t know what they do. God, but I’ll bet it involves rape. There’s probably some poor young girl tied up … and … those people are disgusting and if you ever got caught up in them I wouldn’t want to know you.’
‘Wouldn’t want to know me?’
‘Not if you joined a gang, son. No.’
She’d been completely straight-faced with it. She didn’t blink.
‘If I joined a gang then, like Highway 51, you’d disown me?’
‘Yes, Davey. You’d be out on your own.’
How was it going to look when I did get back? I wouldn’t be able to tell her that I was going down the road after Blair Fitzroy armed to the gunwales with intent to maim and destroy, having a set-to with Terry Appleby in the car park at the boozer and springing the Old Man. That would be just as bad. I’d have to get a story worked out.
Diving under this big belt of old macrocarpas I thought, I’ve got five bolt bombs – I might as well make the most of them. Besides, I never returned home with live ammunition. I always expired it.
I pulled myself up from underneath the scraggy old hedge and launched hell-for-leather screaming at this big old power transformer sitting in the middle of the quarry. That was my target and I was going to destroy it.
With the pounding of my feet on the shingle echoing and ringing, the transformer seemed to vibrate until I got a clear fix on it and then let one go from about twenty yards.
I hit the dirt, whack, and lifted my head to hear the bolts bounce off the tubes kerplunk plang plang plang plang plang plang and then die on the concrete at its base. Yes! Direct hit!
No time for celebration though. I picked myself up and saw both sleeves of my jacket shredded on the shingle, the corduroy in shards under my elbow, with the lining hanging out.
I ran to hide behind a clump of gravel, a soldier identifying an attacking position. I surveyed the landscape. It was all still, just piles and piles of shingle wherever you looked. I breathed deep and then charged at the big pile of metal. The bolts flew from my hand and I crashed to a stop, skidding on the sharp stones. The bolts flew – end over end … over end … over end, whacking the transformer’s ribs and exploding, sending a sizzler back in my direction while the other skipped off into the wasteland like a bullet that couldn’t find its target.
I moved closer and threw another. It keranged and pinged in the guts of the thing and then started making weird whirr whirr whirr sounds.
‘Oi! What do you think you’re doing?’ yelled someone, something, a voice coming towards me out of the pit; a dark-haired man in glasses, in overalls and a hard hat waving a big wrench in his hand.
I ran. He yelled, ‘Stop you little bastard!’ The shingle slid away underneath as I ran between piles of gravel, choking on the dust I kicked up before I lit back out to the macrocarpas.
Christ, what were the options now? I could hear him coming, grunting. I didn’t want to take the road. I took off along the fence line the other way and crouched in behind this massive pig pen about fifty yards down.
I squatted in the stink behind the pen and instantly attracted the attention of a fat old black sow. This was her little house and she didn’t want to share it with anyone like me.
The Quarry Man must’ve been really unfit. Too much piss probably – you know I’d seen what it had done to the Old Man. By the time he poked his head through the hedge I was well out of sight but I could see him starting towards me swinging that wrench, ready to strike.
I looked around the place. I couldn’t really risk running any further because not only would Quarry Man be on my tail but also the owners of this beat-up mess of a farm. My only option was to see if I could squeeze in with the pigs and hide in their shit and the dark.
I bit my tongue, feeling the penalty of a condemned man. I was certainly in that league if I didn’t do something.
I stayed low and went in with my sleeve over my nose and mouth and all the pigs rushed me oink-oink-oinking like mad with their snouts in my face.
I pushed the fat little bastards out of the way and they ran squealing, pinned to the fence. I waved my arms at them and stamped my feet, then tried to hush them up but their squealing just went on and on and I had to go and hide in the big pig house inside. I crawled through the opening into their shelter and the full barrage of stink hit me and I lost any breakfast I still had in my guts.
I got up and pulled my sleeve up over my face again and squinted as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. There wasn’t much to see apart from the big eyes of this one old pig sitting up in the corner. I fair shook in my shoes, she was so bloody big she’d smother me if she so much as moved. And I shook some more hearing the footsteps of the Quarry Man passing by and her getting restless in the corner.
He stopped and spun around in the gravel on his boot heels. Right by the pen, like he could smell me close by. He listened. The whirring coming from the transformer suddenly stopped, leaving a vacuum filled by my breathing. I leaned forward with my arm in front of me to try and get more of a glimpse of what he was doing. Through a crack in the boards I watched that wrench in his hand waving back and forth as he looked around trying to locate me. And then he hurled the thing at the side of the pen with a helluva thump and the old sow jumped out of her skin and collided with a couple of the squealing littlies coming to hug up to her haunches. The rest of them swarmed around, poking with their little hooves, ambushing her from behind. She snorted and dragged her trotter in the dirt and they all squirted back out to the pen.
Quarry Man was still there somewhere and I heard him now walking around like he knew something wasn’t right. I felt pretty safe hunkered in the back with some straw padding in the corner and was sure as shit he couldn’t see me. So why move? He’d never come in here. I thought, Stay. Stay, don’t move. Then he was moving again. On the side near the fence line and I couldn’t see him. I could hear him though, mumbling shit under his breath, walking off banging the wrench on the ground as he went.
Finally I poked my head out in the sweet fresh air of the open pen. Even though it stunk more than the armpit of the Old Man after two days boozing and driving, it was a blessed bloody relief. I risked a little glance over the top of the shelter and watched the shape of Quarry Man disappear towards the road. I’d been saved by a bunch of pigs.
With him out of the way, I let myself out of the pen and stood saying goodbye to my new friends. Crazy, but I promised them that if the Old Man was ever going to cook up hams again I’d make sure that it wasn’t them that ended up in our copper. I didn’t know how I was going to do that, but it sounded good anyway.
I struck out towards the back of the farm as there was no way I was going back to the road. Ahead were some falling-down sheds on the boundary with the quarry. I kept going as the sheds faded behind me into plain old paddocks along the fence line. The sun was burning me through the corduroy jacket and the nor’wester was drier than the inside of my pockets.
I finally emerged out of the paddocks onto the road that ran back out towards the airbase. Home was bloody miles away.
By now I was carrying my jacket and really craving a drink and some food – anything at all, but a Coke and a pie would be ideal. I just wanted to lie down in the deep grass so thick it held your head up and watch the clouds roll across the sky while I sucked the Coke out of the bottle through the half-opened cap, like a little baby sucking and fixing on something so far away you can’t see it.
But I wasn’t going to be getting any Coke that day because I had no money. The only way was if I could find some empties I could cash in. And I’d need about twenty bottles. I could always steal some but there were no houses around, only those paddocks flat cut through by huge power lines that were so powerful they buzzed when you walked by them.
I kept on going until I got to Sockburn Road and found myself right by the truck tyre place where Blair’s dad worked.
The sign towered into the sky: Gremlin’s Truck Tyres. It was a big joke when I first met Blair that his dad worked for a bunch of gremlins. Everyone gave him shit about that. Probably not so much now though, not since he’d got hooked up with Terry Appleby and gone all tough.
I stole around the side of the big shed down the driveway that ran both sides of the building. It opened up into a huge flat area that was stacked with the giant tyre rejects and a whole lot of other rubbish. Nearer the back of the building were these cages that held big gas bottles and portable motors. No soft drink bottles to lift and, anyway, they were padlocked tight.
My thirst was fair slaughtering me, so I took a drink from a rusty old tap on the side of the building. The water tasted thick, like it was furry and coated in slime. I tried to spit it out but couldn’t get rid of the taste. This was the slime water of the Devil; it pasted itself to the roof of your mouth with a gluey coating. It was water fit only for gremlins.
I put the taste behind me and walked off stomping on the tarmac. I thought going by my hunger and the position of the sun that it must have been lunchtime. I had to get home at least before the Old Man did or else there’d be two of them going spare. I couldn’t handle that.
