Sugarloaf Mountain

CHAPTER TWO: A ROOF OVER ONE'S HEAD.

"You bloody bastard," said nine-year-old Josh, "you’re always pestering me."

"Well, I’m just saying you can’t be a member of our family. You’ve got brown eyes. Everyone else has blue eyes. It defies the laws of genetics. That’s a science, and it proves that you must have been adopted".

"You are the one who was adopted, you big bully bastard." Josh was angry. Goaded past the point of losing his temper, the normally placid Josh picks up a feather duster and hits his thirteen-year-old brother, Theo, hard on the arm.

"Okay, you’re in for it now. You’ll have to be punished." Theo pushes Josh hard enough to cause him to fall back onto his bed. He then sits on his chest, and places a pillow over Josh’s head. Theo holds the pillow down tight with both his hands and applies a considerable force.

Josh can’t breath and is at the point of losing consciousness when their mother, Kathy, enters the room. In an instant, Kathy grabs Theo by the hair and drags him off Josh. She wails into him furiously with closed fists. Then, checking herself, she stops abruptly and begins to assail Theo with words instead.

"YOU LITTLE ROTTER!" she shouted. "I finally caught you in the act. You are the one responsible for giving Josh night sweats. You have been putting the fear of God into him. He would never tell me what you were doing, but you’ve been suffocating him . . . just for fun! YOU DIRTY LITTLE ROTTER!"

Kathy’s fury boils over once more and causes her to raise an angry hand against Theo but he is now forewarned. He maneuvers quickly around her and runs off. He is out the front door in a flash and off--off to the library no doubt. That is just the kind of place where bookworms end up.

"Why didn’t you tell me he was doing this to you? He’s been doing it for years, hasn’t he? He’s been doing it forever! Oh my God!"

Josh is sullen and remains silent.

"What is this, a code of silence? You don’t make things any easier for me by saying nothing. Life is just one problem after another. I came up here to tell you that your father should have been home by now. That’s another problem because it’s rent day. You’ll have to go to the local and bring him home as soon as possible."

"Why am I always the one who has to go," protested Josh. "Theo never goes. Theo never does anything. Theo is never even here."

"Yes, I know, but he’s always at the library, that’s why I have to ask you."

Complying reluctantly with his mother’s request, Josh sets off to the local pub, which enjoys his father’s frequent patronage. It is a familiar route, a route he has taken so many times before.

"I’m the fall guy," he said, muttering to himself. "I get to do all the dirty jobs . . . like dragging a drunken father home while other kids are walking behind us and poking fun. Theo would never do that no matter what."

Kathy has timed things just about right in her estimation. At this time of day, Arthur will have had time for one or two drinks and that’s all. She figures she can afford to lose that much out of the family’s weekly budget, because that will still leave enough to pay for all their living expenses and the rent.

The latter matter has become a crucial one in that the landlord is at the point of having lost all patience. He has issued a stern and unequivocal warning that he will accept no further missed or late payments for any reason whatsoever. Instead, and with the help of a few of his hefty mates, he will simply throw the Fleming family out on the street.

Upon entering the pub, Josh is surprised to see his father already falling down drunk. He should never have reached that stage but, unbeknown to Josh and Kathy, Arthur has been in the pub all day. He was sacked that morning and given his severance pay, which he has been using to shout the bar.

"Oh I've got some money left," said Arthur, in a tone of invincible bravado. "What can I buy with this?" he asked, holding up two five-cent pieces.

"You can’t buy nuffent for that," said the barmaid. "You’d best go home and sleep it off."

Josh rushes out of the pub alone and in a panic. He is too disgusted with his father to be willing to even help him walk home. And in any case, he knows there will be hell to pay when Arthur meets Kathy. He sees little advantage in bringing that conflagration about sooner rather than later.

Upon his returning home alone, Kathy’s face is immediately filled with fear and concern. More than that, it is just as if an air raid alarm has been set off inside her brain. It is in a heated state of panic that she begins to question Josh.

"Where is he?" she demanded, in a tone so aggressive as to befit a cross-examination.

"Dad’s drunk. He’s been drinking all day. He got the sack this morning. He’s spent all his money except for ten cents."

Those few words explain the situation fully and precisely but do nothing to reassure Kathy; on the contrary, she now appears deathly worried. For a brief instant her face turns a pale white.

She then becomes so distraught in fact that she cannot help but break down and cry in front of Josh, who is deeply embarrassed and upset at seeing his mother in such an emotional state. He has never seen her cry before.

"What's wrong Mum?" he asked, with tears welling up in his own eyes.

"It’s not just the rent. It’s more than that. I feel like I'm being punished for something I did that was wrong, very wrong, and yet I can't even imagine what that might be."

"But you've never done anything wrong, Mum."

"Maybe, but I’m the unhappiest woman in the world, because everything gets worse and nothing gets better. No matter how hard I try, God will never let me have the normal nice things that everyone wants and most people get."

In the midst of this singular display of heartfelt candor the phone suddenly rings. Taken by surprise, Kathy makes a quick and seemingly pointless attempt to pull her self together by straightening her hair and wiping her eyes. This, presumably, is intended to keep the party at the other end of the line from knowing she is, or has been, crying.

"Hi, Mum . . . Do I want a house? Are you kidding me . . . Do I want a house for free?" Kathy listens with intense concentration for a period of a minute or two, then, holding her hand over the speaking end of the receiver, she conveys a furtive message to Josh:

"It's your Grandma Wilson. We are saved!"

Kathy then refocuses her attention upon whatever it is Grandma Wilson is telling her.

Having heard his mother’s last words, Theo comes to listen in on the proceedings, which now appear to be of considerable interest to him.

A few minutes later Kathy hangs up the phone. She is almost trembling with excitement.

"They closed the mine at Sugarloaf Mountain," she said. "We have a house--no, we own a house free and clear. From here on in we will always have a rent-free roof over our heads. We are leaving tonight. We are leaving as soon as possible and without your father, so pack up your things and get ready to go."

"I'm not going to live out in the middle of nowhere," said Theo, defiantly. "I can't live that far away from a proper library. And in any case I already have an arrangement with Grandma and Grandpa Fleming: if anything happens to threaten my education or my bursary, I am to go and live with them. And that's sure as hell what I'm going to do."

"Okay, fine, have it your way. It's probably for the best in any case."

In a flurry of haste, Kathy packs her meager belongings and loads them into their twenty-year-old car. Josh, obligingly as ever, follows suite; packing his toys, clothes and school books into cardboard boxes and plastic garbage bags, which he then also stows in the trunk of their old bomb car.

Theirs is not literally a fly-by-night departure, because, being mid summer, it is still light until 9 p.m.; but they do nevertheless leave owing money, and to more than just the landlord. They also leave before Arthur returns or without even knowing when or if he returns. Kathy is too angry and resentful to care and Josh has gradually come to grow indifferent toward his drunken distant father.

It is a two-hour drive from Launceston to Sugarloaf Mountain; a period offering Kathy ample opportunity to explain the sequence of events that has led up to their new-found status as home owners.

"Your great uncle Charlie was due for retirement anyway, so he and your grandma Wilson are moving to a beach-house somewhere in Queensland."

"So they are giving us their old house," said Josh.

"No, not exactly. They are giving their old house to Aunt Liz, because she’s been living with them for the last couple of years already, so it's sort of like her house too."

"But if we have to live with Aunt Liz, we won't have our own house," said Josh, who was suddenly assailed by a daunting depth of disappointment.

"No! They have another house for us. Our house is at 47 Cadmium Avenue. It's the old Vesperman house. I've been there a thousand times visiting Carol--my best friend in grade school. I haven't seen her for more than ten years. She married a few years later than I did, but she married well by all accounts."

"What does marrying well mean, Mum?"

"It means marrying someone nice, someone who will work hard to buy a house for you and clothes and a car and all the things you need in life."

"Someone who doesn't get drunk all the time like Dad."

"Yes. I'm afraid so, Josh."

It is already growing dark when Kathy and Josh begin their ascent of the mountain range of which the Sugarloaf forms but a short jagged segment. This leaves Kathy still another twenty miles of driving; twenty miles of laboring the car in second gear up a steep and winding road, twenty miles of dodging a multitude of furry, nocturnal creatures. Within the first five minutes of traveling this mountain road, they encounter six kangaroos.

"I'm going to count them, Mum," said Josh, in a mood of considerable excitement. "It’s going to be so much fun living in the bush with all these animals. There are just so many. I’m going to count them and we'll see how many there are between here and our new house."

It takes the best part of an hour to complete this last leg of their journey; during that time Josh counts twenty-eight kangaroos. But the accuracy of his count is placed in jeopardy by complicating factors; these are the many other mammals he encounters that are not kangaroos. They include wombats, devils, possums and other furry friends. He is not even sure of what distinguishes a large wallaby from a small kangaroo.

He wonders also whether he should maintain a separate count for each type of animal. This would necessarily complicate matters. It might even cause him to become so confused as to make errors in his primary and most important count.

The problem is further complicated by animals he has never ever seen before and cannot even identify let alone count. A native cat is the first such creature. It fails to fit within the statistical parameters he is using, and this brings his efforts to a temporary halt.

"What sort of animal is that, Mum?" he asked.

"It's a tiger quoll," said Kathy. "Some call it a native cat but it isn't really a cat at all but a smaller relative of the Tasmanian devil."