it; and before youâre six months older youâll thank me for sending you away.â
Cushie realised that the compassionate stranger had vanished.
âYouâll forget what I look like,â whispered Cushie, defeated. âYouâll love Olwyn better than me.â
Mrs Moy looked at her freezingly. âYour vulgar jealousy of your sister only proves how much you need the discipline of Mount Rosa,â she said.
So Cushie vanished from Kingsland. Jackie never forgot her. Every holiday he looked for her. Sometimes she returned home, other times Mrs Moy and Olwyn went off by train and spent the holidays with Cushie in some distant city.
On the day the Piper was due to leave the lock-up, the Nun took time off from the shop and went down in the train to fetch him and bring him home.
âYou forget quick,â said his wife with rare bitterness.
âTrue,â said the Nun.
He scarcely recognised John Nicolson. In a year he had become old and fat, softness all over, dissolving pork, the radish flush gone from a face now rubbery and grey. They went to a shoddy hotel for the night, and for a long time the Piper looked at himself in the glass.
âMonths since I laid eyes on my dial,â he said.
âI got the pipes safely put away,â ventured the Nun. But his friend did not answer, staring at his reflection.
âWould you like a drink, John?â
Troubled, Jerry said nothing while the older man drank himself into a stupor.
John Nicolson did not return to work. Living on a small Imperial Army pension, he went from one scrubby boarding-house to another, ending up amongst the Aborigines and tramps in the tumbledown shacks at the edge of town. But Jerry went to see him regularly, and sometimes Jackie accompanied him, for Jerry was under the impression that the boy had forgotten all about the day that the Piper knocked down the Gallipoli memorial.
But Jackie had not forgotten. An obscure pain touched him each time he saw old man Nicolson. It was neither fear nor hate, only recognition. The old man was a signpost, impersonal but important. He had indicated an unsuspected division of roads.
But, loving the Nun as he did, Jackie would have died rather than allow his stepfather to guess that he remembered anything at all about that rainy day long before.
Twice in the year they were ten Jackie found out that Cushie was home for the holidays, and lay in wait for her. The first time they both were petrified with shyness, not looking at each other, but seeing with some inner eye every tiny marvel of change.
Cushie was still plump and dimpled, though she was beginning to shoot up. She was already much taller than Jackie. Her golden hair was dressed in thick short plaits with curled ends, her skin sleek and blushing.
But she dropped her glance in the same old way, and he saw her mouth quiver.
âCome and play,â said Jackie.
âMama wonât let me,â she said. âI have to play with Olwyn.â
âYou ask her,â he pressed.
But he did not see her again. The second time they were not so much strangers, and spoke a little of unimportant things, the air electric between them. Each represented to the other an enigmatic compound of imagination, romance, otherworldliness. Jackie asked no questions about Mount Rosa, Cushie made no inquiries about their old school companions. They were content to be with each other and feel the air tense with unknown expectation.
âIâll write you a letter,â he said.
âNo. They might read it.â
âIâll put it in our secret hiding-place,â he said.
The secret hiding-place was an unused beehive amongst the shrubbery near Cushieâs gate. Cushie thought about nothing else all day, filled with a thrilling alarm and delight. Her excitement was such that she forgot the demure expressions and attitudes learnt with such boredom and misery at Mount Rosa, and began sarcastically bickering with the
Cushie realised that the compassionate stranger had vanished.
âYouâll forget what I look like,â whispered Cushie, defeated. âYouâll love Olwyn better than me.â
Mrs Moy looked at her freezingly. âYour vulgar jealousy of your sister only proves how much you need the discipline of Mount Rosa,â she said.
So Cushie vanished from Kingsland. Jackie never forgot her. Every holiday he looked for her. Sometimes she returned home, other times Mrs Moy and Olwyn went off by train and spent the holidays with Cushie in some distant city.
On the day the Piper was due to leave the lock-up, the Nun took time off from the shop and went down in the train to fetch him and bring him home.
âYou forget quick,â said his wife with rare bitterness.
âTrue,â said the Nun.
He scarcely recognised John Nicolson. In a year he had become old and fat, softness all over, dissolving pork, the radish flush gone from a face now rubbery and grey. They went to a shoddy hotel for the night, and for a long time the Piper looked at himself in the glass.
âMonths since I laid eyes on my dial,â he said.
âI got the pipes safely put away,â ventured the Nun. But his friend did not answer, staring at his reflection.
âWould you like a drink, John?â
Troubled, Jerry said nothing while the older man drank himself into a stupor.
John Nicolson did not return to work. Living on a small Imperial Army pension, he went from one scrubby boarding-house to another, ending up amongst the Aborigines and tramps in the tumbledown shacks at the edge of town. But Jerry went to see him regularly, and sometimes Jackie accompanied him, for Jerry was under the impression that the boy had forgotten all about the day that the Piper knocked down the Gallipoli memorial.
But Jackie had not forgotten. An obscure pain touched him each time he saw old man Nicolson. It was neither fear nor hate, only recognition. The old man was a signpost, impersonal but important. He had indicated an unsuspected division of roads.
But, loving the Nun as he did, Jackie would have died rather than allow his stepfather to guess that he remembered anything at all about that rainy day long before.
Twice in the year they were ten Jackie found out that Cushie was home for the holidays, and lay in wait for her. The first time they both were petrified with shyness, not looking at each other, but seeing with some inner eye every tiny marvel of change.
Cushie was still plump and dimpled, though she was beginning to shoot up. She was already much taller than Jackie. Her golden hair was dressed in thick short plaits with curled ends, her skin sleek and blushing.
But she dropped her glance in the same old way, and he saw her mouth quiver.
âCome and play,â said Jackie.
âMama wonât let me,â she said. âI have to play with Olwyn.â
âYou ask her,â he pressed.
But he did not see her again. The second time they were not so much strangers, and spoke a little of unimportant things, the air electric between them. Each represented to the other an enigmatic compound of imagination, romance, otherworldliness. Jackie asked no questions about Mount Rosa, Cushie made no inquiries about their old school companions. They were content to be with each other and feel the air tense with unknown expectation.
âIâll write you a letter,â he said.
âNo. They might read it.â
âIâll put it in our secret hiding-place,â he said.
The secret hiding-place was an unused beehive amongst the shrubbery near Cushieâs gate. Cushie thought about nothing else all day, filled with a thrilling alarm and delight. Her excitement was such that she forgot the demure expressions and attitudes learnt with such boredom and misery at Mount Rosa, and began sarcastically bickering with the
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