draw attention to yourself and then blow out the brains of a copper, expecting to get a round of applause.’
‘The copper had his back turned,’ agreed Tim. ‘He was doing his paperwork at the end of a long day. If a principle is in a person, tied up in a job, you don’t kill that person to get rid of the principle.’
‘Not by our lights, brother. They practically begged to be hung,’ said Marcus. ‘But if you want to know if I could have sent them to the gallows, even believing what I do – believing they should have been hung – I don’t know.’
‘You mean, say if you were a judge, Marc?’
‘Say I was Caesar. It’s a good one, isn’t it, cob?’
‘It’s a perfect Plato,’ said Tim, bandying words from Philosophy Down the Ages, held weekly at the School of Arts with a rotating leader, and Marcus one of them. Tim wondered if Marcus was stepping into politics just to find out how far an honest, ordinary man could give himself to the needs of State.
Marcus said nothing about Luana left with Bub, money sent when he could, meetings with her when trains went through. Last week he’d given her an envelope of notes. As they talked, Ron Kristiansen looked on from the footplate while Bub, seven years old, imitated Marcus in a fit of glowing temptation. It was a terrible thing. To be born into knowledge as your father was hung. And yet not to know it quite yet. For on that day Bub’s father still lived.
Until stopped by his mother with a curt little smack, Bub copied the one step to the side and one step back that Marcus made in his anxiety to be of help to Luana.
‘For God’s sake, show him, take him up on the engine,’ said Luana. Thin, worn, shrill, she had not eaten more than a crumb for weeks on end. A flame that licked her was all her sustenance, a flame of burning chill that demanded, for its life, ideas be stronger than feelings.
With Bub scooped up, kicking and twisting, Marcus showed him the engine – the big wheels, the moon lamps, the grinning cowcatcher. Ron Kristiansen stepped down from the footplate, giving the impression of diplomacy in a balanced exchange with a child as witness.
The next time Marcus looked along the platform he saw Ron and Luana standing together outside the Ladies’ Waiting Room. They had the famished look of a higher ardour, religious, or, as Marcus dared think now, political.
Luana and Bub had gone on to Tottenham that day. Marcus swore he would look after the boy. An orphan knew an orphan’s wants. But something was to emerge in Bub like a snake from where it was throttled to death in the father. Luana could not control him. She would make another life to save herself, to bury herself in.
Marcus narrowed his eyes, knuckled them, rubbed them red – so tired they were from nights of reading, study and locomotive driving overtime. He lowered his voice and looked at his hands for a moment of mystification.
‘Everyone reckons they know the choker,’ he said. ‘They think the worst of their own best friends. The town’s hopping with the thought of it. We all think he’s one of us, but which?’
‘Whoever it is must be off his flaming lid,’ said Tim. ‘It would have to go with the job. You would have to ask the candidate, “Are you off your flaming lid, mate?” If you are, sign on the dotted line.’
‘We ask it of someone to do it for us,’ said Marcus.
It was possible almost to inhabit the thinking spaces of that gnarly Irish–Australian head.
‘You think he was on the train, Marc? You think you and Ron Kristiansen brought him over?’
‘I do,’ said Marcus.
‘Say it quietly, then.’
‘After we pulled in last night, and the passengers got down, I looked back along the platform, and you know how it happens, Timmy, how a face jumps out? One face in a hundred? A bloke – stocky, stolid, face like the moon – flushed, pink, rosy, red – a bushfire red, sweating, a man with his shirtsleeves rolled up, carrying a sack. That’s what
‘The copper had his back turned,’ agreed Tim. ‘He was doing his paperwork at the end of a long day. If a principle is in a person, tied up in a job, you don’t kill that person to get rid of the principle.’
‘Not by our lights, brother. They practically begged to be hung,’ said Marcus. ‘But if you want to know if I could have sent them to the gallows, even believing what I do – believing they should have been hung – I don’t know.’
‘You mean, say if you were a judge, Marc?’
‘Say I was Caesar. It’s a good one, isn’t it, cob?’
‘It’s a perfect Plato,’ said Tim, bandying words from Philosophy Down the Ages, held weekly at the School of Arts with a rotating leader, and Marcus one of them. Tim wondered if Marcus was stepping into politics just to find out how far an honest, ordinary man could give himself to the needs of State.
Marcus said nothing about Luana left with Bub, money sent when he could, meetings with her when trains went through. Last week he’d given her an envelope of notes. As they talked, Ron Kristiansen looked on from the footplate while Bub, seven years old, imitated Marcus in a fit of glowing temptation. It was a terrible thing. To be born into knowledge as your father was hung. And yet not to know it quite yet. For on that day Bub’s father still lived.
Until stopped by his mother with a curt little smack, Bub copied the one step to the side and one step back that Marcus made in his anxiety to be of help to Luana.
‘For God’s sake, show him, take him up on the engine,’ said Luana. Thin, worn, shrill, she had not eaten more than a crumb for weeks on end. A flame that licked her was all her sustenance, a flame of burning chill that demanded, for its life, ideas be stronger than feelings.
With Bub scooped up, kicking and twisting, Marcus showed him the engine – the big wheels, the moon lamps, the grinning cowcatcher. Ron Kristiansen stepped down from the footplate, giving the impression of diplomacy in a balanced exchange with a child as witness.
The next time Marcus looked along the platform he saw Ron and Luana standing together outside the Ladies’ Waiting Room. They had the famished look of a higher ardour, religious, or, as Marcus dared think now, political.
Luana and Bub had gone on to Tottenham that day. Marcus swore he would look after the boy. An orphan knew an orphan’s wants. But something was to emerge in Bub like a snake from where it was throttled to death in the father. Luana could not control him. She would make another life to save herself, to bury herself in.
Marcus narrowed his eyes, knuckled them, rubbed them red – so tired they were from nights of reading, study and locomotive driving overtime. He lowered his voice and looked at his hands for a moment of mystification.
‘Everyone reckons they know the choker,’ he said. ‘They think the worst of their own best friends. The town’s hopping with the thought of it. We all think he’s one of us, but which?’
‘Whoever it is must be off his flaming lid,’ said Tim. ‘It would have to go with the job. You would have to ask the candidate, “Are you off your flaming lid, mate?” If you are, sign on the dotted line.’
‘We ask it of someone to do it for us,’ said Marcus.
It was possible almost to inhabit the thinking spaces of that gnarly Irish–Australian head.
‘You think he was on the train, Marc? You think you and Ron Kristiansen brought him over?’
‘I do,’ said Marcus.
‘Say it quietly, then.’
‘After we pulled in last night, and the passengers got down, I looked back along the platform, and you know how it happens, Timmy, how a face jumps out? One face in a hundred? A bloke – stocky, stolid, face like the moon – flushed, pink, rosy, red – a bushfire red, sweating, a man with his shirtsleeves rolled up, carrying a sack. That’s what
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