‘Sissy! SISSY! Get in here now!’ Mum was shouting at the top of her voice but there was no sound from Sissy’s room. Mum shouted for her again and when there was no answer she went to Sissy’s bedroom and opened the door. Sissy wasn’t there. I could tell by the way Mum shut the door again. She came back into the dining room where I was. I guess Mum and Dad hadn’t understood what I meant when I’d called Sissy a gin-jockey the night before. Maybe they just thought it was another nasty name I was calling her – like when Sissy called me gay.
Mum looked at me and said, ‘I want to know everything. NOW!’ Like I was the one who’d been rooting with a gin. While I tried to think what to say I looked at the floor. Mum was looking at me. Waiting. When I looked up she didn’t seem angry, more afraid. She moved her chair round nearer mine and put her other hand on my back – to see if being nice to me would help me spit it all out. She said, ‘It’s OK, Danny, just tell me.’
I wasn’t sure that she meant it. She nodded at me and said, ‘It’s OK,’ more quietly than before. I looked at my hands, then said how I’d already told them: Sissy was a gin-jockey – she was rooting with Gil Smith.
Mum breathed in suddenly and stood up real fast. After a second she said, ‘What makes you think that?’ Like I’d made it up.
My stomach went tight. Mum said again, ‘Why do you think that, Danny?’ I looked at the floor and said I’d seen Gil climbing out of Sissy’s bedroom window and that if Mum didn’t believe me, she should ask the Pommie about it.
Mum shouted through to the kitchen, ‘Liz! Get in here, will you?’ The Pommie came through. She was drying her wet, soapy hands on a towel. Before Liz could speak Mum turned to me and said, ‘Danny, go to your room. Now.’ I got down from the table and walked quickly to my room, which was just off the dining room. My bedroom door was opposite the piano, where the picture of Jonny was. I didn’t know if I was in trouble or not. It felt like I was. I wanted to touch the picture of Jonny on top of the piano, but I couldn’t with Mum and the Pommie there, so I just looked at it real hard instead as I shut my bedroom door.
Mum shouted at the Pommie. I heard her muffled voice through the thin bedroom wall. ‘Danny reckons you saw Gil Smith climbing out of Sissy’s bedroom window – is it true?’ The Pommie must have nodded because then Mum said, ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’ The Pommie said she didn’t want to cause any trouble, it wasn’t really anything to do with her. She said Sissy was already pregnant when she arrived at Timber Creek. Mum couldn’t argue about that. The baby wasn’t Liz’s fault. Liz said she thought we all knew the father was someone at the station because Sissy must have got pregnant at Christmas time when she was at home for the school holidays. Hearing the Pommie say that made Mum real angry. She hit the roof. She shouted, ‘Get out! Just go, will you?’ I heard the Pommie say, ‘I didn’t know what to do – I’m sorry.’ I guess Mum didn’t want to hear it though. She shouted, ‘I said GO!’
It went quiet then in the dining room, so I opened my bedroom door a crack. There was no one there. I could hear Mum on the radio in the kitchen. She was telling Dad he had to come home straight away. I felt sick. I wanted to go and tell Sissy – to warn her. But I was scared. I knew Dad would blow his stack when he heard what she’d been doing. I ran to my bedroom window to see if I could see Sissy somewhere on the station. I wanted to shout for her to run, to just get in a ute and run away. I couldn’t think what else to tell her to do. I couldn’t see her anywhere. I was wondering how much trouble I’d be in if Mum caught me looking for Sissy outside, when I heard the door to the dining room open.
Mum said, ‘Ah. Just the person I was looking for. You’d better sit down, young lady.’ I heard Sissy try to ask what was going on, but Mum just said, ‘Gil Smith.’ I guess Sissy knew then that the game was up and tried to run because Mum shouted, ‘STAY WHERE YOU ARE! YOU ARE GOING NOWHERE. NOWHERE. YOU HEAR ME? Your father’s on his way home right now.’ Man. I had never, ever heard Mum shout like that before. It made all the hairs on my arms stand on end, my belly flipped too. I felt scared. I guess Sissy did too because that’s when I heard her start to blub. Quietly, though. Not like normal. I wondered what to do. Things were going to get a lot worse once Dad got home, that was for sure. I sat on the end of my bed, near the door, which was still open a crack, and waited.
I dunno how long it was that I sat there and listened to Sissy whimpering, but it felt like about a year. When Dad eventually arrived he slammed the door to the dining room shut, so I knew straight away he was annoyed about being dragged back to the station when he was busy with the fellas. I swallowed hard when he said, ‘Well? What is it? This had better be good, I’ve got better things to do—’ But he never finished because Mum told him to sit down and listen.
I heard Dad scrape the chair back on the wooden floor. I couldn’t see him properly through the small gap in the door, just his left forearm. But I was too scared to open it any wider. I could tell he was resting his elbows on the table, like always. He said again, ‘Well? What is it?’ Sissy had stopped whimpering by then and there was this silence, while I guess Mum worked out the best way to tell Dad Sissy was a gin-jockey. Eventually she said, ‘Danny reckons Sissy has been sleeping with Gil Smith.’ Then there was silence.
Dad took his elbow off the table and put his hand down. ‘Sissy?’ Silence. ‘Sissy? Is this true?’ he asked, real quietly. Sissy must have nodded her head because she didn’t say anything. But that’s when Dad slammed his hand down on the table and said, ‘NO. NO WAY. A GIN?’ Silence. ‘Jesus Christ.’ Silence. ‘The little mongrel!’ Silence. ‘I am going to break every bone in that little bastard’s body. You hear me?’ Sissy was crying again then. Dad stood up and started pacing around, slamming his hand down on the table and shouting, ‘No! The mongrel!’
Mum followed him about trying to calm him down a bit. Then all of a sudden he sat back on his chair and I reckon he was rubbing his face with his hands, but I couldn’t really see. Then he jumped back up again and said, ‘Where?’ No one answered him, so he slammed his hand down on the table in front of Sissy and said, ‘WHERE? WHERE? DAMN IT!’ Sissy didn’t answer, so then he said, ‘Was it here? Here on the station?’ She must have nodded because then he asked if it was in the house. Mum answered that. She said I’d told her how Liz and me had seen Gil climbing out of Sissy’s bedroom window.
Dad went ape then. He went into the other room and came back carrying a rifle and a box of bullets. It was weird, though. It was like he didn’t need to shout any more – he’d decided what to do, I guess. He’d got it all figured out. ‘I’m going to Warlawurru,’ he said. We all knew what he was going to do. But he said it calmly, like it was the most normal thing in the world, like he was going to the Crofts to borrow a trailer, or something.
Mum was scared then. I could tell. ‘Just sit down, Derek. Sit down – please. Please.’
Dad wasn’t listening, though. He picked up his hat and turned to go out the door. That’s when Mum jumped up and grabbed his arm. She screamed at him to stop and just think – please, think about what you’re doing. He pushed her off, so she kind of stumbled backwards a bit, but she was fast. She got her balance and kind of threw herself between Dad and the door, so he couldn’t get out. Dad said, ‘Get out of my way, Sue. Now.’ But Mum wasn’t budging. She told him there was no way she was going to let him out of the house until he had calmed down. ‘You kill him, you’ll get life. D’you hear me? Life. What bloody use will you be to us then? You know what it’s like. The law’s different nowadays – they listen to the Blackfellas. You so much as lay a finger on him and they’ll lock you up and throw away the key.’
I don’t remember doing it, but when Dad shoved Mum I must have opened the bedroom door because when Dad threw his gun on the floor, I was standing in the dining room. He kind of shouted – not words that I could recognise, more of a real loud moan. Then he pushed past Mum, so he could get out of the house. Mum ran out after him. I could hear her shouting, ‘Derek! Derek! Come back. Just come back. Please. We need to talk—’ The ute’s engine started and I heard the wheels screech as he raced out of the yard. I went over to the door and saw Mum trying to run after him, but she kind of slipped on the dirt, and was left on the ground in Dad’s dust cloud.
I ran out to help her. She was kind of like a crumpled-up piece of dirty paper, like something you’d find at the tip. She was crying too. Sobbing. A bit like when it was Jonny’s funeral. I asked if she was OK but she didn’t answer. She just got to her feet and walked slowly back into the house. Sissy was still at the dining-room table. Like she didn’t dare move. She was staring straight ahead, and although she wasn’t making any sound tears were running down her cheeks. Mum sat down next to her. I stood there for a minute, not knowing what to do, so I went back to my room.
I sat on my bed and wished I was somewhere with Jonny, just the two of us with the stars, far away from Timber Creek and Sissy’s belly. I took out his cattle book, a handful of his soldiers and his favourite dinky car – a Toyota, all chipped and worn. I slid on my back under the darkness of his bed and held Jonny’s things tightly to my chest.