Thomas was under the carport, bent over beneath the bonnet of his car, fumbling around with the plug leads when Arthur approached him.
Thomas was mid-curse, ‘Piece of sh—’
‘Dad?’
He leaned sideways, poking his head out. ‘Yeah?’
Arthur shifted from one foot to the other. He was clutching a tattered notebook to his chest.
Thomas, hassled, lifted his eyebrows impatiently. Daylight was fading and the air was growing cold; he didn’t want to be dicking around with spark plugs in the dark. The car had started misfiring, chugging and belching and carrying on as he was driving home from an appointment with his financial planner that afternoon. Ironically, the man had suggested Thomas’s financial state was such that he could afford a new car. It seemed the machine had sensed Thomas’s enthusiasm for this idea and, aggrieved, had lost its temper at him on the drive home.
‘I got my report back from Mr Higgs today,’ Arthur said. ‘Remember the one I was telling you about?’
‘Um,’ Thomas returned to hovering over the engine block. ‘Remind me again?’
Arthur stepped closer. ‘What’s wrong with the Kingswood?’
Thomas frowned. ‘It’s afraid I’ll scrap it.’
Arthur gave a small laugh. ‘That’s funny. That’s sort of what this report is about.’
‘Oh, right,’ Thomas said. ‘So – your report?’
‘I got an A minus.’
‘Bravo!’ Thomas said, straightening.
Arthur looked embarrassed.
Thomas gestured to the notebook. ‘Can I have a look? What’s it about?’
Holding the book to his chest, his son looked dubious. ‘It’s about that weird grave up at the cemetery.’
‘“Fear not, dry your tears”.’
‘Yeah. That one.’
Thomas was intrigued. ‘Did you find out who he was?’
Arthur’s fingers flicked at the edges of the pages. ‘I did as much research as I could. I don’t think it’s possible to know for certain, because it turns out the cemetery records are incomplete. In the fifties there was a fire in the chapel where they kept the older records. But I did find something.’
Thomas grabbed the rag draped over the Kingswood’s quarter panel and tried unsuccessfully to remove the grease from his hands. ‘What’d you find?’
‘In World War I Australia didn’t have conscription,’ Arthur began. ‘Not like the other countries. They tried, but Aussies voted no.’
‘It was bloody close though,’ Thomas said. ‘Plenty voted yes.’
‘It divided everyone,’ Arthur agreed. ‘Anyway, even though they couldn’t make men fight overseas if they didn’t want to, they could still arrest people for protesting about the war.’ He turned to a page and held out the book. Thomas squinted down at the paper, tried to make out his son’s handwriting in the darkening light.
‘I reckon that grave belongs to a guy named Edward Coney. He died in 1938, aged fifty-nine. He printed socialist flyers and leaflets and stuff.’
‘You’re joking.’ Thomas whistled. ‘A socialist. Well, that’s not so terrible. In that case why the weird, mysterious headstone without his name on it?’
‘He wasn’t popular.’ Looking down, Arthur mumbled the end of the sentence.
Thomas swivelled an ear in his son’s direction. ‘Huh?’
‘No one liked him. He was beaten up more than once. Someone torched his house and he was run out of town. Then one day he pulled a little girl out of a dam. It was the middle of winter. He got pneumonia and died.’
‘Jesus,’ Thomas said.
Arthur cleared his throat. ‘I wrote about how people like to criticise other people, for thinking or behaving differently. That we judge too easily, without walking in someone else’s shoes. About how what people think about you is not as important as who you are, and what you do. That being different doesn’t necessarily make someone bad. About how we should, you know, be more accepting, not do mean shit.’ He flushed at the slipped obscenity. ‘Sorry.’
Thomas took hold of the book and leafed through pages filled with his son’s handwriting. He turned to the final page where Arthur’s teacher had made notes in red ink, below a large A– in a bold circle. A generous, deeply insightful examination of the human mind and social behaviour, the teacher had written. Impressive, Arthur. It’s clear you have the capacity to be understanding and discerning.
Blinking rapidly, Thomas noticed his thumb had left a black oval-shaped print on the bottom of the page.
‘Well done, mate,’ he said, gruffly. He handed the book back to his son, adding, ‘Bloody terrific job. Sorry about the fingerprint there, uh –’ he he-hemmed energetically, clearing his throat and fussing at his hands with the rag. ‘What’s the minus mark for?’
‘I spelled conscientious wrong.’
‘Darn English language.’
‘Dad?’
Thomas looked up.
‘I’m sorry that I was . . .’ His son looked at his feet, drew his toe through the gravel. ‘I was hard on you, and Mum, about . . . stuff. I didn’t understand and it took me a while. I made it harder. But I get it now.’
Thomas wiped and wiped at his hands, and didn’t know what to say. Finally he managed, ‘Mate, you have never done anything wrong. Never, ever. I’m . . . I’m proud of you. Now, grab that torch and hold it steady for me. We’ll get more miles out of the Kingsy yet.’
Arthur grinned and picked up the torch.