Chapter One

Uncle Trev and His Whistling Bull

I was lying in bed, counting the shadows the leaves of the lemon tree made on my wall. “A hundred and twenty-four, a hundred and twenty-five, a hundred and twenty-six,” I said aloud, and that shadow jumped from one twig to another, opened its wings, and flew away. “You’ve lost count. Now you’ve got to start all over again. One, two, three –”

“Talking to yourself?”

“You gave me a fright.”

Uncle Trev took off his hat, rubbed his hand over his head, and said, “It’s the first sign of going loony, talking to yourself. Specially when you start counting spots on the wall. Where’s your mother?”

“She went down to the shops to get the paper and the mail. And she’s got to pick up our bread, and go to the butcher’s, and if I behave myself we might have sausages for tea.”

“She’ll be a while then.” Uncle Trev put his hat back on. Mum would give him a good telling-off if she caught him wearing it inside her house. “It can’t be much fun lying there all day.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I brought somebody in for you to hear.”

“Old Tip? Where is he?”

“It’s not Old Tip; it’s somebody you don’t know. And you’re not going to see him; you’re going to hear him.”

“Why can’t I see him?”

“I don’t know if he can get through the back door, so I told him to wait outside.”

“What’s his name?”

“Hubert.”

“I don’t know anyone called Hubert.”

“He knows who you are.”

“Hubert who?”

“Just Hubert.”

“I’ve got two Christian names, as well as my surname.”

“Hubert’s just got the one.”

“Why’s he different?”

“Hubert’s a bull.”

“A bull?”

“A whistling bull.”

“How’d he learn to whistle?”

“Hubert follows me round the farm, you know, with Old Tip and Old Toot, and I like to whistle a fair bit while I’m working.

“I was up the swamp paddock one day, putting in a post and whistling ‘The Rose of Tralee’, and next thing I knew, somebody was whistling along with me. I knew it couldn’t be Old Tip. Who ever heard of a dog whistling?”

“I never.”

“You see,” said Uncle Trev. “Besides, if I let that Old Tip start whistling at me, the next thing I know, he’d be sending me to bring the cows up to the shed for milking. The old skulduggerer’s always looking for an excuse to skive off doing anything useful.”

“So who was doing the whistling?”

“I looked at Old Toot, but it wasn’t him. A horse has got the wrong sort of mouth for whistling, eh?”

I whispered, “Yes.”

“You all right?” asked Uncle Trev.

“Just thinking.”

“Well, I picks up the rammer, still whistling, and I’m driving in the dirt around the new post, and there’s this other whistle again. ‘It’s got to be Hubert,’ I think to myself, so I keep whistling ‘The Rose of Tralee’. You know where it goes, But ’twas not her beauty alone that won me?” Uncle Trev sang the words.

“I know. It goes on, Oh, no, ’twas the truth in her eyes ever shining –”

“– That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.” We sang the last line together.

“They don’t write songs like that any more,” sighed Uncle Trev. “Well, I keep ramming the dirt but stop whistling after but ’twas not her beauty, and the other whistle keeps going. I spin around, and Hubert’s mouth is puckered up, whistling away good-oh. His eyes are closed, he’s got a silly look on his face, and he’s so busy thinking about beautiful Mary, the Rose of Tralee, he doesn’t realise he’s whistling on his own.”

I stared at Uncle Trev.

“When he realised I’d caught him out, Hubert blushed, but Old Tip and Old Toot clapped their hands and said he was a better whistler than me, or he would be if he kept up his practice.

“That was laying it on a bit thick. Hubert’s never going to be as good as me, not even if he practises all day and all night. There’s a limit to what a bull can whistle, after all.”

Uncle Trev stared so hard that I had to nod.

“Well I taught him ‘Pokarekare Ana’, and he picked it up as if he’d been whistling in Maori all his life. Some of the high notes he has a bit of trouble reaching, but then a bull’s got a fairly deep voice. And he’s not bad on the low notes, I’ll grant him that. In fact, Old Tip reckons Hubert’s better than me on some of them, but you know how he likes to exaggerate.”

“Can I hear Hubert whistle?”

“I’ll see if I can get him through the back door and into the kitchen – it’s his horns are the trouble – and he can whistle from there. There’s no show of getting him into your bedroom. Besides, your mother would carry on if she caught him. Remember the performance the time she smelt something and found Old Tip curled up under her table?”

I listened to Uncle Trev go out through the kitchen, out through the door on to the back porch, and talk to somebody. There were heavy footsteps, and the sound of somebody slipping on the lino. Mum kept it polished, and a bull would find it difficult to keep his balance, not being used to walking on lino.

“How about giving us ‘The Rose of Tralee’ to start with?” said Uncle Trev’s voice. There was a bashful silence. “Come on, you can do it.” Then a whistle began. “The pale moon was rising above the blue mountains, the sun was declining beneath the blue sea.” It was beautifully whistled, not a note wrong.

“Now ‘Pokarekare Ana’,” said Uncle Trev. “And try hurrying it up a bit. You always take the second verse too slow.”

Hubert whistled “Pokarekare Ana”. He whistled “I’ll be Loving You, Always”, “Coming Through the Rye”, and “Camptown Races”, and then Uncle Trev told him he’d better get back out to the lorry, because Mum would be home soon.

“Can Hubert whistle ‘Annie Laurie’?”

“All right,” Uncle Trev called back. “Just for an encore.”

Hubert whistled “Annie Laurie”, and I whistled with him till I felt dizzy.

“Better get going,” Uncle Trev said in the kitchen. “I think she’s coming.” Hubert’s feet clattered on the lino as he went for his life, and Uncle Trev came out to say goodbye.

“Hubert scratched your mother’s lino where he slipped over.”

“I heard him.”

“Your mother’s going to spot it the moment she steps inside, and she’ll blame me, so I’d better scram. Anyway, I need to find a trough: Hubert’s always thirsty after whistling.”

The lorry started up, backfired, and drove away, and I lay there and wondered if Hubert rode in front with Uncle Trev. Old Tip loved sitting in the cab and barking at people. It drove Mum mad when he stuck his head out the window and barked at her.

“That man’s been here, hasn’t he?” She came in sniffing the air. “He’s been whistling in my kitchen,” she said. “My sharp ears can hear the echo.”

“He whistled ‘The Rose of Tralee’,” I said and held my breath. “And ‘Pokarekare Ana’.”

Mum made herself a cup of tea, gave me a scone with gooseberry jam, sat at the table and read the paper, crackling and smacking it as she turned the pages, and I heard her chair creak.

“What were you doing out of bed while I was down at the shops?” she called.

“I had to go the dunny.”

“I hope you put on your dressing gown and your slippers?”

“Mmm.”

“There’s no sense in picking up a chill. That’s all we need, getting a cold on top of everything else.”

“How did you know I’d been up?” I asked when Mum came out to my room.

“Do you think I don’t know when somebody’s been traipsing around my kitchen? My eyes can read that lino like a book. Nobody puts a foot on it without my seeing it.” She pointed towards her remarkable eyes. “I saw where you scratched the lino, going towards the back door. Either you or that uncle of yours.”

I didn’t even try to tell her it was a bull who scratched the lino. As for telling her Uncle Trev had a bull who could whistle, that’d be a waste of time.