Cold Skin Read online

  STEVEN HERRICK was born in Brisbane, the youngest of seven

  children. At school, his favourite subject was soccer, and he

  dreamed of football glory while he worked at various jobs,

  including fruit picking. Now, he’s a full-time writer and performs

  in many schools each year. He loves talking to students and their

  teachers about stories, poetry, soccer and even golf.

  Steven lives in the Blue Mountains with his wife and sons. Visit

  his website at www.acay.com.au/~sherrick

  Love, ghosts & nose hair – shortlisted in the 1997 CBCA

  awards and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards

  A place like this – shortlisted in the 1999 CBCA awards

  and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and commended

  in the 1998 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards

  The simple gift – shortlisted in the 2001 CBCA awards

  and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards

  By the river – Honour Book in the 2005 CBCA awards

  and winner of the Ethel Turner Prize in the

  NSW Premier’s Literary Awards

  Lonesome Howl – a Notable Book in the 2007 CBCA awards

  Also by STEVEN HERRICK

  Water Bombs

  Love, ghosts & nose hair

  A place like this

  The simple gift

  By the river

  Lonesome Howl

  for children

  The place where the planes take off

  My life, my love, my lasagne

  Poetry, to the rescue

  The spangled drongo

  Love poems and leg-spinners

  Tom Jones saves the world

  Do-wrong Ron

  Naked Bunyip Dancing

  Steven Herrick

  COLD

  SKIN

  First published in 2007

  Copyright © Steven Herrick 2007

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander St

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Herrick, Steven, 1958 - .

  Cold skin.

  ISBN 978 1 74175 129 1.

  I. Title.

  A823.3

  Cover design by Josh Durham, Design by Committee

  Set in 10.5pt Apollo by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Teachers’ notes are available from www.allenandunwin.com

  CONTENTS

  One A bright future

  Two Coal town

  Three Town and city

  Four Cold skin

  Five Burning candles

  Six Cowards

  Seven The bridge

  Eight The miner

  CHARACTERS

  Eddie Holding

  Larry Holding

  Albert Holding

  Sally Holmes

  Colleen O’Connor

  Mayor Paley

  Mr Carter

  Sergeant Grainger

  Mr Butcher

  ONE

  A bright future

  Eddie Holding

  They named me Eddie

  after Mum’s father

  who died before I was born.

  ‘A quiet, stubborn bastard,’

  says my dad.

  I’m not sure if he’s talking about

  Grandad or me.

  We live near the railway tracks

  beside Jamison River,

  two miles out of town,

  opposite the slag heap,

  overgrown with thistles

  and yellow dandelions.

  Dad and me and my brother Larry

  built our place in a real hurry

  ’cos we had nowhere else to live

  after Grandma died

  and the Wilsons took her house

  before we’d had a fair chance

  to say goodbye to Gran’s memories.

  They said it was their house

  and I guess it was

  because they went out and sold it.

  So we packed everything on

  Mr Laycock’s Leyland truck

  and drove it here,

  where we bought some land,

  no bigger than an acre,

  with the last of Dad’s army pay.

  Larry and me set to work

  dragging logs from the bush

  with our horse.

  Dad mixed concrete

  and poured the foundations

  in the hot sun

  while Mum washed our clothes

  in the old tub,

  hanging them over the wire

  stretched between two poles

  along the boundary to our yard.

  We lived in a tent

  loaned from Mr Paley, the mayor.

  He said,

  ‘Anything for a supporter.’

  And for six weeks

  me and Larry didn’t go to school.

  We built this three-room log house

  that looks like a squat brown toad

  sitting on a rise

  about to jump into Jamison River.

  Eddie

  Taylors Bend is named after a bloke

  who owned some of this valley a long time ago.

  Mr Taylor lost his sons in the Great War

  and all he had left

  was a few hundred head of sheep

  and the river that flooded his fields most winters.

  They say when his sons didn’t come home

  he tied himself to a tractor wheel

  and jumped into the water at the deepest part.

  No one could find his body

  so they named this bend to remember him.

  It’s the best place for skimming stones.

  You can dig your toes deep into the sand.

  Once I skipped a flat black rock

  fair to the sandstone wall

  on the far side of the river.

  I’m fishing for yabbies

  because Mum says

  there’s only potatoes to eat tonight.

  So I tie the pork fat to the string

  and toss it in,

  waiting for the tug.

  Sometimes I catch ten river yabbies

  with the same piece of meat.

  Into the old tin bucket they go,

  half-full of river water,

  ready for Mum to boil ’em up.

  We have them with spuds

  cooked slow in our wood oven,

  so you can taste the smoke.

  Larry whispers to me,

  ‘Blackfella food.

  That’s what you’re eating.’

  I don’t care what colour eats the yabbies.

  It don’t make them taste any less sweet.

  I say,

  ‘Good food, Larry.

  Fresh caught food.’

  He don’t know what he’s g
ot.

  My smart lazy brother.

  Albert Holding

  I came home from the army

  and saw my wife and two sons

  standing on the train platform

  waiting for me to hug them.

  I’d been away too long,

  even if it was only driving transport

  across the desert in the Territory,

  while other blokes died of starvation and malaria,

  and God knows what else,

  a few thousand miles north.

  The closest I got to war

  was loading the heavy artillery

  onto the ships in Darwin Harbour

  and getting into fights at the pub

  with the blokes from the Navy,

  who could swing a fist as sure as a pint.

  I drove the bloody trucks

  such long nights across the country

  with only Corporal Cheetham for company.

  Cheetham had a fine way of spitting

  between his teeth,

  scratching his head,

  and saying, ‘Well, bugger me’

  whenever we got a flat tyre,

  out there in the middle of nowhere.

  We’d sit under the cold stars

  and wait for daylight before changing the tyre,

  rather than struggling around in the dark.

  I’d stand on the dirt track

  and smoke cigarette after cigarette,

  not saying much.

  That’s how I spent the war.

  When it was all over, after demobilisation,

  fresh-faced girls in the city had welcome smiles

  and kisses for every man in a uniform.

  I walked to the train station

  dizzy with the smell of perfume and victory.

  We all came home on a slow train,

  sharing jokes and beers,

  playing cards

  and telling long-winded stories

  of what we’d do once we got back.

  Then I saw my family on the platform.

  My wife with her black hair

  covered in a scarf with yellow sunflowers.

  Larry shuffling his feet in the dirt,

  his hands deep in his pockets.

  And Eddie waving, smiling,

  saying, ‘Hello. Welcome back.’

  to each of the men

  as they stepped from the carriage.

  My family.

  ‘Well, bugger me.’

  Eddie

  ‘Welcome to a big year for Burruga,’

  says Mr Paley, our mayor.

  He’s standing on the speaker’s box

  at the rotunda in Memorial Park,

  waving his hat above his head

  as he calls to everyone gathered.

  ‘Rally around, ladies and gentlemen.

  I’m going to put our town on the map.

  Imagine, a modern blast furnace near the coalmine,

  and a new ticket office for the railway station.’

  He points towards the jerry-built shack opposite

  and wipes the sweat from his brow

  with a white handkerchief

  flourished from the breast pocket of his suit.

  He leans forward and says,

  ‘And, ladies,

  I promise a new haberdashery

  for my department store.

  An emporium of taste and refinement.

  Something special for all of you.’

  Mr Paley winks at Mrs Blythe and Mrs Reynolds.

  Both smile and bow their heads slightly.

  ‘Let’s put the war behind us

  and build for the future.’

  As he says this he raises both hands into the air,

  clenching his fists in triumph.

  Mr Wright, the mine manager, steps forward and starts up a three cheers for the mayor.

  He calls to the crowd, ‘Mayor Paley, a man of will and purpose.’

  Me and Dad walk home from the park.

  Dad brushes the flies from his face and drags hard on his smoke.

  ‘What does Paley know about the war.

  That fat bastard stayed home, cowering in his father’s store.

  Will and purpose.

  Yeah. He will get richer on purpose.

  ’ Mr Paley is still chatting to the ladies on the stairs of the rotunda.

  He stands one step higher than everyone else, his voice booming over their heads.

  ‘A bright future.

  I promise.’

  Eddie

  The coalmine is surrounded

  by a high wire fence.

  In the far corner I scrape the loose dirt

  from under the boundary

  until there’s enough space to lie on my back

  and pull myself under the wire.

  Through the gritty window of the rusted tin shed

  I can see the picks, shovels and lanterns

  stored neatly on wooden shelves.

  Dad hates me talking about the mine

  and he made me repeat this year in school,

  just to stop me working underground.

  I’m stronger and taller than him.

  I weigh close on twelve stone

  and most of it’s muscle.

  I can move rocks

  bigger than a yard square

  and I can swing an axe to split firewood

  quicker than Larry.

  You can load my arms with ironbark

  and I’ll carry it all inside,

  no problem.

  This mine is where I want to be,

  with the returned soldiers

  and my mates from school,

  who earn a decent wage doing a real job.

  I dodge between the outbuildings

  to watch the men in their dirt-coloured overalls

  and thick brown boots

  prepare for the night shift,

  laughing and singing

  like they’re going out to the pub.

  They strap their helmets on,

  test the light, twice, for safety,

  and clip the strap tight under their chin.

  I want to sneak in behind them

  and take the trolley ride

  down into the soul of the world

  and see what it’s like,

  deep in the pit

  where muscle and rock

  fight their daily battle.

  Albert Holding

  You can smell the coal smoke

  long before the train rounds the bend

  and drops down into the narrow valley.

  Some days in winter the plume settles so low

  you could stand on Jaspers Hill

  and not know there’s a town below.

  Let me tell you, I was grateful

  that scabby bastard Wilson evicted us.

  The land we bought is next to useless

  but at least it’s out of town.

  The wind blows the smoke east

  back up through Dulwich Gap.

  At least a man can breathe in his own backyard.

  Not like the miners

  who walk through town to work at the pit.

  My mates, every one of them.

  I remember marching in our khaki uniforms,

  wheeling down Main Street in perfect file

  while the town,

  the whole district,

  cheered us on and waved little flags.

  The chinstrap on the slouch hat

  kept our eyes straight

  should we be tempted to gaze at all the young sheilas

  smiling and waving our way.

  That was at the start of the war.

  The high and mighty ladies at Paley’s

  go on about us living out here like gypsies.

  We’re only one rung above Barney Haggerty,

  who sleeps in a cave halfway up the gap,

  drunk most of the time.

  They don’t know what he went through


  during the war.

  They certainly know sod-all about me.

  And I want to keep it that way.

  Eddie

  Dad says, it’s not right,

  working on Laycock’s farm.

  He didn’t fight a war

  to muck out after ignorant animals.

  Hay bailing,

  picking eggs,

  slopping out pig-swill.

  That’s work for a boy, he says.

  But Mr Laycock’s got no kids

  and no one wants the job,

  not when there’s men’s work to be done.

  When I bring up the mine again

  Dad slams his fists on the table

  and shouts,

  ‘I ain’t going underground.

  And neither are you, boy.

  Not while you live in my house.’

  I want to tell him it’s our house.

  We helped build it.

  But most of all,

  I want to ask him

  why he’s always so angry.

  Ever since he got home,

  he’s been blaming me and Larry for everything

  when we done nothing wrong.

  ‘The mine needs workers, Dad.

  I’m not doing much at school

  except wasting time.’

  He shakes his head

  before walking outside,

  muttering,

  ‘I’m better off with the pigs.’

  Larry Holding

  My big brother’s not too smart.

  He thinks living out here,

  miles from anyone,

  is an adventure.

  I heard him say that.

  ‘An adventure.’

  Shooting rabbits for dinner

  with our rusty-barrelled .22,

  picking blackberries for supper,

  fishing in the river

  with a string line tied to bamboo,

  hoping for a silver eel

  so Mum can make an evil-smelling stew.

  This is my brother and his life.

  This is why I want to shoot through.

  But you don’t leave Burruga,

  not without an education,

  even I know that.

  So I don’t want to miss school.

  In the baking-hot classroom of Burruga Central,

  I listen to Mr Butcher

  with his maths and stupid algebra

  and his splitting infinitives in English,

  whatever they’re meant to be.

  I keep a clean book

  with lines straight

  and practise handwriting that slopes

  ‘like a long-haired girl dancing’

  Butcher says, in his nancy-voice.