A Pair of Dirty Lollies

( Learning the Democracy of Little )


He's just a plonko anyhow!

What'iff he gets up?

Nah. He's too blotto. That Saturday sponge.

What'iff he goes off?

He mighta gone already. Try stones. I'm gunna chuck yonnies on his roof . You'll see! That'll liven the stupid old plonko up. See if I can't git him up - if he's there at all.

* * *

We would never-of thought of it back then, but he was our nearest neighbour. Living just through the farm fence behind our tool shed. We thought of our real neighbours only as the owners of the farms next door. The Italian, Daki's and Barkers. Our house was not like The Italian's, near the road, but set back on top of the hill. Claret Wally lived nearer us, in a dump of a hilltop shed that belonged to the Italian. Wally was less one of us than was the Italian. We never had The Italian at our table. Claret Wally never even got inside the house. So what good of a neighbour was he? Living like a rat in a fertiliser shed. Covering one corner of old slab walls with mouldy spudbags for some last shred of furtive privacy.

Claret Wally got blotto mostly of a Saturday. This day I had watched Wally, as I had watched plonko workers many times before. As a kid watches and picks at any scab where a sore point on a body tries vainly to heal. Wally'd taken off on the dirt tracks, across country, miles each way, walking all morning -as if he had no pride left- into Nathania where the licensed grocer was. Around One O'clock he might-of got back, to disappear into his hole. A brown-papered flagon as a companion on his dirty bunk.

Even Mum would say: How can a human individual get like that?

Later, I hoped he might lurch about like an old duck among the Italian's detached tractor implements. He did that once, like a ghost of damnation in his weakness, as if he could forget how pathetic he was in alcoholic shame. Claret Wally would sing:

"Soff-ly an' Ten-derly Jeez-sus is calling,
Calling far' you an' far' me;
See on th' portals He's watching and waiting,
Watching for you and for me.

Come home, Come home,
You who are weary come home;
Earneshly, ten-derly Jeez-sus is calling,
Calling, Oh Sinner, come home."

Sinner all right! Dad had said, after telling that story over a cuppa tea, with a countryman's native delight in taking him off, drunken hymn and all.

He's useless. No example to anyone!

Makes a mockery of a man! Earnie, our worker, objected.
Used to be a Church of England altar boy! Bloody shame! And a Pom!

Shame. How old was I, then? Between ten and my teens. Old enough to be hard, justifying contradictions we had never owned up to, in our bit of embattled advantage. Judging that those "plonkos" were lower in our "battler's" world. Yet young enough to take the frustrated talk, countlessly tossed across the farmhouse table, as the gospel truth. I wanted to act on it, to raise hell for Wally in his hell.
* * *

Ya gunna do it then?

Yep.

What'll ya throw?

Yonnies, stupid.

Where from?

From the track, dumbie. Them red-dirt stones. But you don't haff ta!

I rained stones down on Wally's corrugated iron roof, thirty yards off. No reply. The dead pan encouraged me. I lobbed more yonnies onto that tin lid, drumming his den of stranger-wickedness. Thhwack. It clanged with my offence at his filth and shame. Each hit was a real accomplishment. It felt good to throw that righteous stone!

Get off ! A dirty voice bent out of next door's shed .

Let's go!

My young brothers Cyrian and Kelt ran off to hide behind the brick tank.

Quick! He's comin out! Cyrian hissed.

Wally's pall eyed a hole in the hessian. He'd seen me curl to the ground and slink off like an ear-shrugged rabbit. I went after Cyrian and Kelt who had run around our shed, not wanting to be implicated with their older brother, to assume the innocence of our playing places in the shrubbery.

I hung back watching Wally from the shade. He shuffled back into his hole of the shed. He came out in his scuffed boots, moving with unexpected purpose toward our fence. He chose the place where he often leaned on the taught wires to talk to Dad about his woes with The Italian. And then he threw a loose leg over.

Heck, he was comin' right into our place. I hid back into the deep foliage. I expected he was gunna come for me. I was sure he'd do me something awful. But he didn't even look about for where I might be. He was going a beeline, like anybody, to our backdoor.

I was in for it from all quarters now. Mum'd blow her stack. She'd belt me with the duster sure thing.

Mrs Schap, one of your boys has been stoning on my roof.

Stones? Which one?

It'd be that Vidy I'd reckon.

I overheard Wally, hardly able to believe he knew my name. I thought he had nothing going up top except for himself. I sure didn't know that he knew me.

All right Wally. I'll deal with this.

Wally turned and went off home, as Mum went back inside to the baby's cry.

Not for long.

Vidy! Come here right now!

Caught out. I saw no use in lying. My own integrity was at stake. I came in to the veranda and to Mum's wrath in a straightforward but honest shame to face up to what I could see no way of getting out of.

Did you throw stones on Wally's roof?

Yes!

Why?

I squirmed. I hardly knew how to begin an answer.

Don't you know that he is a human being? With feelings like you or me?
How would you like it if you were inside and stones were thrown on your roof?
Do you like having stones thrown at you?

No.

Well, then, how do you feel about what you did?

I don't know?

You don't know? It's time you woke up to yourself boy!

Yes.

Are you sorry?

Yes.

Alright. I won't belt you. But you must go up to Wally's place and tell him you are sorry.

But?

But nothing.

But he is just a plonko! And that's The Italian's place!

It's about time you realized that such people are to be respected the same as you would like to be. He's still a man no matter how far he's fallen. A man made in the image of God. Do you believe that?

Yeah.

Then, boy, you have to say sorry to the man. The Italian's got nothing to do with it. Go up to Wally in his own place and apologize.

All right.

Somehow, not getting belted made it easier. I went off quick, as Wally himself had come. Yet the barbed wire fence was a barrier which made my guts tighten like wires. I'd never crossed that fence to actually go to see a plonko. I'd only ever crossed the fence before to play in Anderson's Pines on the other side of The Italian's. We used to walk bent over so Wally couldn't see us. Now it was a wall of fear shimmering like heavy air surrounding the fence which I had to thrust out through, as if electric currents were causing a magnetic repulsion in my own belly. Once through the wires I took the rat track to Wally's. But scared as a stranger.

Hullo, I called out. I felt sick. The spudbags repelled me. They were ingrained with hand grease till they shone.

Who is it ?

Vidy! From over the fence.

A scaly hand swept the door-drape aside.

What is it, boy?

Inside the drape there was one wooden chair. with a rubber cushion unstuffed from its vinyl, at a makeshift table made from flooring boards. Bags stretched on sapling poles made a saggy bunk gainst the wall. Wool army blankets and more spudbags made a quilt. Everything seemed putrid, stained with dirt, too basic for human need. An enamel dish sat at the table to suggest a rare recourse to washing.

I'm sorry for throwing stones on your roof, Mr Wally.

Yes. You're sorry. Well thank you, and please do not do it again.

No. I won't.

Then I guess I'll say I forgive you. I was a boy myself of a time.

Yes. Can I go now Mr Wally?

Wait. I have something for you.

What? I still feared this would be something dreadful.

Wally walked back into his place, leaving me in the doorway holding the drape. He shuffled stuff on the table, then looked up at the wall above the head of a brown lump on the bunk. A wall noggin held dirty paper and medicine bottles. Wally chose a small bag that had once been white, came back and handed it to me.

These are for you.

I recoiled as far as I could from Wally's breath. Then I opened the clasped top of the bag and saw two lollies in wrappers inside.

Oh Yeah! We only had lollies for Christmas or birthdays. But the dust! I was speechless with wanting and yet disgust.

I turned and ran yelling: Lollies! Thanks.

Then to the fence and through it, as if I was pursued by my own dirt and contamination.

Cyrian and Kelt came out from where they'd been hiding, waiting to see what happened to me.
Look. All he did was give me lollies. See!

When I got out of Wally's sight, I screwed the paper bag and ditched it. I tried to wash the stain of fingers off the lolly wrappers. The good rain water from the brick tank peeled the grotty cellophane off my precious sweets. I let the water run across the gems till they shone clear and pure.

I'm not going to give you one, I said to Cyrian and Kelt.

Who cares! They'll be yuck.

I tried the sweet tang of a lolly.

Nothin wrong with it. Tastes good. I said.

Yeah? Give us the other one then.

I gave them the lolly to fight over.

Then I laughed outright.

What's so funny? Cyrian asked.

I only got 'em after chuckin' them stones.